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diff --git a/4452-h/4452-h.htm b/4452-h/4452-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5cfa05b --- /dev/null +++ b/4452-h/4452-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,30698 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Adventures of Harry Richmond, by George Meredith</title> + +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete, by George Meredith</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George Meredith</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 31, 2002 [eBook #4452]<br /> +[Most recently updated: December 11, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND ***</div> + +<h1>THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By George Meredith</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II. AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III. DIPWELL FARM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V. I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI. A TALE OF A GOOSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII. JANET ILCHESTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X. AN EXPEDITION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER XI. THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER XII. WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0013">CHAPTER XIII. WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0014">CHAPTER XIV. I MEET OLD FRIENDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0015">CHAPTER XV. WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0016">CHAPTER XVI. THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0017">CHAPTER XVII. MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0018">CHAPTER XVIII. WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0019">CHAPTER XIX. OUR RETURN HOMEWARD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0020">CHAPTER XX. NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0021">CHAPTER XXI. A PROMENADE IN BATH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0022">CHAPTER XXII. CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0023">CHAPTER XXIII. MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0024">CHAPTER XXIV. I MEET THE PRINCESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0025">CHAPTER XXV. ON BOARD A YACHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0026">CHAPTER XXVI. IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0027">CHAPTER XXVII. THE TIME OF ROSES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0028">CHAPTER XXVIII. OTTILIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0029">CHAPTER XXIX. AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0030">CHAPTER XXX. A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0031">CHAPTER XXXI. PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0032">CHAPTER XXXII. AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0033">CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0034">CHAPTER XXXIV. I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0035">CHAPTER XXXV. THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0036">CHAPTER XXXVI. HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0037">CHAPTER XXXVII. JANET RENOUNCES ME</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0038">CHAPTER XXXVIII. MY BANKERS' BOOK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0039">CHAPTER XXXIX. I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0040">CHAPTER XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0041">CHAPTER XLI. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S GRAND PARADE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0042">CHAPTER XLII. THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0043">CHAPTER XLIII. I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0044">CHAPTER XLIV. MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0045">CHAPTER XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0046">CHAPTER XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0047">CHAPTER XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0048">CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0049">CHAPTER XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0050">CHAPTER L. WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0051">CHAPTER LI. AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0052">CHAPTER LII. STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0053">CHAPTER LIII. THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0054">CHAPTER LIV. MY RETURN TO ENGLAND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0055">CHAPTER LV. I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0056">CHAPTER LVI. CONCLUSION</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"></a> +CHAPTER I.<br/> +I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION</h2> + +<p> +One midnight of a winter month the sleepers in Riversley Grange were awakened +by a ringing of the outer bell and blows upon the great hall-doors. Squire +Beltham was master there: the other members of the household were, his daughter +Dorothy Beltham; a married daughter Mrs. Richmond; Benjamin Sewis, an old +half-caste butler; various domestic servants; and a little boy, christened +Harry Lepel Richmond, the squire's grandson. Riversley Grange lay in a rich +watered hollow of the Hampshire heath-country; a lonely circle of enclosed +brook and pasture, within view of some of its dependent farms, but out of hail +of them or any dwelling except the stables and the head-gardener's cottage. +Traditions of audacious highwaymen, together with the gloomy surrounding +fir-scenery, kept it alive to fears of solitude and the night; and there was +that in the determined violence of the knocks and repeated bell-peals which +assured all those who had ever listened in the servants' hall to +prognostications of a possible night attack, that the robbers had come at last +most awfully. A crowd of maids gathered along the upper corridor of the main +body of the building: two or three footmen hung lower down, bold in attitude. +Suddenly the noise ended, and soon after the voice of old Sewis commanded them +to scatter away to their beds; whereupon the footmen took agile leaps to the +post of danger, while the women, in whose bosoms intense curiosity now +supplanted terror, proceeded to a vacant room overlooking the front entrance, +and spied from the window. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Sewis stood by his master's bedside. The squire was a hunter, of the +old sort: a hard rider, deep drinker, and heavy slumberer. Before venturing to +shake his arm Sewis struck a light and flashed it over the squire's eyelids to +make the task of rousing him easier. At the first touch the squire sprang up, +swearing by his Lord Harry he had just dreamed of fire, and muttering of +buckets. +</p> + +<p> +'Sewis! you're the man, are you: where has it broken out?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, sir; no fire,' said Sewis; 'you be cool, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Cool, sir! confound it, Sewis, haven't I heard a whole town of steeples at +work? I don't sleep so thick but I can hear, you dog! Fellow comes here, gives +me a start, tells me to be cool; what the deuce! nobody hurt, then? all right!' +</p> + +<p> +The squire had fallen back on his pillow and was relapsing to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +Sewis spoke impressively: 'There's a gentleman downstairs; a gentleman +downstairs, sir. He has come rather late.' +</p> + +<p> +'Gentleman downstairs come rather late.' The squire recapitulated the +intelligence to possess it thoroughly. 'Rather late, eh? Oh! Shove him into a +bed, and give him hot brandy and water, and be hanged to him!' +</p> + +<p> +Sewis had the office of tempering a severely distasteful announcement to the +squire. +</p> + +<p> +He resumed: 'The gentleman doesn't talk of staying. That is not his business. +It's rather late for him to arrive.' +</p> + +<p> +'Rather late!' roared the squire. 'Why, what's it o'clock?' +</p> + +<p> +Reaching a hand to the watch over his head, he caught sight of the unearthly +hour. 'A quarter to two? Gentleman downstairs? Can't be that infernal +apothecary who broke 's engagement to dine with me last night? By George, if it +is I'll souse him; I'll drench him from head to heel as though the rascal 'd +been drawn through the duck-pond. Two o'clock in the morning? Why, the man's +drunk. Tell him I'm a magistrate, and I'll commit him, deuce take him; give him +fourteen days for a sot; another fourteen for impudence. I've given a month +'fore now. Comes to me, a Justice of the peace!—man's mad! Tell him he's +in peril of a lunatic asylum. And doesn't talk of staying? Lift him out o' the +house on the top o' your boot, Sewis, and say it's mine; you've my leave.' +</p> + +<p> +Sewis withdrew a step from the bedside. At a safe distance he fronted his +master steadily; almost admonishingly. 'It's Mr. Richmond, sir,' he said. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr....' The squire checked his breath. That was a name never uttered at the +Grange. 'The scoundrel?' he inquired harshly, half in a tone of one assuring +himself, and his rigid dropped jaw shut. +</p> + +<p> +The fact had to be denied or affirmed instantly, and Sewis was silent. +</p> + +<p> +Grasping his bedclothes in a lump, the squire cried: +</p> + +<p> +'Downstairs? downstairs, Sewis? You've admitted him into my house?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have!' +</p> + +<p> +'He is not in the house, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have! How did you speak to him, then?' +</p> + +<p> +'Out of my window, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'What place here is the scoundrel soiling now?' +</p> + +<p> +'He is on the doorstep outside the house.' +</p> + +<p> +'Outside, is he? and the door's locked?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Let him rot there!' +</p> + +<p> +By this time the midnight visitor's patience had become exhausted. A renewal of +his clamour for immediate attention fell on the squire's ear, amazing him to +stupefaction at such challengeing insolence. +</p> + +<p> +'Hand me my breeches,' he called to Sewis; 'I can't think brisk out of my +breeches.' +</p> + +<p> +Sewis held the garment ready. The squire jumped from the bed, fuming +speechlessly, chafing at gaiters and braces, cravat and coat, and allowed his +buttons to be fitted neatly on his calves; the hammering at the hall-door and +plucking at the bell going on without intermission. He wore the aspect of one +who assumes a forced composure under the infliction of outrages on his +character in a Court of Law, where he must of necessity listen and lock his +boiling replies within his indignant bosom. +</p> + +<p> +'Now, Sewis, now my horsewhip,' he remarked, as if it had been a simple adjunct +of his equipment. +</p> + +<p> +'Your hat, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'My horsewhip, I said.' +</p> + +<p> +'Your hat is in the hall,' Sewis observed gravely. +</p> + +<p> +'I asked you for my horsewhip.' +</p> + +<p> +'That is not to be found anywhere,' said Sewis. +</p> + +<p> +The squire was diverted from his objurgations against this piece of servitorial +defiance by his daughter Dorothy's timid appeal for permission to come in. +Sewis left the room. Presently the squire descended, fully clad, and breathing +sharply from his nostrils. Servants were warned off out of hearing; none but +Sewis stood by. +</p> + +<p> +The squire himself unbolted the door, and threw it open to the limit of the +chain. +</p> + +<p> +'Who's there?' he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +A response followed promptly from outside: 'I take you to be Mr. Harry Lepel +Beltham. Correct me if I err. Accept my apologies for disturbing you at a late +hour of the night, I pray.' +</p> + +<p> +'Your name?' +</p> + +<p> +'Is plain Augustus Fitz-George Roy Richmond at this moment, Mr. Beltham. You +will recognize me better by opening your door entirely: voices are deceptive. +You were born a gentleman, Mr. Beltham, and will not reduce me to request you +to behave like one. I am now in the position, as it were, of addressing a +badger in his den. It is on both sides unsatisfactory. It reflects egregious +discredit upon you, the householder.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire hastily bade Sewis see that the passages to the sleeping apartments +were barred, and flung the great chain loose. He was acting under strong +control of his temper. +</p> + +<p> +It was a quiet grey night, and as the doors flew open, a largely-built man, +dressed in a high-collared great-coat and fashionable hat of the time, stood +clearly defined to view. He carried a light cane, with the point of the silver +handle against his under lip. There was nothing formidable in his appearance, +and his manner was affectedly affable. He lifted his hat as soon as he found +himself face to face with the squire, disclosing a partially bald head, though +his whiskering was luxuriant, and a robust condition of manhood was indicated +by his erect attitude and the immense swell of his furred great-coat at the +chest. His features were exceedingly frank and cheerful. From his superior +height, he was enabled to look down quite royally on the man whose repose he +had disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +The following conversation passed between them. +</p> + +<p> +'You now behold who it is, Mr. Beltham, that acknowledges to the misfortune of +arousing you at an unseemly hour—unbetimes, as our gossips in mother +Saxon might say—and with profound regret, sir, though my habit is to take +it lightly.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you any accomplices lurking about here?' +</p> + +<p> +'I am alone.' +</p> + +<p> +'What's your business?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have no business.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have no business to be here, no. I ask you what's the object of your +visit?' +</p> + +<p> +'Permit me first to speak of the cause of my protracted arrival, sir. The +ridicule of casting it on the post-boys will strike you, Mr. Beltham, as it +does me. Nevertheless, I must do it; I have no resource. Owing to a rascal of +the genus, incontinent in liquor, I have this night walked seven miles from +Ewling. My complaint against him is not on my own account.' +</p> + +<p> +'What brought you here at all?' +</p> + +<p> +'Can you ask me?' +</p> + +<p> +'I ask you what brought you to my house at all?' +</p> + +<p> +'True, I might have slept at Ewling.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why didn't you?' +</p> + +<p> +'For the reason, Mr. Beltham, which brought me here originally. I could not +wait—not a single minute. So far advanced to the neighbourhood, I would +not be retarded, and I came on. I crave your excuses for the hour of my +arrival. The grounds for my coming at all you will very well understand, and +you will applaud me when I declare to you that I come to her penitent; to +exculpate myself, certainly, but despising self-justification. I love my wife, +Mr. Beltham. Yes; hear me out, sir. I can point to my unhappy star, and say, +blame that more than me. That star of my birth and most disastrous fortunes +should plead on my behalf to you; to my wife at least it will.' +</p> + +<p> +'You've come to see my daughter Marian, have you?' +</p> + +<p> +'My wife, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You don't cross my threshold while I live.' +</p> + +<p> +'You compel her to come out to me?' +</p> + +<p> +'She stays where she is, poor wretch, till the grave takes her. You've done +your worst; be off.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I am not to be restrained from the sight of my wife.' +</p> + +<p> +'Scamp!' +</p> + +<p> +'By no scurrilous epithets from a man I am bound to respect will I be deterred +or exasperated.' +</p> + +<p> +'Damned scamp, I say!' The squire having exploded his wrath gave it free way. +'I've stopped my tongue all this while before a scoundrel ’d corkscrew +the best-bottled temper right or left, go where you will one end o' the world +to the other, by God! And here's a scoundrel stinks of villany, and I've +proclaimed him 'ware my gates as a common trespasser, and deserves hanging if +ever rook did nailed hard and fast to my barn doors! comes here for my +daughter, when he got her by stealing her, scenting his carcase, and talking +'bout his birth, singing what not sort o' foreign mewin' stuff, and she found +him out a liar and a beast, by God! And she turned home. My doors are open to +my flesh and blood. And here she halts, I say, 'gainst the law, if the law's +against me. She's crazed: you've made her mad; she knows none of us, not even +her boy. Be off; you've done your worst; the light's gone clean out in her; and +hear me, you Richmond, or Roy, or whatever you call yourself, I tell you I +thank the Lord she has lost her senses. See her or not, you've no hold on her, +and see her you shan't while I go by the name of a man.' +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Richmond succeeded in preserving an air of serious deliberation under the +torrent of this tremendous outburst, which was marked by scarce a pause in the +delivery. +</p> + +<p> +He said, 'My wife deranged! I might presume it too truly an inherited disease. +Do you trifle with me, sir? Her reason unseated! and can you pretend to the +right of dividing us? If this be as you say—Oh! ten thousand times the +stronger my claim, my absolute claim, to cherish her. Make way for me, Mr. +Beltham. I solicit humbly the holiest privilege sorrow can crave of humanity. +My wife! my wife! Make way for me, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +His figure was bent to advance. The squire shouted an order to Sewis to run +round to the stables and slip the dogs loose. +</p> + +<p> +'Is it your final decision?' Mr. Richmond asked. +</p> + +<p> +'Damn your fine words! Yes, it is. I keep my flock clear of a foul sheep.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I implore you, be merciful. I submit to any conditions: only let +me see her. I will walk the park till morning, but say that an interview shall +be granted in the morning. Frankly, sir, it is not my intention to employ +force: I throw myself utterly on your mercy. I love the woman; I have much to +repent of. I see her, and I go; but once I must see her. So far I also speak +positively.' +</p> + +<p> +'Speak as positively as you like,' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'By the laws of nature and the laws of man, Marian Richmond is mine to support +and comfort, and none can hinder me, Mr. Beltham; none, if I resolve to take +her to myself.' +</p> + +<p> +'Can't they!' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'A curse be on him, heaven's lightnings descend on him, who keeps husband from +wife in calamity!' +</p> + +<p> +The squire whistled for his dogs. +</p> + +<p> +As if wounded to the quick by this cold-blooded action, Mr. Richmond stood to +his fullest height. +</p> + +<p> +'Nor, sir, on my application during to-morrow's daylight shall I see her?' +</p> + +<p> +'Nor, sir, on your application'—the squire drawled in uncontrollable +mimicking contempt of the other's florid forms of speech, ending in his own +style,—'no, you won't.' +</p> + +<p> +'You claim a paternal right to refuse me: my wife is your child. Good. I wish +to see my son.' +</p> + +<p> +On that point the squire was equally decided. 'You can't. He's asleep.' +</p> + +<p> +'I insist.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nonsense: I tell you he's a-bed and asleep.' +</p> + +<p> +'I repeat, I insist.' +</p> + +<p> +'When the boy's fast asleep, man!' +</p> + +<p> +'The boy is my flesh and blood. You have spoken for your daughter—I speak +for my son. I will see him, though I have to batter at your doors till +sunrise.' +</p> + +<p> +Some minutes later the boy was taken out of his bed by his aunt Dorothy, who +dressed him by the dark window-light, crying bitterly, while she said, 'Hush, +hush!' and fastened on his small garments between tender huggings of his body +and kissings of his cheeks. He was told that he had nothing to be afraid of. A +gentleman wanted to see him: nothing more. Whether the gentleman was a good +gentleman, and not a robber, he could not learn but his aunt Dorothy, having +wrapped him warm in shawl and comforter, and tremblingly tied his hat-strings +under his chin, assured him, with convulsive caresses, that it would soon be +over, and he would soon be lying again snug and happy in his dear little bed. +She handed him to Sewis on the stairs, keeping his fingers for an instant to +kiss them: after which, old Sewis, the lord of the pantry, where all sweet +things were stored, deposited him on the floor of the hall, and he found +himself facing the man of the night. It appeared to him that the stranger was +of enormous size, like the giants of fairy books: for as he stood a little out +of the doorway there was a peep of night sky and trees behind him, and the +trees looked very much smaller, and hardly any sky was to be seen except over +his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +The squire seized one of the boy's hands to present him and retain him at the +same time: but the stranger plucked him from his grandfather's hold, and +swinging him high, exclaimed, 'Here he is! This is Harry Richmond. He has grown +a grenadier.' +</p> + +<p> +'Kiss the little chap and back to bed with him,' growled the squire. +</p> + +<p> +The boy was heartily kissed and asked if he had forgotten his papa. He replied +that he had no papa: he had a mama and a grandpapa. The stranger gave a deep +groan. +</p> + +<p> +'You see what you have done; you have cut me off from my own,' he said terribly +to the squire; but tried immediately to soothe the urchin with nursery talk and +the pats on the shoulder which encourage a little boy to grow fast and tall. +'Four years of separation,' he resumed, 'and my son taught to think that he has +no father. By heavens! it is infamous, it is a curst piece of inhumanity. Mr. +Beltham, if I do not see my wife, I carry off my son.' +</p> + +<p> +'You may ask till you're hoarse, you shall never see her in this house while I +am here to command,' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Very well; then Harry Richmond changes homes. I take him. The affair is +concluded.' +</p> + +<p> +'You take him from his mother?' the squire sang out. +</p> + +<p> +'You swear to me she has lost her wits; she cannot suffer. I can. I shall not +expect from you, Mr. Beltham, the minutest particle of comprehension of a +father's feelings. You are earthy; you are an animal.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire saw that he was about to lift the boy, and said, 'Stop, never mind +that. Stop, look at the case. You can call again to-morrow, and you can see me +and talk it over.' +</p> + +<p> +'Shall I see my wife?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, you shan't.' +</p> + +<p> +'You remain faithful to your word, sir, do you?' +</p> + +<p> +'I do.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then I do similarly.' +</p> + +<p> +'What! Stop! Not to take a child like that out of a comfortable house at night +in Winter, man?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, the night is temperate and warm; he shall not remain in a house where his +father is dishonoured.' +</p> + +<p> +'Stop! not a bit of it,' cried the squire. 'No one speaks of you. I give you my +word, you're never mentioned by man, woman or child in the house.' +</p> + +<p> +'Silence concerning a father insinuates dishonour, Mr. Beltham.' +</p> + +<p> +'Damn your fine speeches, and keep your blackguardly hands off that boy,' the +squire thundered. 'Mind, if you take him, he goes for good. He doesn't get a +penny from me if you have the bringing of him up. You've done for him, if you +decide that way. He may stand here a beggar in a stolen coat like you, and I +won't own him. Here, Harry, come to me; come to your grandad.' +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Richmond caught the boy just when he was turning to run. +</p> + +<p> +'That gentleman,' he said, pointing to the squire, 'is your grandpapa. I am +your papa. You must learn at any cost to know and love your papa. If I call for +you to-morrow or next day they will have played tricks with Harry Richmond, and +hid him. Mr. Beltham, I request you, for the final time, to accord me your +promise observe, I accept your promise—that I shall, at my demand, +to-morrow or the next day, obtain an interview with my wife.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire coughed out an emphatic 'Never!' and fortified it with an oath as he +repeated it upon a fuller breath. +</p> + +<p> +'Sir, I will condescend to entreat you to grant this permission,' said Mr. +Richmond, urgently. +</p> + +<p> +'No, never: I won't!' rejoined the squire, red in the face from a fit of angry +coughing. 'I won't; but stop, put down that boy; listen to me, you Richmond! +I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll—if you swear on a Bible, like a cadger +before a bench of magistrates, you'll never show your face within a circuit o' +ten miles hereabouts, and won't trouble the boy if you meet him, or my daughter +or me, or any one of us—hark ye, I'll do this: let go the boy, and I'll +give ye five hundred—I'll give ye a cheque on my banker for a thousand +pounds; and, hark me out, you do this, you swear, as I said, on the servants' +Bible, in the presence of my butler and me, “Strike you dead as Ananias +and t' other one if you don't keep to it,” do that now, here, on the +spot, and I'll engage to see you paid fifty pounds a year into the bargain. +Stop! and I'll pay your debts under two or three hundred. For God's sake, let +go the boy! You shall have fifty guineas on account this minute. Let go the +boy! And your son—there, I call him your son—your son, Harry +Richmond, shall inherit from me; he shall have Riversley and the best part of +my property, if not every bit of it. Is it a bargain? Will you swear? Don't, +and the boy's a beggar, he's a stranger here as much as you. Take him, and by +the Lord, you ruin him. There now, never mind, stay, down with him. He's got a +cold already; ought to be in his bed; let the boy down!' +</p> + +<p> +'You offer me money,' Mr. Richmond answered. 'That is one of the indignities +belonging to a connection with a man like you. You would have me sell my son. +To see my afflicted wife I would forfeit my heart's yearnings for my son; your +money, sir, I toss to the winds; and I am under the necessity of informing you +that I despise and loathe you. I shrink from the thought of exposing my son to +your besotted selfish example. The boy is mine; I have him, and he shall +traverse the wilderness with me. By heaven! his destiny is brilliant. He shall +be hailed for what he is, the rightful claimant of a place among the proudest +in the land; and mark me, Mr. Beltham, obstinate sensual old man that you are! +I take the boy, and I consecrate my life to the duty of establishing him in his +proper rank and station, and there, if you live and I live, you shall behold +him and bow your grovelling pig's head to the earth, and bemoan the day, by +heaven! when you,—a common country squire, a man of no origin, a creature +with whose blood we have mixed ours—and he is stone-blind to the honour +conferred on him—when you in your besotted stupidity threatened to +disinherit Harry Richmond.' +</p> + +<p> +The door slammed violently on such further speech as he had in him to utter. He +seemed at first astonished; but finding the terrified boy about to sob, he drew +a pretty box from one of his pockets and thrust a delicious sweetmeat between +the whimpering lips. Then, after some moments of irresolution, during which he +struck his chest soundingly and gazed down, talked alternately to himself and +the boy, and cast his eyes along the windows of the house, he at last dropped +on one knee and swaddled the boy in the folds of the shawl. Raising him in a +business-like way, he settled him on an arm and stepped briskly across +gravel-walk and lawn, like a horse to whose neck a smart touch of the whip has +been applied. +</p> + +<p> +The soft mild night had a moon behind it somewhere; and here and there a +light-blue space of sky showed small rayless stars; the breeze smelt fresh of +roots and heath. It was more a May-night than one of February. So strange an +aspect had all these quiet hill-lines and larch and fir-tree tops in the +half-dark stillness, that the boy's terrors were overlaid and almost subdued by +his wonderment; he had never before been out in the night, and he must have +feared to cry in it, for his sobs were not loud. On a rise of the park-road +where a fir-plantation began, he heard his name called faintly from the house +by a woman's voice that he knew to be his aunt Dorothy's. It came after him +only once: 'Harry Richmond'; but he was soon out of hearing, beyond the park, +among the hollows that run dipping for miles beside the great highroad toward +London. Sometimes his father whistled to him, or held him high and nodded a +salutation to him, as though they had just discovered one another; and his +perpetual accessibility to the influences of spicy sugarplums, notwithstanding +his grief, caused his father to prognosticate hopefully of his future wisdom. +So, when obedient to command he had given his father a kiss, the boy fell +asleep on his shoulder, ceasing to know that he was a wandering infant: and, if +I remember rightly, he dreamed he was in a ship of cinnamon-wood upon a sea +that rolled mighty, but smooth immense broad waves, and tore thing from thing +without a sound or a hurt. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"></a> +CHAPTER II.<br/> +AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT</h2> + +<p> +That night stands up without any clear traces about it or near it, like the +brazen castle of romance round which the sea-tide flows. My father must have +borne me miles along the road; he must have procured food for me; I have an +idea of feeling a damp forehead and drinking new milk, and by-and-by hearing a +roar of voices or vehicles, and seeing a dog that went alone through crowded +streets without a master, doing as he pleased, and stopping every other dog he +met. He took his turning, and my father and I took ours. We were in a house +that, to my senses, had the smell of dark corners, in a street where all the +house-doors were painted black, and shut with a bang. Italian organ-men and +milk-men paraded the street regularly, and made it sound hollow to their music. +Milk, and no cows anywhere; numbers of people, and no acquaintances among them; +my thoughts were occupied by the singularity of such things. +</p> + +<p> +My father could soon make me forget that I was transplanted; he could act dog, +tame rabbit, fox, pony, and a whole nursery collection alive, but he was +sometimes absent for days, and I was not of a temper to be on friendly terms +with those who were unable to captivate my imagination as he had done. When he +was at home I rode him all round the room and upstairs to bed, I lashed him +with a whip till he frightened me, so real was his barking; if I said +'Menagerie' he became a caravan of wild beasts; I undid a button of his +waistcoat, and it was a lion that made a spring, roaring at me; I pulled his +coat-tails and off I went tugging at an old bear that swung a hind leg as he +turned, in the queerest way, and then sat up and beating his breast sent out a +mew-moan. Our room was richer to me than all the Grange while these +performances were going forward. His monkey was almost as wonderful as his +bear, only he was too big for it, and was obliged to aim at reality in his +representation of this animal by means of a number of breakages; a defect that +brought our landlady on the scene. The enchantment of my father's companionship +caused me to suffer proportionately in his absence. During that period of +solitude, my nursemaid had to order me to play, and I would stumble about and +squat in the middle of the floor, struck suddenly by the marvel of the +difference between my present and my other home. My father entered into +arrangements with a Punch and Judy man for him to pay me regular morning visits +opposite our window; yet here again his genius defeated his kind intentions; +for happening once to stand by my side during the progress of the show, he made +it so vivid to me by what he said and did, that I saw no fun in it without him: +I used to dread the heralding crow of Punch if he was away, and cared no longer +for wooden heads being knocked ever so hard. +</p> + +<p> +On Sundays we walked to the cathedral, and this was a day with a delight of its +own for me. He was never away on the Sunday. Both of us attired in our best, we +walked along the streets hand in hand; my father led me before the cathedral +monuments, talking in a low tone of British victories, and commending the +heroes to my undivided attention. I understood very early that it was my duty +to imitate them. While we remained in the cathedral he talked of glory and Old +England, and dropped his voice in the middle of a murmured chant to introduce +Nelson's name or some other great man's and this recurred regularly. 'What are +we for now?' he would ask me as we left our house. I had to decide whether we +took a hero or an author, which I soon learnt to do with capricious resolution. +We were one Sunday for Shakespeare; another for Nelson or Pitt. 'Nelson, papa,' +was my most frequent rejoinder, and he never dissented, but turned his steps +toward Nelson's cathedral dome, and uncovered his head there, and said: +'Nelson, then, to-day'; and we went straight to his monument to perform the act +of homage. I chose Nelson in preference to the others because near bed-time in +the evening my father told me stories of our hero of the day, and neither Pitt +nor Shakespeare lost an eye, or an arm, or fought with a huge white bear on the +ice to make himself interesting. I named them occasionally out of compassion, +and to please my father, who said that they ought to have a turn. They were, he +told me, in the habit of paying him a visit, whenever I had particularly +neglected them, to learn the grounds for my disregard of their claims, and they +urged him to intercede with me, and imparted many of their unpublished +adventures, so that I should be tempted to give them a chance on the following +Sunday. +</p> + +<p> +'Great Will,' my father called Shakespeare, and 'Slender Billy,' Pitt. The +scene where Great Will killed the deer, dragging Falstaff all over the park +after it by the light of Bardolph's nose, upon which they put an extinguisher +if they heard any of the keepers, and so left everybody groping about and +catching the wrong person, was the most wonderful mixture of fun and tears. +Great Will was extremely youthful, but everybody in the park called him, +'Father William'; and when he wanted to know which way the deer had gone, King +Lear (or else my memory deceives me) punned, and Lady Macbeth waved a +handkerchief for it to be steeped in the blood of the deer; Shylock ordered one +pound of the carcase; Hamlet (the fact was impressed on me) offered him a +three-legged stool; and a number of kings and knights and ladies lit their +torches from Bardolph; and away they flew, distracting the keepers and leaving +Will and his troop to the deer. That poor thing died from a different weapon at +each recital, though always with a flow of blood and a successful dash of his +antlers into Falstaff; and to hear Falstaff bellow! But it was mournful to hear +how sorry Great Will was over the animal he had slain. He spoke like music. I +found it pathetic in spite of my knowing that the whole scene was lighted up by +Bardolph's nose. When I was just bursting out crying—for the deer's +tongue was lolling out and quick pantings were at his side; he had little ones +at home—Great Will remembered his engagement to sell Shylock a pound of +the carcase; determined that no Jew should eat of it, he bethought him that +Falstaff could well spare a pound, and he said the Jew would not see the +difference: Falstaff only got off by hard running and roaring out that he knew +his unclean life would make him taste like pork and thus let the Jew into the +trick. +</p> + +<p> +My father related all this with such a veritable matter-of-fact air, and such +liveliness—he sounded the chase and its cries, and showed King Lear +tottering, and Hamlet standing dark, and the vast substance of +Falstaff—that I followed the incidents excitedly, and really saw them, +which was better than understanding them. I required some help from him to see +that Hamlet's offer of a three-legged stool at a feverish moment of the chase, +was laughable. He taught me what to think of it by pitching Great Will's voice +high, and Hamlet's very low. By degrees I got some unconscious knowledge of the +characters of Shakespeare. +</p> + +<p> +There never was so fascinating a father as mine for a boy anything under eight +or ten years old. He could guess on Saturday whether I should name William Pitt +on the Sunday; for, on those occasions, 'Slender Billy,' as I hope I am not +irreverent in calling him, made up for the dulness of his high career with a +raspberry-jam tart, for which, my father told me solemnly, the illustrious +Minister had in his day a passion. If I named him, my father would say, 'W. P., +otherwise S. B., was born in the year so-and-so; now,' and he went to the +cupboard, 'in the name of Politics, take this and meditate upon him.' The shops +being all shut on Sunday, he certainly bought it, anticipating me unerringly, +on the Saturday, and, as soon as the tart appeared, we both shouted. I fancy I +remember his repeating a couplet, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Billy Pitt took a cake and a raspberry jam,<br/> +When he heard they had taken Seringapatam.' +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +At any rate, the rumour of his having done so, at periods of strong excitement, +led to the inexplicable display of foresight on my father's part. +</p> + +<p> +My meditations upon Pitt were, under this influence, favourable to the post of +a Prime Minister, but it was merely appetite that induced me to choose him; I +never could imagine a grandeur in his office, notwithstanding my father's +eloquent talk of ruling a realm, shepherding a people, hurling British +thunderbolts. The day's discipline was, that its selected hero should reign the +undisputed monarch of it, so when I was for Pitt, I had my tart as he used to +have it, and no story, for he had none, and I think my idea of the ruler of a +realm presented him to me as a sort of shadow about a pastrycook's shop. But I +surprised people by speaking of him. I made remarks to our landlady which +caused her to throw up her hands and exclaim that I was astonishing. She would +always add a mysterious word or two in the hearing of my nursemaid or any +friend of hers who looked into my room to see me. After my father had got me +forward with instructions on the piano, and exercises in early English history +and the book of the Peerage, I became the wonder of the house. I was put up on +a stool to play 'In my Cottage near a Wood,' or 'Cherry Ripe,' and then, to +show the range of my accomplishments, I was asked, 'And who married the Dowager +Duchess of Dewlap?' and I answered, 'John Gregg Wetherall, Esquire, and +disgraced the family.' Then they asked me how I accounted for her behaviour. +</p> + +<p> +'It was because the Duke married a dairymaid,' I replied, always tossing up my +chin at that. My father had concocted the questions and prepared me for the +responses, but the effect was striking, both upon his visitors and the +landlady's. Gradually my ear grew accustomed to her invariable whisper on these +occasions. 'Blood Rile,' she said; and her friends all said 'No!' like the run +of a finger down a fiddlestring. +</p> + +<p> +A gentleman of his acquaintance called on him one evening to take him out for a +walk. My father happened to be playing with me when this gentleman entered our +room: and he jumped up from his hands and knees, and abused him for intruding +on his privacy, but afterwards he introduced him to me as Shylock's +great-great-great-grandson, and said that Shylock was satisfied with a pound, +and his descendant wanted two hundred pounds, or else all his body: and this, +he said, came of the emigration of the family from Venice to England. My father +only seemed angry, for he went off with Shylock's very great grandson +arm-in-arm, exclaiming, 'To the Rialto!' When I told Mrs. Waddy about the +visitor, she said, 'Oh, dear! oh, dear! then I'm afraid your sweet papa won't +return very soon, my pretty pet.' We waited a number of days, until Mrs. Waddy +received a letter from him. She came full-dressed into my room, requesting me +to give her twenty kisses for papa, and I looked on while she arranged her blue +bonnet at the glass. The bonnet would not fix in its place. At last she sank +down crying in a chair, and was all brown silk, and said that how to appear +before a parcel of dreadful men, and perhaps a live duke into the bargain, was +more than she knew, and more than could be expected of a lone widow woman. 'Not +for worlds!' she answered my petition to accompany her. She would not, she +said, have me go to my papa there for anything on earth; my papa would perish +at the sight of me; I was not even to wish to go. And then she exclaimed, 'Oh, +the blessed child's poor papa!' and that people were cruel to him, and would +never take into account his lovely temper, and that everybody was his enemy, +when he ought to be sitting with the highest in the land. I had realized the +extremity of my forlorn state on a Sunday that passed empty of my father, which +felt like his having gone for ever. My nursemaid came in to assist in settling +Mrs. Waddy's bonnet above the six crisp curls, and while they were about it I +sat quiet, plucking now and then at the brown silk, partly to beg to go with +it, partly in jealousy and love at the thought of its seeing him from whom I +was so awfully separated. Mrs. Waddy took fresh kisses off my lips, assuring me +that my father would have them in twenty minutes, and I was to sit and count +the time. My nursemaid let her out. I pretended to be absorbed in counting, +till I saw Mrs. Waddy pass by the window. My heart gave a leap of pain. I found +the street-door open and no one in the passage, and I ran out, thinking that +Mrs. Waddy would be obliged to take me if she discovered me by her side in the +street. +</p> + +<p> +I was by no means disconcerted at not seeing her immediately. Running on from +one street to another, I took the turnings with unhesitating boldness, as if I +had a destination in view. I must have been out near an hour before I +understood that Mrs. Waddy had eluded me; so I resolved to enjoy the +shop-windows with the luxurious freedom of one whose speculations on those +glorious things all up for show are no longer distracted by the run of time and +a nursemaid. Little more than a glance was enough, now that I knew I could stay +as long as I liked. If I stopped at all, it was rather to exhibit the bravado +of liberty than to distinguish any particular shop with my preference: all were +equally beautiful; so were the carriages; so were the people. Ladies frequently +turned to look at me, perhaps because I had no covering on my head; but they +did not interest me in the least. I should have been willing to ask them or any +one where the Peerage lived, only my mind was quite full, and I did not care. I +felt sure that a great deal of walking would ultimately bring me to St. Paul's +or Westminster Abbey; to anything else I was indifferent. +</p> + +<p> +Toward sunset my frame was struck as with an arrow by the sensations of hunger +on passing a cook's-shop. I faltered along, hoping to reach a second one, +without knowing why I had dragged my limbs from the first. There was a boy in +ragged breeches, no taller than myself, standing tiptoe by the window of a very +large and brilliant pastry-cook's. He persuaded me to go into the shop and ask +for a cake. I thought it perfectly natural to do so, being hungry; but when I +reached the counter and felt the size of the shop, I was abashed, and had to +repeat the nature of my petition twice to the young woman presiding there. +</p> + +<p> +'Give you a cake, little boy?' she said. 'We don't give cakes, we sell them.' +</p> + +<p> +'Because I am hungry,' said I, pursuing my request. +</p> + +<p> +Another young woman came, laughing and shaking lots of ringlets. +</p> + +<p> +'Don't you see he's not a common boy? he doesn't whine,' she remarked, and +handed me a stale bun, saying, 'Here, Master Charles, and you needn't say thank +you.' +</p> + +<p> +'My name is Harry Richmond, and I thank you very much,' I replied. +</p> + +<p> +I heard her say, as I went out, 'You can see he's a gentleman's son.' The +ragged boy was awaiting me eagerly. 'Gemini! you're a lucky one,' he cried; +'here, come along, curly-poll.' I believe that I meant to share the bun with +him, but of course he could not be aware of my beneficent intentions: so he +treated me as he thought I was for treating him, and making one snatch at the +bun, ran off cramming it into his mouth. I stood looking at any hand. I learnt +in that instant what thieving was, and begging, and hunger, for I would have +perished rather than have asked for another cake, and as I yearned for it in +absolute want of food, the boy's ungenerous treatment of me came down in a +cloud on my reason. I found myself being led through the crush of people, by an +old gentleman, to whom I must have related an extraordinary rigmarole. He shook +his head, saying that I was unintelligible; but the questions he put to me, +'Why had I no hat on in the open street?—Where did my mother +live?—What was I doing out alone in London?' were so many incitements to +autobiographical composition to an infant mind, and I tumbled out my history +afresh each time that he spoke. He led me into a square, stooping his head to +listen all the while; but when I perceived that we had quitted the region of +shops I made myself quite intelligible by stopping short and crying: 'I am so +hungry.' He nodded and said, 'It's no use cross-examining an empty stomach. +You'll do me the favour to dine with me, my little man. We'll talk over your +affairs by-and-by.' +</p> + +<p> +My alarm at having left the savoury street of shops was not soothed until I +found myself sitting at table with him, and a nice young lady, and an old one +who wore a cap, and made loud remarks on my garments and everything I did. I +was introduced to them as the little boy dropped from the sky. The old +gentleman would not allow me to be questioned before I had eaten. It was a +memorable feast. I had soup, fish, meat, and pastry, and, for the first time in +my life, a glass of wine. How they laughed to see me blink and cough after I +had swallowed half the glass like water. At once my tongue was unloosed. I +seemed to rise right above the roofs of London, beneath which I had been but a +wandering atom a few minutes ago. I talked of my wonderful father, and Great +Will, and Pitt, and the Peerage. I amazed them with my knowledge. When I +finished a long recital of Great Will's chase of the deer, by saying that I did +not care about politics (I meant, in my own mind, that Pitt was dull in +comparison), they laughed enormously, as if I had fired them off. 'Do you know +what you are, sir?' said the old gentleman; he had frowning eyebrows and a +merry mouth 'you're a comical character.' +</p> + +<p> +I felt interested in him, and asked him what he was. He informed me that he was +a lawyer, and ready to be pantaloon to my clown, if I would engage him. +</p> + +<p> +'Are you in the Peerage?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Not yet,' he replied. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, then,' said I, 'I know nothing about you.' +</p> + +<p> +The young lady screamed with laughter. 'Oh, you funny little boy; you killing +little creature!' she said, and coming round to me, lifted me out of my chair, +and wanted to know if I knew how to kiss. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, yes; I've been taught that,' said I, giving the salute without waiting for +the invitation; 'but,' I added, 'I don't care about it much.' +</p> + +<p> +She was indignant, and told me she was going to be offended, so I let her +understand that I liked being kissed and played with in the morning before I +was up, and if she would come to my house ever so early, she would find me +lying next the wall and ready for her. +</p> + +<p> +'And who lies outside?' she asked. +</p> + +<p> +'That's my papa,' I was beginning to say, but broke the words with a sob, for I +seemed to be separated from him now by the sea itself. +</p> + +<p> +They petted me tenderly. My story was extracted by alternate leading questions +from the old gentleman and timely caresses from the ladies. I could tell them +everything except the name of the street where I lived. My midnight excursion +from the house of my grandfather excited them chiefly; also my having a mother +alive who perpetually fanned her face and wore a ball-dress and a wreath; +things that I remembered of my mother. The ladies observed that it was clear I +was a romantic child. I noticed that the old gentleman said 'Humph,' very +often, and his eyebrows were like a rook's nest in a tree when I spoke of my +father walking away with Shylock's descendant and not since returning to me. A +big book was fetched out of his library, in which he read my grandfather's +name. I heard him mention it aloud. I had been placed on a stool beside a +tea-tray near the fire, and there I saw the old red house of Riversley, and my +mother dressed in white, and my aunt Dorothy; and they all complained that I +had ceased to love them, and must go to bed, to which I had no objection. +Somebody carried me up and undressed me, and promised me a great game of +kissing in the morning. +</p> + +<p> +The next day in the strange house I heard that the old gentleman had sent one +of his clerks down to my grandfather at Riversley, and communicated with the +constables in London; and, by-and-by, Mrs. Waddy arrived, having likewise +visited those authorities, one of whom supported her claims upon me. But the +old gentleman wished to keep me until his messenger returned from Riversley. He +made all sorts of pretexts. In the end, he insisted on seeing my father, and +Mrs. Waddy, after much hesitation, and even weeping, furnished the address: +upon hearing which, spoken aside to him, he said, 'I thought so.' Mrs. Waddy +entreated him to be respectful to my father, who was, she declared, his +superior, and, begging everybody's pardon present, the superior of us all, +through no sin of his own, that caused him to be so unfortunate; and a real +Christian and pattern, in spite of outsides, though as true a gentleman as ever +walked, and by rights should be amongst the highest. She repeated 'amongst the +highest' reprovingly, with the ears of barley in her blue bonnet shaking, and +her hands clasped tight in her lap. Old Mr. Bannerbridge (that was the old +gentleman's name) came back very late from his visit to my father, so late that +he said it would be cruel to let me go out in the street after my bed-time. +Mrs. Waddy consented to my remaining, on the condition of my being surrendered +to her at nine o'clock, and no later, the following morning. +</p> + +<p> +I was assured by Mr. Bannerbridge that my father's health and appetite were +excellent; he gave me a number of unsatisfying messages, all the rest +concerning his interview he whispered to his daughter and his sister, Miss +Bannerbridge, who said they hoped they would have news from Hampshire very +early, so that the poor child might be taken away by the friends of his +infancy. I could understand that my father was disapproved of by them, and that +I was a kind of shuttlecock flying between two battledores; but why they pitied +me I could not understand. There was a great battle about me when Mrs. Waddy +appeared punctual to her appointed hour. The victory was hers, and I, her +prize, passed a whole day in different conveyances, the last of which landed us +miles away from London, at the gates of an old drooping, mossed and streaked +farmhouse, that was like a wall-flower in colour. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"></a> +CHAPTER III.<br/> +DIPWELL FARM</h2> + +<p> +In rain or in sunshine this old farmhouse had a constant resemblance to a +wall-flower; and it had the same moist earthy smell, except in the kitchen, +where John and Martha Thresher lived, apart from their furniture. All the fresh +eggs, and the butter stamped, with three bees, and the pots of honey, the +fowls, and the hare lifted out of the hamper by his hind legs, and the country +loaves smelling heavenly, which used to come to Mrs. Waddy's address in London, +and appear on my father's table, were products of Dipwell farm, and presents +from her sister, Martha Thresher. On receiving this information I felt at home +in a moment, and asked right off, 'How long am I to stay here?—Am I going +away tomorrow?—What's going to be done with me?' The women found these +questions of a youthful wanderer touching. Between kissings and promises of +hens to feed, and eggs that were to come of it, I settled into contentment. A +strong impression was made on me by Mrs. Waddy's saying, 'Here, Master Harry, +your own papa will come for you; and you may be sure he will, for I have his +word he will, and he's not one to break it, unless his country's against him; +and for his darling boy he'd march against cannons. So here you'll sit and wait +for him, won't you?' I sat down immediately, looking up. Mrs. Waddy and Mrs. +Thresher raised their hands. I had given them some extraordinary proof of my +love for my father. The impression I received was, that sitting was the thing +to conjure him to me. +</p> + +<p> +'Where his heart's not concerned,' Mrs. Waddy remarked of me flatteringly, +'he's shrewd as a little schoolmaster.' +</p> + +<p> +'He've a bird's-nesting eye,' said Mrs. Thresher, whose face I was studying. +</p> + +<p> +John Thresher wagered I would be a man before either of them reached that goal. +But whenever he spoke he suffered correction on account of his English. +</p> + +<p> +'More than his eating and his drinking, that child's father worrits about his +learning to speak the language of a British gentleman,' Mrs. Waddy exclaimed. +'Before that child your <i>h</i>'s must be like the panting of an +engine—to please his father. He'd stop me carrying the dinner-tray on +meat-dish hot, and I'm to repeat what I said, to make sure the child haven't +heard anything ungrammatical. The child's nursemaid he'd lecture so, the poor +girl would come down to me ready to bend double, like a bundle of nothing, his +observations so took the pride out of her. That's because he's a father who +knows his duty to the child:—“Child!” says he, “man, +ma'am.” It's just as you, John, when you sow your seed you think of your +harvest. So don't take it ill of me, John; I beg of you be careful of your +English. Turn it over as you're about to speak.' +</p> + +<p> +'Change loads on the road, you mean,' said John Thresher. 'Na, na, he's come to +settle nigh a weedy field, if you like, but his crop ain't nigh reaping yet. +Hark you, Mary Waddy, who're a widde, which's as much as say, an unocc'pied +mind, there's cockney, and there's country, and there's school. Mix the three, +strain, and throw away the sediment. Now, yon's my view. +</p> + +<p> +His wife and Mrs. Waddy said reflectively, in a breath, 'True!' +</p> + +<p> +'Drink or no, that's the trick o' brewery,' he added. +</p> + +<p> +They assented. They began praising him, too, like meek creatures. +</p> + +<p> +'What John says is worth listening to, Mary. You may be over-careful. A stew's +a stew, and not a boiling to shreds, and you want a steady fire, and not a +furnace.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, I quite agree with John, Martha: we must take the good and the evil in a +world like this.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then I'm no scholar, and you're at ease,' said John. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Waddy put her mouth to his ear. +</p> + +<p> +Up went his eyebrows, wrinkling arches over a petrified stare. +</p> + +<p> +In some way she had regained her advantage. 'Art sure of it?' he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +'Pray, don't offend me by expressing a doubt of it,' she replied, bowing. +</p> + +<p> +John Thresher poised me in the very centre of his gaze. He declared he would +never have guessed that, and was reproved, inasmuch as he might have guessed +it. He then said that I could not associate with any of the children +thereabout, and my dwelling in the kitchen was not to be thought of. The idea +of my dwelling in the kitchen seemed to be a serious consideration with Mrs. +Martha likewise. I was led into the rooms of state. The sight of them was +enough. I stamped my feet for the kitchen, and rarely in my life have been +happier than there, dining and supping with John and Martha and the +farm-labourers, expecting my father across the hills, and yet satisfied with +the sun. To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe, and this was my +feeling in my father's absence. I knew he would come, without wishing to hurry +him. He had the world beyond the hills; I this one, where a slow full river +flowed from the sounding mill under our garden wall, through long meadows. In +Winter the wild ducks made letters of the alphabet flying. On the other side of +the copses bounding our home, there was a park containing trees old as the +History of England, John Thresher said, and the thought of their venerable age +enclosed me comfortably. He could not tell me whether he meant as old as the +book of English History; he fancied he did, for the furrow-track follows the +plough close upon; but no one exactly could swear when that (the book) was put +together. At my suggestion, he fixed the trees to the date of the Heptarchy, a +period of heavy ploughing. Thus begirt by Saxon times, I regarded Riversley as +a place of extreme baldness, a Greenland, untrodden by my Alfred and my Harold. +These heroes lived in the circle of Dipwell, confidently awaiting the arrival +of my father. He sent me once a glorious letter. Mrs. Waddy took one of John +Thresher's pigeons to London, and in the evening we beheld the bird cut the sky +like an arrow, bringing round his neck a letter warm from him I loved. Planet +communicating with planet would be not more wonderful to men than words of his +to me, travelling in such a manner. I went to sleep, and awoke imagining the +bird bursting out of heaven. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile there was an attempt to set me moving again. A strange young man was +noticed in the neighbourhood of the farm, and he accosted me at Leckham fair. +'I say, don't we know one another? How about your grandfather the squire, and +your aunt, and Mr. Bannerbridge? I've got news for you.' +</p> + +<p> +Not unwilling to hear him, I took his hand, leaving my companion, the miller's +little girl, Mabel Sweetwinter, at a toy-stand, while Bob, her brother and our +guardian, was shying sticks in a fine attitude. 'Yes, and your father, too,' +said the young man; 'come along and see him; you can run?' I showed him how +fast. We were pursued by Bob, who fought for me, and won me, and my allegiance +instantly returned to him. He carried me almost the whole of the way back to +Dipwell. Women must feel for the lucky heroes who win them, something of what I +felt for mine; I kissed his bloody face, refusing to let him wipe it. John +Thresher said to me at night, 'Ay, now you've got a notion of boxing; and will +you believe it, Master Harry, there's people fools enough to want to tread that +ther' first-rate pastime under foot? I speak truth, and my word for 't, they'd +better go in petticoats. Let clergymen preach as in duty bound; you and I'll +uphold a manful sport, we will, and a cheer for Bob!' +</p> + +<p> +He assured me, and he had my entire faith, that boxing was England's natural +protection from the foe. The comfort of having one like Bob to defend our +country from invasion struck me as inexpressible. Lighted by John Thresher's +burning patriotism, I entered the book of the History of England at about the +pace of a carthorse, with a huge waggon at my heels in the shape of John. There +was no moving on until he was filled. His process of receiving historical +knowledge was to fight over again the personages who did injury to our honour +as a nation, then shake hands and be proud of them. 'For where we ain't quite +successful we're cunning,' he said; 'and we not being able to get rid of +William the Conqueror, because he's got a will of his own and he won't budge, +why, we takes and makes him one of ourselves; and no disgrace in that, I should +hope! He paid us a compliment, don't you see, Master Harry? he wanted to be an +Englishman. “Can you this?” says we, sparrin' up to him. +“Pretty middlin',” says he, “and does it well.” +“Well then,” says we, “then you're one of us, and we'll beat +the world”; and did so.' +</p> + +<p> +John Thresher had a laborious mind; it cost him beads on his forehead to mount +to these heights of meditation. He told me once that he thought one's country +was like one's wife: you were born in the first, and married to the second, and +had to learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them. He +recommended me to mix, strain, and throw away the sediment, for that was the +trick o' brewery. Every puzzle that beset him in life resolved to this cheerful +precept, the value of which, he said, was shown by clear brown ale, the drink +of the land. Even as a child I felt that he was peculiarly an Englishman. Tales +of injustice done on the Niger river would flush him in a heat of wrath till he +cried out for fresh taxes to chastise the villains. Yet at the sight of the +beggars at his gates he groaned at the taxes existing, and enjoined me to have +pity on the poor taxpayer when I lent a hand to patch the laws. I promised him +I would unreservedly, with a laugh, but with a sincere intention to legislate +in a direct manner on his behalf. He, too, though he laughed, thanked me +kindly. +</p> + +<p> +I was clad in black for my distant mother. Mrs. Waddy brought down a young man +from London to measure me, so that my mourning attire might be in the perfect +cut of fashion. 'The child's papa would strip him if he saw him in a country +tailor's funeral suit,' she said, and seemed to blow a wind of changes on me +that made me sure my father had begun to stir up his part of the world. He sent +me a prayer in his own handwriting to say for my mother in heaven. I saw it +flying up between black edges whenever I shut my eyes. Martha Thresher dosed me +for liver. Mrs. Waddy found me pale by the fireside, and prescribed iron. Both +agreed upon high-feeding, and the apothecary agreed with both in everything, +which reconciled them, for both good women loved me so heartily they were near +upon disputing over the medicines I was to consume. +</p> + +<p> +Under such affectionate treatment I betrayed the alarming symptom that my +imagination was set more on my mother than on my father: I could not help +thinking that for any one to go to heaven was stranger than to drive to +Dipwell, and I had this idea when my father was clasping me in his arms; but he +melted it like snow off the fields. He came with postillions in advance of him +wearing crape rosettes, as did the horses. We were in the cricket-field, where +Dipwell was playing its first match of the season, and a Dipwell lad, furious +to see the elevens commit such a breach of the rules and decency as to troop +away while the game was hot, and surround my father, flung the cricket-ball +into the midst and hit two or three of the men hard. My father had to shield +him from the consequences. He said he liked that boy; and he pleaded for him so +winningly and funnily that the man who was hurt most laughed loudest. +</p> + +<p> +Standing up in the carriage, and holding me by the hand, he addressed them by +their names: 'Sweetwinter, I thank you for your attention to my son; and you, +Thribble; and you, my man; and you, Baker; Rippengale, and you; and you, Jupp'; +as if he knew them personally. It was true he nodded at random. Then he +delivered a short speech, and named himself a regular subscriber to their +innocent pleasures. He gave them money, and scattered silver coin among the +boys and girls, and praised John Thresher, and Martha, his wife, for their care +of me, and pointing to the chimneys of the farm, said that the house there was +holy to him from henceforth, and he should visit it annually if possible, but +always in the month of May, and in the shape of his subscription, as certain as +the cowslip. The men, after their fit of cheering, appeared unwilling to +recommence their play, so he alighted and delivered the first ball, and then +walked away with my hand in his, saying: +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, my son, we will return to them tenfold what they have done for you. The +eleventh day of May shall be a day of pleasure for Dipwell while I last, and +you will keep it in memory of me when I am gone. And now to see the bed you +have slept in.' +</p> + +<p> +Martha Thresher showed him the bed, showed him flowers I had planted, and a +Spanish chestnut tree just peeping. +</p> + +<p> +'Ha!' said he, beaming at every fresh sight of my doings: 'madam, I am your +life-long debtor and friend!' He kissed her on the cheek. +</p> + +<p> +John Thresher cried out: 'Why, dame, you trembles like a maid.' +</p> + +<p> +She spoke very faintly, and was red in the face up to the time of our +departure. John stood like a soldier. We drove away from a cheering crowd of +cricketers and farm-labourers, as if discharged from a great gun. 'A royal +salvo!' said my father, and asked me earnestly whether I had forgotten to +reward and take a particular farewell of any one of my friends. I told him I +had forgotten no one, and thought it was true, until on our way up the sandy +lane, which offered us a last close view of the old wall-flower farm front, I +saw little Mabel Sweetwinter, often my playfellow and bedfellow, a curly-headed +girl, who would have danced on Sunday for a fairing, and eaten gingerbread nuts +during a ghost-story. She was sitting by a furze-bush in flower, cherishing in +her lap a lamb that had been worried. She looked half up at me, and kept +looking so, but would not nod. Then good-bye, thought I, and remembered her +look when I had forgotten that of all the others. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"></a> +CHAPTER IV.<br/> +I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR</h2> + +<p> +Though I had not previously seen a postillion in my life, I gazed on the pair +bobbing regularly on their horses before me, without a thought upon the marvel +of their sudden apparition and connection with my fortunes. I could not tire of +hearing the pleasant music of the many feet at the trot, and tried to explain +to my father that the men going up and down made it like a piano that played of +itself. He laughed and kissed me; he remembered having once shown me the inside +of a piano when the keys were knocked. My love for him as we drove into London +had a recognized footing: I perceived that he was my best friend and only true +companion, besides his being my hero. The wicked men who had parted us were no +longer able to do harm, he said. I forgot, in my gladness at their defeat, to +ask what had become of Shylock's descendant. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Waddy welcomed us when we alighted. Do not imagine that it was at the door +of her old house. It was in a wide street opening on a splendid square, and +pillars were before the houses, and inside there was the enchantment of a +little fountain playing thin as whipcord, among ferns, in a rock-basin under a +window that glowed with kings of England, copied from boys' history books. All +the servants were drawn up in the hall to do homage to me. They seemed less +real and living than the wonder of the sweet-smelling chairs, the birds, and +the elegant dogs. Richest of treats, a monkey was introduced to me. 'It's your +papa's whim,' Mrs. Waddy said, resignedly; 'he says he must have his jester. +Indeed it is no joke to me.' +</p> + +<p> +Yet she smiled happily, though her voice was melancholy. From her I now learnt +that my name was Richmond Roy, and not Harry Richmond. I said, 'Very well,' for +I was used to change. Everybody in the house wore a happy expression of +countenance, except the monkey, who was too busy. As we mounted the stairs I +saw more kings of England painted on the back-windows. Mrs. Waddy said: 'It is +considered to give a monarchical effect,'—she coughed modestly after the +long word, and pursued: 'as it should.' I insisted upon going to the top floor, +where I expected to find William the Conqueror, and found him; but that strong +connecting link between John Thresher and me presented himself only to carry my +recollections of the Dipwell of yesterday as far back into the past as the old +Norman days. +</p> + +<p> +'And down go all the kings, downstairs,' I said, surveying them consecutively. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes,' she replied, in a tone that might lead one to think it their lamentable +fate. 'And did the people look at you as you drove along through the streets, +Master Richmond?' +</p> + +<p> +I said 'Yes,' in turn; and then we left off answering, but questioned one +another, which is a quicker way of getting at facts; I know it is with boys and +women. Mrs. Waddy cared much less to hear of Dipwell and its inhabitants than +of the sensation created everywhere by our equipage. I noticed that when her +voice was not melancholy her face was. She showed me a beautiful little pink +bed, having a crown over it, in a room opening to my father's. Twenty thousand +magnificent dreams seemed to flash their golden doors when I knew that the bed +was mine. I thought it almost as nice as a place by my father's side. +</p> + +<p> +'Don't you like it, Mrs. Waddy?' I said. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled and sighed. 'Like it? Oh! yes, my dear, to be sure I do. I only hope +it won't vanish.' She simpered and looked sad. +</p> + +<p> +I had too many distractions, or I should have asked her whether my amazing and +delightful new home had ever shown symptoms of vanishing; it appeared to me, +judging from my experience, that nothing moved violently except myself, and my +principal concern was lest any one should carry me away at a moment's notice. +In the evening I was introduced to a company of gentlemen, who were drinking +wine after dinner with my father. They clapped their hands and laughed +immoderately on my telling them that I thought those kings of England who could +not find room on the windows must have gone down to the cellars. +</p> + +<p> +'They are going,' my father said. He drank off a glassful of wine and sighed +prodigiously. 'They are going, gentlemen, going there, like good wine, like old +Port, which they tell us is going also. Favour me by drinking to the health of +Richmond Roy the younger.' +</p> + +<p> +They drank to me heartily, but my father had fallen mournful before I left the +room. +</p> + +<p> +Pony-riding, and lessons in boxing and wrestling, and lessons in French from a +French governess, at whose appearance my father always seemed to be beginning +to dance a minuet, so exuberantly courteous was he; and lessons in Latin from a +tutor, whom my father invited to dinner once a fortnight, but did not +distinguish otherwise than occasionally to take down Latin sentences in a +notebook from his dictation, occupied my mornings. My father told the man who +instructed me in the art of self-defence that our family had always patronized +his profession. I wrestled ten minutes every day with this man's son, and was +regularly thrown. On fine afternoons I was dressed in black velvet for a drive +in the park, where my father uncovered his head to numbers of people, and was +much looked at. 'It is our duty, my son, never to forget names and persons; I +beg you to bear that in mind, my dearest Richie,' he said. We used to go to his +opera-box; and we visited the House of Lords and the House of Commons; and my +father, though he complained of the decay of British eloquence, and mourned for +the days of Chatham, and William Pitt (our old friend of the cake and the +raspberry jam), and Burke, and Sheridan, encouraged the orators with approving +murmurs. +</p> + +<p> +My father no longer laid stress on my studies of the Peerage. 'Now I have you +in the very atmosphere, that will come of itself,' he said. I wished to know +whether I was likely to be transported suddenly to some other place. He assured +me that nothing save a convulsion of the earth would do it, which comforted me, +for I took the firmness of the earth in perfect trust. We spoke of our old +Sunday walks to St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey as of a day that had its +charm. Our pew among a fashionable congregation pleased him better. The +pew-opener curtseyed to none as she did to him. For my part, I missed the +monuments and the chants, and something besides that had gone—I knew not +what. At the first indication of gloom in me, my father became alarmed, and, +after making me stand with my tongue out before himself and Mrs. Waddy, like a +dragon in a piece of tapestry, would resume his old playfulness, and try to be +the same that he had been in Mrs. Waddy's lodgings. Then we read the Arabian +Nights together, or, rather, he read them to me, often acting out the incidents +as we rode or drove abroad. An omission to perform a duty was the fatal +forgetfulness to sprinkle pepper on the cream-tarts; if my father subjected me +to an interrogation concerning my lessons, he was the dread African magician to +whom must be surrendered my acquisition of the ring and the musty old lamp. We +were quite in the habit of meeting fair Persians. He would frequently ejaculate +that he resembled the Three Calendars in more respects than one. To divert me +during my recovery from measles, he one day hired an actor in a theatre, and +put a cloth round his neck, and seated him in a chair, rubbed his chin with +soap, and played the part of the Barber over him, and I have never laughed so +much in my life. Poor Mrs. Waddy got her hands at her sides, and kept on +gasping, 'Oh, sir! oh!' while the Barber hurried away from the half-shaved +young man to consult his pretended astrolabe in the next room, where we heard +him shouting the sun's altitude, and consulting its willingness for the +impatient young man to be further shaved; and back he came, seeming refreshed +to have learnt the sun's favourable opinion, and gabbling at an immense rate, +full of barber's business. The servants were allowed to be spectators; but as +soon as the young man was shaved, my father dismissed them with the tone of a +master. No wonder they loved him. Mrs. Waddy asked who could help it? +</p> + +<p> +I remember a pang I had when she spoke of his exposure to the risk of marrying +again; it added a curious romantic tenderness to my adoration of him, and made +me feel that he and I stood against the world. To have his hand in mine was my +delight. Then it was that I could think earnestly of Prince Ahmed and the kind +and beautiful Peribanou, whom I would not have minded his marrying. My +favourite dream was to see him shooting an arrow in a match for a prize, and +losing the prize because of not finding his arrow, and wondering where the +arrow had flown to, and wandering after it till he passed out of green fields +to grassy rocks, and to a stony desert, where at last he found his arrow at an +enormous distance from the shooting line, and there was the desert all about +him, and the sweetest fairy ever imagined going to show herself to him in the +ground under his feet. In his absence I really hungered for him, and was +jealous. +</p> + +<p> +During this Arabian life, we sat on a carpet that flew to the Continent, where +I fell sick, and was cured by smelling at an apple; and my father directed our +movements through the aid of a telescope, which told us the titles of the +hotels ready to receive us. As for the cities and cathedrals, the hot meadows +under mountains, the rivers and the castles—they were little more to me +than an animated book of geography, opening and shutting at random; and +travelling from place to place must have seemed to me so much like the life I +had led, that I was generally as quick to cry as to laugh, and was never at +peace between any two emotions. By-and-by I lay in a gondola with a young lady. +My father made friends fast on our travels: her parents were among the number, +and she fell in love with me and enjoyed having the name of Peribanou, which I +bestowed on her for her delicious talk of the blue and red-striped posts that +would spout up fountains of pearls if they were plucked from their beds, and +the palaces that had flown out of the farthest corners of the world, and the +city that would some night or other vanish suddenly, leaving bare sea-ripple to +say 'Where? where?' as they rolled over. I would have seen her marry my father +happily. She was like rest and dreams to me, soft sea and pearls. We entered +into an arrangement to correspond for life. Her name was Clara Goodwin; she +requested me to go always to the Horse Guards to discover in what part of the +world Colonel Goodwin might be serving when I wanted to write to her. I, in +return, could give no permanent address, so I related my history from the +beginning. 'To write to you would be the same as writing to a river,' she said; +and insisted that I should drop the odious name of Roy when I grew a man. My +father quarrelled with Colonel Goodwin. Months after I felt as if I had only +just been torn from Clara, but she stood in a mist, irrecoverably distant. I +had no other friend. +</p> + +<p> +Twelve dozen of splendid Burgundy were the fruit of our tour, to be laid down +at Dipwell farm for my arrival at my majority, when I should be a legal man, +embarked in my own ship, as my father said. I did not taste the wine. 'Porter +for me that day, please God!' cried Mrs. Waddy, who did. My father eyed her +with pity, and ordered her to send the wine down to Dipwell, which was done. He +took me between his knees, and said impressively, 'Now, Richie, twelve dozen of +the best that man can drink await you at the gates of manhood. Few fathers can +say that to their sons, my boy! If we drink it together, blessings on the day! +If I'm gone, Richie, shut up in the long box,' his voice shook, and he added, +'gone to Peribanou underneath, you know, remember that your dada saw that the +wine was a good vintage, and bought it and had it bottled in his own presence +while you were asleep in the Emperor's room in the fine old Burgundy city, and +swore that, whatever came to them both, his son should drink the wine of +princes on the day of his majority.' Here my father's tone was highly exalted, +and he sat in a great flush. +</p> + +<p> +I promised him I would bend my steps toward Dipwell to be there on my +twenty-first birthday, and he pledged himself to be there in spirit at least, +bodily if possible. We sealed the subject with some tears. He often talked of +commissioning a poet to compose verses about that wonderful coming day at +Dipwell. The thought of the day in store for us sent me strutting as though I +had been in the presence of my drill-master. Mrs. Waddy, however, grew +extremely melancholy at the mention of it. +</p> + +<p> +'Lord only knows where we shall all be by that time!' she sighed. +</p> + +<p> +'She is a dewy woman,' said my father, disdainfully They appeared always to be +at variance, notwithstanding her absolute devotion to him. My father threatened +to have her married to somebody immediately if she afflicted him with what he +called her Waddyism. She had got the habit of exclaiming at the end of her +remarks, 'No matter; our clock strikes soon!' in a way that communicated to me +an obscure idea of a door going to open unexpectedly in one of the walls, and +conduct us, by subterranean passages, into a new country. My father's method of +rebuking her anxious nature was to summon his cook, the funniest of Frenchmen, +Monsieur Alphonse, and issue orders for a succession of six dinner-parties. +'And now, ma'am, you have occupation for your mind,' he would say. +</p> + +<p> +To judge by the instantaneous composure of her whole appearance, he did produce +a temporary abatement of her malady. The good soul bustled out of the room in +attendance upon M. Alphonse, and never complained while the dinners lasted, but +it was whispered that she had fits in the upper part of the house. No sooner +did my father hear the rumour than he accused her to her face of this enormity, +telling her that he was determined to effect a permanent cure, even though she +should drive him to unlimited expense. We had a Ball party and an Aladdin +supper, and for a fortnight my father hired postillions; we flashed through +London. My father backed a horse to run in the races on Epsom Downs named +Prince Royal, only for the reason that his name was Prince Royal, and the horse +won, which was, he said, a proof to me that in our country it was common +prudence to stick to Royalty; and he bade me note that if he went in a carriage +and two, he was comparatively unnoticed, whereas when he was beheld in a +carriage and four, with postillions, at a glance from him the country people +tugged their forelocks, and would like, if he would let them, to kiss his hand. +'We will try the scarlet livery on one of our drives, Richie,' said he. Mrs. +Waddy heard him. 'It is unlawful, sir,' she said. 'For whom, ma'am?' asked my +father. 'None but Royal...' she was explaining, but stopped, for he showed her +an awful frown, and she cried so that my heart ached for her. My father went +out to order the livery on the spot. He was very excited. Then it was that Mrs. +Waddy, embracing me, said, 'My dear, my own Master Richmond, my little Harry, +prepare your poor child's heart for evil days.' I construed her unintelligible +speech as an attack upon my father, and abused her violently. +</p> + +<p> +While I was in this state of wrathful championship, the hall-door was opened. I +ran out and caught sight of my aunt Dorothy, in company with old Mr. +Bannerbridge. I was kissed and hugged for I know not how long, until the smell +of Riversley took entire possession of me, and my old home seemed nearer than +the one I lived in; but my aunt, seeing tears on my cheeks, asked me what was +my cause of sorrow. In a moment I poured out a flood of complaints against Mrs. +Waddy for vexing my father. When she heard of the scarlet livery, my aunt +lifted her hands. 'The man is near the end of his wits and his money together,' +said Mr. Bannerbridge; and she said to me, 'My darling Harry will come back to +his own nice little room, and see his grandpapa soon, won't you, my pet? All is +ready for him there as it used to be, except poor mama. “Kiss my boy, my +Harry—Harry Richmond.” Those were her last words on her death-bed, +before she went to God, Harry, my own! There is Sampson the pony, and Harry's +dog Prince, and his lamb Daisy, grown a sheep, and the ploughboy, Dick, with +the big boots.' Much more sweet talk of the same current that made my face +cloudy and bright, and filled me with desire for Riversley, to see my mother's +grave and my friends. +</p> + +<p> +Aunt Dorothy looked at me. 'Come now,' she said; 'come with me, Harry.' Her +trembling seized on me like a fire. I said, 'Yes,' though my heart sank as if I +had lost my father with the word. She caught me in her arms tight, murmuring, +'And dry our tears and make our house laugh. Oh! since the night that Harry +went..... And I am now Harry's mama, he has me.' +</p> + +<p> +I looked on her forehead for the wreath of white flowers my mother used to +wear, and thought of my father's letter with the prayer written on the +black-bordered page. I said I would go, but my joy in going was gone. We were +stopped in the doorway by Mrs. Waddy. Nothing would tempt her to surrender me. +Mr. Bannerbridge tried reasoning with her, and, as he said, put the case, which +seemed to have perched on his forefinger. He talked of my prospects, of my sole +chance of being educated morally and virtuously as became the grandson of an +English gentleman of a good old family, and of my father having spent my +mother's estate, and of the danger of his doing so with mine, and of religious +duty and the awfulness of the position Mrs. Waddy stood in. He certainly +subdued me to very silent breathing, but did not affect me as my aunt Dorothy's +picturing of Riversley had done; and when Mrs. Waddy, reduced to an apparent +submissiveness, addressed me piteously, 'Master Richmond, would you leave +papa?' I cried out, 'No, no, never leave my papa,' and twisted away from my +aunt's keeping. My father's arrival caused me to be withdrawn, but I heard his +offer of his hospitality and all that was his; and subsequently there was loud +talking on his part. I was kissed by my aunt before she went. She whispered, +'Come to us when you are free; think of us when you pray.' She was full of +tears. Mr. Bannerbridge patted my head. +</p> + +<p> +The door closed on them and I thought it was a vision that had passed. But now +my father set my heart panting with questions as to the terrible possibility of +us two ever being separated. In some way he painted my grandfather so black +that I declared earnestly I would rather die than go to Riversley; I would +never utter the name of the place where there was evil speaking of the one I +loved dearest. 'Do not, my son,' he said solemnly, 'or it parts us two.' I +repeated after him, 'I am a Roy and not a Beltham.' It was enough to hear that +insult and shame had been cast on him at Riversley for me to hate the name of +the place. We cried and then laughed together, and I must have delivered myself +with amazing eloquence, for my father held me at arms' length and said, +'Richie, the notion of training you for a General commandership of the British +army is a good one, but if you have got the winning tongue, the woolsack will +do as well for a whisper in the ear of the throne. That is our aim, my son. We +say,—you will not acknowledge our birth, you shall acknowledge our +worth.' He complained bitterly of my aunt Dorothy bringing a lawyer to our +house. The sins of Mrs. Waddy were forgiven her, owing to her noble resistance +to the legal gentleman's seductive speech. So I walked up and down stairs with +the kings of England looking at me out of the coloured windows quietly for a +week; and then two ugly men entered the house, causing me to suffer a fearful +oppression, though my father was exceedingly kind to them and had beds provided +for them, saying that they were very old retainers of his. +</p> + +<p> +But the next day our scarlet livery appeared. After exacting particular +attention to his commands, my father quitted Mrs. Waddy, and we mounted the +carriage, laughing at her deplorable eyes and prim lips, which he imitated for +my amusement. 'A load is off my head,' he remarked. He asked me if splendour +did not fatigue me also. I caught the answer from his face and replied that it +did, and that I should like to go right on to Dipwell 'The Burgundy sleeps safe +there,' said my father, and thought over it. We had an extraordinary day. +People stood fast to gaze at us; in the country some pulled off their hats and +set up a cheer. The landlords of the inns where we baited remained bare-headed +until we started afresh, and I, according to my father's example, bowed and +lifted my cap gravely to persons saluting us along the roads. Nor did I seek to +know the reason for this excess of respectfulness; I was beginning to take to +it naturally. At the end of a dusty high-road, where it descends the hill into +a town, we drew up close by a high red wall, behind which I heard boys shouting +at play. We went among them, accompanied by their master. My father tipped the +head boy for the benefit of the school, and following lunch with the master and +his daughter, to whom I gave a kiss at her request, a half-holiday was granted +to the boys in my name. How they cheered! The young lady saw my delight, and +held me at the window while my father talked with hers; and for a long time +after I beheld them in imagination talking: that is to say, my father issuing +his instructions and Mr. Rippenger receiving them like a pliant hodman; for the +result of it was that two days later, without seeing my kings of England, my +home again, or London, I was Julia Rippenger's intimate friend and the youngest +pupil of the school. My father told me subsequently that we slept at an hotel +those two nights intervening. Memory transplants me from the coach and scarlet +livery straight to my place of imprisonment. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"></a> +CHAPTER V.<br/> +I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND</h2> + +<p> +Heriot was the name of the head boy of the school. Boddy was the name of one of +the ushers. They were both in love with Julia Rippenger. It was my fortune to +outrun them in her favour for a considerable period, during which time, though +I had ceased to live in state, and was wearing out my suits of velvet, and had +neither visit nor letter from my father, I was in tolerable bliss. Julia's +kisses were showered on me for almost anything I said or did, but her +admiration of heroism and daring was so fervent that I was in no greater danger +of becoming effeminate than Achilles when he wore girl's clothes. She was +seventeen, an age bewitching for boys to look up to and men to look down on. +The puzzle of the school was how to account for her close relationship to old +Rippenger. Such an apple on such a crab-tree seemed monstrous. Heriot said that +he hoped Boddy would marry old Rippenger's real daughter, and, said he, that's +birch-twigs. I related his sparkling speech to Julia, who laughed, accusing +him, however, of impudence. She let me see a portrait of her dead mother, an +Irish lady raising dark eyelashes, whom she resembled. I talked of the portrait +to Heriot, and as I had privileges accorded to none of the other boys and could +go to her at any hour of the day after lessons, he made me beg for him to have +a sight of it. She considered awhile, but refused. On hearing of the unkind +refusal, Heriot stuck his hands into his pockets and gave up cricketing. We saw +him leaning against a wall in full view of her window, while the boys crowded +round him trying to get him to practise, a school-match of an important +character coming off with a rival academy; and it was only through fear of our +school being beaten if she did not relent that Julia handed me the portrait, +charging me solemnly to bring it back. I promised, of course. Heriot went into +his favourite corner of the playground, and there looked at it and kissed it, +and then buttoned his jacket over it tight, growling when I asked him to return +it. Julia grew frightened. She sent me with numbers of petitions to him. +</p> + +<p> +'Look here, young un,' said Heriot; 'you're a good little fellow, and I like +you, but just tell her I believe in nothing but handwriting, and if she writes +to me for it humbly and nicely she shall have it back. Say I only want to get a +copy taken by a first-rate painter.' +</p> + +<p> +Julia shed tears at his cruelty, called him cruel, wicked, false to his word. +She wrote, but the letter did not please him, and his reply was scornful. At +prayers morning and evening, it was pitiful to observe her glance of entreaty +and her downfallen eyelashes. I guessed that in Heriot's letters to her he +wanted to make her confess something, which she would not do. 'Now I write to +him no more; let him know it, my darling,' she said, and the consequence of +Heriot's ungrateful obstinacy was that we all beheld her, at the ceremony of +the consecration of the new church, place her hand on Mr. Boddy's arm and allow +him to lead her about. Heriot kept his eyes on them; his mouth was sharp, and +his arms stiff by his sides. I was the bearer of a long letter to her that +evening. She tore it to pieces without reading it. Next day Heriot walked +slowly past Mr. Boddy holding the portrait in his hands. The usher called to +him! +</p> + +<p> +'What have you there, Heriot?' +</p> + +<p> +My hero stared. 'Only a family portrait,' he answered, thrusting it safe in his +pocket and fixing his gaze on Julia's window. +</p> + +<p> +'Permit me to look at it,' said Mr. Boddy. +</p> + +<p> +'Permit me to decline to let you,' said Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'Look at me, sir,' cried Boddy. +</p> + +<p> +'I prefer to look elsewhere, sir,' replied Heriot, and there was Julia visible +at her window. +</p> + +<p> +'I asked you, sir, civilly,' quoth Boddy, 'for permission to look,—I used +the word intentionally; I say I asked you for permission...' +</p> + +<p> +'No, you didn't,' Heriot retorted, quite cool; 'inferentially you did; but you +did not use the word permission.' +</p> + +<p> +'And you turned upon me impudently,' pursued Boddy, whose colour was thunder: +'you quibbled, sir; you prevaricated; you concealed what you were carrying...' +</p> + +<p> +'Am carrying,' Heriot corrected his tense; 'and mean to, in spite of every +Boddy,' he murmured audibly. +</p> + +<p> +'Like a rascal detected in an act of felony,' roared Boddy, 'you concealed it, +sir...' +</p> + +<p> +'Conceal it, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'And I demand, in obedience to my duty, that you instantly exhibit it for my +inspection, now, here, at once; no parleying; unbutton, or I call Mr. Rippenger +to compel you.' +</p> + +<p> +I was standing close by my brave Heriot, rather trembling, studious of his +manfulness though I was. His left foot was firmly in advance, as he said, just +in the manner to start an usher furious: +</p> + +<p> +'I concealed it, I conceal it; I was carrying it, I carry it: you demand that I +exhibit for your inspection what I mean no Boddy to see? I have to assure you +respectfully, sir, that family portraits are sacred things with the sons of +gentlemen. Here, Richie, off!' +</p> + +<p> +I found the portrait in my hand, and Heriot between me and the usher, in the +attitude of a fellow keeping another out of his home at prisoner's-base. He had +spied Mr. Rippenger's head at the playground gate. I had just time to see +Heriot and the usher in collision before I ran through the gate and into +Julia's arms in her garden, whither the dreadful prospect of an approaching +catastrophe had attracted her. +</p> + +<p> +Heriot was merely reported guilty of insolence. He took his five hundred lines +of Virgil with his usual sarcastic dignity: all he said to Mr. Rippenger was, +'Let it be about Dido, sir,' which set several of the boys upon Dido's history, +but Heriot was condemned to the battles with Turnus. My share in this event +secured Heriot's friendship to me without costing me the slightest +inconvenience. 'Papa would never punish you,' Julia said; and I felt my rank. +Nor was it wonderful I should when Mr. Rippenger was constantly speaking of my +father's magnificence in my presence before company. Allowed to draw on him +largely for pocket-money, I maintained my father's princely reputation in the +school. At times, especially when the holidays arrived and I was left alone +with Julia, I had fits of mournfulness, and almost thought the boys happier +than I was. Going home began to seem an unattainable thing to me. Having a +father, too, a regular father, instead of a dazzling angel that appeared at +intervals, I considered a benefaction, in its way, some recompense to the boys, +for their not possessing one like mine. My anxiety was relieved by my writing +letters to my father, addressed to the care of Miss Julia Rippenger, and +posting them in her work-basket. She favoured me with very funny replies, +signed, 'Your own ever-loving Papa,' about his being engaged killing Bengal +tigers and capturing white elephants, a noble occupation that gave me exciting +and consolatory dreams of him. +</p> + +<p> +We had at last a real letter of his, dated from a foreign city; but he +mentioned nothing of coming to me. I understood that Mr. Rippenger was +disappointed with it. +</p> + +<p> +Gradually a kind of cloud stole over me. I no longer liked to ask for +pocket-money; I was clad in a suit of plain cloth; I was banished from the +parlour, and only on Sunday was I permitted to go to Julia. I ceased to live in +myself. Through the whole course of lessons, at play-time, in my bed, and round +to morning bell, I was hunting my father in an unknown country, generally with +the sun setting before me: I ran out of a wood almost into a brook to see it +sink as if I had again lost sight of him, and then a sense of darkness brought +me back to my natural consciousness, without afflicting me much, but +astonishing me. Why was I away from him? I could repeat my lessons in the midst +of these dreams quite fairly; it was the awakening among the circle of the boys +that made me falter during a recital and ask myself why I was there and he +absent? They had given over speculating on another holiday and treat from my +father; yet he had produced such an impression in the school that even when I +had descended to the level of a total equality with them, they continued to +have some consideration for me. I was able to talk of foreign cities and could +tell stories, and I was, besides, under the immediate protection of Heriot. But +now the shadow of a great calamity fell on me, for my dear Heriot announced his +intention of leaving the school next half. +</p> + +<p> +'I can't stand being prayed at, morning and evening, by a fellow who hasn't the +pluck to strike me like a man,' he said. Mr. Rippenger had the habit of +signalizing offenders, in his public prayers, as boys whose hearts he wished to +be turned from callousness. He perpetually suspected plots; and to hear him +allude to some deep, long-hatched school conspiracy while we knelt motionless +on the forms, and fetch a big breath to bring out, 'May the heart of Walter +Heriot be turned and he comprehend the multitudinous blessings,' etc., was +intensely distressing. Together with Walter Heriot, Andrew Saddlebank, our best +bowler, the drollest fellow in the world, John Salter, and little Gus Temple, +were oftenest cited. They declared that they invariably uttered 'Amen,' as +Heriot did, but we none of us heard this defiant murmur of assent from their +lips. Heriot pronounced it clearly and cheerfully, causing Julia's figure to +shrink as she knelt with her face in the chair hard by her father's +desk-pulpit. I received the hearty congratulations of my comrades for singing +out 'Amen' louder than Heriot, like a chorister, though not in so prolonged a +note, on hearing to my stupefaction Mr. Rippenger implore that the heart of +'him we know as Richmond Roy' might be turned. I did it spontaneously. Mr. +Rippenger gazed at me in descending from his desk; Julia, too, looking grieved. +For my part, I exulted in having done a thing that gave me a likeness to +Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'Little Richmond, you're a little hero,' he said, caressing me. 'I saw old +Rippenger whisper to that beast, Boddy. Never mind; they won't hurt you as long +as I'm here. Grow tough, that's what you've got to do. I'd like to see you +horsed, only to see whether you're game to take it without wincing—if it +didn't hurt you much, little lad.' +</p> + +<p> +He hugged me up to him. +</p> + +<p> +'I'd take anything for you, Heriot,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'All right,' he answered, never meaning me to suffer on his account. He had an +inimitable manner of sweet speaking that endeared him to younger boys capable +of appreciating it, with the supernatural power of music. It endeared him, I +suppose, to young women also. Julia repeated his phrases, as for instance, +'Silly boy, silly boy,' spoken with a wave of his hand, when a little fellow +thanked him for a kindness. She was angry at his approval of what she called my +defiance of her father, and insisted that I was the catspaw of one of Heriot's +plots to vex him. 'Tell Heriot you have my command to say you belong to me and +must not be misled,' she said. His answer was that he wanted it in writing. She +requested him to deliver up her previous letters. Thereupon he charged me with +a lengthy epistle, which plunged us into boiling water. Mr. Boddy sat in the +schoolroom while Heriot's pen was at work, on the wet Sunday afternoon. His +keen little eyes were busy in his flat bird's head all the time Heriot +continued writing. He saw no more than that Heriot gave me a book; but as I was +marching away to Julia he called to know where I was going. +</p> + +<p> +'To Miss Rippenger,' I replied. +</p> + +<p> +'What have you there?' +</p> + +<p> +'A book, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Show me the book.' +</p> + +<p> +I stood fast. +</p> + +<p> +'It's a book I have lent him, sir,' said Heriot, rising. 'I shall see if it's a +fit book for a young boy,' said Boddy; and before Heriot could interpose, he +had knocked the book on the floor, and out fell the letter. Both sprang down to +seize it: their heads encountered, but Heriot had the quicker hand; he caught +the letter, and cried 'Off!' to me, as on another occasion. This time, however, +he was not between me and the usher. I was seized by the collar, and shaken +roughly. +</p> + +<p> +'You will now understand that you are on a footing with the rest of the boys, +you Roy,' said Boddy. 'Little scoundrelly spoilt urchins, upsetting the +discipline of the school, won't do here. Heriot, here is your book. I regret,' +he added, sneering, 'that a leaf is torn.' +</p> + +<p> +'I regret, sir, that the poor boy was so savagely handled,' said Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +He was warned to avoid insolence. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, as much Virgil as you like,' Heriot retorted; 'I know him by heart.' +</p> + +<p> +It was past the hour of my customary visit to Julia, and she came to discover +the reason of my delay. Boddy stood up to explain. Heriot went forward, saying, +'I think I'm the one who ought to speak, Miss Rippenger. The fact is, I hear +from little Roy that you are fond of tales of Indian adventure, and I gave him +a book for you to read, if you like it. Mr. Boddy objected, and treated the +youngster rather rigorously. It must have been quite a misunderstanding on his +part. Here is the book it's extremely amusing.' +</p> + +<p> +Julia blushed very red. She accepted the book with a soft murmur, and the +sallow usher had not a word. +</p> + +<p> +'Stay,' said Heriot. 'I took the liberty to write some notes. My father is an +Indian officer, you know, and some of the terms in the book are difficult +without notes. Richie, hand that paper. Here they are, Miss Rippenger, if +you'll be so kind as to place them in the book.' +</p> + +<p> +I was hoping with all my might that she would not deny him. She did, and my +heart sank. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, I can read it without notes,' she said, cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +After that, I listened with indifference to her petition to Boddy that I might +be allowed to accompany her, and was not at all chagrined by his refusal. She +laid down the book, saying that I could bring it to her when I was out of +disgrace. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening we walked in the playground, where Heriot asked me to do a brave +thing, which he would never forget. This was that I should take a sharp run +right past Boddy, who was pacing up and down before the gate leading into +Julia's garden, and force her to receive the letter. I went bounding like a +ball. The usher, suspecting only that I hurried to speak to him, let me see how +indignant he was with my behaviour by striding all the faster as I drew near, +and so he passed the gate, and I rushed in. I had just time to say to Julia, +'Hide it, or I'm in such a scrape.' +</p> + +<p> +The next minute she was addressing my enemy: 'Surely you would not punish him +because he loves me?' and he, though he spoke of insubordination, merited +chastisement, and other usher phrases, seemed to melt, and I had what I believe +was a primary conception of the power of woman. She led him to talk in the +gentlest way possible of how the rain had refreshed her flowers, and of this +and that poor rose. +</p> + +<p> +I could think of nothing but the darling letter, which had flashed out of sight +as a rabbit pops into burrows. Boddy departed with a rose. +</p> + +<p> +'Ah, Richie,' she said, 'I have to pay to have you with me now.' +</p> + +<p> +We walked to the summer-house, where she read Heriot's letter through. 'But he +is a boy! How old is Heriot? He is not so old as I am!' +</p> + +<p> +These were her words, and she read the letter anew, and read it again after she +had placed it in her bosom, I meanwhile pouring out praises of Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'You speak of him as if you were in love with him, Richmond,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +'And I do love him,' I answered. +</p> + +<p> +'Not with me?' she asked. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I do love you too, if you will not make him angry.' +</p> + +<p> +'But do you know what it is he wants of me?' +</p> + +<p> +I guessed: 'Yes; he wants you to let him sit close to you for half an hour.' +</p> + +<p> +She said that he sat very near her in church. +</p> + +<p> +'Ah,' said I, 'but he mustn't interrupt the sermon.' +</p> + +<p> +She laughed, and mouthed me over with laughing kisses. 'There's very little he +hasn't daring enough for!' +</p> + +<p> +We talked of his courage. +</p> + +<p> +'Is he good as well?' said Julia, more to herself than to me; but I sang out, +</p> + +<p> +'Good! Oh, so kind!' +</p> + +<p> +This appeared to convince her. +</p> + +<p> +'Very generous to you and every one, is he not?' she said; and from that moment +was all questions concerning his kind treatment of the boys, and as to their +looking up to him. +</p> + +<p> +I quitted her, taking her message to Heriot: 'You may tell him—tell him +that I can't write.' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot frowned on hearing me repeat it. +</p> + +<p> +'Humph!' he went, and was bright in a twinkling: 'that means she'll come!' He +smacked his hands together, grew black, and asked, 'Did she give that beast +Boddy a rose?' +</p> + +<p> +I had to confess she did; and feeling a twinge of my treason to her, felt hers +to Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'Humph!' he went; 'she shall suffer for that.' +</p> + +<p> +All this was like music going on until the curtain should lift and reveal my +father to me. +</p> + +<p> +There was soon a secret to be read in Heriot's face for one who loved it as I +did. Julia's betrayed nothing. I was not taken into their confidence, and +luckily not; otherwise I fear I should have served them ill, I was so poor a +dissembler and was so hotly plied with interrogations by the suspicious usher. +I felt sure that Heriot and Julia met. His eyes were on her all through +prayer-time, and hers wandered over the boys' heads till they rested on him, +when they gave a short flutter and dropped, like a bird shot dead. The boys +must have had some knowledge that love was busy in their midst, for they spoke +of Heriot and Julia as a jolly couple, and of Boddy as one meaning to play the +part of old Nick the first opportunity. She was kinder to them than ever. It +was not a new thing that she should send in cakes of her own making, but it was +extraordinary that we should get these thoughtful presents as often as once a +fortnight, and it became usual to hear a boy exclaim, either among a knot of +fellows or to himself, 'By jingo, she is a pretty girl!' on her passing out of +the room, and sometimes entirely of his own idea. I am persuaded that if she +had consented to marry Boddy, the boys would have been seriously disposed to +conspire to jump up in the church and forbid the banns. We should have +preferred to hand her to the junior usher, Catman, of whom the rumour ran in +the school that he once drank a bottle of wine and was sick after it, and he +was therefore a weak creature to our minds; the truth of the rumour being +confirmed by his pale complexion. That we would have handed our blooming +princess to him was full proof of our abhorrence of Boddy. I might have thought +with the other boys that she was growing prettier, only I never could imagine +her so delicious as when she smiled at my father. +</p> + +<p> +The consequence of the enlistment of the whole school in Heriot's interests was +that at cricket-matches, picnics on the hills, and boating on the canal, Mr. +Boddy was begirt with spies, and little Temple reported to Heriot a +conversation that he, lying hidden in tall grass, had heard between Boddy and +Julia. Boddy asked her to take private lessons in French from him. Heriot +listened to the monstrous tale as he was on the point of entering Julia's boat, +where Boddy sat beside her, and Heriot rowed stroke-oar. He dipped his blade, +and said, loud enough to be heard by me in Catman's boat, +</p> + +<p> +'Do you think French useful in a military education, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +And Boddy said, 'Yes, of course it is.' +</p> + +<p> +Says Heriot, 'Then I think I shall take lessons.' +</p> + +<p> +Boddy told him he was taking lessons in the school. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' says Heriot, 'I mean private lessons'; and here he repeated one of +Temple's pieces of communication: 'so much more can be imparted in a private +lesson!' +</p> + +<p> +Boddy sprang half up from his seat. 'Row, sir, and don't talk,' he growled. +</p> + +<p> +'Sit, sir, and don't dance in the boat, if you please, or the lady will be +overset,' said Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +Julia requested to be allowed to land and walk home. Boddy caught the rudder +lines and leapt on the bank to hand her out; then all the boys in her boat and +in Catman's shouted, 'Miss Julia! dear Miss Julia, don't leave us!' and we +heard wheedling voices: 'Don't go off with him alone!' Julia bade us behave +well or she would not be able to come out with us. At her entreaty Boddy +stepped back to his post, and the two boats went forward like swans that have +done ruffling their feathers. +</p> + +<p> +The boys were exceedingly disappointed that no catastrophe followed the events +of the day. Heriot, they thought, might have upset the boat, saved Julia, and +drowned Boddy, and given us a feast of pleasurable excitement: instead of which +Boddy lived to harass us with his tyrannical impositions and spiteful slaps, +and it was to him, not to our Heriot, that Julia was most gracious. Some of us +discussed her conduct. +</p> + +<p> +'She's a coquette,' said little Temple. I went off to the French dictionary. +</p> + +<p> +'Is Julia Rippenger a coquette, Heriot?' I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +'Keep girls out of your heads, you little fellows,' said he, dealing me a smart +thump. +</p> + +<p> +'Is a coquette a nasty girl?' I persisted. +</p> + +<p> +'No, a nice one, as it happens,' was his answer. +</p> + +<p> +My only feeling was jealousy of the superior knowledge of the sex possessed by +Temple, for I could not fathom the meaning of coquette; but he had sisters. +Temple and I walked the grounds together, mutually declaring how much we would +forfeit for Heriot's sake. By this time my Sunday visits to Julia had been +interdicted: I was plunged, as it were, in the pit of the school, and my dreams +of my father were losing distinctness. A series of boxes on the ears from Boddy +began to astound and transform me. Mr. Rippenger, too, threatened me with +carvings, though my offences were slight. 'Yes,' said Temple and I, in chorus, +'but you daren't strike Heriot!' This was our consolation, and the sentiment of +the school. Fancy, then, our amazement to behold him laying the cane on +Heriot's shoulders as fiercely as he could, and Boddy seconding him. The scene +was terrible. We were all at our desks doing evening tasks for the morrow, a +great matchday at cricket, Boddy watching over us, and bellowing, 'Silence at +your work, you lazy fellows, if you want lessons to be finished at ten in the +morning!' A noise came growing up to us from below, up the stairs from the +wet-weather shed, and Heriot burst into the room, old Rippenger after him, +panting. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Boddy, you were right,' he cried, 'I find him a prowler, breaking all +rules of discipline. A perverted, impudent rascal! An example shall be set to +my school, sir. We have been falling lax. What! I find the puppy in my garden +whistling—he confesses—for one of my servants—here, Mr. +Boddy, if you please. My school shall see that none insult me with impunity!' +He laid on Heriot like a wind on a bulrush. Heriot bent his shoulders a trifle, +not his head. +</p> + +<p> +'Hit away, sir,' he said, during the storm of blows, and I, through my tears, +imagined him (or I do now) a young eagle forced to bear the thunder, but with +his face to it. Then we saw Boddy lay hands on him, and in a twinkling down +pitched the usher, and the boys cheered—chirped, I should say, they +exulted so, and merely sang out like birds, without any wilfulness of delight +or defiance. After the fall of Boddy we had no sense of our hero suffering +shame. Temple and I clutched fingers tight as long as the blows went on. We +hoped for Boddy to make another attempt to touch Heriot; he held near the +master, looking ready to spring, like a sallow panther; we kept hoping he +would, in our horror of the murderous slashes of the cane; and not a syllable +did Heriot utter. Temple and I started up, unaware of what we were going to do, +or of anything until we had got a blow a-piece, and were in the thick of it, +and Boddy had us both by the collars, and was knocking our heads together, as +he dragged us back to our seats. But the boys told us we stopped the execution. +Mr. Rippenger addressed us before he left the school-room. Saddlebank, Salter, +and a good many others, plugged their ears with their fists. That night Boddy +and Catman paced in the bedchambers, to prevent plotting and conspiracy, they +said. I longed to get my arms about Heriot, and thought of him, and dreamed of +blood, and woke in the morning wondering what made me cry, and my arms and back +very stiff. Heriot was gay as ever, but had fits of reserve; the word passed +round that we were not to talk of yesterday evening. We feared he would refuse +to play in the match. +</p> + +<p> +'Why not?' said he, staring at us angrily. 'Has Saddlebank broken his arm, and +can't bowl?' +</p> + +<p> +No, Saddlebank was in excellent trim, though shamefaced, as was Salter, and +most of the big boys were. They begged Heriot to let them shake his hand. +</p> + +<p> +'Wait till we win our match,' said Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +Julia did not appear at morning prayers. +</p> + +<p> +'Ah,' said Temple, 'it'd make her sick to hear old Massacre praying.' It had +nearly made him sick, he added, and I immediately felt that it had nearly made +me sick. +</p> + +<p> +We supposed we should not see Julia at the match. She came, however, and talked +to everybody. I could not contain myself, I wanted so to tell her what had +befallen Heriot overnight, while he was batting, and the whole ground cheering +his hits. I on one side of her whispered: +</p> + +<p> +'I say, Julia, my dear, I say, do you know...' +</p> + +<p> +And Temple on the other: 'Miss Julia, I wish you'd let me tell you—' +</p> + +<p> +We longed to arouse her pity for Heriot at the moment she was admiring him, but +she checked us, and as she was surrounded by ladies and gentlemen of the town, +and particular friends of hers, we could not speak out. Heriot brought his bat +to the booth for eighty-nine runs. His sleeve happened to be unbuttoned, and +there, on his arm, was a mark of the cane. +</p> + +<p> +'Look!' I said to Julia. But she looked at me. +</p> + +<p> +'Richie, are you ill?' +</p> + +<p> +She assured me I was very pale, and I felt her trembling excessively, and her +parasol was covering us. +</p> + +<p> +'Here, Roy, Temple,' we heard Heriot call; 'here, come here and bowl to me.' +</p> + +<p> +I went and bowled till I thought my head was flying after the ball and getting +knocks, it swam and throbbed so horribly. +</p> + +<p> +Temple related that I fell, and was carried all the way from the cricket-field +home by Heriot, who would not give me up to the usher. I was in Julia's charge +three days. Every time I spoke of her father and Heriot, she cried, 'Oh, hush!' +and had tears on her eyelids. When I was quite strong again, I made her hear me +out. She held me and rocked over me like a green tree in the wind and rain. +</p> + +<p> +'Was any name mentioned?' she asked, with her mouth working, and to my 'No,' +said 'No, she knew there was none,' and seemed to drink and choke, and was one +minute calm, all but a trembling hanging underlip, next smiling on me, and next +having her face carved in grimaces by the jerking little tugs of her mouth, +which I disliked to see, for she would say nothing of what she thought of +Heriot, and I thought to myself, though I forbore to speak unkindly, 'It's no +use your making yourself look ugly, Julia.' If she had talked of Heriot, I +should have thought that crying persons' kisses were agreeable. +</p> + +<p> +On my return into the school, I found it in a convulsion of excitement, owing +to Heriot's sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with pistols. Mr. +Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the unChristian spirit and +hideous moral perversity of one who would even consent to fight a duel. How +much more reprehensible, then, was one that could bring himself to defy a +fellow-creature to mortal combat! We were not of his opinion; and as these +questions are carried by majorities, we decided that Boddy was a coward, and +approved the idea that Heriot would have to shoot or scourge him when the +holidays came. Mr. Rippenger concluded his observations by remarking that the +sharpest punishment he could inflict upon Heriot was to leave him to his own +conscience; which he did for three days, and then asked him if he was in a fit +state of mind to beg Mr. Boddy's pardon publicly. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,' said +Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +A murmur of exultation passed through the school. Mr. Rippenger seized little +Temple, and flogged him. Far from dreading the rod, now that Heriot and Temple +had tasted it, I thought of punishment as a mad pleasure, not a bit more awful +than the burning furze-bush plunged into by our fellows in a follow-my-leader +scamper on the common; so I caught Temple's hand as he went by me, and said, +eagerly, 'Shall I sing out hurrah?' +</p> + +<p> +'Bother it!' was Temple's answer, for he had taken a stinging dozen, and had a +tender skin. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Rippenger called me up to him, to inform me, that whoever I was, and +whatever I was, and I might be a little impostor foisted on his benevolence, +yet he would bring me to a knowledge of myself: he gave me warning of it; and +if my father objected to his method, my father must write word to that effect, +and attend punctually to business duties, for Surrey House was not an +almshouse, either for the sons of gentlemen of high connection, or for the sons +of vagabonds. Mr. Rippenger added a spurning shove on my shoulder to his +recommendation to me to resume my seat. I did not understand him at all. I was, +in fact, indebted to a boy named Drew, a known sneak, for the explanation, in +itself difficult to comprehend. It was, that Mr. Rippenger was losing patience +because he had received no money on account of my boarding and schooling. The +intelligence filled my head like the buzz of a fly, occupying my meditations +without leading them anywhere. I spoke on the subject to Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, the sordid old brute!' said he of Mr. Rippenger. 'How can he know the +habits and feelings of gentlemen? Your father's travelling, and can't write, of +course. My father's in India, and I get a letter from him about once a year. We +know one another, and I know he's one of the best officers in the British army. +It's just the way with schoolmasters and tradesmen: they don't care whether a +man is doing his duty to his country; he must attend to them, settle accounts +with them—hang them! I'll send you money, dear little lad, after I've +left.' +</p> + +<p> +He dispersed my brooding fit. I was sure my father was a fountain of gold, and +only happened to be travelling. Besides, Heriot's love for Julia, whom none of +us saw now, was an incessant distraction. She did not appear at prayers. She +sat up in the gallery at church, hardly to be spied. A letter that Heriot flung +over the gardenwall for her was returned to him, open, enclosed by post. +</p> + +<p> +'A letter for Walter Heriot,' exclaimed Mr. Boddy, lifting it high for Heriot +to walk and fetch it; and his small eyes blinked when Heriot said aloud on his +way, cheerfully, +</p> + +<p> +'A letter from the colonel in India!' +</p> + +<p> +Boddy waited a minute, and then said, 'Is your father in good health?' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot's face was scarlet. At first he stuttered, 'My father!—I hope so! +What have you in common with him, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'You stated that the letter was from your father,' said Boddy. +</p> + +<p> +'What if it is, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, in that case, nothing whatever to me.' +</p> + +<p> +They talked on, and the youngest of us could perceive Boddy was bursting with +devilish glee. Heriot got a letter posted to Julia. It was laid on his desk, +with her name scratched completely out, and his put in its place. He grew pale +and sad, but did his work, playing his games, and only letting his friends +speak to him of lessons and play. His counsel to me was, that in spite of +everything, I was always to stick to my tasks and my cricket. His sadness he +could not conceal. He looked like an old lamp with a poor light in it. Not a +boy in the school missed seeing how Boddy's flat head perpetually had a +side-eye on him. +</p> + +<p> +All this came to an end. John Salter's father lived on the other side of the +downs, and invited three of us to spend a day at his house. The selection +included Heriot, Saddlebank, and me. Mr. Rippenger, not liking to refuse Mr. +Salter, consented to our going, but pretended that I was too young. Salter said +his mother and sisters very much wished to make my acquaintance. We went in his +father's carriage. A jolly wind blew clouds and dust and leaves: I could have +fancied I was going to my own father. The sensation of freedom had a magical +effect on me, so that I was the wildest talker of them all. Even in the middle +of the family I led the conversation; and I did not leave Salter's house +without receiving an assurance from his elder sisters that they were in love +with me. We drove home—back to prison, we called it—full of good +things, talking of Salter's father's cellar of wine and of my majority +Burgundy, which I said, believing it was true, amounted to twelve hundred +dozen; and an appointment was made for us to meet at Dipwell Farm, to assist in +consuming it, in my honour and my father's. That matter settled, I felt myself +rolling over and over at a great rate, and clasping a juniper tree. The horses +had trenched from the chalk road on to the downs. I had been shot out. Heriot +and Salter had jumped out—Heriot to look after me; but Saddlebank and the +coachman were driving at a great rate over the dark slope. Salter felt some +anxiety concerning his father's horses, so we left him to pursue them, and +walked on laughing, Heriot praising me for my pluck. +</p> + +<p> +'I say good-bye to you to-night, Richie,' said he. 'We're certain to meet +again. I shall go to a military school. Mind you enter a cavalry regiment when +you're man enough. Look in the Army List, you'll find me there. My aunt shall +make a journey and call on you while you're at Rippenger's, so you shan't be +quite lonely.' +</p> + +<p> +To my grief, I discovered that Heriot had resolved he would not return to +school. +</p> + +<p> +'You'll get thrashed,' he said; 'I can't help it: I hope you've grown tough by +this time. I can't stay here. I feel more like a dog than a man in that house +now. I'll see you back safe. No crying, young cornet!' +</p> + +<p> +We had lost the sound of the carriage. Heriot fell to musing. He remarked that +the accident took away from Mr. Salter the responsibility of delivering him at +Surrey House, but that he, Heriot, was bound, for Mr. Salter's sake, to conduct +me to the doors; an unintelligible refinement of reasoning, to my wits. We +reached our town between two and three in the morning. There was a ladder +leaning against one of the houses in repair near the school. 'You are here, are +you!' said Heriot, speaking to the ladder: 'you's do me a service—the +last I shall want in the neighbourhood.' He managed to poise the ladder on his +shoulder, and moved forward. +</p> + +<p> +'Are we going in through the window?' I asked, seeing him fix the ladder +against the school-house wall. +</p> + +<p> +He said, 'Hush; keep a look-out.' +</p> + +<p> +I saw him mount high. When he tapped at the window I remembered it was Julia's; +I heard her cry out inside. The window rose slowly. Heriot spoke: +</p> + +<p> +'I have come to say good-bye to you, Julia, dear girl: don't be afraid of me.' +She answered inaudibly to my ears. He begged her to come to him at once, only +once, and hear him and take his hand. She was timid; he had her fingers first, +then her whole arm, and she leaned over him. 'Julia, my sweet, dear girl,' he +said; and she: +</p> + +<p> +'Heriot, Walter, don't go—don't go; you do not care for me if you go. Oh, +don't go.' +</p> + +<p> +'We've come to it,' said Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +She asked why he was not in bed, and moaned on: +</p> + +<p> +'Don't go.' I was speechless with wonder at the night and the scene. They +whispered; I saw their faces close together, and Heriot's arms round her neck. +'Oh, Heriot, my darling, my Walter,' she said, crying, I knew by the sound of +her voice. +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me you love me,' said Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'I do, I do, only don't go,' she answered. +</p> + +<p> +'Will you love me faithfully?' +</p> + +<p> +'I will; I do.' +</p> + +<p> +'Say, “I love you, Walter.”' +</p> + +<p> +'I love you, Walter.' +</p> + +<p> +'For ever.' +</p> + +<p> +'For ever. Oh! what a morning for me. Do you smell my honeysuckle? Oh, don't go +away from me, Walter. Do you love me so?' +</p> + +<p> +'I'd go through a regiment of sabres to get at you.' +</p> + +<p> +'But smell the night air; how sweet! oh, how sweet! No, not kiss me, if you are +going to leave me; not kiss me, if you can be so cruel!' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you dream of me in your bed?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, every night.' +</p> + +<p> +'God bless the bed!' +</p> + +<p> +'Every night I dream of you. Oh! brave Heriot; dear, dear Walter, you did not +betray me; my father struck you, and you let him for my sake. Every night I +pray heaven to make you forgive him: I thought you would hate me. I cried till +I was glad you could not see me. Look at those two little stars; no, they hurt +me, I can't look at them ever again. But no, you are not going; you want to +frighten me. Do smell the flowers. Don't make them poison to me. Oh, what a +morning for me when you're lost! And me, to look out on the night alone! No, no +more kisses! Oh, yes, I will kiss you, dear.' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot said, 'Your mother was Irish, Julia.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes. She would have loved you.' +</p> + +<p> +'I've Irish blood too. Give me her portrait. It's the image of you.' +</p> + +<p> +'To take away? Walter! not to take it away?' +</p> + +<p> +'You darling! to keep me sure of you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Part with my mother's portrait?' +</p> + +<p> +'Why, yes, if you love me one bit.' +</p> + +<p> +'But you are younger than me, Heriot.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then good-night, good-bye, Julia.' +</p> + +<p> +'Walter, I will fetch it.' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot now told her I was below, and she looked down on me and called my name +softly, sending kisses from her fingers while he gave the cause for our late +return. +</p> + +<p> +'Some one must be sitting up for you—are we safe?' she said. +</p> + +<p> +Heriot laughed, and pressed for the portrait. +</p> + +<p> +'It is all I have. Why should you not have it? I want to be remembered.' +</p> + +<p> +She sobbed as she said this and disappeared. Heriot still talked into her room. +I thought I heard a noise of the garden-door opening. A man came out rushing at +the ladder. I called in terror: 'Mr. Boddy, stop, sir.' He pushed me savagely +aside, pitching his whole force against the ladder. Heriot pulled down Julia's +window; he fell with a heavy thump on the ground, and I heard a shriek above. +He tried to spring to his feet, but dropped, supported himself on one of his +hands, and cried: +</p> + +<p> +'All right; no harm done; how do you do, Mr. Boddy? I thought I'd try one of +the attics, as we were late, not to disturb the house. I'm not hurt, I tell +you,' he cried as loud as he could. +</p> + +<p> +The usher's words were in a confusion of rage and inquiries. He commanded +Heriot to stand on his legs, abused him, asked him what he meant by it, accused +him of depravity, of crime, of disgraceful conduct, and attempted to pluck him +from the spot. +</p> + +<p> +'Hands off me,' said Heriot; 'I can help myself. The youngster 'll help me, and +we'll go round to the front door. I hope, sir, you will behave like a +gentleman; make no row here, Mr. Boddy, if you've any respect for people +inside. We were upset by Mr. Salter's carriage; it's damaged my leg, I believe. +Have the goodness, sir, to go in by your road, and we'll go round and knock at +the front door in the proper way. We shall have to disturb the house after +all.' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot insisted. I was astonished to see Boddy obey him and leave us, after my +dear Heriot had hopped with his hand on my shoulder to the corner of the house +fronting the road. While we were standing alone a light cart drove by. Heriot +hailed it, and hopped up to the driver. +</p> + +<p> +'Take me to London, there's a good fellow,' he said; 'I'm a gentleman; you +needn't look fixed. I'll pay you well and thank you. But quick. Haul me up, up; +here's my hand. By jingo! this is pain.' +</p> + +<p> +The man said, 'Scamped it out of school, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot replied: 'Mum. Rely on me when I tell you I'm a gentleman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, if I pick up a gentleman, I can't be doing a bad business,' said the +man, hauling him in tenderly. +</p> + +<p> +Heriot sung to me in his sweet manner, 'Good-bye, little Richie. Knock when +five minutes are over. God bless you, dear little lad! Leg 'll get well by +morning, never fear for me; and we'll meet somehow; we'll drink the Burgundy. +No crying. Kiss your hand to me.' +</p> + +<p> +I kissed my hand to him. I had no tears to shed; my chest kept heaving +enormously. My friend was gone. I stood in the road straining to hear the last +of the wheels after they had long been silent. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"></a> +CHAPTER VI.<br/> +A TALE OF A GOOSE</h2> + +<p> +From that hour till the day Heriot's aunt came to see me, I lived +systematically out of myself in extreme flights of imagination, locking my +doors up, as it were, all the faster for the extremest strokes of Mr. +Rippenger's rod. He remarked justly that I grew an impenetrably sullen boy, a +constitutional rebel, a callous lump: and assured me that if my father would +not pay for me, I at least should not escape my debts. The title of little +impostor, transmitted from the master's mouth to the school in designation of +one who had come to him as a young prince, and for whom he had not received one +penny's indemnification, naturally caused me to have fights with several of the +boys. Whereupon I was reported: I was prayed at to move my spirit, and flogged +to exercise my flesh. The prayers I soon learnt to laugh to scorn. The +floggings, after they were over, crowned me with delicious sensations of +martyrdom. Even while the sting lasted I could say, it's for Heriot and Julia! +and it gave me a wonderful penetration into—the mournful ecstasy of love. +Julia was sent away to a relative by the sea-side, because, one of the +housemaids told me, she could not bear to hear of my being beaten. Mr. +Rippenger summoned me to his private room to bid me inform him whether I had +other relatives besides my father, such as grandfather, grandmother, uncles, or +aunts, or a mother. I dare say Julia would have led me to break my word to my +father by speaking of old Riversley, a place I half longed for since my father +had grown so distant and dim to me; but confession to Mr. Rippenger seemed, as +he said of Heriot's behaviour to him, a gross breach of trust to my father; so +I refused steadily to answer, and suffered the consequences now on my dear +father's behalf. Heriot's aunt brought me a cake, and in a letter from him an +extraordinary sum of money for a boy of my age. He wrote that he knew I should +want it to pay my debts for treats to the boys and keep them in good humour. He +believed also that his people meant to have me for the Christmas holidays. The +sum he sent me was five pounds, carefully enclosed. I felt myself a prince +again. The money was like a golden gate through which freedom twinkled a +finger. Forthwith I paid my debts, amounting to two pounds twelve shillings, +and instructed a couple of day-boarders, commercial fellows, whose heavy and +mysterious charges for commissions ran up a bill in no time, to prepare to +bring us materials for a feast on Saturday. Temple abominated the trading +propensities of these boys. 'They never get licked and they've always got +money, at least I know they always get mine,' said he; 'but you and I and +Heriot despise them.' Our position toward them was that of an encumbered +aristocracy, and really they paid us great respect. The fact was that, when +they had trusted us, they were compelled to continue obsequious, for Heriot had +instilled the sentiment in the school, that gentlemen never failed to wipe out +debts in the long run, so it was their interest to make us feel they knew us to +be gentlemen, who were at some time or other sure to pay, and thus also they +operated on our consciences. From which it followed that one title of +superiority among us, ranking next in the order of nobility to the dignity +conferred by Mr. Rippenger's rod, was the being down in their books. Temple and +I walked in the halo of unlimited credit like more than mortal twins. I gave an +order for four bottles of champagne. +</p> + +<p> +On the Friday evening Catman walked out with us. His studious habits endeared +him to us immensely, owing to his having his head in his book on all occasions, +and a walk under his superintendence was first cousin to liberty. Some boys +roamed ahead, some lagged behind, while Catman turned over his pages, sounding +the return only when it grew dark. The rumour of the champagne had already +intoxicated the boys. There was a companion and most auspicious rumour that +Boddy was going to be absent on Saturday. If so, we said, we may drink our +champagne under Catman's nose and he be none the wiser. Saddlebank undertook to +manage our feast for us. Coming home over the downs, just upon twilight, Temple +and I saw Saddlebank carrying a long withy upright. We asked him what it was +for. He shouted back: 'It's for fortune. You keep the rear guard.' Then we saw +him following a man and a flock of geese, and imitating the action of the man +with his green wand. As we were ready to laugh at anything Saddlebank did, we +laughed at this. The man walked like one half asleep, and appeared to wake up +now and then to find that he was right in the middle of his geese, and then he +waited, and Saddlebank waited behind him. Presently the geese passed a lane +leading off the downs. We saw Saddlebank duck his wand in a coaxing way, like +an angler dropping his fly for fish; he made all sorts of curious easy +flourishes against the sky and branched up the lane. We struck after him, +little suspecting that he had a goose in front, but he had; he had cut one of +the loiterers off from the flock; and to see him handle his wand on either side +his goose, encouraging it to go forward, and remonstrating, and addressing it +in bits of Latin, and the creature pattering stiff and astonished, sent us in a +dance of laughter. +</p> + +<p> +'What have you done, old Saddle?' said Temple, though it was perfectly clear +what Saddlebank had done. +</p> + +<p> +'I've carved off a slice of Michaelmas,' said Saddlebank, and he hewed the air +to flick delicately at his goose's head. +</p> + +<p> +'What do you mean—a slice?' said we. +</p> + +<p> +We wanted to be certain the goose was captured booty. Saddlebank would talk +nothing but his fun. Temple fetched a roaring sigh: +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! how good this goose 'd be with our champagne.' +</p> + +<p> +The idea seized and enraptured me. 'Saddlebank, I'll buy him off you,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Chink won't flavour him,' said Saddlebank, still at his business: 'here, you +two, cut back by the down and try all your might to get a dozen apples before +Catman counts heads at the door, and you hold your tongues.' +</p> + +<p> +We shot past the man with the geese—I pitied him—clipped a corner +of the down, and by dint of hard running reached the main street, mad for +apples, before Catman appeared there. Apples, champagne, and cakes were now +provided; all that was left to think of was the goose. We glorified +Saddlebank's cleverness to the boys. +</p> + +<p> +'By jingo! what a treat you'll have,' Temple said among them, bursting with our +secret. +</p> + +<p> +Saddlebank pleaded that he had missed his way on presenting himself ten minutes +after time. To me and Temple he breathed of goose, but he shunned us; he had no +fun in him till Saturday afternoon, when Catman called out to hear if we were +for cricket or a walk. +</p> + +<p> +'A walk on the downs,' said Saddlebank. +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I echoed him, and Saddlebank motioned his hand as though he were +wheedling his goose along. Saddlebank spoke a word to my commissioners. I was +to leave the arrangements for the feast to him, he said. John Salter was at +home unwell, so Saddlebank was chief. No sooner did we stand on the downs than +he gathered us all in a circle, and taking off his cap threw in it some slips +of paper. We had to draw lots who should keep by Catman out of twenty-seven; +fifteen blanks were marked. Temple dashed his hand into the cap first 'Like my +luck,' he remarked, and pocketed both fists as he began strutting away to hide +his desperation at drawing a blank. I bought a substitute for him at the price +of half-a-crown,—Drew, a fellow we were glad to get rid of; he wanted +five shillings. The feast was worth fifty, but to haggle about prices showed +the sneak. He begged us to put by a taste for him; he was groaned out of +hearing. The fifteen looked so wretched when they saw themselves divided from +us that I gave them a shilling a-piece to console them. They took their +instructions from Saddlebank as to how they were to surround Catman, and make +him fancy us to be all in his neighbourhood; and then we shook hands, they +requesting us feebly to drink their healths, and we saying, ay, that we would. +</p> + +<p> +Temple was in distress of spirits because of his having been ignominiously +bought off. Saddlebank, however, put on such a pace that no one had leisure for +melancholy. 'I'll get you fellows up to boiling point,' said he. There was a +tremendously hot sun overhead. On a sudden he halted, exclaiming: 'Cooks and +gridirons! what about sage and onions?' Only Temple and I jumped at the meaning +of this. We drew lots for a messenger, and it was miserable to behold an +unfortunate fellow touch Saddlebank's hand containing the notched bit of stick, +and find himself condemned to go and buy sage and onions somewhere, without +knowing what it was for how could he guess we were going to cook a raw goose! +The lot fell to a boy named Barnshed, a big slow boy, half way up every class +he was in, but utterly stupid out of school; which made Saddlebank say: +'They'll take it he's the bird that wants stuffing.' Barnshed was directed +where to rejoin us. The others asked why he was trotted after sage and onions. +'Because he's an awful goose,' said Saddlebank. +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I thought the word was out and hurrahed, and back came Barnshed. We +had a task in persuading him to resume his expedition, as well as Saddlebank to +forgive us. Saddlebank's anger was excessive. We conciliated him by calling him +captain, and pretending to swear an oath of allegiance. He now led us through a +wood on to some fields down to a shady dell, where we were to hold the feast in +privacy. He did not descend it himself. Vexatious as it was to see a tramp's +tent there, we nevertheless acknowledged the respectful greeting of the women +and the man with a few questions about tentpegs, pots, and tin mugs. Saddlebank +remained aloft, keeping a look-out for the day-school fellows, Chaunter, Davis, +and Bystop, my commissioners. They did not keep us waiting long. They had +driven to the spot in a cart, according to Saddlebank's directions. Our +provisions were in three large hampers. We praised their forethought loudly at +the sight of an extra bottle of champagne, with two bottles of ginger-wine, two +of currant, two of raisin, four pint bottles of ale, six of ginger-beer, a +Dutch cheese, a heap of tarts, three sally-lunns, and four shillingsworth of +toffy. Temple and I joined our apples to the mass: a sight at which some of the +boys exulted aloud. The tramp-women insisted on spreading things out for us: +ten yards off their children squatted staring: the man smoked and chaffed us. +</p> + +<p> +At last Saddlebank came running over the hill-side, making as if he meant to +bowl down what looked a black body of a baby against the sky, and shouting, +'See, you fellows, here's a find!' He ran through us, swinging his goose up to +the hampers, saying that he had found the goose under a furze-bush. While the +words were coming out of his mouth, he saw the tramps, and the male tramp's +eyes and his met. +</p> + +<p> +The man had one eyebrow and his lips at one corner screwed in a queer lift: he +winked slowly. 'Odd! ain't it?' he said. +</p> + +<p> +Saddlebank shouldered round on us, and cried, 'Confound you fellows! here's a +beastly place you've pitched upon.' His face was the colour of scarlet in +patches. +</p> + +<p> +'Now, I call it a beautiful place,' said the man, 'and if you finds gooses +hereabouts growing ready for the fire, all but plucking, why, it's a bountiful +place, I call it.' +</p> + +<p> +The women tried to keep him silent. But for them we should have moved our +encampment. 'Why, of course, young gentlemen, if you want to eat the goose, +we'll pluck it for you and cook it for you, all nice,' they said. 'How can +young gentlemen do that for theirselves?' +</p> + +<p> +It was clear to us we must have a fire for the goose. Certain observations +current among us about the necessity to remove the goose's inside, and not to +lose the giblets, which even the boy who named them confessed his inability to +recognize, inclined the majority to accept the woman's proposal. Saddlebank +said it was on our heads, then. +</p> + +<p> +To revive his good humour, Temple uncorked a bottle of champagne. The +tramp-woman lent us a tin mug, and round it went. One boy said, 'That's a +commencement'; another said, 'Hang old Rippenger.' Temple snapped his fingers, +and Bystop, a farmer's son, said, 'Well, now I've drunk champagne; I meant to +before I died!' Most of the boys seemed puzzled by it. As for me, my heart +sprang up in me like a colt turned out of stables to graze. I determined that +the humblest of my retainers should feed from my table, and drink to my +father's and Heriot's honour, and I poured out champagne for the women, who +just sipped, and the man, who vowed he preferred beer. A spoonful of the mashed +tarts I sent to each of the children. Only one, the eldest, a girl about a year +older than me, or younger, with black eyebrows and rough black hair, refused to +eat or drink. +</p> + +<p> +'Let her bide, young gentlemen,' said a woman; 'she's a regular obstinate, once +she sets in for it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah!' said the man, 'I've seen pigs druv, and I've seen iron bent double. She's +harder 'n both, once she takes 't into her head.' +</p> + +<p> +'By jingo, she's pig-iron!' cried Temple, and sighed, 'Oh, dear old Heriot!' +</p> + +<p> +I flung myself beside him to talk of our lost friend. +</p> + +<p> +A great commotion stirred the boys. They shrieked at beholding their goose +vanish in a pot for stewing. They wanted roast-goose, they exclaimed, not +boiled; who cared for boiled goose! But the woman asked them how it was +possible to roast a goose on the top of wood-flames, where there was nothing to +hang it by, and nothing would come of it except smoked bones! +</p> + +<p> +The boys groaned in consternation, and Saddlebank sowed discontent by +grumbling, 'Now you see what your jolly new acquaintances have done for you.' +</p> + +<p> +So we played at catch with the Dutch cheese, and afterwards bowled it for +long-stopping, when, to the disgust of Saddlebank and others, down ran the +black-haired girl and caught the ball clean at wicket-distance. As soon as she +had done it she was ashamed, and slunk away. +</p> + +<p> +The boys called out, 'Now, then, pig-iron!' +</p> + +<p> +One fellow enraged me by throwing an apple that hit her in the back. We +exchanged half-a-dozen blows, whereupon he consented to apologize, and roared, +'Hulloa, pig-iron, sorry if I hurt you.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple urged me to insist on the rascal's going on his knees for flinging at a +girl. +</p> + +<p> +'Why,' said Chaunter, 'you were the first to call her pig-iron.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple declared he was a blackguard if he said that. I made the girl take a +piece of toffy. +</p> + +<p> +'Aha!' Saddlebank grumbled, 'this comes of the precious company you would keep +in spite of my caution.' +</p> + +<p> +The man told us to go it, for he liked to observe young gentlemen enjoying +themselves. Temple tossed him a pint bottle of beer, with an injunction to him +to shut his trap. +</p> + +<p> +'Now, you talk my mother tongue,' said the man; 'you're what goes by the name +of a learned gentleman. Thank ye, sir. You'll be a counsellor some day.' +</p> + +<p> +'I won't get off thieves, I can tell you,' said Temple. He was the son of a +barrister. +</p> + +<p> +'Nor you won't help cook their gooses for them, may be,' said the man. 'Well, +kindness is kindness, all over the world.' +</p> + +<p> +The women stormed at him to command him not to anger the young gentlemen, for +Saddlebank was swearing awfully in an undertone. He answered them that he was +the mildest lamb afloat. +</p> + +<p> +Despairing of the goose, we resolved to finish the cold repast awaiting us. The +Dutch cheese had been bowled into bits. With a portion of the mashed tarts on +it, and champagne, it tasted excellently; toffy to follow. Those boys who chose +ginger-wine had it, and drank, despised. The ginger-beer and ale, apples and +sallylunns, were reserved for supper. My mind became like a driving sky, with +glimpses of my father and Heriot bursting through. +</p> + +<p> +'If I'm not a prince, I'm a nobleman,' I said to Temple. +</p> + +<p> +He replied, 'Army or Navy. I don't much care which. We're sure of a foreign war +some time. Then you'll see fellows rise: lieutenant, captain, colonel, +General—quick as barrels popping at a bird. I should like to be Governor +of Gibraltar.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'll come and see you, Temple,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Done! old Richie,' he said, grasping my hand warmly. +</p> + +<p> +'The truth is, Temple,' I confided to him, 'I've an uncle—I mean a +grandfather—of enormous property; he owns half Hampshire, I believe, and +hates my father like poison. I won't stand it. You've seen my father, haven't +you? Gentlemen never forget their servants, Temple. Let's drink lots more +champagne. I wish you and I were knights riding across that country there, as +they used to, and you saying, “I wonder whether your father's at home in +the castle expecting our arrival.”' +</p> + +<p> +'The Baron!' said Temple. 'He's like a Baron, too. His health. Your health, +sir! It's just the wine to drink it in, Richie. He's one of the men I look up +to. It's odd he never comes to see you, because he's fond of you; the right +sort of father! Big men can't be always looking after little boys. Not that +we're so young, though, now. Lots of fellows of our age have done things +fellows write about. I feel—' Temple sat up swelling his chest to deliver +an important sentiment; 'I feel uncommonly thirsty.' +</p> + +<p> +So did I. We attributed it to the air of the place, Temple going so far as to +say that it came off the chalk, which somehow stuck in the throat. +</p> + +<p> +'Saddleback, don't look glum,' said Temple. 'Lord, Richie, you should hear my +father plead in Court with his wig on. They used to say at home I was a clever +boy when I was a baby. Saddleback, you've looked glum all the afternoon.' +</p> + +<p> +'Treat your superiors respectfully,' Saddlebank retorted. +</p> + +<p> +The tramp was irritating him. That tramp had never left off smoking and leaning +on his arm since we first saw him. Two boys named Hackman and Montague, not bad +fellows, grew desirous of a whiff from his pipe. They had it, and lay down +silent, back to back. Bystop was led away in a wretched plight. Two others, +Paynter and Ashworth, attacked the apples, rendered desperate by thirst. +Saddlebank repelled them furiously. He harangued those who might care to +listen. +</p> + +<p> +'You fellows, by George! you shall eat the goose, I tell you. You've spoilt +everything, and I tell you, whether you like it or not, you shall have apples +with it, and sage and onions too. I don't ask for thanks. And I propose to post +outposts in the wood to keep watch.' +</p> + +<p> +He wanted us to draw lots again. His fun had entirely departed from him; all he +thought of was seeing the goose out of the pot. I had a feeling next to hatred +for one who could talk of goose. Temple must have shared it. +</p> + +<p> +'We've no real captain now dear old Heriot's gone,' he said. 'The school's +topsy-turvy: we're like a lot of things rattled in a box. Oh, dear! how I do +like a good commander. On he goes, you after him, never mind what happens.' +</p> + +<p> +A pair of inseparable friends, Happitt and Larkins, nicknamed Happy-go-Lucky, +were rolling arm-in-arm, declaring they were perfectly sober, and, for a proof +of it, trying to direct their feet upon a lump of chalk, and marching, and +missing it. Up came Chaunter to them: 'Fat goose?' he said—no more. Both +the boys rushed straight as far as they could go; both sung out, 'I'm done!' +and they were. +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I contemplated these proceedings as matters belonging to the +ordinary phenomena of feasting. We agreed that gentlemen were always the last +to drop, and were assured, therefore, of our living out the field; but I +dreaded the moment of the goose's appearance, and I think he did also. +Saddlebank's pertinacity in withholding the cool ginger-beer and the apples +offended us deeply; we should have conspired against him had we reposed +confidence in our legs and our tongues. +</p> + +<p> +Twilight was around us. The tramp-children lay in little bundles in one tent; +another was being built by the women and the girl. Overhead I counted numbers +of stars, all small; and lights in the valley—lights of palaces to my +imagination. Stars and tramps seemed to me to go together. Houses imprisoned +us, I thought a lost father was never to be discovered by remaining in them. +Plunged among dark green leaves, smelling wood-smoke, at night; at morning +waking up, and the world alight, and you standing high, and marking the hills +where you will see the next morning and the next, morning after morning, and +one morning the dearest person in the world surprising you just before you +wake: I thought this a heavenly pleasure. But, observing the narrowness of the +tents, it struck me there would be snoring companions. I felt so intensely +sensitive, that the very idea of a snore gave me tremours and qualms: it was +associated with the sense of fat. Saddlebank had the lid of the pot in his +hand; we smelt the goose, and he cried, 'Now for supper; now for it! Halloa, +you fellows!' +</p> + +<p> +'Bother it, Saddlebank, you'll make Catman hear you,' said Temple, wiping his +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +I perspired coldly. +</p> + +<p> +'Catman! He's been at it for the last hour and a half,' Saddlebank replied. +</p> + +<p> +One boy ran up: he was ready, and the only one who was. Presently Chaunter +rushed by. +</p> + +<p> +'Barnshed's in custody; I'm away home,' he said, passing. +</p> + +<p> +We stared at the black opening of the dell. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, it's Catman; we don't mind him,' Saddlebank reassured us; but we heard +ominous voices, and perceived people standing over a prostrate figure. Then we +heard a voice too well known to us. It said, 'The explanation of a pupil in +your charge, Mr. Catman, being sent barefaced into the town—a scholar of +mine—for sage and onions...' +</p> + +<p> +'Old Rippenger!' breathed Temple. +</p> + +<p> +We sat paralyzed. Now we understood the folly of despatching a donkey like +Barnshed for sage and onions. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, what asses we have been!' Temple continued. 'Come along—we run for +it! Come along, Richie! They're picking up the fellows like windfalls.' +</p> + +<p> +I told him I would not run for it; in fact, I distrusted my legs; and he was +staggering, answering Saddlebank's reproaches for having come among tramps. +</p> + +<p> +'Temple, I see you, sir!' called Mr. Rippenger. Poor Temple had advanced into +the firelight. +</p> + +<p> +With the instinct to defeat the master, I crawled in the line of the shadows to +the farther side of a tent, where I felt a hand clutch mine. 'Hide me,' said I; +and the curtain of the tent was raised. After squeezing through boxes and +straw, I lay flat, covered by a mat smelling of abominable cheese, and felt a +head outside it on my chest. Several times Mr. Rippenger pronounced my name in +the way habitual to him in anger: 'Rye!' +</p> + +<p> +Temple's answer was inaudible to me. Saddlebank spoke, and other boys, and the +man and the woman. Then a light was thrust in the tent, and the man said, 'Me +deceive you, sir! See for yourself, to satisfy yourself. Here's our little uns +laid warm, and a girl there, head on the mat, going down to join her tribe at +Lipcombe, and one of our women sleeps here, and all told. But for you to +suspect me of combining—Thank ye, sir. You've got my word as a man.' +</p> + +<p> +The light went away. My chest was relieved of the weight on it. I sat up, and +the creature who had been kind to me laid mat and straw on the ground, and drew +my head on her shoulder, where I slept fast. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"></a> +CHAPTER VII.<br/> +A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD</h2> + +<p> +I woke very early, though I had taken kindly to my pillow, as I found by my +having an arm round my companion's neck, and her fingers intertwisted with +mine. For awhile I lay looking at her eyes, which had every imaginable light +and signification in them; they advised me to lie quiet, they laughed at my +wonder, they said, 'Dear little fellow!' they flashed as from under a cloud, +darkened, flashed out of it, seemed to dip in water and shine, and were +sometimes like a view into a forest, sometimes intensely sunny, never quite +still. I trusted her, and could have slept again, but the sight of the tent +stupefied me; I fancied the sky had fallen, and gasped for air; my head was +extremely dizzy too; not one idea in it was kept from wheeling. This confusion +of my head flew to my legs when, imitating her, I rose to go forth. In a fit of +horror I thought, 'I've forgotten how to walk!' +</p> + +<p> +Summoning my manful resolution, I made the attempt to step across the children +swaddled in matting and straw and old gowns or petticoats. The necessity for +doing it with a rush seized me after the first step. I pitched over one little +bundle, right on to the figure of a sleeping woman. All she did was to turn +round, murmuring, 'Naughty Jackie.' My companion pulled me along gravely, and +once in the air, with a good breath of it in my chest, I felt tall and strong, +and knew what had occurred. The tent where I had slept struck me as more +curious than my own circumstances. I lifted my face to the sky; it was just +sunrise, beautiful; bits of long and curling cloud brushed any way close on the +blue, and rosy and white, deliciously cool; the grass was all grey, our dell in +shadow, and the tops of the trees burning, a few birds twittering. +</p> + +<p> +I sucked a blade of grass. +</p> + +<p> +'I wish it was all water here,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Come and have a drink and a bathe,' said my companion. +</p> + +<p> +We went down the dell and over a juniper slope, reminding me of my day at John +Salter's house and the last of dear Heriot. Rather to my shame, my companion +beat me at running; she was very swift, and my legs were stiff. +</p> + +<p> +'Can you swim?' she asked me. +</p> + +<p> +'I can row, and swim, and fence, and ride, and fire a pistol,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, dear,' said she, after eyeing me enviously. I could see that I had checked +a recital of her accomplishments. +</p> + +<p> +We arrived at a clear stream in a gentleman's park, where grass rolled smooth +as sea-water on a fine day, and cows and horses were feeding. +</p> + +<p> +'I can catch that horse and mount him,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +I was astonished. +</p> + +<p> +'Straddle?' +</p> + +<p> +She nodded down for 'Yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'No saddle?' +</p> + +<p> +She nodded level for 'No.' +</p> + +<p> +My respect for her returned. But she could not swim. +</p> + +<p> +'Only up to my knees,' she confessed. +</p> + +<p> +'Have a look at me,' said I; and I stripped and shot into the water, happy as a +fish, and thinking how much nicer it was than champagne. My enjoyment made her +so envious that she plucked off her stockings, and came in as far as she dared. +I called to her. 'You're like a cow,' and she showed her teeth, bidding me not +say that. +</p> + +<p> +'A cow! a cow!' I repeated, in my superior pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +She spun out in a breath, 'If you say that, I'll run away with every bit of +your clothes, and you'll come out and run about naked, you will.' +</p> + +<p> +'Now I float,' was my answer, 'now I dive'; and when I came up she welcomed me +with a big bright grin. +</p> + +<p> +A smart run in the heat dried me. I dressed, finding half my money on the +grass. She asked me to give her one of those bits—a shilling. I gave her +two, upon which she asked me, invitingly, if ever I tossed. I replied that I +never tossed for money; but she had caught a shilling, and I could not resist +guessing 'heads,' and won; the same with her second shilling. She handed them +to me sullenly, sobbing, yet she would not take them back. +</p> + +<p> +'By-and-by you give me another two,' she said, growing lively again. We agreed +that it would be a good thing if we entered the village and bought something. +None of the shops were open. We walked through the churchyard. I said, 'Here's +where dead people are buried.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'll dance if you talk about dead people,' said she, and began whooping at the +pitch of her voice. On my wishing to know why she did it, her reply was that it +was to make the dead people hear. My feelings were strange: the shops not open, +and no living people to be seen. We climbed trees, and sat on a branch talking +of birds' eggs till hunger drove us to the village street, where, near the +public-house, we met the man-tramp, who whistled. +</p> + +<p> +He was rather amusing. He remarked that he put no questions to me, because he +put no question to anybody, because answers excited him about subjects that had +no particular interest to him, and did not benefit him to the extent of a pipe +of 'tobacco; and all through not being inquisitive, yesterday afternoon he had +obtained, as if it had been chucked into his lap, a fine-flavoured fat goose +honourably for his supper, besides bottles of ale, bottles of ginger-pop, and a +fair-earned half-crown. That was through his not being inquisitive, and he was +not going to be inquisitive now, knowing me for a gentleman: my master had +tipped him half-a-crown. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately for him, and perhaps for my liberty, he employed a verb +marvellously enlightening to a schoolboy. I tipped him another half-crown. He +thanked me, observing that there were days when you lay on your back and the +sky rained apples; while there were other days when you wore your fingers down +to the first joint to catch a flea. Such was Fortune! +</p> + +<p> +In a friendly manner he advised me to go to school; if not there, then to go +home. My idea, which I had only partly conceived, was to have a look at +Riversley over a hedge, kiss my aunt Dorothy unaware, and fly subsequently in +search of my father. Breakfast, however, was my immediate thought. He and the +girl sat down to breakfast at the inn as my guests. We ate muttonchops and +eggs, and drank coffee. After it, though I had no suspicions, I noticed that +the man grew thoughtful. He proposed to me, supposing I had no objection +against slow travelling, to join company for a couple of days, if I was for +Hampshire, which I stated was the county I meant to visit. +</p> + +<p> +'Well then, here now, come along, d'ye see, look,' said he, 'I mustn't be +pounced on, and no missing young gentleman in my society, and me took +half-a-crown for his absence; that won't do. You get on pretty well with the +gal, and that's a screaming farce: none of us do. Lord! she looks down on such +scum as us. She's gipsy blood, true sort; everything's sausages that gets into +their pockets, no matter what it was when it was out. Well then, now, here, you +and the gal go t' other side o' Bed'lming, and you wait for us on the heath, +and we's be there to comfort ye 'fore dark. Is it a fister?' +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand; I agreed; and he remarked that he now counted a breakfast +in the list of his gains from never asking questions. +</p> + +<p> +I was glad enough to quit the village in a hurry, for the driver of the geese, +or a man dreadfully resembling him, passed me near the public-house, and +attacked my conscience on the cowardly side, which is, I fear, the first to +awaken, and always the liveliest half while we are undisciplined. I would have +paid him money, but the idea of a conversation with him indicated the road back +to school. My companion related her history. She belonged to a Hampshire gipsy +tribe, and had been on a visit to a relative down in the East counties, who +died on the road, leaving her to be brought home by these tramps: she called +them mumpers, and made faces when she spoke of them. Gipsies, she said, were a +different sort: gipsies camped in gentlemen's parks; gipsies, horses, fiddles, +and the wide world—that was what she liked. The wide world she described +as a heath, where you looked and never saw the end of it. I let her talk on. +For me to talk of my affairs to a girl without bonnet and boots would have been +absurd. Otherwise, her society pleased me: she was so like a boy, and unlike +any boy I knew. +</p> + +<p> +My mental occupation on the road was to calculate how many hill-tops I should +climb before I beheld Riversley. The Sunday bells sounded homely from village +to village as soon as I was convinced that I heard no bells summoning boarders +to Rippenger's school. The shops in the villages continued shut; however, I +told the girl they should pay me for it next day, and we had an interesting +topic in discussing as to the various things we would buy. She was for bright +ribands and draper's stuff, I for pastry and letter-paper. The smell of +people's dinners united our appetites. Going through a village I saw a man +carrying a great baked pie, smelling overpoweringly, so that to ask him his +price for it was a natural impulse with me. 'What! sell my Sunday dinner?' he +said, and appeared ready to drop the dish. Nothing stopped his staring until we +had finished a plateful a-piece and some beer in his cottage among his family. +He wanted to take me in alone. 'She's a common tramp,' he said of the girl. +</p> + +<p> +'That's a lie,' she answered. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I would not leave her hungry outside, so in the end he reluctantly +invited us both, and introduced us to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +'Here's a young gentleman asks a bit o' dinner, and a young I-d'n-know-what's +after the same; I leaves it to you, missus.' +</p> + +<p> +His wife took it off his shoulders in good humour, saying it was lucky she made +the pie big enough for her family and strays. They would not accept more than a +shilling for our joint repast. The man said that was the account to a farthing, +if I was too proud to be a poor man's guest, and insisted on treating him like +a public. Perhaps I would shake hands at parting? I did cordially, and +remembered him when people were not so civil. They wanted to know whether we +had made a runaway match of it. The fun of passing a boys'-school and hearing +the usher threaten to punish one fellow for straying from ranks, entertained me +immensely. I laughed at them just as the stupid people we met laughed at me, +which was unpleasant for the time; but I knew there was not a single boy who +would not have changed places with me, only give him the chance, though my +companion was a gipsy girl, and she certainly did look odd company for a +gentleman's son in a tea-garden and public-house parlour. At nightfall, +however, I was glad of her and she of me, and we walked hand in hand. I +narrated tales of Roman history. It was very well for her so say, 'I'll mother +you,' as we lay down to sleep; I discovered that she would never have hooted +over churchyard graves in the night. She confessed she believed the devil went +about in the night. Our bed was a cart under a shed, our bed-clothes +fern-leaves and armfuls of straw. The shafts of the cart were down, so we lay +between upright and level, and awakening in the early light I found our four +legs hanging over the seat in front. 'How you have been kicking!' said I. She +accused me of the same. Next minute she pointed over the side of the cart, and +I saw the tramp's horse and his tents beneath a broad roadside oak-tree. Her +face was comical, just like a boy's who thinks he has escaped and is caught. +'Let's run,' she said. Preferring positive independence, I followed her, and +then she told me that she had overheard the tramp last night swearing I was as +good as a fistful of half-crowns lost to him if he missed me. The image of +Rippenger's school overshadowed me at this communication. With some melancholy +I said: 'You'll join your friends, won't you?' +</p> + +<p> +She snapped her fingers: 'Mumpers!' and walked on carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +We were now on the great heaths. They brought the memory of my father vividly; +the smell of the air half inclined me to turn my steps toward London, I grew so +full of longing for him. Nevertheless I resolved to have one gaze at Riversley, +my aunt Dorothy, and Sewis, the old grey-brown butler, and the lamb that had +grown a sheep; wonderful contrasts to my grand kings of England career. My +first clear recollection of Riversley was here, like an outline of a hill seen +miles away. I might have shed a tear or two out of love for my father, had not +the thought that I was a very queer boy displaced his image. I could not but be +a very queer boy, such a lot of things happened to me. Suppose I joined the +gipsies? My companion wished me to. She had brothers, horse-dealers, beautiful +fiddlers. Suppose I learnt the fiddle? Suppose I learnt their language and went +about with them and became king of the gipsies? My companion shook her head; +she could not encourage this ambitious idea because she had never heard of a +king of the gipsies or a queen either. 'We fool people,' she said, and offended +me, for our school believed in a gipsy king, and one fellow, Hackman, used to +sing a song of a gipsy king; and it was as much as to say that my schoolfellows +were fools, every one of them. I accused her of telling lies. She grinned +angrily. 'I don't tell 'em to friends,' she said. We had a quarrel. The truth +was, I was enraged at the sweeping out of my prospects of rising to distinction +among the gipsies. After breakfast at an inn, where a waiter laughed at us to +our faces, and we fed scowling, shy, and hungry, we had another quarrel. I +informed her of my opinion that gipsies could not tell fortunes. +</p> + +<p> +'They can, and you come to my mother and my aunt, and see if they can't tell +your fortune,' said she, in a fury. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, and that's how they fool people,' said I. I enjoyed seeing the flash of +her teeth. But my daring of her to look me in the eyes and swear on her oath +she believed the fortunes true ones, sent her into a fit of sullenness. +</p> + +<p> +'Go along, you nasty little fellow, your shadow isn't half a yard,' she said, +and I could smile at that; my shadow stretched half across the road. We had a +quarrelsome day wherever we went; rarely walking close together till nightfall, +when she edged up to my hand, with, 'I say, I'll keep you warm to-night, I +will.' She hugged me almost too tight, but it was warm and social, and helped +to the triumph of a feeling I had that nothing made me regret running away from +Rippenger's school. +</p> + +<p> +An adventure befell us in the night. A farmer's wife, whom we asked for a drink +of water after dark, lent us an old blanket to cover us in a dry ditch on +receiving our promise not to rob the orchard. An old beggar came limping by us, +and wanted to share our covering. My companion sank right under the blanket to +peer at him through one of its holes. He stood enormous above me in the +moonlight, like an apparition touching earth and sky. +</p> + +<p> +'Cold, cold,' he whined: 'there's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off. +Young un!' His words dispersed the fancy that he was something horrible, or +else my father in disguise going to throw off his rags, and shine, and say he +had found me. 'Are ye one, or are ye two?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +I replied that we were two. +</p> + +<p> +'Then I'll come and lie in the middle,' said he. +</p> + +<p> +'You can't; there's no room,' I sang out. +</p> + +<p> +'Lord,' said he, 'there's room for any reckoning o' empty stomachs in a ditch.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, I prefer to be alone: good-night,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Why!' he exclaimed, 'where ha' you been t' learn language? Halloa!' +</p> + +<p> +'Please, leave me alone; it's my intention to go to sleep,' I said, vexed at +having to conciliate him; he had a big stick. +</p> + +<p> +'Oho!' went the beggar. Then he recommenced: +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me you've stole nothing in your life! You've stole a gentleman's tongue, +I knows the ring o' that. How comes you out here? Who's your mate there down +below? Now, see, I'm going to lift my stick.' +</p> + +<p> +At these menacing words the girl jumped out of the blanket, and I called to him +that I would rouse the farmer. +</p> + +<p> +'Why... because I'm goin' to knock down a apple or two on your head?' he +inquired, in a tone of reproach. 'It's a young woman you've got there, eh? +Well, odd grows odder, like the man who turned three shillings into five. Now, +you gi' me a lie under your blanket, I'll knock down a apple apiece. If ever +you've tasted gin, you's say a apple at night's a cordial, though it don't +intoxicate.' +</p> + +<p> +The girl whispered in my ear, 'He's lame as ducks.' Her meaning seized me at +once; we both sprang out of the ditch and ran, dragging our blanket behind us. +He pursued, but we eluded him, and dropped on a quiet sleeping-place among +furzes. Next morning, when we took the blanket to the farm-house, we heard that +the old wretch had traduced our characters, and got a breakfast through +charging us with the robbery of the apple-tree. I proved our innocence to the +farmer's wife by putting down a shilling. The sight of it satisfied her. She +combed my hair, brought me a bowl of water and a towel, and then gave us a bowl +of milk and bread, and dismissed us, telling me I had a fair face and +dare-devil written on it: as for the girl, she said of her that she knew +gipsies at a glance, and what God Almighty made them for there was no guessing. +This set me thinking all through the day, 'What can they have been made for?' I +bought a red scarf for the girl, and other things she fixed her eyes on, but I +lost a great deal of my feeling of fellowship with her. 'I dare say they were +made for fun,' I thought, when people laughed at us now, and I laughed also. +</p> + +<p> +I had a day of rollicking laughter, puzzling the girl, who could only grin two +or three seconds at a time, and then stared like a dog that waits for his +master to send him off again running, the corners of her mouth twitching for me +to laugh or speak, exactly as a dog might wag his tail. I studied her in the +light of a harmless sort of unaccountable creature; witness at any rate for the +fact that I had escaped from school. +</p> + +<p> +We loitered half the morning round a cricketers' booth in a field, where there +was moderately good cricketing. The people thought it of first-rate quality. I +told them I knew a fellow who could bowl out either eleven in an hour and a +half. One of the men frightened me by saying, 'By Gearge! I'll in with you into +a gig, and off with you after that ther' faller.' He pretended to mean it, and +started up. I watched him without flinching. He remarked that if I 'had not cut +my lucky from school, and tossed my cap for a free life, he was ——' +whatever may be expressed by a slap on the thigh. We played a single-wicket +side game, he giving me six runs, and crestfallen he was to find himself +beaten; but, as I let him know, one who had bowled to Heriot for hours and +stood against Saddlebank's bowling, was a tough customer, never mind his age. +</p> + +<p> +This man offered me his friendship. He made me sit and eat beside him at the +afternoon dinner of the elevens, and sent platefuls of food to the girl, where +she was allowed to squat; and said he, 'You and I'll tie a knot, and be friends +for life.' +</p> + +<p> +I replied, 'With pleasure.' +</p> + +<p> +We nodded over a glass of ale. In answer to his questions, I stated that I +liked farms, I would come and see his farm, I would stay with him two or three +days, I would give him my address if I had one, I was on my way to have a look +at Riversley Grange. +</p> + +<p> +'Hey!' says he, 'Riversley Grange! Well, to be sure now! I'm a tenant of Squire +Beltham's, and a right sort of landlord, too.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' says I, 'he's my grandfather, but I don't care much about him.' +</p> + +<p> +'Lord!' says he. 'What! be you the little boy, why, Master Harry Richmond that +was carried off in the night, and the old squire shut up doors for a fortnight, +and made out you was gone in a hearse! Why, I know all about you, you see. And +back you are, hurrah! The squire 'll be hearty, that he will. We've noticed a +change in him ever since you left. Gout's been at his leg, off and on, a deal +shrewder. But he rides to hounds, and dines his tenants still, that he does; +he's one o' th' old style. Everything you eat and drink's off his estate, the +day he dines his tenants. No humbug 'bout old Squire Beltham. +</p> + +<p> +I asked him if Sewis was alive. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, old Sewis,' says he, 'you're acquainted with old Sewis? Why, of course +you are. Yes, old Sewis's alive, Master Harry. And you bet me at +single-wicket! That's be something to relate to 'em all. By Gearge, if I +didn't think I'd got a nettle in my fist when I saw you pitch into my stumps. +Dash it! thinks I. But th' old squire 'll be proud of you, that he will. My +farm lies three miles away. You look at a crow flying due South-east five +minutes from Riversley, and he's over Throckham farm, and there I'll drive ye +to-night, and to-morrow, clean and tidy out o' my wife's soap and water, +straight to Riversley. Done, eh? My name's Eckerthy. No matter where you comes +from, here you are, eh, Master Harry? And I see you last time in a +donkey-basket, and here you come in breeches and defy me to singlewicket, and +you bet me too!' +</p> + +<p> +He laughed for jollity. An extraordinary number of emotions had possession of +me: the most intelligible one being a restless vexation at myself, as the +principal person concerned, for not experiencing anything like the farmer's +happiness. I preferred a gipsy life to Riversley. Gipsies were on the road, and +that road led to my father. I endeavoured to explain to Farmer Eckerthy that I +was travelling in this direction merely to have a short look at Riversley; but +it was impossible; he could not understand me. The more I tried, the more he +pressed me to finish my glass of ale, which had nothing to do with it. I drank, +nevertheless, and I suppose said many funny things in my anxiety that the +farmer should know what I meant; he laughed enough. +</p> + +<p> +While he was fielding against the opposite eleven, the tramp came into the +booth, and we had a match of cunning. +</p> + +<p> +'Schoolmaster's out after you, young gentleman,' said he, advising me to hurry +along the road if I sought to baffle pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +I pretended alarm, and then said, 'Oh, you'll stand by me,' and treated him to +ale. +</p> + +<p> +He assured me I left as many tracks behind me as if I went spilling a box of +lucifer-matches. He was always for my hastening on until I ordered fresh ale +for him. The girl and he grimaced at one another in contempt. So we remained +seeing the game out. By the time the game ended, the tramp had drunk numbers of +glasses of ale. +</p> + +<p> +'A fine-flavoured fat goose,' he counted his gains since the commencement of +our acquaintance, 'bottles of ale and ginger-pop, two half-crowns, more ale, +and more to follow, let's hope. You only stick to your friends, young +gentleman, won't you, sir? It's a hard case for a poor man like me if you +don't. We ain't got such chances every morning of our lives. Do you perceive, +sir? I request you to inform me, do you perceive, sir? I'm muddled a bit, sir, +but a man must look after his interests.' +</p> + +<p> +I perceived he was so muddled as to be unable to conceal that his interests +were involved in my capture; but I was merry too. Farmer Eckerthy dealt the +tramp a scattering slap on the back when he returned to the booth, elated at +having beaten the enemy by a single run. +</p> + +<p> +'Master Harry Richmond go to Riversley to his grandfather in your company, you +scoundrel!' he cried in a rage, after listening to him. 'I mean to drive him +over. It's a comfortable ten-mile, and no more. But I say, Master Harry, what +do you say to a peck o' supper?' +</p> + +<p> +He communicated to me confidentially that he did not like to seem to slink away +from the others, who had made up their minds to stop and sup; so we would drive +home by moonlight, singing songs. And so we did. I sat beside the farmer, the +girl scrambled into the hinder part of the cart, and the tramp stood moaning, +'Oh dear! oh dear! you goes away to Riversley without your best friend.' +</p> + +<p> +I tossed him a shilling. We sang beginnings and ends of songs. The farmer +looked at the moon, and said, 'Lord! she stares at us!' Then he sang: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'The moon is shining on Latworth lea,<br/> +And where'll she see such a jovial three<br/> +As we, boys, we? And why is she pale?<br/> +It's because she drinks water instead of ale.' +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +'Where's the remainder? There's the song—! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh! handsome Miss Gammon<br/> +Has married Lord Mammon,<br/> +And jilted her suitors,<br/> +All Cupid's sharpshooters,<br/> +And gone in a carriage<br/> +And six to her marriage,<br/> +Singing hey! for I've landed my salmon, my salmon!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Where's the remainder? I heard it th' only time I ever was in London town, +never rested till I'd learnt it, and now it's clean gone. What's come to me?' +</p> + +<p> +He sang to 'Mary of Ellingmere' and another maid of some place, and a loud song +of Britons. +</p> + +<p> +It was startling to me to wake up to twilight in the open air and silence, for +I was unaware that I had fallen asleep. The girl had roused me, and we crept +down from the cart. Horse and farmer were quite motionless in a green hollow +beside the roadway. Looking across fields and fir plantations, I beheld a house +in the strange light of the hour, and my heart began beating; but I was +overcome with shyness, and said to myself, 'No, no, that's not Riversley; I'm +sure it isn't'; though the certainty of it was, in my teeth, refuting me. I ran +down the fields to the park and the bright little river, and gazed. When I +could say, 'Yes, it is Riversley!' I turned away, hurt even to a sense of +smarting pain, without knowing the cause. I dare say it is true, as the girl +declared subsequently, that I behaved like one in a fit. I dropped, and I may +have rolled my body and cried. An indefinite resentment at Riversley was the +feeling I grew conscious of after very fast walking. I would not have accepted +breakfast there. +</p> + +<p> +About mid-day, crossing a stubble-field, the girl met a couple of her +people-men. Near evening we entered one of their tents. The women set up a cry, +'Kiomi! Kiomi!' like a rising rookery. Their eyes and teeth made such a +flashing as when you dabble a hand in a dark waterpool. The strange tongue they +talked, with a kind of peck of the voice at a word, rapid, never high or low, +and then a slide of similar tones all round,—not musical, but catching +and incessant,—gave me an idea that I had fallen upon a society of birds, +exceedingly curious ones. They welcomed me kindly, each of them looking me in +the face a bright second or so. I had two helps from a splendid pot of broth +that hung over a fire in the middle of the tent. +</p> + +<p> +Kiomi was my companion's name. She had sisters Adeline and Eveleen, and +brothers Osric and William, and she had a cousin a prizefighter. 'That's what +I'll be,' said I. Fiddling for money was not a prospect that charmed me, though +it was pleasant lying in Kiomi's arms to hear Osric play us off to sleep; it +was like floating down one of a number of visible rivers; I could see them +converging and breaking away while I floated smoothly, and a wonderful fair +country nodded drowsy. From that to cock-crow at a stride. Sleep was no more +than the passage through the arch of a canal. Kiomi and I were on the heath +before sunrise, jumping gravel-pits, chasing sandpipers, mimicking pewits; it +seemed to me I had only just heard the last of Osric's fiddle when yellow +colour filled in along the sky over Riversley. The curious dark thrill of the +fiddle in the tent by night seemed close up behind the sun, and my quiet +fancies as I lay dropping to sleep, followed me like unobtrusive shadows during +daylight, or, to speak truthfully, till about dinner-time, when I thought of +nothing but the great stew-pot. We fed on plenty; nicer food than Rippenger's, +minus puddings. After dinner I was ready for mischief. My sensations on seeing +Kiomi beg of a gentleman were remarkable. I reproached her. She showed me +sixpence shining in the palm of her hand. I gave her a shilling to keep her +from it. She had now got one and sixpence, she said: meaning, I supposed upon +reflection, that her begging had produced that sum, and therefore it was a good +thing. The money remaining in my pocket amounted to five shillings and a penny. +I offered it to Kiomi's mother, who refused to accept it; so did the father, +and Osric also. I might think of them, they observed, on my return to my own +house: they pointed at Riversley. 'No,' said I, 'I shan't go there, you may be +sure.' The women grinned, and the men yawned. The business of the men appeared +to be to set to work about everything as if they had a fire inside them, and +then to stretch out their legs and lie on their backs, exactly as if the fire +had gone out. Excepting Osric's practice on the fiddle, and the father's +bringing in and leading away of horses, they did little work in my sight but +brown themselves in the sun. One morning Osric's brother came to our camp with +their cousin the prizefighter—a young man of lighter complexion, upon +whom I gazed, remembering John Thresher's reverence for the heroical +profession. Kiomi whispered some story concerning her brother having met the +tramp. I did not listen; I was full of a tempest, owing to two causes: a +studious admiration of the smart young prizefighter's person, and wrathful +disgust at him for calling Kiomi his wife, and telling her he was prepared to +marry her as soon as she played her harp like King David. The intense folly of +his asking a girl to play like David made me despise him, but he was splendidly +handsome and strong, and to see him put on the gloves for a spar with big +William, Kiomi's brother, and evade and ward the huge blows, would have been a +treat to others besides old John of Dipwell Farm. He had the agile grace of a +leopard; his waistcoat reminded me of one; he was like a piece of machinery in +free action. Pleased by my enthusiasm, he gave me a lesson, promising me more. +</p> + +<p> +'He'll be champion some day,' said Kiomi, at gnaw upon an apple he had given +her. +</p> + +<p> +I knocked the apple on the ground, and stamped on it. She slapped my cheek. In +a minute we stood in a ring. I beheld the girl actually squaring at me. +</p> + +<p> +'Fight away,' I said, to conceal my shame, and imagining I could slip from her +hits as easily as the prizefighter did from big William's. I was mistaken. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! you think I can't defend myself,' said Kiomi; and rushed in with one, two, +quick as a cat, and cool as a statue. +</p> + +<p> +'Fight, my merry one; she takes punishment,' the prizefighter sang out. 'First +blood to you, Kiomi; uncork his claret, my duck; straight at the nozzle, he +sees more lamps than shine in London, I warrant. Make him lively, cook him; +tell him who taught you; a downer to him, and I'll marry you to-morrow!' +</p> + +<p> +I conceived a fury against her as though she had injured me by appearing the +man's property—and I was getting the worst of it; her little fists shot +straight and hard as bars of iron; she liked fighting; she was at least my +match. To avoid the disgrace of seriously striking her, or of being beaten at +an open exchange of blows, I made a feint, and caught her by the waist and +threw her, not very neatly, for I fell myself in her grip. They had to pluck +her from me by force. +</p> + +<p> +'And you've gone a course of tuition in wrestling, squire?' the prizefighter +said to me rather savagely. +</p> + +<p> +The others were cordial, and did not snarl at me for going to the ropes, as he +called it. Kiomi desired to renew the conflict. I said aloud: +</p> + +<p> +'I never fight girls, and I tell you I don't like their licking me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then you come down to the river and wash your face,' said she, and pulled me +by the fingers, and when she had washed my face clear of blood, kissed me. I +thought she tasted of the prizefighter. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the afternoon Osric proposed that he and I and the prizefighter should +take a walk. I stipulated for Kiomi to be of the party, which was allowed, and +the gipsy-women shook my hand as though I had been departing on a long +expedition, entreating me not to forget them, and never to think evil of poor +gipsy-folk. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, I mean to stay with you,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +They grinned delightedly, and said I must be back to see them break up camp in +the evening. Every two or three minutes Kiomi nudged my elbow and pointed +behind, where I saw the women waving their coloured neckerchiefs. Out of sight +of our tents we came in view of the tramp. Kiomi said, 'Hide!' I dived into a +furze dell. The tramp approached, calling out for news of me. Now at +Rippenger's school, thanks to Heriot, lying was not the fashion; still I had +heard boys lie, and they can let it out of their mouths like a fish, so lively, +simple, and solid, that you could fancy a master had asked them for it and they +answered, 'There it is.' But boys cannot lie in one key spontaneously, a number +of them to the same effect, as my friends here did. I was off, they said; all +swung round to signify the direction of my steps; my plans were hinted at; +particulars were not stated on the plea that there should be no tellings; it +was remarked that I ought to have fair play and 'law.' Kiomi said she hoped he +would not catch me. The tramp winced with vexation, and the gipsies chaffed +him. I thanked them in my heart for their loyal conduct. Creeping under cover +of the dell I passed round to the road over a knoll of firs as quick as my feet +could carry me, and had just cried, 'Now I'm safe'; when a lady stepping from a +carriage on the road, caught me in her arms and hugged me blind. It was my aunt +Dorothy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"></a> +CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +JANET ILCHESTER</h2> + +<p> +I was a prisoner, captured by fraud, and with five shillings and a penny still +remaining to me for an assurance of my power to enjoy freedom. Osric and Kiomi +did not show themselves on the road, they answered none of my shouts. +</p> + +<p> +'She is afraid to look me in the face,' I said, keeping my anger on Kiomi. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, Harry,' said my aunt, 'they must have seen me here; do you grieve, and +you have me, dear?' +</p> + +<p> +Her eager brown eyes devoured me while I stood panting to be happy, if only I +might fling my money at Kiomi's feet, and tell her, 'There, take all I have; I +hate you!' One minute I was curiously perusing the soft shade of a moustache on +my aunt's upper lip; the next, we jumped into the carriage, and she was my dear +aunt Dorothy again, and the world began rolling another way. +</p> + +<p> +The gipsies had made an appointment to deliver me over to my aunt; Farmer +Eckerthy had spoken of me to my grandfather; the tramp had fetched Mr. +Rippenger on the scene. Rippenger paid the tramp, I dare say; my grandfather +paid Rippenger's bill and for Saddlebank's goose; my aunt paid the gipsies, and +I think it doubtful that they handed the tramp a share, so he came to the end +of his list of benefits from not asking questions. +</p> + +<p> +I returned to Riversley more of a man than most boys of my age, and more of a +child. A small child would not have sulked as I did at Kiomi's behaviour; but I +met my grandfather's ridiculous politeness with a man's indifference. +</p> + +<p> +'So you're back, sir, are you!' +</p> + +<p> +'I am, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ran like a hare, 'stead of a fox, eh?' +</p> + +<p> +'I didn't run like either, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you ride?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, sir; a horse.' +</p> + +<p> +That was his greeting and how I took it. I had not run away from him, so I had +a quiet conscience. +</p> + +<p> +He said, shortly after, 'Look here; your name is Harry Richmond in my +house—do you understand? My servants have orders to call you Master Harry +Richmond, according to your christening. You were born here, sir, you will +please to recollect. I'll have no vagabond names here'—he puffed himself +hot, muttering, 'Nor vagabond airs neither.' +</p> + +<p> +I knew very well what it meant. A sore spirit on my father's behalf kept me +alive to any insult of him; and feeling that we were immeasurably superior to +the Beltham blood, I merely said, apart to old Sewis, shrugging my shoulders, +'The squire expects me to recollect where I was born. I'm not likely to forget +his nonsense.' +</p> + +<p> +Sewis, in reply, counselled me to direct a great deal of my attention to the +stables, and drink claret with the squire in the evening, things so little +difficult to do that I moralized reflectively, 'Here's a way of gaining a +relative's affection!' The squire's punctilious regard for payments impressed +me, it is true. He had saved me from the disgrace of owing money to my detested +schoolmaster; and, besides, I was under his roof, eating of his bread. My late +adventurous life taught me that I incurred an obligation by it. Kiomi was the +sole victim of my anger that really seemed to lie down to be trampled on, as +she deserved for her unpardonable treachery. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees my grandfather got used to me, and commenced saying in approval of +certain of my performances, 'There's Beltham in that—Beltham in that!' +Once out hunting, I took a nasty hedge and ditch in front of him; he bawled +proudly, 'Beltham all over!' and praised me. At night, drinking claret, he said +on a sudden, 'And, egad, Harry, you must jump your head across hedges and +ditches, my little fellow. It won't do, in these confounded days, to have you +clever all at the wrong end. In my time, good in the saddle was good for +everything; but now you must get your brains where you can—pick here, +pick there—and sell 'em like a huckster; some do. Nature's +gone—it's damned artifice rules, I tell ye; and a squire of our country +must be three parts lawyer to keep his own. You must learn; by God, sir, you +must cogitate; you must stew at books and maps, or you'll have some infernal +upstart taking the lead of you, and leaving you nothing but the whiff of his +tail.' He concluded, 'I'm glad to see you toss down your claret, my boy.' +</p> + +<p> +Thus I grew in his favour, till I heard from him that I was to be the heir of +Riversley and his estates, but on one condition, which he did not then mention. +If I might have spoken to him of my father, I should have loved him. As it was, +I liked old Sewis better, for he would talk to me of the night when my father +carried me away, and though he never uttered the flattering words I longed to +hear, he repeated the story often, and made the red hall glow with beams of my +father's image. My walks and rides were divided between the road he must have +followed toward London, bearing me in his arms, and the vacant place of Kiomi's +camp. Kiomi stood for freedom, pointing into the darkness I wished to penetrate +that I might find him. If I spoke of him to my aunt she trembled. She said, +'Yes, Harry, tell me all you are thinking about, whatever you want to know'; +but her excessive trembling checked me, and I kept my feelings to +myself—a boy with a puzzle in his head and hunger in his heart. At times +I rode out to the utmost limit of the hour giving me the proper number of +minutes to race back and dress for dinner at the squire's table, and a great +wrestling I had with myself to turn my little horse's head from hills and +valleys lying East; they seemed to have the secret of my father. Blank enough +they looked if ever I despaired of their knowing more than I. My Winter and +Summer were the moods of my mind constantly shifting. I would have a week of +the belief that he was near Riversley, calling for me; a week of the fear that +he was dead; long dreams of him, as travelling through foreign countries, +patting the foreheads of boys and girls on his way; or driving radiantly, and +people bowing. Radiantly, I say: had there been touches of colour in these +visions, I should have been lured off in pursuit of him. The dreams passed +colourlessly; I put colouring touches to the figures seen in them afterward, +when I was cooler, and could say, 'What is the use of fancying things?' yet +knew that fancying things was a consolation. By such means I came to paint the +mystery surrounding my father in tender colours. I built up a fretted cathedral +from what I imagined of him, and could pass entirely away out of the world by +entering the doors. +</p> + +<p> +Want of boys' society as well as hard head-work produced this mischief. My +lessons were intermittent. Resident tutors arrived to instruct me, one after +another. They were clergymen, and they soon proposed to marry my aunt Dorothy, +or they rebuked the squire for swearing. The devil was in the parsons, he said: +in his time they were modest creatures and stuck to the bottle and heaven. My +aunt was of the opinion of our neighbours, who sent their boys to school and +thought I should be sent likewise. +</p> + +<p> +'No, no,' said the squire; 'my life's short when the gout's marching up to my +middle, and I'll see as much of my heir as I can. Why, the lad's my daughter's +son: He shall grow up among his tenantry. We'll beat the country and start a +man at last to drive his yard of learning into him without rolling sheep's eyes +right and left.' +</p> + +<p> +Unfortunately the squire's description of man was not started. My aunt was +handsome, an heiress (that is, she had money of her own coming from her +mother's side of the family), and the tenderest woman alive, with a voice +sweeter than flutes. There was a saying in the county that to marry a Beltham +you must po'chay her. +</p> + +<p> +A great-aunt of mine, the squire's sister, had been carried off. She died +childless. A favourite young cousin of his likewise had run away with a poor +baronet, Sir Roderick Ilchester, whose son Charles was now and then our +playmate, and was a scapegrace. But for me he would have been selected by the +squire for his heir, he said; and he often 'confounded' me to my face on that +account as he shook my hand, breaking out: 'I'd as lief fetch you a cuff o' the +head, Harry Richmond, upon my honour!' and cursing at his luck for having to +study for his living, and be what he called a sloppy curate now that I had come +to Riversley for good. +</p> + +<p> +He informed me that I should have to marry his sister Janet; for that they +could not allow the money to go out of the family. Janet Ilchester was a quaint +girl, a favourite of my aunt Dorothy, and the squire's especial pet; +red-cheeked, with a good upright figure in walking and riding, and willing to +be friendly, but we always quarrelled: she detested hearing of Kiomi. +</p> + +<p> +'Don't talk of creatures you met when you were a beggar, Harry Richmond,' she +said. +</p> + +<p> +'I never was a beggar,' I replied. +</p> + +<p> +'Then she was a beggar,' said Janet; and I could not deny it; though the only +difference I saw between Janet and Kiomi was, that Janet continually begged +favours and gifts of people she knew, and Kiomi of people who were strangers. +</p> + +<p> +My allowance of pocket-money from the squire was fifty pounds a year. I might +have spent it all in satisfying Janet's wishes for riding-whips, knives, +pencil-cases, cairngorm buttons, and dogs. A large part of the money went that +way. She was always getting notice of fine dogs for sale. I bought a mastiff +for her, a brown retriever, and a little terrier. She was permitted to keep the +terrier at home, but I had to take care of the mastiff and retriever. When +Janet came to look at them she called them by their names; of course they +followed me in preference to her; she cried with jealousy. We had a downright +quarrel. Lady Ilchester invited me to spend a day at her house, Charley being +home for his Midsummer holidays. Charley, Janet, and I fished the river for +trout, and Janet, to flatter me (of which I was quite aware), while I dressed +her rod as if she was likely to catch something, talked of Heriot, and then +said: +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! dear, we are good friends, aren't we? Charley says we shall marry one +another some day, but mama's such a proud woman she won't much like your having +such a father as you've got unless he's dead by that time and I needn't go up +to him to be kissed.' +</p> + +<p> +I stared at the girl in wonderment, but not too angrily, for I guessed that she +was merely repeating her brother's candid speculations upon the future. I said: +'Now mind what I tell you, Janet: I forgive you this once, for you are an +ignorant little girl and know no better. Speak respectfully of my father or you +never see me again.' +</p> + +<p> +Here Charley sang out: 'Hulloa! you don't mean to say you're talking of your +father.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet whimpered that I had called her an ignorant little girl. If she had been +silent I should have pardoned her. The meanness of the girl in turning on me +when the glaring offence was hers, struck me as contemptible beyond words. +Charley and I met half way. He advised me not to talk to his sister of my +father. They all knew, he said, that it was no fault of mine, and for his part, +had he a rascal for a father, he should pension him and cut him; to tell the +truth, no objection against me existed in his family except on the score of the +sort of father I owned to, and I had better make up my mind to shake him off +before I grew a man; he spoke as a friend. I might frown at him and clench my +fists, but he did speak as a friend. +</p> + +<p> +Janet all the while was nibbling a biscuit, glancing over it at me with +mouse-eyes. Her short frock and her greediness, contrasting with the talk of my +marrying her, filled me with renewed scorn, though my heart was sick at the +mention of my father. I asked her what she knew of him. She nibbled her +biscuit, mumbling, 'He went to Riversley, pretending he was a singing-master. I +know that's true, and more.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, and a drawing-master, and a professor of legerdemain,' added her brother. +'Expunge him, old fellow; he's no good.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, I'm sure he's no good,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +I took her hand, and told her, 'You don't know how you hurt me; but you're a +child: you don't know anything about the world. I love my father, remember +that, and what you want me to do is mean and disgraceful; but you don't know +better. I would forfeit everything in the world for him. And when you're of age +to marry, marry anybody you like—you won't marry me. And good-bye, Janet. +Think of learning your lessons, and not of marrying. I can't help laughing.' So +I said, but without the laughter. Her brother tried hard to get me to notice +him. +</p> + +<p> +Janet betook herself to the squire. Her prattle of our marriage in days to come +was excuseable. It was the squire's notion. He used to remark generally that he +liked to see things look safe and fast, and he had, as my aunt confided to me, +arranged with Lady Ilchester, in the girl's hearing, that we should make a +match. My grandfather pledged his word to Janet that he would restore us to an +amicable footing. He thought it a light task. Invitations were sent out to a +large party at Riversley, and Janet came with all my gifts on her dress or in +her pockets. The squire led the company to the gates of his stables; the gates +opened, and a beautiful pony, with a side-saddle on, was trotted forth, amid +cries of admiration. Then the squire put the bridle-reins in my hands, bidding +me present it myself. I asked the name of the person. He pointed at Janet. I +presented the pony to Janet, and said, 'It's from the squire.' +</p> + +<p> +She forgot, in her delight, our being at variance. +</p> + +<p> +'No, no, you stupid Harry, I'm to thank you. He's a darling pony. I want to +kiss you.' +</p> + +<p> +I retired promptly, but the squire had heard her. +</p> + +<p> +'Back, sir!' he shouted, swearing by this and that. 'You slink from a kiss, and +you're Beltham blood? Back to her, lad. Take it. Up with her in your arms or +down on your knees. Take it manfully, somehow. See there, she's got it ready +for you.' +</p> + +<p> +'I've got a letter ready for you, Harry, to say—oh! so sorry for +offending you,' Janet whispered, when I reached the pony's head; 'and if you'd +rather not be kissed before people, then by-and-by, but do shake hands.' +</p> + +<p> +'Pull the pony's mane,' said I; 'that will do as well. Observe—I pull, +and now you pull.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet mechanically followed my actions. She grimaced, and whimpered, 'I could +pull the pony's mane right out.' +</p> + +<p> +'Don't treat animals like your dolls,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +She ran to the squire, and refused the pony. The squire's face changed from +merry to black. +</p> + +<p> +'Young man,' he addressed me, 'don't show that worse half of yours in genteel +society, or, by the Lord! you won't carry Beltham buttons for long. This young +lady, mind you, is a lady by birth both sides.' +</p> + +<p> +'She thinks she is marriageable,' said I; and walked away, leaving loud +laughter behind me. +</p> + +<p> +But laughter did not console me for the public aspersion of him I loved. I +walked off the grounds, and thought to myself it was quite time I should be +moving. Wherever I stayed for any length of time I was certain to hear abuse of +my father. Why not wander over the country with Kiomi, go to sea, mount the +Andes, enlist in a Prussian regiment, and hear the soldiers tell tales of +Frederick the Great? I walked over Kiomi's heath till dark, when one of our +grooms on horseback overtook me, saying that the squire begged me to jump on +the horse and ride home as quick as possible. Two other lads and the coachman +were out scouring the country to find me, and the squire was anxious, it +appeared. I rode home like a wounded man made to feel proud by victory, but +with no one to stop the bleeding of his wounds: and the more my pride rose, the +more I suffered pain. There at home sat my grandfather, dejected, telling me +that the loss of me a second time would kill him, begging me to overlook his +roughness, calling me his little Harry and his heir, his brave-spirited boy; +yet I was too sure that a word of my father to him would have brought him very +near another ejaculation concerning Beltham buttons. +</p> + +<p> +'You're a fiery young fellow, I suspect,' he said, when he had recovered his +natural temper. 'I like you for it; pluck's Beltham. Have a will of your own. +Sweat out the bad blood. Here, drink my health, Harry. You're three parts +Beltham, at least, and it'll go hard if you're not all Beltham before I die. +Old blood always wins that race, I swear. We're the oldest in the county. Damn +the mixing. My father never let any of his daughters marry, if he could help +it, nor'll I, bar rascals. Here's to you, young Squire Beltham. Harry Lepel +Beltham—does that suit ye? Anon, anon, as they say in the play. Take my +name, and drop the Richmond—no, drop the subject: we'll talk of it +by-and-by.' +</p> + +<p> +So he wrestled to express his hatred of my father without offending me; and I +studied him coldly, thinking that the sight of my father in beggar's clothes, +raising a hand for me to follow his steps, would draw me forth, though +Riversley should beseech me to remain clad in wealth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"></a> +CHAPTER IX.<br/> +AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED</h2> + +<p> +A dream that my father lay like a wax figure in a bed gave me thoughts of +dying. I was ill and did not know it, and imagined that my despair at the foot +of the stairs of ever reaching my room to lie down peacefully was the sign of +death. My aunt Dorothy nursed me for a week: none but she and my dogs entered +the room. I had only two faint wishes left in me: one that the squire should be +kept out of my sight, the other that she would speak to me of my mother's love +for my father. She happened to say, musing, 'Harry, you have your mother's +heart.' +</p> + +<p> +I said, 'No, my father's.' +</p> + +<p> +From that we opened a conversation, the sweetest I had ever had away from him, +though she spoke shyly and told me very little. It was enough for me in the +narrow world of my dogs' faces, and the red-leaved creeper at the window, the +fir-trees on the distant heath, and her hand clasping mine. My father had many +faults, she said, but he had been cruelly used, or deceived, and he bore a +grievous burden; and then she said, 'Yes,' and 'Yes,' and 'Yes,' in the voice +one supposes of a ghost retiring, to my questions of his merits. I was +refreshed and satisfied, like the parched earth with dews when it gets no rain, +and I was soon well. +</p> + +<p> +When I walked among the household again, I found that my week of seclusion had +endowed me with a singular gift; I found that I could see through everybody. +Looking at the squire, I thought to myself, 'My father has faults, but he has +been cruelly used,' and immediately I forgave the old man; his antipathy to my +father seemed a craze, and to account for it I lay in wait for his numerous +illogical acts and words, and smiled visibly in contemplation of his rough +unreasonable nature, and of my magnanimity. He caught the smile, and +interpreted it. +</p> + +<p> +'Grinning at me, Harry; have I made a slip in my grammar, eh?' +</p> + +<p> +Who could feel any further sensitiveness at his fits of irritation, reading him +as I did? I saw through my aunt: she was always in dread of a renewal of our +conversation. I could see her ideas flutter like birds to escape me. And I +penetrated the others who came in my way just as unerringly. Farmer Eckerthy +would acknowledge, astonished, his mind was running on cricket when I taxed him +with it. +</p> + +<p> +'Crops was the cart-load of my thoughts, Master Harry, but there was a bit o' +cricket in it, too, ne'er a doubt.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt's maid, Davis, was shocked by my discernment of the fact that she was +in love, and it was useless for her to pretend the contrary, for I had seen her +granting tender liberties to Lady Ilchester's footman. +</p> + +<p> +Old Sewis said gravely, 'You've been to the witches, Master Harry'; and others +were sure 'I had got it from the gipsies off the common.' +</p> + +<p> +The maids were partly incredulous, but I perceived that they disbelieved as +readily as they believed. With my latest tutor, the Rev. Simon Hart, I was not +sufficiently familiar to offer him proofs of my extraordinary power; so I +begged favours of him, and laid hot-house flowers on his table in the name of +my aunt, and had the gratification of seeing him blush. His approval of my +Latin exercise was verbal, and weak praise in comparison; besides I cared +nothing for praises not referring to my grand natural accomplishment. 'And my +father now is thinking of me!' That was easy to imagine, but the certainty of +it confirmed me in my conceit. +</p> + +<p> +'How can you tell?—how is it possible for you to know people's thoughts?' +said Janet Ilchester, whose head was as open to me as a hat. She pretended to +be rather more frightened of me than she was. +</p> + +<p> +'And now you think you are flattering me!' I said. +</p> + +<p> +She looked nervous. +</p> + +<p> +'And now you're asking yourself what you can do better than I can!' +</p> + +<p> +She said, 'Go on.' +</p> + +<p> +I stopped. +</p> + +<p> +She charged me with being pulled up short. +</p> + +<p> +I denied it. +</p> + +<p> +'Guess, guess!' said she. 'You can't.' +</p> + +<p> +My reply petrified her. 'You were thinking that you are a lady by birth on both +sides.' +</p> + +<p> +At first she refused to admit it. 'No, it wasn't that, Harry, it wasn't really. +I was thinking how clever you are.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, after, not before.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, Harry, but you are clever. I wish I was half as clever. Fancy reading +people's ideas! I can read my pony's, but that's different; I know by his ears. +And as for my being a lady, of course I am, and so are you—I mean, a +gentleman. I was thinking—now this is really what I was thinking—I +wished your father lived near, that we might all be friends. I can't bear the +squire when he talks.... And you quite as good as me, and better. Don't shake +me off, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +I shook her in the gentlest manner, not suspecting that she had read my +feelings fully as well as I her thoughts. Janet and I fell to talking of my +father incessantly, and were constantly together. The squire caught one of my +smiles rising, when he applauded himself lustily for the original idea of +matching us; but the idea was no longer distasteful to me. It appeared to me +that if I must some day be married, a wife who would enjoy my narratives, and +travel over the four quarters of the globe, as Janet promised to do, in search +of him I loved, would be the preferable person. I swore her to secresy; she was +not to tell her brother Charley the subject we conversed on. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh dear, no!' said she, and told him straightway. +</p> + +<p> +Charley, home for his winter holidays, blurted out at the squire's table: 'So, +Harry Richmond, you're the cleverest fellow in the world, are you? There's +Janet telling everybody your father's the cleverest next to you, and she's +never seen him!' +</p> + +<p> +'How? hulloa, what's that?' sang out the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Charley was speaking of my father, sir,' I said, preparing for thunder. +</p> + +<p> +We all rose. The squire looked as though an apoplectic seizure were coming on. +</p> + +<p> +'Don't sit at my table again,' he said, after a terrible struggle to be +articulate. +</p> + +<p> +His hand was stretched at me. I swung round to depart. 'No, no, not you; that +fellow,' he called, getting his arm level toward Charley. +</p> + +<p> +I tried to intercede—the last who should have done it. +</p> + +<p> +'You like to hear him, eh?' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +I was ready to say that I did, but my aunt, whose courage was up when occasion +summoned it, hushed the scene by passing the decanter to the squire, and +speaking to him in a low voice. +</p> + +<p> +'Biter's bit. I've dished myself, that's clear,' said Charley; and he spoke the +truth, and such was his frankness that I forgave him. +</p> + +<p> +He and Janet were staying at Riversley. They left next morning, for the squire +would not speak to him, nor I to Janet. +</p> + +<p> +'I'll tell you what; there's no doubt about one thing,' said Charley; +'Janet's right—some of those girls are tremendously deep: you're about +the cleverest fellow I've ever met in my life. I thought of working into the +squire in a sort of collateral manner, you know. A cornetcy in the Dragoon +Guards in a year or two. I thought the squire might do that for me without much +damaging you;—perhaps a couple of hundred a year, just to reconcile me to +a nose out of joint. For, upon my honour, the squire spoke of making me his +heir—or words to that effect neatly conjugated—before you came +back; and rather than be a curate like that Reverend Hart of yours, who hands +raisins and almonds, and orange-flower biscuits to your aunt the way of all the +Reverends who drop down on Riversley—I'd betray my bosom friend. I'm +regularly “hoist on my own petard,” as they say in the newspapers. +I'm a curate and no mistake. You did it with a turn of the wrist, without +striking out: and I like neat boxing. I bear no malice when I'm floored +neatly.' +</p> + +<p> +Five minutes after he had spoken it would have been impossible for me to tell +him that my simplicity and not my cleverness had caused his overthrow. From +this I learnt that simplicity is the keenest weapon and a beautiful refinement +of cleverness; and I affected it extremely. I pushed it so far that I could +make the squire dance in his seat with suppressed fury and jealousy at my way +of talking of Venice, and other Continental cities, which he knew I must have +visited in my father's society; and though he raged at me and pshawed the +Continent to the deuce, he was ready, out of sheer rivalry, to grant anything I +pleased to covet. At every stage of my growth one or another of my passions was +alert to twist me awry, and now I was getting a false self about me and +becoming liker to the creature people supposed me to be, despising them for +blockheads in my heart, as boys may who preserve a last trace of the +ingenuousness denied to seasoned men. +</p> + +<p> +Happily my aunt wrote to Mr. Rippenger for the address of little Gus Temple's +father, to invite my schoolfellow to stay a month at Riversley. Temple came, +everybody liked him; as for me my delight was unbounded, and in spite of a +feeling of superiority due to my penetrative capacity, and the suspicion it +originated, that Temple might be acting the plain well-bred schoolboy he was, I +soon preferred his pattern to my own. He confessed he had found me changed at +first. His father, it appeared, was working him as hard at Latin as Mr. Hart +worked me, and he sat down beside me under my tutor and stumbled at Tacitus +after his fluent Cicero. I offered excuses for him to Mr. Hart, saying he would +soon prove himself the better scholar. 'There's my old Richie!' said Temple, +fondling me on the shoulder, and my nonsensical airs fell away from me at once. +</p> + +<p> +We roamed the neighbourhood talking old school-days over, visiting houses, +hunting and dancing, declaring every day we would write for Heriot to join us, +instead of which we wrote a valentine to Julia Rippenger, and despatched a +companion one composed in a very different spirit to her father. Lady Ilchester +did us the favour to draw a sea-monster, an Andromeda, and a Perseus in the +shape of a flying British hussar, for Julia's valentine. It seemed to us so +successful that we scattered half-a-dozen over the neighbourhood, and rode +round it on the morning of St. Valentine's Day to see the effect of them, +meeting the postman on the road. He gave me two for myself. One was +transparently from Janet, a provoking counterstroke of mine to her; but when I +opened the other my heart began beating. The standard of Great Britain was +painted in colours at the top; down each side, encricled in laurels, were kings +and queens of England with their sceptres, and in the middle I read the +initials, A. F-G. R. R., embedded in blue forget-me-nots. I could not doubt it +was from my father. Riding out in the open air as I received it, I could fancy +in my hot joy that it had dropped out of heaven. +</p> + +<p> +'He's alive; I shall have him with me; I shall have him with me soon!' I cried +to Temple. 'Oh! why can't I answer him? where is he? what address? Let's ride +to London. Don't you understand, Temple? This letter's from my father. He knows +I'm here. I'll find him, never mind what happens.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, but,' said Temple, 'if he knows where you are, and you don't know where +he is, there's no good in your going off adventuring. If a fellow wants to be +hit, the best thing he can do is to stop still.' +</p> + +<p> +Struck by the perspicacity of his views, I turned homeward. Temple had been +previously warned by me to avoid speaking of my father at Riversley; but I was +now in such a boiling state of happiness, believing that my father would +certainly appear as he had done at Dipwell farm, brilliant and cheerful, to +bear me away to new scenes and his own dear society, that I tossed the +valentine to my aunt across the breakfast-table, laughing and telling her to +guess the name of the sender. My aunt flushed. +</p> + +<p> +'Miss Bannerbridge?' she said. +</p> + +<p> +A stranger was present. The squire introduced us. +</p> + +<p> +'My grandson, Harry Richmond, Captain William Bulsted, frigate Polyphemus; +Captain Bulsted, Master Augustus Temple.' +</p> + +<p> +For the sake of conversation, Temple asked him if his ship was fully manned. +</p> + +<p> +'All but a mate,' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +I knew him by reputation as the brother of Squire Gregory Bulsted of Bulsted, +notorious for his attachment to my aunt, and laughing-stock of the county. +</p> + +<p> +'So you've got a valentine,' the captain addressed me. 'I went on shore at Rio +last year on this very day of the month, just as lively as you youngsters for +one. Saltwater keeps a man's youth in pickle. No valentine for me! Paid off my +ship yesterday at Spithead, and here I am again on Valentine's Day.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I stared hard at a big man with a bronzed skin and a rubicund laugh +who expected to receive valentines. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt thrust the letter back to me secretly. 'It must be from a lady,' said +she. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, who'd have a valentine from any but a lady?' exclaimed the captain. +</p> + +<p> +The squire winked at me to watch his guest. Captain Bulsted fed heartily; he +was thoroughly a sailor-gentleman, between the old school and the new, and, as +I perceived, as far gone in love with my aunt as his brother was. Presently +Sewis entered carrying a foaming tankard of old ale, and he and the captain +exchanged a word or two upon Jamaica. +</p> + +<p> +'Now, when you've finished that washy tea of yours, take a draught of our +October, brewed here long before you were a lieutenant, captain,' said the +squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Thank you, sir,' the captain replied; 'I know that ale; a moment, and I will +gladly. I wish to preserve my faculties; I don't wish to have it supposed that +I speak under fermenting influences. Sewis, hold by, if you please.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt made an effort to retire. +</p> + +<p> +'No, no, fair play; stay,' said the squire, trying to frown, but twinkling; my +aunt tried to smile, and sat as if on springs. +</p> + +<p> +'Miss Beltham,' the captain bowed to her, and to each one as he spoke, 'Squire +Beltham, Mr. Harry Richmond; Mr. Temple; my ship was paid off yesterday, and +till a captain's ship is paid off, he's not his own master, you are aware. If +you think my behaviour calls for comment, reflect, I beseech you, on the nature +of a sailor's life. A three-years' cruise in a cabin is pretty much equivalent +to the same amount of time spent in a coffin, I can assure you; with the +difference that you're hard at work thinking all the time like the—hum.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, he thinks hard enough,' the squire struck in. +</p> + +<p> +'Pardon me, sir; like the—hum—plumb-line on a leeshore, I meant to +observe. This is now the third—the fourth occasion on which I have +practised the observance of paying my first visit to Riversley to know my fate, +that I might not have it on my conscience that I had missed a day, a minute, as +soon as I was a free man on English terra firma. My brother Greg and I were +brought up in close association with Riversley. One of the Beauties of +Riversley we lost! One was left, and we both tried our luck with her; +honourably, in turn, each of us, nothing underhand; above-board, on the +quarter-deck, before all the company. I'll say it of my brother, I can say it +of myself. Greg's chances, I need not remark, are superior to mine; he is +always in port. If he wins, then I tell him—“God bless you, my boy; +you've won the finest woman, the handsomest, and the best, in or out of +Christendom!” But my chance is my property, though it may be value only +one farthing coin of the realm, and there is always pity for poor sinners in +the female bosom. Miss Beltham, I trespass on your kind attention. If I am to +remain a bachelor and you a maiden lady, why, the will of heaven be done! If +you marry another, never mind who the man, there's my stock to the fruit of the +union, never mind what the sex. But, if you will have one so unworthy of you as +me, my hand and heart are at your feet, ma'am, as I have lost no time in coming +to tell you.' So Captain Bulsted concluded. Our eyes were directed on my aunt. +The squire bade her to speak out, for she had his sanction to act according to +her judgement and liking. +</p> + +<p> +She said, with a gracefulness that gave me a little aching of pity for the poor +captain: 'I am deeply honoured by you, Captain Bulsted, but it is not my +intention to marry.' +</p> + +<p> +The captain stood up, and bowing humbly, replied 'I am ever your servant, +ma'am.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt quitted the room. +</p> + +<p> +'Now for the tankard, Sewis,' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +Gradually the bottom of the great tankard turned up to the ceiling. He drank to +the last drop in it. +</p> + +<p> +The squire asked him whether he found consolation in that. +</p> + +<p> +The captain sighed prodigiously and said: 'It's a commencement, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Egad, it's a commencement 'd be something like a final end to any dozen of our +fellows round about here. I'll tell you what: if stout stomachs gained the day +in love-affairs, I suspect you'd run a good race against the male half of our +county, William. And a damned good test of a man's metal, I say it is! What are +you going to do to-day?' +</p> + +<p> +'I am going to get drunk, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, you might do worse. Then, stop here, William, and give my old Port the +preference. No tongue in the morning, I promise you, and pleasant dreams at +night.' The captain thanked him cordially, but declined, saying that he would +rather make a beast of himself in another place. +</p> + +<p> +The squire vainly pressed his hospitality by assuring him of perfect secresy on +our part, as regarded my aunt, and offering him Sewis and one of the footmen to +lift him to bed. 'You are very good, squire,' said the captain; 'nothing but a +sense of duty restrains me. I am bound to convey the information to my brother +that the coast is clear for him.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, then, fall light, and for'ard,' said the squire, shaking him by the +hand. Forty years ago a gentleman, a baronet, had fallen on the back of his +head and never recovered. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, ay, launch stern foremost, if you like!' said the captain, nodding; 'no, +no, I don't go into port pulled by the tail, my word for it, squire; and good +day to you, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'No ill will about this bothering love-business of yours, William?' +</p> + +<p> +'On my soul, sir, I cherish none.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I followed him out of the house, fascinated by his manners and +oddness. He invited us to jump into the chariot beside him. We were witnesses +of the meeting between him and his brother, a little sniffling man, as like the +captain as a withered nut is like a milky one. +</p> + +<p> +'Same luck, William?' said Squire Gregory. +</p> + +<p> +'Not a point of change in the wind, Greg,' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +They wrenched hands thereupon, like two carpet-shakers, with a report, and much +in a similar attitude. +</p> + +<p> +'These young gentlemen will testify to you solemnly, Greg, that I took no +unfair advantage,' said the captain; 'no whispering in passages, no +appointments in gardens, no letters. I spoke out. Bravely, man! And now, Greg, +referring to the state of your cellar, our young friends here mean to float +with us to-night. It is now half-past eleven A.M. Your dinner-hour the same as +usual, of course? Therefore at four P.M. the hour of execution. And come, Greg, +you and I will visit the cellar. A dozen and half of light and half-a-dozen of +the old family—that will be about the number of bottles to give me my +quietus, and you yours—all of us! And you, young gentlemen, take your +guns or your rods, and back and be dressed by the four bell, or you's not +find the same man in Billy Bulsted.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple was enraptured with him. He declared he had been thinking seriously for +a long time of entering the Navy, and his admiration of the captain must have +given him an intuition of his character, for he persuaded me to send to +Riversley for our evening-dress clothes, appearing in which at the +dinner-table, we received the captain's compliments, as being gentlemen who +knew how to attire ourselves to suit an occasion. The occasion, Squire Gregory +said, happened to him too often for him to distinguish it by the cut of his +coat. +</p> + +<p> +'I observe, nevertheless, Greg, that you have a black tie round your neck +instead of a red one,' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'Then it came there by accident,' said Squire Gregory. +</p> + +<p> +'Accident! There's no such thing as accident. If I wander out of the house with +a half dozen or so in me, and topple into the brook, am I accidentally drowned? +If a squall upsets my ship, is she an accidental residue of spars and timber +and old iron? If a woman refuses me, is that an accident? There's a cause for +every disaster: too much cargo, want of foresight, want of pluck. Pooh! when +I'm hauled prisoner into a foreign port in time of war, you may talk of +accidents. Mr. Harry Richmond, Mr. Temple, I have the accidental happiness of +drinking to your healths in a tumbler of hock wine. Nominative, hic, haec, +hoc.' +</p> + +<p> +Squire Gregory carried on the declension, not without pride. The Vocative +confused him. +</p> + +<p> +'Claret will do for the Vocative,' said the captain, gravely; 'the more so as +there is plenty of it at your table, Greg. Ablative hoc, hac, hoc, which sounds +as if the gentleman had become incapable of speech beyond the name of his wine. +So we will abandon the declension of the article for a dash of champagne, which +there's no declining, I hope. Wonderful men, those Romans! They fought their +ships well, too. A question to you, Greg. Those heathen Pagan dogs had a +religion that encouraged them to swear. Now, my experience of life pronounces +it to be a human necessity to rap out an oath here and there. What do you say?' +</p> + +<p> +Squire Gregory said: 'Drinking, and no thinking, at dinner, William.' The +captain pledged him. +</p> + +<p> +'I'll take the opportunity, as we're not on board ship, of drinking to you, +sir, now,' Temple addressed the captain, whose face was resplendent; and he +bowed, and drank, and said, +</p> + +<p> +'As we are not on board ship? I like you!' +</p> + +<p> +Temple thanked him for the compliment. +</p> + +<p> +'No compliment, my lad. You see me in my weakness, and you have the discernment +to know me for something better than I seem. You promise to respect me on my +own quarter-deck. You are of the right stuff. Do I speak correctly, Mr. Harry?' +</p> + +<p> +'Temple is my dear friend,' I replied. +</p> + +<p> +'And he would not be so if not of the right stuff! Good! That's a way of +putting much in little. By Jove! a royal style.' +</p> + +<p> +'And Harry's a royal fellow!' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +We all drank to one another. The captain's eyes scrutinized me speculatingly. +</p> + +<p> +'This boy might have been yours or mine, Greg,' I heard him say in a faltering +rough tone. +</p> + +<p> +They forgot the presence of Temple and me, but spoke as if they thought they +were whispering. The captain assured his brother that Squire Beltham had given +him as much fair play as one who holds a balance. Squire Gregory doubted it, +and sipped and kept his nose at his wineglass, crabbedly repeating his doubts +of it. The captain then remarked, that doubting it, his conscience permitted +him to use stratagems, though he, the captain, not doubting it, had no such +permission. +</p> + +<p> +'I count I run away with her every night of my life,' said Squire Gregory. +'Nothing comes of it but empty bottles.' +</p> + +<p> +'Court her, serenade her,' said the captain; 'blockade the port, lay siege to +the citadel. I'd give a year of service for your chances, Greg. Half a word +from her, and you have your horses ready.' +</p> + +<p> +'She's past po'chaises,' Squire Gregory sighed. +</p> + +<p> +'She's to be won by a bold stroke, brother Greg.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, Lord, no! She's past po'chaises.' +</p> + +<p> +'Humph! it's come to be half-bottle, half-beauty, with your worship, Greg, I +suspect.' +</p> + +<p> +'No. I tell you, William, she's got her mind on that fellow. You can't po'chay +her.' +</p> + +<p> +'After he jilted her for her sister? Wrong, Greg, wrong. You are muddled. She +has a fright about matrimony—a common thing at her age, I am told. +Where's the man?' +</p> + +<p> +'In the Bench, of course. Where'd you have him?' +</p> + +<p> +'I, sir? If I knew my worst enemy to be there, I'd send him six dozen of the +best in my cellar.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple shot a walnut at me. I pretended to be meditating carelessly, and I had +the heat and roar of a conflagration round my head. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the captain said, 'Are you sure the man's in the Bench?' +</p> + +<p> +'Cock,' Squire Gregory replied. +</p> + +<p> +'He had money from his wife.' +</p> + +<p> +'And he had the wheels to make it go.' Here they whispered in earnest. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, the Billings were as rich as the Belthams,' said the captain, aloud. +</p> + +<p> +'Pretty nigh, William.' +</p> + +<p> +'That's our curse, Greg. Money settled on their male issue, and money in hand; +by the Lord! we've always had the look of a pair of highwaymen lurking for +purses, when it was the woman, the woman, penniless, naked, mean, destitute; +nothing but the woman we wanted. And there was one apiece for us. Greg, old +boy, when will the old county show such another couple of Beauties! Greg, sir, +you're not half a man, or you'd have carried her, with your opportunities. The +fellow's in the Bench, you say? How are you cocksure of that, Mr. Greg?' +</p> + +<p> +'Company,' was the answer; and the captain turned to Temple and me, apologizing +profusely for talking over family matters with his brother after a separation +of three years. I had guessed but hastily at the subject of their conversation +until they mentioned the Billings, the family of my maternal grandmother. The +name was like a tongue of fire shooting up in a cloud of smoke: I saw at once +that the man in the Bench must be my father, though what the Bench was exactly, +and where it was, I had no idea, and as I was left to imagination I became, as +usual, childish in my notions, and brooded upon thoughts of the Man in the Iron +Mask; things I dared not breathe to Temple, of whose manly sense I stood in awe +when under these distracting influences. +</p> + +<p> +'Remember our feast in the combe?' I sang across the table to him. +</p> + +<p> +'Never forget it!' said he; and we repeated the tale of the goose at +Rippenger's school to our entertainers, making them laugh. +</p> + +<p> +'And next morning Richie ran off with a gipsy girl,' said Temple; and I +composed a narrative of my wanderings with Kiomi, much more amusing than the +real one. The captain vowed he would like to have us both on board his ship, +but that times were too bad for him to offer us a prospect of promotion. 'Spin +round the decanters,' said he; 'now's the hour for them to go like a +humming-top, and each man lend a hand: whip hard, my lads. It's once in three +years, hurrah! and the cause is a cruel woman. Toast her; but no name. Here's +to the nameless Fair! For it's not my intention to marry, says she, and, ma'am, +I'm a man of honour or I'd catch you tight, my nut-brown maid, and clap you +into a cage, fal-lal, like a squirrel; to trot the wheel of mat-trimony. Shame +to the first man down!' +</p> + +<p> +'That won't be I,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'Be me, sir, me,' the captain corrected his grammar. +</p> + +<p> +'Pardon me, Captain Bulsted; the verb “To be” governs the +nominative case in our climate,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'Then I'm nominative hic... I say, sir, I'm in the tropics, Mr. Tem ... Mr. +Tempus. Point of honour, not forget a man's name. Rippenger, your schoolmaster? +Mr. Rippenger, you've knocked some knowledge into this young gentleman.' Temple +and I took counsel together hastily; we cried in a breath: 'Here's to Julia +Rippenger, the prettiest, nicest girl living!' and we drank to her. +</p> + +<p> +'Julia!' the captain echoed us. 'I join your toast, gentlemen. Mr. Richmond, +Mr. Tempus-Julia! By all that's holy, she floats a sinking ship! Julia consoles +me for the fairest, cruellest woman alive. A rough sailor, Julia! at your +feet.' +</p> + +<p> +The captain fell commendably forward. Squire Gregory had already dropped. +Temple and I tried to meet, but did not accomplish it till next morning at +breakfast. A couple of footmen carried us each upstairs in turn, as if they +were removing furniture. +</p> + +<p> +Out of this strange evening came my discovery of my father, and the captain's +winning of a wife. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"></a> +CHAPTER X.<br/> +AN EXPEDITION</h2> + +<p> +I wondered audibly where the Bench was when Temple and I sat together alone at +Squire Gregory's breakfast-table next morning, very thirsty for tea. He said it +was a place in London, but did not add the sort of place, only that I should +soon be coming to London with him; and I remarked, 'Shall I?' and smiled at +him, as if in a fit of careless affection. Then he talked runningly of the +theatres and pantomimes and London's charms. +</p> + +<p> +The fear I had of this Bench made me passingly conscious of Temple's delicacy +in not repeating its name, though why I feared it there was nothing to tell me. +I must have dreamed of it just before waking, and I burned for reasonable +information concerning it. Temple respected my father too much to speak out the +extent of his knowledge on the subject, so we drank our tea with the grandeur +of London for our theme, where, Temple assured me, you never had a headache +after a carouse overnight: a communication that led me to think the country a +far less favourable place of abode for gentlemen. We quitted the house without +seeing our host or the captain, and greatly admired by the footmen, the maids, +and the grooms for having drunk their masters under the table, which it could +not be doubted that we had done, as Temple modestly observed while we sauntered +off the grounds under the eyes of the establishment. We had done it fairly, +too, with none of those Jack the Giant-Killer tricks my grandfather accused us +of. +</p> + +<p> +The squire would not, and he could not, believe our story until he heard the +confession from the mouth of the captain. After that he said we were men and +heroes, and he tipped us both, much to Janet Ilchester's advantage, for the +squire was a royal giver, and Temple's money had already begun to take the same +road as mine. +</p> + +<p> +Temple, in fact, was falling desperately in love; for this reason he shrank +from quitting Riversley. I perceived it as clearly as a thing seen through a +windowpane. He was always meditating upon dogs, and what might be the price of +this dog or that, and whether lapdogs were good travellers. The fashionable +value of pugs filled him with a sort of despair. 'My goodness!' he used an +exclamation more suitable to women, 'forty or fifty pounds you say one costs, +Richie?' +</p> + +<p> +I pretended to estimate the probable cost of one. 'Yes, about that; but I'll +buy you one, one day or other, Temple.' +</p> + +<p> +The dear little fellow coloured hot; he was too much in earnest to laugh at the +absurdity of his being supposed to want a pug for himself, and walked round me, +throwing himself into attitudes with shrugs and loud breathings. 'I don't... +don't think that I... I care for nothing but Newfoundlands and mastiffs,' said +he. He went on shrugging and kicking up his heels. +</p> + +<p> +'Girls like pugs,' I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +'I fancy they do,' said Temple, with a snort of indifference. +</p> + +<p> +Then I suggested, 'A pocket-knife for the hunting-field is a very good thing.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you think so?' was Temple's rejoinder, and I saw he was dreadfully afraid +of my speaking the person's name for whom it would be such a very good thing. +</p> + +<p> +'You can get one for thirty shillings. We'll get one when we're in London. +They're just as useful for women as they are for us, you know.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why, of course they are, if they hunt,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'And we mustn't lose time,' I drew him to the point I had at heart, 'for +hunting 'll soon be over. It's February, mind!' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, lots of time!' Temple cried out, and on every occasion when I tried to +make him understand that I was bursting to visit London, he kept evading me, +simply because he hated saying good-bye to Janet Ilchester. His dulness of +apprehension in not perceiving that I could not commit a breach of hospitality +by begging him downright to start, struck me as extraordinary. And I was so +acute. I saw every single idea in his head, every shift of his mind, and how +he half knew that he profited by my shunning to say flatly I desired to set out +upon the discovery of the Bench. He took the benefit of my shamefacedness, for +which I daily punished his. I really felt that I was justified in giving my +irritability an airing by curious allusions to Janet; yet, though I made him +wince, it was impossible to touch his conscience. He admitted to having +repeatedly spoken of London's charms, and 'Oh, yes! you and I'll go back +together, Richie,' and saying that satisfied him: he doubled our engagements +with Janet that afternoon, and it was a riding party, a dancing-party, and a +drawing of a pond for carp, and we over to Janet, and Janet over to us, until I +grew so sick of her I was incapable of summoning a spark of jealousy in order +the better to torture Temple. +</p> + +<p> +Now, he was a quick-witted boy. Well, I one day heard Janet address my big dog, +Ajax, in the style she usually employed to inform her hearers, and especially +the proprietor, that she coveted a thing: 'Oh, you own dear precious pet +darling beauty! if I might only feed you every day of my life I should be +happy! I curtsey to him every time I see him. If I were his master, the men +should all off hats, and the women all curtsey, to Emperor Ajax, my dog! my +own! my great, dear irresistible love! Then she nodded at me, 'I would make +them, though.' And then at Temple, 'You see if I wouldn't.' +</p> + +<p> +Ajax was a source of pride to me. However, I heard Temple murmur, in a tone +totally unlike himself, 'He would be a great protection to you'; and I said to +him, 'You know, Temple, I shall be going to London to-morrow or the next day, +not later: I don't know when I shall be back. I wish you would dispose of the +dog just as you like: get him a kind master or mistress, that's all.' +</p> + +<p> +I sacrificed my dog to bring Temple to his senses. I thought it would touch him +to see how much I could sacrifice just to get an excuse for begging him to +start. He did not even thank me. Ajax soon wore one of Janet's collars, like +two or three other of the Riversley dogs, and I had the satisfaction of hearing +Temple accept my grandfather's invitation for a further fortnight. And, +meanwhile, I was the one who was charged with going about looking lovelorn! I +smothered my feelings and my reflections on the wisdom of people. +</p> + +<p> +At last my aunt Dorothy found the means of setting me at liberty on the road to +London. We had related to her how Captain Bulsted toasted Julia Rippenger, and +we had both declared in joke that we were sure the captain wished to be +introduced to her. My aunt reserved her ideas on the subject, but by-and-by she +proposed to us to ride over to Julia, and engage her to come and stay at +Riversley for some days. Kissing me, my aunt said, 'She was my Harry's friend +when he was an outcast.' +</p> + +<p> +The words revived my affection for Julia. Strong in the sacred sense of +gratitude, I turned on Temple, reproaching him with selfish forgetfulness of +her good heart and pretty face. Without defending himself, as he might have +done, he entreated me to postpone our journey for a day; he and Janet had some +appointment. Here was given me a noble cause and matter I need not shrink from +speaking of. I lashed Temple in my aunt's presence with a rod of real eloquence +that astonished her, and him, and myself too; and as he had a sense of guilt +not quite explicable in his mind, he consented to bear what was in reality my +burden; for Julia had distinguished me and not him with all the signs of +affection, and of the two I had the more thoroughly forgotten her; I believe +Temple was first in toasting her at Squire Gregory's table. There is nothing +like a pent-up secret of the heart for accumulating powers of speech; I mean in +youth. The mental distilling process sets in later, and then you have irony +instead of eloquence. From brooding on my father, and not daring to mention his +name lest I should hear evil of it, my thoughts were a proud family, proud of +their origin, proud of their isolation,—and not to be able to divine them +was for the world to confess itself basely beneath their level. But, when they +did pour out, they were tremendous, as Temple found. This oratorical display of +mine gave me an ascendancy over him. He adored eloquence, not to say +grandiloquence: he was the son of a barrister. 'Let's go and see her at once, +Richie,' he said of Julia. 'I'm ready to be off as soon as you like; I'm ready +to do anything that will please you'; which was untrue, but it was useless to +tell him so. I sighed at my sad gift of penetration, and tossed the fresh +example of it into the treasury of vanity. +</p> + +<p> +'Temple,' said I, dissembling a little; 'I tell you candidly: you won't please +me by doing anything disagreeable to you. A dog pulled by the collar is not +much of a companion. I start for Julia to-morrow before daylight. If you like +your bed best, stop there; and mind you amuse Janet for me during my absence.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'm not going to let any one make comparisons between us,' Temple muttered. +</p> + +<p> +He dropped dozens of similar remarks, and sometimes talked downright flattery, +I had so deeply impressed him. +</p> + +<p> +We breakfasted by candle-light, and rode away on a frosty foggy morning, +keeping our groom fifty yards to the rear, a laughable sight, with both his +coat-pockets bulging, a couple of Riversley turnover pasties in one, and a +bottle of champagne in the other, for our lunch on the road. Now and then, when +near him, we galloped for the fun of seeing him nurse the bottle-pocket. He was +generally invisible. Temple did not think it strange that we should be riding +out in an unknown world with only a little ring, half a stone's-throw clear +around us, and blots of copse, and queer vanishing cottages, and hard grey +meadows, fir-trees wonderfully magnified, and larches and birches rigged like +fairy ships, all starting up to us as we passed, and melting instantly. One +could have fancied the fir-trees black torches. And here the shoulder of a hill +invited us to race up to the ridge: some way on we came to crossroads, careless +of our luck in hitting the right one: yonder hung a village church in the air, +and church-steeple piercing ever so high; and out of the heart of the mist +leaped a brook, and to hear it at one moment, and then to have the sharp +freezing silence in one's ear, was piercingly weird. It all tossed the mind in +my head like hay on a pitchfork. I forgot the existence of everything but what +I loved passionately,—and that had no shape, was like a wind. +</p> + +<p> +Up on a knoll of firs in the middle of a heath, glowing rosy in the frost, we +dismounted to lunch, leaning against the warm saddles, Temple and I, and +Uberly, our groom, who reminded me of a certain tramp of my acquaintance in his +decided preference of beer to champagne; he drank, though, and sparkled after +his draught. No sooner were we on horseback again—ere the flanks of the +dear friendly brutes were in any way cool—than Temple shouted +enthusiastically, 'Richie, we shall do it yet! I've been funking, but now I'm +sure we shall do it. Janet said, “What's the use of my coming over to +dine at Riversley if Harry Richmond and you don't come home before ten or +eleven o'clock?” I told her we'd do it by dinner-time: Don't you like +Janet, Richie?—That is, if our horses' hic-haec-hocks didn't get strained +on this hard nominative-plural-masculine of the article road. Don't you fancy +yourself dining with the captain, Richie? Dative huic, says old Squire Gregory. +I like to see him at dinner, because he loves the smell of his wine. Oh! it's +nothing to boast of, but we did drink them under the table, it can't be denied. +Janet heard of it. Hulloa! you talk of a hunting-knife. What do you say to a +pair of skates? Here we are in for a frost of six weeks. It strikes me, a pair +of skates...' +</p> + +<p> +This was the champagne in Temple. In me it did not bubble to speech, and I soon +drew him on at a pace that rendered conversation impossible. Uberly shouted +after us to spare the horses' legs. We heard him twice out of the deepening +fog. I called to Temple that he was right, we should do it. Temple hurrahed +rather breathlessly. At the end of an hour I pulled up at an inn, where I left +the horses to be groomed and fed, and walked away rapidly as if I knew the +town, Temple following me with perfect confidence, and, indeed, I had no +intention to deceive him. We entered a new station of a railway. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' said Temple, 'the rest of the way by rail.' +</p> + +<p> +When the railway clerk asked me what place I wanted tickets for, London sprang +to my mouth promptly in a murmur, and taking the tickets I replied to Temple, +</p> + +<p> +'The rest of the way by rail. Uberly's sure to stop at that inn'; but my heart +beat as the carriages slid away with us; an affectionate commiseration for +Temple touched me when I heard him count on our being back at Riversley in time +to dress for dinner. +</p> + +<p> +He laughed aloud at the idea of our plumping down on Rippenger's school, +getting a holiday for the boys, tipping them, and then off with Julia, exactly +like two Gods of the Mythology, Apollo and Mercury. +</p> + +<p> +'I often used to think they had the jolliest lives that ever were lived,' he +said, and trying to catch glimpses of the country, and musing, and singing, he +continued to feel like one of those blissful Gods until wonder at the passage +of time supervened. Amazement, when he looked at my watch, struck him dumb. Ten +minutes later we were in yellow fog, then in brown. Temple stared at both +windows and at me; he jumped from his seat and fell on it, muttering, 'No; +nonsense! I say!' but he had accurately recognized London's fog. I left him +unanswered to bring up all his senses, which the railway had outstripped, for +the contemplation of this fact, that we two were in the city of London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"></a> +CHAPTER XI.<br/> +THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT</h2> + +<p> +It was London city, and the Bench was the kernel of it to me. I throbbed with +excitement, though I sat looking out of the windows into the subterranean +atmosphere quite still and firm. When you think long undividedly of a single +object it gathers light, and when you draw near it in person the strange thing +to your mind is the absence of that light; but I, approaching it in this dense +fog, seemed to myself to be only thinking of it a little more warmly than +usual, and instead of fading it reversed the process, and became, from light, +luminous. Not being able, however, to imagine the Bench a happy place, I +corrected the excess of brightness and gave its walls a pine-torch glow; I set +them in the middle of a great square, and hung the standard of England drooping +over them in a sort of mournful family pride. Then, because I next conceived it +a foreign kind of place, different altogether from that home growth of ours, +the Tower of London, I topped it with a multitude of domes of pumpkin or turban +shape, resembling the Kremlin of Moscow, which had once leapt up in the eye of +Winter, glowing like a million pine-torches, and flung shadows of stretching +red horses on the black smoke-drift. But what was the Kremlin, that had seen a +city perish, to this Bench where my father languished! There was no comparing +them for tragic horror. And the Kremlin had snow-fields around it; this Bench +was caught out of sight, hemmed in by an atmosphere thick as Charon breathed; +it might as well be underground. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! it's London,' Temple went on, correcting his incorrigible doubts about it. +He jumped on the platform; we had to call out not to lose one another. 'I say, +Richie, this is London,' he said, linking his arm in mine: 'you know by the +size of the station; and besides, there's the fog. Oh! it's London. We've +overshot it, we're positively in London.' +</p> + +<p> +I could spare no sympathy for his feelings, and I did not respond to his +inquiring looks. Now that we were here I certainly wished myself away, though I +would not have retreated, and for awhile I was glad of the discomforts +besetting me; my step was hearty as I led on, meditating upon asking some one +the direction to the Bench presently. We had to walk, and it was nothing but +traversing on a slippery pavement atmospheric circles of black brown and brown +red, and sometimes a larger circle of pale yellow; the colours of old bruised +fruits, medlars, melons, and the smell of them; nothing is more desolate. +Neither of us knew where we were, nor where we were going. We struggled through +an interminable succession of squalid streets, from the one lamp visible to its +neighbour in the darkness: you might have fancied yourself peering at the head +of an old saint on a smoky canvas; it was like the painting of light rather +than light. Figures rushed by; we saw no faces. +</p> + +<p> +Temple spoke solemnly: 'Our dinner-hour at home is half-past six.' A street-boy +overheard him and chaffed him. Temple got the worst of it, and it did him good, +for he had the sweetest nature in the world. We declined to be attended by +link-boys; they would have hurt our sense of independence. Possessed of a +sovereign faith that, by dint of resolution, I should ultimately penetrate to +the great square enclosing the Bench, I walked with the air of one who had the +map of London in his eye and could thread it blindfold. Temple was thereby +deceived into thinking that I must somehow have learnt the direction I meant to +take, and knew my way, though at the slightest indication of my halting and +glancing round his suspicions began to boil, and he was for asking some one the +name of the ground we stood on: he murmured, 'Fellows get lost in London.' By +this time he clearly understood that I had come to London on purpose: he could +not but be aware of the object of my coming, and I was too proud, and he still +too delicate, to allude to it. +</p> + +<p> +The fog choked us. Perhaps it took away the sense of hunger by filling us as if +we had eaten a dinner of soot. We had no craving to eat until long past the +dinner-hour in Temple's house, and then I would rather have plunged into a bath +and a bed than have been requested to sit at a feast; Temple too, I fancy. We +knew we were astray without speaking of it. Temple said, 'I wish we hadn't +drunk that champagne.' It seemed to me years since I had tasted the delicious +crushing of the sweet bubbles in my mouth. But I did not blame them; I was +after my father: he, dear little fellow, had no light ahead except his devotion +to me: he must have had a touch of conscious guilt regarding his recent +behaviour, enough to hold him from complaining formally. He complained of a +London without shops and lights, wondered how any one could like to come to it +in a fog, and so forth; and again regretted our having drunk champagne in the +morning; a sort of involuntary whimpering easily forgiven to him, for I knew he +had a gallant heart. I determined, as an act of signal condescension, to accost +the first person we met, male or female, for Temple's sake. Having come to this +resolve, which was to be an open confession that I had misled him, wounding to +my pride, I hoped eagerly for the hearing of a footfall. We were in a labyrinth +of dark streets where no one was astir. A wretched dog trotted up to us, +followed at our heels a short distance, and left us as if he smelt no luck +about us; our cajoleries were unavailing to keep that miserable companion. +</p> + +<p> +'Sinbad escaped from the pit by tracking a lynx,' I happened to remark. Temple +would not hear of Sinbad. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, come, we're not Mussulmen,' said he; 'I declare, Richie, if I saw a church +open, I'd go in and sleep there. Were you thinking of tracking the dog, then? +Beer may be had somewhere. We shall have to find an hotel. What can the time +be?' +</p> + +<p> +I owed it to him to tell him, so I climbed a lamppost and spelt out the hour by +my watch. When I descended we were three. A man had his hands on Temple's +shoulders, examining his features. +</p> + +<p> +'Now speak,' the man said, roughly. +</p> + +<p> +I was interposing, but Temple cried, 'All right, Richie, we are two to one.' +</p> + +<p> +The man groaned. I asked him what he wanted. +</p> + +<p> +'My son! I've lost my son,' the man replied, and walked away; and he would give +no answer to our questions. +</p> + +<p> +I caught hold of the lamp-post, overcome. I meant to tell Temple, in response +to the consoling touch of his hand, that I hoped the poor, man would discover +his son, but said instead, 'I wish we could see the Bench to-night.' Temple +exclaimed, 'Ah!' pretending by his tone of voice that we had recently discussed +our chance of it, and then he ventured to inform me that he imagined he had +heard of the place being shut up after a certain hour of the night. +</p> + +<p> +My heart felt released, and gushed with love for him. 'Very well, Temple,' I +said: 'then we'll wait till tomorrow, and strike out for some hotel now.' +</p> + +<p> +Off we went at a furious pace. Saddlebank's goose was reverted to by both of us +with an exchange of assurances that we should meet a dish the fellow to it +before we slept. +</p> + +<p> +'As for life,' said I, as soon as the sharp pace had fetched my breathing to a +regular measure, 'adventures are what I call life.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple assented. 'They're capital, if you only see the end of them.' +</p> + +<p> +We talked of Ulysses and Penelope. Temple blamed him for leaving Calypso. I +thought Ulysses was right, otherwise we should have had no slaying of the +Suitors but Temple shyly urged that to have a Goddess caring for you (and she +was handsomer than Penelope, who must have been an oldish woman) was something +to make you feel as you do on a hunting morning, when there are half-a-dozen +riding-habits speckling the field—a whole glorious day your own among +them! This view appeared to me very captivating, save for an obstruction in my +mind, which was, that Goddesses were always conceived by me as statues. They +talked and they moved, it was true, but the touch of them was marble; and they +smiled and frowned, but they had no variety: they were never warm. +</p> + +<p> +'If I thought that!' muttered Temple, puffing at the raw fog. He admitted he +had thought just the contrary, and that the cold had suggested to him the +absurdity of leaving a Goddess. +</p> + +<p> +'Look here, Temple,' said I, 'has it never struck you? I won't say I'm like +him. It's true I've always admired Ulysses; he could fight best, talk best, and +plough, and box, and how clever he was! Take him all round, who wouldn't rather +have had him for a father than Achilles? And there were just as many women in +love with him.' +</p> + +<p> +'More,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, then,' I continued, thanking him in my heart, for it must have cost him +something to let Ulysses be set above Achilles, 'Telemachus is the one I mean. +He was in search of his father. He found him at last. Upon my honour, Temple, +when I think of it, I'm ashamed to have waited so long. I call that luxury I've +lived in senseless. Yes! while I was uncertain whether my father had enough to +eat or not.' +</p> + +<p> +'I say! hush!' Temple breathed, in pain at such allusions. 'Richie, the squire +has finished his bottle by about now; bottle number two. He won't miss us till +the morning, but Miss Beltham will. She'll be at your bedroom door three or +four times in the night, I know. It's getting darker and darker, we must be in +some dreadful part of London.' +</p> + +<p> +The contrast he presented to my sensations between our pleasant home and this +foggy solitude gave me a pang of dismay. I diverged from my favourite straight +line, which seemed to pierce into the bowels of the earth, sharp to the right. +Soon or late after, I cannot tell, we were in the midst of a thin stream of +people, mostly composed of boys and young women, going at double time, hooting +and screaming with the delight of loosened animals, not quite so agreeably; but +animals never hunted on a better scent. A dozen turnings in their company +brought us in front of a fire. There we saw two houses preyed on by the flames, +just as if a lion had his paws on a couple of human creatures, devouring them; +we heard his jaws, the cracking of bones, shrieks, and the voracious in-and-out +of his breath edged with anger. A girl by my side exclaimed, 'It's not the +Bench, after all! Would I have run to see a paltry two-story washerwoman's +mangling-shed flare up, when six penn'orth of squibs and shavings and a cracker +make twice the fun!' +</p> + +<p> +I turned to her, hardly able to speak. 'Where's the Bench, if you please?' She +pointed. I looked on an immense high wall. The blunt flames of the fire +opposite threw a sombre glow on it. +</p> + +<p> +The girl said, 'And don't you go hopping into debt, my young cock-sparrow, or +you'll know one side o' the turnkey better than t' other.' She had a friend +with her who chid her for speaking so freely. +</p> + +<p> +'Is it too late to go in to-night?' I asked. +</p> + +<p> +She answered that it was, and that she and her friend were the persons to show +me the way in there. Her friend answered more sensibly: 'Yes, you can't go in +there before some time—in the morning.' +</p> + +<p> +I learnt from her that the Bench was a debtors' prison. +</p> + +<p> +The saucy girl of the pair asked me for money. I handed her a crown-piece. +</p> + +<p> +'Now won't you give another big bit to my friend?' said she. +</p> + +<p> +I had no change, and the well-mannered girl bade me never mind, the saucy one +pressed for it, and for a treat. She was amusing in her talk of the quantity of +different fires she had seen; she had also seen accidental-death corpses, but +never a suicide in the act; and here she regretted the failure of her +experiences. This conversation of a good-looking girl amazed me. Presently +Temple cried, 'A third house caught, and no engines yet! Richie, there's an old +woman in her night-dress; we can't stand by.' +</p> + +<p> +The saucy girl joked at the poor half-naked old woman. Temple stood humping and +agitating his shoulders like a cat before it springs. Both the girls tried to +stop us. The one I liked best seized my watch, and said, 'Leave this to me to +take care of,' and I had no time to wrestle for it. I had a glimpse of her face +that let me think she was not fooling me, the watch-chain flew off my neck, +Temple and I clove through the crowd of gapers. We got into the heat, which was +in a minute scorching. Three men were under the window; they had sung out to +the old woman above to drop a blanket—she tossed them a water-jug. She +was saved by the blanket of a neighbour. Temple and I strained at one corner of +it to catch her. +</p> + +<p> +She came down, the men said, like a singed turkey. The flames illuminated her +as she descended. There was a great deal of laughter in the crowd, but I was +shocked. Temple shared the painful impression produced on me. I cannot express +my relief when the old woman was wrapped in the blanket which had broken her +descent, and stood like a blot instead of a figure. I handed a sovereign to the +three men, complimenting them on the humanity of their dispositions. They +cheered us, and the crowd echoed the cheer, and Temple and I made our way back +to the two girls: both of us lost our pocket-handkerchiefs, and Temple a +penknife as well. Then the engines arrived and soused the burning houses. We +were all in a crimson mist, boys smoking, girls laughing and staring, men +hallooing, hats and caps flying about, fights going on, people throwing their +furniture out of the windows. The great wall of the Bench was awful in its +reflection of the labouring flames—it rose out of sight like the +flame-tops till the columns of water brought them down. I thought of my father, +and of my watch. The two girls were not visible. 'A glorious life a fireman's!' +said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +The firemen were on the roofs of the houses, handsome as Greek heroes, and it +really did look as if they were engaged in slaying an enormous dragon, that +hissed and tongued at them, and writhed its tail, paddling its broken big red +wings in the pit of wreck and smoke, twisting and darkening—something +fine to conquer, I felt with Temple. +</p> + +<p> +A mutual disgust at the inconvenience created by the appropriation of our +pocket-handkerchiefs by members of the crowd, induced us to disentangle +ourselves from it without confiding to any one our perplexity for supper and a +bed. We were now extremely thirsty. I had visions of my majority bottles of +Burgundy, lying under John Thresher's care at Dipwell, and would have abandoned +them all for one on the spot. After ranging about the outskirts of the crowd, +seeking the two girls, we walked away, not so melancholy but that a draught of +porter would have cheered us. Temple punned on the loss of my watch, and +excused himself for a joke neither of us had spirit to laugh at. Just as I was +saying, with a last glance at the fire, 'Anyhow, it would have gone in that +crowd,' the nice good girl ran up behind us, crying, 'There!' as she put the +watch-chain over my head. +</p> + +<p> +'There, Temple,' said I, 'didn't I tell you so?' and Temple kindly supposed so. +</p> + +<p> +The girl said, 'I was afraid I'd missed you, little fellow, and you'd take me +for a thief, and thank God, I'm no thief yet. I rushed into the crowd to meet +you after you caught that old creature, and I could have kissed you both, +you're so brave.' +</p> + +<p> +'We always go in for it together,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +I made an offer to the girl of a piece of gold. 'Oh, I'm poor,' she cried, yet +kept her hand off it like a bird alighting on ground, not on prey. When I +compelled her to feel the money tight, she sighed, 'If I wasn't so poor! I +don't want your gold. Why are you out so late?' +</p> + +<p> +We informed her of our arrival from the country, and wanderings in the fog. +</p> + +<p> +'And you'll say you're not tired, I know,' the girl remarked, and laughed to +hear how correctly she had judged of our temper. Our thirst and hunger, +however, filled her with concern, because of our not being used to it as she +was, and no place was open to supply our wants. Her friend, the saucy one, +accompanied by a man evidently a sailor, joined us, and the three had a +consultation away from Temple and me, at the end of which the sailor, whose +name was Joe, raised his leg dancingly, and smacked it. We gave him our hands +to shake, and understood, without astonishment, that we were invited on board +his ship to partake of refreshment. We should not have been astonished had he +said on board his balloon. Down through thick fog of a lighter colour, we made +our way to a narrow lane leading to the river-side, where two men stood +thumping their arms across their breasts, smoking pipes, and swearing. We +entered a boat and were rowed to a ship. I was not aware how frozen and +befogged my mind and senses had become until I had taken a desperate and long +gulp of smoking rum-and-water, and then the whole of our adventures from +morning to midnight, with the fir-trees in the country fog, and the lamps in +the London fog, and the man who had lost his son, the fire, the Bench, the old +woman with her fowl-like cry and limbs in the air, and the row over the misty +river, swam flashing before my eyes, and I cried out to the two girls, who were +drinking out of one glass with the sailor Joe, my entertainer, 'Well, I'm awake +now!' and slept straight off the next instant. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"></a> +CHAPTER XII.<br/> +WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE</h2> + +<p> +It seemed to me that I had but taken a turn from right to left, or gone round a +wheel, when I repeated the same words, and I heard Temple somewhere near me +mumble something like them. He drew a long breath, so did I: we cleared our +throats with a sort of whinny simultaneously. The enjoyment of lying perfectly +still, refreshed, incurious, unexcited, yet having our minds animated, +excursive, reaping all the incidents of our lives at leisure, and making a +dream of our latest experiences, kept us tranquil and incommunicative. +Occasionally we let fall a sigh fathoms deep, then by-and-by began blowing a +bit of a wanton laugh at the end of it. I raised my foot and saw the boot on +it, which accounted for an uneasy sensation setting in through my frame. +</p> + +<p> +I said softly, 'What a pleasure it must be for horses to be groomed!' +</p> + +<p> +'Just what I was thinking!' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +We started up on our elbows, and one or the other cried: +</p> + +<p> +'There's a chart! These are bunks! Hark at the row overhead! We're in a ship! +The ship's moving! Is it foggy this morning? It's time to get up! I've slept in +my clothes! Oh, for a dip! How I smell of smoke! What a noise of a steamer! And +the squire at Riversley! Fancy Uberly's tale!' +</p> + +<p> +Temple, with averted face, asked me whether I meant to return to Riversley that +day. I assured him I would, on my honour, if possible; and of course he also +would have to return there. 'Why, you've an appointment with Janet Ilchester,' +said I, 'and we may find a pug; we'll buy the hunting-knife and the skates. And +she shall know you saved an old woman's life.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, don't talk about that,' Temple entreated me, biting his lip. 'Richie, +we're going fast through the water. It reminds me of breakfast. I should guess +the hour to be nine A.M.' +</p> + +<p> +My watch was unable to assist us; the hands pointed to half-past four, and were +fixed. We ran up on deck. Looking over the stern of the vessel, across a line +of rippling eddying red gold, we saw the sun low upon cushions of beautiful +cloud; no trace of fog anywhere; blue sky overhead, and a mild breeze blowing. +</p> + +<p> +'Sunrise,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +Temple answered, 'Yes,' most uncertainly. +</p> + +<p> +We looked round. A steam-tug was towing our ship out toward banks of +red-reflecting cloud, and a smell of sea air. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, that's the East there!' cried Temple. We faced about to the sun, and +behold, he was actually sinking! +</p> + +<p> +'Nonsense!' we exclaimed in a breath. From seaward to this stupefying sunset we +stood staring. The river stretched to broad lengths; gulls were on the grey +water, knots of seaweed, and the sea-foam curled in advance of us. +</p> + +<p> +'By jingo!' Temple spoke out, musing, 'here's a whole day struck out of our +existence.' +</p> + +<p> +'It can't be!' said I, for that any sensible being could be tricked of a piece +of his life in that manner I thought a preposterous notion. +</p> + +<p> +But the sight of a lessening windmill in the West, shadows eastward, the wide +water, and the air now full salt, convinced me we two had slept through an +entire day, and were passing rapidly out of hail of our native land. +</p> + +<p> +'We must get these fellows to put us on shore at once,' said Temple: 'we won't +stop to eat. There's a town; a boat will row us there in half-an-hour. Then we +can wash, too. I've got an idea nothing's clean here. And confound these +fellows for not having the civility to tell us they were going to start!' +</p> + +<p> +We were rather angry, a little amused, not in the least alarmed at our +position. A sailor, to whom we applied for an introduction to the captain, said +he was busy. Another gave us a similar reply, with a monstrous grimace which +was beyond our comprehension. The sailor Joe was nowhere to be seen. None of +the sailors appeared willing to listen to us, though they stopped as they were +running by to lend half an ear to what we had to say. Some particular movement +was going on in the ship. Temple was the first to observe that the steamtug was +casting us loose, and cried he, 'She'll take us on board and back to London +Bridge. Let's hail her.' He sang out, 'Whoop! ahoy!' I meanwhile had caught +sight of Joe. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, young gentleman!' he accosted me, and he hoped I had slept well. My +courteous request to him to bid the tug stand by to take us on board, only +caused him to wear a look of awful gravity. 'You're such a deuce of a sleeper,' +he said. 'You see, we had to be off early to make up for forty hours lost by +that there fog. I tried to wake you both; no good; so I let you snore away. We +took up our captain mid-way down the river, and now you're in his hands, and +he'll do what he likes with you, and that's a fact, and my opinion is you's +see a foreign shore before you're in the arms of your family again.' +</p> + +<p> +At these words I had the horrible sensation of being caged, and worse, +transported into the bargain. +</p> + +<p> +I insisted on seeing the captain. A big bright round moon was dancing over the +vessel's bowsprit, and this, together with the tug thumping into the distance, +and the land receding, gave me—coming on my wrath—suffocating +emotions. +</p> + +<p> +No difficulties were presented in my way. I was led up to a broad man in a +pilot-coat, who stood square, and looked by the bend of his eyebrows as if he +were always making head against a gale. He nodded to my respectful salute. +'Cabin,' he said, and turned his back to me. +</p> + +<p> +I addressed him, 'Excuse me, I want to go on shore, captain. I must and will +go! I am here by some accident; you have accidentally overlooked me here. I +wish to treat you like a gentleman, but I won't be detained.' +</p> + +<p> +Joe spoke a word to the captain, who kept his back as broad to me as a +school-slate for geography and Euclid's propositions. +</p> + +<p> +'Cabin, cabin,' the captain repeated. +</p> + +<p> +I tried to get round him to dash a furious sentence or so in his face, since +there was no producing any impression on his back; but he occupied the whole of +a way blocked with wire-coil, and rope, and boxes, and it would have been +ridiculous to climb this barricade when by another right-about-face he could in +a minute leave me volleying at the blank space between his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +Joe touched my arm, which, in as friendly a way as I could assume, I bade him +not do a second time; for I could ill contain myself as it was, and beginning +to think I had been duped and tricked, I was ready for hostilities. I could +hardly bear meeting Temple on my passage to the cabin. 'Captain Jasper Welsh,' +he was reiterating, as if sounding it to discover whether it had an ominous +ring: it was the captain's name, that he had learnt from one of the seamen. +</p> + +<p> +Irritated by his repetition of it, I said, I know not why, or how the words +came: 'A highwayman notorious for his depredations in the vicinity of the city +of Bristol.' +</p> + +<p> +This set Temple off laughing: 'And so he bought a ship and had traps laid down +to catch young fellows for ransom.' +</p> + +<p> +I was obliged to request Temple not to joke, but the next moment I had launched +Captain Jasper Welsh on a piratical exploit; Temple lifted the veil from his +history, revealing him amid the excesses of a cannibal feast. I dragged him +before a British jury; Temple hanged him in view of an excited multitude. As he +boasted that there was the end of Captain Welsh, I broke the rope. But Temple +spoiled my triumph by depriving him of the use of his lower limbs after the +fall, for he was a heavy man. I could not contradict it, and therefore pitched +all his ship's crew upon the gallows in a rescue. Temple allowed him to be +carried off by his faithful ruffians, only stipulating that the captain was +never after able to release his neck from the hangman's slip knot. The +consequence was that he wore a shirt-collar up to his eyebrows for concealment +by day, and a pillow-case over his head at night, and his wife said she was a +deceived unhappy woman, and died of curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +The talking of even such nonsense as this was a relief to us in our impatience +and helplessness, with the lights of land heaving far distant to our fretful +sight through the cabin windows. +</p> + +<p> +When we had to talk reasonably we were not so successful. Captain Welsh was one +of those men who show you, whether you care to see them or not, all the +processes by which they arrive at an idea of you, upon which they forthwith +shape their course. Thus, when he came to us in the cabin, he took the oil-lamp +in his hand and examined our faces by its light; he had no reply to our +remonstrances and petitions: all he said was, 'Humph! well, I suppose you're +both gentlemen born'; and he insisted on prosecuting his scrutiny without any +reference to the tenour of our observations. +</p> + +<p> +We entreated him half imperiously to bring his ship to and put us on shore in a +boat. He bunched up his mouth, remarking, 'Know their grammar: habit o' +speaking to grooms, eh? humph.' We offered to pay largely. 'Loose o' their +cash,' was his comment, and so on; and he was the more exasperating to us +because he did not look an evil-minded man; only he appeared to be cursed with +an evil opinion of us. I tried to remove it; I spoke forbearingly. Temple, +imitating me, was sugar-sweet. We exonerated the captain from blame, excused +him for his error, named the case a mistake on both sides. That long sleep of +ours, we said, was really something laughable; we laughed at the recollection +of it, a lamentable piece of merriment. +</p> + +<p> +Our artfulness and patience becoming exhausted, for the captain had vouchsafed +us no direct answer, I said at last, 'Captain Welsh, here we are on board your +ship will you tell us what you mean to do with us?' +</p> + +<p> +He now said bluntly, 'I will.' +</p> + +<p> +'You'll behave like a man of honour,' said I, and to that he cried vehemently, +'I will.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, then,' said I, 'call out the boat, if you please; we're anxious to be +home.' +</p> + +<p> +'So you shall!' the captain shouted, 'and per ship—my barque Priscilla; +and better men than you left, or I'm no Christian.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple said briskly, 'Thank you, captain.' +</p> + +<p> +'You may wait awhile with that, my lad,' he answered; and, to our astonishment, +recommended us to go and clean our faces and prepare to drink some tea at his +table. +</p> + +<p> +'Thank you very much, captain, we'll do that when we're on shore,' said we. +</p> + +<p> +'You'll have black figure-heads and empty gizzards, then, by that time,' he +remarked. We beheld him turning over the leaves of a Bible. +</p> + +<p> +Now, this sight of the Bible gave me a sense of personal security, and a notion +of hypocrisy in his conduct as well; and perceiving that we had conjectured +falsely as to his meaning to cast us on shore per ship, his barque Priscilla, I +burst out in great heat, 'What! we are prisoners? You dare to detain us?' +</p> + +<p> +Temple chimed in, in a similar strain. Fairly enraged, we flung at him without +anything of what I thought eloquence. +</p> + +<p> +The captain ruminated up and down the columns of his Bible. +</p> + +<p> +I was stung to feel that we were like two small terriers baiting a huge mild +bull. At last he said, 'The story of the Prodigal Son.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' groaned Temple, at the mention of this worn-out old fellow, who has gone +in harness to tracts ever since he ate the fatted calf. +</p> + +<p> +But the captain never heeded his interruption. +</p> + +<p> +'Young gentlemen, I've finished it while you've been barking at me. If I'd had +him early in life on board my vessel, I hope I'm not presumptuous in +saying—the Lord forgive me if I be so!—I'd have stopped his +downward career—ay, so!—with a trip in the right direction. The +Lord, young gentlemen, has not thrown you into my hands for no purpose +whatsoever. Thank him on your knees to-night, and thank Joseph Double, my mate, +when you rise, for he was the instrument of saving you from bad company. If +this was a vessel where you'd hear an oath or smell the smell of liquor, I'd +have let you run when there was terra firma within stone's throw. I came on +board, I found you both asleep, with those marks of dissipation round your +eyes, and I swore—in the Lord's name, mind you—I'd help pluck you +out of the pit while you had none but one leg in. It's said! It's no use +barking. I am not to be roused. The devil in me is chained by the waist, and a +twenty-pound weight on his tongue. With your assistance I'll do the same for +the devil in you. Since you've had plenty of sleep, I'll trouble you to commit +to memory the whole story of the Prodigal Son 'twixt now and morrow's sunrise. +We's have our commentary on it after labour done. Labour you will in my +vessel, for your soul's health. And let me advise you not to talk; in your +situation talking's temptation to lying. You'll do me the obligation to feed at +my table. And when I hand you back to your parents, why, they'll thank me, if +you won't. But it's not thanks I look for: it's my bounden Christian duty I +look to. I reckon a couple o' stray lambs equal to one lost sheep.' +</p> + +<p> +The captain uplifted his arm, ejaculating solemnly, 'By!' and faltered. 'You +were going to swear!' said Temple, with savage disdain. +</p> + +<p> +'By the blessing of Omnipotence! I'll save a pair o' pups from turning wolves. +And I'm a weak mortal man, that's too true.' +</p> + +<p> +'He was going to swear,' Temple muttered to me. +</p> + +<p> +I considered the detection of Captain Welsh's hypocrisy unnecessary, almost a +condescension toward familiarity; but the ire in my bosom was boiling so that I +found it impossible to roll out the flood of eloquence with which I was big. +Soon after, I was trying to bribe the man with all my money and my watch. +</p> + +<p> +'Who gave you that watch?' said he. +</p> + +<p> +'Downright Church catechism!' muttered Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'My grandfather,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +The captain's head went like a mechanical hammer, to express something +indescribable. +</p> + +<p> +'My grandfather,' I continued, 'will pay you handsomely for any service you do +to me and my friend.' +</p> + +<p> +'Now, that's not far off forgoing,' said the captain, in a tone as much as to +say we were bad all over. +</p> + +<p> +I saw the waters slide by his cabin-windows. My desolation, my humiliation, my +chained fury, tumbled together. Out it came— +</p> + +<p> +'Captain, do behave to us like a gentleman, and you shall never repent it. Our +relatives will be miserable about us. They—captain!—they don't know +where we are. We haven't even a change of clothes. Of course we know we're at +your mercy, but do behave like an honest man. You shall be paid or not, just as +you please, for putting us on shore, but we shall be eternally grateful to you. +Of course you mean kindly to us; we see that—' +</p> + +<p> +'I thank the Lord for it!' he interposed. +</p> + +<p> +'Only you really are under a delusion. It's extraordinary. You can't be quite +in your right senses about us; you must be—I don't mean to speak +disrespectfully—what we call on shore, cracked about us....' +</p> + +<p> +'Doddered, don't they say in one of the shires?' he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +Half-encouraged, and in the belief that I might be getting eloquent, I appealed +to his manliness. Why should he take advantage of a couple of boys? I struck +the key of his possible fatherly feelings: What misery were not our friends +suffering now. ('Ay, a bucketful now saves an ocean in time to come!' he flung +in his word.) I bade him, with more pathetic dignity reflect on the dreadful +hiatus in our studies. +</p> + +<p> +'Is that Latin or Greek?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +I would not reply to the cold-blooded question. He said the New Testament was +written in Greek, he knew, and happy were those who could read it in the +original. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, and how can we be learning to read it on board ship?' said Temple, an +observation that exasperated me because it seemed more to the point than my +lengthy speech, and betrayed that he thought so; however, I took it up:— +</p> + +<p> +'How can we be graduating for our sphere in life, Captain Welsh, on board your +vessel? Tell us that.' +</p> + +<p> +He played thumb and knuckles on his table. Just when I was hoping that good +would come of the senseless tune, Temple cried, +</p> + +<p> +'Tell us what your exact intentions are, Captain Welsh. What do you mean to do +with us?' +</p> + +<p> +'Mean to take you the voyage out and the voyage home, Providence willing,' said +the captain, and he rose. +</p> + +<p> +We declined his offer of tea, though I fancy we could have gnawed at a bone. +</p> + +<p> +'There's no compulsion in that matter,' he said. 'You share my cabin while +you're my guests, shipmates, and apprentices in the path of living; my cabin +and my substance, the same as if you were what the North-countrymen call bairns +o' mine: I've none o' my own. My wife was a barren woman. I've none but my old +mother at home. Have your sulks out, lads; you'll come round like the Priscilla +on a tack, and discover you've made way by it.' +</p> + +<p> +We quitted his cabin, bowing stiffly. +</p> + +<p> +Temple declared old Rippenger was better than this canting rascal. +</p> + +<p> +The sea was around us, a distant yellow twinkle telling of land. +</p> + +<p> +'His wife a barren woman! what's that to us!' Temple went on, exploding at +intervals. 'So was Sarah. His cabin and his substance! He talks more like a +preacher than a sailor. I should like to see him in a storm! He's no sailor at +all. His men hate him. It wouldn't be difficult to get up a mutiny on board +this ship. Richie, I understand the whole plot: he's in want of cabin-boys. The +fellow has impressed us. We shall have to serve till we touch land. Thank God, +there's a British consul everywhere; I say that seriously. I love my country; +may she always be powerful! My life is always at her—Did you feel that +pitch of the ship? Of all the names ever given to a vessel, I do think +Priscilla is without exception the most utterly detestable. Oh! there again. +No, it'll be too bad, Richie, if we're beaten in this way.' +</p> + +<p> +'If YOU are beaten,' said I, scarcely venturing to speak lest I should cry or +be sick. +</p> + +<p> +We both felt that the vessel was conspiring to ruin our self-respect. I set my +head to think as hard as possible on Latin verses (my instinct must have drawn +me to them as to a species of intellectual biscuit steeped in spirit, tough, +and comforting, and fundamentally opposed to existing circumstances, otherwise +I cannot account for the attraction). They helped me for a time; they kept off +self-pity, and kept the machinery of the mind at work. They lifted me, as it +were, to an upper floor removed from the treacherously sighing Priscilla. But I +came down quickly with a crash; no dexterous management of my mental resources +could save me from the hemp-like smell of the ship, nor would leaning over the +taffrail, nor lying curled under a tarpaulin. The sailors heaped pilot-coats +upon us. It was a bad ship, they said, to be sick on board of, for no such +thing as brandy was allowed in the old Priscilla. Still I am sure I tasted some +before I fell into a state of semi-insensibility. As in a trance I heard +Temple's moans, and the captain's voice across the gusty wind, and the forlorn +crunching of the ship down great waves. The captain's figure was sometimes +stooping over us, more great-coats were piled on us; sometimes the wind +whistled thinner than one fancies the shrieks of creatures dead of starvation +and restless, that spend their souls in a shriek as long as they can hold it +on, say nursery-maids; the ship made a truce with the waters and grunted; we +took two or three playful blows, we were drenched with spray, uphill we +laboured, we caught the moon in a net of rigging, away we plunged; we mounted +to plunge again and again. I reproached the vessel in argument for some +imaginary inconsistency. Memory was like a heavy barrel on my breast, rolling +with the sea. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"></a> +CHAPTER XIII.<br/> +WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA</h2> + +<p> +Captain Welsh soon conquered us. The latest meal we had eaten was on the frosty +common under the fir-trees. After a tremendous fast, with sea-sickness +supervening, the eggs and bacon, and pleasant benevolent-smelling tea on the +captain's table were things not to be resisted by two healthy boys who had +previously stripped and faced buckets of maddening ice-cold salt-water, dashed +at us by a jolly sailor. An open mind for new impressions came with the warmth +of our clothes. We ate, bearing within us the souls of injured innocents; +nevertheless, we were thankful, and, to the captain's grace, a long one, we +bowed heads decently. It was a glorious breakfast, for which land and sea had +prepared us in about equal degrees: I confess, my feelings when I jumped out of +the cabin were almost those of one born afresh to life and understanding. +Temple and I took counsel. We agreed that sulking would be ridiculous, unmanly, +ungentlemanly. The captain had us fast, as if we were under a lion's paw; he +was evidently a well-meaning man, a fanatic deluded concerning our characters: +the barque Priscilla was bound for a German port, and should arrive there in a +few days,—why not run the voyage merrily since we were treated with +kindness? Neither the squire nor Temple's father could complain of our conduct; +we were simply victims of an error that was assisting us to a knowledge of the +world, a youth's proper ambition. 'And we're not going to be starved,' said +Temple. +</p> + +<p> +I smiled, thinking I perceived the reason why I had failed in my oration +over-night; so I determined that on no future occasion would I let pride stand +in the way of provender. Breakfast had completely transformed us We held it due +to ourselves that we should demand explanations from Joseph Double, the mate, +and then, after hearing him, furnish them with a cordial alacrity to which we +might have attached unlimited credence had he not protested against our +dreaming him to have supplied hot rum-and-water on board, we wrote our names +and addresses in the captain's log-book, and immediately asked permission to go +to the mast-head. +</p> + +<p> +He laughed. Out of his cabin there was no smack of the preacher in him. His men +said he was a stout seaman, mad on the subject of grog and girls. Why, it was +on account of grog and girls that he was giving us this dish of salt-water to +purify us! Grog and girls! cried we. We vowed upon our honour as gentlemen we +had tasted grog for the first time in our lives on board the Priscilla. How +about the girls? they asked. We informed them we knew none but girls who were +ladies. Thereupon one sailor nodded, one sent up a crow, one said the +misfortune of the case lay in all girls being such precious fine ladies; and +one spoke in dreadfully blank language, he accused us of treating the Priscilla +as a tavern for the entertainment of bad company, stating that he had helped to +row me and my associates from the shore to the ship. +</p> + +<p> +'Poor Mr. Double!' says he; 'there was only one way for him to jump you two +young gentlemen out o' that snapdragon bowl you was in—or quashmire, call +it; so he 'ticed you on board wi' the bait you was swallowing, which was making +the devil serve the Lord's turn. And I'll remember that night, for I yielded to +swearing, and drank too!' The other sailors roared with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +I tipped them, not to appear offended by their suspicions. We thought them all +hypocrites, and were as much in error as if we had thought them all honest. +</p> + +<p> +Things went fairly well with the exception of the lessons in Scripture. Our +work was mere playing at sailoring, helping furl sails, haul ropes, study +charts, carry messages, and such like. Temple made his voice shrewdly emphatic +to explain to the captain that we liked the work, but that such lessons as +these out of Scripture were what the eeriest youngsters were crammed with. +</p> + +<p> +'Such lessons as these, maybe, don't have the meaning on land they get to have +on the high seas,' replied the captain: 'and those youngsters you talk of were +not called in to throw a light on passages: for I may teach you ship's business +aboard my barque, but we're all children inside the Book.' +</p> + +<p> +He groaned heartily to hear that our learning lay in the direction of Pagan +Gods and Goddesses, and heathen historians and poets; adding, it was not new to +him, and perhaps that was why the world was as it was. Nor did he wonder, he +said, at our running from studies of those filthy writings loose upon London; +it was as natural as dunghill steam. Temple pretended he was forced by the +captain's undue severity to defend Venus; he said, I thought rather wittily, +'Sailors ought to have a respect for her, for she was born in the middle of the +sea, and she steered straight for land, so she must have had a pretty good idea +of navigation.' +</p> + +<p> +But the captain answered none the less keenly, 'She had her idea of navigating, +as the devil of mischief always has, in the direction where there's most to +corrupt; and, my lad, she teaches the navigation that leads to the bottom +beneath us.' +</p> + +<p> +He might be right, still our mien was evil in reciting the lessons from +Scripture; and though Captain Welsh had intelligence we could not draw into it +the how and the why of the indignity we experienced. We had rather he had been +a savage captain, to have braced our spirits to sturdy resistance, instead of a +mild, good-humoured man of kind intentions, who lent us his linen to wear, fed +us at his table, and taxed our most gentlemanly feelings to find excuses for +him. Our way of revenging ourselves becomingly was to laud the heroes of +antiquity, as if they had possession of our souls and touched the fountain of +worship. Whenever Captain Welsh exclaimed, 'Well done,' or the equivalent, +'That's an idea,' we referred him to Plutarch for our great exemplar. It was +Alcibiades gracefully consuming his black broth that won the captain's thanks +for theological acuteness, or the young Telemachus suiting his temper to the +dolphin's moods, since he must somehow get on shore on the dolphin's back. +Captain Welsh could not perceive in Temple the personifier of Alcibiades, nor +Telemachus in me; but he was aware of an obstinate obstruction behind our +compliance. This he called the devil coiled like a snake in its winter sleep. +He hurled texts at it openly, or slyly dropped a particularly heavy one, in the +hope of surprising it with a death-blow. We beheld him poring over his Bible +for texts that should be sovereign medicines for us, deadly for the devil +within us. Consequently, we were on the defensive: bits of Cicero, bits of +Seneca, soundly and nobly moral, did service on behalf of Paganism; we +remembered them certainly almost as if an imp had brought them from afar. Nor +had we any desire to be in opposition to the cause he supported. What we were +opposed to was the dogmatic arrogance of a just but ignorant man, who had his +one specific for everything, and saw mortal sickness in all other remedies or +recreations. Temple said to him, +</p> + +<p> +'If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to tell me Greek and Latin authors are +bad for me, I should listen to his remarks, because he's a scholar: he knows +the languages and knows what they contain.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain Welsh replied, +</p> + +<p> +'If the Archbishop o' Canterbury sailed the sea, and lived in Foul Alley, +Waterside, when on shore, and so felt what it is to toss on top of the waves o' +perdition, he'd understand the value of a big, clean, well-manned, +well-provisioned ship, instead o' your galliots wi' gaudy sails, your barges +that can't rise to a sea, your yachts that run to port like mother's pets at +first pipe o' the storm, your trim-built wherries.' +</p> + +<p> +'So you'd have only one sort of vessel afloat!' said I. 'There's the difference +of a man who's a scholar.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'd have,' said the captain, 'every lad like you, my lad, trained in the big +ship, and he wouldn't capsize, and be found betrayed by his light timbers as I +found you. Serve your apprenticeship in the Lord's three-decker; then to +command what you may.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, no, Captain Welsh,' says Temple: 'you must grind at Latin and Greek when +you're a chick, or you won't ever master the rudiments. Upon my honour, I +declare it's the truth, you must. If you'd like to try, and are of a mind for a +go at Greek, we'll do our best to help you through the aorists. It looks harder +than Latin, but after a start it's easier. Only, I'm afraid your three-decker's +apprenticeship 'll stand in your way.' +</p> + +<p> +'Greek 's to be done for me; I can pay clever gentlemen for doing Greek for +me,' said the captain. 'The knowledge and the love of virtue I must do for +myself; and not to be wrecked, I must do it early.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, that's neither learning nor human nature,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'It's the knowledge o' the right rules for human nature, my lad.' +</p> + +<p> +'Would you kidnap youngsters to serve in your ship, captain?' +</p> + +<p> +'I'd bless the wind that blew them there, foul or not, my lad.' +</p> + +<p> +'And there they'd stick when you had them, captain?' +</p> + +<p> +'I'd think it was the Lord's will they should stick there awhile, my +lad—yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'And what of their parents?' +</p> + +<p> +'Youngsters out like gossamers on a wind, their parents are where they sow +themselves, my lad.' +</p> + +<p> +'I call that hard on the real parents, Captain Welsh,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'It's harder on Providence when parents breed that kind o' light creature, my +lad.' +</p> + +<p> +We were all getting excited, talking our best, such as it was; the captain +leaning over his side of the table, clasping his hands unintentionally +preacher-like; we on our side supporting our chins on our fists, quick to be at +him. Temple was brilliant; he wanted to convert the captain, and avowed it. +</p> + +<p> +'For,' said he, 'you're not like one of those tract-fellows. You're a man we +can respect, a good seaman, master of your ship, and hearty, and no mewing +sanctimoniousness, and we can see and excuse your mistake as to us two; but +now, there's my father at home—he's a good man, but he's a man of the +world, and reads his classics and his Bible. He's none the worse for it, I +assure you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Where was his son the night of the fog?' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, he happened to be out in it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Where'd he be now but for one o' my men?' +</p> + +<p> +'Who can answer that, Captain Welsh?' +</p> + +<p> +'I can, my lad—stewing in an ante-room of hell-gates, I verily believe.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple sighed at the captain's infatuation, and said, 'I'll tell you of a +fellow at our school named Drew; he was old Rippenger's best theological +scholar—always got the prize for theology. Well, he was a confirmed +sneak. I've taken him into a corner and described the torments of dying to him, +and his look was disgusting—he broke out in a clammy sweat. “Don't, +don't!” he'd cry. “You're just the fellow to suffer +intensely,” I told him. And what was his idea of escaping it? Why, by +learning the whole of Deuteronomy and the Acts of the Apostles by heart! His +idea of Judgement Day was old Rippenger's half-yearly examination. These are +facts, you know, Captain Welsh.' +</p> + +<p> +I testified to them briefly. +</p> + +<p> +The captain said a curious thing: 'I'll make an appointment with you in +leviathan's jaws the night of a storm, my lad.' +</p> + +<p> +'With pleasure,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'The Lord send it!' exclaimed the captain. +</p> + +<p> +His head was bent forward, and he was gazing up into his eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +Before we knew that anything was coming, he was out on a narrative of a scholar +of one of the Universities. Our ears were indifferent to the young man's career +from the heights of fortune to delirium tremens down the cataract of brandy, +until the captain spoke of a dark night on the Pool of the Thames; and here his +voice struggled, and we tried hard to catch the thread of the tale. Two men and +a girl were in the boat. The men fought, the girl shrieked, the boat was upset, +the three were drowned. +</p> + +<p> +All this came so suddenly that nothing but the captain's heavy thump of his +fist on the table kept us from laughing. +</p> + +<p> +He was quite unable to relate the tale, and we had to gather it from his +exclamations. One of the men was mate of a vessel lying in the Pool, having +only cast anchor that evening; the girl was his sweetheart; the other man had +once been a fine young University gentleman, and had become an outfitter's +drunken agent. The brave sailor had nourished him often when on shore, and he, +with the fluent tongue which his college had trimmed for him, had led the girl +to sin during her lover's absence. Howsoever, they put off together to welcome +him on his arrival, never suspecting that their secret had been whispered to +Robert Welsh beforehand. Howsoever, Robert gave them hearty greeting, and down +to the cabin they went, and there sat drinking up to midnight. +</p> + +<p> +'Three lost souls!' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'See how they run,' Temple sang, half audibly, and flushed hot, ashamed of +himself. +</p> + +<p> +''Twas I had to bear the news to his mother,' the captain pursued; 'and it was +a task, my lads, for I was then little more than your age, and the glass was +Robert's only fault, and he was my only brother.' +</p> + +<p> +I offered my hand to the captain. He grasped it powerfully. 'That crew in a +boat, and wouldn't you know the devil'd be coxswain?' he called loudly, and +buried his face. +</p> + +<p> +'No,' he said, looking up at us, 'I pray for no storm, but, by the Lord's +mercy, for a way to your hearts through fire or water. And now on deck, my +lads, while your beds are made up. Three blind things we verily are.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain Welsh showed he was sharp of hearing. His allusion to the humming of +the tune of the mice gave Temple a fit of remorse, and he apologized. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay,' said the captain, 'it is so; own it: frivolity's the fruit of that +training that's all for the flesh. But dip you into some o' my books on my +shelves here, and learn to see living man half skeleton, like life and shadow, +and never to living man need you pray forgiveness, my lad.' +</p> + +<p> +By sheer force of character he gained the command of our respect. Though we +agreed on deck that he had bungled his story, it impressed us; we felt less +able to cope with him, and less willing to encounter a storm. +</p> + +<p> +'We shall have one, of course,' Temple said, affecting resignation, with a +glance aloft. +</p> + +<p> +I was superstitiously of the same opinion, and praised the vessel. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, Priscilla's the very name of a ship that founders with all hands and sends +a bottle on shore,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'There isn't a bottle on board,' said I; and this piece of nonsense helped us +to sleep off our gloom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"></a> +CHAPTER XIV.<br/> +I MEET OLD FRIENDS</h2> + +<p> +Notwithstanding the prognostications it pleased us to indulge, we had a +tolerably smooth voyage. On a clear cold Sunday morning we were sailing between +a foreign river's banks, and Temple and I were alternately reading a chapter +out of the Bible to the assembled ship's crew, in advance of the captain's +short exhortation. We had ceased to look at ourselves inwardly, and we hardly +thought it strange. But our hearts beat for a view of the great merchant city, +which was called a free city, and therefore, Temple suggested, must bear +certain portions of resemblance to old England; so we made up our minds to like +it. +</p> + +<p> +'A wonderful place for beer cellars,' a sailor observed to us slyly, and +hitched himself up from the breech to the scalp. +</p> + +<p> +At all events, it was a place where we could buy linen. +</p> + +<p> +For that purpose, Captain Welsh handed us over to the care of his trusted mate +Mr. Joseph Double, and we were soon in the streets of the city, desirous of +purchasing half their contents. My supply of money was not enough for what I +deemed necessary purchases. Temple had split his clothes, mine were tarred; we +were appearing at a disadvantage, and we intended to dine at a good hotel and +subsequently go to a theatre. Yet I had no wish to part with my watch. Mr. +Double said it might be arranged. It was pawned at a shop for a sum equivalent +in our money to about twelve pounds, and Temple obliged me by taking charge of +the ticket. Thus we were enabled to dress suitably and dine pleasantly, and, as +Mr. Double remarked, no one could rob me of my gold watch now. We visited a +couple of beer-cellars to taste the drink of the people, and discovered three +of our men engaged in a similar undertaking. I proposed that it should be done +at my expense. They praised their captain, but asked us, as gentlemen and +scholars, whether it was reasonable to object to liquor because your brother +was carried out on a high tide? Mr. Double commended them to moderation. Their +reply was to estimate an immoderate amount of liquor as due to them, with +profound composure. +</p> + +<p> +'Those rascals,' Mr. Double informed us, 'are not in the captain's confidence +they're tidy seamen, though, and they submit to the captain's laws on board and +have their liberty ashore.' +</p> + +<p> +We inquired what the difference was between their privileges and his. +</p> + +<p> +'Why,' said he, 'if they're so much as accused of a disobedient act, off +they're scurried, and lose fair wages and a kind captain. And let any man Jack +of 'em accuse me, and he bounds a india-rubber ball against a wall and gets it; +all he meant to give he gets. Once you fix the confidence of your superior, +you're waterproof.' +</p> + +<p> +We held our peace, but we could have spoken. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Double had no moral hostility toward theatres. Supposing he did not relish +the performance, he could enjoy a spell in the open air, he said, and this he +speedily decided to do. Had we not been bound in honour to remain for him to +fetch us, we also should have retired from a representation of which we +understood only the word ja. It was tiresome to be perpetually waiting for the +return of this word. We felt somewhat as dogs must feel when human speech is +addressed to them. Accordingly, we professed, without concealment, to despise +the whole performance. I reminded Temple of a saying of the Emperor Charles V. +as to a knowledge of languages. +</p> + +<p> +'Hem!' he went critically; 'it's all very well for a German to talk in that +way, but you can't be five times an Englishman if you're a foreigner.' +</p> + +<p> +We heard English laughter near us. Presently an English gentleman accosted us. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Villiers, I believe?' He bowed at me. +</p> + +<p> +'My name is Richmond.' +</p> + +<p> +He bowed again, with excuses, talked of the Play, and telegraphed to a lady +sitting in a box fronting us. I saw that she wrote on a slip of paper; she +beckoned; the gentleman quitted us, and soon after placed a twisted note in my +hand. It ran: +</p> + +<p> +'Miss Goodwin (whose Christian name is Clara) wishes very much to know how it +has fared with Mr. Harry Richmond since he left Venice.' +</p> + +<p> +I pushed past a number of discontented knees, trying, on my way to her box, to +recollect her vividly, but I could barely recollect her at all, until I had sat +beside her five minutes. Colonel Goodwin was asleep in a corner of the box. +Awakened by the sound of his native tongue, he recognized me immediately. +</p> + +<p> +'On your way to your father?' he said, as he shook my hand. +</p> + +<p> +I thought it amazing he should guess that in Germany. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you know where he is, sir?' I asked. +</p> + +<p> +'We saw him,' replied the colonel; 'when was it, Clara? A week or ten days +ago.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes,' said Miss Goodwin; 'we will talk of that by-and-by.' And she overflowed +with comments on my personal appearance, and plied me with questions, but would +answer none of mine. +</p> + +<p> +I fetched Temple into the box to introduce him. We were introduced in turn to +Captain Malet, the gentleman who had accosted me below. +</p> + +<p> +'You understand German, then?' said Miss Goodwin. +</p> + +<p> +She stared at hearing that we knew only the word ja, for it made our presence +in Germany unaccountable. +</p> + +<p> +'The most dangerous word of all,' said Colonel Goodwin, and begged us always to +repeat after it the negative nein for an antidote. +</p> + +<p> +'You have both seen my father?' I whispered to Miss Goodwin; 'both? We have +been separated. Do tell me everything. Don't look at the stage—they speak +such nonsense. How did you remember me? How happy I am to have met you! Oh! I +haven't forgotten the gondolas and the striped posts, and stali and the other +word; but soon after we were separated, and I haven't seen him since.' +</p> + +<p> +She touched her father's arm. +</p> + +<p> +'At once, if you like,' said he, jumping up erect. +</p> + +<p> +'In Germany was it?' I persisted. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded gravely and leaned softly on my arm while we marched out of the +theatre to her hotel—I in such a state of happiness underlying +bewilderment and strong expectation that I should have cried out loud had not +pride in my partner restrained me. At her tea-table I narrated the whole of my +adventure backwards to the time of our parting in Venice, hurrying it over as +quick as I could, with the breathless termination, 'And now?' +</p> + +<p> +They had an incomprehensible reluctance to perform their part of the implied +compact. Miss Goodwin looked at Captain Malet. He took his leave. Then she +said, 'How glad I am you have dropped that odious name of Roy! Papa and I have +talked of you frequently—latterly very often. I meant to write to you, +Harry Richmond. I should have done it the moment we returned to England.' +</p> + +<p> +'You must know,' said the colonel, 'that I am an amateur inspector of +fortresses, and my poor Clara has to trudge the Continent with me to pick up +the latest inventions in artillery and other matters, for which I get no thanks +at head-quarters—but it's one way of serving one's country when the steel +lies rusting. We are now for home by way of Paris. I hope that you and your +friend will give us your company. I will see this Captain Welsh of yours before +we start. Clara, you decided on dragging me to the theatre to-night with your +usual admirable instinct.' +</p> + +<p> +I reminded Miss Goodwin of my father being in Germany. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, he is at one of the Courts, a long distance from here,' she said, +rapidly. 'And you came by accident in a merchant-ship! You are one of those who +are marked for extraordinary adventures. Confess: you would have set eyes on +me, and not known me. It's a miracle that I should meet my little friend +Harry—little no longer my friend all the same, are you not?' +</p> + +<p> +I hoped so ardently. +</p> + +<p> +She with great urgency added, 'Then come with us. Prove that you put faith in +our friendship.' +</p> + +<p> +In desperation I exclaimed, 'But I must, I must hear of my father.' +</p> + +<p> +She turned to consult the colonel's face. +</p> + +<p> +'Certainly,' he said, and eulogized a loving son. 'Clara will talk to you. I'm +for bed. What was the name of the play we saw this evening? Oh! Struensee, to +be sure. We missed the scaffold.' +</p> + +<p> +He wished us good-night on an appointment of the hour for breakfast, and +ordered beds for us in the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Goodwin commenced: 'But really I have nothing to tell you, or very little. +You know, Papa has introductions everywhere; we are like Continental people, +and speak a variety of languages, and I am almost a foreigner, we are so much +abroad; but I do think English boys should be educated at home: I hope you'll +go to an English college.' +</p> + +<p> +Noticing my painful look, 'We saw him at the Court of the Prince of +Eppenwelzen,' she said, as if her brows ached. 'He is very kindly treated +there; he was there some weeks ago. The place lies out in the Hanover +direction, far from here. He told us that you were with your grandfather, and I +must see Riversley Grange, and the truth is you must take me there. I suspect +you have your peace to make; perhaps I shall help you, and be a true Peribanou. +We go over Amsterdam, the Hague, Brussels, and you shall see the battlefield, +Paris, straight to London. Yes, you are fickle; you have not once called me +Peribanou.' +</p> + +<p> +Her voluble rattling succeeded in fencing off my questions before I could +exactly shape them, as I staggered from blind to blind idea, now thinking of +the sombre red Bench, and now of the German prince's Court. +</p> + +<p> +'Won't you tell me any more to-night?' I said, when she paused. +</p> + +<p> +'Indeed, I have not any more to tell,' she assured me. +</p> + +<p> +It was clear to me that she had joined the mysterious league against my father. +I began to have a choking in the throat. I thanked her and wished her +good-night while I was still capable of smiling. +</p> + +<p> +At my next interview with Colonel Goodwin he spoke promptly on the subject of +my wanderings. I was of an age, he said, to know my own interests. No doubt +filial affection was excellent in its way, but in fact it was highly +questionable whether my father was still at the Court of this German prince; my +father had stated that he meant to visit England to obtain an interview with +his son, and I might miss him by a harum-scarum chase over Germany. And +besides, was I not offending my grandfather and my aunt, to whom I owed so +much? He appealed to my warmest feelings on their behalf. This was just the +moment, he said, when there was a turning-point in my fortunes. He could assure +me most earnestly that I should do no good by knocking at this prince's doors, +and have nothing but bitterness if I did in the end discover my father. 'Surely +you understand the advantages of being bred a gentleman?' he wound up. 'Under +your grandfather's care you have a career before you, a fine fortune in +prospect, everything a young man can wish for. And I must tell you candidly, +you run great risk of missing all these things by hunting your father to earth. +Give yourself a little time: reflect on it.' +</p> + +<p> +'I have,' I cried. 'I have come out to find him, and I must.' +</p> + +<p> +The colonel renewed his arguments and persuasions until he was worn out. I +thanked him continually for his kindness. Clara Goodwin besought me in a +surprising manner to accompany her to England, called herself Peribanou, and +with that name conjured up my father to my eyes in his breathing form. She +said, as her father had done, that I was called on now to decide upon my +future: she had a presentiment that evil would come to me of my unchecked, +headstrong will, which she dignified by terming it a true but reckless +affection: she believed she had been thrown in my path to prove herself a +serviceable friend, a Peribanou of twenty-six who would not expect me to marry +her when she had earned my gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +They set Temple on me, and that was very funny. To hear him with his 'I say, +Richie, come, perhaps it's as well to know where a thing should stop; your +father knows you're at Riversley, and he'll be after you when convenient; and +just fancy the squire!' was laughable. He had some anxiety to be home again, or +at least at Riversley. I offered him to Miss Goodwin. +</p> + +<p> +She reproached me and coaxed me; she was exceedingly sweet. 'Well,' she said, +in an odd, resigned fashion, 'rest a day with us; will you refuse me that?' +</p> + +<p> +I consented; she knew not with what fretfulness. We went out to gaze at the +shops and edifices, and I bought two light bags for slinging over the shoulder, +two nightshirts, toothbrushes, and pocket-combs, and a large map of Germany. By +dint of vehement entreaties I led her to point to the territory of the Prince +of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld. 'His income is rather less than that of your +grandfather, friend Harry,' she remarked. I doated on the spot until I could +have dropped my finger on it blindfold. +</p> + +<p> +Two or three pitched battles brought us to a friendly arrangement. The colonel +exacted my promise that if I saw my father at Sarkeld in Eppenwelzen I would +not stay with him longer than seven days: and that if he was not there I would +journey home forthwith. When I had yielded the promise frankly on my honour, he +introduced me to a banker of the city, who agreed to furnish me money to carry +me on to England in case I should require it. A diligence engaged to deliver me +within a few miles of Sarkeld. I wrote a letter to my aunt Dorothy, telling her +facts, and one to the squire, beginning, 'We were caught on our arrival in +London by the thickest fog ever remembered,' as if it had been settled on my +departure from Riversley that Temple and I were bound for London. Miss Goodwin +was my post-bag. She said when we had dined, about two hours before the +starting of the diligence, 'Don't you think you ought to go and wish that +captain of the vessel you sailed in goodbye?' I fell into her plot so far as to +walk down to the quays on the river-side and reconnoitre the ship. But there I +saw my prison. I kissed my hand to Captain Welsh's mainmast rather ironically, +though not without regard for him. Miss Goodwin lifted her eyelids at our +reappearance. As she made no confession of her treason I did not accuse her, +and perhaps it was owing to a movement of her conscience that at our parting +she drew me to her near enough for a kiss to come of itself. +</p> + +<p> +Four-and-twenty German words of essential service to a traveller in Germany +constituted our knowledge of the language, and these were on paper transcribed +by Miss Goodwin's own hand. In the gloom of the diligence, packed between +Germans of a size that not even Tacitus had prepared me for, smoked over from +all sides, it was a fascinating study. Temple and I exchanged the paper +half-hourly while the light lasted. When that had fled, nothing was left us to +combat the sensation that we were in the depths of a manure-bed, for the +windows were closed, the tobacco-smoke thickened, the hides of animals wrapping +our immense companions reeked; fire occasionally glowed in their pipe-bowls; +they were silent, and gave out smoke and heat incessantly, like inanimate +forces of nature. I had most fantastic ideas,—that I had taken root and +ripened, and must expect my head to drop off at any instant: that I was deep +down, wedged in the solid mass of the earth. But I need not repeat them: they +were accurately translated in imagination from my physical miseries. The dim +revival of light, when I had well-nigh ceased to hope for it, showed us all +like malefactors imperfectly hanged, or drowned wretches in a cabin under +water. I had one Colossus bulging over my shoulder! Temple was blotted out. His +face, emerging from beneath a block of curly bearskin, was like that of one +frozen in wonderment. Outside there was a melting snow on the higher hills; the +clouds over them grew steel-blue. We were going through a valley in a +fir-forest. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"></a> +CHAPTER XV.<br/> +WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST</h2> + +<p> +Bowls of hot coffee and milk, with white rolls of bread to dip in them, +refreshed us at a forest inn. For some minutes after the meal Temple and I +talked like interchangeing puffs of steam, but soon subsided to our staring +fit. The pipes were lit again. What we heard sounded like a language of the +rocks and caves, and roots plucked up, a language of gluttons feasting; the +word ja was like a door always on the hinge in every mouth. Dumpy children, +bulky men, compressed old women with baked faces, and comical squat dogs, kept +the villages partly alive. We observed one young urchin sitting on a stone +opposite a dog, and he and the dog took alternate bites off a platter-shaped +cake, big enough to require both his hands to hold it. Whether the dog ever +snapped more than his share was matter of speculation to us. It was an +education for him in good manners, and when we were sitting at dinner we wished +our companions had enjoyed it. They fed with their heads in their plates, +splashed and clattered jaws, without paying us any hospitable attention +whatever, so that we had the dish of Lazarus. They were perfectly kind, +notwithstanding, and allowed a portion of my great map of Germany to lie spread +over their knees in the diligence, whilst Temple and I pored along the lines of +the rivers. One would thrust his square-nailed finger to the name of a city and +pronounce it; one gave us lessons in the expression of the vowels, with the +softening of three of them, which seemed like a regulation drill movement for +taking an egg into the mouth, and showing repentance of the act. 'Sarkeld,' we +exclaimed mutually, and they made a galloping motion of their hands, pointing +beyond the hills. Sarkeld was to the right, Sarkeld to the left, as the road +wound on. Sarkeld was straight in front of us when the conductor, according to +directions he had received, requested us to alight and push through this +endless fir-forest up a hilly branch road, and away his hand galloped beyond +it, coming to a deep place, and then to grapes, then to a tip-toe station, and +under it lay Sarkeld. The pantomime was not bad. We waved our hand to the +diligence, and set out cheerfully, with our bags at our backs, entering a gorge +in the fir-covered hills before sunset, after starting the +proposition—Does the sun himself look foreign in a foreign country? +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, he does,' said Temple; and so I thought, but denied it, for by the sun's +favour I hoped to see my father that night, and hail Apollo joyfully in the +morning; a hope that grew with exercise of my limbs. Beautiful cascades of dark +bright water leaped down the gorge; we chased an invisible animal. Suddenly one +of us exclaimed, 'We're in a German forest'; and we remembered grim tales of +these forests, their awful castles, barons, knights, ladies, long-bearded +dwarfs, gnomes and thin people. I commenced a legend off-hand. +</p> + +<p> +'No, no,' said Temple, as if curdling; 'let's call this place the mouth of +Hades. Greek things don't make you feel funny.' +</p> + +<p> +I laughed louder than was necessary, and remarked that I never had cared so +much for Greek as on board Captain Welsh's vessel. +</p> + +<p> +'It's because he was all on the opposite tack I went on quoting,' said Temple. +'I used to read with my father in the holidays, and your Rev. Simon has kept +you up to the mark; so it was all fair. It's not on our consciences that we +crammed the captain about our knowledge.' +</p> + +<p> +'No. I'm glad of it,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +Temple pursued, 'Whatever happens to a fellow, he can meet anything so long as +he can say—I've behaved like a man of honour. And those German +tales—they only upset you. You don't see the reason of the thing. Why is +a man to be haunted half his life? Well, suppose he did commit a murder. But if +he didn't, can't he walk through an old castle without meeting ghosts? or a +forest?' +</p> + +<p> +The dusky scenery of a strange land was influencing Temple. It affected me so, +I made the worst of it for a cure. +</p> + +<p> +'Fancy those pines saying, “There go two more,” Temple. Well; and +fancy this—a little earth-dwarf as broad as I'm long and high as my +shoulder. One day he met the loveliest girl in the whole country, and she +promised to marry him in twenty years' time, in return for a sack of jewels +worth all Germany and half England. You should have seen her dragging it home. +People thought it full of charcoal. She married the man she loved, and the +twenty years passed over, and at the stroke of the hour when she first met the +dwarf, thousands of bells began ringing through the forest, and her husband +cries out, “What is the meaning of it?” and they rode up to a +garland of fresh flowers that dropped on her head, and right into a gold ring +that closed on her finger, and—look, Temple, look!' +</p> + +<p> +'Where?' asked the dear little fellow, looking in all earnest, from which the +gloom of the place may be imagined, for, by suddenly mixing it with my absurd +story, I discomposed his air of sovereign indifference as much as one does the +surface of a lake by casting a stone in it. +</p> + +<p> +We rounded the rocky corner of the gorge at a slightly accelerated pace in dead +silence. It opened out to restorative daylight, and we breathed better and +chaffed one another, and, beholding a house with pendent gold grapes, applauded +the diligence conductor's expressive pantomime. The opportunity was offered for +a draught of wine, but we held water preferable, so we toasted the Priscilla +out of the palms of our hands in draughts of water from a rill that had the +sound of aspen-leaves, such as I used to listen to in the Riversley meadows, +pleasantly familiar. +</p> + +<p> +Several commanding elevations were in sight, some wooded, some bare. We chose +the nearest, to observe the sunset, and concurred in thinking it unlike English +sunsets, though not so very unlike the sunset we had taken for sunrise on board +the Priscilla. A tumbled, dark and light green country of swelling forest-land +and slopes of meadow ran to the West, and the West from flaming yellow burned +down to smoky crimson across it. Temple bade—me 'catch the +disc—that was English enough.' A glance at the sun's disc confirmed the +truth of his observation. Gazing on the outline of the orb, one might have +fancied oneself in England. Yet the moment it had sunk under the hill this +feeling of ours vanished with it. The coloured clouds drew me ages away from +the recollection of home. +</p> + +<p> +A tower on a distant hill, white among pines, led us to suppose that Sarkeld +must lie somewhere beneath it. We therefore descended straight toward the +tower, instead of returning to the road, and struck confidently into a rugged +path. Recent events had given me the assurance that in my search for my father +I was subject to a special governing direction. I had aimed at the +Bench—missed it—been shipped across sea and precipitated into the +arms of friends who had seen him and could tell me I was on his actual track, +only blindly, and no longer blindly now. +</p> + +<p> +'Follow the path,' I said, when Temple wanted to have a consultation. +</p> + +<p> +'So we did in the London fog!' said he, with some gloom. +</p> + +<p> +But my retort: 'Hasn't it brought us here?' was a silencer. +</p> + +<p> +Dark night came on. Every height stood for a ruin in our eyes, every dip an +abyss. It grew bewilderingly dark, but the path did not forsake us, and we +expected, at half-hour intervals, to perceive the lights of Sarkeld, soon to be +thundering at one of the inns for admission and supper. I could hear Temple +rehearsing his German vocabulary, 'Brod, butter, wasser, fleisch, bett,' as we +stumbled along. Then it fell to 'Brod, wasser, bett,' and then, 'Bett' by +itself, his confession of fatigue. Our path had frequently the nature of a +waterway, and was very fatiguing, more agreeable to mount than descend, for in +mounting the knees and shins bore the brunt of it, and these sufferers are not +such important servants of the footfarer as toes and ankles in danger of +tripping and being turned. +</p> + +<p> +I was walking on leveller ground, my head bent and eyes half-shut, when a flash +of light in a brook at my feet caused me to look aloft. The tower we had marked +after sunset was close above us, shining in a light of torches. We adopted the +sensible explanation of this mysterious sight, but were rather in the grip of +the superstitious absurd one, until we discerned a number of reddened men. +</p> + +<p> +'Robbers!' exclaimed one of us. Our common thought was, 'No; robbers would +never meet on a height in that manner'; and we were emboldened to mount and +request their help. +</p> + +<p> +Fronting the tower, which was of white marble, a high tent had been pitched on +a green platform semicircled by pines. Torches were stuck in clefts of the +trees, or in the fork of the branches, or held by boys and men, and there were +clearly men at work beneath the tent at a busy rate. We could hear the +paviour's breath escape from them. Outside the ring of torchbearers and others +was a long cart with a dozen horses harnessed to it. All the men appeared +occupied too much for chatter and laughter. What could be underneath the tent? +Seeing a boy occasionally lift one of the flapping corners, we took licence +from his example to appease our curiosity. It was the statue of a bronze horse +rearing spiritedly. The workmen were engaged fixing its pedestal in the earth. +</p> + +<p> +Our curiosity being satisfied, we held debate upon our immediate prospects. The +difficulty of making sure of a bed when you are once detached from your home, +was the philosophical reflection we arrived at, for nothing practical presented +itself. To arm ourselves we pulled out Miss Goodwin's paper. 'Gasthof is the +word!' cried Temple. 'Gasthof, zimmer, bett; that means inn, hot supper, and +bed. We'll ask.' We asked several of the men. Those in motion shot a stare at +us; the torchbearers pointed at the tent and at an unseen height, muttering +'Morgen.' Referring to Miss Goodwin's paper we discovered this to signify the +unintelligible word morning, which was no answer at all; but the men, +apparently deeming our conduct suspicious, gave us to understand by rather +menacing gestures that we were not wanted there, so we passed into the dusk of +the trees, angry at their incivility. Had it been Summer we should have dropped +and slept. The night air of a sharp season obliged us to keep active, yet we +were not willing to get far away from the torches. But after a time they were +hidden; then we saw one moving ahead. The holder of it proved to be a workman +of the gang, and between us and him the strangest parley ensued. He repeated +the word morgen, and we insisted on zimmer and bett. +</p> + +<p> +'He takes us for twin Caspar Hausers,' sighed Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'Nein,' said the man, and, perhaps enlightened by hearing a foreign tongue, +beckoned for us to step at his heels. +</p> + +<p> +His lodging was a woodman's hut. He offered us bread to eat, milk to drink, and +straw to lie on: we desired nothing more, and were happy, though the bread was +black, the milk sour, the straw mouldy. +</p> + +<p> +Our breakfast was like a continuation of supper, but two little girls of our +host, whose heads were cased in tight-fitting dirty linen caps, munched the +black bread and drank the sour milk so thankfully, while fixing solemn eyes of +wonder upon us, that to assure them we were the same sort of creature as +themselves we pretended to relish the stuff. Rather to our amazement we did +relish it. 'Mutter!' I said to them. They pointed to the room overhead. Temple +laid his cheek on his hand. One of the little girls laid hers on the table. I +said 'Doctor?' They nodded and answered 'Princess,' which seemed perfectly good +English, and sent our conjectures as to the state of their mother's health +astray. I shut a silver English coin in one of their fat little hands. +</p> + +<p> +We now, with the name Sarkeld, craved of their father a direction to that +place. At the door of his hut he waved his hand carelessly South for Sarkeld, +and vigorously West where the tower stood, then swept both hands up to the +tower, bellowed a fire of cannon, waved his hat, and stamped and cheered. +Temple, glancing the way of the tower, performed on a trumpet of his joined +fists to show we understood that prodigious attractions were presented by the +tower; we said ja and ja, and nevertheless turned into the Sarkeld path. +</p> + +<p> +Some minutes later the sound of hoofs led us to imagine he had despatched a +messenger after us. A little lady on a pony, attended by a tawny-faced great +square-shouldered groom on a tall horse, rode past, drew up on one side, and +awaited our coming. She was dressed in a grey riding-habit and a warm +winter-jacket of gleaming grey fur, a soft white boa loose round her neck, +crossed at her waist, white gauntlets, and a pretty black felt hat with flowing +rim and plume. There she passed as under review. It was a curious scene: the +iron-faced great-sized groom on his bony black charger dead still: his +mistress, a girl of about eleven or twelve or thirteen, with an arm bowed at +her side, whip and reins in one hand, and slips of golden brown hair straying +on her flushed cheek; rocks and trees, high silver firs rising behind her, and +a slender water that fell from the rocks running at her pony's feet. +Half-a-dozen yards were between the charger's head and the pony's flanks. She +waited for us to march by, without attempting to conceal that we were the +objects of her inspection, and we in good easy swing of the feet gave her a +look as we lifted our hats. That look was to me like a net thrown into +moonlighted water: it brought nothing back but broken lights of a miraculous +beauty. +</p> + +<p> +Burning to catch an excuse for another look over my shoulder, I heard her +voice: +</p> + +<p> +'Young English gentlemen!' +</p> + +<p> +We turned sharp round. +</p> + +<p> +It was she without a doubt who had addressed us: she spurred her pony to meet +us, stopped him, and said with the sweetest painful attempt at accuracy in +pronouncing a foreign tongue: +</p> + +<p> +'I sthink you go a wrong way?' +</p> + +<p> +Our hats flew off again, and bareheaded, I seized the reply before Temple could +speak. +</p> + +<p> +'Is not this, may I ask you, the way to Sarkeld?' +</p> + +<p> +She gathered up her knowledge of English deliberately. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, one goes to Sarkeld by sthis way here, but to-day goes everybody up to +our Bella Vista, and I entreat you do not miss it, for it is some-s-thing to +write to your home of.' +</p> + +<p> +'Up at the tower, then? Oh, we were there last night, and saw the bronze horse, +mademoiselle.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I know. I called on my poor sick woman in a hut where you fell asleep, +sirs. Her little ones are my lambs; she has been of our household; she is good; +and they said, two young, strange, small gentlemen have gone for Sarkeld; and I +supposed, sthey cannot know all go to our Bella Vista to-day.' +</p> + +<p> +'You knew at once we were English, mademoiselle?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I could read it off your backs, and truly too your English eyes are quite +open at a glance. It is of you both I speak. If I but make my words plain! My +“th” I cannot always. And to understand, your English is indeed +heavy speech! not so in books. I have my English governess. We read English +tales, English poetry—and sthat is your excellence. And so, will you not +come, sirs, up when a way is to be shown to you? It is my question.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple thanked her for the kindness of the offer. +</p> + +<p> +I was hesitating, half conscious of surprise that I should ever be hesitating +in doubt of taking the direction toward my father. Hearing Temple's boldness I +thanked her also, and accepted. Then she said, bowing:— +</p> + +<p> +'I beg you will cover your heads.' +</p> + +<p> +We passed the huge groom bolt upright on his towering horse; he raised two +fingers to the level of his eyebrows in the form of a salute. +</p> + +<p> +Temple murmured: 'I shouldn't mind entering the German Army,' just as after our +interview with Captain Bulsted he had wished to enter the British Navy. +</p> + +<p> +This was no more than a sign that he was highly pleased. For my part delight +fluttered the words in my mouth, so that I had to repeat half I uttered to the +attentive ears of our gracious new friend and guide:— +</p> + +<p> +'Ah,' she said, 'one does sthink one knows almost all before experiment. I am +ashamed, yet I will talk, for is it not so? experiment is a school. And you, if +you please, will speak slow. For I say of you English gentlemen, silk you spin +from your lips; it is not as a language of an alphabet; it is pleasant to hear +when one would lull, but Italian can do that, and do it more—am I +right?—soft?' +</p> + +<p> +'Bella Vista, lovely view,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Lovely view,' she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +She ran on in the most musical tongue, to my thinking, ever heard: +</p> + +<p> +'And see my little pensioners' poor cottage, who are out up to Lovely View. +Miles round go the people to it. Good, and I will tell you +strangers:—sthe Prince von Eppenwelzen had his great ancestor, and his +sister Markgräfin von Rippau said, “Erect a statue of him, for he was a +great warrior.” He could not, or he would not, we know not. So she said, +“I will,” she said, “I will do it in seven days.” She +does constantly amuse him, everybody at de Court. Immense excitement! For +suppose it!—a statue of a warrior on horseback, in perfect likeness, +chapeau tricorne, perruque, all of bronze, and his marshal's baton. Eh bien, +well, a bronze horse is come at a gallop from Berlin; sthat we know. By fortune +a most exalted sculptor in Berlin has him ready,—and many horses pulled +him to here, to Lovely View, by post-haste; sthat we know. But we are in +extremity of puzzlement. For where is the statue to ride him? where—am I +plain to you, sirs?—is sthe Marshal Furst von Eppenwelzen, our great +ancestor? Yet the Markgräfin says, “It is right, wait!” She nods, +she smiles. Our Court is all at de lake-palace odder side sthe tower, and it is +bets of gems, of feathers, of lace, not to be numbered! The Markgräfin +says—sthere to-day you see him, Albrecht Wohlgemuth Furst von +Eppenwelzen! But no sculptor can have cast him in bronze—not copied him +and cast him in a time of seven days! And we say sthis:—Has she given a +secret order to a sculptor—you understand me, sirs, +commission—where, how, has he sthe likeness copied? Or did he come to our +speisesaal of our lake-palace disguised? Oh! but to see, to copy, to model, to +cast in bronze, to travel betwixt Berlin and Sarkeld in a time of seven days? +No! so-oh! we guess, we guess, we are in exhaustion. And to-day is like an +eagle we have sent an arrow to shoot and know not if he will come down. For +shall we see our ancestor on horseback? It will be a not-scribable joy! Or not? +So we guess, we are worried. At near eleven o'clock a cannon fires, sthe tent +is lifted, and we see; but I am impatient wid my breaths for de gun to go.' +</p> + +<p> +I said it would be a fine sight. +</p> + +<p> +'For strangers, yes; you should be of de palace to know what a fine sight! sthe +finest! And you are for Sarkeld? You have friends in Sarkeld?' +</p> + +<p> +'My father is in Sarkeld, mademoiselle. I am told he is at the palace.' +</p> + +<p> +'Indeed; and he is English, your fater?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes. I have not seen him for years; I have come to find him.' +</p> + +<p> +'Indeed; it is for love of him, your fater, sir, you come, and not speak +German?' +</p> + +<p> +I signified that it was so. +</p> + +<p> +She stroked her pony's neck musing. +</p> + +<p> +'Because, of love is not much in de family in England, it is said,' she +remarked very shyly, and in recovering her self-possession asked the name of my +father. +</p> + +<p> +'His name, mademoiselle, is Mr. Richmond.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Richmond?' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Richmond Roy.' +</p> + +<p> +She sprang in her saddle. +</p> + +<p> +'You are son to Mr. Richmond Roy? Oh! it is wonderful.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mademoiselle, then you have seen him lately?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, yes! I have seen him. I have heard of his beautiful child, his son; and +you it is?' +</p> + +<p> +She studied my countenance a moment. +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me, is he well? mademoiselle, is he quite well?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, yes,' she answered, and broke into smiles of merriment, and then seemed to +bite her underlip. 'He is our fun-maker. He must always be well. I owe to him +some of my English. You are his son? you were for Sarkeld? You will see him up +at our Bella Vista. Quick, let us run.' +</p> + +<p> +She put her pony to a canter up the brown path between the fir-trees, crying +that she should take our breath; but we were tight runners, and I, though my +heart beat wildly, was full of fire to reach the tower on the height; so when +she slackened her pace, finding us close on her pony's hoofs, she laughed and +called us brave boys. Temple's being no more than my friend, who had made the +expedition with me out of friendship, surprised her. Not that she would not +have expected it to be done by Germans; further she was unable to explain her +astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +At a turning of the ascent she pointed her whip at the dark knots and lines of +the multitude mounting by various paths to behold the ceremony of unveiling the +monument. +</p> + +<p> +I besought her to waste no time. +</p> + +<p> +'You must, if you please, attend my pleasure, if I guide you,' she said, +tossing her chin. +</p> + +<p> +'I thank you, I can't tell you how much, mademoiselle,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +She answered: 'You were kind to my two pet lambs, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +So we moved forward. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"></a> +CHAPTER XVI.<br/> +THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY</h2> + +<p> +The little lady was soon bowing to respectful salutations from crowds of +rustics and others on a broad carriage-way circling level with the height. I +could not help thinking how doubly foreign I was to all the world here—I +who was about to set eyes on my lost living father, while these people were +tip-toe to gaze on a statue. But as my father might also be taking an interest +in the statue, I got myself round to a moderate sentiment of curiosity and a +partial share of the general excitement. Temple and mademoiselle did most of +the conversation, which related to glimpses of scenery, pine, oak, beech-wood, +and lake-water, until we gained the plateau where the tower stood, when the +giant groom trotted to the front, and worked a clear way for us through a mass +of travelling sight-seers, and she leaned to me, talking quite inaudibly amid +the laughter and chatting. A band of wind instruments burst out. 'This is +glorious!' I conceived Temple to cry like an open-mouthed mute. I found it +inspiriting. +</p> + +<p> +The rush of pride and pleasure produced by the music was irresistible. We +marched past the tower, all of us, I am sure, with splendid feelings. A stone's +throw beyond it was the lofty tent; over it drooped a flag, and flags were on +poles round a wide ring of rope guarded by foresters and gendarmes, mounted and +afoot. The band, dressed in green, with black plumes to their hats, played in +the middle of the ring. Outside were carriages, and ladies and gentlemen on +horseback, full of animation; rustics, foresters, town and village people, men, +women, and children, pressed against the ropes. It was a day of rays of +sunshine, now from off one edge, now from another of large slow clouds, so that +at times we and the tower were in a blaze; next the lake-palace was +illuminated, or the long grey lake and the woods of pine and of bare brown +twigs making bays in it. +</p> + +<p> +Several hands beckoned on our coming in sight of the carriages. 'There he is, +then!' I thought; and it was like swallowing my heart in one solid lump. +Mademoiselle had free space to trot ahead of us. We saw a tall-sitting lady, +attired in sables, raise a finger to her, and nip her chin. Away the little +lady flew to a second carriage, and on again, as one may when alive with an +inquiry. I observed to Temple, 'I wonder whether she says in her German, +“It is my question”; do you remember?' There was no weight whatever +in what I said or thought. +</p> + +<p> +She rode back, exclaiming, 'Nowhere. He is nowhere, and nobody knows. He will +arrive. But he is not yet. Now,' she bent coaxingly down to me, 'can you not a +few words of German? Only a smallest sum! It is the Markgräfin, my good aunt, +would speak wid you, and she can no English-only she is eager to behold you, +and come! You will know, for my sake, some scrap of German—<i>ja?</i> You +will—<i>nicht wahr?</i> Or French? Make your plom-pudding of it, will +you?' +</p> + +<p> +I made a shocking plum-pudding of it. Temple was no happier. +</p> + +<p> +The margravine, a fine vigorous lady with a lively mouth and livelier eyes of a +restless grey that rarely dwelt on you when she spoke, and constantly started +off on a new idea, did me the honour to examine me, much as if I had offered +myself for service in her corps of grenadiers, and might do in time, but was +decreed to be temporarily wanting in manly proportions. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled a form of excuse of my bungling half-English horrid French, talked +over me and at me, forgot me, and recollected me, all within a minute, and +fished poor Temple for intelligible replies to incomprehensible language in the +same manner, then threw her head back to gather the pair of us in her sight, +then eyed me alone. +</p> + +<p> +'C'est peut-être le fils de son petit papa, et c'est tout dire.' +</p> + +<p> +Such was her summary comment. +</p> + +<p> +But not satisfied with that, she leaned out of the carriage, and, making an +extraordinary grimace appear the mother in labour of the difficult words, said, +'Doos yo' laff?' +</p> + +<p> +There was no helping it: I laughed like a madman, giving one outburst and a +dead stop. +</p> + +<p> +Far from looking displeased, she nodded. I was again put to the dreadful test. +</p> + +<p> +'Can yo' mak' laff?' +</p> + +<p> +It spurred my wits. I had no speech to 'mak' laff' with. At the very instant of +my dilemma I chanced to see a soberly-clad old townsman hustled between two +helpless women of the crowd, his pipe in his mouth, and his hat, wig, and +handkerchief sliding over his face, showing his bald crown, and he not daring +to cry out, for fear his pipe should be trodden under foot. +</p> + +<p> +'He can, your Highness.' +</p> + +<p> +Her quick eyes caught the absurd scene. She turned to one of her ladies and +touched her forehead. Her hand was reached out to me; Temple she patted on the +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +'He can—ja: du auch.' +</p> + +<p> +A grand gentleman rode up. They whispered, gazed at the tent, and appeared to +speak vehemently. All the men's faces were foreign: none of them had the +slightest resemblance to my father's. I fancied I might detect him disguised. I +stared vainly. Temple, to judge by the expression of his features, was +thinking. Yes, thought I, we might as well be at home at old Riversley, that +distant spot! We're as out of place here as frogs in the desert! +</p> + +<p> +Riding to and fro, and chattering, and commotion, of which the margravine was +the centre, went on, and the band played beautiful waltzes. The workmen in and +out of the tent were full of their business, like seamen under a storm. +</p> + +<p> +'Fräulein Sibley,' the margravine called. +</p> + +<p> +I hoped it might be an English name. So it proved to be; and the delight of +hearing English spoken, and, what was more, having English ears to speak to, +was blissful as the leap to daylight out of a nightmare. +</p> + +<p> +'I have the honour to be your countrywoman,' said a lady, English all over to +our struggling senses. +</p> + +<p> +We became immediately attached to her as a pair of shipwrecked boats lacking +provender of every sort are taken in tow by a well-stored vessel. She knew my +father, knew him intimately. I related all I had to tell, and we learnt that we +had made acquaintance with her pupil, the Princess Ottilia Wilhelmina Frederika +Hedwig, only child of the Prince of Eppenwelzen. +</p> + +<p> +'Your father will certainly be here; he is generally the margravine's right +hand, and it's wonderful the margravine can do without him so long,' said Miss +Sibley, and conversed with the margravine; after which she informed me that she +had been graciously directed to assure me my father would be on the field when +the cannon sounded. +</p> + +<p> +'Perhaps you know nothing of Court life?' she resumed. 'We have very curious +performances in Sarkeld, and we owe it to the margravine that we are frequently +enlivened. You see the tall gentleman who is riding away from her. I mean the +one with the black hussar jacket and thick brown moustache. That is the prince. +Do you not think him handsome? He is very kind—rather capricious; but +that is a way with princes. Indeed, I have no reason to complain. He has lost +his wife, the Princess Frederika, and depends upon his sister the margravine +for amusement. He has had it since she discovered your papa.' +</p> + +<p> +'Is the gun never going off?' I groaned. +</p> + +<p> +'If they would only conduct their ceremonies without their guns!' exclaimed +Miss Sibley. 'The origin of the present ceremony is this: the margravine wished +to have a statue erected to an ancestor, a renowned soldier—and I would +infinitely prefer talking of England. But never mind. Oh, you won't understand +what you gaze at. Well, the prince did not care to expend the money. Instead of +urging that as the ground of his refusal, he declared there were no sculptors +to do justice to Prince Albrecht Wohlgemuth, and one could not rely on their +effecting a likeness. We have him in the dining-hall; he was strikingly +handsome. Afterward he pretended—I'm speaking now of the existing Prince +Ernest—that it would be ages before the statue was completed. One day the +margravine induced him to agree to pay the sum stipulated for by the sculptor, +on condition of the statue being completed for public inspection within eight +days of the hour of their agreement. The whole Court was witness to it. They +arranged for the statue, horse and man, to be exhibited for a quarter of an +hour. Of course, the margravine did not signify it would be a perfectly +finished work. We are kept at a great distance, that we may not scrutinize it +too closely. They unveil it to show she has been as good as her word, and then +cover it up to fix the rider to the horse,—a screw is employed, I +imagine. For one thing we know about it, we know that the horse and the +horseman travelled hither separately. In all probability, the margravine gave +the order for the statue last autumn in Berlin. Now look at the prince. He has +his eye on you. Look down. Now he has forgotten you. He is impatient to behold +the statue. Our chief fear is that the statue will not maintain its balance. +Fortunately, we have plenty of guards to keep the people from pushing against +it. If all turns out well, I shall really say the margravine has done wonders. +She does not look anxious; but then she is not one ever to show it. The prince +does. Every other minute he is glancing at the tent and at his watch. Can you +guess my idea? Your father's absence leads me to think-oh! only a passing +glimmer of an idea—the statue has not arrived, and he is bringing it on. +Otherwise, he would be sure to be here. The margravine beckons me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Don't go!' we cried simultaneously. +</p> + +<p> +The Princess Ottilia supplied her place. +</p> + +<p> +'I have sent to our stables for two little pretty Hungarian horses for you two +to ride,' she said. 'No, I have not yet seen him. He is asked for, and de +Markgräfin knows not at all. He bades in our lake; he has been seen since. The +man is exciteable; but he is so sensible. Oh, no. And he is full of laughter. +We shall soon see him. Would he not ever be cautious of himself for a son like +you?' +</p> + +<p> +Her compliment raised a blush on me. +</p> + +<p> +The patience of the people was creditable to their phlegm. The smoke of pipes +curling over the numberless heads was the most stirring thing about them. +</p> + +<p> +Temple observed to me, +</p> + +<p> +'We'll give the old statue a British cheer, won't we, Richie?' +</p> + +<p> +'After coming all the way from England!' said I, in dejection. +</p> + +<p> +'No, no, Richie; you're sure of him now. He's somewhere directing affairs, I +suspect. I say, do let us show them we can ring out the right tune upon +occasion. By jingo! there goes a fellow with a match.' +</p> + +<p> +We saw the cannonier march up to the margravine's carriage for orders. She +summoned the prince to her side. Ladies in a dozen carriages were standing up, +handkerchief in hand, and the gentlemen got their horses' heads on a line. +Temple counted nearly sixty persons of quality stationed there. The workmen +were trooping out of the tent. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Sibley ran to us, saying,— +</p> + +<p> +'The gun-horror has been commanded. Now then: the prince can scarcely contain +himself. The gunner is ready near his gun; he has his frightful match lifted. +See, the manager-superintendent is receiving the margravine's last injunctions. +How firm women's nerves are! Now the margravine insists on the prince's reading +the exact time by her watch. Everybody is doing it. Let us see. By my watch it +is all but fifteen minutes to eleven, A.M. Dearest,' she addressed the little +princess; 'would you not like to hold my hand until the gun is fired?' +</p> + +<p> +'Dearest,' replied the princess, whether in childish earnest or irony I could +not divine, 'if I would hold a hand it would be a gentleman's.' +</p> + +<p> +All eyes were on the Prince of Eppenwelzen, as he gazed toward the covered +statue. With imposing deliberation his hand rose to his hat. We saw the hat +raised. The cannon was fired and roared; the band struck up a pompous slow +march: and the tent-veil broke apart and rolled off. It was like the dawn +flying and sunrise mounting. +</p> + +<p> +I confess I forgot all thought of my father for awhile; the shouts of the +people, the braying of the brass instruments, the ladies cheering sweetly, the +gentlemen giving short, hearty expressions of applause, intoxicated me. And the +statue was superb—horse and rider in new bronze polished by sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +'It is life-like! it is really noble! it is a true Prince!' exclaimed Miss +Sibley. She translated several exclamations of the ladies and gentlemen in +German: they were entirely to the same effect. The horse gave us a gleam of his +neck as he pawed a forefoot, just reined in. We knew him; he was a gallant +horse; but it was the figure of the Prince Albrecht that was so fine. I had +always laughed at sculptured figures on horseback. This one overawed me. The +Marshal was acknowledging the salute of his army after a famous victory over +the infidel Turks. He sat upright, almost imperceptibly but effectively bending +his head in harmony with the curve of his horse's neck, and his baton swept the +air low in proud submission to the honours cast on him by his acclaiming +soldiery. His three-cornered lace hat, curled wig, heavy-trimmed surcoat, and +high boots, reminded me of Prince Eugene. No Prince Eugene—nay, nor +Marlborough, had such a martial figure, such an animated high old warrior's +visage. The bronze features reeked of battle. +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I felt humiliated (without cause, I granted) at the success of a +work of Art that struck us as a new military triumph of these Germans, and it +was impossible not to admire it. The little Princess Ottilia clapped hands by +fits. What words she addressed to me I know not. I dealt out my stock of +German—'<i>Ja, ja</i>'—to her English. We were drawn by her to +congratulate the margravine, whose hand was then being kissed by the prince: he +did it most courteously and affectionately. Other gentlemen, counts and barons, +bowed over her hand. Ladies, according to their rank and privileges, saluted +her on the cheek or in some graceful fashion. When our turn arrived, Miss +Sibley translated for us, and as we were at concert pitch we did not acquit +ourselves badly. Temple's remark was, that he wished she and all her family had +been English. Nothing was left for me to say but that the margravine almost +made us wish we had been German. +</p> + +<p> +Smiling cordially, the margravine spoke, Miss Sibley translated: +</p> + +<p> +'Her Royal Highness asks you if you have seen your father?' +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +The Princess Ottilia translated, 'Her Highness, my good aunt, would know, would +you know him, did you see him?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, anywhere,' I cried. +</p> + +<p> +The margravine pushed me back with a gesture. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, your Highness, on my honour; anywhere on earth!' +</p> + +<p> +She declined to hear the translation. +</p> + +<p> +Her insulting disbelief in my ability to recognize the father I had come so far +to embrace would have vexed me but for the wretched thought that I was losing +him again. We threaded the carriages; gazed at the horsemen in a way to pierce +the hair on their faces. The little princess came on us hurriedly. +</p> + +<p> +'Here, see, are the horses. I will you to mount. Are they not pretty animals?' +She whispered, 'I believe your fater have been hurt in his mind by something. +It is only perhaps. Now mount, for de Markgräfin says you are our good guests.' +</p> + +<p> +We mounted simply to show that we could mount, for we would rather have been on +foot, and drew up close to the right of the margravine's carriage. +</p> + +<p> +'Hush! a poet is reading his ode,' said the princess. 'It is Count Fretzel von +Wolfenstein.' +</p> + +<p> +This ode was dreadful to us, and all the Court people pretended they liked it. +When he waved his right hand toward the statue there was a shout from the +rustic set; when he bowed to the margravine, the ladies and gentlemen murmured +agreeably and smiled. We were convinced of its being downright hypocrisy, +rustic stupidity, Court flattery. We would have argued our case, too. I +proposed a gallop; Temple said, +</p> + +<p> +'No, we'll give the old statue our cheer as soon as this awful fellow has done. +I don't care much for poetry, but don't let me ever have to stand and hear +German poetry again for the remainder of my life.' +</p> + +<p> +We could not imagine why they should have poetry read out to them instead of +their fine band playing, but supposed it was for the satisfaction of the +margravine, with whom I grew particularly annoyed on hearing Miss Sibley say +she conceived her Highness to mean that my father was actually on the ground, +and that we neither of us, father and son, knew one another. I swore on my +honour, on my life, he was not present; and the melancholy in my heart taking +the form of extreme irritation, I spoke passionately. I rose in my stirrups, +ready to shout, 'Father! here's Harry Richmond come to see you. Where are you!' +I did utter something—a syllable or two: 'Make haste!' I think the words +were. They sprang from my inmost bosom, addressed without forethought to that +drawling mouthing poet. The margravine's face met mine like a challenge. She +had her lips tight in a mere lip-smile, and her eyes gleamed with provocation. +</p> + +<p> +'Her Highness,' Miss Sibley translated, 'asks whether you are prepared to bet +that your father is not on the ground?' +</p> + +<p> +'Beg her to wait two minutes, and I'll be prepared to bet any sum,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +Temple took one half the circle, I the other, riding through the attentive +horsemen and carriage-lines, and making sure the face we sought was absent, +more or less discomposing everybody. The poet finished his ode; he was cheered, +of course. Mightily relieved, I beheld the band resuming their instruments, for +the cheering resembled a senseless beating on brass shields. I felt that we +English could do it better. Temple from across the sector of the circle, +running about two feet in front of the statue, called aloud, +</p> + +<p> +'Richie! he's not here!' +</p> + +<p> +'Not here!' cried I. +</p> + +<p> +The people gazed up at us, wondering at the tongue we talked. +</p> + +<p> +'Richie! now let's lead these fellows off with a tiptop cheer!' +</p> + +<p> +Little Temple crowed lustily. +</p> + +<p> +The head of the statue turned from Temple to me. +</p> + +<p> +I found the people falling back with amazed exclamations. I—so +prepossessed was I—simply stared at the sudden-flashing white of the +statue's eyes. The eyes, from being an instant ago dull carved balls, were +animated. They were fixed on me. I was unable to give out a breath. Its chest +heaved; both bronze hands struck against the bosom. +</p> + +<p> +'Richmond! my son! Richie! Harry Richmond! Richmond Roy!' +</p> + +<p> +That was what the statue gave forth. +</p> + +<p> +My head was like a ringing pan. I knew it was my father, but my father with +death and strangeness, earth, metal, about him; and his voice was like a human +cry contending with earth and metal—mine was stifled. I saw him descend. +I dismounted. We met at the ropes and embraced. All his figure was stiff, +smooth, cold. My arms slid on him. Each time he spoke I thought it an unnatural +thing: I myself had not spoken once. +</p> + +<p> +After glancing by hazard at the empty saddle of the bronze horse, I called to +mind more clearly the appalling circumstance which had stupefied the whole +crowd. They had heard a statue speak—had seen a figure of bronze walk. +For them it was the ancestor of their prince; it was the famous dead old +warrior of a hundred and seventy years ago set thus in motion. Imagine the +behaviour of people round a slain tiger that does not compel them to fly, and +may yet stretch out a dreadful paw! Much so they pressed for a nearer sight of +its walnut visage, and shrank in the act. Perhaps I shared some of their +sensations. I cannot tell: my sensations were tranced. There was no warmth to +revive me in the gauntlet I clasped. I looked up at the sky, thinking that it +had fallen dark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"></a> +CHAPTER XVII.<br/> +MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS</h2> + +<p> +The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on each side +of the ropes toward the margravine's carriage. +</p> + +<p> +I became a perfectly mechanical creature: incapable of observing, just capable +of taking an impression here and there; and in such cases the impressions that +come are stamped on hot wax; they keep the scene fresh; they partly pervert it +as well. Temple's version is, I am sure, the truer historical picture. He, +however, could never repeat it twice exactly alike, whereas I failed not to +render image for image in clear succession as they had struck me at the time. I +could perceive that the figure of the Prince Albrecht, in its stiff condition, +was debarred from vaulting, or striding, or stooping, so that the ropes were a +barrier between us. I saw the little Princess Ottilia eyeing us with an +absorbed comprehensive air quite unlike the manner of a child. Dots of heads, +curious faces, peering and starting eyes, met my vision. I heard sharp talk in +German, and a rider flung his arm, as if he wished to crash the universe, and +flew off. The margravine seemed to me more an implacable parrot than a noble +lady. I thought to myself: This is my father, and I am not overjoyed or +grateful. In the same way, I felt that the daylight was bronze, and I did not +wonder at it: nay, I reasoned on the probability of a composition of sun and +mould producing that colour. The truth was, the powers of my heart and will +were frozen; I thought and felt at random. And I crave excuses for dwelling on +such trifling phenomena of the sensations, which have been useful to me by +helping me to realize the scene, even as at the time they obscured it. +</p> + +<p> +According to Temple's description, when the statue moved its head toward him, a +shudder went through the crowd, and a number of forefingers were levelled at +it, and the head moved toward me, marked of them all. Its voice was answered by +a dull puling scream from women, and the men gaped. When it descended from the +saddle, the act was not performed with one bound, as I fancied, but +difficultly; and it walked up to me like a figure dragging logs at its heels. +Half-a-dozen workmen ran to arrest it; some townswomen fainted. There was a +heavy altercation in German between the statue and the superintendent of the +arrangements. The sun shone brilliantly on our march to the line of carriages +where the Prince of Eppenwelzen was talking to the margravine in a fury, and he +dashed away on his horse, after bellowing certain directions to his foresters +and the workmen, by whom we were surrounded; while the margravine talked loudly +and amiably, as though everything had gone well. Her watch was out. She +acknowledged my father's bow, and overlooked him. She seemed to have made her +courtiers smile. The ladies and gentlemen obeyed the wave of her hand by +quitting the ground; the band headed a long line of the commoner sort, and a +body of foresters gathered the remnants and joined them to the rear of the +procession. A liveried groom led away Temple's horse and mine. Temple declared +he could not sit after seeing the statue descend from its pedestal. +</p> + +<p> +Her Highness's behaviour roughened as soon as the place was clear of company. +She spoke at my father impetuously, with manifest scorn and reproach, struck +her silver-mounted stick on the carriage panels, again and again stamped her +foot, lifting a most variable emphatic countenance. Princess Ottilia tried to +intercede. The margravine clenched her hands, and, to one not understanding her +speech, appeared literally to blow the little lady off with the breath of her +mouth. Her whole bearing consisted of volleys of abuse, closed by magisterial +interrogations. Temple compared her Highness's language to the running out of +Captain Welsh's chaincable, and my father's replies to the hauling in: his +sentences were short, they sounded like manful protestations; I barely noticed +them. Temple's version of it went: 'And there was your father apologizing, and +the margravine rating him,' etc. My father, as it happened, was careful not to +open his lips wide on account of the plaster, or thick coating of paint on his +face. No one would have supposed that he was burning with indignation; the fact +being, that to give vent to it, he would have had to exercise his muscular +strength; he was plastered and painted from head to foot. The fixture of his +wig and hat, too, constrained his skin, so that his looks were no index of his +feelings. I longed gloomily for the moment to come when he would present +himself to me in his natural form. He was not sensible of the touch of my hand, +nor I of his. There we had to stand until the voluble portion of the +margravine's anger came to an end. She shut her eyes and bowed curtly to our +salute. +</p> + +<p> +'You have seen the last of me, madam,' my father said to her whirling +carriage-wheels. +</p> + +<p> +He tried to shake, and strained in his ponderous garments. Temple gazed +abashed. I knew not how to act. My father kept lifting his knees on the spot as +if practising a walk. +</p> + +<p> +The tent was in its old place covering the bronze horse. A workman stepped +ahead of us, and we all went at a strange leisurely pace down the hill through +tall pinetrees to where a closed vehicle awaited us. Here were also a couple of +lackeys, who deposited my father on a bed of moss, and with much effort pulled +his huge boots off, leaving him in red silk stockings. Temple and I snatched +his gauntlets; Temple fell backward, but we had no thought of laughter; people +were seen approaching, and the three of us jumped into the carriage. I had my +father's living hand in mine to squeeze; feeling him scarcely yet the living +man I had sought, and with no great warmth of feeling. His hand was very moist. +Often I said, 'Dear father!—Papa, I'm so glad at last,' in answer to his +short-breathed 'Richie, my little lad, my son Richmond! You found me out; you +found me!' We were conscious that his thick case of varnished clothing was +against us. One would have fancied from his way of speaking that he suffered +from asthma. I was now gifted with a tenfold power of observation, and let +nothing escape me. +</p> + +<p> +Temple, sitting opposite, grinned cheerfully at times to encourage our spirits; +he had not recovered from his wonderment, nor had I introduced him. My father, +however, had caught his name. Temple (who might as well have talked, I thought) +was perpetually stealing secret glances of abstracted perusal at him with a +pair of round infant's eyes, sucking his reflections the while. My father broke +our silence. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Temple, I have the honour,' he said, as if about to cough; 'the honour of +making your acquaintance; I fear you must surrender the hope of making mine at +present.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple started and reddened like a little fellow detected in straying from his +spelling-book, which was the window-frame. In a minute or so the fascination +proved too strong for him; his eyes wandered from the window and he renewed his +shy inspection bit by bit as if casting up a column of figures. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, Mr. Temple, we are in high Germany,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +It must have cost Temple cruel pain, for he was a thoroughly gentlemanly boy, +and he could not resist it. Finally he surprised himself in his stealthy +reckoning: arrived at the full-breech or buttoned waistband, about half-way up +his ascent from the red silk stocking, he would pause and blink rapidly, +sometimes jump and cough. +</p> + +<p> +To put him at his ease, my father exclaimed, 'As to this exterior,' he knocked +his knuckles on the heaving hard surface, 'I can only affirm that it was, on +horseback—ahem! particularly as the horse betrayed no restivity, +pronounced perfect! The sole complaint of our interior concerns the resemblance +we bear to a lobster. Human somewhere, I do believe myself to be. I shall have +to be relieved of my shell before I can at all satisfactorily proclaim the +fact. I am a human being, believe me.' +</p> + +<p> +He begged permission to take breath a minute. +</p> + +<p> +'I know you for my son's friend, Mr. Temple: here is my son, my boy, Harry +Lepel Richmond Roy. Have patience: I shall presently stand unshelled. I have +much to relate; you likewise have your narrative in store. That you should have +lit on me at the critical instant is one of those miracles which combine to +produce overwhelming testimony—ay, Richie! without a doubt there is a +hand directing our destiny.' His speaking in such a strain, out of pure +kindness to Temple, huskily, with his painful attempt to talk like himself, +revived his image as the father of my heart and dreams, and stirred my torpid +affection, though it was still torpid enough, as may be imagined, when I state +that I remained plunged in contemplation of his stocking of red silk emerging +from the full bronzed breech, considering whether his comparison of himself to +a shell-fish might not be a really just one. We neither of us regained our true +natures until he was free of every vestige of the garb of Prince Albrecht +Wohlgemuth. Attendants were awaiting him at the garden-gate of a beautiful +villa partly girdled by rising fir-woods on its footing of bright green meadow. +They led him away, and us to bath-rooms. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"></a> +CHAPTER XVIII.<br/> +WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION</h2> + +<p> +In a long saloon ornamented with stags' horns and instruments of the chase, +tusks of boars, spear-staves, boarknives, and silver horns, my father, I, and +Temple sat down to a memorable breakfast, my father in his true form, dressed +in black silken jacket and knee-breeches, purple-stockings and pumps; without a +wig, I thanked heaven to see. How blithely he flung out his limbs and heaved +his chest released from confinement! His face was stained brownish, but we +drank old Rhine wine, and had no eye for appearances. +</p> + +<p> +'So you could bear it no longer, Richie?' My father interrupted the narrative I +doled out, anxious for his, and he began, and I interrupted him. +</p> + +<p> +'You did think of me often, papa, didn't you?' +</p> + +<p> +His eyes brimmed with tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +'Think of you!' he sighed. +</p> + +<p> +I gave him the account of my latest adventures in a few panting breaths, +suppressing the Bench. He set my face to front him. +</p> + +<p> +'We are two fools, Mr. Temple,' he said. +</p> + +<p> +'No, sir,' said Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'Now you speak, papa,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +He smiled warmly. +</p> + +<p> +'Richie begins to remember me.' +</p> + +<p> +I gazed at him to show it was true. +</p> + +<p> +'I do, papa—I'm not beginning to.' +</p> + +<p> +At his request, I finished the tale of my life at school. 'Ah, well! that was +bad fortune; this is good!' he exclaimed. 'Tis your father, my son: 'tis +day-light, though you look at it through a bed-curtain, and think you are +half-dreaming. Now then for me, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +My father went on in this wise excitedly: +</p> + +<p> +'I was laying the foundation of your fortune here, my boy. Heavens! when I was +in that bronze shell I was astonished only at my continence in not bursting. +You have grown,—you have shot up and filled out. I register my thanks to +your grandfather Beltham; the same, in a minor degree, to Captain Jasper Welsh. +Between that man Rippenger and me there shall be dealings. He flogged you: let +that pass. He exposed you to the contempt of your school-fellows because of a +breach in my correspondence with a base-born ferule-swinger. What are we coming +to? Richie, my son, I was building a future for you here. And Colonel +Goodwin—Colonel Goodwin, you encountered him too, and his marriageable +daughter—I owe it to them that I have you here! Well, in the event of my +sitting out the period this morning as the presentment of Prince Albrecht, I +was to have won something would have astonished that unimpressionable +countryman of ours. Goodness gracious, my boy! when I heard your English shout, +it went to my marrow. Could they expect me to look down on my own flesh and +blood, on my son—my son Richmond—after a separation of years, and +continue a statue? Nay, I followed my paternal impulse. Grant that the show was +spoilt, does the Markgräfin insist on my having a bronze heart to carry on her +pastime? Why, naturally, I deplore a failure, let the cause be what it will. +Whose regrets can eclipse those of the principal actor? Quotha! as our old +Plays have it. Regrets? Did I not for fifteen minutes and more of mortal time +sit in view of a multitude, motionless, I ask you, like a chiselled block of +stone,—and the compact was one quarter of an hour, and no farther? That +was my stipulation. I told her—I can hold out one quarter of an hour: I +pledged myself to it. Who, then, is to blame? I was exposed to view +twenty-three minutes, odd seconds. Is there not some ancient story of a +monstrous wretch baked in his own bull? My situation was as bad. If I recollect +aright, he could roar; no such relief was allowed to me. And I give you my +word, Richie, lads both, that while that most infernal Count Fretzel was +pouring forth his execrable humdrum, I positively envied the privilege of an +old palsied fellow, chief boatman of the forest lake, for, thinks I, hang him! +he can nod his head and I can not. Let me assure you, twenty minutes of an +ordeal like that,—one posture, mind you, no raising of your eyelids, +taking your breath mechanically, and your heart beating—jumping like an +enraged balletdancer boxed in your bosom—a literal description, upon my +honour; and not only jumping, jumping every now and then, I may say, with a toe +in your throat: I was half-choked:—well, I say, twenty minutes, +twenty-seven minutes and a half of that, getting on, in fact, to half-an-hour, +it is superhuman!—by heavens, it is heroical! +</p> + +<p> +And observe my reward: I have a son—my only one. I have been divided from +him for years; I am establishing his fortune; I know he is provided with +comforts: Richie, you remember the woman Waddy? A faithful soul! She obtained +my consent at last—previously I had objections; in fact, your address was +withheld from the woman—to call at your school. She saw Rippenger, a girl +of considerable attractions. She heard you were located at Riversley: I say, I +know the boy is comfortably provided for; but we have been separated since he +was a little creature with curls on his forehead, scarce breeched.' +</p> + +<p> +I protested: +</p> + +<p> +'Papa, I have been in jacket and trousers I don't know how long.' +</p> + +<p> +'Let me pursue,' said my father. 'And to show you, Richie, it is a golden age +ever when you and I are together, and ever shall be till we lose our manly +spirit, and we cling to that,—till we lose our princely spirit, which we +never will abandon—perish rather!—I drink to you, and challenge +you; and, mind you, old Hock wine has charms. If Burgundy is the emperor of +wines, Hock is the empress. For youngsters, perhaps, I should except the Hock +that gets what they would fancy a trifle pique, turned with age, so as to lose +in their opinion its empress flavour.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple said modestly: 'I should call that the margravine of wines.' +</p> + +<p> +My father beamed on him with great approving splendour. 'Join us, Mr. Temple; +you are a man of wit, and may possibly find this specimen worthy of you. This +wine has a history. You are drinking wine with blood in it. Well, I was saying, +the darling of my heart has been torn from me; I am in a foreign land; foreign, +that is, by birth, and on the whole foreign. Yes!—I am the cynosure of +eyes; I am in a singular posture, a singular situation; I hear a cry in the +tongue of my native land, and what I presume is my boy's name: I look, I behold +him, I follow a parent's impulse. On my soul! none but a fish-father could have +stood against it. +</p> + +<p> +Well, for this my reward is—and I should have stepped from a cathedral +spire just the same, if I had been mounted on it—that I, I,—and the +woman knows all my secret—I have to submit to the foul tirade of a vixen. +</p> + +<p> +She drew language, I protest, from the slums. And I entreat you, Mr. Temple, +with your “margravine of wines”—which was very neatly said, +to be sure—note you this curious point for the confusion of Radicals in +your after life; her Highness's pleasure was to lend her tongue to the +language—or something like it—of a besotted fish-wife; so! very +well, and just as it is the case with that particular old Hock you youngsters +would disapprove of, and we cunning oldsters know to contain more virtues in +maturity than a nunnery of May-blooming virgins, just so the very faults of a +royal lady—royal by birth and in temper a termagant—impart a +perfume! a flavour! You must age; you must live in Courts, you must sound the +human bosom, rightly to appreciate it. She is a woman of the most malicious +fine wit imaginable. +</p> + +<p> +She is a generous woman, a magnanimous woman; wear her chains and she will not +brain you with her club. She is the light, the centre of every society where +she appears, like what shall I say? like the moon in a bowl of old Rhenish. And +you will drain that bowl to the bottom to seize her, as it were—catch a +correct idea of her; ay, and your brains are drowned in the attempt. Yes, +Richie; I was aware of your residence at Riversley. Were you reminded of your +wandering dada on Valentine's day? Come, my boy, we have each of us a thousand +things to relate. I may be dull—I do not understand what started you on +your journey in search of me. An impulse? An accident? Say, a directing angel! +We rest our legs here till evening, and then we sup. You will be astonished to +hear that you have dined. 'Tis the fashion with the Germans. I promise you good +wine shall make it up to you for the return to school-habits. We sup, and we +pack our scanty baggage, and we start tonight. Brook no insult at Courts if you +are of material value: if not, it is unreservedly a question whether you like +kickings.' +</p> + +<p> +My father paused, yawned and stretched, to be rid of the remainder of his aches +and stiffness. Out of a great yawn he said: +</p> + +<p> +'Dear lads, I have fallen into the custom of the country; I crave your +permission that I may smoke. Wander, if you choose, within hail of me, or sit +by me, if you can bear it, and talk of your school-life, and your studies. Your +aunt Dorothy, Richie? She is well? I know not her like. I could bear to hear of +any misfortune but that she suffered pain. +</p> + +<p> +My father smoked his cigar peacefully. He had laid a guitar on his knees, and +flipped a string, or chafed over all the strings, and plucked and thrummed them +as his mood varied. We chatted, and watched the going down of the sun, and +amused ourselves idly, fermenting as we were. Anything that gave pleasure to us +two boys pleased and at once occupied my father. It was without aid from +Temple's growing admiration of him that I recovered my active belief and vivid +delight in his presence. My younger days sprang up beside me like brothers. No +one talked, looked, flashed, frowned, beamed, as he did! had such prompt +liveliness as he! such tenderness! No one was ever so versatile in playfulness. +He took the colour of the spirits of the people about him. His vivacious or +sedate man-of-the-world tone shifted to playfellow's fun in a twinkling. I used +as a little fellow to think him larger than he really was, but he was of good +size, inclined to be stout; his eyes were grey, rather prominent, and his +forehead sloped from arched eyebrows. So conversational were his eyes and brows +that he could persuade you to imagine he was carrying on a dialogue without +opening his mouth. His voice was charmingly clear; his laughter confident, +fresh, catching, the outburst of his very self, as laughter should be. Other +sounds of laughter were like echoes. +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say, I lost the links of my familiarity with him when he left us on +a short visit to his trunks and portmanteaux, and had to lean on Temple, who +tickled but rejoiced me by saying: 'Richie, your father is just the one I +should like to be secretary to.' +</p> + +<p> +We thought it a pity to have to leave this nice foreign place immediately. I +liked the scenery, and the wine, and what I supposed to be the habit of the +gentlemen here to dress in silks. On my father's return to us I asked him if we +could not stay till morning. +</p> + +<p> +'Till morning, then,' he said: 'and to England with the first lark.' +</p> + +<p> +His complexion was ruddier; his valet had been at work to restore it; he was +getting the sanguine hue which coloured my recollection of him. Wearing a black +velvet cap and a Spanish furred cloak, he led us over the villa. In Sarkeld he +resided at the palace, and generally at the lake-palace on the removal of the +Court thither. The margravine had placed the villa, which was her own property, +at his disposal, the better to work out their conspiracy. +</p> + +<p> +'It would have been mine!' said my father, bending suddenly to my ear, and +humming his philosophical 'heigho,' as he stepped on in minuet fashion. We went +through apartments rich with gilded oak and pine panellings: in one was a rough +pattern of a wooden horse opposite a mirror; by no means a figure of a horse, +but apparently a number of pieces contributed by a carpenter's workshop, having +a rueful seat in the middle. My father had practised the attitude of Prince +Albrecht Wohlgemuth on it. 'She timed me five and twenty minutes there only +yesterday,' he said; and he now supposed he had sat the bronze horse as a +statue in public view exactly thirty-seven minutes and a quarter. Tubs full of +colouring liquid to soak the garments of the prince, pots of paint, and paint +and plaster brushes, hinted the magnitude of the preparations. +</p> + +<p> +'Here,' said my father in another apartment, 'I was this morning apparelled at +seven o'clock: and I would have staked my right arm up to the collar-bone on +the success of the undertaking!' +</p> + +<p> +'Weren't they sure to have found it out in the end, papa?' I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +'I am not so certain of that,' he rejoined: 'I cannot quaff consolation from +that source. I should have been covered up after exhibition; I should have been +pronounced imperfect in my fitting-apparatus; the sculptor would have claimed +me, and I should have been enjoying the fruits of a brave and harmless +conspiracy to do honour to an illustrious prince, while he would have been +moulding and casting an indubitable bronze statue in my image. A fig for +rumours! We show ourself; we are caught from sight; we are again on show. Now +this being successfully done, do you see, Royalty declines to listen to vulgar +tattle. Presumably, Richie, it was suspected by the Court that the margravine +had many months ago commanded the statue at her own cost, and had set her mind +on winning back the money. The wonder of it was my magnificent resemblance to +the defunct. I sat some three hours before the old warrior's portraits in the +dining-saloon of the lake-palace. Accord me one good spell of meditation over a +tolerable sketch, I warrant myself to represent him to the life, provided that +he was a personage: I incline to stipulate for handsome as well. On my word of +honour as a man and a gentleman, I pity the margravine—my poor good Frau +Feldmarschall! Now, here, Richie,'—my father opened a side-door out of an +elegant little room into a spacious dark place, 'here is her cabinet-theatre, +where we act German and French comediettas in Spring and Autumn. I have +superintended it during the two or more years of my stay at the Court. Humph! +'tis over.' +</p> + +<p> +He abruptly closed the door. His dress belonged to the part of a Spanish +nobleman, personated by him in a Play called The Hidalgo Enraged, he said, +pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the melancholy door, behind which gay +scenes had sparkled. +</p> + +<p> +'Papa!' said I sadly, for consolation. +</p> + +<p> +'You're change for a sovereign to the amount of four hundred and forty-nine +thousand shillings every time you speak!' cried he, kissing my forehead. +</p> + +<p> +He sparkled in good earnest on hearing that I had made acquaintance with the +little Princess Ottilia. What I thought of her, how she looked at me, what I +said to her, what words she answered, how the acquaintance began, who were +observers of it,—I had to repair my omission to mention her by furnishing +a precise description of the circumstances, describing her face and style, +repeating her pretty English. +</p> + +<p> +My father nodded: he thought I exaggerated that foreign English of hers; but, +as I said, I was new to it and noticed it. He admitted the greater keenness of +attention awakened by novelty. +</p> + +<p> +'Only,' said he, 'I rather wonder—' and here he smiled at me inquiringly. +''Tis true,' he added, 'a boy of fourteen or fifteen—ay, Richie, have +your fun out. A youngster saw the comic side of her. Do you know, that child +has a remarkable character? Her disposition is totally unfathomable. You are a +deep reader of English poetry, I hope; she adores it, and the English Navy. She +informed me that if she had been the English people she would have made Nelson +king. The Royal family of England might see objections to that, I told her. +Cries she: “Oh! anything for a sea-hero.” You will find these young +princes and princesses astonishingly revolutionary when they entertain brains. +Now at present, just at present, an English naval officer, and a poet, stand +higher in the esteem of that young Princess Ottilia than dukes, kings, or +emperors. So you have seen her!' my father ejaculated musingly, and hummed, and +said: 'By the way, we must be careful not to offend our grandpapa Beltham, +Richie. Good acres—good anchorage; good coffers—good harbourage. +Regarding poetry, my dear boy, you ought to be writing it, for I do—the +diversion of leisure hours, impromptus. In poetry, I would scorn anything but +impromptus. I was saying, Richie, that if tremendous misfortune withholds from +you your legitimate prestige, you must have the substantial element. 'Tis your +springboard to vault by, and cushions on the other side if you make a miss and +fall. 'Tis the essence if you have not the odour.' +</p> + +<p> +I followed my father's meaning as the shadow of a bird follows it in sunlight; +it made no stronger an impression than a flying shadow on the grass; still I +could verify subsequently that I had penetrated him—I had caught the +outline of his meaning—though I was little accustomed to his manner of +communicating his ideas: I had no notion of what he touched on with the words, +prestige, essence, and odour. +</p> + +<p> +My efforts to gather the reason for his having left me neglected at school were +fruitless. 'Business, business! sad necessity! hurry, worry-the-hounds!' was +his nearest approach to an explicit answer; and seeing I grieved his kind eyes, +I abstained. Nor did I like to defend Mr. Rippenger for expecting to be paid. +We came to that point once or twice, when so sharply wronged did he appear, and +vehement and indignant, that I banished thoughts which marred my luxurious +contentment in hearing him talk and sing, and behave in his old ways and new +habits. +</p> + +<p> +Plain velvet was his dress at dinner. We had a yellow Hock. Temple's meditative +face over it, to discover the margravine, or something, in its flavour, was a +picture. It was an evening of incessant talking; no telling of events +straightforwardly, but all by fits—all here and there. My father talked +of Turkey, so I learnt he had been in that country; Temple of the routine of +our life at Riversley; I of Kiomi, the gipsy girl; then we two of Captain +Jasper Welsh; my father of the Princess Ottilia. When I alluded to the +margravine, he had a word to say of Mrs. Waddy; so I learnt she had been in +continual correspondence with him, and had cried heavily about me, poor soul. +Temple laughed out a recollection of Captain Bulsted's 'hic, haec, hoc'; I +jumped Janet Ilchester up on the table; my father expatiated on the comfort of +a volume of Shakespeare to an exiled Englishman. We drank to one another, and +heartily to the statue. My father related the history of the margravine's plot +in duck-and-drake skips, and backward to his first introduction to her at some +Austrian Baths among the mountains. She wanted amusement—he provided it; +she never let him quit her sight from that moment. +</p> + +<p> +'And now,' he said, 'she has lost me!' He drew out of his pocket-book a number +of designs for the statue of Prince Albrecht, to which the margravine's +initials were appended, and shuffled them, and sighed, and said: 'Most complete +arrangements! most complete! No body of men were ever so well drilled as those +fellows up at Bella Vista—could not have been! And at the climax, in +steps the darling boy for whom I laboured and sweated, and down we topple +incontinently! Nothing would have shaken me but the apparition of my son! I was +proof against everything but that! I sat invincible for close upon an +hour—call it an hour! Not a muscle of me moved: I repeat, the heart in my +bosom capered like an independent organ; had it all its own way, leaving me +mine, until Mr. Temple, take my word for it, there is a guiding hand in some +families; believe it, and be serene in adversity. The change of life at a merry +Court to life in a London alley will exercise our faith. But the essential +thing is that Richie has been introduced here, and I intend him to play a part +here. The grandson and heir of one of the richest commoners in England—I +am not saying commoner as a term of reproach—possessed of a property that +turns itself over and doubles itself every ten years, may—mind you, +may—on such a solid foundation as that!—and as to birth, your +Highness has only to grant us a private interview.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple was dazed by this mystifying address to him; nor could I understand it. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, papa, you always wished for me to go into Parliament,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'I do,' he replied, 'and I wish you to lead the London great world. Such topics +are for by-and-by. Adieu to them!' He kissed his wafting finger-tips. +</p> + +<p> +We fell upon our random talk again with a merry rattle. +</p> + +<p> +I had to give him a specimen of my piano-playing and singing. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. 'The cricketer and the scholar have been developed at the +expense of the musician; and music, Richie, music unlocks the chamber of +satinrose.' +</p> + +<p> +Late at night we separated. Temple and I slept in companion-rooms. Deadly +drowsy, the dear little fellow sat on the edge of my bed chattering of his +wonder. My dreams led me wandering with a ship's diver under the sea, where we +walked in a light of pearls and exploded old wrecks. I was assuring the glassy +man that it was almost as clear beneath the waves as above, when I awoke to see +my father standing over me in daylight; and in an ecstasy I burst into sobs. +</p> + +<p> +'Here, Richie'—he pressed fresh violets on my nostrils—'you have +had a morning visitor. Quick out of bed, and you will see the little fairy +crossing the meadow.' +</p> + +<p> +I leapt to the window in time to have in view the little Princess Ottilia, +followed by her faithful gaunt groom, before she was lost in the shadow of the +fir-trees. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"></a> +CHAPTER XIX.<br/> +OUR RETURN HOMEWARD</h2> + +<p> +We started for England at noon, much against my secret wishes; but my father +would not afford the margravine time to repent of her violent language and +injustice toward him. Reflection increased his indignation. Anything that went +wrong on the first stages of the journey caused him to recapitulate her +epithets and reply to them proudly. He confided to me in Cologne Cathedral that +the entire course of his life was a grand plot, resembling an unfinished piece +of architecture, which might, at a future day, prove the wonder of the world: +and he had, therefore, packed two dozen of hoar old (uralt: he used comical +German) Hock for a present to my grandfather Beltham, in the hope of its being +found acceptable. +</p> + +<p> +'For, Richie,' said he, 'you may not know—and it is not to win your +thanks I inform you of it—that I labour unremittingly in my son's +interests. I have established him, on his majority, in Germany, at a Court. My +object now is to establish him in England. Promise me that it shall be the +decided endeavour of your energies and talents to rise to the height I point +out to you? You promise, I perceive,' he added, sharp in detecting the +unpleasant predicament of a boy who is asked to speak priggishly. So then I +could easily promise with a firm voice. He dropped certain explosive hints, +which reminded me of the funny ideas of my state and greatness I had when a +child. I shrugged at them; I cared nothing for revelations to come by-and-by. +My object was to unite my father and grandfather on terms of friendship. +</p> + +<p> +This was the view that now absorbed and fixed my mind. To have him a frequent +visitor at Riversley, if not a resident in the house, enlivening them all, +while I, perhaps, trifled a cavalry sabre, became one of my settled dreams. The +difficult part of the scheme appeared to me the obtaining of my father's +consent. I mentioned it, and he said immediately that he must have his freedom. +'Now, for instance,' said he, 'what is my desire at this moment? I have always +a big one perched on a rock in the distance; but I speak of my present desire. +And let it be supposed that the squire is one of us: we are returning to +England. Well, I want to show you a stork's nest. We are not far enough South +for the stork to build here. It is a fact, Richie, that I do want to show you +the bird for luck, and as a feature of the country. And in me, a desire to do a +thing partakes of the impetus of steam. +</p> + +<p> +Well, you see we are jogging home to England. I resist myself for duty's sake: +that I can do. But if the squire were here with his yea and his nay, by +heavens! I should be off to the top of the Rhine like a tornado. I submit to +circumstances: I cannot, and I will not, be dictated to by men.' +</p> + +<p> +'That seems to me rather unreasonable,' I remonstrated. +</p> + +<p> +'It is; I am ashamed of it,' he answered. 'Do as you will, Richie; set me down +at Riversley, but under no slight, mark you. I keep my honour intact, like a +bottled cordial; my unfailing comfort in adversity! I hand it to you, my son, +on my death-bed, and say, “You have there the essence of my life. Never +has it been known of me that I swallowed an insult.”' +</p> + +<p> +'Then, papa, I shall have a talk with the squire.' +</p> + +<p> +'Make good your ground in the castle,' said he. 'I string a guitar outside. You +toss me a key from the walls. If there is room, and I have leisure, I enter. If +not, you know I am paving your way in other quarters. Riversley, my boy, is an +excellent foothold and fortress: Riversley is not the world. At Riversley I +should have to wear a double face, and, egad! a double stomach-bag, like young +Jack feeding with the giant—one full of ambition, the other of provender. +That place is our touchstone to discover whether we have prudence. We have, I +hope. And we will have, Mr. Temple, a pleasant day or two in Paris.' +</p> + +<p> +It was his habit to turn off the bent of these conversations by drawing Temple +into them. Temple declared there was no feeling we were in a foreign country +while he was our companion. We simply enjoyed strange scenes, looking idly out +of our windows. Our recollection of the strangest scene ever witnessed filled +us with I know not what scornful pleasure, and laughed in the background at any +sight or marvel pretending to amuse us. Temple and I cantered over the great +Belgian battlefield, talking of Bella Vista tower, the statue, the margravine, +our sour milk and black-bread breakfast, the little Princess Ottilia, with her +'It is my question,' and 'You were kind to my lambs, sir,' thoughtless of glory +and dead bones. My father was very differently impressed. He was in an exultant +glow, far outmatching the bloom on our faces when we rejoined him. I cried, +</p> + +<p> +'Papa, if the prince won't pay for a real statue, I will, and I'll present it +in your name!' +</p> + +<p> +'To the nation?' cried he, staring, and arresting his arm in what seemed an +orchestral movement. +</p> + +<p> +'To the margravine!' +</p> + +<p> +He heard, but had to gather his memory. He had been fighting the battle, and +made light of Bella Vista. I found that incidents over which a day or two had +rolled lost their features to him. He never smiled at recollections. If they +were forced on him noisily by persons he liked, perhaps his face was gay, but +only for a moment. The gaiety of his nature drew itself from hot-springs of +hopefulness: our arrival in England, our interviews there, my majority +Burgundy, my revisitation of Germany—these events to come gave him the +aspect children wear out a-Maying or in an orchard. He discussed the +circumstances connected with the statue as dry matter-of-fact, and unless it +was his duty to be hilarious at the dinner-table, he was hardly able to respond +to a call on his past life and mine. His future, too, was present tense: 'We do +this,' not 'we will do this'; so that, generally, no sooner did we speak of an +anticipated scene than he was acting in it. I studied him eagerly, I know, and +yet quite unconsciously, and I came to no conclusions. Boys are always putting +down the ciphers of their observations of people beloved by them, but do not +add up a sum total. +</p> + +<p> +Our journey home occupied nearly eleven weeks, owing to stress of money on two +occasions. In Brussels I beheld him with a little beggar-girl in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +'She has asked me for a copper coin, Richie,' he said, squeezing her fat cheeks +to make cherries of her lips. +</p> + +<p> +I recommended him to give her a silver one. +</p> + +<p> +'Something, Richie, I must give the little wench, for I have kissed her, and, +in my list of equivalents, gold would be the sole form of repayment after that. +You must buy me off with honour, my boy.' +</p> + +<p> +I was compelled to receive a dab from the child's nose, by way of a kiss, in +return for buying him off with honour. +</p> + +<p> +The child stumped away on the pavement fronting our hotel, staring at its fist +that held the treasure. +</p> + +<p> +'Poor pet wee drab of it!' exclaimed my father. 'One is glad, Richie, to fill a +creature out of one's emptiness. Now she toddles; she is digesting it rapidly. +The last performance of one's purse is rarely so pleasant as that. I owe it to +her that I made the discovery in time.' +</p> + +<p> +In this manner I also made the discovery that my father had no further supply +of money, none whatever. How it had run out without his remarking it, he could +not tell; he could only assure me that he had become aware of the fact while +searching vainly for a coin to bestow on the beggar-girl. I despatched a letter +attested by a notary of the city, applying for money to the banker to whom +Colonel Goodwin had introduced me on my arrival on the Continent. The money +came, and in the meantime we had formed acquaintances and entertained them; +they were chiefly half-pay English military officers, dashing men. One, a Major +Dykes, my father established in our hotel, and we carried him on to Paris, +where, consequent upon our hospitalities, the purse was again deficient. +</p> + +<p> +Two reasons for not regretting it were adduced by my father; firstly, that it +taught me not to despise the importance of possessing money; secondly, that we +had served our country by assisting Dykes, who was on the scent of a new and +terrible weapon of destruction, which he believed to be in the hands of the +French Government. Major Dykes disappeared on the scent, but we had the +satisfaction of knowing that we had done our best toward saving the Navy of +Great Britain from being blown out of water. Temple and I laughed over Major +Dykes, and he became our puppet for by-play, on account of his enormous +whiskers, his passion for strong drinks, and his air of secresy. My father's +faith in his patriotic devotedness was sufficient to withhold me from +suspicions of his character. Whenever my instinct, or common sense, would have +led me to differ with my father in opinion fun supervened; I was willing that +everything in the world should be as he would have it be, and took up with a +spirit of laughter, too happy in having won him, in having fished him out of +the deep sea at one fling of the net, as he said, to care for accuracy of +sentiment in any other particular. +</p> + +<p> +Our purse was at its lowest ebb; he suggested no means of replenishing it, and +I thought of none. He had heard that it was possible to live in Paris upon next +to nothing with very great luxury, so we tried it; we strolled through the +lilac aisles among bonnes and babies, attended military spectacles, rode on +omnibuses, dined on the country heights, went to theatres, and had a most +pleasurable time, gaining everywhere front places, friendly smiles, kind little +services, in a way that would have been incomprehensible to me but for my +consciousness of the magical influence of my father's address, a mixture of the +ceremonious and the affable such as the people could not withstand. +</p> + +<p> +'The poet is perhaps, on the whole, more exhilarating than the alderman,' he +said. +</p> + +<p> +These were the respective names given by him to the empty purse and the full +purse. We vowed we preferred the poet. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay,' said he, 'but for all that the alderman is lighter on his feet: I back +him to be across the Channel first. The object of my instructions to you will +be lost, Richie, if I find you despising the Alderman's Pegasus. On money you +mount. We are literally chained here, you know, there is no doubt about it; and +we are adding a nail to our fetters daily. True, you are accomplishing the +Parisian accent. Paris has also this immense advantage over all other cities: +'tis the central hotel on the high-road of civilization. In Paris you meet your +friends to a certainty; it catches them every one in turn; so now we must +abroad early and late, and cut for trumps.' A meeting with a friend of my +father, Mr. Monterez Williams, was the result of our resolute adoption of this +system. He helped us on to Boulogne, where my father met another friend, to +whom he gave so sumptuous a dinner that we had not money enough to pay the +hotel bill. +</p> + +<p> +'Now observe the inconvenience of leaving Paris,' said he. 'Ten to one we shall +have to return. We will try a week's whistling on the jetty; and if no luck +comes, and you will admit, Richie—Mr. Temple, I call your attention to +it—that luck will scarcely come in profuse expedition through the narrow +neck of a solitary seaport, why, we must return to Paris.' +</p> + +<p> +I proposed to write to my aunt Dorothy for money, but he would not hear of +that. After two or three days of whistling, I saw my old friend, Mr. +Bannerbridge, step out of the packetboat. On condition of my writing to my aunt +to say that I was coming home, he advanced me the sum we were in need of, +grudgingly though, and with the prediction that we should break down again, +which was verified. It occurred only a stage from Riversley, where my +grandfather's name was good as coin of the realm. Besides, my father remained +at the inn to guarantee the payment of the bill, while Temple and I pushed on +in a fly with the two dozen of Hock. It could hardly be called a break-down, +but my father was not unwilling for me to regard it in that light. Among his +parting remarks was an impressive adjuration to me to cultivate the squire's +attachment at all costs. +</p> + +<p> +'Do this,' he said, 'and I shall know that the lesson I have taught you on your +journey homeward has not been thrown away. My darling boy! my curse through +life has been that the sense of weight in money is a sense I am and was born +utterly a stranger to. The consequence is, my grandest edifices fall; there is +no foundation for them. Not that I am worse, understand me, than under a +temporary cloud, and the blessing of heaven has endowed me with a magnificent +constitution. Heaven forefend that I should groan for myself, or you for me! +But digest what you have learnt, Richie; press nothing on the squire; be guided +by the advice of that esteemed and admirable woman, your aunt Dorothy. And, by +the way, you may tell her confidentially of the progress of your friendship +with the Princess Ottilia. Here I shall employ my hours in a tranquil study of +nature until I see you.' Thus he sped me forward. +</p> + +<p> +We sighted Riversley about mid-day on a sunny June morning. Compared with the +view from Bella Vista, our firs looked scanty, our heath-tracts dull, as places +having no page of history written on them, our fresh green meadows not more +than commonly homely. I was so full of my sense of triumph in my adventurous +journey and the recovery of my father, that I gazed on the old Grange from a +towering height. The squire was on the lawn, surrounded by a full company: the +Ilchesters, the Ambroses, the Wilfords, Captain and Squire Gregory Bulsted, the +Rubreys, and others, all bending to roses, to admire, smell, or pluck. Charming +groups of ladies were here and there; and Temple whispered as we passed them: +</p> + +<p> +'We beat foreigners in our women, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +I, making it my business to talk with perfect unconcern, replied +</p> + +<p> +'Do you think so? Perhaps. Not in all cases'; all the while I was exulting at +the sweet beams of England radiating from these dear early-morning-looking +women. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy swam up to me, and, kissing me, murmured: +</p> + +<p> +'Take no rebuff from your grandpapa, darling.' +</p> + +<p> +My answer was: 'I have found him!' +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted sang out our names; I caught sight of Julia Rippenger's face; +the squire had his back turned to me, which reminded me of my first speech with +Captain Jasper Welsh, and I thought to myself, I know something of the world +now, and the thing is to keep a good temper. Here there was no wire-coil to +intercept us, so I fronted him quickly. +</p> + +<p> +'Hulloa!' he cried, and gave me his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +'Temple is your guest, sir,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +He was obliged to stretch out his hand to Temple. +</p> + +<p> +A prompt instinct warned me that I must show him as much Beltham as I could +summon. +</p> + +<p> +'Dogs and horses all right, sir?' I asked. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted sauntered near. +</p> + +<p> +'Here, William,' said the squire, 'tell this fellow about my stables.' +</p> + +<p> +'In excellent condition, Harry Richmond,' returned the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! he's got a new name, I'll swear,' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Not I!' +</p> + +<p> +'Then what have you got of your trip, eh?' +</p> + +<p> +'A sharper eye than I had, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You've been sharpening it in London, have you?' +</p> + +<p> +'I've been a little farther than London, squire.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, you're not a liar.' +</p> + +<p> +'There, you see the lad can stand fire!' Captain Bulsted broke in. 'Harry +Richmond, I'm proud to shake your hand, but I'll wait till you're through the +ceremony with your grandad.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire's hands were crossed behind him. I smiled boldly in his face. +</p> + +<p> +'Shall I make the tour of you to get hold of one of them, sir?' He frowned and +blinked. +</p> + +<p> +'Shuffle in among the ladies; you seem to know how to make friends among them,' +he said, and pretended to disengage his right hand for the purpose of waving it +toward one of the groups. +</p> + +<p> +I seized it, saying heartily, 'Grandfather, upon my honour, I love you, and I'm +glad to be home again.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mind you, you're not at home till you've begged Uberly's pardon in public, you +know what for,' he rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +'Leaving the horse at that inn is on my conscience,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +The squire grumbled: 'All the better; keep him there a bit.' +</p> + +<p> +'Suppose he kicks?' said I; and the captain laughed, and the squire too, and I +was in such high spirits I thought of a dozen witty suggestions relative to the +seat of the conscience, and grieved for a minute at going to the ladies. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted convoyed me to pretty Irish-eyed Julia Rippenger. Temple had +previously made discovery of Janet Ilchester. Relating our adventures on +different parts of the lawn, we both heard that Colonel Goodwin and his +daughter had journeyed down to Riversley to smooth the way for my return; so my +easy conquest of the squire was not at all wonderful; nevertheless, I +maintained my sense of triumph, and was assured in my secret heart that I had a +singular masterfulness, and could, when I chose to put it forth, compel my +grandfather to hold out his hand to my father as he had done to me. +</p> + +<p> +Julia Rippenger was a guest at Riversley through a visit paid to her by my aunt +Dorothy in alarm at my absence. The intention was to cause the squire a +distraction. It succeeded; for the old man needed lively prattle of a less +childish sort than Janet Ilchester's at his elbow, and that young lady, though +true enough in her fashion, was the ardent friend of none but flourishing +heads; whereas Julia, finding my name under a cloud at Riversley, spoke of me, +I was led to imagine by Captain Bulsted, as a ballad hero, a gloriful fellow, a +darling whose deeds were all pardonable—a mere puff of smoke in the +splendour of his nature. +</p> + +<p> +'To hear the young lady allude to me in that style!' he confided to my ear, +with an ineffable heave of his big chest. +</p> + +<p> +Certain good influences, at any rate, preserved the squire from threatening to +disinherit me. Colonel Goodwin had spoken to him very manfully and wisely as to +my relations with my father. The squire, it was assumed by my aunt, and by +Captain Bulsted and Julia, had undertaken to wink at my father's claims on my +affection. All three vehemently entreated me to make no mention of the present +of Hock to him, and not to attempt to bring about an interview. Concerning the +yellow wine I disregarded their advice, for I held it to be a point of filial +duty, and an obligation religiously contracted beneath a cathedral dome; so I +performed the task of offering the Hock, stating that it was of ancient birth. +The squire bunched his features; he tutored his temper, and said not a word. I +fancied all was well. Before I tried the second step, Captain Bulsted rode over +to my father, who himself generously enjoined the prudent course, in accordance +with his aforegone precepts. He was floated off, as he termed it, from the inn +where he lay stranded, to London, by I knew not what heaven-sent gift of money, +bidding me keep in view the grand career I was to commence at Dipwell on +arriving at my majority. I would have gone with him had he beckoned a finger. +The four-and-twenty bottles of Hock were ranged in a line for the stable-boys +to cock-shy at them under the squire's supervision and my enforced attendance, +just as revolutionary criminals are executed. I felt like the survivor of +friends, who had seen their blood flow. +</p> + +<p> +He handed me a cheque for the payment of debts incurred in my recent +adventures. Who could help being grateful for it? And yet his remorseless +spilling of the kindly wine full of mellow recollections of my father and the +little princess, drove the sense of gratitude out of me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"></a> +CHAPTER XX.<br/> +NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S</h2> + +<p> +Temple went to sea. The wonder is that I did not go with him: we were both in +agreement that adventures were the only things worth living for, and we +despised English fellows who had seen no place but England. I could not bear +the long separation from my father that was my reason for not insisting on the +squire's consent to my becoming a midshipman. After passing a brilliant +examination, Temple had the good fortune to join Captain Bulsted's ship, and +there my honest-hearted friend dismally composed his letter of confession, +letting me know that he had been untrue to friendship, and had proposed to +Janet Ilchester, and interchanged vows with her. He begged my forgiveness, but +he did love her so!—he hoped I would not mind. I sent him a reproachful +answer; I never cared for him more warmly than when I saw the letter shoot the +slope of the postoffice mouth. Aunt Dorothy undertook to communicate assurances +of my undying affection for him. As for Janet—Temple's letter, in which +he spoke of her avowed preference for Oriental presents, and declared his +intention of accumulating them on his voyages, was a harpoon in her side. By +means of it I worried and terrified her until she was glad to have it all out +before the squire. What did he do? He said that Margery, her mother, was +niggardly; a girl wanted presents, and I did not act up to my duty; I ought to +buy Turkey and Tunis to please her, if she had a mind for them. +</p> + +<p> +The further she was flattered the faster she cried; she had the face of an old +setter with these hideous tears. The squire promised her fifty pounds per annum +in quarterly payments, that she might buy what presents she liked, and so tie +herself to constancy. He said aside to me, as if he had a knowledge of the +sex—'Young ladies must have lots of knickknacks, or their eyes 'll be +caught right and left, remember that.' I should have been delighted to see her +caught. She talked of love in a ludicrous second-hand way, sending me into fits +of disgusted laughter. On other occasions her lips were not hypocritical, and +her figure anything but awkward. She was a bold, plump girl, fond of male +society. Heriot enraptured her. I believed at the time she would have appointed +a year to marry him in, had he put the question. But too many women were in +love with Heriot. He and I met Kiomi on the road to the race-course on the +Southdowns; the prettiest racecourse in England, shut against gipsies. A +bare-footed swarthy girl ran beside our carriage and tossed us flowers. He and +a friend of his, young Lord Destrier, son of the Marquis of Edbury, who knew my +father well, talked and laughed with her, and thought her so very handsome that +I likewise began to stare, and I suddenly called 'Kiomi!' She bounded back into +the hedge. This was our second meeting. It would have been a pleasant one had +not Heriot and Destrier pretended all sorts of things about our previous +acquaintance. Neither of us, they said, had made a bad choice, but why had we +separated? She snatched her hand out of mine with a grin of anger like puss in +a fury. We had wonderful fun with her. They took her to a great house near the +race-course, and there, assisted by one of the young ladies, dressed her in +flowing silks, and so passed her through the gate of the enclosure interdicted +to bare feet. There they led her to groups of fashionable ladies, and got +themselves into pretty scrapes. They said she was an Indian. Heriot lost his +wagers and called her a witch. She replied, 'You'll find I'm one, young man,' +and that was the only true thing she spoke of the days to come. Owing to the +hubbub around the two who were guilty of this unmeasured joke upon +consequential ladies, I had to conduct her to the gate. Instantly, and without +a good-bye, she scrambled up her skirts and ran at strides across the road and +through the wood, out of sight. She won her dress and a piece of jewelry. +</p> + +<p> +With Heriot I went on a sad expedition, the same I had set out upon with +Temple. This time I saw my father behind those high red walls, once so +mysterious and terrible to me. Heriot made light of prisons for debt. He +insisted, for my consolation, that they had but a temporary dishonourable +signification; very estimable gentlemen, as well as scamps, inhabited them, he +said. The impression produced by my visit—the feasting among ruined men +who believed in good luck the more the lower they fell from it, and their +fearful admiration of my imprisoned father—was as if I had drunk a +stupefying liquor. I was unable clearly to reflect on it. Daily afterwards, +until I released him, I made journeys to usurers to get a loan on the faith of +the reversion of my mother's estate. Heriot, like the real friend he was, +helped me with his name to the bond. When my father stood free, I had the +proudest heart alive; and as soon as we had parted, the most amazed. For a long +while, for years, the thought of him was haunted by racketballs and bearded men +in their shirtsleeves; a scene sickening to one's pride. Yet it had grown +impossible for me to think of him without pride. I delighted to hear him. We +were happy when we were together. And, moreover, he swore to me on his honour, +in Mrs. Waddy's presence, that he and the constable would henceforth keep an +even pace. His exuberant cheerfulness and charming playfulness were always +fascinating. His visions of our glorious future enchained me. How it was that +something precious had gone out of my life, I could not comprehend. +</p> + +<p> +Julia Rippenger's marriage with Captain Bulsted was, an agreeable distraction. +Unfortunately for my peace of mind, she went to the altar poignantly pale. My +aunt Dorothy settled the match. She had schemed it, her silence and +half-downcast look seemed to confess, for the sake of her own repose, but +neither to her nor to others did that come of it. I wrote a plain warning of +the approaching catastrophe to Heriot, and received his reply after it was +over, to this effect: +</p> + +<p> +'In my regiment we have a tolerable knowledge of women. They like change, old +Richie, and we must be content to let them take their twenty shillings for a +sovereign. I myself prefer the Navy to the Army; I have no right to complain. +Once she swore one thing, now she has sworn another. We will hope the lady will +stick to her choice, and not seek smaller change. “I could not forgive +coppers”; that's quoting your dad. I have no wish to see the uxorious +object, though you praise him. His habit of falling under the table is middling +old-fashioned; but she may like him the better, or she may cure him. Whatever +she is as a woman, she was a very nice girl to enliven the atmosphere of the +switch. I sometimes look at a portrait I have of J. R., which, I fancy, Mrs. +William Bulsted has no right to demand of me; but supposing her husband thinks +he has, why then I must consult my brother officers. We want a war, old Richie, +and I wish you were sitting at our mess, and not mooning about girls and +women.' +</p> + +<p> +I presumed from this that Heriot's passion for Julia was extinct. Aunt Dorothy +disapproved of his tone, which I thought admirably philosophical and +coxcombi-cally imitable, an expression of the sort of thing I should feel on +hearing of Janet Ilchester's nuptials. +</p> + +<p> +The daring and success of that foreign adventure of mine had, with the aid of +Colonel and Clara Goodwin, convinced the squire of the folly of standing +between me and him I loved. It was considered the best sign possible that he +should take me down on an inspection of his various estates and his great +coal-mine, and introduce me as the heir who would soon relieve him of the task. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he thought the smell of wealth a promising cure for such fits of +insubordination as I had exhibited. My occasional absences on my own account +were winked at. On my return the squire was sour and snappish, I cheerful and +complaisant; I grew cold, and he solicitous; he would drink my health with a +challenge to heartiness, and I drank to him heartily and he relapsed to a fit +of sulks, informing me, that in his time young men knew when they were well +off, and asking me whether I was up to any young men's villanies, had any +concealed debts perchance, because, if so—Oh! he knew the ways of +youngsters, especially when they fell into bad hands: the list of bad titles +rumbled on in an underbreath like cowardly thunder:—well, to cut the +matter short, because, if so, his cheque-book was at my service; didn't I know +that, eh? Not being immediately distressed by debt, I did not exhibit the gush +of gratitude, and my sedate 'Thank you, sir,' confused his appeal for some +sentimental show of affection. +</p> + +<p> +I am sure the poor old man suffered pangs of jealousy; I could even at times +see into his breast and pity him. He wanted little more than to be managed; but +a youth when he perceives absurdity in opposition to him chafes at it as much +as if he were unaware that it is laughable. Had the squire talked to me in +those days seriously and fairly of my father's character, I should have +abandoned my system of defence to plead for him as before a judge. By that time +I had gained the knowledge that my father was totally of a different +construction from other men. I wished the squire to own simply to his loveable +nature. I could have told him women did. Without citing my dear aunt Dorothy, +or so humble a creature as the devoted Mrs. Waddy, he had sincere friends among +women, who esteemed him, and were staunch adherents to his cause; and if the +widow of the City knight, Lady Sampleman, aimed openly at being something more, +she was not the less his friend. Nor was it only his powerful animation, +generosity, and grace that won them. +</p> + +<p> +There occurred when I was a little past twenty, already much in his confidence, +one of those strange crucial events which try a man publicly, and bring out +whatever can be said for and against him. A young Welsh heiress fell in love +with him. She was, I think, seven or eight months younger than myself, a +handsome, intelligent, high-spirited girl, rather wanting in polish, and +perhaps in the protecting sense of decorum. She was well-born, of +course—she was Welsh. She was really well-bred too, though somewhat +brusque. The young lady fell hopelessly in love with my father at Bath. She +gave out that he was not to be for one moment accused of having encouraged her +by secret addresses. It was her unsolicited avowal—thought by my aunt +Dorothy immodest, not by me—that she preferred him to all living men. Her +name was Anna Penrhys. The squire one morning received a letter from her +family, requesting him to furnish them with information as to the antecedents +of a gentleman calling himself Augustus Fitz-George Frederick William Richmond +Guelph Roy, for purposes which would, they assured him, warrant the inquiry. He +was for throwing the letter aside, shouting that he thanked his God he was +unacquainted with anybody on earth with such an infernal list of names as that. +Roy! Who knew anything of Roy? +</p> + +<p> +'It happens to be my father's present name,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'It sounds to me like the name of one of those blackguard adventurers who creep +into families to catch the fools,' pursued the squire, not hearing me with his +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +'The letter at least must be answered,' my aunt Dorothy said. +</p> + +<p> +'It shall be answered!' the squire worked himself up to roar. He wrote a reply, +the contents of which I could guess at from my aunt's refusal to let me be +present at the discussion of it. The letter despatched was written by her, with +his signature. Her eyes glittered for a whole day. +</p> + +<p> +Then came a statement of the young lady's case from Bath. +</p> + +<p> +'Look at that! look at that!' cried the squire, and went on, 'Look at that!' in +a muffled way. There was a touch of dignity in his unforced anger. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt winced displeasingly to my sight: 'I see nothing to astonish one.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nothing to astonish one!' The squire set his mouth in imitation of her. +</p> + +<p> +'You see nothing to astonish one? Well, ma'am, when a man grows old enough to +be a grandfather, I do see something astonishing in a child of +nineteen—by George! it's out o' nature. But you women like monstrosities. +Oh! I understand. Here's an heiress to fifteen thousand a year. It's not +astonishing if every ruined gambler and scapegrace in the kingdom's hunting her +hot! no, no! that's not astonishing. I suppose she has her money in a coal +mine.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire had some of his in a coal-mine; my mother once had; it was the +delivery of a blow at my father, signifying that he had the scent for this +description of wealth. I left the room. The squire then affected that my +presence had constrained him, by bellowing out epithets easy for me to hear in +the hall and out on the terrace. He vowed by solemn oath he was determined to +save this girl from ruin. My aunt's speech was brief. +</p> + +<p> +I was summoned to Bath by my father in a curious peremptory tone implying the +utmost urgent need of me. +</p> + +<p> +I handed the letter to the squire at breakfast, saying, 'You must spare me for +a week or so, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +He spread the letter flat with his knife, and turned it over with his fork. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry,' said he, half-kindly, and choking, 'you're better out of it.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'm the best friend he could have by him, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You're the best tool he could have handy, for you're a gentleman.' +</p> + +<p> +'I hope I shan't offend you, grandfather, but I must go.' +</p> + +<p> +'Don't you see, Harry Richmond, you're in for an infernal marriage ceremony +there!' +</p> + +<p> +'The young lady is not of age,' interposed my aunt. +</p> + +<p> +'Eh? An infernal elopement, then. It's clear the girl's mad-head's cracked as a +cocoa-nut bowled by a monkey, brains nowhere. Harry, you're not a greenhorn; +you don't suspect you're called down there to stop it, do you? You jump plump +into a furious lot of the girl's relatives; you might as well take a header +into a leech-pond. Come! you're a man; think for yourself. Don't have this +affair on your conscience, boy. I tell you, Harry Richmond, I'm against your +going. You go against my will; you offend me, sir; you drag my name and blood +into the mire. She's Welsh, is she? Those Welsh are addle-pated, every one. +Poor girl!' +</p> + +<p> +He threw a horrible tremour into his accent of pity. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt expressed her view mildly, that I was sent for to help cure the young +lady of her delusion. +</p> + +<p> +'And take her himself!' cried the squire. 'Harry, you wouldn't go and do that? +Why, the law, man, the law—the whole country ’d be up about it. +You'll be stuck in a coloured caricature!' +</p> + +<p> +He was really alarmed lest this should be one of the consequences of my going, +and described some of the scourging caricatures of his day with an intense +appreciation of their awfulness as engines of the moral sense of the public. I +went nevertheless. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"></a> +CHAPTER XXI.<br/> +A PROMENADE IN BATH</h2> + +<p> +I found my father at his hotel, sitting with his friend Jorian DeWitt, whom I +had met once before, and thought clever. He was an ex-captain of dragoons, a +martyr to gout, and addicted to Burgundy, which necessitated his resorting to +the waters, causing him, as he said, between his appetites and the penance he +paid for them, to lead the life of a pendulum. My father was in a tempered gay +mood, examining a couple of the county newspapers. One abused him virulently; +he was supported by the other. After embracing me, he desired me to listen +while he read out opposing sentences from the columns of these eminent +journals: +</p> + +<p> +'The person calling himself “Roy,” whose monstrously absurd +pretensions are supposed to be embodied in this self-dubbed surname...' +</p> + +<p> +'—The celebrated and courtly Mr. Richmond Roy, known no less by the +fascination of his manners than by his romantic history...' +</p> + +<p> +'—has very soon succeeded in making himself the talk of the town...' +</p> + +<p> +'—has latterly become the theme of our tea-tables...' +</p> + +<p> +'—which is always the adventurer's privilege...' +</p> + +<p> +'—through no fault of his own...' +</p> + +<p> +'—That we may throw light on the blushing aspirations of a crow-sconced +Cupid, it will be as well to recall the antecedents of this (if no worse) +preposterous imitation buck of the old school...' +</p> + +<p> +'—Suffice it, without seeking to draw the veil from those affecting +chapters of his earlier career which kindled for him the enthusiastic sympathy +of all classes of his countrymen, that he is not yet free from a tender form of +persecution...' +</p> + +<p> +'—We think we are justified in entitling him the Perkin Warbeck of +society...' +</p> + +<p> +'—Reference might be made to mythological heroes...' +</p> + +<p> +Hereat I cried out mercy. +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt (stretched nursing a leg) removed his silk handkerchief from his +face to murmur, +</p> + +<p> +'The bass stedfastly drowns the treble, if this is meant for harmony.' +</p> + +<p> +My father rang up the landlord, and said to him, +</p> + +<p> +'The choicest of your cellar at dinner to-day, Mr. Lumley; and, mind you, I am +your guest, and I exercise my right of compelling you to sit down with us and +assist in consuming a doubtful quality of wine. We dine four. Lay for five, if +your conscience is bad, and I excuse you.' +</p> + +<p> +The man smirked. He ventured to say he had never been so tempted to supply an +inferior article. +</p> + +<p> +My father smiled on him. +</p> + +<p> +'You invite our editorial advocate?' said Captain DeWitt. +</p> + +<p> +'Our adversary,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +I protested I would not sit at table with him. But he assured me he believed +his advocate and his adversary to be one and the same, and referred me to the +collated sentences. +</p> + +<p> +'The man must earn his bread, Richie, boy! To tell truth, it is the advocate I +wish to rebuke, and to praise the adversary. It will confound him.' +</p> + +<p> +'It does me,' said DeWitt. +</p> + +<p> +'You perceive, Jorian, a policy in dining these men of the Press now and +occasionally, considering their growing power, do you not?' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, ay! it's a great gossiping machine, mon Roy. I prefer to let it spout.' +</p> + +<p> +'I crave your permission to invite him in complimentary terms, cousin Jorian. +He is in the town; remember, it is for the good of the nation that he and his +like should have the opportunity of studying good society. As to myself +personally, I give him carte blanche to fire his shots at me.' +</p> + +<p> +Near the fashionable hour of the afternoon my father took my arm, Captain +DeWitt a stick, and we walked into the throng and buzz. +</p> + +<p> +'Whenever you are, to quote our advocate, the theme of tea-tables, Richie,' +said my father, 'walk through the crowd: it will wash you. It is doing us the +honour to observe us. We in turn discover an interest in its general +countenance.' +</p> + +<p> +He was received, as we passed, with much staring; here and there a lifting of +hats, and some blunt nodding that incensed me, but he, feeling me bristle, +squeezed my hand and talked of the scene, and ever and anon gathered a line of +heads and shed an indulgent bow along them; so on to the Casino. Not once did +he offend my taste and make my acute sense of self-respect shiver by appearing +grateful for a recognition, or anxious to court it, though the curtest salute +met his acknowledgement. +</p> + +<p> +The interior of the Casino seemed more hostile. I remarked it to him. 'A trifle +more eye-glassy,' he murmured. He was quite at his easy there. +</p> + +<p> +'We walk up and down, my son,' he said, in answer to a question of mine, +'because there are very few who can; even walking is an art; and if nobody +does, the place is dull.' +</p> + +<p> +'The place is pretty well supplied with newspapers,' said Captain DeWitt. +</p> + +<p> +'And dowagers, friend Jorian. They are cousins. 'Tis the fashion to have our +tattle done by machinery. They have their opportunity to compare the portrait +with the original. Come, invent some scandal for us; let us make this place our +social Exchange. I warrant a good bold piece of invention will fit them, too, +some of them. Madam,'—my father bowed low to the beckoning of a fan, 'I +trust your ladyship did not chance to overhear that last remark I made?' +</p> + +<p> +The lady replied: 'I should have shut my eyes if I had. I called you to tell +me, who is the young man?' +</p> + +<p> +'For twenty years I have lived in the proud belief that he is my son!' +</p> + +<p> +'I would not disturb it for the world.' She did me the honour to inspect me +from the lowest waistcoat button to the eyebrows. 'Bring him to me to-night. +Captain DeWitt, you have forsaken my whist-tables.' +</p> + +<p> +'Purely temporary fits of unworthiness, my lady.' +</p> + +<p> +'In English, gout?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not gout in the conscience, I trust,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! that's curable,' laughed the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'You men of repartee would be nothing without your wickedness,' the lady +observed. +</p> + +<p> +'Man was supposed to be incomplete—' Captain DeWitt affected a murmur. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded 'Yes, yes,' and lifted eyes on my father. 'So you have not given up +going to church?' +</p> + +<p> +He bent and spoke low. +</p> + +<p> +She humphed her lips. 'Very well, I will see. It must be a night in the early +part of the week after next, then: I really don't know why I should serve you; +but I like your courage.' +</p> + +<p> +'I cannot consent to accept your ladyship's favour on account of one single +virtue,' said he, drooping. +</p> + +<p> +She waved him to move forward. +</p> + +<p> +During this frothy dialogue, I could see that the ear of the assembly had been +caught by the sound of it. +</p> + +<p> +'That,' my father informed me, 'is the great Lady Wilts. Now you will notice a +curious thing. Lady Wilts is not so old but that, as our Jorian here says of +her, she is marriageable. Hence, Richie, she is a queen to make the masculine +knee knock the ground. I fear the same is not to be said of her rival, Lady +Denewdney, whom our good Jorian compares to an antiquated fledgeling emerging +with effort from a nest of ill construction and worse cement. She is rich, she +is sharp, she uses her quill; she is emphatically not marriageable. Bath might +still accept her as a rival queen, only she is always behindhand in seizing an +occasion. Now you will catch sight of her fan working in a minute. She is +envious and imitative. It would be undoubtedly better policy on her part to +continue to cut me: she cannot, she is beginning to rustle like December's +oaks. If Lady Wilts has me, why, she must. We refrain from noticing her until +we have turned twice. Ay, Richie, there is this use in adversity; it teaches +one to play sword and target with etiquette and retenue better than any crowned +king in Europe. For me now to cross to her summons immediately would be a gross +breach of homage to Lady Wilts, who was inspired to be the first to break +through the fence of scandal environing me. But I must still show that I am +independent. These people must not suppose that I have to cling to a party. Let +them take sides; I am on fair terms with both the rivals. I show just such a +nuance of a distinction in my treatment of them just such—enough, I mean, +to make the flattered one warm to me, and t' other be jealous of her. Ay, +Richie, these things are trivial things beyond the grave; but here are we, my +boy; and, by the way, I suspect the great campaign of my life is opening.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt said that if so it would be the tenth, to his certain knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +'Not great campaign!' my father insisted: 'mere skirmishes before this.' +</p> + +<p> +They conversed in humorous undertones, each in turn seeming to turn over the +earth of some amusing reminiscence, so rapt, that as far as regarded their +perception of it, the assembly might have been nowhere. Perhaps, consequently, +they became observed with all but undivided attention. My father's hand was on +my shoulder, his head toward Captain DeWitt; instead of subduing his voice, he +gave it a moderate pitch, at which it was not intrusive, and was musical, to my +ear charming, especially when he continued talking through his soft laughter, +like a hunter that would in good humour press for his game through links of +water-nymphs. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Denewdney's fan took to beating time meditatively. Two or three times she +kept it elevated, and in vain: the flow of their interchangeing speech was +uninterrupted. At last my father bowed to her from a distance. She signalled: +his eyelids pleaded short sight, awakening to the apprehension of a pleasant +fact: the fan tapped, and he halted his march, leaning scarce perceptibly in +her direction. The fan showed distress. Thereupon, his voice subsided in his +conversation, with a concluding flash of animation across his features, like a +brook that comes to the leap on a descent, and he left us. +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt and I were led by a common attraction to the portico, the truth +being that we neither of us could pace easily nor talk with perfect abandonment +under eye-fire any longer. +</p> + +<p> +'Look,' said he to me, pointing at the equipages and equestrians: 'you'll see a +sight like this in dozens—dozens of our cities and towns! The wealth of +this country is frightful.' +</p> + +<p> +My reply, addressed at the same time mentally to Temple at sea, was: +</p> + +<p> +'Well, as long as we have the handsomest women, I don't care.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt was not so sure that we had. The Provençal women, the women of a +part of South Germany, and certain favoured spots of Italy, might challenge us, +he thought. This was a point I could argue on, or, I should rather say, take up +the cudgels, for I deemed such opinions treason to one's country and an outrage +to common sense, and I embarked in controversy with the single-minded intention +of knocking down the man who held them. +</p> + +<p> +He accepted his thrashing complacently. +</p> + +<p> +'Now here comes a young lady on horseback,' he said; 'do you spy her? dark +hair, thick eyebrows, rides well, followed by a groom. Is she a Beauty?' +</p> + +<p> +In the heat of patriotism I declared she was handsome, and repeated it, though +I experienced a twinge of remorse, like what I should have felt had I given +Minerva the apple instead of Venus. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' he commented, and stepped down to the road to meet her, beginning, in my +hearing, 'I am the bearer of a compliment—' Her thick eyebrows stood in a +knot, then she glanced at me and hung pensive. She had not to wait a minute +before my father came to her side. +</p> + +<p> +'I knew you would face them,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +He threw back his head like a swimmer tossing spray from his locks. +</p> + +<p> +'You have read the paper?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +'You have horsewhipped the writer?' she rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! the poor penster!' +</p> + +<p> +'Nay, we can't pretend to pity him!' +</p> + +<p> +'Could we condescend to offer him satisfaction?' +</p> + +<p> +'Would he dare to demand it?' +</p> + +<p> +'We will lay the case before Lady Wilts to-night.' +</p> + +<p> +'You are there to-night?' +</p> + +<p> +'At Lady Denewdney's to-morrow night—if I may indulge a hope?' +</p> + +<p> +'Both? Oh! bravo, bravo! Tell me nothing more just now. How did you manage it? +I must have a gallop. Yes, I shall be at both, be sure of that.' +</p> + +<p> +My father introduced me. +</p> + +<p> +'Let me present to your notice my son, Harry Lepel Richmond, Miss Penrhys.' +</p> + +<p> +She touched my fingers, and nodded at me; speaking to him: +</p> + +<p> +'He has a boy's taste: I hear he esteems me moderately well-favoured.' +</p> + +<p> +'An inherited error certain to increase with age!' +</p> + +<p> +'Now you have started me!' she exclaimed, and lashed the flanks of her horse. +</p> + +<p> +We had evidently been enacting a part deeply interesting to the population of +Bath, for the heads of all the strolling groups were bent on us; and when Miss +Penrhys cantered away, down dropped eyeglasses, and the promenade returned to +activity. I fancied I perceived that my father was greeted more cordially on +his way back to the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +'You do well, Richie,' he observed, 'in preserving your composure until you +have something to say. Wait for your opening; it will come, and the right word +will come with it. The main things are to be able to stand well, walk well, and +look with an eye at home in its socket: I put you my hand on any man or woman +born of high blood.—Not a brazen eye!—of the two extremes, I prefer +the beaten spaniel sort.—Blindfold me, but I put you my hand on them. As +to repartee, you must have it. Wait for that, too. Do not,' he groaned, 'do not +force it! Bless my soul, what is there in the world so bad?' And rising to the +upper notes of his groan: 'Ignorance, density, total imbecility, is better; I +would rather any day of my life sit and carve for guests—the grossest of +human trials—a detestable dinner, than be doomed to hear some wretched +fellow—and you hear the old as well as the young—excruciate +feelings which, where they exist, cannot but be exquisitely delicate. Goodness +gracious me! to see the man pumping up his wit! For me, my visage is of an +unalterable gravity whenever I am present at one of these exhibitions. I care +not if I offend. Let them say I wish to revolutionize society—I declare +to you, Richie boy, delightful to my heart though I find your keen stroke of +repartee, still your fellow who takes the thrust gracefully, knows when he's +traversed by a master-stroke, and yields sign of it, instead of plunging like a +spitted buffalo and asking us to admire his agility—you follow +me?—I say I hold that man—and I delight vastly in ready wit; it is +the wine of language!—I regard that man as the superior being. True, he +is not so entertaining.' +</p> + +<p> +My father pressed on my arm to intimate, with a cavernous significance of +eyebrow, that Captain DeWitt had the gift of repartee in perfection. +</p> + +<p> +'Jorian,' said he, 'will you wager our editor declines to dine with us?' +</p> + +<p> +The answer struck me as only passable. I think it was: +</p> + +<p> +'When rats smell death in toasted cheese.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt sprang up the staircase of our hotel to his bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +'I should not have forced him,' my father mused. 'Jorian DeWitt has at times +brilliant genius, Richie—in the way of rejoinders, I mean. This is his +happy moment—his one hour's dressing for dinner. I have watched him; he +most thoroughly enjoys it! I am myself a quick or slow dresser, as the case may +be. But to watch Jorian you cannot help entering into his enjoyment of it. He +will have his window with a view of the sunset; there is his fire, his warmed +linen, and his shirt-studs; his bath, his choice of a dozen things he will or +will not wear; the landlord's or host's menu is up against the looking-glass, +and the extremely handsome miniature likeness of his wife, who is in the +madhouse, by a celebrated painter, I forget his name. Jorian calls this, new +birth—you catch his idea? He throws off the old and is on with the new +with a highly hopeful anticipation. His valet is a scoundrel, but never fails +in extracting the menu from the cook, wherever he may be, and, in fine, is too +attentive to the hour's devotion to be discarded! Poor Jorian. I know no man I +pity so much.' +</p> + +<p> +I conceived him, I confessed, hardly pitiable, though not enviable. +</p> + +<p> +'He has but six hundred a year, and a passion for Burgundy,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +We were four at table. The editor came, and his timidity soon wore off in the +warmth of hospitality. He appeared a kind exciteable little man, glad of his +dinner from the first, and in due time proud of his entertainer. His response +to the toast of the Fourth Estate was an apology for its behaviour to my +father. He regretted it; he regretted it. A vinous speech. +</p> + +<p> +My father heard him out. Addressing him subsequently, +</p> + +<p> +'I would not interrupt you in the delivery of your sentiments,' he said. 'I +must, however, man to man, candidly tell you I should have wished to arrest +your expressions of regret. They convey to my mind an idea, that on receipt of +my letter of invitation, you attributed to me a design to corrupt you. Protest +nothing, I beg. Editors are human, after all. Now, my object is, that as you +write of me, you should have some knowledge of me; and I naturally am +interested in one who does me so much honour. The facts of my life are at your +disposal for publication and comment. Simply, I entreat you, say this one thing +of me: I seek for justice, but I never complain of my fortunes. Providence +decides:—that might be the motto engraven on my heart. Nay, I may risk +declaring it is! In the end I shall be righted. Meanwhile you contribute to my +happiness by favouring me with your society.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah, sir,' replied the little man, 'were all our great people like you! In the +country—the provinces—they treat the representatives of the Fourth +Estate as the squires a couple of generations back used to treat the parsons.' +</p> + +<p> +'What! Have you got a place at their tables?' inquired Captain DeWitt. +</p> + +<p> +'No, I cannot say that—not even below the salt. Mr. Richmond—Mr. +Roy, you may not be aware of it: I am the proprietor of the opposition journals +in this county. I tell you in confidence, one by itself would not pay; and I am +a printer, sir, and it is on my conscience to tell you I have, in the course of +business, been compelled this very morning to receive orders for the printing +of various squibs and, I much fear, scurrilous things.' +</p> + +<p> +My father pacified him. +</p> + +<p> +'You will do your duty to your family, Mr. Hickson.' +</p> + +<p> +Deeply moved, the little man pulled out proof-sheets and slips. +</p> + +<p> +'Even now, at the eleventh hour,' he urged, 'there is time to correct any +glaring falsehoods, insults, what not!' +</p> + +<p> +My father accepted the copy of proofs. +</p> + +<p> +'Not a word,—not a line! You spoke of the eleventh hour, Mr. Hickson. If +we are at all near the eleventh, I must be on my way to make my bow to Lady +Wilts; or is it Lady Denewdney's to-night? No, to-morrow night.' +</p> + +<p> +A light of satisfaction came over Mr. Hickson's face at the mention of my +father's visiting both these sovereign ladies. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as we were rid of him, Captain DeWitt exclaimed, +</p> + +<p> +'If that's the Fourth Estate, what's the Realm?' +</p> + +<p> +'The Estate,' pleaded my father, 'is here in its infancy—on all +fours—' +</p> + +<p> +'Prehensile! Egad, it has the vices of the other three besides its own. Do you +mean that by putting it on all fours?' +</p> + +<p> +'Jorian, I have noticed that when you are malignant you are not witty. We have +to thank the man for not subjecting us to a pledge of secresy. My Lady Wilts +will find the proofs amusing. And mark, I do not examine their contents before +submitting them to her inspection. You will testify to the fact.' +</p> + +<p> +I was unaware that my father played a master-stroke in handing these +proof-sheets publicly to Lady Wilts for her perusal. The incident of the +evening was the display of her character shown by Miss Penrhys in positively +declining to quit the house until she likewise had cast her eye on them. One of +her aunts wept. Their carriage was kept waiting an hour. +</p> + +<p> +'You ask too much of me: I cannot turn her out', Lady Wilts said to her uncle. +And aside to my father, 'You will have to marry her.' +</p> + +<p> +'In heaven's name keep me from marriage, my lady!' I heard him reply. +</p> + +<p> +There was sincerity in his tone when he said that. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"></a> +CHAPTER XXII.<br/> +CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE</h2> + +<p> +The friends of Miss Penrhys were ill advised in trying to cry down a man like +my father. Active persecution was the breath of life to him. When untroubled he +was apt to let both his ambition and his dignity slumber. The squibs and +scandal set afloat concerning him armed his wit, nerved his temper, touched him +with the spirit of enterprise; he became a new creature. I lost sight of +certain characteristics which I had begun to ponder over critically. I believed +with all my heart that circumstances were blameable for much that did not quite +please me. Upon the question of his magnanimity, as well as of his courage, +there could not be two opinions. He would neither retort nor defend himself. I +perceived some grandeur in his conduct, without, however, appreciating it +cordially, as I did a refinement of discretion about him that kept him from +brushing good taste while launched in ostentatious displays. He had a fine tact +and a keen intuition. He may have thought it necessary to throw a little dust +in my eyes; but I doubt his having done it, for he had only, as he knew, to +make me jealous to blind me to his faults utterly, and he refrained. +</p> + +<p> +In his allusions to the young lady he was apologetic, affectionate; one might +have fancied oneself listening to a gracious judge who had well weighed her +case, and exculpated her from other excesses than that of a generous folly. +Jorian DeWitt, a competent critic, pronounced his behaviour consummate at all +points. For my behoof, he hinted antecedent reverses to the picture: meditating +upon which, I traced them to the fatal want of money, and that I might be able +to fortify him in case of need, I took my own counsel, and wrote to my aunt for +the loan of as large a sum as she could afford to send. Her eagerness for news +of our doings was insatiable. 'You do not describe her,' she replied, not +naming Miss Penrhys; and again, 'I can form no image of her. Your accounts of +her are confusing. Tell me earnestly, do you like her? She must be very wilful, +but is she really nice? I want to know how she appears to my Harry's mind.' +</p> + +<p> +My father borrowed these letters, and returning them to me, said, 'A good soul! +the best of women! There—there is a treasure lost!' His forehead was +clouded in speaking. He recommended me to assure my aunt that she would never +have to take a family interest in Miss Penrhys. But this was not deemed +perfectly satisfactory at Riversley. My aunt wrote: 'Am I to understand that +you, Harry, raise objections to her? Think first whether she is in herself +objectionable. She is rich, she may be prudent, she may be a forethoughtful +person. She may not be able to support a bitter shock of grief. She may be one +who can help. She may not be one whose heart will bear it. Put your own +feelings aside, my dearest. Our duties cannot ever be clear to us until we do. +It is possible for headstrong wilfulness and secret tenderness to go together. +Think whether she is capable of sacrifice before you compel her to it. Do not +inflict misery wantonly. One would like to see her. Harry, I brood on your +future; that is why I seem to you preternaturally anxious about you.' +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to me preternaturally anxious about Miss Penrhys. +</p> + +<p> +My father listened in silence to my flippant satire on women's letters. +</p> + +<p> +He answered after a pause, +</p> + +<p> +'Our Jorian says that women's letters must be read like anagrams. To put it +familiarly, they are like a child's field of hop-scotch. You may have noticed +the urchins at their game: a bit of tile, and a variety of compartments to pass +it through to the base, hopping. Or no, Richie, pooh! 'tis an unworthy +comparison, this hopscotch. I mean, laddie, they write in zigzags; and so will +you when your heart trumpets in your ear. Tell her, tell that dear noble good +woman—say, we are happy, you and I, and alone, and shall be; and do me +the favour—she loves you, my son—address her sometimes—she +has been it—call her “mother”; she will like it she +deserves—nothing shall supplant her!' +</p> + +<p> +He lost his voice. +</p> + +<p> +She sent me three hundred pounds; she must have supposed the occasion pressing. +Thus fortified against paternal improvidence, I expended a hundred in the +purchase of a horse, and staked the remainder on him in a match, and was +beaten. Disgusted with the horse, I sold him for half his purchase-money, and +with that sum paid a bill to maintain my father's credit in the town. +Figuratively speaking, I looked at my hands as astonished as I had been when +the poor little rascal in the street snatched my cake, and gave me the vision +of him gorging it in the flurried alley of the London crowd. +</p> + +<p> +'Money goes,' I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +'That is the general experience of the nature of money,' said my father +freshly; 'but nevertheless you will be surprised to find how extraordinarily +few are the people to make allowance for particular cases. It plays the trick +with everybody, and almost nobody lets it stand as a plea for the individual. +Here is Jorian, and you, my son, and perhaps your aunt Dorothy, and upon my +word, I think I have numbered all I know—or, ay, Sukey Sampleman, I +should not omit her in an honourable list—and that makes positively all I +know who would commiserate a man touched on the shoulder by a sheriff's +officer—not that such an indignity is any longer done to me.' +</p> + +<p> +'I hope we have seen the last of Shylock's great-grandnephew,' said I +emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +'Merely to give you the instance, Richie. Ay! I hope so, I hope so! But it is +the nature of money that you never can tell if the boarding's sound, once be +dependent upon it. But this is talk for tradesmen.' Thinking it so myself, I +had not attempted to discover the source of my father's income. Such as it was, +it was paid half-yearly, and spent within a month of the receipt, for the most +signal proof possible of its shameful insufficiency. Thus ten months of the +year at least he lived protesting, and many with him, compulsorily. For two +months he was a brilliant man. I penetrated his mystery enough to abstain from +questioning him, and enough to determine that on my coming of age he should +cease to be a pensioner, petitioner, and adventurer. He aimed at a manifest +absurdity. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, after the lesson I had received as to the nature of money, I +saw with some alarm my father preparing to dig a great pit for it. He had no +doubt performed wonders. Despite of scandal and tattle, and the deadly report +of a penniless fortune-hunter having fascinated the young heiress, he commanded +an entrance to the receptions of both the rival ladies dominant. These ladies, +Lady Wilts and Lady Denewdney, who moved each in her select half-circle, and +could heretofore be induced by none to meet in a common centre, had pledged +themselves to honour with their presence a ball he proposed to give to the +choice world here assembled on a certain illuminated day of the calendar. +</p> + +<p> +'So I have now possession of Bath, Richie,' said he, twinkling to propitiate +me, lest I should suspect him of valuing his achievements highly. He had, he +continued, promised Hickson of the Fourth Estate, that he would, before leaving +the place, do his utmost to revive the ancient glories of Bath: Bath had once +set the fashion to the kingdom; why not again? I might have asked him, why at +all, or why at his expense; but his lead was irresistible. Captain DeWitt and +his valet, and I, and a score of ladies, scores of tradesmen, were rushing, +reluctant or not, on a torrent. My part was to show that I was an athlete, and +primarily that I could fence and shoot. 'It will do no harm to let it be +known,' said DeWitt. He sat writing letters incessantly. My father made the +tour of his fair stewardesses from noon to three, after receiving in audience +his jewellers, linen-drapers, carpenters, confectioners, from nine in the +morning till twelve. At three o'clock business ceased. Workmen then applying to +him for instructions were despatched to the bar of the hotel, bearing the +recommendation to the barmaid not to supply them refreshment if they had ever +in their lives been seen drunk. At four he dressed for afternoon parade. Nor +could his enemy have said that he was not the chief voice and eye along his +line of march. His tall full figure maintained a superior air without +insolence, and there was a leaping beam in his large blue eyes, together with +the signification of movement coming to his kindly lips, such as hardly ever +failed to waken smiles of greeting. People smiled and bowed, and forgot their +curiosity, forgot even to be critical, while he was in sight. I can say this, +for I was acutely critical of their bearing; the atmosphere of the place was +never perfectly pleasing to me. +</p> + +<p> +My attitude of watchful reserve, and my reputation as the heir of immense +wealth, tended possibly to constrain a certain number of the inimical party to +be ostensibly civil. Lady Wilts, who did me the honour to patronize me almost +warmly, complimented me on my manner of backing him, as if I were the hero; but +I felt his peculiar charm; she partly admitted it, making a whimsical mouth, +saying, in allusion to Miss Penrhys, 'I, you know, am past twenty. At twenty +forty is charming; at forty twenty.' +</p> + +<p> +Where I served him perhaps was in showing my resolution to protect him: he had +been insulted before my arrival. The male relatives of Miss Penrhys did not +repeat the insult; they went to Lady Wilts and groaned over their hard luck in +not having the option of fighting me. I was, in her phrase, a new piece on the +board, and checked them. Thus, if they provoked a challenge from me, they +brought the destructive odour of powder about the headstrong creature's name. I +was therefore of use to him so far. I leaned indolently across the rails of the +promenade while she bent and chattered in his ear, and her attendant cousin and +cavalier chewed vexation in the form of a young mustachio's curl. His horse +fretted; he murmured deep notes, and his look was savage; but he was bound to +wait on her, and she would not go until it suited her pleasure. She introduced +him to me—as if conversation could be carried on between two young men +feeling themselves simply pieces on the board, one giving check, and the other +chafing under it! I need not say that I disliked my situation. It was worse +when my father took to bowing to her from a distance, unobservant of her hand's +prompt pull at the reins as soon as she saw him. Lady Wilts had assumed the +right of a woman still possessing attractions to exert her influence with him +on behalf of the family, for I had done my best to convince her that he +entertained no serious thought of marrying, and decidedly would not marry +without my approval. He acted on her advice to discourage the wilful girl. +</p> + +<p> +'How is it I am so hateful to you?' Miss Penrhys accosted me abruptly. I +fancied she must have gone mad, and an interrogative frown was my sole answer. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! I hear that you pronounce me everywhere unendurable,' she continued. 'You +are young, and you misjudge me in some way, and I should be glad if you knew me +better. By-and-by, in Wales.—Are you fond of mountain scenery? We might +be good friends; my temper is not bad—at least, I hope not. Heaven knows +what one's relatives think of one. Will you visit us? I hear you have promised +your confidante, Lady Wilts.' +</p> + +<p> +At a dancing party where we met, she was thrown on my hands by her ungovernable +vehemence, and I, as I had told Lady Wilts, not being able to understand the +liking of twenty for forty (fifty would have been nearer the actual mark, or +sixty), offered her no lively sympathy. I believe she had requested my father +to pay public court to her. If Captain DeWitt was to be trusted, she desired +him to dance, and dance with her exclusively, and so confirm and defy the +tattle of the town; but my father hovered between the dowagers. She in +consequence declined to dance, which was the next worse thing she could do. An +aunt, a miserable woman, was on her left; on her right she contrived, too +frequently for my peace of mind, to reserve a vacant place for me, and she eyed +me intently across the room, under her persistent brows, until perforce I was +drawn to her side. I had to listen to a repetition of sharp queries and +replies, and affect a flattered gaiety, feeling myself most uncomfortably, as +Captain DeWitt (who watched us) said, Chip the son of Block the father. By +fixing the son beside her, she defeated the father's scheme of coldness, and +made it appear a concerted piece of policy. Even I saw that. I saw more than I +grasped. Love for my father was to my mind a natural thing, a proof of taste +and goodness; women might love him; but the love of a young girl with the +morning's mystery about her! and for my progenitor!—a girl (as I +reflected in the midst of my interjections) well-built, clear-eyed, animated, +clever, with soft white hands and pretty feet; how could it be? She was sombre +as a sunken fire until he at last came round to her, and then her sudden +vivacity was surprising. +</p> + +<p> +Affairs were no further advanced when I had to obey the squire's commands and +return to Riversley, missing the night of the grand ball with no profound +regret, except for my father's sake. He wrote soon after one of his +characteristic letters, to tell me that the ball had been a success. +Immediately upon this announcement, he indulged luxurious reflections, as his +manner was: +</p> + +<p> +'To have stirred up the old place and given it something to dream of for the +next half century, is a satisfaction, Richie. I have a kindness for Bath. I +leave it with its factions reconciled, its tea-tables furnished with +inexhaustible supplies of the chief thing necessary, and the persuasion firmly +established in my own bosom that it is impossible to revive the past, so we +must march with the age. And let me add, all but every one of the bills happily +discharged, to please you. Pray, fag at your German. If (as I myself confess +to) you have enjoyment of old ways, habits, customs, and ceremonies, look to +Court life. It is only in Courts that a man may now air a leg; and there the +women are works of Art. If you are deficient in calves (which my boy, thank +heaven! will never be charged with) you are there found out, and in fact every +deficiency, every qualification, is at once in patent exhibition at a Court. I +fancy Parliament for you still, and that is no impediment as a step. Jorian +would have you sit and wallow in ease, and buy (by the way, we might think of +it) a famous Burgundy vineyard (for an investment), devote the prime of your +life to the discovery of a cook, your manhood to perfect the creature's +education—so forth; I imagine you are to get five years of ample +gratification (a promise hardly to be relied on) in the sere leaf, and so +perish. Take poor Jorian for an example of what the absence of ambition brings +men to. I treasure Jorian, I hoard the poor fellow, to have him for a lesson to +my boy. Witty and shrewd, and a masterly tactician (I wager he would have won +his spurs on the field of battle), you see him now living for one hour of the +day—absolutely twenty-three hours of the man's life are chained slaves, +beasts of burden, to the four-and-twentieth! So, I repeat, fag at your German. +</p> + +<p> +'Miss Penrhys retires to her native Wales; Jorian and I on to London, to the +Continent. Plinlimmon guard us all! I send you our local newspapers. That I cut +entrechats is false. It happens to be a thing I could do, and not an Englishman +in England except myself; only I did not do it. I did appear in what I was +educated to believe was the evening suit of a gentleman, and I cannot perceive +the immodesty of showing my leg. A dress that is not indecent, and is becoming +to me, and is the dress of my fathers, I wear, and I impose it on the +generation of my sex. However, I dined Hickson of the Fourth Estate (Jorian +considers him hungry enough to eat up his twentieth before he dies—I +forget the wording of the mot), that he might know I was without rancour in the +end, as originally I had been without any intention of purchasing his +allegiance. He offered me his columns; he wished me luck with the heiress; by +his Gods, he swore he worshipped entrechats, and held a silk leg the most +admirable work of the manufactures. “Sir, you're a gentleman,” says +he; “you're a nobleman, sir; you're a prince, you're a star of the +first magnitude.” Cries Jorian, “Retract that, scum! you see +nothing large but what you dare to think neighbours you,” and quarrels +the inebriate dog. And this is the maker and destroyer of reputations in his +day! I study Hickson as a miraculous engine of the very simplest contrivance; +he is himself the epitome of a verdict on his period. Next day he disclaimed in +his opposition penny sheet the report of the entrechats, and “the +spectators laughing consumedly,” and sent me (as I had requested him to +do) the names of his daughters, to whom I transmit little comforting presents, +for if they are nice children such a parent must afflict them. +</p> + +<p> +'Cultivate Lady Wilts. You have made an impression. She puts you forward as a +good specimen of our young men. 'Hem! madam. +</p> + +<p> +'But, my dear boy, as I said, we cannot revive the past. I acknowledge it. Bath +rebukes my last fit of ambition, and the experience is very well worth the +expense. You have a mind, Richie, for discussing outlay, upon which I +congratulate you, so long as you do not overlook equivalents. The system of the +world is barter varied by robbery. Show that you have something in hand, and +you enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you were not robbed. I pledge you my +word to it—I shall not repeat Bath. And mark you, an heiress is never +compromised. I am not, I hope, responsible for every creature caught up in my +circle of attraction. Believe me, dear boy, I should consult you, and another +one, estimable beyond mortal speech! if I had become involved—impossible! +No; I am free of all fresh chains, because of the old ones. Years will not be +sufficient for us when you and I once begin to talk in earnest, when I open! To +resume—so I leave Bath with a light conscience. Mixed with pleasant +recollections is the transient regret that you were not a spectator of the +meeting of the Wilts and Denewdney streams. Jorian compared them to the Rhone +and the—I forget the name of the river below Geneva—dirtyish; for +there was a transparent difference in the Denewdney style of dress, and did I +choose it I could sit and rule those two factions as despotically as Buonaparte +his Frenchmen. Ask me what I mean by scaling billows, Richie. I will some day +tell you. I have done it all my life, and here I am. But I thank heaven I have +a son I love, and I can match him against the best on earth, and henceforward I +live for him, to vindicate and right the boy, and place him in his legitimate +sphere. From this time I take to looking exclusively forward, and I labour +diligently. I have energies. +</p> + +<p> +'Not to boast, darling old son, I tell truth; I am only happy when my heart is +beating near you. Here comes the mother in me pumping up. Adieu. Lebe wohl. The +German!—the German!—may God in his Barmherzigkeit!—Tell her I +never encouraged the girl, have literally nothing to trace a temporary wrinkle +on my forehead as regards conscience. I say, may it please Providence to make +you a good German scholar by the day of your majority. Hurrah for it! Present +my humble warm respects to your aunt Dorothy. I pray to heaven nightly for one +of its angels on earth. Kunst, Wissenschaft, Ehre, Liebe. Die Liebe. Quick at +the German poets. Frau: Fräulein. I am actually dazzled at the prospect of our +future. To be candid, I no longer see to write. Grüss' dich herzlich. From +Vienna to you next. Lebe wohl!' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy sent a glance at the letter while I was folding it evidently +thinking my unwillingness to offer it a sign of bad news or fresh +complications. She spoke of Miss Penrhys. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! that's over,' said I. 'Heiresses soon get consoled.' +</p> + +<p> +She accused me of having picked up a vulgar idea. I maintained that it was my +father's. +</p> + +<p> +'It cannot be your father's,' said she softly; and on affirming that he had +uttered it and written it, she replied in the same tone, more effective than +the ordinary language of conviction, 'He does not think it.' +</p> + +<p> +The rage of a youth to prove himself in the right of an argument was +insufficient to make me lay the letter out before other eyes than my own, and I +shrank from exposing it to compassionate gentle eyes that would have pleaded +similar allowances to mine for the wildness of the style. I should have +thanked, but despised the intelligence of one who framed my excuses for my +father, just as the squire, by abusing him, would have made me a desperate +partisan in a minute. The vitality of the delusion I cherished was therefore +partly extinct; not so the love; yet the love of him could no longer shake +itself free from oppressive shadows. +</p> + +<p> +Out of his circle of attraction books were my resource. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"></a> +CHAPTER XXIII.<br/> +MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY</h2> + +<p> +Books and dreams, like the two rivers cited by my father, flowed side by side +in me without mixing; and which the bright Rhone was, which the brown Arve, +needs not to be told to those who know anything of youth; they were destined to +intermingle soon enough. I read well, for I felt ground and had mounting views; +the real world, and the mind and passions of the world, grew visible to me. My +tutor pleased the squire immensely by calling me matter-of-fact. In philosophy +and history I hated speculation; but nothing was too fantastic for my ideas of +possible occurrences. Once away from books, I carried a head that shot rockets +to the farthest hills. +</p> + +<p> +My dear friend Temple was at sea, or I should have had one near me to detect +and control the springs of nonsense. I was deemed a remarkably quiet sober +thoughtful young man, acquiescent in all schemes projected for my welfare. The +squire would have liked to see me courting the girl of his heart, as he termed +Janet Ilchester, a little more demonstratively. We had, however, come to the +understanding that I was to travel before settling. Traditional notions of the +importance of the Grand Tour in the education of gentlemen led him to consent +to my taking a year on the Continent accompanied by my tutor. He wanted some +one, he said, to represent him when I was out over there; which signified that +he wanted some one to keep my father in check; but as the Rev. Ambrose +Peterborough, successor to the Rev. Simon Hart, was hazy and manageable, I did +not object. Such faith had the quiet thoughtful young man at Riversley in the +convulsions of the future, the whirlwinds and whirlpools spinning for him and +all connected with him, that he did not object to hear his name and Janet's +coupled, though he had not a spark of love for her. +</p> + +<p> +I tried to realize to myself the general opinion that she was handsome. Her +eyebrows were thick and level and long; her eyes direct in their gaze, of a +flinty blue, with dark lashes; her nose firm, her lips fullish, firm when +joined; her shape straight, moderately flexible. But she had no softness; she +could admire herself in my presence; she claimed possession of me openly, and +at the same time openly provoked a siege from the remainder of my sex: she was +not maidenly. She caught imagination by the sleeve, and shut it between square +whitewashed walls. Heriot thought her not only handsome, but comparable to Mrs. +William Bulsted, our Julia Rippenger of old. At his meeting with Julia, her +delicious loss of colour made her seem to me one of the loveliest women on +earth. Janet never lost colour, rarely blushed; she touched neither nerve nor +fancy. +</p> + +<p> +'You want a rousing coquette,' said Heriot; 'you won't be happy till you've +been racked by that nice instrument of torture, and the fair Bulsted will do it +for you if you like. You don't want a snake or a common serpent, you want a +Python.' +</p> + +<p> +I wanted bloom and mystery, a woman shifting like the light with evening and +night and dawn, and sudden fire. Janet was bald to the heart inhabiting me +then, as if quite shaven. She could speak her affectionate mind as plain as +print, and it was dull print facing me, not the arches of the sunset. Julia had +only to lisp, 'my husband,' to startle and agitate me beyond expression. She +said simple things—'I slept well last night,' or 'I dreamed,' or 'I +shivered,' and plunged me headlong down impenetrable forests. The mould of her +mouth to a reluctant 'No,' and her almost invariable drawing in of her breath +with a 'Yes,' surcharged the everyday monosyllables with meanings of life and +death. At last I was reduced to tell her, seeing that she reproached my +coldness for Janet, how much I wished Janet resembled her. Her Irish eyes +lightened: 'Me! Harry'; then they shadowed: 'She is worth ten of me.' Such +pathetic humility tempted me to exalt her supremely. +</p> + +<p> +I talked like a boy, feeling like a man: she behaved like a woman, blushing +like a girl. +</p> + +<p> +'Julia! I can never call you Mrs. Bulsted.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have an affection for my husband, have you not, Harry?' +</p> + +<p> +Of a season when this was adorable language to me, the indication is +sufficient. Riding out perfectly crazed by it, I met Kiomi, and transferred my +emotions. The squire had paid her people an annual sum to keep away from our +neighbourhood, while there was a chance of my taking to gipsy life. They had +come back to their old camping-ground, rather dissatisfied with the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Speak to him yourself, Kiomi,' said I; 'whatever you ask for, he can't refuse +anything to such eyes as yours.' +</p> + +<p> +'You!' she rallied me; 'why can't you talk sensible stuff!' +</p> + +<p> +She had grown a superb savage, proof against weather and compliments. Her face +was like an Egyptian sky fronting night. The strong old Eastern blood put ruddy +flame for the red colour; tawny olive edged from the red; rare vivid yellow, +all but amber. The light that first looks down upon the fallen sun was her +complexion above the brows, and round the cheeks, the neck's nape, the throat, +and the firm bosom prompt to lift and sink with her vigour of speech, as her +eyes were to flash and darken. Meeting her you swore she was the +personification of wandering Asia. There was no question of beauty and grace, +for these have laws. The curve of her brows broke like a beaten wave; the lips +and nostrils were wide, tragic in repose. But when she laughed she illuminated +you; where she stepped she made the earth hers. She was as fresh of her East as +the morning when her ancient people struck tents in the track of their shadows. +I write of her in the style consonant to my ideas of her at the time. I would +have carried her off on the impulse and lived her life, merely to have had such +a picture moving in my sight, and call it mine. +</p> + +<p> +'You're not married?' I said, ludicrously faintly. +</p> + +<p> +'I've not seen the man I'd marry,' she answered, grinning scorn. +</p> + +<p> +The prizefighter had adopted drinking for his pursuit; one of her aunts was +dead, and she was in quest of money to bury the dead woman with the +conventional ceremonies and shows of respect dear to the hearts of gipsies, +whose sense of propriety and adherence to customs are a sentiment indulged by +them to a degree unknown to the stabled classes. In fact, they have no other +which does not come under the definite title of pride;—pride in their +physical prowess, their dexterity, ingenuity, and tricksiness, and their purity +of blood. Kiomi confessed she had hoped to meet me; confessed next that she had +been waiting to jump out on me: and next that she had sat in a tree watching +the Grange yesterday for six hours; and all for money to do honour to her dead +relative, poor little soul! Heriot and I joined the decent procession to the +grave. Her people had some quarrel with the Durstan villagers, and she feared +the scandal of being pelted on the way to the church. I knew that nothing of +the sort would happen if I was present. Kiomi walked humbly with her head bent, +leaving me the thick rippling coarse black locks of her hair for a mark of +observation. We were entertained at her camp in the afternoon. I saw no sign of +intelligence between her and Heriot. On my asking her, the day before, if she +remembered him, she said, 'I do, I'm dangerous for that young man.' Heriot's +comment on her was impressed on me by his choosing to call her 'a fine doe +leopard,' and maintaining that it was a defensible phrase. +</p> + +<p> +She was swept from my amorous mind by Mabel Sweetwinter, the miller's daughter +of Dipwell. This was a Saxon beauty in full bud, yellow as mid-May, with the +eyes of opening June. Beauty, you will say, is easily painted in that style. +But the sort of beauty suits the style, and the well-worn comparisons express +the well-known type. Beside Kiomi she was like a rich meadow on the border of +the heaths. +</p> + +<p> +We saw them together on my twenty-first birthday. To my shame I awoke in the +early morning at Riversley, forgetful of my father's old appointment for the +great Dipwell feast. Not long after sunrise, when blackbirds peck the lawns, +and swallows are out from under eaves to the flood's face, I was hailed by +Janet Ilchester beneath my open windows. I knew she had a bet with the squire +that she would be the first to hail me legal man, and was prepared for it. She +sat on horseback alone in the hazy dewy Midsummer morning, giving clear note: +</p> + +<p> +'Whoop! Harry Richmond! halloo!' To which I tossed her a fox's brush, having a +jewelled bracelet pendant. She missed it and let it lie, and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +'No, no; it's foxie himself!—anybody may have the brush. You're dressed, +are you, Harry? You were sure I should come? A thousand happy years to you, and +me to see them, if you don't mind. I'm first to wish it, I'm certain. I was +awake at three, out at halfpast, over Durstan heath, across Eckerthy's +fields—we'll pay the old man for damage—down by the plantation, +Bran and Sailor at my heels, and here I am. Crow, cocks! bark, dogs! up, larks! +I said I'd be first. And now I'm round to stables to stir up Uberly. Don't be +tardy, Mr. Harry, and we'll be Commodore Arson and his crew before the world's +awake.' +</p> + +<p> +We rode out for a couple of hours, and had to knock at a farmhouse for milk and +bread. Possibly a sense of independence, owing to the snatching of a meal in +midflight away from home, made Janet exclaim that she would gladly be out all +day. Such freaks were exceedingly to my taste. Then I remembered Dipwell, and +sure that my father would be there, though he had not written of it, I proposed +to ride over. She pleaded for the horses and the squire alternately. Feasting +was arranged at Riversley, as well as at Dipwell, and she said musically, +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, the squire is a very old man, and you may not have many more chances of +pleasing him. To-day do, do! To-morrow, ride to your father, if you must: of +course you must if you think it right; but don't go this day.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not upset my fortune, Janet?' +</p> + +<p> +'Don't hurt the kind old man's heart to-day.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! you're the girl of his heart, I know.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, Harry, you have first place, and I want you to keep it.' +</p> + +<p> +'But here's an oath I've sworn to my father.' +</p> + +<p> +'He should not have exacted it, I think.' +</p> + +<p> +'I promised him when I was a youngster.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then be wiser now, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have brilliant ideas of the sacredness of engagements.' +</p> + +<p> +'I think I have common sense, that's all.' +</p> + +<p> +'This is a matter of feeling.' +</p> + +<p> +'It seems that you forgot it, though!' +</p> + +<p> +Kiomi's tents on Durstan heath rose into view. I controlled my verbal retort +upon Janet to lead her up to the gipsy girl, for whom she had an odd aversion, +dating from childhood. Kiomi undertook to ride to Dipwell, a distance of thirty +miles, and carry the message that I would be there by nightfall. Tears were on +Janet's resolute face as we cantered home. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast the squire introduced me to his lawyer, Mr. Burgin, who, +closeted alone with me, said formally, +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Harry Richmond, you are Squire Beltham's grandson, his sole male +descendant, and you are established at present, and as far as we can apprehend +for the future, as the direct heir to the whole of his property, which is +enormous now, and likely to increase so long as he lives. You may not be aware +that your grandfather has a most sagacious eye for business. Had he not been +born a rich man he would still have been one of our very greatest millionaires. +He has rarely invested but to double his capital; never speculated but to +succeed. He may not understand men quite so well, but then he trusts none +entirely; so if there is a chasm in his intelligence, there is a bridge thrown +across it. The metaphor is obscure perhaps: you will doubtless see my meaning. +He knows how to go on his road without being cheated. For himself, your +grandfather, Mr. Harry, is the soul of honour. Now, I have to explain certain +family matters. The squire's wife, your maternal grandmother, was a rich +heiress. Part of her money was settled on her to descend to her children by +reversion upon her death. What she herself possessed she bequeathed to them in +reversion likewise to their children. Thus at your maternal grandmother's +death, your mother and your aunt inherited money to use as their own, and the +interest of money tied fast in reversion to their children (in case of +marriage) after their death. Your grandfather, as your natural guardian, has +left the annual interest of your money to accumulate, and now you are of age he +hands it to you, as you see, without much delay. Thus you become this day the +possessor of seventy thousand pounds, respecting the disposal of which I am +here to take your orders. Ahem!—as to the remaining property of your +mother's—the sum held by her for her own use, I mean, it devolved to her +husband, your father, who, it is probable, will furnish you an account of +it—ah!—at his leisure—ah! um! And now, in addition, Mr. +Harry, I have the squire's commands to speak to you as a man of business, on +what may be deemed a delicate subject, though from the business point of view +no peculiar delicacy should pertain to it. Your grandfather will settle on you +estates and money to the value of twenty thousand pounds per annum on the day +of your union with a young lady in this district, Miss Janet Ilchester. He +undertakes likewise to provide her pin-money. Also, let me observe, that it is +his request—but he makes no stipulation of it that you will ultimately +assume the name of Beltham, subscribing yourself Harry Lepel Richmond Beltham; +or, if it pleases you, Richmond-Beltham, with the junction hyphen. Needless to +say, he leaves it to your decision. And now, Mr. Harry, I have done, and may +most cordially congratulate you on the blessings it has pleased a kind and +discerning Providence to shower on your head.' +</p> + +<p> +None so grimly ironical as the obsequious! I thought of Burgin's 'discerning' +providence (he spoke with all professional sincerity) in after days. +</p> + +<p> +On the occasion I thought of nothing but the squire's straight-forwardness, and +grieved to have to wound him. Janet helped me. She hinted with a bashfulness, +quite new to her, that I must go through some ceremony. Guessing what it was, I +saluted her on the cheek. The squire observed that a kiss of that sort might as +well have been planted on her back hair. 'But,' said he, and wisely, 'I'd +rather have the girl worth ten of you, than you be more than her match. Girls +like my girl here are precious.' Owing to her intercession, he winked at my +departure after I had done duty among the tenants; he barely betrayed his +vexation, and it must have been excessive. +</p> + +<p> +Heriot and I rode over to Dipwell. Next night we rode back by moonlight with +matter for a year of laughter, singing like two Arabian poets praises of dark +and fair, challengeing one to rival the other. Kiomi! Mabel! we shouted +separately. We had just seen the dregs of the last of the birthday Burgundy. +</p> + +<p> +'Kiomi! what a splendid panther she is!' cries Heriot; and I: 'Teeth and claws, +and a skin like a burnt patch on a common! Mabel's like a wonderful sunflower.' +</p> + +<p> +'Butter and eggs! old Richie, and about as much fire as a rushlight. If the +race were Fat she'd beat the world.' +</p> + +<p> +'Heriot, I give you my word of honour, the very look of her's eternal Summer. +Kiomi rings thin—she tinkles; it's the difference between metal and +flesh.' +</p> + +<p> +'Did she tinkle, as you call it, when that fellow Destrier, confound him! +touched her?' +</p> + +<p> +'The little cat! Did you notice Mabel's blush?' +</p> + +<p> +'How could I help it? We've all had a dozen apiece. You saw little Kiomi curled +up under the hop and briony?' +</p> + +<p> +'I took her for a dead jackdaw.' +</p> + +<p> +'I took her for what she is, and she may slap, scream, tear, and bite, I'll +take her yet—and all her tribe crying thief, by way of a diversion. She +and I are footed a pair.' +</p> + +<p> +His impetuosity surpassed mine so much that I fell to brooding on the superior +image of my charmer. The result was, I could not keep away from her. I managed +to get home with leaden limbs. Next day I was back at Dipwell. +</p> + +<p> +Such guilt as I have to answer for I may avow. I made violent love to this +silly country beauty, and held every advantage over her other flatterers. She +had met me on the evening of the great twenty-first, she and a line of damsels +dressed in white and wearing wreaths, and I had claimed the privilege of +saluting her. The chief superintendent of the festivities, my father's old +cook, Monsieur Alphonse, turned twilight into noonday with a sheaf of rockets +at the moment my lips brushed her cheek. It was a kiss marred; I claimed to +amend it. Besides, we had been bosom friends in childhood. My wonder at the +growth of the rose I had left but an insignificant thorny shoot was exquisite +natural flattery, sweet reason, to which she could not say nonsense. At each +step we trod on souvenirs, innocent in themselves, had they recurred to +childish minds. The whisper, 'Hark! it's sunset, Mabel, Martha Thresher calls,' +clouded her face with stormy sunset colours. I respected Martha even then for +boldly speaking to me on the girl's behalf. Mrs. Waddy's courage failed. John +Thresher and Mark Sweetwinter were overcome by my father's princely +prodigality; their heads were turned, they appeared to have assumed that I +could do no wrong. To cut short the episode, some one wrote to the squire in +uncouth English, telling him I was courting a country lass, and he at once +started me for the Continent. We had some conversation on money before parting. +The squire allowed me a thousand a year, independent of my own income. He +counselled prudence, warned me that I was on my trial, and giving me his word +of honour that he should not spy into my Bank accounts, desired me to be worthy +of the trust reposed in me. Speculation he forbade. I left him satisfied with +the assurance that I meant to make my grand tour neither as a merchant, a +gambler, nor a rake, but simply as a plain English gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +'There's nothing better in the world than that,' said he. +</p> + +<p> +Arrived in London, I left my travelling companion, the Rev. Ambrose +Peterborough, sipping his Port at the hotel, and rushed down to Dipwell, shot a +pebble at Mabel's window by morning twilight, and soon had her face at the +casement. But it was a cloudy and rainbeaten face. She pointed toward the farm, +saying that my father was there. +</p> + +<p> +'Has he grieved you, Mabel?' I asked softly. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, no, not he! he wouldn't, he couldn't; he talked right. Oh, go, go: for I +haven't a foot to move. And don't speak so soft; I can't bear kindness.' +</p> + +<p> +My father in admonishing her had done it tenderly, I was sure. Tenderness was +the weapon which had wounded her, and so she shrank from it; and if I had +reproached and abused her she might, perhaps, have obeyed me by coming out, not +to return. She was deaf. I kissed my hand to her regretfully; a condition of +spirit gradually dissolved by the haunting phantom of her forehead and mouth +crumpling up for fresh floods of tears. Had she concealed that vision with her +handkerchief, I might have waited to see her before I saw my father. He soon +changed the set of the current. +</p> + +<p> +'Our little Mabel here,' he said, 'is an inflammable puss, I fear. By the way, +talking of girls, I have a surprise for you. Remind me of it when we touch +Ostend. We may want a yacht there to entertain high company. I have set +inquiries afloat for the hire of a schooner. This child Mabel can read and +write, I suppose? Best write no letters, boy. Do not make old Dipwell a thorny +bed. I have a portrait to show you, Richie. A portrait! I think you will say +the original was worthy of more than to be taken up and thrown away like a +weed. You see, Richie, girls have only one chance in the world, and good God! +to ruin that—no, no. You shall see this portrait. A pretty little +cow-like Mabel, I grant you. But to have her on the conscience! What a coronet +to wear! My young Lord Destrier—you will remember him as one of our +guests here; I brought him to make your acquaintance; well, <i>he</i> would not +be scrupulous, it is possible. Ay, but compare yourself with him, Richie! and +you and I, let us love one another and have no nettles.' +</p> + +<p> +He flourished me away to London, into new spheres of fancy. He was +irresistible. +</p> + +<p> +In a London Club I was led up to the miniature of a youthful woman, singular +for her endearing beauty. Her cheeks were merry red, her lips lively with the +spark of laughter, her eyes in good union with them, showing you the laughter +was gentle; eyes of overflowing blue light. +</p> + +<p> +'Who is she?' I asked. +</p> + +<p> +The old-fashioned building of the powdered hair counselled me to add, 'Who was +she?' +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt, though a member of the Club, seemed unable to inform me. His +glance consulted my father. He hummed and drawled, and said: 'Mistress +Anastasia Dewsbury; that was her name.' +</p> + +<p> +'She does not look a grandmother,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +'She would be one by this time, I dare say,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +We gazed in silence. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes!' he sighed. 'She was a charming actress, and one of the best of women. A +noble-minded young woman! A woman of cultivation and genius! Do you see a +broken heart in that face? No? Very well. A walk will take us to her grave. She +died early.' +</p> + +<p> +I was breathing 'Who?' when he said, 'She was my mother, my dear.' +</p> + +<p> +It was piteous. +</p> + +<p> +We walked to an old worn flat stone in a London street, where under I had to +imagine those features of beautiful humanity lying shut from us. +</p> + +<p> +She had suffered in life miserably. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"></a> +CHAPTER XXIV.<br/> +I MEET THE PRINCESS</h2> + +<p> +Hearing that I had not slept at the hotel, the Rev. Ambrose rushed down to +Riversley with melancholy ejaculations, and was made to rebound by the squire's +contemptuous recommendation to him to learn to know something of the spirit of +young bloods, seeing that he had the nominal charge of one, and to preach his +sermon in secret, if he would be sermonizing out of church. The good gentleman +had not exactly understood his duties, or how to conduct them. Far from +objecting to find me in company with my father, as he would otherwise have done +by transmitting information of that fact to Riversley, he now congratulated +himself on it, and after the two had conversed apart, cordially agreed to our +scheme of travelling together. The squire had sickened him. I believe that by +comparison he saw in my father a better friend of youth. +</p> + +<p> +'We shall not be the worse for a ghostly adviser at hand,' my father said to me +with his quaintest air of gravity and humour mixed, which was not insincerely +grave, for the humour was unconscious. 'An accredited casuist may frequently be +a treasure. And I avow it, I like to travel with my private chaplain.' +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Peterborough's temporary absence had allowed me time for getting ample +funds placed at our disposal through the agency of my father's solicitors, +Messrs. Dettermain and Newson, whom I already knew from certain transactions +with them on his behalf. They were profoundly courteous to me, and showed me +his box, and alluded to his Case—a long one, and a lamentable, I was +taught to apprehend, by their lugubriously professional tone about it. The +question was naturally prompted in me, 'Why do you not go on with it?' +</p> + +<p> +'Want of funds.' +</p> + +<p> +'There's no necessity to name that now,' I insisted. But my father desired them +to postpone any further exposition of the case, saying, 'Pleasure first, +business by-and-by. That, I take it, is in the order of our great mother +Nature, gentlemen. I will not have him help shoulder his father's pack until he +has had his fill of entertainment.' +</p> + +<p> +A smooth voyage brought us in view of the towers of Ostend at sunrise. Standing +with my father on deck, and gazing on this fringe of the grand romantic +Continent, I remembered our old travels, and felt myself bound to him +indissolubly, ashamed of my recent critical probings of his character. My boy's +love for him returned in full force. I was sufficiently cognizant of his +history to know that he kept his head erect, lighted by the fire of his robust +heart in the thick of overhanging natal clouds. As the way is with men when +they are too happy to be sentimental, I chattered of anything but my feelings. +</p> + +<p> +'What a capital idea that was of yours to bring down old Alphonse to Dipwell! +You should have heard old John Thresher and Mark Sweetwinter and the others +grumbling at the interference of “French frogs” with their beef, +though Alphonse vowed he only ordered the ox to be turned faster, and he +dressed their potatoes in six different ways. I doubt if Dipwell has composed +itself yet. You know I sat for president in their tent while the beef went its +first round; and Alphonse was in an awful hurry to drag me into what he called +the royal tent. By the way, you should have hauled the standard down at +sunset.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not when the <i>son</i> had not come down among us,' said my father, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, I forgot to tell you about Alphonse. By the way, we'll have him in our +service. There was he plucking at me: “Monsieur Henri-Richie, Monsieur +Henri-Richie! mille complimens... et les potages, Monsieur!—à la +Camérani, à la tortue, aux petits pois... c'est en vrai artiste que j'ai su +tout retarder jusqu'au dernier moment.... Monsieur! cher Monsieur Henri-Richie, +je vous en supplie, laissez-là, ces planteurs de choux.” And John +Thresher, as spokesman for the rest: “Master Harry, we beg to say, in my +name, we can't masticate comfortably while we've got a notion Mr. Frenchman +he's present here to play his Frenchified tricks with our plain wholesome +dishes. Our opinion is, he don't know beef from hedgehog; and let him trim 'em, +and egg 'em, and bread-crumb 'em, and pound the mess all his might, and then +tak' and roll 'em into balls, we say we wun't, for we can't make English muscle +out o' that.”—And Alphonse, quite indifferent to the vulgar: +“Hé! mais pensez donc au Papa, Monsieur Henri-Richie, sans doute il a une +santé de fer: mais encore faut-il lui ménager le suc gastrique, +pancréatique....”' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, ay!' laughed my father; 'what sets you thinking of Alphonse?' +</p> + +<p> +'I suppose because I shall have to be speaking French in an hour.' +</p> + +<p> +'German, Richie, German.' +</p> + +<p> +'But these Belgians speak French.' +</p> + +<p> +'Such French as it is. You will, however, be engaged in a German conversation +first, I suspect.' +</p> + +<p> +'Very well, I'll stumble on. I don't much like it.' +</p> + +<p> +'In six hours from this second of time, Richie, boy, I undertake to warrant you +fonder of the German tongue than of any other spoken language.' +</p> + +<p> +I looked at him. He gave me a broad pleasant smile, without sign of a jest +lurking in one corner. +</p> + +<p> +The scene attracted me. Laughing fishwife faces radiant with sea-bloom in among +the weedy pier-piles, and sombre blue-cheeked officers of the douane, with +their double row of buttons extending the breadth of their shoulders. My father +won Mr. Peterborough's approval by declaring cigars which he might easily have +passed. +</p> + +<p> +'And now, sir,'—he used the commanding unction of a lady's +doctor,—'you to bed, and a short repose. We will, if it pleases you, +breakfast at eight. I have a surprise for Mr. Richie. We are about to beat the +drum in the market-place, and sing out for echoes.' +</p> + +<p> +'Indeed, sir?' said the simple man. +</p> + +<p> +'I promise you we shall not disturb you, Mr. Peterborough. You have reached +that middle age, have you not, when sleep is, so to put it, your capital? And +your activity is the interest you draw from it to live on. You have three good +hours. So, then, till we meet at the breakfast-table.' +</p> + +<p> +My father's first proceeding at the hotel was to examine the list of visitors. +He questioned one of the waiters aside, took information from him, and seized +my arm rather tremulously, saying, +</p> + +<p> +'They are here. 'Tis as I expected. And she is taking the morning breath of +sea-air on the dunes. Come, Richie, come.' +</p> + +<p> +'Who's the “she”?' I asked incuriously. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, she is young, she is of high birth, she is charming. We have a crowned +head or two here. I observe in you, Richie, an extraordinary deficiency of +memory. She has had an illness; Neptune speed her recovery! Now for a turn at +our German. Die Strassen ruhen; die Stadt schläft; aber dort, siehst Du, dort +liegt das blaue Meer, das nimmer-schlafende! She is gazing on it, and breathing +it, Richie. Ach! ihr jauchzende Seejungfern. On my soul, I expect to see the +very loveliest of her sex! +</p> + +<p> +You must not be dismayed at pale cheeks-blasse Wangen. Her illness has been +alarming. Why, this air is the top of life; it will, and it shall, revive her. +How will she address him?—“Freund,” in my presence, +perchance: she has her invalid's privilege. “Theure Prinzessin” you +might venture on. No ice! Ay, there she is!' +</p> + +<p> +Solitary, on the long level of the sand-bank, I perceived a group that became +discernible as three persons attached to an invalid's chair, moving leisurely +toward us. I was in the state of mind between divination and doubt when the +riddle is not impossible to read, would but the heart cease its hurry an +instant; a tumbled sky where the break is coming. It came. The dear old days of +my wanderings with Temple framed her face. I knew her without need of pause or +retrospect. The crocus raising its cup pointed as when it pierced the earth, +and the crocus stretched out on earth, wounded by frost, is the same flower. +The face was the same, though the features were changed. Unaltered in +expression, but wan, and the kind blue eyes large upon lean brows, her aspect +was that of one who had been half caught away and still shook faintly in the +relaxing invisible grasp. +</p> + +<p> +We stopped at a distance of half-a-dozen paces to allow her time for +recollection. She eyed us softly in a fixed manner, while the sea-wind blew her +thick redbrown hair to threads on her cheek. Colour on the fair skin told us we +were recognized. +</p> + +<p> +'Princess Ottilia!' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?' +</p> + +<p> +'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'And he?' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not +forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.' +</p> + +<p> +Her eyelids gently lifted, asking me. +</p> + +<p> +'Nor the mount you did me the honour to give me on the little Hungarian,' said +I. +</p> + +<p> +'How nice this sea-air is!' she spoke in English. 'England and sea go together +in my thoughts. And you are here! I have been down very low, near the lowest. +But your good old sea makes me breathe again. I want to toss on it. Have you +yet seen the Markgräfin?' +</p> + +<p> +My father explained that we had just landed from the boat. +</p> + +<p> +'Is our meeting, then, an accident?' +</p> + +<p> +'Dear princess, I heard of your being out by the shore.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah! kind: and you walked to meet me? I love that as well, though I love +chance. And it is chance that brings you here! I looked out on the boat from +England while they were dressing me: I cannot have too much of the morning, for +then I have all to myself: sea and sky and I. The night people are all asleep, +and you come like an old Marchen.' +</p> + +<p> +Her eyelids dropped without closing. +</p> + +<p> +'Speak no more to her just at present,' said an English voice, Miss Silbey's. +Schwartz, the huge dragoon, whose big black horse hung near him in my memory +like a phantom, pulled the chair at a quiet pace, head downward. A young girl +clad in plain black walked beside Miss Sibley, following the wheels. +</p> + +<p> +'Danger is over,' Miss Sibley answered my gaze. 'She is convalescent. You see +how weak she is.' +</p> + +<p> +I praised the lady for what I deemed her great merit in not having quitted the +service of the princess. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' said she, 'my adieux to Sarkeld were uttered years ago. But when I heard +of her fall from the horse I went and nursed her. We were once in dread of her +leaving us. She sank as if she had taken some internal injury. It may have been +only the shock to her system and the cessation of her accustomed exercise. She +has a little over-studied.' +</p> + +<p> +'The margravine?' +</p> + +<p> +'The margravine is really very good and affectionate, and has won my esteem. So +you and your father are united at last? We have often talked of you. Oh! that +day up by the tower. But, do you know, the statue is positively there now, and +no one—no one who had the privilege of beholding the first bronze +Albrecht Wohlgemuth, Furst von Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld, no one will admit that the +second is half worthy of him. I can feel to this day the leap of the heart in +my mouth when the statue dismounted. The prince sulked for a month: the +margravine still longer at your father's evasion. She could not make allowance +for the impulsive man: such a father; such a son!' +</p> + +<p> +'Thank you, thank you most humbly,' said I, bowing to her shadow of a mock +curtsey. +</p> + +<p> +The princess's hand appeared at a side of the chair. We hastened to her. +</p> + +<p> +'Let me laugh, too,' she prayed. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Sibley was about to reply, but stared, and delight sprang to her lips in a +quick cry. +</p> + +<p> +'What medicine is this? Why, the light of morning has come to you, my darling!' +</p> + +<p> +'I am better, dearest, better.' +</p> + +<p> +'You sigh, my own.' +</p> + +<p> +'No; I breathe lots, lots of salt air now, and lift like a boat. Ask +him—he had a little friend, much shorter than himself, who came the whole +way with him out of true friendship—ask him where is the friend?' +</p> + +<p> +Miss Sibley turned her head to me. +</p> + +<p> +'Temple,' said I; 'Temple is a midshipman; he is at sea.' +</p> + +<p> +'That is something to think of,' the princess murmured, and dropped her eyelids +a moment. She resumed 'The Grand Seigneur was at Vienna last year, and would +not come to Sarkeld, though he knew I was ill.' +</p> + +<p> +My father stooped low. +</p> + +<p> +'The Grand Seigneur, your servant, dear princess, was an Ottoman Turk, and his +Grand Vizier advised him to send flowers in his place weekly.' +</p> + +<p> +'I had them, and when we could get those flowers nowhere else,' she replied. +'So it was you! So my friends have been about me.' +</p> + +<p> +During the remainder of the walk I was on one side of the chair, and her little +maid on the other, while my father to rearward conversed with Miss Sibley. The +princess took a pleasure in telling me that this Aennchen of hers knew me well, +and had known me before ever her mistress had seen me. Aennchen was the eldest +of the two children Temple and I had eaten breakfast with in the forester's +hut. I felt myself as if in the forest again, merely wondering at the growth of +the trees, and the narrowness of my vision in those days. +</p> + +<p> +At parting, the princess said, +</p> + +<p> +'Is my English improved? You smiled at it once. I will ask you when I meet you +next.' +</p> + +<p> +'It is my question,' I whispered to my own ears. +</p> + +<p> +She caught the words. +</p> + +<p> +'Why do you say—“It is my question”?' +</p> + +<p> +I was constrained to remind her of her old forms of English speech. +</p> + +<p> +'You remember that? Adieu,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +My father considerately left me to carry on my promenade alone. I crossed the +ground she had traversed, noting every feature surrounding it, the curving +wheel-track, the thin prickly sand-herbage, the wave-mounds, the sparse wet +shells and pebbles, the gleaming flatness of the water, and the vast +horizon-boundary of pale flat land level with shore, looking like a dead sister +of the sea. By a careful examination of my watch and the sun's altitude, I was +able to calculate what would, in all likelihood, have been his height above +yonder waves when her chair was turned toward the city, at a point I reached in +the track. But of the matter then simultaneously occupying my mind, to recover +which was the second supreme task I proposed to myself—of what I also was +thinking upon the stroke of five o'clock, I could recollect nothing. I could +not even recollect whether I happened to be looking on sun and waves when she +must have had them full and glorious in her face. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"></a> +CHAPTER XXV.<br/> +ON BOARD A YACHT</h2> + +<p> +With the heartiest consent I could give, and a blank cheque, my father returned +to England to hire forthwith a commodious yacht, fitted and manned. Before +going he discoursed of prudence in our expenditure; though not for the sake of +the mere money in hand, which was a trifle, barely more than the half of my +future income; but that the squire, should he by and by bethink him of +inspecting our affairs, might perceive we were not spendthrifts. +</p> + +<p> +'I promised you a surprise, Richie,' said he, 'and you have had it; whether at +all equal to your expectations is for you to determine. I was aware of the +margravine's intention to bring the princess to these sea-sands; they are +famous on the Continent. It was bruited last Winter and Spring that she would +be here in the season for bathing; so I held it likely we should meet. We have, +you behold. In point of fact, we owe the good margravine some show of +hospitality. The princess has a passion for tossing on the sea. To her a yacht +is a thing dropped from the moon. His Highness the prince her father could as +soon present her with one as with the moon itself. The illustrious Serenity's +revenue is absorbed, my boy, in the state he has to support. As for his +daughter's dowry, the young gentleman who anticipates getting one with her, I +commend to the practise of his whistling. It will be among the sums you may +count, if you are a moderate arithmetician, in groschen. The margravine's +income I should reckon to approach twenty thousand per annum, and she proves +her honourable sense that she holds it in trust for others by dispersing it +rapidly. I fear she loves cards. So, then, I shall go and hire the yacht +through Dettermain and Newson, furnish it with piano and swing-cot, etc.; and +if the ladies shrink from a cruise they can have an occasional sail. Here are +we at their service. I shall be seriously baffled by fortune if I am not back +to you at the end of a week. You will take your early morning walk, I presume. +On Sunday see that our chaplain, the excellent Mr. Peterborough, officiates for +the assembled Protestants of all nations. It excites our English enthusiasm. In +addition, son Richie, it is peculiarly our duty. I, at least, hold the view +that it is a family duty. Think it over, Richie boy. Providence, you see, has +sent us the man. As for me, I feel as if I were in the dawn of one life with +all the mature experience of another. I am calm, I am perfectly unexcited, and +I tell you, old son, I believe—pick among the highest—our destinies +are about the most brilliant of any couple in Great Britain.' +</p> + +<p> +His absence relieved me in spite of my renewed pleasure in his talk; I may call +it a thirsty craving to have him inflating me, puffing the deep unillumined +treasure-pits of my nature with laborious hints, as mines are filled with air +to keep the miners going. While he talked he made these inmost recesses +habitable. But the pain lay in my having now and then to utter replies. The +task of speaking was hateful. I found a sweetness in brooding unrealizingly +over hopes and dreams and possibilities, and I let him go gladly that I might +enjoy a week of silence, just taking impressions as they came, like the sands +in the ebb-tide. The impression of the morning was always enough for a day's +meditation. The green colour and the crimson athwart it, and higher up the +pinky lights, flamingo feathers, on a warm half-circle of heaven, in hue +between amethyst and milky opal; then the rim of the sun's disc not yet severe; +and then the monstrous shadow of tall Schwartz darting at me along the sand, +then the princess. This picture, seen at sunrise, lasted till I slept. It +stirred no thoughts, conjured no images, it possessed me. In the afternoon the +margravine accompanied the princess to a point facing seaward, within hearing +of the military band. She did me the favour to tell me that she tolerated me +until I should become efficient in German to amuse her, but the dulness of the +Belgian city compared with her lively German watering-places compelled her to +try my powers of fun in French, and in French I had to do duty, and failed in +my office. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you know,' said she, 'that your honourable papa is one in a million? He has +the life of a regiment in his ten fingers. What astonishes me is that he does +not make fury in that England of yours—that Lapland! Je ne puffs me +passer de cet homme! He offends me, he trifles, he outrages, he dares permit +himself to be indignant. Bon! we part, and absence pleads for him with the +eloquence of Satan. I am his victim. Does he, then, produce no stir whatever in +your England? But what a people! But yes, you resemble us, as +bottles—bottles; seulement, you are emptied of your wine. Ce Monsieur +Pétèrbooroo'! Il m'agace les nerfs. It cannot be blood in his veins. One longs +to see him cuffed, to see if he has the English lion in him, one knows not +where. But you are so, you English, when not intoxicated. And so censorious! +You win your battles, they say, upon beer and cordials: it is why you never can +follow up a success. Je tiens cela du Maréchal Prince B——. Let that +pass. One groans at your intolerable tristesse. La vie en Angleterre est comme +un marais. It is a scandal to human nature. It blows fogs, foul vapours, +joint-stiffnesses, agues, pestilences, over us here,—yes, here! That is +your best side: but your worst is too atrocious! Mon Dieu! Your men-rascals! +Your women-rascals!' +</p> + +<p> +'Good soul!' the princess arrested her, 'I beg that you will not abuse +England.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have I abused England?' exclaimed the margravine. 'Nay, then, it was because +England is shockingly unjust to the most amusing, the most reviving, charming +of men. There is he fresh as a green bubbling well, and those English decline +to do honour to his source. Now tell me, you!' She addressed me imperiously. +'Are you prosecuting his claims? Are you besieging your Government? What! you +are in the season of generosity, an affectionate son, wealthy as a Magyar +prince of flocks, herds, mines, and men, and you let him stand in the shade +deprived of his birthright? Are you a purse-proud commoner or an imbecile?' +</p> + +<p> +'My whimsy aunt!' the princess interposed again, 'now you have taken to abusing +a defenceless Englishman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nothing of the sort, child. I compliment him on his looks and manners; he is +the only one of his race who does not appear to have marched out of a +sentinel's box with a pocket-mirror in his hand. I thank him from my soul for +not cultivating the national cat's whisker. None can imagine what I suffer from +the oppressive sight of his Monsieur Peterbooroo'! And they are of one +pattern—the entire nation! He! no, he has the step of a trained +blood-horse. Only, as Kaunitz, or somebody, said of Joseph II., or somebody, he +thinks or he chews. Englishmen's mouths were clearly not made for more purposes +than one. In truth, I am so utterly wearied, I could pray for the diversion of +a descent of rain. The life here is as bad as in Rippau. I might just as well +be in Rippau doing duty: the silly people complain, I hear. I am gathering +dust. These, my dear, these are the experiences which age women at a prodigious +rate. I feel chains on my limbs here.' +</p> + +<p> +'Madame, I would,' said I, 'that I were the Perseus to relieve you of your +monster Ennui, but he is coming quickly.' +</p> + +<p> +'You see he has his pretty phrases!' cried the margravine; adding +encouragingly, 'S'il nest pas tant sort peu impertinent?' +</p> + +<p> +The advance of some German or Russian nobleman spared me further efforts. +</p> + +<p> +We were on shore, listening to the band in the afternoon, when a sail like a +spark of pure white stood on the purple black edge of a storm-cloud. It was the +yacht. By sunset it was moored off shore, and at night hung with variegated +lamps. Early next morning we went on board. The ladies were astonished at the +extent of the vessel, and its luxurious fittings and cunning arrangements. My +father, in fact, had negotiated for the hire of the yacht some weeks +previously, with his accustomed forethought. +</p> + +<p> +'House and town and fortress provisioned, and moveable at will!' the margravine +interjected repeatedly. +</p> + +<p> +The princess was laid on raised pillows in her swingcot under an awning aft, +and watched the sailors, the splendid offspring of old sea-fights, as I could +observe her spirited fancy conceiving them. They were a set of men to point to +for an answer to the margravine's strictures on things English. +</p> + +<p> +'Then, are you the captain, my good Herr Heilbrunn?' the margravine asked my +father. +</p> + +<p> +He was dressed in cheerful blue, wearing his cheerfullest air, and seemed +strongly inclined for the part of captain, but presented the actual commander +of the schooner-yacht, and helped him through the margravine's interrogations. +</p> + +<p> +'All is excellent,—excellent for a day's sail,' she said. 'I have no +doubt you could nourish my system for a month, but to deal frankly with +you—prepared meats and cold pies!—to face them once is as much as I +am capable of.' +</p> + +<p> +'Dear Lady Field-Marshal,' returned my father, 'the sons of Neptune would be of +poor account, if they could not furnish you cookery at sea.' +</p> + +<p> +They did, for Alphonse was on board. He and my father had a hot discussion +about the margravine's dishes, Alphonse declaring that it was against his +conscience to season them pungently, and my father preaching expediency. +Alphonse spoke of the artist and his duty to his art, my father of the wise +diplomatist who manipulated individuals without any sacrifice of principle. +They were partly at play, of course, both having humour. +</p> + +<p> +It ended in the margravine's being enraptured. The delicacy of the invalid's +dishes, was beyond praise. 'So, then, we are absolutely better housed and +accommodated than on shore!' the margravine made her wonder heard, and from +that fell to enthusiasm for the vessel. After a couple of pleasant +smooth-sailing days, she consented to cruise off the coasts of France and +England. Adieu to the sands. Throughout the cruise she was placable, satisfied +with earth and sea, and constantly eulogizing herself for this novel state of +serenity. Cards, and a collection of tripping French books bound in yellow, +danced the gavotte with time, which made the flying minutes endurable to her: +and for relaxation there was here the view of a shining town dropped between +green hills to dip in sea-water, yonder a ship of merchandise or war to +speculate upon, trawlers, collier-brigs, sea-birds, wave over wave. No cloud on +sun and moon. We had gold and silver in our track, like the believable children +of fairyland. +</p> + +<p> +The princess, lying in her hammock-cot on deck, both day and night, or for the +greater part of the night, let her eyes feast incessantly on a laughing sea: +when she turned them to any of us, pure pleasure sparkled in them. The breezy +salt hours were visible ecstasy to her blood. If she spoke it was but to utter +a few hurried, happy words, and shrink as you see the lightning behind a +cloud-rack, suggestive of fiery swift emotion within, and she gazed away +overjoyed at the swoop and plunge of the gannet, the sunny spray, the waves +curling crested or down-like. At night a couple of sailors, tender as women, +moved her in the cot to her cabin. We heard her voice in the dark of the +morning, and her little maid Aennchen came out and was met by me; and I at that +hour had the privilege to help move her back to her favourite place, and strap +the iron-stand fast, giving the warm-hooded cot room to swing. The keen +sensations of a return to health amid unwonted scenes made things magical to +her. When she beheld our low green Devon hills she signalled for help to rise, +and 'That is England!' she said, summoning to her beautiful clear eyeballs the +recollection of her first desire to see my country. Her petition was that the +yacht should go in nearer and nearer to the land till she could discern men, +women, and children, and their occupations. A fisherman and his wife sat in the +porch above their hanging garden, the woman knitting, the man mending his nets, +barefooted boys and girls astride the keel of a boat below them. The princess +eyed them and wept. 'They give me happiness; I can give them nothing,' she +said. +</p> + +<p> +The margravine groaned impatiently at talk of such a dieaway sort. +</p> + +<p> +My father sent a couple of men on shore with a gift of money to their family in +the name of the Princess Ottilia. How she thanked him for his prompt ideas! 'It +is because you are generous you read one well.' +</p> + +<p> +She had never thanked me. I craved for that vibrating music as of her deep +heart penetrated and thrilling, but shrank from grateful words which would have +sounded payment. Running before the wind swiftly on a night of phosphorescent +sea, when the waves opened to white hollows with frayed white ridges, wreaths +of hissing silver, her eyelids closed, and her hand wandered over the silken +coverlet to the hammock cloth, and up, in a blind effort to touch. Mine joined +to it. Little Aennchen was witness. Ottilia held me softly till her slumber was +deep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"></a> +CHAPTER XXVI.<br/> +IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE</h2> + +<p> +Our cruise came to an end in time to save the margravine from yawning. The last +day of it was windless, and we hung in sight of the colourless low Flemish +coast for hours, my father tasking his ingenuity to amuse her. He sang with +Miss Sibley, rallied Mr. Peterborough, played picquet to lose, threw over the +lead line to count the fathoms, and whistling for the breeze, said to me, 'We +shall decidedly have to offer her an exhibition of tipsy British seamen as a +final resource. The case is grave either way; but we cannot allow the +concluding impression to be a dull one.' +</p> + +<p> +It struck me with astonishment to see the vigilant watch she kept over the +princess this day, after having left her almost uninterruptedly to my care. +</p> + +<p> +'You are better?' She addressed Ottilia. 'You can sit up? You think you can +walk? Then I have acted rightly, nay, judiciously,—I have not made a +sacrifice for nothing. I took the cruise, mind you, on your account. You would +study yourself to the bone, till you looked like a canary's quill, with that +Herr Professor of yours. Now I've given you a dose of life. Yes, you begin to +look like human flesh. Something has done you good.' +</p> + +<p> +The princess flushing scarlet, the margravine cried, +</p> + +<p> +'There's no occasion for you to have the whole British army in your cheeks. +Goodness me! what's the meaning of it? Why, you answer me like flags, banners, +uhlans' pennons, fullfrocked cardinals!' +</p> + +<p> +My father stepped in. +</p> + +<p> +'Ah, yes,' said the margravine. 'But you little know, my good Roy, the burden +of an unmarried princess; and heartily glad shall I be to hand her over to +Baroness Turckems. That's her instituted governess, duenna, dragon, what you +will. She was born for responsibility, I was not; it makes me miserable. I have +had no holiday. True, while she was like one of their wax virgins I had a +respite. Fortunately, I hear of you English, that when you fall to sighing, you +suck your thumbs and are consoled.' +</p> + +<p> +My father bowed her, and smiled her, and whirled her away from the subject. I +heard him say, under his breath, that he had half a mind to issue orders for an +allowance of grog to be served out to the sailors on the spot. I suggested, as +I conceived in a similar spirit the forcible ducking of Mr. Peterborough. He +appeared to entertain and relish the notion in earnest. +</p> + +<p> +'It might do. It would gratify her enormously,' he said, and eyed the +complacent clerical gentleman with transparent jealousy of his claims to decent +treatment. 'Otherwise, I must confess,' he added, 'I am at a loss. My wits are +in the doldrums.' +</p> + +<p> +He went up to Mr. Peterborough, and, with an air of great sincerity and +courtesy, requested him in French to create a diversion for her Highness the +Margravine of Rippau during the extreme heat of the afternoon by precipitating +himself headlong into forty fathoms, either attached or unattached. His art in +baffling Mr. Peterborough's attempts to treat the unheard-of request as a jest +was extraordinary. The ingenuity of his successive pleas for pressing such a +request pertinaciously upon Mr. Peterborough in particular, his fixed eye, yet +cordial deferential manner, and the stretch of his forefinger, and +argumentative turn of the head—indicative of an armed disputant fully on +the alert, and as if it were of profound and momentous importance that he +should thoroughly defeat and convince his man—overwhelmed us. Mr. +Peterborough, not being supple in French, fell back upon his English with a +flickering smile of protestation; but even in his native tongue he could make +no head against the tremendous volubility and brief eager pauses besetting him. +</p> + +<p> +The farce was too evanescent for me to reproduce it. +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough turned and fled to his cabin. Half the crew were on the broad +grin. The margravine sprang to my father's arm, and entreated him to be her +guest in her Austrian mountain summer-seat. Ottilia was now her darling and her +comfort. Whether we English youth sucked our thumbs, or sighed furiously, she +had evidently ceased to care. Mr. Peterborough assured me at night that he had +still a difficulty in persuading himself of my father's absolute sanity, so +urgent was the fire of his eye in seconding his preposterous proposal; and, as +my father invariably treated with the utmost reserve a farce played out, they +never arrived at an understanding about it, beyond a sententious agreement +once, in the extreme heat of an Austrian highland valley, that the option of +taking a header into sea-water would there be divine. +</p> + +<p> +Our yacht winged her way home. Prince Ernest of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld, +accompanied by Baroness Turckems, and Prince Otto, his nephew, son of the +Prince of Eisenberg, a captain of Austrian lancers, joined the margravine in +Wurtemberg, and we felt immediately that domestic affairs were under a +different management. Baroness Turckems relieved the margravine of her guard. +She took the princess into custody. Prince Ernest greeted us with some +affability; but it was communicated to my father that he expected an apology +before he could allow himself to be as absolutely unclouded toward us as the +blaze of his titles. My father declined to submit; so the prince inquired of us +what our destination was. Down the Danube to the Black Sea and Asia Minor, +Greece, Egypt, the Nile, the Desert, India, possibly, and the Himalayas, my +father said. The prince bowed. The highest personages, if they cannot travel, +are conscious of a sort of airy majesty pertaining to one who can command so +wide and far a flight. We were supplicated by the margravine to appease her +brother's pride with half a word. My father was firm. The margravine reached +her two hands to him. He kissed over them each in turn. They interchanged smart +semi-flattering or cutting sentences. +</p> + +<p> +'Good!' she concluded; 'now I sulk you for five years.' +</p> + +<p> +'You would decapitate me, madam, and weep over my astonished head, would you +not?' +</p> + +<p> +'Upon my honour, I would,' she shook herself to reply. +</p> + +<p> +He smiled rather sadly. +</p> + +<p> +'No pathos!' she implored him. +</p> + +<p> +'Not while I live, madam,' said he. +</p> + +<p> +At this her countenance underwent a tremour. +</p> + +<p> +'And when that ends... friend! well, I shall have had my last laugh in the +world.' +</p> + +<p> +Both seemed affected. My father murmured some soothing word. +</p> + +<p> +'Then you do mean to stay with me?' the margravine caught him up. +</p> + +<p> +'Not in livery, your Highness.' +</p> + +<p> +'To the deuce with you!' would be a fair translation of the exalted lady's +reply. She railed at his insufferable pride. +</p> + +<p> +'And you were wrong, wrong,' she pursued. 'You offended the prince mightily: +you travestied his most noble ancestor—' +</p> + +<p> +'In your service, may it please you.' +</p> + +<p> +'You offended, offended him, I say, and you haven't the courage to make +reparation. And when I tell you the prince is manageable as your ship, if you +will only take and handle the rudder. Do you perceive?' +</p> + +<p> +She turned to me. +</p> + +<p> +'Hither, Mr. Harry; come, persuade him. Why, you do not desire to leave me, do +you?' +</p> + +<p> +Much the reverse. But I had to congratulate myself subsequently on having been +moderate in the expression of my wishes; for, as my father explained to me, +with sufficient lucidity to enlighten my dulness, the margravine was tempting +him grossly. She saw more than I did of his plans. She could actually affect to +wink at them that she might gain her point, and have her amusement, and live +for the hour, treacherously beguiling a hoodwinked pair to suppose her +partially blind or wholly complaisant. My father knew her and fenced her. +</p> + +<p> +'Had I yielded,' he said, when my heart was low after the parting, 'I should +have shown her my hand. I do not choose to manage the prince that the +margravine may manage me. I pose my pride—immolate my son to it, Richie? +I hope not. No. At Vienna we shall receive an invitation to Sarkeld for the +winter, if we hear nothing of entreaties to turn aside to Ischl at Munich. She +is sure to entreat me to accompany her on her annual visit to her territory of +Rippau, which she detests; and, indeed, there is not a vine in the length and +breadth of it. She thought herself broad awake, and I have dosed her with an +opiate.' +</p> + +<p> +He squeezed my fingers tenderly. I was in want both of consolation and very +delicate handling when we drove out of the little Wurtemberg town: I had not +taken any farewell from Ottilia. Baroness Turckems was already exercising her +functions of dragon. With the terrible forbidding word 'Repose' she had wafted +the princess to her chamber in the evening, and folded her inextricably round +and round in the morning. The margravine huffed, the prince icy, Ottilia +invisible, I found myself shooting down from the heights of a dream among +shattered fragments of my cloud-palace before I well knew that I had left off +treading common earth. All my selfish nature cried out to accuse Ottilia. We +drove along a dusty country road that lay like a glaring shaft of the desert +between vineyards and hills. +</p> + +<p> +'There,' said my father, waving his hand where the hills on our left fell to a +distance and threw up a lofty head and neck cut with one white line, 'your +Hohenzollerns shot up there. Their castle looks like a tight military stock. +Upon my word, their native mountain has the air of a drum major. Mr. +Peterborough, have you a mind to climb it? We are at your disposal.' +</p> + +<p> +'Thank you, thank you, sir,' said the Rev. Ambrose, gazing enthusiastically, +but daunted by the heat: 'if it is your wish?' +</p> + +<p> +'We have none that is not yours, Mr. Peterborough. You love ruins, and we are +adrift just now. I presume we can drive to the foot of the ascent. I should +wish my son perhaps to see the source of great houses.' +</p> + +<p> +Here it was that my arm was touched by old Schwartz. He saluted stiffly, and +leaning from the saddle on the trot of his horse at an even pace with our +postillion, stretched out a bouquet of roses. I seized it palpitating, smelt +the roses, and wondered. May a man write of his foolishness?—tears rushed +to my eyes. Schwartz was far behind us when my father caught sight of the +magical flowers. +</p> + +<p> +'Come!' said he, glowing, 'we will toast the Hohenstaufens and the +Hohenzollerns to-night, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +Later, when I was revelling in fancies sweeter than the perfume of the roses, +he pressed their stems reflectively, unbound them, and disclosed a slip of +crested paper. On it was written: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Violets are over.' +</p> + +<p> +Plain words; but a princess had written them, and never did so golden a halo +enclose any piece of human handiwork. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"></a> +CHAPTER XXVII.<br/> +THE TIME OF ROSES</h2> + +<p> +I sat and thrilled from head to foot with a deeper emotion than joy. Not I, but +a detached self allied to the careering universe and having life in it. +</p> + +<p> +'Violets are over.' +</p> + +<p> +The first strenuous effort of my mind was to grasp the meaning, subtle as +odour, in these words. Innumerable meanings wreathed away unattainable to +thought. The finer senses could just perceive them ere they vanished. Then as I +grew material, two camps were pitched and two armies prepared to fight to +establish one distinct meaning. 'Violets are over, so I send you roses'; she +writes you simple fact. Nay, 'Our time of violets is over, now for us the +roses'; she gives you heavenly symbolism. +</p> + +<p> +'From violets to roses, so run the seasons.' +</p> + +<p> +Or is it, +</p> + +<p> +'From violets to roses, thus far have we two travelled?' +</p> + +<p> +But would she merely say, 'I have not this kind of flower, and I send you +another?' +</p> + +<p> +True, but would she dare to say, 'The violets no longer express my heart; take +the roses?' +</p> + +<p> +'Maidenly, and a Princess, yet sweet and grateful, she gives you the +gracefullest good speed. +</p> + +<p> +'Noble above all human distinctions, she binds you to herself, if you will it.' +</p> + +<p> +The two armies came into collision, the luck of the day going to the one I +sided with. +</p> + +<p> +But it was curiously observable that the opposing force recovered energy from +defeat, while mine languished in victory. I headed them alternately, +and—it invariably happened so. +</p> + +<p> +'She cannot mean so much as this.' +</p> + +<p> +'She must mean more than that.' +</p> + +<p> +Thus the Absolute and the Symbolical factions struggled on. A princess drew +them as the moon the tides. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees they subsided and united, each reserving its view; a point at which +I imagined myself to have regained my proper humility. 'The princess has sent +you these flowers out of her homely friendliness; not seeing you to speak her +farewell, she, for the very reason that she can do it innocent of any meaning +whatsoever, bids you be sure you carry her esteem with you. Is the sun of blue +heavens guilty of the shadow it casts? Clear your mind. She means nothing. +Warmth and beauty come from her, and are on you for the moment. But full surely +she is a thing to be won: she is human: did not her hand like a gentle snake +seek yours, and detain it, and bear it away into the heart of her +sleep?—Be moderate. Let not a thought or a dream spring from her +condescension, lest you do outrage to her noble simplicity. Look on that high +Hohenzollern hill-top: she also is of the line of those who help to found +illustrious Houses: what are you?' +</p> + +<p> +I turned to my father and stared him in the face. What was he? Were we not +losing precious time in not prosecuting his suit? I put this question to him, +believing that it would sound as too remote from my thoughts to betray them. He +glanced at the roses, and answered gladly, +</p> + +<p> +'Yes!—no, no! we must have our holiday. Mr. Peterborough is for exploring +a battle-field in the neighbourhood of Munich. He shall. I wish him to see the +Salzkammergut, and have a taste of German Court-life. Allow me to be captain, +Richie, will you? I will show you how battles are gained and mountains are +scaled. That young Prince Otto of Eisenberg is a fine young fellow. Those +Austrian cavalry regiments are good training-schools for the carriage of a +young man's head and limbs. I would match my boy against him in the +exercises—fencing, shooting, riding.' +</p> + +<p> +'As you did at Bath,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +He replied promptly: 'We might give him Anna Penrhys to marry. English wives +are liked here—adored—if they fetch a dowry. Concerning my suit, +Richie, enough if it keeps pace with us: and we are not going slow. It is a +thing certain. Dettermain and Newson have repeatedly said, “Money, +money! hand us money, and we guarantee you a public recognition.” Money +we now have. But we cannot be in two fields at once. Is it your desire to +return to England?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not at all,' said I, with a chill at the prospect. +</p> + +<p> +'If it is—?' he pressed me, and relenting added: 'I confess I enjoy this +Suabian land as much as you do. Indolence is occasionally charming. I am at +work, nevertheless. But, Richie, determine not to think little of yourself: +there is the main point; believe me, that is half the battle. You, sir, are one +of the wealthiest gentlemen in Europe. You are pronouncedly a gentleman. That +is what we can say of you at present, as you appear in the world's eye. And you +are by descent illustrious. Well, no more of that, but consider if you kneel +down, who will decline to put a foot on you? Princes have the habit, and they +do it as a matter of course. <i>Challenge</i> them. And they, Richie, are +particularly susceptible to pity for the misfortunes of their class—kind, +I should say, for class it is not; now I have done. All I tell you is, I intend +you, under my guidance, to be happy.' +</p> + +<p> +I thought his remarks the acutest worldly wisdom I had ever heard,—his +veiled method of treating my case the shrewdest, delicatest, and most +consoling, most inspiring. It had something of the mystical power of the +Oracles,—the power which belongs to anonymous writing. Had he disposed of +my apparent rival, and exalted me to the level of a princely family, in open +speech, he would have conveyed no balm to me—I should have classed it as +one confident man's opinion. Disguised and vague, but emphatic, and interpreted +by the fine beam of his eye, it was intoxicating; and when he said +subsequently, 'Our majority Burgundy was good emperor wine, Richie. You +approved it? I laid that vintage down to give you a lesson to show you that my +plans come safe to maturity,'—I credited him with a large share of +foresight, though I well knew his habit of antedating his sagacity, and could +not but smile at the illustration of it. +</p> + +<p> +You perceive my state without rendering it necessary for me to label myself. +</p> + +<p> +I saw her next in a pinewood between Ischl and the Traun. I had climbed the +steep hill alone, while my father and Mr. Peterborough drove round the +carriage-road to the margravine's white villa. Ottilia was leaning on the arm +of Baroness Turckems, walking—a miracle that disentangled her cruelly +from my net of fancies. The baroness placed a second hand upon her as soon as I +was seen standing in the path. Ottilia's face coloured like the cyclamen at her +feet. +</p> + +<p> +'You!' she said. +</p> + +<p> +'I might ask, is it you, princess?' +</p> + +<p> +'Some wonder has been worked, you see.' +</p> + +<p> +'I thank heaven.' +</p> + +<p> +'You had a part in it.' +</p> + +<p> +'The poorest possible.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yet I shall presume to call you Doctor Oceanus,' +</p> + +<p> +'Will you repeat his medicine? The yacht awaits you always.' +</p> + +<p> +'When I am well I study. Do not you?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have never studied in my life.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah, lose no more time. The yacht is delicious idleness, but it is idleness. I +am longing for it now, I am still so very weak. My dear Sibley has left me to +be married. She marries a Hanoverian officer. We change countries—I +mean,' the princess caught back her tongue, 'she will become German, not +compatriot of your ships of war. My English rebukes me. I cease to express... +It is like my walking, done half for pride, I think. Baroness, lower me, and +let me rest.' +</p> + +<p> +The baroness laid her gently on the dry brown pine-sheddings, and blew a +whistle that hung at her girdle, by which old Schwartzy kept out of sight to +encourage the princess's delusion of pride in her walking, was summoned. +Ottilia had fainted. The baroness shot a suspicious glance at me. 'It comes of +this everlasting English talk,' I heard her mutter. She was quick to interpose +between me and the form I had once raised and borne undisputedly. +</p> + +<p> +'Schwartz is the princess's attendant, sir,' she said. 'In future, may I +request you to talk German?' +</p> + +<p> +The Prince of Eppenwelzen and Prince Otto were shooting in the mountains. The +margravine, after conversing with the baroness, received me stiffly. She seemed +eager to be rid of us; was barely hospitable. My mind was too confused to take +much note of words and signs. I made an appointment to meet my father the day +following, and walked away and returned at night, encountered Schwartz and fed +on the crumbs of tidings I got from him, a good, rough old faithful fellow, far +past the age for sympathy, but he had carried Ottilia when she was an infant, +and meant to die in her service. I thought him enviable above most creatures. +</p> + +<p> +His principal anxiety was about my finding sleeping quarters. When he had +delivered himself three times over of all that I could lead him to say, I left +him still puffing at his pipe. He continued on guard to be in readiness to run +for a doctor, should one be wanted. Twice in the night I came across his path. +The night was quiet, dark blue, and starry; the morning soft and fragrant. The +burden of the night was bearable, but that of daylight I fled from, and all day +I was like one expecting a crisis. Laughter, with so much to arouse it, hardly +had any foothold within me to stir my wits. For if I said 'Folly!' I did not +feel it, and what I felt I did not understand. My heart and head were +positively divided. Days and weeks were spent in reconciling them a little; +days passed with a pencil and scribbled slips of paper—the lines written +with regular commencements and irregular terminations; you know them. Why had +Ottilia fainted? She recommended hard study—thinks me idle, worthless; +she has a grave intelligence, a serious estimation of life; she thinks me +intrinsically of the value of a summer fly. But why did she say, 'We change +countries,' and immediately flush, break and falter, lose command of her +English, grow pale and swoon; why? With this question my disastrous big heart +came thundering up to the closed doors of comprehension. It was unanswerable. +'We change countries.' That is, she and Miss Sibley change countries, because +the English woman marries a German, and the German princess—oh! enormous +folly. Pierce it, slay it, trample it under. Is that what the insane heart is +big with? Throughout my night-watch I had been free of it, as one who walks +meditating in cloisters on a sentence that once issued from divine lips. There +was no relief, save in those pencilled lines which gave honest laughter a +chance; they stood like such a hasty levy of raw recruits raised for war, going +through the goose-step, with pretty accurate shoulders, and feet of distracting +degrees of extension, enough to craze a rhythmical drill-sergeant. I exulted at +the first reading, shuddered at the second, and at the third felt desperate, +destroyed them and sat staring at vacancy as if I had now lost the power of +speech. +</p> + +<p> +At last I flung away idleness and came to a good resolution; and I carried it +through. I studied at a famous German university, not far from Hanover. My +father, after discussing my project with me from the point of view of +amazement, settled himself in the University town, a place of hopeless dulness, +where the stones of the streets and the houses seemed to have got their knotty +problem to brood over, and never knew holiday. A fire for acquisition possessed +me, and soon an ungovernable scorn for English systems of teaching—sound +enough for the producing of gentlemen, and perhaps of merchants; but gentlemen +rather bare of graces, and merchants not too scientific in finance. Mr. +Peterborough conducted the argument against me until my stout display of facts, +or it may have been my insolence, combined with the ponderous pressure of the +atmosphere upon one who was not imbibing a counteracting force, drove him on a +tour among German cathedrals. +</p> + +<p> +Letters from Riversley informed me that my proceedings were approved, though +the squire wanted me near him. We offered entertainments to the students on a +vast scale. The local newspaper spoke of my father as the great Lord Roy. So it +happened that the margravine at Sarkeld heard of us. Returning from a visit to +the prince's palace, my father told me that he saw an opportunity for our being +useful to the prince, who wanted money to work a newly-discovered coal-mine in +his narrow dominions, and he suggested that I might induce the squire to supply +it; as a last extremity I could advance the money. Meanwhile he had engaged to +accompany the prince in mufti to England to examine into the working of +coal-mines, and hire an overseer and workmen to commence operations on the +Sarkeld property. It would be obligatory to entertain him fitly in London. +</p> + +<p> +'Certainly,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'During our absence the margravine will do her best to console you, Richie. The +prince chafes at his poverty. We give him a display of wealth in England; here +we are particularly discreet. We shall be surer of our ground in time. I set +Dettermain and Newson at work. I have written for them to hire a furnished +mansion for a couple of months, carriages, horses, lacqueys. But over here we +must really be—goodness me! I know how hard it is!—we must hold the +reins on ourselves tight. Baroness Turckems is a most estimable person on the +side of her duty. Why, the Dragon of Wantley sat on its eggs, you may be +convinced! She is a praiseworthy dragon. The side she presents to us is horny, +and not so agreeable. Talk German when she is on guard. Further I need not +counsel a clever old son. Counsel me, Richie. Would it be adviseable to run the +prince down to Riversley?—a Prince!' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! decidedly not,' was my advice. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, well,' he assented. +</p> + +<p> +I empowered him to sell out Bank stock. +</p> + +<p> +He wrote word from England of a very successful expedition. The prince, +travelling under the title of Count Delzenburg, had been suitably entertained, +received by Lady Wilts, Serena Marchioness of Edbury, Lady Denewdney, Lady +Sampleman, and others. He had visited my grandfather's mine, and that of Miss +Penrhys, and was astounded; had said of me that I wanted but a title to be as +brilliant a parti as any in Europe. +</p> + +<p> +The margravine must have received orders from her brother to be civil to me; +she sent me an imperious invitation from her villa, and for this fruit of my +father's diplomacy I yielded him up my daintier feelings, my judgement into the +bargain. +</p> + +<p> +Snows of early Spring were on the pinewood country I had traversed with Temple. +Ottilia greeted me in health and vivacity. The margravine led me up to her in +the very saloon where Temple, my father, and I had sat after the finale of the +statue scene, saying— +</p> + +<p> +'Our sea-lieutenant.' +</p> + +<p> +'It delights me to hear he has turned University student,' she said; and in +English: 'You have made friends of your books?' +</p> + +<p> +She was dressed in blue velvet to the throat; the hair was brushed from the +temples and bound in a simple knot. Her face and speech, fair and +unconstrained, had neither shadow nor beam directed specially for me. I +replied, +</p> + +<p> +'At least I have been taught to despise idleness.' +</p> + +<p> +'My Professor tells me it is strange for any of your countrymen to love books.' +</p> + +<p> +'We have some good scholars, princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have your Bentley and Porson. Oh! I know many of the world's men have +grown in England. Who can deny that? What we mean is, your society is not +penetrated with learning. But my Professor shall dispute with you. Now you are +facile in our German you can defend yourself. He is a deep scholar, broad over +tongues and dialects, European, Asiatic—a lion to me, poor little mouse! +I am speaking of Herr Professor von Karsteg, lady aunt.' +</p> + +<p> +'Speak intelligibly, and don't drum on my ear with that hybrid language,' +rejoined the margravine. +</p> + +<p> +'Hybrid! It is my Herr Professor's word. But English is the choice gathering of +languages, and honey is hybrid, unless you condemn the bee to suck at a single +flower.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ha! you strain compliments like the poet Fretzel,' the margravine exclaimed. +'Luckily, they're not addressed to human creatures. You will find the villa +dull, Herr Harry Richmond. For my part, every place is dull to me that your +father does not enliven. We receive no company in the prince's absence, so we +are utterly cut off from fools; we have simply none about us.' +</p> + +<p> +'The deprivation is one we are immensely sensible of!' said the princess. +</p> + +<p> +'Laugh on! you will some day be aware of their importance in daily life, +Ottilia.' +</p> + +<p> +The princess answered: 'If I could hate, it would be such persons.' A sentence +that hung in the memory of one knowing himself to be animated by the wildest +genius of folly. +</p> + +<p> +We drove to the statue of Prince Albrecht Wohlgemuth, overlooking leagues of +snow-roofed branches. Again Ottilia reverted to Temple, +</p> + +<p> +'That dear little friend of yours who wandered out with you to seek your +father, and is now a sailor! I cannot forget him. It strikes me as a beautiful +piece of the heroism of boys. You both crossed the sea to travel over the whole +Continent until you should find him, did you not? What is hard to understand, +is your father's not writing to you while he did us the favour to reside at the +palace.' +</p> + +<p> +'Roy is a butterfly,' said the margravine. +</p> + +<p> +'That I cannot think.' +</p> + +<p> +'Roy was busy, he was occupied. I won't have him abused. Besides, one can't be +always caressing and cajoling one's pretty brats.' +</p> + +<p> +'He is an intensely loving father.' +</p> + +<p> +'Very well; establish that, and what does it matter whether he wrote or not? A +good reputation is the best vindication.' +</p> + +<p> +The princess smiled. 'See here, dearest aunty, the two boys passed half the +night here, until my Aennchen's father gave them shelter.' +</p> + +<p> +'Apparently he passes half or all the night in the open air everywhere,' said +the margravine. +</p> + +<p> +I glanced hurriedly over both faces. The margravine was snuffing her nostrils +up contemptuously. The princess had vividly reddened. Her face was luminous +over the nest of white fur folding her neck. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I must have the taste for it: for when I was a child,' said I, plunging +at anything to catch a careless topic, 'I was out in my father's arms through a +winter night, and I still look back on it as one of the most delightful I have +ever known. I wish I could describe the effect it had on me. A track of blood +in the snow could not be brighter.' +</p> + +<p> +The margravine repeated, +</p> + +<p> +'A track of blood in the snow! My good young man, you have excited forms of +speech.' +</p> + +<p> +I shuddered. Ottilia divined that her burning blush had involved me. Divination +is fiery in the season of blushes, and I, too, fell on the track of her fair +spirit, setting out from the transparent betrayal by Schwartz of my night-watch +in the pine-wood near the Traun river-falls. My feelings were as if a wave had +rolled me helpless to land, at the margravine's mercy should she put another +question. She startled us with a loud outburst of laughter. +</p> + +<p> +'No! no man upon this earth but Roy could have sat that horse I don't know how +many minutes by the clock, as a figure of bronze,' she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia and I exchanged a grave look. The gentleness of the old time was sweet +to us both: but we had the wish that my father's extravagant prominency in it +might be forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +At the dinner-table I made the acquaintance of the Herr Professor Dr. Julius +von Karsteg, tutor to the princess, a grey, broad-headed man, whose chin +remained imbedded in his neck-cloth when his eyelids were raised on a speaker. +The first impression of him was, that he was chiefly neck-cloth, coat-collar, +grand head, and gruffness. He had not joined the ceremonial step from the +reception to the dining saloon, but had shuffled in from a side-door. No one +paid him any deference save the princess. The margravine had the habit of +thrumming the table thrice as soon as she heard his voice: nor was I displeased +by such an exhibition of impatience, considering that he spoke merely for the +purpose of snubbing me. His powers were placed in evidence by her not daring to +utter a sarcasm, which was possibly the main cause of her burning fretfulness. +</p> + +<p> +I believe there was not a word uttered by me throughout the dinner that escaped +him. Nevertheless, he did his business of catching and worrying my poor unwary +sentences too neatly for me, an admirer of real force and aptitude, to feel +vindictive. I behaved to him like a gentleman, as we phrase it, and obtained +once an encouraging nod from the margravine. She leaned to me to say, that they +were accustomed to think themselves lucky if no learned talk came on between +the Professor and his pupil. The truth was, that his residence in Sarkeld was +an honour to the prince, and his acceptance of the tutorship a signal +condescension, accounted for by his appreciation of the princess's +intelligence. He was a man distinguished even in Germany for scholarship, +rather notorious for his political and social opinions too. The margravine, +with infinite humour in her countenance, informed me that he wished to fit the +princess for the dignity of a Doctor of Laws. +</p> + +<p> +'It says much for her that he has not spoilt her manners; her health, you know, +he succeeded in almost totally destroying, and he is at it again. The man is, I +suspect, at heart arrant Republican. He may teach a girl whatever nonsensical +politics he likes—it goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little +finger. We could not permit him to be near a young prince. Alas! we have none.' +</p> + +<p> +The Professor allowed himself extraordinary liberties with strangers, the +guests of the margravine. I met him crossing an inner court next day. He +interrupted me in the middle of a commonplace remark, and to this effect: +</p> + +<p> +'You are either a most fortunate or a most unfortunate young man!' +</p> + +<p> +So profoundly penetrated with thoughtfulness was the tone of his voice that I +could not take umbrage. The attempt to analyze his signification cost me an +aching forehead, perhaps because I knew it too acutely. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"></a> +CHAPTER XXVIII.<br/> +OTTILIA</h2> + +<p> +She was on horseback; I on foot, Schwartz for sole witness, and a wide space of +rolling silent white country around us. +</p> + +<p> +We had met in the fall of the winter noon by accident. 'You like my Professor?' +said Ottilia. +</p> + +<p> +'I do: I respect him for his learning.' +</p> + +<p> +'You forgive him his irony? It is not meant to be personal to you. England is +the object; and partly, I may tell you, it springs from jealousy. You have such +wealth! You embrace half the world: you are such a little island! All this is +wonderful. The bitterness is, you are such a mindless people—I do but +quote to explain my Professor's ideas. “Mindless,” he says, +“and arrogant, and neither in the material nor in the spiritual kingdom +of noble or gracious stature, and ceasing to have a brave aspect.” He +calls you squat Goths. Can you bear to hear me?' +</p> + +<p> +'Princess!' +</p> + +<p> +'And to his conception, you, who were pioneers when the earth had to be shaped +for implements and dug for gold, will turn upon us and stop our march; you are +to be overthrown and left behind, there to gain humility from the only teacher +you can understand—from poverty. Will you defend yourself?' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, no, frankly, I will not. The proper defence for a nation is its +history.' +</p> + +<p> +'For an individual?' +</p> + +<p> +'For a man, his readiness to abide by his word.' +</p> + +<p> +'For a woman—what?' +</p> + +<p> +'For a princess, her ancestry.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah! but I spoke of women. There, there is my ground of love for my Professor! +I meet my equals, princes, princesses, and the man, the woman, is out of them, +gone, flown! They are out of the tide of humanity; they are walking titles, +“Now,” says my Professor, “that tide is the blood of our +being; the blood is the life-giver; and to be cut off from it is to +perish.” Our princely houses he esteems as dead wood. Not near so much +say I: yet I hear my equals talk, and I think, “Oh! my Professor, they +testify to your wisdom.” I love him because he has given my every sense a +face-forward attitude (you will complain of my feebleness of speech) to +exterior existence. There is a princely view of life which is a true one; but +it is a false one if it is the sole one. In your Parliament your House of +Commons shows us real princes, your Throne merely titled ones. I speak what +everybody knows, and you, I am sure, are astonished to hear me.' +</p> + +<p> +'I am,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'It is owing to my Professor, my mind's father and mother. They say it is the +pleasure of low-born people to feel themselves princes; mine it is to share +their natural feelings. “For a princess, her ancestry.” Yes; but +for a princess who is no more than princess, her ancestors are a bundle of +faggots, and she, with her mind and heart tied fast to them, is, at least a +good half of her, dead wood. This is our opinion. May I guess at your +thoughts?' +</p> + +<p> +'It's more than I could dare to do myself, princess.' +</p> + +<p> +How different from the Ottilia I had known, or could have imagined! That was +one thought. +</p> + +<p> +'Out of the number, then, this,' she resumed: 'you think that your English +young ladies have command over their tongues: is it not so?' +</p> + +<p> +'There are prattlers among them.' +</p> + +<p> +'Are they educated strictly?' +</p> + +<p> +'I know little of them. They seem to me to be educated to conceal their +education.' +</p> + +<p> +'They reject ideas?' +</p> + +<p> +'It is uncertain whether they have had the offer.' +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia smiled. 'Would it be a home in their midst?' +</p> + +<p> +Something moved my soul to lift wings, but the passion sank. +</p> + +<p> +'I questioned you of English ladies,' she resumed, 'because we read your +writings of us. Your kindness to us is that which passes from nurse to infant; +your criticism reminds one of paedagogue and urchin. You make us sorry for our +manners and habits, if they are so bad; but most of all you are merry at our +simplicity. Not only we say what we feel, we display it. Now, I am so German, +this offence is especially mine.' +</p> + +<p> +I touched her horse's neck, and said, 'I have not seen it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yet you understand me. You know me well. How is that?' +</p> + +<p> +The murmur of honest confession came from me: 'I have seen it!' +</p> + +<p> +She laughed. 'I bring you to be German, you see. Could you forsake your +England?' +</p> + +<p> +'Instantly, though not willingly.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not regrettingly?' +</p> + +<p> +'Cheerfully, if I had my work and my—my friend.' +</p> + +<p> +'No; but well I know a man's field of labour is his country. You have your +ambition.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, now I have.' +</p> + +<p> +She struck a fir-branch with her riding-whip, scattering flakes on my head. +'Would that extinguish it?' +</p> + +<p> +'In the form of an avalanche perhaps it would.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then you make your aims a part of your life?' +</p> + +<p> +'I do.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then you win! or it is written of you that you never knew failure! So with me. +I set my life upon my aim when I feel that the object is of true worth. I win, +or death hides from me my missing it. +</p> + +<p> +This I look to; this obtains my Professor's nod, and the approval of my +conscience. Worthiness, however!—the mind must be trained to discern it. +We can err very easily in youth; and to find ourselves shooting at a false mark +uncontrollably must be a cruel thing. I cannot say it is undeserving the +scourge of derision. Do you know yourself? I do not; and I am told by my +Professor that it is the sole subject to which you should not give a close +attention. I can believe him. For who beguiles so much as Self? Tell her to +play, she plays her sweetest. Lurk to surprise her, and what a serpent she +becomes! She is not to be aware that you are watching her. You have to review +her acts, observe her methods. Always be above her; then by-and-by you catch +her hesitating at cross-roads; then she is bare: you catch her bewailing or +exulting; then she can no longer pretend she is other than she seems. I make +self the feminine, for she is the weaker, and the soul has to purify and raise +her. On that point my Professor and I disagree. Dr. Julius, unlike our modern +Germans, esteems women over men, or it is a further stroke of his irony. He +does not think your English ladies have heads: of us he is proud as a laurelled +poet. Have I talked you dumb?' +</p> + +<p> +'Princess, you have given me matter to think upon.' +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, smiling with closed eyelids. +</p> + +<p> +I, now that speech had been summoned to my lips, could not restrain it, and +proceeded, scarcely governing the words, quite without ideas; 'For you to be +indifferent to rank—yes, you may well be; you have intellect; you are +high above me in both—' So on, against good taste and common sense. +</p> + +<p> +She cried: 'Oh! no compliments from you to me. I will receive them, if you +please, by deputy. Let my Professor hear your immense admiration for his +pupil's accomplishments. Hear him then in return! He will beat at me like the +rainy West wind on a lily. “See,” he will say, when I am broken and +bespattered, “she is fair, she is stately, is she not!” And really +I feel, at the sound of praise, though I like it, that the opposite, satire, +condemnation, has its good right to pelt me. Look; there is the tower, there's +the statue, and under that line of pine-trees the path we ran +up;—“dear English boys!” as I remember saying to myself; and +what did you say of me?' +</p> + +<p> +Her hand was hanging loose. I grasped it. She drew a sudden long breath, and +murmured, without fretting to disengage herself, +</p> + +<p> +'My friend, not that!' +</p> + +<p> +Her voice carried an unmistakeable command. I kissed above the fingers and +released them. +</p> + +<p> +'Are you still able to run?' said she, leading with an easy canter, face +averted. She put on fresh speed; I was outstripped. +</p> + +<p> +Had she quitted me in anger? Had she parted from me out of view of the villa +windows to make it possible for us to meet accidentally again in the shadow of +her old protecting Warhead, as we named him from his appearance, gaunt +Schwartz? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"></a> +CHAPTER XXIX.<br/> +AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG</h2> + +<p> +In my perplexity, I thought of the Professor's saying: 'A most fortunate or a +most unfortunate young man.' These words began to strike me as having a +prophetic depth that I had not fathomed. I felt myself fast becoming bound in +every limb, every branch of my soul. Ottilia met me smiling. She moved free as +air. She could pursue her studies, and argue and discuss and quote, keep +unclouded eyes, and laugh and play, and be her whole living self, unfettered, +as if the pressure of my hand implied nothing. Perhaps for that reason I had +her pardon. 'My friend, not that!' Her imperishably delicious English rang me +awake, and lulled me asleep. Was it not too securely friendly? Or was it not +her natural voice to the best beloved, bidding him respect her, that we might +meet with the sanction of her trained discretion? The Professor would invite me +to his room after the 'sleep well' of the ladies, and I sat with him much like +his pipe-bowl, which burned bright a moment at one sturdy puff, but generally +gave out smoke in fantastical wreaths. He told me frankly he had a poor idea of +my erudition. My fancifulness he commended as something to be turned to use in +writing stories. 'Give me time, and I'll do better things,' I groaned. He +rarely spoke of the princess; with grave affection always when he did. He was +evidently observing me comprehensively. The result was beyond my guessing. +</p> + +<p> +One night he asked me what my scheme of life was. +</p> + +<p> +On the point of improvizing one of an impressive character, I stopped and +confessed: 'I have so many that I may say I have none.' Expecting reproof, I +begged him not to think the worse of me for that. +</p> + +<p> +'Quite otherwise,' said he. 'I have never cared to read deliberately in the +book you open to me, my good young man.' +</p> + +<p> +'The book, Herr Professor?' +</p> + +<p> +'Collect your wits. We will call it Shakespeare's book; or Göthe's, in the +minor issues. No, not minor, but a narrower volume. You were about to give me +the answer of a hypocrite. Was it not so?' +</p> + +<p> +I admitted it, feeling that it was easily to have been perceived. He was +elated. +</p> + +<p> +'Good. Then I apprehend that you wait for the shifting of a tide to carry you +on?' +</p> + +<p> +'I try to strengthen my mind.' +</p> + +<p> +'So I hear,' said he dryly. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, as far as your schools of teaching will allow.' +</p> + +<p> +'That is, you read and commit to memory, like other young scholars. Whereunto? +Have you no aim? You have, or I am told you are to have, fabulous +wealth—a dragon's heap. You are one of the main drainpipes of English +gold. What is your object? To spend it?' +</p> + +<p> +'I shall hope to do good with it.' +</p> + +<p> +'To do good! There is hardly a prince or millionaire, in history or alive, who +has not in his young days hugged that notion. Pleasure swarms, he has the pick +of his market. You English live for pleasure.' +</p> + +<p> +'We are the hardest workers in the world.' +</p> + +<p> +'That you may live for pleasure! Deny it!' +</p> + +<p> +He puffed his tobacco-smoke zealously, and resumed: +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, you work hard for money. You eat and drink, and boast of your exercises: +they sharpen your appetites. So goes the round. We strive, we fail; you are our +frog-chorus of critics, and you suppose that your brekek-koax affects us. I say +we strive and fail, but we strive on, while you remain in a past age, and are +proud of it. You reproach us with lack of common sense, as if the belly were +its seat. Now I ask you whether you have a scheme of life, that I may know +whether you are to be another of those huge human pumpkins called rich men, who +cover your country and drain its blood and intellect—those impoverishers +of nature! Here we have our princes; but they are rulers, they are responsible, +they have their tasks, and if they also run to gourds, the scandal punishes +them and their order, all in seasonable time. They stand eminent. Do you mark +me? They are not a community, and are not—bad enough! bad +enough!—but they are not protected by laws in their right to do nothing +for what they receive. That system is an invention of the commercial genius and +the English.' +</p> + +<p> +'We have our aristocracy, Herr Professor.' +</p> + +<p> +'Your nobles are nothing but rich men inflated with empty traditions of +insufferable, because unwarrantable, pride, and drawing, substance from +alliances with the merchant class. Are they your leaders? Do they lead you in +Letters? in the Arts? ay, or in Government? No, not, I am informed, not even in +military service! and there our titled witlings do manage to hold up their +brainless pates. You are all in one mass, struggling in the stream to get out +and lie and wallow and belch on the banks. You work so hard that you have all +but one aim, and that is fatness and ease!' +</p> + +<p> +'Pardon me, Herr Professor,' I interposed, 'I see your drift. Still I think we +are the only people on earth who have shown mankind a representation of +freedom. And as to our aristocracy, I must, with due deference to you, maintain +that it is widely respected.' +</p> + +<p> +I could not conceive why he went on worrying me in this manner with his jealous +outburst of Continental bile. +</p> + +<p> +'Widely!' he repeated. 'It is widely respected; and you respect it: and why do +you respect it?' +</p> + +<p> +'We have illustrious names in our aristocracy.' +</p> + +<p> +'We beat you in illustrious names and in the age of the lines, my good young +man.' +</p> + +<p> +'But not in a race of nobles who have stood for the country's liberties.' +</p> + +<p> +'So long as it imperilled their own! Any longer?' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, they have known how to yield. They have helped to build our +Constitution.' +</p> + +<p> +'Reverence their ancestors, then! The worse for such descendants. But you have +touched the exact stamp of the English mind:—it is, to accept whatsoever +is bequeathed it, without inquiry whether there is any change in the matter. +Nobles in very fact you would not let them be if they could. Nobles in name, +with a remote recommendation to posterity—that suits you!' +</p> + +<p> +He sat himself up to stuff a fresh bowl of tobacco, while he pursued: 'Yes, +yes: you worship your aristocracy. It is notorious. You have a sort of +sagacity. I am not prepared to contest the statement that you have a political +instinct. Here it is chiefly social. You worship your so-called aristocracy +perforce in order to preserve an ideal of contrast to the vulgarity of the +nation.' +</p> + +<p> +This was downright insolence. +</p> + +<p> +It was intolerable. I jumped on my feet. 'The weapons I would use in reply to +such remarks I cannot address to you, Herr Professor. Therefore, excuse me.' +</p> + +<p> +He sent out quick spirts of smoke rolling into big volumes. 'Nay, my good young +Englishman, but on the other hand you have not answered me. And hear me: yes, +you have shown us a representation of freedom. True. But you are content with +it in a world that moves by computation some considerable sum upwards of sixty +thousand miles an hour.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not on a fresh journey—a recurring course!' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Good!' he applauded, and I was flattered. +</p> + +<p> +'I grant you the physical illustration,' the Professor continued, and with a +warm gaze on me, I thought. 'The mind journeys somewhat in that way, and we in +our old Germany hold that the mind advances notwithstanding. Astronomers +condescending to earthly philosophy may admit that advance in the physical +universe is computable, though not perceptible. Some—whither we tend, +shell and spirit. You English, fighting your little battles of domestic policy, +and sneering at us for flying at higher game, you unimpressionable English, who +won't believe in the existence of aims that don't drop on the ground before +your eyes, and squat and stare at you, you assert that man's labour is +completed when the poor are kept from crying out. Now my question is, have you +a scheme of life consonant with the spirit of modern philosophy—with the +views of intelligent, moral, humane human beings of this period? Or are you one +of your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions in +gymnastics—for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all of +one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas. Pour them +out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to catch you +somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with your assistance than +without it.' +</p> + +<p> +We were deep in the night. I had not a single idea ready for delivery. I could +have told him, that wishing was a good thing, excess of tobacco a bad, +moderation in speech one of the outward evidences of wisdom; but Ottilia's +master in the Humanities exacted civility from me. +</p> + +<p> +'Indeed,' I said, 'I have few thoughts to communicate at present, Herr +Professor. My German will fail me as soon as I quit common ground. I love my +country, and I do not reckon it as perfect. We are swillers, possibly gluttons; +we have a large prosperous middle class; many good men are to be found in it.' +</p> + +<p> +His discharges of smoke grew stifling. My advocacy was certainly of a miserable +sort. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, Herr Professor, on my way when a boy to this very place I met a thorough +good man.' +</p> + +<p> +Here I related the tale of my encounter with Captain Welsh. +</p> + +<p> +Dr. Julius nodded rapidly for continuations. Further! further! +</p> + +<p> +He refused to dig at the mine within me, and seemed to expect it to unbosom its +riches by explosion. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, Herr Professor, we have conquered India, and hold it as no other people +could.' +</p> + +<p> +'Vide the articles in the last file of English newspapers!' said he. +</p> + +<p> +'Suppose we boast of it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Can you?' he simulated wonderment. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, surely it's something!' +</p> + +<p> +'Something for non-commissioned officers to boast of; not for statesmen. +However, say that you are fit to govern Asiatics. Go on.' +</p> + +<p> +'I would endeavour to equalize ranks at home, encourage the growth of ideas...' +</p> + +<p> +'Supporting a non-celibate clergy, and an intermingled aristocracy? Your +endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who employed a +spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized +aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would +resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could imagine you anything of a heroic +figure. Forward.' +</p> + +<p> +In desperation I exclaimed, 'It's useless! I have not thought at all. I have +been barely educated. I only know that I do desire with all my heart to know +more, to be of some service.' +</p> + +<p> +'Now we are at the bottom, then!' said he. +</p> + +<p> +But I cried, 'Stay; let me beg you to tell me what you meant by calling me a +most fortunate, or a most unfortunate young man.' +</p> + +<p> +He chuckled over his pipe-stem, 'Aha!' +</p> + +<p> +'How am I one or the other?' +</p> + +<p> +'By the weight of what you carry in your head.' +</p> + +<p> +'How by the weight?' +</p> + +<p> +He shot a keen look at me. 'The case, I suspect, is singular, and does not +often happen to a youth. You are fortunate if you have a solid and adventurous +mind: most unfortunate if you are a mere sensational whipster. There's an +explanation that covers the whole. I am as much in the dark as you are. I do +not say which of us two has the convex eye.' +</p> + +<p> +Protesting that I was unable to read riddles, though the heat of the one in +hand made my frame glow, I entreated to have explicit words. He might be in +Ottilia's confidence, probing me—why not? Any question he chose to put to +me, I said, I was ready to answer. +</p> + +<p> +'But it's the questioner who unmasks,' said he. +</p> + +<p> +'Are we masked, Herr Professor? I was not aware of it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Look within, and avoid lying.' +</p> + +<p> +He stood up. 'My nights,' he remarked, 'are not commonly wasted in this manner. +We Germans use the night for work.' +</p> + +<p> +After a struggle to fling myself on his mercy and win his aid or counsel, I +took his hand respectfully, and holding it, said, 'I am unable to speak out. I +would if it involved myself alone.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, yes, I comprehend; your country breeds honourable men, chivalrous +youngsters,' he replied. 'It's not enough—not enough. I want to see a +mental force, energy of brain. If you had that, you might look as high as you +liked for the match for it, with my consent. Do you hear? What I won't have is, +flat robbery! Mark me, Germany or England, it's one to me if I see vital powers +in the field running to a grand career. It's a fine field over there. As well +there as here, then! But better here than there if it's to be a wasp's life. Do +you understand me?' +</p> + +<p> +I replied, 'I think I do, if I may dare to'; and catching breath: 'Herr +Professor, dear friend, forgive my boldness; grant me time to try me; don't +judge of me at once; take me for your pupil—am I presumptuous in asking +it?—make of me what you will, what you can; examine me; you may find +there's more in me than I or anybody may know. I have thoughts and aims, feeble +at present—Good God! I see nothing for me but a choice of the +two—“most unfortunate” seems likeliest. You read at a glance +that I had no other choice. Rather the extremes!—I would rather grasp the +limits of life and be swung to the pits below, be the most unfortunate of human +beings, than never to have aimed at a star. You laugh at me? An Englishman must +be horribly in earnest to talk as I do now. But it is a star!' (The image of +Ottilia sprang fountain-like into blue night heavens before my eyes memorably.) +'She,' was my next word. I swallowed it, and with a burning face, petitioned +for help in my studies. +</p> + +<p> +To such sight as I had at that instant he appeared laughing outrageously. It +was a composed smile 'Right,' he said; 'you shall have help in a settled +course. Certain Professors, friends of mine, at your University, will see you +through it. Aim your head at a star—your head!—and even if you miss +it you don't fall. It's that light dancer, that gambler, the heart in you, my +good young man, which aims itself at inaccessible heights, and has the +fall—somewhat icy to reflect on! Give that organ full play and you may +make sure of a handful of dust. Do you hear? It's a mind that wins a mind. That +is why I warn you of being most unfortunate if you are a sensational whipster. +Good-night Shut my door fast that I may not have the trouble to rise.' +</p> + +<p> +I left him with the warm lamplight falling on his forehead, and books piled and +sloped, shut and open; an enviable picture to one in my condition. The +peacefulness it indicated made scholarship seem beautiful, attainable, I hoped. +I had the sense to tell myself that it would give me unrotting grain, though it +should fail of being a practicable road to my bright star; and when I spurned +at consolations for failure, I could still delight to think that she shone over +these harvests and the reapers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"></a> +CHAPTER XXX.<br/> +A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE</h2> + +<p> +The foregoing conversations with Ottilia and her teacher, hard as they were for +passion to digest, grew luminous on a relapsing heart. Without apprehending +either their exact purport or the characters of the speakers, I was transformed +by them from a state of craving to one of intense quietude. I thought neither +of winning her, nor of aiming to win her, but of a foothold on the heights she +gazed at reverently. And if, sometimes, seeing and hearing her, I thought, Oh, +rarest soul! the wish was, that brother and sisterhood of spirit might be ours. +My other eager thirstful self I shook off like a thing worn out. Men in my +confidence would have supposed me more rational: I was simply possessed. +</p> + +<p> +My desire was to go into harness, buried in books, and for recreation to chase +visions of original ideas for benefiting mankind. A clear-witted friend at my +elbow, my dear Temple, perhaps, could have hit on the track of all this mental +vagueness, but it is doubtful that he would have pushed me out of the strange +mood, half stupor, half the folding-in of passion; it was such magical +happiness. Not to be awake, yet vividly sensible; to lie calm and reflect, and +only to reflect; be satisfied with each succeeding hour and the privations of +the hour, and, as if in the depths of a smooth water, to gather fold over +patient fold of the submerged self, safe from wounds; the happiness was not +noble, but it breathed and was harmless, and it gave me rest when the +alternative was folly and bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +Visitors were coming to the palace to meet the prince, on his return with my +father from England. I went back to the University, jealous of the invasion of +my ecstatic calm by new faces, and jealous when there of the privileges those +new faces would enjoy; and then, how my recent deadness of life cried out +against me as worse than a spendthrift, a destroyer! a nerveless absorbent of +the bliss showered on me—the light of her morning presence when, just +before embracing, she made her obeisance to the margravine, and kindly saluted +me, and stooped her forehead for the baroness to kiss it; her gestures and her +voice; her figure on horseback, with old Warhead following, and I meeting her +but once!—her walk with the Professor, listening to his instructions; I +used to see them walking up and down the cypress path of the villa garden, her +ear given to him wholly as she continued her grave step, and he shuffling and +treading out of his line across hers, or on the path-borders, and never +apologizing, nor she noticing it. At night she sang, sometimes mountain ditties +to the accompaniment of the zither, leaning on the table and sweeping the wires +between snatches of talk. Nothing haunted me so much as those tones of her +zither, which were little louder than summer gnats when fireflies are at their +brightest and storm impends. +</p> + +<p> +My father brought horses from England, and a couple of English grooms, and so +busy an air of cheerfulness, that I had, like a sick invalid, to beg him to +keep away from me and prolong unlimitedly his visit to Sarkeld; the rather so, +as he said he had now become indispensable to the prince besides the +margravine. 'Only no more bronze statues!' I adjured him. He nodded. He had +hired Count Fretzel's chateau, in the immediate neighbourhood, and was +absolutely independent, he said. His lawyers were busy procuring evidence. He +had impressed Prince Ernest with a due appreciation of the wealth of a young +English gentleman, by taking him over my grandfather's mine. +</p> + +<p> +'And, Richie, we have advanced him a trifle of thousands for the working of +this coal discovery of his. In six weeks our schooner yacht will be in the Elbe +to offer him entertainment. He graciously deigns to accept a couple of English +hunters at our hands; we shall improve his breed of horses, I suspect. Now, +Richie, have I done well? I flatter myself I have been attentive to your +interests, have I not?' +</p> + +<p> +He hung waiting for confidential communications on my part, but did not press +for them; he preserved an unvarying delicacy in that respect. +</p> + +<p> +'You have nothing to tell?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +'Nothing,' I said. 'I have only to thank you.' +</p> + +<p> +He left me. At no other period of our lives were we so disunited. I felt in +myself the reverse of everything I perceived in him, and such letters as I +wrote to the squire consequently had a homelier tone. It seems that I wrote of +the pleasures of simple living—of living for learning's sake. Mr. +Peterborough at the same time despatched praises of my sobriety of behaviour +and diligent studiousness, confessing that I began to outstrip him in some of +the higher branches. The squire's brief reply breathed satisfaction, but too +evidently on the point where he had been led to misconceive the state of +affairs. 'He wanted to have me near him, as did another person, whom I appeared +to be forgetting; he granted me another year's leave of absence, bidding me +bluffly not to be a bookworm and forget I was an Englishman.' The idea that I +was deceiving him never entered my mind. +</p> + +<p> +I was deceiving everybody, myself in the bargain, as a man must do when in +chase of a woman above him in rank. The chase necessitates deceit—who +knows? chicanery of a sort as well; it brings inevitable humiliations; such +that ever since the commencement of it at speed I could barely think of my +father with comfort, and rarely met him with pleasure. With what manner of face +could I go before the prince or the margravine, and say, I am an English +commoner, the son of a man of doubtful birth, and I claim the hand of the +princess? What contortions were not in store for these features of mine! Even +as affairs stood now, could I make a confidant of Temple and let him see me +through the stages of the adventure? My jingling of verses, my fretting about +the signification of flowers, and trifling with symbols, haunted me +excrutiatingly, taunting me with I know not what abject vileness of spirit. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of these tortures an arrow struck me, in the shape of an anonymous +letter, containing one brief line: 'The princess is in need of help.' +</p> + +<p> +I threw my books aside, and repaired to Count Fretzel's chateau, from which, +happily, my father was absent; but the countenance of the princess gave me no +encouragement to dream I could be of help to her; yet a second unsigned note +worded in a quaint blunt manner, insisted that it was to me she looked. I +chanced to hear the margravine, addressing Baroness Turckems, say: 'The +princess's betrothal,' what further, escaped me. Soon after, I heard that +Prince Otto was a visitor at the lake-palace. My unknown correspondent plied me +a third time. +</p> + +<p> +I pasted the scrap in my neglected book of notes and reflections, where it had +ample space and about equal lucidity. It drew me to the book, nearly driving me +desperate; I was now credulous of anything, except that the princess cared for +help from me. I resolved to go home; I had no longer any zeal for study. The +desolation of the picture of England in my mind grew congenial. It became +imperative that I should go somewhere, for news arrived of my father's approach +with a French company of actors, and deafening entertainments were at hand. On +the whole, I thought it decent to finish my course at the University, if I had +not quite lost the power of getting into the heart of books. One who studies is +not being a fool: that is an established truth. I thanked Dr. Julius for +planting it among my recollections. The bone and marrow of study form the +surest antidote to the madness of that light gambler, the heart, and +distasteful as books were, I had gained the habit of sitting down to them, +which was as good as an instinct toward the right medicine, if it would but +work. +</p> + +<p> +On an afternoon of great heat I rode out for a gaze at the lake-palace, that I +chose to fancy might be the last, foreseeing the possibility of one of my fits +of movement coming on me before sunset. My very pulses throbbed 'away!' +Transferring the sense of overwhelming heat to my moral condition, I thought it +the despair of silliness to stay baking in that stagnant place, where the sky +did nothing but shine, gave nothing forth. The sky was bronze, a vast furnace +dome. The folds of light and shadow everywhere were satin-rich; shadows +perforce of blackness had light in them, and the light a sword-like sharpness +over their edges. It was inanimate radiance. The laurels sparkled as with +frost-points; the denser foliage dropped burning brown: a sickly saint's-ring +was round the heads of the pines. That afternoon the bee hummed of thunder, and +refreshed the ear. +</p> + +<p> +I pitied the horse I rode, and the dog at his heels, but for me the intensity +was inspiriting. Nothing lay in the light, I had the land to myself. 'What +hurts me?' I thought. My physical pride was up, and I looked on the cattle in +black corners of the fields, and here and there a man tumbled anyhow, a wreck +of limbs, out of the insupportable glare, with an even glance. Not an eye was +lifted on me. +</p> + +<p> +I saw nothing that moved until a boat shot out of the bight of sultry +lake-water, lying close below the dark promontory where I had drawn rein. The +rower was old Schwartz Warhead. How my gorge rose at the impartial brute! He +was rowing the princess and a young man in uniform across the lake. +</p> + +<p> +That they should cross from unsheltered paths to close covert was reasonable +conduct at a time when the vertical rays of the sun were fiery arrow-heads. As +soon as they were swallowed in the gloom I sprang in my saddle with torture, +transfixed by one of the coarsest shafts of hideous jealousy. Off I flew, +tearing through dry underwood, and round the bend of the lake, determined to +confront her, wave the man aside, and have my last word with the false woman. +Of the real Ottilia I had lost conception. Blood was inflamed, brain bare of +vision: 'He takes her hand, she jumps from the boat; he keeps her hand, she +feigns to withdraw it, all woman to him in her eyes: they pass out of sight.' A +groan burst from me. I strained my crazy imagination to catch a view of them +under cover of the wood and torture myself trebly, but it was now blank, shut +fast. Sitting bolt upright, panting on horseback in the yellow green of one of +the open woodways, I saw the young officer raise a branch of chestnut and come +out. He walked moodily up to within a yard of my horse, looked up at me, and +with an angry stare that grew to be one of astonishment, said, 'Ah? I think I +have had the pleasure—somewhere? in Wurtemberg, if I recollect.' +</p> + +<p> +It was Prince Otto. I dismounted. He stood alone. The spontaneous question on +my lips would have been 'Where is she?' but I was unable to speak a word. +</p> + +<p> +'English?' he said, patting the horse's neck. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes—the horse? an English hunter. How are you, Prince Otto? Do you like +the look of him?' +</p> + +<p> +'Immensely. You know we have a passion for English thoroughbreds. Pardon me, +you look as if you had been close on a sunstroke. Do you generally take rides +in this weather?' +</p> + +<p> +'I was out by chance. If you like him, pray take him; take him. Mount him and +try him. He is yours if you care to have him; if he doesn't suit you send him +up to Count Fretzel's. I've had riding enough in the light.' +</p> + +<p> +'Perhaps you have,' said he, and hesitated. 'It's difficult to resist the offer +of such a horse. If you want to dispose of him, mention it when we meet again. +Shall I try him? I have a slight inclination to go as hard as you have been +going, but he shall have good grooming in the prince's stables, and that's +less than half as near again as Count Pretzel's place; and a horse like this +ought not to be out in this weather, if you will permit me the remark.' +</p> + +<p> +'No: I'm ashamed of bringing him out, and shan't look on him with +satisfaction,' said I. 'Take him and try him, and then take him from me, if you +don't mind.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you know, I would advise your lying down in the shade awhile?' he observed +solicitously. 'I have seen men on the march in Hungary and Italy. An hour's +rest under cover would have saved them.' +</p> + +<p> +I thanked him. +</p> + +<p> +'Ice is the thing!' he ejaculated. 'I'll ride and have some fetched to you. +Rest here.' +</p> + +<p> +With visible pleasure he swung to the saddle. I saw him fix his cavalry thighs +and bound off as if he meant to take a gate. Had he glanced behind him he would +have fancied that the sun had done its worst. I ran at full speed down the +footpath, mad to think she might have returned homeward by the lake. The two +had parted—why? He this way, she that. They would not have parted but for +a division of the will. I came on the empty boat. Schwartz lay near it beneath +heavy boughs, smoking and perspiring in peace. Neither of us spoke. And it was +now tempered by a fit of alarm that I renewed my search. So when I beheld her, +intense gratitude broke my passion; when I touched her hand it was trembling +for absolute assurance of her safety. She was leaning against a tree, gazing on +the ground, a white figure in that iron-moted gloom. +</p> + +<p> +'Otto!' she cried, shrinking from the touch; but at sight of me, all softly as +a light in the heavens, her face melted in a suffusion of wavering smiles, and +deep colour shot over them, heavenly to see. She pressed her bosom while I +spoke: a lover's speech, breathless. +</p> + +<p> +'You love me?' she said. +</p> + +<p> +'You have known it!' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, yes!' +</p> + +<p> +'Forgiven me? Speak, princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'Call me by my name.' +</p> + +<p> +'My own soul! Ottilia!' +</p> + +<p> +She disengaged her arms tenderly. +</p> + +<p> +'I have known it by my knowledge of myself,' she said, breathing with her lips +dissevered. 'My weakness has come upon me. Yes, I love you. It is spoken. It is +too true. Is it a fate that brings us together when I have just lost my little +remaining strength—all power? You hear me! I pretend to wisdom, and talk +of fate!' +</p> + +<p> +She tried to laugh in scorn of herself, and looked at me with almost a bitter +smile on her features, made beautiful by her soft eyes. I feared from the +helpless hanging of her underlip that she would swoon; a shudder convulsed her; +and at the same time I became aware of the blotting out of sunlight, and a +strange bowing and shore-like noising of the forest. +</p> + +<p> +'Do not heed me,' she said in happy undertones. 'I think I am going to cry like +a girl. One cannot see one's pride die like this, without but it is not anguish +of any kind. Since we are here together, I would have no other change.' +</p> + +<p> +She spoke till the tears came thick. +</p> + +<p> +I told her of the letters I had received, warning me of a trouble besetting +her. They were, perhaps, the excuse for my conduct, if I had any. +</p> + +<p> +Schwartz burst on us with his drill-sergeant's shout for the princess. Standing +grey in big rain-drops he was an object of curiosity to us both. He came to +take her orders. +</p> + +<p> +'The thunder,' he announced, raising a telegraphic arm, 'rolls. It rains. We +have a storm. Command me, princess! your highness!' +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia's eyelids were set blinking by one look aloft. Rain and lightning +filled heaven and earth. +</p> + +<p> +'Direct us, you!' she said to me gently. +</p> + +<p> +The natural proposal was to despatch her giant by the direct way down the lake +to fetch a carriage from the stables, or matting from the boathouse. I +mentioned it, but did not press it. +</p> + +<p> +She meditated an instant. 'I believe I may stay with my beloved?' +</p> + +<p> +Schwartz and I ran to the boat, hauled it on land, and set it keel upward +against a low leafy dripping branch. To this place of shelter, protecting her +as securely as I could, I led the princess, while Schwartz happed a rough +trench around it with one of the sculls. We started him on foot to do the best +thing possible; for the storm gave no promise that it was a passing one. In +truth, I knew that I should have been the emissary and he the guard; but the +storm overhead was not fuller of its mighty burden than I of mine. I looked on +her as mine for the hour, and well won. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"></a> +CHAPTER XXXI.<br/> +PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER</h2> + +<p> +That hour of tempest went swift as one of its flashes over our little nest of +peace, where we crouched like insects. The lightning and the deluge seemed +gloriously endless. Ottilia's harbouring nook was dry within an inch of rushing +floods and pattered mire. On me the torrents descended, and her gentle efforts +drew me to her side, as with a maternal claim to protect me, or to perish in my +arms if the lightning found us. We had for prospect an ever-outbursting flame +of foliage, and the hubbub of the hissing lake, crimson, purple, dusky grey, +like the face of a passionate creature scourged. It was useless to speak. Her +lips were shut, but I had the intent kindness of her eyes on me almost +unceasingly. +</p> + +<p> +The good hour slipped away. Old Warhead's splashed knees on the level of our +heads were seen by us when the thunder had abated. Ottilia prepared to rise. +</p> + +<p> +'You shall hear from me,' she said, bending with brows measuring the boat-roof, +like a bird about to fly. +</p> + +<p> +'Shall I see you?' +</p> + +<p> +'Ultimately you surely will. Ah! still be patient.' +</p> + +<p> +'Am I not? have I not been?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes; and can you regret it?' +</p> + +<p> +'No; but we separate!' +</p> + +<p> +'Would you have us be two feet high for ever?' she answered smiling. +</p> + +<p> +'One foot high, or under earth, if it might be together!' +</p> + +<p> +'Poor little gnomes!' said she. +</p> + +<p> +The homeliness of our resting-place arrested her for an instant, and perhaps a +touch of comic pity for things of such diminutive size as to see nothing but +knees where a man stood. Our heads were hidden. +</p> + +<p> +'Adieu! no pledge is needed,' she said tenderly. +</p> + +<p> +'None!' I replied. +</p> + +<p> +She returned to the upper world with a burning blush. +</p> + +<p> +Schwartz had borne himself with extraordinary discretion by forbearing to +spread alarm at the palace. He saluted his young mistress in the regulation +manner while receiving her beneath a vast umbrella, the holiday peasant's +invariable companion in these parts. A forester was in attendance carrying +shawls, clogs, and matting. The boat was turned and launched. +</p> + +<p> +'Adieu, Harry Richmond. Will you be quite patient till you hear from me?' said +Ottilia, and added, 'It is my question!' delightfully recalling old times. +</p> + +<p> +I was soon gazing at the track of the boat in rough water. +</p> + +<p> +Shouts were being raised somewhere about the forest, and were replied to by +hearty bellow of the rower's lungs. She was now at liberty to join my name to +her own or not, as she willed. I had to wait. But how much richer was I than +all the world! The future owed me nothing. I would have registered a vow to ask +nothing of it. Among the many determined purposes framing which I walked home, +was one to obtain a grant of that bit of land where we had sat together, and +build a temple on it. The fear that it might be trodden by feet of men before I +had enclosed it beset me with anguish. The most absolute pain I suffered sprang +from a bewildering incapacity to conjure up a vision of Ottilia free of the +glittering accessories of her high birth; and that was the pain of shame; but +it came only at intervals, when pride stood too loftily and the shadow of +possible mischance threatened it with the axe. +</p> + +<p> +She did not condemn me to long waiting. Her favourite Aennchen brought me her +first letter. The girl's face beamed, and had a look as if she commended me for +a worthy deed. +</p> + +<p> +'An answer, Aennchen?' I asked her. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, yes!' said she anxiously; 'but it will take more time than I can spare.' +She appointed a meeting near the palace garden-gates at night. +</p> + +<p> +I chose a roof of limes to read under. +</p> + +<p> +'Noblest and best beloved!' the princess addressed me in her own tongue, +doubting, I perceived, as her training had taught her, that my English eyes +would tolerate apostrophes of open-hearted affection. The rest was her English +confided to a critic who would have good reason to be merciful: +</p> + +<p> +'The night has come that writes the chapter of the day. My father has had his +interview with his head-forester to learn what has befallen from the storm in +the forest. All has not been told him! That shall not be delayed beyond +to-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +'I am hurried to it. And I had the thought that it hung perhaps at the very end +of my life among the coloured leaves, the strokes of sunset—that then it +would be known! or if earlier, distant from this strange imperative Now. But we +have our personal freedom now, and I have learnt from minutes what I did mean +to seek from years, and from our forest what I hoped that change of scene, +travel, experience, would teach me. Yet I was right in my intention. It was a +discreet and a just meaning I had. For things will not go smoothly for him at +once: he will have his hard battle. He is proved: he has passed his most brave +ordeal. But I! Shall I see him put to it and not certainly know myself? Even +thus I reasoned. One cannot study without knowing that our human nature is most +frail. Daily the body changes, daily the mind—why not the heart? I did +design to travel and converse with various persons. +</p> + +<p> +'Pardon it to one who knew that she would require super-feminine power of +decision to resolve that she would dispose of herself! +</p> + +<p> +'I heard of Harry Richmond before I saw him. My curiosity to behold the two +fair boys of the sailor kingdom set me whipping my pony after them that day so +remote, which is always yesterday. My thoughts followed you, and I +wondered—does he mean to be a distinguished countryman of his Nelson? or +a man of learning? Then many an argument with “my Professor,” +until—for so it will ever be—the weaker creature did succumb in the +open controversy, and thought her thoughts to herself. Contempt of England +gained on me still. But when I lay withered, though so young, by the sea-shore, +his country's ancient grandeur insisted, and I dreamed of Harry Richmond, +imagining that I had been false to my childhood. You stood before me, dearest. +You were kind: you were strong, and had a gentle voice. Our souls were caught +together on the sea. Do you recollect my slip in the speaking of Lucy Sibley's +marriage?—“We change countries.” At that moment I smelt salt +air, which would bring you to my sight and touch were you and I divided let me +not think how far. +</p> + +<p> +'To-morrow I tell the prince, my father, that I am a plighted woman. Then for +us the struggle, for him the grief. I have to look on him and deal it. +</p> + +<p> +'I can refer him to Dr. Julius for my estimate of my husband's worth. +</p> + +<p> +'“My Professor” was won by it. He once did incline to be the young +bold Englishman's enemy. “Why is he here? what seeks he among us?” +It was his jealousy, not of the man, but of the nation, which would send one to +break and bear away his carefully cultivated German lily. No eye but his did +read me through. And you endured the trial that was forced on you. You made no +claim for recompense when it was over. No, there is no pure love but strong +love! It belongs to our original elements, and of its purity should never be +question, only of its strength. +</p> + +<p> +'I could not help you when you were put under scrutiny before the margravine +and the baroness. Help from me would have been the betrayal of both. The world +has accurate eyes, if they are not very penetrating. The world will see a want +of balance immediately, and also too true a balance, but it will not detect a +depth of concord between two souls that do not show some fretfulness on the +surface. +</p> + +<p> +'So it was considered that in refusing my cousin Otto and other proposed +alliances, I was heart-free. An instructed princess, they thought, was of the +woeful species of woman. You left us: I lost you. I heard you praised for civil +indifference to me—the one great quality you do not possess! Then it was +the fancy of people that I, being very cold, might be suffered to hear my +cousin plead for himself. The majority of our family favour Otto. He was +permitted to woo me as though I had been a simple maid; and henceforth shall I +have pity for all poor little feminine things who are so persecuted, asked to +inflict cruelty—to take a sword and strike with it. But I—who look +on marriage as more than a surrender—I could well withstand surpassing +eloquence. It was easy to me to be inflexible in speech and will when I stood +there, entreated to change myself. But when came magically the other, who is my +heart, my voice, my mate, the half of me, and broke into illumination of things +long hidden—oh! then did I say to you that it was my weakness had come +upon me? It was my last outcry of self—the “I” expiring. I am +now yours, “We” has long overshadowed “I,” and now +engulphs it. We are one. If it were new to me to find myself interrogating the +mind of my beloved, relying on his courage, taking many proofs of his devotion, +I might pause to re-peruse my words here, without scruple, written. I sign it, +before heaven, your Ottilia. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'OTTILIA FREDERIKA WILHELMINA HEDWIG,<br/> +'<i>Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld</i>.' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"></a> +CHAPTER XXXII.<br/> +AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO</h2> + +<p> +A messenger from Prince Ernest commanding my immediate attendance at the palace +signified that the battle had begun. I could have waited for my father, whose +return from one of his expeditions in the prince's service was expected every +instant; but though I knew I should have had a powerful coadjutor in him to +assist me through such a conference, I preferred to go down alone. Prince Otto +met me in the hall. He passed by, glancing an eye sharply, and said over his +shoulder, +</p> + +<p> +'We shall have a word together presently!' +</p> + +<p> +The library door was flung open. Prince Ernest and the margravine were in the +room. She walked out with angry majesty. The prince held his figure in the +stiff attitude of reception. He could look imposing. +</p> + +<p> +The character of the interview was perceptible at once. +</p> + +<p> +'You have not, I presume, to be informed of the business in hand, Mr. +Richmond!' +</p> + +<p> +'Your Highness, I believe I can guess it.' +</p> + +<p> +This started him pacing the floor. +</p> + +<p> +'An impossibility! a monstrous extravagance! a thing unheard of! mania! mania!' +he muttered. 'You are aware, sir, that you have been doing your worst to +destroy the settled arrangements of my family? What does it mean? In common +reason you cannot indulge any legitimate hope of succeeding. Taking you as a +foreigner, you must know that. Judge of the case by your own reigning Families. +Such events never happen amongst them. Do you suppose that the possession of +immense wealth entitles you to the immeasurable presumption of aspiring to +equality of position with reigning Houses? Such folly is more frequently +castigated than reasoned with. Why, now—now, were it published—that +I had condescended—condescend as I am doing, I should be the +laughing-stock of every Court in Europe. You English want many lessons. You are +taught by your scribes to despise the dignity which is not supported by a +multitude of bayonets, guns, and gold. I heard of it when I travelled +incognito. You make merry over little potentates. Good. But do not cross their +paths. Their dominion may be circumscribed, but they have it; and where we are +now, my power equals that of the Kaiser and the Czar. You will do me the favour +to understand that I am not boasting, not menacing; I attempt, since it is +extraordinarily imposed on me, to instruct you. I have cause to be offended; I +waive it. I meet you on common ground, and address myself to your good sense. +Have you anything to say?' +</p> + +<p> +'Much, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Much?' he said, with affected incredulity. +</p> + +<p> +The painful hardship for me was to reply in the vague terms he had been pleased +to use. +</p> + +<p> +'I have much to say, your Highness. First, to ask pardon of you, without +excusing myself.' +</p> + +<p> +'A condition, apparently, that absolves the necessity for the grant. Speak +precisely.' +</p> + +<p> +But I was as careful as he in abstaining from any direct indication of his +daughter's complicity, and said, 'I have offended your Highness. You have done +me the honour to suggest that it is owing to my English training. You will +credit my assurance that the offence was not intentional, not preconceived.' +</p> + +<p> +'You charge it upon your having been trained among a nation of shopkeepers?' +</p> + +<p> +'My countrymen are not illiterate or unmannerly, your Highness.' +</p> + +<p> +'I have not spoken it; I may add, I do not think it.' +</p> + +<p> +'I feared that your Highness entertained what I find to be a very general, +perhaps here and there wilful, error with regard to England.' +</p> + +<p> +'When I was in the service I had a comrade, a gallant gentleman, deeply beloved +by me, and he was an Englishman. He died in the uniform and under the flag I +reverence.' +</p> + +<p> +'I rejoice that your Highness has had this experience of us. I have to imagine +that I expressed myself badly. My English training certainly does not preclude +the respect due to exalted rank. Your Highness will, I trust humbly, pardon my +offence. I do not excuse myself because I cannot withdraw, and I am incapable +of saying that I regret it.' +</p> + +<p> +'In cool blood you utter that?' exclaimed the prince. +</p> + +<p> +His amazement was unfeigned. +</p> + +<p> +'What are the impossible, monstrous ideas you—where—? Who leads you +to fancy there is one earthly chance for you when you say you cannot withdraw? +Cannot? Are you requested? Are you consulted? It is a question to be decided in +the imperative: you must. What wheel it is you think you have sufficient vigour +to stop, I am profoundly unaware, but I am prepared to affirm that it is not +the wheel of my household. I would declare it, were I a plain citizen. You are +a nullity in the case, in point of your individual will—a nullity swept +away with one wave of the hand. You can do this, and nothing else: you can +apologize, recognize your station, repair a degree of mischief that I will not +say was preconceived or plotted. So for awhile pursue your studies, your +travels. In time it will give me pleasure to receive you. Mr. Richmond,' he +added, smiling and rising; 'even the head of a little German principality has +to give numberless audiences.' His features took a more cordial smile to +convince me that the dismissing sentence was merely playful. +</p> + +<p> +As for me, my mind was confused by the visible fact that the father's features +resembled the daughter's. I mention it, that my mind's condition may be +understood. +</p> + +<p> +Hardly had I been bowed out of the room when my father embraced me, and some +minutes later I heard Prince Otto talking to me and demanding answers. That he +or any one else should have hostile sentiments toward a poor devil like me +seemed strange. My gift of the horse appeared to anger him most. I reached the +chateau without once looking back, a dispirited wretch. I shut myself up; I +tried to read. The singular brevity of my interview with the prince, from which +I had expected great if not favourable issues, affected me as though I had been +struck by a cannon shot; my brains were nowhere. His perfect courtesy was +confounding. I was tormented by the delusion that I had behaved +pusillanimously. +</p> + +<p> +My father rushed up to me after dark. Embracing me and holding me by the hand, +he congratulated me with his whole heart. The desire of his life was +accomplished; the thing he had plotted for ages had come to pass. He praised me +infinitely. My glorious future, he said, was to carry a princess to England and +sit among the highest there, the husband of a lady peerless in beauty and in +birth, who, in addition to what she was able to do for me by way of elevation +in my country, could ennoble in her own territory. I had the option of being +the father of English nobles or of German princes; so forth. I did not like the +strain; yet I clung to him. I was compelled to ask whether he had news of any +sort worth hearing. +</p> + +<p> +'None,' said he calmly; 'none. I have everything to hear, nothing to relate; +and, happily, I can hardly speak for joy.' He wept. +</p> + +<p> +He guaranteed to have the margravine at the chateau within a week, which seemed +to me a sufficient miracle. The prince, he said, might require three months of +discretionary treatment. Three further months to bring the family round, and +the princess would be mine. 'But she is yours! she is yours already!' he cried +authoritatively. 'She is the reigning intellect there. I dreaded her very +intellect would give us all the trouble, and behold, it is our ally! The prince +lives with an elbow out of his income. But for me it would be other parts of +his person as well, I assure you, and the world would see such a princely +tatterdemalion as would astonish it. Money to him is important. He must carry +on his mine. He can carry on nothing without my help. By the way, we have to +deal out cheques?' +</p> + +<p> +I assented. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of myself, I caught the contagion of his exuberant happiness and faith +in his genius. The prince had applauded his energetic management of the affairs +of the mine two or three times in my hearing. It struck me that he had really +found his vocation, and would turn the sneer on those who had called him +volatile and reckless. This led me to a luxurious sense of dependence on him, +and I was willing to live on dreaming and amused, though all around me seemed +phantoms, especially the French troupe, the flower of the Parisian stage: +Regnault, Carigny, Desbarolles, Mesdames Blanche Bignet and Dupertuy, and +Mdlle. Jenny Chassediane, the most spirituelle of Frenchwomen. 'They are a part +of our enginery, Richie,' my father said. They proved to be an irresistible +attraction to the margravine. She sent word to my father that she meant to come +on a particular day when, as she evidently knew, I should not be present. Two +or three hours later I had Prince Otto's cartel in my hands. Jorian DeWitt, our +guest at this season, told me subsequently, and with the utmost seriousness, +that I was largely indebted to Mdlle. Jenny for a touching French song of a +beau chevalier she sang before Ottilia in my absence. Both he and my father +believed in the efficacy of this kind of enginery, but, as the case happened, +the beau chevalier was down low enough at the moment his highborn lady listened +to the song. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared that when Prince Otto met me after my interview with Prince Ernest, +he did his best to provoke a rencontre, and failing to get anything but a nod +from my stunned head, betook himself to my University. A friendly young fellow +there, Eckart vom Hof, offered to fight him on my behalf, should I think proper +to refuse. Eckart and two or three others made a spirited stand against the +aristocratic party siding with Prince Otto, whose case was that I had played +him a dishonourable trick to laugh at him. I had, in truth, persuaded him to +relieve me at once of horse and rival at the moment when he was suffering the +tortures of a rejection, and I was rushing to take the hand he coveted; I was +so far guilty. But to how great a degree guiltless, how could I possibly +explain to the satisfaction of an angry man? I had the vision of him leaping on +the horse, while I perused his challenge; saw him fix to the saddle and smile +hard, and away to do me of all services the last he would have performed +wittingly. The situation was exactly of a sort for one of his German +phantasy-writers to image the forest jeering at him as he flew, blind, deaf, +and unreasonable, vehement for one fierce draught of speed. We are all dogged +by the humour of following events when we start on a wind of passion. I could +almost fancy myself an accomplice. I realized the scene with such intensity in +the light running at his heels: it may be quite true that I laughed in the +hearing of his messenger as I folded up the letter. That was the man's report. +I am not commonly one to be forgetful of due observances. +</p> + +<p> +The prospect of the possible eternal separation from my beloved pricked my +mechanical wits and set them tracing the consequent line by which I had been +brought to this pass as to a natural result. Had not my father succeeded in +inspiring the idea that I was something more than something? The tendency of +young men is to conceive it for themselves without assistance; a prolonged puff +from the breath of another is nearly sure to make them mad as kings, and not so +pardonably. +</p> + +<p> +I see that I might have acted wisely, and did not; but that is a speculation +taken apart from my capabilities. If a man's fate were as a forbidden fruit, +detached from him, and in front of him, he might hesitate fortunately before +plucking it; but, as most of us are aware, the vital half of it lies in the +seed-paths he has traversed. We are sons of yesterday, not of the morning. The +past is our mortal mother, no dead thing. Our future constantly reflects her to +the soul. Nor is it ever the new man of to-day which grasps his fortune, good +or ill. We are pushed to it by the hundreds of days we have buried, eager +ghosts. And if you have not the habit of taking counsel with them, you are but +an instrument in their hands. +</p> + +<p> +My English tongue admonishes me that I have fallen upon a tone resembling one +who uplifts the finger of piety in a salon of conversation. A man's review of +the course of his life grows for a moment stringently serious when he beholds +the stream first broadening perchance under the light interpenetrating mine +just now. +</p> + +<p> +My seconds were young Eckart vom Hof, and the barely much older, though already +famous Gregorius Bandelmeyer, a noted mathematician, a savage Republican, +lean-faced, spectacled, and long, soft-fingered; a cat to look at, a tiger to +touch. Both of them were animated by detestation of the Imperial uniform. They +distrusted my skill in the management of the weapon I had chosen; for reasons +of their own they carried a case of pistols to the field. Prince Otto was +attended by Count Loepel and a Major Edelsheim of his army, fresh from the +garrison fortress of Mainz, gentlemen perfectly conversant with the laws of the +game, which my worthy comrades were not. Several minutes were spent in an +altercation between Edelsheim and Bandelmeyer. The major might have had an +affair of his own had he pleased. My feelings were concentrated within the +immediate ring where I stood: I can compare them only to those of a gambler +determined to throw his largest stake and abide the issue. I was not open to +any distinct impression of the surrounding scenery; the hills and leafage +seemed to wear an iron aspect. My darling, my saint's face was shut up in my +heart, and with it a little inaudible cry of love and pain. The prince declined +to listen to apologies. 'He meant to teach me that this was not a laughing +matter.' Major Edelsheim had misunderstood Bandelmeyer; no offer of an apology +had been made. A momentary human sensation of an unworthy sort beset me when I +saw them standing together again, and contrasted the collectedness and +good-humour of my adversary's representative with the vexatious and unnecessary +naggling of mine, the sight of whose yard-long pipe scandalized me. +</p> + +<p> +At last the practical word was given. The prince did not reply to my salute. He +was smoking, and kept his cigar in one corner of his mouth, as if he were a +master fencer bidding his pupil to come on. He assumed that he had to do with a +bourgeois Briton unused to arms, such as we are generally held to be on the +Continent. After feeling my wrist for a while he shook the cigar out of his +teeth. +</p> + +<p> +The 'cliquetis' of the crossed steel must be very distant in memory, and +yourself in a most dilettante frame of mind, for you to be accessible to the +music of that thin skeleton's clank. Nevertheless, it is better and finer even +at the time of action, than the abominable hollow ogre's eye of the +pistol-muzzle. We exchanged passes, the prince chiefly attacking. Of all the +things to strike my thoughts, can you credit me that the vividest was the +picture of the old woman Temple and I had seen in our boyhood on the night of +the fire dropping askew, like forks of brown flame, from the burning house in +London city; I must have smiled. The prince cried out in French: 'Laugh, sir; +you shall have it!' He had nothing but his impetuosity for an assurance of his +promise, and was never able to force me back beyond a foot. I touched him on +the arm and the shoulder, and finally pierced his arm above the elbow. I could +have done nearly what I liked with him; his skill was that of a common +regimental sabreur. +</p> + +<p> +'Ludere qui nescit campestribus abstinet armis!' Bandelmeyer sang out. +</p> + +<p> +'You observed?' said Major Edelsheim, and received another disconcerting +discharge of a Latin line. The prince frowned and made use of some military +slang. Was his honour now satisfied? Not a whit. He certainly could not have +kept his sword-point straight, and yet he clamoured to fight on, stamped, and +summoned me to assault him, proposed to fight me with his left hand after his +right had failed; in short, he was beside himself, an example of the +predicament of a man who has given all the provocation and finds himself +disabled. My seconds could have stopped it had they been equal to their duties; +instead of which Bandelmeyer, hearing what he deemed an insult to the order of +student and scholar, retorted furiously and offensively, and Eckart, out of +good-fellowship, joined him, whereat Major Edelsheim, in the act of bandaging +the prince's arm, warned them that he could not pass by an outrage on his +uniform. Count Loepel stept politely forward, and gave Eckart a significant +bow. The latter remarked mockingly, 'With pleasure and condescension!' At a +murmur of the name of doctor from Edelsheim, the prince damned the doctor until +he or I were food for him. Irritated by the whole scene, and his extravagant +vindictiveness, in which light I regarded the cloak of fury he had flung over +the shame of his defeat, I called to Bandelmeyer to open his case of pistols +and offer them for a settlement. As the proposal came from me, it was found +acceptable. The major remonstrated with the prince, and expressed to me his +regrets and et caeteras of well-meant civility. He had a hard task to keep out +of the hands of Bandelmeyer, who had seized my sword, and wanted vi et armis to +defend the cause of Learning and the People against military brigands on the +spot. If I had not fallen we should have had one or two other prostrate bodies. +</p> + +<p> +A silly business on all sides. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"></a> +CHAPTER XXXIII.<br/> +WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING</h2> + +<p> +The surgeon, who attended us both, loudly admired our mutual delicacy in +sparing arteries and vital organs: but a bullet cuts a rougher pathway than the +neat steel blade, and I was prostrate when the prince came to press my hand on +his departure for his quarters at Laibach. The utterly unreasonable nature of a +duel was manifested by his declaring to me, that he was now satisfied I did not +mean to insult him and then laugh at him. We must regard it rather as a +sudorific for feverish blood and brains. I felt my wound acutely, seeing his +brisk step when he retired. Having overthrown me bodily, it threw my heart back +to its first emotions, and I yearned to set eyes on my father, with a haunting +sense that I had of late injured him and owed him reparation. It vanished after +he had been in my room an hour, to return when he had quitted it, and +incessantly and inexplicably it went and came in this manner. He was depressed. +I longed for drollery, relieved only by chance allusions to my beloved one, +whereas he could not conceal his wish to turn the stupid duel to account. +</p> + +<p> +'Pencil a line to her,' he entreated me, and dictated his idea of a moving +line, adding urgently, that the crippled letters would be affecting to her, as +to the Great Frederick his last review of his invalid veterans. 'Your +name—the signature of your name alone, darling Richie,' and he traced a +crooked scrawl with a forefinger,—“Still, dearest angel, in +contempt of death and blood, I am yours to eternity, Harry Lepel Richmond, +sometimes called Roy—a point for your decision in the future, should the +breath everlastingly devoted to the most celestial of her sex, continue to +animate the frame that would rise on wings to say adieu! +adieu!”—Richie, just a sentence?' +</p> + +<p> +He was distracting. +</p> + +<p> +His natural tenderness and neatness of hand qualified him for spreading peace +in a sick-room; but he was too full of life and his scheme, and knowing me out +of danger, he could not forbear giving his despondency an outlet. I heard him +exclaim in big sighs: 'Heavens! how near!' and again, 'She must hear of it!' +Never was man so incorrigibly dramatic. +</p> + +<p> +He would walk up to a bookcase and take down a volume, when the interjectional +fit waxed violent, flip the pages, affecting a perplexity he would assuredly +have been struck by had he perused them, and read, as he did +once,—'Italy, the land of the sun! and she is to be hurried away there, +and we are left to groan. The conspiracy is infamous! One of the Family takes +it upon himself to murder us! and she is to be hurried out of hearing! And so +we are to have the blood of the Roys spilt for nothing?—no!' and he shut +up the book with a report, and bounded to my side to beg pardon of me. From his +particular abuse of the margravine, the iteration of certain phrases, which he +uttered to denounce and defy them, I gathered that an interview had passed +between the two, and that she had notified a blockade against all letters +addressed to the princess. He half admitted having rushed to the palace on his +road to me. +</p> + +<p> +'But, Richie,' said he, pressing me again to write the moving line, 'a letter +with a broad black border addressed by me might pass.' He looked mournfully +astute. 'The margravine might say to herself, “Here's Doctor Death in +full diploma come to cure the wench of her infatuation.” I am but quoting +the coarse old woman, Richie; confusion on her and me! for I like her. It might +pass in my handwriting, with a smudge for paternal grief—it might. +“To Her Serene Highness the Margravine of Rippau, etc., etc., etc., in +trust for the Most Exalted the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.” I +transpose or omit a title or so. “Aha!” says she, “there's +verwirrung in Roy's poor head, poor fellow; the boy has sunk to a certainty. +Here (to the princess), it seems, my dear, this is for you. Pray do not +communicate the contents for a day or so, or a month.”' +</p> + +<p> +His imitation of the margravine was the pleasantest thing I heard from him. The +princess's maid and confidante, he regretted to state, was incorruptible, which +I knew. That line of Ottilia's writing, 'Violets are over,' read by me in view +of the root-mountain of the Royal House of Princes, scoffed at me insufferably +whenever my father showed me these openings of his mind, until I was dragged +down to think almost that I had not loved the woman and noble soul, but only +the glorified princess—the carved gilt frame instead of the divine +portrait! a shameful acrid suspicion, ransacking my conscience with the +thrusting in of a foul torch here and there. +</p> + +<p> +For why had I shunned him of late? How was it that he tortured me now? Did I in +no degree participate in the poignant savour of his scheme? Such questionings +set me flushing in deadly chills. My brain was weak, my heart exhausted, my +body seemed truthful perforce and confessed on the rack. I could not deny that +I had partly, insensibly clung to the vain glitter of hereditary distinction, +my father's pitfall; taking it for a substantial foothold, when a young man of +wit and sensibility and, mark you, true pride, would have made it his first +care to trample that under heel. Excellent is pride; but oh! be sure of its +foundations before you go on building monument high. I know nothing to equal +the anguish of an examination of the basis of one's pride that discovers it not +solidly fixed; an imposing, self-imposing structure, piled upon empty +cellarage. It will inevitably, like a tree striking bad soil, betray itself at +the top with time. And the anguish I speak of will be the sole healthy sign +about you. Whether in the middle of life it is adviseable to descend the +pedestal altogether, I dare not say. Few take the precaution to build a flight +of steps inside—it is not a labour to be proud of; fewer like to let +themselves down in the public eye—it amounts to a castigation; you must, +I fear, remain up there, and accept your chance in toppling over. But in any +case, delude yourself as you please, your lofty baldness will assuredly be seen +with time. Meanwhile, you cannot escape the internal intimations of your +unsoundness. A man's pride is the front and headpiece of his character, his +soul's support or snare. Look to it in youth. I have to thank the interminable +hours on my wretched sick-bed for a singularly beneficial investigation of the +ledger of my deeds and omissions and moral stock. Perhaps it has already struck +you that one who takes the trouble to sit and write his history for as large a +world as he can obtain, and shape his style to harmonize with every development +of his nature, can no longer have much of the hard grain of pride in him. A +proud puppet-showman blowing into Pandaean pipes is an inconceivable object, +except to those who judge of characteristics from posture. +</p> + +<p> +It began to be observed by others that my father was not the most comforting of +nurses to me. My landlady brought a young girl up to my room, and introduced +her under the name of Lieschen, saying that she had for a long time been +interested in me, and had been diligent in calling to inquire for news of my +condition. Commanded to speak for herself, this Lieschen coloured and said +demurely, 'I am in service here, sir, among good-hearted people, who will give +me liberty to watch by you, for three hours of the afternoon and three of the +early part of the night, if you will honour me.' +</p> + +<p> +My father took her shoulder between finger and thumb, and slightly shook her to +each ejaculation of his emphatic 'No! no! no! no! What! a young maiden nurse to +a convalescent young gentleman! Why, goodness gracious me! Eh?' +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me softly, and I said I wished her to come. +</p> + +<p> +My father appealed to the sagacity of the matron. So jealous was he of a +suggested partner in his task that he had refused my earnest requests to have +Mr. Peterborough to share the hours of watching by my side. The visits of +college friends and acquaintances were cut very short, he soon reduced them to +talk in a hush with thumbs and nods and eyebrows; and if it had not been so +annoying to me, I could have laughed at his method of accustoming the regular +visitors to make ready, immediately after greeting, for his affectionate +dismissal of them. Lieschen went away with the mute blessing of his finger on +one of her modest dimples; but, to his amazement, she returned in the evening. +He gave her a lecture, to which she listened attentively, and came again in the +morning. He was petrified. 'Idiots, insects, women, and the salt sea ocean!' +said he, to indicate a list of the untameables, without distressing the one +present, and, acknowledging himself beaten, he ruefully accepted his holiday. +</p> + +<p> +The girl was like sweet Spring in my room. She spoke of Sarkeld familiarly. She +was born in that neighbourhood, she informed me, and had been educated by a +dear great lady. Her smile of pleasure on entering the room one morning, and +seeing me dressed and sitting in a grand-fatherly chair by the breezy window, +was like a salutation of returning health. My father made another stand against +the usurper of his privileges; he refused to go out. +</p> + +<p> +'Then must I go,' said Lieschen, 'for two are not allowed here.' +</p> + +<p> +'No! don't leave me,' I begged of her, and stretched out my hands for hers, +while she gazed sadly from the doorway. He suspected some foolishness or he was +actually jealous. 'Hum-oh!' He went forth with a murmured groan. +</p> + +<p> +She deceived me by taking her seat in perfect repose. +</p> + +<p> +After smoothing her apron, 'Now I must go,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +'What! to leave me here alone?' +</p> + +<p> +She looked at the clock, and leaned out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +'Not alone; oh, not alone!' the girl exclaimed. 'And please, please do not +mention me—presently. Hark! do you hear wheels? Your heart must not beat. +Now farewell. You will not be alone: at least, so I think. See what I wear, +dear Mr. Patient!' She drew from her bosom, attached to a piece of blue ribbon, +the half of an English shilling, kissed it, and blew a soft farewell to me: +</p> + +<p> +She had not been long gone when the Princess Ottilia stood in her place. +</p> + +<p> +A shilling tossed by an English boy to a couple of little foreign girls in a +woodman's hut!—you would not expect it to withstand the common fate of +silver coins, and preserve mysterious virtues by living celibate, neither +multiplying nor reduced, ultimately to play the part of a powerful magician in +bringing the boy grown man to the feet of an illustrious lady, and her to his +side in sickness, treasonably to the laws of her station. The little women +quarrelled over it, and snatched and hid and contemplated it in secret, each in +her turn, until the strife it engendered was put an end to by a doughty smith, +their mother's brother, who divided it into equal halves, through which he +drove a hole, and the pieces being now thrown out of the currency, each one +wore her share of it in her bosom from that time, proudly appeased. They were +not ordinary peasant children, and happily for them they had another friend +that was not a bird of passage, and was endowed by nature and position to do +the work of an angel. She had them educated to read, write, and knit, and learn +pretty manners, and in good season she took one of the sisters to wait on her +own person. The second went, upon her recommendation, into the household of a +Professor of a neighbouring University. But neither of them abjured her +superstitious belief in the proved merits of the talisman she wore. So when +they saw the careless giver again they remembered him; their gratitude was as +fresh as on that romantic morning of their childhood, and they resolved without +concert to serve him after their own fashion, and quickly spied a way to it. +They were German girls. +</p> + +<p> +You are now enabled to guess more than was known to Ottilia and me of the +curious agency at work to shuffle us together. The doors of her suite in the +palace were barred against letters addressed to the princess; the delivery of +letters to her was interdicted, she consenting, yet she found one: it lay on +the broad walk of the orange-trees, between the pleasure and the fruit-gardens, +as if dropped by a falcon in mid air. Ottilia beheld it, and started. Her +little maid walking close by, exclaimed, scuttling round in front of her the +while like an urchin in sabots, +</p> + +<p> +'Ha! what is it? a snake? let me! let me!' The guileless mistress replied, 'A +letter!' Whereupon the maid said: 'Not a window near! and no wall neither! Why, +dearest princess, we have walked up and down here a dozen times and not seen it +staring at us! Oh, my good heaven!' The letter was seized and opened, and +Ottilia read: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'He who loves you with his heart has been cruelly used. They have shot him. He +is not dead. He must not die. He is where he has studied since long. He has his +medicine and doctors, and they say the bullet did not lodge. He has not the +sight that cures. Now is he, the strong young man, laid helpless at anybody's +mercy.' +</p> + +<p> +She supped at her father's table, and amused the margravine and him alternately +with cards and a sonata. Before twelve at midnight she was driving on the road +to the University, saying farewell to what her mind reverenced, so that her +lover might but have sight of her. She imagined I had been assassinated. For a +long time, and most pertinaciously, this idea dwelt with her. I could not +dispossess her of it, even after uttering the word 'duel' I know not how often. +I had flatly to relate the whole of the circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +'But Otto is no assassin,' she cried out. +</p> + +<p> +What was that she reverenced? It was what she jeopardized—her state, her +rank, her dignity as princess and daughter of an ancient House, things typical +to her of sovereign duties, and the high seclusion of her name. To her the +escapades of foolish damsels were abominable. The laws of society as well as of +her exalted station were in harmony with her intelligence. She thought them +good, but obeyed them as a subject, not slavishly: she claimed the right to +exercise her trained reason. The modestest, humblest, sweetest of women, +undervaluing nothing that she possessed, least of all what was due from her to +others, she could go whithersoever her reason directed her, putting anything +aside to act justly according to her light. Nor would she have had cause to +repent had I been the man she held me to be. Even with me she had not behaved +precipitately. My course of probation was severe and long before she allowed +her heart to speak. +</p> + +<p> +Pale from a sleepless night and her heart's weariful eagerness to be near me, +she sat by my chair, holding my hand, and sometimes looking into my eyes to +find the life reflecting hers as in a sunken well that has once been a spring. +My books and poor bachelor comforts caught her attention between-whiles. We +talked of the day of storm by the lake; we read the unsigned letter. With her +hand in mine I slept some minutes, and awoke grasping it, doubting and +terrified, so great a wave of life lifted me up. +</p> + +<p> +'No! you are not gone,' I sighed. +</p> + +<p> +'Only come,' said she. +</p> + +<p> +The nature of the step she had taken began to dawn on me. +</p> + +<p> +'But when they miss you at the palace? Prince Ernest?' +</p> + +<p> +'Hush! they have missed me already. It is done.' She said it smiling. +</p> + +<p> +'Ottilia, will he take you away?' +</p> + +<p> +'Us, dear, us.' +</p> + +<p> +'Can you meet his anger?' +</p> + +<p> +'Our aunt will be the executioner. We have a day of sweet hours before she can +arrive.' +</p> + +<p> +'May I see her first?' +</p> + +<p> +'We will both see her as we are now.' +</p> + +<p> +'We must have prompt answers for the margravine.' +</p> + +<p> +'None, Harry. I do not defend myself ever.' +</p> + +<p> +Distant hills, and folds of receding clouds and skies beyond them, were visible +from my window, and beyond the skies I felt her soul. +</p> + +<p> +'Ottilia, you were going to Italy?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes: or whither they please, for as long as they please. I wished once to go, +I have told you why. One of the series' (she touched the letter lying on a +reading-table beside her) 'turned the channel of all wishes and intentions. My +friends left me to fall at the mercy of this one. I consented to the injunction +that I should neither write nor receive letters. Do I argue ill in saying that +a trust was implied? Surely it was a breach of the trust to keep me ignorant of +the danger of him I love! Now they know it. I dared not consult them—not +my dear father! about any design of mine when I had read this odd copybook +writing, all in brief sentences, each beginning “he” and +“he.” It struck me like thrusts of a sword; it illuminated me like +lightning. That “he” was the heart within my heart. The writer must +be some clever woman or simple friend, who feels for us very strongly. My lover +assassinated, where could I be but with him?' +</p> + +<p> +Her little Ann coming in with chocolate and strips of fine white bread to dip +in it stopped my efforts to explain the distinction between an assassination +and a duel. I noticed then the likeness of Aennchen to Lieschen. +</p> + +<p> +'She has a sister here,' said Ottilia; 'and let her bring Lieschen to visit me +here this afternoon.' +</p> + +<p> +Aennchen, with a blush, murmured, that she heard and would obey. I had a +memorable pleasure in watching my beloved eat and drink under my roof. +</p> + +<p> +The duel remained incomprehensible to her. She first frightened me by remarking +that duels were the pastime of brainless young men. Her next remark, in answer +to my repeated attempts to shield my antagonist from a capital charge: 'But +only military men and Frenchmen fight duels!' accompanied by a slightly +investigating glance of timid surprise, gave me pain, together with a flashing +apprehension of what she had forfeited, whom offended, to rush to the succour +of a duellist. I had to repeat to her who my enemy was, so that there should be +no further mention of assassination. Prince Otto's name seemed to entangle her +understanding completely. +</p> + +<p> +'Otto! Otto!' she murmured; 'he has, I have heard, been obliged by some +so-called laws of honour once or twice to—to—he is above suspicion +of treachery! To my mind it is one and the same, but I would not harshly +exclude the view the world puts on things; and I use the world's language in +saying that he could not do a dishonourable deed. How far he honours himself is +a question apart. That may be low enough, while the world is full of a man's +praises.' +</p> + +<p> +She knew the nature of a duel. 'It is the work of soulless creatures!' she +broke through my stammered explanations with unwonted impatience, and pressing +my hand: 'Ah! You are safe. I have you still. Do you know, Harry, I am not yet +able to endure accidents and misadventures: I have not fortitude to meet them, +or intelligence to account for them. They are little ironical laughter. Say we +build so high: the lightning strikes us:—why build at all? The Summer fly +is happier. If I had lost you! I can almost imagine that I should have asked +for revenge. For why should the bravest and purest soul of my worship be +snatched away? I am not talking wisdom, only my shaken self will speak just +now! I pardon Otto, though he has behaved basely.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, not basely,' I felt bound to plead on his behalf, thinking, in spite of a +veritable anguish of gathering dread, that she had become enlightened and would +soon take the common view of our case; 'not basely. He was excessively +irritated, without cause in my opinion; he simply misunderstood certain +matters. Dearest, you have nations fighting: a war is only an exaggerated form +of duelling.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nations at war are wild beasts,' she replied. 'The passions of these hordes of +men are not an example for a living soul. Our souls grow up to the light: we +must keep eye on the light, and look no lower. Nations appear to me to have no +worse than a soiled mirror of themselves in mobs. They are still uncivilized: +they still bear a resemblance to the old monsters of the mud. Do you not see +their claws and fangs, Harry? Do you find an apology in their acts for +intemperate conduct? Men who fight duels appear in my sight no nobler than the +first desperate creatures spelling the cruel A B C of the passions.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, nor in mine,' I assented hastily. 'We are not perfect. But hear me. Yes, +the passions are cruel. Circumstances however—I mean, there are social +usages—Ay, if one were always looking up! But should we not be gentle +with our comparisons if we would have our views in proportion?' +</p> + +<p> +She hung studiously silent, and I pursued: +</p> + +<p> +'I trust you so much as my helper and my friend that I tell you what we do not +usually tell to women—the facts, and the names connected with them. +Sooner or later you would have learnt everything. Beloved, I do not wait to let +you hear it by degrees, to be reconciled to it piecemeal.' +</p> + +<p> +'And I forgive him,' she sighed. 'I scarcely bring myself to believe that Harry +has bled from Otto's hand.' +</p> + +<p> +'It was the accident of the case, Ottilia. We had to meet.' +</p> + +<p> +'To meet?' +</p> + +<p> +'There are circumstances when men will not accept apologies; +they—we—heaven knows, I was ready to do all that a man could do to +avoid this folly—wickedness; give it the worst of titles!' +</p> + +<p> +'It did not occur accidentally?' she inquired. Her voice sounded strange, half +withheld in the utterance. +</p> + +<p> +'It occurred,' said I, feeling my strength ebb and despair set in, 'it +occurred—the prince compelled me to the meet him.' +</p> + +<p> +'But my cousin Otto is no assassin? +</p> + +<p> +'Compelled, I say: that is, he conceived I had injured him, and left me no +other way of making amends.' +</p> + +<p> +Her defence of Otto was in reality the vehement cherishing of her idea of me. +This caused her bewilderment, and like a barrier to the flowing of her mind it +resisted and resisted. She could not suffer herself to realize that I was one +of the brainless young savages, creatures with claws and fangs. +</p> + +<p> +Her face was unchanged to me. The homeliness of her large mild eyes embraced me +unshadowed, and took me to its inner fire unreservedly. Leaning in my roomy +chair, I contemplated her at leisure while my heart kept saying 'Mine! mine!' +to awaken an active belief in its possession. Her face was like the quiet +morning of a winter day when cloud and sun intermix and make an ardent silver, +with lights of blue and faint fresh rose; and over them the beautiful fold of +her full eyebrow on the eyelid like a bending upper heaven. Those winter +mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly. The earth is still, as if +awaiting. A wren warbles, and flits through the lank drenched brambles; +hill-side opens green; elsewhere is mist, everywhere expectancy. They bear the +veiled sun like a sangreal aloft to the wavy marble flooring of stainless +cloud. +</p> + +<p> +She was as fair. Gazing across her shoulder's gentle depression, I could have +desired to have the couchant brow, and round cheek, and rounding chin no more +than a young man's dream of woman, a picture alive, without the animating +individual awful mind to judge of me by my acts. I chafed at the thought that +one so young and lovely should meditate on human affairs at all. She was of an +age to be maidenly romantic: our situation favoured it. But she turned to me, +and I was glad of the eyes I knew. She kissed me on the forehead. +</p> + +<p> +'Sleep,' she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +I feigned sleep to catch my happiness about me. +</p> + +<p> +Some disenchanting thunder was coming, I was sure, and I was right. My father +entered. +</p> + +<p> +'Princess!' He did amazed and delighted homage, and forthwith uncontrollably +poured out the history of my heroism, a hundred words for one;—my +promptitude in picking the prince's glove up on my sword's point, my fine play +with the steel, my scornful magnanimity, the admiration of my +fellow-students;—every line of it; in stupendous language; an artillery +celebration of victory. I tried to stop him. Ottilia rose, continually +assenting, with short affirmatives, to his glorifying interrogations—a +method he had of recapitulating the main points. She glanced to right and left, +as if she felt caged. +</p> + +<p> +'Is it known?' I heard her ask, in the half audible strange voice which had +previously made me tremble. +</p> + +<p> +'Known? I certify to you, princess,'—the unhappy man spouted his +withering fountain of interjections over us anew; known in every Court and +garrison of Germany! Known by this time in Old England! And, what was more, the +correct version of it was known! It was known that the young Englishman had +vanquished his adversary with the small sword, and had allowed him, because he +had raged demoniacally on account of his lamed limb, to have a shot in revenge. +</p> + +<p> +'The honour done me by the princess in visiting me is not to be known,' I +summoned energy enough to say. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +My father pledged himself to the hottest secresy, equivalent to a calm denial +of the fact, if necessary. +</p> + +<p> +'Pray be at no trouble,' she addressed him. +</p> + +<p> +The 'Where am I?' look was painful in her aspect. +</p> + +<p> +It led me to perceive the difference of her published position in visiting a +duellist lover instead of one assassinated. In the latter case, the rashness of +an hereditary virgin princess avowing her attachment might pass condoned or +cloaked by general compassion. How stood it in the former? I had dragged her +down to the duellist's level! And as she was not of a nature to practise +concealments, and scorned to sanction them, she was condemned, seeing that +concealment as far as possible was imperative, to suffer bitterly in her own +esteem. This, the cruellest, was the least of the evils. To keep our names +disjoined was hopeless. My weakened frame and mental misery coined tears when +thoughts were needed. +</p> + +<p> +Presently I found the room empty of our poor unconscious tormentor. Ottilia had +fastened her hand to mine again. +</p> + +<p> +'Be generous,' I surprised her by saying. 'Go back at once. I have seen you! +Let my father escort you the road. You will meet the margravine, or some one. I +think, with you, it will be the margravine, and my father puts her in good +humour. Pardon a wretched little scheme to save you from annoyance! So thus you +return within a day, and the margravine, shelters you. Your name will not be +spoken. But go at once, for the sake of Prince Ernest. I have hurt him already; +help me to avoid doing him a mortal injury. It was Schwartz who drove you? our +old Schwartz! Old Warhead! You see, we may be safe; only every fresh minute +adds to the danger. And another reason for going—another—' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah!' she breathed, 'my Harry will talk himself into a fever.' +</p> + +<p> +'I shall have it if the margravine comes here.' +</p> + +<p> +'She shall not be admitted.' +</p> + +<p> +'Or if I hear her, or hear that she has come! Consent at once, and revive me. +Oh! I am begging you to leave me, and wishing it with all my soul. Think over +what I have done. Do not write to me. I shall see the compulsion of mere +kindness between the lines. You consent. Your wisdom I never doubt—I +doubt my own.' +</p> + +<p> +'When it is yours you would persuade me to confide in?' said she, with some +sorrowful archness. +</p> + +<p> +Wits clear as hers could see that I had advised well, except in proposing my +father for escort. It was evidently better that she should go as she came. +</p> + +<p> +I refrained from asking her what she thought of me now. Suing for immediate +pardon would have been like the applying of a lancet to a vein for blood: it +would have burst forth, meaning mere words coloured by commiseration, kindness, +desperate affection, anything but her soul's survey of herself and me; and +though I yearned for the comfort passion could give me, I knew the mind I was +dealing with, or, rather, I knew I was dealing with a mind; and I kept my +tongue silent. The talk between us was of the possible date of my recovery, the +hour of her return to the palace, the writer of the unsigned letters, books we +had read apart or peeped into together. She was a little quicker in speech, +less meditative. My sensitive watchfulness caught no other indication of a +change. +</p> + +<p> +My father drove away an hour in advance of the princess to encounter the +margravine. +</p> + +<p> +'By,' said he, rehearsing his exclamation of astonishment and delight at +meeting her, 'by the most miraculous piece of good fortune conceivable, dear +madam. And now comes the question, since you have condescended to notice a +solitary atom of your acquaintance on the public highroad, whether I am to have +the honour of doubling the freight of your carriage, or you will deign to +embark in mine? But the direction of the horses' heads must be reversed, +absolutely it must, if your Highness would repose in a bed to-night. Good. So. +And now, at a conversational trot, we may happen to be overtaken by +acquaintances.' +</p> + +<p> +I had no doubt of his drawing on his rarely-abandoned seven-league boots of +jargon, once so delicious to me, for the margravine's entertainment. His lack +of discernment in treating the princess to it ruined my patience. +</p> + +<p> +The sisters Aennchen and Lieschen presented themselves a few minutes before his +departure. Lieschen dropped at her feet. +</p> + +<p> +'My child,' said the princess, quite maternally, 'could you be quit of your +service with the Mahrlens for two weeks, think you, to do duty here?' +</p> + +<p> +'The Professor grants her six hours out of the twenty-four already,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'To go where?' she asked, alarmed. +</p> + +<p> +'To come here.' +</p> + +<p> +'Here? She knows you? She did not curtsey to you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nurses do not usually do that.' +</p> + +<p> +The appearance of both girls was pitiable; but having no suspicion of the cause +for it, I superadded, +</p> + +<p> +'She was here this morning.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah! we owe her more than we were aware of.' +</p> + +<p> +The princess looked on her kindly, though with suspense in the expression. +</p> + +<p> +'She told me of my approaching visitor,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! not told!' Lieschen burst out. +</p> + +<p> +'Did you,'—the princess questioned her, and murmured to me, 'These +children cannot speak falsehoods,' they shone miserably under the burden of +uprightness 'did you make sure that I should come?' +</p> + +<p> +Lieschen thought—she supposed. But why? Why did she think and suppose? +What made her anticipate the princess's arrival? This inveterate why +communicated its terrors to Aennchen, upon whom the princess turned +scrutinizing eyes, saying, 'You write of me to your sister?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'And she to you?' +</p> + +<p> +Lieschen answered: 'Forgive me, your Highness, dearest lady!' +</p> + +<p> +'You offered yourself here unasked?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you written to others besides your sister?' +</p> + +<p> +'Seldom, princess; I do not remember.' +</p> + +<p> +'You know the obligation of signatures to letters?' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah!' +</p> + +<p> +'You have been remiss in not writing to me, child.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, princess! I did not dare to.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have not written to me?' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah! princess, how dared I?' +</p> + +<p> +'Are you speaking truthfully?' +</p> + +<p> +The unhappy girls stood trembling. Ottilia spared them the leap into the gulfs +of confession. Her intuitive glance, assisted by a combination of minor facts, +had read the story of their misdeeds in a minute. She sent them down to the +carriage, suffering her culprits to kiss her fingers; while she said to one: +'This might be a fable of a pair of mice.' +</p> + +<p> +When she was gone, after many fits of musing, the signification of it was +revealed to my slower brain. I felt that it could not but be an additional +shock to the regal pride of such a woman that these little maidens should have +been permitted to act forcibly on her destiny. The mystery of the letters was +easily explained as soon as a direct suspicion fell on one of the girls who +lived in my neighbourhood and the other who was near the princess's person. +Doubtless the revelation of their effective mouse plot had its humiliating +bitterness for her on a day of heavy oppression, smile at it as she +subsequently might. The torture of heart with which I twisted the meaning of +her words about the pair of mice to imply that the pair had conspired to make a +net for an eagle and had enmeshed her, may have struck a vein of the truth. I +could see no other antithesis to the laudable performance of the single mouse +of fable. Lieschen, when she next appeared in the character of nurse, met my +inquiries by supplicating me to imitate her sister's generous mistress, and be +merciful. +</p> + +<p> +She remarked by-and-by, of her own accord: 'Princess Ottilia does not regret +that she had us educated.' +</p> + +<p> +A tender warmth crept round me in thinking that a mind thus lofty would surely +be, however severe in its insight, above regrets and recantations. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"></a> +CHAPTER XXXIV.<br/> +I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE</h2> + +<p> +I had a visit from Prince Ernest, nominally one of congratulation on my escape. +I was never in my life so much at any man's mercy: he might have fevered me to +death with reproaches, and I expected them on hearing his name pronounced at +the door. I had forgotten the ways of the world. For some minutes I listened +guardedly to his affable talk. My thanks for the honour done me were awkward, +as if they came upon reflection. The prince was particularly civil and +cheerful. His relative, he said, had written of me in high terms—the very +highest, declaring that I was blameless in the matter, and that, though he had +sent the horse back to my stables, he fully believed in the fine qualities of +the animal, and acknowledged his fault in making it a cause of provocation. To +all of which I assented with easy nods. +</p> + +<p> +'Your Shakespeare, I think,' said the prince, 'has a scene of young Frenchmen +praising their horses. I myself am no stranger to the enthusiasm: one could not +stake life and honour on a nobler brute. Pardon me if I state my opinion that +you young Englishmen of to-day are sometimes rather overbearing in your +assumption of a superior knowledge of horseflesh. We Germans in the Baltic +provinces and in the Austrian cavalry think we have a right to a remark or two; +and if we have not suborned the testimony of modern history, the value of our +Hanoverian troopers is not unknown to one at least of your Generals. However, +the odds are that you were right and Otto wrong, and he certainly put himself +in the wrong to defend his ground.' +</p> + +<p> +I begged him to pass a lenient sentence upon fiery youth. He assured me that he +remembered his own. Our interchange of courtesies was cordially commonplace: we +walked, as it were, arm-in-arm on thin ice, rivalling one another's gentlemanly +composure. Satisfied with my discretion, the prince invited me to the +lake-palace, and then a week's shooting in Styria to recruit. I thanked him in +as clear a voice as I could command: +</p> + +<p> +'Your Highness, the mine flourishes, I trust?' +</p> + +<p> +'It does; I think I may say it does,' he replied. 'There is always the want of +capital. What can be accomplished, in the present state of affairs, your father +performs, on the whole, well. You smile—but I mean extraordinarily well. +He has, with an accountant at his elbow, really the genius of management. He +serves me busily, and, I repeat, well. A better employment for him than the +direction of Court theatricals?' +</p> + +<p> +'Undoubtedly it is.' +</p> + +<p> +'Or than bestriding a bronze horse, personifying my good ancestor! Are you +acquainted with the Chancellor von Redwitz?' +</p> + +<p> +'All I know of him, sir, is that he is fortunate to enjoy the particular +confidence of his master.' +</p> + +<p> +'He has a long head. But, now, he is a disappointing man in action; +responsibility overturns him. He is the reverse of Roy, whose advice I do not +take, though I'm glad to set him running. Von Redwitz is in the town. He shall +call on you, and amuse an hour or so of your convalescence.' +</p> + +<p> +I confessed that I began to feel longings for society. +</p> + +<p> +Prince Ernest was kind enough to quit me without unmasking. I had not to learn +that the simplest visits and observations of ruling princes signify more than +lies on the surface. Interests so highly personal as theirs demand from them a +decent insincerity. +</p> + +<p> +Chancellor von Redwitz called on me, and amused me with secret anecdotes of all +the royal Houses of Germany, amusing chiefly through the veneration he still +entertained for them. The grave senior was doing his utmost to divert one of my +years. The immoralities of blue blood, like the amours of the Gods, were to his +mind tolerable, if not beneficial to mankind, and he presumed I should find +them toothsome. Nay, he besought me to coincide in his excuses of a widely +charming young archduchess, for whom no estimable husband of a fitting rank +could anywhere be discovered, so she had to be bestowed upon an archducal +imbecile; and hence—and hence—Oh, certainly! Generous youth and +benevolent age joined hands of exoneration over her. The princess of Satteberg +actually married, under covert, a colonel of Uhlans at the age of seventeen; +the marriage was quashed, the colonel vanished, the princess became the +scandalous Duchess of Ilm-Ilm, and was surprised one infamous night in the +outer court of the castle by a soldier on guard, who dragged her into the +guard-room and unveiled her there, and would have been summarily shot for his +pains but for the locket on his breast, which proved him to be his sovereign's +son.—A perfect romance, Mr. Chancellor. We will say the soldier son loved +a delicate young countess in attendance on the duchess. The countess spies the +locket, takes it to the duchess, is reprimanded, when behold! the locket opens, +and Colonel von Bein appears as in his blooming youth, in Lancer +uniform.—Young sir, your piece of romance has exaggerated history to +caricature. Romances are the destruction of human interest. The moment you +begin to move the individuals, they are puppets. 'Nothing but poetry, and I say +it who do not read it'—(Chancellor von Redwitz is the speaker) 'nothing +but poetry makes romances passable: for poetry is the everlastingly and +embracingly human. Without it your fictions are flat foolishness, +non-nourishing substance—a species of brandy and gruel!—diet for +craving stomachs that can support nothing solider, and must have the weak stuff +stiffened. Talking of poetry, there was an independent hereditary princess of +Leiterstein in love with a poet!—a Leonora d'Este!—This was no +Tasso. Nevertheless, she proposed to come to nuptials. Good, you observe? I +confine myself to the relation of historical circumstances; in other words, +facts; and of good or bad I know not.' +</p> + +<p> +Chancellor von Redwitz smoothed the black silk stocking of his crossed leg, and +set his bunch of seals and watch-key swinging. He resumed, entirely to amuse +me, +</p> + +<p> +'The Princess Elizabeth of Leiterstein promised all the qualities which the +most solicitous of paternal princes could desire as a guarantee for the +judicious government of the territory to be bequeathed to her at his demise. +But, as there is no romance to be extracted from her story, I may as well tell +you at once that she did not espouse the poet.' +</p> + +<p> +'On the contrary, dear Mr. Chancellor, I am interested in the princess. +Proceed, and be as minute as you please.' +</p> + +<p> +'It is but a commonplace excerpt of secret historical narrative buried among +the archives of the Family, my good Mr. Richmond. The Princess Elizabeth +thoughtlessly pledged her hand to the young sonneteer. Of course, she could not +fulfil her engagement.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why not?' +</p> + +<p> +'You see, you are impatient for romance, young gentleman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not at all, Mr. Chancellor. I do but ask a question.' +</p> + +<p> +'You fence. Your question was dictated by impatience.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, for the facts and elucidations! +</p> + +<p> +'For the romance, that is. You wish me to depict emotions.' +</p> + +<p> +Hereupon this destroyer of temper embrowned his nostrils with snuff, +adding,—'I am unable to.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then one is not to learn why the princess could not fulfil her engagement?' +</p> + +<p> +'Judged from the point of view of the pretender to the supreme honour of the +splendid alliance, the fault was none of hers. She overlooked his humble, his +peculiarly dubious, birth.' +</p> + +<p> +'Her father interposed?' +</p> + +<p> +'No.' +</p> + +<p> +'The Family?' +</p> + +<p> +'Quite inefficacious to arrest her determinations.' +</p> + +<p> +'What then—what was in her way?' +</p> + +<p> +'Germany.' +</p> + +<p> +'What?' +</p> + +<p> +'Great Germany, young gentleman. I should have premised that, besides mental, +she had eminent moral dispositions,—I might term it the conscience of her +illustrious rank. She would have raised the poet to equal rank beside her had +she possessed the power. She could and did defy the Family, and subdue her +worshipping father, the most noble prince, to a form of paralysis of +acquiescence—if I make myself understood. But she was unsuccessful in her +application for the sanction of the Diet.' +</p> + +<p> +'The Diet?' +</p> + +<p> +'The German Diet. Have you not lived among us long enough to know that the +German Diet is the seat of domestic legislation for the princely Houses of +Germany? A prince or a princess may say, “I will this or that.” The +Diet says, “Thou shalt not”; pre-eminently, “Thou shalt not +mix thy blood with that of an impure race, nor with blood of inferiors.” +Hence, we have it what we see it, a translucent flood down from the topmost +founts of time. So we revere it. “Qua man and woman,” the Diet +says, by implication, “do as you like, marry in the ditches, spawn +plentifully. Qua prince and princess, No! Your nuptials are nought. Or would +you maintain them a legal ceremony, and be bound by them, you descend, you go +forth; you are no reigning sovereign, you are a private person.” His +Serene Highness the prince was thus prohibited from affording help to his +daughter. The princess was reduced to the decision either that she, the sole +child born of him in legal wedlock, would render him qua prince childless, or +that she would—in short, would have her woman's way. The sovereignty of +Leiterstein continued uninterruptedly with the elder branch. She was a true +princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'A true woman,' said I, thinking the sneer weighty. +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor begged me to recollect that he had warned me there was no +romance to be expected. +</p> + +<p> +I bowed; and bowed during the remainder of the interview. +</p> + +<p> +Chancellor von Redwitz had performed his mission. The hours of my convalescence +were furnished with food for amusement sufficient to sustain a year's blockade; +I had no further longing for society, but I craved for fresh air intensely. +</p> + +<p> +Did Ottilia know that this iron law, enforced with the might of a whole empire, +environed her, held her fast from any motion of heart and will? I could not get +to mind that the prince had hinted at the existence of such a law. Yet why +should he have done so? The word impossible, in which he had not been sparing +when he deigned to speak distinctly, comprised everything. More profitable than +shooting empty questions at the sky was the speculation on his project in +receiving me at the palace, and that was dark. My father, who might now have +helped me, was off on duty again. +</p> + +<p> +I found myself driving into Sarkeld with a sense of a whirlwind round my head; +wheels in multitudes were spinning inside, striking sparks for thoughts. I met +an orderly in hussar uniform of blue and silver, trotting on his errand. There +he was; and whether many were behind him or he stood for the army in its might, +he wore the trappings of an old princely House that nestled proudly in the +bosom of its great jealous Fatherland. Previously in Sarkeld I had noticed +members of the diminutive army to smile down on them. I saw the princely arms +and colours on various houses and in the windows of shops. Emblems of a small +State, they belonged to the history of the Empire. The Court-physician passed +with a bit of ribbon in his buttonhole. A lady driving in an open carriage +encouraged me to salute her. She was the wife of the Prince's Minister of +Justice. Upon what foundation had I been building? +</p> + +<p> +A reflection of the ideas possessing me showed Riversley, my undecorated home +of rough red brick, in the middle of barren heaths. I entered the palace, I +sent my respects to the prince. In return, the hour of dinner was ceremoniously +named to me: ceremony damped the air. I had been insensible to it before, or so +I thought, the weight was now so crushing. Arms, emblems, colours, liveries, +portraits of princes and princesses of the House, of this the warrior, that the +seductress, burst into sudden light. What had I to do among them? +</p> + +<p> +The presence of the living members of the Family was an extreme physical +relief. +</p> + +<p> +For the moment, beholding Ottilia, I counted her but as one of them. She +welcomed me without restraint. +</p> + +<p> +We chattered pleasantly at the dinner-table. +</p> + +<p> +'Ah! You missed our French troupe,' said the margravine.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes,' said I, resigning them to her. She nodded: +</p> + +<p> +'And one very pretty little woman they had, I can tell you—for a +Frenchwoman.' +</p> + +<p> +'You thought her pretty? Frenchwomen know what to do with their brains and +their pins, somebody has said.' +</p> + +<p> +'And exceedingly well said, too. Where is that man Roy? Good things always +remind me of him.' +</p> + +<p> +The question was addressed to no one in particular. The man happened to be my +father, I remembered. A second allusion to him was answered by Prince Ernest: +</p> + +<p> +'Roy is off to Croatia to enrol some dozens of cheap workmen. The strength of +those Croats is prodigious, and well looked after they work. He will be back in +three or four or more days.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have spoilt a good man,' rejoined the margravine; 'and that reminds me of +a bad one—a cutthroat. Have you heard of that creature, the princess's +tutor? Happily cut loose from us, though! He has published a book—a +horror! all against Scripture and Divine right! Is there any one to defend him +now, I should like to ask?' +</p> + +<p> +'I,' said Ottilia. +</p> + +<p> +'Gracious me! you have not read the book?' +</p> + +<p> +'Right through, dear aunt, with all respect to you.' +</p> + +<p> +'It's in the house?' +</p> + +<p> +'It is in my study.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then I don't wonder! I don't wonder!' the margravine exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +'Best hear what the enemy has to say,' Prince Ernest observed. +</p> + +<p> +'Excellently argued, papa, supposing that he be an enemy.' +</p> + +<p> +'An enemy as much as the fox is the enemy of the poultry-yard, and the hound is +the enemy of the fox!' said the margravine. +</p> + +<p> +'I take your illustration, auntie,' said Ottilia. 'He is the enemy of chickens, +and only does not run before the numbers who bark at him. My noble old +Professor is a resolute truth-seeker: he raises a light to show you the ground +you walk on. How is it that you, adoring heroes as you do, cannot admire him +when he stands alone to support his view of the truth! I would I were by him! +But I am, whenever I hear him abused.' +</p> + +<p> +'I daresay you discard nothing that the wretch has taught you!' +</p> + +<p> +'Nothing! nothing!' said Ottilia, and made my heart live. +</p> + +<p> +The grim and taciturn Baroness Turckems, sitting opposite to her, sighed +audibly. +</p> + +<p> +'Has the princess been trying to convert you?' the margravine asked her. +</p> + +<p> +'Trying? no, madam. Reading? yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'My good Turckems! you do not get your share of sleep?' +</p> + +<p> +'It is her Highness the princess who despises sleep.' +</p> + +<p> +'See there the way with your free-thinkers! They commence by treading under +foot the pleasantest half of life, and then they impose their bad habits on +their victims. Ottilia! Ernest! I do insist upon having lights extinguished in +the child's apartments by twelve o'clock at midnight.' +</p> + +<p> +'Twelve o'clock is an extraordinary latitude for children,' said Ottilia, +smiling. +</p> + +<p> +The prince, with a scarce perceptible degree of emphasis, said, +</p> + +<p> +'Women born to rule must be held exempt from nursery restrictions.' +</p> + +<p> +Here the conversation opened to let me in. More than once the margravine +informed me that I was not the equal of my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Why,' said she, 'why can't you undertake this detestable coal-mine, and let +your father disport himself?' +</p> + +<p> +I suggested that it might be because I was not his equal. She complimented me +for inheriting a spark of Roy's brilliancy. +</p> + +<p> +I fancied there was a conspiracy to force me back from my pretensions by +subjecting me to the contemplation of my bare self and actual condition. Had +there been, I should have suffered from less measured strokes. The unconcerted +design to humiliate inferiors is commonly successfuller than conspiracy. +</p> + +<p> +The prince invited me to smoke with him, and talked of our gradual subsidence +in England to one broad level of rank through the intermixture by marriage of +our aristocracy, squirearchy, and merchants. +</p> + +<p> +'Here it is not so,' he said; 'and no democratic rageings will make it so. +Rank, with us, is a principle. I suppose you have not read the Professor's +book? It is powerful—he is a powerful man. It can do no damage to the +minds of persons destined by birth to wield authority—none, therefore, to +the princess. I would say to you—avoid it. For those who have to carve +their way, it is bad. You will enter your Parliament, of course? There you have +a fine career.' +</p> + +<p> +He asked me what I had made of Chancellor von Redwitz. +</p> + +<p> +I perceived that Prince Ernest could be cool and sagacious in repairing what +his imprudence or blindness had left to occur: that he must have enlightened +his daughter as to her actual position, and was most dexterously and devilishly +flattering her worldly good sense by letting it struggle and grow, instead of +opposing her. His appreciation of her intellect was an idolatry; he really +confided in it, I knew; and this reacted upon her. Did it? My hesitations and +doubts, my fantastic raptures and despair, my loss of the power to appreciate +anything at its right value, revealed the madness of loving a princess. +</p> + +<p> +There were preparations for the arrival of an important visitor. The margravine +spoke of him emphatically. I thought it might be her farcically pompous way of +announcing my father's return, and looked pleased, I suppose, for she added, +'Do you know Prince Hermann? He spends most of his time in Eberhardstadt. He is +cousin of the King, a wealthy branch; tant soit peu philosophe, a ce qu'on dit; +a traveller. They say he has a South American complexion. I knew him a boy; and +his passion is to put together what Nature has unpieced, bones of fishes and +animals. Il faut passer le temps. He adores the Deluge. Anything antediluvian +excites him. He can tell us the “modes” of those days; and, if I am +not very much misinformed, he still expects us to show him the very latest of +these. Happily my milliner is back from Paris. Ay, and we have fossils in our +neighbourhood, though, on my honour, I don't know where—somewhere; the +princess can guide him, and you can help at the excavations. I am told he would +go through the crust of earth for the backbone of an +idio—ilio-something-saurus.' +</p> + +<p> +I scrutinized Prince Hermann as rarely my observation had dwelt on any man. He +had the German head, wide, so as seemingly to force out the ears; honest, +ready, interested eyes in conversation; parched lips; a rather +tropically-coloured skin; and decidedly the manners of a gentleman to all, +excepting his retinue of secretaries, valets, and chasseurs—his 'blacks,' +he called them. They liked him. One could not help liking him. +</p> + +<p> +'You study much?' he addressed the princess at table. +</p> + +<p> +She answered: 'I throw aside books, now you have come to open the earth and the +sea.' +</p> + +<p> +From that time the topics started on every occasion were theirs; the rest of us +ran at their heels, giving tongue or not. +</p> + +<p> +To me Prince Hermann was perfectly courteous. He had made English friends on +his travels; he preferred English comrades in adventure to any other: thought +our East Indian empire the most marvellous thing the world had seen, and our +Indian Government cigars very smokeable upon acquaintance. When stirred, he +bubbled with anecdote. 'Not been there,' was his reply to the margravine's +tentatives for gossip of this and that of the German Courts. His museum, +hunting, and the Opera absorbed and divided his hours. I guessed his age to be +mounting forty. He seemed robust; he ate vigorously. Drinking he +conscientiously performed as an accompanying duty, and was flushed after +dinner, burning for tobacco and a couch for his length. Then he talked of the +littleness of Europe and the greatness of Germany; logical postulates fell in +collapse before him. America to America, North and South; India to Europe. +India was for the land with the largest sea-board. Mistress of the Baltic, of +the North Sea and the East, as eventually she must be, Germany would claim to +take India as a matter of course, and find an outlet for the energies of the +most prolific and the toughest of the races of mankind,—the purest, in +fact, the only true race, properly so called, out of India, to which it would +return as to its source, and there create an empire magnificent in force and +solidity, the actual wedding of East and West; an empire firm on the ground and +in the blood of the people, instead of an empire of aliens, that would bear +comparison to a finely fretted cotton-hung palanquin balanced on an elephant's +back, all depending on the docility of the elephant (his description of Great +Britain's Indian Empire). 'And mind me,' he said, 'the masses of India are in +character elephant all over, tail to proboscis! servile till they trample you, +and not so stupid as they look. But you've done wonders in India, and we can't +forget it. Your administration of Justice is worth all your battles there.' +</p> + +<p> +This was the man: a milder one after the evaporation of his wine in speech, and +peculiarly moderate on his return, exhaling sandal-wood, to the society of the +ladies. +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia danced with Prince Hermann at the grand Ball given in honour of him. +The wives and daughters of the notables present kept up a buzz of comment on +his personal advantages, in which, I heard it said, you saw his German heart, +though he had spent the best years of his life abroad. Much court was paid to +him by the men. Sarkeld visibly expressed satisfaction. One remark, 'We shall +have his museum in the town!' left me no doubt upon the presumed object of his +visit: it was uttered and responded to with a depth of sentiment that showed +how lively would be the general gratitude toward one who should exhilarate the +place by introducing cases of fish-bones. +</p> + +<p> +So little did he think of my presence, that returning from a ride one day, he +seized and detained the princess's hand. She frowned with pained surprise, but +unresistingly, as became a young gentlewoman's dignity. Her hand was rudely +caught and kept in the manner of a boisterous wooer—a Harry the Fifth or +lusty Petruchio. She pushed her horse on at a bound. Prince Hermann rode up +head to head with her gallantly, having now both hands free of the reins, like +an Indian spearing the buffalo—it was buffalo courtship; and his shout of +rallying astonishment at her resistance, 'What? What?' rang wildly to heighten +the scene, she leaning constrained on one side and he bending half his body's +length; a strange scene for me to witness. +</p> + +<p> +They proceeded with old Schwartz at their heels doglike. It became a question +for me whether I should follow in the bitter track, and further the question +whether I could let them escape from sight. They wound up the roadway, two +figures and one following, now dots against the sky, now a single movement in +the valley, now concealed, buried under billows of forest, making the low +noising of the leaves an intolerable whisper of secresy, and forward I rushed +again to see them rounding a belt of firs or shadowed by rocks, solitary on +shorn fields, once more dipping to the forest, and once more emerging, +vanishing. When I had grown sure of their reappearance from some point of view +or other, I spied for them in vain. My destiny, whatever it might be, fluttered +over them; to see them seemed near the knowing of it, and not to see them, +deadly. I galloped, so intent on the three in the distance, that I did not +observe a horseman face toward me, on the road: it was Prince Hermann. He +raised his hat; I stopped short, and he spoke: +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Richmond, permit me to apologize to you. I have to congratulate you, it +appears. I was not aware.—However, the princess has done me the favour to +enlighten me. How you will manage, I can't guess, but that is not my affair. I +am a man of honour; and, on my honour, I conceived that I was invited here to +decide, as my habit is, on the spot, if I would, or if I would not. I speak +clearly to you, no doubt. There could be no hesitation in the mind of a man of +sense. My way is prompt and blunt; I am sorry I gave you occasion to reflect on +it. There! I have been deceived—deceived myself, let's say. Sharp methods +play the devil with you now and then. To speak the truth,—perhaps you +won't care to listen to it,—family arrangements are the best; take my +word for it, they are the best. And in the case of princesses of the +Blood!—Why, look you, I happen to be suitable. It's a matter of chance, +like your height, complexion, constitution. One is just what one is born to be, +eh? You have your English notions, I my German; but as a man of the world in +the bargain, and “gentleman,” I hope, I should say, that to take a +young princess's fancy, and drag her from her station is not—of course, +you know that the actual value of the title goes if she steps down? Very well. +But enough said; I thought I was in a clear field. We are used to having our +way cleared for us, nous autres. I will not detain you.' +</p> + +<p> +We saluted gravely, and I rode on at a mechanical pace, discerning by glimpses +the purport of what I had heard, without drawing warmth from it. The man's +outrageously royal way of wooing, in contempt of minor presences and flimsy +sentiment, made me jealous of him, notwithstanding his overthrow. +</p> + +<p> +I was in the mood to fall entirely into my father's hands, as I did by +unbosoming myself to him for the first time since my heart had been under the +charm. Fresh from a rapid course of travel, and with the sense of laying the +prince under weighty obligations, he made light of my perplexity, and at once +delivered himself bluntly: 'She plights her hand to you in the presence of our +good Peterborough.' His plans were shaped on the spot. 'We start for England +the day after to-morrow to urge on the suit, Richie. Our Peterborough is up at +the chateau. The Frau Feldmarschall honours him with a farewell invitation: you +have a private interview with the princess at midnight in the library, where +you are accustomed to read, as a student of books should, my boy at a touch of +the bell, or mere opening of the door, I see that Peterborough comes to you. It +will not be a ceremony, but a binding of you both by your word of honour before +a ghostly gentleman.' He informed me that his foresight had enlisted and +detained Peterborough for this particular moment and identical piece of duty, +which seemed possible, and in a singular manner incited me to make use of +Peterborough. For the princess still denied me the look of love's intelligence, +she avoided me, she still kept to the riddle, and my delicacy went so far that +I was restrained from writing. I agreed with my father that we could not remain +in Germany; but how could I quit the field and fly to England on such terms? I +composed the flattest letter ever written, requesting the princess to meet me +about midnight in the library, that I might have the satisfaction of taking my +leave of her; and this done, my spirits rose, and it struck me my father was +practically wise, and I looked on Peterborough as an almost supernatural being. +If Ottilia refused to come, at least I should know my fate. Was I not bound in +manly honour to be to some degree adventurous? +</p> + +<p> +So I reasoned in exclamations, being, to tell truth, tired of seeming to be +what I was not quite, of striving to become what I must have divined that I +never could quite attain to. So my worthier, or ideal, self fell away from me. +I was no longer devoted to be worthy of a woman's love, but consenting to the +plot to entrap a princess. I was somewhat influenced, too, by the +consideration, which I regarded as a glimpse of practical wisdom, that Prince +Ernest was guilty of cynical astuteness in retaining me as his guest under +manifold disadvantages. Personal pride stood up in arms, and my father's +exuberant spirits fanned it. He dwelt loudly on his services to the prince, and +his own importance and my heirship to mighty riches. He made me almost believe +that Prince Ernest hesitated about rejecting me; nor did it appear altogether +foolish to think so, or why was I at the palace? I had no head for reflections. +</p> + +<p> +My father diverted me by levelling the whole battery of his comic mind upon +Peterborough, who had a heap of manuscript, directed against heretical German +theologians, to pack up for publication in his more congenial country: how +different, he ejaculated, from this nest—this forest of heresy, where +pamphlets and critical essays were issued without let or hindrance, and, as far +as he could see, no general reprobation of the Press, such as would most +undoubtedly, with one voice, hail any strange opinions in our happy land at +home! Whether he really understood the function my father prepared him for, I +cannot say. The invitation to dine and pass a night at the lake-palace +flattered him immensely. +</p> + +<p> +We went up to the chateau to fetch him. +</p> + +<p> +A look of woe was on Peterborough's countenance when we descended at the palace +portals: he had forgotten his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +'You shall smoke one of the prince's,' my father said. Peterborough remarked to +me,—'We shall have many things to talk over in England.' +</p> + +<p> +'No tobacco allowed on the premises at Riversley, I'm afraid,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +He sighed, and bade me jocosely to know that he regarded tobacco as just one of +the consolations of exiles and bachelors. +</p> + +<p> +'Peterborough, my good friend, you are a hero!' cried my father. 'He divorces +tobacco to marry!' +</p> + +<p> +'Permit me,' Peterborough interposed, with an ingenuous pretension to subtle +waggery, in itself very comical,—'permit me; no legitimate union has +taken place between myself and tobacco!' +</p> + +<p> +'He puts an end to the illegitimate union between himself and tobacco that he +may marry according to form!' cried my father. +</p> + +<p> +We entered the palace merrily, and presently Peterborough, who had worn a +studious forehead in the midst of his consenting laughter, observed, 'Well, you +know, there is more in that than appears on the surface.' +</p> + +<p> +His sweet simpleton air of profundity convulsed me. I handed my father the +letter addressed to the princess to entrust it to the charge of one of the +domestics, thinking carelessly at the time that Ottilia now stood free to make +appointments and receive communications, and moreover that I was too proud to +condescend to subterfuge, except this minor one, in consideration for her, of +making it appear that my father, and not I, was in communication with her. My +fit of laughter clung. I dressed chuckling. The margravine was not slow to +notice and comment on my hilarious readiness. +</p> + +<p> +'Roy,' she said, 'you have given your son spirit. One sees he has your blood +when you have been with him an hour.' +</p> + +<p> +'The season has returned, if your Highness will let it be Spring,' said my +father. +</p> + +<p> +'Far fetched!—from the Lower Danube!' she ejaculated in mock scorn to +excite his sprightliness, and they fell upon a duologue as good as wit for the +occasion. +</p> + +<p> +Prince Hermann had gone. His departure was mentioned with the ordinary +commonplaces of regret. Ottilia was unembarrassed, both in speaking of him and +looking at me. We had the Court physician and his wife at table, Chancellor von +Redwitz and his daughter, and General Happenwyll, chief of the prince's +contingent, a Prussian at heart, said to be a good officer on the strength of a +military book of some sort that he had full leisure to compose. The +Chancellor's daughter and Baroness Turckems enclosed me. +</p> + +<p> +I was questioned by the baroness as to the cause of my father's unexpected +return. 'He is generally opportune,' she remarked. +</p> + +<p> +'He goes with me to England,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! he goes,' said she; and asked why we were honoured with the presence of +Mr. Peterborough that evening. There had always been a smouldering hostility +between her and my father. +</p> + +<p> +To my surprise, the baroness spoke of Ottilia by her name. +</p> + +<p> +'Ottilia must have mountain air. These late hours destroy her complexion. +Active exercise by day and proper fatigue by night time—that is my +prescription.' +</p> + +<p> +'The princess,' I replied, envying Peterborough, who was placed on one side of +her, 'will benefit, I am sure, from mountain air. Does she read excessively? +The sea—' +</p> + +<p> +'The sea I pronounce bad for her—unwholesome,' returned the baroness. 'It +is damp.' +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +'Damp,' she reiterated. 'The vapours, I am convinced, affect mind and body. +That excursion in the yacht did her infinite mischief. The mountains restored +her. They will again, take my word for it. Now take you my word for it, they +will again. She is not too strong in constitution, but in order to prescribe +accurately one must find out whether there is seated malady. To ride out in the +night instead of reposing! To drive on and on, and not reappear till the night +of the next day—I ask you, is it sensible? Does it not approach mania?' +</p> + +<p> +'The princess—?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Ottilia has done that.' +</p> + +<p> +'Baroness, can I believe you?—and alone?' +</p> + +<p> +A marvellous twinkle of shuffle appeared in the small slate-coloured eyes I +looked at under their roofing of thick black eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +'Alone,' she said. 'That is, she was precautious to have her giant to protect +her from violence. There you have a glimmering of reason in her; and all of it +that I can see.' +</p> + +<p> +'Old Schwartz is a very faithful servant,' said I, thinking that she resembled +the old Warhead in visage. +</p> + +<p> +'A dog's obedience to the master's whims you call faithfulness! Hem!' The +baroness coughed dryly. +</p> + +<p> +I whispered: 'Does Prince Ernest—is he aware?' +</p> + +<p> +'You are aware,' retorted the baroness, 'that what a man idolizes he won't see +flaw in. Remember, I am something here, or I am nothing.' +</p> + +<p> +The enigmatical remark was received by me decorously as a piece of merited +chastisement. Nodding with gravity, I expressed regrets that the sea did not +please her, otherwise I could have offered her a yacht for a cruise. She nodded +stiffly. Her mouth shut up a smile, showing more of the door than the ray. The +dinner, virtually a German supper, ended in general conversation on political +affairs, preceded and supported by a discussion between the Prussian-hearted +General and the Austrian-hearted margravine. Prince Ernest, true to his view +that diplomacy was the weapon of minor sovereigns, held the balance, with now a +foot in one scale, now in the other; a politic proceeding, so long as the rival +powers passively consent to be weighed. +</p> + +<p> +We trifled with music, made our bow to the ladies, and changed garments for the +smoking-room. Prince Ernest smoked his one cigar among guests. The General, the +Chancellor, and the doctor, knew the signal for retirement, and rose +simultaneously with the discharge of his cigar-end in sparks on the unlit +logwood pile. My father and Mr. Peterborough kept their chairs. +</p> + +<p> +There was, I felt with relief, no plot, for nothing had been definitely +assented to by me. I received Prince Ernest's proffer of his hand, on making my +adieux to him, with a passably clear conscience. +</p> + +<p> +I went out to the library. A man came in for orders; I had none to give. He saw +that the shutters were fixed and the curtains down, examined my hand-lamp, and +placed lamps on the reading-desk and mantel-piece. Bronze busts of sages became +my solitary companions. The room was long, low and dusky, voluminously and +richly hung with draperies at the farther end, where a table stood for the +prince to jot down memoranda, and a sofa to incline him to the relaxation of +romance-reading. A door at this end led to the sleeping apartments of the West +wing of the palace. Where I sat the student had ranges of classical volumes in +prospect and classic heads; no other decoration to the walls. I paced to and +fro and should have flung myself on the sofa but for a heap of books there +covered from dust, perhaps concealed, that the yellow Parisian volumes, of +which I caught sight of some new dozen, might not be an attraction to the eyes +of chance-comers. At the lake-palace the prince frequently gave audience here. +He had said to me, when I stated my wish to read in the library, 'You keep to +the classical department?' I thought it possible he might not like the coloured +volumes to be inspected; I had no taste for a perusal of them. I picked up one +that fell during my walk, and flung it back, and disturbed a heap under cover, +for more fell, and there I let them lie. +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia did not keep me waiting. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"></a> +CHAPTER XXXV.<br/> +THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY</h2> + +<p> +I was humming the burden of Göthe's Zigeunerlied, a favourite one with me +whenever I had too much to think of, or nothing. A low rush of sound from the +hall-doorway swung me on my heel, and I saw her standing with a silver lamp +raised in her right hand to the level of her head, as if she expected to meet +obscurity. A thin blue Indian scarf muffled her throat and shoulders. Her hair +was loosely knotted. The lamp's full glow illumined and shadowed her. She was +like a statue of Twilight. +</p> + +<p> +I went up to her quickly, and closed the door, saying, 'You have come'; my +voice was not much above a breath. +</p> + +<p> +She looked distrustfully down the length of the room; 'You were speaking to +some one?' +</p> + +<p> +'No.' +</p> + +<p> +'You were speaking.' +</p> + +<p> +'To myself, then, I suppose.' +</p> + +<p> +I remembered and repeated the gipsy burden. +</p> + +<p> +She smiled faintly and said it was the hour for Anna and Ursel and Kith and +Liese to be out. +</p> + +<p> +Her hands were gloved, a small matter to tell of. +</p> + +<p> +We heard the portico-sentinel challenged and relieved. +</p> + +<p> +'Midnight,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +She replied: 'You were not definite in your directions about the minutes.' +</p> + +<p> +'I feared to name midnight.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why?' +</p> + +<p> +'Lest the appointment of midnight—I lose my knowledge of +you!—should make you reflect, frighten you. You see, I am inventing a +reason; I really cannot tell why, if it was not that I hoped to have just those +few minutes more of you. And now they're gone. I would not have asked you but +that I thought you free to act.' +</p> + +<p> +'I am.' +</p> + +<p> +'And you come freely?' +</p> + +<p> +'A “therefore” belongs to every grant of freedom.' +</p> + +<p> +'I understand: your judgement was against it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Be comforted,' she said; 'it is your right to bid me come, if you think fit.' +</p> + +<p> +One of the sofa-volumes fell. She caught her breath; and smiled at her foolish +alarm. +</p> + +<p> +I told her that it was my intention to start for England in the morning; that +this was the only moment I had, and would be the last interview: my rights, if +I possessed any, and I was not aware that I did, I threw down. +</p> + +<p> +'You throw down one end of the chain,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +'In the name of heaven, then,' cried I, 'release yourself.' +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. 'That is not my meaning.' +</p> + +<p> +Note the predicament of a lover who has a piece of dishonesty lurking in him. +My chilled self-love had certainly the right to demand the explanation of her +coldness, and I could very well guess that a word or two drawn from the +neighbourhood of the heart would fetch a warmer current to unlock the ice +between us, but feeling the coldness I complained of to be probably a +suspicion, I fixed on the suspicion as a new and deeper injury done to my loyal +love for her, and armed against that I dared not take an initiative for fear of +unexpectedly justifying it by betraying myself. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, supposing her inclination to have become diverted, I was ready frankly to +release her with one squeeze of hands, and take all the pain, and I said: +'Pray, do not speak of chains.' +</p> + +<p> +'But they exist. Things cannot be undone for us two by words.' +</p> + +<p> +The tremble as of a strung wire in the strenuous pitch of her voice seemed to +say she was not cold, though her gloved hand resting its finger-ends on the +table, her restrained attitude, her very calm eyes, declared the reverse. This +and that sensation beset me in turn. +</p> + +<p> +We shrank oddly from uttering one another's Christian name. I was the first +with it; my 'Ottilia!' brought soon after 'Harry' on her lips, and an +atmosphere about us much less Arctic. +</p> + +<p> +'Ottilia, you have told me you wish me to go to England.' +</p> + +<p> +'I have.' +</p> + +<p> +'We shall be friends.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, Harry; we cannot be quite divided; we have that knowledge for our present +happiness.' +</p> + +<p> +'The happy knowledge that we may have our bone to gnaw when food's denied. It +is something. One would like possibly, after expulsion out of Eden, to climb +the gates to see how the trees grow there. What I cannot imagine is the +forecasting of any joy in the privilege.' +</p> + +<p> +'By nature or system, then, you are more impatient than I, for I can,' said +Ottilia. She added: 'So much of your character I divined early. It was part of +my reason for wishing you to work. You will find that hard work in +England—but why should I preach to you Harry, you have called me here for +some purpose?' +</p> + +<p> +'I must have detained you already too long.' +</p> + +<p> +'Time is not the offender. Since I have come, the evil——' +</p> + +<p> +'Evil? Are not your actions free?' +</p> + +<p> +'Patience, my friend. The freer my actions, the more am I bound to deliberate +on them. I have the habit of thinking that my deliberations are not in my sex's +fashion of taking counsel of the nerves and the blood. +</p> + +<p> +In truth, Harry, I should not have come but for my acknowledgement of your +right to bid me come.' +</p> + +<p> +'You know, princess, that in honouring me with your attachment, you imperil +your sovereign rank?' +</p> + +<p> +'I do.' +</p> + +<p> +'What next?' +</p> + +<p> +'Except that it is grievously in peril, nothing!' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you known it all along?' +</p> + +<p> +'Dimly-scarcely. To some extent I knew it, but it did not stand out in broad +daylight. I have been learning the world's wisdom recently. Would you have had +me neglect it? Surely much is due to my father? My relatives have claims on me. +Our princely Houses have. My country has.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, princess, if you are pleading——' +</p> + +<p> +'Can you think that I am?' +</p> + +<p> +The splendour of her high nature burst on me with a shock. +</p> + +<p> +I could have fallen to kiss her feet, and I said indifferently: 'Not pleading, +only it is evident the claims—I hate myself for bringing you in +antagonism with them. Yes, and I have been learning some worldly wisdom; I wish +for your sake it had not been so late. What made me overleap the proper +estimate of your rank! I can't tell; but now that I know better the kind of +creature—the man who won your esteem when you knew less of the +world!'— +</p> + +<p> +'Hush! I have an interest in him, and do not suffer him to be spurned,' Ottilia +checked me. 'I, too, know him better, and still, if he is dragged down I am in +the dust; if he is abused the shame is mine.' Her face bloomed. +</p> + +<p> +Her sweet warmth of colour was transfused through my veins. +</p> + +<p> +'We shall part in a few minutes. I have a mind to beg a gift of you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Name it.' +</p> + +<p> +'That glove.' +</p> + +<p> +She made her hand bare and gave me, not the glove, but the hand. +</p> + +<p> +'Ah! but this I cannot keep.' +</p> + +<p> +'Will you have everything spoken?' she said, in a tone that would have been +reproachful had not tenderness melted it. 'There should be a spirit between us, +Harry, to spare the task. You do keep it, if you choose. I have some little +dread of being taken for a madwoman, and more—an actual horror of +behaving ungratefully to my generous father. He has proved that he can be +indulgent, most trusting and considerate for his daughter, though he is a +prince; my duty is to show him that I do not forget I am a princess. I owe my +rank allegiance when he forgets his on my behalf, my friend! You are young. +None but an inexperienced girl hoodwinked by her tricks of intuition, would +have dreamed you superior to the passions of other men. I was blind; I am +regretful—take my word as you do my hand—for no one's sake but my +father's. You and I are bound fast; only, help me that the blow may be lighter +for him; if I descend from the place I was born to, let me tell him it is to +occupy one I am fitted for, or should not at least feel my Family's deep blush +in filling. To be in the midst of life in your foremost England is, in my +imagination, very glorious. Harry, I remember picturing to myself when I +reflected upon your country's history—perhaps a year after I had seen the +two “young English gentlemen,” that you touch the morning and +evening star, and wear them in your coronet, and walk with the sun West and +East! Child's imagery; but the impression does not wear off. If I rail at +England, it is the anger of love. I fancy I have good and great things to speak +to the people through you.' +</p> + +<p> +There she stopped. The fervour she repressed in speech threw a glow over her +face, like that on a frosty bare autumn sky after sunset. +</p> + +<p> +I pressed my lips to her hand. +</p> + +<p> +In our silence another of the fatal yellow volumes thumped the floor. +</p> + +<p> +She looked into my eyes and asked, +</p> + +<p> +'Have we been speaking before a witness?' +</p> + +<p> +So thoroughly had she renovated me, that I accused and reproved the lurking +suspicion with a soft laugh. +</p> + +<p> +'Beloved! I wish we had been.' +</p> + +<p> +'If it might be,' she said, divining me and musing. +</p> + +<p> +'Why not?' +</p> + +<p> +She stared. +</p> + +<p> +'How? What do you ask?' +</p> + +<p> +The look on my face alarmed her. I was breathless and colourless, with the +heart of a hawk eyeing his bird—a fox, would be the truer comparison, but +the bird was noble, not one that cowered. Her beauty and courage lifted me into +high air, in spite of myself, and it was a huge weight of greed that fell away +from me when I said, +</p> + +<p> +'I would not urge it for an instant. Consider—if you had just plighted +your hand in mine before a witness!' +</p> + +<p> +'My hand is in yours; my word to you is enough.' +</p> + +<p> +'Enough. My thanks to heaven for it! But consider—a pledge of fidelity +that should be my secret angel about me in trouble and trial; my wedded soul! +She cannot falter, she is mine for ever, she guides me, holds me to work, +inspirits me!—she is secure from temptation, from threats, from +everything—nothing can touch, nothing move her, she is mine! I mean, an +attested word, a form, that is—a betrothal. For me to say—my +beloved and my betrothed! You hear that? Beloved! is a lonely +word:—betrothed! carries us joined up to death. Would you?—I do but +ask to know that you would. To-morrow I am loose in the world, and there's a +darkness in the thought of it almost too terrible. Would you?—one sworn +word that gives me my bride, let men do what they may! I go then singing to +battle—sure!—Remember, it is but the question whether you would.' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, I would, and will,' she said, her lips +shuddering—'wait'—for a cry of joy escaped me—'I +will—look you me in the eyes and tell me you have a doubt of me.' +</p> + +<p> +I looked: she swam in a mist. +</p> + +<p> +We had our full draught of the divine self-oblivion which floated those ghosts +of the two immortal lovers through the bounds of their purgatorial circle, and +for us to whom the minutes were ages, as for them to whom all time was +unmarked, the power of supreme love swept out circumstance. Such embraces cast +the soul beyond happiness, into no known region of sadness, but we drew apart +sadly, even as that involved pair of bleeding recollections looked on the life +lost to them. I knew well what a height she dropped from when the senses took +fire. She raised me to learn how little of fretful thirst and its reputed +voracity remains with love when it has been met midway in air by a winged mate +able to sustain, unable to descend farther. +</p> + +<p> +And it was before a witness, though unviewed by us. +</p> + +<p> +The farewell had come. Her voice was humbled. +</p> + +<p> +Never, I said, delighting in the now conscious bravery of her eyes engaging +mine, shadowy with the struggle, I would never doubt her, and I renounced all +pledges. To be clear in my own sight as well as in hers, I made mention of the +half-formed conspiracy to obtain her plighted troth in a binding manner. It was +not necessary for me to excuse myself; she did that, saying, 'Could there be a +greater proof of my darling's unhappiness? I am to blame.' +</p> + +<p> +We closed hands for parting. She hesitated and asked if my father was awake; +then promptly to my answer: +</p> + +<p> +'I will see him. I have treated you ill. I have exacted too much patience. The +suspicion was owing to a warning I had this evening, Harry; a silly warning to +beware of snares; and I had no fear of them, believe me, though for some +moments, and without the slightest real desire to be guarded, I fancied Harry's +father was overhearing me. He is your father, dearest: fetch him to me. My +father will hear of this from my lips—why not he? Ah! did I suspect you +ever so little? I will atone for it; not atone, I will make it my pleasure; it +is my pride that has hurt you both. O my lover! my lover! Dear head, dear eyes! +Delicate and noble that you are! my own stronger soul! Where was my heart? Is +it sometimes dead, or sleeping? But you can touch it to life. Look at +me—I am yours. I consent, I desire it; I will see him. I will be bound. +The heavier the chains, oh! the better for me. What am I, to be proud of +anything not yours, Harry? and I that have passed over to you! I will see him +at once.' +</p> + +<p> +A third in the room cried out, 'No, not that—you do not!' +</p> + +<p> +The tongue was German and struck on us like a roll of unfriendly musketry +before we perceived the enemy. 'Princess Ottilia! you remember your dignity or +I defend you and it, think of me what you will!' +</p> + +<p> +Baroness Turckems, desperately entangled by the sofa-covering, rushed into the +ray of the lamps and laid her hand on the bell-rope. In a minute we had an +alarm sounding, my father was among us, there was a mad play of chatter, and we +stood in the strangest nightmare-light that ever ended an interview of lovers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"></a> +CHAPTER XXXVI.<br/> +HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN</h2> + +<p> +The room was in flames, Baroness Turckems plucking at the bell-rope, my father +looking big and brilliant. +</p> + +<p> +'Hold hand!' he shouted to the frenzied baroness. +</p> + +<p> +She counter-shouted; both of them stamped feet; the portico sentinel struck the +butt of his musket on the hall-doors; bell answered bell along the upper +galleries. +</p> + +<p> +'Foolish woman, be silent!' cried my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Incendiary!' she half-shrieked. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to the princess, begging her to retire, but she stared at him, and I +too, after having seen him deliberately apply the flame of her lamp to the +curtains, deemed him mad. He was perfectly self-possessed, and said, 'This will +explain the bell!' and fetched a deep breath, and again urged the princess to +retire. +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough was the only one present who bethought him of doing fireman's +duty. The risk looked greater than it was. He had but to tear the lighted +curtains down and trample on them. Suddenly the baroness called out, 'The man +is right! Come with me, princess; escape, your Highness, escape! And you,' she +addressed me—'you rang the bell, you!' +</p> + +<p> +'To repair your error, baroness,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +'I have my conscience pure; have you?' she retorted. +</p> + +<p> +He bowed and said, 'The fire will also excuse your presence on the spot, +baroness.' +</p> + +<p> +'I thank my God I am not so cool as you,' said she. +</p> + +<p> +'Your warmth'—he bent to her—'shall always be your apology, +baroness.' +</p> + +<p> +Seeing the curtains extinguished, Ottilia withdrew. She gave me no glance. +</p> + +<p> +All this occurred before the night-porter, who was going his rounds, could +reach the library. Lacqueys and maids were soon at his heels. My father met +Prince Ernest with a florid story of a reckless student, either asleep or too +anxious to secure a particular volume, and showed his usual consideration by +not asking me to verify the narrative. With that, and with high praise of +Peterborough, as to whose gallantry I heard him deliver a very circumstantial +account, he, I suppose, satisfied the prince's curiosity, and appeased him, the +damage being small compared with the uproar. Prince Ernest questioned two or +three times, 'What set him ringing so furiously?' My father made some reply. +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia's cloud-pale windows were the sole greeting I had from her on my +departure early next morning, far wretcheder than if I had encountered a +misfortune. It was impossible for me to deny that my father had shielded the +princess: she would never have run for a menace. As he remarked, the ringing of +the bell would not of itself have forced her to retreat, and the nature of the +baroness's alarm demanded nothing less than a conflagration to account for it +to the household. But I felt humiliated on Ottilia's behalf, and enraged on my +own. And I had, I must confess, a touch of fear of a man who could +unhesitatingly go to extremities, as he had done, by summoning fire to the +rescue. He assured me that moments such as those inspired him and were the +pride of his life, and he was convinced that, upon reflection, 'I should rise +to his pitch.' He deluded himself with the idea of his having foiled Baroness +Turckems, nor did I choose to contest it, though it struck me that she was too +conclusively the foiler. She must have intercepted the letter for the princess. +I remembered acting carelessly in handing it to my father for him to consign it +to one of the domestics, and he passed it on with a flourish. Her place of +concealment was singularly well selected under the sofa-cover, and the little +heaps of paper-bound volumes. I do not fancy she meant to rouse the household; +her notion probably was to terrorize the princess, that she might compel her to +quit my presence. In rushing to the bell-rope, her impetuosity sent her +stumbling on it with force, and while threatening to ring, and meaning merely +to threaten, she rang; and as it was not a retractable act, she continued +ringing, and the more violently upon my father's appearance. Catching sight of +Peterborough at his heels, she screamed a word equivalent to a clergyman. She +had lost her discretion, but not her wits. +</p> + +<p> +For any one save a lover—thwarted as I was, and perturbed by the shadow +falling on the princess—my father's Aplomb and promptness in conjuring a +check to what he assumed to be a premeditated piece of villany on the part of +Baroness Turckems, might have seemed tolerably worthy of admiration. Me the +whole scene affected as if it had burnt my skin. I loathed that picture of him, +constantly present to me, of his shivering the glass of Ottilia's +semi-classical night-lamp, gravely asking her pardon, and stretching the flame +to the curtain, with large eyes blazing on the baroness. The stupid burlesque +majesty of it was unendurable to thought. Nevertheless, I had to thank him for +shielding Ottilia, and I had to brood on the fact that I had drawn her into a +situation requiring such a shield. He, meanwhile, according to his habit, was +engaged in reviewing the triumphs to come. 'We have won a princess!' And what +England would say, how England would look, when, on a further journey, I +brought my princess home, entirely occupied his imagination, to my excessive +torture—a state of mind for which it was impossible to ask his mercy. His +sole link with the past appeared to be this notion that he had planned all the +good things in store for us. Consequently I was condemned to hear of the +success of the plot, until—for I had not the best of consciences—I +felt my hand would be spell-bound in the attempt to write to the princess; and +with that sense of incapacity I seemed to be cut loose from her, drifting back +into the desolate days before I saw her wheeled in her invalid chair along the +sands and my life knew sunrise. +</p> + +<p> +But whatever the mood of our affections, so it is with us island wanderers: we +cannot gaze over at England, knowing the old country to be close under the +sea-line, and not hail it, and partly forget ourselves in the time that was. +The smell of sea-air made me long for the white cliffs, the sight of the white +cliffs revived pleasant thoughts of Riversley, and thoughts of Riversley +thoughts of Janet, which were singularly and refreshingly free from +self-accusations. Some love for my home, similar to what one may have for +Winter, came across me, and some appreciation of Janet as well, in whose +society was sure to be at least myself, a creature much reduced in altitude, +but without the cramped sensations of a man on a monument. My hearty Janet! I +thanked her then for seeing me of my natural height. +</p> + +<p> +Some hours after parting with my father in London, I lay down to sleep in my +old home, feeling as if I had thrown off a coat of armour. I awoke with a +sailor's song on my lips. Looking out of window at the well-known features of +the heaths and dark firs, and waning oak copses, and the shadowy line of the +downs stretching their long whale backs South to West, it struck me that I had +been barely alive of late. Indeed one who consents to live as I had done, in a +hope and a retrospect, will find his life slipping between the two, like the +ships under the striding Colossus. I shook myself, braced myself, and saluted +every one at the breakfast table with the frankness of Harry Richmond. +Congratulated on my splendid spirits, I was confirmed in the idea that I +enjoyed them, though I knew of something hollow which sent an echo through me +at intervals. Janet had become a fixed inmate of the house. 'I've bought her, +and I shall keep her; she's the apple of my eye,' said the squire, adding with +characteristic scrupulousness, 'if apple's female.' I asked her whether she had +heard from Temple latterly. 'No; dear little fellow!' cried she, and I saw in a +twinkling what it was that the squire liked in her, and liked it too. I caught +sight of myself, as through a rift of cloud, trotting home from the hunt to a +glad, frank, unpretending mate, with just enough of understanding to look up to +mine. For a second or so it was pleasing, as a glance out of his library across +hill and dale will be to a strained student. Our familiarity sanctioned a +comment on the growth of her daughter-of-the-regiment moustache, the faintest +conceivable suggestion of a shadow on her soft upper lip, which a poet might +have feigned to have fallen from her dark thick eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, you don't mean to say, Hal, it's not to your taste?' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'No,' said I, turning an eye on my aunt Dorothy, 'I've loved it all my life.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire stared at me to make sure of this, muttered that it was to his mind +a beauty, and that it was nothing more on Janet's lip than down on a flower, +bloom on a plum. The poetical comparisons had the effect of causing me to +examine her critically. She did not raise a spark of poetical sentiment in my +bosom. She had grown a tall young woman, firmly built, light of motion, +graceful perhaps; but it was not the grace of grace: the grace of simplicity, +rather. She talked vivaciously and frankly, and gave (to friends) her whole +eyes and a fine animation in talking; and her voice was a delight to friends; +there was always the full ring of Janet in it, and music also. She still lifted +her lip when she expressed contempt or dislike of persons; nor was she cured of +her trick of frowning. She was as ready as ever to be flattered; that was +evident. My grandfather's praise of her she received with a rewarding look back +of kindness; she was not discomposed by flattery, and threw herself into no +postures, nor blushed very deeply. 'Thank you for perceiving my merits,' she +seemed to say; and to be just I should add that one could fancy her saying, you +see them because you love me. She wore her hair in a plain knot, peculiarly +neatly rounded away from the temples, which sometimes gave to a face not +aquiline a look of swiftness. The face was mobile, various, not at all +suggestive of bad temper, in spite of her frowns. The profile of it was less +assuring than the front, because of the dark eyebrows' extension and the +occasional frown, but that was not shared by the mouth, which was, I admitted +to myself, a charming bow, running to a length at the corners like her +eyebrows, quick with smiles. The corners of the mouth would often be in +movement, setting dimples at work in her cheek, while the brows remained fixed, +and thus at times a tender meditative air was given her that I could not think +her own. Upon what could she possibly reflect? She had not a care, she had no +education, she could hardly boast an idea—two at a time I was sure she +never had entertained. The sort of wife for a fox-hunting lord, I summed up, +and hoped he would be a good fellow. +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough was plied by the squire for a description of German women. +Blushing and shooting a timid look from under his pendulous eyelids at my aunt, +indicating that he was prepared to go the way of tutors at Riversley, he said +he really had not much observed them. +</p> + +<p> +'They're a whitey-brown sort of women, aren't they?' the squire questioned him, +'with tow hair and fish eyes, high o' the shoulder, bony, and a towel skin and +gone teeth, so I've heard tell. I've heard that's why the men have all taken to +their beastly smoking.' +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough ejaculated: 'Indeed! sir, really!' He assured my aunt that German +ladies were most agreeable, cultivated persons, extremely domesticated, +retiring; the encomiums of the Roman historian were as well deserved by them in +the present day as they had been in the past; decidedly, on the whole, +Peterborough would call them a virtuous race. +</p> + +<p> +'Why do they let the men smoke, then?' said the squire. 'A pretty style o' +courtship. Come, sit by my hearth, ma'am; I'll be your chimney—faugh! +dirty rascals!' +</p> + +<p> +Janet said: 'I rather like the smell of cigars.' +</p> + +<p> +'Like what you please, my dear—he'll be a lucky dog,' the squire approved +her promptly, and asked me if I smoked. +</p> + +<p> +I was not a stranger to the act, I confessed. +</p> + +<p> +'Well'—he took refuge in practical philosophy—'a man must bring +some dirt home from every journey: only don't smoke me out, mercy's sake.' +</p> + +<p> +Here was a hint of Janet's influence with him, and of what he expected from my +return to Riversley. +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough informed me that he suffered persecution over the last glasses of +Port in the evening, through the squire's persistent inquiries as to whether a +woman had anything to do with my staying so long abroad. 'A lady, sir?' quoth +Peterborough. 'Lady, if you like,' rejoined the squire. 'You parsons and +petticoats must always mince the meat to hash the fact.' Peterborough defended +his young friend Harry's moral reputation, and was amazed to hear that the +squire did not think highly of a man's chastity. The squire acutely chagrined +the sensitive gentleman by drawling the word after him, and declaring that he +tossed that kind of thing into the women's wash-basket. Peterborough, not +without signs of indignation, protesting, the squire asked him point-blank if +he supposed that Old England had been raised to the head of the world by such +as he. In fine, he favoured Peterborough with a lesson in worldly views. 'But +these,' Peterborough said to me, 'are not the views, dear Harry—if they +are the views of ladies of any description, which I take leave to +doubt—not the views of the ladies you and I would esteem. For instance, +the ladies of this household.' My aunt Dorothy's fate was plain. +</p> + +<p> +In reply to my grandfather's renewed demand to know whether any one of those +High-Dutch women had got hold of me, Peterborough said: 'Mr. Beltham, the only +lady of whom it could be suspected that my friend Harry regarded her with more +than ordinary admiration was Hereditary-Princess of one of the ancient princely +Houses of Germany.' My grandfather thereupon said, 'Oh!' pushed the wine, and +was stopped. +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough chuckled over this 'Oh!' and the stoppage of further questions, +while acknowledging that the luxury of a pipe would help to make him more +charitable. He enjoyed the Port of his native land, but he did, likewise, feel +the want of one whiff or so of the less restrictive foreigner's pipe; and he +begged me to note the curiosity of our worship of aristocracy and royalty; and +we, who were such slaves to rank, and such tyrants in our own +households,—we Britons were the great sticklers for freedom! His +conclusion was, that we were not logical. We would have a Throne, which we +would not allow the liberty to do anything to make it worthy of rational +veneration: we would have a peerage, of which we were so jealous that it formed +almost an assembly of automatons; we would have virtuous women, only for them +to be pursued by immoral men. Peterborough feared, he must say, that we were an +inconsequent people. His residence abroad had so far unhinged him; but a pipe +would have stopped his complainings. +</p> + +<p> +Moved, perhaps, by generous wine, in concert with his longing for tobacco, he +dropped an observation of unwonted shrewdness; he said: 'The squire, my dear +Harry, a most honourable and straightforward country gentleman, and one of our +very wealthiest, is still, I would venture to suggest, an example of old blood +that requires—I study race—varying, modifying, one might venture to +say, correcting; and really, a friend with more privileges than I possess, +would or should throw him a hint that no harm has been done to the family by an +intermixture... old blood does occasionally need it—you know I study +blood—it becomes too coarse, or, in some cases, too fine. The study of +the mixture of blood is probably one of our great physical problems.' +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough commended me to gratitude for the imaginative and chivalrous +element bestowed on me by a father that was other than a country squire; one +who could be tolerant of innocent habits, and not of guilty ones—a +further glance at the interdicted pipe. I left him almost whimpering for it. +</p> + +<p> +The contemplation of the curious littleness of the lives of men and women lived +in this England of ours, made me feel as if I looked at them out of a palace +balcony-window; for no one appeared to hope very much or to fear; people +trotted in their different kinds of harness; and I was amused to think of my +heart going regularly in imitation of those about me. I was in a princely state +of mind indeed, not disinclined for a time to follow the general course of +life, while despising it. An existence without colour, without anxious +throbbing, without salient matter for thought, challenged contempt. But it was +exceedingly funny. My aunt Dorothy, the squire, and Janet submitted to my +transparent inward laughter at them, patiently waiting for me to share their +contentment, in the deluded belief that the hour would come. The principal +items of news embraced the death of Squire Gregory Bulsted, the marriage of +this and that young lady, a legal contention between my grandfather and Lady +Maria Higginson, the wife of a rich manufacturer newly located among us, on +account of a right of encampment on Durstan heath, my grandfather taking side +with the gipsies, and beating her ladyship—a friend of Heriot's, by the +way. Concerning Heriot, my aunt Dorothy was in trouble. She could not, she +said, approve his behaviour in coming to this neighbourhood at all, and she +hinted that I might induce him to keep away. I mentioned Julia Bulsted's being +in mourning, merely to bring in her name tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, mourning's her outer rig, never doubt,' said the squire. 'Flick your whip +at her, she's a charitable soul, Judy Bulsted! She knits stockings for the +poor. She'd down and kiss the stump of a sailor on a stick o' timber. All the +same, she oughtn't to be alone. Pity she hasn't a baby. You and I'll talk it +over by-and-by, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +Kiomi was spoken of, and Lady Maria Higginson, and then Heriot. +</p> + +<p> +'M-m-m-m rascal!' hummed the squire. 'There's three, and that's not enough for +him. Six months back a man comes over from Surreywards, a farm he calls +Dipwell, and asks after you, Harry; rigmaroles about a handsome lass gone +off... some scoundrel! You and I'll talk it over by-and-by, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet raised and let fall her eyebrows. The fiction, that so much having been +said, an immediate show of reserve on such topics preserved her in ignorance of +them, was one she subscribed to merely to humour the squire. I was half in +doubt whether I disliked or admired her want of decent hypocrisy. She allowed +him to suppose that she did not hear, but spoke as a party to the conversation. +My aunt Dorothy blamed Julia. The squire thundered at Heriot; Janet, liking +both, contented herself with impartial comments. +</p> + +<p> +'I always think in these cases that the women must be the fools,' she said. Her +affectation was to assume a knowledge of the world and all things in it. We +rode over to Julia's cottage, on the outskirts of the estate now devolved upon +her husband. Irish eyes are certainly bewitching lights. I thought, for my +part, I could not do as the captain was doing, serving his country in foreign +parts, while such as these were shining without a captain at home. Janet +approved his conduct, and was right. 'What can a wife think the man worth who +sits down to guard his house-door?' she answered my slight innuendo. She +compared the man to a kennel-dog. 'This,' said I, 'comes of made-up matches,' +whereat she was silent. +</p> + +<p> +Julia took her own view of her position. She asked me whether it was not dismal +for one who was called a grass widow, and was in reality a salt-water one, to +keep fresh, with a lapdog, a cook, and a maid-servant, and a postman that +passed the gate twenty times for twice that he opened it, and nothing to look +for but this disappointing creature day after day! At first she was shy, stole +out a coy line of fingers to be shaken, and lisped; and out of that mood came +right-about-face, with an exclamation of regret that she supposed she must not +kiss me now. I projected, she drew back. 'Shall Janet go?' said I. 'Then if +nobody's present I'll be talked of,' said she, moaning queerly. The tendency +of her hair to creep loose of its bands gave her handsome face an aspect +deliriously wild. I complimented her on her keeping so fresh, in spite of her +salt-water widowhood. She turned the tables on me for looking so powerful, +though I was dying for a foreign princess. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! but that'll blow over,' she said; 'anything blows over as long as you +don't go up to the altar'; and she eyed her ringed finger, woebegone, and +flashed the pleasantest of smiles with the name of her William. Heriot, whom +she always called Walter Heriot, was, she informed me, staying at Durstan Hall, +the new great house, built on a plot of ground that the Lancashire millionaire +had caught up, while the squire and the other landowners of the neighbourhood +were sleeping. 'And if you get Walter Heriot to come to you, Harry Richmond, +it'll be better for him, I'm sure,' she added, and naively: +</p> + +<p> +'I'd like to meet him up at the Grange.' Temple, she said, had left the Navy +and was reading in London for the Bar—good news to me. +</p> + +<p> +'You have not told us anything about your princess, Harry,' Janet observed on +the ride home. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you take her for a real person, Janet?' +</p> + +<p> +'One thinks of her as a snow-mountain you've been admiring.' +</p> + +<p> +'Very well; so let her be.' +</p> + +<p> +'Is she kind and good?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'Does she ride well?' +</p> + +<p> +'She rides remarkably well.' +</p> + +<p> +'She's fair, I suppose?' +</p> + +<p> +'Janet, if I saw you married to Temple, it would be the second great wish of my +heart.' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, you're a bit too cruel, as Julia would say.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you noticed she gets more and more Irish?' +</p> + +<p> +'Perhaps she finds it is liked. Some women can adapt themselves... they're the +happiest. All I meant to ask you is, whether your princess is like the rest of +us?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not at all,' said I, unconscious of hurting. +</p> + +<p> +'Never mind. Don't be hard on Julia. She has the making of a good woman—a +girl can see that; only she can't bear loneliness, and doesn't understand yet +what it is to be loved by a true gentleman. Persons of that class can't learn +it all at once.' +</p> + +<p> +I was pained to see her in tears. Her figure was straight, and she spoke +without a quaver of her voice. +</p> + +<p> +'Heriot's an excellent fellow,' I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +'He is. I can't think ill of my friends,' said she. +</p> + +<p> +'Dear girl, is it these two who make you unhappy?' +</p> + +<p> +'No; but dear old grandada!...' +</p> + +<p> +The course of her mind was obvious. I would rather have had her less abrupt and +more personal in revealing it. I stammered something. +</p> + +<p> +'Heriot does not know you as I do,' she said, strangling a whimper. 'I was sure +it was serious, though one's accustomed to associate princesses with young +men's dreams. I fear, Harry, it will half break our dear old grandada's heart. +He is rough, and you have often been against him, for one unfortunate reason. +If you knew him as I do you would pity him sincerely. He hardly grumbled at all +at your terribly long absence. Poor old man! he hopes on.' +</p> + +<p> +'He's incurably unjust to my father.' +</p> + +<p> +'Your father has been with you all the time, Harry? I guessed it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well?' +</p> + +<p> +'It generally bodes no good to the Grange. Do pardon me for saying that. I know +nothing of him; I know only that the squire is generous, and THAT I stand for +with all my might. Forgive me for what I said.' +</p> + +<p> +'Forgive you—with all my heart. I like you all the better. You're a +brave partisan. I don't expect women to be philosophers.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, Harry, I would take your side as firmly as anybody's.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do, then; tell the squire how I am situated.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah!' she half sighed, 'I knew this was coming.' +</p> + +<p> +'How could it other than come? You can do what you like with the squire. I'm +dependent on him, and I am betrothed to the Princess Ottilia. God knows how +much she has to trample down on her part. She casts off—to speak plainly, +she puts herself out of the line of succession, and for whom? for me. In her +father's lifetime she will hardly yield me her hand; but I must immediately be +in a position to offer mine. She may: who can tell? she is above all women in +power and firmness. You talk of generosity; could there be a higher example of +it?' +</p> + +<p> +'I daresay; I know nothing of princesses,' Janet murmured. 'I don't quite +comprehend what she has done. The point is, what am I to do?' +</p> + +<p> +'Prepare him for it. Soothe him in advance. Why, dear Janet, you can reconcile +him to anything in a minute.' +</p> + +<p> +'Lie to him downright?' +</p> + +<p> +'Now what on earth is the meaning of that, and why can't you speak mildly?' +</p> + +<p> +'I suppose I speak as I feel. I'm a plain speaker, a plain person. You don't +give me an easy task, friend Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'If you believe in his generosity, Janet, should you be afraid to put it to +proof?' +</p> + +<p> +'Grandada's generosity, Harry? I do believe in it as I believe in my own life. +It happens to be the very thing I must keep myself from rousing in him, to be +of any service to you. Look at the old house!' She changed her tone. 'Looking +on old Riversley with the eyes of my head even, I think I'm looking at +something far away in the memory. Perhaps the deep red brick causes it. There +never was a house with so many beautiful creepers. Bright as they are, you +notice the roses on the wall. There's a face for me forever from every window; +and good-bye, Riversley! Harry, I'll obey your wishes.' +</p> + +<p> +So saying, she headed me, trotting down the heath-track. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"></a> +CHAPTER XXXVII.<br/> +JANET RENOUNCES ME</h2> + +<p> +An illness of old Sewis, the butler,—amazingly resembling a sick monkey +in his bed,—kept me from paying a visit to Temple and seeing my father +for several weeks, during which time Janet loyally accustomed the squire to +hear of the German princess, and she did it with a decent and agreeable +cheerfulness that I quite approved of. I should have been enraged at a +martyr-like appearance on her part, for I demanded a sprightly devotion to my +interests, considering love so holy a thing, that where it existed, all +surrounding persons were bound to do it homage and service. We were thrown +together a great deal in attending on poor old Sewis, who would lie on his +pillows recounting for hours my father's midnight summons of the inhabitants of +Riversley, and his little Harry's infant expedition into the world. Temple and +Heriot came to stay at the Grange, and assisted in some rough +scene-painting—torrid colours representing the island of Jamaica. We hung +it at the foot of old Sewis's bed. He awoke and contemplated it, and went +downstairs the same day, cured, he declared: the fact being that the +unfortunate picture testified too strongly to the reversal of all he was used +to in life, in having those he served to wait on him. The squire celebrated his +recovery by giving a servants' ball. Sewis danced with the handsomest lass, +swung her to supper, and delivered an extraordinary speech, entirely concerning +me, and rather to my discomposure, particularly so when it was my fate to hear +that the old man had made me the heir of his savings. Such was his +announcement, in a very excited voice, but incidentally upon a solemn +adjuration to the squire to beware of his temper—govern his temper and +not be a turncoat. +</p> + +<p> +We were present at the head of the supper-table to hear our healths drunk. +Sewis spoke like a half-caste oblivious of his training, and of the subjects he +was at liberty to touch on as well. Evidently there was a weight of foreboding +on his mind. He knew his master well. The squire excused him under the +ejaculation, 'Drunk, by the Lord!' Sewis went so far as to mention my father +'He no disgrace, sar, he no disgrace, I say! but he pull one way, old house +pull other way, and 'tween 'em my little Harry torn apieces, squire. He set out +in the night “You not enter it any more!” Very well. I go my lawyer +next day. You see my Will, squire. Years ago, and little Harry so high. Old +Sewis not the man to change. He no turncoat, squire. God bless you, my master; +you recollect, and ladies tell you if you forget, old Sewis no turncoat. You +hate turncoat. You taught old Sewis, and God bless you, and Mr. Harry, and +British Constitution, all Amen!' +</p> + +<p> +With that he bounded to bed. He was dead next morning. +</p> + +<p> +The squire was humorous over my legacy. It amounted to about seventeen hundred +pounds invested in Government Stock, and he asked me what I meant to do with +it; proposed a Charity to be established on behalf of decayed half-castes, +insisting that servants' money could never be appropriated to the uses of +gentlemen. All the while he was muttering, 'Turncoat! eh? +turncoat?'—proof that the word had struck where it was aimed. For me, +after thinking on it, I had a superstitious respect for the legacy, so I +determined, in spite of the squire's laughter over 'Sixty pounds per annum!' to +let it rest in my name: I saw for the first time the possibility that I might +not have my grandfather's wealth to depend upon. He warned me of growing +miserly. With my father in London, living freely on my property, I had not much +fear of that. However, I said discreetly, 'I don't mind spending when I see my +way.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! see your way,' said he. 'Better a niggard than a chuckfist. Only, there's +my girl: she's good at accounts. One 'll do for them, Harry?—ha'n't been +long enough at home yet?' +</p> + +<p> +Few were the occasions when our conversation did not diverge to this sort of +interrogation. Temple and Heriot, with whom I took counsel, advised me to wait +until the idea of the princess had worn its way into his understanding, and +leave the work to Janet. 'Though,' said Heriot to me aside, 'upon my soul, it's +slaughter.' He believed that Janet felt keenly. But then, she admired him, and +so they repaid one another. +</p> + +<p> +I won my grandfather's confidence in practical matters on a trip we took into +Wales. But it was not enough for me to be a man of business, he affirmed; he +wanted me to have some ambition; why not stand for our county at the next +general election? He offered me his Welsh borough if I thought fit to decline a +contest. This was to speak as mightily as a German prince. Virtually, in wealth +and power, he was a prince; but of how queer a kind! He was immensely gratified +by my refraining to look out for my father on our return journey through +London, and remarked, that I had not seen him for some time, he supposed. To +which I said, no, I had not, He advised me to let the fellow run his length. +Suggesting that he held it likely I contributed to 'the fellow's' support: he +said generously, 'Keep clear of him, Hal: I add you a thousand a year to your +allowance,' and damned me for being so thoughtful over it. I found myself +shuddering at a breath of anger from him. Could he not with a word dash my +hopes for ever? The warning I had taken from old Sewis transformed me to +something like a hypocrite, and I dare say I gave the squire to understand, +that I had not seen my father for a very long period and knew nothing of his +recent doings. +</p> + +<p> +'Been infernally quiet these last two or three years,' the squire muttered of +the object of his aversion. 'I heard of a City widow last, sick as a Dover +packet-boat 'bout the fellow! Well, the women are ninnies, but you're a man, +Harry; you're not to be taken in any longer, eh?' +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I knew my father better now, and was asked how the deuce I knew +him better; it was the world I knew better after my stay on the Continent. +</p> + +<p> +I contained myself enough to say, 'Very well, the world, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Flirted with one of their princesses?' He winked. +</p> + +<p> +'On that subject I will talk to you some other time,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Got to pay an indemnity? or what?' He professed alarm, and pushed for +explanations, with the air of a man of business ready to help me if need were. +'Make a clean breast of it, Harry. You're not the son of Tom Fool the Bastard +for nothing, I'll swear. All the same you're Beltham; you're my grandson and +heir, and I'll stand by you. Out with 't! She's a princess, is she?' +</p> + +<p> +The necessity for correcting his impressions taught me to think the moment +favourable. I said, 'I am engaged to her, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +He returned promptly: 'Then you'll break it off.' +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +'Why, you can't jilt my girl at home!' said he. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you find a princess objectionable, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'Objectionable? She's a foreigner. I don't know her. I never saw her. Here's my +Janet I've brought up for you, under my own eyes, out of the way of every +damned soft-sawderer, safe and plump as a melon under a glass, and you fight +shy of her, and go and engage yourself to a foreigner I don't know and never +saw! By George, Harry, I'll call in a parson to settle you soon as ever we +sight Riversley. I'll couple you, by George, I will! 'fore either of you know +whether you're on your legs or your backs.' +</p> + +<p> +We were in the streets of London, so he was obliged to moderate his vehemence. +</p> + +<p> +'Have you consulted Janet?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Consulted her? ever since she was a chick with half a feather on.' +</p> + +<p> +'A chick with half a feather on,' I remarked, 'is not always of the same mind +as a piece of poultry of full plumage.' +</p> + +<p> +'Hang your sneering and your talk of a fine girl, like my Janet, as a piece of +poultry, you young rooster! You toss your head up like a cock too conceited to +crow. I'll swear the girl's in love with you. She does you the honour to be +fond of you. She's one in a million. A handsome girl, straight-backed, honest, +just a dash, and not too much, of our blood in her.' +</p> + +<p> +'Consult her again, sir,' I broke in. 'You will discover she is not of your way +of thinking.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you mean to say she's given you a left-hander, Harry?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have only to say that I have not given her the option.' +</p> + +<p> +He groaned going up the steps of his hotel, faced me once or twice, and almost +gained my sympathy by observing, 'When we're boys, the old ones worry us; when +we're old ones, the boys begin to tug!' He rarely spoke so +humanely,—rarely, at least, to me. +</p> + +<p> +For a wonder, he let the matter drop: possibly because he found me temperate. I +tried the system on him with good effect during our stay in London; that is, I +took upon myself to be always cool, always courteous, deliberate in my replies, +and not uncordial, though I was for representing the reserved young man. I +obtained some praise for my style and bearing among his acquaintances. To one +lady passing an encomium on me, he said, 'Oh, some foreign princess has been +training him,' which seemed to me of good augury. +</p> + +<p> +My friends Temple and Heriot were among the Riversley guests at Christmas. We +rode over to John Thresher's, of whom we heard that the pretty Mabel +Sweetwinter had disappeared, and understood that suspicion had fallen upon one +of us gentlemen. Bob, her brother, had gone the way of the bravest English +fellows of his class-to America. We called on the miller, a soured old man. +Bob's evasion affected him more than Mabel's, Martha Thresher said, in derision +of our sex. I was pained to hear from her that Bob supposed me the misleader of +his sister; and that he had, as she believed, left England, to avoid the misery +of ever meeting me again, because he liked me so much. She had been seen +walking down the lanes with some one resembling me in figure. Heriot took the +miller's view, counting the loss of one stout young Englishman to his country +of far greater importance than the escapades of dozens of girls, for which +simple creatures he had no compassion: he held the expression of it a sham. He +had grown coxcombical. Without talking of his conquests, he talked largely of +the ladies who were possibly in the situation of victims to his grace of +person, though he did not do so with any unctuous boasting. On the contrary, +there was a rather taking undertone of regret that his enfeebled over-fat +country would give her military son no worthier occupation. He laughed at the +mention of Julia Bulsted's name. 'She proves, Richie, marriage is the best of +all receipts for women, just as it's the worst for men. Poor Billy Bulsted, for +instance, a first-rate seaman, and his heart's only half in his profession +since he and Julia swore their oath; and no wonder,—he made something his +own that won't go under lock and key. No military or naval man ought ever to +marry.' +</p> + +<p> +'Stop,' said Temple, 'is the poor old country—How about continuing the +race of heroes?' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot commended him to rectories, vicarages, and curates' lodgings for +breeding grounds, and coming round to Julia related one of the racy dialogues +of her married life. 'The saltwater widow's delicious. Billy rushes home from +his ship in a hurry. What's this Greg writes me?—That he's got a friend +of his to drink with him, d'ye mean, William?—A friend of yours, +ma'am.—And will you say a friend of mine is not a friend of yours, +William?—Julia, you're driving me mad!—And is that far from crazy, +where you said I drove you at first sight of me, William? Back to his ship goes +Billy with a song of love and constancy.' +</p> + +<p> +I said nothing of my chagrin at the behaviour of the pair who had furnished my +first idea of the romantic beauty of love. +</p> + +<p> +'Why does she talk twice as Irish as she used to, Heriot?' +</p> + +<p> +'Just to coax the world to let her be as nonsensical as she likes. She's +awfully dull; she has only her nonsense to amuse her. I repeat: soldiers and +sailors oughtn't to marry. I'm her best friend. I am, on my honour: for I'm +going to make Billy give up the service, since he can't give her up. There she +is!' he cried out, and waved his hat to a lady on horseback some way down the +slope of a road leading to the view of our heathland: +</p> + +<p> +'There's the only girl living fit to marry a man and swear she's stick to him +through life and death.' +</p> + +<p> +He started at a gallop. Temple would have gone too at any possible speed, for +he knew as well as I did that Janet was the girl alone capable of winning a +respectful word from Heriot; but I detained him to talk of Ottilia and my +dismal prospect of persuading the squire to consent to my proposal for her, and +to dower her in a manner worthy a princess. He doled out his yes and no to me +vacantly. Janet and Heriot came at a walking pace to meet us, he questioning +her, she replying, but a little differently from her usual habit of turning her +full face to the speaker. He was evidently startled, and, to judge from his +posture, repeated his question, as one would say, 'You did this?' She nodded, +and then uttered some rapid words, glanced at him, laughed shyly, and sank her +features into repose as we drew near. She had a deep blush on her face. I +thought it might be, that Janet and her loud champion had come to particular +terms, a supposition that touched me with regrets for Temple's sake. But Heriot +was not looking pleased. It happened that whatever Janet uttered struck a chord +of opposition in me. She liked the Winter and the Winter sunsets, had hopes of +a frost for skating, liked our climate, thought our way of keeping Christmas +venerable, rejoiced in dispensing the squire's bounties—called them +bounties, joined Heriot in abusing foreign countries to the exaltation of her +own: all this with 'Well, Harry, I'm sorry you don't think as we do. And we do, +don't we?' she addressed him. +</p> + +<p> +'I reserve a point,' he said, and not playfully. +</p> + +<p> +She appeared distressed, and courted a change of expression in his features, +and I have to confess that never having seen her gaze upon any one save myself +in that fashion, which was with her very winning, especially where some of her +contralto tones of remonstrance or entreaty aided it, I felt as a man does at a +neighbour's shadow cast over his rights of property. +</p> + +<p> +Heriot dropped to the rear: I was glad to leave her with Temple, and glad to +see them canter ahead together on the sand of tie heaths. +</p> + +<p> +'She has done it,' Heriot burst out abruptly. 'She has done it!' he said again. +'Upon my soul, I never wished in my life before that I was a marrying man: I +might have a chance of ending worth something. She has won the squire round +with a thundering fib, and you're to have the German if you can get her. Don't +be in a hurry. The squire 'll speak to you to-night: but think over it. Will +you? Think what a girl this is. I believe on my honour no man ever had such an +offer of a true woman. Come, don't think it's Heriot speaking—I've always +liked her, of course. But I have always respected her, and that's not of +course. Depend upon it, a woman who can be a friend of men is the right sort of +woman to make a match with. Do you suppose she couldn't have a dozen fellows +round her at the lift of her finger? the pick of the land! I'd trust her with +an army. I tell you, Janet Ilchester's the only girl alive who'll double the +man she marries. I don't know another who wouldn't make the name of wife laugh +the poor devil out of house and company. She's firm as a rock; and sweet as a +flower on it! Will that touch you? Bah! Richie, let's talk like men. I feel for +her because she's fond of you, and I know what it is when a girl like that sets +her heart on a fellow. There,' he concluded, 'I'd ask you to go down on your +knees and pray before you decide against her!' +</p> + +<p> +Heriot succeeded in raising a certain dull indistinct image in my mind of a +well-meaning girl, to whom I was bound to feel thankful, and felt so. I thanked +Heriot, too, for his friendly intentions. He had never seen the Princess +Ottilia. And at night I thanked my grandfather. He bore himself, on the whole, +like the good and kindly old gentleman Janet loved to consider him. He would +not stand in my light, he said, recurring to that sheet-anchor of a tolerant +sentence whenever his forehead began to gather clouds. He regretted that Janet +was no better than her sex in her preference for rakes, and wished me to the +deuce for bringing Heriot into the house, and not knowing when I was lucky. +'German grandchildren, eh!' he muttered. No Beltham had ever married a +foreigner. What was the time fixed between us for the marriage? He wanted to +see his line safe before he died. 'How do I know this foreign woman'll bear?' +he asked, expecting an answer. His hand was on the back of a chair, grasping +and rocking it; his eyes bent stormily on the carpet; they were set blinking +rapidly after a glance at me. Altogether his self-command was creditable to +Janet's tuition. +</p> + +<p> +Janet met me next day, saying with some insolence (so it struck me from her +liveliness): 'Well, it's all right, Harry? Now you'll be happy, I hope.' I did +not shine in my reply. Her amiable part appeared to be to let me see how +brilliant and gracious the commonplace could be made to look. She kept Heriot +at the Grange, against the squire's remonstrance and her mother's. 'It's to +keep him out of harm's way: the women he knows are not of the best kind for +him,' she said, with astounding fatuity. He submitted, and seemed to like it. +She must be teaching Temple to skate figures in the frost, with a great display +of good-humoured patience, and her voice at musical pitches. But her principal +affectation was to talk on matters of business with Mr. Burgin and Mr. Trewint, +the squire's lawyer and bailiff, on mines and interest, on money and economical +questions; not shrinking from politics either, until the squire cries out to +the males assisting in the performance, 'Gad, she's a head as good as our +half-dozen put together,' and they servilely joined their fragmentary capitals +in agreement. She went so far as to retain Peterborough to teach her Latin. He +was idling in the expectation of a living in the squire's gift. +</p> + +<p> +The annoyance for me was that I could not detach myself from a contemplation of +these various scenes, by reverting to my life in Germany. The preposterous +closing of my interview with Ottilia blocked the way, and I was unable to write +to her—unable to address her even in imagination, without pangs of shame +at the review of the petty conspiracy I had sanctioned to entrap her to plight +her hand to me, and without perpetually multiplying excuses for my conduct. So +to escape them I was reduced to study Janet, forming one of her satellites. She +could say to me impudently, with all the air of a friendly comrade, 'Had your +letter from Germany yet, Harry?' She flew—she was always on the chase. I +saw her permit Heriot to kiss her hand, and then the squire appeared, and +Heriot and she burst into laughter, and the squire, with a puzzled face, would +have the game explained to him, but understood not a bit of it, only growled at +me; upon which Janet became serious and chid him. I was told by my aunt Dorothy +to admire this behaviour of hers. One day she certainly did me a service: a +paragraph in one of the newspapers spoke of my father, not flatteringly: +'Richmond is in the field again,' it commenced. The squire was waiting for her +to hand the paper to him. None of us could comprehend why she played him off +and denied him his right to the first perusal of the news; she was voluble, +almost witty, full of sprightly Roxalana petulance. +</p> + +<p> +'This paper,' she said, 'deserves to be burnt,' and she was allowed to burn +it—money article, mining column as well—on the pretext of an +infamous anti-Tory leader, of which she herself composed the first sentence to +shock the squire completely. I had sight of that paper some time afterwards. +Richmond was in the field again, it stated, with mock flourishes. But that was +not the worst. My grandfather's name was down there, and mine, and Princess +Ottilia's. My father's connection with the court of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld was +alluded to as the latest, and next to his winning the heiress of Riversley, the +most successful of his ventures, inasmuch as his son, if rumour was to be +trusted, had obtained the promise of the hand of the princess. The paragraph +was an excerpt from a gossiping weekly journal, perhaps less malevolent than I +thought it. There was some fun to be got out of a man who, the journal in +question was informed, had joined the arms of England and a petty German +principality stamped on his plate and furniture. +</p> + +<p> +My gratitude to Janet was fervent enough when I saw what she had saved me from. +I pressed her hand and held it. I talked stupidly, but I made my cruel position +intelligible to her, and she had the delicacy, on this occasion, to keep her +sentiments regarding my father unuttered. We sat hardly less than an hour side +by side—I know not how long hand in hand. The end was an extraordinary +trembling in the limb abandoned to me. It seized her frame. I would have +detained her, but it was plain she suffered both in her heart and her pride. +Her voice was under fair command—more than mine was. She counselled me to +go to London, at once. 'I would be off to London if I were you, +Harry,'—for the purpose of checking my father's +extravagances,—would have been the further wording, which she spared me; +and I thanked her, wishing, at the same time, that she would get the habit of +using choicer phrases whenever there might, by chance, be a stress of emotion +between us. Her trembling, and her 'I'd be off,' came into unpleasant collision +in the recollection. +</p> + +<p> +I acknowledge to myself that she was a true and hearty friend. She listened +with interest to my discourse on the necessity of my being in Parliament before +I could venture to propose formally for the hand of the princess, and undertook +to bear the burden of all consequent negotiations with my grandfather. If she +would but have allowed me to speak of Temple, instead of saying, 'Don't, Harry, +I like him so much!' at the very mention of his name, I should have sincerely +felt my indebtedness to her, and some admiration of her fine spirit and figure +besides. I could not even agree with my aunt Dorothy that Janet was handsome. +When I had to grant her a pardon I appreciated her better. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"></a> +CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br/> +MY BANKERS' BOOK</h2> + +<p> +The squire again did honour to Janet's eulogy and good management of him. +</p> + +<p> +'And where,' said she, 'would you find a Radical to behave so generously, +Harry, when it touches him so?' +</p> + +<p> +He accorded me his permission to select my side in politics, merely insisting +that I was never to change it, and this he requested me to swear to, for (he +called the ghost of old Sewis to witness) he abhorred a turncoat. +</p> + +<p> +'If you're to be a Whig, or a sneaking half-and-half, I can't help you much,' +he remarked. 'I can pop a young Tory in for my borough, maybe; but I can't +insult a number of independent Englishmen by asking them to vote for the +opposite crew; that's reasonable, eh? And I can't promise you plumpers for the +county neither. You can date your Address from Riversley. You'll have your +house in town. Tell me this princess of yours is ready with her hand, and,' he +threw in roughly, 'is a respectable young woman, I'll commence building. You'll +have a house fit for a prince in town and country, both.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple had produced an effect on him by informing him that 'this princess of +mine' was entitled to be considered a fit and proper person, in rank and blood, +for an alliance with the proudest royal Houses of Europe, and my grandfather +was not quite destitute of consolation in the prospect I presented to him. He +was a curious study to me, of the Tory mind, in its attachment to solidity, +fixity, certainty, its unmatched generosity within a limit, its devotion to the +family, and its family eye for the country. An immediate introduction to +Ottilia would have won him to enjoy the idea of his grandson's marriage; but +not having seen her, he could not realize her dignity, nor even the womanliness +of a 'foreign woman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Thank God for one thing,' he said: 'we shan't have that fellow +bothering—shan't have the other half of your family messing the business. +You'll have to account for him to your wife as you best can. I've nothing to do +with him, mind that. He came to my house, stole my daughter, crazed her wits, +dragged us all...' +</p> + +<p> +The excuse to turn away from the hearing of abuse of my father was too good to +be neglected, though it was horribly humiliating that I should have to take +advantage of it—vexatious that I should seem chargeable with tacit lying +in allowing the squire to suppose the man he hated to be a stranger to the +princess. Not feeling sure whether it might be common prudence to delude him +even passively, I thought of asking Janet for her opinion, but refrained. A +stout deceiver has his merits, but a feeble hypocrite applying to friends to +fortify him in his shifts and tergiversations must provoke contempt. I desired +that Janet might continue to think well of me. I was beginning to drop in my +own esteem, which was the mirror of my conception of Ottilia's view of her +lover. +</p> + +<p> +Now, had I consulted Janet, I believe the course of my history would have been +different, for she would not then, I may imagine, have been guilty of her fatal +slip of the tongue that threw us into heavy seas when we thought ourselves +floating on canal waters. A canal barge (an image to me of the most perfect +attainable peace), suddenly, on its passage through our long fir-woods, with +their scented reeds and flowing rushes, wild balsam and silky cotton-grass +beds, sluiced out to sea and storm, would be somewhat in my likeness soon after +a single luckless observation had passed at our Riversley breakfast-table one +Sunday morning. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy and Mr. Peterborough were conversing upon the varieties of +Christian sects, and particularly such as approached nearest to Anglicanism, +together with the strange, saddening fact that the Christian religion appeared +to be more divided than, Peterborough regretted to say, the forms of idolatry +established by the Buddha, Mahomet, and other impostors. He claimed the +audacious merit for us, that we did not discard the reason of man: we admitted +man's finite reason to our school of faith, and it was found refractory. Hence +our many divisions. +</p> + +<p> +'The Roman Catholics admit reason?' said Janet, who had too strong a turn for +showing her keenness in little encounters with Peterborough. +</p> + +<p> +'No,' said he; 'the Protestants.' And, anxious to elude her, he pressed on to +enchain my aunt Dorothy's attention. Janet plagued him meanwhile; and I helped +her. We ran him and his schoolboy, the finite refractory, up and down, until +Peterborough was glad to abandon him, and Janet said, 'Did you preach to the +Germans much?' He had officiated in Prince Ernest's private chapel: not, he +added in his egregious modesty, not that he personally wished to officiate. +</p> + +<p> +'It was Harry's wish?' Janet said, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +'My post of tutor,' Peterborough hastened to explain, 'was almost entirely +supernumerary. The circumstances being so, I the more readily acquiesced in the +title of private chaplain, prepared to fulfil such duties as devolved upon me +in that capacity, and acting thereon I proffered my occasional services. +Lutheranism and Anglicanism are not, doubtless you are aware, divided on the +broader bases. We are common Protestants. The Papacy, I can assure you, finds +as little favour with one as with the other. Yes, I held forth, as you would +say, from time to time. My assumption of the title of private chaplain, it was +thought, improved the family dignity—that is, on our side.' +</p> + +<p> +'Thought by Harry?' said Janet; and my aunt Dorothy said, 'You and Harry had a +consultation about it?' +</p> + +<p> +'Wanted to appear as grand as they could,' quoth the squire. +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough signified an assent, designed to modify the implication. 'Not +beyond due bounds, I trust, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! now I understand,' Janet broke out in the falsetto notes of a puzzle +solved in the mind. 'It was his father! Harry proclaiming his private +chaplain!' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Harry's father did first suggest—' said Peterborough, but her +quickly-altered features caused him to draw in his breath, as she had done +after one short laugh. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather turned a round side-eye on me, hard as a cock's. +</p> + +<p> +Janet immediately started topics to fill Peterborough's mouth: the weather, the +walk to church, the probable preacher. 'And, grandada,' said she to the squire, +who was muttering ominously with a grim under-jaw, 'His private chaplain!' and +for this once would not hear her, 'Grandada, I shall drive you over to see papa +this afternoon.' She talked as if nothing had gone wrong. Peterborough, +criminal red, attacked a jam-pot for a diversion. 'Such sweets are rare indeed +on the Continent,' he observed to my aunt Dorothy. 'Our homemade dainties are +matchless.' +</p> + +<p> +'Private chaplain!' the squire growled again. +</p> + +<p> +'It's you that preach this afternoon,' Janet said to Peterborough. 'Do you give +us an extempore sermon?' +</p> + +<p> +'You remind me, Miss Ilchester, I must look to it; I have a little trimming to +do.' +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough thought he might escape, but the squire arrested him. 'You'll give +me five minutes before you're out of the house, please. D'ye smoke on +Sundays?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not on Sundays, sir,' said Peterborough, openly and cordially, as to signify +that they were of one mind regarding the perniciousness of Sunday smoking. +</p> + +<p> +'See you don't set fire to my ricks with your foreign chaplain's tricks. I +spied you puffing behind one t' other day. There,' the squire dispersed +Peterborough's unnecessary air of abstruse recollection, 'don't look as though +you were trying to hit on a pin's head in a bushel of oats. Don't set my ricks +on fire—that's all.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Peterborough,' my aunt Dorothy interposed her voice to soften this rough +treatment of him with the offer of some hot-house flowers for his sitting-room. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, I thank you!' I heard the garlanded victim lowing as I left him to the +squire's mercy. +</p> + +<p> +Janet followed me out. 'It was my fault, Harry. You won't blame him, I know. +But will he fib? I don't think he's capable of it, and I'm sure he can't run +and double. Grandada will have him fast before a minute is over.' +</p> + +<p> +I told her to lose no time in going and extracting the squire's promise that +Peterborough should have his living,—so much it seemed possible to save. +</p> + +<p> +She flew back, and in Peterborough's momentary absence, did her work. Nothing +could save the unhappy gentleman from a distracting scene and much archaic +English. The squire's power of vituperation was notorious: he could be more +than a match for roadside navvies and predatory tramps in cogency of epithet. +Peterborough came to me drenched, and wailing that he had never heard such +language,—never dreamed of it. And to find himself the object of +it!—and, worse, to be unable to conscientiously defend himself! The pain +to him was in the conscience,—which is, like the spleen, a function whose +uses are only to be understood in its derangement. He had eased his conscience +to every question right out, and he rejoiced to me at the immense relief it +gave him. Conscientiously, he could not deny that he knew the squire's +objection to my being in my father's society; and he had connived at it 'for +reasons, my dearest Harry, I can justify to God and man, but not—I had to +confess as much—not, I grieve to say, to your grandfather. I attempted to +do justice to the amiable qualities of the absent. In a moment I was assailed +with epithets that... and not a word is to be got in when he is so violent. One +has to make up one's mind to act Andromeda, and let him be the sea-monster, as +somebody has said; I forget the exact origin of the remark.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire certainly had a whole ocean at command. I strung myself to pass +through the same performance. To my astonishment I went unchallenged. Janet +vehemently asserted that she had mollified the angry old man, who, however, was +dark of visage, though his tongue kept silence. He was gruff over his +wine-glass: the blandishments of his favourite did not brighten him. From his +point of view he had been treated vilely, and he was apparently inclined to +nurse his rancour and keep my fortunes trembling in the balance. Under these +circumstances it was impossible for me to despatch a letter to Ottilia, though +I found that I could write one now, and I sat in my room writing all +day,—most eloquent stuff it was. The shadow of misfortune restored the +sense of my heroical situation, which my father had extinguished, and this +unlocked the powers of speech. I wrote so admirably that my wretchedness could +enjoy the fine millinery I decorated it in. Then to tear the noble composition +to pieces was a bitter gratification. Ottilia's station repelled and attracted +me mysteriously. I could not separate her from it, nor keep my love of her from +the contentions into which it threw me. In vain I raved, 'What is rank?' There +was a magnet in it that could at least set me quivering and twisting, behaving +like a man spellbound, as madly as any hero of the ballads under a wizard's +charm. +</p> + +<p> +At last the squire relieved us. He fixed that side-cast cock's eye of his on +me, and said, 'Where's your bankers' book, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +I presumed that it was with my bankers, but did not suggest the possibility +that my father might have it in his custody; for he had a cheque-book of his +own, and regulated our accounts. Why not? I thought, and flushed somewhat +defiantly. The money was mine. +</p> + +<p> +'Any objection to my seeing that book?' said the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'None whatever, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +He nodded. I made it a point of honour to write for the book to be sent down to +me immediately. +</p> + +<p> +The book arrived, and the squire handed it to me to break the cover, insisting, +'You're sure you wouldn't rather not have me look at it?' +</p> + +<p> +'Quite,' I replied. The question of money was to me perfectly unimportant. I +did not see a glimpse of danger in his perusing the list of my expenses. +</p> + +<p> +''Cause I give you my word I know nothing about it now,' he said. +</p> + +<p> +I complimented him on his frank method of dealing, and told him to look at the +book if he pleased, but with prudence sufficiently awake to check the +declaration that I had not once looked at it myself. +</p> + +<p> +He opened it. We had just assembled in the hall, where breakfast was laid +during Winter, before a huge wood fire. Janet had her teeth on her lower lip, +watching the old man's face. I did not condescend to be curious; but when I +turned my head to him he was puffing through thin lips, and then his mouth +crumpled in a knob. He had seen sights. +</p> + +<p> +'By George, I must have breakfast 'fore I go into this!' he exclaimed, and +stared as if he had come out of an oven. +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy Beltham reminded him that Prayers had not been read. +</p> + +<p> +'Prayers!' He was about to objurgate, but affirmatived her motion to ring the +bell for the servants, and addressed Peterborough: 'You read 'em abroad every +morning?' +</p> + +<p> +Peterborough's conscience started off on its inevitable jog-trot at a touch of +the whip. 'A-yes; that is—oh, it was my office.' He had to recollect with +exactitude: +</p> + +<p> +'I should specify exceptions; there were intervals...' +</p> + +<p> +'Please, open your Bible,' the squire cut him short; 'I don't want a damned +fine edge on everything.' +</p> + +<p> +Partly for an admonition to him, or in pure nervousness, Peterborough blew his +nose monstrously: an unlucky note; nothing went well after it. 'A slight cold,' +he murmured and resumed the note, and threw himself maniacally into it. The +unexpected figure of Captain Bulsted on tiptoe, wearing the ceremonial +depressed air of intruders on these occasions, distracted our attention for a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +'Fresh from ship, William?' the squire called out. +</p> + +<p> +The captain ejaculated a big word, to judge of it from the aperture, but it was +mute as his footing on the carpet, and he sat and gazed devoutly toward +Peterborough, who had waited to see him take his seat, and must now, in his +hurry to perform his duty, sweep the peccant little redbound book to the floor. +'Here, I'll have that,' said the squire. 'Allow me, sir,' said Peterborough; +and they sprang into a collision. +</p> + +<p> +'Would you jump out of your pulpit to pick up an old woman's umbrella?' the +squire asked him in wrath, and muttered of requiring none of his clerical +legerdemain with books of business. Tears were in Peterborough's eyes. My aunt +Dorothy's eyes dwelt kindly on him to encourage him, but the man's irritable +nose was again his enemy. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted chanced to say in the musical voice of inquiry: 'Prayers are +not yet over, are they?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, nor never will be with a parson blowing his horn at this rate,' the squire +rejoined. 'And mind you,' he said to Peterborough, after dismissing the +servants, to whom my aunt Dorothy read the morning lessons apart, 'I'd not have +had this happen, sir, for money in lumps. I've always known I should hang the +day when my house wasn't blessed in the morning by prayer. So did my father, +and his before him. Fiddle! sir, you can't expect young people to wear decent +faces when the parson's hopping over the floor like a flea, and trumpeting as +if the organ-pipe wouldn't have the sermon at any price. You tried to juggle me +out of this book here.' +</p> + +<p> +'On my!—indeed, sir, no!' Peterborough proclaimed his innocence, and it +was unlikely that the squire should have suspected him. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted had come to us for his wife, whom he had not found at home on +his arrival last midnight. +</p> + +<p> +'God bless my soul,' said the squire, 'you don't mean to tell me she's gone +off, William?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! dear, no, sir,' said the captain, 'she's only cruising.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire recommended a draught of old ale. The captain accepted it. His +comportment was cheerful in a sober fashion, notwithstanding the transparent +perturbation of his spirit. He answered my aunt Dorothy's questions relating to +Julia simply and manfully, as became a gallant seaman, cordially excusing his +wife for not having been at home to welcome him, with the singular plea, based +on his knowledge of the sex, that the nearer she knew him to be the less able +was she to sit on her chair waiting like Patience. He drank his ale from the +hands of Sillabin, our impassive new butler, who had succeeded Sewis, the +squire told him, like a Whig Ministry the Tory; proof that things were not +improving. +</p> + +<p> +'I thought, sir, things were getting better,' said the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'The damnedest mistake ever made, William. How about the Fall of Man, then? eh? +You talk like a heathen Radical. It's Scripture says we're going from better to +worse, and that's Tory doctrine. And stick to the good as long as you can! Why, +William, you were a jolly bachelor once.' +</p> + +<p> +'Sir, and ma'am,' the captain bowed to Dorothy Beltham, 'I have, thanks to you, +never known happiness but in marriage, and all I want is my wife.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire fretted for Janet to depart. 'I'm going, grandada,' she said. +'You'll oblige me by not attending to any matter of business to-day. Give me +that book of Harry's to keep for you.' +</p> + +<p> +'How d'ye mean, my dear?' +</p> + +<p> +'It's bad work done on a Sunday, you know.' +</p> + +<p> +'So it is. I'll lock up the book.' +</p> + +<p> +'I have your word for that, grandada,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +The ladies retired, taking Peterborough with them. +</p> + +<p> +'Good-bye to the frocks! and now, William, out with your troubles,' said the +squire. +</p> + +<p> +The captain's eyes were turned to the door my aunt Dorothy had passed through. +</p> + +<p> +'You remember the old custom, sir!' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, do I, William. Sorry for you then; infernally sorry for you now, that I +am! But you've run your head into the halter.' +</p> + +<p> +'I love her, sir; I love her to distraction. Let any man on earth say she's not +an angel, I flatten him dead as his lie. By the way, sir, I am bound in duty to +inform you I am speaking of my wife.' +</p> + +<p> +'To be sure you are, William, and a trim schooner-yacht she is.' +</p> + +<p> +'She's off, sir; she's off!' +</p> + +<p> +I thought it time to throw in a word. 'Captain Bulsted, I should hold any man +but you accountable to me for hinting such things of my friend.' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, your hand,' he cried, sparkling. +</p> + +<p> +'Hum; his hand!' growled the squire. 'His hand's been pretty lively on the +Continent, William. Here, look at this book, William, and the bundle o' +cheques! No, I promised my girl. We'll go into it to-morrow, he and I, early. +The fellow has shot away thousands and thousands—been gallivanting among +his foreign duchesses and countesses. There's a petticoat in that bank-book of +his; and more than one, I wager. Now he's for marrying a foreign +princess—got himself in a tangle there, it seems.' +</p> + +<p> +'Mightily well done, Harry!' Captain Bulsted struck a terrific encomium on my +shoulder, groaning, 'May she be true to you, my lad!' +</p> + +<p> +The squire asked him if he was going to church that morning. +</p> + +<p> +'I go to my post, sir, by my fireside,' the captain replied; nor could he be +induced to leave his post vacant by the squire's promise to him of a sermon +that would pickle his temper for a whole week's wear and tear. He regretted +extremely that he could not enjoy so excellent a trial of his patience, but he +felt himself bound to go to his post and wait. +</p> + +<p> +I walked over to Bulsted with him, and heard on the way that it was Heriot who +had called for her and driven her off. 'The man had been, I supposed,' Captain +Bulsted said, 'deputed by some of you to fetch her over to Riversley. My +servants mentioned his name. I thought it adviseable not to trouble the ladies +with it to-day.' He meditated. 'I hoped I should find her at the Grange in the +morning, Harry. I slept on it, rather than startle the poor lamb in the night.' +</p> + +<p> +I offered him to accompany him at once to Heriot's quarters. +</p> + +<p> +'What! and let my wife know I doubted her fidelity. My girl shall never accuse +me of that.' +</p> + +<p> +As it turned out, Julia had been taken by Heriot on a visit to Lady Maria +Higginson, the wife of the intrusive millionaire, who particularly desired to +know her more intimately. Thoughtless Julia, accepting the impudent invitation +without scruple, had allowed herself to be driven away without stating the +place of her destination. She and Heriot were in the Higginsons' pew at church. +Hearing from Janet of her husband's arrival, she rushed home, and there, +instead of having to beg forgiveness, was summoned to grant pardon. Captain +Bulsted had drawn largely on Squire Gregory's cellar to assist him in keeping +his post. +</p> + +<p> +The pair appeared before us fondling ineffably next day, neither one of them +capable of seeing that our domestic peace at the Grange was unseated. 'We're +the two wretchedest creatures alive; haven't any of ye to spare a bit of +sympathy for us?' Julia began. 'We're like on a pitchfork. There's William's +duty to his country, and there's his affection for me, and they won't go +together, because Government, which is that horrid Admiralty, fears pitching +and tossing for post-captains' wives. And William away, I'm distracted, and the +Admiralty's hair's on end if he stops. And, 'deed, Miss Beltham, I'm not more +than married to just half a husband.' +</p> + +<p> +The captain echoed her, 'Half! but happy enough for twenty whole ones, if +you'll be satisfied, my duck.' +</p> + +<p> +Julia piteously entreated me, for my future wife's sake, not to take service +under Government. As for the Admiralty, she said, it had no characteristic but +the abominable one, that it hated a woman. The squire laid two or three +moderately coarse traps for the voluble frank creature, which she evaded with +surprising neatness, showing herself more awake than one would have imagined +her. Janet and I fancied she must have come with the intention to act uxorious +husband and Irish wife for the distinct purpose of diverting the squire's wrath +from me, for he greatly delighted in the sight of merry wedded pairs. But they +were as simple as possible in their display of happiness. +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that they came opportunely. My bankers' book had been the theme all +the morning, and an astonishing one to me equally with my grandfather: Since +our arrival in England, my father had drawn nine thousand pounds. The sums +expended during our absence on the Continent reached the perplexing figures of +forty-eight thousand. I knew it too likely, besides, that all debts were not +paid. Self—self—self drew for thousands at a time; sometimes, as +the squire's convulsive forefinger indicated, for many thousands within a week. +It was incomprehensible to him until I, driven at bay by questions and insults, +and perceiving that concealment could not long be practised, made a virtue of +the situation by telling him (what he in fact must have seen) that my father +possessed a cheque-book as well as I, and likewise drew upon the account. We +had required the money; it was mine, and I had sold out Bank Stock and +Consols,—which gave very poor interest, I remarked cursorily—and +had kept the money at my bankers', to draw upon according to our necessities. I +pitied the old man while speaking. His face was livid; language died from his +lips. He asked to have little things explained to him—the two +cheque-books, for instance,—and what I thought of doing when this money +was all gone: for he supposed I did not expect the same amount to hand every +two years; unless, he added, I had given him no more than a couple of years' +lease of life when I started for my tour. 'Then the money's gone!' he summed +up; and this was the signal for redemanding explanations. Had he not treated me +fairly and frankly in handing over my own to me on the day of my majority? Yes. +</p> + +<p> +'And like a fool, you think—eh?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have no such thought in my head, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have been keeping that fellow in his profligacy, and you're keeping him +now. Why, you're all but a beggar!... Comes to my house, talks of his birth, +carries off my daughter, makes her mad, lets her child grow up to lay hold of +her money, and then grips him fast and pecks him, fleeces him!... You're +beggared—d'ye know that? He's had the two years of you, and sucked you +dry. What were you about? What were you doing? Did you have your head on? You +shared cheque-books? good!... The devil in hell never found such a fool as you! +You had your house full of your foreign bonyrobers—eh? Out with it! How +did you pass your time? Drunk and dancing?' +</p> + +<p> +By such degrees my grandfather worked himself up to the pitch for his style of +eloquence. I have given a faint specimen of it. When I took the liberty to +consider that I had heard enough, he followed me out of the library into the +hall, where Janet stood. In her presence, he charged the princess and her +family with being a pack of greedy adventurers, conspirators with 'that fellow' +to plunder me; and for a proof of it, he quoted my words, that my father's time +had been spent in superintending the opening of a coal-mine on Prince Ernest's +estate. 'That fellow pretending to manage a coal-mine!' Could not a girl see it +was a shuffle to hoodwink a greenhorn? And now he remembered it was Colonel +Goodwin and his daughter who had told him of having seen 'the fellow' engaged +in playing Court-buffoon to a petty German prince, and performing his antics, +cutting capers like a clown at a fair. +</p> + +<p> +'Shame!' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +'Hear her!' The squire turned to me. +</p> + +<p> +But she cried: 'Oh! grandada, hear yourself! or don't, be silent. If Harry has +offended you, speak like one gentleman to another. Don't rob me of my love for +you: I haven't much besides that.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, because of a scoundrel and his young idiot!' +</p> + +<p> +Janet frowned in earnest, and said: 'I don't permit you to change the meaning +of the words I speak.' +</p> + +<p> +He muttered a proverb of the stables. Reduced to behave temperately, he began +the whole history of my bankers' book anew—the same queries, the same +explosions and imprecations. +</p> + +<p> +'Come for a walk with me, dear Harry,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +I declined to be protected in such a manner, absurdly on my dignity; and the +refusal, together possibly with some air of contemptuous independence in the +tone of it, brought the squire to a climax. 'You won't go out and walk with +her? You shall go down on your knees to her and beg her to give you her arm for +a walk. By God! you shall, now, here, on the spot, or off you go to your German +princess, with your butler's legacy, and nothing more from me but good-bye and +the door bolted. Now, down with you!' +</p> + +<p> +He expected me to descend. +</p> + +<p> +'And if he did, he would never have my arm.' Janet's eyes glittered hard on the +squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Before that rascal dies, my dear, he shall whine like a beggar out in the cold +for the tips of your fingers!' +</p> + +<p> +'Not if he asks me first,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +This set him off again. He realized her prospective generosity, and contrasted +it with my actual obtuseness. Janet changed her tactics. She assumed +indifference. But she wanted experience, and a Heriot to help her in playing a +part. She did it badly—overdid it; so that the old man, now imagining +both of us to be against his scheme for uniting us, counted my iniquity as +twofold. Her phrase, 'Harry and I will always be friends,' roused the loudest +of his denunciations upon me, as though there never had been question of the +princess, so inveterate was his mind's grasp of its original designs. Friends! +Would our being friends give him heirs by law to his estate and name? And so +forth. My aunt Dorothy came to moderate his invectives. In her room the +heavily-burdened little book of figures was produced, and the items read aloud; +and her task was to hear them without astonishment, but with a business-like +desire to comprehend them accurately, a method that softened the squire's +outbursts by degrees. She threw out hasty running commentaries: 'Yes, that was +for a yacht'; and 'They were living at the Court of a prince'; such and such a +sum was 'large, but Harry knew his grandfather did not wish him to make a poor +appearance.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why, do you mean to swear to me, on your oath, Dorothy Beltham,' said the +squire, amazed at the small amazement he created 'you think these two fellows +have been spending within the right margin? What'll be women's ideas next!' +</p> + +<p> +'No,' she answered demurely. 'I think Harry has been extravagant, and has had +his lesson. And surely it is better now than later? But you are not making +allowances for his situation as the betrothed of a princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'That's what turns your head,' said he; and she allowed him to have the +notion, and sneer at herself and her sex. +</p> + +<p> +'How about this money drawn since he came home?' the squire persisted. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy reddened. He struck his finger on the line marking the sum, +repeating his demand; and at this moment Captain Bulsted and Julia arrived. The +ladies manoeuvred so that the captain and the squire were left alone together. +Some time afterward the captain sent out word that he begged his wife's +permission to stay to dinner at the Grange, and requested me to favour him by +conducting his wife to Bulsted: proof, as Julia said, that the two were engaged +in a pretty hot tussle. She was sure her William would not be the one to be +beaten. +</p> + +<p> +I led her away, rather depressed by the automaton performance assigned to me; +from which condition I awoke with a touch of horror to find myself paying her +very warm compliments; for she had been coquettish and charming to cheer me, +and her voice was sweet. We reached a point in our conversation I know not +where, but I must have spoken with some warmth. 'Then guess,' said she, 'what +William is suffering for your sake now, Harry'; that is, 'suffering in +remaining away from me on your account'; and thus, in an instant, with a skill +so intuitive as to be almost unconscious, she twirled me round to a right sense +of my position, and set me reflecting, whether a love that clad me in such +imperfect armour as to leave me penetrable to these feminine graces—a +plump figure, swinging skirts, dewy dark eyelids, laughing red lips—could +indeed be absolute love. And if it was not love of the immortal kind, what was +I? I looked back on the thought like the ship on its furrow through the waters, +and saw every mortal perplexity, and death under. My love of Ottilia delusion? +Then life was delusion! I contemplated Julia in alarm, somewhat in the light +fair witches were looked on when the faggots were piled for them. The sense of +her unholy attractions abased and mortified me: and it set me thinking on the +strangeness of my disregard of Mdlle. Jenny Chassediane when in Germany, who +was far sprightlier, if not prettier, and, as I remembered, had done me the +favour to make discreet play with her eyelids in our encounters, and long eyes +in passing. I caught myself regretting my coldness of that period; for which +regrets I could have swung the scourge upon my miserable flesh. Ottilia's +features seemed dying out of my mind. 'Poor darling Harry!' Julia sighed. 'And +d'ye know, the sight of a young man far gone in love gives me the trembles?' I +rallied her concerning the ladder scene in my old schooldays, and the tender +things she had uttered to Heriot. She answered, 'Oh, I think I got them out of +poets and chapters about lovemaking, or I felt it very much. And that's what I +miss in William; he can't talk soft nice nonsense. I believe him, he would if +he could, but he's like a lion of the desert—it's a roar!' +</p> + +<p> +I rejoiced when we heard the roar. Captain Bulsted returned to take command of +his ship, not sooner than I wanted him, and told us of a fierce tussle with the +squire. He had stuck to him all day, and up to 11 P.M. 'By George! Harry, he +had to make humble excuses to dodge out of eyeshot a minute. Conquered him over +the fourth bottle! And now all's right. He'll see your dad. “In a +barn?” says the squire. “Here's to your better health, sir,” +I bowed to him; “gentlemen don't meet in barns; none but mice and traps +make appointments there.” To shorten my story, my lad, I have arranged +for the squire and your excellent progenitor to meet at Bulsted: we may end by +bringing them over a bottle of old Greg's best. “See the boy's +father,” I kept on insisting. The point is, that this confounded book +must be off your shoulders, my lad. A dirty dog may wash in a duck-pond. You +see, Harry, the dear old squire may set up your account twenty times over, but +he has a right to know how you twirl the coin. He says you don't supply the +information. I suggest to him that your father can, and will. So we get them +into a room together. I'll be answerable for the rest. And now top your boom, +and to bed here: off in the morning and tug the big vessel into port here! And, +Harry, three cheers, and another bottle to crown the victory, if you're the +man for it?' +</p> + +<p> +Julia interposed a decided negative to the proposal; an ordinarily unlucky +thing to do with bibulous husbands, and the captain looked uncomfortably +checked; but when he seemed to be collecting to assert himself, the humour of +her remark, 'Now, no bravado, William,' disarmed him. +</p> + +<p> +'Bravado, my sweet chuck?' +</p> + +<p> +'Won't another bottle be like flashing your sword after you've won the day?' +said she. +</p> + +<p> +He slung his arm round her, and sent a tremendous whisper into my ear—'A +perfect angel!' +</p> + +<p> +I started for London next day, more troubled aesthetically regarding the effect +produced on me by this order of perfect angels than practically anxious about +material affairs, though it is true that when I came into proximity with my +father, the thought of his all but purely mechanical power of making money +spin, fly, and vanish, like sparks from a fire-engine, awakened a serious +disposition in me to bring our monetary partnership to some definite +settlement. He was living in splendour, next door but one to the grand +establishment he had driven me to from Dipwell in the old days, with Mrs. Waddy +for his housekeeper once more, Alphonse for his cook. Not living on the same +scale, however, the troubled woman said. She signified that it was now the +whirlwind. I could not help smiling to see how proud she was of him, +nevertheless, as a god-like charioteer—in pace, at least. +</p> + +<p> +'Opera to-night,' she answered my inquiries for him, admonishing me by her tone +that I ought not to be behindhand in knowing his regal rules and habits. +Praising his generosity, she informed me that he had spent one hundred pounds, +and offered a reward of five times the sum, for the discovery of Mabel +Sweetwinter. 'Your papa never does things by halves, Mr. Harry!' Soon after she +was whimpering, 'Oh, will it last?' I was shown into the room called 'The +princess's room,' a miracle of furniture, not likely to be occupied by her, I +thought, the very magnificence of the apartment striking down hope in my heart +like cold on a nerve. Your papa says the whole house is to be for you, Mr. +Harry, when the happy day comes.' Could it possibly be that he had talked of +the princess? I took a hasty meal and fortified myself with claret to have +matters clear with him before the night was over. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"></a> +CHAPTER XXXIX.<br/> +I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF</h2> + +<p> +My father stood in the lobby of the Opera, holding a sort of open court, it +appeared to me, for a cluster of gentlemen hung round him; and I had presently +to bow to greetings which were rather of a kind to flatter me, leading me to +presume that he was respected as well as marvelled at. The names of Mr. +Serjeant Wedderburn, Mr. Jennings, Lord Alton, Sir Weeton Slater, Mr. Monterez +Williams, Admiral Loftus, the Earl of Witlington, were among those which struck +my ear, and struck me as good ones. I could not perceive anything of the air of +cynical satellites in these gentlemen—on the contrary, they were +cordially deferential. I felt that he was encompassed by undoubted gentlemen, +and my warmer feelings to my father returned when I became sensible of the +pleasant sway he held over the circle, both in speaking and listening. His +sympathetic smile and semi-droop of attention; his readiness, when occasion +demanded it, to hit the key of the subject and help it on with the right word; +his air of unobtrusive appreciation; his sensibility to the moment when the run +of conversation depended upon him—showed inimitable art coming of natural +genius; and he did not lose a shade of his superior manner the while. Mr. +Serjeant Wedderburn, professionally voluble, a lively talker, brimming with +anecdote, but too sparkling, too prompt, too full of personal relish of his +point, threw my father's urbane supremacy into marked relief; and so in another +fashion did the Earl of Witlington, 'a youth in the season of guffaws,' as +Jorian DeWitt described him, whom a jest would seize by the throat, shaking his +sapling frame. Jorian strolled up to us goutily. No efforts of my father's +would induce him to illustrate his fame for repartee, so it remained +established. 'Very pretty waxwork,' he said to me of our English beauties +swimming by. 'Now, those women, young Richmond, if they were inflammable to the +fiftieth degree, that is, if they had the fiftieth part of a Frenchwoman in +them, would have canvassed society on the great man's account long before this, +and sent him to the top like a bubble. He wastes his time on them. That fat +woman he's bowing to is Viscountess Sedley, a porcine empress, widow of three, +with a soupçon of bigamy to flavour them. She mounted from a grocer's shop, I +am told. Constitution has done everything for that woman. So it will +everywhere—it beats the world! Now he's on all-fours to Lady Rachel +Stokes, our pure aristocracy; she walks as if she were going through a doorway, +and couldn't risk an eyelid. I'd like to see her tempting St. Anthony. That's +little Wreckham's wife: she's had as many adventures as Gil Blas before he +entered the Duke of Lerma's service.' He reviewed several ladies, certainly not +very witty when malignant, as I remembered my father to have said of him. 'The +style of your Englishwoman is to keep the nose exactly at one elevation, to +show you're born to it. They daren't run a gamut, these women. These +Englishwomen are a fiction! The model of them is the nursery-miss, but they're +like the names of true lovers cut on the bark of a tree—awfully stiff and +longitudinal with the advance of time. We've our Lady Jezebels, my boy! They're +in the pay of the bishops, or the police, to make vice hideous. The rest do the +same for virtue, and get their pay for it somewhere, I don't doubt; perhaps +from the newspapers, to keep up the fiction. I tell you, these Englishwomen +have either no life at all in them, or they're nothing but animal life. 'Gad, +how they dizen themselves! They've no other use for their fingers. The wealth +of this country's frightful!' +</p> + +<p> +Jorian seemed annoyed that he could not excite me to defend my countrywomen; +but I had begun to see that there was no necessity for the sanguine to +encounter the bilious on their behalf, and was myself inclined to be critical. +Besides I was engaged in watching my father, whose bearing toward the ladies he +accosted did not dissatisfy my critical taste, though I had repeated fears of +seeing him overdo it. He summoned me to an introduction to the Countess +Szezedy, a merry little Hungarian dame. +</p> + +<p> +'So,' said she at once, speaking German, 'you are to marry the romantic head, +the Princess Ottilia of Eppenwelzen! I know her well. I have met her in Vienna. +Schone Seele, and bas bleu! It's just those that are won with a duel. I know +Prince Otto too.' She prattled away, and asked me whether the marriage was to +take place in the Summer. I was too astounded to answer. +</p> + +<p> +'No date is yet fixed,' my father struck in. +</p> + +<p> +'It's the talk of London,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +Before I could demand explanations of my father with regard to this terrible +rumour involving Ottilia, I found myself in the box of the City widow, Lady +Sampleman, a grievous person, of the complexion of the autumnal bramble-leaf, +whose first words were: 'Ah! the young suitor! And how is our German princess?' +I had to reply that the theme was more of German princes than princesses in +England. 'Oh! but,' said she, 'you are having a—shall I call +it—national revenge on them? “I will take one of your +princesses,” says you; and as soon as said done! I'm dying for a sight of +her portrait. Captain DeWitt declares her heavenly—I mean, he says she is +fair and nice, quite a lady—that of course! And never mind her not being +rich. You can do the decoration to the match. H'm,' she perused my features; +'pale! Lovelorn? Excuse an old friend of your father's. One of his very oldest, +I'd say, if it didn't impugn. As such, proud of your alliance. I am. I speak of +it everywhere—everywhere.' +</p> + +<p> +Here she dramatized the circulation of the gossip. 'Have you heard the news? +No, what? Fitz-George's son marries a princess of the German realm. Indeed! +True as gospel. And how soon? In a month; and now you will see the dear, +neglected man command the Court....' +</p> + +<p> +I looked at my father: I felt stifling with confusion and rage. He leant over +to her, imparting some ecstatic news about a great lady having determined to +call on her to regulate the affairs of an approaching grand Ball, and under +cover of this we escaped. +</p> + +<p> +'If it were not,' said he, 'for the Chassediane—you are aware, Richie, +poor Jorian is lost to her?—he has fallen at her quicksilver feet. She is +now in London. Half the poor fellow's income expended in bouquets! Her +portrait, in the character of the widow Lefourbe, has become a part of his +dressing apparatus; he shaves fronting her playbill. His first real affaire de +coeur, and he is forty-five! So he is taken in the stomach. That is why love is +such a dangerous malady for middle age. As I said, but for Jenny Chassediane, +our Sampleman would be the fortune for Jorian. I have hinted it on both sides. +Women, Richie, are cleverer than the illustrious Lord Nelson in not seeing what +their inclinations decline to see, and Jorian would do me any service in the +world except that one. You are restless, my son?' +</p> + +<p> +I begged permission to quit the house, and wait for him outside. He, in return, +begged me most urgently to allow myself to be introduced to Lady Edbury, the +stepmother of Lord Destrier, now Marquis of Edbury; and, using conversational +pressure, he adjured me not to slight this lady, adding, with more significance +than the words conveyed, 'I am taking the tide, Richie.' The tide took me, and +I bowed to a lady of impressive languor, pale and young, with pleasant manners, +showing her character in outline, like a glove on the hand, but little of its +quality. She accused my father of coming direct from 'that person's' box. He +replied that he never forsook old friends. 'You should,' was her rejoinder. It +suggested to me an image of one of the sister Fates cutting a thread. +</p> + +<p> +My heart sank when, from Lady Edbury too, I heard the allusion to Germany and +its princess. 'Some one told me she was dark?' +</p> + +<p> +'Blonde,' my father corrected the report. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Edbury 'thought it singular for a German woman of the Blood to be a +brunette. They had not much dark mixture among them, particularly in the North. +Her name? She had forgotten the name of the princess.' +</p> + +<p> +My father repeated: 'The Princess Ottilia, Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.' +</p> + +<p> +'Brunette, you say?' +</p> + +<p> +'The purest blonde.' +</p> + +<p> +'A complexion?' +</p> + +<p> +'A complexion to dazzle the righteous!' +</p> + +<p> +Lady Edbury threw a flying glance in a mirror: 'The unrighteous you leave to us +then?' +</p> + +<p> +They bandied the weariful shuttlecock of gallantry. I bowed and fled. My excuse +was that I had seen Anna Penrhys in an upper tier of boxes, and I made my way +to her, doubting how I should be welcomed. 'The happy woman is a German +princess, we hear!' she set me shivering. Her welcome was perfectly unreserved +and friendly. +</p> + +<p> +She asked the name of the lady whose box I had quitted, and after bending her +opera-glass on it for a moment, said, with a certain air of satisfaction, 'She +is young'; which led me to guess that Lady Edbury was reputed to be Anna's +successor; but why the latter should be flattered by the former's youth was one +of the mysteries for me then. Her aunt was awakened from sleep by the mention +of my name. 'Is the man here?' she exclaimed, starting. Anna smiled, and talked +to me of my father, saying, that she was glad to see me at his right hand, for +he had a hard battle to fight. She spoke of him with affectionate interest in +his fortunes; no better proof of his generosity as well as hers could have been +given me. I promised her heartily I would not be guilty of letting our intimacy +drop, and handed the ladies down to the crush-room, where I saw my father +leading Lady Edbury to her carriage, much observed. Destrier, the young +marquis, coming in to meet the procession from other haunts, linked his arm to +his friend Witlington's, and said something in my hearing of old 'Duke Fitz,' +which provoked, I fancied, signs of amusement equivalent to tittering in a +small ring of the select assembly. Lady Sampleman's carriage was called. +'Another victim,' said a voice. Anna Penrhys walked straight out to find her +footman and carriage for herself. +</p> + +<p> +I stood alone in the street, wondering, fretting, filled with a variety of ugly +sensations, when my father joined me humming an air of the opera. 'I was +looking for Jorian, Richie. He had our Sampleman under his charge. He is off to +the Chassediane. Well! And well, Richie, you could not bear the absence from +your dada? You find me in full sail on the tide. I am at home, if our fortunes +demand it, in a little German principality, but there is,' he threw out his +chest, 'a breadth in London; nowhere else do I breathe with absolute +freedom—so largely: and this is my battlefield. By the way, Lady Edbury +accounts you complete; which is no more to say than that she is a woman of +taste. The instance: she positively would not notice that you wear a dress-coat +of a foreign cut. Correct it to-morrow; my tailor shall wait on you. I meant to +point out to you that when a London woman has not taken note of that, the face +and the man have made the right impression on her. Richie, dear boy, how shall +I speak the delight I have in seeing you! My arm in yours, old Richie! +strolling home from the Fashion: this seems to me what I dreamt of! All in +sound health at the Grange? She too, the best of women?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have come on very particular business,' I interposed briefly. +</p> + +<p> +He replied, 'I am alive to you, Richie; speak.' +</p> + +<p> +'The squire has seen my bankers' book. He thinks I've been drawing rather +wildly: no doubt he's right. He wants some sort of explanation. He consents to +an interview with you. I have come to ask you to go down to him, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'To-morrow morning, without an hour's delay, my dear boy. Very agreeable will +be the sight of old Riversley. And in the daylight!' +</p> + +<p> +'He prefers to meet you at Bulsted. Captain Bulsted offers his house for the +purpose. I have to warn you, sir, that we stand in a very exceptional position. +The squire insists upon having a full account of the money rendered to him.' +</p> + +<p> +'I invite him to London, Richie. I refer him to Dettermain and Newson. I +request him to compute the value of a princess.' +</p> + +<p> +'You are aware that he will not come to your invitation.' +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me, then, how is he to understand what I have established by the +expenditure, my son? I refer him to Dettermain and Newson.' +</p> + +<p> +'But you must know that he sets his face against legal proceedings involving +exposure.' +</p> + +<p> +'But surely, Richie, exposure is the very thing we court. The innocent, the +unjustly treated, court it. We would be talked about; you shall hear of us! And +into the bargain an hereditary princess. Upon my faith, Mr. Beltham, I think +you have mighty little to complain of.' +</p> + +<p> +My temper was beginning to chafe at the curb. 'As regards any feeling about the +money, personally, sir, you know I have none. But I must speak of one thing. I +have heard to-night, I confess with as much astonishment as grief, the name... +I could not have guessed that I should hear the princess's name associated with +mine, and quite openly.' +</p> + +<p> +'As a matter of course.' He nodded, and struck out a hand in wavy motion. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, sir, if you can't feel for her or her family, be good enough to think of +me, and remember that I object to it.' +</p> + +<p> +'For you all,' said he, buoyantly; 'I feel for you all, and I will act for you +all. I bring the princess to your arms, my dear boy. You have written me word +that the squire gives her a royal dowry—have you not? My combinations +permit of no escape to any one of you. Nay, 'tis done. I think for you—I +feel for you—I act for you. By heaven, you shall be happy! Sigh, Richie, +sigh; your destiny is now entrusted to me!' +</p> + +<p> +'I daresay I'm wasting my breath, sir, but I protest against false pretences. +You know well that you have made use of the princess's name for your own +purposes.' +</p> + +<p> +'Most indubitably, Richie, I have; and are they not yours? I must have social +authority to succeed in our main enterprise. Possibly the princess's name +serves for a temporary chandelier to cast light on us. She belongs to us. For +her sake, we are bringing the house she enters into order. Thus, Richie, I +could tell Mr. Beltham: you and he supply the money, the princess the name, and +I the energy, the skilfulness, and the estimable cause. I pay the princess for +the use of her name with the dowry, which is royal; I pay you with the +princess, who is royal too; and I, Richie, am paid by your happiness most +royally. Together, it is past contest that we win.—Here, my little one,' +he said to a woman, and dropped a piece of gold into her hand, 'on condition +that you go straight home.' The woman thanked him and promised. 'As I was +observing, we are in the very tide of success. Curious! I have a slight +inclination to melancholy. Success, quotha? Why, hundreds before us have paced +the identical way homeward at night under these lamps between the mansions and +the park. The bare thought makes them resemble a double line of undertakers. +The tomb is down there at the end of them—costly or not. At the age of +four, on my birthday, I was informed that my mother lay dead in her bed. I +remember to this day my astonishment at her not moving. “Her heart is +broken,” my old nurse said. To me she appeared intact. Her sister took +possession of me, and of her papers, and the wedding-ring—now in the +custody of Dettermain and Newson—together with the portraits of both my +parents; and she, poor soul, to sustain me, as I verily believe—she had a +great idea of my never asking unprofitably for anything in life—bartered +the most corroborative of the testificatory documents, which would now make the +establishment of my case a comparatively light task. Have I never spoken to you +of my boyhood? My maternal uncle was a singing-master and master of elocution. +I am indebted to him for the cultivation of my voice. He taught me an effective +delivery of my sentences. The English of a book of his called <i>The +Speaker</i> is still to my mind a model of elegance. Remittances of money came +to him from an unknown quarter; and, with a break or two, have come ever since +up to this period. My old nurse—heaven bless her—resumed the +occupation of washing. I have stood by her tub, Richie, blowing bubbles and +listening to her prophecies of my exalted fortune for hours. On my honour, I +doubt, I seriously doubt, if I have ever been happier. I depend just +now—I have to avow it to you—slightly upon stimulants... of a +perfectly innocuous character. Mrs. Waddy will allow me a pint of champagne. +The truth is, Richie—you see these two or three poor pensioners of mine, +honi soit qui mal y pense—my mother has had hard names thrown at her. The +stones of these streets cry out to me to have her vindicated. I am not tired; +but I want my wine.' +</p> + +<p> +He repeated several times before he reached his housedoor, that he wanted his +wine, in a manner to be almost alarming. His unwonted effort of memory, the +singular pictures of him which it had flashed before me, and a sort of +impatient compassion, made me forget my wrath. I saw him take his restorative +at one draught. He lay down on a sofa, and his valet drew his boots off and +threw a cloak over him. Lying there, he wished me gaily good-night. Mrs. Waddy +told me that he had adopted this system of sleeping for the last month. 'Bless +you, as many people call on him at night now as in the day,' she said; and I +was induced to suppose he had some connection with the Press. She had implicit +faith in his powers of constitution, and would affirm, that he had been the +death of dozens whom the attraction had duped to imitate his habits. 'He is now +a Field-Marshal on his campaign.' She betrayed a twinkle of humour. He must +himself have favoured her with that remark. The report of the house-door +frequently shutting in the night suggested the passage of his aides-de-camp. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the morning, I found him pacing through the open doors of the +dining-room and the library dictating to a secretary at a desk, now and then +tossing a word to Dettermain and Newson's chief clerk. The floor was strewn +with journals. He wore Hessian boots; a voluminous black cloak hung loosely +from his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +'I am just settling the evening papers,' he said after greeting me, with a show +of formality in his warmth; and immediately added, 'That will do, Mr. Jopson. +Put in a note—“Mr. Harry Lepel Richmond of Riversley and +Twn-y-glas, my son, takes no step to official distinction in his native land +save through the ordinary Parliamentary channels.” Your pardon, Richie; +presently. I am replying to a morning paper.' +</p> + +<p> +'What's this? Why print my name?' I cried. +</p> + +<p> +'Merely the correction of an error. I have to insist, my dear boy, that you +claim no privileges: you are apart from them. Mr. Jopson, I beseech you, not a +minute's delay in delivering that. Fetch me from the printer's my pamphlet this +afternoon. Mr. Jacobs, my compliments to Dettermain and Newson: I request them +to open proceedings instanter, and let the world know of it. Good-morning, +gentlemen.' +</p> + +<p> +And now, turning to me, my father fenced me with the whole weight of his +sententious volubility, which was the force of a river. Why did my name appear +in the papers? Because I was his son. But he assured me that he carefully +separated me from public companionship with his fortunes, and placed me on the +side of my grandfather, as a plain gentleman of England, the heir of the most +colossal wealth possible in the country. +</p> + +<p> +'I dis-sociate you from me, Richie, do you see? I cause it to be declared that +you need, on no account, lean on me. Jopson will bring you my pamphlet—my +Declaration of Rights—to peruse. In the Press, in Literature, at Law, and +on social ground, I meet the enemy, and I claim my own; by heaven, I do! And I +will down to the squire for a distraction, if you esteem it necessary, +certainly. Half-a-dozen words to him. Why, do you maintain him to be insensible +to a title for you? No, no. And ask my friends. I refer him to any dozen of my +friends to convince him I have the prize almost in my possession. Why, dear +boy, I have witnesses, living witnesses, to the ceremony. Am I, tell me, to be +deprived of money now, once again, for the eleventh time? Oh! And put aside my +duty to you, I protest I am bound in duty to her who bore me—you have +seen her miniature: how lovely that dear woman was! how gentle!—bound in +duty to her to clear her good name. This does not affect you...' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, but it does,' he allowed me to plead. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, through your love for your dada.' +</p> + +<p> +He shook me by both hands. I was touched with pity, and at the same time in +doubt whether it was not an actor that swayed me; for I was discontented, and +could not speak my discontent; I was overborne, overflowed. His evasion of the +matter of my objections relating to the princess I felt to be a palpable piece +of artfulness, but I had to acknowledge to myself that I knew what his argument +would be, and how overwhelmingly his defence of it would spring forth. My +cowardice shrank from provoking a recurrence to the theme. In fact, I submitted +consciously to his masterful fluency and emotional power, and so I was carried +on the tide with him, remaining in London several days to witness that I was +not the only one. My father, admitting that money served him in his conquest of +society, and defying any other man to do as much with it as he did, replied to +a desperate insinuation of mine, 'This money I spend I am actually putting out +to interest as much as, or more than, your grandad.' He murmured +confidentially, 'I have alarmed the Government. Indeed, I have warrant for +saying I am in communication with its agents. They are bribing me; they are +positively bribing me, Richie. I receive my stipend annually. They are mighty +discreet. So am I. But I push them hard. I take what they offer: I renounce +none of my claims.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet wrote that it would be prudent for me to return. +</p> + +<p> +'I am prepared,' my father said. 'I have only to meet Mr. Beltham in a +room—I stipulate that it shall be between square walls—to win him. +The squire to back us, Richie, we have command of the entire world. His wealth, +and my good cause, and your illustrious union—by the way, it is announced +definitely in this morning's paper.' +</p> + +<p> +Dismayed, I asked what was announced. +</p> + +<p> +'Read,' said he. 'This will be something to hand to Mr. Beltham at our meeting. +I might trace it to one of the embassies, Imperial or Royal. No +matter—there it is.' +</p> + +<p> +I read a paragraph in which Ottilia's name and titles were set down; then +followed mine and my wealthy heirship, and—woe was me in the perusing of +it!—a roundabout vindication of me as one not likely to be ranked as the +first of English commoners who had gained the hand of an hereditary foreign +princess, though it was undoubtedly in the light of a commoner that I was most +open to the congratulations of my countrymen upon my unparalleled felicity. A +display of historical erudition cited the noble inferiors by birth who had +caught princesses to their arms—Charles, Humphrey, William, John. Under +this list, a later Harry! +</p> + +<p> +The paragraph closed by fixing the nuptials to take place before the end of the +Season. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at my father to try a struggle with him. The whole man was +efflorescent. +</p> + +<p> +'Can't it be stopped?' I implored him. +</p> + +<p> +He signified the impossibility in a burst of gesticulations, motions of the +mouth, smiling frowns; various patterns of an absolute negative beating down +opposition. +</p> + +<p> +'Things printed can never be stopped, Richie. Our Jorian compares them to +babies baptized. They have a soul from that moment, and go on for +ever!—an admirable word of Jorian's. And a word to you, Richie. Will you +swear to me by the veracity of your lover's heart, that paragraph affords you +no satisfaction? He cannot swear it!' my father exclaimed, seeing me swing my +shoulder round, and he made me feel that it would have been a false oath if I +had sworn it. But I could have sworn, that I had rather we two were at the +bottom of the sea than that it should come under the princess's eyes. I read it +again. It was in print. It looked like reality. It was at least the realization +of my dream. But this played traitor and accused me of being crowned with no +more than a dream. The sole practical thing I could do was to insist on our +starting for Riversley immediately, to make sure of my own position. 'Name your +hour, Richie,' my father said confidently: and we waited. +</p> + +<p> +A rather plainer view of my father's position, as I inclined to think, was +afforded to me one morning at his breakfast-table, by a conversation between +him and Jorian DeWitt, who brought me a twisted pink note from Mdlle. +Chassediane, the which he delivered with the air of a dog made to disgorge a +bone, and he was very cool to me indeed. The cutlets of Alphonse were subject +to snappish criticism. 'I assume,' he said, 'the fellow knew I was coming?' +</p> + +<p> +'He saw it in my handwriting of yesterday,' replied my father. 'But be just to +him, acknowledge that he is one of the few that perform their daily duties with +a tender conscience.' +</p> + +<p> +'This English climate has bedevilled the fellow! He peppers his dishes like a +mongrel Indian reared on mangoes.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ring him up, ring him up, Jorian. All I beg of you is not to disgust him with +life, for he quits any service in the world to come to me, and, in fact, he +suits me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Exactly so: you spoil him.' +</p> + +<p> +My father shrugged. 'The state of the case is, that your stomach is growing +delicate, friend Jorian.' +</p> + +<p> +'The actual state of the case being, that my palate was never keener, and +consequently my stomach knows its business.' +</p> + +<p> +'You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers.' +</p> + +<p> +'Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion.' +</p> + +<p> +'Say, porridge!' +</p> + +<p> +'No, I'll be hanged if I think he's equal to a bowl of porridge.' +</p> + +<p> +'Careme might have confessed to the same!' +</p> + +<p> +'With this difference,' cried Jorian in a heat, 'that he would never have +allowed the thought of any of your barbarous messes to occur to a man at table. +Let me tell you, Roy, you astonish me: up till now I have never known you +guilty of the bad taste of defending a bad dish on your own board.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then you will the more readily pardon me, Jorian.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, I pardon you,' Jorian sneered, tripped to the carpet by such ignoble +mildness. 'A breakfast is no great loss.' +</p> + +<p> +My father assured him he would have a serious conversation with Alphonse, for +whom he apologized by saying that Alphonse had not, to his knowledge, served as +hospital cook anywhere, and was therefore quite possibly not sufficiently +solicitous for appetites and digestions of invalids. +</p> + +<p> +Jorian threw back his head as though to discharge a spiteful sarcasm with good +aim; but turning to me, said, 'Harry, the thing must be done; your father must +marry. Notoriety is the season for a pick and choice of the wealthiest and the +loveliest. I refuse to act the part of warming-pan any longer; I refuse point +blank. It's not a personal feeling on my part; my advice is that of a +disinterested friend, and I tell you candidly, Roy, set aside the absurd +exhibition of my dancing attendance on that last rose of Guildhall,—egad, +the alderman went like Summer, and left us the very picture of a fruity +Autumn,—I say you can't keep her hanging on the tree of fond expectation +for ever. She'll drop.' +</p> + +<p> +'Catch her, Jorian; you are on guard.' +</p> + +<p> +'Upwards of three hundred thousand, if a penny, Roy Richmond! Who? I? I am not +a fortune-hunter.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nor am I, friend Jorian.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, it's because you're not thorough: you's fall between the stools.' +</p> + +<p> +My father remarked that he should visit this upon Mr. Alphonse. +</p> + +<p> +'You shook off that fine Welsh girl, and she was in your hand—the act of +a madman!' Jorian continued. 'You're getting older: the day will come when +you're a flat excitement. You know the first Lady Edbury spoilt one of your +best chances when you had the market. Now you're trifling with the second. +She's the head of the Light Brigade, but you might fix her down, if she's not +too much in debt. You're not at the end of your run, I dare say. Only, my good +Roy, let me tell you, in life you mustn't wait for the prize of the race till +you touch the goal—if you prefer metaphor. You generally come forward +about every seven years or so. Add on another seven, and women'll begin to +think. You can't beat Time, mon Roy.' +</p> + +<p> +'So,' said my father, 'I touch the goal, and women begin to think, and I can't +beat time to them. Jorian, your mind is in a state of confusion. I do not +marry.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then, Roy Richmond, hear what a friend says...' +</p> + +<p> +'I do not marry, Jorian, and you know my reasons.' +</p> + +<p> +'Sentiments!' +</p> + +<p> +'They are a part of my life.' +</p> + +<p> +'Just as I remarked, you are not thorough. You have genius and courage out of +proportion, and you are a dead failure, Roy; because, no sooner have you got +all Covent Garden before you for the fourth or fifth time, than in go your +hands into your pockets, and you say—No, there's an apple I can't have, +so I'll none of these; and, by the way, the apple must be tolerably withered by +this time. And you know perfectly well (for you don't lack common sense at a +shaking, Roy Richmond), that you're guilty of simple madness in refusing to +make the best of your situation. You haven't to be taught what money means. +With money—and a wife to take care of it, mind you—you are +pre-eminently the man for which you want to be recognized. Without +it—Harry 'll excuse me, I must speak plainly—you're a sort of a +spectacle of a bob-cherry, down on your luck, up on your luck, and getting dead +stale and never bitten; a familiar curiosity.' +</p> + +<p> +Jorian added, 'Oh, by Jove! it's not nice to think of.' My father said: 'Harry, +I am sure, will excuse you for talking, in your extreme friendliness, of +matters that he and I have not—and they interest us deeply—yet +thought fit to discuss. And you may take my word for it, Jorian, that I will +give Alphonse his medical dose. I am quite of your opinion that the kings of +cooks require it occasionally. Harry will inform us of Mdlle. Chassediane's +commands.' +</p> + +<p> +The contents of the letter permitted me to read it aloud. She desired to know +how she could be amused on the Sunday. +</p> + +<p> +'We will undertake it,' said my father. 'I depute the arrangements to you, +Jorian. Respect the prejudices, and avoid collisions, that is all.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain DeWitt became by convenient stages cheerful, after the pink slip of +paper had been made common property, and from a seriously-advising friend, in +his state of spite, relapsed to the idle and shadow-like associate, when +pleased. I had to thank him for the gift of fresh perceptions. Surely it would +be as well if my father could get a woman of fortune to take care of him! +</p> + +<p> +We had at my request a consultation with Dettermain and Newson on the eve of +the journey to Riversley, Temple and Jorian DeWitt assisting. Strange +documentary evidence was unfolded and compared with the date of a royal decree: +affidavits of persons now dead; a ring, the ring; fans, and lace, and +handkerchiefs with notable initials; jewelry stamped 'To the Divine Anastasia' +from an adoring Christian name: old brown letters that shrieked 'wife' when +'charmer' seemed to have palled; oaths of fidelity ran through them like bass +notes. Jorian held up the discoloured sheets of ancient paper saying: +</p> + +<p> +'Here you behold the mummy of the villain Love.' Such love as it was—the +love of the privileged butcher for the lamb. The burden of the letters, put in +epigram, was rattlesnake and bird. A narrative of Anastasia's sister, +Elizabeth, signed and sealed, with names of witnesses appended, related in +brief bald English the history of the events which had killed her. It warmed +pathetically when dwelling on the writer's necessity to part with letters and +papers of greater moment, that she might be enabled to sustain and educate her +sister's child. She named the certificate; she swore to the tampering with +witnesses. The number and exact indication of the house where the ceremony took +place was stated—a house in Soho;—the date was given, and the +incident on that night of the rape of the beautiful Miss Armett by mad Lord +Beaumaris at the theatre doors, aided by masked ruffians, after Anastasia's +performance of Zamira. +</p> + +<p> +'There are witnesses I know to be still living, Mr. Temple,' my father said, +seeing the young student-at-law silent and observant. 'One of them I have under +my hand; I feed him. Listen to this.' +</p> + +<p> +He read two or three insufferable sentences from one of the love-epistles, and +broke down. I was ushered aside by a member of the firm to inspect an +instrument prepared to bind me as surety for the costs of the appeal. I signed +it. We quitted the attorney's office convinced (I speak of Temple and myself) +that we had seen the shadow of something. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"></a> +CHAPTER XL.<br/> +MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER</h2> + +<p> +My father's pleasure on the day of our journey to Bulsted was to drive me out +of London on a lofty open chariot, with which he made the circuit of the +fashionable districts, and caused innumerable heads to turn. I would have +preferred to go the way of other men, to be unnoticed, but I was subject to an +occasional glowing of undefined satisfaction in the observance of the +universally acknowledged harmony existing between his pretensions, his tastes +and habits, and his person. He contrived by I know not what persuasiveness and +simplicity of manner and speech to banish from me the idea that he was engaged +in playing a high stake; and though I knew it, and he more than once admitted +it, there was an ease and mastery about him that afforded me some degree of +positive comfort still. I was still most securely attached to his fortunes. +Supposing the ghost of dead Hector to have hung over his body when the inflamed +son of Peleus whirled him at his chariot wheels round Troy, he would, with his +natural passions sobered by Erebus, have had some of my reflections upon force +and fate, and my partial sense of exhilaration in the tremendous speed of the +course during the whole of the period my father termed his Grand Parade. I +showed just such acquiescence or resistance as were superinduced by the +variations of the ground. Otherwise I was spell-bound; and beyond interdicting +any further public mention of my name or the princess's, I did nothing to +thwart him. It would have been no light matter. +</p> + +<p> +We struck a station at a point half-way down to Bulsted, and found little Kiomi +there, thunder in her brows, carrying a bundle, and purchasing a +railway-ticket, not to travel in our direction. She gave me the singular answer +that she could not tell me where her people were; nor would she tell me whither +she was going, alone, and by rail. I chanced to speak of Heriot. One of her +sheet-lightning flashes shot out. 'He won't be at Bulsted,' she said, as if +that had a significance. I let her know we were invited to Bulsted. 'Oh, she's +at home'; Kiomi blinked, and her features twitched like whip-cord. I saw that +she was possessed by one of her furies. That girl's face had the art of making +me forget beautiful women, and what beauty was by comparison. +</p> + +<p> +It happened that the squire came across us as we were rounding the slope of +larch and fir plantation near a part of the Riversley hollows, leading to the +upper heath-land, where, behind a semicircle of birches, Bulsted lay. He was on +horseback, and called hoarsely to the captain's coachman, who was driving us, +to pull up. 'Here, Harry,' he sang out to me, in the same rough voice, 'I don't +see why we should bother Captain William. It's a bit of business, not pleasure. +I've got the book in my pocket. You ask—is it convenient to step into my +bailiff's cottage hard by, and run through it? Ten minutes 'll tell me all I +want to know. I want it done with. Ask.' +</p> + +<p> +My father stood up and bowed, bareheaded. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather struck his hat and bobbed. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I trust I see you well.' +</p> + +<p> +'Better, sir, when I've got rid of a damned unpleasant bit o' business.' +</p> + +<p> +'I offer you my hearty assistance.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you? Then step down and come into my bailiff's.' +</p> + +<p> +'I come, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +My father alighted from the carriage. The squire cast his gouty leg to be quit +of his horse, but not in time to check my father's advances and ejaculations of +condolence. +</p> + +<p> +'Gout, Mr. Beltham, is a little too much a proof to us of a long line of +ancestry.' +</p> + +<p> +His hand and arm were raised in the form of a splint to support the squire, who +glared back over his cheekbone, horrified that he could not escape the contact, +and in too great pain from arthritic throes to protest: he resembled a burglar +surprised by justice. 'What infernal nonsense,... fellow talking now?' I heard +him mutter between his hoppings and dancings, with one foot in the stirrup and +a toe to earth, the enemy at his heel, and his inclination half bent upon +swinging to the saddle again. +</p> + +<p> +I went to relieve him. 'Damn!... Oh, it's you,' said he. +</p> + +<p> +The squire directed Uberly, acting as his groom, to walk his horse up and down +the turf fronting young Tom Eckerthy's cottage, and me to remain where I was; +then hobbled up to the door, followed at a leisurely march by my father. The +door opened. My father swept the old man in before him, with a bow and flourish +that admitted of no contradiction, and the door closed on them. I caught a +glimpse of Uberly screwing his wrinkles in a queer grimace, while he worked his +left eye and thumb expressively at the cottage, by way of communicating his +mind to Samuel, Captain Bulsted's coachman; and I became quite of his opinion +as to the nature of the meeting, that it was comical and not likely to lead to +much. I thought of the princess and of my hope of her depending upon such an +interview as this. From that hour when I stepped on the sands of the Continent +to the day of my quitting them, I had been folded in a dream: I had stretched +my hands to the highest things of earth, and here now was the retributive +material money-question, like a keen scythe-blade! +</p> + +<p> +The cottage-door continued shut. The heaths were darkening. I heard a noise of +wheels, and presently the unmistakable voice of Janet saying, 'That must be +Harry.' She was driving my aunt Dorothy. Both of them hushed at hearing that +the momentous duel was in progress. Janet's first thought was of the squire. 'I +won't have him ride home in the dark,' she said, and ordered Uberly to walk the +horse home. The ladies had a ladies' altercation before Janet would permit my +aunt to yield her place and proceed on foot, accompanied by me. Naturally the +best driver of the two kept the whip. I told Samuel to go on to Bulsted, with +word that we were coming: and Janet, nodding bluntly, agreed to direct my +father as to where he might expect to find me on the Riversley road. My aunt +Dorothy and I went ahead slowly: at her request I struck a pathway to avoid the +pony-carriage, which was soon audible; and when Janet, chattering to the +squire, had gone by, we turned back to intercept my father. He was speechless +at the sight of Dorothy Beltham. At his solicitation, she consented to meet him +next day; his account of the result of the interview was unintelligible to her +as well as to me. Even after leaving her at the park-gates, I could get nothing +definite from him, save that all was well, and that the squire was eminently +practical; but he believed he had done an excellent evening's work. 'Yes,' said +he, rubbing his hands, 'excellent! making due allowances for the emphatically +commoner's mind we have to deal with.' And then to change the subject he +dilated on that strange story of the man who, an enormous number of years back +in the date of the world's history, carried his little son on his shoulders one +night when the winds were not so boisterous, though we were deeper in Winter, +along the identical road we traversed, between the gorsemounds, across the +heaths, with yonder remembered fir-tree clump in sight and the waste-water +visible to footfarers rounding under the firs. At night-time he vowed, that as +far as nature permitted it, he had satisfied the squire—'completely +satisfied him, I mean,' he said, to give me sound sleep. 'No doubt of it; no +doubt of it, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +He won Julia's heart straight off, and Captain Bulsted's profound admiration. +'Now I know the man I've always been adoring since you were so high, Harry,' +said she. Captain Bulsted sighed: 'Your husband bows to your high good taste, +my dear.' They relished him sincerely, and between them and him I suffered +myself to be dandled once more into a state of credulity, until I saw my aunt +Dorothy in the afternoon subsequent to the appointed meeting. His deep respect +and esteem for her had stayed him from answering any of her questions falsely. +To that extent he had been veracious. It appeared, that driven hard by the +squire, who would have no waving of flags and lighting of fireworks in a matter +of business, and whose 'commoner's mind' chafed sturdily at a hint of the +necessity for lavish outlays where there was a princess to win, he had rallied +on the fiction that many of the cheques, standing for the bulk of the sums +expended, were moneys borrowed by him of me, which he designed to repay, and +was prepared to repay instantly—could in fact, the squire demanding it, +repay, as it were, on the spot; for behold, these borrowed moneys were not +spent; they were moneys invested in undertakings, put out to high rates of +interest; moneys that perhaps it would not be adviseable to call in without a +season of delay; still, if Mr. Beltham, acting for his grandson and heir, +insisted, it should be done. The moneys had been borrowed purely to invest them +with profit on my behalf: a gentleman's word of honour was pledged to it. +</p> + +<p> +The squire grimly gave him a couple of months to make it good. +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy Beltham and my father were together for about an hour at Eckerthy's +farm. She let my father kiss her hand when he was bending to take his farewell +of her, but held her face away. He was in manifest distress, hardly master of +his voice, begged me to come to him soon, and bowing, with 'God bless you, +madam, my friend on earth!' turned his heel, bearing his elastic frame +lamentably. A sad or a culprit air did not befit him: one reckoned up his +foibles and errors when seeing him under a partly beaten aspect. At least, I +did; not my dear aunt, who was compassionate of him, however thoroughly she +condemned his ruinous extravagance, and the shifts and evasions it put him to. +She feared, that instead of mending the difficulty, he had postponed merely to +exaggerate it in the squire's mind; and she was now of opinion that the +bringing him down to meet the squire was very bad policy, likely to result in +danger to my happiness; for, if the money should not be forthcoming on the date +named, all my father's faults would be transferred to me as his accomplice, +both in the original wastefulness and the subterfuges invented to conceal it. I +recollected that a sum of money had really been sunk in Prince Ernest's +coal-mine. My aunt said she hoped for the best. +</p> + +<p> +Mounting the heaths, we looked back on the long yellow road, where the carriage +conveying my father to the railway-station was visible, and talked of him, and +of the elements of antique tragedy in his history, which were at that period, +let me say, precisely what my incessant mental efforts were strained to expel +from the idea of our human life. The individual's freedom was my tenet of +faith; but pity pleaded for him that he was well-nigh irresponsible, was +shamefully sinned against at his birth, one who could charge the Gods with +vindictiveness, and complain of the persecution of natal Furies. My aunt +Dorothy advised me to take him under my charge, and sell his house and +furniture, make him live in bachelor chambers with his faithful waiting-woman +and a single manservant. +</p> + +<p> +'He will want money even to do that,' I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +She murmured, 'Is there not some annual income paid to him?' +</p> + +<p> +Her quick delicacy made her redden in alluding so closely to his personal +affairs, and I loved her for the nice feeling. 'It was not much,' I said. The +miserable attempt to repair the wrongs done to him with this small annuity +angered me—and I remembered, little pleased, the foolish expectations he +founded on this secret acknowledgement of the justice of his claims. 'We won't +talk of it,' I pursued. 'I wish he had never touched it. I shall interdict +him.' +</p> + +<p> +'You would let him pay his debts with it, Harry?' +</p> + +<p> +'I am not sure, aunty, that he does not incur a greater debt by accepting it.' +</p> + +<p> +'One's wish would be, that he might not ever be in need of it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, or never be caring to find the key of it.' +</p> + +<p> +'That must be waste of time,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +I meant something else, but it was useless to tell her so. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"></a> +CHAPTER XLI.<br/> +COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S GRAND PARADE</h2> + +<p> +Janet, in reply to our inquiries as to the condition of the squire's temper, +pointed out in the newspaper a notification of a grand public Ball to be given +by my father, the first of a series of three, and said that the squire had seen +it and shrugged. She thought there was no positive cause for alarm, even though +my father should fail of his word; but expressed her view decidedly, that it +was an unfortunate move to bring him between the squire and me, and so she +blamed Captain Bulsted. This was partly for the reason that the captain and his +wife, charmed by my father, were for advocating his merits at the squire's +table: our ingenuity was ludicrously taxed to mystify him on the subject of +their extravagant eulogies. They told him they had been invited, and were going +to the great London Balls. +</p> + +<p> +'Subscription Balls?' asked the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'No, sir,' rejoined the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'Tradesmen's Balls, d'ye call 'em, then?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, sir; they are Balls given by a distinguished gentleman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Take care it's not another name for tradesmen's Balls, William.' +</p> + +<p> +'I do not attend tradesmen's Balls, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Take care o' that, William.' +</p> + +<p> +The captain was very angry. 'What,' said he, turning to us, 'what does the +squire mean by telling an officer of the Royal Navy that he is conducting his +wife to a tradesmen's Ball?' +</p> + +<p> +Julia threatened malicious doings for the insult. She and the squire had a +controversy upon the explication of the word gentleman, she describing my +father's appearance and manners to the life. 'Now listen to me, squire. A +gentleman, I say, is one you'd say, if he wasn't born a duke, he ought to have +been, and more shame to the title! He turns the key of a lady's heart with a +twinkle of his eye. He's never mean—what he has is yours. He's a true +friend; and if he doesn't keep his word, you know in a jiffy it's the fault of +affairs; and stands about five feet eleven: he's a full-blown man': and so +forth. +</p> + +<p> +The squire listened, and perspired at finding the object of his abhorrence +crowned thus in the unassailable realms of the abstract. Julia might have done +it more elegantly; but her husband was rapturous over her skill in portraiture, +and he added: 'That's a gentleman, squire; and that's a man pretty sure to be +abused by half the world.' +</p> + +<p> +'Three-quarters, William,' said the squire; 'there's about the computation for +your gentleman's creditors, I suspect.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, sir; well,' returned the captain, to whom this kind of fencing in the dark +was an affliction, 'we make it up in quality—in quality.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'll be bound you do,' said the squire; 'and so you will so long as you're +only asked to dance to the other poor devils' fiddling.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted bowed. 'The last word to you, squire.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire nodded. 'I'll hand it to your wife, William.' +</p> + +<p> +Julia took it graciously. 'A perfect gentleman! perfect! confound his enemies!' +</p> + +<p> +'Why, ma'am, you might keep from swearing,' the squire bawled. +</p> + +<p> +'La! squire,' said she, 'why, don't you know the National Anthem?' +</p> + +<p> +'National Anthem, ma'am! and a fellow, a velvet-tongued—confound him, if +you like.' +</p> + +<p> +'And where's my last word, if you please?' Julia jumped up, and dropped a +provoking curtsey. +</p> + +<p> +'You silly old grandada!' said Janet, going round to him; 'don't you see the +cunning woman wants to dress you in our garments, and means to boast of it to +us while you're finishing your wine?' +</p> + +<p> +The old man fondled her. I could have done the same, she bent over him with +such homely sweetness. 'One comfort, you won't go to these gingerbread Balls,' +he said. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm not invited,' she moaned comically. +</p> + +<p> +'No; nor shan't be, while I can keep you out of bad company.' +</p> + +<p> +'But, grandada, I do like dancing. +</p> + +<p> +'Dance away, my dear; I've no objection.' +</p> + +<p> +'But where's the music?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, you can always have music.' +</p> + +<p> +'But where are my partners?' +</p> + +<p> +The squire pointed at me. +</p> + +<p> +'You don't want more than one at a time, eh?' He corrected his error: 'No, the +fellow's engaged in another quadrille. Mind you, Miss Janet, he shall dance to +your tune yet. D'ye hear, sir?' The irritation excited by Captain Bulsted and +Julia broke out in fury. 'Who's that fellow danced when Rome was burning?' +</p> + +<p> +'The Emperor Nero,' said Janet. 'He killed Harry's friend Seneca in the +eighty-somethingth year of his age; an old man, and—hush, grandada!' She +could not check him. +</p> + +<p> +'Hark you, Mr. Harry; dance your hardest up in town with your rips and reps, +and the lot of ye; all very fine while the burning goes on: you won't see the +fun of dancing on the ashes. A nice king of Rome Nero was next morning! By the +Lord, if I couldn't swear you'll be down on your knees to an innocent +fresh-hearted girl's worth five hundred of the crew you're for partnering now +while you've a penny for the piper.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet shut his mouth, kissed him, and held his wine up. He drank, and thumped +the table. 'We's have parties here, too. The girl shall have her choice of +partners: she shan't be kept in the background by a young donkey. Take any six +of your own age, and six sensible men, to try you by your chances. By George, +the whole dozen 'd bring you in non-compos. You've only got the women on your +side because of a smart face and figure.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet exclaimed indignantly, 'Grandada, I'm offended with you'; and walked out +on a high step. +</p> + +<p> +'Come, if he has the women on his side,' said Captain Bulsted, mildly. +</p> + +<p> +'He'll be able to go partnering and gallopading as long as his banker 'll let +him, William—like your gentleman! That's true. We shall soon see.' +</p> + +<p> +'I leave my character in your hands, sir,' said I, rising. 'If you would scold +me in private, I should prefer it, on behalf of your guests; but I am bound to +submit to your pleasure, and under any circumstances I remember, what you +appear to forget, that you are my grandfather.' +</p> + +<p> +So saying, I followed the ladies. It was not the wisest of speeches, and +happened, Captain Bulsted informed me, to be delivered in my father's manner, +for the squire pronounced emphatically that he saw very little Beltham in me. +The right course would have been for me to ask him then and there whether I had +his consent to start for Germany. But I was the sport of resentments and +apprehensions; and, indeed, I should not have gone. I could not go without some +title beyond that of the heir of great riches. +</p> + +<p> +Janet kept out of my sight. I found myself strangely anxious to console her: +less sympathetic, perhaps, than desirous to pour out my sympathy in her ear, +which was of a very pretty shape, with a soft unpierced lobe. We danced +together at the Riversley Ball, given by the squire on the night of my father's +Ball in London. Janet complimented me upon having attained wisdom. 'Now we get +on well,' she said. 'Grandada only wants to see us friendly, and feel that I am +not neglected.' +</p> + +<p> +The old man, a martyr to what he considered due to his favourite, endured the +horror of the Ball until suppertime, and kept his eyes on us two. He forgot, or +pretended to forget, my foreign engagement altogether, though the announcement +in the newspapers was spoken of by Sir Roderick and Lady Echester and others. +</p> + +<p> +'How do you like that?' he remarked to me, seeing her twirled away by one of +the young Rubreys. +</p> + +<p> +'She seems to like it, sir,' I replied. +</p> + +<p> +'Like it!' said he. 'In my day you wouldn't have caught me letting the bloom be +taken off the girl I cared for by a parcel o' scampish young dogs. Right in +their arms! Look at her build. She's strong; she's healthy; she goes round like +a tower. If you want a girl to look like a princess!' +</p> + +<p> +His eulogies were not undeserved. But she danced as lightly and happily with +Mr. Fred Rubrey as with Harry Richmond. I congratulated myself on her lack of +sentiment. Later, when in London, where Mlle. Jenny Chassediane challenged me +to perilous sarabandes, I wished that Janet had ever so small a grain of +sentiment, for a preservative to me. Ottilia glowed high and distant; she sent +me no message; her image did not step between me and disorder. The whole +structure of my idea of my superior nature seemed to be crumbling to fragments; +and beginning to feel in despair that I was wretchedly like other men, I lost +by degrees the sense of my hold on her. It struck me that my worst fears of the +effect produced on the princess's mind by that last scene in the lake-palace +must be true, and I abandoned hope. Temple thought she tried me too cruelly. +Under these circumstances I became less and less resolutely disposed to renew +the forlorn conflict with my father concerning his prodigal way of living. 'Let +it last as long as I have a penny to support him!' I exclaimed. He said that +Dettermain and Newson were now urging on his case with the utmost despatch in +order to keep pace with him, but that the case relied for its life on his +preserving a great appearance. He handed me his division of our twin +cheque-books, telling me he preferred to depend on his son for supplies, and I +was in the mood to think this a partial security. +</p> + +<p> +'But you can take what there is,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'On the contrary, I will accept nothing but minor sums—so to speak, the +fractional shillings; though I confess I am always bewildered by silver,' said +he. +</p> + +<p> +I questioned him upon his means of carrying on his expenditure. His answer was +to refer to the pavement of the city of London. By paving here and there he +had, he informed me, made a concrete for the wheels to roll on. He calculated +that he now had credit for the space of three new years—ample time for +him to fight his fight and win his victory. +</p> + +<p> +'My tradesmen are not like the tradesmen of other persons,' he broke out with a +curious neigh of supreme satisfaction in that retinue. 'They believe in me. I +have de facto harnessed them to my fortunes; and if you doubt me on the point +of success, I refer you to Dettermain and Newson. All I stipulate for is to +maintain my position in society to throw a lustre on my Case. So much I must +do. My failures hitherto have been entirely owing to the fact that I had not my +son to stand by me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then you must have money, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, money.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then what can you mean by refusing mine?' +</p> + +<p> +'I admit the necessity for it, my son. Say you hand me a cheque for a temporary +thousand. Your credit and mine in conjunction can replace it before the +expiration of the two months. Or,' he meditated, 'it might be better to give a +bond or so to a professional lender, and preserve the account at your bankers +intact. The truth is, I have, in my interview with the squire, drawn in advance +upon the material success I have a perfect justification to anticipate, and I +cannot allow the old gentleman to suppose that I retrench for the purpose of +giving a large array of figures to your bankers' book. It would be sheer +madness. I cannot do it. I cannot afford to do it. When you are on a runaway +horse, I prefer to say a racehorse,—Richie, you must ride him. You dare +not throw up the reins. Only last night Wedderburn, appealing to Loftus, a +practical sailor, was approved when he offered—I forget the +subject-matter—the illustration of a ship on a lee-shore; you are lost if +you do not spread every inch of canvas to the gale. Retrenchment at this +particular moment is perdition. Count our gains, Richie. We have won a +princess...' +</p> + +<p> +I called to him not to name her. +</p> + +<p> +He persisted: 'Half a minute. She is won; she is ours. And let me, in +passing,—bear with me one second—counsel you to write to Prince +Ernest instanter, proposing formally for his daughter, and, in your +grandfather's name, state her dowry at fifty thousand per annum.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, you forget!' I interjected. +</p> + +<p> +'No, Richie, I do not forget that you are off a leeshore; you are mounted on a +skittish racehorse, with, if you like, a New Forest fly operating within an +inch of his belly-girths. Our situation is so far ticklish, and prompts +invention and audacity.' +</p> + +<p> +'You must forget, sir, that in the present state of the squire's mind, I should +be simply lying in writing to the prince that he offers a dowry.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, for your grandfather has yielded consent.' +</p> + +<p> +'By implication, you know he withdraws it.' +</p> + +<p> +'But if I satisfy him that you have not been extravagant?' +</p> + +<p> +'I must wait till he is satisfied.' +</p> + +<p> +'The thing is done, Richie, done. I see it in advance—it is done! +Whatever befalls me, you, my dear boy, in the space of two months, may +grasp—your fortune. Besides, here is my hand. I swear by it, my son, that +I shall satisfy the squire. I go farther; I say I shall have the means to +refund to you—the means, the money. The marriage is announced in our +prints for the Summer—say early June. And I undertake that you, the +husband of the princess, shall be the first gentleman in England—that is, +Europe. Oh! not ruling a coterie: not dazzling the world with entertainments.' +He thought himself in earnest when he said, 'I attach no mighty importance to +these things, though there is no harm I can perceive in leading the +fashion—none that I see in having a consummate style. I know your taste, +and hers, Richie, the noble lady's. She shall govern the intellectual +world—your poets, your painters, your men of science. They reflect a +beautiful sovereign mistress more exquisitely than almost aristocracy does. But +you head our aristocracy also. You are a centre of the political world. So I +scheme it. Between you, I defy the Court to rival you. This I call distinction. +It is no mean aim, by heaven! I protest, it is an aim with the mark in sight, +and not out of range.' +</p> + +<p> +He whipped himself up to one of his oratorical frenzies, of which a cheque was +the common fruit. The power of his persuasiveness in speech, backed by the +spectacle of his social accomplishments, continued to subdue me, and I +protested only inwardly even when I knew that he was gambling with fortune. I +wrote out many cheques, and still it appeared to me that they were barely +sufficient to meet the current expenses of his household. Temple and I +calculated that his Grand Parade would try the income of a duke, and could but +be a matter of months. Mention of it reached Riversley from various quarters, +from Lady Maria Higginson, from Captain Bulsted and his wife, and from Sir +Roderick Ilchester, who said to me, with fine accentuation, 'I have met your +father.' Sir Roderick, an Englishman reputed of good breeding, informed the son +that he had actually met the father in lofty society, at Viscountess Sedley's, +at Lady Dolchester's, at Bramham DeWitt's, and heard of him as a frequenter of +the Prussian and Austrian Embassy entertainments; and also that he was admitted +to the exclusive dinner-parties of the Countess de Strode, 'which are,' he +observed, in the moderated tone of an astonishment devoting itself to +propagation, 'the cream of society.' Indubitably, then, my father was an +impostor: more Society proved it. The squire listened like one pelted by a +storm, sure of his day to come at the close of the two months. I gained his +commendation by shunning the metropolitan Balls, nor did my father press me to +appear at them. It was tacitly understood between us that I should now and then +support him at his dinner-table, and pass bowing among the most select of his +great ladies. And this I did, and I felt at home with them, though I had to +bear with roughnesses from one or two of the more venerable dames, which were +not quite proper to good breeding. Old Lady Kane, great-aunt of the Marquis of +Edbury, was particularly my tormentor, through her plain-spoken comments on my +father's legal suit; for I had to listen to her without wincing, and agree in +her general contempt of the Georges, and foil her queries coolly, when I should +have liked to perform Jorian DeWitt's expressed wish to 'squeeze the acid out +of her in one grip, and toss her to the Gods that collect exhausted lemons.' +She took extraordinary liberties with me. +</p> + +<p> +'Why not marry an Englishwoman? Rich young men ought to choose wives from their +own people, out of their own sets. Foreign women never get on well in this +country, unless they join the hounds to hunt the husband.' +</p> + +<p> +She cited naturalized ladies famous for the pastime. Her world and its +outskirts she knew thoroughly, even to the fact of my grandfather's desire that +I should marry Janet Ilchester. She named a duke's daughter, an earl's. Of +course I should have to stop the scandal: otherwise the choice I had was +unrestricted. My father she evidently disliked, but she just as much disliked +an encounter with his invincible bonhomie and dexterous tongue. She hinted at +family reasons for being shy of him, assuring me that I was not implicated in +them. +</p> + +<p> +'The Guelph pattern was never much to my taste,' she said, and it consoled me +with the thought that he was not ranked as an adventurer in the houses he +entered. I learned that he was supposed to depend chiefly on my vast resources. +Edbury acted the part of informant to the inquisitive harridan: 'Her poor dear +good-for-nothing Edbury! whose only cure would be a nice, well-conducted girl, +an heiress.' She had cast her eye on Anna Penrhys, but considered her +antecedents doubtful. Spotless innocence was the sole receipt for Edbury's +malady. My father, in a fit of bold irony, proposed Lady Kane for President of +his Tattle and Scandal Club,—a club of ladies dotted with select +gentlemen, the idea of which Jorian DeWitt claimed the merit of starting, and +my father surrendered it to him, with the reservation, that Jorian intended an +association of backbiters pledged to reveal all they knew, whereas the Club, in +its present form, was an engine of morality and decency, and a social +safeguard, as well as an amusement. It comprised a Committee of Investigation, +and a Court of Appeal; its object was to arraign slander. Lady Kane declined +the honour. 'I am not a washerwoman,' she said to me, and spoke of where dirty +linen should be washed, and was distressingly broad in her innuendoes +concerning Edbury's stepmother. This Club sat and became a terror for a month, +adding something to my father's reputation. His inexhaustible conversational +art and humour gave it such vitality as it had. Ladies of any age might apply +for admission when well seconded: gentlemen under forty-five years were rigidly +excluded, and the seniors must also have passed through the marriage ceremony. +</p> + +<p> +Outside tattle and scandal declared, that the Club was originated to serve as a +club for Lady Edbury, but I chose to have no opinion upon what I knew nothing +of. +</p> + +<p> +These matters were all ephemeral, and freaks; they produced, however, somewhat +of the same effect on me as on my father, in persuading me that he was born for +the sphere he occupied, and rendering me rather callous as to the sources of +ways and means. I put my name to a bond for several thousand pounds, in +conjunction with Lord Edbury, thinking my father right in wishing to keep my +cheque-book unworried, lest the squire should be seized with a spasm of +curiosity before the two months were over. 'I promise you I surprise him,' my +father said repeatedly. He did not say how: I had the suspicion that he did not +know. His confidence and my growing recklessness acted in unison. +</p> + +<p> +Happily the newspapers were quiet. I hoped consequently to find peace at +Riversley; but there the rumours of the Grand Parade were fabulous, thanks to +Captain Bulsted and Julia, among others. These two again provoked an outbreak +of rage from the squire, and I, after hearing them, was almost disposed to side +with him; they suggested an inexplicable magnificence, and created an image of +a man portentously endowed with the capacity to throw dust in the eyes. No +description of the Balls could have furnished me with such an insight of their +brilliancy as the consuming ardour they awakened in the captain and his wife. +He reviewed them: 'Princely entertainments! Arabian Nights!' +</p> + +<p> +She built them up piecemeal: 'The company! the dresses! the band! the supper!' +The host was a personage supernatural. 'Aladdin's magician, if you like,' said +Julia, 'only-good! A perfect gentleman! and I'll say again, confound his +enemies.' She presumed, as she was aware she might do, upon the squire's +prepossession in her favour, without reckoning that I was always the victim. +</p> + +<p> +'Heard o' that new story 'bout a Dauphin?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +'A Dauphin?' quoth Captain Bulsted. 'I don't know the fish.' +</p> + +<p> +'You've been in a pretty kettle of 'em lately, William. I heard of it yesterday +on the Bench. Lord Shale, our new Lord-Lieutenant, brought it down. A trick +they played the fellow 'bout a Dauphin. Serve him right. You heard anything +'bout it, Harry?' +</p> + +<p> +I had not. +</p> + +<p> +'But I tell ye there is a Dauphin mixed up with him. A Dauphin and Mr. Ik +Dine!' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Ik Dine!' exclaimed the captain, perplexed. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, that's German lingo, William, and you ought to know it if you're a loyal +sailor—means “I serve.”' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham,' said the captain, seriously, 'I give you my word of honour as a +man and a British officer, I don't understand one syllable of what you're +saying; but if it means any insinuation against the gentleman who condescends +to extend his hospitalities to my wife and me, I must, with regret, quit the +place where I have had the misfortune to hear it.' +</p> + +<p> +'You stop where you are, William,' the squire motioned to him. 'Gad, I shall +have to padlock my mouth, or I shan't have a friend left soon... confounded +fellow... I tell you they call him Mr. Ik Dine in town. Ik Dine and a Dauphin! +They made a regular clown and pantaloon o' the pair, I'm told. Couple o' +pretenders to Thrones invited to dine together and talk over their chances and +show their private marks. Oho! by-and-by, William! You and I! Never a man made +such a fool of in his life!' +</p> + +<p> +The ladies retired. The squire continued, in a furious whisper: +</p> + +<p> +'They got the two together, William. Who are you? I'm a Dauphin; who are you? +I'm Ik Dine, bar sinister. Oh! says the other, then I take precedence of you! +Devil a bit, says the other; I've got more spots than you. Proof, says one. You +first, t' other. Count, one cries. T' other sings out, Measles. Better than a +dying Dauphin, roars t' other; and swore both of 'm 'twas nothing but Port-wine +stains and pimples. Ha! ha! And, William, will you believe it?—the couple +went round begging the company to count spots—ha! ha! to prove their big +birth! Oh, Lord, I'd ha' paid a penny to be there! A Jack o' Bedlam Ik Dine +damned idiot!—makes name o' Richmond stink.' (Captain Bulsted shot a wild +stare round the room to make sure that the ladies had gone.) 'I tell ye, +William, I had it from Lord Shale himself only yesterday on the Bench. He +brought it to us hot from town—didn't know I knew the fellow; says the +fellow's charging and firing himself off all day and all night too—can't +make him out. Says London's mad about him: lots o' women, the fools! Ha, ha! a +Dauphin!' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah, well, sir,' Captain Bulsted supplicated feverishly, rubbing his brows and +whiskers. +</p> + +<p> +'It's true, William. Fellow ought to be taken up and committed as a common +vagabond, and would be anywhere but in London. I'd jail him 'fore you cocked +your eye twice. Fellow came here and talked me over to grant him a couple o' +months to prove he hasn't swindled his son of every scrap of his money. We +shall soon see. Not many weeks to run! And pretends—fellow swears to +me—can get him into Parliament; swears he'll get him in 'fore the two +months are over! An infernal—' +</p> + +<p> +'Please to recollect, sir; the old hereditary shall excuse you——' +</p> + +<p> +'Gout, you mean, William? By——' +</p> + +<p> +'You are speaking in the presence of his son, sir, and you are trying the young +gentleman's affection for you hard.' +</p> + +<p> +'Eh? 'Cause I'm his friend? Harry,' my grandfather faced round on me, 'don't +you know I'm the friend you can trust? Hal, did I ever borrow a farthing of +you? Didn't I, the day of your majority, hand you the whole of your inheritance +from your poor broken-hearted mother, with interest, and treat you like a man? +And never played spy, never made an inquiry, till I heard the scamp had been +fastening on you like a blood-sucker, and singing hymns into the ears of that +squeamish dolt of a pipe-smoking parson, Peterborough—never thought of +doing it! Am I the man that dragged your grandmother's name through the streets +and soiled yours?' +</p> + +<p> +I remarked that I was sensible of the debt of gratitude I owed to him, but +would rather submit to the scourge, or to destitution, than listen to these +attacks on my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Cut yourself loose, Harry,' he cried, a trifle mollified. 'Don't season his +stew—d'ye hear? Stick to decent people. Why, you don't expect he'll be +locked up in the Tower for a finish, eh? It'll be Newgate, or the Bench. He and +his Dauphin—ha! ha! A rascal crow and a Jack Dauphin!' +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted reached me his hand. 'You have a great deal to bear, Harry. I +commend you, my boy, for taking it manfully.' +</p> + +<p> +'I say no more,' quoth the squire. 'But what I said was true. The fellow gives +his little dinners and suppers to his marchionesses, countesses, duchesses, and +plays clown and pantaloon among the men. He thinks a parcel o' broidered +petticoats 'll float him. So they may till a tradesman sent stark mad pops a +pin into him. Harry, I'd as lief hang on to a fire-ship. Here's Ilchester tells +me... and Ilchester speaks of him under his breath now as if he were sitting in +a pew funking the parson. Confound the fellow! I say he's guilty of treason. +Pooh! who cares! He cuts out the dandies of his day, does he? He's past sixty, +if he's a month. It's all damned harlequinade. Let him twirl off one columbine +or another, or a dozen, and then—the last of him! Fellow makes the world +look like a farce. He's got about eight feet by five to caper on, and all +London gaping at him—geese! Are you a gentleman and a man of sense, Harry +Richmond, to let yourself be lugged about in public—by the Lord! like a +pair of street-tumblers in spangled haunch-bags, father and boy, on a patch of +carpet, and a drum banging, and tossed and turned inside out, and my God! the +ass of a fellow strutting the ring with you on his shoulder! That's the +spectacle. And you, Harry, now I'll ask you, do you mean your wife—egad, +it'd be a pretty scene, with your princess in hip-up petticoats, stiff as +bottle-funnel top down'ards, airing a whole leg, and knuckling a tambourine!' +</p> + +<p> +'Not crying, my dear lad?' Captain Bulsted put his arm round me kindly, and +tried to catch a glimpse of my face. I let him see I was not going through that +process. 'Whew!' said he, 'and enough to make any Christian sweat! You're in a +bath, Harry. I wouldn't expect the man who murdered his godmother for one +shilling and fivepence three-farthings the other day, to take such a slinging, +and think he deserved it.' +</p> + +<p> +My power of endurance had reached its limit. +</p> + +<p> +'You tell me, sir, you had this brutal story from the Lord-Lieutenant of the +county?' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, from Lord Shale. But I won't have you going to him and betraying our +connection with a—' +</p> + +<p> +'Halloo!' Captain Bulsted sang out to his wife on the lawn. 'And now, squire, I +have had my dose. And you will permit me to observe, that I find it +emphatically what we used to call at school black-jack.' +</p> + +<p> +'And you were all the better for it afterwards, William.' +</p> + +<p> +'We did not arrive at that opinion, sir. Harry, your arm. An hour with the +ladies will do us both good. The squire,' he murmured, wiping his forehead as +he went out, 'has a knack of bringing us into close proximity with hell-fire +when he pleases.' +</p> + +<p> +Julia screamed on beholding us, 'Aren't you two men as pale as death!' +</p> + +<p> +Janet came and looked. 'Merely a dose,' said the captain. 'We are anxious to +play battledore and shuttlecock madly.' +</p> + +<p> +'So he shall, the dear!' Julia caressed him. 'We'll all have a tournament in +the wet-weather shed.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet whispered to me, 'Was it—the Returning Thanks?' +</p> + +<p> +'The what?' said I, with the dread at my heart of something worse than I had +heard. +</p> + +<p> +She hailed Julia to run and fetch the battledores, and then told me she had +been obliged to confiscate the newspapers that morning and cast the burden on +post-office negligence. 'They reach grandada's hands by afternoon post, Harry, +and he finds objectionable passages blotted or cut out; and as long as the +scissors don't touch the business columns and the debates, he never asks me +what I have been doing. He thinks I keep a scrap-book. I haven't often time in +the morning to run an eye all over the paper. This morning it was the first +thing I saw.' +</p> + +<p> +What had she seen? She led me out of view of the windows and showed me. +</p> + +<p> +My father was accused of having stood up at a public dinner and returned thanks +on behalf of an Estate of the Realm: it read monstrously. I ceased to think of +the suffering inflicted on me by my grandfather. +</p> + +<p> +Janet and I, side by side with the captain and Julia, carried on the game of +battledore and shuttlecock, in a match to see whether the unmarried could keep +the shuttle flying as long as the married, with varying fortunes. She gazed on +me, to give me the comfort of her sympathy, too much, and I was too intent on +the vision of my father either persecuted by lies or guilty of hideous follies, +to allow the match to be a fair one. So Julia could inform the squire that she +and William had given the unmarried pair a handsome beating, when he appeared +peeping round one of the shed-pillars. +</p> + +<p> +'Of course you beat 'em,' said the squire. 'It's not my girl's fault.' He said +more, to the old tune, which drove Janet away. +</p> + +<p> +I remembered, when back in the London vortex, the curious soft beauty she won +from casting up her eyes to watch the descending feathers, and the brilliant +direct beam of those thick-browed, firm, clear eyes, with her frown, and her +set lips and brave figure, when she was in the act of striking to keep up a +regular quick fusilade. I had need of calm memories. The town was astir, and +humming with one name. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"></a> +CHAPTER XLII.<br/> +THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET</h2> + +<p> +I passed from man to man, hearing hints and hesitations, alarming half-remarks, +presumed to be addressed to one who could supply the remainder, and deduce +consequences. There was a clearer atmosphere in the street of Clubs. Jennings +was the first of my father's more intimate acquaintances to meet me frankly. He +spoke, though not with great seriousness, of the rumour of a possible +prosecution. Sir Weeton Slater tripped up to us with a mixed air of solicitude +and restraint, asked whether I was well, and whether I had seen the newspapers +that morning; and on my informing him that I had just come up from Riversley, +on account of certain rumours, advised me to remain in town strictly for the +present. He also hinted at rumours of prosecutions. 'The fact is——' +he began several times, rendered discreet, I suppose, by my juvenility, fierté, +and reputed wealth. +</p> + +<p> +We were joined by Admiral Loftus and Lord Alton. They queried and +counterqueried as to passages between my father and the newspapers, my father +and the committee of his Club, preserving sufficient consideration for me to +avoid the serious matter in all but distant allusions; a point upon which the +breeding of Mr. Serjeant Wedderburn was not so accurate a guide to him. An +exciting public scandal soon gathers knots of gossips in Clubland. We saw +Wedderburn break from a group some way down the pavement and pick up a fresh +crumb of amusement at one of the doorsteps. 'Roy Richmond is having his benefit +to-day!' he said, and repeated this and that, half audible to me. For the rest, +he pooh-poohed the idea of the Law intervening. His 'How d'ye do, Mr. +Richmond, how d'ye do?' was almost congratulatory. 'I think we meet at your +father's table to-night? It won't be in the Tower, take my word for it. Oh! the +papers! There's no Act to compel a man to deny what appears in the papers. No +such luck as the Tower!—though Littlepitt (Mr. Wedderburn's nickname for +our Premier) would be fool enough for that. He would. If he could turn +attention from his Bill, he'd do it. We should have to dine off Boleyn's +block:—coquite horum obsonia he'd say, eh?' +</p> + +<p> +Jennings espied my father's carriage, and stepped to speak a word to the +footman. He returned, saying, with a puff of his cheeks: 'The Grand Monarque +has been sending his state equipage to give the old backbiting cripple Brisby +an airing. He is for horse exercise to-day they've dropped him in Courtenay +Square. There goes Brisby. He'd take the good Samaritan's shilling to buy a +flask of poison for him. He's use Roy's carriage to fetch and carry for that +venomous old woman Kane, I'll swear.' +</p> + +<p> +'She's a male in Scripture,' said Wedderburn, and this reminded me of an +anecdote that reminded him of another, and after telling them, he handed round +his hat for the laugh, as my father would have phrased it. +</p> + +<p> +'Has her ladyship declared war?' Sir Weeton Slater inquired. +</p> + +<p> +'No, that's not her preliminary to wageing it,' Wedderburn replied. These +high-pressure smart talkers had a moment of dulness, and he bethought him that +he must run into the Club for letters, and was busy at Westminster, where, if +anything fresh occurred between meridian and six o'clock, he should be glad, he +said, to have word of it by messenger, that he might not be behind his Age. +</p> + +<p> +The form of humour to express the speed of the world was common, but it struck +me as a terrible illustration of my father's. I had still a sense of pleasure +in the thought that these intimates of his were gentlemen who relished and, +perhaps, really liked him. They were not parasites; not the kind of men found +hanging about vulgar profligates. +</p> + +<p> +I quitted them. Sir Weeton Slater walked half-a-dozen steps beside me. 'May I +presume on a friendly acquaintance with your father, Mr. Richmond?' he said. +'The fact is—you will not be offended?—he is apt to lose his head, +unless the Committee of Supply limits him very precisely. I am aware that there +is no material necessity for any restriction.' He nodded to me as to one of the +marvellously endowed, as who should say, the Gods presided at your birth. The +worthy baronet struggled to impart his meaning, which was, that he would have +me define something like an allowance to my father, not so much for the purpose +of curtailing his expenditure—he did not venture upon private +ground—as to bridle my father's ideas of things possible for a private +gentleman in this country. In that character none were like him. As to his +suit, or appeal, he could assure me that Serjeant Wedderburn, and all who would +or could speak on the subject, saw no prospect of success; not any. The worst +of it was, that it caused my father to commit himself in sundry ways. It gave a +handle to his enemies. It—he glanced at me indicatively. +</p> + +<p> +I thanked the well-meaning gentleman without encouraging him to continue. +</p> + +<p> +'It led him to perform once more as a Statue of Bronze before the whole of +gaping London!' I could have added. That scene on the pine-promontory arose in +my vision, followed by other scenes of the happy German days. I had no power to +conjure up the princess. +</p> + +<p> +Jorian DeWitt was the man I wanted to see. After applications at his Club and +lodgings I found him dragging his Burgundy leg in the Park, on his road to pay +a morning visit to his fair French enchantress. I impeached him, and he pleaded +guilty, clearly not wishing to take me with him, nor would he give me Mlle. +Jenny's address, which I had. By virtue of the threat that I would accompany +him if he did not satisfy me, I managed to extract the story of the Dauphin, +aghast at the discovery of its being true. The fatal after-dinner speech he +believed to have been actually spoken, and he touched on that first. 'A trap +was laid for him, Harry Richmond; and a deuced clever trap it was. They +smuggled in special reporters. There wasn't a bit of necessity for the toast. +But the old vixen has shown her hand, so now he must fight. He can beat her +single-handed on settees. He'll find her a tartar at long bowls: she sticks at +nothing. She blazes out, that he scandalizes her family. She has a dozen +indictments against him. You must stop in town and keep watch. There's fire in +my leg to explode a powder-magazine a mile off!' +</p> + +<p> +'Is it the Margravine of Rippau?' I inquired. I could think of no other waspish +old woman. +</p> + +<p> +'Lady Kane,' said Jorian. 'She set Edbury on to face him with the Dauphin. You +don't fancy it came of the young dog “all of himself,” do you? Why, +it was clever! He trots about a briefless little barrister, a scribbler, +devilish clever and impudent, who does his farces for him. Tenby's the +fellow's name, and it's the only thing I haven't heard him pun on. Puns are the +smallpox of the language;—we're cursed with an epidemic. By gad, the next +time I meet him I'll roar out for vaccine matter.' +</p> + +<p> +He described the dinner given by Edbury at a celebrated City tavern where my +father and this so-called Dauphin were brought together. 'Dinner to-night,' he +nodded, as he limped away on his blissful visit of ceremony to sprightly +Chassediane (a bouquet had gone in advance): he left me stupefied. The sense of +ridicule enveloped me in suffocating folds, howling sentences of the squire's +Boeotian burlesque by fits. I felt that I could not but take the world's part +against the man who allowed himself to be made preposterous externally, when I +knew him to be staking his frail chances and my fortune with such rashness. It +was unpardonable for one in his position to incur ridicule. Nothing but a sense +of duty kept me from rushing out of London, and I might have indulged the +impulse advantageously. Delay threw me into the clutches of Lady Kane herself, +on whom I looked with as composed a visage as I could command, while she leaned +out of her carriage chattering at me, and sometimes over my head to passing +gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +She wanted me to take a seat beside her, she had so much to say. Was there not +some funny story abroad of a Pretender to the Throne of France? she asked, +wrinkling her crow's-feet eyelids to peer at me, and wished to have the +particulars. I had none to offer. 'Ah! well,' said she; 'you stay in London? +Come and see me. I'm sure you're sensible. You and I can put our heads +together. He's too often in Courtenay Square, and he's ten years too young for +that, still. He ought to have good advice. Tell me, how can a woman who can't +guide herself help a man?—and the most difficult man alive! I'm sure you +understand me. I can't drive out in the afternoon for them. They make a crush +here, and a clatter of tongues! ... That's my private grievance. But he's now +keeping persons away who have the first social claim... I know they can't +appear. Don't look confused; no one accuses you. Only I do say it's getting +terribly hot in London for somebody. Call on me. Will you?' +</p> + +<p> +She named her hours. I bowed as soon as I perceived my opportunity. Her +allusions were to Lady Edbury, and to imputed usurpations of my father's. I +walked down to the Chambers where Temple was reading Law, for a refuge from +these annoyances. I was in love with the modest shadowed life Temple lived, +diligently reading, and glancing on the world as through a dusky window, happy +to let it run its course while he sharpened his weapons. A look at Temple's +face told me he had heard quite as much as was known in the West. Dining-halls +of lawyers are not Cistercian; he was able to give me three distinct versions +of the story of the Dauphin. No one could be friendlier. Indeed Temple now +urged me forcibly to prevent my father from spending money and wearing his +heart out in vain, by stopping the case in Dettermain and Newson's hands. They +were respectable lawyers, he said, in a lawyer's ordinary tone when including +such of his species as are not black sheep. He thought it possible that my +father's personal influence overbore their judgment. In fact, nothing bound +them to refuse to work for him, and he believed that they had submitted their +views for his consideration. +</p> + +<p> +'I do wish he'd throw it up,' Temple exclaimed. 'It makes him enemies. And just +examining it, you see he could get no earthly good out of it: he might as well +try to scale a perpendicular rock. But when I'm with him, I'm ready to fancy +what he pleases—I acknowledge that. He has excess of phosphorus, or he's +ultra-electrical; doctors could tell us better than lawyers.' Temple spoke of +the clever young barrister Tenby as the man whom his father had heard laughing +over the trick played upon 'Roy Richmond.' I conceived that I might furnish Mr. +Tenby a livelier kind of amusement, and the thought that I had once been sur le +terrain, and had bitterly regretted it, by no means deterred me from the idea +of a second expedition, so black was my mood. A review of the circumstances, +aided by what reached my ears before the night went over, convinced me that +Edbury was my man. His subordinate helped him to the instrument, and possibly +to the plot, but Edbury was the capital offender. +</p> + +<p> +The scene of the prank was not in itself so bad as the stuff which a cunning +anecdotist could make out of it. Edbury invited my father to a dinner at a +celebrated City tavern. He kept his guests (Jennings, Jorian DeWitt, Alton, +Wedderburn, were among the few I was acquainted with who were present) awaiting +the arrival of a person for whom he professed extraordinary respect. The +Dauphin of France was announced. A mild, flabby, amiable-looking old person, +with shelving forehead and grey locks—excellently built for the object, +Jorian said—entered. The Capet head and embonpoint were there. As far as +a personal resemblance might go, his pretensions to be the long-lost Dauphin +were grotesquely convincing, for, notwithstanding the accurate picture of the +Family presented by him, the man was a pattern bourgeois:—a sturdy +impostor, one would have thought, and I thought so when I heard of him; but I +have been assured that he had actually grown old in the delusion that he, +carrying on his business in the City of London, was the identical Dauphin. +</p> + +<p> +Edbury played his part by leading his poor old victim half way to meet his +other most honoured guest, hesitating then and craving counsel whether he was +right in etiquette to advance the Dauphin so far. The Dauphin left him mildly +to decide the point: he was eminently mild throughout, and seems to have +thought himself in good faith surrounded by believers and adherents. Edbury's +task soon grew too delicate for that coarse boy. In my father's dexterous hands +he at once lost his assumption of the gallantry of manner which could alone +help him to retain his advantage. When the wine was in him he began to bawl. I +could imagine the sort of dialogue he raised. Bets on the Dauphin, bets on Roy: +they were matched as on a racecourse. The Dauphin remembered incidents of his +residence in the Temple, with a beautiful juvenile faintness: a conscientious +angling for recollection, Wedderburn said. Roy was requested to remember +something, to drink and refresh his memory infantine incidents were suggested. +He fenced the treacherous host during dinner with superb complacency. +</p> + +<p> +The Dauphin was of an immoveable composure. He 'stated simple facts: he was the +Dauphin of France, providentially rescued from the Temple in the days of the +Terror.' For this deliverance, somewhat to the consternation of the others, he +offered up a short prayer of thanksgiving over his plate. He had, he said, +encountered incredulity. He had his proofs. He who had never been on the soil +of France since early boyhood, spoke French with a pure accent: he had the +physical and moral constitution of the Family: owing to events attending his +infant days, he was timid. Jorian imitated him:—'I start at the opening +of a door; I see dark faces in my sleep: it is a dungeon; I am at the knees of +my Unfortunate Royal Father, with my Beautiful Mother.' His French was quaint, +but not absurd. He became loquacious, apostrophizing vacancy with uplifted hand +and eye. The unwonted invitation to the society of noblemen made him conceive +his Dauphinship to be on the high road to a recognition in England, and he was +persuaded to drink and exhibit proofs: which were that he had the constitution +of the Family, as aforesaid, in every particular; that he was peculiarly marked +with testificatory spots; and that his mere aspect inspired all members and +branch members of the Family with awe and stupefaction. One of the latter +hearing of him, had appointed to meet him in a pastrycook's shop. He met him, +and left the place with a cloud on his brow, showing tokens of respectful +sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +Conceive a monomaniacal obese old English citizen, given to lift hand and eye +and address the cornices, claiming to be an Illustrious Boy, and calling on a +beautiful historic mother and unfortunate Royal sire to attest it! No wonder +the table was shaken with laughter. He appealed to Tenby constantly, as to the +one man he knew in the room. Tenby it was who made the discovery of him +somewhere in the City, where he earned his livelihood either as a +corn-merchant; or a stockbroker, or a chronometer-maker, or a drysalter, and +was always willing to gratify a customer with the sight of his proofs of +identity. Mr. Tenby made it his business to push his clamorous waggishness for +the exhibition. I could readily believe that my father was more than his match +in disposable sallies and weight of humour, and that he shielded the old +creature successfully, so long as he had a tractable being to protect. But the +Dauphin was plied with wine, and the marquis had his fun. Proof upon proof in +verification of his claims was proffered by the now-tremulous son of St. +Louis—so he called himself. With, Jorian admitted, a real courtly +dignity, he stood up and proposed to lead the way to any neighbouring cabinet +to show the spots on his person; living witnesses to the truth of his +allegations, he declared them to be. The squire had authority for his broad +farce, except in so far as he mixed up my father in the swinery of it. +</p> + +<p> +I grew more and more convinced that my father never could have lost his +presence of mind when he found himself in the net of a plot to cover him with +ridicule. He was the only one who did not retire to the Dauphin's 'chamber of +testification,' to return convulsed with vinous laughter after gravely +inspecting the evidence; for which abstention the Dauphin reproached him +violently, in round terms of abuse, challengeing him to go through a similar +process. This was the signal for Edbury, Tenby, and some of the rest. They +formed a circle, one-half for the Dauphin, one for Roy. How long the boorish +fun lasted, and what exactly came of it, I did not hear. Jorian DeWitt said my +father lost his temper, a point contested by Wedderburn and Jennings, for it +was unknown of him. Anyhow, he thundered to some effect, inasmuch as he +detached those that had gentlemanly feelings from the wanton roysterers, and +next day the latter pleaded wine. But they told the story, not without +embellishments. The world followed their example. +</p> + +<p> +I dined and slept at Temple's house, not caring to meet my incarnate +humiliation. I sent to hear that he was safe. A quiet evening with a scholarly +man, and a man of strong practical ability and shrewdness, like Mr. Temple, did +me good. I wished my father and I were on the same footing as he and his son, +and I may add his daughters. They all talked sensibly; they were at feud with +nobody; they reflected their condition. It was a simple orderly English +household, of which the father was the pillar, the girls the ornaments, the son +the hope, growing to take his father's place. My envy of such a home was acute, +and I thought of Janet, and how well she was fashioned to build one resembling +it, if only the mate allotted to her should not be a fantastical dreamer. +Temple's character seemed to me to demand a wife like Janet on its merits; an +idea that depressed me exceedingly. I had introduced Temple to Anna Penrhys, +who was very kind to him; but these two were not framed to be other than +friends. Janet, on the contrary, might some day perceive the sterling fellow +Temple was, notwithstanding his moderate height. She might, I thought. I +remembered that I had once wished that she would, and I was amazed at myself. +But why? She was a girl sure to marry. I brushed these meditations away. They +recurred all the time I was in Temple's house. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Temple waited for my invitation to touch on my father's Case, when he +distinctly pronounced his opinion that it could end but in failure. Though a +strict Constitutionalist, he had words of disgust for princes, acknowledging, +however, that we were not practical in our use of them, and kept them for +political purposes often to the perversion of our social laws and their natural +dispositions. He spoke of his son's freak in joining the Navy. 'That was the +princess's doing,' said Temple. 'She talked of our naval heroes, till she made +me feel I had only to wear the anchor buttons to be one myself. Don't tell her +I was invalided from the service, Richie, for the truth is, I believe, I +half-shammed. And the time won't be lost. You'll see I shall extract guineas +from “old ocean” like salt. Precious few barristers understand +maritime cases. The other day I was in Court, and prompted a great Q.C. in a +case of collision. Didn't I, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'I think there was a hoarse whisper audible up to the Judge's seat at +intervals,' said Mr. Temple. +</p> + +<p> +'The Bar cannot confess to obligations from those who don't wear the robe,' +Temple rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +His father advised me to read for the Bar, as a piece of very good training. +</p> + +<p> +I appealed to Temple, whether he thought it possible to read law-books in a +cockboat in a gale of wind. +</p> + +<p> +Temple grimaced and his father nodded. Still it struck me that I might one day +have the felicity of quiet hours to sit down with Temple and read Law—far +behind him in the race. And he envied me, in his friendly manner, I knew. My +ambition had been blown to tatters. +</p> + +<p> +A new day dawned. The household rose and met at the breakfast-table, devoid of +any dread of the morning newspapers. Their talk was like the chirrup of birds. +Temple and his father walked away together to chambers, bent upon actual +business—upon doing something! I reflected emphatically, and compared +them to ships with rudders, while I was at the mercy of wind, tide, and wave. I +called at Dettermain and Newson's, and heard there of a discovery of a witness +essential to the case, either in North Wales or in New South. I did not, as I +had intended, put a veto on their proceedings. The thing to do was to see my +father, and cut the case at the fountain head. For this purpose, it was +imperative that I should go to him, and prepare myself for the interview by +looking at the newspapers first. I bought one, hastily running my eyes down the +columns in the shop. His name was printed, but merely in a fashionable +notification that carriages took up and set down for his costume Ball, +according to certain regulations. The relief of comparative obscurity helped me +to breathe freely: not to be laughed at, was a gain. I was rather inclined to +laud his courage in entering assembly-rooms, where he must be aware that he +would see the Dauphin on every face. Perhaps he was guilty of some new +extravagance last night, too late for scandal to reinforce the reporters! +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Waddy had a woeful visage when informing me that he was out, gone to +Courtenay Square. She ventured a murmur of bills coming in. Like everybody +else, she fancied he drew his supplies from my inexhaustible purse; she hoped +the bills would be paid off immediately: the servants' wages were overdue. +'Never can I get him to attend to small accounts,' she whimpered, and was so +ready to cry outright, that I said, 'Tusk,' and with the one word gave her +comfort. 'Of course, you, Mr. Harry, can settle them, I know that.' We were +drawing near to poor old Sewis's legacy, even for the settling of the small +accounts! +</p> + +<p> +London is a narrow place to one not caring to be seen. I could not remain in +this creditor-riddled house; I shunned the Parks, the Clubs, and the broad, +brighter streets of the West. Musing on the refreshing change it would be to me +to find myself suddenly on board Captain Jasper Welsh's barque Priscilla, borne +away to strange climes and tongues, the world before me, I put on the striding +pace which does not invite interruption, and no one but Edbury would have taken +the liberty. I heard his shout. 'Halloa! Richmond.' He was driving his friend +Witlington in his cabriolet. 'Richmond, my hearty, where the deuce have you +been? I wanted you to dine with me the other night.' +</p> + +<p> +I replied, looking at him steadily, that I wished I had been there. +</p> + +<p> +'Compendious larks!' cried he, in the slang of his dog's day. 'I say; you're +one at Duke Fitz's masquerade to-night? Tell us your toggery. Hang it, you +might go for the Black Prince. I'm Prince Hal. Got a headache? Come to my Club +and try my mixture. Yoicks! it'd make Methuselah and Melchisedec jump up and +have a twirl and a fandango. I say, you're thick with that little French +actress Chastedian jolly little woman! too much to say for herself to suit me.' +</p> + +<p> +He described the style of woman that delighted him—an ideal English +shepherdess of the print-shops, it appeared, and of extremely remote interest +to me, I thought at the time. Eventually I appointed to walk round to his Club, +and he touched his horse gently, and bobbed his diminutive henchman behind his +smart cabriolet, the admiration of the street. +</p> + +<p> +I found him waiting for me on the steps of his Club, puffing a cigar with all +his vigour, in the classic attitude of a trumpeter. My first words were: 'I +think I have to accuse you of insulting me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Insulting you, Richmond!' he cried, much surprised, holding his cigar in +transit. +</p> + +<p> +'If you insult my father, I make you responsible to me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Insult old Duke Fitz! I give you my word of honour, Richmond—why, I like +him; I like the old boy. Wouldn't hurt him for the world and all Havannah. +</p> + +<p> +What the deuce have you got into your head? Come in and smoke.' +</p> + +<p> +The mention of his dinner and the Dauphin crazed him with laughter. He begged +me as a man to imagine the scene: the old Bloated Bourbon of London Wall and +Camberwell! an Illustrious Boy!—drank like a fish!—ready to show +himself to the waiters! And then with 'Gee' and 'Gaw,' the marquis spouted out +reminiscences of scene, the best ever witnessed! 'Up starts the Dauphin. +“Damn you, sir! and damn me, sir, if believe you have a spot on your +whole body!” And snuffles and puffs—you should have been there +Richmond, I wrote to ask you: did, upon my life! wanted you there. Lord! why, +you won't get such fun in a century. And old Roy! he behaved uncommonly finely: +said capital things, by Jove! Never saw him shine so; old trump! Says Dauphin, +“My beautiful mother had a longing for strawberries out of season. I am +marked with a strawberry, here.” Says Roy: “It is an admirable and +roomy site, but as I am not your enemy, sir, I doubt if I shall often have the +opportunity to behold it.” Ha! ha!—gee! Richmond, you've missed the +deucedest good scene ever acted.' +</p> + +<p> +How could I, after having had an adversary like Prince Otto, call upon a fellow +such as Edbury to give me reason for his conduct? He rollicked and laughed +until my ungovernable impatience brought him to his senses. +</p> + +<p> +'Dash it, you're a fire-eater, I know, Richmond. We can't fight in this +country; ain't allowed. And fighting's infernal folly. By Jove! If you're +going to tumble down every man who enjoys old Roy, you've your work cut out for +you. He's long chalks the best joke out. 'Twixt you and me, he did return +thanks. What does it matter what old Duke Fitz does? I give him a lift on his +ladder with all my heart. He keeps a capital table. And I'll be hanged if he +hasn't got the secret of the women. How he does it old Roy! If the lords were +ladies they'd vote him premier peer, double quick. And I'll tell you what, +Richmond, I'm thought a devil of a good-tempered fellow for not keeping watch +over Courtenay Square. I don't call it my business to be house dog for a pretty +stepmother. But there's talking and nodding, and oh! leave all that: come in +and smoke, and let me set you up; and I'll shake your hand. Halloa! I'm +hailed.' +</p> + +<p> +A lady, grasping the veil across her face, beckoned her hand from a closed +carriage below. Edbury ran down to her. I caught sight of ravishing golden +locks, reminding me of Mabel Sweetwinter's hair, and pricking me with a +sensation of spite at the sex for their deplorable madness in the choice of +favourites. Edbury called me to come to the carriage window. I moved slowly, +but the carriage wheeled about and rolled away. I could just see the outline of +a head muffled in furs and lace. +</p> + +<p> +'Queer fish, women!' he delivered himself of the philosophical ejaculation +cloudily. I was not on terms with him to offer any remark upon the one in +question. His imperturbable good humour foiled me, and I left him, merely +giving him a warning, to which his answer was: +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! come in and have a bottle of claret.' +</p> + +<p> +Claret or brandy had done its work on him by the time I encountered him some +hours later, in the Park. Bramham DeWitt, whom I met in the same neighbourhood, +offered me a mount after lunch, advising me to keep near my father as much as I +conveniently could; and he being sure to appear in the Park, I went, and heard +his name to the right and left of me. He was now, as he said to me once that he +should become, 'the tongue of London.' I could hardly expect to escape from +curious scrutiny myself; I was looked at. Here and there I had to lift my hat +and bow. The stultification of one's feelings and ideas in circumstances which +divide and set them at variance is worse than positive pain. The looks shed on +me were rather flattering, but I knew that in the background I was felt to be +the son of the notorious. Edbury came trotting up to us like a shaken sack, +calling, 'Neigh! any of you seen old Roy?' Bramham DeWitt, a stiff, fashionable +man of fifty, proud of his blood and quick as his cousin Jorian to resent an +impertinence, replied: +</p> + +<p> +'Are you the Marquis of Edbury, or a drunken groom, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'Gad, old gentleman, I've half a mind to ride you down,' said Edbury, and, +espying me, challenged me to a race to run down the fogies. +</p> + +<p> +A cavalcade of six abreast came cantering along. I saw my father listen to a +word from Lady Edbury, and push his horse to intercept the marquis. They spoke. +'Presently, presently,' my father said; 'ride to the rear, and keep at half a +stone's throw—say, a groom's distance.' +</p> + +<p> +'Groom be hanged!' Edbury retorted. 'I made a bet I'd drive you out of the +Park, old Roy!' +</p> + +<p> +'Ride behind, then,' said my father, and to my astonishment Edbury obeyed him, +with laughter. Lady Edbury smiled to herself; and I experienced the esteem I +perceived in her for a masterful manner. A few minutes later my father beckoned +me to pay my respects to Graf Kesensky, an ambassador with strong English +predilections and some influence among us. He asked me if he was right in +supposing I wished to enter Parliament. I said he was, wondering at the +interest a foreigner could find in it. The count stopped a quiet-pacing +gentleman. Bramham DeWitt joined them, and a group of friends. I was +introduced to Mr. Beauchamp Hill, the Government whip, who begged me to call on +him with reference to the candidature of a Sussex borough: 'that is,' said he, +turning to Graf Kesensky, 'if you're sure the place is open? I've heard nothing +of Falmouth's accident.' The count replied that Falmouth was his intimate +friend; he had received a special report that Falmouth was dying, just as he +was on the point of mounting his horse. 'We shan't have lost time,' said Mr. +Hill. The Government wanted votes. I went down to the House of Commons at +midnight to see him. He had then heard of Falmouth's hopeless condition, and +after extracting my political views, which were for the nonce those of a happy +subserviency, he expressed his belief that the new writ for the borough of +Chippenden might be out, and myself seated on the Government benches, within a +very short period. Nor would it be necessary, he thought, for the Government +nominee to spend money: 'though that does not affect you, Mr. Richmond!' My +supposed wealth gave me currency even in political circles. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"></a> +CHAPTER XLIII.<br/> +I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION</h2> + +<p> +An entire revulsion in my feelings and my way of thinking was caused by this +sudden change of prospect. A member of our Parliament, I could then write to +Ottilia, and tell her that I had not wasted time. And it was due to my father, +I confessed, when he returned from his ball at dawn, that I should thank him +for speaking to Graf Kesensky. 'Oh!' said he, 'that was our luck, Richie. I +have been speaking about you to hundreds for the last six months, and now we +owe it to a foreigner!' I thanked him again. He looked eminently handsome in +his Henry III. costume, and was disposed to be as luxurious as his original. He +had brought Count Lika, Secretary of Legation to the Austrian Embassy, dressed +as an Albanian, with him. The two were stretched on couches, and discoursing of +my father's reintroduction of the sedan chair to society. My father explained +that he had ordered a couple of dozen of these chairs to be built on a pattern +of his own. And he added, 'By the way, Richie, there will be +sedaniers—porters to pay to-day. Poor men should be paid immediately.' I +agreed with the monarch. Contemplating him, I became insensible to the sting of +ridicule which had been shooting through me, agonizing me for the last +eight-and-forty hours. Still I thought: can I never escape from the +fascination?—let me only get into Parliament! The idea in me was that +Parliament lifted me nearer to Ottilia, and would prompt me to resolute action, +out of his tangle of glittering cobwebs. I told him of my interview with +Beauchamp Hill. 'I have never known Kesensky wrong yet,' said he; 'except in +his backing of Falmouth's horses.' Count Lika murmured that he hoped his Chief +would be wrong in something else: he spoke significantly. My father raised his +eyebrows. 'In his opinion,' Lika accepted the invitation to pursue, 'Prince +Ernest will not let that announcement stand uncontradicted.' +</p> + +<p> +My father's eyes dwelt on him. 'Are we accused of it?' +</p> + +<p> +Lika slipped from the question. 'Who is accused of a newspaper's doings? It is +but the denial of a statement.' +</p> + +<p> +'I dare them to deny it!—and, Lika, my dear fellow, light me a +cigarette,' said my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Then,' said Lika, touching the flame delicately, 'you take the view that +Kesensky is wrong in another thing besides horses.' +</p> + +<p> +I believe he struck on the subject casually: there was nothing for him to gain +or lose in it; and he had a liking for my father. +</p> + +<p> +After puffing the cigarette twice or thrice my father threw it down, resuming +his conversation upon the sedan, the appropriate dresses of certain of the +great masquerading ladies, and an incident that appeared to charge Jorian +DeWitt with having misconducted himself. The moment Lika had gone upstairs for +two or three hours' sleep, he said to me: 'Richie, you and I have no time for +that. We must have a man at Falmouth's house by eight o'clock. If the +scrubbing-maid on all fours—not an inelegant position, I have +remarked—declares him dead, we are at Bartlett's (money-lender) by ten: +and in Chippenden borough before two post meridian. As I am a tactician, there +is mischief! but I will turn it to my uses, as I did our poor Jorian to-night; +he smuggled in the Chassediane: I led her out on my arm. Of that by and by. The +point is, that from your oath in Parliament you fly to Sarkeld. I implore you +now, by your love for me and the princess, not to lose precious minutes. +Richie, we will press things so that you shall be in Sarkeld by the end of the +month. My son! my dear boy! how you loved me once!—you do still! then +follow my directions. I have a head. Ay, you think it wild? 'Tis true, my +mother was a poetess. But I will convince my son as I am convincing the +world—tut, tut! To avoid swelling talk, I tell you, Richie, I have my +hand on the world's wheel, and now is the time for you to spring from it and +gain your altitude. If you fail, my success is emptiness.' +</p> + +<p> +'Will you avoid Edbury and his like, and protect yourself?' was my form of +stipulation, spoken to counteract his urgency. +</p> + +<p> +He gave no answer beyond a wave of the hand suitable to his princely +one-coloured costume of ruffled lavender silk, and the magnificent leg he +turned to front me. My senses even up to that period were so impressionable as +to be swayed by a rich dress and a grand manner when circumstances were not too +unfavourable. Now they seemed very favourable, for they offered me an upward +path to tread. His appearance propitiated me less after he had passed through +the hands of his man Tollingby, but I had again surrendered the lead to him. As +to the risk of proceedings being taken against him, he laughed scornfully at +the suggestion. 'They dare not. The more I dare, the less dare they.' Again I +listened to his curious roundabout reasoning, which dragged humour at its heels +like a comical cur, proclaiming itself imposingly, in spite of the mongrel's +barking, to be prudence and common sense. Could I deny that I owed him +gratitude for the things I cherished most?—for my acquaintance with +Ottilia?—for his services in Germany?—for the prospect of my +elevation in England? I could not; and I tried hard to be recklessly grateful. +As to money, he reiterated that he could put his hand on it to satisfy the +squire on the day of accounts: for the present, we must borrow. His argument +upon borrowing—which I knew well, and wondered that I did not at the +outset disperse with a breath of contempt—gained on me singularly when +reviewed under the light of my immediate interests: it ran thus:—We have +a rich or a barren future, just as we conceive it. The art of generalship in +life consists in gathering your scattered supplies to suit a momentous +occasion; and it is the future which is chiefly in debt to us, and adjures us +for its sake to fight the fight and conquer. That man is vile and fit to be +trampled on who cannot count his future in gold and victory. If, as we find, we +are always in debt to the past, we should determine that the future is in our +debt, and draw on it. Why let our future lie idle while we need succour? For +instance, to-morrow I am to have what saves my reputation in the battle to-day; +shall I not take it at once? The military commander who acts on that principle +overcomes his adversary to a certainty. +</p> + +<p> +'You, Richie, the member for this borough of Chippenden, have won solid ground. +I guarantee it to you. And you go straight from the hustings, or the first +taste of parliamentary benches, to Sarkeld: you take your grandad's proposition +to Prince Ernest: you bring back the prince's acceptance to the squire. Can you +hope to have a princess without a battle for her?' More and much more in this +strain, until—for he could read me and most human beings swiftly on the +surface, notwithstanding the pressure of his fancifulness—he perceived +that talking influenced me far less than activity, and so after a hurried +breakfast and an innocuous glance at the damp morning papers, we started to the +money-lender's, with Jennings to lend his name. We were in Chippenden close +upon the hour my father had named, bringing to the startled electors the first +news of their member's death. +</p> + +<p> +During the heat of the canvass for votes I received a kind letter from the +squire in reply to one of mine, wherein he congratulated me on my prospects of +success, and wound up: 'Glad to see it announced you are off with that princess +of yours. Show them we are as proud as they are, Harry, and a fig for the whole +foreign lot! Come to Riversley soon, and be happy.' What did that mean? Heriot +likewise said in a letter: 'So it's over? The proud prince kicks? You will not +thank me for telling you now what you know I think about it.' I appealed to my +father. 'Canvass! canvass!' cried he; and he persistently baffled me. It was +from Temple I learnt that on the day of our starting for Chippenden, the +newspapers contained a paragraph in large print flatly denying upon authority +that there was any foundation for the report of an intended marriage between +the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld and an English gentleman. Then I remembered +how that morning my father had flung the papers down, complaining of their +dampness. +</p> + +<p> +Would such denial have appeared without Ottilia's sanction? +</p> + +<p> +My father proved that I was harnessed to him; there was no stopping, no time +for grieving. Pace was his specific. He dragged me the round of the voters; he +gave dinners at the inn of true Liberals, and ate of them contentedly; he +delivered speeches incessantly. The whole force of his serio-comic genius was +alive in its element at Chippenden. From balls and dinners, and a sharp contest +to maintain his position in town, he was down among us by the first morning +train, bright as Apollo, and quite the sun of the place, dazzling the +independent electors and their wives, and even me somewhat; amazing me, +certainly. Dettermain, his lawyer, who had never seen him in action, and +supposed he would treat an election as he did his Case, with fits and starts of +energy, was not less astonished, and tried to curb him. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Dettermain, my dear sir, I apprehend it is the electoral maxim to woo the +widowed borough with the tear in its eye, and I shall do so hotly, in a right +masculine manner,' my father said. 'We have the start; and if we beat the enemy +by nothing else we will beat him by constitution. We are the first in the +field, and not to reap it is to acknowledge oneself deficient in the very first +instrument with which grass was cut.' +</p> + +<p> +Our difficulty all through the election was to contend with his humour. The +many triumphs it won for him, both in speech and in action, turned at least the +dialectics of the argument against us, and amusing, flattering, or bewildering, +contributed to silence and hold us passive. Political convictions of his own, I +think I may say with truth, he had none. He would have been just as powerful, +after his fashion, on the Tory side, pleading for Mr. Normanton Hipperdon; +more, perhaps: he would have been more in earnest. His store of political +axioms was Tory; but he did remarkably well, and with no great difficulty, in +confuting them to the wives of voters, to the voters themselves, and at public +assemblies. Our adversary was redoubtable; a promising Opposition member, +ousted from his seat in the North—a handsome man, too, which my father +admitted, and wealthy, being junior partner in a City banking firm. Anna +Penrhys knew him, and treacherously revealed some of the enemy's secrets, +notably concerning what he termed our incorrigible turn for bribery. +</p> + +<p> +'And that means,' my father said, 'that Mr. Hipperdon does not possess the art +of talking to the ladies. I shall try him in repartee on the hustings. I must +contrive to have our Jorian at my elbow.' +</p> + +<p> +The task of getting Jorian to descend upon such a place as Chippenden worried +my father more than electoral anxieties. Jorian wrote, 'My best wishes to you. +Be careful of your heads. The habit of the Anglo-Saxon is to conclude his +burlesques with a play of cudgels. It is his notion of freedom, and at once the +exordium and peroration of his eloquence. Spare me the Sussex accent on your +return.' +</p> + +<p> +My father read out the sentences of this letter with admiring bursts of +indignation at the sarcasms, and an evident idea that I inclined to jealousy of +the force displayed. +</p> + +<p> +'But we must have him,' he said; 'I do not feel myself complete without +Jorian.' +</p> + +<p> +So he made dispositions for a concert to be given in Chippenden town. Jenny +Chassediane was invited down to sing, and Jorian came in her wake, of course. +He came to suffer tortures. She was obliging enough to transform me into her +weapon of chastisement upon the poor fellow for his behaviour to her at the +Ball—atrocious, I was bound to confess. On this point she hesitated just +long enough to imply a doubt whether, under any circumstances, the dues of men +should be considered before those of her sex, and then struck her hands +together with enthusiasm for my father, who was, she observed—critical in +millinery in the height of her ecstasy—the most majestic, charming, +handsome Henri III. imaginable, the pride and glory of the assembly, only one +degree too rosy at night for the tone of the lavender, needing a touch of +French hands, and the merest trifle in want of compression about the waistband. +She related that a certain Prince Henri d'Angleterre had buzzed at his ear +annoyingly. 'Et Gascoigne, ou est-il?' called the King, and the Judge stepped +forth to correct the obstreperous youth. The Judge was Jennings, clearly +prepared by my father to foil the Prince—no other than Edbury. It was +incomprehensible to me that my father should tolerate the latter's pranks; +unless, indeed, he borrowed his name to bonds of which I heard nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Chassediane vowed that her own dress was ravishing. She went +attired as a boudoir-shepherdess or demurely-coquettish Sèvres-china Ninette, +such of whom Louis Quinze would chuck the chin down the deadly introductory +walks of Versailles. The reason of her desiring to go was the fatal sin of +curiosity, and, therefore, her sex's burden, not hers. Jorian was a +Mousquetaire, with plumes and ruffles prodigious, and a hen's heart beneath his +cock's feathers. 'Pourtant j'y allai. I saw your great ladies, how they carry +themselves when they would amuse themselves, and, mon Dieu! Paris has done its +utmost to grace their persons, and the length of their robes did the part of +Providence in bestowing height upon them, parceque, vous savez, Monsieur, c'est +extraordinaire comme ils ont les jambes courtes, ces Anglaises!' Our +aristocracy, however, was not so bad in that respect as our bourgeoisie; yet it +was easy to perceive that our female aristocracy, though they could ride, had +never been drilled to walk: 'de belles femmes, oui; seulement, tenez, je +n'admire ni les yeux de vache, ni de souris, ni même ceux de verre comme +ornement feminin. Avec de l'embonpoint elles font de l'effet, mais maigre il +n'y a aucune illusion possible.' +</p> + +<p> +This vindictive critic smarted, with cause, at the recollection of her walk out +of her rooms. Jorian's audacity or infatuation quitted him immediately after he +had gratified her whim. The stout Mousquetaire placed her in a corner, and +enveloped her there, declaring that her petition had been that she might come +to see, not to be seen,—as if, she cried out tearfully, the two wishes +must not necessarily exist together, like the masculine and the feminine in +this world! Prince Hal, acting the most profligate period of his career, espied +her behind the Mousquetaire's moustache, and did not fail to make much of his +discovery. In a perilous moment for the reputation of the Ball, my father +handed him over to Gascoigne, and conducted Jenny in a leisurely walk on his +arm out of the rooms. +</p> + +<p> +'Il est comme les Romains,' she said: 'he never despairs of himself. It is a +Jupiter! If he must punish you he confers a dignity in doing it. Now I +comprehend, that with such women as these grandes dames Anglaises I should have +done him harm but for his greatness of soul.' +</p> + +<p> +Some harm, I fancied, must have been done, in spite of his boast to the +contrary. He had to be in London every other night, and there were tales +current of intrigues against him which had their sources from very lofty +regions. But in Chippenden he threw off London, just as lightly as in London he +discarded Chippenden. No symptom of personal discouragement, or of fatigue, was +betrayed in his face. I spoke once of that paragraph purporting to emanate from +Prince Ernest. +</p> + +<p> +'It may,' he said. 'Business! Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +He set to counting the promises of votes, disdaining fears and reflections. +Concerts, cricket-matches, Balls, dinner-parties, and the round of the canvass, +and speech-making at our gatherings, occupied every minute of my time, except +on Saturday evenings, when I rode over to Riversley with Temple to spend the +Sunday. Temple, always willing to play second to me, and a trifle melancholy +under his partial eclipse—which, perhaps, suggested the loss of Janet to +him—would have it that this election was one of the realizations of our +boyish dreams of greatness. The ladies were working rosettes for me. My aunt +Dorothy talked very anxiously about the day appointed by my father to repay the +large sum expended. All hung upon that day, she said, speaking from her +knowledge of the squire. She was moved to an extreme distress by the subject. +</p> + +<p> +'He is confident, Harry; but where can he obtain the money? If your grandfather +sees it invested in your name in Government securities, he will be satisfied, +not otherwise: nothing less will satisfy him; and if that is not done, he will +join you and your father together in his mind; and as he has hitherto treated +one he will treat both. I know him. He is just, to the extent of his vision; +but he will not be able to separate you. He is aware that your father has not +restricted his expenses since they met; he will say you should have used your +influence.' +</p> + +<p> +She insisted on this, until the tears streamed from her eyes, telling me that +my grandfather was the most upright and unsuspicious of men, and precisely on +that account the severest when he thought he had been deceived. The fair +chances of my election did not console her, as it did me, by dazzling me. She +affirmed strongly that she was sure my father expected success at the election +to be equivalent to the promised restitution of the money, and begged me to +warn him that nothing short of the sum squandered would be deemed sufficient at +Riversley. My dear aunt, good woman though she was, seemed to me to be waxing +miserly. The squire had given her the name of Parsimony; she had vexed him, +Janet told me, by subscribing a miserable sum to a sailors' asylum that he +patronized—a sum he was ashamed to see standing as the gift of a Beltham; +and she had stopped the building of a wing of her village school-house, +designed upon his plan. Altogether, she was fretful and distressful; she +appeared to think that I could have kept my father in better order. Riversley +was hearing new and strange reports of him. But how could I at Chippenden +thwart his proceedings in London? Besides, he was serving me indefatigably. +</p> + +<p> +It can easily be imagined what description of banter he had to meet and foil. +</p> + +<p> +'This gentleman is obliging enough to ask me, “How about the Royal +Arms?” If in his extreme consideration he means to indicate my Arms, I +will inform him that they are open to him; he shall find entertainment for man +and beast; so he is doubly assured of a welcome.' +</p> + +<p> +Questioned whether he did not think he was entitled to be rated at the value of +half-a-crown, he protested that whatever might be the sum of his worth, he was +pure coin, of which neither party in Chippenden could accuse the silver of +rubbing off; and he offered forthwith an impromptu apologue of a copper penny +that passed itself off for a crown-piece, and deceived a portion of the +country: that was why (with a wave of the arm over the Hipperdon faction) it +had a certain number of backers; for everybody on whom the counterfeit had been +foisted, praised it to keep it in the currency. +</p> + +<p> +'Now, gentlemen, I apprehend that Chippenden is not the pocket-borough for +Hipperdon coin. Back with him to the Mint! and, with your permission, we will +confiscate the first syllable of his name, while we consign him to oblivion, +with a hip, hip, hip, hurrah for Richmond!' +</p> + +<p> +The cheers responded thunderingly, and were as loud when he answered a 'How +'bout the Dauphin?' by saying that it was the Tory hotel, of which he knew +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +'A cheer for old Roy!' Edbury sang out. +</p> + +<p> +My father checked the roar, and turned to him. +</p> + +<p> +'Marquis of Edbury, come to the front!' +</p> + +<p> +Edbury declined to budge, but the fellows round him edged aside to show him a +mark for my father's finger. +</p> + +<p> +'Gentlemen, this is the young Marquis of Edbury, a member of the House of Lords +by right of his birth, born to legislate for you and me. He, gentlemen, makes +our laws. Examine him, hear him, meditate on him.' +</p> + +<p> +He paused cruelly for Edbury to open his mouth. The young lord looked +confounded, and from that moment behaved becomingly. +</p> + +<p> +'He might have been doing mischief to-morrow,' my father said to me, and by +letting me conceive his adroitness a matter of design, comforted me with proofs +of intelligent power, and made me feel less the melancholy conjunction of a +piece of mechanism and a piece of criticism, which I was fast growing to be in +the contemplation of the agencies leading to honour in our land. Edbury whipped +his four-in-hand to conduct our voters to the poll. We had to pull hard against +Tory interest. It was a sharp, dubious, hot day—a day of outcries against +undue influence and against bribery—a day of beer and cheers and the +insanest of tricks to cheat the polling-booth. Old John Thresher of Dipwell, +and Farmer Eckerthy drove over to Chippenden to afford me aid and countenance, +disconcerting me by the sight of them, for I associated them with Janet rather +than with Ottilia, and it was to Ottilia that I should have felt myself rising +when the figures increased their pace in my favour, and the yeasty mob +surrounding my father's superb four-horsed chariot responded to his orations by +proclaiming me victor. +</p> + +<p> +'I congratulate you, Mr. Richmond,' Dettermain said. 'Up to this day I have had +my fears that we should haul more moonshine than fish in our net. Your father +has accomplished prodigies.' +</p> + +<p> +My father, with the bloom of success on his face, led me aside soon after a +safe majority of upwards of seventy had been officially announced. 'Now, +Richie,' said he, 'you are a Member. Now to the squire away! Thank the +multitude and off, and as quick to Sarkeld as you well can, and tell the squire +from me that I pardon his suspicions. I have landed you a Member—that +will satisfy him. I am willing, tell him... you know me competent to direct +mines... bailiff of his estates—whatever he pleases, to effect a +reconciliation. I must be in London to-night—I am in the thick of the +fray there. No matter: go, my son.' He embraced me. It was not a moment for me +to catechize him, though I could see that he was utterly deluded. +</p> + +<p> +Between moonlight and morning, riding with Temple and Captain Bulsted on either +side of me, I drew rein under the red Grange windows, tired, and in love with +its air of sleepy grandeur. Janet's window was open. I hailed her. 'Has he +won?' she sang out in the dark of her room, as though the cry of delight came +upon the leap from bed. She was dressed. She had commissioned Farmer Eckerthy +to bring her the news at any hour of the night. Seeing me, she clapped hands. +'Harry, I congratulate you a thousand times.' She had wit to guess that I +should never have thought of coming had I not been the winner. I could just +discern the curve and roll of her famed thick brown hair in the happy shrug of +her shoulder, and imagined the full stream of it as she leaned out of window to +talk to us. +</p> + +<p> +Janet herself, unfastened the hall-door bolts. She caressed the horses, +feverishly exulting, with charming subdued laughter of victory and welcome, and +amused us by leading my horse round to stables, and whistling for one of the +lads, playing what may, now and then, be a pretty feature in a young woman of +character—the fair tom-boy girl. She and her maid prepared coffee and +toast for us, and entered the hall, one after the other, laden with dishes of +cold meat; and not until the captain had eaten well did she tell him slyly that +somebody, whom she had brought to Riversley yesterday, was abed and asleep +upstairs. The slyness and its sisterly innocence lit up our eyes, and our +hearts laughed. Her cheeks were deliciously overcoloured. We stole I know not +what from the night and the day, and conventional circumstances, and rallied +Captain Bulsted, and behaved as decorous people who treat the night properly, +and live by rule, do not quite do. Never since Janet was a girl had I seen her +so spirited and responsive: the womanly armour of half-reserve was put away. We +chatted with a fresh-hearted natural young creature who forfeited not a +particle of her ladyship while she made herself our comrade in talk and frolic. +</p> + +<p> +Janet and I walked part of the way to the station with Temple, who had to catch +an early train, and returning—the song of skylarks covering +us—joined hands, having our choice between nothing to say, and the +excess; perilous both. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"></a> +CHAPTER XLIV.<br/> +MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE</h2> + +<p> +My grandfather had a gratification in my success, mingled with a transparent +jealousy of the chief agent in procuring it. He warned me when I left him that +he was not to be hoodwinked: he must see the money standing in my name on the +day appointed. His doubts were evident, but he affected to be expectant. Not a +word of Sarkeld could be spoken. My success appeared to be on a more visionary +foundation the higher I climbed. +</p> + +<p> +Now Jorian DeWitt had affirmed that the wealthy widow Lady Sampleman was to be +had by my father for the asking. Placed as we were, I regarded the objections +to his alliance with her in a mild light. She might lend me the money to +appease the squire; that done, I would speedily repay it. I admitted, in a +letter to my aunt Dorothy, the existing objections: but the lady had long been +enamoured of him, I pleaded, and he was past the age for passionate affection, +and would infallibly be courteous and kind. She was rich. We might count on her +to watch over him carefully. Of course, with such a wife, he would sink to a +secondary social sphere; was it to be regretted if he did? The letter was a +plea for my own interests, barely veiled. +</p> + +<p> +At the moment of writing it, and moreover when I treated my father with +especial coldness, my heart was far less warm in the contemplation of its +pre-eminent aim than when I was suffering him to endanger it, almost without a +protest. Janet and a peaceful Riversley, and a life of quiet English +distinction, beckoned to me visibly, and not hatefully. The image of Ottilia +conjured up pictures of a sea of shipwrecks, a scene of immeasurable +hopelessness. Still, I strove toward that. My strivings were against my +leanings, and imagining the latter, which involved no sacrifice of the finer +sense of honour, to be in the direction of my lower nature, I repelled them to +preserve a lofty aim that led me through questionable ways. +</p> + +<p> +'Can it be you, Harry,' my aunt Dorothy's reply ran (I had anticipated her line +of reasoning, though not her warmth), 'who advise him to this marriage from a +motive so inexplicably unworthy? That you will repay her the money, I do not +require your promise to assure me. The money is nothing. It is the prospect of +her life and fortune which you are consenting, if not urging him, to imperil +for your own purposes. Are you really prepared to imitate in him, with less +excuse for doing it, the things you most condemn? Let it be checked at the +outset. It cannot be. A marriage of inclination on both sides, prudent in a +worldly sense, we might wish for him, perhaps, if he could feel quite sure of +himself. His wife might persuade him not to proceed in his law-case. There I +have long seen his ruin. He builds such expectations on it! You speak of +something worse than a mercenary marriage. I see this in your +handwriting!—your approval of it! I have to check the whisper that tells +me it reads like a conspiracy. Is she not a simpleton? Can you withhold your +pity? and pitying, can you possibly allow her to be entrapped? Forgive my +seeming harshness. I do not often speak to my Harry so. I do now because I must +appeal to you, as the one chiefly responsible, on whose head the whole weight +of a dreadful error will fall. Oh! my dearest, be guided by the purity of your +feelings to shun doubtful means. I have hopes that after the first few weeks +your grandfather will—I know he does not expect to find the engagement +fulfilled—be the same to you that he was before he discovered the +extravagance. You are in Parliament, and I am certain, that by keeping as much +as possible to yourself, and living soberly, your career there will persuade +him to meet your wishes.' +</p> + +<p> +The letter was of great length. In conclusion, she entreated me to despatch an +answer by one of the early morning trains; entreating me once more to cause +'any actual deed' to be at least postponed. The letter revealed what I had +often conceived might be. +</p> + +<p> +My rejoinder to my aunt Dorothy laid stress on my father's pledge of his word +of honour as a gentleman to satisfy the squire on a stated day. I shrank from +the idea of the Riversley crow over him. As to the lady, I said we would see +that her money was fastened to her securely before she committed herself to the +deeps. The money to be advanced to me would lie at my bankers, in my +name,—untouched: it would be repaid in the bulk after a season. This I +dwelt on particularly, both to satisfy her and to appease my sense of the +obligation. An airy pleasantry in the tone of this epistle amused me while +writing it and vexed me when it had gone. But a letter sent, upon special +request, by railway, should not, I thought, be couched in the ordinary strain. +Besides one could not write seriously of a person like Lady Sampleman. +</p> + +<p> +I consulted my aunt Dorothy's scruples by stopping my father on his way to the +lady. His carriage was at the door: I suggested money-lenders: he had tried +them all. He begged me to permit him to start: but it was too ignominious to +think of its being done under my very eyes, and I refused. He had tried the +money-lenders yesterday. They required a mortgage solider than expectations for +the sum we wanted. Dettermain and Newson had declined to undertake the +hypothecation of his annuity. Providence pointed to Sampleman. +</p> + +<p> +'You change in a couple of nights, Richie,' said he. 'Now I am always the +identical man. I shall give happiness to one sincerely good soul. I have only +to offer myself—let me say in becoming modesty, I believe so. Let me go +to her and have it over, for with me a step taken is a thing sanctified. I have +in fact held her in reserve. Not that I think Fortune has abandoned us: but a +sagacious schemer will not leave everything to the worthy Dame. I should have +driven to her yesterday, if I had not heard from Dettermain and Newson that +there was a hint of a negotiation for a compromise. Government is fairly +frightened.' +</p> + +<p> +He mused. 'However, I slept on it, and arrived at the conclusion this morning +that my old Richie stood in imminent jeopardy of losing the fruit of all my +toil. The good woman will advance the money to her husband. When I pledged my +word to the squire I had reason to imagine the two months a sufficient time. We +have still a couple of days. I have heard of men who lost heart at the eleventh +hour, and if they had only hung on, with gallant faith in themselves, they +would have been justified by the result. Faith works miracles. At least it +allows time for them.' +</p> + +<p> +His fertile ingenuity spared mine the task of persuading him to postpone the +drive to Lady Sampleman. But that he would have been prompt to go, at a word +from me, and was actually about to go when I entered his house, I could not +question. +</p> + +<p> +He drove in manifest relief of mind to Dettermain and Newson's. +</p> + +<p> +I had an appointment with Mr. Temple at a great political Club, to meet the +gentlemen who were good enough to undertake the introduction of the infant +member to the House of Commons. My incessantly twisting circumstances foiled +the pleasure and pride due to me. From the Club I bent my steps to Temple's +district, and met in the street young Eckart vom Hof, my champion and second on +a memorable occasion, fresh upon London, and looking very Germanic in this drab +forest of our city people. He could hardly speak of Deutschland for enthusiasm +at the sight of the moving masses. His object in coming to England, he assured +me honestly, was to study certain editions of Tibullus in the British Museum. +When he deigned to speak of Sarkeld, it was to say that Prince Hermann was +frequently there. I gave him no chance to be sly, though he pushed for it, at a +question of the Princess Ottilia's health. +</p> + +<p> +The funeral pace of the block of cabs and omnibuses engrossed his attention. +Suddenly the Englishman afforded him an example of the reserve of impetuosity +we may contain. I had seen my aunt Dorothy in a middle line of cabs coming from +the City, and was darting in a twinkling among wheels and shafts and nodding +cab-horse noses to take her hand and know the meaning of her presence in +London. She had family business to do: she said no more. I mentioned that I had +checked my father for a day or two. She appeared grateful. Her anxiety was +extreme that she might not miss the return train, so I relinquished her hand, +commanded the cabman to hasten, and turned to rescue Eckart—too young and +faithful a collegian not to follow his friend, though it were into the lion's +den—from a terrific entanglement of horseflesh and vehicles brawled over +by a splendid collision of tongues. Secure on the pavement again, Eckart humbly +acknowledged that the English tongue could come out upon occasions. I did my +best to amuse him. +</p> + +<p> +Whether it amused him to see me take my seat in the House of Commons, and hear +a debate in a foreign language, I cannot say; but the only pleasure of which I +was conscious at that period lay in the thought that he or his father, Baron +vom Hof, might some day relate the circumstance at Prince Ernest's table, and +fix in Ottilia's mind the recognition of my having tried to perform my part of +the contract. Beggared myself, and knowing Prince Hermann to be in Sarkeld, all +I hoped for was to show her I had followed the path she traced. My state was +lower: besides misfortune I now found myself exalted only to feel my profound +insignificance. +</p> + +<p> +'The standard for the House is a man's ability to do things,' said Charles +Etherell, my friendly introductor, by whom I was passingly, perhaps ironically, +advised to preserve silence for two or three sessions. +</p> + +<p> +He counselled the study of Foreign Affairs for a present theme. I talked of our +management of them, in the strain of Dr. Julius von Karsteg. +</p> + +<p> +'That's journalism, or clippings from a bilious essay; it won't do for the +House,' he said. 'Revile the House to the country, if you like, but not the +country to the House.' +</p> + +<p> +When I begged him to excuse my absurdity, he replied: +</p> + +<p> +'It's full of promise, so long as you're silent.' +</p> + +<p> +But to be silent was to be merely an obedient hound of the whip. And if the +standard for the House was a man's ability to do things, I was in the seat of a +better man. External sarcasms upon the House, flavoured with justness, came to +my mind, but if these were my masters surrounding me, how indefinitely small +must I be! +</p> + +<p> +Leaving the House on that first night of my sitting, I received Temple's +congratulations outside, and, as though the sitting had exhausted every +personal sentiment, I became filled with his; under totally new sensations, I +enjoyed my distinction through the perception of my old comrade's friendly +jealousy. +</p> + +<p> +'I'll be there, too, some day,' he said, moaning at the prospect of an extreme +age before such honours would befall him. +</p> + +<p> +The society of Eckart prevented me from urging him to puff me up with his talk +as I should have wished, and after I had sent the German to be taken care of by +Mrs. Waddy, I had grown so accustomed to the worldly view of my position that I +was fearing for its stability. Threats of a petition against me were abroad. +Supposing the squire disinherited me, could I stand? An extraordinary appetite +for wealth, a novel appreciation of it—which was, in truth, a voluntary +enlistment into the army of mankind, and the adoption of its +passions—pricked me with an intensity of hope and dread concerning my +dependence on my grandfather. I lay sleepless all night, tossing from Riversley +to Sarkeld, condemned, it seemed, to marry Janet and gain riches and power by +renouncing my hope of the princess and the glory belonging to her, unless I +should within a few hours obtain a show of figures at my bankers. +</p> + +<p> +I had promised Etherell to breakfast with him. A note—a faint +scream—despatched by Mrs. Waddy to Mr. Temple's house informed me that +'the men' were upon them. If so, they were the forerunners of a horde, and my +father was as good as extinguished. He staked everything on success; +consequently, he forfeited pity. +</p> + +<p> +Good-bye to ambition, I thought, and ate heartily, considering robustly the +while how far lower than the general level I might avoid falling. The report of +the debates in morning papers—doubtless, more flowing and, perhaps, more +grammatical than such as I gave ear to overnight—had the odd effect on me +of relieving me from the fit of subserviency into which the speakers had sunk +me. +</p> + +<p> +A conceit of towering superiority took its place, and as Etherell was kind +enough to draw me out and compliment me, I was attacked by a tragic sense of +contrast between my capacities and my probable fortunes. It was open to me to +marry Janet. But this meant the loosening of myself with my own hand for ever +from her who was my mentor and my glory, to gain whom I was in the very +tideway. I could not submit to it, though the view was like that of a green +field of the springs passed by a climber up the crags. I went to Anna Penrhys +to hear a woman's voice, and partly told her of my troubles. She had heard Mr. +Hipperdon express his confident opinion that he should oust me from my seat. +Her indignation was at my service as a loan: it sprang up fiercely and +spontaneously in allusions to something relating to my father, of which the +Marquis of Edbury had been guilty. 'How you can bear it!' she exclaimed, for I +was not wordy. The exclamation, however, stung me to put pen to paper—the +woman was not so remote in me as not to be roused by the woman. I wrote to +Edbury, and to Heriot, bidding him call on the young nobleman. Late at night I +was at my father's door to perform the act of duty of seeing him, and hearing +how he had entertained Eckart, if he was still master of his liberty. I should +have known him better: I expected silence and gloom. The windows were lighted +brilliantly. As the hall-door opened, a band of stringed and wood instruments +commenced an overture. Mrs. Waddy came to me in the hall; she was +unintelligible. One thing had happened to him at one hour of the morning, and +another at another hour. He was at one moment suffering the hands of the +'officers' on his shoulder: +</p> + +<p> +'And behold you, Mr. Harry! a knock, a letter from a messenger, and he conquers +Government!' It struck me that the epitome of his life had been played in a +day: I was quite incredulous of downright good fortune. He had been giving a +dinner followed by a concert, and the deafening strains of the music clashed +with my acerb spirit, irritating me excessively. 'Where are those men you spoke +of?' I asked her. 'Gone,' she replied, 'gone long ago!' +</p> + +<p> +'Paid?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +She was afraid to be precise, but repeated that they were long since gone. +</p> + +<p> +I singled Jorian DeWitt from among the crowd of loungers on the stairs and +landing between the drawing-rooms. 'Oh, yes, Government has struck its flag to +him,' Jorian said. 'Why weren't you here to dine? Alphonse will never beat his +achievement of to-day. Jenny and Carigny gave us a quarter-of-an-hour before +dinner—a capital idea!—“VEUVE ET BACHELIER.” As if by +inspiration. No preparation for it, no formal taking of seats. It seized +amazingly—floated small talk over the soup beautifully.' +</p> + +<p> +I questioned him again. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, dear, yes; there can't be a doubt about it,' he answered, airily. 'Roy +Richmond has won his game.' +</p> + +<p> +Two or three urgent men round a great gentleman were extracting his affable +approbation of the admirable nature of the experiment of the Chassediane before +dinner. I saw that Eckart was comfortably seated, and telling Jorian to provide +for him in the matter of tobacco, I went to my room, confused beyond power of +thought by the sensible command of fortune my father, fortune's sport at times, +seemed really to have. +</p> + +<p> +His statement of the circumstances bewildered me even more. He was in no hurry +to explain them; when we met next morning he waited for me to question him, and +said, 'Yes. I think we have beaten them so far!' His mind was pre-occupied, he +informed me, concerning the defence of a lady much intrigued against, and +resuming the subject: 'Yes, we have beaten them up to a point, Richie. And that +reminds me: would you have me go down to Riversley and show the squire the +transfer paper? At any rate you can now start for Sarkeld, and you do, do you +not? To-day: to-morrow at latest.' +</p> + +<p> +I insisted: 'But how, and in what manner has this money been paid?' The idea +struck me that he had succeeded in borrowing it. +</p> + +<p> +'Transferred to me in the Bank, and intelligence of the fact sent to Dettermain +and Newson, my lawyers,' he replied. 'Beyond that, I know as little as you, +Richie, though indubitably I hoped to intimidate them. If,' he added, with a +countenance perfectly simple and frank, 'they expect me to take money for a +sop, I am not responsible, as I by no means provoked it, for their mistake. +</p> + +<p> +'I proceed. The money is useful to you, so I rejoice at it.' +</p> + +<p> +Five and twenty thousand pounds was the amount. +</p> + +<p> +'No stipulation was attached to it?' +</p> + +<p> +'None. Of course a stipulation was implied: but of that I am not bound to be +cognizant.' +</p> + +<p> +'Absurd!' I cried: 'it can't have come from the quarter you suspect.' +</p> + +<p> +'Where else?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +I thought of the squire, Lady Edbury, my aunt, Lady Sampleman, Anna Penrhys, +some one or other of his frantic female admirers. But the largeness of the +amount, and the channel selected for the payment, precluded the notion that any +single person had come to succour him in his imminent need, and, as it chanced, +mine. +</p> + +<p> +Observing that my speculations wavered, he cited numerous instances in his life +of the special action of Providence in his favour, and was bold enough to speak +of a star, which his natural acuteness would have checked his doing before me, +if his imagination had not been seriously struck. +</p> + +<p> +'You hand the money over to me, sir?' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Without a moment of hesitation, my dear boy,' he melted me by answering. +</p> + +<p> +'You believe you have received a bribe?' +</p> + +<p> +'That is my entire belief—the sole conclusion I can arrive at. I will +tell you, Richie: the old Marquis of Edbury once placed five thousand pounds to +my account on a proviso that I should—neglect, is the better word, my +Case. I inherited from him at his death; of course his demise cancelled the +engagement. He had been the friend of personages implicated. He knew. I suspect +he apprehended the unpleasant position of a witness.' +</p> + +<p> +'But what was the stipulation you presume was implied?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Something that passed between lawyers: I am not bound to be cognizant of it. +Abandon my claims for a few thousands? Not for ten, not for ten hundred times +the sum!' +</p> + +<p> +To be free from his boisterous influence, which made my judgement as unsteady +as the weather-glass in a hurricane, I left my house and went straight to +Dettermain and Newson, who astonished me quite as much by assuring me that the +payment of the money was a fact. There was no mystery about it. The +intelligence and transfer papers, they said, had not been communicated to them +by the firm they were opposed to, but by a solicitor largely connected with the +aristocracy; and his letter had briefly declared the unknown donator's request +that legal proceedings should forthwith be stopped. They offered no opinion of +their own. Suggestions of any kind, they seemed to think, had weight, and all +of them an equal weight, to conclude from the value they assigned to every idea +of mine. The name of the solicitor in question was Charles Adolphus +Bannerbridge. It was, indeed, my old, one of my oldest friends; the same by +whom I had been led to a feast and an evening of fun when a little fellow +starting in the London streets. Sure of learning the whole truth from old Mr. +Bannerbridge, I walked to his office and heard that he had suddenly been taken +ill. I strode on to his house, and entered a house of mourning. The kind old +man, remembered by me so vividly, had died overnight. Miss Bannerbridge +perceived that I had come on an errand, and with her gentle good breeding led +me to speak of it. She knew nothing whatever of the sum of money. She was, +however, aware that an annuity had been regularly paid through the intervention +of her father. I was referred by her to a Mr. Richards, his +recently-established partner. This gentleman was ignorant of the whole +transaction. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout the day I strove to combat the pressure of evidence in favour of the +idea that an acknowledgement of special claims had been wrested from the enemy. +Temple hardly helped me, though his solid sense was dead against the notions +entertained by my father and Jorian DeWitt, and others besides, our elders. The +payment of the sum through the same channel which supplied the annuity, pointed +distinctly to an admission of a claim, he inclined to think, and should be +supposed to come from a personage having cause either to fear him or to assist +him. He set my speculations astray by hinting that the request for the stopping +of the case might be a blind. A gift of money, he said shrewdly, was a +singularly weak method of inducing a man to stop the suit of a life-time. I +thought of Lady Edbury; but her income was limited, and her expenditure was not +of Lady Sampleman, but it was notorious that she loved her purse as well as my +aunt Dorothy, and was even more, in the squire's phrase, 'a petticoated +parsimony.' Anna Penrhys appeared the likelier, except for the fact that the +commencement of the annuity was long before our acquaintance with her. I tried +her on the subject. Her amazement was without a shadow of reserve. 'It's Welsh, +it's not English,' she remarked. I knew no Welshwoman save Anna. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you know the whole of his history?' said she. Possibly one of the dozen +unknown episodes in it might have furnished the clue, I agreed with her. +</p> + +<p> +The sight of twenty-one thousand pounds placed to my credit in the Funds +assuaged my restless spirit of investigation. Letters from the squire and my +aunt Dorothy urged me to betake myself to Riversley, there finally to decide +upon what my course should be. +</p> + +<p> +'Now that you have the money, pray,' St. Parsimony wrote,—'pray be +careful of it. Do not let it be encroached on. Remember it is to serve one +purpose. It should be guarded strictly against every appeal for aid,' etc., +with much underlining. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather returned the papers. His letter said 'I shall not break my word. +Please to come and see me before you take steps right or left.' +</p> + +<p> +So here was the dawn again. +</p> + +<p> +I could in a day or two start for Sarkeld. Meanwhile, to give my father a +lesson, I discharged a number of bills, and paid off the bond to which Edbury's +name was attached. My grandfather, I knew, was too sincerely and punctiliously +a gentleman in practical conduct to demand a further inspection of my accounts. +These things accomplished, I took the train for Riversley, and proceeded from +the station to Durstan, where I knew Heriot to be staying. Had I gone straight +to my grandfather, there would have been another story to tell. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045"></a> +CHAPTER XLV.<br/> +WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE</h2> + +<p> +A single tent stood in a gully running from one of the gravel-pits of the +heath, near an iron-red rillet, and a girl of Kiomi's tribe leaned over the +lazy water at half length, striking it with her handkerchief. At a distance of +about twice a stone's-throw from the new carriage-road between Durstan and +Bulsted, I fancied from old recollections she might be Kiomi herself. This was +not the time for her people to be camping on Durstan. Besides, I feared it +improbable that one would find her in any of the tracks of her people. The +noise of the wheels brought the girl's face round to me. She was one of those +who were babies in the tents when I was a boy. We were too far apart for me to +read her features. I lay back in the carriage, thinking that it would have been +better for my poor little wild friend if I had never crossed the shadow of her +tents. A life caught out of its natural circle is as much in danger of being +lost as a limb given to a wheel in spinning machinery; so it occurred to me, +until I reflected that Prince Ernest might make the same remark, and deplore +the damage done to the superior machinery likewise. +</p> + +<p> +My movements appeared to interest the girl. She was up on a mound of the +fast-purpling heath, shading her eyes to watch me, when I called at Bulsted +lodge-gates to ask for a bed under Julia's roof that night. Her bare legs +twinkled in a nimble pace on the way to Durstan Hall, as if she was determined +to keep me in sight. I waved my hand to her. She stopped. A gipsy girl's figure +is often as good an index to her mind as her face, and I perceived that she had +not taken my greeting favourably; nor would she advance a step to my repeated +beckonings; I tried hat, handkerchief, purse, in vain. My driver observed that +she was taken with a fit of the obstinacy of 'her lot.' He shouted, 'Silver,' +and then 'Fortune.' She stood looking. The fellow discoursed on the nature of +gipsies. Foxes were kept for hunting, he said; there was reason in that. Why we +kept gipsies none could tell. He once backed a gipsy prizefighter, who failed +to keep his appointment. 'Heart sunk too low below his belt, sir. You can't +reckon on them for performances. And that same man afterwards fought the gamest +fight in the chronicles o' the Ring! I knew he had it in him. But they're like +nothing better than the weather; you can't put money on 'em and feel safe.' +Consequently he saw no good in them. +</p> + +<p> +'She sticks to her post,' he said, as we turned into the Durstan grounds. The +girl was like a flag-staff on the upper line of heathland. +</p> + +<p> +Heriot was strolling, cigar in mouth, down one of the diminutive alleys of +young fir in this upstart estate. He affected to be prepossessed by the case +between me and Edbury, and would say nothing of his own affairs, save that he +meant to try for service in one of the Continental armies; he whose susceptible +love for his country was almost a malady. But he had given himself to women it +was Cissy this, Trichy that, and the wiles of a Florence, the spites of an +Agatha, duperies, innocent-seemings, witcheries, reptile-tricks of the fairest +of women, all through his conversation. He had so saturated himself with the +resources, evasions, and desperate cruising of these light creatures of wind, +tide, and tempest, that, like one who has been gazing on the whirligoround, he +saw the whole of women running or only waiting for a suitable partner to run +the giddy ring to perdition and an atoning pathos. +</p> + +<p> +I cut short one of Heriot's narratives by telling him that this picking bones +of the dish was not to my taste. He twitted me with turning parson. I spoke of +Kiomi. Heriot flushed, muttering, 'The little devil!' with his usual +contemplative relish of devilry. We parted, feeling that severe tension of the +old links keeping us together which indicates the lack of new ones: a point +where simple affection must bear the strain of friendship if it can. Heriot had +promised to walk half-way with me to Bulsted, in spite of Lady Maria's childish +fears of some attack on him. He was now satisfied with a good-bye at the +hall-doors, and he talked ostentatiously of a method that he had to bring +Edbury up to the mark. I knew that same loud decreeing talk to be a method on +his own behalf of concealing his sensitive resentment at the tone I had +adopted: Lady Maria's carriage had gone to fetch her husband from a political +dinner. My portmanteau advised me to wait for its return. Durstan and Riversley +were at feud, however, owing to some powerful rude English used toward the +proprietor of the former place by the squire; so I thought it better to let one +of the grooms shoulder my luggage, and follow him. +</p> + +<p> +The night was dark; he chose the roadway, and I crossed the heath, meeting an +exhilarating high wind that made my blood race: Egoism is not peculiar to any +period of life; it is only especially curious in a young man beginning to match +himself against his elders, for in him it suffuses the imagination; he is not +merely selfishly sentient, or selfishly scheming: his very conceptions are +selfish. I remember walking at my swiftest pace, blaming everybody I knew for +insufficiency, for want of subordination to my interests, for poverty of +nature, grossness, blindness to the fine lights shining in me; I blamed the +Fates for harassing me, circumstances for not surrounding me with friends +worthy of me. The central 'I' resembled the sun of this universe, with the +difference that it shrieked for nourishment, instead of dispensing it. +</p> + +<p> +My monstrous conceit of elevation will not suffer condensation into sentences. +What I can testify to is, that for making you bless the legs you stand on, a +knockdown blow is a specific. I had it before I knew that a hand was up. I +should have fancied that I had run athwart a tree, but for the recollection, as +I was reeling to the ground, of a hulk of a fellow suddenly fronting me, and he +did not hesitate with his fist. I went over and over into a heathery hollow. +The wind sang shrill through the furzes; nothing was visible but black clumps, +black cloud. Astonished though I was, and shaken, it flashed through me that +this was not the attack of a highwayman. He calls upon you to stand and +deliver: it is a foe that hits without warning. The blow took me on the +forehead, and might have been worse. Not seeing the enemy, curiosity was almost +as strong in me as anger; but reflecting that I had injured no one I knew of, +my nerves were quickly at the right pitch. Brushing some spikes of furze off my +hands, I prepared for it. A cry rose. My impression seemed to be all backward, +travelling up to me a moment or two behind time. I recognised a strange tongue +in the cry, but too late that it was Romany to answer it. Instantly a voice was +audible above the noisy wind: 'I spot him.' Then began some good and fair +fighting. I got my footing on grass, and liked the work. The fellow facing me +was unmistakably gipsy-build. I, too, had length of arm, and a disposition to +use it by hitting straight out, with footing firm, instead of dodging and +capering, which told in my favour, and is decidedly the best display of the +noble art on a dark night. +</p> + +<p> +My dancer went over as neatly as I had preceded him; and therewith I considered +enough was done for vengeance. The thrill of a salmon on the gut is known to +give a savage satisfaction to our original nature; it is but an extension and +attenuation of the hearty contentment springing from a thorough delivery of the +fist upon the prominent features of an assailant that yields to it perforce. +Even when you receive such perfect blows you are half satisfied. Feeling +conqueror, my wrath was soothed; I bent to have a look at my ruffian, and ask +him what cause of complaint gipsies camping on Durstan could find against +Riversley. A sharp stroke on the side of my neck sent me across his body. He +bit viciously. In pain and desperation I flew at another of the tawny devils. +They multiplied. I took to my heels; but this was the vainest of stratagems, +they beat me in nimbleness. Four of them were round me when I wheeled +breathless to take my chance at fighting the odds. Fiery men have not much +notion of chivalry: gipsies the least of all. They yelled disdain of my summons +to them to come on one by one: 'Now they had caught me, now they would pay me, +now they would pound me; and, standing at four corners, they commended me to +think of becoming a jelly. Four though they were, they kept their positions; +they left it to me to rush in for a close; the hinder ones held out of arms' +reach so long as I was disengaged. I had perpetually to shift my front, +thinking—Oh, for a stick! any stout bit of timber! My fists ached, and a +repetition of nasty dull knocks on back and neck, slogging thumps dealt by men +getting to make sure of me, shattered my breathing. +</p> + +<p> +I cried out for a pause, offered to take a couple of them at a time: I +challenged three—the fourth to bide. I was now the dancer: left, right, +and roundabout I had to swing, half-stunned, half-strangled with gorge. Those +terrible blows in the back did the mischief. Sickness threatened to undermine +me. Boxers have breathing-time: I had none. Stiff and sick, I tried to run; I +tottered, I stood to be knocked down, I dropped like a log—careless of +life. But I smelt earth keenly, and the damp grass and the devil's play of +their feet on my chin, chest, and thighs, revived a fit of wrath enough to set +me staggering on my legs again. They permitted it, for the purpose of battering +me further. I passed from down to up mechanically, and enjoyed the chestful of +air given me in the interval of rising: thought of Germany and my father, and +Janet at her window, complacently; raised a child's voice in my throat for +mercy, quite inaudible, and accepted my punishment. One idea I had was, that I +could not possibly fail as a speaker after this—I wanted but a minute's +grace to fetch breath for an oration, beginning, 'You fools!' for I guessed +that they had fallen upon the wrong man. Not a second was allowed. Soon the +shrewd physical bracing, acting momentarily on my brain, relaxed; the fitful +illumination ceased: all ideas faded out—clung about my beaten +body—fled. The body might have been tossed into its grave, for aught I +knew. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046"></a> +CHAPTER XLVI.<br/> +AMONG GIPSY WOMEN</h2> + +<p> +I cannot say how long it was after my senses had gone when I began to grope for +them on the warmest of heaving soft pillows, and lost the slight hold I had on +them with the effort. Then came a series of climbings and fallings, risings to +the surface and sinkings fathoms below. Any attempt to speculate pitched me +back into darkness. Gifted with a pair of enormous eyes, which threw +surrounding objects to a distance of a mile away, I could not induce the +diminutive things to approach; and shutting eyes led to such a rolling of +mountains in my brain, that, terrified by the gigantic revolution, I lay +determinedly staring; clothed, it seemed positive, in a tight-fitting suit of +sheet-lead; but why? I wondered why, and immediately received an extinguishing +blow. My pillow was heavenly; I was constantly being cooled on it, and grew +used to hear a croon no more musical than the unstopped reed above my head; a +sound as of a breeze about a cavern's mouth, more soothing than a melody. +Conjecture of my state, after hovering timidly in dread of relapses, settled +and assured me I was lying baked, half-buried in an old river-bed; moss at my +cheek, my body inextricable; water now and then feebly striving to float me +out, with horrid pain, with infinite refreshingness. A shady light, like the +light through leafage, I could see; the water I felt. Why did it keep trying to +move me? I questioned and sank to the depths again. +</p> + +<p> +The excruciated patient was having his wet bandages folded across his bruises, +and could not bear a motion of the mind. +</p> + +<p> +The mind's total apathy was the sign of recovering health. Kind nature put that +district to sleep while she operated on the disquieted lower functions. I +looked on my later self as one observes the mossy bearded substances travelling +blind along the undercurrent of the stream, clinging to this and that, twirling +absurdly. +</p> + +<p> +Where was I? Not in a house. But for my condition of absolute calm, owing to +skilful treatment, open air, and physical robustness, the scene would have been +of a kind to scatter the busy little workmen setting up the fabric of my wits. +A lighted oil-cup stood on a tripod in the middle of a tent-roof, and over it +the creased neck and chin of a tall old woman, splendid in age, reddened +vividly; her black eyes and grey brows, and greyish-black hair fell away in a +dusk of their own. I thought her marvellous. Something she held in her hands +that sent a thin steam between her and the light. Outside, in the A cutting of +the tent's threshold, a heavy-coloured sunset hung upon dark land. My pillow +meantime lifted me gently at a regular measure, and it was with untroubled +wonder that I came to the knowledge of a human heart beating within it. So soft +could only be feminine; so firm still young. The bosom was Kiomi's. A girl +sidled at the opening of the tent, peeping in, and from a muffled rattle of +subpectoral thunder discharged at her in quick heated snaps, I knew Kiomi's +voice. After an altercation of their monotonous gipsy undertones, the girl +dropped and crouched outside. +</p> + +<p> +It was morning when I woke next, stronger, and aching worse. I was lying in the +air, and she who served for nurse, pillow, parasol, and bank of herbage, had +her arms round beneath mine cherishingly, all the fingers outspread and flat on +me, just as they had been when I went to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +'Kiomi!' +</p> + +<p> +'Now, you be quiet.' +</p> + +<p> +'Can I stand up a minute or two?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, and you won't talk.' +</p> + +<p> +I submitted. This was our duel all day: she slipped from me only twice, and +when she did the girl took her place. +</p> + +<p> +I began to think of Bulsted and Riversley. +</p> + +<p> +'Kiomi, how long have I been here?' +</p> + +<p> +'You's be twice as long as you've been.' +</p> + +<p> +'A couple of days?' +</p> + +<p> +'More like a dozen.' +</p> + +<p> +'Just tell me what happened.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ghm-m-m,' she growled admonishingly. +</p> + +<p> +Reflecting on it, I felt sure there must have been searching parties over the +heath. +</p> + +<p> +'Kiomi, I say, how was it they missed me?' +</p> + +<p> +She struck at once on my thought. +</p> + +<p> +'They're fools.' +</p> + +<p> +'How did you cheat them?' +</p> + +<p> +'I didn't tie a handkercher across their eyes.' +</p> + +<p> +'You half smothered me once, in the combe.' +</p> + +<p> +'You go to sleep.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you been doctor?' +</p> + +<p> +The growling tigerish 'Ghm-m-m' constrained me to take it for a lullaby. +</p> + +<p> +'Kiomi, why the deuce did your people attack me?' She repeated the sound +resembling that which sometimes issues from the vent of a mine; but I insisted +upon her answering. +</p> + +<p> +'I'll put you down and be off,' she threatened. +</p> + +<p> +'Brute of a girl! I hate you!' +</p> + +<p> +'Hate away.' +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me who found me.' +</p> + +<p> +'I shan't. You shut your peepers.' +</p> + +<p> +The other and younger girl sung out: 'I found you.' +</p> + +<p> +Kiomi sent a volley at her. +</p> + +<p> +'I did,' said the girl; 'yes, and I nursed you first, I did; and mother +doctored you. Kiomi hasn't been here a day.' +</p> + +<p> +The old mother came out of the tent. She felt my pulse, and forthwith squatted +in front of me. 'You're hard to kill, and oily as a bean,' said she. 'You've +only to lie quiet in the sun like a handsome gentleman; I'm sure you couldn't +wish for more. Air and water's the doctor for such as you. You've got the bound +in you to jump the ditch: don't you fret at it, or you'll lose your spring, my +good gentleman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Leave off talking to me as a stranger,' I bawled. 'Out with it; why have you +kept me here? Why did your men pitch into me?' +</p> + +<p> +'OUR men, my good gentleman!' the old woman ejaculated. There was innocence +indeed! sufficient to pass the whole tribe before a bench of magistrates. She +wheedled: 'What have they against a handsome gentleman like you? They'd run for +you fifty mile a day, and show you all their tricks and secrets for nothing.' +</p> + +<p> +My despot Kiomi fired invectives at her mother. The old mother retorted; the +girl joined in. All three were scowling, flashing, showing teeth, driving the +wordy javelin upon one another, indiscriminately, or two to one, without a +pause; all to a sound like the slack silver string of the fiddle. +</p> + +<p> +I sang out truce to them; they racked me with laughter; and such +laughter!—the shaking of husks in a half-empty sack. +</p> + +<p> +Ultimately, on a sudden cessation of the storm of tongues, they agreed that I +must have my broth. +</p> + +<p> +Sheer weariness, seasoned with some hope that the broth would give me strength +to mount on my legs and walk, persuaded me to drink it. Still the old mother +declared that none of her men would ever have laid hands on me. Why should +they? she asked. What had I done to them? Was it their way? +</p> + +<p> +Kiomi's arms tightened over my breast. The involuntary pressure was like an +illumination to me. +</p> + +<p> +No longer asking for the grounds of the attack on a mistaken person, and bowing +to the fiction that none of the tribe had been among my assailants, I obtained +information. The girl Eveleen had spied me entering Durstan. Quite by chance, +she was concealed near Bulsted Park gates when the groom arrived and told the +lodge-keeper that Mr. Harry Richmond was coming up over the heath, and might +have lost his way. 'Richmond!' the girl threw a world of meaning into the +unexpected name. Kiomi clutched me to her bosom, but no one breathed the name +we had in our thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +Eveleen and the old mother had searched for me upon the heath, and having haled +me head and foot to their tent, despatched a message to bring Kiomi down from +London to aid them in their desperate shift. They knew Squire Beltham's temper. +He would have scattered the tribe to the shores of the kingdom at a rumour of +foul play to his grandson. Kiomi came in time to smuggle me through an +inspection of the tent and cross-examination of its ostensible denizens by +Captain Bulsted, who had no suspicions, though he was in a state of wonderment. +Hearing all this, I was the first to say it would be better I should get out of +the neighbourhood as soon as my legs should support me. The grin that goes for +a laugh among gipsies followed my question of how Kiomi had managed to smuggle +me. Eveleen was my informant when the dreaded Kiomi happened to be off duty for +a minute. By a hasty transformation, due to a nightcap on the bandages about +the head, and an old petticoat over my feet, Captain William's insensible +friend was introduced to him as the sore sick great-grandmother of the tribe, +mother of Kiomi's mother, aged ninety-one. The captain paid like a man for +doctor and burial fees; he undertook also to send the old lady a pound of snuff +to assist her to a last sneeze or two on the right side of the grave, and he +kept his word; for, deeming it necessary to paint her in a characteristic, +these prodigious serpents told him gravely that she delighted in snuff; it was +almost the only thing that kept her alive, barring a sip of broth. Captain +William's comment on the interesting piece of longevity whose well-covered +length and framework lay exposed to his respectful contemplation, was, that she +must have been a devilish fine old lady in her day. 'Six foot' was given as her +measurement. +</p> + +<p> +One pound of snuff, a bottle of rum, and five sovereigns were the fruits of the +captain's sensibility. I shattered my ribs with laughter over the story. +Eveleen dwelt on the triumph, twinkling. Kiomi despised laughter or triumph +resulting from the natural exercise of craft in an emergency. 'But my handsome +gentleman he won't tell on us, will he, when we've nursed him and doctored him, +and made him one of us, and as good a stick o' timber as grows in the forest?' +whined the old mother. I had to swear I would not. +</p> + +<p> +'He!' cried Kiomi. +</p> + +<p> +'He may forget us when he's gone,' the mother said. She would have liked me to +kiss a book to seal the oath. Anxiety about the safety of their 'homes,' that +is, the assurance of an untroubled reception upon their customary +camping-ground, is a peculiarity of the gipsies, distinguishing them, equally +with their cleanliness and thriftiness, from mumpers and the common wanderers. +</p> + +<p> +It is their tribute to civilization, which generally keeps them within the +laws. +</p> + +<p> +Who that does not know them will believe that under their domestic system I had +the best broth and the best tea I have ever tasted! They are very cunning +brewers and sagacious buyers too; their maxims show them to direct all their +acuteness upon obtaining quality for their money. A compliment not backed by +silver is hardly intelligible to the pretty ones: money is a really credible +thing to them; and when they have it, they know how to use it. Apparently +because they know so well, so perfectly appreciating it, they have only vague +ideas of a corresponding sentiment on the opposite side to the bargain, and +imagine that they fool people much more often than they succeed in doing. Once +duped themselves, they are the wariest of the dog-burnt; the place is notched +where it occurred, and for ever avoided. On the other hand, they repose +implicit faith in a reputation vouched for by their experience. I was amused by +the girl Eveleen's dotting of houses over the breadth of five counties, where +for this and that article of apparel she designed to expend portions of a +golden guinea, confident that she would get the very best, and a shilling +besides. The unwonted coin gave her the joy of supposing she cheated the Mint +of that sum. This guinea was a present to the girl (to whom I owed my +thrashing, by the way) that excused itself under cover of being a bribe for +sight of a mirror interdicted by the implacable Kiomi. I wanted to have a look +at my face. Now that the familiar scenes were beginning to wear their original +features to me, my dread of personal hideousness was distressing, though +Eveleen declared the bad blood in my cheeks and eyes 'had been sucked by pounds +of red meat.' I wondered, whether if I stood up and walked to either one of the +three great halls lying in an obtuse triangle within view, I should easily be +recognized. When I did see myself, I groaned verily. With the silence of +profound resignation, I handed back to Eveleen the curious fragment of her +boudoir, which would have grimaced at Helen of Troy. +</p> + +<p> +'You're feeling your nose—you've been looking at a glass!' Kiomi said, +with supernatural swiftness of deduction on her return. +</p> + +<p> +She added for my comfort that nothing was broken, but confessed me to be still +'a sight'; and thereupon drove knotty language at Eveleen. The girl retorted, +and though these two would never acknowledge to me that any of their men had +been in this neighbourhood recently, the fact was treated as a matter of course +in their spiteful altercation, and each saddled the other with the mistake they +had committed. Eveleen snatched the last word. What she said I did not +comprehend, she must have hit hard. Kiomi's eyes lightened, and her lips +twitched; she coloured like the roofing smoke of the tent fire; twice she +showed her teeth, as in a spasm, struck to the heart, unable to speak, +breathing in and out of a bitterly disjoined mouth. Eveleen ran. I guessed at +the ill-word spoken. Kiomi sat eyeing the wood-ashes, a devouring gaze that +shot straight and read but one thing. They who have seen wild creatures die +will have her before them, saving the fiery eyes. She became an ashen-colour, I +took her little hand. Unconscious of me, her brown fingers clutching at mine, +she flung up her nostrils, craving air. +</p> + +<p> +This was the picture of the woman who could not weep in her misery. +</p> + +<p> +'Kiomi, old friend!' I called to her. I could have cursed that other friend, +the son of mischief; for she, I could have sworn, had been fiercely and +wantonly hunted. Chastity of nature, intense personal pride, were as proper to +her as the free winds are to the heaths: they were as visible to dull +divination as the milky blue about the iris of her eyeballs. She had actually +no animal vileness, animal though she might be termed, and would have appeared +if compared with Heriot's admirable Cissies and Gwennies, and other ladies of +the Graces that run to fall, and spend their pains more in kindling the scent +of the huntsman than in effectively flying. +</p> + +<p> +There was no consolation for her. +</p> + +<p> +The girl Eveleen came in sight, loitering and looking, kicking her idle heels. +</p> + +<p> +Kiomi turned sharp round to me. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm going. Your father's here, up at Bulsted. I'll see him. He won't tell. +He'll come soon. You'll be fit to walk in a day. You're sound as a nail. +Goodbye—I shan't say good-bye twice,' she answered my attempt to keep +her, and passed into the tent, out of which she brought a small bundle tied in +a yellow handkerchief, and walked away, without nodding or speaking. +</p> + +<p> +'What was that you said to Kiomi?' I questioned Eveleen, who was quickly beside +me. +</p> + +<p> +She replied, accurately or not: 'I told her our men'd give her as good as she +gave me, let her wait and see.' +</p> + +<p> +Therewith she pouted; or, to sketch her with precision, 'snouted' would better +convey the vivacity of her ugly flash of features. It was an error in me to +think her heartless. She talked of her aunt Kiomi affectionately, for a gipsy +girl, whose modulated tones are all addressed to the soft public. Eveleen spoke +with the pride of bated breath of the ferocious unforgivingness of their men. +Perhaps if she had known that I traced the good repute of the tribes for purity +to the sweeter instincts of the women, she would have eulogized her sex to +amuse me. Gipsy girls, like other people, are fond of showing off; but it would +have been a victory of education to have helped her to feel the distinction of +the feminine sense of shame half as awfully and warmly as she did the +inscrutable iron despotism of the males. She hinted that the mistake of which I +had been the victim would be rectified. +</p> + +<p> +'Tell your men I'll hunt them down like rats if I hear of it,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +While we were conversing my father arrived. Eveleen, not knowing him, would +have had me accept the friendly covering of a mat. +</p> + +<p> +'Here's a big one! he's a clergyman,' she muttered to herself, and ran to him +and set up a gipsy whine, fronting me up to the last step while she advanced; +she only yielded ground to my outcry. +</p> + +<p> +My father bent over me. Kiomi had prepared him for what he saw. I quieted his +alarm by talking currently and easily. Julia Bulsted had despatched a messenger +to inform him of my mysterious disappearance; but he, as his way was, revelling +in large conjectures, had half imagined me seized by a gust of passion, and +bound for Germany. 'Without my luggage?' I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, without your luggage, Richie,' he answered seriously. His conceit of a +better knowledge of me than others possessed, had buoyed him up. 'For I knew,' +he said, 'we two do nothing like the herd of men. I thought you were off to +her, my boy. Now!' he looked at me, and this look of dismay was a perfect +mirror. I was not a presentable object. +</p> + +<p> +He stretched his limbs on the heather and kept hold of my hand, looking and +talking watchfully, doctor-like, doubting me to be as sound in body as I +assured him I was, despite aches and pains. Eveleen hung near. +</p> + +<p> +'These people have been kind to you?' he said. +</p> + +<p> +'No, the biggest brutes on the earth,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! you say that, when I spotted you out in the dark where you might have lied +to be eaten, and carried you and washed your bloody face, and watched you, and +never slept, I didn't, to mother you and wet your head!' cried the girl. +</p> + +<p> +My father beckoned to her and thanked her appreciably in the yellow tongue. +</p> + +<p> +'So these scoundrels of the high road fell upon you and robbed you, Richie?' +</p> + +<p> +I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +'You let him think they robbed you, and you had your purse to give me a gold +guinea out of it!' Eveleen cried, and finding herself in the wrong track, +volubly resumed: 'That they didn't, for they hadn't time, whether they meant +to, and the night black as a coal, whoever they were.' +</p> + +<p> +The mystery of my not having sent word to Bulsted or to Riversley perplexed my +father. +</p> + +<p> +'Comfortable here!' he echoed me, disconsolately, and glanced at the heath, the +tent, the black circle of the broth-pot, and the wild girl. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047"></a> +CHAPTER XLVII.<br/> +MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN</h2> + +<p> +Kiomi's mother was seen in a turn of the gravel-cutting, bearing purchases from +Durstan village. She took the new circumstances in with a single cast up of her +wary eyelids; and her, and her skill in surgery and art in medicine, I praised +to lull her fears, which procured me the denomination of old friend, as well as +handsome gentleman: she went so far as to add, in a fit of natural warmth, nice +fellow; and it is the truth, that this term effected wonders in flattering me: +it seemed to reveal to me how simple it was for Harry Richmond, one whom +gipsies could think a nice fellow, to be the lord of Janet's +affections—to be her husband. My heart throbbed; yet she was within range +of a mile and a half, and I did not wish to be taken to her. I did wish to +smell the piney air about the lake-palace; but the thought of Ottilia caused me +no quick pulsations. +</p> + +<p> +My father remained an hour. He could not perceive the drift of my objection to +go either to Bulsted or to Riversley, and desire that my misadventure should be +unknown at those places. However, he obeyed me, as I could always trust him to +do scrupulously, and told a tale at Bulsted. In the afternoon he returned in a +carriage to convey me to the seaside. When I was raised I fainted, and saw the +last of the camp on Durstan much as I had come to it first. Sickness and +swimming of the head continued for several days. I was persecuted with the +sensation of the carriage journey, and an iteration of my father's that ran: +'My son's inanimate body in my arms,' or 'Clasping the lifeless body of my sole +son, Harry Richmond,' and other variations. I said nothing about it. He told me +aghast that I had spat blood. A battery of eight fists, having it in the end +all its own way, leaves a deeper indentation on its target than a pistol-shot +that passes free of the vital chords. My convalescence in Germany was a melody +compared with this. I ought to have stopped in the tent, according to the wise +old mother's advice, given sincerely, for prudence counselled her to strike her +canvas and be gone. There I should have lain, interested in the progress of a +bee, the course of a beetle or a cloud, a spider's business, and the shaking of +the gorse and the heather, until good health had grown out of thoughtlessness. +The very sight of my father was as a hive of humming troubles. +</p> + +<p> +His intense anxiety about me reflected in my mind the endless worry I had +concerning him. It was the intellect which condemned him when he wore a joyful +air, and the sensations when he waxed over-solicitous. Whether or not the +sentences were just, the judges should have sometimes shifted places. I was +unable to divine why he fevered me so much. Must I say it?—He had ceased +to entertain me. Instead of a comic I found him a tragic spectacle; and his +exuberant anticipations, his bursting hopes that fed their forcing-bed with the +blight and decay of their predecessors, his transient fits of despair after a +touch at my pulses, and exclamation of 'Oh, Richie, Richie, if only I had my +boy up and well!'—assuming that nothing but my tardy recovery stood in +the way of our contentment—were examples of downright unreason such as +contemplation through the comic glass would have excused; the tragic could not. +I knew, nevertheless, that to the rest of the world he was a progressive +comedy: and the knowledge made him seem more tragic still. He clearly could not +learn from misfortune; he was not to be contained. Money I gave him freely, +holding the money at my disposal his own; I chafed at his unteachable spirit, +surely one of the most tragical things in life; and the proof of my love for +him was that I thought it so, though I should have been kinder had he amused +me, as in the old days. +</p> + +<p> +Conceive to yourself the keeping watch over a fountain choked in its spouting, +incessantly labouring to spin a jet into the air; now for a moment glittering +and towering in a column, and once more straining to mount. My father appeared +to me in that and other images. He would have had me believe him shooting to +his zenith, victorious at last. I likewise was to reap a victory of the highest +kind from the attack of the mysterious ruffians; so much; he said, he thought +he could assure me of. He chattered of an intimidated Government, and +Dettermain and Newson; duchesses, dukes, most friendly; innumerable invitations +to country castles; and among other things one which really showed him to be +capable of conceiving ideas and working from an initiative. But this, too, +though it accomplished a temporary service, he rendered illusory to me by his +unhappy manner of regarding it as an instance of his now permanent social +authority. He had instituted what he called his JURY OF HONOUR COURT, composed +of the select gentlemen of the realm, ostensibly to weigh the causes of +disputes between members of their class, and decree the method of settlement: +but actually, my father admitted, to put a stop to the affair between Edbury +and me. +</p> + +<p> +'That was the origin of the notion, Richie. I carried it on. I dined some of +the best men of our day. I seized the opportunity when our choicest +“emperor” was rolling on wheels to propound my system. I mention +the names of Bramham DeWitt, Colonel Hibbert Segrave, Lord Alonzo Carr, Admiral +Loftus, the Earl of Luton, the Marquis of Hatchford, Jack Hippony, Monterez +Williams,—I think you know him?—and little Dick Phillimore, son of +a big-wig, a fellow of a capital wit and discretion; I mention them as present +to convince you we are not triflers, dear boy. My argument ran, it is absurd to +fight; also it is intolerable to be compelled to submit to insult. As the case +stands, we are under a summary edict of the citizens, to whom chivalry is +unknown. Well, well, I delivered a short speech. Fighting, I said, resembled +butting,—a performance proper to creatures that grow horns instead of +brains . . . not to allude to a multitude of telling remarks; and the question +“Is man a fighting animal?” my answer being that he is not born +with spurs on his heels or horns to his head and that those who insisted on +fighting should be examined by competent anatomists, “ologists” of +some sort, to decide whether they have the excrescences, and proclaim them... +touching on these lighter parts of my theme with extreme delicacy. +But—and here I dwelt on my point: Man, if not a fighting animal in his +glorious—I forgot what—is a sensitive one, and has the idea of +honour. “Hear,” from Colonel Segrave, and Sir Weeton +Slater—he was one of the party. In fine, Richie, I found myself wafted +into a breathing oration. I cannot, I confess it humbly, hear your “hear, +hear,” without going up and off, inflated like a balloon. “Shall +the arbitration of the magistracy, indemnifications in money awarded by the +Law-courts, succeed in satisfying,”—but I declare to you, Richie, +it was no platform speech. I know your term—“the chaincable +sentence.” Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Plain sense, as from +gentlemen to gentlemen. We require, I said, a protection that the polite world +of Great Britain does not now afford us against the aggressions of the knave, +the fool, and the brute. We establish a Court. We do hereby—no, no, not +the “hereby”; quite simply, Richie—pledge ourselves—I +said some other word not “pledge” to use our utmost authority and +influence to exclude from our circles persons refusing to make the reparation +of an apology for wanton common insults: we renounce intercourse with men +declining, when guilty of provoking the sentiment of hostility, to submit to +the jurisdiction of our Court. All I want you to see is the notion. We raise +the shield against the cowardly bully which the laws have raised against the +bloody one. “And gentlemen,”' my father resumed his oration, +forgetting my sober eye for a minute—'“Gentlemen, we are the +ultimate Court of Appeal for men who cherish their honour, yet abstain from +fastening it like a millstone round the neck of their common-sense.” +Credit me, Richie, the proposition kindled. We cited Lord Edbury to appear +before us, and I tell you we extracted an ample apology to you from that young +nobleman. And let me add, one that I, that we, must impose it upon an old son +to accept. He does! Come, come. And you shall see, Richie, society shall never +repose an inert mass under my leadership. I cure it; I shake it and cure it.' +</p> + +<p> +He promenaded the room, repeating: 'I do not say I am possessed of a panacea,' +and bending to my chin as he passed; 'I maintain that I can and do fulfil the +duties of my station, which is my element, attained in the teeth of +considerable difficulties, as no other man could, be he prince or Prime +Minister. Not one,' he flourished, stepping onward. 'And mind you, Richie, +this,' he swung round, conscious as ever of the critic in me, though witless to +correct his pomp of style, 'this is not self-glorification. I point you facts. +I have a thousand schemes—projects. I recognize the value of early +misfortune. The particular misfortune of princes born is that they know nothing +of the world—babies! I grant you, babies. Now, I do. I have it on my +thumbnail. I know its wants. And just as I succeeded in making you a member of +our Parliament in assembly, and the husband of an hereditary +princess—hear me—so will I make good my original determination to +be in myself the fountain of our social laws, and leader. I have never, I +believe—to speak conscientiously—failed in a thing I have once +determined on.' +</p> + +<p> +The single wish that I might be a boy again, to find pleasure in his talk, was +all that remained to combat the distaste I had for such oppressive deliveries +of a mind apparently as little capable of being seated as a bladder charged +with gas. I thanked him for getting rid of Edbury, and a touch of remorse +pricked me, it is true, on his turning abruptly and saying: 'You see me in my +nakedness, Richie. To you and my valet, the heart, the body!' He was too +sympathetic not to have a keen apprehension of a state of hostility in one whom +he loved. If I had inclined to melt, however, his next remark would have been +enough to harden me: 'I have fought as many battles, and gained as startling +victories as Napoleon Buonaparte; he was an upstart.' The word gave me a jerk. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he would indulge me transparently in a political controversy, +confessing that my dialectical dexterity went far to make a Radical of him. I +had no other amusement, or I should have held my peace. I tried every argument +I could think of to prove to him that there was neither honour, nor dignity, +nor profit in aiming at titular distinctions not forced upon us by the +circumstances of our birth. He kept his position with much sly fencing, +approaching shrewdness; and, whatever I might say, I could not deny that a vile +old knockknee'd world, tugging its forelock to the look of rank and chink of +wealth, backed him, if he chose to be insensible to radical dignity. +</p> + +<p> +'In my time,' said he, 'all young gentlemen were born Tories. The doctor no +more expected to see a Radical come into the world from a good family than a +radish. But I discern you, my dear boy. Our reigning Families must now be +active; they require the discipline I have undergone; and I also dine at +aldermen's tables, and lay a foundation-stone—as Jorian says—with +the facility of a hen-mother: that should not suffice them. 'Tis not sufficient +for me. I lay my stone, eat my dinner, make my complimentary speech—and +that is all that is expected of us; but I am fully aware we should do more. We +must lead, or we are lost. Ay, and—to quote you a Lord Mayor's barge is a +pretty piece of gilt for the festive and luxurious to run up the river Thames +in and mark their swans. I am convinced there is something deep in that. But +what am I to do? Would you have me frown upon the people? Richie, it is +prudent—I maintain it righteous, nay, it is, I affirm positively, +sovereign wisdom—to cultivate every flower in the British bosom. Riposte +me—have you too many? Say yes, and you pass my guard. You cannot. I fence +you there. This British loyalty is, in my estimation, absolutely beautiful. We +grow to a head in our old England. The people have an eye! I need no +introduction to them. We reciprocate a highly cordial feeling when they line +the streets and roads with respectful salutations, and I acknowledge their +demonstrative goodwill. These things make us a nation. By heaven, Richie, you +are, on this occasion, if your dad may tell you so, wrong. I ask pardon for my +bluntness; but I put it to you, could we, not travelling as personages in our +well-beloved country, count on civility to greet us everywhere? Assuredly not. +My position is, that by consenting to their honest enthusiasm, we—the +identical effect you are perpetually crying out for—we civilize them, we +civilize them. Goodness!—a Great Britain without Royalty!' +</p> + +<p> +He launched on a series of desolate images. In the end, he at least persuaded +himself that he had an idea in his anxiety to cultivate the primary British +sentiment. +</p> + +<p> +We moved from town to town along the South coast; but it was vain to hope we +might be taken for simple people. Nor was he altogether to blame, except in +allowing the national instinct for 'worship and reverence' to air itself +unrebuked. I fled to the island. Temple ran down to meet me there, and I heard +that Janet had written to him for news of me. He entered our hotel a private +person; when he passed out, hats flew off before him. The modest little fellow +went along a double line of attentive observers on the pier, and came back, +asking me in astonishment who he was supposed to be. +</p> + +<p> +'I petitioned for privacy here!' exclaimed my father. It accounted for the +mystery. +</p> + +<p> +Temple knew my feelings, and did but glance at me. +</p> + +<p> +Close upon Temple's arrival we had a strange couple of visitors. 'Mistress +Dolly Disher and her husband,' my father introduced them. She called him by one +of his Christian names inadvertently at times. The husband was a confectioner, +a satisfied shade of a man who reserved the exercise of his will for his +business, we learnt; she, a bustling, fresh-faced woman of forty-five, with +still expressive dark eyes, and, I guessed, the ideal remainder of a passion in +her bosom. The guess was no great hazard. She was soon sitting beside me, +telling me of the 'years' she had known my father, and of the most affectionate +friend and perfect gentleman he was of the ladies who had been in love with +him; 'no wonder': and of his sorrows and struggles, and his beautiful voice, +and hearts that bled for him; and of one at least who prayed and trusted he +would be successful at last. +</p> + +<p> +Temple and the pallid confectioner spent the day on board a yacht with my +father. Mrs. Dolly stayed to nurse me and persuade me to swallow medicine. She +talked of her youth, when, as a fashionable bootmaker's daughter, she permitted +no bills to be sent in to Mr. Richmond, alleging, as a sufficient reason for it +to her father, that their family came from Richmond in Yorkshire. Eventually, +the bills were always paid. She had not been able to manage her husband so +well; and the consequence was, that (she breathed low) an execution was out; +'though I tell him,' she said tremulously, 'he's sure to be paid in the long +run, if only he'll wait. But no; he is you cannot think how obstinate in his +business. And my girl Augusta waiting for Mr. Roy Richmond, the wish of our +hearts! to assist at her wedding; and can we ask it, and have an execution +hanging over him? And for all my husband's a guest here, he's as likely as not +to set the officers at work, do what I will, to-morrow or any day. Your father +invited us, Mr. Harry. I forced my husband to come, hoping against hope; for +your papa gave the orders, relying on me, as he believed he might, and my +husband undertook them, all through me. There it stops; he hears reports, and +he takes fright: in goes the bill: then it's law, and last Oh! I'm ashamed.' +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Disher's bill was for supplying suppers to the Balls. He received my cheque +for the amount in full, observing that he had been confident his wife was +correct when she said it would be paid, but a tradesman's business was to +hasten the day of payment; and, for a penance, he himself would pacify the +lawyers. +</p> + +<p> +On hearing of the settlement of Mr. Disher's claim, my father ahem'd, +speechless, which was a sign of his swallowing vexation. He remarked that I +had, no doubt with the best intentions, encroached on his liberty. 'I do not +like to have my debts disturbed.' He put it to me, whether a man, carrying out +a life-long plan, would not be disconcerted by the friendliest intervention. +This payment to Disher he pronounced fatal in policy. 'You have struck a heavy +blow to my credit, Richie. Good little Mistress Dolly brought the man down +here—no select addition to our society—and we were doing our utmost +to endure him, as the ladies say, for the very purpose... but the error stands +committed! For the future, friend Disher will infallibly expect payments within +the year. Credit for suppers is the guarantee of unlimited entertainments. And +I was inspiring him with absolute confidence for next year's campaign. Money, +you are aware, is no longer a question to terrify me. I hold proofs that I have +conclusively frightened Government, and you know it. But this regards the +manipulation of the man Disher. He will now dictate to me. A refresher of a few +hundreds would have been impolitic to this kind of man; but the entire sum! and +to a creditor in arms! You reverse the proper situations of gentleman and +tradesman. My supperman, in particular, should be taught to understand that he +is bound up in my success. Something frightened him; he proceeded at law; and +now we have shown him that he has frightened us. An execution? My dear boy, I +have danced an execution five years running, and ordered, consecutively, at the +same house. Like other matters, an execution depends upon how you treat it. The +odds are that we have mortally offended Mistress Dolly.' He apologized for +dwelling on the subject, with the plea that it was an essential part of his +machinery of action, and the usual comparison of 'the sagacious General' whose +forethought omitted no minutiae. I had to listen. +</p> + +<p> +The lady professed to be hurt. The payment, however, put an end to the visit of +this couple. Politic or not, it was a large sum to disburse, and once more my +attention became fixed on the probable display of figures in my bankers' book. +Bonds and bills were falling due: the current expenses were exhausting. I tried +to face the evil, and take a line of conduct, staggering, as I did on my feet. +Had I been well enough, I believe I should have gone to my grandfather, to +throw myself on his good-nature; such was the brain's wise counsel: but I was +all nerves and alarms, insomuch that I interdicted Temple's writing to Janet, +lest it should bring on me letters from my aunt Dorothy, full of advice that +could no longer be followed, well-meant cautions that might as well be +addressed to the mile-posts behind me. Moreover, Janet would be flying on the +wind to me, and I had a craving for soft arms and the look of her eyebrows, +that warned me to keep her off if I intended to act as became a man of good +faith. +</p> + +<p> +Fair weather, sunny green sea-water speckled with yachts shooting and bounding, +and sending me the sharp sense of life there is in dashed-up fountains of +silvery salt-spray, would have quickened my blood sooner but for this hot-bed +of fruitless adventure, tricksy precepts, and wisdom turned imp, in which my +father had again planted me. To pity him seemed a childish affectation. His +praise of my good looks pleased me, for on that point he was fitted to be a +judge, and I was still fancying I had lost them on the heath. Troops of the +satellites of his grand parade surrounded him. I saw him walk down the pier +like one breaking up a levee. At times he appeared to me a commanding phantasm +in the midst of phantasm figures of great ladies and their lords, whose names +he told off on his return like a drover counting his herd; but within range of +his eye and voice the reality of him grew overpowering. It seduced me, and, +despite reason, I began to feel warm under his compliments. He was like wine. +Gaiety sprang under his feet. Sitting at my window, I thirsted to see him when +he was out of sight, and had touches of the passion of my boyhood. +</p> + +<p> +I listened credulously, too, as in the old days, when he repeated, 'You will +find I am a magician, and very soon, Richie, mark me.' His manner hinted that +there was a surprise in store. 'You have not been on the brink of the grave for +nothing.' He resembled wine in the other conditions attached to its rare +qualities. Oh for the choice of having only a little of him, instead of having +him on my heart! The unfilial wish attacked me frequently: he could be, and +was, so ravishing to strangers and light acquaintances. Did by chance a +likeness exist between us? My sick fancy rushed to the Belthams for a denial. +There did, of some sort, I knew; and the thought partitioned my dreamy ideas, +of which the noblest, taking advantage of my physical weakness, compelled me to +confess that it was a vain delusion for one such as I to hope for Ottilia. This +looking at the roots of yourself, if you are possessed of a nobler half that +will do it, is a sound corrective of an excessive ambition. Unfortunately it +would seem that young men can do it only in sickness. With the use of my legs, +and open-air breathing, I became compact, and as hungry and zealous on behalf +of my individuality, as proud of it as I had ever been: prouder and hungrier. +</p> + +<p> +My first day of outing, when, looking at every face, I could reflect on the +miraculous issue of mine almost clear from its pummelling, and above all, that +my nose was safe—not stamped with the pugilist's brand—inspired a +lyrical ebullition of gratitude. Who so intoxicated as the convalescent +catching at health? +</p> + +<p> +I met Charles Etherell on the pier, and heard that my Parliamentary seat was +considered in peril, together with a deal of gossip about my disappearance. +</p> + +<p> +My father, who was growing markedly restless, on the watch for letters and new +arrivals, started to pay Chippenden a flying visit. He begged me urgently to +remain for another few days, while he gathered information, saying my presence +at his chief quarters did him infinite service, and I always thought that +possible. I should find he was a magician, he repeated, with a sort of +hesitating fervour. +</p> + +<p> +I had just waved my hand to him as the boat was bearing him away from the +pier-head, when a feminine voice murmured in my ear, 'Is not this our third +meeting, Mr. Harry Richmond?—Venice, Elbestadt, and the Isle of Wight?' +She ran on, allowing me time to recognize Clara Goodwin. 'What was your last +adventure? You have been ill. Very ill? Has it been serious?' +</p> + +<p> +I made light of it. 'No: a tumble.' +</p> + +<p> +'You look pale,' she said quickly. +</p> + +<p> +'That's from grieving at the loss of my beauty, Miss Goodwin.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you really not been seriously ill?' she asked with an astonishing +eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +I told her mock-loftily that I did not believe in serious illnesses coming to +godlike youth, and plied her in turn with inquiries. +</p> + +<p> +'You have not been laid up in bed?' she persisted. +</p> + +<p> +'No, on my honour, not in bed.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then,' said she, 'I would give much to be able to stop that boat.' +</p> + +<p> +She amazed me. 'Why?' +</p> + +<p> +'Because it's going on a bad errand,' she replied. +</p> + +<p> +'Miss Goodwin, you perplex me. My father has started in that boat.' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I saw him.' She glanced hastily at the foam in a way to show +indifference. 'What I am saying concerns others... who have heard you were +dangerously ill. I have sent for them to hasten across.' +</p> + +<p> +'My aunt and Miss Ilchester?' +</p> + +<p> +'No.' +</p> + +<p> +'Who are they? Miss Goodwin, I'll answer any question. I've been queerish, +that's true. Now let me hear who they are, when you arrived, when you expect +them. Where are they now?' +</p> + +<p> +'As to me,' she responded with what stretched on my ears like an insufferable +drawl, 'I came over last night to hire a furnished house or lodgings. Papa has +an appointment attached to the fortifications yonder. We'll leave the pier, if +you please. You draw too much attention on ladies who venture to claim +acquaintance with so important a gentleman.' +</p> + +<p> +We walked the whole length of the pier, chatting of our former meetings. +</p> + +<p> +'Not here,' she said, as soon as I began to question. +</p> + +<p> +I was led farther on, half expecting that the accessories of time and place +would have to do with the revelation. +</p> + +<p> +The bitter creature drew me at her heels into a linendraper's shop. There she +took a seat, pitched her voice to the key of a lady's at a dinner-table, when +speaking to her cavalier of the history or attire of some one present, and +said, 'You are sure the illness was not at all feigned?' +</p> + +<p> +She had me as completely at her mercy in this detestable shop as if I had been +in a witness-box. +</p> + +<p> +'Feigned!' I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +'That is no answer. And pray remember where you are.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, the illness was not feigned.' +</p> + +<p> +'And you have not made the most of it?' +</p> + +<p> +'What an extraordinary thing to say!' +</p> + +<p> +'That is no answer. And please do not imagine yourself under the necessity of +acting every sentiment of your heart before these people.' +</p> + +<p> +She favoured a shopman with half-a-dozen directions. +</p> + +<p> +'My answer is, then, that I have not made the most of it,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Not even by proxy?' +</p> + +<p> +'Once more I'm adrift.' +</p> + +<p> +'You are certainly energetic. I must address you as a brother, or it will be +supposed we are quarrelling. Harry, do you like that pattern?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes. What's the meaning of proxy?' +</p> + +<p> +'With the accent you give it, heaven only knows what it means. I would rather +you did not talk here like a Frenchman relating his last love-affair in +company. +</p> + +<p> +Must your voice escape control exactly at the indicatory words? Do you think +your father made the most of it?' +</p> + +<p> +'Of my illness? Oh! yes; the utmost. I should undoubtedly think so. That's his +way.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why did you permit it?' +</p> + +<p> +'I was what they call “wandering” half the time. Besides, who could +keep him in check? I rarely know what he is doing.' +</p> + +<p> +'You don't know what he wrote?' +</p> + +<p> +'Wrote?' +</p> + +<p> +'That you were dying.' +</p> + +<p> +'Of me? To whom?' +</p> + +<p> +She scrutinized me, and rose from her chair. 'I must try some other shop. How +is it, that if these English people cannot make a “berthe” fit to +wear, they do not conceive the idea of importing such things from Paris? I will +take your arm, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'You have bought nothing,' I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +'I have as much as I went for,' she replied, and gravely thanked the assistant +leaning on his thumbs across the counter; after which, dropping the graceless +play of an enigma, she inquired whether I had forgotten the Frau von +Dittmarsch. +</p> + +<p> +I had, utterly; but not her maiden name of Sibley. +</p> + +<p> +'Miss Goodwin, is she one of those who are coming to the island?' +</p> + +<p> +'Frau von Dittmarsch? Yes. She takes an interest in you. She and I have been in +correspondence ever since my visit to Sarkeld. It reminds me, you may vary my +maiden name with the Christian, if you like. Harry, I believe you are truthful +as ever, in spite—' +</p> + +<p> +'Don't be unjust,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'I wish I could think I was!' she rejoined. 'Frau von Dittmarsch was at +Sarkeld, and received terrible news of you. She called on me, at my father's +residence over the water yonder, yesterday afternoon, desiring greatly to +know—she is as cautious as one with a jewel in her custody—how it +fared with you, whether you were actually in a dying state. I came here to +learn; I have friends here: you were not alone, or I should have called on you. +The rumour was that you were very ill; so I hired a furnished place for Frau +von Dittmarsch at once. But when I saw you and him together, and the parting +between you, I began to have fears; I should have countermanded the despatch I +sent by the boat, had it been possible.' +</p> + +<p> +'It has gone! And tell me the name of the other.' +</p> + +<p> +'Frau von Dittmarsch has a husband.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not with her now. Oh! cruel! speak: her name?' +</p> + +<p> +'Her name, Harry?' Her title is Countess von Delzenburg.' +</p> + +<p> +'Not princess?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not in England.' +</p> + +<p> +Then Ottilia was here! +</p> + +<p> +My father was indeed a magician! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048"></a> +CHAPTER XLVIII.<br/> +THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED</h2> + +<p> +'Not princess in England,' could betoken but one thing—an incredible act +of devotion, so great that it stunned my senses, and I thought of it, and of +all it involved, before the vision of Ottilia crossing seas took possession of +me. +</p> + +<p> +'The Princess Ottilia, Miss Goodwin?' +</p> + +<p> +'The Countess of Delzenburg, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'To see me? She has come!' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, you talk like the boy you were when we met before you knew her. Yes and +yes to everything you have to say, but I think you should spare her name.' +</p> + +<p> +'She comes thinking me ill?' +</p> + +<p> +'Dying.' +</p> + +<p> +'I'm as strong as ever I was.' +</p> + +<p> +'I should imagine you are, only rather pale.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you, tell me, Clara, seen her yourself? Is she well?' +</p> + +<p> +'Pale: not unwell: anxious.' +</p> + +<p> +'About me?' +</p> + +<p> +'It may be about the political affairs of the Continent; they are disturbed.' +</p> + +<p> +'She spoke of me?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'She is coming by the next boat?' +</p> + +<p> +'It's my fear that she is.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why do you fear?' +</p> + +<p> +'Shall I answer you, Harry? It is useless now. Well, because she has been +deceived. That is why. You will soon find it out.' +</p> + +<p> +'Prince Ernest is at Sarkeld?' +</p> + +<p> +'In Paris, I hear.' +</p> + +<p> +'How will your despatch reach these ladies in time for them to come over by the +next boat?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have sent my father's servant. The General—he is promoted at last, +Harry—attends the ladies in person, and is now waiting for the boat's +arrival over there, to follow my directions.' +</p> + +<p> +'You won't leave me?' +</p> + +<p> +Miss Goodwin had promised to meet the foreign ladies on the pier. We quarrelled +and made it up a dozen times like girl and boy, I calling her aunt Clara, as in +the old days, and she calling me occasionally son Richie: an imitation of my +father's manner of speech to me when we formed acquaintance first in Venice. +But I was very little aware of what I was saying or doing. The forces of my +life were yoked to the heart, and tumbled as confusedly as the world under +Phaethon charioteer. We walked on the heights above the town. I looked over the +water to the white line of shore and batteries where this wonder stood, who was +what poets dream of, deep-hearted men hope for, none quite believe in. Hardly +could I; and though my relenting spinster friend at my elbow kept assuring me +it was true that she was there, my sceptical sight fixed on the stale +prominences visible in the same features which they had worn day after empty +day of late. This deed of hers was an act of devotion great as death. I knew it +from experience consonant to Ottilia's character; but could a princess, +hereditary, and bound in the league of governing princes, dare so to brave her +condition? Complex of mind, simplest in character, the uncontrollable nobility +of her spirit was no sooner recognized by me than I was shocked throughout by a +sudden light, contrasting me appallingly with this supreme of women, who swept +the earth aside for truth. I had never before received a distinct intimation of +my littleness of nature, and my first impulse was to fly from thought, and +then, as if to prove myself justly accused, I caught myself +regretting—no, not regretting, gazing, as it were, on a picture of +regrets—that Ottilia was not a romantic little lady of semi-celestial +rank, exquisitely rash, wilful, desperately enamoured, bearing as many flying +hues and peeps of fancy as a love-ballad, and not more roughly brushing the +root-emotions. +</p> + +<p> +If she had but been such an one, what sprightly colours, delicious sadness, +magical transformations, tenderest intermixture of earth and heaven; what tears +and sunbeams, divinest pathos: what descents from radiance to consolatory +twilight, would have surrounded me for poetry and pride to dwell on! What +captivating melody in the minor key would have been mine, though I lost +her—the legacy of it all for ever! Say a petulant princess, a star of +beauty, mad for me, and the whisper of our passion and sorrows traversing the +flushed world! Was she coming? Not she, but a touchstone, a relentless mirror, +a piercing eye, a mind severe as the Goddess of the God's head: a princess +indeed, but essentially a princess above women: a remorseless intellect, an +actual soul visible in the flesh. She was truth. Was I true? Not so very false, +yet how far from truth! The stains on me (a modern man writing his history is +fugitive and crepuscular in alluding to them, as a woman kneeling at the +ear-guichet) burnt like the blood-spots on the criminal compelled to touch his +victim by savage ordinance, which knew the savage and how to search him. And +these were faults of weakness rather than the sins of strength. I might as +fairly hope for absolution of them from Ottilia as from offended laws of my +natural being, gentle though she was, and charitable. +</p> + +<p> +Was I not guilty of letting her come on to me hoodwinked at this moment? I had +a faint memory of Miss Goodwin's saying that she had been deceived, and I +suggested a plan of holding aloof until she had warned the princess of my +perfect recovery, to leave it at her option to see me. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes,' Miss Goodwin assented: 'if you like, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +Her compassion for me only tentatively encouraged the idea. 'It would, perhaps, +be right. You are the judge. If you can do it. You are acting bravely.' She +must have laughed at me in her heart. +</p> + +<p> +The hours wore on. My curse of introspection left me, and descending through +the town to the pier, amid the breezy blue skirts and bonnet-strings, we +watched the packet-boat approaching. There was in advance one of the famous +swift island wherries. Something went wrong with it, for it was overtaken, and +the steamer came in first. I jumped on board, much bawled at. Out of a crowd of +unknown visages, Janet appeared: my aunt Dorothy was near her. The pair began +chattering of my paleness, and wickedness in keeping my illness unknown to +them. They had seen Temple on an excursion to London; he had betrayed me, as he +would have betrayed an archangel to Janet. +</p> + +<p> +'Will you not look at us, Harry?' they both said. +</p> + +<p> +The passengers were quitting the boat, strangers every one. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, have we really offended you in coming?' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy took the blame on herself. +</p> + +<p> +I scarcely noticed them, beyond leading them on to the pier-steps and leaving +them under charge of Miss Goodwin, who had, in matters of luggage and +porterage, the practical mind and aplomb of an Englishwoman that has passed +much of her time on the Continent. I fancied myself vilely duped by this lady. +The boat was empty of its passengers; a grumbling pier-man, wounded in his +dignity, notified to me that there were fines for disregard of the Company's +rules and regulations. His tone altered; he touched his hat: 'Didn't know who +you was, my lord.' Janet overheard him, and her face was humorous. +</p> + +<p> +'We may break the rules, you see,' I said to her. +</p> + +<p> +'We saw him landing on the other side of the water,' she replied; so +spontaneously did the circumstance turn her thoughts on my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Did you speak to him?' +</p> + +<p> +'No.' +</p> + +<p> +'You avoided him?' +</p> + +<p> +'Aunty and I thought it best. He landed... there was a crowd.' +</p> + +<p> +Miss Goodwin interposed: 'You go to Harry's hotel?' +</p> + +<p> +'Grandada is coming down to-morrow or next day,' Janet prompted my aunt +Dorothy. +</p> + +<p> +'If we could seek for a furnished house; Uberly would watch the luggage,' +Dorothy murmured in distress. +</p> + +<p> +'Furnished houses, even rooms at hotels, are doubtful in the height of the +season,' Miss Goodwin remarked. 'Last night I engaged the only decent set of +rooms I could get, for friends of Harry's who are coming.' +</p> + +<p> +'No wonder he was disappointed at seeing us—he was expecting them!' said +Janet, smiling a little. +</p> + +<p> +'They are sure to come,' said Miss Goodwin. +</p> + +<p> +Near us a couple of yachtsmen were conversing. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, he'll be back in a day or two,' one said. 'When you've once tasted that +old boy, you can't do without him. I remember when I was a youngster—it +was in Lady Betty Bolton's day; she married old Edbury, you know, first +wife—the Magnificent was then in his prime. He spent his money in a week: +so he hired an eighty-ton schooner; he laid violent hands on a Jew, bagged him, +lugged him on board, and sailed away.' +</p> + +<p> +'What the deuce did he want with a Jew?' cried the other. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, the Jew supplied cheques for a three months' cruise in the Mediterranean, +and came home, I heard, very good friends with his pirate. That's only one of +dozens.' +</p> + +<p> +The unconscious slaughterers laughed. +</p> + +<p> +'On another occasion'—I heard it said by the first speaker, as they swung +round to parade the pier, and passed on narrating. +</p> + +<p> +'Not an hotel, if it is possible to avoid it,' my aunt Dorothy, with heightened +colour, urged Miss Goodwin. They talked together. +</p> + +<p> +'Grandada is coming to you, Harry,' Janet said. 'He has business in London, or +he would have been here now. Our horses and carriages follow us: everything you +would like. He does love you! he is very anxious. I'm afraid his health is +worse than he thinks. Temple did not say your father was here, but grandada +must have suspected it when he consented to our coming, and said he would +follow us. So that looks well perhaps. He has been much quieter since your +money was paid back to you. If they should meet... no, I hope they will not: +grandada hates noise. And, Harry, let me tell you: it may be nothing: if he +questions you, do not take fire; just answer plainly: I'm sure you understand. +One in a temper at a time I'm sure 's enough: you have only to be patient with +him. He has been going to London, to the City, seeing lawyers, bankers, +brokers, and coming back muttering. Ah! dear old man. And when he ought to have +peace! Harry, the poor will regret him in a thousand places. I write a great +deal for him now, and I know how they will. What are you looking at?' +</p> + +<p> +I was looking at a man of huge stature, of the stiffest build, whose shoulders +showed me their full breadth while he stood displaying frontwards the open of +his hand in a salute. +</p> + +<p> +'Schwartz!' I called. Janet started, imagining some fierce interjection. The +giant did not stir. +</p> + +<p> +But others had heard. A lady stepped forward. 'Dear Mr. Harry Richmond! Then +you are better? We had most alarming news of you.' +</p> + +<p> +I bowed to the Frau von Dittmarsch, anciently Miss Sibley. +</p> + +<p> +'The princess?' +</p> + +<p> +'She is here.' +</p> + +<p> +Frau von Dittmarsch clasped Miss Goodwin's hand. I was touching Ottilia's. A +veil partly swathed her face. She trembled: the breeze robbed me of her voice. +</p> + +<p> +Our walk down the pier was almost in silence. Miss Goodwin assumed the +guardianship of the foreign ladies. I had to break from them and provide for my +aunt Dorothy and Janet. +</p> + +<p> +'They went over in a little boat, they were so impatient. Who is she?' Dorothy +Beltham asked. +</p> + +<p> +'The Princess Ottilia,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +'Are you certain? Is it really, Harry?' +</p> + +<p> +I confirmed it, and my aunt said, 'I should have guessed it could be no other; +she has a foreign grace.' +</p> + +<p> +'General Goodwin was with them when the boat came in from the island,' said +Janet. 'He walked up to Harry's father, and you noticed, aunty, that the ladies +stood away, as if they wished to be unobserved, as we did, and pulled down +their veils. They would not wait for our boat. We passed them crossing. People +joked about the big servant over-weighing the wherry.' +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy Beltham thought the water too rough for little boats. +</p> + +<p> +'She knows what a sea is,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +Janet gazed steadily after the retreating figures, and then commended me to the +search for rooms. The end of it was that I abandoned my father's suite to them. +An accommodating linen-draper possessed of a sea-view, and rooms which hurled +the tenant to the windows in desire for it, gave me harbourage. +</p> + +<p> +Till dusk I scoured the town to find Miss Goodwin, without whom there was no +clue to the habitation I was seeking, and I must have passed her blindly again +and again. My aunt Dorothy and Janet thanked me for my consideration in sitting +down to dine with them; they excused my haste to retire. I heard no reproaches +except on account of my not sending them word of my illness. Janet was not +warm. She changed in colour and voice when I related what I had heard from Miss +Goodwin, namely, that 'some one' had informed the princess I was in a dying +state. I was obliged to offer up my father as a shield for Ottilia, lest false +ideas should tarnish the image of her in their minds. Janet did not speak of +him. The thought stood in her eyes; and there lies the evil of a sore subject +among persons of one household: they have not to speak to exhibit their minds. +</p> + +<p> +After a night of suspense I fell upon old Schwartz and Aennchen out in the +earliest dawn, according to their German habits, to have a gaze at sea, and +strange country and people. Aennchen was all wonder at the solitary place, +Schwartz at the big ships. But when they tried to direct me to the habitation +of their mistress, it was discovered by them that they had lost their bearings. +Aennchen told me the margravine had been summoned to Rippau just before they +left Sarkeld. Her mistress had informed Baroness Turckems of her intention to +visit England. Prince Ernest was travelling in France. +</p> + +<p> +The hour which brought me to Ottilia was noon. The arrangements of the ladies +could only grant me thirty minutes, for Janet was to drive the princess out +into the country to view the island. She and my aunt Dorothy had been already +introduced. Miss Goodwin, after presenting them, insisted upon ceremoniously +accompanying me to the house. Quite taking the vulgar view of a proceeding such +as the princess had been guilty of, and perhaps fearing summary audacity and +interestedness in the son of a father like mine, she ventured on lecturing me, +as though it lay with me to restrain the fair romantic head, forbear from +calling up my special advantages, advise, and stand to the wisdom of this +world, and be the man of honour. The princess had said: 'Not see him when I +have come to him?' I reassured my undiscerning friend partly, not wholly. +</p> + +<p> +'Would it be commonly sensible or civil, to refuse to see me, having come?' +</p> + +<p> +Miss Goodwin doubted. +</p> + +<p> +I could indicate forcibly, because I felt, the clear-judging brain and tempered +self-command whereby Ottilia had gained her decision. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Goodwin nodded and gave me the still-born affirmative of politeness. Her +English mind expressed itself willing to have exonerated the rash great lady +for visiting a dying lover, but he was not the same person now that he was on +his feet, consequently her expedition wore a different aspect:—my not +dying condemned her. She entreated me to keep the fact of the princess's +arrival unknown to my father, on which point we were one. Intensely +enthusiastic for the men of her race, she would have me, above all things, by a +form of adjuration designed to be a masterpiece of persuasive rhetoric, 'prove +myself an Englishman.' I was to show that 'the honour, interests, reputation +and position of any lady (demented or not,' she added) 'were as precious to me +as to the owner': that 'no woman was ever in peril of a shadow of loss in the +hands of an English gentleman,' and so forth, rather surprisingly to me, +remembering her off-hand manner of the foregoing day. But the sense of +responsibility thrown upon her ideas of our superior national dignity had +awakened her fervider naturalness—made her a different person, as we say +when accounting, in our fashion, for what a little added heat may do. +</p> + +<p> +The half hour allotted to me fled. I went from the room and the house, feeling +that I had seen and heard her who was barely of the world of humankind for me, +so strongly did imagination fly with her. I kissed her fingers, I gazed in her +eyes, I heard the beloved voice. All passed too swift for happiness. +Recollections set me throbbing, but recollection brought longing. She said, +'Now I have come I must see you, Harry.' Did it signify that to see me was a +piece of kindness at war with her judgement? She rejoiced at my perfect +recovery, though it robbed her of the plea in extenuation of this step she had +taken. She praised me for abstaining to write to her, when I was stammering a +set of hastily-impressed reasons to excuse myself for the omission. She praised +my step into Parliament. It did not seem to involve a nearer approach to her. +She said, 'You have not wasted your time in England.' It was for my solitary +interests that she cared, then. +</p> + +<p> +I brooded desperately. I could conceive an overlooking height that made her +utterance simple and consecutive: I could not reach it. Topics which to me were +palpitating, had no terror for her. She said, 'I have offended my father; I +have written to him; he will take me away.' In speaking of the letter which had +caused her to offend, she did not blame the writer. I was suffered to run my +eyes over it, and was ashamed. It read to me too palpably as an outcry to +delude and draw her hither:—pathos and pathos: the father holding his +dying son in his arms, his sole son, Harry Richmond; the son set upon by +enemies in the night: the lover never daring to beg for a sight of his beloved +ere he passed away:—not an ill-worded letter; read uncritically, it may +have been touching: it must have been, though it was the reverse for me. I +frowned, broke down in regrets, under sharp humiliation. +</p> + +<p> +She said, 'You knew nothing of it. A little transgression is the real offender. +When we are once out of the way traced for us, we are in danger of offending at +every step; we are as lawless as the outcasts.' That meant, 'My turning aside +to you originally was the blameable thing.' It might mean, 'My love of you sets +my ideas of duty at variance with my father's.' +</p> + +<p> +She smiled; nothing was uttered in a tone of despondency. Her high courage and +breeding gave her even in this pitfall the smoothness which most women keep for +society. Why she had not sent me any message or tidings of herself to Riversley +was not a matter that she could imagine to perplex me: she could not imagine my +losing faith in her. The least we could do, I construed it, the religious bond +between us was a faith in one another that should sanctify to our souls the +external injuries it caused us to commit. But she talked in no such strain. Her +delight in treading English ground was her happy theme. She said, 'It is as +young as when we met in the forest'; namely, the feeling revived for England. +How far off we were from the green Devonshire coast, was one of her questions, +suggestive of our old yacht-voyage lying among her dreams. Excepting an extreme +and terrorizing paleness, there was little to fever me with the thought that +she suffered mortally. Of reproach, not a word; nor of regret. At the first +touch of hands, when we stood together, alone, she said, 'Would hearing of your +recovery have given me peace?' My privileges were the touch of hands, the touch +of her fingers to my lips, a painless hearing and seeing, and passionate +recollection. She said, 'Impatience is not for us, Harry': I was not to see her +again before the evening. These were the last words she said, and seemed the +lightest until my hot brain made a harvest of them transcending thrice-told +vows of love. Did they not mean, 'We two wait': therefore, 'The years are +bondmen to our stedfastness.' Could sweeter have been said? They might mean +nothing! +</p> + +<p> +She was veiled when Janet drove her out; Janet sitting upright in her masterly +way, smoothing her pet ponies with the curl of her whip, chatting and smiling; +the princess slightly leaning back. I strode up to the country roads, proud of +our land's beauty under a complacent sky. By happy chance, which in a generous +mood I ascribed to Janet's good nature, I came across them at a seven miles' +distance. They were talking spiritedly: what was wonderful, they gave not much +heed to me: they seemed on edge for one another's conversation: each face was +turned to the other's, and after nodding an adieu, they resumed the animated +discourse. I had been rather in alarm lest Ottilia should think little of +Janet. They passed out of sight without recurring to a thought of me behind +them. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening I was one among a group of ladies. I had the opportunity of +hearing the running interchange between Ottilia and Janet, which appeared to be +upon equal terms; indeed, Janet led. The subjects were not very deep. Plain +wits, candour, and an unpretending tongue, it seemed, could make common +subjects attractive, as fair weather does our English woods and fields. The +princess was attracted by something in Janet. I myself felt the sway of +something, while observing Ottilia's rapt pleasure in her talk and her +laughter, with those funny familiar frowns and current dimples twisting and +melting away like a play of shadows on the eddies of the brook. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm glad to be with her,' Janet said of Ottilia. +</p> + +<p> +It was just in that manner she spoke in Ottilia's presence. Why it should sound +elsewhere unsatisfactorily blunt, and there possess a finished charm, I could +not understand. +</p> + +<p> +I mentioned to Janet that I feared my father would be returning. +</p> + +<p> +She contained herself with a bridled 'Oh!' +</p> + +<p> +We were of one mind as to the necessity for keeping him absent, if possible. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, you'll pardon me; I can't talk of him,' said she. +</p> + +<p> +I proposed half-earnestly to foil his return by going to London at once. +</p> + +<p> +'That's manly; that's nice of you,' Janet said. +</p> + +<p> +This was on our walk from the house at night. My aunt Dorothy listened, +pressing my arm. The next morning Janet urged me to go at once. 'Keep him away, +bring down grandada, Harry. She cannot quit the island, because she has given +Prince Ernest immediate rendezvous here. You must not delay to go. Yes, the +Countess of Delzenburg shall have your excuses. And no, I promise you I will +run nobody down. Besides, if I do, aunty will be at hand to plead for the +defence, and she can! She has a way that binds one to accept everything she +says, and Temple ought to study with her for a year or two before he wears his +gown. Bring him back with you and grandada. He is esteemed here at his true +worth. I love him for making her in love with English boys. I leave the men for +those who know them, but English boys are unrivalled, I declare. Honesty, +bravery, modesty, and nice looks! They are so nice in their style and their way +of talking. I tell her, our men may be shy and sneering,—awkward, I +daresay; but our boys beat the world. Do bring down Temple. I should so like +her to see a cricket-match between two good elevens of our boys, Harry, while +she is in England! We could have arranged for one at Riversley.' +</p> + +<p> +I went, and I repressed the idea, on my way, that Janet had manoeuvred by +sending me off to get rid of me, but I felt myself a living testimony to her +heartlessness: for no girl of any heart, acting the part of friend, would have +allowed me to go without a leave-taking of her I loved: few would have been so +cruel as to declare it a duty to go at all, especially when the chances were +that I might return to find the princess wafted away. Ottilia's condescension +had done her no good. 'Turn to the right, that's your path; on.' She seemed to +speak in this style, much as she made her touch of the reins understood by her +ponies. 'I'll take every care of the princess,' she said. Her conceit was +unbounded. I revelled in contemptuous laughter at her assumption of the post of +leader with Ottilia. However, it was as well that I should go: there was no +trusting my father. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049"></a> +CHAPTER XLIX.<br/> +WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING</h2> + +<p> +At our Riversley station I observed the squire, in company with Captain +Bulsted, jump into a neighbouring carriage. I joined them, and was called upon +to answer various inquiries. The squire gave me one of his short tight grasps +of the hand, in which there was warmth and shyness, our English mixture. The +captain whispered in my ear: 'He oughtn't to be alone.' +</p> + +<p> +'How's the great-grandmother of the tribe?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted nodded, as if he understood, but was at sea until I mentioned +the bottle of rum and the remarkable length of that old lady's measurement. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, to be sure! a grand old soul,' he said. 'You know that scum of old, +Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +I laughed, and so did he, at which I laughed the louder. +</p> + +<p> +'He laughs, I suppose, because his party's got a majority in the House,' said +the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'We gave you a handsome surplus this year, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Sweated out of the country's skin and bone, ay!' +</p> + +<p> +'You were complimented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer!' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, that fellow's compliments are like a cabman's, and cry fool:—he +never thanks you but when he's overpaid.' +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted applauded the sarcasm. +</p> + +<p> +'Why did you keep out of knowledge all this time, Hal?' my grandfather asked. +</p> + +<p> +I referred him to the captain. +</p> + +<p> +'Hang it,' cried Captain Bulsted, 'do you think I'd have been doing duty for +you if I'd known where to lay hold of you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, if you didn't shake hands with me, you touched my toes,' said I, and +thanked him with all my heart for his kindness to an old woman on the point of +the grave. I had some fun to flavour melancholy with. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather resumed his complaint: 'You might have gone clean off, and we +none the wiser.' +</p> + +<p> +'Are we quite sure that his head's clean on?' said the mystified captain. +</p> + +<p> +'Of course we should run to him, wherever he was, if he was down on his back,' +the squire muttered. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, ay, sir; of course,' quoth Captain William, frowning to me to reciprocate +this relenting mood. 'But, Harry, where did you turn off that night? We sat up +expecting you. My poor Julia was in a terrible fright, my lad. Eh? speak up.' +</p> + +<p> +I raised the little finger. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, oh,' went he, happily reassured; but, reflecting, added: 'A bout of it?' +</p> + +<p> +I dropped him a penitent nod. +</p> + +<p> +'That's bad, though,' said he. +</p> + +<p> +'Then why did you tip me a bottle of rum, Captain William?' +</p> + +<p> +'By George, Harry, you've had a crack o' the sconce,' he exclaimed, more +sagaciously than he was aware of. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather wanted to keep me by his side in London until we two should +start for the island next day; but his business was in the city, mine toward +the West. We appointed to meet two hours after reaching the terminus. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to me while giving directions to his man. +</p> + +<p> +'You've got him down there, I suppose?' +</p> + +<p> +'My father's in town, sir. He shall keep away,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Humph! I mayn't object to see him.' +</p> + +<p> +This set me thinking. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Bulsted—previously asking me in a very earnest manner whether I +was really all right and sound—favoured me with a hint: +</p> + +<p> +'The squire has plunged into speculations of his own, or else he is peeping at +somebody else's. No danger of the dad being mixed up with Companies? Let's hope +not. Julia pledged her word to Janet that I would look after the old squire. I +suppose I can go home this evening? My girl hates to be alone.' +</p> + +<p> +'By all means,' said I; and the captain proposed to leave the squire at his +hotel, in the event of my failing to join him in the city. +</p> + +<p> +'But don't fail, if you can help it,' he urged me; 'for things somehow, my dear +Harry, appear to me to look like the compass when the needle gives signs of +atmospheric disturbance. My only reason for saying so is common observation. +You can judge for yourself that he is glad to have you with him.' +</p> + +<p> +I told the captain I was equally glad; for, in fact, my grandfather's quietness +and apparently friendly disposition tempted me to petition for a dower for the +princess at once, so that I might be in the position to offer Prince Ernest on +his arrival a distinct alternative; supposing—it was still but a +supposition—Ottilia should empower me. Incessant dialogues of perpetually +shifting tendencies passed between Ottilia and me in my brain—now dark, +now mildly fair, now very wild, on one side at least. Never, except by +downright force of will, could I draw from the phantom of her one purely +irrational outcry, so deeply-rooted was the knowledge of her nature and mind; +and when I did force it, I was no gainer: a puppet stood in her place—the +vision of Ottilia melted out in threads of vapour. +</p> + +<p> +'And yet she has come to me; she has braved everything to come.' I might say +that, to liken her to the women who break rules and read duties by their own +light, but I could not cheat my knowledge of her. Mrs. Waddy met me in the hall +of my father's house, as usual, pressing, I regretted to see, one hand to her +side. 'Her heart,' she said, 'was easily set pitty-pat now.' She had been, by +her master's orders, examined by two of the chief physicians of the kingdom, +'baronets both.' They advised total rest. As far as I could apprehend, their +baronetcies and doings in high regions had been of more comfort than their +prescriptions. +</p> + +<p> +'What I am I must be,' she said, meekly; 'and I cannot quit his service till +he's abroad again, or I drop. He has promised me a monument. I don't want it; +but it shows his kindness.' +</p> + +<p> +A letter from Heriot informed me that the affair between Edbury and me was +settled: he could not comprehend how. +</p> + +<p> +'What is this new Jury of Honour? Who are the jurymen?' he asked, and affected +wit. +</p> + +<p> +I thanked him for a thrashing in a curt reply. +</p> + +<p> +My father had left the house early in the morning. Mrs. Waddy believed that he +meant to dine that evening at the season's farewell dinner of the Trump-Trick +Club: 'Leastways, Tollingby has orders to lay out his gentlemen's-dinners' +evening-suit. Yesterday afternoon he flew down to Chippenden, and was home +late. To-day he's in the City, or one of the squares. Lady Edbury's—ah! +detained in town with the jaundice or toothache. He said he was sending to +France for a dentist: or was it Germany, for some lady's eyes? I am sure I +don't know. Well or ill, so long as you're anything to him, he will abound. +Pocket and purse! You know him by this time, Mr. Harry. Oh, my heart!' +</p> + +<p> +A loud knock at the door had brought on the poor creature's palpitations. +</p> + +<p> +This visitor was no other than Prince Ernest. The name on his card was Graf von +Delzenburg, and it set my heart leaping to as swift a measure as Mrs. Waddy's. +</p> + +<p> +Hearing that I was in the house, he desired to see me. +</p> + +<p> +We met, with a formal bow. +</p> + +<p> +'I congratulate you right heartily upon being out of the list of the nekron,' +he said, civilly. 'I am on my way to one of your watering-places, whither my +family should have preceded me. Do you publish the names and addresses of +visitors daily, as it is the custom with us?' +</p> + +<p> +I relieved his apprehensions on that head: 'Here and there, rarely; and only at +the hotels, I believe.' The excuse was furnished for offering the princess's +address. +</p> + +<p> +'Possibly, in a year or two, we may have the pleasure of welcoming you at +Sarkeld,' said the prince, extending his hand. 'Then, you have seen the +Countess of Delzenburg?' +</p> + +<p> +'On the day of her arrival, your Highness. Ladies of my family are staying on +the island.' +</p> + +<p> +'Ah?' +</p> + +<p> +He paused, and invited me to bow to him. We bowed thus in the room, in the +hall, and at the street-door. +</p> + +<p> +For what purpose could he have called on my father? To hear the worst at once? +That seemed likely, supposing him to have lost his peculiar confidence in the +princess, of which the courtly paces he had put me through precluded me from +judging. +</p> + +<p> +But I guessed acutely that it was not his intention to permit of my meeting +Ottilia a second time. The blow was hard: I felt it as if it had been struck +already, and thought I had gained resignation, until, like a man reprieved on +his road to execution, the narrowed circle of my heart opened out to the +breadth of the world in a minute. Returning from the city, I hurried to my +father's house, late in the afternoon, and heard that he had started to +overtake the prince, leaving word that the prince was to be found at his +address in the island. No doubt could exist regarding the course I was bound to +take. I drove to my grandfather, stated my case to him, and by sheer vehemence +took the wind out of his sails; so that when I said, 'I am the only one alive +who can control my father,' he answered mildly, 'Seems t' other way,' and chose +a small snort for the indulgence of his private opinion. +</p> + +<p> +'What! this princess came over alone, and is down driving out with my girl +under an alias?' he said, showing sour aversion at the prospect of a collision +with the foreign species, as expressive as the ridge of a cat's back. +</p> + +<p> +Temple came to dine with us, so I did not leave him quite to himself, and +Temple promised to accompany him down to the island. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, go, if you like,' the fretted old man dismissed me: +</p> + +<p> +'I've got enough to think over. Hold him fast to stand up to me within +forty-eight hours, present time; you know who I mean; I've got a question or +two for him. How he treats his foreign princes and princesses don't concern me. +I'd say, like the Prevention-Cruelty-Animal's man to the keeper of the +menagerie, “Lecture 'em, wound their dignity, hurt their feelings, only +don't wop 'em.” I don't wish any harm to them, but what the deuce they do +here nosing after my grandson!... There, go; we shall be having it out ha' done +with to-morrow or next day. I've run the badger to earth, else I'm not fit to +follow a scent.' +</p> + +<p> +He grumbled at having to consume other than his Riversley bread, butter, beef, +and ale for probably another fortnight. One of the boasts of Riversley was, +that while the rest of the world ate and drank poison, the Grange lived on its +own solid substance, defying malefactory Radical tricksters. +</p> + +<p> +Temple was left to hear the rest. He had the sweetest of modest wishes for a +re-introduction to Ottilia. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050"></a> +CHAPTER L.<br/> +WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET</h2> + +<p> +Journeying down by the mail-train in the face of a great sunken sunset broken +with cloud, I chanced to ask myself what it was that I seriously desired to +have. My purpose to curb my father was sincere and good; but concerning my +heart's desires, whitherward did they point? I thought of Janet—she made +me gasp for air; of Ottilia, and she made me long for earth. Sharp, as I write +it, the distinction smote me. I might have been divided by an electrical shot +into two halves, with such an equal force was I drawn this way and that, +pointing nowhither. To strangle the thought of either one of them was like the +pang of death; yet it did not strike me that I loved the two: they were apart +in my mind, actually as if I had been divided. I passed the Riversley station +under sombre sunset fires, saddened by the fancy that my old home and vivacious +Janet were ashes, past hope. I came on the smell of salt air, and had that +other spirit of woman around me, of whom the controlled seadeeps were an image, +who spoke to my soul like starlight. Much wise counsel, and impatience of the +wisdom, went on within me. I walked like a man with a yawning wound, and had to +whip the sense of passion for a drug. Toward which one it strove I know not; it +was blind and stormy as the night. +</p> + +<p> +Not a boatman would take me across. The lights of the island lay like a crown +on the water. I paced the ramparts, eyeing them, breathing the keen salt of +thundering waves, until they were robbed of their magic by the coloured Fast. +</p> + +<p> +It is, I have learnt, out of the conflict of sensations such as I then +underwent that a young man's brain and morality, supposing him not to lean +overmuch to sickly sentiment, becomes gradually enriched and strengthened, and +himself shaped for capable manhood. I was partly conscious of a better +condition in the morning; and a sober morning it was to me after my long +sentinel's step to and fro. I found myself possessed of one key—whether +the right one or not—wherewith to read the princess, which was never +possible to me when I was under stress of passion, or of hope or despair; my +perplexities over what she said, how she looked, ceased to trouble me. I read +her by this strange light: that she was a woman who could only love +intelligently—love, that is, in the sense of giving herself. She had the +power of passion, and it could be stirred; but he who kindled it wrecked his +chance if he could not stand clear in her intellect's unsparing gaze. Twice +already she must have felt herself disillusioned by me. This third time, +possibly, she blamed her own fatally credulous tenderness, not me; but it was +her third awakening, and could affection and warmth of heart combat it? Her +child's enthusiasm for my country had prepared her for the impression which the +waxen mind of the dreamy invalid received deeply; and so, aided by the +emotional blood of youth, she gave me place in her imagination, probing me +still curiously, as I remembered, at a season when her sedate mind was +attaining to joint deliberations with the impulsive overgenerous heart. +</p> + +<p> +Then ensued for her the successive shocks of discernment. She knew me to have +some of the vices, many follies, all the intemperateness of men who carve a way +for themselves in the common roads, if barely they do that. And resembling +common men (men, in a judgement elective as hers, common, however able), I was +not assuredly to be separated by her from my associations; from the thought of +my father, for example. Her look at him in the lake-palace library, and her +manner in unfolding and folding his recent letter to her, and in one or two +necessitated allusions, embraced a kind of grave, pitiful humour, beyond smiles +or any outward expression, as if the acknowledgement that it was so quite +obliterated the wonder that it should be so—that one such as he could +exercise influence upon her destiny. Or she may have made her reckoning +generally, not personally, upon our human destinies: it is the more likely, if, +as I divine, the calm oval of her lifted eyelids contemplated him in the +fulness of the recognition that this world, of which we hope unuttered things, +can be shifted and swayed by an ignis-fatuus. The father of one now seen +through, could hardly fail of being transfixed himself. It was horrible to +think of. I would rather have added a vice to my faults than that she should +have penetrated him. +</p> + +<p> +Nearing the island, I was reminded of the early morning when I landed on the +Flemish flats. I did not expect a similar surprise, but before my rowers had +pulled in, the tall beaconhead of old Schwartz notified that his mistress might +be abroad. Janet walked with her. I ran up the steps to salute them, and had +Ottilia's hand in mine. +</p> + +<p> +'Prince Ernest has arrived?' +</p> + +<p> +'My father came yesterday evening.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you leave to-day?' +</p> + +<p> +'I cannot tell; he will decide.' +</p> + +<p> +It seemed a good omen, until I scanned Janet's sombre face. +</p> + +<p> +'You will not see us out for the rest of the day, Harry,' said she. +</p> + +<p> +'That is your arrangement?' +</p> + +<p> +'It is.' +</p> + +<p> +'Your own?' +</p> + +<p> +'Mine, if you like.' +</p> + +<p> +There was something hard in her way of speaking, as though she blamed me, and +the princess were under her protection against me. She vouchsafed no friendly +significance of look and tone. +</p> + +<p> +In spite of my readiness to criticize her (which in our language means condemn) +for always assuming leadership with whomsoever she might be, I was impressed by +the air of high-bred friendliness existing between her and the princess. Their +interchange was pleasant to hear. Ottilia had caught the spirit of her frank +manner of speech; and she, though in a less degree, the princess's fine ease +and sweetness. They conversed, apparently, like equal minds. On material +points, Janet unhesitatingly led. It was she who brought the walk to a close. +</p> + +<p> +'Now, Harry, you had better go and have a little sleep. I should like to speak +to you early.' +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia immediately put her hand out to me. +</p> + +<p> +I begged permission to see her to her door. +</p> + +<p> +Janet replied for her, indicating old Schwartz: 'We have a protector, you see, +six feet and a half.' +</p> + +<p> +An hour later, Schwartz was following her to the steps of her hotel. She saw +me, and waited. For a wonder, she displayed reluctance in disburdening herself +of what she had to say. 'Harry, you know that he has come? He and Prince Ernest +came together. Get him to leave the island at once: he can return to-morrow. +Grandada writes of wishing to see him. Get him away to-day.' +</p> + +<p> +'Is the prince going to stay here?' I asked. +</p> + +<p> +'No. I daresay I am only guessing; I hope so. He has threatened the prince.' +</p> + +<p> +'What with?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! Harry, can't you understand? I'm no reader of etiquette, but even I can +see that the story of a young princess travelling over to England alone to +visit... and you..., and her father fetching her away! The prince is almost at +his mercy, unless you make the man behave like a gentleman. This is exactly the +thing Miss Goodwin feared!' +</p> + +<p> +'But who's to hear of the story?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +Janet gave an impatient sigh. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you mean that my father has threatened to publish it, Janet?' +</p> + +<p> +'I won't say he has. He has made the prince afraid to move: that I think is +true.' +</p> + +<p> +'Did the princess herself mention it to you?' +</p> + +<p> +'She understands her situation, I am sure.' +</p> + +<p> +'Did she speak of “the man,” as you call him?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes: not as I do. You must try by-and-by to forgive me. Whether he set a trap +or not, he has decoyed her—don't frown at words—and it remains for +you to act as I don't doubt you will; but lose no time. Determine. Oh! if I +were a man!' +</p> + +<p> +'You would muzzle us?' +</p> + +<p> +'Muzzle, or anything you please; I would make any one related to me behave +honourably. I would give him the alternative...' +</p> + +<p> +'You foolish girl! suppose he took it?' +</p> + +<p> +'I would make him feel my will. He should not take it. Keep to the +circumstances, Harry. If you have no control over him—I should think I +was not fit to live, in such a position! No control over him at a moment like +this? and the princess in danger of having her reputation hurt! Surely, Harry! +But why should I speak to you as if you were undecided!' +</p> + +<p> +'Where is he?' +</p> + +<p> +'At the house where you sleep. He surrendered his rooms here very kindly.' +</p> + +<p> +'Aunty has seen him?' +</p> + +<p> +Janet blushed: I thought I knew why. It was for subtler reasons than I should +have credited her with conceiving. +</p> + +<p> +'She sent for him, at my request, late last night. She believed her influence +would be decisive. So do I. She could not even make the man perceive that he +was acting—to use her poor dear old-fashioned word—reprehensibly in +frightening the prince to further your interests. From what I gathered he went +off in a song about them. She said he talked so well! And aunty Dorothy, too! I +should nearly as soon have expected grandada to come in for his turn of the +delusion. How I wish he was here! Uberly goes by the first boat to bring him +down. I feel with Miss Goodwin that it will be a disgrace for all of +us—the country's disgrace. As for our family!... Harry, and your name! +Good-bye. Do your best.' +</p> + +<p> +I was in the mood to ask, 'On behalf of the country?' She had, however, a glow +and a ringing articulation in her excitement that forbade trifling; a minute's +reflection set me weighing my power of will against my father's. I nodded to +her. +</p> + +<p> +'Come to us when you are at liberty,' she called. +</p> + +<p> +I have said that I weighed my power of will against my father's. Contemplation +of the state of the scales did not send me striding to meet him. Let it be +remembered—I had it strongly in memory that he habitually deluded himself +under the supposition that the turn of all events having an aspect of good +fortune had been planned by him of old, and were offered to him as the +legitimately-won fruits of a politic life. While others deemed him mad, or +merely reckless, wild, a creature living for the day, he enjoyed the conceit of +being a profound schemer, in which he was fortified by a really extraordinary +adroitness to take advantage of occurrences: and because he was prompt in an +emergency, and quick to profit of a crisis, he was deluded to imagine that he +had created it. Such a man would be with difficulty brought to surrender his +prize. +</p> + +<p> +Again, there was his love for me. 'Pater est, Pamphile;—difficile est.' +How was this vast conceit of a not unreal paternal love to be encountered? The +sense of honour and of decency might appeal to him personally; would either of +them get a hearing if he fancied them to be standing in opposition to my +dearest interests? I, unhappily, as the case would be sure to present itself to +him, appeared the living example of his eminently politic career. After +establishing me the heir of one of the wealthiest of English commoners, would +he be likely to forego any desperate chance of ennobling me by the brilliant +marriage? His dreadful devotion to me extinguished the hope that he would, +unless I should happen to be particularly masterful in dealing with him. I +heard his nimble and overwhelming volubility like a flood advancing. That could +be withstood, and his arguments and persuasions. But by what steps could I +restrain the man himself? I said 'the man,' as Janet did. He figured in my +apprehensive imagination as an engine more than as an individual. Lassitude +oppressed me. I felt that I required every access of strength possible, +physical besides moral, in anticipation of our encounter, and took a swim in +sea-water, which displaced my drowsy fit, and some alarming intimations of +cowardice menacing a paralysis of the will: I had not altogether recovered from +my gipsy drubbing. And now I wanted to have the contest over instantly. It +seemed presumable that my father had slept at my lodgings. There, however, the +report of him was, that he had inspected the rooms, highly complimented the +owner of them, and vanished. +</p> + +<p> +Returning to the pier, I learnt that he had set sail in his hired yacht for the +sister town on the Solent, at an early hour:—for what purpose? I knew of +it too late to intercept it. One of the squire's horses trotted me over; I came +upon Colonel Hibbert Segrave near the Club-house, and heard that my father was +off again: +</p> + +<p> +'But your German prince and papa-in-law shall be free of the Club for the next +fortnight,' said he, and cordially asked to have the date of the marriage. My +face astonished him. He excused himself for speaking of this happy event so +abruptly. A sting of downright anger drove me back at a rapid canter. It +flashed on me that this Prince Ernest, whose suave fashion of depressing me, +and philosophical skill in managing his daughter, had induced me to regard him +as a pattern of astuteness, was really both credulous and feeble, or else +supremely unsuspecting: and I was confirmed in the latter idea on hearing that +he had sailed to visit the opposite harbour and docks on board my father's +yacht. Janet shared my secret opinion. +</p> + +<p> +'The prince is a gentleman,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +Her wrath and disgust were unspeakable. My aunt Dorothy blamed her for overdue +severity. 'The prince, I suppose, goes of his own free will where he pleases.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet burst out, 'Oh! can't you see through it, aunty? The prince goes about +without at all knowing that the person who takes him—Harry sees +it—is making him compromise himself: and by-and-by the prince will +discover that he has no will of his own, whatever he may wish to resolve upon +doing.' +</p> + +<p> +'Is he quite against Harry?' asked my aunt Dorothy. +</p> + +<p> +'Dear aunty, he's a prince, and a proud man. He will never in his lifetime +consent to... to what you mean, without being hounded into it. I haven't the +slightest idea whether anything will force him. I know that the princess would +have too much pride to submit, even to save her name. But it's her name that's +in danger. Think of the scandal to a sovereign princess! I know the +signification of that now; I used to laugh at Harry's “sovereign +princess.” She is one, and thorough! there is no one like her. Don't you +understand, aunty, that the intrigue, plot—I don't choose to be nice upon +terms—may be perfectly successful, and do good to nobody. The prince may +be tricked; the princess, I am sure, will not.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet's affectation of an intimate and peculiar knowledge of the princess was a +show of her character that I was accustomed to: still, it was evident they had +conversed much, and perhaps intimately. I led her to tell me that the princess +had expressed no views upon my father. 'He does not come within her scope, +Harry.' 'Scope' was one of Janet's new words, wherewith she would now and then +fall to seasoning a serviceable but savourless outworn vocabulary of the common +table. In spite of that and other offences, rendered prominent to me by the +lifting of her lip and her frown when she had to speak of my father, I was on +her side, not on his. Her estimation of the princess was soundly based. She +discerned exactly the nature of Ottilia's entanglement, and her peril. +</p> + +<p> +She and my aunt Dorothy passed the afternoon with Ottilia, while I crossed the +head of the street, looking down at the one house, where the princess was +virtually imprisoned, either by her father's express injunction or her own +discretion. And it was as well that she should not be out. The yachting season +had brought many London men to the island. I met several who had not forgotten +the newspaper-paragraph assertions and contradictions. Lord Alton, Admiral +Loftus, and others were on the pier and in the outfitters' shops, eager for +gossip, as the languid stretch of indolence inclines men to be. The Admiral +asked me for the whereabout of Prince Ernest's territory. He too said that the +prince would be free of the Club during his residence, adding: +</p> + +<p> +'Where is he?'—not a question demanding an answer. The men might have let +the princess go by, but there would have been questions urgently demanding +answers had she been seen by their women. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the evening my father's yacht was sighted from the pier. Just as he +reached his moorings, and his boat was hauled round, the last steamer came in. +Sharp-eyed Janet saw the squire on board among a crowd, and Temple next to him, +supporting his arm. +</p> + +<p> +'Has grandada been ill?' she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +My chief concern was to see my father's head rising in the midst of the crowd, +uncovering repeatedly. Prince Ernest and General Goodwin were behind him, +stepping off the lower pier-platform. The General did not look pleased. My +grandfather, with Janet holding his arm, in the place of Temple, stood waiting +to see that his man had done his duty by the luggage. +</p> + +<p> +My father, advancing, perceived me, and almost taking the squire into his +affectionate salutation, said: +</p> + +<p> +'Nothing could be more opportune than your arrival, Mr. Beltham.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire rejoined: 'I wanted to see you, Mr. Richmond; and not in public.' +</p> + +<p> +'I grant the private interview, sir, at your convenience.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet went up to General Goodwin. My father talked to me, and lost a moment in +shaking Temple's hand and saying kind things. +</p> + +<p> +'Name any hour you please, Mr. Beltham,' he resumed; 'meantime, I shall be glad +to effect the introduction between Harry's grandfather and his Highness Prince +Ernest of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.' +</p> + +<p> +He turned. General Goodwin was hurrying the prince up the steps, the squire at +the same time retreating hastily. I witnessed the spectacle of both parties to +the projected introduction swinging round to make their escape. My father +glanced to right and left. He covered in the airiest fashion what would have +been confusion to another by carrying on a jocose remark that he had left half +spoken to Temple, and involved Janet in it, and soon—through sheer +amiable volubility and his taking manner—the squire himself for a minute +or so. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, I have to tell you she is not unhappy,' Janet whispered rapidly. 'She +is reading of one of our great men alive now. She is glad to be on our ground.' +Janet named a famous admiral, kindling as a fiery beacon to our blood. She +would have said more: she looked the remainder; but she could have said nothing +better fitted to spur me to the work she wanted done. Mournfulness dropped on +me like a cloud in thinking of the bright little princess of my boyhood, and +the Ottilia of to-day, faithful to her early passion for our sea-heroes and my +country, though it had grievously entrapped her. And into what hands! Not into +hands which could cast one ray of honour on a devoted head. The contrast +between the sane service—giving men she admired, and the hopping skipping +social meteor, weaver of webs, thrower of nets, who offered her his history for +a nuptial acquisition, was ghastly, most discomforting. He seemed to have +entangled us all. +</p> + +<p> +He said that he had. He treated me now confessedly as a cipher. The prince, the +princess, my grandfather, and me—he had gathered us together, he said. I +heard from him that the prince, assisted by him in the part of an adviser, saw +no way of cutting the knot but by a marriage. All were at hand for a settlement +of the terms:—Providence and destiny were dragged in. +</p> + +<p> +'Let's have no theatrical talk,' I interposed. +</p> + +<p> +'Certainly, Richie; the plainest English,' he assented. +</p> + +<p> +This was on the pier, while he bowed and greeted passing figures. I dared not +unlink my arm, for fear of further mischief. I got him to my rooms, and +insisted on his dining there. +</p> + +<p> +'Dry bread will do,' he said. +</p> + +<p> +My anticipations of the nature of our wrestle were correct. But I had not +expected him to venture on the assertion that the prince was for the marriage. +He met me at every turn with this downright iteration. 'The prince consents: he +knows his only chance is to yield. I have him fast.' +</p> + +<p> +'How?' I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +'How, Richie? Where is your perspicuity? I have him here. I loosen a thousand +tongues on him. I—' +</p> + +<p> +'No, not on him; on the princess, you mean.' +</p> + +<p> +'On him. The princess is the willing party; she and you are one. On him, I say. +'Tis but a threat: I hold it in terrorem. And by heaven, son Richie, it assures +me I have not lived and fought for nothing. “Now is the day and now is +the hour.” On your first birthday, my boy, I swore to marry you to one of +the highest ladies upon earth: she was, as it turns out, then unborn. No +matter: I keep my oath. Abandon it? pooh! you are—forgive me—silly. +Pardon me for remarking it, you have not that dashing courage—never mind. +The point is, I have my prince in his trap. We are perfectly polite, but I have +him, and he acknowledges it; he shrugs: love has beaten him. Very well. And +observe: I permit no squire-of-low-degree insinuations; none of that. The +lady—all earthly blessings on her!—does not stoop to Harry +Richmond. I have the announcement in the newspapers. I maintain it the fruit of +a life of long and earnest endeavour, legitimately won, by heaven it is! and +with the constituted authorities of my native land against me. Your grandad +proposes formally for the princess to-morrow morning.' +</p> + +<p> +He maddened me. Merely to keep him silent I burst out in a flux of reproaches +as torrent-like as his own could be; and all the time I was wondering whether +it was true that a man who talked as he did, in his strain of florid flimsy, +had actually done a practical thing. +</p> + +<p> +The effect of my vehemence was to brace him and make him sedately emphatic. He +declared himself to have gained entire possession of the prince's mind. He +repeated his positive intention to employ his power for my benefit. Never did +power of earth or of hell seem darker to me than he at that moment, when +solemnly declaiming that he was prepared to forfeit my respect and love, die +sooner than 'yield his prince.' He wore a new aspect, spoke briefly and +pointedly, using the phrases of a determined man, and in voice and gesture +signified that he had us all in a grasp of iron. The charge of his having +plotted to bring it about he accepted with exultation. +</p> + +<p> +'I admit,' he said, 'I did not arrange to have Germany present for a witness +besides England, but since he is here, I take advantage of the fact, and +to-morrow you will see young Eckart down.' +</p> + +<p> +I cried out, as much enraged at my feebleness to resist him, as in disgust of +his unscrupulous tricks. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, you have not known me, Richie,' said he. 'I pilot you into harbour, and +all you can do is just the creaking of the vessel to me. You are in my hands. I +pilot you. I have you the husband of the princess within the month. No other +course is open to her. And I have the assurance that she loses nothing by it. +She is yours, my son.' +</p> + +<p> +'She will not be. You have wrecked my last chance. You cover me with +dishonour.' +</p> + +<p> +'You are a youngster, Richie. 'Tis the wish of her heart. Probably while you +and I are talking it over, the prince is confessing that he has no escape. He +has not a loophole! She came to you; you take her. I am far from withholding my +admiration of her behaviour; but there it is—she came. Not consent? She +is a ruined woman if she refuses!' +</p> + +<p> +'Through you, through you!—through my father!' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you both gone mad?' +</p> + +<p> +'Try to see this,' I implored him. 'She will not be subjected by any threats. +The very whisper of one will make her turn from me...' +</p> + +<p> +He interrupted. 'Totally the contrary. The prince acknowledges that you are +master of her affections.' +</p> + +<p> +'Consistently with her sense of honour and respect for us.' +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me of her reputation, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +'You pretend that you can damage it!' +</p> + +<p> +'Pretend? I pretend in the teeth of all concerned to establish her happiness +and yours, and nothing human shall stop me. I have you grateful to me before +your old dad lays his head on his last pillow. And that reminds me: I surrender +my town house and furniture to you. Waddy has received the word. By the way, +should you hear of a good doctor for heart-disease, tell me: I have my fears +for the poor soul.' +</p> + +<p> +He stood up, saying, 'Richie, I am not like Jorian, to whom a lodging-house +dinner is no dinner, and an irreparable loss, but I must have air. I go forth +on a stroll.' +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible for me to allow it. I stopped him. +</p> + +<p> +We were in the midst of a debate as to his right of personal freedom, upon the +singularity of which he commented with sundry ejaculations, when Temple arrived +and General Goodwin sent up his card. Temple and I left the general closeted +with my father, and stood at the street-door. He had seen the princess, having +at her request been taken to present his respects to her by Janet. How she +looked, what she said, he was dull in describing; he thought her lively, though +she was pale. She had mentioned my name, 'kindly,' he observed. And he knew, or +suspected, the General to be an emissary from the prince. But he could not +understand the exact nature of the complication, and plagued me with a mixture +of blunt inquiries and the delicate reserve proper to him so much that I had to +look elsewhere for counsel and sympathy. Janet had told him everything; still +he was plunged in wonder, tempting me to think the lawyer's mind of necessity +bourgeois, for the value of a sentiment seemed to have no weight in his +estimation of the case. Nor did he appear disinclined to excuse my father. Some +of his remarks partly swayed me, in spite of my seeing that they were based on +the supposition of an 'all for love' adventure of a mad princess. They +whispered a little hope, when I was adoring her passionately for being the +reverse of whatever might have given hope a breath. +</p> + +<p> +General Goodwin, followed by my father, came down and led me aside after I had +warned Temple not to let my father elude him. The General was greatly ruffled. +'Clara tells me she can rely on you,' he said. 'I am at the end of my arguments +with that man, short of sending him to the lock-up. You will pardon me, Mr. +Harry; I foresaw the scrapes in store for you, and advised you.' +</p> + +<p> +'You did, General,' I confessed. 'Will you tell me what it is Prince Ernest is +in dread of?' +</p> + +<p> +'A pitiable scandal, sir; and if he took my recommendation, he would find +instant means of punishing the man who dares to threaten him. You know it.' +</p> + +<p> +I explained that I was aware of the threat, not of the degree of the prince's +susceptibility; and asked him if he had seen the princess. +</p> + +<p> +'I have had the honour,' he replied, stiffly. 'You gain nothing with her by +this infamous proceeding.' +</p> + +<p> +I swallowed my anger, and said, 'Do you accuse me, General?' +</p> + +<p> +'I do not accuse you,' he returned, unbendingly. 'You chose your path some ten +or twelve years ago, and you must take the consequences. I foresaw it; but this +I will say, I did not credit the man with his infernal cleverness. If I speak +to you at all, I must speak my mind. I thought him a mere buffoon and +spendthrift, flying his bar-sinister story for the sake of distinction. He has +schemed up to this point successfully: he has the prince in his toils. <i>I</i> +would cut through them, as I have informed Prince Ernest. I daresay different +positions lead to different reasonings; the fellow appears to have a +fascination over him. Your father, Mr. Harry, is guilty now—he is guilty, +I reiterate, now of a piece of iniquity that makes me ashamed to own him for a +countryman.' +</p> + +<p> +The General shook himself erect. 'Are you unable to keep him in?' he asked. +</p> + +<p> +My nerves were pricking and stinging with the insults I had to listen to, and +conscience's justification of them. +</p> + +<p> +He repeated the question. +</p> + +<p> +'I will do what I can,' I said, unsatisfactorily to myself and to him, for he +transposed our situations, telling me the things he would say and do in my +place; things not dissimilar to those I had already said and done, only more +toweringly enunciated; and for that reason they struck me as all the more +hopelessly ineffectual, and made me despair. +</p> + +<p> +My dumbness excited his ire. 'Come,' said he; 'the lady is a spoilt child. She +behaved foolishly; but from your point of view you should feel bound to protect +her on that very account. Do your duty, young gentleman. He is, I believe, fond +of you, and if so, you have him by a chain. I tell you frankly, I hold you +responsible.' +</p> + +<p> +His way of speaking of the princess opened an idea of the world's, in the event +of her name falling into its clutches. +</p> + +<p> +I said again, 'I will do what I can,' and sang out for Temple. +</p> + +<p> +He was alone. My father had slipped from him to leave a card at the squire's +hotel. General Goodwin touched Temple on the shoulder kindly, in marked +contrast to his treatment of me, and wished us good-night. Nothing had been +heard of my father by Janet, but while I was sitting with her, at a late hour, +his card was brought up, and a pencilled entreaty for an interview the next +morning. +</p> + +<p> +'That will suit grandada,' Janet said. 'He commissioned me before going to bed +to write the same for him.' +</p> + +<p> +She related that the prince was in a state of undisguised distraction. From +what I could comprehend—it appeared incredible—he regarded his +daughter's marriage as the solution of the difficulty, the sole way out of the +meshes. +</p> + +<p> +'Is not that her wish?' said Temple; perhaps with a wish of his own. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, if you think a lady like the Princess Ottilia is led by her wishes,' said +Janet. Her radiant perception of an ideal in her sex (the first she ever had) +made her utterly contemptuous toward the less enlightened. +</p> + +<p> +We appointed the next morning at half-past eleven for my father's visit. +</p> + +<p> +'Not a minute later,' Janet said in my ear, urgently. 'Don't—don't let +him move out of your sight, Harry! The princess is convinced you are not to +blame.' +</p> + +<p> +I asked her whether she had any knowledge of the squire's designs. +</p> + +<p> +'I have not, on my honour,' she answered. 'But I hope... It is so miserable to +think of this disgraceful thing! She is too firm to give way. She does not +blame you. I am sure I do not; only, Harry, one always feels that if one were +in another's place, in a case like this, I could and would command him. I would +have him obey me. One is not born to accept disgrace even from a father. I +should say, “You shall not stir, if you mean to act dishonourably.” +One is justified, I am sure, in breaking a tie of relationship that involves +you in dishonour. Grandada has not spoken a word to me on the subject. I catch +at straws. This thing burns me! Oh, good-night, Harry. I can't sleep.' +</p> + +<p> +'Good-night,' she called softly to Temple on the stairs below. I heard the poor +fellow murmuring good-night to himself in the street, and thought him happier +than I. He slept at a room close to the hotel. +</p> + +<p> +A note from Clara Goodwin adjured me, by her memory of the sweet, brave, +gracious fellow she loved in other days, to be worthy of what I had been. The +General had unnerved her reliance on me. +</p> + +<p> +I sat up for my father until long past midnight. When he came his appearance +reminded me of the time of his altercation with Baroness Turckems under the +light of the blazing curtains: he had supped and drunk deeply, and he very soon +proclaimed that I should find him invincible, which, as far as insensibility to +the strongest appeals to him went, he was. +</p> + +<p> +'Deny you love her, deny she loves you, deny you are one—I knot you +fast!' +</p> + +<p> +He had again seen Prince Ernest; so he said, declaring that the Prince +positively desired the marriage; would have it. 'And I,' he dramatized their +relative situations, 'consented.' +</p> + +<p> +After my experience of that night, I forgive men who are unmoved by displays of +humour. Commonly we think it should be irresistible. His description of the +thin-skinned sensitive prince striving to run and dodge for shelter from him, +like a fever-patient pursued by a North-easter, accompanied by dozens of quaint +similes full of his mental laughter, made my loathing all the more acute. But I +had not been an equal match for him previous to his taking wine; it was waste +of breath and heart to contend with him. I folded my arms tight, sitting +rigidly silent, and he dropped on the sofa luxuriously. +</p> + +<p> +'Bed, Richie!' he waved to me. 'You drink no wine, you cannot stand dissipation +as I do. Bed, my dear boy! I am a God, sir, inaccessible to mortal ailments! +Seriously, dear boy, I have never known an illness in my life. I have killed my +hundreds of poor devils who were for imitating me. This I boast—I boast +constitution. And I fear, Richie, you have none of my superhuman strength. +Added to that, I know I am watched over. I ask—I have: I scheme—the +tricks are in my hand! It may be the doing of my mother in heaven; there is the +fact for you to reflect on. “Stand not in my way, nor follow me too +far,” would serve me for a motto admirably, and you can put it in Latin, +Richie. Bed! You shall turn your scholarship to account as I do my genius in +your interest. On my soul, that motto in Latin will requite me. Now to bed.' +</p> + +<p> +'No,' said I. 'You have got away from me once. I shall keep you in sight and +hearing, if I have to lie at your door for it. You will go with me to London +to-morrow. I shall treat you as a man I have to guard, and I shall not let you +loose before I am quite sure of you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Loose!' he exclaimed, throwing up an arm and a leg. +</p> + +<p> +'I mean, sir, that you shall be in my presence wherever you are, and I will +take care you don't go far and wide. It's useless to pretend astonishment. I +don't argue and I don't beseech any further: I just sit on guard, as I would +over a powder-cask.' +</p> + +<p> +My father raised himself on an elbow. 'The explosion,' he said, examining his +watch, 'occurred at about five minutes to eleven—we are advancing into +the morning—last night. I received on your behalf the congratulations of +friends Loftus, Alton, Segrave, and the rest, at that hour. So, my dear Richie, +you are sitting on guard over the empty magazine.' +</p> + +<p> +I listened with a throbbing forehead, and controlled the choking in my throat, +to ask him whether he had touched the newspapers. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, dear lad, I have sprung my mine in them,' he replied. +</p> + +<p> +'You have sent word—?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have despatched a paragraph to the effect, that the prince and princess have +arrived to ratify the nuptial preliminaries.' +</p> + +<p> +'You expect it to appear this day?' +</p> + +<p> +'Or else my name and influence are curiously at variance with the confidence I +repose in them, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then I leave you to yourself,' I said. 'Prince Ernest knows he has to expect +this statement in the papers?' +</p> + +<p> +'We trumped him with that identical court-card, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +'Very well. To-morrow, after we have been to my grandfather, you and I part +company for good, sir. It costs me too much.' +</p> + +<p> +'Dear old Richie,' he laughed, gently. 'And now to bye-bye! My blessing on you +now and always.' +</p> + +<p> +He shut his eyes. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051"></a> +CHAPTER LI.<br/> +AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT</h2> + +<p> +The morning was sultry with the first rising of the sun. I knew that Ottilia +and Janet would be out. For myself, I dared not leave the house. I sat in my +room, harried by the most penetrating snore which can ever have afflicted +wakeful ears. It proclaimed so deep-seated a peacefulness in the bosom of the +disturber, and was so arrogant, so ludicrous, and inaccessible to remonstrance, +that it sounded like a renewal of our midnight altercation on the sleeper's +part. Prolonged now and then beyond all bounds, it ended in the crashing blare +whereof utter wakefulness cannot imagine honest sleep to be capable, but a +playful melody twirled back to the regular note. He was fast asleep on the +sitting-room sofa, while I walked fretting and panting. To this twinship I +seemed condemned. In my heart nevertheless there was a reserve of wonderment at +his apparent astuteness and resolution, and my old love for him whispered +disbelief in his having disgraced me. Perhaps it was wilful self-deception. It +helped me to meet him with a better face. +</p> + +<p> +We both avoided the subject of our difference for some time: he would evidently +have done so altogether, and used his best and sweetest manner to divert me: +but when I struck on it, asking him if he had indeed told me the truth last +night, his features clouded as though with an effort of patience. To my +consternation, he suddenly broke away, with his arms up, puffing and +stammering, stamping his feet. He would have a truce—he insisted on a +truce, I understood him to exclaim, and that I was like a woman, who would and +would not, and wanted a master. He raved of the gallant down-rightedness of the +young bloods of his day, and how splendidly this one and that had compassed +their ends by winning great ladies, lawfully, or otherwise. For several minutes +he was in a state of frenzy, appealing to his pattern youths of a bygone +generation, as to moral principles—stuttering, and of a dark red hue from +the neck to the temples. I refrained from a scuffle of tongues. Nor did he +excuse himself after he had cooled. His hand touched instinctively for his +pulse, and, with a glance at the ceiling, he exclaimed, 'Good Lord!' and +brought me to his side. 'These wigwam houses check my circulation,' said he. +'Let us go out—let us breakfast on board.' +</p> + +<p> +The open air restored him, and he told me that he had been merely oppressed by +the architect of the inferior classes, whose ceiling sat on his head. My +nerves, he remarked to me, were very exciteable. 'You should take your wine, +Richie,—you require it. Your dear mother had a low-toned nervous system.' +I was silent, and followed him, at once a captive and a keeper. +</p> + +<p> +This day of slackened sails and a bright sleeping water kept the yachtsmen on +land; there was a crowd to meet the morning boat. Foremost among those who +stepped out of it was the yellow-haired Eckart, little suspecting what the +sight of him signalled to me. I could scarcely greet him at all, for in him I +perceived that my father had fully committed himself to his plot, and left me +nothing to hope. Eckart said something of Prince Hermann. As we were walking +off the pier, I saw Janet conversing with Prince Ernest, and the next minute +Hermann himself was one of the group. I turned to Eckart for an explanation. +</p> + +<p> +'Didn't I tell you he called at your house in London and travelled down with me +this morning!' said Eckart. +</p> + +<p> +My father looked in the direction of the princes, but his face was for the +moment no index. They bowed to Janet, and began talking hurriedly in the +triangle of road between her hotel, the pier, and the way to the villas: +passing on, and coming to a full halt, like men who are not reserving their +minds. My father stept out toward them. He was met by Prince Ernest. Hermann +turned his back. +</p> + +<p> +It being the hour of the appointment, I delivered Eckart over to Temple's +safe-keeping, and went up to Janet. 'Don't be late, Harry,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +I asked her if she knew the object of the meeting appointed by my grandfather. +</p> + +<p> +She answered impatiently, 'Do get him away from the prince.' And then: 'I ought +to tell you the princess is well, and so on—pardon me just now: Grandada +is kept waiting, and I don't like it.' +</p> + +<p> +Her actual dislike was to see Prince Ernest in dialogue with my father, it +seemed to me; and the manner of both, which was, one would have said, intimate, +anything but the manner of adversaries. Prince Ernest appeared to affect a +pleasant humour; he twice, after shaking my father's hand, stepped back to him, +as if to renew some impression. Their attitude declared them to be on the best +of terms. Janet withdrew her attentive eyes from observing them, and threw a +world of meaning into her abstracted gaze at me. My father's advance put her to +flight. +</p> + +<p> +Yet she gave him the welcome of a high-bred young woman when he entered the +drawing-room of my grandfather's hotel-suite. She was alone, and she obliged +herself to accept conversation graciously. He recommended her to try the German +Baths for the squire's gout, and evidently amused her with his specific +probations for English persons designing to travel in company, that they should +previously live together in a house with a collection of undisciplined +chambermaids, a musical footman, and a mad cook: to learn to accommodate their +tempers. 'I would add a touch of earthquake, Miss Ilchester, just to make sure +that all the party know one another's edges before starting.' This was too far +a shot of nonsense for Janet, whose native disposition was to refer to lunacy +or stupidity, or trickery, whatsoever was novel to her understanding. 'I, for +my part,' said he, 'stipulate to have for comrade no man who fancies himself a +born and stamped chieftain, no inveterate student of maps, and no dog with a +turn for feeling himself pulled by the collar. And that reminds me you are +amateur of dogs. Have you a Pomeranian boar-hound?' +</p> + +<p> +'No,' said Janet; 'I have never even seen one' +</p> + +<p> +'That high.' My father raised his hand flat. +</p> + +<p> +'Bigger than our Newfoundlands!' +</p> + +<p> +'Without exaggeration, big as a pony. You will permit me to send you one, +warranted to have passed his distemper, which can rarely be done for our human +species, though here and there I venture to guarantee my man as well as my +dog.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet interposed her thanks, declining to take the dog, but he dwelt on the +dog's charms, his youth, stature, appearance, fitness, and grandeur, earnestly. +I had to relieve her apprehensions by questioning where the dog was. +</p> + +<p> +'In Germany,' he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was not improbable, nor less so that the dog was in Pomerania likewise. +</p> + +<p> +The entry of my aunt Dorothy, followed by my grandfather, was silent. +</p> + +<p> +'Be seated,' the old man addressed us in a body, to cut short particular +salutations. +</p> + +<p> +My father overshadowed him with drooping shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +Janet wished to know whether she was to remain. +</p> + +<p> +'I like you by me always,' he answered, bluff and sharp. +</p> + +<p> +'We have some shopping to do,' my aunt Dorothy murmured, showing she was there +against her will. +</p> + +<p> +'Do you shop out of London?' said my father; and for some time he succeeded in +making us sit for the delusive picture of a comfortable family meeting. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather sat quite still, Janet next to him. 'When you've finished, Mr. +Richmond,' he remarked. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I was telling Miss Beltham that I join in the abuse of London +exactly because I love it. A paradox! she says. But we seem to be effecting a +kind of insurance on the life of the things we love best by crying them down +violently. You have observed it? Denounce them—they endure for ever! So I +join any soul on earth in decrying our dear London. The naughty old City can +bear it.' +</p> + +<p> +There was a clearing of throats. My aunt Dorothy's foot tapped the floor. +</p> + +<p> +'But I presume you have done me the honour to invite me to this conference on a +point of business, Mr. Beltham?' said my father, admonished by the hint. +</p> + +<p> +'I have, sir,' the squire replied. +</p> + +<p> +'And I also have a point. And, in fact, it is urgent, and with your permission, +Mr. Beltham, I will lead the way.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, sir, if you please. +</p> + +<p> +I'm a short speaker, and go to it at once, and I won't detain you a second +after you've answered me.' +</p> + +<p> +My father nodded to this, with the conciliatory comment that it was +business-like. +</p> + +<p> +The old man drew out his pocket-book. +</p> + +<p> +'You paid a debt,' he said deliberately, 'amounting to twenty-one thousand +pounds to my grandson's account.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! a debt! I did, sir. Between father and boy, dad and lad; debts! ... but +use your own terms, I pray you.' +</p> + +<p> +'I don't ask you where that money is now. I ask you to tell me where you got it +from.' +</p> + +<p> +'You speak bluntly, my dear sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'You won't answer, then?' +</p> + +<p> +'You ask the question as a family matter? I reply with alacrity, to the best of +my ability: and with my hand on my heart, Mr. Beltham, let me assure you, I +very heartily desire the information to be furnished to me. Or rather—why +should I conceal it? The sources are irregular, but a child could toddle its +way to them—you take my indication. Say that I obtained it from my +friends. My friends, Mr. Beltham, are of the kind requiring squeezing. +Government, as my chum and good comrade, Jorian DeWitt, is fond of saying, is a +sponge—a thing that when you dive deep enough to catch it gives liberal +supplies, but will assuredly otherwise reverse the process by acting the part +of an absorbent. I get what I get by force of arms, or I might have perished +long since.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then you don't know where you got it from, sir?' +</p> + +<p> +'Technically, you are correct, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'A bird didn't bring it, and you didn't find it in the belly of a fish.' +</p> + +<p> +'Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to believe; +they did not happen to me.' +</p> + +<p> +'You swear to me you don't know the man, woman, or committee, who gave you that +sum?' +</p> + +<p> +'I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary +circumstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at nothing.' +</p> + +<p> +'You suppose you got it from some fool?' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?' +</p> + +<p> +'You pretend you got it from Government?' +</p> + +<p> +'I am termed a Pretender by some, Mr. Beltham. The facts are these: I promised +to refund the money, and I fulfilled the promise. There you have the only +answer I can make to you. Now to my own affair. I come to request you to demand +the hand of the Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld on behalf of my son Harry, your +grandson; and I possess the assurance of the prince, her father, that it will +be granted. Doubtless you, sir, are of as old a blood as the prince himself. +You will acknowledge that the honour brought to the family by an hereditary +princess is considerable: it is something. I am prepared to accompany you to +his Highness, or not, as you please. It is but a question of dotation, and a +selection from one or two monosyllables.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet shook her dress. +</p> + +<p> +The squire replied: 'We's take that up presently. I haven't quite done. Will +you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?' +</p> + +<p> +'The usual agent—a solicitor, Mr. Beltham; a gentleman whose business lay +amongst the aristocracy; he is defunct; and a very worthy old gentleman he was, +with a remarkable store of anecdotes of his patrons, very discreetly told: for +you never heard a name from him.' +</p> + +<p> +'You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?' +</p> + +<p> +'To condense a long story, sir, the kernel of the matter is, that almost from +the hour I began to stir for the purpose of claiming my rights—which are +transparent enough this old gentleman—certainly from no sinister motive, +I may presume—commenced the payment of an annuity; not sufficient for my +necessities, possibly, but warrant of an agreeable sort for encouraging my +expectations; although oddly, this excellent old Mr. Bannerbridge invariably +served up the dish in a sauce that did not agree with it, by advising me of the +wish of the donator that I should abandon my Case. I consequently, in common +with my friends, performed a little early lesson in arithmetic, and we came to +the one conclusion open to reflective minds—namely, that I was feared.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy looked up for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +'Janet and I have some purchases to make,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +The squire signified sharply that she must remain where she was. +</p> + +<p> +'I think aunty wants fresh air; she had a headache last night,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +I suggested that, as my presence did not seem to be required, I could take her +on my arm for a walk to the pier-head. +</p> + +<p> +Her face was burning; she would gladly have gone out, but the squire refused to +permit it, and she nodded over her crossed hands, saying that she was in no +hurry. +</p> + +<p> +'Ha! I am,' quoth he. +</p> + +<p> +'Dear Miss Beltham!' my father ejaculated solicitously. +</p> + +<p> +'Here, sir, oblige me by attending to me,' cried the squire, fuming and +blinking. 'I sent for you on a piece of business. You got this money through a +gentleman, a solicitor, named Bannerbridge, did you?' +</p> + +<p> +'His name was Bannerbridge, Mr. Beltham.' +</p> + +<p> +'Dorothy, you knew a Mr. Bannerbridge?' +</p> + +<p> +She faltered: 'I knew him.... Harry was lost in the streets of London when he +was a little fellow, and the Mr. Bannerbridge I knew found him and took him to +his house, and was very kind to him.' +</p> + +<p> +'What was his Christian name?' +</p> + +<p> +I gave them: 'Charles Adolphus.' +</p> + +<p> +'The identical person!' exclaimed my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! you admit it,' said the squire. 'Ever seen him since the time Harry was +lost, Dorothy?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes,' she answered. 'I have heard he is dead: +</p> + +<p> +'Did you see him shortly before his death?' +</p> + +<p> +'I happened to see him a short time before! +</p> + +<p> +'He was your man of business, was he?' +</p> + +<p> +'For such little business as I had to do.' +</p> + +<p> +'You were sure you could trust him, eh?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy breathed deeply. +</p> + +<p> +'By God, ma'am, you're a truthful woman!' +</p> + +<p> +The old man gave her a glare of admiration. +</p> + +<p> +It was now my turn to undergo examination, and summoned by his apostrophe to +meet his eyes, I could appreciate the hardness of the head I had to deal with. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, I beg your pardon beforehand; I want to get at facts; I must ask you +what you know about where the money came from?' +</p> + +<p> +I spoke of my attempts to discover the whence and wherefore of it. +</p> + +<p> +'Government? eh?' he sneered. +</p> + +<p> +'I really can't judge whether it came from that quarter,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'What do you think?—think it likely?' +</p> + +<p> +I thought it unlikely, and yet likelier than that it should have come from an +individual. +</p> + +<p> +'Then you don't suspect any particular person of having sent it in the nick of +time, Harry Richmond?' +</p> + +<p> +I replied: 'No, sir; unless you force me to suspect you.' +</p> + +<p> +He jumped in his chair, astounded and wrathful, confounded me for insinuating +that he was a Bedlamite, and demanded the impudent reason of my suspecting him +to have been guilty of the infernal folly. +</p> + +<p> +I had but the reason to instance that he was rich and kind at heart. +</p> + +<p> +'Rich! kind!' he bellowed. 'Just excuse me—I must ask for the purpose of +my inquiry;—there, tell me, how much do you believe you've got of that +money remaining? None o' that Peterborough style of counting in the back of +your pate. Say!' +</p> + +<p> +There was a dreadful silence. +</p> + +<p> +My father leaned persuasively forward. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I crave permission to take up the word. Allow me to remind you of +the prize Harry has won. The prince awaits you to bestow on him the hand of his +daughter—' +</p> + +<p> +'Out with it, Harry,' shouted the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'Not to mention Harry's seat in Parliament,' my father resumed, 'he has a +princess to wife, indubitably one of the most enviable positions in the +country! It is unnecessary to count on future honours; they may be alluded to. +In truth, sir, we make him the first man in the country. Not necessarily +Premier: you take my meaning: he possesses the combination of social influence +and standing with political achievements, and rank and riches in +addition—' +</p> + +<p> +'I'm speaking to my grandson, sir,' the squire rejoined, shaking himself like a +man rained on. 'I'm waiting for a plain answer, and no lie. You've already +confessed as much as that the money you told me on your honour you put out to +interest; psh!—for my grandson was smoke. Now let's hear him.' +</p> + +<p> +My father called out: 'I claim a hearing! The money you speak of was put out to +the very highest interest. You have your grandson in Parliament, largely +acquainted with the principal members of society, husband of an hereditary +princess! You have only at this moment to propose for her hand. I guarantee it +to you. With that money I have won him everything. Not that I would intimate to +you that princesses are purchaseable. The point is, I knew how to employ it.' +</p> + +<p> +'In two months' time, the money in the Funds in the boy's name—you told +me that.' +</p> + +<p> +'You had it in the Funds in Harry Richmond's name, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, sir, I'm asking him whether it's in the Funds now.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! Mr. Beltham.' +</p> + +<p> +'What answer's that?' +</p> + +<p> +The squire was really confused by my father's interruption, and lost sight of +me. +</p> + +<p> +'I ask where it came from: I ask whether it's squandered?' he continued. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I reply that you have only to ask for it to have it; do so +immediately.' +</p> + +<p> +'What's he saying?' cried the baffled old man. +</p> + +<p> +'I give you a thousand times the equivalent of the money, Mr. Beltham.' +</p> + +<p> +'Is the money there?' +</p> + +<p> +'The lady is here.' +</p> + +<p> +'I said money, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'A priceless honour and treasure, I say emphatically.' My grandfather's brows +and mouth were gathering for storm. Janet touched his knee. +</p> + +<p> +'Where the devil your understanding truckles, if you have any, I don't know,' +he muttered. 'What the deuce—lady got to do with money!' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh!' my father laughed lightly, 'customarily the alliance is, they say, as +close as matrimony. Pardon me. To speak with becoming seriousness, Mr. Beltham, +it was duly imperative that our son should be known in society, should be, you +will apprehend me, advanced in station, which I had to do through the ordinary +political channel. There could not but be a considerable expenditure for such a +purpose.' +</p> + +<p> +'In Balls, and dinners!' +</p> + +<p> +'In everything that builds a young gentleman's repute.' +</p> + +<p> +'You swear to me you gave your Balls and dinners, and the lot, for Harry +Richmond's sake?' +</p> + +<p> +'On my veracity, I did, sir!' +</p> + +<p> +'Please don't talk like a mountebank. I don't want any of your roundabout words +for truth; we're not writing a Bible essay. I try my best to be civil.' +</p> + +<p> +My father beamed on him. +</p> + +<p> +'I guarantee you succeed, sir. Nothing on earth can a man be so absolutely sure +of as to succeed in civility, if he honestly tries at it. Jorian +DeWitt,—by the way, you may not know him—an esteemed old friend of +mine, says—that is, he said once—to a tolerably impudent fellow +whom he had disconcerted with a capital retort, “You may try to be a +gentleman, and blunder at it, but if you will only try to be his humble +servant, we are certain to establish a common footing.” Jorian, let me +tell you, is a wit worthy of our glorious old days.' +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather eased his heart with a plunging breath. +</p> + +<p> +'Well, sir, I didn't ask you here for your opinion or your friend's, and I +don't care for modern wit.' +</p> + +<p> +'Nor I, Mr. Beltham, nor I! It has the reek of stable straw. We are of one mind +on that subject. The thing slouches, it sprawls. It—to quote Jorian once +more—is like a dirty, idle, little stupid boy who cannot learn his lesson +and plays the fool with the alphabet. You smile, Miss Ilchester: you would +appreciate Jorian. Modern wit is emphatically degenerate. It has no +scintillation, neither thrust nor parry. I compare it to boxing, as opposed to +the more beautiful science of fencing.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, sir, I don't want to hear your comparisons,' growled the squire, much +oppressed. 'Stop a minute...' +</p> + +<p> +'Half a minute to me, sir,' said my father, with a glowing reminiscence of +Jorian DeWitt, which was almost too much for the combustible old man, even +under Janet's admonition. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy moved her head slightly toward my father, looking on the floor, +and he at once drew in. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I attend to you submissively.' +</p> + +<p> +'You do? Then tell me what brought this princess to England?' +</p> + +<p> +'The conviction that Harry had accomplished his oath to mount to an eminence in +his country, and had made the step she is about to take less, I will say, +precipitous: though I personally decline to admit a pointed inferiority.' +</p> + +<p> +'You wrote her a letter.' +</p> + +<p> +'That, containing the news of the attack on him and his desperate illness, was +the finishing touch to the noble lady's passion.' +</p> + +<p> +'Attack? I know nothing about an attack. You wrote her a letter and wrote her a +lie. You said he was dying.' +</p> + +<p> +'I had the boy inanimate on my breast when I despatched the epistle.' +</p> + +<p> +'You said he had only a few days to live.' +</p> + +<p> +'So in my affliction I feared.' +</p> + +<p> +'Will you swear you didn't write that letter with the intention of drawing her +over here to have her in your power, so that you might threaten you'd blow on +her reputation if she or her father held out against you and all didn't go as +you fished for it?' +</p> + +<p> +My father raised his head proudly. +</p> + +<p> +'I divide your query into two parts. I wrote, sir, to bring her to his side. I +did not write with any intention to threaten.' +</p> + +<p> +'You've done it, though.' +</p> + +<p> +'I have done this,' said my father, toweringly: 'I have used the power placed +in my hands by Providence to overcome the hesitations of a gentleman whose +illustrious rank predisposes him to sacrifice his daughter's happiness to his +pride of birth and station. Can any one confute me when I assert that the +princess loves Harry Richmond?' +</p> + +<p> +I walked abruptly to one of the windows, hearing a pitiable wrangling on the +theme. My grandfather vowed she had grown wiser, my father protested that she +was willing and anxious; Janet was appealed to. In a strangely-sounding +underbreath, she said, 'The princess does not wish it.' +</p> + +<p> +'You hear that, Mr. Richmond?' cried the squire. +</p> + +<p> +He returned: 'Can Miss Ilchester say that the Princess Ottilia does not +passionately love my son Harry Richmond? The circumstances warrant me in +beseeching a direct answer.' +</p> + +<p> +She uttered: 'No.' +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her; she at me. +</p> + +<p> +'You can conduct a case, Richmond,' the squire remarked. +</p> + +<p> +My father rose to his feet. 'I can conduct my son to happiness and greatness, +my dear sir; but to some extent I require your grandfatherly assistance; and I +urge you now to present your respects to the prince and princess, and judge +yourself of his Highness's disposition for the match. I assure you in advance +that he welcomes the proposal.' +</p> + +<p> +'I do not believe it,' said Janet, rising. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy followed her example, saying: 'In justice to Harry the proposal +should be made. At least it will settle this dispute.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet stared at her, and the squire threw his head back with an amazed +interjection. +</p> + +<p> +'What! You're for it now? Why, at breakfast you were all t' other way! You +didn't want this meeting because you pooh-poohed the match.' +</p> + +<p> +'I do think you should go,' she answered. 'You have given Harry your promise, +and if he empowers you, it is right to make the proposal, and immediately, I +think.' +</p> + +<p> +She spoke feverishly, with an unsweet expression of face, that seemed to me to +indicate vexedness at the squire's treatment of my father. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry,' she asked me in a very earnest fashion, 'is it your desire? Tell your +grandfather that it is, and that you want to know your fate. Why should there +be any dispute on a fact that can be ascertained by crossing a street? Surely +it is trifling.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet stooped to whisper in the squire's ear. +</p> + +<p> +He caught the shock of unexpected intelligence apparently; faced about, gazed +up, and cried: 'You too! But I haven't done here. I've got to cross-examine... +Pretend, do you mean? Pretend I'm ready to go? I can release this prince just +as well here as there.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet laughed faintly. +</p> + +<p> +'I should advise your going, grandada.' +</p> + +<p> +'You a weathercock woman!' he reproached her, quite mystified, and fell to +rubbing his head. 'Suppose I go to be snubbed?' +</p> + +<p> +'The prince is a gentleman, grandada. Come with me. We will go alone. You can +relieve the prince, and protect him.' +</p> + +<p> +My father nodded: 'I approve.' +</p> + +<p> +'And grandada—but it will not so much matter if we are alone, though,' +Janet said. +</p> + +<p> +'Speak out.' +</p> + +<p> +'See the princess as well; she must be present.' +</p> + +<p> +'I leave it to you,' he said, crestfallen. +</p> + +<p> +Janet pressed my aunt Dorothy's hand. +</p> + +<p> +'Aunty, you were right, you are always right. This state of suspense is bad all +round, and it is infinitely worse for the prince and princess.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy accepted the eulogy with a singular trembling wrinkle of the +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +She evidently understood that Janet had seen her wish to get released. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I shared my grandfather's stupefaction at their unaccountable +changes. It appeared almost as if my father had won them over to baffle him. +The old man tried to insist on their sitting down again, but Janet +perseveringly smiled and smiled until he stood up. She spoke to him softly. He +was one black frown; displeased with her; obedient, however. +</p> + +<p> +Too soon after, I had the key to the enigmatical scene. At the moment I was +contemptuous of riddles, and heard with idle ears Janet's promptings to him and +his replies. 'It would be so much better to settle it here,' he said. She urged +that it could not be settled here without the whole burden and responsibility +falling upon him. +</p> + +<p> +'Exactly,' interposed my father, triumphing. +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy Beltham came to my side, and said, as if speaking to herself, while she +gazed out of window, 'If a refusal, it should come from the prince.' She +dropped her voice: 'The money has not been spent? Has it? Has any part of it +been spent? Are you sure you have more than three parts of it?' +</p> + +<p> +Now, that she should be possessed by the spirit of parsimony on my behalf at +such a time as this, was to my conception insanely comical, and her manner of +expressing it was too much for me. I kept my laughter under to hear her +continue: 'What numbers are flocking on the pier! and there is no music yet. +Tell me, Harry, that the money is all safe; nearly all; it is important to +know; you promised economy.' +</p> + +<p> +'Music did you speak of, Miss Beltham?' My father bowed to her gallantly. 'I +chanced to overhear you. My private band performs to the public at midday.' +</p> + +<p> +She was obliged to smile to excuse his interruption. +</p> + +<p> +'What's that? whose band?' said the squire, bursting out of Janet's hand. 'A +private band?' +</p> + +<p> +Janet had a difficulty in resuming her command of him. The mention of the +private band made him very restive. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm not acting on my own judgement at all in going to these foreign people,' +he said to Janet. 'Why go? I can have it out here and an end to it, without +bothering them and their interpreters.' +</p> + +<p> +He sang out to me: 'Harry, do you want me to go through this form for +you? —mn'd unpleasant!' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy whispered in my ear: 'Yes! yes!' +</p> + +<p> +'I feel tricked!' he muttered, and did not wait for me to reply before he was +again questioning my aunt Dorothy concerning Mr. Bannerbridge, and my father as +to 'that sum of money.' But his method of interrogation was confused and +pointless. The drift of it was totally obscure. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm off my head to-day,' he said to Janet, with a sideshot of his eye at my +father. +</p> + +<p> +'You waste time and trouble, grandada,' said she. +</p> + +<p> +He vowed that he was being bewildered, bothered by us all; and I thought I had +never seen him so far below his level of energy; but I had not seen him +condescend to put himself upon a moderately fair footing with my father. The +truth was, that Janet had rigorously schooled him to bridle his temper, and he +was no match for the voluble easy man without the freest play of his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +'This prince!' he kept ejaculating. +</p> + +<p> +'Won't you understand, grandada, that you relieve him, and make things clear by +going?' Janet said. +</p> + +<p> +He begged her fretfully not to be impatient, and hinted that she and he might +be acting the part of dupes, and was for pursuing his inauspicious +cross-examination in spite of his blundering, and the 'Where am I now?' which +pulled him up. My father, either talking to my aunt Dorothy, to Janet, or to +me, on ephemeral topics, scarcely noticed him, except when he was questioned, +and looked secure of success in the highest degree consistent with perfect +calmness. +</p> + +<p> +'So you say you tell me to go, do you?' the squire called to me. 'Be good +enough to stay here and wait. I don't see that anything's gained by my going: +it's damned hard on me, having to go to a man whose language I don't know, and +he don't know mine, on a business we're all of us in a muddle about. I'll do it +if it's right. You're sure?' +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at Janet. She nodded. +</p> + +<p> +I was looking for this quaint and, to me, incomprehensible interlude to +commence with the departure of the squire and Janet, when a card was handed in +by one of the hotel-waiters. +</p> + +<p> +'Another prince!' cried the squire. 'These Germans seem to grow princes like +potatoes—dozens to a root! Who's the card for? Ask him to walk up. Show +him into a quiet room. Does he speak English?' +</p> + +<p> +'Does Prince Hermann of—I can't pronounce the name of the +place—speak English, Harry?' Janet asked me. +</p> + +<p> +'As well as you or I,' said I, losing my inattention all at once with a mad +leap of the heart. +</p> + +<p> +Hermann's presence gave light, fire, and colour to the scene in which my +destiny had been wavering from hand to hand without much more than amusedly +interesting me, for I was sure that I had lost Ottilia; I knew that too well, +and worse could not happen. I had besides lost other things that used to +sustain me, and being reckless, I was contemptuous, and listened to the talk +about money with sublime indifference to the subject: with an attitude, too, I +daresay. But Hermann's name revived my torment. Why had he come? to persuade +the squire to control my father? Nothing but that would suffer itself to be +suggested, though conjectures lying in shadow underneath pressed ominously on +my mind. +</p> + +<p> +My father had no doubts. +</p> + +<p> +'A word to you, Mr. Beltham, before you go to Prince Hermann. He is an +emissary, we treat him with courtesy, and if he comes to diplomatize we, of +course, give a patient hearing. I have only to observe in the most emphatic +manner possible that I do not retract one step. I will have this marriage: I +have spoken! It rests with Prince Ernest.' +</p> + +<p> +The squire threw a hasty glare of his eyes back as he was hobbling on Janet's +arm. She stopped short, and replied for him. +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham will speak for himself, in his own name. We are not concerned in +any unworthy treatment of Prince Ernest. We protest against it.' +</p> + +<p> +'Dear young lady!' said my father, graciously. 'I meet you frankly. Now tell +me. I know you a gallant horsewoman: if you had lassoed the noble horse of the +desert would you let him run loose because of his remonstrating? Side with me, +I entreat you! My son is my first thought. The pride of princes and wild horses +you will find wonderfully similar, especially in the way they take their taming +when once they feel they are positively caught. We show him we have him +fast—he falls into our paces on the spot! For Harry's sake—for the +princess's, I beg you exert your universally—deservedly acknowledged +influence. Even now—and you frown on me!—I cannot find it in my +heart to wish you the sweet and admirable woman of the world you are destined +to be, though you would comprehend me and applaud me, for I could not—no, +not to win your favourable opinion!—consent that you should be robbed of +a single ray of your fresh maidenly youth. If you must misjudge me, I submit. +It is the price I pay for seeing you young and lovely. Prince Ernest is, credit +me, not unworthily treated by me, if life is a battle, and the prize of it to +the General's head. I implore you'—he lured her with the dimple of a +lurking smile—'do not seriously blame your afflicted senior, if we are to +differ. I am vastly your elder: you instil the doubt whether I am by as much +the wiser of the two; but the father of Harry Richmond claims to know best what +will ensure his boy's felicity. Is he rash? Pronounce me guilty of an excessive +anxiety for my son's welfare; say that I am too old to read the world with the +accuracy of a youthful intelligence: call me indiscreet: stigmatize me unlucky; +the severest sentence a judge'—he bowed to her deferentially—'can +utter; only do not cast a gaze of rebuke on me because my labour is for my +son—my utmost devotion. And we know, Miss Ilchester, that the princess +honours him with her love. I protest in all candour, I treat love as love; not +as a weight in the scale; it is the heavenly power which dispenses with +weighing! its ascendancy...' +</p> + +<p> +The squire could endure no more, and happily so, for my father was losing his +remarkably moderated tone, and threatening polysyllables. He had followed +Janet, step for step, at a measured distance, drooping toward her with his +winningest air, while the old man pulled at her arm to get her out of hearing +of the obnoxious flatterer. She kept her long head in profile, trying +creditably not to appear discourteous to one who addressed her by showing an +open ear, until the final bolt made by the frenzied old man dragged her through +the doorway. His neck was shortened behind his collar as though he shrugged +from the blast of a bad wind. I believe that, on the whole, Janet was pleased. +I will wager that, left to herself, she would have been drawn into an answer, +if not an argument. Nothing would have made her resolution swerve, I admit. +</p> + +<p> +They had not been out of the room three seconds when my aunt Dorothy was called +to join them. She had found time to say that she hoped the money was intact. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052"></a> +CHAPTER LII.<br/> +STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST</h2> + +<p> +My father and I stood at different windows, observing the unconcerned people +below. +</p> + +<p> +'Did you scheme to bring Prince Hermann over here as well?' I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +He replied laughing: 'I really am not the wonderful wizard you think me, +Richie. I left Prince Ernest's address as mine with Waddy in case the Frau +Feld-Marschall should take it into her head to come. Further than that you must +question Providence, which I humbly thank for its unfailing support, down to +unexpected trifles. Only this—to you and to all of them: nothing bends +me. I will not be robbed of the fruit of a lifetime.' +</p> + +<p> +'Supposing I refuse?' +</p> + +<p> +'You refuse, Richie, to restore the princess her character and the prince his +serenity of mind at their urgent supplication? I am utterly unable to suppose +it. You are married in the papers this morning. I grieve to say that the +position of Prince Hermann is supremely ridiculous. I am bound to add he is a +bold boy. It requires courage in one of the pretenders to the hand of the +princess to undertake the office of intercessor, for he must know—the man +must know in his heart that he is doing her no kindness. He does not appeal to +me, you see. I have shown that my arrangements are unalterable. What he will +make of your grandad!... Why on earth he should have been sent to—of all +men in the world—your grandad, Richie!' +</p> + +<p> +I was invited to sympathetic smiles of shrewd amusement. +</p> + +<p> +He caught sight of friends, and threw up the window, saluting them. +</p> + +<p> +The squire returned with my aunt Dorothy and Janet to behold the detested man +communicating with the outer world from his own rooms. He shouted +unceremoniously, 'Shut that window!' and it was easy to see that he had come +back heavily armed for the offensive. 'Here, Mr. Richmond, I don't want all men +to know you're in my apartments.' +</p> + +<p> +'I forgot, sir, temporarily,' said my father, 'I had vacated the rooms for your +convenience—be assured.' +</p> + +<p> +An explanation on the subject of the rooms ensued between the old man and the +ladies;—it did not improve his temper. +</p> + +<p> +His sense of breeding, nevertheless, forced him to remark, 'I can't thank you, +sir, for putting me under an obligation I should never have incurred myself.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, I was happy to be of use to the ladies, Mr. Beltham, and require no small +coin of exchange,' my father responded with the flourish of a pacifying hand. +'I have just heard from a posse of friends that the marriage is signalled in +this morning's papers—numberless congratulations, I need not observe.' +</p> + +<p> +'No, don't,' said the squire. 'Nobody'll understand them here, and I needn't +ask you to sit down, because I don't want you to stop. I'll soon have done now; +the game's played. Here, Harry, quick; has all that money been spent—no +offence to you, but as a matter of business?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not all, sir,' I was able to say. +</p> + +<p> +'Half?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I think so.' +</p> + +<p> +'Three parts?' +</p> + +<p> +'It may be.' +</p> + +<p> +'And liabilities besides?' +</p> + +<p> +'There are some.' +</p> + +<p> +'You're not a liar. That'll do for you.' +</p> + +<p> +He turned to my aunt: her eyes had shut. +</p> + +<p> +'Dorothy, you've sold out twenty-five thousand pounds' worth of stock. You're a +truthful woman, as I said, and so I won't treat you like a witness in a box. +You gave it to Harry to help him out of his scrape. Why, short of staring +lunacy, did you pass it through the hands of this man? He sweated his thousands +out of it at the start. Why did you make a secret of it to make the man think +his nonsense?—Ma'am, behave like a lady and my daughter,' he cried, +fronting her, for the sudden and blunt attack had slackened her nerves; she +moved as though to escape, and was bewildered. I stood overwhelmed. No wonder +she had attempted to break up the scene. +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me your object, Dorothy Beltham, in passing the money through the hands +of this man? Were you for helping him to be a man of his word? Help the +boy—that I understand. However, you were mistress of your money! I've no +right to complain, if you will go spending a fortune to whitewash the +blackamoor! Well, it's your own, you'll say. So it is: so's your character!' +</p> + +<p> +The egregious mildness of these interjections could not long be preserved. +</p> + +<p> +'You deceived me, ma'am. You wouldn't build school-houses, you couldn't +subscribe to Charities, you acted parsimony, to pamper a scamp and his young +scholar! You went to London—you did it in cool blood; you went to your +stockbroker, and from the stockbroker to the Bank, and you sold out stock to +fling away this big sum. I went to the Bank on business, and the books were +turned over for my name, and there at “Beltham” I saw quite by +chance the cross of the pen, and I saw your folly, ma'am; I saw it all in a +shot. I went to the Bank on my own business, mind that. Ha! you know me by this +time; I loathe spying; the thing jumped out of the book; I couldn't help +seeing. Now I don't reckon how many positive fools go to make one superlative +humbug; you're one of the lot, and I've learnt it.' +</p> + +<p> +My father airily begged leave to say: 'As to positive and superlative, Mr. +Beltham, the three degrees of comparison are no longer of service except to the +trader. I do not consider them to exist for ladies. Your positive is always +particularly open to dispute, and I venture to assert I cap you your +superlative ten times over.' +</p> + +<p> +He talked the stuff for a diversion, presenting in the midst of us an +incongruous image of smiles that filled me with I knew not what feelings of +angry alienation, until I was somewhat appeased by the idea that he had not +apprehended the nature of the words just spoken. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed incredible, yet it was true; it was proved to be so to me by his +pricking his ears and his attentive look at the mention of the word +prepossessing him in relation to the money: Government. +</p> + +<p> +The squire said something of Government to my aunt Dorothy, with sarcastical +emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +As the observation was unnecessary, and was wantonly thrown in by him, she +seized on it to escape from her compromising silence: 'I know nothing of +Government or its ways.' +</p> + +<p> +She murmured further, and looked at Janet, who came to her aid, saying: +'Grandada, we've had enough talk of money, money! All is done that you wanted +done. Stocks, Shares, Banks—we've gone through them all. Please, finish! +Please, do. You have only to state what you have heard from Prince Hermann.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet gazed in the direction of my father, carefully avoiding my eyes, but +evidently anxious to shield my persecuted aunty. +</p> + +<p> +'Speaking of Stocks and Shares, Miss Ilchester,' said my father, 'I myself +would as soon think of walking into a field of scythe-blades in full activity +as of dabbling in them. One of the few instances I remember of our Jorian +stooping to a pun, is upon the contango: ingenious truly, but objectionable, +because a pun. I shall not be guilty of repeating it. “The stockmarket is +the national snapdragon bowl,” he says, and is very amusing upon the +Jews; whether quite fairly, Mr. Beltham knows better than I, on my honour.' +</p> + +<p> +He appealed lightly to the squire, for thus he danced on the crater's brink, +and had for answer, +</p> + +<p> +'You're a cool scoundrel, Richmond.' +</p> + +<p> +'I choose to respect you, rather in spite of yourself, I fear, sir,' said my +father, bracing up. +</p> + +<p> +'Did you hear my conversation with my daughter?' +</p> + +<p> +'I heard, if I may say so, the lion taking his share of it.' +</p> + +<p> +'All roaring to you, was it?' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, we have our little peculiarities; I am accustomed to think of a +steam-vent when I hear you indulging in a sentence of unusual length, and I +hope it is for our good, as I thoroughly believe it is for yours, that you +should deliver yourself freely.' +</p> + +<p> +'So you tell me; like a stage lacquey!' muttered the old man, with surprising +art in caricaturing a weakness in my father's bearing, of which I was cruelly +conscious, though his enunciation was flowing. He lost his naturalness through +forcing for ease in the teeth of insult. +</p> + +<p> +'Grandada, aunty and I will leave you,' said Janet, waxing importunate. +</p> + +<p> +'When I've done,' said he, facing his victim savagely. 'The fellow pretends he +didn't understand. She's here to corroborate. Richmond, there, my daughter, +Dorothy Beltham, there's the last of your fools and dupes. She's a truthful +woman, I'll own, and she'll contradict me if what I say is not the fact. That +twenty-five thousand from “Government” came out of her estate.' +</p> + +<p> +'Out of—' +</p> + +<p> +'Out of be damned, sir! She's the person who paid it.' +</p> + +<p> +'If the “damns” have set up, you may as well let the ladies go,' +said I. +</p> + +<p> +He snapped at me like a rabid dog in career. +</p> + +<p> +'She's the person—one of your petticoat +“Government”—who paid—do you hear me, +Richmond?—the money to help you to keep your word: to help you to give +your Balls and dinners too. She—I won't say she told you, and you knew +it—she paid it. She sent it through her Mr. Bannerbridge. Do you +understand now? You had it from her. My God! look at the fellow!' +</p> + +<p> +A dreadful gape of stupefaction had usurped the smiles on my father's +countenance; his eyes rolled over, he tried to articulate, and was indeed a +spectacle for an enemy. His convulsed frame rocked the syllables, as with a +groan, unpleasant to hear, he called on my aunt Dorothy by successive +stammering apostrophes to explain, spreading his hands wide. He called out her +Christian name. Her face was bloodless. +</p> + +<p> +'Address my daughter respectfully, sir, will you! I won't have your infernal +familiarities!' roared the squire. +</p> + +<p> +'He is my brother-in-law,' said Dorothy, reposing on the courage of her blood, +now that the worst had been spoken. 'Forgive me, Mr. Richmond, for having +secretly induced you to accept the loan from me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Loan!' interjected the squire. 'They fell upon it like a pair of kites. You'll +find the last ghost of a bone of your loan in a bill, and well picked. They've +been doing their bills: I've heard that.' +</p> + +<p> +My father touched the points of his fingers on his forehead, straining to +think, too theatrically, but in hard earnest, I believe. He seemed to be rising +on tiptoe. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh, madam! Dear lady! my friend! Dorothy, my sister! Better a thousand times +that I had married, though I shrank from a heartless union! This +money?—it is not—' +</p> + +<p> +The old man broke in: 'Are you going to be a damned low vulgar comedian and +tale of a trumpet up to the end, you Richmond? Don't think you'll gain anything +by standing there as if you were jumping your trunk from a shark. Come, sir, +you're in a gentleman's rooms; don't pitch your voice like a young jackanapes +blowing into a horn. Your gasps and your spasms, and howl of a yawning brute! +Keep your menagerie performances for your pantomime audiences. What are you +meaning? Do you pretend you're astonished? She's not the first fool of a woman +whose money you've devoured, with your “Madam,” and “My +dear” and mouthing and elbowing your comedy tricks; your gabble of +“Government” protection, and scandalous advertisements of the +by-blow of a star-coated rapscallion. If you've a recollection of the man in +you, show your back, and be off, say you've fought against odds—I don't +doubt you have, counting the constables—and own you're a villain: plead +guilty, and be off and be silent, and do no more harm. Is it +“Government” still?' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy had come round to me. She clutched my arm to restrain me from +speaking, whispering: +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, you can't save him. Think of your own head.' She made me irresolute, +and I was too late to check my father from falling into the trap. +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! Mr. Beltham,' he said, 'you are hard, sir. I put it to you: had you been +in receipt of a secret subsidy from Government for a long course of +years—' +</p> + +<p> +'How long?' the squire interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +Prompt though he would have been to dismiss the hateful person, he was not, one +could see, displeased to use the whip upon so exciteable and responsive a +frame. He seemed to me to be basely guilty of leading his victim on to expose +himself further. +</p> + +<p> +'There's no necessity for “how long,”' I said. +</p> + +<p> +The old man kept the question on his face. +</p> + +<p> +My father reflected. +</p> + +<p> +'I have to hit my memory, I am shattered, sir. I say, you would be justified, +amply justified—' +</p> + +<p> +'How long?' was reiterated. +</p> + +<p> +'I can at least date it from the period of my marriage.' +</p> + +<p> +'From the date when your scoundrelism first touches my family, that's to say! +So “Government” agreed to give you a stipend to support your wife!' +</p> + +<p> +'Mr. Beltham, I breathe with difficulty. It was at that period, on the death of +a nobleman interested in restraining me—I was his debtor for +kindnesses... my head is whirling! I say, at that period, upon the +recommendation of friends of high standing, I began to agitate for the +restitution of my rights. From infancy——' +</p> + +<p> +'To the deuce, your infancy! I know too much about your age. Just hark, you +Richmond! none of your “I was a child” to provoke compassion from +women. I mean to knock you down and make you incapable of hurting these poor +foreign people you trapped. They defy you, and I'll do my best to draw your +teeth. Now for the annuity. You want one to believe 'you thought you frightened +“Government,” eh?' +</p> + +<p> +'Annual proof was afforded me, sir.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! annual! through Mr. Charles Adolphus Bannerbridge, deceased!' +</p> + +<p> +Janet stepped up to my aunt Dorothy to persuade her to leave the room, but she +declined, and hung by me, to keep me out of danger, as she hoped, and she +prompted me with a guarding nervous squeeze of her hand on my arm to answer +temperately when I was questioned: +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, do you suspect Government paid that annuity?' +</p> + +<p> +'Not now, certainly.' +</p> + +<p> +'Tell the man who 'tis you suspect.' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy said: 'Harry is not bound to mention his suspicions.' +</p> + +<p> +'Tell him yourself, then.' +</p> + +<p> +'Does it matter—?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, it matters. I'll break every plank he walks on, and strip him stark till +he flops down shivering into his slough—a convicted common swindler, with +his dinners and Balls and his private bands! Richmond, you killed one of my +daughters; t' other fed you, through her agent, this Mr. Charles Adolphus +Bannerbridge, from about the date of your snaring my poor girl and carrying her +off behind your postillions—your trotting undertakers! and the hours of +her life reckoned in milestones. She's here to contradict me, if she can. +Dorothy Beltham was your “Government” that paid the annuity.' +</p> + +<p> +I took Dorothy Beltham into my arms. She was trembling excessively, yet found +time to say, 'Bear up, dearest; keep still.' All I thought and felt foundered +in tears. +</p> + +<p> +For a while I heard little distinctly of the tremendous tirade which the +vindictive old man, rendered thrice venomous by the immobility of the petrified +large figure opposed to him, poured forth. My poor father did not speak because +he could not; his arms dropped; and such was the torrent of attack, with its +free play of thunder and lightning in the form of oaths, epithets, short and +sharp comparisons, bitter home thrusts and most vehement imprecatory +denunciations, that our protesting voices quailed. Janet plucked at my aunt +Dorothy's dress to bear her away. +</p> + +<p> +'I can't leave my father,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'Nor I you, dear,' said the tender woman; and so we remained to be scourged by +this tongue of incarnate rage. +</p> + +<p> +'You pensioner of a silly country spinster!' sounded like a return to mildness. +My father's chest heaved up. +</p> + +<p> +I took advantage of the lull to make myself heard: I did but heap fuel on fire, +though the old man's splenetic impetus had partly abated. +</p> + +<p> +'You Richmond! do you hear him? he swears he's your son, and asks to be tied to +the stake beside you. Disown him, and I'll pay you money and thank you. I'll +thank my God for anything short of your foul blood in the family. You married +the boy's mother to craze and kill her, and guttle her property. You waited for +the boy to come of age to swallow what was settled on him. You wait for me to +lie in my coffin to pounce on the strongbox you think me the fool to toss to a +young donkey ready to ruin all his belongings for you! For nine-and-twenty +years you've sucked the veins of my family, and struck through my house like a +rotting-disease. Nine-and-twenty years ago you gave a singing-lesson in my +house: the pest has been in it ever since! You breed vermin in the brain to +think of you! Your wife, your son, your dupes, every soul that touches you, +mildews from a blight! You were born of ropery, and you go at it straight, like +a webfoot to water. What's your boast?—your mother's disgrace! You shame +your mother. Your whole life's a ballad o' bastardy. You cry up the woman's +infamy to hook at a father. You swell and strut on her pickings. You're a cock +forced from the smoke of the dunghill! You shame your mother, damned +adventurer! You train your boy for a swindler after your own pattern; you twirl +him in your curst harlequinade to a damnation as sure as your own. The day you +crossed my threshold the devils danced on their flooring. I've never seen the +sun shine fair on me after it. With your guitar under the windows, of moonlight +nights! your Spanish fopperies and trickeries! your French phrases and toeings! +I was touched by a leper. You set your traps for both my girls: you caught the +brown one first, did you, and flung her second for t' other, and drove a tandem +of 'em to live the spangled hog you are; and down went the mother of the boy to +the place she liked better, and my other girl here—the one you cheated +for her salvation—you tried to cajole her from home and me, to send her +the same way down. She stuck to decency. Good Lord! you threatened to hang +yourself, guitar and all. But her purse served your turn. For why? You're a +leech. I speak before ladies or I'd rip your town-life to shreds. Your cause! +your romantic history! your fine figure! every inch of you's notched with +villany! You fasten on every moneyed woman that comes in your way. You've +outdone Herod in murdering the innocents, for he didn't feed on 'em, and +they've made you fat. One thing I'll say of you: you look the beastly thing you +set yourself up for. The kindest blow to you's to call you impostor.' +</p> + +<p> +He paused, but his inordinate passion of speech was unsated: his white lips +hung loose for another eruption. +</p> + +<p> +I broke from my aunt Dorothy to cross over to my father, saying on the way: +'We've heard enough, sir. You forget the cardinal point of invective, which is, +not to create sympathy for the person you assail.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! you come in with your infernal fine language, do you!' the old man +thundered at me. 'I'll just tell you at once, young fellow—' +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy supplicated his attention. 'One error I must correct.' Her +voice issued from a contracted throat, and was painfully thin and straining, as +though the will to speak did violence to her weaker nature. 'My sister loved +Mr. Richmond. It was to save her life, because I believed she loved him much +and would have died, that Mr. Richmond—in pity—offered her his +hand, at my wish': she bent her head: 'at my cost. It was done for me. I wished +it; he obeyed me. No blame—' her dear mouth faltered. 'I am to be +accused, if anybody.' +</p> + +<p> +She added more firmly: 'My money would have been his. I hoped to spare his +feelings, I beg his forgiveness now, by devoting some of it, unknown to him, to +assist him. That was chiefly to please myself, I see, and I am punished.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, ma'am,' said the squire, calm at white heat; 'a fool's confession ought +to be heard out to the end. What about the twenty-five thousand?' +</p> + +<p> +'I hoped to help my Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'Why didn't you do it openly?' +</p> + +<p> +She breathed audible long breaths before she could summon courage to say: 'His +father was going to make an irreparable sacrifice. I feared that if he knew +this money came from me he would reject it, and persist.' +</p> + +<p> +Had she disliked the idea of my father's marrying? +</p> + +<p> +The old man pounced on the word sacrifice. 'What sacrifice, ma'am? What's the +sacrifice?' +</p> + +<p> +I perceived that she could not without anguish, and perhaps peril of a further +exposure, bring herself to speak, and explained: 'It relates to my having tried +to persuade my father to marry a very wealthy lady, so that he might produce +the money on the day appointed. Rail at me, sir, as much as you like. If you +can't understand the circumstances without a chapter of statements, I'm sorry +for you. A great deal is due to you, I know; but I can't pay a jot of it while +you go on rating my father like a madman.' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry!' either my aunt or Janet breathed a warning. +</p> + +<p> +I replied that I was past mincing phrases. The folly of giving the tongue an +airing was upon me: I was in fact invited to continue, and animated to do it +thoroughly, by the old man's expression of face, which was that of one who +says, 'I give you rope,' and I dealt him a liberal amount of stock irony not +worth repeating; things that any cultivated man in anger can drill and sting +the Boeotian with, under the delusion that he has not lost a particle of his +self-command because of his coolness. I spoke very deliberately, and therefore +supposed that the words of composure were those of prudent sense. The error was +manifest. The women saw it. One who has indulged his soul in invective will +not, if he has power in his hand, be robbed of his climax with impunity by a +cool response that seems to trifle, and scourges. +</p> + +<p> +I wound up by thanking my father for his devotion to me: I deemed it, I said, +excessive and mistaken in the recent instance, but it was for me. +</p> + +<p> +Upon this he awoke from his dreamy-looking stupefaction. +</p> + +<p> +'Richie does me justice. He is my dear boy. He loves me: I love him. None can +cheat us of that. He loves his wreck of a father. You have struck me to your +feet, Mr. Beltham.' +</p> + +<p> +'I don't want to see you there, sir; I want to see you go, and not stand +rapping your breast-bone, sounding like a burst drum, as you are,' retorted the +unappeasable old man. +</p> + +<p> +I begged him in exasperation to keep his similes to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Janet and my aunt Dorothy raised their voices. +</p> + +<p> +My father said: 'I am broken.' +</p> + +<p> +He put out a swimming hand that trembled when it rested, like that of an aged +man grasping a staff. I feared for a moment he was acting, he spoke so like +himself, miserable though he appeared: but it was his well-known native old +style in a state of decrepitude. +</p> + +<p> +'I am broken,' he repeated. 'I am like the ancient figure of mortality entering +the mouth of the tomb on a sepulchral monument, somewhere, by a celebrated +sculptor: I have seen it: I forget the city. I shall presently forget names of +men. It is not your abuse, Mr. Beltham. I should have bowed my head to it till +the storm passed. Your facts... Oh! Miss Beltham, this last privilege to call +you dearest of human beings! my benefactress! my blessing! Do not scorn me, +madam.' +</p> + +<p> +'I never did; I never will; I pitied you,' she cried, sobbing. +</p> + +<p> +The squire stamped his foot. +</p> + +<p> +'Madam,' my father bowed gently. 'I was under heaven's special +protection—I thought so. I feel I have been robbed—I have not +deserved it! Oh! madam, no: it was your generosity that I did not deserve. One +of the angels of heaven persuaded me to trust in it. I did not know.... Adieu, +madam. May I be worthy to meet you!—Ay, Mr. Beltham, your facts have +committed the death-wound. You have taken the staff out of my hand: you have +extinguished the light. I have existed—ay, a pensioner, unknowingly, on +this dear lady's charity; to her I say no more. To you, sir, by all that is +most sacred to a man—by the ashes of my mother! by the prospects of my +boy! I swear the annuity was in my belief a tangible token that my claims to +consideration were in the highest sources acknowledged to be just. I cannot +speak! One word to you, Mr. Beltham: put me aside, I am nothing:—Harry +Richmond!—his fortunes are not lost; he has a future! I entreat +you—he is your grandson—give him your support; go this instant to +the prince—no! you will not deny your countenance to Harry Richmond: let +him abjure my name; let me be nameless in his house. And I promise you I shall +be unheard of both in Christendom and Heathendom: I have no heart except for my +boy's nuptials with the princess: this one thing, to see him the husband of the +fairest and noblest lady upon earth, with all the life remaining in me I pray +for! I have won it for him. I have a moderate ability, immense devotion. I +declare to you, sir, I have lived, actually subsisted, on this hope! and I have +directed my efforts incessantly, sleeplessly, to fortify it. I die to do it! I +implore you, sir, go to the prince. If I' (he said this touchingly) 'if I am +any further in anybody's way, it is only as a fallen tree.' But his inveterate +fancifulness led him to add: 'And that may bridge a cataract.' +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather had been clearing his throat two or three times. +</p> + +<p> +'I'm ready to finish and get rid of you, Richmond.' +</p> + +<p> +My father bowed. +</p> + +<p> +'I am gone, sir. I feel I am all but tongue-tied. Think that it is Harry who +petitions you to ensure his happiness. To-day I guarantee it.' +</p> + +<p> +The old man turned an inquiring eyebrow upon me. Janet laid her hand on him. He +dismissed the feline instinct to prolong our torture, and delivered himself +briskly. +</p> + +<p> +'Richmond, your last little bit of villany's broken in the egg. I separate the +boy from you: he's not your accomplice there, I'm glad to know. You witched the +lady over to pounce on her like a fowler, you threatened her father with a +scandal, if he thought proper to force the trap; swore you'd toss her to be +plucked by the gossips, eh? She's free of you! You got your English and your +Germans here to point their bills, and stretch their necks, and hiss, if this +gentleman—and your newspapers!—if he didn't give up to you like a +funky traveller to a highwayman. I remember a tale of a clumsy Turpin, who shot +himself when he was drawing the pistol out of his holsters to frighten the +money-bag out of a market farmer. You've done about the same, you Richmond; +and, of all the damned poor speeches I ever heard from a convicted felon, yours +is the worst—a sheared sheep'd ha' done it more respectably, grant the +beast a tongue! The lady is free of you, I tell you. Harry has to thank you for +that kindness. She—what is it, Janet? Never mind, I've got the +story—she didn't want to marry; but this prince, who called on me just +now, happened to be her father's nominee, and he heard of your scoundrelism, +and he behaved like a man and a gentleman, and offered himself, none too early +nor too late, as it turns out; and the princess, like a good girl, has made +amends to her father by accepting him. I've the word of this Prince Hermann for +it. Now you can look upon a game of stale-mate. If I had gone to the prince, it +wouldn't have been to back your play; but, if you hadn't been guilty of the +tricks of a blackguard past praying for, this princess would never have been +obliged to marry a man to protect her father and herself. They sent him here to +stop any misunderstanding. He speaks good English, so that's certain. Your lies +will be contradicted, every one of 'em, seriatim, in to-morrow's newspapers, +setting the real man in place of the wrong one; and you'll draw no profit from +them in your fashionable world, where you've been grinning lately, like a +blackamoor's head on a conjuror's plate—the devil alone able to account +for the body and joinings. Now you can be off.' +</p> + +<p> +I went up to my father. His plight was more desperate than mine, for I had +resembled the condemned before the firing-party, to whom the expected bullet +brings a merely physical shock. He, poor man, heard his sentence, which is the +heart's pang of death; and how fondly and rootedly he had clung to the idea of +my marriage with the princess was shown in his extinction after this blow. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather chose the moment as a fitting one to ask me for the last time to +take my side. +</p> + +<p> +I replied, without offence in the tones of my voice, that I thought my father +need not lose me into the bargain, after what he had suffered that day. +</p> + +<p> +He just as quietly rejoined with a recommendation to me to divorce myself for +good and all from a scoundrel. +</p> + +<p> +I took my father's arm: he was not in a state to move away unsupported. +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy stood weeping; Janet was at the window, no friend to either of +us. +</p> + +<p> +I said to her, 'You have your wish.' +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head, but did not look back. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather watched me, step by step, until I had reached the door. +</p> + +<p> +'You're going, are you?' he said. 'Then I whistle you off my fingers!' +</p> + +<p> +An attempt to speak was made by my father in the doorway. He bowed wide of the +company, like a blind man. I led him out. +</p> + +<p> +Dimness of sight spared me from seeing certain figures, which were at the +toll-bar of the pier, on the way to quit our shores. What I heard was not of a +character to give me faith in the sanity of the companion I had chosen. He +murmured it at first to himself: +</p> + +<p> +'Waddy shall have her monument!' +</p> + +<p> +My patience was not proof against the repetition of it aloud to me. Had I been +gentler I might have known that his nature was compelled to look forward to +something, and he discerned nothing in the future, save the task of raising a +memorial to a faithful servant. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053"></a> +CHAPTER LIII.<br/> +THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING</h2> + +<p> +My grandfather lived eight months after a scene that had afforded him high +gratification at the heaviest cost a plain man can pay for his pleasures: it +killed him. +</p> + +<p> +My father's supple nature helped him to survive it in apparently unimpeded +health, so that the world might well suppose him unconquerable, as he meant +that it should. But I, who was with him, knew, though he never talked of his +wounds, they had been driven into his heart. He collapsed in speech, and became +what he used to call 'one of the ordinary nodding men,' forsaken of his +swamping initiative. I merely observed him; I did not invite his confidences, +being myself in no mood to give sympathy or to receive it. I was about as +tender in my care of him as a military escort bound to deliver up a captive +alive. +</p> + +<p> +I left him at Bulsted on my way to London to face the creditors. Adversity had +not lowered the admiration of the captain and his wife for the magnificent host +of those select and lofty entertainments which I was led by my errand to +examine in the skeleton, and with a wonder as big as theirs, but of another +complexion: They hung about him, and perused and petted him quaintly; it was +grotesque; they thought him deeply injured: by what, by whom, they could not +say; but Julia was disappointed in me for refraining to come out with a sally +on his behalf. He had quite intoxicated their imaginations. Julia told me of +the things he did not do as marvellingly as of the things he did or had done; +the charm, it seemed, was to find herself familiar with him to the extent of +all but nursing him and making him belong to her. Pilgrims coming upon the +source of the mysteriously-abounding river, hardly revere it the less because +they love it more when they behold the babbling channels it issues from; and +the sense of possession is the secret, I suppose. Julia could inform me +rapturously that her charge had slept eighteen hours at a spell. His remarks +upon the proposal to fetch a doctor, feeble in themselves, were delicious to +her, because they recalled his old humour to show his great spirit, and from +her and from Captain William in turn I was condemned to hear how he had said +this and that of the doctor, which in my opinion might have been more concise. +'Really, deuced good indeed!' Captain William would exclaim. 'Don't you see it, +Harry, my boy? He denies the doctor has a right to cast him out of the world on +account of his having been the official to introduce him, and he'll only +consent to be visited when he happens to be as incapable of resisting as upon +their very first encounter.' +</p> + +<p> +The doctor and death and marriage, I ventured to remind the captain, had been +riddled in this fashion by the whole army of humourists and their echoes. +</p> + +<p> +He and Julia fancied me cold to my father's merits. Fond as they were of the +squire, they declared war against him in private, they criticized Janet, they +thought my aunt Dorothy slightly wrong in making a secret of her good deed: my +father was the victim. Their unabated warmth consoled me in the bitterest of +seasons. He found a home with them at a time when there would have been a +battle at every step. The world soon knew that my grandfather had cast me off, +and with this foundation destroyed, the entire fabric of the Grand Parade fell +to the ground at once. The crash was heavy. Jorian DeWitt said truly that what +a man hates in adversity is to see 'faces'; meaning that the humanity has gone +out of them in their curious observation of you under misfortune. You see +neither friends nor enemies. You are too sensitive for friends, and are blunted +against enemies. You see but the mask of faces: my father was sheltered from +that. Julia consulted his wishes in everything; she set traps to catch his +whims, and treated them as birds of paradise; she could submit to have the +toppling crumpled figure of a man, Bagenhope, his pensioner and singular +comforter, in her house. The little creature was fetched out of his haunts in +London purposely to soothe my father with performances on his ancient +clarionet, a most querulous plaintive instrument in his discoursing, almost the +length of himself; and she endured the nightly sound of it in the guest's blue +bedroom, heroically patient, a model to me. Bagenhope drank drams: she +allowanced him. He had known my father's mother, and could talk of her in his +cups: his playing, and his aged tunes, my father said, were a certification to +him that he was at the bottom of the ladder. Why that should afford him +peculiar comfort, none of us could comprehend. 'He was the humble lover of my +mother, Richie,' I heard with some confusion, and that he adored her memory. +The statement was part of an entreaty to me to provide liberally for +Bagenhope's pension before we quitted England. 'I am not seriously anxious for +much else,' said my father. Yet was he fully conscious of the defeat he had +sustained and the catastrophe he had brought down upon me: his touch of my hand +told me that, and his desire for darkness and sleep. He had nothing to look to, +nothing to see twinkling its radiance for him in the dim distance now; no +propitiating Government, no special Providence. But he never once put on a +sorrowful air to press for pathos, and I thanked him. He was a man endowed to +excite it in the most effective manner, to a degree fearful enough to win +English sympathies despite his un-English faults. He could have drawn tears in +floods, infinite pathetic commiseration, from our grangousier public, whose +taste is to have it as it may be had to the mixture of one-third of nature in +two-thirds of artifice. I believe he was expected to go about with this +beggar's petition for compassion, and it was a disappointment to the generous, +for which they punished him, that he should have abstained. And moreover his +simple quietude was really touching to true-hearted people. The elements of +pathos do not permit of their being dispensed from a stout smoking bowl. I have +to record no pathetic field-day. My father was never insincere in emotion. +</p> + +<p> +I spared his friends, chums, associates, excellent men of a kind, the trial of +their attachment by shunning them. His servants I dismissed personally, from M. +Alphonse down to the coachman Jeremy, whose speech to me was, that he should be +happy to serve my father again, or me, if he should happen to be out of a +situation when either of us wanted him, which at least showed his preference +for employment: on the other hand, Alphonse, embracing the grand extremes of +his stereotyped national oratory, where 'SI JAMAIS,' like the herald Mercury +new-mounting, takes its august flight to set in the splendour of 'ausqu'n LA +MORT,' declared all other service than my father's repugnant, and vowed himself +to a hermitage, remote from condiments. They both meant well, and did but speak +the diverse language of their blood. Mrs. Waddy withdrew a respited heart to +Dipwell; it being, according to her experiences, the third time that my father +had relinquished house and furniture to go into eclipse on the Continent after +blazing over London. She strongly recommended the Continent for a place of +restoration, citing his likeness to that animal the chameleon, in the readiness +with which he forgot himself among them that knew nothing of him. We quitted +Bulsted previous to the return of the family to Riversley. My grandfather lay +at the island hotel a month, and was brought home desperately ill. Lady Edbury +happened to cross the channel with us. She behaved badly, I thought; foolishly, +my father said. She did as much as obliqueness of vision and sharpness of +feature could help her to do to cut him in the presence of her party: and he +would not take nay. It seemed in very bad taste on his part; he explained to me +off-handedly that he insisted upon the exchange of a word or two for the single +purpose of protecting her from calumny. By and by it grew more explicable to me +how witless she had been to give gossip a handle in the effort to escape it. +She sent for him in Paris, but he did not pay the visit. +</p> + +<p> +My grandfather and I never saw one another again. He had news of me from +various quarters, and I of him from one; I was leading a life in marked +contrast from the homely Riversley circle of days: and this likewise was set in +the count of charges against my father. Our Continental pilgrimage ended in a +course of riotousness that he did not participate in, and was entirely innocent +of, but was held accountable for, because he had been judged a sinner. +</p> + +<p> +'I am ordered to say,' Janet wrote, scrupulously obeying the order, 'that if +you will leave Paris and come home, and not delay in doing it, your grandfather +will receive you on the same footing as heretofore.' +</p> + +<p> +As heretofore! in a letter from a young woman supposed to nourish a softness! +</p> + +<p> +I could not leave my father in Paris, alone; I dared not bring him to London. +In wrath at what I remembered, I replied that I was willing to return to +Riversley if my father should find a welcome as well. +</p> + +<p> +Janet sent a few dry lines to summon me over in April, a pleasant month on +heath-lands when the Southwest sweeps them. The squire was dead. I dropped my +father at Bulsted. I could have sworn to the terms of the Will; Mr. Burgin had +little to teach me. Janet was the heiress; three thousand pounds per annum fell +to the lot of Harry Lepel Richmond, to be paid out of the estate, and pass in +reversion to his children, or to Janet's should the aforesaid Harry die +childless. +</p> + +<p> +I was hard hit, and chagrined, but I was not at all angry, for I knew what the +Will meant. My aunt Dorothy supplied the interlining eagerly to mollify the +seeming cruelty. 'You have only to ask to have it all, Harry.' The sturdy +squire had done his utmost to forward his cherished wishes after death. My aunt +received five-and-twenty thousand pounds, the sum she had thrown away. 'I +promised that no money of mine should go where the other went,' she said. +</p> + +<p> +The surprise in store for me was to find how much this rough-worded old man had +been liked by his tenantry, his agents and servants. I spoke of it to Janet. +'They loved him,' she said. 'No one who ever met him fairly could help loving +him.' They followed him to his grave in a body. From what I chanced to hear +among them, their squire was the man of their hearts: in short, an Englishman +of the kind which is perpetually perishing out of the land. Janet expected me +to be enthusiastic likewise, or remorseful. She expected sympathy; she read me +the long list of his charities. I was reminded of Julia Bulsted commenting on +my father, with her this he did and that. 'He had plenty,' I said, and Janet +shut her lips. Her coldness was irritating. +</p> + +<p> +What ground of accusation had she against me? Our situation had become so +delicate that a cold breath sundered us as far as the Poles. I was at liberty +to suspect that now she was the heiress, her mind was simply obedient to her +grandada's wish; but, as I told my aunt Dorothy, I would not do her that +injustice. +</p> + +<p> +'No,' said Dorothy; 'it is the money that makes her position so difficult, +unless you break the ice.' +</p> + +<p> +I urged that having steadily refused her before, I could hardly advance without +some invitation now. +</p> + +<p> +'What invitation?' said my aunt. +</p> + +<p> +'Not a corpse-like consent,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Harry,' she twitted me, 'you have not forgiven her.' That was true. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Roderick and Lady Ilchester did not conceal their elation at their +daughter's vast inheritance, though the lady appealed to my feelings in stating +that her son Charles was not mentioned in the Will. Sir Roderick talked of the +squire with personal pride:—'Now, as to his management of those unwieldy +men, his miners they sent him up the items of their complaints. He took them +one by one, yielding here, discussing there, and holding to his point. So the +men gave way; he sent them a month's pay to reward them for their good sense. +He had the art of moulding the men who served him in his own likeness. His +capacity for business was extraordinary; you never expected it of a country +gentleman. He more than quadrupled his inheritance—much more!' I state it +to the worthy Baronet's honour, that although it would have been immensely to +his satisfaction to see his daughter attracting the suitor proper to an heiress +of such magnitude, he did not attempt to impose restriction upon my interviews +with Janet: Riversley was mentioned as my home. I tried to feel at home; the +heir of the place seemed foreign, and so did Janet. I attributed it partly to +her deep mourning dress that robed her in so sedate a womanliness, partly, in +spite of myself, to her wealth. +</p> + +<p> +'Speak to her kindly of your grandfather,' said my aunt Dorothy. To do so, +however, as she desired it, would be to be guilty of a form of hypocrisy, and I +belied my better sentiments by keeping silent. Thus, having ruined myself +through anger, I allowed silly sensitiveness to prevent the repair. +</p> + +<p> +It became known that my father was at Bulsted. +</p> + +<p> +I saw trouble one morning on Janet's forehead. +</p> + +<p> +We had a conversation that came near to tenderness; at last she said: 'Will you +be able to forgive me if I have ever the misfortune to offend you?' +</p> + +<p> +'You won't offend me,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +She hoped not. +</p> + +<p> +I rallied her: 'Tut, tut, you talk like any twelve-years-old, Janet.' +</p> + +<p> +'I offended you then!' +</p> + +<p> +'Every day! it's all that I care much to remember.' +</p> + +<p> +She looked pleased, but I was so situated that I required passion and +abandonment in return for a confession damaging to my pride. Besides, the +school I had been graduating in of late unfitted me for a young English +gentlewoman's shades and intervolved descents of emotion. A glance up and a +dimple in the cheek, were pretty homely things enough, not the blaze I wanted +to unlock me, and absolutely thought I had deserved. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Roderick called her to the library on business, which he was in the habit +of doing ten times a day, as well as of discussing matters of business at +table, ostentatiously consulting his daughter, with a solemn countenance and a +transparently reeling heart of parental exultation. 'Janet is supreme,' he +would say: 'my advice is simple advice; I am her chief agent, that is all.' Her +chief agent, as director of three Companies and chairman of one, was perhaps +competent to advise her, he remarked. Her judgement upon ordinary matters he +agreed with my grandfather in thinking consummate. +</p> + +<p> +Janet went to him, and shortly after drove him to the station for London. My +aunt Dorothy had warned me that she was preparing some deed in my favour, and +as I fancied her father to have gone to London for that purpose, and supposed +she would now venture to touch on it, I walked away from the East gates of the +park as soon as I heard the trot of her ponies, and was led by an evil fate +(the stuff the fates are composed of in my instance I have not kept secret) to +walk Westward. Thither my evil fate propelled me, where accident was ready to +espouse it and breed me mortifications innumerable. My father chanced to have +heard the particulars of Squire Beltham's will that morning: I believe Captain +William's coachman brushed the subject despondently in my interests; it did not +reach him through Julia. +</p> + +<p> +He stood outside the Western gates, and as I approached, I could perceive a +labour of excitement on his frame. He pulled violently at the bars of the +obstruction. +</p> + +<p> +'Richie, I am interdicted house and grounds!' he called, and waved his hand +toward the lodge: 'they decline to open to me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Were you denied admission?' I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +'—Your name, if you please, sir?—Mr. Richmond Roy.—We are +sorry we have orders not to admit you. And they declined; they would not admit +me to see my son.' +</p> + +<p> +'Those must be the squire's old orders,' I said, and shouted to the +lodge-keeper. +</p> + +<p> +My father, with the forethoughtfulness which never forsook him, stopped me. +</p> + +<p> +'No, Richie, no; the good woman shall not have the responsibility of letting me +in against orders; she may be risking her place, poor soul! Help me, dear lad.' +</p> + +<p> +He climbed the bars to the spikes, tottering, and communicating a convulsion to +me as I assisted him in the leap down: no common feat for one of his age and +weight. +</p> + +<p> +He leaned on me, quaking. +</p> + +<p> +'Impossible! Richie, impossible!' he cried, and reviewed a series of +interjections. +</p> + +<p> +It was some time before I discovered that they related to the Will. He was +frenzied, and raved, turning suddenly from red to pale under what I feared were +redoubtable symptoms, physical or mental. He came for sight of the Will; he +would contest it, overthrow it. Harry ruined? He would see Miss Beltham and +fathom the plot;—angel, he called her, and was absurdly exclamatory, but +in dire earnest. He must have had the appearance of a drunken man to persons +observing him from the Grange windows. +</p> + +<p> +My father was refused admission at the hall-doors. +</p> + +<p> +The butler, the brute Sillabin, withstood me impassively. +</p> + +<p> +Whose orders had he? +</p> + +<p> +Miss Ilchester's. +</p> + +<p> +'They are afraid of me!' my father thundered. +</p> + +<p> +I sent a message to Janet. +</p> + +<p> +She was not long in coming, followed by a footman who handed a twist of +note-paper from my aunt Dorothy to my father. He opened it and made believe to +read it, muttering all the while of the Will. +</p> + +<p> +Janet dismissed the men-servants. She was quite colourless. +</p> + +<p> +'We have been stopped in the doorway,' I said. +</p> + +<p> +She answered: 'I wish it could have been prevented.' +</p> + +<p> +'You take it on yourself, then?' +</p> + +<p> +She was inaudible. +</p> + +<p> +'My dear Janet, you call Riversley my home, don't you?' +</p> + +<p> +'It is yours.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you intend to keep up this hateful feud now my grandfather is dead?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, Harry, not I.' +</p> + +<p> +'Did you give orders to stop my father from entering the house and grounds?' +</p> + +<p> +'I did.' +</p> + +<p> +'You won't have him here?' +</p> + +<p> +'Dear Harry, I hoped he would not come just yet.' +</p> + +<p> +'But you gave the orders?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'You're rather incomprehensible, my dear Janet.' +</p> + +<p> +'I wish you could understand me, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'You arm your servants against him!' +</p> + +<p> +'In a few days—' she faltered. +</p> + +<p> +'You insult him and me now,' said I, enraged at the half indication of her +relenting, which spoiled her look of modestly-resolute beauty, and seemed to +show that she meant to succumb without letting me break her. 'You are mistress +of the place.' +</p> + +<p> +'I am. I wish I were not.' +</p> + +<p> +'You are mistress of Riversley, and you refuse to let my father come in!' +</p> + +<p> +'While I am the mistress, yes.' +</p> + +<p> +'Anywhere but here, Harry! If he will see me or aunty, if he will kindly +appoint any other place, we will meet him, we shall be glad.' +</p> + +<p> +'I request you to let him enter the house. Do you consent or not?' +</p> + +<p> +'He was refused once at these doors. Do you refuse him a second time?' +</p> + +<p> +'I do.' +</p> + +<p> +'You mean that?' +</p> + +<p> +'I am obliged to.' +</p> + +<p> +'You won't yield a step to me?' +</p> + +<p> +'I cannot.' +</p> + +<p> +The spirit of an armed champion was behind those mild features, soft almost to +supplication to me, that I might know her to be under a constraint. The nether +lip dropped in breathing, the eyes wavered: such was her appearance in open war +with me, but her will was firm. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I was not so dense as to be unable to perceive her grounds for +refusing. +</p> + +<p> +She would not throw the burden on her grandada, even to propitiate me—the +man she still loved. +</p> + +<p> +But that she should have a reason, and think it good, in spite of me, and cling +to it, defying me, and that she should do hurt to a sentient human creature, +who was my father, for the sake of blindly obeying to the letter the injunction +of the dead, were intolerable offences to me and common humanity. I, for my own +part, would have forgiven her, as I congratulated myself upon reflecting. It +was on her account—to open her mind, to enlighten her concerning right +and wrong determination, to bring her feelings to bear upon a crude +judgement—that I condescended to argue the case. Smarting with +admiration, both of the depths and shallows of her character, and of her fine +figure, I began:—She was to consider how young she was to pretend to +decide on the balance of duties, how little of the world she had seen; an oath +sworn at the bedside of the dead was a solemn thing, but was it Christian to +keep it to do an unnecessary cruelty to the living? if she had not studied +philosophy, she might at least discern the difference between just resolves and +insane—between those the soul sanctioned, and those hateful to nature; to +bind oneself to carry on another person's vindictiveness was voluntarily to +adopt slavery; this was flatly-avowed insanity, and so forth, with an emphatic +display of patience. +</p> + +<p> +The truth of my words could not be controverted. Unhappily I confounded right +speaking with right acting, and conceived, because I spoke so justly, that I +was specially approved in pressing her to yield. +</p> + +<p> +She broke the first pause to say, 'It's useless, Harry. I do what I think I am +bound to do.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then I have spoken to no purpose!' +</p> + +<p> +'If you will only be kind, and wait two or three days?' +</p> + +<p> +'Be sensible!' +</p> + +<p> +'I am, as much as I can be.' +</p> + +<p> +'Hard as a flint—you always were! The most grateful woman alive, I admit. +I know not another, I assure you, Janet, who, in return for millions of money, +would do such a piece of wanton cruelty. What! You think he was not punished +enough when he was berated and torn to shreds in your presence? They would be +cruel, perhaps—we will suppose it of your sex—but not so fond of +their consciences as to stamp a life out to keep an oath. I forget the terms of +the Will. Were you enjoined in it to force him away?' +</p> + +<p> +My father had stationed himself in the background. Mention of the Will caught +his ears, and he commenced shaking my aunt Dorothy's note, blinking and +muttering at a great rate, and pressing his temples. +</p> + +<p> +'I do not read a word of this,' he said,—'upon my honour, not a word; and +I know it is her handwriting. That Will!—only, for the love of heaven, +madam,'—he bowed vaguely to Janet 'not a syllable of this to the +princess, or we are destroyed. I have a great bell in my head, or I would say +more. Hearing is out of the question.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet gazed piteously from him to me. +</p> + +<p> +To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common. +</p> + +<p> +I begged my father to walk along the carriage-drive. He required that the +direction should be pointed out accurately, and promptly obeyed me, saying: 'I +back you, remember. I should certainly be asleep now but for this extraordinary +bell.' After going some steps, he turned to shout 'Gong,' and touched his ear. +He walked loosely, utterly unlike the walk habitual to him even recently in +Paris. +</p> + +<p> +'Has he been ill?' Janet asked. +</p> + +<p> +'He won't see the doctor; the symptoms threaten apoplexy or paralysis, I'm +told. Let us finish. You were aware that you were to inherit Riversley?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, Riversley, Harry; I knew that; I knew nothing else.' +</p> + +<p> +'The old place was left to you that you might bar my father out?' +</p> + +<p> +'I gave my word.' +</p> + +<p> +'You pledged it—swore?' +</p> + +<p> +'No.' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, you've done your worst, my dear. If the axe were to fall on your neck +for it, you would still refuse, would you not?' +</p> + +<p> +Janet answered softly: 'I believe so.' +</p> + +<p> +'Then, good-bye,' said I. +</p> + +<p> +That feminine softness and its burden of unalterable firmness pulled me two +ways, angering me all the more that I should feel myself susceptible to a charm +which came of spiritual rawness rather than sweetness; for she needed not to +have made the answer in such a manner; there was pride in it; she liked the +soft sound of her voice while declaring herself invincible: I could see her +picturing herself meek but fixed. +</p> + +<p> +'Will you go, Harry? Will you not take Riversley?' she said. +</p> + +<p> +I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +'To spare you the repetition of the dilemma?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, Harry; but this might be done.' +</p> + +<p> +'But—my fullest thanks to you for your generosity: really! I speak in +earnest: it would be decidedly against your grandada's wishes, seeing that he +left the Grange to you, and not to me.' +</p> + +<p> +'Grandada's wishes! I cannot carry out all his wishes,' she sighed. +</p> + +<p> +'Are you anxious to?' +</p> + +<p> +We were on the delicate ground, as her crimson face revealed to me that she +knew as well as I. +</p> + +<p> +I, however, had little delicacy in leading her on it. She might well feel that +she deserved some wooing. +</p> + +<p> +I fancied she was going to be overcome, going to tremble and show herself ready +to fall on my bosom, and I was uncertain of the amount of magnanimity in store +there. +</p> + +<p> +She replied calmly, 'Not immediately.' +</p> + +<p> +'You are not immediately anxious to fulfil his wishes?' +</p> + +<p> +'Harry, I find it hard to do those that are thrust on me.' +</p> + +<p> +'But, as a matter of serious obligation, you would hold yourself bound by and +by to perform them all?' +</p> + +<p> +'I cannot speak any further of my willingness, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +'The sense of duty is evidently always sufficient to make you act upon the +negative—to deny, at least?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, I daresay,' said Janet. +</p> + +<p> +We shook hands like a pair of commercial men. +</p> + +<p> +I led my father to Bulsted. He was too feverish to remain there. In the +evening, after having had a fruitless conversation with my aunt Dorothy upon +the event of the day, I took him to London that he might visit his lawyers, who +kindly consented to treat him like doctors, when I had arranged to make over to +them three parts of my annuity, and talked of his Case encouragingly; the +effect of which should not have astonished me. He closed a fit of reverie +resembling his drowsiness, by exclaiming: 'Richie will be indebted to his dad +for his place in the world after all!' Temporarily, he admitted, we must be +fugitives from creditors, and as to that eccentric tribe, at once so human and +so inhuman, he imparted many curious characteristics gained of his experience. +Jorian DeWitt had indeed compared them to the female ivy that would ultimately +kill its tree, but inasmuch as they were parasites, they loved their debtor; he +was life and support to them, and there was this remarkable fact about them: by +slipping out of their clutches at critical moments when they would infallibly +be pulling you down, you were enabled to return to them fresh, and they became +inspired with another lease of lively faith in your future: et caetera. I knew +the language. It was a flash of himself, and a bad one, but I was not the +person whom he meant to deceive with it. He was soon giving me other than +verbal proof out of England that he was not thoroughly beaten. We had no home +in England. At an hotel in Vienna, upon the close of the aristocratic season +there, he renewed an acquaintance with a Russian lady, Countess Kornikoff, and +he and I parted. She disliked the Margravine of Rippau, who was in Vienna, and +did not recognize us. I heard that it was the Margravine who had despatched +Prince Hermann to England as soon as she discovered Ottilia's flight thither. +She commissioned him to go straightway to Roy in London, and my father's having +infatuatedly left his own address for Prince Ernest's in the island, brought +Hermann down: he only met Eckart in the morning train. I mention it to show the +strange working of events. +</p> + +<p> +Janet sent me a letter by the hands of Temple in August. It was moderately well +written for so blunt a writer, and might have touched me but for other news +coming simultaneously that shook the earth under my feet. +</p> + +<p> +She begged my forgiveness for her hardness, adding characteristically that she +could never have acted in any other manner. The delusion, that what she was she +must always be, because it was her nature, had mastered her understanding, or +rather it was one of the doors of her understanding not yet opened: she had to +respect her grandada's wishes. She made it likewise appear that she was ready +for further sacrifices to carry out the same. +</p> + +<p> +'At least you will accept a division of the property, Harry. It should be +yours. It is an excess, and I feel it a snare to me. I was a selfish child: I +may not become an estimable woman. You have not pardoned my behaviour at the +island last year, and I cannot think I was wrong: perhaps I might learn: I want +your friendship and counsel. Aunty will live with me: she says that you would +complete us. At any rate I transfer Riversley to you. Send me your consent. +Papa will have it before the transfer is signed.' +</p> + +<p> +The letter ended with an adieu, a petition for an answer, and 'yours +affectionately.' +</p> + +<p> +On the day of its date, a Viennese newspaper lying on the Salzburg Hotel table +chronicled Ottilia's marriage with Prince Hermann. +</p> + +<p> +I turned on Temple to walk him off his legs if I could. +</p> + +<p> +Carry your fever to the Alps, you of minds diseased not to sit down in sight of +them ruminating, for bodily ease and comfort will trick the soul and set you +measuring our lean humanity against yonder sublime and infinite; but mount, +rack the limbs, wrestle it out among the peaks; taste danger, sweat, earn rest: +learn to discover ungrudgingly that haggard fatigue is the fair vision you have +run to earth, and that rest is your uttermost reward. Would you know what it is +to hope again, and have all your hopes at hand?—hang upon the crags at a +gradient: that makes your next step a debate between the thing you are and the +thing you may become. There the merry little hopes grow for the climber like +flowers and food, immediate, prompt to prove their uses, sufficient: if just +within the grasp, as mortal hopes should be. How the old lax life closes in +about you there! You are the man of your faculties, nothing more. Why should a +man pretend to more? We ask it wonderingly when we are healthy. Poetic +rhapsodists in the vales below may tell you of the joy and grandeur of the +upper regions, they cannot pluck you the medical herb. He gets that for himself +who wanders the marshy ledge at nightfall to behold the distant Sennhiittchen +twinkle, who leaps the green-eyed crevasses, and in the solitude of an emerald +alp stretches a salt hand to the mountain kine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0054" id="link2HCH0054"></a> +CHAPTER LIV.<br/> +MY RETURN TO ENGLAND</h2> + +<p> +I passed from the Alps to the desert, and fell in love with the East, until it +began to consume me. History, like the air we breathe, must be in motion to +keep us uncorrupt: otherwise its ancient homes are infectious. My passion for +the sun and his baked people lasted awhile, the drudgery of the habit of +voluntary exile some time longer, and then, quite unawares, I was seized with a +thirst for England, so violent that I abandoned a correspondence of several +months, lying for me both at Damascus and Cairo, to catch the boat for Europe. +A dream of a rainy morning, in the midst of the glowing furnace, may have been +the origin of the wild craving I had for my native land and Janet. The moist +air of flying showers and drenched spring buds surrounded her; I saw her +plainly lifting a rose's head; was it possible I had ever refused to be her +yokefellow? Could so noble a figure of a fair young woman have been offered and +repudiated again and again by a man in his senses? I spurned the intolerable +idiot, to stop reflection. Perhaps she did likewise now. There was nothing to +alarm me save my own eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +The news of my father was perplexing, leading me to suppose him re-established +in London, awaiting the coming on of his Case. Whence the money? +</p> + +<p> +Money and my father, I knew, met as they divided, fortuitously; in illustration +of which, I well remembered, while passing in view of the Key of the Adige +along the Lombard plain, a circumstance during my Alpine tour with Temple, of +more importance to him than to me, when my emulous friend, who would never be +beaten, sprained his ankle severely on the crags of a waterfall, not far from +Innsbruck, and was invited into a house by a young English lady, daughter of a +retired Colonel of Engineers of our army. The colonel was an exile from his +country for no grave crime: but, as he told us, as much an exile as if he had +committed a capital offence in being the father of nine healthy girls. He had +been, against his judgement, he averred, persuaded to fix on his Tyrolese spot +of ground by the two elder ones. Five were now married to foreigners; thus they +repaid him, by scattering good English blood on the race of Counts and +Freiherrs! 'I could understand the decrees of Providence before I was a +parent,' said this dear old Colonel Heddon. 'I was looking up at the rainbow +when I heard your steps, asking myself whether it was seen in England at that +instant, and why on earth I should be out of England!' He lived abroad to be +able to dower his girls. His sons-in-law were gentlemen; so far he was +condemned to be satisfied, but supposing all his girls married foreigners? His +primitive frankness charmed us, and it struck me that my susceptible Temple +would have liked to be in a position to reassure him with regard to the Lucy of +the four. We were obliged to confess that she was catching a foreign accent. +The old colonel groaned. He begged us to forgive him for not treating us as +strangers; his heart leapt out to young English gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +My name, he said, reminded him of a great character at home, in the old days: a +certain Roy-Richmond, son of an actress and somebody, so the story went: and +there was an old Lord Edbury who knew more about it than most. 'Now Roy was an +adventurer, but he had a soul of true chivalry, by gad, he had! Plenty of +foreign whiffmajigs are to be found, but you won't come upon a fellow like +that. Where he got his money from none knew: all I can say is, I don't believe +he ever did a dirty action for it. And one matter I'll tell you of: pardon me a +moment, Mr. Richmond, I haven't talked English for half a century, or, at +least, a quarter. Old Lord Edbury put him down in his will for some thousands, +and he risked it to save a lady, who hated him for his pains. Lady Edbury was +of the Bolton blood, none of the tamest; they breed good cavalry men. She ran +away from her husband once. The old lord took her back. “It's at your +peril, mind!” says she. Well, Roy hears by-and-by of a fresh affair. He +mounted horse; he was in the saddle, I've been assured, a night and a day, and +posted himself between my lady's park-gates, and the house, at dusk. The rumour +ran that he knew of the marquis playing spy on his wife. However, such was the +fact; she was going off again, and the marquis did play the mean part. She +walked down the parkroad, and, seeing the cloaked figure of a man, she imagined +him to be her Lothario, and very naturally, you will own, fell into his arms. +The gentleman in question was an acquaintance of mine; and the less you follow +our example the better for you. It was a damnable period in morals! He told me +that he saw the scene from the gates, where he had his carriage-and-four ready. +The old lord burst out of an ambush on his wife and her supposed paramour; the +lady was imprisoned in her rescuer's arms, and my friend retired on tiptoe, +which was, I incline to think, the best thing he could do. Our morals were +abominable. Lady Edbury would never see Roy-Richmond after that, nor the old +lord neither. He doubled the sum he had intended to leave him, though. I heard +that he married a second young wife. Roy, I believe, ended by marrying a great +heiress, and reforming. He was an eloquent fellow, and stood like a general in +full uniform, cocked hat and feathers; most amusing fellow at table; beat a +Frenchman for anecdote.' +</p> + +<p> +I spared Colonel Heddon the revelation of my relationship to his hero, thanking +his garrulity for interrupting me. +</p> + +<p> +How I pitied him when I drove past the gates of the main route to Innsbruck! +For I was bound homeward: I should soon see England, green cloudy England, the +white cliffs, the meadows, the heaths! And I thanked the colonel again in my +heart for having done something to reconcile me to the idea of that strange +father of mine. +</p> + +<p> +A banner-like stream of morning-coloured smoke rolled North-eastward as I +entered London, and I drove to Temple's chambers. He was in Court, engaged in a +case as junior to his father. Temple had become that radiant human creature, a +working man, then? I walked slowly to the Court, and saw him there, hardly +recognising him in his wig. All that he had to do was to prompt his father in a +case of collision at sea; the barque Priscilla had run foul of a merchant brig, +near the mouth of the Thames, and though I did not expect it on hearing the +vessel's name, it proved to be no other than the barque Priscilla of Captain +Jasper Welsh. Soon after I had shaken Temple's hand, I was going through the +same ceremony with the captain himself, not at all changed in appearance, who +blessed his heart for seeing me, cried out that a beard and mustachios made a +foreign face of a young Englishman, and was full of the 'providential' +circumstance of his having confided his case to Temple and his father. +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, ay, Captain Welsh,' said Temple, 'we have pulled you through, only another +time mind you keep an eye on that look-out man of yours. Some of your men, I +suspect, see double with an easy conscience. A close net makes slippery eels.' +</p> + +<p> +'Have you anything to say against my men?' the captain inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Temple replied that he would talk to him about it presently, and laughed as he +drew me away. +</p> + +<p> +'His men will get him into a deuce of a scrape some day, Richie. I shall put +him on his guard. Have you had all my letters? You look made of iron. I'm +beginning capitally, not afraid of the Court a bit, and I hope I'm not pert. I +wish your father had taken it better!' +</p> + +<p> +'Taken what?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Haven't you heard from him?' +</p> + +<p> +'Two or three times: a mass of interjections.' +</p> + +<p> +'You know he brought his Case forward at last? Of course it went as we all knew +it would.' +</p> + +<p> +'Where is he? Have you seen Janet lately?' +</p> + +<p> +'He is at Miss Ilchester's house in London.' +</p> + +<p> +'Write the address on a card.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple wrote it rather hesitatingly, I thought. +</p> + +<p> +We talked of seeing one another in the evening, and I sprang off to Janet's +residence, forgetting to grasp my old friend's hand at parting. I was madly +anxious to thank her for the unexpected tenderness to my father. And now +nothing stood between us! +</p> + +<p> +My aunt Dorothy was the first to welcome me. 'He must be prepared for the sight +of you, Harry. The doctors say that a shock may destroy him. Janet treats him +so wonderfully.' +</p> + +<p> +I pressed her on my heart and cheered her, praising Janet. She wept. +</p> + +<p> +'Is there anything new the matter?' I said. +</p> + +<p> +'It's not new to us, Harry. I'm sure you're brave?' +</p> + +<p> +'Brave! what am I asked to bear?' +</p> + +<p> +'Much, if you love her, Harry!' +</p> + +<p> +'Speak.' +</p> + +<p> +'It is better you should hear it from me, Harry. I wrote you word of it. We all +imagined it would not be disagreeable to you. Who could foresee this change in +you? She least of all!' +</p> + +<p> +'She's in love with some one?' +</p> + +<p> +'I did not say in love.' +</p> + +<p> +'Tell me the worst.' +</p> + +<p> +'She is engaged to be married.' +</p> + +<p> +Janet came into the room—another Janet for me. She had engaged herself to +marry the Marquis of Edbury. At the moment when she enslaved me with gratitude +and admiration she was lost to me. I knew her too well to see a chance of her +breaking her pledged word. +</p> + +<p> +My old grandfather said of Janet, 'She's a compassionate thing.' I felt now the +tears under his speech, and how late I was in getting wisdom. Compassion for +Edbury in Janet's bosom was the matchmaker's chief engine of assault, my aunt +Dorothy told me. Lady Ilchester had been for this suitor, Sir Roderick for the +other, up to the verge of a quarrel between the most united of wedding couples. +Janet was persecuted. She heard that Edbury's life was running to waste; she +liked him for his cricketing and hunting, his frankness, seeming manliness, and +general native English enthusiasm. I permitted myself to comprehend the case as +far as I could allow myself to excuse her. +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy Beltham told me something of Janet that struck me to the dust. +</p> + +<p> +'It is this, dear Harry; bear to hear it! Janet and I and his good true woman +of a housekeeper, whose name is Waddy, we are, I believe, the only persons that +know it. He had a large company to dine at a City tavern, she told us, on the +night after the decision—when the verdict went against him. The following +morning I received a note from this good Mrs. Waddy addressed to Sir Roderick's +London house, where I was staying with Janet; it said that he was ill; and +Janet put on her bonnet at once to go to him.' +</p> + +<p> +'The lady didn't fear contagion any longer?' +</p> + +<p> +'She went, walking fast. He was living in lodgings, and the people of the house +insisted on removing him, Mrs. Waddy told us. She was cowering in the parlour. +I had not the courage to go upstairs. Janet went by herself.' +</p> + +<p> +My heart rose on a huge swell. +</p> + +<p> +'She was alone with him, Harry. We could hear them.' +</p> + +<p> +Dorothy Beltham looked imploringly on me to waken my whole comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +'She subdued him. When I saw him he was white as death, but quiet, not +dangerous at all.' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you mean she found him raving?' I cried out on our Maker's name, in grief +and horror. +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, dear Harry, it was so.' +</p> + +<p> +'She stepped between him and an asylum?' +</p> + +<p> +'She quitted Sir Roderick's house to lodge your father safe in one that she +hired, and have him under her own care. She watched him day and night for three +weeks, and governed him, assisted only at intervals by the poor frightened +woman, Mrs. Waddy, and just as frightened me. And I am still subject to the +poor woman's way of pressing her hand to her heart at a noise. It's over now. +Harry, Janet wished that you should never hear of it. She dreads any excitement +for him. I think she is right in fancying her own influence the best: he is +used to it. You know how gentle she is though she is so firm.' +</p> + +<p> +'Oh! don't torture me, ma'am, for God's sake,' I called aloud. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0055" id="link2HCH0055"></a> +CHAPTER LV.<br/> +I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT</h2> + +<p> +There came to me a little note on foreign paper, unaddressed, an enclosure +forwarded by Janet, and containing merely one scrap from the playful +X<small>ENIEN</small> of Ottilia's favourite brotherly poets, of untranslatable +flavour:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete:<br/> +Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels. +</p> + +<p> +It filled me with a breath of old German peace. +</p> + +<p> +From this I learnt that Ottilia and Janet corresponded. Upon what topics? to +what degree of intimacy? +</p> + +<p> +Janet now confessed to me that their intimacy had never known reserve. The +princess had divined her attachment for Harry Richmond when their acquaintance +was commenced in the island, and knew at the present moment that I had +travelled round to the recognition of Janet's worth. +</p> + +<p> +Thus encouraged by the princess's changeless friendship, I wrote to her, +leaving little to be guessed of my state of mind, withholding nothing of the +circumstances surrounding me. Imagination dealt me all my sharpest misery, and +now that Ottilia resumed her place there, I became infinitely peacefuller, and +stronger to subdue my hungry nature. It caused me no pang, strangely though it +read in my sight when written, to send warm greetings and respects to the +prince her husband. +</p> + +<p> +Is it any waste of time to write of love? The trials of life are in it, but in +a narrow ring and a fierier. You may learn to know yourself through love, as +you do after years of life, whether you are fit to lift them that are about +you, or whether you are but a cheat, and a load on the backs of your fellows. +The impure perishes, the inefficient languishes, the moderate comes to its +autumn of decay—these are of the kinds which aim at satisfaction to die +of it soon or late. The love that survives has strangled craving; it lives +because it lives to nourish and succour like the heavens. +</p> + +<p> +But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death before you reach your +immortality. +</p> + +<p> +But again, to write of a love perverted by all the elements contributing to +foolishness, and foredoomed to chastisement, would be a graceless business. +Janet and I went through our trial, she, you may believe, the braver under the +most to bear. +</p> + +<p> +I was taken by Temple down to the ship—smelling East of London, for the +double purpose of trying to convince Captain Welsh of the extravagance of a +piece of chivalry he was about to commit, and of seeing a lady with a history, +who had recently come under his guardianship. Temple thought I should know her, +but he made a mystery of it until the moment of our introduction arrived, not +being certain of her identity, and not wishing to have me disappointed. It +appeared that Captain Welsh questioned his men closely after he had won his +case, and he arrived at the conclusion that two or three of them had been +guilty of false swearing in his interests. He did not dismiss them, for, as he +said, it was twice a bad thing to turn sinners loose: it was to shove them out +of the direct road of amendment, and it was a wrong to the population. He +insisted, however, on paying the legal costs and an indemnity for the collision +at sea; and Temple was in great distress about it, he having originally +suggested the suspicion of his men to Captain Welsh. 'I wanted to put him on +his guard against those rascals,' Temple said, 'and I suppose,' he sighed, 'I +wanted the old captain to think me enormously clever all round.' He shook +himself, and assumed a bearish aspect, significant of disgust and recklessness. +'The captain 'll be ruined, Richie; and he's not young, you know, to go on +sailing his barque Priscilla for ever. If he pays, why, I ought to pay, and +then you ought to pay, for I shouldn't have shown off before him alone, and +then the wind that fetched you ought to pay. Toss common sense overboard, +there's no end to your fine-drawings; that's why it's always safest to swear by +the Judge.' +</p> + +<p> +We rolled down to the masts among the chimneys on the top of an omnibus. The +driver was eloquent on cricket-matches. Now, cricket, he said, was fine manly +sport; it might kill a man, but it never meant mischief: foreigners themselves +had a bit of an idea that it was the best game in the world, though it was a +nice joke to see a foreigner playing at it! None of them could stand to be +bowled at. Hadn't stomachs for it; they'd have to train for soldiers first. On +one occasion he had seen a Frenchman looking on at a match. 'Ball was hit a +shooter twixt the slips: off starts Frenchman, catches it, heaves it up, like +his head, half-way to wicket, and all the field set to bawling at him, and +sending him, we knew where. He tripped off: “You no comprong politeness +in dis country.” Ha! ha!' +</p> + +<p> +To prove the aforesaid Frenchman wrong, we nodded to the driver's laughter at +his exquisite imitation. +</p> + +<p> +He informed us that he had backed the Surrey Eleven last year, owing to the +report of a gentleman-bowler, who had done things in the way of tumbling +wickets to tickle the ears of cricketers. Gentlemen-batters were common: +gentlemen-bowlers were quite another dish. Saddlebank was the gentleman's name. +</p> + +<p> +'Old Nandrew Saddle?' Temple called to me, and we smiled at the supposition of +Saddlebank's fame, neither of us, from what we had known of his bowling, +doubting that he deserved it. +</p> + +<p> +'Acquainted with him, gentlemen?' the driver inquired, touching his hat. 'Well, +and I ask why don't more gentlemen take to cricket? 'stead of horses all round +the year! Now, there's my notion of happiness,' said the man condemned to +inactivity, in the perpetual act of motion; 'cricket in cricket season! It +comprises—count: lots o' running; and that's good: just enough o' taking +it easy; that's good: a appetite for your dinner, and your ale or your Port, as +may be the case; good, number three. Add on a tired pipe after dark, and a +sound sleep to follow, and you say good morning to the doctor and the parson; +for you're in health body and soul, and ne'er a parson 'll make a better +Christian of ye, that I'll swear.' +</p> + +<p> +As if anxious not to pervert us, he concluded: 'That's what <i>I</i> think, +gentlemen.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I talked of the ancient raptures of a first of May cricketing-day on +a sunny green meadow, with an ocean of a day before us, and well-braced spirits +for the match. I had the vision of a matronly, but not much altered Janet, +mounted on horseback, to witness the performance of some favourite Eleven of +youngsters with her connoisseur's eye; and then the model of an English lady, +wife, and mother, waving adieu to the field and cantering home to entertain her +husband's guests. Her husband! +</p> + +<p> +Temple was aware of my grief, but saw no remedy. I knew that in his heart he +thought me justly punished, though he loved me. +</p> + +<p> +We had a long sitting with Captain Welsh, whom I found immoveable, as I +expected I should. His men, he said, had confessed their sin similarly to the +crab in a hole, with one claw out, as the way of sinners was. He blamed himself +mainly. 'Where you have accidents, Mr. Richmond, you have faults; and where you +have faults aboard a ship you may trace a line to the captain. I should have +treated my ship's crew like my conscience, and gone through them nightly. As it +is, sir, here comes round one of your accidents to tell me I have lived blinded +by conceit. That is my affliction, my young friend. The payment of the money is +no more so than to restore money held in trust.' +</p> + +<p> +Temple and I argued the case with him, as of old on our voyage, on board the +barque Priscilla, quite unavailingly. +</p> + +<p> +'Is a verdict built on lies one that my Maker approves of?' said he. 'If I keep +possession of that money, my young friends, will it clothe me? Ay, with stings! +Will it feed me? Ay, with poison. And they that should be having it shiver and +want!' +</p> + +<p> +He was emphatic, as he would not have been, save to read us an example, owing +to our contention with him. 'The money is Satan in my very hands!' When he had +dismissed the subject he never returned to it. +</p> + +<p> +His topic of extreme happiness, to which Temple led him, was the rescue of a +beautiful sinner from a life of shame. It appeared that Captain Welsh had the +habit between his voyages of making one holiday expedition to the spot of all +creation he thought the fairest, Richmond Hill, overlooking the Thames; and +there, one evening, he espied a lady in grief, and spoke to her, and gave her +consolation. More, he gave her a blameless home. The lady's name was Mabel +Bolton. She was in distress of spirit rather than of circumstances, for +temptation was thick about one so beautiful, to supply the vanities and +luxuries of the father of sin. He described her. +</p> + +<p> +She was my first playfellow, the miller's daughter of Dipwell, Mabel +Sweetwinter, taken from her home by Lord Edbury during my German university +career, and now put away by him upon command of his family on the eve of his +marriage. +</p> + +<p> +She herself related her history to me, after telling me that she had seen me +once at the steps of Edbury's Club. Our meeting was no great surprise to either +of us. She had heard my name as that of an expected visitor; she had seen +Temple, moreover, and he had prompted me with her Christian name and the praise +of her really glorious hair, to anticipate the person who was ushered into the +little cabin-like parlour by Captain Welsh's good old mother. +</p> + +<p> +Of Edbury she could not speak for grief, believing that he loved her still and +was acting under compulsion. Her long and faithful attachment to the scapegrace +seemed to preserve her from the particular regrets Captain Welsh supposed to +occupy her sinner's mind; so that, after some minutes of the hesitation and +strangeness due to our common recollections, she talked of him simply and +well—as befitted her situation, a worldling might say. But she did not +conceal her relief in escaping to this quaint little refuge (she threw a +kindly-comical look, not overtoned, at the miniature ships on the mantelpiece, +and the picture of Joseph leading Mary with her babe on the ass) from the +temptations I could imagine a face like hers would expose her to. The face was +splendid, the figure already overblown. I breathed some thanks to my father +while she and I conversed apart. The miller was dead, her brother in America. +She had no other safe home than the one Captain Welsh had opened to her. When I +asked her (I had no excuse for it) whether she would consent to go to Edbury +again, she reddened and burst into tears. I cursed my brutality. 'Let her cry,' +said Captain Welsh on parting with us at his street door. 'Tears are the way of +women and their comfort.' +</p> + +<p> +To our astonishment he told us he intended to take her for a voyage in the +Priscilla. 'Why?' we asked. +</p> + +<p> +'I take her,' he said, 'because not to do things wholly is worse than not to do +things at all, for it's waste of time and cause for a chorus below, down in +hell, my young friends. The woman is beautiful as Solomon's bride. She is weak +as water. And the man is wicked. He has written to her a letter. He would have +her reserved for himself, a wedded man: such he is, or is soon to be. I am +searching, and she is not deceitful; and I am a poor man again and must go the +voyage. I wrestled with her, and by grace I conquered her to come with me of a +free will, and be out of his snares. Aboard I do not fear him, and she shall +know the mercy of the Lord on high seas.' +</p> + +<p> +We grimaced a little on her behalf, but had nothing to reply. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing Janet after Mabel was strange. In the latter one could perceive the +palpably suitable mate for Edbury. +</p> + +<p> +I felt that my darling was insulted—no amends for it I had to keep silent +and mark the remorseless preparations going forward. Not so Heriot. He had come +over from the camp in Ireland on leave at this juncture. His talk of women +still suggested the hawk with the downy feathers of the last little plucked +bird sticking to his beak; but his appreciation of Janet and some kindness for +me made him a vehement opponent of her resolve. He took licence of his +friendship to lay every incident before her, to complete his persuasions. She +resisted his attacks, as I knew she would, obstinately, and replied to his +entreaties with counter-supplications that he should urge me to accept old +Riversley. The conflicts went on between those two daily, and I heard of them +from Heriot at night. He refused to comprehend her determination under the head +of anything save madness. Varied by reproaches of me for my former inveterate +blindness, he raved upon Janet's madness incessantly, swearing that he would +not be beaten. I told him his efforts were useless, but thought them friendly, +and so they were, only Janet's resistance had fired his vanity, and he stalked +up and down my room talking a mixture of egregious coxcombry and hearty good +sense that might have shown one the cause he meant to win had become personal +to him. Temple, who was sometimes in consultation with him, and was always +amused by his quasi-fanfaronade, assured me that Heriot was actually scheming. +The next we heard of him was, that he had been seen at a whitebait hotel down +the river drunk with Edbury. Janet also heard of that, and declined to see +Heriot again. +</p> + +<p> +Our last days marched frightfully fast. Janet had learnt that any the most +distant allusion to her marriage day was an anguish to the man who was not to +marry her, so it was through my aunt Dorothy that I became aware of Julia +Bulsted's kindness in offering to take charge of my father for a term. Lady +Sampleman undertook to be hostess to him for one night, the eve of Janet's +nuptials. He was quiet, unlikely to give annoyance to persons not strongly +predisposed to hear sentences finished and exclamations fall into their right +places. +</p> + +<p> +Adieu to my darling! There have been women well won; here was an adorable woman +well lost. After twenty years of slighting her, did I fancy she would turn to +me and throw a man over in reward of my ultimate recovery of my +senses?—or fancy that one so tenacious as she had proved would snap a tie +depending on her pledged word? She liked Edbury; she saw the best of him, and +liked him. The improved young lord was her handiwork. After the years of +humiliation from me, she had found herself courted by a young nobleman who +clung to her for help, showed improvement, and brought her many compliments +from a wondering world. She really felt that she was strength and true life to +him. She resisted Heriot: she resisted a more powerful advocate, and this was +the princess Ottilia. My aunt Dorothy told me that the princess had written. +Janet either did or affected to weigh the princess's reasonings; and she did +not evade the task of furnishing a full reply. +</p> + +<p> +Her resolution was unchanged. Loss of colour, loss of light in her eyes, were +the sole signs of what it cost her to maintain it. Our task was to transfer the +idea of Janet to that of Julia in my father's whirling brain, which at first +rebelled violently, and cast it out like a stick thrust between rapidly +revolving wheels. +</p> + +<p> +The night before I was to take him away, she gave me her hand with a 'good-bye, +dear Harry.' My words were much the same. She had a ghastly face, but could not +have known it, for she smiled, and tried to keep the shallow smile in play, as +friends do. There was the end. +</p> + +<p> +It came abruptly, and was schoolingly cold and short. +</p> + +<p> +It had the effect on me of freezing my blood and setting what seemed to be the +nerves of my brain at work in a fury of calculation to reckon the minutes +remaining of her maiden days. I had expected nothing, but now we had parted I +thought that one last scene to break my heart on should not have been denied to +me. My aunt Dorothy was a mute; she wept when I spoke of Janet, whatever it was +I said. +</p> + +<p> +The minutes ran on from circumstance to circumstance of the destiny Janet had +marked for herself, each one rounded in my mind of a blood colour like the edge +about prismatic hues. I lived through them a thousand times before they +occurred, as the wretch who fears death dies multitudinously. +</p> + +<p> +Some womanly fib preserved my father from a shock on leaving Janet's house. She +left it herself at the same time that she drove him to Lady Sampleman's, and I +found him there soon after she had gone to her bridesmaids. A letter was for +me:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'D<small>EAR</small> H<small>ARRY</small>,—<br/> +I shall not live at Riversley, never go there again; do not let it be sold to a +stranger; it will happen unless you go there. For the sake of the neighbourhood +and poor people, I cannot allow it to be shut up. I was the cause of the chief +misfortune. You never blamed me. Let me think that the old place is not dead. +Adieu. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +'Your affectionate,<br/> +'J<small>ANET</small>.' +</p> + +<p> +I tore the letter to pieces, and kept them. +</p> + +<p> +The aspect of the new intolerable world I was to live in after to-morrow, +paralyzed sensation. My father chattered, Lady Sampleman hushed him; she said I +might leave him to her, and I went down to Captain Welsh to bid him good-bye +and get such peace as contact with a man clad in armour proof against earthly +calamity could give. +</p> + +<p> +I was startled to see little Kiomi in Mabel's company. +</p> + +<p> +They had met accidentally at the head of the street, and had been friends in +childhood, Captain Welsh said, adding: 'She hates men.' +</p> + +<p> +'Good reason, when they're beasts,' said Kiomi. +</p> + +<p> +Amid much weeping of Mabel and old Mrs. Welsh, Kiomi showed as little trouble +as the heath when the woods are swept. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Welsh wanted Mabel to be on board early, owing, he told me, to +information. Kiomi had offered to remain on board with her until the captain +was able to come. He had business to do in the City. +</p> + +<p> +We saw them off from the waterside. +</p> + +<p> +'Were I to leave that young woman behind me, on shore, I should be giving the +devil warrant to seize upon his prey,' said Captain Welsh, turning his gaze +from the boat which conveyed Kiomi and Mabel to the barque Priscilla. He had +information that the misleader of her youth was hunting her. +</p> + +<p> +He and I parted, and for ever, at a corner of crossways in the central city. +There I saw the last of one who deemed it as simple a matter to renounce his +savings for old age, to rectify an error of justice, as to plant his foot on +the pavement; a man whose only burden was the folly of men. +</p> + +<p> +I thought to myself in despair, under what protest can I also escape from +England and my own intemperate mind? It seemed a miraculous answer:—There +lay at my chambers a note written by Count Kesensky; I went to the embassy, and +heard of an Austrian ship of war being at one of our ports upon an expedition +to the East, and was introduced to the captain, a gentlemanly fellow, like most +of the officers of his Government. Finding in me a German scholar, and a joyful +willingness, he engaged me to take the post of secretary to the expedition in +the place of an invalided Freiherr von Redwitz. The bargain was struck +immediately: I was to be ready to report myself to the captain on board not +later than the following day. Count Kesensky led me aside: he regretted that he +could do nothing better for me: but I thought his friendliness extreme and +astonishing, and said so; whereupon the count assured me that his intentions +were good, though he had not been of great use hitherto—an allusion to +the borough of Chippenden: he had only heard of von Redwitz's illness that +afternoon. I thanked him cordially, saying I was much in his debt, and he bowed +me out, letting me fancy, as my father had fancied before me, and as though I +had never observed and reflected in my life, that the opportuneness of this +intervention signified a special action of Providence. +</p> + +<p> +The flattery of the thought served for an elixir. But with whom would my father +abide during my absence? Captain Bulsted and Julia saved me from a fit of +remorse; they had come up to town on purpose to carry him home with them, and +had left a message on my table, and an invitation to dinner at their hotel, +where the name of Janet was the Marino Faliero of our review of Riversley +people and old times. The captain and his wife were indignant at her conduct. +Since, however, I chose to excuse it, they said they would say nothing more +about her, and she was turned face to the wall. I told them how Janet had taken +him for months. 'But I'll take him for years,' said Julia. 'The truth is, +Harry, my old dear! William and I are never so united—for I'm ashamed to +quarrel with him—as when your father's at Bulsted. He belongs to us, and +other people shall know you're not obliged to depend on your family for help, +and your aunt Dorothy can come and see him whenever she likes.' +</p> + +<p> +That was settled. Captain Bulsted went with me to Lady Sampleman's to prepare +my father for the change of nurse and residence. We were informed that he had +gone down with Alderman Duke Saddlebank to dine at one of the great City +Companies' halls. I could hardly believe it. 'Ah! my dear Mr. Harry,' said Lady +Sampleman, 'old friends know one another best, believe that, now. I treated him +as if he was as well as ever he was, gave him his turtle and madeira lunch; and +Alderman Saddlebank, who lunched here—your father used to say, he looks +like a robin hopping out of a larder—quite jumped to dine him in the City +like old times; and he will see a great spread of plate!' +</p> + +<p> +She thought my father only moderately unwell, wanting novelty. Captain Bulsted +agreed with me that it would be prudent to go and fetch him. At the door of the +City hall stood Andrew Saddlebank, grown to be simply a larger edition of +Rippenger's head boy, and he imparted to us that my father was 'on his legs' +delivering a speech: It alarmed me. With Saddlebank's assistance I pushed in. +</p> + +<p> +'A prince! a treacherous lover! an unfatherly man!' +</p> + +<p> +Those were the words I caught: a reproduction of many of my phrases employed in +our arguments on this very subject. +</p> + +<p> +He bade his audience to beware of princes, beware of idle princes; and letting +his florid fancy loose on these eminent persons, they were at one moment silver +lamps, at another poising hawks, and again sprawling pumpkins; anything except +useful citizens. How could they be? They had the attraction of the lamp, the +appetite of the hawk, the occupation of the pumpkin: nothing was given them to +do but to shine, destroy, and fatten. Their hands were kept empty: a trifle in +their heads would topple them over; they were monuments of the English system +of compromise. Happy for mankind if they were monuments only! Happy for them! +But they had the passions of men. The adulation of the multitude was raised to +inflate them, whose self-respect had not one prop to rest on, unless it were +contempt for the flatterers and prophetic foresight of their perfidy. They were +the monuments of a compromise between the past and terror of the future; +puppets as princes, mannikins as men, the snares of frail women, stop-gaps of +the State, feathered nonentities! +</p> + +<p> +So far (but not in epigram) he marshalled the things he had heard to his sound +of drum and trumpet, like one repeating a lesson off-hand. Steering on a sudden +completely round, he gave his audience an outline of the changes he would have +effected had he but triumphed in his cause; and now came the lashing of arms, a +flood of eloquence. Princes with brains, princes leaders, princes flowers of +the land, he had offered them! princes that should sway assemblies, and not +stultify the precepts of a decent people 'by making you pay in the outrage of +your morals for what you seem to gain in policy.' These or similar words. The +whole scene was too grotesque and afflicting. But his command of his hearers +was extraordinary, partly a consolation I thought, until, having touched the +arm of one of the gentlemen of the banquet and said, 'I am his son; I wish to +remove him,' the reply enlightened me: 'I'm afraid there's danger in +interrupting him; I really am.' +</p> + +<p> +They were listening obediently to one whom they dared not interrupt for fear of +provoking an outburst of madness. +</p> + +<p> +I had to risk it. His dilated eyes looked ready to seize on me for an +illustration. I spoke peremptorily, and he bowed his head low, saying, 'My son, +gentlemen,' and submitted himself to my hands. The feasters showed immediately +that they felt released by rising and chatting in groups. Alderman Saddlebank +expressed much gratitude to me for the service I had performed. 'That first +half of your father's speech was the most pathetic thing I ever heard!' I had +not shared his privilege, and could not say. The remark was current that a +great deal was true of what had been said of the Fitzs. My father leaned +heavily on my arm with the step and bent head of an ancient pensioner of the +Honourable City Company. He was Julia Bulsted's charge, and I was on board the +foreign vessel weighing anchor from England before dawn of Janet's +marriage-day. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0056" id="link2HCH0056"></a> +CHAPTER LVI.<br/> +CONCLUSION</h2> + +<p> +The wind was high that morning. The rain came in gray rings, through which we +worked on the fretted surface of crumbling seas, heaving up and plunging, +without an outlook. +</p> + +<p> +I remember having thought of the barque Priscilla as I watched our lithe +Dalmatians slide along the drenched decks of the Verona frigate. At night it +blew a gale. I could imagine it to have been sent providentially to brush the +torture of the land from my mind, and make me feel that men are trifles. +</p> + +<p> +What are their passions, then? The storm in the clouds—even more +short-lived than the clouds. +</p> + +<p> +I philosophized, but my anguish was great. +</p> + +<p> +Janet's 'Good-bye, Harry,' ended everything I lived for, and seemed to strike +the day, and bring out of it the remorseless rain. A featureless day, like +those before the earth was built; like night under an angry moon; and each day +the same until we touched the edge of a southern circle and saw light, and I +could use my brain. +</p> + +<p> +The matter most present to me was my injustice regarding my poor father's +speech in the City hall. He had caused me to suffer so much that I generally +felt for myself when he appealed for sympathy, or provoked some pity: but I was +past suffering, and letting kindly recollection divest the speech of its +verbiage, I took it to my heart. It was true that he had in his blind way +struck the keynote of his position, much as I myself had conceived it before. +Harsh trials had made me think of my own fortunes more than of his. This I +felt, and I thought there never had been so moving a speech. It seemed to make +the world in debt to us. What else is so consolatory to a ruined man? +</p> + +<p> +In reality the busy little creature within me, whom we call self, was digging +pits for comfort to flow in, of any kind, in any form; and it seized on every +idea, every circumstance, to turn it to that purpose, and with such success, +that when by-and-by I learnt how entirely inactive special Providence had been +in my affairs, I had to collect myself before I could muster the conception of +gratitude toward the noble woman who clothed me in the illusion. It was to the +Princess Ottilia, acting through Count Kesensky, that I owed both my wafting +away from England at a wretched season, and that chance of a career in +Parliament! The captain of the Verona hinted as much when, after a year of +voyaging, we touched at an East Indian seaport, and von Redwitz joined the +vessel to resume the post I was occupying. Von Redwitz (the son of Prince +Ernest's Chancellor, I discovered) could have told me more than he did, but he +handed me a letter from the princess, calling me home urgently, and even +prescribing my route, and bidding me come straight to Germany and to Sarkeld. +The summons was distasteful, for I had settled into harness under my scientific +superiors, and had proved to my messmates that I was neither morose nor +over-conceited. Captain Martinitz persuaded me to return, and besides, there +lay between the lines of Ottilia's letter a signification of welcome things +better guessed at than known. Was I not bound to do her bidding? Others had +done it: young von Redwitz, for instance, in obeying the telegraph wires and +feigning sickness to surrender his place to me, when she wished to save me from +misery by hurrying me to new scenes with a task for my hand and head;—no +mean stretch of devotion on his part. Ottilia was still my princess; she my +providence. She wrote: +</p> + +<p> +'Come home, my friend Harry: you have been absent too long. He who intercepts +you to displace you has his career before him in the vessel, and you nearer +home. The home is always here where I am, but it may now take root elsewhere, +and it is from Ottilia you hear that delay is now really loss of life. I tell +you no more. You know me, that when I say come, it is enough.' +</p> + +<p> +A simple adieu and her name ended the mysterious letter. Not a word of Prince +Hermann. What had happened? I guessed at it curiously and incessantly and only +knew the nature of my suspicion by ceasing to hope as soon as I seemed to have +divined it. I did not wrong my soul's high mistress beyond the one flash of +tentative apprehension which in perplexity struck at impossibilities. Ottilia +would never have summoned me to herself. But was Janet free? The hope which +refused to live in that other atmosphere of purest calm, sprang to full stature +at the bare thought, and would not be extinguished though all the winds beset +it. Had my girl's courage failed, to spare her at the last moment? I fancied it +might be: I was sure it was not so. Yet the doubt pressed on me with the force +of a world of unimagined shifts and chances, and just kept the little flame +alive, at times intoxicating me, though commonly holding me back to watch its +forlorn conflict with probabilities known too well. It cost me a struggle to +turn aside to Germany from the Italian highroad. +</p> + +<p> +I chose the line of the Brenner, and stopped half a day at Innsbruck to pay a +visit to Colonel Heddon, of whom I had the joyful tidings that two of his +daughters were away to go through the German form of the betrothal of one of +them to an Englishman. The turn of the tide had come to him. And it comes to +me, too, in a fresh spring tide whenever I have to speak of others instead of +this everlastingly recurring I of the autobiographer, of which the complacent +penman has felt it to be his duty to expose the mechanism when out of action, +and which, like so many of our sins of commission, appears in the shape of a +terrible offence when the occasion for continuing it draws to a close. The +pleasant narrator in the first person is the happy bubbling fool, not the +philosopher who has come to know himself and his relations toward the universe. +The words of this last are one to twenty; his mind is bent upon the causes of +events rather than their progress. As you see me on the page now, I stand +somewhere between the two, approximating to the former, but with sufficient of +the latter within me to tame the delightful expansiveness proper to that coming +hour of marriage-bells and bridal-wreaths. It is a sign that the end, and the +delivery of reader and writer alike, should not be dallied with. +</p> + +<p> +The princess had invited Lucy Heddon to Sarkeld to meet Temple, and Temple to +meet me. Onward I flew. I saw the old woods of the lake-palace, and, as it +were, the light of my past passion waning above them. I was greeted by the lady +of all nobility with her gracious warmth, and in his usual abrupt manful +fashion by Prince Hermann. And I had no time to reflect on the strangeness of +my stepping freely under the roof where a husband claimed Ottilia, before she +led me into the library, where sat my lost and recovered, my darling; and, +unlike herself, for a moment, she faltered in rising and breathing my name. +</p> + +<p> +We were alone. I knew she was no bondwoman. The question how it had come to +pass lurked behind everything I said and did; speculation on the visible +features, and touching of the unfettered hand, restrained me from uttering or +caring to utter it. But it was wonderful. It thrust me back on Providence again +for the explanation—humbly this time. It was wonderful and blessed, as to +loving eyes the first-drawn breath of a drowned creature restored to life. I +kissed her hand. 'Wait till you have heard everything, Harry,' she said, and +her voice was deeper, softer, exquisitely strange in its known tones, as her +manner was, and her eyes. She was not the blooming, straight-shouldered, +high-breathing girl of other days, but sister to the day of her 'Good-bye, +Harry,' pale and worn. The eyes had wept. This was Janet, haply widowed. She +wore no garb nor a shade of widowhood. Perhaps she had thrown it off, not to +offend an implacable temper in me. I said, 'I shall hear nothing that can make +you other than my own Janet—if you will?' +</p> + +<p> +She smiled a little. 'We expected Temple's arrival sooner than yours, Harry!' +</p> + +<p> +'Do you take to his Lucy?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, thoroughly.' +</p> + +<p> +The perfect ring of Janet was there. +</p> + +<p> +Mention of Riversley made her conversation lively, and she gave me moderately +good news of my father, quaint, out of Julia Bulsted's latest letter to her. +</p> + +<p> +'Then how long,' I asked astonished, 'how long have you been staying with the +princess?' +</p> + +<p> +She answered, colouring, 'So long, that I can speak fairish German.' +</p> + +<p> +'And read it easily?' +</p> + +<p> +'I have actually taken to reading, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +Her courage must have quailed, and she must have been looking for me on that +morning of miserable aspect when I beheld the last of England through wailful +showers, like the scene of a burial. I did not speak of it, fearing to hurt her +pride, but said, 'Have you been here—months?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes, some months,' she replied. +</p> + +<p> +'Many?' +</p> + +<p> +'Yes,' she said, and dropped her eyelids, and then, with a quick look at me, +'Wait for Temple, Harry. He is a day behind his time. We can't account for it.' +</p> + +<p> +I suggested, half in play, that perhaps he had decided, for the sake of a sea +voyage, to come by our old route to Germany on board the barque Priscilla, with +Captain Welsh. +</p> + +<p> +A faint shudder passed over her. She shut her eyes and shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +Our interview satisfied my heart's hunger no further. The Verona's erratic +voyage had cut me off from letters. +</p> + +<p> +Janet might be a widow, for aught I knew. She was always Janet to me; but why +at liberty? why many months at Sarkeld, the guest of the princess? Was she +neither maid nor widow—a wife flown from a brutal husband? or separated, +and forcibly free? Under such conditions Ottilia would not have commanded my +return but what was I to imagine? A boiling couple of hours divided me from the +time for dressing, when, as I meditated, I could put a chance question or two +to the man commissioned to wait on me, and hear whether the English lady was a +Fräulein. The Margravine and Prince Ernest were absent. Hermann worked in his +museum, displaying his treasures to Colonel Heddon. I sat with the ladies in +the airy look-out tower of the lake-palace, a prey to intense speculations, +which devoured themselves and changed from fire to smoke, while I recounted the +adventures of our ship's voyage, and they behaved as if there were nothing to +tell me in turn, each a sphinx holding the secret I thirsted for. I should not +certainly have thirsted much if Janet had met me as far half-way as a delicate +woman may advance. The mystery lay in her evident affection, her apparent +freedom and unfathomable reserve, and her desire that I should see Temple +before she threw off her feminine armour, to which, judging by the indications, +Ottilia seemed to me to accede. +</p> + +<p> +My old friend was spied first by his sweetheart Lucy, winding dilatorily over +the hill away from Sarkeld, in one of the carriages sent to meet him. He was +guilty of wasting a prodigious number of minutes with his trumpery 'How d'ye +do's,' and his glances and excuses, and then I had him up in my room, and the +tale was told; it was not Temple's fault if he did not begin straightforwardly. +</p> + +<p> +I plucked him from his narrator's vexatious and inevitable commencement: +'Temple, tell me, did she go to the altar?' +</p> + +<p> +He answered 'Yes!' +</p> + +<p> +'She did? Then she's a widow?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, she isn't,' said Temple, distracting me by submitting to the lead I +distracted him by taking. +</p> + +<p> +'Then her husband's alive?' +</p> + +<p> +Temple denied it, and a devil seized him to perceive some comicality in the +dialogue. +</p> + +<p> +'Was she married?' +</p> + +<p> +Temple said 'No,' with a lurking drollery about his lips. He added, 'It's +nothing to laugh over, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +'Am I laughing? Speak out. Did Edbury come to grief overnight in any way?' +</p> + +<p> +Again Temple pronounced a negative, this time wilfully enigmatical: he +confessed it, and accused me of the provocation. He dashed some laughter with +gravity to prepare for my next assault. +</p> + +<p> +'Was Edbury the one to throw up the marriage? Did he decline it?' +</p> + +<p> +'No,' was the answer once more. +</p> + +<p> +Temple stopped my wrath by catching at me and begging me to listen. +</p> + +<p> +'Edbury was drowned, Richie.' +</p> + +<p> +'Overnight?' +</p> + +<p> +'No, not overnight. I can tell it all in half-a-dozen words, if you'll be +quiet; and I know you're going to be as happy as I am, or I shouldn't trifle an +instant. He went overnight on board the barque Priscilla to see Mabel +Sweetwinter, the only woman he ever could have cared for, and he went the +voyage, just as we did. He was trapped, caged, and transported; it's a +repetition, except that the poor old Priscilla never came to land. She +foundered in a storm in the North Sea. That's all we know. Every soul perished, +the captain and all. I knew how it would be with that crew of his some day or +other. Don't you remember my saying the Priscilla was the kind of name of a +vessel that would go down with all hands, and leave a bottle to float to shore? +A gin-bottle was found on our East coast—the old captain must have +discovered in the last few moments that such things were on board—and in +it there was a paper, and the passengers' and crew's names in his handwriting, +written as if he had been sitting in his parlour at home; over them a +line—“<i>The Lord's will is about to be done;</i>” and +underneath—“<i>We go to His judgement resigned and +cheerful</i>.” You know the old captain, Richie? +</p> + +<p> +Temple had tears in his eyes. We both stood blinking for a second or two. +</p> + +<p> +I could not but be curious to hear the reason for Edbury's having determined to +sail. +</p> + +<p> +'Don't you understand how it was, Richie?' said Temple. 'Edbury went to +persuade her to stay, or just to see her for once, and he came to persuasions. +He seems to have been succeeding, but the captain stepped on board and he +treated Edbury as he did us two: he made him take the voyage for discipline's +sake and “his soul's health.”' +</p> + +<p> +'How do you know all this, Temple?' +</p> + +<p> +'You know your friend Kiomi was one of the party. The captain sent her back on +shore because he had no room for her. She told us Edbury offered bribes of +hundreds and thousands for the captain to let him and Mabel go off in the boat +with Kiomi, and then he took to begging to go alone. He tried to rouse the +crew. The poor fellow cringed, she says; he threatened to swim off. The captain +locked him up.' +</p> + +<p> +My immediate reflections hit on the Bible lessons Edbury must have had to +swallow, and the gaping of the waters when its truths were suddenly and +tremendously brought home to him. +</p> + +<p> +An odd series of accidents! I thought. +</p> + +<p> +Temple continued: 'Heriot held his tongue about it next morning. He was one of +the guests, though he had sworn he wouldn't go. He said something to Janet that +betrayed him, for she had not seen him since.' +</p> + +<p> +'How betrayed him?' said I. +</p> + +<p> +'Why,' said Temple, 'of course it was Heriot who put Edbury in Kiomi's hands. +Edbury wouldn't have known of Mabel's sailing, or known the vessel she was in, +without her help. She led him down to the water and posted him in sight before +she went to Captain Welsh's; and when you and Captain Welsh walked away, Edbury +rowed to the Priscilla. Old Heriot is not responsible for the consequences. +What he supposed was likely enough. He thought that Edbury and Mabel were much +of a pair, and thought, I suppose, that if Edbury saw her he'd find he couldn't +leave her, and old Lady Kane, who managed him, would stand nodding her plumes +for nothing at the altar. And so she did: and a pretty scene it was. She +snatched at the minutes as they slipped past twelve like fishes, and snarled at +the parson, and would have kept him standing till one P.M., if Janet had not +turned on her heel. The old woman got in front of her to block her way. +“Ah, Temple,” she said to me, “it would be hard if I could +not think I had done all that was due to them.” I didn't see her again +till she was starting for Germany. And, Richie, she thinks you can never +forgive her. She wrote me word that the princess is of another mind, but her +own opinion, she says, is based upon knowing you.' +</p> + +<p> +'Good heaven! how little!' cried I. +</p> + +<p> +Temple did me a further wrong by almost thanking me on Janet's behalf for my +sustained love for her, while he praised the very qualities of pride and a +spirited sense of obligation which had reduced her to dread my unforgivingness. +Yet he and Janet had known me longest. Supposing that my idea of myself +differed from theirs for the simple reason that I thought of what I had grown +to be, and they of what I had been through the previous years? Did I judge by +the flower, and they by root and stem? But the flower is a thing of the season; +the flower drops off: it may be a different development next year. Did they not +therefore judge me soundly? +</p> + +<p> +Ottilia was the keenest reader. Ottilia had divined what could be wrought out +of me. I was still subject to the relapses of a not perfectly right nature, as +I perceived when glancing back at my thought of 'An odd series of accidents!' +which was but a disguised fashion of attributing to Providence the particular +concern, in my fortunes: an impiety and a folly! This is the temptation of +those who are rescued and made happy by circumstances. The wretched think +themselves spited, and are merely childish, not egregious in egoism. Thither on +leads to a chapter—already written by the wise, doubtless. It does not +become an atom of humanity to dwell on it beyond a point where students of the +human condition may see him passing through the experiences of the flesh and +the brain. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, Temple and I, at two hand-basins, soaped and towelled, and I was more +discreet toward him than I have been to you, for I reserved from him altogether +the pronunciation of the council of senators in the secret chamber of my head. +Whether, indeed, I have fairly painted the outer part of myself waxes dubious +when I think of his spluttering laugh and shout; 'Richie, you haven't changed a +bit—you're just like a boy!' Certain indications of external gravity, and +a sinking of the natural springs within characterized Temple's approach to the +responsible position of a British husband and father. We talked much of Captain +Welsh, and the sedate practical irony of his imprisoning one like Edbury to +discipline him on high seas, as well as the singular situation of the couple of +culprits under his admonishing regimen, and the tragic end. My next two minutes +alone with Janet were tempered by it. Only my eagerness for another term of +privacy persuaded her that I was her lover instead of judge, and then, having +made the discovery that a single-minded gladness animated me in the hope that +she and I would travel together one in body and soul, she surrendered, with her +last bit of pride broken; except, it may be, a fragment of reserve traceable in +the confession that came quaintly after supreme self-blame, when she said she +was bound to tell me that possibly—probably, were the trial to come over +again, she should again act as she had done. +</p> + +<p> +Happily for us both, my wits had been sharpened enough to know that there is +more in men and women than the stuff they utter. And blessed privilege now! if +the lips were guilty of nonsense, I might stop them. Besides, I was soon to be +master upon such questions. She admitted it, admitting with an unwonted +emotional shiver, that absolute freedom could be the worst of perils. 'For +women?' said I. She preferred to say, 'For girls,' and then 'Yes, for women, as +they are educated at present.' Spice of the princess's conversation flavoured +her speech. The signs unfamiliar about her for me were marks of the fire she +had come out of; the struggle, the torture, the determined sacrifice, through +pride's conception of duty. She was iron once. She had come out of the fire +finest steel. +</p> + +<p> +'Riversley! Harry,' she murmured, and my smile, and word, and squeeze in reply, +brought back a whole gleam of the fresh English morning she had been in face, +and voice, and person. +</p> + +<p> +Was it conceivable that we could go back to Riversley single? +</p> + +<p> +Before that was answered she had to make a statement; and in doing it she +blushed, because it involved Edbury's name, and seemed to involve her +attachment to him; but she paid me the compliment of speaking it frankly. It +was that she had felt herself bound in honour to pay Edbury's debts. Even by +such slight means as her saying, 'Riversley, Harry,' and my kiss of her fingers +when a question of money was in debate, did we burst aside the vestiges of +mutual strangeness, and recognize one another, but with an added warmth of +love. When I pleaded for the marriage to be soon, she said, 'I wish it, Harry.' +</p> + +<p> +Sentiment you do not obtain from a Damascus blade. She most cordially despised +the ladies who parade and play on their sex, and are for ever acting according +to the feminine standard:—a dangerous stretch of contempt for one less +strong than she. +</p> + +<p> +Riding behind her and Temple one day with the princess, I said, 'What takes you +most in Janet?' +</p> + +<p> +She replied, 'Her courage. And it is of a kind that may knot up every other +virtue worth having. I have impulses, and am capable of desperation, but I have +no true courage: so I envy and admire, even if I have to blame her; for I know +that this possession of hers, which identifies her and marks her from the rest +of us, would bear the ordeal of fire. I can imagine the qualities I have most +pride in withering and decaying under a prolonged trial. I cannot conceive her +courage failing. Perhaps because I have it not myself I think it the rarest of +precious gifts. It seems to me to imply one half, and to dispense with the +other.' +</p> + +<p> +I have lived to think that Ottilia was right. As nearly right, too, in the +wording of her opinion as one may be in three or four sentences designed to be +comprehensive. +</p> + +<p> +My Janet's readiness to meet calamity was shown ere we reached home upon an +evening of the late autumn, and set eye on a scene, for her the very saddest +that could have been devised to test her spirit of endurance, when, driving up +the higher heath-land, we saw the dark sky ominously reddened over Riversley, +and, mounting the ridge, had the funeral flames of the old Grange dashed in our +faces. The blow was evil, sudden, unaccountable. Villagers, tenants, +farm-labourers, groups of a deputation that had gone to the railway station to +give us welcome; and returned, owing to a delay in our arrival, stood gazing +from all quarters. The Grange was burning in two great wings, that soared in +flame-tips and columns of crimson smoke, leaving the central hall and chambers +untouched as yet, but alive inside with mysterious ranges of lights, now +curtained, now made bare—a feeble contrast to the savage blaze to right +and left, save for the wonder aroused as to its significance. These were soon +cloaked. Dead sable reigned in them, and at once a jet of flame gave the whole +vast building to destruction. My wife thrust her hand in mine. Fire at the +heart, fire at the wings—our old home stood in that majesty of horror +which freezes the limbs of men, bidding them look and no more. +</p> + +<p> +'What has Riversley done to deserve this?' I heard Janet murmur to herself. +'His room!' she said, when at the South-east wing, where my old grandfather had +slept, there burst a glut of flame. We dove down to the park and along the +carriage-road to the first red line of gazers. They told us that no living +creatures were in the house. My aunt Dorothy was at Bulsted. I perceived my +father's man Tollingby among the servants, and called him to me; others came, +and out of a clatter of tongues, and all eyes fearfully askant at the wall of +fire, we gathered that a great reception had been prepared for us by my father: +lamps, lights in all the rooms, torches in the hall, illuminations along the +windows, stores of fireworks, such a display as only he could have dreamed of. +The fire had broken out at dusk, from an explosion of fireworks at one wing and +some inexplicable mismanagement at the other. But the house must have been like +a mine, what with the powder, the torches, the devices in paper and muslin, and +the extraordinary decorations fitted up to celebrate our return in harmony with +my father's fancy. +</p> + +<p> +Gentlemen on horseback dashed up to us. Captain Bulsted seized my hand. He was +hot from a ride to fetch engines, and sang sharp in my ear, 'Have you got him?' +It was my father he meant. The cry rose for my father, and the groups were +agitated and split, and the name of the missing man, without an answer to it, +shouted. Captain Bulsted had left him bravely attempting to quench the flames +after the explosion of fireworks. He rode about, interrogating the frightened +servants and grooms holding horses and dogs. They could tell us that the cattle +were safe, not a word of my father; and amid shrieks of women at fresh falls of +timber and ceiling into the pit of fire, and warnings from the men, we ran the +heated circle of the building to find a loophole and offer aid if a living soul +should be left; the night around us bright as day, busier than day, and a human +now added to elemental horror. Janet would not quit her place. She sent her +carriage-horses to Bulsted, and sat in the carriage to see the last of burning +Riversley. Each time that I came to her she folded her arms on my neck and +kissed me silently. +</p> + +<p> +We gathered from the subsequent testimony of men and women of the household who +had collected their wits, that my father must have remained in the doomed old +house to look to the safety of my aunt Dorothy. He was never seen again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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