diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/4452.txt | 23567 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/4452.zip | bin | 0 -> 497384 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/gm58v10.txt | 23892 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/gm58v10.zip | bin | 0 -> 513824 bytes |
4 files changed, 47459 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/4452.txt b/old/4452.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef9acce --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4452.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23567 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete +by George Meredith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Last Updated: March 7, 2009 +Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4452] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY RICHMOND *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + + +By George Meredith + + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK 1. + I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION + II. AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT + III. DIPWELL FARM + IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR + V. I HAVE A DEAR FRIEND + VI. A TALE OF A GOOSE + + BOOK 2. + VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD + VIII. JANET ILCHESTER + IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED + X. AN EXPEDITION + XI. THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT + XII. WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE + XIII. WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE + 'PRISCILLA' + XIV. I MEET OLD FRIENDS + + BOOK 3. + XV. WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST + XVI. THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY + XVII. MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS + XVIII. WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION + XIX. OUR RETURN HOMEWARD + XX. NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S + XXI. A PROMENADE IN BATH + XXII. CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE + + BOOK 4. + XXIII. MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY + XXIV. I MEET THE PRINCESS + XXV. ON BOARD A YACHT + XXVI. IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE + XXVII. THE TIME OF ROSES + XXVIII. OTTILIA + XXIX. AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG + XXX. A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE + XXXI. PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER + XXXII. AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO + + BOOK 5. + XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING + XXXIV. I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE + XXXV. THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY + XXXVI. HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN. + XXXVII. JANET RENOUNCES ME + XXXVIII. MY BANKERS' BOOK. + + BOOK 6. + XXXIX. I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF + XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER + XLI. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S + GRAND PARADE + XLII. THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET + XLIII. I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION + XLIV. MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE + + BOOK 7. + XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE. + XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN + XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN + XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED + XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING + L. WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET + LI. AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT + + BOOK 8. + LII. STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST + LIII. THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING + LIV. MY RETURN TO ENGLAND + LV. I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT + LVI. CONCLUSION + + + + +CHAPTER I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION + +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. + +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. + +'Sewis! you're the man, are you: where has it broken out?' + +'No, sir; no fire,' said Sewis; 'you be cool, sir.' + +'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!' + +The squire had fallen back on his pillow and was relapsing to sleep. + +Sewis spoke impressively: 'There's a gentleman downstairs; a gentleman +downstairs, sir. He has come rather late.' + +'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!' + +Sewis had the office of tempering a severely distasteful announcement to +the squire. + +He resumed: 'The gentleman doesn't talk of staying. That is not his +business. It 's rather late for him to arrive.' + +'Rather late!' roared the squire. 'Why, what's it o'clock?' + +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.' + +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. + +'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. + +The fact had to be denied or affirmed instantly, and Sewis was silent. + +Grasping his bedclothes in a lump, the squire cried: + +'Downstairs? downstairs, Sewis? You've admitted him into my house?' + +'No, sir.' + +'You have!' + +'He is not in the house, sir.' + +'You have! How did you speak to him, then?' + +'Out of my window, sir.' + +'What place here is the scoundrel soiling now?' + +'He is on the doorstep outside the house.' + +'Outside, is he? and the door's locked?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'Let him rot there!' + +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. + +'Hand me my breeches,' he called to Sewis; 'I can't think brisk out of +my breeches.' + +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. + +'Now, Sewis, now my horsewhip,' he remarked, as if it had been a simple +adjunct of his equipment. + +'Your hat, sir?' + +'My horsewhip, I said.' + +'Your hat is in the hall,' Sewis observed gravely. + +'I asked you for my horsewhip.' + +'That is not to be found anywhere,' said Sewis. + +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. + +The squire himself unbolted the door, and threw it open to the limit of +the chain. + +'Who's there?' he demanded. + +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.' + +'Your name?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +The following conversation passed between them. + +'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.' + +'Have you any accomplices lurking about here?' + +'I am alone.' + +'What 's your business?' + +'I have no business.' + +'You have no business to be here, no. I ask you what 's the object of +your visit?' + +'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.' + +'What brought you here at all?' + +'Can you ask me?' + +'I ask you what brought you to my house at all?' + +'True, I might have slept at Ewling.' + +'Why didn't you?' + +'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.' + +'You've come to see my daughter Marian, have you?' + +'My wife, sir.' + +'You don't cross my threshold while I live.' + +'You compel her to come out to me?' + +'She stays where she is, poor wretch, till the grave takes her. You've +done your worst; be off.' + +'Mr. Beltham, I am not to be restrained from the sight of my wife.' + +'Scamp!' + +'By no scurrilous epithets from a man I am bound to respect will I be +deterred or exasperated.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +His figure was bent to advance. The squire shouted an order to Sewis to +run round to the stables and slip the dogs loose. + +'Is it your final decision?' Mr. Richmond asked. + +'Damn your fine words! Yes, it is. I keep my flock clear of a foul +sheep.' + +'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.' + +'Speak as positively as you like,' said the squire. + +'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.' + +'Can't they!' said the squire. + +'A curse be on him, heaven's lightnings descend on him, who keeps +husband from wife in calamity!' + +The squire whistled for his dogs. + +As if wounded to the quick by this cold-blooded action, Mr. Richmond +stood to his fullest height. + +'Nor, sir, on my application during to-morrow's daylight shall I see +her?' + +'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.' + +'You claim a paternal right to refuse me: my wife is your child. Good. I +wish to see my son.' + +On that point the squire was equally decided. 'You can't. He's asleep.' + +'I insist.' + +'Nonsense: I tell you he's a-bed and asleep.' + +'I repeat, I insist.' + +'When the boy's fast asleep, man!' + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Kiss the little chap and back to bed with him,' growled the squire. + +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. + +'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.' + +'You may ask till you're hoarse, you shall never see her in this house +while I am here to command,' said the squire. + +'Very well; then Harry Richmond changes homes. I take him. The affair is +concluded.' + +'You take him from his mother?' the squire sang out. + +'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.' + +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.' + +'Shall I see my wife?' + +'No, you shan't.' + +'You remain faithful to your word, sir, do you?' + +'I do.' + +'Then I do similarly.' + +'What! Stop! Not to take a child like that out of a comfortable house at +night in Winter, man?' + +'Oh, the night is temperate and warm; he shall not remain in a house +where his father is dishonoured.' + +'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.' + +'Silence concerning a father insinuates dishonour, Mr. Beltham.' + +'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.' + +Mr. Richmond caught the boy just when he was turning to run. + +'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.' + +The squire coughed out an emphatic 'Never!' and fortified it with an +oath as he repeated it upon a fuller breath. + +'Sir, I will condescend to entreat you to grant this permission,' said +Mr. Richmond, urgently. + +'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!' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II. AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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, + + 'Billy Pitt took a cake and a raspberry jam, + When he heard they had taken Seringapatam.' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Give you a cake, little boy?' she said. 'We don't give cakes, we sell +them.' + +'Because I am hungry,' said I, pursuing my request. + +Another young woman came, laughing and shaking lots of ringlets. + +'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.' + +'My name is Harry Richmond, and I thank you very much,' I replied. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +'Are you in the Peerage?' said I. + +'Not yet,' he replied. + +'Well, then,' said I, 'I know nothing about you.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'And who lies outside?' she asked. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III. DIPWELL FARM + +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. + +'Where his heart's not concerned,' Mrs. Waddy remarked of me +flatteringly, 'he's shrewd as a little schoolmaster.' + +'He've a bird's-nesting eye,' said Mrs. Thresher, whose face I was +studying. + +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. + +'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 h'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.' + +'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. + +His wife and Mrs. Waddy said reflectively, in a breath, 'True!' + +'Drink or no, that's the trick o' brewery,' he added. + +They assented. They began praising him, too, like meek creatures. + +'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.' + +'Oh, I quite agree with John, Martha: we must take the good and the evil +in a world like this.' + +'Then I'm no scholar, and you're at ease,' said John. + +Mrs. Waddy put her mouth to his ear. + +Up went his eyebrows, wrinkling arches over a petrified stare. + +In some way she had regained her advantage. 'Art sure of it?' he +inquired. + +'Pray, don't offend me by expressing a doubt of it,' she replied, +bowing. + +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. + +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.' + +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!' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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.' + +Martha Thresher showed him the bed, showed him flowers I had planted, +and a Spanish chestnut tree just peeping. + +'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. + +John Thresher cried out: 'Why, dame, you trembles like a maid.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'And down go all the kings, downstairs,' I said, surveying them +consecutively. + +'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?' + +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. + +'Don't you like it, Mrs. Waddy?' I said. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +They drank to me heartily, but my father had fallen mournful before I +left the room. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Lord only knows where we shall all be by that time!' she sighed. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V. I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND + +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. + +'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.' + +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! + +'What have you there, Heriot?' + +My hero stared. 'Only a family portrait,' he answered, thrusting it safe +in his pocket and fixing his gaze on Julia's window. + +'Permit me to look at it,' said Mr. Boddy. + +'Permit me to decline to let you,' said Heriot. + +'Look at me, sir,' cried Boddy. + +'I prefer to look elsewhere, sir,' replied Heriot, and there was Julia +visible at her window. + +'I asked you, sir, civilly,' quoth Boddy, 'for permission to look,--I +used the word intentionally; I say I asked you for permission...' + +'No, you didn't,' Heriot retorted, quite cool; 'inferentially you did; +but you did not use the word permission.' + +'And you turned upon me impudently,' pursued Boddy, whose colour was +thunder: 'you quibbled, sir; you prevaricated; you concealed what you +were carrying...' + +'Am carrying,' Heriot corrected his tense; 'and mean to, in spite of +every Boddy,' he murmured audibly. + +'Like a rascal detected in an act of felony,' roared Boddy, 'you +concealed it, sir...' + +'Conceal it, sir.' + +'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.' + +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: + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +He hugged me up to him. + +'I'd take anything for you, Heriot,' said I. + +'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. + +'To Miss Rippenger,' I replied. + +'What have you there?' + +'A book, sir.' + +'Show me the book.' + +I stood fast. + +'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 shakes roughly. + +'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.' + +'I regret, sir, that the poor boy was so savagely handled,' said Heriot. + +He was warned to avoid insolence. + +'Oh, as much Virgil as you like,' Heriot retorted; 'I know him by +heart.' + +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.' + +Julia blushed very red. She accepted the book with a soft murmur, and +the sallow usher had not a word. + +'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.' + +I was hoping with all my might that she would not deny him. She did, and +my heart sank. + +'Oh, I can read it without notes,' she said, cheerfully. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'Ah, Richie,' she said, 'I have to pay to have you with me now.' + +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!' + +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. + +'You speak of him as if you were in love with him, Richmond,' she said. + +'And I do love him,' I answered. + +'Not with me?' she asked. + +'Yes, I do love you too, if you will not make him angry.' + +'But do you know what it is he wants of me?' + +I guessed: 'Yes; he wants you to let him sit close to you for half an +hour.' + +She said that he sat very near her in church. + +'Ah,' said I, 'but he mustn't interrupt the sermon.' + +She laughed, and mouthed me over with laughing kisses. 'There's very +little he hasn't daring enough for!' + +We talked of his courage. + +'Is he good as well?' said Julia, more to herself than to me; but I sang +out, + +'Good! Oh, so kind!' + +This appeared to convince her. + +'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. + +I quitted her, taking her message to Heriot: 'You may tell him--tell him +that I can't write.' + +Heriot frowned on hearing me repeat it. + +'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?' + +I had to confess she did; and feeling a twinge of my treason to her, +felt hers to Heriot. + +'Humph!' he went; 'she shall suffer for that.' + +All this was like music going on until the curtain should lift and +reveal my father to me. + +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. + +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, + +'Do you think French useful in a military education, sir?' + +And Boddy said, 'Yes, of course it is.' + +Says Heriot, 'Then I think I shall take lessons.' + +Boddy told him he was taking lessons in the school. + +'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!' + +Boddy sprang half up from his seat. 'Row, sir, and don't talk,' he +growled. + +'Sit, sir, and don't dance in the boat, if you please, or the lady will +be overset,' said Heriot. + +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. + +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. + +'She's a coquette,' said little Temple. I went off to the French +dictionary. + +'Is Julia Rippenger a coquette, Heriot?' I asked him. + +'Keep girls out of your heads, you little fellows,' said he, dealing me +a smart thump. + +'Is a coquette a nasty girl?' I persisted. + +'No, a nice one, as it happens,' was his answer. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'Why not?' said he, staring at us angrily. 'Has Saddlebank broken his +arm, and can't bowl?' + +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. + +'Wait till we win our match,' said Heriot. + +Julia did not appear at morning prayers. + +'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. + +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: + +'I say, Julia, my dear, I say, do you know...' + +And Temple on the other: 'Miss Julia, I wish you'd let me tell you--' + +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. + +'Look!' I said to Julia. But she looked at me. + +'Richie, are you ill?' + +She assured me I was very pale, and I felt her trembling excessively, +and her parasol was covering us. + +'Here, Roy, Temple,' we heard Heriot call; 'here, come here and bowl to +me.' + +I went and bowled till I thought my head was flying after the ball and +getting knocks, it swam and throbbed so horribly. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,' said +Heriot. + +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?' + +'Bother it!' was Temple's answer, for he had taken a stinging dozen, and +had a tender skin. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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, + +'A letter from the colonel in India!' + +Boddy waited a minute, and then said, 'Is your father in good health?' + +Heriot's face was scarlet. At first he stuttered, 'My father!--I hope +so! What have you in common with him, sir?' + +'You stated that the letter was from your father,' said Boddy. + +'What if it is, sir?' + +'Oh, in that case, nothing whatever to me.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +To my grief, I discovered that Heriot had resolved he would not return +to school. + +'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!' + +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 'll do me a service--the last I shall want +in the neighbourhood.' He managed to poise the ladder on his shoulder, +and moved forward. + +'Are we going in through the window?' I asked, seeing him fix the ladder +against the school-house wall. + +He said, 'Hush; keep a look-out.' + +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: + +'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: + +'Heriot, Walter, don't go--don't go; you do not care for me if you go. +Oh, don't go.' + +'We've come to it,' said Heriot. + +She asked why he was not in bed, and moaned on: + +'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. + +'Tell me you love me,' said Heriot. + +'I do, I do, only don't go,' she answered. + +'Will you love me faithfully?' + +'I will; I do.' + +'Say, "I love you, Walter."' + +'I love you, Walter.' + +'For ever.' + +'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?' + +'I'd go through a regiment of sabres to get at you.' + +'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!' + +'Do you dream of me in your bed?' + +'Yes, every night.' + +'God bless the bed!' + +'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.' + +Heriot said, 'Your mother was Irish, Julia.' + +'Yes. She would have loved you.' + +'I 've Irish blood too. Give me her portrait. It 's the image of you.' + +'To take away? Walter! not to take it away?' + +'You darling! to keep me sure of you.' + +'Part with my mother's portrait?' + +'Why, yes, if you love me one bit.' + +'But you are younger than me, Heriot.' + +'Then good-night, good-bye, Julia.' + +'Walter, I will fetch it.' + +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. + +'Some one must be sitting up for you--are we safe?' she said. + +Heriot laughed, and pressed for the portrait. + +'It is all I have. Why should you not have it? I want to be remembered.' + +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: + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +The man said, 'Scamped it out of school, sir?' + +Heriot replied: 'Mum. Rely on me when I tell you I'm a gentleman.' + +'Well, if I pick up a gentleman, I can't be doing a bad business,' said +the man, hauling him in tenderly. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. A TALE OF A GOOSE + +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. + +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. + +'What have you done, old Saddle?' said Temple, though it was perfectly +clear what Saddlebank had done. + +'I've carved off a slice of Michaelmas,' said Saddlebank, and he hewed +the air to flick delicately at his goose's head. + +'What do you mean--a slice?' said we. + +We wanted to be certain the goose was captured booty. Saddlebank would +talk nothing but his fun. Temple fetched a roaring sigh: + +'Oh! how good this goose 'd be with our champagne.' + +The idea seized and enraptured me. 'Saddlebank, I 'll buy him off you,' +I said. + +'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.' + +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. + +'By jingo! what a treat you'll have,' Temple said among them, bursting +with our secret. + +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. + +'A walk on the downs,' said Saddlebank. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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?' + +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. + +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. + +'Let her bide, young gentlemen,' said a woman; 'she's a regular +obstinate, once she sets in for it.' + +'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.' + +'By jingo, she's pig-iron!' cried Temple, and sighed, 'Oh, dear old +Heriot!' + +I flung myself beside him to talk of our lost friend. + +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! + +The boys groaned in consternation, and Saddlebank sowed discontent by +grumbling, 'Now you see what your jolly new acquaintances have done for +you.' + +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. + +The boys called out, 'Now, then, pig-iron!' + +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.' + +Temple urged me to insist on the rascal's going on his knees for +flinging at a girl. + +'Why,' said Chaunter, 'you were the first to call her pig-iron.' + +Temple declared he was a blackguard if he said that. I made the girl +take a piece of toffy. + +'Aha!' Saddlebank grumbled, 'this comes of the precious company you +would keep in spite of my caution.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'I won't get off thieves, I can tell you,' said Temple. He was the son +of a barrister. + +'Nor you won't help cook their gooses for them, may be,' said the man. +'Well, kindness is kindness, all over the world.' + +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. + +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. + +'If I'm not a prince, I'm a nobleman,' I said to Temple. + +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.' + +'I'll come and see you, Temple,' said I. + +'Done! old Richie,' he said, grasping my hand warmly. + +'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."' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Treat your superiors respectfully,' Saddlebank retorted. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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!' + +'Bother it, Saddlebank, you'll make Catman hear you,' said Temple, +wiping his forehead. + +I perspired coldly. + +'Catman! He's been at it for the last hour and a half,' Saddlebank +replied. + +One boy ran up: he was ready, and the only one who was. Presently +Chaunter rushed by. + +'Barnshed 's in custody; I'm away home,' he said, passing. + +We stared at the black opening of the dell. + +'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...' + +'Old Rippenger!' breathed Temple. + +We sat paralyzed. Now we understood the folly of despatching a donkey +like Barnshed for sage and onions. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Temple, I see you, sir!' called Mr. Rippenger. Poor Temple had advanced +into the firelight. + +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!' + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD + +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!' + +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. + +I sucked a blade of grass. + +'I wish it was all water here,' I said. + +'Come and have a drink and a bathe,' said my companion. + +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. + +'Can you swim?' she asked me. + +'I can row, and swim, and fence, and ride, and fire a pistol,' I said. + +'Oh, dear,' said she, after eyeing me enviously. I could see that I had +checked a recital of her accomplishments. + +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. + +'I can catch that horse and mount him,' she said. + +I was astonished. + +'Straddle?' + +She nodded down for 'Yes.' + +'No saddle?' + +She nodded level for 'No.' + +My respect for her returned. But she could not swim. + +'Only up to my knees,' she confessed. + +'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. + +'A cow! a cow!' I repeated, in my superior pleasure. + +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.' + +'Now I float,' was my answer, 'now I dive'; and when I came up she +welcomed me with a big bright grin. + +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. + +'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.' + +'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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +'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 'll be there to +comfort ye 'fore dark. Is it a fister?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'That's a lie,' she answered. + +Of course I would not leave her hungry outside, so in the end he +reluctantly invited us both, and introduced us to his wife. + +'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.' + +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?' + +She snapped her fingers: 'Mumpers!' and walked on carelessly. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +I replied that we were two. + +'Then I'll come and lie in the middle,' said he. + +'You can't; there's no room,' I sang out. + +'Lord,' said he, 'there's room for any reckoning o' empty stomachs in a +ditch.' + +'No, I prefer to be alone: good-night,' said I. + +'Why!' he exclaimed, 'where ha' you been t' learn language? Halloa!' + +'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. + +'Oho!' went the beggar. Then he recommenced: + +'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.' + +At these menacing words the girl jumped out of the blanket, and I called +to him that I would rouse the farmer. + +'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 'll say a apple at night's a +cordial, though it don't intoxicate.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +I replied, 'With pleasure.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Oh!' says I, 'he's my grandfather, but I don't care much about him.' + +'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. + +I asked him if Sewis was alive. + +'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 'll 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!' + +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. + +While he was fielding against the opposite eleven, the tramp came into +the booth, and we had a match of cunning. + +'Schoolmaster's out after you, young gentleman,' said he, advising me to +hurry along the road if I sought to baffle pursuit. + +I pretended alarm, and then said, 'Oh, you'll stand by me,' and treated +him to ale. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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?' + +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.' + +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: + + 'The moon is shining on Latworth lea, + And where'll she see such a jovial three + As we, boys, we? And why is she pale? + It's because she drinks water instead of ale.' + +'Where 's the remainder? There's the song--! + + "Oh! handsome Miss Gammon + Has married Lord Mammon, + And jilted her suitors, + All Cupid's sharpshooters, + And gone in a carriage + And six to her marriage, + Singing hey! for I've landed my salmon, my salmon!" + +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?' + +He sang to 'Mary of Ellingmere' and another maid of some place, and a +loud song of Britons. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'He'll be champion some day,' said Kiomi, at gnaw upon an apple he had +given her. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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!' + +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. + +'And you've gone a course of tuition in wrestling, squire?' the +prizefighter said to me rather savagely. + +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: + +'I never fight girls, and I tell you I don't like their licking me.' + +'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. + +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. + +'Why, I mean to stay with you,' said I. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. JANET ILCHESTER + +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. + +'She is afraid to look me in the face,' I said, keeping my anger on +Kiomi. + +'Harry, Harry,' said my aunt, 'they must have seen me here; do you +grieve, and you have me, dear?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'So you're back, sir, are you!' + +'I am, sir.' + +'Ran like a hare, 'stead of a fox, eh?' + +'I didn't run like either, sir.' + +'Do you ride?' + +'Yes, sir; a horse.' + +That was his greeting and how I took it. I had not run away from him, so +I had a quiet conscience. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Don't talk of creatures you met when you were a beggar, Harry +Richmond,' she said. + +'I never was a beggar,' I replied. + +'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. + +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: + +'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.' + +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.' + +Here Charley sang out: 'Hulloa! you don't mean to say you're talking of +your father.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Oh, and a drawing-master, and a professor of legerdemain,' added her +brother. 'Expunge him, old fellow; he's no good.' + +'No, I'm sure he's no good,' said Janet. + +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. + +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.' + +She forgot, in her delight, our being at variance. + +'No, no, you stupid Harry, I'm to thank you. He's a darling pony. I want +to kiss you.' + +I retired promptly, but the squire had heard her. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Pull the pony's mane,' said I; 'that will do as well. Observe--I pull, +and now you pull.' + +Janet mechanically followed my actions. She grimaced, and whimpered, 'I +could pull the pony's mane right out.' + +'Don't treat animals like your dolls,' said I. + +She ran to the squire, and refused the pony. The squire's face changed +from merry to black. + +'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.' + +'She thinks she is marriageable,' said I; and walked away, leaving loud +laughter behind me. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED + +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.' + +I said, 'No, my father's.' + +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. + +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. + +'Grinning at me, Harry; have I made a slip in my grammar, eh?' + +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. + +'Crops was the cart-load of my thoughts, Master Harry, but there was a +bit o' cricket in it, too, ne'er a doubt.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'And now you think you are flattering me!' I said. + +She looked nervous. + +'And now you're asking yourself what you can do better than I can!' + +She said, 'Go on.' + +I stopped. + +She charged me with being pulled up short. + +I denied it. + +'Guess, guess!' said she. 'You can't.' + +My reply petrified her. 'You were thinking that you are a lady by birth +on both sides.' + +At first she refused to admit it. 'No, it wasn't that, Harry, it wasn't +really. I was thinking how clever you are.' + +'Yes, after, not before.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Oh dear, no!' said she, and told him straightway. + +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!' + +'How? hulloa, what 's that?' sang out the squire. + +'Charley was speaking of my father, sir,' I said, preparing for thunder. + +We all rose. The squire looked as though an apoplectic seizure were +coming on. + +'Don't sit at my table again,' he said, after a terrible struggle to be +articulate. + +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. + +I tried to intercede--the last who should have done it. + +'You like to hear him, eh?' said the squire. + +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. + +'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. + +He and Janet were staying at Riversley. They left next morning, for the +squire would not speak to him, nor I to Janet. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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-hots. 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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Miss Bannerbridge?' she said. + +A stranger was present. The squire introduced us. + +'My grandson, Harry Richmond, Captain William Bulsted, frigate +Polyphemus; Captain Bulsted, Master Augustus Temple.' + +For the sake of conversation, Temple asked him if his ship was fully +manned. + +'All but a mate,' said the captain. + +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. + +'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.' + +Temple and I stared hard at a big man with a bronzed skin and a rubicund +laugh who expected to receive valentines. + +My aunt thrust the letter back to me secretly. 'It must be from a lady,' +said she. + +'Why, who'd have a valentine from any but a lady?' exclaimed the +captain. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +My aunt made an effort to retire. + +'No, no, fair play; stay,' said the squire, trying to frown, but +twinkling; my aunt tried to smile, and sat as if on springs. + +'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.' + +'Ay, he thinks hard enough,' the squire struck in. + +'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. + +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.' + +The captain stood up, and bowing humbly, replied 'I am ever your +servant, ma'am.' + +My aunt quitted the room. + +'Now for the tankard, Sewis,' said the captain. + +Gradually the bottom of the great tankard turned up to the ceiling. He +drank to the last drop in it. + +The squire asked him whether he found consolation in that. + +The captain sighed prodigiously and said: 'It 's a commencement, sir.' + +'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?' + +'I am going to get drunk, sir.' + +'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. + +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.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'No ill will about this bothering love-business of yours, William?' + +'On my soul, sir, I cherish none.' + +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. + +'Same luck, William?' said Squire Gregory. + +'Not a point of change in the wind, Greg,' said the captain. + +They wrenched hands thereupon, like two carpet-shakers, with a report, +and much in a similar attitude. + +'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 'll not find the same man in Billy +Bulsted.' + +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. + +'I observe, nevertheless, Greg, that you have a black tie round your +neck instead of a red one,' said the captain. + +'Then it came there by accident,' said Squire Gregory. + +'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.' + +Squire Gregory carried on the declension, not without pride. The +Vocative confused him. + +'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?' + +Squire Gregory said: 'Drinking, and no thinking, at dinner, William.' +The captain pledged him. + +'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, + +'As we are not on board ship? I like you!' + +Temple thanked him for the compliment. + +'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?' + +'Temple is my dear friend,' I replied. + +'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.' + +'And Harry's a royal fellow!' said Temple. + +We all drank to one another. The captain's eyes scrutinized me +speculatingly. + +'This boy might have been yours or mine, Greg,' I heard him say in a +faltering rough tone. + +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. + +'I count I run away with her every night of my life,' said Squire +Gregory. 'Nothing comes of it but empty bottles.' + +'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.' + +'She's past po'chaises,' Squire Gregory sighed. + +'She's to be won by a bold stroke, brother Greg.' + +'Oh, Lord, no! She's past po'chaises.' + +'Humph! it's come to be half-bottle, half-beauty, with your worship, +Greg, I suspect.' + +'No. I tell you, William, she's got her mind on that fellow. You can't +po'chay her.' + +'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?' + +'In the Bench, of course. Where'd you have him?' + +'I, sir? If I knew my worst enemy to be there, I'd send him six dozen of +the best in my cellar.' + +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. + +Presently the captain said, 'Are you sure the man's in the Bench?' + +'Cock,' Squire Gregory replied. + +'He had money from his wife.' + +'And he had the wheels to make it go.' Here they whispered in earnest. + +'Oh, the Billings were as rich as the Belthams,' said the captain, +aloud. + +'Pretty nigh, William.' + +'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?' + +'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. + +'Remember our feast in the combe?' I sang across the table to him. + +'Never forget it!' said he; and we repeated the tale of the goose at +Rippenger's school to our entertainers, making them laugh. + +'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!' + +'That won't be I,' said Temple. + +'Be me, sir, me,' the captain corrected his grammar. + +'Pardon me, Captain Bulsted; the verb "To be" governs the nominative +case in our climate,' said Temple. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +Out of this strange evening came my discovery of my father, and the +captain's winning of a wife. + + + + +CHAPTER X. AN EXPEDITION + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +I pretended to estimate the probable cost of one. 'Yes, about that; but +I'll buy you one, one day or other, Temple.' + +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. + +'Girls like pugs,' I remarked. + +'I fancy they do,' said Temple, with a snort of indifference. + +Then I suggested, 'A pocket-knife for the hunting-field is a very good +thing.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'Why, of course they are, if they hunt,' said Temple. + +'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!' + +'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. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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 duing my absence.' + +'I'm not going to let any one make comparisons between us,' Temple +muttered. + +He dropped dozens of similar remarks, and sometimes talked downright +flattery, I had so deeply impressed him. + +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. + +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...' + +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. + +'Oh!' said Temple, 'the rest of the way by rail.' + +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, + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Sinbad escaped from the pit by tracking a lynx,' I happened to remark. +Temple would not hear of Sinbad. + +'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?' + +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. + +'Now speak,' the man said, roughly. + +I was interposing, but Temple cried, 'All right, Richie, we are two to +one.' + +The man groaned. I asked him what he wanted. + +'My son! I've lost my son,' the man replied, and walked away; and he +would give no answer to our questions. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +Temple assented. 'They're capital, if you only see the end of them.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +'More,' said Temple. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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!' + +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. + +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. + +'Is it too late to go in to-night?' I asked. + +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.' + +I learnt from her that the Bench was a debtors' prison. + +The saucy girl of the pair asked me for money. I handed her a +crown-piece. + +'Now won't you give another big bit to my friend?' said she. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'There, Temple,' said I, 'didn't I tell you so?' and Temple kindly +supposed so. + +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.' + +'We always go in for it together,' said Temple. + +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?' + +We informed her of our arrival from the country, and wanderings in the +fog. + +'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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE + +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. + +I said softly, 'What a pleasure it must be for horses to be groomed!' + +'Just what I was thinking!' said Temple. + +We started up on our elbows, and one or the other cried: + +'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!' + +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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Sunrise,' I said. + +Temple answered, 'Yes,' most uncertainly. + +We looked round. A steam-tug was towing our ship out toward banks of +red-reflecting cloud, and a smell of sea air. + +'Why, that's the East there!' cried Temple. We faced about to the sun, +and behold, he was actually sinking! + +'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. + +'By jingo!' Temple spoke out, musing, 'here's a whole day struck out of +our existence.' + +'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. + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +'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 'll see a foreign shore before +you're in the arms of your family again.' + +At these words I had the horrible sensation of being caged, and worse, +transported into the bargain. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'Cabin, cabin,' the captain repeated. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +This set Temple off laughing: 'And so he bought a ship and had traps +laid down to catch young fellows for ransom.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +He now said bluntly, 'I will.' + +'You'll behave like a man of honour,' said I, and to that he cried +vehemently, 'I will.' + +'Well, then,' said I, 'call out the boat, if you please; we're anxious +to be home.' + +'So you shall!' the captain shouted, 'and per ship--my barque Priscilla; +and better men than you left, or I 'm no Christian.' + +Temple said briskly, 'Thank you, captain.' + +'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. + +'Thank you very much, captain, we'll do that when we 're on shore,' said +we. + +'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. + +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?' + +Temple chimed in, in a similar strain. Fairly enraged, we flung at him +without anything of what I thought eloquence. + +The captain ruminated up and down the columns of his Bible. + +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.' + +'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. + +But the captain never heeded his interruption. + +'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 'll 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.' + +The captain uplifted his arm, ejaculating solemnly, 'By!' and faltered. +'You were going to swear!' said Temple, with savage disdain. + +'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.' + +'He was going to swear,' Temple muttered to me. + +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. + +'Who gave you that watch?' said he. + +'Downright Church catechism!' muttered Temple. + +'My grandfather,' said I. + +The captain's head went like a mechanical hammer, to express something +indescribable. + +'My grandfather,' I continued, 'will pay you handsomely for any service +you do to me and my friend.' + +'Now, that's not far off forgoing,' said the captain, in a tone as much +as to say we were bad all over. + +I saw the waters slide by his cabin-windows. My desolation, my +humiliation, my chained fury, tumbled together. Out it came-- + +'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--' + +'I thank the Lord for it!' he interposed. + +'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.... + +'Doddered, don't they say in one of the shires?' he remarked. + +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. + +'Is that Latin or Greek?' he asked. + +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. + +'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:-- + +'How can we be graduating for our sphere in life, Captain Welsh, on +board your vessel? Tell us that.' + +He played thumb and knuckles on his table. Just when I was hoping that +good would come of the senseless tune, Temple cried, + +'Tell us what your exact intentions are, Captain Welsh. What do you mean +to do with us?' + +'Mean to take you the voyage out and the voyage home, Providence +willing,' said the captain, and he rose. + +We declined his offer of tea, though I fancy we could have gnawed at a +bone. + +'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.' + +We quitted his cabin, bowing stiffly. + +Temple declared old Rippenger was better than this canting rascal. + +The sea was around us, a distant yellow twinkle telling of land. + +'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.' + +'If YOU are beaten,' said I, scarcely venturing to speak lest I should +cry or be sick. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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.' + +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, + +'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.' + +Captain Welsh replied, + +'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.' + +'So you'd have only one sort of vessel afloat!' said I. 'There's the +difference of a man who's a scholar.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Well, that's neither learning nor human nature,' said I. + +'It's the knowledge o' the right rules for human nature, my lad.' + +'Would you kidnap youngsters to serve in your ship, captain?' + +'I'd bless the wind that blew them there, foul or not, my lad.' + +'And there they'd stick when you had them, captain?' + +'I'd think it was the Lord's will they should stick there awhile, my +lad--yes.' + +'And what of their parents?' + +'Youngsters out like gossamers on a wind, their parents are where they +sow themselves, my lad.' + +'I call that hard on the real parents, Captain Welsh,' said Temple. + +'It's harder on Providence when parents breed that kind o' light +creature, my lad.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Where was his son the night of the fog?' said the captain. + +'Well, he happened to be out in it.' + +'Where'd he be now but for one o' my men?' + +'Who can answer that, Captain Welsh?' + +'I can, my lad-stewing in an ante-room of hell-gates, I verily believe.' + +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.' + +I testified to them briefly. + +The captain said a curious thing: 'I'll make an appointment with you in +leviathan's jaws the night of a storm, my lad.' + +'With pleasure,' said Temple. + +'The Lord send it!' exclaimed the captain. + +His head was bent forward, and he was gazing up into his eyebrows. + +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. + +All this came so suddenly that nothing but the captain's heavy thump of +his fist on the table kept us from laughing. + +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. + +'Three lost souls!' said the captain. + +'See how they run,' Temple sang, half audibly, and flushed hot, ashamed +of himself. + +''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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'We shall have one, of course,' Temple said, affecting resignation, with +a glance aloft. + +I was superstitiously of the same opinion, and praised the vessel. + +'Oh, Priscilla's the very name of a ship that founders with all hands +and sends a bottle on shore,' said Temple. + +'There isn't a bottle on board,' said I; and this piece of nonsense +helped us to sleep off our gloom. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. I MEET OLD FRIENDS + +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. + +'A wonderful place for beer cellars,' a sailor observed to us slyly, and +hitched himself up from the breech to the scalp. + +At all events, it was a place where we could buy linen. + +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. + +'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.' + +We inquired what the difference was between their privileges and his. + +'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.' + +We held our peace, but we could have spoken. + +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. + +'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.' + +We heard English laughter near us. Presently an English gentleman +accosted us. + +'Mr. Villiers, I believe?' He bowed at me. + +'My name is Richmond.' + +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: + +'Miss Goodwin (whose Christian name is Clara) wishes very much to know +how it has fared with Mr. Harry Richmond since he left Venice.' + +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. + +'On your way to your father?' he said, as he shook my hand. + +I thought it amazing he should guess that in Germany. + +'Do you know where he is, sir?' I asked. + +'We saw him,' replied the colonel; 'when was it, Clara? A week or ten +days ago.' + +'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. + +I fetched Temple into the box to introduce him. We were introduced in +turn to Captain Malet, the gentleman who had accosted me below. + +'You understand German, then?' said Miss Goodwin. + +She stared at hearing that we knew only the word ja, for it made our +presence in Germany unaccountable. + +'The most dangerous word of all,' said Colonel Goodwin, and begged us +always to repeat after it the negative nein for an antidote. + +'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.' + +She touched her father's arm. + +'At once, if you like,' said he, jumping up erect. + +'In Germany was it?' I persisted. + +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?' + +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.' + +'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.' + +I reminded Miss Goodwin of my father being in Germany. + +'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?' + +I hoped so ardently. + +She with great urgency added, 'Then come with us. Prove that you put +faith in our friendship.' + +In desperation I exclaimed, 'But I must, I must hear of my father.' + +She turned to consult the colonel's face. + +'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.' + +He wished us good-night on an appointment of the hour for breakfast, and +ordered beds for us in the hotel. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +'Won't you tell me any more to-night?' I said, when she paused. + +'Indeed, I have not any more to tell,' she assured me. + +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. + +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.' + +'I have,' I cried. 'I have come out to find him, and I must.' + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST + +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? + +'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. + +'No, no,' said Temple, as if curdling; 'let's call this place the mouth +of Hades. Greek things don't make you feel funny.' + +I laughed louder than was necessary, and remarked that I never had cared +so much for Greek as on board Captain Welsh's vessel. + +'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.' + +'No. I'm glad of it,' said I. + +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?' + +The dusky scenery of a strange land was influencing Temple. It affected +me so, I made the worst of it for a cure. + +'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!' + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Follow the path,' I said, when Temple wanted to have a consultation. + +'So we did in the London fog!' said he, with some gloom. + +But my retort: 'Hasn't it brought us here?' was a silencer. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'He takes us for twin Caspar Hausers,' sighed Temple. + +'Nein,' said the man, and, perhaps enlightened by hearing a foreign +tongue, beckoned for us to step at his heels. + +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. + +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. + +We now, with the name Sarkeld, craved of their father a direction to +that place. At the door of his but 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. + +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. + +Burning to catch an excuse for another look over my shoulder, I heard +her voice: + +'Young English gentlemen!' + +We turned sharp round. + +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: + +'I sthink you go a wrong way?' + +Our hats flew off again, and bareheaded, I seized the reply before +Temple could speak. + +'Is not this, may I ask you, the way to Sarkeld?' + +She gathered up her knowledge of English deliberately. + +'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.' + +'Up at the tower, then? Oh, we were there last night, and saw the bronze +horse, mademoiselle.' + +'Yes, I know. I called on my poor sick woman in a but 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.' + +'You knew at once we were English, mademoiselle?' + +'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.' + +Temple thanked her for the kindness of the offer. + +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: + +'I beg you will cover your heads.' + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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? + +'Bella Vista, lovely view,' said I. + +'Lovely view,' she repeated. + +She ran on in the most musical tongue, to my thinking, ever heard: + +'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 Markgrafin 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 Markgrafin 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 +Markgrafin 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.' + +I said it would be a fine sight. + +'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?' + +'My father is in Sarkeld, mademoiselle. I am told he is at the palace.' + +'Indeed; and he is English, your fater?' + +'Yes. I have not seen him for years; I have come to find him.' + +'Indeed; it is for love of him, your fater, sir, you come, and not speak +German?' + +I signified that it was so. + +'She stroked her pony's neck musing. + +'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. + +'His name, mademoiselle, is Mr. Richmond.' + +'Mr. Richmond?' + +'Mr. Richmond Roy.' + +She sprang in her saddle. + +'You are son to Mr. Richmond Roy? Oh! it is wonderful.' + +'Mademoiselle, then you have seen him lately?' + +'Yes, yes! I have seen him. I have heard of his beautiful child, his +son; and you it is?' + +She studied my countenance a moment. + +'Tell me, is he well?' mademoiselle, is he quite well?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +I besought her to waste no time. + +'You must, if you please, attend my pleasure, if I guide you,' she said, +tossing her chin. + +'I thank you, I can't tell you how much, mademoiselle,' said I. + +She answered: 'You were kind to my two pet lambs, sir.' + +So we moved forward. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Markgrafin, 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--ja? You will--nicht wahr? Or French? Make +your glom-pudding of it, will you?' + +I made a shocking plum-pudding of it. Temple was no happier. + +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. + +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. + +'C'est peut-etre le fils de son petit papa, et c'est tout dire.' + +Such was her summary comment. + +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?' + +There was no helping it: I laughed like a madman, giving one outburst +and a dead stop. + +Far from looking displeased, she nodded. I was again put to the dreadful +test. + +'Can yo' mak' laff?' + +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. + +'He can, your Highness.' + +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. + +'He can--ja: du auch.' + +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! + +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. + +'Fraulein Sibley,' the margravine called. + +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. + +'I have the honour to be your countrywoman,' said a lady, English all +over to our struggling senses. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +'Is the gun never going off?' I groaned. + +'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.' + +'Don't go!' we cried simultaneously. + +The Princess Ottilia supplied her place. + +'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 Markgrafin 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?' + +Her compliment raised a blush on me. + +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. + +Temple observed to me, + +'We'll give the old statue a British cheer, won't we, Richie?' + +'After coming all the way from England!' said I, in dejection. + +'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.' + +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. + +Miss Sibley ran to us, saying,-- + +'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?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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--'Ja, ja--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. + +Smiling cordially, the margravine spoke, Miss Sibley translated: + +'Her Royal Highness asks you if you have seen your father?' + +I shook my head. + +The Princess Ottilia translated, 'Her Highness, my good aunt, would +know, would you know him, did you see him?' + +'Yes, anywhere,' I cried. + +The margravine pushed me back with a gesture. + +'Yes, your Highness, on my honour; anywhere on earth!' + +She declined to hear the translation. + +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. + +'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 Markgrafin says +you are our good guests.' + +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. + +'Hush! a poet is reading his ode,' said the princess. 'It is Count +Fretzel von Wolfenstein.' + +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, + +'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.' + +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. + +'Her Highness,' Miss Sibley translated, 'asks whether you are prepared +to bet that your father is not on the ground?' + +'Beg her to wait two minutes, and I'll be prepared to bet any sum,' said +I. + +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, + +'Richie! he's not here!' + +'Not here!' cried I. + +The people gazed up at us, wondering at the tongue we talked. + +'Richie! now let 's lead these fellows off with a tiptop cheer!' + +Little Temple crowed lustily. + +The head of the statue turned from Temple to me. + +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. + +'Richmond! my son! Richie! Harry Richmond! Richmond Roy!' + +That was what the statue gave forth. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS + +The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on each +side of the ropes toward the margravine's carriage. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'You have seen the last of me, madam,' my father said to her whirling +carriage-wheels. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Yes, Mr. Temple, we are in high Germany,' said my father. + +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. + +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.' + +He begged permission to take breath a minute. + +'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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION + +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. + +'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. + +'You did think of me often, papa, didn't you?' + +His eyes brimmed with tenderness. + +'Think of you!' he sighed. + +I gave him the account of my latest adventures in a few panting breaths, +suppressing the Bench. He set my face to front him. + +'We are two fools, Mr. Temple,' he said. + +'No, sir,' said Temple. + +'Now you speak, papa,' said I. + +He smiled warmly. + +'Richie begins to remember me.' + +I gazed at him to show it was true. + +'I do, papa--I'm not beginning to.' + +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.' + +My father went on in this wise excitedly: + +'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 Markgrafin 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! + +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.' + +I protested: + +'Papa, I have been in jacket and trousers I don't know how long.' + +'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.' + +Temple said modestly: 'I should call that the margravine of wines.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +My father paused, yawned and stretched, to be rid of the remainder of +his aches and stiffness. Out of a great yawn he said: + +'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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'Till morning, then,' he said: 'and to England with the first lark.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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!' + +'Weren't they sure to have found it out in the end, papa?' I inquired. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Papa!' said I sadly, for consolation. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +Temple was dazed by this mystifying address to him; nor could I +understand it. + +'Why, papa, you always wished for me to go into Parliament,' said I. + +'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. + +We fell upon our random talk again with a merry rattle. + +I had to give him a specimen of my piano-playing and singing. + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. OUR RETURN HOMEWARD + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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.' + +'That seems to me rather unreasonable,' I remonstrated. + +'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."' + +'Then, papa, I shall have a talk with the squire.' + +'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.' + +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, + +'Papa, if the prince won't pay for a real statue, I will, and I'll +present it in your name!' + +'To the nation?' cried he, staring, and arresting his arm in what seemed +an orchestral movement. + +'To the margravine!' + +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. + +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. + +'She has asked me for a copper coin, Richie,' he said, squeezing her fat +cheeks to make cherries of her lips. + +I recommended him to give her a silver one. + +'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.' + +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. + +The child stumped away on the pavement fronting our hotel, staring at +its fist that held the treasure. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'The poet is perhaps, on the whole, more exhilarating than the +alderman,' he said. + +These were the respective names given by him to the empty purse and the +full purse. We vowed we preferred the poet. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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: + +'We beat foreigners in our women, Richie.' + +I, making it my business to talk with perfect unconcern, replied + +'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. + +My aunt Dorothy swam up to me, and, kissing me, murmured: + +'Take no rebuff from your grandpapa, darling.' + +My answer was: 'I have found him!' + +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. + +'Hulloa!' he cried, and gave me his shoulder. + +'Temple is your guest, sir,' said I. + +He was obliged to stretch out his hand to Temple. + +A prompt instinct warned me that I must show him as much Beltham as I +could summon. + +'Dogs and horses all right, sir?' I asked. + +Captain Bulsted sauntered near. + +'Here, William,' said the squire, 'tell this fellow about my stables.' + +'In excellent condition, Harry Richmond,' returned the captain. + +'Oh! he 's got a new name, I 'll swear,' said the squire. + +'Not I!' + +'Then what have you got of your trip, eh?' + +'A sharper eye than I had, sir.' + +'You've been sharpening it in London, have you?' + +'I've been a little farther than London, squire.' + +'Well, you're not a liar.' + +'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.' + +The squire's hands were crossed behind him. I smiled boldly in his face. + +'Shall I make the tour of you to get hold of one of them, sir?' He +frowned and blinked. + +'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. + +I seized it, saying heartily, 'Grandfather, upon my honour, I love you, +and I'm glad to be home again.' + +'Mind you, you're not at home till you've begged Uberly's pardon in +public, you know what for,' he rejoined. + +'Leaving the horse at that inn is on my conscience,' said I. + +The squire grumbled a bit. + +'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. + +All the better; keep him there 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. + +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. + +'To hear the young lady allude to me in that style!' he confided to my +ear, with an ineffable heave of his big chest. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +'It happens to be my father's present name,' said I. + +'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. + +'The letter at least must be answered,' my aunt Dorothy said. + +'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. + +Then came a statement of the young lady's case from Bath. + +'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. + +My aunt winced displeasingly to my sight: 'I see nothing to astonish +one.' + +'Nothing to astonish one!' The squire set his mouth in imitation of her. + +'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.' + +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. + +I was summoned to Bath by my father in a curious peremptory tone +implying the utmost urgent need of me. + +I handed the letter to the squire at breakfast, saying, 'You must spare +me for a week or so, sir.' + +He spread the letter flat with his knife, and turned it over with his +fork. + +'Harry,' said he, half-kindly, and choking, 'you're better out of it.' + +'I'm the best friend he could have by him, sir.' + +'You're the best tool he could have handy, for you're a gentleman.' + +'I hope I shan't offend you, grandfather, but I must go.' + +'Don't you see, Harry Richmond, you're in for an infernal marriage +ceremony there!' + +'The young lady is not of age,' interposed my aunt. + +'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!' + +He threw a horrible tremour into his accent of pity. + +My aunt expressed her view mildly, that I was sent for to help cure the +young lady of her delusion. + +'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!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. A PROMENADE IN BATH + +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: + +'The person calling himself "Roy," whose monstrously absurd pretensions +are supposed to be embodied in this self-dubbed surname...' + +'--The celebrated and courtly Mr. Richmond Roy, known no less by the +fascination of his manners than by his romantic history...' + +'--has very soon succeeded in making himself the talk of the town...' + +'--has latterly become the theme of our tea-tables...' + +'--which is always the adventurer's privilege...' + +'--through no fault of his own...' + +'--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...' + +'--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...' + +'--We think we are justified in entitling him the Perkin Warbeck of +society...' + +'--Reference might be made to mythological heroes...' + +Hereat I cried out mercy. + +Captain DeWitt (stretched nursing a leg) removed his silk handkerchief +from his face to murmur, + +'The bass stedfastly drowns the treble, if this is meant for harmony.' + +My father rang up the landlord, and said to him, + +'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.' + +The man smirked. He ventured to say he had never been so tempted to +supply an inferior article. + +My father smiled on him. + +'You invite our editorial advocate?' said Captain DeWitt. + +'Our adversary,' said my father. + +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. + +'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.' + +'It does me,' said DeWitt. + +'You perceive, Jorian, a policy in dining these men of the Press now and +occasionally, considering their growing power, do you not?' + +'Ay, ay! it's a great gossiping machine, mon Roy. I prefer to let it +spout.' + +'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.' + +Near the fashionable hour of the afternoon my father took my arm, +Captain DeWitt a stick, and we walked into the throng and buzz. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'The place is pretty well supplied with newspapers,' said Captain +DeWitt. + +'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?' + +The lady replied: 'I should have shut my eyes if I had. I called you to +tell me, who is the young man?' + +'For twenty years I have lived in the proud belief that he is my son!' + +'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.' + +'Purely temporary fits of unworthiness, my lady.' + +'In English, gout?' + +'Not gout in the conscience, I trust,' said my father. + +'Oh! that's curable,' laughed the captain. + +'You men of repartee would be nothing without your wickedness,' the lady +observed. + +'Man was supposed to be incomplete--' Captain DeWitt affected a murmur. + +She nodded 'Yes, yes,' and lifted eyes on my father. 'So you have not +given up going to church?' + +He bent and spoke low. + +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.' + +'I cannot consent to accept your ladyship's favour on account of one +single virtue,' said he, drooping. + +She waved him to move forward. + +During this frothy dialogue, I could see that the ear of the assembly +had been caught by the sound of it. + +'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.' + +Captain DeWitt said that if so it would be the tenth, to his certain +knowledge. + +'Not great campaign!' my father insisted: 'mere skirmishes before this.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +My reply, addressed at the same time mentally to Temple at sea, was: + +'Well, as long as we have the handsomest women, I don't care.' + +Captain DeWitt was not so sure that we had. The Provencal 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. + +He accepted his thrashing complacently. + +'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?' + +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. + +'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. + +'I knew you would face them,' she said. + +He threw back his head like a swimmer tossing spray from his locks. + +'You have read the paper?' he asked. + +'You have horsewhipped the writer?' she rejoined. + +'Oh! the poor penster!' + +'Nay, we can't pretend to pity him!' + +'Could we condescend to offer him satisfaction?' + +'Would he dare to demand it?' + +'We will lay the case before Lady Wilts to-night.' + +'You are there to-night?' + +'At Lady Denewdney's to-morrow night--if I may indulge a hope?' + +'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.' + +My father introduced me. + +'Let me present to your notice my son, Harry Lepel Richmond, Miss +Penrhys.' + +She touched my fingers, and nodded at me; speaking to him: + +'He has a boy's taste: I hear he esteems me moderately well-favoured.' + +'An inherited error certain to increase with age!' + +'Now you have started me!' she exclaimed, and lashed the flanks of her +horse. + +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. + +'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.' + +My father pressed on my arm to intimate, with a cavernous significance +of eyebrow, that Captain DeWitt had the gift of repartee in perfection. + +'Jorian,' said he, 'will you wager our editor declines to dine with us?' + +The answer struck me as only passable. I think it was: + +'When rats smell death in toasted cheese.' + +Captain DeWitt sprang up the staircase of our hotel to his bedroom. + +'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.' + +I conceived him, I confessed, hardly pitiable, though not enviable. + +'He has but six hundred a year, and a passion for Burgundy,' said my +father. + +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. + +My father heard him out. Addressing him subsequently, + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'What! Have you got a place at their tables?' inquired Captain DeWitt. + +'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.' + +My father pacified him. + +'You will do your duty to your family, Mr. Hickson.' + +Deeply moved, the little man pulled out proof-sheets and slips. + +'Even now, at the eleventh hour,' he urged, 'there is time to correct +any glaring falsehoods, insults, what not!' + +My father accepted the copy of proofs. + +'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.' + +A light of satisfaction came over Mr. Hickson's face at the mention of +my father's visiting both these sovereign ladies. + +As soon as we were rid of him, Captain DeWitt exclaimed, + +'If that's the Fourth Estate, what's the Realm?' + +'The Estate,' pleaded my father, 'is here in its infancy--on all +fours--' + +'Prehensile! Egad, it has the vices of the other three besides its own. +Do you mean that by putting it on all fours?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'In heaven's name keep me from marriage, my lady!' I heard him reply. + +There was sincerity in his tone when he said that. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE + +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. + +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.' + +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.' + +She seemed to me preternaturally anxious about Miss Penrhys. + +My father listened in silence to my flippant satire on women's letters. + +He answered after a pause, + +'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!' + +He lost his voice. + +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. + +'Money goes,' I remarked. + +'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.' + +'I hope we have seen the last of Shylock's great-grandnephew,' said I +emphatically. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +'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. + +'Cultivate Lady Wilts. You have made an impression. She puts you forward +as a good specimen of our young men. 'Hem! madam. + +'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. + +'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: Fraulein. I am actually dazzled at the +prospect of our future. To be candid, I no longer see to write. Gruss' +dich herzlich. From Vienna to you next. Lebe wohl!' + +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. + +'Oh! that's over,' said I. 'Heiresses soon get consoled.' + +She accused me of having picked up a vulgar idea. I maintained that it +was my father's. + +'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.' + +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. + +Out of his circle of attraction books were my resource. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +I talked like a boy, feeling like a man: she behaved like a woman, +blushing like a girl. + +'Julia! I can never call you Mrs. Bulsted.' + +'You have an affection for my husband, have you not, Harry?' + +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. + +'Speak to him yourself, Kiomi,' said I; 'whatever you ask for, he can't +refuse anything to such eyes as yours.' + +'You!' she rallied me; 'why can't you talk sensible stuff!' + +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. + +'You're not married?' I said, ludicrously faintly. + +'I 've not seen the man I'd marry,' she answered, grinning scorn. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +'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.' + +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, + +'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.' + +'Not upset my fortune, Janet?' + +'Don't hurt the kind old man's heart to-day.' + +'Oh! you're the girl of his heart, I know.' + +'Well, Harry, you have first place, and I want you to keep it.' + +'But here's an oath I've sworn to my father.' + +'He should not have exacted it, I think.' + +'I promised him when I was a youngster.' + +'Then be wiser now, Harry.' + +'You have brilliant ideas of the sacredness of engagements.' + +'I think I have common sense, that's all.' + +'This is a matter of feeling.' + +'It seems that you forgot it, though!' + +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. + +After breakfast the squire introduced me to his lawyer, Mr. Burgin, who, +closeted alone with me, said formally, + +'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.' + +None so grimly ironical as the obsequious! I thought of Burgin's +'discerning' providence (he spoke with all professional sincerity) in +after days. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Butter and eggs! old Richie, and about as much fire as a rushlight. If +the race were Fat she 'd beat the world.' + +'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.' + +'Did she tinkle, as you call it, when that fellow Destrier, confound +him! touched her?' + +'The little cat! Did you notice Mabel's blush?' + +'How could I help it? We've all had a dozen apiece. You saw little Kiomi +curled up under the hop and briony?' + +'I took her for a dead jackdaw.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'There's nothing better in the world than that,' said he. + +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. + +'Has he grieved you, Mabel?' I asked softly. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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, he 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.' + +He flourished me away to London, into new spheres of fancy. He was +irresistible. + +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. + +'Who is she?' I asked. + +The old-fashioned building of the powdered hair counselled me to add, +'Who was she?' + +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.' + +'She does not look a grandmother,' said my father. + +'She would be one by this time, I dare say,' said I. + +We gazed in silence. + +'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.' + +I was breathing 'Who?' when he said, 'She was my mother, my dear.' + +It was piteous. + +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. + +She had suffered in life miserably. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. I MEET THE PRINCESS + +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. + +'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.' + +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?' + +'Want of funds.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Not when the son had not come down among us,' said my father, smiling. + +'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!--a +la Camerani, a 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-la, 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: "He! mais pensez donc au +Papa, Monsieur Henri-Richie, sans doute il a une sante de fer: mais +encore faut-il lui menager le suc gastrique, pancreatique...."' + +'Ay, ay!' laughed my father; 'what sets you thinking of Alphonse?' + +'I suppose because I shall have to be speaking French in an hour.' + +'German, Richie, German.' + +'But these Belgians speak French.' + +'Such French as it is. You will, however, be engaged in a German +conversation first, I suspect.' + +'Very well, I'll stumble on. I don't much like it.' + +'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.' + +I looked at him. He gave me a broad pleasant smile, without sign of a +jest lurking in one corner. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Indeed, sir?' said the simple man. + +'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.' + +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, + +'They are here. 'Tis as I expected. And she is taking the morning breath +of sea-air on the dunes. Come, Richie, come.' + +'Who's the "she"?' I asked incuriously. + +'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 schlaft; 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! + +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!' + +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. + +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. + +'Princess Ottilia!' said my father. + +'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?' + +'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.' + +'And he?' + +'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not +forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.' + +Her eyelids gently lifted, asking me. + +'Nor the mount you did me the honour to give me on the little +Hungarian,' said I. + +'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 Markgrafin?' + +My father explained that we had just landed from the boat. + +'Is our meeting, then, an accident?' + +'Dear princess, I heard of your being out by the shore.' + +'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.' + +Her eyelids dropped without closing. + +'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. + +'Danger is over,' Miss Sibley answered my gaze. 'She is convalescent. +You see how weak she is.' + +I praised the lady for what I deemed her great merit in not having +quitted the service of the princess. + +'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.' + +'The margravine?' + +'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!' + +'Thank you, thank you most humbly,' said I, bowing to her shadow of a +mock curtsey. + +The princess's hand appeared at a side of the chair. We hastened to her. + +'Let me laugh, too,' she prayed. + +Miss Sibley was about to reply, but stared, and delight sprang to her +lips in a quick cry. + +'What medicine is this? Why, the light of morning has come to you, my +darling!' + +'I am better, dearest, better.' + +'You sigh, my own.' + +'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?' + +Miss Sibley turned her head to me. + +'Temple,' said I; 'Temple is a midshipman; he is at sea.' + +'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.' + +My father stooped low. + +'The Grand Seigneur, your servant, dear princess, was an Ottoman Turk, +and his Grand Vizier advised him to send flowers in his place weekly.' + +'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.' + +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. + +At parting, the princess said, + +'Is my English improved? You smiled at it once. I will ask you when I +meet you next.' + +'It is my question,' I whispered to my own ears. + +She caught the words. + +'Why do you say--"It is my question"?' + +I was constrained to remind her of her old forms of English speech. + +'You remember that? Adieu,' she said. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. ON BOARD A YACHT + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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 Peterbooroo'! 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 Marechal 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!' + +'Good soul!' the princess arrested her, 'I beg that you will not abuse +England.' + +'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?' + +'My whimsy aunt!' the princess interposed again, 'now you have taken to +abusing a defenceless Englishman.' + +'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.' + +'Madame, I would,' said I, 'that I were the Perseus to relieve you of +your monster Ennui, but he is coming quickly.' + +'You see he has his pretty phrases!' cried the margravine; adding +encouragingly, 'S'il nest pas tant sort peu impertinent?' + +The advance of some German or Russian nobleman spared me further +efforts. + +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. + +'House and town and fortress provisioned, and moveable at will!' the +margravine interjected repeatedly. + +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. + +'Then, are you the captain, my good Herr Heilbrunn?' the margravine +asked my father. + +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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The margravine groaned impatiently at talk of such a dieaway sort. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +The princess flushing scarlet, the margravine cried, + +'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!' + +My father stepped in. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +The farce was too evanescent for me to reproduce it. + +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. + +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. + +'Good!' she concluded; 'now I sulk you for five years.' + +'You would decapitate me, madam, and weep over my astonished head, would +you not?' + +'Upon my honour, I would,' she shook herself to reply. + +He smiled rather sadly. + +'No pathos!' she implored him. + +'Not while I live, madam,' said he. + +At this her countenance underwent a tremour. + +'And when that ends... friend! well, I shall have had my last laugh in +the world.' + +Both seemed affected. My father murmured some soothing word. + +'Then you do mean to stay with me?' the margravine caught him up. + +'Not in livery, your Highness.' + +'To the deuce with you!' would be a fair translation of the exalted +lady's reply. She railed at his insufferable pride. + +'And you were wrong, wrong,' she pursued. 'You offended the prince +mightily: you travestied his most noble ancestor--' + +'In your service, may it please you.' + +'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?' + +She turned to me. + +'Hither, Mr. Harry; come, persuade him. Why, you do not desire to leave +me, do you?' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Thank you, thank you, sir,' said the Rev. Ambrose, gazing +enthusiastically, but daunted by the heat: 'if it is your wish?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Come!' said he, glowing, 'we will toast the Hohenstaufens and the +Hohenzollerns to-night, Richie.' + +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: + + 'Violets are over.' + +Plain words; but a princess had written them, and never did so golden a +halo enclose any piece of human handiwork. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. THE TIME OF ROSES + +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. + +'Violets are over.' + +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. + +'From violets to roses, so run the seasons.' + +Or is it, + +'From violets to roses, thus far have we two travelled?' + +But would she merely say, 'I have not this kind of flower, and I send +you another?' + +True, but would she dare to say, 'The violets no longer express my +heart; take the roses?' + +'Maidenly, and a Princess, yet sweet and grateful, she gives you the +gracefullest good speed. + +'Noble above all human distinctions, she binds you to herself, if you +will it.' + +The two armies came into collision, the luck of the day going to the one +I sided with. + +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. + +'She cannot mean so much as this.' + +'She must mean more than that.' + +Thus the Absolute and the Symbolical factions struggled on. A princess +drew them as the moon the tides. + +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?' + +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, + +'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.' + +'As you did at Bath,' said I. + +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?' + +'Not at all,' said I, with a chill at the prospect. + +'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. Challenge 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.' + +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. + +You perceive my state without rendering it necessary for me to label +myself. + +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. + +'You!' she said. + +'I might ask, is it you, princess?' + +'Some wonder has been worked, you see.' + +'I thank heaven.' + +'You had a part in it.' + +'The poorest possible.' + +'Yet I shall presume to call you Doctor Oceanus,' + +'Will you repeat his medicine? The yacht awaits you always.' + +'When I am well I study. Do not you?' + +'I have never studied in my life.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Schwartz is the princess's attendant, sir,' she said. 'In future, may I +request you to talk German?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Certainly,' said I. + +'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!' + +'Oh! decidedly not,' was my advice. + +'Well, well,' he assented. + +I empowered him to sell out Bank stock. + +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. + +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. + +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-- + +'Our sea-lieutenant.' + +'It delights me to hear he has turned University student,' she said; and +in English: 'You have made friends of your books?' + +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, + +'At least I have been taught to despise idleness.' + +'My Professor tells me it is strange for any of your countrymen to love +books.' + +'We have some good scholars, princess.' + +'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.' + +'Speak intelligibly, and don't drum on my ear with that hybrid +language,' rejoined the margravine. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'The deprivation is one we are immensely sensible of!' said the +princess. + +'Laugh on! you will some day be aware of their importance in daily life, +Ottilia.' + +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. + +We drove to the statue of Prince Albrecht Wohlgemuth, overlooking +leagues of snow-roofed branches. Again Ottilia reverted to Temple, + +'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.' + +'Roy is a butterfly,' said the margravine. + +'That I cannot think.' + +'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.' + +'He is an intensely loving father.' + +'Very well; establish that, and what does it matter whether he wrote or +not? A good reputation is the best vindication.' + +The princess smiled. 'See here, dearest aunty, the two boys passed half +the night here, until my Aennchen's father gave them shelter.' + +'Apparently he passes half or all the night in the open air everywhere,' +said the margravine. + +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. + +'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.' + +The margravine repeated, + +'A track of blood in the snow! My good young man, you have excited forms +of speech.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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: + +'You are either a most fortunate or a most unfortunate young man!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. OTTILIA + +She was on horseback; I on foot, Schwartz for sole witness, and a wide +space of rolling silent white country around us. + +We had met in the fall of the winter noon by accident. 'You like my +Professor?' said Ottilia. + +'I do: I respect him for his learning.' + +'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?' + +'Princess!' + +'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?' + +'Well, no, frankly, I will not. The proper defence for a nation is its +history.' + +'For an individual?' + +'For a man, his readiness to abide by his word.' + +'For a woman--what?' + +'For a princess, her ancestry.' + +'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.' + +'I am,' said I. + +'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?' + +'It's more than I could dare to do myself, princess.' + +How different from the Ottilia I had known, or could have imagined! That +was one thought. + +'Out of the number, then, this,' she resumed: 'you think that your +English young ladies have command over their tongues: is it not so?' + +'There are prattlers among them.' + +'Are they educated strictly?' + +'I know little of them. They seem to me to be educated to conceal their +education.' + +'They reject ideas?' + +'It is uncertain whether they have had the offer.' + +Ottilia smiled. 'Would it be a home in their midst?' + +Something moved my soul to lift wings, but the passion sank. + +'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.' + +I touched her horse's neck, and said, 'I have not seen it.' + +'Yet you understand me. You know me well. How is that?' + +The murmur of honest confession came from me: 'I have seen it!' + +She laughed. 'I bring you to be German, you see. Could you forsake your +England?' + +'Instantly, though not willingly.' + +'Not regrettingly?' + +'Cheerfully, if I had my work and my--my friend.' + +'No; but well I know a man's field of labour is his country. You have +your ambition.' + +'Yes, now I have.' + +She struck a fir-branch with her riding-whip, scattering flakes on my +head. 'Would that extinguish it?' + +'In the form of an avalanche perhaps it would.' + +'Then you make your aims a part of your life?' + +'I do.' + +'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. + +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?' + +'Princess, you have given me matter to think upon.' + +She shook her head, smiling with closed eyelids. + +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. + +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?' + +Her hand was hanging loose. I grasped it. She drew a sudden long breath, +and murmured, without fretting to disengage herself, + +'My friend, not that!' + +Her voice carried an unmistakeable command. I kissed above the fingers +and released them. + +'Are you still able to run?' said she, leading with an easy canter, face +averted. She put on fresh speed; I was outstripped. + +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? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG + +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. + +One night he asked me what my scheme of life was. + +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. + +'Quite otherwise,' said he. 'I have never cared to read deliberately in +the book you open to me, my good young man.' + +'The book, Herr Professor?' + +'Collect your wits. We will call it Shakespeare's book; or Gothe'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?' + +I admitted it, feeling that it was easily to have been perceived. He was +elated. + +'Good. Then I apprehend that you wait for the shifting of a tide to +carry you on?' + +'I try to strengthen my mind.' + +'So I hear,' said he dryly. + +'Well, as far as your schools of teaching will allow.' + +'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?' + +'I shall hope to do good with it.' + +'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.' + +'We are the hardest workers in the world.' + +'That you may live for pleasure! Deny it!' + +He puffed his tobacco-smoke zealously, and resumed: + +'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.' + +'We have our aristocracy, Herr Professor.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +I could not conceive why he went on worrying me in this manner with his +jealous outburst of Continental bile. + +'Widely!' he repeated. 'It is widely respected; and you respect it: and +why do you respect it?' + +'We have illustrious names in our aristocracy.' + +'We beat you in illustrious names and in the age of the lines, my good +young man.' + +'But not in a race of nobles who have stood for the country's +liberties.' + +'So long as it imperilled their own! Any longer?' + +'Well, they have known how to yield. They have helped to build our +Constitution.' + +'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!' + +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.' + +This was downright insolence. + +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.' + +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.' + +'Not on a fresh journey--a recurring course!' said I. + +'Good!' he applauded, and I was flattered. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +His discharges of smoke grew stifling. My advocacy was certainly of a +miserable sort. + +'Yes, Herr Professor, on my way when a boy to this very place I met a +thorough good man.' + +Here I related the tale of my encounter with Captain Welsh. + +Dr. Julius nodded rapidly for continuations. Further! further! + +He refused to dig at the mine within me, and seemed to expect it to +unbosom its riches by explosion. + +'Well, Herr Professor, we have conquered India, and hold it as no other +people could.' + +'Vide the articles in the last file of English newspapers!' said he. + +'Suppose we boast of it.' + +'Can you?' he simulated wonderment. + +'Why, surely it's something!' + +'Something for non-commissioned officers to boast of; not for statesmen. +However, say that you are fit to govern Asiatics. Go on.' + +'I would endeavour to equalize ranks at home, encourage the growth of +ideas...' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'Now we are at the bottom, then!' said he. + +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.' + +He chuckled over his pipe-stem, 'Aha!' + +'How am I one or the other?' + +'By the weight of what you carry in your head.' + +'How by the weight?' + +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.' + +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. + +'But it's the questioner who unmasks,' said he. + +'Are we masked, Herr Professor? I was not aware of it.' + +'Look within, and avoid lying.' + +He stood up. 'My nights,' he remarked, 'are not commonly wasted in this +manner. We Germans use the night for work.' + +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.' + +'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?' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE + +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. + +My desire was to go into harness, buried in books, and for recreation +to chase visions of original ideas for benefiting mankind. A clear-wined +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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?' + +He hung waiting for confidential communications on my part, but did not +press for them; he preserved an unvarying delicacy in that respect. + +'You have nothing to tell?' he asked. + +'Nothing,' I said. 'I have only to thank you.' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'English?' he said, patting the horse's neck. + +'Yes--the horse? an English hunter. How are you, Prince Otto? Do you +like the look of him?' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +I thanked him. + +'Ice is the thing!' he ejaculated. 'I 'll ride and have some fetched to +you. Rest here.' + +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. + +'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. + +'You love me?' she said. + +'You have known it!' + +'Yes, yes!' + +'Forgiven me? Speak, princess.' + +'Call me by my name.' + +'My own soul! Ottilia!' + +She disengaged her arms tenderly. + +'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!' + +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. + +'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.' + +She spoke till the tears came thick. + +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. + +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. + +'The thunder,' he announced, raising a telegraphic arm, 'rolls. It +rains. We have a storm. Command me, princess! your highness!' + +Ottilia's eyelids were set blinking by one look aloft. Rain and +lightning filled heaven and earth. + +'Direct us, you!' she said to me gently. + +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. + +She meditated an instant. 'I believe I may stay with my beloved?' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER + +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. + +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. + +'You shall hear from me,' she said, bending with brows measuring the +boat-roof, like a bird about to fly. + +'Shall I see you?' + +'Ultimately you surely will. Ah! still be patient.' + +'Am I not? have I not been?' + +'Yes; and can you regret it?' + +'No; but we separate!' + +'Would you have us be two feet high for ever?' she answered smiling. + +'One foot high, or under earth, if it might be together!' + +'Poor little gnomes!' said she. + +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. + +'Adieu! no pledge is needed,' she said tenderly. + +'None!' I replied. + +She returned to the upper world with a burning blush. + +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. + +'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. + +I was soon gazing at the track of the boat in rough water. + +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. + +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. + +'An answer, Aennchen?' I asked her. + +'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. + +I chose a roof of limes to read under. + +'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: + +'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. + +'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. + +'Pardon it to one who knew that she would require super-feminine power +of decision to resolve that she would dispose of herself! + +'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. + +'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. + +'I can refer him to Dr. Julius for my estimate of my husband's worth. + +'"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. + +'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. + +'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. + + 'OTTILIA FREDERIKA WILHELMINA HEDWIG, + 'Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO + +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, + +'We shall have a word together presently!' + +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. + +The character of the interview was perceptible at once. + +'You have not, I presume, to be informed of the business in hand, Mr. +Richmond!' + +'Your Highness, I believe I can guess it.' + +This started him pacing the floor. + +'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?' + +'Much, sir.' + +'Much?' he said, with affected incredulity. + +The painful hardship for me was to reply in the vague terms he had been +pleased to use. + +'I have much to say, your Highness. First, to ask pardon of you, without +excusing myself.' + +'A condition, apparently, that absolves the necessity for the grant. +Speak precisely.' + +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.' + +'You charge it upon your having been trained among a nation of +shopkeepers?' + +'My countrymen are not illiterate or unmannerly, your Highness.' + +'I have not spoken it; I may add, I do not think it.' + +'I feared that your Highness entertained what I find to be a very +general, perhaps here and there wilful, error with regard to England.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'In cool blood you utter that?' exclaimed the prince. + +His amazement was unfeigned. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'None,' said he calmly; 'none. I have everything to hear, nothing to +relate; and, happily, I can hardly speak for joy.' He wept. + +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?' + +I assented. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Ludere qui nescit campestribus abstinet armis!' Bandelmeyer sang out. + +'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. + +A silly business on all sides. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING + +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. + +'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?' + +He was distracting. + +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. + +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. + +'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."' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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?' + +She looked at me softly, and I said I wished her to come. + +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. + +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. + +'Then must I go,' said Lieschen, 'for two are not allowed here.' + +'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 forthwith a +murmured groan. + +She deceived me by taking her seat in perfect repose. + +After smoothing her apron, 'Now I must go,' she said. + +'What! to leave me here alone?' + +She looked at the clock, and leaned out of the window. + +'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: + +She had not been long gone when the Princess Ottilia stood in her place. + +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. + +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, + +'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: + + '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.' + +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. + +'But Otto is no assassin,' she cried out. + +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. + +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. + +'No! you are not gone,' I sighed. + +'Only come,' said she. + +The nature of the step she had taken began to dawn on me. + +'But when they miss you at the palace? Prince Ernest?' + +'Hush! they have missed me already. It is done.' She said it smiling. + +'Ottilia, will he take you away?' + +'Us, dear, us.' + +'Can you meet his anger?' + +'Our aunt will be the executioner. We have a day of sweet hours before +she can arrive.' + +'May I see her first?' + +'We will both see her as we are now.' + +'We must have prompt answers for the margravine.' + +'None, Harry. I do not defend myself ever.' + +Distant hills, and folds of receding clouds and skies beyond them, were +visible from my window, and beyond the skies I felt her soul. + +'Ottilia, you were going to Italy?' + +'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?' + +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. + +'She has a sister here,' said Ottilia; 'and let her bring Lieschen to +visit me here this afternoon.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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 t. But should we not be +gentle with our comparisons if we would have our views in proportion?' + +She hung studiously silent, and I pursued: + +'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.' + +'And I forgive him,' she sighed. 'I scarcely bring myself to believe +that Harry has bled from Otto's hand.' + +'It was the accident of the case, Ottilia. We had to meet.' + +'To meet?' + +'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!' + +'It did not occur accidentally?' she inquired. Her voice sounded +strange, half withheld in the utterance. + +'It occurred,' said I, feeling my strength ebb and despair set in, 'it +occurred--the prince compelled me to the meet him.' + +'But my cousin Otto is no assassin? + +'Compelled, I say: that is, he conceived I had injured him, and left me +no other way of making amends.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Sleep,' she whispered. + +I feigned sleep to catch my happiness about me. + +Some disenchanting thunder was coming, I was sure, and I was right. My +father entered. + +'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. + +'Is it known?' I heard her ask, in the half audible strange voice which +had previously made me tremble. + +'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. + +'The honour done me by the princess in visiting me is not to be known,' +I summoned energy enough to say. + +She shook her head. + +My father pledged himself to the hottest secresy, equivalent to a calm +denial of the fact, if necessary. + +'Pray be at no trouble,' she addressed him. + +The 'Where am I?' look was painful in her aspect. + +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. + +Presently I found the room empty of our poor unconscious tormentor. +Ottilia had fastened her hand to mine again. + +'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--' + +'Ah!' she breathed, 'my Harry will talk himself into a fever.' + +'I shall have it if the margravine comes here.' + +'She shall not be admitted.' + +'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.' + +'When it is yours you would persuade me to confide in?' said she, with +some sorrowful archness. + +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. + +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. + +My father drove away an hour in advance of the princess to encounter the +margravine. + +'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.' + +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. + +The sisters Aennchen and Lieschen presented themselves a few minutes +before his departure. Lieschen dropped at her feet. + +'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?' + +'The Professor grants her six hours out of the twenty-four already,' +said I. + +'To go where?' she asked, alarmed. + +'To come here.' + +'Here? She knows you? She did not curtsey to you.' + +'Nurses do not usually do that.' + +The appearance of both girls was pitiable; but having no suspicion of +the cause for it, I superadded, + +'She was here this morning.' + +'Ah! we owe her more than we were aware of.' + +The princess looked on her kindly, though with suspense in the +expression. + +'She told me of my approaching visitor,' I said. + +'Oh! not told!' Lieschen burst out. + +'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?' + +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?' + +'Yes, princess.' + +'And she to you?' + +Lieschen answered: 'Forgive me, your Highness, dearest lady!' + +'You offered yourself here unasked?' + +'Yes, princess.' + +'Have you written to others besides your sister?' + +'Seldom, princess; I do not remember.' + +'You know the obligation of signatures to letters?' + +'Ah!' + +'You have been remiss in not writing to me, child.' + +'Oh, princess! I did not dare to.' + +'You have not written to me?' + +'Ah! princess, how dared I?' + +'Are you speaking truthfully?' + +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.' + +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. + +She remarked by-and-by, of her own accord: 'Princess Ottilia does not +regret that she had us educated.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE + +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. + +'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.' + +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: + +'Your Highness, the mine flourishes, I trust?' + +'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?' + +'Undoubtedly it is.' + +'Or than bestriding a bronze horse, personifying my good ancestor! Are +you acquainted with the Chancellor von Redwitz?' + +'All I know of him, sir, is that he is fortunate to enjoy the particular +confidence of his master.' + +'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.' + +I confessed that I began to feel longings for society. + +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. + +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.' + +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, + +'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.' + +'On the contrary, dear Mr. Chancellor, I am interested in the princess. +Proceed, and be as minute as you please.' + +'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.' + +'Why not?' + +'You see, you are impatient for romance, young gentleman.' + +'Not at all, Mr. Chancellor. I do but ask a question.' + +'You fence. Your question was dictated by impatience.' + +'Yes, for the facts and elucidations! + +'For the romance, that is. You wish me to depict emotions.' + +Hereupon this destroyer of temper embrowned his nostrils with snuff, +adding,--'I am unable to.' + +'Then one is not to learn why the princess could not fulfil her +engagement?' + +'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.' + +'Her father interposed?' + +'No.' + +'The Family?' + +'Quite inefficacious to arrest her determinations.' + +'What then--what was in her way?' + +'Germany.' + +'What?' + +'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.' + +'The Diet?' + +'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.' + +'A true woman,' said I, thinking the sneer weighty. + +The Chancellor begged me to recollect that he had warned me there was no +romance to be expected. + +I bowed; and bowed during the remainder of the interview. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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? + +The presence of the living members of the Family was an extreme physical +relief. + +For the moment, beholding Ottilia, I counted her but as one of them. She +welcomed me without restraint. + +We chattered pleasantly at the dinner-table. + +'Ah! You missed our French troupe,' said the margravine.' + +'Yes,' said I, resigning them to her. She nodded: + +'And one very pretty little woman they had, I can tell you--for a +Frenchwoman.' + +'You thought her pretty? Frenchwomen know what to do with their brains +and their pins, somebody has said.' + +'And exceedingly well said, too. Where is that man Roy? Good things +always remind me of him.' + +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: + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'I,' said Ottilia. + +'Gracious me! you have not read the book?' + +'Right through, dear aunt, with all respect to you.' + +'It 's in the house?' + +'It is in my study.' + +'Then I don't wonder! I don't wonder!' the margravine exclaimed. + +'Best hear what the enemy has to say,' Prince Ernest observed. + +'Excellently argued, papa, supposing that he be an enemy.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'I daresay you discard nothing that the wretch has taught you!' + +'Nothing! nothing!' said Ottilia, and made my heart live. + +The grim and taciturn Baroness Turckems, sitting opposite to her, sighed +audibly. + +'Has the princess been trying to convert you?' the margravine asked her. + +'Trying? no, madam. Reading? yes.' + +'My good Turckems! you do not get your share of sleep?' + +'It is her Highness the princess who despises sleep.' + +'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.' + +'Twelve o'clock is an extraordinary latitude for children,' said +Ottilia, smiling. + +The prince, with a scarce perceptible degree of emphasis, said, + +'Women born to rule must be held exempt from nursery restrictions.' + +Here the conversation opened to let me in. More than once the margravine +informed me that I was not the equal of my father. + +'Why,' said she, 'why can't you undertake this detestable coal-mine, and +let your father disport himself?' + +I suggested that it might be because I was not his equal. She +complimented me for inheriting a spark of Roy's brilliancy. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +He asked me what I had made of Chancellor von Redwitz. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'You study much?' he addressed the princess at table. + +She answered: 'I throw aside books, now you have come to open the earth +and the sea.' + +From that time the topics started on every occasion were theirs; the +rest of us ran at their heels, giving tongue or not. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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.' + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +We went up to the chateau to fetch him. + +A look of woe was on Peterborough's countenance when we descended at the +palace portals: he had forgotten his pipe. + +'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.' + +'No tobacco allowed on the premises at Riversley, I 'm afraid,' said I. + +He sighed, and bade me jocosely to know that he regarded tobacco as just +one of the consolations of exiles and bachelors. + +'Peterborough, my good friend, you are a hero!' cried my father. 'He +divorces tobacco to marry!' + +'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!' + +'He puts an end to the illegitimate union between himself and tobacco +that he may marry according to form!' cried my father. + +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.' + +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. + +'Roy,' she said, 'you have given your son spirit. One sees he has your +blood when you have been with him an hour.' + +'The season has returned, if your Highness will let it be Spring,' said +my father. + +'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. + +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. + +I was questioned by the baroness as to the cause of my father's +unexpected return. 'He is generally opportune,' she remarked. + +'He goes with me to England,' I said. + +'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. + +To my surprise, the baroness spoke of Ottilia by her name. + +'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.' + +'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--' + +'The sea I pronounce bad for her--unwholesome,' returned the baroness. +'It is damp.' + +I laughed. + +'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?' + +'The princess--?' said I. + +'Ottilia has done that.' + +'Baroness, can I believe you?--and alone?' + +A marvellous twinkle of shuffle appeared in the small slate-coloured +eyes I looked at under their roofing of thick black eyebrows. + +'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.' + +'Old Schwartz is a very faithful servant,' said I, thinking that she +resembled the old Warhead in visage. + +'A dog's obedience to the master's whims you call faithfulness! Hem!' +The baroness coughed dryly. + +I whispered: 'Does Prince Ernest--is he aware?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Ottilia did not keep me waiting. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY + +I was humming the burden of Gothe'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 mufed 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. + +I went up to her quickly, and closed the door, saying, 'You have come'; +my voice was not much above a breath. + +She looked distrustfully down the length of the room; 'You were speaking +to some one?' + +'No.' + +'You were speaking.' + +'To myself, then, I suppose.' + +I remembered and repeated the gipsy burden. + +She smiled faintly and said it was the hour for Anna and Ursel and Kith +and Liese to be out. + +Her hands were gloved, a small matter to tell of. + +We heard the portico-sentinel challenged and relieved. + +'Midnight,' I said. + +She replied: 'You were not definite in your directions about the +minutes.' + +'I feared to name midnight.' + +'Why?' + +'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.' + +'I am.' + +'And you come freely?' + +'A "therefore" belongs to every grant of freedom.' + +'I understand: your judgement was against it.' + +'Be comforted,' she said; 'it is your right to bid me come, if you think +fit.' + +One of the sofa-volumes fell. She caught her breath; and smiled at her +foolish alarm. + +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. + +'You throw down one end of the chain,' she said. + +'In the name of heaven, then,' cried I, 'release yourself.' + +She shook her head. 'That is not my meaning.' + +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. + +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 +of she pain, and I said: 'Pray, do not speak of chains.' + +'But they exist. Things cannot be undone for us two by words.' + +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. + +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. + +'Ottilia, you have told me you wish me to go to England.' + +'I have.' + +'We shall be friends.' + +'Yes, Harry; we cannot be quite divided; we have that knowledge for our +present happiness.' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'I must have detained you already too long.' + +'Time is not the offender. Since I have come, the evil----' + +'Evil? Are not your actions free?' + +'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. + +In truth, Harry, I should not have come but for my acknowledgement of +your right to bid me come.' + +'You know, princess, that in honouring me with your attachment, you +imperil your sovereign rank?' + +'I do.' + +'What next?' + +'Except that it is grievously in peril, nothing!' + +'Have you known it all along?' + +'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.' + +'Oh, princess, if you are pleading----' + +'Can you think that I am?' + +The splendour of her high nature burst on me with a shock. + +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!'-- + +'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. + +Her sweet warmth of colour was transfused through my veins. + +'We shall part in a few minutes. I have a mind to beg a gift of you.' + +'Name it.' + +'That glove.' + +She made her hand bare and gave me, not the glove, but the hand. + +'Ah! but this I cannot keep.' + +'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.' + +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. + +I pressed my lips to her hand. + +In our silence another of the fatal yellow volumes thumped the floor. + +She looked into my eyes and asked, + +'Have we been speaking before a witness?' + +So thoroughly had she renovated me, that I accused and reproved the +lurking suspicion with a soft laugh. + +'Beloved! I wish we had been.' + +'If it might be,' she said, divining me and musing. + +'Why not?' + +She stared. + +'How? What do you ask?' + +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, + +'I would not urge it for an instant. Consider--if you had just plighted +your hand in mine before a witness!' + +'My hand is in yours; my word to you is enough.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +I looked: she swam in a mist. + +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. + +And it was before a witness, though unviewed by us. + +The farewell had come. Her voice was humbled. + +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.' + +We closed hands for parting. She hesitated and asked if my father was +awake; then promptly to my answer: + +'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.' + +A third in the room cried out, 'No, not that--you do not!' + +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!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN + +The room was in flames, Baroness Turckems plucking at the bell-rope, my +father looking big and brilliant. + +'Hold hand!' he shouted to the frenzied baroness. + +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. + +'Foolish woman, be silent!' cried my father. + +'Incendiary!' she half-shrieked. + +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. + +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!' + +'To repair your error, baroness,' said my father. + +'I have my conscience pure; have you?' she retorted. + +He bowed and said, 'The fire will also excuse your presence on the spot, +baroness.' + +'I thank my God I am not so cool as you,' said she. + +'Your warmth'--he bent to her--'shall always be your apology, baroness.' + +Seeing the curtains extinguished, Ottilia withdrew. She gave me no +glance. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Why, you don't mean to say, Hal, it's not to your taste?' said the +squire. + +'No,' said I, turning an eye on my aunt Dorothy, 'I've loved it all my +life.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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!' + +Janet said: 'I rather like the smell of cigars.' + +'Like what you please, my dear--he'll be a lucky dog,' the squire +approved her promptly, and asked me if I smoked. + +I was not a stranger to the act, I confessed. + +'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.' + +Here was a hint of Janet's influence with him, and of what he expected +from my return to Riversley. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +Kiomi was spoken of, and Lady Maria Higginson, and then Heriot. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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: + +'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. + +'You have not told us anything about your princess, Harry,' Janet +observed on the ride home. + +'Do you take her for a real person, Janet?' + +'One thinks of her as a snow-mountain you've been admiring.' + +'Very well; so let her be.' + +'Is she kind and good?' + +'Yes.' + +'Does she ride well?' + +'She rides remarkably well.' + +'She 's fair, I suppose?' + +'Janet, if I saw you married to Temple, it would be the second great +wish of my heart.' + +'Harry, you're a bit too cruel, as Julia would say.' + +'Have you noticed she gets more and more Irish?' + +'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?' + +'Not at all,' said I, unconscious of hurting. + +'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.' + +I was pained to see her in tears. Her figure was straight, and she spoke +without a quaver of her voice. + +'Heriot's an excellent fellow,' I remarked. + +'He is. I can't think ill of my friends,' said she. + +'Dear girl, is it these two who make you unhappy?' + +'No; but dear old grandada!...' + +The course of her mind was obvious. I would rather have had her less +abrupt and more personal in revealing it. I stammered something. + +'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.' + +'He's incurably unjust to my father.' + +'Your father has been with you all the time, Harry? I guessed it.' + +'Well?' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Well, Harry, I would take your side as firmly as anybody's.' + +'Do, then; tell the squire how I am situated.' + +'Ah!' she half sighed, 'I knew this was coming.' + +'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?' + +'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?' + +'Prepare him for it. Soothe him in advance. Why, dear Janet, you can +reconcile him to anything in a minute.' + +'Lie to him downright?' + +'Now what on earth is the meaning of that, and why can't you speak +mildly?' + +'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.' + +'If you believe in his generosity, Janet, should you be afraid to put it +to proof?' + +'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.' + +So saying, she headed me, trotting down the heath-track. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. JANET RENOUNCES ME + +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. + +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!' + +With that he bounded to bed. He was dead next morning. + +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.' + +'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?' + +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. + +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. + +'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?' + +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. + +I contained myself enough to say, 'Very well, the world, sir.' + +'Flirted with one of their princesses?' He winked. + +'On that subject I will talk to you some other time,' said I. + +'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?' + +The necessity for correcting his impressions taught me to think the +moment favourable. I said, 'I am engaged to her, sir.' + +He returned promptly: 'Then you'll break it off.' + +I shook my head. + +'Why, you can't jilt my girl at home!' said he. + +'Do you find a princess objectionable, sir?' + +'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.' + +We were in the streets of London, so he was obliged to moderate his +vehemence. + +'Have you consulted Janet?' said I. + +'Consulted her? ever since she was a chick with half a feather on.' + +'A chick with half a feather on,' I remarked, 'is not always of the same +mind as a piece of poultry of full plumage.' + +'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.' + +'Consult her again, sir,' I broke in. 'You will discover she is not of +your way of thinking.' + +'Do you mean to say she's given you a left-hander, Harry?' + +'I have only to say that I have not given her the option.' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +'Stop,' said Temple, 'is the poor old country--How about continuing the +race of heroes?' + +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.' + +I said nothing of my chagrin at the behaviour of the pair who had +furnished my first idea of the romantic beauty of love. + +'Why does she talk twice as Irish as she used to, Heriot?' + +'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: + +'There's the only girl living fit to marry a man and swear she 'll stick +to him through life and death.' + +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. + +'I reserve a point,' he said, and not playfully. + +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. + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. MY BANKERS' BOOK + +The squire again did honour to Janet's eulogy and good management of +him. + +'And where,' said she, 'would you find a Radical to behave so +generously, Harry, when it touches him so?' + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +'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...' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'The Roman Catholics admit reason?' said Janet, who had too strong a +turn for showing her keenness in little encounters with Peterborough. + +'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. + +'It was Harry's wish?' Janet said, smiling. + +'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.' + +'Thought by Harry?' said Janet; and my aunt Dorothy said, 'You and Harry +had a consultation about it?' + +'Wanted to appear as grand as they could,' quoth the squire. + +Peterborough signified an assent, designed to modify the implication. +'Not beyond due bounds, I trust, sir.' + +'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!' + +'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. + +My grandfather turned a round side-eye on me, hard as a cock's. + +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.' + +'Private chaplain!' the squire growled again. + +'It's you that preach this afternoon,' Janet said to Peterborough. 'Do +you give us an extempore sermon?' + +'You remind me, Miss Ilchester, I must look to it; I have a little +trimming to do.' + +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?' + +'Not on Sundays, sir,' said Peterborough, openly and cordially, as +to signify that they were of one mind regarding the perniciousness of +Sunday smoking. + +'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.' + +'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. + +'Oh, I thank you!' I heard the garlanded victim lowing as I left him to +the squire's mercy. + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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?' + +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. + +'Any objection to my seeing that book?' said the squire. + +'None whatever, sir.' + +He nodded. I made it a point of honour to write for the book to be sent +down to me immediately. + +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?' + +'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. + +''Cause I give you my word I know nothing about it now,' he said. + +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. + +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. + +'By George, I must have breakfast 'fore I go into this!' he exclaimed, +and stared as if he had come out of an oven. + +Dorothy Beltham reminded him that Prayers had not been read. + +'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?' + +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: + +'I should specify exceptions; there were intervals...' + +'Please, open your Bible,' the squire cut him short; 'I don't want a +damned fine edge on everything.' + +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. + +'Fresh from ship, William?' the squire called out. + +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. + +'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. + +Captain Bulsted chanced to say in the musical voice of inquiry: 'Prayers +are not yet over, are they?' + +'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.' + +'On my!--indeed, sir, no!' Peterborough proclaimed his innocence, and it +was unlikely that the squire should have suspected him. + +Captain Bulsted had come to us for his wife, whom he had not found at +home on his arrival last midnight. + +'God bless my soul,' said the squire, 'you don't mean to tell me she's +gone off, William?' + +'Oh! dear, no, sir,' said the captain, 'she's only cruising.' + +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. + +'I thought, sir, things were getting better,' said the captain. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'How d' ye mean, my dear?' + +'It 's bad work done on a Sunday, you know.' + +'So it is. I'll lock up the book.' + +'I have your word for that, grandada,' said Janet. + +The ladies retired, taking Peterborough with them. + +'Good-bye to the frocks! and now, William, out with your troubles,' said +the squire. + +The captain's eyes were turned to the door my aunt Dorothy had passed +through. + +'You remember the old custom, sir!' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'To be sure you are, William, and a trim schooner-yacht she is.' + +'She 's off, sir; she's off!' + +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.' + +'Harry, your hand,' he cried, sparkling. + +'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.' + +'Mightily well done, Harry!' Captain Bulsted struck a terrific encomium +on my shoulder, groaning, 'May she be true to you, my lad!' + +The squire asked him if he was going to church that morning. + +'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. + +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.' + +I offered him to accompany him at once to Heriot's quarters. + +'What! and let my wife know I doubted her fidelity. My girl shall never +accuse me of that.' + +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. + +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.' + +The captain echoed her, 'Half! but happy enough for twenty whole ones, +if you'll be satisfied, my duck.' + +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. + +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. + +'And like a fool, you think--eh?' + +'I have no such thought in my head, sir.' + +'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?' + +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. + +'Shame!' said Janet. + +'Hear her!' The squire turned to me. + +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.' + +'No, because of a scoundrel and his young idiot!' + +Janet frowned in earnest, and said: 'I don't permit you to change the +meaning of the words I speak.' + +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. + +'Come for a walk with me, dear Harry,' said Janet. + +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!' + +He expected me to descend. + +'And if he did, he would never have my arm.' Janet's eyes glittered hard +on the squire. + +'Before that rascal dies, my dear, he shall whine like a beggar out in +the cold for the tips of your fingers!' + +'Not if he asks me first,' said Janet. + +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.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +'That 's what turns your head,' said he; and she allowed him to have the +notion, and sneer at herself and her sex. + +'How about this money drawn since he came home?' the squire persisted. + +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. + +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!' + +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?' + +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. + +'Bravado, my sweet chuck?' + +'Won't another bottle be like flashing your sword after you've won the +day?' said she. + +He slung his arm round her, and sent a tremendous whisper into my +ear--'A perfect angel!' + +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. + +'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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF + +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 soupcon 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!' + +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. + +'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. + +'No date is yet fixed,' my father struck in. + +'It's the talk of London,' she said. + +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.' + +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....' + +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. + +'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?' + +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. + +My heart sank when, from Lady Edbury too, I heard the allusion to +Germany and its princess. 'Some one told me she was dark?' + +'Blonde,' my father corrected the report. + +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.' + +My father repeated: 'The Princess Ottilia, Princess of +Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.' + +'Brunette, you say?' + +'The purest blonde.' + +'A complexion?' + +'A complexion to dazzle the righteous!' + +Lady Edbury threw a flying glance in a mirror: 'The unrighteous you +leave to us then?' + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +'I have come on very particular business,' I interposed briefly. + +He replied, 'I am alive to you, Richie; speak.' + +'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.' + +'To-morrow morning, without an hour's delay, my dear boy. Very agreeable +will be the sight of old Riversley. And in the daylight!' + +'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.' + +'I invite him to London, Richie. I refer him to Dettermain and Newson. I +request him to compute the value of a princess.' + +'You are aware that he will not come to your invitation.' + +'Tell me, then, how is he to understand what I have established by the +expenditure, my son? I refer him to Dettermain and Newson.' + +'But you must know that he sets his face against legal proceedings +involving exposure.' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'As a matter of course.' He nodded, and struck out a hand in wavy +motion. + +'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.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +'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 +The Speaker 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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'What's this? Why print my name?' I cried. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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...' + +'Oh, but it does,' he allowed me to plead. + +'Ay, through your love for your dada.' + +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.' + +Janet wrote that it would be prudent for me to return. + +'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.' + +Dismayed, I asked what was announced. + +'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.' + +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! + +The paragraph closed by fixing the nuptials to take place before the end +of the Season. + +I looked at my father to try a struggle with him. The whole man was +efflorescent. + +'Can't it be stopped?' I implored him. + +He signified the impossibility in a burst of gesticulations, motions +of the mouth, smiling frowns; various patterns of an absolute negative +beating down opposition. + +'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. + +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?' + +'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.' + +'This English climate has bedevilled the fellow! He peppers his dishes +like a mongrel Indian reared on mangoes.' + +'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.' + +'Exactly so: you spoil him.' + +My father shrugged. 'The state of the case is, that your stomach is +growing delicate, friend Jorian.' + +'The actual state of the case being, that my palate was never keener, +and consequently my stomach knows its business.' + +'You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers.' + +'Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion.' + +'Say, porridge!' + +'No, I'll be hanged if I think he's equal to a bowl of porridge.' + +'Careme might have confessed to the same!' + +'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.' + +'Then you will the more readily pardon me, Jorian.' + +'Oh, I pardon you,' Jorian sneered, tripped to the carpet by such +ignoble mildness. 'A breakfast is no great loss.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Catch her, Jorian; you are on guard.' + +'Upwards of three hundred thousand, if a penny, Roy Richmond! Who? I? I +am not a fortune-hunter.' + +'Nor am I, friend Jorian.' + +'No, it 's because you're not thorough: you 'll fall between the +stools.' + +My father remarked that he should visit this upon Mr. Alphonse. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Then, Roy Richmond, hear what a friend says...' + +'I do not marry, Jorian, and you know my reasons.' + +'Sentiments!' + +'They are a part of my life.' + +'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' + +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.' + +The contents of the letter permitted me to read it aloud. She desired to +know how she could be amused on the Sunday. + +'We will undertake it,' said my father. 'I depute the arrangements to +you, Jorian. Respect the prejudices, and avoid collisions, that is all.' + +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! + +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: + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +My father stood up and bowed, bareheaded. + +My grandfather struck his hat and bobbed. + +'Mr. Beltham, I trust I see you well.' + +'Better, sir, when I've got rid of a damned unpleasant bit o' business.' + +'I offer you my hearty assistance.' + +'Do you? Then step down and come into my bailiff's.' + +'I come, sir.' + +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. + +'Gout, Mr. Beltham, is a little too much a proof to us of a long line of +ancestry.' + +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. + +I went to relieve him. 'Damn!... Oh, it's you,' said he. + +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! + +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.' + +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. + +The squire grimly gave him a couple of months to make it good. + +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. + +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. + +'He will want money even to do that,' I remarked. + +She murmured, 'Is there not some annual income paid to him?' + +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.' + +'You would let him pay his debts with it, Harry?' + +'I am not sure, aunty, that he does not incur a greater debt by +accepting it.' + +'One's wish would be, that he might not ever be in need of it.' + +'Ay, or never be caring to find the key of it.' + +'That must be waste of time,' she said. + +I meant something else, but it was useless to tell her so. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S GRAND +PARADE + +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. + +'Subscription Balls?' asked the squire. + +'No, sir,' rejoined the captain. + +'Tradesmen's Balls, d' ye call 'em, then?' + +'No, sir; they are Balls given by a distinguished gentleman.' + +'Take care it's not another name for tradesmen's Balls, William.' + +'I do not attend tradesmen's Balls, sir.' + +'Take care o' that, William.' + +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?' + +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. + +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.' + +'Three-quarters, William,' said the squire; 'there's about the +computation for your gentleman's creditors, I suspect.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +Captain Bulsted bowed. 'The last word to you, squire.' + +The squire nodded. 'I 'll hand it to your wife, William.' + +Julia took it graciously. 'A perfect gentleman! perfect! confound his +enemies!' + +'Why, ma'am, you might keep from swearing,' the squire bawled. + +'La! squire,' said she, 'why, don't you know the National Anthem?' + +'National Anthem, ma'am! and a fellow, a velvet-tongued--confound him, +if you like.' + +'And where's my last word, if you please?' Julia jumped up, and dropped +a provoking curtsey. + +'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?' + +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. + +'I'm not invited,' she moaned comically. + +'No; nor shan't be, while I can keep you out of bad company.' + +'But, grandada, I do like dancing. + +'Dance away, my dear; I've no objection.' + +'But where's the music?' + +'Oh, you can always have music.' + +'But where are my partners?' + +The squire pointed at me. + +'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?' + +'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. + +'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.' + +Janet shut his mouth, kissed him, and held his wine up. He drank, and +thumped the table. 'We 'll 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.' + +Janet exclaimed indignantly, 'Grandada, I'm offended with you'; and +walked out on a high step. + +'Come, if he has the women on his side,' said Captain Bulsted, mildly. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'How do you like that?' he remarked to me, seeing her twirled away by +one of the young Rubreys. + +'She seems to like it, sir,' I replied. + +'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!' + +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. + +'But you can take what there is,' I said. + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Then you must have money, sir.' + +'Yes, money.' + +'Then what can you mean by refusing mine?' + +'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...' + +I called to him not to name her. + +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.' + +'Oh, you forget!' I interjected. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'No, for your grandfather has yielded consent.' + +'By implication, you know he withdraws it.' + +'But if I satisfy him that you have not been extravagant?' + +'I must wait till he is satisfied.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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!' + +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. + +'Heard o' that new story 'bout a Dauphin?' he asked. + +'A Dauphin?' quoth Captain Bulsted. 'I don't know the fish.' + +'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?' + +I had not. + +'But I tell ye there is a Dauphin mixed up with him. A Dauphin and Mr. +Ik Dine!' + +'Mr. Ik Dine!' exclaimed the captain, perplexed. + +'Ay, that's German lingo, William, and you ought to know it if you're a +loyal sailor--means "I serve."' + +'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.' + +'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!' + +The ladies retired. The squire continued, in a furious whisper: + +'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!' + +'Ah, well, sir,' Captain Bulsted supplicated feverishly, rubbing his +brows and whiskers. + +'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--' + +'Please to recollect, sir; the old hereditary shall excuse you----' + +'Gout, you mean, William? By----' + +'You are speaking in the presence of his son, sir, and you are trying +the young gentleman's affection for you hard.' + +'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?' + +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. + +'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!' + +Captain Bulsted reached me his hand. 'You have a great deal to bear, +Harry. I commend you, my boy, for taking it manfully.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +My power of endurance had reached its limit. + +'You tell me, sir, you had this brutal story from the Lord-Lieutenant of +the county?' + +'Ay, from Lord Shale. But I won't have you going to him and betraying +our connection with a--' + +'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.' + +'And you were all the better for it afterwards, William.' + +'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.' + +Julia screamed on beholding us, 'Aren't you two men as pale as death!' + +Janet came and looked. 'Merely a dose,' said the captain. 'We are +anxious to play battledore and shuttlecock madly.' + +'So he shall, the dear!' Julia caressed him. 'We'll all have a +tournament in the wet-weather shed.' + +Janet whispered to me, 'Was it--the Returning Thanks?' + +'The what?' said I, with the dread at my heart of something worse than I +had heard. + +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.' + +What had she seen? She led me out of view of the windows and showed me. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET + +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, fierte, and reputed wealth. + +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?'' + +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 'll use Roy's +carriage to fetch and carry for that venomous old woman Kane, I'll +swear.' + +'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. + +'Has her ladyship declared war?' Sir Weeton Slater inquired. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +I thanked the well-meaning gentleman without encouraging him to +continue. + +'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. + +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!' + +'Is it the Margravine of Rippau?' I inquired. I could think of no other +waspish old woman. + +'Lady Dane,' 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.' + +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. + +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'sfeet 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?' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +'I think there was a hoarse whisper audible up to the Judge's seat at +intervals,' said Mr. Temple. + +'The Bar cannot confess to obligations from those who don't wear the +robe,' Temple rejoined. + +His father advised me to read for the Bar, as a piece of very good +training. + +I appealed to Temple, whether he thought it possible to read law-books +in a cockboat in a gale of wind. + +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. + +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! + +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! + +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.' + +I replied, looking at him steadily, that I wished I had been there. + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Insulting you, Richmond!' he cried, much surprised, holding his cigar +in transit. + +'If you insult my father, I make you responsible to me.' + +'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. + +What the deuce have you got into your head? Come in and smoke.' + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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: + +'Oh! come in and have a bottle of claret.' + +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: + +'Are you the Marquis of Edbury, or a drunken groom, sir?' + +'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. + +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.' + +'Groom be hanged!' Edbury retorted. 'I made a bet I'd drive you out of +the Park, old Roy!' + +'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. Bramhaxri 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION + +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.' + +My father's eyes dwelt on him. 'Are we accused of it?' + +Lika slipped from the question. 'Who is accused of a newspaper's doings? +It is but the denial of a statement.' + +'I dare them to deny it!--and, Lika, my dear fellow, light me a +cigarette,' said my father. + +'Then,' said Lika, touching the flame delicately, 'you take the view +that Kesensky is wrong in another thing besides horses.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Will you avoid Edbury and his like, and protect yourself?' was my form +of stipulation, spoken to counteract his urgency. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +Would such denial have appeared without Ottilia's sanction? + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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. + +'But we must have him,' he said; 'I do not feel myself complete without +Jorian.' + +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 tatter's pranks; unless, indeed, he borrowed his name to +bonds of which I heard nothing. + +Mademoiselle Chassediane vowed that her own dress was ravishing. +She went attired as a boudoir-shepherdess or demurely-coquettish +Sevres-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 mime ceux de verre comme ornement feminin. Avec de +l'embonpoint elles font de l'effet, mais maigre il n'y a aucune illusion +possible.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'It may,' he said. 'Business! Richie.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +It can easily be imagined what description of banter he had to meet and +foil. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +'A cheer for old Roy!' Edbury sang out. + +My father checked the roar, and turned to him. + +'Marquis of Edbury, come to the front!' + +Edbury declined to budge, but the fellows round him edged aside to show +him a mark for my father's finger. + +'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.' + +He paused cruelly for Edbury to open his mouth. The young lord looked +confounded, and from that moment behaved becomingly. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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. + +He drove in manifest relief of mind to Dettermain and Newson's. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +When I begged him to excuse my absurdity, he replied: + +'It's full of promise, so long as you're silent.' + +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! + +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. + +'I'll be there, too, some day,' he said, moaning at the prospect of an +extreme age before such honours would befall him. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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!' + +'Paid?' said I. + +She was afraid to be precise, but repeated that they were long since +gone. + +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.' + +I questioned him again. + +'Oh, dear, yes; there can't be a doubt about it,' he answered, airily. +'Roy Richmond has won his game.' + +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. + +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.' + +I insisted: 'But how, and in what manner has this money been paid?' The +idea struck me that he had succeeded in borrowing it. + +'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. + +'I proceed. The money is useful to you, so I rejoice at it.' + +Five and twenty thousand pounds was the amount. + +'No stipulation was attached to it?' + +'None. Of course a stipulation was implied: but of that I am not bound +to be cognizant.' + +'Absurd!' I cried: 'it can't have come from the quarter you suspect.' + +'Where else?' he asked. + +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. + +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. + +'You hand the money over to me, sir?' I said. + +'Without a moment of hesitation, my dear boy,' he melted me by +answering. + +'You believe you have received a bribe?' + +'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.' + +'But what was the stipulation you presume was implied?' said I. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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.' + +So here was the dawn again. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE + +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. + +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's 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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN + +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. + +The excruciated patient was having his wet bandages folded across his +bruises, and could not bear a motion of the mind. + +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. + +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 greyishblack 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 mufed 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. + +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. + +'Kiomi!' + +'Now, you be quiet.' + +'Can I stand up a minute or two?' + +'No, and you won't talk.' + +I submitted. This was our duel all day: she slipped from me only twice, +and when she did the girl took her place. + +I began to think of Bulsted and Riversley. + +'Kiomi, how long have I been here?' + +'You 'll be twice as long as you've been.' + +'A couple of days?' + +'More like a dozen.' + +'Just tell me what happened.' + +'Ghm-m-m,' she growled admonishingly. + +Reflecting on it, I felt sure there must have been searching parties +over the heath. + +'Kiomi, I say, how was it they missed me?' + +She struck at once on my thought. + +'They're fools.' + +'How did you cheat them?' + +'I didn't tie a handkercher across their eyes.' + +'You half smothered me once, in the combe.' + +'You go to sleep.' + +'Have you been doctor?' + +The growling tigerish 'Ghm-m-m' constrained me to take it for a lullaby. + +'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. + +'I 'll put you down and be off,' she threatened. + +'Brute of a girl! I hate you!' + +'Hate away.' + +'Tell me who found me.' + +'I shan't. You shut your peepers.' + +The other and younger girl sung out: 'I found you.' + +Kiomi sent a volley at her. + +'I did,' said the girl; 'yes, and I nursed you first, I did; and mother +doctored you. Kiomi hasn't been here a day.' + +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.' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +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. + +I sang out truce to them; they racked me with laughter; and such +laughter!--the shaking of husks in a half-empty sack. + +Ultimately, on a sudden cessation of the storm of tongues, they agreed +that I must have my broth. + +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? + +Kiomi's arms tightened over my breast. The involuntary pressure was like +an illumination to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'He!' cried Kiomi. + +'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. + +It is their tribute to civilization, which generally keeps them within +the laws. + +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. + +'You're feeling your nose--you've been looking at a glass!' Kiomi said, +with supernatural swiftness of deduction on her return. + +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. + +This was the picture of the woman who could not weep in her misery. + +'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. + +There was no consolation for her. + +The girl Eveleen came in sight, loitering and looking, kicking her idle +heels. + +Kiomi turned sharp round to me. + +'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. + +'What was that you said to Kiomi?' I questioned Eveleen, who was quickly +beside me. + +She replied, accurately or not: 'I told her our men'd give her as good +as she gave me, let her wait and see.' + +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. + +'Tell your men I'll hunt them down like rats if I hear of it,' said I. + +While we were conversing my father arrived. Eveleen, not knowing him, +would have had me accept the friendly covering of a mat. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'These people have been kind to you?' he said. + +'No, the biggest brutes on the earth,' said I. + +'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. + +My father beckoned to her and thanked her appreciably in the yellow +tongue. + +'So these scoundrels of the high road fell upon you and robbed you, +Richie?' + +I nodded. + +'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.' + +The mystery of my not having sent word to Bulsted or to Riversley +perplexed my father. + +'Comfortable here!' he echoed me, disconsolately, and glanced at the +heath, the tent, the black circle of the broth-pot, and the wild girl. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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 Slaterhe +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +'I petitioned for privacy here!' exclaimed my father. It accounted for +the mystery. + +Temple knew my feelings, and did but glance at me. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +I made light of it. 'No: a tumble.' + +'You look pale,' she said quickly. + +'That's from grieving at the loss of my beauty, Miss Goodwin.' + +'Have you really not been seriously ill?' she asked with an astonishing +eagerness. + +I told her mock-loftily that I did not believe in serious illnesses +coming to godlike youth, and plied her in turn with inquiries. + +'You have not been laid up in bed?' she persisted. + +'No, on my honour, not in bed.' + +'Then,' said she, 'I would give much to be able to stop that boat.' + +She amazed me. 'Why?' + +'Because it's going on a bad errand,' she replied. + +'Miss Goodwin, you perplex me. My father has started in that boat.' + +'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.' + +'My aunt and Miss Ilchester?' + +'No.' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +We walked the whole length of the pier, chatting of our former meetings. + +'Not here,' she said, as soon as I began to question. + +I was led farther on, half expecting that the accessories of time and +place would have to do with the revelation. + +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?' + +She had me as completely at her mercy in this detestable shop as if I +had been in a witness-box. + +'Feigned!' I exclaimed. + +'That is no answer. And pray remember where you are.' + +'No, the illness was not feigned.' + +'And you have not made the most of it?' + +'What an extraordinary thing to say!' + +'That is no answer. And please do not imagine yourself under the +necessity of acting every sentiment of your heart before these people.' + +She favoured a shopman with half-a-dozen directions. + +'My answer is, then, that I have not made the most of it,' I said. + +'Not even by proxy?' + +'Once more I'm adrift.' + +'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?' + +'Yes. What's the meaning of proxy?' + +'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. + +Must your voice escape control exactly at the indicatory words? Do you +think your father made the most of it?' + +'Of my illness? Oh! yes; the utmost. I should undoubtedly think so. +That's his way.' + +'Why did you permit it?' + +'I was what they call "wandering" half the time. Besides, who could keep +him in check? I rarely know what he is doing.' + +'You don't know what he wrote?' + +'Wrote?' + +'That you were dying.' + +'Of me? To whom?' + +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.' + +'You have bought nothing,' I remarked. + +'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. + +I had, utterly; but not her maiden name of Sibley. + +'Miss Goodwin, is she one of those who are coming to the island?' + +'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--' + +'Don't be unjust,' said I. + +'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.' + +'It has gone! And tell me the name of the other.' + +'Frau von Dittmarsch has a husband.' + +'Not with her now. Oh! cruel! speak: her name?' + +'Her name, Harry?' Her title is Countess von Delzenburg.' + +'Not princess?' + +'Not in England.' + +Then Ottilia was here! + +My father was indeed a magician! + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED + +'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. + +'The Princess Ottilia, Miss Goodwin?' + +'The Countess of Delzenburg, Harry.' + +'To see me? She has come!' + +'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.' + +'She comes thinking me ill?' + +'Dying.' + +'I'm as strong as ever I was.' + +'I should imagine you are, only rather pale.' + +'Have you, tell me, Clara, seen her yourself? Is she well?' + +'Pale: not unwell: anxious.' + +'About me?' + +'It may be about the political affairs of the Continent; they are +disturbed.' + +'She spoke of me?' + +'Yes.' + +'She is coming by the next boat?' + +'It's my fear that she is.' + +'Why do you fear?' + +'Shall I answer you, Harry? It is useless now. Well, because she has +been deceived. That is why. You will soon find it out.' + +'Prince Ernest is at Sarkeld?' + +'In Paris, I hear.' + +'How will your despatch reach these ladies in time for them to come over +by the next boat?' + +'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.' + +'You won't leave me?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Yes,' Miss Goodwin assented: 'if you like, Harry.' + +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. + +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. + +'Will you not look at us, Harry?' they both said. + +The passengers were quitting the boat, strangers every one. + +'Harry, have we really offended you in coming?' said Janet. + +My aunt Dorothy took the blame on herself. + +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. + +'We may break the rules, you see,' I said to her. + +'We saw him landing on the other side of the water,' she replied; so +spontaneously did the circumstance turn her thoughts on my father. + +'Did you speak to him?' + +'No.' + +'You avoided him?' + +'Aunty and I thought it best. He landed... there was a crowd.' + +Miss Goodwin interposed: 'You go to Harry's hotel?' + +'Grandada is coming down to-morrow or next day,' Janet prompted my aunt +Dorothy. + +'If we could seek for a furnished house; Uberly would watch the +luggage,' Dorothy murmured in distress. + +'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.' + +'No wonder he was disappointed at seeing us--he was expecting them!' +said Janet, smiling a little. + +'They are sure to come,' said Miss Goodwin. + +Near us a couple of yachtsmen were conversing. + +'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.' + +'What the deuce did he want with a Jew?' cried the other. + +'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.' + +The unconscious slaughterers laughed. + +'On another occasion'--I heard it said by the first speaker, as they +swung round to parade the pier, and passed on narrating. + +'Not an hotel, if it is possible to avoid it,' my aunt Dorothy, with +heightened colour, urged Miss Goodwin. They talked together. + +'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?' + +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. + +'Schwartz!' I called. Janet started, imagining some fierce interjection. +The giant did not stir. + +But others had heard. A lady stepped forward. 'Dear Mr. Harry Richmond! +Then you are better? We had most alarming news of you.' + +I bowed to the Frau von Dittmarsch, anciently Miss Sibley. + +'The princess?' + +'She is here.' + +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. + +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. + +'They went over in a little boat, they were so impatient. Who is she?' +Dorothy Beltham asked. + +'The Princess Ottilia,' said Janet. + +'Are you certain? Is it really, Harry?' + +I confirmed it, and my aunt said, 'I should have guessed it could be no +other; she has a foreign grace.' + +'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.' + +Dorothy Beltham thought the water too rough for little boats. + +'She knows what a sea is,' I said. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Would it be commonly sensible or civil, to refuse to see me, having +come?' + +Miss Goodwin doubted. + +I could indicate forcibly, because I felt, the clear-judging brain and +tempered self-command whereby Ottilia had gained her decision. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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! + +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. + +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. + +'I 'm glad to be with her,' Janet said of Ottilia. + +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. + +I mentioned to Janet that I feared my father would be returning. + +She contained herself with a bridled 'Oh!' + +We were of one mind as to the necessity for keeping him absent, if +possible. + +'Harry, you'll pardon me; I can't talk of him,' said she. + +I proposed half-earnestly to foil his return by going to London at once. + +'That's manly; that's nice of you,' Janet said. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING + +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.' + +'How's the great-grandmother of the tribe?' said I. + +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. + +'Ay, to be sure! a grand old soul,' he said. 'You know that scum of old, +Harry.' + +I laughed, and so did he, at which I laughed the louder. + +'He laughs, I suppose, because his party's got a majority in the House,' +said the squire. + +'We gave you a handsome surplus this year, sir.' + +'Sweated out of the country's skin and bone, ay!' + +'You were complimented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer!' + +'Yes, that fellow's compliments are like a cabman's, and cry fool:--he +never thanks you but when he's overpaid.' + +Captain Bulsted applauded the sarcasm. + +'Why did you keep out of knowledge all this time, Hal?' my grandfather +asked. + +I referred him to the captain. + +'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.' + +'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. + +My grandfather resumed his complaint: 'You might have gone clean off, +and we none the wiser.' + +'Are we quite sure that his head's clean on?' said the mystified +captain. + +'Of course we should run to him, wherever he was, if he was down on his +back,' the squire muttered. + +'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.' + +I raised the little finger. + +'Oh, oh,' went he, happily reassured; but, reflecting, added: 'A bout of +it?' + +I dropped him a penitent nod. + +'That's bad, though,' said he. + +'Then why did you tip me a bottle of rum, Captain William?' + +'By George, Harry, you've had a crack o' the sconce,' he exclaimed, more +sagaciously than he was aware of. + +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. + +He turned to me while giving directions to his man. + +'You 've got him down there, I suppose?' + +'My father's in town, sir. He shall keep away,' I said. + +'Humph! I mayn't object to see him.' + +This set me thinking. + +Captain Bulsted--previously asking me in a very earnest manner whether I +was really all right and sound--favoured me with a hint: + +'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.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +A letter from Heriot informed me that the affair between Edbury and me +was settled: he could not comprehend how. + +'What is this new Jury of Honour? Who are the jurymen?' he asked, and +affected wit. + +I thanked him for a thrashing in a curt reply. + +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!' + +A loud knock at the door had brought on the poor creature's +palpitations. + +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. + +Hearing that I was in the house, he desired to see me. + +We met, with a formal bow. + +'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?' + +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. + +'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?' + +'On the day of her arrival, your Highness. Ladies of my family are +staying on the island.' + +'Ah?' + +He paused, and invited me to bow to him. We bowed thus in the room, in +the hall, and at the street-door. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'Oh, go, if you like,' the fretted old man dismissed me: + +'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.' + +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. + +Temple was left to hear the rest. He had the sweetest of modest wishes +for a re-introduction to Ottilia. + + + + +CHAPTER L. WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Then ensued for her the successive shocks of discernment. She knew the +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. + +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. + +'Prince Ernest has arrived?' + +'My father came yesterday evening.' + +'Do you leave to-day?' + +'I cannot tell; he will decide.' + +It seemed a good omen, until I scanned Janet's sombre face. + +'You will not see us out for the rest of the day, Harry,' said she. + +'That is your arrangement?' + +'It is.' + +'Your own?' + +'Mine, if you like.' + +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. + +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. + +'Now, Harry, you had better go and have a little sleep. I should like to +speak to you early.' + +Ottilia immediately put her hand out to me. + +I begged permission to see her to her door. + +Janet replied for her, indicating old Schwartz: 'We have a protector, +you see, six feet and a half.' + +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.' + +'Is the prince going to stay here?' I asked. + +'No. I daresay I am only guessing; I hope so. He has threatened the +prince.' + +'What with?' + +'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!' + +'But who's to hear of the story?' said I. + +Janet gave an impatient sigh. + +'Do you mean that my father has threatened to publish it, Janet?' + +'I won't say he has. He has made the prince afraid to move: that I think +is true.' + +'Did the princess herself mention it to you?' + +'She understands her situation, I am sure.' + +'Did she speak of "the man," as you call him?' + +'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!' + +'You would muzzle us?' + +'Muzzle, or anything you please; I would make any one related to me +behave honourably. I would give him the alternative...' + +'You foolish girl! suppose he took it?' + +'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!' + +'Where is he?' + +'At the house where you sleep. He surrendered his rooms here very +kindly.' + +'Aunty has seen him?' + +Janet blushed: I thought I knew why. It was for subtler reasons than I +should have credited her with conceiving. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Come to us when you are at liberty,' she called. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +'The prince is a gentleman,' she said. + +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.' + +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.' + +'Is he quite against Harry?' asked my aunt Dorothy. + +'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.' + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +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. + +'Has grandada been ill?' she exclaimed. + +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. + +My father, advancing, perceived me, and almost taking the squire into +his affectionate salutation, said: + +'Nothing could be more opportune than your arrival, Mr. Beltham.' + +The squire rejoined: 'I wanted to see you, Mr. Richmond; and not in +public.' + +'I grant the private interview, sir, at your convenience.' + +Janet went up to General Goodwin. My father talked to me, and lost a +moment in shaking Temple's hand and saying kind things. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'Let's have no theatrical talk,' I interposed. + +'Certainly, Richie; the plainest English,' he assented. + +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. + +'Dry bread will do,' he said. + +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.' + +'How?' I inquired. + +'How, Richie? Where is your perspicuity? I have him here. I loosen a +thousand tongues on him. I--' + +'No, not on him; on the princess, you mean.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +I cried out, as much enraged at my feebleness to resist him, as in +disgust of his unscrupulous tricks. + +'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.' + +'She will not be. You have wrecked my last chance. You cover me with +dishonour.' + +'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!' + +'Through you, through you!--through my father!' + +'Have you both gone mad?' + +'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...' + +He interrupted. 'Totally the contrary. The prince acknowledges that you +are master of her affections.' + +'Consistently with her sense of honour and respect for us.' + +'Tell me of her reputation, Richie.' + +'You pretend that you can damage it!' + +'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.' + +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.' + +It was impossible for me to allow it. I stopped him. + +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. + +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.' + +'You did, General,' I confessed. 'Will you tell me what it is Prince +Ernest is in dread of?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'I have had the honour,' he replied, stiffly. 'You gain nothing with her +by this infamous proceeding.' + +I swallowed my anger, and said, 'Do you accuse me, General?' + +'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 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.' + +The General shook himself erect. 'Are you unable to keep him in?' he +asked. + +My nerves were pricking and stinging with the insults I had to listen +to, and conscience's justification of them. + +He repeated the question. + +'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. + +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.' + +His way of speaking of the princess opened an idea of the world's, in +the event of her name falling into its clutches. + +I said again, 'I will do what I can,' and sang out for Temple. + +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. + +'That will suit grandada,' Janet said. 'He commissioned me before going +to bed to write the same for him.' + +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. + +'Is not that her wish?' said Temple; perhaps with a wish of his own. + +'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. + +We appointed the next morning at half-past eleven for my father's visit. + +'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.' + +I asked her whether she had any knowledge of the squire's designs. + +'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.' + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'Deny you love her, deny she loves you, deny you are one--I knot you +fast!' + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Loose!' he exclaimed, throwing up an arm and a leg. + +'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.' + +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.' + +I listened with a throbbing forehead, and controlled the choking in my +throat, to ask him whether he had touched the newspapers. + +'Ay, dear lad, I have sprung my mine in them,' he replied. + +'You have sent word--?' + +'I have despatched a paragraph to the effect, that the prince and +princess have arrived to ratify the nuptial preliminaries.' + +'You expect it to appear this day?' + +'Or else my name and influence are curiously at variance with the +confidence I repose in them, Richie.' + +'Then I leave you to yourself,' I said. 'Prince Ernest knows he has to +expect this statement in the papers?' + +'We trumped him with that identical court-card, Richie.' + +'Very well. To-morrow, after we have been to my grandfather, you and I +part company for good, sir. It costs me too much.' + +'Dear old Richie,' he laughed, gently. 'And now to bye-bye! My blessing +on you now and always.' + +He shut his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'Didn't I tell you he called at your house in London and travelled down +with me this morning!' said Eckart. + +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. + +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. + +I asked her if she knew the object of the meeting appointed by my +grandfather. + +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.' + +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. + +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?' + +'No,' said Janet; 'I have never even seen one' + +'That high.' My father raised his hand flat. + +'Bigger than our Newfoundlands!' + +'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.' + +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. + +'In Germany,' he said. + +It was not improbable, nor less so that the dog was in Pomerania +likewise. + +The entry of my aunt Dorothy, followed by my grandfather, was silent. + +'Be seated,' the old man addressed us in a body, to cut short particular +salutations. + +My father overshadowed him with drooping shoulders. + +Janet wished to know whether she was to remain. + +'I like you by me always,' he answered, bluff and sharp. + +'We have some shopping to do,' my aunt Dorothy murmured, showing she was +there against her will. + +'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. + +My grandfather sat quite still, Janet next to him. 'When you've +finished, Mr. Richmond,' he remarked. + +'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.' + +There was a clearing of throats. My aunt Dorothy's foot tapped the +floor. + +'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. + +'I have, sir,' the squire replied. + +'And I also have a point. And, in fact, it is urgent, and with your +permission, Mr. Beltham, I will lead the way.' + +'No, sir, if you please. + +I'm a short speaker, and go to it at once, and I won't detain you a +second after you've answered me.' + +My father nodded to this, with the conciliatory comment that it was +business-like. + +The old man drew out his pocket-book. + +'You paid a debt,' he said deliberately, 'amounting to twenty-one +thousand pounds to my grandson's account.' + +'Oh! a debt! I did, sir. Between father and boy, dad and lad; debts! ... +but use your own terms, I pray you.' + +'I don't ask you where that money is now. I ask you to tell me where you +got it from.' + +'You speak bluntly, my dear sir.' + +'You won't answer, then?' + +'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.' + +'Then you don't know where you got it from, sir?' + +'Technically, you are correct, sir.' + +'A bird didn't bring it, and you didn't find it in the belly of a fish.' + +'Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to +believe; they did not happen to me.' + +'You swear to me you don't know the man, woman, or committee, who gave +you that sum?' + +'I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary +circumstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at +nothing.' + +'You suppose you got it from some fool?' + +'Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?' + +'You pretend you got it from Government?' + +'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.' + +Janet shook her dress. + +The squire replied: 'We 'll take that up presently. I haven't quite +done. Will you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?' + +'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.' + +'You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?' + +'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.' + +My aunt Dorothy looked up for the first time. + +'Janet and I have some purchases to make,' she said. + +The squire signified sharply that she must remain where she was. + +'I think aunty wants fresh air; she had a headache last night,' said +Janet. + +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. + +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. + +'Ha! I am,' quoth he. + +'Dear Miss Beltham!' my father ejaculated solicitously. '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?' + +'His name was Bannerbridge, Mr. Beltham.' + +'Dorothy, you knew a Mr. Bannerbridge?' + +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.' + +'What was his Christian name?' + +I gave them: 'Charles Adolphus.' + +'The identical person!' exclaimed my father. + +'Oh! you admit it,' said the squire. 'Ever seen him since the time Harry +was lost, Dorothy?' + +'Yes,' she answered. 'I have heard he is dead: + +'Did you see him shortly before his death?' + +'I happened to see him a short time before! + +'He was your man of business, was he?' + +'For such little business as I had to do.' + +'You were sure you could trust him, eh?' + +'Yes.' + +My aunt Dorothy breathed deeply. + +'By God, ma'am, you're a truthful woman!' + +The old man gave her a glare of admiration. + +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. + +'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?' + +I spoke of my attempts to discover the whence and wherefore of it. + +'Government? eh?' he sneered. + +'I really can't judge whether it came from that quarter,' said I. + +'What do you think?--think it likely?' + +I thought it unlikely, and yet likelier than that it should have come +from an individual. + +'Then you don't suspect any particular person of having sent it in the +nick of time, Harry Richmond?' + +I replied: 'No, sir; unless you force me to suspect you.' + +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. + +I had but the reason to instance that he was rich and kind at heart. + +'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!' + +There was a dreadful silence. + +My father leaned persuasively forward. + +'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--' + +'Out with it, Harry,' shouted the squire. + +'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--' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'In two months' time, the money in the Funds in the boy's name--you told +me that.' + +'You had it in the Funds in Harry Richmond's name, sir.' + +'Well, sir, I'm asking him whether it's in the Funds now.' + +'Oh! Mr. Beltham.' + +'What answer's that?' + +The squire was really confused by my father's interruption, and lost +sight of me. + +'I ask where it came from: I ask whether it's squandered?' he continued. + +'Mr. Beltham, I reply that you have only to ask for it to have it; do so +immediately.' + +'What 's he saying?' cried the baffled old man. + +'I give you a thousand times the equivalent of the money, Mr. Beltham.' + +'Is the money there?' + +'The lady is here.' + +'I said money, sir.' + +'A priceless honour and treasure, I say emphatically.' My grandfather's +brows and mouth were gathering for storm. Janet touched his knee. + +'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!' + +'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.' + +'In Balls, and dinners!' + +'In everything that builds a young gentleman's repute.' + +'You swear to me you gave your Balls and dinners, and the lot, for Harry +Richmond's sake?' + +'On my veracity, I did, sir!' + +'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.' + +My father beamed on him. + +'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.' + +My grandfather eased his heart with a plunging breath. + +'Well, sir, I didn't ask you here for your opinion or your friend's, and +I don't care for modern wit.' + +'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.' + +'Well, sir, I don't want to hear your comparisons,' growled the squire, +much oppressed. 'Stop a minute...' + +'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. + +My aunt Dorothy moved her head slightly toward my father, looking on the +floor, and he at once drew in. + +'Mr. Beltham, I attend to you submissively.' + +'You do? Then tell me what brought this princess to England?' + +'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.' + +'You wrote her a letter.' + +'That, containing the news of the attack on him and his desperate +illness, was the finishing touch to the noble lady's passion.' + +'Attack? I know nothing about an attack. You wrote her a letter and +wrote her a lie. You said he was dying.' + +'I had the boy inanimate on my breast when I despatched the epistle.' + +'You said he had only a few days to live.' + +'So in my affliction I feared.' + +'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?' + +My father raised his head proudly. + +'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.' + +'You've done it, though.' + +'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?' + +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.' + +'You hear that, Mr. Richmond?' cried the squire. + +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.' + +She uttered: 'No.' + +I looked at her; she at me. + +'You can conduct a case, Richmond,' the squire remarked. + +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.' + +'I do not believe it,' said Janet, rising. + +My aunt Dorothy followed her example, saying: 'In justice to Harry the +proposal should be made. At least it will settle this dispute.' + +Janet stared at her, and the squire threw his head back with an amazed +interjection. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +She spoke feverishly, with an unsweet expression of face, that seemed to +me to indicate vexedness at the squire's treatment of my father. + +'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.' + +Janet stooped to whisper in the squire's ear. + +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.' + +Janet laughed faintly. + +'I should advise your going, grandada.' + +'You a weathercock woman!' he reproached her, quite mystified, and fell +to rubbing his head. 'Suppose I go to be snubbed?' + +'The prince is a gentleman, grandada. Come with me. We will go alone. +You can relieve the prince, and protect him.' + +My father nodded: 'I approve.' + +'And grandada--but it will not so much matter if we are alone, though,' +Janet said. + +'Speak out.' + +'See the princess as well; she must be present.' + +'I leave it to you,' he said, crestfallen. + +Janet pressed my aunt Dorothy's hand. + +'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.' + +My aunt Dorothy accepted the eulogy with a singular trembling wrinkle of +the forehead. + +She evidently understood that Janet had seen her wish to get released. + +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. + +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. + +'Exactly,' interposed my father, triumphing. + +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?' + +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.' + +'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.' + +She was obliged to smile to excuse his interruption. + +'What's that? whose band?' said the squire, bursting out of Janet's +hand. 'A private band?' + +Janet had a difficulty in resuming her command of him. The mention of +the private band made him very restive. + +'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.' + +He sang out to me: 'Harry, do you want me to go through this form for +you?--mn'd unpleasant!' + +My aunt Dorothy whispered in my ear: 'Yes! yes!' + +'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. + +'I'm off my head to-day,' he said to Janet, with a sideshot of his eye +at my father. + +'You waste time and trouble, grandada,' said she. + +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. + +'This prince!' he kept ejaculating. + +'Won't you understand, grandada, that you relieve him, and make things +clear by going?' Janet said. + +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. + +'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?' + +He glanced at Janet. She nodded. + +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. + +'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?' + +'Does Prince Hermann of--I can't pronounce the name of the place--speak +English, Harry?' Janet asked me. + +'As well as you or I,' said I, losing my inattention all at once with a +mad leap of the heart. + +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. + +My father had no doubts. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'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...' + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST + +My father and I stood at different windows, observing the unconcerned +people below. + +'Did you scheme to bring Prince Hermann over here as well?' I asked him. + +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.' + +'Supposing I refuse?' + +'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!' + +I was invited to sympathetic smiles of shrewd amusement. + +He caught sight of friends, and threw up the window, saluting them. + +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.' + +'I forgot, sir, temporarily,' said my father, 'I had vacated the rooms +for your convenience--be assured.' + +An explanation on the subject of the rooms ensued between the old man +and the ladies;--it did not improve his temper. + +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.' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'Not all, sir,' I was able to say. + +'Half?' + +'Yes, I think so.' + +'Three parts?' + +'It may be.' + +'And liabilities besides?' + +'There are some.' + +'You're not a liar. That'll do for you.' + +He turned to my aunt: her eyes had shut. + +'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. + +'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!' + +The egregious mildness of these interjections could not long be +preserved. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +The squire said something of Government to my aunt Dorothy, with +sarcastical emphasis. + +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.' + +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.' + +Janet gazed in the direction of my father, carefully avoiding my eyes, +but evidently anxious to shield my persecuted aunty. + +'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.' + +He appealed lightly to the squire, for thus he danced on the crater's +brink, and had for answer, + +'You're a cool scoundrel, Richmond.' + +'I choose to respect you, rather in spite of yourself, I fear, sir,' +said my father, bracing up. + +'Did you hear my conversation with my daughter?' + +'I heard, if I may say so, the lion taking his share of it.' + +'All roaring to you, was it?' + +'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.' + +'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. + +'Grandada, aunty and I will leave you,' said Janet, waxing importunate. + +'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.' + +'Out of--' + +'Out of be damned, sir! She's the person who paid it.' + +'If the "damns" have set up, you may as well let the ladies go,' said I. + +He snapped at me like a rabid dog in career. + +'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!' + +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. + +'Address my daughter respectfully, sir, will you! I won't have your +infernal familiarities!' roared the squire. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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--' + +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?' + +My aunt Dorothy had come round to me. She clutched my arm to restrain me +from speaking, whispering: + +'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. + +'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--' + +'How long?' the squire interrupted. + +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. + +'There's no necessity for "how long,"' I said. + +The old man kept the question on his face. + +My father reflected. + +'I have to hit my memory, I am shattered, sir. I say, you would be +justified, amply justified--' + +'How long?' was reiterated. + +'I can at least date it from the period of my marriage.' + +'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!' + +'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----' + +'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?' + +'Annual proof was afforded me, sir.' + +'Oh! annual! through Mr. Charles Adolphus Bannerbridge, deceased!' + +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: + +'Harry, do you suspect Government paid that annuity?' + +'Not now, certainly.' + +'Tell the man who 'tis you suspect.' + +My aunt Dorothy said: 'Harry is not bound to mention his suspicions.' + +'Tell him yourself, then.' + +'Does it matter--?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'I can't leave my father,' I said. + +'Nor I you, dear,' said the tender woman; and so we remained to be +scourged by this tongue of incarnate rage. + +'You pensioner of a silly country spinster!' sounded like a return to +mildness. My father's chest heaved up. + +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. + +'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.' + +He paused, but his inordinate passion of speech was unsated: his white +lips hung loose for another eruption. + +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.' + +'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--' + +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.' + +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.' + +'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?' + +'I hoped to help my Harry.' + +'Why didn't you do it openly?' + +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.' + +Had she disliked the idea of my father's marrying? + +The old man pounced on the word sacrifice. 'What sacrifice, ma'am? +What's the sacrifice?' + +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.' + +'Harry!' either my aunt or Janet breathed a warning. + +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. + +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. + +Upon this he awoke from his dreamy-looking stupefaction. + +'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.' + +'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. + +I begged him in exasperation to keep his similes to himself. + +Janet and my aunt Dorothy raised their voices. + +My father said: 'I am broken.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'I never did; I never will; I pitied you,' she cried, sobbing. + +The squire stamped his foot. + +'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.' + +My grandfather had been clearing his throat two or three times. + +'I 'm ready to finish and get rid of you, Richmond.' + +My father bowed. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +My grandfather chose the moment as a fitting one to ask me for the last +time to take my side. + +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. + +He just as quietly rejoined with a recommendation to me to divorce +myself for good and all from a scoundrel. + +I took my father's arm: he was not in a state to move away unsupported. + +My aunt Dorothy stood weeping; Janet was at the window, no friend to +either of us. + +I said to her, 'You have your wish.' + +She shook her head, but did not look back. + +My grandfather watched me, step by step, until I had reached the door. + +'You're going, are you?' he said. 'Then I whistle you off my fingers!' + +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. + +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: + +'Waddy shall have her monument!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +As heretofore! in a letter from a young woman supposed to nourish a +softness! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'No,' said Dorothy; 'it is the money that makes her position so +difficult, unless you break the ice.' + +I urged that having steadily refused her before, I could hardly advance +without some invitation now. + +'What invitation?' said my aunt. + +'Not a corpse-like consent,' said I. + +'Harry,' she twitted me, 'you have not forgiven her.' That was true. + +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. + +'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. + +It became known that my father was at Bulsted. + +I saw trouble one morning on Janet's forehead. + +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?' + +'You won't offend me,' said I. + +She hoped not. + +I rallied her: 'Tut, tut, you talk like any twelve-years-old, Janet.' + +'I offended you then!' + +'Every day! it's all that I care much to remember.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Richie, I am interdicted house and grounds!' he called, and waved his +hand toward the lodge: 'they decline to open to me.' + +'Were you denied admission?' I asked him. + +'--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.' + +'Those must be the squire's old orders,' I said, and shouted to the +lodge-keeper. + +My father, with the forethoughtfulness which never forsook him, stopped +me. + +'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.' + +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. + +He leaned on me, quaking. + +'Impossible! Richie, impossible!' he cried, and reviewed a series of +interjections. + +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. + +My father was refused admission at the hall-doors. + +The butler, the brute Sillabin, withstood me impassively. + +Whose orders had he? + +Miss Ilchester's. + +'They are afraid of me!' my father thundered. + +I sent a message to Janet. + +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. + +Janet dismissed the men-servants. She was quite colourless. + +'We have been stopped in the doorway,' I said. + +She answered: 'I wish it could have been prevented.' + +'You take it on yourself, then?' + +She was inaudible. + +'My dear Janet, you call Riversley my home, don't you?' + +'It is yours.' + +'Do you intend to keep up this hateful feud now my grandfather is dead?' + +'No, Harry, not I.' + +'Did you give orders to stop my father from entering the house and +grounds?' + +'I did.' + +'You won't have him here?' + +'Dear Harry, I hoped he would not come just yet.' + +'But you gave the orders?' + +'Yes.' + +'You're rather incomprehensible, my dear Janet.' + +'I wish you could understand me, Harry.' + +'You arm your servants against him!' + +'In a few days--' she faltered. + +'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.' + +'I am. I wish I were not.' + +'You are mistress of Riversley, and you refuse to let my father come +in!' + +'While I am the mistress, yes.' + +'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.' + +'I request you to let him enter the house. Do you consent or not?' + +'He was refused once at these doors. Do you refuse him a second time?' + +'I do.' + +'You mean that?' + +'I am obliged to.' + +'You won't yield a step to me?' + +'I cannot.' + +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. + +Of course I was not so dense as to be unable to perceive her grounds for +refusing. + +She would not throw the burden on her grandada, even to propitiate +me--the man she still loved. + +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. + +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. + +She broke the first pause to say, 'It's useless, Harry. I do what I +think I am bound to do.' + +'Then I have spoken to no purpose!' + +'If you will only be kind, and wait two or three days?' + +'Be sensible!' + +'I am, as much as I can be.' + +'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?' + +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. + +'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.' + +Janet gazed piteously from him to me. + +To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common. + +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. + +'Has he been ill?' Janet asked. + +'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?' + +'Yes, Riversley, Harry; I knew that; I knew nothing else.' + +'The old place was left to you that you might bar my father out?' + +'I gave my word.' + +'You pledged it--swore?' + +'No.' + +'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?' + +Janet answered softly: 'I believe so.' + +'Then, good-bye,' said I. + +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. + +'Will you go, Harry? Will you not take Riversley?' she said. + +I laughed. + +'To spare you the repetition of the dilemma?' + +'No, Harry; but this might be done.' + +'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.' + +'Grandada's wishes! I cannot carry out all his wishes,' she sighed. + +'Are you anxious to?' + +We were on the delicate ground, as her crimson face revealed to me that +she knew as well as I. + +I, however, had little delicacy in leading her on it. She might well +feel that she deserved some wooing. + +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. + +She replied calmly, 'Not immediately.' + +'You are not immediately anxious to fulfil his wishes?' + +'Harry, I find it hard to do those that are thrust on me.' + +'But, as a matter of serious obligation, you would hold yourself bound +by and by to perform them all?' + +'I cannot speak any further of my willingness, Harry.' + +'The sense of duty is evidently always sufficient to make you act upon +the negative--to deny, at least?' + +'Yes, I daresay,' said Janet. + +We shook hands like a pair of commercial men. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +The letter ended with an adieu, a petition for an answer, and 'yours +affectionately.' + +On the day of its date, a Viennese newspaper lying on the Salzburg Hotel +table chronicled Ottilia's marriage with Prince Hermann. + +I turned on Temple to walk him off his legs if I could. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. MY RETURN TO ENGLAND + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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 afresh 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.' + +I spared Colonel Heddon the revelation of my relationship to his hero, +thanking his garrulity for interrupting me. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Have you anything to say against my men?' the captain inquired. + +Temple replied that he would talk to him about it presently, and laughed +as he drew me away. + +'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!' + +'Taken what?' said I. + +'Haven't you heard from him?' + +'Two or three times: a mass of interjections.' + +'You know he brought his Case forward at last? Of course it went as we +all knew it would.' + +'Where is he? Have you seen Janet lately?' + +'He is at Miss Ilchester's house in London.' + +'Write the address on a card.' + +Temple wrote it rather hesitatingly, I thought. + +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! + +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.' + +I pressed her on my heart and cheered her, praising Janet. She wept. + +'Is there anything new the matter?' I said. + +'It 's not new to us, Harry. I'm sure you're brave?' + +'Brave! what am I asked to bear?' + +'Much, if you love her, Harry!' + +'Speak.' + +'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!' + +'She's in love with some one?' + +'I did not say in love.' + +'Tell me the worst.' + +'She is engaged to be married.' + +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. + +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. + +Dorothy Beltham told me something of Janet that struck me to the dust. + +'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.' + +'The lady didn't fear contagion any longer?' + +'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.' + +My heart rose on a huge swell. + +'She was alone with him, Harry. We could hear them.' + +Dorothy Beltham looked imploringly on me to waken my whole +comprehension. + +'She subdued him. When I saw him he was white as death, but quiet, not +dangerous at all.' + +'Do you mean she found him raving?' I cried out on our Maker's name, in +grief and horror. + +'Yes, dear Harry, it was so.' + +'She stepped between him and an asylum?' + +'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.' + +'Oh! don't torture me, ma'am, for God's sake,' I called aloud. + + + + +CHAPTER LV. I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT + +There came to me a little note on foreign paper, unaddressed, an +enclosure forwarded by Janet, and containing merely one scrap from the +playful XENIEN of Ottilia's favourite brotherly poets, of untranslatable +flavour:-- + + Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete: + Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels. + +It filled me with a breath of old German peace. + +From this I learnt that Ottilia and Janet corresponded. Upon what +topics? to what degree of intimacy? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death before you reach +your immortality. + +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. + +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.' + +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!' + +To prove the aforesaid Frenchman wrong, we nodded to the driver's +laughter at his exquisite imitation. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +As if anxious not to pervert us, he concluded: 'That's what I think, +gentlemen.' + +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! + +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. + +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.' + +Temple and I argued the case with him, as of old on our voyage, on board +the barque Priscilla, quite unavailingly. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +To our astonishment he told us he intended to take her for a voyage in +the Priscilla. 'Why?' we asked. + +'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.' + +We grimaced a little on her behalf, but had nothing to reply. + +Seeing Janet after Mabel was strange. In the latter one could perceive +the palpably suitable mate for Edbury. + +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 Herriot 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It came abruptly, and was schoolingly cold and short. + +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. + +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. + +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:-- + + 'DEAR HARRY,--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. + + 'Your affectionate, + 'JANET.' + +I tore the letter to pieces, and kept them. + +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. + +I was startled to see little Kiomi in Mabel's company. + +They had met accidentally at the head of the street, and had been +friends in childhood, Captain Welsh said, adding: 'She hates men.' + +'Good reason, when they're beasts,' said Kiomi. + +Amid much weeping of Mabel and old Mrs. Welsh, Kiomi showed as little +trouble as the heath when the woods are swept. + +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. + +We saw them off from the waterside. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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 larderquite jumped to dine him in the City like old times; and he +will see a great spread of plate!' + +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. + +'A prince! a treacherous lover! an unfatherly man!' + +Those were the words I caught: a reproduction of many of my phrases +employed in our arguments on this very subject. + +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! + +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.' + +They were listening obediently to one whom they dared not interrupt for +fear of provoking an outburst of madness. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI. CONCLUSION + +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. + +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. + +What are their passions, then? The storm in the clouds--even more +short-lived than the clouds. + +I philosophized, but my anguish was great. + +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. + +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? + +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: + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +She smiled a little. 'We expected Temple's arrival sooner than yours, +Harry!' + +'Do you take to his Lucy?' + +'Yes, thoroughly.' + +The perfect ring of Janet was there. + +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. + +'Then how long,' I asked astonished, 'how long have you been staying +with the princess?' + +She answered, colouring, 'So long, that I can speak fairish German.' + +'And read it easily?' + +'I have actually taken to reading, Harry.' + +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?' + +'Yes, some months,' she replied. + +'Many?' + +'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.' + +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. + +A faint shudder passed over her. She shut her eyes and shook her head. + +Our interview satisfied my heart's hunger no further. The Verona's +erratic voyage had cut me off from letters. + +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 Fraulein. 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. + +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. + +I plucked him from his narrator's vexatious and inevitable commencement: +'Temple, tell me, did she go to the altar?' + +He answered 'Yes!' + +'She did? Then she's a widow?' + +'No, she isn't,' said Temple, distracting me by submitting to the lead I +distracted him by taking. + +'Then her husband's alive?' + +Temple denied it, and a devil seized him to perceive some comicality in +the dialogue. + +'Was she married?' + +Temple said 'No,' with a lurking drollery about his lips. He added, 'It +'s nothing to laugh over, Richie.' + +'Am I laughing? Speak out. Did Edbury come to grief overnight in any +way?' + +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. + +'Was Edbury the one to throw up the marriage? Did he decline it?' + +'No,' was the answer once more. + +Temple stopped my wrath by catching at me and begging me to listen. + +'Edbury was drowned, Richie.' + +'Overnight?' + +'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--"The Lord's +will is about to be done"; and underneath--"We go to His judgement +resigned and cheerful." You know the old captain, Richie? + +Temple had tears in his eyes. We both stood blinking for a second or +two. + +I could not but be curious to hear the reason for Edbury's having +determined to sail. + +'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."' + +'How do you know all this, Temple?' + +'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.' + +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. + +An odd series of accidents! I thought. + +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.' + +'How betrayed him?' said I. + +'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.' + +'Good heaven! how little!' cried I. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +Was it conceivable that we could go back to Riversley single? + +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.' + +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. + +Riding behind her and Temple one day with the princess, I said, 'What +takes you most in Janet?' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS + + A stew's a stew, and not a boiling to shreds + Absolute freedom could be the worst of perils + Add on a tired pipe after dark, and a sound sleep to follow + All passed too swift for happiness + Allowed silly sensitiveness to prevent the repair + As little trouble as the heath when the woods are swept + Ask pardon of you, without excusing myself + Attacked my conscience on the cowardly side + Bade his audience to beware of princes + Bandied the weariful shuttlecock of gallantry + But the flower is a thing of the season; the flower drops off + But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death + Days when you lay on your back and the sky rained apples + Decent insincerity + Determine that the future is in our debt, and draw on it + Discreet play with her eyelids in our encounters + Dogmatic arrogance of a just but ignorant man + Excellent is pride; but oh! be sure of its foundations + Faith works miracles. At least it allows time for them + Habit of antedating his sagacity + He clearly could not learn from misfortune + He thinks or he chews + He would neither retort nor defend himself + He whipped himself up to one of his oratorical frenzies + He put no question to anybody + I can't think brisk out of my breeches + I can pay clever gentlemen for doing Greek for me + I do not defend myself ever + I was discontented, and could not speak my discontent + I laughed louder than was necessary + If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? + Intimations of cowardice menacing a paralysis of the will + Irony instead of eloquence + Is it any waste of time to write of love? + It goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little finger + Kindness is kindness, all over the world + Learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them + Like a woman, who would and would not, and wanted a master + Look within, and avoid lying + Mindless, he says, and arrogant + Nations at war are wild beasts + No Act to compel a man to deny what appears in the papers + Not to do things wholly is worse than not to do things at all + One in a temper at a time I'm sure 's enough + One who studies is not being a fool + Only true race, properly so called, out of India--German + Payment is no more so than to restore money held in trust + Puns are the smallpox of the language + Self, was digging pits for comfort to flow in + Simple affection must bear the strain of friendship if it can + Simplicity is the keenest weapon + Some so-called laws of honour + Stand not in my way, nor follow me too far + Stultification of one's feelings and ideas + Tears are the way of women and their comfort + Tension of the old links keeping us together + The most dangerous word of all--ja + The love that survives has strangled craving + The thought stood in her eyes + The proper defence for a nation is its history + The wretch who fears death dies multitudinously + The past is our mortal mother, no dead thing + Then for us the struggle, for him the grief + There is more in men and women than the stuff they utter + There's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off + They seem to me to be educated to conceal their education + They have not to speak to exhibit their minds + They dare not. The more I dare, the less dare they + They are little ironical laughter--Accidents + Those who are rescued and made happy by circumstances + Tight grasps of the hand, in which there was warmth and shyness + 'Tis the fashion to have our tattle done by machinery + To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe + To the rest of the world he was a progressive comedy + To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common + Too prompt, too full of personal relish of his point + Twice a bad thing to turn sinners loose + Unseemly hour--unbetimes + Vessel was conspiring to ruin our self-respect + War is only an exaggerated form of duelling + Was I true? Not so very false, yet how far from truth! + We has long overshadowed "I" + What a man hates in adversity is to see 'faces' + What else is so consolatory to a ruined man? + Who beguiles so much as Self? + Who so intoxicated as the convalescent catching at health? + Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete + Winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly + Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels + You may learn to know yourself through love + You may learn to know yourself through love + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Harry Richmond, +Complete, by George Meredith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRY RICHMOND *** + +***** This file should be named 4452.txt or 4452.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/5/4452/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/4452.zip b/old/4452.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3573f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4452.zip diff --git a/old/gm58v10.txt b/old/gm58v10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..940f607 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/gm58v10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23892 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext Adventures Harry Richmond by Meredith, entire +#58 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the +information they need to understand what they may and may not +do with the etext. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + + + +Title: The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Entire + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4452] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 31, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Project Gutenberg Etext Adventures Harry Richmond, by Meredith, Entire +*********This file should be named gm58v10.txt or gm58v10.zip********* + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm58v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm58v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +etexts, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2001 as we release over 50 new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 4000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts. We need +funding, as well as continued efforts by volunteers, to maintain +or increase our production and reach our goals. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of January, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, +Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, +Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, +Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, +Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +All donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fundraising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fundraising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK 1. +I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION +II. AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT +III. DIPWELL FARM +IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR +V. I HAVE A DEAR FRIEND +VI. A TALE OF A GOOSE + +BOOK 2. +VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD +VIII. JANET ILCHESTER +IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED +X. AN EXPEDITION +XI. THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT +XII. WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE +XIII. WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE + 'PRISCILLA' +XIV. I MEET OLD FRIENDS + +BOOK 3. +XV. WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST +XVI. THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY +XVII. MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS +XVIII. WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION +XIX. OUR RETURN HOMEWARD +XX. NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S +XXI. A PROMENADE IN BATH +XXII. CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE + +BOOK 4. +XXIII. MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY +XXIV. I MEET THE PRINCESS +XXV. ON BOARD A YACHT +XXVI. IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE +XXVII. THE TIME OF ROSES +XXVIII. OTTILIA +XXIX. AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG +XXX. A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE +XXXI. PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER +XXXII. AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO + +BOOK 5. +XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING +XXXIV. I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE +XXXV. THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY +XXXVI. HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN. +XXXVII. JANET RENOUNCES ME +XXXVIII. MY BANKERS' BOOK. + +BOOK 6. +XXXIX. I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF +XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER +XLI. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S + GRAND PARADE +XLII. THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET +XLIII. I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION +XLIV. MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE + +BOOK 7. +XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE . +XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN +XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN +XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED +XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING +L. WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET +LI. AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT + +BOOK 8. +LII. STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST +LIII. THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING +LIV. MY RETURN TO ENGLAND +LV. I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT +LVI. CONCLUSION + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + + +BOOK 1. + +I. I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION +II. AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT +III. DIPWELL FARM +IV. I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR +V. I HAVE A DEAR FRIEND +VI. A TALE OF A GOOSE + + + +CHAPTER I + +I AM A SUBJECT OF CONTENTION + +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. + +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. + +'Sewis! you're the man, are you: where has it broken out?' + +'No, sir; no fire,' said Sewis; 'you be cool, sir.' + +'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!' + +The squire had fallen back on his pillow and was relapsing to sleep. + +Sewis spoke impressively: 'There's a gentleman downstairs; a gentleman +downstairs, sir. He has come rather late.' + +'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!' + +Sewis had the office of tempering a severely distasteful announcement to +the squire. + +He resumed: 'The gentleman doesn't talk of staying. That is not his +business. It 's rather late for him to arrive.' + +'Rather late!' roared the squire. 'Why, what's it o'clock?' + +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.' + +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. + +'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. + +The fact had to be denied or affirmed instantly, and Sewis was silent. + +Grasping his bedclothes in a lump, the squire cried: + +'Downstairs? downstairs, Sewis? You've admitted him into my house?' + +'No, sir.' + +'You have!' + +'He is not in the house, sir.' + +'You have! How did you speak to him, then?' + +'Out of my window, sir.' + +'What place here is the scoundrel soiling now?' + +'He is on the doorstep outside the house.' + +'Outside, is he? and the door's locked?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'Let him rot there!' + +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. + +'Hand me my breeches,' he called to Sewis; 'I can't think brisk out of my +breeches.' + +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. + +'Now, Sewis, now my horsewhip,' he remarked, as if it had been a simple +adjunct of his equipment. + +'Your hat, sir?' + +'My horsewhip, I said.' + +'Your hat is in the hall,' Sewis observed gravely. + +'I asked you for my horsewhip.' + +'That is not to be found anywhere,' said Sewis. + +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. + +The squire himself unbolted the door, and threw it open to the limit of +the chain. + +'Who's there?' he demanded. + +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.' + +'Your name?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +The following conversation passed between them. + +'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.' + +'Have you any accomplices lurking about here?' + +'I am alone.' + +'What 's your business?' + +'I have no business.' + +'You have no business to be here, no. I ask you what 's the object of +your visit?' + +'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.' + +'What brought you here at all?' + +'Can you ask me?' + +'I ask you what brought you to my house at all?' + +'True, I might have slept at Ewling.' + +'Why didn't you?' + +'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.' + +'You've come to see my daughter Marian, have you?' + +'My wife, sir.' + +'You don't cross my threshold while I live.' + +'You compel her to come out to me?' + +'She stays where she is, poor wretch, till the grave takes her. You've +done your worst; be off.' + +'Mr. Beltham, I am not to be restrained from the sight of my wife.' + +'Scamp!' + +'By no scurrilous epithets from a man I am bound to respect will I be +deterred or exasperated.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +His figure was bent to advance. The squire shouted an order to Sewis to +run round to the stables and slip the dogs loose. + +'Is it your final decision?' Mr. Richmond asked. + +'Damn your fine words! Yes, it is. I keep my flock clear of a foul +sheep.' + +'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.' + +'Speak as positively as you like,' said the squire. + +'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.' + +'Can't they!' said the squire. + +'A curse be on him, heaven's lightnings descend on him, who keeps husband +from wife in calamity!' + +The squire whistled for his dogs. + +As if wounded to the quick by this cold-blooded action, Mr. Richmond +stood to his fullest height. + +'Nor, sir, on my application during to-morrow's daylight shall I see +her?' + +'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.' + +'You claim a paternal right to refuse me: my wife is your child. Good. +I wish to see my son.' + +On that point the squire was equally decided. 'You can't. He's asleep.' + +'I insist.' + +'Nonsense: I tell you he's a-bed and asleep.' + +'I repeat, I insist.' + +'When the boy's fast asleep, man!' + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Kiss the little chap and back to bed with him,' growled the squire. + +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. + +'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.' + +'You may ask till you're hoarse, you shall never see her in this house +while I am here to command,' said the squire. + +'Very well; then Harry Richmond changes homes. I take him. The affair +is concluded.' + +'You take him from his mother?' the squire sang out. + +'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.' + +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.' + +'Shall I see my wife?' + +'No, you shan't.' + +'You remain faithful to your word, sir, do you?' + +'I do.' + +'Then I do similarly.' + +'What! Stop! Not to take a child like that out of a comfortable house +at night in Winter, man?' + +'Oh, the night is temperate and warm; he shall not remain in a house +where his father is dishonoured.' + +'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.' + +'Silence concerning a father insinuates dishonour, Mr. Beltham.' + +'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.' + +Mr. Richmond caught the boy just when he was turning to run. + +'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.' + +The squire coughed out an emphatic 'Never!' and fortified it with an oath +as he repeated it upon a fuller breath. + +'Sir, I will condescend to entreat you to grant this permission,' said +Mr. Richmond, urgently. + +'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!' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN ADVENTURE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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, + + 'Billy Pitt took a cake and a raspberry jam, + When he heard they had taken Seringapatam.' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Give you a cake, little boy?' she said. 'We don't give cakes, we sell +them.' + +'Because I am hungry,' said I, pursuing my request. + +Another young woman came, laughing and shaking lots of ringlets. + +'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.' + +'My name is Harry Richmond, and I thank you very much,' I replied. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +'Are you in the Peerage?' said I. + +'Not yet,' he replied. + +'Well, then,' said I, 'I know nothing about you.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'And who lies outside?' she asked. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DIPWELL FARM + +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. + +'Where his heart's not concerned,' Mrs. Waddy remarked of me +flatteringly, 'he's shrewd as a little schoolmaster.' + +'He've a bird's-nesting eye,' said Mrs. Thresher, whose face I was +studying. + +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. + +'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 h'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.' + +'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. + +His wife and Mrs. Waddy said reflectively, in a breath, 'True!' + +'Drink or no, that's the trick o' brewery,' he added. + +They assented. They began praising him, too, like meek creatures. + +'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.' + +'Oh, I quite agree with John, Martha: we must take the good and the evil +in a world like this.' + +'Then I'm no scholar, and you're at ease,' said John. + +Mrs. Waddy put her mouth to his ear. + +Up went his eyebrows, wrinkling arches over a petrified stare. + +In some way she had regained her advantage. 'Art sure of it?' he +inquired. + +'Pray, don't offend me by expressing a doubt of it,' she replied, bowing. + +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. + +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.' + +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!' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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.' + +Martha Thresher showed him the bed, showed him flowers I had planted, and +a Spanish chestnut tree just peeping. + +'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. + +John Thresher cried out: 'Why, dame, you trembles like a maid.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +I HAVE A TASTE OF GRANDEUR + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'And down go all the kings, downstairs,' I said, surveying them +consecutively. + +'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?' + +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. + +'Don't you like it, Mrs. Waddy?' I said. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +They drank to me heartily, but my father had fallen mournful before I +left the room. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Lord only knows where we shall all be by that time!' she sighed. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND + +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. + +'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.' + +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! + +'What have you there, Heriot?' + +My hero stared. 'Only a family portrait,' he answered, thrusting it safe +in his pocket and fixing his gaze on Julia's window. + +'Permit me to look at it,' said Mr. Boddy. + +'Permit me to decline to let you,' said Heriot. + +'Look at me, sir,' cried Boddy. + +'I prefer to look elsewhere, sir,' replied Heriot, and there was Julia +visible at her window. + +'I asked you, sir, civilly,' quoth Boddy, 'for permission to look,-- +I used the word intentionally; I say I asked you for permission . . .' + +'No, you didn't,' Heriot retorted, quite cool; 'inferentially you did; +but you did not use the word permission.' + +'And you turned upon me impudently,' pursued Boddy, whose colour was +thunder: 'you quibbled, sir; you prevaricated; you concealed what you +were carrying . . .' + +'Am carrying,' Heriot corrected his tense; 'and mean to, in spite of +every Boddy,' he murmured audibly. + +'Like a rascal detected in an act of felony,' roared Boddy, 'you +concealed it, sir . . .' + +'Conceal it, sir.' + +'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.' + +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: + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +He hugged me up to him. + +'I'd take anything for you, Heriot,' said I. + +'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. + +'To Miss Rippenger,' I replied. + +'What have you there?' + +'A book, sir.' + +'Show me the book.' + +I stood fast. + +'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 shakes roughly. + +'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.' + +'I regret, sir, that the poor boy was so savagely handled,' said Heriot. + +He was warned to avoid insolence. + +'Oh, as much Virgil as you like,' Heriot retorted; 'I know him by heart.' + +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.' + +Julia blushed very red. She accepted the book with a soft murmur, and +the sallow usher had not a word. + +'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.' + +I was hoping with all my might that she would not deny him. She did, +and my heart sank. + +'Oh, I can read it without notes,' she said, cheerfully. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'Ah, Richie,' she said, 'I have to pay to have you with me now.' + +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!' + +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. + +'You speak of him as if you were in love with him, Richmond,' she said. + +'And I do love him,' I answered. + +'Not with me?' she asked. + +'Yes, I do love you too, if you will not make him angry.' + +'But do you know what it is he wants of me?' + +I guessed: 'Yes; he wants you to let him sit close to you for half an +hour.' + +She said that he sat very near her in church. + +'Ah,' said I, 'but he mustn't interrupt the sermon.' + +She laughed, and mouthed me over with laughing kisses. 'There's very +little he hasn't daring enough for!' + +We talked of his courage. + +'Is he good as well?' said Julia, more to herself than to me; but I sang +out, + +'Good! Oh, so kind!' + +This appeared to convince her. + +'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. + +I quitted her, taking her message to Heriot: 'You may tell him--tell him +that I can't write.' + +Heriot frowned on hearing me repeat it. + +'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?' + +I had to confess she did; and feeling a twinge of my treason to her, felt +hers to Heriot. + +'Humph!' he went; 'she shall suffer for that.' + +All this was like music going on until the curtain should lift and reveal +my father to me. + +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. + +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, + +'Do you think French useful in a military education, sir?' + +And Boddy said, 'Yes, of course it is.' + +Says Heriot, 'Then I think I shall take lessons.' + +Boddy told him he was taking lessons in the school. + +'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!' + +Boddy sprang half up from his seat. 'Row, sir, and don't talk,' he +growled. + +'Sit, sir, and don't dance in the boat, if you please, or the lady will +be overset,' said Heriot. + +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. + +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. + +'She's a coquette,' said little Temple. I went off to the French +dictionary. + +'Is Julia Rippenger a coquette, Heriot?' I asked him. + +'Keep girls out of your heads, you little fellows,' said he, dealing me a +smart thump. + +'Is a coquette a nasty girl?' I persisted. + +'No, a nice one, as it happens,' was his answer. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'Why not?' said he, staring at us angrily. 'Has Saddlebank broken his +arm, and can't bowl?' + +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. + +'Wait till we win our match,' said Heriot. + +Julia did not appear at morning prayers. + +'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. + +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: + +'I say, Julia, my dear, I say, do you know . . .' + +And Temple on the other: ' Miss Julia, I wish you'd let me tell you--' + +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. + +'Look!' I said to Julia. But she looked at me. + +'Richie, are you ill?' + +She assured me I was very pale, and I felt her trembling excessively, and +her parasol was covering us. + +'Here, Roy, Temple,' we heard Heriot call; 'here, come here and bowl to +me.' + +I went and bowled till I thought my head was flying after the ball and +getting knocks, it swam and throbbed so horribly. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,' said +Heriot. + +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?' + +'Bother it!' was Temple's answer, for he had taken a stinging dozen, and +had a tender skin. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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, + +'A letter from the colonel in India!' + +Boddy waited a minute, and then said, 'Is your father in good health?' + +Heriot's face was scarlet. At first he stuttered, 'My father!--I hope +so! What have you in common with him, sir?' + +'You stated that the letter was from your father,' said Boddy. + +'What if it is, sir?' + +'Oh, in that case, nothing whatever to me.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +To my grief, I discovered that Heriot had resolved he would not return to +school. + +'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!' + +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 'll do me a service--the last I shall want +in the neighbourhood.' He managed to poise the ladder on his shoulder, +and moved forward. + +'Are we going in through the window?' I asked, seeing him fix the ladder +against the school-house wall. + +He said, 'Hush; keep a look-out.' + +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: + +'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: + +'Heriot, Walter, don't go--don't go; you do not care for me if you go. +Oh, don't go.' + +'We've come to it,' said Heriot. + +She asked why he was not in bed, and moaned on: + +'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. + +'Tell me you love me,' said Heriot. + +'I do, I do, only don't go,' she answered. + +'Will you love me faithfully?' + +'I will; I do.' + +'Say, "I love you, Walter."' + +'I love you, Walter.' + +'For ever.' + +'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?' + +'I'd go through a regiment of sabres to get at you.' + +'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!' + +'Do you dream of me in your bed?' + +'Yes, every night.' + +'God bless the bed!' + +'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.' + +Heriot said, 'Your mother was Irish, Julia.' + +'Yes. She would have loved you.' + +'I 've Irish blood too. Give me her portrait. It 's the image of you.' + +'To take away? Walter! not to take it away?' + +'You darling! to keep me sure of you.' + +'Part with my mother's portrait?' + +'Why, yes, if you love me one bit.' + +'But you are younger than me, Heriot.' + +'Then good-night, good-bye, Julia.' + +'Walter, I will fetch it.' + +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. + +'Some one must be sitting up for you--are we safe?' she said. + +Heriot laughed, and pressed for the portrait. + +'It is all I have. Why should you not have it? I want to be +remembered.' + +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: + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +The man said, 'Scamped it out of school, sir?' + +Heriot replied: 'Mum. Rely on me when I tell you I'm a gentleman.' + +'Well, if I pick up a gentleman, I can't be doing a bad business,' said +the man, hauling him in tenderly. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A TALE OF A GOOSE + +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. + +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. + +'What have you done, old Saddle?' said Temple, though it was perfectly +clear what Saddlebank had done. + +'I've carved off a slice of Michaelmas,' said Saddlebank, and he hewed +the air to flick delicately at his goose's head. + +'What do you mean--a slice?' said we. + +We wanted to be certain the goose was captured booty. Saddlebank would +talk nothing but his fun. Temple fetched a roaring sigh: + +'Oh! how good this goose 'd be with our champagne.' + +The idea seized and enraptured me. 'Saddlebank, I 'll buy him off you,' +I said. + +'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.' + +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. + +'By jingo! what a treat you'll have,' Temple said among them, bursting +with our secret. + +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. + +'A walk on the downs,' said Saddlebank. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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?' + +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. + +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. + +'Let her bide, young gentlemen,' said a woman; 'she's a regular +obstinate, once she sets in for it.' + +'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.' + +'By jingo, she's pig-iron!' cried Temple, and sighed, 'Oh, dear old +Heriot!' + +I flung myself beside him to talk of our lost friend. + +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! + +The boys groaned in consternation, and Saddlebank sowed discontent by +grumbling, 'Now you see what your jolly new acquaintances have done for +you.' + +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. + +The boys called out, 'Now, then, pig-iron !' + +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.' + +Temple urged me to insist on the rascal's going on his knees for flinging +at a girl. + +'Why,' said Chaunter, 'you were the first to call her pig-iron.' + +Temple declared he was a blackguard if he said that. I made the girl +take a piece of toffy. + +'Aha!' Saddlebank grumbled, 'this comes of the precious company you would +keep in spite of my caution.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'I won't get off thieves, I can tell you,' said Temple. He was the son +of a barrister. + +'Nor you won't help cook their gooses for them, may be,' said the man. +'Well, kindness is kindness, all over the world.' + +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. + +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. + +'If I'm not a prince, I'm a nobleman,' I said to Temple. + +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.' + +'I'll come and see you, Temple,' said I. + +'Done! old Richie,' he said, grasping my hand warmly. + +'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."' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Treat your superiors respectfully,' Saddlebank retorted. + +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. + + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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!' + +'Bother it, Saddlebank, you'll make Catman hear you,' said Temple, wiping +his forehead. + +I perspired coldly. + +'Catman! He's been at it for the last hour and a half,' Saddlebank +replied. + +One boy ran up: he was ready, and the only one who was. Presently +Chaunter rushed by. + +'Barnshed 's in custody; I'm away home,' he said, passing. + +We stared at the black opening of the dell. + +'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 . . .' + +'Old Rippenger!' breathed Temple. + +We sat paralyzed. Now we understood the folly of despatching a donkey +like Barnshed for sage and onions. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Temple, I see you, sir!' called Mr. Rippenger. Poor Temple had advanced +into the firelight. + +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!' + +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.' + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A stew's a stew, and not a boiling to shreds +I can't think brisk out of my breeches +Kindness is kindness, all over the world +Learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them +To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe +Unseemly hour--unbetimes + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v1 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 2. + +VII. A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD +VIII. JANET ILCHESTER +IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED +X. AN EXPEDITION +XI. THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT +XII. WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE +XIII. WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE + 'PRISCILLA' +XIV. I MEET OLD FRIENDS + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A FREE LIFE ON THE ROAD + +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!' + +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. + +I sucked a blade of grass. + +'I wish it was all water here,' I said. + +'Come and have a drink and a bathe,' said my companion. + +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. + +'Can you swim?' she asked me. + +'I can row, and swim, and fence, and ride, and fire a pistol,' I said. + +'Oh, dear,' said she, after eyeing me enviously. I could see that I had +checked a recital of her accomplishments. + +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. + +'I can catch that horse and mount him,' she said. + +I was astonished. + +'Straddle?' + +She nodded down for 'Yes.' + +'No saddle?' + +She nodded level for 'No.' + +My respect for her returned. But she could not swim. + +'Only up to my knees,' she confessed. + +'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. + +'A cow! a cow !' I repeated, in my superior pleasure. + +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.' + +'Now I float,' was my answer, 'now I dive'; and when I came up she +welcomed me with a big bright grin. + +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. + +'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.' + +'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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +'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 'll be there to +comfort ye 'fore dark. Is it a fister?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'That's a lie,' she answered. + +Of course I would not leave her hungry outside, so in the end he +reluctantly invited us both, and introduced us to his wife. + +'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.' + +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?' + +She snapped her fingers: 'Mumpers !' and walked on carelessly. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +I replied that we were two. + +'Then I'll come and lie in the middle,' said he. + +'You can't; there's no room,' I sang out. + +'Lord,' said he, 'there's room for any reckoning o' empty stomachs in a +ditch.' + +'No, I prefer to be alone: good-night,' said I. + +'Why!' he exclaimed, 'where ha' you been t' learn language? Halloa !' + +'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. + +'Oho!' went the beggar. Then he recommenced: + +'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.' + +At these menacing words the girl jumped out of the blanket, and I called +to him that I would rouse the farmer. + +'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 'll say a +apple at night's a cordial, though it don't intoxicate.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +I replied, 'With pleasure.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Oh!' says I, 'he's my grandfather, but I don't care much about him.' + +'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. + +I asked him if Sewis was alive. + +'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 'll 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!' + +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. + +While he was fielding against the opposite eleven, the tramp came into +the booth, and we had a match of cunning. + +'Schoolmaster's out after you, young gentleman,' said he, advising me to +hurry along the road if I sought to baffle pursuit. + +I pretended alarm, and then said, 'Oh, you'll stand by me,' and treated +him to ale. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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?' + +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.' + +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: + + 'The moon is shining on Latworth lea, + And where'll she see such a jovial three + As we, boys, we? And why is she pale? + It's because she drinks water instead of ale.' + +'Where 's the remainder? There's the song!-- + + "Oh! handsome Miss Gammon + Has married Lord Mammon, + And jilted her suitors, + All Cupid's sharpshooters, + And gone in a carriage + And six to her marriage, + Singing hey! for I've landed my salmon, my salmon!" + + +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?' + +He sang to 'Mary of Ellingmere' and another maid of some place, and a +loud song of Britons. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'He'll be champion some day,' said Kiomi, at gnaw upon an apple he had +given her. + +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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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!' + +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. + +'And you've gone a course of tuition in wrestling, squire?' the +prizefighter said to me rather savagely. + +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: + +'I never fight girls, and I tell you I don't like their licking me.' + +'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. + +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. + +'Why, I mean to stay with you,' said I. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +JANET ILCHESTER + +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. + +'She is afraid to look me in the face,' I said, keeping my anger on +Kiomi. + +'Harry, Harry,' said my aunt, 'they must have seen me here; do you +grieve, and you have me, dear?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'So you're back, sir, are you!' + +'I am, sir.' + +'Ran like a hare, 'stead of a fox, eh?' + +'I didn't run like either, sir.' + +'Do you ride?' + +'Yes, sir; a horse.' + +That was his greeting and how I took it. I had not run away from him, so +I had a quiet conscience. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Don't talk of creatures you met when you were a beggar, Harry Richmond,' +she said. + +'I never was a beggar,' I replied. + +'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. + +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: + +'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.' + +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.' + +Here Charley sang out: 'Hulloa! you don't mean to say you're talking of +your father.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Oh, and a drawing-master, and a professor of legerdemain,' added her +brother. 'Expunge him, old fellow; he's no good.' + +'No, I'm sure he's no good,' said Janet. + +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. + +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.' + +She forgot, in her delight, our being at variance. + +'No, no, you stupid Harry, I'm to thank you. He's a darling pony. I +want to kiss you.' + +I retired promptly, but the squire had heard her. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Pull the pony's mane,' said I; 'that will do as well. Observe--I pull, +and now you pull.' + +Janet mechanically followed my actions. She grimaced, and whimpered, +'I could pull the pony's mane right out.' + +'Don't treat animals like your dolls,' said I. + +She ran to the squire, and refused the pony. The squire's face changed +from merry to black. + +'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.' + +'She thinks she is marriageable,' said I; and walked away, leaving loud +laughter behind me. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED + +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.' + +I said, 'No, my father's.' + +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. + +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. + +'Grinning at me, Harry; have I made a slip in my grammar, eh?' + +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. + +'Crops was the cart-load of my thoughts, Master Harry, but there was a +bit o' cricket in it, too, ne'er a doubt.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'And now you think you are flattering me!' I said. + +She looked nervous. + +'And now you're asking yourself what you can do better than I can!' + +She said, 'Go on.' + +I stopped. + +She charged me with being pulled up short. + +I denied it. + +'Guess, guess!' said she. 'You can't.' + +My reply petrified her. 'You were thinking that you are a lady by birth +on both sides.' + +At first she refused to admit it. 'No, it wasn't that, Harry, it wasn't +really. I was thinking how clever you are.' + +'Yes, after, not before.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Oh dear, no!' said she, and told him straightway. + +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!' + +'How? hulloa, what 's that?' sang out the squire. + +'Charley was speaking of my father, sir,' I said, preparing for thunder. + +We all rose. The squire looked as though an apoplectic seizure were +coming on. + +'Don't sit at my table again,' he said, after a terrible struggle to be +articulate. + +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. + +I tried to intercede--the last who should have done it. + +'You like to hear him, eh?' said the squire. + +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. + +'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. + +He and Janet were staying at Riversley. They left next morning, for the +squire would not speak to him, nor I to Janet. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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-hots. 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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Miss Bannerbridge?' she said. + +A stranger was present. The squire introduced us. + +'My grandson, Harry Richmond, Captain William Bulsted, frigate +Polyphemus; Captain Bulsted, Master Augustus Temple.' + +For the sake of conversation, Temple asked him if his ship was fully +manned. + +'All but a mate,' said the captain. + +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. + +'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.' + +Temple and I stared hard at a big man with a bronzed skin and a rubicund +laugh who expected to receive valentines. + +My aunt thrust the letter back to me secretly. 'It must be from a lady,' +said she. + +'Why, who'd have a valentine from any but a lady?' exclaimed the captain. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +My aunt made an effort to retire. + +'No, no, fair play; stay,' said the squire, trying to frown, but +twinkling; my aunt tried to smile, and sat as if on springs. + +'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.' + +'Ay, he thinks hard enough,' the squire struck in. + +'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. + +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.' + +The captain stood up, and bowing humbly, replied 'I am ever your servant, +ma'am.' + +My aunt quitted the room. + +'Now for the tankard, Sewis,' said the captain. + +Gradually the bottom of the great tankard turned up to the ceiling. He +drank to the last drop in it. + +The squire asked him whether he found consolation in that. + +The captain sighed prodigiously and said: 'It 's a commencement, sir.' + +'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?' + +'I am going to get drunk, sir.' + +'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. + +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.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'No ill will about this bothering love-business of yours, William?' + +'On my soul, sir, I cherish none.' + +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. + +'Same luck, William?' said Squire Gregory. + +'Not a point of change in the wind, Greg,' said the captain. + +They wrenched hands thereupon, like two carpet-shakers, with a report, +and much in a similar attitude. + +'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 'll not find the same man in Billy +Bulsted.' + +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. + +'I observe, nevertheless, Greg, that you have a black tie round your neck +instead of a red one,' said the captain. + +'Then it came there by accident,' said Squire Gregory. + +'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.' + +Squire Gregory carried on the declension, not without pride. The +Vocative confused him. + +'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?' + +Squire Gregory said: 'Drinking, and no thinking, at dinner, William.' The +captain pledged him. + +'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, + +'As we are not on board ship? I like you!' + +Temple thanked him for the compliment. + +'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?' + +'Temple is my dear friend,' I replied. + +'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.' + +'And Harry's a royal fellow!' said Temple. + +We all drank to one another. The captain's eyes scrutinized me +speculatingly. + +'This boy might have been yours or mine, Greg,' I heard him say in a +faltering rough tone. + +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. + +'I count I run away with her every night of my life,' said Squire +Gregory. 'Nothing comes of it but empty bottles.' + +'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.' + +'She's past po'chaises,' Squire Gregory sighed. + +'She's to be won by a bold stroke, brother Greg.' + +'Oh, Lord, no! She's past po'chaises.' + +'Humph! it's come to be half-bottle, half-beauty, with your worship, +Greg, I suspect.' + +'No. I tell you, William, she's got her mind on that fellow. You can't +po'chay her.' + +'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?' + +'In the Bench, of course. Where'd you have him?' + +'I, sir? If I knew my worst enemy to be there, I'd send him six dozen of +the best in my cellar.' + +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. + +Presently the captain said, 'Are you sure the man's in the Bench?' + +'Cock,' Squire Gregory replied. + +'He had money from his wife.' + +'And he had the wheels to make it go.' Here they whispered in earnest. + +'Oh, the Billings were as rich as the Belthams,' said the captain, aloud. + +'Pretty nigh, William.' + +'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?' + +'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. + +'Remember our feast in the combe?' I sang across the table to him. + +'Never forget it!' said he; and we repeated the tale of the goose at +Rippenger's school to our entertainers, making them laugh. + +'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!' + +'That won't be I,' said Temple. + +'Be me, sir, me,' the captain corrected his grammar. + +'Pardon me, Captain Bulsted; the verb "To be" governs the nominative case +in our climate,' said Temple. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +Out of this strange evening came my discovery of my father, and the +captain's winning of a wife. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +AN EXPEDITION + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +I pretended to estimate the probable cost of one. 'Yes, about that; but +I'll buy you one, one day or other, Temple.' + +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. + +'Girls like pugs,' I remarked. + +'I fancy they do,' said Temple, with a snort of indifference. + +Then I suggested, 'A pocket-knife for the hunting-field is a very good +thing.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'Why, of course they are, if they hunt,' said Temple. + +'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!' + +'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. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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 duing my absence.' + +'I'm not going to let any one make comparisons between us,' Temple +muttered. + +He dropped dozens of similar remarks, and sometimes talked downright +flattery, I had so deeply impressed him. + +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. + +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 . . .' + +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. + +'Oh!' said Temple, 'the rest of the way by rail.' + +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, + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE GREAT FOG AND THE FIRE AT MIDNIGHT + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Sinbad escaped from the, pit by tracking a lynx,' I happened to remark. +Temple would not hear of Sinbad. + +'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?' + +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. + +'Now speak,' the man said, roughly. + +I was interposing, but Temple cried, 'All right, Richie, we are two to +one.' + +The man groaned. I asked him what he wanted. + +'My son! I've lost my son,' the man replied, and walked away; and he +would give no answer to our questions. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +Temple assented. 'They're capital, if you only see the end of them.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +'More,' said Temple. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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!' + +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. + +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. + +'Is it too late to go in to-night?' I asked. + +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.' + +I learnt from her that the Bench was a debtors' prison. + +The saucy girl of the pair asked me for money. I handed her a crown- +piece. + +'Now won't you give another big bit to my friend?' said she. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'There, Temple,' said I, 'didn't I tell you so?' and Temple kindly +supposed so. + +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.' + +'We always go in for it together,' said Temple. + +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?' + +We informed her of our arrival from the country, and wanderings in the +fog. + +'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. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +WE FIND OURSELVES BOUND ON A VOYAGE + +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. + +I said softly, 'What a pleasure it must be for horses to be groomed!' + +'Just what I was thinking! ' said Temple. + +We started up on our elbows, and one or the other cried: + +'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!' + +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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Sunrise,' I said. + +Temple answered, 'Yes,' most uncertainly. + +We looked round. A steam-tug was towing our ship out toward banks of +red-reflecting cloud, and a smell of sea air. + +'Why, that's the East there!' cried Temple. We faced about to the sun, +and behold, he was actually sinking! + +'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. + +'By jingo!' Temple spoke out, musing, 'here's a whole day struck out of +our existence.' + +'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. + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +'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 'll see a foreign shore before +you're in the arms of your family again.' + +At these words I had the horrible sensation of being caged, and worse, +transported into the bargain. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'Cabin, cabin,' the captain repeated. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +This set Temple off laughing: 'And so he bought a ship and had traps laid +down to catch young fellows for ransom.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +He now said bluntly, ' I will.' + +'You'll behave like a man of honour,' said I, and to that he cried +vehemently, 'I will.' + +'Well, then,' said I, 'call out the boat, if you please; we're anxious to +be home.' + +'So you shall!' the captain shouted, 'and per ship--my barque Priscilla; +and better men than you left, or I 'm no Christian.' + +Temple said briskly, 'Thank you, captain.' + +'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. + +'Thank you very much, captain, we'll do that when we 're on shore,' said +we. + +'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. + +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?' + +Temple chimed in, in a similar strain. Fairly enraged, we flung at him +without anything of what I thought eloquence. + +The captain ruminated up and down the columns of his Bible. + +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.' + +'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. + +But the captain never heeded his interruption. + +'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 'll 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.' + +The captain uplifted his arm, ejaculating solemnly, 'By!' and faltered. +'You were going to swear!' said Temple, with savage disdain. + +'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.' + +'He was going to swear,' Temple muttered to me. + +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. + +'Who gave you that watch?' said he. + +'Downright Church catechism!' muttered Temple. + +'My grandfather,' said I. + +The captain's head went like a mechanical hammer, to express something +indescribable. + +'My grandfather,' I continued, 'will pay you handsomely for any service +you do to me and my friend.' + +'Now, that's not far off forgoing,' said the captain, in a tone as much +as to say we were bad all over. + +I saw the waters slide by his cabin-windows. My desolation, my +humiliation, my chained fury, tumbled together. Out it came-- + +'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--' + +'I thank the Lord for it!' he interposed. + +'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. . . . + +'Doddered, don't they say in one of the shires?' he remarked. + +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. + +'Is that Latin or Greek?' he asked. + +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. + +'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:-- + +'How can we be graduating for our sphere in life, Captain Welsh, on board +your vessel? Tell us that.' + +He played thumb and knuckles on his table. Just when I was hoping that +good would come of the senseless tune, Temple cried, + +'Tell us what your exact intentions are, Captain Welsh. What do you mean +to do with us?' + +'Mean to take you the voyage out and the voyage home, Providence +willing,' said the captain, and he rose. + +We declined his offer of tea, though I fancy we could have gnawed at a +bone. + +'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.' + +We quitted his cabin, bowing stiffly. + +Temple declared old Rippenger was better than this canting rascal. + +The sea was around us, a distant yellow twinkle telling of land. + +'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.' + +'If YOU are beaten,' said I, scarcely venturing to speak lest I should +cry or be sick. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +WE CONDUCT SEVERAL LEARNED ARGUMENTS WITH THE CAPTAIN OF THE PRISCILLA + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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.' + +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, + +'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.' + +Captain Welsh replied, + +'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.' + +'So you'd have only one sort of vessel afloat!' said I. 'There's the +difference of a man who's a scholar.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Well, that's neither learning nor human nature,' said I. + +'It's the knowledge o' the right rules for human nature, my lad.' + +'Would you kidnap youngsters to serve in your ship, captain?' + +'I'd bless the wind that blew them there, foul or not, my lad.' + +'And there they'd stick when you had them, captain?' + +'I'd think it was the Lord's will they should stick there awhile, +my lad--yes.' + +'And what of their parents?' + +'Youngsters out like gossamers on a wind, their parents are where they +sow themselves, my lad.' + +'I call that hard on the real parents, Captain Welsh,' said Temple. + +'It's harder on Providence when parents breed that kind o' light +creature, my lad.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Where was his son the night of the fog?' said the captain. + +'Well, he happened to be out in it.' + +'Where'd he be now but for one o' my men?' + +'Who can answer that, Captain Welsh?' + +'I can, my lad-stewing in an ante-room of hell-gates, I verily believe.' + +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.' + +I testified to them briefly. + +The captain said a curious thing: 'I'll make an appointment with you in +leviathan's jaws the night of a storm, my lad.' + +'With pleasure,' said Temple. + +'The Lord send it!' exclaimed the captain. + +His head was bent forward, and he was gazing up into his eyebrows. + +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. + +All this came so suddenly that nothing but the captain's heavy thump of +his fist on the table kept us from laughing. + +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. + +'Three lost souls!' said the captain. + +'See how they run,' Temple sang, half audibly, and flushed hot, ashamed +of himself. + +''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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'We shall have one, of course,' Temple said, affecting resignation, with +a glance aloft. + +I was superstitiously of the same opinion, and praised the vessel. + +'Oh, Priscilla's the very name of a ship that founders with all hands and +sends a bottle on shore,' said Temple. + +'There isn't a bottle on board,' said I; and this piece of nonsense +helped us to sleep off our gloom. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +I MEET OLD FRIENDS + +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. + +'A wonderful place for beer cellars,' a sailor observed to us slyly, and +hitched himself up from the breech to the scalp. + +At all events, it was a place where we could buy linen. + +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. + +'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.' + +We inquired what the difference was between their privileges and his. + +'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.' + +We held our peace, but we could have spoken. + +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. + +'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.' + +We heard English laughter near us. Presently an English gentleman +accosted us. + +'Mr. Villiers, I believe?' He bowed at me. + +'My name is Richmond.' + +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: + +'Miss Goodwin (whose Christian name is Clara) wishes very much to know +how it has fared with Mr. Harry Richmond since he left Venice.' + +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. + +'On your way to your father?' he said, as he shook my hand. + +I thought it amazing he should guess that in Germany. + +'Do you know where he is, sir?' I asked. + +'We saw him,' replied the colonel; 'when was it, Clara? A week or ten +days ago.' + +'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. + +I fetched Temple into the box to introduce him. We were introduced in +turn to Captain Malet, the gentleman who had accosted me below. + +'You understand German, then?' said Miss Goodwin. + +She stared at hearing that we knew only the word ja, for it made our +presence in Germany unaccountable. + +'The most dangerous word of all,' said Colonel Goodwin, and begged us +always to repeat after it the negative nein for an antidote. + +'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.' + +She touched her father's arm. + +'At once, if you like,' said he, jumping up erect. + +'In Germany was it?' I persisted. + +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?' + +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.' + +'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.' + +I reminded Miss Goodwin of my father being in Germany. + +'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?' + +I hoped so ardently. + +She with great urgency added, 'Then come with us. Prove that you put +faith in our friendship.' + +In desperation I exclaimed, 'But I must, I must hear of my father.' + +She turned to consult the colonel's face. + +'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.' + +He wished us good-night on an appointment of the hour for breakfast, and +ordered beds for us in the hotel. + +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.' + +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.' + +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. + +'Won't you tell me any more to-night?' I said, when she paused. + +'Indeed, I have not any more to tell,' she assured me. + +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. + +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.' + +'I have,' I cried. 'I have come out to find him, and I must.' + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Attacked my conscience on the cowardly side +Days when you lay on your back and the sky rained apples +Dogmatic arrogance of a just but ignorant man +He put no question to anybody +I can pay clever gentlemen for doing Greek for me +Irony instead of eloquence +Simplicity is the keenest weapon +The most dangerous word of all--ja +There's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off +Vessel was conspiring to ruin our self-respect + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v2 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 3. + +XV. WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST +XVI. THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY +XVII. MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS +XVIII. WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION +XIX. OUR RETURN HOMEWARD +XX. NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S +XXI. A PROMENADE IN BATH +XXII. CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST + +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? + +'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. + +'No, no,' said Temple, as if curdling; 'let's call this place the mouth +of Hades. Greek things don't make you feel funny.' + +I laughed louder than was necessary, and remarked that I never had cared +so much for Greek as on board Captain Welsh's vessel. + +'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.' + +'No. I'm glad of it,' said I. + +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?' + +The dusky scenery of a strange land was influencing Temple. It affected +me so, I made the worst of it for a cure. + +'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!' + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Follow the path,' I said, when Temple wanted to have a consultation. + +'So we did in the London fog!' said he, with some gloom. + +But my retort: 'Hasn't it brought us here?' was a silencer. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'He takes us for twin Caspar Hausers,' sighed Temple. + +'Nein,' said the man, and, perhaps enlightened by hearing a foreign +tongue, beckoned for us to step at his heels. + +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. + +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. + +We now, with the name Sarkeld, craved of their father a direction to that +place. At the door of his but 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. + +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. + +Burning to catch an excuse for another look over my shoulder, I heard her +voice: + +'Young English gentlemen!' + +We turned sharp round. + +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: + +'I sthink you go a wrong way?' + +Our hats flew off again, and bareheaded, I seized the reply before Temple +could speak. + +'Is not this, may I ask you, the way to Sarkeld?' + +She gathered up her knowledge of English deliberately. + +'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.' + +'Up at the tower, then? Oh, we were there last night, and saw the bronze +horse, mademoiselle.' + +'Yes, I know. I called on my poor sick woman in a but 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.' + +'You knew at once we were English, mademoiselle?' + +'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.' + +Temple thanked her for the kindness of the offer. + +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: + +'I beg you will cover your heads.' + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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? + +'Bella Vista, lovely view,' said I. + +'Lovely view,' she repeated. + +She ran on in the most musical tongue, to my thinking, ever heard: + +'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 Markgrafin 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 Markgrafin 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 Markgrafin 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.' + +I said it would be a fine sight. + +'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?' + +'My father is in Sarkeld, mademoiselle. I am told he is at the palace.' + +'Indeed; and he is English, your fater?' + +'Yes. I have not seen him for years; I have come to find him.' + +'Indeed; it is for love of him, your fater, sir, you come, and not speak +German?' + +I signified that it was so. + +'She stroked her pony's neck musing. + +'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. + +'His name, mademoiselle, is Mr. Richmond.' + +'Mr. Richmond?' + +'Mr. Richmond Roy.' + +She sprang in her saddle. + +'You are son to Mr. Richmond Roy? Oh! it is wonderful.' + +'Mademoiselle, then you have seen him lately?' + +'Yes, yes! I have seen him. I have heard of his beautiful child, his +son; and you it is?' + +She studied my countenance a moment. + +'Tell me, is he well?' mademoiselle, is he quite well?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +I besought her to waste no time. + +'You must, if you please, attend my pleasure, if I guide you,' she said, +tossing her chin. + +'I thank you, I can't tell you how much, mademoiselle,' said I. + +She answered: 'You were kind to my two pet lambs, sir.' + +So we moved forward. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE STATUE ON THE PROMONTORY + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +Markgrafin, 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--ja? You will--nicht wahr? Or French? Make your +glom-pudding of it, will you?' + +I made a shocking plum-pudding of it. Temple was no happier. + +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. + +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. + +'C'est peut-etre le fils de son petit papa, et c'est tout dire.' + +Such was her summary comment. + +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?' + +There was no helping it: I laughed like a madman, giving one outburst and +a dead stop. + +Far from looking displeased, she nodded. I was again put to the dreadful +test. + +'Can yo' mak' laff?' + +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. + +'He can, your Highness.' + +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. + +'He can--ja: du auch.' + +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! + +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. + +'Fraulein Sibley,' the margravine called. + +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. + +'I have the honour to be your countrywoman,' said a lady, English all +over to our struggling senses. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +'Is the gun never going off?' I groaned. + +'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.' + +'Don't go!' we cried simultaneously. + +The Princess Ottilia supplied her place. + +'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 Markgrafin 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?' + +Her compliment raised a blush on me. + +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. + +Temple observed to me, + +'We'll give the old statue a British cheer, won't we, Richie?' + +'After coming all the way from England!' said I, in dejection. + +'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.' + +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. + +Miss Sibley ran to us, saying,-- + +'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?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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--'Ja, ja--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. + +Smiling cordially, the margravine spoke, Miss Sibley translated: + +'Her Royal Highness asks you if you have seen your father?' + +I shook my head. + +The Princess Ottilia translated, 'Her Highness, my good aunt, would know, +would you know him, did you see him?' + +'Yes, anywhere,' I cried. + +The margravine pushed me back with a gesture. + +'Yes, your Highness, on my honour; anywhere on earth!' + +She declined to hear the translation. + +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. + +'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 Markgrafin says you +are our good guests.' + +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. + +'Hush! a poet is reading his ode,' said the princess. 'It is Count +Fretzel von Wolfenstein.' + +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, + +'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.' + +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. + +'Her Highness,' Miss Sibley translated, 'asks whether you are prepared to +bet that your father is not on the ground?' + +'Beg her to wait two minutes, and I'll be prepared to bet any sum,' +said I. + +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, + +'Richie! he's not here!' + +'Not here!' cried I. + +The people gazed up at us, wondering at the tongue we talked. + +'Richie! now let 's lead these fellows off with a tiptop cheer!' + +Little Temple crowed lustily. + +The head of the statue turned from Temple to me. + +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. + +'Richmond! my son! Richie! Harry Richmond! Richmond Roy!' + +That was what the statue gave forth. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +MY FATHER BREATHES, MOVES, AND SPEAKS + +The people broke away from us like furrowed water as we advanced on each +side of the ropes toward the margravine's carriage. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'You have seen the last of me, madam,' my father said to her whirling +carriage-wheels. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Yes, Mr. Temple, we are in high Germany,' said my father. + +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. + +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.' + +He begged permission to take breath a minute. + +'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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +WE PASS A DELIGHTFUL EVENING, AND I HAVE A MORNING VISION + +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. + +'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. + +'You did think of me often, papa, didn't you?' + +His eyes brimmed with tenderness. + +'Think of you!' he sighed. + +I gave him the account of my latest adventures in a few panting breaths, +suppressing the Bench. He set my face to front him. + +'We are two fools, Mr. Temple,' he said. + +'No, sir,' said Temple. + +'Now you speak, papa,' said I. + +He smiled warmly. + +'Richie begins to remember me.' + +I gazed at him to show it was true. + +'I do, papa--I'm not beginning to.' + +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.' + +My father went on in this wise excitedly: + +'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 Markgrafin 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! + +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 ' + +I protested: + +'Papa, I have been in jacket and trousers I don't know how long.' + +'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.' + +Temple said modestly: 'I should call that the margravine of wines.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +My father paused, yawned and stretched, to be rid of the remainder of his +aches and stiffness. Out of a great yawn he said: + +'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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'Till morning, then,' he said: 'and to England with the first lark.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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!' + +'Weren't they sure to have found it out in the end, papa?' I inquired. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Papa!' said I sadly, for consolation. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +Temple was dazed by this mystifying address to him; nor could I +understand it. + +'Why, papa, you always wished for me to go into Parliament,' said I. + +'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. + +We fell upon our random talk again with a merry rattle. + +I had to give him a specimen of my piano-playing and singing. + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +OUR RETURN HOMEWARD + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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.' + +'That seems to me rather unreasonable,' I remonstrated. + +'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."' + +'Then, papa, I shall have a talk with the squire.' + +'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.' + +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, + +'Papa, if the prince won't pay for a real statue, I will, and I'll +present it in your name!' + +'To the nation?' cried he, staring, and arresting his arm in what seemed +an orchestral movement. + +'To the margravine !' + +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. + +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. + +'She has asked me for a copper coin, Richie,' he said, squeezing her fat +cheeks to make cherries of her lips. + +I recommended him to give her a silver one. + +'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.' + +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. + +The child stumped away on the pavement fronting our hotel, staring at its +fist that held the treasure. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'The poet is perhaps, on the whole, more exhilarating than the alderman,' +he said. + +These were the respective names given by him to the empty purse and the +full purse. We vowed we preferred the poet. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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: + +'We beat foreigners in our women, Richie.' + +I, making it my business to talk with perfect unconcern, replied + +'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. + +My aunt Dorothy swam up to me, and, kissing me, murmured: + +'Take no rebuff from your grandpapa, darling.' + +My answer was: 'I have found him!' + +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. + +'Hulloa!' he cried, and gave me his shoulder. + +'Temple is your guest, sir,' said I. + +He was obliged to stretch out his hand to Temple. + +A prompt instinct warned me that I must show him as much Beltham as I +could summon. + +'Dogs and horses all right, sir?' I asked. + +Captain Bulsted sauntered near. + +'Here, William,' said the squire, 'tell this fellow about my stables.' + +'In excellent condition, Harry Richmond,' returned the captain. + +'Oh! he 's got a new name, I 'll swear,' said the squire. + +'Not I !' + +'Then what have you got of your trip, eh?' + +'A sharper eye than I had, sir.' + +'You've been sharpening it in London, have you?' + +'I've been a little farther than London, squire.' + +'Well, you're not a liar.' + +'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.' + +The squire's hands were crossed behind him. I smiled boldly in his face. + +'Shall I make the tour of you to get hold of one of them, sir?' He +frowned and blinked. + +'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. + +I seized it, saying heartily, 'Grandfather, upon my honour, I love you, +and I'm glad to be home again.' + +'Mind you, you're not at home till you've begged Uberly's pardon in +public, you know what for,' he rejoined. + +'Leaving the horse at that inn is on my conscience,' said I. + +The squire grumbled a bit. + +'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. + +All the better; keep him there 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. + +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. + +'To hear the young lady allude to me in that style!' he confided to my +ear, with an ineffable heave of his big chest. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +NEWS OF A FRESH CONQUEST OF MY FATHER'S + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +'It happens to be my father's present name,' said I. + +'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. + +'The letter at least must be answered,' my aunt Dorothy said. + +'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. + +Then came a statement of the young lady's case from Bath. + +'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. + +My aunt winced displeasingly to my sight: 'I see nothing to astonish +one.' + +'Nothing to astonish one !' The squire set his mouth in imitation of her. + +'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.' + +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. + +I was summoned to Bath by my father in a curious peremptory tone implying +the utmost urgent need of me. + +I handed the letter to the squire at breakfast, saying, 'You must spare +me for a week or so, sir.' + +He spread the letter flat with his knife, and turned it over with his +fork. + +'Harry,' said he, half-kindly, and choking, 'you're better out of it.' + +'I'm the best friend he could have by him, sir.' + +'You're the best tool he could have handy, for you're a gentleman.' + +'I hope I shan't offend you, grandfather, but I must go.' + +'Don't you see, Harry Richmond, you're in for an infernal marriage +ceremony there!' + +'The young lady is not of age,' interposed my aunt. + +'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!' + +He threw a horrible tremour into his accent of pity. + +My aunt expressed her view mildly, that I was sent for to help cure the +young lady of her delusion. + +'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!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A PROMENADE IN BATH + +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: + +'The person calling himself "Roy," whose monstrously absurd pretensions +are supposed to be embodied in this self-dubbed surname . . .' + +'--The celebrated and courtly Mr. Richmond Roy, known no less by the +fascination of his manners than by his romantic history . . .' + +'--has very soon succeeded in making himself the talk of the town . . ' + +'--has latterly become the theme of our tea-tables . . .' + +'--which is always the adventurer's privilege . . .' + +'--through no fault of his own . . ' + +'--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 . . .' + +'--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 . . .' + +'--We think we are justified in entitling him the Perkin Warbeck of +society . . .' + +'--Reference might be made to mythological heroes . . .' + + +Hereat I cried out mercy. + +Captain DeWitt (stretched nursing a leg) removed his silk handkerchief +from his face to murmur, + +'The bass stedfastly drowns the treble, if this is meant for harmony.' + +My father rang up the landlord, and said to him, + +'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.' + +The man smirked. He ventured to say he had never been so tempted to +supply an inferior article. + +My father smiled on him. + +'You invite our editorial advocate?' said Captain DeWitt. + +'Our adversary,' said my father. + +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. + +'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.' + +'It does me,' said DeWitt. + +'You perceive, Jorian, a policy in dining these men of the Press now and +occasionally, considering their growing power, do you not?' + +'Ay, ay! it's a great gossiping machine, mon Roy. I prefer to let it +spout.' + +'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.' + +Near the fashionable hour of the afternoon my father took my arm, Captain +DeWitt a stick, and we walked into the throng and buzz. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'The place is pretty well supplied with newspapers,' said Captain DeWitt. + +'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?' + +The lady replied: 'I should have shut my eyes if I had. I called you to +tell me, who is the young man?' + +'For twenty years I have lived in the proud belief that he is my son!' + +'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.' + +'Purely temporary fits of unworthiness, my lady.' + +'In English, gout?' + +'Not gout in the conscience, I trust,' said my father. + +'Oh! that's curable,' laughed the captain. + +'You men of repartee would be nothing without your wickedness,' the lady +observed. + +'Man was supposed to be incomplete--' Captain DeWitt affected a murmur. + +She nodded 'Yes, yes,' and lifted eyes on my father. 'So you have not +given up going to church?' + +He bent and spoke low. + +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.' + +'I cannot consent to accept your ladyship's favour on account of one +single virtue,' said he, drooping. + +She waved him to move forward. + +During this frothy dialogue, I could see that the ear of the assembly had +been caught by the sound of it. + +'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.' + +Captain DeWitt said that if so it would be the tenth, to his certain +knowledge. + +'Not great campaign!' my father insisted: 'mere skirmishes before this.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +My reply, addressed at the same time mentally to Temple at sea, was: + +'Well, as long as we have the handsomest women, I don't care.' + +Captain DeWitt was not so sure that we had. The Provencal 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. + +He accepted his thrashing complacently. + +'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?' + +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. + +'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. + +'I knew you would face them,' she said. + +He threw back his head like a swimmer tossing spray from his locks. + +'You have read the paper?' he asked. + +'You have horsewhipped the writer?' she rejoined. + +'Oh! the poor penster!' + +'Nay, we can't pretend to pity him!' + +'Could we condescend to offer him satisfaction?' + +'Would he dare to demand it?' + +'We will lay the case before Lady Wilts to-night.' + +'You are there to-night?' + +'At Lady Denewdney's to-morrow night--if I may indulge a hope?' + +'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.' + +My father introduced me. + +'Let me present to your notice my son, Harry Lepel Richmond, Miss +Penrhys.' + +She touched my fingers, and nodded at me; speaking to him: + +'He has a boy's taste: I hear he esteems me moderately well-favoured.' + +'An inherited error certain to increase with age!' + +'Now you have started me!' she exclaimed, and lashed the flanks of her +horse. + +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. + +'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.' + +My father pressed on my arm to intimate, with a cavernous significance of +eyebrow, that Captain DeWitt had the gift of repartee in perfection. + +'Jorian,' said he, 'will you wager our editor declines to dine with us?' + +The answer struck me as only passable. I think it was: + +'When rats smell death in toasted cheese.' + +Captain DeWitt sprang up the staircase of our hotel to his bedroom. + +'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.' + +I conceived him, I confessed, hardly pitiable, though not enviable. + +'He has but six hundred a year, and a passion for Burgundy,' said my +father. + +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. + +My father heard him out. Addressing him subsequently, + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'What! Have you got a place at their tables?' inquired Captain DeWitt. + +'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.' + +My father pacified him. + +'You will do your duty to your family, Mr. Hickson.' + +Deeply moved, the little man pulled out proof-sheets and slips. + +'Even now, at the eleventh hour,' he urged, 'there is time to correct any +glaring falsehoods, insults, what not!' + +My father accepted the copy of proofs. + +'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.' + +A light of satisfaction came over Mr. Hickson's face at the mention of my +father's visiting both these sovereign ladies. + +As soon as we were rid of him, Captain DeWitt exclaimed, + +'If that's the Fourth Estate, what's the Realm?' + +'The Estate,' pleaded my father, 'is here in its infancy--on all fours--' + +'Prehensile! Egad, it has the vices of the other three besides its own. +Do you mean that by putting it on all fours?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'In heaven's name keep me from marriage, my lady!' I heard him reply. + +There was sincerity in his tone when he said that. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONCLUSION OF THE BATH EPISODE + +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. + +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.' + +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.' + +She seemed to me preternaturally anxious about Miss Penrhys. + +My father listened in silence to my flippant satire on women's letters. + +He answered after a pause, + +'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!' + +He lost his voice. + +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. + +'Money goes,' I remarked. + +'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.' + +'I hope we have seen the last of Shylock's great-grandnephew,' said I +emphatically. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +'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. + +'Cultivate Lady Wilts. You have made an impression. She puts you +forward as a good specimen of our young men. 'Hem! madam. + +'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 he 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. + +'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: Fraulein. I am actually dazzled at the +prospect of our future. To be candid, I no longer see to write. Gruss' +dich herzlich. From Vienna to you next. Lebe wohl!' + +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. + +'Oh! that's over,' said I. 'Heiresses soon get consoled.' + +She accused me of having picked up a vulgar idea. I maintained that it +was my father's. + +'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.' + +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. + +Out of his circle of attraction books were my resource. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +He would neither retort nor defend himself +I laughed louder than was necessary +Tis the fashion to have our tattle done by machinery + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v3 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 4. + +XXIII. MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY +XXIV. I MEET THE PRINCESS +XXV. ON BOARD A YACHT +XXVI. IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE +XXVII. THE TIME OF ROSES +XXVIII. OTTILIA +XXIX. AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG +XXX. A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE +XXXI. PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER +XXXII. AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +MY TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +I talked like a boy, feeling like a man: she behaved like a woman, +blushing like a girl. + +'Julia! I can never call you Mrs. Bulsted.' + +'You have an affection for my husband, have you not, Harry?' + +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. + +'Speak to him yourself, Kiomi,' said I; 'whatever you ask for, he can't +refuse anything to such eyes as yours.' + +'You!' she rallied me; 'why can't you talk sensible stuff!' + +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. + +'You're not married?' I said, ludicrously faintly. + +'I 've not seen the man I'd marry,' she answered, grinning scorn. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +'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.' + +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, + +'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.' + +'Not upset my fortune, Janet?' + +'Don't hurt the kind old man's heart to-day.' + +'Oh! you're the girl of his heart, I know.' + +'Well, Harry, you have first place, and I want you to keep it.' + +'But here's an oath I've sworn to my father.' + +'He should not have exacted it, I think.' + +'I promised him when I was a youngster.' + +'Then be wiser now, Harry.' + +'You have brilliant ideas of the sacredness of engagements.' + +'I think I have common sense, that's all.' + +'This is a matter of feeling.' + +'It seems that you forgot it, though!' + +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. + +After breakfast the squire introduced me to his lawyer, Mr. Burgin, who, +closeted alone with me, said formally, + +'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.' + +None so grimly ironical as the obsequious! I thought of Burgin's +'discerning' providence (he spoke with all professional sincerity) in +after days. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Butter and eggs! old Richie, and about as much fire as a rushlight. If +the race were Fat she 'd beat the world.' + +'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.' + +'Did she tinkle, as you call it, when that fellow Destrier, confound him! +touched her?' + +'The little cat! Did you notice Mabel's blush?' + +'How could I help it? We've all had a dozen apiece. You saw little +Kiomi curled up under the hop and briony?' + +'I took her for a dead jackdaw.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'There's nothing better in the world than that,' said he. + +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. + +'Has he grieved you, Mabel?' I asked softly. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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, he 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.' + +He flourished me away to London, into new spheres of fancy. He was +irresistible. + +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. + +'Who is she?' I asked. + +The old-fashioned building of the powdered hair counselled me to add, +'Who was she?' + +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.' + +'She does not look a grandmother,' said my father. + +'She would be one by this time, I dare say,' said I. + +We gazed in silence. + +'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.' + +I was breathing 'Who?' when he said, 'She was my mother, my dear.' + +It was piteous. + +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. + +She had suffered in life miserably. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +I MEET THE PRINCESS + +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. + +'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.' + +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?' + +'Want of funds.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Not when the son had not come down among us,' said my father, smiling. + +'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! --a la Camerani, a 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-la, +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: "He! mais pensez +donc au Papa, Monsieur Henri-Richie, sans doute il a une sante de fer: +mais encore faut-il lui menager le suc gastrique, pancreatique . . . ."' + +'Ay, ay!' laughed my father; 'what sets you thinking of Alphonse?' + +'I suppose because I shall have to be speaking French in an hour.' + +'German, Richie, German.' + +'But these Belgians speak French.' + +'Such French as it is. You will, however, be engaged in a German +conversation first, I suspect.' + +'Very well, I'll stumble on. I don't much like it.' + +'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.' + +I looked at him. He gave me a broad pleasant smile, without sign of a +jest lurking in one corner. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Indeed, sir?' said the simple man. + +'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.' + +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, + +'They are here. 'Tis as I expected. And she is taking the morning +breath of sea-air on the dunes. Come, Richie, come.' + +'Who's the "she"?' I asked incuriously. + +'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 +schlaft; 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! + +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!' + +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. + +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. + +'Princess Ottilia!' said my father. + +'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?' + +'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.' + +'And he?' + +'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not +forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.' + +Her eyelids gently lifted, asking me. + +'Nor the mount you did me the honour to give me on the little Hungarian,' +said I. + +'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 Markgrafin?' + +My father explained that we had just landed from the boat. + +'Is our meeting, then, an accident?' + +'Dear princess, I heard of your being out by the shore.' + +'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.' + +Her eyelids dropped without closing. + +'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. + +'Danger is over,' Miss Sibley answered my gaze. 'She is convalescent. +You see how weak she is.' + +I praised the lady for what I deemed her great merit in not having +quitted the service of the princess. + +'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.' + +'The margravine?' + +'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!' + +'Thank you, thank you most humbly,' said I, bowing to her shadow of a +mock curtsey. + +The princess's hand appeared at a side of the chair. We hastened to her. + +'Let me laugh, too,' she prayed. + +Miss Sibley was about to reply, but stared, and delight sprang to her +lips in a quick cry. + +'What medicine is this? Why, the light of morning has come to you, my +darling!' + +'I am better, dearest, better.' + +'You sigh, my own.' + +'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?' + +Miss Sibley turned her head to me. + +'Temple,' said I; 'Temple is a midshipman; he is at sea.' + +'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.' + +My father stooped low. + +'The Grand Seigneur, your servant, dear princess, was an Ottoman Turk, +and his Grand Vizier advised him to send flowers in his place weekly.' + +'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.' + +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. + +At parting, the princess said, + +'Is my English improved? You smiled at it once. I will ask you when I +meet you next.' + +'It is my question,' I whispered to my own ears. + +She caught the words. + +'Why do you say--" It is my question"?' + +I was constrained to remind her of her old forms of English speech. + +'You remember that? Adieu,' she said. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +ON BOARD A YACHT + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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 Peterbooroo'! 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 Marechal 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!' + +'Good soul!' the princess arrested her, 'I beg that you will not abuse +England.' + +'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?' + +'My whimsy aunt!' the princess interposed again, 'now you have taken to +abusing a defenceless Englishman.' + +'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.' + +'Madame, I would,' said I, 'that I were the Perseus to relieve you of +your monster Ennui, but he is coming quickly.' + +'You see he has his pretty phrases!' cried the margravine; adding +encouragingly, 'S'il nest pas tant sort peu impertinent?' + +The advance of some German or Russian nobleman spared me further efforts. + +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. + +'House and town and fortress provisioned, and moveable at will!' the +margravine interjected repeatedly. + +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. + +'Then, are you the captain, my good Herr Heilbrunn?' the margravine asked +my father. + +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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The margravine groaned impatiently at talk of such a dieaway sort. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +IN VIEW OF THE HOHENZOLLERN'S BIRTHPLACE + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +The princess flushing scarlet, the margravine cried, + +'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 !' + +My father stepped in. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +The farce was too evanescent for me to reproduce it. + +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. + +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. + +'Good!' she concluded; 'now I sulk you for five years.' + +'You would decapitate me, madam, and weep over my astonished head, would +you not?' + +'Upon my honour, I would,' she shook herself to reply. + +He smiled rather sadly. + +'No pathos!' she implored him. + +'Not while I live, madam,' said he. + +At this her countenance underwent a tremour. + +'And when that ends . . . friend! well, I shall have had my last +laugh in the world.' + +Both seemed affected. My father murmured some soothing word. + +'Then you do mean to stay with me?' the margravine caught him up. + +'Not in livery, your Highness.' + +'To the deuce with you!' would be a fair translation of the exalted +lady's reply. She railed at his insufferable pride. + +'And you were wrong, wrong,' she pursued. 'You offended the prince +mightily: you travestied his most noble ancestor--' + +'In your service, may it please you.' + +'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?' + +She turned to me. + +'Hither, Mr. Harry; come, persuade him. Why, you do not desire to leave +me, do you?' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'Thank you, thank you, sir,' said the Rev. Ambrose, gazing +enthusiastically, but daunted by the heat: 'if it is your wish?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Come!' said he, glowing, 'we will toast the Hohenstaufens and the +Hohenzollerns to-night, Richie.' + +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: + + 'Violets are over.' + +Plain words; but a princess had written them, and never did so golden a +halo enclose any piece of human handiwork. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE TIME OF ROSES + +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. + +'Violets are over.' + +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. + +'From violets to roses, so run the seasons.' + +Or is it, + +'From violets to roses, thus far have we two travelled?' + +But would she merely say, 'I have not this kind of flower, and I send you +another?' + +True, but would she dare to say, 'The violets no longer express my heart; +take the roses?' + +'Maidenly, and a Princess, yet sweet and grateful, she gives you the +gracefullest good speed. + +'Noble above all human distinctions, she binds you to herself, if you +will it.' + +The two armies came into collision, the luck of the day going to the one +I sided with. + +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. + +'She cannot mean so much as this.' + +'She must mean more than that.' + +Thus the Absolute and the Symbolical factions struggled on. A princess +drew them as the moon the tides. + +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?' + +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, + +'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.' + +'As you did at Bath,' said I. + +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?' + +'Not at all,' said I, with a chill at the prospect. + +'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. Challenge 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.' + +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. + +You perceive my state without rendering it necessary for me to label +myself. + +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. + +'You!' she said. + +'I might ask, is it you, princess?' + +'Some wonder has been worked, you see.' + +'I thank heaven.' + +'You had a part in it.' + +'The poorest possible.' + +'Yet I shall presume to call you Doctor Oceanus,' + +'Will you repeat his medicine? The yacht awaits you always.' + +'When I am well I study. Do not you?' + +'I have never studied in my life.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'Schwartz is the princess's attendant, sir,' she said. 'In future, may I +request you to talk German?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Certainly,' said I. + +'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!' + +'Oh! decidedly not,' was my advice. + +'Well, well,' he assented. + +I empowered him to sell out Bank stock. + +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. + +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. + +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-- + +'Our sea-lieutenant.' + +'It delights me to hear he has turned University student,' she said; and +in English: 'You have made friends of your books?' + +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, + +'At least I have been taught to despise idleness.' + +'My Professor tells me it is strange for any of your countrymen to love +books.' + +'We have some good scholars, princess.' + +'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.' + +'Speak intelligibly, and don't drum on my ear with that hybrid language,' +rejoined the margravine. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'The deprivation is one we are immensely sensible of!' said the princess. + +'Laugh on! you will some day be aware of their importance in daily life, +Ottilia.' + +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. + +We drove to the statue of Prince Albrecht Wohlgemuth, overlooking leagues +of snow-roofed branches. Again Ottilia reverted to Temple, + +'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.' + +'Roy is a butterfly,' said the margravine. + +'That I cannot think.' + +'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.' + +'He is an intensely loving father.' + +'Very well; establish that, and what does it matter whether he wrote or +not? A good reputation is the best vindication.' + +The princess smiled. 'See here, dearest aunty, the two boys passed half +the night here, until my Aennchen's father gave them shelter.' + +'Apparently he passes half or all the night in the open air everywhere,' +said the margravine. + +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. + +'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.' + +The margravine repeated, + +'A track of blood in the snow! My good young man, you have excited forms +of speech.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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: + +'You are either a most fortunate or a most unfortunate young man!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +OTTILIA + +She was on horseback; I on foot, Schwartz for sole witness, and a wide +space of rolling silent white country around us. + +We had met in the fall of the winter noon by accident. 'You like my +Professor?' said Ottilia. + +'I do: I respect him for his learning.' + +'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?' + +'Princess!' + +'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?' + +'Well, no, frankly, I will not. The proper defence for a nation is its +history.' + +'For an individual?' + +'For a man, his readiness to abide by his word.' + +'For a woman--what?' + +'For a princess, her ancestry.' + +'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.' + +'I am,' said I. + +'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?' + +'It's more than I could dare to do myself, princess.' + +How different from the Ottilia I had known, or could have imagined! That +was one thought. + +'Out of the number, then, this,' she resumed: 'you think that your +English young ladies have command over their tongues: is it not so?' + +'There are prattlers among them.' + +'Are they educated strictly?' + +'I know little of them. They seem to me to be educated to conceal their +education.' + +'They reject ideas?' + +'It is uncertain whether they have had the offer.' + +Ottilia smiled. 'Would it be a home in their midst?' + +Something moved my soul to lift wings, but the passion sank. + +'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.' + +I touched her horse's neck, and said, 'I have not seen it.' + +'Yet you understand me. You know me well. How is that?' + +The murmur of honest confession came from me: 'I have seen it!' + +She laughed. 'I bring you to be German, you see. Could you forsake your +England?' + +'Instantly, though not willingly.' + +'Not regrettingly?' + +'Cheerfully, if I had my work and my--my friend.' + +'No; but well I know a man's field of labour is his country. You have +your ambition.' + +'Yes, now I have.' + +She struck a fir-branch with her riding-whip, scattering flakes on my +head. 'Would that extinguish it?' + +'In the form of an avalanche perhaps it would.' + +'Then you make your aims a part of your life?' + +'I do.' + +'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. + +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?' + +'Princess, you have given me matter to think upon.' + +She shook her head, smiling with closed eyelids. + +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. + +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?' + +Her hand was hanging loose. I grasped it. She drew a sudden long +breath, and murmured, without fretting to disengage herself, + +'My friend, not that!' + +Her voice carried an unmistakeable command. I kissed above the fingers +and released them. + +'Are you still able to run?' said she, leading with an easy canter, face +averted. She put on fresh speed; I was outstripped. + +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? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG + +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. + +One night he asked me what my scheme of life was. + +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. + +'Quite otherwise,' said he. 'I have never cared to read deliberately in +the book you open to me, my good young man.' + +'The book, Herr Professor?' + +'Collect your wits. We will call it Shakespeare's book; or Gothe'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?' + +I admitted it, feeling that it was easily to have been perceived. He was +elated. + +'Good. Then I apprehend that you wait for the shifting of a tide to +carry you on?' + +'I try to strengthen my mind.' + +'So I hear,' said he dryly. + +'Well, as far as your schools of teaching will allow.' + +'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?' + +'I shall hope to do good with it.' + +'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.' + +'We are the hardest workers in the world.' + +'That you may live for pleasure! Deny it!' + +He puffed his tobacco-smoke zealously, and resumed: + +'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.' + +'We have our aristocracy, Herr Professor.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +I could not conceive why he went on worrying me in this manner with his +jealous outburst of Continental bile. + +'Widely!' he repeated. 'It is widely respected; and you respect it: and +why do you respect it?' + +'We have illustrious names in our aristocracy.' + +'We beat you in illustrious names and in the age of the lines, my good +young man.' + +'But not in a race of nobles who have stood for the country's liberties.' + +'So long as it imperilled their own! Any longer?' + +'Well, they have known how to yield. They have helped to build our +Constitution.' + +'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!' + +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.' + +This was downright insolence. + +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.' + +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.' + +'Not on a fresh journey--a recurring course!' said I. + +'Good!' he applauded, and I was flattered. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +His discharges of smoke grew stifling. My advocacy was certainly of a +miserable sort. + +'Yes, Herr Professor, on my way when a boy to this very place I met a +thorough good man.' + +Here I related the tale of my encounter with Captain Welsh. + +Dr. Julius nodded rapidly for continuations. Further! further! + +He refused to dig at the mine within me, and seemed to expect it to +unbosom its riches by explosion. + +'Well, Herr Professor, we have conquered India, and hold it as no other +people could.' + +'Vide the articles in the last file of English newspapers !' said he. + +'Suppose we boast of it ' + +'Can you?' he simulated wonderment. + +'Why, surely it's something!' + +'Something for non-commissioned officers to boast of; not for statesmen. +However, say that you are fit to govern Asiatics. Go on.' + +'I would endeavour to equalize ranks at home, encourage the growth of +ideas . . .' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'Now we are at the bottom, then!' said he. + +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.' + +He chuckled over his pipe-stem, 'Aha!' + +'How am I one or the other?' + +'By the weight of what you carry in your head.' + +'How by the weight?' + +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.' + +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. + +'But it's the questioner who unmasks,' said he. + +'Are we masked, Herr Professor? I was not aware of it.' + +'Look within, and avoid lying.' + +He stood up. 'My nights,' he remarked, 'are not commonly wasted in this +manner. We Germans use the night for work.' + +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.' + +'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?' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE + +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. + +My desire was to go into harness, buried in books, and for recreation to +chase visions of original ideas for benefiting mankind. A clear-wined +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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?' + +He hung waiting for confidential communications on my part, but did not +press for them; he preserved an unvarying delicacy in that respect. + +'You have nothing to tell?' he asked. + +'Nothing,' I said. 'I have only to thank you.' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'English?' he said, patting the horse's neck. + +'Yes--the horse? an English hunter. How are you, Prince Otto? Do you +like the look of him?' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +I thanked him. + +'Ice is the thing!' he ejaculated. 'I 'll ride and have some fetched to +you. Rest here.' + +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. + +'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. + +'You love me?' she said. + +'You have known it!' + +'Yes, yes!' + +'Forgiven me? Speak, princess.' + +'Call me by my name.' + +'My own soul! Ottilia!' + +She disengaged her arms tenderly. + +'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!' + +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. + +'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.' + +She spoke till the tears came thick. + +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. + +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. + +'The thunder,' he announced, raising a telegraphic arm, 'rolls. It +rains. We have a storm. Command me, princess! your highness!' + +Ottilia's eyelids were set blinking by one look aloft. Rain and +lightning filled heaven and earth. + +'Direct us, you!' she said to me gently. + +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. + +She meditated an instant. 'I believe I may stay with my beloved?' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +PRINCESS OTTILIA'S LETTER + +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. + +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. + +'You shall hear from me,' she said, bending with brows measuring the +boat-roof, like a bird about to fly. + +'Shall I see you?' + +'Ultimately you surely will. Ah! still be patient.' + +'Am I not? have I not been?' + +'Yes; and can you regret it?' + +'No; but we separate!' + +'Would you have us be two feet high for ever?' she answered smiling. + +'One foot high, or under earth, if it might be together!' + +'Poor little gnomes!' said she. + +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. + +'Adieu! no pledge is needed,' she said tenderly. + +'None!' I replied. + +She returned to the upper world with a burning blush. + +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. + +'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. + +I was soon gazing at the track of the boat in rough water. + +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. + +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. + +'An answer, Aennchen?' I asked her. + +'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. + +I chose a roof of limes to read under. + +'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: + +'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. + +'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. + +'Pardon it to one who knew that she would require super-feminine power +of decision to resolve that she would dispose of herself! + +'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. + +'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. + +'I can refer him to Dr. Julius for my estimate of my husband's worth. + +'"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. + +'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. + +'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. + + 'OTTILIA FREDERIKA WILHELMINA HEDWIG, + 'Princess of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +AN INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ERNEST AND A MEETING WITH PRINCE OTTO + +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, + +'We shall have a word together presently!' + +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. + +The character of the interview was perceptible at once. + +'You have not, I presume, to be informed of the business in hand, Mr. +Richmond!' + +'Your Highness, I believe I can guess it.' + +This started him pacing the floor. + +'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?' + +'Much, sir.' + +'Much?' he said, with affected incredulity. + +The painful hardship for me was to reply in the vague terms he had been +pleased to use. + +'I have much to say, your Highness. First, to ask pardon of you, without +excusing myself.' + +'A condition, apparently, that absolves the necessity for the grant. +Speak precisely.' + +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.' + +'You charge it upon your having been trained among a nation of +shopkeepers?' + +'My countrymen are not illiterate or unmannerly, your Highness.' + +'I have not spoken it; I may add, I do not think it.' + +'I feared that your Highness entertained what I find to be a very +general, perhaps here and there wilful, error with regard to England.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'In cool blood you utter that?' exclaimed the prince. + +His amazement was unfeigned. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'None,' said he calmly; 'none. I have everything to hear, nothing to +relate; and, happily, I can hardly speak for joy.' He wept. + +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?' + +I assented. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Ludere qui nescit campestribus abstinet armis!' Bandelmeyer sang out. + +'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. + +A silly business on all sides. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ask pardon of you, without excusing myself +Habit of antedating his sagacity +He thinks or he chews +If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? +It goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little finger +Look within, and avoid lying +Mindless, he says, and arrogant +One who studies is not being a fool +The past is our mortal mother, no dead thing +The proper defence for a nation is its history +Then for us the struggle, for him the grief +They seem to me to be educated to conceal their education +We has long overshadowed "I" +Who beguiles so much as Self? + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v4 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 5. + +XXXIII. WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING +XXXIV. I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE +XXXV. THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY +XXXVI. HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN. +XXXVII. JANET RENOUNCES ME +XXXVIII. MY BANKERS' BOOK. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +WHAT CAME OF A SHILLING + +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. + +'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?' + +He was distracting. + +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. + +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. + +'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."' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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?' + +She looked at me softly, and I said I wished her to come. + +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. + +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. + +'Then must I go,' said Lieschen, 'for two are not allowed here.' + +'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 forthwith a +murmured groan. + +She deceived me by taking her seat in perfect repose. + +After smoothing her apron, 'Now I must go,' she said. + +'What! to leave me here alone?' + +She looked at the clock, and leaned out of the window. + +'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: + +She had not been long gone when the Princess Ottilia stood in her place. + +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. + +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, + +'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: + + '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.' + +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. + +'But Otto is no assassin,' she cried out. + +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. + +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. + +'No! you are not gone,' I sighed. + +'Only come,' said she. + +The nature of the step she had taken began to dawn on me. + +'But when they miss you at the palace? Prince Ernest?' + +'Hush! they have missed me already. It is done.' She said it smiling. + +'Ottilia, will he take you away?' + +'Us, dear, us.' + +'Can you meet his anger?' + +'Our aunt will be the executioner. We have a day of sweet hours before +she can arrive.' + +'May I see her first?' + +'We will both see her as we are now.' + +'We must have prompt answers for the margravine.' + +'None, Harry. I do not defend myself ever.' + +Distant hills, and folds of receding clouds and skies beyond them, were +visible from my window, and beyond the skies I felt her soul. + +'Ottilia, you were going to Italy?' + +'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?' + +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. + +'She has a sister here,' said Ottilia; 'and let her bring Lieschen to +visit me here this afternoon.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'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 t. But should we +not be gentle with our comparisons if we would have our views in +proportion?' + +She hung studiously silent, and I pursued: + +'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.' + +'And I forgive him,' she sighed. 'I scarcely bring myself to believe +that Harry has bled from Otto's hand.' + +'It was the accident of the case, Ottilia. We had to meet.' + +'To meet?' + +'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!' + +'It did not occur accidentally?' she inquired. Her voice sounded +strange, half withheld in the utterance. + +'It occurred,' said I, feeling my strength ebb and despair set in, 'it +occurred--the prince compelled me to the meet him.' + +'But my cousin Otto is no assassin? + +'Compelled, I say: that is, he conceived I had injured him, and left me +no other way of making amends.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Sleep,' she whispered. + +I feigned sleep to catch my happiness about me. + +Some disenchanting thunder was coming, I was sure, and I was right. My +father entered. + +'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. + +'Is it known?' I heard her ask, in the half audible strange voice which +had previously made me tremble. + +'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. + +'The honour done me by the princess in visiting me is not to be known,' I +summoned energy enough to say. + +She shook her head. + +My father pledged himself to the hottest secresy, equivalent to a calm +denial of the fact, if necessary. + +'Pray be at no trouble,' she addressed him. + +The 'Where am I?' look was painful in her aspect. + +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. + +Presently I found the room empty of our poor unconscious tormentor. +Ottilia had fastened her hand to mine again. + +'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--' + +'Ah!' she breathed, 'my Harry will talk himself into a fever.' + +'I shall have it if the margravine comes here.' + +'She shall not be admitted.' + +'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.' + +'When it is yours you would persuade me to confide in?' said she, with +some sorrowful archness. + +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. + +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. + +My father drove away an hour in advance of the princess to encounter the +margravine. + +'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.' + +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. + +The sisters Aennchen and Lieschen presented themselves a few minutes +before his departure. Lieschen dropped at her feet. + +'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?' + +'The Professor grants her six hours out of the twenty-four already,' said +I. + +'To go where?' she asked, alarmed. + +'To come here.' + +'Here? She knows you? She did not curtsey to you.' + +'Nurses do not usually do that.' + +The appearance of both girls was pitiable; but having no suspicion of the +cause for it, I superadded, + +'She was here this morning.' + +'Ah! we owe her more than we were aware of.' + +The princess looked on her kindly, though with suspense in the +expression. + +'She told me of my approaching visitor,' I said. + +'Oh! not told!' Lieschen burst out. + +'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?' + +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?' + +'Yes, princess.' + +'And she to you?' + +Lieschen answered: 'Forgive me, your Highness, dearest lady!' + +'You offered yourself here unasked?' + +'Yes, princess.' + +'Have you written to others besides your sister?' + +'Seldom, princess; I do not remember.' + +'You know the obligation of signatures to letters?' + +'Ah!' + +'You have been remiss in not writing to me, child.' + +'Oh, princess! I did not dare to.' + +'You have not written to me?' + +'Ah! princess, how dared I?' + +'Are you speaking truthfully?' + +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.' + +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. + +She remarked by-and-by, of her own accord: 'Princess Ottilia does not +regret that she had us educated.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +I GAIN A PERCEPTION OF PRINCELY STATE + +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. + +'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.' + +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: + +'Your Highness, the mine flourishes, I trust?' + +'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?' + +'Undoubtedly it is.' + +'Or than bestriding a bronze horse, personifying my good ancestor! Are +you acquainted with the Chancellor von Redwitz?' + +'All I know of him, sir, is that he is fortunate to enjoy the particular +confidence of his master.' + +'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.' + +I confessed that I began to feel longings for society. + +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. + +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.' + +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, + +'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.' + +'On the contrary, dear Mr. Chancellor, I am interested in the princess. +Proceed, and be as minute as you please.' + +'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.' + +'Why not?' + +'You see, you are impatient for romance, young gentleman.' + +'Not at all, Mr. Chancellor. I do but ask a question.' + +'You fence. Your question was dictated by impatience.' + +'Yes, for the facts and elucidations! + +'For the romance, that is. You wish me to depict emotions.' + +Hereupon this destroyer of temper embrowned his nostrils with snuff, +adding,--'I am unable to.' + +'Then one is not to learn why the princess could not fulfil her +engagement?' + +'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.' + +'Her father interposed?' + +'No.' + +'The Family?' + +'Quite inefficacious to arrest her determinations.' + +'What then--what was in her way?' + +'Germany.' + +'What?' + +'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.' + +'The Diet?' + +'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.' + +'A true woman,' said I, thinking the sneer weighty. + +The Chancellor begged me to recollect that he had warned me there was no +romance to be expected. + +I bowed; and bowed during the remainder of the interview. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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? + +The presence of the living members of the Family was an extreme physical +relief. + +For the moment, beholding Ottilia, I counted her but as one of them. She +welcomed me without restraint. + +We chattered pleasantly at the dinner-table. + +'Ah! You missed our French troupe,' said the margravine.' + +'Yes,' said I, resigning them to her. She nodded: + +'And one very pretty little woman they had, I can tell you--for a +Frenchwoman.' + +'You thought her pretty? Frenchwomen know what to do with their brains +and their pins, somebody has said.' + +'And exceedingly well said, too. Where is that man Roy? Good things +always remind me of him.' + +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: + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'I,' said Ottilia. + +'Gracious me! you have not read the book?' + +'Right through, dear aunt, with all respect to you.' + +'It 's in the house?' + +'It is in my study.' + +'Then I don't wonder! I don't wonder!' the margravine exclaimed. + +'Best hear what the enemy has to say,' Prince Ernest observed. + +'Excellently argued, papa, supposing that he be an enemy.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +'I daresay you discard nothing that the wretch has taught you!' + +'Nothing! nothing!' said Ottilia, and made my heart live. + +The grim and taciturn Baroness Turckems, sitting opposite to her, sighed +audibly. + +'Has the princess been trying to convert you?' the margravine asked her. + +'Trying? no, madam. Reading? yes.' + +'My good Turckems! you do not get your share of sleep?' + +'It is her Highness the princess who despises sleep.' + +'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.' + +'Twelve o'clock is an extraordinary latitude for children,' said Ottilia, +smiling. + +The prince, with a scarce perceptible degree of emphasis, said, + +'Women born to rule must be held exempt from nursery restrictions.' + +Here the conversation opened to let me in. More than once the margravine +informed me that I was not the equal of my father. + +'Why,' said she, 'why can't you undertake this detestable coal-mine, and +let your father disport himself?' + +I suggested that it might be because I was not his equal. She +complimented me for inheriting a spark of Roy's brilliancy. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +He asked me what I had made of Chancellor von Redwitz. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'You study much?' he addressed the princess at table. + +She answered: 'I throw aside books, now you have come to open the earth +and the sea.' + +From that time the topics started on every occasion were theirs; the rest +of us ran at their heels, giving tongue or not. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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.' + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +We went up to the chateau to fetch him. + +A look of woe was on Peterborough's countenance when we descended at the +palace portals: he had forgotten his pipe. + +'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.' + +'No tobacco allowed on the premises at Riversley, I 'm afraid,' said I. + +He sighed, and bade me jocosely to know that he regarded tobacco as just +one of the consolations of exiles and bachelors. + +'Peterborough, my good friend, you are a hero!' cried my father. 'He +divorces tobacco to marry!' + +'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!' + +'He puts an end to the illegitimate union between himself and tobacco +that he may marry according to form!' cried my father. + +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.' + +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. + +'Roy,' she said, 'you have given your son spirit. One sees he has your +blood when you have been with him an hour.' + +'The season has returned, if your Highness will let it be Spring,' said +my father. + +'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. + +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. + +I was questioned by the baroness as to the cause of my father's +unexpected return. 'He is generally opportune,' she remarked. + +'He goes with me to England,' I said. + +'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. + +To my surprise, the baroness spoke of Ottilia by her name. + +'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.' + +'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--' + +'The sea I pronounce bad for her--unwholesome,' returned the baroness. +'It is damp.' + +I laughed. + +'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?' + +'The princess--?' said I. + +'Ottilia has done that.' + +'Baroness, can I believe you?--and alone?' + +A marvellous twinkle of shuffle appeared in the small slate-coloured eyes +I looked at under their roofing of thick black eyebrows. + +'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.' + +'Old Schwartz is a very faithful servant,' said I, thinking that she +resembled the old Warhead in visage. + +'A dog's obedience to the master's whims you call faithfulness! Hem!' +The baroness coughed dryly. + +I whispered: 'Does Prince Ernest--is he aware?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Ottilia did not keep me waiting. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE SCENE IN THE LAKE-PALACE LIBRARY + +I was humming the burden of Gothe'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 mufed 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. + +I went up to her quickly, and closed the door, saying, 'You have come'; +my voice was not much above a breath. + +She looked distrustfully down the length of the room; 'You were speaking +to some one?' + +'No.' + +'You were speaking.' + +'To myself, then, I suppose.' + +I remembered and repeated the gipsy burden. + +She smiled faintly and said it was the hour for Anna and Ursel and Kith +and Liese to be out. + +Her hands were gloved, a small matter to tell of. + +We heard the portico-sentinel challenged and relieved. + +'Midnight,' I said. + +She replied: 'You were not definite in your directions about the +minutes.' + +'I feared to name midnight.' + +'Why?' + +'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.' + +'I am.' + +'And you come freely?' + +'A "therefore" belongs to every grant of freedom.' + +'I understand: your judgement was against it.' + +'Be comforted,' she said; 'it is your right to bid me come, if you think +fit.' + +One of the sofa-volumes fell. She caught her breath; and smiled at her +foolish alarm. + +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. + +'You throw down one end of the chain,' she said. + +'In the name of heaven, then,' cried I, 'release yourself.' + +She shook her head. 'That is not my meaning.' + +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. + +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 of +she pain, and I said: 'Pray, do not speak of chains.' + +'But they exist. Things cannot be undone for us two by words.' + +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. + +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. + +'Ottilia, you have told me you wish me to go to England.' + +'I have.' + +'We shall be friends.' + +'Yes, Harry; we cannot be quite divided; we have that knowledge for our +present happiness.' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'I must have detained you already too long.' + +'Time is not the offender. Since I have come, the evil----' + +'Evil? Are not your actions free?' + +'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. + +In truth, Harry, I should not have come but for my acknowledgement of +your right to bid me come.' + +'You know, princess, that in honouring me with your attachment, you +imperil your sovereign rank?' + +'I do.' + +'What next?' + +'Except that it is grievously in peril, nothing!' + +'Have you known it all along?' + +'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.' + +'Oh, princess, if you are pleading----' + +'Can you think that I am?' + +The splendour of her high nature burst on me with a shock. + +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!'-- + +'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. + +Her sweet warmth of colour was transfused through my veins. + +'We shall part in a few minutes. I have a mind to beg a gift of you.' + +'Name it.' + +'That glove.' + +She made her hand bare and gave me, not the glove, but the hand. + +'Ah! but this I cannot keep.' + +'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.' + +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. + +I pressed my lips to her hand. + +In our silence another of the fatal yellow volumes thumped the floor. + +She looked into my eyes and asked, + +'Have we been speaking before a witness?' + +So thoroughly had she renovated me, that I accused and reproved the +lurking suspicion with a soft laugh. + +'Beloved! I wish we had been.' + +'If it might be,' she said, divining me and musing. + +'Why not?' + +She stared. + +'How? What do you ask?' + +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, + +'I would not urge it for an instant. Consider--if you had just plighted +your hand in mine before a witness!' + +'My hand is in yours; my word to you is enough.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +I looked: she swam in a mist. + + +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. + +And it was before a witness, though unviewed by us. + +The farewell had come. Her voice was humbled. + +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.' + +We closed hands for parting. She hesitated and asked if my father was +awake; then promptly to my answer: + +'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.' + +A third in the room cried out, 'No, not that--you do not!' + +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!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +HOMEWARD AND HOME AGAIN + +The room was in flames, Baroness Turckems plucking at the bell-rope, my +father looking big and brilliant. + +'Hold hand!' he shouted to the frenzied baroness. + +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. + +'Foolish woman, be silent!' cried my father. + +'Incendiary!' she half-shrieked. + +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. + +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!' + +'To repair your error, baroness,' said my father. + +'I have my conscience pure; have you?' she retorted. + +He bowed and said, 'The fire will also excuse your presence on the spot, +baroness.' + +'I thank my God I am not so cool as you,' said she. + +'Your warmth'--he bent to her--'shall always be your apology, baroness.' + +Seeing the curtains extinguished, Ottilia withdrew. She gave me no +glance. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Why, you don't mean to say, Hal, it's not to your taste?' said the +squire. + +'No,' said I, turning an eye on my aunt Dorothy, 'I've loved it all my +life.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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!' + +Janet said: 'I rather like the smell of cigars.' + +'Like what you please, my dear--he'll be a lucky dog,' the squire +approved her promptly, and asked me if I smoked. + +I was not a stranger to the act, I confessed. + +'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.' + +Here was a hint of Janet's influence with him, and of what he expected +from my return to Riversley. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +Kiomi was spoken of, and Lady Maria Higginson, and then Heriot. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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: + +'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. + +'You have not told us anything about your princess, Harry,' Janet +observed on the ride home. + +'Do you take her for a real person, Janet?' + +'One thinks of her as a snow-mountain you've been admiring.' + +'Very well; so let her be.' + +'Is she kind and good?' + +'Yes.' + +'Does she ride well?' + +'She rides remarkably well.' + +'She 's fair, I suppose?' + +'Janet, if I saw you married to Temple, it would be the second great wish +of my heart.' + +'Harry, you're a bit too cruel, as Julia would say.' + +'Have you noticed she gets more and more Irish?' + +'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?' + +'Not at all,' said I, unconscious of hurting. + +'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.' + +I was pained to see her in tears. Her figure was straight, and she spoke +without a quaver of her voice. + +'Heriot's an excellent fellow,' I remarked. + +'He is. I can't think ill of my friends,' said she. + +'Dear girl, is it these two who make you unhappy?' + +'No; but dear old grandada! . . .' + +The course of her mind was obvious. I would rather have had her less +abrupt and more personal in revealing it. I stammered something. + +'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.' + +'He's incurably unjust to my father.' + +'Your father has been with you all the time, Harry? I guessed it.' + +'Well?' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Well, Harry, I would take your side as firmly as anybody's.' + +'Do, then; tell the squire how I am situated.' + +'Ah!' she half sighed, 'I knew this was coming.' + +'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?' + +'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?' + +'Prepare him for it. Soothe him in advance. Why, dear Janet, you can +reconcile him to anything in a minute.' + +'Lie to him downright?' + +'Now what on earth is the meaning of that, and why can't you speak +mildly?' + +'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.' + +'If you believe in his generosity, Janet, should you be afraid to put it +to proof?' + +'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.' + +So saying, she headed me, trotting down the heath-track. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +JANET RENOUNCES ME + +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. + +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!' + +With that he bounded to bed. He was dead next morning. + +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.' + +'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?' + +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. + +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. + +'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?' + +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. + +I contained myself enough to say, 'Very well, the world, sir.' + +'Flirted with one of their princesses?' He winked. + +'On that subject I will talk to you some other time,' said I. + +'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?' + +The necessity for correcting his impressions taught me to think the +moment favourable. I said, 'I am engaged to her, sir.' + +He returned promptly: 'Then you'll break it off.' + +I shook my head. + +'Why, you can't jilt my girl at home!' said he. + +'Do you find a princess objectionable, sir?' + +'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.' + +We were in the streets of London, so he was obliged to moderate his +vehemence. + +'Have you consulted Janet?' said I. + +'Consulted her? ever since she was a chick with half a feather on.' + +'A chick with half a feather on,' I remarked, 'is not always of the same +mind as a piece of poultry of full plumage.' + +'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.' + +'Consult her again, sir,' I broke in. 'You will discover she is not of +your way of thinking.' + +'Do you mean to say she's given you a left-hander, Harry?' + +'I have only to say that I have not given her the option.' + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +'Stop,' said Temple, 'is the poor old country------ How about continuing +the race of heroes?' + +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.' + +I said nothing of my chagrin at the behaviour of the pair who had +furnished my first idea of the romantic beauty of love. + +'Why does she talk twice as Irish as she used to, Heriot?' + +'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: + +'There's the only girl living fit to marry a man and swear she 'll stick +to him through life and death.' + +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. + +'I reserve a point,' he said, and not playfully. + +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. + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +MY BANKERS' BOOK + +The squire again did honour to Janet's eulogy and good management of him. + +'And where,' said she, 'would you find a Radical to behave so generously, +Harry, when it touches him so?' + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +'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 . . .' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'The Roman Catholics admit reason?' said Janet, who had too strong a turn +for showing her keenness in little encounters with Peterborough. + +'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. + +'It was Harry's wish?' Janet said, smiling. + +'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.' + +'Thought by Harry?' said Janet; and my aunt Dorothy said, 'You and Harry +had a consultation about it?' + +'Wanted to appear as grand as they could,' quoth the squire. + +Peterborough signified an assent, designed to modify the implication. +'Not beyond due bounds, I trust, sir.' + +'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!' + +'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. + +My grandfather turned a round side-eye on me, hard as a cock's. + +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.' + +'Private chaplain!' the squire growled again. + +'It's you that preach this afternoon,' Janet said to Peterborough. 'Do +you give us an extempore sermon?' + +'You remind me, Miss Ilchester, I must look to it; I have a little +trimming to do.' + +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?' + +'Not on Sundays, sir,' said Peterborough, openly and cordially, as to +signify that they were of one mind regarding the perniciousness of Sunday +smoking. + +'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.' + +'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. + +' Oh, I thank you!' I heard the garlanded victim lowing as I left him to +the squire's mercy. + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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?' + +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. + +'Any objection to my seeing that book?' said the squire. + +'None whatever, sir.' + +He nodded. I made it a point of honour to write for the book to be sent +down to me immediately. + +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?' + +'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. + +''Cause I give you my word I know nothing about it now,' he said. + +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. + +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. + +'By George, I must have breakfast 'fore I go into this!' he exclaimed, +and stared as if he had come out of an oven. + +Dorothy Beltham reminded him that Prayers had not been read. + +'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?' + +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: + +'I should specify exceptions; there were intervals . . .' + +'Please, open your Bible,' the squire cut him short; 'I don't want a +damned fine edge on everything.' + +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. + +'Fresh from ship, William?' the squire called out. + +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. + +'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. + +Captain Bulsted chanced to say in the musical voice of inquiry: ' Prayers +are not yet over, are they?' + +'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.' + +'On my!--indeed, sir, no!' Peterborough proclaimed his innocence, and it +was unlikely that the squire should have suspected him. + +Captain Bulsted had come to us for his wife, whom he had not found at +home on his arrival last midnight. + +'God bless my soul,' said the squire, 'you don't mean to tell me she's +gone off, William?' + +'Oh! dear, no, sir,' said the captain, 'she's only cruising.' + +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. + +'I thought, sir, things were getting better,' said the captain. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'How d' ye mean, my dear?' + +'It 's bad work done on a Sunday, you know.' + +'So it is. I'll lock up the book.' + +'I have your word for that, grandada,' said Janet. + +The ladies retired, taking Peterborough with them. + +'Good-bye to the frocks! and now, William, out with your troubles,' said +the squire. + +The captain's eyes were turned to the door my aunt Dorothy had passed +through. + +'You remember the old custom, sir!' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'To be sure you are, William, and a trim schooner-yacht she is.' + +'She 's off, sir; she's off!' + +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.' + +'Harry, your hand,' he cried, sparkling. + +'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.' + +'Mightily well done, Harry!' Captain Bulsted struck a terrific encomium +on my shoulder, groaning, 'May she be true to you, my lad!' + +The squire asked him if he was going to church that morning. + +'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. + +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.' + +I offered him to accompany him at once to Heriot's quarters. + +'What! and let my wife know I doubted her fidelity. My girl shall never +accuse me of that.' + +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. + +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.' + +The captain echoed her, 'Half! but happy enough for twenty whole ones, +if you'll be satisfied, my duck.' + +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. + +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. + +'And like a fool, you think--eh?' + +'I have no such thought in my head, sir.' + +'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?' + +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. + +'Shame!' said Janet. + +'Hear her!' The squire turned to me. + +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.' + +'No, because of a scoundrel and his young idiot!' + +Janet frowned in earnest, and said: 'I don't permit you to change the +meaning of the words I speak.' + +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. + +'Come for a walk with me, dear Harry,' said Janet. + +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!' + +He expected me to descend. + +'And if he did, he would never have my arm.' Janet's eyes glittered hard +on the squire. + +'Before that rascal dies, my dear, he shall whine like a beggar out in +the cold for the tips of your fingers!' + +'Not if he asks me first,' said Janet. + +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.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +'That 's what turns your head,' said he; and she allowed him to have the +notion, and sneer at herself and her sex. + +'How about this money drawn since he came home?' the squire persisted. + +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. + +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!' + +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?' + +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. + +'Bravado, my sweet chuck?' + +'Won't another bottle be like flashing your sword after you've won the +day?' said she. + +He slung his arm round her, and sent a tremendous whisper into my ear-- +'A perfect angel!' + +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. + +'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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Decent insincerity +Discreet play with her eyelids in our encounters +Excellent is pride; but oh! be sure of its foundations +I do not defend myself ever +Nations at war are wild beasts +Only true race, properly so called, out of India--German +Some so-called laws of honour +They are little ironical laughter--Accidents +War is only an exaggerated form of duelling +Winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v5 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 6. + +XXXIX. I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF +XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER +XLI. COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S + GRAND PARADE +XLII. THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET +XLIII. I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION +XLIV. MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +I SEE MY FATHER TAKING THE TIDE AND AM CARRIED ON IT MYSELF + +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 soupcon 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!' + +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. + +'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. + +'No date is yet fixed,' my father struck in. + +'It's the talk of London,' she said. + +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.' + +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 . . . .' + +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. + +'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?' + +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. + +My heart sank when, from Lady Edbury too, I heard the allusion to Germany +and its princess. 'Some one told me she was dark?' + +'Blonde,' my father corrected the report. + +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.' + +My father repeated: 'The Princess Ottilia, Princess of Eppenwelzen- +Sarkeld.' + +'Brunette, you say?' + +'The purest blonde.' + +'A complexion?' + +'A complexion to dazzle the righteous!' + +Lady Edbury threw a flying glance in a mirror: 'The unrighteous you leave +to us then?' + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +'I have come on very particular business,' I interposed briefly. + +He replied, 'I am alive to you, Richie; speak.' + +'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.' + +'To-morrow morning, without an hour's delay, my dear boy. Very agreeable +will be the sight of old Riversley. And in the daylight!' + +'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.' + +'I invite him to London, Richie. I refer him to Dettermain and Newson. +I request him to compute the value of a princess.' + +'You are aware that he will not come to your invitation.' + +'Tell me, then, how is he to understand what I have established by the +expenditure, my son? I refer him to Dettermain and Newson.' + +'But you must know that he sets his face against legal proceedings +involving exposure.' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'As a matter of course.' He nodded, and struck out a hand in wavy motion. + +'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.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +'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 +The Speaker 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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'What's this? Why print my name?' I cried. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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 . . . ' + +'Oh, but it does,' he allowed me to plead. + +'Ay, through your love for your dada.' + +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.' + +Janet wrote that it would be prudent for me to return. + +'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.' + +Dismayed, I asked what was announced. + +'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.' + +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! + +The paragraph closed by fixing the nuptials to take place before the end +of the Season. + +I looked at my father to try a struggle with him. The whole man was +efflorescent. + +'Can't it be stopped?' I implored him. + +He signified the impossibility in a burst of gesticulations, motions of +the mouth, smiling frowns; various patterns of an absolute negative +beating down opposition. + +'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. + +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?' + +'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.' + +'This English climate has bedevilled the fellow! He peppers his dishes +like a mongrel Indian reared on mangoes.' + +'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.' + +'Exactly so: you spoil him.' + +My father shrugged. 'The state of the case is, that your stomach is +growing delicate, friend Jorian.' + +'The actual state of the case being, that my palate was never keener, and +consequently my stomach knows its business.' + +'You should have tried the cold turbot with oil and capers.' + +'Your man had better stick to buttered eggs, in my opinion.' + +'Say, porridge!' + +'No, I'll be hanged if I think he's equal to a bowl of porridge.' + +'Careme might have confessed to the same!' + +'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.' + +'Then you will the more readily pardon me, Jorian.' + +'Oh, I pardon you,' Jorian sneered, tripped to the carpet by such ignoble +mildness. 'A breakfast is no great loss.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Catch her, Jorian; you are on guard.' + +'Upwards of three hundred thousand, if a penny, Roy Richmond! Who? I? +I am not a fortune-hunter.' + +'Nor am I, friend Jorian.' + +'No, it 's because you're not thorough: you 'll fall between the stools.' + +My father remarked that he should visit this upon Mr. Alphonse. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Then, Roy Richmond, hear what a friend says . . .' + +'I do not marry, Jorian, and you know my reasons.' + +'Sentiments!' + +'They are a part of my life.' + +'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' + +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.' + +The contents of the letter permitted me to read it aloud. She desired to +know how she could be amused on the Sunday. + +'We will undertake it,' said my father. 'I depute the arrangements to +you, Jorian. Respect the prejudices, and avoid collisions, that is all.' + +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! + +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: + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +My father stood up and bowed, bareheaded. + +My grandfather struck his hat and bobbed. + +'Mr. Beltham, I trust I see you well.' + +'Better, sir, when I've got rid of a damned unpleasant bit o' business.' + +'I offer you my hearty assistance.' + +'Do you? Then step down and come into my bailiff's.' + +'I come, sir.' + +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. + +'Gout, Mr. Beltham, is a little too much a proof to us of a long line of +ancestry.' + +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. + +I went to relieve him. 'Damn! . . . Oh, it's you,' said he. + +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! + +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.' + +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. + +The squire grimly gave him a couple of months to make it good. + +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. + +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. + +'He will want money even to do that,' I remarked. + +She murmured, 'Is there not some annual income paid to him?' + +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.' + +'You would let him pay his debts with it, Harry?' + +'I am not sure, aunty, that he does not incur a greater debt by accepting +it.' + +'One's wish would be, that he might not ever be in need of it.' + +'Ay, or never be caring to find the key of it.' + +'That must be waste of time,' she said. + +I meant something else, but it was useless to tell her so. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +COMMENCEMENT OF THE SPLENDOURS AND PERPLEXITIES OF MY FATHER'S +GRAND PARADE + +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. + +'Subscription Balls?' asked the squire. + +'No, sir,' rejoined the captain. + +'Tradesmen's Balls, d' ye call 'em, then?' + +'No, sir; they are Balls given by a distinguished gentleman.' + +'Take care it's not another name for tradesmen's Balls, William.' + +'I do not attend tradesmen's Balls, sir.' + +'Take care o' that, William.' + +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?' + +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. + +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.' + +'Three-quarters, William,' said the squire; 'there's about the +computation for your gentleman's creditors, I suspect.' + +'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.' + +'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.' + +Captain Bulsted bowed. 'The last word to you, squire.' + +The squire nodded. 'I 'll hand it to your wife, William.' + +Julia took it graciously. 'A perfect gentleman! perfect! confound his +enemies!' + +'Why, ma'am, you might keep from swearing,' the squire bawled. + +'La! squire,' said she, 'why, don't you know the National Anthem?' + +'National Anthem, ma'am! and a fellow, a velvet-tongued--confound him, +if you like.' + +'And where's my last word, if you please?' Julia jumped up, and dropped a +provoking curtsey. + +'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?' + +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. + +'I'm not invited,' she moaned comically. + +'No; nor shan't be, while I can keep you out of bad company.' + +'But, grandada, I do like dancing. + +'Dance away, my dear; I've no objection.' + +'But where's the music?' + +'Oh, you can always have music.' + +'But where are my partners?' + +The squire pointed at me. + +'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?' + +'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. + +'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.' + +Janet shut his mouth, kissed him, and held his wine up. He drank, and +thumped the table. 'We 'll 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.' + +Janet exclaimed indignantly, 'Grandada, I'm offended with you'; and +walked out on a high step. + +'Come, if he has the women on his side,' said Captain Bulsted, mildly. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +'How do you like that?' he remarked to me, seeing her twirled away by one +of the young Rubreys. + +'She seems to like it, sir,' I replied. + +'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!' + +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. + +'But you can take what there is,' I said. + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Then you must have money, sir.' + +'Yes, money.' + +'Then what can you mean by refusing mine?' + +'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 . . .' + +I called to him not to name her. + +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.' + +'Oh, you forget!' I interjected. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'No, for your grandfather has yielded consent.' + +'By implication, you know he withdraws it.' + +'But if I satisfy him that you have not been extravagant?' + +'I must wait till he is satisfied.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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!' + +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. + +'Heard o' that new story 'bout a Dauphin?' he asked. + +'A Dauphin?' quoth Captain Bulsted. 'I don't know the fish.' + +'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?' + +I had not. + +'But I tell ye there is a Dauphin mixed up with him. A Dauphin and Mr. +Ik Dine!' + +'Mr. Ik Dine!' exclaimed the captain, perplexed. + +'Ay, that's German lingo, William, and you ought to know it if you're a +loyal sailor--means "I serve."' + +'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.' + +'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!' + +The ladies retired. The squire continued, in a furious whisper: + +'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!' + +'Ah, well, sir,' Captain Bulsted supplicated feverishly, rubbing his +brows and whiskers. + +'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--' + +'Please to recollect, sir; the old hereditary shall excuse you----' + +'Gout, you mean, William? By----' + +'You are speaking in the presence of his son, sir, and you are trying the +young gentleman's affection for you hard.' + +'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?' + +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. + +'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!' + +Captain Bulsted reached me his hand. 'You have a great deal to bear, +Harry. I commend you, my boy, for taking it manfully.' + +'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!' + +'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.' + +My power of endurance had reached its limit. + +'You tell me, sir, you had this brutal story from the Lord-Lieutenant of +the county?' + +'Ay, from Lord Shale. But I won't have you going to him and betraying +our connection with a--' + +'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.' + +'And you were all the better for it afterwards, William.' + +'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.' + +Julia screamed on beholding us, 'Aren't you two men as pale as death!' + +Janet came and looked. 'Merely a dose,' said the captain. 'We are +anxious to play battledore and shuttlecock madly.' + +'So he shall, the dear!' Julia caressed him. 'We'll all have a +tournament in the wet-weather shed.' + +Janet whispered to me, 'Was it--the Returning Thanks?' + +'The what?' said I, with the dread at my heart of something worse than I +had heard. + +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.' + +What had she seen? She led me out of view of the windows and showed me. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +THE MARQUIS OF EDBURY AND HIS PUPPET + +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, fierte, and +reputed wealth. + +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?'' + +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 'll use Roy's +carriage to fetch and carry for that venomous old woman Kane, I'll +swear.' + +'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. + +'Has her ladyship declared war?' Sir Weeton Slater inquired. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +I thanked the well-meaning gentleman without encouraging him to continue. + +'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. + +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!' + +'Is it the Margravine of Rippau?' I inquired. I could think of no other +waspish old woman. + +'Lady Dane,' 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.' + +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. + +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'sfeet 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?' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +'I think there was a hoarse whisper audible up to the Judge's seat at +intervals,' said Mr. Temple. + +'The Bar cannot confess to obligations from those who don't wear the +robe,' Temple rejoined. + +His father advised me to read for the Bar, as a piece of very good +training. + +I appealed to Temple, whether he thought it possible to read law-books in +a cockboat in a gale of wind. + +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. + +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! + +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! + +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.' + +I replied, looking at him steadily, that I wished I had been there. + +'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.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Insulting you, Richmond!' he cried, much surprised, holding his cigar in +transit. + +'If you insult my father, I make you responsible to me.' + +'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. + +What the deuce have you got into your head? Come in and smoke.' + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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: + +'Oh! come in and have a bottle of claret.' + +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: + +'Are you the Marquis of Edbury, or a drunken groom, sir?' + +"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. + +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.' + +'Groom be hanged!' Edbury retorted. 'I made a bet I'd drive you out of +the Park, old Roy!' + +'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. Bramhaxri 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +I BECOME ONE OF THE CHOSEN OF THE NATION + +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.' + +My father's eyes dwelt on him. 'Are we accused of it?' + +Lika slipped from the question. 'Who is accused of a newspaper's doings? +It is but the denial of a statement.' + +'I dare them to deny it!--and, Lika, my dear fellow, light me a +cigarette,' said my father. + +'Then,' said Lika, touching the flame delicately, 'you take the view that +Kesensky is wrong in another thing besides horses.' + +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. + +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.' + +'Will you avoid Edbury and his like, and protect yourself?' was my form +of stipulation, spoken to counteract his urgency. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +Would such denial have appeared without Ottilia's sanction? + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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. + +'But we must have him,' he said; 'I do not feel myself complete without +Jorian.' + +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 tatter's +pranks; unless, indeed, he borrowed his name to bonds of which I heard +nothing. + +Mademoiselle Chassediane vowed that her own dress was ravishing. She +went attired as a boudoir-shepherdess or demurely-coquettish Sevres-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 mime +ceux de verre comme ornement feminin. Avec de l'embonpoint elles font de +l'effet, mais maigre il n'y a aucune illusion possible.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'It may,' he said. 'Business! Richie.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +It can easily be imagined what description of banter he had to meet and +foil. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +'A cheer for old Roy!' Edbury sang out. + +My father checked the roar, and turned to him. + +'Marquis of Edbury, come to the front!' + +Edbury declined to budge, but the fellows round him edged aside to show +him a mark for my father's finger. + +'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.' + +He paused cruelly for Edbury to open his mouth. The young lord looked +confounded, and from that moment behaved becomingly. + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +MY FATHER IS MIRACULOUSLY RELIEVED BY FORTUNE + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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. + +He drove in manifest relief of mind to Dettermain and Newson's. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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.' + +When I begged him to excuse my absurdity, he replied: + +'It's full of promise, so long as you're silent.' + +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! + +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. + +'I'll be there, too, some day,' he said, moaning at the prospect of an +extreme age before such honours would befall him. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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!' + +'Paid?' said I. + +She was afraid to be precise, but repeated that they were long since +gone. + +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.' + +I questioned him again. + +'Oh, dear, yes; there can't be a doubt about it,' he answered, airily. +'Roy Richmond has won his game.' + +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. + +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.' + +I insisted: 'But how, and in what manner has this money been paid?' The +idea struck me that he had succeeded in borrowing it. + +'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. + +'I proceed. The money is useful to you, so I rejoice at it.' + +Five and twenty thousand pounds was the amount. + +'No stipulation was attached to it?' + +'None. Of course a stipulation was implied: but of that I am not bound +to be cognizant.' + +'Absurd!' I cried: 'it can't have come from the quarter you suspect.' + +'Where else?' he asked. + +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. + +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. + +'You hand the money over to me, sir?' I said. + +'Without a moment of hesitation, my dear boy,' he melted me by answering. + +'You believe you have received a bribe?' + +'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.' + +'But what was the stipulation you presume was implied?' said I. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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.' + +So here was the dawn again. + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Bandied the weariful shuttlecock of gallantry +Determine that the future is in our debt, and draw on it +Faith works miracles. At least it allows time for them +He whipped himself up to one of his oratorical frenzies +I was discontented, and could not speak my discontent +No Act to compel a man to deny what appears in the papers +Puns are the smallpox of the language +Stultification of one's feelings and ideas +They dare not. The more I dare, the less dare they +Too prompt, too full of personal relish of his point + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v6 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 7. + +XLV. WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE . +XLVI. AMONG GIPSY WOMEN +XLVII. MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN +XLVIII. THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED +XLIX. WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING +L. WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET +LI. AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE + +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. + +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's 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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +AMONG GIPSY WOMEN + +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. + +The excruciated patient was having his wet bandages folded across his +bruises, and could not bear a motion of the mind. + +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. + +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 greyishblack 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 mufed 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. + +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. + +'Kiomi!' + +'Now, you be quiet.' + +'Can I stand up a minute or two?' + +'No, and you won't talk.' + +I submitted. This was our duel all day: she slipped from me only twice, +and when she did the girl took her place. + +I began to think of Bulsted and Riversley. + +'Kiomi, how long have I been here?' + +'You 'll be twice as long as you've been.' + +'A couple of days?' + +'More like a dozen.' + +'Just tell me what happened.' + +'Ghm-m-m,' she growled admonishingly. + +Reflecting on it, I felt sure there must have been searching parties over +the heath. + +'Kiomi, I say, how was it they missed me?' + +She struck at once on my thought. + +'They're fools.' + +'How did you cheat them?' + +'I didn't tie a handkercher across their eyes.' + +'You half smothered me once, in the combe.' + +'You go to sleep.' + +'Have you been doctor?' + +The growling tigerish 'Ghm-m-m' constrained me to take it for a lullaby. + +'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. + +'I 'll put you down and be off,' she threatened. + +'Brute of a girl! I hate you!' + +'Hate away.' + +'Tell me who found me.' + +'I shan't. You shut your peepers.' + +The other and younger girl sung out: 'I found you.' + +Kiomi sent a volley at her. + +'I did,' said the girl; 'yes, and I nursed you first, I did; and mother +doctored you. Kiomi hasn't been here a day.' + +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.' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +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. + +I sang out truce to them; they racked me with laughter; and such +laughter!--the shaking of husks in a half-empty sack. + +Ultimately, on a sudden cessation of the storm of tongues, they agreed +that I must have my broth. + +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? + +Kiomi's arms tightened over my breast. The involuntary pressure was like +an illumination to me. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'He!' cried Kiomi. + +'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. + +It is their tribute to civilization, which generally keeps them within +the laws. + +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. + +'You're feeling your nose--you've been looking at a glass!' Kiomi said, +with supernatural swiftness of deduction on her return. + +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. + +This was the picture of the woman who could not weep in her misery. + +'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. + +There was no consolation for her. + +The girl Eveleen came in sight, loitering and looking, kicking her idle +heels. + +Kiomi turned sharp round to me. + +'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. + +'What was that you said to Kiomi?' I questioned Eveleen, who was quickly +beside me. + +She replied, accurately or not: 'I told her our men'd give her as good as +she gave me, let her wait and see.' + +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. + +'Tell your men I'll hunt them down like rats if I hear of it,' said I. + +While we were conversing my father arrived. Eveleen, not knowing him, +would have had me accept the friendly covering of a mat. + +'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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'These people have been kind to you?' he said. + +'No, the biggest brutes on the earth,' said I. + +'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. + +My father beckoned to her and thanked her appreciably in the yellow +tongue. + +'So these scoundrels of the high road fell upon you and robbed you, +Richie?' + +I nodded. + +'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.' + +The mystery of my not having sent word to Bulsted or to Riversley +perplexed my father. + +'Comfortable here!' he echoed me, disconsolately, and glanced at the +heath, the tent, the black circle of the broth-pot, and the wild girl. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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 Slaterhe 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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +'I petitioned for privacy here!' exclaimed my father. It accounted for +the mystery. + +Temple knew my feelings, and did but glance at me. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +I made light of it. 'No: a tumble.' + +'You look pale,' she said quickly. + +'That's from grieving at the loss of my beauty, Miss Goodwin.' + +'Have you really not been seriously ill?' she asked with an astonishing +eagerness. + +I told her mock-loftily that I did not believe in serious illnesses +coming to godlike youth, and plied her in turn with inquiries. + +'You have not been laid up in bed?' she persisted. + +'No, on my honour, not in bed.' + +'Then,' said she, 'I would give much to be able to stop that boat.' + +She amazed me. 'Why?' + +'Because it's going on a bad errand,' she replied. + +'Miss Goodwin, you perplex me. My father has started in that boat.' + +'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.' + +'My aunt and Miss Ilchester?' + +'No.' + +'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?' + +'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.' + +We walked the whole length of the pier, chatting of our former meetings. + +'Not here,' she said, as soon as I began to question. + +I was led farther on, half expecting that the accessories of time and +place would have to do with the revelation. + +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?' + +She had me as completely at her mercy in this detestable shop as if I had +been in a witness-box. + +'Feigned!' I exclaimed. + +'That is no answer. And pray remember where you are.' + +'No, the illness was not feigned.' + +'And you have not made the most of it?' + +'What an extraordinary thing to say!' + +'That is no answer. And please do not imagine yourself under the +necessity of acting every sentiment of your heart before these people.' + +She favoured a shopman with half-a-dozen directions. + +'My answer is, then, that I have not made the most of it,' I said. + +'Not even by proxy?' + +'Once more I'm adrift.' + +'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?' + +'Yes. What's the meaning of proxy?' + +'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. + +Must your voice escape control exactly at the indicatory words? Do you +think your father made the most of it?' + +'Of my illness? Oh! yes; the utmost. I should undoubtedly think so. +That's his way.' + +'Why did you permit it?' + +'I was what they call "wandering" half the time. Besides, who could keep +him in check? I rarely know what he is doing.' + +'You don't know what he wrote?' + +'Wrote?' + +'That you were dying.' + +'Of me? To whom?' + +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.' + +'You have bought nothing,' I remarked. + +'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. + +I had, utterly; but not her maiden name of Sibley. + +'Miss Goodwin, is she one of those who are coming to the island?' + +'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--' + +'Don't be unjust,' said I. + +'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.' + +'It has gone! And tell me the name of the other.' + +'Frau von Dittmarsch has a husband.' + +'Not with her now. Oh! cruel! speak: her name?' + +'Her name, Harry?' Her title is Countess von Delzenburg.' + +'Not princess?' + +'Not in England.' + +Then Ottilia was here! + +My father was indeed a magician! + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +THE PRINCESS ENTRAPPED + +'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. + +'The Princess Ottilia, Miss Goodwin?' + +'The Countess of Delzenburg, Harry.' + +'To see me? She has come!' + +'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.' + +'She comes thinking me ill?' + +'Dying.' + +'I'm as strong as ever I was.' + +'I should imagine you are, only rather pale.' + +'Have you, tell me, Clara, seen her yourself? Is she well?' + +'Pale: not unwell: anxious.' + +'About me?' + +'It may be about the political affairs of the Continent; they are +disturbed.' + +'She spoke of me?' + +'Yes.' + +'She is coming by the next boat?' + +'It's my fear that she is.' + +'Why do you fear?' + +'Shall I answer you, Harry? It is useless now. Well, because she has +been deceived. That is why. You will soon find it out.' + +'Prince Ernest is at Sarkeld?' + +'In Paris, I hear.' + +'How will your despatch reach these ladies in time for them to come over +by the next boat?' + +'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.' + +'You won't leave me?' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Yes,' Miss Goodwin assented: 'if you like, Harry.' + +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. + +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. + +'Will you not look at us, Harry?' they both said. + +The passengers were quitting the boat, strangers every one. + +'Harry, have we really offended you in coming?' said Janet. + +My aunt Dorothy took the blame on herself. + +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. + +'We may break the rules, you see,' I said to her. + +'We saw him landing on the other side of the water,' she replied; so +spontaneously did the circumstance turn her thoughts on my father. + +'Did you speak to him?' + +'No.' + +'You avoided him?' + +'Aunty and I thought it best. He landed . . . there was a crowd.' + +Miss Goodwin interposed: 'You go to Harry's hotel?' + +'Grandada is coming down to-morrow or next day,' Janet prompted my aunt +Dorothy. + +'If we could seek for a furnished house; Uberly would watch the luggage,' +Dorothy murmured in distress. + +'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.' + +'No wonder he was disappointed at seeing us--he was expecting them!' said +Janet, smiling a little. + +'They are sure to come,' said Miss Goodwin. + +Near us a couple of yachtsmen were conversing. + +'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.' + +'What the deuce did he want with a Jew?' cried the other. + +'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.' + +The unconscious slaughterers laughed. + +'On another occasion'--I heard it said by the first speaker, as they +swung round to parade the pier, and passed on narrating. + +'Not an hotel, if it is possible to avoid it,' my aunt Dorothy, with +heightened colour, urged Miss Goodwin. They talked together. + +'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?' + +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. + +'Schwartz!' I called. Janet started, imagining some fierce interjection. +The giant did not stir. + +But others had heard. A lady stepped forward. 'Dear Mr. Harry Richmond! +Then you are better? We had most alarming news of you.' + +I bowed to the Frau von Dittmarsch, anciently Miss Sibley. + +'The princess?' + +'She is here.' + +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. + +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. + +'They went over in a little boat, they were so impatient. Who is she?' +Dorothy Beltham asked. + +'The Princess Ottilia,' said Janet. + +'Are you certain? Is it really, Harry?' + +I confirmed it, and my aunt said, 'I should have guessed it could be no +other; she has a foreign grace.' + +'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.' + +Dorothy Beltham thought the water too rough for little boats. + +'She knows what a sea is,' I said. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Would it be commonly sensible or civil, to refuse to see me, having +come?' + +Miss Goodwin doubted. + +I could indicate forcibly, because I felt, the clear-judging brain and +tempered self-command whereby Ottilia had gained her decision. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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! + +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. + +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. + +'I 'm glad to be with her,' Janet said of Ottilia. + +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. + +I mentioned to Janet that I feared my father would be returning. + +She contained herself with a bridled 'Oh!' + +We were of one mind as to the necessity for keeping him absent, if +possible. + +'Harry, you'll pardon me; I can't talk of him,' said she. + +I proposed half-earnestly to foil his return by going to London at once. + +'That's manly; that's nice of you,' Janet said. + +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.' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING + +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.' + +'How's the great-grandmother of the tribe?' said I. + +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. + +'Ay, to be sure! a grand old soul,' he said. 'You know that scum of +old, Harry.' + +I laughed, and so did he, at which I laughed the louder. + +'He laughs, I suppose, because his party's got a majority in the House,' +said the squire. + +'We gave you a handsome surplus this year, sir.' + +'Sweated out of the country's skin and bone, ay!' + +'You were complimented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.! + +'Yes, that fellow's compliments are like a cabman's, and cry fool:--he +never thanks you but when he's overpaid.' + +Captain Bulsted applauded the sarcasm. + +'Why did you keep out of knowledge all this time, Hal?' my grandfather +asked. + +I referred him to the captain. + +'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.' + +'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. + +My grandfather resumed his complaint: 'You might have gone clean off, and +we none the wiser.' + +'Are we quite sure that his head's clean on?' said the mystified captain. + +'Of course we should run to him, wherever he was, if he was down on his +back,' the squire muttered. + +'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.' + +I raised the little finger. + +'Oh, oh,' went he, happily reassured; but, reflecting, added: 'A bout of +it?' + +I dropped him a penitent nod. + +'That's bad, though,' said he. + +'Then why did you tip me a bottle of rum, Captain William?' + +'By George, Harry, you've had a crack o' the sconce,' he exclaimed, more +sagaciously than he was aware of. + +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. + +He turned to me while giving directions to his man. + +'You 've got him down there, I suppose?' + +'My father's in town, sir. He shall keep away,' I said. + +'Humph! I mayn't object to see him.' + +This set me thinking. + +Captain Bulsted--previously asking me in a very earnest manner whether I +was really all right and sound--favoured me with a hint: + +'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.' + +'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. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +A letter from Heriot informed me that the affair between Edbury and me +was settled: he could not comprehend how. + +'What is this new Jury of Honour? Who are the jurymen?' he asked, and +affected wit. + +I thanked him for a thrashing in a curt reply. + +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!' + +A loud knock at the door had brought on the poor creature's palpitations. + +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. + +Hearing that I was in the house, he desired to see me. + +We met, with a formal bow. + +'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?' + +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. + +'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?' + +'On the day of her arrival, your Highness. Ladies of my family are +staying on the island.' + +'Ah?' + +He paused, and invited me to bow to him. We bowed thus in the room, in +the hall, and at the street-door. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'Oh, go, if you like,' the fretted old man dismissed me: + +'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.' + +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. + +Temple was left to hear the rest. He had the sweetest of modest wishes +for a re-introduction to Ottilia. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Then ensued for her the successive shocks of discernment. She knew the +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. + +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. + +'Prince Ernest has arrived?' + +'My father came yesterday evening.' + +'Do you leave to-day?' + +'I cannot tell; he will decide.' + +It seemed a good omen, until I scanned Janet's sombre face. + +'You will not see us out for the rest of the day, Harry,' said she. + +'That is your arrangement?' + +'It is.' + +'Your own?' + +'Mine, if you like.' + +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. + +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. + +'Now, Harry, you had better go and have a little sleep. I should like to +speak to you early.' + +Ottilia immediately put her hand out to me. + +I begged permission to see her to her door. + +Janet replied for her, indicating old Schwartz: 'We have a protector, you +see, six feet and a half.' + +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.' + +'Is the prince going to stay here?' I asked. + +'No. I daresay I am only guessing; I hope so. He has threatened the +prince.' + +'What with?' + +'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!' + +'But who's to hear of the story?' said I. + +Janet gave an impatient sigh. + +'Do you mean that my father has threatened to publish it, Janet?' + +'I won't say he has. He has made the prince afraid to move: that I think +is true.' + +'Did the princess herself mention it to you?' + +'She understands her situation, I am sure.' + +'Did she speak of "the man," as you call him?' + +'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!' + +'You would muzzle us?' + +'Muzzle, or anything you please; I would make any one related to me +behave honourably. I would give him the alternative . . .' + +'You foolish girl! suppose he took it?' + +'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!' + +'Where is he?' + +'At the house where you sleep. He surrendered his rooms here very +kindly.' + +'Aunty has seen him?' + +Janet blushed: I thought I knew why. It was for subtler reasons than I +should have credited her with conceiving. + +'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.' + +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. + +'Come to us when you are at liberty,' she called. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +'The prince is a gentleman,' she said. + +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.' + +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.' + +'Is he quite against Harry?' asked my aunt Dorothy. + +'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.' + +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. + +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: + +'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. + +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. + +'Has grandada been ill?' she exclaimed. + +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. + +My father, advancing, perceived me, and almost taking the squire into his +affectionate salutation, said: + +'Nothing could be more opportune than your arrival, Mr. Beltham.' + +The squire rejoined: 'I wanted to see you, Mr. Richmond; and not in +public.' + +'I grant the private interview, sir, at your convenience.' + +Janet went up to General Goodwin. My father talked to me, and lost a +moment in shaking Temple's hand and saying kind things. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +'Let's have no theatrical talk,' I interposed. + +'Certainly, Richie; the plainest English,' he assented. + +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. + +'Dry bread will do,' he said. + +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.' + +'How?' I inquired. + +'How, Richie? Where is your perspicuity? I have him here. I loosen a +thousand tongues on him. I--' + +'No, not on him; on the princess, you mean.' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +I cried out, as much enraged at my feebleness to resist him, as in +disgust of his unscrupulous tricks. + +'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.' + +'She will not be. You have wrecked my last chance. You cover me with +dishonour.' + +'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!' + +'Through you, through you!--through my father!' + +'Have you both gone mad?' + +'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 . . .' + +He interrupted. 'Totally the contrary. The prince acknowledges that you +are master of her affections.' + +'Consistently with her sense of honour and respect for us.' + +'Tell me of her reputation, Richie.' + +'You pretend that you can damage it!' + +'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.' + +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.' + +It was impossible for me to allow it. I stopped him. + +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. + +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.' + +'You did, General,' I confessed. 'Will you tell me what it is Prince +Ernest is in dread of?' + +'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.' + +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. + +'I have had the honour,' he replied, stiffly. 'You gain nothing with her +by this infamous proceeding.' + +I swallowed my anger, and said, 'Do you accuse me, General?' + +'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 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.' + +The General shook himself erect. 'Are you unable to keep him in?' he +asked. + +My nerves were pricking and stinging with the insults I had to listen to, +and conscience's justification of them. + +He repeated the question. + +'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. + +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.' + +His way of speaking of the princess opened an idea of the world's, in the +event of her name falling into its clutches. + +I said again, 'I will do what I can,' and sang out for Temple. + +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. + +'That will suit grandada,' Janet said. 'He commissioned me before going +to bed to write the same for him.' + +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. + +'Is not that her wish?' said Temple; perhaps with a wish of his own. + +'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. + +We appointed the next morning at half-past eleven for my father's visit. + +'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.' + +I asked her whether she had any knowledge of the squire's designs. + +'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.' + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +'Deny you love her, deny she loves you, deny you are one--I knot you +fast!' + +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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +'Loose!' he exclaimed, throwing up an arm and a leg. + +'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.' + +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.' + +I listened with a throbbing forehead, and controlled the choking in my +throat, to ask him whether he had touched the newspapers. + +'Ay, dear lad, I have sprung my mine in them,' he replied. + +'You have sent word--?' + +'I have despatched a paragraph to the effect, that the prince and +princess have arrived to ratify the nuptial preliminaries.' + +'You expect it to appear this day?' + +'Or else my name and influence are curiously at variance with the +confidence I repose in them, Richie.' + +'Then I leave you to yourself,' I said. 'Prince Ernest knows he has to +expect this statement in the papers?' + +'We trumped him with that identical court-card, Richie.' + +'Very well. To-morrow, after we have been to my grandfather, you and I +part company for good, sir. It costs me too much.' + +'Dear old Richie,' he laughed, gently. 'And now to bye-bye! My blessing +on you now and always.' + +He shut his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +AN ENCOUNTER SHOWING MY FATHER'S GENIUS IN A STRONG LIGHT + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'Didn't I tell you he called at your house in London and travelled down +with me this morning!' said Eckart. + +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. + +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. + +I asked her if she knew the object of the meeting appointed by my +grandfather. + +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.' + +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. + +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?' + +'No,' said Janet; 'I have never even seen one' + +'That high.' My father raised his hand flat. + +'Bigger than our Newfoundlands!' + +'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.' + +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. + +'In Germany,' he said. + +It was not improbable, nor less so that the dog was in Pomerania +likewise. + +The entry of my aunt Dorothy, followed by my grandfather, was silent. + +'Be seated,' the old man addressed us in a body, to cut short particular +salutations. + +My father overshadowed him with drooping shoulders. + +Janet wished to know whether she was to remain. + +'I like you by me always,' he answered, bluff and sharp. + +'We have some shopping to do,' my aunt Dorothy murmured, showing she was +there against her will. + +'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. + +My grandfather sat quite still, Janet next to him. 'When you've +finished, Mr. Richmond,' he remarked. + +'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.' + +There was a clearing of throats. My aunt Dorothy's foot tapped the +floor. + +'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. + +'I have, sir,' the squire replied. + +'And I also have a point. And, in fact, it is urgent, and with your +permission, Mr. Beltham, I will lead the way.' + +'No, sir, if you please. + +I'm a short speaker, and go to it at once, and I won't detain you a +second after you've answered me.' + +My father nodded to this, with the conciliatory comment that it was +business-like. + +The old man drew out his pocket-book. + +'You paid a debt,' he said deliberately, 'amounting to twenty-one +thousand pounds to my grandson's account.' + +'Oh! a debt! I did, sir. Between father and boy, dad and lad; debts! +. . . but use your own terms, I pray you.' + +' I don't ask you where that money is now. I ask you to tell me where +you got it from.' + +'You speak bluntly, my dear sir.' + +'You won't answer, then?' + +'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.' + +'Then you don't know where you got it from, sir?' + +'Technically, you are correct, sir.' + +'A bird didn't bring it, and you didn't find it in the belly of a fish.' + +'Neither of these prodigies. They have occurred in books I am bound to +believe; they did not happen to me.' + +'You swear to me you don't know the man, woman, or committee, who gave +you that sum?' + +'I do not know, Mr. Beltham. In an extraordinary history, extraordinary +circumstances! I have experienced so many that I am surprised at +nothing.' + +'You suppose you got it from some fool?' + +'Oh! if you choose to indict Government collectively?' + +'You pretend you got it from Government?' + +'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.' + +Janet shook her dress. + +The squire replied: 'We 'll take that up presently. I haven't quite +done. Will you tell me what agent paid you the sum of money?' + +'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.' + +'You took him for an agent of Government, did you? why?' + +'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.' + +My aunt Dorothy looked up for the first time. + +'Janet and I have some purchases to make,' she said. + +The squire signified sharply that she must remain where she was. + +'I think aunty wants fresh air; she had a headache last night,' said +Janet. + +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. + +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. + +'Ha! I am,' quoth he. + +'Dear Miss Beltham !' my father ejaculated solicitously. '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?' + +'His name was Bannerbridge, Mr. Beltham.' + +'Dorothy, you knew a Mr. Bannerbridge?' + +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.' + +'What was his Christian name?' + +I gave them: 'Charles Adolphus.' + +'The identical person!' exclaimed my father. + +'Oh! you admit it,' said the squire. 'Ever seen him since the time +Harry was lost, Dorothy?' + +'Yes,' she answered. 'I have heard he is dead: + +'Did you see him shortly before his death?' + +'I happened to see him a short time before.! + +'He was your man of business, was he?' + +'For such little business as I had to do.' + +'You were sure you could trust him, eh?' + +'Yes.' + +My aunt Dorothy breathed deeply. + +'By God, ma'am, you're a truthful woman!' + +The old man gave her a glare of admiration. + +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. + +'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?' + +I spoke of my attempts to discover the whence and wherefore of it. + +'Government? eh?' he sneered. + +'I really can't judge whether it came from that quarter,' said I. + +'What do you think?--think it likely?' + +I thought it unlikely, and yet likelier than that it should have come +from an individual. + +'Then you don't suspect any particular person of having sent it in the +nick of time, Harry Richmond?' + +I replied: 'No, sir; unless you force me to suspect you.' + +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. + +I had but the reason to instance that he was rich and kind at heart. + +'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!' + +There was a dreadful silence. + +My father leaned persuasively forward. + +'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--' + +'Out with it, Harry,' shouted the squire. + +'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--' + +'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.' + +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.' + +'In two months' time, the money in the Funds in the boy's name--you told +me that.' + +'You had it in the Funds in Harry Richmond's name, sir.' + +'Well, sir, I'm asking him whether it's in the Funds now.' + +'Oh! Mr. Beltham.' + +'What answer's that?' + +The squire was really confused by my father's interruption, and lost +sight of me. + +'I ask where it came from: I ask whether it's squandered?' he continued. + +'Mr. Beltham, I reply that you have only to ask for it to have it; do so +immediately.' + +'What 's he saying?' cried the baffled old man. + +'I give you a thousand times the equivalent of the money, Mr. Beltham.' + +'Is the money there?' + +'The lady is here.' + +'I said money, sir.' + +'A priceless honour and treasure, I say emphatically.' My grandfather's +brows and mouth were gathering for storm. Janet touched his knee. + +'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!' + +'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.' + +'In Balls, and dinners!' + +'In everything that builds a young gentleman's repute.' + +'You swear to me you gave your Balls and dinners, and the lot, for Harry +Richmond's sake?' + +'On my veracity, I did, sir!' + +'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.' + +My father beamed on him. + +'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.' + +My grandfather eased his heart with a plunging breath. + +'Well, sir, I didn't ask you here for your opinion or your friend's, and +I don't care for modern wit.' + +'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.' + +'Well, sir, I don't want to hear your comparisons,' growled the squire, +much oppressed. 'Stop a minute . . .' + +'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. + +My aunt Dorothy moved her head slightly toward my father, looking on the +floor, and he at once drew in. + +'Mr. Beltham, I attend to you submissively.' + +'You do? Then tell me what brought this princess to England?' + +'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.' + +'You wrote her a letter.' + +'That, containing the news of the attack on him and his desperate +illness, was the finishing touch to the noble lady's passion.' + +'Attack? I know nothing about an attack. You wrote her a letter and +wrote her a lie. You said he was dying.' + +'I had the boy inanimate on my breast when I despatched the epistle.' + +'You said he had only a few days to live.' + +'So in my affliction I feared.' + +'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?' + +My father raised his head proudly. + +'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.' + +'You've done it, though.' + +'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?' + +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.' + +'You hear that, Mr. Richmond?' cried the squire. + +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.' + +She uttered: 'No.' + +I looked at her; she at me. + +'You can conduct a case, Richmond,' the squire remarked. + +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.' + +'I do not believe it,' said Janet, rising. + +My aunt Dorothy followed her example, saying: 'In justice to Harry the +proposal should be made. At least it will settle this dispute.' + +Janet stared at her, and the squire threw his head back with an amazed +interjection. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +She spoke feverishly, with an unsweet expression of face, that seemed to +me to indicate vexedness at the squire's treatment of my father. + +'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.' + +Janet stooped to whisper in the squire's ear. + +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.' + +Janet laughed faintly. + +'I should advise your going, grandada.' + +'You a weathercock woman!' he reproached her, quite mystified, and fell +to rubbing his head. 'Suppose I go to be snubbed?' + +'The prince is a gentleman, grandada. Come with me. We will go alone. +You can relieve the prince, and protect him.' + +My father nodded: 'I approve.' + +'And grandada--but it will not so much matter if we are alone, though,' +Janet said. + +'Speak out.' + +'See the princess as well; she must be present.' + +'I leave it to you,' he said, crestfallen. + +Janet pressed my aunt Dorothy's hand. + +'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.' + +My aunt Dorothy accepted the eulogy with a singular trembling wrinkle of +the forehead. + +She evidently understood that Janet had seen her wish to get released. + +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. + +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. + +'Exactly,' interposed my father, triumphing. + +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?' + +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.' + +'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.' + +She was obliged to smile to excuse his interruption. + +'What's that? whose band?' said the squire, bursting out of Janet's +hand. 'A private band?' + +Janet had a difficulty in resuming her command of him. The mention of +the private band made him very restive. + +'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.' + +He sang out to me: 'Harry, do you want me to go through this form for +you?--mn'd unpleasant!' + +My aunt Dorothy whispered in my ear: 'Yes! yes!' + +'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. + +'I'm off my head to-day,' he said to Janet, with a sideshot of his eye at +my father. + +'You waste time and trouble, grandada,' said she. + +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. + +'This prince!' he kept ejaculating. + +'Won't you understand, grandada, that you relieve him, and make things +clear by going?' Janet said. + +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. + +'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?' + +He glanced at Janet. She nodded. + +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. + +'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?' + +'Does Prince Hermann of--I can't pronounce the name of the place--speak +English, Harry?' Janet asked me. + +'As well as you or I,' said I, losing my inattention all at once with a +mad leap of the heart. + +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. + +My father had no doubts. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'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 . . .' + +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. + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +All passed too swift for happiness +He clearly could not learn from misfortune +Intimations of cowardice menacing a paralysis of the will +Like a woman, who would and would not, and wanted a master +One in a temper at a time I'm sure 's enough +Simple affection must bear the strain of friendship if it can +Stand not in my way, nor follow me too far +Tension of the old links keeping us together +The thought stood in her eyes +They have not to speak to exhibit their minds +Tight grasps of the hand, in which there was warmth and shyness +To the rest of the world he was a progressive comedy +Was I true? Not so very false, yet how far from truth! +Who so intoxicated as the convalescent catching at health? + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v7 +by George Meredith + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 8. + +LII. STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST +LIII. THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING +LIV. MY RETURN TO ENGLAND +LV. I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT +LVI. CONCLUSION + + + +CHAPTER LII + +STRANGE REVELATIONS, AND MY GRANDFATHER HAS HIS LAST OUTBURST + +My father and I stood at different windows, observing the unconcerned +people below. + +'Did you scheme to bring Prince Hermann over here as well?' I asked him. + +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.' + +'Supposing I refuse?' + +'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!' + +I was invited to sympathetic smiles of shrewd amusement. + +He caught sight of friends, and threw up the window, saluting them. + +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.' + +'I forgot, sir, temporarily,' said my father, 'I had vacated the rooms +for your convenience--be assured.' + +An explanation on the subject of the rooms ensued between the old man and +the ladies;--it did not improve his temper. + +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.' + +'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.' + +'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?' + +'Not all, sir,' I was able to say. + +'Half?' + +'Yes, I think so.' + +'Three parts?' + +'It may be.' + +'And liabilities besides?' + +'There are some.' + +'You're not a liar. That'll do for you.' + +He turned to my aunt: her eyes had shut. + +'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. + +'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!' + +The egregious mildness of these interjections could not long be +preserved. + +'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.' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +The squire said something of Government to my aunt Dorothy, with +sarcastical emphasis. + +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.' + +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.' + +Janet gazed in the direction of my father, carefully avoiding my eyes, +but evidently anxious to shield my persecuted aunty. + +'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.' + +He appealed lightly to the squire, for thus he danced on the crater's +brink, and had for answer, + +'You're a cool scoundrel, Richmond.' + +'I choose to respect you, rather in spite of yourself, I fear, sir,' said +my father, bracing up. + +'Did you hear my conversation with my daughter?' + +'I heard, if I may say so, the lion taking his share of it.' + +'All roaring to you, was it?' + +'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.' + +'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. + +'Grandada, aunty and I will leave you,' said Janet, waxing importunate. + +'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.' + +'Out of--' + +'Out of be damned, sir! She's the person who paid it.' + +'If the "damns" have set up, you may as well let the ladies go,' said I. + +He snapped at me like a rabid dog in career. + +'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!' + +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. + +'Address my daughter respectfully, sir, will you! I won't have your +infernal familiarities!' roared the squire. + +'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.' + +'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.' + +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. + +'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--' + +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?' + +My aunt Dorothy had come round to me. She clutched my arm to restrain me +from speaking, whispering: + +'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. + +'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--' + +'How long?' the squire interrupted. + +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. + +'There's no necessity for "how long,"' I said. + +The old man kept the question on his face. + +My father reflected. + +'I have to hit my memory, I am shattered, sir. I say, you would be +justified, amply justified--' + +'How long?' was reiterated. + +'I can at least date it from the period of my marriage.' + +'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!' + +'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----' + +'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?' + +'Annual proof was afforded me, sir.' + +'Oh! annual! through Mr. Charles Adolphus Bannerbridge, deceased!' + +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: + +'Harry, do you suspect Government paid that annuity?' + +'Not now, certainly.' + +'Tell the man who 'tis you suspect.' + +My aunt Dorothy said: 'Harry is not bound to mention his suspicions.' + +'Tell him yourself, then.' + +'Does it matter--?' + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +'I can't leave my father,' I said. + +'Nor I you, dear,' said the tender woman; and so we remained to be +scourged by this tongue of incarnate rage. + +'You pensioner of a silly country spinster!' sounded like a return to +mildness. My father's chest heaved up. + +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. + +'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.' + +He paused, but his inordinate passion of speech was unsated: his white +lips hung loose for another eruption. + +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.' + +'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--' + +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.' + +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.' + +'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?' + +'I hoped to help my Harry.' + +'Why didn't you do it openly?' + +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.' + +Had she disliked the idea of my father's marrying? + +The old man pounced on the word sacrifice. 'What sacrifice, ma'am? +What's the sacrifice?' + +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.' + +'Harry!' either my aunt or Janet breathed a warning. + +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. + +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. + +Upon this he awoke from his dreamy-looking stupefaction. + +'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.' + +'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. + +I begged him in exasperation to keep his similes to himself. + +Janet and my aunt Dorothy raised their voices. + +My father said: 'I am broken.' + +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. + +'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.' + +'I never did; I never will; I pitied you,' she cried, sobbing. + +The squire stamped his foot. + +'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.' + +My grandfather had been clearing his throat two or three times. + +'I 'm ready to finish and get rid of you, Richmond.' + +My father bowed. + +'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.' + +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. + +'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.' + +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. + +My grandfather chose the moment as a fitting one to ask me for the last +time to take my side. + +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. + +He just as quietly rejoined with a recommendation to me to divorce myself +for good and all from a scoundrel. + +I took my father's arm: he was not in a state to move away unsupported. + +My aunt Dorothy stood weeping; Janet was at the window, no friend to +either of us. + +I said to her, 'You have your wish.' + +She shook her head, but did not look back. + +My grandfather watched me, step by step, until I had reached the door. + +'You're going, are you?' he said. 'Then I whistle you off my fingers!' + +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. + +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: + +'Waddy shall have her monument!' + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +THE HEIRESS PROVES THAT SHE INHERITS THE FEUD AND I GO DRIFTING + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +As heretofore! in a letter from a young woman supposed to nourish a +softness! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'No,' said Dorothy; 'it is the money that makes her position so +difficult, unless you break the ice.' + +I urged that having steadily refused her before, I could hardly advance +without some invitation now. + +'What invitation?' said my aunt. + +'Not a corpse-like consent,' said I. + +'Harry,' she twitted me, 'you have not forgiven her.' That was true. + +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. + +'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. + +It became known that my father was at Bulsted. + +I saw trouble one morning on Janet's forehead. + +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?' + +'You won't offend me,' said I. + +She hoped not. + +I rallied her: 'Tut, tut, you talk like any twelve-years-old, Janet.' + +'I offended you then!' + +'Every day! it's all that I care much to remember.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'Richie, I am interdicted house and grounds!' he called, and waved his +hand toward the lodge: 'they decline to open to me.' + +'Were you denied admission?' I asked him. + +'--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.' + +'Those must be the squire's old orders,' I said, and shouted to the +lodge-keeper. + +My father, with the forethoughtfulness which never forsook him, stopped +me. + +'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.' + +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. + +He leaned on me, quaking. + +'Impossible! Richie, impossible!' he cried, and reviewed a series of +interjections. + +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. + +My father was refused admission at the hall-doors. + +The butler, the brute Sillabin, withstood me impassively. + +Whose orders had he? + +Miss Ilchester's. + +'They are afraid of me!' my father thundered. + +I sent a message to Janet. + +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. + +Janet dismissed the men-servants. She was quite colourless. + +'We have been stopped in the doorway,' I said. + +She answered: 'I wish it could have been prevented.' + +'You take it on yourself, then?' + +She was inaudible. + +'My dear Janet, you call Riversley my home, don't you?' + +'It is yours.' + +'Do you intend to keep up this hateful feud now my grandfather is dead?' + +'No, Harry, not I.' + +'Did you give orders to stop my father from entering the house and +grounds?' + +'I did.' + +'You won't have him here?' + +'Dear Harry, I hoped he would not come just yet.' + +'But you gave the orders?' + +'Yes.' + +'You're rather incomprehensible, my dear Janet.' + +'I wish you could understand me, Harry.' + +'You arm your servants against him!' + +'In a few days--' she faltered. + +'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.' + +'I am. I wish I were not.' + +'You are mistress of Riversley, and you refuse to let my father come in!' + +'While I am the mistress, yes.' + +'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.' + +'I request you to let him enter the house. Do you consent or not?' + +'He was refused once at these doors. Do you refuse him a second time?' + +'I do.' + +'You mean that?' + +'I am obliged to.' + +'You won't yield a step to me?' + +'I cannot.' + +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. + +Of course I was not so dense as to be unable to perceive her grounds for +refusing. + +She would not throw the burden on her grandada, even to propitiate me-- +the man she still loved. + +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. + +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. + +She broke the first pause to say, 'It's useless, Harry. I do what I +think I am bound to do.' + +'Then I have spoken to no purpose!' + +'If you will only be kind, and wait two or three days?' + +'Be sensible!' + +'I am, as much as I can be.' + +'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?' + +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. + +'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.' + +Janet gazed piteously from him to me. + +To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common. + +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. + +'Has he been ill?' Janet asked. + +'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?' + +'Yes, Riversley, Harry; I knew that; I knew nothing else.' + +'The old place was left to you that you might bar my father out?' + +'I gave my word.' + +'You pledged it--swore?' + +'No.' + +'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?' + +Janet answered softly: 'I believe so.' + +'Then, good-bye,' said I. + +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. + +'Will you go, Harry? Will you not take Riversley?' she said. + +I laughed. + +'To spare you the repetition of the dilemma?' + +'No, Harry; but this might be done.' + +'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.' + +'Grandada's wishes! I cannot carry out all his wishes,' she sighed. + +'Are you anxious to?' + +We were on the delicate ground, as her crimson face revealed to me that +she knew as well as I. + +I, however, had little delicacy in leading her on it. She might well +feel that she deserved some wooing. + +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. + +She replied calmly, 'Not immediately.' + +'You are not immediately anxious to fulfil his wishes?' + +'Harry, I find it hard to do those that are thrust on me.' + +'But, as a matter of serious obligation, you would hold yourself bound by +and by to perform them all?' + +'I cannot speak any further of my willingness, Harry.' + +'The sense of duty is evidently always sufficient to make you act upon +the negative--to deny, at least?' + +'Yes, I daresay,' said Janet. + +We shook hands like a pair of commercial men. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +The letter ended with an adieu, a petition for an answer, and ' yours +affectionately.' + +On the day of its date, a Viennese newspaper lying on the Salzburg Hotel +table chronicled Ottilia's marriage with Prince Hermann. + +I turned on Temple to walk him off his legs if I could. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +MY RETURN TO ENGLAND + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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 afresh +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.' + +I spared Colonel Heddon the revelation of my relationship to his hero, +thanking his garrulity for interrupting me. + +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. + +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. + +'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.' + +'Have you anything to say against my men?' the captain inquired. + +Temple replied that he would talk to him about it presently, and laughed +as he drew me away. + +'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!' + +'Taken what?' said I. + +'Haven't you heard from him?' + +'Two or three times: a mass of interjections.' + +'You know he brought his Case forward at last? Of course it went as we +all knew it would.' + +'Where is he? Have you seen Janet lately?' + +'He is at Miss Ilchester's house in London.' + +'Write the address on a card.' + +Temple wrote it rather hesitatingly, I thought. + +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! + +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.' + +I pressed her on my heart and cheered her, praising Janet. She wept. + +'Is there anything new the matter?' I said. + +'It 's not new to us, Harry. I'm sure you're brave?' + +'Brave! what am I asked to bear?' + +'Much, if you love her, Harry!' + +'Speak.' + +'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!' + +'She's in love with some one?' + +'I did not say in love.' + +'Tell me the worst.' + +'She is engaged to be married.' + +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. + +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. + +Dorothy Beltham told me something of Janet that struck me to the dust. + +'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.' + +'The lady didn't fear contagion any longer?' + +'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.' + +My heart rose on a huge swell. + +'She was alone with him, Harry. We could hear them.' + +Dorothy Beltham looked imploringly on me to waken my whole comprehension. + +'She subdued him. When I saw him he was white as death, but quiet, not +dangerous at all.' + +'Do you mean she found him raving?' I cried out on our Maker's name, in +grief and horror. + +'Yes, dear Harry, it was so.' + +'She stepped between him and an asylum?' + +'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.' + +'Oh! don't torture me, ma'am, for God's sake,' I called aloud. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + +I MEET MY FIRST PLAYFELLOW AND TAKE MY PUNISHMENT + +There came to me a little note on foreign paper, unaddressed, an +enclosure forwarded by Janet, and containing merely one scrap from the +playful XENIEN of Ottilia's favourite brotherly poets, of untranslatable +flavour:-- + + Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete: + Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels. + +It filled me with a breath of old German peace. + +From this I learnt that Ottilia and Janet corresponded. Upon what +topics? to what degree of intimacy? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death before you reach +your immortality. + +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. + +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.' + +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!' + +To prove the aforesaid Frenchman wrong, we nodded to the driver's +laughter at his exquisite imitation. + +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. + +'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. + +'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.' + +As if anxious not to pervert us, he concluded: 'That's what I think, +gentlemen.' + +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! + +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. + +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.' + +Temple and I argued the case with him, as of old on our voyage, on board +the barque Priscilla, quite unavailingly. + +'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!' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +To our astonishment he told us he intended to take her for a voyage in +the Priscilla. 'Why?' we asked. + +'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.' + +We grimaced a little on her behalf, but had nothing to reply. + +Seeing Janet after Mabel was strange. In the latter one could perceive +the palpably suitable mate for Edbury. + +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 Herriot 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It came abruptly, and was schoolingly cold and short. + +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. + +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. + +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:-- + + 'DEAR HARRY,--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. + + 'Your affectionate, + 'JANET.' + +I tore the letter to pieces, and kept them. + +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. + +I was startled to see little Kiomi in Mabel's company. + +They had met accidentally at the head of the street, and had been friends +in childhood, Captain Welsh said, adding: 'She hates men.' + +'Good reason, when they're beasts,' said Kiomi. + +Amid much weeping of Mabel and old Mrs. Welsh, Kiomi showed as little +trouble as the heath when the woods are swept. + +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. + +We saw them off from the waterside. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + +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.' + +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 larderquite jumped to dine him in the City like old times; and he +will see a great spread of plate!' + +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. + +'A prince! a treacherous lover! an unfatherly man!' + +Those were the words I caught: a reproduction of many of my phrases +employed in our arguments on this very subject. + +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 +an, 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! + +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.' + +They were listening obediently to one whom they dared not interrupt for +fear of provoking an outburst of madness. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +CONCLUSION + +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. + +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. + +What are their passions, then? The storm in the clouds--even more short- +lived than the clouds. + +I philosophized, but my anguish was great. + +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. + +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? + +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: + +'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.' + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?' + +She smiled a little. 'We expected Temple's arrival sooner than yours, +Harry.! + +'Do you take to his Lucy?' + +'Yes, thoroughly.' + +The perfect ring of Janet was there. + +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. + +'Then how long,' I asked astonished, 'how long have you been staying with +the princess?' + +She answered, colouring, 'So long, that I can speak fairish German.' + +'And read it easily?' + +'I have actually taken to reading, Harry.' + +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?' + +'Yes, some months,' she replied. + +'Many?' + +'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.' + +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. + +A faint shudder passed over her. She shut her eyes and shook her head. + +Our interview satisfied my heart's hunger no further. The Verona's +erratic voyage had cut me off from letters. + +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 Fraulein. 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. + +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. + +I plucked him from his narrator's vexatious and inevitable commencement: +'Temple, tell me, did she go to the altar?' + +He answered 'Yes!' + +'She did? Then she's a widow?' + +'No, she isn't,' said Temple, distracting me by submitting to the lead I +distracted him by taking. + +'Then her husband's alive?' + +Temple denied it, and a devil seized him to perceive some comicality in +the dialogue. + +'Was she married?' + +Temple said 'No,' with a lurking drollery about his lips. He added, +'It 's nothing to laugh over, Richie.' + +'Am I laughing? Speak out. Did Edbury come to grief overnight in any +way?' + +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. + +'Was Edbury the one to throw up the marriage? Did he decline it?' + +'No,' was the answer once more. + +Temple stopped my wrath by catching at me and begging me to listen. + +'Edbury was drowned, Richie.' + +'Overnight?' + +'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--"The Lord's will +is about to be done"; and underneath--"We go to His judgement resigned +and cheerful." You know the old captain, Richie? + +Temple had tears in his eyes. We both stood blinking for a second or +two. + +I could not but be curious to hear the reason for Edbury's having +determined to sail. + +'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."' + +'How do you know all this, Temple?' + +'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.' + +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. + +An odd series of accidents! I thought. + +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.' + +'How betrayed him?' said I. + +'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.' + +'Good heaven! how little!' cried I. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +Was it conceivable that we could go back to Riversley single? + +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.' + +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. + +Riding behind her and Temple one day with the princess, I said, 'What +takes you most in Janet?' + +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.' + +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. + +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. + +'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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Absolute freedom could be the worst of perils +Add on a tired pipe after dark, and a sound sleep to follow +Allowed silly sensitiveness to prevent the repair +As little trouble as the heath when the woods are swept +Bade his audience to beware of princes +But the flower is a thing of the season; the flower drops off +But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death +Is it any waste of time to write of love? +Not to do things wholly is worse than not to do things at all +Payment is no more so than to restore money held in trust +Self, was digging pits for comfort to flow in +Tears are the way of women and their comfort +The love that survives has strangled craving +The wretch who fears death dies multitudinously +There is more in men and women than the stuff they utter +Those who are rescued and made happy by circumstances +To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common +Twice a bad thing to turn sinners loose +What a man hates in adversity is to see 'faces' +What else is so consolatory to a ruined man? +Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete +Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels +You may learn to know yourself through love + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, v8 +by George Meredith + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS, THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY RICHMOND, COMPLETE: + +A stew's a stew, and not a boiling to shreds +Absolute freedom could be the worst of perils +Add on a tired pipe after dark, and a sound sleep to follow +All passed too swift for happiness +Allowed silly sensitiveness to prevent the repair +As little trouble as the heath when the woods are swept +Ask pardon of you, without excusing myself +Attacked my conscience on the cowardly side +Bade his audience to beware of princes +Bandied the weariful shuttlecock of gallantry +But the flower is a thing of the season; the flower drops off +But to strangle craving is indeed to go through a death +Days when you lay on your back and the sky rained apples +Decent insincerity +Determine that the future is in our debt, and draw on it +Discreet play with her eyelids in our encounters +Dogmatic arrogance of a just but ignorant man +Excellent is pride; but oh! be sure of its foundations +Faith works miracles. At least it allows time for them +Habit of antedating his sagacity +He clearly could not learn from misfortune +He thinks or he chews +He would neither retort nor defend himself +He whipped himself up to one of his oratorical frenzies +He put no question to anybody +I can't think brisk out of my breeches +I can pay clever gentlemen for doing Greek for me +I do not defend myself ever +I was discontented, and could not speak my discontent +I laughed louder than was necessary +If you kneel down, who will decline to put a foot on you? +Intimations of cowardice menacing a paralysis of the will +Irony instead of eloquence +Is it any waste of time to write of love? +It goes at the lifting of the bridegroom's little finger +Kindness is kindness, all over the world +Learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them +Like a woman, who would and would not, and wanted a master +Look within, and avoid lying +Mindless, he says, and arrogant +Nations at war are wild beasts +No Act to compel a man to deny what appears in the papers +Not to do things wholly is worse than not to do things at all +One in a temper at a time I'm sure 's enough +One who studies is not being a fool +Only true race, properly so called, out of India--German +Payment is no more so than to restore money held in trust +Puns are the smallpox of the language +Self, was digging pits for comfort to flow in +Simple affection must bear the strain of friendship if it can +Simplicity is the keenest weapon +Some so-called laws of honour +Stand not in my way, nor follow me too far +Stultification of one's feelings and ideas +Tears are the way of women and their comfort +Tension of the old links keeping us together +The most dangerous word of all--ja +The love that survives has strangled craving +The thought stood in her eyes +The proper defence for a nation is its history +The wretch who fears death dies multitudinously +The past is our mortal mother, no dead thing +Then for us the struggle, for him the grief +There is more in men and women than the stuff they utter +There's ne'er a worse off but there's a better off +They seem to me to be educated to conceal their education +They have not to speak to exhibit their minds +They dare not. The more I dare, the less dare they +They are little ironical laughter--Accidents +Those who are rescued and made happy by circumstances +Tight grasps of the hand, in which there was warmth and shyness +'Tis the fashion to have our tattle done by machinery +To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe +To the rest of the world he was a progressive comedy +To kill the deer and be sorry for the suffering wretch is common +Too prompt, too full of personal relish of his point +Twice a bad thing to turn sinners loose +Unseemly hour--unbetimes +Vessel was conspiring to ruin our self-respect +War is only an exaggerated form of duelling +Was I true? Not so very false, yet how far from truth! +We has long overshadowed "I" +What a man hates in adversity is to see 'faces' +What else is so consolatory to a ruined man? +Who beguiles so much as Self? +Who so intoxicated as the convalescent catching at health? +Who shuns true friends flies fortune in the concrete +Winter mornings are divine. They move on noiselessly +Would he see what he aims at? let him ask his heels +You may learn to know yourself through love + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Adventures of Harry Richmond, entire +by George Meredith + diff --git a/old/gm58v10.zip b/old/gm58v10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a48b61 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/gm58v10.zip |