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diff --git a/7658-0.txt b/7658-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0748486 --- /dev/null +++ b/7658-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21310 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s Kenelm Chillingly, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +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: Kenelm Chillingly, Complete + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 16, 2009 [EBook #7658] +Last Updated: August 28, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENELM CHILLINGLY, COMPLETE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger and Dagny + + + + + +KENELM CHILLINGLY + +HIS ADVENTURES AND OPINIONS + + +By Edward Bulwer Lytton + +(LORD LYTTON) + + + + +BOOK I. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, of Exmundham, Baronet, F.R.S. and F.A.S., was the +representative of an ancient family, and a landed proprietor of some +importance. He had married young; not from any ardent inclination for +the connubial state, but in compliance with the request of his parents. +They took the pains to select his bride; and if they might have chosen +better, they might have chosen worse, which is more than can be said for +many men who choose wives for themselves. Miss Caroline Brotherton was +in all respects a suitable connection. She had a pretty fortune, which +was of much use in buying a couple of farms, long desiderated by the +Chillinglys as necessary for the rounding of their property into a +ring-fence. She was highly connected, and brought into the county that +experience of fashionable life acquired by a young lady who has attended +a course of balls for three seasons, and gone out in matrimonial +honours, with credit to herself and her chaperon. She was handsome +enough to satisfy a husband’s pride, but not so handsome as to keep +perpetually on the _qui vive_ a husband’s jealousy. She was considered +highly accomplished; that is, she played upon the pianoforte so that any +musician would say she “was very well taught;” but no musician would +go out of his way to hear her a second time. She painted in +water-colours--well enough to amuse herself. She knew French and Italian +with an elegance so lady-like that, without having read more than +selected extracts from authors in those languages, she spoke them both +with an accent more correct than we have any reason to attribute to +Rousseau or Ariosto. What else a young lady may acquire in order to be +styled highly accomplished I do not pretend to know; but I am sure that +the young lady in question fulfilled that requirement in the opinion +of the best masters. It was not only an eligible match for Sir +Peter Chillingly,--it was a brilliant match. It was also a very +unexceptionable match for Miss Caroline Brotherton. This excellent +couple got on together as most excellent couples do. A short time after +marriage, Sir Peter, by the death of his parents--who, having married +their heir, had nothing left in life worth the trouble of living +for--succeeded to the hereditary estates; he lived for nine months of +the year at Exmundham, going to town for the other three months. Lady +Chillingly and himself were both very glad to go to town, being bored at +Exmundham; and very glad to go back to Exmundham, being bored in town. +With one exception it was an exceedingly happy marriage, as marriages +go. Lady Chillingly had her way in small things; Sir Peter his way in +great. Small things happen every day; great things once in three years. +Once in three years Lady Chillingly gave way to Sir Peter; households so +managed go on regularly. The exception to their connubial happiness was, +after all, but of a negative description. Their affection was such +that they sighed for a pledge of it; fourteen years had he and Lady +Chillingly remained unvisited by the little stranger. + +Now, in default of male issue, Sir Peter’s estates passed to a distant +cousin as heir-at-law; and during the last four years this heir-at-law +had evinced his belief that practically speaking he was already +heir-apparent; and (though Sir Peter was a much younger man than +himself, and as healthy as any man well can be) had made his +expectations of a speedy succession unpleasantly conspicuous. He had +refused his consent to a small exchange of lands with a neighbouring +squire, by which Sir Peter would have obtained some good arable land, +for an outlying unprofitable wood that produced nothing but fagots and +rabbits, with the blunt declaration that he, the heir-at-law, was fond +of rabbit-shooting, and that the wood would be convenient to him next +season if he came into the property by that time, which he very possibly +might. He disputed Sir Peter’s right to make his customary fall of +timber, and had even threatened him with a bill in Chancery on that +subject. In short, this heir-at-law was exactly one of those persons +to spite whom a landed proprietor would, if single, marry at the age of +eighty in the hope of a family. + +Nor was it only on account of his very natural wish to frustrate the +expectations of this unamiable relation that Sir Peter Chillingly +lamented the absence of the little stranger. Although belonging to that +class of country gentlemen to whom certain political reasoners deny the +intelligence vouchsafed to other members of the community, Sir Peter was +not without a considerable degree of book-learning and a great taste +for speculative philosophy. He sighed for a legitimate inheritor to the +stores of his erudition, and, being a very benevolent man, for a more +active and useful dispenser of those benefits to the human race which +philosophers confer by striking hard against each other; just as, how +full soever of sparks a flint may be, they might lurk concealed in the +flint till doomsday, if the flint were not hit by the steel. Sir Peter, +in short, longed for a son amply endowed with the combative quality, in +which he himself was deficient, but which is the first essential to all +seekers after renown, and especially to benevolent philosophers. + +Under these circumstances one may well conceive the joy that filled +the household of Exmundham and extended to all the tenantry on that +venerable estate, by whom the present possessor was much beloved and +the prospect of an heir-at-law with a special eye to the preservation +of rabbits much detested, when the medical attendant of the Chillinglys +declared that ‘her ladyship was in an interesting way;’ and to what +height that joy culminated when, in due course of time, a male baby was +safely enthroned in his cradle. To that cradle Sir Peter was summoned. +He entered the room with a lively bound and a radiant countenance: he +quitted it with a musing step and an overclouded brow. + +Yet the baby was no monster. It did not come into the world with two +heads, as some babies are said to have done; it was formed as babies are +in general; was on the whole a thriving baby, a fine baby. Nevertheless, +its aspect awed the father as already it had awed the nurse. The +creature looked so unutterably solemn. It fixed its eyes upon Sir Peter +with a melancholy reproachful stare; its lips were compressed and drawn +downward as if discontentedly meditating its future destinies. The nurse +declared in a frightened whisper that it had uttered no cry on facing +the light. It had taken possession of its cradle in all the dignity of +silent sorrow. A more saddened and a more thoughtful countenance a human +being could not exhibit if he were leaving the world instead of entering +it. + +“Hem!” said Sir Peter to himself on regaining the solitude of his +library; “a philosopher who contributes a new inhabitant to this vale of +tears takes upon himself very anxious responsibilities--” + +At that moment the joy-bells rang out from the neighbouring church +tower, the summer sun shone into the windows, the bees hummed among the +flowers on the lawn. Sir Peter roused himself and looked forth, “After +all,” said he, cheerily, “the vale of tears is not without a smile.” + + + +CHAPTER II. + +A FAMILY council was held at Exmundham Hall to deliberate on the name +by which this remarkable infant should be admitted into the Christian +community. The junior branches of that ancient house consisted, first, +of the obnoxious heir-at-law--a Scotch branch named Chillingly Gordon. +He was the widowed father of one son, now of the age of three, and +happily unconscious of the injury inflicted on his future prospects by +the advent of the new-born, which could not be truthfully said of his +Caledonian father. Mr. Chillingly Gordon was one of those men who get on +in the world with out our being able to discover why. His parents died +in his infancy and left him nothing; but the family interest procured +him an admission into the Charterhouse School, at which illustrious +academy he obtained no remarkable distinction. Nevertheless, as soon as +he left it the State took him under its special care, and appointed him +to a clerkship in a public office. From that moment he continued to get +on in the world, and was now a Commissioner of Customs, with a salary of +L1500 a year. As soon as he had been thus enabled to maintain a wife, +he selected a wife who assisted to maintain himself. She was an Irish +peer’s widow, with a jointure of L2000 a year. + +A few months after his marriage, Chillingly Gordon effected insurances +on his wife’s life, so as to secure himself an annuity of L1000 a year +in case of her decease. As she appeared to be a fine healthy woman, some +years younger than her husband, the deduction from his income effected +by the annual payments for the insurance seemed an over-sacrifice of +present enjoyment to future contingencies. The result bore witness to +his reputation for sagacity, as the lady died in the second year of +their wedding, a few months after the birth of her only child, and of a +heart-disease which had been latent to the doctors, but which, no doubt, +Gordon had affectionately discovered before he had insured a life too +valuable not to need some compensation for its loss. He was now, then, +in the possession of L2500 a year, and was therefore very well off, +in the pecuniary sense of the phrase. He had, moreover, acquired a +reputation which gave him a social rank beyond that accorded to him by +a discerning State. He was considered a man of solid judgment, and +his opinion upon all matters, private and public, carried weight. The +opinion itself, critically examined, was not worth much, but the way he +announced it was imposing. Mr. Fox said that ‘No one ever was so wise as +Lord Thurlow looked.’ Lord Thurlow could not have looked wiser than Mr. +Chillingly Gordon. He had a square jaw and large red bushy eyebrows, +which he lowered down with great effect when he delivered judgment. +He had another advantage for acquiring grave reputation. He was a very +unpleasant man. He could be rude if you contradicted him; and as few +persons wish to provoke rudeness, so he was seldom contradicted. + +Mr. Chillingly Mivers, another cadet of the house, was also +distinguished, but in a different way. He was a bachelor, now about the +age of thirty-five. He was eminent for a supreme well-bred contempt for +everybody and everything. He was the originator and chief proprietor of +a public journal called “The Londoner,” which had lately been set up on +that principle of contempt, and we need not say, was exceedingly popular +with those leading members of the community who admire nobody and +believe in nothing. Mr. Chillingly Mivers was regarded by himself and +by others as a man who might have achieved the highest success in any +branch of literature, if he had deigned to exhibit his talents therein. +But he did not so deign, and therefore he had full right to imply that, +if he had written an epic, a drama, a novel, a history, a metaphysical +treatise, Milton, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Hume, Berkeley would have been +nowhere. He held greatly to the dignity of the anonymous; and even in +the journal which he originated nobody could ever ascertain what he +wrote. But, at all events, Mr. Chillingly Mivers was what Mr. Chillingly +Gordon was not; namely, a very clever man, and by no means an unpleasant +one in general society. + +The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly was a decided adherent to the creed +of what is called “muscular Christianity,” and a very fine specimen +of it too. A tall stout man with broad shoulders, and that division of +lower limb which intervenes between the knee and the ankle powerfully +developed. He would have knocked down a deist as soon as looked at +him. It is told by the Sieur de Joinville, in his Memoir of Louis, the +sainted king, that an assembly of divines and theologians convened the +Jews of an Oriental city for the purpose of arguing with them on the +truths of Christianity, and a certain knight, who was at that time +crippled, and supporting himself on crutches, asked and obtained +permission to be present at the debate. The Jews flocked to the summons, +when a prelate, selecting a learned rabbi, mildly put to him the leading +question whether he owned the divine conception of our Lord. “Certainly +not,” replied the rabbi; whereon the pious knight, shocked by such +blasphemy, uplifted his crutch and felled the rabbi, and then flung +himself among the other misbelievers, whom he soon dispersed in +ignominious flight and in a very belaboured condition. The conduct of +the knight was reported to the sainted king, with a request that it +should be properly reprimanded; but the sainted king delivered himself +of this wise judgment:-- + +“If a pious knight is a very learned clerk, and can meet in fair +argument the doctrines of the misbeliever, by all means let him argue +fairly; but if a pious knight is not a learned clerk, and the argument +goes against him, then let the pious knight cut the discussion short by +the edge of his good sword.” + +The Rev. John Stalworth Chillingly was of the same opinion as Saint +Louis; otherwise, he was a mild and amiable man. He encouraged cricket +and other manly sports among his rural parishioners. He was a skilful +and bold rider, but he did not hunt; a convivial man--and took his +bottle freely. But his tastes in literature were of a refined and +peaceful character, contrasting therein the tendencies some might have +expected from his muscular development of Christianity. He was a great +reader of poetry, but he disliked Scott and Byron, whom he considered +flashy and noisy; he maintained that Pope was only a versifier, and that +the greatest poet in the language was Wordsworth; he did not care much +for the ancient classics; he refused all merit to the French poets; he +knew nothing of the Italian, but he dabbled in German, and was inclined +to bore one about the “Hermann and Dorothea” of Goethe. He was married +to a homely little wife, who revered him in silence, and thought there +would be no schism in the Church if he were in his right place as +Archbishop of Canterbury; in this opinion he entirely agreed with his +wife. + +Besides these three male specimens of the Chillingly race, the fairer +sex was represented, in the absence of her ladyship, who still kept her +room, by three female Chillinglys, sisters of Sir Peter, and all three +spinsters. Perhaps one reason why they had remained single was, that +externally they were so like each other that a suitor must have been +puzzled which to choose, and may have been afraid that if he did choose +one, he should be caught next day kissing another one in mistake. They +were all tall, all thin, with long throats--and beneath the throats a +fine development of bone. They had all pale hair, pale eyelids, pale +eyes, and pale complexions. They all dressed exactly alike, and their +favourite colour was a vivid green: they were so dressed on this +occasion. + +As there was such similitude in their persons, so, to an ordinary +observer, they were exactly the same in character and mind. Very +well behaved, with proper notions of female decorum: very distant and +reserved in manner to strangers; very affectionate to each other and +their relations or favourites; very good to the poor, whom they looked +upon as a different order of creation, and treated with that sort of +benevolence which humane people bestow upon dumb animals. Their minds +had been nourished on the same books--what one read the others had read. +The books were mainly divided into two classes,--novels, and what they +called “good books.” They had a habit of taking a specimen of each +alternately; one day a novel, then a good book, then a novel again, and +so on. Thus if the imagination was overwarmed on Monday, on Tuesday it +was cooled down to a proper temperature; and if frost-bitten on Tuesday, +it took a tepid bath on Wednesday. The novels they chose were indeed +rarely of a nature to raise the intellectual thermometer into blood +heat: the heroes and heroines were models of correct conduct. Mr. +James’s novels were then in vogue, and they united in saying that those +“were novels a father might allow his daughters to read.” But though an +ordinary observer might have failed to recognize any distinction between +these three ladies, and, finding them habitually dressed in green, would +have said they were as much alike as one pea is to another, they had +their idiosyncratic differences, when duly examined. Miss Margaret, the +eldest, was the commanding one of the three; it was she who regulated +their household (they all lived together), kept the joint purse, and +decided every doubtful point that arose: whether they should or should +not ask Mrs. So-and-so to tea; whether Mary should or should not be +discharged; whether or not they should go to Broadstairs or to Sandgate +for the month of October. In fact, Miss Margaret was the WILL of the +body corporate. + +Miss Sibyl was of milder nature and more melancholy temperament; she had +a poetic turn of mind, and occasionally wrote verses. Some of these +had been printed on satin paper, and sold for objects of beneficence +at charity bazaars. The county newspapers said that the verses “were +characterized by all the elegance of a cultured and feminine mind.” The +other two sisters agreed that Sibyl was the genius of the household, +but, like all geniuses, not sufficiently practical for the world. +Miss Sarah Chillingly, the youngest of the three, and now just in her +forty-fourth year, was looked upon by the others as “a dear thing, +inclined to be naughty, but such a darling that nobody could have the +heart to scold her.” Miss Margaret said “she was a giddy creature.” Miss +Sibyl wrote a poem on her, entitled, “Warning to a young Lady against +the Pleasures of the World.” They all called her Sally; the other +two sisters had no diminutive synonyms. Sally is a name indicative of +fastness. But this Sally would not have been thought fast in another +household, and she was now little likely to sally out of the one she +belonged to. These sisters, who were all many years older than Sir +Peter, lived in a handsome, old-fashioned, red-brick house, with a large +garden at the back, in the principal street of the capital of their +native county. They had each L10,000 for portion; and if he could have +married all three, the heir-at-law would have married them, and settled +the aggregate L30,000 on himself. But we have not yet come to recognize +Mormonism as legal, though if our social progress continues to slide in +the same grooves as at present, Heaven only knows what triumphs over +the prejudices of our ancestors may not be achieved by the wisdom of our +descendants! + + + +CHAPTER III. + +SIR PETER stood on his hearthstone, surveyed the guests seated in +semicircle, and said: “Friends,--in Parliament, before anything +affecting the fate of a Bill is discussed, it is, I believe, necessary +to introduce the Bill.” He paused a moment, rang the bell, and said to +the servant who entered, “Tell Nurse to bring in the Baby.” + +Mr. CHILLINGLY GORDON.--“I don’t see the necessity for that, Sir Peter. +We may take the existence of the Baby for granted.” + +Mr. MIVERS.--“It is an advantage to the reputation of Sir Peter’s work +to preserve the incognito. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico_.” + +THE REV. JOHN STALWORTH CHILLINGLY.--“I don’t approve the cynical +levity of such remarks. Of course we must all be anxious to see, in the +earliest stage of being, the future representative of our name and race. +Who would not wish to contemplate the source, however small, of the +Tigris or the Nile!--” + +MISS SALLY (tittering).--“He! he!” + +MISS MARGARET.--“For shame, you giddy thing!” + +The Baby enters in the nurse’s arms. All rise and gather round the Baby +with one exception,--Mr. Gordon, who has ceased to be heir-at-law. + +The Baby returned the gaze of its relations with the most contemptuous +indifference. Miss Sibyl was the first to pronounce an opinion on the +Baby’s attributes. Said she, in a solemn whisper, “What a heavenly +mournful expression! it seems so grieved to have left the angels!” + +THE REV. JOHN.--“That is prettily said, Cousin Sibyl; but the infant +must pluck up its courage and fight its way among mortals with a good +heart, if it wants to get back to the angels again. And I think it will; +a fine child.” He took it from the nurse, and moving it deliberately up +and down, as if to weigh it, said cheerfully, “Monstrous heavy! by the +time it is twenty it will be a match for a prize-fighter of fifteen +stone!” + +Therewith he strode to Gordon, who as if to show that he now considered +himself wholly apart from all interest in the affairs of a family who +had so ill-treated him in the birth of that Baby, had taken up the +“Times” newspaper and concealed his countenance beneath the ample sheet. +The Parson abruptly snatched away the “Times” with one hand, and, +with the other substituting to the indignant eyes of the _ci-devant_ +heir-at-law the spectacle of the Baby, said, “Kiss it.” + +“Kiss it!” echoed Chillingly Gordon, pushing back his chair--“kiss +it! pooh, sir, stand off! I never kissed my own baby: I shall not kiss +another man’s. Take the thing away, sir: it is ugly; it has black eyes.” + +Sir Peter, who was near-sighted, put on his spectacles and examined +the face of the new-born. “True,” said he, “it has black eyes,--very +extraordinary: portentous: the first Chillingly that ever had black +eyes.” + +“Its mamma has black eyes,” said Miss Margaret: “it takes after its +mamma; it has not the fair beauty of the Chillinglys, but it is not +ugly.” + +“Sweet infant!” sighed Sibyl; “and so good; does not cry.” + +“It has neither cried nor crowed since it was born,” said the nurse; +“bless its little heart.” + +She took the Baby from the Parson’s arms, and smoothed back the frill of +its cap, which had got ruffled. + +“You may go now, Nurse,” said Sir Peter. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +“I AGREE with Mr. Shandy,” said Sir Peter, resuming his stand on the +hearthstone, “that among the responsibilities of a parent the choice of +the name which his child is to bear for life is one of the gravest. And +this is especially so with those who belong to the order of baronets. +In the case of a peer his Christian name, fused into his titular +designation, disappears. In the case of a Mister, if his baptismal +be cacophonous or provocative of ridicule, he need not ostentatiously +parade it: he may drop it altogether on his visiting cards, and may be +imprinted as Mr. Jones instead of Mr. Ebenezer Jones. In his signature, +save where the forms of the law demand Ebenezer in full, he may only +use an initial and be your obedient servant E. Jones, leaving it to be +conjectured that E. stands for Edward or Ernest,--names inoffensive, and +not suggestive of a Dissenting Chapel, like Ebenezer. If a man called +Edward or Ernest be detected in some youthful indiscretion, there is +no indelible stain on his moral character: but if an Ebenezer be so +detected he is set down as a hypocrite; it produces that shock on the +public mind which is felt when a professed saint is proved to be a +bit of a sinner. But a baronet never can escape from his baptismal: it +cannot lie _perdu_; it cannot shrink into an initial, it stands forth +glaringly in the light of day; christen him Ebenezer, and he is Sir +Ebenezer in full, with all its perilous consequences if he ever succumb +to those temptations to which even baronets are exposed. But, my +friends, it is not only the effect that the sound of a name has upon +others which is to be thoughtfully considered: the effect that his name +produces on the man himself is perhaps still more important. Some names +stimulate and encourage the owner; others deject and paralyze him: I +am a melancholy instance of that truth. Peter has been for many +generations, as you are aware, the baptismal to which the eldest-born +of our family has been devoted. On the altar of that name I have been +sacrificed. Never has there been a Sir Peter Chillingly who has, in any +way, distinguished himself above his fellows. That name has been a dead +weight on my intellectual energies. In the catalogue of illustrious +Englishmen there is, I think, no immortal Sir Peter, except Sir Peter +Teazle, and he only exists on the comic stage.” + +MISS SIBYL.--“Sir Peter Lely?” + +SIR PETER CHILLINGLY.--“That painter was not an Englishman. He was born +in Westphalia, famous for hams. I confine my remarks to the children of +our native land. I am aware that in foreign countries the name is not an +extinguisher to the genius of its owner. But why? In other countries its +sound is modified. Pierre Corneille was a great man; but I put it to +you whether, had he been an Englishman, he could have been the father of +European tragedy as Peter Crow?” + +MISS SIBYL.--“Impossible!” + +MISS SALLY.--“He! he!” + +MISS MARGARET.--“There is nothing to laugh at, you giddy child!” + +SIR PETER.--“My son shall not be petrified into Peter.” + +MR. CHILLINGLY GORDON.--“If a man is such a fool--and I don’t say your +son will not be a fool, Cousin Peter--as to be influenced by the sound +of his own name, and you want the booby to turn the world topsy-turvy, +you had better call him Julius Caesar or Hannibal or Attila or +Charlemagne.” + +SIR PETER, (who excels mankind in imperturbability of temper).--“On the +contrary, if you inflict upon a man the burden of one of those names, +the glory of which he cannot reasonably expect to eclipse or even to +equal, you crush him beneath the weight. If a poet were called John +Milton or William Shakspeare, he could not dare to publish even a +sonnet. No: the choice of a name lies between the two extremes of +ludicrous insignificance and oppressive renown. For this reason I have +ordered the family pedigree to be suspended on yonder wall. Let us +examine it with care, and see whether, among the Chillinglys themselves +or their alliances, we can discover a name that can be borne with +becoming dignity by the destined head of our house--a name neither too +light nor too heavy.” + +Sir Peter here led the way to the family tree--a goodly roll of +parchment, with the arms of the family emblazoned at the top. Those arms +were simple, as ancient heraldic coats are,--three fishes _argent_ on +a field _azure_; the crest a mermaid’s head. All flocked to inspect the +pedigree except Mr. Gordon, who resumed the “Times” newspaper. + +“I never could quite make out what kind of fishes these are,” said +the Rev. John Stalworth. “They are certainly not pike which formed the +emblematic blazon of the Hotofts, and are still grim enough to frighten +future Shakspeares on the scutcheon of the Warwickshire Lucys.” + +“I believe they are tenches,” said Mr. Mivers. “The tench is a fish that +knows how to keep itself safe by a philosophical taste for an obscure +existence in deep holes and slush.” + +SIR PETER.--“No, Mivers; the fishes are dace, a fish that, once +introduced into any pond, never can be got out again. You may drag +the water; you may let off the water; you may say, ‘Those dace are +extirpated,’--vain thought!--the dace reappear as before; and in this +respect the arms are really emblematic of the family. All the disorders +and revolutions that have occurred in England since the Heptarchy have +left the Chillinglys the same race in the same place. Somehow or other +the Norman Conquest did not despoil them; they held fiefs under Eudo +Dapifer as peacefully as they had held them under King Harold; they took +no part in the Crusades, nor the Wars of the Roses, nor the Civil Wars +between Charles the First and the Parliament. As the dace sticks to the +water and the water sticks by the dace, so the Chillinglys stuck to the +land and the land stuck by the Chillinglys. Perhaps I am wrong to wish +that the new Chillingly may be a little less like a dace.” + +“Oh!” cried Miss Margaret, who, mounted on a chair, had been inspecting +the pedigree through an eye-glass, “I don’t see a fine Christian name +from the beginning, except Oliver.” + +SIR PETER.--“That Chillingly was born in Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, +and named Oliver in compliment to him, as his father, born in the reign +of James I., was christened James. The three fishes always swam with +the stream. Oliver!--Oliver not a bad name, but significant of radical +doctrines.” + +Mr. MIVERS.--“I don’t think so. Oliver Cromwell made short work of +radicals and their doctrines; but perhaps we can find a name less awful +and revolutionary.” + +“I have it! I have it!” cried the Parson. “Here is a descent from Sir +Kenelm Digby and Venetia Stanley. Sir Kenelm Digby! No finer specimen of +muscular Christianity. He fought as well as he wrote; eccentric, it is +true, but always a gentleman. Call the boy Kenelm!” + +“A sweet name,” said Miss Sibyl: “it breathes of romance.” + +“Sir Kenelm Chillingly! It sounds well,--imposing!” said Miss Margaret. + +“And,” remarked Mr. Mivers, “it has this advantage--that while it has +sufficient association with honourable distinction to affect the mind of +the namesake and rouse his emulation, it is not that of so stupendous +a personage as to defy rivalry. Sir Kenelm Digby was certainly an +accomplished and gallant gentleman; but what with his silly superstition +about sympathetic powders, etc., any man nowadays might be clever in +comparison without being a prodigy. Yes, let us decide on Kenelm.” + +Sir Peter meditated. “Certainly,” said he, after a pause, “certainly +the name of Kenelm carries with it very crotchety associations; and I am +afraid that Sir Kenelm Digby did not make a prudent choice in marriage. +The fair Venetia was no better than she should be; and I should wish +my heir not to be led away by beauty but wed a woman of respectable +character and decorous conduct.” + +Miss MARGARET.--“A British matron, of course!” + +THREE SISTERS (in chorus).--“Of course! of course!” + +“But,” resumed Sir Peter, “I am crotchety myself, and crotchets are +innocent things enough; and as for marriage the Baby cannot marry +to-morrow, so that we have ample time to consider that matter. Kenelm +Digby was a man any family might be proud of; and, as you say, sister +Margaret, Kenelm Chillingly does not sound amiss: Kenelm Chillingly it +shall be!” + +The Baby was accordingly christened Kenelm, after which ceremony its +face grew longer than before. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +BEFORE his relations dispersed, Sir Peter summoned Mr. Gordon into his +library. + +“Cousin,” said he, kindly, “I do not blame you for the want of family +affection, or even of humane interest, which you exhibit towards the +New-born.” + +“Blame me, Cousin Peter! I should think not. I exhibit as much +family affection and humane interest as could be expected from +me,--circumstances considered.” + +“I own,” said Sir Peter, with all his wonted mildness, “that after +remaining childless for fourteen years of wedded life, the advent of +this little stranger must have occasioned you a disagreeable surprise. +But, after all, as I am many years younger than you, and in the course +of nature shall outlive you, the loss is less to yourself than to your +son, and upon that I wish to say a few words. You know too well the +conditions on which I hold my estate not to be aware that I have +not legally the power to saddle it with any bequest to your boy. The +New-born succeeds to the fee-simple as last in tail. But I intend, +from this moment, to lay by something every year for your son out of my +income; and, fond as I am of London for a part of the year, I shall now +give up my town-house. If I live to the years the Psalmist allots to +man, I shall thus accumulate something handsome for your son, which may +be taken in the way of compensation.” + +Mr. Gordon was by no means softened by this generous speech. However, +he answered more politely than was his wont, “My son will be very much +obliged to you, should he ever need your intended bequest.” Pausing a +moment, he added with a cheerful smile, “A large percentage of infants +die before attaining the age of twenty-one.” + +“Nay, but I am told your son is an uncommonly fine healthy child.” + +“My son, Cousin Peter! I was not thinking of my son, but of yours. Yours +has a big head. I should not wonder if he had water in it. I don’t wish +to alarm you, but he may go off any day, and in that case it is not +likely that Lady Chillingly will condescend to replace him. So you will +excuse me if I still keep a watchful eye on my rights; and, however +painful to my feelings, I must still dispute your right to cut a stick +of the field timber.” + +“That is nonsense, Gordon. I am tenant for life without impeachment of +waste, and can cut down all timber not ornamental.” + +“I advise you not, Cousin Peter. I have told you before that I shall try +the question at law, should you provoke it, amicably, of course. Rights +are rights; and if I am driven to maintain mine, I trust that you are of +a mind too liberal to allow your family affection for me and mine to be +influenced by a decree of the Court of Chancery. But my fly is waiting. +I must not miss the train.” + +“Well, good-by, Gordon. Shake hands.” + +“Shake hands!--of course, of course. By the by, as I came through the +lodge, it seemed to me sadly out of repair. I believe you are liable for +dilapidations. Good-by.” + +“The man is a hog in armour,” soliloquized Sir Peter, when his cousin +was gone; “and if it be hard to drive a common pig in the way he don’t +choose to go, a hog in armour is indeed undrivable. But his boy ought +not to suffer for his father’s hoggishness; and I shall begin at once to +see what I can lay by for him. After all, it is hard upon Gordon. Poor +Gordon; poor fellow! poor fellow! Still I hope he will not go to law +with me. I hate law. And a worm will turn, especially a worm that is put +into Chancery.” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +DESPITE the sinister semi-predictions of the _ci-devant_ heir-at-law, +the youthful Chillingly passed with safety, and indeed with dignity, +through the infant stages of existence. He took his measles and +whooping-cough with philosophical equanimity. He gradually acquired +the use of speech, but he did not too lavishly exercise that special +attribute of humanity. During the earlier years of childhood he spoke +as little as if he had been prematurely trained in the school of +Pythagoras. But he evidently spoke the less in order to reflect the +more. He observed closely and pondered deeply over what he observed. At +the age of eight he began to converse more freely, and it was in that +year that he startled his mother with the question, “Mamma, are you not +sometimes overpowered by the sense of your own identity?” + +Lady Chillingly,--I was about to say rushed, but Lady Chillingly never +rushed,--Lady Chillingly glided less sedately than her wont to Sir +Peter, and repeating her son’s question, said, “The boy is growing +troublesome, too wise for any woman: he must go to school.” + +Sir Peter was of the same opinion. But where on earth did the child get +hold of so long a word as “identity,” and how did so extraordinary and +puzzling a metaphysical question come into his head? Sir Peter summoned +Kenelm, and ascertained that the boy, having free access to the library, +had fastened upon Locke on the Human Understanding, and was prepared to +dispute with that philosopher upon the doctrine of innate ideas. Quoth +Kenelm, gravely, “A want is an idea; and if, as soon as I was born, I +felt the want of food and knew at once where to turn for it, without +being taught, surely I came into the world with an ‘innate idea.’” + +Sir Peter, though he dabbled in metaphysics, was posed, and scratched +his head without getting out a proper answer as to the distinction +between ideas and instincts. “My child,” he said at last, “you don’t +know what you are talking about: go and take a good gallop on your black +pony; and I forbid you to read any books that are not given to you by +myself or your mamma. Stick to ‘Puss in Boots.’” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +SIR PETER ordered his carriage and drove to the house of the stout +parson. That doughty ecclesiastic held a family living a few miles +distant from the Hall, and was the only one of the cousins with whom Sir +Peter habitually communed on his domestic affairs. + +He found the Parson in his study, which exhibited tastes other +than clerical. Over the chimney-piece were ranged fencing-foils, +boxing-gloves, and staffs for the athletic exercise of single-stick; +cricket-bats and fishing-rods filled up the angles. There were +sundry prints on the walls: one of Mr. Wordsworth, flanked by two of +distinguished race-horses; one of a Leicestershire short-horn, with +which the Parson, who farmed his own glebe and bred cattle in its rich +pastures, had won a prize at the county show; and on either side of that +animal were the portraits of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor. There were dwarf +book-cases containing miscellaneous works very handsomely bound; at +the open window, a stand of flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom. The +Parson’s flowers were famous. + +The appearance of the whole room was that of a man who is tidy and neat +in his habits. + +“Cousin,” said Sir Peter, “I have come to consult you.” And therewith he +related the marvellous precocity of Kenelm Chillingly. “You see the name +begins to work on him rather too much. He must go to school; and now +what school shall it be? Private or public?” + +THE REV. JOHN STALWORTH.--“There is a great deal to be said for or +against either. At a public school the chances are that Kenelm will +no longer be overpowered by a sense of his own identity; he will more +probably lose identity altogether. The worst of a public school is that +a sort of common character is substituted for individual character. +The master, of course, can’t attend to the separate development of each +boy’s idiosyncrasy. All minds are thrown into one great mould, and come +out of it more or less in the same form. An Etonian may be clever or +stupid, but, as either, he remains emphatically Etonian. A public school +ripens talent, but its tendency is to stifle genius. Then, too, a public +school for an only son, heir to a good estate, which will be entirely at +his own disposal, is apt to encourage reckless and extravagant habits; +and your estate requires careful management, and leaves no margin for an +heir’s notes-of-hand and post-obits. On the whole, I am against a public +school for Kenelm.” + +“Well then, we will decide on a private one.” + +“Hold!” said the Parson: “a private school has its drawbacks. You can +seldom produce large fishes in small ponds. In private schools the +competition is narrowed, the energies stinted. The schoolmaster’s wife +interferes, and generally coddles the boys. There is not manliness +enough in those academies; no fagging, and very little fighting. A +clever boy turns out a prig; a boy of feebler intellect turns out a +well-behaved young lady in trousers. Nothing muscular in the system. +Decidedly the namesake and descendant of Kenelm Digby should not go to a +private seminary.” + +“So far as I gather from your reasoning,” said Sir Peter, with +characteristic placidity, “Kenelm Chillingly is not to go to school at +all.” + +“It does look like it,” said the Parson, candidly; “but, on +consideration, there is a medium. There are schools which unite the best +qualities of public and private schools, large enough to stimulate and +develop energies mental and physical, yet not so framed as to melt all +character in one crucible. For instance, there is a school which has +at this moment one of the first scholars in Europe for head-master,--a +school which has turned out some of the most remarkable men of the +rising generation. The master sees at a glance if a boy be clever, and +takes pains with him accordingly. He is not a mere teacher of hexameters +and sapphics. His learning embraces all literature, ancient and modern. +He is a good writer and a fine critic; admires Wordsworth. He winks at +fighting: his boys know how to use their fists; and they are not in the +habit of signing post-obits before they are fifteen. Merton School is +the place for Kenelm.” + +“Thank you,” said Sir Peter. “It is a great comfort in life to find +somebody who can decide for one. I am an irresolute man myself, and in +ordinary matters willingly let Lady Chillingly govern me.” + +“I should like to see a wife govern _me_,” said the stout Parson. + +“But you are not married to Lady Chillingly. And now let us go into the +garden and look at your dahlias.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE youthful confuter of Locke was despatched to Merton School, and +ranked, according to his merits, as lag of the penultimate form. When he +came home for the Christmas holidays he was more saturnine than ever; +in fact, his countenance bore the impression of some absorbing grief. +He said, however, that he liked school very well, and eluded all other +questions. But early the next morning he mounted his black pony and +rode to the Parson’s rectory. The reverend gentleman was in his farmyard +examining his bullocks when Kenelm accosted him thus briefly,-- + +“Sir, I am disgraced, and I shall die of it if you cannot help to set me +right in my own eyes.” + +“My dear boy, don’t talk in that way. Come into my study.” + +As soon as they entered that room, and the Parson had carefully closed +the door, he took the boy’s arm, turned him round to the light, and saw +at once that there was something very grave on his mind. Chucking him +under the chin, the Parson said cheerily, “Hold up your head, Kenelm. I +am sure you have done nothing unworthy of a gentleman.” + +“I don’t know that. I fought a boy very little bigger than myself, and +I have been licked. I did not give in, though; but the other boys picked +me up, for I could not stand any longer; and the fellow is a great +bully; and his name is Butt; and he’s the son of a lawyer; and he got my +head into chancery; and I have challenged him to fight again next +half; and unless you can help me to lick him, I shall never be good for +anything in the world,--never. It will break my heart.” + +“I am very glad to hear you have had the pluck to challenge him. Just +let me see how you double your fist. Well, that’s not amiss. Now, put +yourself into a fighting attitude, and hit out at me,--hard! harder! +Pooh! that will never do. You should make your blows as straight as +an arrow. And that’s not the way to stand. Stop,--so: well on your +haunches; weight on the left leg; good! Now, put on these gloves, and +I’ll give you a lesson in boxing.” + +Five minutes afterwards Mrs. John Chillingly, entering the room to +summon her husband to breakfast, stood astounded to see him with his +coat off, and parrying the blows of Kenelm, who flew at him like a young +tiger. The good pastor at that moment might certainly have appeared a +fine type of muscular Christianity, but not of that kind of Christianity +out of which one makes Archbishops of Canterbury. + +“Good gracious me!” faltered Mrs. John Chillingly; and then, wife-like, +flying to the protection of her husband, she seized Kenelm by the +shoulders, and gave him a good shaking. The Parson, who was sadly out +of breath, was not displeased at the interruption, but took that +opportunity to put on his coat, and said, “We’ll begin again to-morrow. +Now, come to breakfast.” But during breakfast Kenelm’s face still +betrayed dejection, and he talked little and ate less. + +As soon as the meal was over, he drew the Parson into the garden and +said, “I have been thinking, sir, that perhaps it is not fair to Butt +that I should be taking these lessons; and if it is not fair, I’d rather +not--” + +“Give me your hand, my boy!” cried the Parson, transported. “The name +of Kenelm is not thrown away upon you. The natural desire of man in +his attribute of fighting animal (an attribute in which, I believe, he +excels all other animated beings, except a quail and a gamecock) is to +beat his adversary. But the natural desire of that culmination of man +which we call gentleman is to beat his adversary fairly. A gentleman +would rather be beaten fairly than beat unfairly. Is not that your +thought?” + +“Yes,” replied Kenelm, firmly; and then, beginning to philosophize, he +added, “And it stands to reason; because if I beat a fellow unfairly, I +don’t really beat him at all.” + +“Excellent! But suppose that you and another boy go into examination +upon Caesar’s Commentaries or the multiplication table, and the other +boy is cleverer than you, but you have taken the trouble to learn the +subject and he has not: should you say you beat him unfairly?” + +Kenelm meditated a moment, and then said decidedly, “No.” + +“That which applies to the use of your brains applies equally to the use +of your fists. Do you comprehend me?” + +“Yes, sir; I do now.” + +“In the time of your namesake, Sir Kenelm Digby, gentlemen wore swords, +and they learned how to use them, because, in case of quarrel, they had +to fight with them. Nobody, at least in England, fights with swords +now. It is a democratic age, and if you fight at all, you are reduced to +fists; and if Kenelm Digby learned to fence, so Kenelm Chillingly must +learn to box; and if a gentleman thrashes a drayman twice his size, who +has not learned to box, it is not unfair; it is but an exemplification +of the truth that knowledge is power. Come and take another lesson on +boxing to-morrow.” + +Kenelm remounted his pony and returned home. He found his father +sauntering in the garden with a book in his hand. “Papa,” said Kenelm, +“how does one gentleman write to another with whom he has a quarrel, +and he don’t want to make it up, but he has something to say about the +quarrel which it is fair the other gentleman should know?” + +“I don’t understand what you mean.” + +“Well, just before I went to school I remember hearing you say that you +had a quarrel with Lord Hautfort, and that he was an ass, and you would +write and tell him so. When you wrote did you say, ‘You are an ass’? Is +that the way one gentleman writes to another?” + +“Upon my honour, Kenelm, you ask very odd questions. But you cannot +learn too early this fact, that irony is to the high-bred what +Billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another +gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank: he implies it in the +politest terms he can invent. Lord Hautfort denies my right of free +warren over a trout-stream that runs through his lands. I don’t care a +rush about the trout-stream, but there is no doubt of my right to fish +in it. He was an ass to raise the question; for, if he had not, I +should not have exercised the right. As he did raise the question, I was +obliged to catch his trout.” + +“And you wrote a letter to him?” + +“Yes.” + +“How did you write, Papa? What did you say?” + +“Something like this. ‘Sir Peter Chillingly presents his compliments +to Lord Hautfort, and thinks it fair to his lordship to say that he has +taken the best legal advice with regard to his rights of free warren; +and trusts to be forgiven if he presumes to suggest that Lord Hautfort +might do well to consult his own lawyer before he decides on disputing +them.’” + +“Thank you, Papa. I see.” + +That evening Kenelm wrote the following letter:-- + + +Mr. Chillingly presents his compliments to Mr. Butt, and thinks it fair +to Mr. Butt to say that he is taking lessons in boxing; and trusts to be +forgiven if he presumes to suggest that Mr. Butt might do well to take +lessons himself before fighting with Mr. Chillingly next half. + + +“Papa,” said Kenelm the next morning, “I want to write to a schoolfellow +whose name is Butt; he is the son of a lawyer who is called a serjeant. +I don’t know where to direct to him.” + +“That is easily ascertained,” said Sir Peter. “Serjeant Butt is an +eminent man, and his address will be in the Court Guide.” + +The address was found,--Bloomsbury Square; and Kenelm directed his +letter accordingly. In due course he received this answer,-- + + +You are an insolent little fool, and I’ll thrash you within an inch of +your life. + +ROBERT BUTT. + + +After the receipt of that polite epistle, Kenelm Chillingly’s scruples +vanished, and he took daily lessons in muscular Christianity. + +Kenelm returned to school with a brow cleared from care, and three days +after his return he wrote to the Reverend John,-- + + +DEAR SIR,--I have licked Butt. Knowledge is power. + +Your affectionate KENELM. + +P. S.--Now that I have licked Butt, I have made it up with him. + + +From that time Kenelm prospered. Eulogistic letters from the illustrious +head-master showered in upon Sir Peter. At the age of sixteen Kenelm +Chillingly was the head of the school, and, quitting it finally, +brought home the following letter from his Orbilius to Sir Peter, marked +“confidential”:-- + + +DEAR SIR PETER CHILLINGLY,--I have never felt more anxious for the +future career of any of my pupils than I do for that of your son. He is +so clever that, with ease to himself, he may become a great man. He is +so peculiar that it is quite as likely that he may only make himself +known to the world as a great oddity. That distinguished teacher Dr. +Arnold said that the difference between one boy and another was not so +much talent as energy. Your son has talent, has energy: yet he wants +something for success in life; he wants the faculty of amalgamation. He +is of a melancholic and therefore unsocial temperament. He will not act +in concert with others. He is lovable enough: the other boys like him, +especially the smaller ones, with whom he is a sort of hero; but he +has not one intimate friend. So far as school learning is concerned, +he might go to college at once, and with the certainty of distinction +provided he chose to exert himself. But if I may venture to offer an +advice, I should say employ the next two years in letting him see +a little more of real life and acquire a due sense of its practical +objects. Send him to a private tutor who is not a pedant, but a man +of letters or a man of the world, and if in the metropolis so much the +better. In a word, my young friend is unlike other people; and, with +qualities that might do anything in life, I fear, unless you can get +him to be like other people, that he will do nothing. Excuse the freedom +with which I write, and ascribe it to the singular interest with which +your son has inspired me. I have the honour to be, dear Sir Peter, + +Yours truly, WILLIAM HORTON. + + +Upon the strength of this letter Sir Peter did not indeed summon another +family council; for he did not consider that his three maiden sisters +could offer any practical advice on the matter. And as to Mr. Gordon, +that gentleman having gone to law on the great timber question, and +having been signally beaten thereon, had informed Sir Peter that he +disowned him as a cousin and despised him as a man; not exactly in those +words,--more covertly, and therefore more stingingly. But Sir Peter +invited Mr. Mivers for a week’s shooting, and requested the Reverend +John to meet him. + +Mr. Mivers arrived. The sixteen years that had elapsed since he was +first introduced to the reader had made no perceptible change in his +appearance. It was one of his maxims that in youth a man of the world +should appear older than he is; and in middle age, and thence to his +dying day, younger. And he announced one secret for attaining that art +in these words: “Begin your wig early, thus you never become gray.” + +Unlike most philosophers, Mivers made his practice conform to his +precepts; and while in the prime of youth inaugurated a wig in a +fashion that defied the flight of time, not curly and hyacinthine, but +straight-haired and unassuming. He looked five-and-thirty from the day +he put on that wig at the age of twenty-five. He looked five-and-thirty +now at the age of fifty-one. + +“I mean,” said he, “to remain thirty-five all my life. No better age to +stick at. People may choose to say I am more, but I shall not own it. No +one is bound to criminate himself.” + +Mr. Mivers had some other aphorisms on this important subject. One +was, “Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to +yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on +principle at the onset. It should never be allowed to get in the thin +end of the wedge. But take care of your constitution, and, having +ascertained the best habits for it, keep to them like clockwork.” Mr. +Mivers would not have missed his constitutional walk in the Park before +breakfast if, by going in a cab to St. Giles’s, he could have saved the +city of London from conflagration. + +Another aphorism of his was, “If you want to keep young, live in a +metropolis; never stay above a few weeks at a time in the country. Take +two men of similar constitution at the age of twenty-five; let one live +in London and enjoy a regular sort of club life; send the other to some +rural district, preposterously called ‘salubrious.’ Look at these men +when they have both reached the age of forty-five. The London man has +preserved his figure: the rural man has a paunch. The London man has +an interesting delicacy of complexion: the face of the rural man is +coarse-grained and perhaps jowly.” + +A third axiom was, “Don’t be a family man; nothing ages one like +matrimonial felicity and paternal ties. Never multiply cares, and pack +up your life in the briefest compass you can. Why add to your carpet-bag +of troubles the contents of a lady’s imperials and bonnet-boxes, and the +travelling _fourgon_ required by the nursery? Shun ambition: it is so +gouty. It takes a great deal out of a man’s life, and gives him nothing +worth having till he has ceased to enjoy it.” Another of his aphorisms +was this, “A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the +day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow, time enough to +consider it when it becomes to-day.” + +Preserving himself by attention to these rules, Mr. Mivers appeared at +Exmundham _totus, teres_, but not _rotundus_,--a man of middle height, +slender, upright, with well-cut, small, slight features, thin lips, +enclosing an excellent set of teeth, even, white, and not indebted +to the dentist. For the sake of those teeth he shunned acid wines, +especially hock in all its varieties, culinary sweets, and hot drinks. +He drank even his tea cold. + +“There are,” he said, “two things in life that a sage must preserve at +every sacrifice, the coats of his stomach and the enamel of his teeth. +Some evils admit of consolations: there are no comforters for dyspepsia +and toothache.” A man of letters, but a man of the world, he had so +cultivated his mind as both that he was feared as the one and liked as +the other. As a man of letters he despised the world; as a man of the +world he despised letters. As the representative of both he revered +himself. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +ON the evening of the third day from the arrival of Mr. Mivers, he, the +Parson, and Sir Peter were seated in the host’s parlour, the Parson in +an armchair by the ingle, smoking a short cutty-pipe; Mivers at length +on the couch, slowly inhaling the perfumes of one of his own choice +_trabucos_. Sir Peter never smoked. There were spirits and hot water and +lemons on the table. The Parson was famed for skill in the composition +of toddy. From time to time the Parson sipped his glass, and Sir Peter +less frequently did the same. It is needless to say that Mr. Mivers +eschewed toddy; but beside him, on a chair, was a tumbler and a large +carafe of iced water. + +SIR PETER.--“Cousin Mivers, you have now had time to study Kenelm, +and to compare his character with that assigned to him in the Doctor’s +letter.” + +MIVERS (languidly).--“Ay.” + +SIR PETER.--“I ask you, as a man of the world, what you think I had +best do with the boy. Shall I send him to such a tutor as the Doctor +suggests? Cousin John is not of the same mind as the Doctor, and thinks +that Kenelm’s oddities are fine things in their way, and should not be +prematurely ground out of him by contact with worldly tutors and London +pavements.” + +“Ay,” repeated Mr. Mivers more languidly than before. After a pause he +added, “Parson John, let us hear you.” + +The Parson laid aside his cutty-pipe and emptied his fourth tumbler of +toddy; then, throwing back his head in the dreamy fashion of the great +Coleridge when he indulged in a monologue, he thus began, speaking +somewhat through his nose,-- + +“At the morning of life--” + +Here Mivers shrugged his shoulders, turned round on his couch, and +closed his eyes with the sigh of a man resigning himself to a homily. + +“At the morning of life, when the dews--” + +“I knew the dews were coming,” said Mivers. “Dry them, if you please; +nothing so unwholesome. We anticipate what you mean to say, which is +plainly this, When a fellow is sixteen he is very fresh: so he is; pass +on; what then?” + +“If you mean to interrupt me with your habitual cynicism,” said the +Parson, “why did you ask to hear me?” + +“That was a mistake I grant; but who on earth could conceive that you +were going to commence in that florid style? Morning of life indeed! +bosh!” + +“Cousin Mivers,” said Sir Peter, “you are not reviewing John’s style in +‘The Londoner;’ and I will beg you to remember that my son’s morning of +life is a serious thing to his father, and not to be nipped in its bud +by a cousin. Proceed, John!” + +Quoth the Parson, good-humouredly, “I will adapt my style to the taste +of my critic. When a fellow is at the age of sixteen, and very fresh +to life, the question is whether he should begin thus prematurely to +exchange the ideas that belong to youth for the ideas that properly +belong to middle age,--whether he should begin to acquire that knowledge +of the world which middle-aged men have acquired and can teach. I think +not. I would rather have him yet a while in the company of the poets; +in the indulgence of glorious hopes and beautiful dreams, forming to +himself some type of the Heroic, which he will keep before his eyes as +a standard when he goes into the world as man. There are two schools of +thought for the formation of character,--the Real and the Ideal. I would +form the character in the Ideal school, in order to make it bolder and +grander and lovelier when it takes its place in that every-day life +which is called Real. And therefore I am not for placing the descendant +of Sir Kenelm Digby, in the interval between school and college, with a +man of the world, probably as cynical as Cousin Mivers and living in the +stony thoroughfares of London.” + +MR. MIVERS (rousing himself).--“Before we plunge into that Serbonian +bog--the controversy between the Realistic and the Idealistic +academicians--I think the first thing to decide is what you want Kenelm +to be hereafter. When I order a pair of shoes, I decide beforehand what +kind of shoes they are to be,--court pumps or strong walking shoes; +and I don’t ask the shoemaker to give me a preliminary lecture upon the +different purposes of locomotion to which leather can be applied. If, +Sir Peter, you want Kenelm to scribble lackadaisical poems, listen to +Parson John; if you want to fill his head with pastoral rubbish about +innocent love, which may end in marrying the miller’s daughter, listen +to Parson John; if you want him to enter life a soft-headed greenhorn, +who will sign any bill carrying 50 per cent to which a young scamp asks +him to be security, listen to Parson John; in fine, if you wish a clever +lad to become either a pigeon or a ring-dove, a credulous booby or a +sentimental milksop, Parson John is the best adviser you can have.” + +“But I don’t want my son to ripen into either of those imbecile +developments of species.” + +“Then don’t listen to Parson John; and there’s an end of the +discussion.” + +“No, there is not. I have not heard your advice what to do if John’s +advice is not to be taken.” + +Mr. Mivers hesitated. He seemed puzzled. + +“The fact is,” said the Parson, “that Mivers got up ‘The Londoner’ +upon a principle that regulates his own mind,--find fault with the way +everything is done, but never commit yourself by saying how anything can +be done better.” + +“That is true,” said Mivers, candidly. “The destructive order of mind is +seldom allied to the constructive. I and ‘The Londoner’ are destructive +by nature and by policy. We can reduce a building into rubbish, but we +don’t profess to turn rubbish into a building. We are critics, and, as +you say, not such fools as to commit ourselves to the proposition of +amendments that can be criticised by others. Nevertheless, for your +sake, Cousin Peter, and on the condition that if I give my advice you +will never say that I gave it, and if you take it that you will never +reproach me if it turns out, as most advice does, very ill,--I will +depart from my custom and hazard my opinion.” + +“I accept the conditions.” + +“Well then, with every new generation there springs up a new order of +ideas. The earlier the age at which a man seizes the ideas that will +influence his own generation, the more he has a start in the race with +his contemporaries. If Kenelm comprehends at sixteen those intellectual +signs of the time which, when he goes up to college, he will find young +men of eighteen or twenty only just _prepared_ to comprehend, he +will produce a deep impression of his powers for reasoning and their +adaptation to actual life, which will be of great service to him later. +Now the ideas that influence the mass of the rising generation never +have their well-head in the generation itself. They have their source in +the generation before them, generally in a small minority, neglected or +contemned by the great majority which adopt them later. Therefore a lad +at the age of sixteen, if he wants to get at such ideas, must come +into close contact with some superior mind in which they were conceived +twenty or thirty years before. I am consequently for placing Kenelm with +a person from whom the new ideas can be learned. I am also for his being +placed in the metropolis during the process of this initiation. With +such introductions as are at our command, he may come in contact not +only with new ideas, but with eminent men in all vocations. It is a +great thing to mix betimes with clever people. One picks their brains +unconsciously. There is another advantage, and not a small one, in +this early entrance into good society. A youth learns manners, +self-possession, readiness of resource; and he is much less likely to +get into scrapes and contract tastes for low vices and mean dissipation, +when he comes into life wholly his own master, after having acquired +a predilection for refined companionship under the guidance of those +competent to select it. There, I have talked myself out of breath. And +you had better decide at once in favour of my advice; for as I am of a +contradictory temperament, myself of to-morrow may probably contradict +myself of to-day.” + +Sir Peter was greatly impressed with his cousin’s argumentative +eloquence. + +The Parson smoked his cutty-pipe in silence until appealed to by Sir +Peter, and he then said, “In this programme of education for a Christian +gentleman, the part of Christian seems to me left out.” + +“The tendency of the age,” observed Mr. Mivers, calmly, “is towards that +omission. Secular education is the necessary reaction from the special +theological training which arose in the dislike of one set of Christians +to the teaching of another set; and as these antagonists will not agree +how religion is to be taught, either there must be no teaching at all, +or religion must be eliminated from the tuition.” + +“That may do very well for some huge system of national education,” said +Sir Peter, “but it does not apply to Kenelm, as one of a family all of +whose members belong to the Established Church. He may be taught the +creed of his forefathers without offending a Dissenter.” + +“Which Established Church is he to belong to?” asked Mr. Mivers,--“High +Church, Low Church, Broad Church, Puseyite Church, Ritualistic Church, +or any other Established Church that may be coming into fashion?” + +“Pshaw!” said the Parson. “That sneer is out of place. You know very +well that one merit of our Church is the spirit of toleration, which +does not magnify every variety of opinion into a heresy or a schism. +But if Sir Peter sends his son at the age of sixteen to a tutor who +eliminates the religion of Christianity from his teaching, he deserves +to be thrashed within an inch of his life; and,” continued the Parson, +eying Sir Peter sternly, and mechanically turning up his cuffs, “I +should _like_ to thrash him.” + +“Gently, John,” said Sir Peter, recoiling; “gently, my dear kinsman. My +heir shall not be educated as a heathen, and Mivers is only bantering +us. Come, Mivers, do you happen to know among your London friends some +man who, though a scholar and a man of the world, is still a Christian?” + +“A Christian as by law established?” + +“Well--yes.” + +“And who will receive Kenelm as a pupil?” + +“Of course I am not putting such questions to you out of idle +curiosity.” + +“I know exactly the man. He was originally intended for orders, and is +a very learned theologian. He relinquished the thought of the clerical +profession on succeeding to a small landed estate by the sudden death of +an elder brother. He then came to London and bought experience: that +is, he was naturally generous; he became easily taken in; got into +difficulties; the estate was transferred to trustees for the benefit of +creditors, and on the payment of L400 a year to himself. By this time +he was married and had two children. He found the necessity of employing +his pen in order to add to his income, and is one of the ablest +contributors to the periodical press. He is an elegant scholar, an +effective writer, much courted by public men, a thorough gentleman, has +a pleasant house, and receives the best society. Having been once taken +in, he defies any one to take him in again. His experience was not +bought too dearly. No more acute and accomplished man of the world. The +three hundred a year or so that you would pay for Kenelm would suit him +very well. His name is Welby, and he lives in Chester Square.” + +“No doubt he is a contributor to ‘The Londoner,’” said the Parson, +sarcastically. + +“True. He writes our classical, theological, and metaphysical articles. +Suppose I invite him to come here for a day or two, and you can see him +and judge for yourself, Sir Peter?” + +“Do.” + + + +CHAPTER X. + +MR. WELBY arrived, and pleased everybody. A man of the happiest manners, +easy and courteous. There was no pedantry in him, yet you could soon see +that his reading covered an extensive surface, and here and there +had dived deeply. He enchanted the Parson by his comments on Saint +Chrysostom; he dazzled Sir Peter with his lore in the antiquities of +ancient Britain; he captivated Kenelm by his readiness to enter into +that most disputatious of sciences called metaphysics; while for Lady +Chillingly, and the three sisters who were invited to meet him, he was +more entertaining, but not less instructive. Equally at home in novels +and in good books, he gave to the spinsters a list of innocent works +in either; while for Lady Chillingly he sparkled with anecdotes of +fashionable life, the newest _bons mots_, the latest scandals. In fact, +Mr. Welby was one of those brilliant persons who adorn any society +amidst which they are thrown. If at heart he was a disappointed man, +the disappointment was concealed by an even serenity of spirits; he +had entertained high and justifiable hopes of a brilliant career and a +lasting reputation as a theologian and a preacher; the succession to +his estate at the age of twenty-three had changed the nature of his +ambition. The charm of his manner was such that he sprang at once into +the fashion, and became beguiled by his own genial temperament into that +lesser but pleasanter kind of ambition which contents itself with social +successes and enjoys the present hour. When his circumstances compelled +him to eke out his income by literary profits, he slid into the grooves +of periodical composition, and resigned all thoughts of the labour +required for any complete work, which might take much time and be +attended with scanty profits. He still remained very popular in society, +and perhaps his general reputation for ability made him fearful to +hazard it by any great undertaking. He was not, like Mivers, a despiser +of all men and all things; but he regarded men and things as an +indifferent though good-natured spectator regards the thronging streets +from a drawing-room window. He could not be called _blase_, but he was +thoroughly _desillusionne_. Once over-romantic, his character now was so +entirely imbued with the neutral tints of life that romance offended his +taste as an obtrusion of violent colour into a sober woof. He was become +a thorough Realist in his code of criticism, and in his worldly mode +of action and thought. But Parson John did not perceive this, for +Welby listened to that gentleman’s eulogies on the Ideal school without +troubling himself to contradict them. He had grown too indolent to be +combative in conversation, and only as a critic betrayed such pugnacity +as remained to him by the polished cruelty of sarcasm. + +He came off with flying colours through an examination into his Church +orthodoxy instituted by the Parson and Sir Peter. Amid a cloud of +ecclesiastical erudition, his own opinions vanished in those of the +Fathers. In truth, he was a Realist, in religion as in everything else. +He regarded Christianity as a type of existent civilization, which +ought to be reverenced, as one might recognize the other types of that +civilization; such as the liberty of the press, the representative +system, white neckcloths and black coats of an evening, etc. He +belonged, therefore, to what he himself called the school of Eclectical +Christiology; and accommodated the reasonings of Deism to the doctrines +of the Church, if not as a creed, at least as an institution. Finally, +he united all the Chillingly votes in his favour; and when he departed +from the Hall carried off Kenelm for his initiation into the new ideas +that were to govern his generation. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +KENELM remained a year and a half with this distinguished preceptor. +During that time he learned much in book-lore; he saw much, too, of the +eminent men of the day, in literature, the law, and the senate. He saw, +also, a good deal of the fashionable world. Fine ladies, who had been +friends of his mother in her youth, took him up, counselled and petted +him,--one in especial, the Marchioness of Glenalvon, to whom he was +endeared by grateful association, for her youngest son had been a +fellow-pupil of Kenelm at Merton School, and Kenelm had saved his life +from drowning. The poor boy died of consumption later, and her grief for +his loss made her affection for Kenelm yet more tender. Lady Glenalvon +was one of the queens of the London world. Though in the fiftieth +year she was still very handsome: she was also very accomplished, very +clever, and very kind-hearted, as some of such queens are; just one +of those women invaluable in forming the manners and elevating the +character of young men destined to make a figure in after-life. But she +was very angry with herself in thinking that she failed to arouse any +such ambition in the heir of the Chillinglys. + +It may here be said that Kenelm was not without great advantages of form +and countenance. He was tall, and the youthful grace of his proportions +concealed his physical strength, which was extraordinary rather from the +iron texture than the bulk of his thews and sinews. His face, though it +certainly lacked the roundness of youth, had a grave, sombre, haunting +sort of beauty, not artistically regular, but picturesque, peculiar, +with large dark expressive eyes, and a certain indescribable combination +of sweetness and melancholy in his quiet smile. He never laughed +audibly, but he had a quick sense of the comic, and his eye would laugh +when his lips were silent. He would say queer, droll, unexpected things +which passed for humour; but, save for that gleam in the eye, he could +not have said them with more seeming innocence of intentional joke if he +had been a monk of La Trappe looking up from the grave he was digging in +order to utter “memento mori.” + +That face of his was a great “take in.” Women thought it full of +romantic sentiment; the face of one easily moved to love, and whose love +would be replete alike with poetry and passion. But he remained as proof +as the youthful Hippolytus to all female attraction. He delighted the +Parson by keeping up his practice in athletic pursuits; and obtained a +reputation at the pugilistic school, which he attended regularly, as the +best gentleman boxer about town. + +He made many acquaintances, but still formed no friendships. Yet every +one who saw him much conceived affection for him. If he did not return +that affection, he did not repel it. He was exceedingly gentle in voice +and manner, and had all his father’s placidity of temper: children and +dogs took to him as by instinct. + +On leaving Mr. Welby’s, Kenelm carried to Cambridge a mind largely +stocked with the new ideas that were budding into leaf. He certainly +astonished the other freshmen, and occasionally puzzled the mighty +Fellows of Trinity and St. John’s. But he gradually withdrew himself +much from general society. In fact, he was too old in mind for his +years; and after having mixed in the choicest circles of a metropolis, +college suppers and wine parties had little charm for him. He maintained +his pugilistic renown; and on certain occasions, when some delicate +undergraduate had been bullied by some gigantic bargeman, his muscular +Christianity nobly developed itself. He did not do as much as he might +have done in the more intellectual ways of academical distinction. +Still, he was always among the first in the college examinations; he won +two university prizes, and took a very creditable degree, after which +he returned home, more odd, more saturnine--in short, less like other +people--than when he had left Merton School. He had woven a solitude +round him out of his own heart, and in that solitude he sat still and +watchful as a spider sits in his web. + +Whether from natural temperament or from his educational training under +such teachers as Mr. Mivers, who carried out the new ideas of reform by +revering nothing in the past, and Mr. Welby, who accepted the routine of +the present as realistic, and pooh-poohed all visions of the future as +idealistic, Kenelm’s chief mental characteristic was a kind of tranquil +indifferentism. It was difficult to detect in him either of those +ordinary incentives to action,--vanity or ambition, the yearning for +applause or the desire of power. To all female fascinations he had been +hitherto star-proof. He had never experienced love, but he had read +a good deal about it; and that passion seemed to him an unaccountable +aberration of human reason, and an ignominious surrender of the +equanimity of thought which it should be the object of masculine natures +to maintain undisturbed. A very eloquent book in praise of celibacy, and +entitled “The Approach to the Angels,” written by that eminent Oxford +scholar, Decimus Roach, had produced so remarkable an effect upon his +youthful mind that, had he been a Roman Catholic, he might have become +a monk. Where he most evinced ardour it was a logician’s ardour for +abstract truth; that is, for what he considered truth: and, as what +seems truth to one man is sure to seem falsehood to some other man, this +predilection of his was not without its inconveniences and dangers, as +may probably be seen in the following chapter. + +Meanwhile, rightly to appreciate his conduct therein, I entreat thee, O +candid reader (not that any reader ever is candid), to remember that he +is brimful of new ideas, which, met by a deep and hostile undercurrent +of old ideas, become more provocatively billowy and surging. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THERE had been great festivities at Exmundham, in celebration of the +honour bestowed upon the world by the fact that Kenelm Chillingly had +lived twenty-one years in it. + +The young heir had made a speech to the assembled tenants and other +admitted revellers, which had by no means added to the exhilaration of +the proceedings. He spoke with a fluency and self-possession which were +surprising in a youth addressing a multitude for the first time. But his +speech was not cheerful. + +The principal tenant on the estate, in proposing his health, had +naturally referred to the long line of his ancestors. His father’s +merits as man and landlord had been enthusiastically commemorated; and +many happy auguries for his own future career had been drawn, partly +from the excellences of his parentage, partly from his own youthful +promise in the honours achieved at the University. + +Kenelm Chillingly in reply largely availed himself of those new ideas +which were to influence the rising generation, and with which he had +been rendered familiar by the journal of Mr. Mivers and the conversation +of Mr. Welby. + +He briefly disposed of the ancestral part of the question. He observed +that it was singular to note how long any given family or dynasty could +continue to flourish in any given nook of matter in creation, without +any exhibition of intellectual powers beyond those displayed by a +succession of vegetable crops. “It is certainly true,” he said, “that +the Chillinglys have lived in this place from father to son for about a +fourth part of the history of the world, since the date which Sir Isaac +Newton assigns to the Deluge. But, so far as can be judged by existent +records, the world has not been in any way wiser or better for their +existence. They were born to eat as long as they could eat, and when +they could eat no longer they died. Not that in this respect they were +a whit less insignificant than the generality of their fellow-creatures. +Most of us now present,” continued the youthful orator, “are only born +in order to die; and the chief consolation of our wounded pride in +admitting this fact is in the probability that our posterity will not +be of more consequence to the scheme of Nature than we ourselves are.” + Passing from that philosophical view of his own ancestors in particular, +and of the human race in general, Kenelm Chillingly then touched with +serene analysis on the eulogies lavished on his father as man and +landlord. + +“As man,” he said, “my father no doubt deserves all that can be said +by man in favour of man. But what, at the best, is man? A crude, +struggling, undeveloped embryo, of whom it is the highest attribute that +he feels a vague consciousness that he is only an embryo, and cannot +complete himself till he ceases to be a man; that is, until he becomes +another being in another form of existence. We can praise a dog as +a dog, because a dog is a completed _ens_, and not an embryo. But to +praise a man as man, forgetting that he is only a germ out of which a +form wholly different is ultimately to spring, is equally opposed +to Scriptural belief in his present crudity and imperfection, and to +psychological or metaphysical examination of a mental construction +evidently designed for purposes that he can never fulfil as man. That my +father is an embryo not more incomplete than any present is quite true; +but that, you will see on reflection, is saying very little on his +behalf. Even in the boasted physical formation of us men, you are +aware that the best-shaped amongst us, according to the last scientific +discoveries, is only a development of some hideous hairy animal, such +as a gorilla; and the ancestral gorilla itself had its own aboriginal +forefather in a small marine animal shaped like a two-necked bottle. The +probability is that, some day or other, we shall be exterminated by a +new development of species. + +“As for the merits assigned to my father as landlord, I must +respectfully dissent from the panegyrics so rashly bestowed on him. For +all sound reasoners must concur in this, that the first duty of an owner +of land is not to the occupiers to whom he leases it, but to the nation +at large. It is his duty to see that the land yields to the community +the utmost it can yield. In order to effect this object, a landlord +should put up his farms to competition, exacting the highest rent he can +possibly get from responsible competitors. Competitive examination is +the enlightened order of the day, even in professions in which the best +men would have qualities that defy examination. In agriculture, happily, +the principle of competitive examination is not so hostile to the choice +of the best man as it must be, for instance, in diplomacy, where a +Talleyrand would be excluded for knowing no language but his own; and +still more in the army, where promotion would be denied to an officer +who, like Marlborough, could not spell. But in agriculture a landlord +has only to inquire who can give the highest rent, having the largest +capital, subject by the strictest penalties of law to the conditions of +a lease dictated by the most scientific agriculturists under penalties +fixed by the most cautious conveyancers. By this mode of procedure, +recommended by the most liberal economists of our age,--barring those +still more liberal who deny that property in land is any property at +all,--by this mode of procedure, I say, a landlord does his duty to his +country. He secures tenants who can produce the most to the community by +their capital, tested through competitive examination in their bankers’ +accounts and the security they can give, and through the rigidity of +covenants suggested by a Liebig and reduced into law by a Chitty. But on +my father’s land I see a great many tenants with little skill and less +capital, ignorant of a Liebig and revolting from a Chitty, and no +filial enthusiasm can induce me honestly to say that my father is a good +landlord. He has preferred his affection for individuals to his duties +to the community. It is not, my friends, a question whether a handful of +farmers like yourselves go to the workhouse or not. It is a consumer’s +question. Do you produce the maximum of corn to the consumer? + +“With respect to myself,” continued the orator, warming as the cold +he had engendered in his audience became more freezingly felt,--“with +respect to myself, I do not deny that, owing to the accident of training +for a very faulty and contracted course of education, I have obtained +what are called ‘honours’ at the University of Cambridge; but you must +not regard that fact as a promise of any worth in my future passage +through life. Some of the most useless persons--especially narrow-minded +and bigoted--have acquired far higher honours at the University than +have fallen to my lot. + +“I thank you no less for the civil things you have said of me and of my +family; but I shall endeavour to walk to that grave to which we are all +bound with a tranquil indifference as to what people may say of me in +so short a journey. And the sooner, my friends, we get to our journey’s +end, the better our chance of escaping a great many pains, troubles, +sins, and diseases. So that when I drink to your good healths, you must +feel that in reality I wish you an early deliverance from the ills to +which flesh is exposed, and which so generally increase with our years +that good health is scarcely compatible with the decaying faculties of +old age. Gentlemen, your good healths!” + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE morning after these birthday rejoicings, Sir Peter and Lady +Chillingly held a long consultation on the peculiarities of their heir, +and the best mode of instilling into his mind the expediency either +of entertaining more pleasing views, or at least of professing less +unpopular sentiments; compatibly of course, though they did not say it, +with the new ideas that were to govern his century. Having come to an +agreement on this delicate subject, they went forth, arm in arm, in +search of their heir. Kenelm seldom met them at breakfast. He was an +early riser, and accustomed to solitary rambles before his parents were +out of bed. + +The worthy pair found Kenelm seated on the banks of a trout-stream that +meandered through Chillingly Park, dipping his line into the water, and +yawning, with apparent relief in that operation. + +“Does fishing amuse you, my boy?” said Sir Peter, heartily. + +“Not in the least, sir,” answered Kenelm. + +“Then why do you do it?” asked Lady Chillingly. + +“Because I know nothing else that amuses me more.” + +“Ah! that is it,” said Sir Peter: “the whole secret of Kenelm’s oddities +is to be found in these words, my dear; he needs amusement. Voltaire +says truly, ‘Amusement is one of the wants of man.’ And if Kenelm could +be amused like other people, he would be like other people.” + +“In that case,” said Kenelm, gravely, and extracting from the water +a small but lively trout, which settled itself in Lady Chillingly’s +lap,--“in that case I would rather not be amused. I have no interest +in the absurdities of other people. The instinct of self-preservation +compels me to have some interest in my own.” + +“Kenelm, sir,” exclaimed Lady Chillingly, with an animation into which +her tranquil ladyship was very rarely betrayed, “take away that horrid +damp thing! Put down your rod and attend to what your father says. Your +strange conduct gives us cause of serious anxiety.” + +Kenelm unhooked the trout, deposited the fish in his basket, and raising +his large eyes to his father’s face, said, “What is there in my conduct +that occasions you displeasure?” + +“Not displeasure, Kenelm,” said Sir Peter, kindly, “but anxiety; your +mother has hit upon the right word. You see, my dear son, that it is +my wish that you should distinguish yourself in the world. You might +represent this county, as your ancestors have done before. I have looked +forward to the proceedings of yesterday as an admirable occasion for +your introduction to your future constituents. Oratory is the talent +most appreciated in a free country, and why should you not be an orator? +Demosthenes says that delivery, delivery, delivery, is the art of +oratory; and your delivery is excellent, graceful, self-possessed, +classical.” + +“Pardon me, my dear father, Demosthenes does not say delivery, +nor action, as the word is commonly rendered; he says, ‘acting, or +stage-play,’--the art by which a man delivers a speech in a feigned +character, whence we get the word hypocrisy. Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, +hypocrisy! is, according to Demosthenes, the triple art of the orator. +Do you wish me to become triply a hypocrite?” + +“Kenelm, I am ashamed of you. You know as well as I do that it is only +by metaphor that you can twist the word ascribed to the great Athenian +into the sense of hypocrisy. But assuming it, as you say, to mean not +delivery, but acting, I understand why your debut as an orator was +not successful. Your delivery was excellent, your acting defective. +An orator should please, conciliate, persuade, prepossess. You did the +reverse of all this; and though you produced a great effect, the effect +was so decidedly to your disadvantage that it would have lost you an +election on any hustings in England.” + +“Am I to understand, my dear father,” said Kenelm, in the mournful and +compassionate tones with which a pious minister of the Church reproves +some abandoned and hoary sinner,--“am I to understand that you would +commend to your son the adoption of deliberate falsehood for the gain of +a selfish advantage?” + +“Deliberate falsehood! you impertinent puppy!” + +“Puppy!” repeated Kenelm, not indignantly but musingly,--“puppy! a +well-bred puppy takes after its parents.” + +Sir Peter burst out laughing. + +Lady Chillingly rose with dignity, shook her gown, unfolded her parasol, +and stalked away speechless. + +“Now, look you, Kenelm,” said Sir Peter, as soon as he had composed +himself. “These quips and humours of yours are amusing enough to an +eccentric man like myself, but they will not do for the world; and +how at your age, and with the rare advantages you have had in an early +introduction to the best intellectual society, under the guidance of a +tutor acquainted with the new ideas which are to influence the +conduct of statesmen, you could have made so silly a speech as you did +yesterday, I cannot understand.” + +“My dear father, allow me to assure you that the ideas I expressed are +the new ideas most in vogue,--ideas expressed in still plainer, or, if +you prefer the epithet, still sillier terms than I employed. You will +find them instilled into the public mind by ‘The Londoner’ and by most +intellectual journals of a liberal character.” + +“Kenelm, Kenelm, such ideas would turn the world topsy-turvy.” + +“New ideas always do tend to turn old ideas topsy-turvy. And the world, +after all, is only an idea, which is turned topsy-turvy with every +successive century.” + +“You make me sick of the word ‘ideas.’ Leave off your metaphysics and +study real life.” + +“It is real life which I did study under Mr. Welby. He is the +Archimandrite of Realism. It is sham life which you wish me to study. To +oblige you I am willing to commence it. I dare say it is very pleasant. +Real life is not; on the contrary--dull,” and Kenelm yawned again. + +“Have you no young friends among your fellow-collegians?” + +“Friends! certainly not, sir. But I believe I have some enemies, who +answer the same purpose as friends, only they don’t hurt one so much.” + +“Do you mean to say that you lived alone at Cambridge?” + +“No, I lived a good deal with Aristophanes, and a little with Conic +Sections and Hydrostatics.” + +“Books. Dry company.” + +“More innocent, at least, than moist company. Did you ever get drunk, +sir?” + +“Drunk!” + +“I tried to do so once with the young companions whom you would commend +to me as friends. I don’t think I succeeded, but I woke with a headache. +Real life at college abounds with headache.” + +“Kenelm, my boy, one thing is clear: you must travel.” + +“As you please, sir. Marcus Antoninus says that it is all one to a stone +whether it be thrown upwards or downwards. When shall I start?” + +“Very soon. Of course there are preparations to make; you should have a +travelling companion. I don’t mean a tutor,--you are too clever and +too steady to need one,--but a pleasant, sensible, well-mannered young +person of your own age.” + +“My own age,--male or female?” + +Sir Peter tried hard to frown. The utmost he could do was to reply +gravely, “FEMALE! If I said you were too steady to need a tutor, it was +because you have hitherto seemed little likely to be led out of your +way by female allurements. Among your other studies may I inquire if you +have included that which no man has ever yet thoroughly mastered,--the +study of women?” + +“Certainly. Do you object to my catching another trout?” + +“Trout be--blessed, or the reverse. So you have studied woman. I should +never have thought it. Where and when did you commence that department +of science?” + +“When? ever since I was ten years old. Where? first in your own house, +then at college. Hush!--a bite,” and another trout left its native +element and alighted on Sir Peter’s nose, whence it was solemnly +transferred to the basket. + +“At ten years old, and in my own house! That flaunting hussy Jane, the +under-housemaid--” + +“Jane! No, sir. Pamela, Miss Byron, Clarissa,--females in Richardson, +who, according to Dr. Johnson, ‘taught the passions to move at the +command of virtue.’ I trust for your sake that Dr. Johnson did not err +in that assertion, for I found all these females at night in your own +private apartments.” + +“Oh!” said Sir Peter, “that’s all?” + +“All I remember at ten years old,” replied Kenelm. + +“And at Mr. Welby’s or at college,” proceeded Sir Peter, timorously, +“was your acquaintance with females of the same kind?” + +Kenelm shook his head. “Much worse: they were very naughty indeed at +college.” + +“I should think so, with such a lot of young fellows running after +them.” + +“Very few fellows run after the females. I mean--rather avoid them.” + +“So much the better.” + +“No, my father, so much the worse; without an intimate knowledge of +those females there is little use going to college at all.” + +“Explain yourself.” + +“Every one who receives a classical education is introduced into their +society,--Pyrrha and Lydia, Glycera and Corinna, and many more of the +same sort; and then the females in Aristophanes, what do you say to +them, sir?” + +“Is it only females who lived two thousand or three thousand years ago, +or more probably never lived at all, whose intimacy you have cultivated? +Have you never admired any real women?” + +“Real women! I never met one. Never met a woman who was not a sham, +a sham from the moment she is told to be pretty-behaved, conceal her +sentiments, and look fibs when she does not speak them. But if I am to +learn sham life, I suppose I must put up with sham women.” + +“Have you been crossed in love that you speak so bitterly of the sex?” + +“I don’t speak bitterly of the sex. Examine any woman on her oath, and +she’ll own she is a sham, always has been, and always will be, and is +proud of it.” + +“I am glad your mother is not by to hear you. You will think differently +one of these days. Meanwhile, to turn to the other sex, is there no +young man of your own rank with whom you would like to travel?” + +“Certainly not. I hate quarrelling.” + +“As you please. But you cannot go quite alone: I will find you a good +travelling-servant. I must write to town to-day about your preparations, +and in another week or so I hope all will be ready. Your allowance will +be whatever you like to fix it at; you have never been extravagant, +and--boy--I love you. Amuse yourself, enjoy yourself, and come back +cured of your oddities, but preserving your honour.” + +Sir Peter bent down and kissed his son’s brow. Kenelm was moved; he +rose, put his arm round his father’s shoulder, and lovingly said, in +an undertone, “If ever I am tempted to do a base thing, may I remember +whose son I am: I shall be safe then.” He withdrew his arm as he said +this, and took his solitary way along the banks of the stream, forgetful +of rod and line. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE young man continued to skirt the side of the stream until he reached +the boundary pale of the park. Here, placed on a rough grass mound, +some former proprietor, of a social temperament, had built a kind of +belvidere, so as to command a cheerful view of the high road below. +Mechanically the heir of the Chillinglys ascended the mound, seated +himself within the belvidere, and leaned his chin on his hand in a +thoughtful attitude. It was rarely that the building was honoured by a +human visitor: its habitual occupants were spiders. Of those industrious +insects it was a well-populated colony. Their webs, darkened with +dust and ornamented with the wings and legs and skeletons of many an +unfortunate traveller, clung thick to angle and window-sill, festooned +the rickety table on which the young man leaned his elbow, and described +geometrical circles and rhomboids between the gaping rails that formed +the backs of venerable chairs. One large black spider--who was probably +the oldest inhabitant, and held possession of the best place by the +window, ready to offer perfidious welcome to every winged itinerant +who might be tempted to turn aside from the high road for the sake of +a little cool and repose--rushed from its innermost penetralia at the +entrance of Kenelm, and remained motionless in the centre of its meshes, +staring at him. It did not seem quite sure whether the stranger was too +big or not. + +“It is a wonderful proof of the wisdom of Providence,” said Kenelm, +“that whenever any large number of its creatures forms a community +or class, a secret element of disunion enters into the hearts of the +individuals forming the congregation, and prevents their co-operating +heartily and effectually for their common interest. ‘The fleas would +have dragged me out of bed if they had been unanimous,’ said the great +Mr. Curran; and there can be no doubt that if all the spiders in this +commonwealth would unite to attack me in a body, I should fall a victim +to their combined nippers. But spiders, though inhabiting the same +region, constituting the same race, animated by the same instincts, +do not combine even against a butterfly: each seeks his own special +advantage, and not that of the community at large. And how completely +the life of each thing resembles a circle in this respect, that it can +never touch another circle at more than one point. Nay, I doubt if it +quite touches it even there,--there is a space between every atom; self +is always selfish: and yet there are eminent masters in the Academe of +New Ideas who wish to make us believe that all the working classes of a +civilized world could merge every difference of race, creed, intellect, +individual propensities and interests into the construction of a single +web, stocked as a larder in common!” Here the soliloquist came to a dead +stop, and, leaning out of the window, contemplated the high road. It was +a very fine high road, straight and level, kept in excellent order by +turn pikes at every eight miles. A pleasant greensward bordered it on +either side, and under the belvidere the benevolence of some mediaeval +Chillingly had placed a little drinking-fountain for the refreshment of +wayfarers. Close to the fountain stood a rude stone bench, overshadowed +by a large willow, and commanding from the high table-ground on which +it was placed a wide view of cornfields, meadows, and distant hills, +suffused in the mellow light of the summer sun. Along that road there +came successively a wagon filled with passengers seated on straw,--an +old woman, a pretty girl, two children; then a stout farmer going to +market in his dog-cart; then three flies carrying fares to the nearest +railway station; then a handsome young man on horseback, a handsome +young lady by his side, a groom behind. It was easy to see that the +young man and young lady were lovers. See it in his ardent looks and +serious lips parted but for whispers only to be heard by her; see it +in her downcast eyes and heightened colour. “‘Alas! regardless of +their doom,’” muttered Kenelm, “what trouble those ‘little victims’ +are preparing for themselves and their progeny! Would I could lend them +Decimus Roach’s ‘Approach to the Angels’!” The road now for some minutes +became solitary and still, when there was heard to the right a sprightly +sort of carol, half sung, half recited, in musical voice, with a +singularly clear enunciation, so that the words reached Kenelm’s ear +distinctly. They ran thus:-- + + + “Black Karl looked forth from his cottage door, + He looked on the forest green; + And down the path, with his dogs before, + Came the Ritter of Neirestein: + Singing, singing, lustily singing, + Down the path with his dogs before, + Came the Ritter of Neirestein.” + + +At a voice so English, attuned to a strain so Germanic, Kenelm pricked +up attentive ears, and, turning his eye down the road, beheld, emerging +from the shade of beeches that overhung the park pales, a figure that +did not altogether harmonize with the idea of a Ritter of Neirestein. It +was, nevertheless, a picturesque figure enough. The man was attired in a +somewhat threadbare suit of Lincoln green, with a high-crowned Tyrolese +hat; a knapsack was slung behind his shoulders, and he was attended by a +white Pomeranian dog, evidently foot-sore, but doing his best to appear +proficient in the chase by limping some yards in advance of his master, +and sniffing into the hedges for rats and mice, and such small deer. + +By the time the pedestrian had reached to the close of his refrain he +had gained the fountain, and greeted it with an exclamation of pleasure. +Slipping the knapsack from his shoulder, he filled the iron ladle +attached to the basin. He then called the dog by the name of Max, and +held the ladle for him to drink. Not till the animal had satisfied his +thirst did the master assuage his own. Then, lifting his hat and bathing +his temples and face, the pedestrian seated himself on the bench, +and the dog nestled on the turf at his feet. After a little pause the +wayfarer began again, though in a lower and slower tone, to chant his +refrain, and proceeded, with abrupt snatches, to link the verse on +to another stanza. It was evident that he was either endeavouring to +remember or to invent, and it seemed rather like the latter and more +laborious operation of mind. + + + “‘Why on foot, why on foot, Ritter Karl,’ quoth he, + ‘And not on thy palfrey gray?’ + + +Palfrey gray--hum--gray. + + + “‘The run of ill-luck was too strong for me, + ‘And has galloped my steed away.’ + + +That will do: good!” + +“Good indeed! He is easily satisfied,” muttered Kenelm. “But such +pedestrians don’t pass the road every day. Let us talk to him.” So +saying he slipped quietly out of the window, descended the mound, +and letting himself into the road by a screened wicket-gate, took his +noiseless stand behind the wayfarer and beneath the bowery willow. + +The man had now sunk into silence. Perhaps he had tired himself of +rhymes; or perhaps the mechanism of verse-making had been replaced by +that kind of sentiment, or that kind of revery, which is common to the +temperaments of those who indulge in verse-making. But the loveliness +of the scene before him had caught his eye, and fixed it into an intent +gaze upon wooded landscapes stretching farther and farther to the range +of hills on which the heaven seemed to rest. + +“I should like to hear the rest of that German ballad,” said a voice, +abruptly. + +The wayfarer started, and, turning round, presented to Kenelm’s view +a countenance in the ripest noon of manhood, with locks and beard of a +deep rich auburn, bright blue eyes, and a wonderful nameless charm both +of feature and expression, very cheerful, very frank, and not without a +certain nobleness of character which seemed to exact respect. + +“I beg your pardon for my interruption,” said Kenelm, lifting his hat: +“but I overheard you reciting; and though I suppose your verses are a +translation from the German, I don’t remember anything like them in such +popular German poets as I happen to have read.” + +“It is not a translation, sir,” replied the itinerant. “I was only +trying to string together some ideas that came into my head this fine +morning.” + +“You are a poet, then?” said Kenelm, seating himself on the bench. + +“I dare not say poet. I am a verse-maker.” + +“Sir, I know there is a distinction. Many poets of the present day, +considered very good, are uncommonly bad verse-makers. For my part, I +could more readily imagine them to be good poets if they did not make +verses at all. But can I not hear the rest of the ballad?” + +“Alas! the rest of the ballad is not yet made. It is rather a long +subject, and my flights are very brief.” + +“That is much in their favour, and very unlike the poetry in fashion. +You do not belong, I think, to this neighbourhood. Are you and your dog +travelling far?” + +“It is my holiday time, and I ramble on through the summer. I am +travelling far, for I travel till September. Life amid summer fields is +a very joyous thing.” + +“Is it indeed?” said Kenelm, with much _naivete_. “I should have thought +that long before September you would have got very much bored with the +fields and the dog and yourself altogether. But, to be sure, you +have the resource of verse-making, and that seems a very pleasant and +absorbing occupation to those who practise it,--from our old friend +Horace, kneading laboured Alcaics into honey in his summer rambles among +the watered woodlands of Tibur, to Cardinal Richelieu, employing himself +on French rhymes in the intervals between chopping off noblemen’s heads. +It does not seem to signify much whether the verses be good or bad, +so far as the pleasure of the verse-maker himself is concerned; for +Richelieu was as much charmed with his occupation as Horace was, and his +verses were certainly not Horatian.” + +“Surely at your age, sir, and with your evident education--” + +“Say culture; that’s the word in fashion nowadays.” + +“Well, your evident culture, you must have made verses.” + +“Latin verses, yes; and occasionally Greek. I was obliged to do so at +school. It did not amuse me.” + +“Try English.” + +Kenelm shook his head. “Not I. Every cobbler should stick to his last.” + +“Well, put aside the verse-making: don’t you find a sensible +enjoyment in those solitary summer walks, when you have Nature all to +yourself,--enjoyment in marking all the mobile evanescent changes in her +face,--her laugh, her smile, her tears, her very frown!” + +“Assuming that by Nature you mean a mechanical series of external +phenomena, I object to your speaking of a machinery as if it were a +person of the feminine gender,--_her_ laugh, _her_ smile, etc. As +well talk of the laugh and smile of a steam-engine. But to descend to +common-sense. I grant there is some pleasure in solitary rambles in fine +weather and amid varying scenery. You say that it is a holiday excursion +that you are enjoying. I presume, therefore, that you have some +practical occupation which consumes the time that you do not devote to a +holiday?” + +“Yes; I am not altogether an idler. I work sometimes, though not so hard +as I ought. ‘Life is earnest,’ as the poet says. But I and my dog are +rested now, and as I have still a long walk before me I must wish you +good-day.” + +“I fear,” said Kenelm, with a grave and sweet politeness of tone and +manner, which he could command at times, and which, in its difference +from merely conventional urbanity, was not without fascination,--“I +fear that I have offended you by a question that must have seemed to you +inquisitive, perhaps impertinent; accept my excuse: it is very rarely +that I meet any one who interests me; and you do.” As he spoke he +offered his hand, which the wayfarer shook very cordially. + +“I should be a churl indeed if your question could have given me +offence. It is rather perhaps I who am guilty of impertinence, if I +take advantage of my seniority in years and tender you a counsel. Do not +despise Nature or regard her as a steam-engine; you will find in her +a very agreeable and conversable friend if you will cultivate her +intimacy. And I don’t know a better mode of doing so at your age, and +with your strong limbs, than putting a knapsack on your shoulders and +turning foot-traveller like myself.” + +“Sir, I thank you for your counsel; and I trust we may meet again +and interchange ideas as to the thing you call Nature,--a thing which +science and art never appear to see with the same eyes. If to an artist +Nature has a soul, why, so has a steam-engine. Art gifts with soul all +matter that it contemplates: science turns all that is already gifted +with soul into matter. Good-day, sir.” + +Here Kenelm turned back abruptly, and the traveller went his way, +silently and thoughtfully. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +KENELM retraced his steps homeward under the shade of his “old +hereditary trees.” One might have thought his path along the +greenswards, and by the side of the babbling rivulet, was pleasanter and +more conducive to peaceful thoughts than the broad, dusty thoroughfare +along which plodded the wanderer he had quitted. But the man addicted to +revery forms his own landscapes and colours his own skies. + +“It is,” soliloquized Kenelm Chillingly, “a strange yearning I have +long felt,--to get out of myself, to get, as it were, into another man’s +skin, and have a little variety of thought and emotion. One’s self is +always the same self; and that is why I yawn so often. But if I can’t +get into another man’s skin, the next best thing is to get as unlike +myself as I possibly can do. Let me see what is myself. Myself is +Kenelm Chillingly, son and heir to a rich gentleman. But a fellow with +a knapsack on his back, sleeping at wayside inns, is not at all like +Kenelm Chillingly; especially if he is very short of money and may come +to want a dinner. Perhaps that sort of fellow may take a livelier view +of things: he can’t take a duller one. Courage, Myself: you and I can +but try.” + +For the next two days Kenelm was observed to be unusually pleasant. He +yawned much less frequently, walked with his father, played piquet +with his mother, was more like other people. Sir Peter was charmed: +he ascribed this happy change to the preparations he was making +for Kenelm’s travelling in style. The proud father was in active +correspondence with his great London friends, seeking letters of +introduction for Kenelm to all the courts of Europe. Portmanteaus, with +every modern convenience, were ordered; an experienced courier, who +could talk all languages and cook French dishes if required, was +invited to name his terms. In short, every arrangement worthy a young +patrician’s entrance into the great world was in rapid progress, when +suddenly Kenelm Chillingly disappeared, leaving behind him on Sir +Peter’s library table the following letter:-- + + +MY VERY DEAR FATHER,--Obedient to your desire, I depart in search of +real life and real persons, or of the best imitations of them. Forgive +me, I beseech you, if I commence that search in my own way. I have seen +enough of ladies and gentlemen for the present: they must be all very +much alike in every part of the world. You desired me to be amused. I +go to try if that be possible. Ladies and gentlemen are not amusing; the +more ladylike or gentlemanlike they are, the more insipid I find them. +My dear father, I go in quest of adventure like Amadis of Gaul, like Don +Quixote, like Gil Blas, like Roderick Random; like, in short, the only +people seeking real life, the people who never existed except in books. +I go on foot; I go alone. I have provided myself with a larger amount of +money than I ought to spend, because every man must buy experience, +and the first fees are heavy. In fact, I have put fifty pounds into my +pocket-book and into my purse five sovereigns and seventeen shillings. +This sum ought to last me a year; but I dare say inexperience will do +me out of it in a month, so we will count it as nothing. Since you have +asked me to fix my own allowance, I will beg you kindly to commence it +this day in advance, by an order to your banker to cash my checks to the +amount of five pounds, and to the same amount monthly; namely, at the +rate of sixty pounds a year. With that sum I can’t starve, and if I +want more it may be amusing to work for it. Pray don’t send after me, +or institute inquiries, or disturb the household and set all the +neighbourhood talking, by any mention either of my project or of your +surprise at it. I will not fail to write to you from time to time. +You will judge best what to say to my dear mother. If you tell her the +truth, which of course I should do did I tell her anything, my request +is virtually frustrated, and I shall be the talk of the county. You, +I know, don’t think telling fibs is immoral when it happens to be +convenient, as it would be in this case. + +I expect to be absent a year or eighteen months; if I prolong my travels +it shall be in the way you proposed. I will then take my place in polite +society, call upon you to pay all expenses, and fib on my own account +to any extent required by that world of fiction which is peopled by +illusions and governed by shams. + +Heaven bless you, my dear Father, and be quite sure that if I get into +any trouble requiring a friend, it is to you I shall turn. As yet I have +no other friend on earth, and with prudence and good luck I may escape +the infliction of any other friend. + + Yours ever affectionately, + + KENELM. + +P. S.--Dear Father, I open my letter in your library to say again “Bless +you,” and to tell you how fondly I kissed your old beaver gloves, which +I found on the table. + + +When Sir Peter came to that postscript he took off his spectacles and +wiped them: they were very moist. + +Then he fell into a profound meditation. Sir Peter was, as I have said, +a learned man; he was also in some things a sensible man, and he had a +strong sympathy with the humorous side of his son’s crotchety character. +What was to be said to Lady Chillingly? That matron was quite guiltless +of any crime which should deprive her of a husband’s confidence in +a matter relating to her only son. She was a virtuous matron; morals +irreproachable, manners dignified, and _she-baronety_. Any one seeing +her for the first time would intuitively say, “Your ladyship.” Was +this a matron to be suppressed in any well-ordered domestic circle? Sir +Peter’s conscience loudly answered, “No;” but when, putting conscience +into his pocket, he regarded the question at issue as a man of the +world, Sir Peter felt that to communicate the contents of his son’s +letter to Lady Chillingly would be the foolishest thing he could +possibly do. Did she know that Kenelm had absconded with the family +dignity invested in his very name, no marital authority short of such +abuses of power as constitute the offence of cruelty in a wife’s +action for divorce from social board and nuptial bed could prevent Lady +Chillingly from summoning all the grooms, sending them in all directions +with strict orders to bring back the runaway dead or alive; the walls +would be placarded with hand-bills, “Strayed from his home,” etc.; the +police would be telegraphing private instructions from town to town; +the scandal would stick to Kenelm Chillingly for life, accompanied with +vague hints of criminal propensities and insane hallucinations; he would +be ever afterwards pointed out as “THE MAN WHO HAD DISAPPEARED.” And to +disappear and to turn up again, instead of being murdered, is the most +hateful thing a man can do: all the newspapers bark at him, “Tray, +Blanche, Sweetheart, and all;” strict explanations of the unseemly fact +of his safe existence are demanded in the name of public decorum, and no +explanations are accepted; it is life saved, character lost. + +Sir Peter seized his hat and walked forth, not to deliberate whether to +fib or not to fib to the wife of his bosom, but to consider what kind of +fib would the most quickly sink into the bosom of his wife. + +A few turns to and fro on the terrace sufficed for the conception and +maturing of the fib selected; a proof that Sir Peter was a practised +fibber. He re-entered the house, passed into her ladyship’s habitual +sitting-room, and said with careless gayety, “My old friend the Duke of +Clareville is just setting off on a tour to Switzerland with his family. +His youngest daughter, Lady Jane, is a pretty girl, and would not be a +bad match for Kenelm.” + +“Lady Jane, the youngest daughter with fair hair, whom I saw last as +a very charming child, nursing a lovely doll presented to her by the +Empress Eugenie,--a good match indeed for Kenelm.” + +“I am glad you agree with me. Would it not be a favourable step towards +that alliance, and an excellent thing for Kenelm generally, if he were +to visit the Continent as one of the Duke’s travelling party?” + +“Of course it would.” + +“Then you approve what I have done; the Duke starts the day after +to-morrow, and I have packed Kenelm off to town, with a letter to my old +friend. You will excuse all leave taking. You know that though the best +of sons he is an odd fellow; and seeing that I had talked him into it, +I struck while the iron was hot, and sent him off by the express at nine +o’clock this morning, for fear that if I allowed any delay he would talk +himself out of it.” + +“Do you mean to say Kenelm is actually gone? Good gracious.” + +Sir Peter stole softly from the room, and summoning his valet, said, “I +have sent Mr. Chillingly to London. Pack up the clothes he is likely +to want, so that he can have them sent at once, whenever he writes for +them.” + +And thus, by a judicious violation of truth on the part of his father, +that exemplary truth-teller Kenelm Chillingly saved the honour of +his house and his own reputation from the breath of scandal and the +inquisition of the police. He was not “THE MAN WHO HAD DISAPPEARED.” + + + + +BOOK II. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +KENELM CHILLINGLY had quitted the paternal home at daybreak before any +of the household was astir. “Unquestionably,” said he, as he walked +along the solitary lanes,--“unquestionably I begin the world as poets +begin poetry, an imitator and a plagiarist. I am imitating an itinerant +verse-maker, as, no doubt, he began by imitating some other maker +of verse. But if there be anything in me, it will work itself out in +original form. And, after all, the verse-maker is not the inventor of +ideas. Adventure on foot is a notion that remounts to the age of fable. +Hercules, for instance; that was the way in which he got to heaven, as +a foot-traveller. How solitary the world is at this hour! Is it not for +that reason that this is of all hours the most beautiful?” + +Here he paused, and looked around and above. It was the very height of +summer. The sun was just rising over gentle sloping uplands. All the +dews on the hedgerows sparkled. There was not a cloud in the heavens. Up +rose from the green blades of corn a solitary skylark. His voice woke up +the other birds. A few minutes more and the joyous concert began. +Kenelm reverently doffed his hat, and bowed his head in mute homage and +thanksgiving. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ABOUT nine o’clock Kenelm entered a town some twelve miles distant from +his father’s house, and towards which he had designedly made his way, +because in that town he was scarcely if at all known by sight, and he +might there make the purchases he required without attracting any +marked observation. He had selected for his travelling costume a +shooting-dress, as the simplest and least likely to belong to his +rank as a gentleman. But still in its very cut there was an air of +distinction, and every labourer he had met on the way had touched his +hat to him. Besides, who wears a shooting-dress in the middle of June, +or a shooting-dress at all, unless he be either a game-keeper or a +gentleman licensed to shoot? + +Kenelm entered a large store-shop for ready-made clothes and purchased +a suit such as might be worn on Sundays by a small country yeoman or +tenant-farmer of a petty holding,--a stout coarse broadcloth upper +garment, half coat, half jacket, with waistcoat to match, strong +corduroy trousers, a smart Belcher neckcloth, with a small stock of +linen and woollen socks in harmony with the other raiment. He bought +also a leathern knapsack, just big enough to contain this wardrobe, and +a couple of books, which with his combs and brushes he had brought away +in his pockets; for among all his trunks at home there was no knapsack. + +These purchases made and paid for, he passed quickly through the town, +and stopped at a humble inn at the outskirt, to which he was attracted +by the notice, “Refreshment for man and beast.” He entered a little +sanded parlour, which at that hour he had all to himself, called for +breakfast, and devoured the best part of a fourpenny loaf with a couple +of hard eggs. + +Thus recruited, he again sallied forth, and deviating into a thick wood +by the roadside, he exchanged the habiliments with which he had left +home for those he had purchased, and by the help of one or two big +stones sunk the relinquished garments into a small but deep pool which +he was lucky enough to find in a bush-grown dell much haunted by snipes +in the winter. + +“Now,” said Kenelm, “I really begin to think I have got out of myself. +I am in another man’s skin; for what, after all, is a skin but a soul’s +clothing, and what is clothing but a decenter skin? Of its own natural +skin every civilized soul is ashamed. It is the height of impropriety +for any one but the lowest kind of savage to show it. If the purest +soul now existent upon earth, the Pope of Rome’s or the Archbishop of +Canterbury’s, were to pass down the Strand with the skin which Nature +gave to it bare to the eye, it would be brought up before a magistrate, +prosecuted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and committed to +jail as a public nuisance. + +“Decidedly I am now in another man’s skin. Kenelm Chillingly, I no +longer + + “Remain + + “Yours faithfully; + +“But am, + + “With profound consideration, + + “Your obedient humble servant.” + +With light step and elated crest, the wanderer, thus transformed, sprang +from the wood into the dusty thoroughfare. He had travelled on for about +an hour, meeting but few other passengers, when he heard to the right a +loud shrill young voice, “Help! help! I will not go; I tell you, I will +not!” Just before him stood, by a high five-barred gate, a pensive gray +cob attached to a neat-looking gig. The bridle was loose on the cob’s +neck. The animal was evidently accustomed to stand quietly when ordered +to do so, and glad of the opportunity. + +The cries, “Help, help!” were renewed, mingled with louder tones in a +rougher voice, tones of wrath and menace. Evidently these sounds did +not come from the cob. Kenelm looked over the gate, and saw a few yards +distant in a grass field a well-dressed boy struggling violently against +a stout middle-aged man who was rudely hauling him along by the arm. + +The chivalry natural to a namesake of the valiant Sir Kenelm Digby +was instantly aroused. He vaulted over the gate, seized the man by the +collar, and exclaimed, “For shame! what are you doing to that poor boy? +let him go!” + +“Why the devil do you interfere?” cried the stout man, his eyes glaring +and his lips foaming with rage. “Ah, are you the villain? yes, no doubt +of it. I’ll give it to you, jackanapes,” and still grasping the boy with +one hand, with the other the stout man darted a blow at Kenelm, from +which nothing less than the practised pugilistic skill and natural +alertness of the youth thus suddenly assaulted could have saved his eyes +and nose. As it was, the stout man had the worst of it: the blow was +parried, returned with a dexterous manoeuvre of Kenelm’s right foot in +Cornish fashion, and _procumbit humi bos_; the stout man lay sprawling +on his back. The boy, thus released, seized hold of Kenelm by the arm, +and hurrying him along up the field, cried, “Come, come before he gets +up! save me! save me!” Ere he had recovered his own surprise, the boy +had dragged Kenelm to the gate, and jumped into the gig, sobbing forth, +“Get in, get in, I can’t drive; get in, and drive--you. Quick! Quick!” + +“But--” began Kenelm. + +“Get in, or I shall go mad.” Kenelm obeyed; the boy gave him the reins, +and seizing the whip himself, applied it lustily to the cob. On sprang +the cob. “Stop, stop, stop, thief! villain! Holloa! thieves! thieves! +thieves! stop!” cried a voice behind. Kenelm involuntarily turned his +head and beheld the stout man perched upon the gate and gesticulating +furiously. It was but a glimpse; again the whip was plied, the cob +frantically broke into a gallop, the gig jolted and bumped and swerved, +and it was not till they had put a good mile between themselves and the +stout man that Kenelm succeeded in obtaining possession of the whip and +calming the cob into a rational trot. + +“Young gentleman,” then said Kenelm, “perhaps you will have the goodness +to explain.” + +“By and by; get on, that’s a good fellow; you shall be well paid for it, +well and handsomely.” + +Quoth Kenelm, gravely, “I know that in real life payment and service +naturally go together. But we will put aside the payment till you tell +me what is to be the service. And first, whither am I to drive you? We +are coming to a place where three roads meet; which of the three shall I +take?” + +“Oh, I don’t know; there is a finger-post. I want to get to,--but it is +a secret; you’ll not betray me? Promise,--swear.” + +“I don’t swear except when I am in a passion, which, I am sorry to say, +is very seldom; and I don’t promise till I know what I promise; neither +do I go on driving runaway boys in other men’s gigs unless I know that I +am taking them to a safe place, where their papas and mammas can get at +them.” + +“I have no papa, no mamma,” said the boy, dolefully and with quivering +lips. + +“Poor boy! I suppose that burly brute is your schoolmaster, and you are +running away home for fear of a flogging.” + +The boy burst out laughing; a pretty, silvery, merry laugh: it thrilled +through Kenelm Chillingly. “No, he would not flog me: he is not a +schoolmaster; he is worse than that.” + +“Is it possible? What is he?” + +“An uncle.” + +“Hum! uncles are proverbial for cruelty; were so in the classical days, +and Richard III. was the only scholar in his family.” + +“Eh! classical and Richard III.!” said the boy, startled, and looking +attentively at the pensive driver. “Who are you? you talk like a +gentleman.” + +“I beg pardon. I’ll not do so again if I can help it.”--“Decidedly,” + thought Kenelm, “I am beginning to be amused. What a blessing it is to +get into another man’s skin, and another man’s gig too!” Aloud, “Here +we are at the fingerpost. If you are running away from your uncle, it is +time to inform me where you are running to.” + +Here the boy leaned over the gig and examined the fingerpost. Then he +clapped his hands joyfully. + +“All right! I thought so, ‘To Tor-Hadham, eighteen miles.’ That’s the +road to Tor-Hadham.” + +“Do you mean to say I am to drive you all that way,--eighteen miles?” + +“Yes.” + +“And to whom are you going?” + +“I will tell you by and by. Do go on; do, pray. I can’t drive--never +drove in my life--or I would not ask you. Pray, pray, don’t desert me! +If you are a gentleman you will not; and if you are not a gentleman, +I have got L10 in my purse, which you shall have when I am safe at +Tor-Hadham. Don’t hesitate: my whole life is at stake!” And the boy +began once more to sob. + +Kenelm directed the pony’s head towards Tor-Hadham, and the boy ceased +to sob. + +“You are a good, dear fellow,” said the boy, wiping his eyes. “I am +afraid I am taking you very much out of your road.” + +“I have no road in particular, and would as soon go to Tor-Hadham, which +I have never seen, as anywhere else. I am but a wanderer on the face of +the earth.” + +“Have you lost your papa and mamma too? Why, you are not much older than +I am.” + +“Little gentleman,” said Kenelm, gravely, “I am just of age, and you, I +suppose, are about fourteen.” + +“What fun!” cried the boy, abruptly. “Isn’t it fun?” + +“It will not be fun if I am sentenced to penal servitude for stealing +your uncle’s gig, and robbing his little nephew of L10. By the by, that +choleric relation of yours meant to knock down somebody else when he +struck at me. He asked, ‘Are you the villain?’ Pray who is the villain? +he is evidently in your confidence.” + +“Villain! he is the most honourable, high-minded--But no matter now: +I’ll introduce you to him when we reach Tor-Hadham. Whip that pony: he +is crawling.” + +“It is up hill: a good man spares his beast.” + +No art and no eloquence could extort from his young companion any +further explanation than Kenelm had yet received; and indeed, as the +journey advanced, and they approached their destination, both parties +sank into silence. Kenelm was seriously considering that his first day’s +experience of real life in the skin of another had placed in some peril +his own. He had knocked down a man evidently respectable and well to do, +had carried off that man’s nephew, and made free with that man’s goods +and chattels; namely, his gig and horse. All this might be explained +satisfactorily to a justice of the peace, but how? By returning to his +former skin; by avowing himself to be Kenelm Chillingly, a distinguished +university medalist, heir to no ignoble name and some L10,000 a year. +But then what a scandal! he who abhorred scandal; in vulgar parlance, +what a “row!” he who denied that the very word “row” was sanctioned +by any classic authorities in the English language. He would have to +explain how he came to be found disguised, carefully disguised, in +garments such as no baronet’s eldest son--even though that baronet be +the least ancestral man of mark whom it suits the convenience of a First +Minister to recommend to the Sovereign for exaltation over the rank +of Mister--was ever beheld in, unless he had taken flight to the +gold-diggings. Was this a position in which the heir of the Chillinglys, +a distinguished family, whose coat-of-arms dated from the earliest +authenticated period of English heraldry under Edward III. as Three +Fishes _azure_, could be placed without grievous slur on the cold and +ancient blood of the Three Fishes? + +And then individually to himself, Kenelm, irrespectively of the Three +Fishes,--what a humiliation! He had put aside his respected father’s +deliberate preparations for his entrance into real life; he had +perversely chosen his own walk on his own responsibility; and here, +before half the first day was over, what an infernal scrape he had +walked himself into! and what was his excuse? A wretched little boy, +sobbing and chuckling by turns, and yet who was clever enough to twist +Kenelm Chillingly round his finger; twist _him_, a man who thought +himself so much wiser than his parents,--a man who had gained honours at +the University,--a man of the gravest temperament,--a man of so nicely +critical a turn of mind that there was not a law of art or nature in +which he did not detect a flaw; that he should get himself into this +mess was, to say the least of it, an uncomfortable reflection. + +The boy himself, as Kenelm glanced at him from time to time, became +impish and Will-of-the-Wisp-ish. Sometimes he laughed to himself loudly, +sometimes he wept to himself quietly; sometimes, neither laughing nor +weeping, he seemed absorbed in reflection. Twice as they came nearer to +the town of Tor-Hadham, Kenelm nudged the boy, and said, “My boy, I must +talk with you;” and twice the boy, withdrawing his arm from the nudge, +had answered dreamily, “Hush! I am thinking.” + +And so they entered the town of Tor-Hadham, the cob very much done up. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +“NOW, young sir,” said Kenelm, in a tone calm, but peremptory,--“now we +are in the town, where am I to take you? and wherever it be, there to +say good-by.” + +“No, not good-by. Stay with me a little bit. I begin to feel frightened, +and I am so friendless;” and the boy, who had before resented the +slightest nudge on the part of Kenelm, now wound his arm into Kenelm’s, +and clung to him caressingly. + +I don’t know what my readers have hitherto thought of Kenelm Chillingly: +but, amid all the curves and windings of his whimsical humour, there was +one way that went straight to his heart; you had only to be weaker than +himself and ask his protection. + +He turned round abruptly; he forgot all the strangeness of his position, +and replied: “Little brute that you are, I’ll be shot if I forsake you +if in trouble. But some compassion is also due to the cob: for his sake +say where we are to stop.” + +“I am sure I can’t say: I never was here before. Let us go to a nice +quiet inn. Drive slowly: we’ll look out for one.” + +Tor-Hadham was a large town, not nominally the capital of the county, +but, in point of trade and bustle and life, virtually the capital. The +straight street, through which the cob went as slowly as if he had +been drawing a Triumphal Car up the Sacred Hill, presented an animated +appearance. The shops had handsome facades and plate-glass windows; +the pavements exhibited a lively concourse, evidently not merely of +business, but of pleasure, for a large proportion of the passers-by was +composed of the fair sex, smartly dressed, many of them young and some +pretty. In fact a regiment of her Majesty’s -----th Hussars had been +sent into the town two days before; and, between the officers of that +fortunate regiment and the fair sex in that hospitable town, there was +a natural emulation which should make the greater number of slain and +wounded. The advent of these heroes, professional subtracters from +hostile and multipliers of friendly populations, gave a stimulus to +the caterers for those amusements which bring young folks +together,--archery-meetings, rifle-shootings, concerts, balls, announced +in bills attached to boards and walls and exposed at shop-windows. + +The boy looked eagerly forth from the gig, scanning especially these +advertisements, till at length he uttered an excited exclamation, “Ah, I +was right: there it is!” + +“There what is?” asked Kenelm,--“the inn?” His companion did not answer, +but Kenelm following the boy’s eye perceived an immense hand-bill. + + + “TO-MORROW NIGHT THEATRE OPENS. + + “RICHARD III. Mr. COMPTON.” + + +“Do just ask where the theatre is,” said the boy, in a whisper, turning +away his head. + +Kenelm stopped the cob, made the inquiry, and was directed to take the +next turning to the right. In a few minutes the compo portico of an ugly +dilapidated building, dedicated to the Dramatic Muses, presented itself +at the angle of a dreary, deserted lane. The walls were placarded with +play-bills, in which the name of Compton stood forth as gigantic as +capitals could make it. The boy drew a sigh. “Now,” said he, “let us +look out for an inn near here,--the nearest.” + +No inn, however, beyond the rank of a small and questionable looking +public-house was apparent, until at a distance somewhat remote from the +theatre, and in a quaint, old-fashioned, deserted square, a neat, +newly whitewashed house displayed upon its frontispiece, in large black +letters of funereal aspect, “Temperance Hotel.” + +“Stop,” said the boy; “don’t you think that would suit us? it looks +quiet.” + +“Could not look more quiet if it were a tombstone,” replied Kenelm. + +The boy put his hand upon the reins and stopped the cob. The cob was in +that condition that the slightest touch sufficed to stop him, though he +turned his head somewhat ruefully as if in doubt whether hay and corn +would be within the regulations of a Temperance Hotel. Kenelm descended +and entered the house. A tidy woman emerged from a sort of glass +cupboard which constituted the bar, minus the comforting drinks +associated with the _beau ideal_ of a bar, but which displayed instead +two large decanters of cold water with tumblers _a discretion_, and +sundry plates of thin biscuits and sponge-cakes. This tidy woman +politely inquired what was his “pleasure.” + +“Pleasure,” answered Kenelm, with his usual gravity, “is not the word I +should myself have chosen. But could you oblige my horse--I mean _that_ +horse--with a stall and a feed of oats, and that young gentleman and +myself with a private room and a dinner?” + +“Dinner!” echoed the hostess,--“dinner!” + +“A thousand pardons, ma’am. But if the word ‘dinner’ shock you I retract +it, and would say instead something to eat and drink.’” + +“Drink! This is strictly a Temperance Hotel, sir.” + +“Oh, if you don’t eat and drink here,” exclaimed Kenelm, fiercely, for +he was famished, “I wish you good morning.” + +“Stay a bit, sir. We do eat and drink here. But we are very simple +folks. We allow no fermented liquors.” + +“Not even a glass of beer?” + +“Only ginger-beer. Alcohols are strictly forbidden. We have tea and +coffee and milk. But most of our customers prefer the pure liquid. As +for eating, sir,--anything you order, in reason.” + +Kenelm shook his head and was retreating, when the boy, who had sprung +from the gig and overheard the conversation, cried petulantly, “What +does it signify? Who wants fermented liquors? Water will do very well. +And as for dinner,--anything convenient. Please, ma’am, show us into a +private room: I am so tired.” The last words were said in a caressing +manner, and so prettily, that the hostess at once changed her tone, +and muttering, “Poor boy!” and, in a still more subdued mutter, “What +a pretty face he has!” nodded, and led the way up a very clean +old-fashioned staircase. + +“But the horse and gig, where are they to go?” said Kenelm, with a pang +of conscience on reflecting how ill treated hitherto had been both horse +and owner. + +“Oh, as for the horse and gig, sir, you will find Jukes’s livery-stables +a few yards farther down. We don’t take in horses ourselves; our +customers seldom keep them: but you will find the best of accommodation +at Jukes’s.” + +Kenelm conducted the cob to the livery-stables thus indicated, and +waited to see him walked about to cool, well rubbed down, and made +comfortable over half a peck of oats,--for Kenelm Chillingly was a +humane man to the brute creation,--and then, in a state of ravenous +appetite, returned to the Temperance Hotel, and was ushered into a small +drawing-room, with a small bit of carpet in the centre, six small chairs +with cane seats, prints on the walls descriptive of the various +effects of intoxicating liquors upon sundry specimens of mankind,--some +resembling ghosts, others fiends, and all with a general aspect of +beggary and perdition; contrasted by Happy-Family pictures,--smiling +wives, portly husbands, rosy infants, emblematic of the beatified +condition of members of the Temperance Society. + +A table with a spotless cloth, and knives and forks for two, chiefly, +however, attracted Kenelm’s attention. + +The boy was standing by the window, seemingly gazing on a small aquarium +which was there placed, and contained the usual variety of small fishes, +reptiles, and insects, enjoying the pleasures of Temperance in its +native element, including, of course, an occasional meal upon each +other. + +“What are they going to give us to eat?” inquired Kenelm. “It must be +ready by this time I should think.” + +Here he gave a brisk tug at the bell-pull. The boy advanced from +the window, and as he did so Kenelm was struck with the grace of his +bearing, and the improvement in his looks, now that he was without his +hat, and rest and ablution had refreshed from heat and dust the delicate +bloom of his complexion. There was no doubt about it that he was an +exceedingly pretty boy, and if he lived to be a man would make many a +lady’s heart ache. It was with a certain air of gracious superiority +such as is seldom warranted by superior rank if it be less than royal, +and chiefly becomes a marked seniority in years, that this young +gentleman, approaching the solemn heir of the Chillinglys, held out his +hand and said,-- + +“Sir, you have behaved extremely well, and I thank you very much.” + +“Your Royal Highness is condescending to say so,” replied Kenelm +Chillingly, bowing low, “but have you ordered dinner? and what are +they going to give us? No one seems to answer the bell here. As it is a +Temperance Hotel, probably all the servants are drunk.” + +“Why should they be drunk at a Temperance Hotel?” + +“Why! because, as a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to +anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets +up for a saint is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that he is a +sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, snivelling bit of saintship +about him which is enough to make him a humbug. Masculine honesty, +whether it be saint-like or sinner-like, does not label itself either +saint or sinner. Fancy Saint Augustine labelling himself saint, or +Robert Burns sinner; and therefore, though, little boy, you have +probably not read the poems of Robert Burns, and have certainly not read +the ‘Confessions’ of Saint Augustine, take my word for it, that both +those personages were very good fellows; and with a little difference of +training and experience, Burns might have written the ‘Confessions’ and +Augustine the poems. Powers above! I am starving. What did you order for +dinner, and when is it to appear?” + +The boy, who had opened to an enormous width a naturally large pair of +hazel eyes, while his tall companion in fustian trousers and Belcher +neckcloth spoke thus patronizingly of Robert Burns and Saint Augustine, +now replied, with rather a deprecatory and shamefaced aspect, “I am +sorry I was not thinking of dinner. I was not so mindful of you as I +ought to have been. The landlady asked me what we would have. I said, +‘What you like;’ and the landlady muttered something about--” here the +boy hesitated. + +“Yes. About what? Mutton-chops?” + +“No. Cauliflowers and rice-pudding.” + +Kenelm Chillingly never swore, never raged. Where ruder beings of +human mould swore or raged, he vented displeasure in an expression of +countenance so pathetically melancholic and lugubrious that it would +have melted the heart of an Hyrcanian tiger. He turned his countenance +now on the boy, and murmuring “Cauliflower!--Starvation!” sank into +one of the cane-bottomed chairs, and added quietly, “so much for human +gratitude.” + +The boy was evidently smitten to the heart by the bitter sweetness +of this reproach. There were almost tears in his voice, as he said +falteringly, “Pray forgive me, I _was_ ungrateful. I’ll run down and see +what there is;” and, suiting the action to the word, he disappeared. + +Kenelm remained motionless; in fact he was plunged into one of those +reveries, or rather absorptions of inward and spiritual being, into +which it is said that the consciousness of the Indian dervish can be by +prolonged fasting preternaturally resolved. The appetite of all men +of powerful muscular development is of a nature far exceeding the +properties of any reasonable number of cauliflowers and rice-puddings +to satisfy. Witness Hercules himself, whose cravings for substantial +nourishment were the standing joke of the classic poets. I don’t know +that Kenelm Chillingly would have beaten the Theban Hercules either in +fighting or in eating; but, when he wanted to fight or when he wanted +to eat, Hercules would have had to put forth all his strength not to be +beaten. + +After ten minutes’ absence, the boy came back radiant. He tapped Kenelm +on the shoulder, and said playfully, “I made them cut a whole loin into +chops, besides the cauliflower; and such a big rice-pudding, and eggs +and bacon too! Cheer up! it will be served in a minute.” + +“A-h!” said Kenelm. + +“They are good people; they did not mean to stint you: but most of their +customers, it seems, live upon vegetables and farinaceous food. There +is a society here formed upon that principle; the landlady says they are +philosophers!” + +At the word “philosophers” Kenelm’s crest rose as that of a practised +hunter at the cry of “Yoiks! Tally-ho!” “Philosophers!” said he, +“philosophers indeed! O ignoramuses, who do not even know the structure +of the human tooth! Look you, little boy, if nothing were left on this +earth of the present race of man, as we are assured upon great authority +will be the case one of these days,--and a mighty good riddance it will +be,--if nothing, I say, of man were left except fossils of his teeth and +his thumbs, a philosopher of that superior race which will succeed to +man would at once see in those relics all his characteristics and all +his history; would say, comparing his thumb with the talons of an eagle, +the claws of a tiger, the hoof of a horse, the owner of that thumb must +have been lord over creatures with talons and claws and hoofs. You may +say the monkey tribe has thumbs. True; but compare an ape’s thumb with +a man’s: could the biggest ape’s thumb have built Westminster Abbey? But +even thumbs are trivial evidence of man as compared with his teeth. +Look at his teeth!”--here Kenelm expanded his jaws from ear to ear +and displayed semicircles of ivory, so perfect for the purposes of +mastication that the most artistic dentist might have despaired of +his power to imitate them,--“look, I say, at his teeth!” The +boy involuntarily recoiled. “Are the teeth those of a miserable +cauliflower-eater? or is it purely by farinaceous food that the +proprietor of teeth like man’s obtains the rank of the sovereign +destroyer of creation? No, little boy, no,” continued Kenelm, closing +his jaws, but advancing upon the infant, who at each stride receded +towards the aquarium,--“no; man is the master of the world, because +of all created beings he devours the greatest variety and the greatest +number of created things. His teeth evince that man can live upon every +soil from the torrid to the frozen zone, because man can eat everything +that other creatures cannot eat. And the formation of his teeth proves +it. A tiger can eat a deer; so can man: but a tiger can’t eat an eel; +man can. An elephant can eat cauliflowers and rice-pudding; so can man! +but an elephant can’t eat a beefsteak; man can. In sum, man can +live everywhere, because he can eat anything, thanks to his dental +formation!” concluded Kenelm, making a prodigious stride towards the +boy. “Man, when everything else fails him, eats his own species.” + +“Don’t; you frighten me,” said the boy. “Aha!” clapping his hands with a +sensation of gleeful relief, “here come the mutton-chops!” + +A wonderfully clean, well-washed, indeed well-washed-out, middle-aged +parlour-maid now appeared, dish in hand. Putting the dish on the table +and taking off the cover, the handmaiden said civilly, though frigidly, +like one who lived upon salad and cold water, “Mistress is sorry to have +kept you waiting, but she thought you were Vegetarians.” + +After helping his young friend to a mutton-chop, Kenelm helped himself, +and replied gravely, “Tell your mistress that if she had only given +us vegetables, I should have eaten you. Tell her that though man is +partially graminivorous, he is principally carnivorous. Tell her that +though a swine eats cabbages and such like, yet where a swine can get +a baby, it eats the baby. Tell her,” continued Kenelm (now at his third +chop), “that there is no animal that in digestive organs more resembles +man than a swine. Ask her if there is any baby in the house; if so, it +would be safe for the baby to send up some more chops.” + +As the acutest observer could rarely be quite sure when Kenelm +Chillingly was in jest or in earnest, the parlour-maid paused a moment +and attempted a pale smile. Kenelm lifted his dark eyes, unspeakably sad +and profound, and said mournfully, “I should be so sorry for the baby. +Bring the chops!” The parlour-maid vanished. The boy laid down his +knife and fork, and looked fixedly and inquisitively on Kenelm. Kenelm, +unheeding the look, placed the last chop on the boy’s plate. + +“No more,” cried the boy, impulsively, and returned the chop to the +dish. “I have dined: I have had enough.” + +“Little boy, you lie,” said Kenelm; “you have not had enough to keep +body and soul together. Eat that chop or I shall thrash you: whatever I +say I do.” + +Somehow or other the boy felt quelled; he ate the chop in silence, again +looked at Kenelm’s face, and said to himself, “I am afraid.” + +The parlour-maid here entered with a fresh supply of chops and a dish of +bacon and eggs, soon followed by a rice-pudding baked in a tin dish, and +of size sufficient to have nourished a charity school. When the repast +was finished, Kenelm seemed to forget the dangerous properties of the +carnivorous animal; and stretching himself indolently out, appeared +to be as innocently ruminative as the most domestic of animals +graminivorous. + +Then said the boy, rather timidly, “May I ask you another favour?” + +“Is it to knock down another uncle, or to steal another gig and cob?” + +“No, it is very simple: it is merely to find out the address of a friend +here; and when found to give him a note from me.” + +“Does the commission press? ‘After dinner, rest a while,’ saith the +proverb; and proverbs are so wise that no one can guess the author +of them. They are supposed to be fragments of the philosophy of the +antediluvians: came to us packed up in the ark.” + +“Really, indeed,” said the boy, seriously. “How interesting! No, my +commission does not press for an hour or so. Do you think, sir, they had +any drama before the Deluge?” + +“Drama! not a doubt of it. Men who lived one or two thousand years had +time to invent and improve everything; and a play could have had its +natural length then. It would not have been necessary to crowd the +whole history of Macbeth, from his youth to his old age, into an absurd +epitome of three hours. One cannot trace a touch of real human nature in +any actor’s delineation of that very interesting Scotchman, because +the actor always comes on the stage as if he were the same age when he +murdered Duncan, and when, in his sear and yellow leaf, he was lopped +off by Macduff.” + +“Do you think Macbeth was young when he murdered Duncan?” + +“Certainly. No man ever commits a first crime of violent nature, such as +murder, after thirty; if he begins before, he may go on up to any age. +But youth is the season for commencing those wrong calculations which +belong to irrational hope and the sense of physical power. You thus +read in the newspapers that the persons who murder their sweethearts are +generally from two to six and twenty; and persons who murder from other +motives than love--that is, from revenge, avarice, or ambition--are +generally about twenty-eight,--Iago’s age. Twenty-eight is the usual +close of the active season for getting rid of one’s fellow-creatures; a +prize-fighter falls off after that age. I take it that Macbeth was about +twenty-eight when he murdered Duncan, and from about fifty-four to sixty +when he began to whine about missing the comforts of old age. But +can any audience understand that difference of years in seeing a +three-hours’ play? or does any actor ever pretend to impress it on the +audience, and appear as twenty-eight in the first act and a sexagenarian +in the fifth?” + +“I never thought of that,” said the boy, evidently interested. “But I +never saw ‘Macbeth.’ I have seen ‘Richard III.:’ is not that nice? Don’t +you dote on the play? I do. What a glorious life an actor’s must be!” + +Kenelm, who had been hitherto rather talking to himself than to his +youthful companion, here roused his attention, looked on the boy +intently, and said,-- + +“I see you are stage-stricken. You have run away from home in order to +turn player, and I should not wonder if this note you want me to give is +for the manager of the theatre or one of his company.” + +The young face that encountered Kenelm’s dark eye became very flushed, +but set and defiant in its expression. + +“And what if it were? would not you give it?” + +“What! help a child of your age run away from his home, to go upon the +stage against the consent of his relations? Certainly not.” + +“I am not a child; but that has nothing to do with it. I don’t want to +go on the stage, at all events without the consent of the person who +has a right to dictate my actions. My note is not to the manager of +the theatre, nor to one of his company; but it is to a gentleman who +condescends to act here for a few nights; a thorough gentleman,--a great +actor,--my friend, the only friend I have in the world. I say frankly I +have run away from home so that he may have that note, and if you will +not give it some one else will!” + +The boy had risen while he spoke, and he stood erect beside the +recumbent Kenelm, his lips quivering, his eyes suffused with suppressed +tears, but his whole aspect resolute and determined. Evidently, if he +did not get his own way in this world, it would not be for want of will. + +“I will take your note,” said Kenelm. + +“There it is; give it into the hands of the person it is addressed +to,--Mr. Herbert Compton.” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +KENELM took his way to the theatre, and inquired of the door-keeper for +Mr. Herbert Compton. That functionary replied, “Mr. Compton does not act +to-night, and is not in the house.” + +“Where does he lodge?” + +The door-keeper pointed to a grocer’s shop on the other side of the way, +and said tersely, “There, private door; knock and ring.” + +Kenelm did as he was directed. A slatternly maid-servant opened the +door, and, in answer to his interrogatory, said that Mr. Compton was at +home, but at supper. + +“I am sorry to disturb him,” said Kenelm, raising his voice, for he +heard a clatter of knives and plates within a room hard by at his left, +“but my business requires to see him forthwith;” and, pushing the maid +aside, he entered at once the adjoining banquet-hall. + +Before a savoury stew smelling strongly of onions sat a man very much at +his ease, without coat or neckcloth,--a decidedly handsome man, his hair +cut short and his face closely shaven, as befits an actor who has wigs +and beards of all hues and forms at his command. The man was not alone; +opposite to him sat a lady, who might be a few years younger, of a +somewhat faded complexion, but still pretty, with good stage features +and a profusion of blond ringlets. + +“Mr. Compton, I presume,” said Kenelm, with a solemn bow. + +“My name is Compton: any message from the theatre? or what do you want +with me?” + +“I--nothing!” replied Kenelm; and then deepening his naturally mournful +voice into tones ominous and tragic, continued, “By whom you are wanted +let this explain;” therewith he placed in Mr. Compton’s hand the letter +with which he was charged, and stretching his arms and interlacing his +fingers in the _pose_ of Talma as Julius Caesar, added, “‘Qu’en dis-tu, +Brute?’” + +Whether it was from the sombre aspect and awe-inspiring delivery of +the messenger, or the sight of the handwriting on the address of the +missive, Mr. Compton’s countenance suddenly fell, and his hand rested +irresolute, as if not daring to open the letter. + +“Never mind me, dear,” said the lady with blond ringlets, in a tone of +stinging affability: “read your _billet-doux_; don’t keep the young man +waiting, love!” + +“Nonsense, Matilda, nonsense! _billet-doux_ indeed! more likely a bill +from Duke the tailor. Excuse me for a moment, my dear. Follow me, sir,” + and rising, still with shirtsleeves uncovered, he quitted the room, +closing the door after him, motioned Kenelm into a small parlour on the +opposite side of the passage, and by the light of a suspended gas-lamp +ran his eye hastily over the letter, which, though it seemed very short, +drew from him sundry exclamations. “Good heavens, how very absurd! +what’s to be done?” Then, thrusting the letter into his trousers-pocket, +he fixed upon Kenelm a very brilliant pair of dark eyes, which soon +dropped before the steadfast look of that saturnine adventurer. + +“Are you in the confidence of the writer of this letter?” asked Mr. +Compton, rather confusedly. + +“I am not the confidant of the writer,” answered Kenelm, “but for the +time being I am the protector!” + +“Protector!” + +“Protector.” + +Mr. Compton again eyed the messenger, and this time fully realizing the +gladiatorial development of that dark stranger’s physical form, he grew +many shades paler, and involuntarily retreated towards the bell-pull. + +After a short pause, he said, “I am requested to call on the writer. If +I do so, may I understand that the interview will be strictly private?” + +“So far as I am concerned, yes: on the condition that no attempt be made +to withdraw the writer from the house.” + +“Certainly not, certainly not; quite the contrary,” exclaimed Mr. +Compton, with genuine animation. “Say I will call in half an hour.” + +“I will give your message,” said Kenelm, with a polite inclination of +his head; “and pray pardon me if I remind you that I styled myself the +protector of your correspondent, and if the slightest advantage be +taken of that correspondent’s youth and inexperience or the smallest +encouragement be given to plans of abduction from home and friends, the +stage will lose an ornament and Herbert Compton vanish from the scene.” + With these words Kenelm left the player standing aghast. Gaining the +street-door, a lad with a band-box ran against him and was nearly upset. + +“Stupid,” cried the lad, “can’t you see where you are going? Give this +to Mrs. Compton.” + +“I should deserve the title you give if I did for nothing the business +for which you are paid,” replied Kenelm, sententiously, and striding on. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +“I HAVE fulfilled my mission,” said Kenelm, on rejoining his travelling +companion. “Mr. Compton said he would be here in half an hour.” + +“You saw him?” + +“Of course: I promised to give your letter into his own hands.” + +“Was he alone?” + +“No; at supper with his wife.” + +“His wife! what do you mean, sir?--wife! he has no wife.” + +“Appearances are deceitful. At least he was with a lady who called him +‘dear’ and ‘love’ in as spiteful a tone of voice as if she had been his +wife; and as I was coming out of his street-door a lad who ran against +me asked me to give a band-box to Mrs. Compton.” + +The boy turned as white as death, staggered back a few steps, and +dropped into a chair. + +A suspicion which during his absence had suggested itself to Kenelm’s +inquiring mind now took strong confirmation. He approached softly, drew +a chair close to the companion whom fate had forced upon him, and said +in a gentle whisper,-- + +“This is no boy’s agitation. If you have been deceived or misled, and +I can in any way advise or aid you, count on me as women under the +circumstances count on men and gentlemen.” + +The boy started to his feet, and paced the room with disordered steps, +and a countenance working with passions which he attempted vainly to +suppress. Suddenly arresting his steps, he seized Kenelm’s hand, pressed +it convulsively, and said, in a voice struggling against a sob,-- + +“I thank you,--I bless you. Leave me now: I would be alone. Alone, too, +I must face this man. There may be some mistake yet; go.” + +“You will promise not to leave the house till I return?” + +“Yes, I promise that.” + +“And if it be as I fear, you will then let me counsel with and advise +you?” + +“Heaven help me, if so! Whom else should I trust to? Go, go!” + +Kenelm once more found himself in the streets, beneath the mingled light +of gas-lamps and the midsummer moon. He walked on mechanically till he +reached the extremity of the town. There he halted, and seating himself +on a milestone, indulged in these meditations:-- + +“Kenelm, my friend, you are in a still worse scrape than I thought you +were an hour ago. You have evidently now got a woman on your hands. What +on earth are you to do with her? A runaway woman, who, meaning to run +off with somebody else--such are the crosses and contradictions in human +destiny--has run off with you instead. What mortal can hope to be safe? +The last thing I thought could befall me when I got up this morning was +that I should have any trouble about the other sex before the day was +over. If I were of an amatory temperament, the Fates might have some +justification for leading me into this snare, but, as it is, those +meddling old maids have none. Kenelm, my friend, do you think you ever +can be in love? and, if you were in love, do you think you could be a +greater fool than you are now?” + +Kenelm had not decided this knotty question in the conference held with +himself, when a light and soft strain of music came upon his ear. It was +but from a stringed instrument, and might have sounded thin and tinkling +but for the stillness of the night, and that peculiar addition of +fulness which music acquires when it is borne along a tranquil air. +Presently a voice in song was heard from the distance accompanying +the instrument. It was a man’s voice, a mellow and a rich voice, but +Kenelm’s ear could not catch the words. Mechanically he moved on towards +the quarter from which the sounds came, for Kenelm Chillingly had music +in his soul, though he was not quite aware of it himself. He saw before +him a patch of greensward, on which grew a solitary elm with a seat +for wayfarers beneath it. From this sward the ground receded in a wide +semicircle bordered partly by shops, partly by the tea-gardens of a +pretty cottage-like tavern. Round the tables scattered throughout the +gardens were grouped quiet customers, evidently belonging to the class +of small tradespeople or superior artisans. They had an appearance of +decorous respectability, and were listening intently to the music. So +were many persons at the shop-doors and at the windows of upper rooms. +On the sward, a little in advance of the tree, but beneath its shadow, +stood the musician, and in that musician Kenelm recognized the wanderer +from whose talk he had conceived the idea of the pedestrian excursion +which had already brought him into a very awkward position. The +instrument on which the singer accompanied himself was a guitar, and his +song was evidently a love-song, though, as it was now drawing near to +its close, Kenelm could but imperfectly guess at its general meaning. +He heard enough to perceive that its words were at least free from the +vulgarity which generally characterizes street ballads, and were yet +simple enough to please a very homely audience. + +When the singer ended there was no applause; but there was evident +sensation among the audience,--a feeling as if something that had given +a common enjoyment had ceased. Presently the white Pomeranian dog, who +had hitherto kept himself out of sight under the seat of the elm-tree, +advanced, with a small metal tray between his teeth, and, after looking +round him deliberately, as if to select whom of the audience should +be honoured with the commencement of a general subscription, gravely +approached Kenelm, stood on his hind legs, stared at him, and presented +the tray. + +Kenelm dropped a shilling into that depository, and the dog, looking +gratified, took his way towards the tea-gardens. Lifting his hat, for he +was, in his way, a very polite man, Kenelm approached the singer, and, +trusting to the alteration in his dress for not being recognized by a +stranger who had only once before encountered him he said,-- + +“Judging by the little I heard, you sing very well, sir. May I ask who +composed the words?” + +“They are mine,” replied the singer. + +“And the air?” + +“Mine too.” + +“Accept my compliments. I hope you find these manifestations of genius +lucrative?” + +The singer, who had not hitherto vouchsafed more than a careless glance +at the rustic garb of the questioner, now fixed his eyes full upon +Kenelm, and said, with a smile, “Your voice betrays you, sir. We have +met before.” + +“True; but I did not then notice your guitar, nor, though acquainted +with your poetical gifts, suppose that you selected this primitive +method of making them publicly known.” + +“Nor did I anticipate the pleasure of meeting you again in the character +of Hobnail. Hist! let us keep each other’s secret. I am known hereabouts +by no other designation than that of the ‘Wandering Minstrel.’” + +“It is in the capacity of minstrel that I address you. If it be not an +impertinent question, do you know any songs which take the other side of +the case?” + +“What case? I don’t understand you, sir.” + +“The song I heard seemed in praise of that sham called love. Don’t you +think you could say something more new and more true, treating that +aberration from reason with the contempt it deserves?” + +“Not if I am to get my travelling expenses paid.” + +“What! the folly is so popular?” + +“Does not your own heart tell you so?” + +“Not a bit of it,--rather the contrary. Your audience at present +seem folks who live by work, and can have little time for such idle +phantasies; for, as it is well observed by Ovid, a poet who wrote much +on that subject, and professed the most intimate acquaintance with it, +‘Idleness is the parent of love.’ Can’t you sing something in praise of +a good dinner? Everybody who works hard has an appetite for food.” + +The singer again fixed on Kenelm his inquiring eye, but not detecting a +vestige of humour in the grave face he contemplated, was rather puzzled +how to reply, and therefore remained silent. + +“I perceive,” resumed Kenelm, “that my observations surprise you: the +surprise will vanish on reflection. It has been said by another poet, +more reflective than Ovid, that ‘the world is governed by love and +hunger.’ But hunger certainly has the lion’s share of the government; +and if a poet is really to do what he pretends to do,--namely, represent +nature,--the greater part of his lays should be addressed to the +stomach.” Here, warming with his subject, Kenelm familiarly laid his +hand on the musician’s shoulder, and his voice took a tone bordering on +enthusiasm. “You will allow that a man in the normal condition of health +does not fall in love every day. But in the normal condition of health +he is hungry every day. Nay, in those early years when you poets say he +is most prone to love, he is so especially disposed to hunger that +less than three meals a day can scarcely satisfy his appetite. You may +imprison a man for months, for years, nay, for his whole life,--from +infancy to any age which Sir Cornewall Lewis may allow him to +attain,--without letting him be in love at all. But if you shut him up +for a week without putting something into his stomach, you will find him +at the end of it as dead as a door-nail.” + +Here the singer, who had gradually retreated before the energetic +advance of the orator, sank into the seat by the elm-tree and said +pathetically, “Sir, you have fairly argued me down. Will you please to +come to the conclusion which you deduce from your premises?” + +“Simply this, that where you find one human being who cares about love, +you will find a thousand susceptible to the charms of a dinner; and if +you wish to be the popular minne-singer or troubadour of the age, appeal +to nature, sir,--appeal to nature; drop all hackneyed rhapsodies about a +rosy cheek, and strike your lyre to the theme of a beefsteak.” + +The dog had for some minutes regained his master’s side, standing on +his hind legs, with the tray, tolerably well filled with copper coins, +between his teeth; and now, justly aggrieved by the inattention which +detained him in that artificial attitude, dropped the tray and growled +at Kenelm. + +At the same time there came an impatient sound from the audience in the +tea-garden. They wanted another song for their money. + +The singer rose, obedient to the summons. “Excuse me, sir; but I am +called upon to--” + +“To sing again?” + +“Yes.” + +“And on the subject I suggest?” + +“No, indeed.” + +“What! love, again?” + +“I am afraid so.” + +“I wish you good evening then. You seem a well-educated man,--more shame +to you. Perhaps we may meet once more in our rambles, when the question +can be properly argued out.” + +Kenelm lifted his hat, and turned on his heel. Before he reached the +street, the sweet voice of the singer again smote his ears; but the only +word distinguishable in the distance, ringing out at the close of the +refrain, was “love.” + +“Fiddle-de-dee,” said Kenelm. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AS Kenelm regained the street dignified by the edifice of the Temperance +Hotel, a figure, dressed picturesquely in a Spanish cloak, brushed +hurriedly by him, but not so fast as to be unrecognized as the +tragedian. “Hem!” muttered Kenelm, “I don’t think there is much triumph +in that face. I suspect he has been scolded.” + +The boy--if Kenelm’s travelling companion is still to be so +designated--was leaning against the mantelpiece as Kenelm re-entered +the dining-room. There was an air of profound dejection about the boy’s +listless attitude and in the drooping tearless eyes. + +“My dear child,” said Kenelm, in the softest tones of his plaintive +voice, “do not honour me with any confidence that may be painful. But +let me hope that you have dismissed forever all thoughts of going on the +stage.” + +“Yes,” was the scarce audible answer. + +“And now only remains the question, ‘What is to be done?’” + +“I am sure I don’t know, and I don’t care.” + +“Then you leave it to me to know and to care; and assuming for the +moment as a fact that which is one of the greatest lies in this +mendacious world--namely, that all men are brothers--you will consider +me as an elder brother, who will counsel and control you as he would +an imprudent young--sister. I see very well how it is. Somehow or other +you, having first admired Mr. Compton as Romeo or Richard III., made his +acquaintance as Mr. Compton. He allowed you to believe him a single +man. In a romantic moment you escaped from your home, with the design of +adopting the profession of the stage and of becoming Mrs. Compton.” + +“Oh,” broke out the girl, since her sex must now be declared, “oh,” she +exclaimed, with a passionate sob, “what a fool I have been! Only do not +think worse of me than I deserve. The man did deceive me; he did not +think I should take him at his word, and follow him here, or his wife +would not have appeared. I should not have known he had one and--and--” + here her voice was choked under her passion. + +“But now you have discovered the truth, let us thank Heaven that you are +saved from shame and misery. I must despatch a telegram to your uncle: +give me his address.” + +“No, no.” + +“There is not a ‘No’ possible in this case, my child. Your reputation +and your future must be saved. Leave me to explain all to your uncle. +He is your guardian. I must send for him; nay, nay, there is no option. +Hate me now for enforcing your will: you will thank me hereafter. And +listen, young lady; if it does pain you to see your uncle, and encounter +his reproaches, every fault must undergo its punishment. A brave nature +undergoes it cheerfully, as a part of atonement. You are brave. Submit, +and in submitting rejoice!” + +There was something in Kenelm’s voice and manner at once so kindly and +so commanding that the wayward nature he addressed fairly succumbed. +She gave him her uncle’s address, “John Bovill, Esq., Oakdale, near +Westmere.” And after giving it, she fixed her eyes mournfully upon her +young adviser, and said with a simple, dreary pathos, “Now, will you +esteem me more, or rather despise me less?” + +She looked so young, nay, so childlike, as she thus spoke, that Kenelm +felt a parental inclination to draw her on his lap and kiss away +her tears. But he prudently conquered that impulse, and said, with a +melancholy half-smile,-- + +“If human beings despise each other for being young and foolish, the +sooner we are exterminated by that superior race which is to succeed us +on earth the better it will be. Adieu, till your uncle comes.” + +“What! you leave me here--alone?” + +“Nay, if your uncle found me under the same roof, now that I know you +are his niece, don’t you think he would have a right to throw me out +of the window? Allow me to practise for myself the prudence I preach +to you. Send for the landlady to show you your room, shut yourself in +there, go to bed, and don’t cry more than you can help.” + +Kenelm shouldered the knapsack he had deposited in a corner of the room, +inquired for the telegraph-office, despatched a telegram to Mr. Bovill, +obtained a bedroom at the Commercial Hotel, and fell asleep, muttering +these sensible words,-- + +“Rouchefoucauld was perfectly right when he said, ‘Very few people would +fall in love if they had not heard it so much talked about.’” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +KENELM CHILLINGLY rose with the sun, according to his usual custom, and +took his way to the Temperance Hotel. All in that sober building seemed +still in the arms of Morpheus. He turned towards the stables in which he +had left the gray cob, and had the pleasure to see that ill-used animal +in the healthful process of rubbing down. + +“That’s right,” said he to the hostler. “I am glad to see you are so +early a riser.” + +“Why,” quoth the hostler, “the gentleman as owns the pony knocked me +up at two o’clock in the morning, and pleased enough he was to see the +creature again lying down in the clean straw.” + +“Oh, he has arrived at the hotel, I presume?--a stout gentleman?” + +“Yes, stout enough; and a passionate gentleman too. Came in a yellow and +two posters, knocked up the Temperance and then knocked up me to see +for the pony, and was much put out as he could not get any grog at the +Temperance.” + +“I dare say he was. I wish he had got his grog: it might have put him in +better humour. Poor little thing!” muttered Kenelm, turning away; “I am +afraid she is in for a regular vituperation. My turn next, I suppose. +But he must be a good fellow to have come at once for his niece in the +dead of the night.” + +About nine o’clock Kenelm presented himself again at the Temperance +Hotel, inquired for Mr. Bovill, and was shown by the prim maid-servant +into the drawing-room, where he found Mr. Bovill seated amicably at +breakfast with his niece, who of course was still in boy’s clothing, +having no other costume at hand. To Kenelm’s great relief, Mr. Bovill +rose from the table with a beaming countenance, and extending his hand +to Kenelm, said,-- + +“Sir, you are a gentleman; sit down, sit down and take breakfast.” + +Then, as soon as the maid was out of the room, the uncle continued,-- + +“I have heard all your good conduct from this young simpleton. Things +might have been worse, sir.” + +Kenelm bowed his head, and drew the loaf towards him in silence. Then, +considering that some apology was due to his entertainer, he said,-- + +“I hope you forgive me for that unfortunate mistake, when--” + +“You knocked me down, or rather tripped me up. All right now. Elsie, +give the gentleman a cup of tea. Pretty little rogue, is she not? and a +good girl, in spite of her nonsense. It was all my fault letting her go +to the play and be intimate with Miss Lockit, a stage-stricken, foolish +old maid, who ought to have known better than to lead her into all this +trouble.” + +“No, uncle,” cried the girl, resolutely; “don’t blame her, nor any one +but me.” + +Kenelm turned his dark eyes approvingly towards the girl, and saw that +her lips were firmly set; there was an expression, not of grief nor +shame, but compressed resolution in her countenance. But when her eyes +met his they fell softly, and a blush mantled over her cheeks up to her +very forehead. + +“Ah!” said the uncle, “just like you, Elsie; always ready to take +everybody’s fault on your own shoulders. Well, well, say no more about +that. Now, my young friend, what brings you across the country tramping +it on foot, eh? a young man’s whim?” As he spoke, he eyed Kenelm very +closely, and his look was that of an intelligent man not unaccustomed to +observe the faces of those he conversed with. In fact a more shrewd man +of business than Mr. Bovill is seldom met with on ‘Change or in market. + +“I travel on foot to please myself, sir,” answered Kenelm, curtly, and +unconsciously set on his guard. + +“Of course you do,” cried Mr. Bovill, with a jovial laugh. “But it seems +you don’t object to a chaise and pony whenever you can get them for +nothing,--ha, ha!--excuse me,--a joke.” + +Herewith Mr. Bovill, still in excellent good-humour, abruptly changed +the conversation to general matters,--agricultural prospects, chance of +a good harvest, corn trade, money market in general, politics, state of +the nation. Kenelm felt there was an attempt to draw him out, to sound, +to pump him, and replied only by monosyllables, generally significant +of ignorance on the questions broached; and at the close, if the +philosophical heir of the Chillinglys was in the habit of allowing +himself to be surprised he would certainly have been startled when Mr. +Bovill rose, slapped him on the shoulder, and said in a tone of great +satisfaction, “Just as I thought, sir; you know nothing of these +matters: you are a gentleman born and bred; your clothes can’t disguise +you, sir. Elsie was right. My dear, just leave us for a few minutes: I +have something to say to our young friend. You can get ready meanwhile +to go with me.” Elsie left the table and walked obediently towards the +doorway. There she halted a moment, turned round, and looked timidly +towards Kenelm. He had naturally risen from his seat as she rose, and +advanced some paces as if to open the door for her. Thus their looks +encountered. He could not interpret that shy gaze of hers: it was +tender, it was deprecating, it was humble, it was pleading; a man +accustomed to female conquests might have thought it was something more, +something in which was the key to all. But that something more was an +unknown tongue to Kenelm Chillingly. + +When the two men were alone, Mr. Bovill reseated himself and motioned to +Kenelm to do the same. “Now, young sir,” said the former, “you and I can +talk at our ease. That adventure of yours yesterday may be the luckiest +thing that could happen to you.” + +“It is sufficiently lucky if I have been of any service to your niece. +But her own good sense would have been her safeguard if she had been +alone, and discovered, as she would have done, that Mr. Compton had, +knowingly or not, misled her to believe that he was a single man.” + +“Hang Mr. Compton! we have done with him. I am a plain man, and I come +to the point. It is you who have carried off my niece; it is with you +that she came to this hotel. Now when Elsie told me how well you +had behaved, and that your language and manners were those of a real +gentleman, my mind was made up. I guess pretty well what you are; you +are a gentleman’s son; probably a college youth; not overburdened with +cash; had a quarrel with your governor, and he keeps you short. Don’t +interrupt me. Well, Elsie is a good girl and a pretty girl, and will +make a good wife, as wives go; and, hark ye, she has L20,000. So just +confide in me; and if you don’t like your parents to know about it till +the thing’s done and they be only got to forgive and bless you, why, you +shall marry Elsie before you can say Jack Robinson.” + +For the first time in his life Kenelm Chillingly was seized with +terror,--terror and consternation. His jaw dropped; his tongue was +palsied. If hair ever stands on end, his hair did. At last, with +superhuman effort, he gasped out the word, “Marry!” + +“Yes; marry. If you are a gentleman you are bound to it. You have +compromised my niece,--a respectable, virtuous girl, sir; an orphan, but +not unprotected. I repeat, it is you who have plucked her from my very +arms, and with violence and assault eloped with her; and what would the +world say if it knew? Would it believe in your prudent conduct?--conduct +only to be explained by the respect you felt due to your future wife. +And where will you find a better? Where will you find an uncle who will +part with his ward and L20,000 without asking if you have a sixpence? +and the girl has taken a fancy to you; I see it: would she have given up +that player so easily if you had not stolen her heart? Would you break +that heart? No, young man: you are not a villain. Shake hands on it!” + +“Mr. Bovill,” said Kenelm, recovering his wonted equanimity, “I am +inexpressibly flattered by the honour you propose to me, and I do not +deny that Miss Elsie is worthy of a much better man than myself. But +I have inconceivable prejudices against the connubial state. If it be +permitted to a member of the Established Church to cavil at any sentence +written by Saint Paul,--and I think that liberty may be permitted to a +simple layman, since eminent members of the clergy criticise the whole +Bible as freely as if it were the history of Queen Elizabeth by Mr. +Froude,--I should demur at the doctrine that it is better to marry than +to burn: I myself should prefer burning. With these sentiments it would +ill become any one entitled to that distinction of ‘gentleman’ which you +confer on me to lead a fellow-victim to the sacrificial altar. As for +any reproach attached to Miss Elsie, since in my telegram I directed you +to ask for a young gentleman at this hotel, her very sex is not known in +this place unless you divulge it. And--” + +Here Kenelm was interrupted by a violent explosion of rage from the +uncle. He stamped his feet; he almost foamed at the mouth; he doubled +his fist, and shook it in Kenelm’s face. + +“Sir, you are mocking me: John Bovill is not a man to be jeered in this +way. You _shall_ marry the girl. I’ll not have her thrust back upon me +to be the plague of my life with her whims and tantrums. You have taken +her, and you shall keep her, or I’ll break every bone in your skin.” + +“Break them,” said Kenelm, resignedly, but at the same time falling back +into a formidable attitude of defence, which cooled the pugnacity of his +accuser. Mr. Bovill sank into his chair, and wiped his forehead. Kenelm +craftily pursued the advantage he had gained, and in mild accents +proceeded to reason,-- + +“When you recover your habitual serenity of humour, Mr. Bovill, you +will see how much your very excusable desire to secure your niece’s +happiness, and, I may add, to reward what you allow to have been +forbearing and well-bred conduct on my part, has hurried you into an +error of judgment. You know nothing of me. I may be, for what you know, +an impostor or swindler; I may have every bad quality, and yet you are +to be contented with my assurance, or rather your own assumption, that +I am born a gentleman, in order to give me your niece and her L20,000. +This is temporary insanity on your part. Allow me to leave you to +recover from your excitement.” + +“Stop, sir,” said Mr. Bovill, in a changed and sullen tone; “I am not +quite the madman you think me. But I dare say I have been too hasty and +too rough. Nevertheless the facts are as I have stated them, and I do +not see how, as a man of honour, you can get off marrying my niece. The +mistake you made in running away with her was, no doubt, innocent on +your part: but still there it is; and supposing the case came before a +jury, it would be an ugly one for you and your family. Marriage alone +could mend it. Come, come, I own I was too business-like in rushing to +the point at once, and I no longer say, ‘Marry my niece off-hand.’ You +have only seen her disguised and in a false position. Pay me a visit at +Oakdale; stay with me a month; and if at the end of that time you do not +like her well enough to propose, I’ll let you off and say no more about +it.” + +While Mr. Bovill thus spoke, and Kenelm listened, neither saw that the +door had been noiselessly opened and that Elsie stood at the threshold. +Now, before Kenelm could reply, she advanced into the middle of the +room, and, her small figure drawn up to its fullest height, her cheeks +glowing, her lips quivering, exclaimed,-- + +“Uncle, for shame!” Then addressing Kenelm in a sharp tone of anguish, +“Oh, do not believe I knew anything of this!” she covered her face with +both hands and stood mute. + +All of chivalry that Kenelm had received with his baptismal appellation +was aroused. He sprang up, and, bending his knee as he drew one of her +hands into his own, he said,-- + +“I am as convinced that your uncle’s words are abhorrent to you as I am +that you are a pure-hearted and high-spirited woman, of whose friendship +I shall be proud. We meet again.” Then releasing her hand, he addressed +Mr. Bovill: “Sir, you are unworthy the charge of your niece. Had you not +been so, she would have committed no imprudence. If she have any female +relation, to that relation transfer your charge.” + +“I have! I have!” cried Elsie; “my lost mother’s sister: let me go to +her.” + +“The woman who keeps a school!” said Mr. Bovill sneeringly. + +“Why not?” asked Kenelm. + +“She never would go there. I proposed it to her a year ago. The minx +would not go into a school.” + +“I will now, Uncle.” + +“Well, then, you shall at once; and I hope you’ll be put on bread and +water. Fool! fool! you have spoilt your own game. Mr. Chillingly, now +that Miss Elsie has turned her back on herself, I can convince you that +I am not the mad man you thought me. I was at the festive meeting held +when you came of age: my brother is one of your father’s tenants. I did +not recognize your face immediately in the excitement of our encounter +and in your change of dress; but in walking home it struck me that I had +seen it before, and I knew it at once when you entered the room to-day. +It has been a tussle between us which should beat the other. You have +beat me; and thanks to that idiot! If she had not put her spoke into my +wheel, she would have lived to be ‘my lady.’ Now good-day, sir.” + +“Mr. Bovill, you offered to shake hands: shake hands now, and promise +me, with the good grace of one honourable combatant to another, that +Miss Elsie shall go to her aunt the schoolmistress at once if she wishes +it. Hark ye, my friend” (this in Mr. Bovill’s ear): “a man can never +manage a woman. Till a woman marries, a prudent man leaves her to women; +when she does marry, she manages her husband, and there’s an end of it.” + +Kenelm was gone. + +“Oh, wise young man!” murmured the uncle. “Elsie, dear, how can you go +to your aunt’s while you are in that dress?” + +Elsie started as from a trance, her eyes directed towards the +doorway through which Kenelm had vanished. “This dress,” she said +contemptuously, “this dress; is not that easily altered with shops in +the town?” + +“Gad!” muttered Mr. Bovill, “that youngster is a second Solomon; and if +I can’t manage Elsie, she’ll manage a husband--whenever she gets one.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +“BY the powers that guard innocence and celibacy,” soliloquized Kenelm +Chillingly, “but I have had a narrow escape! and had that amphibious +creature been in girl’s clothes instead of boy’s, when she intervened +like the deity of the ancient drama, I might have plunged my armorial +Fishes into hot water. Though, indeed, it is hard to suppose that a +young lady head-over-ears in love with Mr. Compton yesterday could have +consigned her affections to me to-day. Still she looked as if she could, +which proves either that one is never to trust a woman’s heart or never +to trust a woman’s looks. Decimus Roach is right. Man must never relax +his flight from the women, if he strives to achieve an ‘Approach to the +Angels.’” + +These reflections were made by Kenelm Chillingly as, having turned his +back upon the town in which such temptations and trials had befallen +him, he took his solitary way along a footpath that wound through meads +and cornfields, and shortened by three miles the distance to a cathedral +town at which he proposed to rest for the night. + +He had travelled for some hours, and the sun was beginning to slope +towards a range of blue hills in the west, when he came to the margin +of a fresh rivulet, overshadowed by feathery willows and the quivering +leaves of silvery Italian poplars. Tempted by the quiet and cool of +this pleasant spot, he flung himself down on the banks, drew from his +knapsack some crusts of bread with which he had wisely provided himself, +and, dipping them into the pure lymph as it rippled over its pebbly bed, +enjoyed one of those luxurious repasts for which epicures would exchange +their banquet in return for the appetite of youth. Then, reclining along +the bank, and crushing the wild thyme that grows best and sweetest in +wooded coverts, provided they be neighboured by water, no matter whether +in pool or rill, he resigned himself to that intermediate state between +thought and dream-land which we call “revery.” At a little distance he +heard the low still sound of the mower’s scythe, and the air came to his +brow sweet with the fragrance of new-mown hay. + +He was roused by a gentle tap on the shoulder, and turning lazily round, +saw a good-humoured jovial face upon a pair of massive shoulders, and +heard a hearty and winning voice say,-- + +“Young man, if you are not too tired, will you lend a hand to get in +my hay? We are very short of hands, and I am afraid we shall have rain +pretty soon.” + +Kenelm rose and shook himself, gravely contemplated the stranger, and +replied in his customary sententious fashion, “Man is born to help his +fellow-man,--especially to get in hay while the sun shines. I am at your +service.” + +“That’s a good fellow, and I’m greatly obliged to you. You see I had +counted on a gang of roving haymakers, but they were bought up +by another farmer. This way;” and leading on through a gap in the +brushwood, he emerged, followed by Kenelm, into a large meadow, +one-third of which was still under the scythe, the rest being occupied +with persons of both sexes, tossing and spreading the cut grass. Among +the latter, Kenelm, stripped to his shirt-sleeves, soon found himself +tossing and spreading like the rest, with his usual melancholy +resignation of mien and aspect. Though a little awkward at first in +the use of his unfamiliar implements, his practice in all athletic +accomplishments bestowed on him that invaluable quality which is termed +“handiness,” and he soon distinguished himself by the superior activity +and neatness with which he performed his work. Something--it might be in +his countenance or in the charm of his being a stranger--attracted the +attention of the feminine section of haymakers, and one very pretty girl +who was nearer to him than the rest attempted to commence conversation. + +“This is new to you,” she said smiling. + +“Nothing is new to me,” answered Kenelm, mournfully. “But allow me to +observe that to do things well you should only do one thing at a time. I +am here to make hay and not conversation.” + +“My!” said the girl, in amazed ejaculation, and turned off with a toss +of her pretty head. + +“I wonder if that jade has got an uncle,” thought Kenelm. The farmer, +who took his share of work with the men, halting now and then to look +round, noticed Kenelm’s vigorous application with much approval, and at +the close of the day’s work shook him heartily by the hand, leaving a +two-shilling piece in his palm. The heir of the Chillinglys gazed on +that honorarium, and turned it over with the finger and thumb of the +left hand. + +“Be n’t it eno’?” said the farmer, nettled. + +“Pardon me,” answered Kenelm. “But, to tell you the truth, it is the +first money I ever earned by my own bodily labour; and I regard it with +equal curiosity and respect. But if it would not offend you, I would +rather that, instead of the money, you had offered me some supper; for I +have tasted nothing but bread and water since the morning.” + +“You shall have the money and supper both, my lad,” said the farmer, +cheerily. “And if you will stay and help till I have got in the hay, I +dare say my good woman can find you a better bed than you’ll get in the +village inn; if, indeed, you can get one there at all.” + +“You are very kind. But before I accept your hospitality excuse one +question: have you any nieces about you?” + +“Nieces!” echoed the farmer, mechanically thrusting his hands into his +breeches-pockets as if in search of something there, “nieces about me! +what do you mean? Be that a newfangled word for coppers?” + +“Not for coppers, though perhaps for brass. But I spoke without +metaphor. I object to nieces upon abstract principle, confirmed by the +test of experience.” + +The farmer stared, and thought his new friend not quite so sound in his +mental as he evidently was in his physical conformation, but replied, +with a laugh, “Make yourself easy, then. I have only one niece, and she +is married to an iron-monger and lives in Exeter.” + +On entering the farmhouse, Kenelm’s host conducted him straight into the +kitchen, and cried out, in a hearty voice, to a comely middle-aged dame, +who, with a stout girl, was intent on culinary operations, “Hulloa! old +woman, I have brought you a guest who has well earned his supper, for he +has done the work of two, and I have promised him a bed.” + +The farmer’s wife turned sharply round. “He is heartily welcome to +supper. As to a bed,” she said doubtfully, “I don’t know.” But here her +eyes settled on Kenelm; and there was something in his aspect so +unlike what she expected to see in an itinerant haymaker, that she +involuntarily dropped a courtesy, and resumed, with a change of tone, +“The gentleman shall have the guest-room: but it will take a little time +to get ready; you know, John, all the furniture is covered up.” + +“Well, wife, there will be leisure eno’ for that. He don’t want to go to +roost till he has supped.” + +“Certainly not,” said Kenelm, sniffing a very agreeable odour. + +“Where are the girls?” asked the farmer. + +“They have been in these five minutes, and gone upstairs to tidy +themselves.” + +“What girls?” faltered Kenelm, retreating towards the door. “I thought +you said you had no nieces.” + +“But I did not say I had no daughters. Why, you are not afraid of them, +are you?” + +“Sir,” replied Kenelm, with a polite and politic evasion of that +question, “if your daughters are like their mother, you can’t say that +they are not dangerous.” + +“Come,” cried the farmer, looking very much pleased, while his dame +smiled and blushed, “come, that’s as nicely said as if you were +canvassing the county. ‘Tis not among haymakers that you learned +manners, I guess; and perhaps I have been making too free with my +betters.” + +“What!” quoth the courteous Kenelm, “do you mean to imply that you were +too free with your shillings? Apologize for that, if you like, but I +don’t think you’ll get back the shillings. I have not seen so much of +this life as you have, but, according to my experience, when a man once +parts with his money, whether to his betters or his worsers, the chances +are that he’ll never see it again.” + +At this aphorism the farmer laughed ready to kill himself, his wife +chuckled, and even the maid-of-all-work grinned. Kenelm, preserving his +unalterable gravity, said to himself,-- + +“Wit consists in the epigrammatic expression of a commonplace truth, and +the dullest remark on the worth of money is almost as sure of successful +appreciation as the dullest remark on the worthlessness of women. +Certainly I am a wit without knowing it.” + +Here the farmer touched him on the shoulder--touched it, did not slap +it, as he would have done ten minutes before--and said,-- + +“We must not disturb the Missis or we shall get no supper. I’ll just go +and give a look into the cow-sheds. Do you know much about cows?” + +“Yes, cows produce cream and butter. The best cows are those which +produce at the least cost the best cream and butter. But how the best +cream and butter can be produced at a price which will place them free +of expense on a poor man’s breakfast-table is a question to be settled +by a Reformed Parliament and a Liberal Administration. In the meanwhile +let us not delay the supper.” + +The farmer and his guest quitted the kitchen and entered the farmyard. + +“You are quite a stranger in these parts?” + +“Quite.” + +“You don’t even know my name?” + +“No, except that I heard your wife call you John.” + +“My name is John Saunderson.” + +“Ah! you come from the North, then? That’s why you are so sensible and +shrewd. Names that end in ‘son’ are chiefly borne by the descendants of +the Danes, to whom King Alfred, Heaven bless him! peacefully assigned +no less than sixteen English counties. And when a Dane was called +somebody’s son, it is a sign that he was the son of a somebody.” + +“By gosh! I never heard that before.” + +“If I thought you had I should not have said it.” + +“Now I have told you my name, what is yours?” + +“A wise man asks questions and a fool answers them. Suppose for a moment +that I am not a fool.” + +Farmer Saunderson scratched his head, and looked more puzzled than +became the descendant of a Dane settled by King Alfred in the north of +England. + +“Dash it,” said he at last, “but I think you are Yorkshire too.” + +“Man, who is the most conceited of all animals, says that he alone has +the prerogative of thought, and condemns the other animals to the meaner +mechanical operation which he calls instinct. But as instincts are +unerring and thoughts generally go wrong, man has not much to boast of +according to his own definition. When you say you think, and take it +for granted, that I am Yorkshire, you err. I am not Yorkshire. Confining +yourself to instinct, can you divine when we shall sup? The cows you are +about to visit divine to a moment when they shall be fed.” + +Said the farmer, recovering his sense of superiority to the guest whom +he obliged with a supper, “In ten minutes.” Then, after a pause, and +in a tone of deprecation, as if he feared he might be thought fine, he +continued, “We don’t sup in the kitchen. My father did, and so did I +till I married; but my Bess, though she’s as good a farmer’s wife as +ever wore shoe-leather, was a tradesman’s daughter, and had been brought +up different. You see she was not without a good bit of money: but even +if she had been, I should not have liked her folks to say I had lowered +her; so we sup in the parlour.” + +Quoth Kenelm, “The first consideration is to sup at all. Supper +conceded, every man is more likely to get on in life who would rather +sup in his parlour than his kitchen. Meanwhile, I see a pump; while you +go to the cows I will stay here and wash my hands of them.” + +“Hold! you seem a sharp fellow, and certainly no fool. I have a son, +a good smart chap, but stuck up; crows it over us all; thinks no small +beer of himself. You’d do me a service, and him too, if you’d let him +down a peg or two.” + +Kenelm, who was now hard at work at the pump-handle, only replied by a +gracious nod. But as he seldom lost an opportunity for reflection, he +said to himself, while he laved his face in the stream from the spout, +“One can’t wonder why every small man thinks it so pleasant to let down +a big one, when a father asks a stranger to let down his own son for +even fancying that he is not small beer. It is upon that principle in +human nature that criticism wisely relinquishes its pretensions as an +analytical science, and becomes a lucrative profession. It relies on the +pleasure its readers find in letting a man down.” + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +IT was a pretty, quaint farmhouse, such as might well go with two or +three hundred acres of tolerably good land, tolerably well farmed by an +active old-fashioned tenant, who, though he did not use mowing-machines +nor steam-ploughs nor dabble in chemical experiments, still brought +an adequate capital to his land and made the capital yield a very fair +return of interest. The supper was laid out in a good-sized though +low-pitched parlour with a glazed door, now wide open, as were all the +latticed windows, looking into a small garden, rich in those straggling +old English flowers which are nowadays banished from gardens more +pretentious and; infinitely less fragrant. At one corner was an arbour +covered with honeysuckle, and opposite to it a row of beehives. The room +itself had an air of comfort, and that sort of elegance which indicates +the presiding genius of feminine taste. There were shelves suspended +to the wall by blue ribbons, and filled with small books neatly bound; +there were flower-pots in all the window-sills; there was a small +cottage piano; the walls were graced partly with engraved portraits of +county magnates and prize oxen; partly with samplers in worsted-work, +comprising verses of moral character and the names and birthdays of +the farmer’s grandmother, mother, wife, and daughters. Over the +chimney-piece was a small mirror, and above that the trophy of a fox’s +brush; while niched into an angle in the room was a glazed cupboard, +rich with specimens of old china, Indian and English. + +The party consisted of the farmer, his wife, three buxom daughters, and +a pale-faced slender lad of about twenty, the only son, who did not take +willingly to farming: he had been educated at a superior grammar school, +and had high notions about the March of Intellect and the Progress of +the Age. + +Kenelm, though among the gravest of mortals, was one of the least shy. +In fact shyness is the usual symptom of a keen _amour propre_; and of +that quality the youthful Chillingly scarcely possessed more than did +the three Fishes of his hereditary scutcheon. He felt himself perfectly +at home with his entertainers; taking care, however, that his attentions +were so equally divided between the three daughters as to prevent all +suspicion of a particular preference. “There is safety in numbers,” + thought he, “especially in odd numbers. The three Graces never married, +neither did the nine Muses.” + +“I presume, young ladies, that you are fond of music,” said Kenelm, +glancing at the piano. + +“Yes, I love it dearly,” said the eldest girl, speaking for the others. + +Quoth the farmer, as he heaped the stranger’s plate with boiled beef and +carrots, “Things are not what they were when I was a boy; then it was +only great tenant-farmers who had their girls taught the piano, and +sent their boys to a good school. Now we small folks are for helping our +children a step or two higher than our own place on the ladder.” + +“The schoolmaster is abroad,” said the son, with the emphasis of a sage +adding an original aphorism to the stores of philosophy. + +“There is, no doubt, a greater equality of culture than there was in +the last generation,” said Kenelm. “People of all ranks utter the same +commonplace ideas in very much the same arrangements of syntax. And in +proportion as the democracy of intelligence extends--a friend of mine, +who is a doctor, tells me that complaints formerly reserved to what is +called aristocracy (though what that word means in plain English I don’t +know) are equally shared by the commonalty--_tic-douloureux_ and other +neuralgic maladies abound. And the human race, in England at least, is +becoming more slight and delicate. There is a fable of a man who, when +he became exceedingly old, was turned into a grasshopper. England +is very old, and is evidently approaching the grasshopper state of +development. Perhaps we don’t eat as much beef as our forefathers did. +May I ask you for another slice?” + +Kenelm’s remarks were somewhat over the heads of his audience. But +the son, taking them as a slur upon the enlightened spirit of the age, +coloured up and said, with a knitted brow, “I hope, sir, that you are +not an enemy to progress.” + +“That depends: for instance, I prefer staying here, where I am well off, +to going farther and faring worse.” + +“Well said!” cried the farmer. + +Not deigning to notice that interruption, the son took up Kenelm’s reply +with a sneer, “I suppose you mean that it is to fare worse, if you march +with the time.” + +“I am afraid we have no option but to march with the time; but when we +reach that stage when to march any farther is to march into old age, we +should not be sorry if time would be kind enough to stand still; and all +good doctors concur in advising us to do nothing to hurry him.” + +“There is no sign of old age in this country, sir; and thank Heaven we +are not standing still!” + +“Grasshoppers never do; they are always hopping and jumping, and making +what they think ‘progress,’ till (unless they hop into the water and are +swallowed up prematurely by a carp or a frog) they die of the exhaustion +which hops and jumps unremitting naturally produce. May I ask you, Mrs. +Saunderson, for some of that rice-pudding?” + +The farmer, who, though he did not quite comprehend Kenelm’s +metaphorical mode of arguing, saw delightedly that his wise son looked +more posed than himself, cried with great glee, “Bob, my boy,--Bob, our +visitor is a little too much for you!” + +“Oh, no,” said Kenelm, modestly. “But I honestly think Mr. Bob would be +a wiser man, and a weightier man, and more removed from the grasshopper +state, if he would think less and eat more pudding.” + +When the supper was over the farmer offered Kenelm a clay pipe filled +with shag, which that adventurer accepted with his habitual resignation +to the ills of life; and the whole party, excepting Mrs. Saunderson, +strolled into the garden. Kenelm and Mr. Saunderson seated themselves +in the honeysuckle arbour: the girls and the advocate of progress stood +without among the garden flowers. It was a still and lovely night, the +moon at her full. The farmer, seated facing his hayfields, smoked on +placidly. Kenelm, at the third whiff, laid aside his pipe, and glanced +furtively at the three Graces. They formed a pretty group, all clustered +together near the silenced beehives, the two younger seated on the +grass strip that bordered the flower-beds, their arms over each other’s +shoulders, the elder one standing behind them, with the moonlight +shining soft on her auburn hair. + +Young Saunderson walked restlessly by himself to and fro the path of +gravel. + +“It is a strange thing,” ruminated Kenelm, “that girls are not +unpleasant to look at if you take them collectively,--two or three bound +up together; but if you detach any one of them from the bunch, the odds +are that she is as plain as a pikestaff. I wonder whether that bucolical +grasshopper, who is so enamoured of the hop and jump that he calls +‘progress,’ classes the society of the Mormons among the evidences of +civilized advancement? There is a good deal to be said in favour of +taking a whole lot of wives as one may buy a whole lot of cheap razors. +For it is not impossible that out of a dozen a good one may be found. +And then, too, a whole nosegay of variegated blooms, with a faded +leaf here and there, must be more agreeable to the eye than the same +monotonous solitary lady’s smock. But I fear these reflections are +naughty; let us change them. Farmer,” he said aloud, “I suppose your +handsome daughters are too fine to assist you much. I did not see them +among the haymakers.” + +“Oh, they were there, but by themselves, in the back part of the +field. I did not want them to mix with all the girls, many of whom are +strangers from other places. I don’t know anything against them; but as +I don’t know anything for them, I thought it as well to keep my lasses +apart.” + +“But I should have supposed it wiser to keep your son apart from them. I +saw him in the thick of those nymphs.” + +“Well,” said the farmer, musingly, and withdrawing his pipe from his +lips, “I don’t think lasses not quite well brought up, poor things! +do as much harm to the lads as they can do to proper-behaved lasses; +leastways my wife does not think so. ‘Keep good girls from bad girls,’ +says she, ‘and good girls will never go wrong.’ And you will find there +is something in that when you have girls of your own to take care of.” + +“Without waiting for that time, which I trust may never occur, I can +recognize the wisdom of your excellent wife’s observation. My own +opinion is, that a woman can more easily do mischief to her own sex than +to ours; since, of course, she cannot exist without doing mischief to +somebody or other.” + +“And good, too,” said the jovial farmer, thumping his fist on the table. +“What should we be without women?” + +“Very much better, I take it, sir. Adam was as good as gold, and never +had a qualm of conscience or stomach till Eve seduced him into eating +raw apples.” + +“Young man, thou’st been crossed in love. I see it now. That’s why thou +look’st so sorrowful.” + +“Sorrowful! Did you ever know a man crossed in love who looked less +sorrowful when he came across a pudding?” + +“Hey! but thou canst ply a good knife and fork, that I will say for +thee.” Here the farmer turned round, and gazed on Kenelm with deliberate +scrutiny. That scrutiny accomplished, his voice took a somewhat +more respectful tone, as he resumed, “Do you know that you puzzle me +somewhat?” + +“Very likely. I am sure that I puzzle myself. Say on.” + +“Looking at your dress and--and--” + +“The two shillings you gave me? Yes--” + +“I took you for the son of some small farmer like myself. But now I +judge from your talk that you are a college chap,--anyhow, a gentleman. +Be n’t it so?” + +“My dear Mr. Saunderson, I set out on my travels, which is not long +ago, with a strong dislike to telling lies. But I doubt if a man can get +along through this world without finding that the faculty of lying was +bestowed on him by Nature as a necessary means of self-preservation. +If you are going to ask me any questions about myself, I am sure that +I shall tell you lies. Perhaps, therefore, it may be best for both if +I decline the bed you proffered me, and take my night’s rest under a +hedge.” + +“Pooh! I don’t want to know more of a man’s affairs than he thinks fit +to tell me. Stay and finish the haymaking. And I say, lad, I’m glad you +don’t seem to care for the girls; for I saw a very pretty one trying to +flirt with you, and if you don’t mind she’ll bring you into trouble.” + +“How? Does she want to run away from her uncle?” + +“Uncle! Bless you, she don’t live with him! She lives with her +father; and I never knew that she wants to run away. In fact, Jessie +Wiles--that’s her name--is, I believe, a very good girl, and everybody +likes her,--perhaps a little too much; but then she knows she’s a +beauty, and does not object to admiration.” + +“No woman ever does, whether she’s a beauty or not. But I don’t yet +understand why Jessie Wiles should bring me into trouble.” + +“Because there is a big hulking fellow who has gone half out of his wits +for her; and when he fancies he sees any other chap too sweet on her he +thrashes him into a jelly. So, youngster, you just keep your skin out of +that trap.” + +“Hem! And what does the girl say to those proofs of affection? Does she +like the man the better for thrashing other admirers into jelly?” + +“Poor child! No; she hates the very sight of him. But he swears she +shall marry nobody else if he hangs for it. And, to tell you the truth, +I suspect that if Jessie does seem to trifle with others a little too +lightly, it is to draw away this bully’s suspicion from the only man I +think she does care for,--a poor sickly young fellow who was crippled by +an accident, and whom Tom Bowles could brain with his little finger.” + +“This is really interesting,” cried Kenelm, showing something like +excitement. “I should like to know this terrible suitor.” + +“That’s easy eno’,” said the farmer, dryly. “You have only to take +a stroll with Jessie Wiles after sunset, and you’ll know more of Tom +Bowles than you are likely to forget in a month.” + +“Thank you very much for your information,” said Kenelm, in a soft tone, +grateful but pensive. “I hope to profit by it.” + +“Do. I should be sorry if any harm came to thee; and Tom Bowles in one +of his furies is as bad to cross as a mad bull. So now, as we must be up +early, I’ll just take a look round the stables, and then off to bed; and +I advise you to do the same.” + +“Thank you for the hint. I see the young ladies have already gone in. +Good-night.” + +Passing through the garden, Kenelm encountered the junior Saunderson. + +“I fear,” said the Votary of Progress, “that you have found the governor +awful slow. What have you been talking about?” + +“Girls,” said Kenelm, “a subject always awful, but not necessarily +slow.” + +“Girls,--the governor been talking about girls? You joke.” + +“I wish I did joke, but that is a thing I could never do since I came +upon earth. Even in the cradle, I felt that life was a very serious +matter, and did not allow of jokes. I remember too well my first dose +of castor-oil. You too, Mr. Bob, have doubtless imbibed that initiatory +preparation to the sweets of existence. The corners of your mouth have +not recovered from the downward curves into which it so rigidly dragged +them. Like myself, you are of grave temperament, and not easily moved +to jocularity,--nay, an enthusiast for Progress is of necessity a man +eminently dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. And chronic +dissatisfaction resents the momentary relief of a joke.” + +“Give off chaffing, if you please,” said Bob, lowering the didascular +intonations of his voice, “and just tell me plainly, did not my father +say anything particular about me?” + +“Not a word: the only person of the male sex of whom he said anything +particular was Tom Bowles.” + +“What, fighting Tom! the terror of the whole neighbourhood! Ah, I guess +the old gentleman is afraid lest Tom may fall foul upon me. But Jessie +Wiles is not worth a quarrel with that brute. It is a crying shame in +the Government--” + +“What! has the Government failed to appreciate the heroism of Tom +Bowles, or rather to restrain the excesses of its ardour?” + +“Stuff! it is a shame in the Government not to have compelled his father +to put him to school. If education were universal--” + +“You think there would be no brutes in particular. It may be so; but +education is universal in China, and so is the bastinado. I thought, +however, that you said the schoolmaster was abroad, and that the age of +enlightenment was in full progress.” + +“Yes, in the towns, but not in these obsolete rural districts; and that +brings me to the point. I feel lost, thrown away here. I have something +in me, sir, and it can only come out by collision with equal minds. So +do me a favour, will you?” + +“With the greatest pleasure.” + +“Give the governor a hint that he can’t expect me, after the education +I have had, to follow the plough and fatten pigs; and that Manchester is +the place for ME.” + +“Why Manchester?” + +“Because I have a relation in business there who will give me a +clerkship if the governor will consent. And Manchester rules England.” + +“Mr. Bob Saunderson, I will do my best to promote your wishes. This is +a land of liberty, and every man should choose his own walk in it, so +that, at the last, if he goes to the dogs, he goes to them without that +disturbance of temper which is naturally occasioned by the sense of +being driven to their jaws by another man against his own will. He has +then no one to blame but himself. And that, Mr. Bob, is a great comfort. +When, having got into a scrape, we blame others, we unconsciously +become unjust, spiteful, uncharitable, malignant, perhaps revengeful. +We indulge in feelings which tend to demoralize the whole character. +But when we only blame ourselves, we become modest and penitent. We make +allowances for others. And indeed self-blame is a salutary exercise of +conscience, which a really good man performs every day of his life. And +now, will you show me the room in which I am to sleep, and forget for a +few hours that I am alive at all: the best thing that can happen to us +in this world, my dear Mr. Bob! There’s never much amiss with our days, +so long as we can forget about them the moment we lay our heads on the +pillow.” + +The two young men entered the house amicably, arm in arm. The girls had +already retired, but Mrs. Saunderson was still up to conduct her +visitor to the guest’s chamber,--a pretty room which had been furnished +twenty-two years ago on the occasion of the farmer’s marriage, at the +expense of Mrs. Saunderson’s mother, for her own occupation when she +paid them a visit, and with its dimity curtains and trellised paper it +still looked as fresh and new as if decorated and furnished yesterday. + +Left alone, Kenelm undressed, and before he got into bed, bared +his right arm, and doubling it, gravely contemplated its muscular +development, passing his left hand over that prominence in the upper +part which is vulgarly called the ball. Satisfied apparently with the +size and the firmness of that pugilistic protuberance, he gently sighed +forth, “I fear I shall have to lick Thomas Bowles.” In five minutes more +he was asleep. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE next day the hay-mowing was completed, and a large portion of the +hay already made carted away to be stacked. Kenelm acquitted himself +with a credit not less praiseworthy than had previously won Mr. +Saunderson’s approbation. But instead of rejecting as before the +acquaintance of Miss Jessie Wiles, he contrived towards noon to place +himself near to that dangerous beauty, and commenced conversation. “I am +afraid I was rather rude to you yesterday, and I want to beg pardon.” + +“Oh,” answered the girl, in that simple intelligible English which +is more frequent among our village folks nowadays than many popular +novelists would lead us into supposing, “oh, I ought to ask pardon for +taking a liberty in speaking to you. But I thought you’d feel strange, +and I intended it kindly.” + +“I’m sure you did,” returned Kenelm, chivalrously raking her portion of +hay as well as his own, while he spoke. “And I want to be good friends +with you. It is very near the time when we shall leave off for +dinner, and Mrs. Saunderson has filled my pockets with some excellent +beef-sandwiches, which I shall be happy to share with you, if you do not +object to dine with me here, instead of going home for your dinner.” + +The girl hesitated, and then shook her head in dissent from the +proposition. + +“Are you afraid that your neighbours will think it wrong?” + +Jessie curled up her lips with a pretty scorn, and said, “I don’t much +care what other folks say, but is n’t it wrong?” + +“Not in the least. Let me make your mind easy. I am here but for a day +or two: we are not likely ever to meet again; but, before I go, I should +be glad if I could do you some little service.” As he spoke he had +paused from his work, and, leaning on his rake, fixed his eyes, for the +first time attentively, on the fair haymaker. + +Yes, she was decidedly pretty,--pretty to a rare degree: luxuriant brown +hair neatly tied up, under a straw hat doubtless of her own plaiting; +for, as a general rule, nothing more educates the village maid for the +destinies of flirt than the accomplishment of straw-plaiting. She had +large, soft blue eyes, delicate small features, and a complexion more +clear in its healthful bloom than rural beauties generally retain +against the influences of wind and sun. She smiled and slightly coloured +as he gazed on her, and, lifting her eyes, gave him one gentle, trustful +glance, which might have bewitched a philosopher and deceived a _roue_. +And yet Kenelm by that intuitive knowledge of character which is often +truthfulest where it is least disturbed by the doubts and cavils of +acquired knowledge, felt at once that in that girl’s mind coquetry, +perhaps unconscious, was conjoined with an innocence of anything +worse than coquetry as complete as a child’s. He bowed his head, in +withdrawing his gaze, and took her into his heart as tenderly as if she +had been a child appealing to it for protection. + +“Certainly,” he said inly, “certainly I must lick Tom Bowles; yet stay, +perhaps after all she likes him.” + +“But,” he continued aloud, “you do not see how I can be of any service +to you. Before I explain, let me ask which of the men in the field is +Tom Bowles?” + +“Tom Bowles?” exclaimed Jessie, in a tone of surprise and alarm, and +turning pale as she looked hastily round; “you frightened me, sir: but +he is not here; he does not work in the fields. But how came you to hear +of Tom Bowles?” + +“Dine with me and I’ll tell you. Look, there is a quiet place in yon +corner under the thorn-trees by that piece of water. See, they are +leaving off work: I will go for a can of beer, and then, pray, let me +join you there.” + +Jessie paused for a moment as if doubtful still; then again glancing at +Kenelm, and assured by the grave kindness of his countenance, uttered a +scarce audible assent and moved away towards the thorn-trees. + +As the sun now stood perpendicularly over their heads, and the hand +of the clock in the village church tower, soaring over the hedgerows, +reached the first hour after noon, all work ceased in a sudden silence: +some of the girls went back to their homes; those who stayed grouped +together, apart from the men, who took their way to the shadows of a +large oak-tree in the hedgerow, where beer kegs and cans awaited them. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +“AND now,” said Kenelm, as the two young persons, having finished their +simple repast, sat under the thorn-trees and by the side of the water, +fringed at that part with tall reeds through which the light summer +breeze stirred with a pleasant murmur, “now I will talk to you about Tom +Bowles. Is it true that you don’t like that brave young fellow? I say +young, as I take his youth for granted.” + +“Like him! I hate the sight of him.” + +“Did you always hate the sight of him? You must surely at one time have +allowed him to think that you did not?” + +The girl winced, and made no answer, but plucked a daffodil from the +soil, and tore it ruthlessly to pieces. + +“I am afraid you like to serve your admirers as you do that ill-fated +flower,” said Kenelm, with some severity of tone. “But concealed in +the flower you may sometimes find the sting of a bee. I see by your +countenance that you did not tell Tom Bowles that you hated him till it +was too late to prevent his losing his wits for you.” + +“No; I was n’t so bad as that,” said Jessie, looking, nevertheless, +rather ashamed of herself; “but I was silly and giddy-like, I own; and, +when he first took notice of me, I was pleased, without thinking much of +it, because, you see, Mr. Bowles (emphasis on _Mr._) is higher up than +a poor girl like me. He is a tradesman, and I am only a shepherd’s +daughter; though, indeed, Father is more like Mr. Saunderson’s foreman +than a mere shepherd. But I never thought anything serious of it, and +did not suppose he did; that is, at first.” + +“So Tom Bowles is a tradesman. What trade?” + +“A farrier, sir.” + +“And, I am told, a very fine young man.” + +“I don’t know as to that: he is very big.” + +“And what made you hate him?” + +“The first thing that made me hate him was that he insulted Father, who +is a very quiet, timid man, and threatened I don’t know what if Father +did not make me keep company with him. Make me indeed! But Mr. Bowles is +a dangerous, bad-hearted, violent man, and--don’t laugh at me, sir, but +I dreamed one night he was murdering me. And I think he will too, if he +stays here: and so does his poor mother, who is a very nice woman, and +wants him to go away; but he will not.” + +“Jessie,” said Kenelm, softly, “I said I wanted to make friends with +you. Do you think you can make a friend of me? I can never be more than +friend. But I should like to be that. Can you trust me as one?” + +“Yes,” answered the girl, firmly, and, as she lifted her eyes to him, +their look was pure from all vestige of coquetry,--guileless, frank, +grateful. + +“Is there not another young man who courts you more civilly than Tom +Bowles does, and whom you really could find it in your heart to like?” + +Jessie looked round for another daffodil, and not finding one, contented +herself with a bluebell, which she did not tear to pieces, but caressed +with a tender hand. Kenelm bent his eyes down on her charming face +with something in their gaze rarely seen there,--something of that +unreasoning, inexpressible human fondness, for which philosophers of +his school have no excuse. Had ordinary mortals, like you or myself, for +instance, peered through the leaves of the thorn-trees, we should have +sighed or frowned, according to our several temperaments; but we should +all have said, whether spitefully or envyingly, “Happy young lovers!” + and should all have blundered lamentably in so saying. + +Still, there is no denying the fact that a pretty face has a very unfair +advantage over a plain one. And, much to the discredit of Kenelm’s +philanthropy, it may be reasonably doubted whether, had Jessie Wiles +been endowed by nature with a snub nose and a squint, Kenelm would have +volunteered his friendly services, or meditated battle with Tom Bowles +on her behalf. + +But there was no touch of envy or jealousy in the tone with which he +said,-- + +“I see there is some one you would like well enough to marry, and +that you make a great difference in the way you treat a daffodil and a +bluebell. Who and what is the young man whom the bluebell represents? +Come, confide.” + +“We were much brought up together,” said Jessie, still looking down, +and still smoothing the leaves of the bluebell. “His mother lived in the +next cottage; and my mother was very fond of him, and so was Father +too; and, before I was ten years old, they used to laugh when poor Will +called me his little wife.” Here the tears which had started to Jessie’s +eyes began to fall over the flower. “But now Father would not hear of +it; and it can’t be. And I’ve tried to care for some one else, and I +can’t, and that’s the truth.” + +“But why? Has he turned out ill?--taken to poaching or drink?” + +“No, no, no; he’s as steady and good a lad as ever lived. But--but--” + +“Yes; but--” + +“He is a cripple now; and I love him all the better for it.” Here Jessie +fairly sobbed. + +Kenelm was greatly moved, and prudently held his peace till she had a +little recovered herself; then, in answer to his gentle questionings, he +learned that Will Somers--till then a healthy and strong lad--had fallen +from the height of a scaffolding, at the age of sixteen, and been so +seriously injured that he was moved at once to the hospital. When he +came out of it--what with the fall, and what with the long illness which +had followed the effects of the accident--he was not only crippled for +life, but of health so delicate and weakly that he was no longer fit for +outdoor labour and the hard life of a peasant. He was an only son of a +widowed mother, and his sole mode of assisting her was a very precarious +one. He had taught himself basket-making; and though, Jessie said, his +work was very ingenious and clever, still there were but few customers +for it in that neighbourhood. And, alas! even if Jessie’s father would +consent to give his daughter to the poor cripple, how could the poor +cripple earn enough to maintain a wife? + +“And,” said Jessie, “still I was happy, walking out with him on Sunday +evenings, or going to sit with him and his mother; for we are both +young, and can wait. But I dare n’t do it any more now: for Tom Bowles +has sworn that if I do he will beat him before my eyes; and Will has a +high spirit, and I should break my heart if any harm happened to him on +my account.” + +“As for Mr. Bowles, we’ll not think of him at present. But if Will could +maintain himself and you, your father would not object nor you either to +a marriage with the poor cripple?” + +“Father would not; and as for me, if it weren’t for disobeying Father, +I’d marry him to-morrow. _I_ can work.” + +“They are going back to the hay now; but after that task is over, let me +walk home with you, and show me Will’s cottage and Mr. Bowles’s shop or +forge.” + +“But you’ll not say anything to Mr. Bowles. He would n’t mind your being +a gentleman, as I now see you are, sir; and he’s dangerous,--oh, so +dangerous!--and so strong.” + +“Never fear,” answered Kenelm, with the nearest approach to a laugh he +had ever made since childhood; “but when we are relieved, wait for me a +few minutes at yon gate.” + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +KENELM spoke no more to his new friend in the hayfields; but when the +day’s work was over he looked round for the farmer to make an excuse +for not immediately joining the family supper. However, he did not see +either Mr. Saunderson or his son. Both were busied in the stackyard. +Well pleased to escape excuse and the questions it might provoke, Kenelm +therefore put on the coat he had laid aside and joined Jessie, who +had waited for him at the gate. They entered the lane side by side, +following the stream of villagers who were slowly wending their homeward +way. It was a primitive English village, not adorned on the one hand +with fancy or model cottages, nor on the other hand indicating penury +and squalor. The church rose before them gray and Gothic, backed by the +red clouds in which the sun had set, and bordered by the glebe-land +of the half-seen parsonage. Then came the village green, with a +pretty schoolhouse; and to this succeeded a long street of scattered +whitewashed cottages, in the midst of their own little gardens. + +As they walked the moon rose in full splendour, silvering the road +before them. + +“Who is the Squire here?” asked Kenelm. “I should guess him to be a good +sort of man, and well off.” + +“Yes, Squire Travers; he is a great gentleman, and they say very rich. +But his place is a good way from this village. You can see it if you +stay, for he gives a harvest-home supper on Saturday, and Mr. Saunderson +and all his tenants are going. It is a beautiful park, and Miss Travers +is a sight to look at. Oh, she is lovely!” continued Jessie, with an +unaffected burst of admiration; for women are more sensible of the charm +of each other’s beauty than men give them credit for. + +“As pretty as yourself?” + +“Oh, pretty is not the word. She is a thousand times handsomer!” + +“Humph!” said Kenelm, incredulously. + +There was a pause, broken by a quick sigh from Jessie. + +“What are you sighing for?--tell me.” + +“I was thinking that a very little can make folks happy, but that +somehow or other that very little is as hard to get as if one set one’s +heart on a great deal.” + +“That’s very wisely said. Everybody covets a little something for which, +perhaps, nobody else would give a straw. But what’s the very little +thing for which you are sighing?” + +“Mrs. Bawtrey wants to sell that shop of hers. She is getting old, and +has had fits; and she can get nobody to buy; and if Will had that shop +and I could keep it,--but ‘tis no use thinking of that.” + +“What shop do you mean?” + +“There!” + +“Where? I see no shop.” + +“But it is _the_ shop of the village,--the only one,--where the +post-office is.” + +“Ah! I see something at the windows like a red cloak. What do they +sell?” + +“Everything,--tea and sugar and candles and shawls and gowns and cloaks +and mouse-traps and letter-paper; and Mrs. Bawtrey buys poor Will’s +baskets, and sells them for a good deal more than she pays.” + +“It seems a nice cottage, with a field and orchard at the back.” + +“Yes. Mrs. Bawtrey pays L8 a year for it; but the shop can well afford +it.” + +Kenelm made no reply. They both walked on in silence, and had now +reached the centre of the village street when Jessie, looking up, +uttered an abrupt exclamation, gave an affrighted start, and then came +to a dead stop. + +Kenelm’s eye followed the direction of hers, and saw, a few yards +distant, at the other side of the way, a small red brick house, with +thatched sheds adjoining it, the whole standing in a wide yard, over +the gate of which leaned a man smoking a small cutty-pipe. “It is Tom +Bowles,” whispered Jessie, and instinctively she twined her arm into +Kenelm’s; then, as if on second thoughts, withdrew it, and said, still +in a whisper, “Go back now, sir; do.” + +“Not I. It is Tom Bowles whom I want to know. Hush!” + +For here Tom Bowles had thrown down his pipe and was coming slowly +across the road towards them. + +Kenelm eyed him with attention. A singularly powerful man, not so tall +as Kenelm by some inches, but still above the middle height, herculean +shoulders and chest, the lower limbs not in equal proportion,--a sort +of slouching, shambling gait. As he advanced the moonlight fell on his +face; it was a handsome one. He wore no hat, and his hair, of a +light brown, curled close. His face was fresh-coloured, with aquiline +features; his age apparently about six or seven and twenty. Coming +nearer and nearer, whatever favourable impression the first glance +at his physiognomy might have made on Kenelm was dispelled, for the +expression of his face changed and became fierce and lowering. + +Kenelm was still walking on, Jessie by his side, when Bowles rudely +thrust himself between them, and seizing the girl’s arm with one hand, +he turned his face full on Kenelm, with a menacing wave of the other +hand, and said in a deep burly voice, + +“Who be you?” + +“Let go that young woman before I tell you.” + +“If you weren’t a stranger,” answered Bowles, seeming as if he tried to +suppress a rising fit of wrath, “you’d be in the kennel for those words. +But I s’pose you don’t know that I’m Tom Bowles, and I don’t choose the +girl as I’m after to keep company with any other man. So you be off.” + +“And I don’t choose any other man to lay violent hands on any girl +walking by my side without telling him that he’s a brute; and that I +only wait till he has both his hands at liberty to let him know that he +has not a poor cripple to deal with.” + +Tom Bowles could scarcely believe his ears. Amaze swallowed up for +the moment every other sentiment. Mechanically he loosened his hold of +Jessie, who fled off like a bird released. But evidently she thought +of her new friend’s danger more than her own escape; for instead of +sheltering herself in her father’s cottage, she ran towards a group +of labourers who, near at hand, had stopped loitering before the +public-house, and returned with those allies towards the spot in which +she had left the two men. She was very popular with the villagers, who, +strong in the sense of numbers, overcame their awe of Tom Bowles, and +arrived at the place half running, half striding, in time, they hoped, +to interpose between his terrible arm and the bones of the unoffending +stranger. + +Meanwhile Bowles, having recovered his first astonishment, and scarcely +noticing Jessie’s escape, still left his right arm extended towards the +place she had vacated, and with a quick back-stroke of the left levelled +at Kenelm’s face, growled contemptuously, “Thou’lt find one hand enough +for thee.” + +But quick as was his aim, Kenelm caught the lifted arm just above the +elbow, causing the blow to waste itself on air, and with a simultaneous +advance of his right knee and foot dexterously tripped up his bulky +antagonist, and laid him sprawling on his back. The movement was +so sudden, and the stun it occasioned so utter, morally as well as +physically, that a minute or more elapsed before Tom Bowles picked +himself up. And he then stood another minute glowering at his +antagonist, with a vague sentiment of awe almost like a superstitious +panic. For it is noticeable that, however fierce and fearless a man or +even a wild beast may be, yet if either has hitherto been only familiar +with victory and triumph, never yet having met with a foe that could +cope with its force, the first effect of a defeat, especially from +a despised adversary, unhinges and half paralyzes the whole nervous +system. But as fighting Tom gradually recovered to the consciousness of +his own strength, and the recollection that it had been only foiled by +the skilful trick of a wrestler, and not the hand-to-hand might of a +pugilist, the panic vanished, and Tom Bowles was himself again. “Oh, +that’s your sort, is it? We don’t fight with our heels hereabouts, like +Cornishers and donkeys: we fight with our fists, youngster; and since +you _will_ have a bout at that, why, you must.” + +“Providence,” answered Kenelm, solemnly, “sent me to this village +for the express purpose of licking Tom Bowles. It is a signal mercy +vouchsafed to yourself, as you will one day acknowledge.” + +Again a thrill of awe, something like that which the demagogue in +Aristophanes might have felt when braved by the sausage-maker, shot +through the valiant heart of Tom Bowles. He did not like those ominous +words, and still less the lugubrious tone of voice in which they +were uttered, But resolved, at least, to proceed to battle with +more preparation than he had at first designed, he now deliberately +disencumbered himself of his heavy fustian jacket and vest, rolled up +his shirt-sleeves, and then slowly advanced towards the foe. + +Kenelm had also, with still greater deliberation, taken off his +coat--which he folded up with care, as being both a new and an only one, +and deposited by the hedge-side--and bared arms, lean indeed and almost +slight, as compared with the vast muscle of his adversary, but firm in +sinew as the hind leg of a stag. + +By this time the labourers, led by Jessie, had arrived at the spot, and +were about to crowd in between the combatants, when Kenelm waved them +back and said in a calm and impressive voice,-- + +“Stand round, my good friends, make a ring, and see that it is fair play +on my side. I am sure it will be fair on Mr. Bowles’s. He is big enough +to scorn what is little. And now, Mr. Bowles, just a word with you in +the presence of your neighbours. I am not going to say anything uncivil. +If you are rather rough and hasty, a man is not always master of +himself--at least so I am told--when he thinks more than he ought to +do about a pretty girl. But I can’t look at your face even by this +moonlight, and though its expression at this moment is rather cross, +without being sure that you are a fine fellow at bottom, and that if you +give a promise as man to man you will keep it. Is that so?” + +One or two of the bystanders murmured assent; the others pressed round +in silent wonder. + +“What’s all that soft-sawder about?” said Tom Bowles, somewhat +falteringly. + +“Simply this: if in the fight between us I beat you, I ask you to +promise before your neighbours that you will not by word or deed molest +or interfere again with Miss Jessie Wiles.” + +“Eh!” roared Tom. “Is it that you are after her?” + +“Suppose I am, if that pleases you; and on my side, I promise that if +you beat me, I quit this place as soon as you leave me well enough to do +so, and will never visit it again. What! do you hesitate to promise? Are +you really afraid I shall lick you?” + +“You! I’d smash a dozen of you to powder.” + +“In that case, you are safe to promise. Come, ‘tis a fair bargain. Is +n’t it, neighbours?” + +Won over by Kenelm’s easy show of good temper, and by the sense of +justice, the bystanders joined in a common exclamation of assent. + +“Come, Tom,” said an old fellow, “the gentleman can’t speak fairer; and +we shall all think you be afeard if you hold back.” + +Tom’s face worked: but at last he growled, “Well, I promise; that is, if +he beats me.” + +“All right,” said Kenelm. “You hear, neighbours; and Tom Bowles could +not show that handsome face of his among you if he broke his word. Shake +hands on it.” + +Fighting Tom sulkily shook hands. + +“Well now, that’s what I call English,” said Kenelm, “all pluck and no +malice. Fall back, friends, and leave a clear space for us.” + +The men all receded; and as Kenelm took his ground, there was a supple +ease in his posture which at once brought out into clearer evidence the +nervous strength of his build, and, contrasted with Tom’s bulk of chest, +made the latter look clumsy and topheavy. + +The two men faced each other a minute, the eyes of both vigilant and +steadfast. Tom’s blood began to fire up as he gazed; nor, with all his +outward calm; was Kenelm insensible of that proud beat of the heart +which is aroused by the fierce joy of combat. Tom struck out first and +a blow was parried, but not returned; another and another blow,--still +parried, still unreturned. Kenelm, acting evidently on the defensive, +took all the advantages for that strategy which he derived from superior +length of arm and lighter agility of frame. Perhaps he wished to +ascertain the extent of his adversary’s skill, or to try the endurance +of his wind, before he ventured on the hazards of attack. Tom, galled to +the quick that blows which might have felled an ox were thus warded +off from their mark, and dimly aware that he was encountering some +mysterious skill which turned his brute strength into waste force and +might overmaster him in the long run, came to a rapid conclusion that +the sooner he brought that brute strength to bear the better it would be +for him. Accordingly, after three rounds, in which without once breaking +the guard of his antagonist he had received a few playful taps on +the nose and mouth, he drew back and made a bull-like rush at his +foe,--bull-like, for it butted full at him with the powerful down-bent +head, and the two fists doing duty as horns. The rush spent, he found +himself in the position of a man milled. I take it for granted that +every Englishman who can call himself a man--that is, every man who +has been an English boy, and, as such, been compelled to the use of +his fists--knows what a “mill” is. But I sing not only “pueris,” but +“virginibus.” Ladies, “a mill,”--using with reluctance and contempt for +myself that slang in which ladywriters indulge, and Girls of the Period +know much better than they do their Murray,--“a mill,”--speaking not to +ladywriters, not to Girls of the Period, but to innocent damsels, and in +explanation to those foreigners who only understand the English language +as taught by Addison and Macaulay,--a “mill” periphrastically means +this: your adversary, in the noble encounter between fist and fist, has +so plunged his head that it gets caught, as in a vice, between the side +and doubled left arm of the adversary, exposing that head, unprotected +and helpless, to be pounded out of recognizable shape by the right fist +of the opponent. It is a situation in which raw superiority of force +sometimes finds itself, and is seldom spared by disciplined superiority +of skill. Kenelm, his right fist raised, paused for a moment, then, +loosening the left arm, releasing the prisoner, and giving him a +friendly slap on the shoulder, he turned round to the spectators and +said apologetically, “He has a handsome face: it would be a shame to +spoil it.” + +Tom’s position of peril was so obvious to all, and that good-humoured +abnegation of the advantage which the position gave to the adversary +seemed so generous, that the labourers actually hurrahed. Tom, himself +felt as if treated like a child; and alas, and alas for him! in wheeling +round, and regathering himself up, his eye rested on Jessie’s face. Her +lips were apart with breathless terror: he fancied they were apart with +a smile of contempt. And now he became formidable. He fought as fights +the bull in the presence of the heifer, who, as he knows too well, will +go with the conqueror. + +If Tom had never yet fought with a man taught by a prizefighter, so +never yet had Kenelm encountered a strength which, but for the lack of +that teaching, would have conquered his own. He could act no longer on +the defensive; he could no longer play, like a dexterous fencer, with +the sledge-hammers of those mighty arms. They broke through his guard; +they sounded on his chest as on an anvil. He felt that did they alight +on his head he was a lost man. He felt also that the blows spent on the +chest of his adversary were idle as the stroke of a cane on the hide +of a rhinoceros. But now his nostrils dilated; his eyes flashed fire: +Kenelm Chillingly had ceased to be a philosopher. Crash came his +blow--how unlike the swinging roundabout hits of Tom Bowles!--straight +to its aim as the rifle-ball of a Tyrolese or a British marksman +at Aldershot,--all the strength of nerve, sinew, purpose, and mind +concentred in its vigour,--crash just at that part of the front where +the eyes meet, and followed up with the rapidity of lightning, flash +upon flash, by a more restrained but more disabling blow with the left +hand just where the left ear meets throat and jaw-bone. + +At the first blow Tom Bowles had reeled and staggered, at the second he +threw up his hands, made a jump in the air as if shot through the heart, +and then heavily fell forwards, an inert mass. + +The spectators pressed round him in terror. They thought he was dead. +Kenelm knelt, passed quickly his hand over Tom’s lips, pulse, and heart, +and then rising, said, humbly and with an air of apology,-- + +“If he had been a less magnificent creature, I assure you on my honour +that I should never have ventured that second blow. The first would have +done for any man less splendidly endowed by nature. Lift him gently; +take him home. Tell his mother, with my kind regards, that I’ll call and +see her and him to-morrow. And, stop, does he ever drink too much beer?” + +“Well,” said one of the villagers, “Tom _can_ drink.” + +“I thought so. Too much flesh for that muscle. Go for the nearest +doctor. You, my lad? good; off with you; quick. No danger, but perhaps +it may be a case for the lancet.” + +Tom Bowles was lifted tenderly by four of the stoutest men present and +borne into his home, evincing no sign of consciousness; but his face, +where not clouted with blood, was very pale, very calm, with a slight +froth at the lips. + +Kenelm pulled down his shirt-sleeves, put on his coat, and turned to +Jessie,-- + +“Now, my young friend, show me Will’s cottage.” + +The girl came to him, white and trembling. She did not dare to speak. +The stranger had become a new man in her eyes. Perhaps he frightened her +as much as Tom Bowles had done. But she quickened her pace, leaving the +public-house behind till she came to the farther end of the village. +Kenelm walked beside her, muttering to himself: and though Jessie caught +his words, happily she did not understand; for they repeated one of +those bitter reproaches on her sex as the main cause of all strife, +bloodshed, and mischief in general, with which the classic authors +abound. His spleen soothed by that recourse to the lessons of the +ancients, Kenelm turned at last to his silent companion, and said kindly +but gravely,-- + +“Mr. Bowles has given me his promise, and it is fair that I should now +ask a promise from you. It is this: just consider how easily a girl so +pretty as you can be the cause of a man’s death. Had Bowles struck me +where I struck him I should have been past the help of a surgeon.” + +“Oh!” groaned Jessie, shuddering, and covering her face with both hands. + +“And, putting aside that danger, consider that a man may be hit mortally +on the heart as well as on the head, and that a woman has much to answer +for who, no matter what her excuse, forgets what misery and what guilt +can be inflicted by a word from her lip and a glance from her eye. +Consider this, and promise that, whether you marry Will Somers or not, +you will never again give a man fair cause to think you can like him +unless your own heart tells you that you can. Will you promise that?” + +“I will, indeed,--indeed.” Poor Jessie’s voice died in sobs. + +“There, my child, I don’t ask you not to cry, because I know how much +women like crying; and in this instance it does you a great deal +of good. But we are just at the end of the village; which is Will’s +cottage?” + +Jessie lifted her head, and pointed to a solitary, small thatched +cottage. + +“I would ask you to come in and introduce me; but that might look too +much like crowing over poor Tom Bowles. So good-night to you, Jessie, +and forgive me for preaching.” + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +KENELM knocked at the cottage door; a voice said faintly, “Come in.” + +He stooped his head, and stepped over the threshold. + +Since his encounter with Tom Bowles his sympathies had gone with that +unfortunate lover: it is natural to like a man after you have beaten +him; and he was by no means predisposed to favour Jessie’s preference +for a sickly cripple. + +Yet, when two bright, soft, dark eyes, and a pale intellectual +countenance, with that nameless aspect of refinement which delicate +health so often gives, especially to the young, greeted his quiet gaze, +his heart was at once won over to the side of the rival. Will Somers was +seated by the hearth, on which a few live embers despite the warmth of +the summer evening still burned; a rude little table was by his side, +on which were laid osier twigs and white peeled chips, together with an +open book. His hands, pale and slender, were at work on a small basket +half finished. His mother was just clearing away the tea-things from +another table that stood by the window. Will rose, with the good +breeding that belongs to the rural peasant, as the stranger entered; the +widow looked round with surprise, and dropped her simple courtesy,--a +little thin woman, with a mild, patient face. + +The cottage was very tidily kept, as it is in most village homes where +the woman has it her own way. The deal dresser opposite the door had +its display of humble crockery. The whitewashed walls were relieved with +coloured prints, chiefly Scriptural subjects from the New Testament, +such as the Return of the Prodigal Son, in a blue coat and yellow +inexpressibles, with his stockings about his heels. + +At one corner there were piled up baskets of various sizes, and at +another corner was an open cupboard containing books,--an article of +decorative furniture found in cottages much more rarely than coloured +prints and gleaming crockery. + +All this, of course, Kenelm could not at a glance comprehend in detail. +But as the mind of a man accustomed to generalization is marvellously +quick in forming a sound judgment, whereas a mind accustomed to dwell +only on detail is wonderfully slow at arriving at any judgment at all, +and when it does, the probability is that it will arrive at a wrong one, +Kenelm judged correctly when he came to this conclusion: “I am among +simple English peasants; but, for some reason or other, not to be +explained by the relative amount of wages, it is a favourable specimen +of that class.” + +“I beg your pardon for intruding at this hour, Mrs. Somers,” said +Kenelm, who had been too familiar with peasants from his earliest +childhood not to know how quickly, when in the presence of their +household gods, they appreciate respect, and how acutely they feel the +want of it. “But my stay in the village is very short, and I should not +like to leave without seeing your son’s basket-work, of which I have +heard much.” + +“You are very good, sir,” said Will, with a pleased smile that +wonderfully brightened up his face. “It is only just a few common things +that I keep by me. Any finer sort of work I mostly do by order.” + +“You see, sir,” said Mrs. Somers, “it takes so much more time for pretty +work-baskets, and such like; and unless done to order, it might be +a chance if he could get it sold. But pray be seated, sir,” and Mrs. +Somers placed a chair for her visitor, “while I just run up stairs for +the work-basket which my son has made for Miss Travers. It is to go home +to-morrow, and I put it away for fear of accidents.” + +Kenelm seated himself, and, drawing his chair near to Will’s, took up +the half-finished basket which the young man had laid down on the table. + +“This seems to me very nice and delicate workmanship,” said Kenelm; “and +the shape, when you have finished it, will be elegant enough to please +the taste of a lady.” + +“It is for Mrs. Lethbridge,” said Will: “she wanted something to hold +cards and letters; and I took the shape from a book of drawings which +Mr. Lethbridge kindly lent me. You know Mr. Lethbridge, sir? He is a +very good gentleman.” + +“No, I don’t know him. Who is he?” + +“Our clergyman, sir. This is the book.” + +To Kenelm’s surprise, it was a work on Pompeii, and contained woodcuts +of the implements and ornaments, mosaics and frescos, found in that +memorable little city. + +“I see this is your model,” said Kenelm; “what they call a _patera_, +and rather a famous one. You are copying it much more truthfully than I +should have supposed it possible to do in substituting basket-work for +bronze. But you observe that much of the beauty of this shallow bowl +depends on the two doves perched on the brim. You can’t manage that +ornamental addition.” + +“Mrs. Lethbridge thought of putting there two little stuffed +canary-birds.” + +“Did she? Good heavens!” exclaimed Kenelm. + +“But somehow,” continued Will, “I did not like that, and I made bold to +say so.” + +“Why did not you do it?” + +“Well, I don’t know; but I did not think it would be the right thing.” + +“It would have been very bad taste, and spoiled the effect of your +basket-work; and I’ll endeavour to explain why. You see here, in the +next page, a drawing of a very beautiful statue. Of course this statue +is intended to be a representation of nature, but nature idealized. You +don’t know the meaning of that hard word, idealized, and very few people +do. But it means the performance of a something in art according to the +idea which a man’s mind forms to itself out of a something in nature. +That something in nature must, of course, have been carefully studied +before the man can work out anything in art by which it is faithfully +represented. The artist, for instance, who made that statue, must have +known the proportions of the human frame. He must have made studies +of various parts of it,--heads and hands, and arms and legs, and so +forth,--and having done so, he then puts together all his various +studies of details, so as to form a new whole, which is intended to +personate an idea formed in his own mind. Do you go with me?” + +“Partly, sir; but I am puzzled a little still.” + +“Of course you are; but you’ll puzzle yourself right if you think over +what I say. Now if, in order to make this statue, which is composed of +metal or stone, more natural, I stuck on it a wig of real hair, would +not you feel at once that I had spoilt the work; that as you clearly +express it, ‘it would not be the right thing’? and instead of making the +work of art more natural, I should have made it laughably unnatural, by +forcing insensibly upon the mind of him who looked at it the contrast +between the real life, represented by a wig of actual hair, and the +artistic life, represented by an idea embodied in stone or metal. The +higher the work of art (that is, the higher the idea it represents as a +new combination of details taken from nature), the more it is degraded +or spoilt by an attempt to give it a kind of reality which is out +of keeping with the materials employed. But the same rule applies to +everything in art, however humble. And a couple of stuffed canary-birds +at the brim of a basket-work imitation of a Greek drinking-cup would be +as bad taste as a wig from the barber’s on the head of a marble statue +of Apollo.” + +“I see,” said Will, his head downcast, like a man pondering,--“at least +I think I see; and I’m very much obliged to you, sir.” + +Mrs. Somers had long since returned with the work-basket, but stood with +it in her hands, not daring to interrupt the gentleman, and listening to +his discourse with as much patience and as little comprehension as if it +had been one of the controversial sermons upon Ritualism with which on +great occasions Mr. Lethbridge favoured his congregation. + +Kenelm having now exhausted his critical lecture--from which certain +poets and novelists who contrive to caricature the ideal by their +attempt to put wigs of real hair upon the heads of stone statues might +borrow a useful hint or two if they would condescend to do so, which +is not likely--perceived Mrs. Somers standing by him, took from her +the basket, which was really very pretty and elegant, subdivided +into various compartments for the implements in use among ladies, and +bestowed on it a well-merited eulogium. + +“The young lady means to finish it herself with ribbons, and line it +with satin,” said Mrs. Somers, proudly. + +“The ribbons will not be amiss, sir?” said Will, interrogatively. + +“Not at all. Your natural sense of the fitness of things tells you +that ribbons go well with straw and light straw-like work such as this; +though you would not put ribbons on those rude hampers and game-baskets +in the corner. Like to like; a stout cord goes suitably with them: just +as a poet who understands his art employs pretty expressions for poems +intended to be pretty and suit a fashionable drawing-room, and carefully +shuns them to substitute a simple cord for poems intended to be strong +and travel far, despite of rough usage by the way. But you really +ought to make much more money by this fancy-work than you could as a +day-labourer.” + +Will sighed. “Not in this neighbourhood, sir; I might in a town.” + +“Why not move to a town, then?” + +The young man coloured, and shook his head. + +Kenelm turned appealingly to Mrs. Somers. “I’ll be willing to go +wherever it would be best for my boy, sir. But--” and here she checked +herself, and a tear trickled silently down her cheeks. + +Will resumed, in a more cheerful tone, “I am getting a little known +now, and work will come if one waits for it.” Kenelm did not deem it +courteous or discreet to intrude further on Will’s confidence in the +first interview; and he began to feel, more than he had done at first, +not only the dull pain of the bruises he had received in the recent +combat, but also somewhat more than the weariness which follows long +summer-day’s work in the open air. He therefore, rather abruptly, now +took his leave, saying that he should be very glad of a few specimens of +Will’s ingenuity and skill, and would call or write to give directions +about them. + +Just as he came in sight of Tom Bowles’s house on his way back to Mr. +Saunderson’s, Kenelm saw a man mounting a pony that stood tied up at the +gate, and exchanging a few words with a respectable-looking woman +before he rode on. He was passing by Kenelm without notice, when that +philosophical vagrant stopped him, saying, “If I am not mistaken, sir, +you are the doctor. There is not much the matter with Mr. Bowles?” + +The doctor shook his head. “I can’t say yet. He has had a very ugly blow +somewhere.” + +“It was just under the left ear. I did not aim at that exact spot: +but Bowles unluckily swerved a little aside at the moment, perhaps in +surprise at a tap between his eyes immediately preceding it: and so, as +you say, it was an ugly blow that he received. But if it cures him of +the habit of giving ugly blows to other people who can bear them less +safely, perhaps it may be all for his good, as, no doubt, sir, your +schoolmaster said when he flogged you.” + +“Bless my soul! are you the man who fought with him,--you? I can’t +believe it.” + +“Why not?” + +“Why not! So far as I can judge by this light, though you are a tall +fellow, Tom Bowles must be a much heavier weight than you are.” + +“Tom Spring was the champion of England; and according to the records of +his weight, which history has preserved in her archives, Tom Spring was +a lighter weight than I am.” + +“But are you a prize-fighter?” + +“I am as much that as I am anything else. But to return to Mr. Bowles, +was it necessary to bleed him?” + +“Yes; he was unconscious, or nearly so, when I came. I took away a few +ounces; and I am happy to say he is now sensible, but must be kept very +quiet.” + +“No doubt; but I hope he will be well enough to see me to-morrow.” + +“I hope so too; but I can’t say yet. Quarrel about a girl,--eh?” + +“It was not about money. And I suppose if there were no money and no +women in the world, there would be no quarrels and very few doctors. +Good-night, Sir.” + +“It is a strange thing to me,” said Kenelm, as he now opened the +garden-gate of Mr. Saunderson’s homestead, “that though I’ve had nothing +to eat all day, except a few pitiful sandwiches, I don’t feel the least +hungry. Such arrest of the lawful duties of the digestive organs never +happened to me before. There must be something weird and ominous in it.” + +On entering the parlour, the family party, though they had long since +finished supper, were still seated round the table. They all rose at +the sight of Kenelm. The fame of his achievements had preceded him. He +checked the congratulations, the compliments, and the questions +which the hearty farmer rapidly heaped upon him, with a melancholic +exclamation, “But I have lost my appetite! No honours can compensate for +that. Let me go to bed peaceably, and perhaps in the magic land of sleep +Nature may restore me by a dream of supper.” + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +KENELM rose betimes the next morning somewhat stiff and uneasy, but +sufficiently recovered to feel ravenous. Fortunately, one of the +young ladies, who attended specially to the dairy, was already up, and +supplied the starving hero with a vast bowl of bread and milk. He then +strolled into the hayfield, in which there was now very little left +to do, and but few hands besides his own were employed. Jessie was not +there. Kenelm was glad of that. By nine o’clock his work was over, and +the farmer and his men were in the yard completing the ricks. Kenelm +stole away unobserved, bent on a round of visits. He called first at the +village shop kept by Mrs. Bawtrey, which Jessie had pointed out to +him, on pretence of buying a gaudy neckerchief; and soon, thanks to his +habitual civility, made familiar acquaintance with the shopwoman. She +was a little sickly old lady, her head shaking, as with palsy, somewhat +deaf, but still shrewd and sharp, rendered mechanically so by long +habits of shrewdness and sharpness. She became very communicative, spoke +freely of her desire to give up the shop, and pass the rest of her days +with a sister, widowed like herself, in a neighbouring town. Since she +had lost her husband, the field and orchard attached to the shop had +ceased to be profitable, and become a great care and trouble; and the +attention the shop required was wearisome. But she had twelve years +unexpired of the lease granted for twenty-one years to her husband on +low terms, and she wanted a premium for its transfer, and a purchaser +for the stock of the shop. Kenelm soon drew from her the amount of the +sum she required for all,--L45. + +“You be n’t thinking of it for yourself?” she asked, putting on her +spectacles, and examining him with care. + +“Perhaps so, if one could get a decent living out of it. Do you keep a +book of your losses and your gains?” + +“In course, sir,” she said proudly. “I kept the books in my goodman’s +time, and he was one who could find out if there was a farthing wrong, +for he had been in a lawyer’s office when a lad.” + +“Why did he leave a lawyer’s office to keep a little shop?” + +“Well, he was born a farmer’s son in this neighbourhood, and he always +had a hankering after the country, and--and besides that--” + +“Yes.” + +“I’ll tell you the truth; he had got into a way of drinking speerrits, +and he was a good young man, and wanted to break himself of it, and he +took the temperance oath; but it was too hard on him, for he could not +break himself of the company that led him into liquor. And so, one time +when he came into the neighbourhood to see his parents for the Christmas +holiday, he took a bit of liking to me; and my father, who was Squire +Travers’s bailiff, had just died, and left me a little money. And so, +somehow or other, we came together, and got this house and the land +from the Squire on lease very reasonable; and my goodman being well +eddyeated, and much thought of, and never being tempted to drink, now +that he had a missis to keep him in order, had a many little things put +into his way. He could help to measure timber, and knew about draining, +and he got some bookkeeping from the farmers about; and we kept cows +and pigs and poultry, and so we did very well, specially as the Lord was +merciful and sent us no children.” + +“And what does the shop bring in a year since your husband died?” + +“You had best judge for yourself. Will you look at the book, and take +a peep at the land and apple-trees? But they’s been neglected since my +goodman died.” + +In another minute the heir of the Chillinglys was seated in a neat +little back parlour, with a pretty though confined view of the orchard +and grass slope behind it, and bending over Mrs. Bawtrey’s ledger. + +Some customers for cheese and bacon coming now into the shop, the old +woman left him to his studies. Though they were not of a nature familiar +to him, he brought to them, at least, that general clearness of head and +quick seizure of important points which are common to most men who have +gone through some disciplined training of intellect, and been accustomed +to extract the pith and marrow out of many books on many subjects. The +result of his examination was satisfactory; there appeared to him a +clear balance of gain from the shop alone of somewhat over L40 a year, +taking the average of the last three years. Closing the book, he then +let himself out of the window into the orchard, and thence into the +neighbouring grass field. Both were, indeed, much neglected; the trees +wanted pruning, the field manure. But the soil was evidently of rich +loam, and the fruit-trees were abundant and of ripe age, generally +looking healthy in spite of neglect. With the quick intuition of a man +born and bred in the country, and picking up scraps of rural knowledge +unconsciously, Kenelm convinced himself that the land, properly managed, +would far more than cover the rent, rates, tithes, and all incidental +outgoings, leaving the profits of the shop as the clear income of the +occupiers. And no doubt with clever young people to manage the shop, its +profits might be increased. + +Not thinking it necessary to return at present to Mrs. Bawtrey’s, Kenelm +now bent his way to Tom Bowles’s. + +The house-door was closed. At the summons of his knock it was quickly +opened by a tall, stout, remarkably fine-looking woman, who might have +told fifty years, and carried them off lightly on her ample shoulders. +She was dressed very respectably in black, her brown hair braided simply +under a neat tight-fitting cap. Her features were aquiline and +very regular: altogether there was something about her majestic and +Cornelia-like. She might have sat for the model of that Roman matron, +except for the fairness of her Anglo-Saxon complexion. + +“What’s your pleasure?” she asked, in a cold and somewhat stern voice. + +“Ma’am,” answered Kenelm, uncovering, “I have called to see Mr. Bowles, +and I sincerely hope he is well enough to let me do so.” + +“No, sir, he is not well enough for that; he is lying down in his own +room, and must be kept quiet.” + +“May I then ask you the favour to let me in? I would say a few words to +you, who are his mother if I mistake not.” Mrs. Bowles paused a moment +as if in doubt; but she was at no loss to detect in Kenelm’s manner +something superior to the fashion of his dress, and supposing the visit +might refer to her son’s professional business, she opened the door +wider, drew aside to let him pass first, and when he stood midway in +the parlour, requested him to take a seat, and, to set him the example, +seated herself. + +“Ma’am,” said Kenelm, “do not regret to have admitted me, and do not +think hardly of me when I inform you that I am the unfortunate cause of +your son’s accident.” + +Mrs. Bowles rose with a start. “You’re the man who beat my boy?” + +“No, ma’am, do not say I beat him. He is not beaten. He is so brave +and so strong that he would easily have beaten me if I had not, by good +luck, knocked him down before he had time to do so. Pray, ma’am, retain +your seat and listen to me patiently for a few moments.” + +Mrs. Bowles, with an indignant heave of her Juno-like bosom, and with +a superbly haughty expression of countenance which suited well with its +aquiline formation, tacitly obeyed. + +“You will allow, ma’am,” recommenced Kenelm, “that this is not the first +time by many that Mr. Bowles has come to blows with another man. Am I +not right in that assumption?” + +“My son is of hasty temper,” replied Mrs. Bowles, reluctantly, “and +people should not aggravate him.” + +“You grant the fact, then?” said Kenelm, imperturbably, but with a +polite inclination of head. “Mr. Bowles has often been engaged in these +encounters, and in all of them it is quite clear that he provoked the +battle; for you must be aware that he is not the sort of man to whom any +other would be disposed to give the first blow. Yet, after these little +incidents had occurred, and Mr. Bowles had, say, half killed the person +who aggravated him, you did not feel any resentment against that person, +did you? Nay, if he had wanted nursing, you would have gone and nursed +him.” + +“I don’t know as to nursing,” said Mrs. Bowles, beginning to lose her +dignity of mien; “but certainly I should have been very sorry for him. +And as for Tom,--though I say it who should not say,--he has no more +malice than a baby: he’d go and make it up with any man, however badly +he had beaten him.” + +“Just as I supposed; and if the man had sulked and would not make it up, +Tom would have called him a bad fellow, and felt inclined to beat him +again.” + +Mrs. Bowles’s face relaxed into a stately smile. + +“Well, then,” pursued Kenelm, “I do but humbly imitate Mr. Bowles, and I +come to make it up and shake hands with him.” + +“No, sir,--no,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, though in a low voice, and +turning pale. “Don’t think of it. ‘Tis not the blows; he’ll get over +those fast enough: ‘tis his pride that’s hurt; and if he saw you there +might be mischief. But you’re a stranger, and going away: do go soon; do +keep out of his way; do!” And the mother clasped her hands. + +“Mrs. Bowles,” said Kenelm, with a change of voice and aspect,--a +voice and aspect so earnest and impressive that they stilled and awed +her,--“will you not help me to save your son from the dangers into which +that hasty temper and that mischievous pride may at any moment hurry +him? Does it never occur to you that these are the causes of terrible +crime, bringing terrible punishment; and that against brute force, +impelled by savage passions, society protects itself by the hulks and +the gallows?” + +“Sir; how dare you--” + +“Hush! If one man kill another in a moment of ungovernable wrath, that +is a crime which, though heavily punished by the conscience, is gently +dealt with by the law, which calls it only manslaughter; but if a motive +to the violence, such as jealousy or revenge, can be assigned, and there +should be no witness by to prove that the violence was not premeditated, +then the law does not call it manslaughter, but murder. Was it not that +thought which made you so imploringly exclaim, ‘Go soon; keep out of his +way’?” + +The woman made no answer, but, sinking back in her chair, gasped for +breath. + +“Nay, madam,” resumed Kenelm, mildly; “banish your fears. If you will +help me I feel sure that I can save your son from such perils, and I +only ask you to let me save him. I am convinced that he has a good and +a noble nature, and he is worth saving.” And as he thus said he took her +hand. She resigned it to him and returned the pressure, all her pride +softening as she began to weep. + +At length, when she recovered voice, she said,-- + +“It is all along of that girl. He was not so till she crossed him, and +made him half mad. He is not the same man since then,--my poor Tom!” + +“Do you know that he has given me his word, and before his +fellow-villagers, that if he had the worst of the fight he would never +molest Jessie Wiles again?” + +“Yes, he told me so himself; and it is that which weighs on him now. He +broods and broods and mutters, and will not be comforted; and--and I do +fear that he means revenge. And again, I implore you to keep out of his +way.” + +“It is not revenge on me that he thinks of. Suppose I go and am seen no +more, do you think in your own heart that that girl’s life is safe?” + +“What! My Tom kill a woman!” + +“Do you never read in your newspaper of a man who kills his sweetheart, +or the girl who refuses to be his sweetheart? At all events, you +yourself do not approve this frantic suit of his. If I have heard +rightly, you have wished to get Tom out of the village for some time, +till Jessie Wiles is--we’ll say, married, or gone elsewhere for good.” + +“Yes, indeed, I have wished and prayed for it many’s the time, both for +her sake and for his. And I am sure I don’t know what we shall do if +he stays, for he has been losing custom fast. The Squire has taken away +his, and so have many of the farmers; and such a trade as it was in his +good father’s time! And if he would go, his uncle, the veterinary at +Luscombe, would take him into partnership; for he has no son of his own, +and he knows how clever Tom is: there be n’t a man who knows more about +horses; and cows, too, for the matter of that.” + +“And if Luscombe is a large place, the business there must be more +profitable than it can be here, even if Tom got back his custom?” + +“Oh yes! five times as good,--if he would but go; but he’ll not hear of +it.” + +“Mrs. Bowles, I am very much obliged to you for your confidence, and I +feel sure that all will end happily now we have had this talk. I’ll not +press further on you at present. Tom will not stir out, I suppose, till +the evening.” + +“Ah, sir, he seems as if he had no heart to stir out again, unless for +something dreadful.” + +“Courage! I will call again in the evening, and then you just take me +up to Tom’s room, and leave me there to make friends with him, as I have +with you. Don’t say a word about me in the meanwhile.” + +“But--” + +“‘But,’ Mrs. Bowles, is a word that cools many a warm impulse, stifles +many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to many a brotherly deed. Nobody +would ever love his neighbour as himself if he listened to all the Buts +that could be said on the other side of the question.” + +CHAPTER XV. + +KENELM now bent his way towards the parsonage, but just as he neared +its glebe-lands he met a gentleman whose dress was so evidently clerical +that he stopped and said,-- + +“Have I the honour to address Mr. Lethbridge?” + +“That is my name,” said the clergyman, smiling pleasantly. “Anything I +can do for you?” + +“Yes, a great deal, if you will let me talk to you about a few of your +parishioners.” + +“My parishioners! I beg your pardon, but you are quite a stranger to me, +and, I should think, to the parish.” + +“To the parish,--no, I am quite at home in it; and I honestly believe +that it has never known a more officious busybody, thrusting himself +into its most private affairs.” + +Mr. Lethbridge stared, and, after a short pause, said, “I have heard of +a young man who has been staying at Mr. Saunderson’s, and is indeed at +this moment the talk of the village. You are--” + +“That young man. Alas! yes.” + +“Nay,” said Mr. Lethbridge, kindly, “I cannot myself, as a minister +of the Gospel, approve of your profession, and, if I might take the +liberty, I would try and dissuade you from it; but still, as for the +one act of freeing a poor girl from the most scandalous persecution, and +administering, though in a rough way, a lesson to a savage brute who +has long been the disgrace and terror of the neighbourhood, I cannot +honestly say that it has my condemnation. The moral sense of a community +is generally a right one: you have won the praise of the village. Under +all the circumstances, I do not withhold mine. You woke this morning and +found yourself famous. Do not sigh ‘Alas.’” + +“Lord Byron woke one morning and found himself famous, and the result +was that he sighed ‘Alas’ for the rest of his life. If there be two +things which a wise man should avoid, they are fame and love. Heaven +defend me from both!” + +Again the parson stared; but being of compassionate nature, and inclined +to take mild views of everything that belongs to humanity, he said, with +a slight inclination of his head,-- + +“I have always heard that the Americans in general enjoy the advantage +of a better education than we do in England, and their reading public +is infinitely larger than ours; still, when I hear one of a calling +not highly considered in this country for intellectual cultivation or +ethical philosophy cite Lord Byron, and utter a sentiment at variance +with the impetuosity of inexperienced youth, but which has much to +commend it in the eyes of a reflective Christian impressed with the +nothingness of the objects mostly coveted by the human heart, I am +surprised, and--oh, my dear young friend, surely your education might +fit you for something better!” + +It was among the maxims of Kenelm Chillingly’s creed that a sensible man +should never allow himself to be surprised; but here he was, to use +a popular idiom, “taken aback,” and lowered himself to the rank of +ordinary minds by saying, simply, “I don’t understand.” + +“I see,” resumed the clergyman, shaking his head gently, “as I always +suspected, that in the vaunted education bestowed on Americans, the +elementary principles of Christian right and wrong are more neglected +than they are among our own humble classes. Yes, my young friend, you +may quote poets, you may startle me by remarks on the nothingness of +human fame and human love, derived from the precepts of heathen poets, +and yet not understand with what compassion, and, in the judgment +of most sober-minded persons, with what contempt, a human being who +practises your vocation is regarded.” + +“Have I a vocation?” said Kenelm. “I am very glad to hear it. What is my +vocation? And why must I be an American?” + +“Why, surely I am not misinformed? You are the American--I forget his +name--who has come over to contest the belt of prize-fighting with +the champion of England. You are silent; you hang your head. By your +appearance, your length of limb, your gravity of countenance, your +evident education, you confirm the impression of your birth. Your +prowess has proved your profession.” + +“Reverend sir,” said Kenelm, with his unutterable seriousness of aspect, +“I am on my travels in search of truth and in flight from shams, but +so great a take-in as myself I have not yet encountered. Remember me in +your prayers. I am not an American; I am not a prize-fighter. I +honour the first as the citizen of a grand republic trying his best to +accomplish an experiment in government in which he will find the +very prosperity he tends to create will sooner or later destroy his +experiment. I honour the last because strength, courage, and sobriety +are essential to the prize-fighter, and are among the chiefest ornaments +of kings and heroes. But I am neither one nor the other. And all I +can say for myself is, that I belong to that very vague class commonly +called English gentlemen, and that, by birth and education, I have a +right to ask you to shake hands with me as such.” + +Mr. Lethbridge stared again, raised his hat, bowed, and shook hands. + +“You will allow me now to speak to you about your parishioners. You take +an interest in Will Somers; so do I. He is clever and ingenious. But it +seems there is not sufficient demand here for his baskets, and he would, +no doubt, do better in some neighbouring town. Why does he object to +move?” + +“I fear that poor Will would pine away to death if he lost sight of that +pretty girl for whom you did such chivalrous battle with Tom Bowles.” + +“The unhappy man, then, is really in love with Jessie Wiles? And do you +think she no less really cares for him?” + +“I am sure of it.” + +“And would make him a good wife; that is, as wives go?” + +“A good daughter generally makes a good wife. And there is not a father +in the place who has a better child than Jessie is to hers. She really +is a girl of a superior nature. She was the cleverest pupil at our +school, and my wife is much attached to her. But she has something +better than mere cleverness: she has an excellent heart.” + +“What you say confirms my own impressions. And the girl’s father has no +other objection to Will Somers than his fear that Will could not support +a wife and family comfortably. + +“He can have no other objection save that which would apply equally to +all suitors. I mean his fear lest Tom Bowles might do her some mischief, +if he knew she was about to marry any one else.” + +“You think, then, that Mr. Bowles is a thoroughly bad and dangerous +person?” + +“Thoroughly bad and dangerous, and worse since he has taken to +drinking.” + +“I suppose he did not take to drinking till he lost his wits for Jessie +Wiles?” + +“No, I don’t think he did.” + +“But, Mr. Lethbridge, have you never used your influence over this +dangerous man?” + +“Of course, I did try, but I only got insulted. He is a godless animal, +and has not been inside a church for years. He seems to have got +a smattering of such vile learning as may be found in infidel +publications, and I doubt if he has any religion at all.” + +“Poor Polyphemus! no wonder his Galatea shuns him.” + +“Old Wiles is terribly frightened, and asked my wife to find Jessie a +place as servant at a distance. But Jessie can’t bear the thoughts of +leaving.” + +“For the same reason which attaches Will Somers to the native soil?” + +“My wife thinks so.” + +“Do you believe that if Tom Bowles were out of the way, and Jessie +and Will were man and wife, they could earn a sufficient livelihood as +successors to Mrs. Bawtrey, Will adding the profits of his basket-work +to those of the shop and land?” + +“A sufficient livelihood! of course. They would be quite rich. I know +the shop used to turn a great deal of money. The old woman, to be sure, +is no longer up to the business, but still she retains a good custom.” + +“Will Somers seems in delicate health. Perhaps if he had a less weary +struggle for a livelihood, and no fear of losing Jessie, his health +would improve.” + +“His life would be saved, sir.” + +“Then,” said Kenelm, with a heavy sigh and a face as long as an +undertaker’s, “though I myself entertain a profound compassion for that +disturbance to our mental equilibrium which goes by the name of ‘love,’ +and I am the last person who ought to add to the cares and sorrows which +marriage entails upon its victims,--I say nothing of the woes +destined to those whom marriage usually adds to a population already +overcrowded,--I fear that I must be the means of bringing these two +love-birds into the same cage. I am ready to purchase the shop and its +appurtenances on their behalf, on the condition that you will kindly +obtain the consent of Jessie’s father to their union. As for my brave +friend Tom Bowles, I undertake to deliver them and the village from that +exuberant nature, which requires a larger field for its energies. Pardon +me for not letting you interrupt me. I have not yet finished what I have +to say. Allow me to ask if Mrs. Grundy resides in this village.” + +“Mrs. Grundy! Oh, I understand. Of course; wherever a woman has a +tongue, there Mrs. Grundy has a home.” + +“And seeing that Jessie is very pretty, and that in walking with her I +encountered Mr. Bowles, might not Mrs. Grundy say, with a toss of her +head, ‘that it was not out of pure charity that the stranger had been so +liberal to Jessie Wiles’? But if the money for the shop be paid through +you to Mrs. Bawtrey, and you kindly undertake all the contingent +arrangements, Mrs. Grundy will have nothing to say against any one.” + +Mr. Lethbridge gazed with amaze at the solemn countenance before him. + +“Sir,” he said, after a long pause, “I scarcely know how to express my +admiration of a generosity so noble, so thoughtful, and accompanied with +a delicacy, and, indeed, with a wisdom, which--which--” + +“Pray, my dear sir, do not make me still more ashamed of myself than I +am at present for an interference in love matters quite alien to my own +convictions as to the best mode of making an ‘Approach to the Angels.’ +To conclude this business, I think it better to deposit in your hands +the sum of L45, for which Mrs. Bawtrey has agreed to sell the remainder +of her lease and stock-in-hand; but, of course, you will not make +anything public till I am gone, and Tom Bowles too. I hope I may get +him away to-morrow; but I shall know to-night when I can depend on his +departure, and till he goes I must stay.” + +As he spoke, Kenelm transferred from his pocket-book to Mr. Lethbridge’s +hand bank-notes to the amount specified. + +“May I at least ask the name of the gentleman who honours me with his +confidence, and has bestowed so much happiness on members of my flock?” + +“There is no great reason why I should not tell you my name, but I see +no reason why I should. You remember Talleyrand’s advice, ‘If you are +in doubt whether to write a letter or not, don’t.’ The advice applies to +many doubts in life besides that of letter-writing. Farewell, sir!” + +“A most extraordinary young man,” muttered the parson, gazing at the +receding form of the tall stranger; then gently shaking his head, he +added, “Quite an original.” He was contented with that solution of the +difficulties which had puzzled him. May the reader be the same. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +AFTER the family dinner, at which the farmer’s guest displayed more +than his usual powers of appetite, Kenelm followed his host towards the +stackyard, and said,-- + +“My dear Mr. Saunderson, though you have no longer any work for me to +do, and I ought not to trespass further on your hospitality, yet if I +might stay with you another day or so, I should be very grateful.” + +“My dear lad,” cried the farmer, in whose estimation Kenelm had risen +prodigiously since the victory over Tom Bowles, “you are welcome to stay +as long as you like, and we shall be all sorry when you go. Indeed, at +all events, you must stay over Saturday, for you shall go with us to +the squire’s harvest-supper. It will be a pretty sight, and my girls are +already counting on you for a dance.” + +“Saturday,--the day after to-morrow. You are very kind; but merrymakings +are not much in my way, and I think I shall be on my road before you set +off to the Squire’s supper.” + +“Pooh! you shall stay; and, I say, young ‘un, if you want more to do, I +have a job for you quite in your line.” + +“What is it?” + +“Thrash my ploughman. He has been insolent this morning, and he is the +biggest fellow in the county, next to Tom Bowles.” + +Here the farmer laughed heartily, enjoying his own joke. + +“Thank you for nothing,” said Kenelm, rubbing his bruises. “A burnt +child dreads the fire.” + +The young man wandered alone into the fields. The day was becoming +overcast, and the clouds threatened rain. The air was exceedingly still; +the landscape, missing the sunshine, wore an aspect of gloomy solitude. +Kenelm came to the banks of the rivulet not far from the spot on which +the farmer had first found him. There he sat down, and leaned his cheek +on his hand, with eyes fixed on the still and darkened stream lapsing +mournfully away: sorrow entered into his heart and tinged its musings. + +“Is it then true,” said he, soliloquizing, “that I am born to pass +through life utterly alone; asking, indeed, for no sister-half of +myself, disbelieving its possibility, shrinking from the thought +of it,--half scorning, half pitying those who sigh for it?--thing +unattainable,--better sigh for the moon! + +“Yet if other men sigh for it, why do I stand apart from them? If the +world be a stage, and all the men and women in it merely players, am I +to be the solitary spectator, with no part in the drama and no interest +in the vicissitudes of its plot? Many there are, no doubt, who covet as +little as I do the part of ‘Lover,’ ‘with a woful ballad, made to his +mistress’s eyebrow;’ but then they covet some other part in the drama, +such as that of Soldier ‘bearded as a pard,’ or that of Justice ‘in fair +round belly with fat capon lined.’ But me no ambition fires: I have no +longing either to rise or to shine. I don’t desire to be a colonel, nor +an admiral, nor a member of Parliament, nor an alderman; I do not yearn +for the fame of a wit, or a poet, or a philosopher, or a diner-out, or +a crack shot at a rifle-match or a _battue_. Decidedly, I am the one +looker-on, the one bystander, and have no more concern with the active +world than a stone has. It is a horrible phantasmal crotchet of Goethe, +that originally we were all monads, little segregated atoms adrift in +the atmosphere, and carried hither and thither by forces over which we +had no control, especially by the attraction of other monads, so +that one monad, compelled by porcine monads, crystallizes into a pig; +another, hurried along by heroic monads, becomes a lion or an Alexander. +Now it is quite clear,” continued Kenelm, shifting his position and +crossing the right leg over the left, “that a monad intended or +fitted for some other planet may, on its way to that destination, be +encountered by a current of other monads blowing earthward, and be +caught up in the stream and whirled on, till, to the marring of +its whole proper purpose and scene of action, it settles +here,--conglomerated into a baby. Probably that lot has befallen me: my +monad, meant for another region in space, has been dropped into this, +where it can never be at home, never amalgamate with other monads nor +comprehend why they are in such a perpetual fidget. I declare I know +no more why the minds of human beings should be so restlessly agitated +about things which, as most of them own, give more pain than pleasure, +than I understand why that swarm of gnats, which has such a very short +time to live, does not give itself a moment’s repose, but goes up and +down, rising and falling as if it were on a seesaw, and making as much +noise about its insignificant alternations of ascent and descent as if +it were the hum of men. And yet, perhaps, in another planet my monad +would have frisked and jumped and danced and seesawed with congenial +monads, as contentedly and as sillily as do the monads of men and gnats +in this alien Vale of Tears.” + +Kenelm had just arrived at that conjectural solution of his perplexities +when a voice was heard singing, or rather modulated to that kind of +chant between recitative and song, which is so pleasingly effective +where the intonations are pure and musical. They were so in this +instance, and Kenelm’s ear caught every word in the following song:-- + + + CONTENT. + + “There are times when the troubles of life are still; + The bees wandered lost in the depths of June, + And I paused where the chime of a silver rill + Sang the linnet and lark to their rest at noon. + + “Said my soul, ‘See how calmly the wavelets glide, + Though so narrow their way to their ocean vent; + And the world that I traverse is wide, is wide, + And yet is too narrow to hold content’ + + “O my son, never say that the world is wide; + The rill in its banks is less closely pent: + It is thou who art shoreless on every side, + And thy width will not let thee enclose content.” + + +As the voice ceased Kenelm lifted his head. But the banks of the brook +were so curving and so clothed with brushwood that for some minutes the +singer was invisible. At last the boughs before him were put aside, and +within a few paces of himself paused the man to whom he had commended +the praises of a beefsteak, instead of those which minstrelsy in its +immemorial error dedicates to love. + +“Sir,” said Kenelm, half rising, “well met once more. Have you ever +listened to the cuckoo?” + +“Sir,” answered the minstrel, “have you ever felt the presence of the +summer?” + +“Permit me to shake hands with you. I admire the question by which you +have countermet and rebuked my own. If you are not in a hurry, will you +sit down and let us talk?” + +The minstrel inclined his head and seated himself. His dog--now emerged +from the brushwood--gravely approached Kenelm, who with greater gravity +regarded him; then, wagging his tail, reposed on his haunches, +intent with ear erect on a stir in the neighbouring reeds, evidently +considering whether it was caused by a fish or a water-rat. + +“I asked you, sir, if you had ever listened to the cuckoo from no +irrelevant curiosity; for often on summer days, when one is talking with +one’s self,--and, of course, puzzling one’s self,--a voice breaks out, +as it were from the heart of Nature, so far is it and yet so near; and +it says something very quieting, very musical, so that one is tempted +inconsiderately and foolishly to exclaim, ‘Nature replies to me.’ The +cuckoo has served me that trick pretty often. Your song is a better +answer to a man’s self-questionings than he can ever get from a cuckoo.” + +“I doubt that,” said the minstrel. “Song, at the best, is but the echo +of some voice from the heart of Nature. And if the cuckoo’s note seemed +to you such a voice, it was an answer to your questionings perhaps more +simply truthful than man can utter, if you had rightly construed the +language.” + +“My good friend,” answered Kenelm, “what you say sounds very prettily; +and it contains a sentiment which has been amplified by certain critics +into that measureless domain of dunderheads which is vulgarly called +BOSH. But though Nature is never silent, though she abuses the privilege +of her age in being tediously gossiping and garrulous, Nature never +replies to our questions: she can’t understand an argument; she has +never read Mr. Mill’s work on Logic. In fact, as it is truly said by a +great philosopher, ‘Nature has no mind.’ Every man who addresses her is +compelled to force upon her for a moment the loan of his own mind. And +if she answers a question which his own mind puts to her, it is only +by such a reply as his own mind teaches to her parrot-like lips. And as +every man has a different mind, so every man gets a different answer. +Nature is a lying old humbug.” + +The minstrel laughed merrily; and his laugh was as sweet as his chant. + +“Poets would have a great deal to unlearn if they are to look upon +Nature in that light.” + +“Bad poets would, and so much the better for them and their readers.” + +“Are not good poets students of Nature?” + +“Students of Nature, certainly, as surgeons study anatomy by dissecting +a dead body. But the good poet, like the good surgeon, is the man who +considers that study merely as the necessary A B C, and not as the +all-in-all essential to skill in his practice. I do not give the fame +of a good surgeon to a man who fills a book with details, more or less +accurate, of fibres and nerves and muscles; and I don’t give the fame of +a good poet to a man who makes an inventory of the Rhine or the Vale of +Gloucester. The good surgeon and the good poet are they who understand +the living man. What is that poetry of drama which Aristotle justly +ranks as the highest? Is it not a poetry in which description of +inanimate Nature must of necessity be very brief and general; in which +even the external form of man is so indifferent a consideration that it +will vary with each actor who performs the part? A Hamlet may be fair +or dark. A Macbeth may be short or tall. The merit of dramatic poetry +consists in the substituting for what is commonly called Nature (namely, +external and material Nature) creatures intellectual, emotional, but +so purely immaterial that they may be said to be all mind and soul, +accepting the temporary loans of any such bodies at hand as actors may +offer, in order to be made palpable and visible to the audience, but +needing no such bodies to be palpable and visible to readers. The +highest kind of poetry is therefore that which has least to do with +external Nature. But every grade has its merit more or less genuinely +great, according as it instils into Nature that which is not there,--the +reason and the soul of man.” + +“I am not much disposed,” said the minstrel, “to acknowledge any one +form of poetry to be practically higher than another; that is, so far as +to elevate the poet who cultivates what you call the highest with some +success above the rank of the poet who cultivates what you call a very +inferior school with a success much more triumphant. In theory, dramatic +poetry may be higher than lyric, and ‘Venice Preserved’ is a very +successful drama; but I think Burns a greater poet than Otway.” + +“Possibly he may be; but I know of no lyrical poet, at least among the +moderns, who treats less of Nature as the mere outward form of things, +or more passionately animates her framework with his own human heart, +than does Robert Burns. Do you suppose when a Greek, in some perplexity +of reason or conscience, addressed a question to the oracular oak-leaves +of Dodona that the oak-leaves answered him? Don’t you rather believe +that the question suggested by his mind was answered by the mind of +his fellow-man, the priest, who made the oak-leaves the mere vehicle +of communication, as you and I might make such vehicle in a sheet of +writing-paper? Is not the history of superstition a chronicle of the +follies of man in attempting to get answers from external Nature?” + +“But,” said the minstrel, “have I not somewhere heard or read that the +experiments of Science are the answers made by Nature to the questions +put to her by man?” + +“They are the answers which his own mind suggests to her,--nothing more. +His mind studies the laws of matter, and in that study makes experiments +on matter; out of those experiments his mind, according to its previous +knowledge or natural acuteness, arrives at its own deductions, and +hence arise the sciences of mechanics and chemistry, etc. But the matter +itself gives no answer: the answer varies according to the mind that +puts the question; and the progress of science consists in the perpetual +correction of the errors and falsehoods which preceding minds conceived +to be the correct answers they received from Nature. It is the +supernatural within us,--namely, Mind,--which can alone guess at the +mechanism of the natural, namely, Matter. A stone cannot question a +stone.” + +The minstrel made no reply. And there was a long silence, broken but by +the hum of the insects, the ripple of onward waves, and the sigh of the +wind through reeds. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SAID Kenelm, at last breaking silence-- + + + “‘Rapiamus, amici, + Occasionem de die, dumque virent genua, + Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus!’” + + +“Is not that quotation from Horace?” asked the minstrel. + +“Yes; and I made it insidiously, in order to see if you had not acquired +what is called a classical education.” + +“I might have received such education, if my tastes and my destinies +had not withdrawn me in boyhood from studies of which I did not then +comprehend the full value. But I did pick up a smattering of Latin at +school; and from time to time since I left school I have endeavoured to +gain some little knowledge of the most popular Latin poets; chiefly, I +own to my shame, by the help of literal English translations.” + +“As a poet yourself, I am not sure that it would be an advantage to know +a dead language so well that its forms and modes of thought ran, +though perhaps unconsciously, into those of the living one in which you +compose. Horace might have been a still better poet if he had not known +Greek better than you know Latin.” + +“It is at least courteous in you to say so,” answered the singer, with a +pleased smile. + +“You would be still more courteous,” said Kenelm, “if you would pardon +an impertinent question, and tell me whether it is for a wager that you +wander through the land, Homer-like, as a wandering minstrel, and allow +that intelligent quadruped your companion to carry a tray in his mouth +for the reception of pennies?” + +“No, it is not for a wager; it is a whim of mine, which I fancy from +the tone of your conversation you could understand, being apparently +somewhat whimsical yourself.” + +“So far as whim goes, be assured of my sympathy.” + +“Well, then, though I follow a calling by the exercise of which I secure +a modest income, my passion is verse. If the seasons were always summer, +and life were always youth, I should like to pass through the world +singing. But I have never ventured to publish any verses of mine. If +they fell still-born it would give me more pain than such wounds to +vanity ought to give to a bearded man; and if they were assailed or +ridiculed it might seriously injure me in my practical vocation. That +last consideration, were I quite alone in the world, might not much +weigh on me; but there are others for whose sake I should like to make +fortune and preserve station. Many years ago--it was in Germany--I fell +in with a German student who was very poor, and who did make money by +wandering about the country with lute and song. He has since become a +poet of no mean popularity, and he has told me that he is sure he found +the secret of that popularity in habitually consulting popular tastes +during his roving apprenticeship to song. His example strongly impressed +me. So I began this experiment; and for several years my summers have +been all partly spent in this way. I am only known, as I think I told +you before, in the rounds I take as ‘The Wandering Minstrel;’ I receive +the trifling moneys that are bestowed on me as proofs of a certain +merit. I should not be paid by poor people if I did not please; and the +songs which please them best are generally those I love best myself. +For the rest, my time is not thrown away,--not only as regards bodily +health, but healthfulness of mind: all the current of one’s ideas +becomes so freshened by months of playful exercise and varied +adventure.” + +“Yes, the adventure is varied enough,” said Kenelm, somewhat ruefully; +for he felt, in shifting his posture, a sharp twinge of his bruised +muscles. “But don’t you find those mischief-makers, the women, always +mix themselves up with adventure?” + +“Bless them! of course,” said the minstrel, with a ringing laugh. “In +life, as on the stage, the petticoat interest is always the strongest.” + +“I don’t agree with you there,” said Kenelm, dryly. “And you seem to +me to utter a claptrap beneath the rank of your understanding. However, +this warm weather indisposes one to disputation; and I own that a +petticoat, provided it be red, is not without the interest of colour in +a picture.” + +“Well, young gentleman,” said the minstrel, rising, “the day is wearing +on, and I must wish you good-by; probably, if you were to ramble about +the country as I do, you would see too many pretty girls not to teach +you the strength of petticoat interest,--not in pictures alone; and +should I meet you again I may find you writing love-verses yourself.” + +“After a conjecture so unwarrantable, I part company with you less +reluctantly than I otherwise might do. But I hope we shall meet again.” + +“Your wish flatters me much; but, if we do, pray respect the confidence +I have placed in you, and regard my wandering minstrelsy and my dog’s +tray as sacred secrets. Should we not so meet, it is but a prudent +reserve on my part if I do not give you my right name and address.” + +“There you show the cautious common-sense which belongs rarely to lovers +of verse and petticoat interest. What have you done with your guitar?” + +“I do not pace the roads with that instrument: it is forwarded to me +from town to town under a borrowed name, together with other raiment +that this, should I have cause to drop my character of wandering +minstrel.” + +The two men here exchanged a cordial shake of the hand. And as the +minstrel went his way along the river-side, his voice in chanting seemed +to lend to the wavelets a livelier murmur, to the reeds a less plaintive +sigh. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +IN his room, solitary and brooding, sat the defeated hero of a hundred +fights. It was now twilight; but the shutters had been partially closed +all day, in order to exclude the sun, which had never before been +unwelcome to Tom Bowles, and they still remained so, making the twilight +doubly twilight, till the harvest moon, rising early, shot its ray +through the crevice, and forced a silvery track amid the shadows of the +floor. + +The man’s head drooped on his breast; his strong hands rested +listlessly on his knees: his attitude was that of utter despondency and +prostration. But in the expression of his face there were the signs of +some dangerous and restless thought which belied not the gloom but the +stillness of the posture. His brow, which was habitually open and +frank, in its defying aggressive boldness, was now contracted into deep +furrows, and lowered darkly over his downcast, half-closed eyes. His +lips were so tightly compressed that the face lost its roundness, and +the massive bone of the jaw stood out hard and salient. Now and then, +indeed, the lips opened, giving vent to a deep, impatient sigh, but they +reclosed as quickly as they had parted. It was one of those crises in +life which find all the elements that make up a man’s former self in +lawless anarchy; in which the Evil One seems to enter and direct the +storm; in which a rude untutored mind, never before harbouring a thought +of crime, sees the crime start up from an abyss, feels it to be an +enemy, yet yields to it as a fate. So that when, at the last, some +wretch, sentenced to the gibbet, shudderingly looks back to the moment +“that trembled between two worlds,”--the world of the man guiltless, +the world of the man guilty,--he says to the holy, highly educated, +rational, passionless priest who confesses him and calls him “brother,” + “The devil put it into my head.” + +At that moment the door opened; at its threshold there stood the man’s +mother--whom he had never allowed to influence his conduct, though he +loved her well in his rough way--and the hated fellow-man whom he longed +to see dead at his feet. The door reclosed: the mother was gone, without +a word, for her tears choked her; the fellow-man was alone with him. Tom +Bowles looked up, recognized his visitor, cleared his brow, and rubbed +his mighty hands. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +KENELM CHILLINGLY drew a chair close to his antagonist’s, and silently +laid a hand on his. + +Tom Bowles took up the hand in both his own, turned it curiously towards +the moonlight, gazed at it, poised it, then with a sound between groan +and laugh tossed it away as a thing hostile but trivial, rose and locked +the door, came back to his seat and said bluffly,-- + +“What do you want with me now?” + +“I want to ask you a favour.” + +“Favour?” + +“The greatest which man can ask from man,--friendship. You see, my dear +Tom,” continued Kenelm, making himself quite at home, throwing his arm +over the back of Tom’s chair, and stretching his legs comfortably as +one does by one’s own fireside; “you see, my dear Tom, that men like +us--young, single, not on the whole bad-looking as men go--can +find sweethearts in plenty. If one does not like us, another will; +sweethearts are sown everywhere like nettles and thistles. But the +rarest thing in life is a friend. Now, tell me frankly, in the course +of your wanderings did you ever come into a village where you could not +have got a sweetheart if you had asked for one; and if, having got +a sweetheart, you had lost her, do you think you would have had any +difficulty in finding another? But have you such a thing in the world, +beyond the pale of your own family, as a true friend,--a man friend; and +supposing that you had such a friend,--a friend who would stand by you +through thick and thin; who would tell you your faults to your face, and +praise you for your good qualities behind your back; who would do all +he could to save you from a danger, and all he could to get you out of +one,--supposing you had such a friend and lost him, do you believe that +if you lived to the age of Methuselah you could find another? You don’t +answer me; you are silent. Well, Tom, I ask you to be such a friend to +me, and I will be such a friend to you.” + +Tom was so thoroughly “taken aback” by this address that he remained +dumfounded. But he felt as if the clouds in his soul were breaking, and +a ray of sunlight were forcing its way through the sullen darkness. +At length, however, the receding rage within him returned, though with +vacillating step, and he growled between his teeth,-- + +“A pretty friend indeed, robbing me of my girl! Go along with you!” + +“She was not your girl any more than she was or ever can be mine.” + +“What, you be n’t after her?” + +“Certainly not; I am going to Luscombe, and I ask you to come with me. +Do you think I am going to leave you here?” + +“What is it to you?” + +“Everything. Providence has permitted me to save you from the most +lifelong of all sorrows. For--think! Can any sorrow be more lasting +than had been yours if you had attained your wish; if you had forced or +frightened a woman to be your partner till death do part,--you loving +her, she loathing you; you conscious, night and day, that your very love +had insured her misery, and that misery haunting you like a ghost!--that +sorrow I have saved you. May Providence permit me to complete my work, +and save you also from the most irredeemable of all crimes! Look into +your soul, then recall the thoughts which all day long, and not least at +the moment I crossed this threshold, were rising up, making reason dumb +and conscience blind, and then lay your hand on your heart and say, ‘I +am guiltless of a dream of murder.’” + +The wretched man sprang up erect, menacing, and, meeting Kenelm’s calm, +steadfast, pitying gaze, dropped no less suddenly,--dropped on the +floor, covered his face with his hands, and a great cry came forth +between sob and howl. + +“Brother,” said Kenelm, kneeling beside him, and twining his arm round +the man’s heaving breast, “it is over now; with that cry the demon that +maddened you has fled forever.” + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +WHEN, some time after, Kenelm quitted the room and joined Mrs. Bowles +below, he said cheerily, “All right; Tom and I are sworn friends. We are +going together to Luscombe the day after to-morrow,--Sunday; just write +a line to his uncle to prepare him for Tom’s visit, and send thither +his clothes, as we shall walk, and steal forth unobserved betimes in +the morning. Now go up and talk to him; he wants a mother’s soothing and +petting. He is a noble fellow at heart, and we shall be all proud of him +some day or other.” + +As he walked towards the farmhouse, Kenelm encountered Mr. Lethbridge, +who said, “I have come from Mr. Saunderson’s, where I went in search of +you. There is an unexpected hitch in the negotiation for Mrs. Bawtrey’s +shop. After seeing you this morning I fell in with Mr. Travers’s +bailiff, and he tells me that her lease does not give her the power +to sublet without the Squire’s consent; and that as the premises were +originally let on very low terms to a favoured and responsible tenant, +Mr. Travers cannot be expected to sanction the transfer of the lease +to a poor basket-marker: in fact, though he will accept Mrs. Bawtrey’s +resignation, it must be in favour of an applicant whom he desires to +oblige. On hearing this, I rode over to the Park and saw Mr. Travers +himself. But he was obdurate to my pleadings. All I could get him to say +was, ‘Let the stranger who interests himself in the matter come and talk +to me. I should like to see the man who thrashed that brute Tom Bowles: +if he got the better of him perhaps he may get the better of me. Bring +him with you to my harvest-supper to-morrow evening.’ Now, will you +come?” + +“Nay,” said Kenelm, reluctantly; “but if he only asks me in order to +gratify a very vulgar curiosity, I don’t think I have much chance of +serving Will Somers. What do you say?” + +“The Squire is a good man of business, and, though no one can call him +unjust or grasping, still he is very little touched by sentiment; and +we must own that a sickly cripple like poor Will is not a very eligible +tenant. If, therefore, it depended only on your chance with the Squire, +I should not be very sanguine. But we have an ally in his daughter. She +is very fond of Jessie Wiles, and she has shown great kindness to Will. +In fact, a sweeter, more benevolent, sympathizing nature than that of +Cecilia Travers does not exist. She has great influence with her father, +and through her you may win him.” + +“I particularly dislike having anything to do with women,” said Kenelm, +churlishly. “Parsons are accustomed to get round them. Surely, my dear +sir, you are more fit for that work than I am.” + +“Permit me humbly to doubt that proposition; one does n’t get very +quickly round the women when one carries the weight of years on one’s +back. But whenever you want the aid of a parson to bring your own wooing +to a happy conclusion, I shall be happy, in my special capacity of +parson, to perform the ceremony required.” + +“_Dii meliora_!” said Kenelm, gravely. “Some ills are too serious to be +approached even in joke. As for Miss Travers, the moment you call her +benevolent you inspire me with horror. I know too well what a benevolent +girl is,--officious, restless, fidgety, with a snub nose, and her pocket +full of tracts. I will not go to the harvest-supper.” + +“Hist!” said the Parson, softly. They were now passing the cottage of +Mrs. Somers; and while Kenelm was haranguing against benevolent girls, +Mr. Lethbridge had paused before it, and was furtively looking in at the +window. “Hist! and come here,--gently.” + +Kenelm obeyed, and looked in through the window. Will was seated; Jessie +Wiles had nestled herself at his feet, and was holding his hand in both +hers, looking up into his face. Her profile alone was seen, but its +expression was unutterably soft and tender. His face, bent downwards +towards her, wore a mournful expression; nay, the tears were rolling +silently down his cheeks. Kenelm listened and heard her say, “Don’t talk +so, Will, you break my heart; it is I who am not worthy of you.” + +“Parson,” said Kenelm, as they walked on, “I must go to that confounded +harvest-supper. I begin to think there is something true in the +venerable platitude about love in a cottage. And Will Somers must be +married in haste, in order to repent at leisure.” + +“I don’t see why a man should repent having married a good girl whom he +loves.” + +“You don’t? Answer me candidly. Did you ever meet a man who repented +having married?” + +“Of course I have; very often.” + +“Well, think again, and answer as candidly. Did you ever meet a man who +repented not having married?” + +The Parson mused, and was silent. + +“Sir,” said Kenelm, “your reticence proves your honesty, and I respect +it.” So saying, he bounded off, and left the Parson crying out wildly, +“But--but--” + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +MR. SAUNDERSON and Kenelm sat in the arbour: the former sipping his grog +and smoking his pipe; the latter looking forth into the summer night +skies with an earnest yet abstracted gaze, as if he were trying to count +the stars in the Milky Way. + +“Ha!” said Mr. Saunderson, who was concluding an argument; “you see it +now, don’t you?” + +“I? not a bit of it. You tell me that your grandfather was a farmer, +and your father was a farmer, and that you have been a farmer for thirty +years; and from these premises you deduce the illogical and irrational +conclusion that therefore your son must be a farmer.” + +“Young man, you may think yourself very knowing ‘cause you have been at +the ‘Varsity, and swept away a headful of book-learning.” + +“Stop,” quoth Kenelm. “You grant that a university is learned.” + +“Well, I suppose so.” + +“But how could it be learned if those who quitted it brought the +learning away? We leave it all behind us in the care of the tutors. But +I know what you were going to say,--that it is not because I had read +more books than you have that I was to give myself airs and pretend to +have more knowledge of life than a man of your years and experience. +Agreed, as a general rule. But does not every doctor, however wise and +skilful, prefer taking another doctor’s opinion about himself, even +though that other doctor has just started in practice? And seeing that +doctors, taking them as a body, are monstrous clever fellows, is not +the example they set us worth following? Does it not prove that no man, +however wise, is a good judge of his own case? Now, your son’s case +is really your case: you see it through the medium of your likings and +dislikings; and insist upon forcing a square peg into a round hole, +because in a round hole you, being a round peg, feel tight and +comfortable. Now I call that irrational.” + +“I don’t see why my son has any right to fancy himself a square peg,” + said the farmer, doggedly, “when his father and his grandfather and his +great-grandfather have been round pegs; and it is agin’ nature for +any creature not to take after its own kind. A dog is a pointer or +a sheep-dog according as its forebears were pointers or sheep-dogs. +There,” cried the farmer, triumphantly, shaking the ashes out of his +pipe. “I think I have posed you, young master!” + +“No; for you have taken it for granted that the breeds have not been +crossed. But suppose that a sheep-dog has married a pointer, are you +sure that his son will not be more of a pointer than a sheep-dog?” + +Mr. Saunderson arrested himself in the task of refilling his pipe, and +scratched his head. + +“You see,” continued Kenelm, “that you have crossed the breed. You +married a tradesman’s daughter, and I dare say her grandfather and +great-grandfather were tradesmen too. Now, most sons take after their +mothers, and therefore Mr. Saunderson junior takes after his kind on the +distaff side, and comes into the world a square peg, which can only be +tight and comfortable in a square hole. It is no use arguing, Farmer: +your boy must go to his uncle; and there’s an end of the matter.” + +“By goles!” said the farmer, “you seem to think you can talk me out of +my senses.” + +“No; but I think if you had your own way you would talk your son into +the workhouse.” + +“What! by sticking to the land like his father before him? Let a man +stick by the land, and the land will stick by him.” + +“Let a man stick in the mud, and the mud will stick to him. You put +your heart in your farm, and your son would only put his foot into it. +Courage! Don’t you see that Time is a whirligig, and all things come +round? Every day somebody leaves the land and goes off into trade. By +and by he grows rich, and then his great desire is to get back to +the land again. He left it the son of a farmer: he returns to it as a +squire. Your son, when he gets to be fifty, will invest his savings in +acres, and have tenants of his own. Lord, how he will lay down the law +to them! I would not advise you to take a farm under him.” + +“Catch me at it!” said the farmer. “He would turn all the contents of +the ‘pothecary’s shop into my fallows, and call it ‘progress.’” + +“Let him physic the fallows when he has farms of his own: keep yours out +of his chemical clutches. Come, I shall tell him to pack up and be off +to his uncle’s next week?” + +“Well, well,” said the farmer, in a resigned tone: “a wilful man must +e’en have his way.” + +“And the best thing a sensible man can do is not to cross it. Mr. +Saunderson, give me your honest hand. You are one of those men who put +the sons of good fathers in mind of their own; and I think of mine when +I say ‘God bless you!’” + +Quitting the farmer, Kenelm re-entered the house, and sought Mr. +Saunderson junior in his own room. He found that young gentleman still +up, and reading an eloquent tract on the Emancipation of the Human Race +from all Tyrannical Control,--Political, Social, Ecclesiastical, and +Domestic. + +The lad looked up sulkily, and said, on encountering Kenelm’s +melancholic visage, “Ah! I see you have talked with the old governor, +and he’ll not hear of it.” + +“In the first place,” answered Kenelm, “since you value yourself on +a superior education, allow me to advise you to study the English +language, as the forms of it are maintained by the elder authors, whom, +in spite of an Age of Progress, men of superior education esteem. No one +who has gone through that study; no one, indeed, who has studied the Ten +Commandments in the vernacular,--commits the mistake of supposing that +‘the old governor’ is a synonymous expression for ‘father.’ In the +second place, since you pretend to the superior enlightenment which +results from a superior education, learn to know better your own self +before you set up as a teacher of mankind. Excuse the liberty I take, +as your sincere well-wisher, when I tell you that you are at present +a conceited fool,--in short, that which makes one boy call another an +‘ass.’ But when one has a poor head he may redeem the average balance of +humanity by increasing the wealth of the heart. Try and increase yours. +Your father consents to your choice of your lot at the sacrifice of +all his own inclinations. This is a sore trial to a father’s pride, a +father’s affection; and few fathers make such sacrifices with a good +grace. I have thus kept my promise to you, and enforced your wishes on +Mr. Saunderson’s judgment, because I am sure you would have been a very +bad farmer. It now remains for you to show that you can be a very good +tradesman. You are bound in honour to me and to your father to try your +best to be so; and meanwhile leave the task of upsetting the world +to those who have no shop in it, which would go crash in the general +tumble. And so good-night to you.” + +To these admonitory words, _sacro digna silentio_, Saunderson junior +listened with a dropping jaw and fascinated staring eyes. He felt like +an infant to whom the nurse has given a hasty shake, and who is too +stupefied by that operation to know whether he is hurt or not. + +A minute after Kenelm had quitted the room he reappeared at the door, +and said in a conciliatory whisper, “Don’t take it to heart that I +called you a conceited fool and an ass. These terms are no doubt just as +applicable to myself. But there is a more conceited fool and a greater +ass than either of us; and that is the Age in which we have the +misfortune to be born,--an Age of Progress, Mr. Saunderson, junior!--an +Age of Prigs.” + + + + +BOOK III. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +IF there were a woman in the world who might be formed and fitted +to reconcile Kenelm Chillingly to the sweet troubles of love and the +pleasant bickerings of wedded life, one might reasonably suppose that +that woman could be found in Cecilia Travers. An only daughter and +losing her mother in childhood, she had been raised to the mistress-ship +of a household at an age in which most girls are still putting their +dolls to bed; and thus had early acquired that sense of responsibility, +accompanied with the habits of self-reliance, which seldom fails to give +a certain nobility to character; though almost as often, in the case of +women, it steals away the tender gentleness which constitutes the charm +of their sex. + +It had not done so in the instance of Cecilia Travers, because she was +so womanlike that even the exercise of power could not make her manlike. +There was in the depth of her nature such an instinct of sweetness that +wherever her mind toiled and wandered it gathered and hoarded honey. + +She had one advantage over most girls in the same rank of life,--she +had not been taught to fritter away such capacities for culture as +Providence gave her in the sterile nothingnesses which are called +feminine accomplishments. She did not paint figures out of drawing +in meagre water-colours; she had not devoted years of her life to the +inflicting on polite audiences the boredom of Italian bravuras, which +they could hear better sung by a third-rate professional singer in +a metropolitan music-hall. I am afraid she had no other female +accomplishments than those by which the sempstress or embroideress earns +her daily bread. That sort of work she loved, and she did it deftly. + +But if she had not been profitlessly plagued by masters, Cecilia Travers +had been singularly favoured by her father’s choice of a teacher: no +great merit in him either. He had a prejudice against professional +governesses, and it chanced that among his own family connections was a +certain Mrs. Campion, a lady of some literary distinction, whose husband +had held a high situation in one of our public offices, and living, much +to his satisfaction, up to a very handsome income, had died, much to the +astonishment of others, without leaving a farthing behind him. + +Fortunately, there were no children to provide for. A small government +pension was allotted to the widow; and as her husband’s house had been +made by her one of the pleasantest in London, she was popular enough to +be invited by numerous friends to their country seats; among others, by +Mr. Travers. She came intending to stay a fortnight. At the end of that +time she had grown so attached to Cecilia, and Cecilia to her, and her +presence had become so pleasant and so useful to her host, that +the Squire entreated her to stay and undertake the education of his +daughter. Mrs. Campion, after some hesitation, gratefully consented; and +thus Cecilia, from the age of eight to her present age of nineteen, had +the inestimable advantage of living in constant companionship with a +woman of richly cultivated mind, accustomed to hear the best criticisms +on the best books, and adding to no small accomplishment in literature +the refinement of manners and that sort of prudent judgment which result +from habitual intercourse with an intellectual and gracefully world-wise +circle of society: so that Cecilia herself, without being at all blue or +pedantic, became one of those rare young women with whom a well-educated +man can converse on equal terms; from whom he gains as much as he can +impart to her; while a man who, not caring much about books, is still +gentleman enough to value good breeding, felt a relief in exchanging the +forms of his native language without the shock of hearing that a bishop +was “a swell” or a croquet-party “awfully jolly.” + +In a word, Cecilia was one of those women whom Heaven forms for man’s +helpmate; who, if he were born to rank and wealth, would, as his +partner, reflect on them a new dignity, and add to their enjoyment by +bringing forth their duties; who, not less if the husband she chose were +poor and struggling, would encourage, sustain, and soothe him, take her +own share of his burdens, and temper the bitterness of life with the +all-recompensing sweetness of her smile. + +Little, indeed, as yet had she ever thought of love or of lovers. She +had not even formed to herself any of those ideals which float before +the eyes of most girls when they enter their teens. But of two things +she felt inly convinced: first, that she could never wed where she did +not love; and secondly, that where she did love it would be for life. + +And now I close this sketch with a picture of the girl herself. She has +just come into her room from inspecting the preparations for the evening +entertainment which her father is to give to his tenants and rural +neighbours. + +She has thrown aside her straw hat, and put down the large basket which +she has emptied of flowers. She pauses before the glass, smoothing back +the ruffled bands of her hair,--hair of a dark, soft chestnut, silky +and luxuriant,--never polluted, and never, so long as she lives, to be +polluted by auricomous cosmetics, far from that delicate darkness, every +tint of the colours traditionally dedicated to the locks of Judas. + +Her complexion, usually of that soft bloom which inclines to paleness, +is now heightened into glow by exercise and sunlight. The features are +small and feminine; the eyes dark with long lashes; the mouth singularly +beautiful, with a dimple on either side, and parted now in a half-smile +at some pleasant recollection, giving a glimpse of small teeth +glistening as pearls. But the peculiar charm of her face is in an +expression of serene happiness, that sort of happiness which seems as if +it had never been interrupted by a sorrow, had never been troubled by a +sin,--that holy kind of happiness which belongs to innocence, the light +reflected from a heart and conscience alike at peace. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +IT was a lovely summer evening for the Squire’s rural entertainment. Mr. +Travers had some guests staying with him: they had dined early for +the occasion, and were now grouped with their host a little before six +o’clock on the lawn. The house was of irregular architecture, altered +or added to at various periods from the reign of Elizabeth to that of +Victoria: at one end, the oldest part, a gable with mullion windows; +at the other, the newest part, a flat-roofed wing, with modern sashes +opening to the ground, the intermediate part much hidden by a veranda +covered with creepers in full bloom. The lawn was a spacious table-land +facing the west, and backed by a green and gentle hill, crowned with +the ruins of an ancient priory. On one side of the lawn stretched a +flower-garden and pleasure-ground, originally planned by Repton; on the +opposite angles of the sward were placed two large marquees,--one for +dancing, the other for supper. Towards the south the view was left open, +and commanded the prospect of an old English park, not of the stateliest +character; not intersected with ancient avenues, nor clothed +with profitless fern as lairs for deer: but the park of a careful +agriculturist, uniting profit with show, the sward duly drained and +nourished, fit to fatten bullocks in an incredibly short time, and +somewhat spoilt to the eye by subdivisions of wire fence. Mr. Travers +was renowned for skilful husbandry, and the general management of +land to the best advantage. He had come into the estate while still in +childhood, and thus enjoyed the accumulations of a long minority. He had +entered the Guards at the age of eighteen, and having more command of +money than most of his contemporaries, though they might be of higher +rank and the sons of richer men, he had been much courted and much +plundered. At the age of twenty-five he found himself one of the leaders +of fashion, renowned chiefly for reckless daring where-ever honour could +be plucked out of the nettle danger: a steeple-chaser, whose exploits +made a quiet man’s hair stand on end; a rider across country, taking +leaps which a more cautious huntsman carefully avoided. Known at Paris +as well as in London, he had been admired by ladies whose smiles had +cost him duels, the marks of which still remained in glorious scars +on his person. No man ever seemed more likely to come to direst +grief before attaining the age of thirty, for at twenty-seven all the +accumulations of his minority were gone; and his estate, which, when he +came of age, was scarcely three thousand a year, but entirely at his own +disposal, was mortgaged up to its eyes. + +His friends began to shake their heads and call him “poor fellow;” but, +with all his wild faults, Leopold Travers had been wholly pure from the +two vices out of which a man does not often redeem himself. He had never +drunk and he had never gambled. His nerves were not broken, his brain +was not besotted. There was plenty of health in him yet, mind and body. +At the critical period of his life he married for love, and his choice +was a most felicitous one. The lady had no fortune; but though handsome +and high-born, she had no taste for extravagance, and no desire for +other society than that of the man she loved. So when he said, “Let us +settle in the country and try our best to live on a few hundreds, lay +by, and keep the old place out of the market,” she consented with a +joyful heart: and marvel it was to all how this wild Leopold Travers +did settle down; did take to cultivating his home farm with his men from +sunrise to sunset like a common tenant-farmer; did contrive to pay the +interest on the mortgages, and keep his head above water. After some +years of pupilage in this school of thrift, during which his habits +became formed and his whole character braced, Leopold Travers suddenly +found himself again rich, through the wife whom he had so prudently +married without other dower than her love and her virtues. Her only +brother, Lord Eagleton, a Scotch peer, had been engaged in marriage to a +young lady, considered to be a rare prize in the lottery of wedlock. +The marriage was broken off under very disastrous circumstances; but the +young lord, good-looking and agreeable, was naturally expected to seek +speedy consolation in some other alliance. Nevertheless he did not +do so: he became a confirmed invalid, and died single, leaving to his +sister all in his power to save from the distant kinsman who succeeded +to his lands and title,--a goodly sum, which not only sufficed to pay +off the mortgages on Neesdale Park but bestowed on its owner a surplus +which the practical knowledge of country life that he had acquired +enabled him to devote with extraordinary profit to the general +improvement of his estate. He replaced tumble-down old farm buildings +with new constructions on the most approved principles; bought or +pensioned off certain slovenly incompetent tenants; threw sundry petty +holdings into large farms suited to the buildings he constructed; +purchased here and there small bits of land, commodious to the farms +they adjoined, and completing the integrity of his ring-fence; stubbed +up profitless woods which diminished the value of neighbouring arables +by obstructing sun and air and harbouring legions of rabbits; and +then, seeking tenants of enterprise and capital, more than doubled his +original yearly rental, and perhaps more than tripled the market value +of his property. Simultaneously with this acquisition of fortune, he +emerged from the inhospitable and unsocial obscurity which his previous +poverty had compelled, took an active part in county business, proved +himself an excellent speaker at public meetings, subscribed liberally to +the hunt, and occasionally joined in it,--a less bold but a wiser rider +than of yore. In short, as Themistocles boasted that he could make a +small state great, so Leopold Travers might boast with equal truth, +that, by his energies, his judgment, and the weight of his personal +character, he had made the owner of a property which had been at +his accession to it of third-rate rank in the county a personage so +considerable that no knight of the shire against whom he declared could +have been elected, and if he had determined to stand himself he would +have been chosen free of expense. + +But he said, on being solicited to become a candidate, “When a man once +gives himself up to the care and improvement of a landed estate, he +has no time and no heart for anything else. An estate is an income or +a kingdom, according as the owner chooses to take it. I take it as a +kingdom, and I cannot be _roi faineant_, with a steward for _maire du +palais_. A king does not go into the House of Commons.” + +Three years after this rise in the social ladder, Mrs. Travers was +seized with congestion of the lungs followed by pleurisy, and died after +less than a week’s illness. Leopold never wholly recovered her loss. +Though still young and always handsome, the idea of another wife, the +love of another woman, were notions which he dismissed from his, mind +with a quiet scorn. He was too masculine a creature to parade grief. +For some weeks, indeed, he shut himself up in his own room, so rigidly +secluded that he would not see even his daughter. But one morning he +appeared in his fields as usual, and from that day resumed his old +habits, and gradually renewed that cordial interchange of hospitalities +which had popularly distinguished him since his accession to wealth. +Still people felt that the man was changed; he was more taciturn, +more grave: if always just in his dealings, he took the harder side of +justice, where in his wife’s time he had taken the gentler. Perhaps, to +a man of strong will, the habitual intercourse with an amiable woman is +essential for those occasions in which Will best proves the fineness of +its temper by the facility with which it can be bent. + +It may be said that Leopold Travers might have found such intercourse in +the intimate companionship of his own daughter. But she was a mere child +when his wife died, and she grew up to womanhood too insensibly for +him to note the change. Besides, where a man has found a wife his +all-in-all, a daughter can never supply her place. The very reverence +due to children precludes unrestrained confidence; and there is not +that sense of permanent fellowship in a daughter which a man has in a +wife,--any day a stranger may appear and carry her off from him. At all +events Leopold did not own in Cecilia the softening influence to +which he had yielded in her mother. He was fond of her, proud of her, +indulgent to her; but the indulgence had its set limits. Whatever she +asked solely for herself he granted; whatever she wished for matters +under feminine control--the domestic household, the parish school, the +alms-receiving poor--obtained his gentlest consideration. But when she +had been solicited by some offending out-of-door dependant or some petty +defaulting tenant to use her good offices in favour of the culprit, Mr. +Travers checked her interference by a firm “No,” though uttered in a +mild accent, and accompanied with a masculine aphorism to the effect +that “there would be no such things as strict justice and disciplined +order in the world if a man yielded to a woman’s pleadings in any matter +of business between man and man.” From this it will be seen that +Mr. Lethbridge had overrated the value of Cecilia’s alliance in the +negotiation respecting Mrs. Bawtrey’s premium and shop. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +IF, having just perused what has thus been written on the biographical +antecedents and mental characteristics of Leopold Travers, you, my dear +reader, were to be personally presented to that gentleman as he now +stands, the central figure of the group gathered round him, on his +terrace, you would probably be surprised,--nay, I have no doubt you +would say to yourself, “Not at all the sort of man I expected.” In that +slender form, somewhat below the middle height; in that fair countenance +which still, at the age of forty-eight, retains a delicacy of feature +and of colouring which is of almost womanlike beauty, and, from the +quiet placidity of its expression, conveys at first glance the notion of +almost womanlike mildness,--it would be difficult to recognize a man who +in youth had been renowned for reckless daring, in maturer years more +honourably distinguished for steadfast prudence and determined purpose, +and who, alike in faults or in merits, was as emphatically masculine as +a biped in trousers can possibly be. + +Mr. Travers is listening to a young man of about two and twenty, the +eldest son of the richest nobleman of the county, and who intends to +start for the representation of the shire at the next general election, +which is close at hand. The Hon. George Belvoir is tall, inclined to be +stout, and will look well on the hustings. He has had those pains taken +with his education which an English peer generally does take with the +son intended to succeed to the representation of an honourable name and +the responsibilities of high station. If eldest sons do not often make +as great a figure in the world as their younger brothers, it is not +because their minds are less cultivated, but because they have less +motive power for action. George Belvoir was well read, especially +in that sort of reading which befits a future senator,--history, +statistics, political economy, so far as that dismal science is +compatible with the agricultural interest. He was also well-principled, +had a strong sense of discipline and duty, was prepared in politics +firmly to uphold as right whatever was proposed by his own party, and +to reject as wrong whatever was proposed by the other. At present he was +rather loud and noisy in the assertion of his opinions,--young men fresh +from the University generally are. It was the secret wish of Mr. Travers +that George Belvoir should become his son-in-law; less because of his +rank and wealth (though such advantages were not of a nature to be +despised by a practical man like Leopold Travers) than on account of +those qualities in his personal character which were likely to render +him an excellent husband. + +Seated on wire benches, just without the veranda, but shaded by its +fragrant festoons, were Mrs. Campion and three ladies, the wives of +neighbouring squires. Cecilia stood a little apart from them, bending +over a long-backed Skye terrier, whom she was teaching to stand on his +hind legs. + +But see, the company are arriving! How suddenly that green space, ten +minutes ago so solitary, has become animated and populous! + +Indeed the park now presented a very lively appearance: vans, carts, and +farmers’ chaises were seen in crowded procession along the winding road; +foot-passengers were swarming towards the house in all directions. The +herds and flocks in the various enclosures stopped grazing to stare at +the unwonted invaders of their pasture: yet the orderly nature of their +host imparted a respect for order to his ruder visitors; not even a +turbulent boy attempted to scale the fences, or creep through their +wires; all threaded the narrow turnstiles which gave egress from one +subdivision of the sward to another. + +Mr. Travers turned to George Belvoir: “I see old farmer Steen’s +yellow gig. Mind how you talk to him, George. He is full of whims and +crotchets, and if you once brush his feathers the wrong way he will be +as vindictive as a parrot. But he is the man who must second you at +the nomination. No other tenant-farmer carries the same weight with his +class.” + +“I suppose,” said George, “that if Mr. Steen is the best man to second +me at the hustings, he is a good speaker?” + +“A good speaker? in one sense he is. He never says a word too much. The +last time he seconded the nomination of the man you are to succeed, this +was his speech: ‘Brother Electors, for twenty years I have been one of +the judges at our county cattle-show. I know one animal from another. +Looking at the specimens before us to-day none of them are as good +of their kind as I’ve seen elsewhere. But if you choose Sir John Hogg +you’ll not get the wrong sow by the ear!’” + +“At least,” said George, after a laugh at this sample of eloquence +unadorned, “Mr. Steen does not err on the side of flattery in his +commendations of a candidate. But what makes him such an authority with +the farmers? Is he a first-rate agriculturist?” + +“In thrift, yes!--in spirit, no! He says that all expensive experiments +should be left to gentlemen farmers. He is an authority with other +tenants: firstly, because he is a very keen censor of their landlords; +secondly, because he holds himself thoroughly independent of his own; +thirdly, because he is supposed to have studied the political bearings +of questions that affect the landed interest, and has more than once +been summoned to give his opinion on such subjects to Committees of both +Houses of Parliament. Here he comes. Observe, when I leave you to talk +to him: firstly, that you confess utter ignorance of practical farming; +nothing enrages him like the presumption of a gentleman farmer like +myself: secondly, that you ask his opinion on the publication of +Agricultural Statistics, just modestly intimating that you, as at +present advised, think that inquisitorial researches into a man’s +business involve principles opposed to the British Constitution. And on +all that he may say as to the shortcomings of landlords in general, and +of your father in particular, make no reply, but listen with an air of +melancholy conviction. How do you do, Mr. Steen, and how’s the mistress? +Why have you not brought her with you?” + +“My good woman is in the straw again, Squire. Who is that youngster?” + +“Hist! let me introduce Mr. Belvoir.” + +Mr. Belvoir offers his hand. + +“No, sir!” vociferates Steen, putting both his own hands behind him. “No +offence, young gentleman. But I don’t give my hand at first sight to +a man who wants to shake a vote out of it. Not that I know anything +against you. But, if you be a farmer’s friend rabbits are not, and my +lord your father is a great one for rabbits.” + +“Indeed you are mistaken there!” cries George, with vehement +earnestness. Mr. Travers gave him a nudge, as much as to say, “Hold your +tongue.” George understood the hint, and is carried off meekly by Mr. +Steen down the solitude of the plantations. + +The guests now arrived fast and thick. They consisted chiefly not only +of Mr. Travers’s tenants, but of farmers and their families within +the range of eight or ten miles from the Park, with a few of the +neighbouring gentry and clergy. + +It was not a supper intended to include the labouring class; for Mr. +Travers had an especial dislike to the custom of exhibiting peasants +at feeding-time, as if they were so many tamed animals of an inferior +species. When he entertained work-people, he made them comfortable in +their own way; and peasants feel more comfortable when not invited to be +stared out of countenance. + +“Well, Lethbridge,” said Mr. Travers, “where is the young gladiator you +promised to bring?” + +“I did bring him, and he was by my side not a minute ago. He has +suddenly given me the slip: ‘abiit, evasit, erupit.’ I was looking round +for him in vain when you accosted me.” + +“I hope he has not seen some guest of mine whom he wants to fight.” + +“I hope not,” answered the Parson, doubtfully. “He’s a strange fellow. +But I think you will be pleased with him; that is, if he can be found. +Oh, Mr. Saunderson, how do you do? Have you seen your visitor?” + +“No, sir, I have just come. My mistress, Squire, and my three girls; and +this is my son.” + +“A hearty welcome to all,” said the graceful Squire; (turning to +Saunderson junior), “I suppose you are fond of dancing. Get yourself a +partner. We may as well open the ball.” + +“Thank you, sir, but I never dance,” said Saunderson junior, with an air +of austere superiority to an amusement which the March of Intellect had +left behind. + +“Then you’ll have less to regret when you are grown old. But the band +is striking up; we must adjourn to the marquee. George” (Mr. Belvoir, +escaped from Mr. Steen, had just made his appearance), “will you give +your arm to Cecilia, to whom I think you are engaged for the first +quadrille?” + +“I hope,” said George to Cecilia, as they walked towards the marquee, +“that Mr. Steen is not an average specimen of the electors I shall have +to canvass. Whether he has been brought up to honour his own father and +mother I can’t pretend to say, but he seems bent upon teaching me not +to honour mine. Having taken away my father’s moral character upon the +unfounded allegation that he loved rabbits better than mankind, he then +assailed my innocent mother on the score of religion, and inquired when +she was going over to the Church of Rome, basing that inquiry on the +assertion that she had taken away her custom from a Protestant grocer +and conferred it on a Papist.” + +“Those are favourable signs, Mr. Belvoir. Mr. Steen always prefaces a +kindness by a great deal of incivility. I asked him once to lend me a +pony, my own being suddenly taken lame, and he seized that opportunity +to tell me that my father was an impostor in pretending to be a judge of +cattle; that he was a tyrant, screwing his tenants in order to indulge +extravagant habits of hospitality; and implied that it would be a +great mercy if we did not live to apply to him, not for a pony, but for +parochial relief. I went away indignant. But he sent me the pony. I am +sure he will give you his vote.” + +“Meanwhile,” said George, with a timid attempt at gallantry, as they now +commenced the quadrille, “I take encouragement from the belief that I +have the good wishes of Miss Travers. If ladies had votes, as Mr. Mill +recommends, why, then--” + +“Why, then, I should vote as Papa does,” said Miss Travers, simply. “And +if women had votes, I suspect there would be very little peace in any +household where they did not vote as the man at the head of it wished +them.” + +“But I believe, after all,” said the aspirant to Parliament, seriously, +“that the advocates for female suffrage would limit it to women +independent of masculine control, widows and spinsters voting in right +of their own independent tenements.” + +“In that case,” said Cecilia, “I suppose they would still generally go +by the opinion of some man they relied on, or make a very silly choice +if they did not.” + +“You underrate the good sense of your sex.” + +“I hope not. Do you underrate the good sense of yours, if, in far more +than half the things appertaining to daily life, the wisest men say, +‘Better leave _them_ to the _women_’? But you’re forgetting the figure, +_cavalier seul_.” + +“By the way,” said George, in another interval of the dance, “do +you know a Mr. Chillingly, the son of Sir Peter, of Exmundham, in +Westshire?” + +“No; why do you ask?” + +“Because I thought I caught a glimpse of his face: it was just as Mr. +Steen was bearing me away down that plantation. From what you say, I +must suppose I was mistaken.” + +“Chillingly! But surely some persons were talking yesterday at dinner +about a young gentleman of that name as being likely to stand for +Westshire at the next election, but who had made a very unpopular and +eccentric speech on the occasion of his coming of age.” + +“The same man: I was at college with him,--a very singular character. He +was thought clever; won a prize or two; took a good degree: but it was +generally said that he would have deserved a much higher one if some of +his papers had not contained covert jests either on the subject or the +examiners. It is a dangerous thing to set up as a humourist in practical +life,--especially public life. They say Mr. Pitt had naturally a great +deal of wit and humour, but he wisely suppressed any evidence of those +qualities in his Parliamentary speeches. Just like Chillingly, to turn +into ridicule the important event of festivities in honour of his coming +of age,--an occasion that can never occur again in the whole course of +his life.” + +“It was bad taste,” said Cecilia, “if intentional. But perhaps he was +misunderstood, or taken by surprise.” + +“Misunderstood,--possibly; but taken by surprise,--no. The coolest +fellow I ever met. Not that I have met him very often. Latterly, indeed, +at Cambridge he lived much alone. It was said that he read hard. I doubt +that; for my rooms were just over his, and I know that he was much +more frequently out of doors than in. He rambled a good deal about the +country on foot. I have seen him in by-lanes a dozen miles distant from +the town when I have been riding back from the hunt. He was fond of the +water, and pulled a mighty strong oar, but declined to belong to our +University crew; yet if ever there was a fight between undergraduates +and bargemen, he was sure to be in the midst of it. Yes, a very great +oddity indeed, full of contradictions, for a milder, quieter fellow in +general intercourse you could not see; and as for the jests of which +he was accused in his examination papers, his very face should +have acquitted him of the charge before any impartial jury of his +countrymen.” + +“You sketch quite an interesting picture of him,” said Cecilia. “I wish +we did know him: he would be worth seeing.” + +“And, once seen, you would not easily forget him,--a dark, handsome +face, with large melancholy eyes, and with one of those spare slender +figures which enable a man to disguise his strength, as a fraudulent +billiard-player disguises his play.” + +The dance had ceased during this conversation, and the speakers were now +walking slowly to and fro the lawn amid the general crowd. + +“How well your father plays the part of host to these rural folks!” said +George, with a secret envy. “Do observe how quietly he puts that shy +young farmer at his ease, and now how kindly he deposits that lame old +lady on the bench, and places the stool under her feet. What a canvasser +he would be! and how young he still looks, and how monstrous handsome!” + +This last compliment was uttered as Travers, having made the old +lady comfortable, had joined the three Miss Saundersons, dividing his +pleasant smile equally between them; and seemingly unconscious of the +admiring glances which many another rural beauty directed towards him +as he passed along. About the man there was a certain indescribable +elegance, a natural suavity free from all that affectation, whether +of forced heartiness or condescending civility, which too often +characterizes the well-meant efforts of provincial magnates to +accommodate themselves to persons of inferior station and breeding. It +is a great advantage to a man to have passed his early youth in that +most equal and most polished of all democracies,--the best society of +large capitals. And to such acquired advantage Leopold Travers added the +inborn qualities that please. + +Later in the evening Travers, again accosting Mr. Lethbridge, said, “I +have been talking much to the Saundersons about that young man who did +us the inestimable service of punishing your ferocious parishioner, +Tom Bowles; and all I hear so confirms the interest your own +account inspired me with that I should really like much to make his +acquaintance. Has not he turned up yet?” + +“No; I fear he must have gone. But in that case I hope you will take +his generous desire to serve my poor basket-maker into benevolent +consideration.” + +“Do not press me; I feel so reluctant to refuse any request of yours. +But I have my own theory as to the management of an estate, and my +system does not allow of favour. I should wish to explain that to the +young stranger himself; for I hold courage in such honour that I do not +like a brave man to leave these parts with an impression that Leopold +Travers is an ungracious churl. However, he may not have gone. I will +go and look for him myself. Just tell Cecilia that she has danced enough +with the gentry, and that I have told Farmer Turby’s son, a fine young +fellow and a capital rider across country, that I expect him to show my +daughter that he can dance as well as he rides.” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +QUITTING Mr. Lethbridge, Travers turned with quick step towards the more +solitary part of the grounds. He did not find the object of his search +in the walks of the plantation; and, on taking the circuit of his +demesne, wound his way back towards the lawn through a sequestered rocky +hollow in the rear of the marquee, which had been devoted to a fernery. +Here he came to a sudden pause; for, seated a few yards before him on +a gray crag, and the moonlight full on his face, he saw a solitary man, +looking upwards with a still and mournful gaze, evidently absorbed in +abstract contemplation. + +Recalling the description of the stranger which he had heard from Mr. +Lethbridge and the Saundersons, Mr. Travers felt sure that he had come +on him at last. He approached gently; and, being much concealed by the +tall ferns, Kenelm (for that itinerant it was) did not see him advance, +until he felt a hand on his shoulder, and, turning round, beheld a +winning smile and heard a pleasant voice. + +“I think I am not mistaken,” said Leopold Travers, “in assuming you to +be the gentleman whom Mr. Lethbridge promised to introduce to me, and +who is staying with my tenant, Mr. Saunderson?” + +Kenelm rose and bowed. Travers saw at once that it was the bow of a man +in his own world, and not in keeping with the Sunday costume of a petty +farmer. “Nay,” said he, “let us talk seated;” and placing himself on the +crag, he made room for Kenelm beside him. + +“In the first place,” resumed Travers, “I must thank you for having +done a public service in putting down the brute force which has long +tyrannized over the neighbourhood. Often in my young days I have felt +the disadvantage of height and sinews, whenever it would have been a +great convenience to terminate dispute or chastise insolence by a +resort to man’s primitive weapons; but I never more lamented my physical +inferiority than on certain occasions when I would have given my ears to +be able to thrash Tom Bowles myself. It has been as great a disgrace to +my estate that that bully should so long have infested it as it is +to the King of Italy not to be able with all his armies to put down a +brigand in Calabria.” + +“Pardon me, Mr. Travers, but I am one of those rare persons who do not +like to hear ill of their friends. Mr. Thomas Bowles is a particular +friend of mine.” + +“Eh!” cried Travers, aghast. “‘Friend!’ you are joking. + +“You would not accuse me of joking if you knew me better. But surely you +have felt that there are few friends one likes more cordially, and ought +to respect more heedfully, than the enemy with whom one has just made it +up.” + +“You say well, and I accept the rebuke,” said Travers, more and more +surprised. “And I certainly have less right to abuse Mr. Bowles than +you have, since I had not the courage to fight him. To turn to another +subject less provocative. Mr. Lethbridge has told me of your amiable +desire to serve two of his young parishioners, Will Somers and Jessie +Wiles, and of your generous offer to pay the money Mrs. Bawtrey demands +for the transfer of her lease. To that negotiation my consent is +necessary, and that consent I cannot give. Shall I tell you why?” + +“Pray do. Your reasons may admit of argument.” + +“Every reason admits of argument,” said Mr. Travers, amused at the calm +assurance of a youthful stranger in anticipating argument with a skilful +proprietor on the management of his own property. “I do not, however, +tell you my reasons for the sake of argument, but in vindication of my +seeming want of courtesy towards yourself. I have had a very hard and a +very difficult task to perform in bringing the rental of my estate up +to its proper value. In doing so, I have been compelled to adopt one +uniform system, equally applied to my largest and my pettiest holdings. +That system consists in securing the best and safest tenants I can, +at the rents computed by a valuer in whom I have confidence. To this +system, universally adopted on my estate, though it incurred much +unpopularity at first, I have at length succeeded in reconciling the +public opinion of my neighbourhood. People began by saying I was +hard; they now acknowledge I am just. If I once give way to favour or +sentiment, I unhinge my whole system. Every day I am subjected to moving +solicitations. Lord Twostars, a keen politician, begs me to give a +vacant farm to a tenant because he is an excellent canvasser, and has +always voted straight with the party. Mrs. Fourstars, a most benevolent +woman, entreats me not to dismiss another tenant, because he is in +distressed circumstances and has a large family; very good reasons +perhaps for my excusing him an arrear, or allowing him a retiring +pension, but the worst reasons in the world for letting him continue to +ruin himself and my land. Now, Mrs. Bawtrey has a small holding on lease +at the inadequate rent of L8 a year. She asks L45 for its transfer, but +she can’t transfer the lease without my consent; and I can get L12 a +year as a moderate rental from a large choice of competent tenants. It +will better answer me to pay her the L45 myself, which I have no doubt +the incoming tenant would pay me back, at least in part; and if he did +not, the additional rent would be good interest for my expenditure. +Now, you happen to take a sentimental interest, as you pass through the +village, in the loves of a needy cripple whose utmost industry has but +served to save himself from parish relief, and a giddy girl without a +sixpence, and you ask me to accept these very equivocal tenants instead +of substantial ones, and at a rent one-third less than the market value. +Suppose that I yielded to your request, what becomes of my reputation +for practical, business-like justice? I shall have made an inroad into +the system by which my whole estate is managed, and have invited all +manner of solicitations on the part of friends and neighbours, which I +could no longer consistently refuse, having shown how easily I can be +persuaded into compliance by a stranger whom I may never see again. And +are you sure, after all, that, if you did prevail on me, you would do +the individual good you aim at? It is, no doubt, very pleasant to think +one has made a young couple happy. But if that young couple fail in +keeping the little shop to which you would transplant them (and +nothing more likely: peasants seldom become good shopkeepers), and find +themselves, with a family of children, dependent solely, not on the arm +of a strong labourer, but the ten fingers of a sickly cripple, who makes +clever baskets, for which there is but slight and precarious demand in +the neighbourhood, may you not have insured the misery of the couple you +wished to render happy?” + +“I withdraw all argument,” said Kenelm, with an aspect so humiliated and +dejected, that it would have softened a Greenland bear, or a Counsel for +the Prosecution. “I am more and more convinced that of all the shams in +the world that of benevolence is the greatest. It seems so easy to +do good, and it is so difficult to do it. Everywhere, in this hateful +civilized life, one runs one’s head against a system. A system, Mr. +Travers, is man’s servile imitation of the blind tyranny of what in our +ignorance we call ‘Natural Laws,’ a mechanical something through which +the world is ruled by the cruelty of General Principles, to the utter +disregard of individual welfare. By Natural Laws creatures prey on each +other, and big fishes eat little ones upon system. It is, nevertheless, +a hard thing for the little fish. Every nation, every town, every +hamlet, every occupation, has a system, by which, somehow or other, the +pond swarms with fishes, of which a great many inferiors contribute to +increase the size of a superior. It is an idle benevolence to keep +one solitary gudgeon out of the jaws of a pike. Here am I doing what I +thought the simplest thing in the world, asking a gentleman, evidently +as good-natured as myself, to allow an old woman to let her premises to +a deserving young couple, and paying what she asks for it out of my own +money. And I find that I am running against a system, and invading all +the laws by which a rental is increased and an estate improved. Mr. +Travers, you have no cause for regret in not having beaten Tom Bowles. +You have beaten his victor, and I now give up all dream of further +interference with the Natural Laws that govern the village which I +have visited in vain. I had meant to remove Tom Bowles from that quiet +community. I shall now leave him to return to his former habits,--to +marry Jessie Wiles, which he certainly will do, and--” + +“Hold!” cried Mr. Travers. “Do you mean to say that you can induce Tom +Bowles to leave the village?” + +“I had induced him to do it, provided Jessie Wiles married the +basket-maker; but, as that is out of the question, I am bound to tell +him so, and he will stay.” + +“But if he left, what would become of his business? His mother could +not keep it on; his little place is a freehold; the only house in the +village that does not belong to me, or I should have ejected him long +ago. Would he sell the premises to me?” + +“Not if he stays and marries Jessie Wiles. But if he goes with me to +Luscombe and settles in that town as a partner to his uncle, I suppose +he would be too glad to sell a house of which he can have no pleasant +recollections. But what then? You cannot violate your system for the +sake of a miserable forge.” + +“It would not violate my system if, instead of yielding to a sentiment, +I gained an advantage; and, to say truth, I should be very glad to buy +that forge and the fields that go with it.” + +“‘Tis your affair now, not mine, Mr. Travers. I no longer presume to +interfere. I leave the neighbourhood to-morrow: see if you can negotiate +with Mr. Bowles. I have the honour to wish you a good evening.” + +“Nay, young gentleman, I cannot allow you to quit me thus. You have +declined apparently to join the dancers, but you will at least join the +supper. Come!” + +“Thank you sincerely, no. I came here merely on the business which your +system has settled.” + +“But I am not sure that it is settled.” Here Mr. Travers wound his arm +within Kenelm’s, and looking him full in the face, said, “I know that +I am speaking to a gentleman at least equal in rank to myself, but as +I enjoy the melancholy privilege of being the older man, do not think +I take an unwarrantable liberty in asking if you object to tell me your +name. I should like to introduce you to my daughter, who is very partial +to Jessie Wiles and to Will Somers. But I can’t venture to inflame her +imagination by designating you as a prince in disguise.” + +“Mr. Travers, you express yourself with exquisite delicacy. But I +am just starting in life, and I shrink from mortifying my father by +associating my name with a signal failure. Suppose I were an anonymous +contributor, say, to ‘The Londoner,’ and I had just brought that +highly intellectual journal into discredit by a feeble attempt at +a good-natured criticism or a generous sentiment, would that be the +fitting occasion to throw off the mask, and parade myself to a mocking +world as the imbecile violator of an established system? Should I not, +in a moment so untoward, more than ever desire to merge my insignificant +unit in the mysterious importance which the smallest Singular obtains +when he makes himself a Plural, and speaks not as ‘I,’ but as ‘We’? +_We_ are insensible to the charm of young ladies; _We_ are not bribed +by suppers; _We_, like the witches of ‘Macbeth,’ have no name on earth; +_We_ are the greatest wisdom of the greatest number; _We_ are so upon +system; _We_ salute you, Mr. Travers, and depart unassailable.” + +Here Kenelm rose, doffed and replaced his hat in majestic salutation, +turned towards the entrance of the fernery, and found himself suddenly +face to face with George Belvoir, behind whom followed, with a throng +of guests, the fair form of Cecilia. George Belvoir caught Kenelm by the +hand, and exclaimed, “Chillingly! I thought I could not be mistaken.” + +“Chillingly!” echoed Leopold Travers from behind. “Are you the son of my +old friend Sir Peter?” + +Thus discovered and environed, Kenelm did not lose his wonted presence +of mind; he turned round to Leopold Travers, who was now close in his +rear, and whispered, “If my father was your friend, do not disgrace his +son. Do not say I am a failure. Deviate from your system, and let Will +Somers succeed Mrs. Bawtrey.” Then reverting his face to Mr. Belvoir, he +said tranquilly, “Yes; we have met before.” + +“Cecilia,” said Travers, now interposing, “I am happy to introduce to +you as Mr. Chillingly, not only the son of an old friend of mine, +not only the knight-errant of whose gallant conduct on behalf of your +protegee Jessie Wiles we have heard so much, but the eloquent arguer who +has conquered my better judgment in a matter on which I thought myself +infallible. Tell Mr. Lethbridge that I accept Will Somers as a tenant +for Mrs. Bawtrey’s premises.” + +Kenelm grasped the Squire’s hand cordially. “May it be in my power to do +a kind thing to you, in spite of any system to the contrary!” + +“Mr. Chillingly, give your arm to my daughter. You will not now object +to join the dancers?” + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CECILIA stole a shy glance at Kenelm as the two emerged from the fernery +into the open space of the lawn. His countenance pleased her. She +thought she discovered much latent gentleness under the cold and +mournful gravity of its expression; and, attributing the silence he +maintained to some painful sense of an awkward position in the abrupt +betrayal of his incognito, sought with womanly tact to dispel his +supposed embarrassment. + +“You have chosen a delightful mode of seeing the country this lovely +summer weather, Mr. Chillingly. I believe such pedestrian exercises are +very common with university students during the long vacation.” + +“Very common, though they generally wander in packs like wild dogs or +Australian dingoes. It is only a tame dog that one finds on the road +travelling by himself; and then, unless he behaves very quietly, it is +ten to one that he is stoned as a mad dog.” + +“But I am afraid, from what I hear, that you have not been travelling +very quietly.” + +“You are quite right, Miss Travers, and I am a sad dog if not a mad one. +But pardon me: we are nearing the marquee; the band is striking up, and, +alas! I am not a dancing dog.” + +He released Cecilia’s arm, and bowed. + +“Let us sit here a while, then,” said she, motioning to a garden-bench. +“I have no engagement for the next dance, and, as I am a little tired, I +shall be glad of a reprieve.” + +Kenelm sighed, and, with the air of a martyr stretching himself on the +rack, took his place beside the fairest girl in the county. + +“You were at college with Mr. Belvoir?” + +“I was.” + +“He was thought clever there?” + +“I have not a doubt of it.” + +“You know he is canvassing our county for the next election. My father +takes a warm interest in his success, and thinks he will be a useful +member of Parliament.” + +“Of that I am certain. For the first five years he will be called +pushing, noisy, and conceited, much sneered at by men of his own age, +and coughed down on great occasions; for the five following years he +will be considered a sensible man in committees, and a necessary feature +in debate; at the end of those years he will be an under-secretary; in +five years more he will be a Cabinet Minister, and the representative of +an important section of opinions; he will be an irreproachable private +character, and his wife will be seen wearing the family diamonds at all +the great parties. She will take an interest in politics and theology; +and if she die before him, her husband will show his sense of wedded +happiness by choosing another lady, equally fitted to wear the family +diamonds and to maintain the family consequences.” + +In spite of her laughter, Cecilia felt a certain awe at the solemnity of +voice and manner with which Kenelm delivered these oracular sentences, +and the whole prediction seemed strangely in unison with her own +impressions of the character whose fate was thus shadowed out. + +“Are you a fortune-teller, Mr. Chillingly?” she asked, falteringly, and +after a pause. + +“As good a one as any whose hand you could cross with a shilling.” + +“Will you tell me my fortune?” + +“No; I never tell the fortunes of ladies, because your sex is credulous, +and a lady might believe what I tell her. And when we believe such and +such is to be our fate, we are too apt to work out our life into the +verification of the belief. If Lady Macbeth had disbelieved in the +witches, she would never have persuaded her lord to murder Duncan.” + +“But can you not predict me a more cheerful fortune than that tragical +illustration of yours seems to threaten?” + +“The future is never cheerful to those who look on the dark side of +the question. Mr. Gray is too good a poet for people to read nowadays, +otherwise I should refer you to his lines in the ‘Ode to Eton +College,’-- + + + “‘See how all around us wait + The ministers of human fate, + And black Misfortune’s baleful train.’ + + +“Meanwhile it is something to enjoy the present. We are young; we +are listening to music; there is no cloud over the summer stars; our +conscience is clear; our hearts untroubled: why look forward in search +of happiness? shall we ever be happier than we are at this moment?” + +Here Mr. Travers came up. “We are going to supper in a few minutes,” + said he; “and before we lose sight of each other, Mr. Chillingly, I wish +to impress on you the moral fact that one good turn deserves another. I +have yielded to your wish, and now you must yield to mine. Come and stay +a few days with me, and see your benevolent intentions carried out.” + +Kenelm paused. Now that he was discovered, why should he not pass a few +days among his equals? Realities or shams might be studied with squires +no less than with farmers; besides, he had taken a liking to Travers. +That graceful _ci-devant_ Wildair, with the slight form and the delicate +face, was unlike rural squires in general. Kenelm paused, and then said +frankly,-- + +“I accept your invitation. Would the middle of next week suit you?” + +“The sooner the better. Why not to-morrow?” + +“To-morrow I am pre-engaged to an excursion with Mr. Bowles. That may +occupy two or three days, and meanwhile I must write home for other +garments than those in which I am a sham.” + +“Come any day you like.” + +“Agreed.” + +“Agreed; and, hark! the supper-bell.” + +“Supper,” said Kenelm, offering his arm to Miss Travers,--“supper is a +word truly interesting, truly poetical. It associates itself with the +entertainments of the ancients, with the Augustan age, with Horace and +Maecenas; with the only elegant but too fleeting period of the modern +world; with the nobles and wits of Paris, when Paris had wits and +nobles; with Moliere and the warm-hearted Duke who is said to have been +the original of Moliere’s Misanthrope; with Madame de Sevigne and the +Racine whom that inimitable letter-writer denied to be a poet; with +Swift and Bolingbroke; with Johnson, Goldsmith, and Garrick. Epochs are +signalized by their eatings. I honour him who revives the Golden Age of +suppers.” So saying, his face brightened. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +KENELM CHILLINGLY, ESQ., TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., ETC. + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I am alive and unmarried. Providence has watched over +me in these respects; but I have had narrow escapes. Hitherto I have not +acquired much worldly wisdom in my travels. It is true that I have been +paid two shillings as a day labourer, and, in fact, have fairly earned +at least six shillings more; but against that additional claim I +generously set off, as an equivalent, my board and lodging. On the other +hand, I have spent forty-five pounds out of the fifty which I devoted +to the purchase of experience. But I hope you will be a gainer by +that investment. Send an order to Mr. William Somers, basket-maker, +Graveleigh, -----shire, for the hampers and game-baskets you require, +and I undertake to say that you will save twenty per cent on that +article (all expenses of carriage deducted) and do a good action into +the bargain. You know, from long habit, what a good action is worth +better than I do. I dare say you will be more pleased to learn than I +am to record the fact that I have been again decoyed into the society of +ladies and gentlemen, and have accepted an invitation to pass a few days +at Neesdale Park with Mr. Travers,--christened Leopold, who calls you +“his old friend,”--a term which I take for granted belongs to that class +of poetic exaggeration in which the “dears” and “darlings” of conjugal +intercourse may be categorized. Having for that visit no suitable +garments in my knapsack, kindly tell Jenkes to forward me a portmanteau +full of those which I habitually wore as Kenelm Chillingly, directed +to me at “Neesdale Park, near Beaverston.” Let me find it there on +Wednesday. + +I leave this place to-morrow morning in company with a friend of the +name of Bowles: no relation to the reverend gentleman of that name who +held the doctrine that a poet should bore us to death with fiddle-faddle +minutia of natural objects in preference to that study of the +insignificant creature Man, in his relations to his species, to which +Mr. Pope limited the range of his inferior muse; and who, practising as +he preached, wrote some very nice verses, to which the Lake school and +its successors are largely indebted. My Mr. Bowles has exercised his +faculty upon Man, and has a powerful inborn gift in that line which +only requires cultivation to render him a match for any one. His more +masculine nature is at present much obscured by that passing cloud +which, in conventional language, is called “a hopeless attachment.” But +I trust, in the course of our excursion, which is to be taken on foot, +that this vapour may consolidate by motion, as some old-fashioned +astronomers held that the nebula does consolidate into a matter-of-fact +world. Is it Rochefoucauld who says that a man is never more likely to +form a hopeful attachment for one than when his heart is softened by a +hopeless attachment to another? May it be long, my dear father, before +you condole with me on the first or congratulate me on the second. + + Your affectionate son, + + KENELM. + +Direct to me at Mr. Travers’s. Kindest love to my mother. + + +The answer to this letter is here subjoined as the most convenient place +for its insertion, though of course it was not received till some days +after the date of my next chapter. + + +SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., TO KENELM CHILLINGLY, ESQ. + +MY DEAR Boy,--With this I despatch the portmanteau you require to the +address that you give. I remember well Leopold Travers when he was in +the Guards,--a very handsome and a very wild young fellow. But he +had much more sense than people gave him credit for, and frequented +intellectual society; at least I met him very often at my friend +Campion’s, whose house was then the favourite rendezvous of +distinguished persons. He had very winning manners, and one could not +help taking an interest in him. I was very glad when I heard he had +married and reformed. Here I beg to observe that a man who contracts a +taste for low company may indeed often marry, but he seldom reforms when +he does so. And, on the whole, I should be much pleased to hear that the +experience which has cost you forty-five pounds had convinced you that +you might be better employed than earning two, or even six shillings as +a day-labourer. + +I have not given your love to your mother, as you requested. In fact, +you have placed me in a very false position towards that other author of +your eccentric being. I could only guard you from the inquisition of the +police and the notoriety of descriptive hand-bills by allowing my lady +to suppose that you had gone abroad with the Duke of Clairville and his +family. It is easy to tell a fib, but it is very difficult to untell +it. However, as soon as you have made up your mind to resume your normal +position among ladies and gentlemen, I should be greatly obliged if +you would apprise me. I don’t wish to keep a fib on my conscience a +day longer than may be necessary to prevent the necessity of telling +another. + +From what you say of Mr. Bowles’s study of Man, and his inborn talent +for that scientific investigation, I suppose that he is a professed +Metaphysician, and I should be glad of his candid opinion upon the +Primary Basis of Morals, a subject upon which I have for three years +meditated the consideration of a critical paper. But having lately read +a controversy thereon between two eminent philosophers, in which each +accuses the other of not understanding him, I have resolved for the +present to leave the Basis in its unsettled condition. + +You rather alarm me when you say you have had a narrow escape from +marriage. Should you, in order to increase the experience you set out +to acquire, decide on trying the effect of a Mrs. Chillingly upon your +nervous system, it would be well to let me know a little beforehand, so +that I might prepare your mother’s mind for that event. Such household +trifles are within her special province; and she would be much put out +if a Mrs. Chillingly dropped on her unawares. + +This subject, however, is too serious to admit of a jest even between +two persons who understand, so well as you and I do, the secret cipher +by which each other’s outward style of jest is to be gravely interpreted +into the irony which says one thing and means another. My dear boy, you +are very young; you are wandering about in a very strange manner, and +may, no doubt, meet with many a pretty face by the way, with which you +may fancy that you fall in love. You cannot think me a barbarous, tyrant +if I ask you to promise me, on your honour, that you will not propose +to any young lady before you come first to me and submit the case to my +examination and approval. You know me too well to suppose that I should +unreasonably withhold my consent if convinced that your happiness was +at stake. But while what a young man may fancy to be love is often a +trivial incident in his life, marriage is the greatest event in it; +if on one side it may involve his happiness, on the other side it +may insure his misery. Dearest, best, and oddest of sons, give me the +promise I ask, and you will free my breast from a terribly anxious +thought which now sits on it like a nightmare. + +Your recommendation of a basket-maker comes opportunely. All such +matters go through the bailiff’s hands, and it was but the other day +that Green was complaining of the high prices of the man he employed for +hampers and game-baskets. Green shall write to your protege. + +Keep me informed of your proceedings as much as your anomalous character +will permit; so that nothing may diminish my confidence that the man who +had the honour to be christened Kenelm will not disgrace his name, but +acquire the distinction denied to a Peter. + +Your affectionate father. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +VILLAGERS lie abed on Sundays later than on workdays, and no shutter was +unclosed in a window of the rural street through which Kenelm Chillingly +and Tom Bowles went, side by side, in the still soft air of the Sabbath +morn. Side by side they went on, crossing the pastoral glebe-lands, +where the kine still drowsily reclined under the bowery shade of +glinting chestnut leaves; and diving thence into a narrow lane or +by-road, winding deep between lofty banks all tangled with convolvulus +and wild-rose and honeysuckle. + +They walked in silence, for Kenelm, after one or two vain attempts at +conversation, had the tact to discover that his companion was in no mood +for talk; and being himself one of those creatures whose minds glide +easily into the dreamy monologue of revery, he was not displeased to +muse on undisturbed, drinking quietly into his heart the subdued joy of +the summer morn, with the freshness of its sparkling dews, the wayward +carol of its earliest birds, the serene quietude of its limpid breezy +air. Only when they came to fresh turnings in the road that led towards +the town to which they were bound, Tom Bowles stepped before his +companion, indicating the way by a monosyllable or a gesture. Thus they +journeyed for hours, till the sun attained power, and a little wayside +inn near a hamlet invited Kenelm to the thought of rest and food. + +“Tom,” said he then, rousing from his revery, “what do you say to +breakfast?” + +Answered Tom sullenly, “I am not hungry; but as you like.” + +“Thank you, then we will stop here a while. I find it difficult to +believe that you are not hungry, for you are very strong, and there are +two things which generally accompany great physical strength: the one is +a keen appetite; the other is--though you may not suppose it, and it is +not commonly known--a melancholic temperament.” + +“Eh!--a what?” + +“A tendency to melancholy. Of course you have heard of Hercules: you +know the saying ‘as strong as Hercules’?” + +“Yes, of course.” + +“Well, I was first led to the connection between strength, appetite, and +melancholy, by reading in an old author named Plutarch that Hercules +was among the most notable instances of melancholy temperament which the +author was enabled to quote. That must have been the traditional notion +of the Herculean constitution; and as for appetite, the appetite of +Hercules was a standard joke of the comic writers. When I read that +observation it set me thinking, being myself melancholic and having +an exceedingly good appetite. Sure enough, when I began to collect +evidence, I found that the strongest men with whom I made acquaintance, +including prize-fighters and Irish draymen, were disposed to look upon +life more on the shady than the sunny side of the way; in short, they +were melancholic. But the kindness of Providence allowed them to enjoy +their meals, as you and I are about to do.” In the utterance of this +extraordinary crotchet Kenelm had halted his steps; but now striding +briskly forward he entered the little inn, and after a glance at its +larder, ordered the whole contents to be brought out and placed within a +honeysuckle arbour which he spied in the angle of a bowling-green at the +rear of the house. + +In addition to the ordinary condiments of loaf and butter and eggs and +milk and tea, the board soon groaned beneath the weight of pigeon-pie, +cold ribs of beef, and shoulder of mutton, remains of a feast which the +members of a monthly rustic club had held there the day before. Tom ate +little at first; but example is contagious, and gradually he vied with +his companion in the diminution of the solid viands before him. Then he +called for brandy. + +“No,” said Kenelm. “No, Tom; you have promised me friendship, and that +is not compatible with brandy. Brandy is the worst enemy a man like +you can have; and would make you quarrel even with me. If you want a +stimulus I allow you a pipe. I don’t smoke myself, as a rule, but there +have been times in my life when I required soothing, and then I have +felt that a whiff of tobacco stills and softens one like the kiss of a +little child. Bring this gentleman a pipe.” + +Tom grunted, but took to the pipe kindly, and in a few minutes, during +which Kenelm left him in silence, a lowering furrow between his brows +smoothed itself away. + +Gradually he felt the sweetening influences of the day and the place, of +the merry sunbeams at play amid the leaves of the arbour, of the frank +perfume of the honeysuckle, of the warble of the birds before they sank +into the taciturn repose of a summer noon. + +It was with a reluctant sigh that he rose at last, when Kenelm said, “We +have yet far to go: we must push on.” + +The landlady, indeed, had already given them a hint that she and +the family wanted to go to church, and to shut up the house in their +absence. Kenelm drew out his purse, but Tom did the same with a return +of cloud on his brow, and Kenelm saw that he would be mortally offended +if suffered to be treated as an inferior; so each paid his due share, +and the two men resumed their wandering. This time it was along a +by-path amid fields, which was a shorter cut than the lane they had +previously followed, to the main road to Luscombe. They walked +slowly till they came to a rustic foot-bridge which spanned a gloomy +trout-stream, not noisy, but with a low, sweet murmur, doubtless the +same stream beside which, many miles away, Kenelm had conversed with the +minstrel. Just as they came to this bridge there floated to their ears +the distant sound of the hamlet church-bell. + +“Now let us sit here a while and listen,” said Kenelm, seating himself +on the baluster of the bridge. “I see that you brought away your pipe +from the inn, and provided yourself with tobacco: refill the pipe and +listen.” + +Tom half smiled and obeyed. + +“O friend,” said Kenelm, earnestly, and after a long pause of thought, +“do you not feel what a blessed thing it is in this mortal life to be +ever and anon reminded that you have a soul?” + +Tom, startled, withdrew the pipe from his lips, and muttered,-- + +“Eh!” + +Kenelm continued,-- + +“You and I, Tom, are not so good as we ought to be: of that there is no +doubt; and good people would say justly that we should now be within +yon church itself rather than listening to its bell. Granted, my friend, +granted; but still it is something to hear that bell, and to feel by the +train of thought which began in our innocent childhood, when we said +our prayers at the knees of a mother, that we were lifted beyond this +visible Nature, beyond these fields and woods and waters, in which, fair +though they be, you and I miss something; in which neither you nor I are +as happy as the kine in the fields, as the birds on the bough, as the +fishes in the water: lifted to a consciousness of a sense vouchsafed to +you and to me, not vouchsafed to the kine, to the bird, and the fish,--a +sense to comprehend that Nature has a God, and Man has a life hereafter. +The bell says that to you and to me. Were that bell a thousand times +more musical it could not say that to beast, bird, and fish. Do you +understand me, Tom?” + +Tom remains silent for a minute, and then replies, “I never thought of +it before; but, as you put it, I understand.” + +“Nature never gives to a living thing capacities not practically meant +for its benefit and use. If Nature gives to us capacities to believe +that we have a Creator whom we never saw, of whom we have no direct +proof, who is kind and good and tender beyond all that we know of kind +and good and tender on earth, it is because the endowment of capacities +to conceive such a Being must be for our benefit and use: it would not +be for our benefit and use if it were a lie. Again, if Nature has given +to us a capacity to receive the notion that we live again, no matter +whether some of us refuse so to believe, and argue against it,--why, the +very capacity to receive the idea (for unless we receive it we could +not argue against it) proves that it is for our benefit and use; and if +there were no such life hereafter, we should be governed and influenced, +arrange our modes of life, and mature our civilization, by obedience +to a lie, which Nature falsified herself in giving us the capacity to +believe. You still understand me?” + +“Yes; it bothers me a little, for you see I am not a parson’s man; but I +do understand.” + +“Then, my friend, study to apply,--for it requires constant +study,--study to apply that which you understand to your own case. You +are something more than Tom Bowles, the smith and doctor of horses; +something more than the magnificent animal who rages for his mate and +fights every rival: the bull does that. You are a soul endowed with the +capacity to receive the idea of a Creator so divinely wise and great +and good that, though acting by the agency of general laws, He can +accommodate them to all individual cases, so that--taking into account +the life hereafter, which He grants to you the capacity to believe--all +that troubles you now will be proved to you wise and great and good +either in this life or the other. Lay that truth to your heart, friend, +now--before the bell stops ringing; recall it every time you hear the +church-bell ring again. And oh, Tom, you have such a noble nature!--” + +“I--I! don’t jeer me,--don’t.” + +“Such a noble nature; for you can love so passionately, you can war so +fiercely, and yet, when convinced that your love would be misery to +her you love, can resign it; and yet, when beaten in your war, can so +forgive your victor that you are walking in this solitude with him as a +friend, knowing that you have but to drop a foot behind him in order to +take his life in an unguarded moment; and rather than take his life, you +would defend it against an army. Do you think I am so dull as not to see +all that? and is not all that a noble nature?” + +Tom Bowles covered his face with his hands, and his broad breast heaved. + +“Well, then, to that noble nature I now trust. I myself have done little +good in life. I may never do much; but let me think that I have not +crossed your life in vain for you and for those whom your life can +colour for good or for bad. As you are strong, be gentle; as you +can love one, be kind to all; as you have so much that is grand as +Man,--that is, the highest of God’s works on earth,--let all your acts +attach your manhood to the idea of Him, to whom the voice of the bell +appeals. Ah! the bell is hushed; but not your heart, Tom,--that speaks +still.” + +Tom was weeping like a child. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +NOW when our two travellers resumed their journey, the relationship +between them had undergone a change; nay, you might have said that their +characters were also changed. For Tom found himself pouring out his +turbulent heart to Kenelm, confiding to this philosophical scoffer at +love all the passionate humanities of love,--its hope, its anguish, its +jealousy, its wrath,--the all that links the gentlest of emotions to +tragedy and terror. And Kenelm, listening tenderly, with softened eyes, +uttered not one cynic word,--nay, not one playful jest. He, felt that +the gravity of all he heard was too solemn for mockery, too deep even +for comfort. True love of this sort was a thing he had never known, +never wished to know, never thought he could know, but he sympathized +in it not the less. Strange, indeed, how much we do sympathize, on +the stage, for instance, or in a book, with passions that have never +agitated ourselves! Had Kenelm jested or reasoned or preached, Tom would +have shrunk at once into dreary silence; but Kenelm said nothing, save +now and then, as he rested his arm, brother-like, on the strong man’s +shoulder, he murmured, “Poor fellow!” So, then, when Tom had finished +his confessions, he felt wondrously relieved and comforted. He had +cleansed his bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed upon the heart. + +Was this good result effected by Kenelm’s artful diplomacy, or by that +insight into human passions vouchsafed unconsciously to himself, by +gleams or in flashes, to this strange man who surveyed the objects and +pursuits of his fellows with a yearning desire to share them, murmuring +to himself, “I cannot, I do not stand in this world; like a ghost I +glide beside it, and look on “? + +Thus the two men continued their way slowly, amid soft pastures and +yellowing cornfields, out at length into the dusty thoroughfares of +the main road. That gained, their talk insensibly changed its tone: it +became more commonplace; and Kenelm permitted himself the license of +those crotchets by which he extracted a sort of quaint pleasantry out of +commonplace itself; so that from time to time Tom was startled into the +mirth of laughter. This big fellow had one very agreeable gift, which +is only granted, I think, to men of genuine character and affectionate +dispositions,--a spontaneous and sweet laugh, manly and frank, but not +boisterous, as you might have supposed it would be. But that sort of +laugh had not before come from his lips, since the day on which his love +for Jessie Wiles had made him at war with himself and the world. + +The sun was setting when from the brow of a hill they beheld the spires +of Luscombe, imbedded amid the level meadows that stretched below, +watered by the same stream that had wound along their more rural +pathway, but which now expanded into stately width, and needed, to span +it, a mighty bridge fit for the convenience of civilized traffic. The +town seemed near, but it was full two miles off by road. + +“There is a short cut across the fields beyond that stile, which leads +straight to my uncle’s house,” said Tom; “and I dare say, sir, that you +will be glad to escape the dirty suburb by which the road passes before +we get into the town.” + +“A good thought, Tom. It is very odd that fine towns always are +approached by dirty suburbs; a covert symbolical satire, perhaps, on the +ways to success in fine towns. Avarice or ambition go through very mean +little streets before they gain the place which they jostle the crowd to +win,--in the Townhall or on ‘Change. Happy the man who, like you, Tom, +finds that there is a shorter and a cleaner and a pleasanter way to goal +or to resting-place than that through the dirty suburbs!” + +They met but few passengers on their path through the fields,--a +respectable, staid, elderly couple, who had the air of a Dissenting +minister and his wife; a girl of fourteen leading a little boy seven +years younger by the hand; a pair of lovers, evidently lovers at +least to the eye of Tom Bowles; for, on regarding them as they passed +unheeding him, he winced, and his face changed. Even after they had +passed, Kenelm saw on the face that pain lingered there: the lips were +tightly compressed, and their corners gloomily drawn down. + +Just at this moment a dog rushed towards them with a short quick +bark,--a Pomeranian dog with pointed nose and pricked ears. It hushed +its bark as it neared Kenelm, sniffed his trousers, and wagged its tail. + +“By the sacred Nine,” cried Kenelm, “thou art the dog with the tin tray! +where is thy master?” + +The dog seemed to understand the question, for it turned its head +significantly; and Kenelm saw, seated under a lime-tree, at a good +distance from the path, a man, with book in hand, evidently employed in +sketching. + +“Come this way,” he said to Tom: “I recognize an acquaintance. You +will like him.” Tom desired no new acquaintance at that moment, but he +followed Kenelm submissively. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +“YOU see we are fated to meet again,” said Kenelm, stretching himself +at his ease beside the Wandering Minstrel, and motioning Tom to do the +same. “But you seem to add the accomplishment of drawing to that of +verse-making! You sketch from what you call Nature?” + +“From what I call Nature! yes, sometimes.” + +“And do you not find in drawing, as in verse-making, the truth that I +have before sought to din into your reluctant ears; namely, that Nature +has no voice except that which man breathes into her out of his mind? +I would lay a wager that the sketch you are now taking is rather an +attempt to make her embody some thought of your own, than to present her +outlines as they appear to any other observer. Permit me to judge for +myself.” And he bent over the sketch-book. It is often difficult for +one who is not himself an artist nor a connoisseur to judge whether the +pencilled jottings in an impromptu sketch are by the hand of a professed +master or a mere amateur. Kenelm was neither artist nor connoisseur, but +the mere pencil-work seemed to him much what might be expected from any +man with an accurate eye who had taken a certain number of lessons from +a good drawing-master. It was enough for him, however, that it furnished +an illustration of his own theory. “I was right,” he cried triumphantly. +“From this height there is a beautiful view, as it presents itself to +me; a beautiful view of the town, its meadows, its river, harmonized by +the sunset; for sunset, like gilding, unites conflicting colours, and +softens them in uniting. But I see nothing of that view in your sketch. +What I do see is to me mysterious.” + +“The view you suggest,” said the minstrel, “is no doubt very fine, but +it is for a Turner or a Claude to treat it. My grasp is not wide enough +for such a landscape.” + +“I see indeed in your sketch but one figure, a child.” + +“Hist! there she stands. Hist! while I put in this last touch.” + +Kenelm strained his sight, and saw far off a solitary little girl, who +was tossing something in the air (he could not distinguish what), and +catching it as it fell. She seemed standing on the very verge of the +upland, backed by rose-clouds gathered round the setting sun; below lay +in confused outlines the great town. In the sketch those outlines seemed +infinitely more confused, being only indicated by a few bold strokes; +but the figure and face of the child were distinct and lovely. There +was an ineffable sentiment in her solitude; there was a depth of quiet +enjoyment in her mirthful play, and in her upturned eyes. + +“But at that distance,” asked Kenelm, when the wanderer had finished his +last touch, and, after contemplating it, silently closed his book, and +turned round with a genial smile, “but at that distance, how can you +distinguish the girl’s face? How can you discover that the dim object +she has just thrown up and recaught is a ball made of flowers? Do you +know the child?” + +“I never saw her before this evening; but as I was seated here she was +straying around me alone, weaving into chains some wild-flowers which +she had gathered by the hedgerows yonder, next the high road; and as she +strung them she was chanting to herself some pretty nursery rhymes. +You can well understand that when I heard her thus chanting I became +interested, and as she came near me I spoke to her, and we soon made +friends. She told me she was an orphan, and brought up by a very old man +distantly related to her, who had been in some small trade and now lived +in a crowded lane in the heart of the town. He was very kind to her, and +being confined himself to the house by age or ailment he sent her out to +play in the fields on summer Sundays. She had no companions of her own +age. She said she did not like the other little girls in the lane; and +the only little girl she liked at school had a grander station in life, +and was not allowed to play with her, and so she came out to play alone; +and as long as the sun shines and the flowers bloom, she says she never +wants other society.” + +“Tom, do you hear that? As you will be residing in Luscombe, find out +this strange little girl, and be kind to her, Tom, for my sake.” + +Tom put his large hand upon Kenelm’s, making no other answer; but he +looked hard at the minstrel, recognized the genial charm of his voice +and face, and slid along the grass nearer to him. + +The minstrel continued: “While the child was talking to me I +mechanically took the flower-chains from her hands, and not thinking +what I was about, gathered them up into a ball. Suddenly she saw what +I had done, and instead of scolding me for spoiling her pretty chains, +which I richly deserved, was delighted to find I had twisted them into a +new plaything. She ran off with the ball, tossing it about till, excited +with her own joy, she got to the brow of the hill, and I began my +sketch.” + +“Is that charming face you have drawn like hers?” + +“No; only in part. I was thinking of another face while I sketched, but +it is not like that either; in fact, it is one of those patchworks which +we call ‘fancy heads,’ and I meant it to be another version of a thought +that I had just put into rhyme when the child came across me.” + +“May we hear the rhyme?” + +“I fear that if it did not bore yourself it would bore your friend.” + +“I am sure not. Tom, do you sing?” + +“Well, I _have_ sung,” said Tom, hanging his head sheepishly, “and I +should like to hear this gentleman.” + +“But I do not know these verses, just made, well enough to sing them; it +is enough if I can recall them well enough to recite.” Here the minstrel +paused a minute or so as if for recollection, and then, in the sweet +clear tones and the rare purity of enunciation which characterized his +utterance, whether in recital or song, gave to the following verses a +touching and a varied expression which no one could discover in merely +reading them. + + + THE FLOWER-GIRL BY THE CROSSING. + + “By the muddy crossing in the crowded streets + Stands a little maid with her basket full of posies, + Proffering all who pass her choice of knitted sweets, + Tempting Age with heart’s-ease, courting Youth with roses. + + “Age disdains the heart’s-ease, + Love rejects the roses; + London life is busy,-- + Who can stop for posies? + + “One man is too grave, another is too gay; + This man has his hothouse, that man not a penny: + Flowerets too are common in the month of May, + And the things most common least attract the many. + + “Ill, on London crossings, + Fares the sale of posies; + Age disdains the heart’s-ease, + Youth rejects the roses.” + + +When the verse-maker had done, he did not pause for approbation, nor +look modestly down, as do most people who recite their own verses, but +unaffectedly thinking much more of his art than his audience, hurried on +somewhat disconsolately,-- + +“I see with great grief that I am better at sketching than rhyming. Can +you” (appealing to Kenelm) “even comprehend what I mean by the verses?” + +KENELM.--“Do you comprehend, Tom?” + +TOM (in a whisper).--“No.” + +KENELM.--“I presume that by his flower-girl our friend means to +represent not only poetry, but a poetry like his own, which is not at +all the sort of poetry now in fashion. I, however, expand his meaning, +and by his flower-girl I understand any image of natural truth or beauty +for which, when we are living the artificial life of crowded streets, we +are too busy to give a penny.” + +“Take it as you please,” said the minstrel, smiling and sighing at the +same time; “but I have not expressed in words that which I did mean half +so well as I have expressed it in my sketch-book.” + +“Ah! and how?” asked Kenelm. + +“The image of my thought in the sketch, be it poetry or whatever you +prefer to call it, does not stand forlorn in the crowded streets: the +child stands on the brow of the green hill, with the city stretched in +confused fragments below, and, thoughtless of pennies and passers-by, +she is playing with the flowers she has gathered; but in play casting +them heavenward, and following them with heavenward eyes.” + +“Good!” muttered Kenelm, “good!” and then, after a long pause, he added, +in a still lower mutter, “Pardon me that remark of mine the other day +about a beefsteak. But own that I am right: what you call a sketch from +Nature is but a sketch of your own thought.” + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE child with the flower-ball had vanished from the brow of the hill; +sinking down amid the streets below, the rose-clouds had faded from the +horizon; and night was closing round, as the three men entered the +thick of the town. Tom pressed Kenelm to accompany him to his uncle’s, +promising him a hearty welcome and bed and board, but Kenelm declined. +He entertained a strong persuasion that it would be better for the +desired effect on Tom’s mind that he should be left alone with his +relations that night, but proposed that they should spend the next day +together, and agreed to call at the veterinary surgeon’s in the morning. + +When Tom quitted them at his uncle’s door, Kenelm said to the minstrel, +“I suppose you are going to some inn; may I accompany you? We can sup +together, and I should like to hear you talk upon poetry and Nature.” + +“You flatter me much; but I have friends in the town, with whom I lodge, +and they are expecting me. Do you not observe that I have changed my +dress? I am not known here as the ‘Wandering Minstrel.’” + +Kenelm glanced at the man’s attire, and for the first time observed +the change. It was still picturesque in its way, but it was such as +gentlemen of the highest rank frequently wear in the country,--the +knickerbocker costume,--very neat, very new, and complete, to the +square-toed shoes with their latchets and buckles. + +“I fear,” said Kenelm, gravely, “that your change of dress betokens +the neighbourhood of those pretty girls of whom you spoke in an earlier +meeting. According to the Darwinian doctrine of selection, fine plumage +goes far in deciding the preference of Jenny Wren and her sex, only we +are told that fine-feathered birds are very seldom songsters as well. It +is rather unfair to rivals when you unite both attractions.” + +The minstrel laughed. “There is but one girl in my friend’s house,--his +niece; she is very plain, and only thirteen. But to me the society of +women, whether ugly or pretty, is an absolute necessity; and I have been +trudging without it for so many days that I can scarcely tell you how +my thoughts seemed to shake off the dust of travel when I found myself +again in the presence of--” + +“Petticoat interest,” interrupted Kenelm. “Take care of yourself. My +poor friend with whom you found me is a grave warning against petticoat +interest, from which I hope to profit. He is passing through a great +sorrow; it might have been worse than sorrow. My friend is going to stay +in this town. If you are staying here too, pray let him see something +of you. It will do him a wondrous good if you can beguile him from this +real life into the gardens of poetland; but do not sing or talk of love +to him.” + +“I honour all lovers,” said the minstrel, with real tenderness in his +tone, “and would willingly serve to cheer or comfort your friend, if I +could; but I am bound elsewhere, and must leave Luscombe, which I visit +on business--money business--the day after to-morrow.” + +“So, too, must I. At least give us both some hours of your time +to-morrow.” + +“Certainly; from twelve to sunset I shall be roving about,--a mere +idler. If you will both come with me, it will be a great pleasure to +myself. Agreed! Well, then, I will call at your inn to-morrow at twelve; +and I recommend for your inn the one facing us,--The Golden Lamb. I have +heard it recommended for the attributes of civil people and good fare.” + +Kenelm felt that he here received his _conge_, and well comprehended the +fact that the minstrel, desiring to preserve the secret of his name, did +not give the address of the family with whom he was a guest. + +“But one word more,” said Kenelm. “Your host or hostess, if resident +here, can, no doubt, from your description of the little girl and the +old man her protector, learn the child’s address. If so, I should like +my companion to make friends with her. Petticoat interest there at least +will be innocent and safe. And I know nothing so likely to keep a big, +passionate heart like Tom’s, now aching with a horrible void, +occupied and softened, and turned to directions pure and gentle, as an +affectionate interest in a little child.” + +The minstrel changed colour: he even started. “Sir, are you a wizard +that you say that to me?” + +“I am not a wizard, but I guess from your question that you have a +little child of your own. So much the better: the child may keep you out +of much mischief. Remember the little child. Good evening.” + +Kenelm crossed the threshold of The Golden Lamb, engaged his room, made +his ablutions, ordered, and, with his usual zest, partook of his evening +meal; and then, feeling the pressure of that melancholic temperament +which he so strangely associated with Herculean constitutions, roused +himself up, and, seeking a distraction from thought, sauntered forth +into the gaslit streets. + +It was a large handsome town,--handsomer than Tor-Hadham, on account of +its site in a valley surrounded by wooded hills, and watered by the fair +stream whose windings we have seen as a brook,--handsomer, also, because +it boasted a fair cathedral, well cleared to the sight, and surrounded +by venerable old houses, the residences of the clergy or of the quiet +lay gentry with mediaeval tastes. The main street was thronged with +passengers,--some soberly returning home from the evening service; some, +the younger, lingering in pleasant promenade with their sweethearts or +families, or arm in arm with each other, and having the air of +bachelors or maidens unattached. Through this street Kenelm passed with +inattentive eye. A turn to the right took him towards the cathedral and +its surroundings. There all was solitary. The solitude pleased him, +and he lingered long, gazing on the noble church lifting its spires and +turrets into the deep blue starry air. + +Musingly, then, he strayed on, entering a labyrinth of gloomy lanes, in +which, though the shops were closed, many a door stood open, with men +of the working class lolling against the threshold, idly smoking their +pipes, or women seated on the doorsteps gossiping, while noisy children +were playing or quarrelling in the kennel. The whole did not present the +indolent side of an English Sabbath in the pleasantest and rosiest point +of view. Somewhat quickening his steps, he entered a broader street, +attracted to it involuntarily by a bright light in the centre. On +nearing the light he found that it shone forth from a gin-palace, of +which the mahogany doors opened and shut momently as customers went in +and out. It was the handsomest building he had seen in his walk, next to +that of the cathedral. “The new civilization versus the old,” murmured +Kenelm. As he so murmured, a hand was laid on his arm with a sort +of timid impudence. He looked down and saw a young face, but it had +survived the look of youth; it was worn and hard, and the bloom on it +was not that of Nature’s giving. “Are you kind to-night?” asked a husky +voice. + +“Kind!” said Kenelm, with mournful tones and softened eyes, “kind! Alas, +my poor sister mortal! if pity be kindness, who can see you and not be +kind?” + +The girl released his arm, and he walked on. She stood some moments +gazing after him till out of sight, then she drew her hand suddenly +across her eyes, and retracing her steps, was, in her turn, caught hold +of by a rougher hand than hers, as she passed the gin-palace. She shook +off the grasp with a passionate scorn, and went straight home. Home! is +that the right word? Poor sister mortal! + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +AND now Kenelm found himself at the extremity of the town, and on the +banks of the river. Small squalid houses still lined the bank for some +way, till, nearing the bridge, they abruptly ceased, and he passed +through a broad square again into the main street. On the other side +of the street there was a row of villa-like mansions, with gardens +stretching towards the river. + +All around in the thoroughfare was silent and deserted. By this time +the passengers had gone home. The scent of night-flowers from the +villa-gardens came sweet on the starlit air. Kenelm paused to inhale it, +and then lifting his eyes, hitherto downcast, as are the eyes of men +in meditative moods, he beheld, on the balcony of the nearest villa, +a group of well-dressed persons. The balcony was unusually wide and +spacious. On it was a small round table, on which were placed wine and +fruits. Three ladies were seated round the table on wire-work chairs, +and on the side nearest to Kenelm, one man. In that man, now slightly +turning his profile, as if to look towards the river, Kenelm recognized +the minstrel. He was still in his picturesque knickerbocker dress, +and his clear-cut features, with the clustering curls of hair, and +Rubens-like hue and shape of beard, had more than their usual beauty, +softened in the light of skies, to which the moon, just risen, added +deeper and fuller radiance. The ladies were in evening dress, but Kenelm +could not distinguish their faces hidden behind the minstrel. He moved +softly across the street, and took his stand behind a buttress in +the low wall of the garden, from which he could have full view of the +balcony, unseen himself. In this watch he had no other object than +that of a vague pleasure. The whole grouping had in it a kind of scenic +romance, and he stopped as one stops before a picture. + +He then saw that of the three ladies one was old; another was a +slight girl of the age of twelve or thirteen; the third appeared to be +somewhere about seven or eight and twenty. She was dressed with more +elegance than the others. On her neck, only partially veiled by a thin +scarf, there was the glitter of jewels; and, as she now turned her +full face towards the moon, Kenelm saw that she was very handsome,--a +striking kind of beauty, calculated to fascinate a poet or an +artist,--not unlike Raphael’s Fornarina, dark, with warm tints. + +Now there appeared at the open window a stout, burly, middle-aged +gentleman, looking every inch of him a family man, a moneyed man, sleek +and prosperous. He was bald, fresh-coloured, and with light whiskers. + +“Holloa,” he said, in an accent very slightly foreign, and with a loud +clear voice, which Kenelm heard distinctly, “is it not time for you to +come in?” + +“Don’t be so tiresome, Fritz,” said the handsome lady, half petulantly, +half playfully, in the way ladies address the tiresome spouses they lord +it over. “Your friend has been sulking the whole evening, and is only +just beginning to be pleasant as the moon rises.” + +“The moon has a good effect on poets and other mad folks, I dare say,” + said the bald man, with a good-humoured laugh. “But I can’t have my +little niece laid up again just as she is on the mend: Annie, come in.” + +The girl obeyed reluctantly. The old lady rose too. + +“Ah, Mother, you are wise,” said the bald man; “and a game at euchre is +safer than poetizing in night air.” He wound his arm round the old lady +with a careful fondness, for she moved with some difficulty as if rather +lame. “As for you two sentimentalists and moon-gazers, I give you ten +minutes’ time,--not more, mind.” + +“Tyrant!” said the minstrel. + +The balcony now held only two forms,--the minstrel and the handsome +lady. The window was closed, and partially veiled by muslin draperies, +but Kenelm caught glimpses of the room within. He could see that the +room, lit by a lamp on the centre table and candles elsewhere, was +decorated and fitted up with cost and in a taste not English. He could +see, for instance, that the ceiling was painted, and the walls were not +papered, but painted in panels between arabesque pilasters. + +“They are foreigners,” thought Kenelm, “though the man does speak +English so well. That accounts for playing euchre of a Sunday evening, +as if there were no harm in it. Euchre is an American game. The man +is called Fritz. Ah! I guess--Germans who have lived a good deal in +America; and the verse-maker said he was at Luscombe on pecuniary +business. Doubtless his host is a merchant, and the verse-maker in some +commercial firm. That accounts for his concealment of name, and fear of +its being known that he was addicted in his holiday to tastes and habits +so opposed to his calling.” + +While he was thus thinking, the lady had drawn her chair close to the +minstrel, and was speaking to him with evident earnestness, but in tones +too low for Kenelm to hear. Still it seemed to him, by her manner and by +the man’s look, as if she were speaking in some sort of reproach, +which he sought to deprecate. Then he spoke, also in a whisper, and +she averted her face for a moment; then she held out her hand, and the +minstrel kissed it. Certainly, thus seen, the two might well be taken +for lovers; and the soft night, the fragrance of the flowers, silence +and solitude, stars and moon light, all girt them as with an atmosphere +of love. Presently the man rose and leaned over the balcony, propping +his cheek on his hand, and gazing on the river. The lady rose too, +and also leaned over the balustrade, her dark hair almost touching the +auburn locks of her companion. + +Kenelm sighed. Was it from envy, from pity, from fear? I know not; but +he sighed. + +After a brief pause, the lady said, still in low tones, but not too low +this time to escape Kenelm’s fine sense of hearing,-- + +“Tell me those verses again. I must remember every word of them when you +are gone.” + +The man shook his head gently, and answered, but inaudibly. + +“Do,” said the lady; “set them to music later; and the next time you +come I will sing them. I have thought of a title for them.” + +“What?” asked the minstrel. + +“Love’s quarrel.” + +The minstrel turned his head, and their eyes met, and, in meeting, +lingered long. Then he moved away, and with face turned from her +and towards the river, gave the melody of his wondrous voice to the +following lines:-- + + + LOVE’S QUARREL. + + “Standing by the river, gazing on the river, + See it paved with starbeams,--heaven is at our feet; + Now the wave is troubled, now the rushes quiver; + Vanished is the starlight: it was a deceit. + + “Comes a little cloudlet ‘twixt ourselves and heaven, + And from all the river fades the silver track; + Put thine arms around me, whisper low, ‘Forgiven!’ + See how on the river starlight settles back.” + + +When he had finished, still with face turned aside, the lady did not, +indeed, whisper “Forgiven,” nor put her arms around him; but, as if by +irresistible impulse, she laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. + +The minstrel started. + +There came to his ear,--he knew not from whence, from whom,-- + +“Mischief! mischief! Remember the little child!” + +“Hush!” he said, staring round. “Did you not hear a voice?” + +“Only yours,” said the lady. + +“It was our guardian angel’s, Amalie. It came in time. We will go +within.” + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE next morning betimes Kenelm visited Tom at his uncle’s home. A +comfortable and respectable home it was, like that of an owner in easy +circumstances. The veterinary surgeon himself was intelligent, and +apparently educated beyond the range of his calling; a childless +widower, between sixty and seventy, living with a sister, an old maid. +They were evidently much attached to Tom, and delighted by the hope of +keeping him with them. Tom himself looked rather sad, but not sullen, +and his face brightened wonderfully at first sight of Kenelm. That +oddity made himself as pleasant and as much like other people as he +could in conversing with the old widower and the old maid, and took +leave, engaging Tom to be at his inn at half past twelve, and spend the +day with him and the minstrel. He then returned to the Golden Lamb, and +waited there for his first visitant; the minstrel. That votary of the +muse arrived punctually at twelve o’clock. His countenance was less +cheerful and sunny than usual. Kenelm made no allusion to the scene +he had witnessed, nor did his visitor seem to suspect that Kenelm had +witnessed it or been the utterer of that warning voice. + +KENELM.--“I have asked my friend Tom Bowles to come a little later, +because I wished you to be of use to him, and, in order to be so, I +should suggest how.” + +THE MINSTREL.--“Pray do.” + +KENELM.--“You know that I am not a poet, and I do not have much +reverence for verse-making merely as a craft.” + +THE MINSTREL.--“Neither have I.” + +KENELM.--“But I have a great reverence for poetry as a priesthood. I +felt that reverence for you when you sketched and talked priesthood +last evening, and placed in my heart--I hope forever while it beats--the +image of the child on the sunlit hill, high above the abodes of men, +tossing her flower-ball heavenward and with heavenward eyes.” + +The singer’s cheek coloured high, and his lip quivered: he was very +sensitive to praise; most singers are. + +Kenelm resumed, “I have been educated in the Realistic school, and with +realism I am discontented, because in realism as a school there is no +truth. It contains but a bit of truth, and that the coldest and hardest +bit of it, and he who utters a bit of truth and suppresses the rest of +it tells a lie.” + +THE MINSTREL (slyly).--“Does the critic who says to me, ‘Sing of +beefsteak, because the appetite for food is a real want of daily life, +and don’t sing of art and glory and love, because in daily life a man +may do without such ideas,’--tell a lie?” + +KENELM.--“Thank you for that rebuke. I submit to it. No doubt I did tell +a lie,--that is, if I were quite in earnest in my recommendation, and if +not in earnest, why--” + +THE MINSTREL.--“You belied yourself.” + +KENELM.--“Very likely. I set out on my travels to escape from shams, and +begin to discover that I am a sham _par excellence_. But I suddenly +come across you, as a boy dulled by his syntax and his vulgar fractions +suddenly comes across a pleasant poem or a picture-book, and feels his +wits brighten up. I owe you much: you have done me a world of good.” + +“I cannot guess how.” + +“Possibly not, but you have shown me how the realism of Nature herself +takes colour and life and soul when seen on the ideal or poetic side +of it. It is not exactly the words that you say or sing that do me the +good, but they awaken within me new trains of thought, which I seek +to follow out. The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than +dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. +Therefore, O singer! whatever be the worth in critical eyes of your +songs, I am glad to remember that you would like to go through the world +always singing.” + +“Pardon me: you forget that I added, ‘if life were always young, and the +seasons were always summer.’” + +“I do not forget. But if youth and summer fade for you, you leave youth +and summer behind you as you pass along,--behind in hearts which mere +realism would make always old, and counting their slothful beats under +the gray of a sky without sun or stars; wherefore I pray you to consider +how magnificent a mission the singer’s is,--to harmonize your life with +your song, and toss your flowers, as your child does, heavenward, with +heavenward eyes. Think only of this when you talk with my sorrowing +friend, and you will do him good, as you have done me, without being +able to guess how a seeker after the Beautiful, such as you, carries us +along with him on his way; so that we, too, look out for beauty, and see +it in the wild-flowers to which we had been blind before.” + +Here Tom entered the little sanded parlour where this dialogue had been +held, and the three men sallied forth, taking the shortest cut from the +town into the fields and woodlands. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +WHETHER or not his spirits were raised by Kenelm’s praise and +exhortations, the minstrel that day talked with a charm that spellbound +Tom, and Kenelm was satisfied with brief remarks on his side tending to +draw out the principal performer. + +The talk was drawn from outward things, from natural objects,--objects +that interest children, and men who, like Tom Bowles, have been +accustomed to view surroundings more with the heart’s eye than the +mind’s eye. This rover about the country knew much of the habits of +birds and beasts and insects, and told anecdotes of them with a mixture +of humour and pathos, which fascinated Tom’s attention, made him laugh +heartily, and sometimes brought tears into his big blue eyes. + +They dined at an inn by the wayside, and the dinner was mirthful; then +they wended their way slowly back. By the declining daylight their talk +grew somewhat graver, and Kenelm took more part in it. Tom listened +mute,--still fascinated. At length, as the town came in sight, they +agreed to halt a while, in a bosky nook soft with mosses and sweet with +wild thyme. + +There, as they lay stretched at their ease, the birds hymning vesper +songs amid the boughs above, or dropping, noiseless and fearless, for +their evening food on the swards around them, the wanderer said to +Kenelm, “You tell me that you are no poet, yet I am sure you have a +poet’s perception: you must have written poetry?” + +“Not I; as I before told you, only school verses in dead languages: but +I found in my knapsack this morning a copy of some rhymes, made by a +fellow-collegian, which I put into my pocket meaning to read them to +you both. They are not verses like yours, which evidently burst from you +spontaneously, and are not imitated from any other poets. These verses +were written by a Scotchman, and smack of imitation from the old ballad +style. There is little to admire in the words themselves, but there +is something in the idea which struck me as original, and impressed me +sufficiently to keep a copy, and somehow or other it got into the leaves +of one of the two books I carried with me from home.” + +“What are those books? Books of poetry both, I will venture to wager--” + +“Wrong! Both metaphysical, and dry as a bone. Tom, light your pipe, and +you, sir, lean more at ease on your elbow; I should warn you that the +ballad is long. Patience!” + +“Attention!” said the minstrel. + +“Fire!” added Tom. + +Kenelm began to read,--and he read well. + + + LORD RONALD’S BRIDE. + + PART I. + + “WHY gathers the crowd in the market-place + Ere the stars have yet left the sky?” + “For a holiday show and an act of grace,-- + At the sunrise a witch shall die.” + + “What deed has she done to deserve that doom? + Has she blighted the standing corn, + Or rifled for philters a dead man’s tomb, + Or rid mothers of babes new-born?” + + “Her pact with the fiend was not thus revealed, + She taught sinners the Word to hear; + The hungry she fed, and the sick she healed, + And was held as a Saint last year. + + “But a holy man, who at Rome had been, + Had discovered, by book and bell, + That the marvels she wrought were through arts unclean, + And the lies of the Prince of Hell. + + “And our Mother the Church, for the dame was rich, + And her husband was Lord of Clyde, + Would fain have been mild to this saint-like witch + If her sins she had not denied. + + “But hush, and come nearer to see the sight, + Sheriff, halberds, and torchmen,--look! + That’s the witch standing mute in her garb of white, + By the priest with his bell and book.” + + So the witch was consumed on the sacred pyre, + And the priest grew in power and pride, + And the witch left a son to succeed his sire + In the halls and the lands of Clyde. + + And the infant waxed comely and strong and brave, + But his manhood had scarce begun, + When his vessel was launched on the northern wave + To the shores which are near the sun. + + PART II. + + Lord Ronald has come to his halls in Clyde + With a bride of some unknown race; + Compared with the man who would kiss that bride + Wallace wight were a coward base. + + Her eyes had the glare of the mountain-cat + When it springs on the hunter’s spear, + At the head of the board when that lady sate + Hungry men could not eat for fear. + + And the tones of her voice had that deadly growl + Of the bloodhound that scents its prey; + No storm was so dark as that lady’s scowl + Under tresses of wintry gray. + + “Lord Ronald! men marry for love or gold, + Mickle rich must have been thy bride!” + “Man’s heart may be bought, woman’s hand be sold, + On the banks of our northern Clyde. + + “My bride is, in sooth, mickle rich to me + Though she brought not a groat in dower, + For her face, couldst thou see it as I do see, + Is the fairest in hall or bower!” + + Quoth the bishop one day to our lord the king, + “Satan reigns on the Clyde alway, + And the taint in the blood of the witch doth cling + To the child that she brought to day. + + “Lord Ronald hath come from the Paynim land + With a bride that appals the sight; + Like his dam she hath moles on her dread right hand, + And she turns to a snake at night. + + “It is plain that a Scot who can blindly dote + On the face of an Eastern ghoul, + And a ghoul who was worth not a silver groat, + Is a Scot who has lost his soul. + + “It were wise to have done with this demon tree + Which has teemed with such caukered fruit; + Add the soil where it stands to my holy See, + And consign to the flames its root.” + + “Holy man!” quoth King James, and he laughed, “we know + That thy tongue never wags in vain, + But the Church cist is full, and the king’s is low, + And the Clyde is a fair domain. + + “Yet a knight that’s bewitched by a laidly fere + Needs not much to dissolve the spell; + We will summon the bride and the bridegroom here + Be at hand with thy book and bell.” + + PART III. + + Lord Ronald stood up in King James’s court, + And his dame by his dauntless side; + The barons who came in the hopes of sport + Shook with fright when they saw the bride. + + The bishop, though armed with his bell and book, + Grew as white as if turned to stone; + It was only our king who could face that look, + But he spoke with a trembling tone. + + “Lord Ronald, the knights of thy race and mine + Should have mates in their own degree; + What parentage, say, hath that bride of thine + Who hath come from the far countree? + + “And what was her dowry in gold or land, + Or what was the charm, I pray, + That a comely young gallant should woo the hand + Of the ladye we see to-day?” + + And the lords would have laughed, but that awful dame + Struck them dumb with her thunder-frown: + “Saucy king, did I utter my father’s name, + Thou wouldst kneel as his liegeman down. + + “Though I brought to Lord Ronald nor lands nor gold, + Nor the bloom of a fading cheek; + Yet, were I a widow, both young and old + Would my hand and my dowry seek. + + “For the wish that he covets the most below, + And would hide from the saints above, + Which he dares not to pray for in weal or woe, + Is the dowry I bring my love. + + “Let every man look in his heart and see + What the wish he most lusts to win, + And then let him fasten his eyes on me + While he thinks of his darling sin.” + + And every man--bishop, and lord, and king + Thought of what he most wished to win, + And, fixing his eye on that grewsome thing, + He beheld his own darling sin. + + No longer a ghoul in that face he saw; + It was fair as a boy’s first love: + The voice that had curdled his veins with awe + Was the coo of the woodland dove. + + Each heart was on flame for the peerless dame + At the price of the husband’s life; + Bright claymores flash out, and loud voices shout, + “In thy widow shall be my wife.” + + Then darkness fell over the palace hall, + More dark and more dark it fell, + And a death-groan boomed hoarse underneath the pall, + And was drowned amid roar and yell. + + When light through the lattice-pane stole once more, + It was gray as a wintry dawn, + And the bishop lay cold on the regal floor, + With a stain on his robes of lawn. + + Lord Ronald was standing beside the dead, + In the scabbard he plunged his sword, + And with visage as wan as the corpse, he said, + “Lo! my ladye hath kept her word. + + “Now I leave her to others to woo and win, + For no longer I find her fair; + Could I look on the face of my darling sin, + I should see but a dead man’s there. + + “And the dowry she brought me is here returned, + For the wish of my heart has died, + It is quenched in the blood of the priest who burned + My sweet mother, the Saint of Clyde.” + + Lord Ronald strode over the stony floor, + Not a hand was outstretched to stay; + Lord Ronald has passed through the gaping door, + Not an eye ever traced the way. + + And the ladye, left widowed, was prized above + All the maidens in hall and bower, + Many bartered their lives for that ladye’s love, + And their souls for that ladye’s dower. + + God grant that the wish which I dare not pray + Be not that which I lust to win, + And that ever I look with my first dismay + On the face of my darling sin! + + +As he ceased, Kenelm’s eye fell on Tom’s face upturned to his own, with +open lips, an intent stare, and paled cheeks, and a look of that higher +sort of terror which belongs to awe. The man, then recovering himself, +tried to speak, and attempted a sickly smile, but neither would do. +He rose abruptly and walked away, crept under the shadow of a dark +beech-tree, and stood there leaning against the trunk. + +“What say you to the ballad?” asked Kenelm of the singer. + +“It is not without power,” answered he. + +“Ay, of a certain kind.” + +The minstrel looked hard at Kenelm, and dropped his eyes, with a +heightened glow on his cheek. + +“The Scotch are a thoughtful race. The Scot who wrote this thing may +have thought of a day when he saw beauty in the face of a darling sin; +but, if so, it is evident that his sight recovered from that glamoury. +Shall we walk on? Come, Tom.” + +The minstrel left them at the entrance of the town, saying, “I regret +that I cannot see more of either of you, as I quit Luscombe at daybreak. +Here, by the by, I forgot to give it before, is the address you wanted.” + +KENELM.--“Of the little child. I am glad you remembered her.” + +The minstrel again looked hard at Kenelm, this time without dropping his +eyes. Kenelm’s expression of face was so simply quiet that it might be +almost called vacant. + +Kenelm and Tom continued to walk on towards the veterinary surgeon’s +house, for some minutes silently. Then Tom said in a whisper, “Did you +not mean those rhymes to hit me here--_here_?” and he struck his breast. + +“The rhymes were written long before I saw you, Tom; but it is well if +their meaning strike us all. Of you, my friend, I have no fear now. Are +you not already a changed man?” + +“I feel as if I were going through a change,” answered Tom, in slow, +dreary accents. “In hearing you and that gentleman talk so much of +things that I never thought of, I felt something in me,--you will laugh +when I tell you,--something like a bird.” + +“Like a bird,--good!--a bird has wings.” + +“Just so.” + +“And you felt wings that you were unconscious of before, fluttering and +beating themselves as against the wires of a cage. You were true to +your instincts then, my dear fellow-man,--instincts of space and Heaven. +Courage!--the cage-door will open soon. And now, practically speaking, +I give you this advice in parting: You have a quick and sensitive mind +which you have allowed that strong body of yours to incarcerate and +suppress. Give that mind fair play. Attend to the business of your +calling diligently; the craving for regular work is the healthful +appetite of mind: but in your spare hours cultivate the new ideas which +your talk with men who have been accustomed to cultivate the mind more +than the body has sown within you. Belong to a book-club, and interest +yourself in books. A wise man has said, ‘Books widen the present by +adding to it the past and the future.’ Seek the company of educated men +and educated women too; and when you are angry with another, reason +with him: don’t knock him down; and don’t be knocked down yourself by an +enemy much stronger than yourself,--Drink. Do all this, and when I see +you again you will be--” + +“Stop, sir,--you will see me again?” + +“Yes, if we both live, I promise it.” + +“When?” + +“You see, Tom, we have both of us something in our old selves which we +must work off. You will work off your something by repose, and I must +work off mine, if I can, by moving about. So I am on my travels. May +we both have new selves better than the old selves, when we again shake +hands! For your part try your best, dear Tom, and Heaven prosper you.” + +“And Heaven bless you!” cried Tom, fervently, with tears rolling +unheeded from his bold blue eyes. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THOUGH Kenelm left Luscombe on Tuesday morning, he did not appear at +Neesdale Park till the Wednesday, a little before the dressing-bell for +dinner. His adventures in the interim are not worth repeating. He had +hoped he might fall in again with the minstrel, but he did not. + +His portmanteau had arrived, and he heaved a sigh as he cased himself in +a gentleman’s evening dress. “Alas! I have soon got back again into my +own skin.” + +There were several other guests in the house, though not a +large party,--they had been asked with an eye to the approaching +election,--consisting of squires and clergy from remoter parts of the +county. Chief among the guests in rank and importance, and rendered by +the occasion the central object of interest, was George Belvoir. + +Kenelm bore his part in this society with a resignation that partook of +repentance. + +The first day he spoke very little, and was considered a very dull young +man by the lady he took in to dinner. Mr. Travers in vain tried to draw +him out. He had anticipated much amusement from the eccentricities of +his guest, who had talked volubly enough in the fernery, and was sadly +disappointed. “I feel,” he whispered to Mrs. Campion, “like poor Lord +Pomfret, who, charmed with Punch’s lively conversation, bought him, and +was greatly surprised that, when he had once brought him home, Punch +would not talk.” + +“But your Punch listens,” said Mrs. Campion, “and he observes.” + +George Belvoir, on the other hand, was universally declared to be very +agreeable. Though not naturally jovial, he forced himself to appear +so,--laughing loud with the squires, and entering heartily with +their wives and daughters into such topics as county-balls and +croquet-parties; and when after dinner he had, Cato-like, ‘warmed his +virtue with wine,’ the virtue came out very lustily in praise of good +men,--namely, men of his own party,--and anathemas on bad men,--namely, +men of the other party. + +Now and then he appealed to Kenelm, and Kenelm always returned the same +answer, “There is much in what you say.” + +The first evening closed in the usual way in country houses. There was +some lounging under moonlight on the terrace before the house; then +there was some singing by young lady amateurs, and a rubber of whist for +the elders; then wine-and-water, hand-candlesticks, a smoking-room for +those who smoked, and bed for those who did not. + +In the course of the evening, Cecilia, partly in obedience to the duties +of hostess and partly from that compassion for shyness which kindly and +high-bred persons entertain, had gone a little out of her way to allure +Kenelm forth from the estranged solitude he had contrived to weave +around him. In vain for the daughter as for the father. He replied to +her with the quiet self-possession which should have convinced her that +no man on earth was less entitled to indulgence for the gentlemanlike +infirmity of shyness, and no man less needed the duties of any hostess +for the augmentation of his comforts, or rather for his diminished sense +of discomfort; but his replies were in monosyllables, and made with the +air of a man who says in his heart, “If this creature would but leave me +alone!” + +Cecilia, for the first time in her life, was piqued, and, strange to +say, began to feel more interest about this indifferent stranger than +about the popular, animated, pleasant George Belvoir, who she knew by +womanly instinct was as much in love with her as he could be. + +Cecilia Travers that night on retiring to rest told her maid, smilingly, +that she was too tired to have her hair done; and yet, when the maid +was dismissed, she looked at herself in the glass more gravely and more +discontentedly than she had ever looked there before; and, tired though +she was, stood at the window gazing into the moonlit night for a good +hour after the maid left her. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +KENELM CHILLINGLY has now been several days a guest at Neesdale Park. +He has recovered speech; the other guests have gone, including George +Belvoir. Leopold Travers has taken a great fancy to Kenelm. Leopold +was one of those men, not uncommon perhaps in England, who, with great +mental energies, have little book-knowledge, and when they come +in contact with a book-reader who is not a pedant feel a pleasant +excitement in his society, a source of interest in comparing notes with +him, a constant surprise in finding by what venerable authorities the +deductions which their own mother-wit has drawn from life are supported, +or by what cogent arguments derived from books those deductions are +contravened or upset. Leopold Travers had in him that sense of humour +which generally accompanies a strong practical understanding (no man, +for instance, has more practical understanding than a Scot, and no man +has a keener susceptibility to humour), and not only enjoyed Kenelm’s +odd way of expressing himself, but very often mistook Kenelm’s irony for +opinion spoken in earnest. + +Since his early removal from the capital and his devotion to +agricultural pursuits, it was so seldom that Leopold Travers met a man +by whose conversation his mind was diverted to other subjects than those +which were incidental to the commonplace routine of his life that he +found in Kenelm’s views of men and things a source of novel amusement, +and a stirring appeal to such metaphysical creeds of his own as had been +formed unconsciously, and had long reposed unexamined in the recesses of +an intellect shrewd and strong, but more accustomed to dictate than to +argue. Kenelm, on his side, saw much in his host to like and to admire; +but, reversing their relative positions in point of years, he conversed +with Travers as with a mind younger than his own. Indeed, it was one +of his crotchety theories that each generation is in substance mentally +older than the generation preceding it, especially in all that relates +to science; and, as he would say, “The study of life is a science, and +not an art.” + +But Cecilia,--what impression did she create upon the young visitor? +Was he alive to the charm of her rare beauty, to the grace of a mind +sufficiently stored for commune with those who love to think and to +imagine, and yet sufficiently feminine and playful to seize the sportive +side of realities, and allow their proper place to the trifles which +make the sum of human things? An impression she did make, and that +impression was new to him and pleasing. Nay, sometimes in her presence +and sometimes when alone, he fell into abstracted consultations with +himself, saying, “Kenelm Chillingly, now that thou hast got back into +thy proper skin, dost thou not think that thou hadst better remain +there? Couldst thou not be contented with thy lot as erring descendant +of Adam, if thou couldst win for thy mate so faultless a descendant of +Eve as now flits before thee?” But he could not abstract from himself +any satisfactory answer to the question he had addressed to himself. + +Once he said abruptly to Travers, as, on their return from their +rambles, they caught a glimpse of Cecilia’s light form bending over the +flower-beds on the lawn, “Do you admire Virgil?” + +“To say truth I have not read Virgil since I was a boy; and, between you +and me, I then thought him rather monotonous.” + +“Perhaps because his verse is so smooth in its beauty?” + +“Probably. When one is very young one’s taste is faulty; and if a poet +is not faulty, we are apt to think he wants vivacity and fire.” + +“Thank you for your lucid explanation,” answered Kenelm, adding musingly +to himself, “I am afraid I should yawn very often if I were married to a +Miss Virgil.” + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE house of Mr. Travers contained a considerable collection of family +portraits, few of them well painted, but the Squire was evidently proud +of such evidences of ancestry. They not only occupied a considerable +space on the walls of the reception rooms, but swarmed into the +principal sleeping-chambers, and smiled or frowned on the beholder from +dark passages and remote lobbies. One morning, Cecilia, on her way +to the china closet, found Kenelm gazing very intently upon a female +portrait consigned to one of those obscure receptacles by which through +a back staircase he gained the only approach from the hall to his +chamber. + +“I don’t pretend to be a good judge of paintings,” said Kenelm, as +Cecilia paused beside him; “but it strikes me that this picture is very +much better than most of those to which places of honour are assigned in +your collection. And the face itself is so lovely that it would add an +embellishment to the princeliest galleries.” + +“Yes,” said Cecilia, with a half-sigh. “The face is lovely, and the +portrait is considered one of Lely’s rarest masterpieces. It used to +hang over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room. My father had it placed +here many years ago.” + +“Perhaps because he discovered it was not a family portrait?” + +“On the contrary,--because it grieves him to think it is a family +portrait. Hush! I hear his footstep: don’t speak of it to him; don’t let +him see you looking at it. The subject is very painful to him.” + +Here Cecilia vanished into the china closet and Kenelm turned off to his +own room. + +What sin committed by the original in the time of Charles II. but only +discovered in the reign of Victoria could have justified Leopold Travers +in removing the most pleasing portrait in the house from the honoured +place it had occupied, and banishing it to so obscure a recess? Kenelm +said no more on the subject, and indeed an hour afterwards had dismissed +it from his thoughts. The next day he rode out with Travers and +Cecilia. Their way passed through quiet shady lanes without any purposed +direction, when suddenly, at the spot where three of those lanes met on +an angle of common ground, a lonely gray tower, in the midst of a wide +space of grass-land which looked as if it had once been a park, with +huge boles of pollarded oak dotting the space here and there, rose +before them. + +“Cissy!” cried Travers, angrily reining in his horse and stopping short +in a political discussion which he had forced upon Kenelm, “Cissy! +How comes this? We have taken the wrong turn! No matter, I see there,” + pointing to the right, “the chimney-pots of old Mondell’s homestead. He +has not yet promised his vote to George Belvoir. I’ll go and have a talk +with him. Turn back, you and Mr. Chillingly,--meet me at Terner’s Green, +and wait for me there till I come. I need not excuse myself to you, +Chillingly. A vote is a vote.” So saying, the Squire, whose ordinary +riding-horse was an old hunter, halted, turned, and, no gate being +visible, put the horse over a stiff fence and vanished in the direction +of old Mondell’s chimney-pots. Kenelm, scarcely hearing his host’s +instructions to Cecilia and excuses to himself, remained still and +gazing on the old tower thus abruptly obtruded on his view. + +Though no learned antiquarian like his father, Kenelm had a strange +fascinating interest in all relics of the past; and old gray towers, +where they are not church towers, are very rarely to be seen in England. +All around the old gray tower spoke with an unutterable mournfulness +of a past in ruins: you could see remains of some large Gothic building +once attached to it, rising here and there in fragments of deeply +buttressed walls; you could see in a dry ditch, between high ridges, +where there had been a fortified moat: nay, you could even see where +once had been the bailey hill from which a baron of old had dispensed +justice. Seldom indeed does the most acute of antiquarians discover +that remnant of Norman times on lands still held by the oldest of +Anglo-Norman families. Then, the wild nature of the demesne around; +those ranges of sward, with those old giant oak-trunks, hollowed within +and pollarded at top,--all spoke, in unison with the gray tower, of a +past as remote from the reign of Victoria as the Pyramids are from the +sway of the Viceroy of Egypt. + +“Let us turn back,” said Miss Travers; “my father would not like me to +stay here.” + +“Pardon me a moment. I wish my father were here; he would stay till +sunset. But what is the history of that old tower? a history it must +have.” + +“Every home has a history, even a peasant’s hut,” said Cecilia. “But do +pardon me if I ask you to comply with my father’s request. I at least +must turn back.” + +Thus commanded, Kenelm reluctantly withdrew his gaze from the ruin and +regained Cecilia, who was already some paces in return down the lane. + +“I am far from a very inquisitive man by temperament,” said Kenelm, “so +far as the affairs of the living are concerned. But I should not care to +open a book if I had no interest in the past. Pray indulge my curiosity +to learn something about that old tower. It could not look more +melancholy and solitary if I had built it myself.” + +“Its most melancholy associations are with a very recent past,” answered +Cecilia. “The tower, in remote times, formed the keep of a castle +belonging to the most ancient and once the most powerful family in these +parts. The owners were barons who took active share in the Wars of the +Roses. The last of them sided with Richard III., and after the battle +of Bosworth the title was attainted, and the larger portion of the lands +was confiscated. Loyalty to a Plantagenet was of course treason to +a Tudor. But the regeneration of the family rested with their direct +descendants, who had saved from the general wreck of their fortunes what +may be called a good squire’s estate,--about, perhaps, the same rental +as my father’s, but of much larger acreage. These squires, however, +were more looked up to in the county than the wealthiest peer. They +were still by far the oldest family in the county; and traced in their +pedigree alliances with the most illustrious houses in English history. +In themselves too for many generations they were a high-spirited, +hospitable, popular race, living unostentatiously on their income, and +contented with their rank of squires. The castle, ruined by time and +siege, they did not attempt to restore. They dwelt in a house near to +it, built about Elizabeth’s time, which you could not see, for it lies +in a hollow behind the tower,--a moderate-sized, picturesque, country +gentleman’s house. Our family intermarried with them,--the portrait you +saw was a daughter of their house,--and very proud was any squire in the +county of intermarriage with the Fletwodes.” + +“Fletwode,--that was their name? I have a vague recollection of having +heard the name connected with some disastrous--oh, but it can’t be the +same family: pray go on.” + +“I fear it is the same family. But I will finish the story as I have +heard it. The property descended at last to one Bertram Fletwode, who, +unfortunately, obtained the reputation of being a very clever man of +business. There was some mining company in which, with other gentlemen +in the county, he took great interest; invested largely in shares; +became the head of the direction--” + +“I see; and was of course ruined.” + +“No; worse than that: he became very rich; and, unhappily, became +desirous of being richer still. I have heard that there was a great +mania for speculations just about that time. He embarked in these, and +prospered, till at last he was induced to invest a large share of the +fortune thus acquired in the partnership of a bank which enjoyed a high +character. Up to that time he had retained popularity and esteem in +the county; but the squires who shared in the adventures of the mining +company, and knew little or nothing about other speculations in which +his name did not appear, professed to be shocked at the idea of a +Fletwode of Fletwode being ostensibly joined in partnership with a Jones +of Clapham in a London bank.” + +“Slow folks, those country squires,--behind the progress of the age. +Well?” + +“I have heard that Bertram Fletwode was himself very reluctant to take +this step, but was persuaded to do so by his son. This son, Alfred, was +said to have still greater talents for business than the father, and +had been not only associated with but consulted by him in all the later +speculations which had proved so fortunate. Mrs. Campion knew Alfred +Fletwode very well. She describes him as handsome, with quick, eager +eyes; showy and imposing in his talk; immensely ambitious, more +ambitious than avaricious,--collecting money less for its own sake than +for that which it could give,--rank and power. According to her it was +the dearest wish of his heart to claim the old barony, but not before +there could go with the barony a fortune adequate to the lustre of a +title so ancient, and equal to the wealth of modern peers with higher +nominal rank.” + +“A poor ambition at the best; of the two I should prefer that of a poet +in a garret. But I am no judge. Thank Heaven I have no ambition. +Still, all ambition, all desire to rise, is interesting to him who is +ignominiously contented if he does not fall. So the son had his way, +and Fletwode joined company with Jones on the road to wealth and the +peerage; meanwhile did the son marry? if so, of course the daughter of +a duke or a millionnaire. Tuft-hunting, or money-making, at the risk of +degradation and the workhouse. Progress of the age!” + +“No,” replied Cecilia, smiling at this outburst, but smiling sadly, +“Fletwode did not marry the daughter of a duke or a millionnaire; but +still his wife belonged to a noble family,--very poor, but very proud. +Perhaps he married from motives of ambition, though not of gain. Her +father was of much political influence that might perhaps assist his +claim to the barony. The mother, a woman of the world, enjoying a high +social position, and nearly related to a connection of ours,--Lady +Glenalvon.” + +“Lady Glenalvon, the dearest of my lady friends! You are connected with +her?” + +“Yes; Lord Glenalvon was my mother’s uncle. But I wish to finish my +story before my father joins us. Alfred Fletwode did not marry till long +after the partnership in the bank. His father, at his desire, had bought +up the whole business, Mr. Jones having died. The bank was carried on +in the names of Fletwode and Son. But the father had become merely a +nominal or what I believe is called a ‘sleeping’ partner. He had long +ceased to reside in the county. The old house was not grand enough for +him. He had purchased a palatial residence in one of the home counties; +lived there in great splendour; was a munificent patron of science +and art; and in spite of his earlier addictions to business-like +speculations he appears to have been a singularly accomplished, +high-bred gentleman. Some years before his son’s marriage, Mr. Fletwode +had been afflicted with partial paralysis, and his medical attendant +enjoined rigid abstention from business. From that time he never +interfered with his son’s management of the bank. He had an only +daughter, much younger than Alfred. Lord Eagleton, my mother’s brother, +was engaged to be married to her. The wedding-day was fixed,--when the +world was startled by the news that the great firm of Fletwode and Son +had stopped payment; is that the right phrase?” + +“I believe so.” + +“A great many people were ruined in that failure. The public indignation +was very great. Of course all the Fletwode property went to the +creditors. Old Mr. Fletwode was legally acquitted of all other offence +than that of overconfidence in his son. Alfred was convicted of +fraud,--of forgery. I don’t, of course, know the particulars, they are +very complicated. He was sentenced to a long term of servitude, but +died the day he was condemned; apparently by poison, which he had long +secreted about his person. Now you can understand why my father, who +is almost gratuitously sensitive on the point of honour, removed into a +dark corner the portrait of Arabella Fletwode,--his own ancestress, but +also the ancestress of a convicted felon: you can understand why the +whole subject is so painful to him. His wife’s brother was to have +married the felon’s sister; and though, of course, that marriage was +tacitly broken off by the terrible disgrace that had befallen the +Fletwodes, yet I don’t think my poor uncle ever recovered the blow to +his hopes. He went abroad, and died in Madeira of a slow decline.” + +“And the felon’s sister, did she die too?” + +“No; not that I know of. Mrs. Campion says that she saw in a newspaper +the announcement of old Mr. Fletwode’s death, and a paragraph to the +effect that after that event Miss Fletwode had sailed from Liverpool to +New York.” + +“Alfred Fletwode’s wife went back, of course, to her family?” + +“Alas! no,--poor thing! She had not been many months married when the +bank broke; and among his friends her wretched husband appears to have +forged the names of the trustees to her marriage settlement, and sold +out the sums which would otherwise have served her as a competence. +Her father, too, was a great sufferer by the bankruptcy, having by +his son-in-law’s advice placed a considerable portion of his moderate +fortune in Alfred’s hands for investment, all of which was involved in +the general wreck. I am afraid he was a very hard-hearted man: at all +events his poor daughter never returned to him. She died, I think, even +before the death of Bertram Fletwode. The whole story is very dismal.” + +“Dismal indeed, but pregnant with salutary warnings to those who live +in an age of progress. Here you see a family of fair fortune, living +hospitably, beloved, revered, more looked up to by their neighbours than +the wealthiest nobles; no family not proud to boast alliance with it. +All at once, in the tranquil record of this happy race, appears that +darling of the age, that hero of progress,--a clever man of business. He +be contented to live as his fathers! He be contented with such trifles +as competence, respect, and love! Much too clever for that. The age is +money-making,--go with the age! He goes with the age. Born a gentleman +only, he exalts himself into a trader. But at least he, it seems, if +greedy, was not dishonest. He was born a gentleman, but his son was +born a trader. The son is a still cleverer man of business; the son is +consulted and trusted. Aha! He too goes with the age; to greed he +links ambition. The trader’s son wishes to return--what? to the rank of +gentleman?--gentleman! nonsense! everybody is a gentleman nowadays,--to +the title of Lord. How ends it all! Could I sit but for twelve hours in +the innermost heart of that Alfred Fletwode; could I see how, step by +step from his childhood, the dishonest son was avariciously led on by +the honest father to depart from the old _vestigia_ of Fletwodes of +Fletwode,--scorning The Enough to covet The More, gaining The More to +sigh, ‘It is not The Enough,’--I think I might show that the age lives +in a house of glass, and had better not for its own sake throw stones on +the felon!” + +“Ah, but, Mr. Chillingly, surely this is a very rare exception in the +general--” + +“Rare!” interrupted Kenelm, who was excited to a warmth of passion which +would have startled his most intimate friend,-if indeed an intimate +friend had ever been vouchsafed to him,--“rare! nay, how common--I don’t +say to the extent of forgery and fraud, but to the extent of degradation +and ruin--is the greed of a Little More to those who have The Enough! is +the discontent with competence, respect, and love, when catching sight +of a money-bag! How many well-descended county families, cursed with +an heir who is called a clever man of business, have vanished from the +soil! A company starts, the clever man joins it one bright day. Pouf! +the old estates and the old name are powder. Ascend higher. Take nobles +whose ancestral titles ought to be to English ears like the sound of +clarions, awakening the most slothful to the scorn of money-bags and +the passion for renown. Lo! in that mocking dance of death called +the Progress of the Age, one who did not find Enough in a sovereign’s +revenue, and seeks The Little More as a gambler on the turf by the +advice of blacklegs! Lo! another, with lands wider than his greatest +ancestors ever possessed, must still go in for The Little More, adding +acre to acre, heaping debt upon debt! Lo! a third, whose name, borne by +his ancestors, was once the terror of England’s foes,--the landlord of +a hotel! A fourth,--but why go on through the list? Another and another +still succeeds; each on the Road to Ruin, each in the Age of Progress. +Ah, Miss Travers! in the old time it was through the Temple of Honour +that one passed to the Temple of Fortune. In this wise age the process +is reversed. But here comes your father.” + +“A thousand pardons!” said Leopold Travers. “That numskull Mondell kept +me so long with his old-fashioned Tory doubts whether liberal politics +are favourable to agricultural prospects. But as he owes a round sum to +a Whig lawyer I had to talk with his wife, a prudent woman; convinced +her that his own agricultural prospects were safest on the Whig side of +the question; and, after kissing his baby and shaking his hand, booked +his vote for George Belvoir,--a plumper.” + +“I suppose,” said Kenelm to himself, and with that candour which +characterized him whenever he talked to himself, “that Travers has taken +the right road to the Temple, not of Honour, but of honours, in every +country, ancient or modern, which has adopted the system of popular +suffrage.” + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE next day Mrs. Campion and Cecilia were seated under the veranda. +They were both ostensibly employed on two several pieces of embroidery, +one intended for a screen, the other for a sofa-cushion; but the mind of +neither was on her work. + +MRS. CAMPION.--“Has Mr. Chillingly said when he means to take leave?” + +CECILIA.--“Not to me. How much my dear father enjoys his conversation!” + +MRS. CAMPION.--“Cynicism and mockery were not so much the fashion among +young men in your father’s day as I suppose they are now, and therefore +they seem new to Mr. Travers. To me they are not new, because I saw +more of the old than the young when I lived in London, and cynicism and +mockery are more natural to men who are leaving the world than to those +who are entering it.” + +CECILIA.--“Dear Mrs. Campion, how bitter you are, and how unjust! +You take much too literally the jesting way in which Mr. Chillingly +expresses himself. There can be no cynicism in one who goes out of his +way to make others happy.” + +MRS. CAMPION.--“You mean in the whim of making an ill-assorted marriage +between a pretty village flirt and a sickly cripple, and settling a +couple of peasants in a business for which they are wholly unfitted.” + +CECILIA.--“Jessie Wiles is not a flirt, and I am convinced that she will +make Will Somers a very good wife, and that the shop will be a great +success.” + +MRS. CAMPION.--“We shall see. Still, if Mr. Chillingly’s talk belies his +actions, he may be a good man, but he is a very affected one.” + +CECILIA.--“Have I not heard you say that there are persons so natural +that they seem affected to those who do not understand them?” + +Mrs. Campion raised her eyes to Cecilia’s face, dropped them again over +her work, and said, in grave undertones,--“Take care, Cecilia.” + +“Take care of what?” + +“My dearest child, forgive me; but I do not like the warmth with which +you defend Mr. Chillingly.” + +“Would not my father defend him still more warmly if he had heard you?” + +“Men judge of men in their relations to men. I am a woman, and judge of +men in their relations to women. I should tremble for the happiness of +any woman who joined her fate with that of Kenelm Chillingly.” + +“My dear friend, I do not understand you to-day.” + +“Nay; I did not mean to be so solemn, my love. After all, it is nothing +to us whom Mr. Chillingly may or may not marry. He is but a passing +visitor, and, once gone, the chances are that we may not see him again +for years.” + +Thus speaking, Mrs. Campion again raised her eyes from her work, +stealing a sidelong glance at Cecilia; and her mother-like heart sank +within her, on noticing how suddenly pale the girl had become, and how +her lips quivered. Mrs. Campion had enough knowledge of life to feel +aware that she had committed a grievous blunder. In that earliest stage +of virgin affection, when a girl is unconscious of more than a certain +vague interest in one man which distinguishes him from others in her +thoughts,--if she hears him unjustly disparaged, if some warning against +him is implied, if the probability that he will never be more to her +than a passing acquaintance is forcibly obtruded on her,--suddenly that +vague interest, which might otherwise have faded away with many another +girlish fancy, becomes arrested, consolidated; the quick pang it +occasions makes her involuntarily, and for the first time, question +herself, and ask, “Do I love?” But when a girl of a nature so delicate +as that of Cecilia Travers can ask herself the question, “Do I love?” + her very modesty, her very shrinking from acknowledging that any power +over her thoughts for weal or for woe can be acquired by a man, except +through the sanction of that love which only becomes divine in her eyes +when it is earnest and pure and self-devoted, makes her prematurely +disposed to answer “yes.” And when a girl of such a nature in her own +heart answers “yes” to such a question, even if she deceive herself at +the moment, she begins to cherish the deceit till the belief in her love +becomes a reality. She has adopted a religion, false or true, and she +would despise herself if she could be easily converted. + +Mrs. Campion had so contrived that she had forced that question upon +Cecilia, and she feared, by the girl’s change of countenance, that the +girl’s heart had answered “yes.” + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +WHILE the conversation just narrated took place, Kenelm had walked forth +to pay a visit to Will Somers. All obstacles to Will’s marriage were now +cleared away; the transfer of lease for the shop had been signed, and +the banns were to be published for the first time on the following +Sunday. We need not say that Will was very happy. Kenelm then paid a +visit to Mrs. Bowles, with whom he stayed an hour. On reentering the +Park, he saw Travers, walking slowly, with downcast eyes and his hands +clasped behind him (his habit when in thought). He did not observe +Kenelm’s approach till within a few feet of him, and he then greeted his +guest in listless accents, unlike his usual cheerful tones. + +“I have been visiting the man you have made so happy,” said Kenelm. + +“Who can that be?” + +“Will Somers. Do you make so many people happy that your reminiscence of +them is lost in their number?” + +Travers smiled faintly, and shook his head. + +Kenelm went on. “I have also seen Mrs. Bowles, and you will be pleased +to hear that Tom is satisfied with his change of abode: there is no +chance of his returning to Graveleigh; and Mrs. Bowles took very kindly +to my suggestion that the little property you wish for should be sold +to you, and, in that case, she would remove to Luscombe to be near her +son.” + +“I thank you much for your thought of me,” said Travers, “and the affair +shall be seen to at once, though the purchase is no longer important to +me. I ought to have told you three days ago, but it slipped my memory, +that a neighbouring squire, a young fellow just come into his property, +has offered to exchange a capital farm, much nearer to my residence, +for the lands I hold in Graveleigh, including Saunderson’s farm and the +cottages: they are quite at the outskirts of my estate, but run into +his, and the exchange will be advantageous to both. Still I am glad that +the neighbourhood should be thoroughly rid of a brute like Tom Bowles.” + +“You would not call him brute if you knew him; but I am sorry to hear +that Will Somers will be under another landlord.” + +“It does not matter, since his tenure is secured for fourteen years.” + +“What sort of man is the new landlord?” + +“I don’t know much of him. He was in the army till his father died, +and has only just made his appearance in the county. He has, however, +already earned the character of being too fond of the other sex: it is +well that pretty Jessie is to be safely married.” + +Travers then relapsed into a moody silence from which Kenelm found it +difficult to rouse him. At length the latter said kindly,-- + +“My dear Mr. Travers, do not think I take a liberty if I venture to +guess that something has happened this morning which troubles or vexes +you. When that is the case, it is often a relief to say what it is, even +to a confidant so unable to advise or to comfort as myself.” + +“You are a good fellow, Chillingly, and I know not, at least in these +parts, a man to whom I would unburden myself more freely. I am put out, +I confess; disappointed unreasonably, in a cherished wish, and,” he +added, with a slight laugh, “it always annoys me when I don’t have my +own way.” + +“So it does me.” + +“Don’t you think that George Belvoir is a very fine young man?” + +“Certainly.” + +“_I_ call him handsome; he is steadier, too, than most men of his +age, and of his command of money; and yet he does not want spirit nor +knowledge of life. To every advantage of rank and fortune he adds the +industry and the ambition which attain distinction in public life.” + +“Quite true. Is he going to withdraw from the election after all?” + +“Good heavens, no!” + +“Then how does he not let you have your own way?” + +“It is not he,” said Travers, peevishly; “it is Cecilia. Don’t you +understand that George is precisely the husband I would choose for her; +and this morning came a very well written manly letter from him, asking +my permission to pay his addresses to her.” + +“But that is your own way so far.” + +“Yes, and here comes the balk. Of course I had to refer it to Cecilia, +and she positively declines, and has no reasons to give; does not deny +that George is good-looking and sensible, that he is a man of whose +preference any girl might be proud; but she chooses to say she cannot +love him, and when I ask why she cannot love him, has no other answer +than that ‘she cannot say.’ It is too provoking.” + +“It is provoking,” answered Kenelm; “but then Love is the most +dunderheaded of all the passions; it never will listen to reason. The +very rudiments of logic are unknown to it. ‘Love has no wherefore,’ says +one of those Latin poets who wrote love-verses called elegies,--a name +which we moderns appropriate to funeral dirges. For my own part, I can’t +understand how any one can be expected voluntarily to make up his mind +to go out of his mind. And if Miss Travers cannot go out of her mind +because George Belvoir does, you could not argue her into doing so if +you talked till doomsday.” + +Travers smiled in spite of himself, but he answered gravely, “Certainly, +I would not wish Cissy to marry any man she disliked, but she does not +dislike George; no girl could: and where that is the case, a girl so +sensible, so affectionate, so well brought up, is sure to love, after +marriage, a thoroughly kind and estimable man, especially when she has +no previous attachment,--which, of course, Cissy never had. In fact, +though I do not wish to force my daughter’s will, I am not yet disposed +to give up my own. Do you understand?” + +“Perfectly.” + +“I am the more inclined to a marriage so desirable in every way, because +when Cissy comes out in London, which she has not yet done, she is +sure to collect round her face and her presumptive inheritance all the +handsome fortune-hunters and titled _vauriens_; and if in love there +is no wherefore, how can I be sure that she may not fall in love with a +scamp?” + +“I think you may be sure of that,” said Kenelm. “Miss Travers has too +much mind.” + +“Yes, at present; but did you not say that in love people go out of +their mind?” + +“True! I forgot that.” + +“I am not then disposed to dismiss poor George’s offer with a decided +negative, and yet it would be unfair to mislead him by encouragement. In +fact, I’ll be hanged if I know how to reply.” + +“You think Miss Travers does not dislike George Belvoir, and if she saw +more of him may like him better, and it would be good for her as well as +for him not to put an end to that, chance?” + +“Exactly so.” + +“Why not then write: ‘My dear George,--You have my best wishes, but my +daughter does not seem disposed to marry at present. Let me consider +your letter not written, and continue on the same terms as we were +before.’ Perhaps, as George knows Virgil, you might find your own +schoolboy recollections of that poet useful here, and add, _Varium et +mutabile semper femina_; hackneyed, but true.” + +“My dear Chillingly, your suggestion is capital. How the deuce at your +age have you contrived to know the world so well?” + +Kenelm answered in the pathetic tones so natural to his voice, “By being +only a looker-on; alas!” + +Leopold Travers felt much relieved after he had written his reply +to George. He had not been quite so ingenuous in his revelation to +Chillingly as he may have seemed. Conscious, like all proud and +fond fathers, of his daughter’s attractions, he was not without some +apprehension that Kenelm himself might entertain an ambition at variance +with that of George Belvoir: if so, he deemed it well to put an end to +such ambition while yet in time: partly because his interest was already +pledged to George; partly because, in rank and fortune, George was the +better match; partly because George was of the same political party as +himself,--while Sir Peter, and probably Sir Peter’s heir, espoused the +opposite side; and partly also because, with all his personal liking to +Kenelm, Leopold Travers, as a very sensible, practical man of the world, +was not sure that a baronet’s heir who tramped the country on foot in +the dress of a petty farmer, and indulged pugilistic propensities in +martial encounters with stalwart farriers, was likely to make a safe +husband and a comfortable son-in-law. Kenelm’s words, and still more his +manner, convinced Travers that any apprehensions of rivalry that he had +previously conceived were utterly groundless. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE same evening, after dinner (during that lovely summer month they +dined at Neesdale Park at an unfashionably early hour), Kenelm, in +company with Travers and Cecilia, ascended a gentle eminence at the back +of the gardens, on which there were some picturesque ivy-grown ruins of +an ancient priory, and commanding the best view of a glorious sunset and +a subject landscape of vale and wood, rivulet and distant hills. + +“Is the delight in scenery,” said Kenelm, “really an acquired gift, +as some philosophers tell us? Is it true that young children and rude +savages do not feel it; that the eye must be educated to comprehend its +charm, and that the eye can be only educated through the mind?” + +“I should think your philosophers are right,” said Travers. “When I was +a schoolboy, I thought no scenery was like the flat of a cricket ground; +when I hunted at Melton, I thought that unpicturesque country more +beautiful than Devonshire. It is only of late years that I feel a +sensible pleasure in scenery for its own sake, apart from associations +of custom or the uses to which we apply them.” + +“And what say you, Miss Travers?” + +“I scarcely know what to say,” answered Cecilia, musingly. “I can +remember no time in my childhood when I did not feel delight in that +which seemed to me beautiful in scenery, but I suspect that I vaguely +distinguished one kind of beauty from another. A common field with +daisies and buttercups was beautiful to me then, and I doubt if I saw +anything more beautiful in extensive landscapes.” + +“True,” said Kenelm: “it is not in early childhood that we carry the +sight into distance: as is the mind so is the eye; in early childhood +the mind revels in the present, and the eye rejoices most in the things +nearest to it. I don’t think in childhood that we-- + + “‘Watched with wistful eyes the setting sun.’” + +“Ah! what a world of thought in that word ‘wistful’!” murmured Cecilia, +as her gaze riveted itself on the western heavens, towards which Kenelm +had pointed as he spoke, where the enlarging orb rested half its disk on +the rim of the horizon. + +She had seated herself on a fragment of the ruin, backed by the hollows +of a broken arch. The last rays of the sun lingered on her young face, +and then lost themselves in the gloom of the arch behind. There was a +silence for some minutes, during which the sun had sunk. Rosy clouds in +thin flakes still floated, momently waning: and the eve-star stole forth +steadfast, bright, and lonely,--nay, lonely not now; that sentinel has +aroused a host. + +Said a voice, “No sign of rain yet, Squire. What will become of the +turnips?” + +“Real life again! Who can escape it?” muttered Kenelm, as his eye rested +on the burly figure of the Squire’s bailiff. + +“Ha! North,” said Travers, “what brings you here? No bad news, I hope?” + +“Indeed, yes, Squire. The Durham bull--” + +“The Durham bull! What of him? You frighten me.” + +“Taken bad. Colic.” + +“Excuse me, Chillingly,” cried Travers; “I must be off. A most valuable +animal, and no one I can trust to doctor him but myself.” + +“That’s true enough,” said the bailiff, admiringly. “There’s not a +veterinary in the county like the Squire.” + +Travers was already gone, and the panting bailiff had hard work to catch +him up. + +Kenelm seated himself beside Cecilia on the ruined fragment. + +“How I envy your father!” said he. + +“Why just at this moment,--because he knows how to doctor the bull?” + said Cecilia, with a sweet low laugh. + +“Well, that is something to envy. It is a pleasure to relieve from pain +any of God’s creatures,--even a Durham bull.” + +“Indeed, yes. I am justly rebuked.” + +“On the contrary you are to be justly praised. Your question suggested +to me an amiable sentiment in place of the selfish one which was +uppermost in my thoughts. I envied your father because he creates for +himself so many objects of interest; because while he can appreciate the +mere sensuous enjoyment of a landscape and a sunset, he can find mental +excitement in turnip crops and bulls. Happy, Miss Travers, is the +Practical Man.” + +“When my dear father was as young as you, Mr. Chillingly, I am sure that +he had no more interest in turnips and bulls than you have. I do not +doubt that some day you will be as practical as he is in that respect.” + +“Do you think so--sincerely?” + +Cecilia made no answer. + +Kenelm repeated the question. + +“Sincerely, then, I do not know whether you will take interest in +precisely the same things that interest my father; but there are other +things than turnips and cattle which belong to what you call ‘practical +life,’ and in these you will take interest, as you took in the fortunes +of Will Somers and Jessie Wiles.” + +“That was no practical interest. I got nothing by it. But even if that +interest were practical,--I mean productive, as cattle and turnip crops +are,--a succession of Somerses and Wileses is not to be hoped for. +History never repeats itself.” + +“May I answer you, though very humbly?” + +“Miss Travers, the wisest man that ever existed never was wise enough +to know woman; but I think most men ordinarily wise will agree in this, +that woman is by no means a humble creature, and that when she says she +‘answers very humbly,’ she does not mean what she says. Permit me to +entreat you to answer very loftily.” + +Cecilia laughed and blushed. The laugh was musical; the blush was--what? +Let any man, seated beside a girl like Cecilia at starry twilight, find +the right epithet for that blush. I pass it by epithetless. But she +answered, firmly though sweetly,-- + +“Are there not things very practical, and affecting the happiness, not +of one or two individuals, but of innumerable thousands, in which a man +like Mr. Chillingly cannot fail to feel interest, long before he is my +father’s age?” + +“Forgive me: you do not answer; you question. I imitate you, and ask +what are those things as applicable to a man like Mr. Chillingly?” + +Cecilia gathered herself up, as with the desire to express a great deal +in short substance, and then said,-- + +“In the expression of thought, literature; in the conduct of action, +politics.” + +Kenelm Chillingly stared, dumfounded. I suppose the greatest enthusiast +for woman’s rights could not assert more reverentially than he did the +cleverness of women; but among the things which the cleverness of woman +did not achieve, he had always placed “laconics.” “No woman,” he was +wont to say, “ever invented an axiom or a proverb.” + +“Miss Travers,” he said at last, “before we proceed further, vouchsafe +to tell me if that very terse reply of yours is spontaneous and +original; or whether you have not borrowed it from some book which I +have not chanced to read?” + +Cecilia pondered honestly, and then said, “I don’t think it is from any +book; but I owe so many of my thoughts to Mrs. Campion, and she lived so +much among clever men, that--” + +“I see it all, and accept your definition, no matter whence it came. +You think I might become an author or a politician. Did you ever read an +essay by a living author called ‘Motive Power’?” + +“No.” + +“That essay is designed to intimate that without motive power a man, +whatever his talents or his culture, does nothing practical. The +mainsprings of motive power are Want and Ambition. They are absent +from my mechanism. By the accident of birth I do not require bread and +cheese; by the accident of temperament and of philosophical culture +I care nothing about praise or blame. But without want of bread and +cheese, and with a most stolid indifference to praise and blame, do you +honestly think that a man will do anything practical in literature or +politics? Ask Mrs. Campion.” + +“I will not ask her. Is the sense of duty nothing?” + +“Alas! we interpret duty so variously. Of mere duty, as we commonly +understand the word, I do not think I shall fail more than other men. +But for the fair development of all the good that is in us, do you +believe that we should adopt some line of conduct against which our +whole heart rebels? Can you say to the clerk, ‘Be a poet’? Can you say +to the poet, ‘Be a clerk’? It is no more to the happiness of a man’s +being to order him to take to one career when his whole heart is set +on another, than it is to order him to marry one woman when it is to +another woman that his heart will turn.” + +Cecilia here winced and looked away. Kenelm had more tact than most men +of his age,--that is, a keener perception of subjects to avoid; but then +Kenelm had a wretched habit of forgetting the person he talked to and +talking to himself. Utterly oblivious of George Belvoir, he was talking +to himself now. Not then observing the effect his _mal-a-propos_ dogma +had produced on his listener, he went on, “Happiness is a word very +lightly used. It may mean little; it may mean much. By the word +happiness I would signify, not the momentary joy of a child who gets +a plaything, but the lasting harmony between our inclinations and our +objects; and without that harmony we are a discord to ourselves, we are +incompletions, we are failures. Yet there are plenty of advisers who say +to us, ‘It is a duty to be a discord.’ I deny it.” + +Here Cecilia rose and said in a low voice, “It is getting late. We must +go homeward.” + +They descended the green eminence slowly, and at first in silence. +The bats, emerging from the ivied ruins they left behind, flitted and +skimmed before them, chasing the insects of the night. A moth, escaping +from its pursuer, alighted on Cecilia’s breast, as if for refuge. + +“The bats are practical,” said Kenelm; “they are hungry, and their +motive power to-night is strong. Their interest is in the insects they +chase. They have no interest in the stars; but the stars lure the moth.” + +Cecilia drew her slight scarf over the moth, so that it might not +fly off and become a prey to the bats. “Yet,” said she, “the moth is +practical too.” + +“Ay, just now, since it has found an asylum from the danger that +threatened it in its course towards the stars.” + +Cecilia felt the beating of her heart, upon which lay the moth +concealed. Did she think that a deeper and more tender meaning than they +outwardly expressed was couched in these words? If so, she erred. They +now neared the garden gate, and Kenelm paused as he opened it. “See,” + he said, “the moon has just risen over those dark firs, making the still +night stiller. Is it not strange that we mortals, placed amid perpetual +agitation and tumult and strife, as if our natural element, conceive a +sense of holiness in the images antagonistic to our real life; I mean +in images of repose? I feel at the moment as if I suddenly were +made better, now that heaven and earth have suddenly become yet more +tranquil. I am now conscious of a purer and sweeter moral than either I +or you drew from the insect you have sheltered. I must come to the poets +to express it,-- + + + “‘The desire of the moth for the star, + Of the night for the morrow; + The devotion to something afar + From the sphere of our sorrow.’ + + +“Oh, that something afar! that something afar! never to be reached on +this earth,--never, never!” + +There was such a wail in that cry from the man’s heart that Cecilia +could not resist the impulse of a divine compassion. She laid her hand +on his, and looked on the dark wildness of his upward face with eyes +that Heaven meant to be wells of comfort to grieving man. At the light +touch of that hand Kenelm started, looked down, and met those soothing +eyes. + +“I am happy to tell you that I have saved my Durham,” cried out Mr. +Travers from the other side of the gate. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +AS Kenelm that night retired to his own room, he paused on the +landing-place opposite to the portrait which Mr. Travers had consigned +to that desolate exile. This daughter of a race dishonoured in its +extinction might well have been the glory of the house she had entered +as a bride. The countenance was singularly beautiful, and of a character +of beauty eminently patrician; there was in its expression a gentleness +and modesty not often found in the female portraits of Sir Peter +Lely, and in the eyes and in the smile a wonderful aspect of innocent +happiness. + +“What a speaking homily,” soliloquized Kenelm, addressing the picture, +“against the ambition thy fair descendant would awake in me, art thou, +O lovely image! For generations thy beauty lived in this canvas, a thing +of joy, the pride of the race it adorned. Owner after owner said +to admiring guests, ‘Yes, a fine portrait, by Lely; she was my +ancestress,--a Fletwode of Fletwode.’ Now, lest guests should remember +that a Fletwode married a Travers thou art thrust out of sight; not even +Lely’s art can make thee of value, can redeem thine innocent self from +disgrace. And the last of the Fletwodes, doubtless the most ambitious of +all, the most bent on restoring and regilding the old lordly name, dies +a felon; the infamy of one living man is so large that it can blot +out the honour of the dead.” He turned his eyes from the smile of +the portrait, entered his own room, and, seating himself by the +writing-table, drew blotting-book and note-paper towards him, took +up the pen, and instead of writing fell into deep revery. There was a +slight frown on his brow, on which frowns were rare. He was very angry +with himself. + +“Kenelm,” he said, entering into his customary dialogue with that self, +“it becomes you, forsooth, to moralize about the honour of races which +have no affinity with you. Son of Sir Peter Chillingly, look at home. +Are you quite sure that you have not said or done or looked a something +that may bring trouble to the hearth on which you are received as guest? +What right had you to be moaning forth your egotisms, not remembering +that your words fell on compassionate ears, and that such words, heard +at moonlight by a girl whose heart they move to pity, may have dangers +for her peace? Shame on you, Kenelm! shame! knowing too what her +father’s wish is; and knowing too that you have not the excuse of +desiring to win that fair creature for yourself. What do you mean, +Kenelm? I don’t hear you; speak out. Oh, ‘that I am a vain coxcomb to +fancy that she could take a fancy to me:’ well, perhaps I am; I hope so +earnestly; and at all events, there has been and shall be no time for +much mischief. We are off to-morrow, Kenelm; bestir yourself and pack +up, write your letters, and then ‘put out the light,--put out _the_ +light!’” + +But this converser with himself did not immediately set to work, as +agreed upon by that twofold one. He rose and walked restlessly to and +fro the floor, stopping ever and anon to look at the pictures on the +walls. + +Several of the worst painted of the family portraits had been consigned +to the room tenanted by Kenelm, which, though both the oldest and +largest bed-chamber in the house, was always appropriated to a bachelor +male guest, partly because it was without dressing-room, remote, and +only approached by the small back-staircase, to the landing-place of +which Arabella had been banished in disgrace; and partly because it had +the reputation of being haunted, and ladies are more alarmed by that +superstition than men are supposed to be. The portraits on which Kenelm +now paused to gaze were of various dates, from the reign of Elizabeth to +that of George III., none of them by eminent artists, and none of them +the effigies of ancestors who had left names in history,--in short, such +portraits as are often seen in the country houses of well-born squires. +One family type of features or expression pervaded most of these +portraits; features clear-cut and hardy, expression open and honest. +And though not one of those dead men had been famous, each of them had +contributed his unostentatious share, in his own simple way, to the +movements of his time. That worthy in ruff and corselet had manned his +own ship at his own cost against the Armada; never had been repaid by +the thrifty Burleigh the expenses which had harassed him and diminished +his patrimony; never had been even knighted. That gentleman with short +straight hair, which overhung his forehead, leaning on his sword +with one hand, and a book open in the other hand, had served as +representative of his county town in the Long Parliament, fought under +Cromwell at Marston Moor, and, resisting the Protector when he removed +the “bauble,” was one of the patriots incarcerated in “Hell hole.” He, +too, had diminished his patrimony, maintaining two troopers and two +horses at his own charge, and “Hell hole” was all he got in return. +A third, with a sleeker expression of countenance, and a large wig, +flourishing in the quiet times of Charles II., had only been a justice +of the peace, but his alert look showed that he had been a very active +one. He had neither increased nor diminished his ancestral fortune. A +fourth, in the costume of William III.’s reign, had somewhat added to +the patrimony by becoming a lawyer. He must have been a successful one. +He is inscribed “Sergeant-at-law.” A fifth, a lieutenant in the army, +was killed at Blenheim; his portrait was that of a very young and +handsome man, taken the year before his death. His wife’s portrait is +placed in the drawing-room because it was painted by Kneller. She was +handsome too, and married again a nobleman, whose portrait, of course, +was not in the family collection. Here there was a gap in chronological +arrangement, the lieutenant’s heir being an infant; but in the time +of George II. another Travers appeared as the governor of a West India +colony. His son took part in a very different movement of the age. He is +represented old, venerable, with white hair, and underneath his +effigy is inscribed, “Follower of Wesley.” His successor completes the +collection. He is in naval uniform; he is in full length, and one of his +legs is a wooden one. He is Captain, R.N., and inscribed, “Fought under +Nelson at Trafalgar.” That portrait would have found more dignified +place in the reception-rooms if the face had not been forbiddingly ugly, +and the picture itself a villanous daub. + +“I see,” said Kenelm, stopping short, “why Cecilia Travers has been +reared to talk of duty as a practical interest in life. These men of a +former time seem to have lived to discharge a duty, and not to follow +the progress of the age in the chase of a money-bag,--except perhaps +one, but then to be sure he was a lawyer. Kenelm, rouse up and listen +to me; whatever we are, whether active or indolent, is not my favourite +maxim a just and a true one; namely, ‘A good man does good by living’? +But, for that, he must be a harmony and not a discord. Kenelm, you lazy +dog, we must pack up.” + +Kenelm then refilled his portmanteau, and labelled and directed it to +Exmundham, after which he wrote these three notes:-- + + +NOTE I. + +TO THE MARCHIONESS OF GLENALVON. + +MY DEAR FRIEND AND MONITRESS,--I have left your last letter a month +unanswered. I could not reply to your congratulations on the event of my +attaining the age of twenty-one. That event is a conventional sham, +and you know how I abhor shams and conventions. The truth is that I am +either much younger than twenty-one or much older. As to all designs on +my peace in standing for our county at the next election, I wished to +defeat them, and I have done so; and now I have commenced a course of +travel. I had intended on starting to confine it to my native country. +Intentions are mutable. I am going abroad. You shall hear of my +whereabout. I write this from the house of Leopold Travers, who, I +understand from his fair daughter, is a connection of yours; a man to be +highly esteemed and cordially liked. + +No, in spite of all your flattering predictions, I shall never be +anything in this life more distinguished than what I am now. Lady +Glenalvon allows me to sign myself her grateful friend, + +K. C. + + +NOTE II. + +DEAR COUSIN MIVERS,--I am going abroad. I may want money; for, in order +to rouse motive power within me, I mean to want money if I can. When I +was a boy of sixteen you offered me money to write attacks upon veteran +authors for “The Londoner.” Will you give me money now for a similar +display of that grand New Idea of our generation; namely, that the less +a man knows of a subject the better he understands it? I am about to +travel into countries which I have never seen, and among races I have +never known. My arbitrary judgments on both will be invaluable to “The +Londoner” from a Special Correspondent who shares your respect for the +anonymous, and whose name is never to be divulged. Direct your answer by +return to me, _poste restante_, Calais. + +Yours truly, + +K. C. + + +NOTE III. + +MY DEAR FATHER,--I found your letter here, whence I depart to-morrow. +Excuse haste. I go abroad, and shall write to you from Calais. + +I admire Leopold Travers very much. After all, how much of self-balance +there is in a true English gentleman! Toss him up and down where you +will, and he always alights on his feet,--a gentleman. He has one child, +a daughter named Cecilia,--handsome enough to allure into wedlock any +mortal whom Decimus Roach had not convinced that in celibacy lay the +right “Approach to the Angels.” Moreover, she is a girl whom one can +talk with. Even you could talk with her. Travers wishes her to marry +a very respectable, good-looking, promising gentleman, in every way +“suitable,” as they say. And if she does, she will rival that pink and +perfection of polished womanhood, Lady Glenalvon. I send you back my +portmanteau. I have pretty well exhausted my experience-money, but have +not yet encroached on my monthly allowance. I mean still to live upon +that, eking it out, if necessary, by the sweat of my brow or brains. But +if any case requiring extra funds should occur,--a case in which that +extra would do such real good to another that I feel _you_ would do +it,--why, I must draw a check on your bankers. But understand that is +your expense, not mine, and it is _you_ who are to be repaid in Heaven. +Dear father, how I do love and honour you every day more and more! +Promise you not to propose to any young lady till I come first to you +for consent!--oh, my dear father, how could you doubt it? how doubt +that I could not be happy with any wife whom you could not love as a +daughter? Accept that promise as sacred. But I wish you had asked me +something in which obedience was not much too facile to be a test of +duty. I could not have obeyed you more cheerfully if you had asked me to +promise never to propose to any young lady at all. Had you asked me to +promise that I would renounce the dignity of reason for the frenzy of +love, or the freedom of man for the servitude of husband, then I might +have sought to achieve the impossible; but I should have died in the +effort!--and thou wouldst have known that remorse which haunts the bed +of the tyrant. + +Your affectionate son, + +K. C. + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE next morning Kenelm surprised the party at breakfast by appearing +in the coarse habiliments in which he had first made his host’s +acquaintance. He did not glance towards Cecilia when he announced his +departure; but, his eye resting on Mrs. Campion, he smiled, perhaps a +little sadly, at seeing her countenance brighten up and hearing her give +a short sigh of relief. Travers tried hard to induce him to stay a few +days longer, but Kenelm was firm. “The summer is wearing away,” said he, +“and I have far to go before the flowers fade and the snows fall. On the +third night from this I shall sleep on foreign soil.” + +“You are going abroad, then?” asked Mrs. Campion. + +“Yes.” + +“A sudden resolution, Mr. Chillingly. The other day you talked of +visiting the Scotch lakes.” + +“True; but, on reflection, they will be crowded with holiday tourists, +many of whom I shall probably know. Abroad I shall be free, for I shall +be unknown.” + +“I suppose you will be back for the hunting season,” said Travers. + +“I think not. I do not hunt foxes.” + +“Probably we shall at all events meet in London,” said Travers. “I +think, after long rustication, that a season or two in the bustling +capital may be a salutary change for mind as well as for body; and it +is time that Cecilia were presented and her court-dress specially +commemorated in the columns of the ‘Morning Post.’” + +Cecilia was seemingly too busied behind the tea-urn to heed this +reference to her debut. + +“I shall miss you terribly,” cried Travers, a few moments afterwards, +and with a hearty emphasis. “I declare that you have quite unsettled me. +Your quaint sayings will be ringing in my ears long after you are gone.” + +There was a rustle as of a woman’s dress in sudden change of movement +behind the tea-urn. + +“Cissy,” said Mrs. Campion, “are we ever to have our tea?” + +“I beg pardon,” answered a voice behind the urn. “I hear Pompey” (the +Skye terrier) “whining on the lawn. They have shut him out. I will be +back presently.” + +Cecilia rose and was gone. Mrs. Campion took her place at the tea-urn. + +“It is quite absurd of Cissy to be so fond of that hideous dog,” said +Travers, petulantly. + +“Its hideousness is its beauty,” returned Mrs. Campion, laughing. “Mr. +Belvoir selected it for her as having the longest back and the shortest +legs of any dog he could find in Scotland.” + +“Ah, George gave it to her; I forgot that,” said Travers, laughing +pleasantly. + +It was some minutes before Miss Travers returned with the Skye +terrier, and she seemed to have recovered her spirits in regaining that +ornamental accession to the party; talking very quickly and gayly, and +with flushed cheeks, like a young person excited by her own overflow of +mirth. + +But when, half an hour afterwards, Kenelm took leave of her and Mrs. +Campion at the hall-door, the flush was gone, her lips were tightly +compressed, and her parting words were not audible. Then, as his figure +(side by side with her father, who accompanied his guest to the lodge) +swiftly passed across the lawn and vanished amid the trees beyond, Mrs. +Campion wound a mother-like arm around her waist and kissed her. +Cecilia shivered and turned her face to her friend smiling; but such a +smile,--one of those smiles that seem brimful of tears. + +“Thank you, dear,” she said meekly; and, gliding away towards the +flower-garden, lingered a while by the gate which Kenelm had opened +the night before. Then she went with languid steps up the green slopes +towards the ruined priory. + + + + +BOOK IV. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +IT is somewhat more than a year and a half since Kenelm Chillingly left +England, and the scene now is in London, during that earlier and more +sociable season which precedes the Easter holidays,--season in which +the charm of intellectual companionship is not yet withered away in the +heated atmosphere of crowded rooms,--season in which parties are small, +and conversation extends beyond the interchange of commonplace with +one’s next neighbour at a dinner-table,--season in which you have a +fair chance of finding your warmest friends not absorbed by the superior +claims of their chilliest acquaintances. + +There was what is called a _conversazione_ at the house of one of those +Whig noblemen who yet retain the graceful art of bringing agreeable +people together, and collecting round them the true aristocracy, which +combines letters and art and science with hereditary rank and political +distinction,--that art which was the happy secret of the Lansdownes and +Hollands of the last generation. Lord Beaumanoir was himself a genial, +well-read man, a good judge of art, and a pleasant talker. He had a +charming wife, devoted to him and to her children, but with enough love +of general approbation to make herself as popular in the fashionable +world as if she sought in its gayeties a refuge from the dulness of +domestic life. + +Amongst the guests at the Beaumanoirs, this evening were two men, seated +apart in a small room, and conversing familiarly. The one might be about +fifty-four; he was tall, strongly built, but not corpulent, somewhat +bald, with black eyebrows, dark eyes, bright and keen, mobile lips round +which there played a shrewd and sometimes sarcastic smile. + +This gentleman, the Right Hon. Gerard Danvers, was a very influential +member of Parliament. He had, when young for English public life, +attained to high office; but--partly from a great distaste to the +drudgery of administration; partly from a pride of temperament, which +unfitted him for the subordination that a Cabinet owes to its chief; +partly, also, from a not uncommon kind of epicurean philosophy, at once +joyous and cynical, which sought the pleasures of life and held very +cheap its honours--he had obstinately declined to re-enter office, and +only spoke on rare occasions. On such occasions he carried great weight, +and, by the brief expression of his opinions, commanded more votes than +many an orator infinitely more eloquent. Despite his want of ambition, +he was fond of power in his own way,--power over the people who _had_ +power; and, in the love of political intrigue, he found an amusement for +an intellect very subtle and very active. At this moment he was bent on +a new combination among the leaders of different sections in the same +party, by which certain veterans were to retire, and certain younger men +to be admitted into the Administration. It was an amiable feature in his +character that he had a sympathy with the young, and had helped to +bring into Parliament, as well as into office, some of the ablest of +a generation later than his own. He gave them sensible counsel, +was pleased when they succeeded, and encouraged them when they +failed,--always provided that they had stuff enough in them to redeem +the failure; if not, he gently dropped them from his intimacy, but +maintained sufficiently familiar terms with them to be pretty sure that +he could influence their votes whenever he so desired. + +The gentleman with whom he was now conversing was young, about +five-and-twenty; not yet in Parliament, but with an intense desire to +obtain a seat in it, and with one of those reputations which a youth +carries away from school and college, justified, not by honours purely +academical, but by an impression of ability and power created on the +minds of his contemporaries and endorsed by his elders. He had done +little at the University beyond taking a fair degree, except acquiring +at the debating society the fame of an exceedingly ready and adroit +speaker. On quitting college he had written one or two political +articles in a quarterly review, which created a sensation; and though +belonging to no profession, and having but a small yet independent +income, society was very civil to him, as to a man who would some day or +other attain a position in which he could damage his enemies and serve +his friends. Something in this young man’s countenance and bearing +tended to favour the credit given to his ability and his promise. In his +countenance there was no beauty; in his bearing no elegance. But in that +countenance there was vigour, there was energy, there was audacity. A +forehead wide but low, protuberant in those organs over the brow which +indicate the qualities fitted for perception and judgment,--qualities +for every-day life; eyes of the clear English blue, small, somewhat +sunken, vigilant, sagacious, penetrating; a long straight upper +lip, significant of resolute purpose; a mouth in which a student +of physiognomy would have detected a dangerous charm. The smile +was captivating, but it was artificial, surrounded by dimples, and +displaying teeth white, small, strong, but divided from each other. The +expression of that smile would have been frank and candid to all who +failed to notice that it was not in harmony with the brooding forehead +and the steely eye; that it seemed to stand distinct from the rest +of the face, like a feature that had learned its part. There was that +physical power in the back of the head which belongs to men who make +their way in life,--combative and destructive. All gladiators have it; +so have great debaters and great reformers,--that is, reformers who can +destroy, but not necessarily reconstruct. So, too, in the bearing of the +man there was a hardy self-confidence, much too simple and unaffected +for his worst enemy to call it self-conceit. It was the bearing of one +who knew how to maintain personal dignity without seeming to care about +it. Never servile to the great, never arrogant to the little; so little +over-refined that it was never vulgar,--a popular bearing. + +The room in which these gentlemen were seated was separated from the +general suite of apartments by a lobby off the landing-place, and served +for Lady Beaumanoir’s boudoir. Very pretty it was, but simply furnished, +with chintz draperies. The walls were adorned with drawings in +water-colours, and precious specimens of china on fanciful Parian +brackets. At one corner, by a window that looked southward and opened +on a spacious balcony, glazed in and filled with flowers, stood one of +those high trellised screens, first invented, I believe, in Vienna, and +along which ivy is so trained as to form an arbour. + +The recess thus constructed, and which was completely out of sight from +the rest of the room, was the hostess’s favourite writing-nook. The two +men I have described were seated near the screen, and had certainly no +suspicion that any one could be behind it. + +“Yes,” said Mr. Danvers, from an ottoman niched in another recess of the +room, “I think there will be an opening at Saxboro’ soon: Milroy wants a +Colonial Government; and if we can reconstruct the Cabinet as I propose, +he would get one. Saxboro’ would thus be vacant. But, my dear fellow, +Saxboro’ is a place to be wooed through love, and only won through +money. It demands liberalism from a candidate,--two kinds of liberalism +seldom united; the liberalism in opinion which is natural enough to a +very poor man, and the liberalism in expenditure which is scarcely to +be obtained except from a very rich one. You may compute the cost of +Saxboro’ at L3000 to get in, and about L2000 more to defend your seat +against a petition,--the defeated candidate nearly always petitions. +L5000 is a large sum; and the worst of it is, that the extreme opinions +to which the member for Saxboro’ must pledge himself are a drawback to +an official career. Violent politicians are not the best raw material +out of which to manufacture fortunate placemen.” + +“The opinions do not so much matter; the expense does. I cannot afford +L5000, or even L3000.” + +“Would not Sir Peter assist? He has, you say, only one son; and if +anything happen to that son, you are the next heir.” + +“My father quarrelled with Sir Peter, and harassed him by an imprudent +and ungracious litigation. I scarcely think I could apply to him for +money to obtain a seat in Parliament upon the democratic side of the +question; for, though I know little of his politics, I take it for +granted that a country gentleman of old family and L10,000 a year cannot +well be a democrat.” + +“Then I presume you would not be a democrat if, by the death of your +cousin, you became heir to the Chillinglys.” + +“I am not sure what I might be in that case. There are times when a +democrat of ancient lineage and good estates could take a very high +place amongst the aristocracy.” + +“Humph! my dear Gordon, _vous irez loin_.” + +“I hope to do so. Measuring myself against the men of my own day, I do +not see many who should outstrip me.” + +“What sort of a fellow is your cousin Kenelm? I met him once or twice +when he was very young, and reading with Welby in London. People then +said that he was very clever; he struck me as very odd.” + +“I never saw him, but from all I hear, whether he be clever or whether +he be odd, he is not likely to do anything in life,--a dreamer.” + +“Writes poetry perhaps?” + +“Capable of it, I dare say.” + +Just then some other guests came into the room, amongst them a lady +of an appearance at once singularly distinguished and singularly +prepossessing, rather above the common height, and with a certain +indescribable nobility of air and presence. Lady Glenalvon was one of +the queens of the London world, and no queen of that world was ever +less worldly or more queen-like. Side by side with the lady was Mr. +Chillingly Mivers. Gordon and Mivers interchanged friendly nods, and the +former sauntered away and was soon lost amid a crowd of other young +men, with whom, as he could converse well and lightly on things which +interested them, he was rather a favourite, though he was not an +intimate associate. Mr. Danvers retired into a corner of the adjoining +lobby, where he favoured the French ambassador with his views on the +state of Europe and the reconstruction of Cabinets in general. + +“But,” said Lady Glenalvon to Chillingly Mivers, “are you quite sure +that my old young friend Kenelm is here? Since you told me so, I have +looked everywhere for him in vain. I should so much like to see him +again.” + +“I certainly caught a glimpse of him half an hour ago; but before I +could escape from a geologist who was boring me about the Silurian +system, Kenelm had vanished.” + +“Perhaps it was his ghost!” + +“Well, we certainly live in the most credulous and superstitious age +upon record; and so many people tell me that they converse with the +dead under the table that it seems impertinent in me to say that I don’t +believe in ghosts.” + +“Tell me some of those incomprehensible stories about table-rapping,” + said Lady Glenalvon. “There is a charming, snug recess here behind the +screen.” + +Scarcely had she entered the recess when she drew back with a start and +an exclamation of amaze. Seated at the table within the recess, his chin +resting on his hand, and his face cast down in abstracted revery, was a +young man. So still was his attitude, so calmly mournful the expression +of his face, so estranged did he seem from all the motley but brilliant +assemblage which circled around the solitude he had made for himself, +that he might well have been deemed one of those visitants from another +world whose secrets the intruder had wished to learn. Of that intruder’s +presence he was evidently unconscious. Recovering her surprise, she +stole up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and uttered his name +in a low gentle voice. At that sound Kenelm Chillingly looked up. + +“Do you not remember me?” asked Lady Glenalvon. Before he could answer, +Mivers, who had followed the marchioness into the recess, interposed. + +“My dear Kenelm, how are you? When did you come to London? Why have you +not called on me; and what on earth are you hiding yourself for?” + +Kenelm had now recovered the self-possession which he rarely lost long +in the presence of others. He returned cordially his kinsman’s greeting, +and kissed with his wonted chivalrous grace the fair hand which the lady +withdrew from his shoulder and extended to his pressure. “Remember you!” + he said to Lady Glenalvon with the kindliest expression of his soft dark +eyes; “I am not so far advanced towards the noon of life as to forget +the sunshine that brightened its morning. My dear Mivers, your questions +are easily answered. I arrived in England two weeks ago, stayed at +Exmundham till this morning, to-day dined with Lord Thetford, whose +acquaintance I made abroad, and was persuaded by him to come here and +be introduced to his father and mother, the Beaumanoirs. After I had +undergone that ceremony, the sight of so many strange faces frightened +me into shyness. Entering this room at a moment when it was quite +deserted, I resolved to turn hermit behind the screen.” + +“Why, you must have seen your cousin Gordon as you came into the room.” + +“But you forget I don’t know him by sight. However, there was no one in +the room when I entered; a little later some others came in, for I heard +a faint buzz, like that of persons talking in a whisper. However, I was +no eavesdropper, as a person behind a screen is on the dramatic stage.” + +This was true. Even had Gordon and Danvers talked in a louder tone, +Kenelm had been too absorbed in his own thoughts to have heard a word of +their conversation. + +“You ought to know young Gordon; he is a very clever fellow, and has an +ambition to enter Parliament. I hope no old family quarrel between his +bear of a father and dear Sir Peter will make you object to meet him.” + +“Sir Peter is the most forgiving of men, but he would scarcely forgive +me if I declined to meet a cousin who had never offended him.” + +“Well said. Come and meet Gordon at breakfast to-morrow,--ten o’clock. I +am still in the old rooms.” + +While the kinsmen thus conversed, Lady Glenalvon had seated herself on +the couch beside Kenelm, and was quietly observing his countenance. +Now she spoke. “My dear Mr. Mivers, you will have many opportunities of +talking with Kenelm; do not grudge me five minutes’ talk with him now.” + +“I leave your ladyship alone in your hermitage. How all the men in this +assembly will envy the hermit!” + + + +CHAPTER II. + +“I AM glad to see you once more in the world,” said Lady Glenalvon; “and +I trust that you are now prepared to take that part in it which ought to +be no mean one if you do justice to your talents and your nature.” + +KENELM.--“When you go to the theatre, and see one of the pieces which +appear now to be the fashion, which would you rather be,--an actor or a +looker-on?” + +LADY GLENALVON.--“My dear young friend, your question saddens me.” + (After a pause.)--“But though I used a stage metaphor when I expressed +my hope that you would take no mean part in the world, the world is not +really a theatre. Life admits of no lookers-on. Speak to me frankly, as +you used to do. Your face retains its old melancholy expression. Are you +not happy?” + +KENELM.--“Happy, as mortals go, I ought to be. I do not think I am +unhappy. If my temper be melancholic, melancholy has a happiness of its +own. Milton shows that there are as many charms in life to be found on +the _Penseroso_ side of it as there are on the _Allegro_.” + +LADY GLENALVON.--“Kenelm, you saved the life of my poor son, and when, +later, he was taken from me, I felt as if he had commended you to my +care. When at the age of sixteen, with a boy’s years and a man’s heart, +you came to London, did I not try to be to you almost as a mother? and +did you not often tell me that you could confide to me the secrets of +your heart more readily than to any other?” + +“You were to me,” said Kenelm, with emotion, “that most precious and +sustaining good genius which a youth can find at the threshold of +life,--a woman gently wise, kindly sympathizing, shaming him by the +spectacle of her own purity from all grosser errors, elevating him from +mean tastes and objects by the exquisite, ineffable loftiness of soul +which is only found in the noblest order of womanhood. Come, I will open +my heart to you still. I fear it is more wayward than ever. It still +feels estranged from the companionship and pursuits natural to my age +and station. However, I have been seeking to brace and harden my nature, +for the practical ends of life, by travel and adventure, chiefly among +rougher varieties of mankind than we meet in drawing-rooms. Now, in +compliance with the duty I owe to my dear father’s wishes, I come back +to these circles, which under your auspices I entered in boyhood, and +which even then seemed to me so inane and artificial. Take a part in the +world of these circles; such is your wish. My answer is brief. I have +been doing my best to acquire a motive power, and have not succeeded. I +see nothing that I care to strive for, nothing that I care to gain. The +very times in which we live are to me, as to Hamlet, out of joint; and +I am not born like Hamlet to set them right. Ah! if I could look on +society through the spectacles with which the poor hidalgo in ‘Gil Blas’ +looked on his meagre board,--spectacles by which cherries appear the +size of peaches, and tomtits as large as turkeys! The imagination which +is necessary to ambition is a great magnifier.” + +“I have known more than one man, now very eminent, very active, who +at your age felt the same estrangement from the practical pursuits of +others.” + +“And what reconciled those men to such pursuits?” + +“That diminished sense of individual personality, that unconscious +fusion of one’s own being into other existences, which belong to home +and marriage.” + +“I don’t object to home, but I do to marriage.” + +“Depend on it there is no home for man where there is no woman.” + +“Prettily said. In that case I resign the home.” + +“Do you mean seriously to tell me that you never see the woman you could +love enough to make her your wife, and never enter any home that you do +not quit with a touch of envy at the happiness of married life?” + +“Seriously, I never see such a woman; seriously, I never enter such a +home.” + +“Patience, then; your time will come, and I hope it is at hand. Listen +to me. It was only yesterday that I felt an indescribable longing to +see you again,--to know your address that I might write to you; for +yesterday, when a certain young lady left my house after a week’s visit, +I said this girl would make a perfect wife, and, above all, the exact +wife to suit Kenelm Chillingly.” + +“Kenelm Chillingly is very glad to hear that this young lady has left +your house.” + +“But she has not left London: she is here to-night. She only stayed +with me till her father came to town, and the house he had taken for the +season was vacant; those events happened yesterday.” + +“Fortunate events for me: they permit me to call on you without danger.” + +“Have you no curiosity to know, at least, who and what is the young lady +who appears to me so well suited to you?” + +“No curiosity, but a vague sensation of alarm.” + +“Well, I cannot talk pleasantly with you while you are in this +irritating mood, and it is time to quit the hermitage. Come, there are +many persons here, with some of whom you should renew old acquaintance, +and to some of whom I should like to make you known.” + +“I am prepared to follow Lady Glenalvon wherever she deigns to lead +me,--except to the altar with another.” + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE rooms were now full,--not overcrowded, but full,--and it was rarely +even in that house that so many distinguished persons were collected +together. A young man thus honoured by so _grande_ a dame as Lady +Glenalvon could not but be cordially welcomed by all to whom she +presented him, Ministers and Parliamentary leaders, ball-givers, and +beauties in vogue,--even authors and artists; and there was something in +Kenelm Chillingly, in his striking countenance and figure, in that calm +ease of manner natural to his indifference to effect, which seemed to +justify the favour shown to him by the brilliant princess of fashion and +mark him out for general observation. + +That first evening of his reintroduction to the polite world was +a success which few young men of his years achieve. He produced a +sensation. Just as the rooms were thinning, Lady Glenalvon whispered to +Kenelm,-- + +“Come this way: there is one person I must reintroduce you to; thank me +for it hereafter.” + +Kenelm followed the marchioness, and found himself face to face with +Cecilia Travers. She was leaning on her father’s arm, looking very +handsome, and her beauty was heightened by the blush which overspread +her cheeks as Kenelm Chillingly approached. + +Travers greeted him with great cordiality; and Lady Glenalvon asking him +to escort her to the refreshment-room, Kenelm had no option but to offer +his arm to Cecilia. + +Kenelm felt somewhat embarrassed. “Have you been long in town, Miss +Travers?” + +“A little more than a week, but we only settled into our house +yesterday.” + +“Ah, indeed! were you then the young lady who--” He stopped short, and +his face grew gentler and graver in its expression. + +“The young lady who--what?” asked Cecilia with a smile. + +“Who has been staying with Lady Glenalvon?” + +“Yes; did she tell you?” + +“She did not mention your name, but praised that young lady so justly +that I ought to have guessed it.” + +Cecilia made some not very audible answer, and on entering the +refreshment-room other young men gathered round her, and Lady Glenalvon +and Kenelm remained silent in the midst of a general small-talk. When +Travers, after giving his address to Kenelm, and, of course, pressing +him to call, left the house with Cecilia, Kenelm said to Lady Glenalvon, +musingly, “So that is the young lady in whom I was to see my fate: you +knew that we had met before?” + +“Yes, she told me when and where. Besides, it is not two years since you +wrote to me from her father’s house. Do you forget?” + +“Ah,” said Kenelm, so abstractedly that he seemed to be dreaming, “no +man with his eyes open rushes on his fate: when he does so his sight is +gone. Love is blind. They say the blind are very happy, yet I never met +a blind man who would not recover his sight if he could.” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Mr. CHILLINGLY MIVERS never gave a dinner at his own rooms. When he +did give a dinner it was at Greenwich or Richmond. But he gave +breakfast-parties pretty often, and they were considered pleasant. +He had handsome bachelor apartments in Grosvenor Street, daintily +furnished, with a prevalent air of exquisite neatness, a good library +stored with books of reference, and adorned with presentation copies +from authors of the day, very beautifully bound. Though the room served +for the study of the professed man of letters, it had none of the untidy +litter which generally characterizes the study of one whose vocation it +is to deal with books and papers. Even the implements for writing +were not apparent, except when required. They lay concealed in a vast +cylinder bureau, French made, and French polished. Within that bureau +were numerous pigeon-holes and secret drawers, and a profound well with +a separate patent lock. In the well were deposited the articles intended +for publication in “The Londoner,” proof-sheets, etc.; pigeon-holes +were devoted to ordinary correspondence; secret drawers to confidential +notes, and outlines of biographies of eminent men now living, but +intended to be completed for publication the day after their death. + +No man wrote such funeral compositions with a livelier pen than that +of Chillingly Mivers; and the large and miscellaneous circle of +his visiting acquaintances allowed him to ascertain, whether by +authoritative report or by personal observation, the signs of mortal +disease in the illustrious friends whose dinners he accepted, and whose +failing pulses he instinctively felt in returning the pressure of their +hands; so that he was often able to put the finishing-stroke to their +obituary memorials days, weeks, even months, before their fate took the +public by surprise. That cylinder bureau was in harmony with the secrecy +in which this remarkable man shrouded the productions of his brain. In +his literary life Mivers had no “I,” there he was ever the inscrutable, +mysterious “We.” He was only “I” when you met him in the world, and +called him Mivers. + +Adjoining the library on one side was a small dining or rather breakfast +room, hung with valuable pictures,--presents from living painters. +Many of these painters had been severely handled by Mr. Mivers in his +existence as “We,”--not always in “The Londoner.” His most pungent +criticisms were often contributed to other intellectual journals +conducted by members of the same intellectual clique. Painters knew not +how contemptuously “We” had treated them when they met Mr. Mivers. +His “I” was so complimentary that they sent him a tribute of their +gratitude. + +On the other side was his drawing-room, also enriched by many gifts, +chiefly from fair hands,--embroidered cushions and table-covers, bits +of Sevres or old Chelsea, elegant knick-knacks of all kinds. Fashionable +authoresses paid great court to Mr. Mivers; and in the course of his +life as a single man, he had other female adorers besides fashionable +authoresses. + +Mr. Mivers had already returned from his early constitutional walk +in the Park, and was now seated by the cylinder _secretaire_ with a +mild-looking man, who was one of the most merciless contributors to “The +Londoner” and no unimportant councillor in the oligarchy of the clique +that went by the name of the “Intellectuals.” + +“Well,” said Mivers, languidly, “I can’t even get through the book; +it is as dull as the country in November. But, as you justly say, +the writer is an ‘Intellectual,’ and a clique would be anything +but intellectual if it did not support its members. Review the book +yourself; mind and make the dulness of it the signal proof of its merit. +Say: ‘To the ordinary class of readers this exquisite work may appear +less brilliant than the flippant smartness of’--any other author you +like to name; ‘but to the well educated and intelligent every line is +pregnant with,’ etc. By the way, when we come by and by to review the +exhibition at Burlington House, there is one painter whom we must try +our best to crush. I have not seen his pictures myself, but he is a new +man; and our friend, who has seen him, is terribly jealous of him, and +says that if the good judges do not put him down at once, the villanous +taste of the public will set him up as a prodigy. A low-lived fellow +too, I hear. There is the name of the man and the subject of the +pictures. See to it when the time comes. Meanwhile, prepare the way for +onslaught on the pictures by occasional sneers at the painter.” Here +Mr. Mivers took out of his cylinder a confidential note from the jealous +rival and handed it to his mild-looking _confrere_; then rising, he +said, “I fear we must suspend our business till to-morrow; I expect two +young cousins to breakfast.” + +As soon as the mild-looking man was gone, Mr. Mivers sauntered to his +drawing-room window, amiably offering a lump of sugar to a canary-bird +sent to him as a present the day before, and who, in the gilded cage +which made part of the present, scanned him suspiciously and refused the +sugar. + +Time had remained very gentle in its dealings with Chillingly Mivers. +He scarcely looked a day older than when he was first presented to the +reader on the birth of his kinsman Kenelm. He was reaping the fruit of +his own sage maxims. Free from whiskers and safe in wig, there was no +sign of gray, no suspicion of dye. Superiority to passion, abnegation of +sorrow, indulgence of amusement, avoidance of excess, had kept away the +crow’s-feet, preserved the elasticity of his frame and the unflushed +clearness of his gentlemanlike complexion. The door opened, and a +well-dressed valet, who had lived long enough with Mivers to grow very +much like him, announced Mr. Chillingly Gordon. + +“Good morning,” said Mivers; “I was much pleased to see you talking so +long and so familiarly with Danvers: others, of course, observed it, and +it added a step to your career. It does you great good to be seen in a +drawing-room talking apart with a Somebody. But may I ask if the talk +itself was satisfactory?” + +“Not at all: Danvers throws cold water on the notion of Saxboro’, and +does not even hint that his party will help me to any other opening. +Party has few openings at its disposal nowadays for any young man. The +schoolmaster being abroad has swept away the school for statesmen as +he has swept away the school for actors,--an evil, and an evil of a far +greater consequence to the destinies of the nation than any good likely +to be got from the system that succeeded it.” + +“But it is of no use railing against things that can’t be helped. If I +were you, I would postpone all ambition of Parliament and read for the +bar.” + +“The advice is sound, but too unpalatable to be taken. I am resolved to +find a seat in the House, and where there is a will there is a way.” + +“I am not so sure of that.” + +“But I am.” + +“Judging by what your contemporaries at the University tell me of your +speeches at the Debating Society, you were not then an ultra-Radical. +But it is only an ultra-Radical who has a chance of success at +Saxboro’.” + +“I am no fanatic in politics. There is much to be said on all sides: +_coeteris paribus_, I prefer the winning side to the losing; nothing +succeeds like success.” + +“Ay, but in politics there is always reaction. The winning side one day +may be the losing side another. The losing side represents a minority, +and a minority is sure to comprise more intellect than a majority: in +the long run intellect will force its way, get a majority and then lose +it, because with a majority it will become stupid.” + +“Cousin Mivers, does not the history of the world show you that a single +individual can upset all theories as to the comparative wisdom of the +few or the many? Take the wisest few you can find, and one man of genius +not a tithe so wise crushes them into powder. But then that man of +genius, though he despises the many, must make use of them. That +done, he rules them. Don’t you see how in free countries political +destinations resolve themselves into individual impersonations? At +a general election it is one name around which electors rally. The +candidate may enlarge as much as he pleases on political principles, but +all his talk will not win him votes enough for success, unless he says, +‘I go with Mr. A.,’ the minister, or with Mr. Z., the chief of the +opposition. It was not the Tories who beat the Whigs when Mr. Pitt +dissolved Parliament. It was Mr. Pitt who beat Mr. Fox, with whom in +general political principle--slave-trade, Roman Catholic emancipation, +Parliamentary reform--he certainly agreed much more than he did with any +man in his own cabinet.” + +“Take care, my young cousin,” cried Mivers, in accents of alarm; “don’t +set up for a man of genius. Genius is the worst quality a public man can +have nowadays: nobody heeds it, and everybody is jealous of it.” + +“Pardon me, you mistake; my remark was purely objective, and intended +as a reply to your argument. I prefer at present to go with the many +because it is the winning side. If we then want a man of genius to keep +it the winning side, by subjugating its partisans to his will, he will +be sure to come. The few will drive him to us, for the few are always +the enemies of the one man of genius. It is they who distrust,--it is +they who are jealous,--not the many. You have allowed your judgment, +usually so clear, to be somewhat dimmed by your experience as a critic. +The critics are the few. They have infinitely more culture than the +many. But when a man of real genius appears and asserts himself, the +critics are seldom such fair judges of him as the many are. If he be not +one of their oligarchical clique, they either abuse, or disparage, or +affect to ignore him; though a time at last comes when, having gained +the many, the critics acknowledge him. But the difference between the +man of action and the author is this, that the author rarely finds this +acknowledgment till he is dead, and it is necessary to the man of action +to enforce it while he is alive. But enough of this speculation: you ask +me to meet Kenelm; is he not coming?” + +“Yes, but I did not ask him till ten o’clock. I asked you at half-past +nine, because I wished to hear about Danvers and Saxboro’, and also to +prepare you somewhat for your introduction to your cousin. I must be +brief as to the last, for it is only five minutes to the hour, and he +is a man likely to be punctual. Kenelm is in all ways your opposite. I +don’t know whether he is cleverer or less clever; there is no scale of +measurement between you: but he is wholly void of ambition, and might +possibly assist yours. He can do what he likes with Sir Peter; +and considering how your poor father--a worthy man, but +cantankerous--harassed and persecuted Sir Peter, because Kenelm came +between the estate and you, it is probable that Sir Peter bears you a +grudge, though Kenelm declares him incapable of it; and it would be +well if you could annul that grudge in the father by conciliating the +goodwill of the son.” + +“I should be glad so to annul it; but what is Kenelm’s weak side?--the +turf? the hunting-field? women? poetry? One can only conciliate a man by +getting on his weak side.” + +“Hist! I see him from the windows. Kenelm’s weak side was, when I knew +him some years ago, and I rather fancy it still is--” + +“Well, make haste! I hear his ring at your door-bell.” + +“A passionate longing to find ideal truth in real life.” + +“Ah!” said Gordon, “as I thought,--a mere dreamer” + + + +CHAPTER V. + +KENELM entered the room. The young cousins were introduced, shook hands, +receded a step, and gazed at each other. It is scarcely possible +to conceive a greater contrast outwardly than that between the two +Chillingly representatives of the rising generation. Each was silently +impressed by the sense of that contrast. Each felt that the contrast +implied antagonism, and that if they two met in the same arena it must +be as rival combatants; still, by some mysterious intuition, each felt a +certain respect for the other, each divined in the other a power that +he could not fairly estimate, but against which his own power would +be strongly tasked to contend. So might exchange looks a thorough-bred +deer-hound and a half-bred mastiff: the bystander could scarcely doubt +which was the nobler animal; but he might hesitate which to bet on, if +the two came to deadly quarrel. Meanwhile the thorough-bred deer-hound +and the half-bred mastiff sniffed at each other in polite salutation. +Gordon was the first to give tongue. + +“I have long wished to know you personally,” said he, throwing into his +voice and manner that delicate kind of deference which a well-born cadet +owes to the destined head of his house. “I cannot conceive how I missed +you last night at Lady Beaumanoir’s, where Mivers tells me he met you; +but I left early.” + +Here Mivers led the way to the breakfast-room, and, there seated, the +host became the principal talker, running with lively glibness over the +principal topics of the day,--the last scandal, the last new book, the +reform of the army, the reform of the turf, the critical state of Spain, +and the debut of an Italian singer. He seemed an embodied Journal, +including the Leading Article, the Law Reports, Foreign Intelligence, +the Court Circular, down to the Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Gordon +from time to time interrupted this flow of soul with brief, trenchant +remarks, which evinced his own knowledge of the subjects treated, and +a habit of looking on all subjects connected with the pursuits and +business of mankind from a high ground appropriated to himself, and +through the medium of that blue glass which conveys a wintry aspect to +summer landscapes. Kenelm said little, but listened attentively. + +The conversation arrested its discursive nature, to settle upon a +political chief, the highest in fame and station of that party to which +Mivers professed--not to belong, he belonged to himself alone, but to +appropinquate. Mivers spoke of this chief with the greatest distrust, +and in a spirit of general depreciation. Gordon acquiesced in the +distrust and the depreciation, adding, “But he is master of the +position, and must, of course, be supported through thick and thin for +the present.” + +“Yes, for the present,” said Mivers, “one has no option. But you will +see some clever articles in ‘The Londoner’ towards the close of the +session, which will damage him greatly, by praising him in the wrong +place, and deepening the alarm of important followers,--an alarm now at +work, though suppressed.” + +Here Kenelm asked, in humble tones, why Gordon thought that a minister +he considered so untrustworthy and dangerous must for the present be +supported through thick and thin. + +“Because at present a member elected so to support him would lose his +seat if he did not: needs must when the devil drives.” + +KENELM.--“When the devil drives, I should have thought it better to +resign one’s seat on the coach; perhaps one might be of some use, out of +it, in helping to put on the drag.” + +MIVERS.--“Cleverly said, Kenelm. But, metaphor apart, Gordon is right. +A young politician must go with his party; a veteran journalist like +myself is more independent. So long as the journalist blames everybody, +he will have plenty of readers.” + +Kenelm made no reply, and Gordon changed the conversation from men +to measures. He spoke of some Bills before Parliament with remarkable +ability, evincing much knowledge of the subject, much critical +acuteness, illustrating their defects, and proving the danger of their +ultimate consequences. + +Kenelm was greatly struck with the vigour of this cold, clear mind, and +owned to himself that the House of Commons was a fitting place for its +development. + +“But,” said Mivers, “would you not be obliged to defend these Bills if +you were member for Saxboro’?” + +“Before I answer your question, answer me this: dangerous as the Bills +are, is it not necessary that they shall pass? Have not the public so +resolved?” + +“There can be no doubt of that.” + +“Then the member for Saxboro’ cannot be strong enough to go against the +public.” + +“Progress of the age!” said Kenelm, musingly. “Do you think the class of +gentlemen will long last in England?” + +“What do you call gentlemen? The aristocracy by birth?--the +_gentilshommes_?” + +“Nay, I suppose no laws can take away a man’s ancestors, and a class of +well-born men is not to be exterminated. But a mere class of well-born +men--without duties, responsibilities, or sentiment of that which +becomes good birth in devotion to country or individual honour--does no +good to a nation. It is a misfortune which statesmen of democratic creed +ought to recognize, that the class of the well-born cannot be destroyed: +it must remain as it remained in Rome and remains in France, after all +efforts to extirpate it, as the most dangerous class of citizens when +you deprive it of the attributes which made it the most serviceable. +I am not speaking of that class; I speak of that unclassified order +peculiar to England, which, no doubt, forming itself originally from +the ideal standard of honour and truth supposed to be maintained by the +_gentilshommes_, or well-born, no longer requires pedigrees and acres to +confer upon its members the designation of gentleman; and when I hear +a ‘gentleman’ say that he has no option but to think one thing and say +another, at whatever risk to his country, I feel as if in the progress +of the age the class of gentleman was about to be superseded by some +finer development of species.” + +Therewith Kenelm rose, and would have taken his departure, if Gordon had +not seized his hand and detained him. + +“My dear cousin, if I may so call you,” he said, with the frank manner +which was usual to him, and which suited well the bold expression of his +face and the clear ring of his voice, “I am one of those who, from an +over-dislike to sentimentality and cant, often make those not intimately +acquainted with them think worse of their principles than they deserve. +It may be quite true that a man who goes with his party dislikes the +measures he feels bound to support, and says so openly when among +friends and relations, yet that man is not therefore devoid of loyalty +and honour; and I trust, when you know me better, you will not think it +likely I should derogate from that class of gentlemen to which we both +belong.” + +“Pardon me if I seemed rude,” answered Kenelm; “ascribe it to my +ignorance of the necessities of public life. It struck me that where a +politician thought a thing evil, he ought not to support it as good. But +I dare say I am mistaken.” + +“Entirely mistaken,” said Mivers, “and for this reason: in politics +formerly there was a direct choice between good and evil. That rarely +exists now. Men of high education, having to choose whether to accept or +reject a measure forced upon their option by constituent bodies of very +low education, are called upon to weigh evil against evil,--the evil of +accepting or the evil of rejecting; and if they resolve on the first, it +is as the lesser evil of the two.” + +“Your definition is perfect,” said Gordon, “and I am contented to rest +on it my excuse for what my cousin deems insincerity.” + +“I suppose that is real life,” said Kenelm, with his mournful smile. + +“Of course it is,” said Mivers. + +“Every day I live,” sighed Kenelm, “still more confirms my conviction +that real life is a phantasmal sham. How absurd it is in philosophers to +deny the existence of apparitions! what apparitions we, living men, must +seem to the ghosts! + + + “‘The spirits of the wise + Sit in the clouds and mock us.’” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHILLINGLY GORDON did not fail to confirm his acquaintance with Kenelm. +He very often looked in upon him of a morning, sometimes joined him +in his afternoon rides, introduced him to men of his own set who were +mostly busy members of Parliament, rising barristers, or political +journalists, but not without a proportion of brilliant idlers,--club +men, sporting men, men of fashion, rank, and fortune. He did so with a +purpose, for these persons spoke well of him,--spoke well not only +of his talents, but of his honourable character. His general nickname +amongst them was “HONEST GORDON.” Kenelm at first thought this sobriquet +must be ironical; not a bit of it. It was given to him on account of +the candour and boldness with which he expressed opinions embodying that +sort of cynicism which is vulgarly called “the absence of humbug.” The +man was certainly no hypocrite; he affected no beliefs which he did not +entertain. And he had very few beliefs in anything, except the first +half of the adage, “Every man for himself,--and God for us all.” + +But whatever Chillingly Gordon’s theoretical disbeliefs in things which +make the current creed of the virtuous, there was nothing in his conduct +which evinced predilection for vices: he was strictly upright in all +his dealings, and in delicate matters of honour was a favourite umpire +amongst his coevals. Though so frankly ambitious, no one could accuse +him of attempting to climb on the shoulders of patrons. There was +nothing servile in his nature; and, though he was perfectly prepared to +bribe electors if necessary, no money could have bought himself. His one +master-passion was the desire of power. He sneered at patriotism as a +worn-out prejudice, at philanthropy as a sentimental catch-word. He did +not want to serve his country, but to rule it. He did not want to +raise mankind, but to rise himself. He was therefore unscrupulous, +unprincipled, as hungerers after power for itself too often are; yet +still if he got power he would probably use it well, from the clearness +and strength of his mental perceptions. The impression he made on Kenelm +may be seen in the following letter:-- + + +TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY, BART., ETC. + +MY DEAR FATHER,--You and my dear mother will be pleased to hear that +London continues very polite to me: that “arida nutrix leonum” enrolls +me among the pet class of lions which ladies of fashion admit into the +society of their lapdogs. It is somewhere about six years since I was +allowed to gaze on this peep-show through the loopholes of Mr. Welby’s +retreat. It appears to me, perhaps erroneously, that even within that +short space of time the tone of “society” is perceptibly changed. That +the change is for the better is an assertion I leave to those who belong +to the _progressista_ party. + +I don’t think nearly so many young ladies six years ago painted their +eyelids and dyed their hair: a few of them there might be, imitators of +the slang invented by schoolboys and circulated through the medium of +small novelists; they might use such expressions as “stunning,” “cheek,” + “awfully jolly,” etc. But now I find a great many who have advanced to +a slang beyond that of verbal expressions,--a slang of mind, a slang +of sentiment, a slang in which very little seems left of the woman and +nothing at all of the lady. + +Newspaper essayists assert that the young men of the day are to blame +for this; that the young men like it; and the fair husband-anglers dress +their flies in the colours most likely to attract a nibble. Whether this +excuse be the true one I cannot pretend to judge; but it strikes me that +the men about my own age who affect to be fast are a more languid race +than the men from ten to twenty years older, whom they regard as _slow_. +The habit of dram-drinking in the morning is a very new idea, an idea +greatly in fashion at the moment. Adonis calls for a “pick-me-up” before +he has strength enough to answer a _billet-doux_ from Venus. Adonis +has not the strength to get nobly drunk, but his delicate constitution +requires stimulants, and he is always tippling. + +The men of high birth or renown for social success belonging, my +dear father, to your time, are still distinguished by an air of good +breeding, by a style of conversation more or less polished and not +without evidences of literary culture, from men of the same rank in +my generation, who appear to pride themselves on respecting nobody and +knowing nothing, not even grammar. Still we are assured that the world +goes on steadily improving. _That_ new idea is in full vigour. + +Society in the concrete has become wonderfully conceited as to its +own progressive excellences, and the individuals who form the concrete +entertain the same complacent opinion of themselves. There are, of +course, even in my brief and imperfect experience, many exceptions to +what appear to me the prevalent characteristics of the rising generation +in “society.” Of these exceptions I must content myself with naming the +most remarkable. _Place aux dames_, the first I name is Cecilia Travers. +She and her father are now in town, and I meet them frequently. I +can conceive no civilized era in the world which a woman like Cecilia +Travers would not grace and adorn, because she is essentially the type +of woman as man likes to imagine woman; namely, on the fairest side of +the womanly character. And I say “woman” rather than “girl,” because +among “Girls of the Period” Cecilia Travers cannot be classed. You might +call her damsel, virgin, maiden, but you could no more call her girl +than you could call a well-born French demoiselle _fille_. She is +handsome enough to please the eye of any man, however fastidious, but +not that kind of beauty which dazzles all men too much to fascinate one +man; for--speaking, thank Heaven, from mere theory--I apprehend that the +love for woman has in it a strong sense of property; that one requires +to individualize one’s possession as being wholly one’s own, and not +a possession which all the public are invited to admire. I can readily +understand how a rich man, who has what is called a show place, in which +the splendid rooms and the stately gardens are open to all inspectors, +so that he has no privacy in his own demesnes, runs away to a pretty +cottage which he has all to himself, and of which he can say, “_This_ is +home; _this_ is all mine.” + +But there are some kinds of beauty which are eminently show +places,--which the public think they have as much a right to admire as +the owner has; and the show place itself would be dull and perhaps fall +out of repair, if the public could be excluded from the sight of it. + +The beauty of Cecilia Travers is not that of a show place. There is a +feeling of safety in her. If Desdemona had been like her, Othello would +not have been jealous. But then Cecilia would not have deceived her +father; nor I think have told a blackamoor that she wished “Heaven +had made her such a man.” Her mind harmonizes with her person: it is +a companionable mind. Her talents are not showy, but, take them +altogether, they form a pleasant whole: she has good sense enough in +the practical affairs of life, and enough of that ineffable womanly gift +called tact to counteract the effects of whimsical natures like mine, +and yet enough sense of the humouristic views of life not to take too +literally all that a whimsical man like myself may say. As to temper, +one never knows what a woman’s temper is--till one puts her out of it. +But I imagine hers, in its normal state, to be serene, and disposed to +be cheerful. Now, my dear father, if you were not one of the cleverest +of men you would infer from this eulogistic mention of Cecilia Travers +that I was in love with her. But you no doubt will detect the truth that +a man in love with a woman does not weigh her merits with so steady a +hand as that which guides this steel pen. I am not in love with Cecilia +Travers. I wish I were. When Lady Glenalvon, who remains wonderfully +kind to me, says, day after day, “Cecilia Travers would make you a +perfect wife,” I have no answer to give; but I don’t feel the least +inclined to ask Cecilia Travers if she would waste her perfection on one +who so coldly concedes it. + +I find that she persisted in rejecting the man whom her father wished +her to marry, and that he has consoled himself by marrying somebody +else. No doubt other suitors as worthy will soon present themselves. + +Oh, dearest of all my friends,--sole friend whom I regard as a +confidant,--shall I ever be in love? and if not, why not? Sometimes +I feel as if, with love as with ambition, it is because I have some +impossible ideal in each, that I must always remain indifferent to the +sort of love and the sort of ambition which are within my reach. I have +an idea that if I did love, I should love as intensely as Romeo, and +that thought inspires me with vague forebodings of terror; and if I +did find an object to arouse my ambition, I could be as earnest in its +pursuit as--whom shall I name?--Caesar or Cato? I like Cato’s +ambition the better of the two. But people nowadays call ambition an +impracticable crotchet, if it be invested on the losing side. Cato would +have saved Rome from the mob and the dictator; but Rome could not be +saved, and Cato falls on his own sword. Had we a Cato now, the verdict +at a coroner’s inquest would be, “suicide while in a state of unsound +mind;” and the verdict would have been proved by his senseless +resistance to a mob and a dictator! Talking of ambition, I come to the +other exception to the youth of the day; I have named a _demoiselle_, I +now name a _damoiseau_. Imagine a man of about five-and-twenty, and who +is morally about fifty years older than a healthy man of sixty,--imagine +him with the brain of age and the flower of youth; with a heart absorbed +into the brain, and giving warm blood to frigid ideas: a man who sneers +at everything I call lofty, yet would do nothing that he thinks mean; to +whom vice and virtue are as indifferent as they were to the Aesthetics +of Goethe; who would never jeopardize his career as a practical reasoner +by an imprudent virtue, and never sully his reputation by a degrading +vice. Imagine this man with an intellect keen, strong, ready, +unscrupulous, dauntless,--all cleverness and no genius. Imagine this +man, and then do not be astonished when I tell you he is a Chillingly. + +The Chillingly race culminates in him, and becomes Chillinglyest. In +fact, it seems to me that we live in a day precisely suited to the +Chillingly idiosyncrasies. During the ten centuries or more that our +race has held local habitation and a name, it has been as airy nothings. +Its representatives lived in hot-blooded times, and were compelled to +skulk in still water with their emblematic daces. But the times now, my +dear father, are so cold-blooded that you can’t be too cold-blooded to +prosper. What could Chillingly Mivers have been in an age when people +cared twopence-halfpenny about their religious creeds, and their +political parties deemed their cause was sacred and their leaders were +heroes? Chillingly Mivers would not have found five subscribers to +“The Londoner.” But now “The Londoner” is the favourite organ of the +intellectual public; it sneers away all the foundations of the social +system, without an attempt at reconstruction; and every new journal set +up, if it keep its head above water, models itself on “The Londoner.” + Chillingly Mivers is a great man, and the most potent writer of the age, +though nobody knows what he has written. Chillingly Gordon is a still +more notable instance of the rise of the Chillingly worth in the modern +market. + +There is a general impression in the most authoritative circles that +Chillingly Gordon will have high rank in the van of the coming men. His +confidence in himself is so thorough that it infects all with whom he +comes into contact,--myself included. + +He said to me the other day, with a _sang-froid_ worthy of the iciest +Chillingly, “I mean to be Prime Minister of England: it is only a +question of time.” Now, if Chillingly Gordon is to be Prime Minister, it +will be because the increasing cold of our moral and social atmosphere +will exactly suit the development of his talents. + +He is the man above all others to argue down the declaimers of +old-fashioned sentimentalities,--love of country, care for its position +among nations, zeal for its honour, pride in its renown. (Oh, if +you could hear him philosophically and logically sneer away the word +“prestige”!) Such notions are fast being classified as “bosh.” And +when that classification is complete,--when England has no colonies to +defend, no navy to pay for, no interest in the affairs of other nations, +and has attained to the happy condition of Holland,--then Chillingly +Gordon will be her Prime Minister. + +Yet while, if ever I am stung into political action, it will be by +abnegation of the Chillingly attributes, and in opposition, however +hopeless, to Chillingly Gordon, I feel that this man cannot be +suppressed, and ought to have fair play; his ambition will be infinitely +more dangerous if it become soured by delay. I propose, my dear father, +that you should have the honour of laying this clever kinsman under +an obligation, and enabling him to enter Parliament. In our last +conversation at Exmundham, you told me of the frank resentment of Gordon +_pere_, when my coming into the world shut him out from the Exmundham +inheritance; you confided to me your intention at that time to lay +by yearly a sum that might ultimately serve as a provision for Gordon +_fils_, and as some compensation for the loss of his expectations when +you realized your hope of an heir; you told me also how this generous +intention on your part had been frustrated by a natural indignation at +the elder Gordon’s conduct in his harassing and costly litigation, and +by the addition you had been tempted to make to the estate in a purchase +which added to its acreage, but at a rate of interest which diminished +your own income, and precluded the possibility of further savings. Now, +chancing to meet your lawyer, Mr. Vining, the other day, I learned from +him that it had been long a wish which your delicacy prevented your +naming to me, that I, to whom the fee-simple descends, should join with +you in cutting off the entail and resettling the estate. He showed me +what an advantage this would be to the property, because it would leave +your hands free for many improvements in which I heartily go with the +progress of the age, for which, as merely tenant for life, you could not +raise the money except upon ruinous terms; new cottages for labourers, +new buildings for tenants, the consolidation of some old mortgages and +charges on the rent-roll, etc. And allow me to add that I should like +to make a large increase to the jointure of my dear mother. Vining says, +too, that there is a part of the outlying land which, as being near a +town, could be sold to considerable profit if the estate were resettled. + +Let us hasten to complete the necessary deeds, and so obtain the L20,000 +required for the realization of your noble and, let me add, your just +desire to do something for Chillingly Gordon. In the new deeds of +settlement we could insure the power of willing the estate as we +pleased, and I am strongly against devising it to Chillingly Gordon. +It may be a crotchet of mine, but one which I think you share, that the +owner of English soil should have a son’s love for the native land, and +Gordon will never have that. I think, too, that it will be best for his +own career, and for the establishment of a frank understanding between +us and himself, that he should be fairly told that he would not be +benefited in the event of our death. Twenty thousand pounds given to him +now would be a greater boon to him than ten times the sum twenty years +later. With that at his command, he can enter Parliament, and have an +income, added to what he now possesses, if modest, still sufficient to +make him independent of a minister’s patronage. + +Pray humour me, my dearest father, in the proposition I venture to +submit to you. + + Your affectionate son, KENELM. + + +FROM SIR PETER CHILLINGLY TO KENELM CHILLINGLY. + +MY DEAR BOY,--You are not worthy to be a Chillingly; you are decidedly +warm-blooded: never was a load lifted off a man’s mind with a gentler +hand. Yes, I have wished to cut off the entail and resettle the +property; but, as it was eminently to my advantage to do so, I shrank +from asking it, though eventually it would be almost as much to your own +advantage. What with the purchase I made of the Faircleuch lands--which +I could only effect by money borrowed at high interest on my personal +security, and paid off by yearly instalments, eating largely into +income--and the old mortgages, etc., I own I have been pinched of late +years. But what rejoices me the most is the power to make homes for our +honest labourers more comfortable, and nearer to their work, which last +is the chief point, for the old cottages in themselves are not bad; the +misfortune is, when you build an extra room for the children, the silly +people let it out to a lodger. + +My dear boy, I am very much touched by your wish to increase your +mother’s jointure,--a very proper wish, independently of filial feeling, +for she brought to the estate a very pretty fortune, which, the trustees +consented to my investing in land; and though the land completed our +ring-fence, it does not bring in two per cent, and the conditions of +the entail limited the right of jointure to an amount below that which a +widowed Lady Chillingly may fairly expect. + +I care more about the provision on these points than I do for the +interests of old Chillingly Gordon’s son. I had meant to behave very +handsomely to the father; and when the return for behaving handsomely +is being put into Chancery--A Worm Will Turn. Nevertheless, I agree with +you that a son should not be punished for his father’s faults; and, if +the sacrifice of L20,000 makes you and myself feel that we are better +Christians and truer gentlemen, we shall buy that feeling very cheaply. + + +Sir Peter then proceeded, half jestingly, half seriously, to combat +Kenelm’s declaration that he was not in love with Cecilia Travers; and, +urging the advantages of marriage with one whom Kenelm allowed would be +a perfect wife, astutely remarked that unless Kenelm had a son of his +own it did not seem to him quite just to the next of kin to will the +property from him, upon no better plea than the want of love for his +native country. “He would love his country fast enough if he had 10,000 +acres in it.” + +Kenelm shook his head when he came to this sentence. + +“Is even then love for one’s country but cupboard-love after all?” said +he; and he postponed finishing the perusal of his father’s letter. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +KENELM CHILLINGLY did not exaggerate the social position he had acquired +when he classed himself amongst the lions of the fashionable world. I +dare not count the number of three-cornered notes showered upon him by +the fine ladies who grow romantic upon any kind of celebrity; or the +carefully sealed envelopes, containing letters from fair Anonymas, who +asked if he had a heart, and would be in such a place in the Park at +such an hour. What there was in Kenelm Chillingly that should make him +thus favoured, especially by the fair sex, it would be difficult to say, +unless it was the two-fold reputation of being unlike other people, and +of being unaffectedly indifferent to the gain of any reputation at all. +He might, had he so pleased, have easily established a proof that +the prevalent though vague belief in his talents was not altogether +unjustified. For the articles he had sent from abroad to “The Londoner” + and by which his travelling expenses were defrayed, had been stamped +by that sort of originality in tone and treatment which rarely fails to +excite curiosity as to the author, and meets with more general praise +than perhaps it deserves. + +But Mivers was true to his contract to preserve inviolable the incognito +of the author, and Kenelm regarded with profound contempt the articles +themselves and the readers who praised them. + +Just as misanthropy with some persons grows out of benevolence +disappointed, so there are certain natures--and Kenelm Chillingly’s was +perhaps one of them--in which indifferentism grows out of earnestness +baffled. + +He had promised himself pleasure in renewing acquaintance with his old +tutor, Mr. Welby,--pleasure in refreshing his own taste for metaphysics +and casuistry and criticism. But that accomplished professor of realism +had retired from philosophy altogether, and was now enjoying a holiday +for life in the business of a public office. A minister in favour of +whom, when in opposition, Mr. Welby, in a moment of whim, wrote some +very able articles in a leading journal, had, on acceding to power, +presented the realist with one of those few good things still left to +ministerial patronage,--a place worth about L1,200 a year. His mornings +thus engaged in routine work, Mr. Welby enjoyed his evenings in a +convivial way. + +“_Inveni portum_,” he said to Kenelm; “I plunge into no troubled waters +now. But come and dine with me to-morrow, tete-a-tete. My wife is at +St. Leonard’s with my youngest born for the benefit of sea-air.” Kenelm +accepted the invitation. + +The dinner would have contented a Brillat-Savarin: it was faultless; and +the claret was that rare nectar, the Lafitte of 1848. + +“I never share this,” said Welby, “with more than one friend at a time.” + +Kenelm sought to engage his host in discussion on certain new works in +vogue, and which were composed according to purely realistic canons of +criticism. “The more realistic; these books pretend to be, the less +real they are,” said Kenelm. “I am half inclined to think that the whole +school you so systematically sought to build up is a mistake, and that +realism in art is a thing impossible.” + +“I dare say you are right. I took up that school in earnest because I +was in a passion with pretenders to the Idealistic school; and whatever +one takes up in earnest is generally a mistake, especially if one is in +a passion. I was not in earnest and I was not in a passion when I wrote +those articles to which I am indebted for my office.” Mr. Welby here +luxuriously stretched his limbs, and lifting his glass to his lips, +voluptuously inhaled its bouquet. + +“You sadden me,” returned Kenelm. “It is a melancholy thing to find that +one’s mind was influenced in youth by a teacher who mocks at his own +teachings.” + +Welby shrugged his shoulders. “Life consists in the alternate process of +learning and unlearning; but it is often wiser to unlearn than to learn. +For the rest, as I have ceased to be a critic, I care little whether I +was wrong or right when I played that part. I think I am right now as a +placeman. Let the world go its own way, provided the world lets you live +upon it. I drain my wine to the lees, and cut down hope to the brief +span of life. Reject realism in art if you please, and accept realism in +conduct. For the first time in my life I am comfortable: my mind, having +worn out its walking-shoes, is now enjoying the luxury of slippers. Who +can deny the realism of comfort?” + +“Has a man a right,” Kenelm said to himself, as he entered his brougham, +“to employ all the brilliancy of a rare wit, all the acquisitions of as +rare a scholarship, to the scaring of the young generation out of the +safe old roads which youth left to itself would take,--old roads skirted +by romantic rivers and bowery trees,--directing them into new paths on +long sandy flats, and then, when they are faint and footsore, to tell +them that he cares not a pin whether they have worn out their shoes in +right paths or wrong paths, for that he has attained the _summum bonum_ +of philosophy in the comfort of easy slippers?” + +Before he could answer the question he thus put to himself, his brougham +stopped at the door of the minister whom Welby had contributed to bring +into power. + +That night there was a crowded muster of the fashionable world at the +great man’s house. It happened to be a very critical moment for the +minister. The fate of his cabinet depended on the result of a motion +about to be made the following week in the House of Commons. The great +man stood at the entrance of the apartments to receive his guests, and +among the guests were the framers of the hostile motion and the leaders +of the opposition. His smile was not less gracious to them than to his +dearest friends and stanchest supporters. + +“I suppose this is realism,” said Kenelm to himself; “but it is not +truth, and it is not comfort.” Leaning against the wall near the +doorway, he contemplated with grave interest the striking countenance +of his distinguished host. He detected beneath that courteous smile +and that urbane manner the signs of care. The eye was absent, the cheek +pinched, the brow furrowed. Kenelm turned away his looks, and glanced +over the animated countenances of the idle loungers along commoner +thoroughfares in life. Their eyes were not absent; their brows were +not furrowed; their minds seemed quite at home in exchanging nothings. +Interest many of them had in the approaching struggle, but it was +much such an interest as betters of small sums may have on the Derby +day,--just enough to give piquancy to the race; nothing to make gain a +great joy, or loss a keen anguish. + +“Our host is looking ill,” said Mivers, accosting Kenelm. “I detect +symptoms of suppressed gout. You know my aphorism, ‘nothing so gouty as +ambition,’ especially Parliamentary ambition.” + +“You are not one of those friends who press on my choice of life that +source of disease; allow me to thank you.” + +“Your thanks are misplaced. I strongly advise you to devote yourself to +a political career.” + +“Despite the gout?” + +“Despite the gout. If you could take the world as I do, my advice might +be different. But your mind is overcrowded with doubts and fantasies and +crotchets, and you have no choice but to give them vent in active life.” + +“You had something to do in making me what I am,--an idler; something +to answer for as to my doubts, fantasies, and crotchets. It was by your +recommendation that I was placed under the tuition of Mr. Welby, and at +that critical age in which the bent of the twig forms the shape of the +tree.” + +“And I pride myself on that counsel. I repeat the reasons for which I +gave it: it is an incalculable advantage for a young man to start in +life thoroughly initiated into the New Ideas which will more or less +influence his generation. Welby was the ablest representative of these +ideas. It is a wondrous good fortune when the propagandist of the +New Ideas is something more than a bookish philosopher,--when he is +a thorough ‘man of the world,’ and is what we emphatically call +‘practical.’ Yes, you owe me much that I secured to you such tuition, +and saved you from twaddle and sentiment, the poetry of Wordsworth and +the muscular Christianity of Cousin John.” + +“What you say that you saved me from might have done me more good than +all you conferred on me. I suspect that when education succeeds +in placing an old head upon young shoulders the combination is not +healthful: it clogs the blood and slackens the pulse. However, I must +not be ungrateful; you meant kindly. Yes, I suppose Welby is practical: +he has no belief, and he has got a place. But our host, I presume, is +also practical; his place is a much higher one than Welby’s, and yet he +is surely not without belief?” + +“He was born before the new ideas came into practical force; but +in proportion as they have done so, his beliefs have necessarily +disappeared. I don’t suppose that he believes in much now, except the +two propositions: firstly, that if he accept the new ideas he will have +power and keep it, and if he does not accept them power is out of the +question; and, secondly, that if the new ideas are to prevail he is the +best man to direct them safely,--beliefs quite enough for a minister. No +wise minister should have more.” + +“Does he not believe that the motion he is to resist next week is a bad +one?” + +“A bad one of course, in its consequences, for if it succeed it will +upset him; a good one in itself I am sure he must think it, for he would +bring it on himself if he were in opposition.” + +“I see that Pope’s definition is still true, ‘Party is the madness of +the many for the gain of the few.’” + +“No, it is not true. Madness is a wrong word applied to the many: the +many are sane enough; they know their own objects, and they make use of +the intellect of the few in order to gain their objects. In each party +it is the many that control the few who nominally lead them. A man +becomes Prime Minister because he seems to the many of his party the +fittest person to carry out their views. If he presume to differ from +these views, they put him into a moral pillory, and pelt him with their +dirtiest stones and their rottenest eggs.” + +“Then the maxim should be reversed, and party is rather the madness of +the few for the gain of the many? + +“Of the two, that is the more correct definition.” + +“Let me keep my senses and decline to be one of the few.” + +Kenelm moved away from his cousin’s side, and entering one of the less +crowded rooms, saw Cecilia Travers seated there in a recess with Lady +Glenalvon. He joined them, and after a brief interchange of a few +commonplaces, Lady Glenalvon quitted her post to accost a foreign +ambassadress, and Kenelm sank into the chair she vacated. + +It was a relief to his eye to contemplate Cecilia’s candid brow; to +his ear to hearken to the soft voice that had no artificial tones, and +uttered no cynical witticisms. + +“Don’t you think it strange,” said Kenelm, “that we English should so +mould all our habits as to make even what we call pleasure as little +pleasurable as possible? We are now in the beginning of June, the fresh +outburst of summer, when every day in the country is a delight to eye +and ear, and we say, ‘The season for hot rooms is beginning.’ We alone +of civilized races spend our summer in a capital, and cling to the +country when the trees are leafless and the brooks frozen.” + +“Certainly that is a mistake; but I love the country in all seasons, +even in winter.” + +“Provided the country house is full of London people?” + +“No; that is rather a drawback. I never want companions in the country.” + +“True; I should have remembered that you differ from young ladies in +general, and make companions of books. They are always more conversable +in the country than they are in town; or rather, we listen there to them +with less distracted attention. Ha! do I not recognize yonder the fair +whiskers of George Belvoir? Who is the lady leaning on his arm?” + +“Don’t you know?--Lady Emily Belvoir, his wife.” + +“Ah! I was told that he had married. The lady is handsome. She will +become the family diamonds. Does she read Blue-books?” + +“I will ask her if you wish.” + +“Nay, it is scarcely worth while. During my rambles abroad I saw but +few English newspapers. I did, however, learn that George had won his +election. Has he yet spoken in Parliament?” + +“Yes; he moved the answer to the Address this session, and was much +complimented on the excellent tone and taste of his speech. He spoke +again a few weeks afterwards, I fear not so successfully.” + +“Coughed down?” + +“Something like it.” + +“Do him good; he will recover the cough, and fulfil my prophecy of his +success.” + +“Have you done with poor George for the present? If so, allow me to ask +whether you have quite forgotten Will Somers and Jessie Wiles?” + +“Forgotten them! no.” + +“But you have never asked after them?” + +“I took it for granted that they were as happy as could be expected. +Pray assure me that they are.” + +“I trust so now; but they have had trouble, and have left Graveleigh.” + +“Trouble! left Graveleigh! You make me uneasy. Pray explain.” + +“They had not been three months married and installed in the home they +owed to you, when poor Will was seized with a rheumatic fever. He was +confined to his bed for many weeks; and, when at last he could move from +it, was so weak as to be still unable to do any work. During his illness +Jessie had no heart and little leisure to attend to the shop. Of course +I--that is, my dear father--gave them all necessary assistance; but--” + +“I understand; they were reduced to objects of charity. Brute that I am, +never to have thought of the duties I owed to the couple I had brought +together. But pray go on.” + +“You are aware that just before you left us my father received a +proposal to exchange his property at Graveleigh for some lands more +desirable to him?” + +“I remember. He closed with that offer.” + +“Yes; Captain Stavers, the new landlord of Graveleigh, seems to be +a very bad man; and though he could not turn the Somerses out of the +cottage so long as they paid rent, which we took care they did pay,--yet +out of a very wicked spite he set up a rival shop in one of his other +cottages in the village, and it became impossible for these poor young +people to get a livelihood at Graveleigh.” + +“What excuse for spite against so harmless a young couple could Captain +Stavers find or invent?” + +Cecilia looked down and coloured. “It was a revengeful feeling against +Jessie.” + +“Ah, I comprehend.” + +“But they have now left the village, and are happily settled elsewhere. +Will has recovered his health, and they are prospering much more than +they could ever have done at Graveleigh.” + +“In that change you were their benefactress, Miss Travers?” said Kenelm, +in a more tender voice and with a softer eye than he had ever before +evinced towards the heiress. + +“No, it is not I whom they have to thank and bless.” + +“Who, then, is it? Your father?” + +“No. Do not question me. I am bound not to say. They do not themselves +know; they rather believe that their gratitude is due to you.” + +“To me! Am I to be forever a sham in spite of myself? My dear Miss +Travers, it is essential to my honour that I should undeceive this +credulous pair; where can I find them?” + +“I must not say; but I will ask permission of their concealed +benefactor, and send you their address.” + +A touch was laid on Kenelm’s arm, and a voice whispered, “May I ask you +to present me to Miss Travers?” + +“Miss Travers,” said Kenelm, “I entreat you to add to the list of your +acquaintances a cousin of mine,--Mr. Chillingly Gordon.” + +While Gordon addressed to Cecilia the well-bred conventionalisms with +which acquaintance in London drawing-rooms usually commences, Kenelm, +obedient to a sign from Lady Glenalvon, who had just re-entered the +room, quitted his seat, and joined the marchioness. + +“Is not that young man whom you left talking with Miss Travers your +clever cousin Gordon?” + +“The same.” + +“She is listening to him with great attention. How his face brightens up +as he talks! He is positively handsome, thus animated.” + +“Yes, I could fancy him a dangerous wooer. He has wit and liveliness and +audacity; he could be very much in love with a great fortune, and talk +to the owner of it with a fervour rarely exhibited by a Chillingly. +Well, it is no affair of mine.” + +“It ought to be.” + +Alas and alas! that “ought to be;” what depths of sorrowful meaning lie +within that simple phrase! How happy would be our lives, how grand our +actions, how pure our souls, if all could be with us as it ought to be! + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +WE often form cordial intimacies in the confined society of a country +house, or a quiet watering-place, or a small Continental town, which +fade away into remote acquaintanceship in the mighty vortex of London +life, neither party being to blame for the estrangement. It was so with +Leopold Travers and Kenelm Chillingly. Travers, as we have seen, had +felt a powerful charm in the converse of the young stranger, so in +contrast with the routine of the rural companionships to which his alert +intellect had for many years circumscribed its range. But on reappearing +in London the season before Kenelm again met him, he had renewed old +friendships with men of his own standing,--officers in the regiment of +which he had once been a popular ornament, some of them still unmarried, +a few of them like himself widowed, others who had been his rivals +in fashion, and were still pleasant idlers about town; and it rarely +happens in a metropolis that we have intimate friendships with those of +another generation, unless there be some common tie in the cultivation +of art and letters, or the action of kindred sympathies in the party +strife of politics. Therefore Travers and Kenelm had had little familiar +communication with each other since they first met at the Beaumanoirs’. +Now and then they found themselves at the same crowded assemblies, and +interchanged nods and salutations. But their habits were different; the +houses at which they were intimate were not the same, neither did they +frequent the same clubs. Kenelm’s chief bodily exercise was still that +of long and early rambles into rural suburbs; Leopold’s was that of +a late ride in the Row. Of the two, Leopold was much more the man of +pleasure. Once restored to metropolitan life, a temper constitutionally +eager, ardent, and convivial took kindly, as in earlier youth, to its +light range of enjoyments. + +Had the intercourse between the two men been as frankly familiar as it +had been at Neesdale Park, Kenelm would probably have seen much more of +Cecilia at her own home; and the admiration and esteem with which she +already inspired him might have ripened into much warmer feeling, had +he thus been brought into clearer comprehension of the soft and womanly +heart, and its tender predisposition towards himself. + +He had said somewhat vaguely in his letter to Sir Peter, that “sometimes +he felt as if his indifference to love, as to ambition, was because he +had some impossible ideal in each.” Taking that conjecture to task, +he could not honestly persuade himself that he had formed any ideal of +woman and wife with which the reality of Cecilia Travers was at war. On +the contrary, the more he thought over the characteristics of Cecilia, +the more they seemed to correspond to any ideal that had floated before +him in the twilight of dreamy revery; and yet he knew that he was not +in love with her, that his heart did not respond to his reason; and +mournfully he resigned himself to the conviction that nowhere in +this planet, from the normal pursuits of whose inhabitants he felt so +estranged, was there waiting for him the smiling playmate, the earnest +helpmate. As this conviction strengthened, so an increased weariness +of the artificial life of the metropolis, and of all its objects and +amusements, turned his thoughts with an intense yearning towards the +Bohemian freedom and fresh excitements of his foot ramblings. He often +thought with envy of the wandering minstrel, and wondered whether, if he +again traversed the same range of country, he might encounter again that +vagrant singer. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +IT is nearly a week since Kenelm had met Cecilia, and he is sitting +in his rooms with Lord Thetford at that hour of three in the afternoon +which is found the most difficult to dispose of by idlers about town. +Amongst young men of his own age and class with whom Kenelm assorted in +the fashionable world, perhaps the one whom he liked the best, and of +whom he saw the most, was this young heir of the Beaumanoirs; and though +Lord Thetford has nothing to do with the direct stream of my story, it +is worth pausing a few minutes to sketch an outline of one of the +best whom the last generation has produced for a part that, owing to +accidents of birth and fortune, young men like Lord Thetford must play +on that stage from which the curtain is not yet drawn up. Destined to +be the head of a family that unites with princely possessions and a +historical name a keen though honourable ambition for political power, +Lord Thetford has been care fully educated, especially in the new ideas +of his time. His father, though a man of no ordinary talents, has never +taken a prominent part in public life. He desires his eldest son to do +so. The Beaumanoirs have been Whigs from the time of William III. They +have shared the good and the ill fortunes of a party which, whether we +side with it or not, no politician who dreads extremes in the government +of a State so pre-eminently artificial that a prevalent extreme at +either end of the balance would be fatal to equilibrium, can desire to +become extinct or feeble so long as a constitutional monarchy exists +in England. From the reign of George I. to the death of George IV., the +Beaumanoirs were in the ascendant. Visit their family portrait gallery, +and you must admire the eminence of a house which, during that interval +of less than a century, contributed so many men to the service of the +State or the adornment of the Court,--so many Ministers, Ambassadors, +Generals, Lord Chamberlains, and Masters of the Horse. When the younger +Pitt beat the great Whig Houses, the Beaumanoirs vanish into comparative +obscurity; they reemerge with the accession of William IV., and once +more produce bulwarks of the State and ornaments of the Crown. The +present Lord of Beaumanoir, _poco curante_ in politics though he be, has +at least held high offices at Court; and, as a matter of course, he is +Lord Lieutenant of his county, as well as Knight of the Garter. He is +a man whom the chiefs of his party have been accustomed to consult on +critical questions. He gives his opinions confidentially and modestly, +and when they are rejected never takes offence. He thinks that a time +is coming when the head of the Beaumanoirs should descend into the lists +and fight hand-to-hand with any Hodge or Hobson in the cause of his +country for the benefit of the Whigs. Too lazy or too old to do this +himself, he says to his son, “You must do it: without effort of mine the +thing may last my life. It needs effort of yours that the thing may last +through your own.” + +Lord Thetford cheerfully responds to the paternal admonition. He curbs +his natural inclinations, which are neither inelegant nor unmanly; for, +on the one side, he is very fond of music and painting, an accomplished +amateur, and deemed a sound connoisseur in both; and, on the other side, +he has a passion for all field sports, and especially for hunting. He +allows no such attractions to interfere with diligent attention to the +business of the House of Commons. He serves in Committees, he takes the +chair at public meetings on sanitary questions or projects for social +improvement, and acquits himself well therein. He has not yet spoken in +debate, but he has only been two years in Parliament, and he takes his +father’s wise advice not to speak till the third. But he is not without +weight among the well-born youth of the party, and has in him the stuff +out of which, when it becomes seasoned, the Corinthian capitals of a +Cabinet may be very effectively carved. In his own heart he is convinced +that his party are going too far and too fast; but with that party he +goes on light-heartedly, and would continue to do so if they went to +Erebus. But he would prefer their going the other way. For the rest, a +pleasant, bright-eyed young fellow, with vivid animal spirits; and, in +the holiday moments of reprieve from public duty he brings sunshine into +draggling hunting-fields, and a fresh breeze into heated ballrooms. + +“My dear fellow,” said Lord Thetford, as he threw aside his cigar, “I +quite understand that you bore yourself: you have nothing else to do.” + +“What can I do?” + +“Work.” + +“Work!” + +“Yes, you are clever enough to feel that you have a mind; and mind is a +restless inmate of body: it craves occupation of some sort, and regular +occupation too; it needs its daily constitutional exercise. Do you give +your mind that?” + +“I am sure I don’t know, but my mind is always busying itself about +something or other.” + +“In a desultory way,--with no fixed object.” + +“True.” + +“Write a book, and then it will have its constitutional.” + +“Nay, my mind is always writing a book (though it may not publish +one), always jotting down impressions, or inventing incidents, or +investigating characters; and between you and me, I do not think that I +do bore myself so much as I did formerly. Other people bore me more than +they did.” + +“Because you will not create an object in common with other people: come +into Parliament, side with a party, and you have that object.” + +“Do you mean seriously to tell me that you are not bored in the House of +Commons?” + +“With the speakers very often, yes; but with the strife between the +speakers, no. The House of Commons life has a peculiar excitement +scarcely understood out of it; but you may conceive its charm when you +observe that a man who has once been in the thick of it feels forlorn +and shelved if he lose his seat, and even repines when the accident +of birth transfers him to the serener air of the Upper House. Try that +life, Chillingly.” + +“I might if I were an ultra-Radical, a Republican, a Communist, a +Socialist, and wished to upset everything existing, for then the strife +would at least be a very earnest one.” + +“But could not you be equally in earnest against those revolutionary +gentlemen?” + +“Are you and your leaders in earnest against them? They don’t appear to +me so.” + +Thetford was silent for a minute. “Well, if you doubt the principles of +my side, go with the other side. For my part, I and many of our party +would be glad to see the Conservatives stronger.” + +“I have no doubt they would. No sensible man likes to be carried off his +legs by the rush of the crowd behind him; and a crowd is less headlong +when it sees a strong force arrayed against it in front. But it seems +to me that, at present, Conservatism can but be what it now is,--a party +that may combine for resistance, and will not combine for inventive +construction. We are living in an age in which the process of +unsettlement is going blindly at work, as if impelled by a Nemesis as +blind as itself. New ideas come beating into surf and surge against +those which former reasoners had considered as fixed banks and +breakwaters; and the new ideas are so mutable, so fickle, that those +which were considered novel ten years ago are deemed obsolete to-day, +and the new ones of to-day will in their turn be obsolete to-morrow. +And, in a sort of fatalism, you see statesmen yielding way to these +successive mockeries of experiment,--for they are experiments against +experience,--and saying to each other with a shrug of the shoulders, +‘Bismillah! it must be so; the country will have it, even though it +sends the country to the dogs.’ I don’t feel sure that the country will +not go there the sooner, if you can only strengthen the Conservative +element enough to set it up in office, with the certainty of knocking +it down again. Alas! I am too dispassionate a looker-on to be fit for a +partisan: would I were not! Address yourself to my cousin Gordon.” + +“Ay, Chillingly Gordon is a coming man, and has all the earnestness you +find absent in party and in yourself.” + +“You call him earnest?” + +“Thoroughly, in the pursuit of one object,--the advancement of +Chillingly Gordon. If he get into the House of Commons, and succeed +there, I hope he will never become my leader; for if he thought +Christianity in the way of his promotion, he would bring in a bill for +its abolition.” + +“In that case would he still be your leader?” + +“My dear Kenelm, you don’t know what is the spirit of party, and how +easily it makes excuses for any act of its leader. Of course, if Gordon +brought in a bill for the abolition of Christianity, it would be on the +plea that the abolition was good for the Christians, and his followers +would cheer that enlightened sentiment.” + +“Ah,” said Kenelm, with a sigh, “I own myself the dullest of blockheads; +for instead of tempting me into the field of party politics, your talk +leaves me in stolid amaze that you do not take to your heels, where +honour can only be saved by flight.” + +“Pooh! my dear Chillingly, we cannot run away from the age in which we +live: we must accept its conditions and make the best of them; and if +the House of Commons be nothing else, it is a famous debating society +and a capital club. Think over it. I must leave you now. I am going +to see a picture at the Exhibition which has been most truculently +criticised in ‘The Londoner,’ but which I am assured, on good authority, +is a work of remarkable merit. I can’t bear to see a man snarled and +sneered down, no doubt by jealous rivals, who have their influence in +journals, so I shall judge of the picture for myself. If it be really +as good as I am told, I shall talk about it to everybody I meet; and in +matters of art I fancy my word goes for something. Study art, my dear +Kenelm. No gentleman’s education is complete if he does n’t know a good +picture from a bad one. After the Exhibition I shall just have time for +a canter round the Park before the debate of the session, which begins +to-night.” + +With a light step the young man quitted the room, humming an air from +the “Figaro” as he descended the stairs. From the window Kenelm watched +him swinging himself with careless grace into his saddle and riding +briskly down the street,--in form and face and bearing a very model of +young, high-born, high-bred manhood. “The Venetians,” muttered Kenelm, +“decapitated Marino Faliero for conspiring against his own order,--the +nobles. The Venetians loved their institutions, and had faith in them. +Is there such love and such faith among the English?” + +As he thus soliloquized he heard a shrilling sort of squeak; and a +showman stationed before his window the stage on which Punch satirizes +the laws and moralities of the world, “kills the beadle and defies the +devil.” + + + +CHAPTER X. + +KENELM turned from the sight of Punch and Punch’s friend the cur, as his +servant, entering, said a person from the country, who would not give +his name, asked to see him. + +Thinking it might be some message from his father, Kenelm ordered the +stranger to be admitted, and in another minute there entered a young man +of handsome countenance and powerful frame, in whom, after a surprised +stare, Kenelm recognized Tom Bowles. Difficult indeed would have been +that recognition to an unobservant beholder: no trace was left of the +sullen bully or the village farrier; the expression of the face was mild +and intelligent,--more bashful than hardy; the brute strength of the +form had lost its former clumsiness, the simple dress was that of a +gentleman,--to use an expressive idiom, the whole man was wonderfully +“toned down.” + +“I am afraid, sir, I am taking a liberty,” said Tom, rather nervously, +twiddling his hat between his fingers. + +“I should be a greater friend to liberty than I am if it were always +taken in the same way,” said Kenelm, with a touch of his saturnine +humour; but then yielding at once to the warmer impulse of his nature, +he grasped his old antagonist’s hand and exclaimed, “My dear Tom, you +are so welcome. I am so glad to see you. Sit down, man; sit down: make +yourself at home.” + +“I did not know you were back in England, sir, till within the last few +days; for you did say that when you came back I should see or hear from +you,” and there was a tone of reproach in the last words. + +“I am to blame, forgive me,” said Kenelm, remorsefully. “But how did +you find me out? you did not then, I think, even know my name. That, +however, it was easy enough to discover; but who gave you my address in +this lodging?” + +“Well, sir, it was Miss Travers; and she bade me come to you. Otherwise, +as you did not send for me, it was scarcely my place to call uninvited.” + +“But, my dear Tom, I never dreamed that you were in London. One don’t +ask a man whom one supposes to be more than a hundred miles off to pay +one an afternoon call. You are still with your uncle, I presume? and I +need not ask if all thrives well with you: you look a prosperous man, +every inch of you, from crown to toe.” + +“Yes,” said Tom; “thank you kindly, sir, I am doing well in the way of +business, and my uncle is to give me up the whole concern at Christmas.” + +While Tom thus spoke Kenelm had summoned his servant, and ordered up +such refreshments as could be found in the larder of a bachelor in +lodgings. “And what brings you to town, Tom?” + +“Miss Travers wrote to me about a little business which she was good +enough to manage for me, and said you wished to know about it; and so, +after turning it over in my mind for a few days, I resolved to come to +town: indeed,” added Tom, heartily, “I did wish to see your face again.” + +“But you talk riddles. What business of yours could Miss Travers imagine +I wished to know about?” + +Tom coloured high, and looked very embarrassed. Luckily, the servant +here entering with the refreshment-tray allowed him time to recover +himself. Kenelm helped him to a liberal slice of cold pigeon-pie, +pressed wine on him, and did not renew the subject till he thought his +guest’s tongue was likely to be more freely set loose; then he said, +laying a friendly hand on Tom’s shoulders, “I have been thinking over +what passed between me and Miss Travers. I wished to have the new +address of Will Somers; she promised to write to his benefactor to ask +permission to give it. You are that benefactor?” + +“Don’t say benefactor, sir. I will tell how it came about if you will +let me. You see, I sold my little place at Graveleigh to the new Squire, +and when Mother removed to Luscombe to be near me, she told me how +poor Jessie had been annoyed by Captain Stavers, who seems to think +his purchase included the young women on the property along with the +standing timber; and I was half afraid that she had given some cause for +his persecution, for you know she has a blink of those soft eyes of +hers that might charm a wise man out of his skin and put a fool there +instead.” + +“But I hope she has done with those blinks since her marriage.” + +“Well, and I honestly think she has. It is certain she did not encourage +Captain Stavers, for I went over to Graveleigh myself on the sly, and +lodged concealed with one of the cottagers who owed me a kindness; and +one day, as I was at watch, I saw the Captain peering over the stile +which divides Holmwood from the glebe,--you remember Holmwood?” + +“I can’t say I do.” + +“The footway from the village to Squire Travers’s goes through the +wood, which is a few hundred yards at the back of Will Somers’s orchard. +Presently the Captain drew himself suddenly back from the stile, and +disappeared among the trees, and then I saw Jessie coming from the +orchard with a basket over her arm, and walking quick towards the wood. +Then, sir, my heart sank. I felt sure she was going to meet the Captain. +However, I crept along the hedgerow, hiding myself, and got into the +wood almost as soon as Jessie got there, by another way. Under the cover +of the brushwood I stole on till I saw the Captain come out from the +copse on the other side of the path, and plant himself just before +Jessie. Then I saw at once I had wronged her. She had not expected to +see him, for she hastily turned back, and began to run homeward; but he +caught her up, and seized her by the arm. I could not hear what he said, +but I heard her voice quite sharp with fright and anger. And then he +suddenly seized her round the waist, and she screamed, and I sprang +forward--” + +“And thrashed the Captain?” + +“No, I did not,” said Tom; “I had made a vow to myself that I never +would be violent again if I could help it. So I took him with one hand +by the cuff of the neck, and with the other by the waistband, and just +pitched him on a bramble bush,--quite mildly. He soon picked himself up, +for he is a dapper little chap, and became very blustering and abusive. +But I kept my temper, and said civilly, ‘Little gentleman, hard words +break no bones; but if ever you molest Mrs. Somers again, I will carry +you into her orchard, souse you into the duck-pond there, and call all +the villagers to see you scramble out of it again; and I will do it +now if you are not off. I dare say you have heard of my name: I am Tom +Bowles.’ Upon that his face, which was before very red, grew very white, +and muttering something I did not hear, he walked away. + +“Jessie--I mean Mrs. Somers--seemed at first as much frightened at me +as she had been at the Captain; and though I offered to walk with her to +Miss Travers’s, where she was going with a basket which the young lady +had ordered, she refused, and went back home. I felt hurt, and returned +to my uncle’s the same evening; and it was not for months that I heard +the Captain had been spiteful enough to set up an opposition shop, and +that poor Will had been taken ill, and his wife was confined about the +same time, and the talk was that they were in distress and might have to +be sold up. + +“When I heard all this, I thought that after all it was my rough tongue +that had so angered the Captain and been the cause of his spite, and so +it was my duty to make it up to poor Will and his wife. I did not know +how to set about mending matters, but I thought I’d go and talk to Miss +Travers; and if ever there was a kind heart in a girl’s breast, hers is +one.” + +“You are right there, I guess. What did Miss Travers say?” + +“Nay; I hardly know what she did say, but she set me thinking, and it +struck me that Jessie--Mrs. Somers--had better move to a distance, and +out of the Captain’s reach, and that Will would do better in a less +out-of-the-way place. And then, by good luck, I read in the newspaper +that a stationary and a fancywork business, with a circulating library, +was to be sold on moderate terms at Moleswich, the other side of London. +So I took the train and went to the place, and thought the shop would +just suit these young folks, and not be too much work for either; then I +went to Miss Travers, and I had a lot of money lying by me from the sale +of the old forge and premises, which I did not know what to do with; and +so, to cut short a long story, I bought the business, and Will and his +wife are settled at Moleswich, thriving and happy, I hope, sir.” + +Tom’s voice quivered at the last words, and he turned aside quickly, +passing his hand over his eyes. + +Kenelm was greatly moved. + +“And they don’t know what you did for them?” + +“To be sure not. I don’t think Will would have let him self be +beholden to me. Ah! the lad has a spirit of his own, and Jessie--Mrs. +Somers--would have felt pained and humbled that I should even think of +such a thing. Miss Travers managed it all. They take the money as a loan +which is to be paid by instalments. They have sent Miss Travers more +than one instalment already, so I know they are doing well.” + +“A loan from Miss Travers?” + +“No; Miss Travers wanted to have a share in it, but I begged her not. It +made me happy to do what I did all myself; and Miss Travers felt for me +and did not press. They perhaps think it is Squire Travers (though he is +not a man who would like to say it, for fear it should bring applicants +on him), or some other gentleman who takes an interest in them.” + +“I always said you were a grand fellow, Tom. But you are grander still +than I thought you.” + +“If there be any good in me, I owe it to you, sir. Think what a drunken, +violent brute I was when I first met you. Those walks with you, and I +may say that other gentleman’s talk, and then that long kind letter I +had from you, not signed in your name, and written from abroad,--all +these changed me, as the child is changed at nurse.” + +“You have evidently read a good deal since we parted.” + +“Yes; I belong to our young men’s library and institute; and when of an +evening I get hold of a book, especially a pleasant story-book, I don’t +care for other company.” + +“Have you never seen any other girl you could care for, and wish to +marry?” + +“Ah, sir,” answered Tom, “a man does not go so mad for a girl as I +did for Jessie Wiles, and when it is all over, and he has come to his +senses, put his heart into joint again as easily as if it were only a +broken leg. I don’t say that I may not live to love and to marry another +woman: it is my wish to do so. But I know that I shall love Jessie to my +dying day; but not sinfully, sir,--not sinfully. I would not wrong her +by a thought.” + +There was a long pause. + +At last Kenelm said, “You promised to be kind to that little girl with +the flower-ball; what has become of her?” + +“She is quite well, thank you, sir. My aunt has taken a great fancy to +her, and so has my mother. She comes to them very often of an evening, +and brings her work with her. A quick, intelligent little thing, and +full of pretty thoughts. On Sundays, if the weather is fine, we stroll +out together in the fields.” + +“She has been a comfort to you, Tom.” + +“Oh, yes.” + +“And loves you?” + +“I am sure she does; an affectionate, grateful child.” + +“She will be a woman soon, Tom, and may love you as a woman then.” + +Tom looked indignant and rather scornful at that suggestion, and +hastened to revert to the subject more immediately at his heart. + +“Miss Travers said you would like to call on Will Somers and his wife; +will you? Moleswich is not far from London, you know.” + +“Certainly, I will call.” + +“I do hope you will find them happy; and if so, perhaps you will kindly +let me know; and--and--I wonder whether Jessie’s child is like her? It +is a boy; somehow or other I would rather it had been a girl.” + +“I will write you full particulars. But why not come with me?” + +“No, I don’t think I could do that, just at present. It unsettled me +sadly when I did again see her sweet face at Graveleigh, and she was +still afraid of me too! that was a sharp pang.” + +“She ought to know what you have done for her, and will.” + +“On no account, sir; promise me that. I should feel mean if I humbled +them,--that way.” + +“I understand, though I will not as yet make you any positive promise. +Meanwhile, if you are staying in town, lodge with me; my landlady can +find you a room.” + +“Thank you heartily, sir; but I go back by the evening train; and, bless +me! how late it is now! I must wish you good-by. I have some commissions +to do for my aunt, and I must buy a new doll for Susey.” + +“Susey is the name of the little girl with the flower-ball?” + +“Yes. I must run off now; I feel quite light at heart seeing you again +and finding that you receive me still so kindly, as if we were equals.” + +“Ah, Tom, I wish I was your equal,--nay, half as noble as Heaven has +made you!” + +Tom laughed incredulously, and went his way. + +“This mischievous passion of love,” said Kenelm to himself, “has its +good side, it seems, after all. If it was nearly making a wild beast of +that brave fellow,--nay, worse than wild beast, a homicide doomed to +the gibbet,--so, on the other hand, what a refined, delicate, chivalrous +nature of gentleman it has developed out of the stormy elements of its +first madness! Yes, I will go and look at this new-married couple. I +dare say they are already snarling and spitting at each other like cat +and dog. Moleswich is within reach of a walk.” + + + + + +BOOK V. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +TWO days after the interview recorded in the last chapter of the +previous Book, Travers, chancing to call at Kenelm’s lodgings, was told +by his servant that Mr. Chillingly had left London, alone, and had given +no orders as to forwarding letters. The servant did not know where he +had gone, or when he would return. + +Travers repeated this news incidentally to Cecilia, and she felt +somewhat hurt that he had not written her a line respecting Tom’s visit. +She, however, guessed that he had gone to see the Somerses, and would +return to town in a day or so. But weeks passed, the season drew to its +close, and of Kenelm Chillingly she saw or heard nothing: he had +wholly vanished from the London world. He had but written a line to his +servant, ordering him to repair to Exmundham and await him there, and +enclosing him a check to pay outstanding bills. + +We must now follow the devious steps of the strange being who has grown +into the hero of this story. He had left his apartment at daybreak long +before his servant was up, with his knapsack, and a small portmanteau, +into which he had thrust--besides such additional articles of dress as +he thought he might possibly require, and which his knapsack could not +contain--a few of his favourite books. Driving with these in a hack-cab +to the Vauxhall station, he directed the portmanteau to be forwarded +to Moleswich, and flinging the knapsack on his shoulders, walked slowly +along the drowsy suburbs that stretched far into the landscape, before, +breathing more freely, he found some evidences of rural culture on +either side of the high road. It was not, however, till he had left the +roofs and trees of pleasant Richmond far behind him that he began to +feel he was out of reach of the metropolitan disquieting influences. +Finding at a little inn, where he stopped to breakfast, that there was +a path along fields, and in sight of the river, through which he could +gain the place of his destination, he then quitted the high road, +and traversing one of the loveliest districts in one of our loveliest +counties, he reached Moleswich about noon. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +ON entering the main street of the pretty town, the name of Somers, +in gilt capitals, was sufficiently conspicuous over the door of a very +imposing shop. It boasted two plate-glass windows, at one of which were +tastefully exhibited various articles of fine stationery, embroidery +patterns, etc.; at the other, no less tastefully, sundry specimens of +ornamental basket-work. + +Kenelm crossed the threshold and recognized behind the counter--fair +as ever, but with an expression of face more staid, and a figure more +rounded and matron-like--his old friend Jessie. There were two or three +customers before her, between whom she was dividing her attention. While +a handsome young lady, seated, was saying, in a somewhat loud but cheery +and pleasant voice, “Do not mind me, Mrs. Somers: I can wait,” Jessie’s +quick eye darted towards the stranger, but too rapidly to distinguish +his features, which, indeed, he turned away, and began to examine the +baskets. + +In a minute or so the other customers were served and had departed; and +the voice of the lady was again heard, “Now, Mrs. Somers, I want to see +your picture-books and toys. I am giving a little children’s party this +afternoon, and I want to make them as happy as possible.” + +“Somewhere or other, on this planet, or before my Monad was whisked +away to it, I have heard that voice,” muttered Kenelm. While Jessie was +alertly bringing forth her toys and picture-books, she said, “I am sorry +to keep you waiting, sir; but if it is the baskets you come about, I can +call my husband.” + +“Do,” said Kenelm. + +“William, William,” cried Mrs. Somers; and after a delay long enough to +allow him to slip on his jacket, William Somers emerged from the back +parlour. + +His face had lost its old trace of suffering and ill health; it was +still somewhat pale, and retained its expression of intellectual +refinement. + +“How you have improved in your art!” said Kenelm, heartily. + +William started, and recognized Kenelm at once. He sprang forward and +took Kenelm’s outstretched hand in both his own, and, in a voice between +laughing and crying, exclaimed, “Jessie, Jessie, it is he!--he whom we +pray for every night. God bless you! God bless and make you as happy as +He permitted you to make me!” + +Before this little speech was faltered out, Jessie was by her husband’s +side, and she added, in a lower voice, but tremulous with deep feeling, +“And me too!” + +“By your leave, Will,” said Kenelm, and he saluted Jessie’s white +forehead with a kiss that could not have been kindlier or colder if it +had been her grandfather’s. + +Meanwhile the lady had risen noiselessly and unobserved, and stealing up +to Kenelm, looked him full in the face. + +“You have another friend here, sir, who has also some cause to thank +you--” + +“I thought I remembered your voice,” said Kenelm, looking puzzled. “But +pardon me if I cannot recall your features. Where have we met before?” + +“Give me your arm when we go out, and I will bring myself to your +recollection. But no: I must not hurry you away now. I will call +again in half an hour. Mrs. Somers, meanwhile put up the things I +have selected. I will take them away with me when I come back from the +vicarage, where I have left the pony-carriage.” So, with a parting nod +and smile to Kenelm, she turned away, and left him bewildered. + +“But who is that lady, Will?” + +“A Mrs. Braefield. She is a new comer.” + +“She may well be that, Will,” said Jessie, smiling, “for she has only +been married six months.” + +“And what was her name before she married?” + +“I am sure I don’t know, sir. It is only three months since we came +here, and she has been very kind to us and an excellent customer. +Everybody likes her. Mr. Braefield is a city gentleman and very rich; +and they live in the finest house in the place, and see a great deal of +company.” + +“Well, I am no wiser than I was before,” said Kenelm. “People who ask +questions very seldom are.” + +“And how did you find us out, sir?” said Jessie. “Oh! I guess,” she +added, with an arch glance and smile. “Of course, you have seen Miss +Travers, and she told you.” + +“You are right. I first learned your change of residence from her, and +thought I would come and see you, and be introduced to the baby,--a boy, +I understand? Like you, Will?” + +“No, sir, the picture of Jessie.” + +“Nonsense, Will; it is you all over, even to its little hands.” + +“And your good mother, Will, how did you leave her?” + +“Oh, sir!” cried Jessie, reproachfully; “do you think we could have the +heart to leave Mother,--so lone and rheumatic too? She is tending baby +now,--always does while I am in the shop.” + +Here Kenelm followed the young couple into the parlour, where, seated by +the window, they found old Mrs. Somers reading the Bible and rocking the +baby, who slept peacefully in its cradle. + +“Will,” said Kenelm, bending his dark face over the infant, “I will +tell you a pretty thought of a foreign poet’s, which has been thus badly +translated: + + + “‘Blest babe, a boundless world this bed so narrow seems to thee; + Grow man, and narrower than this bed the boundless world shall + be.’”[1] + + + [1] Schiller. + + +“I don’t think that is true, sir,” said Will, simply; “for a happy home +is a world wide enough for any man.” + +Tears started into Jessie’s eyes; she bent down and kissed--not the +baby, but the cradle. “Will made it.” She added blushing, “I mean the +cradle, sir.” + +Time flew past while Kenelm talked with Will and the old mother, for +Jessie was soon summoned back to the shop; and Kenelm was startled when +he found the half-hour’s grace allowed to him was over, and Jessie put +her head in at the door and said, “Mrs. Braefield is waiting for you.” + +“Good-by, Will; I shall come to see you again soon; and my mother gives +me a commission to buy I don’t know how many specimens of your craft.” + + + +CHAPTER III. + +A SMART pony-phaeton, with a box for a driver in livery equally smart, +stood at the shop-door. + +“Now, Mr. Chillingly,” said Mrs. Braefield, “it is my turn to run away +with you; get in!” + +“Eh!” murmured Kenelm, gazing at her with large dreamy eyes. “Is it +possible?” + +“Quite possible; get in. Coachman, home! Yes, Mr. Chillingly, you meet +again that giddy creature whom you threatened to thrash; it would have +served her right. I ought to feel so ashamed to recall myself to your +recollection, and yet I am not a bit ashamed. I am proud to show you +that I have turned out a steady, respectable woman, and, my husband +tells me, a good wife.” + +“You have only been six months married, I hear,” said Kenelm, dryly. “I +hope your husband will say the same six years hence.” + +“He will say the same sixty years hence, if we live as long.” + +“How old is he now?” + +“Thirty-eight.” + +“When a man wants only two years of his hundredth, he probably has +learned to know his own mind; but then, in most cases, very little mind +is left to him to know.” + +“Don’t be satirical, sir; and don’t talk as if you were railing at +marriage, when you have just left as happy a young couple as the sun +ever shone upon; and owing,--for Mrs. Somers has told me all about her +marriage,--owing their happiness to you.” + +“Their happiness to me! not in the least. I helped them to marry, and in +spite of marriage they helped each other to be happy.” + +“You are still unmarried yourself?” + +“Yes, thank Heaven!” + +“And are you happy?” + +“No; I can’t make myself happy: myself is a discontented brute.” + +“Then why do you say ‘thank Heaven’?” + +“Because it is a comfort to think I am not making somebody else +unhappy.” + +“Do you believe that if you loved a wife who loved you, you should make +her unhappy?” + +“I am sure I don’t know; but I have not seen a woman whom I could love +as a wife. And we need not push our inquiries further. What has become +of that ill-treated gray cob?” + +“He was quite well, thank you, when I last heard of him.” + +“And the uncle who would have inflicted me upon you, if you had not so +gallantly defended yourself?” + +“He is living where he did live, and has married his housekeeper. He +felt a delicate scruple against taking that step till I was married +myself and out of the way.” + +Here Mrs. Braefield, beginning to speak very hurriedly, as women who +seek to disguise emotion often do, informed Kenelm how unhappy she had +felt for weeks after having found an asylum with her aunt,--how she had +been stung by remorse and oppressed by a sense of humiliation at the +thought of her folly and the odious recollection of Mr. Compton,--how +she had declared to herself that she would never marry any one +now--never! How Mr. Braefield happened to be on a visit in the +neighbourhood, and saw her at church,--how he had sought an introduction +to her,--and how at first she rather disliked him than not; but he was +so good and so kind, and when at last he proposed--and she had frankly +told him all about her girlish flight and infatuation--how generously he +had thanked her for a candour which had placed her as high in his esteem +as she had been before in his love. “And from that moment,” said Mrs. +Braefield, passionately, “my whole heart leaped to him. And now you know +all; and here we are at the Lodge.” + +The pony-phaeton went with great speed up a broad gravel-drive, bordered +with rare evergreens, and stopped at a handsome house with a portico in +front, and a long conservatory at the garden side,--one of those houses +which belong to “city gentlemen,” and often contain more comfort and +exhibit more luxury than many a stately manorial mansion. + +Mrs. Braefield evidently felt some pride as she led Kenelm through +the handsome hall, paved with Malvern tiles and adorned with Scagliola +columns, and into a drawing-room furnished with much taste and opening +on a spacious flower-garden. + +“But where is Mr. Braefield?” asked Kenelm. + +“Oh, he has taken the rail to his office; but he will be back long +before dinner, and of course you dine with us.” + +“You’re very hospitable, but--” + +“No buts: I will take no excuse. Don’t fear that you shall have only +mutton-chops and a rice-pudding; and, besides, I have a children’s party +coming at two o’clock, and there will be all sorts of fun. You are fond +of children, I am sure?” + +“I rather think I am not. But I have never clearly ascertained my own +inclinations upon that subject.” + +“Well, you shall have ample opportunity to do so to-day. And oh! I +promise you the sight of the loveliest face that you can picture to +yourself when you think of your future wife.” + +“My future wife, I hope, is not yet born,” said Kenelm, wearily, and +with much effort suppressing a yawn. “But at all events, I will stay +till after two o’clock; for two o’clock, I presume, means luncheon.” + +Mrs. Braefield laughed. “You retain your appetite?” + +“Most single men do, provided they don’t fall in love and become doubled +up.” + +At this abominable attempt at a pun, Mrs. Braefield disdained to laugh; +but turning away from its perpetrator she took off her hat and gloves +and passed her hands lightly over her forehead, as if to smooth back +some vagrant tress in locks already sufficiently sheen and trim. She was +not quite so pretty in female attire as she had appeared in boy’s +dress, nor did she look quite as young. In all other respects she was +wonderfully improved. There was a serener, a more settled intelligence +in her frank bright eyes, a milder expression in the play of her parted +lips. Kenelm gazed at her with pleased admiration. And as now, turning +from the glass, she encountered his look, a deeper colour came into the +clear delicacy of her cheeks, and the frank eyes moistened. She came up +to him as he sat, and took his hand in both hers, pressing it warmly. +“Ah, Mr. Chillingly,” she said, with impulsive tremulous tones, “look +round, look round this happy, peaceful home!--the life so free from a +care, the husband whom I so love and honour; all the blessings that I +might have so recklessly lost forever had I not met with you, had I been +punished as I deserved. How often I thought of your words, that ‘you +would be proud of my friendship when we met again’! What strength they +gave me in my hours of humbled self-reproach!” Her voice here died away +as if in the effort to suppress a sob. + +She released his hand, and, before he could answer, passed quickly +through the open sash into the garden. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE children have come,--some thirty of them, pretty as English children +generally are, happy in the joy of the summer sunshine, and the +flower lawns, and the feast under cover of an awning suspended between +chestnut-trees, and carpeted with sward. + +No doubt Kenelm held his own at the banquet, and did his best to +increase the general gayety, for whenever he spoke the children listened +eagerly, and when he had done they laughed mirthfully. + +“The fair face I promised you,” whispered Mrs. Braefield, “is not here +yet. I have a little note from the young lady to say that Mrs. Cameron +does not feel very well this morning, but hopes to recover sufficiently +to come later in the afternoon.” + +“And pray who is Mrs. Cameron?” + +“Ah! I forgot that you are a stranger to the place. Mrs. Cameron is the +aunt with whom Lily resides. Is it not a pretty name, Lily?” + +“Very! emblematic of a spinster that does not spin, with a white head +and a thin stalk.” + +“Then the name belies my Lily, as you will see.” + +The children now finished their feast, and betook themselves to dancing +in an alley smoothed for a croquet-ground, and to the sound of a violin +played by the old grandfather of one of the party. While Mrs. Braefield +was busying herself with forming the dance, Kenelm seized the occasion +to escape from a young nymph of the age of twelve who had sat next him +at the banquet, and taken so great a fancy to him that he began to fear +she would vow never to forsake his side, and stole away undetected. + +There are times when the mirth of others only saddens us, especially +the mirth of children with high spirits, that jar on our own quiet mood. +Gliding through a dense shrubbery, in which, though the lilacs were +faded, the laburnum still retained here and there the waning gold of its +clusters, Kenelm came into a recess which bounded his steps and invited +him to repose. It was a circle, so formed artificially by slight +trellises, to which clung parasite roses heavy with leaves and flowers. +In the midst played a tiny fountain with a silvery murmuring sound; at +the background, dominating the place, rose the crests of stately trees, +on which the sunlight shimmered, but which rampired out all horizon +beyond. Even as in life do the great dominant passions--love, ambition, +desire of power or gold or fame or knowledge--form the proud background +to the brief-lived flowerets of our youth, lift our eyes beyond the +smile of their bloom, catch the glint of a loftier sunbeam, and yet, +and yet, exclude our sight from the lengths and the widths of the space +which extends behind and beyond them. + +Kenelm threw himself on the turf beside the fountain. From afar came the +whoop and the laugh of the children in their sports or their dance. At +the distance their joy did not sadden him,--he marvelled why; and thus, +in musing revery, thought to explain the why to himself. + +“The poet,” so ran his lazy thinking, “has told us that ‘distance lends +enchantment to the view,’ and thus compares to the charm of distance +the illusion of hope. But the poet narrows the scope of his own +illustration. Distance lends enchantment to the ear as well as to the +sight; nor to these bodily senses alone. Memory no less than hope owes +its charm to ‘the far away.’ + +“I cannot imagine myself again a child when I am in the midst of +young noisy children. But as their noise reaches me here, subdued and +mellowed, and knowing, thank Heaven, that the urchins are not within +reach of me, I could readily dream myself back into childhood, and into +sympathy with the lost playfields of school. + +“So surely it must be with grief: how different the terrible agony for +a beloved one just gone from earth, to the soft regret for one who +disappeared into Heaven years ago! So with the art of poetry: how +imperatively, when it deals with the great emotions of tragedy, it must +remove the actors from us, in proportion as the emotions are to elevate, +and the tragedy is to please us by the tears it draws! Imagine our shock +if a poet were to place on the stage some wise gentleman with whom we +dined yesterday, and who was discovered to have killed his father and +married his mother. But when Oedipus commits those unhappy mistakes +nobody is shocked. Oxford in the nineteenth century is a long way off +from Thebes three thousand or four thousand years ago. + +“And,” continued Kenelm, plunging deeper into the maze of metaphysical +criticism, “even where the poet deals with persons and things close upon +our daily sight,--if he would give them poetic charm he must resort to +a sort of moral or psychological distance; the nearer they are to us +in external circumstance, the farther they must be in some internal +peculiarities. Werter and Clarissa Harlowe are described as +contemporaries of their artistic creation, and with the minutest details +of apparent realism; yet they are at once removed from our daily lives +by their idiosyncrasies and their fates. We know that while Werter +and Clarissa are so near to us in much that we sympathize with them as +friends and kinsfolk, they are yet as much remote from us in the poetic +and idealized side of their natures as if they belonged to the age of +Homer; and this it is that invests with charm the very pain which their +fate inflicts on us. Thus, I suppose, it must be in love. If the love +we feel is to have the glamour of poetry, it must be love for some +one morally at a distance from our ordinary habitual selves; in short, +differing from us in attributes which, however near we draw to the +possessor, we can never approach, never blend, in attributes of our +own; so that there is something in the loved one that always remains an +ideal,--a mystery,--‘a sun-bright summit mingling with the sky’!” + +Herewith the soliloquist’s musings glided vaguely into mere revery. He +closed his eyes drowsily, not asleep, nor yet quite awake; as sometimes +in bright summer days when we recline on the grass we do close our eyes, +and yet dimly recognize a golden light bathing the drowsy lids; and +athwart that light images come and go like dreams, though we know that +we are not dreaming. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +FROM this state, half comatose, half unconscious, Kenelm was roused +slowly, reluctantly. Something struck softly on his cheek,--again a +little less softly; he opened his eyes, they fell first upon two tiny +rosebuds, which, on striking his face, had fallen on his breast; and +then looking up, he saw before him, in an opening of the trellised +circle, a female child’s laughing face. Her hand was still uplifted +charged with another rosebud, but behind the child’s figure, looking +over her shoulder and holding back the menacing arm, was a face as +innocent but lovelier far,--the face of a girl in her first youth, +framed round with the blossoms that festooned the trellise. How the face +became the flowers! It seemed the fairy spirit of them. + +Kenelm started and rose to his feet. The child, the one whom he had so +ungallantly escaped from ran towards him through a wicket in the circle. +Her companion disappeared. + +“Is it you?” said Kenelm to the child, “you who pelted me so cruelly? +Ungrateful creature! Did I not give you the best strawberries in the +dish and all my own cream?” + +“But why did you run away and hide yourself when you ought to be dancing +with me?” replied the young lady, evading, with the instinct of her sex, +all answer to the reproach she had deserved. + +“I did not run away, and it is clear that I did not mean to hide myself, +since you so easily found me out. But who was the young lady with you? +I suspect she pelted me too, for she seems to have run away to hide +herself.” + +“No, she did not pelt you; she wanted to stop me, and you would have had +another rosebud--oh, so much bigger!--if she had not held back my arm. +Don’t you know her,--don’t you know Lily?” + +“No; so that is Lily? You shall introduce me to her.” + +By this time they had passed out of the circle through the little wicket +opposite the path by which Kenelm had entered, and opening at once on +the lawn. Here at some distance the children were grouped, some reclined +on the grass, some walking to and fro, in the interval of the dance. + +In the space between the group and the trellise Lily was walking alone +and quickly. The child left Kenelm’s side and ran after her friend, soon +overtook, but did not succeed in arresting her steps. Lily did not pause +till she had reached the grassy ball-room, and here all the children +came round her and shut out her delicate form from Kenelm’s sight. + +Before he had reached the place, Mrs. Braefield met him. + +“Lily is come!” + +“I know it: I have seen her.” + +“Is not she beautiful?” + +“I must see more of her if I am to answer critically; but before you +introduce me, may I be permitted to ask who and what is Lily?” + +Mrs. Braefield paused a moment before she answered, and yet the +answer was brief enough not to need much consideration. “She is a Miss +Mordaunt, an orphan; and, as I before told you, resides with her aunt, +Mrs. Cameron, a widow. They have the prettiest cottage you ever saw on +the banks of the river, or rather rivulet, about a mile from this place. +Mrs. Cameron is a very good, simple-hearted woman. As to Lily, I can +praise her beauty only with safe conscience, for as yet she is a mere +child,--her mind quite unformed.” + +“Did you ever meet any man, much less any woman, whose mind was formed?” + muttered Kenelm. “I am sure mine is not, and never will be on this +earth.” + +Mrs. Braefield did not hear this low-voiced observation. She was +looking about for Lily; and perceiving her at last as the children who +surrounded her were dispersing to renew the dance, she took Kenelm’s +arm, led him to the young lady, and a formal introduction took place. + +Formal as it could be on those sunlit swards, amidst the joy of summer +and the laugh of children. In such scene and such circumstance formality +does not last long. I know not how it was, but in a very few minutes +Kenelm and Lily had ceased to be strangers to each other. They found +themselves seated apart from the rest of the merry-makers, on the bank +shadowed by lime-trees; the man listening with downcast eyes, the girl +with mobile shifting glances now on earth, now on heaven, and talking +freely; gayly,--like the babble of a happy stream, with a silvery dulcet +voice and a sparkle of rippling smiles. + +No doubt this is a reversal of the formalities of well-bred life, and +conventional narrating thereof. According to them, no doubt, it is for +the man to talk and the maid to listen; but I state the facts as they +were, honestly. And Lily knew no more of the formalities of drawing-room +life than a skylark fresh from its nest knows of the song-teacher and +the cage. She was still so much of a child. Mrs. Braefield was right: +her mind was still so unformed. + +What she did talk about in that first talk between them that could make +the meditative Kenelm listen so mutely, so intently, I know not, at +least I could not jot it down on paper. I fear it was very egotistical, +as the talk of children generally is,--about herself and her aunt, and +her home and her friends; all her friends seemed children like herself, +though younger,--Clemmy the chief of them. Clemmy was the one who had +taken a fancy to Kenelm. And amidst all this ingenuous prattle there +came flashes of a quick intellect, a lively fancy,--nay, even a poetry +of expression or of sentiment. It might be the talk of a child, but +certainly not of a silly child. But as soon as the dance was over, +the little ones again gathered round Lily. Evidently she was the prime +favourite of them all; and as her companion had now become tired +of dancing, new sports were proposed, and Lily was carried off to +“Prisoner’s Base.” + +“I am very happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Chillingly,” said a +frank, pleasant voice; and a well-dressed, good-looking man held out his +hand to Kenelm. + +“My husband,” said Mrs. Braefield, with a certain pride in her look. + +Kenelm responded cordially to the civilities of the master of the house, +who had just returned from his city office, and left all its cares +behind him. You had only to look at him to see that he was prosperous, +and deserved to be so. There were in his countenance the signs of strong +sense, of good-humour,--above all, of an active energetic temperament. A +man of broad smooth forehead, keen hazel eyes, firm lips and jaw; with a +happy contentment in himself, his house, the world in general, mantling +over his genial smile, and outspoken in the metallic ring of his voice. + +“You will stay and dine with us, of course,” said Mr. Braefield; “and, +unless you want very much to be in town to-night, I hope you will take a +bed here.” + +Kenelm hesitated. + +“Do stay at least till to-morrow,” said Mrs. Braefield. Kenelm hesitated +still; and while hesitating his eye rested on Lily, leaning on the arm +of a middle-aged lady, and approaching the hostess,--evidently to take +leave. + +“I cannot resist so tempting an invitation,” said Kenelm, and he fell +back a little behind Lily and her companion. + +“Thank you much for so pleasant a day,” said Mrs. Cameron to the +hostess. “Lily has enjoyed herself extremely. I only regret we could not +come earlier.” + +“If you are walking home,” said Mr. Braefield, “let me accompany you. I +want to speak to your gardener about his heart’s-ease: it is much finer +than mine.” + +“If so,” said Kenelm to Lily, “may I come too? Of all flowers that grow, +heart’s-ease is the one I most prize.” + +A few minutes afterwards Kenelm was walking by the side of Lily along +the banks of a little stream, tributary to the Thames; Mrs. Cameron and +Mr. Braefield in advance, for the path only held two abreast. + +Suddenly Lily left his side, allured by a rare butterfly--I think it is +called the Emperor of Morocco--that was sunning its yellow wings upon +a group of wild reeds. She succeeded in capturing this wanderer in her +straw hat, over which she drew her sun-veil. After this notable capture +she returned demurely to Kenelm’s side. + +“Do you collect insects?” said that philosopher, as much surprised as it +was his nature to be at anything. + +“Only butterflies,” answered Lily; “they are not insects, you know; they +are souls.” + +“Emblems of souls you mean,--at least, so the Greeks prettily +represented them to be.” + +“No, real souls,--the souls of infants that die in their cradles +unbaptized; and if they are taken care of, and not eaten by birds, and +live a year then they pass into fairies.” + +“It is a very poetical idea, Miss Mordaunt, and founded on evidence +quite as rational as other assertions of the metamorphosis of one +creature into another. Perhaps you can do what the philosophers +cannot,--tell me how you learned a new idea to be an incontestable +fact?” + +“I don’t know,” replied Lily, looking very much puzzled; “perhaps I +learned it in a book, or perhaps I dreamed it.” + +“You could not make a wiser answer if you were a philosopher. But you +talk of taking care of butterflies; how do you do that? Do you impale +them on pins stuck into a glass case?” + +“Impale them! How can you talk so cruelly? You deserve to be pinched by +the fairies.” + +“I am afraid,” thought Kenelm, compassionately, “that my companion has +no mind to be formed; what is euphoniously called ‘an innocent.’” + +He shook his head and remained silent. Lily resumed,-- + +“I will show you my collection when we get home; they seem so happy. I +am sure there are some of them who know me: they will feed from my hand. +I have only had one die since I began to collect them last summer.” + +“Then you have kept them a year: they ought to have turned into +fairies.” + +“I suppose many of them have. Of course I let out all those that had +been with me twelve months: they don’t turn to fairies in the cage, +you know. Now I have only those I caught this year, or last autumn; the +prettiest don’t appear till the autumn.” + +The girl here bent her uncovered head over the straw hat, her tresses +shadowing it, and uttered loving words to the prisoner. Then again she +looked up and around her, and abruptly stopped, and exclaimed,-- + +“How can people live in towns? How can people say they are ever dull in +the country? Look,” she continued, gravely and earnestly, “look at that +tall pine-tree, with its long branch sweeping over the water; see how, +as the breeze catches it, it changes its shadow, and how the shadow +changes the play of the sunlight on the brook:-- + + + “‘Wave your tops, ye pines; + With every plant, in sign of worship wave.’ + + +“What an interchange of music there must be between Nature and a poet!” + +Kenelm was startled. This “an innocent”!--this a girl who had no mind to +be formed! In that presence he could not be cynical; could not speak of +Nature as a mechanism, a lying humbug, as he had done to the man poet. +He replied gravely,-- + +“The Creator has gifted the whole universe with language, but few are +the hearts that can interpret it. Happy those to whom it is no foreign +tongue, acquired imperfectly with care and pain, but rather a native +language, learned unconsciously from the lips of the great mother. To +them the butterfly’s wing may well buoy into heaven a fairy’s soul!” + +When he had thus said Lily turned, and for the first time attentively +looked into his dark soft eyes; then instinctively she laid her light +hand on his arm, and said in a low voice, “Talk on; talk thus: I like to +hear you.” + +But Kenelm did not talk on. They had now arrived at the garden-gate of +Mrs. Cameron’s cottage, and the elder persons in advance paused at the +gate and walked with them to the house. + +It was a long, low, irregular cottage, without pretension to +architectural beauty, yet exceedingly picturesque,--a flower-garden, +large, but in proportion to the house, with parterres in which the +colours were exquisitely assorted, sloping to the grassy margin of the +rivulet, where the stream expanded into a lake-like basin, narrowed +at either end by locks, from which with gentle sound flowed shallow +waterfalls. By the banks was a rustic seat, half overshadowed by the +drooping boughs of a vast willow. + +The inside of the house was in harmony with the exterior,--cottage-like, +but with an unmistakable air of refinement about the rooms, even in the +little entrance-hall, which was painted in Pompeian frescos. + +“Come and see my butterfly-cage,” said Lily, whisperingly. + +Kenelm followed her through the window that opened on the garden; and +at one end of a small conservatory, or rather greenhouse, was the +habitation of these singular favourites. It was as large as a small +room; three sides of it formed by minute wirework, with occasional +draperies of muslin or other slight material, and covered at intervals, +sometimes within, sometimes without, by dainty creepers; a tiny cistern +in the centre, from which upsprang a sparkling jet. Lily cautiously +lifted a sash-door and glided in, closing it behind her. Her entrance +set in movement a multitude of gossamer wings, some fluttering round +her, some more boldly settling on her hair or dress. Kenelm thought +she had not vainly boasted when she said that some of the creatures had +learned to know her. She released the Emperor of Morocco from her hat; +it circled round her fearlessly, and then vanished amidst the leaves of +the creepers. Lily opened the door and came out. + +“I have heard of a philosopher who tamed a wasp,” said Kenelm, “but +never before of a young lady who tamed butterflies.” + +“No,” said Lily, proudly; “I believe I am the first who attempted it. +I don’t think I should have attempted it if I had been told that others +had succeeded before me. Not that I have succeeded quite. No matter; if +they don’t love me, I love them.” + +They re-entered the drawing-room, and Mrs. Cameron addressed Kenelm. + +“Do you know much of this part of the country, Mr. Chillingly?” + +“It is quite new to me, and more rural than many districts farther from +London.” + +“That is the good fortune of most of our home counties,” said Mr. +Braefield; “they escape the smoke and din of manufacturing towns, and +agricultural science has not demolished their leafy hedgerows. The +walks through our green lanes are as much bordered with convolvulus and +honeysuckle as they were when Izaak Walton sauntered through them to +angle in that stream!” + +“Does tradition say that he angled in that stream? I thought his haunts +were rather on the other side of London.” + +“Possibly; I am not learned in Walton or in his art, but there is an old +summer-house, on the other side of the lock yonder, on which is carved +the name of Izaak Walton, but whether by his own hand or another’s who +shall say? Has Mr. Melville been here lately, Mrs. Cameron?” + +“No, not for several months.” + +“He has had a glorious success this year. We may hope that at last his +genius is acknowledged by the world. I meant to buy his picture, but I +was not in time: a Manchester man was before me.” + +“Who is Mr. Melville? any relation to you?” whispered Kenelm to Lily. + +“Relation,--I scarcely know. Yes, I suppose so, because he is my +guardian. But if he were the nearest relation on earth, I could not love +him more,” said Lily, with impulsive eagerness, her cheeks flushing, her +eyes filling with tears. + +“And he is an artist,--a painter?” asked Kenelm. + +“Oh, yes; no one paints such beautiful pictures,--no one so clever, no +one so kind.” + +Kenelm strove to recollect if he had ever heard the name of Melville as +a painter, but in vain. Kenelm, however, knew but little of painters: +they were not in his way; and he owned to himself, very humbly, that +there might be many a living painter of eminent renown whose name and +works would be strange to him. + +He glanced round the wall; Lily interpreted his look. “There are no +pictures of his here,” said she; “there is one in my own room. I will +show it you when you come again.” + +“And now,” said Mr. Braefield, rising, “I must just have a word with +your gardener, and then go home. We dine earlier here than in London, +Mr. Chillingly.” + +As the two gentlemen, after taking leave, re-entered the hall, Lily +followed them and said to Kenelm, “What time will you come to-morrow to +see the picture?” + +Kenelm averted his head, and then replied, not with his wonted courtesy, +but briefly and brusquely,-- + +“I fear I cannot call to-morrow. I shall be far away by sunrise.” + +Lily made no answer, but turned back into the room. + +Mr. Braefield found the gardener watering a flower-border, conferred +with him about the heart’s-ease, and then joined Kenelm, who had halted +a few yards beyond the garden-gate. + +“A pretty little place that,” said Mr. Braefield, with a sort of lordly +compassion, as became the owner of Braefieldville. “What I call quaint.” + +“Yes, quaint,” echoed Kenelm, abstractedly. + +“It is always the case with houses enlarged by degrees. I have heard my +poor mother say that when Melville or Mrs. Cameron first bought it, it +was little better than a mere labourer’s cottage, with a field attached +to it. And two or three years afterwards a room or so more was built, +and a bit of the field taken in for a garden; and then by degrees the +whole part now inhabited by the family was built, leaving only the old +cottage as a scullery and washhouse; and the whole field was turned +into the garden, as you see. But whether it was Melville’s money or the +aunt’s that did it, I don’t know. More likely the aunt’s. I don’t see +what interest Melville has in the place: he does not go there often, I +fancy; it is not his home.” + +“Mr. Melville, it seems, is a painter, and, from what I heard you say, a +successful one.” + +“I fancy he had little success before this year. But surely you saw his +pictures at the Exhibition?” + +“I am ashamed to say I have not been to the Exhibition.” + +“You surprise me. However, Melville had three pictures there,--all very +good; but the one I wished to buy made much more sensation than the +others, and has suddenly lifted him from obscurity into fame.” + +“He appears to be a relation of Miss Mordaunt’s, but so distant a +one that she could not even tell me what grade of cousinship he could +claim.” + +“Nor can I. He is her guardian, I know. The relationship, if any, must, +as you say, be very distant; for Melville is of humble extraction, while +any one can see that Mrs. Cameron is a thorough gentlewoman, and Lily +Mordaunt is her sister’s child. I have heard my mother say that it was +Melville, then a very young man, who bought the cottage, perhaps with +Mrs. Cameron’s money; saying it was for a widowed lady, whose husband +had left her with very small means. And when Mrs. Cameron arrived with +Lily, then a mere infant, she was in deep mourning, and a very young +woman herself,--pretty too. If Melville had been a frequent visitor +then, of course there would have been scandal; but he very seldom came, +and when he did, he lodged in a cottage, Cromwell Lodge, on the other +side of the brook; now and then bringing with him a fellow-lodger,--some +other young artist, I suppose, for the sake of angling. So there could +be no cause for scandal, and nothing can be more blameless than poor +Mrs. Cameron’s life. My mother, who then resided at Braefieldville, took +a great fancy to both Lily and her aunt, and when by degrees the cottage +grew into a genteel sort of place, the few gentry in the neighbourhood +followed my mother’s example and were very kind to Mrs. Cameron, so that +she has now her place in the society about here, and is much liked.” + +“And Mr. Melville?--does he still very seldom come here?” + +“To say truth, he has not been at all since I settled at Braefieldville. +The place was left to my mother for her life, and I was not much there +during her occupation. In fact, I was then a junior partner in our firm, +and conducted the branch business in New York, coming over to England +for my holiday once a year or so. When my mother died, there was much to +arrange before I could settle personally in England, and I did not come +to settle at Braefieldville till I married. I did see Melville on one of +my visits to the place some years ago; but, between ourselves, he is not +the sort of person whose intimate acquaintance one would wish to court. +My mother told me he was an idle, dissipated man, and I have heard from +others that he was very unsteady. Mr. -----, the great painter, told +me that he was a loose fish; and I suppose his habits were against his +getting on, till this year, when, perhaps, by a lucky accident, he has +painted a picture that raises him to the top of the tree. But is not +Miss Lily wondrously nice to look at? What a pity her education has been +so much neglected!” + +“Has it?” + +“Have not you discovered that already? She has not had even a +music-master, though my wife says she has a good ear, and can sing +prettily enough. As for reading I don’t think she has read anything but +fairy tales and poetry, and such silly stuff. However, she is very young +yet; and now that her guardian can sell his pictures, it is to be hoped +that he will do more justice to his ward. Painters and actors are not so +regular in their private lives as we plain men are, and great allowance +is to be made for them; still, every one is bound to do his duty. I am +sure you agree with me?” + +“Certainly,” said Kenelm, with an emphasis which startled the merchant. +“That is an admirable maxim of yours: it seems a commonplace, yet how +often, when it is put into our heads, it strikes as a novelty! A duty +may be a very difficult thing, a very disagreeable thing, and, what +is strange, it is often a very invisible thing. It is present,--close +before us, and yet we don’t see it; somebody shouts its name in our +ears, ‘Duty,’ and straight it towers before us a grim giant. Pardon me +if I leave you: I can’t stay to dine. Duty summons me elsewhere. Make my +excuses to Mrs. Braefield.” + +Before Mr. Braefield could recover his self-possession, Kenelm had +vaulted over a stile and was gone. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +KENELM walked into the shop kept by the Somerses, and found Jessie +still at the counter. “Give me back my knap sack. Thank you,” he said, +flinging the knapsack across his shoulders. “Now, do me a favour. A +portmanteau of mine ought to be at the station. Send for it, and keep it +till I give further directions. I think of going to Oxford for a day +or two. Mrs. Somers, one more word with you. Think, answer frankly, are +you, as you said this morning, thoroughly happy, and yet married to the +man you loved?” + +“Oh, so happy!” + +“And wish for nothing beyond? Do not wish Will to be other than he is?” + +“God forbid! You frighten me, sir.” + +“Frighten you! Be it so. Everyone who is happy should be frightened +lest happiness fly away. Do your best to chain it, and you will, for you +attach Duty to Happiness; and,” muttered Kenelm, as he turned from the +shop, “Duty is sometimes not a rose-coloured tie, but a heavy iron-hued +clog.” + +He strode on through the street towards the sign-post with “To Oxford” + inscribed thereon. And whether he spoke literally of the knapsack, or +metaphorically of duty, he murmured, as he strode,-- + + + “A pedlar’s pack that bows the bearer down.” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + +KENELM might have reached Oxford that night, for he was a rapid and +untirable pedestrian; but he halted a little after the moon rose, and +laid himself down to rest beneath a new-mown haystack, not very far from +the high road. + +He did not sleep. Meditatingly propped on his elbow, he said to +himself,-- + +“It is long since I have wondered at nothing. I wonder now: can this be +love,--really love,--unmistakably love? Pooh! it is impossible; the +very last person in the world to be in love with. Let us reason upon +it,--you, myself, and I. To begin with,--face! What is face? In a few +years the most beautiful face may be very plain. Take the Venus at +Florence. Animate her; see her ten years after; a chignon, front teeth +(blue or artificially white), mottled complexion, double chin,--all that +sort of plump prettiness goes into double chin. Face, bah! What man of +sense--what pupil of Welby, the realist--can fall in love with a face? +and even if I were simpleton enough to do so, pretty faces are as common +as daisies. Cecilia Travers has more regular features; Jessie Wiles a +richer colouring. I was not in love with them,--not a bit of it. Myself, +you have nothing to say there. Well, then, mind? Talk of mind, indeed! +a creature whose favourite companionship is that of butterflies, and who +tells me that butterflies are the souls of infants unbaptized. What an +article for ‘The Londoner,’ on the culture of young women! What a girl +for Miss Garrett and Miss Emily Faithfull! Put aside Mind as we have +done Face. What rests?--the Frenchman’s ideal of happy marriage? +congenial circumstance of birth, fortune, tastes, habits. Worse still. +Myself, answer honestly, are you not floored?” + +Whereon “Myself” took up the parable and answered, “O thou fool! why +wert thou so ineffably blessed in one presence? Why, in quitting that +presence, did Duty become so grim? Why dost thou address to me those +inept pedantic questionings, under the light of yon moon, which has +suddenly ceased to be to thy thoughts an astronomical body and has +become, forever and forever, identified in thy heart’s dreams with +romance and poesy and first love? Why, instead of gazing on that +uncomfortable orb, art thou not quickening thy steps towards a cozy inn +and a good supper at Oxford? Kenelm, my friend, thou art in for it. No +disguising the fact: thou art in love!” + +“I’ll be hanged if I am,” said the Second in the Dualism of Kenelm’s +mind; and therewith he shifted his knapsack into a pillow, turned his +eyes from the moon, and still could not sleep. The face of Lily still +haunted his eyes; the voice of Lily still rang in his ears. + +Oh, my reader! dost thou here ask me to tell thee what Lily was +like?--was she dark? was she fair? was she tall? was she short? Never +shalt thou learn these secrets from me. Imagine to thyself the being to +which thine whole of life, body and mind and soul, moved irresistibly as +the needle to the pole. Let her be tall or short, dark or fair, she is +that which out of all womankind has suddenly become the one woman for +thee. Fortunate art thou, my reader, if thou chance to have heard the +popular song of “My Queen” sung by the one lady who alone can sing it +with expression worthy the verse of the poetess and the music of the +composition, by the sister of the exquisite songstress. But if thou hast +not heard the verse thus sung, to an accompaniment thus composed, still +the words themselves are, or ought to be, familiar to thee, if thou art, +as I take for granted, a lover of the true lyrical muse. Recall then +the words supposed to be uttered by him who knows himself destined to do +homage to one he has not yet beheld:-- + + + “She is standing somewhere,--she I shall honour, + She that I wait for, my queen, my queen; + Whether her hair be golden or raven, + Whether her eyes be hazel or blue, + I know not now, it will be engraven + Some day hence as my loveliest hue. + She may be humble or proud, my lady, + Or that sweet calm which is just between; + But whenever she comes, she will find me ready + To do her homage, my queen, my queen.” + + +Was it possible that the cruel boy-god “who sharpens his arrows on the +whetstone of the human heart” had found the moment to avenge himself +for the neglect of his altars and the scorn of his power? Must that +redoubted knight-errant, the hero of this tale, despite the Three Fishes +on his charmed shield, at last veil the crest and bow the knee, and +murmur to himself, “She has come, my queen”? + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE next morning Kenelm arrived at Oxford,--“Verum secretumque +Mouseion.” + +If there be a place in this busy island which may distract the +passion of youth from love to scholarship, to Ritualism, to mediaeval +associations, to that sort of poetical sentiment or poetical fanaticism +which a Mivers and a Welby and an advocate of the Realistic School would +hold in contempt,--certainly that place is Oxford,--home; nevertheless, +of great thinkers and great actors in the practical world. + +The vacation had not yet commenced, but the commencement was near at +hand. Kenelm thought he could recognize the leading men by their slower +walk and more abstracted expression of countenance. Among the Fellows +was the eminent author of that book which had so powerfully fascinated +the earlier adolescence of Kenelm Chillingly, and who had himself been +subject to the fascination of a yet stronger spirit. The Rev. Decimus +Roach had been ever an intense and reverent admirer of John Henry +Newman,--an admirer, I mean, of the pure and lofty character of the +man, quite apart from sympathy with his doctrines. But although Roach +remained an unconverted Protestant of orthodox, if High Church, creed, +yet there was one tenet he did hold in common with the author of the +“Apologia.” He ranked celibacy among the virtues most dear to Heaven. +In that eloquent treatise, “The Approach to the Angels,” he not only +maintained that the state of single blessedness was strictly incumbent +on every member of a Christian priesthood, but to be commended to the +adoption of every conscientious layman. + +It was the desire to confer with this eminent theologian that had +induced Kenelm to direct his steps to Oxford. + +Mr. Roach was a friend of Welby, at whose house, when a pupil, +Kenelm had once or twice met him, and been even more charmed by his +conversation than by his treatise. + +Kenelm called on Mr. Roach, who received him very graciously, and, not +being a tutor or examiner, placed his time at Kenelm’s disposal; took +him the round of the colleges and the Bodleian; invited him to dine in +his college-hall; and after dinner led him into his own rooms, and gave +him an excellent bottle of Chateau Margeaux. + +Mr. Roach was somewhere about fifty,--a good-looking man and evidently +thought himself so; for he wore his hair long behind and parted in the +middle, which is not done by men who form modest estimates of their +personal appearance. + +Kenelm was not long in drawing out his host on the subject to which that +profound thinker had devoted so much meditation. + +“I can scarcely convey to you,” said Kenelm, “the intense admiration +with which I have studied your noble work, ‘Approach to the Angels.’ It +produced a great effect on me in the age between boyhood and youth. But +of late some doubts on the universal application of your doctrine have +crept into my mind.” + +“Ay, indeed?” said Mr. Roach, with an expression of interest in his +face. + +“And I come to you for their solution.” + +Mr. Roach turned away his head, and pushed the bottle to Kenelm. + +“I am quite willing to concede,” resumed the heir of the Chillinglys, +“that a priesthood should stand apart from the distracting cares of a +family, and pure from all carnal affections.” + +“Hem, hem,” grunted Mr. Roach, taking his knee on his lap and caressing +it. + +“I go further,” continued Kenelm, “and supposing with you that the +Confessional has all the importance, whether in its monitory or its +cheering effects upon repentant sinners, which is attached to it by +the Roman Catholics, and that it ought to be no less cultivated by the +Reformed Church, it seems to me essential that the Confessor should have +no better half to whom it can be even suspected he may, in an unguarded +moment, hint at the frailties of one of her female acquaintances.” + +“I pushed that argument too far,” murmured Roach. + +“Not a bit of it. Celibacy in the Confessor stands or falls with the +Confessional. Your argument there is as sound as a bell. But when it +comes to the layman, I think I detect a difference.” + +Mr. Roach shook his head, and replied stoutly, “No; if celibacy be +incumbent on the one, it is equally incumbent on the other. I say ‘if.’” + +“Permit me to deny that assertion. Do not fear that I shall insult your +understanding by the popular platitude; namely, that if celibacy were +universal, in a very few years the human race would be extinct. As you +have justly observed, in answer to that fallacy, ‘It is the duty of each +human soul to strive towards the highest perfection of the spiritual +state for itself, and leave the fate of the human race to the care of +the Creator.’ If celibacy be necessary to spiritual perfection, how do +we know but that it may be the purpose and decree of the All Wise that +the human race, having attained to that perfection, should disappear +from earth? Universal celibacy would thus be the euthanasia of mankind. +On the other hand, if the Creator decided that the human race, having +culminated to this crowning but barren flower of perfection, should +nevertheless continue to increase and multiply upon earth, have you not +victoriously exclaimed, ‘Presumptuous mortal! how canst thou presume +to limit the resources of the Almighty? Would it not be easy for Him to +continue some other mode, unexposed to trouble and sin and passion, as +in the nuptials of the vegetable world, by which the generations will +be renewed? Can we suppose that the angels--the immortal companies +of heaven--are not hourly increasing in number, and extending their +population throughout infinity? and yet in heaven there is no marrying +nor giving in marriage.’ All this, clothed by you in words which my +memory only serves me to quote imperfectly,--all this I unhesitatingly +concede.” + +Mr. Roach rose and brought another bottle of the Chateau Margeaux from +his cellaret, filled Kenelm’s glass, reseated himself, and took the +other knee into his lap to caress. + +“But,” resumed Kenelm, “my doubt is this.” + +“Ah!” cried Mr. Roach, “let us hear the doubt.” + +“In the first place, is celibacy essential to the highest state of +spiritual perfection; and, in the second place, if it were, are mortals, +as at present constituted, capable of that culmination?” + +“Very well put,” said Mr. Roach, and he tossed off his glass with more +cheerful aspect than he had hitherto exhibited. + +“You see,” said Kenelm, “we are compelled in this, as in other questions +of philosophy, to resort to the inductive process, and draw our theories +from the facts within our cognizance. Now looking round the world, is it +the fact that old maids and old bachelors are so much more spiritually +advanced than married folks? Do they pass their time, like an Indian +dervish, in serene contemplation of divine excellence and beatitude? +Are they not quite as worldly in their own way as persons who have been +married as often as the Wife of Bath, and, generally speaking, more +selfish, more frivolous, and more spiteful? I am sure I don’t wish to +speak uncharitably against old maids and old bachelors. I have three +aunts who are old maids, and fine specimens of the genus; but I am sure +they would all three have been more agreeable companions, and quite as +spiritually gifted, if they had been happily married, and were caressing +their children, instead of lapdogs. So, too, I have an old bachelor +cousin, Chillingly Mivers, whom you know. As clever as a man can be. +But, Lord bless you! as to being wrapped in spiritual meditation, he +could not be more devoted to the things of earth if he had married as +many wives as Solomon, and had as many children as Priam. Finally, have +not half the mistakes in the world arisen from a separation between the +spiritual and the moral nature of man? Is it not, after all, through his +dealings with his fellow-men that man makes his safest ‘approach to the +angels’? And is not the moral system a very muscular system? Does it not +require for healthful vigour plenty of continued exercise, and does it +not get that exercise naturally by the relationships of family, with +all the wider collateral struggles with life which the care of family +necessitates? + +“I put these questions to you with the humblest diffidence. I expect to +hear such answers as will thoroughly convince my reason, and I shall be +delighted if so. For at the root of the controversy lies the passion of +love. And love must be a very disquieting, troublesome emotion, and has +led many heroes and sages into wonderful weaknesses and follies.” + +“Gently, gently, Mr. Chillingly; don’t exaggerate. Love, no doubt, +is--ahem--a disquieting passion. Still, every emotion that changes life +from a stagnant pool into the freshness and play of a running stream is +disquieting to the pool. Not only love and its fellow-passions, such as +ambition, but the exercise of the reasoning faculty, which is always at +work in changing our ideas, is very disquieting. Love, Mr. Chillingly, +has its good side as well as its bad. Pass the bottle.” + +KENELM (passing the bottle).--“Yes, yes; you are quite right in +putting the adversary’s case strongly, before you demolish it: all good +rhetoricians do that. Pardon me if I am up to that trick in argument. +Assume that I know all that can be said in favour of the abnegation of +common-sense, euphoniously called ‘love,’ and proceed to the demolition +of the case.” + +THE REV. DECIMUS ROACH (hesitatingly).--“The demolition of the case? +humph! The passions are ingrafted in the human system as part and parcel +of it, and are not to be demolished so easily as you seem to think. +Love, taken rationally and morally by a man of good education and sound +principles, is--is--” + +KENELM.--“Well, is what?” + +THE REV. DECIMUS ROACH.--“A--a--a--thing not to be despised. Like the +sun, it is the great colourist of life, Mr. Chillingly. And you are so +right: the moral system does require daily exercise. What can give that +exercise to a solitary man, when he arrives at the practical age in +which he cannot sit for six hours at a stretch musing on the divine +essence; and rheumatism or other ailments forbid his adventure into +the wilds of Africa as a missionary? At that age, Nature, which will +be heard, Mr. Chillingly, demands her rights. A sympathizing female +companion by one’s side; innocent little children climbing one’s +knee,--lovely, bewitching picture! Who can be Goth enough to rub it out, +who fanatic enough to paint over it the image of a Saint Simeon sitting +alone on a pillar? Take another glass. You don’t drink enough, Mr. +Chillingly.” + +“I have drunk enough,” replied Kenelm, in a sullen voice, “to think I +see double. I imagined that before me sat the austere adversary of the +insanity of love and the miseries of wedlock. Now, I fancy I listen to +a puling sentimentalist uttering the platitudes which the other Decimus +Roach had already refuted. Certainly either I see double, or you amuse +yourself with mocking my appeal to your wisdom.” + +“Not so, Mr. Chillingly. But the fact is, that when I wrote that book +of which you speak I was young, and youth is enthusiastic and one-sided. +Now, with the same disdain of the excesses to which love may hurry weak +intellects, I recognize its benignant effects when taken, as I before +said, rationally,--taken rationally, my young friend. At that period +of life when the judgment is matured, the soothing companionship of +an amiable female cannot but cheer the mind, and prevent that morose +hoar-frost into which solitude is chilled and made rigid by increasing +years. In short, Mr. Chillingly, having convinced myself that I erred +in the opinion once too rashly put forth, I owe it to Truth, I owe it to +Mankind, to make my conversion known to the world. And I am about next +month to enter into the matrimonial state with a young lady who--” + +“Say no more, say no more, Mr. Roach. It must be a painful subject to +you. Let us drop it.” + +“It is not a painful subject at all!” exclaimed Mr. Roach, with warmth. +“I look forward to the fulfilment of my duty with the pleasure which +a well-trained mind always ought to feel in recanting a fallacious +doctrine. But you do me the justice to understand that of course I do +not take this step I propose--for my personal satisfaction. No, sir, +it is the value of my example to others which purifies my motives and +animates my soul.” + +After this concluding and noble sentence, the conversation drooped. Host +and guest both felt they had had enough of each other. Kenelm soon rose +to depart. + +Mr. Roach, on taking leave of, him at the door, said, with marked +emphasis,-- + +“Not for my personal satisfaction,--remember that. Whenever you hear my +conversion discussed in the world, say that from my own lips you heard +these words,--NOT FOR MY PERSONAL SATISFACTION. No! my kind regards to +Welby,--a married man himself, and a father: he will understand me.” + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +ON quitting Oxford, Kenelm wandered for several days about the country, +advancing to no definite goal, meeting with no noticeable adventure. +At last he found himself mechanically retracing his steps. A magnetic +influence he could not resist drew him back towards the grassy meads and +the sparkling rill of Moleswich. + +“There must be,” said he to himself, “a mental, like an optical, +illusion. In the last, we fancy we have seen a spectre. If we dare not +face the apparition,--dare not attempt to touch it,--run superstitiously +away from it,--what happens? We shall believe to our dying day that it +was not an illusion, that it was a spectre; and so we may be crazed for +life. But if we manfully walk up to the phantom, stretch our hands +to seize it, oh! it fades into thin air, the cheat of our eyesight is +dispelled, and we shall never be ghost-ridden again. So it must be with +this mental illusion of mine. I see an image strange to my experience: +it seems to me, at first sight, clothed with a supernatural charm; like +an unreasoning coward, I run away from it. It continues to haunt me; I +cannot shut out its apparition. It pursues me by day alike in the haunts +of men,--alike in the solitudes of nature; it visits me by night in my +dreams. I begin to say this must be a real visitant from another world: +it must be love; the love of which I read in the Poets, as in the Poets +I read of witchcraft and ghosts. Surely I must approach that apparition +as a philosopher like Sir David Brewster would approach the black +cat seated on a hearth-rug, which he tells us that some lady of his +acquaintance constantly saw till she went into a world into which black +cats are not held to be admitted. The more I think of it the less +it appears to me possible that I can be really in love with a wild, +half-educated, anomalous creature, merely because the apparition of +her face haunts me. With perfect safety, therefore, I can approach the +creature; in proportion as I see more of her the illusion will vanish. I +will go back to Moleswich manfully.” + +Thus said Kenelm to himself, and himself answered,--“Go; for thou canst +not help it. Thinkest thou that Daces can escape the net that has meshed +a Roach? No,-- + + + ‘Come it will, the day decreed by fate,’ + + +when thou must succumb to the ‘Nature which will be heard.’ Better +succumb now, and with a good grace, than resist till thou hast reached +thy fiftieth year, and then make a rational choice not for thy personal +satisfaction.” + +Whereupon Kenelm answered to himself, indignantly, “Pooh! thou flippant. +My _alter ego_, thou knowest not what thou art talking about! It is +not a question of Nature; it is a question of the supernatural,--an +illusion,--a phantom!” Thus Kenelm and himself continued to quarrel with +each other; and the more they quarrelled, the nearer they approached +to the haunted spot in which had been seen, and fled from, the fatal +apparition of first love. + + + + +BOOK VI. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +SIR PETER had not heard from Kenelm since a letter informing him that +his son had left town on an excursion, which would probably be short, +though it might last a few weeks; and the good Baronet now resolved to +go to London himself, take his chance of Kenelm’s return, and if +still absent, at least learn from Mivers and others how far that very +eccentric planet had contrived to steer a regular course amidst the +fixed stars of the metropolitan system. He had other reasons for his +journey. He wished to make the acquaintance of Chillingly Gordon +before handing him over the L20,000 which Kenelm had released in that +resettlement of estates, the necessary deeds of which the young heir had +signed before quitting London for Moleswich. Sir Peter wished still more +to see Cecilia Travers, in whom Kenelm’s accounts of her had inspired a +very strong interest. + +The day after his arrival in town Sir Peter breakfasted with Mivers. + +“Upon my word you are very comfortable here,” said Sir Peter, glancing +at the well-appointed table, and round the well-furnished rooms. + +“Naturally so: there is no one to prevent my being comfortable. I am not +married; taste that omelette.” + +“Some men declare they never knew comfort till they were married, Cousin +Miners.” + +“Some men are reflecting bodies, and catch a pallid gleam from the +comfort which a wife concentres on herself. With a fortune so modest and +secure, what comforts, possessed by me now, would not a Mrs. Chillingly +Mivers ravish from my hold and appropriate to herself! Instead of these +pleasant rooms, where should I be lodged? In a dingy den looking on +a backyard excluded from the sun by day and vocal with cats by night; +while Mrs. Mivers luxuriated in two drawing-rooms with southern aspect +and perhaps a boudoir. My brougham would be torn from my uses and +monopolized by ‘the angel of my hearth,’ clouded in her crinoline and +halved by her chignon. No! if ever I marry--and I never deprive myself +of the civilities and needlework which single ladies waste upon me by +saying I shall not marry--it will be when women have fully established +their rights; for then men may have a chance of vindicating their own. +Then if there are two drawing-rooms in the house I shall take one; +if not, we will toss up who shall have the back parlour; if we keep a +brougham, it will be exclusively mine three days in the week; if Mrs. M. +wants L200 a year for her wardrobe she must be contented with one, the +other half will belong to my personal decoration; if I am oppressed by +proof-sheets and printers’ devils, half of the oppression falls to her +lot, while I take my holiday on the croquet ground at Wimbledon. Yes, +when the present wrongs of women are exchanged for equality with men, I +will cheerfully marry; and to do the thing generous, I will not oppose +Mrs. M.’s voting in the vestry or for Parliament. I will give her my own +votes with pleasure.” + +“I fear, my dear cousin, that you have infected Kenelm with your selfish +ideas on the nuptial state. He does not seem inclined to marry,--eh?” + +“Not that I know of.” + +“What sort of girl is Cecilia Travers?” + +“One of those superior girls who are not likely to tower into that +terrible giantess called a ‘superior woman.’ A handsome, well-educated, +sensible young lady, not spoiled by being an heiress; in fine, just the +sort of girl whom you could desire to fix on for a daughter-in-law.” + +“And you don’t think Kenelm has a fancy for her?” + +“Honestly speaking, I do not.” + +“Any counter-attraction? There are some things in which sons do not +confide in their fathers. You have never heard that Kenelm has been a +little wild?” + +“Wild he is, as the noble savage who ran in the woods,” said Cousin +Mivers. + +“You frighten me!” + +“Before the noble savage ran across the squaws, and was wise enough to +run away from them. Kenelm has run away now somewhere.” + +“Yes, he does not tell me where, nor do they know at his lodgings. +A heap of notes on his table and no directions where they are to +be forwarded. On the whole, however, he has held his own in London +society,--eh?” + +“Certainly! he has been more courted than most young men, and perhaps +more talked of. Oddities generally are.” + +“You own he has talents above the average? Do you not think he will make +a figure in the world some day, and discharge that debt to the literary +stores or the political interests of his country, which alas, I and my +predecessors, the other Sir Peters, failed to do; and for which I hailed +his birth, and gave him the name of Kenelm?” + +“Upon my word,” answered Mivers,--who had now finished his breakfast, +retreated to an easy-chair, and taken from the chimney-piece one of his +famous trabucos,--“upon my word, I can’t guess; if some great reverse +of fortune befell him, and he had to work for his livelihood, or if some +other direful calamity gave a shock to his nervous system and jolted it +into a fussy, fidgety direction, I dare say he might make a splash in +that current of life which bears men on to the grave. But you see he +wants, as he himself very truly says, the two stimulants to definite +action,--poverty and vanity.” + +“Surely there have been great men who were neither poor nor vain?” + +“I doubt it. But vanity is a ruling motive that takes many forms +and many aliases: call it ambition, call it love of fame, still its +substance is the same,--the desire of applause carried into fussiness of +action.” + +“There may be the desire for abstract truth without care for applause.” + +“Certainly. A philosopher on a desert island may amuse himself by +meditating on the distinction between light and heat. But if, on +returning to the world, he publish the result of his meditations, vanity +steps in and desires to be applauded.” + +“Nonsense, Cousin Mivers, he may rather desire to be of use and benefit +to mankind. You don’t deny that there is such a thing as philanthropy.” + +“I don’t deny that there is such a thing as humbug. And whenever I meet +a man who has the face to tell me that he is taking a great deal +of trouble, and putting himself very much out of his way, for a +philanthropical object, without the slightest idea of reward either in +praise or pence, I know that I have a humbug before me,--a dangerous +humbug, a swindling humbug, a fellow with his pocket full of villanous +prospectuses and appeals to subscribers.” + +“Pooh, pooh; leave off that affectation of cynicism: you are not a +bad-hearted fellow; you must love mankind; you must have an interest in +the welfare of posterity.” + +“Love mankind? Interest in posterity? Bless my soul, Cousin Peter, I +hope you have no prospectuses in _your_ pockets; no schemes for draining +the Pontine Marshes out of pure love to mankind; no propositions for +doubling the income-tax, as a reserve fund for posterity, should our +coal-fields fail three thousand years hence. Love of mankind! Rubbish! +This comes of living in the country.” + +“But you do love the human race; you do care for the generations that +are to come.” + +“I! Not a bit of it. On the contrary, I rather dislike the human race, +taking it altogether, and including the Australian bushmen; and I don’t +believe any man who tells me that he would grieve half as much if +ten millions of human beings were swallowed up by an earthquake at a +considerable distance from his own residence, say Abyssinia, as he would +for a rise in his butcher’s bills. As to posterity, who would consent +to have a month’s fit of the gout or tic-douloureux in order that in the +fourth thousand year, A. D., posterity should enjoy a perfect system of +sewage?” + +Sir Peter, who had recently been afflicted by a very sharp attack +of neuralgia, shook his head, but was too conscientious not to keep +silence. + +“To turn the subject,” said Mivers, relighting the cigar which he had +laid aside while delivering himself of his amiable opinions, “I think +you would do well, while in town, to call on your old friend Travers, +and be introduced to Cecilia. If you think as favourably of her as I do, +why not ask father and daughter to pay you a visit at Exmundham? Girls +think more about a man when they see the place which he can offer +to them as a home, and Exmundham is an attractive place to +girls,--picturesque and romantic.” + +“A very good idea,” cried Sir Peter, heartily. “And I want also to make +the acquaintance of Chillingly Gordon. Give me his address.” + +“Here is his card on the chimney-piece, take it; you will always find +him at home till two o’clock. He is too sensible to waste the forenoon +in riding out in Hyde Park with young ladies.” + +“Give me your frank opinion of that young kinsman. Kenelm tells me that +he is clever and ambitious.” + +“Kenelm speaks truly. He is not a man who will talk stuff about love of +mankind and posterity. He is of our day, with large, keen, wide-awake +eyes, that look only on such portions of mankind as can be of use to +him, and do not spoil their sight by poring through cracked telescopes +to catch a glimpse of posterity. Gordon is a man to be a Chancellor of +the Exchequer, perhaps a Prime Minister.” + +“And old Gordon’s son is cleverer than my boy,--than the namesake of +Kenelm Digby!” and Sir Peter sighed. + +“I did not say that. I am cleverer than Chillingly Gordon, and the +proof of it is that I am too clever to wish to be Prime Minister,--very +disagreeable office, hard work, irregular hours for meals, much abuse +and confirmed dyspepsia.” + +Sir Peter went away rather down-hearted. He found Chillingly Gordon at +home in a lodging in Jermyn Street. Though prepossessed against him by +all he had heard, Sir Peter was soon propitiated in his favour. Gordon +had a frank man-of-the-world way with him, and much too fine a tact +to utter any sentiments likely to displease an old-fashioned country +gentleman, and a relation who might possibly be of service in his +career. He touched briefly, and with apparent feeling, on the unhappy +litigation commenced by his father; spoke with affectionate praise of +Kenelm; and with a discriminating good-nature of Mivers, as a man who, +to parody the epigram on Charles II., + + + “Never says a kindly thing + And never does a harsh one.” + + +Then he drew Sir Peter on to talk of the country and agricultural +prospects. Learned that among his objects in visiting town was the wish +to inspect a patented hydraulic ram that might be very useful for his +farm-yard, which was ill supplied with water. Startled the Baronet by +evincing some practical knowledge of mechanics; insisted on accompanying +him to the city to inspect the ram; did so, and approved the purchase; +took him next to see a new American reaping-machine, and did not part +with him till he had obtained Sir Peter’s promise to dine with him at +the Garrick; an invitation peculiarly agreeable to Sir Peter, who had +a natural curiosity to see some of the more recently distinguished +frequenters of that social club. As, on quitting Gordon, Sir Peter took +his way to the house of Leopold Travers, his thoughts turned with much +kindliness towards his young kinsman. “Mivers and Kenelm,” quoth he to +himself, “gave me an unfavourable impression of this lad; they represent +him as worldly, self-seeking, and so forth. But Mivers takes such +cynical views of character, and Kenelm is too eccentric to judge fairly +of a sensible man of the world. At all events, it is not like an egotist +to put himself out of his way to be so civil to an old fellow like me. A +young man about town must have pleasanter modes of passing his day than +inspecting hydraulic rams and reaping-machines. Clever they allow him to +be. Yes, decidedly clever, and not offensively clever,--practical.” + +Sir Peter found Travers in the dining-room with his daughter, Mrs. +Campion, and Lady Glenalvon. Travers was one of those men rare in middle +age, who are more often to be found in their drawing-room than in their +private study; he was fond of female society; and perhaps it was this +predilection which contributed to preserve in him the charm of good +breeding and winning manners. The two men had not met for many years; +not indeed since Travers was at the zenith of his career of fashion, +and Sir Peter was one of those pleasant _dilettanti_ and half humoristic +conversationalists who become popular and courted diners-out. + +Sir Peter had originally been a moderate Whig because his father +had been one before him; but he left the Whig party with the Duke of +Richmond, Mr. Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), and others, when it +seemed to him that that party had ceased to be moderate. + +Leopold Travers had, as a youth in the Guards, been a high Tory, but, +siding with Sir Robert Peel on the repeal of the Corn Laws, remained +with the Peelites after the bulk of the Tory party had renounced the +guidance of their former chief, and now went with these Peelites in +whatever direction the progress of the age might impel their strides in +advance of Whigs and in defiance of Tories. + +However, it is not the politics of these two gentlemen that are in +question now. As I have just said, they had not met for many years. +Travers was very little changed. Sir Peter recognized him at a glance; +Sir Peter was much changed, and Travers hesitated before, on hearing +his name announced, he felt quite sure that it was the right Sir Peter +towards whom he advanced, and to whom he extended his cordial hand. +Travers preserved the colour of his hair and the neat proportions of his +figure, and was as scrupulously well dressed as in his dandy days. Sir +Peter, originally very thin and with fair locks and dreamy blue eyes, +had now become rather portly,--at least towards the middle of him,--and +very gray; had long ago taken to spectacles; his dress, too, was very +old-fashioned, and made by a country tailor. He looked quite as much +a gentleman as Travers did; quite perhaps as healthy, allowing for +difference of years; quite as likely to last his time. But between them +there was the difference of the nervous temperament and the lymphatic. +Travers, with less brain than Sir Peter, had kept his brain constantly +active; Sir Peter had allowed his brain to dawdle over old books and +lazily delight in letting the hours slip by. Therefore Travers still +looked young, alert,--up to his day, up to anything; while Sir Peter, +entering that drawing-room, seemed a sort of Rip van Winkle who had +slept through the past generation, and looked on the present with eyes +yet drowsy. Still, in those rare moments when he was thoroughly roused +up, there would have been found in Sir Peter a glow of heart, nay, +even a vigour of thought, much more expressive than the constitutional +alertness that characterized Leopold Travers, of the attributes we most +love and admire in the young. + +“My dear Sir Peter, is it you? I am so glad to see you again,” said +Travers. “What an age since we met, and how condescendingly kind you +were then to me; silly fop that I was! But bygones are bygones; come +to the present. Let me introduce to you, first, my valued friend, Mrs. +Campion, whose distinguished husband you remember. Ah, what pleasant +meetings we had at his house! And next, that young lady of whom she +takes motherly charge, my daughter Cecilia. Lady Glenalvon, your wife’s +friend, of course needs no introduction: time stands still with her.” + +Sir Peter lowered his spectacles, which in reality he only wanted for +books in small print, and gazed attentively on the three ladies,--at +each gaze a bow. But while his eyes were still lingeringly fixed on +Cecilia, Lady Glenalvon advanced, naturally in right of rank and the +claim of old acquaintance, the first of the three to greet him. + +“Alas, my dear Sir Peter! time does not stand still for any of us; but +what matter, if it leaves pleasant footprints? When I see you again, my +youth comes before me,--my early friend, Caroline Brotherton, now Lady +Chillingly; our girlish walks with each other; wreaths and ball-dresses +the practical topic; prospective husbands, the dream at a distance. Come +and sit here: tell me all about Caroline.” + +Sir Peter, who had little to say about Caroline that could possibly +interest anybody but himself, nevertheless took his seat beside Lady +Glenalvon, and, as in duty bound, made the most flattering account +of his She Baronet which experience or invention would allow. All the +while, however, his thoughts were on Kenelm, and his eyes on Cecilia. + +Cecilia resumes some mysterious piece of lady’s work, no matter +what,--perhaps embroidery for a music-stool, perhaps a pair of slippers +for her father (which, being rather vain of his feet and knowing they +looked best in plain morocco, he will certainly never wear). Cecilia +appears absorbed in her occupation; but her eyes and her thoughts are +on Sir Peter. Why, my lady reader may guess. And oh, so flatteringly, +so lovingly fixed! She thinks he has a most charming, intelligent, +benignant countenance. She admires even his old-fashioned frock-coat, +high neckcloth, and strapped trousers. She venerates his gray hairs, +pure of dye. She tries to find a close resemblance between that +fair, blue-eyed, plumpish, elderly gentleman and the lean, dark-eyed, +saturnine, lofty Kenelm; she detects the likeness which nobody else +would. She begins to love Sir Peter, though he has not said a word to +her. + +Ah! on this, a word for what it is worth to you, my young readers. You, +sir, wishing to marry a girl who is to be deeply, lastingly in love with +you, and a thoroughly good wife practically, consider well how she takes +to your parents; how she attaches to them an inexpressible sentiment, +a disinterested reverence; even should you but dimly recognize the +sentiment, or feel the reverence, how if between you and your parents +some little cause of coldness arise, she will charm you back to honour +your father and your mother, even though they are not particularly +genial to her: well, if you win that sort of girl as your wife think you +have got a treasure. You have won a woman to whom Heaven has given the +two best attributes,--intense feeling of love, intense sense of duty. +What, my dear lady reader, I say of one sex, I say of another, though +in a less degree; because a girl who marries becomes of her husband’s +family, and the man does not become of his wife’s. Still I distrust the +depth of any man’s love to a woman, if he does not feel a great degree +of tenderness (and forbearance where differences arise) for her parents. +But the wife must not so put them in the foreground as to make the +husband think he is cast in the cold of the shadow. Pardon this +intolerable length of digression, dear reader: it is not altogether a +digression, for it belongs to my tale that you should clearly understand +the sort of girl that is personified in Cecilia Travers. + +“What has become of Kenelm?” asked Lady Glenalvon. + +“I wish I could tell you,” answered Sir Peter. “He wrote me word that he +was going forth on rambles into ‘fresh woods and pastures new,’ perhaps +for some weeks. I have not had a word from him since.” + +“You make me uneasy,” said Lady Glenalvon. “I hope nothing can have +happened to him: he cannot have fallen ill.” + +Cecilia stops her work, and looks up wistfully. + +“Make your mind easy,” said Travers with a laugh; “I am in this secret. +He has challenged the champion of England, and gone into the country to +train.” + +“Very likely,” said Sir Peter, quietly: “I should not be in the least +surprised; should you, Miss Travers?” + +“I think it more probable that Mr. Chillingly is doing some kindness to +others which he wishes to keep concealed.” + +Sir Peter was pleased with this reply, and drew his chair nearer to +Cecilia’s. Lady Glenalvon, charmed to bring those two together, soon +rose and took leave. + +Sir Peter remained nearly an hour talking chiefly with Cecilia, who won +her way into his heart with extraordinary ease; and he did not quit the +house till he had engaged her father, Mrs. Campion, and herself to pay +him a week’s visit at Exmundham, towards the end of the London season, +which was fast approaching. + +Having obtained this promise, Sir Peter went away, and ten minutes +after Mr. Chillingly Gordon entered the drawing-room. He had already +established a visiting acquaintance with the Traverses. Travers +had taken a liking to him. Mrs. Campion found him an extremely +well-informed, unaffected young man, very superior to young men in +general. Cecilia was cordially polite to Kenelm’s cousin. Altogether +that was a very happy day for Sir Peter. He enjoyed greatly his dinner +at the Garrick, where he met some old acquaintance and was presented to +some new “celebrities.” He observed that Gordon stood well with these +eminent persons. Though as yet undistinguished himself, they treated him +with a certain respect, as well as with evident liking. The most eminent +of them, at least the one with the most solidly established reputation, +said in Sir Peter’s ear, “You may be proud of your nephew Gordon!” + +“He is not my nephew, only the son of a very distant cousin.” + +“Sorry for that. But he will shed lustre on kinsfolk, however distant. +Clever fellow, yet popular; rare combination,--sure to rise.” + +Sir Peter suppressed a gulp in the throat. “Ah, if some one as eminent +had spoken thus of Kenelm!” + +But he was too generous to allow that half-envious sentiment to last +more than a moment. Why should he not be proud of any member of the +family who could irradiate the antique obscurity of the Chillingly race? +And how agreeable this clever young man made himself to Sir Peter! + +The next day Gordon insisted on accompanying him to see the latest +acquisitions in the British Museum, and various other exhibitions, and +went at night to the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, where Sir Peter was +infinitely delighted with an admirable little comedy by Mr. Robertson, +admirably placed on the stage by Marie Wilton. The day after, when +Gordon called on him at his hotel, he cleared his throat, and thus +plunged at once into the communication he had hitherto delayed. + +“Gordon, my boy, I owe you a debt, and I am now, thanks to Kenelm, able +to pay it.” + +Gordon gave a little start of surprise, but remained silent. + +“I told your father, shortly after Kenelm was born, that I meant to give +up my London house, and lay by L1000 a year for you, in compensation +for your chance of succeeding to Exmundham should I have died childless. +Well, your father did not seem to think much of that promise, and went +to law with me about certain unquestionable rights of mine. How so +clever a man could have made such a mistake would puzzle me, if I did +not remember that he had a quarrelsome temper. Temper is a thing that +often dominates cleverness,--an uncontrollable thing; and allowances +must be made for it. Not being of a quarrelsome temper myself (the +Chillinglys are a placid race), I did not make the allowance for your +father’s differing, and (for a Chillingly) abnormal, constitution. The +language and the tone of his letter respecting it nettled me. I did +not see why, thus treated, I should pinch myself to lay by a thousand a +year. Facilities for buying a property most desirable for the possessor +of Exmundham presented themselves. I bought it with borrowed money, and +though I gave up the house in London, I did not lay by the thousand a +year.” + +“My dear Sir Peter, I have always regretted that my poor father +was misled--perhaps out of too paternal a care for my supposed +interests--into that unhappy and fruitless litigation, after which +no one could doubt that any generous intentions on your part would be +finally abandoned. It has been a grateful surprise to me that I have +been so kindly and cordially received into the family by Kenelm and +yourself. Pray oblige me by dropping all reference to pecuniary matters: +the idea of compensation to a very distant relative for the loss of +expectations he had no right to form, is too absurd, for me at least, +ever to entertain.” + +“But I am absurd enough to entertain it, though you express yourself in +a very high-minded way. To come to the point, Kenelm is of age, and we +have cut off the entail. The estate of course remains absolutely with +Kenelm to dispose of, as it did before, and we must take it for granted +that he will marry; at all events he cannot fall into your poor father’s +error: but whatever Kenelm hereafter does with his property, it is +nothing to you, and is not to be counted upon. Even the title dies with +Kenelm if he has no son. On resettling the estate, however, sums +of money have been realized which, as I stated before, enable me to +discharge the debt which Kenelm heartily agrees with me is due to +you. L20,000 are now lying at my bankers’ to be transferred to yours; +meanwhile, if you will call on my solicitor, Mr. Vining, Lincoln’s-inn, +you can see the new deed and give to him your receipt for the L20,000, +for which he holds my cheque. Stop! stop! stop! I will not hear a. word: +no thanks; they are not due.” + +Here Gordon, who had during this speech uttered various brief +exclamations, which Sir Peter did not heed, caught hold of his kinsman’s +hand, and, despite of all struggles, pressed his lips on it. “I must +thank you; I must give some vent to my emotions,” cried Gordon. “This +sum, great in itself, is far more to me than you can imagine: it opens +my career; it assures my future.” + +“So Kenelm tells me; he said that sum would be more use to you now than +ten times the amount twenty years hence.” + +“So it will,--it will. And Kenelm consents to this sacrifice?” + +“Consents! urges it.” + +Gordon turned away his face, and Sir Peter resumed: “You want to get +into Parliament; very natural ambition for a clever young fellow. I +don’t presume to dictate politics to you. I hear you are what is called +a Liberal; a man may be a Liberal, I suppose, without being a Jacobin.” + +“I hope so, indeed. For my part I am anything but a violent man.” + +“Violent, no! Who ever heard of a violent Chillingly? But I was reading +in the newspaper to-day a speech addressed to some popular audience, +in which the orator was for dividing all the lands and all the capital +belonging to other people among the working class, calmly and quietly, +without any violence, and deprecating violence: but saying, perhaps very +truly, that the people to be robbed might not like it, and might offer +violence; in which case woe betide them; it was they who would be guilty +of violence; and they must take the consequences if they resisted the +reasonable, propositions of himself and his friends! That, I suppose, is +among the new ideas with which Kenelm is more familiar than I am. Do you +entertain those new ideas?” + +“Certainly not: I despise the fools who do.” + +“And you will not abet revolutionary measures if you get into +Parliament?” + +“My dear Sir Peter, I fear you have heard very false reports of my +opinions if you put such questions. Listen,” and therewith Gordon +launched into dissertations very clever, very subtle, which committed +him to nothing, beyond the wisdom of guiding popular opinions into right +directions: what might be right directions he did not define; he left +Sir Peter to guess them. Sir Peter did guess them, as Gordon meant he +should, to be the directions which he, Sir Peter, thought right; and he +was satisfied. + +That subject disposed of, Gordon said, with much apparent feeling, “May +I ask you to complete the favours you have lavished on me? I have never +seen Exmundham, and the home of the race from which I sprang has a deep +interest for time. Will you allow me to spend a few days with you, and +under the shade of your own trees take lessons in political science from +one who has evidently reflected on it profoundly?” + +“Profoundly, no; a little,--a little, as a mere bystander,” said Sir +Peter, modestly, but much flattered. “Come, my dear boy, by all means; +you will have a hearty welcome. By the by, Travers and his handsome +daughter promised to visit me in about a fortnight, why not come at the +same time?” + +A sudden flash lit up the young man’s countenance. + +“I shall be so delighted,” he cried. “I am but slightly acquainted with +Mr. Travers, but I like him much, and Mrs. Campion is so well informed.” + +“And what say you to the girl?” + +“The girl, Miss Travers. Oh, she is very well in her way. But I don’t +talk with young ladies more than I can help.” + +“Then you are like your cousin Kenelm?” + +“I wish I were like him in other things.” + +“No, one such oddity in a family is quite enough. But though I would +not have you change to a Kenelm, I would not change Kenelm for the most +perfect model of a son that the world can exhibit.” Delivering himself +of this burst of parental fondness, Sir Peter shook hands with Gordon, +and walked off to Mivers, who was to give him luncheon and then +accompany him to the station. Sir Peter was to return to Exmundham by +the afternoon express. + +Left alone, Gordon indulged in one of those luxurious guesses into the +future which form the happiest moments in youth when so ambitious as +his. The sum Sir Peter placed at his disposal would insure his entrance +in Parliament. He counted with confidence on early successes there. He +extended the scope of his views. With such successes he might calculate +with certainty on a brilliant marriage, augmenting his fortune, and +confirming his position. He had previously fixed his thoughts on Cecilia +Travers. I will do him the justice to say not from mercenary motives +alone, but not certainly with the impetuous ardour of youthful love. He +thought her exactly fitted to be the wife of an eminent public man, in +person, acquirement, dignified yet popular manners. He esteemed her, he +liked her, and then her fortune would add solidity to his position. In +fact, he had that sort of rational attachment to Cecilia which wise men, +like Lord Bacon and Montaigne, would commend to another wise man seeking +a wife. What opportunities of awaking in herself a similar, perhaps a +warmer, attachment the visit to Exmundham would afford! He had learned +when he had called on the Traverses that they were going thither, and +hence that burst of family sentiment which had procured the invitation +to himself. + +But he must be cautious, he must not prematurely awaken Travers’s +suspicions. He was not as yet a match that the squire could approve of +for his heiress. And, though he was ignorant of Sir Peter’s designs +on that, young lady, he was much too prudent to confide his own to a +kinsman of whose discretion he had strong misgivings. It was enough for +him at present that way was opened for his own resolute energies. And +cheerfully, though musingly, he weighed its obstacles, and divined its +goal, as he paced his floor with bended head and restless strides, now +quick, now slow. + +Sir Peter, in the meanwhile, found a very good luncheon prepared for +him at Mivers’s rooms, which he had all to himself, for his host never +“spoilt his dinner and insulted his breakfast” by that intermediate +meal. He remained at his desk writing brief notes of business, or +of pleasure, while Sir Peter did justice to lamb cutlets and grilled +chicken. But he looked up from his task, with raised eyebrows, when +Sir Peter, after a somewhat discursive account of his visit to the +Traverses, his admiration of Cecilia, and the adroitness with which, +acting on his cousin’s hint, he had engaged the family to spend a few +days at Exmundham, added, “And, by the by, I have asked young Gordon to +meet them.” + +“To meet them! meet Mr. and Miss Travers! you have? I thought you wished +Kenelm to marry Cecilia. I was mistaken, you meant Gordon!” + +“Gordon,” exclaimed Sir Peter, dropping his knife and fork. “Nonsense, +you don’t suppose that Miss Travers prefers him to Kenelm, or that +he has the presumption to fancy that her father would sanction his +addresses?” + +“I indulge in no suppositions of the sort. I content myself with +thinking that Gordon is clever, insinuating, young; and it is a very +good chance of bettering himself that you have thrown in his way. +However, it is no affair of mine; and though on the whole I like +Kenelm better than Gordon, still I like Gordon very well, and I have +an interest in following his career which I can’t say I have in +conjecturing what may be Kenelm’s--more likely no career at all.” + +“Mivers, you delight in provoking me; you do say such uncomfortable +things. But, in the first place, Gordon spoke rather slightingly of Miss +Travers.” + +“Ah, indeed; that’s a bad sign,” muttered Mivers. + +Sir Peter did not hear him, and went on. + +“And, besides, I feel pretty sure that the dear girl has already a +regard for Kenelm which allows no room for a rival. However, I shall not +forget your hint, but keep a sharp lookout; and, if I see the young man +wants to be too sweet on Cecilia, I shall cut short his visit.” + +“Give yourself no trouble in the matter; it will do no good. Marriages +are made in heaven. Heaven’s will be done. If I can get away I will +run down to you for a day or two. Perhaps in that case you can ask Lady +Glenalvon. I like her, and she likes Kenelm. Have you finished? I see +the brougham is at the door, and we have to call at your hotel to take +up your carpet-bag.” + +Mivers was deliberately sealing his notes while he thus spoke. He now +rang for his servant, gave orders for their delivery, and then followed +Sir Peter down stairs and into the brougham. Not a word would he say +more about Gordon, and Sir Peter shrank from telling him about the +L20,000. Chillingly Mivers was perhaps the last person to whom Sir +Peter would be tempted to parade an act of generosity. Mivers might not +unfrequently do a generous act himself, provided it was not divulged; +but he had always a sneer for the generosity of others. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +WANDERING back towards Moleswich, Kenelm found himself a little before +sunset on the banks of the garrulous brook, almost opposite to the house +inhabited by Lily Mordaunt. He stood long and silently by the grassy +margin, his dark shadow falling over the stream, broken into fragments +by the eddy and strife of waves, fresh from their leap down the +neighbouring waterfall. His eyes rested on the house and the garden lawn +in the front. The upper windows were open. “I wonder which is hers,” he +said to himself. At last he caught a glimpse of the gardener, bending +over a flower border with his watering-pot, and then moving slowly +through the little shrubbery, no doubt to his own cottage. Now the lawn +was solitary, save that a couple of thrushes dropped suddenly on the +sward. + +“Good evening, sir,” said a voice. “A capital spot for trout this.” + +Kenelm turned his head, and beheld on the footpath, just behind him, +a respectable elderly man, apparently of the class of a small retail +tradesman, with a fishing-rod in his hand and a basket belted to his +side. + +“For trout,” replied Kenelm; “I dare say. A strangely attractive spot +indeed.” + +“Are you an angler, sir, if I may make bold to inquire?” asked the +elderly man, somewhat perhaps puzzled as to the rank of the stranger; +noticing, on the one hand, his dress and his mien, on the other, slung +to his shoulders, the worn and shabby knapsack which Kenelm had carried, +at home and abroad, the preceding year. + +“Ay, I am an angler.” + +“Then this is the best place in the whole stream. Look, sir, there +is Izaak Walton’s summer-house; and further down you see that white, +neat-looking house. Well, that is my house, sir, and I have an apartment +which I let to gentleman anglers. It is generally occupied throughout +the summer months. I expect every day to have a letter to engage it, +but it is vacant now. A very nice apartment, sir,--sitting-room and +bedroom.” + +“_Descende ceolo, et dic age tibia_,” said Kenelm. + +“Sir?” said the elderly man. + +“I beg you ten thousand pardons. I have had the misfortune to have been +at the university, and to have learned a little Latin, which sometimes +comes back very inopportunely. But, speaking in plain English, what +I meant to say is this: I invoked the Muse to descend from heaven and +bring with her--the original says a fife, but I meant--a fishing-rod. I +should think your apartment would suit me exactly; pray show it to me.” + +“With the greatest pleasure,” said the elderly man. “The Muse need not +bring a fishing-rod! we have all sorts of tackle at your service, and a +boat too, if you care for that. The stream hereabouts is so shallow and +narrow that a boat is of little use till you get farther down.” + +“I don’t want to get farther down; but should I want to get to the +opposite bank, without wading across, would the boat take me or is there +a bridge?” + +“The boat can take you. It is a flat-bottomed punt, and there is a +bridge too for foot-passengers, just opposite my house; and between +this and Moleswich, where the stream widens, there is a ferry. The stone +bridge for traffic is at the farther end of the town.” + +“Good. Let us go at once to your house.” + +The two men walked on. + +“By the by,” said Kenelm, as they walked, “do you know much of the +family that inhabit the pretty cottage on the opposite side, which we +have just left behind?” + +“Mrs. Cameron’s. Yes, of course, a very good lady; and Mr. Melville, the +painter. I am sure I ought to know, for he has often lodged with me +when he came to visit Mrs. Cameron. He recommends my apartment to his +friends, and they are my best lodgers. I like painters, sir, though I +don’t know much about paintings. They are pleasant gentlemen, and easily +contented with my humble roof and fare.” + +“You are quite right. I don’t know much about paintings myself; but I am +inclined to believe that painters, judging not from what I have seen of +them, for I have not a single acquaintance among them personally, but +from what I have read of their lives, are, as a general rule, not only +pleasant but noble gentlemen. They form within themselves desires to +beautify or exalt commonplace things, and they can only accomplish their +desires by a constant study of what is beautiful and what is exalted. +A man constantly so engaged ought to be a very noble gentleman, even +though he may be the son of a shoeblack. And living in a higher world +than we do, I can conceive that he is, as you say, very well contented +with humble roof and fare in the world we inhabit.” + +“Exactly, sir; I see--I see now, though you put it in a way that never +struck me before.” + +“And yet,” said Kenelm, looking benignly at the speaker, “you seem to +me a well-educated and intelligent man; reflective on things in general, +without being unmindful of your interests in particular, especially when +you have lodgings to let. Do not be offended. That sort of man is not +perhaps born to be a painter, but I respect him highly. The world, sir, +requires the vast majority of its inhabitants to live in it,--to live +by it. ‘Each for himself, and God for us all.’ The greatest happiness +of the greatest number is best secured by a prudent consideration for +Number One.” + +Somewhat to Kenelm’s surprise (allowing that he had now learned enough +of life to be occasionally surprised) the elderly man here made a dead +halt, stretched out his hand cordially, and cried, “Hear, hear! I see +that, like me, you are a decided democrat.” + +“Democrat! Pray, may I ask, not why you are one,--that would be a +liberty, and democrats resent any liberty taken with themselves; but why +you suppose I am?” + +“You spoke of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. That is +a democratic sentiment surely! Besides, did not you say, sir, that +painters,--painters, sir, painters, even if they were the sons of +shoeblacks, were the true gentlemen,--the true noblemen?” + +“I did not say that exactly, to the disparagement of other gentlemen and +nobles. But if I did, what then?” + +“Sir, I agree with you. I despise rank; I despise dukes and earls and +aristocrats. ‘An honest man’s the noblest work of God.’ Some poet says +that. I think Shakspeare. Wonderful man, Shakspeare. A tradesman’s +son,--butcher, I believe. Eh! My uncle was a butcher, and might have +been an alderman. I go along with you heartily, heartily. I am a +democrat, every inch of me. Shake hands, sir, shake hands; we are all +equals. ‘Each man for himself, and God for us all.’” + +“I have no objection to shake hands,” said Kenelm; “but don’t let me owe +your condescension to false pretences. Though we are all equal before +the law, except the rich man, who has little chance of justice as +against a poor man when submitted to an English jury, yet I utterly deny +that any two men you select can be equals. One must beat the other +in something; and, when one man beats another, democracy ceases and +aristocracy begins.” + +“Aristocracy! I don’t see that. What do you mean by aristocracy?” + +“The ascendency of the better man. In a rude State the better man is +the stronger; in a corrupt State, perhaps the more roguish; in modern +republics the jobbers get the money and the lawyers get the power. In +well-ordered States alone aristocracy appears at its genuine worth: +the better man in birth, because respect for ancestry secures a higher +standard of honour; the better man in wealth, because of the immense +uses to enterprise, energy, and the fine arts, which rich men must be if +they follow their natural inclinations; the better man in character, the +better man in ability, for reasons too obvious to define; and these two +last will beat the others in the government of the State, if the State +be flourishing and free. All these four classes of better men constitute +true aristocracy; and when a better government than a true aristocracy +shall be devised by the wit of man, we shall not be far off from +the Millennium and the reign of saints. But here we are at the +house,--yours, is it not? I like the look of it extremely.” + +The elderly man now entered the little porch, over which clambered +honeysuckle and ivy intertwined, and ushered Kenelm into a pleasant +parlour, with a bay window, and an equally pleasant bedroom behind it. + +“Will it do, sir?” + +“Perfectly. I take it from this moment. My knapsack contains all I shall +need for the night. There is a portmanteau of mine at Mr. Somers’s shop, +which can be sent here in the morning.” + +“But we have not settled about the terms,” said the elderly man, +beginning to feel rather doubtful whether he ought thus to have +installed in his home a stalwart pedestrian of whom he knew nothing, +and who, though talking glibly enough on other things, had preserved an +ominous silence on the subject of payment. + +“Terms? true, name them.” + +“Including board?” + +“Certainly. Chameleons live on air; democrats on wind bags. I have a +more vulgar appetite, and require mutton.” + +“Meat is very dear now-a-days,” said the elderly man, “and I am afraid, +for board and lodging I cannot charge you less than L3 3s.,--say L3 a +week. My lodgers usually pay a week in advance.” + +“Agreed,” said Kenelm, extracting three sovereigns from his purse. “I +have dined already: I want nothing more this evening; let me detain you +no further. Be kind enough to shut the door after you.” + +When he was alone, Kenelm seated himself in the recess of the bay +window, against the casement, and looked forth intently. Yes; he was +right: he could see from thence the home of Lily. Not, indeed, more than +a white gleam of the house through the interstices of trees and shrubs, +but the gentle lawn sloping to the brook, with the great willow at the +end dipping its boughs into the water, and shutting out all view beyond +itself by its bower of tender leaves. The young man bent his face on his +hands and mused dreamily: the evening deepened; the stars came forth; +the rays of the moon now peered aslant through the arching dips of the +willow, silvering their way as they stole to the waves below. + +“Shall I bring lights, sir? or do you prefer a lamp or candles?” asked +a voice behind,--the voice of the elderly man’s wife. “Do you like the +shutters closed?” + +The question startled the dreamer. They seemed mocking his own old +mockings on the romance of love. Lamp or candles, practical lights for +prosaic eyes, and shutters closed against moon and stars! + +“Thank you, ma’am, not yet,” he said; and rising quietly he placed his +hand on the window-sill, swung himself through the open casement, and +passed slowly along the margin of the rivulet, by a path checkered +alternately with shade and starlight; the moon yet more slowly rising +above the willows, and lengthening its track along the wavelets. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THOUGH Kenelm did not think it necessary at present to report to his +parents or his London acquaintances his recent movements and his present +resting-place, it never entered into his head to lurk _perdu_ in the +immediate vicinity of Lily’s house, and seek opportunities of meeting +her clandestinely. He walked to Mrs. Braefield’s the next morning, found +her at home, and said in rather a more off-hand manner than was habitual +to him, “I have hired a lodging in your neighbourhood, on the banks of +the brook, for the sake of its trout-fishing. So you will allow me to +call on you sometimes, and one of these days I hope you will give me the +dinner I so unceremoniously rejected some days ago. I was then summoned +away suddenly, much against my will.” + +“Yes; my husband said that you shot off from him with a wild exclamation +about duty.” + +“Quite true; my reason, and I may say my conscience, were greatly +perplexed upon a matter extremely important and altogether new to me. I +went to Oxford,--the place above all others in which questions of +reason and conscience are most deeply considered, and perhaps +least satisfactorily solved. Relieved in my mind by my visit to a +distinguished ornament of that university, I felt I might indulge in a +summer holiday, and here I am.” + +“Ah! I understand. You had religious doubts,--thought perhaps of turning +Roman Catholic. I hope you are not going to do so?” + +“My doubts were not necessarily of a religious nature. Pagans have +entertained them.” + +“Whatever they were I am pleased to see they did not prevent your +return,” said Mrs. Braefield, graciously. “But where have you found a +lodging; why not have come to us? My husband would have been scarcely +less glad than myself to receive you.” + +“You say that so sincerely, and so cordially, that to answer by a brief +‘I thank you’ seems rigid and heartless. But there are times in life +when one yearns to be alone,--to commune with one’s own heart, and, if +possible, be still; I am in one of those moody times. Bear with me.” + +Mrs. Braefield looked at him with affectionate, kindly interest. She +had gone before him through the solitary road of young romance. She +remembered her dreamy, dangerous girlhood, when she, too, had yearned to +be alone. + +“Bear with you; yes, indeed. I wish, Mr. Chillingly, that I were your +sister, and that you would confide in me. Something troubles you.” + +“Troubles me,--no. My thoughts are happy ones, and they may sometimes +perplex me, but they do not trouble.” + +Kenelm said this very softly; and in the warmer light of his musing +eyes, the sweeter play of his tranquil smile, there was an expression +which did not belie his words. + +“You have not told me where you have found a lodging,” said Mrs. +Braefield, somewhat abruptly. + +“Did I not?” replied Kenelm, with an unconscious start, as from an +abstracted reverie. “With no undistinguished host, I presume, for when +I asked him this morning for the right address of this cottage, in order +to direct such luggage as I have to be sent there, he gave me his card +with a grand air, saying, ‘I am pretty well known at Moleswich, by +and beyond it.’ I have not yet looked at his card. Oh, here it +is,--‘Algernon Sidney Gale Jones, Cromwell Lodge;’ you laugh. What do +you know of him?” + +“I wish my husband were here; he would tell you more about him. Mr. +Jones is quite a character.” + +“So I perceive.” + +“A great radical,--very talkative and troublesome at the vestry; but our +vicar, Mr. Emlyn, says there is no real harm in him, that his bark is +worse than his bite, and that his republican or radical notions must be +laid to the door of his godfathers! In addition to his name of Jones, he +was unhappily christened Gale; Gale Jones being a noted radical orator +at the time of his birth. And I suppose Algernon Sidney was prefixed +to Gale in order to devote the new-born more emphatically to republican +principles.” + +“Naturally, therefore, Algernon Sidney Gale Jones baptizes his house +Cromwell Lodge, seeing that Algernon Sidney held the Protectorate in +especial abhorrence, and that the original Gale Jones, if an honest +radical, must have done the same, considering what rough usage the +advocates of Parliamentary Reform met with at the hands of his Highness. +But we must be indulgent to men who have been unfortunately christened +before they had any choice of the names that were to rule their fate. +I myself should have been less whimsical had I not been named after a +Kenelm who believed in sympathetic powders. Apart from his political +doctrines, I like my landlord: he keeps his wife in excellent order. She +seems frightened at the sound of her own footsteps, and glides to and +fro, a pallid image of submissive womanhood in list slippers.” + +“Great recommendations certainly, and Cromwell Lodge is very prettily +situated. By the by, it is very near Mrs. Cameron’s.” + +“Now I think of it, so it is,” said Kenelm, innocently. Ah! my friend +Kenelm, enemy of shams, and truth-teller, _par excellence_, what hast +thou come to? How are the mighty fallen! “Since you say you will dine +with us, suppose we fix the day after to-morrow, and I will ask Mrs. +Cameron and Lily.” + +“The day after to-morrow: I shall be delighted.” + +“An early hour?” + +“The earlier the better.” + +“Is six o’clock too early?” + +“Too early! certainly not; on the contrary. Good-day: I must now go to +Mrs. Somers; she has charge of my portmanteau.” + +Then Kenelm rose. + +“Poor dear Lily!” said Mrs. Braefield; “I wish she were less of a +child.” + +Kenelm reseated himself. + +“Is she a child? I don’t think she is actually a child.” + +“Not in years; she is between seventeen and eighteen: but my husband +says that she is too childish to talk to, and always tells me to take +her off his hands; he would rather talk with Mrs. Cameron.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Still I find something in her.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Not exactly childish, nor quite womanish.” + +“What then?” + +“I can’t exactly define. But you know what Mr. Melville and Mrs. Cameron +call her as a pet name?” + +“No.” + +“Fairy! Fairies have no age; fairy is neither child nor woman.” + +“Fairy. She is called fairy by those who know her best? Fairy!” + +“And she believes in fairies.” + +“Does she?--so do I. Pardon me, I must be off. The day after +to-morrow,--six o’clock.” + +“Wait one moment,” said Elsie, going to her writing-table. “Since you +pass Grasmere on your way home, will you kindly leave this note?” + +“I thought Grasmere was a lake in the north?” + +“Yes; but Mr. Melville chose to call the cottage by the name of the +lake. I think the first picture he ever sold was a view of Wordsworth’s +house there. Here is my note to ask Mrs. Cameron to meet you; but if you +object to be my messenger--” + +“Object! my dear Mrs. Braefield. As you say, I pass close by the +cottage.” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +KENELM went with somewhat rapid pace from Mrs. Braefield’s to the shop +in the High Street kept by Will Somers. Jessie was behind the counter, +which was thronged with customers. Kenelm gave her a brief direction +about his portmanteau, and then passed into the back parlour, where +her husband was employed on his baskets,--with the baby’s cradle in +the corner, and its grandmother rocking it mechanically, as she read a +wonderful missionary tract full of tales of miraculous conversions: into +what sort of Christians we will not pause to inquire. + +“And so you are happy, Will?” said Kenelm, seating himself between the +basket-maker and the infant; the dear old mother beside him, reading the +tract which linked her dreams of life eternal with life just opening +in the cradle that she rocked. He not happy! How he pitied the man who +could ask such a question. + +“Happy, sir! I should think so, indeed. There is not a night on which +Jessie and I, and mother too, do not pray that some day or other you may +be as happy. By and by the baby will learn to pray ‘God bless papa, and +mamma, grandmamma, and Mr. Chillingly.’” + +“There is some one else much more deserving of prayers than I, though +needing them less. You will know some day: pass it by now. To return to +the point: you are happy; if I asked why, would you not say, ‘Because I +have married the girl I love, and have never repented’?” + +“Well, sir, that is about it; though, begging your pardon, I think it +could be put more prettily somehow.” + +“You are right there. But perhaps love and happiness never yet found any +words that could fitly express them. Good-bye, for the present.” + +Ah! if it were as mere materialists, or as many middle-aged or elderly +folks, who, if materialists, are so without knowing it, unreflectingly +say, “The main element of happiness is bodily or animal health and +strength,” that question which Chillingly put would appear a very +unmeaning or a very insulting one addressed to a pale cripple, who +however improved of late in health, would still be sickly and ailing +all his life,--put, too, by a man of the rarest conformation of physical +powers that nature can adapt to physical enjoyment,--a man who, since +the age in which memory commences, had never known what it was to +be unwell, who could scarcely understand you if you talked of a +finger-ache, and whom those refinements of mental culture which +multiply the delights of the senses had endowed with the most exquisite +conceptions of such happiness as mere nature and its instincts can give! +But Will did not think the question unmeaning or insulting. He, the poor +cripple, felt a vast superiority on the scale of joyous being over the +young Hercules, well born, cultured, and wealthy, who could know so +little of happiness as to ask the crippled basket-maker if he were +happy.--he, blessed husband and father! + + + +CHAPTER V. + +LILY was seated on the grass under a chestnut-tree on the lawn. A white +cat, not long emerged from kittenhood, curled itself by her side. On her +lap was an open volume, which she was reading with the greatest delight. + +Mrs. Cameron came from the house, looked round, perceived the girl, and +approached; and either she moved so gently, or Lily was so absorbed in +the book, that the latter was not aware of her presence till she felt +a light hand on her shoulder, and, looking up, recognized her aunt’s +gentle face. + +“Ah! Fairy, Fairy, that silly book, when you ought to be at your French +verbs. What will your guardian say when he comes and finds you have so +wasted time?” + +“He will say that fairies never waste their time; and he will scold you +for saying so.” Therewith Lily threw down the book, sprang to her feet, +wound her arm round Mrs. Cameron’s neck, and kissed her fondly. “There! +is that wasting time? I love you so, aunty. In a day like this I think I +love everybody and everything!” As she said this, she drew up her lithe +form, looked into the blue sky, and with parted lips seemed to drink in +air and sunshine. Then she woke up the dozing cat, and began chasing it +round the lawn. + +Mrs. Cameron stood still, regarding her with moistened eyes. Just at +that moment Kenelm entered through the garden gate. He, too, stood +still, his eyes fixed on the undulating movements of Fairy’s exquisite +form. She had arrested her favourite, and was now at play with it, +shaking off her straw hat, and drawing the ribbon attached to it +tantalizingly along the smooth grass. Her rich hair, thus released and +dishevelled by the exercise, fell partly over her face in wavy ringlets; +and her musical laugh and words of sportive endearment sounded on +Kenelm’s ear more joyously than the thrill of the skylark, more sweetly +than the coo of the ring-dove. + +He approached towards Mrs. Cameron. Lily turned suddenly and saw him. +Instinctively she smoothed back her loosened tresses, replaced the straw +hat, and came up demurely to his side just as he had accosted her aunt. + +“Pardon my intrusion, Mrs. Cameron. I am the bearer of this note from +Mrs. Braefield.” While the aunt read the note, he turned to the niece. + +“You promised to show me the picture, Miss Mordaunt.” + +“But that was a long time ago.” + +“Too long to expect a lady’s promise to be kept?” + +Lily seemed to ponder that question, and hesitated before she answered. + +“I will show you the picture. I don’t think I ever broke a promise yet, +but I shall be more careful how I make one in future.” + +“Why so?” + +“Because you did not value mine when I made it, and that hurt me.” Lily +lifted up her head with a bewitching stateliness, and added gravely, “I +was offended.” + +“Mrs. Braefield is very kind,” said Mrs. Cameron; “she asks us to dine +the day after to-morrow. You would like to go, Lily?” + +“All grown-up people, I suppose? No, thank you, dear aunt. You go alone, +I would rather stay at home. May I have little Clemmy to play with? She +will bring Juba, and Blanche is very partial to Juba, though she does +scratch him.” + +“Very well, my dear, you shall have your playmate, and I will go by +myself.” + +Kenelm stood aghast. “You will not go, Miss Mordaunt; Mrs. Braefield +will be so disappointed. And if you don’t go, whom shall I have to talk +to? I don’t like grown-up people better than you do.” + +“You are going?” + +“Certainly.” + +“And if I go you will talk to me? I am afraid of Mr. Braefield. He is so +wise.” + +“I will save you from him, and will not utter a grain of wisdom.” + +“Aunty, I will go.” + +Here Lily made a bound and caught up Blanche, who, taking her kisses +resignedly, stared with evident curiosity upon Kenelm. + +Here a bell within the house rang the announcement of luncheon. Mrs. +Cameron invited Kenelm to partake of that meal. He felt as Romulus might +have felt when first invited to taste the ambrosia of the gods. Yet +certainly that luncheon was not such as might have pleased Kenelm +Chillingly in the early days of the Temperance Hotel. But somehow or +other of late he had lost appetite; and on this occasion a very modest +share of a very slender dish of chicken fricasseed, and a few cherries +daintily arranged on vine leaves, which Lily selected for him, contented +him,--as probably a very little ambrosia contented Romulus while +feasting his eyes on Hebe. + +Luncheon over, while Mrs. Cameron wrote her reply to Elsie, Kenelm +was conducted by Lily into her own _own_ room, in vulgar parlance her +_boudoir_, though it did not look as if any one ever _bouder’d_ there. +It was exquisitely pretty,--pretty not as a woman’s, but as a child’s +dream of the own _own_ room she would like to have,--wondrously neat and +cool, and pure-looking; a trellis paper, the trellis gay with roses and +woodbine, and birds and butterflies; draperies of muslin, festooned with +dainty tassels and ribbons; a dwarf bookcase, that seemed well stored, +at least as to bindings; a dainty little writing-table in French +_marqueterie_, looking too fresh and spotless to have known hard +service. The casement was open, and in keeping with the trellis paper; +woodbine and roses from without encroached on the window-sides, gently +stirred by the faint summer breeze, and wafted sweet odours into the +little room. Kenelm went to the window, and glanced on the view beyond. +“I was right,” he said to himself; “I divined it.” But though he +spoke in a low inward whisper, Lily, who had watched his movements in +surprise, overheard. + +“You divined it. Divined what?” + +“Nothing, nothing; I was but talking to myself.” + +“Tell me what you divined: I insist upon it!” and Fairy petulantly +stamped her tiny foot on the floor. + +“Do you? Then I obey. I have taken a lodging for a short time on the +other side of the brook,--Cromwell Lodge,--and seeing your house as I +passed, I divined that your room was in this part of it. How soft here +is the view of the water! Ah! yonder is Izaak Walton’s summer-house.” + +“Don’t talk about Izaak Walton, or I shall quarrel with you, as I did +with Lion when he wanted me to like that cruel book.” + +“Who is Lion?” + +“Lion,--of course, my guardian. I called him Lion when I was a little +child. It was on seeing in one of his books a print of a lion playing +with a little child.” + +“Ah! I know the design well,” said Kenelm, with a slight sigh. “It is +from an antique Greek gem. It is not the lion that plays with the child, +it is the child that masters the lion, and the Greeks called the child +‘Love.’” + +This idea seemed beyond Lily’s perfect comprehension. She paused before +she answered, with the naivete of a child six years old,-- + +“I see now why I mastered Blanche, who will not make friends with any +one else: I love Blanche. Ah, that reminds me,--come and look at the +picture.” + +She went to the wall over the writing-table, drew a silk curtain aside +from a small painting in a dainty velvet framework, and pointing to it, +cried with triumph, “Look there! is it not beautiful?” + +Kenelm had been prepared to see a landscape, or a group, or anything but +what he did see: it was the portrait of Blanche when a kitten. + +Little elevated though the subject was, it was treated with graceful +fancy. The kitten had evidently ceased from playing with the cotton +reel that lay between her paws, and was fixing her gaze intently on a +bulfinch that had lighted on a spray within her reach. + +“You understand,” said Lily, placing her hand on his arm, and drawing +him towards what she thought the best light for the picture; “it is +Blanche’s first sight of a bird. Look well at her face; don’t you see a +sudden surprise,--half joy, half fear? She ceases to play with the reel. +Her intellect--or, as Mr. Braefield would say, ‘her instinct’--is for +the first time aroused. From that moment Blanche was no longer a mere +kitten. And it required, oh, the most careful education, to teach her +not to kill the poor little birds. She never does now, but I had such +trouble with her.” + +“I cannot say honestly that I do see all that you do in the picture; +but it seems to me very simply painted, and was, no doubt, a striking +likeness of Blanche at that early age.” + +“So it was. Lion drew the first sketch from life with his pencil; and +when he saw how pleased I was with it--he was so good--he put it on +canvas, and let me sit by him while he painted it. Then he took it away, +and brought it back finished and framed as you see, last May, a present +for my birthday.” + +“You were born in May--with the flowers.” + +“The best of all the flowers are born in May,--violets.” + +“But they are born in the shade, and cling to it. Surely, as a child of +May, you love the sun!” + +“I love the sun; it is never too bright nor too warm for me. But I don’t +think that, though born in May, I was born in sunlight. I feel more like +my own native self when I creep into the shade and sit down alone. I can +weep then.” + +As she thus shyly ended, the character of her whole countenance was +changed: its infantine mirthfulness was gone; a grave, thoughtful, even +a sad expression settled on the tender eyes and the tremulous lips. + +Kenelm was so touched that words failed him, and there was silence for +some moments between the two. At length Kenelm said, slowly,-- + +“You say your own native self. Do you, then, feel, as I often do, that +there is a second, possibly a _native_, self, deep hid beneath the +self,--not merely what we show to the world in common (that may be +merely a mask), but the self that we ordinarily accept even when in +solitude as our own, an inner innermost self, oh so different and +so rarely coming forth from its hiding-place, asserting its right of +sovereignty, and putting out the other self as the sun puts out a star?” + +Had Kenelm thus spoken to a clever man of the world--to a Chillingly +Mivers, to a Chillingly Gordon--they certainly would not have understood +him. But to such men he never would have thus spoken. He had a vague +hope that this childlike girl, despite so much of childlike talk, would +understand him; and she did at once. + +Advancing close to him, again laying her hand on his arm, and looking up +towards his bended face with startled wondering eyes, no longer sad, yet +not mirthful,-- + +“How true! You have felt that too? Where _is_ that innermost self, +so deep down,--so deep; yet when it does come forth, so much +higher,--higher,--immeasurably higher than one’s everyday self? It does +not tame the butterflies; it longs to get to the stars. And then,--and +then,--ah, how soon it fades back again! You have felt that. Does it not +puzzle you?” + +“Very much.” + +“Are there no wise books about it that help to explain?” + +“No wise books in my very limited reading even hint at the puzzle. I +fancy that it is one of those insoluble questions that rest between the +infant and his Maker. Mind and soul are not the same things, and what +you and I call ‘wise men’ are always confounding the two--” + +Fortunately for all parties--especially the reader; for Kenelm had here +got on the back of one of his most cherished hobbies, the distinction +between psychology and metaphysics, soul and mind scientifically or +logically considered--Mrs. Cameron here entered the room, and asked him +how he liked the picture. + +“Very much. I am no great judge of the art. But it pleased me at once, +and now that Miss Mordaunt has interpreted the intention of the painter +I admire it yet more.” + +“Lily chooses to interpret his intention in her own way, and insists +that Blanche’s expression of countenance conveys an idea of her capacity +to restrain her destructive instinct, and be taught to believe that it +is wrong to kill birds for mere sport. For food she need not kill them, +seeing that Lily takes care that she has plenty to eat. But I don’t +think that Mr. Melville had the slightest suspicion that he had +indicated that capacity in his picture.” + +“He must have done so, whether he suspected it or not,” said Lily, +positively; “otherwise he would not be truthful.” + +“Why not truthful?” asked Kenelm. + +“Don’t you see? If you were called upon to describe truthfully the +character of any little child, would you only speak of such naughty +impulses as all children have in common, and not even hint at the +capacity to be made better?” + +“Admirably put!” said Kenelm. “There is no doubt that a much fiercer +animal than a cat--a tiger, for instance, or a conquering hero--may be +taught to live on the kindest possible terms with the creatures on which +it was its natural instinct to prey.” + +“Yes, yes; hear that, aunty! You remember the Happy Family that we +saw eight years ago, at Moleswich fair, with a cat not half so nice as +Blanche allowing a mouse to bite her ear? Well, then, would Lion not +have been shamefully false to Blanche if he had not”-- + +Lily paused and looked half shyly, half archly, at Kenelm, then added, +in slow, deep-drawn tones--“given a glimpse of her innermost self?” + +“Innermost self!” repeated Mrs. Cameron, perplexed and laughing gently. + +Lily stole nearer to Kenelm and whispered,-- + +“Is not one’s innermost self one’s best self?” + +Kenelm smiled approvingly. The fairy was rapidly deepening her spell +upon him. If Lily had been his sister, his betrothed, his wife, how +fondly he would have kissed her! She had expressed a thought over which +he had often inaudibly brooded, and she had clothed it with all the +charm of her own infantine fancy and womanlike tenderness. Goethe has +said somewhere, or is reported to have said, “There is something in +every man’s heart, that, if you knew it, would make you hate him.” What +Goethe said, still more what Goethe is reported to have said, is never +to be taken quite literally. No comprehensive genius--genius at once +poet and thinker--ever can be so taken. The sun shines on a dunghill. +But the sun has no predilection for a dunghill. It only comprehends a +dunghill as it does a rose. Still Kenelm had always regarded that loose +ray from Goethe’s prodigal orb with an abhorrence most unphilosophical +for a philosopher so young as generally to take upon oath any words +of so great a master. Kenelm thought that the root of all private +benevolence, of all enlightened advance in social reform, lay in the +adverse theorem,--that in every man’s nature there lies a something +that, could we get at it, cleanse it, polish it, render it visibly clear +to our eyes, would make us love him. And in this spontaneous, uncultured +sympathy with the results of so many laborious struggles of his own +scholastic intellect against the dogma of the German giant, he felt as +if he had found a younger--true, but oh, how much more subduing, because +so much younger--sister of his own man’s soul. Then came, so strongly, +the sense of her sympathy with his own strange innermost self, which a +man will never feel more than once in his life with a daughter of +Eve, that he dared not trust himself to speak. He somewhat hurried his +leave-taking. + +Passing in the rear of the garden towards the bridge which led to his +lodging, he found on the opposite bank, at the other end of the bridge, +Mr. Algernon Sidney Gale Jones peacefully angling for trout. + +“Will you not try the stream to-day, sir? Take my rod.” Kenelm +remembered that Lily had called Izaak Walton’s book “a cruel one,” and +shaking his head gently, went his way into the house. There he seated +himself silently by the window, and looked towards the grassy lawn +and the dipping willows, and the gleam of the white walls through the +girdling trees, as he had looked the eve before. + +“Ah!” he murmured at last, “if, as I hold, a man but tolerably good +does good unconsciously merely by the act of living,--if he can no more +traverse his way from the cradle to the grave, without letting fall, +as he passes, the germs of strength, fertility, and beauty, than can a +reckless wind or a vagrant bird, which, where it passes, leaves behind +it the oak, the corn-sheaf, or the flower,--ah, if that be so, how +tenfold the good must be, if the man find the gentler and purer +duplicate of his own being in that mysterious, undefinable union which +Shakspeares and day-labourers equally agree to call love; which Newton +never recognizes, and which Descartes (his only rival in the realms +of thought at once severe and imaginative) reduces into links of early +association, explaining that he loved women who squinted, because, when +he was a boy, a girl with that infirmity squinted at him from the other +side of his father’s garden-wall! Ah! be this union between man and +woman what it may; if it be really love, really the bond which embraces +the innermost and bettermost self of both,--how daily, hourly, momently, +should we bless God for having made it so easy to be happy and to be +good!” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE dinner-party at Mr. Braefield’s was not quite so small as Kenelm +had anticipated. When the merchant heard from his wife that Kenelm +was coming, he thought it would be but civil to the young gentleman to +invite a few other persons to meet him. + +“You see, my dear,” he said to Elsie, “Mrs. Cameron is a very good, +simple sort of woman, but not particularly amusing; and Lily, though a +pretty girl, is so exceedingly childish. We owe much, my sweet Elsie, +to this Mr. Chillingly,”--here there was a deep tone of feeling in his +voice and look,--“and we must make it as pleasant for him as we can. +I will bring down my friend Sir Thomas, and you ask Mr. Emlyn and his +wife. Sir Thomas is a very sensible man, and Emlyn a very learned one. +So Mr. Chillingly will find people worth talking to. By the by, when I +go to town I will send down a haunch of venison from Groves’s.” + +So when Kenelm arrived, a little before six o’clock, he found in the +drawing-room the Rev. Charles Emlyn, vicar of Moleswich proper, with +his spouse, and a portly middle-aged man, to whom, as Sir Thomas Pratt, +Kenelm was introduced. Sir Thomas was an eminent city banker. The +ceremonies of introduction over, Kenelm stole to Elsie’s side. + +“I thought I was to meet Mrs. Cameron. I don’t see her.” + +“She will be here presently. It looks as if it might rain, and I have +sent the carriage for her and Lily. Ah, here they are!” + +Mrs. Cameron entered, clothed in black silk. She always wore black; and +behind her came Lily, in the spotless colour that became her name; +no ornament, save a slender gold chain to which was appended a single +locket, and a single blush rose in her hair. She looked wonderfully +lovely; and with that loveliness there was a certain nameless air of +distinction, possibly owing to delicacy of form and colouring; possibly +to a certain grace of carriage, which was not without a something of +pride. + +Mr. Braefield, who was a very punctual man, made a sign to his servant, +and in another moment or so dinner was announced. Sir Thomas, of course, +took in the hostess; Mr. Braefield, the vicar’s wife (she was a dean’s +daughter); Kenelm, Mrs. Cameron; and the vicar, Lily. + +On seating themselves at the table Kenelm was on the left hand, next to +the hostess, and separated from Lily by Mrs. Cameron and Mr. Emlyn; +and when the vicar had said grace, Lily glanced behind his back and her +aunt’s at Kenelm (who did the same thing), making at him what the French +call a _moue_. The pledge to her had been broken. She was between two +men very much grown up,--the vicar and the host. Kenelm returned the +_moue_ with a mournful smile and an involuntary shrug. + +All was silent till, after his soup and his first glass of sherry, Sir +Thomas began,-- + +“I think, Mr. Chillingly, we have met before, though I had not the +honour then of making your acquaintance.” Sir Thomas paused before he +added, “Not long ago; the last State ball at Buckingham Palace.” + +Kenelm bent his head acquiescingly. He had been at that ball. + +“You were talking with a very charming woman,--a friend of mine,--Lady +Glenalvon.” + +(Sir Thomas was Lady Glenalvon’s banker.) + +“I remember perfectly,” said Kenelm. “We were seated in the picture +gallery. You came to speak to Lady Glenalvon, and I yielded to you my +place on the settee.” + +“Quite true; and I think you joined a young lady, very handsome,--the +great heiress, Miss Travers.” + +Kenelm again bowed, and, turning away as politely as he could, addressed +himself to Mrs. Cameron. Sir Thomas, satisfied that he had impressed +on his audience the facts of his friendship with Lady Glenalvon and his +attendance at the court ball, now directed his conversational powers +towards the vicar, who, utterly foiled in the attempt to draw out +Lily, met the baronet’s advances with the ardour of a talker too long +suppressed. Kenelm continued, unmolested, to ripen his acquaintance with +Mrs. Cameron. She did not, however, seem to lend a very attentive ear to +his preliminary commonplace remarks about scenery or weather, but at his +first pause, said,-- + +“Sir Thomas spoke about a Miss Travers: is she related to a gentleman +who was once in the Guards, Leopold Travers?” + +“She is his daughter. Did you ever know Leopold Travers?” + +“I have heard him mentioned by friends of mine long ago,--long ago,” + replied Mrs. Cameron with a sort of weary languor, not unwonted, in her +voice and manner; and then, as if dismissing the bygone reminiscence +from her thoughts, changed the subject. + +“Lily tells me, Mr. Chillingly, that you said you were staying at Mr. +Jones’s, Cromwell Lodge. I hope you are made comfortable there.” + +“Very. The situation is singularly pleasant.” + +“Yes, it is considered the prettiest spot on the brook-side, and used to +be a favourite resort for anglers; but the trout, I believe, are growing +scarce; at least, now that the fishing in the Thames is improved, poor +Mr. Jones complains that his old lodgers desert him. Of course you took +the rooms for the sake of the fishing. I hope the sport may be better +than it is said to be.” + +“It is of little consequence to me: I do not care much about fishing; +and since Miss Mordaunt calls the book which first enticed me to take +to it ‘a cruel one,’ I feel as if the trout had become as sacred as +crocodiles were to the ancient Egyptians.” + +“Lily is a foolish child on such matters. She cannot bear the thought of +giving pain to any dumb creature; and just before our garden there are a +few trout which she has tamed. They feed out of her hand; she is always +afraid they will wander away and get caught.” + +“But Mr. Melville is an angler?” + +“Several years ago he would sometimes pretend to fish, but I believe +it was rather an excuse for lying on the grass and reading ‘the cruel +book,’ or perhaps, rather, for sketching. But now he is seldom here till +autumn, when it grows too cold for such amusement.” + +Here Sir Thomas’s voice was so loudly raised that it stopped the +conversation between Kenelm and Mrs. Cameron. He had got into some +question of politics on which he and the vicar did not agree, and +the discussion threatened to become warm, when Mrs. Braefield, with +a woman’s true tact, broached a new topic, in which Sir Thomas was +immediately interested, relating to the construction of a conservatory +for orchids that he meditated adding to his country-house, and in +which frequent appeal was made to Mrs. Cameron, who was considered an +accomplished florist, and who seemed at some time or other in her life +to have acquired a very intimate acquaintance with the costly family of +orchids. + +When the ladies retired Kenelm found himself seated next to Mr. Emlyn, +who astounded him by a complimentary quotation from one of his own +Latin prize poems at the university, hoped he would make some stay at +Moleswich, told him of the principal places in the neighbourhood worth +visiting, and offered him the run of his library, which he flattered +himself was rather rich, both in the best editions of Greek and Latin +classics and in early English literature. Kenelm was much pleased with +the scholarly vicar, especially when Mr. Emlyn began to speak about Mrs. +Cameron and Lily. Of the first he said, “She is one of those women in +whom quiet is so predominant that it is long before one can know what +undercurrents of good feeling flow beneath the unruffled surface. +I wish, however, she was a little more active in the management and +education of her niece,--a girl in whom I feel a very anxious interest, +and whom I doubt if Mrs. Cameron understands. Perhaps, however, only +a poet, and a very peculiar sort of poet, can understand her: Lily +Mordaunt is herself a poem.” + +“I like your definition of her,” said Kenelm. “There is certainly +something about her which differs much from the prose of common life.” + +“You probably know Wordsworth’s lines: + + + “‘... and she shall lean her ear + In many a secret place + Where rivulets dance their wayward round, + And beauty, born of murmuring sound, + Shall pass into her face.’ + + +“They are lines that many critics have found unintelligible; but Lily +seems like the living key to them.” + +Kenelm’s dark face lighted up, but he made no answer. + +“Only,” continued Mr. Emlyn, “how a girl of that sort, left wholly to +herself, untrained, undisciplined, is to grow up into the practical uses +of womanhood, is a question that perplexes and saddens me.” + +“Any more wine?” asked the host, closing a conversation on commercial +matters with Sir Thomas. “No?--shall we join the ladies?” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE drawing-room was deserted; the ladies were in the garden. As Kenelm +and Mr. Emlyn walked side by side towards the group (Sir Thomas and Mr. +Braefield following at a little distance), the former asked, somewhat +abruptly, “What sort of man is Miss Cameron’s guardian, Mr. Melville?” + +“I can scarcely answer that question. I see little of him when he comes +here. Formerly, he used to run down pretty often with a harum-scarum +set of young fellows, quartered at Cromwell Lodge,--Grasmere had no +accommodation for them,--students in the Academy, I suppose. For some +years he has not brought those persons, and when he does come himself it +is but for a few days. He has the reputation of being very wild.” + +Further conversation was here stopped. The two men, while they thus +talked, had been diverging from the straight way across the lawn towards +the ladies, turning into sequestered paths through the shrubbery; now +they emerged into the open sward, just before a table, on which coffee +was served, and round which all the rest of the party were gathered. + +“I hope, Mr. Emlyn,” said Elsie’s cheery voice, “that you have dissuaded +Mr. Chillingly from turning Papist. I am sure you have taken time enough +to do so.” + +Mr. Emlyn, Protestant every inch of him, slightly recoiled from Kenelm’s +side. “Do you meditate turning--” He could not conclude the sentence. + +“Be not alarmed, my dear sir. I did but own to Mrs. Braefield that I +had paid a visit to Oxford in order to confer with a learned man on +a question that puzzled me, and as abstract as that feminine pastime, +theology, is now-a-days. I cannot convince Mrs. Braefield that Oxford +admits other puzzles in life than those which amuse the ladies.” Here +Kenelm dropped into a chair by the side of Lily. + +Lily half turned her back to him. + +“Have I offended again?” + +Lily shrugged her shoulders slightly and would not answer. + +“I suspect, Miss Mordaunt, that among your good qualities, nature has +omitted one; the bettermost self within you should replace it.” + +Lily here abruptly turned to him her front face: the light of the skies +was becoming dim, but the evening star shone upon it. + +“How! what do you mean?” + +“Am I to answer politely or truthfully?” + +“Truthfully! Oh, truthfully! What is life without truth?” + +“Even though one believes in fairies?” + +“Fairies are truthful, in a certain way. But you are not truthful. You +were not thinking of fairies when you--” + +“When I what?” + +“Found fault with me.” + +“I am not sure of that. But I will translate to you my thoughts, so far +as I can read them myself, and to do so I will resort to the fairies. +Let us suppose that a fairy has placed her changeling into the cradle of +a mortal: that into the cradle she drops all manner of fairy gifts which +are not bestowed on mere mortals; but that one mortal attribute she +forgets. The changeling grows up; she charms those around her: they +humour, and pet, and spoil her. But there arises a moment in which the +omission of the one mortal gift is felt by her admirers and friends. +Guess what that is.” + +Lily pondered. “I see what you mean; the reverse of truthfulness, +politeness.” + +“No, not exactly that, though politeness slides into it unawares: it is +a very humble quality, a very unpoetic quality; a quality that many dull +people possess; and yet without it no fairy can fascinate mortals, when +on the face of the fairy settles the first wrinkle. Can you not guess it +now?” + +“No: you vex me; you provoke me;” and Lily stamped her foot petulantly, +as in Kenelm’s presence she had stamped it once before. “Speak plainly, +I insist.” + +“Miss Mordaunt, excuse me: I dare not,” said Kenelm, rising with a sort +of bow one makes to the Queen; and he crossed over to Mrs. Braefield. + +Lily remained, still pouting fiercely. + +Sir Thomas took the chair Kenelm had vacated. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE hour for parting came. Of all the guests, Sir Thomas alone stayed +at the house a guest for the night. Mr. and Mrs. Emlyn had their own +carriage. Mrs. Braefield’s carriage came to the door for Mrs. Cameron +and Lily. + +Said Lily, impatiently and discourteously, “Who would not rather walk on +such a night?” and she whispered to her aunt. + +Mrs. Cameron, listening to the whisper and obedient to every whim +of Lily’s, said, “You are too considerate, dear Mrs. Braefield; Lily +prefers walking home; there is no chance of rain now.” + +Kenelm followed the steps of the aunt and niece, and soon overtook them +on the brook-side. + +“A charming night, Mr. Chillingly,” said Mrs. Cameron. + +“An English summer night; nothing like it in such parts of the world as +I have visited. But, alas! of English summer nights there are but few.” + +“You have travelled much abroad?” + +“Much, no, a little; chiefly on foot.” + +Lily hitherto had not said a word, and had been walking with downcast +head. Now she looked up and said, in the mildest and most conciliatory +of human voices,-- + +“You have been abroad;” then, with an acquiescence in the manners of +the world which to him she had never yet manifested, she added his +name, “Mr. Chillingly,” and went on, more familiarly. “What a breadth +of meaning the word ‘abroad’ conveys! Away, afar from one’s self, from +one’s everyday life. How I envy you! you have been abroad: so has Lion” + (here drawing herself up), “I mean my guardian, Mr. Melville.” + +“Certainly, I have been abroad, but afar from myself--never. It is an +old saying,--all old sayings are true; most new sayings are false,--a +man carries his native soil at the sole of his foot.” + +Here the path somewhat narrowed. Mrs. Cameron went on first, Kenelm and +Lily behind; she, of course, on the dry path, he on the dewy grass. + +She stopped him. “You are walking in the wet, and with those thin +shoes.” Lily moved instinctively away from the dry path. + +Homely though that speech of Lily’s be, and absurd as said by a fragile +girl to a gladiator like Kenelm, it lit up a whole world of womanhood: +it showed all that undiscoverable land which was hidden to the learned +Mr. Emlyn, all that land which an uncomprehended girl seizes and reigns +over when she becomes wife and mother. + +At that homely speech, and that impulsive movement, Kenelm halted, in +a sort of dreaming maze. He turned timidly, “Can you forgive me for my +rude words? I presumed to find fault with you.” + +“And so justly. I have been thinking over all you said, and I feel you +were so right; only I still do not quite understand what you meant by +the quality for mortals which the fairy did not give to her changeling.” + +“If I did not dare say it before, I should still less dare to say it +now.” + +“Do.” There was no longer the stamp of the foot, no longer the flash +from her eyes, no longer the wilfulness which said, “I insist;”-- + +“Do;” soothingly, sweetly, imploringly. + +Thus pushed to it, Kenelm plucked up courage, and not trusting himself +to look at Lily, answered brusquely,-- + +“The quality desirable for men, but more essential to women in +proportion as they are fairy-like, though the tritest thing possible, is +good temper.” + +Lily made a sudden bound from his side, and joined her aunt, walking +through the wet grass. + +When they reached the garden-gate, Kenelm advanced and opened it. Lily +passed him by haughtily; they gained the cottage-door. + +“I don’t ask you in at this hour,” said Mrs. Cameron. “It would be but a +false compliment.” + +Kenelm bowed and retreated. Lily left her aunt’s side, and came towards +him, extending her hand. + +“I shall consider your words, Mr. Chillingly,” she said, with a +strangely majestic air. “At present I think you are not right. I am not +ill-tempered; but--” here she paused, and then added with a loftiness +of mien which, had she not been so exquisitely pretty, would have been +rudeness--“in any case I forgive you.” + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THERE were a good many pretty villas in the outskirts of Moleswich, and +the owners of them were generally well off, and yet there was little of +what is called visiting society; owing perhaps to the fact that there +not being among these proprietors any persons belonging to what is +commonly called “the aristocratic class,” there was a vast deal of +aristocratic pretension. The family of Mr. A-----, who had enriched +himself as a stock-jobber, turned up its nose at the family of Mr. +B-----, who had enriched himself still more as a linen-draper, while the +family of Mr. B----- showed a very cold shoulder to the family of Mr. +C-----, who had become richer than either of them as a pawnbroker, +and whose wife wore diamonds, but dropped her h’s. England would be a +community so aristocratic that there would be no living in it, if one +could exterminate what is now called “aristocracy.” The Braefields were +the only persons who really drew together the antagonistic atoms of the +Moleswich society, partly because they were acknowledged to be the first +persons there, in right not only of old settlement (the Braefields had +held Braefieldville for four generations), but of the wealth derived +from those departments of commercial enterprise which are recognized as +the highest, and of an establishment considered to be the most elegant +in the neighbourhood; principally because Elsie, while exceedingly +genial and cheerful in temper, had a certain power of will (as her +runaway folly had manifested), and when she got people together +compelled them to be civil to each other. She had commenced this +gracious career by inaugurating children’s parties, and when the +children became friends the parents necessarily grew closer together. +Still her task had only recently begun, and its effects were not in +full operation. Thus, though it became known at Moleswich that a young +gentleman, the heir to a baronetcy and a high estate, was sojourning at +Cromwell Lodge, no overtures were made to him on the part of the A’s, +B’s, and C’s. The vicar, who called on Kenelm the day after the dinner +at Braefieldville, explained to him the social conditions of the place. +“You understand,” said he, “that it will be from no want of courtesy on +the part of my neighbours if they do not offer you any relief from +the pleasures of solitude. It will be simply because they are shy, not +because they are uncivil. And, it is this consideration that makes +me, at the risk of seeming too forward, entreat you to look into the +vicarage any morning or evening on which you feel tired of your own +company; suppose you drink tea with us this evening,--you will find a +young lady whose heart you have already won.” + +“Whose heart I have won!” faltered Kenelm, and the warm blood rushed to +his cheek. + +“But,” continued the vicar, smiling, “she has no matrimonial designs on +you at present. She is only twelve years old,--my little girl Clemmy.” + +“Clemmy!--she is your daughter? I did not know that. I very gratefully +accept your invitation.” + +“I must not keep you longer from your amusement. The sky is just clouded +enough for sport. What fly do you use?” + +“To say truth, I doubt if the stream has much to tempt me in the way of +trout, and I prefer rambling about the lanes and by-paths to + + + “‘The noiseless angler’s solitary stand.’ + +“I am an indefatigable walker, and the home scenery round the place has +many charms for me. Besides,” added Kenelm, feeling conscious that he +ought to find some more plausible excuse than the charms of home scenery +for locating himself long in Cromwell Lodge, “besides, I intend to +devote myself a good deal to reading. I have been very idle of late, and +the solitude of this place must be favourable to study.” + +“You are not intended, I presume, for any of the learned professions?” + +“The learned professions,” replied Kenelm, “is an invidious form of +speech that we are doing our best to eradicate from the language. +All professions now-a-days are to have much about the same amount of +learning. The learning of the military profession is to be levelled +upwards, the learning of the scholastic to be levelled downwards. +Cabinet ministers sneer at the uses of Greek and Latin. And even +such masculine studies as Law and Medicine are to be adapted to the +measurements of taste and propriety in colleges for young ladies. No, +I am not intended for any profession; but still an ignorant man like +myself may not be the worse for a little book-reading now and then.” + +“You seem to be badly provided with books here,” said the vicar, +glancing round the room, in which, on a table in the corner, lay +half-a-dozen old-looking volumes, evidently belonging not to the lodger +but to the landlord. “But, as I before said, my library is at your +service. What branch of reading do you prefer?” + +Kenelm was, and looked, puzzled. But after a pause he answered: + +“The more remote it be from the present day, the better for me. You said +your collection was rich in mediaeval literature. But the Middle +Ages are so copied by the modern Goths, that I might as well read +translations of Chaucer or take lodgings in Wardour Street. If you have +any books about the manners and habits of those who, according to +the newest idea in science, were our semi-human progenitors in the +transition state between a marine animal and a gorilla, I should be very +much edified by the loan.” + +“Alas,” said Mr. Emlyn, laughing, “no such books have been left to us.” + +“No such books? You must be mistaken. There must be plenty of them +somewhere. I grant all the wonderful powers of invention bestowed on +the creators of poetic romance; still not the sovereign masters in that +realm of literature--not Scott, not Cervantes, not Goethe, not even +Shakspeare--could have presumed to rebuild the past without such +materials as they found in the books that record it. And though I, no +less cheerfully, grant that we have now living among us a creator of +poetic romance immeasurably more inventive than they,--appealing to our +credulity in portents the most monstrous, with a charm of style the +most conversationally familiar,--still I cannot conceive that even that +unrivalled romance-writer can so bewitch our understandings as to make +us believe that, if Miss Mordaunt’s cat dislikes to wet her feet, it is +probably because in the prehistoric age her ancestors lived in the dry +country of Egypt; or that when some lofty orator, a Pitt or a Gladstone, +rebuts with a polished smile which reveals his canine teeth the rude +assault of an opponent, he betrays his descent from a ‘semi-human +progenitor’ who was accustomed to snap at his enemy. Surely, surely +there must be some books still extant written by philosophers before the +birth of Adam, in which there is authority, even though but in mythic +fable, for such poetic inventions. Surely, surely some early chroniclers +must depose that they saw, saw with their own eyes, the great gorillas +who scratched off their hairy coverings to please the eyes of the young +ladies of their species, and that they noted the gradual metamorphosis +of one animal into another. For, if you tell me that this illustrious +romance-writer is but a cautious man of science, and that we must accept +his inventions according to the sober laws of evidence and fact, there +is not the most incredible ghost story which does not better satisfy the +common sense of a sceptic. However, if you have no such books, lend +me the most unphilosophical you possess,--on magic, for instance,--the +philosopher’s stone”-- + +“I have some of them,” said the vicar, laughing; “you shall choose for +yourself.” + +“If you are going homeward, let me accompany you part of the way: I +don’t yet know where the church and the vicarage are, and I ought to +know before I come in the evening.” + +Kenelm and the vicar walked side by side, very sociably, across the +bridge and on the side of the rivulet on which stood Mrs. Cameron’s +cottage. As they skirted the garden pale at the rear of the cottage, +Kenelm suddenly stopped in the middle of some sentence which had +interested Mr. Emlyn, and as suddenly arrested his steps on the turf +that bordered the lane. A little before him stood an old peasant woman, +with whom Lily, on the opposite side of the garden pale, was conversing. +Mr. Emlyn did not at first see what Kenelm saw; turning round rather +to gaze on his companion, surprised by his abrupt halt and silence. The +girl put a small basket into the old woman’s hand, who then dropped a +low curtsy, and uttered low a “God bless you.” Low though it was, Kenelm +overheard it, and said abstractedly to Mr. Emlyn, “Is there a greater +link between this life and the next than God’s blessing on the young, +breathed from the lips of the old?” + + + +CHAPTER X. + +“AND how is your good man, Mrs. Haley?” said the vicar, who had now +reached the spot on which the old woman stood,--with Lily’s fair face +still bended down to her,--while Kenelm slowly followed him. + +“Thank you kindly, sir, he is better; out of his bed now. The young lady +has done him a power of good--” + +“Hush!” said Lily, colouring. “Make haste home now; you must not keep +him waiting for his dinner.” + +The old woman again curtsied, and went off at a brisk pace. + +“Do you know, Mr. Chillingly,” said Mr. Emlyn, “that Miss Mordaunt is +the best doctor in the place? Though if she goes on making so many cures +she will find the number of her patients rather burdensome.” + +“It was only the other day,” said Lily, “that you scolded me for the +best cure I have yet made.” + +“I?--Oh! I remember; you led that silly child Madge to believe that +there was a fairy charm in the arrowroot you sent her. Own you deserved +a scolding there.” + +“No, I did not. I dressed the arrowroot, and am I not Fairy? I have just +got such a pretty note from Clemmy, Mr. Emlyn, asking me to come up this +evening and see her new magic lantern. Will you tell her to expect me? +And, mind, no scolding.” + +“And all magic?” said Mr. Emlyn; “be it so.” + +Lily and Kenelm had not hitherto exchanged a word. She had replied with +a grave inclination of her head to his silent bow. But now she turned to +him shyly and said, “I suppose you have been fishing all the morning?” + +“No; the fishes hereabout are under the protection of a Fairy,--whom I +dare not displease.” + +Lily’s face brightened, and she extended her hand to him over the +palings. “Good-day; I hear aunty’s voice: those dreadful French verbs!” + +She disappeared among the shrubs, amid which they heard the thrill of +her fresh young voice singing to herself. + +“That child has a heart of gold,” said Mr. Emlyn, as the two men walked +on. “I did not exaggerate when I said she was the best doctor in the +place. I believe the poor really do believe that she is a fairy. Of +course we send from the vicarage to our ailing parishioners who require +it, food and wine; but it never seems to do them the good that her +little dishes made by her own tiny hands do; and I don’t know if you +noticed the basket that old woman took away,--Miss Lily taught Will +Somers to make the prettiest little baskets; and she puts her jellies or +other savouries into dainty porcelain gallipots nicely fitted into the +baskets, which she trims with ribbons. It is the look of the thing that +tempts the appetite of the invalids, and certainly the child may well be +called Fairy at present; but I wish Mrs. Cameron would attend a little +more strictly to her education. She can’t be a fairy forever.” + +Kenelm sighed, but made no answer. + +Mr. Emlyn then turned the conversation to erudite subjects, and so they +came in sight of the town, when the vicar stopped and pointed towards +the church, of which the spire rose a little to the left, with two aged +yew-trees half shadowing the burial-ground, and in the rear a glimpse of +the vicarage seen amid the shrubs of its garden ground. + +“You will know your way now,” said the vicar; “excuse me if I quit you: +I have a few visits to make; among others, to poor Haley, husband to the +old woman you saw. I read to him a chapter in the Bible every day; yet +still I fancy that he believes in fairy charms.” + +“Better believe too much, than too little,” said Kenelm; and he turned +aside into the village and spent half-an-hour with Will, looking at the +pretty baskets Lily had taught Will to make. Then, as he went slowly +homeward, he turned aside into the churchyard. + +The church, built in the thirteenth century, was not large, but it +probably sufficed for its congregation, since it betrayed no signs of +modern addition; restoration or repair it needed not. The centuries had +but mellowed the tints of its solid walls, as little injured by the huge +ivy stems that shot forth their aspiring leaves to the very summit of +the stately tower as by the slender roses which had been trained +to climb up a foot or so of the massive buttresses. The site of the +burial-ground was unusually picturesque: sheltered towards the north by +a rising ground clothed with woods, sloping down at the south towards +the glebe pasture-grounds through which ran the brooklet, sufficiently +near for its brawling gurgle to be heard on a still day. Kenelm sat +himself on an antique tomb, which was evidently appropriated to some one +of higher than common rank in bygone days, but on which the sculpture +was wholly obliterated. + +The stillness and solitude of the place had their charms for his +meditative temperament; and he remained there long, forgetful of time, +and scarcely hearing the boom of the clock that warned him of its lapse. + +When suddenly, a shadow--the shadow of a human form--fell on the grass +on which his eyes dreamily rested. He looked up with a start, and beheld +Lily standing before him mute and still. Her image was so present in his +thoughts at the moment that he felt a thrill of awe, as if the thoughts +had conjured up her apparition. She was the first to speak. + +“You here, too?” she said very softly, almost whisperingly. “Too!” + echoed Kenelm, rising; “too! ‘Tis no wonder that I, a stranger to +the place, should find my steps attracted towards its most venerable +building. Even the most careless traveller, halting at some remote +abodes of the living, turns aside to gaze on the burial-ground of the +dead. But my surprise is that you, Miss Mordaunt, should be attracted +towards the same spot.” + +“It is my favourite spot,” said Lily, “and always has been. I have sat +many an hour on that tombstone. It is strange to think that no one knows +who sleeps beneath it. The ‘Guide Book to Moleswich,’ though it gives +the history of the church from the reign in which it was first built, +can only venture a guess that this tomb, the grandest and oldest in the +burial-ground, is tenanted by some member of a family named Montfichet, +that was once very powerful in the county, and has become extinct since +the reign of Henry VI. But,” added Lily, “there is not a letter of the +name Montfichet left. I found out more than any one else has done; I +learned black-letter on purpose; look here,” and she pointed to a small +spot in which the moss had been removed. “Do you see those figures? +are they not XVIII? and look again, in what was once the line above +the figures, ELE. It must have been an Eleanor, who died at the age of +eighteen--” + +“I rather think it more probable that the figures refer to the date +of the death, 1318 perhaps; and so far as I can decipher black-letter, +which is more in my father’s line than mine, I think it is AL, not EL, +and that it seems as if there had been a letter between L and the second +E, which is now effaced. The tomb itself is not likely to belong to any +powerful family then resident at the place. Their monuments, according +to usage, would have been within the church,--probably in their own +mortuary chapel.” + +“Don’t try to destroy my fancy,” said Lily, shaking her head; “you +cannot succeed, I know her history too well. She was young, and some one +loved her, and built over her the finest tomb he could afford; and see +how long the epitaph must have been! how much it must have spoken in +her praise and of his grief. And then he went his way, and the tomb was +neglected, and her fate forgotten.” + +“My dear Miss Mordaunt, this is indeed a wild romance to spin out of so +slender a thread. But even if true, there is no reason to think that a +life is forgotten, though a tomb be neglected.” + +“Perhaps not,” said Lily, thoughtfully. “But when I am dead, if I can +look down, I think it would please me to see my grave not neglected by +those who had loved me once.” + +She moved from him as she said this, and went to a little mound that +seemed not long since raised; there was a simple cross at the head and +a narrow border of flowers round it. Lily knelt beside the flowers and +pulled out a stray weed. Then she rose, and said to Kenelm, who had +followed, and now stood beside her,-- + +“She was the little grandchild of poor old Mrs. Hales. I could not cure +her, though I tried hard: she was so fond of me, and died in my arms. +No, let me not say ‘died,’--surely there is no such thing as dying. ‘Tis +but a change of life,-- + + + ‘Less than the void between two waves of air, + The space between existence and a soul.’” + + +“Whose lines are those?” asked Kenelm. + +“I don’t know; I learnt them from Lion. Don’t you believe them to be +true?” + +“Yes. But the truth does not render the thought of quitting this scene +of life for another more pleasing to most of us. See how soft and gentle +and bright is all that living summer land beyond; let us find subject +for talk from that, not from the graveyard on which we stand.” + +“But is there not a summer land fairer than that we see now; and which +we do see, as in a dream, best when we take subjects of talk from the +graveyard?” Without waiting for a reply, Lily went on. “I planted these +flowers: Mr. Emlyn was angry with me; he said it was ‘Popish.’ But he +had not the heart to have them taken up; I come here very often to see +to them. Do you think it wrong? Poor little Nell! she was so fond of +flowers. And the Eleanor in the great tomb, she too perhaps knew some +one who called her Nell; but there are no flowers round her tomb. Poor +Eleanor!” + +She took the nosegay she wore on her bosom, and as she repassed the tomb +laid it on the mouldering stone. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THEY quitted the burial-ground, taking their way to Grasmere. Kenelm +walked by Lily’s side; not a word passed between them till they came in +sight of the cottage. + +Then Lily stopped abruptly, and lifting towards him her charming face, +said,-- + +“I told you I would think over what you said to me last night. I have +done so, and feel I can thank you honestly. You were very kind: I never +before thought that I had a bad temper; no one ever told me so. But I +see now what you mean; sometimes I feel very quickly, and then I show +it. But how did I show it to you, Mr. Chillingly?” + +“Did you not turn your back to me when I seated myself next you in +Mrs. Braefield’s garden, vouchsafing me no reply when I asked if I had +offended?” + +Lily’s face became bathed in blushes, and her voice faltered, as she +answered,-- + +“I was not offended; I was not in a bad temper then: it was worse than +that.” + +“Worse? what could it possibly be?” + +“I am afraid it was envy.” + +“Envy of what? of whom?” + +“I don’t know how to explain; after all, I fear aunty is right, and the +fairy tales put very silly, very naughty thoughts into one’s head. When +Cinderella’s sisters went to the king’s ball, and Cinderella was left +alone, did not she long to go too? Did not she envy her sisters?” + +“Ah! I understand now: Sir Charles spoke of the Court Ball.” + +“And you were there talking with handsome ladies--and--oh! I was so +foolish and felt sore.” + +“You, who when we first met wondered how people who could live in +the country preferred to live in towns, do then sometimes contradict +yourself, and sigh for the great world that lies beyond these quiet +water banks. You feel that you have youth and beauty, and wish to be +admired!” + +“It is not that exactly,” said Lily, with a perplexed look in her +ingenuous countenance, “and in my better moments, when the ‘bettermost +self’ comes forth, I know that I am not made for the great world you +speak of. But you see--” Here she paused again, and as they had now +entered the garden, dropped wearily on a bench beside the path. Kenelm +seated himself there too, waiting for her to finish her broken sentence. + +“You see,” she continued, looking down embarrassed, and describing vague +circles on the gravel with her fairy-like foot, “that at home, ever +since I can remember, they have treated me as if--well, as if I +were--what shall I say? the child of one of your great ladies. Even +Lion, who is so noble, so grand, seemed to think when I was a mere +infant that I was a little queen: once when I told a fib he did not +scold me; but I never saw him look so sad and so angry as when he said, +‘Never again forget that you are a lady.’ And, but I tire you--” + +“Tire me, indeed! go on.” + +“No, I have said enough to explain why I have at times proud thoughts, +and vain thoughts; and why, for instance, I said to myself, ‘Perhaps my +place of right is among those fine ladies whom he--’ but it is all over +now.” She rose hastily with a pretty laugh, and bounded towards Mrs. +Cameron, who was walking slowly along the lawn with a book in her hand. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +IT was a very merry party at the vicarage that evening. Lily had not +been prepared to meet Kenelm there, and her face brightened wonderfully +as at her entrance he turned from the book-shelves to which Mr. Emlyn +was directing his attention. But instead of meeting his advance, she +darted off to the lawn, where Clemmy and several other children greeted +her with a joyous shout. + +“Not acquainted with Macleane’s Juvenal?” said the reverend scholar; +“you will be greatly pleased with it; here it is,--a posthumous work, +edited by George Long. I can lend you Munro’s Lucretius, ‘69. Aha! we +have some scholars yet to pit against the Germans.” + +“I am heartily glad to hear it,” said Kenelm. “It will be a long time +before they will ever wish to rival us in that game which Miss Clemmy +is now forming on the lawn, and in which England has recently acquired a +European reputation.” + +“I don’t take you. What game?” + +“Puss in the Corner. With your leave I will look out and see whether +it be a winning game for puss--in the long-run.” Kenelm joined the +children, amidst whom Lily seemed not the least childlike. Resisting all +overtures from Clemmy to join their play, he seated himself on a sloping +bank at a little distance,--an idle looker-on. His eye followed Lily’s +nimble movements, his ear drank in the music of her joyous laugh. Could +that be the same girl whom he had seen tending the flower-bed amid the +gravestones? Mrs. Emlyn came across the lawn and joined him, seating +herself also on the bank. Mrs. Emlyn was an exceedingly clever woman: +nevertheless she was not formidable,--on the contrary, pleasing; and +though the ladies in the neighbourhood said ‘she talked like a book,’ +the easy gentleness of her voice carried off that offence. + +“I suppose, Mr. Chillingly,” said she, “I ought to apologize for +my husband’s invitation to what must seem to you so frivolous an +entertainment as a child’s party. But when Mr. Emlyn asked you to come +to us this evening, he was not aware that Clemmy had also invited her +young friends. He had looked forward to rational conversation with you +on his own favourite studies.” + +“It is not so long since I left school, but that I prefer a half holiday +to lessons, even from a tutor so pleasant as Mr. Emlyn,-- + + + “‘Ah, happy years,--once more who would not be a boy!’” + + +“Nay,” said Mrs. Emlyn, with a grave smile. “Who that had started so +fairly as Mr. Chillingly in the career of man would wish to go back and +resume a place among boys?” + +“But, my dear Mrs. Emlyn, the line I quoted was wrung from the heart of +a man who had already outstripped all rivals in the race-ground he had +chosen, and who at that moment was in the very Maytime of youth and of +fame. And if such a man at such an epoch in his career could sigh to ‘be +once more a boy,’ it must have been when he was thinking of the boy’s +half holiday, and recoiling from the task work he was condemned to learn +as man.” + +“The line you quote is, I think, from ‘Childe Harold,’ and surely +you would not apply to mankind in general the sentiment of a poet so +peculiarly self-reflecting (if I may use that expression), and in whom +sentiment is often so morbid.” + +“You are right, Mrs. Emlyn,” said Kenelm, ingenuously. “Still a boy’s +half holiday is a very happy thing; and among mankind in general +there must be many who would be glad to have it back again,--Mr. Emlyn +himself, I should think.” + +“Mr. Emlyn has his half holiday now. Do you not see him standing just +outside the window? Do you not hear him laughing? He is a child again +in the mirth of his children. I hope you will stay some time in the +neighbourhood; I am sure you and he will like each other. And it is such +a rare delight to him to get a scholar like yourself to talk to.” + +“Pardon me, I am not a scholar; a very noble title that, and not to be +given to a lazy trifler on the surface of book-lore like myself.” + +“You are too modest. My husband has a copy of your Cambridge prize +verses, and says ‘the Latinity of them is quite beautiful.’ I quote his +very words.” + +“Latin verse-making is a mere knack, little more than a proof that one +had an elegant scholar for one’s tutor, as I certainly had. But it is by +special grace that a real scholar can send forth another real scholar, +and a Kennedy produce a Munro. But to return to the more interesting +question of half holidays; I declare that Clemmy is leading off your +husband in triumph. He is actually going to be Puss in the Corner.” + +“When you know more of Charles,--I mean my husband,--you will discover +that his whole life is more or less of a holiday. Perhaps because he is +not what you accuse yourself of being: he is not lazy; he never wishes +to be a boy once more; and taskwork itself is holiday to him. He enjoys +shutting himself up in his study and reading; he enjoys a walk with +the children; he enjoys visiting the poor; he enjoys his duties as a +clergyman. And though I am not always contented for him, though I think +he should have had those honours in his profession which have been +lavished on men with less ability and less learning, yet he is never +discontented himself. Shall I tell you his secret?” + +“Do.” + +“He is a _Thanks-giving Man_. You, too, must have much to thank God +for, Mr. Chillingly; and in thanksgiving to God does there not blend +usefulness to man, and such sense of pastime in the usefulness as makes +each day a holiday?” + +Kenelm looked up into the quiet face of this obscure pastor’s wife with +a startled expression in his own. + +“I see, ma’am,” said he, “that you have devoted much thought to the +study of the aesthetical philosophy as expounded by German thinkers, +whom it is rather difficult to understand.” + +“I, Mr. Chillingly! good gracious! No! What do you mean by your +aesthetical philosophy?” + +“According to aesthetics, I believe man arrives at his highest state +of moral excellence when labour and duty lose all the harshness of +effort,--when they become the impulse and habit of life; when as the +essential attributes of the beautiful, they are, like beauty, enjoyed +as pleasure; and thus, as you expressed, each day becomes a holiday: a +lovely doctrine, not perhaps so lofty as that of the Stoics, but more +bewitching. Only, very few of us can practically merge our cares and our +worries into so serene an atmosphere.” + +“Some do so without knowing anything of aesthetics and with no pretence +to be Stoics; but, then, they are Christians.” + +“There are some such Christians, no doubt; but they are rarely to be met +with. Take Christendom altogether, and it appears to comprise the most +agitated population in the world; the population in which there is the +greatest grumbling as to the quantity of labour to be done, the +loudest complaints that duty instead of a pleasure is a very hard and +disagreeable struggle, and in which holidays are fewest and the moral +atmosphere least serene. Perhaps,” added Kenelm, with a deeper shade of +thought on his brow, “it is this perpetual consciousness of struggle; +this difficulty in merging toil into ease, or stern duty into placid +enjoyment; this refusal to ascend for one’s self into the calm of an air +aloof from the cloud which darkens, and the hail-storm which beats +upon, the fellow-men we leave below,--that makes the troubled life of +Christendom dearer to Heaven, and more conducive to Heaven’s design in +rendering earth the wrestling-ground and not the resting-place of man, +than is that of the Brahmin, ever seeking to abstract himself from +the Christian’s conflicts of action and desire, and to carry into its +extremest practice the aesthetic theory, of basking undisturbed in the +contemplation of the most absolute beauty human thought can reflect from +its idea of divine good!” + +Whatever Mrs. Emlyn might have said in reply was interrupted by the rush +of the children towards her; they were tired of play, and eager for tea +and the magic lantern. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE room is duly obscured and the white sheet attached to the wall; the +children are seated, hushed, and awe-stricken. And Kenelm is placed next +to Lily. + +The tritest things in our mortal experience are among the most +mysterious. There is more mystery in the growth of a blade of grass than +there is in the wizard’s mirror or the feats of a spirit medium. Most of +us have known the attraction that draws one human being to another, and +makes it so exquisite a happiness to sit quiet and mute by another’s +side; which stills for the moment the busiest thoughts in our brain, the +most turbulent desires in our heart, and renders us but conscious of a +present ineffable bliss. Most of us have known that. But who has ever +been satisfied with any metaphysical account of its why or wherefore? We +can but say it is love, and love at that earlier section of its history +which has not yet escaped from romance; but by what process that other +person has become singled out of the whole universe to attain such +special power over one is a problem that, though many have attempted to +solve it, has never attained to solution. In the dim light of the room +Kenelm could only distinguish the outlines of Lily’s delicate face, but +at each new surprise in the show, the face intuitively turned to his, +and once, when the terrible image of a sheeted ghost, pursuing a guilty +man, passed along the wall, she drew closer to him in her childish +fright, and by an involuntary innocent movement laid her hand on his. He +detained it tenderly, but, alas! it was withdrawn the next moment; +the ghost was succeeded by a couple of dancing dogs. And Lily’s ready +laugh--partly at the dogs, partly at her own previous alarm--vexed +Kenelm’s ear. He wished there had been a succession of ghosts, each more +appalling than the last. + +The entertainment was over, and after a slight refreshment of cakes +and wine-and-water the party broke up; the children visitors went away +attended by servant-maids who had come for them. Mrs. Cameron and Lily +were to walk home on foot. + +“It is a lovely night, Mrs. Cameron,” said Mr. Emlyn, “and I will attend +you to your gate.” + +“Permit me also,” said Kenelm. + +“Ay,” said the vicar, “it is your own way to Cromwell Lodge.” + +The path led them through the churchyard as the nearest approach to the +brook-side. The moonbeams shimmered through the yew-trees and rested on +the old tomb; playing, as it were, round the flowers which Lily’s hand +had that day dropped upon its stone. She was walking beside Kenelm, the +elder two a few paces in front. + +“How silly I was,” said she, “to be so frightened at the false ghost! I +don’t think a real one would frighten me, at least if seen here, in this +loving moonlight, and on God’s ground!” + +“Ghosts, were they permitted to appear except in a magic lantern, could +not harm the innocent. And I wonder why the idea of their apparition +should always have been associated with such phantasies of horror, +especially by sinless children, who have the least reason to dread +them.” + +“Oh, that is true,” cried Lily; “but even when we are grown up there +must be times in which we should so long to see a ghost, and feel what a +comfort, what a joy it would be.” + +“I understand you. If some one very dear to us had vanished from our +life; if we felt the anguish of the separation so intensely as to efface +the thought that life, as you said so well, ‘never dies;’ well, yes, +then I can conceive that the mourner would yearn to have a glimpse of +the vanished one, were it but to ask the sole and only question he could +desire to put, ‘Art thou happy? May I hope that we shall meet again, +never to part,--never?’” + +Kenelm’s voice trembled as he spoke, tears stood in his eyes. A +melancholy--vague, unaccountable, overpowering--passed across his heart, +as the shadow of some dark-winged bird passes over a quiet stream. + +“You have never yet felt this?” asked Lily doubtingly, in a soft voice, +full of tender pity, stopping short and looking into his face. + +“I? No. I have never yet lost one whom I so loved and so yearned to see +again. I was but thinking that such losses may befall us all ere we too +vanish out of sight.” + +“Lily!” called forth Mrs. Cameron, halting at the gate of the +burial-ground. + +“Yes, auntie?” + +“Mr. Emlyn wants to know how far you have got in ‘Numa Pompilius.’ Come +and answer for yourself.” + +“Oh, those tiresome grown-up people!” whispered Lily, petulantly, to +Kenelm. “I do like Mr. Emlyn; he is one of the very best of men. But +still he is grown up, and his ‘Numa Pompilius’ is so stupid.” + +“My first French lesson-book. No, it is not stupid. Read on. It has +hints of the prettiest fairy tale I know, and of the fairy in especial +who bewitched my fancies as a boy.” + +By this time they had gained the gate of the burial-ground. + +“What fairy tale? what fairy?” asked Lily, speaking quickly. + +“She was a fairy, though in heathen language she is called a +nymph,--Egeria. She was the link between men and gods to him she loved; +she belongs to the race of gods. True, she, too, may vanish, but she can +never die.” + +“Well, Miss Lily,” said the vicar, “and how far in the book I lent +you,--‘Numa Pompilius.’” + +“Ask me this day next week.” + +“I will; but mind you are to translate as you go on. I must see the +translation.” + +“Very well. I will do my best,” answered Lily meekly. Lily now walked +by the vicar’s side, and Kenelm by Mrs. Cameron’s, till they reached +Grasmere. + +“I will go on with you to the bridge, Mr. Chillingly,” said the vicar, +when the ladies had disappeared within their garden. “We had little +time to look over my books, and, by the by, I hope you at least took the +Juvenal.” + +“No, Mr. Emlyn; who can quit your house with an inclination for satire? +I must come some morning and select a volume from those works which give +pleasant views of life and bequeath favourable impressions of mankind. +Your wife, with whom I have had an interesting conversation, upon the +principles of aesthetical philosophy--” + +“My wife! Charlotte! She knows nothing about aesthetical philosophy.” + +“She calls it by another name, but she understands it well enough to +illustrate the principles by example. She tells me that labour and duty +are so taken up by you-- + + + ‘In den heitern Regionen + Wo die reinen Formen wohnen,’ + + +that they become joy and beauty,--is it so?” + +“I am sure that Charlotte never said anything half so poetical. But, in +plain words, the days pass with me very happily. I should be ungrateful +if I were not happy. Heaven has bestowed on me so many sources of +love,--wife, children, books, and the calling which, when one quits +one’s own threshold, carries love along with it into the world beyond; +a small world in itself,--only a parish,--but then my calling links it +with infinity.” + +“I see; it is from the sources of love that you draw the supplies for +happiness.” + +“Surely; without love one may be good, but one could scarcely be happy. +No one can dream of a heaven except as the abode of love. What writer is +it who says, ‘How well the human heart was understood by him who first +called God by the name of Father’?” + +“I do not remember, but it is beautifully said. You evidently do not +subscribe to the arguments in Decimus Roach’s ‘Approach to the Angels.’” + +“Ah, Mr. Chillingly! your words teach me how lacerated a man’s happiness +may be if he does not keep the claws of vanity closely pared. I actually +feel a keen pang when you speak to me of that eloquent panegyric on +celibacy, ignorant that the only thing I ever published which I fancied +was not without esteem by intellectual readers is a Reply to ‘The +Approach to the Angels,’--a youthful book, written in the first year +of my marriage. But it obtained success: I have just revised the tenth +edition of it.” + +“That is the book I will select from your library. You will be pleased +to hear that Mr. Roach, whom I saw at Oxford a few days ago, recants his +opinions, and, at the age of fifty, is about to be married; he begs me +to add, ‘not for his own personal satisfaction.’” + +“Going to be married!--Decimus Roach! I thought my Reply would convince +him at last.” + +“I shall look to your Reply to remove some lingering doubts in my own +mind.” + +“Doubts in favour of celibacy?” + +“Well, if not for laymen, perhaps for a priesthood.” + +“The most forcible part of my Reply is on that head: read it +attentively. I think that, of all sections of mankind, the clergy are +those to whom, not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of the +community, marriage should be most commended. Why, sir,” continued the +vicar, warming up into oratorical enthusiasm, “are you not aware that +there are no homes in England from which men who have served and adorned +their country have issued forth in such prodigal numbers as those of +the clergy of our Church? What other class can produce a list so crowded +with eminent names as we can boast in the sons we have reared and sent +forth into the world? How many statesmen, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, +physicians, authors, men of science, have been the sons of us village +pastors? Naturally: for with us they receive careful education; they +acquire of necessity the simple tastes and disciplined habits which lead +to industry and perseverance; and, for the most part, they carry with +them throughout life a purer moral code, a more systematic reverence for +things and thoughts religious, associated with their earliest images +of affection and respect, than can be expected from the sons of laymen +whose parents are wholly temporal and worldly. Sir, I maintain that this +is a cogent argument, to be considered well by the nation, not only in +favour of a married clergy,--for, on that score, a million of Roaches +could not convert public opinion in this country,--but in favour of the +Church, the Established Church, which has been so fertile a nursery +of illustrious laymen; and I have often thought that one main and +undetected cause of the lower tone of morality, public and private, +of the greater corruption of manners, of the more prevalent scorn +of religion which we see, for instance, in a country so civilized as +France, is, that its clergy can train no sons to carry into the contests +of earth the steadfast belief in accountability to Heaven.” + +“I thank you with a full heart,” said Kenelm. “I shall ponder well over +all that you have so earnestly said. I am already disposed to give up +all lingering crotchets as to a bachelor clergy; but, as a layman, +I fear that I shall never attain to the purified philanthropy of Mr. +Decimus Roach, and, if ever I do marry, it will be very much for my +personal satisfaction.” + +Mr. Emlyn laughed good-humouredly, and, as they had now reached the +bridge, shook hands with Kenelm, and walked homewards, along the +brook-side and through the burial-ground, with the alert step and the +uplifted head of a man who has joy in life and admits of no fear in +death. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +FOR the next two weeks or so Kenelm and Lily met not indeed so often +as the reader might suppose, but still frequently; five times at Mrs. +Braefield’s, once again at the vicarage, and twice when Kenelm had +called at Grasmere; and, being invited to stay to tea at one of those +visits, he stayed the whole evening. Kenelm was more and more fascinated +in proportion as he saw more and more of a creature so exquisitely +strange to his experience. She was to him not only a poem, but a poem in +the Sibylline Books; enigmatical, perplexing conjecture, and somehow or +other mysteriously blending its interest with visions of the future. + +Lily was indeed an enchanting combination of opposites rarely blended +into harmony. Her ignorance of much that girls know before they number +half her years was so relieved by candid, innocent simplicity, so +adorned by pretty fancies and sweet beliefs, and so contrasted and lit +up by gleams of a knowledge that the young ladies we call well educated +seldom exhibit,--knowledge derived from quick observation of external +Nature, and impressionable susceptibility to its varying and subtle +beauties. This knowledge had been perhaps first instilled, and +subsequently nourished, by such poetry as she had not only learned by +heart, but taken up as inseparable from the healthful circulation of her +thoughts; not the poetry of our own day,--most young ladies know enough +of that,--but selected fragments from the verse of old, most of them +from poets now little read by the young of either sex, poets dear to +spirits like Coleridge or Charles Lamb,--none of them, however, so dear +to her as the solemn melodies of Milton. Much of such poetry she had +never read in books: it had been taught her in childhood by her guardian +the painter. And with all this imperfect, desultory culture, there was +such dainty refinement in her every look and gesture, and such deep +woman-tenderness of heart. Since Kenelm had commended “Numa Pompilius” + to her study, she had taken very lovingly to that old-fashioned romance, +and was fond of talking to him about Egeria as of a creature who had +really existed. + +But what was the effect that he,--the first man of years correspondent +to her own with whom she had ever familiarly conversed,--what was the +effect that Kenelm Chillingly produced on the mind and the heart of +Lily? + +This was, after all, the question that puzzled him the most,--not +without reason: it might have puzzled the shrewdest bystander. The +artless candour with which she manifested her liking to him was at +variance with the ordinary character of maiden love; it seemed more the +fondness of a child for a favourite brother. And it was this uncertainty +that, in his own thoughts, justified Kenelm for lingering on, and +believing that it was necessary to win, or at least to learn more of, +her secret heart before he could venture to disclose his own. He did not +flatter himself with the pleasing fear that he might be endangering +her happiness; it was only his own that was risked. Then, in all those +meetings, all those conversations to themselves, there had passed none +of the words which commit our destiny to the will of another. If in the +man’s eyes love would force its way, Lily’s frank, innocent gaze chilled +it back again to its inward cell. Joyously as she would spring +forward to meet him, there was no tell-tale blush on her cheek, no +self-betraying tremor in her clear, sweet-toned voice. No; there had not +yet been a moment when he could say to himself, “She loves me.” Often he +said to himself, “She knows not yet what love is.” + +In the intervals of time not passed in Lily’s society, Kenelm would +take long rambles with Mr. Emlyn, or saunter into Mrs. Braefield’s +drawing-room. For the former he conceived a more cordial sentiment of +friendship than he entertained for any man of his own age,--a friendship +that admitted the noble elements of admiration and respect. + +Charles Emlyn was one of those characters in which the colours appear +pale unless the light be brought very close to them, and then each +tint seems to change into a warmer and richer one. The manner which, at +first, you would call merely gentle, becomes unaffectedly genial; +the mind you at first might term inert, though well-informed, you now +acknowledge to be full of disciplined vigour. Emlyn was not, however, +without his little amiable foibles; and it was, perhaps, these that made +him lovable. He was a great believer in human goodness, and very easily +imposed upon by cunning appeals to “his well-known benevolence.” He +was disposed to overrate the excellence of all that he once took to his +heart. He thought he had the best wife in the world, the best children, +the best servants, the best beehive, the best pony, and the best +house-dog. His parish was the most virtuous, his church the most +picturesque, his vicarage the prettiest, certainly, in the whole +shire,--perhaps, in the whole kingdom. Probably it was this philosophy +of optimism which contributed to lift him into the serene realm of +aesthetic joy. + +He was not without his dislikes as well as likings. Though a liberal +Churchman towards Protestant dissenters, he cherished the _odium +theologicum_ for all that savoured of Popery. Perhaps there was another +cause for this besides the purely theological one. Early in life a young +sister of his had been, to use his phrase, “secretly entrapped” into +conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and had since entered a convent. +His affections had been deeply wounded by this loss to the range of +them. Mr. Emlyn had also his little infirmities of self-esteem rather +than of vanity. Though he had seen very little of any world beyond that +of his parish, he piqued himself on his knowledge of human nature and of +practical affairs in general. Certainly no man had read more about them, +especially in the books of the ancient classics. Perhaps it was owing +to this that he so little understood Lily,--a character to which the +ancient classics afforded no counterpart nor clue; and perhaps it was +this also that made Lily think him “so terribly grown up.” Thus, despite +his mild good-nature, she did not get on very well with him. + +The society of this amiable scholar pleased Kenelm the more, because +the scholar evidently had not the remotest idea that Kenelm’s sojourn at +Cromwell Lodge was influenced by the vicinity to Grasmere. Mr. Emlyn was +sure that he knew human nature, and practical affairs in general, too +well to suppose that the heir to a rich baronet could dream of taking +for wife a girl without fortune or rank, the orphan ward of a low-born +artist only just struggling into reputation; or, indeed, that a +Cambridge prizeman, who had evidently read much on grave and dry +subjects, and who had no less evidently seen a great deal of polished +society, could find any other attraction in a very imperfectly-educated +girl, who tamed butterflies and knew no more than they did of +fashionable life, than Mr. Emlyn himself felt in the presence of a +pretty wayward innocent child, the companion and friend of his Clemmy. + +Mrs. Braefield was more discerning; but she had a good deal of tact, and +did not as yet scare Kenelm away from her house by letting him see how +much she had discerned. She would not even tell her husband, who, absent +from the place on most mornings, was too absorbed in the cares of his +own business to interest himself much in the affairs of others. + +Now Elsie, being still of a romantic turn of mind, had taken it into +her head that Lily Mordaunt, if not actually the princess to be found in +poetic dramas whose rank was for a while kept concealed, was yet one of +the higher-born daughters of the ancient race whose name she bore, +and in that respect no derogatory alliance for Kenelm Chillingly. A +conclusion she had arrived at from no better evidence than the well-bred +appearance and manners of the aunt, and the exquisite delicacy of the +niece’s form and features, with the undefinable air of distinction +which accompanied even her most careless and sportive moments. But Mrs. +Braefield also had the wit to discover that, under the infantine ways +and phantasies of this almost self-taught girl, there lay, as yet +undeveloped, the elements of a beautiful womanhood. So that altogether, +from the very day she first re-encountered Kenelm, Elsie’s thought had +been that Lily was the wife to suit him. Once conceiving that idea, her +natural strength of will made her resolve on giving all facilities to +carry it out silently and unobtrusively, and therefore skilfully. + +“I am so glad to think,” she said one day, when Kenelm had joined her +walk through the pleasant shrubberies in her garden ground, “that you +have made such friends with Mr. Emlyn. Though all hereabouts like him so +much for his goodness, there are few who can appreciate his learning. +To you it must be a surprise as well as pleasure to find, in this quiet +humdrum place, a companion so clever and well-informed: it compensates +for your disappointment in discovering that our brook yields such bad +sport.” + +“Don’t disparage the brook; it yields the pleasantest banks on which +to lie down under old pollard oaks at noon, or over which to saunter +at morn and eve. Where those charms are absent even a salmon could +not please. Yes; I rejoice to have made friends with Mr. Emlyn. I have +learned a great deal from him, and am often asking myself whether I +shall ever make peace with my conscience by putting what I have learned +into practice.” + +“May I ask what special branch of learning is that?” + +“I scarcely know how to define it. Suppose we call it ‘Worth-whileism.’ +Among the New Ideas which I was recommended to study as those that must +govern my generation, the Not-worth-while Idea holds a very high rank; +and being myself naturally of calm and equable constitution, that new +idea made the basis of my philosophical system. But since I have become +intimate with Charles Emlyn I think there is a great deal to be said in +favour of Worth-whileism, old idea though it be. I see a man who, with +very commonplace materials for interest or amusement at his command, +continues to be always interested or generally amused; I ask myself why +and how? And it seems to me as if the cause started from fixed beliefs +which settle his relations with God and man, and that settlement he will +not allow any speculations to disturb. Be those beliefs questionable or +not by others, at least they are such as cannot displease a Deity, and +cannot fail to be kindly and useful to fellow-mortals. Then he plants +these beliefs on the soil of a happy and genial home, which tends to +confirm and strengthen and call them into daily practice; and when he +goes forth from home, even to the farthest verge of the circle that +surrounds it, he carries with him the home influences of kindliness +and use. Possibly my line of life may be drawn to the verge of a wider +circle than his; but so much the better for interest and amusement, if +it can be drawn from the same centre; namely, fixed beliefs daily warmed +into vital action in the sunshine of a congenial home.” + +Mrs. Braefield listened to this speech with pleased attention, and as +it came to its close, the name of Lily trembled on her tongue, for she +divined that when he spoke of home Lily was in his thoughts; but she +checked the impulse, and replied by a generalized platitude. + +“Certainly the first thing in life is to secure a happy and congenial +home. It must be a terrible trial for the best of us if we marry without +love.” + +“Terrible, indeed, if the one loves and the other does not.” + +“That can scarcely be your case, Mr. Chillingly, for I am sure you could +not marry where you did not love; and do not think I flatter you when I +say that a man far less gifted than you can scarcely fail to be loved by +the woman he wooes and wins.” + +Kenelm, in this respect one of the modestest of human beings, shook his +head doubtingly, and was about to reply in self-disparagement, when, +lifting his eyes and looking round, he halted mute and still as if +rooted to the spot. They had entered the trellised circle through the +roses of which he had first caught sight of the young face that had +haunted him ever since. + +“Ah!” he said abruptly; “I cannot stay longer here, dreaming away the +work-day hours in a fairy ring. I am going to town to-day by the next +train.” + +“Yoa are coming back?” + +“Of course,--this evening. I left no address at my lodgings in London. +There must be a large accumulation of letters; some, no doubt, from my +father and mother. I am only going for them. Good-by. How kindly you +have listened to me!” + +“Shall we fix a day next week for seeing the remains of the old Roman +villa? I will ask Mrs. Cameron and her niece to be of the party.” + +“Any day you please,” said Kenelm joyfully. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +KENELM did indeed find a huge pile of letters and notes on reaching his +forsaken apartment in Mayfair; many of them merely invitations for days +long past, none of them of interest except two from Sir Peter, three +from his mother, and one from Tom Bowles. + +Sir Peter’s were short. In the first he gently scolded Kenelm for going +away without communicating any address; and stated the acquaintance he +had formed with Gordon, the favourable impression that young gentleman +had made on him, the transfer of the L20,000 and the invitation given to +Gordon, the Traverses, and Lady Glenalvon. The second, dated much later, +noted the arrival of his invited guests, dwelt with warmth unusual to +Sir Peter on the attractions of Cecilia, and took occasion to refer, +not the less emphatically because as it were incidentally, to the sacred +promise which Kenelm had given him never to propose to a young lady +until the case had been submitted to the examination and received +the consent of Sir Peter. “Come to Exmundham, and if I do not give my +consent to propose to Cecilia Travers hold me a tyrant and rebel.” + +Lady Chillingly’s letters were much longer. They dwelt more +complainingly on his persistence in eccentric habits; so exceedingly +unlike other people, quitting London at the very height of the season, +going without even a servant nobody knew where: she did not wish to +wound his feelings; but still those were not the ways natural to a young +gentleman of station. If he had no respect for himself, he ought to have +some consideration for his parents, especially his poor mother. She then +proceeded to comment on the elegant manners of Leopold Travers, and the +good sense and pleasant conversation of Chillingly Gordon, a young man +of whom any mother might be proud. From that subject she diverged to +mildly querulous references to family matters. Parson John had expressed +himself very rudely to Mr. Chillingly Gordon upon some book by a +foreigner,--Comte or Count, or some such name,--on which, so far as +she could pretend to judge, Mr. Gordon had uttered some very benevolent +sentiments about humanity, which, in the most insolent manner, Parson +John had denounced as an attack on religion. But really Parson John +was too High Church for her. Having thus disposed of Parson John, she +indulged some ladylike wailings on the singular costume of the three +Miss Chillinglys. They had been asked by Sir Peter, unknown to her--so +like him--to meet their guests; to meet Lady Glenalvon and Miss Travers, +whose dress was so perfect (here she described their dress); and they +came in pea-green with pelerines of mock blonde, and Miss Sally with +corkscrew ringlets and a wreath of jessamine, “which no girl after +eighteen would venture to wear.” + +“But, my dear,” added her ladyship, “your poor father’s family are +certainly great oddities. I have more to put up with than any one knows. +I do my best to carry it off. I know my duties, and will do them.” + +Family grievances thus duly recorded and lamented, Lady Chillingly +returned to her guests. + +Evidently unconscious of her husband’s designs on Cecilia, she dismissed +her briefly: “A very handsome young lady, though rather too blonde for +her taste, and certainly with an air _distingue_.” Lastly, she enlarged +on the extreme pleasure she felt on meeting again the friend of her +youth, Lady Glenalvon. + +“Not at all spoilt by the education of the great world, which, alas! +obedient to the duties of wife and mother, however little my sacrifices +are appreciated, I have long since relinquished. Lady Glenalvon suggests +turning that hideous old moat into a fernery,--a great improvement. Of +course your poor father makes objections.” + +Tom’s letter was written on black-edged paper, and ran thus:-- + + +DEAR SIR,--Since I had the honour to see you in London I have had a sad +loss: my poor uncle is no more. He died very suddenly after a hearty +supper. One doctor says it was apoplexy, another valvular disease of the +heart. He has left me his heir, after providing for his sister: no one +had an idea that he had saved so much money. I am quite a rich man now. +And I shall leave the veterinary business, which of late--since I +took to reading, as you kindly advised--is not much to my liking The +principal corn-merchant here has offered to take me into partnership; +and, from what I can see, it will be a very good thing and a great rise +in life. But, sir, I can’t settle to it at present; I can’t settle, as +I would wish to anything. I know you will not laugh at me when I say I +have a strange longing to travel for a while. I have been reading books +of travels, and they get into my head more than any other books. But I +don’t think I could leave the country with a contented heart till I have +had just another look at you know whom,--just to see her, and know she +is happy. I am sure I could shake hands with Will and kiss her little +one without a wrong thought. What do you say to that, dear sir? You +promised to write to me about her. But I have not heard from you. Susey, +the little girl with the flower-ball, has had a loss too: the poor old +man she lived with died within a few days of my dear uncle’s decease. +Mother moved here, as I think you know, when the forge at Graveleigh was +sold; and she is going to take Susey to live with her. She is quite fond +of Susey. Pray let me hear from you soon; and do, dear sir, give me your +advice about travelling--and about Her. You see I should like Her to +think of me more kindly when I am in distant parts. + + I remain, dear sir, + + Your grateful servant, + + T. BOWLES. + +P.S.--Miss Travers has sent me Will’s last remittance. There is +very little owed me now; so they must be thriving. I hope she is not +overworked. + + +On returning by the train that evening, Kenelm went to the house of Will +Somers. The shop was already closed, but he was admitted by a trusty +servant-maid to the parlour, where he found them all at supper, except +indeed the baby, who had long since retired to the cradle, and the +cradle had been removed upstairs. Will and Jessie were very proud when +Kenelm invited himself to share their repast, which, though simple, +was by no means a bad one. When the meal was over and the supper things +removed, Kenelm drew his chair near to the glass door which led into a +little garden very neatly kept--for it was Will’s pride to attend to it +before he sat down to his more professional work. The door was open, +and admitted the coolness of the starlit air and the fragrance of the +sleeping flowers. + +“You have a pleasant home here, Mrs. Somers.” + +“We have, indeed, and know how to bless him we owe it to.” + +“I am rejoiced to think that. How often when God designs a +special kindness to us He puts the kindness into the heart of a +fellow-man,--perhaps the last fellow-man we should have thought of; but +in blessing him we thank God who inspired him. Now, my dear friends, I +know that you all three suspect me of being the agent whom God chose for +His benefits. You fancy that it was from me came the loan which enabled +you to leave Graveleigh and settle here. You are mistaken,--you look +incredulous.” + +“It could not be the Squire,” exclaimed Jessie. “Miss Travers assured +me that it was neither he nor herself. Oh, it must be you, sir. I beg +pardon, but who else could it be?” + +“Your husband shall guess. Suppose, Will, that you had behaved ill +to some one who was nevertheless dear to you, and on thinking over it +afterwards felt very sorry and much ashamed of yourself, and suppose +that later you had the opportunity and the power to render a service to +that person, do you think you would do it?” + +“I should be a bad man if I did not.” + +“Bravo! And supposing that when the person you thus served came to know +it was you who rendered the service, he did not feel thankful, he did +not think it handsome of you, thus to repair any little harm he might +have done you before, but became churlish and sore and cross-grained, +and with a wretched false pride said that because he had offended you +once he resented your taking the liberty of befriending him now, would +you not think that person an ungrateful fellow; ungrateful not only to +you his fellow-man,--that is of less moment,--but ungrateful to the +God who put it into your heart to be His human agent in the benefit +received?” + +“Well, sir, yes, certainly,” said Will, with all the superior refinement +of his intellect to that of Jessie, unaware of what Kenelm was driving +at; while Jessie, pressing her hands tightly together, turned pale, +and with a frightened hurried glance towards Will’s face, answered, +impulsively,-- + +“Oh, Mr. Chillingly, I hope you are not thinking, not speaking, of Mr. +Bowles?” + +“Whom else should I think or speak of?” + +Will rose nervously from his chair, all his features writhing. + +“Sir, sir, this is a bitter blow,--very bitter, very.” + +Jessie rushed to Will, flung her arms round him and sobbed. Kenelm +turned quietly to old Mrs. Somers, who had suspended the work on which +since supper she had been employed, knitting socks for the baby,-- + +“My dear Mrs. Somers, what is the good of being a grandmother and +knitting socks for baby grandchildren, if you cannot assure those silly +children of yours that they are too happy in each other to harbour any +resentment against a man who would have parted them, and now repents?” + +Somewhat to Kenelm’s admiration, I dare not say surprise, old Mrs. +Somers, thus appealed to, rose from her seat, and, with a dignity of +thought or of feeling no one could have anticipated from the quiet +peasant woman, approached the wedded pair, lifted Jessie’s face with one +hand, laid the other on Will’s head, and said, “If you don’t long to see +Mr. Bowles again and say ‘The Lord bless you, sir!’ you don’t deserve +the Lord’s blessing upon you.” Therewith she went back to her seat, and +resumed her knitting. + +“Thank Heaven, we have paid back the best part of the loan,” said Will, +in very agitated tones, “and I think, with a little pinching, Jessie, +and with selling off some of the stock, we might pay the rest; and +then,”--and then he turned to Kenelm,--“and then, sir, we will” (here a +gulp) “thank Mr. Bowles.” + +“This don’t satisfy me at all, Will,” answered Kenelm; “and since I +helped to bring you two together, I claim the right to say I would never +have done so could I have guessed you could have trusted your wife so +little as to allow a remembrance of Mr. Bowles to be a thought of pain. +You did not feel humiliated when you imagined that it was to me you owed +some moneys which you have been honestly paying off. Well, then, I will +lend you whatever trifle remains to discharge your whole debts to Mr. +Bowles, so that you may sooner be able to say to him, ‘Thank you.’ +But between you and me, Will, I think you will be a finer fellow and a +manlier fellow if you decline to borrow that trifle of me; if you feel +you would rather say ‘Thank you’ to Mr. Bowles, without the silly +notion that when you have paid him his money you owe him nothing for his +kindness.” + +Will looked away irresolutely. Kenelm went on: “I have received a letter +from Mr. Bowles to-day. He has come into a fortune, and thinks of going +abroad for a time; but before he goes, he says he should like to shake +hands with Will, and be assured by Jessie that all his old rudeness is +forgiven. He had no notion that I should blab about the loan: he wished +that to remain always a secret. But between friends there need be no +secrets. What say you, Will? As head of this household, shall Mr. Bowles +be welcomed here as a friend or not?” + +“Kindly welcome,” said old Mrs. Somers, looking up from the socks. + +“Sir,” said Will, with sudden energy, “look here; you have never been in +love, I dare say. If you had, you would not be so hard on me. Mr. Bowles +was in love with my wife there. Mr. Bowles is a very fine man, and I am +a cripple.” + +“Oh, Will! Will!” cried Jessie. + +“But I trust my wife with my whole heart and soul; and, now that +the first pang is over, Mr. Bowles shall be, as mother says, kindly +welcome,--heartily welcome.” + +“Shake hands. Now you speak like a man, Will. I hope to bring Bowles +here to supper before many days are over.” + +And that night Kenelm wrote to Mr. Bowles: + + +MY DEAR TOM,--Come and spend a few days with me at Cromwell Lodge, +Moleswich. Mr. and Mrs. Somers wish much to see and to thank you. I +could not remain forever degraded in order to gratify your whim. They +would have it that I bought their shop, etc., and I was forced in +self-defence to say who it was. More on this and on travels when you +come. + + Your true friend, + + K. C. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +MRS. CAMERON was seated alone in her pretty drawing-room, with a book +lying open, but unheeded, on her lap. She was looking away from its +pages, seemingly into the garden without, but rather into empty space. + +To a very acute and practised observer, there was in her countenance an +expression which baffled the common eye. + +To the common eye it was simply vacant; the expression of a quiet, +humdrum woman, who might have been thinking of some quiet humdrum +household detail,--found that too much for her, and was now not thinking +at all. + +But to the true observer, there were in that face indications of +a troubled past, still haunted with ghosts never to be laid at +rest,--indications, too, of a character in herself that had undergone +some revolutionary change; it had not always been the character of a +woman quiet and humdrum. The delicate outlines of the lip and nostril +evinced sensibility, and the deep and downward curve of it bespoke +habitual sadness. The softness of the look into space did not tell of +a vacant mind, but rather of a mind subdued and over-burdened by the +weight of a secret sorrow. There was also about her whole presence, in +the very quiet which made her prevalent external characteristic, the +evidence of manners formed in a high-bred society,--the society in which +quiet is connected with dignity and grace. The poor understood this +better than her rich acquaintances at Moleswich, when they said, “Mrs. +Cameron was every inch a lady.” To judge by her features she must once +have been pretty, not a showy prettiness, but decidedly pretty. Now, +as the features were small, all prettiness had faded away in cold gray +colourings, and a sort of tamed and slumbering timidity of aspect. She +was not only not demonstrative, but must have imposed on herself as a +duty the suppression of demonstration. Who could look at the formation +of those lips, and not see that they belonged to the nervous, quick, +demonstrative temperament? And yet, observing her again more closely, +that suppression of the constitutional tendency to candid betrayal of +emotion would the more enlist our curiosity or interest; because, if +physiognomy and phrenology have any truth in them, there was little +strength in her character. In the womanly yieldingness of the +short curved upper lip, the pleading timidity of the regard, the +disproportionate but elegant slenderness of the head between the ear +and the neck, there were the tokens of one who cannot resist the will, +perhaps the whim, of another whom she either loves or trusts. + +The book open on her lap is a serious book on the doctrine of grace, +written by a popular clergyman of what is termed “the Low Church.” She +seldom read any but serious books, except where such care as she gave +to Lily’s education compelled her to read “Outlines of History and +Geography,” or the elementary French books used in seminaries for +young ladies. Yet if any one had decoyed Mrs. Cameron into familiar +conversation, he would have discovered that she must early have received +the education given to young ladies of station. She could speak +and write French and Italian as a native. She had read, and still +remembered, such classic authors in either language as are conceded to +the use of pupils by the well-regulated taste of orthodox governesses. +She had a knowledge of botany, such as botany was taught twenty years +ago. I am not sure that, if her memory had been fairly aroused, she +might not have come out strong in divinity and political economy, as +expounded by the popular manuals of Mrs. Marcet. In short, you could see +in her a thoroughbred English lady, who had been taught in a generation +before Lily’s, and immeasurably superior in culture to the ordinary run +of English young ladies taught nowadays. So, in what after all are very +minor accomplishments,--now made major accomplishments,--such as music, +it was impossible that a connoisseur should hear her play on the piano +without remarking, “That woman has had the best masters of her time.” + She could only play pieces that belonged to her generation. She had +learned nothing since. In short, the whole intellectual culture had come +to a dead stop long years ago, perhaps before Lily was born. + +Now, while she is gazing into space Mrs. Braefield is announced. Mrs. +Cameron does not start from revery. She never starts. But she makes a +weary movement of annoyance, resettles herself, and lays the serious +book on the sofa table. Elsie enters, young, radiant, dressed in all the +perfection of the fashion, that is, as ungracefully as in the eyes of an +artist any gentlewoman can be; but rich merchants who are proud of their +wives so insist, and their wives, in that respect, submissively obey +them. + +The ladies interchange customary salutations, enter into the customary +preliminaries of talk, and after a pause Elsie begins in earnest. + +“But sha’n’t I see Lily? Where is she?” + +“I fear she has gone into the town. A poor little boy, who did our +errands, has met with an accident,--fallen from a cherry-tree.” + +“Which he was robbing?” + +“Probably.” + +“And Lily has gone to lecture him?” + +“I don’t know as to that; but he is much hurt, and Lily has gone to see +what is the matter with him.” + +Mrs. Braefield, in her frank outspoken way,--“I don’t take much to girls +of Lily’s age in general, though I am passionately fond of children. You +know how I do take to Lily; perhaps because she is so like a child. But +she must be an anxious charge to you.” + +Mrs. Cameron replied by an anxious “No; she is still a child, a very +good one; why should I be anxious?” + +Mrs. Braefield, impulsively,--“Why, your child must now be eighteen.” + +Mrs. Cameron,--“Eighteen--is it possible! How time flies! though in a +life so monotonous as mine, time does not seem to fly, it slips on +like the lapse of water. Let me think,--eighteen? No, she is but +seventeen,--seventeen last May.” + +Mrs. Braefield,--“Seventeen! A very anxious age for a girl; an age in +which dolls cease and lovers begin.” + +Mrs. Cameron, not so languidly, but still quietly,--“Lily never cared +much for dolls,--never much for lifeless pets; and as to lovers, she +does not dream of them.” + +Mrs. Braefield, briskly,--“There is no age after six in which girls do +not dream of lovers. And here another question arises. When a girl so +lovely as Lily is eighteen next birthday, may not a lover dream of her?” + +Mrs. Cameron, with that wintry cold tranquillity of manner, which +implies that in putting such questions an interrogator is taking a +liberty,--“As no lover has appeared, I cannot trouble myself about his +dreams.” + +Said Elsie inly to herself, “This is the stupidest woman I ever met!” + and aloud to Mrs. Cameron,--“Do you not think that your neighbour, Mr. +Chillingly, is a very fine young man?” + +“I suppose he would be generally considered so. He is very tall.” + +“A handsome face?” + +“Handsome, is it? I dare say.” + +“What does Lily say?” + +“About what?” + +“About Mr. Chillingly. Does she not think him handsome?” + +“I never asked her.” + +“My dear Mrs. Cameron, would it not be a very pretty match for Lily? The +Chillinglys are among the oldest families in Burke’s ‘Landed Gentry,’ +and I believe his father, Sir Peter, has a considerable property.” + +For the first time in this conversation Mrs. Cameron betrayed emotion. +A sudden flush overspread her countenance, and then left it paler +than before. After a pause she recovered her accustomed composure, and +replied, rudely,-- + +“It would be no friend to Lily who could put such notions into her +head; and there is no reason to suppose that they have entered into Mr. +Chillingly’s.” + +“Would you be sorry if they did? Surely you would like your niece to +marry well, and there are few chances of her doing so at Moleswich.” + +“Pardon me, Mrs. Braefield, but the question of Lily’s marriage I have +never discussed, even with her guardian. Nor, considering the childlike +nature of her tastes and habits, rather than the years she has numbered, +can I think the time has yet come for discussing it at all.” + +Elsie, thus rebuked, changed the subject to some newspaper topic which +interested the public mind at the moment and very soon rose to depart. +Mrs. Cameron detained the hand that her visitor held out, and said in +low tones, which, though embarrassed, were evidently earnest, “My dear +Mrs. Braefield, let me trust to your good sense and the affection with +which you have honoured my niece not to incur the risk of unsettling +her mind by a hint of the ambitious projects for her future on which you +have spoken to me. It is extremely improbable that a young man of +Mr. Chillingly’s expectations would entertain any serious thoughts of +marrying out of his own sphere of life, and--” + +“Stop, Mrs. Cameron, I must interrupt you. Lily’s personal attractions +and grace of manner would adorn any station; and have I not rightly +understood you to say that though her guardian, Mr. Melville, is, as we +all know, a man who has risen above the rank of his parents, your niece, +Miss Mordaunt, is like yourself, by birth a gentlewoman?” + +“Yes, by birth a gentlewoman,” said Mrs. Cameron, raising her head with +a sudden pride. But she added, with as sudden a change to a sort of +freezing humility, “What does that matter? A girl without fortune, +without connection, brought up in this little cottage, the ward of a +professional artist, who was the son of a city clerk, to whom she owes +even the home she has found, is not in the same sphere of life as Mr. +Chillingly, and his parents could not approve of such an alliance for +him. It would be most cruel to her, if you were to change the innocent +pleasure she may take in the conversation of a clever and well-informed +stranger into the troubled interest which, since you remind me of her +age, a girl even so childlike and beautiful as Lily might conceive in +one represented to her as the possible partner of her life. Don’t commit +that cruelty; don’t--don’t, I implore you!” + +“Trust me,” cried the warm-hearted Elsie, with tears rushing to her +eyes. “What you say so sensibly, so nobly, never struck me before. I +do not know much of the world,--knew nothing of it till I married,--and +being very fond of Lily, and having a strong regard for Mr. Chillingly, +I fancied I could not serve both better than--than--but I see now; he +is very young, very peculiar; his parents might object, not to Lily +herself, but to the circumstances you name. And you would not wish +her to enter any family where she was not as cordially welcomed as she +deserves to be. I am glad to have had this talk with you. Happily, I +have done no mischief as yet. I will do none. I had come to propose +an excursion to the remains of the Roman Villa, some miles off, and to +invite you and Mr. Chillingly. I will no longer try to bring him and +Lily together.” + +“Thank you. But you still misconstrue me. I do not think that Lily cares +half so much for Mr. Chillingly as she does for a new butterfly. I do +not fear their coming together, as you call it, in the light in which +she now regards him, and in which, from all I observe, he regards her. +My only fear is that a hint might lead her to regard him in another way, +and that way impossible.” + +Elsie left the house extremely bewildered, and with a profound contempt +for Mrs. Cameron’s knowledge of what may happen to two young persons +“brought together.” + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +NOW, on that very day, and about the same hour in which the conversation +just recorded between Elsie and Mrs. Cameron took place, Kenelm, in his +solitary noonday wanderings, entered the burial-ground in which Lily had +some short time before surprised him. And there he found her, standing +beside the flower border which she had placed round the grave of the +child whom she had tended and nursed in vain. + +The day was cloudless and sunless; one of those days that so often +instil a sentiment of melancholy into the heart of an English summer. + +“You come here too often, Miss Mordaunt,” said Kenelm, very softly, as +he approached. + +Lily turned her face to him, without any start of surprise, with no +brightening change in its pensive expression,--an expression rare to the +mobile play of her features. + +“Not too often. I promised to come as often as I could; and, as I told +you before, I have never broken a promise yet.” + +Kenelm made no answer. Presently the girl turned from the spot, and +Kenelm followed her silently till she halted before the old tombstone +with its effaced inscription. + +“See,” she said, with a faint smile, “I have put fresh flowers there. +Since the day we met in this churchyard, I have thought so much of that +tomb, so neglected, so forgotten, and--” she paused a moment, and went +on abruptly, “do you not often find that you are much too--what is +the word? ah! too egotistical, considering and pondering and dreaming +greatly too much about yourself?” + +“Yes, you are right there; though, till you so accused me, my conscience +did not detect it.” + +“And don’t you find that you escape from being so haunted by the thought +of yourself, when you think of the dead? they can never have any +share in your existence _here_. When you say, ‘I shall do this or that +to-day;’ when you dream, ‘I may be this or that to-morrow,’ you are +thinking and dreaming, all by yourself, for yourself. But you are out of +yourself, beyond yourself, when you think and dream of the dead, who can +have nothing to do with your to-day or your to-morrow.” + +As we all know, Kenelm Chillingly made it one of the rules of his life +never to be taken by surprise. But when the speech I have written down +came from the lips of that tamer of butterflies, he was so startled that +all it occurred to him to say, after a long pause, was,-- + +“The dead are the past; and with the past rests all in the present or +the future that can take us out of our natural selves. The past decides +our present. By the past we divine our future. History, poetry, science, +the welfare of states, the advancement of individuals, are all connected +with tombstones of which inscriptions are effaced. You are right to +honour the mouldered tombstones with fresh flowers. It is only in the +companionship of the dead that one ceases to be an egotist.” + +If the imperfectly educated Lily had been above the quick comprehension +of the academical Kenelm in her speech, so Kenelm was now above the +comprehension of Lily. She, too, paused before she replied,-- + +“If I knew you better, I think I could understand you better. I wish you +knew Lion. I should like to hear you talk with him.” + +While thus conversing, they had left the burial-ground, and were in the +pathway trodden by the common wayfarer. + +Lily resumed,--“Yes, I should like to hear you talk with Lion.” + +“You mean your guardian, Mr. Melville?” + +“Yes, you know that.” + +“And why should you like to hear me talk to him?” + +“Because there are some things in which I doubt if he was altogether +right, and I would ask you to express my doubts to him; you would, would +you not?” + +“But why can you not express them yourself to your guardian; are you +afraid of him?” + +“Afraid, no indeed! But--ah, how many people there are coming this way! +There is some tiresome public meeting in the town to-day. Let us take +the ferry: the other side of the stream is much pleasanter; we shall +have it more to ourselves.” + +Turning aside to the right while she thus spoke, Lily descended a +gradual slope to the margin of the stream, on which they found an old +man dozily reclined in his ferry-boat. + +As, seated side by side, they were slowly borne over the still waters +under a sunless sky, Kenelm would have renewed the subject which his +companion had begun, but she shook her head, with a significant glance +at the ferryman. Evidently what she had to say was too confidential to +admit of a listener, not that the old ferryman seemed likely to take +the trouble of listening to any talk that was not addressed to him. +Lily soon did address her talk to him, “So, Brown, the cow has quite +recovered.” + +“Yes, Miss, thanks to you, and God bless you. To think of your beating +the old witch like that!” + +“‘Tis not I who beat the witch, Brown; ‘tis the fairy. Fairies, you +know, are much more powerful than witches.” + +“So I find, Miss.” + +Lily here turned to Kenelm; “Mr. Brown has a very nice milch-cow that +was suddenly taken very ill, and both he and his wife were convinced +that the cow was bewitched.” + +“Of course it were, that stands to reason. Did not Mother Wright tell my +old woman that she would repent of selling milk, and abuse her dreadful; +and was not the cow taken with shivers that very night?” + +“Gently, Brown. Mother Wright did not say that your wife would repent of +selling milk, but of putting water into it.” + +“And how did she know that, if she was not a witch? We have the best of +customers among the gentlefolks, and never any one that complained.” + +“And,” answered Lily to Kenelm, unheeding this last observation, which +was made in a sullen manner, “Brown had a horrid notion of enticing +Mother Wright into his ferry-boat and throwing her into the water, in +order to break the spell upon the cow. But I consulted the fairies, and +gave him a fairy charm to tie round the cow’s neck. And the cow is quite +well now, you see. So, Brown, there was no necessity to throw Mother +Wright into the water, because she said you put some of it into the +milk. But,” she added, as the boat now touched the opposite bank, “shall +I tell you, Brown, what the fairies said to me this morning?” + +“Do, Miss.” + +“It was this: If Brown’s cow yields milk without any water in it, and +if water gets into it when the milk is sold, we, the fairies, will pinch +Mr. Brown black and blue; and when Brown has his next fit of rheumatics +he must not look to the fairies to charm it away.” + +Herewith Lily dropped a silver groat into Brown’s hand, and sprang +lightly ashore, followed by Kenelm. + +“You have quite converted him, not only as to the existence, but as to +the beneficial power of fairies,” said Kenelm. + +“Ah,” answered Lily very gravely, “ah, but would it not be nice if there +were fairies still? good fairies, and one could get at them? tell them +all that troubles and puzzles us, and win from them charms against the +witchcraft we practise on ourselves?” + +“I doubt if it would be good for us to rely on such supernatural +counsellors. Our own souls are so boundless that the more we explore +them the more we shall find worlds spreading upon worlds into +infinities; and among the worlds is Fairyland.” He added, inly to +himself, “Am I not in Fairyland now?” + +“Hush!” whispered Lily. “Don’t speak more yet awhile. I am thinking over +what you have just said, and trying to understand it.” + +Thus walking silently they gained the little summer-house which +tradition dedicated to the memory of Izaak Walton. Lily entered it and +seated herself; Kenelm took his place beside her. It was a small octagon +building which, judging by its architecture, might have been built +in the troubled reign of Charles I.; the walls plastered within were +thickly covered with names and dates, and inscriptions in praise of +angling, in tribute to Izaak, or with quotations from his books. On +the opposite side they could see the lawn of Grasmere, with its great +willows dipping into the water. The stillness of the place, with its +associations of the angler’s still life, were in harmony with the quiet +day, its breezeless air, and cloud-vested sky. + +“You were to tell me your doubts in connection with your guardian, +doubts if he were right in something which you left unexplained, which +you could not yourself explain to him.” + +Lily started as from thoughts alien to the subject thus reintroduced. +“Yes, I cannot mention my doubts to him because they relate to me, and +he is so good. I owe him so much that I could not bear to vex him by a +word that might seem like reproach or complaint. You remember,” here she +drew nearer to him; and with that ingenuous confiding look and movement +which had, not unfrequently, enraptured him at the moment, and saddened +him on reflection,--too ingenuous, too confiding, for the sentiment +with which he yearned to inspire her,--she turned towards him her frank +untimorous eyes, and laid her hand on his arm: “you remember that I said +in the burial-ground how much I felt that one is constantly thinking +too much of one’s self. That must be wrong. In talking to you only about +myself I know I am wrong, but I cannot help it: I must do so. Do not +think ill of me for it. You see I have not been brought up like other +girls. Was my guardian right in that? Perhaps if he had insisted upon +not letting me have my own wilful way, if he had made me read the books +which Mr. and Mrs. Emlyn wanted to force on me, instead of the poems and +fairy tales which he gave me, I should have had so much more to think of +that I should have thought less of myself. You said that the dead were +the past; one forgets one’s self when one thinks of the dead. If I had +read more of the past, had more subjects of interest in the dead whose +history it tells, surely I should be less shut up, as it were, in my +own small, selfish heart? It is only very lately I have thought of this, +only very lately that I have felt sorrow and shame in the thought that I +am so ignorant of what other girls know, even little Clemmy. And I dare +not say this to Lion when I see him next, lest he should blame himself, +when he only meant to be kind, and used to say, ‘I don’t want Fairy to +be learned, it is enough for me to think she is happy.’ And oh, I was so +happy, till--till of late!” + +“Because till of late you only knew yourself as a child. But, now that +you feel the desire of knowledge, childhood is vanishing. Do not vex +yourself. With the mind which nature has bestowed on you, such learning +as may fit you to converse with those dreaded ‘grown-up folks’ will come +to you very easily and quickly. You will acquire more in a month now +than you would have acquired in a year when you were a child, and +task-work was loathed, not courted. Your aunt is evidently well +instructed, and if I might venture to talk to her about the choice of +books--” + +“No, don’t do that. Lion would not like it.” + +“Your guardian would not like you to have the education common to other +young ladies?” + +“Lion forbade my aunt to teach me much that I rather wished to learn. +She wanted to do so, but she has given it up at his wish. She only now +teases me with those horrid French verbs, and that I know is a mere +make-belief. Of course on Sunday it is different; then I must not read +anything but the Bible and sermons. I don’t care so much for the sermons +as I ought, but I could read the Bible all day, every week-day as well +as Sunday; and it is from the Bible that I learn that I ought to think +less about myself.” + +Kenelm involuntarily pressed the little hand that lay so innocently on +his arm. + +“Do you know the difference between one kind of poetry and another?” + asked Lily, abruptly. + +“I am not sure. I ought to know when one kind is good and another kind +is bad. But in that respect I find many people, especially professed +critics, who prefer the poetry which I call bad to the poetry I think +good.” + +“The difference between one kind of poetry and another, supposing them +both to be good,” said Lily, positively, and with an air of triumph, “is +this,--I know, for Lion explained it to me,--in one kind of poetry the +writer throws himself entirely out of his existence, he puts himself +into other existences quite strange to his own. He may be a very good +man, and he writes his best poetry about very wicked men: he would not +hurt a fly, but he delights in describing murderers. But in the other +kind of poetry the writer does not put himself into other existences, he +expresses his own joys and sorrows, his own individual heart and mind. +If he could not hurt a fly, he certainly could not make himself at home +in the cruel heart of a murderer. There, Mr. Chillingly, that is the +difference between one kind of poetry and another.” + +“Very true,” said Kenelm, amused by the girl’s critical definitions. +“The difference between dramatic poetry and lyrical. But may I ask what +that definition has to do with the subject into which you so suddenly +introduced it?” + +“Much; for when Lion was explaining this to my aunt, he said, ‘A perfect +woman is a poem; but she can never be a poem of the one kind, never can +make herself at home in the hearts with which she has no connection, +never feel any sympathy with crime and evil; she must be a poem of the +other kind, weaving out poetry from her own thoughts and fancies.’ And, +turning to me, he said, smiling, ‘That is the poem I wish Lily to be. +Too many dry books would only spoil the poem.’ And you now see why I am +so ignorant, and so unlike other girls, and why Mr. and Mrs. Emlyn look +down upon me.” + +“You wrong at least Mr. Emlyn, for it was he who first said to me, ‘Lily +Mordaunt is a poem.’” + +“Did he? I shall love him for that. How pleased Lion will be!” + +“Mr. Melville seems to have an extraordinary influence over your mind,” + said Kenelm, with a jealous pang. + +“Of course. I have neither father nor mother: Lion has been both to +me. Aunty has often said, ‘You cannot be too grateful to your guardian; +without him I should have no home to shelter you, no bread to give you.’ +He never said that: he would be very angry with aunty if he knew she had +said it. When he does not call me Fairy he calls me Princess. I would +not displease him for the world.” + +“He is very much older than you; old enough to be your father, I hear.” + +“I dare say. But if he were twice as old I could not love him better.” + +Kenelm smiled: the jealousy was gone. Certainly not thus could any girl, +even Lily, speak of one with whom, however she might love him, she was +likely to fall in love. + +Lily now rose up, rather slowly and wearily. “It is time to go home: +aunty will be wondering what keeps me away,--come.” + +They took their way towards the bridge opposite to Cromwell Lodge. + +It was not for some minutes that either broke silence. Lily was the +first to do so, and with one of those abrupt changes of topic which were +common to the restless play of her secret thoughts. + +“You have father and mother still living, Mr. Chillingly?” + +“Thank Heaven, yes.” + +“Which do you love the best?” + +“That is scarcely a fair question. I love my mother very much; but my +father and I understand each other better than--” + +“I see: it is so difficult to be understood. No one understands me.” + +“I think I do.” + +Lily shook her head with an energetic movement of dissent. + +“At least as well as a man can understand a young lady.” + +“What sort of young lady is Miss Cecilia Travers?” + +“Cecilia Travers! When and how did you ever hear that such a person +existed?” + +“That big London man whom they call Sir Thomas mentioned her name the +day we dined at Braefieldville.” + +“I remember,--as having been at the Court ball.” + +“He said she was very handsome.” + +“So she is.” + +“Is she a poem too?” + +“No; that never struck me.” + +“Mr. Emlyn, I suppose, would call her perfectly brought up,--well +educated. He would not raise his eyebrows at her as he does at me,--poor +me, Cinderella!” + +“Ah, Miss Mordaunt, you need not envy her. Again let me say that you +could very soon educate yourself to the level of any young ladies who +adorn the Court balls.” + +“Ay; but then I should not be a poem,” said Lily, with a shy, arch +side-glance at his face. + +They were now on the bridge, and before Kenelm could answer Lily resumed +quickly, “You need not come any farther; it is out of your way.” + +“I cannot be so disdainfully dismissed, Miss Mordaunt; I insist on +seeing you to at least your garden gate.” + +Lily made no objection and again spoke,-- + +“What sort of country do you live in when at home; is it like this?” + +“Not so pretty; the features are larger, more hill and dale and +woodland: yet there is one feature in our grounds which reminds me a +little of this landscape,--a light stream, somewhat wider, indeed, +than your brooklet; but here and there the banks are so like those by +Cromwell Lodge that I sometimes start and fancy myself at home. I have +a strange love for rivulets and all running waters, and in my foot +wanderings I find myself magnetically attracted towards them.” + +Lily listened with interest, and after a short pause said, with a +half-suppressed sigh, “Your home is much finer than any place here, even +than Braefieldville, is it not? Mrs. Braefield says your father is very +rich.” + +“I doubt if he is richer than Mr. Braefield; and, though his house may +be larger than Braefieldville, it is not so smartly furnished, and has +no such luxurious hothouses and conservatories. My father’s tastes are +like mine, very simple. Give him his library, and he would scarcely miss +his fortune if he lost it. He has in this one immense advantage over +me.” + +“You would miss fortune?” said Lily, quickly. + +“Not that; but my father is never tired of books. And shall I own it? +there are days when books tire me almost as much as they do you.” + +They were now at the garden gate. Lily, with one hand on the latch, held +out the other to Kenelm, and her smile lit up the dull sky like a burst +of sunshine, as she looked in his face and vanished. + + + + +BOOK VII. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +KENELM did not return home till dusk, and just as he was sitting down to +his solitary meal there was a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Jones ushered +in Mr. Thomas Bowles. + +Though that gentleman had never written to announce the day of his +arrival, he was not the less welcome. + +“Only,” said Kenelm, “if you preserve the appetite I have lost, I fear +you will find meagre fare to-day. Sit down, man.” + +“Thank you, kindly, but I dined two hours ago in London, and I really +can eat nothing more.” + +Kenelm was too well-bred to press unwelcome hospitalities. In a very few +minutes his frugal repast was ended; the cloth removed, the two men were +left alone. + +“Your room is here, of course, Tom; that was engaged from the day I +asked you, but you ought to have given me a line to say when to expect +you, so that I could have put our hostess on her mettle as to dinner or +supper. You smoke still, of course: light your pipe.” + +“Thank you, Mr. Chillingly, I seldom smoke now; but if you will excuse a +cigar,” and Tom produced a very smart cigar-case. + +“Do as you would at home. I shall send word to Will Somers that you and +I sup there to-morrow. You forgive me for letting out your secret. +All straightforward now and henceforth. You come to their hearth as a +friend, who will grow dearer to them both every year. Ah, Tom, this love +for woman seems to me a very wonderful thing. It may sink a man into +such deeps of evil, and lift a man into such heights of good.” + +“I don’t know as to the good,” said Tom, mournfully, and laying aside +his cigar. + +“Go on smoking: I should like to keep you company; can you spare me one +of your cigars?” + +Tom offered his case. Kenelm extracted a cigar, lighted it, drew a few +whiffs, and, when he saw that Tom had resumed his own cigar, recommenced +conversation. + +“You don’t know as to the good; but tell me honestly, do you think if +you had not loved Jessie Wiles, you would be as good a man as you are +now?” + +“If I am better than I was, it is not because of my love for the girl.” + +“What then?” + +“The loss of her.” + +Kenelm started, turned very pale, threw aside the cigar, rose, and +walked the room to and fro with very quick but very irregular strides. + +Tom continued quietly. “Suppose I had won Jessie and married her, I +don’t think any idea of improving myself would have entered my head. My +uncle would have been very much offended at my marrying a day-labourer’s +daughter, and would not have invited me to Luscombe. I should have +remained at Graveleigh, with no ambition of being more than a common +farrier, an ignorant, noisy, quarrelsome man; and if I could not have +made Jessie as fond of me as I wished, I should not have broken myself +of drinking, and I shudder to think what a brute I might have been, when +I see in the newspapers an account of some drunken wife-beater. How do +we know but what that wife-beater loved his wife dearly before marriage, +and she did not care for him? His home was unhappy, and so he took to +drink and to wife-beating.” + +“I was right, then,” said Kenelm, halting his strides, “when I told you +it would be a miserable fate to be married to a girl whom you loved to +distraction, and whose heart you could never warm to you, whose life you +could never render happy.” + +“So right!” + +“Let us drop that part of the subject at present,” said Kenelm, +reseating himself, “and talk about your wish to travel. Though contented +that you did not marry Jessie, though you can now, without anguish, +greet her as the wife of another, still there are some lingering +thoughts of her that make you restless; and you feel that you could more +easily wrench yourself from these thoughts in a marked change of scene +and adventure, that you might bury them altogether in the soil of a +strange land. Is it so?” + +“Ay, something of that, sir.” + +Then Kenelm roused himself to talk of foreign lands, and to map out a +plan of travel that might occupy some months. He was pleased to find +that Tom had already learned enough of French to make himself understood +at least upon commonplace matters, and still more pleased to discover +that he had been not only reading the proper guide-books or manuals +descriptive of the principal places in Europe worth visiting, but that +he had acquired an interest in the places; interest in the fame attached +to them by their history in the past, or by the treasures of art they +contained. + +So they talked far into the night; and when Tom retired to his room, +Kenelm let himself out of the house noiselessly, and walked with slow +steps towards the old summer-house in which he had sat with Lily. The +wind had risen, scattering the clouds that had veiled the preceding day, +so that the stars were seen in far chasms of the sky beyond,--seen for +a while in one place, and, when the swift clouds rolled over them there, +shining out elsewhere. Amid the varying sounds of the trees, through +which swept the night gusts, Kenelm fancied he could distinguish the +sigh of the willow on the opposite lawn of Grasmere. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +KENELM despatched a note to Will Somers early the next morning, inviting +himself and Mr. Bowles to supper that evening. His tact was sufficient +to make him aware that in such social meal there would be far less +restraint for each and all concerned than in a more formal visit +from Tom during the day-time; and when Jessie, too, was engaged with +customers to the shop. + +But he led Tom through the town and showed him the shop itself, with +its pretty goods at the plate-glass windows, and its general air of +prosperous trade; then he carried him off into the lanes and fields of +the country, drawing out the mind of his companion, and impressed with +great admiration of its marked improvement in culture, and in the trains +of thought which culture opens out and enriches. + +But throughout all their multiform range of subject Kenelm could +perceive that Tom was still preoccupied and abstracted: the idea of the +coming interview with Jessie weighed upon him. + +When they left Cromwell Lodge at nightfall, to repair to the supper at +Will’s; Kenelm noticed that Bowles had availed himself of the contents +of his carpet-bag to make some refined alterations in his dress. The +alterations became him. + +When they entered the parlour, Will rose from his chair with the +evidence of deep emotion on his face, advanced to Tom, took his hand and +grasped and dropped it without a word. Jessie saluted both guests alike, +with drooping eyelids and an elaborate curtsy. The old mother alone was +perfectly self-possessed and up to the occasion. + +“I am heartily glad to see you, Mr. Bowles,” said she, “and so all three +of us are, and ought to be; and if baby was older, there would be four.” + +“And where on earth have you hidden baby?” cried Kenelm. “Surely he +might have been kept up for me to-night, when I was expected; the last +time I supped here I took you by surprise, and therefore had no right to +complain of baby’s want of respect to her parents’ friends.” + +Jessie raised the window-curtain, and pointed to the cradle behind it. +Kenelm linked his arm in Tom’s, led him to the cradle, and, leaving +him alone to gaze on the sleeping inmate, seated himself at the table, +between old Mrs. Somers and Will. Will’s eyes were turned away towards +the curtain, Jessie holding its folds aside, and the formidable Tom, +who had been the terror of his neighbourhood, bending smiling over +the cradle: till at last he laid his large hand on the pillow, gently, +timidly, careful not to awake the helpless sleeper, and his lips moved, +doubtless with a blessing; then he, too, came to the table, seating +himself, and Jessie carried the cradle upstairs. + +Will fixed his keen, intelligent eyes on his bygone rival; and noticing +the changed expression of the once aggressive countenance, the changed +costume in which, without tinge of rustic foppery, there was the token +of a certain gravity of station scarcely compatible with a return to old +loves and old habits in the village world, the last shadow of jealousy +vanished from the clear surface of Will’s affectionate nature. + +“Mr. Bowles,” he exclaimed, impulsively, “you have a kind heart, and a +good heart, and a generous heart. And your corning here to-night on this +friendly visit is an honour which--which”--“Which,” interrupted Kenelm, +compassionating Will’s embarrassment, “is on the side of us single men. +In this free country a married man who has a male baby may be father +to the Lord Chancellor or the Archbishop of Canterbury. But--well, my +friends, such a meeting as we have to-night does not come often; and +after supper let us celebrate it with a bowl of punch. If we have +headaches the next morning none of us will grumble.” + +Old Mrs. Somers laughed out jovially. “Bless you, sir, I did not think +of the punch; I will go and see about it,” and, baby’s socks still in +her hands, she hastened from the room. + +What with the supper, what with the punch, and what with Kenelm’s art +of cheery talk on general subjects, all reserve, all awkwardness, all +shyness between the convivialists, rapidly disappeared. Jessie mingled +in the talk; perhaps (excepting only Kenelm) she talked more than the +others, artlessly, gayly, no vestige of the old coquetry; but, now and +then, with a touch of genteel finery, indicative of her rise in life, +and of the contact of the fancy shopkeeper with noble customers. It was +a pleasant evening; Kenelm had resolved that it should be so. Not a +hint of the obligations to Mr. Bowles escaped until Will, following his +visitor to the door, whispered to Tom, “You don’t want thanks, and I +can’t express them. But when we say our prayers at night, we have always +asked God to bless him who brought us together, and has since made us +so prosperous,--I mean Mr. Chillingly. To-night there will be another +besides him, for whom we shall pray, and for whom baby, when he is +older, will pray too.” + +Therewith Will’s voice thickened; and he prudently receded, with no +unreasonable fear lest the punch might make him too demonstrative of +emotion if he said more. + +Tom was very silent on the return to Cromwell Lodge; it did not seem the +silence of depressed spirits, but rather of quiet meditation, from which +Kenelm did not attempt to rouse him. + +It was not till they reached the garden pales of Grasmere that Tom, +stopping short, and turning his face to Kenelm, said, “I am very +grateful to you for this evening,--very.” + +“It has revived no painful thoughts then?” + +“No; I feel so much calmer in mind than I ever believed I could have +been, after seeing her again.” + +“Is it possible!” said Kenelm, to himself. “How should I feel if I ever +saw in Lily the wife of another man, the mother of his child?” At that +question he shuddered, and an involuntary groan escaped from his lips. +Just then having, willingly in those precincts, arrested his steps when +Tom paused to address him, something softly touched the arm which he had +rested on the garden pale. He looked, and saw that it was Blanche. +The creature, impelled by its instincts towards night-wanderings, had, +somehow or other, escaped from its own bed within the house, and hearing +a voice that had grown somewhat familiar to its ear, crept from among +the shrubs behind upon the edge of the pale. There it stood, with arched +back, purring low as in pleased salutation. + +Kenelm bent down and covered with kisses the blue ribbon which Lily’s +hand had bound round the favourite’s neck. Blanche submitted to the +caress for a moment, and then catching a slight rustle among the shrubs +made by some awaking bird, sprang into the thick of the quivering leaves +and vanished. + +Kenelm moved on with a quick impatient stride, and no further words were +exchanged between him and his companion till they reached their lodging +and parted for the night. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE next day, towards noon, Kenelm and his visitor, walking together +along the brook-side, stopped before Izaak Walton’s summer-house, and, +at Kenelm’s suggestion, entered therein to rest, and more at their ease +to continue the conversation they had begun. + +“You have just told me,” said Kenelm, “that you feel as if a load were +taken off your heart, now that you have again met Jessie Somers, and +that you find her so changed that she is no longer the woman you loved. +As to the change, whatever it be, I own, it seems to me for the better, +in person, in manners, in character; of course I should not say this, if +I were not convinced of your perfect sincerity when you assured me that +you are cured of the old wound. But I feel so deeply interested in the +question how a fervent love, once entertained and enthroned in the heart +of a man so earnestly affectionate and so warm-blooded as yourself, can +be, all of a sudden, at a single interview, expelled or transferred into +the calm sentiment of friendship, that I pray you to explain.” + +“That is what puzzles me, sir,” answered Tom, passing his hand over his +forehead. “And I don’t know if I can explain it. + +“Think over it, and try.” + +Tom mused for some moments and then began. “You see, sir, that I was +a very different man myself when I fell in love with Jessie Wiles, and +said, ‘Come what may, that girl shall be my wife. Nobody else shall have +her.’” + +“Agreed; go on.” + +“But while I was becoming a different man, when I thought of her--and I +was always thinking of her--I still pictured her to myself as the same +Jessie Wiles; and though, when I did see her again at Graveleigh, after +she had married--the day--” + +“You saved her from the insolence of the Squire.” + +“She was but very recently married. I did not realize her as married. I +did not see her husband, and the difference within myself was only +then beginning. Well, so all the time I was reading and thinking, and +striving to improve my old self at Luscombe, still Jessie Wiles haunted +me as the only girl I had ever loved, ever could love; I could not +believe it possible that I could ever marry any one else. And lately I +have been much pressed to marry some one else; all my family wish it: +but the face of Jessie rose up before me, and I said to myself, ‘I +should be a base man if I married one woman, while I could not get +another woman out of my head.’ I must see Jessie once more, must learn +whether her face is now really the face that haunts me when I sit alone; +and I have seen her, and it is not that face: it may be handsomer, but +it is not a girl’s face, it is the face of a wife and a mother. And, +last evening, while she was talking with an open-heartedness which I +had never found in her before, I became strangely conscious of the +difference in myself that had been silently at work within the last two +years or so. Then, sir, when I was but an ill-conditioned, uneducated, +petty village farrier, there was no inequality between me and a peasant +girl; or, rather, in all things except fortune, the peasant girl +was much above me. But last evening I asked myself, watching her and +listening to her talk, ‘If Jessie were now free, should I press her to +be my wife?’ and I answered myself, ‘No.’” + +Kenelm listened with rapt attention, and exclaimed briefly, but +passionately, “Why?” + +“It seems as if I were giving myself airs to say why. But, sir, lately I +have been thrown among persons, women as well as men, of a higher class +than I was born in; and in a wife I should want a companion up to their +mark, and who would keep me up to mine; and ah, sir, I don’t feel as if +I could find that companion in Mrs. Somers.” + +“I understand you now, Tom. But you are spoiling a silly romance of +mine. I had fancied the little girl with the flower face would grow up +to supply the loss of Jessie; and, I am so ignorant of the human heart, +I did think it would take all the years required for the little girl to +open into a woman, before the loss of the old love could be supplied. I +see now that the poor little child with the flower face has no chance.” + +“Chance? Why, Mr. Chillingly,” cried Tom, evidently much nettled, “Susey +is a dear little thing, but she is scarcely more than a mere charity +girl. Sir, when I last saw you in London you touched on that matter as +if I were still the village farrier’s son, who might marry a village +labourer’s daughter. But,” added Tom, softening down his irritated tone +of voice, “even if Susey were a lady born I think a man would make a +very great mistake, if he thought he could bring up a little girl to +regard him as a father; and then, when she grew up, expect her to accept +him as a lover.” + +“Ah, you think that!” exclaimed Kenelm, eagerly, and turning eyes that +sparkled with joy towards the lawn of Grasmere. “You think that; it is +very sensibly said,--well, and you have been pressed to marry, and have +hung back till you had seen again Mrs. Somers. Now you will be better +disposed to such a step; tell me about it?” + +“I said, last evening, that one of the principal capitalists at +Luscombe, the leading corn-merchant, had offered to take me into +partnership. And, sir, he has an only daughter, she is a very amiable +girl, has had a first-rate education, and has such pleasant manners and +way of talk, quite a lady. If I married her I should soon be the first +man in Luscombe, and Luscombe, as you are no doubt aware, returns two +members to Parliament; who knows, but that some day the farrier’s son +might be--” Tom stopped abruptly, abashed at the aspiring thought which, +while speaking, had deepened his hardy colour and flashed from his +honest eyes. + +“Ah!” said Kenelm, almost mournfully, “is it so? must each man in his +life play many parts? Ambition succeeds to love, the reasoning brain to +the passionate heart. True, you are changed; my Tom Bowles is gone.” + +“Not gone in his undying gratitude to you, sir,” said Tom, with great +emotion. “Your Tom Bowles would give up all his dreams of wealth or of +rising in life, and go through fire and water to serve the friend who +first bid him be a new Tom Bowles! Don’t despise me as your own work: +you said to me that terrible day, when madness was on my brow and crime +within my heart, ‘I will be to you the truest friend man ever found in +man.’ So you have been. You commanded me to read; you commanded me to +think; you taught me that body should be the servant of mind.” + +“Hush, hush, times are altered; it is you who can teach me now. Teach +me, teach me; how does ambition replace love? How does the desire to +rise in life become the all-mastering passion, and, should it prosper, +the all-atoning consolation of our life? We can never be as happy, +though we rose to the throne of the Caesars, as we dream that we +could have been, had Heaven but permitted us to dwell in the obscurest +village, side by side with the woman we love.” + +Tom was exceedingly startled by such a burst of irrepressible passion +from the man who had told him that, though friends were found only once +in a life, sweethearts were as plentiful as blackberries. + +Again he swept his hand over his forehead, and replied hesitatingly: “I +can’t pretend to say what maybe the case with others. But to judge by my +own case, it seems to me this: a young man who, out of his own business, +has nothing to interest or excite him, finds content, interest, and +excitement when he falls in love; and then, whether for good or ill, he +thinks there is nothing like love in the world, he don’t care a fig for +ambition then. Over and over again did my poor uncle ask me to come to +him at Luscombe, and represent all the worldly advantage it would be +to me; but I could not leave the village in which Jessie lived, and, +besides, I felt myself unfit to be anything higher than I was. But +when I had been some time at Luscombe, and gradually got accustomed to +another sort of people, and another sort of talk, then I began to feel +interest in the same objects that interested those about me; and when, +partly by mixing with better educated men, and partly by the pains I +took to educate myself, I felt that I might now more easily rise above +my uncle’s rank of life than two years ago I could have risen above +a farrier’s forge, then the ambition to rise did stir in me, and grew +stronger every day. Sir, I don’t think you can wake up a man’s intellect +but what you wake with it emulation. And, after all, emulation is +ambition.” + +“Then, I suppose, I have no emulation in me, for certainly I have no +ambition.” + +“That I can’t believe, sir; other thoughts may cover it over and keep it +down for a time. But sooner or later, it will force its way to the top, +as it has done with me. To get on in life, to be respected by those who +know you, more and more as you grow older, I call that a manly desire. I +am sure it comes as naturally to an Englishman as--as--” + +“As the wish to knock down some other Englishman who stands in his way +does. I perceive now that you were always a very ambitious man, Tom; the +ambition has only taken another direction. Caesar might have been + + + “‘But the first wrestler on the green.’ + + +“And now, I suppose, you abandon the idea of travel: you will return to +Luscombe, cured of all regret for the loss of Jessie; you will marry the +young lady you mention, and rise, through progressive steps of alderman +and mayor, into the rank of member for Luscombe.” + +“All that may come in good time,” answered Tom, not resenting the tone +of irony in which he was addressed, “but I still intend to travel: a +year so spent must render me all the more fit for any station I aim at. +I shall go back to Luscombe to arrange my affairs, come to terms with +Mr. Leland the corn-merchant, against my return, and--” + +“The young lady is to wait till then.” + +“Emily--” + +“Oh, that is the name? Emily! a much more elegant name than Jessie.” + +“Emily,” continued Tom, with an unruffled placidity,--which, considering +the aggravating bitterness for which Kenelm had exchanged his wonted +dulcitudes of indifferentism, was absolutely saintlike, “Emily knows +that if she were my wife I should be proud of her, and will esteem me +the more if she feels how resolved I am that she shall never be ashamed +of me.” + +“Pardon me, Tom,” said Kenelm softened, and laying his hand on his +friend’s shoulder with brotherlike tenderness. “Nature has made you a +thorough gentleman; and you could not think and speak more nobly if you +had come into the world as the head of all the Howards.” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +TOM went away the next morning. He declined to see Jessie again, saying +curtly, “I don’t wish the impression made on me the other evening to +incur a chance of being weakened.” + +Kenelm was in no mood to regret his friend’s departure. Despite all +the improvement in Tom’s manners and culture, which raised him so +much nearer to equality with the polite and instructed heir of the +Chillinglys, Kenelm would have felt more in sympathy and rapport with +the old disconsolate fellow-wanderer who had reclined with him on the +grass, listening to the minstrel’s talk or verse, than he did with +the practical, rising citizen of Luscombe. To the young lover of Lily +Mordaunt there was a discord, a jar, in the knowledge that the human +heart admits of such well-reasoned, well-justified transfers of +allegiance; a Jessie to-day, or an Emily to-morrow; “La reine est morte: +vive la reine” + +An hour or two after Tom had gone, Kenelm found himself almost +mechanically led towards Braefieldville. He had instinctively divined +Elsie’s secret wish with regard to himself and Lily, however skilfully +she thought she had concealed it. + +At Braefieldville he should hear talk of Lily, and in the scenes where +Lily had been first beheld. + +He found Mrs. Braefield alone in the drawing-room, seated by a table +covered with flowers, which she was assorting and intermixing for the +vases to which they were destined. + +It struck him that her manner was more reserved than usual and somewhat +embarrassed; and when, after a few preliminary matters of small talk, +he rushed boldly _in medias res_ and asked if she had seen Mrs. Cameron +lately, she replied briefly, “Yes, I called there the other day,” + and immediately changed the conversation to the troubled state of the +Continent. + +Kenelm was resolved not to be so put off, and presently returned to the +charge. + +“The other day you proposed an excursion to the site of the Roman villa, +and said you would ask Mrs. Cameron to be of the party. Perhaps you have +forgotten it?” + +“No; but Mrs. Cameron declines. We can ask the Emlyns instead. He will +be an excellent _cicerone_.” + +“Excellent! Why did Mrs. Cameron decline?” + +Elsie hesitated, and then lifted her clear brown eyes to his face, with +a sudden determination to bring matters to a crisis. + +“I cannot say why Mrs. Cameron declined, but in declining she acted very +wisely and very honourably. Listen to me, Mr. Chillingly. You know how +highly I esteem, and how cordially I like you, and judging by what I +felt for some weeks, perhaps longer, after we parted at Tor Hadham--” + Here again she hesitated, and, with a half laugh and a slight blush, +again went resolutely on. “If I were Lily’s aunt or elder sister, I +should do as Mrs. Cameron does; decline to let Lily see much more of a +young gentleman too much above her in wealth and station for--” + +“Stop,” cried Kenelm, haughtily, “I cannot allow that any man’s wealth +or station would warrant his presumption in thinking himself above Miss +Mordaunt.” + +“Above her in natural grace and refinement, certainly not. But in the +world there are other considerations which, perhaps, Sir Peter and Lady +Chillingly might take into account.” + +“You did not think of that before you last saw Mrs. Cameron.” + +“Honestly speaking, I did not. Assured that Miss Mordaunt was a +gentlewoman by birth, I did not sufficiently reflect upon other +disparities.” + +“You know, then, that she is by birth a gentlewoman?” + +“I only know it as all here do, by the assurance of Mrs. Cameron, whom +no one could suppose not to be a lady. But there are different degrees +of lady and of gentleman, which are little heeded in the ordinary +intercourse of society, but become very perceptible in questions of +matrimonial alliance; and Mrs. Cameron herself says very plainly that +she does not consider her niece to belong to that station in life from +which Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly would naturally wish their son +should select his bride. Then (holding out her hand) pardon me if I have +wounded or offended you. I speak as a true friend to you and to Lily +both. Earnestly I advise you, if Miss Mordaunt be the cause of your +lingering here, earnestly I advise you to leave while yet in time for +her peace of mind and your own.” + +“Her peace of mind,” said Kenelm, in low faltering tones, scarcely +hearing the rest of Mrs. Braefield’s speech. “Her peace of mind? Do +you sincerely think that she cares for me,--could care for me,--if I +stayed?” + +“I wish I could answer you decidedly. I am not in the secrets of her +heart. I can but conjecture that it might be dangerous for the peace of +any young girl to see too much of a man like yourself, to divine that he +loved her, and not to be aware that he could not, with the approval of +his family, ask her to become his wife.” + +Kenelm bent his face down, and covered it with his right hand. He did +not speak for some moments. Then he rose, the fresh cheek very pale, and +said,-- + +“You are right. Miss Mordaunt’s peace of mind must be the first +consideration. Excuse me if I quit you thus abruptly. You have given me +much to think of, and I can only think of it adequately when alone.” + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +FROM KENELM CHILLINGLY TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY. + + +MY FATHER, MY DEAR FATHER,--This is no reply to your letters. I know +not if itself can be called a letter. I cannot yet decide whether it be +meant to reach your hands. Tired with talking to myself, I sit down to +talk to you. Often have I reproached myself for not seeing every fitting +occasion to let you distinctly know how warmly I love, how deeply I +reverence you; you, O friend, O father. But we Chillinglys are not a +demonstrative race. I don’t remember that you, by words, ever expressed +to me the truth that you loved your son infinitely more than he +deserves. Yet, do I not know that you would send all your beloved old +books to the hammer rather than I should pine in vain for some untried, +if sinless, delight on which I had set my heart? And do you not +know equally well, that I would part with all my heritage, and turn +day-labourer, rather than you should miss the beloved old books? + +That mutual knowledge is taken for granted in all that my heart yearns +to pour forth to your own. But, if I divine aright, a day is coming +when, as between you and me, there must be a sacrifice on the part of +one to the other. If so, I implore that the sacrifice may come from +you. How is this? How am I so ungenerous, so egotistical, so selfish, so +ungratefully unmindful of all I already owe to you, and may never repay? +I can only answer, “It is fate, it is nature, it is love”-- + + ***** + +Here I must break off. It is midnight, the moon halts opposite to the +window at which I sit, and on the stream that runs below there is a long +narrow track on which every wave trembles in her light; on either side +of the moonlit track all the other waves, running equally to their grave +in the invisible deep, seem motionless and dark. I can write no more. + +......... + + (Dated two days later.) + +They say she is beneath us in wealth and station. Are we, my father--we, +two well-born gentlemen--coveters of gold or lackeys of the great? When +I was at college, if there were any there more heartily despised than +another it was the parasite and the tuft-hunter; the man who chose his +friends according as their money or their rank might be of use to him. +If so mean where the choice is so little important to the happiness and +career of a man who has something of manhood in him, how much more mean +to be the parasite and tuft-hunter in deciding what woman to love, what +woman to select as the sweetener and ennobler of one’s everyday life! +Could she be to my life that sweetener, that ennobler? I firmly believe +it. Already life itself has gained a charm that I never even guessed in +it before; already I begin, though as yet but faintly and vaguely, to +recognize that interest in the objects and aspirations of my fellow-men +which is strongest in those whom posterity ranks among its ennoblers. In +this quiet village it is true that I might find examples enough to prove +that man is not meant to meditate upon life, but to take active part in +it, and in that action to find his uses. But I doubt if I should have +profited by such examples; if I should not have looked on this +small stage of the world as I have looked on the large one, with the +indifferent eyes of a spectator on a trite familiar play carried on +by ordinary actors, had not my whole being suddenly leaped out of +philosophy into passion, and, at once made warmly human, sympathized +with humanity wherever it burned and glowed. Ah, is there to be +any doubt of what station, as mortal bride, is due to her,--her, my +princess, my fairy? If so, how contented you shall be, my father, with +the worldly career of your son! how perseveringly he will strive +(and when did perseverance fail?) to supply all his deficiencies of +intellect, genius, knowledge, by the energy concentrated on a single +object which--more than intellect, genius, knowledge, unless they attain +to equal energy equally concentrated--commands what the world calls +honours. + +Yes, with her, with her as the bearer of my name, with her to whom I, +whatever I might do of good or of great, could say, “It is thy work,” + I promise that you shall bless the day when you took to your arms a +daughter. + +......... + +“Thou art in contact with the beloved in all that thou feelest elevated +above thee.” So it is written by one of those weird Germans who search +in our bosoms for the seeds of buried truths, and conjure them into +flowers before we ourselves were even aware of the seeds. + +Every thought that associates itself with my beloved seems to me born +with wings. + +......... + +I have just seen her, just parted from her. Since I had been +told--kindly, wisely told--that I had no right to hazard her peace of +mind unless I were privileged to woo and to win her, I promised myself +that I would shun her presence until I had bared my heart to you, as I +am doing now, and received that privilege from yourself; for even had I +never made the promise that binds my honour, your consent and blessing +must hallow my choice. I do not feel as if I could dare to ask one +so innocent and fair to wed an ungrateful, disobedient son. But this +evening I met her, unexpectedly, at the vicar’s, an excellent man, from +whom I have learned much; whose precepts, whose example, whose delight +in his home, and his life at once active and serene, are in harmony with +my own dreams when I dream of her. + +I will tell you the name of the beloved; hold it as yet a profound +secret between you and me. But oh for the day when I may hear you call +her by that name, and print on her forehead the only kiss by man of +which I should not be jealous. + +It is Sunday, and after the evening service it is my friend’s custom +to gather his children round him, and, without any formal sermon or +discourse, engage their interests in subjects harmonious to associations +with the sanctity of the day; often not directly bearing upon religion; +more often, indeed, playfully starting from some little incident or some +slight story-book which had amused the children in the course of the +past week, and then gradually winding into reference to some sweet moral +precept or illustration from some divine example. It is a maxim with +him that, while much that children must learn they can only learn well +through conscious labour, and as positive task-work, yet Religion should +be connected in their minds not with labour and task-work, but should +become insensibly infused into their habits of thought, blending +itself with memories and images of peace and love; with the indulgent +tenderness of the earliest teachers, the sinless mirthfulness of the +earliest home; with consolation in after sorrows, support through after +trials, and never parting company with its twin sister, Hope. + +I entered the vicar’s room this evening just as the group had collected +round him. By the side of his wife sat a lady in whom I feel a keen +interest. Her face wears that kind of calm which speaks of the lassitude +bequeathed by sorrow. She is the aunt of my beloved one. Lily had +nestled herself on a low ottoman, at the good pastor’s feet, with one +of his little girls, round whose shoulder she had wound her arm. She is +much more fond of the companionship of children than that of girls of +her own age. The vicar’s wife, a very clever woman, once, in my hearing, +took her to task for this preference, asking her why she persisted in +grouping herself with mere infants who could teach her nothing? Ah! +could you have seen the innocent, angel-like expression of her face when +she answered simply, “I suppose because with them I feel safer, I mean +nearer to God.” + +Mr. Emlyn--that is the name of the vicar--deduced his homily this +evening from a pretty fairy tale which Lily had been telling to his +children the day before, and which he drew her on to repeat. + +Take, in brief, the substance of the story:-- + +“Once on a time, a king and queen made themselves very unhappy because +they had no heir to their throne; and they prayed for one; and lo, on +some bright summer morning, the queen, waking from sleep, saw a cradle +beside her bed, and in the cradle a beautiful sleeping babe. Great +day throughout the kingdom! But as the infant grew up, it became very +wayward and fretful: it lost its beauty; it would not learn its lessons; +it was as naughty as a child could be. The parents were very sorrowful; +the heir, so longed for, promised to be a great plague to themselves +and their subjects. At last one day, to add to their trouble, two little +bumps appeared on the prince’s shoulders. All the doctors were consulted +as to the cause and the cure of this deformity. Of course they tried +the effect of back-bands and steel machines, which gave the poor little +prince great pain, and made him more unamiable than ever. The bumps, +nevertheless, grew larger, and as they increased, so the prince sickened +and pined away. At last a skilful surgeon proposed, as the only chance +of saving the prince’s life, that the bumps should be cut out; and the +next morning was fixed for that operation. But at night the queen saw, +or dreamed she saw, a beautiful shape standing by her bedside. And it +said to her reproachfully, ‘Ungrateful woman! How wouldst thou repay me +for the precious boon that my favour bestowed on thee! In me behold the +Queen of the Fairies. For the heir to thy kingdom, I consigned to thy +charge an infant from Fairyland, to become a blessing to thee and to +thy people; and thou wouldst inflict upon it a death of torture by the +surgeon’s knife.’ And the queen answered, ‘Precious indeed thou mayest +call the boon,--a miserable, sickly, feverish changeling.’ + +“‘Art thou so dull,’ said the beautiful visitant, ‘as not to comprehend +that the earliest instincts of the fairy child would be those of +discontent, at the exile from its native home? and in that discontent it +would have pined itself to death, or grown up, soured and malignant, +a fairy still in its power but a fairy of wrath and evil, had not the +strength of its inborn nature sufficed to develop the growth of its +wings. That which thy blindness condemns as the deformity of the +human-born, is to the fairy-born the crowning perfection of its beauty. +Woe to thee, if thou suffer not the wings of the fairy child to grow.’ + +“And the next morning the queen sent away the surgeon when he came with +his horrible knife, and removed the back-board and the steel machines +from the prince’s shoulders, though all the doctors predicted that the +child would die. And from that moment the royal heir began to recover +bloom and health. And when at last, out of those deforming bumps, +budded delicately forth the plumage of snow-white wings, the wayward +peevishness of the prince gave place to sweet temper. Instead of +scratching his teachers, he became the quickest and most docile of +pupils, grew up to be the joy of his parents and the pride of their +people; and people said, ‘In him we shall have hereafter such a king as +we have never yet known.’” + +Here ended Lily’s tale. I cannot convey to you a notion of the pretty, +playful manner in which it was told. Then she said, with a grave shake +of the head, “But you do not seem to know what happened afterwards. Do +you suppose that the prince never made use of his wings? Listen to me. +It was discovered by the courtiers who attended on His Royal Highness +that on certain nights, every week, he disappeared. In fact, on these +nights, obedient to the instinct of the wings, he flew from palace +halls into Fairyland; coming back thence all the more lovingly disposed +towards the human home from which he had escaped for a while.” + +“Oh, my children,” interposed the preacher earnestly, “the wings would +be given to us in vain if we did not obey the instinct which allures us +to soar; vain, no less, would be the soaring, were it not towards +the home whence we came, bearing back from its native airs a stronger +health, and a serener joy; more reconciled to the duties of earth by +every new flight into heaven.” + +As he thus completed the moral of Lily’s fairy tale, the girl rose +from her low seat, took his hand, kissed it reverently, and walked away +towards the window. I could see that she was affected even to tears, +which she sought to conceal. Later in the evening, when we were +dispersed on the lawn, for a few minutes before the party broke up, Lily +came to my side timidly and said, in a low whisper,-- + +“Are you angry with me? what have I done to displease you?” + +“Angry with you; displeased? How can you think of me so unjustly?” + +“It is so many days since you have called, since I have seen you,” + she said so artlessly, looking up at me with eyes in which tears still +seemed to tremble. + +Before I could trust myself to reply, her aunt approached, and noticing +me with a cold and distant “Good-night,” led away her niece. + +I had calculated on walking back to their home with them, as I generally +have done when we met at another house. But the aunt had probably +conjectured I might be at the vicarage that evening, and in order to +frustrate my intention had engaged a carriage for their return. No doubt +she has been warned against permitting further intimacy with her niece. + +My father, I must come to you at once, discharge my promise, and receive +from your own lips your consent to my choice; for you will consent, will +you not? But I wish you to be prepared beforehand, and I shall therefore +put up these disjointed fragments of my commune with my own heart and +with yours, and post them to-morrow. Expect me to follow them after +leaving you a day free to consider them alone,--alone, my dear father: +they are meant for no eye but yours. + +K. C. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE next day Kenelm walked into the town, posted his voluminous letter +to Sir Peter, and then looked in at the shop of Will Somers, meaning to +make some purchases of basket-work or trifling fancy goods in Jessie’s +pretty store of such articles, that might please the taste of his +mother. + +On entering the shop his heart beat quicker. He saw two young forms +bending over the counter, examining the contents of a glass case. One +of these customers was Clemmy; in the other there was no mistaking the +slight graceful shape of Lily Mordaunt. Clemmy was exclaiming, “Oh, it +is so pretty, Mrs. Somers! but,” turning her eyes from the counter to a +silk purse in her hand, she added sorrowfully, “I can’t buy it. I have +not got enough, not by a great deal.” + +“And what is it, Miss Clemmy?” asked Kenelm. + +The two girls turned round at his voice, and Clemmy’s face brightened. + +“Look here,” she said, “is it not too lovely?” + +The object thus admired and coveted was a little gold locket, enriched +by a cross composed of small pearls. + +“I assure you, miss,” said Jessie, who had acquired all the coaxing arts +of her trade, “it is really a great bargain. Miss Mary Burrows, who was +here just before you came, bought one not nearly so pretty and gave ten +shillings more for it.” + +Miss Mary Burrows was the same age as Miss Clementina Emlyn, and there +was a rivalry as to smartness between those youthful beauties. “Miss +Burrows!” sighed Clemmy, very scornfully. + +But Kenelm’s attention was distracted from Clemmy’s locket to a little +ring which Lily had been persuaded by Mrs. Somers to try on, and which +she now drew off and returned with a shake of the head. Mrs. Somers, who +saw that she had small chance of selling the locket to Clemmy, was now +addressing herself to the elder girl more likely to have sufficient +pocket-money, and whom, at all events, it was quite safe to trust. + +“The ring fits you so nicely, Miss Mordaunt, and every young lady of +your age wears at least one ring; allow me to put it up.” She added in +a lower voice, “Though we only sell the articles in this case on +commission, it is all the same to us whether we are paid now or at +Christmas.” + +“‘Tis no use tempting me, Mrs. Somers,” said Lily, laughing, and then +with a grave air, “I promised Lion, I mean my guardian, never to run +into debt, and I never will.” + +Lily turned resolutely from the perilous counter, taking up a paper +that contained a new ribbon she had bought for Blanche, and Clemmy +reluctantly followed her out of the shop. + +Kenelm lingered behind and selected very hastily a few trifles, to be +sent to him that evening with some specimens of basket-work left to +Will’s tasteful discretion; then purchased the locket on which Clemmy +had set her heart; but all the while his thoughts were fixed on the ring +which Lily had tried on. It was no sin against etiquette to give the +locket to a child like Clemmy, but would it not be a cruel impertinence +to offer a gift to Lily? + +Jessie spoke: “Miss Mordaunt took a great fancy to this ring, Mr. +Chillingly. I am sure her aunt would like her to have it. I have a great +mind to put it by on the chance of Mrs. Cameron’s calling here. It would +be a pity if it were bought by some one else.” + +“I think,” said Kenelm, “that I will take the liberty of showing it to +Mrs. Cameron. No doubt she will buy it for her niece. Add the price +of it to my bill.” He seized the ring and carried it off; a very poor +little simple ring, with a single stone shaped as a heart, not half the +price of the locket. + +Kenelm rejoined the young ladies just where the path split into two, the +one leading direct to Grasmere, the other through the churchyard to +the vicarage. He presented the locket to Clemmy with brief kindly words +which easily removed any scruple she might have had in accepting it; +and, delighted with her acquisition, she bounded off to the vicarage, +impatient to show the prize to her mamma and sisters, and more +especially to Miss Mary Burrows, who was coming to lunch with them. + +Kenelm walked on slowly by Lily’s side. + +“You have a good heart, Mr. Chillingly,” said she, somewhat abruptly. +“How it must please you to give such pleasure! Dear little Clemmy!” + +This artless praise, and the perfect absence of envy or thought of self +evinced by her joy that her friend’s wish was gratified, though her own +was not, enchanted Kenelm. + +“If it pleases to give pleasure,” said he, “it is your turn to be +pleased now; you can confer such pleasure upon me.” + +“How?” she asked, falteringly, and with quick change of colour. + +“By conceding to me the same right your little friend has allowed.” + +And he drew forth the ring. + +Lily reared her head with a first impulse of haughtiness. But when +her eyes met his the head drooped down again, and a slight shiver ran +through her frame. + +“Miss Mordaunt,” resumed Kenelm, mastering his passionate longing to +fall at her feet and say, “But, oh! in this ring it is my love that +I offer,--it is my troth that I pledge!” “Miss Mordaunt, spare me the +misery of thinking that I have offended you; least of all would I do so +on this day, for it may be some little while before I see you again. +I am going home for a few days upon a matter which may affect the +happiness of my life, and on which I should be a bad son and an +unworthy gentleman if I did not consult him who, in all that concerns +my affections, has trained me to turn to him, the father; in all that +concerns my honour to him, the gentleman.” + +A speech more unlike that which any delineator of manners and morals in +the present day would put into the mouth of a lover, no critic in “The +Londoner” could ridicule. But, somehow or other, this poor little tamer +of butterflies and teller of fairy tales comprehended on the instant all +that this most eccentric of human beings thus frigidly left untold. +Into her innermost heart it sank more deeply than would the most ardent +declaration put into the lips of the boobies or the scamps in whom +delineators of manners in the present day too often debase the +magnificent chivalry embodied in the name of “lover.” + +Where these two had, while speaking, halted on the path along the +brook-side, there was a bench, on which it so happened that they had +seated themselves weeks before. A few moments later on that bench they +were seated again. + +And the trumpery little ring with its turquoise heart was on Lily’s +finger, and there they continued to sit for nearly half an hour; +not talking much, but wondrously happy; not a single vow of troth +interchanged. No, not even a word that could be construed into “I love.” + And yet when they rose from the bench, and went silently along the +brook-side, each knew that the other was beloved. + +When they reached the gate that admitted into the garden of Grasmere, +Kenelm made a slight start. Mrs. Cameron was leaning over the gate. +Whatever alarm at the appearance Kenelm might have felt was certainly +not shared by Lily; she advanced lightly before him, kissed her aunt on +the cheek, and passed on across the lawn with a bound in her step and +the carol of a song upon her lips. + +Kenelm remained by the gate, face to face with Mrs. Cameron. She opened +the gate, put her arm in his, and led him back along the brook-side. + +“I am sure, Mr. Chillingly,” she said, “that you will not impute to my +words any meaning more grave than that which I wish them to convey, +when I remind you that there is no place too obscure to escape from the +ill-nature of gossip, and you must own that my niece incurs the chance +of its notice if she be seen walking alone in these by-paths with a +man of your age and position, and whose sojourn in the neighbourhood, +without any ostensible object or motive, has already begun to excite +conjecture. I do not for a moment assume that you regard my niece in any +other light than that of an artless child, whose originality of tastes +or fancy may serve to amuse you; and still less do I suppose that she +is in danger of misrepresenting any attentions on your part. But for her +sake I am bound to consider what others may say. Excuse me, then, if I +add that I think you are also bound in honour and in good feeling to do +the same. Mr. Chillingly, it would give me a great sense of relief if it +suited your plans to move from the neighbourhood.” + +“My dear Mrs. Cameron,” answered Kenelm, who had listened to this speech +with imperturbable calm of visage, “I thank you much for your candour, +and I am glad to have this opportunity of informing you that I am about +to move from this neighbourhood, with the hope of returning to it in +a very few days and rectifying your mistake as to the point of view +in which I regard your niece. In a word,” here the expression of his +countenance and the tone of his voice underwent a sudden change, “it is +the dearest wish of my heart to be empowered by my parents to assure you +of the warmth with which they will welcome your niece as their daughter, +should she deign to listen to my suit and intrust me with the charge of +her happiness.” + +Mrs. Cameron stopped short, gazing into his face with a look of +inexpressible dismay. + +“No! Mr. Chillingly,” she exclaimed, “this must not be,--cannot be. Put +out of your mind an idea so wild. A young man’s senseless romance. +Your parents cannot consent to your union with my niece; I tell you +beforehand they cannot.” + +“But why?” asked Kenelm, with a slight smile, and not much impressed by +the vehemence of Mrs. Cameron’s adjuration. + +“Why?” she repeated passionately; and then recovering something of her +habitual weariness of quiet. “The why is easily explained. Mr. Kenelm +Chillingly is the heir of a very ancient house and, I am told, of +considerable estates. Lily Mordaunt is a nobody, an orphan, without +fortune, without connection, the ward of a humbly born artist, to +whom she owes the roof that shelters her; she is without the ordinary +education of a gentlewoman; she has seen nothing of the world in which +you move. Your parents have not the right to allow a son so young +as yourself to throw himself out of his proper sphere by a rash and +imprudent alliance. And, never would I consent, never would Walter +Melville consent, to her entering into any family reluctant to receive +her. There,--that is enough. Dismiss the notion so lightly entertained. +And farewell.” + +“Madam,” answered Kenelm very earnestly, “believe me, that had I not +entertained the hope approaching to conviction that the reasons you urge +against my presumption will not have the weight with my parents which +you ascribe to them, I should not have spoken to you thus frankly. Young +though I be, still I might fairly claim the right to choose for myself +in marriage. But I gave to my father a very binding promise that I would +not formally propose to any one till I had acquainted him with my desire +to do so, and obtained his approval of my choice; and he is the last man +in the world who would withhold that approval where my heart is set on +it as it is now. I want no fortune with a wife, and should I ever care +to advance my position in the world, no connection would help me like +the approving smile of the woman I love. There is but one qualification +which my parents would deem they had the right to exact from my +choice of one who is to bear our name. I mean that she should have the +appearance, the manners, the principles, and--my mother at least might +add--the birth of a gentlewoman. Well, as to appearance and manners, I +have seen much of fine society from my boyhood, and found no one among +the highest born who can excel the exquisite refinement of every look, +and the inborn delicacy of every thought, in her of whom, if mine, I +shall be as proud as I shall be fond. As to defects in the frippery +and tinsel of a boarding-school education, they are very soon remedied. +Remains only the last consideration,--birth. Mrs. Braefield informs me +that you have assured her that, though circumstances into which as yet +I have no right to inquire, have made her the ward of a man of humble +origin, Miss Mordaunt is of gentle birth. Do you deny that?” + +“No,” said Mrs. Cameron, hesitating, but with a flash of pride in her +eyes as she went on. “No. I cannot deny that my niece is descended from +those who, in point of birth, were not unequal to your own ancestors. +But what of that?” she added, with a bitter despondency of tone. +“Equality of birth ceases when one falls into poverty, obscurity, +neglect, nothingness!” + +“Really this is a morbid habit on your part. But, since we have thus +spoken so confidentially, will you not empower me to answer the question +which will probably be put to me, and the answer to which will, I doubt +not, remove every obstacle in the way of my happiness? Whatever the +reasons which might very sufficiently induce you to preserve, whilst +living so quietly in this place, a discreet silence as to the parentage +of Miss Mordaunt and your own,--and I am well aware that those whom +altered circumstances of fortune have compelled to altered modes of life +may disdain to parade to strangers the pretensions to a higher station +than that to which they reconcile their habits,--whatever, I say, +such reasons for silence to strangers, should they preclude you from +confiding to me, an aspirant to your niece’s hand, a secret which, after +all, cannot be concealed from her future husband?” + +“From her future husband? of course not,” answered Mrs. Cameron. “But I +decline to be questioned by one whom I may never see again, and of whom +I know so little. I decline, indeed, to assist in removing any obstacle +to a union with my niece, which I hold to be in every way unsuited to +either party. I have no cause even to believe that my niece would accept +you if you were free to propose to her. You have not, I presume, spoken +to her as an aspirant to her hand. You have not addressed to her +any declaration of your attachment, or sought to extract from her +inexperience any words that warrant you in thinking that her heart will +break if she never sees you again.” + +“I do not merit such cruel and taunting questions,” said Kenelm, +indignantly. “But I will say no more now. When we again meet let me hope +you will treat me less unkindly. Adieu!” + +“Stay, sir. A word or two more. You persist in asking your father and +Lady Chillingly to consent to your proposal to Miss Mordaunt?” + +“Certainly I do.” + +“And you will promise me, on your word as a gentleman, to state fairly +all the causes which might fairly operate against their consent,--the +poverty, the humble rearing, the imperfect education of my niece,--so +that they might not hereafter say you had entrapped their consent, and +avenge themselves for your deceit by contempt for her?” + +“Ah, madam, madam, you really try my patience too far. But take my +promise, if you can hold that of value from one whom you can suspect of +deliberate deceit.” + +“I beg your pardon, Mr. Chillingly. Bear with my rudeness. I have been +so taken by surprise, I scarcely know what I am saying. But let us +understand each other completely before we part. If your parents +withhold their consent you will communicate it to me; me only, not to +Lily. I repeat I know nothing of the state of her affections. But it +might embitter any girl’s life to be led on to love one whom she could +not marry.” + +“It shall be as you say. But if they do consent?” + +“Then you will speak to me before you seek an interview with Lily, for +then comes another question: Will her guardian consent?--and--and--” + +“And what?” + +“No matter. I rely on your honour in this request, as in all else. +Good-day.” + +She turned back with hurried footsteps, muttering to herself, “But they +will not consent. Heaven grant that they will not consent, or if they +do, what--what is to be said or done? Oh, that Walter Melville were +here, or that I knew where to write to him!” + +On his way back to Cromwell Lodge, Kenelm was overtaken by the vicar. + +“I was coming to you, my dear Mr. Chillingly, first to thank you for the +very pretty present with which you have gladdened the heart of my little +Clemmy, and next to ask you to come with me quietly to-day to meet Mr. +-----, the celebrated antiquarian, who came to Moleswich this morning +at my request to examine that old Gothic tomb in our churchyard. Only +think, though he cannot read the inscription any better than we can, he +knows all about its history. It seems that a young knight renowned for +feats of valour in the reign of Henry IV. married a daughter of one of +those great Earls of Montfichet who were then the most powerful family +in these parts. He was slain in defending the church from an assault by +some disorderly rioters of the Lollard faction; he fell on the very spot +where the tomb is now placed. That accounts for its situation in the +churchyard, not within the fabric. Mr. ----- discovered this fact in +an old memoir of the ancient and once famous family to which the young +knight Albert belonged, and which came, alas! to so shameful an end, +the Fletwodes, Barons of Fletwode and Malpas. What a triumph over pretty +Lily Mordaunt, who always chose to imagine that the tomb must be that of +some heroine of her own romantic invention! Do come to dinner; Mr. ----- +is a most agreeable man, and full of interesting anecdotes.” + +“I am so sorry I cannot. I am obliged to return home at once for a few +days. That old family of Fletwode! I think I see before me, while we +speak, the gray tower in which they once held sway; and the last of the +race following Mammon along the Progress of the Age,--a convicted felon! +What a terrible satire on the pride of birth!” + +Kenelm left Cromwell Lodge that evening, but he still kept on his +apartments there, saying he might be back unexpectedly any day in the +course of the next week. + +He remained two days in London, wishing all that he had communicated to +Sir Peter in writing to sink into his father’s heart before a personal +appeal to it. + +The more he revolved the ungracious manner in which Mrs. Cameron had +received his confidence, the less importance he attached to it. An +exaggerated sense of disparities of fortune in a person who appeared +to him to have the pride so common to those who have known better days, +coupled with a nervous apprehension lest his family should ascribe to +her any attempt to ensnare a very young man of considerable worldly +pretensions into a marriage with a penniless niece, seemed to account +for much that had at first perplexed and angered him. And if, as he +conjectured, Mrs. Cameron had once held a much higher position in the +world than she did now,--a conjecture warranted by a certain peculiar +conventional undeniable elegance which characterized her habitual +manner,--and was now, as she implied, actually a dependant on the bounty +of a painter who had only just acquired some professional distinction, +she might well shrink from the mortification of becoming an object of +compassion to her richer neighbours; nor, when he came to think of it, +had he any more right than those neighbours to any confidence as to +her own or Lily’s parentage, so long as he was not formally entitled to +claim admission into her privity. + +London seemed to him intolerably dull and wearisome. He called nowhere +except at Lady Glenalvon’s; he was glad to hear from the servants that +she was still at Exmundham. He relied much on the influence of the queen +of the fashion with his mother, whom he knew would be more difficult to +persuade than Sir Peter, nor did he doubt that he should win to his side +that sympathizing and warm-hearted queen. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +IT is somewhere about three weeks since the party invited by Sir Peter +and Lady Chillingly assembled at Exmundham, and they are still there, +though people invited to a country house have seldom compassion +enough for the dulness of its owner to stay more than three days. Mr. +Chillingly Mivers, indeed, had not exceeded that orthodox limit. Quietly +observant, during his stay, of young Gordon’s manner towards Cecilia, +and hers towards him, he had satisfied himself that there was no +cause to alarm Sir Peter, or induce the worthy baronet to regret the +invitation he had given to that clever kinsman. For all the visitors +remaining Exmundham had a charm. + +To Lady Glenalvon, because in the hostess she met her most familiar +friend when both were young girls, and because it pleased her to note +the interest which Cecilia Travers took in the place so associated with +memories of the man to whom it was Lady Glenalvon’s hope to see her +united. To Chillingly Gordon, because no opportunity could be so +favourable for his own well-concealed designs on the hand and heart of +the heiress. To the heiress herself the charm needs no explanation. + +To Leopold Travers the attractions of Exmundham were unquestionably less +fascinating. Still even he was well pleased to prolong his stay. His +active mind found amusement in wandering over an estate the acreage of +which would have warranted a much larger rental, and lecturing Sir Peter +on the old-fashioned system of husbandry which that good-natured easy +proprietor permitted his tenants to adopt, as well as on the number of +superfluous hands that were employed on the pleasure-grounds and in the +general management of the estate, such as carpenters, sawyers, woodmen, +bricklayers, and smiths. + +When the Squire said, “You could do just as well with a third of those +costly dependants,” Sir Peter, unconsciously plagiarizing the answer of +the old French grand seigneur, replied, “Very likely. But the question +is, could the rest do just as well without me?” + +Exmundham, indeed, was a very expensive place to keep up. The house, +built by some ambitious Chillingly three centuries ago, would have been +large for an owner of thrice the revenues; and though the flower-garden +was smaller than that at Braefieldville, there were paths and drives +through miles of young plantations and old woodlands that furnished lazy +occupation to an army of labourers. No wonder that, despite his nominal +ten thousand a year, Sir Peter was far from being a rich man. Exmundham +devoured at least half the rental. The active mind of Leopold Travers +also found ample occupation in the stores of his host’s extensive +library. + +Travers, never much of a reader, was by no means a despiser of learning, +and he soon took to historical and archaeological researches with the +ardour of a man who must always throw energy into any pursuit that +occasion presents as an escape from indolence. Indolent Leopold Travers +never could be. But, more than either of these resources of occupation, +the companionship of Chillingly Gordon excited his interest and +quickened the current of his thoughts. Always fond of renewing his own +youth in the society of the young, and of the sympathizing temperament +which belongs to cordial natures, he had, as we have seen, entered very +heartily into the ambition of George Belvoir, and reconciled himself +very pliably to the humours of Kenelm Chillingly. But the first of these +two was a little too commonplace, the second a little too eccentric, to +enlist the complete good-fellowship which, being alike very clever and +very practical, Leopold Travers established with that very clever and +very practical representative of the rising generation, Chillingly +Gordon. Between them there was this meeting-ground, political and +worldly, a great contempt for innocuous old-fashioned notions; added to +which, in the mind of Leopold Travers, was a contempt--which would +have been complete, but that the contempt admitted dread--of harmful +new-fashioned notions which, interpreted by his thoughts, threatened +ruin to his country and downfall to the follies of existent society, +and which, interpreted by his language, tamed itself into the man of the +world’s phrase, “Going too far for me.” Notions which, by the much +more cultivated intellect and the immeasurably more soaring ambition of +Chillingly Gordon, might be viewed and criticised thus: “Could I accept +these doctrines? I don’t see my way to being Prime Minister of a country +in which religion and capital are still powers to be consulted. And, +putting aside religion and capital, I don’t see how, if these doctrines +passed into law, with a good coat on my back I should not be a sufferer. +Either I, as having a good coat, should have it torn off my back as a +capitalist, or, if I remonstrated in the name of moral honesty, be put +to death as a religionist.” + +Therefore when Leopold Travers said, “Of course we must go on,” + Chillingly Gordon smiled and answered, “Certainly, go on.” And when +Leopold Travers added, “But we may go too far,” Chillingly Gordon shook +his dead, and replied, “How true that is! Certainly too far.” + +Apart from the congeniality of political sentiment, there were other +points of friendly contact between the older and younger man. Each was +an exceedingly pleasant man of the world; and, though Leopold Travers +could not have plumbed certain deeps in Chillingly Gordon’s nature,--and +in every man’s nature there are deeps which his ablest observer cannot +fathom,--yet he was not wrong when he said to himself, “Gordon is a +gentleman.” + +Utterly would my readers misconceive that very clever young man, if they +held him to be a hypocrite like Blifil or Joseph Surface. Chillingly +Gordon, in every private sense of the word, was a gentleman. If he had +staked his whole fortune on a rubber at whist, and an undetected glance +at his adversary’s hand would have made the difference between loss and +gain, he would have turned away his head and said, “Hold up your cards.” + Neither, as I have had occasion to explain before, was he actuated +by any motive in common with the vulgar fortune-hunter in his secret +resolve to win the hand of the heiress. He recognized no inequality of +worldly gifts between them. He said to himself, “Whatever she may give +me in money, I shall amply repay in worldly position if I succeed, and +succeed I certainly shall. If I were as rich as Lord Westminster, and +still cared about being Prime Minister, I should select her as the most +fitting woman I have seen for a Prime Minister’s wife.” + +It must be acknowledged that this sort of self-commune, if not that of +a very ardent lover, is very much that of a sensible man setting high +value on himself, bent on achieving the prizes of a public career, and +desirous of securing in his wife a woman who would adorn the station +to which he confidently aspired. In fact, no one so able as Chillingly +Gordon would ever have conceived the ambition of being Minister of +England if in all that in private life constitutes the English gentleman +he could be fairly subject to reproach. + +He was but in public life what many a gentleman honest in private life +has been before him, an ambitious, resolute egotist, by no means without +personal affections, but holding them all subordinate to the objects +of personal ambition, and with no more of other principle than that +of expediency in reference to his own career than would cover a silver +penny. But expediency in itself he deemed the statesman’s only rational +principle. And to the consideration of expediency he brought a very +unprejudiced intellect, quite fitted to decide whether the public +opinion of a free and enlightened people was for turning St. Paul’s +Cathedral into an Agapemone or not. + +During the summer weeks he had thus vouchsafed to the turfs and groves +of Exmundham, Leopold Travers was not the only person whose good opinion +Chillingly Gordon had ingratiated. He had won the warmest approbation +from Mrs. Campion. His conversation reminded her of that which she had +enjoyed in the house of her departed spouse. In talking with Cecilia she +was fond of contrasting him to Kenelm, not to the favour of the +latter, whose humours she utterly failed to understand, and whom she +pertinaciously described as “so affected.” “A most superior young man +Mr. Gordon, so well informed, so sensible,--above all, so natural.” Such +was her judgment upon the unavowed candidate to Cecilia’s hand; and +Mrs. Campion required no avowal to divine the candidature. Even Lady +Glenalvon had begun to take friendly interest in the fortunes of this +promising young man. Most women can sympathize with youthful ambition. +He impressed her with a deep conviction of his abilities, and still more +with respect for their concentration upon practical objects of power +and renown. She too, like Mrs. Campion, began to draw comparisons +unfavourable to Kenelm between the two cousins: the one seemed so +slothfully determined to hide his candle under a bushel, the other so +honestly disposed to set his light before men. She felt also annoyed and +angry that Kenelm was thus absenting himself from the paternal home at +the very time of her first visit to it, and when he had so felicitous +an opportunity of seeing more of the girl in whom he knew that Lady +Glenalvon deemed he might win, if he would properly woo, the wife that +would best suit him. So that when one day Mrs. Campion, walking through +the gardens alone with Lady Glenalvon while from the gardens into the +park went Chillingly Gordon, arm-in-arm with Leopold Travers, abruptly +asked, “Don’t you think that Mr. Gordon is smitten with Cecilia, though +he, with his moderate fortune, does not dare to say so? And don’t you +think that any girl, if she were as rich as Cecilia will be, would be +more proud of such a husband as Chillingly Gordon than of some silly +earl?” + +Lady Glenalvon answered curtly, but somewhat sorrowfully, “Yes.” + +After a pause she added, “There is a man with whom I did once think she +would have been happier than with any other. One man who ought to be +dearer to me than Mr. Gordon, for he saved the life of my son, and who, +though perhaps less clever than Mr. Gordon, still has a great deal of +talent within him, which might come forth and make him--what shall I +say?--a useful and distinguished member of society, if married to a girl +so sure of raising any man she marries as Cecilia Travers. But if I am +to renounce that hope, and look through the range of young men brought +under my notice, I don’t know one, putting aside consideration of rank +and fortune, I should prefer for a clever daughter who went heart and +soul with the ambition of a clever man. But, Mrs. Campion, I have not +yet quite renounced my hope; and, unless I do, I yet think there is one +man to whom I would rather give Cecilia, if she were my daughter.” + +Therewith Lady Glenalvon so decidedly broke off the subject of +conversation that Mrs. Campion could not have renewed it without such a +breach of the female etiquette of good breeding as Mrs. Campion was the +last person to adventure. + +Lady Chillingly could not help being pleased with Gordon. He was light +in hand, served to amuse her guests, and made up a rubber of whist in +case of need. + +There were two persons, however, with whom Gordon made no ground; +namely, Parson John and Sir Peter. When Travers praised him one day for +the solidity of his parts and the soundness of his judgment, the Parson +replied snappishly, “Yes, solid and sound as one of those tables you +buy at a broker’s; the thickness of the varnish hides the defects in +the joints: the whole framework is rickety.” But when the Parson was +indignantly urged to state the reason by which he arrived at so harsh +a conclusion, he could only reply by an assertion which seemed to his +questioner a declamatory burst of parsonic intolerance. + +“Because,” said Parson John, “he has no love for man, and no reverence +for God. And no character is sound and solid which enlarges its surface +at the expense of its supports.” + +On the other hand, the favour with which Sir Peter had at first regarded +Gordon gradually vanished, in proportion as, acting on the hint Mivers +had originally thrown out but did not deem it necessary to repeat, he +watched the pains which the young man took to insinuate himself into +the good graces of Mr. Travers and Mrs. Campion, and the artful and +half-suppressed gallantry of his manner to the heiress. + +Perhaps Gordon had not ventured thus “to feel his way” till after Mivers +had departed; or perhaps Sir Peter’s parental anxiety rendered him, in +this instance, a shrewder observer than was the man of the world, +whose natural acuteness was, in matters of affection, not unfrequently +rendered languid by his acquired philosophy of indifferentism. + +More and more every day, every hour, of her sojourn beneath his roof, +did Cecilia become dearer to Sir Peter, and stronger and stronger became +his wish to secure her for his daughter-in-law. He was inexpressibly +flattered by her preference for his company: ever at hand to share his +customary walks, his kindly visits to the cottages of peasants or the +homesteads of petty tenants; wherein both were sure to hear many a +simple anecdote of Master Kenelm in his childhood, anecdotes of whim or +good-nature, of considerate pity or reckless courage. + +Throughout all these varieties of thought or feeling in the social +circle around her, Lady Chillingly preserved the unmoved calm of her +dignified position. A very good woman certainly, and very ladylike. No +one could detect a flaw in her character, or a fold awry in her flounce. +She was only, like the gods of Epicurus, too good to trouble her serene +existence with the cares of us simple mortals. Not that she was without +a placid satisfaction in the tribute which the world laid upon her +altars; nor was she so supremely goddess-like as to soar above the +household affections which humanity entails on the dwellers and denizens +of earth. She liked her husband as much as most elderly wives like their +elderly husbands. She bestowed upon Kenelm a liking somewhat more warm, +and mingled with compassion. His eccentricities would have puzzled her, +if she had allowed herself to be puzzled: it troubled her less to pity +them. She did not share her husband’s desire for his union with Cecilia. +She thought that her son would have a higher place in the county if he +married Lady Jane, the Duke of Clanville’s daughter; and “that is what +he ought to do,” said Lady Chillingly to herself. She entertained +none of the fear that had induced Sir Peter to extract from Kenelm +the promise not to pledge his hand before he had received his father’s +consent. That the son of Lady Chillingly should make a _mesalliance_, +however crotchety he might be in other respects, was a thought that it +would have so disturbed her to admit that she did not admit it. + +Such was the condition of things at Exmundham when the lengthy +communication of Kenelm reached Sir Peter’s hands. + + + + +BOOK VIII. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +NEVER in his whole life had the mind of Sir Peter been so agitated as it +was during and after the perusal of Kenelm’s flighty composition. He had +received it at the breakfast-table, and, opening it eagerly, ran his eye +hastily over the contents, till he very soon arrived at sentences +which appalled him. Lady Chillingly, who was fortunately busied at the +tea-urn, did not observe the dismay on his countenance. It was visible +only to Cecilia and to Gordon. Neither guessed who that letter was from. + +“No bad news, I hope,” said Cecilia, softly. + +“Bad news,” echoed Sir Peter. “No, my dear, no; a letter on business. +It seems terribly long,” and he thrust the packet into his pocket, +muttering, “see to it by and by.” + +“That slovenly farmer of yours, Mr. Nostock, has failed, I suppose,” + said Mr. Travers, looking up and observing a quiver on his host’s +lip. “I told you he would,--a fine farm too. Let me choose you another +tenant.” + +Sir Peter shook his head with a wan smile. + +“Nostock will not fail. There have been six generations of Nostocks on +the farm.” + +“So I should guess,” said Travers, dryly. + +“And--and,” faltered Sir Peter, “if the last of the race fails, he must +lean upon me, and--if one of the two break down--it shall not be--” + +“Shall not be that cross-cropping blockhead, my dear Sir Peter. This is +carrying benevolence too far.” + +Here the tact and _savoir vivre_ of Chillingly Gordon came to the rescue +of the host. Possessing himself of the “Times” newspaper, he uttered an +exclamation of surprise, genuine or simulated, and read aloud an extract +from the leading article, announcing an impending change in the Cabinet. + +As soon as he could quit the breakfast-table, Sir Peter hurried into +his library and there gave himself up to the study of Kenelm’s unwelcome +communication. The task took him long, for he stopped at intervals, +overcome by the struggle of his heart, now melted into sympathy with the +passionate eloquence of a son hitherto so free from amorous romance, and +now sorrowing for the ruin of his own cherished hopes. This uneducated +country girl would never be such a helpmate to a man like Kenelm as +would have been Cecilia Travers. At length, having finished the letter, +he buried his head between his clasped hands, and tried hard to +realize the situation that placed the father and son into such direct +antagonism. + +“But,” he murmured, “after all it is the boy’s happiness that must be +consulted. If he will not be happy in my way, what right have I to say +that he shall not be happy in his?” + +Just then Cecilia came softly into the room. She had acquired the +privilege of entering his library at will; sometimes to choose a book of +his recommendation, sometimes to direct and seal his letters,--Sir Peter +was grateful to any one who saved him an extra trouble,--and +sometimes, especially at this hour, to decoy him forth into his wonted +constitutional walk. + +He lifted his face at the sound of her approaching tread and her winning +voice, and the face was so sad that the tears rushed to her eyes on +seeing it. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and said pleadingly, “Dear +Sir Peter, what is it,--what is it?” + +“Ah--ah, my dear,” said Sir Peter, gathering up the scattered sheets of +Kenelm’s effusion with hurried, trembling hands. “Don’t ask,--don’t talk +of it; ‘tis but one of the disappointments that all of us must undergo, +when we invest our hopes in the uncertain will of others.” + +Then, observing that the tears were trickling down the girl’s fair, pale +cheeks, he took her hand in both his, kissed her forehead, and said, +whisperingly, “Pretty one, how good you have been to me! Heaven bless +you. What a wife you will be to some man!” + +Thus saying, he shambled out of the room through the open casement. She +followed him impulsively, wonderingly; but before she reached his side +he turned round, waved his hand with a gently repelling gesture, and +went his way alone through dense fir-groves which had been planted in +honour of Kenelm’s birth. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +KENELM arrived at Exmundham just in time to dress for dinner. His +arrival was not unexpected, for the morning after his father had +received his communication, Sir Peter had said to Lady Chillingly--“that +he had heard from Kenelm to the effect that he might be down any day.” + +“Quite time he should come,” said Lady Chillingly. “Have you his letter +about you?” + +“No, my dear Caroline. Of course he sends you his kindest love, poor +fellow.” + +“Why poor fellow? Has he been ill?” + +“No; but there seems to be something on his mind. If so we must do what +we can to relieve it. He is the best of sons, Caroline.” + +“I am sure I have nothing to say against him, except,” added her +Ladyship, reflectively, “that I do wish he were a little more like other +young men.” + +“Hum--like Chillingly Gordon, for instance?” + +“Well, yes; Mr. Gordon is a remarkably well-bred, sensible young man. +How different from that disagreeable, bearish father of his, who went to +law with you!” + +“Very different indeed, but with just as much of the Chillingly blood in +him. How the Chillinglys ever gave birth to a Kenelm is a question much +more puzzling.” + +“Oh, my dear Sir Peter, don’t be metaphysical. You know how I hate +puzzles.” + +“And yet, Caroline, I have to thank you for a puzzle which I can never +interpret by my brain. There are a great many puzzles in human nature +which can only be interpreted by the heart.” + +“Very true,” said Lady Chillingly. “I suppose Kenelm is to have his old +room, just opposite to Mr. Gordon’s.” + +“Ay--ay, just opposite. Opposite they will be all their lives. Only +think, Caroline, I have made a discovery!” + +“Dear me! I hope not. Your discoveries are generally very expensive, and +bring us in contact with such very odd people.” + +“This discovery shall not cost us a penny, and I don’t know any people +so odd as not to comprehend it. Briefly it is this: To genius the +first requisite is heart; it is no requisite at all to talent. My dear +Caroline, Gordon has as much talent as any young man I know, but he +wants the first requisite of genius. I am not by any means sure that +Kenelm has genius, but there is no doubt that he has the first requisite +of genius,--heart. Heart is a very perplexing, wayward, irrational +thing; and that perhaps accounts for the general incapacity to +comprehend genius, while any fool can comprehend talent. My dear +Caroline, you know that it is very seldom, not more than once in three +years, that I presume to have a will of my own against a will of yours; +but should there come a question in which our son’s heart is concerned, +then (speaking between ourselves) my will must govern yours.” + +“Sir Peter is growing more odd every day,” said Lady Chillingly to +herself when left alone. “But he does not mean ill, and there are worse +husbands in the world.” + +Therewith she rang for her maid, gave requisite orders for the preparing +of Kenelm’s room, which had not been slept in for many months, and then +consulted that functionary as to the adaptation of some dress of hers, +too costly to be laid aside, to the style of some dress less costly +which Lady Glenalvon had imported from Paris as _la derniere mode_. + +On the very day on which Kenelm arrived at Exmundham, Chillingly Gordon +had received this letter from Mr. Gerald Danvers. + + +DEAR GORDON,--In the ministerial changes announced as rumour in the +public papers, and which you may accept as certain, that sweet little +cherub--is to be sent to sit up aloft and pray there for the life of +poor Jack; namely, of the government he leaves below. In accepting the +peerage, which I persuaded him to do,--creates a vacancy for the +borough of -----, just the place for you, far better in every way than +Saxborough. ----- promises to recommend you to his committee. Come to +town at once. Yours, etc. + + G. DANVERS. + + +Gordon showed this letter to Mr. Travers, and, on receiving the hearty +good-wishes of that gentleman, said, with emotion partly genuine, partly +assumed, “You cannot guess all that the realization of your good-wishes +would be. Once in the House of Commons, and my motives for action are +so strong that--do not think me very conceited if I count upon +Parliamentary success.” + +“My clear Gordon, I am as certain of your success as I am of my own +existence.” + +“Should I succeed,--should the great prizes of public life be within +my reach,--should I lift myself into a position that would warrant my +presumption, do you think I could come to you and say, ‘There is an +object of ambition dearer to me than power and office,--the hope of +attaining which was the strongest of all my motives of action? And in +that hope shall I also have the good-wishes of the father of Cecilia +Travers?” + +“My dear fellow, give me your hand; you speak manfully and candidly as a +gentleman should speak. I answer in the same spirit. I don’t pretend +to say that I have not entertained views for Cecilia which included +hereditary rank and established fortune in a suitor to her hand, though +I never should have made them imperative conditions. I am neither +potentate nor _parvenu_ enough for that; and I can never forget” (here +every muscle in the man’s face twitched) “that I myself married for +love, and was so happy. How happy Heaven only knows! Still, if you had +thus spoken a few weeks ago, I should not have replied very favourably +to your question. But now that I have seen so much of you, my answer is +this: If you lose your election,--if you don’t come into Parliament +at all, you have my good-wishes all the same. If you win my daughter’s +heart, there is no man on whom I would more willingly bestow her hand. +There she is, by herself too, in the garden. Go and talk to her.” + +Gordon hesitated. He knew too well that he had not won her heart, though +he had no suspicion that it was given to another. And he was much +too clever not to know also how much he hazards who, in affairs of +courtship, is premature. + +“Ah!” he said, “I cannot express my gratitude for words so generous, +encouragement so cheering. But I have never yet dared to utter to Miss +Travers a word that would prepare her even to harbour a thought of me as +a suitor. And I scarcely think I should have the courage to go through +this election with the grief of her rejection on my heart.” + +“Well, go in and win the election first; meanwhile, at all events, take +leave of Cecilia.” + +Gordon left his friend, and joined Miss Travers, resolved not indeed +to risk a formal declaration, but to sound his way to his chances of +acceptance. + +The interview was very brief. He did sound his way skilfully, and felt +it very unsafe for his footsteps. The advantage of having gained the +approval of the father was too great to be lost altogether, by one of +those decided answers on the part of the daughter which allow of no +appeal, especially to a poor gentleman who wooes an heiress. + +He returned to Travers, and said simply, “I bear with me her good-wishes +as well as yours. That is all. I leave myself in your kind hands.” + +Then he hurried away to take leave of his host and hostess, say a few +significant words to the ally he had already gained in Mrs. Campion, and +within an hour was on his road to London, passing on his way the train +that bore Kenelm to Exmundham. Gordon was in high spirits. At least he +felt as certain of winning Cecilia as he did of winning his election. + +“I have never yet failed in what I desired,” said he to himself, +“because I have ever taken pains not to fail.” + +The cause of Gordon’s sudden departure created a great excitement in +that quiet circle, shared by all except Cecilia and Sir Peter. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +KENELM did not see either father or mother till he appeared at dinner. +Then he was seated next to Cecilia. There was but little conversation +between the two; in fact, the prevalent subject of talk was general and +engrossing, the interest in Chillingly Gordon’s election; predictions +of his success, of what he would do in Parliament. “Where,” said Lady +Glenalvon, “there is such a dearth of rising young men, that if he were +only half as clever as he is he would be a gain.” + +“A gain to what?” asked Sir Peter, testily. “To his country? about which +I don’t believe he cares a brass button.” + +To this assertion Leopold Travers replied warmly, and was not less +warmly backed by Mrs. Campion. + +“For my part,” said Lady Glenalvon, in conciliatory accents, “I think +every able man in Parliament is a gain to the country; and he may not +serve his country less effectively because he does not boast of his +love for it. The politicians I dread most are those so rampant in France +nowadays, the bawling patriots. When Sir Robert Walpole said, ‘All +those men have their price,’ he pointed to the men who called themselves +‘patriots.’” + +“Bravo!” cried Travers. + +“Sir Robert Walpole showed his love for his country by corrupting it. +There are many ways besides bribing for corrupting a country,” said +Kenelm, mildly, and that was Kenelm’s sole contribution to the general +conversation. + +It was not till the rest of the party had retired to rest that the +conference, longed for by Kenelm, dreaded by Sir Peter, took place in +the library. It lasted deep into the night; both parted with lightened +hearts and a fonder affection for each other. Kenelm had drawn so +charming a picture of the Fairy, and so thoroughly convinced Sir Peter +that his own feelings towards her were those of no passing youthful +fancy, but of that love which has its roots in the innermost heart, +that though it was still with a sigh, a deep sigh, that he dismissed +the thought of Cecilia, Sir Peter did dismiss it; and, taking comfort at +last from the positive assurance that Lily was of gentle birth, and +the fact that her name of Mordaunt was that of ancient and illustrious +houses, said, with half a smile, “It might have been worse, my dear +boy. I began to be afraid that, in spite of the teachings of Mivers and +Welby, it was ‘The Miller’s Daughter,’ after all. But we still have +a difficult task to persuade your poor mother. In covering your first +flight from our roof I unluckily put into her head the notion of Lady +Jane, a duke’s daughter, and the notion has never got out of it. That +comes of fibbing.” + +“I count on Lady Glenalvon’s influence on my mother in support of +your own,” said Kenelm. “If so accepted an oracle in the great world +pronounce in my favour, and promise to present my wife at Court and +bring her into fashion, I think that my mother will consent to allow us +to reset the old family diamonds for her next reappearance in London. +And then, too, you can tell her that I will stand for the county. I will +go into Parliament, and if I meet there our clever cousin, and find that +he does not care a brass button for the country, take my word for it, I +will lick him more easily than I licked Tom Bowles.” + +“Tom Bowles! who is he?--ah! I remember some letter of yours in which +you spoke of a Bowles, whose favourite study was mankind, a moral +philosopher.” + +“Moral philosophers,” answered Kenelm, “have so muddled their brains +with the alcohol of new ideas that their moral legs have become shaky, +and the humane would rather help them to bed than give them a licking. +My Tom Bowles is a muscular Christian, who became no less muscular, but +much more Christian, after he was licked.” + +And in this pleasant manner these two oddities settled their conference, +and went up to bed with arms wrapped round each other’s shoulder. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +KENELM found it a much harder matter to win Lady Glenalvon to his side +than he had anticipated. With the strong interest she had taken in +Kenelm’s future, she could not but revolt from the idea of his union +with an obscure portionless girl whom he had only known a few weeks, +and of whose very parentage he seemed to know nothing, save an assurance +that she was his equal in birth. And, with the desire, which she had +cherished almost as fondly as Sir Peter, that Kenelm might win a bride +in every way so worthy of his choice as Cecilia Travers, she felt not +less indignant than regretful at the overthrow of her plans. + +At first, indeed, she was so provoked that she would not listen to +his pleadings. She broke away from him with a rudeness she had never +exhibited to any one before, refused to grant him another interview in +order to re-discuss the matter, and said that, so far from using her +influence in favour of his romantic folly, she would remonstrate well +with Lady Chillingly and Sir Peter against yielding their assent to his +“thus throwing himself away.” + +It was not till the third day after his arrival that, touched by the +grave but haughty mournfulness of his countenance, she yielded to the +arguments of Sir Peter in the course of a private conversation with that +worthy baronet. Still it was reluctantly (she did not fulfil her threat +of remonstrance with Lady Chillingly) that she conceded the point, +that a son who, succeeding to the absolute fee-simple of an estate, had +volunteered the resettlement of it on terms singularly generous to both +his parents, was entitled to some sacrifice of their inclinations on a +question in which he deemed his happiness vitally concerned; and that he +was of age to choose for himself independently of their consent, but for +a previous promise extracted from him by his father, a promise which, +rigidly construed, was not extended to Lady Chillingly, but confined +to Sir Peter as the head of the family and master of the household. The +father’s consent was already given, and, if in his reverence for both +parents Kenelm could not dispense with his mother’s approval, surely +it was the part of a true friend to remove every scruple from his +conscience, and smooth away every obstacle to a love not to be condemned +because it was disinterested. + +After this conversation, Lady Glenalvon sought Kenelm, found him +gloomily musing on the banks of the trout-stream, took his arm, led him +into the sombre glades of the fir-grove, and listened patiently to +all he had to say. Even then her woman’s heart was not won to his +reasonings, until he said pathetically, “You thanked me once for saving +your son’s life: you said then that you could never repay me; you can +repay me tenfold. Could your son, who is now, we trust, in heaven, look +down and judge between us, do you think he would approve you if you +refuse?” + +Then Lady Glenalvon wept, and took his hand, kissed his forehead as +a mother might kiss it, and said, “You triumph; I will go to Lady +Chillingly at once. Marry her whom you so love, on one condition: marry +her from my house.” + +Lady Glenalvon was not one of those women who serve a friend by +halves. She knew well how to propitiate and reason down the apathetic +temperament of Lady Chillingly; she did not cease till that lady herself +came into Kenelm’s room, and said very quietly,-- + +“So you are going to propose to Miss Mordaunt, the Warwickshire +Mordaunts I suppose? Lady Glenalvon says she is a very lovely girl, +and will stay with her before the wedding. And as the young lady is an +orphan Lady Glenalvon’s uncle the Duke, who is connected with the eldest +branch of the Mordaunts, will give her away. It will be a very brilliant +affair. I am sure I wish you happy; it is time you should have sown your +wild oats.” + +Two days after the consent thus formally given, Kenelm quitted +Exmundham. Sir Peter would have accompanied him to pay his respects to +the intended, but the agitation he had gone through brought on a sharp +twinge of the gout, which consigned his feet to flannels. + +After Kenelm had gone, Lady Glenalvon went into Cecilia’s room. Cecilia +was seated very desolately by the open window. She had detected that +something of an anxious and painful nature had been weighing upon the +minds of father and son, and had connected it with the letter which had +so disturbed the even mind of Sir Peter; but she did not divine what the +something was, and if mortified by a certain reserve, more distant than +heretofore, which had characterized Kenelm’s manner towards herself, +the mortification was less sensibly felt than a tender sympathy for the +sadness she had observed on his face and yearned to soothe. His reserve +had, however, made her own manner more reserved than of old, for which +she was now rather chiding herself than reproaching him. + +Lady Glenalvon put her arms round Cecilia’s neck and kissed her, +whispering, “That man has so disappointed me: he is so unworthy of the +happiness I had once hoped for him!” + +“Whom do you speak of?” murmured Cecilia, turning very pale. + +“Kenelm Chillingly. It seems that he has conceived a fancy for some +penniless girl whom he has met in his wanderings, has come here to +get the consent of his parents to propose to her, has obtained their +consent, and is gone to propose.” + +Cecilia remained silent for a moment with her eyes closed, then she +said, “He is worthy of all happiness, and he would never make an +unworthy choice. Heaven bless him--and--and--” She would have added, +“his bride,” but her lips refused to utter the word bride. + +“Cousin Gordon is worth ten of him,” cried Lady Glenalvon, indignantly. + +She had served Kenelm, but she had not forgiven him. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +KENELM slept in London that night, and, the next day, being singularly +fine for an English summer, he resolved to go to Moleswich on foot. He +had no need this time to encumber himself with a knapsack; he had left +sufficient change of dress in his lodgings at Cromwell Lodge. + +It was towards the evening when he found himself in one of the prettiest +rural villages by which + + + “Wanders the hoary Thames along + His silver-winding way.” + + +It was not in the direct road from London to Moleswich, but it was a +pleasanter way for a pedestrian. And when, quitting the long street of +the sultry village, he came to the shelving margin of the river, he was +glad to rest a while, enjoy the cool of the rippling waters, and listen +to their placid murmurs amid the rushes in the bordering shallows. He +had ample time before him. His rambles while at Cromwell Lodge had made +him familiar with the district for miles round Moleswich, and he knew +that a footpath through the fields at the right would lead him, in less +than an hour, to the side of the tributary brook on which Cromwell Lodge +was placed, opposite the wooden bridge which conducted to Grasmere and +Moleswich. + +To one who loves the romance of history, English history, the whole +course of the Thames is full of charm. Ah! could I go back to the days +in which younger generations than that of Kenelm Chillingly were unborn, +when every wave of the Rhine spoke of history and romance to me, what +fairies should meet on thy banks, O thou our own Father Thames! Perhaps +some day a German pilgrim may repay tenfold to thee the tribute rendered +by the English kinsman to the Father Rhine. + +Listening to the whispers of the reeds, Kenelm Chillingly felt the +haunting influence of the legendary stream. Many a poetic incident or +tradition in antique chronicle, many a votive rhyme in song, dear to +forefathers whose very names have become a poetry to us, thronged dimly +and confusedly back to his memory, which had little cared to retain such +graceful trinkets in the treasure-house of love. But everything that, +from childhood upward, connects itself with romance, revives with yet +fresher bloom in the memories of him who loves. + +And to this man, through the first perilous season of youth, so +abnormally safe from youth’s most wonted peril,--to this would-be +pupil of realism, this learned adept in the schools of a Welby or a +Mivers,--to this man, love came at last as with the fatal powers of +the fabled Cytherea; and with that love all the realisms of life became +ideals, all the stern lines of our commonplace destinies undulated into +curves of beauty, all the trite sounds of our every-day life attuned +into delicacies of song. How full of sanguine yet dreamy bliss was his +heart--and seemed his future--in the gentle breeze and the softened glow +of that summer eve! He should see Lily the next morn, and his lips were +now free to say all that they had as yet suppressed. + +Suddenly he was roused from the half-awake, half-asleep happiness that +belongs to the moments in which we transport ourselves into Elysium, by +the carol of a voice more loudly joyous than that of his own heart-- + + + “Singing, singing, + Lustily singing, + Down the road, with his dogs before, + Came the Ritter of Nierestein.” + + +Kenelm turned his head so quickly that he frightened Max, who had for +the last minute been standing behind him inquisitively with one paw +raised, and sniffing, in some doubt whether he recognized an old +acquaintance; but at Kenelm’s quick movement the animal broke into a +nervous bark, and ran back to his master. + +The minstrel, little heeding the figure reclined on the bank, would have +passed on with his light tread and his cheery carol, but Kenelm rose to +his feet, and holding out his hand, said, “I hope you don’t share Max’s +alarm at meeting me again?” + +“Ah, my young philosopher, is it indeed you?” + +“If I am to be designated a philosopher it is certainly not I. And, +honestly speaking, I am not the same. I, who spent that pleasant day +with you among the fields round Luscombe two years ago--” + +“Or who advised me at Tor Hadham to string my lyre to the praise of a +beefsteak. I, too, am not quite the same,--I, whose dog presented you +with the begging-tray.” + +“Yet you still go through the world singing.” + +“Even that vagrant singing time is pretty well over. But I disturbed you +from your repose; I would rather share it. You are probably not going my +way, and as I am in no hurry, I should not like to lose the opportunity +chance has so happily given me of renewing acquaintance with one who has +often been present to my thoughts since we last met.” Thus saying, the +minstrel stretched himself at ease on the bank, and Kenelm followed his +example. + +There certainly was a change in the owner of the dog with the +begging-tray, a change in costume, in countenance, in that indescribable +self-evidence which we call “manner.” The costume was not that Bohemian +attire in which Kenelm had first encountered the wandering minstrel, nor +the studied, more graceful garb, which so well became his shapely form +during his visit to Luscombe. It was now neatly simple, the cool and +quiet summer dress any English gentleman might adopt in a long rural +walk. And as he uncovered his head to court the cooling breeze, there +was a graver dignity in the man’s handsome Rubens-like face, a line of +more concentrated thought in the spacious forehead, a thread or two of +gray shimmering here and there through the thick auburn curls of hair +and beard. And in his manner, though still very frank, there was just +perceptible a sort of self-assertion, not offensive, but manly; such +as does not misbecome one of maturer years, and of some established +position, addressing another man much younger than himself, who in +all probability has achieved no position at all beyond that which the +accident of birth might assign to him. + +“Yes,” said the minstrel, with a half-suppressed sigh, “the last year +of my vagrant holidays has come to its close. I recollect that the first +day we met by the road-side fountain, I advised you to do like me, seek +amusement and adventure as a foot-traveller. Now, seeing you, evidently +a gentleman by education and birth, still a foot-traveller, I feel as if +I ought to say, ‘You have had enough of such experience: vagabond life +has its perils as well as charms; cease it, and settle down.’” + +“I think of doing so,” replied Kenelm, laconically. + +“In a profession?--army, law, medicine?” + +“No.” + +“Ah, in marriage then. Right; give me your hand on that. So a petticoat +indeed has at last found its charm for you in the actual world as well +as on the canvas of a picture?” + +“I conclude,” said Kenelm, evading any direct notice of that playful +taunt, “I conclude from your remark that it is in marriage _you_ are +about to settle down.” + +“Ay, could I have done so before I should have been saved from many +errors, and been many years nearer to the goal which dazzled my sight +through the haze of my boyish dreams.” + +“What is that goal,--the grave?” + +“The grave! That which allows of no grave,--fame.” + +“I see--despite of what you just now said--you still mean to go through +the world seeking a poet’s fame.” + +“Alas! I resign that fancy,” said the minstrel, with another half-sigh. +“It was not indeed wholly, but in great part the hope of the poet’s fame +that made me a truant in the way to that which destiny, and such few +gifts as Nature conceded to me, marked out for my proper and only goal. +But what a strange, delusive Will-o’-the-Wisp the love of verse-making +is! How rarely a man of good sense deceives himself as to other things +for which he is fitted, in which he can succeed; but let him once drink +into his being the charm of verse-making, how the glamour of the charm +bewitches his understanding! how long it is before he can believe that +the world will not take his word for it, when he cries out to sun, moon, +and stars, ‘I, too, am a poet.’ And with what agonies, as if at the +wrench of soul from life, he resigns himself at last to the conviction +that whether he or the world be right, it comes to the same thing. Who +can plead his cause before a court that will not give him a hearing?” + +It was with an emotion so passionately strong, and so intensely painful, +that the owner of the dog with the begging-tray thus spoke, that Kenelm +felt, through sympathy, as if he himself were torn asunder by the wrench +of life from soul. But then Kenelm was a mortal so eccentric that, if +a single acute suffering endured by a fellow mortal could be brought +before the evidence of his senses, I doubt whether he would not have +suffered as much as that fellow-mortal. So that, though if there were a +thing in the world which Kenelm Chillingly would care not to do, it was +verse-making, his mind involuntarily hastened to the arguments by which +he could best mitigate the pang of the verse-maker. + +Quoth he: “According to my very scanty reading, you share the love +of verse-making with men the most illustrious in careers which have +achieved the goal of fame. It must, then, be a very noble love: +Augustus, Pollio, Varius, Maecenas,--the greatest statesmen of their +day,--they were verse-makers. Cardinal Richelieu was a verse-maker; +Walter Raleigh and Philip Sidney, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Warren +Hastings, Canning, even the grave William Pitt,--all were verse-makers. +Verse-making did not retard--no doubt the qualities essential to +verse-making accelerated--their race to the goal of fame. What great +painters have been verse-makers! Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, +Salvator Rosa”--and Heaven knows how may other great names Kenelm +Chillingly might have proceeded to add to his list, if the minstrel had +not here interposed. + +“What! all those mighty painters were verse-makers?” + +“Verse-makers so good, especially Michael Angelo,--the greatest painter +of all,--that they would have had the fame of poets, if, unfortunately +for that goal of fame, their glory in the sister art of painting did not +outshine it. But when you give to your gift of song the modest title of +verse-making, permit me to observe that your gift is perfectly distinct +from that of the verse-maker. Your gift, whatever it may be, could not +exist without some sympathy with the non verse-making human heart. +No doubt in your foot travels, you have acquired not only observant +intimacy with external Nature in the shifting hues at each hour of a +distant mountain, in the lengthening shadows which yon sunset casts on +the waters at our feet, in the habits of the thrush dropped fearlessly +close beside me, in that turf moistened by its neighbourhood to those +dripping rushes, all of which I could describe no less accurately than +you,--as a Peter Bell might describe them no less accurately than a +William Wordsworth. But in such songs of yours as you have permitted me +to hear, you seem to have escaped out of that elementary accidence +of the poet’s art, and to touch, no matter how slightly, on the only +lasting interest which the universal heart of man can have in the song +of the poet; namely, in the sound which the poet’s individual sympathy +draws forth from the latent chords in that universal heart. As for what +you call ‘the world,’ what is it more than the fashion of the present +day? How far the judgment of that is worth a poet’s pain I can’t pretend +to say. But of one thing I am sure, that while I could as easily square +the circle as compose a simple couplet addressed to the heart of a +simple audience with sufficient felicity to decoy their praises +into Max’s begging-tray, I could spin out by the yard the sort of +verse-making which characterizes the fashion of the present day.” + +Much flattered, and not a little amused, the wandering minstrel turned +his bright countenance, no longer dimmed by a cloud, towards that of his +lazily reclined consoler, and answered gayly,-- + +“You say that you could spin out by the yard verses in the fashion of +the present day. I wish you would give me a specimen of your skill in +that handiwork.” + +“Very well; on one condition, that you will repay my trouble by +a specimen of your own verses, not in the fashion of the present +day,--something which I can construe. I defy you to construe mine.” + +“Agreed.” + +“Well, then, let us take it for granted that this is the Augustan age of +English poetry, and that the English language is dead, like the Latin. +Suppose I am writing for a prize-medal in English, as I wrote at +college for a prize-medal in Latin: of course, I shall be successful in +proportion as I introduce the verbal elegances peculiar to our Augustan +age, and also catch the prevailing poetic characteristic of that +classical epoch. + +“Now I think that every observant critic will admit that the striking +distinctions of the poetry most in the fashion of the present day, +namely, of the Augustan age, are,--first, a selection of such verbal +elegances as would have been most repulsive to the barbaric taste of the +preceding century; and, secondly, a very lofty disdain of all prosaic +condescensions to common-sense, and an elaborate cultivation of that +element of the sublime which Mr. Burke defines under the head of +obscurity. + +“These premises conceded, I will only ask you to choose the metre. Blank +verse is very much in fashion just now.” + +“Pooh! blank verse indeed! I am not going so to free your experiment +from the difficulties of rhyme.” + +“It is all one to me,” said Kenelm, yawning; “rhyme be it: heroic or +lyrical?” + +“Heroics are old-fashioned; but the Chaucer couplet, as brought to +perfection by our modern poets, I think the best adapted to dainty +leaves and uncrackable nuts. I accept the modern Chaucerian. The +subject?” + +“Oh, never trouble yourself about that. By whatever title your Augustan +verse-maker labels his poem, his genius, like Pindar’s, disdains to be +cramped by the subject. Listen, and don’t suffer Max to howl, if he can +help it. Here goes.” + +And in an affected but emphatic sing-song Kenelm began:-- + + + “In Attica the gentle Pythias dwelt. + Youthful he was, and passing rich: he felt + As if nor youth nor riches could suffice + For bliss. Dark-eyed Sophronia was a nice + Girl: and one summer day, when Neptune drove + His sea-car slowly, and the olive grove + That skirts Ilissus, to thy shell, Harmonia, + Rippled, he said ‘I love thee’ to Sophronia. + Crocus and iris, when they heard him, wagged + Their pretty heads in glee: the honey-bagged + Bees became altars: and the forest dove + Her plumage smoothed. Such is the charm of love. + Of this sweet story do ye long for more? + Wait till I publish it in volumes four; + Which certain critics, my good friends, will cry + Up beyond Chaucer. Take their word for ‘t. I + Say ‘Trust them, but not read,--or you’ll not buy.’” + + +“You have certainly kept your word,” said the minstrel, laughing; “and +if this be the Augustan age, and the English were a dead language, you +deserve to win the prize-medal.” + +“You flatter me,” said Kenelm, modestly. “But if I, who never before +strung two rhymes together, can improvise so readily in the style of the +present day, why should not a practical rhymester like yourself dash off +at a sitting a volume or so in the same style; disguising completely the +verbal elegances borrowed, adding to the delicacies of the rhyme by the +frequent introduction of a line that will not scan, and towering yet +more into the sublime by becoming yet more unintelligible? Do that, and +I promise you the most glowing panegyric in ‘The Londoner,’ for I will +write it myself.” + +“‘The Londoner’!” exclaimed the minstrel, with an angry flush on his +cheek and brow, “my bitter, relentless enemy.” + +“I fear, then, you have as little studied the critical press of the +Augustan age as you have imbued your muse with the classical spirit of +its verse. For the art of writing a man must cultivate himself. The art +of being reviewed consists in cultivating the acquaintance of reviewers. +In the Augustan age criticism is cliquism. Belong to a clique and you +are Horace or Tibullus. Belong to no clique and, of course, you are +Bavius or Maevius. ‘The Londoner’ is the enemy of no man: it holds all +men in equal contempt. But as, in order to amuse, it must abuse, it +compensates the praise it is compelled to bestow upon the members of its +clique by heaping additional scorn upon all who are cliqueless. Hit him +hard: he has no friends.” + +“Ah,” said the minstrel, “I believe that there is much truth in what you +say. I never had a friend among the cliques. And Heaven knows with what +pertinacity those from whom I, in utter ignorance of the rules which +govern so-called organs of opinion, had hoped, in my time of struggle, +for a little sympathy, a kindly encouragement, have combined to crush +me down. They succeeded long. But at last I venture to hope that I +am beating them. Happily, Nature endowed me with a sanguine, joyous, +elastic temperament. He who never despairs seldom completely fails.” + +This speech rather perplexed Kenelm, for had not the minstrel declared +that his singing days were over, that he had decided on the renunciation +of verse-making? What other path to fame, from which the critics had +not been able to exclude his steps, was he, then, now pursuing,--he whom +Kenelm had assumed to belong to some commercial moneymaking firm? No +doubt some less difficult prose-track, probably a novel. Everybody +writes novels nowadays, and as the public will read novels without being +told to do so, and will not read poetry unless they are told that they +ought, possibly novels are not quite so much at the mercy of cliques as +are the poems of our Augustan age. + +However, Kenelm did not think of seeking for further confidence on that +score. His mind at that moment, not unnaturally, wandered from books and +critics to love and wedlock. + +“Our talk,” said he, “has digressed into fretful courses; permit me +to return to the starting-point. You are going to settle down into the +peace of home. A peaceful home is like a good conscience. The rains +without do not pierce its roof, the winds without do not shake its +walls. If not an impertinent question, is it long since you have known +your intended bride?” + +“Yes, very long.” + +“And always loved her?” + +“Always, from her infancy. Out of all womankind, she was designed to be +my life’s playmate and my soul’s purifier. I know not what might have +become of me, if the thought of her had not walked beside me as my +guardian angel. For, like many vagrants from the beaten high roads of +the world, there is in my nature something of that lawlessness which +belongs to high animal spirits, to the zest of adventure, and the warm +blood that runs into song, chiefly because song is the voice of a joy. +And no doubt, when I look back on the past years I must own that I have +too often been led astray from the objects set before my reason, and +cherished at my heart, by erring impulse or wanton fancy.” + +“Petticoat interest, I presume,” interposed Kenelm, dryly. + +“I wish I could honestly answer ‘No,’” said the minstrel, colouring +high. “But from the worst, from all that would have permanently blasted +the career to which I intrust my fortunes, all that would have rendered +me unworthy of the pure love that now, I trust, awaits and crowns +my dreams of happiness, I have been saved by the haunting smile in a +sinless infantine face. Only once was I in great peril,--that hour of +peril I recall with a shudder. It was at Luscombe.” + +“At Luscombe!” + +“In the temptation of a terrible crime I thought I heard a voice say, +‘Mischief! Remember the little child.’ In that supervention which is so +readily accepted as a divine warning, when the imagination is morbidly +excited, and when the conscience, though lulled asleep for a moment, is +still asleep so lightly that the sigh of a breeze, the fall of a leaf, +can awake it with a start of terror, I took the voice for that of my +guardian angel. Thinking it over later, and coupling the voice with the +moral of those weird lines you repeated to me so appositely the next +day, I conclude that I am not mistaken when I say it was from your lips +that the voice which preserved me came.” + +“I confess the impertinence: you pardon it?” + +The minstrel seized Kenelm’s hand and pressed it earnestly. + +“Pardon it! Oh, could you but guess what cause I have to be grateful, +everlastingly grateful! That sudden cry, the remorse and horror of my +own self that it struck into me,--deepened by those rugged lines which +the next day made me shrink in dismay from ‘the face of my darling +sin’! Then came the turning-point of my life. From that day, the lawless +vagabond within me was killed. I mean not, indeed, the love of Nature +and of song which had first allured the vagabond, but the hatred of +steadfast habits and of serious work,--_that_ was killed. I no longer +trifled with my calling: I took to it as a serious duty. And when I saw +her, whom fate has reserved and reared for my bride, her face was no +longer in my eyes that of the playful child; the soul of the woman was +dawning into it. It is but two years since that day, to me so eventful. +Yet my fortunes are now secured. And if fame be not established, I am at +last in a position which warrants my saying to her I love, ‘The time has +come when, without fear for thy future, I can ask thee to be mine.’” + +The man spoke with so fervent a passion that Kenelm silently left him +to recover his wonted self-possession,--not unwilling to be silent,--not +unwilling, in the softness of the hour, passing from roseate sunset into +starry twilight, to murmur to himself, “And the time, too, has come for +me!” + +After a few moments the minstrel resumed lightly and cheerily,-- + +“Sir, your turn: pray have you long known--judging by our former +conversation you cannot have long loved--the lady whom you have wooed +and won?” + +As Kenelm had neither as yet wooed nor won the lady in question, and did +not deem it necessary to enter into any details on the subject of love +particular to himself, he replied by a general observation,-- + +“It seems to me that the coming of love is like the coming of spring: +the date is not to be reckoned by the calendar. It may be slow and +gradual; it may be quick and sudden. But in the morning, when we wake +and recognize a change in the world without, verdure on the trees, +blossoms on the sward, warmth in the sunshine, music in the air, then we +say Spring has come!” + +“I like your illustration. And if it be an idle question to ask a lover +how long he has known the beloved one, so it is almost as idle to ask if +she be not beautiful. He cannot but see in her face the beauty she has +given to the world without.” + +“True; and that thought is poetic enough to make me remind you that I +favoured you with the maiden specimen of my verse-making on condition +that you repaid me by a specimen of your own practical skill in the art. +And I claim the right to suggest the theme. Let it be--” + +“Of a beefsteak?” + +“Tush, you have worn out that tasteless joke at my expense. The theme +must be of love, and if you could improvise a stanza or two expressive +of the idea you just uttered I shall listen with yet more pleased +attention.” + +“Alas! I am no _improvisatore_. Yet I will avenge myself on your former +neglect of my craft by chanting to you a trifle somewhat in unison with +the thought you ask me to versify, but which you would not stay to hear +at Tor Hadham (though you did drop a shilling into Max’s tray); it was +one of the songs I sang that evening, and it was not ill-received by my +humble audience. + + + “THE BEAUTY OF THE MISTRESS IS IN THE LOVER’S EYE. + + “Is she not pretty, my Mabel May? + Nobody ever yet called her so. + Are not her lineaments faultless, say? + If I must answer you plainly, No. + + “Joy to believe that the maid I love + None but myself as she is can see; + Joy that she steals from her heaven above, + And is only revealed on this earth to me!” + + +As soon as he had finished this very artless ditty, the minstrel rose +and said,-- + +“Now I must bid you good-by. My way lies through those meadows, and +yours no doubt along the high road.” + +“Not so. Permit me to accompany you. I have a lodging not far from +hence, to which the path through the fields is the shortest way.” + +The minstrel turned a somewhat surprised and somewhat inquisitive look +towards Kenelm. But feeling, perhaps, that having withheld from his +fellow-traveller all confidence as to his own name and attributes, he +had no right to ask any confidence from that gentleman not voluntarily +made to him, he courteously said “that he wished the way were longer, +since it would be so pleasantly halved,” and strode forth at a brisk +pace. + +The twilight was now closing into the brightness of a starry summer +night, and the solitude of the fields was unbroken. Both these men, +walking side by side, felt supremely happy. But happiness is like wine; +its effect differing with the differing temperaments on which it +acts. In this case garrulous and somewhat vaunting with the one man, +warm-coloured, sensuous, impressionable to the influences of external +Nature, as an Aeolian harp to the rise or fall of a passing wind; and, +with the other man, taciturn and somewhat modestly expressed, saturnine, +meditative, not indeed dull to the influences of external Nature, but +deeming them of no value, save where they passed out of the domain of +the sensuous into that of the intellectual, and the soul of man dictated +to the soulless Nature its own questions and its own replies. + +The minstrel took the talk on himself, and the talk charmed his +listener. It became so really eloquent in the tones of its utterance, in +the frank play of its delivery, that I could no more adequately describe +it than a reporter, however faithful to every word a true orator may +say, can describe that which, apart from all words, belongs to the +presence of the orator himself. + +Not, then, venturing to report the language of this singular itinerant, +I content myself with saying that the substance of it was of the +nature on which it is said most men can be eloquent: it was personal +to himself. He spoke of aspirations towards the achievement of a name, +dating back to the dawn of memory; of early obstacles in lowly birth, +stinted fortunes; of a sudden opening to his ambition while yet in +boyhood, through the generous favour of a rich man, who said, “The child +has genius: I will give it the discipline of culture; one day it shall +repay to the world what it owes to me;” of studies passionately begun, +earnestly pursued, and mournfully suspended in early youth. He did not +say how or wherefore: he rushed on to dwell upon the struggles for a +livelihood for himself and those dependent on him; how in such struggles +he was compelled to divert toil and energy from the systematic pursuit +of the object he had once set before him; the necessities for money +were too urgent to be postponed to the visions of fame. “But even,” he +exclaimed, passionately, “even in such hasty and crude manifestations +of what is within me, as circumstances limited my powers, I know that +I ought to have found from those who profess to be authoritative judges +the encouragement of praise. How much better, then, I should have done +if I had found it! How a little praise warms out of a man the good +that is in him, and the sneer of a contempt which he feels to be unjust +chills the ardour to excel! However, I forced my way, so far as was then +most essential to me, the sufficing breadmaker for those I loved; and in +my holidays of song and ramble I found a delight that atoned for all the +rest. But still the desire of fame, once conceived in childhood, once +nourished through youth, never dies but in our grave. Foot and hoof may +tread it down, bud, leaf, stalk; its root is too deep below the surface +for them to reach, and year after year stalk and leaf and bud re-emerge. +Love may depart from our mortal life: we console ourselves; the beloved +will be reunited to us in the life to come. But if he who sets his heart +on fame loses it in this life, what can console him?” + +“Did you not say a little while ago that fame allowed of no grave?” + +“True; but if we do not achieve it before we ourselves are in the grave, +what comfort can it give to us? Love ascends to heaven, to which we hope +ourselves to ascend; but fame remains on the earth, which we shall never +again revisit. And it is because fame is earth-born that the desire for +it is the most lasting, the regret for the want of it the most bitter, +to the child of earth. But I shall achieve it now; it is already in my +grasp.” + +By this time the travellers had arrived at the brook, facing the wooden +bridge beside Cromwell Lodge. + +Here the minstrel halted; and Kenelm with a certain tremble in his +voice, said, “Is it not time that we should make ourselves known to +each other by name? I have no longer any cause to conceal mine, indeed I +never had any cause stronger than whim,--Kenelm Chillingly, the only son +of Sir Peter, of Exmundham, -----shire.” + +“I wish your father joy of so clever a son,” said the minstrel with his +wonted urbanity. “You already know enough of me to be aware that I am +of much humbler birth and station than you; but if you chance to have +visited the exhibition of the Royal Academy this year--ah! I understand +that start--you might have recognized a picture of which you have seen +the rudimentary sketch, ‘The Girl with the Flower-ball,’ one of three +pictures very severely handled by ‘The Londoner,’ but, in spite of +that potent enemy, insuring fortune and promising fame to the wandering +minstrel, whose name, if the sight of the pictures had induced you to +inquire into that, you would have found to be Walter Melville. Next +January I hope, thanks to that picture, to add, ‘Associate of the Royal +Academy.’ The public will not let them keep me out of it, in spite of +‘The Londoner.’ You are probably an expected guest at one of the more +imposing villas from which we see the distant lights. I am going to a +very humble cottage, in which henceforth I hope to find my established +home. I am there now only for a few days, but pray let me welcome you +there before I leave. The cottage is called Grasmere.” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE minstrel gave a cordial parting shake of the hand to the +fellow-traveller whom he had advised to settle down, not noticing how +very cold had become the hand in his own genial grasp. Lightly he passed +over the wooden bridge, preceded by Max, and merrily, when he had gained +the other side of the bridge, came upon Kenelm’s ear, through the hush +of the luminous night, the verse of the uncompleted love-song,-- + + + “Singing, singing, + Lustily singing, + Down the road, with his dogs before, + Came the Ritter of Nierestein.” + + +Love-song, uncompleted; why uncompleted? It was not given to Kenelm to +divine the why. It was a love-song versifying one of the prettiest fairy +tales in the world, which was a great favourite with Lily, and which +Lion had promised Lily to versify, but only to complete it in her +presence and to her perfect satisfaction. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +IF I could not venture to place upon paper the exact words of an +eloquent coveter of fame, the earth-born, still less can I dare to place +upon paper all that passed through the voiceless heart of a coveter of +love, the heaven-born. + +From the hour in which Kenelm Chillingly had parted from Walter Melville +until somewhere between sunrise and noon the next day, the summer +joyousness of that external Nature which does now and then, though, for +the most part, deceitfully, address to the soul of man questions and +answers all her soulless own, laughed away the gloom of his misgivings. + +No doubt this Walter Melville was the beloved guardian of Lily; no doubt +it was Lily whom he designated as reserved and reared to become his +bride. But on that question Lily herself had the sovereign voice. It +remained yet to be seen whether Kenelm had deceived himself in the +belief that had made the world so beautiful to him since the hour of +their last parting. At all events it was due to her, due even to his +rival, to assert his own claim to her choice. And the more he recalled +all that Lily had ever said to him of her guardian, so openly, so +frankly, proclaiming affection, admiration, gratitude, the more +convincingly his reasonings allayed his fears, whispering, “So might +a child speak of a parent: not so does the maiden speak of the man she +loves; she can scarcely trust herself to praise.” + +In fine, it was not in despondent mood, nor with dejected looks, that, +a little before noon, Kenelm crossed the bridge and re-entered the +enchanted land of Grasmere. In answer to his inquiries, the servant who +opened the door said that neither Mr. Melville nor Miss Mordaunt were +at home; they had but just gone out together for a walk. He was about to +turn back, when Mrs. Cameron came into the hall, and, rather by +gesture than words, invited him to enter. Kenelm followed her into the +drawing-room, taking his seat beside her. He was about to speak, when +she interrupted him in a tone of voice so unlike its usual languor, so +keen, so sharp, that it sounded like a cry of distress. + +“I was just about to come to you. Happily, however, you find me alone, +and what may pass between us will be soon over. But first tell me: you +have seen your parents; you have asked their consent to wed a girl such +as I described; tell me, oh tell me that that consent is refused!” + +“On the contrary, I am here with their full permission to ask the hand +of your niece.” + +Mrs. Cameron sank back in her chair, rocking herself to and fro in the +posture of a person in great pain. + +“I feared that. Walter said he had met you last evening; that you, like +himself, entertained the thought of marriage. You, of course when you +learned his name, must have known with whom his thought was connected. +Happily, he could not divine what was the choice to which your youthful +fancy had been so blindly led.” + +“My dear Mrs. Cameron,” said Kenelm, very mildly, but very firmly, “you +were aware of the purpose for which I left Moleswich a few days ago, +and it seems to me that you might have forestalled my intention, the +intention which brings me; thus early to your house. I come to say to +Miss Mordaunt’s guardian, ‘I ask the hand of your ward. If you also woo +her, I have a very noble rival. With both of us no consideration for our +own happiness can be comparable to the duty of consulting hers. Let her +choose between the two.’” + +“Impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Cameron; “impossible. You know not what you +say; know not, guess not, how sacred are the claims of Walter Melville +to all that the orphan whom he has protected from her very birth can +give him in return. She has no right to a preference for another: her +heart is too grateful to admit of one. If the choice were given to her +between him and you, it is he whom she would choose. Solemnly I assure +you of this. Do not, then, subject her to the pain of such a choice. +Suppose, if you will, that you had attracted her fancy, and that now you +proclaimed your love and urged your suit, she would not, must not, the +less reject your hand, but you might cloud her happiness in accepting +Melville’s. Be generous. Conquer your own fancy; it can be but a passing +one. Speak not to her, nor to Mr. Melville, of a wish which can never be +realized. Go hence, silently, and at once.” + +The words and the manner of the pale imploring woman struck a vague +awe into the heart of her listener. But he did not the less resolutely +answer, “I cannot obey you. It seems to me that my honour commands me +to prove to your niece that, if I mistook the nature of her feelings +towards me, I did not, by word or look, lead her to believe mine towards +herself were less in earnest than they are; and it seems scarcely less +honourable towards my worthy rival to endanger his own future happiness, +should he discover later that his bride would have been happier with +another. Why be so mysteriously apprehensive? If, as you say, with such +apparent conviction, there is no doubt of your niece’s preference for +another, at a word from her own lips I depart, and you will see me no +more. But that word must be said by her; and if you will not permit me +to ask for it in your own house, I will take my chance of finding her +now, on her walk with Mr. Melville; and, could he deny me the right to +speak to her alone, that which I would say can be said in his presence. +Ah! madam, have you no mercy for the heart that you so needlessly +torture? If I must bear the worst, let me learn it, and at once.” + +“Learn it, then, from my lips,” said Mrs. Cameron, speaking with voice +unnaturally calm, and features rigidly set into stern composure. “And I +place the secret you wring from me under the seal of that honour which +you so vauntingly make your excuse for imperilling the peace of the home +I ought never to have suffered you to enter. An honest couple, of +humble station and narrow means, had an only son, who evinced in early +childhood talents so remarkable that they attracted the notice of +the father’s employer, a rich man of very benevolent heart and very +cultivated taste. He sent the child, at his expense, to a first-rate +commercial school, meaning to provide for him later in his own firm. +The rich man was the head partner of an eminent bank; but very infirm +health, and tastes much estranged from business, had induced him to +retire from all active share in the firm, the management of which was +confined to a son whom he idolized. But the talents of the protege he +had sent to school took there so passionate a direction towards art +and estranged from trade, and his designs in drawing when shown to +connoisseurs were deemed so promising of future excellence, that the +patron changed his original intention, entered him as a pupil in the +studio of a distinguished French painter, and afterwards bade him +perfect his taste by the study of Italian and Flemish masterpieces. + +“He was still abroad, when--” here Mrs. Cameron stopped, with visible +effort, suppressed a sob, and went on, whisperingly, through teeth +clenched together--“when a thunderbolt fell on the house of the patron, +shattering his fortunes, blasting his name. The son, unknown to the +father, had been decoyed into speculations which proved unfortunate: the +loss might have been easily retrieved in the first instance; unhappily +he took the wrong course to retrieve it, and launched into new hazards. +I must be brief. One day the world was startled by the news that a firm, +famed for its supposed wealth and solidity, was bankrupt. Dishonesty +was alleged, was proved, not against the father,--he went forth from +the trial, censured indeed for neglect, not condemned for fraud, but a +penniless pauper. The--son, the son, the idolized son, was removed from +the prisoner’s dock, a convicted felon, sentenced to penal servitude; +escaped that sentence by--by--you guess--you guess. How could he escape +except through death?--death by his own guilty deed?” + +Almost as much overpowered by emotion as Mrs. Cameron herself, Kenelm +covered his bended face with one hand, stretching out the other blindly +to clasp her own, but she would not take it. + +A dreary foreboding. Again before his eyes rose the old gray +tower,--again in his ears thrilled the tragic tale of the Fletwodes. +What was yet left untold held the young man in spell-bound silence. Mrs. +Cameron resumed,-- + +“I said the father was a penniless pauper; he died lingeringly +bedridden. But one faithful friend did not desert that bed,--the youth +to whose genius his wealth had ministered. He had come from abroad +with some modest savings from the sale of copies or sketches made in +Florence. These savings kept a roof over the heads of the old man and +the two helpless, broken-hearted women,--paupers like himself,--his own +daughter and his son’s widow. When the savings were gone, the young man +stooped from his destined calling, found employment somehow, no matter +how alien to his tastes, and these three whom his toil supported never +wanted a home or food. Well, a few weeks after her husband’s terrible +death, his young widow (they had not been a year married) gave birth to +a child,--a girl. She did not survive the exhaustion of her confinement +many days. The shock of her death snapped the feeble thread of the poor +father’s life. Both were borne to the grave on the same day. Before they +died, both made the same prayer to their sole two mourners, the felon’s +sister, the old man’s young benefactor. The prayer was this, that the +new-born infant should be reared, however humbly, in ignorance of her +birth, of a father’s guilt and shame. She was not to pass a suppliant +for charity to rich and high-born kinsfolk, who had vouchsafed no word +even of pity to the felon’s guiltless father and as guiltless wife. That +promise has been kept till now. I am that daughter. The name I bear, +and the name which I gave to my niece, are not ours, save as we may +indirectly claim them through alliances centuries ago. I have never +married. I was to have been a bride, bringing to the representative of +no ignoble house what was to have been a princely dower; the wedding day +was fixed, when the bolt fell. I have never again seen my betrothed. He +went abroad and died there. I think he loved me; he knew I loved him. +Who can blame him for deserting me? Who could marry the felon’s sister? +Who would marry the felon’s child? Who but one? The man who knows +her secret, and will guard it; the man who, caring little for other +education, has helped to instil into her spotless childhood so steadfast +a love of truth, so exquisite a pride of honour, that did she know such +ignominy rested on her birth she would pine herself away.” + +“Is there only one man on earth,” cried Kenelm, suddenly, rearing his +face,--till then concealed and downcast,--and with a loftiness of pride +on its aspect, new to its wonted mildness, “is there only one man who +would deem the virgin at whose feet he desires to kneel and say, ‘Deign +to be the queen of my life,’ not far too noble in herself to be debased +by the sins of others before she was even born; is there only one man +who does not think that the love of truth and the pride of honour are +most royal attributes of woman or of man, no matter whether the fathers +of the woman or the man were pirates as lawless as the fathers of +Norman kings, or liars as unscrupulous, where their own interests +were concerned, as have been the crowned representatives of lines as +deservedly famous as Caesars and Bourbons, Tudors and Stuarts? Nobility, +like genius, is inborn. One man alone guard _her_ secret!--guard a +secret that if made known could trouble a heart that recoils from shame! +Ah, madam, we Chillinglys are a very obscure, undistinguished race, but +for more than a thousand years we have been English gentlemen. Guard her +secret rather than risk the chance of discovery that could give her a +pang! I would pass my whole life by her side in Kamtchatka, and even +there I would not snatch a glimpse of the secret itself with mine own +eyes: it should be so closely muffled and wrapped round by the folds of +reverence and worship.” + +This burst of passion seemed to Mrs. Cameron the senseless declamation +of an inexperienced, hot-headed young man; and putting it aside, much +as a great lawyer dismisses as balderdash the florid rhetoric of some +junior counsel, rhetoric in which the great lawyer had once indulged, +or as a woman for whom romance is over dismisses as idle verbiage some +romantic sentiment that befools her young daughter, Mrs. Cameron simply +replied, “All this is hollow talk, Mr. Chillingly; let us come to the +point. After all I have said, do you mean to persist in your suit to my +niece?” + +“I persist.” + +“What!” she cried, this time indignantly, and with generous indignation; +“what, even were it possible that you could win your parents’ consent to +marry the child of a man condemned to penal servitude, or, consistently +with the duties a son owes to parents, conceal that fact from them, +could you, born to a station on which every gossip will ask, ‘Who and +what is the name of the future Lady Chillingly?’ believe that the +who and the what will never be discovered! Have you, a mere stranger, +unknown to us a few weeks ago, a right to say to Walter Melville, +‘Resign to me that which is your sole reward for the sublime sacrifices, +for the loyal devotion, for the watchful tenderness of patient years’?” + +“Surely, madam,” cried Kenelm, more startled, more shaken in soul by +this appeal, than by the previous revelations, “surely, when we +last parted, when I confided to you my love for your niece, when you +consented to my proposal to return home and obtain my father’s approval +of my suit,--surely then was the time to say, ‘No; a suitor with claims +paramount and irresistible has come before you.’” + +“I did not then know, Heaven is my witness, I did not then even suspect, +that Walter Melville ever dreamed of seeking a wife in the child who had +grown up under his eyes. You must own, indeed, how much I discouraged +your suit; I could not discourage it more without revealing the secret +of her birth, only to be revealed as an extreme necessity. But my +persuasion was that your father would not consent to your alliance with +one so far beneath the expectations he was entitled to form, and the +refusal of that consent would terminate all further acquaintance between +you and Lily, leaving her secret undisclosed. It was not till you had +left, only indeed two days ago, that I received a letter from Walter +Melville,--a letter which told me what I had never before conjectured. +Here is the letter, read it, and then say if you have the heart to +force yourself into rivalry, with--with--” She broke off, choked by her +exertion, thrust the letter into his hands, and with keen, eager, hungry +stare watched his countenance while he read. + + + + ----- STREET, BLOOMSBURY. + +MY DEAR FRIEND,--Joy and triumph! My picture is completed, the picture +on which for so many months I have worked night and day in this den of +a studio, without a glimpse of the green fields, concealing my address +from every one, even from you, lest I might be tempted to suspend my +labours. The picture is completed: it is sold; guess the price! Fifteen +hundred guineas, and to a dealer,--a dealer! Think of that! It is to be +carried about the country exhibited by itself. You remember those three +little landscapes of mine which two years ago I would gladly have sold +for ten pounds, only neither Lily nor you would let me. My good friend +and earliest patron, the German merchant at Luscombe, who called on +me yesterday, offered to cover them with guineas thrice piled over the +canvas. Imagine how happy I felt when I forced him to accept them as a +present. What a leap in a man’s life it is when he can afford to say, “I +give!” Now then, at last, at last I am in a position which justifies the +utterance of the hope which has for eighteen years been my solace, my +support; been the sunbeam that ever shone through the gloom when my fate +was at the darkest; been the melody that buoyed me aloft as in the +song of the skylark, when in the voices of men I heard but the laugh of +scorn. Do you remember the night on which Lily’s mother besought us +to bring up her child in ignorance of her parentage, not even to +communicate to unkind and disdainful relatives that such a child was +born? Do you remember how plaintively, and yet how proudly, she, so +nobly born, so luxuriously nurtured, clasping my hand when I ventured +to remonstrate, and say that her own family could not condemn her child +because of the father’s guilt,--she, the proudest woman I ever knew, she +whose smile I can at rare moments detect in Lily, raised her head from +her pillow, and gasped forth,-- + +“I am dying: the last words of the dying are commands. I command you to +see that my child’s lot is not that of a felon’s daughter transported to +the hearth of nobles. To be happy, her lot must be humble: no roof too +humble to shelter, no husband too humble to wed, the felon’s daughter.” + +From that hour I formed a resolve that I would keep hand and heart +free, that when the grandchild of my princely benefactor grew up into +womanhood I might say to her, “I am humbly born, but thy mother would +have given thee to me.” The newborn, consigned to our charge, has now +ripened into woman, and I have now so assured my fortune that it is +no longer poverty and struggle that I should ask her to share. I am +conscious that, were her fate not so exceptional, this hope of mine +would be a vain presumption,--conscious that I am but the creature +of her grandsire’s bounty, and that from it springs all I ever can +be,--conscious of the disparity in years,-conscious of many a past error +and present fault. But, as fate so ordains, such considerations are +trivial; I am her rightful choice. What other choice, compatible with +these necessities which weigh, dear and honoured friend, immeasurably +more on your sense of honour than they do upon mine? and yet mine is +not dull. Granting, then, that you, her nearest and most responsible +relative, do not contemn me for presumption, all else seems to me clear. +Lily’s childlike affection for me is too deep and too fond not to +warm into a wife’s love. Happily, too, she has not been reared in the +stereotyped boarding-school shallowness of knowledge and vulgarities of +gentility; but educated, like myself, by the free influences of Nature, +longing for no halls and palaces save those that we build as we list, in +fairyland; educated to comprehend and share the fancies which are +more than booklore to the worshipper of art and song. In a day or two, +perhaps the day after you receive this, I shall be able to escape from +London, and most likely shall come on foot as usual. How I long to +see once more the woodbine on the hedgerows, the green blades of the +cornfields, the sunny lapse of the river, and dearer still the tiny +falls of our own little noisy rill! Meanwhile I entreat you, dearest, +gentlest, most honored of such few friends as my life has hitherto won +to itself, to consider well the direct purport of this letter. If you, +born in a grade so much higher than mine, feel that it is unwarrantable +insolence in me to aspire to the hand of my patron’s grandchild, say so +plainly; and I remain not less grateful for your friendship than I was +to your goodness when dining for the first time at your father’s palace. +Shy and sensitive and young, I felt that his grand guests wondered why I +was invited to the same board as themselves. You, then courted, admired, +you had sympathetic compassion on the raw, sullen boy; left those, who +then seemed to me like the gods and goddesses of a heathen Pantheon, to +come and sit beside your father’s protege and cheeringly whisper to +him such words as make a low-born ambitious lad go home light-hearted, +saying to himself, “Some day or other.” And what it is to an ambitious +lad, fancying himself lifted by the gods and goddesses of a Pantheon, to +go home light-hearted muttering to himself, “Some day or other,” I doubt +if even you can divine. + +But should you be as kind to the presumptuous man as you were to the +bashful boy, and say, “Realized be the dream, fulfilled be the object of +your life! take from me as her next of kin, the last descendant of your +benefactor,” then I venture to address to you this request. You are in +the place of mother to your sister’s child, act for her as a keeper now, +to prepare her mind and heart for the coming change in the relations +between her and me. When I last saw her, six months ago, she was still +so playfully infantine that it half seems to me I should be sinning +against the reverence due to a child, if I said too abruptly, “You are +woman, and I love you not as child but as woman.” And yet, time is +not allowed to me for long, cautious, and gradual slide from the +relationship of friend into that of lover. I now understand what the +great master of my art once said to me, “A career is a destiny.” By one +of those merchant princes who now at Manchester, as they did once at +Genoa or Venice, reign alike over those two civilizers of the world +which to dull eyes seem antagonistic, Art and Commerce, an offer is made +to me for a picture on a subject which strikes his fancy: an offer so +magnificently liberal that his commerce must command my art; and the +nature of the subject compels me to seek the banks of the Rhine as +soon as may be. I must have all the hues of the foliage in the meridian +glories of summer. I can but stay at Grasmere a very few days; but +before I leave I must know this, am I going to work for Lily or am I +not? On the answer to that question depends all. If not to work for her, +there would be no glory in the summer, no triumph in art to me: I refuse +the offer. If she says, “Yes; it is for me you work,” then she becomes +my destiny. She assures my career. Here I speak as an artist: nobody who +is not an artist can guess how sovereign over even his moral being, at +a certain critical epoch in his career of artist or his life of man, +is the success or the failure of a single work. But I go on to speak as +man. My love for Lily is such for the last six months that, though if +she rejected me I should still serve art, still yearn for fame, it would +be as an old man might do either. The youth of my life would be gone. + +As man I say, all my thoughts, all my dreams of happiness, distinct from +Art and fame, are summed up in the one question, “Is Lily to be my wife +or not?” + + Yours affectionately, + + W. M. + + +Kenelm returned the letter without a word. + +Enraged by his silence, Mrs. Cameron exclaimed, “Now, sir, what say you? +You have scarcely known Lily five weeks. What is the feverish fancy of +five weeks’ growth to the lifelong devotion of a man like this? Do you +now dare to say, ‘I persist’?” + +Kenelm waved his hand very quietly, as if to dismiss all conception of +taunt and insult and said with his soft melancholy eyes fixed upon the +working features of Lily’s aunt, “This man is more worthy of her than +I. He prays you, in his letter, to prepare your niece for that change of +relationship which he dreads too abruptly to break to her himself. Have +you done so?” + +“I have; the night I got the letter.” + +“And--you hesitate; speak truthfully, I implore. And she--” + +“She,” answered Mrs. Cameron, feeling herself involuntarily compelled to +obey the voice of that prayer--“she seemed stunned at first, muttering, +‘This is a dream: it cannot be true,--cannot! I Lion’s wife--I--I! +I, his destiny! In me his happiness!’ And then she laughed her pretty +child’s laugh, and put her arms round my neck, and said, ‘You are +jesting, aunty. He could not write thus!’ So I put that part of his +letter under her eyes; and when she had convinced herself, her face +became very grave, more like a woman’s face than I ever saw it; and +after a pause she cried out passionately, ‘Can you think me--can I think +myself--so bad, so ungrateful, as to doubt what I should answer, if +Lion asked me whether I would willingly say or do anything that made him +unhappy? If there be such a doubt in my heart, I would tear it out +by the roots, heart and all!’ Oh, Mr. Chillingly! There would be no +happiness for her with another, knowing that she had blighted the life +of him to whom she owes so much, though she never will learn how +much more she owes.” Kenelm not replying to this remark, Mrs. Cameron +resumed, “I will be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Chillingly. I was not +quite satisfied with Lily’s manner and looks the next morning, that is, +yesterday. I did fear there might be some struggle in her mind in which +there entered a thought of yourself. And when Walter, on his arrival +here in the evening, spoke of you as one he had met before in his rural +excursions, but whose name he only learned on parting at the bridge by +Cromwell Lodge, I saw that Lily turned pale, and shortly afterwards +went to her own room for the night. Fearing that any interview with you, +though it would not alter her resolve, might lessen her happiness on +the only choice she can and ought to adopt, I resolved to visit you this +morning, and make that appeal to your reason and your heart which I have +done now,--not, I am sure, in vain. Hush! I hear his voice!” + +Melville entered the room, Lily leaning on his arm. The artist’s comely +face was radiant with ineffable joyousness. Leaving Lily, he reached +Kenelm’s side as with a single bound, shook him heartily by the hand, +saying, “I find that you have already been a welcomed visitor in this +house. Long may you be so, so say I, so (I answer for her) says my fair +betrothed, to whom I need not present you.” + +Lily advanced, and held out her hand very timidly. Kenelm touched rather +than clasped it. His own strong hand trembled like a leaf. He ventured +but one glance at her face. All the bloom had died out of it, but the +expression seemed to him wondrously, cruelly tranquil. + +“Your betrothed! your future bride!” he said to the artist, with a +mastery over his emotion rendered less difficult by the single glance +at that tranquil face. “I wish you joy. All happiness to you, Miss +Mordaunt. You have made a noble choice.” + +He looked round for his hat; it lay at his feet, but he did not see +it; his eyes wandering away with uncertain vision, like those of a +sleep-walker. + +Mrs. Cameron picked up the hat and gave it to him. + +“Thank you,” he said meekly; then with a smile half sweet, half bitter, +“I have so much to thank you for, Mrs. Cameron.” + +“But you are not going already,--just as I enter too. Hold! Mrs. Cameron +tells me you are lodging with my old friend Jones. Come and stop a +couple of days with us: we can find you a room; the room over your +butterfly cage, eh, Fairy?” + +“Thank you too. Thank you all. No; I must be in London by the first +train.” + +Speaking thus, he had found his way to the door, bowed with the quiet +grace that characterized all his movements, and was gone. + +“Pardon his abruptness, Lily; he too loves; he too is impatient to +find a betrothed,” said the artist gayly: “but now he knows my dearest +secret, I think I have a right to know his; and I will try.” + +He had scarcely uttered the words before he too had quitted the room and +overtaken Kenelm just at the threshold. + +“If you are going back to Cromwell Lodge,--to pack up, I suppose,--let +me walk with you as far as the bridge.” + +Kenelm inclined his head assentingly and tacitly as they passed through +the garden-gate, winding backwards through the lane which skirted the +garden pales; when, at the very spot in which the day after their first +and only quarrel Lily’s face had been seen brightening through the +evergreen, that day on which the old woman, quitting her, said, “God +bless you!” and on which the vicar, walking with Kenelm, spoke of her +fairy charms; well, just in that spot Lily’s face appeared again, not +this time brightening through the evergreens, unless the palest gleam +of the palest moon can be said to brighten. Kenelm saw, started, halted. +His companion, then in the rush of a gladsome talk, of which Kenelm had +not heard a word, neither saw nor halted; he walked on mechanically, +gladsome, and talking. + +Lily stretched forth her hand through the evergreens. Kenelm took it +reverentially. This time it was not his hand that trembled. + +“Good-by,” she said in a whisper, “good-by forever in this world. You +understand,--you do understand me. Say that you do.” + +“I understand. Noble child! noble choice! God bless you! God comfort +me!” murmured Kenelm. Their eyes met. Oh, the sadness; and, alas! oh the +love in the eyes of both! + +Kenelm passed on. + +All said in an instant. How many Alls are said in an instant! Melville +was in the midst of some glowing sentence, begun when Kenelm dropped +from his side, and the end of the sentence was this: + +“Words cannot say how fair seems life; how easy seems conquest of fame, +dating from this day--this day”--and in his turn he halted, looked round +on the sunlit landscape, and breathed deep, as if to drink into his soul +all of the earth’s joy and beauty which his gaze could compass and the +arch of the horizon bound. + +“They who knew her even the best,” resumed the artist, striding on, +“even her aunt, never could guess how serious and earnest, under all +her infantine prettiness of fancy, is that girl’s real nature. We were +walking along the brook-side, when I began to tell how solitary the +world would be to me if I could not win her to my side; while I spoke +she had turned aside from the path we had taken, and it was not till we +were under the shadow of the church in which we shall be married that +she uttered the word that gives to every cloud in my fate the silver +lining; implying thus how solemnly connected in her mind was the thought +of love with the sanctity of religion.” + +Kenelm shuddered,--the church, the burial-ground, the old Gothic tomb, +the flowers round the infant’s grave! + +“But I am talking a great deal too much about myself,” resumed the +artist. “Lovers are the most consummate of all egotists, and the +most garrulous of all gossips. You have wished me joy on my destined +nuptials, when shall I wish you joy on yours? Since we have begun to +confide in each other, you are in my debt as to a confidence.” + +They had now gained the bridge. Kenelm turned round abruptly, “Good-day; +let us part here. I have nothing to confide to you that might not seem +to your ears a mockery when I wish you joy.” So saying, so obeying in +spite of himself the anguish of his heart, Kenelm wrung his companion’s +hand with the force of an uncontrollable agony, and speeded over the +bridge before Melville recovered his surprise. + +The artist would have small claim to the essential attribute of +genius--namely, the intuitive sympathy of passion with passion--if that +secret of Kenelm’s which he had so lightly said “he had acquired the +right to learn,” was not revealed to him as by an electric flash. “Poor +fellow!” he said to himself pityingly; “how natural that he should fall +in love with Fairy! but happily he is so young, and such a philosopher, +that it is but one of those trials through which, at least ten times a +year, I have gone with wounds that leave not a scar.” + +Thus soliloquizing, the warm-blooded worshipper of Nature returned +homeward, too blest in the triumph of his own love to feel more than a +kindly compassion for the wounded heart, consigned with no doubt of +the healing result to the fickleness of youth and the consolations of +philosophy. Not for a moment did the happier rival suspect that Kenelm’s +love was returned; that an atom in the heart of the girl who had +promised to be his bride could take its light or shadow from any love +but his own. Yet, more from delicacy of respect to the rival so suddenly +self-betrayed than from any more prudential motive, he did not speak +even to Mrs. Cameron of Kenelm’s secret and sorrow; and certainly +neither she nor Lily was disposed to ask any question that concerned the +departed visitor. + +In fact the name of Kenelm Chillingly was scarcely, if at all, mentioned +in that household during the few days which elapsed before Walter +Melville quitted Grasmere for the banks of the Rhine, not to return till +the autumn, when his marriage with Lily was to take place. During +those days Lily was calm and seemingly cheerful; her manner towards +her betrothed, if more subdued, not less affectionate than of old. +Mrs. Cameron congratulated herself on having so successfully got rid of +Kenelm Chillingly. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +SO, then, but for that officious warning, uttered under the balcony +at Luscombe, Kenelm Chillingly might never have had a rival in Walter +Melville. But ill would any reader construe the character of Kenelm, did +he think that such a thought increased the bitterness of his sorrow. +No sorrow in the thought that a noble nature had been saved from the +temptation to a great sin. + +The good man does good merely by living. And the good he does may often +mar the plans he formed for his own happiness. But he cannot regret that +Heaven has permitted him to do good. + +What Kenelm did feel is perhaps best explained in the letter to Sir +Peter, which is here subjoined:-- + + +“MY DEAREST FATHER,--Never till my dying day shall I forget that +tender desire for my happiness with which, overcoming all worldly +considerations, no matter at what disappointment to your own cherished +plans or ambition for the heir to your name and race, you sent me +away from your roof, these words ringing in my ear like the sound of +joy-bells, ‘Choose as you will, with my blessing on your choice. I open +my heart to admit another child: your wife shall be my daughter.’ It +is such an unspeakable comfort to me to recall those words now. Of all +human affections gratitude is surely the holiest; and it blends itself +with the sweetness of religion when it is gratitude to a father. And, +therefore, do not grieve too much for me, when I tell you that the hopes +which enchanted me when we parted are not to be fulfilled. Her hand is +pledged to another,--another with claims upon her preference to which +mine cannot be compared; and he is himself, putting aside the accidents +of birth and fortune, immeasurably my superior. In that thought--I mean +the thought that the man she selects deserves her more than I do, and +that in his happiness she will blend her own--I shall find comfort, so +soon as I can fairly reason down the first all-engrossing selfishness +that follows the sense of unexpected and irremediable loss. Meanwhile +you will think it not unnatural that I resort to such aids for change +of heart as are afforded by change of scene. I start for the Continent +to-night, and shall not rest till I reach Venice, which I have not yet +seen. I feel irresistibly attracted towards still canals and gliding +gondolas. I will write to you and to my dear mother the day I arrive. +And I trust to write cheerfully, with full accounts of all I see and +encounter. Do not, dearest father, in your letters to me, revert or +allude to that grief which even the tenderest word from your own tender +self might but chafe into pain more sensitive. After all, a disappointed +love is a very common lot. And we meet every day, men--ay, and women +too--who have known it, and are thoroughly cured. The manliest of our +modern lyrical poets has said very nobly, and, no doubt, very justly, + + + “To bear is to conquer our fate. + + + “Ever your loving son, + + “K. C.” + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +NEARLY a year and a half has elapsed since the date of my last chapter. +Two Englishmen were--the one seated, the other reclined at length--on +one of the mounds that furrow the ascent of Posilippo. Before them +spread the noiseless sea, basking in the sunshine, without visible +ripple; to the left there was a distant glimpse through gaps of +brushwood of the public gardens and white water of the Chiaja. They were +friends who had chanced to meet abroad unexpectedly, joined company, and +travelled together for many months, chiefly in the East. They had been +but a few days in Naples. The elder of the two had important affairs in +England which ought to have summoned him back long since. But he did not +let his friend know this; his affairs seemed to him less important than +the duties he owed to one for whom he entertained that deep and noble +love which is something stronger than brotherly, for with brotherly +affection it combines gratitude and reverence. He knew, too, that +his friend was oppressed by a haunting sorrow, of which the cause was +divined by one, not revealed by the other. + +To leave him, so beloved, alone with that sorrow in strange lands, was a +thought not to be cherished by a friend so tender; for in the friendship +of this man there was that sort of tenderness which completes a nature, +thoroughly manlike, by giving it a touch of the woman’s. + +It was a day which in our northern climates is that of winter: in the +southern clime of Naples it was mild as an English summer day, lingering +on the brink of autumn; the sun sloping towards the west, and already +gathering around it roseate and purple fleeces; elsewhere the deep blue +sky was without a cloudlet. + +Both had been for some minutes silent; at length the man reclining on +the grass--it was the younger man--said suddenly, and with no previous +hint of the subject introduced, “Lay your hand on your heart, Tom, and +answer me truly. Are your thoughts as clear from regrets as the heavens +above us are from a cloud? Man takes regret from tears that have ceased +to flow, as the heavens take clouds from the rains that have ceased to +fall.” + +“Regrets? Ah, I understand, for the loss of the girl I once loved to +distraction! No; surely I made that clear to you many, many, many months +ago, when I was your guest at Moleswich.” + +“Ay, but I have never, since then, spoken to you on that subject. I did +not dare. It seems to me so natural that a man, in the earlier struggle +between love and reason, should say, ‘Reason shall conquer, and +has conquered;’ and yet--and yet--as time glides on, feel that the +conquerors who cannot put down rebellion have a very uneasy reign. +Answer me not as at Moleswich, during the first struggle, but now, in +the after-day, when reaction from struggle comes.” + +“Upon my honour,” answered the friend, “I have had no reaction at all. +I was cured entirely, when I had once seen Jessie again, another man’s +wife, mother to his child, happy in her marriage; and, whether she was +changed or not,--very different from the sort of wife I should like to +marry, now that I am no longer a village farrier.” + +“And, I remember, you spoke of some other girl whom it would suit you +to marry. You have been long abroad from her. Do you ever think of +her,--think of her still as your future wife? Can you love her? Can you, +who have once loved so faithfully, love again?” + +“I am sure of that. I love Emily better than I did when I left England. +We correspond. She writes such nice letters.” Tom hesitated, blushed, +and continued timidly, “I should like to show you one of her letters.” + +“Do.” + +Tom drew forth the last of such letters from his breast-pocket. + +Kenelm raised himself from the grass, took the letter, and read slowly, +carefully, while Tom watched in vain for some approving smile to +brighten up the dark beauty of that melancholy face. + +Certainly it was the letter a man in love might show with pride to a +friend: the letter of a lady, well educated, well brought up, evincing +affection modestly, intelligence modestly too; the sort of letter in +which a mother who loved her daughter, and approved the daughter’s +choice, could not have suggested a correction. + +As Kenelm gave back the letter, his eyes met his friend’s. Those were +eager eyes,--eyes hungering for praise. Kenelm’s heart smote him for +that worst of sins in friendship,--want of sympathy; and that uneasy +heart forced to his lips congratulations, not perhaps quite sincere, but +which amply satisfied the lover. In uttering them, Kenelm rose to his +feet, threw his arm round his friend’s shoulder, and said, “Are you not +tired of this place, Tom? I am. Let us go back to England to-morrow.” + Tom’s honest face brightened vividly. “How selfish and egotistical I +have been!” continued Kenelm; “I ought to have thought more of you, your +career, your marriage,--pardon me--” + +“Pardon you,--pardon! Don’t I owe to you all,--owe to you Emily herself? +If you had never come to Graveleigh, never said, ‘Be my friend,’ what +should I have been now? what--what?” + +The next day the two friends quitted Naples _en route_ for England, not +exchanging many words by the way. The old loquacious crotchety humour +of Kenelm had deserted him. A duller companion than he was you could not +have conceived. He might have been the hero of a young lady’s novel. +It was only when they parted in London, that Kenelm evinced more secret +purpose, more external emotion than one of his heraldic Daces shifting +from the bed to the surface of a waveless pond. + +“If I have rightly understood you, Tom, all this change in you, all this +cure of torturing regret, was wrought, wrought lastingly,--wrought so as +to leave you heart-free for the world’s actions and a home’s peace, on +that eve when you saw her whose face till then had haunted you, another +man’s happy wife, and in so seeing her, either her face was changed or +your heart became so.” + +“Quite true. I might express it otherwise, but the fact remains the +same.” + +“God bless you, Tom; bless you in your career without, in your home +within,” said Kenelm, wringing his friend’s hand at the door of the +carriage that was to whirl to love and wealth and station the whilom +bully of a village, along the iron groove of that contrivance which, +though now the tritest of prosaic realities, seemed once too poetical +for a poet’s wildest visions. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +A WINTER’S evening at Moleswich. Very different from a winter sunset +at Naples. It is intensely cold. There has been a slight fall of snow, +accompanied with severe, bright, clean frost, a thin sprinkling of white +on the pavements. Kenelm Chillingly entered the town on foot, no longer +a knapsack on his back. Passing through the main street, he paused a +moment at the door of Will Somers. The shop was closed. No, he would +not stay there to ask in a roundabout way for news. He would go in +straightforwardly and manfully to Grasmere. He would take the inmates +there by surprise. The sooner he could bring Tom’s experience home +to himself, the better. He had schooled his heart to rely on that +experience, and it brought him back the old elasticity of his stride. +In his lofty carriage and buoyant face were again visible the old +haughtiness of the indifferentism that keeps itself aloof from the +turbulent emotions and conventional frivolities of those whom its +philosophy pities and scorns. + +“Ha! ha!” laughed he who like Swift never laughed aloud, and often +laughed inaudibly. “Ha! ha! I shall exorcise the ghost of my grief. I +shall never be haunted again. If that stormy creature whom love might +have maddened into crime, if he were cured of love at once by a single +visit to the home of her whose face was changed to him,--for the smiles +and the tears of it had become the property of another man,--how much +more should I be left without a scar! I, the heir of the Chillinglys! +I, the kinsman of a Mivers! I, the pupil of a Welby! I--I, Kenelm +Chillingly, to be thus--thus--” Here, in the midst of his boastful +soliloquy, the well-remembered brook rushed suddenly upon eye and ear, +gleaming and moaning under the wintry moon. Kenelm Chillingly stopped, +covered his face with his hands, and burst into a passion of tears. + +Recovering himself slowly, he went on along the path, every step of +which was haunted by the form of Lily. He reached the garden gate of +Grasmere, lifted the latch, and entered. As he did so, a man, touching +his hat, rushed beside, and advanced before him,--the village postman. +Kenelm drew back, allowing the man to pass to the door, and as he thus +drew back, he caught a side view of lighted windows looking on the +lawn,--the windows of the pleasant drawing-room in which he had first +heard Lily speak of her guardian. + +The postman left his letters, and regained the garden gate, while +Kenelm still stood wistfully gazing on those lighted windows. He had, +meanwhile, advanced along the whitened sward to the light, saying to +himself, “Let me just see her and her happiness, and then I will knock +boldly at the door, and say, ‘Good-evening, Mrs. Melville.’” + +So Kenelm stole across the lawn, and, stationing himself at the angle of +the wall, looked into the window. + +Melville, in dressing-robe and slippers, was seated alone by the +fireside. His dog was lazily stretched on the hearth rug. One by one the +features of the room, as the scene of his vanished happiness, grew out +from its stillness; the delicately tinted walls, the dwarf bookcase, +with its feminine ornaments on the upper shelf; the piano standing in +the same place. Lily’s own small low chair; that was not in its old +place, but thrust into a remote angle, as if it had passed into disuse. +Melville was reading a letter, no doubt one of those which the postman +had left. Surely the contents were pleasant, for his fair face, always +frankly expressive of emotion, brightened wonderfully as he read on. +Then he rose with a quick, brisk movement, and pulled the bell hastily. + +A neat maid-servant entered,--a strange face to Kenelm. Melville gave +her some brief message. “He has had joyous news,” thought Kenelm. “He +has sent for his wife that she may share his joy.” Presently the door +opened, and entered not Lily, but Mrs. Cameron. + +She looked changed. Her natural quietude of mien and movement the same, +indeed, but with more languor in it. Her hair had become gray. Melville +was standing by the table as she approached him. He put the letter into +her hands with a gay, proud smile, and looked over her shoulder while +she read it, pointing with his finger as to some lines that should more +emphatically claim her attention. + +When she had finished her face reflected his smile. They exchanged a +hearty shake of the hand, as if in congratulation. + +“Ah,” thought Kenelm, “the letter is from Lily. She is abroad. Perhaps +the birth of a first-born.” + +Just then Blanche, who had not been visible before, emerged from under +the table, and as Melville reseated himself by the fireside, sprang into +his lap, rubbing herself against his breast. The expression of his face +changed; he uttered some low exclamation. Mrs. Cameron took the creature +from his lap, stroking it quietly, carried it across the room, and put +it outside the door. Then she seated herself beside the artist, placing +her hand in his, and they conversed in low tones, till Melville’s face +again grew bright, and again he took up the letter. + +A few minutes later the maid-servant entered with the tea-things, +and after arranging them on the table approached the window. Kenelm +retreated into the shade, the servant closed the shutters and drew the +curtains; that scene of quiet home comfort vanished from the eyes of the +looker-on. + +Kenelm felt strangely perplexed. What had become of Lily? was she indeed +absent from her home? Had he conjectured rightly that the letter +which had evidently so gladdened Melville was from her, or was +it possible--here a thought of joy seized his heart and held him +breathless--was it possible that, after all, she had not married her +guardian; had found a home elsewhere,--was free? He moved on farther +down the lawn, towards the water, that he might better bring before his +sight that part of the irregular building in which Lily formerly had her +sleeping-chamber, and her “own-own room.” + +All was dark there; the shutters inexorably closed. The place with which +the childlike girl had associated her most childlike fancies, taming and +tending the honey-drinkers destined to pass into fairies, that fragile +tenement was not closed against the winds and snows; its doors were +drearily open; gaps in the delicate wire-work; of its dainty draperies a +few tattered shreds hanging here and there; and on the depopulated floor +the moonbeams resting cold and ghostly. No spray from the tiny fountain; +its basin chipped and mouldering; the scanty waters therein frozen. Of +all the pretty wild ones that Lily fancied she could tame, not one. Ah! +yes, there was one, probably not of the old familiar number; a stranger +that might have crept in for shelter from the first blasts of +winter, and now clung to an angle in the farther wall, its wings +folded,--asleep, not dead. But Kenelm saw it not; he noticed only the +general desolation of the spot. + +“Natural enough,” thought he. “She has outgrown all such pretty +silliness. A wife cannot remain a child. Still, if she had belonged to +me--” The thought choked even his inward, unspoken utterance. He turned +away, paused a moment under the leafless boughs of the great willow +still dipping into the brook, and then with impatient steps strode back +towards the garden gate. + +“No,--no,--no. I cannot now enter that house and ask for Mrs. Melville. +Trial enough for one night to stand on the old ground. I will return to +the town. I will call at Jessie’s, and there I can learn if she indeed +be happy.” + +So he went on by the path along the brook-side, the night momently +colder and colder, and momently clearer and clearer, while the moon +noiselessly glided into loftier heights. Wrapped in his abstracted +thoughts, when he came to the spot in which the path split in twain, +he did not take that which led more directly to the town. His steps, +naturally enough following the train of his thoughts, led him along +the path with which the object of his thoughts was associated. He found +himself on the burial-ground, and in front of the old ruined tomb with +the effaced inscription. + +“Ah! child! child!” he murmured almost audibly, “what depths of woman +tenderness lay concealed in thee! In what loving sympathy with the +past--sympathy only vouchsafed to the tenderest women and the highest +poets--didst thou lay thy flowers on the tomb, to which thou didst give +a poet’s history interpreted by a woman’s heart, little dreaming that +beneath the stone slept a hero of thine own fallen race.” + +He passed beneath the shadow of the yews, whose leaves no winter wind +can strew, and paused at the ruined tomb,--no flower now on its stone, +only a sprinkling of snow at the foot of it,--sprinklings of snow at the +foot of each humbler grave-mound. Motionless in the frosty air rested +the pointed church-spire, and through the frosty air, higher and higher +up the arch of heaven, soared the unpausing moon. Around and below and +above her, the stars which no science can number; yet not less difficult +to number are the thoughts, desires, aspirations which, in a space of +time briefer than a winter’s night, can pass through the infinite deeps +of a human soul. + +From his stand by the Gothic tomb, Kenelm looked along the churchyard +for the infant’s grave which Lily’s pious care had bordered with votive +flowers. Yes, in that direction there was still a gleam of colour; could +it be of flowers in that biting winter time?--the moon is so deceptive, +it silvers into the hue of the jessamines the green of the everlastings. + +He passed towards the white grave-mound. His sight had duped him; no +pale flower, no green “everlasting” on its neglected border,--only brown +mould, withered stalks, streaks of snow. + +“And yet,” he said sadly, “she told me she had never broken a promise; +and she had given a promise to the dying child. Ah! she is too happy now +to think of the dead.” + +So murmuring, he was about to turn towards the town, when close by +that child’s grave he saw another. Round that other there were pale +“everlastings,” dwarfed blossoms of the laurestinus; at the four angles +the drooping bud of a Christmas rose; at the head of the grave was a +white stone, its sharp edges cutting into the starlit air; and on the +head, in fresh letters, were inscribed these words:-- + + + To the Memory of + L. M. + Aged 17, + Died October 29, A. D. 18--, + This stone, above the grave to which her mortal + remains are consigned, beside that of an infant not + more sinless, is consecrated by those who + most mourn and miss her, + ISABEL CAMERON, + WALTER MELVILLE. + “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE next morning Mr. Emlyn, passing from his garden to the town of +Moleswich, descried a human form stretched on the burial-ground, +stirring restlessly but very slightly, as if with an involuntary shiver, +and uttering broken sounds, very faintly heard, like the moans that a +man in pain strives to suppress and cannot. + +The rector hastened to the spot. The man was lying, his face downward, +on a grave-mound, not dead, not asleep. + +“Poor fellow overtaken by drink, I fear,” thought the gentle pastor; and +as it was the habit of his mind to compassionate error even more than +grief, he accosted the supposed sinner in very soothing tones--trying to +raise him from the ground--and with very kindly words. + +Then the man lifted his face from its pillow on the grave-mound, looked +round him dreamily into the gray, blank air of the cheerless morn, +and rose to his feet quietly and slowly. The vicar was startled; he +recognized the face of him he had last seen in the magnificent affluence +of health and strength. But the character of the face was changed,--so +changed! its old serenity of expression, at once grave and sweet, +succeeded by a wild trouble in the heavy eyelids and trembling lips. + +“Mr. Chillingly,--you! Is it possible?” + +“Varus, Varus,” exclaimed Kenelm, passionately, “what hast thou done +with my legions?” + +At that quotation of the well-known greeting of Augustus to his +unfortunate general, the scholar recoiled. Had his young friend’s mind +deserted him,--dazed, perhaps, by over-study? + +He was soon reassured; Kenelm’s face settled back into calm, though a +dreary calm, like that of the wintry day. + +“I beg pardon, Mr. Emlyn; I had not quite shaken off the hold of a +strange dream. I dreamed that I was worse off than Augustus: he did not +lose the world when the legions he had trusted to another vanished into +a grave.” + +Here Kenelm linked his arm in that of the rector,--on which he leaned +rather heavily,--and drew him on from the burial-ground into the open +space where the two paths met. + +“But how long have you returned to Moleswich?” asked Emlyn; “and how +came you to choose so damp a bed for your morning slumbers?” + +“The wintry cold crept into my veins when I stood in the burial-ground, +and I was very weary; I had no sleep at night. Do not let me take you +out of your way; I am going on to Grasmere. So I see, by the record on a +gravestone, that it is more than a year ago since Mr. Melville lost his +wife.” + +“Wife? He never married.” + +“What!” cried Kenelm. “Whose, then, is that gravestone,--‘L. M.’?” + +“Alas! it is our poor Lily’s.” + +“And she died unmarried?” + +As Kenelm said this he looked up, and the sun broke out from the +gloomy haze of the morning. “I may claim thee, then,” he thought within +himself, “claim thee as mine when we meet again.” + +“Unmarried,--yes,” resumed the vicar. “She was indeed betrothed to her +guardian; they were to have been married in the autumn, on his return +from the Rhine. He went there to paint on the spot itself his great +picture, which is now so famous,--‘Roland, the Hermit Knight, looking +towards the convent lattice for a sight of the Holy Nun.’ Melville had +scarcely gone before the symptoms of the disease which proved fatal to +poor Lily betrayed themselves; they baffled all medical skill,--rapid +decline. She was always very delicate, but no one detected in her the +seeds of consumption. Melville only returned a day or two before her +death. Dear childlike Lily! how we all mourned for her!--not least the +poor, who believed in her fairy charms.” + +“And least of all, it appears, the man she was to have married.” + +“He?--Melville? How can you wrong him so? His grief was +intense--overpowering--for the time.” + +“For the time! what time?” muttered Kenelm, in tones too low for the +pastor’s ear. + +They moved on silently. Mr. Emlyn resumed,-- + +“You noticed the text on Lily’s gravestone--‘Suffer the little children +to come unto me’? She dictated it herself the day before she died. I was +with her then, so I was at the last.” + +“Were you--were you--at the last--the last? Good-day, Mr. Emlyn; we +are just in sight of the garden gate. And--excuse me--I wish to see Mr. +Melville alone.” + +“Well, then, good-day; but if you are making any stay in the +neighbourhood, will you not be our guest? We have a room at your +service.” + +“I thank you gratefully; but I return to London in an hour or so. Hold, +a moment. You were with her at the last? She was resigned to die?” + +“Resigned! that is scarcely the word. The smile left upon her lips was +not that of human resignation: it was the smile of a divine joy.” + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +“YES, sir, Mr. Melville is at home in his studio.” + +Kenelm followed the maid across the hall into a room not built at the +date of Kenelm’s former visits to the house: the artist, making Grasmere +his chief residence after Lily’s death, had added it at the back of +the neglected place wherein Lily had encaged “the souls of infants +unbaptized.” + +A lofty room, with a casement partially darkened, to the bleak north; +various sketches on the walls; gaunt specimens of antique furniture, +and of gorgeous Italian silks, scattered about in confused disorder; +one large picture on its easel curtained; another as large, and half +finished, before which stood the painter. He turned quickly, as Kenelm +entered the room unannounced, let fall brush and palette, came up to him +eagerly, grasped his hand, drooped his head on Kenelm’s shoulder, and +said, in a voice struggling with evident and strong emotion,-- + +“Since we parted, such grief! such a loss!” + +“I know it; I have seen her grave. Let us not speak of it. Why +so needlessly revive your sorrow? So--so--your sanguine hopes are +fulfilled: the world at last has done you justice? Emlyn tells me that +you have painted a very famous picture.” + +Kenelm had seated himself as he thus spoke. The painter still stood with +dejected attitude on the middle of the floor, and brushed his hand +over his moistened eyes once or twice before he answered, “Yes, wait a +moment, don’t talk of fame yet. Bear with me. The sudden sight of you +unnerved me.” + +The artist here seated himself also on an old worm-eaten Gothic chest, +rumpling and chafing the golden or tinselled threads of the embroidered +silk, so rare and so time-worn, flung over the Gothic chest, so rare +also, and so worm-eaten. + +Kenelm looked through half-closed lids at the artist, and his lips, +before slightly curved with a secret scorn, became gravely compressed. +In Melville’s struggle to conceal emotion the strong man recognized a +strong man,--recognized, and yet only wondered; wondered how such a man, +to whom Lily had pledged her hand, could so soon after the loss of Lily +go on painting pictures, and care for any praise bestowed on a yard of +canvas. + +In a very few minutes Melville recommenced conversation,--no more +reference to Lily than if she had never existed. “Yes, my last picture +has been indeed a success,--a reward complete, if tardy, for all the +bitterness of former struggles made in vain, for the galling sense of +injustice, the anguish of which only an artist knows, when unworthy +rivals are ranked before him. + + + “‘Foes quick to blame, and friends afraid to praise.’ + + +“True that I have still much to encounter; the cliques still seek to +disparage me, but between me and the cliques there stands at last the +giant form of the public, and at last critics of graver weight than the +cliques have deigned to accord to me a higher rank than even the public +yet acknowledge. Ah, Mr. Chillingly, you do not profess to be a judge of +paintings, but, excuse me, just look at this letter. I received it +only last night from the greatest connoisseur of my art, certainly in +England, perhaps in Europe.” Here Melville drew, from the side-pocket +of his picturesque _moyen age_ surtout, a letter signed by a name +authoritative to all who, being painters themselves, acknowledge +authority in one who could no more paint a picture himself than Addison, +the ablest critic of the greatest poem modern Europe has produced, could +have written ten lines of the “Paradise Lost,” and thrust the letter +into Kenelm’s hand. Kenelm read it listlessly, with an increased +contempt for an artist who could so find in gratified vanity consolation +for the life gone from earth. But, listlessly as he read the letter, the +sincere and fervent enthusiasm of the laudatory contents impressed him, +and the preeminent authority of the signature could not be denied. + +The letter was written on the occasion of Melville’s recent election to +the dignity of R. A., successor to a very great artist whose death had +created a vacancy in the Academy. He returned the letter to Melville, +saying, “This is the letter I saw you reading last night as I looked +in at your window. Indeed, for a man who cares for the opinion of other +men, this letter is very flattering; and for the painter who cares for +money, it must be very pleasant to know by how many guineas every inch +of his canvas may be covered.” Unable longer to control his passions of +rage, of scorn, of agonizing grief, Kenelm then burst forth: “Man, man, +whom I once accepted as a teacher on human life,--a teacher to warm, to +brighten, to exalt mine own indifferent, dreamy, slow-pulsed self! has +not the one woman whom thou didst select out of this overcrowded world +to be bone of thy bone, flesh of thy flesh, vanished evermore from the +earth,--little more than a year since her voice was silenced, her heart +ceased to beat? But how slight is such loss to thy life compared to the +worth of a compliment that flatters thy vanity!” + +The artist rose to his feet with an indignant impulse. But the angry +flush faded from his cheek as he looked on the countenance of his +rebuker. He walked up to him, and attempted to take his hand, but Kenelm +snatched it scornfully from his grasp. + +“Poor friend,” said Melville, sadly and soothingly, “I did not think you +loved her thus deeply. Pardon me.” He drew a chair close to Kenelm’s, +and after a brief pause went on thus, in very earnest tones, “I am not +so heartless, not so forgetful of my loss as you suppose. But reflect, +you have but just learned of her death, you are under the first shock of +grief. More than a year has been given to me for gradual submission to +the decree of Heaven. Now listen to me, and try to listen calmly. I +am many years older than you: I ought to know better the conditions +on which man holds the tenure of life. Life is composite, many-sided: +nature does not permit it to be lastingly monopolized by a single +passion, or while yet in the prime of its strength to be lastingly +blighted by a single sorrow. Survey the great mass of our common race, +engaged in the various callings, some the humblest, some the loftiest, +by which the business of the world is carried on,--can you justly +despise as heartless the poor trader, or the great statesman, when it +may be but a few days after the loss of some one nearest and dearest to +his heart, the trader reopens his shop, the statesman reappears in his +office? But in me, the votary of art, in me you behold but the weakness +of gratified vanity; if I feel joy in the hope that my art may triumph, +and my country may add my name to the list of those who contribute to +her renown, where and when ever lived an artist not sustained by that +hope, in privation, in sickness, in the sorrows he must share with his +kind? Nor is this hope that of a feminine vanity, a sicklier craving for +applause; it identifies itself with glorious services to our land, to +our race, to the children of all after time. Our art cannot triumph, our +name cannot live, unless we achieve a something that tends to beautify +or ennoble the world in which we accept the common heritage of toil and +of sorrow, in order therefrom to work out for successive multitudes a +recreation and a joy.” + +While the artist thus spoke Kenelm lifted towards his face eyes charged +with suppressed tears. And the face, kindling as the artist vindicated +himself from the young man’s bitter charge, became touchingly sweet in +its grave expression at the close of the not ignoble defence. + +“Enough,” said Kenelm, rising. “There is a ring of truth in what you +say. I can conceive the artist’s, the poet’s escape from this world, +when all therein is death and winter, into the world he creates and +colours at his will with the hues of summer. So, too, I can conceive +how the man whose life is sternly fitted into the grooves of a trader’s +calling, or a statesman’s duties, is borne on by the force of custom, +afar from such brief halting-spot as a grave. But I am no poet, no +artist, no trader, no statesman; I have no calling, my life is fixed +into no grooves. Adieu.” + +“Hold a moment. Not now, but somewhat later, ask yourself whether any +life can be permitted to wander in space, a monad detached from the +lives of others. Into some groove or other, sooner or later, it +must settle, and be borne on obedient to the laws of Nature and the +responsibility to God.” + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +KENELM went back alone, and with downcast looks, through the desolate, +flowerless garden, when at the other side of the gate a light touch was +laid on his arm. He looked up, and recognized Mrs. Cameron. + +“I saw you,” she said, “from my window coming to the house, and I have +been waiting for you here. I wished to speak to you alone. Allow me to +walk beside you.”’ + +Kenelm inclined his head assentingly, but made no answer. They were +nearly midway between the cottage and the burial-ground when Mrs. +Cameron resumed, her tones quick and agitated, contrasting her habitual +languid quietude,-- + +“I have a great weight on my mind; it ought not to be remorse. I acted +as I thought in my conscience for the best. But oh, Mr. Chillingly, if I +erred,--if I judged wrongly, do say you at least forgive me.” She seized +his hand, pressing it convulsively. Kenelm muttered inaudibly: a sort +of dreary stupor had succeeded to the intense excitement of grief. Mrs. +Cameron went on,-- + +“You could not have married Lily; you know you could not. The secret of +her birth could not, in honour, have been concealed from your parents. +They could not have consented to your marriage; and even if you had +persisted, without that consent and in spite of that secret, to press +for it,--even had she been yours--” + +“Might she not be living now?” cried Kenelm, fiercely. + +“No,--no; the secret must have come out. The cruel world would have +discovered it; it would have reached her ears. The shame of it would +have killed her. How bitter then would have been her short interval of +life! As it is, she passed away,--resigned and happy. But I own that I +did not, could not, understand her, could not believe her feeling for +you to be so deep. I did think that when she knew her own heart she +would find that love for her guardian was its strongest affection. She +assented, apparently without a pang, to become his wife; and she seemed +always so fond of him, and what girl would not be? But I was mistaken, +deceived. From the day you saw her last, she began to fade away; but +then Walter left a few days after, and I thought that it was his absence +she mourned. She never owned to me that it was yours,--never till too +late,--too late,--just when my sad letter had summoned him back, only +three days before she died. Had I known earlier, while yet there was +hope of recovery, I must have written to you, even though the obstacles +to your union with her remained the same. Oh, again I implore you, say +that if I erred you forgive me. She did, kissing me so tenderly. She did +forgive me. Will not you? It would have been her wish.” + +“Her wish? Do you think I could disobey it? I know not if I have +anything to forgive. If I have, now could I not forgive one who loved +her? God comfort us both.” + +He bent down and kissed Mrs. Cameron’s forehead. The poor woman threw +her arm gratefully, lovingly round him, and burst into tears. + +When she had recovered her emotion, she said,-- + +“And now, it is with so much lighter a heart that I can fulfil her +commission to you. But, before I place this in your hands, can you +make me one promise? Never tell Melville how she loved you. She was so +careful he should never guess that. And if he knew it was the thought of +union with him which had killed her, he would never smile again.” + +“You would not ask such a promise if you could guess how sacred from all +the world I hold the secret that you confide to me. By that secret +the grave is changed into an altar. Our bridals now are only a while +deferred.” + +Mrs. Cameron placed a letter in Kenelm’s hand, and murmuring in accents +broken by a sob, “She gave it to me the day before her last,” left him, +and with quick vacillating steps hurried back towards the cottage. She +now understood him, at last, too well not to feel that on opening that +letter he must be alone with the dead. + +It is strange that we need have so little practical household knowledge +of each other to be in love. Never till then had Kenelm’s eyes rested +upon Lily’s handwriting. And he now gazed at the formal address on the +envelope with a sort of awe. Unknown handwriting coming to him from an +unknown world,--delicate, tremulous handwriting,--handwriting not of one +grown up, yet not of a child who had long to live. + +He turned the envelope over and over,--not impatiently, as does the +lover whose heart beats at the sound of the approaching footstep, but +lingeringly, timidly. He would not break the seal. + +He was now so near the burial-ground. Where should the first letter +ever received from her--the sole letter he ever could receive--be so +reverentially, lovingly read, as at her grave? + +He walked on to the burial-ground, sat down by the grave, broke the +envelope; a poor little ring, with a poor little single turquoise, +rolled out and rested at his feet. The letter contained only these +words,-- + + +The ring comes back to you. I could not live to marry another. I never +knew how I loved you--till, till I began to pray that you might not love +me too much. Darling! darling! good-by, darling! + + LILY. + +Don’t let Lion ever see this, or ever know what it says to you. He is so +good, and deserves to be so happy. Do you remember the day of the ring? +Darling! darling! + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +SOMEWHAT more than another year has rolled away. It is early spring +in London. The trees in the park and squares are budding into leaf and +blossom. Leopold Travers has had a brief but serious conversation with +his daughter, and now gone forth on horseback. Handsome and graceful +still, Leopold Travers when in London is pleased to find himself +scarcely less the fashion with the young than he was when himself in +youth. He is now riding along the banks of the Serpentine, no one better +mounted, better dressed, better looking, or talking with greater fluency +on the topics which interest his companions. + +Cecilia is in the smaller drawing-room, which is exclusively +appropriated to her use, alone with Lady Glenalvon. + +LADY GLENALVON.--“I own, my dear, dear Cecilia, that I arrange myself at +last on the side of your father. How earnestly at one time I had hoped +that Kenelm Chillingly might woo and win the bride that seemed to me +most fitted to adorn and to cheer his life, I need not say. But when at +Exmundham he asked me to befriend his choice of another, to reconcile +his mother to that choice,--evidently not a suitable one,--I gave him +up. And though that affair is at an end, he seems little likely ever to +settle down to practical duties and domestic habits, an idle wanderer +over the face of the earth, only heard of in remote places and with +strange companions. Perhaps he may never return to England.” + +CECILIA.--“He is in England now, and in London.” + +LADY GLENALVON.--“You amaze me! Who told you so?” + +CECILIA.--“His father, who is with him. Sir Peter called yesterday, and +spoke to me so kindly.” Cecilia here turned aside her face to conceal +the tears that had started to her eyes. + +LADY GLENALVON.--“Did Mr. Travers see Sir Peter?” + +CECILIA.--“Yes; and I think it was something that passed between them +which made my father speak to me--for the first time--almost sternly.” + +LADY GLENALVON.--“In urging Chillingly Gordon’s suit?” + +CECILIA.--“Commanding me to reconsider my rejection of it. He has +contrived to fascinate my father.” + +LADY GLENALVON.--“So he has me. Of course you might choose among other +candidates for your hand one of much higher worldly rank, of much larger +fortune; yet, as you have already rejected them, Gordon’s merits become +still more entitled to a fair hearing. He has already leaped into +a position that mere rank and mere wealth cannot attain. Men of all +parties speak highly of his parliamentary abilities. He is already +marked in public opinion as a coming man,--a future minister of the +highest grade. He has youth and good looks; his moral character is +without a blemish: yet his manners are so free from affected austerity, +so frank, so genial. Any woman might be pleased with his companionship; +and you, with your intellect, your culture,--you, so born for high +station,--you of all women might be proud to partake the anxieties of +his career and the rewards of his ambition.” + +CECILIA (clasping her hands tightly together).--“I cannot, I cannot. He +may be all you say,--I know nothing against Mr. Chillingly Gordon,--but +my whole nature is antagonistic to his, and even were it not so--” + +She stopped abruptly, a deep blush warming up her fair face, and +retreating to leave it coldly pale. + +LADY GLENALVON (tenderly kissing her).--“You have not, then, even +yet conquered the first maiden fancy; the ungrateful one is still +remembered?” + +Cecilia bowed her head on her friend’s breast, and murmured imploringly, +“Don’t speak against him; he has been so unhappy. How much he must have +loved!” + +“But it is not you whom he loved.” + +“Something here, something at my heart, tells me that he will love me +yet; and, if not, I am contented to be his friend.” + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +WHILE the conversation just related took place between Cecilia and +Lady Glenalvon, Chillingly Gordon was seated alone with Mivers in +the comfortable apartment of the cynical old bachelor. Gordon had +breakfasted with his kinsman, but that meal was long over; the two +men having found much to talk about on matters very interesting to the +younger, nor without interest to the elder one. + +It is true that Chillingly Gordon had, within the very short space of +time that had elapsed since his entrance into the House of Commons, +achieved one of those reputations which mark out a man for early +admission into the progressive career of office,--not a very showy +reputation, but a very solid one. He had none of the gifts of the +genuine orator, no enthusiasm, no imagination, no imprudent bursts of +fiery words from a passionate heart. But he had all the gifts of +an exceedingly telling speaker,--a clear metallic voice; well-bred, +appropriate action, not less dignified for being somewhat too quiet; +readiness for extempore replies; industry and method for prepared +expositions of principle or fact. But his principal merit with the +chiefs of the assembly was in the strong good sense and worldly tact +which made him a safe speaker. For this merit he was largely indebted to +his frequent conferences with Chillingly Mivers. That gentleman, whether +owing to his social qualities or to the influence of “The Londoner” on +public opinion, enjoyed an intimate acquaintance with the chiefs of all +parties, and was up to his ears in the wisdom of the world. “Nothing,” + he would say, “hurts a young Parliamentary speaker like violence in +opinion, one way or the other. Shun it. Always allow that much may be +said on both sides. When the chiefs of your own side suddenly adopt a +violence, you can go with them or against them, according as best suits +your own book.” + +“So,” said Mivers, reclined on his sofa, and approaching the end of his +second Trabuco (he never allowed himself more than two), “so I think we +have pretty well settled the tone you must take in your speech to-night. +It is a great occasion.” + +“True. It is the first time in which the debate has been arranged so +that I may speak at ten o’clock or later. That in itself is a great +leap; and it is a Cabinet minister whom I am to answer,--luckily, he +is a very dull fellow. Do you think I might hazard a joke,--at least a +witticism?” + +“At his expense? Decidedly not. Though his office compels him to +introduce this measure, he was by no means in its favour when it was +discussed in the Cabinet; and though, as you say, he is dull, it is +precisely that sort of dulness which is essential to the formation +of every respectable Cabinet. Joke at him, indeed! Learn that gentle +dulness never loves a joke--at its own expense. Vain man! seize the +occasion which your blame of his measure affords you to secure his +praise of yourself; compliment him. Enough of politics. It never does to +think too much over what one has already decided to say. Brooding over +it, one may become too much in earnest, and commit an indiscretion. So +Kenelm has come back?” + +“Yes. I heard that news last night, at White’s, from Travers. Sir Peter +had called on Travers.” + +“Travers still favours your suit to the heiress?” + +“More, I think, than ever. Success in Parliament has great effect on a +man who has success in fashion and respects the opinion of clubs. But +last night he was unusually cordial. Between you and me, I think he is +a little afraid that Kenelm may yet be my rival. I gathered that from a +hint he let fall of the unwelcome nature of Sir Peter’s talk to him.” + +“Why has Travers conceived a dislike to poor Kenelm? He seemed partial +enough to him once.” + +“Ay, but not as a son-in-law, even before I had a chance of becoming so. +And when, after Kenelm appeared at Exmundham, while Travers was staying +there, Travers learned, I suppose from Lady Chillingly, that Kenelm had +fallen in love with and wanted to marry some other girl, who it +seems rejected him; and still more when he heard that Kenelm had been +subsequently travelling on the Continent in company with a low-lived +fellow, the drunken, riotous son of a farrier, you may well conceive how +so polished and sensible a man as Leopold Travers would dislike the +idea of giving his daughter to one so little likely to make an agreeable +son-in-law. Bah! I have no fear of Kenelm. By the way, did Sir Peter say +if Kenelm had quite recovered his health? He was at death’s door some +eighteen months ago, when Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly were summoned to +town by the doctors.” + +“My dear Gordon, I fear there is no chance of your succession to +Exmundham. Sir Peter says that his wandering Hercules is as stalwart +as ever, and more equable in temperament, more taciturn and grave,--in +short, less odd. But when you say you have no fear of Kenelm’s rivalry, +do you mean only as to Cecilia Travers?” + +“Neither as to that nor as to anything in life; and as to the succession +to Exmundham, it is his to leave as he pleases, and I have cause to +think he would never leave it to me. More likely to Parson John or the +parson’s son,--or why not to yourself? I often think that for the prizes +immediately set before my ambition I am better off without land: land is +a great obfuscator.” + +“Humph, there is some truth in that. Yet the fear of land and +obfuscation does not seem to operate against your suit to Cecilia +Travers?” + +“Her father is likely enough to live till I maybe contented to ‘rest and +be thankful’ in the Upper House; and I should not like to be a landless +peer.” + +“You are right there; but I should tell you that, now Kenelm has come +back, Sir Peter has set his heart on his son’s being your rival.” + +“For Cecilia?” + +“Perhaps; but certainly for Parliamentary reputation. The senior member +for the county means to retire, and Sir Peter has been urged to allow +his son to be brought forward,--from what I hear, with the certainty of +success.” + +“What! in spite of that wonderful speech of his on coming of age?” + +“Pooh! that is now understood to have been but a bad joke on the new +ideas, and their organs, including ‘The Londoner.’ But if Kenelm does +come into the House, it will not be on your side of the question; and +unless I greatly overrate his abilities--which very likely I do--he will +not be a rival to despise. Except, indeed, that he may have one fault +which in the present day would be enough to unfit him for public life.” + +“And what is that fault?” + +“Treason to the blood of the Chillinglys. This is the age, in England, +when one cannot be too much of a Chillingly. I fear that if Kenelm does +become bewildered by a political abstraction,--call it, no matter what, +say, ‘love of his country,’ or some such old-fashioned crotchet,--I +fear, I greatly fear, that he may be--in earnest.” + + + +CHAPTER THE LAST. + +IT was a field night in the House of Commons,--an adjourned debate, +opened by George Belvoir, who had been, the last two years, very slowly +creeping on in the favour, or rather the indulgence of the House, and +more than justifying Kenelm’s prediction of his career. Heir to a noble +name and vast estates, extremely hard-working, very well informed, it +was impossible that he should not creep on. That night he spoke sensibly +enough, assisting his memory by frequent references to his notes; +listened to courteously, and greeted with a faint “Hear, hear!” of +relief when he had done. + +Then the House gradually thinned till nine o’clock, at which hour it +became very rapidly crowded. A Cabinet minister had solemnly risen, +deposited on the table before him a formidable array of printed papers, +including a corpulent blue-book. Leaning his arm on the red box, he +commenced with this awe-compelling sentence,-- + +“Sir, I join issue with the right honourable gentleman opposite. He +says this is not raised as a party question. I deny it. Her Majesty’s +Government are put upon their trial.” + +Here there were cheers, so loudly, and so rarely greeting a speech from +that Cabinet minister, that he was put out, and had much to “hum” and to +“ha,” before he could recover the thread of his speech. Then he went on, +with unbroken but lethargic fluency; read long extracts from the public +papers, inflicted a whole page from the blue-book, wound up with a +peroration of respectable platitudes, glanced at the clock, saw that he +had completed the hour which a Cabinet minister who does not profess to +be oratorical is expected to speak, but not to exceed; and sat down. + +Up rose a crowd of eager faces, from which the Speaker, as previously +arranged with the party whips, selected one,--a young face, hardy, +intelligent, emotionless. + +I need not say that it was the face of Chillingly Gordon. His position +that night was one that required dexterous management and delicate tact. +He habitually supported the Government; his speeches had been hitherto +in their favour. On this occasion he differed from the Government. The +difference was known to the chiefs of the Opposition, and hence the +arrangement of the whips, that he should speak for the first time after +ten o’clock, and for the first time in reply to a Cabinet minister. +It is a position in which a young party man makes or mars his future. +Chillingly Gordon spoke from the third row behind the Government; he had +been duly cautioned by Mivers not to affect a conceited independence, or +an adhesion to “violence” in ultra-liberal opinions, by seating +himself below the gangway. Speaking thus, amid the rank and file of the +Ministerial supporters, any opinion at variance with the mouthpieces of +the Treasury Bench would be sure to produce a more effective sensation +than if delivered from the ranks of the mutinous Bashi Bazouks divided +by the gangway from better disciplined forces. His first brief sentences +enthralled the House, conciliated the Ministerial side, kept the +Opposition side in suspense. The whole speech was, indeed, felicitously +adroit, and especially in this, that, while in opposition to the +Government as a whole, it expressed the opinions of a powerful section +of the Cabinet, which, though at present a minority, yet being the most +enamoured of a New Idea, the progress of the age would probably render +a safe investment for the confidence which honest Gordon reposed in its +chance of beating its colleagues. + +It was not, however, till Gordon had concluded that the cheers of his +audience--impulsive and hearty as are the cheers of that assembly when +the evidence of intellect is unmistakable--made manifest to the gallery +and the reporters the full effect of the speech he had delivered. The +chief of the Opposition whispered to his next neighbour, “I wish we +could get that man.” The Cabinet minister whom Gordon had answered--more +pleased with a personal compliment to himself than displeased with an +attack on the measure his office compelled him to advocate--whispered to +his chief, “That is a man we must not lose.” + +Two gentlemen in the Speaker’s gallery, who had sat there from the +opening of the debate, now quitted their places. Coming into the lobby, +they found themselves commingled with a crowd of members who had also +quitted their seats, after Gordon’s speech, in order to discuss its +merits, as they gathered round the refreshment table for oranges or +soda-water. Among them was George Belvoir, who, on sight of the younger +of the two gentlemen issuing from the Speaker’s gallery, accosted him +with friendly greeting,-- + +“Ha! Chillingly, how are you? Did not know you were in town. Been +here all the evening? Yes; very good debate. How did you like Gordon’s +speech?” + +“I liked yours much better.” + +“Mine!” cried George, very much flattered and very much surprised. “Oh, +mine was a mere humdrum affair, a plain statement of the reasons for the +vote I should give. And Gordon’s was anything but that. You did not like +his opinions?” + +“I don’t know what his opinions are. But I did not like his ideas.” + +“I don’t quite understand you. What ideas?” + +“The new ones; by which it is shown how rapidly a great state can be +made small.” + +Here Mr. Belvoir was taken aside by a brother member, on an important +matter to be brought before the committee on salmon fisheries, on which +they both served; and Kenelm, with his companion, Sir Peter, threaded +his way through the crowded lobby and disappeared. Emerging into the +broad space, with its lofty clock-tower, Sir Peter halted, and pointing +towards the old Abbey, half in shadow, half in light, under the tranquil +moonbeams, said,-- + +“It tells much for the duration of a people when it accords with the +instinct of immortality in a man; when an honoured tomb is deemed +recompense for the toils and dangers of a noble life. How much of the +history of England Nelson summed up in the simple words,--‘Victory or +Westminster Abbey.’” + +“Admirably expressed, my dear father,” said Kenelm, briefly. + +“I agree with your remark, which I overheard, on Gordon’s speech,” + resumed Sir Peter. “It was wonderfully clever; yet I should have been +sorry to hear you speak it. It is not by such sentiments that Nelsons +become great. If such sentiments should ever be national, the cry will +not be ‘Victory or Westminster Abbey!’ but ‘Defeat and the Three per +Cents!’” + +Pleased with his own unwonted animation, and with the sympathizing +half-smile on his son’s taciturn lips, Sir Peter then proceeded more +immediately to the subjects which pressed upon his heart. Gordon’s +success in Parliament, Gordon’s suit to Cecilia Travers, favoured, as +Sir Peter had learned, by her father, rejected as yet by herself, were +somehow inseparably mixed up in Sir Peter’s mind and his words, as he +sought to kindle his son’s emulation. He dwelt on the obligations which +a country imposed on its citizens, especially on the young and vigorous +generation to which the destinies of those to follow were intrusted; +and with these stern obligations he combined all the cheering and tender +associations which an English public man connects with an English home: +the wife with a smile to soothe the cares, and a mind to share the +aspirations, of a life that must go through labour to achieve renown; +thus, in all he said, binding together, as if they could not be +disparted, Ambition and Cecilia. + +His son did not interrupt him by a word, Sir Peter in his eagerness not +noticing that Kenelm had drawn him aside from the direct thoroughfare, +and had now made halt in the middle of Westminster bridge, bending +over the massive parapet and gazing abstractedly upon the waves of +the starlit river. On the right the stately length of the people’s +legislative palace, so new in its date, so elaborately in each detail +ancient in its form, stretching on towards the lowly and jagged roofs of +penury and crime. Well might these be so near to the halls of a people’s +legislative palace: near to the heart of every legislator for a people +must be the mighty problem how to increase a people’s splendour and its +virtue, and how to diminish its penury and its crime. + +“How strange it is,” said Kenelm, still bending over the parapet, +“that throughout all my desultory wanderings I have ever been attracted +towards the sight and the sound of running waters, even those of the +humblest rill! Of what thoughts, of what dreams, of what memories, +colouring the history of my past, the waves of the humblest rill could +speak, were the waves themselves not such supreme philosophers,--roused +indeed on their surface, vexed by a check to their own course, but so +indifferent to all that makes gloom or death to the mortals who think +and dream and feel beside their banks.” + +“Bless me,” said Peter to himself, “the boy has got back to his old vein +of humours and melancholies. He has not heard a word I have been saying. +Travers is right. He will never do anything in life. Why did I christen +him Kenelm? he might as well have been christened Peter.” Still, loth +to own that his eloquence had been expended in vain and that the wish of +his heart was doomed to expire disappointed, Sir Peter said aloud, “You +have not listened to what I said; Kenelm, you grieve me.” + +“Grieve you! you! do not say that, Father, dear Father. Listen to you! +Every word you have said has sunk into the deepest deep of my heart. +Pardon my foolish, purposeless snatch of talk to myself: it is but my +way, only my way, dear Father!” + +“Boy, boy,” cried Sir Peter, with tears in his voice, “if you could +get out of those odd ways of yours I should be so thankful. But if +you cannot, nothing you can do shall grieve me. Only, let me say this; +running waters have had a great charm for you. With a humble rill you +associate thoughts, dreams, memories in your past. But now you halt by +the stream of the mighty river: before you the senate of an empire wider +than Alexander’s; behind you the market of a commerce to which that of +Tyre was a pitiful trade. Look farther down, those squalid hovels, +how much there to redeem or to remedy; and out of sight, but not very +distant, the nation’s Walhalla, ‘Victory or Westminster Abbey!’ The +humble rill has witnessed your past. Has the mighty river no effect on +your future? The rill keeps no record of your past: shall the river +keep no record of your future? Ah, boy, boy, I see you are dreaming +still,--no use talking. Let us go home.” + +“I was not dreaming, I was telling myself that the time had come to +replace the old Kenelm with the new ideas, by a new Kenelm with the +Ideas of Old. Ah! perhaps we must,--at whatever cost to ourselves,--we +must go through the romance of life before we clearly detect what is +grand in its realities. I can no longer lament that I stand estranged +from the objects and pursuits of my race. I have learned how much I have +with them in common. I have known love; I have known sorrow.” + +Kenelm paused a moment, only a moment, then lifted the head which, +during that pause, had drooped, and stood erect at the full height of +his stature, startling his father by the change that had passed over his +face; lip, eye, his whole aspect, eloquent with a resolute enthusiasm, +too grave to be the flash of a passing moment. + +“Ay, ay,” he said, “Victory or Westminster Abbey! The world is a +battle-field in which the worst wounded are the deserters, stricken as +they seek to fly, and hushing the groans that would betray the secret of +their inglorious hiding-place. The pain of wounds received in the thick +of the fight is scarcely felt in the joy of service to some honoured +cause, and is amply atoned by the reverence for noble scars. My choice +is made. Not that of deserter, that of soldier in the ranks.” + +“It will not be long before you rise from the ranks, my boy, if you hold +fast to the Idea of Old, symbolized in the English battle-cry, ‘Victory +or Westminster Abbey.’” + +So saying, Sir Peter took his son’s arm, leaning on it proudly; and so, +into the crowded thoroughfares, from the halting-place on the modern +bridge that spans the legendary river, passes the Man of the Young +Generation to fates beyond the verge of the horizon to which the eyes of +my generation must limit their wistful gaze. + + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kenelm Chillingly, Complete, by +Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENELM CHILLINGLY, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 7658-0.txt or 7658-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/6/5/7658/ + +Produced by David Widger and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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