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+Project Gutenberg's Stephen Archer and Other Tales, by George MacDonald
+
+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: Stephen Archer and Other Tales
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9191]
+This file was first posted on September 14, 2003
+Last updated: April 19, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STEPHEN ARCHER AND OTHER TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Beth Trapaga and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STEPHEN ARCHER AND OTHER TALES
+
+By George Macdonald
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+STEPHEN ARCHER
+
+THE GIFTS OF THE CHILD CHRIST
+
+THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS
+
+THE BUTCHER'S BILLS
+
+POET IN A STORM
+
+IF I HAD A FATHER
+
+
+
+
+STEPHEN ARCHER
+
+
+Stephen Archer was a stationer, bookseller, and newsmonger in one of the
+suburbs of London. The newspapers hung in a sort of rack at his door, as
+if for the convenience of the public to help themselves in passing. On
+his counter lay penny weeklies and books coming out in parts, amongst
+which the _Family Herald_ was in force, and the _London Journal_ not
+to be found. I had occasion once to try the extent of his stock, for I
+required a good many copies of one of Shakspere's plays--at a penny, if
+I could find such. He shook his head, and told me he could not encourage
+the sale of such productions. This pleased me; for, although it was of
+little consequence what he thought concerning Shakspere, it was of the
+utmost import that he should prefer principle to pence. So I loitered
+in the shop, looking for something to buy; but there was nothing in the
+way of literature: his whole stock, as far as I could see, consisted of
+little religious volumes of gay binding and inferior print; he had
+nothing even from the Halifax press. He was a good-looking fellow, about
+thirty, with dark eyes, overhanging brows that indicated thought, mouth
+of character, and no smile. I was interested in him.
+
+I asked if he would mind getting the plays I wanted. He said he would
+rather not. I bade him good morning.
+
+More than a year after, I saw him again. I had passed his shop many
+times, but this morning, I forget why, I went in. I could hardly
+recall the former appearance of the man, so was it swallowed up in a
+new expression. His face was alive, and his behaviour courteous. A
+similar change had passed upon his stock. There was _Punch_ and _Fun_
+amongst the papers, and tenpenny Shaksperes on the counter, printed on
+straw-paper, with ugly wood-cuts. The former class of publications had
+not vanished, but was mingled with cheap editions of some worthy of
+being called books.
+
+"I see you have changed your mind since I saw you last," I said.
+
+"You have the advantage of me, sir," he returned. "I did not know you
+were a customer."
+
+"Not much of that," I replied; "only in intention. I wanted you to get
+me some penny Shaksperes, and you would not take the order."
+
+"Oh! I think I remember," he answered, with just a trace of confusion;
+adding, with a smile, "I'm married now;" and I fancied I could read a
+sort of triumph over his former self.
+
+I laughed, of course--the best expression of sympathy at hand--and,
+after a little talk, left the shop, resolved to look in again soon.
+Before a month was over, I had made the acquaintance of his wife too,
+and between them learned so much of their history as to be able to
+give the following particulars concerning it.
+
+Stephen Archer was one of the deacons, rather a young one perhaps, of
+a dissenting congregation. The chapel was one of the oldest in the
+neighbourhood, quite triumphant in ugliness, but possessed of a history
+which gave it high rank with those who frequented it. The sacred odour
+of the names of pastors who had occupied its pulpit, lingered about
+its walls--names unknown beyond its precincts, but starry in the eyes
+of those whose world lay within its tabernacle. People generally do
+not know what a power some of these small _conventicles_ are in the
+education of the world. If only as an outlet for the energies of men of
+lowly education and position, who in connexion with most of the churches
+of the Establishment would find no employment, they are of inestimable
+value.
+
+To Stephen Archer, for instance, when I saw him first, his chapel was
+the sole door out of the common world into the infinite. When he
+entered, as certainly did the awe and the hush of the sacred place
+overshadow his spirit as if it had been a gorgeous cathedral-house
+borne aloft upon the joined palms of its Gothic arches. The Master is
+truer than men think, and the power of His presence, as Browning has
+so well set forth in his "Christmas Eve," is where two or three are
+gathered in His name. And inasmuch as Stephen was not a man of
+imagination, he had the greater need of the undefined influences of
+the place.
+
+He had been chief in establishing a small mission amongst the poor in
+the neighbourhood, with the working of which he occupied the greater
+part of his spare time. I will not venture to assert that his mind was
+pure from the ambition of gathering from these to swell the flock at
+the little chapel; nay, I will not even assert that there never arose
+a suggestion of the enemy that the pence of these rescued brands might
+alleviate the burden upon the heads and shoulders of the poorly
+prosperous caryatids of his church; but I do say that Stephen was an
+honest man in the main, ever ready to grow honester: and who can
+demand more?
+
+One evening, as he was putting up the shutters of his window, his
+attention was arrested by a shuffling behind him. Glancing round, he
+set down the shutter, and the next instant boxed a boy's ears, who ran
+away howling and mildly excavating his eyeballs, while a young,
+pale-faced woman, with the largest black eyes he had ever seen,
+expostulated with him on the proceeding.
+
+"Oh, sir!" she said, "he wasn't troubling you." There was a touch of
+indignation in the tone.
+
+"I'm sorry I can't return the compliment," said Stephen, rather
+illogically. "If I'd ha' known you liked to have your shins kicked, I
+might ha' let the young rascal alone. But you see I didn't know it."
+
+"He's my brother," said the young woman, conclusively.
+
+"The more shame to him," returned Stephen. "If he'd been your husband,
+now, there might ha' been more harm than good in interferin', 'cause
+he'd only give it you the worse after; but brothers! Well, I'm sure
+it's a pity I interfered."
+
+"I don't see the difference," she retorted, still with offence.
+
+"I beg your pardon, then," said Stephen. "I promise you I won't
+interfere next time."
+
+So saying, he turned, took up his shutter, and proceeded to close his
+shop. The young woman walked on.
+
+Stephen gave an inward growl or two at the depravity of human nature,
+and set out to make his usual visits; but before he reached the place,
+he had begun to doubt whether the old Adam had not overcome him in the
+matter of boxing the boy's ears; and the following interviews appeared
+in consequence less satisfactory than usual. Disappointed with
+himself, he could not be so hopeful about others.
+
+As he was descending a stair so narrow that it was only just possible
+for two people to pass, he met the same young woman ascending. Glad of
+the opportunity, he stepped aside with his best manners and said:
+
+"I am sorry I offended you this evening. I did not know that the boy
+was your brother."
+
+"Oh, sir!" she returned--for to one in her position, Stephen Archer
+was a gentleman: had he not a shop of his own?--"you didn't hurt him
+much; only I'm so anxious to save him."
+
+"To be sure," returned Stephen, "that is the one thing needful."
+
+"Yes, sir," she rejoined. "I try hard, but boys will be boys."
+
+"There is but one way, you know," said Stephen, following the words
+with a certain formula which I will not repeat.
+
+The girl stared. "I don't know about that," she said. "What I want is
+to keep him out of prison. Sometimes I think I shan't be able long.
+Oh, sir! if you be the gentleman that goes about here, couldn't you
+help me? I can't get anything for him to do, and I can't be at home to
+look after him."
+
+"What is he about all day, then?"
+
+"The streets," she answered. "I don't know as he's ever done anything
+he oughtn't to, but he came home once in a fright, and that breathless
+with running, that I thought he'd ha' fainted. If I only could get him
+into a place!"
+
+"Do you live here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, sir; I do."
+
+At the moment a half-bestial sound below, accompanied by uncertain
+footsteps, announced the arrival of a drunken bricklayer.
+
+"There's Joe Bradley," she said, in some alarm. "Come into my room,
+sir, till he's gone up; there's no harm in him when he's sober, but he
+ain't been sober for a week now."
+
+Stephen obeyed; and she, taking a key from her pocket, and unlocking a
+door on the landing, led him into a room to which his back-parlour was
+a paradise. She offered him the only chair in the room, and took her
+place on the edge of the bed, which showed a clean but much-worn
+patchwork quilt. Charley slept on the bed, and she on a shake-down in
+the corner. The room was not untidy, though the walls and floor were
+not clean; indeed there were not in it articles enough to make it
+untidy withal.
+
+"Where do you go on Sundays?" asked Stephen.
+
+"Nowheres. I ain't got nobody," she added, with a smile, "to take me
+nowheres."
+
+"What do you do then?"
+
+"I've plenty to do mending of Charley's trousers. You see they're only
+shoddy, and as fast as I patch 'em in one place they're out in
+another."
+
+"But you oughtn't to work Sundays."
+
+"I have heard tell of people as say you oughtn't to work of a Sunday;
+but where's the differ when you've got a brother to look after? He
+ain't got no mother."
+
+"But you're breaking the fourth commandment; and you know where people
+go that do that. You believe in hell, I suppose."
+
+"I always thought that was a bad word."
+
+"To be sure! But it's where you'll go if you break the Sabbath."
+
+"Oh, sir!" she said, bursting into tears, "I don't care what become of
+me if I could only save that boy."
+
+"What do you mean by _saving_ him?"
+
+"Keep him out of prison, to be sure. I shouldn't mind the workus
+myself, if I could get him into a place."
+
+_A place_ was her heaven, a prison her hell. Stephen looked at her
+more attentively. No one who merely glanced at her could help seeing
+her eyes first, and no one who regarded them could help thinking her
+nice-looking at least, all in a shabby cotton dress and black shawl as
+she was. It was only the "penury and pine" that kept her from being
+beautiful. Her features were both regular and delicate, with an
+anxious mystery about the thin tremulous lips, and a beseeching look,
+like that of an animal, in her fine eyes, hazy with the trouble that
+haunted her mouth. Stephen had the good sense not to press the Sabbath
+question, and by degrees drew her story from her.
+
+Her father had been a watchmaker, but, giving way to drink, had been,
+as far back as she could remember, entirely dependent on her mother,
+who by charing and jobbing managed to keep the family alive. Sara was
+then the only child, but, within a few months after her father's
+death, her mother died in giving birth to the boy. With her last
+breath she had commended him to his sister. Sara had brought him
+up--how she hardly knew. He had been everything to her. The child that
+her mother had given her was all her thought. Those who start with the
+idea "that people with nought are naughty," whose eyes are offended by
+rags, whose ears cannot distinguish between vulgarity and wickedness,
+and who think the first duty is care for self, must be excused from
+believing that Sara Coulter passed through all that had been _decreed_
+for her without losing her simplicity and purity. But God is in the
+back slums as certainly as--perhaps to some eyes more evidently
+than--in Belgravia. That which was the burden of her life--namely, the
+care of her brother--was her salvation. After hearing her story, which
+he had to draw from her, because she had no impulse to talk about
+herself, Stephen went home to turn the matter over in his mind.
+
+The next Sunday, after he had had his dinner, he went out into the
+same region, and found himself at Sara's door. She was busy over a
+garment of Charley's, who was sitting on the bed with half a loaf in
+his hand. When he recognized Stephen he jumped down, and would have
+rushed from the room; but changing his mind, possibly because of the
+condition of his lower limbs, he turned, and springing into the bed,
+scrambled under the counterpane, and drew it over his head.
+
+"I am sorry to see you working on Sunday," Stephen said, with an
+emphasis that referred to their previous conversation.
+
+"You would not have the boy go naked?" she returned, with again a
+touch of indignation. She had been thinking how easily a man of
+Stephen's social position could get him a place if he would. Then
+recollecting her manners, she added, "I should get him better clothes
+if he had a place. Wouldn't you like to get a place now, Charley?"
+
+"Yes," said Charley, from under the counterpane, and began to peep at
+the visitor.
+
+He was not an ill-looking boy--only roguish to a degree. His eyes, as
+black as his sister's, but only half as big, danced and twinkled with
+mischief. Archer would have taken him off to his ragged class, but
+even of rags he had not at the moment the complement necessary for
+admittance. He left them, therefore, with a few commonplaces of
+religious phrase, falling utterly meaningless. But he was not one to
+confine his ministrations to words: he was an honest man. Before the
+next Sunday it was clear to him that he could do nothing for the soul
+of Sara until he had taken the weight of her brother off it.
+
+When he called the next Sunday the same vision precisely met his
+view. She might have been sitting there ever since, with those
+wonderfully-patched trousers in her hands, and the boy beside her,
+gnawing at his lump of bread. But many a long seam had passed
+through her fingers since then, for she worked at a clothes-shop all
+the week with the sewing-machine, whence arose the possibility of
+patching Charley's clothes, for the overseer granted her a cutting
+or two now and then.
+
+After a little chat, Stephen put the question:
+
+"If I find a place for Charley, will you go to Providence Chapel next
+Sunday?"
+
+"I will go _anywhere_ you please, Mr. Archer," she answered, looking
+up quickly with a flushed face. She would have accompanied him to any
+casino in London just as readily: her sole thought was to keep Charley
+out of prison. Her father had been in prison once; to keep her
+mother's child out of prison was the grand object of her life.
+
+"Well," he resumed, with some hesitation, for he had arrived at the
+resolution through difficulties, whose fogs yet lingered about him,
+"if he will be an honest, careful boy, I will take him myself."
+
+"Charley! Charley!" cried Sara, utterly neglectful of the source of
+the benefaction; and rising, she went to the bed and hugged him.
+
+"Don't, Sara!" said Charley, petulantly.
+
+"I don't want girls to squash me. Leave go, I say. You mend my
+trousers, and _I_ 'll take care of _my_self."
+
+"The little wretch!" thought Stephen.
+
+Sara returned to her seat, and her needle went almost as fast as her
+sewing-machine. A glow had arisen now, and rested on her pale cheek:
+Stephen found himself staring at a kind of transfiguration, back from
+the ghostly to the human. His admiration extended itself to her deft
+and slender fingers and there brooded until his conscience informed
+him that he was actually admiring the breaking of the Sabbath;
+whereupon he rose. But all the time he was about amongst the rest of
+his people, his thoughts kept wandering back to the desolate room, the
+thankless boy, and the ministering woman. Before leaving, however, he
+had arranged with Sara that she should bring her brother to the shop
+the next day.
+
+The awe with which she entered it was not shared by Charley, who was
+never ripe for anything but frolic. Had not Stephen been influenced by
+a desire to do good, and possibly by another feeling too embryonic for
+detection, he would never have dreamed of making an errand boy of a
+will-o'-the-wisp. As such, however, he was installed, and from that
+moment an anxiety unknown before took possession of Stephen's bosom.
+He was never at ease, for he never knew what the boy might be about.
+He would have parted with him the first fortnight, but the idea of the
+prison had passed from Sara's heart into his, and he saw that to turn
+the boy away from his first place would be to accelerate his
+gravitation thitherward. He had all the tricks of a newspaper boy
+indigenous in him. Repeated were the complaints brought to the shop.
+One time the paper was thrown down the area, and brought into the
+breakfast-room defiled with wet. At another it was found on the
+door-step, without the bell having been rung, which could hardly have
+been from forgetfulness, for Charley's delight was to set the bell
+ringing furiously, and then wait till the cook appeared, taking good
+care however to leave space between them for a start. Sometimes the
+paper was not delivered at all, and Stephen could not help suspecting
+that he had sold it in the street. Yet both for his sake and Sara's he
+endured, and did not even box his ears. The boy hardly seemed to be
+wicked: the spirit that possessed him was rather a _polter-geist_, as
+the Germans would call it, than a demon.
+
+Meantime, the Sunday after Charley's appointment, Archer, seated in
+his pew, searched all the chapel for the fulfilment of Sara's part of
+the agreement, namely, her presence. But he could see her nowhere.
+The fact was, her promise was so easy that she had scarcely thought
+of it after, not suspecting that Stephen laid any stress upon its
+fulfilment, and, indeed, not knowing where the chapel was. She had
+managed to buy a hit of something of the shoddy species, and while
+Stephen was looking for her in the chapel, she was making a jacket for
+Charley. Greatly disappointed, and chiefly, I do believe, that she had
+not kept her word, Stephen went in the afternoon to call upon her.
+
+He found her working away as before, and saving time by taking her
+dinner while she worked, for a piece of bread lay on the table by her
+elbow, and beside it a little brown sugar to make the bread go down.
+The sight went to Stephen's heart, for he had just made his dinner off
+baked mutton and potatoes, washed down with his half-pint of stout.
+
+"Sara!" he said solemnly, "you promised to come to our chapel, and you
+have not kept your word." He never thought that "our chapel" was not
+the landmark of the region.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Archer," she answered, "I didn't know as you cared about it.
+But," she went on, rising and pushing her bread on one side to make
+room for her work, "I'll put on my bonnet directly." Then she checked
+herself, and added, "Oh! I beg your pardon, sir--I'm so shabby! You
+couldn't be seen with the likes of me."
+
+It touched Stephen's chivalry--and something deeper than chivalry. He
+had had no intention of walking with her.
+
+"There's no chapel in the afternoon," he said; "but I'll come and
+fetch you in the evening."
+
+Thus it came about that Sara was seated in Stephen's pew, next to
+Stephen himself, and Stephen felt a strange pleasure unknown before,
+like that of the shepherd who having brought the stray back to the
+fold cares little that its wool is torn by the bushes, and it looks a
+ragged and disreputable sheep. It was only Sara's wool that might seem
+disreputable, for she was a very good-faced sheep. He found the hymns
+for her, and they shared the same book. He did not know then that Sara
+could not read a word of them.
+
+The gathered people, the stillness, the gaslights, the solemn ascent
+of the minister into the pulpit, the hearty singing of the
+congregation, doubtless had their effect upon Sara, for she had never
+been to a chapel and hardly to any place of assembly before. From all
+amusements, the burden of Charley and her own retiring nature had kept
+her back.
+
+But she could make nothing of the sermon. She confessed afterwards
+that she did not know she had anything to do with it. Like "the
+Northern Farmer," she took it all for the clergyman's business, which
+she amongst the rest had to see done. She did not even wonder why
+Stephen should have wanted to bring her there. She sat when other
+people sat, pretended to kneel when other people pretended to kneel,
+and stood up when other people stood up--still brooding upon Charley's
+jacket.
+
+But Archer's feelings were not those he had expected. He had brought
+her, intending her to be done good to; but before the sermon was over
+he wished he had not brought her. He resisted the feeling for a long
+time, but at length yielded to it entirely; the object of his
+solicitude all the while conscious only of the lighted stillness and
+the new barrier between Charley and Newgate. The fact with regard to
+Stephen was that a certain hard _pan_, occasioned by continual
+ploughings to the same depth and no deeper, in the soil of his mind,
+began this night to be broken up from within, and that through the
+presence of a young woman who did not for herself put together two
+words of the whole discourse.
+
+The pastor was preaching upon the saying of St. Paul, that he could
+wish himself accursed from Christ for his brethren. Great part of his
+sermon was an attempt to prove that he could not have meant what his
+words implied. For the preacher's mind was so filled with the supposed
+paramount duty of saving his own soul, that the enthusiasm of the
+Apostle was simply incredible. Listening with that woman by his side,
+Stephen for the first time grew doubtful of the wisdom of his pastor.
+Nor could he endure that such should be the first doctrine Sara heard
+from his lips. Thus was he already and grandly repaid for his
+kindness; for the presence of a woman who without any conscious
+religion was to herself a law of love, brought him so far into
+sympathy with the mighty soul of St. Paul, that from that moment the
+blessing of doubt was at work in his, undermining prison walls.
+
+He walked home with Sara almost in silence, for he found it impossible
+to impress upon her those parts of the sermon with which he had no
+fault to find, lest she should retort upon that one point. The arrows
+which Sara escaped, however, could from her ignorance have struck her
+only with their feather end.
+
+Things proceeded in much the same fashion for a while. Charley went
+home at night to his sister's lodging, generally more than two hours
+after leaving the shop, but gave her no new ground of complaint. Every
+Sunday evening Sara went to the chapel, taking Charley with her when
+she could persuade him to go; and, in obedience with the supposed wish
+of Stephen, sat in his pew. He did not go home with her any more for a
+while, and indeed visited her but seldom, anxious to avoid scandal,
+more especially as he was a deacon.
+
+But now that Charley was so far safe, Sara's cheek began to generate a
+little of that celestial rosy red which is the blossom of the
+woman-plant, although after all it hardly equalled the heart of the
+blush rose. She grew a little rounder in form too, for she lived
+rather better now,--buying herself a rasher of bacon twice a week.
+Hence she began to be in more danger, as any one acquainted with her
+surroundings will easily comprehend. But what seemed at first the ruin
+of her hopes dissipated this danger.
+
+One evening, when she returned from her work, she found Stephen in her
+room. She made him the submissive grateful salutation, half courtesy,
+half bow, with which she always greeted him, and awaited his will.
+
+"I am very sorry to have to tell you, Sara, that your brother--"
+
+She turned white as a shroud, and her great black eyes grew greater
+and blacker as she stared in agonized expectancy while Stephen
+hesitated in search of a better form of communication. Finding none,
+he blurted out the fact--
+
+"--has robbed me, and run away."
+
+"Don't send him to prison, Mr. Archer," shrieked Sara, and laid
+herself on the floor at his feet with a grovelling motion, as if
+striving with her mother earth for comfort. There was not a film of
+art in this. She had never been to a theatre. The natural urging of
+life gave the truest shape to her entreaty. Her posture was the result
+of the same feeling which made the nations of old bring their
+sacrifices to the altar of a deity who, possibly benevolent in the
+main, had yet cause to be inimical to them. From the prostrate living
+sacrifice arose the one prayer, "Don't send him to prison; don't send
+him to prison!"
+
+Stephen gazed at her in bewildered admiration, half divine and all
+human. A certain consciousness of power had, I confess, a part in his
+silence, but the only definite shape this consciousness took was of
+beneficence. Attributing his silence to unwillingness, Sara got
+half-way from the ground--that is, to her knees--and lifted a face of
+utter entreaty to the sight of Stephen. I will not say words fail me
+to describe the intensity of its prayer, for words fail me to describe
+the commonest phenomenon of nature: all I can is to say, that it made
+Stephen's heart too large for its confining walls. "Mr. Archer," she
+said, in a voice hollow with emotion, "I will do _anything_ you like.
+I will be your slave. Don't send Charley to prison."
+
+The words were spoken with a certain strange dignity of
+self-abnegation. It is not alone the country people of Cumberland or
+of Scotland, who in their highest moments are capable of poetic
+utterance.
+
+An indescribable thrill of conscious delight shot through the frame of
+Stephen as the woman spoke the words. But the gentleman in him
+triumphed. I would have said _the Christian_, for whatever there was
+in Stephen of the _gentle_ was there in virtue of the _Christian_,
+only he failed in one point: instead of saying at once, that he had no
+intention of prosecuting the boy, he pretended, I believe from the
+satanic delight in power that possesses every man of us, that he would
+turn it over in his mind. It might have been more dangerous, but it
+would have been more divine, if he had lifted the kneeling woman to
+his heart, and told her that not for the wealth of an imagination
+would he proceed against her brother. The divinity, however, was
+taking its course, both rough-hewing and shaping the ends of the two.
+
+She rose from the ground, sat on the one chair, with her face to the
+wall, and wept, helplessly, with the added sting, perhaps, of a faint
+personal disappointment. Stephen failed to attract her notice, and
+left the room. She started up when she heard the door close, and flew
+to open it, but was only in time to hear the outer door. She sat down
+and cried again.
+
+Stephen had gone to find the boy if he might, and bring him to his
+sister. He ought to have said so, for to permit suffering for the sake
+of a joyful surprise is not good. Going home first, he was hardly
+seated in his room, to turn over not the matter but the means, when a
+knock came to the shop-door, the sole entrance, and there were two
+policemen bringing the deserter in a cab. He had been run over in the
+very act of decamping with the contents of the till, had lain all but
+insensible at the hospital while his broken leg was being set, but, as
+soon as he came to himself, had gone into such a fury of determination
+to return to his master, that the house-surgeon saw that the only
+chance for the ungovernable creature was to yield. Perhaps he had some
+dim idea of restoring the money ere his master should have discovered
+its loss. As he was very little, they made a couch for him in the cab,
+and so sent him.
+
+It would appear that the suffering and the faintness had given his
+conscience a chance of being heard. The accident was to Charley what
+the sight of the mountain-peak was to the boy Wordsworth. He was
+delirious when he arrived, and instead of showing any contrition
+towards his master, only testified an extravagant joy at finding him
+again. Stephen had him taken into the back room, and laid upon his own
+bed. One of the policemen fetched the charwoman, and when she arrived,
+Stephen went to find Sara.
+
+She was sitting almost as he had left her, with a dull, hopeless look.
+
+"I am sorry to say Charley has had an accident," he said.
+
+She started up and clasped her hands.
+
+"He is not in prison?" she panted in a husky voice.
+
+"No; he is at my house. Come and see him. I don't think he is in any
+danger, but his leg is broken."
+
+A gleam of joy crossed Sara's countenance. She did not mind the broken
+leg, for he was safe from her terror. She put on her bonnet, tied the
+strings with trembling hands, and went with Stephen.
+
+"You see God wants to keep him out of prison too," he said, as they
+walked along the street.
+
+But to Sara this hardly conveyed an idea. She walked by his side in
+silence.
+
+"Charley! Charley!" she cried, when she saw him white on the bed,
+rolling his head from side to side. Charley ordered her away with
+words awful to hear, but which from him meant no more than words of
+ordinary temper in the mouth of the well-nurtured man or woman. She
+had spoiled and indulged him all his life, and now for the first time
+she was nothing to him, while the master who had lectured and
+restrained him was everything. When the surgeon wanted to change his
+dressings, he would not let him touch them till his master came.
+Before he was able to leave his bed, he had developed for Stephen a
+terrier-like attachment. But, after the first feverishness was over,
+his sister waited upon him.
+
+Stephen got a lodging, and abandoned his back room to the brother and
+sister. But he had to attend to his shop, and therefore saw much of
+both of them. Finding then to his astonishment that Sara could not
+read, he gave all his odd moments to her instruction, and her mind
+being at rest about Charley so long as she had him in bed, her spirit
+had leisure to think of other things.
+
+She learned rapidly. The lesson-book was of course the New Testament;
+and Stephen soon discovered that Sara's questions, moving his pity at
+first because of the ignorance they displayed, always left him
+thinking about some point that had never occurred to him before; so
+that at length he regarded Sara as a being of superior intelligence
+waylaid and obstructed by unfriendly powers upon her path towards the
+threshold of the kingdom, while she looked up to him as to one supreme
+in knowledge as in goodness. But she never could understand the
+pastor. This would have been a great trouble to Stephen, had not his
+vanity been flattered by her understanding of himself. He did not
+consider that growing love had enlightened his eyes to see into her
+heart, and enabled him thus to use an ordinary human language for the
+embodiment of common-sense ideas; whereas the speech of the pastor
+contained such an admixture of technicalities as to be unintelligible
+to the neophyte.
+
+Stephen was now distressed to find that whereas formerly he had
+received everything without question that his minister spoke, he now
+in general went home in a doubting, questioning mood, begotten of
+asking himself what Sara would say. He feared at first that the old
+Adam was beginning to get the upper hand of him, and that Satan was
+laying snares for his soul. But when he found at the same time that
+his conscience was growing more scrupulous concerning his business
+affairs, his hope sprouted afresh.
+
+One day, after Charley had been out for the first time, Sara, with a
+little tremor of voice and manner, addressed Stephen thus:--
+
+"I shall take Charley home to-morrow, if you please, Mr. Archer."
+
+"You don't mean to say, Sara, you've been paying for those lodgings
+all this time?" half-asked, half-exclaimed Stephen.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Archer. We, must have somewhere to go to. It ain't easy to
+get a room at any moment, now them railways is everywheres."
+
+"But I hope as how you're comfortable where you are, Sara?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Archer. But what am I to do for all your kindness?"
+
+"You can pay me all in a lump, if you like, Sara. Only you don't owe
+me nothing."
+
+Her colour came and went. She was not used to men. She could not tell
+what he would have her understand, and could not help trembling.
+
+"What do you mean, Mr. Archer?" she faltered out.
+
+"I mean you can give me yourself, Sara, and that'll clear all scores."
+
+"But, Mr. Archer--you've been a-teaching of me good things--You
+_don't_ mean to marry me!" exclaimed Sara, bursting into tears.
+
+"Of course I do, Sara. Don't cry about it. I won't if you don't like."
+
+This is how Stephen came to change his mind about his stock in trade.
+
+
+
+
+THE GIFTS OF THE CHILD CHRIST.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"My hearers, we grow old," said the preacher. "Be it summer or be it
+spring with us now, autumn will soon settle down into winter, that
+winter whose snow melts only in the grave. The wind of the world sets
+for the tomb. Some of us rejoice to be swept along on its swift wings,
+and hear it bellowing in the hollows of earth and sky; but it will
+grow a terror to the man of trembling limb and withered brain, until
+at length he will long for the shelter of the tomb to escape its
+roaring and buffeting. Happy the man who shall then be able to believe
+that old age itself, with its pitiable decays and sad dreams of youth,
+is the chastening of the Lord, a sure sign of his love and his
+fatherhood."
+
+It was the first Sunday in Advent; but "the chastening of the Lord"
+came into almost every sermon that man preached.
+
+"Eloquent! But after all, _can_ this kind of thing be true?" said to
+himself a man of about thirty, who sat decorously listening. For many
+years he had thought he believed this kind of thing--but of late he
+was not so sure.
+
+Beside him sat his wife, in her new winter bonnet, her pretty face
+turned up toward the preacher; but her eyes--nothing else--revealed
+that she was not listening. She was much younger than her
+husband--hardly twenty, indeed.
+
+In the upper corner of the pew sat a pale-faced child about five,
+sucking her thumb, and staring at the preacher.
+
+The sermon over, they walked home in proximity. The husband looked
+gloomy, and his eyes sought the ground. The wife looked more smiling
+than cheerful, and her pretty eyes went hither and thither. Behind
+them walked the child--steadily, "with level-fronting eyelids."
+
+It was a late-built region of large, common-place houses, and at one
+of them they stopped and entered. The door of the dining-room was
+open, showing the table laid for their Sunday dinner. The gentleman
+passed on to the library behind it, the lady went up to her bedroom,
+and the child a stage higher to the nursery.
+
+It wanted half an hour to dinner. Mr. Greatorex sat down, drummed with
+his fingers on the arm of his easy-chair, took up a book of arctic
+exploration, threw it again on the table, got up, and went to the
+smoking-room. He had built it for his wife's sake, but was often glad
+of it for his own. Again he seated himself, took a cigar, and smoked
+gloomily.
+
+Having reached her bedroom, Mrs. Greatorex took off her bonnet, and
+stood for ten minutes turning it round and round. Earnestly she
+regarded it--now gave a twist to the wire-stem of a flower, then
+spread wider the loop of a bow. She was meditating what it lacked of
+perfection rather than brooding over its merits: she was keen in
+bonnets.
+
+Little Sophy--or, as she called herself by a transposition of
+consonant sounds common with children, Phosy--found her nurse Alice in
+the nursery. But she was lost in the pages of a certain London weekly,
+which had found her in a mood open to its influences, and did not even
+look up when the child entered. With some effort Phosy drew off her
+gloves, and with more difficulty untied her hat. Then she took off her
+jacket, smoothed her hair, and retreated to a corner. There a large
+shabby doll lay upon her little chair: she took it up, disposed it
+gently upon the bed, seated herself in its place, got a little book
+from where she had left it under the chair, smoothed down her skirts,
+and began simultaneously to read and suck her thumb. The book was an
+unhealthy one, a cup filled to the brim with a poverty-stricken and
+selfish religion: such are always breaking out like an eruption here
+and there over the body of the Church, doing their part, doubtless, in
+carrying off the evil humours generated by poverty of blood, or the
+congestion of self-preservation. It is wonderful out of what spoiled
+fruit some children will suck sweetness.
+
+But she did not read far: her thoughts went back to a phrase which had
+haunted her ever since first she went to church: "Whom the Lord
+loveth, he chasteneth."
+
+"I wish he would chasten me," she thought for the hundredth time.
+
+The small Christian had no suspicion that her whole life had been a
+period of chastening--that few children indeed had to live in such a
+sunless atmosphere as hers.
+
+Alice threw down the newspaper, gazed from the window into the
+back-yard of the next house, saw nothing but an elderly man-servant
+brushing a garment, and turned upon Sophy.
+
+"Why don't you hang up your jacket, miss?" she said, sharply.
+
+The little one rose, opened the wardrobe-door wide, carried a chair to
+it, fetched her jacket from the bed, clambered up on the chair, and,
+leaning far forward to reach a peg, tumbled right into the bottom of
+the wardrobe.
+
+"You clumsy!" exclaimed the nurse angrily, and pulling her out by the
+arm, shook her.
+
+Alice was not generally rough to her, but there were reasons to-day.
+
+Phosy crept back to her seat, pale, frightened, and a little hurt.
+Alice hung up the jacket, closed the wardrobe, and, turning,
+contemplated her own pretty face and neat figure in the glass
+opposite. The dinner-bell rang.
+
+"There, I declare!" she cried, and wheeled round on Phosy. "And your
+hair not brushed yet, miss! Will you ever learn to do a thing without
+being told it? Thank goodness, I shan't be plagued with you long! But
+I pity her as comes after me: I do!"
+
+"If the Lord would but chasten me!" said the child to herself, as she
+rose and laid down her book with a sigh.
+
+The maid seized her roughly by the arm, and brushed her hair with an
+angry haste that made the child's eyes water, and herself feel a
+little ashamed at the sight of them.
+
+"How could anybody love such a troublesome chit?" she said, seeking
+the comfort of justification from the child herself.
+
+Another sigh was the poor little damsel's only answer. She looked very
+white and solemn as she entered the dining-room.
+
+Mr. Greatorex was a merchant in the City. But he was more of a man
+than a merchant, which all merchants are not. Also, he was more
+scrupulous in his dealings than some merchants in the same line of
+business, who yet stood as well with the world as he; but, on the
+other hand, he had the meanness to pride himself upon it as if it had
+been something he might have done without and yet held up his head.
+
+Some six years before, he had married to please his parents; and a
+year before, he had married to please himself. His first wife had
+intellect, education, and heart, but little individuality--not enough
+to reflect the individuality of her husband. The consequence was, he
+found her uninteresting. He was kind and indulgent however, and not
+even her best friend blamed him much for manifesting nothing beyond
+the average devotion of husbands. But in truth his wife had great
+capabilities, only they had never ripened, and when she died, a
+fortnight after giving birth to Sophy, her husband had not a suspicion
+of the large amount of undeveloped power that had passed away with
+her.
+
+Her child was so like her both in countenance and manner that he was
+too constantly reminded of her unlamented mother; and he loved neither
+enough to discover that, in a sense as true as marvellous, the child
+was the very flower-bud of her mother's nature, in which her retarded
+blossom had yet a chance of being slowly carried to perfection. Love
+alone gives insight, and the father took her merely for a miniature
+edition of the volume which he seemed to have laid aside for ever in
+the dust of the earth's lumber-room. Instead, therefore, of watering
+the roots of his little human slip from the well of his affections, he
+had scarcely as yet perceived more in relation to her than that he was
+legally accountable for her existence, and bound to give her shelter
+and food. If he had questioned himself on the matter, he would have
+replied that love was not wanting, only waiting upon her growth, and
+the development of something to interest him.
+
+Little right as he had had to expect anything from his first marriage,
+he had yet cherished some hopes therein--tolerably vague, it is true,
+yet hardly faint enough, it would seem, for he was disappointed in
+them. When its bonds fell from him, however, he flattered himself that
+he had not worn them in vain, but had through them arrived at a
+knowledge of women as rare as profound. But whatever the reach of this
+knowledge, it was not sufficient to prevent him from harbouring the
+presumptuous hope of so choosing and so fashioning the heart and mind
+of a woman that they should be as concave mirrors to his own. I do not
+mean that he would have admitted the figure, but such was really the
+end he blindly sought. I wonder how many of those who have been
+disappointed in such an attempt have been thereby aroused to the
+perception of what a frightful failure their success would have been
+on both sides. It was bad enough that Augustus Greatorex's theories
+had cramped his own development; it would have been ten-fold worse had
+they been operative to the stunting of another soul.
+
+Letty Merewether was the daughter of a bishop _in partibus_. She had
+been born tolerably innocent, had grown up more than tolerably pretty,
+and was, when she came to England at the age of sixteen, as nearly a
+genuine example of Locke's sheet of white paper as could well have
+fallen to the hand of such an experimenter as Greatorex would fain
+become.
+
+In his suit he had prospered--perhaps too easily. He loved the girl,
+or at least loved the modified reflection of her in his own mind;
+while she, thoroughly admiring the dignity, good looks, and
+accomplishments of the man whose attentions flattered her
+self-opinion, accorded him deference enough to encourage his vainest
+hopes. Although she knew little, fluttering over the merest surfaces
+of existence, she had sense enough to know that he talked sense to
+her, and foolishness enough to put it down to her own credit, while
+for the sense itself she cared little or nothing. And Greatorex,
+without even knowing what she was rough-hewn for, would take upon him
+to shape her ends!--an ambition the Divinity never permits to succeed:
+he who fancies himself the carver finds himself but the chisel, or
+indeed perhaps only the mallet, in the hand of the true workman.
+
+During the days of his courtship, then, Letty listened and smiled, or
+answered with what he took for a spiritual response, when it was
+merely a brain-echo. Looking down into the pond of her being, whose
+surface was, not yet ruffled by any bubbling of springs from below, he
+saw the reflection of himself and was satisfied. An able man on his
+hobby looks a centaur of wisdom and folly; but if he be at all a wise
+man, the beast will one day or other show him the jade's favour of
+unseating him. Meantime Augustus Greatorex was fooled, not by poor
+little Letty, who was not capable of fooling him, but by himself.
+Letty had made no pretences; had been interested, and had shown her
+interest; had understood, or seemed to understand, what he said to
+her, and forgotten it the next moment--had no pocket to put it in, did
+not know what to do with it, and let it drop into the Limbo of Vanity.
+They had not been married many days before the scouts of advancing
+disappointment were upon them. Augustus resisted manfully for a time.
+But the truth was each of the two had to become a great deal more than
+either was, before any approach to unity was possible. He tried to
+interest her in one subject after another--tried her first, I am
+ashamed to say, with political economy. In that instance, when he came
+home to dinner he found that she had not got beyond the first page of
+the book he had left with her. But she had the best of excuses,
+namely, that of that page she had not understood a sentence. He saw
+his mistake, and tried her with poetry. But Milton, with whom
+unfortunately he commenced his approaches, was to her, if not equally
+unintelligible, equally uninteresting. He tried her next with the
+elements of science, but with no better success. He returned to
+poetry, and read some of the Faerie Queene with her: she was, or
+seemed to be, interested in all his talk about it, and inclined to go
+on with it in his absence, but found the first stanza she tried more
+than enough without him to give life to it. She could give it none,
+and therefore it gave her none. I believe she read a chapter of the
+Bible every day, but the only books she read with any real interest
+were novels of a sort that Augustus despised. It never occurred to him
+that he ought at once to have made friends of this Momus of
+unrighteousness, for by them he might have found entrance to the
+sealed chamber. He ought to have read with her the books she did like,
+for by them only could he make her think, and from them alone could he
+lead her to better. It is but from the very step upon which one stands
+that one can move to the next. Besides these books, there was nothing
+in her scheme of the universe but fashion, dress, calls, the park,
+other-peopledom, concerts, plays, churchgoing--whatever could show
+itself on the frosted glass of her _camera obscura_--make an interest
+of motion and colour in her darkened chamber. Without these, her
+bosom's mistress would have found life unendurable, for not yet had
+she ascended her throne, but lay on the floor of her nursery,
+surrounded with toys that imitated life.
+
+It was no wonder, therefore, that Augustus was at length compelled to
+allow himself disappointed. That it was the fault of his
+self-confidence made the thing no whit better. He was too much of a
+man not to cherish a certain tenderness for her, but he soon found to
+his dismay that it had begun to be mingled with a shadow of contempt.
+Against this he struggled, but with fluctuating success. He stopped
+later and later at business, and when he came home spent more and more
+of his time in the smoking-room, where by and by he had bookshelves
+put up. Occasionally he would accept an invitation to dinner and
+accompany his wife, but he detested evening parties, and when Letty,
+who never refused an invitation if she could help it, went to one, he
+remained at home with his books. But his power of reading began to
+diminish. He became restless and irritable. Something kept gnawing at
+his heart. There was a sore spot in it. The spot grew larger and
+larger, and by degrees the centre of his consciousness came to be a
+soreness: his cherished idea had been fooled; he had taken a silly
+girl for a woman of undeveloped wealth;--a bubble, a surface whereon
+fair colours chased each other, for a hearted crystal.
+
+On her part, Letty too had her grief, which, unlike Augustus, she did
+not keep to herself, receiving in return from more than one of her
+friends the soothing assurance that Augustus was only like all other
+men; that women were but their toys, which they cast away when weary
+of them. Letty did not see that she was herself making a toy of her
+life, or that Augustus was right in refusing to play with such a
+costly and delicate thing. Neither did Augustus see that, having, by
+his own blunder, married a mere child, he was bound to deal with her
+as one, and not let the child suffer for his fault more than what
+could not be helped. It is not by pressing our insights upon them, but
+by bathing the sealed eyelids of the human kittens, that we can help
+them.
+
+And all the time poor little Phosy was left to the care of Alice, a
+clever, careless, good-hearted, self-satisfied damsel, who, although
+seldom so rough in her behaviour as we have just seen her, abandoned
+the child almost entirely to her own resources. It was often she sat
+alone in the nursery, wishing the Lord would chasten her--because then
+he would love her.
+
+The first course was nearly over ere Augustus had brought himself to
+ask--
+
+"What did you think of the sermon to-day, Letty?"
+
+"Not much," answered Letty. "I am not fond of finery. I prefer
+simplicity."
+
+Augustus held his peace bitterly. For it was just finery in a sermon,
+without knowing it, that Letty was fond of: what seemed to him a
+flimsy syllabub of sacred things, beaten up with the whisk of
+composition, was charming to Letty; while, on the contrary, if a man
+such as they had been listening to was carried away by the thoughts
+that struggled in him for utterance, the result, to her judgment, was
+finery, and the object display. In excuse it must be remembered that
+she had been used to her father's style, which no one could have
+aspersed with lack of sobriety. Presently she spoke again.
+
+"Gus, dear, couldn't you make up your mind for once to go with me to
+Lady Ashdaile's to-morrow? I am getting quite ashamed of appearing so
+often without you."
+
+"There is another way of avoiding that unpleasantness," remarked her
+husband drily.
+
+"You cruel creature!" returned Letty playfully. "But I must go this
+once, for I promised Mrs. Holden."
+
+"You know, Letty," said her husband, after a little pause, "it gets of
+more and more consequence that you should not fatigue yourself. By
+keeping such late hours in such stifling rooms you are endangering two
+lives--remember that, Letty. It you stay at home to-morrow, I will
+come home early, and read to you all the evening."
+
+"Gussy, that _would_ be charming. You _know_ there is nothing in the
+world I should enjoy so much. But this time I really mustn't."
+
+She launched into a list of all the great nobodies and small
+somebodies who were to be there, and whom she positively must see: it
+might be her only chance.
+
+Those last words quenched a sarcasm on Augustus' lips. He was kinder
+than usual the rest of the evening, and read her to sleep with the
+Pilgrim's Progress.
+
+Phosy sat in a corner, listened, and understood. Or where she
+misunderstood, it was an honest misunderstanding, which never does
+much hurt. Neither father nor mother spoke to her till they bade her
+good night. Neither saw the hungry heart under the mask of the still
+face. The father never imagined her already fit for the modelling she
+was better without, and the stepmother had to become a mother before
+she could value her.
+
+Phosy went to bed to dream of the Valley of Humiliation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The next morning Alice gave her mistress warning. It was quite
+unexpected, and she looked at her aghast.
+
+"Alice," she said at length, "you're never going to leave me at such a
+time!"
+
+"I'm sorry it don't suit you, ma'am, but I must."
+
+"Why, Alice? What is the matter? Has Sophy been troublesome?"
+
+"No, ma'am; there's no harm in that child."
+
+"Then what can it be, Alice? Perhaps you are going to be married
+sooner than you expected?"
+
+Alice gave her chin a little toss, pressed her lips together, and was
+silent.
+
+"I have always been kind to you," resumed her mistress.
+
+"I'm sure, ma'am, I never made no complaints!" returned Alice, but as
+she spoke she drew herself up straighter than before.
+
+"Then what is it?" said her mistress.
+
+"The fact is, ma'am," answered the girl, almost fiercely, "I _cannot_
+any longer endure a state of domestic slavery."
+
+"I don't understand you a bit better," said Mrs. Greatorex, trying,
+but in vain, to smile, and therefore looking angrier than she was.
+
+"I mean, ma'am--an' I see no reason as I shouldn't say it, for it's
+the truth--there's a worm at the root of society where one yuman bein'
+'s got to do the dirty work of another. I don't mind sweepin' up my
+own dust, but I won't sweep up nobody else's. I ain't a goin' to
+demean myself no longer! There!"
+
+"Leave the room, Alice," said Mrs. Greatorex; and when, with a toss
+and a flounce, the young woman had vanished, she burst into tears of
+anger and annoyance.
+
+The day passed. The evening came. She dressed without Alice's usual
+help, and went to Lady Ashdaile's with her friend. There a reaction
+took place, and her spirits rose unnaturally. She even danced--to the
+disgust of one or two quick-eyed matrons who sat by the wall.
+
+When she came home she found her husband sitting up for her. He said
+next to nothing, and sat up an hour longer with his book.
+
+In the night she was taken ill. Her husband called Alice, and ran
+himself to fetch the doctor. For some hours she seemed in danger, but
+by noon was much better. Only the greatest care was necessary.
+
+As soon as she could speak, she told Augustus of Alice's warning, and
+he sent for her to the library.
+
+She stood before him with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes.
+
+"I understand, Alice, you have given your mistress warning," he said
+gently.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Your mistress is very ill, Alice."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Don't you think it would be ungrateful of you to leave her in her
+present condition? She's not likely to be strong for some time to
+come."
+
+The use of the word "ungrateful" was an unfortunate one. Alice begged
+to know what she had to be grateful for. Was her work worth nothing?
+And her master, as every one must who claims that which can only be
+freely given, found himself in the wrong.
+
+"Well, Alice," he said, "we won't dispute that point; and if you are
+really determined on going, you must do the best you can for your
+mistress for the rest of the month."
+
+Alice's sense of injury was soothed by her master's forbearance. She
+had always rather approved of Mr. Greatorex, and she left the room
+more softly than she had entered it.
+
+Letty had a fortnight in bed, during which she reflected a little.
+
+The very day on which she left her room, Alice sought an interview
+with her master, and declared she could not stay out her month; she
+must go home at once.
+
+She had been very attentive to her mistress during the fortnight:
+there must be something to account for her strange behaviour.
+
+"Come now, Alice," said her master, "what's at the back of all this?
+You have been a good, well-behaved, obliging girl till now, and I am
+certain you would never be like this if there weren't something wrong
+somewhere."
+
+"Something wrong, sir! No, indeed, sir! Except you call it wrong to
+have an old uncle 's dies and leaves ever so much money--thousands on
+thousands, the lawyers say."
+
+"And does it come to you then, Alice?"
+
+"I get my share, sir. He left it to be parted even between his nephews
+and nieces."
+
+"Why, Alice, you are quite an heiress, then!" returned her master,
+scarcely however believing the thing so grand as Alice would have it.
+"But don't you think now it would be rather hard that your fortune
+should be Mrs. Greatorex's misfortune?"
+
+"Well, I don't see as how it shouldn't," replied Alice. "It's
+mis'ess's fortun' as 'as been my misfortun'--ain't it now, sir? An'
+why shouldn't it be the other way next?"
+
+"I don't quite see how your mistress's fortune can be said to be your
+misfortune, Alice."
+
+"Anybody would see that, sir, as wasn't blinded by class-prejudices."
+
+"Class-prejudices!" exclaimed Mr. Greatorex, in surprise at the word.
+
+"It's a term they use, I believe, sir! But it's plain enough that if
+mis'ess hadn't 'a' been better off than me, she wouldn't ha' been able
+to secure my services--as you calls it."
+
+"That is certainly plain enough," returned Mr. Greatorex. "But suppose
+nobody had been able to secure your services, what would have become
+of you?"
+
+"By that time the people'd have rose to assert their rights."
+
+"To what?--To fortunes like yours?"
+
+"To bread and cheese at least, sir," returned Alice, pertly.
+
+"Well, but you've had something better than bread and cheese."
+
+"I don't make no complaints as to the style of livin' in the house,
+sir, but that's all one, so long as it's on the vile condition of
+domestic slavery--which it's nothing can justify."
+
+"Then of course, although you are now a woman of property, you will
+never dream of having any one to wait on you," said her master, amused
+with the volume of human nature thus opened to him.
+
+"All I say, sir, is--it's my turn now; and I ain't goin' to be sit
+upon by no one. I know my dooty to myself."
+
+"I didn't know there was such a duty, Alice," said her master.
+
+Something in his tone displeased her.
+
+"Then you know now, sir," she said, and bounced out of the room.
+
+The next moment, however, ashamed of her rudeness, she re-entered,
+saying,
+
+"I don't want to be unkind, sir, but I must go home. I've got a
+brother that's ill, too, and wants to see me. If you don't object to
+me goin' home for a month, I promise you to come back and see mis'ess
+through her trouble--as a friend, you know, sir."
+
+"But just listen to me first, Alice," said Mr. Greatorex. "I've had
+something to do with wills in my time, and I can assure you it is not
+likely to be less than a year before you can touch the money. You had
+much better stay where you are till your uncle's affairs are settled.
+You don't know what may happen. There's many a slip between cup and
+lip, you know."
+
+"Oh! it's all right, sir. Everybody knows the money's left to his
+nephews and nieces, and me and my brother's as good as any."
+
+"I don't doubt it: still, if you'll take my advice, you'll keep a
+sound roof over your head till another's ready for you."
+
+Alice only threw her chin in the air, and said almost threateningly,
+
+"Am I to go for the month, sir?"
+
+"I'll talk to your mistress about it," answered Mr. Greatorex, not at
+all sure that such an arrangement would be for his wife's comfort.
+
+But the next day Mrs. Greatorex had a long talk with Alice, and the
+result was that on the following Monday she was to go home for a
+month, and then return for two months more at least. What Mr.
+Greatorex had said about the legacy, had had its effect, and, besides,
+her mistress had spoken to her with pleasure in her good fortune.
+About Sophy no one felt any anxiety: she was no trouble to any one,
+and the housemaid would see to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+On the Sunday evening, Alice's lover, having heard, not from herself,
+but by a side wind, that she was going home the next day, made his
+appearance in Wimborne Square, somewhat perplexed--both at the move,
+and at her leaving him in ignorance of the same. He was a
+cabinet-maker in an honest shop in the neighbourhood, and in
+education, faculty, and general worth, considerably Alice's
+superior--a fact which had hitherto rather pleased her, but now gave
+zest to the change which she imagined had subverted their former
+relation. Full of the sense of her new superiority, she met him draped
+in an indescribable strangeness. John Jephson felt, at the very first
+word, as if her voice came from the other side of the English Channel.
+He wondered what he had done, or rather what Alice could imagine he
+had done or said, to put her in such tantrums.
+
+"Alice, my dear," he said--for John was a man to go straight at the
+enemy, "what's amiss? What's come over you? You ain't altogether like
+your own self to-night! And here I find you're goin' away, and ne'er a
+word to me about it! What have I done?"
+
+Alice's chin alone made reply. She waited the fitting moment, with
+splendour to astonish, and with grandeur to subdue her lover. To tell
+the sad truth, she was no longer sure that it would be well to
+encourage him on the old footing; was she not standing on tiptoe, her
+skirts in her hand, on the brink of the brook that parted serfdom from
+gentility, on the point of stepping daintily across, and leaving
+domestic slavery, red hands, caps, and obedience behind her? How then
+was she to marry a man that had black nails, and smelt of glue? It was
+incumbent on her at least, for propriety's sake, to render him at once
+aware that it was in condescension ineffable she took any notice of
+him.
+
+"Alice, my girl!" began John again, in expostulatory tone.
+
+"Miss Cox, if you please, John Jephson," interposed Alice.
+
+"What on 'arth's come over you?" exclaimed John, with the first throb
+of rousing indignation. "But if you ain't your own self no more, why,
+Miss Cox be it. 'T seems to me 's if I warn't my own self no more--'s
+if I'd got into some un else, or 't least hedn't got my own ears on m'
+own head.--Never saw or heerd Alice like this afore!" he added,
+turning in gloomy bewilderment to the housemaid for a word of human
+sympathy.
+
+The movement did not altogether please Alice, and she felt she must
+justify her behaviour.
+
+"You see, John," she said, with dignity, keeping her back towards him,
+and pretending to dust the globe of a lamp, "there's things as no
+woman can help, and therefore as no man has no right to complain of
+them. It's not as if I'd gone an' done it, or changed myself, no more
+'n if it 'ad took place in my cradle. What can I help it, if the world
+goes and changes itself? Am _I_ to blame?--tell me that. It's not
+that. I make no complaint, but I tell you it ain't me, it's
+circumstances as is gone and changed theirselves, and bein' as
+circumstances is changed, things ain't the same as they was, and Miss
+is the properer term from you to me, John Jephson."
+
+"Dang it if I know what you're a drivin' at, Alice!--Miss Cox!--and I
+beg yer pardon, miss, I'm sure.--Dang me if I do!"
+
+"Don't swear, John Jephson--leastways before a lady. It's not proper."
+
+"It seems to me, Miss Cox, as if the wind was a settin' from Bedlam,
+or may be Colney Hatch," said John, who was considered a humourist
+among his comrades. "I wouldn't take no liberties with a lady, Miss
+Cox; but if I might be so bold as to arst the joke of the thing--"
+
+"Joke, indeed!" cried Alice. "Do you call a dead uncle and ten
+thousand pounds a joke?"
+
+"God bless me!" said John. "You don't mean it, Alice?"
+
+"I do mean it, and that you'll find, John Jephson. I'm goin' to bid
+you good-bye to-morrer."
+
+"Whoy, Alice!" exclaimed honest John, aghast.
+
+"It's truth I tell ye," said Alice.
+
+"And for how long?" gasped John, fore-feeling illimitable misfortune.
+
+"That depends," returned Alice, who did not care to lessen the effect
+of her communication by mentioning her promised return for a season.
+"--It ain't likely," she added, "as a heiress is a goin' to act the
+nuss-maid much longer."
+
+"But Alice," said John, "you don't mean to say--it's not in your mind
+now--it can't be, Alice--you're only jokin' with me--"
+
+"Indeed, and I'm not!" interjected Alice, with a sniff.
+
+"I don't mean that way, you know. What I mean is, you don't mean as
+how this 'ere money--dang it all!--as how it's to be all over between
+you and me?--You _can't_ mean that, Alice!" ended the poor fellow,
+with a choking in his throat.
+
+It was very hard upon him! He must either look as if he wanted to
+share her money, or else as if he were ready to give her up.
+
+"Arst yourself, John Jephson," answered Alice, "whether it's likely a
+young lady of fortun' would be keepin' company with a young man as
+didn't know how to take off his hat to her in the park?"
+
+Alice did not above half mean what she said: she wished mainly to
+enhance her own importance. At the same time she did mean it half, and
+that would have been enough for Jephson. He rose, grievously wounded.
+
+"Good-bye, Alice," he said, taking the hand she did not refuse. "Ye're
+throwin' from ye what all yer money won't buy."
+
+She gave a scornful little laugh, and John walked out of the kitchen.
+
+At the door he turned with one lingering look; but in Alice there was
+no sign of softening. She turned scornfully away, and no doubt enjoyed
+her triumph to the full.
+
+The next morning she went away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Mr. Greatorex had ceased to regard the advent of Christmas with much
+interest. Naturally gifted with a strong religious tendency, he had,
+since his first marriage, taken, not to denial, but to the side of
+objection, spending much energy in contempt for the foolish opinions
+of others, a self-indulgence which does less than little to further
+the growth of one's own spirit in truth and righteousness. The only
+person who stands excused--I do not say justified--in so doing, is the
+man who, having been taught the same opinions, has found them a legion
+of adversaries barring his way to the truth. But having got rid of
+them for himself, it is, I suspect, worse than useless to attack them
+again, save as the ally of those who are fighting their way through
+the same ranks to the truth. Greatorex had been indulging his
+intellect at the expense of his heart. A man may have light in the
+brain and darkness in the heart. It were better to be an owl than a
+strong-eyed apteryx. He was on the path which naturally ends in
+blindness and unbelief. I fancy, if he had not been neglectful of his
+child, she would ere this time have relighted his Christmas-candles
+for him; but now his second disappointment in marriage had so dulled
+his heart that he had begun to regard life as a stupid affair, in
+which the most enviable fool was the man who could still expect to
+realize an ideal. He had set out on a false track altogether, but had
+not yet discovered that there had been an immoral element at work in
+his mistake.
+
+For what right had he to desire the fashioning of any woman after his
+ideas? did not the angel of her eternal Ideal for ever behold the face
+of her Father in heaven? The best that can be said for him is, that,
+notwithstanding his disappointment and her faults, yea,
+notwithstanding his own faults, which were, with all his cultivation
+and strength of character, yet more serious than hers, he was still
+kind to her; yes, I may say for him, that, notwithstanding even her
+silliness, which is a sickening fault, and one which no supremacy of
+beauty can overshadow, he still loved her a little. Hence the care he
+showed for her in respect of the coming sorrow was genuine; it did not
+all belong to his desire for a son to whom he might be a father
+indeed--after his own fancies, however. Letty, on her part, was as
+full of expectation as the girl who has been promised a doll that can
+shut and open its eyes, and cry when it is pinched; her carelessness
+of its safe arrival came of ignorance and not indifference.
+
+It cannot but seem strange that such a man should have been so
+careless of the child he had. But from the first she had painfully
+reminded him of her mother, with whom in truth he had never
+quarrelled, but with whom he had not found life the less irksome on
+that account. Add to this that he had been growing fonder of
+business,--a fact which indicated, in a man of his endowment and
+development, an inclination downwards of the plane of his life. It was
+some time since he had given up reading poetry. History had almost
+followed: he now read little except politics, travels, and popular
+expositions of scientific progress.
+
+That year Christmas Eve fell upon a Monday. The day before, Letty not
+feeling very well, her husband thought it better not to leave her, and
+gave up going to church. Phosy was utterly forgotten, but she dressed
+herself, and at the usual hour appeared with her prayer-book in her
+hand ready for church. When her father told her that he was not going,
+she looked so blank that he took pity upon her, and accompanied her to
+the church-door, promising to meet her as she came out. Phosy sighed
+from relief as she entered, for she had a vague idea that by going to
+church to pray for it she might move the Lord to chasten her. At least
+he would see her there, and might think of it. She had never had such
+an attention from her father before, never such dignity conferred upon
+her as to be allowed to appear in church alone, sitting in the pew by
+herself like a grown damsel. But I doubt if there was any pride in her
+stately step, or any vanity in the smile--no, not smile, but
+illuminated mist, the vapour of smiles, which haunted her sweet little
+solemn church-window of a face, as she walked up the aisle.
+
+The preacher was one of whom she had never heard her father speak
+slighting word, in whom her unbounded trust had never been shaken.
+Also he was one who believed with his whole soul in the things that
+make Christmas precious. To him the birth of the wonderful baby hinted
+at hundreds of strange things in the economy of the planet. That a man
+could so thoroughly persuade himself that, he believed the old fable,
+was matter of marvel to some of his friends who held blind Nature the
+eternal mother, and Night the everlasting grandmother of all things.
+But the child Phosy, in her dreams or out of them, in church or
+nursery, with her book or her doll, was never out of the region of
+wonders, and would have believed, or tried to believe, anything that
+did not involve a moral impossibility.
+
+What the preacher said I need not even partially repeat; it is enough
+to mention a certain metamorphosed deposit from the stream of his
+eloquence carried home in her mind by Phosy: from some of his sayings
+about the birth of Jesus into the world, into the family, into the
+individual human bosom, she had got it into her head that Christmas
+Day was not a birthday like that she had herself last year, but that,
+in some wonderful way, to her requiring no explanation, the baby Jesus
+was born every Christmas Day afresh. What became of him afterwards she
+did not know, and indeed she had never yet thought to ask how it was
+that he could come to every house in London as well as No. 1, Wimborne
+Square. Little of a home as another might think it, that house was yet
+to her the centre of all houses, and the wonder had not yet widened
+rippling beyond it: into that spot of the pool the eternal gift would
+fall.
+
+Her father forgot the time over his book, but so entranced was her
+heart with the expectation of the promised visit, now so near--the day
+after to-morrow--that, if she did not altogether forget to look for
+him as she stepped down the stair from the church door to the street,
+his absence caused her no uneasiness; and when, just as she reached
+it, he opened the house-door in tardy haste to redeem his promise, she
+looked up at him with a solemn, smileless repose, born of spiritual
+tension and speechless anticipation, upon her face, and walking past
+him without change in the rhythm of her motion, marched stately up the
+stairs to the nursery. I believe the centre of her hope was that when
+the baby came she would beg him on her knees to ask the Lord to
+chasten her.
+
+When dessert was over, her mother on the sofa in the drawing-room, and
+her father in an easy-chair, with a bottle of his favourite wine by
+his side, she crept out of the room and away again to the nursery.
+There she reached up to her little bookshelf, and, full of the sermon
+as spongy mists are full of the sunlight, took thence a volume of
+stories from the German, the re-reading of one of which, narrating the
+visit of the Christ-child, laden with gifts, to a certain household,
+and what he gave to each and all therein, she had, although sorely
+tempted, saved up until now, and sat down with it by the fire, the
+only light she had. When the housemaid, suddenly remembering she must
+put her to bed, and at the same time discovering it was a whole hour
+past her usual time, hurried to the nursery, she found her fast asleep
+in her little armchair, her book on her lap, and the fire
+self-consumed into a dark cave with a sombre glow in its deepest
+hollows. Dreams had doubtless come to deepen the impressions of sermon
+and _mährchen_, for as she slowly yielded to the hands of Polly
+putting her to bed, her lips, unconsciously moved of the slumbering
+but not sleeping spirit, more than once murmured the words _Lord
+loveth_ and _chasteneth_. Right blessedly would I enter the dreams of
+such a child--revel in them, as a bee in the heavenly gulf of a
+cactus-flower.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+On Christmas Eve the church bells were ringing through the murky air
+of London, whose streets lay flaring and steaming below. The brightest
+of their constellations were the butchers' shops, with their shows of
+prize beef; around them, the eddies of the human tides were most
+confused and knotted. But the toy-shops were brilliant also. To Phosy
+they would have been the treasure-caves of the Christ-child--all
+mysteries, all with insides to them--boxes, and desks, and windmills,
+and dove-cots, and hens with chickens, and who could tell what all? In
+every one of those shops her eyes would have searched for the
+Christ-child, the giver of all their wealth. For to her he was
+everywhere that night--ubiquitous as the luminous mist that brooded
+all over London--of which, however, she saw nothing but the glow above
+the mews. John Jephson was out in the middle of all the show, drifting
+about in it: he saw nothing that had pleasure in it, his heart was so
+heavy. He never thought once of the Christ-child, or even of the
+Christ-man, as the giver of anything. Birth is the one standing
+promise-hope for the race, but for poor John this Christmas held no
+promise. With all his humour, he was one of those people, generally
+dull and slow--God grant me and mine such dullness and such sloth--who
+having once loved, cannot cease. During the fortnight he had scarce
+had a moment's ease from the sting of his Alice's treatment. The
+honest fellow's feelings were no study to himself; he knew nothing but
+the pleasure and the pain of them; but, I believe it was not mainly
+for himself that he was sorry. Like Othello, "the pity of it" haunted
+him: he had taken Alice for a downright girl, about whom there was and
+could be no mistake; and the first hot blast of prosperity had swept
+her away like a hectic leaf. What were all the shops dressed out in
+holly and mistletoe, what were all the rushing flaming gas-jets, what
+the fattest of prize-pigs to John, who could never more imagine a
+spare-rib on the table between Alice and him of a Sunday? His
+imagination ran on seeing her pass in her carriage, and drop him a nod
+of condescension as she swept noisily by him--trudging home weary from
+his work to his loveless fireside. _He_ didn't want her money!
+Honestly, he would rather have her without than with money, for he now
+regarded it as an enemy, seeing what evil changes it could work.
+"There be some devil in it, sure!" he said to himself. True, he had
+never found any in his week's wages, but he did remember once finding
+the devil in a month's wages received in the lump.
+
+As he was thus thinking with himself, a carriage came suddenly from a
+side street into the crowd, and while he stared at it, thinking Alice
+might be sitting inside it while he was tramping the pavement alone,
+she passed him on the other side on foot--was actually pushed against
+him: he looked round, and saw a young woman, carrying a small bag,
+disappearing in the crowd. "There's an air of Alice about _her_" said
+John to himself, seeing her back only. But of course it couldn't be
+Alice; for her he must look in the carriages now! And what a fool he
+was: every young woman reminded him of the one he had lost! Perhaps if
+he was to call the next day--Polly was a good-natured creature--he
+might hear some news of her.
+
+It had been a troubled fortnight with Mrs. Greatorex. She wished much
+that she could have talked to her husband more freely, but she had not
+learned to feel at home with him. Yet he had been kinder and more
+attentive than usual all the time, so much so that Letty thought with
+herself--if she gave him a boy, he would certainly return to his first
+devotion. She said _boy_, because any one might see he cared little
+for Phosy. She had never discovered that he was disappointed in
+herself, but, since her disregard of his wishes had brought evil upon
+her, she had begun to suspect that he had some ground for being
+dissatisfied with her. She never dreamed of his kindness as the effort
+of a conscientious nature to make the best of what could not now be
+otherwise helped. Her own poverty of spirit and lack of worth
+achieved, she knew as little of as she did of the riches of Michael
+the archangel. One must have begun to gather wisdom before he can see
+his own folly.
+
+That evening she was seated alone in the drawing-room, her husband
+having left her to smoke his cigar, when the butler entered and
+informed her that Alice had returned, but was behaving so oddly that
+they did not know what to do with her. Asking wherein her oddness
+consisted, and learning that it was mostly in silence and tears, she
+was not sorry to gather that some disappointment had befallen her, and
+felt considerable curiosity to know what it was. She therefore told
+him to send her upstairs.
+
+Meantime Polly, the housemaid, seeing plainly enough from her return
+in the middle of her holiday, and from her utter dejection, that
+Alice's expectations had been frustrated, and cherishing no little
+resentment against her because of her _uppishness_ on the first news
+of her good fortune, had been ungenerous enough to take her revenge in
+a way as stinging in effect as bitter in intention; for she loudly
+protested that no amount of such luck as she pretended to suppose in
+Alice's possession, would have induced _her_ to behave herself so that
+a handsome honest fellow like John Jephson should be driven to despise
+her, and take up with her betters. When her mistress's message came,
+Alice was only too glad to find refuge from the kitchen in the
+drawing-room.
+
+The moment she entered, she fell on her knees at the foot of the couch
+on which her mistress lay, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed
+grievously.
+
+Nor was the change more remarkable in her bearing than in her person.
+She was pale and worn, and had a hunted look--was in fact a mere
+shadow of what she had been. For a time her mistress found it
+impossible to quiet her so as to draw from her her story: tears and
+sobs combined with repugnance to hold her silent.
+
+"Oh, ma'am!" she burst out at length, wringing her hands, "how ever
+_can_ I tell you? You will never speak to me again. Little did I think
+such a disgrace was waiting me!"
+
+"It was no fault of yours if you were misinformed," said her mistress,
+"or that your uncle was not the rich man you fancied."
+
+"Oh, ma'am, there was no mistake there! He was more than twice as rich
+as I fancied. If he had only died a beggar, and left things as they
+was!"
+
+"Then he didn't leave it to his nephews and nieces as they told
+you?--Well, there's no disgrace in that."
+
+"Oh! but he did, ma'am: that was all right; no mistake there either,
+ma'am.--And to think o' me behavin' as I did--to you and master as was
+so good to me! Who'll ever take any more notice of me now, after what
+has come out--as I'm sure I no more dreamed on than the child unborn!"
+
+An agonized burst of fresh weeping followed, and it was with prolonged
+difficulty, and by incessant questioning, that Mrs. Greatorex at
+length drew from her the following facts.
+
+Before Alice and her brother could receive the legacy to which they
+laid claim, it was necessary to produce certain documents, the absence
+of which, as of any proof to take their place, led to the unavoidable
+publication of a fact previously known only to a living few--namely,
+that the father and mother of Alice Hopwood had never been married,
+which fact deprived them of the smallest claim on the legacy, and fell
+like a millstone upon Alice and her pride. From the height of her
+miserable arrogance she fell prone--not merely hurled back into the
+lowly condition from which she had raised her head only to despise it
+with base unrighteousness, and to adopt and reassert the principles
+she had abhorred when they affected herself--not merely this, but, in
+her own judgment at least, no longer the respectable member of society
+she had hitherto been justified in supposing herself. The relation of
+her father and mother she felt overshadow her with a disgrace
+unfathomable--the more overwhelming that it cast her from the gates of
+the Paradise she had seemed on the point of entering: her fall she
+measured by the height of the social ambition she had cherished, and
+had seemed on the point of attaining. But it is not an evil that the
+devil's money, which this legacy had from the first proved to Alice,
+should turn to a hot cinder in the hand. Rarely had a more haughty
+spirit than hers gone before a fall, and rarely has the fall been more
+sudden or more abject. And the consciousness of the behaviour into
+which her false riches had seduced her, changed the whip of her
+chastisement into scorpions. Worst of all, she had insulted her lover
+as beneath her notice, and the next moment had found herself too vile
+for his. Judging by herself, in the injustice of bitter humiliation
+she imagined him scoffing with his mates at the base-born menial who
+would set up for a fine lady. But had she been more worthy of honest
+John, she would have understood him better. As it was, no really good
+fortune could have befallen her but such as now seemed to her the
+depth of evil fortune. Without humiliation to prepare the way for
+humility, she must have become capable of more and more baseness,
+until she lost all that makes life worth having.
+
+When Mrs. Greatorex had given her what consolation she found handy,
+and at length dismissed her, the girl, unable to endure her own
+company, sought the nursery, where she caught Sophy in her arms and
+embraced her with fervour. Never in her life having been the object of
+any such display of feeling, Phosy was much astonished: when Alice had
+set her down and she had resumed her seat by the fireside, she went on
+staring for a while--and then a strange sort of miming ensued.
+
+It was Phosy's habit--one less rare with children than may by most be
+imagined--to do what she could to enter into any state of mind whose
+shows were sufficiently marked for her observation. She sought to lay
+hold of the feeling that produced the expression: less than the
+reproduction of a similar condition in her own imaginative sensorium,
+subject to her leisurely examination, would in no case satisfy the
+little metaphysician. But what was indeed very odd was the means she
+took for arriving at the sympathetic knowledge she desired. As if she
+had been the most earnest student of dramatic expression through the
+facial muscles, she would sit watching the countenance of the object
+of her solicitude, all the time, with full consciousness, fashioning
+her own as nearly as she could into the lines and forms of the other:
+in proportion as she succeeded, the small psychologist imagined she
+felt in herself the condition that produced the phenomenon she
+observed--as if the shape of her face cast inward its shadow upon her
+mind, and so revealed to it, through the two faces, what was moving
+and shaping in the mind of the other.
+
+In the present instance, having at length, after modelling and
+remodelling her face like that of a gutta-percha doll for some time,
+composed it finally into the best correspondence she could effect, she
+sat brooding for a while, with Alice's expression as it were frozen
+upon it. Gradually the forms assumed melted away, and allowed her
+still, solemn face to look out from behind them. The moment this
+evanishment was complete, she rose and went to Alice, where she sat
+staring into the fire, unconscious of the scrutiny she had been
+undergoing, and, looking up in her face, took her thumb out of her
+mouth, and said,
+
+"Is the Lord chastening Alice? I wish he would chasten Phosy."
+
+Her face was calm as that of the Sphinx; there was no mist in the
+depth of her gray eyes, not a cloud on the wide heaven of her
+forehead.
+
+Was the child crazed? What could the atom mean, with her big eyes
+looking right into her? Alice never had understood her: it were indeed
+strange if the less should comprehend the greater! She was not yet,
+capable of recognising the word of the Lord in the mouth of babes and
+sucklings. But there was a something in Phosy's face besides its
+calmness and unintelligibility. What it was Alice could never have
+told--yet it did her good. She lifted the child on her lap. There she
+soon fell asleep. Alice undressed her, laid her in her crib, and went
+to bed herself.
+
+But, weary as she was, she had to rise again before she got to sleep.
+Her mistress was again taken ill. Doctor and nurse were sent for in
+hot haste; hansom cabs came and went throughout the night, like noisy
+moths to the one lighted house in the street; there were soft steps
+within, and doors were gently opened and shut. The waters of Mara had
+risen and filled the house.
+
+Towards morning they were ebbing slowly away. Letty did not know that
+her husband was watching by her bedside. The street was quiet now. So
+was the house. Most of its people had been up throughout the night,
+but now they had all gone to bed except the strange nurse and Mr.
+Greatorex.
+
+It was the morning of Christmas Day, and little Phosy knew it in every
+cranny of her soul. She was not of those who had been up all night,
+and now she was awake, early and wide, and the moment she awoke she
+was speculating: He was coming to-day--_how_ would he come? Where
+should she find the baby Jesus? And when would he come? In the
+morning, or the afternoon, or in the evening? Could such a grief be in
+store for her as that he would not appear until night, when she would
+be again in bed? But she would not sleep till all hope was gone. Would
+everybody be gathered to meet him, or would he show himself to one
+after another, each alone? Then her turn would be last, and oh, if he
+would come to the nursery! But perhaps he would not appear to her at
+all!--for was she not one whom the Lord did not care to chasten?
+
+Expectation grew and wrought in her until she could lie in bed no
+longer. Alice was fast asleep. It must be early, but whether it was
+yet light or not she could not tell for the curtains. Anyhow she would
+get up and dress, and then she would be ready for Jesus whenever he
+should come. True, she was not able to dress herself very well, but he
+would know, and would not mind. She made all the haste she could,
+consistently with taking pains, and was soon attired after a fashion.
+
+She crept out of the room and down the stair. The house was very
+still. What if Jesus should come and find nobody awake? Would he go
+again and give them no presents? She couldn't expect any herself--but
+might he not let her take theirs for the rest? Perhaps she ought to
+wake them all, but she dared not without being sure.
+
+On the last landing above the first floor, she saw, by the low
+gaslight at the end of the corridor, an unknown figure pass the foot
+of the stair: could she have anything to do with the marvel of the
+day? The woman looked up, and Phosy dropped the question. Yet she
+might be a charwoman, whose assistance the expected advent rendered
+necessary. When she reached the bottom of the stair she saw her
+disappearing in her step-mother's room. That she did not like. It was
+the one room into which she could not go. But, as the house was so
+still, she would search everywhere else, and if she did not find him,
+would then sit down in the hall and wait for him.
+
+The room next the foot of the stair, and opposite her step-mother's, was
+the spare room, with which she associated ideas of state and grandeur:
+where better could she begin than at the guest-chamber?--There!--Could
+it be? Yes!--Through the chink of the scarce-closed door she saw light.
+Either he was already there or there they were expecting him. From that
+moment she felt as if lifted out of the body. Far exalted above all
+dread, she peeped modestly in, and then entered. Beyond the foot of the
+bed, a candle stood on a little low table, but nobody was to be seen.
+There was a stool near the table: she would sit on it by the candle,
+and wait for him. But ere she reached it, she caught sight of something
+upon the bed that drew her thither. She stood entranced.--_Could_ it
+be?--It _might_ be. Perhaps he had left it there while he went into her
+mamma's room with something for her.--The loveliest of dolls ever
+imagined! She drew nearer. The light was low, and the shadows were
+many: she could not be sure what it was. But when she had gone close
+up to it, she concluded with certainty that it was in very truth a
+doll--perhaps intended for her--but beyond doubt the most exquisite
+of dolls. She dragged a chair to the bed, got, up, pushed her little
+arms softly under it, and drawing it gently to her, slid down with it.
+When she felt her feet firm on the floor, filled with the solemn
+composure of holy awe she carried the gift of the child Jesus to the
+candle, that she might the better admire its beauty and know its
+preciousness. But the light had no sooner fallen upon it than a strange
+undefinable doubt awoke within her. Whatever it was, it was the very
+essence of loveliness--the tiny darling with its alabaster face, and its
+delicately modelled hands and fingers! A long night-gown covered all
+the rest.--Was it possible?--Could it be?--Yes, indeed! it must be--it
+could be nothing else than a _real_ baby! What a goose she had been!
+Of course it was baby Jesus himself!--for was not this his very own
+Christmas Day on which he was always born?--If she had felt awe of his
+gift before, what a grandeur of adoring love, what a divine dignity
+possessed her, holding in her arms the very child himself! One shudder
+of bliss passed through her, and in an agony of possession she clasped
+the baby to her great heart--then at once became still with the
+satisfaction of eternity, with the peace of God. She sat down on the
+stool, near the little table, with her back to the candle, that its
+rays should not fall on the eyes of the sleeping Jesus and wake him:
+there she sat, lost in the very majesty of bliss, at once the mother
+and the slave of the Lord Jesus.
+
+She sat for a time still as marble waiting for marble to awake,
+heedful as tenderest woman not to rouse him before his time, though
+her heart was swelling with the eager petition that he would ask his
+Father to be as good as chasten her. And as she sat, she began, after
+her wont, to model her face to the likeness of his, that she might
+understand his stillness--the absolute peace that dwelt on his
+countenance. But as she did so, again a sudden doubt invaded her:
+Jesus lay so very still--never moved, never opened his pale eye-lids!
+And now set thinking, she noted that he did not breathe. She had seen
+babies asleep, and their breath came and went--their little bosoms
+heaved up and down, and sometimes they would smile, and sometimes they
+would moan and sigh. But Jesus did none of all these things: was it
+not strange? And then he was cold--oh, so cold!
+
+A blue silk coverlid lay on the bed: she half rose and dragged it off,
+and contrived to wind it around herself and the baby. Sad at heart,
+very sad, but undismayed, she sat and watched him on her lap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+Meantime the morning of Christmas Day grew. The light came and filled
+the house. The sleepers slept late, but at length they stirred. Alice
+awoke last--from a troubled sleep, in which the events of the night
+mingled with her own lost condition and destiny. After all Polly had
+been kind, she thought, and got Sophy up without disturbing her.
+
+She had been but a few minutes down, when a strange and appalling
+rumour made itself--I cannot say audible, but--somehow known through
+the house, and every one hurried up in horrible dismay.
+
+The nurse had gone into the spare room, and missed the little dead
+thing she had laid there. The bed was between her and Phosy, and she
+never saw her. The doctor had been sharp with her about something the
+night before: she now took her revenge in suspicion of him, and after
+a hasty and fruitless visit of inquiry to the kitchen, hurried to Mr.
+Greatorex.
+
+The servants crowded to the spare room, and when their master,
+incredulous indeed, yet shocked at the tidings brought him, hastened
+to the spot, he found them all in the room, gathered at the foot of
+the bed. A little sunlight filtered through the red window-curtains,
+and gave a strange pallid expression to the flame of the candle, which
+had now burned very low. At first he saw nothing but the group of
+servants, silent, motionless, with heads leaning forward, intently
+gazing: he had come just in time: another moment and they would have
+ruined the lovely sight. He stepped forward, and saw Phosy, half
+shrouded in blue, the candle behind illuminating the hair she had
+found too rebellious to the brush, and making of it a faint aureole
+about her head and white face, whence cold and sorrow had driven all
+the flush, rendering it colourless as that upon her arm which had
+never seen the light. She had pored on the little face until she knew
+death, and now she sat a speechless mother of sorrow, bending in the
+dim light of the tomb over the body of her holy infant.
+
+How it was I cannot tell, but the moment her father saw her she looked
+up, and the spell of her dumbness broke.
+
+"Jesus is dead," she said, slowly and sadly, but with perfect
+calmness. "He is dead," she repeated. "He came too early, and there
+was no one up to take care of him, and he's dead--dead--dead!"
+
+But as she spoke the last words, the frozen lump of agony gave way;
+the well of her heart suddenly filled, swelled, overflowed; the last
+word was half sob, half shriek of utter despair and loss.
+
+Alice darted forward and took the dead baby tenderly from her. The
+same moment her father raised the little mother and clasped her to his
+bosom. Her arms went round his neck, her head sank on his shoulder,
+and sobbing in grievous misery, yet already a little comforted, he
+bore her from the room.
+
+"No, no, Phosy!" they heard him say, "Jesus is not dead, thank God. It
+is only your little brother that hadn't life enough, and is gone back
+to God for more."
+
+Weeping the women went down the stairs. Alice's tears were still
+flowing, when John Jephson entered. Her own troubles forgotten in the
+emotion of the scene she had just witnessed, she ran to his arms and
+wept on his bosom.
+
+John stood as one astonished.
+
+"O Lord! this _is_ a Christmas!" he sighed at last.
+
+"Oh John!" cried Alice, and tore herself from his embrace, "I forgot!
+You'll never speak to me again, John! Don't do it, John."
+
+And with the words she gave a stifled cry, and fell a weeping again,
+behind her two shielding hands.
+
+"Why, Alice!--you ain't married, are you?" gasped John, to whom that
+was the only possible evil.
+
+"No, John, and never shall be: a respectable man like you would never
+think of looking twice at a poor girl like me!"
+
+"Let's have one more look anyhow," said John, drawing her hands from
+her face. "Tell me what's the matter, and if there's anything can be
+done to right you, I'll work day and night to do it, Alice."
+
+"There's nothing _can_ be done, John," replied Alice, and would again
+have floated out on the ocean of her misery, but in spite of wind and
+tide, that is sobs and tears, she held on by the shore at his
+entreaty, and told her tale, not even omitting the fact that when she
+went to the eldest of the cousins, inheriting through the misfortune
+of her and her brother so much more than their expected share, and
+"demeaned herself" to beg a little help for her brother, who was dying
+of consumption, he had all but ordered her out of the house, swearing
+he had nothing to do with her or her brother, and saying she ought to
+be ashamed to show her face.
+
+"And that when we used to make mud pies together!" concluded Alice
+with indignation. "There, John! you have it all," she added. "--And
+now?"
+
+With the word she gave a deep, humbly questioning look into his honest
+eyes.
+
+"Is that all, Alice?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, John; ain't it enough?" she returned.
+
+"More'n enough," answered John. "I swear to you, Alice, you're worth
+to me ten times what you would ha' been, even if you'd ha' had me,
+with ten thousand pounds in your ridicule. Why, my woman, I never saw
+you look one 'alf so 'an'some as you do now!"
+
+"But the disgrace of it, John!" said Alice, hanging her head, and so
+hiding the pleasure that would dawn through all the mist of her
+misery.
+
+"Let your father and mother settle that betwixt 'em, Alice. 'Tain't
+none o' my business. Please God, we'll do different.--When shall it
+be, my girl?"
+
+"When you like, John," answered Alice, without raising her head,
+thoughtfully.
+
+When she had withdrawn herself from the too rigorous embrace with
+which he received her consent, she remarked--
+
+"I do believe, John, money ain't a good thing! Sure as I live, with
+the very wind o' that money, the devil entered into me. Didn't you
+hate me, John? Speak the truth now."
+
+"No, Alice. I did cry a bit over you, though. You _was_ possessed
+like."
+
+"I _was_ possessed. I do believe if that money hadn't been took from
+me, I'd never ha' had you, John. Ain't it awful to think on?"
+
+"Well, no. O' coorse! How could ye?" said Jephson--with reluctance.
+
+"Now, John, don't ye talk like that, for I won't stand it. Don't you
+go for to set me up again with excusin' of me. I'm a nasty conceited
+cat, I am--and all for nothing but mean pride."
+
+"Mind ye, ye're mine now, Alice; an' what's mine's mine, an' I won't
+have it abused. I knows you twice the woman you was afore, and all the
+world couldn't gi' me such another Christmas-box--no, not if it was
+all gold watches and roast beef."
+
+When Mr. Greatorex returned to his wife's room, and thought to find
+her asleep as he had left her, he was dismayed to hear sounds of soft
+weeping from the bed. Some tone or stray word, never intended to reach
+her ear, had been enough to reveal the truth concerning her baby.
+
+"Hush! hush!" he said, with more love in his heart than had moved
+there for many months, and therefore more in his tone than she had
+heard for as many;--"if you cry you will be ill. Hush, my dear!"
+
+In a moment, ere he could prevent her, she had flung her arms around
+his neck as he stooped over her.
+
+"Husband! husband!" she cried, "is it my fault?"
+
+"You behaved perfectly," he returned. "No woman could have been
+braver."
+
+"Ah, but I wouldn't stay at home when you wanted me."
+
+"Never mind that now, my child," he said.
+
+At the word she pulled his face down to hers.
+
+"I have _you_, and I don't care," he added.
+
+"_Do_ you care to have me?" she said, with a sob that ended in a loud
+cry. "Oh! I don't deserve it. But I _will_ be good after this. I
+promise you I will."
+
+"Then you must begin now, my darling. You must lie perfectly still,
+and not cry a bit, or you will go after the baby, and I shall be left
+alone."
+
+She looked up at him with such a light in her face as he had never
+dreamed of there before. He had never seen her so lovely. Then she
+withdrew her arms, repressed her tears, smiled, and turned her face
+away. He put her hands under the clothes, and in a minute or two she
+was again fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+That day, when Phosy and her father had sat down to their Christmas
+dinner, he rose again, and taking her up as she sat, chair and all,
+set her down close to him, on the other side of the corner of the
+table. It was the first of a new covenant between them. The father's
+eyes having been suddenly opened to her character and preciousness, as
+well as to his own neglected duty in regard to her, it was as if a
+well of life had burst forth at his feet. And every day, as he looked
+in her face and talked to her, it was with more and more respect for
+what he found in her, with growing tenderness for her predilections,
+and reverence for the divine idea enclosed in her ignorance, for her
+childish wisdom, and her calm seeking--until at length he would have
+been horrified at the thought of training her up in _his_ way: had she
+not a way of her own to go--following--not the dead Jesus, but Him
+who liveth for evermore? In the endeavour to help her, he had to find
+his own position towards the truth; and the results were weighty.--Nor
+did the child's influence work forward merely. In his intercourse with
+her he was so often reminded of his first wife, and that, with the
+gloss or comment of a childish reproduction, that his memories of her
+at length grew a little tender, and through the child he began to
+understand the nature and worth of the mother. In her child she had
+given him what she could not be herself. Unable to keep up with him,
+she had handed him her baby, and dropped on the path.
+
+Nor was little Sophy his only comfort. Through their common loss and
+her husband's tenderness, Letty began to grow a woman. And her growth
+was the more rapid that, himself taught through Phosy, her husband no
+longer desired to make her adopt his tastes, and judge with his
+experiences, but, as became the elder and the tried, entered into her
+tastes and experiences--became, as it were, a child again with her,
+that, through the thing she was, he might help the thing she had to
+be.
+
+As soon as she was able to bear it, he told her the story of the dead
+Jesus, and with the tale came to her heart love for Phosy. She had
+lost a son for a season, but she had gained a daughter for ever.
+
+Such were the gifts the Christ-child brought to one household that
+Christmas. And the days of the mourning of that household were ended.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS.
+
+
+_A DAY AND NIGHT MÄHRCHEN_.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. WATHO.
+
+
+There was once a witch who desired to know everything. But the wiser a
+witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she
+comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She
+cared for nothing in itself--only for knowing it. She was not
+naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her cruel.
+
+She was tall and graceful, with a white skin, red hair, and black
+eyes, which had a red fire in them. She was straight and strong, but
+now and then would fall bent together, shudder, and sit for a moment
+with her head turned over her shoulder, as if the wolf had got out of
+her mind on to her back.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. AURORA.
+
+
+This witch got two ladies to visit her. One of them belonged to the
+court, and her husband had been sent on a far and difficult embassy.
+The other was a young widow whose husband had lately died, and who had
+since lost her sight, Watho lodged them in different parts of her
+castle, and they did not know of each other's existence.
+
+The castle stood on the side of a hill sloping gently down into a
+narrow valley, in which was a river, with a pebbly channel and a
+continual song. The garden went down to the bank of the river,
+enclosed by high walls, which crossed the river and there stopped.
+Each wall had a double row of battlements, and between the rows was a
+narrow walk.
+
+In the topmost story of the castle the Lady Aurora occupied a spacious
+apartment of several large rooms looking southward. The windows
+projected oriel-wise over the garden below, and there was a splendid
+view from them both up and down and across the river. The opposite
+side of the valley was steep, but not very high. Far away snow-peaks
+were visible. These rooms Aurora seldom left, but their airy spaces,
+the brilliant landscape and sky, the plentiful sunlight, the musical
+instruments, books, pictures, curiosities, with the company of Watho
+who made herself charming, precluded all dulness. She had venison and
+feathered game to eat, milk and pale sunny sparkling wine to drink.
+
+She had hair of the yellow gold, waved and rippled; her skin was fair,
+not white like Watho's, and her eyes were of the blue of the heavens
+when bluest; her features were delicate but strong, her mouth large
+and finely curved, and haunted with smiles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. VESPER.
+
+
+Behind the castle the hill rose abruptly; the north-eastern tower,
+indeed, was in contact with the rock, and communicated with the
+interior of it. For in the rock was a series of chambers, known only
+to Watho and the one servant whom she trusted, called Falca. Some
+former owner had constructed these chambers after the tomb of an
+Egyptian king, and probably with the same design, for in the centre of
+one of them stood what could only be a sarcophagus, but that and
+others were walled off. The sides and roofs of them were carved in low
+relief, and curiously painted. Here the witch lodged the blind lady,
+whose name was Vesper. Her eyes were black, with long black lashes;
+her skin had a look of darkened silver, but was of purest tint and
+grain; her hair was black and fine and straight-flowing; her features
+were exquisitely formed, and if less beautiful yet more lovely from
+sadness; she always looked as if she wanted to lie down and not rise
+again. She did not know she was lodged in a tomb, though now and then
+she wondered she never touched a window. There were many couches,
+covered with richest silk, and soft as her own cheek, for her to lie
+upon; and the carpets were so thick, she might have cast herself down
+anywhere--as befitted a tomb. The place was dry and warm, and
+cunningly pierced for air, so that it was always fresh, and lacked
+only sunlight. There the witch fed her upon milk, and wine dark as a
+carbuncle, and pomegranates, and purple grapes, and birds that dwell
+in marshy places; and she played to her mournful tunes, and caused
+wailful violins to attend her, and told her sad tales, thus holding
+her ever in an atmosphere of sweet sorrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. PHOTOGEN.
+
+
+Watho at length had her desire, for witches often get what they want:
+a splendid boy was born to the fair Aurora. Just as the sun rose, he
+opened his eyes. Watho carried him immediately to a distant part of
+the castle, and persuaded the mother that he never cried but once,
+dying the moment he was born. Overcome with grief, Aurora left the
+castle as soon as she was able, and Watho never invited her again.
+
+And now the witch's care was, that the child should not know darkness.
+Persistently she trained him until at last he never slept during the
+day, and never woke during the night. She never let him see anything
+black, and even kept all dull colours out of his way. Never, if she
+could help it, would she let a shadow fall upon him, watching against
+shadows as if they had been live things that would hurt him. All day
+he basked in the full splendour of the sun, in the same large rooms
+his mother had occupied. Watho used him to the sun, until he could
+bear more of it than any dark-blooded African. In the hottest of every
+day, she stript him and laid him in it, that he might ripen like a
+peach; and the boy rejoiced in it, and would resist being dressed
+again. She brought all her knowledge to bear on making his muscles
+strong and elastic and swiftly responsive--that his soul, she said
+laughing, might sit in every fibre, be all in every part, and awake
+the moment of call. His hair was of the red gold, but his eyes grew
+darker as he grew, until they were as black as Vesper's. He was the
+merriest of creatures, always laughing, always loving, for a moment
+raging, then laughing afresh. Watho called him Photogen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. NYCTERIS.
+
+
+Five or six months after the birth of Photogen, the dark lady also
+gave birth to a baby: in the windowless tomb of a blind mother, in the
+dead of night, under the feeble rays of a lamp in an alabaster globe,
+a girl came into the darkness with a wail. And just as she was born
+for the first time, Vesper was born for the second, and passed into a
+world as unknown to her as this was to her child--who would have to be
+born yet again before she could see her mother.
+
+Watho called her Nycteris, and she grew as like Vesper as possible--in
+all but one particular. She had the same dark skin, dark eyelashes and
+brows, dark hair, and gentle sad look; but she had just the eyes of
+Aurora, the mother of Photogen, and if they grew darker as she grew
+older, it was only a darker blue. Watho, with the help of Falca, took
+the greatest possible care of her--in every way consistent with her
+plans, that is,--the main point in which was that she should never see
+any light but what came from the lamp. Hence her optic nerves, and
+indeed her whole apparatus for seeing, grew both larger and more
+sensitive; her eyes, indeed, stopped short only of being too large.
+Under her dark hair and forehead and eyebrows, they looked like two
+breaks in a cloudy night-sky, through which peeped the heaven where
+the stars and no clouds live. She was a sadly dainty little creature.
+No one in the world except those two was aware of the being of the
+little bat. Watho trained her to sleep during the day, and wake during
+the night. She taught her music, in which she was herself a
+proficient, and taught her scarcely anything else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. HOW PHOTOGEN GREW.
+
+
+The hollow in which the castle of Watho lay, was a cleft in a plain
+rather than a valley among hills, for at the top of its steep sides,
+both north and south, was a table-land, large and wide. It was covered
+with rich grass and flowers, with here and there a wood, the outlying
+colony of a great forest. These grassy plains were the finest hunting
+grounds in the world. Great herds of small, but fierce cattle, with
+humps and shaggy manes, roved about them, also antelopes and gnus, and
+the tiny roedeer, while the woods were swarming with wild creatures.
+The tables of the castle were mainly supplied from them. The chief of
+Watho's huntsmen was a fine fellow, and when Photogen began to outgrow
+the training she could give him, she handed him over to Fargu. He with
+a will set about teaching him all he knew. He got him pony after pony,
+larger and larger as he grew, every one less manageable than that
+which had preceded it, and advanced him from pony to horse, and from
+horse to horse, until he was equal to anything in that kind which the
+country produced. In similar fashion he trained him to the use of bow
+and arrow, substituting every three months a stronger bow and longer
+arrows; and soon he became, even on horseback, a wonderful archer. He
+was but fourteen when he killed his first bull, causing jubilation
+among the huntsmen, and, indeed, through all the castle, for there too
+he was the favourite. Every day, almost as soon as the sun was up, he
+went out hunting, and would in general be out nearly the whole of the
+day. But Watho had laid upon Fargu just one commandment, namely, that
+Photogen should on no account, whatever the plea, be out until
+sundown, or so near it as to wake in him the desire of seeing what was
+going to happen; and this commandment Fargu was anxiously careful not
+to break; for, although he would not have trembled had a whole herd of
+bulls come down upon him, charging at full speed across the level, and
+not an arrow left in his quiver, he was more than afraid of his
+mistress. When she looked at him in a certain way, he felt, he said,
+as if his heart turned to ashes in his breast, and what ran in his
+veins was no longer blood, but milk and water. So that, ere long, as
+Photogen grew older, Fargu began to tremble, for he found it steadily
+growing harder to restrain him. So full of life was he, as Fargu said
+to his mistress, much to her content, that he was more like a live
+thunderbolt than a human being. He did not know what fear was, and
+that not because he did not know danger; for he had had a severe
+laceration from the razor-like tusk of a boar--whose spine, however,
+he had severed with one blow of his hunting-knife, before Fargu could
+reach him with defence. When he would spur his horse into the midst of
+a herd of bulls, carrying only his bow and his short sword, or shoot
+an arrow into a herd, and go after it as if to reclaim it for a
+runaway shaft, arriving in time to follow it with a spear-thrust
+before the wounded animal knew which way to charge, Fargu thought with
+terror how it would be when he came to know the temptation of the
+huddle-spot leopards, and the knife-clawed lynxes, with which the
+forest was haunted. For the boy had been so steeped in the sun, from
+childhood so saturated with his influence, that he looked upon every
+danger from a sovereign height of courage. When, therefore, he was
+approaching his sixteenth year, Fargu ventured to beg of Watho that
+she would lay her commands upon the youth himself, and release him
+from responsibility for him. One might as soon hold a tawny-maned lion
+as Photogen, he said. Watho called the youth, and in the presence of
+Fargu laid her command upon him never to be out when the rim of the
+sun should touch the horizon, accompanying the prohibition with hints
+of consequences, none the less awful that they were obscure. Photogen
+listened respectfully, but, knowing neither the taste of fear nor the
+temptation of the night, her words were but sounds to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. HOW NYCTERIS GREW.
+
+
+The little education she intended Nycteris to have, Watho gave her by
+word of mouth. Not meaning she should have light enough to read by, to
+leave other reasons unmentioned, she never put a book in her hands.
+Nycteris, however, saw so much better than Watho imagined, that the
+light she gave her was quite sufficient, and she managed to coax Falca
+into teaching her the letters, after which she taught herself to read,
+and Falca now and then brought her a child's book. But her chief
+pleasure was in her instrument. Her very fingers loved it, and would
+wander about over its keys like feeding sheep. She was not unhappy.
+She knew nothing of the world except the tomb in which she dwelt, and
+had some pleasure in everything she did. But she desired,
+nevertheless, something more or different. She did not know what it
+was, and the nearest she could come to expressing it to herself
+was--that she wanted more room. Watho and Falca would go from her
+beyond the shine of the lamp, and come again; therefore surely there
+must be more room somewhere. As often as she was left alone, she would
+fall to poring over the coloured bas-reliefs on the walls. These were
+intended to represent various of the powers of Nature under
+allegorical similitudes, and as nothing can be made that does not
+belong to the general scheme, she could not fail at least to imagine a
+flicker of relationship between some of them, and thus a shadow of the
+reality of things found its way to her.
+
+There was one thing, however, which moved and taught her more than all
+the rest--the lamp, namely, that hung from the ceiling, which she
+always saw alight, though she never saw the flame, only the slight
+condensation towards the centre of the alabaster globe. And besides
+the operation of the light itself after its kind, the indefiniteness
+of the globe, and the softness of the light, giving her the feeling as
+if her eyes could go in and into its whiteness, were somehow also
+associated with the idea of space and room. She would sit for an hour
+together gazing up at the lamp, and her heart would swell as she
+gazed. She would wonder what had hurt her, when she found her face wet
+with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without
+knowing it. She never looked thus at the lamp except when she was
+alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE LAMP.
+
+
+Watho having given orders, took it for granted they were obeyed, and
+that Falca was all night long with Nycteris, whose day it was. But
+Falca could not get into the habit of sleeping through the day, and
+would often leave her alone half the night. Then it seemed to Nycteris
+that the white lamp was watching over her. As it was never permitted
+to go out--while she was awake at least--Nycteris, except by shutting
+her eyes, knew less about darkness than she did about light. Also, the
+lamp being fixed high overhead, and in the centre of everything, she
+did not know much about shadows either. The few there were fell almost
+entirely on the floor, or kept like mice about the foot of the walls.
+
+Once, when she was thus alone, there came the noise of a far-off
+rumbling: she had never before heard a sound of which she did not know
+the origin, and here therefore was a new sign of something beyond
+these chambers. Then came a trembling, then a shaking; the lamp
+dropped from the ceiling to the floor with a great crash, and she felt
+as if both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands over them. She
+concluded that it was the darkness that had made the rumbling and the
+shaking, and rushing into the room, had thrown down the lamp. She sat
+trembling. The noise and the shaking ceased, but the light did not
+return. The darkness had eaten it up!
+
+Her lamp gone, the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison. She
+scarcely knew what _out_ meant; out of one room into another, where
+there was not even a dividing door, only an open arch, was all she
+knew of the world. But suddenly she remembered that she had heard
+Falca speak of the lamp _going out_: this must be what she had meant?
+And if the lamp had gone out, where had it gone? Surely where Falca
+went, and like her it would come again. But she could not wait. The
+desire to go out grew irresistible. She must follow her beautiful
+lamp! She must find it! She must see what it was about!
+
+Now there was a curtain covering a recess in the wall, where some of
+her toys and gymnastic things were kept; and from behind that curtain
+Watho and Falca always appeared, and behind it they vanished. How they
+came out of solid wall, she had not an idea, all up to the wall was
+open space, and all beyond it seemed wall; but clearly the first and
+only thing she could do, was to feel her way behind the curtain. It
+was so dark that a cat could not have caught the largest of mice.
+Nycteris could see better than any cat, but now her great eyes were
+not of the smallest use to her. As she went she trod upon a piece of
+the broken lamp. She had never worn shoes or stockings, and the
+fragment, though, being of soft alabaster, it did not cut, yet hurt
+her foot. She did not know what it was, but as it had not been there
+before the darkness came, she suspected that it had to do with the
+lamp. She kneeled therefore, and searched with her hands, and bringing
+two large pieces together, recognized the shape of the lamp. Therewith
+it flashed upon her that the lamp was dead, that this brokenness was
+the death of which she had read without understanding, that the
+darkness had killed the lamp. What then could Falca have meant when
+she spoke of the lamp _going out_? There was the lamp--dead, indeed,
+and so changed that she would never have taken it for a lamp but for
+the shape! No, it was not the lamp any more now it was dead, for all
+that made it a lamp was gone, namely, the bright shining of it. Then
+it must be the shine, the light, that had gone out! That must be what
+Falca meant--and it must be somewhere in the other place in the wall.
+She started afresh after it, and groped her way to the curtain.
+
+Now she had never in her life tried to get out, and did not know how;
+but instinctively she began to move her hands about over one of the
+walls behind the curtain, half expecting them to go into it, as she
+supposed Watho and Falca did. But the wall repelled her with
+inexorable hardness, and she turned to the one opposite. In so doing,
+she set her foot upon an ivory die, and as it met sharply the same
+spot the broken alabaster had already hurt, she fell forward with her
+outstretched hands against the wall. Something gave way, and she
+tumbled out of the cavern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. OUT.
+
+
+But alas! _out_ was very much like _in_, for the same enemy, the
+darkness, was here also. The next moment, however, came a great
+gladness--a firefly, which had wandered in from the garden. She saw
+the tiny spark in the distance. With slow pulsing ebb and throb of
+light, it came pushing itself through the air, drawing nearer and
+nearer, with that motion which more resembles swimming than flying,
+and the light seemed the source of its own motion.
+
+"My lamp! my lamp!" cried Nycteris. "It is the shiningness of my lamp,
+which the cruel darkness drove out. My good lamp has been waiting for
+me here all the time! It knew I would come after it, and waited to
+take me with it."
+
+She followed the firefly, which, like herself, was seeking the way
+out. If it did not know the way, it was yet light; and, because all
+light is one, any light may serve to guide to more light. If she was
+mistaken in thinking it the spirit of her lamp, it was of the same
+spirit as her lamp--and had wings. The gold-green jet-boat, driven by
+light, went throbbing before her through a long narrow passage.
+Suddenly it rose higher, and the same moment Nycteris fell upon an
+ascending stair. She had never seen a stair before, and found going-up
+a curious sensation. Just as she reached what seemed the top, the
+firefly ceased to shine, and so disappeared. She was in utter darkness
+once more. But when we are following the light, even its extinction is
+a guide. If the firefly had gone on shining, Nycteris would have seen
+the stair turn, and would have gone up to Watho's bedroom; whereas
+now, feeling straight before her, she came to a latched door, which
+after a good deal of trying she managed to open--and stood in a maze
+of wondering perplexity, awe, and delight. What was it? Was it outside
+of her, or something taking place in her head? Before her was a very
+long and very narrow passage, broken up she could not tell how, and
+spreading out above and on all sides to an infinite height and breadth
+and distance--as if space itself were growing out of a trough. It was
+brighter than her rooms had ever been--brighter than if six alabaster
+lamps had been burning in them. There was a quantity of strange
+streaking and mottling about it, very different from the shapes on her
+walls. She was in a dream of pleasant perplexity, of delightful
+bewilderment. She could not tell whether she was upon her feet or
+drifting about like the firefly, driven by the pulses of an inward
+bliss. But she knew little as yet of her inheritance. Unconsciously
+she took one step forward from the threshold, and the girl who had
+been from her very birth a troglodyte, stood in the ravishing glory of
+a southern night, lit by a perfect moon--not the moon of our northern
+clime, but a moon like silver glowing in a furnace--a moon one could
+see to be a globe--not far off, a mere flat disc on the face of the
+blue, but hanging down halfway, and looking as if one could see all
+round it by a mere bending of the neck.
+
+"It is my lamp!" she said, and stood dumb with parted lips. She looked
+and felt as if she had been standing there in silent ecstasy from the
+beginning.
+
+"No, it is not my lamp," she said after a while; "it is the mother of
+all the lamps."
+
+And with that she fell on her knees, and spread out her hands to the
+moon. She could not in the least have told what was in her mind, but
+the action was in reality just a begging of the moon to be what she
+was--that precise incredible splendour hung in the far-off roof, that
+very glory essential to the being of poor girls born and bred in
+caverns. It was a resurrection--nay, a birth itself, to Nycteris. What
+the vast blue sky, studded with tiny sparks like the heads of diamond
+nails, could be; what the moon, looking so absolutely content with
+light.--why, she knew less about them than you and I! but the greatest
+of astronomers might envy the rapture of such a first impression at
+the age of sixteen. Immeasurably imperfect it was, but false the
+impression could not be, for she saw with the eyes made for seeing,
+and saw indeed what many men are too wise to see.
+
+As she knelt, something softly flapped her, embraced her, stroked her,
+fondled her. She rose to her feet, but saw nothing, did not know what
+it was. It was likest a woman's breath. For she know nothing of the
+air even, had never breathed the still newborn freshness of the world.
+Her breath had come to her only through long passages and spirals in
+the rock. Still less did she know of the air alive with motion--of
+that thrice blessed thing, the wind of a summer night. It was like a
+spiritual wine, filling her whole being with an intoxication of purest
+joy. To breathe was a perfect existence. It seemed to her the light
+itself she drew into her lungs. Possessed by the power of the gorgeous
+night, she seemed at one and the same moment annihilated and
+glorified.
+
+She was in the open passage or gallery that ran round the top of the
+garden walls, between the cleft battlements, but she did not once look
+down to see what lay beneath. Her soul was drawn to the vault above
+her, with its lamp and its endless room. At last she burst into tears,
+and her heart was relieved, as the night itself is relieved by its
+lightning and rain.
+
+And now she grew thoughtful. She must hoard this splendour! What a
+little ignorance her gaolers had made of her! Life was a mighty bliss,
+and they had scraped hers to the bare bone! They must not know that
+she knew. She must hide her knowledge--hide it even from her own eyes,
+keeping it close in her bosom, content to know that she had it, even
+when she could not brood on its presence, feasting her eyes with its
+glory. She turned from the vision, therefore, with a sigh of utter
+bliss, and with soft quiet steps and groping hands, stole back into
+the darkness of the rock. What was darkness or the laziness of Time's
+feet to one who had seen what she had that night seen? She was lifted
+above all weariness--above all wrong.
+
+When Falca entered, she uttered a cry of terror. But Nycteris called
+to her not to be afraid, and told her how there had come a rumbling
+and a shaking, and the lamp had fallen. Then Falca went and told her
+mistress, and within an hour a new globe hung in the place of the old
+one. Nycteris thought it did not look so bright and clear as the
+former, but she made no lamentation over the change; she was far too
+rich to heed it. For now, prisoner as she knew herself, her heart was
+full of glory and gladness; at times she had to hold herself from
+jumping up, and going dancing and singing about the room. When she
+slept, instead of dull dreams, she had splendid visions. There were
+times, it is true, when she became restless, and impatient to look
+upon her riches, but then she would reason with herself, saying, "What
+does it matter if I sit here for ages with my poor pale lamp, when out
+there a lump is burning at which ten thousand little lamps are glowing
+with wonder?"
+
+She never doubted she had looked upon the day and the sun, of which
+she had read; and always when she read of the day and the sun, she had
+the night and the moon in her mind; and when she read of the night and
+the moon, she thought only of the cave and the lamp that hung there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE GREAT LAMP.
+
+
+It was some time before she had a second opportunity of going out, for
+Falca, since the fall of the lamp, had been a little more careful, and
+seldom left her for long. But one night, having a little headache,
+Nycteris lay down upon her bed, and was lying with her eyes closed,
+when she heard Falca come to her, and felt she was bending over her.
+Disinclined to talk, she did not open her eyes, and lay quite still.
+Satisfied that she was asleep, Falca left her, moving so softly that
+her very caution made Nycteris open her eyes and look after her--just
+in time to see her vanish--through a picture, as it seemed, that hung
+on the wall a long way from the usual place of issue. She jumped up,
+her headache forgotten, and ran in the opposite direction; got out,
+groped her way to the stair, climbed, and reached the top of the
+wall.--Alas! the great room was not so light as the little one she had
+left. Why?--Sorrow of sorrows! the great lamp was gone! Had its globe
+fallen? and its lovely light gone out upon great wings, a resplendent
+firefly, oaring itself through a yet grander and lovelier room? She
+looked down to see if it lay anywhere broken to pieces on the carpet
+below; but she could not even see the carpet. But surely nothing very
+dreadful could have happened--no rumbling or shaking, for there were
+all the little lamps shining brighter than before, not one of them
+looking as if any unusual matter had befallen. What if each of those
+little lamps was growing into a big lamp, and after being a big lamp
+for a while, had to go out and grow a bigger lamp still--out there,
+beyond this _out_?--Ah! here was the living thing that would not be
+seen, come to her again--bigger to-night! with such loving kisses, and
+such liquid strokings of her cheeks and forehead, gently tossing her
+hair, and delicately toying with it! But it ceased, and all was still.
+Had it gone out? What would happen next? Perhaps the little lamps had
+not to grow great lamps, but to fall one by one and go out
+first?--With that, came from below a sweet scent, then another, and
+another. Ah, how delicious! Perhaps they were all coming to her only
+on their way out after the great lamp!--Then came the music of the
+river, which she had been too absorbed in the sky to note the first
+time. What was it? Alas! alas! another sweet living thing on its way
+out. They were all marching slowly out in long lovely file, one after
+the other, each taking its leave of her as it passed! It must be so:
+here were more and more sweet sounds, following and fading! The whole
+of the _Out_ was going out again; it was all going after the great
+lovely lamp! She would be left the only creature in the solitary day!
+Was there nobody to hang up a new lamp for the old one, and keep the
+creatures from going?--She crept back to her rock very sad. She tried
+to comfort herself by saying that anyhow there would be room out
+there; but as she said it she shuddered at the thought of _empty_
+room.
+
+When next she succeeded in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east:
+a new lamp had come, she thought, and all would be well.
+
+It would be endless to describe the phases of feeling through which
+Nycteris passed, more numerous and delicate than those of a thousand
+changing moons. A fresh bliss bloomed in her soul with every varying
+aspect of infinite nature. Ere long she began to suspect that the new
+moon was the old moon, gone out and come in again like herself; also
+that, unlike herself, it wasted and grew again; that it was indeed a
+live thing, subject like herself to caverns, and keepers, and
+solitudes, escaping and shining when it could. Was it a prison like
+hers it was shut in? and did it grow dark when the lamp left it? Where
+could be the way into it?--With that first she began to look below, as
+well as above and around her; and then first noted the tops of the
+trees between her and the floor. There were palms with their
+red-fingered hands full of fruit; eucalyptus trees crowded with little
+boxes of powder-puffs; oleanders with their half-caste roses; and
+orange trees with their clouds of young silver stars, and their aged
+balls of gold. Her eyes could see colours invisible to ours in the
+moonlight, and all these she could distinguish well, though at first
+she took them for the shapes and colours of the carpet of the great
+room. She longed to get down among them, now she saw they were real
+creatures, but she did not know how. She went along the whole length
+of the wall to the end that crossed the river, but found no way of
+going down. Above the river she stopped to gaze with awe upon the
+rushing water. She knew nothing of water but from what she drank and
+what she bathed in; and, as the moon shone on the dark, swift stream,
+singing lustily as it flowed, she did not doubt the river was alive, a
+swift rushing serpent of life, going--out?--whither? And then she
+wondered if what was brought into her rooms had been killed that she
+might drink it, and have her bath in it.
+
+Once when she stepped out upon the wall, it was into the midst of a
+fierce wind. The trees were all roaring. Great clouds were rushing
+along the skies, and tumbling over the little lamps: the great lamp
+had not come yet. All was in tumult. The wind seized her garments and
+hair, and shook them as if it would tear them from her. What could she
+have done to make the gentle creature so angry? Or was this another
+creature altogether--of the same kind, but hugely bigger, and of a
+very different temper and behaviour? But the whole place was angry! Or
+was it that the creatures dwelling in it, the wind, and the trees, and
+the clouds, and the river, had all quarrelled, each with all the rest?
+Would the whole come to confusion and disorder? But, as she gazed
+wondering and disquieted, the moon, larger than ever she had seen her,
+came lifting herself above the horizon to look, broad and red, as if
+she, too, were swollen with anger that she had been roused from her
+rest by their noise, and compelled to hurry up to see what her
+children were about, thus rioting in her absence, lest they should
+rack the whole frame of things. And as she rose, the loud wind grew
+quieter and scolded less fiercely, the trees grew stiller and moaned
+with a lower complaint, and the clouds hunted and hurled themselves
+less wildly across the sky. And as if she were pleased that her
+children obeyed her very presence, the moon grew smaller as she
+ascended the heavenly stair; her puffed cheeks sank, her complexion
+grew clearer, and a sweet smile spread over her countenance, as
+peacefully she rose and rose. But there was treason and rebellion in
+her court; for, ere she reached the top of her great stairs, the
+clouds had assembled, forgetting their late wars, and very still they
+were as they laid their heads together and conspired. Then combining,
+and lying silently in wait until she came near, they threw themselves
+upon her, and swallowed her up. Down from the roof came spots of wet,
+faster and faster, and they wetted the cheeks of Nycteris; and what
+could they be but the tears of the moon, crying because her children
+were smothering her? Nycteris wept too, and not knowing what to think,
+stole back in dismay to her room.
+
+The next time, she came out in fear and trembling. There was the moon
+still! away in the west--poor, indeed, and old, and looking dreadfully
+worn, as if all the wild beasts in the sky had been gnawing at
+her--but there she was, alive still, and able to shine!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE SUNSET.
+
+
+Knowing nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent his
+days in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassy
+plains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing the
+buffaloes.
+
+One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier
+than usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal
+unknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sunrays had not
+yet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass, slinking
+southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body of a buffalo it
+had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great leaps and
+bounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, and
+vanished. Turning therefore defeated, he met Fargu, who had been
+following him as fast as his horse could carry him.
+
+"What animal was that, Fargu?" he asked. "How he did run!"
+
+Fargu answered he might be a leopard, but he rather thought from his
+pace and look that he was a young lion.
+
+"What a coward he must be!" said Photogen.
+
+"Don't be too sure of that," rejoined Fargu. "He is one of the
+creatures the sun makes uncomfortable. As soon as the sun is down, he
+will be brave enough."
+
+He had scarcely said it, when he repented nor did he regret it the
+less when he found that Photogen made no reply. But alas! said was
+said.
+
+"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is one of
+the terrors of sundown, of which Madam Watho spoke!"
+
+He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride so
+hard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu to his dismay observed also
+that he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer to the
+forest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west, he seemed to
+change his mind, for he turned his horse's head, and rode home so fast
+that the rest could not keep him in sight. When they arrived, they
+found his horse in the stable, and concluded that he had gone into the
+castle. But he had in truth set out again by the back of it. Crossing
+the river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground they
+had left, and just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.
+
+The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to
+himself he could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into the wood.
+But even as he entered, he turned, and looked to the west. The rim of
+the red was touching the horizon, all jagged with broken hills. "Now,"
+said Photogen, "we shall see;" but he said it in the face of a darkness
+he had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikes
+and saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart a fear
+inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anything
+of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun
+sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and
+darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it
+enfeeble him. When the last flaming scimitar-edge of the sun went out
+like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the
+closing lids of an eye--for there was no twilight, and this night no
+moon--the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them
+for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought
+himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own--he had only
+had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could
+scarcely stand--certainly not stand straight, for not one of his
+joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a spark
+of the sun, in himself nothing.
+
+The beast was behind him--stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark
+in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into
+pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his
+bow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rouse
+courage enough--not to fight--that he did not even desire--but to run.
+Courage to flee home was all he could ever imagine, and it would not
+come. But what he had not, was ignominiously given him. A cry in the
+wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a
+boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear
+that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But
+as he ran he grew able to run--gained courage at least to be a coward.
+The stars gave a little light. Over the grass he sped, and nothing
+followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had
+climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt to himself, the
+self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay
+the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made a
+wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the
+wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He
+reached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like a
+falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and
+pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams,
+shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animals
+of the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a trampling
+rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from every
+quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fled
+straight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.
+
+As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over its
+edge. He had never seen the moon before--except in the daytime, when
+he had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror to
+him--so ghostly! so ghastly! so gruesome!--so knowing as she looked
+over the top of her garden-wall upon the world outside! That was the
+night itself! the darkness alive--and after him! the horror of
+horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood, and turn his brain to
+a cinder! He gave a sob, and made straight for the river, where it ran
+between the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in,
+struggled through, clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on the
+grass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE GARDEN.
+
+
+Although Nycteris took care not to stay out long at a time, and used
+every precaution, she could hardly have escaped discovery so long, had
+it not been that the strange attacks to which Watho was subject had
+been more frequent of late, and had at last settled into an illness
+which kept her to her bed. But whether from an access of caution or
+from suspicion, Falca, having now to be much with her mistress both
+day and night, took it at length into her head to fasten the door as
+often as she went by her usual place of exit; so that one night, when
+Nycteris pushed, she found, to her surprise and dismay, that the wall
+pushed her again, and would not let her through; nor with all her
+searching could she discover wherein lay the cause of the change. Then
+first she felt the pressure of her prison-walls, and turning, half in
+despair, groped her way to the picture where she had once seen Falca
+disappear. There she soon found the spot by pressing upon which the
+wall yielded. It let her through into a sort of cellar, where was a
+glimmer of light from a sky whose blue was paled by the moon. From the
+cellar she got into a long passage, into which the moon was shining,
+and came to a door. She managed to open it, and, to her great joy,
+found herself in _the other place_, not on the top of the wall,
+however, but in the garden she had longed to enter. Noiseless as a
+fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs,
+her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, by the very
+touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so sweet
+and friendly to them. A soft little wind was out among the trees,
+running now here, now there, like a child that had got its will. She
+went dancing over the grass, looking behind her at her shadow, as she
+went. At first she had taken it for a little black creature that made
+game of her, but when she perceived that it was only where she kept
+the moon away, and that every tree, however great and grand a
+creature, had also one of these strange attendants, she soon learned
+not to mind it, and by and by it became the source of as much
+amusement to her, as to any kitten its tail. It was long before she
+was quite at home with the trees, however. At one time they seemed to
+disapprove of her; at another not even to know she was there, and to
+be altogether taken up with their own business. Suddenly, as she went
+from one to another of them, looking up with awe at the murmuring
+mystery of their branches and leaves, she spied one a little way off,
+which was very different from all the rest. It was white, and dark,
+and sparkling, and spread like a palm--a small slender palm, without
+much head; and it grew very fast, and sang as it grew. But it never
+grew any bigger, for just as fast as she could see it growing, it kept
+falling to pieces. When she got close to it, she discovered that it
+was a water-tree--made of just such water as she washed with--only it
+was alive of course, like the river--a different sort of water from
+that, doubtless, seeing the one crept swiftly along the floor, and the
+other shot straight up, and fell, and swallowed itself, and rose
+again. She put her feet into the marble basin, which was the
+flower-pot in which it grew. It was full of real water, living and
+cool--so nice, for the night was hot!
+
+But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the
+very first. What wonderful creatures they were!--and so kind and
+beautiful--always sending out such colours and such scents--red scent,
+and white scent, and yellow scent--for the other creatures! The one
+that was invisible and everywhere, took such a quantity of their
+scents, and carried it away! yet they did not seem to mind. It was
+their talk, to show they were alive, and not painted like those on the
+walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.
+
+She wandered along down the garden until she reached the river. Unable
+then to get any further--for she was a little afraid, and justly, of
+the swift watery serpent--she dropped on the grassy bank, dipped her
+feet in the water, and felt it running and pushing against them. For a
+long time she sat thus, and her bliss seemed complete, as she gazed at
+the river, and watched the broken picture of the great lamp overhead,
+moving up one side of the roof, to go down the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. SOMETHING QUITE NEW.
+
+
+A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She
+sprang to her feet to follow it--not in the spirit of the hunter, but
+of the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only its fallen sides
+were cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved
+everything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight of
+something lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learned
+to be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reaching
+it, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a
+strange-looking girl!--so curiously dressed too!--and not able to
+move! Was she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted
+Photogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her
+warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of
+which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of
+fear, half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face, he drew a deep
+breath, and lay motionless--gazing at her: those blue marvels above
+him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his
+terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, he
+said, "Who are you?"
+
+"I am Nycteris," she answered.
+
+"You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said, his
+fear beginning to move again.
+
+"I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly know
+what you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day--with all
+my heart; and I sleep all the night long."
+
+"How can that be?" said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping his
+head on her lap again the moment he saw the moon; "--how can it be,"
+he repeated, "when I see your eyes there--wide awake?"
+
+She only smiled and stroked him, for she did not understand him, and
+thought he did not know what he was saying.
+
+"Was it a dream then?" resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But with
+that his memory came clear, and he shuddered, and cried, "Oh horrible!
+horrible! to be turned all at once into a coward! a shameful,
+contemptible, disgraceful coward! I am ashamed--ashamed--and _so_
+frightened! It is all so frightful!"
+
+"What is so frightful?" asked Nycteris, with a smile like that of a
+mother to her child waked from a bad dream.
+
+"All, all," he answered; "all this darkness and the roaring."
+
+"My dear," said Nycteris, "there is no roaring. How sensitive you must
+be! What you hear is only the walking of the water, and the running
+about of the sweetest of all the creatures. She is invisible, and I
+call her Everywhere, for she goes through all the other creatures and
+comforts them. Now she is amusing herself, and them too, with shaking
+them and kissing them, and blowing in their faces. Listen: do you call
+that roaring? You should hear her when she is rather angry though! I
+don't know why, but she is sometimes, and then she does roar a
+little."
+
+"It is so horribly dark!" said Photogen, who, listening while she
+spoke, had satisfied himself that there was no roaring.
+
+"Dark!" she echoed. "You should be in my room when an earthquake has
+killed my lamp. I do not understand. How _can_ you call this dark? Let
+me see: yes, you have eyes, and big ones, bigger than Madam Watho's or
+Falca's--not so big as mine, I fancy--only I never saw mine. But
+then--oh yes!--I know now what is the matter! You can't see with them
+because they are so black. Darkness can't see, of course. Never mind:
+I will be your eyes, and teach you to see. Look here--at these lovely
+white things in the grass, with red sharp points all folded together
+into one. Oh, I love them so! I could sit looking at them all day, the
+darlings!"
+
+Photogen looked close at the flowers, and thought he had seen
+something like them before, but could not make them out. As Nycteris
+had never seen an open daisy, so had he never seen a closed one.
+
+Thus instinctively Nycteris tried to turn him away from his fear; and
+the beautiful creature's strange lovely talk helped not a little to
+make him forget it.
+
+"You call it dark!" she said again, as if she could not get rid of the
+absurdity of the idea; "why, I could count every blade of the green
+hair--I suppose it is what the books call grass--within two yards of
+me! And just look at the great lamp! It is brighter than usual to-day,
+and I can't think why you should be frightened, or call it dark!"
+
+As she spoke, she went on stroking his cheeks and hair, and trying to
+comfort him. But oh how miserable he was! and how plainly he looked
+it! He was on the point of saying that her great lamp was dreadful to
+him, looking like a witch, walking in the sleep of death; but he was
+not so ignorant as Nycteris, and knew even in the moonlight that she
+was a woman, though he had never seen one so young or so lovely
+before; and while she comforted his fear, her presence made him the
+more ashamed of it. Besides, not knowing her nature, he might annoy
+her, and make her leave him to his misery. He lay still therefore,
+hardly daring to move: all the little life he had seemed to come from
+her, and if he were to move, she might move; and if she were to leave
+him, he must weep like a child.
+
+"How did you come here?" asked Nycteris, taking his face between her
+hands.
+
+"Down the hill," he answered.
+
+"Where do you sleep?" she asked.
+
+He signed in the direction of the house. She gave a little laugh of
+delight.
+
+"When you have learned not to be frightened, you will always be
+wanting to come out with me," she said.
+
+She thought with herself she would ask her presently, when she had
+come to herself a little, how she had made her escape, for she must,
+of course, like herself have got out of a cave, in which Watho and
+Falca had been keeping her.
+
+"Look at the lovely colours," she went on, pointing to a rose-bush, on
+which Photogen could not see a single flower. "They are far more
+beautiful--are they not?--than any of the colours upon your walls. And
+then they are alive, and smell so sweet!"
+
+He wished she would not make him keep opening his eyes to look at
+things he could not see; and every other moment would start and grasp
+tight hold of her, as some fresh pang of terror shot into him.
+
+"Come, come, dear!" said Nycteris; "you must not go on this way. You
+must be a brave girl, and--"
+
+"A girl!" shouted Photogen, and started to his feet in wrath. "If you
+were a man, I should kill you."
+
+"A man?" repeated Nycteris: "what is that? How could I be that? We are
+both girls--are we not?"
+
+"No, I am not a girl," he answered; "--although," he added, changing
+his tone, and casting himself on the ground at her feet, "I have given
+you too good reason to call me one."
+
+"Oh, I see!" returned Nycteris. "No, of course! you can't be a girl:
+girls are not afraid--without reason. I understand now: it is because
+you are not a girl that you are so frightened."
+
+Photogen twisted and writhed upon the grass.
+
+"No, it is not," he said sulkily; "it is this horrible darkness that
+creeps into me, goes all through me, into the very marrow of my
+bones--that is what makes me behave like a girl. If only the sun would
+rise!"
+
+"The sun! what is it?" cried Nycteris, now in her turn conceiving a
+vague fear.
+
+Then Photogen broke into a rhapsody, in which he vainly sought to
+forget his.
+
+"It is the soul, the life, the heart, the glory of the universe," he
+said. "The worlds dance like motes in his beams. The heart of man is
+strong and brave in his light, and when it departs his courage grows
+from him--goes with the sun, and he becomes such as you see me now."
+
+"Then that is not the sun?" said Nycteris, thoughtfully, pointing up
+to the moon.
+
+"That!" cried Photogen, with utter scorn; "I know nothing about
+_that_, except that it is ugly and horrible. At best it can be only
+the ghost of a dead sun. Yes, that is it! That is what makes it look
+so frightful."
+
+"No," said Nycteris, after a long, thoughtful pause; "you must be
+wrong there. I think the sun is the ghost of a dead moon, and that is
+how he is so much more splendid as you say.--Is there, then, another
+big room, where the sun lives in the roof?"
+
+"I do not know what you mean," replied Photogen. "But you mean to be
+kind, I know, though you should not call a poor fellow in the dark a
+girl. If you will let me lie here, with my head in your lap, I should
+like to sleep. Will you watch me, and take care of me?"
+
+"Yes, that I will," answered Nycteris, forgetting all her own danger.
+
+So Photogen fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE SUN.
+
+
+There Nycteris sat, and there the youth lay, all night long, in the
+heart of the great cone-shadow of the earth, like two Pharaohs in one
+pyramid. Photogen slept, and slept; and Nycteris sat motionless lest
+she should wake him, and so betray him to his fear.
+
+The moon rode high in the blue eternity; it was a very triumph of
+glorious night; the river ran babble-murmuring in deep soft syllables;
+the fountain kept rushing moon-ward, and blossoming momently to a
+great silvery flower, whose petals were for ever falling like snow,
+but with a continuous musical clash, into the bed of its exhaustion
+beneath; the wind woke, took a run among the trees, went to sleep, and
+woke again; the daisies slept on their feet at hers, but she did not
+know they slept; the roses might well seem awake, for their scent
+filled the air, but in truth they slept also, and the odour was that
+of their dreams; the oranges hung like gold lamps in the trees, and
+their silvery flowers were the souls of their yet unembodied children;
+the scent of the acacia blooms filled the air like the very odour of
+the moon herself.
+
+At last, unused to the living air, and weary with sitting so still and
+so long, Nycteris grew drowsy. The air began to grow cool. It was
+getting near the time when she too was accustomed to sleep. She closed
+her eyes just a moment, and nodded--opened them suddenly wide, for she
+had promised to watch.
+
+In that moment a change had come. The moon had got round, and was
+fronting her from the west, and she saw that her face was altered,
+that she had grown pale, as if she too were wan with fear, and from
+her lofty place espied a coming terror. The light seemed to be
+dissolving out of her; she was dying--she was going out! And yet
+everything around looked strangely clear--clearer than ever she had
+seen anything before: how could the lamp be shedding more light when
+she herself had less? Ah, that was just it! See how faint she looked!
+It was because the light was forsaking her, and spreading itself over
+the room, that she grew so thin and pale! She was giving up
+everything! She was melting away from the roof like a bit of sugar in
+water.
+
+Nycteris was fast growing afraid, and sought refuge with the face upon
+her lap. How beautiful the creature was!--what to call it she could
+not think, for it had been angry when she called it what Watho called
+her. And, wonder upon wonder! now, even in the cold change that was
+passing upon the great room, the colour as of a red rose was rising in
+the wan cheek. What beautiful yellow hair it was that spread over her
+lap! What great huge breaths the creature took! And what were those
+curious things it carried? She had seen them on her walls, she was
+sure.
+
+Thus she talked to herself while the lamp grew paler and paler, and
+everything kept growing yet clearer. What could it mean? The lamp was
+dying--going out into the other place of which the creature in her lap
+had spoken, to be a sun! But why were the things growing clearer
+before it was yet a sun? That was the point. Was it her growing into a
+sun that did it? Yes! yes! it was coming death! She knew it, for it
+was coming upon her also! She felt it coming! What was she about to
+grow into? Something beautiful, like the creature in her lap? It might
+be! Anyhow, it must be death; for all her strength was going out of
+her, while all around her was growing so light she could not bear it!
+She must be blind soon! Would she be blind or dead first?
+
+For the sun was rushing up behind her. Photogen woke, lifted his head
+from her lap, and sprang to his feet. His face was one radiant smile.
+His heart was full of daring--that of the hunter who will creep into
+the tiger's den. Nycteris gave a cry, covered her face with her hands,
+and pressed her eyelids close. Then blindly she stretched out her arms
+to Photogen, crying, "Oh, I am so frightened! What is this? It must be
+death! I don't wish to die yet. I love this room and the old lamp. I
+do not want the other place! This is terrible. I want to hide. I want
+to get into the sweet, soft, dark hands of all the other creatures. Ah
+me! ah me!"
+
+"What is the matter with you, girl?" said Photogen, with the arrogance
+of all male creatures until they have been taught by the other kind.
+He stood looking down upon her over his bow, of which he was examining
+the string. "There is no fear of anything now, child. It is day. The
+sun is all but up. Look! he will be above the brow of yon hill in one
+moment more! Good-bye. Thank you for my night's lodging. I'm off.
+Don't be a goose. If ever I can do anything for you--and all that, you
+know!"
+
+"Don't leave me; oh, don't leave me!" cried Nycteris. "I am dying! I
+am dying! I cannot move. The light sucks all the strength out of me.
+And oh, I am so frightened!"
+
+But already Photogen had splashed through the river, holding high his
+bow that it might not get wet. He rushed across the level, and
+strained up the opposing hill. Hearing no answer, Nycteris removed her
+hands. Photogen had reached the top, and the same moment the sunrays
+alighted upon him: the glory of the king of day crowded blazing upon
+the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood in mighty
+strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing
+arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of
+the bowstring, and Photogen darting after it, vanished with a shout.
+Up shot Apollo himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and
+exultation. But the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and
+through. She fell down in utter darkness. All around her was a flaming
+furnace. In despair and feebleness and agony, she crept back, feeling
+her way with doubt and difficulty and enforced persistence to her
+cell. When at last the friendly darkness of her chamber folded her
+about with its cooling and consoling arms, she threw herself on her
+bed and fell fast asleep. And there she slept on, one alive in a tomb,
+while Photogen, above in the sun-glory, pursued the buffaloes on the
+lofty plain, thinking not once of her where she lay dark and forsaken,
+whose presence had been his refuge, her eyes and her hands his
+guardians through the night. He was in his glory and his pride; and
+the darkness and its disgrace had vanished for a time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE COWARD HERO.
+
+
+But no sooner had the sun reached the noonstead, than Photogen began
+to remember the past night in the shadow of that which was at hand,
+and to remember it with shame. He had proved himself--and not to
+himself only, but to a girl as well--a coward!--one bold in the
+daylight, while there was nothing to fear, but trembling like any
+slave when the night arrived. There was, there must be, something
+unfair in it! A spell had been cast upon him! He had eaten, he had
+drunk something that did not agree with courage! In any case he had
+been taken unprepared! How was he to know what the going down of the
+sun would be like? It was no wonder he should have been surprised into
+terror, seeing it was what it was--in its very nature so terrible!
+Also, one could not see where danger might be coming from! You might
+be torn in pieces, carried off, or swallowed up, without even seeing
+where to strike a blow! Every possible excuse he caught at, eager as a
+self-lover to lighten his self-contempt. That day he astonished the
+huntsmen--terrified them with his reckless darings--all to prove to
+himself he was no coward. But nothing eased his shame. One thing only
+had hope in it--the resolve to encounter the dark in solemn earnest,
+now that he knew something of what it was. It was nobler to meet a
+recognized danger than to rush contemptuously into what seemed
+nothing--nobler still to encounter a nameless horror. He could conquer
+fear and wipe out disgrace together. For a marksman and swordsman like
+him, he said, one with his strength and courage, there was but danger.
+Defeat there was not. He knew the darkness now, and when it came he
+would meet it as fearless and cool as now he felt himself. And again
+he said, "We shall see!"
+
+He stood under the boughs of a great beech as the sun was going down,
+far away over the jagged hills: before it was half down, he was
+trembling like one of the leaves behind him in the first sigh of the
+night-wind. The moment the last of the glowing disc vanished, he
+bounded away in terror to gain the valley, and his fear grew as he
+ran. Down the side of the hill, an abject creature, he went bounding
+and rolling and running; fell rather than plunged into the river, and
+came to himself, as before, lying on the grassy bank in the garden.
+
+But when he opened his eyes, there were no girl-eyes looking down into
+his; there were only the stars in the waste of the sunless Night--the
+awful all-enemy he had again dared, but could not encounter. Perhaps
+the girl was not yet come out of the water! He would try to sleep, for
+he dared not move, and perhaps when he woke he would find his head on
+her lap, and the beautiful dark face, with its deep blue eyes, bending
+over him. But when he woke he found his head on the grass, and
+although he sprang up with all his courage, such as it was, restored,
+he did not set out for the chase with such an _elan_ as the day
+before; and, despite the sun-glory in his heart and veins, his hunting
+was this day less eager; he ate little, and from the first was
+thoughtful even to sadness. A second time he was defeated and
+disgraced! Was his courage nothing more than the play of the sunlight
+on his brain? Was he a mere ball tossed between the light and the
+dark? Then what a poor contemptible creature he was! But a third
+chance lay before him. If he failed the third time, he dared not
+foreshadow what he must then think of himself! It was bad enough
+now--but then!
+
+Alas! it went no better. The moment the sun was down, he fled as if
+from a legion of devils.
+
+Seven times in all, he tried to face the coming night in the strength
+of the past day, and seven times he failed--failed with such increase
+of failure, with such a growing sense of ignominy, overwhelming at
+length all the sunny hours and joining night to night, that, what with
+misery, self-accusation, and loss of confidence, his daylight courage
+too began to fade, and at length, from exhaustion, from getting wet,
+and then lying out of doors all night, and night after night,--worst
+of all, from the consuming of the deathly fear, and the shame of
+shame, his sleep forsook him, and on the seventh morning, instead of
+going to the hunt, he crawled into the castle, and went to bed. The
+grand health, over which the witch had taken such pains, had yielded,
+and in an hour or two he was moaning and crying out in delirium.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. AN EVIL NURSE.
+
+
+Watho was herself ill, as I have said, and was the worse tempered;
+and, besides, it is a peculiarity of witches, that what works in
+others to sympathy, works in them to repulsion. Also, Watho had a
+poor, helpless, rudimentary spleen of a conscience left, just enough
+to make her uncomfortable, and therefore more wicked. So, when she
+heard that Photogen was ill, she was angry. Ill, indeed! after all she
+had done to saturate him with the life of the system, with the solar
+might itself! He was a wretched failure, the boy! And because he was
+_her_ failure, she was annoyed with him, began to dislike him, grew to
+hate him. She looked on him as a painter might upon a picture, or a
+poet, upon a poem, which he had only succeeded in getting into an
+irrecoverable mess. In the hearts of witches, love and hate lie close
+together, and often tumble over each other. And whether it was that
+her failure with Photogen foiled also her plans in regard to Nycteris,
+or that her illness made her yet more of a devil's wife, certainly
+Watho now got sick of the girl too, and hated to know her about the
+castle.
+
+She was not too ill, however, to go to poor Photogen's room and
+torment him. She told him she hated him like a serpent, and hissed
+like one as she said it, looking very sharp in the nose and chin, and
+flat in the forehead. Photogen thought she meant to kill him, and
+hardly ventured to take anything brought him. She ordered every ray of
+light to be shut out of his room; but by means of this he got a little
+used to the darkness. She would take one of his arrows, and now tickle
+him with the feather end of it, now prick him with the point till the
+blood ran down. What she meant finally I cannot tell, but she brought
+Photogen speedily to the determination of making his escape from the
+castle: what he should do then he would think afterwards. Who could
+tell but he might find his mother somewhere beyond the forest! If it
+were not for the broad patches of darkness that divided day from day,
+he would fear nothing!
+
+But now, as he lay helpless in the dark, ever and anon would come
+dawning through it the face of the lovely creature who on that first
+awful night nursed him so sweetly: was he never to see her again? If
+she was, as he had concluded, the nymph of the river, why had she not
+re-appeared? She might have taught him not to fear the night, for
+plainly she had no fear of it herself! But then, when the day came,
+she did seem frightened:--why was that, seeing there was nothing to be
+afraid of then? Perhaps one so much at home in the darkness, was
+correspondingly afraid of the light! Then his selfish joy at the
+rising of the sun, blinding him to her condition, had made him behave
+to her, in ill return for her kindness, as cruelly as Watho behaved to
+him! How sweet and dear and lovely she was! If there were wild beasts
+that came out only at night, and were afraid of the light, why should
+there not be girls too, made the same way--who could not endure the
+light, as he could not bear the darkness? If only he could find her
+again! Ah, how differently he would behave to her! But alas! perhaps
+the sun had killed her--melted her--burned her up!--dried her up--that
+was it, if she was the nymph of the river!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WATHO'S WOLF.
+
+
+From that dreadful morning Nycteris had never got to be herself again.
+The sudden light had been almost death to her; and now she lay in the
+dark with the memory of a terrific sharpness--a something she dared
+scarcely recall, lest the very thought of it should sting her beyond
+endurance. But this was as nothing to the pain which the recollection
+of the rudeness of the shining creature whom she had nursed through
+his fear caused her; for, the moment his suffering passed over to her,
+and he was free, the first use he made of his returning strength had
+been to scorn her! She wondered and wondered; it was all beyond her
+comprehension.
+
+Before long, Watho was plotting evil against her. The witch was like a
+sick child weary of his toy: she would pull her to pieces, and see how
+she liked it. She would set her in the sun, and see her die, like a
+jelly from the salt ocean cast out on a hot rock. It would be a sight
+to soothe her wolf-pain. One day, therefore, a little before noon,
+while Nycteris was in her deepest sleep, she had a darkened litter
+brought to the door, and in that she made two of her men carry her to
+the plain above. There they took her out, laid her on the grass, and
+left her.
+
+Watho watched it all from the top of her high tower, through her
+telescope; and scarcely was Nycteris left, when she saw her sit up,
+and the same moment cast herself down again with her face to the
+ground.
+
+"She'll have a sunstroke," said Watho, "and that'll be the end of
+her."
+
+Presently, tormented by a fly, a huge-humped buffalo, with great
+shaggy mane, came galloping along, straight for where she lay. At
+sight of the thing on the grass, he started, swerved yards aside,
+stopped dead, and then came slowly up, looking malicious. Nycteris lay
+quite still, and never even saw the animal.
+
+"Now she'll be trodden to death!" said Watho. "That's the way those
+creatures do."
+
+When the buffalo reached her, he sniffed at her all over, and went
+away; then came back, and sniffed again; then all at once went off as
+if a demon had him by the tail.
+
+Next came a gnu, a more dangerous animal still, and did much the same;
+then a gaunt wild boar. But no creature hurt her, and Watho was angry
+with the whole creation.
+
+At length, in the shade of her hair, the blue eyes of Nycteris began
+to come to themselves a little, and the first thing they saw was a
+comfort. I have told already how she knew the night-daisies, each a
+sharp-pointed little cone with a red tip; and once she had parted the
+rays of one of them, with trembling fingers, for she was afraid she
+was dreadfully rude, and perhaps was hurting it; but she did want, she
+said to herself, to see what secret it carried so carefully hidden;
+and she found its golden heart. But now, right under her eyes, inside
+the veil of her hair, in the sweet twilight of whose blackness she
+could see it perfectly, stood a daisy with its red tip opened wide
+into a carmine ring, displaying its heart of gold on a platter of
+silver. She did not at first recognize it as one of those cones come
+awake, but a moment's notice revealed what it was. Who then could have
+been so cruel to the lovely little creature, as to force it open like
+that, and spread it heart-bare to the terrible death-lamp? Whoever it
+was, it must be the same that had thrown her out there to be burned to
+death in its fire! But she had her hair, and could hang her head, and
+make a small sweet night of her own about her! She tried to bend the
+daisy down and away from the sun, and to make its petals hang about it
+like her hair, but she could not. Alas! it was burned and dead
+already! She did not know that it could not yield to her gentle force
+because it was drinking life, with all the eagerness of life, from
+what she called the death-lamp. Oh, how the lamp burned her!
+
+But she went on thinking--she did not know how; and by and by began to
+reflect that, as there was no roof to the room except that in which
+the great fire went rolling about, the little Red-tip must have seen
+the lamp a thousand times, and must know it quite well! and it had not
+killed it! Nay, thinking about farther, she began to ask the question
+whether this, in which she now saw it, might not be its more perfect
+condition. For not only now did the whole seem perfect, as indeed it
+did before, but every part showed its own individual perfection as
+well, which perfection made it capable of combining with the rest into
+the higher perfection of a whole. The flower was a lamp itself! The
+golden heart was the light, and the silver border was the alabaster
+globe, skilfully broken, and spread wide to let out the glory. Yes;
+the radiant shape was plainly its perfection! If, then, it was the
+lamp which had opened it into that shape, the lamp could not be
+unfriendly to it, but must be of its own kind, seeing it made it
+perfect! And again, when she thought of it, there was clearly no
+little resemblance between them. What if the flower then was the
+little great-grandchild of the lamp, and he was loving it all the
+time? And what if the lamp did not mean to hurt her, only could not
+help it? The red lips looked as if the flower had some time or other
+been hurt: what if the lamp was making the best it could of
+her--opening her out somehow like the flower? She would bear it
+patiently, and see. But how coarse the colour of the grass was!
+Perhaps, however, her eyes not being made for the bright lamp, she did
+not see them us they were! Then she remembered how different were the
+eyes of the creature that was not a girl and was afraid of the
+darkness! Ah, if the darkness would only come again, all arms,
+friendly and soft everywhere about her! She would wait and wait, and
+bear, and be patient.
+
+She lay so still that Watho did not doubt she had fainted. She was
+pretty sure she would be dead before the night came to revive her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. REFUGE.
+
+
+Fixing her telescope on the motionless form, that she might see it at
+once when the morning came, Watho went down from the tower to
+Photogen's room. He was much better by this time, and before she left
+him, he had resolved to leave the castle that very night. The darkness
+was terrible indeed, but Watho was worse than even the darkness, and
+he could not escape in the day. As soon, therefore, as the house
+seemed still, he tightened his belt, hung to it his hunting-knife, put
+a flask of wine and some bread in his pocket, and took his bow and
+arrows. He got from the house, and made his way at once up to the
+plain. But what with his illness, the terrors of the night, and his
+dread of the wild beasts, when he got to the level he could not walk a
+step further, and sat down, thinking it better to die than to live. In
+spite of his fears, however, sleep contrived to overcome him, and he
+fell at full length on the soft grass.
+
+He had not slept long when he woke with such a strange sense of
+comfort and security, that he thought the dawn at least must have
+arrived. But it was dark night about him. And the sky--no, it was not
+the sky, but the blue eyes of his naiad looking down upon him! Once
+more he lay with his head in her lap, and all was well, for plainly
+the girl feared the darkness as little as he the day.
+
+"Thank you," he said. "You are like live armour to my heart; you keep
+the fear off me. I have been very ill since then. Did you come up out
+of the river when you saw me cross?"
+
+"I don't live in the water," she answered. "I live under the pale
+lamp, and I die under the bright one."
+
+"Ah, yes! I understand now," he returned. "I would not have behaved as
+I did last time if I had understood; but I thought you were mocking
+me; and I am so made that I cannot help being frightened at the
+darkness. I beg your pardon for leaving you as I did, for, as I say, I
+did not understand. Now I believe you were really frightened. Were
+you not?"
+
+"I was, indeed," answered Nycteris, "and shall be again. But why you
+should be, I cannot in the least understand. You must know how gentle
+and sweet the darkness is, how kind and friendly, how soft and
+velvety! It holds you to its bosom and loves you. A little while ago,
+I lay faint and dying under your hot lamp.--What is it you call it?"
+
+"The sun," murmured Photogen: "how I wish he would make haste!"
+
+"Ah! do not wish that. Do not, for my sake, hurry him. I can take care
+of you from the darkness, but I have no one to take care of me from
+the light.--As I was telling you, I lay dying in the sun. All at once
+I drew a deep breath. A cool wind came and ran over my face. I looked
+up. The torture was gone, for the death-lamp itself was gone. I hope
+he does not die and grow brighter yet. My terrible headache was all
+gone, and my sight was come back. I felt as if I were new made. But I
+did not get up at once, for I was tired still. The grass grew cool
+about me, and turned soft in colour. Something wet came upon it, and
+it was now so pleasant to my feet, that I rose and ran about. And when
+I had been running about a long time, all at once I found you lying,
+just as I had been lying a little while before. So I sat down beside
+you to take care of you, till your life--and my death--should come
+again."
+
+"How good you are, you beautiful creature!--Why, you forgave me before
+ever I asked you!" cried Photogen.
+
+Thus they fell a talking, and he told her what he knew of his history,
+and she told him what she knew of hers, and they agreed they must get
+away from Watho as far as ever they could.
+
+"And we must set out at once," said Nycteris.
+
+"The moment the morning comes," returned Photogen.
+
+"We must not wait for the morning," said Nycteris, "for then I shall
+not be able to move, and what would you do the next night? Besides,
+Watho sees best in the daytime. Indeed, you must come now,
+Photogen.--You must."
+
+"I can not; I dare not," said Photogen. "I cannot move. If I but lift
+my head from your lap, the very sickness of terror seizes me."
+
+"I shall be with you," said Nycteris soothingly. "I will take care of
+you till your dreadful sun comes, and then you may leave me, and go
+away as fast as you can. Only please put me in a dark place first, if
+there is one to be found."
+
+"I will never leave you again, Nycteris," cried Photogen. "Only wait
+till the sun comes, and brings me back my strength, and we will go
+away together, and never, never part any more."
+
+"No, no," persisted Nycteris; "we must go now. And you must learn to
+be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be
+only half brave. I have begun already--not to fight your sun, but to
+try to get at peace with him, and understand what he really is, and
+what he means with me--whether to hurt me or to make the best of me.
+You must do the same with my darkness."
+
+"But you don't know what mad animals there are away there towards the
+south," said Photogen. "They have huge green eyes, and they would eat
+you up like a bit of celery, you beautiful creature!"
+
+"Come, come! you must," said Nycteris, "or I shall have to pretend to
+leave you, to make you come. I have seen the green eyes you speak of,
+and I will take care of you from them."
+
+"You! How can you do that? If it were day now, I could take care of
+you from the worst of them. But as it is, I can't even see them for
+this abominable darkness. I could not see your lovely eyes but for the
+light that is in them; that lets me see straight into heaven through
+them. They are windows into the very heaven beyond the sky. I believe
+they are the very place where the stars are made."
+
+"You come then, or I shall shut them," said Nycteris, "and you shan't
+see them any more till you are good. Come. If you can't see the wild
+beasts, I can."
+
+"You can! and you ask me to come!" cried Photogen.
+
+"Yes," answered Nycteris. "And more than that, I see them long before
+they can see me, so that I am able to take care of you."
+
+"But how?" persisted Photogen. "You can't shoot with bow and arrow, or
+stab with a hunting-knife."
+
+"No, but I can keep out of the way of them all. Why, just when I found
+you, I was having a game with two or three of them at once. I see, and
+scent them too, long before they are near me--long before they can see
+or scent me."
+
+"You don't see or scent any now, do you?" said Photogen, uneasily,
+rising on his elbow.
+
+"No--none at present. I will look," replied Nycteris, and sprang to
+her feet.
+
+"Oh, oh! do not leave me--not for a moment," cried Photogen, straining
+his eyes to keep her face in sight through the darkness.
+
+"Be quiet, or they will hear you," she returned. "The wind is from the
+south, and they cannot scent us. I have found out all about that. Ever
+since the dear dark came, I have been amusing myself with them,
+getting every now and then just into the edge of the wind, and letting
+one have a sniff of me."
+
+"Oh, horrible!" cried Photogen. "I hope you will not insist on doing
+so any more. What was the consequence?"
+
+"Always, the very instant, he turned with flashing eyes, and hounded
+towards me--only he could not see me, you must remember. But my eyes
+being so much better than his, I could see him perfectly well, and
+would run away round him until I scented him, and then I knew he could
+not find me anyhow. If the wind were to turn, and run the other way
+now, there might be a whole army of them down upon us, leaving no room
+to keep out of their way. You had better come."
+
+She took him by the hand. He yielded and rose, and she led him away.
+But his steps were feeble, and as the night went on, he seemed more
+and more ready to sink.
+
+"Oh dear! I am so tired! and so frightened!" he would say.
+
+"Lean on me," Nycteris would return, putting her arm round him, or
+patting his cheek. "Take a few steps more. Every step away from the
+castle is clear gain. Lean harder on me. I am quite strong and well
+now."
+
+So they went on. The piercing night-eyes of Nycteris descried not a
+few pairs of green ones gleaming like holes in the darkness, and many
+a round she made to keep far out of their way; but she never said to
+Photogen she saw them. Carefully she kept him off the uneven places,
+and on the softest and smoothest of the grass, talking to him gently
+all the way as they went--of the lovely flowers and the stars--how
+comfortable the flowers looked, down in their green beds, and how
+happy the stars up in their blue beds!
+
+When the morning began to come, he began to grow better, but was
+dreadfully tired with walking instead of sleeping, especially after
+being so long ill. Nycteris too, what with supporting him, what with
+growing fear of the light which was beginning to ooze out of the east,
+was very tired. At length, both equally exhausted, neither was able to
+help the other. As if by consent they stopped. Embracing each the
+other, they stood in the midst of the wide grassy land, neither of
+them able to move a step, each supported only by the leaning weakness
+of the other, each ready to fall if the other should move. But while
+the one grew weaker still, the other had begun to grow stronger. When
+the tide of the night began to ebb, the tide of the day began to flow;
+and now the sun was rushing to the horizon, borne upon its foaming
+billows. And ever as he came, Photogen revived. At last the sun shot
+up into the air, like a bird from the hand of the Father of Lights.
+Nycteris gave a cry of pain, and hid her face in her hands.
+
+"Oh me!" she sighed; "I am _so_ frightened! The terrible light stings
+so!"
+
+But the same instant, through her blindness, she heard Photogen give a
+low exultant laugh, and the next felt herself caught up: she who all
+night long had tended and protected him like a child, was now in his
+arms, borne along like a baby, with her head lying on his shoulder.
+But she was the greater, for, suffering more, she feared nothing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE WEREWOLF.
+
+
+At the very moment when Photogen caught up Nycteris, the telescope of
+Watho was angrily sweeping the table-land. She swung it from her in
+rage, and running to her room, shut herself up. There she anointed
+herself from top to toe with a certain ointment; shook down her long
+red hair, and tied it round her waist; then began to dance, whirling
+round and round faster and faster, growing angrier and angrier, until
+she was foaming at the mouth with fury. When Falca went looking for
+her, she could not find her anywhere.
+
+As the sun rose, the wind slowly changed and went round, until it blew
+straight from the north. Photogen and Nycteris were drawing near the
+edge of the forest, Photogen still carrying Nycteris, when she moved a
+little on his shoulder uneasily, and murmured in his ear,
+
+"I smell a wild beast--that way, the way the wind is coming."
+
+Photogen turned, looked back towards the castle, and saw a dark speck
+on the plain. As he looked, it grew larger: it was coming across the
+grass with the speed of the wind. It came nearer and nearer. It looked
+long and low, but that might be because it was running at a great
+stretch. He set Nycteris down under a tree, in the black shadow of its
+bole, strung his bow, and picked out his heaviest, longest, sharpest
+arrow. Just as he set the notch on the string, he saw that the
+creature was a tremendous wolf, rushing straight at him. He loosened
+his knife in its sheath, drew another arrow half-way from the quiver,
+lest the first should fail, and took his aim--at a good distance, to
+leave time for a second chance. He shot. The arrow rose, flew
+straight, descended, struck the beast, and started again into the air,
+doubled like a letter V. Quickly Photogen snatched the other, shot,
+cast his bow from him, and drew his knife. But the arrow was in the
+brute's chest, up to the feather; it tumbled heels over head with a
+great thud of its back on the earth, gave a groan, made a struggle or
+two, and lay stretched out motionless.
+
+"I've killed it, Nycteris," cried Photogen. "It is a great red wolf."
+
+"Oh, thank you!" answered Nycteris feebly from behind the tree. "I was
+sure you would. I was not a bit afraid."
+
+Photogen went up to the wolf. It _was_ a monster! But he was vexed
+that his first arrow had behaved so badly, and was the less willing to
+lose the one that had done him such good service: with a long and a
+strong pull, he drew it from the brute's chest. Could he believe his
+eyes? There lay--no wolf, but Watho, with her hair tied round her
+waist! The foolish witch had made herself invulnerable, as she
+supposed, but had forgotten that, to torment Photogen therewith, she
+had handled one of his arrows. He ran back to Nycteris and told her.
+
+She shuddered and wept, and would not look.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. ALL IS WELL.
+
+
+There was now no occasion to fly a step farther. Neither of them
+feared any one but Watho. They left her there, and went back. A great
+cloud came over the sun, and rain began to fall heavily, and Nycteris
+was much refreshed, grew able to see a little, and with Photogen's
+help walked gently over the cool wet grass.
+
+They had not gone far before they met Fargu and the other huntsmen.
+Photogen told them he had killed a great red wolf, and it was Madam
+Watho. The huntsmen looked grave, but gladness shone through.
+
+"Then," said Fargu, "I will go and bury my mistress."
+
+But when they reached the place, they found she was already buried--in
+the maws of sundry birds and beasts which had made their breakfast of
+her.
+
+Then Fargu, overtaking them, would, very wisely, have Photogen go to
+the king, and tell him the whole story. But Photogen, yet wiser than
+Fargu, would not set out until he had married Nycteris; "for then," he
+said, "the king himself can't part us; and if ever two people couldn't
+do the one without the other, those two are Nycteris and I. She has
+got to teach me to be a brave man in the dark, and I have got to look
+after her until she can bear the heat of the sun, and he helps her to
+see, instead of blinding her."
+
+They were married that very day. And the next day they went together
+to the king, and told him the whole story. But whom should they find
+at the court but the father and mother of Photogen, both in high
+favour with the king and queen. Aurora nearly died for joy, and told
+them all how Watho had lied, and made her believe her child was dead.
+
+No one knew anything of the father or mother of Nycteris; but when
+Aurora, saw in the lovely girl her own azure eyes shining through
+night and its clouds, it made her think strange things, and wonder how
+even the wicked themselves may be a link to join together the good.
+Through Watho, the mothers, who had never seen each other, had changed
+eyes in their children.
+
+The king gave them the castle and lands of Watho, and there they lived
+and taught each other for many years that were not long. But hardly
+had one of them passed, before Nycteris had come to love the day best,
+because it was the clothing and crown of Photogen, and she saw that
+the day was greater than the night, and the sun more lordly than the
+moon; and Photogen had come to love the night best, because it was the
+mother and home of Nycteris.
+
+"But who knows," Nycteris would say to Photogen, "that, when we go
+out, we shall not go into a day as much greater than your day as your
+day is greater than my night?"
+
+
+
+
+THE BUTCHER'S BILLS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. HUSBAND AND WIFE.
+
+
+I am going to tell a story of married life. My title will prepare the
+reader for something hardly heroic; but I trust it will not be found
+lacking in the one genuine and worthy interest a tale ought to
+have--namely, that it presents a door through which we may walk into
+one region or another of the human heart, and there find ourselves not
+altogether unacquainted or from home.
+
+There was a law among the Jews which forbade the yoking together of
+certain animals, either because, being unequal in size or strength,
+one of them must be oppressed, or for the sake of some lesson thus
+embodied to the Eastern mind--possibly for both reasons. Half the
+tragedy would be taken out of social life if this law could be applied
+to human beings in their various relations. I do not say that this
+would be well, or that we could afford to lose the result of the
+tragedy thus occasioned. Neither do I believe that there are so many
+instances of unequal yoking as the misprising judgments of men by men
+and women by women might lead us to imagine. Not every one declared by
+the wisdom of acquaintance to have thrown himself or herself away must
+therefore be set down as unequally yoked. Or it may even be that the
+inequality is there, but the loss on the other side. How some people
+could ever have come together must always be a puzzle until one knows
+the history of the affair; but not a few whom most of us would judge
+quite unsuited to each other do yet get on pretty well from, the
+first, and better and better the longer they are together, and that
+with mutual advantage, improvement, and development. Essential
+humanity is deeper than the accidents of individuality; the common is
+more powerful than the peculiar; and the honest heart will always be
+learning to act more and more in accordance with the laws of its
+being. It must be of much more consequence to any lady that her
+husband should be a man on whose word she can depend than that he
+should be of a gracious presence. But if instead of coming nearer to a
+true understanding of each other, the two should from the first keep
+falling asunder, then something tragic may almost be looked for.
+
+Duncan and Lucy Dempster were a couple the very mention of whose
+Christian names together would have seemed amusing to the friends who
+had long ceased to talk of their unfitness. Indeed, I doubt if in
+their innermost privacy they ever addressed each other except as Mr.
+and Mrs. Dempster. For the first time to see them together, no one
+could help wondering how the conjunction could have been effected.
+Dempster was of Scotch descent, but the hereditary high cheek-bone
+seemed to have got into his nose, which was too heavy a pendant for
+the low forehead from which it hung. About an inch from the end it
+took a swift and unexpected curve downwards, and was a curious and
+abnormal nose, which could not properly be assorted with any known
+class of noses. A long upper lip, a large, firm, and not quite ugly
+mouth, with a chin both long and square, completed a face which, with
+its low forehead, being yet longer than usual, had a particularly
+equine look. He was rather under the middle height, slender, and well
+enough made--altogether an ordinary mortal, known on 'Change as an
+able, keen, and laborious man of business. What his special business
+was I do not know. He went to the city by the eight o'clock omnibus
+every morning, dived into a court, entered a little square, rushed up
+two flights of stairs to a couple of rooms, and sat down in the back
+one before an office table on a hair-seated chair. It was a dingy
+place--not so dirty as it looked, I daresay. Even the windows, being
+of bad glass, did, I believe, look dirtier than they were. It was a
+place where, so far as the eye of an outsider could tell, much or
+nothing might be doing. Its occupant always wore his hat in it, and
+his hat always looked shabby. Some people said he was rich, others
+that he would be one day. Some said he was a responsible man, whatever
+the epithet may have been intended to mean. I believe he was quite as
+honest as the recognized laws of his trade demanded--and for how many
+could I say more? Nobody said he was avaricious--but then he moved
+amongst men whose very notion was first to make money, after that to
+be religious, or to enjoy themselves, as the case might be. And no one
+either ever said of him that he was a good man, or a generous. He was
+about forty years of age, looking somehow as if he had never been
+younger. He had had a fair education--better than is generally
+considered necessary for mercantile purposes--but it would have been
+hard to discover any signs of it in the spending of his leisure. On
+Sunday mornings he went with his wife to church, and when he came home
+had a good dinner, of which now and then a friend took his share. If
+no stranger was present he took his wine by himself, and went to sleep
+in his easy chair of marone-coloured leather, while his wife sat on
+the other side of the fire if it was winter, or a little way off by
+the open window if it was summer, gently yawned now and then, and
+looked at him with eyes a little troubled. Then he went off again by
+the eight o'clock omnibus on Monday morning, and not an idea more or
+less had he in his head, not a hair's-breadth of difference was there
+in his conduct or pursuits, that he had been to church and had spent
+the day out of business. That may, however, for anything I know, have
+been as much the clergyman's fault as his. He was the sort of man you
+might call machine-made, one in whom humanity, if in no wise
+caricatured, was yet in no wise ennobled.
+
+His wife was ten years younger than he--hardly less than
+beautiful--only that over her countenance seemed to have gathered a
+kind of haze of commonness. At first sight, notwithstanding, one could
+not help perceiving that she was china and he was delft. She was
+graceful as she sat, long-necked, slope-shouldered, and quite as tall
+as her husband, with a marked daintiness about her in the absence of
+the extremes of the fashion, in the quality of the lace she wore on
+her black silk dress, and in the wide white sleeves of fine cambric
+that covered her arms from the shoulder to the wrist. She had a
+morally delicate air, a look of scrupulous nicety and lavender-stored
+linen. She had long dark lashes; and when they rose, the eyelids
+revealed eyes of uncommon beauty. She had good features, good teeth,
+and a good complexion. The main feeling she produced and left was of
+ladyhood--little more.
+
+Sunday afternoon came fifty-two times in the year. I mention this
+because then always, and nearly then only, could one calculate on
+seeing them together. It came to them in a surburb of London, and the
+look of it was dull. Doubtless Mr. Dempster's dinner and his repose
+after it were interesting to him, but I cannot help thinking his wife
+found it dreary. She had, however, got used to it. The house was a
+good old one, of red brick, much larger than they required, but not
+expensive, and had a general look of the refinement of its mistress.
+In the summer the windows of the dining-room would generally be open,
+for they looked into a really lovely garden behind the house, and the
+scent of the jasmine that crept all around them would come in
+plentifully. I wonder what the scent of jasmine did in Duncan
+Dempster's world. Perhaps it never got farther than the general
+ante-chamber of the sensorium. It often made his wife sad--she could
+not tell why. To him I daresay it smelt agreeable, but I can hardly
+believe it ever woke in him that dreamy sensation it gave her--of
+something she had not had enough of, she could not say what. When the
+heat was gone off a little he would walk out on the lawn, which was
+well kept and well watered, with many flowering shrubs about it. Why
+he did so, I cannot tell. He looked at nothing in particular, only
+walked about for a few minutes, no doubt derived some pleasure of a
+mild nature from something, and walked in again to tea. One might have
+expected he would have cultivated the acquaintance of his garden a
+little, if it were only for the pleasure the contrast would give him
+when he got back to his loved office, for a greater contrast could not
+well have been found than between his dingy dreary haunt on
+weekdays--a place which nothing but duty could have made other than
+repugnant to any free soul--and this nest of greenery and light and
+odour. Sweet scents floated in clouds invisible about the place;
+flower eyes and stars and bells and bunches shone and glowed and
+lurked all around; his very feet might have learned a lesson of that
+which is beyond the sense from the turf he trod; but all the time, if
+he were not exactly seeing in his mind's eye the walls and tables of
+his office in the City square, his thoughts were not the less brooding
+over such business as he there transacted. For Mr. Dempster's was not
+a free soul. How could it be when all his energies were given to
+making money? This he counted his _calling_--and I believe actually
+contrived to associate some feeling of duty with the notion of leaving
+behind him a plump round sum of money, as if money in accumulation and
+following flood, instead of money in peaceful current, were the good
+thing for the world! Hence the whole realm of real life, the universe
+of thought and growth, was a high-hedged park to him, within which he
+never even tried to look--not even knowing that he was shut out from
+it, for the hedge was of his own growing. What shall ever wake such a
+man to a sense of indwelling poverty, or make him begin to hunger
+after any lowliest expansion? Does a reader retort, "The man was
+comfortable, and why should he be troubled?" If the end of being, I
+answer, is only comfort in self, I yield. But what if there should be
+at the heart of the universe a Thought to which the being of such men
+is distasteful? What if to that Thought they look blots in light, ugly
+things? May there not lie in that direction some possible reason why
+they should bethink themselves? Dempster, however, was not yet a
+clinker out of which all the life was burned, however much he looked
+like one. There was in him that which might yet burn--and give light
+and heat.
+
+On the Sunday evenings Mrs. Dempster would have gladly gone to church
+again, if only--though to herself she never allowed this for one of
+her reasons--to slip from under the weight of her husband's presence.
+He seldom spoke to her more than a sentence at a time, but he did like
+to have her near him, and I suppose held, through the bare presence,
+some kind of dull one-sided communication with her; what did a woman
+know about business? and what did he know about except business? It is
+true he had a rudimentary pleasure in music--and would sometimes ask
+her to play to him, when he would listen, and after his fashion enjoy.
+But although here was a gift that might be developed until his soul
+could echo the music of the spheres, the embodied souls of Handel or
+Mendelssohn were to him but clouds of sound wrapped about kernels--let
+me say of stock or bonds.
+
+For a year or so after their marriage it had been the custom that, the
+first thing after breakfast on Monday morning, she should bring him
+her account-book, that they might together go over her week's
+expenses. She must cultivate the business habits in which, he said, he
+found her more than deficient. How could he endure in a wife what
+would have been preposterous in a clerk, and would have led to his
+immediate dismissal? It was in his eyes necessary that the same strict
+record of receipt and expenditure should be kept in the household as
+in the office; how else was one to know in what direction things were
+going? he said. He required of his wife, therefore, that every
+individual thing that cost money, even to what she spent upon her own
+person, should be entered in her book. She had no money of her own,
+neither did he allow her any special sum for her private needs; but he
+made her a tolerably liberal weekly allowance, from which she had to
+pay everything except house-rent and taxes, an arrangement which I
+cannot believe a good one, as it will inevitably lead some
+conscientious wives to self-denial severer than necessary, and on the
+other hand will tempt the vulgar nature to make a purse for herself by
+mean savings off everybody else. It was especially distasteful to Mrs.
+Dempster to have to set down every little article of personal
+requirement that she bought. It would probably have seemed to her but
+a trifle had they both been young when they married, and had there
+been that tenderness of love between them which so soon sets
+everything more than right; but as it was, she could never get over
+the feeling that the man was strange to her. As it was she would have
+got over this. But there was in her a certain constitutional lack of
+precision, combined with a want of energy and a weakness of will, that
+rendered her more than careless where her liking was not interested.
+Hence, while she would have been horrified at playing a wrong note or
+singing out of tune, she not only had no anxiety, for the thing's own
+sake, to have her accounts correct, but shrunk from every effort in
+that direction. Now I can perfectly understand her recoil from the
+whole affair, with her added dislike to the smallness of the thing
+required of her; but seeing she did begin with doing it after a
+fashion, it is not so easy to understand why, doing it, she should not
+make a consolation of doing it with absolute exactness. Not even her
+dread of her husband's dissatisfaction--which was by no means
+small--could prevail to make her, instead of still trusting a memory
+that constantly played her false, put down a thing at once, nor
+postpone it to a far less convenient season. Hence it came that her
+accounts, though never much out, never balanced; and the weekly audit,
+while it grew more and more irksome to the one, grew more and more
+unsatisfactory to the other. For to Mr. Dempster's dusty eyes
+exactitude wore the robe of rectitude, and before long, precisely and
+merely from the continued unsatisfactory condition of her accounts, he
+began, in a hidden corner of his righteous soul, to reflect on the
+moral condition of his wife herself as unsatisfactory. Now such it
+certainly was, but he was not the man to judge it correctly, or to
+perceive the true significance of her failing. In business, while
+scrupulous as to the requirements of custom and recognized right, he
+nevertheless did things from which her soul would have recoiled like
+"the tender horns of cockled snails;" yet it was to him not merely a
+strange and inexplicable fact that she should _never_ be able to show
+to a penny, nay, often not to a shilling or eighteenpence, how the
+week's allowance went, but a painful one as indicating something
+beyond perversity. And truly it was no very hard task he required of
+her, for, seeing they had no children, only three servants, and saw
+little company, her housekeeping could not be a very heavy or involved
+affair. Perhaps if it had been more difficult she would have done it
+better, but anyhow she hated the whole thing, procrastinated, and
+setting down several things together, was _sure_ to forget some
+article or mistake some price; yet not one atom more would she
+distrust her memory the next time she was tempted. But it was a small
+fault at worst, and if her husband had loved her enough to understand
+the bearings of it in relation to her mental and moral condition he
+would have tried to content himself that at least she did not exceed
+her allowance; and would of all things have avoided making such a
+matter a burden upon the consciousness of one so differently educated,
+if not constituted, from himself. It is but fair to add on the other
+side that, if she had loved him after anything like a wifely ideal,
+which I confess was not yet possible to her, it would not have been
+many weeks before she had a first correct account to show him.
+Convinced, at length, that accuracy was not to be had from her, and
+satisfying himself with dissatisfaction, he one morning threw from him
+the little ruled book, and declared, in a wrath which he sought to
+smother into dignified but hopeless rebuke, that he would trouble
+himself with her no further. She burst into tears, took up the book,
+left the room, cried a little, resolved to astonish him the next
+Monday, and never set down another item. When it came, and breakfast
+was over, he gave her the usual cheque, and left at once for town. Nor
+had the accounts ever again been alluded to between them.
+
+Now this might have been very well, or at least not very ill, if both
+had done tolerably well thereafter--that is, if the one had continued
+to attend to her expenditure as well as before, and the other, when he
+threw away the account-book, had dismissed from his mind the whole
+matter. But Dempster was one of those dangerous men--more dangerous,
+however, to themselves than to others--who never forget, that is, get
+over, an offence or disappointment. They respect themselves so much,
+and, out of their respect for themselves, build so much upon success,
+set so much by never being defeated but always gaining their point,
+that when they are driven to confess themselves foiled, the confession
+is made from the "poor dumb mouth" of a wound that cannot be healed.
+It is there for ever--will be there at least until they find another
+God to worship than their own paltry selves. Hence it came that the
+bourn between the two spiritual estates yawned a little wider at one
+point, and a mist of dissatisfaction would not unfrequently rise from
+a certain stagnant pool in its hollow. The cause was paltry in one
+sense, but nothing to which belongs the name of _Cause_ can fail to
+mingle the element of awfulness even with its paltriness. Its worst
+effect was that it hindered approximation in other parts of their
+marching natures.
+
+And as to Mrs. Dempster, I am sorry for the apparent justification
+which what I have to confess concerning her must give to the severe
+whims of such husbands as hers: from that very Monday morning she
+began to grow a little careless about her expenditure--which she had
+never been before. By degrees bill after bill was allowed to filch
+from the provision of the following week, and when that was devoured,
+then from that of the week after. It was not that she was in the least
+more expensive upon herself, or that she consciously wasted anything;
+but, altogether averse to housekeeping, she ceased to exercise the
+same outlook upon the expenditure of the house, did not keep her
+horses together, left the management more and more to her cook; while
+the consciousness that she was not doing her duty made her more and
+more uncomfortable, and the knowledge that things were going farther
+and farther wrong, made her hate the idea of accounts worse and worse,
+until she came at length to regard them with such a loathing as might
+have fitted some extreme of moral evil. The bills which were supposed
+by her husband to be regularly settled every week were at last months
+behind, and the week's money spent in meeting the most pressing of its
+demands, while what it could no longer cover was cast upon the growing
+heap of evil for the time to come.
+
+I must say this for her, however, that there was a small sum of money
+she expected on the death of a crazy aunt, which, if she could but lay
+hold of it without her husband's knowledge, she meant to devote to the
+clearing off of everything, when she vowed to herself to do better in
+the time to come.
+
+The worst thing in it all was that her fear of her husband kept
+increasing, and that she felt more and more uncomfortable in his
+presence. Hence that troubled look in her eye, always more marked when
+her husband sat dozing in his chair of a Sunday afternoon.
+
+It was natural, too, that, although they never quarrelled, their
+intercourse should not grow of a more tender character. Seldom was
+there a salient point in their few scattered sentences of
+conversation, except, indeed, it were some piece of news either had to
+communicate. Occasionally the wife read something from the newspaper,
+but never except at her husband's request. In general he enjoyed his
+newspaper over a chop at his office. Two or three times since their
+marriage--now eight years--he had made a transient resolve pointing at
+the improvement of her mind, and to that end had taken from his great
+glass-armoured bookcase some _standard_ work--invariably, I believe,
+upon party-politics--from which he had made her read him a chapter.
+But, unhappily, she had always got to the end of it without gaining
+the slightest glimmer of a true notion of what the author was driving
+at.
+
+It almost moves me to pity to think of the vagueness of that
+rudimentary humanity in Mr. Dempster which made him dream of doing
+something to improve his wife's mind. What did he ever do to improve
+his own? It is hard to understand how horses find themselves so
+comfortable in their stables that, be the day ever so fine, the
+country ever so lovely, the air ever so exhilarating, they are always
+rejoiced to get back into their dull twilight: it is harder to me to
+understand how Mr. Dempster could be so comfortable in his own mind
+that he never wanted to get out of it, even at the risk of being
+beside himself; but no doubt the dimness of its twilight had a good
+deal to do with his content. And then there is that in every human
+mind which no man's neighbour, nay, no man himself, can understand. My
+neighbour may in his turn be regarding my mind as a gloomy place to
+live in, while I find it no undesirable residence--though chiefly
+because of the number of windows it affords me for looking out of it.
+Still, if Dempster's dingy office in the City was not altogether a
+sufficing type of the mind that used it, I consider it a very fairly
+good one.
+
+But wherein was Mrs. Dempster so very different from her husband as I
+rudely fancy some of my readers imagining her? Whatever may have been
+her reasons for marrying him--one would suppose they must have been
+weighty--to do so she must have been in a very undeveloped condition,
+and in that condition she still remained. I do not mean that she was
+less developed than ninety-nine out of the hundred: most women affect
+me only as valuable crude material out of which precious things are
+making. How much they might be, must be, shall be! For now they stand
+like so many Lot's-wives--so many rough-hewn marble blocks, rather, of
+which a Divinity is shaping the ends. Mrs. Dempster had all the making
+of a lovely woman, but notwithstanding her grace, her beauty, her
+sweetness, her lark-like ballading too, she was a very ordinary woman
+in that region of her which knew what she meant when she said "I." Of
+this fact she had hardly a suspicion, however; for until aspiration
+brings humility, people are generally pretty well satisfied with
+themselves, having no idea what poor creatures they are. She saw in
+her mirror a superior woman, regarded herself as one of the finer
+works of creation. The worst was that from the first she had counted
+herself superior to her husband, and in marrying him had felt not
+merely that she was conferring a favour, which every husband would
+allow, but that she was lowering herself without elevating him. Now it
+is true that she was pleasanter to look at, that her manners were
+sweeter, and her notions of the becoming far less easily satisfied
+than his; also that she was a little less deficient in vague reverence
+for certain forms of the higher than he. But I know of nothing in her
+to determine her classification as of greater value than he, except
+indeed that she was on the whole rather more honest. She read novels
+and he did not; she passed shallow judgment, where he scorned to
+judge; she read all the middling poetry that came in her way, and
+copied books full of it; but she could no more have appreciated one of
+Milton's or Shakspere's smallest poems than she could have laughed
+over a page of Chinese. She liked to hear this and that popular
+preacher, and when her husband called his sermons humbug, she heard it
+with a shocked countenance; but was she better or worse than her
+husband when, admiring them as she did, she permitted them to have no
+more influence upon her conduct than if they had been the merest
+humbug ever uttered by ambitious demagogue? In truth, I cannot see
+that in the matter of worth there was much as yet to choose between
+them.
+
+It is hardly necessary, then, to say that there was little appreciable
+approximation of any kind going on between them. If only they would
+have read Dickens together! Who knows what might have come of it! But
+this dull close animal proximity, without the smallest conscious
+nearness of heart or mind or soul--and so little chance, from very
+lack of wants, for showing each other kindnesses--surely it is a
+killing sort of thing! And yet, and yet, there is always a
+something--call it habit, or any poorest name you please--grows up
+between two who are much together, at least when they neither quarrel
+nor thwart each other's designs, which, tending with its roots towards
+the deeper human, blossoms into--a wretched little flower indeed, yet
+afar off partaking of the nature of love. The Something seldom reveals
+its existence until they are parted. I suspect that with not a few,
+Death is the love-messenger at the stroke of whose dart the stream of
+love first begins to flow in the selfish bosom.
+
+It is now necessary to mention a little break in the monotony of Mrs.
+Dempster's life, which, but for what came afterwards, could claim no
+record. One morning her page announced Major Strong, and possibly she
+received the gentleman who entered with a brighter face than she had
+ever shown her husband. The major had just arrived from India. He had
+been much at her father's house while she was yet a mere girl, being
+then engaged to one of her sisters, who died after he went abroad, and
+before he could return to marry her. He was now a widower, a
+fine-looking, frank, manly fellow. The expression of his countenance
+was little altered, and the sight of him revived in the memory of Mrs.
+Dempster many recollections of a happy girlhood, when the prospect of
+such a life as she now led with tolerable content would have seemed
+simply unendurable. When her husband came home she told him as much as
+he cared to hear of the visitor she had had, and he made no objection
+to her asking him to dine the next Sunday. When he arrived Mr.
+Dempster saw a man of his own age, bronzed and big, with not much
+waist left, but a good carriage and pleasant face. He made himself
+agreeable at dinner, appreciated his host's wine, and told good
+stories that pleased the business man as showing that he knew "what
+was what." He accorded him his more particular approval, speaking to
+his wife, on the ground that he was a man of the world, with none of
+the army slang about him. Mr. Dempster was not aware that he had
+himself more business peculiarities than any officer in her majesty's
+service had military ones.
+
+After this Major Strong frequently called upon Mrs. Dempster. They
+were good friends, and did each other no harm whatever, and the
+husband neither showed nor felt the least jealousy. They sang
+together, occasionally went out shopping, and three or four times went
+together to the play. Mr. Dempster, so long as he had his usual
+comforts, did not pine in his wife's absence, but did show a little
+more pleasure when she came home to him than usually when he came home
+to her. This lasted for a few months. Then the major went back to
+India, and for a time the lady missed him a good deal, which,
+considering the dulness of her life, was not very surprising or
+reprehensible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. AN ASTONISHMENT.
+
+
+Now comes the strange part of my story.
+
+One evening the housemaid opened the door to Mr. Dempster on his
+return from the city; and perhaps the fact that it was the maid, and
+not the page as usual, roused his observation, which, except in
+business matters, was not remarkably operative. He glanced at the
+young woman, when an eye far less keen than his could not have failed
+to remark a strangely excited expression on her countenance.
+
+"Where is the boy?" he asked.
+
+"Just run to the doctor's, sir," she answered.
+
+Then first he remembered that when he left in the morning his wife had
+not been feeling altogether well, but he had never thought of her
+since.
+
+"How is your mistress?" he said.
+
+"She's rather poorly, sir, but--but--she's as well as could be
+expected."
+
+"What does the fool mean?" said Dempster to himself, and very nearly
+said it aloud, for he was not over polite to any in his service. But
+he did not say it aloud. He advanced into the hall with deliberation,
+and made for the stair.
+
+"Oh, please sir," the maid cried in a tone of perturbation, when,
+turning from shutting the door, she saw his intention, "you can't go
+up to mis'ess's room just at this minute, sir. Please go in the
+dining-room, sir."
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked, turning angrily upon the girl, for of
+all things he hated mystery.
+
+Like every one else in the house, and office both, she stood in awe of
+him, and his look frightened her.
+
+"Please go in the dining-room," she gasped entreatingly.
+
+"What!" he said and did turn towards the dining-room, "is your
+mistress so ill she can't see me?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir!--at least I don't know exactly. Cook's with her, sir.
+She's over the worst, anyhow."
+
+"What on earth do you mean, girl? Speak out, will you? What is the
+matter with your mistress?"
+
+As he spoke he stepped into the room, the maid following him. The same
+moment he spied a whitish bundle of something on the rug in front of
+the fire.
+
+"What do you mean by leaving things like that in the dining-room?" he
+went on more angrily still.
+
+"Please, sir," answered the girl, going and lifting the bundle
+carefully, "it's the baby!"
+
+"The baby!" shouted Mr. Dempster, and looked at her from head to foot.
+"What baby?" Then bethinking himself that it must belong to some
+visitor in the drawing-room with his wife, he moderated his tone.
+"Make haste; take it away!" he said. "I don't want babies here!
+There's a time and a place for everything!--What _are_ you about?"
+
+For, instead of obeying her master and taking it away, the maid was
+carefully looking in the blanket for the baby. Having found it and
+turned aside the covering from its face, she came nearer, and holding
+up the little vision, about the size and colour of a roll of red wax
+taper, said:--
+
+"Look at it, sir! It's your own, and worth looking at."
+
+Never before had she dared speak to him so!
+
+I will not venture to assert that Mr. Dempster turned white, but his
+countenance changed, and he dropped into the chair behind him, feeling
+less of a business man than had been his consciousness for the last
+twenty years. He was hit hard. The absolutely Incredible had hit him.
+Babies might be born in a day, but surely not without previous
+preparation on the part of nature at least, if not on that of the
+mother; and in this case if the mother had prepared herself, certainly
+she had not prepared him for the event. It was as if the treasure of
+Nature's germens were tumbling all together. His head swam. He could
+not speak a word.
+
+"Yes, sir," the maid went on, relieved of her trepidation in
+perceiving that her master too was mortal, and that her word had such
+power over him--proud also of knowing more of his concerns than he did
+himself, "she was took about an hour and a half ago. We've kep'
+sendin' an' sendin' after the doctor, but he ain't never been yet;
+only cook, she knows a deal an' she says she's been very bad, sir. But
+the young gentleman come at last, bless him! and now she's doin' as
+well as could be expected, sir--cook says."
+
+"God bless me!" said the astonished father, and relapsed into the
+silence of bewilderment.
+
+Eight years married with never a glimmer of offspring--and now, all at
+once, and without a whisper of warning, the father of a "young
+gentleman!" How could it be other than perplexing--discomposing,
+indeed!--yet it was right pleasant too. Only it would have been more
+pleasant if experience could have justified the affair! Nature--no,
+not Nature--or, if Nature, then Nature sure in some unnatural mood,
+had stolen a march upon him, had gone contrary to all that had ever
+been revealed of her doings before! and why had she pitched on
+him--just him, Duncan Dempster, to exercise one of her more grotesque
+and wayward moods upon?--to play at hide-and-seek with after this
+fashion? She had not treated him with exactly proper respect, he
+thought, or, rather vaguely felt.
+
+"Business is business," he remarked, under his breath, "and this
+cannot be called proper business behaviour. What is there about me to
+make game of? Really, my wife ought--"
+
+What his wife ought or ought not to have done, however, had not yet
+made itself clear to him, and his endeavour to excogitate being in
+that direction broken off, gave way to the pleasure of knowing himself
+a father, or perhaps more truly of having an heir. In the strength of
+it he rose, went to the cellaret, and poured himself out a glass of
+his favourite port, which he sat down to drink in silence and
+meditation. He was rather a picture just then and there, though not a
+very lovely one, seated, with his hat still on his head, in the middle
+of the room, upon a chair half-way between the dining-table and the
+sideboard, with his glass of wine in his hand. He was pondering partly
+the pleasure, but still mainly the peculiarity of his position. A
+bishop once told me that, shortly after he had been raised to the
+episcopal dignity, a friend's horses, whose driver had tumbled off the
+box drunk, ran away with him, and upset the carriage. He crept out of
+the window over his head, and the first thought that came to him as he
+sat perched on the side of the carriage, while it was jumbled along by
+the maddened horses, was, "What do bishops do in such circumstances?"
+Equally perplexing was the question Dempster had to ask himself: how
+husbands who, after being married eight years, suddenly and
+unexpectedly received the gift of a first-born, were in the habit of
+comporting themselves! He poured himself out another glass, and with
+it came the reflection, both amusing and consoling, that his brother,
+who was confidently expecting his tidy five figures to crown the
+earthly bliss of one or more of his large family some day, would be
+equally but less agreeably surprised. "Serve him right!" he said to
+himself. "What business have they to be looking out for my death?" And
+for a moment the heavens appeared a little more just than he was
+ordinarily in the habit of regarding them. He said to himself he would
+work harder than ever now. There would now be some good in making
+money! He had never given his mind to it yet, he said: now the world
+should see what he could do when he did give his mind to it!
+
+Hitherto gathering had been his main pleasure, but with the thought of
+his money would now not seldom be mingled the thought of the little
+thing in the blanket! He began to find himself strangely happy. I use
+the wrong phrase--for the fact is, he had never yet found himself at
+all; he knew nothing of the person except a self-painted and immensely
+flattered portrait that hung in the innermost chamber of his heart--I
+mean the innermost chamber he knew anything of: there were many
+chambers there of which he did not even know the doors. Yet a few
+minutes as he sat there, and he was actually cherishing a little pride
+in the wife who had done so much better for him than he had at length
+come to expect. If not a good accountant, she was at least a good
+wife, and a very fair housekeeper: he had no doubt she would prove a
+good mother. He would gladly have gone to her at once, to let her know
+how much he was pleased with her behaviour. As for that little bit of
+red clay--"terra cotta," he called it to himself, as he looked round
+with a smile at the blanket, which the housemaid had replaced on the
+rug before the fire--who could imagine him a potentate upon
+'Change--perhaps in time a director of European affairs! He was not in
+the way of joking--of all things about money; the very thought, of
+business filled him from top to toe with seriousness; but he did make
+that small joke, and accompany it with a grim smile.
+
+He was startled from his musing by the entrance of the doctor, who had
+in the meantime arrived and seen the lady, and now came to look at the
+baby. He congratulated Mr. Dempster on having at length a son and
+heir, but warned him that his wife was far from being beyond danger
+yet. The whole thing was entirely out of the common, he said, and she
+must be taken the greatest possible care of. The words woke a gentle
+pity in the heart of the man, for by nature all men have some
+tenderness for women in such circumstances, but they did not trouble
+him greatly--for such dangers belonged to their calling, their
+_business_ in life, and, doubtless, if she had attended to that
+business earlier she would have found it easier.
+
+"Did you ever know such a thing before, doctor?" he asked, with the
+importance of one honoured by a personal visit from the Marvellous.
+
+"Never in my own practice," answered the doctor, whom the cook had
+instructed in the wonders of the case, "but I have read of such a
+thing." And Mr. Dempster swelled like a turkey-cock.
+
+It was several days before he was allowed to see the mother. Perhaps
+had she expressed a strong desire to see him, it might have been
+risked sooner, but she had neither expressed nor manifested any. He
+kissed her, spoke a few stupid words in a kind tone, asking her how
+she did, but paying no heed to her answer, and turned aside to look,
+at the baby.
+
+Mrs. Dempster recovered but slowly, and not very satisfactorily. She
+did not seem to care much about the child. She tried to nurse him, but
+was not very successful. She took him when the nurse brought him, and
+yielded him again with the same indifference, showing neither pleasure
+to receive nor unwillingness to part with him. The nurse did not fail
+to observe it and remark upon it: _she_ had never seen a mother care
+so little for her child! there was little of the mother in _her_ any
+way! it was no wonder she was so long about it. It troubled the father
+a little that she should not care for his child: some slight
+fermentation had commenced in the seemingly dead mass of human
+affection that had lain so long neglected in his being, and it seemed
+strange to him that, while he was living for the child in the City,
+she should be so indifferent to him at home. For already he had begun
+to keep his vow, already his greater keenness in business was remarked
+in the City. But it boded little good for either that the gift of God
+should stir up in him the worship of Mammon. More sons are damned by
+their fathers' money than by anything else whatever outside of
+themselves.
+
+There was the excuse to be made for Mrs. Dempster that she continued
+far from strong--and her husband made it: he would have made it more
+heartily if he had himself ever in his life known what it was to be
+ill. By degrees she grew stronger, however, until, to persons who had
+not known her before, she would have seemed in tolerable health. For a
+week or two after she was again going about the house, she continued
+to nurse the baby, but after that she became unable to do so, and
+therewith began to neglect him entirely. She never asked to see him,
+and when the nurse brought him would turn her head aside, and tell her
+to take it away. So far from his being a pleasure to her, the very
+sight of the child brought the hot dew upon her forehead. Her husband
+frowned and wondered, but, unaccustomed to open his mind either to her
+or to any one else, not unwisely sought to understand the thing before
+speaking of it, and in the meantime commenced a genuine attempt to
+make up to the baby for his mother's neglect. Almost without a notion
+how even to take him in his arms, he would now send for him the moment
+he had had his tea, and after a fashion, ludicrous in the eyes of the
+nurse, would dandle and caress him, and strut about with him before
+his wife, glancing up at her every now and then, to point the lesson
+that such was the manner in which a parent ought to behave to a child.
+In his presence she never made any active show of her dislike, but her
+look seemed all the time fixed on something far away, as if she had
+nothing to do with the affair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. ANOTHER ASTONISHMENT.
+
+
+But a second and very different astonishment awaited Mr. Dempster.
+Again one evening, on his return from the City, he saw a strange look
+on the face of the girl who opened the door--but this time it was a
+look of fear.
+
+"Well?" he said, in a tone at once alarmed and peremptory.
+
+She made no answer, but turned whiter than before.
+
+"Where is your mistress?" he demanded.
+
+"Nobody knows, sir," she answered.
+
+"Nobody knows! What would you have me understand by such an answer?"
+
+"It's the bare truth, sir. Nobody knows where she is."
+
+"God bless me!" cried the husband. "What does it all mean?"
+
+And again he sunk down upon a chair--this time in the hall, and stared
+at the girl as if waiting further enlightenment.
+
+But there was little enough to be had. Only one point was clear: his
+wife was nowhere to be found. He sent for every one in the house, and
+cross-questioned each to discover the last occasion on which she had
+been seen. It was some time since she had been missed; how long before
+that she had been seen there was no certainty to be had. He ran to the
+doctor, then from one to another of her acquaintance, then to her
+mother, who lived on the opposite side of London. She, like the rest,
+could tell him nothing. In her anxiety she would have gone back with
+him, but he was surly, and would not allow her. It was getting towards
+morning before he reached home, but no relieving news awaited him.
+What to think was as much a perplexity to him as what to do. He was
+not in the agony in which a man would have been who thoroughly loved
+his wife, but he cared enough about her to feel uncomfortable; and the
+cries of the child, who was suffering from some ailment, made him
+miserable: in his perplexity and dull sense of helplessness he
+wondered whether she might not have given the baby poison before she
+went. Then the thing would make such a talk! and, of all things,
+Duncan Dempster hated being talked about. How busy people's brains
+would be with all his affairs! How many explanations of the mystery
+would be suggested on 'Change! Some would say, "What business had a
+man like him with a fine lady for a wife? one so much younger than
+himself too!" He could remember making the same remark of another,
+before he was married. "Served him right!" they would say. And with
+that the first movement of suspicion awoke in him--purely and solely
+from his own mind's reflection of the imagined minds of others. While
+in his mind's ear he heard them talking, almost before he knew what
+they meant the words came to him: "There was that Major Strong, you
+know!"
+
+"She's gone to him!" he cried aloud, and, springing from the bed on
+which he had thrown himself, he paced the chamber in a fury. He had no
+word for it but hers that he was now in India! They had only been
+waiting till--By heaven, that child was none of his! And therewith
+rushed into his mind the conviction that everything was thus
+explained. No man ever yet entertained an unhappy suspicion, but
+straightway an army of proofs positive came crowding to the service of
+the lie. It is astounding with what manifest probability everything
+will fall in to prove that a fact which has no foundation whatever!
+There is no end to the perfection with which a man may fool himself
+while taking absolute precautions against being fooled by others.
+Every fact, being a living fact, has endless sides and relations; but
+of all these, the man whose being hangs upon one thought, will see
+only those sides and relations which fall in with that thought.
+Dempster even recalled the words of the maid, "It's mis'ess's," as
+embodying the girl's belief that it was not master's. Where a man,
+whether by nature jealous or not, is in a jealous condition, there is
+no need of an Iago to parade before him the proofs of his wrong. It
+was because Shakespere would neither have Desdemona less than perfect,
+nor Othello other than the most trusting and least suspicious of men,
+that he had to invent an all but incredible villain to effect the
+needful catastrophe.
+
+But why should a man, who has cared so little for his wife, become
+instantly, upon the bare suspicion, so utter a prey to consuming
+misery? There was a character in his suffering which could not be
+attributed to any degree of anger, shame, or dread of ridicule. The
+truth was, there lay in his being a possibility of love to his wife
+far beyond anything his miserably stunted consciousness had an idea
+of; and the conviction of her faithlessness now wrought upon him in
+the office of Death, to let him know what he had lost. It magnified
+her beauty in his eyes, her gentleness, her grace; and he thought with
+a pang how little he had made of her or it.
+
+But the next moment wrath at the idea of another man's child being
+imposed upon him as his, with the consequent loss of his precious
+money, swept every other feeling before it. For by law the child was
+his, whoever might be the father of it. During a whole minute he felt
+on the point of tying a stone about its neck, carrying it out, and
+throwing it into the river Lea. Then, with the laugh of a hyena, he
+set about arranging in his mind the proofs of her guilt. First came
+eight childless years with himself; next the concealment of her
+condition, and the absurd pretence that she had known nothing of it;
+then the trouble of mind into which she had fallen; then her strange
+unnatural aversion to her own child; and now, last of all, conclusive
+of a guilty conscience, her flight from his house. He would give
+himself no trouble to find her; why should he search after his own
+shame! He would neither attempt to conceal nor to explain the fact
+that she had left him--people might say what they pleased--try him for
+murder if they liked! As to the child she had so kindly left to
+console him for her absence, he would not drown him, neither would he
+bring him up in his house; he would give him an ordinary education,
+and apprentice him to a trade. For his money, he would leave it to a
+hospital--a rich one, able to defend his will if disputed. For what
+was the child? A monster--a creature that had no right to existence!
+
+Not one of those who knew him best would have believed him capable of
+being so moved, nor did one of them now know it, for he hid his
+suffering with the success of a man not unaccustomed to make a mask of
+his face. There are not a few men who, except something of the nature
+of a catastrophe befall them, will pass through life without having or
+affording a suspicion of what is in them. Everything hitherto had
+tended to suppress the live elements of Duncan Dempster; but now, like
+the fire of a volcano in a land of ice, the vitality in him had begun
+to show itself.
+
+Sheer weariness drove him, as the morning began to break, to lie down
+again; but he neither undressed nor slept, and rose at his usual hour.
+When he entered the dining-room, where breakfast was laid as
+usual--only for one instead of two--he found by his plate, among
+letters addressed to his wife, a packet directed to himself. It had
+not been through the post, and the address was in his wife's hand. He
+opened it. A sheet of paper was wrapped around a roll of unpaid
+butcher's bills, amounting to something like eighty pounds, and a note
+from the butcher craving immediate settlement. On the sheet of paper
+was written, also in his wife's hand, these words: "I am quite
+unworthy of being your wife any longer;" that was all.
+
+Now here, to a man who had loved her enough to understand her, was a
+clue to the whole--to Dempster it was the strongest possible
+confirmation of what he had already concluded. To him it appeared as
+certain as anything he called truth, that for years, while keeping a
+fair face to her husband--a man who had never refused her anything--he
+did not recall the fact that almost never had she asked or he offered
+anything--she had been deceiving him, spending money she would not
+account for, pretending to pay everything when she had been ruining
+his credit with the neighbourhood, making him, a far richer man than
+any but himself knew, appear to be living beyond his means, when he
+was every month investing far more than he spent. It was injury upon
+injury! Then, as a last mark of her contempt, she had taken pains that
+these beggarly butcher's bills should reach him from her own hand! He
+would trouble himself about such a woman not a moment longer!
+
+He went from breakfast to his omnibus as usual, walked straight to his
+office, and spent the day according to custom. I need hardly say that
+the first thing he did was to write a cheque for the butcher. He made
+no further inquiry after her whatever, nor was any made of him there,
+for scarcely one of the people with whom he did business had been to
+his house, or had even seen his wife.
+
+In the suburb where he lived it was different; but he paid no heed to
+any inquiry, beyond saying he knew nothing about her. To her relatives
+he said that if they wanted her they might find her for themselves.
+She had gone to please herself, and he was not going to ruin himself
+by running about the world after her.
+
+Night after night he came home to his desolate house; took no comfort
+from his child; made no confession that he stood in need of comfort.
+But he had a dull sensation as if the sun had forsaken the world, and
+an endless night had begun. The simile, of course, is mine--the
+sensation only was his; _he_ could never have expressed anything that
+went on in the region wherein men suffer.
+
+A few days made a marked difference in his appearance. He was a hard
+man; but not so hard as people had thought him; and besides, _no_ man
+can rule his own spirit except he has the spirit of right on his side;
+neither is any man proof against the inroads of good. Even Lady
+Macbeth was defeated by the imagination she had braved. Add to this,
+that no man can, even by those who understand him best, be labelled as
+a box containing such and such elements, for the humanity in him is
+deeper than any individuality, and may manifest itself at some crisis
+in a way altogether beside expectation.
+
+His feeling was not at first of an elevated kind. After the grinding
+wrath had abated, self-pity came largely to the surface--not by any
+means a grand emotion, though very dear to boys and girls in their
+first consciousness of self, and in them pardonable enough. On the
+same ground it must be pardoned in a man who, with all his experience
+of the world, was more ignorant of the region of emotion, and more
+undeveloped morally, than multitudes of children: in him it was an
+indication that the shell was beginning to break. He said to himself
+that he was old beside her, and that she had begun to weary of him,
+and despise him. Gradually upon this, however, supervened at intervals
+a faint shadow of pity for her who could not have been happy or she
+would not have left him.
+
+Days and weeks passed, and there was no sign of Mrs. Dempster. The
+child was not sent out to nurse, and throve well enough. His father
+never took the least notice of him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. WHAT IT MEANT.
+
+
+Some of my readers, perhaps all of them, will have concluded that Mrs.
+Dempster was a little out of her mind. Such, indeed, was the fact, and
+one not greatly to be wondered at, after such a peculiar experience as
+she had had. Some small degree of congestion, and the consequent
+pressure on some portion of the brain, had sent certain faculties to
+sleep, and, perhaps, roused others into morbid activity. That it is
+impossible to tell where sanity ends and insanity begins, is a trite
+remark indeed; but like many things which it is useless to say, it has
+the more need to be thought of. If I yield to an impulse of which I
+know I shall be ashamed, is it not the act of a madman? And may not
+the act lead to a habit, and at length to a despised, perhaps feared
+and hated, old age, twisting at the ragged ends of a miserable life?
+
+However certain it is that mental disorder had to do with Mrs.
+Dempster's departure from her home, it is almost as certain she would
+never have gone had it not been for the unpaid bills haunting her
+consciousness, a combination of demon and ghost. The misery had all
+the time been growing upon her, and must have had no small share in
+the subversion of her microcosm. When that was effected, the evil
+thing that lay at the root of it all rose and pounced upon her. Wrong
+is its own avenger. She had been doing wrong, and knowingly for years,
+and now the plant of evil was blossoming towards its fruit. If one say
+the evil was but a trifle, I take her judgment, not his, upon that.
+She had been lazy towards duty, had persistently turned aside from
+what she knew to be her business, until she dared not even look at it.
+And now that the crisis was at hand, as omened by that letter from the
+butcher, with the sense of her wrong-doing was mingled the terror of
+her husband. What would he think, say, and do? Not yet had she, after
+all these years, any deep insight into his character; else perhaps she
+might have read there that, much as he loved money, the pleasure of
+seeing signal failure follow the neglect of his instructions would
+quite compensate him for the loss. What the bills amounted to, she had
+not an idea. Not until she had made up her mind to leave her home
+could she muster the courage to get them together. Then she even
+counted up the total and set down the sum in her memory--which sum
+thereafter haunted her like the name of her devil.
+
+As to the making up of her mind--she could remember very little of
+that process--or indeed of the turning of her resolve into action. She
+left the house in the plainest dress her wardrobe could afford her,
+and with just one half-crown in her pocket. Her design was to seek a
+situation, as a refuge from her husband and his wrath. It was a
+curious thing, that, while it gave her no trouble to leave her baby,
+whom indeed she had not that day seen, and to whom for some time she
+had ceased to be necessary, her only notion was to get a place as
+nurse.
+
+At that time, I presume, there were few or no such offices for
+engaging servants as are now common; at all events, the plan Mrs.
+Dempster took, when she had reached a part of London she judged
+sufficiently distant for her purpose, was to go from shop to shop
+inquiring after a situation. But she met with no prospect of success,
+and at last, greatly in need of rest and refreshment, went into a
+small coffee shop. The woman who kept it was taken by her appearance,
+her manners, and her evident trouble, and, happening to have heard of
+a lady who wanted a nurse, gave her the address. She went at once, and
+applied for the place. The lady was much pleased with her, and agreed
+to take her, provided she received a satisfactory character of her.
+For such a demand Mrs. Dempster was unprepared; she had never thought
+what reference she could give, and, her resources for deception easily
+exhausted, gave, driven to extremity, the name and address of her
+mother. So met the extremes of loss and salvation! She returned to the
+coffee shop, and the lady wrote at once to the address of the young
+woman's late mistress, as she supposed.
+
+The kindness of her new friend was not exhausted; she gave her a share
+of her own bed that night. Mrs. Dempster had now but two shillings,
+which she offered her, promising to pay her the rest out of the first
+wages she received. But the good woman would take no more than one of
+them, and that in full payment of what she owed her, and Mrs. Dempster
+left the shop in tears, to linger about the neighbourhood until the
+hour should arrive at which the lady had told her to call again.
+Apparently she must have cherished the hope that her mother, divining
+her extremity, would give her the character she could honestly claim.
+But as she drew near the door which she hoped would prove a refuge,
+her mother was approaching it also, and at the turning of a corner
+they ran into each other's arms. The elderly lady had a hackney coach
+waiting for her in the next street, and Mrs. Dempster, too tired to
+resist, got into it at once at her mother's desire. Ere they reached
+the mother's house, which, as I have said, was a long way from Mr.
+Dempster's, the daughter told everything, and the mother had perceived
+more than the daughter could tell: her eyes had revealed that all was
+not right behind them. She soothed her as none but a mother can,
+easily persuading her she would make everything right, and undertaking
+herself to pay the money owing to the butcher. But it was soon evident
+that for the present there must be no suggestion of her going back to
+her husband; for, imagining from something, that her mother was taking
+her to him, she jumped up and had all but opened the door of the cab
+when her mother succeeded in mastering her. As soon as she was
+persuaded that such had never been the intention, she was quiet. When
+they reached the house she was easily induced to go to bed at once.
+
+Her mother lived in a very humble way, with one servant, a trustworthy
+woman. To her she confided the whole story, and with her consulted as
+to what had better be done. Between them they resolved to keep her,
+for a while at least, in retirement and silence. To this conclusion
+they came on the following grounds: First, the daughter's terror and
+the mother's own fear of Mr. Dempster; next, it must be confessed, the
+resentment of both mistress and servant because of his rudeness when
+he came to inquire after her; third, the evident condition of the poor
+creature's mind; and last, the longing of the two women to have her to
+themselves, that they might nurse and cosset her to their hearts'
+content.
+
+They were to have more of this indulgence, however, than, for her
+sake, they would have desired, for before morning she was very ill.
+She had brain fever, in fact, and they had their hands full,
+especially as they desired to take every precaution to prevent the
+neighbourhood from knowing there was any one but themselves in the
+house.
+
+It was a severe attack, but she passed the crisis favourably, and
+began to recover. One morning, after a quieter night than usual, she
+called her mother, and told her she had had a strange dream--that she
+had a baby somewhere, but could not find him, and was wandering about
+looking for him.
+
+"Wasn't it a curious dream, mamma?" she said. "I wish it were a true
+one. I knew exactly what my baby was like, and went into house after
+house full of children, sure that I could pick him out of thousands. I
+was just going up to the door of the Foundling Hospital to look for
+him there when I woke."
+
+As she ceased, a strange trouble passed like a cloud over her forehead
+and eyes, and her hand, worn almost transparent by the fever followed
+it over forehead and eyes. She seemed trying to recall something
+forgotten. But her mother thought it better to say nothing.
+
+Each of the two nights following she had the same dream.
+
+"Three times, mother," she said. "I am not superstitious, as you know,
+but I can't help feeling as if it must mean something. I don't know
+what to make of it else--except it be that I haven't got over the
+fever yet. And, indeed, I am afraid my head is not quite right, for I
+can't be sure sometimes, such a hold has my dream of me, that I
+haven't got a baby somewhere about the world. Give me your hand,
+mother, and sing to me."
+
+Still her mother thought it more prudent to say nothing, and do what
+she could to divert her thoughts; for she judged it must be better to
+let her brain come right, as it were, of itself.
+
+In the middle of the next night she woke her with a cry.
+
+"O, mother, mother! I know it all now. I am not out of my mind any
+more. How I came here I cannot tell--but I know I have a husband and a
+baby at Hackney--and--oh, such a horrible roll of butcher's bills!"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear! I know all about it," answered her mother. "But
+never mind; you can pay them all yourself now, for I heard only
+yesterday that your aunt Lucy is dead, and has left you the hundred
+pounds she promised you twenty years ago."
+
+"Oh, bless her!" cried Mrs. Dempster, springing out of bed, much to
+the dismay of her mother, who boded a return of the fever. "I must go
+home to my baby at once. But tell me all about it, mamma. How did I
+come here? I seem to remember being in a carriage with you, and that
+is the last I know."
+
+Then, upon condition that she got into bed at once, and promised not
+to move until she gave her leave, her mother consented to tell her all
+she knew. She listened in silence, with face flushed and eyes glowing,
+but drank a cooling draught, lay down again, and at daybreak was fast
+asleep. When she awoke she was herself again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+
+Meantime, things were going, as they should, in rather a dull fashion
+with Duncan Dempster. His chariot wheels were gone, and he drove
+heavily. The weather was good; he seldom failed of the box-seat on the
+omnibus; a ray of light, the first he had ever seen there, visited his
+table, reflected from a new window on the opposite side of a court
+into the heart of his dismal back office; and best of all, business
+was better than usual. Yet was Dempster not cheerful. He was not,
+indeed, a man an acquaintance would ever have thought of calling
+cheerful; but in grays there are gradations; and however differently a
+man's barometer may be set from those of other people, it has its ups
+and downs, its fair weather and foul. But not yet had he an idea how
+much his mental equilibrium had been dependent upon the dim
+consciousness of having that quiet uninterested wife in the
+comfortable house at Hackney. It had been stronger than it seemed, the
+spidery, invisible line connecting that office and that house, along
+which had run twice a day the hard dumpling that dwelt in Mr.
+Dempster's bosom. Vaguely connected with that home after all must have
+been that endless careful gathering of treasure in the city; for now,
+though he could no more stop making money than he could stop
+breathing, it had not the same interest as formerly. Indeed, he had
+less interest than before in keeping his lungs themselves going. But
+he kept on doing everything as usual.
+
+Not one of the men he met ever said a word to him about his wife. The
+general impression was that she had left him for preferable society,
+and no one wondered at her throwing aside such "a dry old stick," whom
+even the devoted slaves of business contemned as having nothing in him
+but business.
+
+A further change was, however, in progress within him. The first sign
+of it was that he began to doubt whether his wife had indeed been
+false to him--had forsaken him in any other company than that of
+Death. But there was one great difficulty in the way of the
+conclusion. It was impossible for him to imagine suicide as proceeding
+from any cause but insanity, and what could have produced the disorder
+in one who had no cares or anxieties, everything she wanted, and
+nothing to trouble her, a devoted husband, and a happy home? Yet the
+mere idea made him think more pitifully, and so more tenderly of her
+than before. It had not yet occurred to him to consider whether he
+might not have had something to do with her conduct or condition.
+Blame was a thing he had never made acquaintance with--least of all in
+the form of self-blame. To himself he was simply all right--the poised
+centre of things capable of righteous judgment on every one else. But
+it must not be forgotten how little he knew about his own affairs at
+all; his was a very different condition from that of one who had
+closed his eyes and hardened his heart to suspicions concerning
+himself. His eyes had never yet been opened to anything but the order
+of things in the money world--its laws, its penalties, its
+rewards--those he did understand. But apparently he was worth
+troubling. A slow dissatisfaction was now preying upon him--a sense of
+want--of not having something he once had, a vague discomfort, growing
+restless. This feeling was no doubt the worse that the birth of the
+child had brought such a sudden rush of fresh interest into his
+occupation, which doubt concerning that birth had again so suddenly
+checked; but even if the child should prove after all his own, a
+supposition he was now willing to admit as possibly a true one, he
+could never without his mother feel any enthusiasm about him, even
+such enthusiasm as might be allowed to a man who knew money from
+moonshine, and common sense from hysterics. Yet once and again, about
+this time, the nurse coming into the room after a few minutes'
+absence, found him bending over the sleeping infant, and, as she
+described him, "looking as if he would have cried if he had only known
+how."
+
+One frosty evening in late autumn the forsaken husband came from
+London--I doubt if he would now have said "home"--as usual, on the top
+of the omnibus. His was a tough nature physically, as well as morally,
+and if he had found himself inside an omnibus he would have thought he
+was going to die. The sun was down. A green hue rose from the horizon
+half-way to the zenith, but a pale yellow lingered over the vanished
+sun, like the gold at the bottom of a chrysolite. The stars were
+twinkling small and sharp in the azure overhead. A cold wind blew in
+little gusts, now from this side, now from that, as they went steadily
+along. The horses' hoofs rang loud on the hard road. The night got
+hold of him: it was at this season, and on nights like these, that he
+had haunted the house of Lucy's father, doing his best to persuade her
+to make him, as he said, a happy man. It now seemed as if then, and
+then only, he had been a happy man. Certainly, of all his life, it was
+the time when he came nearest to having a peep out of the upper
+windows of the house of life. He had been a dweller in the lower
+regions, a hewer of wood to the god of the cellar; and after his
+marriage, he had gone straight down again to the temple of the earthy
+god--to a worship whose god and temple and treasure caves will one day
+drop suddenly from under the votary's feet, and leave him dangling in
+the air without even a pocket about him--without even his banker's
+book to show for his respectability.
+
+The night, I say, recalled the lovely season of his courtship, and
+again, in the mirror of loss, he caught a glimpse of things beyond
+him. Ah, if only that time and its hopes had remained with him! How
+different things would have been now! If Lucy had proved what he
+thought her!--remained what she seemed--the gentle, complaisant,
+yielding lady he imagined her, promising him a life of bliss! Alas,
+she would not even keep account of five pounds a week to please him!
+He never thought whether he, on his part, might not have, in some
+measure, come short of her expectations in a husband; whether she, the
+more lovely in inward design and outward fashion, might not have
+indulged yet more exquisite dreams of bliss which, by devotion to his
+ideal of life, he had done his part in disappointing. He only thought
+what a foolishness it all was; that thus it would go on to the end of
+the book; that youth after youth would have his turn of such a wooing,
+and such a disappointment. Sunsets, indeed! The suns of man's
+happiness never did anything but set! Out of money even--and who could
+say there was any poetry in that?--there was not half the satisfaction
+to be got that one expected. It was all a mess of expectations and
+disappointments mashed up together--nothing more. That was the
+world--on a fair judgment.
+
+Such were his reflections till the driver pulled up for him to get
+down at his own gate. As he got down the said driver glanced up
+curiously at the row of windows on the first floor, and as soon as Mr.
+Dempster's back was turned, pointed to them with the butt-end of his
+whip, and nodded queerly to the gentleman who sat on his other side.
+
+"That's more'n I've seen this six weeks," he said. "There's something
+more'n common up this evenin', sir."
+
+There was light in the drawing-room--that was all the wonder; but at
+those windows Mr. Dempster himself looked so fixedly that he had
+nearly stumbled up his own door-steps.
+
+He carried a latch-key now, for he did not care to stand at the door
+till the boy answered the bell; people's eyes, as they passed, seemed
+to burn holes in the back of his coat.
+
+He opened the street door quietly, and went straight up the stair to
+the drawing-room. Perhaps he thought to detect some liberty taken by
+his servants. He was a little earlier than usual. He opened that door,
+took two steps into the room, and stood arrested, motionless. With his
+shabby hat on his head, his shabby greatcoat on his back--for he
+grudged every penny spent on his clothes--his arms hanging down by his
+sides, and his knees bent, ready to tremble, he looked not a little
+out of keeping in the soft-lighted, dainty, delicate-hued
+drawing-room. Could he believe his eyes? The light of a large lamp was
+centred upon a gracious figure in white--his wife, just as he used to
+see her before he married her! That was the way her hair would break
+loose as she ran down the stair to meet him!--only then there was no
+baby in her lap for it to full over like a torrent of unlighted water
+over a white stone! It was a lovely sight.
+
+He had stood but a moment when she looked up and saw him. She started,
+but gave no cry louder than a little moan. Instantly she rose.
+Turning, she laid the baby on the sofa, and flitted to him like a
+wraith. Arrived where he stood yet motionless, she fell upon her knees
+and clasped his. He was far too bewildered now to ask himself what
+husbands did in such circumstances, and stood like a block.
+
+"Husband! husband!" she cried, "forgive me." With one hand she hid her
+face, although it was bent to the ground, and with the other held up
+to him a bit of paper. He took it from the thin white fingers; it
+might explain something--help him out of this bewilderment, half
+nightmare, half heavenly vision. He opened it. Nothing but a
+hundred-pound note! The familiar sight of bank paper, however, seemed
+to restore his speech.
+
+"What does this mean, Lucy? Upon my word! Permit me to say--"
+
+He was growing angry.
+
+"It is to pay the butcher," she said, with a faltering voice.
+
+"Damn the butcher!" he cried. "I hope you've got something else to say
+to me! Where have you been all this time?"
+
+"At my mother's. I've had a brain fever, and been out of my mind. It
+was all about the butcher's bill."
+
+Dempster stared. Perhaps he could not understand how a woman who would
+not keep accounts should be to such a degree troubled at the result of
+her neglect.
+
+"Look at me, if you don't believe me," she cried, and as she spoke she
+rose and lifted her face to his.
+
+He gazed at it for a moment--pale, thin, and worn; and out of it shone
+the beautiful eyes, larger than before, but shimmering uncertain like
+the stars of a humid night, although they looked straight into his.
+
+Something queer was suddenly the matter with his throat--something
+he had never felt before--a constriction such as, had he been
+superstitious, he might have taken for the prologue to a rope. Then
+the thought came--what a brute he must be that his wife should have
+been afraid to tell him her trouble! Thereupon he tried to speak, but
+his throat was irresponsive to his will. Eve's apple kept sliding up
+and down in it, and would not let the words out. He had never been so
+served by members of his own body in his life before! It was positive
+rebellion, and would get him into trouble with his wife. There it was!
+Didn't he say so?
+
+"Can't you forgive me, Mr. Dempster?" she said, and the voice was so
+sweet and so sad! "It is my own money. Aunt Lucy is dead, and left it
+me. I think it will be enough to pay all my debts; and I promise
+you--I do promise you that I will set down every halfpenny after this.
+Do try me once again--for baby's sake."
+
+This last was a sudden thought. She turned and ran to the sofa.
+Dempster stood where he was, fighting the strange uncomfortable
+feeling in his throat. It would not yield a jot. Was he going to die
+suddenly of choking? Was it a judgment upon him? Diphtheria, perhaps!
+It was much about in the City!
+
+She was back, and holding up to him their sleeping child.
+
+The poor fellow was not half the brute he looked--only he could _not_
+tell what to do with that confounded lump in his throat! He dared not
+try to speak, for it only choked him the more. He put his arms round
+them both, and pressed them to his bosom. Then, the lump in his throat
+melted and ran out at his eyes, and all doubt vanished like a mist
+before the sun. But he never knew that he had wept. His wife did, and
+that was enough.
+
+The next morning, for the first time in his life, he lost the eight
+o'clock omnibus.
+
+The following Monday morning she brought her week's account to him. He
+turned from it testily, but she insisted on his going over it. There
+was not the mistake of a halfpenny. He went to town with a smile in
+his heart, and that night brought her home a cheque for ten pounds
+instead of five.
+
+One day, in the middle of the same week, he came upon her sitting over
+the little blue-and-red-ruled book with a troubled countenance. She
+took no notice of his entrance.
+
+"Do leave those accounts," he said, "and attend to me."
+
+She shook her head impatiently, and made him no other answer. One
+moment more, however, and she started up, threw her arms about his
+neck, and cried triumphantly,
+
+"It's buttons!--fourpence-halfpenny I paid for buttons!"
+
+
+
+
+PORT IN A STORM
+
+
+"Papa," said my sister Effie, one evening as we all sat about the
+drawing-room fire. One after another, as nothing followed, we turned
+our eyes upon her. There she sat, still silent, embroidering the
+corner of a cambric hand-kerchief, apparently unaware that she had
+spoken.
+
+It was a very cold night in the beginning of winter. My father had
+come home early, and we had dined early that we might have a long
+evening together, for it was my father's and mother's wedding-day, and
+we always kept it as the homeliest of holidays. My father was seated
+in an easy-chair by the chimney corner, with a jug of Burgundy near
+him, and my mother sat by his side, now and then taking a sip out of
+his glass.
+
+Effie was now nearly nineteen; the rest of us were younger. What she
+was thinking about we did not know then, though we could all guess
+now. Suddenly she looked up, and seeing all eyes fixed upon her,
+became either aware or suspicious, and blushed rosy red.
+
+"You spoke to me, Effie. What was it, my dear?"
+
+"O yes, papa. I wanted to ask you whether you wouldn't tell us,
+to-night, the story about how you--"
+
+"Well, my love?"
+
+"--About how you--"
+
+"I am listening, my dear."
+
+"I mean, about mamma and you."
+
+"Yes, yes. About how I got your mamma for a mother to you. Yes. I paid
+a dozen of port for her."
+
+We all and each exclaimed _Papa_! and my mother laughed.
+
+"Tell us all about it," was the general cry.
+
+"Well, I will," answered my father. "I must begin at the beginning,
+though."
+
+And, filling his glass with Burgundy, he began.
+
+"As far back as I can remember, I lived with my father in an old
+manor-house in the country. It did not belong to my father, but to an
+elder brother of his, who at that time was captain of a seventy-four.
+He loved the sea more than his life; and, as yet apparently, had loved
+his ship better than any woman. At least he was not married.
+
+"My mother had been dead for some years, and my father was now in very
+delicate health. He had never been strong, and since my mother's
+death, I believe, though I was too young to notice it, he had pined
+away. I am not going to tell you anything about him just now, because
+it does not belong to my story. When I was about five years old, as
+nearly as I can judge, the doctors advised him to leave England. The
+house was put into the hands of an agent to let--at least, so I
+suppose; and he took me with him to Madeira, where he died. I was
+brought home by his servant, and by my uncle's directions, sent to a
+boarding-school; from there to Eton, and from there to Oxford.
+
+"Before I had finished my studies, my uncle had been an admiral for
+some time. The year before I left Oxford, he married Lady Georgiana
+Thornbury, a widow lady, with one daughter. Thereupon he bade farewell
+to the sea, though I dare say he did not like the parting, and retired
+with his bride to the house where he was born--the same house I told
+you I was born in, which had been in the family for many generations,
+and which your cousin now lives in.
+
+"It was late in the autumn when they arrived at Culverwood. They were
+no sooner settled than my uncle wrote to me, inviting me to spend
+Christmas-tide with them at the old place. And here you may see that
+my story has arrived at its beginning.
+
+"It was with strange feelings that I entered the house. It looked so
+old-fashioned, and stately, and grand, to eyes which had been
+accustomed to all the modern commonplaces! Yet the shadowy
+recollections which hung about it gave an air of homeliness to the
+place, which, along with the grandeur, occasioned a sense of rare
+delight. For what can be better than to feel that you are in stately
+company, and at the same time perfectly at home in it? I am grateful
+to this day for the lesson I had from the sense of which I have
+spoken--that of mingled awe and tenderness in the aspect of the old
+hall as I entered it for the first time after fifteen years, having
+left it a mere child.
+
+"I was cordially received by my old uncle and my new aunt. But the
+moment Kate Thornbury entered I lost my heart, and have never found it
+again to this day. I get on wonderfully well without it, though, for I
+have got the loan of a far better one till I find my own, which,
+therefore, I hope I never shall."
+
+My father glanced at my mother as he said this, and she returned his
+look in a way which I can now interpret as a quiet satisfied
+confidence. But the tears came in Effie's eyes. She had trouble before
+long, poor girl! But it is not her story I have to tell.--My father
+went on:
+
+"Your mother was prettier then than she is now, but not so beautiful;
+beautiful enough, though, to make me think there never had been or
+could again be anything so beautiful. She met me kindly, and I met her
+awkwardly."
+
+"You made me feel that I had no business there," said my mother,
+speaking for the first time in the course of the story.
+
+"See there, girls," said my father. "You are always so confident in
+first impressions, and instinctive judgment! I was awkward because, as
+I said, I fell in love with your mother the moment I saw her; and she
+thought I regarded her as an intruder into the old family precincts.
+
+"I will not follow the story of the days. I was very happy, except
+when I felt too keenly how unworthy I was of Kate Thornbury; not that
+she meant to make me feel it, for she was never other than kind; but
+she was such that I could not help feeling it. I gathered courage,
+however, and before three days were over, I began to tell her all my
+slowly reviving memories of the place, with my childish adventures
+associated with this and that room or outhouse or spot in the grounds;
+for the longer I was in the place the more my old associations with it
+revived, till I was quite astonished to find how much of my history in
+connection with Culverwood had been thoroughly imprinted on my memory.
+She never showed, at least, that she was weary of my stories; which,
+however interesting to me, must have been tiresome to any one who did
+not sympathize with what I felt towards my old nest. From room to room
+we rambled, talking or silent; and nothing could have given me a
+better chance, I believe, with a heart like your mother's. I think it
+was not long before she began to like me, at least, and liking had
+every opportunity of growing into something stronger, if only she too
+did not come to the conclusion that I was unworthy of her.
+
+"My uncle received me like the jolly old tar that he was--welcomed me
+to the old ship--hoped we should make many a voyage together--and that
+I would take the run of the craft--all but in one thing.
+
+"'You see, my boy,' he said, 'I married above my station, and I don't
+want my wife's friends to say that I laid alongside of her to get hold
+of her daughter's fortune. No, no, my boy; your old uncle has too much
+salt water in him to do a dog's trick like that. So you take care of
+yourself--that's all. She might turn the head of a wiser man than ever
+came out of our family.'
+
+"I did not tell my uncle that his advice was already too late; for
+that, though it was not an hour since I had first seen her, my head
+was so far turned already, that the only way to get it right again,
+was to go on turning it in the same direction; though, no doubt, there
+was a danger of overhauling the screw. The old gentleman never
+referred to the matter again, nor took any notice of our increasing
+intimacy; so that I sometimes doubt even now if he could have been in
+earnest in the very simple warning he gave me. Fortunately, Lady
+Georgiana liked me--at least I thought she did, and that gave me
+courage.
+
+"That's all nonsense, my dear," said my mother. "Mamma was nearly as
+fond of you as I was; but you never wanted courage."
+
+"I knew better than to show my cowardice, I dare say," returned my
+father. "But," he continued, "things grew worse and worse, till I was
+certain I should kill myself, or go straight out of my mind, if your
+mother would not have me. So it went on for a few days, and Christmas
+was at hand.
+
+"The admiral had invited several old friends to come and spend the
+Christmas week with him. Now you must remember that, although you look
+on me as an old-fashioned fogie--"
+
+"Oh, papa!" we all interrupted; but he went on.
+
+"Yet my old uncle was an older-fashioned fogie, and his friends were
+much the same as himself. Now, I am fond of a glass of port, though I
+dare not take it, and must content myself with Burgundy. Uncle Bob
+would have called Burgundy pig-wash. He could not do without his port,
+though he was a moderate enough man, as customs were. Fancy, then, his
+dismay when, on questioning his butler, an old coxen of his own, and
+after going down to inspect in person, he found that there was
+scarcely more than a dozen of port in the wine-cellar. He turned white
+with dismay, and, till he had brought the blood back to his
+countenance by swearing, he was something awful to behold in the dim
+light of the tallow candle old Jacob held in his tattooed fist. I will
+not repeat the words he used; fortunately, they are out of fashion
+amongst gentlemen, although ladies, I understand, are beginning to
+revive the custom, now old, and always ugly. Jacob reminded his honour
+that he would not have more put down till he had got a proper cellar
+built, for the one there was, he had said, was not fit to put anything
+but dead men in. Thereupon, after abusing Jacob for not reminding him
+of the necessities of the coming season, he turned to me, and began,
+certainly not to swear at his own father, but to expostulate sideways
+with the absent shade for not having provided a decent cellar before
+his departure from this world of dinners and wine, hinting that it was
+somewhat selfish, and very inconsiderate of the welfare of those who
+were to come after him. Having a little exhausted his indignation, he
+came up, and wrote the most peremptory order to his wine-merchant, in
+Liverpool, to let him have thirty dozen of port before Christmas Day,
+even if he had to send it by post-chaise. I took the letter to the
+post myself, for the old man would trust nobody but me, and indeed
+would have preferred taking it himself; but in winter he was always
+lame from the effects of a bruise he had received from a falling spar
+in the battle of Aboukir.
+
+"That night I remember well. I lay in bed wondering whether I might
+venture to say a word, or even to give a hint to your mother that
+there was a word that pined to be said if it might. All at once I
+heard a whine of the wind in the old chimney. How well I knew that
+whine! For my kind aunt had taken the trouble to find out from me what
+room I had occupied as a boy, and, by the third night I spent there,
+she had got it ready for me. I jumped out of bed, and found that the
+snow was falling fast and thick. I jumped into bed again, and began
+wondering what my uncle would do if the port did not arrive. And then
+I thought that, if the snow went on falling as it did, and if the wind
+rose any higher, it might turn out that the roads through the hilly
+part of Yorkshire in which Culverwood lay, might very well be blocked
+up.
+
+    "The north wind doth blow,
+    And we shall have snow,
+And what will my uncle do then, poor thing?
+    He'll run for his port,
+    But he will run short,
+And have too much water to drink, poor thing!
+
+"With the influences of the chamber of my childhood crowding upon me,
+I kept repenting the travestied rhyme to myself, till I fell asleep.
+
+"Now, boys and girls, if I were writing a novel, I should like to make
+you, somehow or other, put together the facts--that I was in the room
+I have mentioned; that I had been in the cellar with my uncle for the
+first time that evening; that I had seen my uncle's distress, and
+heard his reflections upon his father. I may add that I was not
+myself, even then, so indifferent to the merits of a good glass of
+port as to be unable to enter into my uncle's dismay, and that of his
+guests at last, if they should find that the snow-storm had actually
+closed up the sweet approaches of the expected port. If I was
+personally indifferent to the matter, I fear it is to be attributed to
+your mother, and not to myself."
+
+"Nonsense!" interposed my mother once more. "I never knew such a man
+for making little of himself and much of other people. You never drank
+a glass too much port in your life."
+
+"That's why I'm so fond of it, my dear," returned my father. "I
+declare you make me quite discontented with my pig-wash here.
+
+"That night I had a dream.
+
+"The next day the visitors began to arrive. Before the evening after,
+they had all come. There were five of them--three tars and two
+land-crabs, as they called each other when they got jolly, which,
+by-the-way, they would not have done long without me.
+
+"My uncle's anxiety visibly increased. Each guest, as he came down to
+breakfast, received each morning a more constrained greeting.--I beg
+your pardon, ladies; I forgot to mention that my aunt had
+lady-visitors, of course. But the fact is, it is only the
+port-drinking visitors in whom my story is interested, always excepted
+your mother.
+
+"These ladies my admiral uncle greeted with something even approaching
+to servility. I understood him well enough. He instinctively sought to
+make a party to protect him when the awful secret of his cellar should
+be found out. But for two preliminary days or so, his resources would
+serve; for he had plenty of excellent claret and Madeira--stuff I
+don't know much about--and both Jacob and himself condescended to
+manoeuvre a little.
+
+"The wine did not arrive. But the morning of Christmas Eve did. I was
+sitting in my room, trying to write a song for Kate--that's your
+mother, my dears--"
+
+"I know, papa," said Effie, as if she were very knowing to know that.
+
+"--when my uncle came into the room, looking like Sintram with Death
+and the Other One after him--that's the nonsense you read to me the
+other day, isn't it; Effie?"
+
+"Not nonsense, dear papa," remonstrated Effie; and I loved her for
+saying it, for surely _that_ is not nonsense.
+
+"I didn't mean it," said my father; and turning to my mother, added:
+"It must be your fault, my dear, that my children are so serious that
+they always take a joke for earnest. However, it was no joke with my
+uncle. If he didn't look like Sintram he looked like t'other one.
+
+"'The roads are frozen--I mean snowed up,' he said. 'There's just one
+bottle of port left, and what Captain Calker will say--I dare say I
+know, but I'd rather not. Damn this weather!--God forgive me!--that's
+not right--but it is trying--ain't it, my boy?'
+
+"'What will you give me for a dozen of port, uncle?' was all my
+answer.
+
+"'Give you? I'll give you Culverwood, you rogue.'
+
+"'Done,' I cried.
+
+"'That is,' stammered my uncle, 'that is,' and he reddened like the
+funnel of one of his hated steamers, 'that is, you know, always
+provided, you know. It wouldn't be fair to Lady Georgiana, now, would
+it? I put it to yourself--if she took the trouble, you know. You
+understand me, my boy?'
+
+"'That's of course, uncle,' I said.
+
+"'Ah! I see you're a gentleman like your father, not to trip a man
+when he stumbles,' said my uncle. For such was the dear old man's
+sense of honour, that he was actually uncomfortable about the hasty
+promise he had made without first specifying the exception. The
+exception, you know, has Culverwood at the present hour, and right
+welcome he is.
+
+"'Of course, uncle,' I said--'between gentlemen, you know. Still, I
+want my joke out, too. What will you give me for a dozen of port to
+tide you over Christmas Day?'
+
+"'Give you, my boy? I'll give you--'
+
+"But here he checked himself, as one that had been burned already.
+
+"'Bah!' he said, turning his back, and going towards the door; 'what's
+the use of joking about serious affairs like this?'
+
+"And so he left the room. And I let him go. For I had heard that the
+road from Liverpool was impassable, the wind and snow having continued
+every day since that night of which I told you. Meantime, I had never
+been able to summon the courage to say one word to your mother--I beg
+her pardon, I mean Miss Thornbury.
+
+"Christmas Day arrived. My uncle was awful to behold. His friends were
+evidently anxious about him. They thought he was ill. There was such a
+hesitation about him, like a shark with a bait, and such a flurry,
+like a whale in his last agonies. He had a horrible secret which he
+dared not tell, and which yet _would_ come out of its grave at the
+appointed hour.
+
+"Down in the kitchen the roast beef and turkey were meeting their deserts.
+Up in the store-room--for Lady Georgiana was not above housekeeping, any
+more than her daughter--the ladies of the house were doing their part;
+and I was oscillating between my uncle and his niece, making myself
+amazingly useful now to one and now to the other. The turkey and the beef
+were on the table, nay, they had been well eaten, before I felt that my
+moment was come. Outside, the wind was howling, and driving the snow with
+soft pats against the window-panes. Eager-eyed I watched General
+Fortescue, who despised sherry or Madeira even during dinner, and would
+no more touch champagne than he would _eau sucrée_, but drank port after
+fish or with cheese indiscriminately--with eager eyes I watched how the
+last bottle dwindled out its fading life in the clear decanter. Glass
+after glass was supplied to General Fortescue by the fearless cockswain,
+who, if he might have had his choice, would rather have boarded a
+Frenchman than waited for what was to follow. My uncle scarcely ate at
+all, and the only thing that stopped his face from growing longer with
+the removal of every dish was that nothing but death could have made it
+longer than it was already. It was my interest to let matters go as far
+as they might up to a certain point, beyond which it was not my interest
+to let them go, if I could help it. At the same time I was curious to
+know how my uncle would announce--confess the terrible fact that in his
+house, on Christmas Day, having invited his oldest friends to share with
+him the festivities of the season, there was not one bottle more of port
+to be had.
+
+"I waited till the last moment--till I fancied the admiral was opening
+his mouth; like a fish in despair, to make his confession. He had not
+even dared to make a confidante of his wife in such an awful dilemma.
+Then I pretended to have dropped my table-napkin behind my chair, and
+rising to seek it, stole round behind my uncle, and whispered in his
+ear:
+
+"'What will you give me for a dozen of port now, uncle?'
+
+"'Bah!' he said, 'I'm at the gratings; don't torture me.'
+
+"'I'm in earnest, uncle.'
+
+"He looked round at me with a sudden flash of bewildered hope in his
+eye. In the last agony he was capable of believing in a miracle. But
+he made me no reply. He only stared.
+
+"'Will you give me Kate? I want Kate,' I whispered.
+
+"'I will, my boy. That is, if she'll have you. That is, I mean to say,
+if you produce the true tawny.'
+
+"'Of course, uncle; honour bright--as port in a storm,' I answered,
+trembling in my shoes and everything else I had on, for I was not more
+than three parts confident in the result.
+
+"The gentlemen beside Kate happening at the moment to be occupied,
+each with the lady on his other side, I went behind her, and whispered
+to her as I had whispered to my uncle, though not exactly in the same
+terms. Perhaps I had got a little courage from the champagne I had
+drunk; perhaps the presence of the company gave me a kind of mesmeric
+strength; perhaps the excitement of the whole venture kept me up;
+perhaps Kate herself gave me courage, like a goddess of old, in some
+way I did not understand. At all events I said to her:
+
+"'Kate,'--we had got so far even then--'my uncle hasn't another bottle
+of port in his cellar. Consider what a state General Fortescue will be
+in soon. He'll be tipsy for want of it. Will you come and help me to
+find a bottle or two?'
+
+"She rose at once, with a white-rose blush--so delicate I don't
+believe any one saw it but myself. But the shadow of a stray ringlet
+could not fall on her cheek without my seeing it.
+
+"When we got into the hall, the wind was roaring loud, and the few
+lights were flickering and waving gustily with alternate light and
+shade across the old portraits which I had known so well as a
+child--for I used to think what each would say first, if he or she
+came down out of the frame and spoke to me.
+
+"I stopped, and taking Kate's hand, I said--
+
+"'I daren't let you come farther, Kate, before I tell you another
+thing: my uncle has promised, if I find him a dozen of port--you must
+have seen what a state the poor man is in--to let me say something to
+you--I suppose he meant your mamma, but I prefer saying it to you, if
+you will let me. Will you come and help me to find the port?'
+
+"She said nothing, but took up a candle that was on a table in the
+hall, and stood waiting. I ventured to look at her. Her face was now
+celestial rosy red, and I could not doubt that she had understood me.
+She looked so beautiful that I stood staring at her without moving.
+What the servants could have been about that not one of them crossed
+the hall, I can't think.
+
+"At last Kate laughed and said--'Well?' I started, and I dare say took
+my turn at blushing. At least I did not know what to say. I had
+forgotten all about the guests inside. 'Where's the port?' said Kate.
+I caught hold of her hand again and kissed it."
+
+"You needn't be quite so minute in your account, my dear," said my
+mother, smiling.
+
+"I will be more careful in future, my love," returned my father.
+
+"'What do you want me to do?' said Kate.
+
+"'Only to hold the candle for me,' I answered, restored to my seven
+senses at last; and, taking it from her, I led the way, and she
+followed, till we had passed through the kitchen and reached the
+cellar-stairs. These were steep and awkward, and she let me help her
+down."
+
+"Now, Edward!" said my mother.
+
+"Yes, yes, my love, I understand," returned my father.
+
+"Up to this time your mother had asked no questions; but when we stood
+in a vast, low cellar, which we had made several turns to reach, and I
+gave her the candle, and took up a great crowbar which lay on the
+floor, she said at last--
+
+"'Edward, are you going to bury me alive? or what _are_ you going to
+do?'
+
+"'I'm going to dig you out,' I said, for I was nearly beside myself
+with joy, as I struck the crowbar like a battering-ram into the wall.
+You can fancy, John, that I didn't work the worse that Kate was
+holding the candle for me.
+
+"Very soon, though with great effort, I had dislodged a brick, and the
+next blow I gave into the hole sent back a dull echo. I was right!
+
+"I worked now like a madman, and, in a very few minutes more, I had
+dislodged the whole of the brick-thick wall which filled up an archway
+of stone and curtained an ancient door in the lock of which the key
+now showed itself. It had been well greased, and I turned it without
+much difficulty.
+
+"I took the candle from Kate, and led her into a spacious region of
+sawdust, cobweb, and wine-fungus.
+
+"'There, Kate!' I cried, in delight.
+
+"'But,' said Kate, 'will the wine be good?'
+
+"'General Fortescue will answer you that,' I returned, exultantly.
+'Now come, and hold the light again while I find the port-bin.'
+
+"I soon found not one, but several well-filled port-bins. Which to
+choose I could not tell. I must chance that. Kate carried a bottle and
+the candle, and I carried two bottles very carefully. We put them down
+in the kitchen with orders they should not be touched. We had soon
+carried the dozen to the hall-table by the dining-room door.
+
+"When at length, with Jacob chuckling and rubbing his hands behind us,
+we entered the dining-room, Kate and I, for Kate would not part with
+her share in the joyful business, loaded with a level bottle in each
+hand, which we carefully erected on the sideboard, I presume, from the
+stare of the company, that we presented a rather remarkable
+appearance--Kate in her white muslin, and I in my best clothes,
+covered with brick-dust, and cobwebs, and lime. But we could not be
+half so amusing to them as they were to us. There they sat with the
+dessert before them but no wine-decanters forthcoming. How long they
+had sat thus, I have no idea. If you think your mamma has, you may ask
+her. Captain Calker and General Fortescue looked positively white
+about the gills. My uncle, clinging to the last hope, despairingly,
+had sat still and said nothing, and the guests could not understand
+the awful delay. Even Lady Georgiana had begun to fear a mutiny in the
+kitchen, or something equally awful. But to see the flash that passed
+across my uncle's face, when he saw us appear with _ported arms_! He
+immediately began to pretend that nothing had been the matter.
+
+"'What the deuce has kept you, Ned, my boy?' he said. 'Fair Hebe,' he
+went on, 'I beg your pardon. Jacob, you can go on decanting. It was
+very careless of you to forget it. Meantime, Hebe, bring that bottle
+to General Jupiter, there. He's got a corkscrew in the tail of his
+robe, or I'm mistaken.'
+
+"Out came General Fortescue's corkscrew. I was trembling once more
+with anxiety. The cork gave the genuine plop; the bottle was lowered;
+glug, glug, glug, came from its beneficent throat, and out flowed
+something tawny as a lion's mane. The general lifted it lazily to his
+lips, saluting his nose on the way.
+
+"'Fifteen! by Gyeove!' he cried. 'Well, Admiral, this _was_ worth
+waiting for! Take care how you decant that, Jacob--on peril of your
+life.'
+
+"My uncle was triumphant. He winked hard at me not to tell. Kate and I
+retired, she to change her dress, I to get mine well brushed, and my
+hands washed. By the time I returned to the dining-room, no one had
+any questions to ask. For Kate, the ladies had gone to the
+drawing-room before she was ready, and I believe she had some
+difficulty in keeping my uncle's counsel. But she did.--Need I say
+that was the happiest Christmas I ever spent?"
+
+"But how did you find the cellar, papa?" asked Effie.
+
+"Where are your brains, Effie? Don't you remember I told you that I
+had a dream?"
+
+"Yes. But you don't mean to say the existence of that wine-cellar was
+revealed to you in a dream?"
+
+"But I do, indeed. I had seen the wine-cellar built up just before we
+left for Madeira. It was my father's plan for securing the wine when
+the house was let. And very well it turned out for the wine, and me
+too. I had forgotten all about it. Everything had conspired to bring
+it to my memory, but had just failed of success. I had fallen asleep
+under all the influences I told you of--influences from the region of
+my childhood. They operated still when I was asleep, and, all other
+distracting influences being removed, at length roused in my sleeping
+brain the memory of what I had seen. In the morning I remembered not
+my dream only, but the event of which my dream was a reproduction.
+Still, I was under considerable doubt about the place, and in this I
+followed the dream only, as near as I could judge.
+
+"The admiral kept his word, and interposed no difficulties between
+Kate and me. Not that, to tell the truth, I was ever very anxious
+about that rock ahead; but it was very possible that his fastidious
+honour or pride might have occasioned a considerable interference with
+our happiness for a time. As it turned out, he could not leave me
+Culverwood, and I regretted the fact as little as he did himself. His
+gratitude to me was, however, excessive, assuming occasionally
+ludicrous outbursts of thankfulness. I do not believe he could have
+been more grateful if I had saved his ship and its whole crew. For his
+hospitality was at stake. Kind old man!"
+
+Here ended my father's story, with a light sigh, a gaze into the
+bright coals, a kiss of my mother's hand which he held in his, and
+another glass of Burgundy.
+
+
+
+
+IF I HAD A FATHER.
+
+A DRAMA.
+
+
+ACT I.
+
+SCENE.--_A Sculptor's studio_. ARTHUR GERVAISE _working at a clay
+figure and humming a tune. A knock_.
+
+
+_Ger._ Come in. (_Throws a wet cloth over the clay. Enter_ WARREN _by
+the door communicating with the house_.) Ah, Warren! How do you do?
+
+_War._ How are you, Gervaise? I'm delighted to see you once more. I
+have but just heard of your return.
+
+_Ger._ I've been home but a fortnight. I was just thinking of you.
+
+_War._ I was certain I should find you at work.
+
+_Ger._ You see my work can go on by any light. It is more independent
+than yours.
+
+_War._ I wish it weren't, then.
+
+_Ger._ Why?
+
+_War._ Because there would be a chance of our getting you out of your
+den sometimes.
+
+_Ger._ Like any other wild beast when the dark falls--eh?
+
+_War._ Just so.
+
+_Ger._ And where the good?
+
+_War._ Why shouldn't you roar a little now and then like other honest
+lions?
+
+_Ger._ I doubt if the roaring lions do much beyond roaring.
+
+_War._ And I doubt whether the lion that won't even whisk his tail,
+will get food enough shoved through his bars to make it worth his
+while to keep a cage in London.
+
+_Ger._ I certainly shall not make use of myself to recommend my work.
+
+_War._ What is it now?
+
+_Ger._ Oh, nothing!--only a little fancy of my own.
+
+_War._ There again! The moment I set foot in your study, you throw the
+sheet over your clay, and when I ask you what you are working
+at--"Oh--a little fancy of my own!"
+
+_Ger._ I couldn't tell it was you coming.
+
+_War._ Let me see what you've been doing, then.
+
+_Ger._ Oh, she's a mere Lot's-wife as yet!
+
+_War._ (_approaching the figure_). Of course, of course! I understand
+all that.
+
+_Ger._ (_laying his hand on his arm_). Excuse me: I would rather not
+show it.
+
+_War._ I beg your pardon.--I couldn't believe you really meant it.
+
+_Ger._ I'll show you the mould if you like.
+
+_War._ I don't know what you mean by that: you would never throw a wet
+sheet over a cast! (GER. _lifts a painting from the floor and sets it
+on an easel_. WAR. _regards it for a few moments in silence_.) Ah! by
+Jove, Gervaise! some one sent you down the wrong turn: you ought to
+have been a painter. What a sky! And what a sea! Those blues and
+greens--rich as a peacock's feather-eyes! Superb! A tropical night!
+The dolphin at its last gasp in the west, and all above, an abyss of
+blue, at the bottom of which the stars lie like gems in the mineshaft
+of the darkness!
+
+_Ger._ _You_ seem to have taken the wrong turn, Warren! _You_ ought to
+have been a poet.
+
+_War._ Such a thing as that puts the slang out of a fellow's bend.
+
+_Ger._ I'm glad you like it. I do myself, though it falls short of my
+intent sadly enough.
+
+_War._ But I don't for the life of me see what _this_ has to do with
+_that_. You said something about a mould.
+
+_Ger._ I will tell you what I meant. Every individual aspect of nature
+looks to me as if about to give birth to a human form, embodying that
+of which itself only dreams. In this way landscape-painting is, in my
+eyes, the mother of sculpture. That Apollo is of the summer dawn; that
+Aphrodite of the moonlit sea; this picture represents the mother of my
+Psyche.
+
+_War._ Under the sheet there?
+
+_Ger._ Yes. You shall see her some day; but to show your work too
+soon, is to uncork your champagne before dinner.
+
+_War._ Well, you've spoiled my picture. I shall go home and scrape my
+canvas to the bone.
+
+_Ger._ On second thoughts, I will show you my Psyche. (_Uncovers the
+clay_. WAR. _stands in admiration. Enter_ WATERFIELD _by same door_.)
+
+_Wat_. Ah, Warren! here you are before me! Mr. Gervaise, I hope I see
+you well.
+
+_War._ Mr. Waterfield--an old friend of yours, Gervaise, I believe.
+
+_Ger._ I cannot appropriate the honour.
+
+_Wat_. I was twice in your studio at Rome, but it's six months ago,
+Mr. Gervaise. Ha! (_using his eye-glass_) What a charming figure! A
+Psyche! Wings suggested by--Very skilful! Contour lovely! Altogether
+antique in pose and expression!--Is she a commission?
+
+_Ger._ No.
+
+_Wat_. Then I beg you will consider her one.
+
+_Ger._ Excuse me; I never work on commission--at least never in this
+kind. A bust or two I have done.
+
+_Wat_. By Jove!--I _should_ like to see your model!--This is perfect.
+Are you going to carve her?
+
+_Ger._ Possibly.
+
+_Wat_. Uncommissioned?
+
+_Ger._ If at all.
+
+_Wat_. Well, I can't call it running any risk. What lines!--You will
+let me drop in some day when you've got your model here?
+
+_Ger._ Impossible.
+
+_Wat_. You don't mean--?
+
+_Ger._ I had no model.
+
+_Wat_. No model? Ha! ha!--You must excuse me! (GER. _takes up the wet
+sheet_.) I understand. Reasons. A little mystery enhances--eh?--is
+convenient too--balks intrusion--throws the drapery over the
+mignonette. I understand. (GER. _covers the clay_.) Oh! pray don't
+carry out my figure. That _is_ a damper now!
+
+_Ger._ I am not fond of acting the showman. You must excuse me: I am
+busy.
+
+_Wat_. Ah well!--some other time--when you've got on with her a bit.
+Good morning. Ta, ta, Warren.
+
+_Ger._ Good morning. This way, if you please. (_Shows him out by the
+door to the street_.) How did the fellow find his way here?
+
+_War._ I am the culprit, I'm sorry to say. He asked me for your
+address, and I gave it him.
+
+_Ger._ How long have you known him?
+
+_War._ A month or two.
+
+_Ger._ Don't bring him here again.
+
+_War._ Don't say I _brought_ him. I didn't do that. But I'm afraid
+you've not seen the last of him.
+
+_Ger._ Oh yes, I have! Old Martha would let in anybody, but I've got a
+man now.--William!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. GERVAISE _dressed as a servant_.
+
+You didn't see the gentleman just gone, I'm afraid, William?
+
+_Col. G._ No, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Don't let in any one calling himself _Waterfield_.
+
+_Col. G._ No, sir.
+
+_Ger._ I'm going out with Mr. Warren. I shall be back shortly.
+
+_Col. G._ Very well, sir. _Exit into the house_.
+
+_Ger._ (_to_ WAR.) I can't touch clay again till I get that fellow out
+of my head.
+
+_War._ Come along, then.
+
+    _Exeunt_ GER. _and_ WAR.
+
+    _Re-enter_ COL. G. _polishing a boot. Regards it with
+    dissatisfaction_.
+
+_Col. G._ Confound the thing! I wish it were a scabbard. When I think
+I'm getting it all right--one rub more and it's gone dull again!
+
+    _The house-door opens slowly, and_ THOMAS _peeps cautiously in_.
+
+_Th._ What sort of a plaze be this, maister?
+
+_Col. G._ You ought to have asked that outside. How did you get in?
+
+_Th._ By th' dur-hole. Iv yo leave th' dur oppen, th' dogs'll coom in.
+
+_Col. G._ I must speak to Martha again. She _will_ leave the
+street-door open!--Well, you needn't look so frightened. It ain't a
+robbers' cave.
+
+_Th._ That be more'n aw knaw--not for sartin sure, maister. Nobory mun
+keawnt upon nobory up to Lonnon, they tells mo. But iv a gentleman
+axes mo into his heawse, aw'm noan beawn to be afeard. Aw'll coom in,
+for mayhap yo can help mo. It be a coorous plaze. What dun yo mak
+here?
+
+_Col. G._ What would you think now?
+
+_Th._ It looks to mo like a mason's shed--a greight one.
+
+_Col. G._ You're not so far wrong.
+
+_Th._ (_advancing_). It do look a queer plaze. Aw be noan so sure
+abeawt it. But they wonnot coot mo throat beout warnin'. Aw'll bother
+noan. (_Sits down on the dais and wipes his face_.) Well, aw be a'most
+weary.
+
+_Col. G._ Is there anything I can do for you?
+
+_Th._ Nay, aw donnot know; but beout aw get somebory to help mo, aw
+dunnot think aw'll coom to th' end in haste. Aw're a lookin' for
+summut aw've lost, mou.
+
+_Col. G._ Did you come all the way from Lancashire to look for it?
+
+_Th._ Eh, lad! aw thowt thae'rt beawn to know wheer aw coom fro!
+
+_Col. G._ Anybody could tell that, the first word you spoke. I mean no
+offence.
+
+_Th._ (_looking disappointed_). Well, noan's ta'en. But thae dunnot
+say thae's ne'er been to Lancashire thisel'?
+
+_Col. G._ No, I don't say that: I've been to Lancashire several times.
+
+_Th._ Wheer to?
+
+_Col. G._ Why, Manchester.
+
+_Th._ That's noan ov it.
+
+_Col. G._ And Lancaster.
+
+_Th._ Tut! tut! That's noan of it, nayther.
+
+_Col. G._ And Liverpool. I was once there for a whole week.
+
+_Th._ Nay, nay. Noather o' those plazes. Fur away off 'em.
+
+_Col. G._ But what does it matter where I have or haven't been?
+
+_Th._ Mun aw tell tho again? Aw've lost summut, aw tell tho. Didsto
+ne'er hear tell ov th' owd woman 'at lost her shillin'? Hoo couldn't
+sit her deawn beawt hoo feawnd it! Yon's me. (_Hides his face in his
+hands_.)
+
+_Col. G._ Ah! now I begin to guess! (_aside_).--You don't mean you've
+lost your--
+
+_Th._ (_starting up and grasping his stick with both hands_). Aw _do_
+mane aw've lost mo yung lass; and aw dunnot say thae's feawnd her, but
+aw do say thae knows wheer hoo is. Aw do. Theighur! Nea then!
+
+_Col. G._ What on earth makes you think that? I don't know what you're
+after.
+
+_Th._ Thae knows well enough. Thae knowed what aw'd lost afoor aw
+tou'd tho yo' be deny in' your own name. Thae knows. Aw'll tay tho
+afore the police, beout thou gie her oop. Aw wull.
+
+_Col. G._ What story have you to tell the police then? They'll want to
+know.
+
+_Th._ Story saysto? The dule's i' th' mon! Didn't aw seigh th' mon 'at
+stealed her away goo into this heawse not mich over hauve an hour
+ago?--Aw seigh him wi' mo own eighes.
+
+_Col. G._ Why didn't you speak to him?
+
+_Th._ He poppit in at th' same dur, and there aw've been a-watching
+ever since. Aw've not took my eighes off ov it. He's somewheeres now
+in this same heawse.
+
+_Col. G._ He _may_ have been out in the morning (_aside_).--But you
+see there are more doors than one to the place. There is a back door;
+and there is a door out into the street.
+
+_Th._ Eigh! eigh! Th' t'one has to do wi' th' t'other--have it? Three
+dur-holes to one shed! That looks bad!
+
+_Col. G._ He's not here, whoever it was. There's not a man but myself
+in the place.
+
+_Th._ Hea am aw to know yo're not playin' a marlock wi' mo? He'll be
+oop i' th' heawse theer. Aw mun go look (_going_).
+
+_Col. G._ (_preventing him_). And how am _I_ to know you're not a
+housebreaker?
+
+_Th._ Dun yo think an owd mon like mosel' would be of mich use for
+sich wark as that, mon?
+
+_Col. G._ The more fit for a spy, though, to see what might be made of
+it.
+
+_Th._ Eh, mon! Dun they do sich things as you? But aw'm seechin'
+nothin', man nor meawse, that donnot belung me. Aw tell yo true. Gie
+mo mo Mattie, and aw'll trouble yo no moor. Aw winnot--if yo'll give
+mo back mo Mattie. (_Comes close up to him and lays his hand on his
+arm_.) Be yo a feyther, mon?
+
+_Col. G._ Yes.
+
+_Th._ Ov a pratty yung lass?
+
+_Col. G._ Well, no. I have but a son.
+
+_Th._ Then thae winnot help mo?
+
+_Col. G._ I shall be very glad to help you, if you will tell me how.
+
+_Th._ Tell yor maister 'at Mattie's owd feyther's coom a' the gait fro
+Rachda to fot her whoam, and aw'll be much obleeged to him iv he'll
+let her goo beout lunger delay, for her mother wants her to whoam:
+hoo's but poorly. Tell yor maister that.
+
+_Col. G._ But I don't believe my master knows anything about her.
+
+_Th._ Aw're tellin' tho, aw seigh' th' mon goo into this heawse but a
+feow minutes agoo?
+
+_Col. G._ You've mistaken somebody for him.
+
+_Th._ Well, aw'm beawn to tell tho moore. Twothre days ago, aw seigh
+mo chylt coom eawt ov this same dur--aw mane th' heawsedur, yon.
+
+_Col. G._ Are you sure of that?
+
+_Th._ Sure as death. Aw seigh her back.
+
+_Col. G._ Her back! Who could be sure of a back?
+
+_Th._ By th' maskins! dosto think I dunnot know mo Mattie's back? I
+seign her coom eawt o' that dur, aw tell tho!
+
+_Col. G._ Why didn't you speak to her?
+
+_Th._ Aw co'd.
+
+_Col. G._ And she didn't answer?
+
+_Th._ Aw didn't co' leawd. Aw're not willin' to have ony mak ov a din.
+
+_Col. G._ But you followed her surely?
+
+_Th._ Aw did; but aw're noan so good at walkin' as aw wur when aw
+coom; th' stwons ha' blistered mo fet. An it're the edge o' dark like.
+Aw connot seigh weel at neet, wi o' th' lamps; an afoor aw geet oop
+wi' her, hoo's reawnd th' nook, and gwon fro mo seet.
+
+_Col. G._ There are ten thousands girls in London you might take for
+your own under such circumstances--not seeing more than the backs of
+them.
+
+_Th._ Ten theawsand girls like mo Mattie, saysto?--wi'her greight
+eighes and her lung yure?--Puh!
+
+_Col. G._ But you've just said you didn't see her face!
+
+_Th._ Dunnot aw know what th' face ov mo chylt be like, beout seein' ov
+it? Aw'm noan ov a lump-yed. Nobory as seigh her once wouldn't know
+her again.
+
+_Col. G._ (_aside_). He's a lunatic!--I don't see what I can do for
+you, old fellow.
+
+_Th._ (_rising_). And aw met ha' known it beout axin'! O'reet! Aw're a
+greight foo'! But aw're beawn to coom in: aw lung'd to goo through th'
+same dur wi' mo Mattie. Good day, sir. It be like maister, like mon!
+God's curse upon o' sich! (_Turns his back. After a moment turns
+again_.) Noa. Aw winnot say that; for mo Mattie's sake aw winnot say
+that. God forgie you! (_going by the house_).
+
+_Col. G._ This way, please! (_opening the street-door_).
+
+_Th._ Aw see. Aw'm not to have a chance ov seein' oather Mattie or th'
+mon. _Exit_.
+
+    Col. G. _resumes his boot absently. Re-enter_ THOMAS, _shaking his
+    fist_.
+
+_Th._ But aw tell tho, aw'll stick to th' place day and neet, aw wull.
+Aw wull. Aw wull.
+
+_Col. G._ Come back to-morrow.
+
+_Th._ Coom back, saysto? Aw'll not goo away (_growing fierce_). Wilto
+gie mo mo Mattie? Aw'm noan beawn to ston here so mich lunger. Wilto
+gie mo mo Mattie?
+
+_Col. G._ I cannot give you what I haven't got.
+
+_Th._ Aw'll break thi yed, thou villain! (_threatening him with his
+stick_). Eh, Mattie! Mattie! to loe sich a mon's maister more'n me! I
+would dey fur thee, Mattie. _Exit_.
+
+_Col. G._ It's all a mistake, of course. There are plenty of young
+men--but my Arthur's none of such. I cannot believe it of him. The
+daughter! If I could find _her, she_ would settle the question. (_It
+begins to grow dark_.) I must help the old man to find her. He's sure
+to come back. Arthur does _not_ look the least like it.
+But--(_polishes vigorously_). I can_not_ get this boot to look like a
+gentleman's. I wish I had taken a lesson or two first. I'll get hold
+of a shoeblack, and make him come for a morning or two. No, he does
+_not_ look like it. There he comes. (_Goes on polishing_.)
+
+    _Enter_ GER.
+
+_Ger._ William!
+
+_Col. G._ (_turning_). Yes, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Light the gas. Any one called?
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Who?
+
+_Col. G._ I don't know, sir. (_Lighting the gas_.)
+
+_Ger._ You should have asked his name. (_Stands before the clay,
+contemplating it_.)
+
+_Col. G._ I'm sorry I forgot, sir. It was only an old man from the
+country--after his daughter, he said.
+
+_Ger._ Came to offer his daughter, or himself perhaps. (_Begins to
+work at the figure_.)
+
+_Col. G._ (_watching him stealthily_). He looked a respectable old
+party--from Lancashire, he said.
+
+_Ger._ I dare say. You will have many such callers. Take the address.
+Models, you know.
+
+_Col. G._ If he calls again, sir?
+
+_Ger._ Ask him to leave his address, I say.
+
+_Col. G._ But he told me you knew her.
+
+_Ger._ Possibly. I had a good many models before I left. But it's of
+no consequence; I don't want any at present.
+
+_Col. G._ He seemed in a great way, sir--and swore. I couldn't make
+him out.
+
+_Ger._ Ah! hm!
+
+_Col. G._ He says he saw her come out of the house.
+
+_Ger. Has_ there been any girl here? Have you seen any about?
+
+_Col. G._ No, sir.
+
+_Ger._ My aunt had a dressmaker to meet her here the other evening. I
+have had no model since I came back.
+
+_Col. G._ The man was in a sad taking about her, sir. I didn't know
+what to make of it. There seemed some truth--something suspicious.
+
+_Ger._ Perhaps my aunt can throw some light upon it. (COL. G.
+_lingers_.) That will do. (_Exit_ COL. G.) How oddly the man behaves!
+A sun-stroke in India, perhaps. Or he may have had a knock on the
+head. I must keep my eye on him. (_Stops working, steps backward, and
+gazes at the Psyche_.) She is growing very like some one! Who can it
+be? She knows she is puzzling me, the beauty! See how she is keeping
+back a smile! She knows if she lets one smile out, her whole face will
+follow it through the clay. How strange the half-lights of memory are!
+You know and you don't know--both at once. Like a bat in the twilight
+you are sure of it, and the same moment it is nowhere. Who _is_ my
+Psyche like?--The forehead above the eyebrow, and round by the temple?
+The half-playful, half-sorrowful curve of the lip? The hope in the
+lifted eyelid? There is more there than ever I put there. Some power
+has been shaping my ends. By heaven, I have it!--No--yes--it is--it is
+Constance--momently dawning out of the clay! What _does_ this mean?
+_She_ never gave me a sitting--at least, she has not done so for the
+last ten years--yet here she is--she, and no other! I never thought
+she was beautiful. When she came with my aunt the other day though, I
+did fancy I saw a new soul dawning through the lovely face. Here it
+is--the same soul breaking through the clay of my Psyche!--I will give
+just one touch to the corner of the mouth.
+
+    _Gives a few touches, then steps back again and contemplates the
+    figure. Turns away and walks up and down. The light darkens to slow
+    plaintive music, which lasts for a minute. Then the morning begins
+    to dawn, gleaming blue upon the statues and casts, and revealing_
+    GER. _seated before his Psyche, gazing at her. He rises, and exit.
+    Enter_ COL. G. _and looks about_.
+
+_Col. G._ I don't know what to make of it! Or rather I'm afraid I do
+know what to make of it! It looks bad. He's not been in bed all night.
+But it shows he has some conscience left--and that's a comfort.
+
+    _Enter_ Mrs. CLIFFORD, _peeping round cautiously_.
+
+_Col. G._ What, Clara! you here so early!
+
+_Mrs. C._ Well, you know, brother, you're so fond of mystery!
+
+_Col. G._ It's very kind of you to come! But we must be very careful;
+I can't tell when my master may be home.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Has he been out all night, then?
+
+_Col. G._ Oh no; he's just gone.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I never knew him such an early bird. I made sure he was safe
+in bed for a couple of hours yet. But I do trust, Walter, you have had
+enough of this fooling, and are prepared to act like a rational man
+and a gentleman.
+
+_Col. G._ On the contrary, Clara, with my usual obstinacy, I am more
+determined than ever that my boy shall not know me, until, as I told
+you, I have rendered him such service as may prove me not altogether
+unworthy to be his father. Twenty years of neglect will be hard to
+surmount.
+
+_Mrs. C._ But mere menial service cannot discharge the least portion
+of your obligations. As his father alone can you really serve him.
+
+_Col. G._ You persist in misunderstanding me. This is not the service
+I mean. I scorn the fancy. This is only the means, as I told you
+plainly before, of finding out _how_ I may serve him--of learning what
+he really needs--or most desires. If I fail in discovering how to
+recommend myself to him, I shall go back to India, and content myself
+with leaving him a tolerable fortune.
+
+_Mrs. C._ How ever a hair-brained fellow like you, Walter, could have
+made such a soldier!--Why don't you tell your boy you love him, and
+have done with it?
+
+_Col. G._ I will, as soon as I have proof to back the assertion.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I tell you it is rank pride.
+
+_Col. G._ It may be pride, sister; but it is the pride of a repentant
+thief who puts off his confession until he has the money in his hand
+to prove the genuineness of his sorrow.
+
+_Mrs. C._ It never _was_ of any use to argue with _you_, Walter; you
+know that, or at least I know it. So I give up.--I trust you have got
+over your prejudice against his profession. It is not my fault.
+
+_Col. G._ In truth, I had forgotten the profession--as you call it--in
+watching the professor.
+
+_Mrs. C._ And has it not once occurred to you to ask how he may take
+such watching?
+
+_Col. G._ By the time he is aware of it, he will be ready to
+understand it.
+
+_Mrs. C._ But suppose he should discover you before you have thus
+established your position?
+
+_Col. G._ I must run the risk.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Suppose then you should thus find out something he would not
+have you know?
+
+_Col. G._ (_hurriedly_). Do you imagine his servant might know a thing
+he would hide from his father?
+
+_Mrs. C._ I do not, Walter. I can trust him. But he might well resent
+the espionage of even his father. You cannot get rid of the vile look
+of the thing.
+
+_Col. G._ Again I say, my boy shall be my judge, and my love shall be
+my plea. In any case I shall have to ask his forgiveness. But there is
+his key in the lock! Run into the house.
+
+    _Exit_ MRS. C. _Enter_ GER., _and goes straight to the Psyche_.
+
+_Col. G._ Breakfast is waiting, sir.
+
+_Ger._ By and by, William.
+
+_Col. G._ You haven't been in bed, sir!
+
+_Ger._ Well? What of that?
+
+_Col. G._ I hope you're not ill, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Not in the least: I work all night sometimes.--You can go.
+(COL. G. _lingers, with a searching gaze at the Psyche_.)--I don't
+want anything.
+
+_Col. G._ Pardon me, sir, but I am sure you are ill. You've done no
+work since last night.
+
+_Ger._ (_with displeasure_). I am quite well, and wish to be alone.
+
+_Col. G._ Mayn't I go and fetch a doctor, sir? It is better to take
+things in time.
+
+_Ger._ You are troublesome. (_Exit_ COL. G.)--What can the fellow
+mean? He looked at me so strangely too! He's officious--that's all, I
+dare say. A good sort of man, I do think! William!--What is it in the
+man's face?--(_Enter_ Col G.) Is the breakfast ready?
+
+_Col. G._ Quite ready, sir.
+
+_Ger._ I'm sorry I spoke to you so hastily. The fact is--
+
+_Col. G._ Don't mention it, sir. Speak as you will to me; I shan't
+mind it. When there's anything on a man's conscience--I--I--I mean on
+a man's mind--
+
+_Ger._ What _do_ you mean?
+
+_Col. G._ I mean, when there is anything there, he can't well help his
+temper, sir.
+
+_Ger._ I don't understand you; but, anyhow, you--go too far, William.
+
+_Col. G._ I beg your pardon, sir: I forgot myself. I do humbly beg
+your pardon. Shall I make some fresh coffee, sir? It's not cold--only
+it's stood too long.
+
+_Ger._ The coffee will do well enough. (_Exit_ COL. G.)--Is she so
+beautiful? (_turning to the Psyche_)--Is there a likeness?--I see
+it.--Nonsense! A mere chance confluence of the ideal and the
+actual.--Even then the chance must mean something. Such a _mere_
+chance would indeed be a strange one!
+
+    _Enter_ CONSTANCE.
+
+Oh, my heart! here she comes! my Psyche herself!--Well, Constance!
+
+_Con._ Oh, Arthur, I am _so_ glad I've found you! I want to talk to
+you about something. I know you don't care much about me now, but I
+_must_ tell you, for it would be wrong not.
+
+_Ger._ (_aside_). How beautiful she is! What _can_ she have to tell me
+about? It cannot be--it _shall_ not be--. Sit down, won't you?
+(_offering her a chair_.)
+
+_Con._ No. _You_ sit there (_pointing to the dais_), and I will sit
+here (_placing herself on the lower step_). It was here I used to sit
+so often when I was a little girl. Why can't one keep little? I was
+always with you then! (_Sighs_.)
+
+_Ger._ It is not my fault, Constance.
+
+_Con._ Oh no! I suppose it can't be. Only I don't see why. Oh, Arthur,
+where should I be but for you! I saw the old place yesterday. How
+dreadful and yet how dear it was!
+
+_Ger._ Who took you there?
+
+_Con._ Nobody. I went alone.
+
+_Ger._ It was hardly safe.--I don't like your going out alone, Constance.
+
+_Con._ Why, Arthur! I used to know every court and alley about Shoreditch
+better than I know Berkeley Square now!
+
+_Ger._ But what made you go there?
+
+_Con._ I went to find a dressmaker who has been working for my aunt,
+and lost my way. And--would you believe it?--I was actually
+frightened!
+
+_Ger._ No wonder! There are rough people about there.
+
+_Con._ I never used to think them rough when I lived among them with
+my father and mother. There must be just as good people there as
+anywhere else. Yet I could not help shuddering at the thought of
+living there again!--How strange it made me feel! You have been my
+angel, Arthur. What would have become of me if you hadn't taken me, I
+dare not think.
+
+_Ger._ I have had my reward, Constance: you are happy.
+
+_Con._ Not quite. There's something I want to tell you.
+
+_Ger._ Tell on, child.
+
+_Con._ Oh, thank you!--that is how you used to talk to me.
+(_Hesitates_.)
+
+_Ger._ (_with foreboding_) Well, what is it?
+
+_Con._ (_pulling the fingers of her gloves_) A gentleman--you know
+him--has been--calling upon aunt--and me. We have seen a good deal of
+him.
+
+_Ger._ Who is he?
+
+_Con._ Mr. Waterfield. (_Keeps her eyes on the floor_.)
+
+_Ger._ Well?
+
+_Con._ He says--he--he--he wants me to marry him.--Aunt likes him.
+
+_Ger._ And you?
+
+_Con._ I like him too. I don't think I like him enough--I dare say I
+shall. It is _so_ good of him to take poor me! He is _very_ rich, they
+say.
+
+_Ger._ Have you accepted him?
+
+_Con._ I am afraid he thinks so.--Ye--e--s.--I hardly know.
+
+_Ger._ Haven't you--been rather--in a hurry--Constance?
+
+_Con._ No, indeed! I haven't been in a hurry at all. He has been a long
+time trying to make me like him. I have been too long a burden to Mrs.
+Clifford.
+
+_Ger._ So! it is her doing, then!
+
+_Con._ You were away, you know.
+
+_Ger._ (_bitterly_) Yes; too far--chipping stones and making mud-pies!
+
+_Con._ I don't know what you mean by that, Arthur.
+
+_Ger._ Oh--nothing. I mean that--that--Of course if you are engaged to
+him, then--
+
+_Con._ I'm afraid I've done very wrong, Arthur. If I had thought you
+would care!--I knew aunt would be pleased!--she wanted me to have him,
+I knew.--I ought to do what I can to please her,--ought I not? I have
+no right to--
+
+_Ger._ Surely, surely. Yes, yes; I understand. It was not your fault.
+Only you mustn't marry him, if you--. Thank you for telling me.
+
+_Con._ I ought to have told you before--before I let him speak to me
+again. But I didn't think you would care--not much.
+
+_Ger._ Yes, yes.
+
+_Con._ (_looking up with anxiety_) Ah! you _are_ vexed with me,
+Arthur! I see how wrong it was now. I never saw you look like that. I
+am very, very sorry. (_Bursts into tears_.)
+
+_Ger._ No, no, child! Only it is rather sudden, and I want to think
+about it. Shall I send William home with you?
+
+_Con._ No, thank you. I have a cab waiting. You're not angry with your
+little beggar, Arthur?
+
+_Ger._ What is there to be angry about, child?
+
+_Con._ That I--did anything without asking you first.
+
+_Ger._ Nonsense! You couldn't help it. _You_'re not to blame one bit.
+
+_Con._ Oh, yes, I am! I ought to have asked you first. But indeed I
+did not know you would care. Good-bye.--Shall I go at once?
+
+_Ger._ Good-bye. (_Exit_ CON., _looking back troubled_.) Come at last!
+Oh fool! fool! fool! In love with her at last!--and too late! For
+three years I haven't seen her--have not once written to her! Since I
+came back I've seen her just twice,--and now in the very hell of love!
+The ragged little darling that used to lie coiled up there in that
+corner! If it were my sister, it would be hard to lose her so! And to
+such a fellow as that!--not even a gentleman! How _could_ she take him
+for one! That does perplex me! Ah, well! I suppose men _have_ borne
+such things before, and men will bear them again! I must work! Nothing
+but work will save me. (_Approaches the Psyche, but turns from it with
+a look of despair and disgust_.) What a fool I have been!--Constance!
+Constance!--A brute like that to touch one of her fingers! God in
+heaven! It will drive me mad. (_Rushes out, leaving the door open_.)
+
+    _Enter_ COL. GERVAISE.
+
+_Col. G._ Gone again! and without his breakfast! My poor boy! There's
+something very wrong with you! It's that girl! It must be! But there's
+conscience in him yet!--It is all my fault. If I had been a father to
+him, this would never have happened.--If he were to marry the girl
+now?--Only, who can tell but _she_ led _him_ astray? I have known such
+a thing. (_Sits down and buries his face in his hands_.)
+
+    _Enter_ WATERFIELD.
+
+_Wat_. Is Mr. Gervaise in?
+
+_Col. G._ (_rising_) No, sir.
+
+_Wat_. Tell him I called, will you? [_Exit_.]
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.--Forgot again. Young man;--gentleman or cad?--don't
+know; think the latter.
+
+    _Enter_ THOMAS.
+
+_Th._ Han yo heard speyk ov mo chylt yet, sir?
+
+_Col. G._ (_starting up_). In the name of God, I know nothing of your
+child; but bring her here, and I will give you a hundred pounds--in
+golden sovereigns.
+
+_Th._ Hea am aw to fot her yere, when I dunnot know wheer hoo be, sir?
+
+_Col. G._ That's your business. Bring her, and there will be your
+money.
+
+_Th._ Dun yo think, sir, o' the gouden suverings i' th' Bank ov
+England would put a sharper edge on mo oud eighes when they look for
+mo lass? Eh, mon! Yo dunnot know the heart ov a feyther--ov the
+feyther ov a lass-barn, sir. Han yo kilt and buried her, and nea be yo
+sorry for't? I' hoo be dead and gwoan, tell mo, sir, and aw'll goo
+whoam again, for mo oud lass be main lonesome beout mo, and we'll wait
+till we goo to her, for hoo winnot coom no moor to us.
+
+_Col. G._ For anything I know, your daughter is alive and well. Bring
+her here, I say, and I will make you happy.
+
+_Th._ Aw shannot want thes or thi silverings either to mak mo happy
+then, maister. Iv aw hed a houd o' mo lass, it's noan o' yere aw'd be
+a coomin' wi' her. It's reet streight whoam to her mother we'd be
+gooin', aw'll be beawn. Nay, nay, mon!--aw'm noan sich a greight foo
+as yo tak mo for.
+
+    _Exit._ COL. G. _follows him. Enter._ GER. _Sits down before the
+    Psyche, but without looking at her_.
+
+_Ger._ Oh those fingers! They are striking terrible chords on my
+heart! I _will_ conquer it. But I _will_ love her. The spear shall
+fill its own wound. To draw it out and die, would be no victory. "I'll
+but lie down and bleed awhile, and then I'll rise and fight again."
+Brave old Sir Andrew!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G.
+
+_Col. G._ I beg your pardon, sir--a young man called while you were
+out.
+
+_Ger._ (_listlessly_). Very well, William.
+
+_Col. G._ Is there any message, if he calls again, sir? He said he
+would.
+
+_Ger._ No. (COL. G. _lingers_.) You can go.
+
+_Col. G._ I hope you feel better, sir?
+
+_Ger._ Quite well.
+
+_Col. G._ Can I get you anything, sir?
+
+_Ger._ No, thank you; I want nothing.--Why do you stay?
+
+_Col. G._ Can't you think of something I can do for you, sir?
+
+_Ger._ Fetch that red cloth.
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Throw it over that--
+
+_Col. G._ This, sir?
+
+_Ger._ No, no--the clay there. Thank you. (_A knock at the door_.) See
+who that is.
+
+_Col. G._ Are you at home, sir?
+
+_Ger._ That depends. Not to Mr. Waterfield. Oh, my head! my head!
+[_Exit_ COL. G.
+
+    _Enter_ CONSTANCE. GER. _starts, but keeps his head leaning on his
+    hand_.
+
+_Con._ I forgot to say to you, Arthur,--. But you are ill! What is the
+matter, dear Arthur?
+
+_Ger._ (_without looking up_) Nothing--only a headache.
+
+_Con._ Do come home with me, and let aunt and me nurse you. Don't be
+vexed with me any more. I will do whatever you like. I couldn't go
+home without seeing you again. And now I find you ill!
+
+_Ger._ Not a bit. I am only dreadfully busy. I must go out of town. I
+am so busy! I can't stay in it a moment longer. I have so many things
+to do.
+
+_Con._ Mayn't I come and see you while you work? I never used to
+interrupt you. I want so to sit once more in my old place. (_Draws a
+stool towards him_.)
+
+_Ger._ No, no--not--not there! Constance used to sit there. William!
+
+_Con._ You frighten me, Arthur!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G.
+
+_Ger._ Bring a chair, William.
+
+    _Constance sits down like a chidden child. Exit_ COL. G.
+
+_Con._ I must have offended you more than I thought, Arthur! What
+_can_ I say? It is so stupid to be always saying _I am sorry_.
+
+_Ger._ No, no. But some one may call.
+
+_Con._ You mean more than that. Will you not let me understand?
+
+_Ger._ Your friend Mr. Waterfield called a few minutes ago. He will be
+here again presently, I dare say.
+
+_Con._ (_indifferently_). Indeed!
+
+_Ger._ I suppose you appointed--expected--to meet him here.
+
+_Con._ Arthur! Do you think I would come to you to meet _him_? I saw
+him this morning; I don't want to see him again. I wish you knew him.
+
+_Ger._ Why should you want me to know him?
+
+_Con._ Because you would do him good.
+
+_Ger._ What good does he want done him?
+
+_Con._ He has got beautiful things in him--talks well--in bits--arms
+and feet and faces--never anything like--(_turning to the Psyche_) Why
+have you--? Has _she_ been naughty too?
+
+_Ger._ Is it _only_ naughty things that must be put out of sight,
+Constance?
+
+_Con._ Dear Arthur! you spoke like your own self then.
+
+_Ger._ (_rising hurriedly_). Excuse me. I must go. It is very rude,
+but--William!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G.
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Fetch a hansom directly.
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir. _Exit_.
+
+_Con._ You do frighten me, Arthur! I am sure you are ill.
+
+_Ger._ Not at all. I have an engagement.
+
+_Con._ I must go then--must I?
+
+_Ger._ Do not think me unkind?
+
+_Con._ I will not think anything you would not have me think.
+
+    _Re-enter_ COL. G.
+
+_Col. G._ The cab is at the door, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Thank you. Then show Miss Lacordère out. Stay. I will open the
+door for her myself. _Exeunt_ GER. _and_ CON.
+
+_Col. G._ He speaks like one in despair, forcing every word! If he
+should die! Oh, my God!
+
+    _Re-enter_ GER. _Walks up and down the room_.
+
+_Col. G._ Ain't you going, sir?
+
+_Ger._ No. I have sent the lady in the cab.
+
+_Col. G._ Then hadn't you better lie down, sir?
+
+_Ger._ Lie down! What do you mean? I'm not in the way of lying down
+except to sleep.
+
+_Col. G._ And let me go for the doctor, sir?
+
+_Ger._ The doctor! Ha! ha ha!--You are a soldier, you say?
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Right. We're all soldiers--or ought to be. I will put you to
+your catechism. What is a soldier's first duty?
+
+_Col. G._ Obedience, sir.
+
+    [GER. _sits down and leans his head on his hands_. COL. G. _watches
+    him_.]
+
+_Ger._ Ah! obedience, is it? Then turn those women out. They will hurt
+you--may kill you; but you must not mind that. They burn, they
+blister, and they blast, for as white as they look! The hottest is the
+white fire. But duty, old soldier!--obedience, you know!--Ha! ha! Oh,
+my head! my head! I believe I am losing my senses, William. I was in a
+bad part of the town this morning. I went to see a place I knew long
+ago. It had gone to hell--but the black edges of it were left. There
+was a smell--and I can't get it out of me. Oh, William! William! take
+hold of me. Don't let them come near me. Psyche is laughing at me. I
+told you to throw the red cloth over her.
+
+_Col. G._ My poor boy!
+
+_Ger._ Don't fancy you're my father, though! I wish you were. But I
+cannot allow that.--Why the devil didn't you throw the red cloth over
+that butterfly? She's sucking the blood from my heart.
+
+_Col. G._ You said the Psyche, sir! The red cloth _is_ over the
+Psyche, sir. Look.
+
+_Ger._ Yes. Yes. I beg your pardon. Take it off. It is too red. It
+will scorch her wings. It burns my brain. Take it off, I say! (COL. G.
+_uncovers the Psyche_.) There! I told you! She's laughing at me!
+Ungrateful child! _I_'m not her Cupid. Cover her up. Not the red cloth
+again. It's too hot, I say. I won't torture _her_. I am a man and I
+can bear it. She's a woman and she shan't bear it.
+
+_Sinks back in his chair_. COL. G. _lays him on the dais, and sits
+down beside him_.
+
+_Col. G._ His heart's all right! And when a fellow's miserable over
+his faults, there must be some way out of them.--But the
+consequences?--Ah! there's the rub.
+
+_Ger._ What's the matter? Where am I?
+
+_Col. G._ I must fetch a doctor, sir. You've been in a faint.
+
+_Ger._ Why couldn't I keep in it? It was very nice: you know nothing--and
+that's the nicest thing of all. Why is it we can't stop, William?
+
+_Col. G._ I don't understand you, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Stop living, I mean. It's no use killing yourself, for you
+don't stop then. At least they say you go on living all the same. If
+I thought it did mean stopping, William--
+
+_Col. C._ Do come to your room, sir.
+
+_Ger._ I won't. I'll stop here. How hot it is! Don't let anybody in.
+
+    _Stretches out his hand_. COL. G. _holds it. He falls asleep_.
+
+_Col. G._ What _shall_ I do? If he married her, he'd be miserable, and
+make her miserable too. I'll take her away somewhere. I'll be a father
+to her; I'll tend her as if she were his widow. But what confusions
+would follow! Alas! alas! one crime is the mother of a thousand
+miseries! And now he's in for a fever--typhus, perhaps!--I _must_ find
+this girl!--What a sweet creature that Miss Lacordère is! If only he
+might have _her_! I don't care what she was.
+
+_Ger._ Don't let them near me, William! They will drive me mad. They
+think I shall love them. I _will_ not. If she comes one step nearer, I
+shall strike her. You Diana! Hecate! Hell-cat!--Fire-hearted Chaos is
+burning me to ashes! My brain is a cinder! Some water, William!
+
+_Col. G._ Here it is, sir.
+
+_Ger._ But just look to Psyche there. Ah, she's off! There she goes!
+melting away in the blue, like a dissolving vapour. Bring me my
+field-glass, William. I may catch a glimpse of her yet. Make haste.
+
+_Col. G._ Pray don't talk so, sir. Do be quiet, or you will make
+yourself very ill. Think what will become of me if--
+
+_Ger._ What worse would _you_ be, William? You are a soldier. I must
+talk. You are all wrong about it: it keeps me quiet (_holding his head
+with both hands_). I should go raving mad else (_wildly_). Give me
+some water. (_He drinks eagerly, then looks slowly round the room_.)
+Now they _are_ gone, and I do believe they won't come again! I see
+everything--and your face, William. You are very good to me--very
+patient! I should die if it weren't for you.
+
+_Col. G._ I would die for you, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Would you? But perhaps you don't care much for your life.
+Anybody might have _my_ life for the asking. I dare say it's just as
+good to be dead.--Ah! there is a toad--a toad with a tail! No; it's a
+toad with a slow-worm after him. Take them away, William!--Thank
+you.--I used to think life pleasant, but now--somehow there's nothing
+in it. She told me the truth about it--Constance did. Don't let those
+women come back. What if I _should_ love them, William!--love and hate
+them both at once! William! William! (_A knock at the door_.) See who
+that is. Mind you don't let _them_ in.
+
+_Col. G._ Martha is there, sir.
+
+_Ger._ She's but an old woman; she can't keep them out. They would
+walk over her. All the goddesses have such long legs! You go and look.
+You'll easily know them: if they've got no irises to their eyes, don't
+let them in, for the love of God, William! Real women have irises to
+their eyes: those have none--those frightful snowy beauties.--And yet
+snow is very nice! And I'm so hot! _There_ they come again! _Exit_
+COL. G.
+
+    _Enter_ MRS. CLIFFORD.
+
+_Ger._ Aunt! aunt! help me! There they come!
+
+_Mrs. C._ What is it, my Arthur? They shan't hurt you. I am here. I
+will take care of you.
+
+_Ger._ Yes, yes, you will! I am not a bit afraid of them now. Do you
+know them, aunt? I'll tell you a secret: they are Juno and Diana and
+Venus.--They hate sculptors. But I never wronged them. Three white
+women--only, between their fingers and behind their knees they are
+purple--and inside their lips, when they smile--and in the hollows of
+their eyes--ugh! They want me to love them; and they say you are
+all--all of you women--no better than they are. I _know_ that is a
+lie; for they have no eyelids and no irises to their eyes.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Dear boy, they shan't come near you. Shall I sing to you,
+and drive them away?
+
+_Ger._ No, don't. I can't bear birds in my brain.
+
+_Mrs. C._ How long have you had this headache? (_laying her hand on
+his forehead_.)
+
+_Ger._ Only a year or two--since the white woman came--that woman
+(_pointing to the Psyche_). She's been buried for ages, and won't grow
+brown.
+
+_Mrs. C._ There's no woman there, Arthur.
+
+_Ger._ Of course not. It was an old story that bothered me. Oh, my
+head! my head!--There's my father standing behind the door and won't
+come in!--_He_ could help me now, if he would. William! show my father
+in. But he isn't in the story--so he can't.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Do try to keep yourself quiet, Arthur. The doctor will be
+here in a few minutes.
+
+_Ger._ He shan't come here! He would put the white woman out. She does
+smell earthy, but I won't part with her. (_A knock_.) What a devil of
+a noise! Why don't they use the knocker? What's the use of taking a
+sledge-hammer?
+
+_Mrs. C._ It's that stupid James!
+
+    _Enter_ CONSTANCE. MRS. C. _goes to meet her_.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Constance, you go and hurry the doctor. I will stay with
+Arthur.
+
+_Con._ Is he _very_ ill, aunt?
+
+_Mrs. C._ I'm afraid he is.
+
+_Ger._ (_sitting up_). Constance! Constance!
+
+_Con._ Here I am! (_running to him_).
+
+_Ger._ Oh, my head! I wish I could find somewhere to lay it!--Sit by
+me, Constance, and let me lay my head on your shoulder--for one
+minute--only one minute. It aches so! (_She sits down by him. His head
+sinks on her shoulder_. MRS. C. _looks annoyed, and exit_.)
+
+_Con._ Thank you, thank you, dear Arthur! (_sobbing_). You used to
+like me! I could not believe you hated me now. You _have_ forgiven me?
+Dear head!
+
+    _He closes his eyes. Slow plaintive music_.
+
+_Ger._ (_half waking_). I can't read. When I get to the bottom of the
+page, I wonder what it was all about. I shall never get to Garibaldi!
+and if I don't, I shall never get farther. If I could but keep that
+one line away! It drives me mad, mad. "He took her by the lily-white
+hand."--I could strangle myself for thinking of such things, but they
+_will_ come!--I _won't_ go mad. I should never get to Garibaldi, and
+never be rid of this red-hot ploughshare ploughing up my heart. I will
+_not_ go mad! I will die like a man.
+
+_Con._ Arthur! Arthur!
+
+_Ger._ God in heaven! she is there! And the others are behind
+her!--Psyche! Psyche! Don't speak to those women! Come alone, and I
+will tear my heart out and give it you.--It is Psyche herself now, and
+the rest are gone! Psyche--listen.
+
+_Con._ It's only me, Arthur! your own little Constance! If aunt would
+but let me stay and nurse you! But I don't know what's come to her:
+she's not like herself at all.
+
+_Ger._ Who's that behind you?
+
+_Con._ Behind me? (_looking round_). There's nobody behind me.
+
+_Ger._ I thought there was somebody behind you. William!--What can
+have become of William?
+
+_Con._ I dare say aunt has sent him somewhere.
+
+_Ger._ Then he's gone! he's gone!
+
+_Con._ You're not afraid of being left alone with me, Arthur?
+
+_Ger._ Oh no! of course not?--What can have become of William? Don't
+you know they sent him--not those women, but the dead people--to look
+after me? He's a good fellow. He said he would die for me. Ha! ha! ha!
+Not much in that--is there?
+
+_Con._ Don't laugh so, dear Arthur.
+
+_Ger._ Well, I won't. I have something to tell you, Constance. I will
+try to keep my senses till I've told you.
+
+_Con._ Do tell me. I hope I haven't done anything more to vex you.
+Indeed I am sorry. I won't speak to that man again, if you like. I
+would rather not--if you wish it.
+
+_Ger._ What right have I to dictate to you, my child?
+
+_Con._ Every right. I am yours. I belong to you. Nobody owned me when
+you took me.
+
+_Ger._ Don't talk like that; you will drive me mad.
+
+_Con._ Arthur! Arthur!
+
+_Ger._ Listen to me, Constance. I am going to Garibaldi. He wants
+soldiers. I must not live an idle life any longer.--We must part,
+Constance.--Good-bye, my darling!
+
+_Con._ No, no; not yet; we'll talk about it by-and-by. You see I shall
+have ever so many things to make for you before you can go!
+(_smiling_).
+
+_Ger._ Garibaldi can't wait, Constance--and _I_ can't wait. I shall
+die if I stop here.
+
+_Con._ Oh, Arthur, you are in some trouble, and you won't tell me what
+it is, so I can't help you!
+
+_Ger._ I shall be killed, I know. I mean to be. Will you think of me
+sometimes? Give me one kiss. I may have a last kiss.
+
+_Con._ (_weeping_.) My heart will break if you talk like that, Arthur.
+I will do anything you please. There's something wrong, dreadfully
+wrong! And it must be my fault!--Oh! there's that man! (_starting
+up_.) He shall _not_ come here.
+
+    [_Runs to the house-door, and stands listening, with her hand on
+    the key_.]
+
+END OF ACT I.
+
+
+
+
+ACT II.
+
+SCENE.--_A street in Mayfair_. MRS. CLIFFORD'S _house. A pastrycook's
+shop. Boys looking in at the window_.
+
+
+_Bill._ I say, Jim, ain't it a lot o' grub? If I wos a pig now,--
+
+_Jack._ I likes to hear Bill a supposin' of hisself. Go it, Bill!--There
+ain't nothink _he_ can't suppose hisself, Jim.--Bein' as you ain't a pig.
+Bill, you've got yer own trotters, an' yer own tater-trap.
+
+_Bill._ Vereupon blue Bobby eccosts me with the remark, "I wants you,
+Bill;" and seein' me too parerlyzed to bolt, he pops me in that 'ere
+jug vithout e'er a handle.
+
+_Jack._ Mother kep' a pig once.
+
+_Jim._ What was he like, Jack?
+
+_Jack._ As like any other pig as ever he could look; accep' that where
+other pigs is black he wor white, an' where other pigs is white he wor
+black.
+
+_Jim._ Did you have the milk in your tea, Jack?
+
+_Jack._ Pigs ain't got no milk, Jim, you stupe!
+
+_Bill._ Pigs _has_ milk, Jack, only they don't give it to coves.--I
+wish I wos the Lord Mayor!
+
+_Jack._ Go it again, Bill. He ought ha' been a beak, Bill ought. What
+'ud you do, Bill, supposin' as how you wos the Lord Mayor?
+
+_Bill._ I'd take all the beaks, an' all the peelers, an' put their own
+bracelets on 'em, an' feed 'em once a day on scraps o' wittles to
+bring out the hunger: a cove can't be hungry upon nuffin at all.
+
+_Jim._ He gets what mother calls the squeamishes.
+
+_Jack._ Well, Bill?
+
+_Bill._ Well, the worry moment their bellies was as long an' as loose
+as a o'-clo'-bag of a winter's mornin', I'd bring 'em all up to this
+'ere winder, five or six at a time--with the darbies on, mind ye--
+
+_Jim._ And I'm to be there to see, Bill--ain't I?
+
+_Bill._ If you're good, Jim, an' don't forget yer prayers.
+
+_Jack._ My eye! it's as good as a penny gaff! Go it, Bill.
+
+_Bill._ Then I up an' addresses 'em: "My Lords an' Gen'lemen, 'cos as
+how ye're all good boys, an' goes to church, an' don't eat _too_ many
+wittles, an' don't take off your bracelets when you goes to bed, you
+shall obswerve me eat."
+
+_Jim._ Go it, Bill! I likes you, Bill.
+
+_Bill._ No, Jim; I must close. The imagination is a 'ungry gift, as
+the cock said when he bolted the pebbles. Let's sojourn the meetin'.
+
+_Jack_. Yes; come along. 'Tain't a comfable corner this yere: the wind
+cuts round uncommon sharp. Them pies ain't good--leastways not to
+look at.
+
+_Bill_. They ain't disgestible. But look ye here, Jack and
+Jim--hearkee, my kids. (_Puts an arm round the neck of each, and
+whispers first to one and then to the other_.)
+
+    _Enter_ MATTIE _and_ SUSAN.
+
+_Sus_. Now, Mattie, we're close to the house, an' I don't want to be
+seen with you, for she's mad at _me_.
+
+_Mat_. You must have made her mad, then, Sue.
+
+_Sus_. She madded me first: what else when she wouldn't believe a word
+I said? She'd ha' sworn on the gospel book, we sent the parcel up the
+spout. But she'll believe _you_, an' give you something, and then
+we'll have a chop!
+
+_Mat_. How can you expect that, Sue, when the work's lost?
+
+_Sus_. Never mind; you go and see.
+
+_Mat_. I shan't take it, Susan. I couldn't.
+
+_Sus_. Stuff and nonsense! I'll wait you round the corner: I don't
+like the smell o' them pastry things.
+
+    _Exit_. MATTIE _walks past the window_.
+
+_Mat_. I don't like going. It makes me feel a thief to be suspected.
+
+_Bill_. Lor! it's our Mattie! There's our Mattie!--Mattie! Mattie!
+
+_Mat_. Ah, Bill! you're there--are you?
+
+_Bill_. Yes, Mattie. It's a tart-show. You walks up and takes yer
+chice;--leastways, you makes it: somebody else takes it.
+
+_Mat_. Wouldn't you like to _take_ your choice sometimes, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. In course I would.
+
+_Mat_. Then why don't you work, and better yourself a bit?
+
+_Bill_. Bless you, Mattie! myself is werry comf'able. He never
+complains.
+
+_Mat_. You're hungry sometimes,--ain't you?
+
+_Bill_. Most remarkable 'ungry, Mattie--this werry moment. Odd you
+should ask now--ain't it?
+
+_Mat_. You would get plenty to eat if you would work.
+
+_Bill_. Thank you--I'd rayther not. Them as ain't 'ungry never enj'ys
+their damaged tarts. If I'm 'appy, vere's the odds? as the cat said to
+the mouse as wanted to be let off the engagement. Why should I work
+more'n any other gen'leman?
+
+_Mat_. A gentleman that don't work is a curse to his neighbours, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. Bless you, Mattie! I ain't a curse--nohow to nobody. I don't
+see as you've got any call to say that, Mattie. I don't go fakin'
+clies, or crackin' cribs--nothin' o' the sort. An' I don't mind doin'
+of a odd job, if it _is_ a odd one. Don't go for to say that again,
+Mattie.
+
+_Mat_. I won't, then, Bill. But just look at yourself!--You're all in
+rags.
+
+_Bill_. Rags is the hairier, as the Skye terrier said to the
+black-an'-tan.--I shouldn't object to a new pair of old trousers,
+though.
+
+_Mat_. Why don't you have a pair of real new ones? If you would only
+sweep a crossing--
+
+_Bill_. There ain't, a crossin' but what's took. Besides, my legs
+ain't put together for one place all day long. It ain't to be done,
+Mattie. They can't do it.
+
+_Mat_. There's the shoe-black business, then.
+
+_Bill_. That ain't so bad, acause you can shoulder your box and
+trudge. But if it's all the same to you, Mattie, I'd rayther enj'y
+life: they say it's short.
+
+_Mat_. But it ain't the same to me. It's so bad for you to be idle,
+Bill!
+
+_Bill_. Not as I knows on. I'm tollable jolly, so long's I gets the
+browns for my bed.
+
+_Mat_. Wouldn't you like a bed with a blanket to it?
+
+_Bill_. Well, yes--if it was guv to me. But I don't go in for knocking
+of yourself about, to sleep warm.
+
+_Mat_. Well, look here, Bill. It's all Susan and I can do to pay for
+our room, and get a bit of bread and a cup of tea. It ain't
+enough.--If you were to earn a few pence now--
+
+_Bill_. Oh golly! I never thought o' that. What a hass I wur, to be
+sure! I'll go a shoe-blackin' to-morror--I will.
+
+_Mat_. Did you ever black a shoe, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. I tried a boot oncet--when Jim wor a blackin' for a day or
+two. But I made nothink on it--nothink worth mentionin'. The blackin'
+or som'at was wrong. The gen'leman said it wur coal-dust, an he'd slog
+me, an' adwised me to go an' learn my trade.
+
+_Mat_. And what did you say to that?
+
+_Bill_. Holler'd out "Shine yer boots!" as loud as I could holler.
+
+_Mat_. You must try my boots next time you come.
+
+_Bill_. This wery night, Mattie. I'll make 'em shine like plate
+glass--see then if I don't. But where'll I get a box and brushes?
+
+_Mat_. You shall have our brushes and my footstool.
+
+_Bill_. I see! Turn the stool upside down, put the brushes in, and
+carry it by one leg--as drunken Moll does her kid.--Here you are, sir!
+Black your boots, sir?--Shine your trotters, sir? (_bawling_.)
+
+_Mat_. That'll do; that'll do, Bill! Famous! You needn't do it again
+(_holding her ears_). Would you like a tart?
+
+_Bill_. Just wouldn't I, then!--Shine your boooooots!
+
+_Mat_. (_laughing_). Do hold your tongue, Bill. There's a penny for a
+tart.
+
+_Bill_. Thank you, Mattie. Thank you.
+
+    _Exit into the shop_.
+
+_Jack and Jim_ (_touching their supposed caps_). Please, ma'am! Please,
+ma'am! I likes 'em too. I likes 'em more 'n Bill.
+
+_Mat_. I'm very sorry, but--(_feeling in her pocket_) I've got a
+ha'penny, I believe. No--there's a penny! You must share it, you
+know. (_Gives it to Jack. Knocks at Mrs. Clifford's door._)
+
+_Jack and Jim_. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am.
+
+    _Exit_ MATTIE _into_ MRS. CLIFFORD'S.
+
+_Jim_. Now, Jack, what's it to be?
+
+_Jack_. I believe I shall spend it in St. Martin's Lane.
+
+_Jim_. A ha'p'orth on it's mine, you know, Jack.
+
+_Jack_. Well, you do put the stunners on me!
+
+_Jim_. She said we wos to divide it--she did.
+
+_Jack_. 'Taint possible. It beats my ivories. (_He pretends to bite
+it_. JIM _flies at him in a rage_.)
+
+    _Re-enter_ BILL, _with his mouth full_.
+
+_Bill_. Now what are you two a squabblin' over? Oh! Jack's got a
+yennep, and Jim's iookin' shirty.
+
+_Jim_. She told him to divide it, and he won't.
+
+_Bill_. Who told him?
+
+_Jim_. Mattie.
+
+_Bill_. You dare, Jack? Hand over.
+
+_Jack_. Be hanged if I do.
+
+_Bill_. Then do and be hanged. (_A struggle_.) There, Jim! Now you go
+and buy what you like.
+
+_Jim_. Am I to give Jack the half?
+
+_Bill_. Yes, if our Mattie said it.
+
+_Jim_. All right, Bill. (_Goes into the shop_.)
+
+_Jack_. I owe you one for that, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. Owe it me then, Jack. I do like fair play--always did
+(_eating_).
+
+_Jack_. You ain't a sharin' of _your_ yennep, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. Mattie didn't say I was to. She knowed one wouldn't break up
+into three nohow. 'Tain't in natur', Jack.
+
+_Jack_. You might ha' guv me a bite, anyhow, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. It ain't desirable, Jack--size o' trap dooly considered. Here
+comes your share.
+
+    _Re-enter_ JIM. _Gives a bun to_ JACK.
+
+_Jim_. I tell you what, Bill--she ain't _your_ Mattie. She ain't
+nobody's Mattie; she's a hangel.
+
+_Bill_. No, Jim, she ain't a hangel; she 'ain't got no wings,
+leastways outside her clo'es, and she 'ain't got clo'es enough to hide
+'em. I wish I wos a hangel!
+
+_Jack_. At it again, Bill! I _do_ like to hear Bill a wishin' of
+hisself! Why, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. Acause they're never 'ungry.
+
+_Jack_. How do you know they ain't?
+
+_Bill_. You never sees 'em loafin' about nowheres.
+
+_Jim_. Is Mattie your sister, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. No, Jim; I ain't good 'nough to have a sister like she.
+
+_Jack_. Your sweetheart, Bill? Ha! ha! ha!
+
+_Bill_. Dry up, Jack.
+
+_Jim_. Tell me about her, Bill. _I_ didn't jaw you.
+
+_Bill_. She lives in our court, Jim. Makes shirts and things.
+
+_Jack_. Oh! ho!
+
+    BILL _hits_ JACK. JACK _doubles himself up_.
+
+_Bill_. Jim, our Mattie ain't like other gals; I never see her out
+afore this blessed day--upon my word and honour, Jim, never!
+
+_Jack_. (_wiping his nose with his sleeve_). You don't know a joke
+from a jemmy, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. I'll joke you!--A hangel tips you a tart, and you plucks her
+feathers! Get on t'other side of the way, you little dirty devil, or
+I'll give you another smeller--cheap too. Off with you!
+
+_Jack_. No, Bill; no, please. I'm wery sorry. I ain't so bad's all
+that comes to.
+
+_Bill_. If you wants to go with Jim and me, then behave like a
+gen'leman.
+
+_Jim_. I calls our Mattie a brick!
+
+_Bill_. None o' _your_ jaw, Jim! She ain't _your_ Mattie.
+
+    Enter THOMAS.
+
+_Tho._ Childer, dun yo know th' way to Paradise--Row, or Road, or
+summat?
+
+_Bill_. Dunnow, sir. You axes at the Sunday-school.
+
+_Tho._ Wheer's th' Sunday-school, chylt?
+
+_Bill_. Second door round the corner, sir.
+
+_Tho._ Second dur reawnd th' corner! Which corner, my man?
+
+_Bill_. Round _any_ corner. Second door's all-ways Sunday-school.
+(_Takes a sight. Exeunt boys_.)
+
+    THOMAS _sits down on a door-step_.
+
+_Tho._ Eh, but aw be main weary! Surely th' Lord dunnot be a forsakin'
+ov mo. There's that abeawt th' lost ship. Oop yon, wheer th' angels
+keep greight flocks ov 'em, they dunnot like to lose one ov 'em, an'
+they met well be helpin' ov mo to look for mo lost lamb i' this awful
+plaze! What has th' shepherd o' th' sheep himsel' to do, God bless
+him! but go look for th' lost ones and carry 'em whoam! O Lord! gie mo
+mo Mattie. Aw'm a silly ship mosel, a sarchin' for mo lost lamb.
+(_Boys begin to gather and stare_.) She's o' the world to me. O Lord,
+hear mo, and gie mo mo Mattie. Nea, aw'll geet oop, and go look again.
+(_Rises_.)
+
+_First Boy_. Ain't he a cricket, Tommy?
+
+_Second Boy_. Spry, ain't he? Prod him, and see him jump. (_General
+insult_.)
+
+_Tho._ Why, childer, what have aw done, that yo cry after mo like a
+thief?
+
+_First Boy_. Daddy Longlegs! Daddy Longlegs!
+
+    _They hustle and crowd him. Re-enter_ BILL. THOMAS _makes a rush.
+    They run. He seizes_ BILL. _They gather again_.
+
+_Tho._ Han yo getten a mother, lad?
+
+_Bill_. No, thank ye. 'Ain't got no mother. Come of a haunt, I do.
+
+_First Boy_. Game!--ain't he?
+
+_Tho._ Well, aw'll tak yo whoam to yor aunt--aw wull.
+
+_Bill_. Will you now, old chap? Wery well. (_Squats_.)
+
+_Tho._ (_holding him up by the collar, and shaking his stick over
+him_). Tell mo wheer's por aunt, or aw'll breyk every bone i' yor
+body.
+
+_Bill_ (_wriggling and howling and rubbing his eyes with alternate
+sleeves_). Let me go, I say. Let me go and I'll tell ye. I will
+indeed, sir.
+
+_Tho._ (_letting go_) Wheer then, mo lad?
+
+_Bill_ (_starting up_). I' the church-cellar, sir--first bin over the
+left--feeds musty, and smells strong. Ho! ho! ho! (_Takes a sight_.)
+
+    THOMAS _makes a dart_. BILL _dodges him_.
+
+_First Boy_. Ain't he a cricket _now_, Tommy?
+
+_Second Boy_. Got one leg too many for a cricket, Sam.
+
+_Third Boy_. That's what he jerks hisself with, Tommy.
+
+_Tho._ Boys, I want to be freens wi' yo. Here's a penny.
+
+    _One of the boys knocks it out of his hand. A scramble_.
+
+_Tho._ Now, boys, dun yo know wheer's a young woman bi th' name ov
+Mattie--somewheer abeawt Paradise Row?
+
+_First Boy_. Yes, old un.
+
+_Second Boy_. Lots on 'em.
+
+_Third Boy_. Which on em' do you want, Mr. Cricket?
+
+_Fourth Boy_. You ain't peticlar, I s'pose, old corner-bones?
+
+_First Boy_. Don't you fret, old stilts. We'll find you a Mattie.
+There's plenty on 'em--all nice gals.
+
+_Tho._ I want mo own Mattie.
+
+_First Boy_. Why, you'd never tell one from t'other on 'em!
+
+_Third Boy_. All on 'em wery glad to see old Daddy Longlegs!
+
+_Tho._ Oh dear! Oh dear! What an awful plaze this Lon'on do be! To
+see the childer so bad!
+
+_Second Boy_. Don't cry, gran'pa. _She'_d chaff you worser 'n us!
+We're only poor little innocent boys. We don't know nothink, bless
+you! Oh no!
+
+_First Boy_. You'd better let her alone, arter all, bag o' nails.
+
+_Second Boy_. She'll have it out on you now, for woppin' of her when
+she wor a kid.
+
+_First Boy_. She's a wopper herself now.
+
+_Third Boy_. Mighty fine, with your shirt for a great-coat. He! he!
+he!
+
+_Fourth Boy_. Mattie never kicks us poor innocent boys--cos we 'ain't
+got no mothers to take our parts. Boo hoo!
+
+    _Enter_ JACK--_his hands in his pockets_.
+
+_Jack_. What's the row, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. Dunnow, Jack. Old chap collared me when I wasn't alludin' to
+him. He's after some Mattie or other. It can't be our Mattie. _She_
+wouldn't never have such a blazin' old parient as that.
+
+_Jack_. Supposin' it was your Mattie, Bill, would you split, and let
+Scull-and-cross-bones nab her?
+
+_Bill_. Would I? Would I 'and over our Mattie to her natural enemy?
+Did you ax it, Jack?
+
+_Jack_. Natural enemy! My eye, Bill! what words you fakes!
+
+_Bill_. Ain't he her natural enemy, then? Ain't it yer father as bumps
+yer 'ed, an' cusses ye, an' lets ye see him eat? Afore he gets our
+Mattie, I'll bite!
+
+_Tho._ Poor lad! poor lad! Dunnot say that! Her feyther's th' best
+freen' hoo's getten. Th' moor's th' pity, for it's not mich he can do
+for her. But he would dee for her--he would.
+
+_Boys (all together)_. Go along, Daddy-devil! Pick yer own bones, an'
+ha' done.
+
+     Bag-raker!
+     Skin-cat!
+     Bag o' nails!
+     Scull-an'-cross-bones!
+
+     Old Daddy Longlegs wouldn't say his prayers--
+     Take him by his left leg, and throw him downstairs.
+
+     Go along! Go to hell!
+     _We_'ll skin you.
+     Melt ye down for taller, we will.
+     Only he 'ain't got none, the red herrin'!
+
+    _They throw things at him. He sits down on the door-step, and covers
+    his head with his arms. Enter_ COL. G. _Boys run off_.
+
+_Tho._ Oh, mo Mattie! mo Mattie!
+
+_Col. G._ Poor old fellow! Are you hurt?
+
+_Tho._ Eh! _yo_ be a followin' ov mo too!
+
+_Col. G._ What are you doing here?
+
+_Tho._ What am aw doin' yere! Thee knows well enough what aw're a
+doin' yere. It 're o' thy fau't, mon.
+
+_Col. G._ Why, you've got a blow! Your head is cut! Poor old fellow!
+
+_Tho._ Never yo mind mo yed.
+
+_Col. G._ You must go home.
+
+_Tho._ Goo whoam, says to! Aw goo no-wheers but to th' grave afoor
+aw've feawnd mo chylt.
+
+_Col. G._ Come along with me; I will do all I can to find her. Perhaps
+I can help you after all.
+
+_Tho._ Aw mak nea deawbt o' that, mon. And thae seems a gradely chap.
+Aw'm a'most spent. An' aw'm sick, sick! Dunnot let th' boys shove mo
+abeawt again.
+
+_Col. G._ I will not. They shan't come near you. Take my arm. Poor old
+fellow! If you would but trust me! Hey! Cab there!
+
+    _Exeunt_.
+
+    _Enter_ SUSAN, _peeping_.
+
+_Sus_. I wonder whatever's come to Mattie! It's long time she was out
+again.
+
+    _Enter_ MATTIE, _hurriedly_.
+
+_Mat_. Oh, Susan! Susan! (_Falls_.)
+
+_Sus_. Mattie! Mattie! (_Kneels beside her, and undoes her bonnet_.)
+
+    _Enter_ POLICEMAN.
+
+_Pol_. What ails her? (_Goes to lift her_.)
+
+_Sus_. Leave her alone, will you? Let her head down. Get some water.
+
+_Pol_. Drunk--is she?
+
+_Sus_. Hold your tongue, you brute! If she'd a satin frock on, i'stead
+o' this here poor cotton gownd, you'd ha' showed her t'other side o'
+your manners! Get away with you. You're too ugly to look at.--Mattie!
+Mattie! Look up, child.
+
+_Pol_. She mustn't lie there.
+
+_Mat_. Susan!
+
+_Pol_. Come, my girl.
+
+_Sus_. You keep off, I tell you! Don't touch her. She's none o' your
+sort. Come, Mattie, dear.--Why don't you make 'em move on?
+
+_Pol_. You'd better keep a civil tongue in your head, young woman.
+
+_Sus_. You live lobster!
+
+_Pol_. I'll have to lock you up, I see. One violent. T'other
+incapable.
+
+_Sus_. You're another. Mattie, my dear, come along home.
+
+_Pol_. That's right; be off with you.
+
+    MATTIE _rises_.
+
+_Mat_. Let's go. Sue! Let's get farther off.
+
+_Sus_. You can't walk, child. If I hadn't been so short o' wittles for
+a week, I could ha' carried you. But it's only a step to the
+cook-shop.
+
+_Mat_. No money, Sue. (_Tries to walk_.)
+
+_Sus_. O Lord! What _shall_ I do! And that blue-bottle there a buzzin'
+an' a starin' at us like a dead codfish!--Boh!
+
+    _Enter_ BILL.
+
+_Bill_. Our Mattie! Gracious! what's the row, Susan?
+
+_Sus_. She ain't well. Take her other arm, Bill, and help her out o'
+this. We ain't in no Christian country. Pluck up, Mattie, dear.
+
+_Bill_. Come into the tart-shop. I'm a customer.
+
+    _They go towards the shop. Exit_ POLICEMAN.
+
+_Mat_. No, no, Sukey! I can't abide the smell of it. Let me sit on the
+kerb for a minute. (_Sits down_.) Oh, father! father!
+
+_Bill_. Never you mind, Mattie! If he wor twenty fathers, he shan't
+come near ye.
+
+_Mat_. Oh, Bill! if you could find him for me! He would take me home.
+
+_Bill_. Now who'd ha' thought o' that? Axially wantin' her own father!
+I'd run far enough out o' the way o' mine--an' farther if he wur
+a-axin' arter me.
+
+_Mat_. Oh me! my side!
+
+_Sus_. It's hunger, poor dear! (_Sits down beside her_.)
+
+_Bill_ (_aside_). This won't do, Bill! I'm a shamed o' _you_, Bill!
+_Exit_.
+
+_Mat_. No, Susan, it's not hunger. It's the old story, Sue.
+
+_Sus_. Mattie! I never! You don't mean to go for to tell me you're a
+breakin' of your precious heart about _him_? It's not your gentleman
+sure_ly_! It's not _him_ ye're turnin' sick about, this time o' day?
+
+    MATTIE _nods her head listlessly_.
+
+_Sus_. What's up fresh, then? You was pretty bobbish when you left me.
+It's little he thinks of _you_, I'll be bound.
+
+_Mat_. That's true enough. It's little he ever thought of me. He _did_
+say he loved me, though. It's fifty times he did!
+
+_Sus_. Lies, lies, Mattie--all lies!
+
+_Mat_. No, Susan; it wasn't lies. He meant it--at the time. That's
+what made it look all right. Oh dear! Oh dear!
+
+_Sus_. But what's come to you now, Mattie? What's fresh in it? You're
+not turned like this all at once for nothink!
+
+_Mat_. I've seen him!
+
+_Sus_. Seen him! Oh, my! I wish it had been me. _I_'d ha' seen him!
+I'd ha' torn his ugly eyes out.
+
+_Mat_. They ain't ugly eyes. They're big and blue, and they sparkle so
+when he talks to her!
+
+_Sus_. And who's _her_? Ye didn't mention a _her_. Some brazen-faced
+imperence!
+
+_Mat_. No. The young lady at Mrs. Clifford's.
+
+_Sus_. Oho! See if I do a stitch for her!--Shan't I leave a needle in
+_her_ shimmy, just!
+
+_Mat_. What _shall_ I do! All the good's gone out of me! And such a
+pain here!
+
+_Sus_. Keep in yer breath a minute, an' push yer ribs out. It's one on
+'em's got a top o' the other.
+
+_Mat_. Such a grand creature! And her colour coming and going like the
+shadows on the corn! It's no wonder he forgot poor me. But it'll burn
+itself out afore long.
+
+_Sus_. Don't ye talk like that, Mattie; I can't abear it.
+
+_Mat_. If I was dressed like her, though, and could get my colour
+back! But laws! I'm such a washed out piece o' goods beside her!
+
+_Sus_. That's as I say, Matilda! It's the dress makes the differ.
+
+_Mat_. No, Susan, it ain't. It's the free look of them--and the head
+up--and the white hands--and the taper fingers. They're stronger than
+us, and they're that trained like, that all their body goes in one,
+like the music at a concert. _I_ couldn't pick up a needle without
+going down on my knees after it. It's the pain in my side, Sue.--Yes,
+it's a fine thing to be born a lady. It's _not_ the clothes, Sue. If
+we was dressed ever so, we couldn't come near them. It's that look,--I
+don't know what.
+
+_Sus_. Speak for yerself, Mattie; _I_'m not a goin' to think such
+small beer of _my_self, _I_ can tell you! I believe if I'd been took
+in time--
+
+_Mat_. It's a big _if_ that though, Sue.--And then she looked _so_ good!
+You'd hardly think it of me,--perhaps it's because I'm dying--but for
+one minute I could ha' kissed her very shoes. Oh, my side!
+
+_Sus_. (_putting her arm tight round her waist_). Does that help it
+Mattie, dear?--a little teeny bit?
+
+_Mat_. Yes, Sukey. It holds it together a bit. Will he break her heart
+too, I wonder?
+
+_Sus_. No fear o' that! Ladies takes care o' theirselves. They're
+brought up to it.
+
+_Mat_. It's only poor girls gentlemen don't mind hurting, I suppose.
+
+_Sus_. It's the ladies' fathers and brothers, Mattie! We've got nobody
+to look after us.
+
+_Mat_. They may break their hearts, though, for all that.
+
+_Sus_. They won't forgive them like you, then, Mattie!
+
+_Mat_. I dare say they're much the same as we are when it comes to
+that, Sue.
+
+_Sus_. Don't say _me_, Mattie. _I_ wouldn't forgive him--no, not if
+I was to die for it. But what came of it, child?
+
+_Mat_. I made some noise, I suppose, and the lady started.
+
+_Sus_. And then you up and spoke?
+
+_Mat_. I turned sick, and fell down.
+
+_Sus_. Poor dear!
+
+_Mat_. She got me a glass of wine, but I couldn't swallow it, and got
+up and crawled out.
+
+_Sus_. Did he see you?
+
+_Mat_. I think he did.
+
+_Sus_. You'll tell her, in course?
+
+_Mat_. No, Sue; he'd hate me, and I couldn't bear that. Oh me! my
+side! It's so bad!
+
+_Sus_. Let's try for home, Mattie. It's a long way, and there's
+nothing to eat when you're there; but you can lie down, and that's
+everything to them as can't sit up.
+
+_Mat_. (_rising_). I keep fancying I'm going to meet my father.
+
+_Sus_. Let's fancy it then every turn all the way home, an' that'll
+get us along. There, take my arm. There!--Come along. _Exeunt_.
+
+    _Slow music. Twilight_.
+
+    _Enter_ BILL _with a three-legged stool, brushes, etc._
+
+_Bill_. Come! it's blackin' all over! When gents can't no longer see
+their boots, 'tain't much use offerin' to shine 'em. But if I can get
+a penny, I will. I _must_ take a tart to Mattie, or this here damaged
+one (_laying his hand on his stomach_) won't go to sleep this night.
+
+    _Enter_ WATERFIELD.
+
+_Bill_. Black your boots for a party, sir?
+
+_Wat_. (_aside_) The very rascal I saw her speaking to! But wasn't she
+a brick not to split! That's what I call devotion now! There _are_
+some of them capable of it. I'll set her up for life. I'd give a cool
+thousand it hadn't happened, though. I saw her father too hanging
+about Gervaise's yesterday.
+
+_Bill_. Clean your boots, sir? Shine 'em till they grin like a
+Cheshire cat eatin' cheese!
+
+_Wat_. Shine away, you beggar.
+
+_Bill_ (_turning up his trousers_). I ain't no beggar, sir. Shine for
+a shiner's fair play.
+
+_Wat_. Do you live in this neighbourhood?
+
+_Bill_. No, sir.
+
+_Wat_. Where, then?
+
+_Bill_ (_feeling where a pocket should be_). I don't appear to 'ave a
+card about me, sir, but my address is Lamb's Court, Camomile
+Street--leastways I do my sleepin' not far off of it. I've lived
+there, what livin' I _have_ done, sin' ever I wor anywheres as I knows
+on.
+
+_Wat_. Do you happen to know a girl of the name of Pearson?
+
+_Bill_. No, sir. I can't say as how I rec'lect the name. Is she a old
+girl or a young un?
+
+_Wat_. You young liar! I saw you talking to her not two hours ago!
+
+_Bill_. Did ye now, sir? That's odd, ain't it? Bless you! I talks to
+everybody. I ain't proud, sir.
+
+_Wat_. Well, do you see this? (_holding up a sovereign_).
+
+_Bill_. That's one o' them tilings what don't require much seein',
+sir. There! Bright as a butterfly! T'other twin, sir!
+
+_Wat_. I'll give you this, if you'll do something for me--and another
+to that when the thing's done.
+
+_Bill_. 'Tain't stealin', sir?
+
+_Wat_. No.
+
+_Bill_. Cos, you see, Mattie--
+
+_Wat_. Who did you say?
+
+_Bill_. Old Madge as lets the beds at tuppence a short night. 'Tain't
+stealin', you say, sir?
+
+_Wat_. What do you take me for? I want you to find out for me where
+the girl Pearson lives--that's all.
+
+_Bill_ (_snatching the sovereign and putting it in his mouth_). Now
+then, sir!--What's the young woman like?
+
+_Wat_. Rather tall--thin--dark hair--large dark eyes--and long white
+hands. Her name's Matilda--Mattie Pearson--the girl you were talking
+to, I tell you, on this very spot an hour or two ago.
+
+_Bill_ (_dropping the sovereign, and stooping to find it_). Golly! it
+_is_ our Mattie!
+
+_Wat_. Shall you know her again?
+
+_Bill_. Any boy as wasn't a hass would know his own grandmother by
+them spots. Besides, I remember sich a gal addressin' of me this
+mornin'. If you say her it was, I'll detect her for ye.
+
+_Wat_. There's a good boy! What's your name?
+
+_Bill_. Timothy, sir.
+
+_Wat_. What else?
+
+_Bill_. Never had no other--leastways as I knows on.
+
+_Wat_. Well, Timothy--there's the other sov.--and it's yours the
+moment you take me to her. Look at it.
+
+_Bill_. My eye!--Is she a square Moll, sir?
+
+_Wat_. What do you mean by that?
+
+_Bill_. Green you are, to be sure!--She ain't one as steals, or--
+
+_Wat_. Not she. She's a sempstress--a needlewoman, or something of the
+sort.
+
+_Bill_. And where shall I find _you_, sir?
+
+_Wat_. Let me see:--to-morrow night--on the steps of St. Martin's
+Church--ten o'clock.
+
+_Bill_. But if I don't find her? It may be a week--or a month--or--
+
+_Wat_. Come whether you find her or not, and let me know.
+
+_Bill_. All serene, sir! There you are, sir! Brush your trousers, sir?
+
+_Wat_. No; leave 'em.--Don't forget now.
+
+_Bill_. Honour bright, sir! Not if I knows it, sir!
+
+_Wat_. There's that other skid, you know.
+
+_Bill_. All right, sir! Anything more, sir?
+
+_Wat_. Damn your impudence! Get along.
+
+    _Exit_. BILL _watches him into_ MRS. CLIFFORD'S.
+
+_Bill_. Now by all the 'ungry gums of Arabiar, 'ere's a swell arter
+our Mattie!--A right rig'lar swell! I knows 'em--soverings an' red
+socks. What's come to our Mattie? 'Ere's Daddy Longlegs arter her,
+vith his penny and his blessin'! an' 'ere's this 'ere mighty swell
+vith his soverings--an' his red socks! An' she's 'ungry, poor
+gal!--This 'ere yellow-boy?--I 'ain't got no faith in swells--no more
+'n in Daddy Longlegses--I 'ain't!--S'posin' he wants to marry
+her?--Not if I knows it. He ain't half good 'nough for _her_. Too many
+quids--goin' a flingin' on 'em about like buttons! He's been a
+crackin' o' cribs--_he_ has. I ain't a goin' to interduce our Mattie
+to no sich blokes as him. No fathers or lovyers for me--says I!--But
+this here pebble o' Paradise!--What's to be done wi' the cherub? I
+can't tell _her_ a lie about it, an' who'll break it up for a cove
+like me, lookin' jes' as if I'd been an' tarred myself and crep'
+through a rag-bag! They'd jug me. An' what 'ud Mattie say then? I wish
+I 'adn't 'a' touched it. I'm blowed if I don't toss it over a
+bridge!--Then the gent 'ain't got the weight on his dunop out o' me. O
+Lord! what _shall_ I do with it? I wish I'd skied it in his face! I
+don't believe it's a good un; I don't! (_Bites it_.) It do taste wery
+nasty. It's nothin' better 'n a gilt fardin'! Jes' what a cove might
+look for from sich a swell! (_Goes to a street lamp and examines it_.)
+Lor! there's a bobby! (_Exit. Re-enter to the lamp_.) I wish the
+gen'leman 'ad guv me a penny. I can't do nothin' wi' this 'ere quid.
+Vere am I to put it? I 'ain't got no pocket, an' if I was to stow it
+in my 'tato-trap, I couldn't wag my red rag--an' Mother Madge 'ud soon
+have me by the chops. Nor I've got noveres to plant it.--O Lor! it's
+all I've got, an' Madge lets nobody go to bed without the tuppence.
+It's all up with Bill--_for_ the night!--Where's the odds!--there's a
+first-class hotel by the river--The Adelphi Arches, they calls
+it--where they'll take me in fast enough, and I can go to sleep with
+it in my cheek. Coves is past talkin' to you there. Nobody as sees me
+in that 'ere 'aunt of luxury, 'ill take me for a millionaire vith a
+skid in his mouth. 'Tain't a bit cold to-night neither (_going_).--Vy
+do they say a _aunt_ of luxury? I s'pose acause she's wife to my
+uncle. _Exit_.
+
+    _Slow music. The night passes. A policeman crosses twice_. THOMAS
+    _crosses between. Dawn_.
+
+    _Re-enter_ BILL.
+
+_Bill_. I'm hanged if this here blasted quid ain't a burnin' of me
+like a red-hot fardin'! I'm blest if I've slep' more 'n half the
+night. I woke up oncet, with it a slippin' down red lane. I wish I had
+swallered it. Then nobody 'd 'a' ast me vere I got it. I don't wonder
+as rich coves turn out sich a bad lot. I believe the devil's in this
+'ere!
+
+    _Knocks at_ MRS. CLIFFORD'S door. JAMES _opens. Is shutting it
+    again_. BILL _shoves in his stool_.
+
+_Bill_. Hillo, Blazes! where's your manners? Is that the way you
+behaves to callers on your gov'nor's business?
+
+_James (half opening the door_). Get about your own business, you
+imperent boy!
+
+_Bill_. I'm about it now, young man. I wants to see your gov'nor.
+
+_James_. _You_'ve got business with _him_, have you, eh?
+
+_Bill_. Amazin' precoxity! You've hit it! I _have_ got business with _him_,
+Door-post--not in the wery smallest with _you_, Door-post!--essep' the
+knife-boy's been and neglected of your feet-bags this mornin'. (JAMES
+_would slam the door_. BILL _shoves in his stool_.) Don't you try that
+'ere little game again, young man! for if I loses my temper and takes
+to hollerin', you'll wish yourself farther.
+
+_James_. A humbug you are! I 'ain't got no gov'nor, boy. The master as
+belongs to me is a mis'ess.
+
+_Bill_. Then that 'ere gen'lemen as comes an' goes, ain't your
+master--eh?
+
+_James_. What gen'leman, stoopid?
+
+_Bill_. Oh! it don't matter.
+
+_James_. What _have--you--got_ to say to _him_?
+
+_Bill_. Some'at pickled: it'll keep.
+
+_James_. I'll give him a message, if you like.
+
+_Bill_. Well, you may tell him the bargain's hoff, and if he wants his
+money, it's a waitin' of him round the corner.
+
+_James_. You little blackguard! Do you suppose a gen'leman's a goin'
+to deliver sich a message as that! Be off, you himp! (_Makes a dart at
+him_.)
+
+_Bill_ (_dodging him_). How d'e do, Clumsy? Don't touch me; I ain't
+nice. Why, what was you made for, Parrot? Is them calves your own
+rearin' now? Is that a quid or a fardin? Have a shot, now, Shins.
+
+_James_. None o' your imperence, young blackie! 'And me over the
+money, and I'll give it to the gen'leman.
+
+_Bill_. Do you see anything peticlar green in my eye, Rainbow?
+
+    JAMES _makes a rush_. BILL _gets down before him_. JAMES _tumbles
+    over him_. BILL _blacks his face with his brush_.
+
+_Bill_ (_running a little way_). Ha! ha! ha! Bill Shoeblack--his mark!
+Who's blackie now? You owes me a penny--twopence--'twor sich a ugly
+job! Ain't shiny? I'll come back and shine ye for another penny. Good
+mornin', Jim Crow! Take my adwice, and don't on no account apply your
+winegar afore you've opened your hoyster. Likeways: Butter don't melt
+on a cold tater. _Exit_.
+
+    _Exit_ JAMES _into the house, banging the door_.
+
+    _Enter_ WATERFIELD, _followed by BILL_.
+
+_Bill_. Please, sir, I been a watchin' for you.
+
+_Wat_. Go to the devil!
+
+_Bill_. I'd rayther not. So there's your suv'ring!
+
+_Wat_. Go along. Meet me where I told you.
+
+_Bill_. I won't. There's yer skid.
+
+_Wat_. Be off, or I'll give you in charge. Hey! Policeman! _Exit_.
+
+_Bill_. Well, I'm blowed! This quid '11 be the hangin' o' me! _Damn
+you_! (_Throws it fiercely on the ground and stamps on it_.) Serves
+me right for chaffin' the old un! He didn't look a bad sort--_for_
+a gov'nor.--Now I reflexes, I heerd Mattie spoony on some father or
+other, afore. O Lord! I'll get Jim and Jack to help me look out for
+him. (_Enter_ THOMAS.) Lor' ha' mussy!--talk o' the old un!--I'm wery
+peticlar glad as I found you, daddy. I been a lookin' for ye--leastways
+I was a goin' to look for ye this wery moment as you turns up. I chaffed
+you like a zorologicle monkey yesterday, daddy, an' I'm wery sorry. But
+you see fathers ain't nice i' this 'ere part o' the continent. (_Enter_
+JAMES, _in plain clothes, watching them_.) They ain't no good nohow to
+nobody. If _I_ wos a husband and a father, I don't know as how I should
+be A One, myself. P'r'aps I might think it wur my turn to break arms and
+legs. I knowed more 'n one father as did. It's no wonder the boys is a
+plaguy lot, daddy.
+
+_Tho._ Goo away, boy. Dosto yer, aw've seen so mich wickedness sin' aw
+coom to Lon'on, that aw dunnot knaw whether to breighk thi yed, or to
+goo wi' tho? There be thieves and there be robbers.
+
+_Bill_. Never fear, daddy. You ain't worth robbin' of, I don't think.
+
+_Tho._ How dosto knaw that? Aw've moore 'n I want to lose abeawt mo.
+
+_Bill_. Then Mattie 'ill have som'at to eat--will she, daddy?
+
+_Tho._ Som'at to eight, boy! Be mo Mattie hungry--dun yo think?
+
+_Bill_. Many and many's the time, daddy.
+
+_Tho._ Yigh--afore her dinner!
+
+_Bill_. And after it too, daddy.
+
+_Tho._ O Lord!--And what does hoo do when hoo 's hungry?
+
+_Bill_. Grins and bears it. Come and see her, daddy?
+
+_Tho._ O Lord! Mo Mattie, an' nothin' to eight! Goo on, boy. Aw'm beawn
+to follow yo. Tak mo wheer yo like. Aw'll goo.
+
+_Bill_. Come along then, daddy.
+
+_James (collaring him_). Hullo, young un! You're the rascal as stole the
+suvering: _I_ saw you!
+
+_Bill_. Dunno what you're up to. I never stole nothink.
+
+_James_. Oh no! of course not! What's that in yer fist now? (_Catches_
+BILL'S _hand, and forces it open_.) There!
+
+    BILL _drops his stool on_ JAMES'S _foot, throws up the coin, catches
+    it with his other hand, and puts it in his mouth_.
+
+_Tho._ Theighur! Theighur! The like ov that! Aw're agooin wi' a
+thief--aw wur!
+
+_Bill_. Never you mind, daddy. It wur guv to me.
+
+_James_. That's what they allus says, sir.--You come along.--I'd be
+obliged to you, sir, if you would come too, and say you saw him.
+
+_Tho._ Nay! aw connot say aw seigh him steyle it.
+
+_James_. You saw it in his hand.
+
+_Tho._ Yigh! aw did.
+
+_Bill_. It wis guv to me, I tell ye.
+
+_James_. Honest boy, this one! Looks like it, don't he, sir? What do you
+think of yourself, you young devil, a decoying of a grey-haired old
+gen'leman like this? Why, sir, him an' his pals 'ud ha' taken every
+penny you had about you! Murdered you, they might--I've knowed as much.
+It's a good thing I 'appened on the spot.--Come along, you bad boy!
+
+_Bill_. I didn't, take it. And I won't go.
+
+_James_. Come along. They'll change it for you at the lock-up.
+
+_Bill_. You didn't see me steal it! You ain't never a goin' to gi' me in
+charge?
+
+_James_. Wrong again, young un! That's? percisely what I am a goin' to
+do!
+
+_Bill_. Oh, sir! please, sir! I'm a honest boy. It's the Bible-truth.
+I'll kiss twenty books on it.
+
+_James_. I won't ax you.--Why, sir, he ain't even one o' the
+shoe-brigade. He 'ain't got a red coat. Bless my soul! he 'ain't even
+got a box--nothin' but a scrubby pair o' brushes as I'm alive! He ain't
+no shoeblack. He's a thief as purtends to black shoes, and picks
+pockets.
+
+_Bill_. You're a liar! I never picked a pocket, in my life.
+
+_James_. Bad language, you see! What more would you have?
+
+_Tho._ Who'd iver lia' thowt o' sich wickedness in a boy like that!
+
+_Bill_. I ain't a wicked boy, no. Nay, doan't thae tell mo that! Thae
+made gam of mo, and hurried and scurried mo, as iv aw'd been a mak ov a
+deevil--yo did.
+
+_James_. He's one of the worst boys I know. This Timothy is one of the
+very worst boys in all London.
+
+_Bill (aside_). Timothy, eh? I twigs! It's Rainbow, by Peter and
+Paul!--Look y'e here, old gen'leman! This 'ere's a bad cove as is takin'
+adwantage o' your woolliness. _I_ knows him. His master guv me the
+suvering. He guv it to me to tell him where your Mattie was.
+
+_James_. Don't you fancy you're g' in' to take in an experienced old
+gen'leman like that with your cock-and-bull stories! Come along, I say.
+Hey! Police!
+
+_Bill_. Here you are! _(Takes the coin from his mouth, rubs it dry on
+his jacket, and offers it._) I don't want it. Give it to old Hunx
+there.--He shan't never see his Mattie! I wur right to chivy him, arter
+all.
+
+_James (taking the coin_). Now look here, Timothy. I'm a detective
+hofficer. But I won't never be hard on no buy as wants to make a honest
+livin'. So you be hoff! I'll show the old gen'leman where he wants to
+go to.
+
+    BILL _moves two paces, and takes a sight at him_.
+
+_Tho._ The Lord be praised! Dosto know eawr Mattie then?
+
+_James_. It's the dooty of a detective hofficer to know every girl in
+his beat.
+
+_Bill_. My eye! there's a oner!
+
+_Tho._ Tak mo to her, sir, an' aw'll pray for yo.
+
+_James_. I will.--If I cotch you nearer than Mile End, I'll give you in
+charge at oncet.
+
+_Bill (bolting five yards_). He's a humbug, daddy! but he'll serve you
+right. He'll melt you down for taller. He ain't no 'tective. I know him.
+
+_Tho._ Goo away.
+
+_Bill_. Good-bye, daddy! He don't know your Mattie. Good-bye,
+skelington! _Exit_.
+
+_Tho._ Eh! sech a boy!
+
+_James_. Let me see. You want a girl of the name of Mattie?
+
+_Tho._ Aw do, sir.
+
+_James_. The name is not an oncommon one. There's Mattie Kent?
+
+_Tho._ Nay; it's noan o' her.
+
+_James_. Then there's Mattie Winchfield?
+
+_Tho._ Nay; it's noan o' her.
+
+_James_. Then there's Mattie Pearson?
+
+_Tho._ Yigh, that's hoo! That's hoo! Wheer? Wheer?
+
+_James_. Well, it's too far for a man of your age to walk. But I'll call
+a cab, and we'll go comfortable.
+
+_Tho._ But aw connot affoord to peigh for a cab--as yo co it.
+
+_James_. You don't suppose I'm a goin' to put an honest man like you to
+expense!
+
+_Tho._ It's but raysonable I should peigh. But thae knows best.
+
+_James_. Hey! Cab there! _Exeunt_.
+
+    _Re-enter_ BILL, _following them_.
+
+_Bill_. I'll have an eye of him, though. The swell as give me the
+yellow-boy--he's his master! Poor old codger! He'll believe any cove
+but the one as tells him the truth!
+
+    _Exit_.
+
+    _Enter from the house_ MRS. CLIFFORD. _Enter from opposite side_
+    COL. G.
+
+_Col. G._ I was just coming to see you, Clara.
+
+_Mrs. C._ And I was going to see you. How's Arthur to-day? I thought you
+would have come yesterday.
+
+_Col. G._ My poor boy is as dependent on me as if I were _not_ his
+father. I am very anxious about him. The fever keeps returning.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Fortune seems to have favoured your mad scheme, Walter.
+
+_Col. G._ Or something better than fortune.
+
+_Mrs. C._ You have had rare and ample opportunity. You may end the farce
+when you please, and in triumph.
+
+_Col. G._ On the contrary, Clara, it would be nothing but an anticlimax
+to end what you are pleased to call _the farce_ now. As if I could make
+a merit of nursing my own boy! I did more for my black servant. I wish I
+had him here.
+
+_Mrs. C._ You would like to double the watch--would you?
+
+_Col. G._ Something has vexed you, Clara.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I never liked the scheme, and I like it less every day.
+
+_Col. G._ I have had no chance yet. He has been ill all the time. I wish
+you would come and see him a little oftener.
+
+_Mrs. C._ He doesn't want me. You are everything now. Besides, I can't
+come alone.
+
+_Col G._ Why not?
+
+_Mrs. C._ Constance would fancy I did not want to take her.
+
+_Col. G._ Then why not take her?
+
+_Mrs. C._ I have my reasons.
+
+_Col. G._ What are they?
+
+_Mrs. C._ Never mind.
+
+_Col. G._ I insist upon knowing them.
+
+_Mrs. C._ It would break my heart, Walter, to quarrel with you, but I
+_will_ if you use such an expression.
+
+_Col. G._ But why shouldn't you bring Miss Lacordère with you?
+
+_Mrs. C._ He's but a boy, and it might put some nonsense in his head.
+
+_Col. G._ She's a fine girl. You make a friend of her.
+
+_Mrs. C._ She's a good girl, and a lady-like girl; but I don't want to
+meddle with the bulwarks of society. I hope to goodness they will last
+_my_ time.
+
+_Col. G._ Clara, I begin to doubt whether pride _be_ a Christian virtue.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I see! You'll be a radical before long. _Every_thing is going
+that way.
+
+_Col. G._ I don't care what I am, so I do what's right. I'm sick of all
+that kind of thing. What I want is bare honesty. I believe I'm a tory as
+yet, but I should be a radical to-morrow if I thought justice lay on
+that side.--If a man falls in love with a woman, why shouldn't he marry
+her?
+
+_Mrs. C._ She may be unfit for him.
+
+_Col. G._ How should he fall in love with her, then? Men don't fall in
+love with birds.
+
+_Mrs. C._ It's a risk--a great risk.
+
+_Col. G._ None the greater that he pleases himself, and all the more
+worth taking. I wish my poor boy--
+
+_Mrs. C._ Your poor boy might please himself and yet not succeed in
+pleasing you, brother!
+
+_Col. G. (aside_). She _knows_ something.--I must go and see about his
+dinner. Good-bye, sister.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Good-bye, then. You will have your own way!
+
+_Col. G._ This once, Clara. _Exeunt severally_.
+
+END OF ACT II.
+
+
+
+
+ACT III.
+
+SCENE.--_A garret-room_. MATTIE. SUSAN.
+
+
+_Mat_. At the worst we've got to die some day, Sue, and I don't know but
+hunger may be as easy a way as another.
+
+_Sus_. I'd rather have a choice, though. And it's not hunger I would
+choose.
+
+_Mat_. There are worse ways.
+
+_Sus_. Never mind: we don't seem likely to be bothered wi' choosin'.
+
+_Mat_. There's that button-hole done. (_Lays down her work with a
+sigh, and leans back in her chair_.)
+
+_Sus_. I'll take it to old Nathan. It'll be a chop a-piece. It's
+wonderful what a chop can do to hearten you up.
+
+_Mat_. I don't think we ought to buy chops, dear. We must be content
+with bread, I think.
+
+_Sus_. Bread, indeed!
+
+_Mat_. Well, it's something to eat.
+
+_Sus_. Do you call it eatin' when you see a dog polishin' a bone?
+
+_Mat_. Bread's very good with a cup of tea.
+
+_Sus_. Tea, indeed! Fawn-colour, trimmed with sky-blue!--If you'd
+mentioned lobster-salad and sherry, now!
+
+_Mat_. I never tasted lobster-salad.
+
+_Sus_. I have, though; and I do call lobster-salad good. You don't care
+about your wittles: _I_ do. When I'm hungry, I'm not at all comfortable.
+
+_Mat_. Poor dear Sue! There is a crust in the cupboard.
+
+_Sus_. I _can't_ eat crusts. I want summat nice. I ain't dyin' of
+'unger. It's only I'm peckish. _Very_ peckish, though. I could eat--let
+me see what I _could_ eat:--I could eat a lobster-salad, and two dozen
+oysters, and a lump of cake, and a wing and a leg of a chicken--if it
+was a spring chicken, with watercreases round it--and a Bath-bun, and a
+sandwich; and in fact I don't know what I couldn't eat, except just that
+crust in the cupboard. And I do believe I could drink a whole bottle of
+champagne.
+
+_Mat_. I don't know what one of those things tastes like--scarce one;
+and I don't believe you do either.
+
+_Sus_. Don't I?--I never did taste champagne, but I've seen them eating
+lobster-salad many a time;--girls not half so good-lookin' as you or me,
+Mattie, and fine gentlemen a waitin' upon 'em. Oh dear! I _am_ so
+hungry! Think of having your supper with a real gentleman as talks to
+you as if you was fit to talk to--not like them Jew-tailors, as tosses
+your work about as if it dirtied their fingers--and them none so clean
+for all their fine rings!
+
+_Mat_. I saw Nathan's Joseph in a pastrycook's last Saturday, and a very
+pretty girl with him, poor thing!
+
+_Sus_. Oh the hussy to let that beast pay for her!
+
+_Mat_. I suppose she was hungry.
+
+_Sus_. I'd die before I let a snob like that treat _me_. No, Mattie! I
+spoke of a _real_ gentleman.
+
+_Mat_. Are you sure you wouldn't take Nathan's Joseph for a gentleman if
+he was civil to you?
+
+_Sus_. Thank you, miss! I know a sham from a real gentleman the moment I
+set eyes on him.
+
+_Mat_. What do you mean by a real gentleman, Susan?
+
+_Sus_. A gentleman as makes a lady of his girl.
+
+_Mat_. But what sort of lady, Sue? The poor girl may fancy herself a
+lady, but only till she's left in the dirt. That sort of gentleman makes
+fine speeches to your face, and calls you horrid names behind your back.
+Sue, dear, don't have a word to say to one of them--if he speaks ever so
+soft.
+
+_Sus_. Lawks, Mattie! they ain't all one sort.
+
+_Mat_. You won't have more than one sort to choose from. They may be
+rough or civil, good-natured or bad, but they're all the same in this,
+that not one of them cares a pin more for you than if you was a
+horse--no--nor half a quarter so much. Don't for God's sake have a word
+to say to one of them. If I die, Susan--
+
+_Sus_. If you do, Matilda--if you go and do that thing, I'll take to
+gin--that's what I'll do. Don't say I didn't act fair, and tell you
+beforehand.
+
+_Mat_. How can I help dying, Susan?
+
+_Sus_. I say, Don't do it, Mattie. We'll fall out, if you do. Don't do
+it, Matilda--La! there's that lumping Bill again--_al_ways a comin' up
+the stair when you don't want him!
+
+    _Enter_ BILL.
+
+_Mat_. Well, Bill, how have you been getting on?
+
+_Bill_. Pretty tollol, Mattie. But I can't go on so. (_Holds out his
+stool_.) It ain't respectable.
+
+_Mat_. What ain't respectable? Everything's respectable that's honest.
+
+_Bill_. Why, who ever saw a respectable shiner goin' about with a
+three-legged stool for a blackin' box? It ain't the thing. The rig'lars
+chaffs me fit to throw it at their 'eads, they does--only there's too
+many on 'em, an' I've got to dror it mild. A box I must have, or a
+feller's ockypation's gone. Look ye here! One bob, one tanner, and a
+joey! There! that's what comes of never condescending to an 'a'penny.
+
+_Sus_. Bless us! what mighty fine words we've got a waitin' on us!
+
+_Bill_. If I 'ave a weakness, Miss Susan, it's for the right word in
+the right place--as the coster said to the devil-dodger as blowed him
+up for purfane swearin'.--When a gen'leman hoffers me an 'a'penny, I
+axes him in the purlitest manner I can assume, to oblige me by givin'
+of it to the first beggar he may 'ave the good fort'n to meet. _Some_
+on 'em throws down the 'a'penny. Most on 'em makes it a penny.--But I
+say, Mattie, you don't want nobody arter you--do you now?
+
+_Mat_. I don't know what you mean by that, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. You don't want a father--do you now? Do she, Susan?
+
+_Sus_. We want no father a hectorin' here, Bill. You 'ain't seen one
+about, have you?
+
+_Bill_. I seen a rig'lar swell arter Mattie, anyhow.
+
+_Mat_. What do you mean, Bill? Bill. A rig'lar swell--I repeats it--a
+astin' arter a young woman by the name o' Mattie.
+
+_Sus_. (_pulling him aside_). Hold your tongue, Bill! You'll kill her!
+You young viper! Hold your tongue, or I'll twist your neck. Don't you
+see how white she is?
+
+_Mat_. What was he like? Do tell me, Bill.
+
+_Bill_. A long-legged rig'lar swell, with a gold chain, and a cane with
+a hivory 'andle.
+
+_Sus_. He's a bad man, Bill, and Mattie can't abide him. If you tell him
+where she is, she'll never speak to you again.
+
+_Mat_. Oh, Susan! what _shall_ I do? Don't bring him here, Bill. I shall
+have to run away again; and I can't, for we owe a week's rent.
+
+_Sus_. There, Bill!
+
+_Bill_. Don't you be afeard, Mattie. He shan't touch you. Nor the old
+one neither.
+
+_Mat_. There wasn't an old man with him?--not an old man with a long
+stick?
+
+_Bill_. Not with _him_. Daddy was on his own hook?
+
+_Mat_. It must have been my father, Susan. (_Sinks back on her chair_.)
+
+_Sus_. 'Tain't the least likely.--There, Bill! I always said you was no
+good! You've killed her.
+
+_Bill_. Mattie! Mattie! I didn't tell him where you was.
+
+_Mat_. (_reviving_). Run and fetch him, Bill--there's a dear! Oh! how
+proud I've been! If mother did say a hard word, she didn't mean it--not
+for long. Run, Bill, run and fetch him.
+
+_Bill_. Mattie, I was a fetchin' of him, but he wouldn't trust me. And
+didn't he cut up crusty, and collar me tight! He's a game old cock--he
+is, Mattie.
+
+_Mat_. (_getting up and pacing about the room_). Oh, Susan! my heart'll
+break. To think he's somewhere near and I can't get to him! Oh my side!
+_Don't_ you know where he is, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. He's someveres about, and blow me if I don't, find him!--a
+respectable old party in a white pinny, an' 'peared as if he'd go on a
+walkin' till he walked hisself up staudin'. A scrumptious old party!
+
+_Mat_. Had he a stick, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. Yes--a knobby stick--leastways a stick wi' knobs all over it.
+
+_Mat_. That's him, Susan!
+
+_Bill_. I could swear to the stick. I was too near gittin' at the taste
+on it not to know it again.
+
+_Mat_. When was it you saw him, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. Yesterday, Mattie--jest arter you give me the tart. I sawr him
+again this mornin', but he wouldn't place no confidence in me.
+
+_Mat_. Oh dear! Why didn't you come straight to me, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. If I'd only ha' known as you wanted him! But that was sech a
+_un_likely thing! It's werry perwokin'! I uses my judgment, an' puts
+my hoof in it! I _am_ sorry, Mattie. But I didn't know no better
+(_crying_).
+
+_Mat_. Don't cry, Bill. You'll find him for me yet--won't you?
+
+_Bill_. I'm off this indentical minute. But you see--
+
+_Sus_. There! there!--now you mizzle. _I_ don't want no fathers
+here--goodness knows; but the poor girl's took a fancy to hers, and
+she'll die if she don't get him. Run now--there's a good boy! (_Exit_
+BILL.) You 'ain't forgotten who's a comin', Mattie?
+
+_Mat_. No, indeed.
+
+_Sus_. Well, I hope she'll be civil, or I'll just give her a bit of my
+mind.
+
+_Mat_. Not enough to change hers, I'm afraid. That sort of thing never
+does any good.
+
+_Sus_. And am I to go a twiddlin' of my thumbs, and sayin' _yes, ma'am_,
+an' _no, ma'am_? Not if I knows it, Matilda!
+
+_Mat_. You will only make her the more positive in her ill opinion of
+us.
+
+_Sus_. An' what's that to me?
+
+_Mat_. Well, I don't like to be thought a thief. Besides, Mrs. Clifford
+has been kind to us.
+
+_Sus_. She's paid us for work done; so has old Nathan.
+
+_Mat_. Did old Nathan ever give you a glass of wine when you took home
+his slops?
+
+_Sus_. Oh! that don't cost much; and besides, she takes it out in
+kingdom-come.
+
+_Mat_. You're unfair, Susan.
+
+_Sus_. Well, it's little fairness I get.
+
+_Mat_. And to set that right you're unfair yourself! What you call
+speaking your mind, is as cheap, and as nasty, as the worst shoddy old
+Nathan ever got gobble-stitched into coats and trousers.
+
+_Sus_. Very well, Miss Matilda! (_rising and snatching her bonnet_). The
+sooner we part the better! You stick by your fine friends! I don't care
+_that_ for them! (_snapping her fingers_)--and you may tell 'em so! I
+can make a livin' without them or you either. Goodness gracious knows it
+ain't much of a livin' I've made sin' I come across _you_, Miss! _Exit_.
+
+_Mat_ (_trying to rise_). Susan! Susan! (_Lays her head on the table_).
+
+    _A tap at the door, and enter_ MRS. CLIFFORD, _with_ JAMES _behind_.
+    MATTIE _rises_.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Wait on the landing, James.
+
+_James_. Yes, ma'am.
+
+    _Exit_ JAMES, _leaving the door a little ajar_.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Well, Miss Pearson! (_Mattie offers a chair_.) No, thank you.
+That person is still with you, I see!
+
+_Mat_. Indeed, ma'am, she's an honest girl.
+
+_Mrs. C._ She is a low creature, and capable of anything. I advise you
+to get rid of her.
+
+_Mat_. Was she rude on the stair, ma'am?
+
+_Mrs. C._ Rude! Vulgar--quite vulgar! Insulting!
+
+_Mat_. I am very sorry. But, believe me, ma'am, she is an honest girl,
+and never pawned that work. It was done--every stitch of it; and the
+loss of the money is hard upon us too. Indeed, ma'am, she did lose the
+parcel.
+
+_Mrs. C._ You have only her word for it. If you don't give _her_ up, I
+give _you_ up.
+
+_Mat_. I can't, ma'am. She might go into bad ways if I did.
+
+_Mrs. C._ She can't well get into worse. Her language! You would do ever
+so much better without her.
+
+_Mat_. I daren't, ma'am. I should never get it off my conscience.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Your conscience indeed! (_rising_). I wish you a good morning,
+Miss Pearson.--(_Sound of a blow, followed by scuffling_.)--What is
+that? I fear I have got into an improper place.
+
+    SUSAN _bursts in_.
+
+_Sus_. Yes, ma'am, and that you have! It's a _wery_ improper place for
+the likes o' you, ma'am--as believes all sorts o' wicked things of
+people as is poor. Who are you to bring your low flunkies a-listenin'
+at honest girls' doors! (_Turning to James in the doorway_.) Get out,
+will you? Let me catch you here again, and I'll mark you that the devil
+wouldn't know his own! You dirty Paul Pry--you! (_Falls on her knees to
+Mattie_.) Mattie, you angel!
+
+_Mat_. (_trying to make her get up_) Never mind. It's all right between
+you and me, Susan.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I see! I thought as much!
+
+_Sus_. (_starting up_) As much as what, then, my lady? Oh, _I_ know you
+and your sort--well enough! We're the dirt under your feet--lucky if we
+stick to your shoes! But this room's mine.
+
+_Mrs. C._ That linen was mine, young woman, I believe.
+
+_Sus_. An' it's for that miserable parcel you come a-talkin', an'
+abusin' as no lady ought to! How dare you look that angel in the face
+there an' say she stole it--which you're not fit to lace her boots for
+her! There!
+
+_Mat_. Susan! Susan! do be quiet.
+
+_Sus_. It's all very well for the likes o' me (_courtesying
+spitefully_)--which I'm no better'n I should be, and a great deal worse,
+if I'm on my oath to your ladyship--that's neither here nor there!--but
+_she's_ better'n a van-load o' sich ladies as you, pryin' into other
+people's houses, with yer bibles, an' yer religion, an' yer flunkies!
+_I_ know ye! I _do_!
+
+_Mat_. Don't, Susan.
+
+_Sus_. Why don't ye go an' pay twopence a week to somebody to learn ye
+good manners? I been better brought up myself.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I see I was wrong: I ought at once to have handed the matter
+over to the police.
+
+_Sus_. The perlice, indeed!--You get out of this, ma'am, or I'll make
+you!--you and your cowardly man-pup there, as is afraid to look me in
+the face through the crack o' the door! Get out, I say, with
+your--_insolence_--that's your word!
+
+    _Exit_ MRS. CLIFFORD.
+
+_Mat_. Susan! Susan! what is to become of us?
+
+_Sus_. She daren't do it--the old scrooge! But just let her try it on!
+See if I don't show her up afore the magistrate! Mattie! I'll work my
+fingers to the bone for you. I would do worse, only you won't let me.
+I'll go to the court, and tell the magistrate you're a-dyin' of hunger,
+which it's as true as gospel.
+
+_Mat_. They'd send me to the workhouse, Sukey.
+
+_Sus_. There _must_ be some good people somewheres, Mattie.
+
+_Mat_. Yes; if we could get at them. But we can live till we die, Sukey.
+
+_Sus_. I'll go and list for a soldier, I will. Women ha' done it afore.
+It's quite respectable, so long as they don't find you out--and they
+shouldn't me. There's ne'er a one o' the redcoats 'ill cut up rougher
+'n I shall--barrin' the beard, and _that_ don't go for much now-a-days.
+
+_Mat_. And what should I do without you, Susan?
+
+_Sus_. Do you care to have me, then?
+
+_Mat_. That I do, indeed. But you shouldn't have talked like that to
+Mrs. Clifford. Ladies ain't used to such words. They sound worse than
+they are--quite dreadful, to them. She don't know your kind heart as I
+do. Besides, the _look_ of things is against us. Ain't it now? Say
+yourself.
+
+_Sus_. (_starting up_) I'll go and beg her pardon. I'll go direckly--I
+will. I swear I will. I can't abear her, but I'll do it. I believe
+hunger has nigh drove me mad.
+
+_Mat_. It takes all the madness out of me.--No, Susan; we must bear it
+now. Come along. We can be miserable just as well working. There's your
+sleeve. I'll thread your needle for you. Don't cry--there's a dear!
+
+_Sus_. I _will_ cry. It's all I ever could do to my own mind, and it's
+all as is left me. But if I could get my claws on that lovyer o' yours,
+I wouldn't cry then. He's at the bottom of it! I don't see myself what's
+the use of fallin' in love. One man's as much of a fool as another to
+me. But you must go to bed. You ain't fit. You'll be easier when you've
+got your frock off. There! Why, child, you're all of a tremble!--And no
+wonder, wi' nothing on her blessed body but her frock and her shimmy!
+
+_Mat_. Don't take off my frock, Sue. I must get on with my work.
+
+_Sus_. Lie down a bit, anyhow. I'll lie at your back, and you'll soon be
+as warm's a toast. (MAT. _lies down_.) O Lord! she's dead! Her heart's
+stopped beatin'. (_Runs out of the room_.)
+
+    _A moment of silence. A tap at the door_.
+
+    CONSTANCE _peeps in, then enters, with a basket_.
+
+_Con_. Miss Pearson!--She's asleep. (_Goes near_.) Good heavens!
+(_Lays her hand on her_.) No. (_Takes a bottle from her basket, finds
+a cup, and pours into it_.) Take this, Miss Pearson; it will do you
+good. There now! You'll find something else in the basket.
+
+_Mat_. I don't want anything. I had so nearly got away! Why did you
+bring me back?
+
+_Con_. Life is good!
+
+_Mat_. It is _not_ good. How dare you do it? Why keep a miserable
+creature alive? Life ain't to us what it is to you. The grave is the
+only place _we_ have any right to.
+
+_Con_. If I could make your life worth something to you--
+
+_Mat_. You make my life worth to me! You don't know what you're saying,
+miss. (_Sitting up_.)
+
+_Con_. I think I do.
+
+_Mat_. I will _not_ owe my life to you. I _could_ love you, though--your
+hands are so white, and your look so brave. That's what comes of being
+born a lady. We never have a chance.
+
+_Con_. Miss Pearson--Mattie, I would call you, if you wouldn't be
+offended--
+
+_Mat_. Me offended, miss!--I've not got life enough for it. I only want
+my father and my mother, and a long sleep.--If I had been born rich--
+
+_Con_. You might have been miserable all the same. Listen, Mattie. I
+will tell you _my_ story--I was once as badly off as you--worse in some
+ways--ran about the streets without shoes to my feet, and hardly a frock
+to cover me.
+
+_Mat_. La, miss! you don't say so! It's not possible! Look at you!
+
+_Con_. Indeed, I tell you the truth. I know what hunger is too--well
+enough. My father was a silkweaver in Spitalfields. When he died, I
+didn't know where to go. But a gentleman--
+
+_Mat_. Oh! a gentleman!--(_Fiercely_.) Why couldn't you be content with
+_one_, then?
+
+_Con_. I don't understand you.
+
+_Mat_. I dare say not! There! take your basket. I'll die afore a morsel
+passes _my_ lips. There! Go away, miss.
+
+_Con_. (_aside_). Poor girl! she is delirious. I must ask William to
+fetch a doctor. _Exit_.
+
+_Mat_. I wish my hands were as white as hers.
+
+    _Enter_ SUSAN, _followed by_ COL. G. CONSTANCE _behind_.
+
+_Sus_. Mattie! dear Mattie! this gentleman--don't be vexed--I couldn't
+help him bein' a gentleman; I was cryin' that bad, and I didn't see no
+one come up to me, and when he spoke to me, it made me jump, and I
+couldn't help answerin' of him--he spoke so civil and soft like, and
+me nigh mad! I thought you was dead, Mattie. He says he'll see us
+righted, Mattie.
+
+_Col. G._ I'll do what I can, if you will tell me what's amiss.
+
+_Sus_. Oh, everything's amiss--everything!--Who was that went out,
+Mattie--this minute--as we come in?
+
+_Mat_. Miss Lacordère.
+
+_Sus_. Her imperence! Well! I should die of shame if I was her.
+
+_Mat_. She's an angel, Susan. There's her basket. I told her to take
+it away, but she would leave it.
+
+_Sus_. (_peeping into the basket_). Oh, my! Ain't this nice? You
+_must_ have a bit, Mattie.
+
+_Mat_. Not one mouthful. You wouldn't have me, Susan!
+
+_Sus_. _I_ ain't so peticlar (_eating a great mouthful_). You really
+must, Mattie. (_Goes on eating_.)
+
+_Col. G._ Don't tease her. We'll get something for her presently. And
+don't you eat too much--all at once.
+
+_Sus_. I think she'd like a chop, sir.--There's that boy, Bill,
+again!--Always when he ain't wanted!
+
+    _Enter_ BILL.
+
+_Bill_ (_aside to Susan_). What's the row? What's that 'ere gent up
+to? I've been an' had enough o' gents. They're a bad lot. I been too
+much for one on 'em, though. I ha' run _him_ down.--And, Mattie, I've
+found the old gen'leman.
+
+_Mat_. My father, Bill?
+
+_Bill_. That's it percisely! Right as a trivet--he is!
+
+_Mat_. Susan! take hold of me. My heart's going again.
+
+_Bill_. Lord! what's up wi' Mattie? She do look dreadful.
+
+_Sus_. You been an' upset her, you clumsy boy! Here--run and fetch a
+sausage or two, and a--
+
+_Col. G._ No, no! That will never do.
+
+_Sus_. Them's for Bill and me, sir. I was a goin' on, sir.--And, Bill,
+a chop--a nice chop. But Lord! how are we to cook it, with never a
+fryin'-pan, or a bit o' fire to set it on!
+
+_Col. G._ You'd never think of doing a chop for an invalid in the
+frying-pan?
+
+_Sus_. Certainly not, sir--we 'ain't got one. Everything's up the
+spout an' over the top. Run, Bill. A bit of cold chicken, and two
+pints o' bottled stout. There's the money the gen'leman give me.--'T
+'ain't no Miss Lackodare's, Mattie.
+
+_Bill_. I'll trouble no gen'leman to perwide for _my_ family--obleeged
+all the same, sir. Mattie never wos a dub at dewourin', but I'll get
+her some'at toothsome. I favours grub myself.
+
+_Col. G._ I'll go with you, Bill. I want to talk to you.
+
+_Bill_. Well, I 'ain't no objection--so be you wants to talk friendly,
+sir.
+
+_Col. G._ Good night. I'll come and see you to-morrow.
+
+_Sus_. God bless you, sir. You've saved both on our lives. I _was_ a
+goin' to drown myself, Mattie--I really was this time. Wasn't I, sir?
+
+_Col. G._ Well, you looked like it--that is all I can say. You shall
+do it next time--so far as I'm concerned.
+
+_Sus_. I won't never no more again, sir--not if Mattie don't drive me
+to it.
+
+_Con_. (_to_ COL. G.). Come back for me in a little while.
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, miss. Come, Bill. _Exit_.
+
+_Bill_. All right, sir. I'm a follerin', as the cat said to the
+pigeon. _Exit_.
+
+_Sus_. I'll just go and get you a cup o' tea. Mrs. Jones's kettle's
+sure to be a bilin'. That's what you would like.
+
+    _Exit_. _Constance steps aside, and Susan passes without seeing her_.
+
+_Mat_. Oh! to be a baby again in my mother's arms! But it'll soon be
+over now.
+
+    CONSTANCE _comes forward_.
+
+_Con_. I hope you're a little better now?
+
+_Mat_. You're very kind, miss; and I beg your pardon for speaking to
+you as I did.
+
+_Con_. Don't say a word about it. You didn't quite know what you were
+saying. I'm in trouble myself. I don't know how soon I may be worse
+off than you.
+
+_Mat_. Why, miss, I thought you were going to be married!
+
+_Con_. No, I am not.
+
+_Mat_. Why, miss, what's happened. He's never going to play _you_
+false--is he?
+
+_Con_. I don't mean ever to speak to him again?
+
+_Mat_. What has he done to offend you, miss?
+
+_Con_. Nothing. Only I know now I don't like him. To tell you the
+truth, Mattie, he's not a gentleman.
+
+_Mat_. Not a gentleman, miss! How dare you say so?
+
+_Con_. Do _you_ know anything about him? Did you ever see him?
+
+_Mat_. Yes.
+
+_Con_. Where?
+
+_Mat_. Once at your house.
+
+_Con_. Oh! I remember--that time! I begin to--It couldn't be at the
+sight of him you fainted, Mattie?--You knew him? Tell me! tell me!
+Make me sure of it.
+
+_Mat_. To give you your revenge! No. It's a mean spite to say he ain't
+a gentleman.
+
+_Con_. Perhaps you and I have different ideas of what goes to make a
+gentleman.
+
+_Mat_. Very likely.
+
+_Con_. Oh! don't be vexed, Mattie. I didn't mean to hurt you.
+
+_Mat_. Oh! I dare say!
+
+_Con_. If you talk to me like that, I must go.
+
+_Mat_. I never asked you to come.
+
+_Con_. Well, I did want to be friendly with you. I wouldn't hurt you
+for the world.
+
+_Mat_. (_bursting into tears_) I beg your pardon, miss. I'm behaving
+like a brute. But you must forgive me; my heart is breaking.
+
+_Con_. Poor dear! (_kissing her_) So is mine almost. Let us be
+friends. Where's Susan gone?
+
+_Mat_. To fetch me a cup of tea. She'll be back directly.
+
+_Con_. Don't let her say bad words: I can't bear them. I think it's
+because I was so used to them once--in the streets, I mean--not at
+home--never at home.
+
+_Mat_. She don't often, miss. She's a good-hearted creature. It's only
+when hunger makes her cross. She don't like to be hungry.
+
+_Con_. I should think not, poor girl!
+
+_Mat_. Don't mind what she says, please. If you say nothing, she'll
+come all right. When she's spoken her mind, she feels better. Here she
+comes!
+
+    _Re-enter_ SUSAN. _It begins to grow dark_.
+
+_Sus_. Well, and who have we got here?
+
+_Mat_. Miss Lacordère, Sukey.
+
+_Sus_. There's no lack o' dare about _her_, to come here!
+
+_Mat_. It's very kind of her to come, Susan.
+
+_Sus_. I tell you what, miss: that parcel was stole. It _was_ stole,
+miss!--stole from me--an' that angel there a dyin' in the street!
+
+_Con_. I'm quite sure of it, Susan. I never thought anything else.
+
+_Sus_. Not but I allow it was a pity, miss!--I'm very sorry. But,
+bless you! (_lighting a candle_)--with all _your_ fine clothes--! My!
+you look like a theayter-queen--you do, miss! If you was to send
+_them_ up the spout now!--My! what a lot they'd let you have on that
+silk!
+
+_Con_. The shawl is worth a good deal, I believe. It's an Indian
+one--all needlework.
+
+_Sus_. And the bee-utiful silk! Laws, miss! just shouldn't I like to
+wear a frock like that! I _should_ be hard up before I pledged _that_!
+But the shawl! If I was you, miss, I would send 'most everything up
+before that!--things inside, you know, miss--where it don't matter so
+much.
+
+_Con_. (_laughing_) The shawl would be the first thing I should part
+with. I would rather be nice inside than out.
+
+_Sus_. Lawk, miss! I shouldn't wonder if that was one of the differs
+now! Well, I never! It ain't seen! It must be one o' the differs!
+
+_Con_. What differs? I don't understand you.
+
+_Sus_. The differs 'tween girls an' ladies--girls like me an' real
+ladies like you.
+
+_Con_. Oh, I see! But how dark it has got! What can be keeping
+William? I must go at once, or what will my aunt say! Would you mind
+going with me a little bit, Susan?
+
+_Sus_. I'll go with pleasure, miss.
+
+_Con_. Just a little way, I mean, till we get to the wide streets. You
+couldn't lend me an old cloak, could you?
+
+_Sus_. I 'ain't got one stitch, miss, but what I stand up in--'cep' it
+be a hodd glove an' 'alf a pocket-'an'kercher. Nobody 'ill know you.
+
+_Con_. But I oughtn't to be out dressed like this.
+
+_Sus_. You've only got to turn up your skirt over your head, miss.
+
+_Con_. (_drawing up her skirt_) I never thought of that!
+
+_Sus_. Well, I never!
+
+_Con_. What's the matter?
+
+_Sus_. Only the whiteness o' the linin' as took my breath away, miss.
+It ain't no use turnin' of _it_ up: you'll look like a lady whatever
+you do to hide it. But never mind: that ain't no disgrace so long as
+you don't look down on the rest of us. There, miss! There you are--fit
+for a play! Come along; I'll take care of you. Lawks! I'm as good as a
+man--_I_ am!
+
+_Con_. Good-bye then, Mattie.
+
+_Mat_. Good-bye, miss. God bless you.
+
+    _Exeunt_.
+
+END OF ACT III.
+
+
+
+
+ACT IV.
+
+SCENE.--_The Studio_.
+
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G. _Walks about restless and eager_.
+
+_Col. G._ Thank heaven! If Bill has found Mr. Warren now,--_Exit_.
+
+    _Enter_ WARREN.
+
+_War_. What can the fellow be up to? There's something odd about
+him--something I don't like--but it can't mean mischief when he sends
+for me. Where could Gervaise have picked him up?--Nobody here?
+
+    _Re-enter_ COL. G. _and hurries to him with outstretched hand_.
+
+_Col. G._ My dear sir! I am greatly obliged to you. This is very kind.
+
+_War_. (_stepping back_) Excuse me.--I do not understand.
+
+_Col. G._ I beg your pardon. I ought to have explained.
+
+_War_. I believe something of the sort _is_ necessary.
+
+_Col. G._ You are my master's friend.
+
+_War_. I should be proud of the honour. Can I be of any service to
+him?
+
+_Col. G._ I believe I can trust you. I _will_ trust you--I am his
+father.
+
+_War_. Whose father? Belzebub's?
+
+_Col. G._ Arthur's--your friend Gervaise's. I am Sir Walter Gervaise.
+You must help me to help him.
+
+    WARREN _regards him for a moment_.
+
+_War_. (_stiffly_) Sir Walter, I owe your son much--you nothing yet. I
+am _his_ friend.
+
+_Col. G._ There is not a moment to lose. Listen. An old man came about
+the place a few weeks ago, looking for his daughter. He has been got
+out of the way, but I have learned where he is: I want you to bring
+him.
+
+_War_. I would serve your son blindfold: _you_ must excuse me if I
+wish to understand first.
+
+_Col. G._ Arthur is in trouble. He has a secret.--God forgive me!--I
+feared it was a bad one.
+
+_War_. You don't know him as I do!
+
+_Col. G._ I know him now--and can help him. Only I can't _prove_
+anything yet. I must have the old man. I've found his daughter, and
+suspect the villain: if I can bring the three together, all will come
+out, sure enough. The boy I sent for you will take you to the father.
+He will trust you, and come. (_Bell rings_.) I must go to Arthur now.
+_Exit_.
+
+_War_. What a strange old fellow! An officer--and disguise himself!
+
+    _Enter_ BILL.
+
+_Bill_. Here you are, sir!
+
+_War_. No vast amount of information in that statement, my boy!
+
+_Bill_. Well, sir--here _I_ are, sir.
+
+_War_. That _is_ a trifle more to the point, though scarcely requiring
+mention.
+
+_Bill_. Then, here _we_ are, sir.
+
+_War_. That'll do--if you know what comes next?
+
+_Bill_. I do, sir.
+
+_War_. Go on, then.
+
+_Bill_. Here goes! Come along, sir. You'll have to take a bobby,
+though.
+
+_War_. We'll see about that. You go on.
+
+    _Exeunt_.
+
+    _Enter_ GERVAISE, followed by COL. G.
+
+_Ger._ What a time you have been, William!
+
+_Col. G._ I'm sorry, sir. Did you want anything?
+
+_Ger._ No. But I don't like to be left. You are the only friend I
+have.
+
+_Col. G._ Thank you, sir. A man _must_ do his duty, but it's a comfort
+when his colonel takes notice of it.
+
+_Ger._ Is it _all_ from duty, William? Yet why should I look for more?
+There was a little girl I tried to do my duty by once--My head's
+rather queer still, William.
+
+_Col. G._ Is there nothing to be done, sir?
+
+_Ger._ No; it's here--(_putting his hand to his head_)--inside.
+
+_Col. G._ I meant about the little girl, sir.--I can keep dark as well
+as another.--When there's anything on a man's mind, sir--good _or_
+bad--it's a relief to mention it. If you could trust me--(_A pause_.)
+Men _have_ trusted their servants and not repented it.
+
+_Ger._ No doubt--no doubt. But there is no help for me.
+
+_Col. G._ You cannot be sure of that, sir.
+
+_Ger._ You would help me if you could, I believe.
+
+_Col. G._ God knows I would, sir--to the last drop of my blood.
+
+_Ger._ That's saying much, William. A son couldn't say more--no, nor a
+father either.
+
+_Col. G._ Oh! yes, he could, sir.
+
+_Ger._ And mean it?
+
+_Col. G._ Yes.
+
+_Ger._ If I had a father, William, I would tell him all about it. I
+was but two years old when he left me.
+
+_Col. G._ Then you don't remember him, sir?
+
+_Ger._ I often dream about him, and then I seem to remember him.
+
+_Col. G._ What is he like, sir?--in your dreams, I mean.
+
+_Ger._ I never see him distinctly: I try hard sometimes, but it's no
+use. If he would but come home! I feel as if I could bear anything
+then.--But I'm talking like a girl!
+
+_Col. G._ Where is your father, sir?
+
+_Ger._ In India.
+
+_Col. G._ A soldier, sir?
+
+_Ger._ Yes. Colonel Gervaise--you must have heard of him. Sir Walter
+he is now.
+
+_Col. G._ I've heard of _him_, sir--away in the north parts he's been,
+mostly.
+
+_Ger._ Yes. How I wish he would come home! I would do everything to
+please him. I have it, William! I'll go to India. I did think of going
+to Garibaldi--but I won't--I'll go to India. I _must_ find my father.
+Will you go with me?
+
+_Col. G._ Willingly, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Is there any fighting there now?
+
+_Col. G._ Not at present, I believe.
+
+_Ger._ That's a pity. I would have listed in my father's regiment, and
+then--that is, by the time he found me out--he wouldn't be ashamed of
+me. I've done nothing yet. I'm nobody yet, and what could he do with a
+son that was nobody--a great man like him! A fine son _I_ should be! A
+son ought to be worthy of his father. Don't you think so, William?
+
+_Col. G._ That wouldn't be difficult, sir!--I mean with most fathers.
+
+_Ger._ Ah! but _mine_, you know, William!--Are you good at the cut and
+thrust?
+
+_Col G._ Pretty good, sir, I believe.
+
+_Ger._ Then we'll have a bout or two. I've got rusty.--Have I said
+anything odd--or--or--I mean since I've been ill?
+
+_Col. G._ Nothing you need mind, sir.
+
+_Ger._ I'm glad of that.--I feel as if--(_putting his hand to his
+head_). William! what could you do for a man--if he was your
+friend?--no, I mean, if he was your enemy?
+
+_Col. G._ I daren't say, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Is the sun shining?
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir. It's a lovely day.
+
+_Ger._ What a desert the sky is!--so dreary and wide and waste!--Ah!
+if I might but creep into a hole in a tree, and feel it closing about
+me! How comfortable those toads must feel!
+
+_Col. G._ (_aside_). He's getting light-headed again! I must send for
+the doctor. _Exit_.
+
+_Ger._ But the tree would rot, and the walls grow thin, and the light
+come through. It is crumbling now! And I shall have to meet _her_!
+And then the wedding! Oh my God! (_Starts up and paces about the
+room_.)--It _is_ the only way! My pistols, I think--yes.--(_Goes to
+a table, finds his keys, and unlocks a case_.)--There they are! I may
+as well have a passport at hand! (_Loading one_.)--The delicate
+thunder-tube! (_Turns it over lovingly_.) Solitude and silence! One
+roar and then rest! No--no rest!--still the demon to fight! But no
+eyes to meet and brave!--Who is that in the street?--She is at the
+door--with him!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G. _and seizes his arm_.
+
+_Ger._ (_with a cry_). You've killed my Psyche! (_Goes to the clay,
+and lifts the cloth_.) There's the bullet-hole through her heart!
+
+_Col. G._ It might have been worse, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Worse! I've killed her! See where she flies! She's gone! She's
+gone! (_Bursts into tears_. COL. G. _leads him to the couch_.) Thank
+you, William. I couldn't help it. _That_ man was with her. I meant it
+for myself.
+
+_Col. G._ Who did you say was with her?
+
+_Ger._ You mustn't heed what I say. I am mad. (_A knock. He starts
+up_.) Don't let them in, William. I shall rave if you do.
+
+    COL. G. _catches up the pistols and exit hurriedly_. GER. _throws
+    himself on the couch_.
+
+    _Re-enter_ COL. G.
+
+_Col. G._ (_aside_). He is in love with her! Everything proves it. My
+boy! My boy!
+
+_Ger._ Father! father!--Oh, William! I was dreaming, and took you for
+my father! I _must_ die, William--somehow. There must be some way out
+of this! The doors can't _all_ be locked.
+
+_Col. G._ There's generally a chance to be had, sir. There's always a
+right and a wrong fighting it out somewhere. There's Garibaldi in the
+field again! Die by the hand of an enemy--if you _will_ die, sir.
+
+_Ger._ (_smiling_) That I couldn't, William: the man that killed me
+would be my best friend.--Yes--Garibaldi!--I don't deserve it, though:
+he fights for his country; I should fight but for death. Only a man
+doesn't stop when he dies--does he, William?
+
+_Col. G._ I trust not, sir. But he may hope to be quieter--that is, if
+he dies honestly. It's grand for a soldier! He sweeps on the roaring
+billows of war into a soundless haven! Think of that, sir!
+
+_Ger._ Why, William! how you talk!--Yes! it would be grand! On the
+crest of the war-cataract--heading a cavalry charge!--Tomorrow,
+William. I shall be getting stronger all the way. We'll start
+to-morrow.
+
+_Col. G._ Where for, sir?
+
+_Ger._ For Italy--for Garibaldi. You'll go with me?
+
+_Col. G._ To the death, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Yes; that's it--that's where I'm going. But not to-day. Look at
+my arm: it wouldn't kill a rat!--You saved my life, but I'm not
+grateful. If I was dead, I might be watching her--out of the lovely
+silence!--My poor Psyche!
+
+_Col. G._ She's none the worse, sir. The pistol didn't go off.
+
+_Ger._ Ah!--She ought to have fallen to pieces--long ago! You've been
+seeking to keep her shroud wet. But it's no matter. Let her go. Earth
+to earth, and dust to dust!--the law of Nature--and Art too.
+
+    _Exit into the house_.
+
+_Col. G._ (_following him_) I mustn't lose sight of him.--Here he
+comes again, thank God!
+
+    _Catches up a coat, and begins brushing it_.
+
+    _Re-enter_ GER.
+
+_Ger._ I don't like to see you doing that.
+
+_Col. G._ Why shouldn't I serve my own--superior, sir? Anything's
+better than serving yourself. And that's what every one does who won't
+serve other people.
+
+_Ger._ You are right. And it's so cheap.
+
+_Col. G._ And so nasty!
+
+_Ger._ Right again, William!--Right indeed!--You're a gentleman! If
+there's anything I could help you in--anything gone wrong,--any
+friends offended--I'm not altogether without influence.
+
+_Col. G._ (_aside_) He will vanquish me with my own weapons!
+
+_Ger._ But you _will_ go to Garibaldi with me?
+
+_Col. G._ I will, sir.
+
+_Ger._ And ride by my side?
+
+_Col. G._ Of course.
+
+_Ger._ If you ride by me, you will have to ride far.
+
+_Col. G._ I know, sir. But if you would be fit for fighting, you must
+come and have something to eat and drink.
+
+_Ger._ All right. A soldier must obey: I shall begin by obeying you.
+Only mind you keep up with me. _Exit, leaning on_ COL. G.
+
+    _Enter_ THOMAS.
+
+_Tho._ Th' dule a mon be yere! Aw're main troubled to get shut ov
+they reyvers! Aw'm olez i' trouble! Mine's a gradely yed! it
+be!--Hoy!--Nobory yere! 'T seems to me, honest men be scarce i'
+Lonnon. Aw'm beawn to believe nobory but mo own heighes, and mo own
+oud lass. _Exit_.
+
+    _Re-enter_ GERVAISE, _followed by_ COL. G.
+
+_Ger._ No, William; I won't lie down. I feel much better. Let's have a
+bout with the foils.
+
+_Col. G._ Very well, sir. (_Aside_.) A little of that will go far, I
+know. (_Gets down the foils_.)
+
+_Ger._ And, William, you must set a block up here. I shall have a cut
+or two at it to-morrow. There's a good cavalry weapon up there--next
+that cast of Davis's arm.
+
+_Col. G._ Suppose your father were to arrive just after you had
+started!
+
+_Ger._ I shouldn't mind. I don't want to see him yet. I'm such a poor
+creature! The heart seems to have gone out of me. You see, William--
+
+    _Enter_ MRS. CLIFFORD.
+
+_Ger._ Ah! How do you do, aunt?
+
+_Mrs. C._ What's this nonsense about Garibaldi, Arthur?
+
+_Ger._ Who told you?
+
+_Mrs. C._ You don't mean it's true?
+
+_Ger._ Quite true, aunt.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Really, Arthur, you are more of a scatterbrain than I
+took you for!
+
+_Ger._ Don't say that, aunt. I only take after my father.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Don't talk to me of your father! I have no patience with
+him. A careless hard-hearted fellow--not worthy the name of a father!
+(_She glares at_ SIR WALTER.)
+
+_Ger._ You may go, William. (COL. G. _retires slowly_.)
+
+_Ger._ Aunt, you have been a mother to me; but were you really my
+mother, I must not listen to such words of my father. He has good
+reasons for what he does, though I admit there is something in it we
+don't understand. (_Aside_.) If I could but understand how Constance--
+
+_Mrs. C._ What do you say? What was that about Constance?
+
+_Ger._ Oh, nothing, aunt. I was only thinking how difficult it is to
+understand people.
+
+_Mrs. C._ If you mean Constance, I agree with you. She is a most
+provoking girl.
+
+_Ger._ (_smiling_) I am sorry to hear that, aunt.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I'm very glad you were never so silly as take a fancy to the
+girl. She would have led you a pretty dance! If you saw how she treats
+that unfortunate Waterfield! But what's bred in the bone won't out of
+the flesh.
+
+_Ger._ There's nothing bred in her I would have out, aunt.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Perhaps she originated her vulgarity. That is a shade worse.
+
+_Ger. Vulgarity_, aunt! I cannot remember the meaning of the word when
+I think of _her_.
+
+_Mrs. C._ If you choose to insult me, Arthur--
+
+    _Exit_.
+
+_Ger._ It is high time I were gone! If I should be called in now to
+settle matters between--William! William!--William!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G.
+
+_Ger._ To-morrow, William. Not a word. If you will go with me, I shall
+be glad. If you will not, I shall go without you.
+
+    _Exit_.
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.--I wish Warren were here with the old man. I don't
+know what to do till he comes.
+
+    _Enter_ CONSTANCE.
+
+_Con._ I thought my aunt was here, William.
+
+_Col. G._ No, miss. She was here, but she's gone again.
+
+_Con._ Could I see Mr. Gervaise for a moment?
+
+_Col. G._ Certainly, miss. I'll tell him.
+
+_Con._ Is he still determined on going, William?
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, miss;--to-morrow, he says.
+
+_Con._ To-morrow!
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, miss. I think he means to start for Dover in the
+morning.
+
+_Con._ What am I to do?
+
+_Col. G._ What's the matter, miss?
+
+_Con._ What _can_ I do? I know he is angry with me. I don't quite know
+why. I wish I had never--I can't help it now. My heart will break.
+(_Weeps_.)
+
+_Col. G._ Don't let him go to Dover to-morrow, miss.
+
+_Con._ He would have listened to me once. He won't now. It's all so
+different! Everything has gone wrong somehow.
+
+_Col. G._ Do try to keep him from going, miss.
+
+_Con._ He would but think me forward. I could bear anything better
+than have him think ill of me.
+
+_Col. G._ No fear of that, miss. The danger is all the other way.
+
+_Con._ What other way, William?
+
+_Col. G._ He thinks you don't care a bit about him.
+
+    _Exit_. CONSTANCE _drops on the dais, nearly under the veiled Psyche_.
+
+    _Enter_ GER. _and stands a moment regarding her_.
+
+_Ger._ Constance.
+
+_Con._ (_starting up, and flying to him with her hands clasped_)
+Arthur! Arthur! don't go. I can't bear you to go. It's all my fault,
+but do forgive me! Oh, do, do--_dear_ Arthur! Don't go to-morrow. I
+shall be miserable if you do.
+
+_Ger._ But why, my--why, Constance?
+
+_Con._ I _was_ your Constance once.
+
+_Ger._ But why should I not go? Nobody wants me here.
+
+_Con._ Oh, Arthur! how can you be so cruel? Can it be that--? Do say
+something. If you won't say anything, how can I know what you are
+thinking--what you wish? Perhaps you don't like--I would--I have--I
+won't--Oh, Arthur! do say something.
+
+_Ger._ I have nothing to say, Constance.
+
+_Con._ Then I _have_ lost you--altogether! I dare say I deserve it. I
+hardly know. God help me! What can I have done so very wicked? Oh! why
+did you take me out of the streets? I should have been used to them by
+this time! They are terrible to me now. No, no, Arthur! I thank
+you--thank you--with my very soul! What might I not have been by this
+time! But I used to lie in that corner, and I daren't now!
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G. _behind_.
+
+It was a happy time, for I had not offended you then. Good-bye. Won't
+you say one word to me?--You will never see me again.
+
+    _She pauses a moment; then exit weeping--by the back door, behind
+    the Psyche_. COL. G. _follows her_.
+
+_Ger._ How _could_ she love that fellow? (_Looking up_.) Gone? gone!
+My Constance! My Psyche! I've driven her into the wild street!
+O my God! William! William! Constance! Which door? I won't go,
+Constance--I won't. I will do anything you ask me. What was that she
+said?--_Good-bye_! God in heaven!--William! you idiot! where are you?
+William!
+
+    _He rushes out by the front door. Re-enter_ COL. G. _by the back
+    door_.
+
+_Col. G._ It was lucky I met Bill! He's after her like the wind. That
+message will bring her back, I think. I could trust that boy with
+anything! But where is he? (_Enter_ THOMAS.) What, friend! here at
+last! Thank God! Just sit down a moment, will you? (_Peeps into the
+room off the study_.) He's not there! I heard him calling this moment!
+Perhaps he's in the house.--Did _you_ leave the door open, sir?
+
+_Tho._ Nay. Th' dur wur oppen. Aw seigh sombory run eawt as aw coom
+oop.
+
+_Col. G._ My boy! my boy! It will kill him!--Stop here till I come
+back. (_Rushes out_.)
+
+_Tho._ Aw connot stop. Aw'm tired enough, God knows, to stop
+anywheeres; mo yed goes reawnd and reawnd, an' aw'd fain lie mo deawn.
+But aw mun be gooin'. Nobory can tell what may be coomin to mo Mattie.
+Aw mun go look, go look! Ha! ha! they couldn't keep mo, owd mon as aw
+wur! But aw wish aw hed a word wi' th' mon first.
+
+    _Enter_ WARREN.
+
+_War._ (_aside_) This must be the old fellow himself! Here he is after
+all! (_Peeps into the room_.)
+
+_Tho._ Theer be nobory theer, sir. Th' maister's run eawt, and th' mon
+after him.
+
+_War._ Run out!
+
+_Tho._ Aw niver says what aw donnot mane. An' aw'm glad yo're theer,
+sir; for William he towd mo to stay till he coom back; but aw've not
+geet so mich time to spare; and so be's yo're a friend ov th'
+maister's, yo'll mebbe mind th' shop a smo' bit. Aw mun goo (_going_).
+
+_War._ I say, old man--your name's Thomas Pearson--ain't it?
+
+_Tho._ Yigh. Aw yer. But hea cooms to to knaw mo name?
+
+_War._ I know all about you.
+
+_Tho._ Ivvery body knaws ivvery body yere! Aw connot stur a fut fur
+folks as knaws mo, and knaws mo name, and knaws what aw be after.
+Lonnon is a dreedfu' plaze. Aw mun geet mo lass to whoam. Yo'll mind
+th' shop till th' maister cooms back. Good neet (_going_).
+
+_War._ (_stopping him_) They want you here a bit. You'd better stop.
+The man will be back directly. You're too suspicious.
+
+_Tho._ Nea, maister, thae'rt wrung theer. Aw've trusted too mich--a
+theawsand times too mich.
+
+_War._ You trusted the wrong people, then.
+
+_Tho._ It taks no mak o' a warlock to tell mo that, maister. It's smo'
+comfort, noather.
+
+_War._ Well now, you give me a turn, and hear what I've got to say.
+
+_Tho._ Yo're o' tarred wi' th' same stick. Ivvery body maks gam ov th'
+poor owd mon! Let me goo, maister. Aw want mo chylt, mo Mattie!
+
+_War._ You must wait till Mr. Gervaise's man comes back.
+
+_Tho._ (_despairingly_) O Lord. Th' peack ov sunbrunt lies they ha'
+been tellin' me sin' aw coom yere!--childer an o'!
+
+_War._ Have patience, man. You won't repent it.
+
+_Tho._ What mun be, mun. Aw connot ha' patience, but aw con stop. Aw'd
+rayther goo, though. Aw'm noan sorry to rest noather. (_Sits down on
+the dais_.)
+
+    _Enter_ BILL.
+
+_War._ Here, boy! Don't let the old man go till some one comes.
+_Exit_.
+
+_Bill_. All right, sir! Hillo, daddy! There you are! Thank God!
+
+_Tho._ What fur, boy? Wull he gie mo mo Mattie again--dosto think?
+
+_Bill_. That he will, daddy! You come along, an' you'll know a honest
+boy next time.--I can't till I see Mr. William, though.
+
+_Tho._ Iv thae manes th' maister's mon yere, he's run eawt. An' aw
+connot goo witho. Aw'm keepin' th' shop till he coom back. An' aw
+dunnot mich care to goo witho. Aw dunnot mich trust tho. Th' Lord have
+a care ov mo! Aw dimnot knaw which to trust, and which not to trust.
+But aw _mun_ wait for maister William, as yo co' him.
+
+_Bill_. All right, daddy!--Don't you stir from here till I come
+back--not for nobody--no, not for Joseph!
+
+_Tho._ Aw dunnot knaw no Joseph.
+
+_Bill_. I'll soon let you see I'm a honest boy! As you can't go to
+Mattie, I'll bring Mattie to you: see if I don't! An' if she ain't the
+right un, I'll take her back, and charge ye nuffin for carriage. Can't
+say fairer than that, daddy!
+
+_Tho._ Bless tho, mo boy! Dosto mane it true?
+
+_Bill_. Yes--an' that you'll see, afore you're an 'alf an hour older,
+daddy. When Mr. William comes, you say to him, "Bill's been.--All
+right."
+
+_Tho._ Aw dunnot like secrets, lad. What don yo mane? Ivvery body
+seems to mane something, and nobory to say it.
+
+_Bill._ Never you mind, daddy! "Bill's been.--All right." That's your
+ticket. I'm off. _Exit_.
+
+    THOMAS _gets up, and walks about, murmuring to himself. A knock
+    at the door_.
+
+_Tho._ Somebory after mo again! Aw'll geet eawt ov th' way. (_Goes
+behind the Psyche_.)
+
+    _Enter_ WATERFIELD.
+
+_Wat_. Nobody here! I _am_ unlucky. "Not at home," said the
+rascal,--and grinned, by Jove! I'll be at the bottom of this. There's
+no harm in Gervaise. He's a decent fellow. (_Knocks at the door of_
+GER.'S _room_.) I won't leave the place till I've set things
+right--not if I've got to give him a post-obit for five thousand--I
+won't!--Nobody there? (_Looks in_.) No. Then I'll go in and wait.
+_Exit_.
+
+_Tho._ (_peeping from behind the Psyche_). That's the villain! Lord o'
+mercy! that's the villain! If aw're as strung as aw'm owd, aw'd
+scrunch his yed--aw would! Aw'm sure it's th' mon. He kep eawt ov mo
+way--but aw seigh him once. O Lord, keep mo hands off ov him. Aw met
+kill him. Aw'm sartin sure ov him when aw see him. Aw'll not goo nigh
+him till somebory cooms--cep' he roons away. Aw'm noan fleyed ov him,
+but aw met not be able to keep mo howd ov him. Oh, mo Mattie! mo
+Mattie! to leave thi owd faither for sich a mak ov a mon as yon! But
+yere cooms somebory moor. (_Goes behind the Psyche_.)
+
+    _Enter_ MRS. CLIFFORD.
+
+_Mrs. C._ No one here? She can never be in his room with him! (_Opens
+the door_.) Oh! Mr. Waterfield! You're here--are you?
+
+_Wat_. (_coming to the door_). Mrs. Clifford! This is indeed an
+unexpected pleasure!
+
+_Mrs. C._ Have you got Constance with you there?
+
+_Wat_. I've no such good fortune.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Where is she, then?
+
+_Wat_. At home, I presume.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Indeed she is not. I must speak to Arthur.
+
+_Wat_. He's not here.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Where's my--his man, then?
+
+_Wat_. Taken himself off to the public-house, I suppose. There's
+nobody about. Odd--ain't it?
+
+_Mrs. C._ I'll go and see. _Exit into the house_.
+
+_Wat_. What can be the row! there is some row. _Exit into the room_.
+
+    _Enter_ GER., _supported by_ COL. G.
+
+_Col. G._ Thank God! Thank God!
+
+_Ger._ But where is she? I shall go mad if you've told me a lie.
+
+_Col. G._ I saw her, and sent a messenger after her. We shall have
+news of her presently. Do have a little patience, sir.
+
+_Get._ How can I have patience? I'm a brute--a mean, selfish devil! If
+that fellow Waterfield was to horse-whip me--I should let him.
+
+_Tho._ (_coming forward_). Theer wur that yung chap yere a while agoo,
+and he said aw wur to say to Maister William--what wur it aw're to
+say?--Yigh--it wur--"Bill's been. O'reet."
+
+_Col. G._ There, sir! I told you so. Do sit down. I'll go after her.
+
+_Ger._ I will. I will. Only make haste. (_Stands staring at the
+Psyche_.)
+
+_Tho._ Th' boy said he'd be yere direckly.
+
+_Col. G._ You sit down. I'll be with you presently.
+
+_Tho._ (_retiring behind the Psyche_). Aw're noan likely to goo,
+maister.
+
+    _Enter_ MRS. C. _Crosses to room door. Enter_ WATERFIELD. _They
+    talk_.
+
+_Ger._ William! I don't want them. (_Retreats towards the Psyche_.)
+
+_Col. G._ Sit here one moment, sir. (_Leads him to the dais. Advances
+to_ MRS. C.)
+
+_Mrs. C._ (_trying to pass him_). Arthur, what can--?
+
+_Col. G._ (_intercepting her_). Let him rest a bit, ma'am, if you
+please. He's been out for the first time.
+
+_Mrs. C._ At night! and in a fog! A pretty nurse you are! Poor boy!
+
+_Col. G._ Mr. Waterfield, sir, would you mind stepping into the room
+again for a moment? (_Exit_ WAT.) Mrs. Clifford, ma'am, would you
+please get a glass of wine for master? _Exit_ MRS. C. _into the
+house_.
+
+_Ger._ William! William!
+
+_Col. G._ Yes, sir.
+
+_Ger._ Send him away. Don't let him stop there. I have nothing to say
+to him.
+
+_Col. G._ He shan't trouble you, sir. I'll take care of that. (_Goes
+behind the Psyche to_ THOMAS, _but keeps watching the door of the
+room_.)--Did you see the man that went in there just now?
+
+_Tho._ (_with anxiety_). He winnot joomp eawt ov th' window, dosto
+thenk, lad?
+
+    _Re-enter_ MRS. C. _with wine_. GER. _drinks_.
+
+_Col. G._ Why should he do that? Do you know anything about him?
+
+_Tho._ Aw do.
+
+_Col. G._ Has he seen you here?
+
+_Tho._ No. Aw're afeard he'd roon away, and aw keepet snoog.
+
+_Col. G._ I needn't ask who it is, then?
+
+_Tho._ Yo needn't, lad.
+
+    _Enter_ WATERFIELD.
+
+_Tho._ Mo conscience! he'll pike eawt afoor aw geet howd on him!
+(_Rushes out and seizes_ WAT.)
+
+    _Enter_ MATTIE _and_ BILL.
+
+_Tho._ Thae'rt a domned villain! Wheer's mo Mattie?
+
+    WATERFIELD _knocks_ THOMAS _down_.
+
+_Bill._ O Lord! the swell's murdered old daddy!
+
+    _All but_ GER. _rush together_. COLONEL GERVAISE _seizes_
+    WATERFIELD. MATTIE _throws herself on her knees beside_ THOMAS
+    _and lifts his head_.
+
+_Mat_. Father! father! Look at me! It's Mattie!--your own wicked
+Mattie! Look at her once, father dear! (_Lays down his head in
+despair, and rises_.) Who struck the good old man?
+
+_Bill._ He did--the swell as give me the gold sov.
+
+_Mat_. Mr. Watkins!--
+
+_Wat_. I haven't the honour of the gentleman's acquaintance. I'm not
+Mr. Watkins. Am I now? (_to_ COL. G.). Ha! ha!--Let go, I say. I'm not
+the man. It's all a mistake, you see.
+
+_Col. G._ In good time. I might make a worse. Watkins mayn't be your
+name, but Watkins is your nature.
+
+_Wat_. Damn your insolence! Let me go, I tell you! (_Struggles
+threatening_.)
+
+_Col. G._ Gently, gently, young man!--If I give your neckcloth a twist
+now--!
+
+_Mat_. Yes, there _is_ a mistake--and a sad one for me! A wretch that
+would strike an old man! Indeed you are not what I took you for.
+
+_Wat_. You hear the young woman! She says it's all a mistake.--My good
+girl, I'm sorry for the old gentleman; but he oughtn't to behave like
+a ruffian. Really, now, you know, a fellow can't stand that sort of
+thing! A downright assault! I'm sorry I struck him, though--devilish
+sorry! I'll pay the damage with pleasure. (_Puts his hand in his
+pocket_.)
+
+_Mat_. (_turning away_) And not a gentleman! (_Kneels by_ THOMAS _and
+weeps_.)
+
+_Tho._ (_feebly_.) Dunnot greight, Mattie, mo chylt. Aw'm o' reet. Let
+th' mon goo. What's _he_ to tho or mo?--By th' mass! aw'm strung
+enough to lick him yet (_trying to rise, but falling back_). Eigh!
+eigh! mo owd boans 'ud rayther not. It's noan blame sure to an owd mon
+to fo' tired o' feightin!
+
+_Mat_. (_taking' his head on her lap_). Father! father! forgive me!
+I'm all yours.--I'll go home with you, and work for you till I drop. O
+father! how could I leave you for him? I don't care one bit for him
+now--I don't indeed. You'll forgive me--won't you, father? (_Sobs_.)
+
+_Tho._ Aw wull, aw do, mo Mattie. Coom whoam--coom whoam.
+
+_Mat_. Will mother forgive me, father?
+
+_Tho._ Thi mother, chylt? Hoo's forgiven tho lung afoor--ivver so lung
+agoo, chylt! Thi mother may talk leawd, but her heart is as soft as
+parritch.--Thae knows it, Mattie.
+
+_Wat_. All this is very interesting,--only you see it's the wrong man,
+and I can't say he enjoys it. Take your hand off my collar--will you?
+I'm not the man, I tell you!
+
+_Bill._ All I says is--it's the same swell as guv me the skid to find
+her. I'll kiss the book on that!
+
+_Ger._ (_coming forward_). Mr. Waterfield, on your honour, do you know
+this girl?
+
+_Wat_. Come! you ain't goin' to put me to my catechism!
+
+_Ger._ You must allow appearances are against you.
+
+_Wat_. Damn your appearances! What do I care?
+
+_Ger._ If you will not answer my question, I must beg you to leave the
+place.
+
+_Wat_. My own desire! Will you oblige me by ordering this bull-dog of
+yours to take his paws off me? What the devil is he keeping me here
+for?
+
+_Col. G._ I've a great mind to give you in charge.
+
+_Wat_. The old codger assaulted me first.
+
+_Col. G._ True; but the whole affair would come to light. That's what
+I would have. Miss Pearson, what am I to do with this man?
+
+    _Enter_ SUSAN _at the back door. Behind her,_ CONSTANCE _peeps in_.
+
+_Mat_. Let him go.--Father! Father! _(Kisses him_.)
+
+_Sus_. That can never be Mattie's gentleman, sure-ly! Hm! I don't
+think much of _him_. I knew he had ugly eyes! I told you so, Mattie!
+I wouldn't break my heart for _him_--no, nor for twenty of him--I
+wouldn't! He looks like a drowned cat.
+
+_Wat_. What the devil have _you_ got to do with it?
+
+_Sus. Nothing_. You shut up.
+
+_Wat_. Well, I'm damned if I know whether I'm on my head or my heels.
+
+_Sus_. 'Tain't no count which.
+
+_Bill_ (_aside to_ COL. G.). She's at the back door, Mr. William.
+
+_Col. G._ Who is, Bill? Miss Lacordère?
+
+_Bill._ Right you air!
+
+    COL. G. _hastens to the door_. CON. _peeps in and draws back_.
+    COL. G. _follows her._ WATERFIELD _approaches_ MATTIE.
+
+_Wat_. Miss Pearson, if that's--
+
+_Mat_. I don't know you--don't even know your name.
+
+_Wat_. (_looking round_). You hear her say it! She don't know me!
+
+_Mat_. Could you try and rise, father? I want to get out of this.
+There's a lady here says I'm a thief!
+
+_Tho._ Nea, that she connot say, Mattie! Thae cooms ov honest folk.
+Aw'll geet oop direckly. (_Attempts to rise_.) Eigh! eigh! aw connot!
+aw connot!
+
+_Mrs. C._ If I have been unjust to you, Miss Pearson, I shall not fail
+to make amends.
+
+_Sus_. It's time you did then, ma'am. You've murdered her, and all but
+murdered me. That's how your little bill stands.
+
+_Ger._ (_to_ WAT.) Leave the place, Mr. Waterfield.
+
+_Wat_. You shall answer for this, Gervaise.
+
+_Ger._ Leave the study at once.
+
+_Wat_. Tut! tut! I'll make it up to them. A bank note's a good
+plaster.
+
+_Bill_. Pleasir, shall I run and fetch a bobby? I likes to see a swell
+wanted.
+
+_Ger._ You hold your tongue. (_Retires to the dais and sits down._
+MRS. C. _follows him_.)
+
+_Wat_. (_taking out his pocket-book, and approaching_ MATTIE). I
+didn't think you'd have served me so, Mattie! Indeed I didn't! It's
+not kind after what's been between you and me. (MATTIE _rises and
+stands staring at him_.) You've ruined my prospects--you have! But I
+don't want to bear malice: take that.--Old times, you know!--Take it.
+You're welcome. (_Forces the note on her. She steps back. It drops_.)
+
+_Mat_. This is a humiliation! Will nobody take him away?
+
+_Sus_. (_rushing at him_). You be off! An' them goggle eyes o' yours,
+or _I_'ll goggle 'em! I can't bear the sight on 'em. _I_ should never
+ha' taken you for a gentleman. You don't look it. You slope, I say!
+(_Hustles him_.)
+
+    WATERFIELD _picks up the note, and exit_.
+
+_Mat_. (_bursting into tears_) Father! father! don't hate me; don't
+despise me.
+
+    THOMAS _tries to get up, but falls back_.
+
+_Bill_. Don't be in no hurry, Daddy. There's none but friends here
+now--'cep' the old lady;--she do look glum.
+
+_Sus_. I'll soon settle her hash!
+
+_Mat_. Susie! Susie! Don't--there's a dear!
+
+_Sus_. What business has she here then! She's not a doin' of nothink.
+
+_Mat_. Don't you see she's looking after the poor gentleman there?
+
+_Ger._ William!--William!--Gone again! What a fellow he is! The best
+servant in the world, but always vanishing! Call your James--will you,
+aunt? We must have the old man put to bed. But the poor girl looks the
+worse of the two! She can have the spare room, and William can sleep
+on the sofa in mine.
+
+_Mrs. C._ I'll see to it.
+
+    _Exit_. GER. _goes towards_ THOMAS.
+
+_Tho._ Coom whoam--coom whoam, Mattie! Thi mother, hoo's cryin' her
+eighes eawt to whoam.
+
+_Mat_. I'll run for a doctor first, father.
+
+_Tho._ No, no, chylt! Aw're only a bit stonned, like. Aw'll be o' reet
+in a smo' bit. Aw dunnot want no doctor. Aw'm a coomin' reawnd.
+
+_Ger._ Neither of you shall stir to-night. Your rooms will be ready in
+a few minutes.
+
+_Mat_. Thank you, sir! I don't know what I should have done with
+him.--Susan, you wouldn't mind going home without me? You know Miss
+Lacordère--
+
+_Ger._ Miss Lacordère! What do you know of her?
+
+_Mat_. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I oughtn't to have mentioned her. But my
+poor head!--
+
+_Ger._ What of Miss Lacordère? For God's sake, tell me.
+
+    _Enter_ MRS. C. _with_ JAMES.
+
+_Sus_. Oh, nothing, sir! nothing at all! Only Miss Lacordère has been
+good to us--which it's more than can be said for everybody! (_Scowls
+at_ MRS. C. JAMES _proceeds to lift_ THOMAS. _She flies at him_.) Put
+the old gentleman down, you sneakin' reptile! How many doors have you
+been a hearkenin' at since mornin'--eh, putty-lump? You touch the old
+man again, and I'll mark you! Here, Bill! I'll take his head--you take
+his feet. We'll carry him between us like a feather.
+
+_Mat_. O Susan! do hold your tongue.
+
+_Sus_. It's my only weapon, my dear. If I was a man--see if I'd talk
+then.
+
+_James_. It's a providence you ain't a man, young woman!
+
+_Sus_. Right you are! Them's my werry motives. I ain't a makin' of no
+complaint on that score, young Plush! I wouldn't be a man for--no, not
+for--not even for sich a pair o' calves as yourn!
+
+    SUS. _and_ BILL _carry_ THO. _out_. MAT. _follows_. GER. _is going
+    after them_.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Don't you go, Arthur. They can manage quite well. I will go
+if you like.
+
+_Ger._ They know something about Constance.
+
+_Mrs. C._ Pray give yourself no anxiety about her.
+
+_Ger._ What do you mean, aunt?
+
+_Mrs. C._ I will be responsible for her.
+
+_Ger._ Where is she then? (_Exit_ MRS. C.) William!--If he doesn't
+come in one minute more, I'll go after her myself. Those girls know
+where she is. I am as strong as a giant.--O God! All but married to
+that infamous fellow!--That he should ever have touched the tip of one
+of her fingers! What a sunrise of hope! Psyche may yet fold her wings
+to my prayer! William! William!--Where _can_ the fellow be?
+
+    _Enter_ COL. G. _in uniform and star, leading_ CONSTANCE.
+
+_Ger._ (_hurrying to meet them_). Constance! Constance! forgive me. Oh
+my God! You will when you know all.
+
+_Col. G._ She knows enough for that already, my boy, or she wouldn't
+be here. Take her--and me for her sake.
+
+_Ger._ What! who--? Constance!--What does it all mean?--It must
+be--can it be--my father?--William--It _is_ William!--William my
+father!--O father! father! (_throwing his arms about him_) it _was_
+you all the time then!
+
+_Col. G._ My boy! my boy! There!--take Constance, and let me go. I did
+want to do something for you--but--There! I'm too much ashamed to look
+at you in my own person.
+
+_Ger._ (_kneeling_). Father! father! don't talk like that! O father!
+_my_ father!
+
+_Col. G._ (_raising him_). My boy! my boy! I wanted to do something
+for you--tried hard--and was foiled.--I doubly deserved it. I doubted
+as well as neglected you. But God is good. He has shamed me, and saved
+you.
+
+_Ger._ By your hand, father.
+
+_Col. G._ No--by his own. It would all have come right without me. I
+was unworthy of the honour, my boy. But I was allowed to try; and for
+that I am grateful.--Arthur, I come to you empty-handed--a beggar for
+your love.
+
+_Ger._ How dare you say that, father?--Empty-handed--bringing me her
+and your-self--all I ever longed for!--my father and my Psyche!
+Father, _thank_ you. The poor word must do its best. I thank you with
+my very soul.--How _shall_ I bear my happiness!--Constance, it was my
+father all the time! Did you know it? Serving me like a
+slave!--humouring all my whims!--watching me night and day!--and then
+bringing me--
+
+_Con._ Your own little girl, Arthur. But why did you not tell me?
+
+_Ger._ Tell you what, darling?
+
+_Con._ That--that--that you--Oh! you know what, Arthur!
+
+_Ger._ How could I, my child, with that--!--Shall I tell you now?
+
+_Con._ No, no! I am too happy to listen--even to you, Arthur! But
+_he_ should never have--I did find him out at last. If I had but known
+you did not like him! (_hiding her face_.)
+
+_Ger._ (_embracing his father_) Father! father! I cannot hold my
+happiness! And it is _all_ your doing!
+
+_Col. G. No_, I tell you, my boy! I was but a straw on the tide of
+things. I will serve you yet though. I will be your father yet.
+
+_Bill_ (_aside_). Fathers ain't _all_ bad coves! Here's two on
+'em--good sort of old Jacobs--both on 'em. Shouldn't mind much if I
+had a father o' my own arter all!
+
+    GERVAISE _turns to_ CONSTANCE--_then glances at the Psyche_. COL.
+    GERVAISE _removes the sheet_. GERVAISE _leads_ CONSTANCE _to the
+    chair on the dais--turns from her to the Psyche, and begins to work
+    on the clay, glancing from the one to the other--the next moment
+    leaves the Psyche, and seats himself on the dais at_ CONSTANCE'S
+    _feet, looking up in her face._ COL. GERVAISE _stands regarding
+    them fixedly. Slow distant music._ BILL _is stealing away_.
+
+    _Curtain falls._
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Stephen Archer and Other Tales, by George MacDonald
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