Title: Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience
Author: Lever, Charles James
Language: English
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SIR JASPER CAREW.

His Life and Experience

By Charles James Lever


Illustrated By E. Van Muyden and Phiz.


Boston: Little, Brown, And Company. 1904.

Copyright, 1894, By Little, Brown, And Company.



DEDICATED TO H. D. W.

By ONE WHO THINKS HIGHLY OF HIS HEART, AND HOPES MUCH FROM HIS HEAD.



NOTICE

It has been constantly observed by writers of travels that to gain
credence for any of the strange incidents of their journeys, they have
been compelled to omit many of the most eventful passages of their
lives. “The gentlemen,” and still more the ladies, “who live at home at
ease” take, indeed, but little account of those adventures which are the
daily lot of more precarious existences, and are too prone to set
down as marvellous, or worse, events which have comparatively little
remarkable for those whose fortunes have thrown them on the highways of
the world.

I make this remark in part to deprecate some of the criticism which I
have seen pronounced upon these Memoirs. It has been said: How could any
man have met so many adventures? and my answer is simply: By change of
place. Nothing more is required. The pawn on the chess-board has a life
of a very uneventful character, simply because his progress is slow,
methodical, and unchanging. Not so the knight, who, with all the
errantry of his race, dashes here and there, encountering every rank and
condition of men,--continually in difficulties himself, or the cause of
them to others. What the knight is to the chess-board, the adventurer
is to real life. The same wayward fortune and zig-zag course belongs
to each, and each is sure to have his share in nearly every great event
that occurs about him. But I also refer to this subject on another
account. Tale-writers are blamed for the introduction of incidents which
have little bearing on the main story, or whose catastrophes are veiled
in obscurity. But I would humbly ask, Are not these exactly the very
traits of real life? Is not every man’s course checkered with incidents,
and crossed by people who never affect his actual career? Do not things
occur every week singular enough to demand a record, and yet, to all
seeming, not in any way bearing upon our fortunes? While I need but
appeal to universal experience to corroborate me when I say that life
is little else than a long series of uncompleted adventures, I do not
employ the strongest of all argument on this occasion, and declare
that in writing my Memoirs I had no choice but to set down the whole
or nothing, because I am aware that some sceptical folk would like to
imagine _me_ a shade, and _my story_ a fiction!

I am quite conscious of some inaccuracies; for aught I know, there may
be many in these pages; but I wrote most of them in very old age, away
from books, and still further away from the friends who might have
afforded me their counsel and guidance. I wrote with difficulty and
from memory,--that is, from a memory in which a fact often faded while
I transcribed it, and where it demanded all my efforts to call up
the incidents, without, at the same time, summoning a dozen others,
irrelevant and unwarranted.

These same pages, with all their faults, have been a solace to many a
dreary hour, when, alone and companionless, I have sat in the stillness
of a home that no footsteps resound in, and by a hearth where none
confronts me. They would be still richer in comfort if I thought they
could cheer some heart lonely as my own, and make pain or sorrow forget
something of its sting. I scarcely dare to hope for this, but I _wish_
it heartily! And if there be aught of presumption in the thought, pray
set it down amongst the other errors and short-comings of

Jasper Carew.

Palazzo Guidotte, Senegaqlia, Jan. 1855.



CHAPTER I. SOME “NOTICES OF MY FATHER AND MOTHER”

It has sometimes occurred to me that the great suits of armor we see in
museums, the huge helmets that come down like extinguishers on the penny
candles of modern humanity, the enormous cuirasses and gigantic iron
gloves, were neither more nor less than downright and deliberate cheats
practised by the “Gents” of those days for the especial humbugging of
us, their remote posterity. It might, indeed, seem a strange and absurd
thing that any people should take so much pains, and incur so much
expense, just for the sake of mystifying generations then unborn. Still,
I was led to this conclusion by observing and reflecting on a
somewhat similar phenomenon in our own day; and indeed it was the only
explanation I was ever able to come to, respecting those great mansions
that we Irish gentlemen are so fond of rearing on our estates, “totally
regardless of expense,” and just as indifferent to all the circumstances
of our fortune, and all the requirements of our station,--the only real
difference being, that our forefathers were satisfied with quizzing
their descendants, whereas we, with a livelier appreciation of fun,
prefer enjoying the joke in our own day.

Perhaps I am a little too sensitive on this point; but my reader will
forgive any excess of irritability when I tell him that to this national
ardor for brick and mortar--this passion for cutstone and stucco--it is
I owe, not only some of the mischances of my life, but also a share of
what destiny has in store for those that are to come after me. We came
over to Ireland with Cromwell; my ancestor, I believe, and I don’t
desire to hide the fact, was a favorite trumpeter of Old Noll. He was a
powerful, big-boned, slashing trooper, with a heavy hand on a sabre, and
a fine deep, bass voice in the conventicle; and if his Christian
name was a little inconvenient for those in a hurry,--he was called
Bind-your-kings-in-chains-and-your-nobles-in-links-of-iron Carew,--it
was of the less consequence, as he was always where he ought to
be, without calling. It was said that in the eyes of his chief his
moderation was highly esteemed, and that this virtue was never more
conspicuous than in his choice of a recompense for his services; since,
instead of selecting some fine, rich tract of Meath or Queen’s County,
some fruitful spot on the Shannon or the Blackwater, with a most
laudable and exemplary humility he pitched upon a dreary and desolate
region in the County Wicklow,--picturesque enough in point of scenery,
but utterly barren and uncultivated. Here, at a short distance from the
opening of the Vale of Arklow, he built a small house, contiguous
to which, after a few years, was to be seen an outlandish kind of
scaffolding,--a composite architecture between a draw-well and a
gallows; and which, after various conjectures about its use,--some even
suggesting that it was a new apparatus “to raise the Devil,”--turned
out to be the machinery for working a valuable lead mine which, by “pure
accident,” my fortunate ancestor had just discovered there.

It was not only lead, but copper ore was found there, and at last
silver; so that in the course of three generations the trumpeter’s
descendants became amongst the very richest of the land; and when my
father succeeded to the estate, he owned almost the entire country
between Newrath Bridge and Arklow. There were seventeen townlands in
our possession, and five mines in full work. In one of these, gold was
found, and several fine crystals of topaz and beryl,--a few specimens
of which are yet to be seen in the Irish Academy. It has been often
remarked that men of ability rarely or never transmit their gifts to the
generation succeeding them. Nature would seem to set her face against
monopolies, and at least, so far as intellect is concerned, to be a
genuine “Free-Trader.” There is another and very similar fact, however,
which has not attracted so much notice. It is this: that not only the
dispositions and tastes of successive generations change and alternate,
but that their luck follows the same law, and that after a good run of
fortune for maybe a century or two, there is certain to come a turn;
and thus it is that these ups and downs, which are only remarked in
the lives of individuals, are occurring in the wider ocean of general
humanity. The common incident that we so often hear of a man winning
an enormous sum and losing every farthing of it, down to the
very half-crown he began with, is just the type of many a family
history,--the only difference being that the event which in one case
occupied a night, in the other was spread over two, or maybe three,
hundred years.

When my father succeeded to the family property, Ireland was enjoying
her very palmiest days of prosperity. The spirit of her nationality,
without coming into actual collision with England, yet had begun
to assume an attitude of proud hostility,--a species of haughty
defiance,--the first effect of which was to develop and call forth all
the native ardor and daring of a bold and generous people. It was in the
celebrated year ‘82; and, doubtless, there are some yet living who
can recall to memory the glorious enthusiasm of the “Volunteers.” The
character of the political excitement was eminently suited to the nature
of the people. The themes were precisely those which lay fastest hold of
enthusiastic temperaments. Liberty and Independence were in every mouth.
From the glowing eloquence of the Parliament House,--the burning words
and heart-stirring sentences of Grattan and Ponsonby,--they issued forth
to mingle in all the exciting din of military display,--the tramp of
armed battalions, and the crash and glitter of mounted squadrons. To
these succeeded those festive meetings, resounding with all the zeal of
patriotic toasts,--brilliant displays of those convivial accomplishments
for which the Irish gentlemen of that day were so justly famed. There
was something peculiarly splendid and imposing in the spectacle of the
nation at that moment; but, like the grand groupings we witness upon the
stage, all the gorgeousness of the display was only to intimate that
the curtain was about to fall!

But to come back to personal matters. At the first election which
occurred after his accession to the property, my father was returned for
Wicklow, by a large majority, in opposition to the Government candidate;
and thus, at the age of twenty-two, entered upon life with all the
glowing ardor of a young patriot,--rich, well-looking, and sufficiently
gifted to be flattered into the self-confidence of actual ability.

Parliamentary conflicts have undergone a change just as great as those
of actual warfare. In the times I speak of, tactical skill and subtlety
would have availed but little, in comparison with their present success.
The House was then a species of tournament, where he who would break his
lance with the most valiant tilter was always sure of an antagonist. The
marshalling of party, the muster of adherents, was not, as it now is,
all-sufficient against the daring eloquence of a solitary opponent;
and if, as is very probable, men were less under the guidance of great
political theorems, they were assuredly not less earnest and devoted
than we now see them. The contests of the House were carried beyond its
walls, and political opponents became deadly enemies, ready to stake
life at any moment in defence of their opinions. It was the school of
the period; nor can it be better illustrated than by the dying farewell
of a great statesman, whose last legacy to his son was in the words: “Be
always ready with the pistol.” This great maxim, and the maintenance of
a princely style of living, were the two golden rules of the time. My
father was a faithful disciple of the sect.

In the course of a two years’ tour on the Continent, he signalized
himself by various adventures, the fame of which has not yet faded
from the memory of some survivors. The splendor of his retinue was the
astonishment of foreign courts; and the journals of the time constantly
chronicled the princely magnificence of his entertainments, and the
costly extravagance of his household. Wagers were the fashionable
pastime of the period; and to the absurd extent to which this passion
was carried, are we in all probability now indebted for that character
of eccentricity by which our countrymen are known over all Europe.

The most perilous exploits, the most reckless adventures, ordeals of
personal courage, strength, endurance, and address, were invented as
the subject of these wagers; and there was nothing too desperately
hazardous, nor too absurdly ridiculous, as not to find a place in such
contests. My father had run the gauntlet through all, and in every
adventure was said to have acquitted himself with honor and distinction.

Of one only of these exploits do I intend to make mention here; the
reason for the selection will soon be palpable to my reader. At the time
I speak of, Paris possessed two circles totally distinct in the great
world of society. One was that of the Court; the other rallied around
the Duc d’Orléans. To this latter my father’s youth, wealth, and
expensive tastes predisposed him, and he soon became one of the most
favored guests of the Palais Royal. Scanty as are the materials which
have reached us, there is yet abundant reason to believe that never, in
the most abandoned days of the Regency, was there any greater degree
of profligacy than then prevailed there. Every vice and debauchery of
a corrupt age was triumphant, and even openly defended on the base and
calumnious pretence that the company was at least as moral as that of
the “Petit Trianon.” My father, I have said, was received into this set
with peculiar honor. His handsome figure, his winning manners, an easy
disposition, and an ample fortune were ready recommendations in his
favor, and he speedily became the chosen associate of the Prince.

Amongst his papers are to be found the unerring proofs of what this
friendship cost him. Continued losses at play had to be met by loans
of money, at the most ruinous rates of interest; and my poor father’s
memoranda are filled with patriarchal names that too surely attest the
nature of such transactions. It would seem, however, that fortune
at last took a turn,--at least, the more than commonly wasteful
extravagance of his life at one period would imply that he was a winner.
These gambling contests between the Duke and himself had latterly become
like personal conflicts, wherein each staked skill, fortune, and address
on the issue,--duels which involved passions just as deadly as any whose
arbitrament was ever decided by sword or pistol! As luck favored my
father, the Duke’s efforts to raise money were not less strenuous, and
frequently as costly, as his own; while on more than one occasion the
jewelled decorations of his rank--his very sword--were the pledges of
the play-table. At last, so decidedly had been the run against him that
the Prince was forced to accept of loans from my father to enable him to
continue the contest. Even this alternative, however, availed nothing.
Loss followed upon loss, till at length, one night, when fortune had
seemed to have utterly forsaken him, the Prince suddenly rose from
the table, and saying, “Wait a moment, I’ll make one ‘coup’ more,”
 disappeared from the room. When he returned, his altered looks almost
startled my father. The color had entirely deserted his cheeks; his very
lips were bloodless; his eyes were streaked with red vessels; and when
he tried to speak, his first words were inaudible. Pressing my father
down again upon the seat from which he had arisen, he leaned over his
shoulder, and whispered in a voice low and broken,--

“I have told you, Chevalier, that I would make one ‘coup’ more. This
sealed note contains the stake I now propose to risk. You are at liberty
to set any sum you please against it. I can only say, it is all that
now remains to me of value in the world. One condition, however, I must
stipulate for; it is this: If you win”--here he paused, and a convulsive
shudder rendered him for some seconds unable to continue--“if you win,
that you leave France within three days, and that you do not open this
paper till within an hour after your departure.”

My father was not only disconcerted by the excessive agitation of his
manner, but he was little pleased with a compact, the best issue of
which would compel him to quit Paris and all its fascinations at a
very hour’s notice. He tried to persuade the Prince that there was no
necessity for so heavy a venture; that he was perfectly ready to advance
any sum his Royal Highness could name; that fortune, so persecuting as
she seemed, should not be pushed further, at least for the present.
In fact, he did everything which ingenuity could prompt to decline the
wager. But the more eagerly he argued, the more resolute and determined
became the Duke; till at last, excited by his losses, and irritated
by an opposition to which he was but little accustomed, the Prince
cut short the discussion by the insolent taunt “that the Chevalier was
probably right, and deemed it safer to retain what he had won, than risk
it by another venture.”

“Enough, sir; I am quite ready,” replied my father, and reseated himself
at the table.

“There’s my stake, then,” said the Prince, throwing a sealed envelope on
the cloth.

“Your Royal Highness must correct me if I am in error,” said my father,
“and make mine beneath what it ought to be.” At the same moment he
pushed all the gold before him--several thousand louis--into the middle
of the table.

The Prince never spoke nor moved; and my father, after in vain waiting
for some remark, said,--

“I perceive, sir, that I have miscalculated. These are all that I
have about me;” and he drew from his pocket a mass of bank-notes of
considerable amount. The Prince still maintained silence.

“If your Royal Highness will not vouchsafe to aid me, I must only trust
to my unguided reason, and, however conscious of the inferiority of
the venture, I can but stake all that I possess. Yes, sir, such is my
stake.”

The Prince bowed formally and coldly, and pushed the cards towards my
father. The fashionable game of the day was called Barocco, in which,
after certain combinations, the hand to whom fell the Queen of Spades
became the winner. So evenly had gone the fortune of the game that all
now depended on this card. My father was the dealer, and turned up each
card slowly, and with a hand in which not the slightest tremor could
be detected. The Prince, habitually the very ideal of a gambler’s cold
impassiveness, was agitated beyond all his efforts to control, and
sat with his eyes riveted on the game; and when the fatal card fell at
length from my father’s hand, his arms dropped powerless at either side
of him, and with a low groan he sank fainting on the floor.

He was quickly removed by his attendants, and my father never saw him
after! All his efforts to obtain an audience were in vain; and when his
entreaties became more urgent, he was given significantly to understand
that the Prince was personally indisposed to receive him. Another and
stronger hint was also supplied, in the-shape of a letter from the
Minister of Police, inclosing my father’s passport, and requiring his
departure, by way of Calais, within a given time.

Whatever share curiosity as to the contents of the paper might have
had in my father’s first thoughts, a sense of offended dignity for the
manner of his treatment speedily mastered; and as he journeyed along
towards the coast, his mind was solely occupied with one impression. To
be suddenly excluded from the society in which he had so long mixed, and
banished from the country where he had lived with such distinction, were
indeed deep personal affronts, and not without severe reflection on his
conduct and character.

His impatience to quit a land where he had been so grossly outraged grew
greater with every mile he travelled; and although the snow lay heavily
on the road, he passed on, regardless of everything but his insulted
honor. It was midnight when he reached Calais. The packet, which had
sailed in the afternoon, had just re-entered the port, driven back by
a hurricane that had almost wrecked her. The passengers, overcome with
terror, fatigue, and exhaustion, were crowding into the hotel at the
very moment of my father’s arrival. The gale increased in violence at
every instant, and the noise of the sea breaking over the old piles of
the harbor was now heard like thunder. Indifferent to such warning, my
father sent for the captain, and asked him what sum would induce him to
put to sea. A positive refusal to accept of any sum was the first reply;
but by dint of persuasion, persistence, and the temptation of a large
reward, he at last induced him to comply.

To my father’s extreme surprise, he learned that two ladies who had just
arrived at the hotel were no less resolutely bent on departure, and,
in defiance of the gale, which was now terrific, sent to beg that they
might be permitted to take their passage in the vessel. To the landlord,
who conveyed this request, my father strongly represented the danger of
such an undertaking; that nothing short of an extreme necessity would
have induced him to embark in such a hurricane; that the captain,
who had undertaken the voyage at his especial entreaty, might,
most naturally, object to the responsibility. In a word, he pleaded
everything against this request, but was met by the steady, unvarying
reply, “That their necessity was not less urgent than his own, and that
nothing less than the impossibility should prevent their departure.”

“Be it so, then,” said my father, whose mind was too much occupied with
his own cares to bestow much attention on strangers. Indeed, so little
of either interest or curiosity did his fellow travellers excite in him
that although he assisted them to ascend the ship’s side, he made no
effort to see their faces; nor did he address to them a single word.
They who cross the narrow strait nowadays, with all the speed of a
modern mail-steamer, can scarcely credit how much of actual danger
the passage once involved. The communication with the Continent was
frequently suspended for several days together; and it was no unusual
occurrence to hear of three or even four mails being due from France.
So great was the storm on the occasion I refer to that it was full two
hours before the vessel could get clear of the port; and even then, with
a mainsail closely reefed, and a mere fragment of a foresail, the utmost
she could do was to keep the sea. An old and worthless craft, she was
ill-suited to such a service; and now, at each stroke of the waves, some
bulwark would be washed away, some spar broken, or part of the rigging
torn in shreds. The frail timbers creaked and groaned with the working,
and already, from the strain, leaks had burst open in many places, and
half the crew were at the pumps. My father, who kept the deck without
quitting it, saw that the danger was great, and, not improbably, now
condemned his own rashness when it was too late. Too proud, however,
to confess his shame, he walked hurriedly up and down the poop, only
stopping to hold on at those moments when some tremendous lurch almost
laid the craft under. In one of these it was that he chanced to look
down through the cabin grating, and there beheld an old lady, at prayer,
on her knees; her hands held a crucifix before her, and her upturned
eyes were full of deep devotion. The lamp which swung to and fro above
her head threw a passing light upon her features, and showed that she
must once have been strikingly handsome, while even yet the traces were
those that bespoke birth and condition. My father in vain sought for her
companion, and while he bent down over the grating to look, the captain
came up to his side.

“The poor Duchess is terribly frightened,” said he, with an attempt at a
smile which only half succeeded.

“How do you call her?” asked my father.

“La Duchesse de Sargance, a celebrated court beauty some forty years
ago. She has been always attached to the Duchess of Orleans; or, some
say, to the Duke. At least, she enjoys the repute of knowing all his
secret intrigues and adventures.”

“The Duke!” said my father, musing; and, suddenly calling to mind his
pledge, he drew nigh to the binnacle lamp, and, opening his letter,
bent down to read it. A small gold locket fell into his hand, unclasping
which, he beheld the portrait of a beautiful girl of eighteen or
nineteen. She was represented in the act of binding up her hair; and in
the features, the coloring, and the attitude, she seemed the very ideal
of a Grecian statue. In the corner of the paper was written the words,
“Ma Fille,” “Philippe d’Orléans.”

“Is this possible? can this be real?” cried my father, whose quick
intelligence at once seemed to divine all. The next instant he was at
the door of the cabin, knocking impatiently to get in.

“Do you know this, madam?” cried he, holding out the miniature towards
the Duchess. “Can you tell me aught of this?”

“Is the danger over? Are we safe?” was her exclamation, as she arose
from her knees.

“The wind is abating, madam,--the worst is over; and now to my
question.”

“She is yours, sir,” said the Duchess, with a deep obeisance. “His
Royal Highnesses orders were, not to leave her till she reached England.
Heaven grant that we are to see that hour! This is Mademoiselle de
Courtois,” continued she, as at the same instant the young lady entered
the cabin.

The graceful ease and unaffected demeanor with which she received my
father at once convinced him that she at least knew nothing of the
terrible compact in which she was involved. Habituated as he was to all
the fascinations of beauty, and all the blandishments of manner, there
was something to him irresistibly charming in the artless tone with
which she spoke of her voyage, and all the pleasure she anticipated from
a tour through England.

“You see, sir,” said the Duchess, when they were once more alone
together, “Mademoiselle Josephine is a stranger to the position in which
she stands. None could have undertaken the task of breaking it to her.
Let us trust that she is never to know it.”

“How so, madam? Do you mean that I am to relinquish my right?” cried my
father.

“Nothing could persuade me that you would insist upon it, sir.”

“You are wrong, then, madam,” said he, sternly. “To the letter I will
maintain it. Mademoiselle de Courtois is mine; and within twenty-four
hours the law shall confirm my title, for I will make her my wife.”

I have heard that however honorable my father’s intentions thus
proclaimed themselves, the Duchess only could see a very lamentable
_mésalliance_ in such a union; nor did she altogether disguise from my
father that his Royal Highness was very likely to take the same view of
the matter. Mademoiselle’s mother was of the best blood of France,
and illegitimacy signified little if Royalty but bore its share of the
shame. Fortunately the young lady’s scruples were more easily disposed
of: perhaps my father understood better how to deal with them; at all
events, one thing is certain, Madame de Sargance left Dover for
Calais on the same day that my father and his young bride started for
London,--perhaps it might be exaggeration to say the happiest, but it is
no extravagance to call them--as handsome a pair as ever journeyed the
same road on the same errand. I have told some things in this episode
which, perhaps, second thoughts would expunge, and I have omitted others
that as probably the reader might naturally have looked for. But the
truth is, the narrative has not been without its difficulties. I have
had to speak of a tone of manners and habits now happily bygone, of
which I dare not mark my reprehension with all the freedom I could wish,
since one of the chief actors was my father,--its victim, my mother.



CHAPTER II. THE ILLUSTRATION OF AN ADAGE

“Marry in haste,” says the adage, and we all know what occupation
leisure will bring with it; unhappily, my father was not to prove the
exception to the maxim. It was not that his wife was wanting in any
quality which can render married life happy; she was, on the contrary,
most rarely gifted with them all. She was young, beautiful, endowed with
excellent health and the very best of tempers. The charm of her manner
won every class with whom she came into contact. But--alas that
there should be a but!--she had been brought up in habits of the most
expensive kind. Living in royal palaces, waited on by troops of menials,
with costly equipages and splendid retinues ever at her command, only
mingling with those whose lives were devoted to pleasure and amusement,
conversant with no other themes than those which bore upon gayety and
dissipation, she was peculiarly unsuited to the wear and tear of a
social system which demanded fully as much of self-sacrifice as of
enjoyment. The long lessons my father would read to her of deference
to this one, patient endurance of that, how she was to submit to the
tiresome prosings of certain notorieties in respect of their
political or social eminence,--she certainly heard with most
exemplary resignation; but by no effort of her reason, nor, indeed, of
imagination, could she attain to the fact why any one should associate
with those distasteful to them, nor ever persuade herself that any
worldly distinction could possibly be worth having at such a price.

She was quite sure--indeed, her own experience proved it--“that the
world was full of pleasant people.” Beauty to gaze on and wit to listen
to, were certainly not difficult to be found; why, then, any one should
persist in denying themselves the enjoyment derivable from such sources
was as great a seeming absurdity as that of him who, turning his back on
the rare flowers of a conservatory, would go forth to make his bouquet
of the wild flowers and weeds of the roadside. Besides this, in the
world wherein she had lived, her own gifts were precisely those which
attracted most admiration and exerted most sway; and it was somewhat
hard to descend to a system where such a coinage was not accepted as
currency, but rather regarded as gilded counters, pretty to look at,
but, after all, a mere counterfeit money, unrecognized by the mint.

My father saw all this when it was too late; but he lost no time in vain
repinings. On the contrary, having taken a cottage in a secluded part
of North Wales, by way of passing the honeymoon in all the conventional
isolation that season is condemned to, he devoted himself to that
educational process at which I have hinted, and began to instil those
principles, to the difficulty of whose acquirement I have just alluded.

I believe that his life at this period was one of as much happiness as
ever is permitted to poor mortality in this world; so, at least, his
letters to his friends bespeak it. It may be even doubted if the little
diversities of taste and disposition between himself and my mother did
not heighten the sense of his enjoyment; they assuredly averted that
lassitude and ennui which are often the results of a connubial duet
unreasonably prolonged. I know, too, that my poor mother often looked
back to that place as to the very paradise of her existence. My father
had encouraged such magnificent impressions of his ancestral house
and demesne that he was obliged to make great efforts to sustain the
deception. An entire wing had to be built to complete the symmetry of
the mansion. The roof had also to be replaced by another, of more
costly construction. In the place of a stucco colonnade, one of
polished granite was to be erected. The whole of the furniture was to
be exchanged. Massive old cabinets and oaken chairs, handsome enough in
their way, were but ill-suited to ceilings of fretted gold, and walls
hung in the rich draperies of Lyons. The very mirrors, which had been
objects of intense admiration for their size and splendor, were now to
be discarded for others of more modern pretensions. The china bowls and
cups which for centuries had been regarded as very gems of virtu were
thrown indignantly aside, to make place for Sèvres vases and rich
groupings of pure Saxon. In fact, all the ordinary comforts and
characteristics of a country gentleman’s house were abandoned for the
sumptuous and splendid furniture of a palace. To meet such expenses
large sums were raised on loan, and two of the richest mines on the
estate were heavily mortgaged. Of course it is needless to say that
preparations on such a scale of magnificence attracted a large share of
public attention. The newspapers duly chronicled the increasing splendor
of “Castle Carew.” Scarcely a ship arrived without some precious
consignment, either of pictures, marbles, or tapestries; and these
announcements were usually accompanied by some semi-mysterious paragraph
about the vast wealth of the owner, and the great accession of fortune
he had acquired by his marriage. On this latter point nothing was known,
beyond the fact that the lady was of an ancient ducal family of France,
of immense fortune and eminently beautiful. Even my father’s most
intimate friends knew nothing beyond this; for, however strange it
may sound to our present-day notions, my father was ashamed of her
illegitimacy and rightly judged what would be the general opinion
of her acquaintances, should the fact become public. At last came the
eventful day of the landing in Ireland; and, certainly, nothing could be
more enthusiastic nor affectionate than the welcome that met them.

Personally, my father’s popularity was very great; politically, he had
already secured many admirers, since, even in the few months of his
parliamentary life, he had distinguished himself on two or three
occasions. His tone was manly and independent; his appearance was
singularly prepossessing; and then, as he owned a large estate, and
spent his money freely, it would have been hard if such qualities had
not made him a favorite in Ireland.

It was almost a procession that accompanied him from the quay to the
great hotel of the Drogheda Arms, where they stopped to breakfast.

“I am glad to see you back amongst us, Carew!” said Joe Parsons, one of
my father’s political advisers, a county member of great weight with the
Opposition. “We want every good and true man in his place just now.”

“Faith! we missed you sorely at the Curragh meetings, Watty,” cried a
sporting-looking young fellow, in “tops and leathers.” “No such thing as
a good handicap, nor a hurdle race for a finish, without you.”

“Harry deplores those pleasant evenings you used to spend at
three-handed whist, with himself and Dick Morgan,” said another,
laughing.

“And where’s Dick?” asked my father, looking around him on every side.

“Poor Dick!” said the last speaker. “It’s no fault of his that he ‘s not
here to shake your hand to-day. He was arrested about six weeks ago, on
some bills he passed to Fagan.”

“Old Tony alive still?” said my father, laughing. “And what was the
amount?” added he, in a whisper.

“A heavy figure,--above two thousand, I believe; but Tony would be right
glad to take five hundred.”

“And couldn’t Dick’s friends do that much for him?” asked my father,
half indignantly. “Why, when I left this, Dick was the very life of your
city. A dinner without him was a failure. Men would rather have met him
at the cover than seen the fox. His hearty face and his warm shake-hands
were enough to inspire jollity into a Quaker meeting.”

“All true, Watty; but there’s been a general shipwreck of us all,
somehow. Where the money has gone, nobody knows; but every one seems out
at elbows. You are the only fellow the sun shines upon.”

“Make hay, then, when it does so,” said my father, laughing; and, taking
but his pocket-book, he scribbled a few lines on a leaf which he tore
out. “Give that to Dick, and tell him to come down and dine with us on
Friday. You’ll join him. Quin and Parsons won’t refuse me.--And what do
you say, Gervy Power? Can you spare a day from the tennis-court, or an
evening from piquet?--Jack Gore, I count upon you. Harvey Hepton will
drive you down, for I know you never can pay the post-boys.”

“Egad, they ‘re too well trained to expect it. The rascals always look
to me for a hint about the young horses at the Curragh, and, now and
then, I do throw a stray five-pound in their way.”

“We have not seen madam yet. Are we not to have that honor to-day?” said
Parsons.

“I believe not; she’s somewhat tired. We had a stormy time of it,” said
my father, who rather hesitated about introducing his bachelor friends
to my mother without some little preparation.

Nor was the caution quite unreasonable. Their style and breeding
were totally unlike anything she had ever seen before. The tone of
familiarity they used towards each other was the very opposite to that
school of courtly distance which even the very nearest in blood or
kindred observed in her own country; and lastly, very few of those then
present understood anything of French; and my mother’s English, at the
time I speak of, did not range beyond a few monosyllables, pronounced
with an accent that made them all but unintelligible.

“You’ll have Kitty Dwyer to call upon you the moment she hears you ‘re
come,” said Quin.

“Charmed to see her, if she ‘ll do us that honor,” said my father,
laughing.

“You must have no common impudence, then, Watty,” said another; “you
certainly jilted her.”

“Nothing of the kind,” replied my father; “she it was who refused me.”

“Bother!” broke in an old squire, a certain Bob French of Frenchmount;
“Kitty refuse ten thousand a-year, and a good-looking fellow into the
bargain! Kitty’s no fool; and she knows mankind just as well as she
knows horseflesh,--and, faix, that’s not saying a trifle.”

“How is she looking?” asked my father, rather anxious to change the
topic.

“Just as you saw her last. She hurt her back at an ugly fence in
Kennedy’s park, last winter; but she’s all right again, and riding the
little black mare that killed Morrissy, as neatly as ever!”

“She’s a fine dashing girl!” said my father.

“No, but she’s a good girl,” said the old squire, who evidently admired
her greatly. “She rode eight miles of a dark night, three weeks ago, to
bring the doctor to old Hackett’s wife, and it raining like a waterfall;
and she gave him two guineas for the job. Ay, faith, and maybe at the
same time, two guineas was two guineas to her.”

“Why, Mat Dwyer is not so hard-up as that comes to?” exclaimed my
father.

“Is n’t he, faith? I don’t believe he knows where to lay his hand on a
fifty-pound note this morning. The truth is, Walter, Mat ran himself out
for _you_.”

“For me! How do you mean for me?”

“Just because he thought you ‘d marry Kitty. Oh! you need n’t laugh.
There ‘s many more thought the same thing. You remember yourself that
you were never out of the house. You used to pretend that Bishop’s-Lough
was a better cover than your own,--that it was more of a grass country
to ride over. Then, when summer came, you took to fishing, as if your
bread depended on it; and the devil a salmon you ever hooked.”

A roar of laughter from the surrounders showed how they relished the
confusion of my father’s manner.

“Even all that will scarcely amount to an offer of marriage,” said he,
in half pique.

“Nobody said it would,” retorted the other; “but when you teach a girl
to risk her life, four days in the week, over the highest fences in a
hunting country,--when she gives up stitching and embroidery, to tying
flies and making brown hackles,--when she ‘d rather drive a tandem than
sit quiet in a coach and four,--why, she’s as good as spoiled for any
one else. ‘Tis the same with women as with young horses,--every one
likes to break them in for himself. Some like a puller; others prefer a
light mouth; and there’s more that would rather go along without having
to think at all, sure that, no matter how rough the road, there would be
neither a false step nor stumble in it.”

“And what’s become of MacNaghten?” asked my father, anxious to change
the topic.

“Scheming, scheming, just the same as ever. I ‘m sure I wonder he ‘s not
here to-day. May I never! if that’s not his voice I hear on the stairs.
Talk of the devil--”

“And you’re sure to see Dan MacNaghten,” cried my father; and the next
moment he was heartily shaking hands with a tall, handsome man who,
though barely thirty, was yet slightly bald on the top of the head. His
eyes were blue and large; their expression full of the joyous merriment
of a happy schoolboy,--a temperament that his voice and laugh fully
confirmed.

“Watty, boy, it ‘s as good as a day rule to have a look at you
again,” cried he. “There’s not a man can fill your place when you ‘re
away,--devil a one.”

“There he goes,--there he goes!” muttered old French, with a sly wink at
the others.

“Ireland wasn’t herself without you, my boy,” continued MacNaghten.
“We were obliged to put up with Tom Burke’s harriers and old French’s
claret; and the one has no more scent than the other has bouquet.”

French’s face at this moment elicited such a roar of laughter as drowned
the remainder of the speech.

“‘T was little time you had either to run with the one or drink the
other, Dan,” said he; “for you were snug in Kilmainham the whole of the
winter.”

“_Otium cum dignitate_,” said Dan. “I spent my evenings in drawing up a
bill for the better recovery of small debts.”

“How so, Dan?”

“Lending enough more, to bring the debtor into the superior
courts,--trying him for murder instead of manslaughter.”

“Faith, you’d do either if you were put to it,” said French, who merely
heard the words, without understanding the context.

Dan MacNaghten was now included in my father’s invitation to Castle
Carew; and, after a few other allusions to past events and absent
friends, they all took their leave, and my father hastened to join his
bride.

“You thought them very noisy, my dear,” said my father, in reply to a
remark of hers. “They, I have no doubt, were perfectly astonished at
their excessive quietness,--an air of decorum only assumed because they
heard you were in the next room.”

“They were not afraid of me, I trust,” said she, smiling. “Not exactly
afraid,” said my father, with a very peculiar smile.



CHAPTER III. A FATHER AND DAUGHTER

The celebrated money-lender and bill-discounter of Dublin in the times
we speak of, was a certain Mr. Fagan, popularly called “The Grinder,”
 from certain peculiarities in his dealings with those who stood in need
of his aid. He had been, and indeed so had his father before him, a
fruit-seller, in a quarter of the city called Mary’s Abbey,--a trade
which he still affected to carry on, although it was well known that the
little transactions of the front shop bore no imaginable proportion
to the important events which were conducted in the small and gloomy
back-parlor behind it.

It was a period of unbounded extravagance. Few even of the wealthiest
lived within their incomes. Many maintained a style and pretension
far beyond their fortunes, the first seeds of that crop of ruin whose
harvest we are now witnessing. By large advances on mortgage, and great
loans at moments of extreme pressure, the Grinder had amassed an
immense fortune, at the same time that he possessed a very considerable
influence in many counties, in whose elections he took a deep although
secret interest.

If money-getting and money-hoarding was the great passion of his
existence, it was in reality so in furtherance of two objects, on which
he seemed to have set his whole heart. One of these was the emancipation
of the Catholics; the other, the elevation of his only child, a
daughter, to rank and station, by means of a high marriage.

On these two themes his every thought was fixed; and however closely
the miser’s nature had twined itself around his own, all the thirst for
gain, all the greed of usury, gave way before these master-passions.
So much was he under their guidance that no prospect of advantage ever
withdrew him from their prosecution; and he who looked for the Grinder’s
aid, must at least have appeared to him as likely to contribute towards
one or other of these objects.

Strange as it may seem to our modern notions, the political ambition
seemed easier of success than the social. With all their moneyed
embarrassments, the higher classes of Ireland refused to stoop to an
alliance with the families of the rich plebeians, and were much more
ready to tamper with their conscience on questions of state, than to
abate a particle of their pride on a matter of family connection. In
this way, Mr. Fagan could command many votes in the House from those who
would have indignantly refused his invitation to a dinner.

In pursuit of this plan, he had given his daughter the best education
that money could command. She had masters in every modern language, and
in every fashionable accomplishment. She was naturally clever and quick
of apprehension, and possessed considerable advantages in person and
deportment. Perhaps an overweening sense of her own importance, in
comparison with those about her, imparted a degree of assumption to her
manner, or perhaps this was instilled into her as a suitable lesson for
some future position; but so was it, that much of the gracefulness of
her youth was impaired by this fault, which gradually settled down into
an almost stern and defiant hardiness of deportment,--a quality little
likely to be popular in high society.

A false position invariably engenders a false manner, and hers was
eminently so. Immeasurably above those with whom she associated, she saw
a great gulf between her and that set with whose habits and instincts
she had been trained to assimilate. To condescend to intimacy with her
father’s guests, was to undo all the teachings of her life; and yet
how barren seemed every hope of ascending to anything higher! No young
proprietor had attained his majority for some years back, without being
canvassed by the Grinder as a possible match for his daughter. He
well knew the pecuniary circumstances of them all. To some he had
lent largely; and yet somehow, although his emissaries were active in
spreading the intelligence that Bob Fagan’s daughter would have upwards
of three hundred thousand pounds.

It seemed a point of honor amongst this class that none should descend
to such a union, nor stoop to an alliance with the usurer. If, in the
wild orgies of after-dinner in the mad debauchery of the mess-table,
some reckless spendthrift would talk of marrying Polly Fagan, a burst of
mockery and laughter was certain to hail the proposition. In fact, any
alternative of doubtful honesty, any stratagem to defeat a creditor,
seemed a more honorable course than such a project.

There were kind friends--mayhap amongst them were some disappointed
suitors--ready to tell Polly how she was regarded by this set; and this
consciousness on her part did not assuredly add to the softness of a
manner that each day was rendering her more cold and severe; and, from
despising those of her own rank, she now grew to hate that above her.

It so chanced that my father was one of those on whom Fagan had long
speculated for a son-in-law. There was something in the careless ease
of his character that suggested the hope that he might not be very
difficult of persuasion; and, as his habits of expense required large
and prompt supplies, the Grinder made these advances with a degree of
liberality that could not fail to be flattering to a young heir.

On more than one occasion, the money was paid down before the lawyers
had completed the documents; and this confidence in my father’s honor
had greatly predisposed him in Fagan’s favor. The presumptuous idea of
an alliance with him would have, of course, routed such impressions, but
this never occurred to my father. It is very doubtful that he could have
brought himself to believe the thing possible. So secret had been my
father’s marriage that none, even of his most intimate friends, knew
of it till within a short time before he arrived in Ireland. The great
outlay at Castle Carew of course attracted its share of gossip, but all
seemed to think that these were the preparations for an event not yet
decided on. This also was Fagan’s reading of it; and he watched with
anxious intensity every step and detail of that costly expenditure in
which his now last hope was centred.

“He must come to me for all this; I alone can be the paymaster here,”
 was his constant reflection, as he surveyed plans which required a
princely fortune to execute, and which no private income could possibly
have supported by a suitable style of living. “A hundred thousand pounds
will pay for all,” was the consolatory thought with which he solaced
himself for this extravagance.

The frequent calls for money, the astounding sums demanded from time to
time, did indeed alarm Fagan. The golden limit of a hundred thousand had
long been passed, and yet came no sign of retrenchment; on the contrary,
the plans for the completion of the Castle were on a scale of even
greater magnificence.

It was to assure himself as to the truth of these miraculous narratives,
to see with his own eyes the splendors of which he had heard so much,
that Fagan once undertook a journey down to Castle Carew. For reasons
the motives of which may be as well guessed as described, he was
accompanied by his daughter. Seeming to be engaged on a little tour
of the county, they arrived at the village inn at nightfall, and the
following morning readily obtained the permission to visit the grounds
and the mansion.

Perhaps there is no higher appreciation of landscape beauty than that of
him who emerges from the dark and narrow street of some busy city,--from
its noise, and smoke, and din,--from its vexatious cares and harassing
duties, and strolls out, of a bright spring morning, through the grassy
fields and leafy lanes of a rural country; there is a repose, a sense of
tranquil calm in the scene, so refreshing to those whose habitual rest
comes of weariness and exhaustion. No need is there of the painter’s
eye nor the poet’s fancy to enjoy to the utmost that rich combination of
sky, and wood, and glassy lake.

There may be nothing of artistic excellence in the appreciation, but the
sense of pleasure, of happiness even, is to the full as great.

It was in such a mood that Fagan found himself that morning slowly
stealing along a woodland-path, his daughter at his side; halting
wherever a chance opening afforded a view of the landscape, they walked
leisurely on, each, as it were, respecting the other’s silence. Not that
their secret thoughts were indeed alike,--far from it! The daughter had
marked the tranquil look, the unembarrassed expression of those features
so habitually agitated and careworn: she saw the sense of relief even
one day, one single day of rest, had brought with it. Why should it not
be always thus? thought she. He needs no longer to toil and strive.
His might be a life of quietude and peace. Our fortune is far above our
wants, beyond even our wishes. We might at last make friendships, real
friendships, amongst those who would look on us as equals and neighbors,
not as usurers and oppressors.

While such was passing in the daughter’s mind, the father’s thoughts
ran thus: Can she see these old woods, these waving lawns, these
battlemented towers, topping the great oaks of centuries, and yet not
wish to be their mistress? Does no ambition stir her heart to think,
These might be mine? He scanned her features closely, but in her
drooping eyelids and pensive look he could read no signs of the spirit
he sought for.

“Polly,” said he, at length, “this is finer, far finer than I expected;
the timber is better grown, the demesne itself more spacious. I hardly
looked for such a princely place.”

“It is very beautiful,” said she, pensively.

“A proud thing to be the owner of, Polly,--a proud thing! This is
not the home of some wealthy citizen; these trees are like blazons of
nobility, girl.”

“One might be very happy here, father,” said she, in the same low voice.

“The very thought of my own mind, Polly,” cried he, eagerly. “The
highest in the land could ask for nothing better. The estate has been in
his family for four or five generations. The owner of such a place has
but to choose what he would become. If he be talented, and with capacity
for public life, think of him in Parliament, taking up some great
question, assailing some time-worn abuse,--some remnant of that
barbarous code that once enslaved us,--and standing forward as the
leader of an Irish party. How gracefully patriotism would sit on one
who could call this his own! Not the sham patriotism of your envious
plebeian, nor the mock independence of the needy lawyer, but the sturdy
determination to make his country second to none. There ‘s the Castle
itself,” cried he, suddenly, as they emerged into an open space in front
of the building; and, amazed at the spacious and splendid edifice before
them, they both stood several minutes in silent admiration.

“I scarcely thought any Irish gentleman had a fortune to suit this,”
 said she, at length.

“You are right, Polly; nor has Carew himself. The debts he will have
incurred to build that Castle will hamper his estate, and cripple him
and those that are to come after him. Nothing short of a large sum of
ready money, enough to clear off every mortgage and incumbrance at once,
could enable this young fellow to save them. Even then, his style
should not be the spendthrift waste they say he is fond of. A princely
household he might have, nobly maintained, and perfect in all its
details, but with good management, girl. You must remember that, Polly.”

She started at this direct appeal to herself; and, as her cheeks grew
crimson with conscious shame, she turned away to avoid his glance,--not
that the precaution was needed, for he was far too much immersed in his
own thoughts to observa her. Polly had on more than one occasion seen
through the ambitious schemes of her father. She had detected many
a deep-laid plot he had devised to secure for her that eminence and
station he longed for. Deep and painful were the wounds of her offended
pride at the slights, the insults of these defeated plans. Resentments
that were to last her lifetime had grown of them, and in her heart a
secret grudge towards that class from which they sprung. Over and over
had she endeavored to summon up courage to tell him that, to her, these
schemes were become hateful; that all dignity, all self-respect,
were sacrificed in this unworthy struggle. At last came the moment of
hardihood; and in a few words, at first broken and indistinct, but more
assured and distinct as she went on, she said that she, at least, could
never partake in his ambitious views.

“I have seen you yourself, father, after a meeting with one of
these--these high and titled personages, come home pale, careworn, and
ill. The contumely of their manner had so offended you that you sat down
to your meal without appetite. You could not speak to me; or, in a few
words you dropped, I could read the bitter chagrin that was corroding
your heart. You owned to me, that in the very moment of receiving favors
from you, they never forgot the wide difference of rank that separated
you,--nay more, that they accepted your services as a rightful homage
to their high estate, and made you feel a kind of serfdom in your very
generosity.”

“Why all this? To what end do you tell me these things, girl?” cried he,
angrily, while his cheek trembled with passion.

“Because if I conceal them longer,--if I do not speak them,--they will
break my heart,” said she, in an accent of deepest emotion; “because the
grief they give me has worn me to very wretchedness. Is it not clear
to you, father, that they wish none of us,--that our blood is not their
blood, nor our traditions their traditions?”

“Hold--stop--be silent, I say, or you will drive me distracted,” said
he, grasping her wrist in a paroxysm of rage.

“I will speak out,” said she, resolutely. “The courage I now feel
may, perhaps, never return to me. There is nothing humiliating in our
position, save what we owe to ourselves; there is no meanness in our
rank in life, save when we are ashamed of it! Our efforts to be what we
were not born to be, what we ought not to be, what we cannot be,--these
may, indeed, make us despicable and ridiculous, for there are things in
this world, father, that not even gold can buy.”

“By Heaven, that is not true!” said he, fiercely. “There never yet was
that in rank, honor, and distinction that was not ticketed with its own
price! Our haughtiest nobility--the proudest duke in the land--knows
well what his alliance with a plebeian order has done for him. Look
about you, girl. Who are these marchionesses, these countesses,
who sweep past us in their pride? The daughters of men of my own
station,--the wealthy traders of the country--”

“And what is their position, father? A living lie. What is their haughty
carriage? The assumption of a state they were not born to,--the insolent
pretension to despise all amidst which they passed their youth, their
earliest friendships, their purest, best days. Let them, on the other
hand, cling to these; let them love what has grown into their natures
from infancy,--the home, the companions of their happy childhood,--and
see how the world will scoff at their vulgarity, their innate
degeneracy, their low-born habits: vulgar if generous, vulgar when
saving; their costly tastes a reproach, their parsimony a sneer.”

There was a passionate energy in her tone and manner, which, heightening
the expression of her handsome features, made her actually beautiful;
and her father half forgot the opposition to his opinions, in his
admiration of her. As he still gazed at her, the sharp sound of a
horse’s canter was heard behind them; and, on turning round, they saw
advancing towards them a young man, mounted on a blood horse, which he
rode with all the careless ease of one accustomed to the saddle; his
feet dangling loosely out of the stirrups, and one hand thurst into the
pocket of his shooting-jacket.

“Stand where you are!” he cried, as the father and daughter were about
to move aside, and give him room to pass; and immediately after he
rushed his horse at the huge trunk of a fallen beech-tree, and cleared
it with a spring.

“He ‘ll be perfect at timber, when he gets a little cooler in temper,”
 said he, turning on his saddle; and then, recognizing Fagan, he reined
short in, and called out, “Halloo, Tony! who ever expected to see you
here?--Miss Polly, your servant. A most unexpected pleasure this,” added
he, springing from his saddle, and advancing towards them with his hat
off.

“It is not often I indulge myself with a holiday, Mr. MacNaghten,” said
Fagan, as though half ashamed of the confession.

“So much the worse for you, Fagan, and for your handsome daughter
here,--not to speak of the poor thriftless devils, like myself, who are
the objects of your industrious hours. Eh, Tony, is n’t that true?” and
he laughed heartily at his impudent joke.


“And if it were not for such industry, sir,” said the daughter, sternly,
“how many like you would be abroad to-day?”

[Illustration: 052]

“By Jove, you are quite right, Miss Polly. It is exactly as you say.
Your excellent father is the providence of us younger sons; and I, for
one, will never prove ungrateful to him. But pray let us turn to another
theme. Shall I show you the grounds and the gardens? The house is
in such a mess of confusion that it is scarcely worth seeing. The
conservatory, however, and the dairy are nearly finished; and if you can
breakfast on grapes and a pineapple, with fresh cream to wash them down,
I ‘ll promise to entertain you.”

“We ask for nothing better, Mr. MacNaghten,” said Fagan, who was not
sorry to prolong an interview that might afford him the information he
sought for.

“Now for breakfast, and then for sight-seeing,” said Dan, politely
offering his arm to the young lady, and leading the way towards the
house.



CHAPTER IV. A BREAKFAST AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

To do the honors of another man’s house is a tremendous test of tact.
In point of skill or address, we know of few things more difficult. The
ease which sits so gracefully on a host becomes assurance when practised
by a representative; and there is a species of monarchy about the
lord of a household that degenerates into usurpation in the hands of a
pretender. It is not improbable, then, Dan MacNaghten’s success in
this trying part was mainly attributable to the fact that he had never
thought of its difficulty. He had gone through a fine property in a
few years of dissipation, during which he had played the entertainer so
often and so well that nothing seemed to him more natural than a seat
at the head of a table, nor any task more simple or agreeable than to
dispense its hospitalities.

The servants of the Castle were well accustomed to obey him, and when
he gave his orders for breakfast to be speedily laid out in the
conservatory, they set about the preparations with zeal and activity.
With such promptitude, indeed, were the arrangements made that by
the time MacNaghten had conducted his guests to the spot, all was in
readiness awaiting them.

The place was admirably chosen, being a central point in the
conservatory, from which alleys branched out in different directions;
some opening upon little plots of flowers or ornamental shrubbery,
others disclosing views of the woodland scenery or the distant mountains
beyond it. The table was spread beside a marble basin, into which a
little group of sportive Titans were seen spouting. Great Nile lilies
floated on the crystal surface, and gold and silver fish flashed and
glittered below. The board itself, covered with luscious fruit, most
temptingly arranged amidst beautiful flowers, displayed, besides,
some gorgeous specimens of Sèvres and Saxony, hastily taken from their
packing-cases, while a large vase of silver, richly chased, stood in the
centre, and exhibited four views of the Castle, painted in medallions on
its sides.

“If you’ll sit here, Miss Polly,” said MacNaghten, “you’ll have a
prettier view, for you’ll see the lake, and catch a peep, too, of the
Swiss Cottage on the crag above it. I must show you the cottage after
breakfast. It was a bit of fancy of my own,--copied, I am free to
confess, from one I saw in the Oberland.--Fagan, help yourself; you ‘ll
find these cutlets excellent. Our friend Carew has made an admirable
choice of a cook.”

“You treat us in princely fashion, sir,” said Fagan, whose eyes glanced
from the splendor before him to his daughter, and there tried to read
her thoughts.

“You gave me no time for that; had you told me you were coming down, I
‘d have tried to receive you properly. As it is, pray make up your mind
to stay a day or two,--Carew will be so delighted; nothing flatters him
so much as to hear praise of this place.”

“Ah, sir, you forget that men like myself have but few holidays.”

“So much the worse, Fagan; remember what the adage says about all
work and no play. Not, by Jove, but I ‘m sure that the converse of the
proposition must have its penalty, too; for if not, I should have been a
marvellously clever fellow.--Ay, Miss Polly, my life has been all play.”

“A greater fault than the other, sir, and with this addition, too, that
it makes proselytes,” said she, gravely; “my father’s theory finds fewer
followers.”

“And you not one of them?” said MacNaghten, rapidly; while he fixed a
look of shrewd inquiry on her.

“Assuredly not,” replied she, in a calm and collected tone.

“By Jove, I could have sworn to it,” cried he, with a burst of
enthusiastic delight. “There, Fagan, you see Miss Polly takes my side,
after all.”

“I have not said so,” rejoined she, gravely. “Gain and waste are nearer
relatives than they suspect.”

“I must own that I have never known but one of the family,” said Dan,
with one of those hearty laughs which seemed to reconcile him to any
turn of fortune.

Fagan all this time was ill at ease and uncomfortable; the topic annoyed
him, and he gladly took occasion to change it by an allusion to the
wine.

“And yet there are people who will tell you not to drink champagne for
breakfast,” exclaimed Dan, draining his glass as he spoke; “as if any
man could be other than better with this glorious tipple. Miss Polly,
your good health, though it seems superfluous to wish you anything.”

She bowed half coldly to the compliment, and Fagan added hurriedly, “We
are at least contented with our lot in life, Mr. MacNaghten.”

“Egad, I should think you were, Tony, and no great merit in the
resignation, after all. Put yourself in my position, however,--fancy
yourself Dan MacNaghten for one brief twenty-four hours. Think of
a fellow who began the world--ay, and that not so very long ago
either--with something over five thousand a-year, and a good large sum
in bank, and who now, as he sits here, only spends five shillings
when he writes his name on a stamp; who once had houses and hounds and
horses, but who now sits in the rumble, and rides a borrowed hack. If
you want to make a virtue of your contentment, Fagan, change places with
me.”

“But would you take mine, Mr. MacNaghten? Would you toil, and slave, and
fag,--would you shut out the sun, that your daily labor should have no
suggestive temptings to enjoyment,--would you satisfy yourself that the
world should be to you one everlasting struggle, till at last the very
capacity to feel it otherwise was lost to you forever?”

“That’s more than I am able to picture to myself,” said MacNaghten,
sipping his wine. “I ‘ve lain in a ditch for two hours with a broken
thigh-bone, thinking all the time of the jolly things I ‘d do when I ‘d
get well again; I ‘ve spent some very rainy weeks in a debtor’s prison,
weaving innumerable enjoyments for the days when I should be at liberty;
so that as to any conception of a period when I should not be able to be
happy, it ‘s clean and clear beyond me.”

Polly’s eyes were fixed on him as he spoke, and while their expression
was almost severe, the heightened color of her cheeks showed that she
listened to him with a sense of pleasure.

“I suppose it’s in the family,” continued Dan, gayly. “My poor father
used to say that no men have such excellent digestion as those that have
nothing to eat.”

“And has it never occurred to you, sir,” said Polly, with a degree of
earnestness in her voice and manner,--“has it never occurred to you
that this same buoyant temperament could be turned to other and better
account than mere “--she stopped, and blushed, and then, as if by an
effort, went on--“mere selfish enjoyment? Do you not feel that he who
can reckon on such resources but applies them to base uses when he
condescends to make them the accessories of his pleasures? Is there
nothing within your heart to whisper that a nature such as this was
given for higher and nobler purposes; and that he who has the spirit
to confront real danger should not sit down contented with a mere
indifference to shame?”

“Polly, Polly!” cried her father, alike overwhelmed by the boldness and
the severity of her speech.

“By Jove, the young lady has given me a canter,” cried MacNaghten, who,
in spite of all his good temper, grew crimson; “and I only wish the
lesson had come earlier. Yes, Miss Polly,” added he, in a voice of more
feeling, “it ‘s too late now.”

“You must forgive my daughter, Mr. MacNaghten,--she is not usually so
presumptuous,” said Fagan, rising from the table, while he darted
a reproving glance towards Polly; “besides, we are encroaching most
unfairly on your time.”

“Are you so?” cried Dan, laughing. “I never heard it called mine before!
Why, Tony, it’s yours, and everybody’s that has need of it. But if you
‘ll not eat more, let me show you the grounds. They are too extensive
for a walk, Miss Polly, so, with your leave, we ‘ll have something to
drive; meanwhile I’ll tell the gardener to pluck you some flowers.”

Fagan waited till MacNaghten was out of hearing, and then turned angrily
towards his daughter.

“You have given him a sorry specimen of your breeding, Polly; I thought,
indeed, you would have known better.”

“You forget already, then, the speech with which he accosted us,” said
she, haughtily; “but my memory is better, sir.”

“His courtesy might have effaced the recollection, I think,” said Fagan,
testily.

“His courtesy! Has he not told you himself that every gift he possesses
is but an emanation of his selfishness? The man who can be anything so
easily, will be nothing if it cost a sacrifice.”

“I don’t care what he is,” said Fagan, in a low, distinct voice, as
though he wanted every word to be heard attentively. “For what he has
been, and what he will be, I care just as little. It is where he moves,
and lives, and exerts influence,--these are what concern me.”

“Are the chance glimpses that we catch of that high world so attractive,
father?” said she, in an accent of almost imploring eagerness. “Do
they, indeed, requite us for the cost we pay for them? When we leave the
vulgar circle of our equals, is it to hear of generous actions, exalted
sentiments, high-souled motives; or is it not to find every vice that
stains the low pampered up into greater infamy amongst the noble?”

“This is romance and folly, girl. Who ever dreamed it should be
otherwise? Nature stamped no nobility on gold, nor made copper plebeian.
This has been the work of men; and so of the distinctions among
themselves, and it will not do for us to dispute the ordinance. Station
is power, wealth is power; he who has neither, is but a slave; he who
has both, may be all that he would be!”

A sudden gesture to enforce caution followed these words; and at
the same time MacNaghten’s merry voice was heard, singing as he came
along,--

  “‘Kneel down there, and say a prayer,
    Before my hounds shall eat you.’
  ‘I have no prayer,’ the Fox replied,
    ‘For I was bred a Quaker.’

“All right, Miss Polly. Out of compliment to you, I suppose, Kitty
Dwyer, that would never suffer a collar over her head for the last six
weeks, has consented to be harnessed as gently as a lamb; and my own
namesake, ‘Dan the Smasher,’ has been traced up, without as much as one
strap broken. They ‘re a little pair I have been breaking in for Carew;
for he’s intolerably lazy, and expects to find his nags trained to
perfection. Look at them, how they come along,--no bearing reins, no
blinkers. That ‘s what I call a very neat turn-out.”

The praise was, assuredly, not unmerited, as two highbred black ponies
swept past with a beautiful phaeton, and drew up at the door of the
conservatory.

The restless eyes, the wide-spread nostrils and quivering flanks of
the animals, not less than the noiseless caution of the grooms at their
heads, showed that their education had not yet been completed; and so
Fagan remarked at once.

“They look rakish,--there’s no denying it!” said Mac-Naghten; “but they
are gentleness itself. The only difficulty is to put the traps on them;
once fairly on, there’s nothing to apprehend. You are not afraid of
them, Miss Polly?” said he, with a strong emphasis on the “you.”

“When you tell me that I need not be, I have no fears,” said she,
calmly.

“I must be uncourteous enough to say that I do not concur in the
sentiment,” said Fagan; “and, with your leave, Mr. MacNaghten, we will
walk.”

“Walk! why, to see anything, you’ll have twelve miles a-foot. It must
n’t be thought of, Miss Polly,--I cannot hear of it!” She bowed, as
though in half assent; and he continued: “Thanks for the confidence; you
shall see it is not misplaced. Now, Fagan--”

“I am decided, Mr. MacNaghten; I’ll not venture; nor will I permit my
daughter to risk her life.”

“Neither would I, I should hope,” said MacNaghten; and, although the
words were uttered with something of irritation, there was that in the
tone that made Polly blush deeply.

“It’s too bad, by Jove!” muttered he, half aloud, “when a man has so
few things that he really can do, to deny his skill in the one he knows
best.”

“I am quite ready, sir,” said Polly, in that tone of determination which
she was often accustomed to assume, and against which her father rarely
or never disputed.

“There now, Fagan, get up into the rumble. I ‘ll not ask you to be the
coachman. Come, come,--no more opposition; we shall make them impatient
if we keep them standing much longer.”

As he spoke, he offered his arm to Polly, who, with a smile,--the first
she had deigned to give him,--accepted it, and then, hastily leading her
forward, he handed her into the carriage. In an instant MacNaghten was
beside her. With the instinct of hot-tempered cattle, they no sooner
felt a hand upon the reins than they became eager to move forward, and,
while one pawed the ground with impatience, the other, retiring to the
very limit of the pole-strap, prepared for a desperate plunge.

“Up with you, Fagan; be quick--be quick!” cried Dan. “It won’t do to
hold them in. Let them go, lads, or they ‘ll smash everything!” and the
words were hardly out, when, with a tremendous bound, that carried
the front wheels off the road, away they went. “Meet us at the other
gate,--they ‘ll show you the way,” cried MacNaghten, as, standing up,
he pointed with his whip in the direction he meant. He had no time
for more; for all his attention was now needed to the horses, as, each
exciting the other, they dashed madly on down the road.

“This comes of keeping them standing,” muttered Dan; “and the scoundrels
have curbed them up too tight. You’re not afraid, Miss Polly? By Jove,
that was a dash,--Kitty showed her heels over the splash-board. Look at
that devil Dan,--see how he ‘s bearing on the pole-piece!--an old trick
of his.”

A tremendous cut on his flank now drove him almost furious, and the
enraged animal set off at speed.

“We must let them blow themselves, Miss Polly. It all comes of their
standing so long. You’re not afraid?--Well, then, they may do their
worst.”

By this time the pace had become a tearing gallop, and seeing that
nothing short of some miles would suffice to tame them down, MacNaghten
turned their heads in the direction of a long avenue which led towards
the sea.

It was all in vain that Fagan fastened through the flower-garden, and
across a private shrubbery; when he reached the “gate,” there was no
sign of the phaeton. The cuckoo and the thrush were the only voices
heard in the stillness; and, at intervals, the deep booming of the sea,
miles distant, told how unbroken was the silence around. His mind was
a conflict of fear and anger; terrible anxieties for his daughter were
mixed up with passion at this evidence of her wayward nature, and he
walked along, reproaching himself bitterly for having accepted the
civilities of MacNaghten.

Fagan’s own schemes for a high alliance for his daughter had made him
acquainted with many a counterplot of adventurers against himself.
He well knew what a prize Polly Fagan was deemed amongst the class of
broken-down and needy spendthrifts who came to him for aid. Often and
often had he detected the first steps of such machinations, till at
length he had become suspectful of everything and everybody. Now,
MacNaghten was exactly the kind of man he most dreaded in this respect.
There was that recklessness about him that comes of broken fortune; he
was the very type of a desperate adventurer, ready to seize any chance
to restore himself to fortune and independence. Who could answer for
such a man in such an emergency?

Driven almost mad with these terrors, he now hastened his steps,
stopping at times to listen, and at times calling on his daughter in the
wildest accents. Without knowing whither he went, he soon lost himself
in the mazes of the wood, and wandered on for hours in a state bordering
upon distraction. Suspicion had so mastered his reason that he had
convinced himself the whole was a deliberate scheme,--that MacNaghten
had planned all beforehand. In his disordered fancies, he did not
scruple to accuse his daughter of complicity, and inveighed against her
falsehood and treachery in the bitterest words.

And what was Dan MacNaghten doing all this time? Anything, everything,
in short, but what he was accused of! In good truth, he had little time
for love-making, had such a project even entered his head, so divided
were his attentions between the care of the cattle and his task of
describing the different scenes through which they passed at speed,--the
prospect being like one of those modern inventions called dissolving
views,--no sooner presenting an object than superseding it by another.
In addition to all this, he had to reconcile Miss Polly to what seemed
a desertion of her father; so that, what with his “cares of coachman,
cicerone, and consoler,” as he himself afterwards said, it was clean
beyond him to slip in even a word on his own part. It is no part of my
task to inquire how Polly enjoyed the excursion, or whether the dash of
recklessness, so unlike every incident of her daily life, did not repay
her for any discomfort of her father’s absence: certain is it that when,
after about six miles traversed in less than half an hour, they returned
to the Castle, her first sense of apprehension was felt by not finding
her father to meet her. No sooner had MacNaghten conducted her to the
library than he set out himself in search of Fagan, having despatched
messengers in all directions on the same errand. Dan, it must be owned,
had far rather have remained to reassure Miss Polly, and convince her
that her father’s absence would be but momentary; but he felt that it
was a point of duty with him to go--and go he did.

It chanced that, by dint of turning and winding, Fagan had at length
approached the Castle again, so that MacNaghten came up with him within
a few minutes after his search began. “Safe, and where?” were the only
words the old man could utter as he grasped the other’s arm. Dan, who
attributed the agitation to but one cause, proceeded at once to reassure
him on the score of his daughter’s safety, detailing, at the same time,
the circumstances which compelled him to turn off in a direction the
opposite of that he intended. Fagan drank in every word with eagerness,
his gray eyes piercingly fixed on the speaker all the while. Great
as was his agitation throughout, it became excessive when MacNaghten
chanced to allude to Polly personally, and to speak of the courage she
displayed.

“She told you that she was not afraid?--she said so to yourself?” cried
he, eagerly.

“Ay, a dozen times,” replied Dan, freely. “It was impossible to have
behaved better.”

“You said so,--you praised her for it, I have no doubt,” said the other,
with a grim effort at a smile.

“To be sure I did, Tony. By Jove, you’ve reason to be proud of her.
I don’t speak of her beauty,--that every one can see; but she’s a
noble-minded girl. She would grace any station in the land.”

“She heard you say as much with pleasure, I ‘m certain,” said Fagan,
with a smile that was more than half a sneer.

“Nay, faith, Tony, I did not go so far. I praised her courage. I told
her that not every man could have behaved so bravely.”

MacNaghten paused at this.

“And then--and then, sir,” cried Fagan, impatiently.

Dan turned suddenly towards him, and, to his amazement, beheld a
countenance tremulous with passionate excitement.

“What then, sir? Tell me what then? I have a right to ask, and I will
know it. I ‘m her father, and I demand it.”

“Why, what in Heaven’s name is the matter?” exclaimed MacNaghten. “I
have told you she is safe,--that she is yonder.”

“I speak not of that, sir; and you know it,” cried Fagan, imperiously.
“The dissimulation is unworthy of you. You ought to be a man of honor.”

“Egad, good temper would be the best quality for me just now,” said the
other, with a smile; “for you seem bent on testing it.”

“I see it all,” cried Fagan, in a voice of anguish. “I see it all. Now
hear me, Mr. MacNaghten. You are one who has seen much of the world, and
will readily comprehend me. You are a man reputed to be kind-hearted,
and you will not pain me by affecting a misunderstanding. Will you leave
this to-morrow, and go abroad, say for a year or two? Give me your hand
on it, and draw on me for one thousand pounds.”

“Why, Tony, what has come over you? Is it the air of the place has
disordered your excellent faculties? What can you mean?”

“This is no answer to my question, sir,” said Fagan, rudely.

“I cannot believe you serious in putting it,” said MacNaghten, half
proudly. “Neither you nor any other man has the right to make such a
proposal to me.”

“I say that I have, sir. I repeat it. I am her father, and by one dash
of my pen she is penniless to-morrow. Ay, by Heaven, it is what I will
do if you drive me to it.”

“At last I catch your meaning,” said MacNaghten, “and I see where your
suspicions have been pointing at. No, no; keep your money. It might be a
capital bargain for me, Tony, if I had the conscience to close with it;
and if you knew but all, you ‘ve no right to offer so much temptation.
That path will bring you to the Castle. You ‘ll find Miss Polly in the
library. Good-bye, Fagan.”

And without waiting for a reply, MacNaghten turned abruptly away, and
disappeared in the wood.

Fagan stood for a second or two deep in thought, and then bent his steps
towards the Castle.



CHAPTER V. JOE RAPER

The little incident which forms the subject of the last chapter occurred
some weeks before my father’s return to Ireland, and while as yet the
fact of his marriage was still a secret to all, save his most intimate
friends. The morning after Fagan’s visit, however, MacNaghten received a
few lines from my father, desiring him to look after and “pass” through
the Custom House certain packages of value which would arrive there
about that time. It chanced that poor Dan’s circumstances just at
this moment made seclusion the safer policy, and so he forwarded the
commission to Fagan.

The packages contained the wardrobe of Madame de Carew, and revealed
the mystery of my father’s marriage. Fagan’s plans and speculations must
have attained to a great maturity in his own mind, to account for the
sudden shock which this intelligence gave him. He was habitually a
cautious calculator, rarely or never carried away by hope beyond the
bounds of stern reality, and only accepting the “probable” as the
“possible.” In this instance, however, he must have suffered himself a
wider latitude of expectation, for the news almost stunned him. Vague as
were the chances of obtaining my father for a son-in-law, they were yet
fair subjects of speculation; and he felt like one who secures a great
number of tickets in a lottery, to augment his likelihood to win.
Despite of all this, he had now to bear the disappointment of a “blank.”
 The great alliance on which he had built all his hopes of position and
station was lost to him forever; and, unable to bear up against the
unexpected stroke of fortune, he feigned illness and withdrew.

It is very difficult for some men to sever the pain of a disappointment
from a sense of injury towards the innocent cause of it. Unwilling to
confess that they have calculated ill, they turn their anger into some
channel apart from themselves. In the present case Fagan felt as if my
father had done him a foul wrong, as though he had been a party to the
deceit he practised on himself, and had actually traded on the hopes
which stirred his own heart. He hastened home, and, passing through the
little shop, entered the dingy parlor behind it.

At a large, high desk, at each side of which stood innumerable
pigeon-holes, crammed with papers, a very diminutive man was seated
writing. His suit of snuff-brown was worn and threadbare, but
scrupulously clean, as was also the large cravat of spotless white
which enclosed his neck like a pillory. His age might have been about
fifty-one or two; some might have guessed him more, for his features
were cramped and contracted with wrinkles, which, with the loss of one
of his eyes from small-pox, made him appear much older than he was. His
father had been one of the first merchants of Dublin, in whose ruin and
bankruptcy, it was said, Fagan’s father had a considerable share. The
story also ran that Joe Raper--such was his name--had been the accepted
suitor of her who subsequently married Fagan. The marriage having been
broken off when these disasters became public, young Raper was forced
by poverty to relinquish his career as a student of Trinity College,
and become a clerk in Fagan’s office and an inmate of his house. In this
station he had passed youth and manhood, and was now growing old;
his whole ambition in life being to see the daughter of his former
sweetheart grow up in beauty and accomplishments, and to speculate with
himself on some great destiny in store for her. Polly’s mother had
died within two years after her marriage, and to her child had Joe
transmitted all the love and affection he had borne to herself. He had
taken charge of her education from infancy, and had labored hard himself
to acquire such knowledge as might keep him in advance of his gifted
pupil. But for this self-imposed task it is more than likely that all
his little classic lore had been long forgotten, and that the graceful
studies of his earlier days had been obliterated by the wear and tear of
a life so little in unison with them. To be her teacher, he had toiled
through the long hours of the night, hoarding up his miserable earnings
to buy some coveted book of reference, some deeply prized authority in
criticism. By dint of downright labor,--for his was not one of those
bright intelligences that acquire as if by instinct,--he had mastered
several of the modern languages of Europe, and refreshed his knowledge
of the ancient ones. With such companionship and such training, Polly
Fagan’s youth had been fashioned into that strange compound, where high
ambitions and gentle tastes warred with each other, and the imaginative
faculties were cultivated amidst views of life alone suggestive of gain
and money-getting.

If Fagan took little interest in the care bestowed by Raper on his
daughter’s education, he was far from indifferent to the devotion of
his faithful follower; while Joe, on the other hand, well knowing that
without him the complicated business of the house could not be carried
on for a single day, far from presuming on his indispensable services,
only felt the more bound in honor to endure any indignity rather than
break with one so dependent on him. It had been a kind of traditionary
practice with the Fagans not to keep regular books, but to commit all
their transactions to little fragments of paper, which were stuffed,
as it seemed, recklessly into some one or other of that vast nest of
pigeon-holes, which, like a gigantic honeycomb, formed the background
of Joe Raper’s desk, and of which he alone, of men, knew the secret
geography. No guide existed to these mysterious receptacles, save when
occasionally the name of some suitor of uncommon importance appeared
over a compartment; and as an evidence of what a share our family
enjoyed in such distinction, I have heard that the word “Carew” figured
over as many as five of these little cells.

Joe turned round hastily on his stool as his chief entered, and saluted
him with a respectful bow; and then, as if continuing some unbroken
thread’ of discourse, said, “Whyte is protested,--Figgis and Read
stopped.”

“What of Grogan?” said Fagan, harshly.

“Asks for time. If he sells his stock at present prices, he ‘ll be a
heavy loser.”

“So let him,--say that we’ll proceed.”

“The writ can’t run there; he lives in Mayo.”

“We ‘ll try it.”

“We did so before, and the sub-sheriff was shot.”

“Attorneys are plenty,--we ‘ll send down another.”

“Hump!” muttered Joe, as he turned over a folio of papers before him.
“Ay, here it is,” said he. “Oliver Moore wishes to go to America, and
will give up his lease; he only begs that you will vouchsafe to him some
small compensation--”

“Compensation! That word is one of yours, Mr. Raper, and I’ve no doubt
has a classical origin,--you got it in Homer, perhaps; but, let me
tell you, sir, that it is a piece of vulgar cant, and, what is worse,
a swindle! Ay, grow pale if you like; but I ‘ll repeat the word,--a
swindle! When a man wants to sell a pair of old boots, does he think
of charging for all the blacking he has put on them for the three years
before? And yet that is precisely what you dignify with the name of
compensation. Tell him if he built a house, that he lived in it; if he
fenced the land, that the neighbors’ cattle made fewer trespasses; if
he drained, the soil was the drier. Your cry of compensation won’t do,
Raper. I might as well ask an insurance office to pay me for taking care
of my health, and give me a bonus whenever I took castor oil!”

“The cases are not alike, sir. If his improvements be of a permanent
character--”

“Is this an office, Mister Raper, or is it a debating society?” broke in
Fagan. “My answer to Moore is, pay, and go--to the devil, if he likes.”

“Sir Harry Wheeler,” continued Joe, “writes from Cheltenham that he
thinks there must be a mistake about the bill for three hundred and
forty odd,--that it was included In the bond he gave in September last.”

“File a bill, send for Crowther, and let him proceed against him.”

“But I think he ‘s right, sir; the memorandum is somewhere here. I put
it amongst the W’s; for we have no box for Sir Harry.”

“It’s a nice way to keep accounts, Mister Raper; I must say it’s very
creditable to you,” said Fagan, who, when any inaccuracy occurred,
always reproached Joe with the system that he rigidly compelled him
to follow. “Perhaps it’s classical, however; maybe it’s the way the
ancients did it! But I ‘ll tell you what, sir, you ‘d cut an ugly figure
before the courts if you came to be examined; your Latin and Greek
wouldn’t screen you there.”

“Here it is,--here’s the note,” said Joe, who had all the while been
prosecuting his search. “It’s in your own hand, and mentions that this
sum forms a portion of the debt now satisfied by his bond.”

“Cancel the bill, and tell him so. What’s that letter yonder?”

“It is marked ‘strictly private and confidential,’ sir; but comes from
Walter Carew, Esq.”

“Then why not give it to me at once? Why keep pottering about every
trifle of no moment, sir?” said Fagan, as he broke the seal, and drew
near to the window to read. It was very brief, and ran thus:--

  Dear Fagan,--Shylock could n’t hold a candle to you; such
  an infernal mess of interest, compound interest, costs, and
  commission as you have sent me I never beheld! However, for
  the present I must endure all your exactions, even to the
  tune of fifty per cent. Let me have cash for the enclosed
  three bills, for one thousand each, drawn at the old dates,
  and, of course, to be ‘done’ at the old discount.

  I have just taken a wife, and am in want of ready money to
  buy some of the customary tomfooleries of the occasion.
  Regards to Polly and her fat terrier.

  Yours, in haste,

  Walter Carew.

“Read that,” said Fagan, handing the letter to his clerk, while the
veins in his forehead swelled out with passion, and his utterance grew
hoarse and thick.

Raper carefully perused the note, and then proceeded to examine the
bills, when Fagan snatched them rudely from his hand.

“It was his letter I bade you read,--the gross insolence of his manner
of addressing me. Where’s his account, Raper? How does he stand with
us?”

“That’s a long affair to make out,” said Joe, untying a thick roll of
papers.

“I don’t want details. Can you never understand that? Tell me in three
words how he stands.”

“Deeply indebted,--very deeply indebted, sir,” said Joe, poring over the
papers.

“Tell Crowther to come over this evening at six o’clock, and write to
Carew by this post, thus:--

“‘Mr. Fagan regrets that in the precarious condition of the money
market he is obliged to return you the bills, herewith enclosed, without
acceptance. Mr. F., having some large and pressing claims to meet,
desires to call your attention to the accompanying memorandum, and
to ask at what early period it will be your convenience to make an
arrangement for its settlement.’

“Make out an account and furnish it, Raper; we’ll see how he relishes
Shylock when he comes to read that.”

Joseph sat with the pen in his hand, as if deep in thought.

“Do you hear me, Raper?” asked Fagan, in a harsh voice.

“I do,” said the other, and proceeded to write.

“There’s a judgment entered upon Carew’s bond of February, isn’t there?”

“There is! Crowther has it in his office.”

“That’s right. We ‘ll see and give him a pleasant honeymoon.” And with
these words, uttered with an almost savage malevolence, he passed out
into the street.

Joe Raper’s daily life was a path on which the sunlight seldom fell; but
this day it seemed even darker than usual, and as he sat and wrote, many
a heavy sigh broke from him, and more than once did he lay down his pen
and draw his hand across his eyes. Still he labored on, his head bent
down over his desk, in that selfsame spot where he had spent his youth,
and was now dropping down into age unnoticed and unthought of. Of those
who came and went from that dreary room, who saw and spoke with him, how
many were there who knew him, who even suspected what lay beneath that
simple exterior! To some he was but the messenger of dark tidings, the
agent of those severe measures which Fagan not unfrequently employed
against his clients. To others he seemed a cold, impassive, almost
misanthropic being, without a tie to bind him to his fellow-man; while
not a few even ascribed to his influences all the harshness of
the “Grinder.” It is more than likely that he never knew of, never
suspected, the different judgments thus passed on him. So humbly did he
think of himself, so little disposed was he to fancy that he could be
an object of attention to any, the chances are that he was spared this
source of mortification. Humility was the basis of his whole character,
and by its working was every action of his simple life influenced. It
might be a curious subject of inquiry how far this characteristic was
fashioned by his habits of reading and of thought. Holding scarcely
any intercourse with the world of society, companionless as he was,
his associates were the great writers of ancient or modern times,--the
mighty spirits whose vast conceptions have created a world of their
own. Living amongst them, animated by their glorious sentiments, feeling
their thoughts, breathing their words, how natural that he should have
fallen back upon himself with a profound sense of his inferiority! How
meanly must he have thought of his whole career in life, in presence of
such standards!

Upon this day Joe never once opened a book; the little volumes which
lay scattered through his drawers were untouched, nor did he, as was
his wont, turn for an instant to refresh himself in the loved pages of
Metastasio or of Uhland. Whenever he had more than usual on hand, it was
his custom not to dine with the family, but to eat something as he sat
at his desk. Such was his meal now: a little bread and cheese, washed
down by a glass of water.

“Miss Polly hopes you’ll take a glass of wine, Mr. Joe,” said a
maid-servant, as she appeared with a decanter in her hand.

“No! Thanks--thanks to Miss Polly; many thanks--and to you Margaret; not
to-day. I have a good deal to do.” And he resumed his work with that air
of determination the girl well knew brooked no interruption.

It was full an hour after sunset when he ceased writing; and then,
laying his head down between his hands, he slept,--the sound, heavy
sleep that comes of weariness. Twice or thrice had the servant to call
him before he could awake, and hear that “Miss Polly was waiting tea for
him.”

“Waiting for me!” cried he, in mingled shame and astonishment. “How
forgetful I am; how very wrong of me! Is Mr. Crowther here, Margaret?”

“He came an hour ago, sir.”

“Dear me, how I have forgotten myself!” And he began gathering up
his papers, the hard task of the day, in all haste. “Say I’m coming,
Margaret; tell Miss Polly I’m so sorry.” And thus with many an excuse,
and in great confusion, Raper hurried out of the office, and upstairs
into the drawing-room.

Fagan’s house was, perhaps, the oldest in the street, and was remarkable
for possessing one of those quaint, old-fashioned windows, which,
projecting over the door beneath,-formed a species of little boudoir,
with views extending on either side. Here it was Polly’s pleasure to
sit, and here she now presided at her tea-table; while in a
remote corner of the room her father and Mr. Crowther were deep in
conversation.

“Have you finished the statement? Where ‘s the account?” cried Fagan,
roughly interrupting the excuses that Raper was making for his absence.

“Here it is,--at least, so far as I was able to make it. Many of our
memoranda, however, only refer to verbal arrangements, and allude to
business matters transacted personally between you and Mr. Carew.”

“Listen to him, Crowther; just hear what he says,” said Fagan, angrily.
“Is not that a satisfactory way to keep accounts?”

“Gently, gently; let us go quietly to work,” said Crowther, a large,
fat, unwieldy man, with a bloated, red face, and an utterance rendered
difficult from the combined effects of asthma and over-eating. “Raper is
generally most correct, and your own memory is admirable. If Miss Polly
will give me a cup of her strongest tea, without any sugar, I ‘ll answer
for it I ‘ll soon see my way.”

When Raper had deposited the mass of papers on the table, and presented
the cup of tea to Crowther, he stole, half timidly, over to where Polly
sat.

“You must be hungry, Papa Joe,”--it was the name by which she called him
in infancy,--“for you never appeared at dinner. Pray eat something now.”

“I have no appetite, Polly,--that is, I have eaten already. I ‘m quite
refreshed,” said he, scarcely thinking of what he said, for his eyes
were directed to the table where Crowther was seated, and where a kind
of supercilious smile on the attorney’s face seemed evoked by something
in the papers before him.

“Some cursed folly of his own,--some of that blundering nonsense that
he fills his brains with!” cried Fagan, as he threw indignantly away
a closely written sheet of paper, the lines of which unmistakably
proclaimed verse.

Joe eyed the unhappy document wistfully for a second or two, and then,
with a stealthy step, he crept over, and threw it into the hearth.

“I found out the passage, Polly,” said he, in a whisper, so as not
to disturb the serious conference of the others; and he drew a few
well-thumbed leaves from his pocket, and placed them beside her, while
she bent over them till her glossy ringlets touched the page.

“This is the Medea,” said she; “but we have not read that yet.”

“No, Polly; you remember that we kept it for the winter nights; we
agreed Tieck and Chamisso were better for summer evenings--‘Quando
ridono i prati,’ as Petrarch says;” and her eyes brightened, and her
cheek glowed as he spoke. “How beautiful was that walk we took on Sunday
evening last! That little glen beside the river, so silent, so still,
who could think it within a mile or two of a great city? What a
delightful thing it is to think, Polly, that they who labor hard in the
week--and there are so many of them!--can yet on that one day of rest
wander forth and taste of the earth’s freshness.

  “‘L; oro e le perle--i fîor vermegli ed i bianchi.’”

“Confound your balderdash!” cried Fagan, passionately; “you’ve put me
out in the tot--seventeen and twelve, twenty-nine--two thousand nine
hundred pounds, with the accruing interest. I don’t see that he has
added the interest.”

Mr. Crowther bent patiently over the document for a few minutes, and
then, taking off his spectacles, and wiping them slowly, said, in
his blandest voice: “It appears to me that Mr. Raper has omitted
to calculate the interest. Perhaps he would kindly vouchsafe us his
attention for a moment.”

Raper was, however, at that moment deaf to all such appeals; his spirit
was as though wandering free beneath the shade of leafy bowers or along
the sedgy banks of some clear lake.

“You remember Dante’s lines, Polly, and how he describes--

  “‘La divina foresta--
    Che agli occhi tempera va il nuovo giorno,
  Senza piu aspettar lasciai la riva,
    Preudendo la campagna lento lento.’

How beautiful the repetition of the word ‘lento;’ how it conveys the
slow reluctance of his step!”

“There is, to my thinking, even a more graceful instance in Metastasio,”
 said Polly:--

“‘L’ onda che mormora, Fra sponda e sponda, L’ aura che tremola, Fra
fronda e fronda.”

“Raper, Raper,--do you hear me, I say?” cried Fagan, as he knocked
angrily with his knuckles on the table.

“We are sorry, Miss Fagan,” interposed Crowther, “to interrupt such
intellectual pleasure, but business has its imperative claims.”

“I ‘m ready--quite ready, sir,” said Joe, rising in confusion, and
hastening across the room to where the others sat.

“Take a seat, sir,” said Fagan, peremptorily; “for here are some points
which require full explanation. And I would beg to remind you that if
the cultivation of your mind, as I have heard it called, interferes with
your attention to office duties, it would be as well to seek out some
more congenial sphere for its development than my humble house. I’m
too poor a man for such luxurious dalliance, Mr. Raper.” These words,
although spoken in a whisper, were audible to him to whom they were
addressed, and he heard them in a state of half-stupefied amazement.
“For the present, I must call your attention to this. What is it?”

Raper was no sooner in the midst of figures and calculations than all
his instincts of office-life recalled him to himself, and he began
rapidly but clearly to explain the strange and confused-looking
documents which were strewn before him, and Crowther could not but feel
struck by the admirable memory and systematic precision which alone
could derive information from such disorderly materials. Even Fagan
himself was so carried away by a momentary impulse of enthusiasm as to
say, “When a man is capable of such a statement at this, what a disgrace
that he should fritter away his faculties with rhymes and legends!”

“Mr. Raper is a philosopher, sir; he despises the base pursuits and
grovelling ambitions of us lower mortals,” said Crowther, with a
well-feigned humility.

“We must beg of him to lay aside his philosophy, then, for this evening,
for there is much to be done yet,” said Fagan, untying a large bundle
of letters. “This is the correspondence of the last year,--the most
important of all.”

“Large sums! large sums, these!” said Crowther, glancing his eyes over
the papers. “You appear to have placed a most unlimited confidence in
this young gentleman,--a very well merited trust, I have no doubt.”

Fagan made no reply, but a slight contortion of his mouth and eyebrows
seemed to offer some dissent to the doctrine.

“I have kept the tea waiting for you, Papa Joe,” said Polly, who took
the opportunity of a slight pause to address him; and Raper, like an
escaped schoolboy, burst away from his task at a word.

“I have just remembered another instance, Polly,” said he, “of what we
were speaking; it occurs in Schiller,--

    “‘Es bricht sich die Wellen mit Macht--mit Macht.’”

“Take your books to your room, Polly,” said Fagan, harshly; “for I see
that as long as they are here, we have little chance of Mr. Raper’s
services.”

Polly rose, and pressed Joe’s hand affectionately, and then, gathering
up the volumes before her, she left the room. Raper stood for a second
or two gazing at the door after her departure, and then, heaving a faint
sigh, muttered to himself:--

“I have just recalled to mind another,--

  “‘Eine Blüth’, eine Blüth’ mir brich,
     Vom den Baum im Garten.’

Quite ready, sir,” broke he in suddenly, as a sharp summons from Fagan’s
knuckles once more admonished him of his duty; and now, as though the
link which had bound him to realms of fancy was snapped, he addressed
himself to his task with all the patient drudgery of daily habit.



CHAPTER VI. TWO FRIENDS AND THEIR CONFIDENCES

By the details of my last two chapters, I have been obliged to recede,
as it were, from the due course of my story, and speak of events
which occurred prior to those mentioned in a former chapter; but this
irregularity was a matter of necessity, since I could not pursue the
narrative of my father’s life without introducing to the reader certain
characters who, more or less, exerted an influence on his fortunes.
Let me now, however, turn to my tale, from which it is my intention in
future to digress as seldom as possible. A few lines, written in haste,
had summoned MacNaghten to Castle Carew, on the morning of that Friday
for which my father had invited his friends to dinner. With all
his waywardness, and all the weaknesses of an impulsive nature, Dan
MacNaghten stood higher in my father’s esteem than any other of his
friends. It was not alone that he had given my father the most signal
proofs of his friendship, but that, throughout his whole career, marked
as it was by folly and rashness, and the most thoughtless extravagance,
he had never done a single action that reflected on his reputation as a
man of honor, nor, in all the triumphs of his prosperous days, or in the
trials of his adverse ones, had be forfeited the regard of any who knew
him. My father had intrusted to him, during his absence, everything that
could be done without correspondence; for amongst Dan’s characteristics.
none was more remarkable than his horror of letter-writing; and it was
a popular saying of the time “that Dan MacNaghten would rather fight two
duels than write one challenge.” Of course, it may be imagined how much
there was for two such friends to talk over when they met, for if my
father’s letters were few and brief, MacNaghten’s were still fewer and
less explicit, leaving voids on either side that nothing but a meeting
could supply.

Early, therefore, that Friday morning, Dan’s gig and mottled gray, the
last remnant of an extensive stable establishment, rattled up the avenue
of Castle Carew, and MacNaghten strolled into the garden to loiter about
till such time as my father might be stirring. He was not many minutes
there, however, when my father joined him, and the two friends embraced
cordially, and arm-in-arm returned to the house.

It was not without astonishment Dan saw that the breakfast-table was
spread in the same little garden-room which my father always used in his
bachelor days, and, still more, that only two places were laid.

“You are wondering, where’s my wife, Dan. She never breakfasts with me;
nor indeed, do we see each other till late in the afternoon,--a custom,
I will own, that I used to rebel against at first, but I ‘m getting more
accustomed to it now. And, after all, Dan, it would be a great sacrifice
of all her comfort should I insist on a change; so I put up with it as
best I can.”

“Perhaps she ‘ll see herself, in time, that these are not the habits
here.”

“Perhaps so,” said my father; “but usually French people think their
own ways the rule, and all others the exception. I suppose you were
surprised at my marriage, Dan.”

“Faith, I was, I own to you. I thought you one of those inveterate
Irishers that could n’t think of anything but Celtic blood. You
remember, when we were boys, how we used to rave on that theme.”

“Very true. Like all the grafts, we deemed ourselves purer than the
ancient stock; but no man ever knows when, where, or whom he’ll marry.
It’s all nonsense planning and speculating about it. You might as well
look out for a soft spot to fall in a steeplechase. You come smash down
in the very middle of your speculations. I ‘m sure, as for me, I never
dreamed of a wife till I found that I had one.”

“I know so well how it all happened,” cried Dan, laughing. “You got
up one of those delightful intimacies--that pleasant, familiar kind of
half-at-homishness that throws a man always off his guard, and leaves
him open to every assault of female fascination, just when he fancies
that he is the delight of the whole circle. Egad, I’ve had at least
half-a-dozen such, and must have been married at least as many times, if
somebody hadn’t discovered, in the mean while, that I was ruined.”

“So that you never fell in love in your prosperous days, Dan?”

“Who does--who ever did? The minor that wrote sonnets has only to come
of age, and feel that he can indite a check, to be cured of his love
fever. Love is a passion most intimately connected with laziness and
little money. Give a fellow seven or eight thousand a-year, good
health and good spirits, and I ‘ll back him to do every other folly in
Christendom before he thinks of marriage.”

“From all of which I am to conclude that you set down this act of
mine either as a proof of a weak mind or a failing exchequer,” said my
father.

“Not in your case,” said he, more slowly, and with a greater air of
reflection. “You had always a dash of ambition about you; and the
chances are that you set your affections on one that you half despaired
of obtaining, or had really no pretentions to look for. I see I ‘m
right, Walter,” said he, as my father fidgeted, and looked confused. “I
could have wagered a thousand on it, if I had as much. You entered for
the royal plate, and, by Jove! I believe you were right.”

“You have not made so bad a guess of it, Dan; but what say the rest?
What’s the town gossip?”

“Do you not know Dublin as well or better than I do? Can’t you frame to
a very letter every syllable that has been uttered on the subject? or
need I describe to you my Lady Kilfoyle’s fan-shaking horror as she
tells of ‘that poor dear Carew, and his unfortunate marriage with Heaven
knows whom!’ Nor Bob French’s astonishment that you, of all men, should
marry out of your sphere,--or, as he calls it, your ‘spire.’ Nor
how graphically Mrs. Stapleton Harris narrates the manner of your
entanglement: how you fought two brothers, and only gave in to the
superior force of an outraged mamma and the tears of your victim! Nor
fifty other similar stories, in which you figured alternately as the
dupe or the deceived,--the only point of agreement being a universal
reprobation of one who, with all his pretentions to patriotism, should
have entirely forgotten the claims of Irish manufacture.”

“And are they all so severe,--so unjust?”

“Very nearly. The only really warm defender I ‘ve heard of you, was one
from whom you probably least expected it.”

“And who might that be?”

“Can’t you guess, Watty?”

“Harry Blake--Redmond--George Macartney?”

“Confound it, you don’t think I mean a man!”

“A woman,--who could she be? Not Sally Talbot; not Lady Jane Rivers;
not--”

“Kitty Dwyer; and I think you might have guessed her before, Watty! It
is rather late, to be sure, to think of it; but my belief is that you
ought to have married that girl.”

“She refused me, Dan. She refused me,” said my father, growing red,
between shame and a sense of irritation.

“There ‘s a way of asking that secures a refusal, Watty. Don’t tell me
Kitty was not fond of you. I ought to know, for she told me so herself.”

“She told you so,” cried my father, slowly.

“Ay, did she. It was in the summer-house, down yonder. You remember the
day you gave a great picnic to the Carbiniers; they were ordered off to
India, and you asked them out here to a farewell breakfast. Well, I did
n’t know then how badly matters were with me. I thought at least that I
could scrape together some thirteen or fourteen hundreds a year; and I
thought, too, that I had a knowledge of the world that was worth as much
more, and that Kitty Dwyer was just the girl that suited me. She was
never out of humor, could ride anything that ever was backed, did
n’t care what she wore, never known to be sick, sulky, nor sorry for
anything; and after a country dance that lasted two hours, and almost
killed everybody but ourselves, I took her a walk round the gardens,
and seated her in the summer-house there. I need n’t tell all I said,”
 continued he, with a sigh. “I believe I could n’t have pleaded harder
for my life, if it was at stake; but she stopped me short, and,
squeezing my hand between both of hers, said: ‘No, Dan, this cannot be,
and you are too generous to ask me why.’ But I was not! I pressed her
all the more; and at last--not without seeing a tear in her eye, too--I
got at her secret, and heard her say your name. I swore by every saint
we could either of us remember, never to tell this to man or mortal
living; and I suppose, in strict fact, I ought n’t to do so now; but, of
course, it ‘s the same thing as if you were dead, and you, I well know,
will never breathe it again.”

“Never!” said my father, and sat with his head on his hand, unable to
utter a word more.

“Poor Kitty!” said Dan, with a heavy sigh, while he balanced his spoon
on the edge of his teacup. “I half suspect she is the only one in the
world that you ever seriously wronged, and yet she is the very first to
uphold you.”

“But you are unjust, Dan,--most unjust,” cried my father, warmly. “There
was a kind of flirtation between us--I don’t deny it,--but nothing more
than is always going forward in this free-and-easy land of ours, where
people play with their feelings as they do with their fortunes, and are
quite astonished to discover, some fine morning, that they have fairly
run through both one and the other. I liked her, and she perhaps liked
me, somewhat better than any one else that she met as often. We got
to become very intimate; to feel that in the disposal of our leisure
hours--which meant the livelong day--we were excessively necessary to
each other; in fact, that if our minds were not quite alike, our tastes
were. Of course, before one gets that far, one’s friends, as they call
themselves, have gone far beyond it. There’s no need of wearying you
with detail. Somebody, I ‘m sure I forget who it was, now took occasion
to tell me that I was behaving ill to Kitty; that unless I really
intended seriously,--that’s the paraphrase for marriage,--my attentions
were calculated to do her injury. Ay, by Jove! your match-making
moralists talk of a woman as they would of a horse, and treat a broken
flirtation as if it were a breach of warranty. I was, I own it, not a
little annoyed at the unnecessary degree of interest my friends insisted
on taking in my welfare; but I was not fool enough to go to war with the
world single-handed, so I seemed to accept the counsel, and went my way.
That same day, I rode out with Kitty. There was a large party of us, but
by some chance we found ourselves side by side and in an avenue of the
wood. Quite full as my mind was of the communication of the morning, I
could not resist my usual impulse, which was to talk to her of any or
every thing that was uppermost in my thoughts. I don’t mean to say, Dan,
that I did so delicately, or even becomingly, for I confess to you I had
grown into that kind of intimacy whose gravest fault is that it has
no reserve. I ‘m quite certain that nothing could be worse in point of
taste or feeling than what I said. You can judge of it from her reply:
‘And are you such a fool, Walter, as to cut an old friend for such silly
gossip?’ I blundered out something in defence of myself,--floundered
away into all kinds of stupid, unmeaning apologies, and ended by asking
her to marry me. Up to that moment we were conversing in all the freedom
of our old friendship, not the slightest reserve on either side; but no
sooner had I uttered these words than she turned towards me with a look
so sad and so reproachful, I did not believe that her features could
have conveyed the expression, while, in a voice of deepest emotion, she
said: ‘Oh, Walter, this from you!’ I was brute enough--there ‘s only one
word for it--to misunderstand her; and, full of myself and the splendid
offer I had made her, and my confounded _amour propre_, I muttered
something about the opinion of the world, the voice of friends, and so
on. ‘Tell your friends, then,’ said she, and with such an emphasis on
the word,--‘tell your friends that I refused you!’ and giving her mare a
tremendous cut of the whip, she dashed off at speed, and was up with the
others before I had even presence of mind to follow her.”

“You behaved devilish badly,--infamously. If I ‘d been her brother, I’d
have shot you like a dog!” cried Dan, rising, and walking the room.

“I see it,” said my father, covering his face with his handkerchief.

“I am sorry I said that, Watty,--I don’t mean that,” said Dan, laying
his hand on my father’s shoulder. “It all comes of that infernal system
of interference! If they had left you alone, and to the guidance of your
own feelings, you ‘d never have gone wrong. But the world will poke
in its d----d finger everywhere. It’s rather hard, when good-breeding
protests against the bystander meddling with your game at chess, that he
should have the privilege of obtruding on the most eventful incident of
your existence.”

“Let us never speak of this again, Dan,” said my father, looking up with
eyes that were far from clear.

MacNaghten squeezed his band, and said nothing.

“What have you been doing with Tony Fagan, Dan?” said my father,
suddenly. “Have you drawn too freely on the Grinder, and exhausted the
liberal resources of his free-giving nature?”

“Nothing of the kind; he has closed his books against me this many a
day. But why do you ask this?”

“Look here.” And he opened a drawer and showed a whole mass of papers,
as he spoke. “Fagan, whom I regarded as an undrainable well of
the precious metals, threatens to run dry; he sends me back bills
unaccepted, and actually menaces me with a reckoning.”

“What a rascal, not to be satisfied with forty or fifty per cent!”

“He might have charged sixty, Dan, if he would only ‘order the bill to
lie on the table.’ But see, he talks of a settlement, and even hints at
a lawyer.”

“You ought to have married Polly.”

“Pray, is there any one else that I should have married, Dan?” cried my
father, half angrily; “for it seems to me that you have quite a passion
for finding out alliances for me.”

“Polly, they say, will have three hundred thousand pounds,” said Dan,
slowly, “and is a fine girl to boot. I assure you, Watty, I saw her the
other day, seated in the library here; and with all the splendor of
your stained-glass windows, your gold-fretted ceiling, and your gorgeous
tapestries, she looked just in her place. Hang me, if there was a
particle of the picture in better style or taste than herself.”

“How came she here?” cried my father, in amazement. And MacNaghten now
related all the circumstances of Fagan’s visit, the breakfast, and the
drive.

“And you actually sat with three hundred thousand pounds at your side,”
 said my father, “and did not decamp with it?”

“I never said she had the money in her pocket, Watty. Egad! that would
have been a very tempting situation.”

“How time must have changed you, Dan, when you could discuss the
question thus calmly! I remember the day when you ‘d have won the race,
without even wasting a thought on the solvency of the stakeholder.”

“Faith, I believe it were the wisest way, after all, Watty,” said he,
carelessly; “but the fact is, in the times you speak of, my conscience,
like a generous banker, never refused my drafts; now, however, she has
taken a circumspect turn, and I ‘m never quite certain that I have not
overdrawn my account with her. In plain words, I could not bring myself
to do with premeditation what once I might have done from recklessness.”

“And so the scruple saved Polly?” cried my father.

“Just so; not that I had much time to reflect on it, for the blacks were
pulling fearfully, and Dan had smashed his splinter-bar with a kick.
Still, in coming up by the new shrubbery there, I did say to myself:
‘Which road shall I take?’ The ponies were going to decide the matter
for me; but I turned them short round with a jerk, and laid the whip
over their flanks with a cut,--the dearest, assuredly, I ever gave to
horseflesh, for it cost me, in all likelihood, three hundred thousand.”

“Who ‘d have ever thought Dan MacNaghten’s conscience would have been so
expensive!”

“By Jove, Watty, it’s the only thing of value remaining to me. Perhaps
my creditors left it on the same polite principle that they allow a
respectable bankrupt to keep his snuff-box or his wife’s miniature,--a
cheap complaisance that reads well in the newspapers.”

“The Grinder, of course, thought that he had seen the last of you,” said
my father, laughing.

“He as much as said so to me when I came back. He even went further,”
 said Dan, reddening with anger as he spoke: “he proposed to me to go
abroad and travel, and that he would pay the cost. But he ‘ll scarcely
repeat the insolence.”

“Why, what has come over you all here? I scarcely know you for what I
left you some short time back. Dan Mac-Naghten taking to scruples, and
Tony Fagan to generosity, seem, indeed, too much for common credulity!
And now as to politics, Dan! What are our friends doing? for I own to
you I have not opened one of Bagwell’s letters since I left Paris.”

“You ‘re just as wise as if you had. Tom has got into all that
Rotundo cant about the ‘Convention,’ and the ‘Town Council,’ and the
‘Sub-Committee of Nine,’ so that you’d not make anything out of the
correspondence. I believe the truth is, that the Bishop is mad, and they
who follow him are fools. The Government at first thought of buying them
over; but they now perceive it’s a cheaper and safer expedient to
leave them to themselves and their own-indiscretions. But I detest the
subject; and as we ‘ll have nothing else talked of to-day at dinner,
I’ll cry truce till then. Let us have a look at the stable, Watty. I
want to talk to you about the ‘nags.’” And so saying, MacNaghten arose
from table, and, taking my father’s arm, led him away into the garden.



CHAPTER VII. SHOWING HOW CHANCE IS BETTER THAN DESIGN

It was not the custom of the day for the lady of the house to present
herself at dinner when the party consisted solely of men, so that
my mother’s absence from table appeared nothing remarkable. To her,
however, it did seem somewhat singular that, although she descended
to the drawing-room in all the charming elegance of a most becoming
costume, not one of the guests presented himself to pay his respects,
or, as she would have said, his dutiful homage. It is possible that my
father had forgotten to apprise her that the company of a dinner-party
were not usually in that temperate and discreet frame of mind which
would make their appearance in a drawing-room desirable. In his various
lessons, it is more than likely that this escaped him; and I believe
I am not far wrong in wishing that many other of his instructions had
shared the same fate. The fact was, that in preparing my mother for the
duties and requirements of a novel state of society, he had given her
such false and exaggerated notions of the country and the people, she
had imbibed a hundred absurd prejudices about them which, had she been
left to her own unguided good sense and tact, she would have totally
escaped; and while, as he thought, he was storing her mind with a
thorough knowledge of Ireland, he was simply presenting her with
a terrifying picture of such inconsistency, incongruity, and
wrongheadedness that no cleverness on her part could ever succeed in
combating.

It is perfectly true that the courtly deference and polished reserve of
old French manners, its thousand observances, and its unfailing devotion
to ladies, were not the striking features of Irish country-house life;
but there was a great deal in common between them, and perhaps no
country of Europe in that day could so easily, and with such little
sacrifice, have conformed to the French standard of good-breeding as
Ireland; and I have little doubt that if left to herself, my mother
would have soon discovered the points of contact, without even troubling
her head or puzzling her ingenuity over their discrepancies. However
that may be, there she sat, in all the attractive beauty of full dress,
alone and in silence, save when the door of the distant dinner-room
opening bore to her ears the wild and vociferous merriment of a party
excited by wine and conviviality.

I know not, I can but fancy, what thoughts of her own dear land were
hers at that moment, what memory of delicious evenings spent amidst
alleys of orange and lime trees, the rippling fountain mingling its
sounds with the more entrancing music of flattery; what visions rose
before her of scenes endeared from infancy, of objects that recalled
that soft, luxurious dalliance which makes of life a dream. I can but
imagine that of this kind were her reveries, as she sat in solitude, or
slowly paced up and down the immense room which, but partially lighted
up, looked even larger than it was. To cut off every clew to her family,
my father had sent back from England the maid who accompanied her,
and taken in her place one who knew nothing of my mother’s birth or
connections, so that she had not even the solace of so much confidential
intercourse, and was utterly, completely alone. While in Wales she had
been my father’s companion for the entire day, accompanying him when
he walked or rode, and beside him on the river’s bank as he fished;
scarcely had they arrived in Ireland, however, when the whole course of
life was changed. The various duties of his station took up much of his
time, he was frequently occupied all the day, and they met but rarely;
hence had she adopted those old habits of her native country,--that
self-indulgent system which surrounds itself with few cares, fewer
duties, and, alas! no resources.

So fearful was my father that she might take a dislike to the country
from the first impressions produced upon her by new acquaintances that
he actually avoided every one of his neighbors, hesitating where or with
whom to seek companionship for his wife: some were too old, some too
vulgar, some were linked with an objectionable “set,” some were of the
opposite side in politics. His fastidiousness increased with every day;
and while he was assuring her that there was a delightful circle into
which she would be received, he was gradually offending every one of his
old neighbors and associates. Of the great heap of cards which covered
her table, she had not yet seen one of the owners, and already a hundred
versions were circulated to account for the seclusion in which she
lived.

I have been obliged to burden my reader with these explanations, for
whose especial enlightenment they are intended, for I desire that he
should have as clear an idea of the circumstances which attended my
mother’s position as I am able to convey, and without which he would
be probably unjust in his estimate of her character. In all likelihood
there is not any one less adapted to solitude than a young, very
handsome, and much-flattered Frenchwoman. Neither her education nor her
tastes fit her for it; and the very qualities which secure her success
in society are precisely those which most contribute to melancholy when
alone; wit and brilliancy when isolated from the world being like the
gold and silver money which the shipwrecked sailor would willingly have
bartered for the commonest and vilest articles of simple utility.

Let the reader, then, bearing all this in his mind, picture to himself
my mother, who, as the night wore on, became more and more impatient,
starting at every noise, and watching the door, which she momentarily
expected to see open.

During all this time, the company of the dinner-room were in the fullest
enjoyment of their conviviality,--and let me add, too, of that species
of conviviality for which the Ireland of that day was celebrated. It
is unhappily too true: those habits of dissipation prevailed to such
an extent that a dinner-party meant an orgie; but it is only fair to
remember that it was not a mere festival of debauch, but that native
cleverness and wit, the able conversationalist, the brilliant talker,
and the lively narrator had no small share in the intoxication of
the hour. There was a kind of barbaric grandeur in the Irish country
gentleman of the time--with his splendid retinue, his observance of the
point of honor, his contempt of law, and his generous hospitality--that
made him a very picturesque, if not a very profitable, feature of his
native country. The exact period to which I refer was remarkable in this
respect: the divisions of politics had risen to all the dignity of a
great national question, and the rights of Ireland were then on trial.

It is not my object, perhaps as little would it be the reader’s wish, to
enter on any description of the table-talk, where debates in the House,
duels, curious assize cases, hard runs with fox-hounds, adventures
with bailiffs, and affairs of gallantry all followed pell-mell, in
wild succession. None were above telling of their own defeats and
discomfitures. There was little of that overweening self-esteem which in
our time stifles many a good story, for fear of the racy ridicule that
is sure to follow it. Good fellowship and good temper were supreme, and
none felt that to be offence which was uttered in all the frank gayety
of the bottle. Even then the western Irishman had his distinctive
traits; and while the taste for courtly breeding and polished manners
was gradually extending, he took a kind of pride in maintaining his
primitive habits of dress and demeanor, and laughed at the newfangled
notions as a fashionable folly that would last its hour and disappear
again. Of this school was a certain Mr., or rather, as he was always
called, “Old Bob Ffrench,” the familiar epithet of Bitter Bob being his
cognomen among friends and intimates. I am unwilling to let my readers
suppose, even for a moment, that he really deserved the disparaging
prefix. He was, indeed, the very emblem of an easy-tempered,
generous-hearted old man, the utmost extent of whose bitterness was the
coarseness of a manner that, however common in his own country, formed
a strong contrast to the tone of the capital. Although a man of a
large fortune and ancient family, in his dress and appearance he looked
nothing above the class of a comfortable farmer. His large loose brown
coat was decorated with immense silver buttons, and his small clothes,
disdaining all aid from braces, displayed a liberal margin of linen over
his hips; but his stockings were most remarkable of all, being of lamb’s
wool and of two colors, a light-brown and blue,--an invention of his own
to make them easy of detection if stolen, but which assuredly secured
their safety on better grounds. He was a member of Parliament for a
western borough; and despite many peculiarities of diction, and an
occasional lapse of grammar, was always listened to with attention in
the House, and respected for the undeviating honor and manly frankness
of his character. Bob had been, as usual, an able contributor to the
pleasures of the evening; he had sung, told stories, joked, and quizzed
every one around him, and even, in a burst of confidence, communicated
the heads of a speech he was about to make in the House on the question
of reform, when he suddenly discovered that his snuffbox was empty.
Now, amongst his many peculiarities, one was the belief that no man in
Ireland knew how to apportion the various kinds of tobacco like himself,
and Bob’s mixture was a celebrated snuff of the time.

To replenish his box he always carried a little canister in his
great-coat pocket, but never would intrust the care of this important
casket to a servant; so that when he saw that he was “empty,” he quietly
stole from the room and went in search of his great-coat. It was not
without some difficulty that he found his way through the maze of rooms
and corridors to the antechamber where he had deposited his hat and
coat. Having found it at last, however, he set out to retrace his steps;
but whether it was that the fresh air of the cool galleries, or the
walking, or that the wine was only then producing its effects, certain
is it Mr. Ffrench’s faculties became wonderfully confused. He thought
he remembered a certain door; but, to his misery, there were at least
half-a-dozen exactly like it; he knew that he turned off into a passage,
but passages and corridors opened on all sides of him. How heartily did
he curse the architect that could not build a house like all the world,
with a big hall, having the drawing-room to the left and the dinner-room
to the right,--an easy geography that any one could recollect after
dinner as well as before. With many a malediction on all newfangled
notions, he plodded on, occasionally coming to the end of an impassable
gallery, or now straying into rooms in total darkness. “A blessed way
to be spending the evening,” muttered he to himself; “and maybe these
rascals are quizzing me all this time.” Though he frequently stopped to
listen, he never could catch the sounds of a conviviality that he well
knew was little measured, and hence he opined that he must have wandered
far away from the right track. In the semi-desperation of the moment, he
would gladly have made his escape by a window, and trusted to his chance
of discovering the hall door; but unfortunately the artifices of
a modern window-bolt so completely defied his skill that even this
resource was denied him. “‘I’ll take one ‘cast’ more,” muttered he, “and
if that fails, I ‘ll lie down on the first snug place I can find till
morning.” It became soon evident to him that he had, at least, entered
new precincts; for he now found himself in a large corridor, splendidly
lighted, and with a rich carpeting on the floor. There were several
doors on either side, but although he tried them each in turn, they were
all locked. At last he came to a door at the extreme end of the
gallery, which opened to his hand, and admitted him into a spacious
and magnificently furnished apartment, partially lit up, and by this
deceptive light admitting glimpses of the most rare and costly objects
of china, glass, and marble. It needed not the poetizing effects of
claret to make Bob fancy that this was a fairy palace; but perhaps the
last bottle contributed to this effect, for he certainly stood amazed
and confounded at a degree of magnificence and splendor with which he
had never seen anything to compare. Vainly endeavoring to peer through
the dubious half light, and see into the remote distance of the chamber,
Ffrench reached the middle of the room, when he heard, or thought he
heard, the rustling sounds of silk. It was in the days of hoops and
ample petticoats. He turned abruptly, and there stood directly in front
of what, in his own description, he characterized as “the elegantest
crayture ye ever set eyes upon.” Young, beautiful, and most becomingly
dressed, it is no wonder if my mother did produce a most entrancing
effect on his astounded senses. Never for a moment suspecting that his
presence was the result of an accident, my mother courtesied very low,
and, with a voice and a smile of ineffable sweetness, addressed him.
Alas! poor Bob’s mystifications were not to end here, for she spoke in
French, and however distinguished the City of the Tribes might be in
many respects, that language was but little cultivated there. He could,
therefore, only bow, and lay his hand on his heart, and look as much
devotion, respect, and admiration as it was in his power to express at
that late hour of the evening.

“Perhaps you’ll accept of a cup of tea?” said she at length, leading the
way towards the table; and as Ffrench said, afterwards, that he never
declined drink, no matter what the liquor, he readily consented, and
took his place beside her on the sofa. Full of all my father’s lessons
and precepts about the civilities she was to bestow on the Irish
gentlemen and their wives, the importance of creating the most favorable
impression on them, and ingratiating herself into their esteem, my
mother addressed herself to the task in right earnest. Her first care
was to become intelligible, and she accordingly spoke in the slowest
and most measured manner, so as to give the foreigner every possible
facility to follow her. Her second was to impose as little necessity on
her companion for reply as it was possible. She accordingly talked on
of Ireland, of the capital, the country, the scenery about them, the
peasantry,--everything, in short, that she could think of, and always in
a tone of praise and admiration. The single monosyllable “oui” was the
whole stock of old Bob’s French, but, as he often remarked, “we hear
of a man walking from Ballinasloe to Dublin with only tu’pence in his
pocket; and I don’t see why he should not be able to economize his parts
of speech like his pence, and travel through the French dictionary with
only one word of it!” Bob’s “oui” was uttered, it is true, with every
possible variety of tone and expression. It was assent, conviction,
surprise, astonishment, doubt, and satisfaction, just as he uttered
it. So long debarred from all intercourse with strangers, it is not
improbable that my mother was perfectly satisfied with one who gave her
the lion’s share of the conversation. She certainly seemed to ask for
no higher efforts at agreeability than the attention he bestowed, and
he often confessed that he could have sat for a twelvemonth listening to
her, and fancying to himself all the sweet things that he hoped she was
saying to him. Doubtless not ignorant of her success, she was determined
to achieve a complete victory, for after upwards of an hour speaking in
this manner, she asked him if he liked music. Should she sing for him?
The “oui” was of course ready, and without further preface she arose
and walked over to the pianoforte. The fascination which was but begun
before was now completed, for, however weak his appreciation of her
conversational ability, he could, like nearly all his countrymen, feel
the most intense delight in music. It was fortunate, too, that the
tastes of that day did not rise beyond those light “chansonettes,” those
simple melodies which are so easy to execute that they are within the
appreciation of the least-educated ears.

Had the incident occurred in our own day, the chances are that some
passionate scene from Verdi, or some energetic outburst of despised love
or betrayed affection from Donizetti or Meyerbeer, had been the choice,
and poor Bob had gone away with a lamentable opinion of musical science,
and regret for the days when “singing was preferred to screeching.”
 Happily the ballad was more in vogue then than the bravura, and instead
of holding his ears with his hands, Bob felt them tremble with ecstasy
as he listened. Enjoying thoroughly a praise so heartily accorded, my
mother sung on, song after song: now some bold “romance” of chivalry,
now some graceful little air of pastoral simplicity. No matter what the
theme, the charm of the singer was over him, and he listened in perfect
rapture! There is no saying to what pitch of enthusiasm he might have
soared, had he felt the fascination of the words as he appreciated the
flood of melody. As it was, so completely was he carried away by his
emotions that in a rapture of admiration and delight he threw himself on
his knees, and, seizing her hand, covered it with kisses.

“You’re an angel; you’re the loveliest, sweetest, and most enchanting
crayture--” He had got thus far in his rhapsody when my father entered
the room, and, throwing himself into a chair, laughed till the tears ran
down his cheeks.

“Bob! Bob!” cried he, “is this quite fair, I say?” And the old man, at
once alive to the bantering and ridicule to which his adventure would
expose him, got slowly up and resumed his seat, with a most ludicrous
expression of shame on his features.

“There is no necessity of introducing one of my oldest friends to
you, Josephine,” said my father. “He has already done so without my
intervention, and, I must say, he seems to have lost no time in pushing
the acquaintance.”

“He is quite charming,” said my mother. “We had an old Marquis de
Villebois so like him, and he was the delight of our neighborhood in
Provence.”

“I see what it is now,” muttered Ffrench, “you are cutting me up,
between you; but I deserve it well. I was an old fool,--I am ashamed of
myself.”

“Are you going away?” cried my mother.

“What is she saying?” asked he.

“She asks if you have really the heart to leave her,” rejoined my
father, laughing.

“Begad, you may laugh now, Watty,” replied he, in a half-angry tone;
“but I tell you what it is, you’d neither be so ready with your fun,
nor so willing to play interpreter, if old Bob was the same man he
was five-and-thirty years ago!--No, ma’am, he would not,” added he,
addressing my mother. “But maybe, after all, it’s a greater triumph for
you to turn an old head than a young one.”

He hurried away after this; and although my father followed him, and
did all in his power to make him join his companions at table, it was
in vain; he insisted on going to his room, probably too full of the
pleasant vision he had witnessed to destroy the illusion by the noisy
merriment of a drinking-party.

Trivial as the event was in itself, it was not without its
consequences. Bob Ffrench had spread the fame of my mother’s beauty
and accomplishments over Dublin before the following week closed, and
nothing else was talked of in the society of the capital. My father,
seeing that all further reserve on his part was out of the question,
and being satisfied besides that my mother had acquitted herself most
successfully in a case of more than ordinary difficulty, resolved on
leaving the rest to fortune.

From all that I have ever heard of the society of the time, and from
what has reached me by description of my mother’s manner and deportment,
I am fully convinced that she was exactly the person to attain an
immense popularity with all classes. The natural freshness and gayety
of her character, aided by beauty and the graceful duties of a
hostess,--which she seemed to fill as by an instinct,--made her the
object of universal admiration,--a homage which, I believe, it was not
difficult to see was even more pleasing to my father than to herself.

Castle Carew was from this time crowded with visitors, who, strangely
enough, represented the most opposite sections of politics and party.
My father’s absence during some of the most exciting sessions of
parliamentary life had invested him with a species of neutrality that
made his house an open territory for men of all shades of opinion;
and he was but too glad to avail himself of the privilege to form
acquaintance with the most distinguished leaders of opposite sections
of the House; and here were now met the Castle officials, the chiefs of
Opposition, the violent antagonists of debate, not sorry, perhaps,
for even this momentary truce in the strife and conflict of a great
political campaign.



CHAPTER VIII. A STATE TRUMPETER

The 27th of May, 1782, was the day on which Parliament was to assemble
in Dublin, and under circumstances of more than ordinary interest. The
great question of the independence of the Irish Legislature was then
to be discussed and determined; and never was the national mind so
profoundly excited as when that time drew near. They who have only
known Ireland in a later period, when her political convulsions have
degenerated into low sectarian disputes,--irregular irruptions,
headed by men of inferior ability, and stimulated solely by personal
considerations,--can scarcely form any idea of Dublin in the days of the
Volunteers. It was not alone that the Court of the Viceroy was unusually
splendid, or that the presence of the Parliament crowded the capital
with all the country could boast of wealth, station, and influence,
but that the pomp and parade of a powerful army added brilliancy and
grandeur to a spectacle which, for the magnitude of the interests at
stake, and the genius and capacity of those that controlled them, had
not its superior in Europe.

The position of England at the moment was pregnant with anxiety; at war
with two powerful nations, she had more than ever reason to conciliate
the feelings and consult the wishes of Ireland. The modern theory of
English necessity being Irish opportunity had not the same prevalence
then as in our own day, but still it had some followers, not one of
whom more profoundly believed the adage, or was more prepared to stake
fortune on the issue, than our acquaintance, Anthony Fagan.

If the Grinder was not possessed of very sage and statesmanlike opinions
on politics generally, he was, on Irish questions, fully as far advanced
as the patriots of our own time; his creed of “Ireland for the Irish”
 comprising every article of his political belief, with this advantage
over modern patriotism that he was immensely rich, and quite ready to
employ his wealth in the furtherance of his conviction. He was no
needy adventurer, seeking, as the price of a parliamentary display, the
position to which mere professional attainments would never have raised
him, but a hard-working, slow-thinking, determined man, stimulated by
the ambition that is associated with great riches, and stung by the
degradation of low birth and proscribed religion.

Such men are dangerous in proportion as they are single-minded. Fagan,
with all his sincerity of purpose, failed in this respect, for he
was passionate and resentful to an extent which made him often forget
everything else but his desire of a personal reparation. This was his
great fault, and, strange enough, too, he knew it. The working of that
failing, and his iron efforts to control it, made up the whole character
of the man.

The gross corruption which characterized a late period of Irish history
was then comparatively unknown. It is very possible that had it been
attempted, its success had been very inferior to that it was destined to
obtain subsequently, for the whole tone of public feeling was higher
and purer. Public men were both more independent in property, as well as
principle, and no distinction of talent or capacity could have dispensed
with the greater gifts of honesty and good faith. If there were not
venality and low ambition, however, to work upon, there were other
national traits no less open to the seductive arts of a crafty
administration. There was a warm-hearted and generous confidence, and
a gratitude that actually accepted a pledge, and acknowledged it for
performance. These were weaknesses not likely to escape the shrewd
perception of party, and to the utmost were they profited by. The great
game of the government was to sow, if not dissension, at least distrust,
in the ranks of the national party,--to chill the ardor of patriotism,
and, wherever possible, to excite different views, and different roads
to success, amongst the popular leaders of the time. There came a day
when corruption only asked to see a man’s rent-roll and the list of his
mortgages, when his price could be estimated as easily as an actuary
can calculate an annuity when given the age and the circumstances of
the individual. Then, however, the investigation demanded nicer and
more delicate treatment, for the question was the more subtle one of the
mixed and often discordant motives of the human heart.

The Duke of Portland was well calculated to carry out a policy of this
kind; but I am far from suspecting that he was himself fully aware of
the drama in which he acted. He was a plain, straightforward man, of
average good sense, but more than average firmness and determination.
He came over to Ireland thoroughly impressed with the favorite English
maxim that whatever Irishmen wish is assuredly bad for them, and
thought, like the old physicians of the sixteenth century, that a
patient’s benefit was in the exact proportion to his repugnance for the
remedy. I am not quite sure that this pleasant theory is not even yet
the favorite one as regards Ireland, which, perhaps, after all, might be
permitted the privilege so generally accorded to the incurable, to
take a little medicine of her own prescribing. Be this as it may, I
am convinced that the Duke of Portland was no hypocrite, but firmly
believed in the efficacy of the system he advocated, and only made use
of the blandishments and hospitalities of his station to facilitate
connections which he trusted would at last be concurred in on the
unerring grounds of reason and judgment. Whatever people may say or
think to the contrary, hypocrisy--that is, a really well-sustained and
long-maintained hypocrisy--is one of the rarest things to be met with,
and might even be suspected never to exist at all, since the qualities
and gifts necessary, or indeed indispensable, to its attainment are
exactly of an order which bespeaks some of the first and greatest
traits of human nature, and for that reason would make the game of
dissimulation impossible; and I would be as slow to believe that a
man could search the heart, study the passions, weigh the motives, and
balance the impulses of his fellow-men, for mere purposes of trick or
deception, as that a doctor would devote years of toil and labor in his
art for the sole aim of poisoning and destroying his patients.

Few men out of the lists of party took so great an interest in the great
struggle as Tony Fagan. With the success of the patriotic side his own
ambitions were intimately involved. It was not the section of great
wealth, and there was no saying to what eminence a man of his affluence
might attain amongst them. He not only kept a registry of all the
members, with their peculiar leanings and party connections annexed to
it, but he carefully noted down any circumstance likely to influence
the vote or sway the motives of the principal leaders of the people. His
sources of information were considerable, and penetrated every class of
society, from the high world of Dublin down to the lowest resorts of
the rabble. The needy gentleman, hard pressed for resources, found
his dealings with the Grinder wonderfully facilitated by any little
communication of backstairs doings at the Castle, or the secrets of the
chief secretary’s office; while the humble ballad-singer of the streets,
or the ragged newsman, were equally certain of a “tester,” could they
only supply some passing incident that bore upon the relations of party.

If not one of the most brilliant, certainly one of the most assiduous of
Fagan’s emissaries was a certain Samuel Cotterell,--a man who held the
high and responsible dignity of state trumpeter in the Irish Court. He
was a large, fine-looking, though somewhat over-corpulent, personage,
with a most imposing dignity of air, and a calm self-possession of
manner that well became his functions. Perhaps this was natural to him;
but some of it may well be attributed to his sense of the dignity of
one who only appeared in public on the very greatest occasions, and was
himself the herald of a splendid ceremonial.

From long association with the Viceregal Court, he had grown to
believe himself a part, and by no means an insignificant part, of the
Government, and spoke of himself as of one mysteriously but intimately
mixed up in all the acts of the State. The pretentious absurdity, the
overweening vanity of the man, which afforded so much amusement to
others, gave no pleasure to Fagan,--they rather vexed and irritated him;
but these were feelings that he cautiously concealed, for he well knew
the touchy and irritable nature of the man, and that whatever little
information could be derived from him was only come-at-able by indulging
his vein of self-esteem.

It had been for years his custom to pay a visit to Fagan on the eve
of any great solemnity, and he was snugly installed in the little
bow-window on the evening of the 26th May, with a goodly array of
glasses and a very formidable square decanter of whiskey on a table in
front of him. Fagan, who never could trust to the indiscreet propensity
of Polly to “quizz” his distinguished friend, had sent her to spend
the day in the country with some acquaintances; Raper was deep in a
difficult passage of Richter, in his own chamber; so that the Grinder
was free to communicate with the great official unmolested and
undisturbed.

Most men carry into private life some little trait or habit of their
professional career. The lawyer is apt to be pert, interrogative,
and dictatorial; the doctor generally distils the tiresomeness of the
patient in his own conversation; the soldier is proverbially pipeclay;
and so perhaps we may forgive our friend Cotterell if his voice, in
speaking, seemed to emulate the proud notes of his favorite instrument,
while his utterance came in short, broken, abrupt bursts,--faint,
but faithful, imitations of his brazen performances in public. He was
naturally not given to talking, so that it is more than probable the
habit of _staccato_ was in itself a great relief to him.

I will not pretend to say that Fagan’s patience was not sorely tried as
well by the matter as the manner of his friend. His pursuit of politics
was, indeed, under the greatest of difficulties; but he labored on, and,
like some patient gold-seeker, was satisfied to wash the sand for hours,
rewarded with even a few grains of the precious metal at the end of his
toil.

“Help yourself, Sam. That’s the poteen,--this, here, is Kinahan,” said
the Grinder, who well knew that until the finish of the third tumbler,
Mr. Cotterell’s oracle gave no sound. “Help yourself, and remember you
‘ll have a fatiguing day to-morrow!”

“A great day,--say rather a great day for Ireland,” tolled out the
trumpeter.

“That’s to be seen,” replied Fagan, caustically. “I have witnessed a
good many of those great days for Ireland, but I ‘d be sorely puzzled to
say what has come of them.”

“There are three great days for Ireland every year. There’s the opening,
one; the King’s, two; St. Patrick’s, three--”

“I know all that,” muttered Tony, discontentedly.

“St. Patrick’s, three; and a collar day!” repeated Sam, solemnly.

“Collars, and curs to wear them,” growled out Tony, under his breath.

“Ay, a collar day!” and he raised his eyes with a half devotional
expression at these imposing words.

“The Duke will open Parliament in person?” asked Fagan, as a kind of
suggestive hint, which chanced to turn the talk.

“So we mean, sir,--we have always done so. Procession to form in the
Upper Castle Yard at twelve; battle-axes in full dress; Ulster in his
tabard!”

“Yes, yes; I have seen it over and over again,” sighed Fagan, wearily.

“Sounds of trumpet in the court--flourish!”

“Flourish, indeed!” sighed Tony; “it’s the only thing does flourish in
poor Ireland. Tell me, Sam, has the Court been brilliant lately?”

“We gave two dinners last week--plain dress--bags and swords!”

“And who were the company?”

“Loftus, Lodge, and Morris, Skeffington, Langrishe, and others--Boyle
Roche, the Usher-in-waiting. On Friday, we had Rowley, Charlemont--”

“Lord Charlemont,--did he dine with the Viceroy on Friday last?”

“Yes, sir; and it was the first time we have asked him since the Mutiny
Bill!”

“This is indeed strange, Sam; I scarcely thought he was on such terms
with the Court!”

“We forgive and forget, sir,--we forgive and forget,” said Sam, waving
his hand with dignity.

“There was young Carew also.”

“Walter Carew, the member for Wicklow?”

“The same--took in Lady Charlotte Carteret--sat next to her Grace, and
spoken to frequently--French wife--much noticed!”

“Is he one of the new converts, then?” asked Fagan, slowly; “is he about
to change the color of his coat?”

“A deep claret, with diamond buttons, jabot, and ruffles, Mechlin
lace--”

“And the Duke, you say, spoke much with him?”

“Repeatedly.”

“They talked of politics?”

“We talked of everything.”

“And in terms of agreement too?”

“Not about artichokes. Carew likes them in oil,--we always prefer
butter.”

“That is a most important difference of opinion,” said Tony, with a
sneer.

“We thought nothing of it,” said the other, with an air of dignity; “for
shortly after, we accepted an invitation to go down to Castle Carew for
a week.”

“To spend a week at Castle Carew?”

“A half state visit.”

“With all the tagrag and bobtail of a Court,--the lazy drones of
pageantry, the men of painted coats and patched characters, the women
painted too, but beyond the art of patching for a reputation.”

“No, in half state,” replied Cotterell, calmly, and not either heeding
or attending to this passionate outburst,--“two aides-de-camp; Mr.
Barrold, private secretary; Sir George Gore; and about thirty servants.”

“Thirty thieves in state livery,--thirty bandits in silk stockings and
powder!”

“We have made mutual concessions, and shall, I doubt not, be good
friends,” continued Sam, only thinking of what he said himself. “Carew
is to give our state policy a fair trial, and we are to taste the
artichokes with oil. His Grace proposed the contract, and then proposed
the visit.”

A deep groan of angry indignation was all that Tony could utter in
reply. “And this same visit,” said he, at last, “when is it to take
place?”

“Next week; for the present we have much on our hands. We open
Parliament to-morrow; Wednesday, grand dinner to peers and peeresses;
Thursday, the judges and law officers; Friday, debate on the
address--small party of friends; Saturday we go to the play in
state,--we like the play.”

“You do, do you?” said the Grinder, with a grin of malice, as some
vindictive feeling worked within him.

“We have commanded ‘The Road to Ruin,’” continued Cotterell.

“Out of compliment to your politics, I suppose!”

“Holman’s Young Rapid always amused us!”

“Carew’s performance of the character is better still,--it is real;
it is palpable.” Then, suddenly carried beyond himself by a burst of
passion, he cried: “Now, is it possible that your heavy browed Duke
fancies a country can be ruled in this wise? Does he believe that a
little flattery here, a little bribery there, some calumny to separate
friends, some gossip to sow dissension amongst intimates, a promise of
place, a title or a pension thrown to the hungry hounds that yelp, and
bark, and fawn about a Court,--that this means government, or that these
men are the nation?”

“You have overturned the sugar-bowl,” observed Cotterell.

“Better than to upset the country,” said the other, with a contemptuous
look at his stolid companion. “I tell you what it is, Cotterell,” added
he, gravely, “these English had might and power on their side, and had
they rested their strength on them, they might defy us, for we are the
weaker party; but they have condescended to try other weapons, and would
encounter us with subtlety, intrigue, and cabal. Now, mark my words: we
may not live to see it, but the time will come when their scheme will
recoil upon themselves; for we are their equals,--ay, more than their
equals,--with such arms as these! Fools that they are, not to see that
if they destroy the influence of the higher classes, the people will
elect leaders from their own ranks; and, instead of having to fight
Popery alone, the day is not distant when they ‘ll have to combat
democracy too. Will not the tune be changed then?”

“It must always be ‘God save the King,’ sir, on birthdays,” said
Cotterell, who was satisfied if he either caught or comprehended the
last words of any discourse.

It is difficult to say whether the Grinder’s temper could have
much longer endured these assaults of stupidity, but for the sudden
appearance of Raper, who, coming stealthily forward, whispered a few
words in Fagan’s ear.

“Did you say here?--here?” asked Fagan, eagerly.

“Yes, sir,” replied Raper; “below in the office.”

“But why there? Why not show him upstairs? No, no, you ‘re right,” added
he, with a most explanatory glance towards his guest. “I must leave you
for a few minutes, Cotterell. Take care of yourself till I come back;”
 and with this apology he arose, and followed Raper downstairs.

The visitor, who sat on one of the high office-stools, dressed in the
first fashion of the day, slapped his boot impatiently with his cane,
and did not even remove his hat as Fagan entered, contenting himself
with a slight touch of the finger to its leaf for salutation.

“Sorry to disturb you, Fagan,” said he, half cavalierly; “but being
in town late this evening, and knowing the value of even five minutes’
personal intercourse, I have dropped in to say,--what I have so often
said in the same place,--I want money.”

“Grieved to hear it, Mr. Carew,” was the grave, sententious reply.

“I don’t believe you, Tony. When a man can lend, as you can, on his own
terms, he ‘s never very sorry to hear of the occasion for his services.”

“Cash is scarce, sir.”

“So I have always found it, Tony; but, like everything else, one gets
it by paying for. I ‘m willing to do so, and now, what’s the rate,--ten,
fifteen, or are you Patriarch enough to need twenty per cent?”

“I’m not sure that I could oblige you, even on such terms, Mr. Carew.
There is a long outstanding, unsettled account between us. There is
a very considerable balance due to me. There are, in fact, dealings
between us which call for a speedy arrangement.”

“And which are very unlikely to be favored with it, Tony. Now, I have
n’t a great deal of time to throw away, for I’m off to the country
to-night, so that pray let us understand each other at once. I shall
need, before Monday next, a sum of not less than eight thousand pounds.
Hacket, my man of law, will show you such securities as I possess. Call
on him, and take your choice of them. I desire that our negotiation
should be strictly a matter between ourselves, because we live in
gossiping times, and I don’t care to amuse the town with my private
affairs. Are you satisfied with this?”

“Eight thousand, in bills, of course, sir?”

“If you wish it!”

“At what dates?”

“The longer the better.”

“Shall we say in two sums of four thousand each,--six months and nine?”

“With all my heart. When can I touch the coin?”

“Now, sir; this moment if you desire it.”

“Write the check, then, Tony,” said he, hurriedly.

“There, sir, there are the bills for your signature,” said Fagan. “Will
you have the goodness to give me a line to Hacket about the securities?”

“Of course,” said he; and he at once wrote the note required. “Now for
another point, Tony: I am going to ask a favor of you. Are you in a
gracious mood this evening?”

The appeal was sudden enough to be disconcerting, and so Fagan felt it,
for he looked embarrassed and confused in no ordinary degree.

“Come, I see I shall not be refused,” said my father, who at once saw
that the only course was the bold one. “It is this: we are expecting
some friends to spend a few days with us at Castle Carew, a kind of
house-warming to that new wing; we have done our best to gather around
us whatever our good city boasts of agreeability and beauty, and with
tolerable success. There is, I may say, but one wanting to make our
triumph complete. With her presence I ‘d wager a thousand guineas that
no country mansion in Great Britain could contest the palm with us.”

Fagan grew deadly pale as he listened, then flushed deeply, and a second
time a sickly hue crept over his features as, in a voice barely above a
whisper, he said,--

“You mean my daughter, sir?”

“Of course I do, Tony. A man need n’t read riddles to know who is the
handsomest girl in Dublin. I hope you ‘ll not deny us the favor of her
company. My wife will meet her at Bray; she’ll come into town, if you
prefer it, and take her up here.”

“Oh, no, sir; not here,” said Fagan, hurriedly, who, whatever plans he
might be forming in his mind, quickly saw the inconvenience of such a
step.

“It shall be as you please in every respect, Fagan. Now, on Tuesday
morning--”

“Not so fast, sir,--not so fast,” said Fagan, calmly. “You have n’t
given me time for much reflection now; and the very little thought I
have bestowed on the matter suggests grave doubts to me. Nobody knows
better than Mr. Carew that a wide gulf separates our walk in life from
his; that however contented with our lot in this world, it is a very
humble one--”

“Egad! I like such humility. The man who can draw a check for ten
thousand at sight, and yet never detect any remarkable alteration in
his banker’s book, ought to be proud of the philosophy that teaches him
contentment. Tony, my worthy friend, don’t try to mystify me. You know,
and you ‘d be a fool if you did n’t know, that with your wealth and your
daughter’s beauty you have only to choose the station she will occupy.
There is but one way you can possibly defeat her success, and that is by
estranging her from the world, and withdrawing her from all intercourse
with society. I can’t believe that this is your intention; I can
scarcely credit that it could be her wish. Let us, then, have the honor
of introducing her to that rank, the very highest position in which she
would grace and dignify. I ask it as a favor,--the very greatest you can
bestow on us.”

“No, sir; it cannot be. It’s impossible, utterly impossible.”

“I am really curious to know upon what grounds, for I confess they are a
secret to me!”

“So they must remain, then, sir, if you cannot persuade me to open more
of my heart than I am in the habit of doing with comparative strangers.
I can be very grateful for the honor you intend me, Mr. Carew; but the
best way to be so is, probably, not to accompany that feeling with any
sense of personal humiliation!”

“You are certainly not bent on giving me any clew to your motives,
Fagan.”

“I’m sorry for it, sir; but frankness to you might be great unfairness
to myself.”

“More riddles, Tony, and I ‘m far too dull to read them.”

“Well, then, sir, perhaps you’d understand me when I say that Anthony
Fagan, low and humble as he is, has no mind to expose his daughter to
the sneers and scoffs of a rank she has no pretension to mix with; that,
miser as he is, he would n’t bring a blush of shame to her cheek for all
the wealth of India! and that, rather than sit at home here and brood
over every insult that would be offered to the usurer’s daughter by
those beggarly spendthrifts that are at liberty by his bounty, he ‘d
earn his name of the Grinder by crushing them to the dust!”

The vehemence of his utterance had gone on increasing as he spoke, till
at the end the last words were given with almost a scream of passion.

“I must say, Fagan,” replied my father, calmly, “that you form a very
humble, I trust a very unfair, estimate of the habits of my house, not
to say of my own feelings. However, we’ll not dispute the matter. Good
evening to you.”

“Good evening, sir; I ‘m sorry I was so warm; I hope I have said nothing
that could offend you.”

“Not when you did n’t mean offence, believe me, Fagan. I repeat my
hope that the friends and acquaintances with whom I live are not the
underbred and ill-mannered class you think them; beyond that I have
nothing to say. Good evening.”

Probably no amount of discussion and argument on the subject could so
palpably have convinced Fagan of the vast superiority of a man of good
manners over one of inferior breeding as did the calm and gentleman-like
quietude of my father’s bearing, in contradistinction to his own
passionate outbreak.

“One moment, sir,--one moment,” cried he, laying his hand on my father’s
arm; “you really believe that one humbly born as Polly, the daughter of
a man in my condition, would be received amongst the high and titled of
Dublin without a scornful allusion to whence she came,--without a sneer
at her rank in life?”

“If I thought anything else, Fagan, Ï should be dishonored in making
this request of you.”

“She shall go, sir,--she shall go,” cried Fagan.

“Thanks for the confidence, Fagan; I know you ‘d rather trust me with
half your fortune without a scratch of my pen in return.”

Fagan turned away his head; but a motion of his hand across his eyes
showed how he felt the speech.

To obviate the awkwardness of the moment, my father entered upon the
details of the journey, for which it was arranged that Fagan was to send
his daughter to Bray, where a carriage from Castle Carew would be in
waiting to convey her the remainder of the way. These points being
settled, my father once again thanked him for his compliance, and
departed.

I should be only mystifying my reader most unjustifiably should I affect
any secrecy as to my father’s reasons for this singular invitation;
for although the gossipry of the day could adduce innumerable plots
and plans which were to spring out of it, I sincerely believe his sole
motive was the pleasure that he and my mother were sure to feel in doing
a piece of graceful and generous politeness. MacNaghten’s account of
Polly had strongly excited their curiosity, not to speak of a more
worthy feeling, in her behalf; and knowing that Fagan’s immense wealth
would one day or other be hers, they felt it was but fair that she
should see, and be seen, by that world of which she was yet to be a
distinguished ornament. Beyond this, I implicitly believe they had no
motive nor plan. Of course, I do not pretend to say that even
amongst his own very guests, the men who travelled down to enjoy his
hospitality, his conduct did not come in for its share of criticism.
Many an artful device was attributed to this seeming stroke of policy,
not one of which, however, did not more redound to my father’s craft
than to his character for honorable dealing. But what would become
of “bad tongues” in this world if there were not generous natures to
calumniate and vilify? Of a verity, scandal prefers a high mark and an
unblemished reputation for its assaults, far better than a damaged fame
and a tattered character; it seems more heroic to shy a pebble through a
pane of plate-glass than to pitch a stone through a cracked casement!



CHAPTER IX. A GENTLEMAN USHER

Among the members of the Viceregal suite who were to accompany his
Grace on a visit was a certain Barry Rutledge, a gentleman usher, whose
character and doings were well known in the times I speak of. When a
very young man, Rutledge had been stripped of his entire patrimony on
the turf, and was thrown for support upon the kindness of those who
had known him in better days. Whether it was that time had developed or
adversity had sharpened his wits, it is certain that he showed himself
to be a far shrewder and more intelligent being than the world had
heretofore deemed him. If he was not gifted with any very great insight
into politics, for which he was free to own he had no taste, he was well
versed in human nature, at least in all its least favorable aspects,
and thoroughly understood how to detect and profit by the weaknesses of
those with whom he came in contact.

His racing experiences had given him all the training and teaching which
he possessed, and to his own fancied analogy between the turf and the
great race of life did he owe all the shrewd inspirations that guided
him.

His favorite theory was, that however well a horse may gallop, there
is always, if one but knew it, some kind of ground that would throw
him “out of stride;” and so of men: he calculated that every one
is accompanied by some circumstance or other which forms his
stumbling-block through life; and however it may escape notice, that
to its existence will be referrable innumerable turnings and windings,
whose seeming contradictions excite surprise and astonishment.

To learn all these secret defects, to store his mind with every incident
of family and fortune of the chief actors of the time, was the mechanism
by which he worked, and certainly in such inquisitorial pursuits it
would have been hard to find his equal. By keenly watching the lines
of action men pursued, he had taught himself to trace back to their
motives, and by the exercise of these faculties he had at last attained
to a skill in reading character that seemed little short of marvellous.

Nature had been most favorable in fitting him for his career, for his
features were of that cast which bespeaks a soft, easy temperament,
careless and unsuspecting. His large blue eyes and curly golden hair
gave him, even at thirty, a boyish look, and both in voice and manner
was he singularly youthful, while his laugh was like the joyous outburst
of a happy schoolboy.

None could have ever suspected that such a figure as this, arrayed in
the trappings of a courtly usher, could have inclosed within it a whole
network of secret intrigue and plot. My mother had the misfortune to
make a still more fatal blunder; for, seeing him in what she pardonably
enough believed to be a livery, she took him to be a menial, and
actually despatched him to her carriage to fetch her fan! The incident
got abroad, and Rutledge, of course, was well laughed at; but he seemed
to enjoy the mirth so thoroughly, and told the story so well himself,
that it could never be imagined he felt the slightest annoyance on the
subject. By all accounts, however, the great weakness of his character
was the belief that he was decidedly noble-looking and highbred; that
place him where you would, costume him how you might, surround him
with all that might disparage pretension, yet that such was the innate
gentlemanhood of his nature, the least critical of observers would not
fail to acknowledge him. To say that he concealed this weakness most
completely, that he shrouded it in the very depth of his heart, is only
to repeat what I have already mentioned as to his character; for he was
watchful over every trifle that should betray a knowledge of his nature,
and sensitively alive to the terrors of ridicule. From that hour forward
he became my mother’s enemy,--not, as many others might, by decrying her
pretensions to beauty, or by any depreciatory remarks on her dress
or manner, but in a far deeper sense, and with more malignant
determination.

To learn who she was, of what family, what were her connections, their
rank, name, and station, were his first objects; and although the
difficulties of the inquiry were considerable, his sources of knowledge
were sufficient to overcome them. He got to hear something at least
of her history, and to trace back her mysterious journey to an
ancient château belonging to the Crown of France. Beyond this, in all
livelihood, he could not go; but even here were materials enough for his
subtlety to make use of.

The Viceregal visit to Castle Carew had been all planned by him. He
had persuaded the Duke that the time was come when, by a little timely
flattering, the whole landed gentry of Ireland were in his hands. The
conciliating tone of the speech which opened Parliament, the affectedly
generous confidence of England in all the acts of the Irish Legislature,
had already succeeded to a miracle. Grattan himself moved the address
in terms of unbounded reliance on the good faith of Government. Flood
followed in the same strain, and others, of lesser note, were ashamed
to utter a sentiment of distrust, in the presence of such splendid
instances of confiding generosity. My father, although not a leading
orator of the House, was, from connection and fortune, possessed of much
influence, and well worth the trouble of gaining over, and, as Rutledge
said, “It was pleasant to have to deal with a man who wanted neither
place, money, nor the peerage, but whose alliance could be ratified at
his own table, and pledged in his own Burgundy.”

Every one knows what happens in the East when a great sovereign makes a
present of an elephant to some inferior chief. The morale of a Viceregal
visit is pretty much in the same category. It is an honor that cannot be
declined, and it is generally sure to ruin the entertainer. Of course
I do not talk of the present times nor of late years. Lord-Lieutenants
have grown to be less stately; the hosts have become less splendid. But
in the days I speak of here, there were great names and great fortunes
in the land. The influence of the country neither flowed from Roman
rescripts nor priestly denunciations. The Lions of Judah and the Doves
of Elphin were as yet unknown to our political zoology; and, with all
their faults and shortcomings, we had at least a national gentry party,
high-spirited, hospitable, and generous, and whose misfortunes were
probably owing to the fact that they gave a too implicit faith to the
adaptiveness of English laws to a people who have not, in their habits,
natures, or feelings, the slightest analogy to Englishmen! and that,
when at length they began to perceive the error, it was already too late
to repair it.

The Viceroy’s arrival at Castle Carew was fixed for a Tuesday, and on
Monday evening Mr. Barry Rutledge drove up to the door just as my father
and mother, with Dan Mac-Naghten, were issuing forth for a walk. He
had brought with him a list of those for whom accommodation should be
provided, and the number considerably exceeded all expectation. Nor was
this the only disconcerting event, for my father now learned, for the
first time, that he should have taken his Grace’s pleasure with regard
to each of the other guests he had invited to meet him,--a piece of
etiquette he had never so much as thought of. “Of course it’s not much
matter,” said Rutledge, laughing easily; “your acquaintances are all
known to his Grace.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” interposed my father, quickly; for he
suddenly remembered that Polly Fagan was not likely to have been
presented at Court, nor was she one to expect to escape notice.

“He never thinks of politics in private life; he has not the smallest
objection to meet every shade of politician.”

“I ‘m quite sure of that,” said my father, musing, but by no means
satisfied with the prospect before him.

“Tell Rutledge whom you expect,” broke in Dan, “and he’ll be able to
guide you, should there be any difficulty about them.”

“Ma foi!” broke in my mother, half impatiently, in her imperfect
language. “If dey are of la bonne société, what will you have more?”

“Of course,” assented Rutledge. “The names we are all familiar
with,--the good houses of the country.” Carelessly as he spoke,
he contrived to dart a quick glance towards my mother; but, to his
astonishment, she showed no sign of discomfort or uneasiness.

“Egad! I think it somewhat hard that a man’s company should not be of
his own choosing!” said MacNaghten, half angrily. “Do you think his
Grace would order the dinner away if there happened to be a dish at
table he didn’t like?”

“Not exactly, if he were not compelled to eat of it,” said Rutledge,
good-humoredly; “but I ‘m sure, all this time, that we ‘re only amusing
ourselves fighting shadows. Just tell me who are coming, and I ‘ll be
able to give you a hint if any of them should be personally displeasing
to his Grace.”

“You remember them all, Dan,” said my father; “try and repeat the
names.”

“Shall we keep the lump of sugar for the last,” said Dan, “as they do
with children when they give them medicine? or shall we begin with your
own friends, Rut-ledge? for we’ve got Archdall, and Billy Burton, and
Freke, and Barty Hoare, and some others of the same stamp,--fellows that
I call very bad company, but that I’m well aware you Castle folk expect
to see everywhere you go!”

“But you’ve done things admirably,” cried Rutledge. “These are exactly
the men for us. Have you Townsend?”

“Ay, and his flapper, Tisdall; for without Joe he never remembers what
story to tell next. And then there’s Jack Preston! Egad! you ‘ll fancy
yourselves on the Treasury benches.”

“Well, now for the Opposition,” said Rutledge, gayly.

“To begin: Grattan can’t come,--a sick child, the measles, or something
or other wrong in the nursery, which he thinks of more consequence than
‘all your houses;’ Ponsonby won’t come,--he votes you all very dull
company; Hugh O’Donnell is of the same mind, and adds that he ‘d rather
see Tom Thumb, in Fishamble Street, than all your court tomfooleries
twice over. But then we’ve old Bob Ffrench,--Bitter Bob; Joe Curtis--”

“Not the same Curtis that refused his Grace leave to shoot over his bog
at Bally vane?”

“The very man, and just as likely to send another refusal if the request
be repeated.”

“I didn’t know of this, Dan,” interposed my father. “This is really
awkward.”

“Perhaps it was a little untoward,” replied MacNaghten, “but there was
no help for it. Joe asked himself; and when I wrote to say that the Duke
was coming, he replied that he ‘d certainly not fail to be here, for he
did n’t think there was another house in the kingdom likely to harbor
them both at the same time.”

“He was right there,” said Rutledge, gravely.

“He generally is right,” replied MacNaghten, with a dry nod. “Stephen
Blake, too, isn’t unlikely to come over, particularly if he finds
out that we ‘ve little room to spare, and that he ‘ll put us all to
inconvenience.”

“Oh, we’ll have room enough for every one,” cried my father.

“I do hope, at least, none will go away for want of--how you say,
place?” said my mother.

“That’s exactly the right word for it,” cried MacNaghten, slyly. “‘Tis
looking for places the half of them are. I’ve said nothing of the
ladies, Rutledge; for of course your courtly habits see no party
distinctions amongst the fair sex. We’ll astonish your English notions,
I fancy, with such a display of Irish beauty as you ‘ve no idea of.”

“That we can appreciate without the slightest disparagement on the score
of politics.”

“Need you tell him of Polly?” whispered my father in Dan’s ear.

“No; it’s just as well not.” “I’d tell him, Dan; the thing is done, and
cannot be undone,” continued he, in the same undertone.

“As you please.”

“We mean to show you such a girl, Rutledge, as probably not St. James’s
itself could match. When I tell you she ‘ll have not very far from half
a million sterling, I think it’s not too much to say that your English
Court has n’t such a prize in the wheel.”

“It ‘s Westrop’s daughter you mean?”

“Not a bit of it, man. Dorothy won’t have fifty thousand. I doubt
greatly if she ‘ll have thirty; and as to look, style, and figure, she’s
not to compare with the girl I mean.”

“The Lady Lucy Lighton? and she is very beautiful, I confess.”

“Lucy Lighton! Why, what are you thinking of? Where would she get the
fortune I am speaking of? But you’d never guess the name; you never saw
her,--perhaps never so much as heard of her. She is a Miss Fagan.”

“Polly--Polly Fagan, the Grinder’s daughter?”

“So, then, you have heard of her?” said Dan, not a little disconcerted
by this burst of intelligence.

“Heard of her! Nay, more, I’ve seen and spoken with her. I once made a
descent on the old father, in the hope of doing something with him;
and being accidentally, I believe it was, shown upstairs, I made Miss
Polly’s acquaintance, but with just as little profit.”

“You’ll have more time to improve the intimacy here, Rutledge,” said my
father, laughingly, “if MacNaghten be not a rival ‘near the throne.’”

“I’ll not interfere with you, Barry,” cried MacNaghten, carelessly.

Rutledge gave one of his usual unmeaning laughs, and said, “After all,
if we except Ffrench and Curtis, there’s nothing to be afraid of; and I
suppose there will be no difficulty in keeping them at a safe distance.”

“Bob Ffrench cares much more for Carew’s Burgundy than for his grand
acquaintances,” interposed MacNaghten; “and as for Curtis, he only comes
out of curiosity. Once satisfied that all will go on in the routine
fashion of every other country visit, he’ll jog home again, sorely
discontented with himself for the trouble he has taken to come here.”

“I need scarcely tell you,” said Rutledge, taking my father’s arm, and
leading him to one side,--“I need scarcely tell you that we ‘d better
avoid all discussion about politics and party. You yourself are very
unlikely to commit any error in tact, but of course you cannot answer
for others. Would it not, then, be as well to give some kind of hint?”

“Faith,” broke in my father, hastily, “I will never attempt to curb the
liberty of speech of any one who does me the honor to be my guest; and I
am sure I have not a friend in the world who would tamely submit to such
dictation.”

“Perhaps you are right. Indeed, I’m sure you are,” broke in Rutledge,
and hastened his step till he joined the others.



CHAPTER X. THE COMPANY AT CASTLE CAREW

From an early hour on the following morning, the company began to pour
in to Castle Carew, then style and retinue being as varied as may well
be imagined,--some arriving in all the pomp and splendor of handsomely
appointed equipage; some dashing up with splashed and panting posters;
and others jogging lazily along the avenue in some old “conveniency”
 of a past age, drawn by animals far more habituated to the plough than
the phaeton. Amongst those first was conspicuous the singular old noddy,
as it was called, in which Ffrench and Curtis travelled; the driver
being perilously elevated some dozen feet above the earth, and perched
on a bar which it required almost a rope-dancer’s dexterity to occupy.
This primitive conveyance, as it trundled along before the windows, drew
many to gaze and jest upon its curious appearance,--a degree of notice
which seemed to have very opposite effects on the two individuals
exposed to it; for while Ffrench nodded, kissed hands, and smiled
good-humoredly to his friends, Curtis sat back with his arms folded, and
his hat slouched over his eyes, as if endeavoring to escape recognition.

“Confound the rascal!” muttered he between his teeth. “Could n’t he
have managed to creep round by some back way? His blasted jingling
old rat-trap has called the whole household to look at us!--and, may I
never, if he has n’t broken something! What’s the matter,--what are you
getting down for?”

“‘T is the mare’s got the reins under her tail, yer honer!” said the
driver, as he descended some half-dozen feet to enable him to get near
enough to rectify the entanglement The process was made more difficult
by the complicated machinery of springs, straps, bars, and bolts which
supported the box, and in the midst of which the poor fellow sat as in a
cage. He was, however, proceeding in a very business-like way to tug
at the tail with one hand, and pull out the reins with the other, when,
suddenly, far behind, there came the tearing tramp of horses advancing
at speed, the cracking of the postilions’ whips adding to the clamor.
The horses of the noddy, feeling no restraint from the reins, and
terrified by the uproar, kicked up their heels at once, and bolted away,
shooting the driver out of his den into a flowerpot. Away dashed the
affrighted beasts, the crazy old conveyance rattling and shaking behind
them with a deafening uproar. Immediately beyond the hall-door, the
avenue took a sweep round a copse, and by a gentle descent wound its
course towards the stables, a considerable expanse of ornamental water
bordering the-road on the other side. Down the slope they now rushed
madly; and, unable from their speed to accomplish the turn in safety,
they made a sudden “jib” at the water’s edge, which upset the noddy,
pitching its two occupants over head and heels into the lake. By good
fortune it was not more than four or five feet deep in this part, so
that they came off with no other injury than a thorough drenching, and
the ridicule which met them in the laughter of some fifty spectators.
As for Ffrench, he had to sit down on the bank and laugh till the very
tears came; the efforts of Curtis to rid himself of tangled dead weed
and straggling aquatic plants having driven that choleric subject almost
out of his wits.

“This may be an excellent joke,--I’ve no doubt it is, since you seem
to think so; but, by Heaven, sir, I ‘ll try if I cannot make some one
responsible for it! Yes, gentlemen,” added he, shaking his fist at the
crowded windows, “it’s not all over yet; we’ll see who laughs last!”

“Faith, we’re well off, to escape with a little fright, and some
frog-spawn,” said Bob; “it might have been worse!”

“It shall be worse, sir, far worse, depend upon it!” said the other.

By this time my father had come up to the spot, and endeavored, as well
as the absurdity of the scene would permit him, to condole with the
angry sufferer. It was not, however, without the greatest difficulty
that Curtis could be prevailed upon to enter the house. The very idea of
being a laughing-stock was madness to him; and it was only on the strict
assurance that no allusion to the event would be tolerated by my father
that he at last gave in and accompanied him.

Insignificant as was this incident in itself, it was the origin of very
grave consequences. Curtis was one of those men who are unforgiving to
anything like ridicule; and the sense of injury, added to the poignant
suffering of a ruined estate and a fallen condition, by no means
improved a temper irascible beyond everything. He entered the house
swearing every species of vengeance on the innocent cause of his
misadventure.

“Time was, sir, when a lord-lieutenant drove to a gentleman’s door in
a style becoming his dignity, and not heralded by half-a-dozen rascals,
whip-cracking and caracolling like the clowns in a circus!”

Such was his angry commentary as he pushed past my father and hastened
to his room. Long after, he sat brooding and mourning over his calamity.
It was forgotten in the drawing-room, where Polly had now arrived,
dividing attention and interest with the Viceroy himself. Indeed, while
his Grace was surrounded with courtly and grave figures, discussing the
news of the day and the passing topics, Polly was the centre of a
far more animated group, whose laughter and raillery rung through the
apartment.

My mother was charmed with her, not only because she possessed
considerable personal charms, but, being of her own age, and speaking
French with ease and fluency, it was a great happiness to her to unbend
once again in all the freedom of her own delightful language. It was
to no purpose that my father whispered to her the names and titles of
various guests to whom peculiar honor was due; it was in vain that
he led her to the seat beside some tiresome old lady, all dulness and
diamonds; by some magical attraction she would find herself leaning over
Polly’s chair, and listening to her, as she talked, in admiring ecstasy.
It was unquestionably true that although most of the company were
selected less for personal qualities than their political influence,
there were many most agreeable persons in the number. My mother,
however, was already fascinated, and she required more self-restraint
than she usually imposed upon herself to forego a pleasure which she saw
no reason for relinquishing.

My father exerted himself to the uttermost. Few men, I believe,
performed the host more gracefully; but nothing more fatally mars
the ease and destroys the charm of that character than anything like
over-effort at success. His attentions were too marked and too hurried;
he had exaggerated to himself the difficulties of his situation, and he
increased them tenfold by his own terrors.

The Duke was one of those plain, quiet, well-bred persons so frequently
met with in the upper classes of England, and whose strongest
characteristic is, probably, the excessive simplicity of their manners,
and the total absence of everything bordering on pretension. This
very quietude, however, is frequently misinterpreted, and, in Ireland
especially, often taken for the very excess of pride and haughtiness.
Such did it seem on the present occasion; for now that the restraint
of a great position was removed, and that he suffered himself to unbend
from the cumbrous requirements of a state existence, the ease of his
deportment was suspected to be indifference, and the absence of all
effort was deemed a contemptuous disregard for the company.

The moment, too, was not happily chosen to bring men of extreme and
opposite opinions into contact. They met with coldness and distrust;
they were even suspectful of the motives which had led to their
meeting,--in fact, a party whose elements were less suited to each other
rarely assembled in an Irish country-house; and by ill luck the weather
took one of those wintry turns which are not unfrequent in our so-called
summers, and set in to rain with that determined perseverance so common
to a July in Ireland.

Nearly all the resources by which the company were to have been amused
were of an outdoor kind, and depended greatly on weather. The shooting,
the driving, the picnicing, the visits to remarkable scenes in the
neighborhood, which Dan MacNaghten had “programmed” with such care and
zeal, must now be abandoned, and supplied by occupation beneath the
roof.

Oh, good reader, has it ever been your lot to have your house filled
with a large and incongruous party, weatherbound and “bored”? To see
them stealing stealthily about corridors, and peeping into rooms, as if
fearful of chancing on something more tiresome than themselves? To watch
their silent contemplation of the weather-glass, or their mournful gaze
at the lowering and leaden sky? To hear the lazy, drowsy tone of the
talk, broken by many a half-suppressed yawn? To know and to feel that
they regard themselves as your prisoners, and you as their jailer?--that
your very butler is in their eyes but an upper turnkey? Have you
witnessed the utter failure of all efforts to amuse them?--have you
overheard the criticism that pronounced your piano out of tune, your
billiard-table out of level, your claret out of condition? Have you
caught mysterious whisperings of conspiracies to get away? and heard the
word “post-horses” uttered with an accent of joyful enthusiasm? Have you
watched the growing antipathies of those that, in your secret plannings,
you had destined to become sworn friends? Have you grieved over the
disappointment which your peculiar favorites have been doomed to
experience? Have you silently contemplated all the wrong combinations
and unhappy conjunctures that have grown up, when you expected but
unanimity and good feeling? Have you known all these things? and have
you passed through the terrible ordeal of endeavoring to amuse the
dissatisfied, to reconcile the incompatible, and to occupy the indolent?
Without some such melancholy experience, you can scarcely imagine all
that my poor father had to suffer.

Never was there such discontent as that household exhibited. The
Viceregal party saw few of the non-adherents, and perceived that they
made no converts amongst the enemy. The Liberals were annoyed at the
restraint imposed on them by the presence of the Government people;
the ladies were outraged at the distinguished notice conferred by their
hostess on one who was not their equal in social position, and whom they
saw for the first time admitted into the “set.” In fact, instead of
a large party met together to please and be pleased, the society was
broken up into small coteries and knots, all busily criticising and
condemning their neighbors, and only interrupting their censures by
grievous complaints of the ill-fortune that had induced them to come
there.

It was now the third morning of the Duke’s visit, and the weather
showed no symptoms of improvement. The dark sky was relieved towards the
horizon by that line of treacherous light which to all accustomed to an
Irish climate is the signal for continued rain. The most intrepid votary
of outdoor amusements had given up the cause in despair, and, as though
dreading to augment the common burden of dulness by meeting most of the
guests, preferred keeping their rooms, and confining to themselves the
gloom that oppressed them.

The small drawing-room that adjoined my mother’s dressing-room was the
only exception to this almost prison discipline; and there she now sat
with Polly, MacNaghten, Rutledge, and one or two more, the privileged
visitors of that favored spot,--my mother at her embroidery-frame, that
pleasant, mock occupation which serves so admirably as an aid to talking
or to listening, which every Frenchwoman knows so well how to employ
as a conversational fly-wheel. They assuredly gave no evidence in their
tone of that depression which the gloomy weather had thrown over the
other guests. Laughter and merriment abounded; and a group more amusing
and amused it would have been difficult to imagine. Rutledge, perhaps,
turned his eyes towards the door occasionally, with the air of one in
expectation of something or somebody; but none noticed this anxiety,
nor, indeed, was he one to permit his thoughts to sway his outward
actions.

“The poor Duke,” cried MacNaghten, “he can bear it no longer. See,
there he goes, in defiance of rain and wind, to take his walk in the
shrubbery!”

“And mon pauvre mari--go with him,” said my mother, in a tone of
lamentation that made all the hearers burst out a-laughing. “Ah, I know
why you Irish are all so domestic,” added she,--“c’est le climat!”

“Will you allow us nothing to the credit of our fidelity,--to our
attachments, madame?” said Rutledge, who, while he continued to talk,
never took his eyes off the two figures, who now walked side by side in
the shrubbery.

“It is a capricious kind of thing, after all, is your Irish fidelity,”
 said Polly. “Your love is generally but another form of self-esteem;
you marry a woman because you can be proud of her beauty, her wit, her
manners, and her accomplishments, and you are faithful because you never
get tired in the indulgence of your own vanity.”

“How kind of you is it, then, to let us never want for the occasion of
indulging it,” said Rutledge, half slyly.

“I don’t quite agree with you, Miss Polly,” said Mac-Naghten, after a
pause, in which he seemed to be reflecting over her words; “I think
most men--Irishmen, I mean--marry to please themselves. They may make
mistakes, of course,--I don’t pretend to say that they always choose
well; but it is right to bear in mind that they are not free agents, and
cannot have whom they please to wife.”

“It is better with us,” broke in my mother. “You marry one you have
never seen before; you have nothing of how you call ‘exultation,’ point
des idées romantiques; you are delighted with all the little ‘soins’
and attentions of your husband, who has, at least, one inestimable
merit,--he is never familiar.”

“How charming!” said Rutledge, with mock seriousness.

“Is it not?” continued she, not detecting the covert irony of his tone;
“it is your intimité,--how you call it?”

“Intimacy.”

“Oui,” said she, smiling, but not trusting herself to repeat the word.
“C’est cela,--that destroys your happiness.”

“Egad! I ‘d as soon be a bachelor,” broke in MacNaghten, “if I only
were to look at my wife with an opera-glass across the theatre, or be
permitted to kiss her kid glove on her birthday.”

“What he say,--why you laugh?” cried my mother, who could not follow the
rapidity of his utterance.

“Mr. MacNaghten prefers homeliness to refinement,” said Polly.

“Oui, you are right, my dear,” added my mother; “it is more refined. And
then, instead of all that ‘tracasserie’ you have about your house, and
your servants, and the thousand little ‘inconvenance de ménage,’
you have one whom you consult on your toilette, your equipage, your
‘coiffure,’--in fact, in all affairs of good taste. Voilà Walter, par
exemple: he never dérange me for a moment,--I hope I never ennuyé him.”

“Quite right,--perfectly right,” said Polly, with a well-assumed
gravity.

“By Jove, that’s only single harness work, after all,” said MacNaghten;
“I’d rather risk a kick, now and then, and have another beside me to tug
at this same burden of daily life.”

“I no understand you, you speak so fast. How droll you are, you Irish!
See there, the Lord Duke and my husband, how they shake hands as if they
did not meet before, and they walk together for the last half-hour.”

“A most cordial embrace, indeed,” said Polly, fixing her eyes on
Rutledge, who seemed far from being at ease under the inspection, while
MacNaghten, giving one hasty glance through the window, snatched up his
hat and left the room. He passed rapidly down the stairs, crossed the
hall, and was just leaving the house when my father met him.

“The very man I wanted, Dan,” cried he; “come to my room with me for a
few minutes.”

As they entered the room, my father turned the key in the door, and
said,--

“We must not be interrupted, for I want to have a little talk with you.
I have just parted with the Duke--”

“I know it,” broke in Dan, “I saw you shake hands; and it was that made
me hurry downstairs to meet you.”

My father flushed up suddenly, and it was not till after a few seconds
he was collected enough to continue.

“The fact is, Dan,” said he, “this gathering of the clans has been a
most unlucky business, after all. There’s no telling how it might
have turned out, with favorable weather and good sport; but caged up
together, the menagerie has done nothing but growl and show their teeth;
and, egad! very little was wanting to have set them all by the ears in
open conflict.”

MacNaghten shrugged his shoulders, without speaking.

“It’s an experiment I ‘ll assuredly never try again,” continued my
father; “for whether it is that I have forgotten Irishmen, or that they
are not what they used to be, but all has gone wrong.”

“Your own fault, Watty. You were far too anxious about it going right;
and whenever a man wants to usurp destiny, he invariably books himself
for a ‘break down.’ You tried, besides, what no tact nor skill could
manage. You wanted grand people to be grand, and witty people to be
witty, and handsome people to look beautiful. Now, the very essence of a
party like this is, to let everybody try and fancy themselves something
that they are not, or at least that they are not usually. Your great
folk ought to have been suffered to put off the greatness, and only be
esteemed for their excessive agreeability. Your smart men ought not to
have been called on for pleasantry, but only thought very high-bred and
well-mannered, or, what is better still, well-born. And your beauties
should have been permitted to astonish us all by a simplicity that
despised paint, patches, and powder, and captivate us all, as a kind of
domestic shepherdesses.”

“It’s too serious for jesting about, Dan; for I doubt if I have not
offended some of the oldest friends I had in the world.”

“I hope not,” said MacNaghten, more seriously.

“I am sadly afraid it is so, though,” said my father. “You know the
Fosbrokes are gone?”

“Gone? When? I never heard of it!”

“They ‘re gone. They left this about an hour ago. I must say it was very
absurd of them. They ought to have made allowances for difference of
country, habits, education; her very ignorance of the language should
have been taken as an excuse. The Tisdalls I am less surprised at.”

“Are they gone too?”

“Yes! and without a leave-taking,--except so far as a very dry note,
dated five o’clock in the morning, may be taken for such, telling of
sudden intelligence just received, immediate necessity, and so forth.
But after Harvey Hepton, I ought to be astonished at nothing.”

“What of Harvey?” cried Dan, impatiently.

“Why, he came into my room while I was dressing, and before I had time
to ask the reason, he said,--

“‘Watty, you and I have been friends since our schooldays, and it would
tell very badly for either, or both of us, if we quarrelled; and that no
such ill-luck may befall us, I have come to say good-bye.’

“‘Good-bye! but on what account?’ exclaimed I.

“‘Faith, I ‘d rather you ‘d guess my reason than ask me for it, Watty.
You well know how, in our bachelor days, I used to think this house half
my own. I came and went as often without an invitation as with one; and
as to supposing that I was not welcome, it would as soon have occurred
to me to doubt of my identity. Now, however, we are both married.
Matters are totally changed; nor does it follow, however we might wish
it so, that our wives will like each other as well as you and I do.’

“‘I see, Harvey,’ said I, interrupting him, ‘Mrs. Hepton is offended at
my wife’s want of attention to her guests; but will not so amiable and
clever a person as Mrs. Hepton make allowances for inexperience, a new
country, a strange language, her very youth,--she is not eighteen?’

“‘I’m sure my wife took no ill-natured view of the case. I ‘m certain
that if she alone were concerned,--that is, I mean, if she herself were
the only sufferer--’

“‘So, then, it seems there is a copartnery in this misfortune,’ broke I
in, half angrily, for I was vexed to hear an old friend talk like some
frumpy, antiquated dowager.

“‘That’s exactly the case, Watty,’ said he, calmly. ‘Your friends will
go their way, sadly enough, perhaps, but not censoriously; but others
will not be so delicately minded, and there will be plenty rude enough
to say, Who and what is she that treats us all in this fashion?’

“Yes, Dan,” cried my father, with a flushed brow and an eye flashing
with passion, “he said those words to me, standing where you stand this
instant! I know nothing more afterwards. I believe he said something
about old friendship and school-days, but I heard it imperfectly, and I
was relieved when he was gone, and that I could throw myself down into
that chair, and thank God that I had not insulted an old friend under my
own roof. It would actually seem as if some evil influence were over the
place. The best-tempered have become cross; the good-natured have grown
uncharitable; and even the shrewd fellows that at least know life and
manners have actually exhibited themselves as totally deficient in the
commonest elements of judgment. Just think of Rutledge,--who, if not a
very clever fellow, should, at all events, have picked up some share of
luck by his position,--just fancy what he has done: he has actually had
the folly--I might well give it a worse name--to go to Curtis and ask
him to make some kind of apology to the Duke for his rude refusal of
leave to shoot over his estate,--a piece of impertinence that Curtis
has never ceased to glory in and boast of; a refusal that the old fellow
has, so to say, lived on ever since,--to ask him to retract and excuse
it! I have no exact knowledge of what passed between them,--indeed, I
only know what his Grace himself told me,--but Curtis’s manner must have
been little short of outrage; and the only answer Rutledge could obtain
from him was: ‘Did your master send you with this message to me?’--a
question, I fancy, the other was not disposed to answer. The upshot,
however, was, that as the Duke was taking his walk this morning, after
breakfast, he suddenly came upon Curtis, who was evidently waiting for
him. If the Duke did not give me very exact details of the interview, I
am left to conjecture from his manner that it must have been one of no
common kind. ‘Your friend,’ said his Grace, ‘was pleased to tell me what
he called some home truths; he took a rapid survey of the acts of the
Government, accompanying it with a commentary as little flattering
as may be; he called us all by very hard names, and did not spare our
private characters. In fact, as he himself assured me, fearing so good
an opportunity might not readily present itself of telling me a piece
of his mind, he left very little unsaid on any topic that he could
think of, concluding with a most meaning intimation that although he had
refused me the shooting of his woodcocks, he would be charmed to afford
me the opportunity of another kind of sport,--I suppose he meant a
better mark for me to aim at; and so he left me.’ Though nothing could
possibly be in better taste or temper than the Duke’s recital of the
scene, it was easy to see that he was sorely pained and offended by it.
Indeed, he wound up by regretting that a very urgent necessity would
recall him at once to town, and a civil assurance that he ‘d not fail to
complete his visit at some more fortunate opportunity. I turned at once
to seek out Curtis, and learn his version of the affair; but he and
Ffrench had already taken their departure, this brief note being all
their leave-taking:--

  “Dear Watty,--In your father’s, and indeed in your
  grandfather’s, day one was pretty sure what company might be
  met with under your roof. I ‘m sorry to see times are
  changed, and deeply deplore that your circumstances make it
  necessary for you to fill your house with Government hacks,
  spies, and informers. Take my word for it, honest men and
  their wives won’t like such associates; and though they
  sneer now at the Grinder’s daughter, she ‘ll be the best of
  your company ere long.

  “My compliments to his Grace, and say I hope he ‘ll not
  forget that I have promised him some shooting.

  “Yours truly,

  “M. Curtis.

“A line from Ffrench followed:--

  “D. W.,--As I came with Curtis, I must go with him; but I
  hope soon to see you, and explain some things which I grieve
  to defer even for a short time.

“Now, Dan, I ask you, is this courteous,--is it even fair and manly?
They see me endeavoring to bring men together socially who, whatever
their political differences, might yet learn to know and esteem each
other in private. They comprehend all the difficulty imposed by my
wife’s extreme youth and inexperience; and this is the aid they give
me! But I know well what it means! The whole thing is part and parcel
of that tyranny that a certain set of fellows have exercised over this
country for the last century. A blind, misguided, indiscriminate hatred
of England and of Englishmen is their only notion of a policy, and
they’d stop short at nothing in their stupid animosity. They’ve mistaken
their man, however, this time. Egad! they ought to have tried some other
game before they ventured to bully me. In their blind ignorance, they
fancied that because I entertained a Viceroy, I must necessarily be
a Castle hack. Faith, if I become so yet, they ‘ve only themselves to
thank for it. As it is, I had no sooner read that note than I hastened
downstairs to seek the Duke, and just overtook him in the shrubbery. I
told him frankly the indignation I felt at a dictation which I suffered
no man to assume towards me. I said more,--I assured him that no sneers
of party, nor any intimidation of a set, should ever prevent me giving
the Government a support whenever the measures were such as in my
conscience I approved of. I am the more free to say so, because I want
nothing,--I would accept of nothing from them; and I went so far as
to say as much. ‘I ‘ll never insult you with an offer, Carew,’ was the
Duke’s reply to me, and we shook hands on our bargain!”

“It was that very shake-hands alarmed me!” said Dan, gravely; “I saw it
from the window, and guessed there was something in the wind!”

“Come, come, Dan, it’s not in your nature to be suspectful; you could
n’t possibly suppose--”

“I never lose time in suspecting anybody,” broke in MacNaghten; “but
indeed it’s not worth any one’s while to plot against me! I only say,
Watty, don’t be hurried away by any momentary anger with Curtis and
the like of him. You have a fine position, don’t wreck it out of a mere
pique!”

“I ‘ll go abroad again! I ‘ve lived too long out of this wasps’ nest to
endure the eternal buzzing and stinging that goes on around me.”

“I think you ‘re right there,” said MacNaghten.

My father made no reply, and looked anything but pleased at the ready
concurrence in his plan.

“We shall never understand them, nor they us,” said he, peevishly, after
a pause.

MacNaghten nodded an affirmative.

“The Duke, of course, then, remains here?” said Dan, after a pause.

“Of course he does not,” replied my father, pettishly; “he has announced
to me the urgent necessity of his return to Dublin, nor do I see that
anything has since occurred to alter that contingency.”

The tone in which he had spoken these words showed not only how he
felt the taunt implied in Dan’s remark, but how sincerely to his own
conscience he acknowledged its justice. There was no doubt of it! My
father’s patriotism, that withstood all the blandishments of “Castle”
 flattery, all the seductions of power, and all the bright visions of
ambition, had given way under the impulse of a wounded self-love. That
men so inferior to him should dictate and control his actions, presume
to influence his whole conduct, and even exercise rule in his household,
gave him deep offence, coming as it did at a moment when his spirit
was chafed by disappointment; and thus, he that could neither have been
bribed nor bought was entrapped by a trick and an accident.

Every one knows that there are little social panics as there are
national ones,--terrors for which none can account, leading to actions
for which none can give the reason; so here, all of a sudden, all the
guests discovered that they had reached the limit of their stay: some
had to hasten home to receive visitors, others were engaged elsewhere;
there were innumerable calls of duty, and affection, and business, all
uttered with the accustomed sincerity, and listened to by my father
with a cold acquiescence which assuredly gave no fresh obstacles to the
departures.

As for my mother, her graciousness at the leave-takings only served to
increase the displeasure her former indifference had created. It seemed
as if her courtesy sprung out of the pleasure of being free from her
guests; and as she uttered some little polite phrase in her broken
language to each, the recipients looked anything but flattered at the
alteration of her manner. The Viceroy alone seemed to accept these
civilities literally; he vowed that he had never enjoyed three days more
in his life; that Castle Carew and its hospitalities would hold the very
first place in his future recollections of Ireland: these and such like,
uttered with the very best of manners, and with all the influence which
rank could bestow, actually delighted my mother, who was not slow
to contrast the high-bred tone of the great personage with the less
flattering deportment of her other guests.

It would not be a very pleasing task were we to play the eavesdropper,
and, following the various carriages of the departing company, hear the
comments now so freely bestowed on the host of Castle Carew. It is true
some were kind-hearted enough to see all the difficulties of my father’s
position in the true light, and to hope that by time and a little
management these might be overcome.

There were others less generous; but what they said it would be scarcely
more graceful of me to repeat; enough that my mother was the especial
mark of the strictures,--the censure of my father went no further than
compassion! And oh, dear! when the world condescends to compassion,
what execration is equal to it! How beautifully it draws up the full
indictment of your failings, that it may extend its clemency to each!
How carefully does it discriminate between your depravity and your
weakness, that it may not wrong you! But how cutting is the hopefulness
it expresses for your future, by suggesting some utterly impossible road
for your reformation!

And now they were all gone,--all except Polly Fagan and MacNaghten; but
Dan, indeed, was part of the household, and came and went as he liked.
Fagan had sent his carriage to Bray to meet his daughter, as had been
agreed upon; but a letter from Polly came to say that Madame Carew had
pressed her with so much kindness to remain, and that she herself was
so happy, that she sincerely hoped the permission might be accorded her.
The note concluded by stating that Mr. Carew would visit Dublin by the
end of the week, and take that opportunity of leaving her at home.

“Oh, que nous sommes bien, ainsi!” exclaimed my mother, as the little
party of four sat down to dinner; and all seemed to applaud the
sentiment but my father, who seemed far more thoughtful and grave than
his wont. Even this, however, threw no gloom over the rest, who were in
the very happiest and best of humors. My mother was in all the ecstasy
of her now joyous nature, suddenly emancipated from the toilsome
drudgery of a duty she disliked. Polly, flattered by the tone of perfect
equality extended to her, and by the unequivocal preference of my mother
for her, hourly developed more and more of those graces which only
needed opportunity for their growth, and displayed charms of manner
and resources of mind that actually delighted her companions; while in
MacNaghten’s happy nature and gay-heartedness there was the only other
element wanting to make the party a most pleasant one.

The arrival of the letter-bag--that little moment which in every country
household forms the privileged interruption to every care and every
amusement--broke suddenly in upon their carouse; and as my father
unlocked the precious sack, each looked eagerly for his share of the
contents.

“All for myself, I see,” muttered he; “nothing but ‘Walter Carew’ here.
Your creditors are forgetting you, Dan,--not even a note of reminder or
remonstrance. Silence, of course, means consent, Miss Polly: your father
says nothing against your stay. But what is this, Josephine? This looks
as if meant for you; but it has been sent over half the post-offices of
the kingdom, with ‘Try Compton Basset, Caresfort, and Chirck Castle,’ I
believe this is; there’s no making out the address.”

“Plain enough, I think,” cried MacNaghten; “it is, ‘Madame la Comtesse
de Carew, à son Château, ou en Ville, Irlande.’”

“At all events, it is for me,” said my mother, breaking the seal with
impatience. Scarcely had she opened the letter when she exclaimed, “Oh,
la bonne chance,--only think, Walter, here is Emile de Gabriac coming to
Ireland!”

“You forget, dearest, that I have never seen him,” said my father,
dryly.

“Does that signify?” said she, with enthusiastic rapidity. “Is he
not known over all Europe by reputation? That dear Emile, so good, so
generous, so handsome, so full of accomplishments,--rides so perfectly,
sings so beautifully. Ah, ma chère, c’est fait de vous,” said she to
Polly, “when you see him.”

Polly only smiled and bowed, with an arch look of submission, while my
father broke in,--

“But how comes it that so much brilliancy should waste itself on the
unprofitable atmosphere of Ireland? What is bringing him here?”

My mother continued to read on, heedless of the question, not, however,
without showing by her countenance the various emotions which the letter
excited; for while, at times, her color came and went, and her eyes
filled with tears, a smile would pass suddenly across her features, and
at last a merry burst of laughter stopped her. “Shall I read it for you?”
 cried she, “for it will save me a world of explanations. This is dated
from our dear old country-house on the Loire, Château de Lesieux:--

“‘April 20th.

“‘Ma chère et ma belle Fifine,”--he always called me Fifine when we were
children. [“Humph!” muttered my father, “read on!” and she resumed:] ‘Ma
belle Fifine,--

“‘How the dear name recalls happy hours, gay, buoyant, and brilliant with
all that could make life a paradise! when we were both so much in love
with all the world, and, consequently, with each other!’ Ah, oui,”
 exclaimed she, in a tone so perfectly simple as to make MacNaghten burst
out into a laugh, which Polly with difficulty refrained from joining.--
“‘You,’” continued she, reading, “‘you, ma belle, have doubtless grown
wiser; but I remain the same dreamy, devoted thing you once knew me.
Well, perhaps we may soon have an opportunity to talk over all this; and
so now no more of it. You may perhaps have heard--I cannot guess what
news may or may not reach you in your far-away solitudes--that the Cour
de Cassation has decided against me, and that, consequently, they have
not only rejected my claim, but have actually questioned my right to
the domain of Chasse Loups and the famous jewels which my grandfather
received from Isabella of Spain.

“‘They say--I ‘m not going to worry you with details, but they say
something to this effect--that as we were engaged with Law in that
great scheme of his,--the Mississippi affair they called it,--we stand
responsible, in all that we possess, to the creditors or the heirs, as
if we ourselves were not the greatest losers by that charlatan of the
Rue Quincampoix! Perhaps you never heard of that notorious business, nor
knew of a time when all Paris went mad together, and bartered everything
of price and value for the worthless scrip of a mountebank’s invention.
How sorry I am, dearest Fifine, to tease you with all this, but I cannot
help it. They have found--that is, the lawyers--that there are two
parties in existence whose claims extend to our poor old château by some
private arrangement contracted between my grandfather and the then Duc
d’Orléans. One of these is Louis’s own son, now living at Venice; the
other--you’ll scarcely believe me--yourself! Yes, my dear cousin, you
possess a part right over Chasse Loups. There was a day when you might
have had the whole I--not my fault that it was not so!’”

“Is this a lover’s letter, or a lawyer’s, Josephine?” said my father,
dryly.

“Ah, you cannot understand Emile,” said she, artlessly; “he is so unlike
the rest of the world, poor fellow! But I ‘ll read on.

“‘It all comes to this, Fifine: you must give me a release, so they
call it, and Louis, if I can find him out, must do something of the same
kind; for I am going to be married’--[she paused for a few seconds, and
then read on] ‘to be married to Mademoiselle de Nipernois, sister of
Charles de Nipernois. When you went, remember, as a page to the Queen,
you never saw ma belle Hortense, for she was educated at Bruges. Alas,
oui! so is my episode to end also! Meanwhile I ‘m coming to see you, to
obtain your signature to these tiresome papers, and to be, for a while
at least, out of the way, since I have been unlucky enough to wound
Auguste Vallaume seriously, I ‘m afraid,--all his own fault, however, as
I will tell you at another time. Now, can you receive me,--I mean is it
convenient? Will it be in any way unpleasant? Does le bon mari like or
dislike us French? Will he be jealous of our cousinage?’”

“On the score of frankness, Josephine, you may tell him I have nothing
to complain of,” broke in my father, dryly.

“Is it not so?” rejoined my mother. “Emile is candor itself.” She read:
“‘At all hazards, I shall try, Fifine. If he does not like me, he must
banish me. The difficulty will be to know where; for I have debts on all
sides, and nothing but marriage will set me right. Droll enough, that
one kind of slavery is to be the refuge for another. Some of your
husband’s old associates here tell me he is charming,--that he was the
delight of all the society at one time. Tell me all about him. I can
so readily like anything that belongs to you, I ‘m prepared already to
esteem him.’”

“Most flattering,” murmured my father.

“‘It will be too late, dear cousin, to refuse me; for when this
reaches you, I shall be already on the way to your mountains.--Are they
mountains, by the way?--So then make up your mind to my visit, with
the best grace you can. I should fill this letter with news of all
our friends and acquaintances here, but that I rely upon these very
narratives to amuse you when we meet,--not that there is anything very
strange or interesting to recount. People marry, and quarrel, and make
love, fight, go in debt, and die, in our enlightened age, without the
slightest advancement on the wisdom of our ancestors; and except that we
think very highly of ourselves, and very meanly of all others, I do not
see that we have made any considerable progress in our knowledge.

“‘I am all eagerness to see you once again. Are you altered?--I hope and
trust not. Neither fatter nor thinner, nor paler, nor more carnation,
than I knew you; not graver, I could swear. No, ma chère cousine, yours
was ever a nature to extract brightness from what had been gloom to
others. What a happy inspiration was it of that good Monsieur Carew to
relieve the darkness of his native climate by such brilliancy!

“‘Still, how many sacrifices must this banishment have cost you! Do not
deny it, Fifine. If you be not very much in love, this desolation must
be a heavy infliction. I have just been looking at the map, and the
whole island has an air of indescribable solitude and remoteness, and
much further distant from realms of civilization than I fancied.
You must be my guide, Fifine; I will accept of no other to all those
wonderful sea-caves and coral grottoes which I hear so much of! What
excursions am I already planning! what delicious hours, floating over
the blue sea, beneath those gigantic cliffs that even in a woodcut look
stupendous! And so you live almost entirely upon fish! I must teach your
chef some Breton devices in cookery. My old tutor, who was a curé at
Scamosse, taught me to dress soles “en gratin,” with two simple herbs to
be found everywhere; so that, like Vincent de Paul, I shall be extending
the blessings of cultivation in the realms of barbarism. I picture you
strolling along the yellow beach, or standing storm-lashed on some lone
rock, with your favorite pet seal at your feet.’”

“Is the gentleman an idiot, or is he only ignorant?” broke in my father.

My mother gave a glance of half-angry astonishment, and resumed: “‘A
thousand pardons, ma chère et bonne; but, with my habitual carelessness,
I have been looking at Iceland, and not Ireland, on the map. You will
laugh, I’m certain; but confess how natural was the mistake, how similar
the names, how like are they, perhaps, in other respects. At all events,
I cannot alter what I have written; it shall go, if only to let you have
one more laugh at that silly Emile, whose blunders have so often amused
you. Pray do not tell your “dear husband” of my mistake, lest his
offended nationality should take umbrage; and I am resolved--yes,
Fifine, I am determined on his liking me.’”

My father’s face assumed an expression here that was far too much for
MacNaghten’s gravity; but my mother read on, unconcerned: “‘And now I
have but to say when I shall be with you. It may be about the 12th--not
later than the 20th--of next month. I shall take no one but François
with me; I shall not even bring the dogs, only Jocasse, my monkey,--for
whom, by the way, I beg to bespeak a quiet room, with a south aspect.
I hope the climate will not injure him; but Dr. Reynault has given me
numerous directions about his clothing, and a receipt for a white wine
posset that he assures me will be very bracing to his nervous system.
You have no idea how susceptible he has grown latterly about noise
and tumult. The canaille have taken to parade the streets, singing and
shouting their odious songs, and Jocasse has suffered much from the
disturbance. I mentioned the fact to M. Mirabeau, whom I met at your
aunt’s the other night, and he remarked gravely, “It’s a bad time for
monkeys just now,--‘singerie’ has had its day.” The expression struck
me as a very hollow, if not a very heartless,’ one; but I may say, en
passant, that this same M. Mirabeau, whom it is the fashion to think
clever and agreeable, is only abrupt and rude, with courage to say the
coarse things that good-breeding retreats from! I am glad to find
how thoroughly the Court dislikes him. They say that he has had the
effrontery to tell the King the most disagreeable stories about popular
discontent, distress, and so forth. I need scarcely say that he met the
dignified rebuke such underbred observations merited.

“‘And now, Fifine, to say adieu until it be my happiness once again to
embrace you and that dear Carew, who must have more good qualities than
I have known centred in one individual, to deserve you. Think of me,
dearest cousin, and do not forget Jocasse.’”

“The association will aid you much,” said my father, dryly.

“‘Let him have a cheerful room, and put me anywhere, so that I have a
place in your heart. Your dearly attached cousin,

“‘Emile de Gabriac.’”

“Is that all?” asked my father, as she concluded.

“A few words on the turn-down: ‘Hortense has just sent me her picture.
She is blond, but her eyes want color; the hair, too, is sandy, and not
silky; the mouth--But why do I go on?--it is not Fifine’s.’”

“Our cousin is the most candid of mortals,” said my father, quietly;
“whatever opinion we may entertain of his other gifts, on the score of
frankness he is unimpeachable. Don’t you think so, Miss Polly?”

“His letter is a most unreserved one, indeed,” said she, cautiously.

And now a silence fell on all, for each was following out in his own way
some train of thought suggested by the Count’s letter. As if to change
the current of his reflections, my father once more turned to the
letter-bag, and busied himself running hastily over some of the many
epistles addressed to him. Apparently there was little to interest or
amuse amongst them, for he threw them from him half read,--some, indeed,
when he had but deciphered the writers’ names; one short note from
Hackett, his man of business, alone seemed to excite his attention, and
this he read over twice.

“Look at that, Dan,” said he, handing the paper to MacNaghten, who,
walking to the window slowly, perused the following lines:--

  “Dear Sir,--In accordance with the directions contained in
  your note of Friday last, and handed to me by Mr. Fagan, I
  placed at his disposal all the deeds and securities at
  present in my possession, for him to select such as would
  appear sufficient guarantee for the sum advanced to you on
  that day. I now beg to state that he has made choice of the
  title to Lucksleven silver mine, and a bond of joint
  mortgage over a French estate which I apprehend to form part
  of the dowry of Madame Carew. I endeavored to induce him to
  make choice of some other equally valuable document, not
  knowing whether this selection might be to your satisfaction;
  he, however, persisted, and referred to the tenor of your
  note to substantiate his right. Of course, I could offer no
  further opposition, and have now only to mention the
  circumstance for your information. I have the honor to be,
  dear sir, respectfully yours,

  “E. Hackett.”

“Curious enough, that, Dan!” muttered my father. MacNaghten assented
with a nod, and handed back the letter.



CHAPTER XI. POLITICS AND NEWSPAPERS

The venality and corruption which accomplished the Legislative Union
between England and Ireland admit of as little doubt as of palliation.
There was an epidemic of baseness over the land, and but few escaped the
contagion. To whatever section of party an Irishman may belong, he never
can cease to mourn over the degenerate temper of a time which exhibited
the sad spectacle of a Legislature declaring its own downfall. Nor does
the secret history of the measure offer much ground for consolation.

And yet what a position did the Irish Parliament hold, but eighteen
short years before that event! Never, perhaps, in the whole history of
constitutional government was the stand of a representative body more
boldly maintained, alike against the power and the secret influence of
the Crown; and England, in all the plenitude of her glory and influence,
was forced to declare the necessity of finally adjusting the differences
between the two countries.

The very admission of separate interests seemed a fatal confession,
and might--had a more cautious temper swayed the counsels of the Irish
party--have led to very momentous consequences; but in the enthusiasm
of victory all thought of the spoils was forgotten. It was a moment
of national triumph from which even the coldest could not withhold
his sympathies. The “Dungannon Declaration” became at once the adopted
sentiment of the national party, and it was agreed that Ireland was
bound by no laws save such as her own Lords and Commons enacted.

In the very crisis of this national enthusiasm was it that the Duke
of Portland arrived as Viceroy in Ireland. His secret instructions
counselled him to endeavor to prorogue the Parliament, and thus obtain a
short breathing-time for future action. This policy, in the then temper
of the people, was soon declared impossible. Mr. Grattan had already
announced his intention of proposing a final settlement of the national
differences by a “Bill of Rights,” and the country would not brook any
delay as to their expectations.

But one other safe course remained, which was, by a seeming concurrence
in the views of the Irish party, to affect that a change had come over
the spirit of English legislation towards Ireland, and a sincere desire
grown up to confirm her in the possession of “every privilege not
inconsistent with the stability of the empire.” Mr. Grattan was induced
to see the Viceroy in private, and submit to his Grace his intended
declaration of rights. Without conceding the slightest alteration in his
plan, the great leader was evidently impressed by the conciliating tone
of the Duke, and, with a generous credulity, led to believe in the most
favorable dispositions of the Government towards Ireland. The measure in
itself was so strong and so decisive that the Duke could not say how it
would be received by his party. He had no time to ask for instructions,
for Parliament was to assemble on the day but one after; and thus was
he driven to a policy of secret influence,--the origin of that school of
corruption which ultimately was to effect the doom of Irish nationality.

I am sorry to be obliged to impose upon my reader even so much of a
digression; but the requirements of my story demand it. I wish, as
briefly, of course, as may be, to place before him a state of society
wherein as yet the arts of corruption had made no great progress, and
in which the open bribery of a subsequent time would have been perfectly
impossible.

This was in reality a great moment in Irish history. The patriotism of
the nation had declared itself not less manfully than practically. The
same avowal which pronounced independence also proclaimed the principles
of free trade, and that the ports of Ireland were open to all foreign
countries not at war with England. It is humiliating enough to contrast
the patriotic spirit of those times with the miserable policy of popular
leaders in our own day; but in the names of the men who then swayed
her counsels we read some of the greatest orators and statesmen of our
country,--a race worthy of nobler successors than those who now trade
upon the wrongs of Ireland, and whose highest aspirations for their
country are in the despotism of an ignorant and intolerant priesthood.

The Duke of Portland was not ill suited to the task before him. A man of
more shining abilities, one who possessed in a higher degree the tact of
winning over his opponents, might have awakened suspicion and
distrust; but his was precisely the stamp and temperament which suggest
confidence; and in his moderate capacity and easy nature there seemed
nothing to excite alarm. “Bonhomie”--shame that we must steal a French
word for an English quality!--was his great characteristic; and all who
came within the circle of his acquaintance felt themselves fascinated by
his free and unpretending demeanor.

To him was now intrusted the task of sowing schism among the members of
the Irish party,--the last and only resource of the English Government
to thwart the progress of national independence. The Opposition had
almost every element of strength. Amongst them were the first and most
brilliant orators of the day,--men trained to all the habits of debate,
and thoroughly masters of all Irish questions. They possessed the entire
confidence of the great body of the people, asserting, as they did, the
views and sentiments of the country; and they were, what at that time
had its own peculiar value, men of great boldness and intrepidity. There
was but one feature of weakness in the whole party, and this was the
almost inevitable jealousy which is sure to prevail where many men of
great abilities are mixed up together, and where the success of a party
must alternately depend upon qualities the most discrepant and opposite.
The very purest patriotism is sure to assume something of the character
of the individual; and in these varying tints of individuality the Irish
Government had now to seek for the chance of instilling those doubts and
hesitations which ultimately must lead to separation.

Nor was this the only artifice to which they descended. They also
invented a policy which in later days has been essayed with very
indifferent success, which was, to outbid the national party in
generosity, and to become actual benefactors where mere justice was
asked at their hands,--a very dangerous game, which, however well
adapted for a critical emergency, is one of the greatest peril as a line
of policy and a system of government. In the spirit of this new tactic
was it that Mr. Bagenal’s motion to confer some great mark of national
gratitude on Mr. Grattan was quickly followed by an offer of the Viceroy
to bestow upon him the Viceregal palace in the Phoenix Park, as “a
suitable residence for one who had conferred the greatest services on
his country, and as the highest proof the Government could give of their
value of such services.” A proposal of such unbounded generosity was
sure to dim the lustre of the popular enthusiasm, and at the same time
cast a shadow of ministerial protection over the patriot himself, who,
in the event of acceptance, would have been the recipient of royal, and
not of national, bounty. And when, in fact, the grant of a sum of money
was voted by Parliament, the splendor of the gift was sadly tarnished by
the discussion that accompanied it!

Enough has here been said to show the general policy of that short but
eventful administration; and now to our story.

My father’s reception of the Viceroy had blazed in all the ministerial
papers with a kind of triumphant announcement of the progress the
Government were making in the esteem and confidence of the Irish gentry.
Walter Carew was quoted as the representative of a class eminently
national, and one most unlikely to be the mark for Castle intrigue
or seduction. His large fortune was expatiated on, and an “authentic
assurance” put forth that he had already refused the offer of being made
a Privy Councillor. These statements were sure to provoke rejoinder. The
national papers denied that the hospitalities of Castle Carew had any
peculiar or political significance. It was very natural that one of the
first of the gentry should receive the representative of his Sovereign
with honor, and pay him every possible mark of respect and attention.
But that Walter Carew had done any more than this, or had sacrificed
anything of his old connection with his party, the best contradiction
lay in the fact that his guests contained many of the very foremost and
least compromising men of the Liberal party; and “Curtis” was quoted in
a very conspicuous type as the shortest refutation of such a charge.

It was, unfortunately, a moment of political inaction--a lull in the
storm of Parliamentary conflict--when this discussion originated;
and the newspapers were but too happy to have any theme to occupy the
attention of their readers. The Castle press became more confident and
insulting every day, and at last tauntingly asked why and how did this
great champion of nationality,--Curtis,--take leave of Castle Carew?
The question was unreplied to, and consequently appeared again, and
in larger capitals, followed by an article full of innuendo and
insinuation, and conveying the most impertinent allusions to the
antiquated section of party to which Curtis belonged.

It is notorious that a subject totally devoid of any interest in itself
will, by the bare force of repetition, assume a degree of importance
far above its due, and ultimately engage the sympathies of many for
or against it. Such was the case here; certain personalities, that
occasionally were thrown out, giving a piquancy to the controversy, and
investing it with the attraction of town gossip. “Falkner’s Journal,”
 “The Press,” “The Post,” and “The Freeman” appeared each morning
with some new contribution on the same theme; and letters from, and
contradictions to, “A Visitor at Castle Carew,” continued to amuse the
world of Dublin.

The fashionable circles enjoyed recitals which contained the names of
so many of their own set; the less distinguished were pleased with even
such passing peeps at a world from which they were excluded; and thus
the discussion very soon usurped the place of all other subjects in
public interest.

It was remarked throughout the controversy that the weight of authority
lay all with the Castle press. Whatever bore the stamp of real
information was on that side; and the national journals were left merely
to guess and surmise, while their opponents made distinct assertions. At
last, to the astonishment of the town, appeared a letter in “Falkner’s
Journal” from Curtis. He had been ill of the gout; and, as it seemed,
had only become aware of the polemic the preceding day. Indeed, the tone
of the epistle showed that the irritability consequent on his malady
was still over him. After a brief explanation of his silence, he went on
thus:

“The Castle hacks have asked, Why and how did Curtis take his leave of
Castle Carew? Now, without inquiring by what right these low scullions
presume to put such a question, I ‘ll tell them: Curtis left when he
discovered the company by whom he was surrounded; when he found that
he should sit down at the same table with a knavish pack of English
adventurers, bankrupt in character, and beggars in pocket.

“When he saw the house where his oldest friend in the world was wont
to gather round him all that was eminently Irish, and where a generous
hospitality developed a hearty and noble conviviality, converted into a
den of scheming and intriguing politicians, seeking to snare support by
low flattery, or to entrap a vote, in the confidence of the bottle; when
he saw this, and more than this,--that the best names and the best blood
in the land were slighted, in order to show some special and peculiar
attention to vulgar wealth or still more vulgar pretension, Curtis
thought it high time to take his leave. This is the why; and as to the
how, he went away in the same old conveniency that he arrived by; and,
though drawn by a sorry hack, and driven by a ragged Irishman, he felt
prouder as he sat in it than if his place had been beside a duke in the
king’s livery, with a coach paid for out of the pockets of the people.

“This is the answer, therefore, to your correspondent. And if he wants
any further information, will you tell him that it will be more in
accordance with the habits of Irish gentlemen if he’ll address himself
personally to Mr. Curtis, 12, Ely Place, than by any appeal in the
columns of a newspaper.

“And now, Mr. Editor, a word for yourself and the others. I know nothing
about the habits of your order, nor the etiquette of the press; but this
I do know: I am a private gentleman, living, so far, at least, as you
and the like of you are concerned, out of the world; I am very unlikely
to fill a paragraph either among the marriages or the births; and
if--mark me well, for I am not joking--you, or any of you, print my name
again in your pages, except to announce my decease, I will break every
bone in your body; and this ‘without prejudice,’ as the attorneys say,
to any future proceedings I may reserve for your correspondent.”

None who knew Curtis doubted for an instant the authenticity of this
letter, though many at the time fancied it must be a queer quiz upon
his style. The effect of it was, however, marvellous; for, in the most
implicit confidence that he meant to keep his word, his name entirely
dropped out of the discussion, which, however, raged as violently, if
not more violently, than ever. Personalities of the most offensive kind
were interchanged; and the various guests were held up, with little
histories of their private life, by the journals of one side or the
other.

Up to this moment my father’s name had never been regularly introduced
into the discussion. Regrets, it is true, were insinuated that he
who could afford the shortest and most satisfactory explanations of
everything should not condescend to give the public such information. It
was deplored that one who so long enjoyed the confidence of the national
party should feel himself bound to maintain a silence on questions which
a few words would suffice to make intelligible. Gradually these regrets
grew into remonstrances, and even threatened to become reproach.
Anonymous letters, in the same spirit, were addressed to him in great
numbers; but they all failed in their object,--for the best reason, that
my father saw none of them. A feverish cold, attended with some return
of an old gout attack, had confined him to bed for some weeks, so that
he had never heard of the controversy; all the newspapers, filled as
they were with it, having been cautiously withheld from him by the
careful watchfulness of MacNaghten.

Such was the state of matters as my father, still weak from his attack,
descended, for the first time, to the drawing-room. MacNaghten had
persuaded my mother to accompany him on a short drive through the
grounds, when my father, whom they had left in his room, thought he
would make an effort to get downstairs, and surprise them on their
return. He was seated at an open window that looked out upon a
flower-garden, enjoying, with all an invalid’s relish, the balmy air of
a summer’s day, and feeling as if he drank in health at every stir
of the leaves by the light wind. His illness had not only greatly
debilitated him, but had even induced a degree of indolent inaction
very foreign to the active habit of his mind in health; and instead of
experiencing his wonted curiosity to know what the world had been doing
during his illness, he was actually happy in the thought of the perfect
repose he was enjoying, undisturbed by a single care. The rattling of
wheels on the ground at last gave token of some one coming, and a few
moments after, my father heard the sound of voices in the hall. Resolved
to deny himself to all strangers, he had risen to reach the bell, when
the door opened, and Rutledge entered.

“Why, they told me you were in bed, Carew,” cried he, endeavoring by a
half-jocular manner to conceal the shock my father’s wasted appearance
imparted. “They said I could not possibly see you, so that I had to send
up a few lines on my card to say how urgently I wished it, and meanwhile
came in to await your answer.”

“They only said truly,” muttered my father. “I have crept down to-day
for the first time, and I ‘m not quite sure that I have done prudently.”

“What has it been?--gout--rheumatic fever?”

“Neither; a bad cold neglected, and then an old ague on the back of it.”

“And of course the fellows have bled and blistered you, without mercy.
My medical skill is borrowed from the stable: hot mashes and double
body-clothes are generally enough for a common attack. But rich fellows
like you cannot get off so cheaply. And madam--how is she?”

“Perfectly well, thank you. And how are all your friends?”

“As well as men can be who are worried and badgered every hour of the
twenty-four. It ‘s no use in sending Englishmen here, they are never
trusted! I don’t believe it’s possible to find an honester man, nor a
truer friend to Ireland, than Portland; but his Saxon blood is quite
enough to mar his utility and poison every effort he makes to be of
service.”

“The children are paying off the scores of their fathers, Rutledge.
The sentiment that has taken some centuries to mature, can scarcely be
treated like a mere prejudice.”

“Very true; but what bad policy it is--as policy--to obstruct the flow
of concessions, even coming from a suspected channel. It ‘s rather too
hard to criticise them for doing the very things we ask them.”

“I have not looked into a newspaper these few weeks,” said my father,
half wearied of the theme.

“So that you know nothing, then, of--” He stopped short, for he just
caught himself in time.

“I know nothing whatever of the events that have occurred in that
interval; and--however inglorious the confession, Rutledge, I must make
it--I ‘d almost as soon live over my attack again as hear them. Take it
as a sick man’s peevishness or sound philosophy, as you may; but, in the
jarring, squabbling world we live in, there ‘s nothing so good as to let
bygones be bygones.”

“That’s taking for granted that anything is ever a ‘bygone,’ Walter;
but, faith, my experience says that we are feeling, to the end of
centuries, the results of the petty mischances that befell us in the
beginning of them.”

My father sighed, but it was more in weariness than sorrow; and Rutledge
said,--

“I came out to have a long chat with you, Walter, about various things;
but I fear talking fatigues you.”

“It does fatigue me,--I’m not equal to it,” said my father, faintly.

“It’s unlucky too,” said the other, half peevishly, “one so seldom
can catch you alone; and though MacNaghten is the best fellow in the
world--”

“You must still say nothing against him, at least in my hearing,” added
my father, as if to finish the sentence for him.

“I was only going to observe that in all that regards politics--”

“Pardon my interrupting you again,” broke in my father, “but Dan never
pretended to know anything about them; nor is it likely that a fellow
that felt the turf a contamination will try to cultivate his morals by
the intrigues of party.”

Rutledge affected to laugh at the sneering remark, and after a moment
resumed,--

“Do you know, then, it was precisely about that very subject of politics
I came out to talk with you to-day. The Duke told me of the generous way
you expressed yourself to him during his visit here, and that although
not abating anything of your attachment to what you feel a national
cause, you never would tie yourself hand and foot to party, but
stand free to use your influence at the dictates of your own honest
conviction. Now, although there is no very important question at issue,
there are a number of petty, irritating topics kept continually before
Parliament by the Irish party, which, without the slightest pretension
to utility, are used as means of harassing and annoying the Government.”

“I never heard of this before, Rutledge; but I know well, if the measures
you speak of have Grattan and Flood and Ponsonby, and others of the same
stamp, to support them, they are neither frivolous nor contemptible;
and if they be not advocated by the leaders of the Irish party, you can
afford to treat them with better temper.”

“Be that as it may, Walter, the good men of the party do not side with
these fellows. But I see all this worries you, so let ‘s forget it!” And
so, taking a turn through the room, he stopped opposite a racing print,
and said: “Poor old Gadfly, how she reminds me of old times! going along
with her head low, and looking dead-beat when she was just coming to her
work. That was the best mare ever you had, Carew!”

“And yet I lost heavily on her,” said my father, with a half sigh.

“Lost! Why the report goes that you gained above twenty thousand by her
the last year she ran.”

“‘Common report,’ as Figaro says, ‘is a common liar;’ my losses were
very nearly one-half more! It was a black year in my life. I began it
badly in Ireland, and ended it worse abroad!”

The eager curiosity with which Rutledge listened, suddenly caught my
father’s attention, and he stopped short, saying: “These are old stories
now, and scarcely worth remembering. But here comes my wife; she ‘ll be
glad to see you, and hear all the news of the capital, for she has been
leading a stupid life of it these some weeks back.”

However uneasy my mother and MacNaghten might have been lest Rutledge
should have alluded to the newspaper attacks, they were soon satisfied
on that point, and the evening passed over pleasantly in discussing the
sayings and doings of the Dublin world.

It was late when Rutledge rose to take his leave, and my father had
so far rallied by the excitement of conversation that he already felt
himself restored to health; and his last words to his guest at parting
were,--

“I’ll call and see you, Rutledge, before the week is over.”



CHAPTER XII. SHOWING THAT “WHAT IS CRADLED IN SHAME IS HEARSED IN
SORROW.”

Accustomed all his life to the flattery which surrounds a position of
some eminence, my father was not a little piqued at the coldness of
his friends during his illness. The inquiries after him were neither
numerous nor hearty. Some had called once or twice to ask how he was;
others had written brief excuses for their absence; and many contented
themselves with hearing that it was a slight attack, which a few days
would see the end of. Perhaps there were not many men in the kingdom
less given to take umbrage at trifles than my father. Naturally disposed
to take the bold and open line of action in every affair of life, he
never suspected the possibility of a covert insult; and that any one
could cherish ill-feeling to another, without a palpable avowal
of hostility, was a thing above his conception. At any other time,
therefore, this negligence, or indifference, or whatever it was,
would not have occasioned him a moment’s unpleasantness. He would have
explained it to himself in a dozen ways, if it ever occurred to him to
require explanation. Now, however, he was irritable from the effects of
a malady peculiarly disposed to ruffle nervous susceptibility; while
the chagrin of the late Viceregal visit, and its abrupt termination, was
still over him. There are little eras in the lives of the best-tempered
men, when everything is viewed in wrong and discordant colors, and when,
by a perverse ingenuity, they seek out reasons for their own unhappiness
in events and incidents that have no possible bearing on the question.
Having once persuaded himself that his friends were faithless to him, he
set about accounting for it by every casuistry he could think of. I have
lived too long abroad; I have mixed too much in the great world, thought
he, to be able to conform to this small and narrow circle. I am not
local enough for them. I cannot trade on the petty prejudices they love
to cherish, and which they foolishly think means being national. My
wider views of life are a rebuke to their pettiness; and it ‘s clear we
do not suit each other. To preserve my popularity I should have lived at
home, and married at home; never soared beyond a topic of Irish growth,
and voted at the tail of those two or three great men who comprise
within themselves all that we know of Irish independence. “Even idolatry
would be dear at that price,” cried he, aloud, at the end of his
reflections,--bitter and unpleasant reveries in which he had been sunk
as he travelled up to town some few days after the events related in the
last chapter.

Matters of business with his law agent had called him to the capital,
where he expected to be detained for a day or two. My mother had not
accompanied him, her state of health at the time requiring rest
and quietude. Alone, an invalid, and in a frame of, to him, unusual
depression, he arrived at his hotel at nightfall. It was not the
“Drogheda Arms,” where he stopped habitually, but the “Clare,” a smaller
and less frequented house in the same street, and where he hoped to
avoid meeting with his ordinary acquaintances.

Vexed with everything, even to the climate, to which he wrongfully
ascribed the return of his malady, he was bent on making immediate
arrangements to leave Ireland, and forever. His pecuniary affairs were,
it is true, in a condition of great difficulty and embarrassment; still,
with every deduction, a very large income, or at least what for the
Continent would be thought so, would remain; and with this he determined
to go abroad and seek out some spot more congenial to his tastes and
likings, and, as he also fancied, more favorable to his health.

The hotel was almost full, and my father with difficulty obtained
a couple of rooms; and even for these he was obliged to await the
departure of the occupant, which he was assured would take place
immediately. In the mean while, he had ordered his supper in the
coffee-room, where now he was seated, in one of those gloomy looking
stalls which in those times were supposed to comprise all that could be
desired of comfort and isolation.

It was, indeed, a new thing for him to find himself thus,--he, the rich,
the flattered, the high-spirited, the centre of so much worship and
adulation, whose word was law upon the turf, and whose caprices gave the
tone to fashion, the solitary occupant of a dimly lighted division in a
public coffee-room, undistinguished and unknown. There was something
in the abrupt indifference of the waiter that actually pleased him,
ministering, as it did, to the self-tormentings of his reflections. All
seemed to say, “This is what you become when stripped of the accidents
of wealth and fortune,--these are your real claims.” There was no
deference to him there. He had asked for the newspaper, and been curtly
informed “that ‘Falkner’ was engaged by the gentleman in the next box;”
 so was he left to his own lucubrations, broken in upon only by the
drowsy, monotonous tone of his neighbor in the adjoining stall, who was
reading out the paper to a friend. Either the reader had warmed into a
more distinct elocution, or my father’s ears had become more susceptible
by habit, but at length he found himself enabled to overhear the
contents of the journal, which seemed to be a rather flippant criticism
on a late debate in the Irish House of Commons.

A motion had been made by the Member for Cavan for leave to bring in
a bill to build ships of war for Ireland,--a proposition so palpably
declaring a separate and independent nationality that it not only
incurred the direct opposition of Government, but actually met with the
disapprobation of the chief men of the Liberal party, who saw all the
injury that must accrue to just and reasonable demands, by a course of
policy thus exaggerated. “Falkner” went even further; for he alleged
that the motion was a trick of the Castle party, who were delighted to
see the patriots hastening their own destruction, by a line of action
little short of treason. The arguments of the journalist in support of
this view were numerous and acute. He alleged the utter impossibility
of the measure ever being accepted by the House, or sanctioned by the
Crown. He showed its insufficiency for the objects proposed, were
it even to become law; and, lastly, he proceeded to display all the
advantages the Government might derive from every passing source of
disunion amongst the Irish party,--schisms which, however insignificant
at first, were daily widening into fatal breaches of all confidence. His
last argument was based on the fact that had the Ministry anticipated
any serious trouble by the discussion, they would never have displayed
such utter indifference about mustering their forces. “We saw not,”
 said the writer, “the accustomed names of Townley, Tisdale, Loftus,
Skeffington, and fifty more such, on the division. Old Roach did
n’t whistle up one of his pack, but hunted down the game with the fat
poodles that waddle after the Viceroy through the Castle-yard.”

“M’Cleary had a caricature of the Portland hunt this morning in his
window,” cried the listener; “and capital likenesses there are of Bob
Uniack and Vandeleur. Morris, too, is represented by a lame dog that
stands on a little eminence and barks vigorously, but makes no effort to
follow the chase.”

“Much they care for all the ridicule and all the obloquy you can throw
on them,” replied the reader. “They well know that the pensions and
peerages that await them will survive newspaper abuse, though every
word of it was true as Gospel. Now, here’s a list of them alphabetically
arranged; and will you tell me how many will read or remember one line
of them a dozen years hence? Besides, there is a kind of exaggeration in
these attacks that deprives them of credit; when you read such stories
as that of Carew, for instance, throwing a main with the dice to decide
whether or not he’d vote with the Government.”

“I would not say that it was impossible, however,” broke in the other.
“Carew’s a confirmed gambler, and we know what that means; and as to his
having a particle of principle, if Rutledge’s story be true, he has done
far worse than this.”

My father tried to arise from his seat; he even attempted to call out,
and impose silence on those whose next words might possibly contain an
insult irreparable forever: but he could not do either; a cold sweat
broke over him, and he sat powerless and almost fainting, while they
continued:--

“I’d be slow to take Master Bob’s word, either in praise or dispraise of
any man,” said the first speaker.

“So should I, if he could make it the subject of a wager,” said
the other; “but here is a case quite removed from all chance of the
betting-ring.”

“And what does it amount to, if true?” said the other. “He married
somebody’s illegitimate daughter. Look at the peerage; look at one half
the small sovereignties of Europe.”

“That’s not the worst of it at all,” broke in the former. “It was the
way he got his wife.”

“Then I suppose I have not heard the story aright. How was it?”

“Rutledge’s version is something in this wise: Carew had won such
enormous sums at play from one of the French princes that at last he
actually held in his hands some of the rarest of the crown jewels as
pledges. One of the ministers, having heard of the transaction, went
to the prince and insisted, under threat of a public exposure, on an
immediate settlement of the debt. In this terrible dilemma, the prince
had nothing for it but to offer Carew the valuable paintings and
furniture of his château,--reputed to be the most costly in the whole
kingdom. The report goes that the pictures alone were estimated at
several millions of francs. Carew at once accepts the proposition; but,
as if not to be outdone in generosity, even by a royal prince, he lets
it be known that he will only accept of one solitary article from the
whole collection,--rather, in fact, a souvenir than a ransom. I suppose
the prince, like everybody else, felt that this was very handsome
conduct, for he frankly said: ‘The château and all within it are at his
disposal; I reserve nothing.’ Armed with this authority, Carew never
waits for morning, but starts that night, by post, for Auvergne,
where the château lies. I believe it is not ascertained whether he was
previously acquainted with the circumstances of the prince’s domestic
affairs. The probability, however, is that he must have been; for within
a week he returned to Paris, bringing with him the object selected as
his choice, in the person of a beautiful girl, the natural daughter of
his Royal Highness. Whether he married her then under compulsion, or
subsequently of his own free will, is to this day a secret. One thing,
however, is certain: he was banished from the French territory by a
summary order, which gave him barely time to reach the coast and
embark. Of course, once in England, he had only to select some secluded,
out-of-the-way spot for a while, and there could be no likelihood
of leaving any trace to his adventure. Indeed, the chances are that
Rutledge is about the only man who could have unravelled so tangled a
skein. How he ever contrived to do so, is more than I can tell you!”

My father sat listening to this story more like one whose faculties are
under the dominion of some powerful spell, than of a man in the free
exercise of reason. There was something in the mingled truth and
falsehood of the tale that terrified and confused him. Up to that moment
he had no notion in what a light his conduct could be exhibited, nor
could he see by what means the calumny could be resented. There was,
however, one name he could fix upon. Rutledge at least should be
accountable! There was enough of falsehood in the story to brand him as
a foul slanderer, and he should not escape him.

By an effort that demanded all his strength my father rose, the cold
sweat dropping from his forehead, and every limb trembling, from
weakness and passion. His object was to present himself to the strangers
in the adjoining box, and, by declaring his name, to compel them to
bring home to Rutledge the accusation he had overheard. He had no
time, had he even head, to weigh all the difficulties of such a line
of procedure. It was not at such a moment that he could consider the
question calmly and deliberately. Next to the poignant sense of injury,
the thought of vengeance was uppermost in his mind; and the chances
were that he was ready to wreak his fury on the first object that should
present itself. Fortunately,--might I not rather say unfortunately,
since nothing could be more disastrous than the turn affairs were fated
to take; it seemed, however, at the moment, as though it were good
fortune that when my father by an immense effort succeeded in reaching
the adjoining box, the former occupants had departed. Several persons
were leaving the coffee-room at the same instant; and though my father
tried to hasten after them, and endeavor to recognize the voices he
had overheard, his strength was unequal to the effort, and he sank
back powerless on a bench. He beckoned to a waiter who was passing,
and questioned him eagerly as to their names, and, giving him a guinea,
promised as much more if he should follow them to their residences and
bring back their addresses. But the man soon returned to say that as
the strangers were not remarked by him, he had no clew whatever to Their
detection in the crowded streets of the capital.

It struck my father as though destiny itself pointed out Rutledge as
the only one of whom he could seek reparation; and now he retired to
his room to weigh the whole question in his mind, and see by what means,
while gratifying his thirst for vengeance, he should best avoid that
degree of exposure which would be fatal to the future happiness of my
mother.

In this lay all the difficulty. To demand satisfaction from Rutledge
required that he should specify the nature of the injury, open the whole
history of the slander, and, while giving contradiction to all that was
false, publish to the world a true version of an incident that, up to
that moment, he had never confided to his dearest friend. Terrible as
seemed the task of such a revelation, it was nothing in comparison with
what he judged would be the effect upon my mother when she came to learn
the course of events which preceded her marriage.

And now this must be given to the world, with all that accompaniment
of gossip and scandal such a story would be sure to evoke. Was this
possible?--could he venture to embark upon such a sea of peril as
this?--could he dare to confront difficulties that would rise up against
him at every step and in every relation of life, to assail his political
reputation to-day--to slur his personal honor to-morrow--to cast shame
upon her whose fair fame was dearer to him than life itself twice
told--to be an inheritance of disgrace to his children, if he were to
have children? No, no Î For such an exposure as this nothing short of
downright desperation could give courage.

Far from serving to allay his passion for vengeance, these difficulties
but deepened the channel of his wrath, and made the injury itself appear
more irreparable. Nor did he know whom to consult at such a crisis. To
unbosom himself to MacNaghten was like confessing that he could do, from
personal motives, what he had shrunk from in the full confidence of his
friendship; and such an avowal would, he was well aware, give heartfelt
pain to his best friend in the world. Many other names occurred to him,
but each was accompanied by some especial difficulty. It was a case
which demanded great discretion, and at the same time promptitude and
decision. To have allowed any interval for discussion would have been to
incur that publicity which my father dreaded beyond all.

The indignant energy of his mind had given a kind of power to his
emaciated and wasted frame; and as he paced his room in passionate
emotion, he felt as though all his wonted strength and vigor were
returning to “stand by him” in his hour of peril. He had opened his
window to admit the cool air of the night; and scarcely had he thrown
wide the sash when the cry of a newsvendor met his ear.

“Here’s the ‘List of the Castle hacks,’ to be sold to the highest
bidder, the Government having no further use for them; with the pedigree
and performances set forth in full, and a correct account of the sums
paid for each of them.”

To this succeeded a long catalogue of gentlemen’s names, which were
received by the mob that followed the hawker, with shouts and cries of
derision. Groan followed groan as they were announced, and my father
listened with an agonizing suspense lest he should hear his own amidst
the number; but, to his inexpressible relief, the fellow concluded his
muster-roll without alluding to him. Just, however, as he was about to
close the window, the man again broke out with: “On Saturday next will
be published the account of the five bought in by the Crown; and Mark
Brown, Sam Vesey, William Burton, Ross Mahon, and Walter Carew will be
given in full, on a separate sheet, for one halfpenny!”

A wild outburst of derisive laughter from the crowd followed, and my
father heard no more.



CHAPTER XIII. A MIDNIGHT RENCONTRE

My father had walked several streets of the capital before he could
collect his thoughts, or even remember where he was. He went along, lost
to everything save memory of his vengeance. He tried to call to mind
the names of those on whose zeal and devotedness he could reckon; but so
imbued with suspicion had his mind become, so distrustful of every thing
and every one, that he actually felt as if deserted by all the world,
without one to succor or stand by him.

Thus rambling by chance, he found himself in Stephen’s Green, where he
sat down to rest under one of those great trees which in those times
shaded the favorite promenade of Dublin. Directly in front of him was
a large mansion, brilliantly lighted up, and crowded by a numerous
company, many of whom were enjoying the balmy air of a summer’s night on
the balcony in front of the windows. As they moved to and fro, passing
back and forwards, my father could recognize several that he was
acquainted with, and some that he knew most intimately.

Filled with one consuming thought, he fancied that he heard his name at
every moment; that every allusion was to him, and each burst of laughter
was uttered in derision at his cost. His rage had worked him up almost
to madness, and he could hardly restrain himself from calling out, and
replying aloud to these fancied insults and aspersions on his character.

At such moments of doubt as these, certainty flashes on the mind with a
power of concentration and resolution that seems to confer strength
for anything, however difficult. So was it to my father as suddenly the
tones of a well-known voice struck on his ear, and he heard the easy
laugh of him that he hated most of all the world. It was Barry Rutledge
himself, who now was leaning over the balcony, in the centre of a group
whom, he was evidently entertaining by his remarks.

The bursts of laughter which at each moment interrupted him, showed how
successfully his powers of entertaining were being exercised, while at
intervals a dead silence around proved the deep attention with which
they listened.

It was at the moment when, by the death of the Marquis of Rockingham,
a new Ministry was formed in England, and the Duke of Portland recalled
from his viceroyalty, to be succeeded by Lord Temple. The changes that
were like to ensue upon this new appointment were actively discussed in
society, and now formed the subject of conversation on the balcony.

“You will be at large again, Barry,” said one of the group; “these new
people won’t know your value.”

“Pardon me!” cried he, laughing, “I’m handed over with Cotterell and the
state coach, as functionaries that cannot be easily replaced. Let them
try and manage Dublin without me! I defy them! Who knows every flaw and
crack of reputation, every damaged character, and every tarnished fame,
as I do? Who can tell each man’s price, from knowing his weak points?
Who can play off the petty jealousies of rivals against each other;
disgust them with their party; and buy them cheap for the Castle? Who
but Barry Rutledge? I’ll offer a wager of five hundred that there is not
a family secret I can’t have the key to within one week.”

“What the devil ever induced you to take up such a career?” asked a
deep-voiced, burly-looking country gentleman.

“The turf gave me the hint,” said Rutledge, coolly. “I lost every
sixpence I once possessed, when I backed this horse, or betted on that
one. I regained a considerable share of my loss when I limited myself to
looking out for what they style ‘disqualifications,’--to discover that
Wasp was n’t a two-year-old, or that Muffin was clean bred; that Terry
had won before, and that Ginger was substituted for another. I saw that
political life was pretty much the same kind of game, and that there
would be a grand opening for the first fellow that brought his racing
craft to bear on the great world of state affairs. I ‘m sure others will
follow out the line, and doubtless eclipse all the cleverness of Barry
Rutledge; but, at all events, they can’t deny him the merit of the
invention. They talk to you about skilful secretaries and able debaters:
I tell you flatly I ‘ve got more votes for the Government than any one
of them all, and just in the way I ‘ve mentioned. Was it Dick Talbot’s
convictions, or his wife’s losses at lqo that made him join us last
session? How did Rowley come over? Ask Harvey Bruce who horsewhipped him
in the mess-room at Kells. Why did Billy Hamilton desert his party? Lady
Mary may tell you; and if she won’t, George Gordon, of the Highlanders,
can. What’s the use of going through the list, from old Hemphill, that
was caught cheating at piquet, down to Watty Carew, with his wife won at
a game of Barocco?”

“Slanderer--scoundrel!” cried out my father, in a voice hoarse with
passion; and as the words were uttered, the balcony was suddenly
deserted, and the rushing sounds of many people descending the stairs
together were as quickly heard. For a few seconds my father stood
uncertain and undecided; but then, with a bold precipitancy, he seemed
to calculate every issue in an instant, and made up his mind how to
proceed. He dashed across the street towards the dark alley which
flanked the “Green,” and along which ran a deep and stagnant ditch, of
some ten or twelve feet in width. Scarcely had he gained the shelter
of the trees, when a number of persons rushed from the house into the
street, and hurried hither and thither in pursuit. As they passed out,
my father was enabled to recognize several whom he knew; but for
one only had he any care; on him he fastened his eyes with the eager
steadfastness of hate, and tracked him as he went, regardless of all
others.

Without concert among themselves, or any clew to direct their search,
they separated in various directions. Still, my father held his place
unchanged, doubtless revolving in that brief interval the terrible
consequences of his act. Some fifteen or twenty minutes might have thus
elapsed, and now he saw one return to the house, speedily followed by
another, and then a third. At last Rutledge came alone; he walked along
slowly, and as if deep in meditation. As though revolving the late
incident in his mind, he stood for a moment looking up at the windows,
and probably speculating in his mind on the precise spot occupied by him
who had uttered the insult.

“Here, beneath the trees,” said my father, in a low, but clear accent;
and Rutledge turned, and hastened across the street. It will, of course,
never be known whether he understood these words as coming from a
stranger, or from some one of his own friends, suggesting pursuit in a
particular direction.

My father only waited to see that the other was following, when he
turned and fled. The entrances to the park, or green, as it was called,
were by small pathways across the moat, closed by low wooden wickets.
Across one of these my father took his way, tearing down the gate with
noise sufficient to show the course he followed.

Rutledge was close at his heels, and already summoning all his efforts
to come up with him, when my father turned round and stood.

“We are alone!” cried he; “there is none to interrupt us. Now, Barry
Rutledge, you or I, or both of us, mayhap, shall pass the night here!”
 and, as he spoke, he drew forth his sword-cane from the walking-stick
that he carried.

“What! is that Carew? Are you Walter Carew?” said Rutledge, advancing
towards him.

“No nearer,--not a step nearer!--or, by Heaven! I ‘ll not answer for my
passion. Draw your sword, and defend yourself!”

“Why, this is sheer madness, Watty. What is your quarrel with me?”

“Do you ask me?--do you want to hear why I called you a scoundrel and a
slanderer?--or is it that I can brand you as both, at noon-day, and in a
crowd, adding coward to the epithets?”

“Come, come,” said the other, with a sarcastic coolness that only
increased my father’s rage. “You know, as well as any man, that these
things are not done in this fashion. I am easily found when wanted.”

“Do you think that I will give you another day to propagate your
slander? No, by Heaven! not an hour!” And so saying, he rushed on,
probably to consummate the outrage by a blow. Rutledge, who was in full
dress, now drew his rapier, and the two steels crossed.

[Illustration: Not An Hour]

My father was a consummate swordsman; he had fought several times with
that weapon when abroad; and had he only been guided by his habitual
temper, nothing would have been easier for him than to overcome his
antagonist. So ungovernable, however, was his passion now, that he lost
almost every advantage his superior skill might have conferred.

[Illustration: The Duel]

As if determined to kill his enemy at any cost, he never stood on his
guard, nor parried a single thrust, but rushed wildly at him. Rutledge,
whose courage was equal to his coolness, saw all the advantage this gave
him; and, after a few passes, succeeded in running his sword through
my father’s chest so that the point actually projected on the opposite
side. With a sudden jerk of his body, my father snapped the weapon in
two, and then, shortening his own to within about a foot of the point,
he ran Rutledge through the heart. One heavy groan followed, and he fell
dead upon his face.

My father drew forth the fragment from his own side, and then, stooping
down, examined the body of his adversary. His recollection of what
passed in that terrible moment was horribly distinct ever after. He
mentioned to him from whom I myself learned these details that so
diabolical was the hatred that held possession of him that he sat
down in the grass beside the body, and contemplated it with a kind of
fiend-like exultation. A light, thin rain began to fall soon after, and
my father, moved by some instinctive feeling, threw Rutledge’s cloak
over the lifeless body, and then withdrew. Although the pain of his own
wound was considerable, he soon perceived that no vital part had been
injured,--indeed, the weapon had passed through the muscles without ever
having penetrated the cavity of the chest. He succeeded, by binding his
handkerchief around his waist, in stanching the blood; and, although
weakened, the terrible excitement of the event seemed to lend him a
momentary strength for further exertion.

His first impulse, as he found himself outside the Green, was to deliver
himself up to the authorities, making a full avowal of all that had
occurred. To do this, however, would involve other consequences which
he had not the courage to confront. Any narrative of the duel would
necessarily require a history of the provocation, and thus a wider
publicity to that shame which was now embittering his existence.

Without ultimately deciding what course he should adopt, my father
determined to give himself further time for reflection, by at once
hastening back to the country ere his presence in the capital was known.
He now returned to the hotel, and, asking for his bill, informed the
waiter that if any one inquired for Mr. Cuthbert, that he should mention
his address at a certain number in Aungier Street. The carman who drove
him from the door was directed to drive to the same place, and there
dismissed. After this, taking his carpet-bag in his hand, he walked
leisurely along towards Ball’s Bridge, where already, as the day was
breaking, a number of vehicles were assembled on the stand. Affecting
a wish to catch the packet for England, he drove hastily to the Pigeon
House; but the vessel had already sailed. It was strange enough that
he never was able to say actually whether he meditated passing over to
England, or simply to conceal the line of his flight. Thus uncertain
whither to go or what to do, a considerable time was passed; and he was
on the point of engaging a boat to cross over to Howth, when a sudden
thought struck him that he would drive direct to Fagan’s, in Mary’s
Abbey.

It was about six o’clock of a bright summer’s morning as my father
alighted at Fagan’s door. “The Grinder” was already up, and busily
engaged inspecting the details of his shop; for, however insignificant
as a source of gain, some strange instinct seemed to connect his
prosperity with the humble occupation of his father and his grandfather,
and he appeared to think that the obscure fruit-stall formed a secret
link between their worldly successes and his own.

It was with surprise not altogether devoid of shame that he saw my
father descend from the jaunting-car to salute him.

“I’ve come to take my breakfast with you, Tony,” said he, gayly; “and,
determining to be a man of business for once, I ‘m resolved to catch
these calm hours of the morning that you prudent fellows make such good
use of!”

Fagan stared with astonishment at this sudden apparition of one from
whom he neither expected a visit at such an hour, much less a speech
of such meaning. He, however, mumbled out some words of welcome, with
a half-intelligible compliment about my father’s capacity being fully
equal to any exigencies or any demands that might be made upon it.

“So they told me at school, Tony, and so they said in college. They
repeated the same thing when I entered Parliament; but, somehow, I
have been always a fellow of great promise and no performance, and I
am beginning at last to suspect that I shall scarcely live to see this
wonderful future that is to reveal me to the world in the plenitude of
my powers!”

“It will, then, be entirely your own fault, sir,” said Fagan, with an
earnestness that showed the interest he felt in the subject. “Let me
speak to you seriously, sir,” said he; and he led the way into a room,
where, having seated themselves, he went on: “With your name, and
your position, and your abilities, Mr. Carew,--no sir, I am too deeply
concerned in what I say to be a flatterer,--there was a great and
glorious career open before you; nor is the time to follow it gone by.
Think what you might be amongst your countrymen, by standing forward as
their champion! Picture to yourself the place you might hold, and
the power you might wield,--not a power to depend upon the will of
a minister, or the caprice of a cabinet, but a power based upon the
affections of an entire people; for, I say it advisedly, the leadership
of the national party is yet to be claimed. Lord Charlemont is too weak
and too ductile for it. Besides that, his aristocratic leanings
unfit him for close contact with the masses. Henry Grattan has great
requisites, but he has great deficiencies too. The favor that he wins in
the senate, he loses in society. We want a man who shall speak for us in
public the sentiments that fall from us at our tables; who shall assure
the English Government, and the English nation too, that the Irish
Catholic is equal in loyalty as in courage,--that his fealty is not less
because his faith is that of his fathers. It is not eloquence we
need, Mr. Carew. Our cause does not want embellishment. Orators may
be required to prop up a weak or falling case. Ours can stand
alone, without such aid! An honest, a resolute, and an independent
advocate,--one whose ancient name on one side, and whose genial nature
on the other, shall be a link betwixt the people and the gentry,--such a
man, whenever found, may take the lead in Ireland; and, however English
ministers may dictate laws, he, and he alone, will govern this country.”

My father listened with intense eagerness to every word of this appeal.
Not even the flattery to himself was more pleasing than the glimpses he
caught of a great national struggle, in which Ireland should come
out triumphant. Such visions were amongst the memories of his boyish
enthusiasm, begotten in the wild orgies of a college life, and nurtured
amidst the excesses of many a debauch; and although foreign travel and
society had obliterated most of these impressions, now they came back
with tenfold force, in a moment when his mind was deeply agitated and
excited. For an instant he had been carried away by this enticing theme;
he had actually forgotten, in his ardor the terrible incident which so
lately he had passed through, when Raper rushed hurriedly into the room
where they sat, exclaiming,--

“A dreadful murder has taken place in the city. Mr. Rutledge, of the
Viceroy’s household, was found dead this morning in Stephen’s Green.”

“Within the Green?” asked Fagan. “What could have brought him there
after nightfall? There must have been some assignation in the case.”

“Do you know, have you heard any of the circumstances, sir?” asked my
father.

“No further than that he was killed by a sword-thrust which passed
completely through his chest. Some suspect that he was lured to the
spot by one pretence or other; others are of opinion that it was a duel.
Robbery had certainly nothing to say to it, for his watch and purse were
found on the body.”

“Have they taken the body away?”

“No, sir. It remains for the coroners inquest, which is to assemble
immediately.”

“Had Rutledge any political enemies? Is it supposed that the event was
in any way connected with party?”

“That could scarcely be,” said Fagan. “He was one who gave himself
little concern about state affairs,--an easy fop that fluttered about
the Court, caring for little above the pleasures of his valueless
existence!”

“For such men you have few sympathies, Fagan!”

“None, sir, not one. Their history is ever the same,--a life of debauch,
a death of violence!”

“This is to speak hardly, Fagan,” said my father, mildly. “Men like poor
Rutledge have their good qualities, though they be not such as you and I
set store by. I never thought so myself, but others, indeed, deemed him
a most amusing companion, and with more than an ordinary share of wit
and pleasantry.”

“The wit and pleasantry were both exerted to make his friends
ridiculous, sir,” said Fagan, severely. “He was a man that lived upon a
reputation for smartness, gained at the expense of every good feeling.”

“I’ll wager a trifle, Tony,” said my father, laughing, “that he died
deep in your books. Come, be frank, and say how much this unhappy affair
will cost you.”

“Not so dearly as it may you, sir,” whispered Fagan in my father’s ear;
and the words nearly overcame him.

“How so?--what do you mean?” muttered my father, in a broken, faltering
voice.

“Come this way for a moment, Mr. Carew,” said the other, aloud, “and
I’ll show you my snuggery, where I live, apart from all the world.”

My father followed him into a small chamber, where Fagan at once closed
the door and locked it, and then, approaching him, pulled forth from
beneath his loose cuff a lace ruffle stained and clotted with blood.

“It is fortunate for you, Mr. Carew,” said he, “that Raper is so
unobservant; any other than he would have seen this, and this;” and
as he spoke the last words, he pointed to a small portion of a bloody
handkerchief which projected outside the shirt-frill.

So overwhelmed was my father by these evidences that he sank powerless
into a chair, without strength to speak.

“How was it?--how did it occur?” asked Fagan, sitting down in front of
him, and placing one hand familiarly on my father’s knee. Simple as the
action was, it was a liberty that he had never dared before to take with
my father, who actually shuddered at the touch, as though it had been a
pollution.

“Unpremeditated, of course, I conclude,” said Fagan, still endeavoring
to lead him on to some explanation. My father nodded.

“Unwitnessed also,” said Fagan, slowly. Another nod implied assent.

“Who knows of your presence in Dublin?--Who has seen you since your
arrival in Dublin?” asked he.

“None of my acquaintances, so far, at least, as I know. I went, by a
mere accident, to an hotel where I am not known. By another accident, if
I dare so call it, I fell upon this rencontre. I will endeavor to tell
you the whole, as it occurred,--that is, if I can sufficiently collect
myself; but first let me have some wine, Fagan, for I am growing weak.”

As Fagan left the room, he passed the desk where Raper was already
seated, hard at work, and, laying his hand on the clerk’s shoulder, he
whispered,--

“Be cautious that you do not mention Mr. Carew’s arrival here. There is
a writ out against him for debt, and he has come up here to be out of
the way.”

Raper heard the words without even discontinuing to write, and merely
muttered a brief “Very well,” in reply.

When Fagan re-entered the chamber, he found my father just rallying from
a fainting-fit, which loss of blood and agitation together had brought
on. Two or three glasses of wine, hastily swallowed, restored him, and
he was again able to converse.

“Can you be traced to this house? Is there any clew to you here?” asked
Fagan, resuming his former seat.

“None, so far as I know. The affair occurred thus--”

“Pardon my interrupting you,” broke in Fagan; “but the most important
thing at this moment is, to provide for your safety, in the event of any
search after you. Have you any ground to apprehend this?”

“None whatever. You shall hear the story.”

“They are talking of it outside!” whispered Fagan, with a gesture of his
hand to enforce caution; “let us listen to them.” And he slowly unlocked
the door, and left it to stand ajar.

The outer shop was by this time filling with the small fruit-vendors of
the capital,--a class peculiarly disposed to collect and propagate the
gossip of the day; and Fagan well knew how much the popular impression
would depend upon the coloring of their recital.

“‘T is lucky,” said one, “that his watch and money was on him, or they
‘d say at once it was the boys done it.”

“Faix! they could n’t do that,” broke in another; “there’s marks about
the place would soon contradict them.”

“What marks?”

“The print of an elegant boot. I saw it myself; it is small in the heel,
and sharp in the toe,--very unlike yours or mine, Tim.”

“Begad! so much the better,” said the other, laughing.

“And I ‘ll tell you more,” resumed the former speaker: “it was a
dress-sword--what they wear at the Castle--killed him. You could scarce
see the hole. It ‘s only a little blue spot between the ribs.”

“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” exclaimed a woman’s voice; “and they say he was an
elegant, fine man!”

“As fine a figure of a man as ever ye looked at!”

“And nobody knows the reason of it at all?” asked she again.

“I’ll engage it was about a woman!” muttered a husky, old, cracked
voice, that was constantly heard, up to this moment, bargaining for
oranges.

And Fagan quickly made a sign to my father to listen attentively.

“That’s Denny Cassin,” whispered he, “the greatest newsmonger in
Dublin.”

“The devil recave the fight ever I heerd of hadn’t a woman in it,
somehow or other; an’ if she did n’t begin it, she was sure to come in
at the end, and make it worse. Was n’t it a woman that got Hemphill Daly
shot? Was n’t it a woman was the death of Major Brown, of Coolmiues? Was
n’t it a woman--”

“Arrah! bother ye, Denny!” broke in the representative of the sex,
who stood an impatient listener to this long indictment; “what’s worth
fightin’ for in the world barrin’ ourselves?”

A scornful laugh was all the reply he deigned to this appeal; and he
went on,--

“I often said what Barry Rutledge ‘ud come to,--ay, and I told himself
so. ‘You ‘ve a bad tongue,’ says I, ‘and you ‘ve a bad heart. Some day
or other you ‘ll be found out;’ and ye see, so he was.”

“I wonder who did it!” exclaimed another.

“My wonder is,” resumed Denny, “that it was n’t done long ago; or
instead of one wound in his skin, that he had n’t fifty. Do you know
that when I used to go up to the officers’ room with oranges, I’d hear
more wickedness out of his mouth in one mornin’ than I ‘d hear in Pill
Lane, here, in a month of Sundays. There was n’t a man dined at the
Castle, there was n’t a lady danced at the Coort, that he had n’t a
bad story about; and he always began by saying: ‘He and I were old
schoolfellows,’ or ‘She ‘s a great friend of mine.’ I was up there the
morning after the Coort came home from Carew Castle; and if ye heard
the way he went on about the company. He began with Curtis, and finished
with Carew himself.”

Fagan closed the door here, and, walking over, sat down beside my
father’s chair.

“We ‘ve heard enough now, sir,” said he, “to know what popular opinion
will pronounce upon this man. Denny speaks with the voice of a large
mass of this city; and if they be not either very intelligent or
exalted, they are at least fellows who back words by deeds, and are
quite ready to risk their heads for their convictions,--a test of
honesty that their betters, perhaps, would shrink from. From what he
says, there will be little sympathy for Rutledge. The law, of course,
will follow its due path; but the law against popular feeling is like
the effort of the wind to resist the current of a fast river: it may
ruffle the surface, but never will arrest the stream. Now, sir, just
tell me, in a few words, what took place between you?”

My father detailed everything, from the hour of his arrival in Dublin,
down to the very moment of his descending at Fagan’s door. He faltered,
indeed, and hesitated about the conversation of the coffee-room, for
even in all the confidence of a confession, he shrunk from revealing the
story of his marriage. And in doing so, he stammered and blundered
so much that Fagan could collect little above the bare facts, that my
mother had been wagered at a card-table, and won by my father.

Had my father been in a cooler mood, he could not have failed to remark
how much deeper was the interest Fagan took in the story of his first
meeting with my mother than in all the circumstances of the duel. So
far as it was safe,--further than it would have been so at any other
moment,--the Grinder cross-questioned my father as to her birth, the
manner of her education, and the position she held before her marriage.

“This is all beside the matter,” cried my father, at last, impatiently.
“I am now to think what is best to be done here. Shall I give myself
up at once?--And why not, Fagan?” added he, abruptly, interrogating the
look of the other.

“For two sufficient reasons, sir: first, that you would be needlessly
exposing yourself to great peril; and, secondly, you would certainly be
exposing another to great--” He stopped and faltered, for there was that
in my father’s face that made the utterance of a wrong word dangerous.

“Take care what you say, Master Tony; for, however selfish you may deem
me, I have still enough of heart left to consider those far worthier of
thought than myself.”

“And yet, sir, the fact is so, whether I speak it or not,” said Fagan.
“Once let this affair come before a public tribunal, and what is there
that can be held back from the prying impertinence of the world? And I
see no more reason why you should peril life than risk all that makes
life desirable.”

“But what or where is all this peril, Fagan? You talk as if I had been
committing a murder.”

“It is precisely the name they would give it in the indictment, sir,”
 said the other, boldly. “Nay, hear me out, Mr. Carew. Were I to tell the
adventure of last night as the bare facts reveal it, who would suggest
the possibility of its being a duel? Think of the place--the hour--the
solitude--the mere accident of the meeting! Oh, no, sir; duels are not
fought in this fashion.”

“You are arguing against yourself, Tony. You have convinced me that
there is but one course open. I must surrender myself!”

“Think well of it first, Mr. Carew,” said Fagan, drawing his chair
closer, and speaking in a lower tone. “We must not let any false
delicacy deceive us. There never was a case of this kind yet that did
not less depend upon its own merits than on fifty things over which
one has no control. The temper of the judge--the rank in life of the
jury--the accidental tone of public opinion at the moment--the bias of
the press: these are the agencies to be thought of. When Grogan Hamilton
was tried for shooting John Adair in the mess-room at Carlow, his
verdict was pronounced before the jury was empanelled!”

“I never heard of that case,” said my father, anxiously.

“It occurred when you were a boy at school, sir; and although the facts
would not read so condemnatory now, at that time there was not one voice
to be heard on the side of mercy. The duel, if duel it could be called,
took place after every one, save themselves, had left the table. The
quarrel was an old grudge revived over the bottle. They fought without
witnesses and with Heaven knows what inequality of weapons; and although
Hamilton gave himself up----”

“He gave himself up?” interrupted my father.

“Yes, sir; in direct opposition to his friends’ advice, he did so:
but had he followed a different course,--had he even waited till
the excitement had calmed down a little, till men began to talk more
dispassionately on the subject, the result might have been different.”

“And what was the result?”

“I have already told you, sir,--a conviction.”

“And what followed?”

“He was hanged,--hanged in front of the old jail at Naas, where the
regiment he once had served in was quartered. I don’t know how or why
this was done. Some said it was to show the people that there was no
favoritism towards a man of rank and fortune. Some alleged it was to
spare the feelings of his relatives, who were Carlow people.”

“Good Heavens!” exclaimed my father, passionately; “was there ever such
an infamy!”

“The event happened as I tell you, sir. I believe I have the trial in
the house; if I have not, Crowther will have it, for he was engaged in
the defence, and one of those who endeavored to dissuade Hamilton from
his resolution of surrender.”

“And who is Crowther?”

“A solicitor, sir, of great practice and experience.”

“In whom you have confidence, Fagan?”

“The most implicit confidence.”

“And who could be useful to us in this affair?”

“Of the very greatest utility, sir,--not alone from his legal knowledge,
but from his consummate acquaintance with the world and its modes of
thinking.”

“Can you send for him? Can you get him here without exciting suspicion?”
 said my father; for already had terror seized hold on him, and even
before he knew it was he entangled in the toils.

“I can have him here within an hour, sir, and without any risk whatever;
for he is my own law adviser, and in constant intercourse with me.”

Fagan now persuaded my father to lie down and try to obtain some sleep,
promising to awake him the moment that Crowther arrived.



CHAPTER XIV. A CONFERENCE

Scarcely had my father laid himself down on the bed, when he fell off
into a heavy sleep. Fatigue, exhaustion, and loss of blood all combined
to overcome him, and he lay motionless in the same attitude he at first
assumed.

Fagan came repeatedly to the bedside, and, opening the curtains
slightly, gazed on the cold, impassive features with a strange
intensity. One might have supposed that the almost deathlike calm of the
sleeper’s face would have defied every thought or effort of speculation;
but there he sat, watching it as though, by dint of patience and study,
he might at length attain to reading what was passing within that brain.

At the slightest sound that issued from the lips, too, he would bend
down to try and catch its meaning. Perhaps, at moments like these, a
trace of impatience might be detected in his manner; but, for the most
part, his hard, stern features showed no sign of emotion, and it was in
all his accustomed self-possession that he descended to the small and
secluded chamber where Crowther sat awaiting him.

“Still asleep, Fagan?” asked the lawyer, looking hastily up from the
papers and documents he had been perusing.

“He is asleep, and like enough to continue so,” replied the other,
slowly, while he sank down into an arm-chair, and gave himself up to
deep reflection.

“I have been thinking a good deal over what you have told me,”
 said Crowther, “and I own I see the very gravest objections to his
surrendering himself.”

“My own opinion!” rejoined Fagan, curtly.

“Even if it were an ordinary duel, with all the accustomed formalities
of time, place, and witnesses, the temper of the public mind is just
now in a critical state on these topics; MacNamara’s death and that
unfortunate affair at Kells have made a deep impression. I’d not trust
too much to such dispositions. Besides, the chances are they would not
admit him to bail, so that he ‘d have to pass three, nearly four, months
in Newgate before he could be brought to trial.”

“He’d not live through the imprisonment. It would break his heart, if it
did not kill him otherwise.”

“By no means unlikely.”

“I know him well, and I am convinced he ‘d not survive it. Why, the very
thought of the accusation, the bare idea that he could be arraigned as
a criminal, so overcame him here this morning that he staggered back and
sunk into that chair, half fainting.”

“He thinks that he was not known at that hotel where he stopped?”

“He is quite confident of that; the manner of the waiters towards him
convinces him that he was not recognized.”

“Nor has he spoken with any one since his arrival, except yourself?”

“Not one, save the hackney carman, who evidently did not know him.”

“He left home, you say, without a servant?”

“Yes! he merely said that he was going over for a day or two, to the
mines, and would be back by the end of the week. But, latterly, he has
often absented himself in this fashion; and, having spoken of visiting
one place, has changed his mind and gone to another, in an opposite
direction.”

“Who has seen him since he arrived here?”

“No one but myself and Raper.”

“Ah! Raper has seen him?”

“That matters but little. Joe has forgotten all about it already, or,
if he has not, I have but to say that it was a mistake, for him to
fancy that it was so. You shall see, if you like, that he will not even
hesitate the moment I tell him the thing is so.”

“It only remains, then, to determine where he should go,--I mean Carew;
for although any locality would serve in one respect, we must bethink
ourselves of every issue to this affair: and, should there be any
suspicion attaching to him, he ought to be out of danger,--the danger of
arrest. Where do his principal estates lie?”

“In Wicklow,--immediately around Castle Carew.”

“But he has other property?”

“Yes, he has some northern estates; and there is a mine, also, on Lough
Allen belonging to him.”

“Well, why not go there?”

“There is no residence; there is nothing beyond the cabins of the
peasantry, or the scarcely more comfortable dwelling of the overseer.
I have it, Crowther,” cried he, suddenly, as though, a happy notion had
just struck him; “I have it. You have heard of that shooting-lodge of
mine at the Killeries? It was Carew’s property, but has fallen into my
hands; he shall go there. So far as seclusion goes, I defy Ireland to
find its equal. They who have seen it, tell me it is a perfect picture
of landscape beauty. He can shoot and fish and sketch for a week or
so, till we see what turn this affair is like to take. Nothing could be
better; the only difficulty is the distance.”

“You tell me that he is ill.”

“It is more agitation than actual illness; he was weak and feeble before
this happened, and of course his nerves are terribly shaken by it.”

“The next consideration is, how to apprise his wife; at least, what we
ought to tell her if he be incapable of writing.”

“I hinted that already as I accompanied him upstairs, and by his manner
it struck me that he did not lay much stress on the matter; he merely
said, ‘Oh! she has no curiosity; she never worries herself about what
does not concern her.’”

“A rare quality in a wife, Fagan,” said the other, with a smile.

Whether it was the prompting of his own thoughts, or that some real
or fancied emphasis on the word “wife” caught him, but Fagan asked
suddenly, “What did you say?”

“I remarked that it was a rare quality for a wife to possess. You
thought, perhaps, it was rather the gift of those who enjoy the
privilege, and not the name of such.”

“Maybe you’re right, then, Crowther. Shall I own to you, it was the very
thought that was passing through my own brain!”

“How strange that Rutledge should have hinted the very same suspicion to
myself, the last time we ever spoke together,” said Crowther, in a low,
confidential whisper. “We were sitting in my back office; he had come to
show me some bills of money won at play, and ask my advice about them.
Carew was the indorser of two or three amongst them, and Rutledge
remarked at the tremendous pace the other was going, and how impossible
it was that any fortune could long maintain it. There was some
difficulty in catching exactly his meaning, for he spoke rapidly, and
with more than his accustomed warmth. It was something, however, to this
effect: ‘All this extravagant display is madame’s doing, and the natural
consequence of his folly in France. If, instead of this absurd mistake,
he had married and settled in Ireland, his whole career would have taken
a different turn.’ Now, when I reflected on the words after he left me,
I could not satisfy myself whether he had said that Carew ought to have
married, in contradistinction to have formed this French attachment, or
simply that he deemed an Irish wife would have been a wiser choice than
a French one.”

“The former strikes me as the true interpretation,” said Fagan; “and the
more I think on every circumstance of this affair, the more do I incline
to this opinion. The secrecy so unnecessary, the mystery as to
her family, even as to her name, all so needless. That interval of
seclusion, in which, probably, he had not yet resolved finally on the
course he should adopt. And, lastly, a point more peculiarly referring
to ourselves, and over which I have often pondered,--I mean the
selection of my daughter Polly to be her friend and companion. It is not
at my time of life,” added Fagan, with an almost fierce energy of voice,
“that I have to learn how the aristocracy regard me and such as me.
No one needs to tell me that any intercourse between us must depend on
something else than similarity of taste and pursuit; that if we ever sit
down to the same table together, it is on the ground of a compromise.
There is a shame to be concealed or consoled, or there is a debt to be
deferred, or left unclaimed forever. Walter Carew’s wife would scarcely
have sought out the Grinder’s daughter for her friend and bosom
companion. His mistress might have thought such an alliance most
suitable. Polly has herself told me the terms of perfect equality on
which they lived; that never by a chance word, look, or gesture was
there aught which could imply a position of superiority above her own.
They called each other by their Christian names, they assumed all the
intimacy of sisters, and that almost at once. When she related these
things to me,” cried Fagan, sternly, “my passion nearly overcame me, to
think how we had been outraged and insulted; but I remembered, suddenly,
that there were others, far higher than us, exposed to the same
indignity. The Castle was crowded by the rank, the wealth, and the
influence of the whole country; and if there be a disgrace to be
endured, we have at least partners in our shame.”

“Yes, yes,” said Crowther, nodding his head slowly in assent; “the whole
assumes a strange and most remarkable consistency. I remember well,
hearing how many of those invited on that occasion had sent letters of
apology; and stranger again, the way in which the party broke up and
separated has been made public enough in the newspapers. Rutledge’s
own words were: ‘It was a rout, not a retreat.’ That was a curious
expression.”

Who has not, at some time or other of his life, experienced the force
of that casuistry which is begotten of suspicion? Who has not felt how
completely reason is mastered by the subtle assaults of a wily ingenuity
which, whilst combining the false and the true, the possible and
impossible together, makes out a mock array of evidence almost too
strong for a doubt? The least creative of minds are endowed with this
faculty, and even the most commonplace and matter-of-fact temperaments
are sometimes the slaves of this delusion! To render its influence all
powerful, however, it should be exercised by two who, in the interchange
of suspicions, and by bartering their inferences, arrive at a degree of
certainty in their conclusions rarely accorded to the most convincing
testimony. As a river is swollen by the aid of every tiny rill that
trickles down the mountain side, so does the current of conviction
receive as tributary, incidents the most trivial, and events of the
slightest meaning.

Fagan’s spirit revolted at what he felt to be a gross insult passed upon
his daughter; but this very indignation served to rivet more firmly his
suspicions, for he reasoned thus: Men are ever ready to credit what they
desire to be credible, and to disbelieve that which it is unpleasant
to accept as true. Now, here have I every temptation to incredulity!
If this be the fact, as my suspicions indicate, I have been deeply
outraged. An affront has been offered to me which dared not have been
put upon one of higher rank and better blood. It is, therefore, my
interest and my wish to suppose this impossible; and yet I cannot do
so. Not all the self-respect I can call to aid, not all the desire to
shelter myself behind a doubt, will suffice. My reason accepts what my
feelings would reject, and I believe what it is a humiliation for me to
credit.

Such was, in brief, the substance of a long mental struggle and
self-examination on Fagan’s part,--a process to which he addressed
himself with all the shrewdness of his nature. It was a matter of deep
moment to him in every way. He ardently desired that he should arrive
at a right judgment upon it; and yet, with all his penetration and
keen-sighted-ness, he never perceived that another agency was at work
all the while, whose tendencies were exactly in the opposite direction.
To believe Walter Carew still unmarried was to revive his long-extinct
hope of calling him his son-in-law, and to bring back once more that
gorgeous dream of Polly’s elevation to rank and position, which had
filled his mind for many a year. His whole heart had been set upon this
object. In pursuit of it, he had made the most immense advances of money
to my father, many of them on inferior security. For some he had the
mere acknowledgment contained in a few lines of a common letter. The
measures of severity which he had once menaced were undertaken in
the very paroxysm of his first disappointment, and were as speedily
relinquished when calm reflection showed him that they could avail
nothing against the past. Besides this he felt that there was still
an object, to the attainment of which my father’s aid might contribute
much, and towards which he hoped to urge him,--the emancipation of the
Catholics. It had been long Fagan’s cherished idea that the leadership
of that party should be given to one who united to reasonable good
abilities the advantages of birth, large fortune, and, above all,
personal courage.

“We have orators and writers in abundance,” would he say. “There are
plenty who can make speeches, and even songs, for us; but we want a
few men who, with a large stake in the country, and high position in
society, are willing and ready to peril both, and themselves into the
bargain, in the assertion of our cause. If we ever chance to find these,
our success is certain. The worst thing about our cause,” added he, “is
not its disloyalty, for that admits of discussion and denial; but the
real plague-spot is its vulgarity. Our enemies have been cunning enough
to cast over the great struggle of a nation all the petty and miserable
characteristics of a faction, and not of mere faction, but of one
agitated by the lowest motives, and led on by the meanest advocates.
A gentleman or two, to take service with us, will at once repulse this
tactic; and until we can hit upon these, we shall make no progress.”

I have been obliged to dwell even to tediousness on these traits of the
Grinder; for if they be not borne in mind, his actions and motives will
seem destitute of any satisfactory explanation. And I now return to
the chamber where he sat with Crowther as they compared impressions
together, and bartered suspicions about my father’s marriage.

“Now that I begin to consider the matter in this light,” said Crowther,
“it is curious what an explanation it affords to many things that used
to puzzle me formerly: all that coldness and reserve towards Carew that
his neighbors showed; the way his former acquaintances fell off from
him, one by one; and, lastly, those strange hints about him in the
newspapers. I suppose we should see the meaning of every one of them now
easily enough?”

Fagan made no reply; his mind was travelling along over the road it had
entered upon, and would not be turned away by any call whatsoever.

“Yes,” muttered he to himself, “the little cottage at Fallrach, in the
Killeries,--that’s the place! and the only thing now is to get him down
there. I must go up and see how he gets on, Crowther. I ‘m half afraid
that he ought to see a surgeon.” And, so saying, he arose and left the
room.

My father was still sleeping as he entered, but less tranquilly than
before, with a feverish flush upon his face, and his lips dry and
dark-colored.

With a noiseless hand, Fagan drew back the curtain, and, seating himself
close to the bed, bent down to gaze on him. The uneasy motions of the
sleeper denoted pain; and more than once his hand was pressed against
his side, as if it was the seat of some suffering. Fagan watched every
gesture eagerly, and tried, but in vain, to collect some meaning from
the low and broken utterance. Rapidly speaking at intervals, and at
times moaning painfully, he appeared to labor either under some mental
or bodily agony, in a paroxysm of which, at last, he burst open his
vest, and clutched his embroidered shirt-frill with a violence that tore
it in fragments.

As he did so, Fagan caught sight of a handkerchief stained with blood,
which, with cautious gesture, he slowly removed, and, walking to
the window, examined it carefully. This done, he folded it up, and,
enveloping it in his own, placed it in his pocket. Once more he took
his place at the bedside, and seemed to listen with intense anxiety for
every sound of the sleeper’s lips. The fever appeared to gain ground,
for the flush now covered the face and forehead, and the limbs were
twitched with short convulsive motions.

At last, as the paroxysm had reached its height, he bounded up from the
bed and awoke.

“Where am I?” cried he, wildly. “Who are all these? What do they allege
against me?”

“Lie down; compose yourself, Mr. Carew. You are amongst friends, who
wish you well, and will treat you kindly,” said Fagan, mildly.

“But it was not of my seeking,--no one can dare to say so. Fagan will be
my back to any amount,--ten thousand, if they ask it.”

“That will I,--to the last penny I possess.”

“There, I told you so. I often said I knew the Grinder better than any
of you. You laughed at me for it; but I was right, for all that.”

“I trust you were right, sir,” said Fagan, calmly.

“What I said was this,” continued he, eagerly: “the father of such a
girl as Polly must be a gentleman at heart. He may trip and stumble, in
his imitations of your modish paces; but the soul of a gentleman must be
in him. Was I right there, or not?”

“Pray, calm yourself; lie down, and take your rest,” said Fagan, gently
pushing him back upon the pillow.

“You are quite right,” said he; “there is nothing for it now but
submission. MacNaghten, Harvey, Burton,--all who have known me from
boyhood,--can testify if I were one to do a dishonorable action. I tell
you again and again, I will explain nothing; life is not worth such a
price,--such ignominy is too great!”

He paused, as if the thought was too painful to pursue; and then, fixing
his eyes on Fagan, he laughed aloud, and added,--

“Eh, Fagan! that would be like one of your own contracts,--a hundred per
cent!”

“I have not treated you in this wise, Mr. Carew,” said he, calmly..

“No, my boy! that you have not. To the last hour of my life--no great
stretch of time, perhaps--I ‘ll say the same. You have been a generous
fellow with me--the devil and yourself may perhaps know why,--I do not;
nay, more, Fagan--I never cared to know. Perhaps you thought I ‘d marry
Polly. By George! I might have done worse; and who knows what may be yet
on the cards? Ay, just so--the cards--the cards!”

He did not speak again for several minutes; but when he did, his voice
assumed a tone of greater distinctness and accuracy, as if he would not
that a single word were lost.

“I knew your scheme about the Papists, Tony; I guessed what you were at
then. I was to have emancipated you!”

A wild laugh broke from him, and he went on,--

“Just fancy the old trumpeter’s face, that hangs up in the dinner-room
at Castle Carew! Imagine the look he would bestow on his descendant as I
sat down to table. Faith! Old Noll himself would have jumped out of the
canvas at the tidings. If you cannot strain your fancy that far, Tony,
think what your own father would have said were his degenerate son to
be satisfied with lawful interest!--imagine him sorrowing over the lost
precepts of his house!”

“There; I’ll close the curtains, and leave you to take a sleep,” said
Fagan.

“But I have no time for this, man,” cried the other, again starting up;
“I must be up and away. You must find some place of concealment for me
till I can reach the Continent. Understand me well, Fagan, I cannot, I
will not, make a defence; as little am I disposed to die like a felon!
There’s the whole of it! Happily, if the worst should come, Tony, the
disgrace dies with me; that’s something,--eh?”

“You will make yourself far worse by giving way to this excitement, Mr.
Carew; you must try and compose yourself.”

“So I will, Fagan; I’ll be as obedient as you wish. Only tell me that
you will watch for my safety, assure me of that, and I ‘m content.”

As though the very words he had just uttered had brought a soothing
influence to his mind, he had scarcely finished speaking when he fell
off into a deep sleep, unbroken by even a dream. Fagan stood long enough
at the bedside to assure himself that all was quiet, and then left the
room, locking the door as he passed out, and taking the key with him.



CHAPTER XV. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

In these memoirs of my father, I have either derived my information from
the verbal accounts of his friends and contemporaries, or taken it from
his own letters and papers. Many things have I omitted, as irrelevant to
his story, which, in themselves, might not have been devoid of interest;
and of some others, the meaning and purport being somewhat obscure,
I have abstained from all mention. I make this apology for the
incompleteness of my narrative; and the reader will probably accept
my excuses the more willingly since he is spared the infliction of my
discursiveness on topics only secondary and adventitious.

I now, however, come to a period the most eventful of his story, but,
by an unhappy accident, the least illustrated by any record of its acts.
MacNaghten, my chief source of information hitherto, is here unable to
guide or direct me. He knew nothing of my father’s movements, nor did
he hold any direct intercourse with him. Whatever letters may have been
written by my father himself, I am unable to tell, none of them having
ever reached me. My difficulty is therefore considerable, having little
to guide me beyond chance paragraphs in some of Fagan’s letters to
his daughter, and some two or three formal communications on business
matters to my mother.

There is yet enough even in these scattered notices to show that Fagan’s
hopes of realizing the great ambition of his life had been suddenly
and unexpectedly renewed. Not alone was he inclined to believe that my
father might become the political leader of his own peculiar party, and
take upon him the unclaimed position of an Irish champion, but, further
still, he persuaded himself that my father was not really married, and
that the present conjuncture offered a favorable prospect of making him
his son-in-law.

The reader has already seen from what a slight foundation this edifice
sprung,--a random word spoken by my father at a moment of great
excitement; a half-muttered regret, wrung from him in a paroxysm of
wounded self-love.

He was not the first, nor will he be the last, who shall raise up a
structure for which the will alone supplies material; mayhap, too, in
his case, the fire of hope had never been totally extinguished in
his heart, and from its smouldering embers now burst out this new and
brilliant flame.

It was about an hour after midnight that a chaise, with four horses,
drew up at Fagan’s door; and, after a brief delay, a sick man was
assisted carefully down the stairs and deposited within the carriage.
Raper took his place beside him, and, with a speed that denoted urgency,
the equipage drove away, and, passing through many a narrow lane and
alley, emerged from the city at last, and took the great western road.

Fallrach, even in our own day of universal travel and research, is a
wild and lonely spot; but at the time I refer to, it was as utterly
removed from all intercourse with the world as some distant settlement
of Central America. Situated in a little bend or bight of coast where
the Killeries opens to the great ocean, backed by lofty mountains, and
flanked either by the sea or the still less accessible crags of granite,
this little cottage was almost concealed from view. Unpretending as it
was without, its internal arrangements included every comfort; and my
father found himself not only surrounded with all the appliances of ease
and enjoyment, but in the very midst of objects well known and dear
to him from old associations. It had been in our family for about a
century; but up to this moment my father had never seen it, nor was he
aware of the singular beauty of the neighboring coast scenery.

At first, he could do no more than sit at an open window that looked
over the sea, enjoying, with dreamy languor, the calm influences of a
solitude so thoroughly unbroken. To an overwrought and excited mind,
this interval of quiet was a priceless luxury; and far from experiencing
weariness in his lonely life, the days glided past unnoticed.

Raper was not of a nature to obtrude himself on any one; and as my
father neither sought nor needed a companion, they continued to live
beneath the same roof almost without meeting. While, therefore, there
was the most scrupulous attention to all my father’s wants, and a
watchfulness that seemed even to anticipate a wish on his part, his
privacy was never invaded nor disturbed. A few words each morning
between Raper and himself provided for all the arrangements of the day,
and there ended their intercourse.

Leaving him, therefore, in the indulgence of this placid existence,
I must now turn to another scene, where very different actors and
interests were engaged.

The death of Barry Rutledge had created the most intense excitement,
not alone in Dublin, but throughout the country generally. He was almost
universally known. His acquaintanceship embraced men of every shade of
opinion, and of all parties; and if his character did not suggest any
feelings of strong attachment or regard, there were social qualities
about him which, at least, attracted admiration, and made him welcome in
society.

Such men are often regretted by the world more deeply than is their due.
Their amusing faculties are frequently traced back to some imaginary
excellence in their natures, and there mingles with the sorrow for their
loss a sort of tender compassion for the fate of abilities misapplied,
and high gifts wasted. This was exactly the case here. Many who did not
rank amongst his intimates while he lived, now affected to deplore his
death most deeply; and there was a degree of sympathy felt, or assumed
to be felt, for his fate, widely disproportioned to his claims upon real
regard.

The manner of his death still remained a profound mystery. The verdict
of the coroner’s jury was simply to the effect that “he had died of
wounds inflicted by a person or persons unknown,” but without an attempt
at explanation. The witnesses examined deposed to very little more
than the state in which the body was found, and the prints of footsteps
discovered in its vicinity. These, indeed, and other marks about the
spot seemed to indicate that a struggle had taken place; but a strange
and unaccountable apathy prevailed as to all investigation, and the
public was left to the very vaguest of speculations as they appeared
from time to time in the columns of the newspapers.

Amongst those who accompanied Rutledge into the street there was a
singular discrepancy of opinion, some averring that they heard him
called on by his name, and others equally positive in asserting that the
provocation was uttered only in the emphatic monosyllable, “a lie.” They
were all men of standing and position in the world; they were persons
of indisputable honor; and yet, strange to say, upon a simple matter of
fact which had occupied but a few seconds, they could not be brought
to anything like agreement. The most positive of all in maintaining his
opinion was a Colonel Vereker, who persisted in alleging that he stood
side by side with Rutledge the whole time he was speaking; that he could
swear not only to the words used by the unknown speaker, but that he
would go so far as to say, that such was the impression made upon his
senses that he could detect the voice were he ever to hear it again.

This assertion, at first uttered in the small circle of intimacy, at
last grew to be talked of abroad, and many were of opinion it would
one day or other give the clew to this mysterious affair. As to Vereker
himself, he felt that he was to a certain extent pledged to the proof
of what he had maintained so persistently. His opinions had gained
currency, and were discussed by the press, which, in the dearth of
other topics of interest, devoted a large portion of their columns to
commentary on this event.

Any one now looking back to the pages of the Dublin “Express” or
“Falkner” of that date will scarcely fail to find that each day
contributed some new and ingenious suggestion as to the manner of
Rutledge’s death. Some of these were arrayed with great details and the
most minute arrangement of circumstances; others were constructed of
materials the least probable and likely. Every view had, however, its
peculiar advocates, and it was curious to see to what violence was
carried the war of controversy upon the subject.

By the publicity which accompanies such events as these, the ends of
justice are mainly sustained and aided. Discussion suggests inquiry,
and by degrees the general mind is turned with zeal to an investigation
which, under ordinary circumstances, had only occupied the attention of
the authorities.

To any one who has not witnessed a similar movement of popular anxiety,
it would be difficult to believe how completely this topic engrossed
the thoughts of the capital; and through every grade of society the same
intense desire prevailed to unravel this mystery. Amongst the many facts
adduced, was one which attracted a large share of speculation, and this
was the track of footsteps from the very opposite corner of the “Green”
 to the fatal spot, and their issue at the little wicket gate of which
we have already spoken. These traces were made by a large foot, and were
unmistakably those of a heavy man, wearing boots such as were usually
worn by gentlemen. One peculiarity of them, too, was, that the heels
were studded with large nails, rarely worn save by the peasantry. A
shoemaker who served on the inquest was heard to remark that a very few
country gentlemen still persisted in having their boots thus provided,
and that he himself had only one such customer, for whom he had just
finished a new pair that were then ready to be sent home.

The remark attracted attention, and led to an examination of the boots,
which, strange to say, were found exactly to correspond with the tracks
in the clay. This fact, coupled with another, that the person for whom
they were made, and who had been impatient to obtain them, had not even
called at the shop or made any inquiry since the night of Rutledge’s
death, was of so suspicious a nature, that the boots were taken
possession of by the authorities, and the maker strictly enjoined to the
most guarded secrecy as to the name of him by whom they were ordered.

With every precaution to secure secrecy, the story of the boots got
noised about, and letters poured forth in print to show that the custom
of wearing such heels as were described was by no means so limited as
was at first assumed. In the very thick of discussion on this subject,
there came a post letter one evening to the bootmaker’s house,
requesting him to send the boots lately ordered by an old customer, J.
C, to the “Blue Balls,” at Clontarf, addressed, “George J. Grogan, Esq.”

The shopkeeper, on receiving this epistle, immediately communicated it
to the authorities, who could not fail to see in it another circumstance
of deep suspicion. From the first moment of having learned his name,
they had prosecuted the most active inquiries, and learned that he had
actually been in town the evening of Rutledge’s death, and suddenly
taken his departure on the morning after. The entire of the preceding
evening, too, he had been absent from his hotel, to which he returned
late at night, and instead of retiring to bed, immediately occupied
himself with preparations for his departure.

As the individual was one well known, and occupying a prominent position
in society, it was deemed to be a step requiring the very gravest
deliberation in what manner to proceed. His political opinions, and even
his personal conduct, being strongly opposed to the Government, rather
increased than diminished this difficulty, since the Liberal papers
would be sure to lay hold of any proceedings as a gross insult to the
national party.

The advice of the law officers, however, overruled all these objections;
a number of circumstances appeared to concur to inculpate him, and it
was decided on issuing a warrant for his arrest at the place which he
had named as his address.

Secrecy was now no longer practicable; and to the astonishment of
all Dublin was it announced in the morning papers that Mr. Curtis was
arrested the preceding night, on a judge’s warrant, charged with the
murder of Barry Rutledge.

Terrible as such an accusation must always sound, there is something
doubly appalling when uttered against one whose rank in society would
seem to exempt him from the temptations of such guilt. The natural
revulsion to credit a like imputation is, of course, considerable; but,
notwithstanding this, there were circumstances in Curtis’s character and
habits that went far to render the allegation not devoid of probability.
He was a rash, impetuous, and revengeful man, always involved
in pecuniary difficulties, and rarely exempt from some personal
altercation. Harassed by law, disappointed, and, as he himself thought,
persecuted by the Government, his life was a continual conflict. Though
not without those who recognized in him traits of warm-hearted and
generous devotion, the number of these diminished as he grew older, and,
by the casualties of the world, he lived to fancy himself the last of a
bygone generation far superior in every gift and attribute to that which
succeeded it.

When arrested, and charged with the crime of wilful murder, so far
from experiencing the indignant astonishment such an allegation might
naturally lead to, he only accepted it as another instance of the
unrelenting hate with which the Government, or, as he styled it, “the
Castle,” had, through his life long, pursued him.

“Who is it,” cried he, with sarcastic bitterness, “that I have
murdered?”

“You are charged with being accessory to the death of Mr. Barry
Rutledge, sir,” said the other.

“Barry Rutledge!--the Court-jester, the Castle-mimic, the tale-bearer
of the Viceroy’s household, the hireling scoffer at honest men, and
the cringing supplicant of bad ones. The man who crushed such a reptile
would have deserved well of his country, if it were not that the breed
is too large to be extirpated.”

“Take care what you say, Mr. Curtis,” said the other, respectfully;
“your words may be used to your disadvantage.”

“Take care what I say! Who are you speaking to, sirrah? Is the caution
given to Joe Curtis? Is it to the man that has braved your power and
laughed at your Acts of Parliament these fifty years? Are you going to
teach me discretion now? Hark ye, my man, tell your employers not to
puzzle their heads with plots and schemes about a conviction; they need
neither bribe a witness, corrupt a judge, nor pack a jury. Familiar as
such good actions are to them, their task will still be easier here.
Tell them this; and tell them also that the score they must one day be
prepared to settle would be lighter if Joe Curtis was the last man they
had sent innocently to the scaffold.”

As though he had disburdened his mind by this bitter speech, Curtis
never again adverted to the dreadful accusation against him. He was
committed to Newgate; and while treated with a certain deference to his
position in life, he never relaxed in the stern and unbending resolve
neither to accept any favor, nor even avail himself of the ordinary
means of legal defence.

“Prison diet and a straw mattress!” cried he; “such you cannot deny me;
and they will be the extent of the favors I’ll receive at your hands.”

As the day fixed for the trial approached, the popular excitement rose
to a high degree. Curtis was not a favorite even with his own party; his
temper was sour, and his disposition unconciliatory; so that even by the
Liberal press, his name was mentioned with little sympathy or regard.
Besides this feeling, there was another, and a far more dangerous one,
then abroad. The lower classes had been of late reflected on severely
for the crimes which disgraced the county calendars, and the opportunity
of retaliating against the gentry, by a case which involved one of
their order, was not to be neglected. While, therefore, the daily papers
accumulated a variety of strange and seemingly convincing circumstances,
the street literature did not scruple to go further, and Curtis was
the theme of many a ballad, wherein his guilt was depicted in all the
glowing colors of verse.

It is one of the gravest inconveniences which accompany the liberty of
free discussion that an accused man is put upon his trial before the
bar of public opinion, and his guilt or innocence pronounced upon, long
before he takes his place in presence of his real judges; and although,
in the main, popular opinion is rarely wrong, still there are moments
of rash enthusiasm, periods of misguided zeal or unbridled bigotry, in
which such decisions are highly perilous. Too frequently, also, will
circumstances quite foreign to the matter at issue be found to influence
the opinions expressed upon it.

So far had the popular verdict gone against the accused in the present
case that there was a considerable time spent on the morning of the
trial, before a jury could be empanelled which should not include any
one who had already pronounced strongly on the case.

Curtis, as I have mentioned, declined all means of defence; he
thought, or affected to think, that every member of the bar was open to
Government corruption, and that as the whole was an organized plot for
his destruction, resistance was perfectly vain and useless. When asked,
therefore, to whom he had intrusted his case, he advanced to the front
of the dock, and said: “Gentlemen of the jury, the disagreeable duties
you are sworn to discharge shall not be protracted by anything on my
part. Whatever falsehoods the counsel for the Crown may advance, and the
witnesses swear to, shall meet neither denial nor refutation from me.
The Castle scoundrels shall play the whole game themselves, and whenever
you agree ‘what ‘s to pay,’ I ‘ll settle the score without flinching.”

This extraordinary address, uttered in a tone of half-savage jocularity,
excited a strange mixture of emotion in those who heard it, which
ultimately ended in half-subdued laughter throughout the court,
repressing which at once, the judge gravely reprimanded the prisoner
for the aspersions he had thrown on the administration of justice, and
appointed one of the most distinguished members of the bar to conduct
his defence.

It was late in the day when the Crown counsel rose to open his case. His
address was calm and dispassionate. It was divested of what might seem
to be any ungenerous allusion to the peculiar character or temperament
of the accused, but it promised an amount of circumstantial evidence
which, were the credit of the witnesses to stand unimpeached, would be
almost impossible to reconcile with anything short of the guilt of the
prisoner in the dock.

“We shall show you, gentlemen of the jury,” said he, “first of all that
there was a manifest motive for this crime,--at least, what to a man of
the prisoner’s temper and passions might adequately represent a motive.
We shall produce evidence before you to prove his arrival secretly in
Dublin, where he lodged in an obscure and little-frequented locality,
avoiding all occasion of recognition, and passing under an assumed name.
We shall show you that on each evening he was accustomed to visit an
acquaintance--a solicitor, whom we shall produce on the table--whose
house is situated at the very opposite end of the city; returning from
which, it was his habit to pass through Stephen’s Green, and that he
took this path on the night of the murder, having parted from his friend
a little before midnight. We shall next show you that the traces of
the footsteps correspond exactly with his boots, even to certain
peculiarities in their make. And, lastly, we shall prove his immediate
and secret departure from the capital on this very night in question;
his retirement to a distant part of the country, where he remained till
within a few days previous to his arrest.

“Such are the brief outlines of a case, the details of which will
comprise a vast number of circumstances,--slight, perhaps, and trivial
individually, but which, taken collectively, and considered in regard to
their bearing on the matter before us, will make up a mass of evidence
that the most sceptical cannot reject.

“Although it may not be usual to advert to the line of conduct which the
prisoner has adopted, in refusing to name a counsel for his defence,
I cannot avoid warning the jury that such a course may bear an
interpretation very remote from that which at first sight it seems
to convey. He would wish you to accept this position as the strongest
evidence of innocence; as if, relying on the justice of his cause, he
requires neither guidance nor counsel!

“It will be for you, gentlemen, to determine if the evidence placed
before you admit of such a construction; or whether, on the contrary,
it be not of such a nature that would foil the skill of the craftiest
advocate to shake, and be more effectually rebutted by a general and
vague denial, than by any systematic endeavors to impeach.

“You are not, therefore, to accept this rejection of aid as by any means
a proof of conscious innocence. Far from it. The more correct reading
might show it to be the crafty policy of a man who throughout his whole
life has been as remarkable for self-reliance as for secrecy; who,
confiding in his own skill to direct him in the most difficult
circumstances, places far more reliance on his personal adroitness than
upon the most practised advocacy; and whose depreciatory estimate of
mankind is but the gloomy reflection of a burdened conscience.”

It was so late when the counsel had concluded that the court adjourned
its proceedings till the following morning; and the vast assembly which
thronged the building dispersed, deeply impressed with the weighty
charge against the prisoner, and with far less of sympathy than is
usually accorded to those who stand in like predicament.



CHAPTER XVI. AN UNLOOKED-FOR DISCLOSURE.

On the second day of the trial, the court-house was even more densely
crowded than on the first. The rank and station which the accused had
held in society, as well as the mysterious character of the case itself,
had invested the event with an uncommon interest; and long before the
doors were opened, a vast concourse filled the streets, amidst which
were to be seen the equipages of many of the first people of the
country.

Scarcely had the judges taken their places, when every seat in the court
was occupied,--the larger proportion of which displayed the rank and
beauty of the capital, who now thronged to the spot, all animated with
the most eager curiosity, and speculating on the result in a spirit
which, whatever anxiety it involved, as certainly evinced little real
sympathy for the fate of the prisoner. The bold, defiant tone which
Curtis had always assumed in the world had made him but few friends,
even with his own party; his sneering, caustic manner had rendered him
unpopular; few could escape his censures,--none his sarcasms. It would,
indeed, have been difficult to discover one for whom less personal
interest was felt than for the individual who that morning stood erect
in the dock, and with a calm but stern expression regarded the bench and
the jury-box.

As the court continued to fill, Curtis threw his eyes here and there
over the crowded assemblage, but in no wise disconcerted by the
universal gaze of which he was the object. On the contrary, he nodded
familiarly to some acquaintances at a distance; and, recognizing one
whom he knew well in the gallery over his head, he called out,--

“How are you, Ruxton? Let me advise you to change your bootmaker, or
I would n’t say that the Crown lawyers won’t put you, one day, where I
stand now!”

The laugh which followed this sally was scarcely repressed, when the
trial began. The first witness produced was a certain Joseph Martin,
the solicitor at whose house Curtis had passed the evening on which the
murder was committed. His evidence, of course, could throw little or no
light upon the event, and merely went to establish the fact that Curtis
had stayed with him till nigh midnight, and left him about that hour
to proceed to his home. When questioned as to the prisoner’s manner and
general bearing during that evening, he replied that he could detect
nothing strange or unusual in it; that he talked pretty much as he
always did, and upon the same topics.

“Did he allude to the Government, or to any of its officials?” was then
asked; and, before a reply could be given, Curtis cried out,--

“Yes. I told Martin that if the scoundrels who rule us should only
continue their present game, nobody could regret the ruin of a country
that was a disgrace to live in. Did n’t I say that?”

“I must remind you, sir,” interposed the judge, gravely, “how seriously
such conduct as this is calculated to prejudice the character of your
defence.”

“Defence! my Lord,” broke in Curtis, “when did I ever think of a
defence? The gentlemen of the jury have heard me more plainly than
your Lordship. I told them, as I now tell you, that innocence is no
protection to a man when hunted down by legal bloodhounds; that--”

“I must enforce silence upon you, sir, if I cannot induce caution,”
 said the judge, solemnly; “you may despise your own safety, but you must
respect this court.”

“You ‘ll find that even a more difficult lesson to teach me, my Lord.
I can remember some eight-and-forty years of what is called the
administration of justice in Ireland. I am old enough to remember when
you hanged a priest who married a Protestant, and disbarred the lawyer
that defended him.”

“Be silent, sir,” said the judge, in a voice of command; and with
difficulty was Curtis induced to obey the admonition.

As the trial proceeded, it was remarked that Colonel Vereker was seen in
close communication with one of the Crown lawyers, who soon afterwards
begged to tender him as a witness for the prosecution. The proposal
itself and the object it contained were made the subject of a very
animated discussion; and although the testimony offered seemed of the
greatest importance, the court decided that it was of a kind which,
according to the strict rules of evidence, could not be received.

“Then you may rely upon it, gentlemen of the jury,” cried Curtis, “it is
favorable to me.”

“Let me assure you, sir, to the contrary,” said the judge, mildly, “and
that it is with a jealous regard for your interest we have agreed not to
accept this evidence.”

“And have you had no respect for poor Vereker, my Lord? He looks as if
he really would like to tell the truth for once in his life.”

“If Colonel Vereker’s evidence cannot be admitted upon this point, my
Lord,” said the Crown lawyer, “there is yet another, in which it is
all-essential. He was one of those who stood beside Rutledge on the
balcony when the words were uttered which attracted his notice. The
tone of voice, and the manner in which they were uttered, made a deep
impression upon him, and he is fully persuaded that they were spoken by
the prisoner in the dock.”

“Let us listen to him about that,” said Curtis, who now bestowed a
more marked attention to the course of the proceeding. Vereker was
immediately sworn, and his examination began. He detailed with great
clearness the circumstances which preceded the fatal event, and the
nature of the conversation on the balcony, till he came to that part
where the interruption from the street took place. “There,” he said, “I
cannot trust my memory as to the words employed by Rutledge, although I
am confident as to the phrase used in rejoinder, and equally certain as
to the voice of him who uttered it.”

“You mean to say,” said the judge, “that you have recognized that voice
as belonging to the prisoner.”

“I mean to say, my Lord, that were I to hear him utter the same words in
an excited tone, I should be able to swear to them.”

“That’s a lie!” cried Curtis.

“These were the words, and that the voice, my Lord,” said Vereker; and
as he spoke, a deep murmur of agitated feeling rang through the crowded
court.

“By Heaven!” cried Curtis, in a tone of passionate excitement, “I hold
my life as cheaply as any man; but I cannot see it taken away by the
breath of a false witness: let me interrogate this man.” In vain was it
that the practised counsel appointed to conduct his case interposed,
and entreated of him to be silent. To no purpose did they beg of him
to leave in their hands the difficult game of cross-examination. He
rejected their advice as haughtily as he had refused their services, and
at once addressed himself to the critical task.

“With whom had you dined, sir, on the day in question,--the 7th of
June?” asked he of Vereker.

“I dined with Sir Marcus Hutchinson.”

“There was a large party?”

“There was.”

“Tell us, so far as you remember, the names of the guests.”

“Some were strangers to me,--from England, I believe; but of those
I knew before, I can call to mind Leonard Fox, Hamilton Gore, John
Fortescue, and his brother Edward, Tom Beresford, and poor Rutledge.”

“It was a convivial party, and you drank freely?”

“Freely, but not to excess.”

“You dined at five o’clock?”

“At half-after five.”

“And rose from table about eleven?”

“About that hour.”

“There were speeches made and toasts drunk, I believe?”

“There were,--a few.”

“The toasts and the speeches were of an eminently loyal character; they
all redounded to the honor and credit of the Government?”

“Highly so.”

“And as strikingly did they reflect upon the character of all Irishmen
who opposed the ministry, and assumed for themselves the position of
patriots. Come, sir, no hesitation; answer my question boldly. Is this
not true?”

“We certainly did not regard the party you speak of as being true and
faithful subjects of the king.”

“You thought them rebels?”

“Perhaps not exactly rebels.”

“You called them rebels; and you yourself prayed that the time was
coming when the lamp-iron and the lash should reward their loyalty. Can
you deny this?”

“We had a great deal of conversation about politics. We talked in all
the freedom of friendly intercourse, and, doubtless, with some of that
warmth which accompanies after-dinner discussions. But as to the exact
words--”

“It is the exact words I want; it is the exact words I insist upon, sir.
They were used by yourself, and drew down rounds of applause. You were
eloquent and successful.”

“I am really unable, at this distance of time, to recollect a word or a
phrase that might have fallen from me in the heat of the moment.”

“This speech of yours was made about the middle of the evening?”

“I believe it was.”

“And you afterwards sat a considerable time and drank freely?”

“Yes.”

“And although your recollection of what passed before that is so obscure
and inaccurate, you perfectly remember everything that took place when
standing on the balcony two hours later, and can swear to the very tone
of a voice that uttered but three words: ‘That is a lie, sir!’”

“Prisoner at the bar, conduct yourself with the respect due to the court
and to the witness under its protection,” interposed the judge, with
severity.

“You mistake me, my Lord,” said Curtis, in a voice of affected
deprecation. “The words I spoke were not used as commenting on the
witness or his veracity. They were simply those to which he swore, those
which he heard once, and, although after a five hours’ debauch, remained
fast graven on his memory, along with the very manner of him who uttered
them. I have nothing more to ask him. He may go down--down!” repeated
he, solemnly; “if there be yet anything lower that he can descend to!”

Once more did the judge admonish the prisoner as to his conduct, and
feelingly pointed out to him the serious injury he was inflicting upon
his own case by this rash and intemperate course of proceeding; but
Curtis smiled half contemptuously at the correction, and folded his arms
with an air of dogged resignation.

It is rarely possible, from merely reading the published proceedings of
a trial, to apportion the due degree of weight which the testimony of
the several witnesses imposes, or to estimate that force which manner
and conduct supply to the evidence when orally delivered. In the
present case, the guilt of the accused man rested on the very vaguest
circumstances, not one of which but could be easily and satisfactorily
accounted for on other grounds. He admitted that he had passed through
Stephen’s Green on the night in question, and that possibly the tracks
imputed to him were actually his own; but as to the reasons for his
abrupt departure from town, or the secrecy which he observed when
writing to the bootmaker,--these, he said, were personal matters which
he would not condescend to enter upon, adding, sarcastically,--

“That though they might not prove very damning omissions in defence of a
hackney-coach summons, he was quite aware that they might prove fatal to
a man who stood charged with murder.”

After a number of witnesses were examined, whose testimony went to prove
slight and unimportant facts, Anthony Fagan was called to show that
a variety of bill transactions had passed between the prisoner and
Rutledge, and that on more than one occasion very angry discussions had
occurred between them in reference to these.

There were many points in which Fagan sympathized with the prisoner.
Curtis was violently national in his politics; he bore an unmeasured
hatred to all that was English; he was an extravagant asserter of
popular rights: and yet, with all these, and, stranger still, with a
coarse manner, and an address totally destitute of polish, he was in
heart a haughty aristocrat, who despised the people most thoroughly.
He was one of that singular class who seemed to retain to the very last
years of the past century the feudal barbarism of a bygone age.

Thus was it that the party who accepted his advocacy had to pay the
price of his services in deep humiliation; and many there were who felt
that the work was more than requited by the wages.

To men like Fagan, whose wealth suggested various ambitions, Curtis was
peculiarly offensive, since he never omitted an occasion to remind them
of their origin, and to show them that they were as utterly debarred
from all social acceptance as in the earliest struggles of their
poverty.

The majority of those in court, who only knew generally the agreement
between Curtis and Fagan in political matters, were greatly struck by
the decisive tone in which the witness spoke; and the damaging character
of the evidence was increased by this circumstance.

Among the scenes of angry altercation between the prisoner and Rutledge,
Fagan spoke to one wherein Curtis had actually called the other a
“swindler.” Rutledge, however, merely remarked upon the liberties which
his advanced age entitled him to assume; whereupon Curtis replied,
“Don’t talk to me, sir, of age! I am young enough and able enough to
chastise such as you!”

“Did the discussion end here?” asked the court.

“So far as I know, my Lord, it did; for Mr. Rutledge left my office soon
after, and apparently thinking little of what had occurred.”

“If honest Tony had not been too much engrossed with the cares of
usury,” cried out Curtis from the dock, “he might have remembered that I
said to Rutledge, as he went out, ‘The man that injures Joe Curtis owes
a debt that he must pay sooner or latter.’”

“I remember the words now,” said Fagan.

“Ay, and so have I ever found it,” said Curtis, solemnly. “There are few
who have gone through life with less good fortune than myself, and yet I
have lived to see the ruin of almost every man that has injured me!”

The savage vehemence with which he uttered these words caused a shudder
throughout the crowded court, and went even further to criminate him in
popular opinion than all that had been alleged in evidence.

When asked by the court if he desired to cross-examine the witness,
Curtis, in a calm and collected voice, replied:

“No, my Lord; Tony Fagan will lose a hundred and eighty pounds if you
hang me; and if he had anything to allege in my favor, we should have
heard it before this.” Then, turning towards the jury-box, he went on:
“Now, gentlemen of the jury, there’s little reason for detaining you any
longer. You have as complete a case of circumstantial evidence before
you as ever sent an innocent man to the scaffold. You have had the
traits of my temper and the tracks of my boots, and, if you believe
Colonel Vereker, the very tones of my voice, all sworn to; but, better
than all these, you have at your disposal the life of a man who is too
sick of the world to stretch out a hand to save himself, and who would
even accept the disgrace of an ignominious death for the sake of the
greater ignominy that is sure to fall later upon the unjust laws and
the corrupt court that condemned him. Ay!” cried he, with an impressive
solemnity of voice that thrilled through every heart, “you ‘ll array
yourselves in all the solemn mockery of your station; you ‘ll bewail my
guilt, and pronounce my sentence; but it is I, from this dock, say unto
you upon that bench, the Lord have mercy upon your souls!”

There was in the energy of his manner, despite all its eccentricity and
quaintness, a degree of power that awed the entire assembly; and more
than one trembled to think, “What if he really were to be innocent!”

While this singular address was being delivered, Fagan was engaged in
deep and earnest conversation with the Crown prosecutor; and from his
excited manner might be seen the intense anxiety under which he labored.
He was evidently urging some proposition with all his might, to which
the other listened with deep attention.

At this instant Fagan’s arm was tapped by a hand from the crowd. He
turned, and as suddenly grew deadly pale; for it was Raper stood before
him!--Raper, whom he believed at that moment to be far away in a remote
part of the country.

“What brings you here? How came you to Dublin?” said Fagan, in a voice
tremulous with passion.

“We have just arrived; we heard that you were here, and he insisted upon
seeing you before he left town.”

“Where is he, then?” asked Fagan.

“In his carriage at the door of the court-house.”

“Does he know--has he heard of the case before the court? Speak, man! Is
he aware of what is going on here?”

The terrified eagerness of his whisper so overcame poor Raper that he
was utterly unable to reply, and Fagan was obliged to clutch him by the
arm to recall him to consciousness. Even, then, however, his vague and
broken answer showed how completely his faculties were terrorized over
by the despotic influence of his master. An indistinct sense of having
erred somehow overcame him, and he shrank back from the piercing glance
of the other, to hide himself in the crowd. Terrible as that moment
of suspense must have been to Fagan, it was nothing to the agony which
succeeded It, as he saw the crowd separating on either side to leave a
free passage for the approach of an invalid who slowly came forward
to the side-bar, casting his eyes around him, in half-bewildered
astonishment at the scene.

Being recognized by the Bench, an usher of the court was sent round to
say that their Lordships would make room for him beside them; and my
father--for it was he--with difficulty mounted the steps and took his
seat beside the Chief Justice, faintly answering the kind inquiries for
his health in a voice weak and feeble as a girl’s.

“You little expected to see me in such a place as this, Walter!” cried
out Curtis from the dock; “and I just as little looked to see your
father’s son seated upon the bench at such a moment!”

“What is it? What does it all mean? How is Curtis there? What has
happened?” asked my father, vaguely.

The Chief Justice whispered a few words in reply, when, with a shriek
that made every heart cold, my father sprang to his feet, and, leaning
his body over the front of the bench, cried out,--

“It was I killed Barry Rutledge! There was no murder in the case! We
fought with swords; and there,” said he, drawing the weapon, “there’s
the blade that pierced his heart! and here” (tearing open his vest and
shirt)--“and here the wound he gave me in return. The outrage for which
he died well merited the penalty; but if there be guilt, it is mine, and
mine only!”

A fit of choking stopped his utterance. He tried to overcome it; he
gasped convulsively twice or thrice; and then, as a cataract of bright
blood gushed from nostrils and mouth together, he fell back and rolled
heavily to the ground--dead.

So exhausted was nature by this last effort that the body was cold
within an hour after.

[Illustration: 208]



CHAPTER XVII. A FRIEND’S TRIALS

The day of my beloved father’s funeral was that of my birth! It is not
improbable that he had often looked forward to that day as the crowning
event of his whole life, destining great rejoicings, and planning every
species of festivity; and now the summer clouds were floating over the
churchyard, and the gay birds were carolling over the cold grave where
he lay.

What an emblem of human anticipation, and what an illustration of his
own peculiar destiny! Few men ever entered upon life with more brilliant
prospects. With nearly every gift of fortune, and not one single adverse
circumstance to struggle against, he was scarcely launched upon the
ocean of life ere he was shipwrecked! Is it not ever thus? Is it not
that the storms and seas of adverse fortune are our best preservatives
in this world, by calling into activity our powers of energy and of
endurance? Are we not better when our lot demands effort, and exacts
sacrifice, than when prosperity neither evokes an ungratified wish, nor
suggests a difficult ambition?

The real circumstances of his death were, I believe, never known to my
mother, but the shock of the event almost killed her. Her cousin, Emile
de Gabriac, had just arrived at Castle Carew, and they were sitting
talking over France and all its pleasant associations, when a servant
entered hastily with a letter for MacNaghten. It was in Fagan’s
handwriting, and marked “Most private, and with haste.”

“See,” cried Dan, laughing,--“look what devices a dun is reduced to, to
obtain an audience! Tony Fagan, so secret and so urgent on the outside,
will be candid enough within, and beg respectfully to remind Mr.
MacNaghten that his indorsement for two hundred and something pounds
will fall due on Wednesday next, when he hopes--”

“Let us see what he hopes,” cried my mother, snatching the letter from
him, “for it surely cannot be that he hopes you will pay it.”

The terrific cry she uttered, as her eyes read the dreadful lines, rang
through that vast building. Shriek followed shriek in quick succession
for some seconds; and then, as if exhausted nature could no more, she
sank into a death-like trance, cold, motionless, and unconscious.

Poor MacNaghten! I have heard him more than once say that if he were to
live five hundred years, he never could forget the misery of that day,
so graven upon his memory was every frightful and harrowing incident
of it. He left Castle Carew for Dublin, and hastened to the courthouse,
where, in one of the judge’s robing-rooms, the corpse of his poor friend
now lay. A hurried inquest had been held upon the body, and pronounced
that “Death had ensued from natural causes;” and now the room was
crowded with curious and idle loungers, talking over the strange event,
and commenting upon the fate of him who, but a few hours back, so many
would have envied.

Having excluded the throng, he sat down alone beside the body, and, with
the cold hand clasped between his own, wept heartily.

“I never remember to have shed tears before in my life,” said he, “nor
could I have done so then, if I were not looking on that pale, cold
face, which I had seen so often lighted up with smiles; on those
compressed lips, from which came so many words of kindness and
affection; and felt within my own that hand that never till now had met
mine without the warm grasp of friendship.”

Poor Dan! he was my father’s chief mourner,--I had almost said his only
one. Several came and asked leave to see the body. Many were visibly
affected at the sight. There was decent sorrow on every countenance; but
of deep and true affliction MacNaghten was the solitary instance.

It was late on the following evening as MacNaghten, who had only quitted
the rooms for a few minutes, found on his return that a stranger was
standing beside the body.

“Ay,” muttered he, solemnly, “the green and the healthy tree cut down,
and the old sapless, rotten trunk left to linger on in slow decay!”

“What! Curtis, is this you?” cried MacNaghten.

“Yes, sir, and not mine the fault that I have not changed places with
him who lies there. He had plenty to live for; I nothing, nor any one.
And it was not that alone, MacNaghten!” added he, fiercely, “but think,
reflect for one moment on what might have happened had they condemned
and executed me! Is there a man in all Ireland, with heart and soul
in him, who would not have read that sentence as an act of Government
tyranny and vengeance? Do you believe the gentry of the country would
have accepted the act as an accident, or do you think that the people
would recognize it as anything else than a murder solemnized by the law?
And if love of country could not stimulate and awake them, is it not
possible that fears for personal safety might?”

“I have no mind for such thoughts as these,” said MacNaghten, sternly;
“nor is it beside the cold corpse of him who lies there I would
encourage them. If you come to sorrow over him, take your place beside
me; if to speculate on party feuds or factious dissensions, then I beg
you will leave me to myself.”

Curtis made him no reply, but left the room in silence.

There were some legal difficulties raised before the funeral could be
performed. The circumstances of Rutledge’s death required to be cleared
up; and Fagan--to whom my father had made a full statement of the whole
event--underwent a long and close examination by the law authorities of
the Castle. The question was a grave one as regarded property, since
if a charge of murder could have been substantiated, the whole of my
father’s fortune would have been confiscated to the Crown. Fagan’s
testimony, too, was not without a certain disqualification, because
he held large liens over the property, and must, if the estate were
estreated, have been a considerable loser. These questions all required
time for investigation; but, by dint of great energy and perseverance,
MacNaghten obtained permission for the burial, which took place with
strict privacy at the small churchyard of Killester,--a spot which, for
what reason I am unaware, my father had himself selected, and mention of
which desire was found amongst his papers.

Fagan accompanied MacNaghten to the funeral, and Dan returned to his
house afterwards to breakfast. Without any sentiment bordering on esteem
for the “Grinder,” MacNaghten respected him generally for his probity,
and believed him to be as honorable in his dealings as usury and
money-lending would permit any man to be. He was well aware that for
years back the most complicated transactions with regard to loans had
taken place between him and my father, and that to a right understanding
of these difficult matters, and a satisfactory adjustment of them,
nothing could conduce so much as a frank intercourse and a friendly
bearing. These were at all times no very difficult requirements from
honest Dan, and he did not assume them now with less sincerity or
willingness that they were to be practised for the benefit of his poor
friend’s widow and orphan.

MacNaghten could not help remarking that Fagan’s manner, when speaking
of my father’s affairs, was characterized by a more than common caution
and reserve, and that he strenuously avoided entering upon anything
which bore, however remotely, upon the provision my mother was to enjoy,
or what arrangements were to be made respecting myself. There was a
will, he thought, in Crowther’s possession; but it was of the less
consequence, since the greater part, nearly all, of the Carew property
was under the strictest entail.

“The boy will be rich, one of the richest men in Ireland, if he lives,”
 said MacNaghten; but Fagan made no reply for some time, and at last
said,--

“If there be not good sense and moderation exercised on all sides, the
Carews may gain less than will the Court of Chancery.”

MacNaghten felt far from reassured by the cautious and guarded reserve
of Fagan’s manner; he saw that in the dry, sententious tone of his
remarks there lurked difficulties, and perhaps troubles; but he resolved
to devote himself to the task before him in a spirit of patience and
calm industry which, unhappily for him, he had never brought to bear
upon his own worldly fortunes.

“There is nothing either obtrusive or impertinent,” said he, at last,
to Fagan, “in my making these inquiries, for, independently of poor
Walter’s affection for me, I know that he always expected me to take the
management of his affairs, should I survive him; and if there be a will,
it is almost certain that I am named his executor in it.”

Fagan nodded affirmatively, and merely said,--

“Crowther will be able to clear up this point.”

“And when shall we see him?”

“He is in the country, down south, I think, at this moment; but he will
be up by the end of the week. However, there are so many things to be
done that his absence involves no loss of time. Where shall I address
you, if I write?”

“I shall return to Castle Carew this evening, and in all probability
remain there till I hear from you.”

“That will do,” was the dry answer; and MacNaghten took his leave, more
than ever puzzled by the Grinder’s manner, and wondering within himself
in what shape and from what quarter might come the storm, which he
convinced himself could not be distant.

Grief for my father’s death, and anxiety for my poor mother’s fate,
were, however, the uppermost thoughts in his mind; and as he drew nigh
Castle Carew, his heart was so much overpowered by the change which had
fallen upon that once happy home that he totally forgot all the dark
hints and menacing intimations of his late interview.

It was truly a gloom-stricken mansion. The servants moved about sadly,
conversing in low whispers; save in one quarter, all the windows were
closed, and the rooms locked up,--not a voice nor a footstep was to
be heard. Mourning and woe were imprinted on every face and in every
gesture. MacNaghten knew not where to go, nor where to stay. Every
chamber he entered was full of its memories of the past, and he wandered
on from room to room, seeking some spot which should not remind him
of days whose happiness could never return. In this random search he
suddenly entered the chamber where M. de Gabriac lay at full length upon
a sofa, enjoying, in all the ease of a loose dressing-gown, the united
pleasures of a French novel and a bottle of Bordeaux. MacNaghten would
willingly have returned at once. Such a scene and such companionship
were not to his taste; but the other quickly detected him, and called
out,--

“Ah! M. MacNaghten, how delighted am I to see you again! What days of
misery and gloom have I been passing here,--no one to speak to, none to
sit with.”

“It is, indeed, a sad mansion,” sighed MacNaghten, heavily.

“So, then, it is all true?” asked the other. “Poor fellow, what
a sensitive nature,--how impressible. To die just for a matter of
sentiment; for, after all, you know it was a sentiment, nothing else.
Every man has had his affairs of this kind,--few go through life without
something unpleasant; but one does not die broken-hearted for all that.
No, _parbleu_, that is a very poor philosophy. Tell me about the duel; I
am greatly interested to hear the details.”

To escape as far as possible any further moralizings of his companion,
Dan related all that he knew of the fatal rencontre, answering, so
well as he might, all the Frenchman’s questions, and, at the same time,
avoiding all reference to the provocation which led to the meeting.

“It was a mistake, a great mistake, to fight in this fashion,” said
Gabriac, coldly. “There is an etiquette to be observed in a duel, as
in a dinner; and you can no more hurry over one than the other, without
suffering for it afterwards. Maybe these are, however, the habits of the
country.”

MacNaghten calmly assured him that they were not.

“Then the offence must have been an outrage,--what was it?”

“Some expression of gross insult; I forget the exact nature of it.”

“Poor fellow!” said the other, sipping his wine, “with so much to live
for,--a magnificent château, a pretty wife, and a good fortune. What
folly, was it not?”

MacNaghten afterwards acknowledged that even the Grinder’s sententious
dryness was preferable to the heartless indifference of the Frenchman’s
manner; but a deferential regard for her whose relative he was,
restrained him from all angry expression of feeling on the subject, and
he suffered him to discuss the duel and all its consequences, without
the slightest evidence of the suffering it cost him.

“Josephine will not be sorry to leave it,” said Gabriac, after a short
silence. “She told me that they never understood her, nor she them; and,
after all, you know,” said he, smiling, “there is but one France!”

“And but one Ireland!” said MacNaghten, heartily.

“Heureusement!” muttered the Frenchman, but employing a word which,
happily, the other did not understand.

“Her state is one of great danger still,” said Dan, alluding to my
mother.

“They say so; but that is always the way with doctors. One may die of
violent anger, rage, ungratified vengeance, jealousy, but not of mere
grief. Sorrow is rather a soothing passion,--don’t you think so?”

Had MacNaghten been in the mood, he might have laughed at the remark,
but now it only irritated and incensed him; and to such an extent did
the heartless manner of the Frenchman grate upon his feelings that he
was in momentary danger of including my poor mother in the depreciatory
estimate he conceived of France and all that belonged to it. Nor was his
temper improved by the inquiries of Gabriac concerning the property
and estates of my father; in fact, unable any longer to continue a
conversation, every portion of which, was an outrage, he arose abruptly,
and, wishing him a good night, left the room.

“Poor Walter,” said he, as he slowly sauntered along towards his
chamber, “is it to such as these your memory is to be intrusted, and
your name and fortune bequeathed?” And with this gloomy reflection he
threw himself upon his bed, to pass a sad and a sleepless night.

It was in a curious reverie--a kind of inquiring within himself,
“How came it that qualities so calculated to make social intercourse
delightful in days of happiness, should prove positively offensive in
moments of trial and affliction?” for such he felt to be the case as
regarded Gabriac--that MacNaghten lay, when a servant came to inform
him that Mr. Crowther had just arrived at the Castle, and earnestly
requested to see him.

“At once,” replied he, “show him up to me here;” and in a few moments
that most bland and imperturbable of solicitors entered, and, drawing a
chair to the bedside, sat down.

“This is a sad occasion, Mr. MacNaghten. I little thought when I last
saw you here that my next visit would have been on such an errand.”

MacNaghten nodded sorrowfully, and Crowther went on:

“Sad in every sense, sir,” sighed he, heavily. “The last of his
name--one of our oldest gentry--the head of a princely fortune--with
abilities, I am assured, of a very high order, and, certainly, most
popular manners.”

“You may spare me the eulogy,” said MacNaghten, bluntly. “He was a
better fellow than either you or I should be able to describe, if we
spent an hour over it.”

Crowther took the rebuke in good part, and assented to the remark with
the best possible grace. Still, he seemed as if he would like to dwell a
little longer on the theme before he proceeded to other matters. Perhaps
he thought by this to secure a more favorable acceptance for what he had
to say; perhaps he was not fully made up in mind how to approach the
subject before him. MacNaghten, who always acted through life as he
would ride in a steeplechase, straight onward, regardless of all in his
way, stopped him short, by saying,--

“Carew has left a will in your hands, I believe?”

“You can scarcely call it a will, sir. The document is very irregular,
very informal.”

“It was his act, however; he wrote or dictated it himself?”

“Not even that, sir. He suggested parts of it, made trifling corrections
with his own pen, approved some portions, and left others for
after-consideration.”

“It is, at all events, the only document of the kind in existence?”

“That would be too much to affirm, sir.”

“I mean that you, at least, know of no other; in fact, I want to hear
whether you conceive it to be sufficient for its object, as explaining
Carew’s wishes and intentions.”

A dubious half-smile, and a still more dubious shake of the head,
seemed to infer that this view of the subject was far too sweeping and
comprehensive.

“Come, come,” said Dan, good-humoredly, “I’m not the Chancellor, nor
even Master of the Rolls. Even a little indiscretion will never injure
your reputation in talking with me. Just tell me frankly what you
know and think about my poor friend’s affairs. His widow, if she ever
recover, which is very doubtful, is but little suited to matters of
business; and as it is not a case where any adverse litigation is to
be apprehended--What do you mean by that shake of the head? You surely
would not imply that the estate, or any part of it, could be contested
at law?”

“Who could say as much for any property, sir?” said Crowther,
sententiously.

“I know that; I am well aware that there are fellows in your tribe who
are always on the lookout for a shipwrecked fortune, that they may earn
the salvage for saving it; but here, if I mistake not very much, is an
estate that stands in need of no such aids. Carew may have debts.”

“Very large debts,--debts of great amount indeed!”

“Well, be it so; there ends the complication.”

“You have a very concise and, I must say, a most straightforward mode
of regarding a subject, sir,” said Crowther, blandly. “There is an
admirable clearness in your views, and a most business-like promptitude
in your deductions; but we, poor moles of the law, are condemned to
work in a very different fashion; and, to be brief, here is a case that
requires the very nicest management. To enable Madame Carew to take out
letters of administration to her late husband’s property, we must
prove her marriage. Now, so far as I can see, sir, this is a matter of
considerable difficulty.”

“Why, you would not dare to assert--to insinuate even--”

“Nothing of the kind, sir. Pray be calm, Mr. Mac-Naghten. I am as
incapable of such a thought as yourself. Of the fact, I entertain no
more doubt than you do. The proof of it,--the legal proof,--however, I
am most anxious to obtain.”

“But, with search amongst his papers--”

“Very true, sir; it may be discovered. I have no doubt it will be
discovered. I only mean to say that such a document is not to be met
with amongst those in my hands, and I have very carefully gone over a
large packet, labelled ‘Papers and letters relating to France during my
last residence there in ‘80-81,’ which, you may remember, was the period
of his marriage.”

“But he alludes to that event?”

“Not once, sir; there is not a single passage that even bears upon it.
There are adventures of various kinds, curious incidents, many of
them in love, play, and gallantry; but of marriage, or even of any
speculation on the subject, not the remotest mention.”

“This is most singular!”

“Is it not so, sir? But I have thought, perhaps, that you, who were
always his most attached friend,--you, at least, possessed some letters
which should throw light upon this matter, even to indicate the exact
date of it, where it occurred, who the witnesses.”

“Not a line, not a syllable,” said MacNaghten, with a sigh.

“This is more unfortunate than I expected,” said Crowther. “I always
said to myself, ‘Well, in his private correspondence, in the close
relations of friendship, we shall come upon some clew to the mystery.’ I
always understood that with you he was frankness itself, sir?”

“So he was,” rejoined MacNaghten.

“This reserve is therefore the more remarkable still. Can you account
for it in any way, sir?”

“Why should I account for it?” cried Dan, passionately. “My friend had
his own reasons for whatever he did,--good and sufficient ones, I ‘ll be
sworn.”

“I feel assured of that, sir; don’t mistake me for a moment, or suppose
I am impugning them. I merely desired to learn if you could, from your
intimate knowledge of your friend’s character, trace this reserve on his
part to any distinct cause.”

“My knowledge of him goes this far,” said MacNaghten, haughtily, “that
he had an honorable motive for every aet of his life.”

It required some address on Crowther’s part to bring back MacNaghten to
that calm and deliberate tone of mind which the subject demanded. After
a while, however, he perfectly succeeded; and Dan arose, and accompanied
him to the library, where they both proceeded to search among my
father’s papers, with which several boxes were filled.



CHAPTER XVIII. DISAPPOINTMENTS

The search for any document that could authenticate my father’s marriage
proved totally unsuccessful, and although poor MacNaghten’s zeal was
untiring and unwearied, all his efforts were fruitless.

Guided by the clew afforded in some of my father’s letters, Dan
proceeded to Wales, ascertained the cottage where they had passed their
first month of married life, and found out many who had known them
by sight; but could chance upon nothing which should lead him to the
important fact where, and by whom, the marriage ceremony was solemnized.

The state of my mother’s health was so precarious for a long time as to
render all inquiry from her impracticable; while there was also a very
natural fear of the consequences that might ensue, were she to suspect
the object of any investigation, and learn the perilous position in
which she stood. Her condition was, indeed, a pitiable one,--a young and
widowed mother; a stranger in a foreign land, of whose language she knew
scarcely anything; without one friend of her own sex, separated by what,
in those days, seemed an immense distance from all belonging to her. It
was a weary load of misfortune to be borne by one who till that moment
had never known a sorrow.

Nor was MacNaghten’s lot more enviable as, day by day, he received
packets of letters detailing the slow but steady march of those legal
proceedings which were to end in the ruin of those whom he felt to have
been bequeathed to his friendship. Already two claimants for the estate
had appeared in the field,--one, a distant relation of my father, a very
rich southern baronet, a certain Carew O’Moore; the other, an unknown,
obscure person, whose pretensions, it was said, were favored by Fagan,
and at whose cost the suit was said to be maintained. With the former,
MacNaghten at once proceeded to open relations personally, by a letter
describing in simple but touching terms the sad state in which my poor
mother yet lay, and appealing to his feelings as a gentleman and a man
of humanity to stay the course of proceedings for a while, at least, and
give time to enable her to meet them by such information as she might
possess.

A very polite reply was at once returned to this, assuring MacNaghten
that whatever delays could be accorded to the law proceedings--short
of defeating the object altogether--should certainly be accorded; that
nothing was further from Sir Carew’s desire than to increase, in the
slightest, the sorrows of one so heavily visited; and expressing, in
conclusion, a regret that his precarious health should preclude him
paying his personal visit of condolence at the Castle, where, he
trusted, the lady would continue to reside so long as her health or
convenience made it desirable. If the expressions of the letter were not
as hearty and generous as honest Dan might have wished them, they were
more gratifying than the note he received from Fagan, written with all
the caution and reserve of the Grinder’s manner; for, while not going so
far as to admit that he was personally interested and concerned for the
new claimant, he guardedly avoided giving any denial to the fact.

For three weeks did MacNaghten continue to search through immense masses
of papers and documents; he ransacked musty drawers of mustier cabinets;
he waded through piles of correspondence, in the hope of some faint
flickering of light, some chance phrase that might lead him to the right
track; but without success! He employed trusty and sharp-witted agents
to trace back, through England, the journey my father and mother had
come by, but so secretly had every step of that wedding-tour been
conducted, that no clew remained.

Amidst the disappointments of this ineffectual pursuit, there came,
besides, the disheartening reflection that from those who were most
intimately acquainted with my father’s affairs he met neither counsel
nor co-operation. On the contrary, Crowther’s manner was close and
secret on every matter of detail, and as to the chances of a suit,
avowed how little ground they had for resistance. Fagan even went
further, and spoke with an assumed regret that my father should have
made no provision for those belonging to him.

All these were, however, as nothing to the misery of that day in which
McNaughten was obliged to break the disclosure to my mother, and explain
to her the position of ruin and humiliation in which she was placed!
She was still weak and debilitated from her illness, her bodily strength
impaired, and her mind broken by suffering, when this new shock came
upon her; nor could she at first be made to understand the full measure
of her misfortune, nor to what it exactly tended. That the home of her
husband was no longer to be hers was a severe blow; it was endeared to
her by so many of the tenderest recollections. It was all that really
remained associated with him she had lost. “But perhaps,” thought she,
“this is the law of the country: such are the inevitable necessities of
the land.” Her boy would, if he lived, one day possess it for his own,
and upon this thought she fell back for consolation.

MacNaghten did not venture in his first interview to undeceive her; a
second and even a third passed over without his being equal to the task:
but the inexorable course of law gave, at last, no time for further
delay. The tenants of the estate had received formal notice to pay the
amount of their several holdings into court, pending the litigation of
the property. A peremptory order to surrender the house and demesne was
also issued. The servants talked openly of the approaching break-up of
the household, and already vague and shadowy rumors ran that my father
had died intestate, and that my mother was left without a shilling.

From early morning till late at night, MacNaghten had toiled without
ceasing. He had visited lawyers, attended consultations, instituted
fresh searches through Crowther’s papers, but all with the same result.
The most hopeful counsels only promised a barren resistance, the less
sanguine advisers recommended any compromise that might secure to my
mother some moderate competence to live on. So much had the course of
events preyed upon his mind, and so dispirited had he grown that, as he
afterwards owned, he found himself listening to arguments, and willing
to entertain projects, which, had they been presented but a few weeks
before, he had rejected with scorn and indignation. It was then, too,
and for the first time, that the possibility struck him that my father’s
marriage might have been solemnized without that formality which should
make it good in law. He remembered the reserve with which, in all their
frank friendship, the subject was ever treated. He bethought him of the
reluctance with which my father suffered himself to be drawn into any
allusion to that event; and that, in fact, it was the only theme on
which they never conversed in perfect frankness and sincerity.

“After all,” thought he, “the matter may be difficult of proof. There
may have been reasons, real or imaginary, for secrecy; there may
have been certain peculiar circumstances requiring unusual caution or
mystery; but Watty was quite incapable of presenting to his friends and
to the world as his wife one who had not every title to the name, while
she who held that place gave the best guarantee, by her manner and
conduct, that it was hers by right.” To this consolation he was obliged
to fall back at each new moment of discomfiture; but although it served
to supply him with fresh energy and courage, it also oppressed him with
the sad reflection that conviction and belief in his friend’s honor
would have no weight in the legal discussion of the case, and that one
scrawled fragment of paper would be better in evidence than all the
trustfulness that was ever inspired by friendship.

If gifted with a far more than common amount of resolution and energy,
MacNaghten was by nature impulsive to rashness, and consequently not
well suited to deal with those who, more cautious by temperament, and
less given to exhibit their feelings, find their profit in trading upon
the warmer and less suspectful natures of others. In proportion as his
daily disappointment preyed upon him, he displayed the effect in his
manner and appearance, and at length, between mental agitation and
bodily fatigue, became the mere wreck of what he had been. It was thus
that, after a long day passed in toil and excitement, he strolled into
one of the squares after nightfall, to seek in the solitude of the spot
some calm and tranquillity for his harassed spirit.

It was the autumn,--that season when Dublin is almost deserted by its
residents, and scarcely any of those who constitute what is called
society were in the capital. Mac-Naghten, therefore, was not likely to
find any to interfere with the loneliness he sought for, and loitered
unmolested for hours through the lanes and alleys of the silent square.
There was a certain freshness in the night air that served to rally his
jaded frame; and he felt, in the clear and half* frosty atmosphere, a
sense of invigoration that made him unwilling to leave the spot.
While thus gathering strength for the coming day, he thought he heard
footsteps in the walk behind him; he listened, and now distinctly heard
the sound of a voice talking in loud tones, and the shuffling sounds of
feet on the gravel. Stepping aside into the copse, he waited to see who
and for what purpose might they be who came there at this unfrequented
hour.

To his astonishment, a solitary figure moved past, walking with short,
hasty steps, while he talked and gesticulated to himself with every
appearance of intense excitement. Mac-Naghten had but to hear a word
or two, at once to recognize the speaker as Curtis--that strange,
half-misanthropic creature, who, partly from fault, and in part from
misfortune, now lived in a state of friendless isolation.

It was rumored that, although his bearing and manner before the Court
displayed consummate coolness and self-possession, that the effect of
the recent trial had been to shake his intellect seriously, and, while
impressing upon him more strongly the notion of his being selected and
marked out for persecution by the Government, to impart to him a kind
of martyr’s determination to perish in the cause. At no time were he and
Dan congenial spirits. Their natures and their temperaments were widely
different; and, from the great disparity in their ages, as well as in
all their associations, there was scarcely one point of friendly contact
in common to them.

There is a companionable element in misfortune, however, stronger than
what we discover in prosperity; and partly from this cause, and partly
from a sense of compassion, MacNaghten followed him quickly, and hailed
him by his name.

“Joe Curtis!” repeated the old man, stopping suddenly. “I submit, my
Lord, that this is an insufficient designation. I am Joseph Curtis,
Esquire, of Meagh-valley House.”

“With all my heart,” said MacNaghten, cordially taking his hand and
shaking it warmly, “though I think you’ll suffer an old friend to be
less ceremonious with you.”

“Ah! you here, Dan MacNaghten,--why, what in the name of all mischief
has led you to this place? I thought I was the only maniac in this
ward;” and he gave a harsh, grating laugh of irony at his own jesting
allusion.

“I came here partly by accident, and have loitered from choice.”

“We must take care that no gentlemen have fixed this evening for a
meeting here,” said Curtis, in a low, guarded whisper. “You and I,
MacNaghten, would fare badly, depend upon it. What! with our known
reputations, and the nails in our boots,--eh! the nails in our
boots,--they ‘ll make what’s called a strong case against us! You’d
get off,--they ‘ve nothing against you; but they ‘ll not let me slip
through, like last time. Did you ever know such a close thing? The
foreman, old Andrews, told me since, ‘We had quite made up our minds,
sir. We ‘d have said guilty without leaving the box.’ Just think of
their dilemma if they had hanged me! My papers, for I took care to leave
all in writing, would have shown up the whole conspiracy. I ‘ve set
forth the game they have been playing since the year ‘42. I detailed all
their machinations, and showed the secret orders they had given to each
successive Viceroy. There were three men--only three men--in all Ireland
that they dreaded! And that blundering fool Carew must rush in with his
rashness and absurdity! Who ever heard or saw the like?”

“Poor fellow!” muttered MacNaghten.

“‘Poor fellow,’ as much as you wish, sir; but remember that some degree
of consideration is due to me also! I was a prisoner seven weeks in
Newgate; I stood in the dock, arraigned for a murder; I was on the eve
of a false conviction and a false sentence; and there is no man living
can say what results might not have followed on my being falsely
executed! Your friend’s stupid interference has spoiled everything, and
you need n’t ask me, at least, to feel grateful to him.”

“There are men who, in your situation that day, would not hesitate to
acknowledge their gratitude, notwithstanding,” said MacNaghten.

“There are poor-spirited, contemptible curs in every country, sir, if
you mean that!” said Curtis. “As for Carew, he was a gentleman by birth.
He had the fortune and the education of one. He might, if he had wished
it, have been one of the first, if not the very first, men in this
country. He thought it a finer thing to be a horse-racer and a gambler.
He saw greater distinction in being the dangler at the court of a
foreign debauchee to being the leading character in his own land. Don’t
interrupt me, sir,” cried he, haughtily, waving his hand, while he went
on, with increased vehemence. “I tell you again that Walter Carew might
now have been a great living patriot--instead of--”

“If you utter one syllable of insult to his memory,” broke in
MacNaghten, boldly, “neither your age nor your folly shall save you;
for, by Heaven--”

He stopped, for the aspect of the broken-down, white-’ haired figure in
front of him suddenly overcame him with shame for his own violence.

“Well, and what then?” said Curtis, calmly. “Shall I finish your threat
for you? for, in truth, you seem quite unable to do so yourself. No,
I ‘ll not--Dan MacNaghten--never fear me. I ‘m just as incapable of
defaming him who has left us as you are of offering insult to an old,
decrepit, half-crazed man, whose only use in life is to cast obloquy
upon those that have made him the thing he is.”

“Forgive me, Curtis; I am heartily sorry for my rude speech,” cried
MacNaghten.

“Forgive you, sir!” said he, already following out another and a very
different train of thought. “I have nothing to forgive. You were only
doing what all the world does; what your Government and its authorities
give the example of,--insulting one whom it is safe to outrage!
You treat me as you treat Ireland, that’s all! Give me your hand,
MacNaghten; I think, indeed I always said, you were the best of those
fellows about Carew. If he had n’t been away from you, probably he ‘d
not have fallen into that stupid mistake,--that French connection.”

“His marriage, do you mean?” cried Dan, eagerly.

“Marriage, if you like to call it so!” rejoined the other.

“Have you a single doubt that it was such?”

“Have I a single reason to believe it?” said Curtis, doggedly. “If a man
of fifteen thousand a-year takes a wife, he selects a woman whose rank
and station are at least equal to his own, and he takes care besides
that the world knows it. If she brings him no fortune, he makes the more
fuss about her family, and parades her high relations. He does n’t wed
in secret, and keep the day, the place, the witnesses, a mystery; he
doesn’t avoid even a chance mention of the event to his dearest friends;
he does n’t settle down to live in an obscure retreat, when he owns a
princely residence in the midst of his friends. When he does come back
amongst them, he does not shrink from presenting her to the world; to be
driven at last by necessity to the bold course,--to fill his house with
company, and see them drop off,--fritter away one by one, distrustful,
dissatisfied, and suspecting. Don’t tell me, sir, that if he had a good
cause and a safe cause behind him, that Walter Carew would n’t have
asked explanations, ay, and enforced them, too, from some of those
guests who rewarded his hospitality so scurvily. You knew him well; and
I ask you, was he the man to suffer the insolent attacks of the public
journals, if it were not that he dreaded even worse exposures by
provocation? You are a shrewd and a clever fellow, MacNaghten; and if
you don’t see this matter as all the world sees it--”

“And is this the common belief? Do you tell me that such is the
impression abroad in society?”

“Consult Matt Fosbroke. Ask Harvey Hempton what his wife says. Go to
George Tisdall and get his account of their departure from Castle Carew,
and the answer they sent when invited there a second time.”

“Why, all this is new to me!” cried MacNaghten, in amazement.

“To be sure, it’s only circumstantial evidence,” broke in Curtis, with a
bitter laugh; “but that is precisely what the courts of law tell you is
the most unimpeachable of all testimony. It may fail to convince you,
but it would be quite sufficient to hang me!”

The bare recurrence, for a second, to this theme at once brought back
the old man to his own case, into which he launched with all the fervor
of a full mind; now sneering at the capacity of those before whom he was
arraigned, now detailing with delight the insolent remarks he had taken
occasion to make on the administration of justice generally. It was
in vain that MacNaghten tried to lead him away from the subject. It
constituted his world to him, and he would not quit it. A chance mention
of Fagan’s name in the proceedings of the trial gave occasion at last
for interruption, and MacNaghten said,--

“By the way, Fagan is a difficult fellow to deal with. You know him
well, I believe?”

“Know him. Ay, that I do, sir. I have known that den of his since it was
an apple-stall. My first post-obit was cashed by his worthy father. My
last bill”--here he laughed heartily--“my last bill was protested by the
son! And yet the fellow is afraid of me. Ay, there is no man that walks
this city he dreads so much as me!”

Curtis was so much in the habit of exaggerating his own importance,
and particularly as it affected others, that MacNaghten paid but little
attention to this remark, when the other quickly rejoined,--

“If you want to manage Fagan, take me with you. He ‘ll not give you
money on my bond, nor will he discount a bill for my name’s sake; but he
‘ll do what costs him to the full as much,--he ‘ll tell you the truth,
sir. Mark that,--he ‘ll tell you the truth.”

“Will you accompany me to his house to-morrow?” asked Dan, eagerly.

“Ay, whenever you will.”

“I ‘ll call upon you at ten o’clock, then, if not too early, and talk
over the business for which I want your assistance. Where are you
stopping?”

“My town residence is let to Lord Belview, and to avoid the noise and
turmoil of a hotel, I live in lodgings,” said Curtis, slowly, and with
a certain pomposity of air and manner; suddenly changing which to his
ordinary jocular tone, he said: “You have, maybe, heard of a place
called Fum’s Alley. It lies in the Liberty, and opens upon that classic
precinct called ‘The Poddle.’ There, sir, at a door over which a straw
chair is suspended,--it’s the manufacture of the house,--there, sir,
lives Joe Curtis.”

“I ‘ll be with you at ten,” said Dan; and, with some pass-ing allusion
to the lateness of the hour, he led the way back into the town, where
they parted.



CHAPTER XIX. “FUM’S ALLEY, NEAR THE PODDLE”

MacNaghten’s object in seeking an interview with Fagan was to ascertain,
in the first place, who that claimant to the estate was whose views he
advocated; and, secondly, what prospect there might be of effecting
some species of compromise which should secure to my mother a reasonable
competence. Although, in his isolation, he had grasped eagerly even
at such co-operation as that of Curtis, the more he thought over the
matter, the less reason did he see to rejoice in the alliance. Even
before misfortune had affected his intellect, his temper was violent,
and his nature impracticable. Always yielding to impulse far more than
to mature judgment, he rushed madly on, scrambling from difficulty
to difficulty, and barely extricated from one mishap till involved in
another.

Such aid as he could proffer, therefore, promised little, and Dan felt
more than half disposed to relinquish it. This, however, should be done
with all respect to the feelings of Curtis, and, reflecting in what way
the object could best be compassed, MacNaghten slowly sauntered onwards
to the appointed place. It was not without some difficulty that he
at last discovered the miserable lane, at the entrance to which a
jaunting-car was now waiting,--a mark of aristocratic intercourse
which seemed, by the degree of notice it attracted, to show that such
equipages rarely visited this secluded region. MacNaghten’s appearance,
however, soon divided public curiosity with the vehicle, and he
was followed by a ragged gathering of every age and sex, who very
unceremoniously canvassed the object of his coming, and with a most
laudable candor criticised his look and appearance. Although poor and
wretched in the extreme, none of them asked alms, nor seemed in
the slightest degree desirous of attracting attention to their own
destitution.

“Is it a lodgin’ yer honer wants?” whispered an old fellow on crutches,
sidling close up to MacNaghten, and speaking in a confidential tone.
“I ‘ve a back room looks out on the Poddle, for two shillings a week,
furnished.”

“I’ve the elegant place Mary Murdoch lived in for ten months, yer honer,
in spite of all the polis’, and might be livin’ there yet, if she did
n’t take into her head to go to Fishamble Street playhouse one night and
get arrested,” cried a one-eyed old hag, with a drummer’s coat on.

“He does n’t want a room,--the gentleman is n’t the likes of them that
comes here,” growled out a cripple, who, with the sagacity that often
belongs to the maimed, seemed better to divine Dan’s motives.

“You ‘re right, my lad; I was trying to find out where a friend of mine
lived,--Mr. Curtis.”

“Faix, ould Joe has company this mornin’,” said the first speaker. “It
was to see him that the fat man came on the jaunting-car.”

“Are yiz goin’ to try him agen?” said a red-eyed, fierce-looking woman,
whose face was a mass of bruises.

“Sure the gentleman isn’t a bailiff nor a polisman,” broke in the
cripple, rebukingly.

“There’s not a man in the Poddle won’t stand up for Joe Curtis, if he
needs it,” cried a powerfully built man, whose energy of manner showed
that he was the leader of a party.

“Yer honer’s looking for Kitty Nelligan; but she’s gone,” whispered a
young creature, with a baby at her breast; and her eyes overran with
tears as she spoke. “She died o’ Friday last,” added she, in a still
fainter voice.

“Did n’t ye hear him say it was Mister Joe he wanted? and there’s the
house he lives in,” said another.

“Yis, but he can’t go up to him now,” said the man who affected to
assume rule amongst them; “the one that came on the car said he was n’t
to be disturbed on any account.”

“Begorra,” chimed in the cripple, “if it’s a levee, yer honer must wait
yer turn!”

“I ‘m quite willing,” said Dan, good-humoredly; “a man has no right to
be impatient in the midst of such pleasant company;” and as he spoke, he
seated himself on a low stone bench beside the house door, with, all the
ease of one bent on being companionable.

Had MacNaghten assumed airs of haughty superiority or insolent contempt
for that motley assembly, he never could have attained to the position
to which the last words, carelessly uttered as they were, at once raised
him. They not only pronounced him a gentleman, but a man of the world
besides,--the two qualities in the very highest repute in that class by
which he was surrounded. Instead, therefore, of the familiar tone they
had previously used towards him, they now stood silently awaiting him to
speak.

“Do the people hereabouts follow any particular trade?” asked Dan.

“‘T is straw chairs principally, your honer,” replied the cripple, “is
the manufacture of the place; but most of us are on the streets.”

“On the streets,--how do you mean?”

“There’s Billy Glory, there yonder, he sings ballads; that man with the
bit of crape round his hat hawks the papers; more of us cry things lost
or stolen; and a few more lives by rows and rucktions at elections, and
the like.”

“Faix! and,” sighed the strong man, “the trade isn’t worth the following
now. I remember when Barry O’Hara would n’t walk the streets without
a body-guard,--five in front, and five behind him,--and well paid they
were; and I remember Hamilton Brown payin’ fifty of us to keep College
Green against the Government, on a great Parliament night. Ay, and we
did it too!”

“They wor good times for more than you,” broke in the woman in the
uniform coat; “I made seven-and-sixpence on Essex Bridge in one night by
the ‘Shan van voght.’”

“The grandest ballad that ever was written,” chimed in an old man with
one eye; “does yer honer know it?”

“I’m ashamed to say not perfectly,” said Dan, with an air of humility.

“Molly Daly’s the one can sing it well, then,” cried he; a sentiment
re-echoed with enthusiasm by all.

“I’m low and down-hearted of a mornin’,” said Molly, bashfully; “but
maybe after a naggin and a pint I’ll be better.”

“Let me have the honor to treat the company,” said Dan, handing a
crown-piece to one near him.

“If your honor wants to hear Molly right, make her sing Tom Molloy’s
ballad for the Volunteers,” whispered the cripple; and he struck up in a
hoarse voice,--

  “‘Was she not a fool,
    When she took off our wool,
  To leave us so much of the
    Leather--the leather!

  “‘It ne’er entered her pate
    That a sheepskin will ‘bate,’
  Will drive a whole nation
    Together--together.’”

“I’d rather she ‘d sing Mosy Cassan’s new song on Barry Rutledge,”
 growled out a bystander.

“A song on Rutledge?” cried Dan.

“Yes, sir. It was describin’ how Watty Carew enticed him downstairs,
to kill him. Faix, but there’s murder now goin’ on upstairs; do ye hear
ould Joe, how he’s cursin’ and swearin’?”

The uproar was assuredly enough to attract attention; for Curtis was
heard screaming something at the top of his voice, and as if in high
altercation with his visitor. Mac-Naghten accordingly sprang from
his seat, and hurried up the stairs at once, followed by the
powerful-looking fellow I have already mentioned. As he came near
Curtis’s chamber, however, the sounds died away and nothing could
be heard but the low voices of persons conversing in ordinary tones
together.

“Step in here, sir,” said the fellow to Dan, unlocking a door at the
back of the house; “step in here, and I’ll tell you when Mister Joe is
ready to see you.”

MacNaghten accepted the offer, and now found himself in a mean-looking
chamber, scantily furnished, and looking out upon some of those
miserable lanes and alleys with which the place abounded. The man
retired, locking the door after him, and leaving Dan to his own
meditations in solitude.

He was not destined to follow these thoughts long undisturbed, for again
he could hear Curtis’s voice, which, at first from a distant room, was
now to be heard quite close, as he came into the very chamber adjoining
that where Dan was.

“Come this way, come this way, I say,” cried the old man, in a voice
tremulous with passion. “If you want to seize, you shall see the
chattels at once,--no need to trouble yourself about an inventory! There
is my bed; I got fresh straw into the sacking on Saturday. The blanket
is a borrowed one; that horseman’s cloak is my own. There ‘s not much
in that portmanteau,” cried he, kicking it with his foot against the
wall. “Two ragged shirts and a lambskin waistcoat, and the title-deeds
of estates that not even your chicanery could get back for me. Take them
all, take that old blunderbuss, and tell the Grinder that if I ‘d have
put it to my head twenty years ago, it would have been mercy, compared
to the slow torture of his persecution!”

“My dear Mr. Curtis, my dear sir,” interposed a bland, soft voice that
Dan at once recognized as belonging to Mr. Crowther, the attorney, “you
must allow me once more to protest against this misunderstanding. There
is nothing farther from my thoughts at this moment than any measure of
rigor or severity towards you.”

“What do you mean, then, by that long catalogue of my debts? Why have
you hunted me out to show me bills I can never pay, and bonds I can
never release?”

“Pray be calm, sir; bear with me patiently, and you will see that my
business here this morning is the very reverse of what you suspect it
to be. It is perfectly true that Mr. Fagan possesses large, very large,
claims upon you.”

“How incurred, sir?--answer me that. Who can stand forty, fifty, ay,
sixty per cent? Has he not succeeded to every acre of my estate? Have I
anything, except that settle-bed, that is n’t his?”

“You cannot expect me to go at length into these matters, sir,” said
Crowther, mildly; “they are now bygones, and it is of the future I wish
to speak.”

“If the past be bad, the future promises to be worse,” cried Curtis,
bitterly. “It is but sorry mercy to ask me to look forward!”

“I think I can convince you to the contrary, sir, if you vouchsafe me a
hearing. I hope to show you that there are in all probability many happy
years before you,--years of ease and affluence. Yes, sir, in spite of
that gesture of incredulity, I repeat it,--of ease and affluence.”

“So, then, they think to buy me at last,” broke in the old man. “The
scoundrels must have met with few honest men, or they had never dared
to make such a proposal. What do the rascals think to bribe me with, eh?
Tell me that.”

“You persist in misunderstanding me, sir. I do not come from the
Government; I would not presume to wait on you in such a cause!”

“What’s the peerage to me? I have no descendants to profit by my infamy.
I cannot barter my honor for my children’s greatness! I ‘m prouder with
that old hat on my head than with the coronet; tell them that. Tell
them that Joe Curtis was the only man in all Ireland they never could
purchase; tell them that when I had an estate I swore to prosecute for a
poacher their ducal Viceroy if he shot a snipe over my lands; and that I
‘m the same man now I was then!”

Crowther sighed heavily, like one who has a wearisome task before him,
but must go through with it.

“If I could but persuade you, sir, to believe that my business here has
no connection with politics whatever; that the Castle has nothing to do
with it--”

“Ay, I see,” cried Curtis, “it’s Lord Charlemont sent you. It ‘s no
use; I ‘ll have nothing to say to any of them. He’s too fond of Castle
dinners and Castle company for me! I never knew any good come of the
patriotism that found its way up Corkhill at six o’clock of an evening!”

“Once for all, Mr. Curtis, I say that what brought me here this morning
was to show you that Mr. Fagan would be willing to surrender all claim
against you for outstanding liabilities, and besides to settle on you a
very handsome annuity, in consideration of some concessions on your part
with respect to a property against which he has very large claims.”

“What’s the annuity,--how much?” cried Curtis, hastily.

“What sum would you yourself feel sufficient, sir? He empowered me to
consult your own wishes and expectations on the subject.”

“If I was to say a thousand a-year, for instance?” said Curtis, slowly.

“I’m certain he would not object, sir.”

“Perhaps if I said two, he ‘d comply?”

“Two thousand pounds a-year is a large income for a single man,” replied
Crowther, sententiously.

“So it is; but I could spend it. I spent eight thousand a-year once in
my life, and when my estate was short of three! and that ‘s what comes
of it;” and he gave the settle-bed a rude kick as he spoke. “Would he
give two? That’s the question, Crowther: would he give two?”

“I do not feel myself competent to close with that offer, Mr. Curtis;
but if you really think that such a sum is necessary--”

“I do,--I know it; I could n’t do with a shilling less; in fact, I’d
find myself restricted enough with that. Whenever I had to think about
money, it was hateful to me. Tell him two is the lowest, the very
lowest, I ‘d accept of; and if he wishes to treat me handsomely, he may
exceed it. You ‘re not to judge of my habits, sir, from what you see
here,” added he, fiercely; “this is not what I have been accustomed
to. You don’t know the number of people who look up to me for bread. My
father’s table was laid for thirty every day, and it had been well for
us if as many more were not fed at our cost elsewhere.”

“I have often heard tell of Meagh-valley House and its hospitalities,”
 said Crowther, blandly.

“‘Come over and drink a pipe of port’ was the invitation when I was a
boy. A servant was sent round to the neighborhood to say that a
hogshead of claret was to be broached on such a day, and to beg that the
gentlemen around would come over and help to drink it,--ay, to drink it
out! Your piperly hounds, with their two-bottle magnum, think themselves
magnificent nowadays; why, in my time they ‘d have been laughed to
scorn!”

“They were glorious times indeed,” cried Crowther, with mad enthusiasm.

“Glorious times to beggar a nation, to prostitute public honor and
private virtue,” broke in Curtis, passionately; “to make men heartless
debauchees first, that they might become shameless scoundrels after; to
teach them a youth of excess and an old age of venality. These were your
Glorious Times! But you, sir, may be forgiven for praising them; to you,
and others like you, they have been indeed ‘Glorious Times’! Out of them
grew those lawsuits and litigations that have enriched you, while they
ruined us. Out of that blessed era of orgie and debauch came beggared
families and houseless gentry; men whose fathers lay upon down couches,
and whose selves sleep upon the like of that;” and the rude settle
rocked as his hand shook it. “Out upon your Glorious Times, say I; you
might as well call the drunken scene of a dinner-party a picture of
domestic comfort and happiness! It was a long night of debauchery, and
this that we now see is the sad morning afterwards! Do you know besides,
sir,” continued he, in a still fiercer tone, “that in those same
‘Glorious Times,’ you, and others of your stamp, would have been baited
like badgers if found within the precincts of a gentleman’s house? Ay,
faith, and if my memory does not betray me, I can call to mind one or
two such instances.”

The violence of the old man’s passion seemed to have exhausted him, and
he sat down on the bed, breathing heavily and panting.

“Where were we?” cried he at last. “What was it that we were arguing?
Yes--ay--to be sure--these bills--these confounded bills. I can’t pay
them. I would n’t if I could. That scoundrel Fagan has made enough of me
without that. What was it you said of an annuity? There was some talk of
an annuity, eh?”

Crowther bent down, and spoke some words in a low, murmuring voice.

“Well, and for that what am I to do?” cried Curtis, suddenly. “My share
of the compact is heavy enough, I’ll be sworn. What is it?”

“I think I can show you that it is not much of a sacrifice, sir. I know
you hate long explanations, and I ‘ll make mine very brief. Mr. Fagan
has very heavy charges against an estate which is not unlikely to be
the subject of a disputed ownership. It may be a long suit, with all
the delays and difficulties of Chancery; and in looking over the various
persons who may prefer claims here and there, we find your name amongst
the rest, for it is a long list, sir. There may be forty or forty-five
in all! The principal one, however, is a wealthy baronet who has ample
means to prosecute his claim, and with fair hopes of succeeding. My
notion, however, was that if Mr. Fagan could arrange with the several
persons in the cause to waive their demands for a certain consideration,
that it would not be difficult then to arrange some compromise with the
baronet himself,--he surrendering the property to Fagan for a certain
amount, on taking with it all its liabilities. You understand?”

“And who’s the owner?” asked Curtis, shortly.

“He is dead, sir.”

“Who was he when alive?”

“An old friend, or rather the son of an old friend of yours, Mr.
Curtis!”

“Ah, Brinsley Morgan! I guess him at once; but you are wrong, quite
wrong there, my good fellow. I have n’t the shadow of a lien on
his estate. We talked it over together one day, and Hackett, the
Attorney-General, who was in the house, said that my claim was n’t
worth five shillings. But I ‘ll tell you where I have a claim,--at least
Hackett said so, I have a very strong claim--No, no; I was forgetting
again,--my memory is quite gone. It is so hard when one grows old to
bear the last ten or fifteen years in mind. I can remember my boyhood
and my school-days like yesterday. It is late events that confuse me!
You ‘ll scarce believe me when I tell you I often find myself going to
dine with some old friend, and only discover when I reach his door that
he is dead and gone this many a day! There was something in my mind to
tell you, and it has escaped me already. Oh! I have it. There are some
curious old family papers in that musty-looking portmanteau. I should
like to find out some clever fellow that would look them over without
rushing me into a lawsuit, mind ye, for I have no heart for that now! My
brother Harry’s boy is dead. India finished him, poor fellow! That’s the
key of it,--see if it will open the lock.”

“If you like I ‘ll take them back with me, sir, and examine them myself
at home.”

“Do so, Crowther. Only understand me well, no bills of costs, my worthy
friend; no searches after this, or true copies of that; I ‘ll have
none of them. As Dick Parsons said, I ‘d rather spend my estate at the
‘Fives’ than the ‘Four’ Courts.”

Crowther gave one of his complacent laughs; and having induced Curtis
to accept an invitation for the following day at dinner, he took the
portmanteau under his arm and withdrew.

He had scarcely descended the stairs when Dan found the door unlocked,
and proceeded to pay his visit to Curtis, his mind full of all that he
had just overheard, and wondering at the many strange things he had been
a listener to.

When MacNaghten entered, he found Curtis sitting at a table, with
his head resting on his hand, and looking like one deeply engaged in
thought. Dan saluted him twice, without obtaining a reply, and at last
said,--

“They said that you had a visitor this morning, and so I have been
waiting for some time to see you.”

The other nodded assentingly, but did not speak.

“You are, perhaps, too much tired now,” said Dan, in a kind voice, “for
much talking. Come and have a turn in the open air; it will refresh
you.”

Curtis arose and took his hat, without uttering a word.

“You are a good walker, Curtis,” said MacNaghten, as they reached the
street. “What say you if we stroll down to Harold’s Cross, and eat our
breakfast at the little inn they call ‘The Friar’?”

“Agreed,” muttered the other, and walked along at his side, without
another word; while Dan, to amuse his companion, and arouse him from
the dreary stupor that oppressed him, exerted himself in various ways,
recounting the popular anecdotes of the day, and endeavoring, so far as
might be, to entertain him.

It was soon, however, evident that Curtis neither heard nor heeded the
efforts the other was making, for he continued to move along with
his head down, mumbling at intervals to himself certain broken and
incoherent words. At first, MacNaghten hoped that this moody dejection
would pass away, and his mind recover its wonted sharpness; but now
he saw that the impression under which he labored was no passing or
momentary burden, but a heavy load that weighed wearily on his spirits.

“I am afraid you are scarcely so well as usual to-day?” asked Dan, after
a long interval of silence between them.

“I have a pain hereabouts,--it is not a pain either, but I feel uneasy,”
 said Curtis, pushing his hat back from his forehead, and touching his
temple with his finger.

“It will pass away with the fresh air and a hearty breakfast, I hope. If
not, I will see some one on our return. Who is your doctor?”

“My doctor! You ask a man who has lived eighty-four years who is his
doctor! That nature that gave him a good stout frame; the spirit that
told him what it could, and what it could not, bear,--these, and a
hearty contempt for physic and all that live by it, have guided me so
far, and you may call them my doctors if you wish.”

Rather pleased to have recalled the old man to his habitual energy,
Dan affected to contest his opinions, by way of inducing him to support
them; but he quickly saw his error, for Curtis, as though wearied by
even this momentary effort, seemed more downcast and depressed than
before.

MacNaghten, therefore, contented himself with some commonplace remarks
about the country around and the road they were walking, when Curtis
came to a sudden halt, and said,--

“You would n’t take the offer, I ‘ll be sworn. You ‘d say at once:
‘Show me what rights I ‘m surrendering; let me know the terms of the
agreement.’ But what signifies all that at my age?--the last of the
stock besides! If I lay by what will pay the undertaker, it’s all the
world has a right to demand at my hands.”

“Here’s ‘The Friar,’--this is our inn,” said MacNaghten. “Shall I be the
caterer, eh? What say you to some fried fish and a glass of Madeira, to
begin with?”

“I ‘ll have a breakfast, sir, that suits my condition,” said Curtis,
haughtily. “Send the landlord here for my orders.”

“Here’s our man, then,” said MacNaghten, humoring the whim, as he pushed
the innkeeper towards him.

“What’s your name, my good fellow?” asked Curtis, with a supercilious
look at the short but well-conditioned figure before him.

“Billy Mathews, sir,” said the other, with difficulty restraining a
smile at the dilapidated look of his interrogator.

“Well, Mathews, keep the Billy for your equals, my good friend. Mathews,
I say, let us have the best your house affords, served in your best room
and in your best manner. If I ate prison fare for nine weeks, sir, it
is no reason that I am not accustomed to something different. My name
is Joseph Curtis, of Meagh-valley House; I sat in Parliament for
eight-and-twenty years, for the borough of Kilternon; and I was tried
for a murder at the last commission. There, sir! it’s not every day you
have a guest who can say as much.”

As the landlord was moving away to give his orders, Curtis called out
once more:--

“Stay, sir; hear me out. There are spies of the Castle wherever I go.
Who have you here just now? Who’s in this house?”

“There’s but one gentleman here at present, sir. I’ve known him these
twenty years, and I ‘ll vouch for it he’s neither a Government spy nor
an informer.”

“And who will be satisfied with your guarantee, sir?” cried Curtis,
insolently. “It’s not a fellow in your position that can assure the
scruples of a man in mine. Who is he? What’s his name?”

“He’s a respectable man, sir, well known in Dublin, and the son of one
that held a good position once.”

“His name,--his name!” cried Curtis, imperiously.

“It’s no matter about his name!” replied the host, sulkily. “He has come
to eat his breakfast here, as he does once or twice a week, and that’s
all that I have to say to him.”

“But I ‘ll have his name,--I ‘ll insist upon it,” shouted out Curtis,
in a voice of high excitement; “persecuted and hunted down as I am, I’ll
defend myself. Your Castle bloodhounds shall see that Joe Curtis will
not run from them. This gentleman here is the son of MacNaghten of
Greenan. What signifies it to you if he be ruined! What affair is it of
yours, I ask, if he has n’t a sixpence in the world?--I’ll pay for what
he takes here. I’m responsible for everything. I have two thousand a
year secured on my life,”--he stopped, and seemed to reflect for a
moment, then added,--“that is, I may have it if I please.”

MacNaghten made a signal for the innkeeper to serve the breakfast, and
not notice any of the extravagances of his strange companion. Mathews
was about to obey, when Curtis, recurring to his former thought, cried
out,--

“Well, sir, this fellow’s name?”

“Tell him who it is,” whispered Dan, secretly; and the host said,--

“The gentleman is one Mr. Raper, sir, head clerk to Mr. Fagan, of Mary’s
Abbey.”

“Leave the room--close the door,” said Curtis, with an air of caution.
“I saw the signal you gave the innkeeper a moment ago, MacNaghten,” said
he, in the same low and guarded tone. “I read its meaning perfectly.
You would imply: The old fellow is not right--a crack in the upper
story--humor him a bit. Don’t deny it, man; you acted for the best; you
thought, as many think, that my misfortunes had affected my intellect
and sapped my understanding; and so they had done this many a day,”
 added he, fiercely, “but for one thing. I had one grand security against
madness, Dan; one great barrier, my boy: shall I tell it you? It
was this, then: that if my head wandered sometimes, my heart never
did--never! I hated the English and their party in this country with a
hate that never slept, never relaxed! I knew well that I was the only
man in Ireland that they could not put down. Some they bought--some
they ruined--some they intimidated--some they destroyed by calumny. They
tried all these with me, and at last were driven to a false accusation,
and had me up for a murder! and that failed them, too! Here I stand,
their opponent, just as I did fifty-two years ago, and the only man in
all Ireland that dares to brave and defy them. They ‘d make me a peer
to-morrow, Dan; they ‘d give me a colonial government; they ‘d take me
into the Cabinet; there is not a demand of mine they ‘d say ‘No’ to, if
I ‘d join them; but my answer is, ‘Never! never!’ Go down to your grave,
Joe Curtis, ruined, ragged, half-famished, mayhap. Let men call you a
fool, and worse! but the time will come, and the people will say: There
was once a man in Ireland that never truckled to the Castle, nor fawned
on the Viceroy; and that when he stood in the dock, with his life on the
venture, told them that he despised their vengeance, though he knew that
they were covering it with all the solemnity of a law-court; and that
man his contemporaries--ay, even his friends--were pleased to call Mad!”

“Come, come, Curtis, you know well this is not my impression of you; you
only say so jestingly.”

“It’s a sorry theme to crack jokes upon,” said the other, sadly. He
paused, and seemed to reflect deeply for some minutes, and then, in a
voice of peculiar meaning, and with a look of intense cunning in his
small gray eyes, said, “We heard the name he mentioned,--Raper, Fagan’s
man of business. Let ‘s have him in, MacNaghten; the fellow is a half
simpleton in many things. Let’s talk to him.”

“Would you ask Mr. Raper to join our breakfast?” asked Dan of the
innkeeper.

“He has just finished his own, sir; some bread and watercresses, with a
cup of milk, are all that he takes.”

“Poor fellow!” said Dan, “I see him yonder in the summer-house; he
appears to be in hard study, for he has not raised his head since we
entered the room. I ‘ll go and ask him how he is.”

MacNaghten had not only time to approach the little table where Raper
was seated unobserved, but even to look over the object of his study,
before his presence was recognized.

“German, Mr. Raper; reading German?” cried MacNaghten. “I know the
characters, at least.”

“Yes, sir, it is German; an odd volume of Richter that I picked up a few
days ago. A difficult author at first, somewhat involved and intricate
in construction: here, for instance is a passage--”

“My dear friend, it is all a Greek chorus to me, or anything else you
can fancy equally unintelligible.”

“It is the story of an humble man, a village cobbler, who becomes by
an accident of fortune suddenly rich. Now, the author, instead of
describing the incidents of life and the vicissitudes that encounter
him, leaves us only to guess, or rather to supply them for ourselves, by
simply dwelling upon all the ‘Gedänkskriege,’ or mental conflicts, that
are the consequences of his altered position. The notion is ingenious,
and if not overlayed with a certain dreamy mysticism, would be very
interesting.”

“I,” said Dan, “would far rather hear of his acts than his reflections.
What he did would amuse me more to know than to learn why.”

“But how easy to imagine the one!” exclaimed Raper. “Wealth has its
habits all stereotyped: from Dives to our own days the catalogue has
been ever the same, ‘purple and fine linen.’ And if some have added to
the mere sensual pleasures the higher enjoyments derivable from objects
of art and the cultivation of letters, has it not been because their
own natures were more elevated, and required such refinements as daily
necessaries? The humble man, suddenly enriched, lives no longer in the
sphere of his former associates, but ascends into one of whose habits he
knows nothing; and Jean Paul condemns him for this, and reminds him that
when a river is swollen by autumn rains it does not desert its
ancient channel, but enlarges the sphere of its utility, by spreading
fertilization on each side of it, seeming to think: I may, by the
accidents of life, grow small and humble again; it is as well that I
should not quit the tiny course I have followed in my humble fortunes.”

“And do you agree with him?” asked Dan, more amazed by the enthusiasm of
his companion than by the theme that suggested it.

“I do so in everything; I speak, of course, as one who knows nothing of
those ambitions by which wealthy men are encompassed; I am not in
the position of one who has seen and felt these fascinations, and who
emerges from his poverty to re-assume a former station. Take the case of
Mr. Curtis, for instance.”

“What! old Curtis--Joe Curtis?” asked Dan, eagerly.

“Yes, Curtis, formerly of Meagh-valley. Well, if his claim be as good as
they suppose, he ‘ll not only inherit the great Wicklow estates, but the
Western property so long in Chancery.”

MacNaghten saw that Raper was pouring forth this knowledge without being
conscious that he was making an important revelation, and gave a dry,
commonplace assent.

“Who can say what may not be his income?” exclaimed Raper, thoughtfully;
“twenty thousand a-year, at the least.”

“And his prospects are good, you say,--his chances of success?”

“The marriage certificate of Noah Curtis and Eleanor Carew has been
discovered, sir, and if the will of Fownes Carew be authentic, the case,
I believe, is clear.”

“What Carews were these?”

“The ancestors of Walter Carew, sir, whose estates now descend to the
heirs of the female branch.”

“And Curtis will inherit these?”

The tone in which Dan uttered these words so startled Raper that he
suddenly recovered his self-possession, and remembered how unguardedly
he had related this mysterious piece of intelligence.

“When was this discovery made?--who chanced to trace this relationship
between Curtis and the Carew family?” cried MacNaghten, in intense
anxiety.

A signal from Raper suddenly suggested caution and reserve; but Dan, too
much excited to attend it, went on:

“Sir, never believe it! It is some infernal scheme concocted between
Fagan and the lawyers. They have put forward this wretched old man,
half-witted as he is--”

A hand grasped Dan’s arm as he said this; he turned, and there stood
Curtis beside him!

“I ‘ve heard you both!” said the old man, dryly. “To you, sir,” said
he to Raper, “I owe my thanks for a piece of welcome news; to you,
MacNaghten, I feel grateful for all your candor!”

“Come, come, Curtis; be angry with me, if you will; but for Heaven’s
sake do not lend yourself to these base plots and schemes. If there be a
conspiracy to rob poor Walter’s widow and her child, let not one of his
oldest, best friends have any share in it.”

“I ‘ll maintain my rights, sir, be assured of that!” said Curtis, with
a degree of resolution strangely different from his former manner. “Mr.
MacNaghten’s impression of my competence to conduct my own affairs may
possibly be disparaging, but, happily, there is another tribunal which
shall decide on that question. Raper, I ‘m going into town,--will you
accompany me? Mr. MacNaghten, I wish you a good morning.” And with these
words he took Raper’s arm, and retired, leaving Dan still standing,
mute, overwhelmed, and thunderstruck.



CHAPTER XX. PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY

What I have heretofore mentioned of the events which followed
immediately on my father’s death were all related circumstantially to me
by MacNaghtan himself, who used to dwell upon them with a most painfully
accurate memory. There was not an incident, however slight, there was
not a scene of passing interest, that did not leave its deep impression
on him; and, amid all the trials of his own precarious life, these were
the events which he recurred to most frequently.

Poor fellow, how severely did he reproach himself for calamities that no
effort of his could avert! How often has he deplored mistakes and errors
which, though they perhaps hastened, by no means caused, the ruin that
imperilled us. The simple fact was, that in his dread of litigation,
from which almost all his own misfortunes had sprung, he endeavored to
conduct affairs which required the most acute and subtle intelligence
to guide. He believed that good sense and good intentions would be amply
sufficient to divest my father’s circumstances of all embarrassment;
and when, at last, he saw two claimants in the field for the
property--immense, almost fabulous, demands from Fagan--and heard,
besides, that no provision was made for my mother, whose marriage
was utterly denied and disbelieved,--then he appears to have lost all
self-control altogether, and in his despair to have grasped at any
expedient that presented itself; one day addressing a confidential
letter to Sir Carew O’Moore, whom he regarded as the rightful heir
to the property; the next, adventuring to open relations with Curtis,
through the mediation of Fagan. Every weak point in my mother’s position
became, of course, exposed by these fruitless communications; while, by
his own change of purpose, he grew to be distrusted by each in turn.

It was a theme that he avoided speaking on; but when questioned closely
by me, he has owned that Curtis exercised a kind of sway, a species of
terror-like influence, over him that totally overcame him.

“That old, besotted, crazy intellect,” said he, “appeared to have
recovered freshness and energy with prosperity; and, animated with
almost diabolical acuteness, to profit by every weakness of my own
nature. Even Fagan, with all his practised craft, had to succumb to the
shrewd and keenwitted powers of the old man; and Crowther owned that
all his experience of life had not shown him his equal in point of
intelligence.”

A misanthropic, bitter spirit gave him a vigor and energy that his years
might have denied him; and there was a kind of vindictive power about
him that withstood all the effects of fatigue and exhaustion.

The law had now begun its campaign in right earnest. There were two
great issues to be tried at bar, and a grand question, involving
any amount of intricacy, for the Chancery Court. The subject was the
possession of a large estate, and every legal celebrity of the day was
engaged by one side or the other. Of course such an event became the
general topic of discussion in all circles, but more particularly in
those wherein my father had once moved. Alas for the popularity of
personal qualities,--how short-lived is it ever! Of the many who used
to partake of his generous hospitality, and who benefited by his
friendship, how few could now speak even charitably of his acts! Indeed,
it would appear, from the tone in which they spoke, that each, even the
least observant or farseeing, had long anticipated his ruin. Such absurd
extravagance, such pretension! A house fit for a sovereign prince, and
a retinue like that of royalty! And then the daily style of
living,--endless profusion and waste! The “French connection”--none
would say marriage--also had its share of reprobation. The kindly
disposed only affected to deplore and grieve over the unhappy mistake.
The rigidly right seemed to read in his own downfall a justice for a
crime committed; while another section, as large as either, “took out”
 their indignation at his insolence in having dared to present her to the
world as his wife!

And yet his once warm heart was scarcely cold when they said these
things of him. And so it is to this day and to this hour: the same code
of morality exists, and the same set of moralizers are to be met with
everywhere. Far be it from me to say that faults and follies should
pass unnoticed and unstigmatized; but, at least, let the truth-teller
of to-day not have been the tuft-hunter of yesterday,--let the grave
monitor who rebukes extravagance, not once have been the Sybarite guest
who provoked excess; but least of all let us hear predictions of ruin
from the lips that only promised long years of happiness and enjoyment.

Events moved rapidly. The Chancellor appointed a receivership over the
property, and an order from the Court required that immediate possession
should be taken of the house and demesne. My father’s balance at his
bankers’ amounted to some thousand pounds. This, too, was sequestered
by a judge’s order, “awaiting proceedings.” An inventory of everything,
even to the personal effects of my mother, the jewellery she had brought
with her from France, her very wardrobe, was taken. The law has a most
microscopic eye for detail. Carriages, horses, servants’ liveries, were
numbered, the very cradle in which lay her baby was declared to belong
to some unknown owner; and a kind of mystical proprietorship seemed
to float unseen through the chambers and corridors of that devoted
dwelling.

My poor mother!--removed from room to room, with good-natured care, to
spare her the shock of proceedings which even her ignorance of the
world might have taken alarm at; weak, scarcely able to walk; only
half conscious of the movement around her; asking every moment for
explanations which none had courage to give her; agitated with vague
terror; a sense of some misfortune lowering over her, and each moment
nearer; catching at a chance word dropped here; eagerly watching
at every look there,--what misery, what suffering was yours, poor,
friendless, forsaken widow!

Where was MacNaghten, her one faithful friend and counsellor? He had
gone to town early that morning, and had not yet returned. One last but
fruitless effort to induce Curtis to come to terms had led him again to
seek an interview. Her cousin De Gabriac, who had been ill for several
days, had by a mere accident, from expressions picked up by his valet
in the household, learned the nature of the allegation against my
mother,--that her marriage was denied, and my illegitimacy declared.
Almost driven to madness by what sounded like an outrage to his pride,
he had set out for Dublin to fasten upon some one--any one--a personal
quarrel in the vindication of my mother’s honor. Fagan’s address
was known to him, by frequent mention of his name, and thither he
accordingly hastened. The Grinder was from home; but to await his
return, De Gabriac was ushered upstairs into the drawing-room, where an
elderly man was seated writing at a table. The old man lifted his head
and slightly saluted the stranger, but continued his occupation without
any further notice, and De Gabriac threw himself into a chair to wait,
with what patience he could, for Fagan’s coming.

There was a newspaper on the table, and De Gabriac took it up to spell
as he could the intelligence of the day. Almost the very first lines
which caught his eye were an announcement of an “Extensive sale of
valuable furniture, plate, and household effects, late the property
of Walter Carew, Esq.” Certain enigmatical words that headed the
advertisement puzzled the foreigner, and, unable to restrain his
eagerness to unravel their meaning, he advanced to the table where the
old man was writing, and in a polite tone asked him to explain what
meant such phrases as “_In re_ Joseph Curtis, Esq., of Meagh-valley
House, and others, petitioners.”

The other, thus addressed, looked from the newspaper to the inquirer,
and back again to the paper, and then to the astonished face of the
Frenchman, without a word. “I have to hope,” said De Gabriac, “that
nothing in my question may appear rude or uncivil. I merely wished to
know--”

“To know who Joseph Curtis is!” broke in the old man, quickly. “Then
I ‘ll tell you, sir. He is the only surviving son of Robert Harrison
Curtis and Eleanor Anne, his wife, born at Meagh-valley House, in
the parish of Cappagh, barony of Ivrone, Anno Domini 1704. Served in
Parliament for twenty-eight years, and commanded the militia of his
native county till deprived of that honor by a rascally Government and a
perjured Viceroy.” Here his voice grew loud, and his manner violent and
excited. “Since when, sir, harassed, persecuted, and tortured, he has
been robbed of his estates, stripped of his property, and left houseless
and friendless,--ay, sir, friendless, I say; for poverty and want
attract no friendship,--and who would still be the victim of knavery and
scoundrelism if Providence had not blessed him with a clear head as well
as a strong heart. Such he is, and such he stands before you. And now,
sir, that I have answered your question, will you favor me with a reply
to mine: what are you called?”

“I am the Count Emile de Gabriac,” said the Frenchman, smiling; “I will
spare you the pedigree and the birthplace.”

“Wisely done, I’ve no doubt, sir,” said Curtis, “if, as I surmise, you
are the relative of that French lady whom I met at Castle Carew.”

“You speak of my cousin, sir,--Madame de Carew.”

“I do not recognize her as such, sir, nor does the law of this country.”

“How do you mean, sir,--not married? Is it such you would imply?” cried
De Gabriac, fiercely.

“Never imagine that your foreign airs can terrify me, young gentleman,”
 said Curtis, insolently. “I ‘ve seen you in your own country, and
know well the braggadocio style you can assume. If you ask me for
information, do so with the manner that beseems inquiry. If you are for
a quarrel, it’s not Joe Curtis will balk your good intentions.”

“Poor old fool,” said De Gabriac, contemptuously. “If you had a grandson
or a nephew to answer for your insolence--”

“But I have neither, I want neither; I am ready, willing, and able to
defend my own honor; and this is exactly what I suspect you are unable
to say.”

“But you do not suppose that I can cross a weapon with the like of you!”
 said De Gabriac, with an insolent laugh.

“You would n’t be a Frenchman if you had n’t a subterfuge to escape a
meeting!” cried Curtis, with a most taunting impertinence of manner.

“This is pushing insolence too far, old man,” said De Gabriac, barely
able to restrain himself.

“And yet not far enough, it would seem, to prompt you to an act of
manhood. Now hear me, Monsieur Count. I am no admirer of your country,
nor its ways; but this I will say, that a French gentleman, so far as I
have seen of them, was always ready to resent an insult; and whenever
a slight was passed by unnoticed, the presumption ever was that he who
endured it was not a gentleman. Is it to some such explanation you wish
to conduct me in the present case?”

A contemptuous exclamation and a glance of ineffable disdain was all the
reply the Count vouchsafed to this outrageous appeal; and probably by
no means could he so effectually have raised the old man’s anger. Any
allusion to his age, to the infirmities that pertained to it, he bore
always with the greatest impatience; but to suppose that his time of
life placed him beyond self-vindication was an insult too great to be
endured, and he would have braved any peril to avenge it. His sudden
access to wealth, far from allaying the irritabilities of his nature,
had increased and exaggerated them all. The insolence of prosperity
was now added to the querulous temperament that narrow fortune had
engendered, and the excitement of his brain was little short of actual
frenzy. To what extent of outrage passion might have carried him there
is no saying, for he was already hurriedly advancing towards the Count,
when the door opened, and Polly Fagan entered. She had overheard from an
adjoining room the words of high altercation, and recognizing Curtis as
one of the speakers, determined, at any cost, to interfere.

“I am sure, sir,” said she, addressing the old man, while she courtesied
deeply to the stranger, “that you will forgive my intrusion; but I
only this moment learned that you were here writing, and I thought that
probably the quiet seclusion of my room would suit you better: may I
make bold to offer it to you?”

“Thanks, madam; but, with your leave, this is quite to my taste,” said
he, stiffly.

“It is so comfortable, sir, and looks out upon our little garden!” said
Polly, coaxingly.

“I am certain, madam, that it has every attraction, and only needs your
presence there to be incomparable.”

“Nay, sir,” said she, laughing, “I’ll not take your innuendo, save in
its flattering sense.”

“I never flatter, madam, for I would n’t try to pass on another the
base coinage I ‘d reject myself. Others, however,” and here he glanced
towards the Frenchman, “may not have these scruples; and I am sure the
charms of your apartment will be fully appreciated elsewhere.”

Polly blushed deeply, not the less so that the Frenchman’s eyes were
bent upon her during the delivery of the speech with evident admiration.

“If mademoiselle would permit me, even as a sanctuary--” began the
Count.

“Just so, Miss Polly,” broke in Curtis; “let him take refuge there, as
he tells you, for he feels very far from at his ease in my company.”

Polly’s quick intelligence read in these few words the real state of the
case; and, resolved at all hazards to prevent untoward consequences, she
made a sign to the Frenchman to follow her, and left the room.

It was in vain that the old man re-seated himself at the writing-table;
all his efforts at composure were fruitless, and he muttered to himself
threats of vengeance and imprecations till he worked his mind up to a
state of ungovernable fury. It was in the very paroxysm of this passion,
and while he was pacing the chamber with hasty steps, that Fagan
entered.

“Nothing unpleasant has occurred, sir, I trust,” exclaimed the Grinder,
as he beheld the agitated face, and watched the lips that never ceased
to mutter unintelligibly.

“Tell me, sir,” cried he, advancing up to Fagan, and placing one hand
upon his shoulder, “tell me, sir, what is there in my age and appearance
that should exclude me from exacting the satisfaction in vogue amongst
gentlemen? I ask you, sir, in plain language,--and you have a right
to answer me, for it was in your house and under your roof that I have
received this outrage,--where and what is my disqualification?”

“Pray explain yourself, Mr. Curtis. I trust I have n’t heard you aright,
and that any one had dared to offend you within these walls!”

“Yes, sir, in the very room where we stand, not half an hour ago, an
insolent scoundrel of a foreigner--a French lackey, a hairdresser,
perhaps--has had the insolence to talk to me, a gentleman of fortune
and position, a man whose estate places him in the first rank of this
country’s gentry. You said so yesterday. Don’t deny it, sir; I quote
your own very words.”

“I am most ready and willing to repeat them, Mr. Curtis,” said Fagan,
humbly; “pray go on.”

“You said yesterday,” continued Curtis, “in the presence of two others,
that, except Lord Kiltimon’s, there was not so large a property in the
country; did you, sir, or did you not?”

“I certainly did say so, sir.”

“And now, sir, you would go back of it,--you had some reservation,
some qualifying something or other, I’ll be bound; but I tell you,
Mr. Anthony Fagan, that though these habits may suit an apple-stall in
Mary’s Abbey, they are unbecoming when used in the presence of men of
rank and fortune. I believe that is plain speaking, sir; I trust there
may be no misconception of my meaning, at least!”

Fagan was not, either by nature or by disposition, disposed to submit
tamely to insult; but whether it was from some strong reason of policy,
or that he held Curtis as one not fully responsible for his words, he
certainly took no steps to resent his language, but rather seemed eager
to assuage the violence of the old man’s temper.

“It’s all very well, sir,” said Curtis, after listening with
considerable show of impatience to these excuses; “it’s all very well
to say you regret this, and deplore that. But let me tell you there are
other duties of your station beside apologies. You should take measures
that when persons of my rank and station accept the shelter of
your roof, they are not broken in upon by rascally foreigners, vile
adventurers, and swindlers! You may be as angry as you please, sir, but
I will repeat every word I have said. Yes, Mr. Fagan; I talk from book,
sir,--I speak with knowledge; for when you were serving out crab-apples,
in a check-apron, at your father’s stall, I was travelling on the
Continent as a young gentleman of fortune!”

“Until you tell me how you have been insulted, and by whom,” said Fagan,
with some warmth, “I must hope that there is some easily explained
mistake.”

“Egad! this is better and better,” exclaimed Curtis. “No, sir, you
mistake me much; you entirely misunderstand me. I should most implicitly
accept your judgment as to a bruised peach or a blighted pear; but upon
a question of injured honor or of outraged feeling, I should scarcely
defer to you so humbly!” and as he said these words, with an air of
most exaggerated self-importance, he put on his hat and left the room,
without once noticing the respectful salutation of the Grinder.

When Fagan entered his daughter’s room, he was surprised at the presence
of the stranger, whom she presented to him as the Count de Gabriac, and
who had so far profited by the opportunity as to have already made a
most favorable impression upon the fair Polly.

Polly rapidly told her father that the stranger, while awaiting his
return, had been accidentally exposed to the most outrageous treatment
from Curtis, to shelter him from a continuance of which she had offered
him the hospitality of her own apartment.

“He came in,” resumed she, “to learn some tidings of his cousin’s
affairs; for it appears that law proceedings of the most rigorous kind
are in operation, and the poor widow will be obliged to leave Castle
Carew.”

Polly spoke with true feelings of regret, for she really now learned for
the first time that my mother’s position was involved in any difficulty,
though from what precise cause she was still in ignorance.

“Leave me to speak with the Count alone, Polly; I can probably afford
him the information he seeks.”

The interview was not of long duration; but Fagan acquitted himself with
a degree of tact and delicacy that scarcely seemed native to him. It
is difficult to guess at his real motives in the matter. Perhaps he
entertained some secret doubts that my mother’s marriage might one day
or other admit of proof; perhaps he felt some touch of gratitude for
the treatment his daughter had experienced when a guest at Castle Carew.
Indeed, he spoke of this to the Count with pride and satisfaction.
Whatever the reasons, he used the greatest and most delicate reserve
in alluding to my mother’s situation, and told De Gabriac that the
proceedings, however rigorous they might appear, were common in such
cases, and that when my mother had sufficiently recovered herself to
give detailed information as to the circumstances of her marriage, there
would be ample time and opportunity to profit by the knowledge. He went
even further, and suggested that for the present he wished to place his
little cottage at the Killeries at her disposal, until such time as
she could fix upon a residence more to her taste. In fact, both his
explanations and his offers were made so gracefully and so kindly that
De Gabriac assented at once, and promised to come to dinner on the
following day to complete all the arrangements.

When MacNaghten came to hear of the plan, he was overjoyed, not only
because it offered a home to my mother in her houseless destitution, but
as evidencing a kind spirit on Fagan’s part, from which he augured
most favorably. In fact, the arrangement, while relieving them from
all present embarrassment, suggested also future hope; and it was now
determined that while De Gabriac was to accompany my mother to the far
west, Dan himself was to set out for France, with a variety of letters
which might aid him in tracing out the story of my father’s marriage.

It was at an humble little hotel in Stafford Street, a quaint old house
called “The Hart,” that they passed the last evening together before
separating. Polly Fagan came over to drink tea with my mother, and they
chatted away in sombre mood till past midnight. MacNaghten was to sail
with an early tide, and they agreed to sit up till it should be his time
to depart. Often and often have I heard Dan speak of that evening. Every
incident of it made an impression upon his memory quite disproportioned
to their non-importance, and he has taken pains even to show me where
each of them sat. The corner where my mother’s chair stood is now
before me, and I fancy I can bring up her pale young widow’s face,
tear-furrowed and sad, trying to look interested where, with all her
efforts, her wandering thoughts were ever turning to the past, and where
by no exertion could she keep pace with those who “sorrowed not as she
sorrowed.”

“We did not dare to talk to her of the future,” said poor
MacNaghten,--“her grief was too holy a thing to be disturbed by such
thoughts; but amongst ourselves we spoke whisperingly of when we were
all to meet again, and she seemed to listen to us with interest. It
was strange enough,” remarked he, “how sorrow had blended all our
natures,--differing and discordant as Heaven knows they were--into some
resemblance of a family. I felt towards Polly as though she had been
my sister, and totally forgot that Gabriac belonged to another land and
another people: so humanizing is the touch of affliction!”

It struck three; and at four o’clock Dan was to sail. As he stood up, he
caught sight of my mother, and saw that her eyes were full of tears. She
made a signal to him to approach, and then said, in a fervent whisper,--

“Come and see him before you go;” and led the way to the adjoining room,
where her baby lay asleep. “I know,” said she, in broken accents, “that
you will be a friend to him always; but if aught were to befall you--”

MacNaghten cast his eyes heavenward, but made no answer.

“Yes,” cried she, “I have that hope;” and, so saying, she knelt down
beside the little cot to pray.

“It was odd,” said he, when telling me this. “I had never heard words of
prayer in the French language before; but they struck upon my heart with
a power and significance I cannot explain. Was it some strange inward
consciousness of the power of Him before whom I was standing, and who
knows every tongue and every people, and to whom all hearts are open,
let their accents be ever so unlike or so various? I was in the street,”
 added he, “without knowing how I came there, for my brain was turning
with a thousand thoughts.

“‘Where to, sir?’ said the carman.

“‘The Pigeon House,’ said I, seating myself on the vehicle.

“‘Ain’t you Mr. MacNaghten, sir?’ asked a large, well-dressed man, in a
civil voice, as he touched his hat respectfully to me.

“‘That is my name,’ replied I.

“‘Mr. Daniel MacNaghten, of Garrah Lynn?’ asked he, again.

“‘When I owned it,’ rejoined I, trying to smile at a sad recollection.

“‘Then I have a writ against you, sir,’ continued he, ‘and I’m sorry I
must execute it, too.’

“‘At whose suit, and for what sum?’ asked I, trying to be calm and
collected. He answered my last question first, by saying it was for an
acceptance for twelve hundred and seventy-six pounds odd; and, after a
little pressing, added,--

“‘At the suit of Joseph Curtis, Esq., of Meagh-valley House.’

“‘What’s to be done?’ said I. ‘I cannot pay it.’

“‘Come over to Green Street for the present, anyhow,’ said he, civilly;
‘there are plenty of houses.’

“‘No, no; to jail, if I must,’ said I, boldly. ‘It’s not myself I was
thinking about.’

“Just as day was breaking, I passed into the prison; and when I thought
to be looking upon the mountains of the bay slowly fading behind me,
I was ushered into the debtors’ yard, to wait till my future
dwelling-place should be assigned me.”

I copy this incident in the very words he himself related it.



CHAPTER XXI. AT REST

Having already acquainted my reader with the source from which I
have derived all these materials of my family history, he will not be
surprised to learn that MacNaghten’s imprisonment leaves a blank in this
part of my narrative. All that I know, indeed, of these early years can
be told in a few lines. My mother repaired with me to the cottage in
the Killeries, to which also came De Gabriac shortly after, followed
by Polly Fagan, whose affection for my mother now exhibited itself most
remarkably. Not vainly endeavoring to dam up the current of a grief that
would flow on, she tried to interest my mother in ways and by pursuits
which were totally new to her, and, consequently, not coupled with
painful recollections. She taught her to visit the poor in their cabins;
to see them, in the hard struggle of their poverty, stoutly confronting
fortune day by day, carrying the weary load of adversity, without one
hope as to the time when they might cease to labor and be at rest. These
rambles through wild and unvisited tracts rewarded them well in the
grand and glorious objects of scenery with which they became acquainted.
It was everlasting discovery,--now of some land-locked little bay,
half-hid among its cliffs; now some lone island, with its one family for
inhabitants; or now some picturesque bit of inland scenery, with wood
and mountain and waving grass. Occasionally, too, they ventured out to
sea, either to creep along the coast, and peep into the rocky caverns
with which it is perforated, or they would set sail for the distant
islands of Arran,--bleak and desolate spots on the wide, wild ocean. The
charms of landscape in its grandest features were, however, the least of
the benefits these excursions conferred, at least on my poor mother. She
learned then to see and to feel that the sorrows of life fall uniformly;
that few, indeed, are singled out for especial suffering; and that
the load is apportioned to the strength that is to bear it. She saw,
besides, how the hard necessities of existence formed in themselves
a barrier against the wearing influence of grief: the hands that must
labor for daily bread are not wrung in the wild transports of misery!
It is the law of human nature, and the claims of the living are the
counterpoise to the memory of the dead.

Neither her early education nor her habits disposed her to any exertion.
All her ideas of life were circumscribed within the limits of certain
pleasures and enjoyments. From her infancy she had never known any other
care than how to make time pass swiftly and agreeably: now she had to
learn the more rewarding lesson that life can be profitably passed;
and to this task she addressed herself, I believe, with a hearty
earnestness.

It is only by estimating the change which took place in her character at
this time, and which marked it during the short remainder of her life,
that I am led to speculate upon the cause. Her days were passed in
intercourse with the peasantry, whom, at last, she began to understand,
through all the difficulties of their strange temperament and all the
eccentricities of their habits. There was not a cabin for miles round,
with every one of whose inmates she was not acquainted, and of whose
joys and sorrows, whose hopes and cares, she was not in some shape the
participator.

When the sea was too rough and the weather too wild for the fishermen to
venture out, she was constantly amongst them with some material for home
occupation; and it was curious to see those fingers, which had never
been used to harder toil than the mock labor of the embroidery frame,
ingeniously moving through the mazes of a fishing-net, while in her
foreign English she would relate some story of her Breton countrymen,
certain to interest those who sat admiringly around her.

How singular it is that the experience and the habits which are destined
to guide us through the great trials of life are frequently acquired in
scenes and amongst people the very opposite to those wherein the lesson
is to be profitable! And yet so it was. In exhorting and cheering others
she elevated the tone of her own mind; in suggesting exertion to the
faint-hearted, she imbibed courage herself; and when teaching them to be
of good cheer, she spoke the language of encouragement to herself.
Her bodily health, too, kept pace with her mental. She who rarely had
ventured out if the weather merely were threatening, could now face the
stormiest seasons of that wild west. The darkest day of winter would see
her abroad, braving with an almost childish excitement the beating
rain and wind, or fighting onward to some lone cabin amongst the hills,
through sleet and snowdrift, undeterred!

I have heard but little of the life they led within doors, but I believe
that the evenings were passed pleasantly with books and conversation,
De Gabriac reading aloud, while my mother and Polly worked; and thus the
winter glided easily over, and spring was now approaching ere they were
well aware that so many months had gone by. If my mother wondered at
times why they never heard from MacNaghten, De Gabriac and Polly,
who were in the secret for his mishap, would frame various excuses
to account for his silence. Meanwhile they heard that such was the
complication of the law proceedings which concerned the estate, so
intricate the questions, and so puzzling, that years might pass in
litigation ere any decision could be come to. A reserved offer came
at this time from Sir Carew O’Moore to settle some small annuity on my
mother if she would relinquish all claim to the estate in his favor; but
Fagan hesitated to acquaint her with a proposal which he well knew
she would reject, and the very fact of which must be an insult to her
feelings. This the Grinder commented on in a letter to his daughter,
while he also avowed that as he saw no prospect of anything favorable to
my mother likely to issue from the course of law, he must press upon her
the necessity of her seeking an asylum in her own country and amongst
her own friends.

I have never been able to ascertain why my mother herself did not at
once determine on returning to France after my father’s death. Perhaps
the altered circumstances of her fortune deterred her. There might have
been reasons, perhaps, on the score of her birth. My impression is, that
De Gabriac had quitted the Continent overwhelmed with debt, and dared
not return there, and that, as his counsels greatly swayed her, she was
influenced by whatever arguments he adduced.

So little was my mother acquainted with the details of her altered
condition in life, that she still believed a small but secure income
remained to her; and it was only by a few lines addressed to her, and
inclosed in a letter to Polly, that she was at length brought to see
that she was actually without means of support for a single day, and
that hitherto she had been a dependent on Fagan’s kindness for a home.

I believe that this communication was not made with any harshness or
want of feeling; on the contrary, that it was conveyed with whatever
delicacy the writer could summon to so ungracious a task. It is more
than probable, besides, that Fagan would not have made it at all, or
at least not for a considerable time, had he not at that moment been
involved in an angry correspondence with Polly, who had flatly refused
to quit my mother and return home. Irritated at this, and driven to
extremities, he had determined in this last course to accomplish his
object.

My mother was so much overwhelmed by the tidings that she thought she
could not have understood them aright, and hastened to Polly’s room,
with the letter in her hand.

“Tell me,” cried she, “what this means. Is it possible--can it be
true--that I am actually a beggar?”

Polly read the lines with a flashing eye and heightened color, but never
uttered a word.

“Speak, Polly, dearest, and relieve me of this terrible fear, if you
can,” cried my mother, passionately.

“I understand what this means,” said Polly, crushing the note in her
hand; “this is a question that requires explanation. You must leave it
to me. I’ll go up to town this evening, and before the end of the week
I ‘ll be back with you. My father is mistaken,--that’s all; and you have
misunderstood him!”

And thus planning, and excusing and contradicting herself, she at last
succeeded in allaying my mother’s fears and assuring her that it was a
mere misapprehension, and that a few days would suffice to rectify it.

My mother insisted that Polly should not travel alone, and that Gabriac
should be her companion,--an arrangement to which she acceded with
comparative ease and willingness. Had Polly Fagan and Gabriac merely met
as people meet in society, with no other opportunities of knowing each
other than are presented by the ordinary intercourse with the world,
the great likelihood is that they should have conceived for each other
a rooted dislike. There was scarcely one single subject on which they
thought in common. They differed in ideas of country and people. Their
tastes, their prejudices, their ambitions, all took opposite directions;
and yet such is the effect of intimacy, such the consequence of daily,
hourly communion, that each not only learned to tolerate, but even
to imbibe, some of the notions of the other; and an imperceptible
compromise was at length entered into, by Which individuality became
tempered down, and even the broad traits of nationality almost effaced.
The Count came to perceive that what he had at first regarded as coarse
and inelegant was in reality the evidence of only a bold and vigorous
spirit, exulting in its own energy, and confident of its power; and
Polly began to recognize that remarkable truth, that a coxcomb need
not necessarily be a coward, and that the most excessive puppyism
can consort with even a chivalrous courage and daring. Of these
qualities--the very first in Polly’s estimation--he had given several
proofs in their adventures by sea and land, and under circumstances,
too, where the very novelty of the peril to be surmounted might have
suggested some fear.

There is a generous impulse usually to exalt in our esteem those whom we
had once held cheaply, when on nearer intimacy we discover that we had
wronged them. We feel as if there was a debt of reparation due to them,
and that we are unjust till we have acquitted it. It may chance that now
and then this honorable sentiment may carry us beyond reasonable bounds,
and that we are disposed to accord even more than is due to them.

I have no means of knowing if such were the case here: I can but surmise
from other circumstances the causes which were in operation. It is
enough, however, if I state that long before Gabriac had passed the
limit of admiration for Polly, she had conceived for him a strong
sentiment of love; and while he was merely exerting those qualities
which are amongst the common gifts of his class and his country, she
was becoming impressed with the notion of his vast superiority to all
of those she had ever met in society. It must be taken into account that
his manner towards her evinced a degree of respect and devotion which,
though not overpassing the usual observance of good manners in France,
contrasted very favorably with the kind of notice bestowed by country
gentlemen upon “the Grinder’s daughter.” Those terrible traditions of
exorbitant interest, those fatal compacts with usury, that had made
Fagan’s name so dreadfully notorious in Ireland, were all unknown to
Gabriac. He only saw in Polly a very handsome girl, of a far more than
common amount of intelligence, and with a spirit daringly ambitious. As
the favored friend and companion of his cousin, he took it for granted
that the peculiar customs of Ireland admitted such intimacies between
those socially unequal, and that there was nothing strange or unusual in
seeing her where she was. He therefore paid her every attention he
would have bestowed on the most high-born damsel of his own court; he
exhibited that deference which his own language denominated homage; and,
in fact, long before he had touched her affections, he had flattered
her pride and self-love by a courtesy to which she had never, in all her
intercourse with the world, been habituated.

Perhaps my reader needs not one-half of the explanation to surmise
why two young people--both good-looking, both attractive, and both
idle--should, in the solitude of a country cottage, fall in love
with each other. That they did so, at all events,--she first, and he
afterwards,--is, however, the fact; and now, by the simple-hearted
arrangement of my poor mother,--whose thoughts had never taken in such
a casualty,--were they to set off together as fellow-travellers for
Dublin. So far, indeed, from even suspecting such a possibility, it
was only a few days previously that she had been deploring to Polly her
cousin’s fickleness in breaking off his proposed marriage in France, on
the mere ground that his absence must necessarily have weakened the ties
that bound him to his betrothed What secret hopes the revelation may
have suggested to Polly’s mind is matter that I cannot even speculate
on.

It was with a heavy heart my poor mother saw them drive from the door,
and came back to sit down in solitude beside the cradle of her baby. It
was a dark and rainy day of winter; the beating of the waves against
the rocky shore, and the wailing winds, made sad chorus together; and
without, as well as within, all was cheerless and depressing. Dark and
gloomy as was the landscape, it was to the full as bright as the scene
within her own heart; for now that she began to arrange facts and
circumstances together, and to draw inferences from them, she saw that
nothing but ruin lay before her. The very expressions of Fagan’s letter,
so opposite to the almost submissive courtesy of former times, showed
her that he no longer hesitated to declare her the dependent on his
bounty. “And yet,” cried she, aloud, “are these the boasted laws of
England? Is the widow left to starve?--is the orphan left houseless,
except some formality or other be gone through? To whom descends the
heritage of the father, while the son is still living?” From these
thoughts, which no ingenuity of hers could pierce, she turned to others
not less depressing. What had become of all those who once called
themselves her husband’s friends? She, it is true, had herself lived
estranged and retired from the world; but Walter was everywhere,--all
knew him, all professed to love him. Bitter as ingratitude will ever
seem, all its poignancy is nothing compared to the smart it inflicts
when practised towards those who have gone from us forever; we feel then
as though treachery had been added to the wrong. “Oh!” cried she, in her
anguish, “how have they repaid him whose heart and hand were ever open
to them!” A flood of recollections, long dammed up by the habits of her
daily life, and the little cares by which she was environed, now swept
through her mind, and from her infancy and her childhood, in all its
luxurious splendor, to her present destitution, each passage of her
existence seemed revealed before her. The solitude of the lonely cottage
suggesting such utter desolation, and the wild and storm-lashed scene
without adding its influence to her depression, she sat for some time
still and unmoved, like one entranced; and then, springing to her feet,
she rushed out into the beating rain, glad to exchange the conflict of
the storm for that more terrible war that waged within her.

Like one flying from some terrific enemy, she ran with all her speed
towards the shore. The sea was now breaking over the rocks with
tremendous force, and sending vast clouds of spray high into the air,
while whole sheets of foam were wildly tossed about by the wind. Through
these she struggled on; now stumbling or falling, as her tender feet
yielded to the sharp rocks, till she reached a little promontory over
the sea, on which the waves struck with all their force; and there, with
streaming hair and dripping garments, she sat braving the hurricane,
and, in a wild paroxysm of imagined heroism, daring fortune to her
worst.

Physical ills are as nothing to those that make the heart their
dwelling-place; and to her there seemed an unspeakable relief in the
thundering crash of the storm, as compared with the desolate silence of
her lonely house.

[Illustration:  Self-same spot]

The whole of that day saw her on the self-same spot; and there was she
discovered at nightfall by some fishermen, propped up in a crevice of
the rock, but cold, and scarcely conscious. They all knew her well, and
with the tenderest care they carried her to her cottage. Even before
they reached it, her mind began to wander, and wild and incoherent
words dropped from her. That same night she was seized with fever; the
benevolent but simple people about her knew not what to do; the nearest
medical aid was many miles off; and when it did arrive, on the following
morning, the malady had already attacked the brain.

The same sad, short series of events so many have witnessed, so many
have stood by, with breaking hearts, now occurred. To wild delirium,
with all its terrible excesses, succeeded the almost more dreadful
stupor; and to that again the brief lucid moment of fast-ebbing life;
and then came the sleep that knows no waking--and my mother was at rest!



CHAPTER XXII. THE VILLAGE OF REICHENAU.

I must now ask of my reader to clear at a bound both time and space, and
stand beside me some years later, and in a foreign land.

The scene is at the foot of the Splugen Alps, in a little village begirt
with mountains, every crag and eminence of which is surmounted by a
ruined castle. There is a grandeur and solemnity in the whole landscape,
not alone from its vast proportions, but from the character of
impregnability suggested by those fastnesses and the gray, sad-colored
tint of hill and verdure around.

There is barely space for the# village in the narrow glen, which is
traversed by two streams,--the one, yellow, turbid, and sluggish; the
other, sparkling, bright, and impetuous. These are the Rhines, which,
uniting below the village of Reichenau, form that noble river whose
vine-clad cliffs and castled crags are lyrical in every land of Europe.

I scarcely know a spot throughout the whole Continent more typical of
isolation and retirement than this. There is no entrance to it from the
north, save by a wooden bridge over the torrent; towards the south it
is only accessible by the winding zig-zag of the “Via Mala;” east and
westward rise gigantic mountains untraversed by even the chamois-hunter;
and yet there is no appearance of that poverty and destitution so
usually observable in remote and unvisited tracts. Many of the houses
are large and substantially built, some evince a little architectural
pretension in the way of ornament, and one, which occupies a little
terrace above the river, has somewhat the air of a chateau, and in its
windowed roof and moated gardens shows that it aspired to the proud
distinction of a seignorial residence.

It might be difficult to ascertain how an edifice of this size and
pretension came to be built in such a place; at the time I speak of, it
was a school, and a modest-looking little board affixed to a pear-tree
at the gate announced, “The Academy of Monsieur Jost.” In my boyish
eyes, this château, its esplanade above the stream, the views it
embraced, and the wild, luxuriant orchard by which it was begirt,
comprised an amount of magnificence and beauty such as no stretch of
imagination could surpass. In respect to its picturesque site, my error
was probably not great: the mountain scene, in all its varied tints of
season and sunlight, is still before me, nor can I remember one whose
impression is more pleasing.

The château, for so it was called, lost nothing in my estimation by any
familiarity with its details. I only knew of the large school-room with
its three windows that opened on the terrace, the smaller chamber where
the classical teacher held his more select audience, and a little den,
fitted up with cases of minerals, insects, and stuffed birds, which
was denominated Monsieur Jost’s cabinet, and where that worthy man sat,
weeks, mouths, I believe years long, microscope in eye, examining the
intricate anatomy of beetles, or poring over some singular provisions in
the eyelids of moths. Save when “brought up” for punishment, we rarely
saw him. Entirely engrossed with his own pursuits, he seldom bestowed
a thought upon us; and when, by any untoward incident such as I
have alluded to, we were thrust into his notice, the presence of a
strange-looking butterfly, a brilliant dragon-moth, a spider even, would
be certain to divert his thoughts into a new channel, and ourselves and
our derelictions be utterly forgotten. Need I say that no culprit ever
appeared in the dock without some such recommendation to mercy, nor was
there one of us ever unprepared with some specimen of the insect tribe,
ready to be produced at any moment of emergency?

It is but fair to say that the other masters--there were but two--were
singularly forbearing and indulgent. Monsieur Gervois, who “taught”
 the little boys, was a quaint-looking, venerable old gentleman, with a
queue, and who wore on fête-days a ribbon in his button-hole. He was, it
was said, originally a French noble of large fortune, but who had lost
everything by the extravagance of an only son, and had sought out, in
voluntary exile, this remote spot to end his days in. His manners were
always marked with a tinge of proud reserve which none ever infringed
upon, nor, out of school-hours, did any one ever presume to obtrude upon
his retirement.

The classical teacher was a foreigner, we knew not of what nation; we
called him sometimes a Pole, now a Spaniard, now an Irishman,--for all
these nationalities only to us expressed distant and unknown lands. He
was small almost to dwarfishness, and uniformly dressed in a suit of
peculiarly colored brown cloth; his age might have been fifty, sixty, or
even more, for there was little means of deciphering the work of time in
a face sad and careworn, but yet un wrinkled, and where sorrow had set
its seal in early life, but without having worn the impress any deeper
by time. Large spectacles of blue glass concealed his eyes, of which,
the story ran, one was sightless; and his manner was uniformly quiet and
patient,--extending to every one the utmost limit of forbearance,
and accepting the slightest efforts to learn, as evidences of a noble
ambition. To myself he was more than generous,--he was truly and deeply
affectionate. I was too young to be one of his class, but he came for
me each morning to fetch me to the school; for I did not live at the
château, but at a small two-storied house abutting against the base of
the mountain. There we lived; and now let me explain who we were.

But a peep within our humble sitting-room will save both of us much
time. I have called it humble,--I might have used a stronger word; for
it was poor almost to destitution. The wooden chairs and tables; the
tiled floor; the hearth, on which some soaked branches of larch are
smoking; the curtainless window; as well as the utter absence of even
the very cheapest appliances of comfort,--all show indigence; while a
glance at the worn form and hollow cheek of her who now bends over
the embroidery-frame attests that actual want of sustenance is there
written. Haggard and thin as the features are, it needs no effort to
believe that they once constituted beauty of a high order. The eye, now
sunken and almost colorless, was once flashing in its brilliancy; and
that lip, indrawn and bloodless, was full and rounded like that of
a Grecian statue. Even yet, amidst all the disfigurement of a coarse
dress, the form is graceful, and every motion and gesture indicate a
culture that must have been imbibed in a very different sphere.

How I have her before me at this instant, as, hearing my childish
footstep at the door, she pulls the string to admit me, and then,
turning from her frame, kneels down to kiss me! Monsieur Joseph, for
so is the Latin master called, stands just within the doorway, as if
waiting to be invited to come further.

“And how has he been to-day,--a good boy?” asks she.

Monsieur Joseph smiles, and nods his head.

“I’m glad of it; Jasper will always behave well. He will know that to do
right is a duty, and a duty fulfilled is a blessing. What says Monsieur
Gervois,--is he content too?”

“Quite so,” I reply. “He said I knew my hymn perfectly, and that if I
learned the two pages that he showed me, off by heart, I should be made
‘elite’ of my class.”

“And what will that be?”

“I shall be above them all, and they must salute me when we meet out of
school and in play-hours.”

“Let them do so in affection, but not for coercion, Jasper; he who is
cleverer than his fellows ought to be humbler, if he would be as happy.”

“Quite true, Polly, quite true; you never said anything more just. The
conscious power of intellect tells its possessor of his weakness as well
as of his strength. Jasper, my child, be humble.”

“But when I said humble,” broke in she again, “I meant in self-esteem;
for there is a kind of pride that sustains and elevates us.”

Monsieur Joseph only sighed gently, but never spoke.

After a few words like these, I was usually dismissed to my play-room,
a little corner eked out of an old tower which had been accidentally
joined to the house after it was built, but which to me was a boon
unspeakable, for it was all my own; but can I revel in the delight of
that isolation which each afternoon saw me enjoy? I would briefly tell
my reader, if so be that he need the information, that she who in that
worn attire bends over her task is Polly Fagan, and that Monsieur Joseph
is no other than our old acquaintance Joe Raper!

De Gabriac had married Polly secretly, Joe Raper alone being admitted
to their confidence. For months long they had watched for some favorable
opportunity of breaking the event to the old man; and at last, worn out
by care and anxiety, Polly could refrain no longer, but made the avowal
herself, and, in a few brief words, told her fault and her sorrow.

The Grinder heard her with the stern impassiveness that he ever could
summon in any dread emergency. He had that species of courage that can
surmount every peril, only let its full extent be known; and although
it was true that the announcement of the loss of all he was worth in the
world would have been lighter tidings than those he now listened to, he
heard her to the end without interruption. There was that in his calm,
cold face which smote her to the very heart; the very way he drew back
his hand, as she tried to grasp it in her own, was a shock to her;
and ere she finished her sad story, her voice was broken, and her lips
tremulous.

Terrible conflict was it between father and child! between two natures
each proud as the other,--each bold, stern, and unforgiving!

“The date of this event?” asked he, as she concluded.

“The ninth of October.”

“Where?”

“At a chapel in Cullenswood Avenue.”

“Who witnessed it?”

“Raper.”

“Any other?”

“No other.”

“The ninth of October fell on a Tuesday; it was then, or the day after,
that I gave you a diamond clasp, a present?”

“It was.”

“Who performed this ceremony?”

“A priest, but I am not at liberty to tell his name,--at least, without
the assurance of your forgiveness.”

“Then do not tell it! The man is still living?”

“I believe so.”

“And your husband,--where is he?”

“In the city. He is waiting but to be received by you ere he return to
France to arrange his affairs in that country.”

“He need not long delay his departure, then: tell him so.”

“You forgive us, then?” cried she, almost bursting with gratitude.

“No!--never!”

“Not forgive us!--not acknowledge us!”

“Never! never!” reiterated he, with a thick utterance that sounded like
the very concentration of passion. The words seemed to have a spell in
them to conjure up a feeling in her who heard, as deeply powerful as in
him who spoke them.

“Am I no longer your daughter, sir?” asked she, rising and drawing
herself to her full height before him.

“You are a Countess, madam,” said he, with a scornful irony; “I am but
an humble man, of obscure station and low habits. I know nothing of
nobility, nor of its ways.”

“I ask again, do you disown me?” said she, with a voice as calm and
collected as his own.

“For ever and ever,” said he, waving his hand, as though the gesture was
to be one of adieu. “You are mine no longer,--you had ceased to be so
ere I knew it. Go to your home, if you have one; here, you are but an
intruder,--unasked, unwished for!”

“Bitter words to part with! but hear me, sir. He who has joined his lot
to mine should not pay the penalty of my fault. Against him you can bear
no malice; he at least does not merit the reproach you have cast on me.
Will you see him,--may he speak with you?”

“Whenever he pleases,--provided it be but once. I will not be
importuned.”

“You will bear in mind, sir, that he is a man of birth and station, and
that to his ears words of insult are a stranger.”

“I will treat him with all the deference I owe to his rank, and to the
part he has performed towards myself,” said Fagan, slowly.

“It were, perhaps, better, then, that you should not meet?”

“It were, perhaps, better so!”

“Good-bye, sir. I have no more to say.”

“Good-bye, madam. Tell Raper I want to speak to him, as you pass out.”

With Raper the interview was briefer still. Fagan dryly informed his old
follower that he no longer needed his services. And although Joe
heard the words as a criminal might have listened to those of his last
sentence, he never uttered a syllable. Fagan was brief, though bitter.
He reproached him with the long years he had sheltered him beneath his
roof, and reviled him for ingratitude! He spoke of him as one who
had eaten the bread of idleness, and repaid an existence of ease by
treachery. Once, and only once, did the insulting language he lavished
on him seem to sting him beyond further endurance. It was when Fagan
said:

“You think me in your power, sir; you fancy that amid that mass of
rubbish and confusion my affairs have been involved in, that you alone
can be the guide. But I tell you here now that were it even so, I ‘d
rather heap them on the fire, and stand forth a beggar to the world,
than harbor within my doors a man like you!”

The struggle that it cost poor Joe to hear this, without reply, was
great; but a sense of the deference that throughout a long life he had
ever rendered to his master, overpowered all considerations of self. He
indeed felt that he had been wronged; he knew all the injustice of the
reproach; but he also bethought him of the many years in which that
house had been his home, and that hearth his own. He was not one to
remember what he had rendered in return, nor think of the long existence
of toil by which he had earned his livelihood. The settled humility
which was the basis of his whole character made him esteem himself as
one whose station excluded all thought of those relations that exist
between members of the same community; and that his conduct should be
arraigned, argued that his acts possessed a degree of importance he had
never attributed to them.

He heard Fagan, therefore, throughout, without any effort at reply; and,
heaving a faint sigh, withdrew.

I have no means of knowing how Gabriac behaved in this trying emergency.
All that I have heard came from Raper; and poor Joe was neither shrewd
in his observation of character, nor quick to appreciate motives. The
Count decided at once on a return to the Continent: perhaps he thought
there might arise some chance of reconciliation with the father if
Polly, for a time, at least, were withdrawn from his sight; perhaps,
too, some hope there might be of arrangement of his own affairs. Raper
was also to accompany them, in the prospect of finding some clerkship
in an office, or some employment in a mercantile house abroad, where his
knowledge of languages might be available. At all events, his protection
and companionship would be useful to Polly, whenever the Count would be
compelled to absent himself from home; and, lastly, the funds for the
enterprise were all supplied by Joe, who contributed something under
four hundred pounds,--the savings of a whole life of labor!

As for Polly, to the humblest ornament she had ever worn, to the meanest
gift she had received in childhood,--she left all behind her. Her jewels
were worth some thousands,--her wardrobe was even splendid; but she went
forth without a gem, and with barely what sufficed her in dress.

“And what is this?” said the Count, half disdainfully touching with his
foot what seemed to be an oblong basket of colored straw.

“Poor Josephine’s baby!” said Polly, with eyes swimming in tears.

“And is he, is she,--whichever it be,--to form one of the party?” asked
he, angrily.

“Can you ask it, Emile? You remember the last words she ever spoke to us
on the morning we left the Killeries.”

“That unlucky journey!” muttered he; but fortunately not loud enough for
her to catch the words.

“The little fellow will soon be able to walk, and to mutter some words;
he will be company for me when you are away!” said she, sorrowfully.

“L’Ami Joseph ought to fill up that void,” said De Gabriac, laughing. “I
think myself the very paragon of husbands to accede to the arrangement!”

Strange words were these for her to hear,--nor, indeed, could she
penetrate their meaning; but Polly’s cares at that moment gave little
time for thought, for every detail of preparation was left to her.
Raper, it is true, did his utmost to aid her; but already De Gabriac had
assumed a manner of superiority and command towards Joe which greatly
embarrassed Polly, and compelled her to use every means of keeping them
apart.

Thus were they started on the sea of life: does it need much foresight
to predict the voyage?



CHAPTER XXIII. A MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE

Why do we all refer to the period of boyhood as one of happiness? It
is not that it had not its own sorrows, nor that they were really so
light,--it is simply because it was the season of hope. In after-life,
as deception after deception has checked us, when disappointment has
dulled expectancy, we become more practical, less dreamy, and, alas!
less happy. The possible and the probable of youth are not the possible
and the probable of manhood, still less those of riper age. The realms
of boyish fancy are as wide as the great ocean; and we revel in them in
all the plenitude of unrestricted power. There is not a budding effort
of intellect that we do not magnify to ourselves as the origin of future
distinction. We exalt our feats of strength and courage into deeds of
heroic daring; and we fancy that the little struggles and crosses we
meet with are like the great trials and reverses of after-life; and in
our pride of success, we deem ourselves conquerors. Oh for one day, for
even one short hour, of that time of glorious delusions! Oh that I
could once more look out upon the world as one gazes at a sunset at
sea, wondering what beauteous lands lie afar off in the distance, and
imagining the time when we should be journeying towards them, buoyant,
high-hearted, hopeful! Who has ever achieved any success that equalled
his boyish ambitions? Who has ever been as great or as good as his early
visions have pictured him?

I have already told my reader that my youth was not passed in affluence.
Our means were limited to the very merest requirements of existence; our
food and our clothing were humble as our dwelling; and I believe that
many a sore privation was needed to escape the calamity of debt. Of all
these hardships I knew nothing at the time; my experience pointed out
none who seemed to possess an existence happy as my own. I had all that
unvarying affection and devoted love could bestow. My little turret
in winter, the fields and the mountains in summer, made up a glorious
world, full of interest; and the days seemed never long enough for all
my plans of pleasure.

I had no companions of my own age, nor did I feel the want of them; for
when my school hours were over I was free to follow the caprices of
my own fancy. There was in my isolation a sort of independence that
I gloried in. To be alone with my own day-dreams--my own ambitious
hopes--my own high-soaring thoughts--was an ecstasy of delight that I
would not have exchanged for any companionship. The very indulgence
of these humors soon rendered me unsuited for association with others,
whose ideas and habits appeared to me to be all vain, and trifling, and
contemptible. The books of travel and discovery which I loved to read,
had filled my mind with those stories of adventure which attend the
explorer of unknown lands,--the wonders of scenery, and the strange
pictures of life and people. There was in the career itself that
blending of heroism and philanthropy, that mingled courage and humanity,
which appealed to my heart by its very strongest sympathies; and I felt
for these noble and devoted adventurers not less admiration than love.
All my solitary rambles through the wild valleys of the neighborhood,
all my lonely walks over mountains, were in imitation of these
wanderers, whose hardships I envied, and whose perils I longed to share.
Not a rugged crag nor snow-capped summit that I did not name after some
far-away land; and every brook and rippling stream became to me the
Nile, the Euphrates, or the Ganges. The desolate character of the
scenery amidst which we lived, the wide tracts of uninhabited country,
favored these illusions; and for whole days long not an incident would
occur to break the spell which fancy had thrown around me.

My kind mother--for so Polly always taught me to call her--seemed to
take delight in favoring these self-delusions of mine, and fell readily
into all my caprices about locality.

She made me, too, with her own hands, a little knapsack to wear; bought
me an iron-shod staff such as Alpine travellers carry; and made me keep
a kind of journal of these wanderings, noting down all my accidents and
adventures, and recording even the feelings which beset me when afar
off and alone in the mountains. So intent did I become at last on these
imaginings that the actual life of school and its duties grew to seem
visionary and unreal, and my true existence to be that when wandering
through the lonely valleys of the Alps, or sitting in solitude in some
far-away gorge of the mountains.

As I grew older I pushed my journeys further, and carried my explorings
to the very foot of the Splugen, through that dreariest of all mountain
passes, the “Verlohrnes Loch.” The savage grandeur of this desolate
spot, its gloom, its solitude, its utter desertion, its almost
uninhabitable character, gave it a peculiar attraction in my eyes, for
there nothing ever occurred to dispel the colorings of my imagination.
There I revelled at will amidst the wildest flights of my fancy. An old
castle, one of the many feudal remains of this tract of country, stood
upon a lone crag to the centre of the valley. It seemed as if Nature
herself had destined the rock for such a structure, for while there was
barely space sufficient at the top, the approach lay by a zig-zag: path,
rugged and dangerous, cut in the solid granite. When I first saw this
rude old tower, the melting snows of early summer had flooded a small
rivulet at the base of the crag, and the stream, being divided in its
course against the rock, swept along on either side, leaving the castle,
as it were, on an island.

I had long resolved to scale this cliff, the view from the summit of
which I knew would be magnificent, extending for miles both up and down
the valley; and at last, took advantage of my first holiday from school
to accomplish my purpose. The Forlorn Glen, as the translation of the
name would imply, lay about thirteen miles away by taking the mountain
paths, though its distance by road was more than double, and to go
and return in the same day required an early start. I set out before
daybreak, having packed my knapsack with food to last me while I should
be away.

I never remember to have felt a greater degree of exhilaration than as I
set forth that morning. It was in the month of June, that season of all
others the most beautiful in Alpine scenery, since it combines all
the charms of spring with the balmy air and more genial atmosphere of
summer. The cherry-trees were all in blossom in the glens, and the rich
pink of the apricot peeped out from many a little grove. I went along,
happy and light-hearted, passing many a spot to which I had given some
name of a far-away scene, and recognizing places which once had been
to me the utmost limits of my wanderings. So, thought I, shall it be
in after-life, and we can look back upon efforts that we once deemed
stupendous, and regard them as mere tiny steps in the great steep we are
climbing.

I breakfasted at a little waterfall in the midst of the wildest
mountain, not a sound save the plashing waters to break the stillness;
the birds gathered round me for the crumbs of my meal, and ate them
within a few paces of where I sat. There was something that I felt as
indescribably touching, in the trustfulness of the humbler creation, in
scenes deserted and forsaken of men; and musing on the theme, I arose
and pursued my way.

When I reached the Verlohrnes Loch it was still early, and I was
delighted to find that the stream at the foot of the castle rock was
dwindled down to a mere rivulet, and fordable with ease. I crossed, and
at once began the ascent of the crag. Before I had spent half an hour at
my task, however, I found that its difficulties were far greater than
I had anticipated. The path was often interrupted by masses of fallen
rock, and frequently, from long disuse, difficult to hit upon when once
lost. Brambles and prickly pears, too, formed terrible obstacles at some
places, while at others the rocks were rendered slippery by dripping
water, and the danger of a false step was very great. In no wise
discouraged, I struggled on; but to my astonishment I could perceive
that it was wearing nigh to noon before I had accomplished more than
half the ascent. I had therefore to take counsel with myself whether I
should abandon my enterprise at once, or resolve to pass the night on
the crag, for I readily saw that before I could reach the level plain
again it would be too late to resume my homeward road over the mountain,
many parts of which required daylight to traverse. Although I had never
passed a night away from home, I had often told my mother that I should
probably be led to do so, and that she should not feel any alarm at
my absence; and she, who well knew the honest character of the
mountaineers, also knew that I was known to them for miles far around.
My resolve was at length taken to pass the night in the shelter of the
old castle, and take the following morning for my return.

As the day wore on, the heat grew more and more oppressive; occasional
gusts of wind would sweep past, followed by a dead, unbroken stillness,
in which not a leaf moved. It seemed as though mysterious spirits of the
elemental world were conversing together in this lone region, and the
thought impressed me more powerfully as at intervals a low, half-subdued
murmuring seemed to rise from the deep glens around me. At first I
deemed they were self-delusions; but as I listened I could distinctly
trace the sounds as they rose and fell, swelling now to a deep rolling
noise, and then dying away in soft fading cadences.

My mind was stored with stories of supernatural interest, and if I did
not implicitly believe the existence of such agencies, yet I cannot
affirm that I altogether rejected them. I was in that state in which,
while reason is unconvinced, the imagination is still impressed, and
fears and terrors hold sway, when the very causes of them were stoutly
denied reality. One of the commonest of all the superstitions of
mountain regions is the belief in a certain genius who invariably
resists the intrusion of mortals within the precincts of his realm. The
terrible tales of his vengeance form the subject of Alpine horrors, and
the dreadful miseries of those who have incurred his displeasure point
the moral of many a story, and “the Kobold of the Lost Glen” held a
proud pre-eminence among such narratives. The heat, as I have said, grew
oppressive; it became at last almost stifling, for the clouds descended
near the earth, and the atmosphere became dense and suffocating. A
few heavy drops of rain then fell, pattering slowly and lazily on the
leaves; and then, as if at the word of some dread command, the thunder
rolled forth in one long, loud, continuous peal that seemed to shake the
very mountains. Crash after crash followed, till the very rocks seemed
splitting with the loud artillery, while through the darkness of the
murky air great sheets of yellow lightning gleamed, and long chains of
the bright element zig-zagged through the sky; the rain, too, began to
fall in torrents, and almost at once the mountain streams swelled
and bounded in foamy cataracts from cliff and precipice. The din was
deafening; and the loud crashing thunder with the hissing rain, the
rushing rivers, and the dense shaking forests made up a grand and awful
chorus. For a while I found a shelter beneath the thick foliage of the
hollies, but the sweeping wind at last rent this frail sanctuary in
twain, and in a moment I was drenched thoroughly.

Although still early in the afternoon, a premature night seemed to have
set in, for the air grew darker and darker, till at length the mountains
at either side of the glen were lost to sight, and a dense watery vapor
surrounded the crag on which I stood. My position was not without peril,
since if the waters did not abate at the end of some hours, I should be
left to starve on the rock. This danger at once occurred to me, and my
mind was already overcome by gloomy forebodings. One thing was, however,
certain,--I must endeavor to reach the castle before nightfall; for to
pass the dark hours where I was would be impossible. The difficulty of
the ascent was now increased fourfold; the footing was less secure on
the rocks, and dashing torrents tore past with a force that strength
like mine could never have combated. It is with pride that I remember to
have looked all those perils boldly in the face; it is, I say, a proud
thought to me, even now, that as a mere boy I could meet danger boldly
and undauntedly. More than once, indeed, the fatal terrors of my
position stood arrayed before me, and I thought that I had seen my dear
home and my kind mother for the last time; I could even speculate
upon poor Raper’s affliction when he came to hear of my calamity. With
thoughts like these I wended my way along, ever upwards and ever more
steep and difficult. Although the storm had spent much of its fury, the
rain continued to fall in torrents, and the roar of the swollen
streams almost equalled the deafening clamor of the thunder. The sudden
transition from unbroken silence to the crash and tumult of falling
waters is one of the most striking features of Alpine scenery, and
suggests, even at moments of the greatest calm and quiet, a sense of
foreboding peril. The sudden change of temperature, too, from intense
heat to an almost biting cold, induces terrific storms of wind, almost
tornadoes, by whose violence great trees are torn up by the roots, and
vast rocks hurled down from crag and precipice. In turning the angle
of a cliff, I came suddenly upon one of these gusts, which carried me
completely off my legs, and swept me into a low copse of brushwood,
stunned and senseless. I must have remained a considerable time
unconscious, for when I came to myself the stars were shining in the
dark blue sky of night, and the air calm, serene, and summer-like. It
was with difficulty I could remember where I was, and by what chances I
had come there; and it was indeed with a sinking heart that I arose, not
knowing whither to turn my steps, nor whether my chance of safety lay
above or below me.

I was sorely bruised besides, and one of my arms severely injured by
my fall, as I discovered in attempting to use my staff. It was at that
moment, thoughts of my home came full and forcibly before me; the little
chamber where I used to sit for hours in happy occupation; my seat
beside the hearth; my place at my mother’s wheel, for she used to spin
during the hazy days of winter; and, in my despair, I burst into a flood
of tears. The excess of grief passed off, and there now succeeded a
dogged resolve to accomplish my first purpose, and I again set out for
the summit.

I had not proceeded far, when on looking upward towards the sky I saw,
or thought I saw, a light twinkling through the trees above me. The
foliage was dense and thick, and grew around the base of the rock which
formed the immediate foundation of the castle, so that it was only at
certain spots a light, if such there was, could be visible. Onward I
pushed now, with a new impulse given by hope; and to my inexpressible
joy, as I rounded the corner of a crag, I came full in sight of the old
tower, and saw, from one of the narrow windows, the sparkle of a bright
light that, streaming forth, formed a long line upon the grass.

The window was fully twenty feet from the ground, nor was the entrance
door more than a few feet lower,--being one of those fastnesses to which
access was had by a ladder, drawn up for safety after entering. Many
of these ruined castles in the valley of the Reichenau were, I
knew, occupied by the shepherds; some indeed had been converted into
refuge-houses for lost travellers, and supplied by the government of the
canton with some few appliances of succor. The situation of this one,
however, refuted all such possibility, since its very difficulty of
approach would have rendered it unavailable for either purpose. As I
stood on the little level tableland in front of the old ruin, and gazed
upwards at the narrow window from which gleamed the light, all my former
superstitious terrors returned, and I felt that cold shrinking of the
heart that comes of a danger undefined and incomprehensible; nor am
I certain that I would not rather have looked upon the ruin dark and
desolate, than with that yellow streak that told of some inhabitant
within.

The northern side of the Alpine ranges have few, if any, traditions of
robbers. The horrors with which they are peopled are all those of an
immaterial world, so that my mind ranged over the tales of wood-demons,
Kobolds, and mountain imps, without one single thought of the perils
of banditti; nor was I altogether without a strong prompting of eager
curiosity to know what precise shape and semblance these strange
creatures wore. Thus impelled, I set about examining the spot, and
seeing in what way I might be able to approach the window. The trees on
either side were too low, and the ivy which grew against the ruined wall
itself offered the only means of ascent. I was an expert climber, and
well knew that, though the ivy will often afford good and safe footing,
it will always give way beneath the grasp of the hand, and that the
stones of the wall would afford me the only security. In this wise it
was, therefore, I began the ascent, and, with slow and careful steps, I
arrived at last within a few feet of the window-sill. My impatience at
this moment overcame all my prudence, and, with an eager spring, I tried
to catch the stone. I missed it, and grasping the ivy in my despair, the
branches gave way, and, after a brief struggle, and with a loud cry of
terror, I fell backwards to the ground.

The stars seemed to flit to and fro above me; trees, mountains, and
rocks seemed to heave in mad commotion around; my brain was filled
with the wildest images of peril and suffering; and then came blank
unconsciousness.

I was sitting rather than lying on a low pallet-bed stretched
against the wall; in front of me a window curtained with a worn
horseman’s cloak; and around me in the room, which was lofty and
spacious, were a few rudely fashioned articles of furniture, and two or
three utensils for cooking,--all of the very meanest kind. My arm was
bound with a bandage where I had been bled, and my great debility, and a
sense of half-incoherence in all my thoughts, told of severe illness. At
a table beneath the window, and bent over it as if writing, sat a tall,
very old man, in a coarse woollen blouse of red-brown stuff, with a cap
of the same color and material; sandals, fastened round the ankles with
leather thongs, formed the protection of his feet; these, and a belt
with a gourd for carrying water attached to it, made up his whole
costume.

His face, when he seemed to look towards me, was harshly lined and
severe; the lower jaw projected greatly, and the character of the whole
expression was cold and stern: but the head was lofty and capacious, and
indicated considerable powers of thought and reflection.

There was over me a sense of weakness so oppressive and so overwhelming
that though I saw the objects I have here mentioned, and gazed on them
for hours long, yet I made no effort to speak, nor ask where I was, nor
to whom I was indebted for shelter and succor. This apathy--for it was,
indeed, such--held me entranced, even when the old man would approach
the bed to feel my pulse, to bathe my temples with water, or wet my
lips with a drink. After these visits he would take his staff from the
corner, and leave the room, to which he frequently did not return for
many hours. Thus went day after day, monotony over everything, till my
head ached with very weariness, as the lazy hours went by. Where was I?
Was this a state of suffering malady? Or was it imprisonment? Why was
I thus? How long should I still continue so? Such were the puzzling
questions which would present themselves before me,--never to be
solved--never replied to.

In my dreamy debility, when my faculties tottered like wearied limbs,
I often wondered if I might not have entered upon some new kind of
existence, in which long years of such wakeful sorrow should be gone
through; and in a mood like this was it that I lay one day all alone,
when from the open window there came the thrilling notes of a
blackbird which sat ou a tree close by. Not even the kindest words of a
fellow-creature could have filled my heart with more ecstasy than those
sounds reminding me of my once happy life, my home, the little garden of
the château, and its tangled alleys of fruit-trees and flowering shrubs.
I struggled to arise from my bed, and after some efforts I succeeded,
and with weak step and trembling limbs I reached the window and looked
out.

Sudden as the change from blackest night to the light of breaking
day was the effect that came over me as I gazed down the valley, and
recognized each well-known crag, and cliff, and mountain peak of the
Verlohrnes Loch. At once now came back all memory of my adventure and
the night of the storm; and at once I saw that I was standing at the
window of that old ruin which had been the goal of my wandering.

How I longed to learn what interval of time had gone over! I tried to
calculate it by remembering that it was early summer when I came, but
still the trees wore no tokens of coming autumn. They were bright in
foliage, and leafy, and the streams that traversed the valley were small
and tiny rills that showed no touch of the season of rains. From these
observations I now addressed myself to an inspection of the interior.
Well used as I had been to habits of poverty, the aspect of this chamber
still struck me with astonishment. The only thing like food was some
Indian cornmeal carefully covered up in an iron vessel, and a jar of
water; of clothing, the cloak which formed the window-curtain, and a
sheepskin fashioned into a rude resemblance to a coat, were all that
were to be seen. The furniture consisted of a low stool and a single
chair, the trunk of an elm-tree representing a table. On this, however,
an attempt at a desk had been made, and here, to my astonishment, were
now masses of papers covered with figures from top to bottom,--algebraic
signs and calculations without end! Not one word of writing, not a
phrase in any language, was to be met with, but page after page of these
mystical sums, which seemed to be carried on from one sheet of paper to
the other. How eagerly I sought out something which might give me a clew
to the writer of these figures, but in vain; I pored over them long
and carefully, I studied their form and their size. I tried--how
hopelessly!--to trace out some purpose in the calculations, and to
divine their object and end; but to no avail! I had heard tell of
persons whose intellects had been deranged by the intense study of a
difficult problem, the search after some unattainable object in science.
I had read wonderful stories of long years of toilsome labor,--whole
lives passed in an arduous struggle, till death had at last relieved
them from a contest with the “impossible.” Could the writer of these be
the victim of such a delusion? Might he have sought out this lone spot,
to live apart and away from all the distracting influences of life, and
to devote himself to some such task? Had his mind given way under this
pressure, or had weakened faculties first led to this career? All these
doubts presented themselves to me in turns; and again I turned to the
complex pages of figures to assist my conjectures.

Alas! they could convey nothing to me,--they were symbols only of so
much toil and labor, but to what end or object I could not guess. As I
sat thus, I thought that I detected an error in one of the calculations.
It was an algebraic quantity misstated; and, on looking down, I remarked
that the mistake was repeated over and over, through a long series of
figures. Any proficiency I had ever attained at school was in matters
of this kind, owing, as I did, everything to Raper’s guidance and
instruction; so that I found little difficulty in ascertaining that
this error had really occurred, and in all likelihood marred all the
deductions to be hoped from the calculation.

To escape from the dreamy vacuity of my late life, by an actual
occupation, was an unspeakable relief; and I felt in the pursuit all the
interest of an adventurer. There was something positive, tangible, real,
as it were, here, instead of that boundless expanse of doubt over which
my mind had been wandering, and I addressed myself to the task
with eagerness. The error first discovered had led to others, and I
diligently traced out all its consequences; and making the fitting
corrections, I set forth the results on a slip of paper that I found,
happily, clear of figures.

So tired was I with the unaccustomed exertion that, when I had done, I
had barely reached my bed ere I fell off in a deep and heavy sleep. I
awoke late in the night, for so I judged it from the starry sky which
I could see through the open window. The old man sat at his usual seat
beside the desk, and, with his head supported by his hands, seemed to
study the pages before him. The flickering lamplight that fell upon
his worn features, his snow-white beard, his wrinkled forehead and
thick-veined hands, together with the heavy folds of the cloak which,
for warmth, he had thrown over his shoulders, made him resemble one
of those alchemists or astrologers we see in Dutch pictures. I had not
looked long at him till I saw that he was pondering over the corrections
I had made, and trying to remember if they were by his own hand. At last
he turned suddenly round, and fixed his eyes on me. Mine met the glance,
and thus we remained for some seconds staring steadily at each other. He
then rose slowly like one fatigued from exertion, and, with the paper in
his hand, approached the bed. How my heart beat as he drew nigh! how I
wondered what words he would utter, what accents he would speak in, and
in what mood of mind!

He came slowly forward, and, seating himself beside my bed on the low
stool, he pointed to the figures on the paper, and said, in the Romaic
dialect of the mountaineers, the one word, “Yours?” Though the word was
uttered in the peasant dialect, the tone of the voice was not that of
a “Bauer;” and, reassured by thinking that he might be of superior
condition, I answered him at once in French.

“Is that your native tongue?” said he, replying to me in the same
language.

I shook my head in negative.

“You are a German boy, then?” said he.

“Nor that either,” replied I. “I am English.”

“English! you English, and in this place!” cried he, in astonishment.
“From what part of England do you come?” said he, in English, which he
spoke as a native.

“I came from Ireland. My father was of that country. My mother, I have
heard, was French.”

“You have heard! So that you do not know it of yourself?”

“I never remember to have seen either of them.”

“Your name?”

“Carew--Jasper Carew.”

“I recollect one of that name,” said he, pondering for some time. “But
he could not have been your father. And how came you here?”

In a few words I told him of my adventure, and in doing so revealed such
habits as appeared to interest him, for he questioned me closely about
my wanderings, and the causes which at first suggested them. In turn
I asked and learned from him that several weeks had elapsed since my
accident; that numerous scouts had traversed the glen, evidently sent
in search of me, but that for reasons which regarded himself he had
not spoken with, nor, indeed, been seen by any of them, but still
had written a few lines to the Curé of Reichenau to say that I was in
safety, and should be soon restored to my friends. This he had conveyed
to the post by night, but without suffering any clew to escape from
whence it came.

“And these figures are yours?” said he, referring to the paper.

I nodded, and he went on:--

“What toilsome nights, boy, had I been spared if I had but detected this
error! These mistakes have marred whole weeks of labor. I must have been
ill. My head must have been suffering, to have fallen into error like
this; for see, here are far deeper and more abstruse calculations,--all
correct, all accurate. But who can answer for moments of weakness!”

He sighed heavily, and the stern expression of his features assumed a
look of softened, but suffering meaning.

“I have often thought,” said he, hastily, “that if another were joined
with me in this task, its completeness would be more certain; while to
trust myself alone with this secret is both unwise and unjust. Human
life is the least certain of all things. To-morrow I may be no more. I
have already passed through enough to have brought many to the grave.
You, however, are young. You have yet, in all likelihood, long years of
life before you. What if you were to become my associate?”

I gave no reply for some seconds. When he repeated his words still more
forcibly,--

“I should first learn what it is I should be engaged in,” said I. “I
should be satisfied that the object was just, reasonable, and, above
all, practicable.”

“You speak like a sage, boy,” cried he. “Whence came such wisdom as
this?”

“All my teachings of this kind,” said I, “have come from her who now
calls herself my mother, and whom I love with a son’s affection.”

“And how is she called?”

I could not tell him. I only knew her as one who was as a mother to me,
and yet said she had no title to that name. Once or twice I had
heard her addressed as the Countess. There ended my knowledge of her
condition.

“She is rich, then?” asked be.

“Far from it,” said I, sorrowfully.

“Then can I make her so!” exclaimed he. “Joined with me in this mighty
enterprise, you can be the richest and the greatest man of the age. Nay,
child, this is not matter to smile at. I am no dreamer, no moon-struck
student of the impossible. I do not ponder over those subtle
combinations of metals that are to issue forth in yellow gold, nor do I
labor to distil the essences which are to crystallize into rubies. What
I strive at has been reached already,--the goal won, the prize enjoyed!
Ay, by my own father. By him was this brilliant discovery proclaimed
triumphantly before the face of Europe.”

The exultation with which he uttered these words seemed to carry him
away in thought from the scene wherein he stood, and his eyes gleamed
with a strange fire, and his lips continued to mutter rapidly. Then,
ceasing of a sudden, he said,--

“I must seek her; she will recognize me, for she will have heard our
history. She will give her permission, too, to you to join me in my
great design. The fate that sent you hither was no accident. Boy, there
are none such in life. Our passions in their wilfulness color destiny
with fitful changes, and these we call chance; but in nature all is
predetermined, and by plan.”

Now rambling on this wise, now stopping to question me as to who we
were, whence we came, and with what objects, he continued to talk till,
fairly overcome by weariness, I dropped off to sleep, his loud tones
still ringing in my ears through my dreams.

The following day he never left me; he seemed insatiable in his
desire to learn what progress I had made in knowledge, and how far my
acquirements extended. For classical learning and literature he
evinced no respect. These and modern languages, he said, were mere
accomplishments that might adorn a life of ease and luxury; but that
to a man who would be truly great there was but one subject of
inquiry,--the source of wealth, and the causes which make states
affluent. These, he said, were the legitimate subjects for high
intelligence to engage upon. “Master these,” said he, “and monarchs are
your vassals.” I was amazed to discover that amid the mass of prejudices
which encumbered his mind, it was stored with information the most
various and remarkable. It was evident, too, that he had lived much in
the great world, and was familiar with all its habits and opinions. As
time wore on, I learned from him that his present life, with all its
privations, was purely voluntary; that he possessed sufficient means to
support an existence of comfort and ease. “But,” added he, “if you would
give the intelligence a supremacy, it must be done at the cost of animal
enjoyment. If the body is to be pampered, the brain will take its ease.
To this end came I here; to this end have I lived fourteen years of toil
and isolation. I have estranged myself from all that could distract me;
friendships, pleasures, the great events of the age,--I know none of
them! I am satisfied to toil and think now that, in after ages, men
should hold my name in reverence, and regard my memory with affection.”

Although he constantly made allusions of this kind, he never proceeded
to give me any closer insight into his designs; and if at moments
the reasonableness of his manner and the strong force of his remarks
impressed me favorably with regard to his powers of mind, at others I
was induced to think that nothing short of erring faculties could have
condemned a man to a voluntary life of such abject want and of such
cruel privation as he endured.

It was still some weeks before I had strength to return home; but he
permitted me to write every second day to my mother and Raper, from
whom I heard in return. If at first my ardent longing to be once more
at home--to be with those who made up the whole world of my
existence--surpassed all other thoughts, I grew day by day to feel the
strange fascination of an unknown interest in the subject of his talk,
and to experience an intense anxiety to know his secret.

It was evident that he felt the influence he had obtained over me, and
was bent on extending and enlarging it; for constantly would he dwell
upon the themes which attracted me and fascinated my attention. Shall
I confess what these were? The brilliant pictures of courtly life, the
splendor and fascination of a palace, where all that could charm and
captivate abounded, and all were at the feet of one who, not a king, was
yet greater than a king, and who in the mighty power of his intellect
held kings and kaisers as his bond-slaves.

That these were not mere fancies he assured me by saying,--

“This has been witnessed by all Europe; it is not more than fifty years
ago that the world has seen all that I tell you. When I can convince you
of this, will you pledge yourself to be my follower?”

I at once gave my promise, and ratified it by a solemn row.

The next day we started on our return to Reichenau.



CHAPTER XXIV. “THE HERR ROBERT”

I will not attempt to describe the welcome that met me on my return, nor
the gratitude with which my mother overwhelmed my kind protector. The
whole school, and no inconsiderable part of the village itself, had gone
forth to meet us, and we were conducted back in a sort of triumph. Over
and over again was I obliged to recount my story, of which the mystery
still remained unexplained. Who and what was the strange recluse who
so long had inhabited the castle of the Forlorn Glen, and who now stood
before them, old and simply clad, but still bearing unmistakable marks
of having been a person of some condition?

As Mr. Robert he desired to be known by me, and as such was he received
by my mother. He declined the offer she freely made him of a room in
her own small house, and hired a little lodging in the toll-house on the
bridge, and which he said was convenient to the garden of the château,
where he obtained the liberty of walking. If the interest which he
manifested in me was at first a cause of anxiety to my mother, not
knowing what it portended, nor how far it might contribute to withdraw
my affection from herself, it was clear that she soon became
satisfied with whatever explanation he afforded, and that those long
conversations, frequently prolonged to a late hour of the night, which
they held together, had the effect of reconciling her to his views and
intentions.

Thus was a new individual introduced into the little circle of our
family party, and each Sunday saw him seated at our dinner-table, of
which his conversation formed the great charm. It was not alone that his
mind was stored with varied information the most rare and curious, but
his knowledge of the world itself and of mankind seemed more remarkable
still; and frequently, after he had left us of an evening, have I
overheard my mother express her wonder to Raper who and what he
had been, and by what strange events he was reduced to his present
condition. These remarks of hers at first showed me that whatever
revelations he might have made in his long interviews with her, he had
told little or nothing of his own story. Such was indeed the case, and
I can remember well a little scene, in itself unimportant and of no
consequence, which can both portray my mother’s intense curiosity on
this theme, and display some traits of him for whom it was excited.

It happened that at the period when her little quarterly pittance came
due, my mother was confined to home by a slight feverish cold, and Herr
Klann, the banker and moneychanger of the village, was condescending
enough to come in person and hand her the amount. In spite of her narrow
fortune, my mother had always been treated with a marked deference by
the village, and Herr Klann demeaned himself on the occasion with every
show of courtesy and politeness. He indeed did not scruple to display
that he was the great depositary of riches for miles and miles around;
that all the relations of trade and commerce, all the circumstances
of family fortune,--the dowries of brides, the portions of younger
sons,--were in his charge and keeping. He talked much of the
responsibility of his station and its requirements, and, like many
others, while encomiumizing his secrecy, he exhibited the very opposite
quality. There was not a house in the village or its neighborhood of
which he did not incidentally relate some story or incident. He became,
in fact, candor itself in his confessions. It is but fair to own that my
mother looked most becomingly in her half invalid costume, and that the
little straw-wrapped flask of “Sieben-berger” with which she regaled him
was excellent. Herr Klann was a man to acknowledge both such influences.
He possessed the Hebrew weaknesses both as regards gold and beauty. He
therefore became largely confidential,--taking a survey of the whole
neighborhood, and revealing their circumstances with the minute anatomy
that a surgeon might have employed in displaying their structure. My
mother heard him with no peculiar interest till by accident he alluded
to the “Herr Robert;” it was a mere reference to the toll-house where he
lived, but the name at once awakened her attention.

“With him, I conclude,” said she, “your money dealings are few. He does
not appear to be wealthy.”

“He is a mystery in every way, madam,” replied Klann, “his very cash
does not come through a banker or an agent; he has no credit, no
bills--nothing. He comes down to me at times, say once a month or so,
to change a few gold pieces,--they are always ‘Louis.’ I remark, and
sometimes of the time of the late reign. They are good money, and full
weight invariably, that I must say.”

“And what may be your own opinion of all this?”

“I can form none,--positively none, madam. Of course I need not say that
I regret the vulgar notion in the village that he is in communication
with supernatural agencies; neither you nor I, madam, are likely to fall
into this absurd mistake.”

“And so you rather incline to suppose--” She drew out the words tardily,
and fixed on Herr Klann a look of ineffable softness and intelligence
together.

“I do, madam,--that is my private opinion,” said he, sententiously.

“Would that account for the life he has been leading for some years
back,--should we have found him passing such a long term in isolation
from all the world?” asked she.

“I think so, madam, and I will tell you why. The agents employed by the
regency, and in the beginning of the present reign in France, were all
men of certain condition,--many of them belonged to high families, and,
having ruined their fortunes by extravagance, were fain to take any
occupation for mere subsistence. Some of them resided as nobles in
Vienna, and were received at the court of the Empress. Others gained
admittance to St. James’s. They were supplied with money, both for
purposes of play and bribery; and that they used such means to good
account is now matter of history. When the game was played out, and they
were no longer needed by the government, such men were obliged to
retire from the stage whereon they had only played a part. The Duc de
Senneterre went into a monastery; Count Leon de Rhode set off for the
New World; and there was one taken ill in this very village, whose
name I now forget, who had gone into the priesthood, and was head of a
seminary in Flanders. What more likely, then, than that our friend at
the bridge yonder was some great celebrity of those times, of which I
hear he loves to talk and declaim?”

The hint thus thrown out made a deep impression on my mother. It served
to explain not only many circumstances of Herr Robert’s position, but
also to account for the strange glimpses of a great and glorious future,
in which at moments of excitement he would indulge. A life of intrigue
and plot would naturally enough suggest ambitious hopes, and conduce to
the very frame of mind which he appeared to reach. That I should become
the follower of such a man, and the disciple of such a school, revolted
against all her feelings. The spy, no matter how highly accredited and
how richly rewarded, was, in her eyes, the most ignoble of all careers;
and she would rather have seen me clad in the sheepskin of an Alpine
shepherd than wearing, in this capacity, the decorations of every order
of Europe.

From the moment, therefore, the suspicion crossed her mind that Herr
Robert had been such, she firmly determined to withdraw me altogether
from his intimacy. Nor was the step an easy one. He had become a
recognized member of our little household; each evening saw him seated
at our hearth or board; on every Sunday he dined with us. His little
presents of wine and fruit, and occasionally of books, showed that he
intended reciprocity to be a basis of our intercourse, of which, indeed,
the balance lay in our favor. How, therefore, was such a state of things
to be suddenly arrested? How bring to an abrupt conclusion an intimacy
of which nothing had hitherto interrupted the peaceful course? This was
a matter of no common difficulty, and for several days did she ponder
over it to herself.

It chanced that, for the first time since her arrival at Reichenau, Herr
Robert had been slightly indisposed, and being unable to come and see
us, had sent for me to come each evening and read to him. At any other
moment my mother would have thought no more of this, but coming now, at
the very time when her feelings of doubt and suspicion were torturing
her, she regarded the circumstance with actual apprehension.

At first, she thought of sending Raper along with me, in the guise
of protector; but as Herr Robert had not requested his company, there
seemed an awkwardness in this; then she half resolved to refuse me
permission, on pretence of requiring my presence at home: this, too,
would look ungracious; and when at last she did accord her leave, it was
for a very limited time, and with strict injunctions to be back by an
early hour.

It chanced that Herr Robert felt on this evening a more than ordinary
desire to be frank and confidential. He related to me various anecdotes
of his early days, the scenes he had mixed in, and the high associates
with whom he was intimate; and when he had excited my curiosity and
wonderment to a high degree, by gorgeous narratives of the great world,
he stopped short and said: “I would not have you think, Jasper, that
these dukes and princes were more gifted or more endowed than other
men; the only real difference between them is, that they employ their
faculties on great events, not little ones; and all their pleasures,
their amusements, their very vices, react upon the condition of mankind
in general, and consequently whatever goes forward in their society has
a certain amount of importance, not for itself, but for what may follow
it.”

These words made a profound impression upon me, leading to the
conviction that out of this charmed circle life had no ambition worth
striving for, no successes that deserved a struggle. From my mother I
had no concealment, and before I went to my bed I told her all that the
Herr Robert had said to me, and showed how deeply this sentiment had
sunk into my mind.

I conclude that it must have been from some relation to her former fears
she took immediate alarm at the possible bent my mind was receiving.
Assuredly she deemed that his influence over me was not without peril,
and resolved the following morning to send for the Herr Robert, and
in all frankness avow her fears, and appeal to his friendship to allay
them.

I was about to set off for school when the old man was ascending the
stairs, and taking me by the hand he led me back again into the little
chamber, where my mother awaited him.

“Let Jasper remain with us, madam,” said he; “the few words of your note
have shown me what is passing in your mind, and it will save you and me
a world of explanation if he be suffered to be present.”

My mother assented, not over willingly, perhaps, and the old man, taking
a seat, at once begun,--

“If I had ever suspected, madam, that my history could have possibly
possessed any interest for you, you should certainly have heard it ere
now. My opinion was, however, different; and I thought, moreover, that
as I had strictly abstained from encroaching upon your confidence, an
equal reserve might have protected mine. Forgive me if by any accident
the slightest word should escape me to cause you pain or displeasure.
Nothing can be further from my thoughts than this intention, and I beg
of you so to receive whatever I say.

“Some years ago, a physician, in whom I had and have the fullest
confidence, forewarned me that if certain symptoms which I then labored
under should ever recur, my case would be beyond remedy, and my life
could not be prolonged many days. Two days since, the first signs of
these became evident; yesterday the appearance became more palpable;
to-day I recognize them in full force. When a man of my age talks of his
approaching death, he only speaks of what has been before his thoughts
every day and every night for years back. Whatever benefit I was ever
capable of rendering my fellow-men in my younger days, I have been
latterly a useless and profitless member of the guild, and for this
reason, that though time had not effaced my powers of intellect, the
energy and the force that should develop them was gone. Without youth
there is no vitality; without vitality, no action; without action,
no success. I often fancied what results might arise if to the mature
thoughts and experience of age were to be added the fire, the energy,
and the passion of youth. If caution and rashness, reserve and
intrepidity, the distrust that comes of knowing men, with that credulous
hope that stirs the young heart, were all to centre in one nature, what
might we not effect? The fate that brought Jasper and myself together
whispered to me that he might become such! I pictured to my mind the
training he should go through, the hard discipline of work and labor,
and yet without impairing in the slightest that mainspring of all power,
the daring courage and energy of a young and brave spirit. To this end,
he should incur no failures in early life, never know a reverse till
it could become to him the starting-point for higher success. And thus
launched upon life with every favoring breeze of fortune, what might not
be predicted of his course?

“He who would stand high among his fellow-men, and be regarded as their
benefactor and superior during his lifetime, must essentially be a man
of action! The great geniuses of authorship, the illustrious in art,
have received their best rewards from posterity; contemporaries have
attacked them, depreciated and reviled them; the very accidents of their
lives have served to injure the excellence of their compositions. But
the man of action stands forth to his own age great and distinguished;
the world on which his services have bestowed benefits is proud to
reward him! and either as a legislator, a conqueror, or a discoverer,
his claims meet full acknowledgment.

“Who would not be one of these, then?--who would not aspire to win the
enthusiasm that tracks such a career, and makes a mere mortal godlike?

“To be such I possessed the secret! Nay, madam, this is not the weakness
of faltering intellect, nor the outpouring of a silly vanity. Hear me
out with patience but a very little longer. It is not of some wonder of
science or of mystery, of occult art, that I speak; and yet the power to
which I allude is infinitely greater than any of these were ever fancied
to bestow. Imagine an engine by which the failing energies of a whole
nation can be rallied, its wasting vigor repaired, its resources
invigorated. Fancy a nation--millions--brought out of poverty, debt, and
distress, into wealth, affluence, and abundance; the springs of their
industry reinforced, the sources of their traffic refreshed. Picture
to your mind the change from an embarrassed government, a ruined
aristocracy, an indebted, poverty-stricken people, to a full treasury,
a splendid nobility, and a prosperous and powerful nation. Imagine all
this; and then, if you can ascribe the transformation to the working of
one man’s intelligence, what will you say of him?

“I am not conjuring up a mere visionary or impossible triumph; what I
describe has been actually done, and he who accomplished it was my own
father!

“Yes, madam, the mightiest financial scheme the world has ever
witnessed, the grandest exemplification of the principle of credit that
has ever been promulgated by man, was his invention. He farmed the whole
revenues of France, and at one stroke annihilated the peculation of
receivers-general, and secured the revenue of the nation. He fructified
the property of the state by employing its vast resources in commercial
speculations; from the east to the west, from the fertile valley of the
Mississippi to the golden plains of Asia, he opened every land to the
enterprise of Frenchmen. Paris itself he made the capital city of the
world. Who has not heard of the splendor of the regency, of Chantilly,
the gorgeous palace of the Duc d’Orléans, the very stables more
magnificent than the residences of many princes? The wealth and the
rank of Europe flocked thither; and in the pleasures of that paradise
of capitals lies the history of an age! He who did all this was my own
father, and his name was John Law, of Lauriston! Ay, madam, you see
before you, poor, humbly clad, and gray-haired, going down to the
grave in actual want, the son of a man who once counted his revenue by
millions, whose offerings to the Church of St. Roch would have made a
meet dowry for a princess, and whose very menials acquired fortunes such
as modern nobility cannot equal.”

As he spoke, he drew forth a large silver-clasped pocket-book, and,
opening it, took out a mass of papers.

“I do not ask you to take any part of this on trust,” continued he.
“There, with the seal of the chancellor, and the date, January the 5th,
1720, is his patent as comptroller-general of France. Here are letters
from the Regent, the Prince of Deux-Ponts, the Duke of Rohan; I leave
them in your hands, and will send you others that authenticate all I
have stated. Of my own life, humble and uneventful, I have no wish
to speak; more than this I know, for I have long studied the great
principles of my father’s secret. The causes of his reverses I have
thoroughly investigated; they are not inherent in the system, nor are
they reasonably attributable to it in any way. His discovery must not be
disparaged by the vices of a profligate prince, a venal administration,
and an ignorant cabinet; nor must the grandeur of his conception be
charged with the rash infatuation of a nation of gamblers. Law’s system
stands free from every taint of dishonesty, when dissociated with the
names of those who prostituted it. For years long have I studied the
theory, and tested it by every proof within my power. To make the fact
known to the world; to publish abroad the great truth, that credit well
based and fortified is national wealth, and that national wealth, so
based, is almost boundless,--this became the object of my whole life. I
knew that a certain time must elapse ere the disasters that followed my
father’s downfall were forgotten, and that I should, in all likelihood,
never live to see the day when his glorious system would be revived, and
his memory vindicated; but I hoped to have found one worthy to inherit
this secret, and in whose keeping it might be transmitted to after
ages. I will not weary you with the story of all my disappointments, the
betrayals, and the treachery, and the falsehoods I have endured. Enough!
I became a recluse from mankind. I gave myself up to my old pursuits of
calculation and combination, undisturbed; and I have lived on, to this
hour, with one thought ever before me, and one fear,--is this great
secret to die out with me? and are countless millions of men destined
to toil and slavery, while this vast source of affluence and power shall
lie rusting and unused?”

The intense fervor of his voice, and his tone of self-conviction as he
spoke, had evidently impressed my mother strongly in his favor; and when
she turned over one by one the letters before her, and read passages
penned by the hand of Du Pin, the chief secretary of the Regent,
D’Argen-son, Alberoni the Cardinal, and others of like station, and then
turned to look on the feeble and wasted figure of the old man, her eyes
filled with tears of pity and compassion.

“My heart is now relieved of a weary load,” said he, sighing. “Now I
shall go back to my home, and to-morrow, if I be not able to come here,
you and Jasper will visit me, for I have still much to tell you.”

My mother did her utmost to detain him where he was. She saw that the
excitement of his narrative had greatly increased the symptoms of fever
upon him, and she wished to tend and watch over him; but he was resolute
in his determination, and left us, almost abruptly.

Raper and myself went several times that evening to see him, but he
would not receive us. The reply to our inquiries was, that he was deeply
engaged, and could not be disturbed. I remember well how often during
the night I arose from my bed to look out at the little window of the
tollhouse, which was that of Herr Robert’s room. A light burned there
the whole night through, and more than once I could see his figure pass
between it and the window. Poor old man!--was it that he was devoting
the last few hours of his life to the weary task that had worn him to
a very shadow? Towards daybreak I sank into a heavy sleep, from which
I was suddenly awakened by Raper calling on me to get up and dress at
once.

“Herr Robert is dying!” said he, “and wishes to see you and speak with
you. Be quick, for there is not a moment to lose.”

I dressed myself as speedily as my trembling limbs would permit, and
followed Raper down the stairs and into the street. My mother was
already there, waiting for us, and we hurried along towards the
toll-house without a word.

The toll-keeper’s wife beckoned to us impatiently as we came in sight,
and we pressed eagerly on, and entered the little chamber where Herr
Robert lay half-dressed upon his bed. He knew us, and took each of us by
the hand as we came forward. His face was greatly flushed, and his eyes
stared wildly, and his dry, cracked lips muttered frequently and fast.
Several large packages of papers lay beside him, sealed and addressed,
and to these he made a motion with his hand, as if he would speak of
them.

“Tell us of yourself, Herr Robert,” said my mother, in a kind voice, as
she sat down beside him. “Do you feel any pain?”

He seemed not to hear her, but muttered indistinctly to himself. Then,
turning short round to me, he said,--

“I have forgotten the number of the house, but you can’t mistake it. It
is the only one with a stone balcony over the entrance gate. It was well
enough known once. John Law’s house,--the ‘Rue Quincampoix.’ The room
looks to the back--and the safe--Who is listening to us?”

I reassured him, and he went on:--

“The ingots were forged as if coming from the gold mines of Louisiana.
D’Argenson knew the trick, and the Regent too. They it was who wrecked
him,--they and Tencivi.”

His eyes grew heavy, and his voice subsided to a mere murmur after this,
and he seemed to fall off in a drowsy stupor. The whole of that day
and the next he lingered on thus, breathing heavily, and at intervals
seeming to endeavor to rally himself from the oppression of sleep; but
in vain! Exhaustion was complete, and he passed away calmly, and so
quietly that we did not mark the moment when he ceased to breathe.

My mother led me away weeping from the room, and Raper remained to look
after his papers and make the few arrangements for his humble burial.

The same day that we laid him in the earth came a letter from the Count
de Gabriac to say that he would be with us on the morrow. It was the
only letter he had written for several months past, and my mother’s joy
was boundless at the prospect of seeing him. Thus did sunshine mingle
with shadow in our life, and tears of happiness mingle with those of
sorrow!



CHAPTER XXV. THE COUNT DE GABRIAC

I had often heard that the day which should see the Count restored to us
would be one of festivity and enjoyment. Again and again had we talked
over all our plans of pleasure for that occasion; but the reality was
destined to bring back disappointment! We were returning in sadness from
the toll-house, when a messenger came running to tell of the Count’s
arrival; and my mother, leaving me with Raper, to whom she whispered a
few hurried words, hastened homewards.

I thought it strange that she had not taken me along with her; but I
walked along silently at Raper’s side, lost in my own thoughts, and not
sorry to have for my companion one little likely to disturb them. We
sauntered onward through some meadows that skirted the river; and at
last, coming down to the stream, seated ourselves by the brink, each
still sunk in his own reflections.

It was a bright day of midsummer: the air had all that exhilaration
peculiar to the season in these Alpine districts. The stream ran clear
as crystal at our feet; and the verdure of grass and foliage was in its
full perfection. But one single object recalled a thought of sorrow, and
that was the curtained window of the little chamber wherein Herr Robert
lay dead.

To this spot my eyes would return, do what I could; and thither, too,
sped all my thoughts, in spite of me. The influence which for some time
back he had possessed over me was perfectly distinct from that which
originates in affectionate attachment. Indeed, all his appeals to me
were the very reverse of such. His constant argument was, that a man
fettered by affection, and restricted by ties of family, was worthless
for all purposes of high ambition, and that for the real successes of
life, one must sacrifice everything like individual enjoyment. So far
had he impressed me with these notions that I already felt a kind of
pleasure in little acts of self-denial, and rose in my own esteem by
slight traits of self-restraint. The comparative isolation in which
I lived, and my estrangement from those of my own age, favored this
impression, and I grew by degrees to look upon the sports and pleasures
of boyhood with all the disdainful compassion of an old ascetic.

I remember well how, as I lay in the deep grass and watched the rippling
circles of the fast-flowing river, that a sudden thought shot
through me. What if all this theory should prove but a well-disguised
avarice,--that this passion for distinction be only the thirst for
wealth,--these high purposes of philanthropy but another scheme for
self-advancement! Is it possible that for such a price as this I would
surrender all the enjoyments of youth, and all the budding affections of
coming manhood?

“Mr. Joseph,” said I, suddenly, “what is the best life?”

“How do you mean, Jasper? Is it, how shall a man do most good to
others?” said he.

“Not alone that; but how shall he best employ his faculties for his own
sake?”

“That may mean for his personal advancement, Jasper, for objects purely
selfish, and be the reverse of what your first question implied.”

“When I said the best, I meant the wisest,” replied I.

“The wisest choice is that of a career, every duty of which can
be fulfilled without the sacrifice of kindly affections or the
relinquishment of family ties. He who can adopt such is both wise and
happy.”

“Are you happy, Mr. Joseph?” asked I; “for I know you are wise.”

“Far more happy than wise, Jasper,” said he, smiling. “For one like me,
life has borne many blessings.”

“Like you!” exclaimed I, in surprise, for to my thinking he was a
most enviable mortal; I knew of no one so learned, nor of such varied
acquirements. “Like you, Mr. Joseph!”

“Just so, Jasper; I, who have had neither home nor family, have yet
found both; I, whom no ties of affection encircled, have lived to feel
what it is to be cared for; and I, that almost despaired of being aught
to any one, have found that I can be of use to those whom it is my chief
happiness to love.”

“Tell me your history, Mr. Joseph, or at least tell me something about
yourself.”

“My story, my dear Jasper, is but the history of my own day. The least
eventful of lives would be adventurous if placed alongside of mine. I
began the world such as you see me, poor, humble-minded, and lowly. I
continue my journey in the same spirit that I set out. The tastes and
pursuits that then gave me pleasure are still the same real sources of
enjoyment to me. What were duties are now delights. Your dear mother was
once my pupil, as you are now; and it is my pride to see that she has
neither forgotten our old lessons, nor lived to think them valueless.
Even here have I seen her fall back upon the pursuits which occupied her
childhood--ay, and they have served to lighten some gloomy hours too.”

Raper quickly perceived, from the anxiety with which I had listened,
that he had already spoken too much; and he abruptly changed the topic
by saying,--

“How we shall miss the poor Herr Robert! He had grown to seem one of
ourselves.”

“And is my mother unhappy, Mr. Joseph?” said I, recurring to the former
remarks.

“Which of us can claim an exemption from sorrow, Jasper? Do you
not think that the little village yonder, in that cleft of the
mountain--secluded as it looks--has not its share of this world’s
griefs? Are there not the jealousies, and the rivalries, and the
heartburnings of large communities within that narrow spot?”

While he was yet speaking, a messenger came to summon me home. The
Countess, he said, was waiting dinner for me, and yet no invitation came
for Raper. He seemed, however, not to notice the omission, but, taking
my hand, led me along homeward. I saw that some strong feeling was
working within, for twice or thrice he pressed my hand fervently, and
seemed as if about to say something; and then, subduing the impulse, he
walked on in silence.

“Make my respectful compliments to the Count, Jasper,” said he, as we
came to the door, “and say that I will wait upon him when it is his
pleasure to see me.”

“That would be now, I ‘m sure,” said I, eagerly.

“Perhaps not so soon; he will have so much to say to your mother.
Another time;” and, hurriedly shaking my hand, he retired.

As I slowly, step by step, mounted the stair, I could not help asking
myself, was this the festive occasion I had so often pictured to
myself?--was this the happy meeting I had looked forward to so
longingly? As I drew near the door, I thought I heard a sound like a.
heavy sob; my hand trembled when I turned the handle of the lock and
entered the room.

“This is Jasper,” said my mother, coming towards me, and trying to smile
through what I could see were recent tears.

The Count was seated on an easy-chair, still dressed in the pelisse he
had worn on the journey, and with his travelling-cap in his hand. He
struck me as a handsome and distinguished-looking man, ‘but with a
countenance that alike betrayed passion and intemperance. The look he
turned on me as I came forward was assuredly not one of kindness or
affection, nor did he extend his hand to me in sign of salutation.

“And this is Jasper!” repeated he slowly after my mother. “He is n’t
tall of his age, I think.”

“We have always thought him so,” said my mother, gently, “and assuredly
he is strong and well grown.”

“The better able will he be to brave fatigue and hardship,” said he,
sternly. “Come forward, sir, and tell me something about yourself. What
have they taught you at school?--has Raper made you a bookworm, dreamy
and good-for-nothing as himself?”

“Would that he had made me resemble him in anything!” cried I,
passionately.

“It were a pity such a moderate ambition should go unrewarded,” replied
he, with a sneer. “But to the purpose: what do you know?”

“Little, sir; very little.”

“And what can you do?”

“Even less.”

“Hopeful, at all events,” rejoined he, with a shrug of the shoulders.
“They haven’t made you a scholar: they surely might have trained you to
something.”

My mother, who seemed to suffer most acutely during this short dialogue,
here whispered something in his ear, to which he as hastily replied,--

“Not a bit of it. I know him better than that; better than you do.
Come, sir,” added he, turning to me, “the Countess tells me that you are
naturally sensitive, quick to feel censure, and prone to brood over it.
Is this the case?”

“I scarcely know if it be,” said I. “I have but a slight experience of
it.”

“Ay, that’s more like the truth,” said he, gayly. “The language of blame
is not familiar to him. So, then, from Raper you have learned little.
Now, what has the great financier and arch-swindler Law taught you?”

“Emile, Emile,” broke in my mother, “this is not a way to speak to
the boy, nor is it by such lessons he will be trained to gratitude and
affection.”

“Even there, then, will my teaching serve him,” said he, laughingly.
“From all that I have seen of life, these are but unprofitable
emotions.”

I did not venture to look at my mother; but I could hear how her
breathing came fast and thick, and could mark the agitation she was
under.

“Now, Jasper,” said he, “sit down here beside me, and let us talk to
each other in all confidence and sincerity. You know enough of your
history to be aware that you are an orphan, that both your parents died
leaving you penniless, and that to this lady, whom till now you have
called your mother, you owe your home.”

My heart was full to bursting, and I could only clasp my mother’s hand
and kiss it passionately, without being able to utter a word.

“I neither wish to excite your feelings nor to weary you,” said he,
calmly; “but it is necessary that I should tell you we are not rich.
The fact, indeed, may have occurred to you already,” said he, with
a disdainful gesture of his hand, while his eye ranged over the
poverty-stricken chamber where we sat. “Well,” resumed he, “not being
rich, but poor,--so poor that I have known what it is to feel hunger and
thirst and cold, for actual want! Worse again,” cried he, with a wild
and savage energy, “have felt the indignity of being scoffed at for my
poverty, and seen the liveried scullions of a great house make jests
upon my threadbare coat and worn hat! It has been my own choosing,
however, all of it!” and as he spoke, he arose, and paced the room with
strides that made the frail chamber tremble beneath the tread.

“Dearest Emile,” cried my mother, “let us have no more of this. Remember
that it is so long since we met. Pray keep these sad reflections
for another time, and let us enjoy the happiness of being once more
together.”

“I have no time for fooling, madame,” said he, sternly. “I have come a
long and weary journey about this boy. It is unlikely that I can afford
to occupy myself with his affairs again. Let him have the benefit--if
benefit there be--of my coming. I would relieve you of the burden of his
support, and himself of the misery of dependence.”

I started with surprise. It was the first time I had ever heard the word
with reference to myself, and a sense of shame, almost to sickness, came
over me as I stood there.

“Jasper is my child; he is all that a son could be to his mother,” cried
Polly, clasping me in her arms, and kissing my forehead; and I felt
as if my very heart was bursting. “Between us there is no question of
burden or independence.”

“We live in an age of fine sentiments and harsh actions,” said the
Count. “I have seen M. de Robespierre shed tears over a dead canary, and
I believe that he could control his feelings admirably on the Place de
Grève. Jasper, I see that we must finish this conversation when we are
alone together. And now to dinner.”

He assumed a half air of gayety as he said this; but it was unavailing
as a means of rallying my poor mother, whose tearful eyes and trembling
lips told how sadly dispirited she felt at heart.

I had heard much from my mother about the charms of the Count’s
conversation, his brilliant tone, and his powers of fascination. It had
been a favorite theme with her to dilate upon his wondrous agreeability,
and the vast range of his acquaintance with popular events and topics.
She had always spoken of him, too, as one of buoyant spirits, and even
boyish light-heartedness. She had even told me that he would be my
companion, like one of my own age. With what disappointment, then, did I
find him the very reverse of all this! All his views of life savored of
bitterness and scorn; all his opinions were tinged with scepticism and
distrust; he sneered at the great world and its vanities, but even these
he seemed to hold in greater estimation than the humble tranquillity of
our remote village. I have him before me this instant as he leaned out
of the window and looked down the valley towards the Splugen Alps. The
sun was setting, and only the tops of the very highest glaciers were now
touched with its glory; their peaks shone like burnished gold in the sea
of sky, azure and cloudless. The rest of the landscape was softened down
into various degrees of shade, but all sufficiently distinct to display
the wild and fanciful outlines of cliff and crag, and the zigzag course
by which the young Rhine forced its passage through the rocky gorge.
Never had the scene looked in greater beauty,--never had every effect of
light and shadow been more happily distributed; and I watched him with
eagerness as he gazed out upon a picture which nothing in all Europe can
surpass. His countenance for a while remained calm, cold, and unmoved;
but at last he broke silence and said:

“This it was, then, that gave that dark coloring to all your letters to
me, Polly; and I half forgive you as I look at it. Gloom and barbarism
were never more closely united.”

“Oh, Emile, you surely see something else in this grand picture?” cried
she, in a deprecating voice.

“Yes,” said he, slowly, “I see poverty and misery; half-fed and
half-clad shepherds; figures of bandit rugged-ness and savagery. I see
these, and I feel that to live amongst them, even for a brief space,
would be to endure a horrid nightmare.”

He moved away as he spoke, and sauntered slowly out of the room, down
the stairs, and into the street.

“Follow him, Jasper,” cried Polly, eagerly; “he is dispirited and
depressed,--the journey has fatigued him, and he looks unwell. Go with
him; but do not speak till he addresses you.”

I did not much fancy the duty, but I obeyed without a word. He seemed to
have quickened his pace as he descended; for when I reached the street,
I could detect his figure at some distance off in the twilight. He
walked rapidly on, and when he arrived at the bridge, he stopped, and,
leaning against the balustrade, looked up the valley.

“Are you weary of this, boy?” asked he, while he pointed up the glen.

I shook my head in dissent.

“Not tired of it,” he exclaimed, “not heartsick of a life of dreary
monotony, without ambition, without an object! When I was scarcely older
than you I was a garde du corps; at eighteen I was in the household, and
mixing in all the splendor and gayety of Paris; before I was twenty I
fought the Duc de Valmy and wounded him. At the Longchamps of that same
year I drove in the carriage with La Marquese de Rochvilliers; and
all the world knows what success that was! Well, all these things have
passed away, and now we have a republic and the coarse pleasures and
coarser tastes of the ‘canaille.’ Men like me are not the ‘mode,’ and
I am too old to conform to the new school. But you are not so; you must
leave this, boy,--you must enter the world, and at once, too. You shall
come back with me to Paris.”

“And leave my mother?”

“She is not your mother,--you have no claim on her as such; I am more
your relative than she is, for your mother was my cousin. But we live in
times when these ties are not binding. The guillotine loosens stronger
bonds, and the whisper of the spy is more efficacious than the law of
divorce. You must see the capital, and know what life really is. Here
you will learn nothing but the antiquated prejudices of Raper, or the
weak follies of--others.”

He only spoke the last word after a pause of some seconds, and then
moodily sank into silence.

I did not venture to utter a word, and waited patiently till he resumed,
which he did by saying,--

“The Countess has told you nothing of your history,--nothing of your
circumstances? Well, you shall hear all from me. Indeed, there are facts
known to me with which she is unacquainted. For the present, Jasper,
I will tell you frankly that the humble pittance on which she lives is
insufficient for the additional cost of your support. I can contribute
nothing; I can be but a burden myself. From herself you would never hear
this; she would go on still, as she has done hitherto, struggling and
pinching, battling with privations, and living that fevered life of
combat that is worse than a thousand deaths. Raper, too, in his own
fashion, would make sacrifices for you; but would you endure the thought
of this? Does not the very notion revolt against all your feelings of
honor and manly independence? Yes, boy, that honest grasp of the hand
assures me that you think so! You must not, however, let it appear that
I have confided this fact to you. It is a secret that she would never
forgive my having divulged. The very discussion of it has cost us the
widest estrangements we have ever suffered, and it would peril the
continuance of our affection to speak of it.”

“I will be secret,” said I, firmly.

“Do so, boy; and remember that when I speak of your accompanying me
to Paris, you express your wish to see the capital and its brilliant
pleasures. Show, if not weary of this dreary existence here, that you at
least are not dead to all higher and nobler ambitions. Question me about
the life of the great world, and in your words and questions exhibit the
interest the theme suggests. I have my own plan for your advancement, of
which you shall hear later.”

He seemed to expect that I would show some curiosity regarding the
future, but my thoughts were all too busy with the present. They were
all turned to that home I was about to leave, to the fond mother I was
to part from, to honest Joseph himself,--my guide, my friend, and my
companion; and for what? An unknown sea, upon which I was to adventure
without enterprise or enthusiasm.

The Count continued to talk of Paris and his various friends there, with
whom he assured me I should be a favorite. He pictured the life of the
great city in all its brightest colors. He mentioned the names of many
who had entered it as unknown and friendless as myself, and yet, in
a few years, had won their way up to high distinction. There was a
vagueness in all this which did not satisfy me; but I was too deeply
occupied with other thoughts to question or cavil at what he said.

When we went back to supper, Raper was there to pay his respects to
the Count. De Gabriac received his respectful compliments coldly and
haughtily; he even interrupted the little address poor Joseph had
so carefully studied and committed to memory, by asking if he still
continued to bewilder his faculties with Greek particles and obsolete
dialects; and then, without waiting for his reply, he seated himself at
the table, and arranged his napkin.

“Master Joseph,” said he, half sarcastically, “the world has been
pleased to outlive these follies; they have come to the wise resolve
that, when languages are dead, they ought to be buried; and they have
little sympathy with those who wish to resuscitate and disinter them.”

“It is but an abuse of terms to call them dead, Count,” replied Joseph.
“Truth, in whatever tongue it be syllabled, does not die. Fidelity to
nature in our age will be acknowledged as correct in centuries after.”

“Our own time gives us as good models, and with less trouble to look for
them,” said the Count, flippantly. “Your dreamy bookworm is too prone to
delve in the earth, and not to coin the ore that he has discovered. Take
Jasper there: you have taught him diligently and patiently; I ‘ll be
sworn you have neglected him in nothing, so far as your own knowledge
went; and yet, before he shall have been three months in Paris, he will
look upon you, his master, as an infant. The interval between you
will be wide as the broad Atlantic; and the obstacles and crosses, to
overcome which will be with him the work of a second, would be to you
difficulties insurmountable.”

“To Paris! Jasper go to Paris!” exclaimed my mother, as she grew deadly
pale.

“Jasper leave us!” cried Raper, in a tone of terror.

“And why not?” replied the Count. “Is it here you would have him waste
the best years of youth? Is it in the wild barbarism of this dreary
valley that he will catch glimpses of the prizes for which men struggle
and contend? The boy himself has higher and nobler instincts; he feels
that this is but the sluggish existence of a mere peasant, and that
yonder is the tournament where knights are jousting.”

“And you wish to leave us, Jasper?” cried my mother, with a quivering
lip, and a terrible expression of anxiety in her features.

“To forsake your home!” muttered Raper.

“Ask himself; let him be as frank with you as he was half-an-hour ago
with me, and you will know the truth.”

“Oh, Jasper, speak!--leave me not in this dreadful suspense!” cried
my mother; “for in all my troubles I never pictured to my mind this
calamity.”

“No, no!” said Raper; “the boy ‘s nature has no duplicity,--he never
thought of this!”

“Ask him, I say,” cried the Count; “ask him if he wish not to accompany
me to Paris.”

I could bear no longer the power of the gaze that I felt was fixed
upon me, but, falling at her feet, I hid my face in her lap, and cried
bitterly. My heart was actually bursting with the fulness of sorrow, and
I sobbed myself to sleep, still weeping through my dreams, and shedding
hot tears as I slumbered.

My dream is more graven on my memory than the events which followed my
awaking. I could recount the strange and incoherent fancies which chased
each other through my brain on that night, and yet not tell the actual
occurrences of the following day.

I do remember something of sitting beside my mother, with my hand locked
in hers, and feeling the wet cheek that from time to time was pressed
against my own; of the soft hand as it parted the hair upon my forehead,
and the burning kiss that seemed to sear it. Passages of intense
emotion--how caused I know not--are graven in my mind; memories of a
grief that seemed to wrench the heart with present suffering, and cast
shadows of darkest meaning on the future. Oh, no, no!--the sorrows--if
they be indeed sorrows--of childhood are not short-lived; they mould the
affections, and dispose them in a fashion that endures for many a year
to come.

While I recall to mind these afflictions, of the actual events of my
last hours at Reichenau I can relate but the very slightest traits. I do
remember poor Raper storing my little portmanteau with some of the last
few volumes that remained to him of his little store of books; of my
mother showing me a secret pocket of the trunk, not to be opened
save when some emergency or difficulty had presented itself; of my
astonishment at the number of things provided for my use, and the
appliances of comfort and convenience which were placed at my disposal;
and then, more forcibly than all else, of the contemptuous scorn with
which the Count surveyed the preparation, and asked “if my ward robe
contained nothing better than these rags?”

Of the last sad moment of parting,--the agony of my mother’s grief as
she clasped me in her arms, till I was torn away by force, and with
my swimming faculties I thought to have seen her fall fainting to the
ground,--of these I will not speak, for I dare not, even now!



CHAPTER XXVI. PARIS IN ‘95

Our journey was a dreary and wearisome one. The diligence travelled
slowly, and as the weather was dull and rainy, the road presented
nothing of interest, at least of interest sufficient to combat the grief
that still oppressed me. We were upwards of a week travelling before we
reached Paris, which I own presented a very different aspect from what
my ardent imagination had depicted. The narrow streets were scarcely
lighted,--it was night,--the houses seemed poor and mean and
dilapidated, the inhabitants rude-looking and ill-dressed. The women
especially were ill-favored, and with an air of savage daring and
effrontery I had never seen before. Gangs of both sexes patrolled the
streets, shouting in wild chorus some popular chant of the time; and as
the diligence did not venture to pierce these crowds, we were frequently
delayed in our progress to the “bureau,” which was held in the Rue
Didier of the Battignolles; for it was in that unfashionable quarter in
which my first impressions of the capital were conceived.

“Remember, boy, I am no longer a Count here,” said my companion, as we
got out of the conveyance, “I am the citizen Gabriac; and be careful
that you never forget it. Take that portmanteau on your shoulder, and
follow me!”

We treaded a vast number of streets and alleys, all alike wretched and
gloomy, till we entered a little “Place” which formed a “cul de sac” at
the end of a narrow lane, and was lighted by a single lantern, suspended
from a pole in the centre. This was called the Place de Trieze, in
memory, as I afterwards learned, of thirteen assassins who had once
lived there, and been for years the terror of the capital. It was now
but scantily tenanted, none of the rooms on the ground-floor being
inhabited at all; and in some instances an entire house having but one
or two occupants. The superstitious terrors that were rife about it (and
there were abundance of ghost stories in vogue) could scarcely account
for this desertion, for assuredly the fears of a spiritual world could
not have proved formidable to the class who frequented it; but an
impression had got abroad that it was a favorite resort of the spies of
the police, who often tracked the victims to this quarter, or at least
here obtained information of their whereabouts. Plague itself would have
been a preferable reputation to such a report, and accordingly few but
the very poorest and most destitute would accept the shelter of this
ill-omened spot.

A single light, twinkling like a faint star, showed through the gloom as
we entered, where some watcher yet sat; but all the rest of the “Place”
 was in darkness. Gabriac threw some light gravel at the window, which
was immediately opened, and a head enveloped in a kerchief, by way of
nightcap, appeared.

“It is I, Pierre,” cried he; “come down and unbar the door!”

“Ma foi,” said the other, “that is unnecessary. The commissaire broke it
down yesterday, searching for ‘Torchon,’ and the last fragment cooked my
dinner to-day.”

“And Torchon, did they catch him?”

“No, he escaped, but only to reach the Pont Neuf, where he threw himself
over the balustrade into the river.”

“And was drowned?”

“Doubtless, he was.”

“I scarcely regret him,” said Gabriac.

“And I not at all,” replied the other. “Good night;” and with this he
closed the window, leaving us to find our way as best we could.

I followed Gabriac as he slowly groped his way up the stairs and reached
a door on the third story, of which he produced the key. He struck a
light as he passed in, and lighted a small lamp, by which I was enabled
to see the details of a chamber poorer and more miserable than anything
I had ever conceived. A board laid upon two chairs served for a table,
and some wood-shavings, partially covered by a blanket, formed a bed;
a couple of earthenware pipkins comprised the cooking utensils, and a
leaden basin supplied the provisions for the toilet.

“Lie down there and take a sleep, Jasper, for I have no supper for you,”
 said Gabriac; but his voice had a touch of compassionate gentleness in
it which I heard for the first time.

“And you, sir,” said I, “have you no bed?”

“I have no need of one. I have occupation that will not admit of sleep,”
 said he. “And now, boy, once for all, never question me, nor ask the
reasons of what may seem strange or odd to you. Your own faculties
must explain whatever requires explaining--or else you must remain in
ignorance;” and with these words he passed into an inner chamber, from
which he speedily issued forth to descend the stairs into the street,
leaving me alone to my slumbers. And they were heavy and dreamless ones,
for I was thoroughly wearied and worn out by the road.

I was still asleep, and so soundly that I resisted all efforts to awake
me till a strong shake effectually succeeded, and, on looking up, I saw
Gabriac standing by my side.

“Get up, boy, and dress. These are your clothes,” said he, pointing to
a uniform of dark green and black, with a sword-belt of black leather,
from which hung a short, broad-bladed weapon. The dress was without any
richness, still a becoming one, and I put it on without reluctance.

“Am I to be a soldier, then?” asked I, in half shame at disobeying his
injunction of the night before.

“All Paris, all France, is arrayed at one side or the other just now,
Jasper,” said he, as he busied himself in the preparation of our coffee.
“The men who have ruled the nation by the guillotine have exhausted
its patience at last. A spirit, if not of resistance, of at least
self-defence, has arisen, and the little that remains of birth and blood
amongst us has associated with the remnant of property to crush the
hell-hounds that live by carnage. One of these bands is called the
battalion of ‘La Jeunesse Dorée,’ and into this I have obtained your
admission. Meanwhile, you will be attached to the staff of General
Danitan, who will employ you in the ‘secrétariat’ of his command.
Remember, boy, your tale is, you are the son of parents that have died
on the scaffold. You are the nephew of Emile de Gabriac, brother of
Jules Louis de Gabriac, your father, whom you cannot remember. Your life
in Switzerland you can speak of with safety. You will not talk of these
matters save to the General, and to him only if questioned about them.”

“But is this disguise necessary, sir? May I not assume the name I have a
right to, and accept the fate that would follow it?”

“The guillotine,” added he, sarcastically. “Are you so ignorant,
child, as not to know that England and France are at war, and that your
nationality would be your condemnation? Follow my guidance or your own,”
 said he, sternly, “but do not seek to weld the counsels together.”

“But may I not know in what service I am enrolled?”

“Later on, when you can understand it,” was the cold reply.

“I am not so ignorant,” said I, taking courage, “as not to be aware of
what has happened of late years in France. I know that the king has been
executed.”

“Murdered!--martyred!” broke in Gabriac.

“And monarchy abolished.”

“Suspended--interrupted,” added he, in the same voice. “But I will not
discuss these matters with you. When you have eaten your breakfast, take
that letter to the address in the Rue Lepelletier, see the General, and
speak with him. As you go along the streets you will not fail to meet
many of those to whom your duty will at some later period place you in
opposition. If they by look, by dress, by bearing and manner captivate
your imagination and seduce your allegiance to their ranks, tear off
your colors then, and join them, boy; the choice is open to you. My
charge is then ended; we are not, nor ever can be, aught to each other
again.”

I saw that he would not be questioned by me, and, forbearing at once,
from the risk of offending him, I ate my meal in silence.

“I am ready now, sir,” said I, standing up in front of him.

He wheeled me round by the arm to look at me in my new dress. He
adjusted my belt, and arranged my sword-knot more becomingly, muttering
to himself a few words of approval at my appearance, and then said
aloud,--

“Salute all whom you see in this uniform, boy, and bear yourself
haughtily as you pass the ‘canaille.’ Remember that between you and them
must be the struggle at last, and show that you do not blink it.”

He patted me good-naturedly on the shoulder as he said this, and, with
the word “Go,” half-pushed me from the room.

I soon found myself in the open air, and, having inquired my way to the
Rue Lepelletier, walked rapidly along, endeavoring, as best I might, to
disguise the astonishment I felt at so many new and wonderful objects.
As I emerged from the meaner quarter of the Battignolles, the streets
grew finer and more spacious, and the dress of the people and their
appearance generally improved also. Still, there was none of that
splendor of equipage of which I had heard so much. The carriages were
few, and neither rich nor well-appointed. The horses were poor-looking,
and seemed all over-worked and exhausted. The same tired and worn-out
air pervaded the people too. They all looked as though fatigue and
excitement had finally conquered them, and that they were no longer
capable of endurance. At the bakers’ shops that I passed, great
crowds were assembled, waiting for the distribution of bread which the
Government each morning doled out to the population. I watched these,
and saw, to my amazement, that the ration was a small piece of black
and coarse bread, weighing two ounces, and for this many were content
to wait patiently the entire day. In my curiosity to see this, I had
approached an old man of a strong, athletic appearance, who, leaning on
his staff, made no effort to pierce the crowd, but waited calmly till
his name was called aloud, and even then received his pittance as it was
passed to him from hand to hand. There was something of dignity in the
way he subdued every trace of that anxious impatience so perceptible
around him, and I drew nigh to speak to him, with a sense of respect.

“Is that meant for a day’s subsistence?” asked I.

He stared at me calmly for a few seconds, but made no reply.

“I asked the question,” began I, with an attempt to apologize, when he
interrupted me thus:--

“Are you one of the Troupe Dorée, and ask this? Is it from you, who live
in fine houses and eat sumptuously, that comes the inquiry, how men like
me exist?”

“I am newly come to Paris; I am only a few hours here.”

“See here, comrades,” cried the old man, in a loud and ringing voice to
the crowd, “mark what the ‘Sections’ are doing: drafting the peasants
from the Provinces, dressing them in their livery, and arming them to
slaughter us. Starvation marches too slowly for the wishes of these
aristocrats!”

“Down with the ‘aristos,’ down with the ‘Troupe!’” broke in one wild
yell from the multitude, who turned at once towards me with looks of
menace.

“Ay,” continued the old man, waving his hand to maintain silence, “he
dared to taunt me with the pittance we receive, and to scoff at our
mendicancy!”

“Down with him! down with him!” cried the crowd; but, interposing his
staff like a barrier against the mob, the old fellow said,--

“Spare him, comrades; he is, as you see, only a boy; let him live to be
wiser and better. Come, lad, break that sword upon your knee, tear off
that green cockade, and go back to your village again!”

I stepped back, and, drawing my sword, motioned to those in front to
give way.

“I’ll cut down the first that opposes me!” cried I, with a wave of the
steel round my head; and at the same instant I dashed forward.

The mass fell back, and left me a free passage, while a chorus of
the wildest yells and screams burst around and about me. Mad with
the excitement of the moment, I shook my sword at them as I went, in
defiance, and even laughed my scorn of their cowardice. My triumph was
brief; a stunning blow on the back of the head sent me reeling forwards,
and at the same instant the ranks of the mob closed in, and, hurling
me to the ground, trampled and jumped upon me. Stunned, but not
unconscious, I could perceive that a battle was waged over me, in which
my own fate was forgotten, for the multitude passed and repassed my body
without inflicting other injury than their foot-treads. Even this was
brief, too, and I was speedily raised from the earth, and saw myself
in the arms of two young men in uniform like my own. One of them was
bleeding from a wound in the temple, but seemed only to think of me and
my injuries. We were soon joined by several others of the troop, who,
having returned from a pursuit of the mob, now pressed around me with
kindest questions and inquiries. My name, whence I came, and how long I
had been in Paris, were all asked of me in a breath; while others, more
considerate still, sought to ascertain if I had been wounded in the
late scuffle. Except in some bruises, and even those not severe, I
had suffered nothing; and when my clothes were brushed, and shako
readjusted, and a new cockade affixed to it, I was as well as ever. From
the kind attentions we met with in the shops, and the sympathy which
the better-dressed people displayed towards us, I soon gathered that the
conflict was indeed one between two classes of the population, and that
the Troupe were the champions of property.

“Show him the Rue Lepelletier, Guillaume,” said an officer to one of
the youths; and a boy somewhat older than myself now undertook to be my
guide.

I had some difficulty in answering his questions as to the names and
the number of my family who were guillotined, and when and where the
execution had occurred; but I was spared any excessive strain on my
imagination by the palpable indifference my companion exhibited to a
theme now monstrously tiresome. He, however, was communicative enough on
the subject of the Troupe and their duties, which he told me were daily
becoming more onerous. The Government, harassed by the opposition of
the National Guards and the Jeunesse Dorée together, had resorted to
the terrible expedient of releasing above a thousand prisoners from the
galleys; and these, he assured me, were now on their way to Paris, to be
armed and formed into a regiment.

Though he told this with a natural horror, he still spoke of his own
party with every confidence. They comprised, he said, the courage, the
property, and the loyalty of France. The whole nation looked to them as
the last stay and succor, and felt that the hope of the country was in
their keeping.

I asked him what was the number now enrolled in the Troupe? and, to my
astonishment, he could not tell me. In fact, he owned that many had of
late assumed the uniform as spies, and General Danitan had resolved
that each volunteer should present himself to him for acceptance before
receiving any charge, or being appointed to any guard.

I had not time for further questioning, when we arrived at the hôtel of
the general, when my companion, having given me full directions for my
guidance, shook my hand cordially, and departed.

As I ascended the stairs I overtook an elderly gentleman in a gray
military frock, who was slowly making his way upwards by the aid of the
balustrade.

“Give me your arm, lad,” said he, “for this stair seems to grow steeper
every day. Thanks; now I shall get on better. What has torn your
coat-sleeve?”

I told him in a few words what had just occurred in the streets, and he
listened to me with a degree of interest that somewhat surprised me.

“Come along, my lad. Let General Danitan hear this from your own lips;”
 and with an agility that I could not have believed him capable of,
he hurried up the stairs, and, crossing a kind of gallery crowded with
officers of different grades, he entered a chamber where two persons in
military undress were writing.

“Can I see the general, François?” said he, abruptly.

The officer thus addressed, coolly replied that he believed not, and
went on with his writing as before.

“But I have something important to say to him,--my business is of
consequence,” said he.

“As it always is,” muttered the other, in a tone of sarcasm that
fortunately was only overheard by myself.

“You will announce me, then, François?” continued he.

“My orders are not to admit any one, Captain.”

“They were never meant to include me, sir,--of that I ‘m positive,” said
the old man; “and if you will not announce me, I will enter without it;”
 and, half dragging me by the arm, he moved forward, opened the door,
and passed into an inner room.

General Danitan, a small, dark-eyed, severe-looking man, was standing
with his back to the fire, and in the act of dictating to a secretary,
as we entered. An expression of angry impatience at our unauthorized
appearance was the only return he vouchsafed to our salute; and he
continued his dictation, as before.

“Don’t interrupt me, sir,” said he, hastily, as the old captain made an
effort to address him. “Don’t interrupt me, sir.--‘Which difficulties,’”
 continued he, as he took up the thread of his dictation,--“‘which
difficulties are considerably increased by the obtrusive habit of
tendering advice by persons in whose judgment I place no reliance, and
whose conduct, when they leave me, is open to the suspicion of being
prejudicial to the public service. Amongst such offenders the chief is
a retired captain of the 8th regiment of Chasseurs, called Hugues Le
Bart--’”

“Why, General, it is of me--me myself--you are speaking!” broke in the
captain.

“‘An officer,’” continued the other, perfectly heedless of the
interruption, “‘into whose past services I would strenuously recommend
some inquiry; since neither from the information which has reached me
with regard to his habits, nor from the characters of his intimates, am
I disposed to regard him as well affected to the Government, or in other
respects trustworthy.’ How do you do, Captain? Who is our young friend
here?” continued he, with a smile and a bow towards us.

“In what way am I to understand this, General? Is it meant for a piece
of coarse pleasantry--”

“For nothing of the kind, sir,” interrupted the other, sternly. “That
you have been a witness to the words of a confidential communication
is entirely attributable to yourself; and I have only to hope you will
respect the confidence of which an accident has made you a participator.
Meanwhile, I desire to be alone.”

The manner in which these words were uttered was too decisive for
hesitation, and the old man bowed submissively and withdrew. As I was
about to follow him, the general called out,--

“Stay: a word with you. Are you the captain’s protégé, boy?”

I told him that our first meeting only dated a few moments back, and how
it had occurred.

“Then you are not of the ‘Troupe’? You have never worn the uniform till
this morning?” said he, somewhat severely.

I bowed assent.

He turned hastily about at the moment, and said something to his
secretary in a low voice, of which I just could catch the concluding
words, which were far from flattering to the corps in whose livery I was
dressed.

“Well, boy, go back and take off those clothes,” said he, sternly;
“resume your trade or occupation, whatever it be, and leave politics and
state affairs to those who can understand them. Tell your father--”

“I have none, sir.”

“Your mother, then, or your friends, I care not what they be. What
letter is that you are crumpling in your fingers?” broke he in,
suddenly.

“To General Danitan, sir.”

“Give it me,” said he, half snatching it from me.

He tore it hastily open and read it, occasionally looking from the
paper to myself, as he went on. He then leaned over the table where the
secretary sat, and, showed him the letter. They conversed eagerly for
some seconds together, and then the general said,--

“Your friends have recommended you for a post in the ‘chancellerie
militaire’: is that your liking, lad?”

“I should be proud to think myself capable of doing anything for my own
support,” was my answer.

“D’Artans, see to him; let him be enrolled as a supernumerary, and
lodged with the others.--This gentleman will instruct you in your duty,”
 added he to me, while, with a slight nod towards the door, he motioned
me to withdraw.

I retired at once to the antechamber, where I sat down to think over my
future prospects, and canvass in my mind my strange situation.

Troops of officers in full and half dress, orderlies with despatches,
aides-de-camp in hot haste, came and went through that room for hours;
and yet there I sat, unnoticed and unrecognized by any, till I began
to feel in my isolation a sense of desertion and loneliness I had never
known before.

It was already evening when D’Artans joined me, and taking my arm
familiarly within his own, said,--

“Come along, Jasper, and let us dine together.”

The sound of my own name so overcame me that I could scarcely restrain
my tears as I heard it. It was a memory of home and the past too
touching to be resisted!



CHAPTER XXVII. THE BATTLE OF THE SECTIONS

There could not have been a readier process of disenchantment to me, as
to all my boyish ambitions and hopes, than the routine of my daily
life at this period. I was lodged, with some fourteen others, in an old
Pension in the Rue des Augustines, adjoining the bureau in which we were
employed. We repaired each morning at an early hour to our office, and
never left it till late in the evening,--sometimes, indeed, to a late
hour of the night. Neither the manners nor the habits of my companions
inspired me with a desire to cultivate their intimacy. They were
evidently of a low class by birth, and with tastes even inferior to
their position. They construed my estrangement to the true cause, and
did not scruple to show that I was not a favorite amongst them. In
ridicule of my seeming pretensions, they called me the “Count,” and
never passed me without an obsequious mock salutation, which I returned
as punctiliously, and not appearing to detect its sarcasm. With
experience of life and mankind, isolation is probably a condition
not devoid of certain pleasures,--it may minister to a kind of proud
self-reliance and independence of spirit; but to a boy it is one of
unalloyed misery. There is no heavier infliction than the want of that
free expansion of the heart that comes of early friendship. Youth is
essentially the season of confidence; and to restrain its warm impulses,
and dam up the flow of its affections, is to destroy its best and
highest charm. I will not venture to assert that I was not myself much
to blame for the seclusion in which I lived. I probably resented too
forcibly what I need scarcely have noticed, and felt too acutely what,
at worst, were but trifling annoyances. Some of this may be attributed
to me constitutionally, but even more to the nature of my bringing
up. All my boyish impulses were stimulated by affection; whatever I
attempted was in a wish to gain praise; all my ambitions were to be
loved the more. In my loneliness I sought out M. de Gabriac, but in
vain. His lodging on the Place was now occupied by another, who could
give no tidings of him whatever. I wrote to my mother and to Raper,
but without receiving a reply. I then tried M. Jost, and received a
few lines to say that my friends had taken their departure some months
before from Reichenau, but in what direction he knew not. This letter
put the finishing stroke to my sense of utter desolation. It was indeed
not possible to conceive a more forlorn and friendless being than I now
was. By my superior in the office I was held in little favor or esteem.
I was indeed, in many respects, less capable than many of my colleagues,
and it is not impossible that my apparent pride may have contrasted with
my real deficiency. All these causes pressed upon me together, and made
up a series of annoyances which came very little short of downright
unhappiness.

My circumstances, too, were not calculated to dispel these gloomy
tendencies. Beyond our maintenance, which was of the very humblest kind,
our whole pay was five hundred francs yearly; and as this was paid in
paper money, it reduced the actual amount more than one-fourth. By the
very strictest economy, and by many an act of self-denial, I was
enabled to keep myself out of debt; but it was an existence of continued
watchfulness and care, and in which not even the very cheapest pleasure
found a place. My colleagues, indeed, talked of cafés, restaurants,
excursions, and theatres, as of matters of daily habit; but in what way
they compassed such enjoyments I knew not. The very freedom of their
language on these themes cast an air of contemptuous mockery over my
humbler existence that assuredly did not diminish its bitterness.

My inexpertness frequently compelled me to remain in the office long
after the rest. The task allotted to me was often of greater length, and
many times have I passed a considerable part of the night at my desk. On
these occasions, when I had finished, my head was too much excited for
sleep, and I then sat up and read--usually one of the volumes Raper had
given me--till morning. These were my happiest hours; but even they
were alloyed by the weariness of an exhausted and tired intellect. So
thoroughly apart from the world did I live, so completely did I hug my
solitary existence at this period, that of the events happening around
I positively knew nothing. With cafés and their company, or with
newspapers, I had no intercourse; and although at moments some street
encounter, some collision between the mob and the National Guard, would
excite my curiosity, I never felt interest enough to inquire the cause,
or care for the consequences.

Such incidents grew day by day more common; firing was frequently
heard at night in different parts of the capital, and it was no rare
occurrence to see carts with wounded men conveyed to hospital through
the streets, at early morning. That the inhabitants were fully alive to
the vicinity of some peril was plain to see. At the slightest sign of
tumult, at the least warning, shops were closed and shutters fastened,
doors strongly barricaded, and armed figures seen cautiously peering
from casements and parapets. At one time a single horseman at full
gallop would give the signal for these precautions; at others, they
seemed the result of some instinctive apprehension of danger, so rapidly
and so silently were they effected. Amid all these portents, the daily
life of Paris went on as before. It was just as we hear tell of in the
countries where earthquakes are frequent, and where in almost every
century some terrible convulsion has laid a whole city in ruins, the
inhabitants acquire a strange indifference to peril till the very
instant of its presence, and learn to forget calamities when once they
have passed.

As for myself, so accustomed had I become to these shocks of peril
that I no longer went to the window when the uproar beneath betokened
a conflict, nor even cared to see which side were conquerors in the
affray. It was in a mood of this acquired indifference that I sat
reading one evening in my office long after the others had taken their
departure; twice or thrice had loud and prolonged shouts from the street
disturbed me, but without exciting in me sufficient of curiosity to
see what was going forward, when at last, hearing the rumbling sound of
artillery trains as they moved past, I arose and went to the window.
To my surprise, the streets were densely crowded, an enormous concourse
filling them, and only leaving a narrow lane through which the wagons
could pass. That it was no mere procession was clear enough, for the
gunners carried their matches lighted, and there was that in the stern
air of the soldiery that bespoke service. They wheeled past the church
of St. Roch, and entered a small street off the Rue St. Honoré called
La Dauphine, where, no sooner had they passed in, than the sappers
commenced tearing up the pavement in front of the guns, and speedily
formed a trench of about five feet in depth before them. While this was
doing, some mounted dragoons gave orders to the people to disperse, and
directed them to move away by the side streets,--an order so promptly
obeyed that in a few minutes the long line of the Rue St. Honoré was
totally deserted. From the position at La Dauphine to the Tuileries I
could perceive that a line of communication was kept open, and orderlies
passed at a gallop frequently from one side to the other. Another
circumstance, too, struck me: the windows, instead of being crowded by
numbers of eager spectators, were strongly shuttered and barred;
and when that was impossible, the glass frames were withdrawn, and
bed-mattresses and tables placed in the spaces. Along the parapets,
also, vast crowds of armed men were to be seen, and the tower and
battlements of St. Roch were studded over with soldiers of the National
Guard, all armed and in readiness. From the glances of the artillerymen
beneath to the groups above, it required no great prescience to detect
that they stood opposed to each other as enemies.

It was a calm mellow evening of the late autumn. The air was perfectly
still; and now the silence was unbroken on all sides, save when, from a
distance, the quick tramp of cavalry might be momentarily heard, as if
in the act of forcing back a crowd; and then a faint shout would follow,
whose accents might mean triumph or defiance.

I was already beginning to weary of expectancy, when I perceived, from
the movement on the house-tops and the church tower, that something was
going forward within the view of those stationed there. I had not to
look long for the cause, for suddenly the harsh, sharp beat of a drum
was heard, and immediately after the head of a column wheeled from one
of the side streets into the Rue St. Honoré. They were grenadiers of
the National Guard, and a fine body of men they seemed, as they marched
proudly forward till they came to a halt before the steps of St.
Roch. Handkerchiefs were waved in salutation to them from windows and
housetops, and cheering followed them as they went. A single figure at
the entrance of La Dauphine stood observing them with his glass: he
was an artillery officer, and took a long and leisurely survey of the
troops, and then directed his eyes towards the crowded roofs, which he
swept hastily with his telescope. This done, he sauntered carelessly
back, and disappeared.

The grenadiers were soon followed by the line, and now, as far as my eye
could carry, I beheld vast masses of soldiery who filled the street
in its entire breadth. Up to this all was preparation. Not a sight, or
sound, or gesture indicated actual conflict, and the whole might have
meant a mere demonstration on either side, when suddenly there burst
forth a crash like the most terrific thunder. It made the very street
tremble, and the houses seemed to shake as the air vibrated around
them; a long volley of musketry succeeded, and then there arose a din of
artillery, shouts, and small-arms that made up the infernal chaos. This
came from the quarter of the river, and in that direction every eye was
turned. I hurried to the back of the house in the hope of being able to
see something; but the windows only looked into a court surrounded by
tall buildings. Ere I returned to my place the conflict had already
begun. The troops of the National Guard advanced, firing by sections,
and evidently bent on forcing their passage up the street; and their
firing seemed as if meant in declaration of their intentions rather than
aggressively, since no enemy appeared in front; when, no sooner had the
leading files reached the opening of La Dauphine, than the artillery
opened with grape and round shot. The distance could scarcely have
exceeded forty yards, and the withering fire tore through the dense
ranks, forming deep lanes of death! Smoke soon enveloped the masses, and
it was only at intervals I could catch sight of the moving body, which
still moved up! There was something indescribably dreadful in seeing the
steady march of men to inevitable destruction; and even their slow pace
(for such was it of necessity, from the numbers of dead and dying that
encumbered their path) increased the horror of the spectacle. A deadly
musketry poured down from the tower of St. Roch upon the gunners.

The whole fire from housetops and windows was directed at them; but fast
as they fell, others took their places, and the roll of the artillery
never slackened nor ceased for an instant. The shot rattled like hail
on the walls of the houses, or crashed through them with clattering
destruction. Wild and demoniac yells, death-shouts, and cries of triumph
mingled with the terrible uproar. Above all, however, roared the
dread artillery, in one unbroken thunder. At last the column seemed
to waver--the leading files fell back--a moment’s hesitation ensued--a
fresh discharge of grape, at less than pistol range, tore through them;
and now the word was given to retire. Shouts and cries poured from the
housetops and parapets. Were they of encouragement or derision?--who can
tell? The street now presented the horrid spectacle of indiscriminate
carnage; the guns were wheeled forward as the troops retired, cavalry
charging on the broken masses while the guns were reloading; the
cavalcade of death rode past at a walk, the gunners firing steadily on,
till the word was given to cease. The smoke cleared lazily away at last,
and now no living thing was seen to stir in front: the long line of
the Rue St. Honoré presented nothing but the bodies of the dead. The
housetops and parapets, too, were speedily deserted; for the houses were
now forced by the infantry of the line, who at every moment appeared at
the windows and waved their shakos in token of victory. As I looked, a
crash recalled my attention behind me; and now the door of the bureau
was in ruins, and four soldiers, with their bayonets at the charge,
dashed forward. On seeing me alone and unarmed, they only laughed, and
passed on to the upper story.

“Are you in charge here?” asked a young corporal of me.

“I belong to the bureau,” said I, in reply.

“Place your books and papers under lock and key, then,” said he, “and
make your way to headquarters.”

“Where?”

“At the Tuileries. There goes the Commander-in-Chief,” added he,
mechanically saluting, as a staff of officers rode by beneath.

“Who is that pale man in front, with the long hair?” asked I.

“General Bonaparte,” was the answer; “and few can handle artillery like
him.”



CHAPTER XXVII. AN EPISODE OF MY LIFE

If I could have turned my thoughts from my own desolate condition, the
aspect of Paris on the morning after the battle might well have engaged
my attention. The very streets presented a scene such as never can
be forgotten! The Government had adventured on the bold experiment
of employing the masses to control the few, and the fruits of this
dangerous alliance might be seen in the various groups that passed
along. Officials wearing their badges of duty, officers in full uniform,
walked arm in arm with leaders of the popular party; men high in the
state talked familiarly in the midst of little groups of working-men;
parties of the popular force, rudely armed, ill-dressed, and disorderly,
presented arms as some officer of rank rode by. All attested the
existence of that strange compact by which the nation was again to be
subjugated, and terror made the active principle of a government. The
terrific songs of the bloody days of the Revolution were once more
heard, and the cruel denunciations of the mob again rang aloud in the
open streets! I heard and saw all these like one in a dream, as, with my
portfolio of office-papers under my arm, I held my way to the Tuileries;
nor was it till I had reached the wooden stockade in front of that
palace that I became collected enough to ask myself whither I was going,
and for what.

The machinery of government to which I belonged was annihilated and
destroyed; they who had guided and controlled it were gone; and there
I stood alone, friendless, and without a home in that vast city,
not knowing which way to turn me. I wandered into the garden of the
Tuileries, and sat down upon a bench in one of the less-frequented
alleys. The cries and shouts of the populace rung faintly in my ear, and
the noises of the city came dulled and indistinct by distance. From the
quiet habits of my simple life, I had scarcely learned anything whatever
of Paris. My acquaintances were limited to the few I had seen at the
bureau, and these I only met when there. My means were too scanty to
admit of even the cheapest pleasures; and up to this my existence had
been one uniform but contented poverty. Even this humble provision was
now withdrawn from me. What was I to do? Was there a career by which I
could earn my bread? I knew of none save daily labor with my hands; and
where to seek for even this I did not know. In my little lodging behind
the bureau I possessed a few articles of clothes and some books; these,
if sold, would support me for a week or two; and then--ay, then! But who
can tell? thought I: a day has marred,--who knows but another day may
make my fortune?

It was night when I turned homeward. To my surprise, the stair was not
lit up as usual, and it was only after repeated knockings that the door
was opened to me, and old Lizette, my landlady’s servant, with a voice
broken by sobs, bade me pass in quietly, and to make no noise. I asked
eagerly if any misfortune had occurred, and heard that Monsieur Bernois,
my landlord, had been mortally wounded in the affray of the night
before, and was then lying at the point of death.

“Is it the surgeon, Lizette?” cried Marguerite, a little girl of about
fourteen, and whose gentle “Good-day” had been the only thing like
welcome I had ever heard during my stay there; “is it the surgeon?”

“Hélas, no, mademoiselle, it is the lodger!”

I had not even a name for them! I was simply the occupant of a solitary
chamber, for whom none cared or thought; and yet at that instant I
felt my isolation the greatest blessing of Heaven, and would not have
exchanged my desolate condition for all the ties of family!

“Oh, sir,” cried Marguerite, “have pity on us, and come to papa. He is
bleeding on the bed here, and none of us know how to aid him!”

“But I am no less ignorant, mademoiselle,” said I; “would that I could
be of any use to you!”

“Oh, come,” cried she, “come; and Heaven may direct you how to succor
us, for we are utterly deserted!”

Scarcely knowing what I did, I followed the little girl into a darkened
room, where the long-drawn breathings of the wounded man were the only
sounds. By the dim half-light I could see a figure seated at the foot
of the bed. It was my hostess, pale, stern-looking, and collected;
there she sat, gazing at the gasping object before her, with a terrible
composure.

“Mamma, it is monsieur; monsieur who lives here is come to see papa,”
 whispered Marguerite, timidly.

The mother nodded her head, as if to imply that she had heard her, but
never spoke. I drew nigh the bed, the rather to show my sympathy with
the sorrow, than that I could be of any service; and the dying man’s
eyes met mine. Glazed and filmy as they seemed at first, I fancied they
grew bright and lustrous as he continued to stare. Such, at all events,
was their fascination that I could not look away from them, and so I
stood under that steadfast gaze forgetful even of the state of him who
bestowed it. At last the orbs slowly turned, at first towards where his
wife sat, then to Marguerite as she knelt by the bedside, and then back
again to me, with an expression that needed no words to convey. I took
the clammy hand in my own, and felt the fingers give a faint pressure. I
squeezed them gently, and saw that his lips parted; they moved, too,
as though with an effort to speak, but without avail. The attempt had
evidently cost him a severe pang, for his features were convulsed for a
few seconds, at the end of which he gently drew me a little towards him,
and with a sigh so faint as to be scarcely heard, uttered the words,
“Pauvre femme!”

It was not until some minutes had elapsed that I saw he had ceased
to breathe, for his eyes seemed to stare with meaning on me, and his
countenance remained unchanged. At length, however, I became conscious
that the struggle was over, and his spirit had passed away forever. The
stillness of the room was terrible, for not a stir broke it; and I knelt
down beside Marguerite to pray.

“Here is the surgeon, mademoiselle,” said Lizette, hurriedly; and an old
man drew nigh the bed and touched the wrist of the dead man.

“Ma foi!” said he, “this is the fourth time I have been sent for to-day
on a like errand;” and, so saying, he tapped me on the shoulder, and
motioned me to follow him.

I obeyed at once.

“Are you his son?” asked he, briefly.

“No,” I replied.

“His nephew?--his clerk, then?”

“Neither; I am a lodger here, and do not even claim acquaintance with
the family.”

“No matter,” resumed he, dryly, “you will do as well as another; give me
pen and paper.”

I took some from an open portfolio on the table and laid it before him,
and he wrote rapidly a few lines in a straggling hand:--

“The citizen Louis Bernois, age--; domiciled, Rue Neuve de Viardot, No.
318, avocat,”--“we may call him _avocat_, though he was only a writer,”
 said he, looking up,--“wounded fatally in the lungs and heart, and
attended till his death, on this morning, by the doctor Joseph Caillot,
surgeon and licentiate. The above verified by me.”--“Sign here,” added
he, handing me the pen, “and put your quality. Say, ‘Friend of the
family.’”

“But I never knew them; I have only lodged in the house for some months
back.”

“What signifies that? It is a mere form for the authorities, to whom his
death must be reported, or his family exposed to trouble and annoyance.
I will take it to the bureau myself.”

I signed my name, therefore, as he directed me, and sealed the “act”
 with a seal I found on the table. The doctor pocketed the paper and
withdrew, not even bestowing on me a good-bye as he left the room.

Lizette came to me for instructions as to what was to be done. Madame
had never recovered consciousness from the very first moment of the
misfortune; mademoiselle was too young and too inexperienced to be
consulted on the occasion. The family, too, had only been a few months
in Paris, and had no acquaintance save with the tradespeople they dealt
with.

I asked the name of the _avocat_ for whom he usually transcribed the
deeds and papers, and learned that it was a certain Monsieur le Monnier,
a lawyer of high standing at the bar of Paris, and who lived in the
Rue Quincampoix! With what a strange sensation I heard the name of that
street, which was the same that Herr Robert spoke of as inhabited by his
father in the days of his greatest prosperity! The thought merely shot
through my head rapidly, for other and far more pressing considerations
demanded all my attention. I resolved at once to call on Monsieur le
Monnier and ask his advice and guidance in the difficult position I
then found myself. Dressing myself with all the care my scanty wardrobe
permitted, I set out for the Rue Quincampoix, and soon found the house,
which was a large and spacious though somewhat sombre-looking hôtel,
with a half-effaced shield over the doorway. The porter inquired if I
came on business; and on my saying “Yes,” informed me that I must
call on the following morning, from eleven to two o’clock,--that the
“bâtonnier,” for such was his rank, did not transact affairs in the
evening.

I argued and pressed my suit with all zeal; but it was only when I
produced a piece of two francs that he consented to present my card, on
which I had written a few lines to explain the urgent cause of my visit.

After a long and most impatient waiting a servant came to Bay that
monsieur would receive me, and I followed him up a spacious but dimly
lighted stair, and across a long dreary gallery, where a single lamp
shone, into a small chamber fitted up like a study. Here, although it
was autumn, the “bâtonnier” was seated beside a brisk fire, enjoying
his coffee. He was a small man, with a massive, well-shaped head covered
with a profusion of snow-white hair, which he wore in such careless
fashion as to make his head appear even much larger than it was;
his features were pleasing, and his eyes were singularly soft and
gentle-looking. With a voice of peculiar sweetness, and in a low tone,
he welcomed me and desired me to be seated. This done, he begged me to
state the object of my visit.

In the very fewest words I could relate it, I mentioned the sad
circumstances about which I came, told my own difficulty in the matter,
and asked for advice.

“At any other moment,” said he, when I concluded, “your task would be
an easy one. You could report the event to the ‘commissaire’ of the
‘Quarter,’ state what you know, and withdraw from the affair altogether.
Now, however, the troubles in which we live excite suspicions in every
mind. Your name will be associated with the opinions for which this poor
man has given his life. The authorities will be on your track at every
moment, and every act of your life watched and reported. With whom were
you acquainted in Paris?”

“With none.”

He stared with some surprise; and I told him briefly the circumstances
of my own situation.

“A strange story indeed!” said he, taking up my card from the
chimney-piece. “And your name, for I cannot decipher it here, is--”

“Carew,--Jasper Carew.”

“That name is Irish, if I mistake not,” said he; “at least I remember,
some twenty years ago, we had here a distinguished stranger who came
from Ireland, and was called Carew. He was the fashionable celebrity of
a very famous period.”

“He was my father, sir.”

The old lawyer bowed and smiled; but though the gesture was eminently
polite, the shrewd twinkle of his eyes bespoke incredulity. I saw this,
and said at once,--

“I have many letters of his, dated from the ‘Place Vendôme,’ No. 13,
where he lived.”

“Indeed!” cried he, in astonishment. “You possess these at present?”

“Some few I have with me; others, a large number, are in the keeping
of my friends, as well as notes and papers in the hand of the late
Duc d’Orléans, with whom my father appeared to live on considerable
intimacy.”

“That I can vouch for myself,” said the _avocat_, hastily; then,
suddenly correcting himself, added,--“Perhaps you would give me a sight
of some of these documents. I do not ask from any impertinent curiosity,
but with the conviction that I can be of some service to you.”

I readily promised to do so, and the following day was named for the
purpose.

“Now, for the present case,” said he. “I know nothing of Monsieur
Bernois beyond what a client of mine from the Auvergnat told me. He was
the son of a poor farmer near Linange, who studied the law at Paris,
went back to his native village and married, and, after some years of
failure at home, came here to make his fortune. I employed him partly
from motives of charity, for he was irregular in his habits of work, and
seemed overcome by a depression that rendered him often incapable of all
exertion. Make what arrangements you think suitable for his burial, and
then induce his poor widow and daughter to return home. Call upon me
for any expenses that may be needed, and say that I will send one of my
clerks to make an inventory of his effects and draw up the ‘procès’ the
law requires.”

There was a mingled kindness and commonplace in the way he spoke this
that left me in doubt which of the two frames of mind predominated in
his nature. At all events, I had good reason to be satisfied with my
reception, and, resisting his invitation to stay to supper, I hastened
back to the Rue de Viardot.

The poor widow still remained in the state of stupor in which I first
saw her; but Marguerite’s grief had taken a more violent form, and
the terrible shock had brought on brain-fever,--at least, so Lizette
pronounced it. My sad duties were thus multiplied by the cares of the
sick-room, for Lizette threw all upon me, and would do nothing without
my guidance and advice.

By great exertions, and by working all night through, I reduced the
affairs of the family to a condition of order; and when Monsieur le
Monnier’s clerk appeared in the morning, I had already compiled the
inventory and drawn up the “acte de décès,” as it is called, for the
authorities.

By searching amongst papers I also found the address of the widow’s
father, who lived in the village of “Linange,” and to him I wrote a few
lines, acquainting him with what had occurred, and asking his counsel
with regard to the family. Though Lizette had accompanied them from
their native village to Paris, she was greatly indisposed to afford any
information as to their circumstances or condition in life, and seemed
only eager to complete all the formalities of the law and quit
the capital. I certainly did not impose any unfair burden upon her
incommunicative disposition. I asked a few questions,--none that were
not in a measure indispensable.

I suppose my reserve in this wise impressed her favorably, for she grew
gradually more and more open, dropping hints of sad circumstances and
calamities, in a way that seemed half to invite inquiry on my part. I
was resolved, however, not to make any advances, and left her entirely
to her own choice as to what revelations she might make me. I have no
doubt that had my object been to gratify my curiosity, I could not have
hit upon any surer means of success.

We laid the remains of poor Bernois in a little graveyard outside the
Porte St. Denis; Lizette and myself the only mourners that followed the
bier! As I slowly ascended the stairs towards my room, I said,--

“Come to me this evening, Lizette, and say if I can be of any further
service to you, since I mean to leave Paris to-morrow.”

“To leave Paris!” cried she; “Grand Dieu!--why, and for where?”

“For Switzerland,” replied I. “My friends there have not answered my
letters for some time back, and I have determined to set off and see
them.”

“But why not write again? Think of what a journey it is!”

“I have written till I have lost all hope. I must satisfy myself by
going in person.”

“But you will not leave us helpless, friendless, as we are!” cried she.

Never till that moment had it occurred to me that my assistance could
avail to any one, or that there existed one in the world humble
enough to be benefited by my guidance. The appeal, however, gave me
a self-confidence and an energy which I had not felt before, and I
listened to the explanations of the old servant with every desire to aid
her.

She judged rightly enough that as soon as removal were possible, the
safest course would be for the widow and her daughter to return to their
village.

“I know,” added she, “that this is not to be effected without
difficulty. ‘Madame’ will oppose it to the last; and it may be that
nothing short of force will accomplish it.”

I asked the reason of this repugnance, and she only gave me a vague,
unmeaning answer. It was clear to me there was a mystery in the affair;
and though piqued that I was not intrusted with the secret, I felt that
to withdraw my aid from them on such grounds would be both selfish and
unworthy.

“I will consult M. le Monnier,” said I, at last; “he shall decide what
is best to be done;” and at once set out for the Rue Quincampoix.

The old lawyer received me blandly as before, and gave me a few lines
for his family physician, who would see the widow and Marguerite, and
pronounce his opinion on their fitness for removal. Le Monnier seemed
pleased with the interest I manifested for these poor friendless people,
and readily promised to aid me in their behalf.

The doctor, too, was no less benevolently disposed, and came at once
with me to the house. His visit was a long one,--so long that more than
once I asked Lizette if she were quite certain that he had not taken
his departure. At length, however, he came forth, and, leading me into a
room, closed the door behind us with all the air of great secrecy.

“There is some sad story,” said he, “here, of which we have not the
clew. This is a serious affair.”

“How do you mean?” asked I.

“I mean that the state in which I find this woman is not attributable
to the recent shock. It is not her husband’s death has caused these
symptoms.”

“And what are they? Do they threaten her life?”

“No, certainly not; she may live for years.”

“What then? They will cause great suffering, perhaps?”

“Not even that, but worse than that. It is her intelligence is lost;
she has been stunned by some terrible shock of calamity, and her mind is
gone, in all likelihood forever!”

To my eager questioning he replied by explaining that these cases were
far less hopeful than others in which more palpable symptoms manifested
themselves; that they were of all others the least susceptible of
treatment.

“When we say,” continued he, “that ‘time’ is the best physician for
them, we declare in one word our own ignorance of the malady; and
yet such is the simple truth! A course of years may restore her to
reason,--there is no other remedy.”

“And her daughter?”

“That is not a case for apprehension,--it is a common fever, the result
of a nervous impression; a few days will bring her completely about.”

I mentioned to the doctor my belief that Lizette could probably impart
some explanation of the mystery; but the old woman was proof against all
cross-examination, and professed to know nothing that could account
for her mistress’s condition. The question was now how to act in this
emergency? and the doctor pronounced that there was no other course
than to obtain her admission into some _maison de santé_: if her fortune
permitted, to one of the better class; if not, there were various
humbler houses, where the patients were treated well and skilfully. As a
preliminary step, however, he requested me to write again to her family,
to state the opinion he had come to, and ask for their advice.

“It is little other than a form to do so,” added he, “for we live in
times when the state is everything, family nothing. If I report this
case to-morrow to the Bureau of Health of the ‘Quarter,’ a commission
will assemble, examine, and decide upon it at once. The measures adopted
will be as imperatively executed as though the law were in pursuit of a
criminal; and though this be so, and we cannot help it, it will have
the semblance of consideration for the feelings of her relatives, if we
consult them.”

He left me, therefore, to make this sad communication, and promised
to repeat his visit on the following day. By way of extorting some
confession from old Lizette, I told her the course the doctor had
resolved upon; but, far from exhibiting any repugnance to it, she
briefly said, “It was all for the best.”

It was not till after repeated efforts I could satisfy myself with the
terms of my letter. The occasion itself was a difficult one; but my
sense of a mystery of which I knew nothing, added immensely to the
embarrassment. I was, moreover, addressing persons I had never seen,
and of whose very condition in life I was ignorant. This in itself was
a circumstance that required consideration. I thought I would read my
letter to Lizette, and sent for her to hear it. She listened attentively
as I read it, but made no other remark than, “Yes; that will be
sufficient.”

On the fourth day after I despatched this, came a letter in reply, the
handwriting, style, and appearance of which were all superior to what
I had expected. It was from an unmarried sister of Madame Bernois,
who signed herself “Ursule,” that being the name by which she had
“professed” formerly in a convent, destroyed in the early days of the
Revolution. The writer, after expressing deep gratitude for the part
I had taken, went on to speak of the subject of my communication.
Her father’s infirmities had rendered him bedridden, and so utterly
incapable of affording any help or even counsel that she hesitated
about informing him of the terrible calamity that had befallen them. She
perfectly concurred in the advice given by the doctor, if “only that
it saved her poor sister from a return to a home now associated with
nothing but sorrow, and where, of course, her chances of recovery would
be diminished.” These strange expressions puzzled me much, and led me at
first to suppose that Ursule believed I knew more of her sister’s story
than I really was acquainted with; but as I read them again, I saw that
they might possibly only have reference to her father’s sad condition.
Margot, for so she called her niece, “would, of course, come back to
them;” and she charged me to despatch her, under Lizette’s care, by the
diligence, as soon as she was judged sufficiently well to encounter the
fatigue of the journey. With regard to any property or effects belonging
to them, she left all implicitly at my own discretion, believing, as
she said, the same kindness that had hitherto guided me would also here
suggest what was best for the interests of the widow and her child.

Some days of unremitting exertion succeeded the receipt of this letter,
for there was no end to the formalities requisite before I could obtain
admission for the widow into a small _maison de santé_, at Mont Martre.
It was, indeed, a moment at which the authorities were overwhelmed with
business, and many of the public functionaries were new to office,
and totally ignorant of its details. The public, too, were under the
influence of a terror that seemed to paralyze all powers of reason. In
my frequent visits to the commissaire of the “Quarter,” when waiting for
hours long in his antechamber, I had abundant opportunity to measure the
extent of the fear that then dominated the mind of the capital, since
every trifling incident evidenced and betrayed it.

Ladies of rank and condition would come, earnestly entreating that they
might obtain leave to attend the sick in the hospitals, and nurse the
“dear brothers” who had fallen in the cause of liberty. Others, of equal
station, requested that materials might be distributed to them to knit
stockings for the soldiers of the republic, regretting their poverty
at not being able to supply them from their own resources. Shopkeepers
besought the authorities that their taxes might be doubled, or
even trebled; and some professed to hope that the maladies which
incapacitated them from military service might be compensated by
works of charity and benevolence. There was an abject meanness in the
character of these petitions too revolting to endure the thought of.
The nation seemed prostrated by its’ terror, and degraded to the very
deepest abyss of shame and self-contempt. The horrible scenes of blood
through which they had passed might, indeed, excuse much, but there
were proofs of national cowardice at this juncture such as scarcely any
suffering could justify or palliate.

For these considerations I had but a passing thought. My whole attention
was devoted to the little circle of cares and sorrows around me; and,
in addition to other calamities, poor old Lizette, my aid and help
throughout all difficulties, was seized with a violent fever, and
obliged to be conveyed to hospital. I do not believe that anything can
sustain mere bodily strength more powerfully than the sense of doing a
benevolent action. Fatigue, weariness, exhaustion, sickness itself,
can be combated by this one stimulant. For myself, I can aver that
I scarcely ate or slept during the ten days that these events were
happening. Never had any incident of my own life so much engrossed me
as the care of these unhappy people; and when once or twice Le Monnier
adverted to my own story, I always replied that for the moment I had
no thoughts, nor hopes, nor fears, save for the widow and her orphan
daughter.

The old lawyer’s benevolence enabled me to meet all the expenses which
from day to day were incurred. He supplied me with means to pay the
charges of the _maison de santé_ and the fees to the physicians, and
enabled me to procure some articles of mourning for poor “Margot,”
 who had now sufficiently recovered from her illness to comprehend her
bereavement and the desolate condition in which she was placed. It
was, indeed, a sad lesson to teach the poor child; nor did I, in my own
forlorn and isolated state, know what consolations to offer, nor what
hopes to set before her. I could but tell her that I too was an orphan,
friendless,--nay, far more so than herself; that for me the world had
neither home nor country; and yet that each day, glimpses of bright
hopes gleamed upon me, kind words and acts met me, and that as I lived
I learned to feel that there was a brotherhood in humanity, and that
amidst all the adverse incidents of fortune, warm hearts and generous
natures were scattered about to sustain the drooping courage of those
deserted as we were.

“And be assured, Margot,” said I, “the time will come yet when you and
I will recall these dark hours with a sense of not unpleasant sorrow,
to think how patiently we bore our ills, how submissively and how
trustfully. Then shall we teach others, young as we are now, that even
the humblest has a duty to do in this life, and that he who would do it
well must bring to his task a stout heart and a steady will, and with
these there are no failures.”

I do not think that Margot derived much hope from all my efforts at
consolation, but she certainly felt a strong interest in the similarity
of our fortunes. Again and again did she question me if I had seen and
could remember my mother, and asked me a thousand questions about the
dear friend whom I had ever called by that name. We talked of no other
theme than this, and our isolation served to link us together, as that
of two beings deserted by all, and only cared for by each other. There
was a character of depression about her that seemed to come of a life
of habitual gloom; the ordinary state of her mind was sad, and yet her
dark, lustrous eyes could flash with sudden brilliancy; her deep color
knew how to heighten; and I have seen her lip tremble with proud emotion
at moments of excitement.

When sufficiently recovered to bear the journey, Le Monnier
counselled me to convey her to her friends; and I yielded--shall I own
it?--reluctantly; for of all the world, Margot was now the only one
to whom I could speak, as youth loves to speak, of all my hopes and
my dreads, my ambitions and my aspirings. So long as my duty each day
revolved round her, I had no time to think of my own fate, save as a
thing to weave fancies about, to speculate on a brilliant future, and
imagine incidents and events at random. With what enthusiasm was I
often carried away by these self-wrought fancies!--with what a sense of
triumph have I seen Margot, forgetting for the instant the sad realities
of her lot, listen breathlessly to me as I told of my ambitious plans!
To her I was already a hero; and oh! the glorious fascination with which
one first feels the thought that another’s heart has learned to beat
highly for our successes, and to throb with eagerness for our triumph!
I was but a boy, Margot was a child; and of love, as poets describe it,
there was none between us. Still, in my devotion there was nothing I
would not have dared, to please her,--nothing I would not have braved,
to make her think more highly of me. It was self-love, but self-love
ennobled by generous wishes and high ambitions. I strove to be worthy of
her affection, that so I might be capable of doing more still to deserve
it!

Is it to be wondered at if I dreaded to break this spell, and to awaken
from a trance of such fascination? But there was no alternative; Margot
must go, and I must address myself to the stern business of life, for I
had my bread to earn! How ardently I wished it was to my dear mother’s
arms that I should consign her, that her home could be that same humble
home I had just quitted, and that poor Joseph could have been her
teacher and her guide! Alas! I no longer knew in what part of the world
to look for them, and I could only speak of these things as I spoke of
the dream-wrought fancies that my hopes called up!

It was on a bright November morning, clear, sharp, and frosty, that we
left Paris in the diligence for Lyons. M. le Monnier had accompanied us
himself to the bureau, and given the _conducteur_ directions to show us
every attention in his power. Three days’ and nights’ travelling brought
us to Valence, where poor Margot, completely worn out, was obliged to
repose for some hours, during which time I strolled through the town to
see its churches and other remarkable monuments. It was the hour of
the table-d’hôte as I regained the inn, and the hostess advised that we
should dine at the public table, as less expensive than in private.
I remember well with what mingled bashfulness and pride I entered the
room, with Margot holding my hand. The company was a numerous one,
comprising, besides many of the townspeople, several officers of the
garrison, all of whom stared with undisguised astonishment at the aspect
of two travellers of our youth and palpable inexperience, while the
contrast between the deep mourning of her dress and the gay colors
of mine at once showed that we were not brother and sister. To my
respectful salute on entering, few deigned to reply; my companion’s
beauty had arrested every attention, and all eyes were turned towards
her as she took her place at table.

For the incident which succeeded, I must devote a short chapter.



CHAPTER XXIX. THE INN AT VALENCE

Preceded by the waiter, who was about to point out the places destined
for us at the table, I walked up the room, holding Margot by the
hand. The strangers made way for us as we went, not with any of the
deferential politeness so usual in France, but in a spirit of insolent
astonishment at our presence there. Such, at least, was the impression
their behavior produced on me; and I was only anxious that it should not
be so felt by my companion.

As I drew back my chair, to seat myself at her side, I felt a hand
placed on my arm. I turned, and saw an officer, a man of about six or
seven and twenty, with a bushy red beard and moustache, who said,--

“This place is mine, citizen; you must go seek for one elsewhere.”

I appealed to the waiter, who merely shrugged his shoulders, and
muttered something unintelligible; to which I replied by asking him to
show me another place, while I assisted Margot to rise.

“La petite shall stay where she is,” broke in the officer, bluntly, as
he brushed in front of me; and an approving laugh from his comrades at
once revealed to me the full meaning of the impertinence.

“This young lady is under my care, sir,” said I, calmly, “and needs no
protection from you.”

“The young lady,” cried he, with a burst of coarse laughter at the
words, “knows better how to choose! Is it not so, citizen? I look a more
responsible guardian than that thin stripling with the pale cheek.”

“I appeal to this company, to the superiors of this officer,--if there
be such present,--to know are these the habits of this place, or have I
been singled out specially for this insolence?”

“Insolence! insolence!” repeated every voice around me, in accents of
astonishment and reprobation; while suddenly above the clamor a deep
voice said,--

“Lieutenant Carrier, take a place at the foot of the table!”

“Oui, mon Colonel!” was the reply; and he who accosted me so rudely, now
moved away, and I seated myself at Margot’s side.

I believe that during this brief scene the poor girl knew little or
nothing of what was going forward. The fatigue, from which she had not
yet recovered; the novelty of the place in which she found herself; the
confusion natural to mixing with a strange company,--all contributed to
engage her attention and occupy her thoughts. It was only by the deadly
paleness of my features that she at last guessed that something had gone
wrong. I tried by every means in my power to reassure her. I affected,
as well as I might, to seem easy and unconcerned. I even essayed, by
way of showing my self-possession, to engage the person next me in
conversation; but a cold stare of surprise arrested the attempt, and I
sat abashed and ashamed at the rebuke.

I do not know if in my whole life, I ever passed an hour of greater
misery than the time of that dinner. Had I been there alone, I could
have confronted manfully whatever threatened me; but the thought of
involving Margot in any scene of shame--of exposing her to the rude
insolence of which I saw myself the mark--was insupportably painful. I
felt, besides, that I had a character to support in her eyes; nor could
I yet divine what adverse turn affairs might take. If I looked down the
table, it was to meet, on every side, glances of haughty or insolent
meaning. It was easy to perceive, too, that the whole company was under
the impression of the disagreeable incident which had occurred before
sitting down to table, and which none believed was yet concluded.
Instead of the noisy chit-chat so usual in such places, there was
either a perfect silence, or the low murmuring sounds of a conversation
maintained in whispers. At last the colonel and those around him stood
up, and gathered in a group at one of the windows. The civilians of the
party broke into knots, conversed for a few seconds, and separated;
and, taking Margot’s hand, I arose, and prepared to withdraw. As I was
leaving the room the officer who first accosted me, whispered in my
ear,--

“You will come back again, I suppose?”

“Certainly, if you want me,” said I.

He nodded, and I passed out.

“I am glad it is over,” said Margot, pressing my hand; “that dinner was
a tiresome affair!”

“So it was,” said I; “and I am well pleased that it is finished. I ‘ll
go down now and look after this calèche they promised me they should
have ready for us by this time;” and with this excuse I quitted her, and
hastened downstairs again.

I was just making for the door of the _salle-à-manger_ when the hostess
overtook me.

“A word with you, monsieur,--one word!” cried she.

“At another moment, madam,” said I, trying to pass on; “I am greatly
pressed for time just now.”

“It is exactly for that reason I must speak with you,” said she, firmly;
and at the same instant she seized my arm and drew me into a room, of
which she closed the door at once. “I suspect the object you have in
view, young man,” said she, boldly, to me. “You are eager for a quarrel.
The waiters have told me all that has occurred at table; and I can guess
what is likely to follow. But surely it is not for one in _her_ position
that you will risk your life, or rather sell it; for Carrier would
surely kill you!”

“In _her_ position!” said I. “What do you mean? You cannot dare to throw
an imputation on one who is little more than a child!”

“True; but a child of shame and infamy,” said she, sternly.

“It is a falsehood,--a damnable falsehood!” cried I. “I knew both her
parents: her father died almost in my arms.”

“It is as likely that you never saw her father in your life,” rejoined
she, calmly. “I see that you know little of her history; but she comes
from the village of Linange, and we Auvergnats are well acquainted with
her.”

“Yes, Linange is her native village,--that is true,” cried I, in a vague
terror of some dreadful tidings. “Tell me, I beseech you, whatever you
know of her story.”

“It is soon told, though the tale be sad enough,” said she, after a
pause. “Her mother was a Mademoiselle Nipernois. She called herself De
Nipernois, and not without reason; for the family had been of rank, and
were Grand Seigneurs once on a time. Her father had, however, fallen
into poverty, and for a livelihood was obliged to become a _pharmacien_
in the little village of Linange, every house of which had once belonged
to his family. They said he was a great chemist, which he had become for
his own amusement in his prosperous days; and fortunately he could now
practise the art for his support. At all events, the Blues wrecked
his château, burned his books, melted down his plate, and left him
penniless; so that he was fain to seek shelter amidst what once he would
have styled his own ‘vilains,’ but who were now, thanks to the glorious
fruits of the Revolution, his equals. That was not to be his only
humiliation, however. A young noble that was betrothed to his eldest
daughter, Hortense, and was to have married her just before ‘the
troubles,’ joined the mildest party of the anarchists, and actually
assisted at the sack of the château. Some said that he had had a
dreadful altercation and quarrel with the father; some averred that he
had met a contemptuous refusal from the daughter: either, or both, may
have been the truth. What is certain is, that he exacted a vengeance
far heavier than any injury he could have received. On the pretence of
seeking for some concealed royalist, a party of the Blues, headed by the
count, in disguise, broke into the old man’s house in the village, and
carried off his eldest daughter,--indeed, the only child that remained
to him; for his second girl was an admitted nun of the Chaise Dieu,
which had hitherto escaped pillage and destruction. From that hour no
trace of her could ever be obtained; but on the same day twelvemonths,
as morning broke, she was found on the steps of her father’s door, with
a baby in her arms. I have heard, for I have often spoken with those
who discovered her, that her reason was shattered, and her memory so
completely lost that she did not know her own name. An unbroken apathy
settled down on her from that time.

“She cared for nothing, not even her child; and though Margot was very
beautiful, and so engaging that all the neighbors loved and caressed
her, her mother saw her without the slightest touch of interest or
affection! After the lapse of thirteen, or almost fourteen years, a
young man of the village named Bernois, who had just returned from
studying at Paris, proposed to marry her. Some are of opinion that he
had never heard her real history, nor knew of the relationship between
her and Margot; others think differently, and say that he was aware
of all, and acquitted her of everything save the misfortune that had
befallen her. By what persuasion she was induced to accept him I never
knew, but she did so, and accompanied him to Paris; for, strangely
enough, they who had hitherto treated her with all the respect due to
undeserved calamity, no sooner beheld her as a married woman, and
lifted into a position of equality with them, than they vented a hundred
calumnies upon her, and affected to think her beneath their condition.
This persecution it was which drove Bernois to seek his fortune in
Paris, where he has now met his death! The _conducteur_ who arrived here
last night told who had accompanied him from Paris, and the officers,
who are all familiar with her mother’s story, were curious to see the
girl. They induced me to advise you to dine at the public table, and
unhappily I yielded to their solicitations, not suspecting what might
ensue. The only reparation in my power now is to tell you this whole
story; for of course, having heard it, you will perceive how fruitless
and vain it would be for you to oppose yourself to the entire force of
public opinion.

“And is it the custom of the world to insult those situated as she
is?” asked I, in a voice that plainly showed I put the question in all
sincerity and ignorance.

“It is assuredly the habit of young men, and more especially soldiers,
to treat them with less deference than the daughters of honest women;
and you must have seen but little of life, or you had not asked the
question.”

I sat silent for some seconds, revolving in my mind the sad history I
had just listened to, and comparing the events with what I had myself
witnessed of her who had been their victim. The hostess cut short my
musing by saying,--

“There, I see the calèche has just driven into the _cour_: lose no time
in getting away at once. The officers are now at coffee in the garden,
and you can escape unobserved.”

So engrossed was I by thoughts of Margot, and the necessity of shielding
her from insult, that I forgot totally all about myself, and what bore
reference to my own feelings exclusively. I therefore hastened from
the room to make the preparations for our departure. While I was thus
engaged, and occupied with seeing our luggage tied on, a young officer,
touching his cap in salute, asked if I was not the stranger who dined
that day at the table-d’hôte, in company with a young lady; and on my
replying, “Yes,” added,--

“Are you not aware, sir, that we have been expecting the pleasure of
your society in the garden for some time back?”

I answered that I was totally ignorant of their polite intentions
respecting me; that I was anxious to reach my destination, still twelve
leagues away, and unable to accept of their hospitality.

He gave a faint smile as I said this, and then rejoined:

“But you can surely spare a few moments to make your apologies to our
colonel?”

“They must be, then, of the very briefest,” said I. “Will you kindly
guide me to where he is?”

With a slight bow he walked on, and, crossing the courtyard, entered a
garden; on traversing a considerable portion of which, we came out upon
a kind of terrace, where a large party of officers were seated around a
table, smoking, and drinking coffee. Some, too, were engaged playing
at chess or dominoes, some reading, and some apparently asleep;
but, however occupied, no sooner had I made my appearance than all,
forgetting everything but my presence, turned their eyes upon me.

“The citizen,” cried out my guide, as we came up, “the citizen tells me
that he was quite unconscious of our polite intentions in his behalf;
and I can fully believe him, for he was on the eve of departure when I
caught him!”

“What does he think a French soldier is made of?” shouted out the
colonel, with a blow of his closed fist on the table. “He dares to make
use of an expression insulting to every officer of my regiment, and then
says he is unaware of any claim we have upon him!”

A new light broke upon me at these words, and, for a moment, the sense
of shame at my mistake nearly overcame me. I rallied, however, enough to
say,--

“It is quite as you say, Monsieur le Colonel; I was really unaware that
you or your officers had any claim upon me! I had been the subject of a
rudeness to-day, at the table-d’hôte, which, in my little knowledge of
the world, I attributed to the underbred habits of a coarse school of
manners. I now perceive that I was too lenient in my judgment.”

“Are we to listen to any more of this, messieurs?” said the colonel,
rising; “or is it from me that chastisement is to come?”

“No; I have the right, I claim the place, I am the youngest subaltern,
I am the ‘cadet of the corps,’” cried half-a-dozen in a breath; but
Carrier’s voice overbore the others, saying,--

“Comrades, you seem to forget that this is my quarrel; I will not yield
my right to any one!”

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed several voices together; “Carrier says truly.
The affair is his. We fight with the sabre, citizen, in the
Chasseurs-à-Cheval. Is the weapon to your liking?”

“One arm is the same to me as another,” replied I; and unfortunately
this was too literally the case, since I was equally inexpert in all!

“You can claim the pistol, if you wish it,” whispered an old captain,
with a snow-white moustache. “The challenged chooses his weapons.”

“The sabre be it, then,” exclaimed Carrier, catching me up at once.

“Not if the citizen prefer the pistol,” interposed the captain.

“He has already made his choice: he said all weapons were alike to him.”

“Quite true,” said I; “I did say so!”

“The greater fool you, then!” murmured the captain, between his teeth.
“You might just as well have given yourself your chance. Carrier won’t
be so generous to you!”

“Will you be my second?” asked I of him.

“_Ma foi!_ if you wish it,” said he, with a shrug of the shoulders and
a glance of such tender pity that could not be mistaken. “Let us follow
them!”

And so saying, we strolled leisurely on after the others, who, now
passing through a small wicket, entered a little wood that adjoined the
garden. A few minutes more brought us to an open space, which I rightly
guessed had been often before the scene of similar affairs.

I had never witnessed a duel in my life. I knew nothing of the
formalities which were observed in its arrangement; and the questions
which I asked the captain so palpably betrayed my ignorance that he
stared at me with mute astonishment.

“Have you any friends, boy,” asked he, after a pause, “to whom I can
write for you?”

“Not one,” said I.

“All the better!” rejoined he, tersely.

I nodded an assent; and from that moment we understood each other
perfectly. No lengthy explanation could more plainly have declared that
he thought I was doomed, and that I concurred in the foreboding.

“My sabre will be too heavy for you, boy,” said he; “I ‘ll see and
borrow a lighter one from one of my comrades. Chasteler, will you lend
me yours?”

“_Parbleu!_ that will I not. I’d never wear it again if used in such a
quarrel.”

“Right, Chasteler,” cried another; “I hope there is only one amongst us
could forget an insult offered to the whole regiment.”

“I wore my epaulette when you were in the cradle, Lieutenant Hautmain,”
 said the old captain; “so don’t pretend to teach me the feelings that
become a soldier. There, boy,” he added, drawing his sabre as he spoke,
“take mine.”

By this time my antagonist had divested himself of coat and neckcloth,
and stood, with open shirt-breast and the sleeve of his sword-arm rolled
up to the shoulder, before me.

He was as much an overmatch for me in strength and vigor as in skill,
and I felt an acute sense of shame in pitting myself against him. As
he swung his sabre jauntily to and fro with the dexterous facility of a
practised swordsman, I could read the confidence with which he entered
upon the encounter.

“It is the first time you ever handled a sword, I think?” said the
captain, as he assisted me off with my coat.

“The very first,” said I, endeavoring, I know not how successfully, to
smile.

“_Parbleu!_” cried he, aloud. “This is no better than a murder! The boy
knows nothing of fencing; he never had a sabre in his hands till now.”

“He should have thought of that before he uttered an insult,” said
Carrier, placing himself _en garde_. “Come on, boy!”

The offensive look and manner in which he spoke so carried me away that
I rushed in, and aimed a cut at his head. He parried it, and came down
with a sharp stroke on my shoulder, exclaiming, “_Ça!_” as he did it.
The same word followed every time that he touched me; nor did it require
the easy impertinence of the glances he gave towards his comrades to
show that he was merely amusing himself; as, at one moment, he covered
my face with blood, and at another disarmed me by a severe wound on the
wrist.

“Enough of this,--too much of it!” cried the captain, as the blood
streamed down my cheeks from a cut on the forehead, and almost blinded
me.

“When _he_ says so, it will be time to stop,--not till then,” said
Carrier, as he gave me a sharp cut on the neck.

My rage so overpowered me at this that I lost all control over myself;
and, resolving to finish the struggle at once, I sprang at him, and,
with both hands on my sword, made a cut at his head. The force was such
that the blow broke down his guard and felled him to the earth, with a
tremendous wound of the scalp; and there he lay, stunned and senseless,
while, scarcely more conscious, I stood over him. Passion had up to that
sustained me; but loss of blood and exhaustion now succeeded together,
and I reeled back and fainted.

Though terribly hacked and sorely treated, none of my wounds were
dangerous; and after being bandaged, and stitched, and plastered in
various ways, I was able--or at least insisted that I was able--to
pursue my journey that evening; and away we drove, with no very grateful
recollection of Valence, except, indeed, towards the old captain, who
saw us off, and took a most affectionate leave of us at parting.

Margot had heard from the hostess enough to show her that I had been
her champion and defender, though in what cause she could not possibly
divine. Whatever her anxiety to learn the facts, she never put a single
question to me as we went along, her sole care being to do whatever
might assuage my pain and alleviate my suffering. Thanks to this
kindness, and the cool air of an autumn night, I travelled with
comparatively little uneasiness; and as day was breaking we entered the
quiet street of the little village.

“There, yonder is our house,--the porch with the jasmine over it. Oh,
how the rose-trees have grown!”

Such was Margot’s exclamation, as we drew up at the door.



CHAPTER XXX. LINANGE

I do not know how far other men’s experiences will corroborate the
opinion, but for myself I will say that more than once has it occurred
to me to remark that some of the most monotonous periods of my life have
been those to which I often look back with the greatest pleasure, and
love to think over as amongst the happiest. The time I passed at Linange
was one of these. Nothing could be more simple, nothing more uniform
than our life there. The unhappy circumstance to which I have already
alluded had completely estranged from the family any of those with whom
they might have associated. From some, the former rank and condition
of the house separated them; from others they were removed by political
bias; and to the rest, the event of which I have already spoken was the
barrier. Thus, then, was our life passed within the limits of an humble
household of four persons. The old Marquis--for such was he still styled
by us--was a fine specimen of the class to which he belonged: proud and
stately in manner, but courteous almost to humility in his bearing to
one beneath his roof. Unbroken by misfortune, he trusted that--although
not in his time--the world would yet return to its ancient course, and
the good king “have his own again.” His personal calamities sat lightly
on him, or, rather, he bore them bravely. If he spoke of his former
state and position, it was in regret for those faithful followers he
could no longer support,--not for himself, whose wants were few, and
whose habits demanded no luxuries. In the calling that he practised for
his maintenance, he saw rather an occasion for pride than humiliation.
There was but one topic from which he shrunk back; nor could all his
courage enable him to approach that. When I first saw him, it was after
a severe attack brought on by the dreadful tidings from Paris; and yet
his composure seemed to me almost bordering on indifference, and I half
revolted against the calm elegance of a good-breeding that seemed above
the reach of all feeling. Ursule was a “nun;” and whether the walls
around her were those of a cloister or a cottage, her heart was enclosed
within the observances of the convent. She rose hours before daybreak,
to pass her time in prayer and solitude. She fasted, and toiled, and
observed penances, exactly as if beneath the rule of the Superior. She
had been singularly handsome, and there was still a character of beauty
in her features, to which her devotional life imparted an expression of
sublimity such as I have never seen even in a “Raphael.” Suffering and
sorrow seemed so blended with hopefulness--present agony so tinctured
with a glorious future--that, to me at least, she appeared almost
angelic.

As for “Margot,” child as she was, the whole care of the household
devolved upon her. The humblest _ménage_ is not without its duties,
and to these she addressed herself at once. It was on the day after my
arrival, and while just meditating a return to Paris, that symptoms
of fever first showed themselves, and a severe shivering, followed by
intense headache, showed me that I was not to escape the consequences of
my unhappy encounter. Ursule, whose experience in hospital life had been
considerable, was the first to see the mischief that threatened, and at
once persuaded me to submit to treatment. The old Marquis was soon at
my bedside, but as quickly did he perceive that the case was beyond his
skill. The surgeon of the village was now sent for; he bled me largely,
dressed my wounds, administered some cooling drink, and then left me
to that terrible interval which precedes mania, and when the enfeebled
intellect struggles for mastery against the force of wandering
faculties.

In my wild fancies, all the incidents of my early days, the little
adventures of boyhood, my mountain ramble, and my life in Paris, came
back, and I talked with intense eagerness to those around me of them
all. Short intervals of consciousness, like gleams of sunlight in a
lowering sky, would break through these, and then I saw beside the bed
the kind faces, and heard the gentle accents, of my friends. “Ursule”
 and, “Margot” scarcely ever left me. In the dark hours of the long
night, if a weary sigh escaped me, one of them was sure to be near to
ask if I was in pain or if I needed anything. How often have I turned
away from these gentle questionings to hide my face within my hands and
cry, not in sorrow, but in a thankful outpouring of emotion, that I, the
poor unfriended, uncared-for orphan, should be thus watched, and tended,
and loved!

It was not till after a lapse of weeks that I was pronounced out of
danger, nor even till long after that that I could arise from my bed.
Shall I ever forget the strange confusion of ideas that beset me as
I first found myself alone one morning in the little garden, scarcely
knowing if I was still dreaming, or if all was reality around me! Where
was I? how came I there? were questions that I could not follow to
a solution. Some resemblance in the scenery with the country around
Reichenau assisted the mystification, and from the entanglement of my
thoughts no effort could rescue me. As, one by one, memories of the
past came up, there came with them the sad reflection of my own lonely,
isolated condition in life. The humblest had a home--had those around
them to whose love and affection they could lay claim as from blood
and kindred--who bore the same name, were supported by the same hopes,
cheered by the same joys, and sorrowed for the same sufferings! It was
true that no affection a sister could bestow could exceed that I had met
with where I was. There was not a kindness of which I had not been
the object. Was I, could I, be ungrateful for these? Far from it!--my
melancholy lay in the thought that these were the very evidences of my
own forlorn lot, and that compassion and pity were the sentiments that
prompted them in my behalf.

I knew, besides, that in my long illness I must have proved a grievous
burden to those whose own circumstances were straitened to the utmost
limit of narrow fortune. I saw about me comforts, even luxuries, that
must have cost many a privation to acquire. I felt that, in succoring
me, they had imposed upon themselves the weight of many a future
want. These were afflicting considerations, nor could all my ingenuity
discover one resource against them. I was still too weak to walk; my
limbs tottered under me as I went. Perhaps it were better it had been
so, since I really believe if I had had strength sufficient for
the effort, notwithstanding all the shame that might attach to my
ingratitude, I should have fled from the house that moment, never to
return! It was in the abandonment of grief arising from these thoughts
that “Ursule” discovered me. With what tenderness did she rally my
drooping spirits; how gently did she chide my faint-heartedness!

“You must rise above these things, Jasper,” said she to me. “You must
learn to see that the small ills of life are difficult to be borne just
because they suggest no high purpose.”

And from this she went on to tell me of the noble devotion of the
missionary, the splendid enthusiasm that elevated men above every
thought of peril, and taught them to court danger and confront
suffering. How mean and sordid did she represent every other ambition in
comparison with this! How ignoble was the soldier’s heroism when placed
beside the martyrdom of the priest! With consummate art she displayed
before my boyish fancy all that was attractive, all that was
picturesque, in the missionary’s life. To glowing descriptions of
scenery and savage life succeeded touching episodes of deep interest
and passages of tenderest emotions, the power of the Church--whether
as consoler or comforter, as healing the sick or supporting the
weak-hearted--being never forgotten. If she saw that my mind dwelt with
pleasure on pictures of splendor, she lingered on scenes of greatness
and royal power, when priests associated with monarchs as their guides
and counsellors. If, at another moment, the romance seemed to engage my
attention, she narrated incidents of the most affecting kind. At these
moments it was strange to mark how the cold and almost stern reserve of
the cloister seemed lost in the glowing enthusiasm of the devotee. It
was not the nun broken down by fasting, wasted by penance, and subdued
by prayer, but the almost inspired daughter of the Church, glorying and
exulting in its triumph. She gave me books to read,--lives of saints and
martyrs, of devoted missionaries and pious fathers. If in some instances
the sufferings they endured seemed more than mere humanity could
support, the triumphant joy of their victories appeared to partake of
a celestial brilliancy. Day by day, hour by hour, did she pursue
the theme, till the subject, like a river fed by a thousand rills,
overflowed all else in my mind, and left no room for aught but itself.

It was not difficult for her to show that the frightful condition of
France at the period--its lawless confiscations, its pillage, and its
bloodshed--all dated from the extinction of the Church. The task was an
easy one to contrast past peace and happiness with present anarchy
and suffering. I reflected long and deeply on the subject. If doubts
assailed me, I came to her to solve them; if difficulties embarrassed
me, I asked her to explain them. I applied the question to the
circumstances of my own position in life, and began to believe that it
was exactly the career to suit me. I eagerly inquired, next, how
the fitting education might be obtained, and learned that since the
destruction of the religious societies of France and the Low Countries,
many had emigrated to Spain and Italy, and some to England. Sister
“Ursule” was in correspondence with more than one of these, and promised
to obtain all the information I sought for; meanwhile, she besought
me to devote my whole mind and thoughts to these sacred subjects,
withdrawing, so far as I might, all my desires and ambition from the
world.

Margot, I am obliged to own, contributed but little to aid my pious
purpose; her gay and joyous nature had no sympathy with asceticism and
restraint. The poets and dramatists, whose works she read in secret,
inspired very different thoughts from the subject of my studies; her
childish buoyancy could not endure the weight of that gloom which a life
of denial imposes; and whenever we were alone together, she rallied
me on my newly assumed seriousness as on a costume which I would soon
discover to be insufferable.

I dwell on these things, trifling as they are, because they convey the
curious conflict which my mind sustained at this time, and the struggle
that went on within me between the tendencies natural to my age, and the
impulses that grew out of a sudden enthusiasm. Perhaps I might not care
to recall them, if it was not that they remind me of Margot such as I
then remember her. I see her before me: her dark eyes, flashing with
daring brilliancy, dropped in a half-rebellious submission, her changing
color, her fair and open brow, her beautiful mouth, with all its varying
expression, her very gait, haughty even in its girlish gayety,--all rise
to my mind’s eye; and I feel even yet within me the remembrance of that
strange distrust and bashfulness with which I endeavored to reply to her
witty sallies, and recall her to a seriousness like my own I I was no
hypocrite, and yet she half hinted that I was; neither was it a dash of
thoughtless enthusiasm that carried me away, though she often said so.
It was the very reverse of vanity or self-exaltation,--it was humility
that prompted me to devote myself to a career from which others might
have been withheld by the ties of home and affection.

“You forget, Margot,” cried I one day, when she bantered me beyond
endurance, “that I am already an idle and homeless being, without one on
earth to love me!”

“But I love you, Jasper!” said she, seizing my hand and pressing it to
her lips; and then, as suddenly dropping it, she became pale as death,
and staggered as if falling. I caught her in my arms; but she disengaged
herself at once, and, with her hands pressed closely over her face, fled
from the spot.

From that day she never jested with me, nor even alluded to my choice of
a career. She, I fancied, even avoided being alone with me as she used
to be; the playful tricks she had indulged in of hiding my serious
books, or substituting for them others of a very different kind, were
all abandoned. Her whole manner and bearing were changed, nor could I
fail to see that there was no longer between us the cordial frankness
that hitherto united us. If this were, in one respect, a source of
sorrow to me, in another there was a strange, secret charm in that
reserve so full of meaning,--in that shyness so suggestive!

Up to that time I had been in the habit of reading with her some part
of every day. My school-learning, such as it was, was yet fresh in my
memory, and I was delighted to have a pupil so gifted and intelligent;
but from this time forth she never resumed her studies, but pretended a
variety of occupations as excuses. I know not, I cannot even speculate,
on how this might have ended, when a sudden change of events gave a
decisive turn to my destinies.

The bâtonnier who had so kindly undertaken to look after the little
remnant of Monsieur Bernois’ fortune was no less prompt than he had
promised. He made all the arrangements required by law, and corresponded
with me on each step of the proceedings. In one of these letters was
a postscript containing these words: “Is it true that you have had a
serious rencontre with a captain of the Chasseurs-à-Cheval who is still
in danger from the wound he received?” Before my reply to this question
could have reached him, came the following brief note:--

“My dear Monsieur Carew,--I learned late last night the whole
circumstances of the adventure of which I had asked an explanation from
you by my letter of Tuesday. The affair is a most unhappy one on every
account, but on none more than the fact that your antagonist was Captain
Carrier, the brother of the celebrated member of the Constituent of
that name. I need scarcely remind you that his friends, numerous and
influential as they are, are now your bitterest enemies. They are at
this moment busily employed in making searches into your previous
life and habits; and should all other sources of accusation fail, will
inevitably make your nationality the ground of attack, and perhaps
denounce you as a spy of the English Government. The source from which
I obtained this information leaves no doubt of its correctness, as you
will acknowledge when I add that it enables me to forward to you, by
this enclosure, a passport for England, under the name of Bernard. I
also transmit a bank order for one thousand francs, which I beg you will
use freely, as if your own, and part of a fund, the remainder of which
I will take an early opportunity of placing in your hands. The hurried
nature of my present communication prevents me adding more than that I
am, very faithfully, your friend.”

His initials alone were inscribed at the foot of this most extraordinary
epistle. I hastened to show it to the Marquis, who, on learning the name
of the writer, pronounced him one of the first men at the French bar.

“The warning of such a man,” said he, “must not be neglected; and
although Carrier’s faction have fallen, who can answer what to-morrow
may bring forth? At all events, your position as an alien is highly
perilous, and you must see to your safety at once.”

As for the concluding portion of the letter, he could not assist me to
any explanation of it. The nearest approach to elucidation was, that
many of the leading lawyers of Paris were frequently selected by their
clients as depositaries of property, and that it was just possible such
had been the case here.

With this meagre suggestion he left me, and I proceeded, with a heavy
heart, to make my preparations for departure.



CHAPTER XXXI. HAVRE.

The diligence passed our door, and the conductor had orders to stop and
take me up, as he went by. That supper was a sorrowful meal to all of
us. They had come to think of me as one of themselves, and I felt as if
I was about to part with the last who would ever befriend me.

There was but little said on any side, and none of us ventured on a word
alluding to my departure. At last the old Marquis, laying his hand on my
shoulder, said,--

“These are not days in which one can trust to the post, Jasper; but if
ever the occasion offer of letting us hear of you by other means, you
‘ll not neglect it.”

“The Père Tonsurd will manage this for you,” broke in Ursule. “He knows
how to communicate, when, and with whom he pleases.”

“But how am I to meet with him?” asked I.

“This is his address, and this letter will introduce you,” said she,
giving me a carefully-folded and well-sealed packet. “Make a friend of
him, Jasper, and your happiness will be the reward.”

I thought that Margot’s lip was upturned at these words, with a faint
expression of disdainful meaning; but I may easily have been deceived,
for as I looked again, her features were calm and unmoved.

“The Père,” resumed Ursule, “was superintendent of the ‘Chaise Dieu,’
and removed to be a Professor at Namur. He is a man of high acquirements
and sincere piety, but his great characteristic is his humility. With a
tenth of the ambition that others possess, he had been a Prince of the
Church.”

Margot’s eyes were downcast as this was spoken, so that I could not
detect how the speech affected her; but again it struck me that her
mouth was moved with an expression of scorn.

“There! I hear the horn of the postilion; you have n’t a moment to
lose!” cried Ursule.

A fond, close embrace with each in turn, and a whispered word from
Margot which I tried in vain to catch, and I was gone! I buried my head
between my hands in shame, for I was crying bitterly, and never looked
up till we were far away from the village, and traversing a wide,
open country, with great undulating fields of corn, and few traces of
habitation.

“Come, come, be a man,” broke in the _conducteur_, with a rough
good-humor. “You ‘re not the first who had to leave his home for the
conscription, and some have gone back _chefs-d’ escadron_, afterwards.”

I accepted the part he thus erringly assigned me, and let him run on
about all the fortunes and chances of a soldier’s life.

If his conversation did not divert my thoughts, it at least suffered me
to pursue them unmolested; and so I travelled along through the whole
of that night and the following day, seldom speaking, or only in half
mechanical assent to some remark of my companion.

“They ‘ll want to see your passport here, citizen,” said he, as we
approached the gate of a fortified town; “so get it ready, and don’t
delay the authorities.”

A few minutes more brought us to the outworks of a fortification,
passing through which, we crossed a drawbridge, over a deep moat,
and entered a long, dark archway. Here the diligence drew up, and the
passengers were ordered to descend. I overheard the _conducteur_ say the
word “conscript,” and began to fear that he used it in relation to me,
when suddenly the official, opening my passport, called out:

“Which of you is the citizen Bernard?”

I at once remembered that it was the name I had recruited under, and
answered, “It is I.”

“Step inside here,” said he, civilly; “I have some directions with
respect to you.”

I walked into a small chamber off the public room, when, having
carefully closed the door, he said,--

“So you are going over to England, monsieur?”

The last word was accented deeply, and with an emphasis meant to
show that he who used it proclaimed himself no partisan of republican
principles, but one who held to the ancient habits of the monarchy.

The manners of the time suggested distrust on all sides, and I answered,
guardedly, that I had some intention of visiting England.

“You will see them, then,” resumed he, “and even that much is a blessing
in itself! How do I envy you! Ah, monsieur, if the name should not
escape you, will you try and remember Claude Mirepois? My father was
head postilion in the royal stables, and enjoyed his pension to his
death; and I was educated by order of the princes, and was to have been
in the household too.”

“Are we all right and regular, citizen?” broke in the _conducteur_,
putting in his head.

“All right--quite right, citizen Guichemar,” said the other, in some
confusion. “These are ticklish times; I was anxious to see that this
youth’s pass was regular.”

“_Parbleu!_ a conscript is always _en règle_,” said the other, laughing,
and so hurried me away to the diligence; and once more we rattled along
on our journey.

The whole of that night my mind dwelt upon this incident. Amongst the
various parties that disputed for preeminence in the country, I had
never heard of any professing royalist principles, except the Vendeans;
nor had I the slightest suspicion that many concealed monarchists held
places of trust under the government of the republic.

At Havre, I discovered that the measures of the police were of the
very strictest kind, and that to obtain a permission to embark, it was
necessary to have a reference to some citizen of the town, who should
stand guarantee for your loyalty and integrity. Now, I had never been
there before; I knew none, not even by name; and what was I to do?
Great as my difficulty was, I did not suffer it to appear so to the
commissary, but calmly said that I ‘d return to my hotel, and run my eye
over a list of the merchants for one to be my bail.

The packet was to sail that evening with the tide; and as the office of
the commissaire closed at four o’clock, there was little time to lose.
I wandered on “from street to street; I walked into cafés; I sat down in
the most public places, scanning with eagerness every face that
passed me, and straining my eyes to try and detect the features of
an acquaintance. The pursuit became at length a perfect farce, and I
hurried to and fro with a burning brain, and a restless impatience that
was almost maddening.

“Parbleu! this is the fourth time you’ve been in here to-day,” cried
a short, thickset man, past the prime of life, and who kept a sort of
slop-shop near the quay. “What do you want with me, my lad?”

I was turning to leave the spot without replying, when he closed the
half-door of his shop, and placed his back against it.

“Come, my friend, you shall certainly say what has brought you here, ere
you get away this time.”

“I am in search of some one,--I am looking for one of my acquaintances,”
 said I, hurriedly.

“And expected to find him here?” added he, half sneeringly.

“Here--anywhere,” said I, recklessly.

“Just so; I thought as much. Well, my lad, you had better give a more
satisfactory account of yourself to the commissary. Come along with me
to the police.”

“With all my heart,” cried I.

“Who are you? Whence do you come?” asked he, with somewhat of kindliness
in his voice.

“These are questions you have no right to ask me, citizen,” replied I.

“Well, have I not a right to know why you have been four several times
in my shop this forenoon, and never bought nor asked for anything?”

“That you shall hear freely and frankly,” said I; “I have a passport
made out for England, whither I wish to go. The authorities require that
I should have some reference to a citizen of Havre before they allow me
to depart. I am a stranger here,--I know of no one, not even by name.
The whole of this morning I have spent hurrying hither and thither to
find out some one I have seen before, but in vain. All are strangers
to me; none know me. In my wanderings, it may be that I have chanced to
come here as often as you say,--perhaps I have done so in twenty places;
for my head is distracted, and I cannot collect my thoughts. There,
then, is the answer to your inquiry.”

“Have you a trade or a handicraft, lad?”

“Not either.”

“Nor any means of support?”

“Quite sufficient for all my wants,” replied I, boldly; and at the same
time producing my purse, well stored as it was with five-franc pieces.

“Ah, then, you belong to some of the _émigrés?_ You are going to join
your family?” asked he, but in a lower and more cautious voice.

“Don’t you think that I have been candid enough already, friend?” said
I; “and do you not know sufficient of my affairs, without asking me
more?”

“Not if it be for more than mere curiosity,” said he, drawing nearer to
me; “not if I ask from a sincere interest in you.”

“But I ought, perhaps, to hear something of him that questions me,” said
I, affecting an amount of circumspection that was far from natural to
me.

“Then go out upon the quay yonder, and ask who is Pierre Dubos. My
character and my name are well known in Havre; you ‘ll not have to ask
often without an answer.”

“Well, then, citizen, tell me what more you wish to learn about me. I
‘ll tell you whatever you like, if I only know it.”

“Have you dined yet, lad?” asked he, quietly.

“No; I have not had time.”

“Come, then, and partake of mine;” and, without waiting for an answer,
he let down the shutter that closed the entrance to his shop, and led me
by the arm into a room behind it.

Pierre Dubos, though nearer to sixty than fifty, was only a short time
married to a very pretty and young woman who, as he entered the room,
was arranging the table for dinner. She received me with much courtesy,
scarcely heeding, if she even heard, the explanation her husband gave to
account for my presence.

The meal was an excellent one, and passed off with all that easy
conviviality that every class of Frenchmen know how to display. Monsieur
Dubos seemed somewhat of a character, and rather piqued himself on doing
things that others might never have thought of. His marriage appeared to
have been one of these; his invitation to myself was another.

“You know, Jeanette,” said he, “we might never have met if it had not
been for the ferry being delayed at Honfleur. We made acquaintance on
the steps of the pier; and see what has come of it! Now, I have come to
know Bernard here by a similar accident. Who knows what may arise out of
that?”

Madame smiled benignly in assent to the theory, the happy results of
which she seemed to acknowledge.

Coffee came after dinner; and then I began to think how I should take my
leave. Ere I could solve the problem to my satisfaction, Dubos said,--

“Shall we all go to the comedy this evening? They play a grand piece,
one of Beaumanhui’s,--and it will amuse us.”

Madame hailed the proposition with delight; and I really felt sorry as I
said,--

“But this will never bring me to England.”

“What need to go there? Why not stay in France? Was it not a pleasanter
country and a better climate? At all events, what urgent haste was
there? Would not to-morrow serve as well as to-day?”

These and such-like arguments were showered upon me, and not a little
aided by many little coquetries of look and gesture.

“One thing is quite certain,” said Dubos: “it is now three,--the bureau
closes at four o’clock; and if you know of any one in Havre who will be
your sponsor, the sooner you find him the better.”

This speech was uttered with so much gravity that it completely
mystified me; nor did the next remark serve greatly to elucidate
matters, as his wife said she hoped “I ‘d have a pleasant voyage.” After
enjoying my astonished and puzzled look for a second or two, they both
burst into a roar of laughter.

“Don’t you see, Bernard,” said the man, “that you have no other
acquaintance in the city than ourselves; and if we have a fancy for your
company, and do not care to part with it, the option is with us?”

“But if you really do feel an interest for me, you would befriend me,”
 said I. “Is not that so?”

“And so I ‘m ready to do,” said he, rising. “Say the word, and I ‘ll go
with you this moment to the commissary.”

I arose too. Already the syllables were on my lips, when the sudden
thought flashed across me: Whither am I hurrying, and for what? Was I
returning to home and family and country? Was I going back to kind and
loving friends, whose hearts were yearning for my coming? I paused, and
at the same instant the laughing eyes of the young Frenchwoman seemed to
read my embarrassment.

“Well,” cried Dubos, “how is it to be?”

“Sit down, Pierre, and take your coffee,” said she, smiling. “Citizen
Bernard has not the slightest intention of leaving us. He knows,
besides, that you will be just as ready to serve him any other day, and
not the less so when you will have been better acquainted.”

“She is right,” said he, pressing me down into my seat again. “Let’s
have a _chasse_ in ease, and quick.”

I did not stop to reason the question. If I had, perhaps I should only
have seen stronger cause to concur with my kind hosts. The world was a
wide and trackless ocean before me, and even the humblest haven was a
welcome harbor to me for a day or two.

I stayed accordingly, and went to the theatre with them. The following
day was Sunday, and we went over to Honneur, and dined at the “Trois
Pigeons;” and Pierre showed me the spot where he first saw his pretty
wife, and said,--

“Who knows but some day or other I may be telling of the day and the
hour and the way I became acquainted with you?”

As I parted with them each night, some little plan or project was always
struck out for the morrow; and so I lingered on from day to day, half
listless, and half pleased. At length, as I was proceeding one morning
towards the house, I saw a crowd in front of a café all busily engaged
in reading a large placard which had just been affixed to the wall. It
was an account of the seizure by the English of the very vessel I had
intended to have taken my passage in; for, strangely enough, though the
countries were at war, a species of half intercourse was kept up between
them for some time, and travellers often passed from one shore to
the other. This system was now, it seemed, to have an end; and it was
curious to remark how bitter were the commentaries the change excited.

Pierre had learned the news by the time I reached his house, and
laughingly remarked on the good luck that always attended his
inspirations.

“But for me,” said he, “and my wise counsels, you had been a prisoner
now, and all your claims to nationality would only have got you hanged
for a traitor. From the first moment I saw you, something whispered me
that we were destined to know more of each other; and now I perceive
that the impression was-well founded.”

“How do you infer that?” asked I, smiling.

“Because my instincts have never betrayed me yet.”

“And what is to be the upshot of our acquaintance, then?”

“Do you ask this seriously, Bernard, or are you only jesting at my
presentiments?”

“In all seriousness and in all trustfulness,” replied I.

“You ‘ll stay here in Havre--join me in my business--make money--be a
rich man--and--” he paused.

“Go on; I like the prophecy,” said I, laughing.

“And I was going to say, just as likely to lose it all, some fine
morning, as easily as you earned it.”

“But I have not a single requisite for the part you assign me. I am
ignorant of every branch of trade and traffic; nor, if I know myself, do
I possess one single quality that insures success in them.”

“I’ll teach you, Bernard! There are few secrets in my craft. We deal
with smugglers,--we buy from them, and sell to them! For the pedler that
comes to us in our shop in the ‘Rue des Sol,’ we care little; for our
customers who drop in after nightfall, we have a sincere affection. You
have hitherto regarded them in the light of visitors and friends. You
little suspected that through them we carried on all our business; and
just as little did it ever occur to you that you yourself are already a
great favorite with them. Your stories, your remarks, the views you
take of life, all your observations, are quite novel and amusing to
poor fellows whose whole experience of the world is picked up in stormy
nights in the Channel, or still more perilous adventures on shore. Many
have already asked me when you would be with me of an evening, that they
might come; others have begged they might bring friends along with them;
and, in short, they like you; and they are fellows who, when they have
fancies, don’t grudge the price they pay for them.”

I laughed heartily as I heard this. Assuredly it had never occurred to
myself to observe the circumstance, still less to make it a matter of
profit or speculation; but, somehow, the coarse flattery of even such
admiration was not without a certain charm for my mind.

Still, it was a part I could not have condescended to practise for gain,
nor, perhaps, had such been my intention, could I have been equally
successful.

Dubos, however, assigned me a duty which made a happy compromise
between my self-esteem and my desire for employment. This was to make
acquaintance with all of that adventurous race comprised between the
buccaneer and the smuggler; to learn their various wants, when they
voyaged, and for what, became my province. They were a wild, wasteful,
and reckless class, who loved far better to deal with one who should
stand to them in the relation of a companion than as a chapman or a
dealer.

If I am free to own that my occupation was not very dignified, I am
equally able to assert that I never prostituted any influence I obtained
in this way to personal objects of profit. On the contrary, I have
repeatedly been able to aid, by good counsel and advice, men whose
knowledge of adventurous life was far greater than my own; and
oftentimes has it occurred to me to obtain for them quadruple the value
they had themselves set upon objects they possessed.

I can scarcely account to myself for the extraordinary interest the
pursuit engendered,--the characters, the places they frequented, the
habits, were all of the strangest, and might reasonably have amused one
ardently fond of adventure; but there was, besides all this, a degree
of danger in the intercourse that imparted a most intense degree of
interest to it.

Many of these men were great criminals. Many of the valuables confided
to my keeping were obtained by the most questionable means. They
trafficked not alone in articles of contraband, but they dealt in the
still more dangerous wares of secret information to governments; some
were far less smugglers than spies. All these curious traits became
revealed to me in our intercourse; and I learned to see by what low
and base agencies are often moved the very greatest and most momentous
incidents of the world. It was not alone that many of these men
were employed by persons high in station, but they were really often
intrusted with functions very disproportionate to their own claim for
either character or fitness. At one time it would be a state secret; at
another, some dark piece of treacherous vengeance, or some scarcely less
dark incident of what fashion calls “gallantry;” while occasionally
a figure would cross the scene of a very different order, and men of
unquestionable station be met with in the garb and among the haunts of
the freebooter.

There was scarcely a leader of the republican party with whom some
member of the exiled family had not attempted the arts of seduction.
With many of them, it was said, they really succeeded; and others only
waited their opportunity to become their partisans. Whether the English
Government actually adopted the same policy or not, they assuredly had
the credit of doing so; and the sudden accession to wealth and affluence
of men who had no visible road to fortune, greatly favored this
impression. My friend Pierre Dubos troubled his head very little about
these things. So long as his “brandies could be run” upon the shores
of England, and his bales of silk find their way to London without
encountering a custom-house, he cared nothing for the world of
politics and statecraft; and it is not impossible that his well-known
indifference to these matters contributed something to the confidence
with which they were freely imparted to myself. Whatever the cause, I
soon became the trusted depositary of much that was valuable, not alone
in actual wealth, but in secret information. Jewels, sums of money,
securities to a great amount, papers and documents of consequence, all
found their way to my hands; and few went forth upon any expedition of
hazard without first committing to my keeping whatever he possessed of
worth.

I was now living in privacy and simplicity, it is true, but in the
enjoyment of every comfort; but, still, with all the sense of a
precarious and even a perilous existence. More than once had I been
warned that the authorities entertained suspicion of me; and although
the police, even to its highest grades, was in our pay, it was yet
possible that they should find it their interest to betray us. It was
just at this time that a secret envoy arrived from Paris at Havre, en
route for England, and was arrested on entering the town. His papers
were all seized, except one small packet which was conveyed by a safe
hand to myself, and my advice and counsel requested on the subject
of it. The address was simply “W. P.,” and marked, “with the greatest
speed.” There was an enclosure that felt like a locket-case or a
medallion, inside, and three large seals without.

The envoy, who had contrived to disburden himself of this in the very
moment of his arrestation, at once made a signal indicative of its
pressing emergency; and his own rank and position seemed to guarantee
the fact. One of our luggers was only waiting for the tide to weigh
anchor and sail for England; and the sudden resolve struck me to take
charge of the letter, and see if I could not discover for whom it was
meant. Both Dubos and his wife did all in their power to dissuade me
from the project. They spoke of the great peril of the attempt, and its
utter fruitlessness besides; but for the former I had not many fears,
and as to the latter consideration, I was fortified by a strong
and deep-felt conviction that the locket was intended for no less a
personage than the head of the English ministry, and that “William
Pitt” was designated by the initials of the direction. I own that the
conjecture was mainly suggested to me by the constant reference made to
his name, and the frequent allusions I had heard made to him by many of
the secret emissaries.

If I did not impart this impression to Dubos, it was simply because
I knew how little interest the subject would have for him, and that I
should frame very different reasons for my journey if I looked for
his concurrence. I need not stop to record the discussion that ensued
between us. Enough if I say that honest Pierre made me an offer of
partnership with him if I consented to forego my journey, from which he
steadily predicted that I should return no more. This prophecy had no
power to deter me,--nay, I half suspect that it furnished an additional
argument for my going.

Having consigned to him, therefore, all the objects of value that had
been left with me, and taking nothing but the few papers and letters
belonging to myself, I sailed that evening; and, as day was breaking, I
saw looming through the distance the tall and chalky cliffs of England.
We were a long way to the northward of the part usually frequented by
our skipper, and it was not without difficulty that I persuaded him to
land me in a small bay, in which a solitary cottage was the only sign of
habitation.

By noon I gained the hut of a fisherman, who, though he had seen me put
out from a craft that he knew to be French, yet neither expressed any
surprise at my appearance, nor thought it a matter for any questioning.
The shoal water and the breakers, it is true, could have prevented
the spot being selected as a landing-place for troops; but nothing was
easier than to use it to disembark either secret emissaries, or even a
small body of men. I walked from this to a small town about eight miles
inland, whence I started the same night by coach for London. I cannot
convey my notion of the sense of freedom I felt at wandering thus at
will, unquestioned by any one. Had I but travelled a dozen miles
in France, I should have been certain of encountering full as many
obstacles. Here none troubled their heads about me; and whence I came,
or whither I went, were not asked by any. Some, indeed, stared at my
travel-worn dress, and looked with surprise at my knapsack, covered with
undressed calf-skin; but none suspected that it was French, nor that
he who carried it had landed, but a few hours before, from the land of
their dread and abhorrence. In fact, the England and France of those
days were like countries widely separated by distance, and the narrow
strip of sea between them was accounted as a great ocean. No sooner
had I arrived in London than I inquired for the residence of the Prime
Minister. It was not a period when the Parliament was sitting. They told
me that I should rarely find him in town, but was sure of meeting with
him at Hounslow, where he had taken a house for his health, then much
broken by the cares and fatigues of office.

It was evening--a fine, mellow autumn evening--as I found myself in
front of a large, lonely house, in the midst of a neglected-looking
garden, the enclosure of which was a dilapidated wall, broken in many
places, and admitting glimpses of the disorder and decay within. I
pulled the string of the bell, but it was broken; and while I stood
uncertain what course to pursue, I caught sight of a man who was leaning
over a little balustrade, and apparently watching some fish in a pond
at his feet. He was thin and spare-looking, with somewhat the air of
premature age; and though dressed in the very simplest manner, there was
the unmistakable mark of a gentleman in his appearance.

He seemed to have observed me, but made no sign of recognition as I came
towards him. He even turned his head to look at me, and then resumed his
former attitude. I believe that I would willingly have retreated at
that moment, if I knew how. I felt that my presence there was like an
intrusion, and was already ashamed of it. But it was now too late;
for, standing erect, and with his hands behind him, he fixed his eyes
steadily on me, and asked me my business there. I replied that I wished
to speak with Mr. Pitt.

“Do so, then,” rejoined he; “I am he.”

I hesitated for a second or two how to open my communication; but he
waited for me without the slightest show of impatience, till, gaining
courage, I told him in a few words by what means I had become possessed
of a letter, the contents of which I had surmised might by possibility
have been intended for him. Short as was my explanation, it seemed to
suffice, for he nodded twice or thrice in assent as I went on, and then,
taking the letter from my hand, said,--

“Yes, this is for me.”

So saying, he turned away into an alley of the garden to peruse the
letter at his leisure.

I remember as well as though it were but yesterday the strange crowd of
sensations that pressed upon my mind as I stood there waiting for his
return. Astonishment at finding myself in such a presence was the first
of these; the second was a surprise to see with how little of awe or
embarrassment I bore myself before one whose haughty bearing was the
terror of his contemporaries. I did not know enough of life to be aware
that the very fact of my humble station was the levelling influence that
operated in my favor, and that if, instead of an unknown emissary, I had
been the deputed envoy of a great government, I should have found the
minister as coldly haughty as I had heard him described.

While I was yet surmising and reasoning with myself, he came up to me,
saying,--

“They have arrested Monsieur Ducoste, you said. Is the affair like to be
serious?”

“I believe not, sir; his only paper of consequence was this.”

He opened the letter again, and seemed lost in contemplation of
something it contained; at length he said,--

“Have you brought any newspapers or journals with you?”

“None, sir; I came away at a moment’s warning.”

“You are an Englishman. How came it that you have been a resident in
France?”

For the first time his face assumed an expression of severity as he said
this, and I could not but feel that the inquiry was one that touched my
personal honor. I replied, therefore, promptly that I had come abroad
from causes of a family nature, and that they were matters which could
not interest a stranger.

“They do interest me, sir,” was his reply, “and I have a right to know
them.”

If my first impulse was to resent what I conceived to be a tyranny,
my second was to clear myself from any possibility of an imputation.
I believe it was the wiser of the two; at all events, I yielded to
it, and, apologizing for the intrusion upon time valuable as his, I
narrated, in a few minutes, the leading features of my history.

“A singular story,” said he, as I concluded: “the son of an Irish
Opposition leader reduced to this! What proofs have you of the
correctness of your account? Have you acquaintances? Letters?”

“Some letters, but not one acquaintance.”

“Let me see some of these. Come here to-morrow, fetch your papers with
you, and be here at eleven o’clock.”

“But excuse me, sir,” said I, “if I ask wherefore I should do this? I
came here at considerable personal hazard to render you a service. I
have been fortunate enough to succeed. I have also made known to you
certain circumstances of a purely private nature, and which only can
concern myself. You either believe them or you do not.”

“This is precisely the difficulty that I have not solved, young
gentleman,” said he, courteously; “you may be speaking in all the
strongest conviction of truthfulness, and yet be incorrect. I desire to
be satisfied on this head, and I am equally ready to assure you that the
inquiry is not prompted by any motive of mere curiosity.”

I remained silent for a minute or two; I tried to weigh the different
reasons for and against either course in my mind, but I was too much
agitated for the process. He seemed to guess what was passing within me,
and said,--

“Don’t you perceive, sir, that I am your debtor for a service, and that
before I attempt to acquit the obligation I ought to know the rank and
station of my creditor? You would not accept of a pecuniary reward?”

“Certainly not, and as little any other.”

“But I might possibly present my thanks in a form to be acceptable,”
 said he, blandly; “and I wish you would give me the opportunity!”

And with that he bowed deeply, and walked slowly away. I returned to
London with a head full of my interview.



CHAPTER XXXII. MY REWARD

I had taken up my quarters in one of the small streets which lead from
the Strand to the river; a very humble abode it was, and such as suited
very humble fortune. When I arrived there, after the interview I have
related, I sat down and wrote a short account of the events of my life,
so far as they were known to me. I subjoined any letters and documents
that I possessed which gave confirmation to my statement, addressing the
entire to the minister, with the request that if my capacity could fit
me for any employment in the public service, he would graciously make
a trial of me; and if not, that he would enable me to return to France,
where a livelihood at least was procurable.

This I despatched on a Tuesday morning, and it was not until the
following Saturday that I obtained my reply. I cannot think of that
painful interval even now without a shudder. The torture of suspense
had risen to a fever, and for the last day and night I neither ate nor
slept. On Saturday came a brief note, in these words: “J. C. may call at
Hounslow before ten to-morrow.”

It was not signed, nor even dated; and so I was left to surmise if it
had reached me in fitting time. It was scarcely eight o’clock on Sunday
morning as I found myself standing beside the wicket of the garden,
which seemed as deserted and desolate as before. At an open window,
however, on the ground floor I saw a breakfast-table laid out; and as I
looked, a lady and gentleman entered, and took their places at it. One
was, I knew, the minister. The lady, who was a tall and dignified person
rather than a handsome one, bore some resemblance to him. Her quick
glance detected me from afar, and as quickly she called attention to my
presence there. Mr. Pitt arose and beckoned me to come forward, which I
did, with no small shame and embarrassment.

While I stood at the hall-door, uncertain whether to knock or wait, it
was opened by the minister himself, who kindly wished me good-morning,
and desired me to follow him.

“This is the youth himself, Hester,” said he, as we entered the room;
“and I have no doubt he will be happy to answer any questions you may
put to him.”

The lady motioned to me to be seated, and in a grave, almost severe
tone, said,--

“Who composed this paper,--this narrative of yours?”

“I did, madam.”

“The whole of it?”

“Yes, madam, the whole of it.”

“Where have you been educated?”

“At Reichenau, madam.”

“Where is that?”

“In Switzerland, on the frontiers of the Vorarlberg.”

“And your parents are both dead, and you have actually none in the shape
of relatives?”

“Not one, madam.”

She whispered something here to the minister, who quickly said,--

“Certainly, if you wish it.”

“Tell me, sir,” said she, addressing me again, “who is this same Count
de Gabriac, of whom mention is made here. Is he the person called
Couvre-Tête in the circles of the Jacobins?”

“I never have heard him so called, madam.”

“You know him at least to be of that party?”

“No, madam. The very little I do know of him personally would induce me
to suppose the opposite.”

She shook her head, and gave a faint supercilious smile, as though in
total disbelief of my words.

“If you have read my memoir, madam,” said I, hastily, “you will perceive
how few have been the occasions of my meeting with the Count, and that,
whatever his politics, I may be excused for not knowing them.”

“You say that you went along with him to Paris?”

“Yes, madam, and never saw him afterwards.”

“You have heard from him, however, and are, in fact, in correspondence
with him?”

“No, madam, nothing of the kind.”

As I said this, she threw the paper indignantly on the table, and walked
away to the window. The minister followed her, and said something in a
low whisper, to which she replied aloud,--

“Well, it’s not my opinion. Time will tell which of us was more right.”

“Tell me something of the condition of parties in France,” said he,
drawing his chair in front of mine. “Are the divisions as wide as
heretofore?”

I will not go over the conversation that ensued, since I was myself the
principal speaker. Enough if I say that I told him whatever I knew or
had heard of the various subdivisions of party: of the decline of the
terrorists, and the advent to power of men who, with equal determination
and firmness, yet were resolute to uphold the laws and provide for the
security of life and property. In the course of this I had to speak of
the financial condition of the country; and in the few words that fell
from me, came the glimpses of some of that teaching I had obtained from
the Herr Robert.

“You appear to have devoted attention to these topics,” said he, with
a smile. “They are scarcely the subjects most attractive to youth. How
came that to pass?”

“By an accident, sir, that made me acquainted with the son of one who,
if not a great financier, was at least the most notorious one the world
has ever seen,--Robert Law, of Lauriston.” And at a sign from him to
continue, I related the whole incident I referred to. He listened to me
throughout with deep attention.

“These papers that you speak of,” said he, interrupting, “would
certainly be curious, if not actually valuable. They are still at the
Rue Quincampoix?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Well, the day may come when they may be obtainable. Meanwhile, of this
Count, this Monsieur de Gabriac,--for I want to hear more of him,--when
did he arrive in England?”

“I did not know that he was here, sir.”

He looked at me calmly, but with great intentness, as I said this; and
then, as if satisfied with his scrutiny, drew a small case from his
pocket, and, opening it, held it before me.

“Is this a portrait of the Count de Gabriac?”

“Yes, and a striking likeness,” replied I, promptly.

“And you know his business in England, young man?” said the lady,
turning suddenly from the window to address me.

“I do not, madam.”

“Then I will tell you,” said she.

“No, no, Hester,” said the minister; “this is not necessary. You say
that this is like him,--like enough to lead to his recognition; that is
quite sufficient. Now, for yourself, Mr. Carew, for it is time I should
speak of you. You have rendered a very considerable service to this
Government, and I am ready to requite it. What are your own wishes in
this respect?”

I bethought me for a moment what reply to make; but the more
I considered, the more difficult became the reply. I might, by
possibility, look too highly; or, by an equally probable error, I might
place myself on too humble a level. He waited with courteous patience
while this struggle lasted; and then, as if seeing all the force of my
embarrassment, he hastened to relieve it.

“My question was perhaps ill-judged,” said he, kindly. “I should
have remembered that your knowledge of this country and its habits is
necessarily limited; and, consequently, that to choose a career in it
must be difficult. If you will permit me, I will myself make the choice
for you; meanwhile, and until the opportunity offer, I will employ you.
You speak foreign languages--at least, French and German--fluently.
Well, these are exactly the qualifications I desire to find at this
moment.”

He paused for a second or two, and then, as though abandoning some
half-formed intention, he named a day for me to wait on him at his
official residence, and dismissed me.

I have now come to a portion of my history of which I scruple to follow
rigorously the details. I cannot speak of myself without introducing
facts, and names, and events which became known to me, some in strict
confidence, some under solemn pledges of secrecy, and some from the
accident of my position. I have practised neither disguise nor mystery
with my reader, nor do I desire to do so now. No false shame, as regards
myself, would induce me to stoop to this. But as I glance over the notes
and journals before me, as I read, at random, snatches of the
letters that litter my table, I half regret that I have been led into
revelations which I must necessarily leave incomplete, or rashly involve
myself in disclosures which I have no right to publish to the world.

So far as I can venture, however, I will dare to go. And to resume where
I left off: From the time I saw the minister at Hounslow, I never
beheld him again. A certain Mr. Addington--one of his secretaries, I
believe--received me when I called, and was the means of intercourse
between us. He was uniformly polite in his manner, but still cold and
distant with me; treating me with courtesy, but strenuously declining
all intimacy. For some weeks I continued to wait in expectancy of some
employment. I sat my weary hours in the antechamber, and walked the
lobbies with all the anxiety of a suitor; but to all appearance I was
utterly forgotten, and the service I had rendered ignored. At last (it
was about ten weeks after my interview), as I was proceeding one morning
to my accustomed haunt,--hope had almost deserted me, and I persisted,
more from habit than any prospect of success,--a servant, in the undress
livery of one of the departments of state, met me in the street.

“Mr. Carew, I believe?” said he, touching his hat. “I have been over
half the town this morning, sir, in search of you. You are wanted
immediately, sir, at the Foreign Office.”

How my heart jumped at the words! What a new spring of hope burst up
within me! I questioned and cross-questioned the man, in the foolish
expectation that he could tell me anything I desired to know; and in
this eager pursuit of some clew to the future, I found myself ascending
the stairs to Mr. Addington’s office. No sooner had I appeared in the
antechamber than I was ushered into the presence of the secretary. There
were several persons--all strangers to me--present, who were conversing
so eagerly together that my entrance was for some minutes unnoticed.

“Oh! here is Carew,” said Mr. Addington, turning hastily from the rest.
“He can identify him at once.”

A large elderly man, who I afterwards learned was a city magistrate,
came up at this, and, regarding me steadily for a few seconds, said,--

“You are well acquainted with the person of a certain Count de Gabriac?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And could swear to his identity, if required?”

“I could.”

How long I had known him, where, and under what circumstances, were also
asked of me; and, finally, what space of time had elapsed since I had
last seen him.

While this inquiry was going forward, I was not unmindful of the remarks
and observations around me, and, although apparently only occupied with
my own examination, was shrewdly attending to every chance word that
fell at either side of me. I collected quite enough from these to
perceive that the Count was at that moment in England, and in custody
under some very weighty charge; that the difficulty of identification
was one of the obstacles to his committal; and that this was believed
to be surmountable by my aid. Now, I never loved him, nor did he me; but
yet I could not forget how every care of my infancy and childhood was
owing to her who bore his name and shared his fortunes, and that for me
to repay such kindness with an injury would have been the very blackest
ingratitude.

These thoughts passed rapidly through my mind, and as hastily I
determined to act upon them. I asked Mr. Addington to give me a couple
of minutes’ audience in private, and he at once led me into an inner
room. In scarcely more words than I have used here to mention the fact,
I told him in what relationship I stood towards the Count, and how
impossible it would be for me to use any knowledge I might possess, to
his detriment.

“I don’t think that you have much option in the matter, sir,” was his
cold reply. “You can be compelled to give the evidence in question, so
that your very excellent scruples need in no wise be offended.”

“Compelled to speak, sir!” cried I, in amazement.

“Just so,” said he, with a faint smile.

“And if I still refuse, sir?”

“Then the law must deal with you. Have you anything more to say to me?”

“Nothing,” said I, resolutely; for now my mind was determined, and I no
longer hesitated what course to pursue.

Mr. Addington now returned to the adjoining room, and I followed him.
For a few moments a whispered conversation was maintained between him
and one or two of the others, after which the magistrate, a certain Mr.
Kirby, said to me,--

“It appears, young man, that you have a reluctance, from conscientious
scruples, about giving your evidence in this case; but probably when I
tell you all that is required of you is a simple act of identification,
and, moreover, that the charge against the prisoner is the very
weightiest in the catalogue of crime, you will not any longer hesitate
about your obvious duty.”

He waited for a few seconds; but as I made no reply, he went on:--

“This Frenchman is accused of nothing less than the premeditation of
a murder; that he is, in fact, a hired assassin, paid for the crime
of murdering the exiled King of France. The evidence against him is
exceedingly strong; but, of course, the law will place within his reach
every possible means of defence. It is needless to say that no private
or personal feeling can exist in such a case, and I really do not see
how you can decline your aid to the cause of justice.”

I was still silent; my difficulties were increasing every moment; and as
they thickened around me, I needed time to decide how to proceed.

Perhaps my anxious appearance may have struck him, for he quickly
said,--

“You will be specially warned against saying anything which might
criminate yourself, so that you need have no fears on that account.”

These words at once suggested my course to me; and whatever peril there
might lie in the way, I determined to take shelter under the pretence
that I was myself implicated in the conspiracy. I do not seek to excuse
myself for such a subterfuge; it was the last refuge I saw in the
midst of my difficulties, and I sought it in all the misery of
half-desperation.

“I am not going to betray my confederates, sir,” was my dogged reply to
his appeal; and no other could all their argument and entreaties obtain
from me.

Some of those present could not believe me guilty, and warmly pressed me
to rescue myself, ere too late, from the odious imputation; others
but saw their previous impressions confirmed by what they called my
confession; and, between them, my poor head was racked and tortured by
turns. The scene ended at last by my being committed to Newgate, under
suspicion, and till further evidence could be adduced against me.

It was clear that either they greatly doubted of my guilt, or were
disposed to regard me as very slightly implicated, for I was not
confined in a cell or with the other prisoners, but accommodated with
a room in the jailer’s own apartment, and received as a guest at his
table.

I was not only treated with kindness and attention here, but with a
degree of candor that amazed me. The daily papers were freely
placed before me, and I read how a well-known member of the “French
Convention,” popularly called Couvre-Tête, but styling himself the Count
de Gabriac, had been brought up before the magistrates under a charge
of a grave description, which, for the ends of justice, had been
investigated with closed doors. Several others were in custody for their
implication in the same charge, it was added, and great hopes maintained
that the guilty parties would be made amenable to the law.

Mr. Holt, the jailer, spoke of all the passing events of the day freely
in my presence, and discussed the politics and position of France, and
the condition of parties, with all the ease of old intimacy between us.
At first, I half suspected this to be a mere artifice to lure me on to
some unguarded expression, or even some frank admission about myself;
but I gradually grew out of this impression, and saw him as he really
was, a straightforward, honorable man, endeavoring to lighten the gloom
of a dreary duty by acts of generosity and benevolence. Save that it
was captivity, I really had nothing to complain of in my life at this
period. Mr. Holt’s family was numerous, and daily some two or three
guests, generally persons in some degree placed similarly to myself,
were present at his table; and with these my time passed smoothly and
even swiftly along.

The confinement, however, and a depression, of which I was not conscious
myself, at length made their impression on my health, and one morning
Mr. Holt remarked to me that I was scarcely looking so well as usual.

“It is this place, I have no doubt,” said he, “disagrees with you; but
you will be liberated in a day or two.”

“How so?” asked I, in some surprise.

“Have you not heard of Gabriac’s death,” said he, “by suicide? He was to
have been brought up a second time for examination on Friday last, but
he was found dead in his cell, by poison, on Thursday evening.”

I scarcely heard him through the details which followed. I only could
catch a stray expression here and there; but I collected enough to learn
that he had written a full exculpation of all the others who had been
accused with himself, and specially with regard to me, of whom, also,
it was said, he forwarded some important papers to some one high in
station.

This conversation occurred on a Saturday, and on the following Monday I
was liberated.

“I told you how it would be, Mr. Carew,” said Holt, as he read me out
the order, “and I hope sincerely there are now better and pleasanter
days before you. More prosperous ones they are likely to be, for I have
a Secretary of State’s order to hand you one hundred pounds, which, I
can assure you, is a rare event with those who leave this.”

While I stood amazed at this intelligence, he went on:

“You are also requested to present yourself at Treverton House,
Richmond, to-morrow, at eleven o’clock, where a person desires to see
and speak with you. This comes somewhat in the shape of a command, and I
hope you’ll not neglect it.”

I promised rigid obedience to the direction; and after a very grateful
recognition of all I owed my kind host, we parted, warm and cordial
friends, and as such I have never ceased to believe and regard him.



CHAPTER XXXIII. A GLIMPSE OF A NEW PATH

Shall I own it that when I once more found myself at liberty, and with
means sufficient for the purpose, my first thought was to leave England
forever? So far as I was concerned, my country had shown herself
anything but a kind mother to me. It was an impulse of patriotism--a
vague desire to serve her--had brought me to her shores; and yet my
requital had been at first neglect, and at last imprisonment. Had I
the very slightest clew to where “my mother” and Raper were, I should
inevitably have set out to seek them; but of the track I knew nothing
whatever. I ransacked my few letters and papers, amongst which I found
the yet undelivered note to the Père Tonsurd; and this I determined to
present on that very day. The mere thought of meeting with one to whom I
could speak of my kind friends at Linange was a comfort in the midst of
all my desolation.

On arriving at his lodgings, however, I learned that he had gone to
Richmond; and as suddenly I bethought me of my own visit, the hour for
which had already gone by. Determining to repair my fault as well as I
could, I set out at once, and by three o’clock in the afternoon arrived
at a neat-looking house, standing in a small park that descended to the
river, and which, they told me, was Treverton. All I could ascertain of
the proprietor was that he was a French gentleman, an _émigré_, who had
lived there for two years, and was popularly known as the “General,” his
servants always giving him that title. I presented myself at his door
and sent in my card, with the request that I might be admitted to an
interview.

Before I could well believe that my message was delivered, the servant
returned to say that the General was expecting me since morning, and
desired to see me at once. I followed him through two or three rooms
till we reached a door covered with green cloth, and which concealed
another behind it, on opening which I found myself in a small chamber
fitted up like a library, where two gentlemen were seated at a table.
One arose as I entered, and in a polite, but somewhat haughty, tone
said,--

“You are scarcely as punctual, sir, as I had hoped. Eleven o’clock was,
I think, the hour mentioned.”

As the appointment had not been of my seeking, I returned a very cold
and half-careless apology for my tardy appearance; but he stopped me
quietly, saying,--

“Apparently, then, you have not been informed as to the object of this
visit, nor by whom--”

A hasty gesture from the other interrupted his speech, and he stopped
short.

“I mean,” added he, “that you are unaware of the reason for which your
presence here has been requested.”

“I have not the slightest knowledge of it, sir,” was my reply.

“We wished to see and speak with you about many things in France, sir.
You have latterly been there? We are given to understand that you are a
shrewd observer, and we desire to learn your views of events, and of the
people who direct them. Our own informant induces us to believe that the
tide of popular favor is turning against the men of violent opinions,
and that a wiser and healthier tone pervades the nation. Does that agree
with your experience?”

“Quite so, sir; there cannot be a second opinion on the question.”

“And the old attachment to the monarchy is again displaying itself, far
and near, through the country?” added he, warmly.

“There I cannot go with you, sir,” was my answer; and although his look
was a fierce, almost an angry one, I continued: “The military spirit is
that which now sways the nation, and he who can best gratify the thirst
of glory will be the ruler. The kings of France have been but pageants
of late.”

“Be discreet, sir. Speak of what you know, and do not dare to insult--”
 he paused, and then added, “an ancient follower of his sovereign.”

His age and his fervor repressed any resentment the speech might have
suggested, and I only said,--

“You asked me for opinions, sir, and I gave you mine frankly. You must
not be displeased if they do not always chime with your own.”

“Monsieur is perfectly right. His remark is a just one,” said the other,
who now spoke for the first time.

“I think he is mistaken, though,” replied the former. “I fancy that he
is led away by that vulgar cant which sees in the degradation of one
solitary individual the abasement of his whole class and order. By the
way, you knew that same Count de Gabriac?”

I bowed my assent.

“You may speak freely of him now he is past the consequences of either
our censure or our praise. You know, perhaps, that he completely
exonerated you from all share in his odious scheme, and at the same
time communicated certain particulars about yourself which suggested the
desire to see you here.”

“Yes,” said the other, with a faint but very pleasing smile. “We are
relatives, Monsieur Carew; and if all that I hear of you be true, I
shall not disown the relationship.”

“You knew my dear mother, then,” cried I, wild with the glad thought.

“Pardon me,” said he, slowly, “I had not that honor. I have, however,
frequently heard of her beauty and her fascination; but I never saw
her.”

The General here whispered a few words, to which the other replied
aloud,--

“Be it so, then. My friend here,” resumed he, addressing me, “is of
opinion that your information and habits would well fit you for a task
which will be at once one of emolument and trust. The English minister
has already pointed you out as a suitable agent, and nothing but your
own concurrence is now needed.”

I begged for a further explanation; and he briefly told me that the
Royalist party, not alone throughout France, but in different parts of
the Continent, where they had sought refuge, were distracted and broken
up for want of due intercourse with each other and with the head of
their party; that false intelligence and fictitious stories had been
circulated industriously to sow discord and disunion amongst them;
and that nothing but an actual, direct, and personal agency could
efficiently counteract this peril and restore confidence and stability
to the party. Many--some of them men of the highest rank--had taken
service in this way; some had condescended to accept of the very
humblest stations, and almost menial duties, where they could obtain
information of value; and all we’re ready to risk life and fortune for
the Prince to whom they owed their allegiance.

“But you forget, sir, that the loyalty which reflects such honor on them
would be wanting in my case: I am not a Frenchman.”

“But your mother was French,” said he who sat at the table, “and of the
best blood of France too. I have told you we are relations.”

A gesture of caution from the General stopped him here, and he was
silent. I saw there was embarrassment somewhere; but on what ground I
knew not. More to relieve the awkwardness of the moment than from any
other intention, I asked what my duties might be in this capacity.

“On that head you will receive the fullest instructions,” said the
General. “Once say that you are ready and at our disposal, and we shall
supply you with every means and every knowledge you can wish for.”

“May I have a little time to consider of it, sir?” asked I. “A night,
for instance?”

“Yes, a night,--certainly; only remember that whether you accept or
refuse, this interview is a secret, and not to be divulged to any one.”

“I shall so consider it,” said I.

“You will, then, be here to-morrow at ten,--at ten, remember, and this
time punctually.” And with that he bowed me ceremoniously to the door,
the other waving his hand more familiarly, and wishing me a good-bye as
I passed out.

As I reached the outer gate of the lawn, a servant hastily overtook
me. It was a gentleman, he said, who wished to return to London, begged
permission to accompany me, if I would so far oblige him.

“With pleasure,” said I. “Will you favor me with his name?”

“The Abbé Tonsurd.”

“The Abbé Tonsurd!--the very man of all others I wished to meet!” And
while I was just rejoicing over my good fortune on the occurrence, he
came hurrying forward to offer me his thanks.

“Chance has favored me for once, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said I, “since I have
the good fortune to see one to whom I have a letter of introduction. I
called this very morning at your lodgings to deliver this.”

“Oh, the rare good luck indeed,” cried he, breaking open the seal
and rapidly perusing the contents. “That dear Ursule,” said he, with
something very near to a smile, “always so good and so confiding, trusts
even after hope has departed. But tell me rather of themselves; for this
is the theme she has not spoken of.”

I rapidly related all that I knew of the family. I saw, however, that
his mind was wandering from the subject ere I had finished.

“And you,” said he, suddenly, “when do you set out on your mission?”

“I have not decided on accepting it.”

“Not decided! Can you hesitate, can you waver for a moment? Has not the
Count himself charged you with his commands?”

“And who may the Count be?” asked I.

“His Majesty the rightful king of France. You cannot be well versed in
physiognomy, or you must have recognized the royal features of his race.
He is every inch a Bourbon.”

“He who sat at the table?”

“The same. The General Guerronville is reckoned handsome; but he is
vulgar and commonplace when seen beside his Majesty.”

The Abbé, to whom, doubtless, the letter imparted sufficient to give him
full confidence in me, spoke frankly and openly of the Royalist party,
their hopes and fears and future prospects. He even went so far as to
say that they were losing confidence in the English Government, of whose
designs for a peace they entertained deep suspicion. Turning hastily
from this, he urged me earnestly not to decline the duty proposed to me,
and said at last,--

“That if no other argument could weigh with me, personal advantage
might, and that success in my enterprise was my fortune made forever.”

While he was thus speaking, I was only dwelling upon what I could recall
of my late scene with the King of France, and wondering what he
possibly could mean by a relationship between us. The Abbé explained
the difficulty away by a careless reply as to the various small channels
into which the royal blood had been diverted, by obscure marriages and
the like.

“At all events,” said he, “if his Majesty could remember the tie, it
would come badly from you to forget it. Accept this offer, therefore,
and be assured that you will serve yourself even more than his cause.”

It was not very difficult to persuade me; and even where his arguments
failed, my own necessities urged me to accept the offer. I therefore
agreed, and, charging the Abbé to convey my sentiments of gratitude
for the trust reposed in me, I stated my readiness to set out at once
wherever it was deemed necessary to employ me; and with this I lay down
to rest, more at ease in heart than I had felt for months long.



CHAPTER XXXIV. SECRET SERVICE

When I come to reflect over the space I have devoted in these memoirs of
my life to slight and unimportant circumstances,--the small incidents
of a purely personal character,--I feel that I owe my readers an apology
for passing rapidly over events of real moment. My excuse, however,
is, the events were such as to render my share in them most humble and
insignificant. My figure was never a foreground one; and in the great
drama that Europe then played, my part was obscure indeed. It is true,
I was conversant with stirring themes. I had on many occasions
opportunities of meeting with the mighty intelligences that gave the
world its destiny for the time; but in no history will there ever be
a record of the humble name of Paul Gervois. Such I now found myself
called; and the passport delivered to me called me, in addition, “Agent
secret.” It is true, I had another, which represented me as travelling
for a Dutch commercial house; but the former was the document which,
in my interviews with prefects and men in authority, I made use of, and
which at once obtained for me protection and respect.

It is well known that the rightful king of France in his exile made
a personal appeal by letters to Bonaparte to induce him to devote his
genius and influence to the cause of the monarchy. The example of Monk
was cited, and the boundless gratitude of royalty pledged on the issue.
The fact is history. Of this memorable note I was the bearer. Looking
back at the wondrous destiny of that great man, such an overture may
easily appear vain and absurd to a degree; but it was by no means so
destitute of all chance of success at the time in which it was made. Of
this I feel assured, and for the following reason: There was a frequent
interchange of letters between the persons attached to the exiled family
and leading members of the then French Government. This correspondence
was carried on by secret agents, who were suffered to pass freely
from capital to capital, and more than once intrusted with even verbal
communications. These agents were rigidly instructed to limit themselves
strictly to the duty assigned to them, and neither to use their
opportunities for personal objects, nor for the acquirement of
information on subjects foreign to their mission. They were narrowly
watched, and I believe myself that a secret espionage was maintained
expressly to observe them. The sudden disappearance of more than one
amongst them fully warrants the suspicion that indiscretion had paid its
greatest and last penalty.

By the means of these persons, then, a close and compact correspondence
was maintained,--a tone of familiarity, and even frankness, was, I am
assured, paraded in it; while, in reality, the object of each side was
purely treacherous. At one time it was a proposition to some high
and leading individual to desert his party and espouse that of its
opponents; at another, it was an artful description of the decline of
revolutionary doctrines, made purposely to draw from the Royalists some
confession of their own future intentions; while, more important than
all, there came a letter in Bonaparte’s own hand, offering to Louis a
sum of several millions of francs, in return for a formal renunciation
of all right to that throne from which his destiny seemed sufficiently
to exclude him. What a curious page of history will it fill when this
secret correspondence shall one day see the light! I know, of my own
knowledge, that a great part of it is still in existence, though in the
hands of those who have solid reasons for not revealing it.

At the time when I first joined this secret service, the interchange of
letters was more than ordinarily great. The momentous change which had
taken place in France by the ascendancy of Bonaparte had imparted new
hopes to the Royalist party; and they were profuse in their expressions
of admiration for the man who of all the world was fated to be
the deadliest enemy of their race. Their gratitude was, indeed,
boundless,--at least, it transcended the usual limits of the virtue,
since it went so far as to betray the cause of the very nation to which
they were at the very same moment beholden for a refuge and an asylum!
Secret information of the views of the English cabinet; the opinions of
statesmen about the policy of the war; the resources, the plans, even
the discontents, of the country were all commented on and detailed;
while carefully drawn-up statistics were forwarded, setting forth the
ships in commission or in readiness for sea, with every circumstance
that could render the information valuable.

I know not if the English Government looked with contempt on these
intrigues, or whether they themselves did not acquire information more
valuable than that they connived at; for assuredly every secret agent
was well known to them, and more than one actually in their pay.
Of myself, I can boldly say such was not the case. I traversed the
Continent, from Hamburg to Naples; I passed freely across Europe in
every direction; and on my return to England I met neither molestation
nor hindrance, nor did I attract any more attention than an ordinary
traveller. If I owed this immunity to a settled plan I had set down for
my guidance, it is equally true that it impeded my promotion, and
left me in the rank of those who were less secret agents than mere
messengers. My plan was to appear totally ignorant of the countries
through which I journeyed, neither remarking the events, nor being able
to afford any tidings about them. I was not ignorant of the injury this
course of action inflicted on my prospects. I saw myself passed over for
others of less capacity; I noticed the class with which I was associated
as belonging to the humblest members of the walk; and I even overheard
myself quoted as unfit for this, and unequal to that. Shall I own
at once that the career was distasteful to me in the highest degree?
Conceal it how we could, wear what appellation we might, we were only
spies; and any estimation we were held in simply depended on whatever
abilities we could display in this odious capacity. It was, then, in
a sort of compromise with my pride that I stooped to the lowest grade,
rather than win my advancement by the low arts of the eavesdropper.

If I seemed utterly incapable of those efforts which depended on
tact and worldly skill, my employers freely acknowledged that, as a
messenger, I had no equal. No difficulties could arrest my progress; the
most arduous journeys I surmounted with ease; the least-frequented roads
were all familiar to me. Three, four, and even five days consecutively
have I passed in the saddle; and whether over the rude sierras of Spain,
the wild paths of the Apennines, or the hot sands of the desert, no
fatigue ever compelled me to halt. The Royalist partisans were scattered
over the whole globe. Some of them had taken service in the German
armies; some were in the Neapolitan service; some had abjured their
religion, and were high in command over the Sultan’s troops; and many
had emigrated to America, where they settled. Wherever they were,
whatever cloth they wore, or the flag they were ranged under, they had
but one cause and one hope,--the restoration of the Bourbons; and
for this were they ever ready to abandon any eminence they might have
gained, or any fame or fortune they had acquired, to rally at a moment
beneath the banner of him they regarded as their true and rightful
sovereign. I knew them well, for I saw them near. Their littleness,
their jealousies, their absurd vanity and egregious pretensions, were
all well known to me; but many a time have I felt a sort of contemptuous
scorn of them repelled by reflecting over the heroic and chivalrous
loyalty which bound them to a cause so all but hopeless. If it be asked
why I remained in a career so distasteful to me, and served a cause to
which no sympathy bound me, my answer is, that I followed it with an
object which had engrossed every ambition and every wish of my heart;
and this was to find out “my mother” and Raper. I knew that the secrets
of my birth were known to them, and that with them alone, of all the
world, lay the clew to my family and kindred. While the Count lived, my
mother--I cannot call her by any other name--was fearful of revealing
circumstances to me, of which he would not suffer any mention in his
presence. This barrier was now removed. Besides, I had grown up to
manhood, and had a better pretension to ask for the satisfaction of my
curiosity.

This was, then, the stimulus that supported me in many a long and
weary journey; this the hope that sustained me through every reverse of
fortune, and through what is still harder to bear,--the solitude of my
lonely, friendless lot. By degrees, however, it began to fail within
me; frequent disappointment at last so chilled my ardor that I almost
determined to abandon the pursuit forever, and with it a career which I
detested. The slightest accident that foreshadowed a prospect of success
was still enough to make me change my resolve; and thus I lived on,
vacillating now to this side, now to that, and enduring the protracted
tortures of expectation.

It was in one of these moments, when despair was in the ascendant, that
I received an order to set out for Reichenau and obtain certain papers
which had been left there in the keeping of Monsieur Jost, the property
of a certain person whose initial was the letter C. I was given to
understand that the documents were of great importance, and the mission
one to be executed with promptitude. I had almost decided on abandoning
this pursuit. The very note in which I should communicate my resignation
was begun on the table, when the Abbé, who generally was the bearer of
my instructions, came to convey this order. He was in a mood of unusual
gayety and frankness; and after rallying me on my depression, and
jestingly pointing out the great rewards which one day or other would
be bestowed upon me, he told me that the tidings from France were of the
very best kind, that the insolent airs of Bonaparte were detaching
from him many of his stanchest adherents, that Pichegru openly, and
Bernadotte secretly, had abandoned him; Davoust had ceased to visit at
his house; while Lasalle and others of less note were heard to declare
that if they were to have a master, at least it should be one who was
born to the station that conferred command.

“We knew,” continued he, joyously, “that we had only to leave this man
alone, and he would be his own executioner; and the event has only come
a little earlier than we looked for. These papers for which you are now
despatched contain a secret correspondence between a great personage and
some of the most distinguished generals of the Republic.”

He said much more on this theme,--indeed, he sat late, and talked of
nothing else; but I paid little attention to the subject. I had over
and over again heard the same observation; and at least a dozen eventful
crises had occurred when the Republic was declared in its last struggle,
and the cause of the king triumphant.

“I perceive,” said he, at last, “you are less sanguine than I am. Is it
not so?”

“You mistake me, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said I; “my depression has a selfish
origin. I have been long weary of this career of mine, and the note
which you see there was the beginning of a formal renunciation of it.”

“It is impossible you could be so insane,” cried he. “You are not one of
that vulgar herd that can be scared from a noble duty by a mere name. It
is not the word ‘spy’ that could wound you, enlisted as you are in the
noblest cause that ever engaged heroism, and in which the first men of
France are your associates.”

“I am no Frenchman, Abbé,” said I; “remember that.”

“But you are a good Catholic,” said he, promptly, “and, Ursule tells me,
well versed in every duty of the faith.”

I by no means fancied the turn our discussion was likely to take. More
than once before had the Abbé made allusion to the principles which he
hoped might animate me, and which at some future time might obtain for
me an admission into his own order; so I hastily changed the topic,
by declaring that this journey I should certainly undertake, whatever
resolve I might come to for the future.

He had far too much tact to persevere on an unpleasant theme, and
after some further allusion to the prospects before me he wished me
good-night, and left me. I took my departure the next morning for
Hamburg; since latterly some impediments had been thrown in our way
about landing in France, and the process of verifying our passports as
“agents secrets” occupied much time, and caused delay. On the journey
thither I made acquaintance with a young Pole, who, exchanging with me
the private signal, showed that he was a “brother of the craft.” He was
a fine, dashing, good-looking fellow, with a certain air of pretension
and swagger about him that savored more of the adventurer than of the
character he wished to assume. He told me that he was the son of
the Empress Catherine, and that his father had been a soldier of the
Imperial Guard. The story might or might not have been true, but at all
events he seemed to believe and was exceedingly vain of it.

With all the secret plotting and political intrigue of the day he
appeared quite conversant, and found it difficult to believe in my
ignorance or apathy.

“I conceive,” said he, at last, “that you are one of those who feel
ashamed of your position, and dislike the word ‘spy.’ Be it so; it is
not a flattering name. But have we not within ourselves the power to
extort by force the degree of consideration we would be held in? Any act
of insubordination from one or two, or even three of us, would be sure
to meet its penalty. That price has been paid before.” [Here he made a
significant sign, by rapidly drawing his hand across his throat.] “But
if we combined, met at some appointed spot, discussed our rights, and
agreed upon the means of asserting them, do you believe that there
exists the king or kaiser who could refuse the demand? It is not enough
for me that I can pass a frontier by a secret signal, enter a minister’s
cabinet while others wait in the antechamber, or even ascend the back
stairs of a palace. I want a place and a recognition in society; I want
that standing in the world to which my habits and manners entitle me,
and for which now my hand is ever on the hilt of a rapier or the trigger
of a pistol to secure. It is an outrage on us that this has been delayed
so long; but if it be deferred a little longer, the remedy will have
passed from our hands. Already some of the governments of the Continent
begin to suspect that the system works badly.”

“My astonishment is only that it ever could have been permitted,” broke
I in; “for it is plain that to know the secrets of others, each country
has had to sacrifice its own.”

He gave a smile of supreme contempt, and replied,--

“You are but an apprentice of the trade, after all, Monsieur Gervois,
though I have often heard you called a man of tact and shrewdness. Do
you not know that we are not the agents of governments or of cabinets,
but of those who rule cabinets, dread them, and betray them? The
half-dozen crowned heads who rule Europe form a little fraternity apart
from all the world. The interests, the passions, the jealousies, and the
ambition of the several nations may involve them in wars, compel them
to stand in hostility against each other and be what is called great
enemies; but while their cannon are thundering and their cavalry
charging, while squadrons are crashing and squares are breaking, they
for whose sake the blood is shed and life poured forth are calmly
considering whether they should gain most by victory or defeat, and
how far the great cause--the subjugation of the niasses to the will of
one--can be benefited or retarded by any policy they would pursue.”

I need not follow him in his reasonings,--indeed, they were more
ingenious and astute than I should be able to convey by repetition. His
theory was, that the rulers of states maintained a secret understanding
with each other; that however the casualties of fortune should fall
heavily on their countries, they themselves should be exempted from such
consequences; and that the people might fall, but dynasties should be
spared. As long as the Bourbons sat on the throne of France, the compact
was a safe and a sure one. The Revolution, however, has broken up the
sacred league, and none can tell now what people are next ripe for
revolt. As Bonaparte for the moment represents power in France,
every effort has been made by the sovereign to draw him into this
alliance,--not, of course, to found a dynasty, but to serve the cause of
the rightful one. I abstain from entering more fully into his views, or
citing the mass of proofs by which he endeavored to sustain them. If
not convinced by his arguments, I am free to own that they made a
deep impression upon me; rendered more so, perhaps, from the number of
circumstances I could myself call to mind which in my own secret service
tended to corroborate them.

I asked him whither he was then going, and he told me to Moscow.

“Russia and England meditate a war,” said he, “the two cabinets are
embroiled; and I am hastening with an autograph letter from one great
personage to another to say with what regret he countersigns a policy
so distasteful, and how sincerely he preserves the tie of personal
friendship. Believe me,” said he, laughing, “we are the professed
traitors of the world; but we are simple-hearted and honest, if weighed
in the scale with those who employ us!”

If I was amused by much of what he said, I was also piqued at the tone
of superiority he assumed towards me, as he very frankly intimated that
by the low estimation in which I held my walk in life I had contrived to
make it still meaner and lower.

“It rests with ourselves,” said he, “to be the diplomatists of Europe.
Your men who pore over treaties and maps and protocols may plan and
scheme to their hearts’ content; but we can act. If I choose to change
the destination of this letter, and deliver it at Berlin or Vienna; or
if I go forward now to Moscow, and convey the answer to Paris, instead
of London, do you not suppose that the world would feel it, and to its
very centre, too?”

He paused for a minute or two, and then added,--

“You are wondering all this while within yourself why one who knows so
well the price of treason has not earned it; and shall I tell you? I
am not always aware of the value of my tidings. I may be charged with
a secret treaty. It may be a piece of court gossip, the mishap of
an archduchess, or the portrait of a court favorite. This very
letter--whose contents I believe I know--I am perhaps deceived in. Who
can tell, till it be opened, if my treachery be worth a farthing?”

If there was anything wanting to the measure of abhorrence with which
I regarded my career, it was amply supplied by such doctrines as these;
but probably much of the disgust they were calculated to inspire was
lost in the amusement the narrator afforded me. Everything about him
bespoke levity rather than systematic rascality; and yet he was one who
appeared to have thought profoundly on men and the world.

“I ‘ll wager a crown,” said he, as we jumped into the boat that was to
row us on shore, “that you are fully bent on hiding yourself and your
shame in the ‘Golden Plover,’ or the ‘Pilot’s Rest,’ or some such
obscure hotel; but this you shall not for the present. You are my guest
while we stay at Hamburg. Unfortunately, the time must needs be brief to
both of us. To-morrow we shall be on the road; but to-day is our own.”

I did not consent without reluctance; but he would not take a refusal,
and so I yielded; and away we went together to the “Schleswicker Hof,” a
magnificent hotel in the finest quarter of the town.

“No need to show your passport to any one,” said he to me, in a whisper,
as we entered the house; “I ‘ll arrange all.”

By the time I had refreshed myself with a bath and dressed, the waiter
came to say that Count Ysaffich was waiting dinner for me; and though
I gladly would have asked a few particulars of one with whose name and
person he seemed evidently acquainted, there was no time allowed me,
as he led the way to a splendid apartment, where the table was already
spread.

It was not without an effort that I recognized my friend the Count
in his change of costume; for, though good-looking and even handsome
before, he might now strike the beholder with admiration. He wore a
blue military pelisse, richly braided with gold, and fastened with large
Brandenburg buttons. It was sufficiently open in front to display a vest
of scarlet cloth, all slashed with gold. His trousers were black, with a
broad gold band along the sides, while a richly embossed belt of Russia
leather supported a sabre of most costly and gorgeous make. He wore
several handsome decorations, and around the throat, by a broad blue
ribbon, a splendid diamond cross, with the letters “P. C.” in the
centre.

“I have not dressed for dinner,” said he, as I entered, “since we must
take a stroll under the linden-trees when it grows cool, and have our
cigar there. After that, we ‘ll look in at the opera; and if not very
attractive, I ‘ll present you at one or two houses where they receive of
an evening, and where, when you come again, you will be always welcome.”

Since I had gone so far, I resolved to abide by all his arrangements,
and suffer him to dispose of my time just as he pleased.

Our dinner was excellent. The Count had bestowed pains in ordering it,
and all was of that perfection in cookery for which Hamburg was, and
is, so justly famed. Nor was the wine inferior to the rest of the
entertainment. Of this the Count appeared to be a connoisseur, and
pressed me to taste a dozen different kinds, the very names of which
were unknown to me. His conversation, too, was so amusing, so full of
strange incidents and adventures, such curious anecdotes, such shrewd
remarks, that I was by no means impatient to rise from table.

“I see,” said he, at last, “we are too late for the opera. Hanserlist’s
reception is also nearly over by this time. Shall we just drop in, then,
at Madame von Geysiger’s? It is the latest house here, and every one
goes there to finish the evening.”

“They are all strangers to me,” I replied, “and I am entirely under your
orders.”

“Then Madame von Geysiger’s be it,” said he, rising.

As we went along, he told me that the lady to whose house we were going
had been, some thirty-five or forty years ago, the great prima donna
of Europe. She was also the most celebrated beauty of her time; and by
these combined attractions had so captivated a rich merchant of Hamburg
that he married her, bequeathing to her on his death-bed the largest
fortune of that wealthy city.

“They count it by millions and tens of millions,” said he; “but what
matter to us?--at least to me?--for I have been refused by her some
half-dozen times; and indeed now am under the heaviest recognizance
never to repeat my proposal. If you, however, should like to
adventure--”

“Oh, excuse me,” said I, laughing. “Not even all the marcobrunner and
champagne I have been drinking could give hardihood for such a piece of
impudence.”

“Why not?” cried he. “You are young, good-looking, and of a fashionable
exterior. You are a stranger, besides,--and that is a great point; for
she is well weary of Hamburg and Hamburgers.”

I stopped him at once by saying that I was by far too conscious of the
indignity attached to my career to aspire to the eminence he spoke of.

“And too proud to marry an old woman for her money! Can’t you add that?”
 said he, laughing. “Well, there we differ. I am neither ashamed of the
‘espionage,’ nor should I be averse to the marriage. To say truth, my
dear Gervois, when I have dined in a splendid salon hung round with
the best pieces of Cuyp, Wouvermans, and Jansens; when I have seen the
dessert set forth in a golden service, of which the great Schnyders over
the fireplace was but a faint copy; when I have supped my Mocha out of a
Sèvres cup worth more than its full of gold louis, and rested myself
on the fairest tapestries of France, with every sense entranced by
luxury,--I do find it excessively hard to throw my mantle over my
shoulders, and trudge home through the rain and mud to resume the sorry
existence that for an hour I had abandoned.”

“There lies the whole question,” said I; “since, for my part, I could
not throw off the identity, even under such captivations as you speak
of.”

He looked at me very fixedly as I said this,--so fixedly, indeed, that
he seemed to feel some apology necessary for it.

“Forgive me,” cried he; “but I could not help staring at the prodigy of
a man content to be himself.”

“I have not said that,” replied I. “I only said I was incapable of
feeling myself to be any other.”

“You plume yourself upon your birth then, doubtless,” added he; “and so
should I, if I knew how to get rid of my father. What were your people:
you said they were not French?”

Had the question been put to me half an hour before, as we sat over
our wine, I have little doubt that, in the expansiveness of such a
situation, I should have told him all that I knew or suspected of my
family. The season of confidence, however, had passed. We were walking
along a crowded thoroughfare; our talk was desultory, as the objects
about were various; and so I coined some history of my family for the
occasion, ascribing my birth to a very humble source, and my rank as one
of the meanest.

“Your father was, however, English,” said he; “so much you know?”

“Yes,” said I, “that point there is no doubt about.”

“Is he alive?”

“No, he is dead a great many years back.”

“How did he die, or where? Excuse these questions, which I have only to
say are not out of idle importunity.”

I own that I did not feel easy under this cross-examination. It
might mean more than I liked to avow even to myself. At all events, I
resolved, whatever his object, to evade it; and at once gave him some
absurd narrative of my father having served in the war of the Low
Countries, where he married a Frenchwoman or a Fleming; that he died, of
some fever of the country, at a small fishing town on the Dutch coast,
leaving me an orphan, since my mother survived him but a few months.

“All this is excellent,” cried he, enthusiastically. “It could not be
better by any possibility. Forgive me, Gervois, till I can explain my
meaning to you more fully; but what you have just told me has filled my
heart with delight. You ‘ll see how Madame von Geysiger will receive you
when she hears this.”

I started back with astonishment. Could it possibly be the case that
my stupid story might chime in with the facts of some real history; and
should I thus be involved in the web of some tangled incidents in which
I had rightfully no share? There was shame and falsehood both in such a
situation, and I shrank from it with disgust.

“I will not go to this house, Count,” said I, resolutely. “I foresee
that somehow or other an interest would attach to me to which I can lay
no claim. Neither Madame von Geysiger, nor any belonging to her, could
have known my parents. Their walk in life was of the very humblest.”

“I have not said she did, my dear friend,” said he, soothingly, “nor
is it exactly generous to be so suspectful of one whose only feeling
towards you is that of kindness and good will. Once for all, if you
desire it, I will allude no further to this subject here or elsewhere.”

“On that condition I will accompany you,” said I.

He pressed my hand as if in recognition of the compact, and we entered
the house.

There were not above half-a-dozen carriages at the door; but still I
could perceive, as we passed through the salons, that a very numerous
company was assembled. It was exactly what the Count said,--a rendezvous
where all came to wind up the evening; and here were some in all the
blaze of diamonds, and in the splendor of full dress; others less
magnificently attired, and some again in their walking costume. The
suite of rooms then open were not the state ones in use for great
occasions, but a ground floor, opening by several doors upon a handsome
pleasure ground, that blending of copse and “bosquet,” of terrace and
shady alley, which foreigners call an English garden.

Here and there through this, many of the Company lounged and loitered,
enjoying the cool of a summer night in preference to the heated and
crowded rooms within. We were not long in search of our hostess when
she came towards us,--a large, full, but still handsome person,
magnificently attired, and with somewhat of what I, at least, fancied
the assured air and bearing of the stage.

To the Count she was most cordial; while to me her manner was courteous
in the extreme. She regretted that we had not come earlier, and
mentioned the names of some one or two distinguished visitors who had
just left. After some little conversation on commonplace matters,
I joined a party at ombre, a game of which I was fond, and where,
fortunately, I found the players satisfied to contend for stakes humble
enough for my means. The Count had, meanwhile, given his arm to the
hostess, and was making a tour of the company. He appeared to have
acquaintance with every one. Indeed, with most it was an easy intimacy;
and all saluted him as one they were glad to welcome. I watched him with
considerable curiosity, for I own the man was a puzzle to me. At times
I half persuaded myself that he was something very much above the
condition he assumed; and at other moments I suspected him to be below
even that. If he be an impostor, thought I, assuredly there are more
dupes than me, and in this very room too. My game soon absorbed my
attention, and I ceased to think of or look after him. I know not how
long this may have lasted; but I remember, when lifting my head from
my cards, I saw straight in front of me Madame von Geysiger steadily
contemplating me through her glass, and standing, to do so, in an
attitude that implied profound scrutiny. The moment she caught my eye
she dropped her “lorgnette,” and hurried away, in what was clear to see
was an air of confusion.

It immediately struck me that the Count had broken faith with me, and,
whatever his secret scheme, had revealed it to the lady; and, indignant
at the treachery, I would have risen at once from the table if I could;
as it was, I took the very first opportunity that presented itself,
and, by feigning the fatigue of a long journey, I made my excuses and
withdrew.

My next care was to leave the house without attracting any notice; and
so I mingled with the crowd, and held on my way towards the room by
which we had entered. The dense throng interrupted my progress; and
in order to make my escape more rapidly, I passed out into the garden,
intending to enter the house again by some door lower down. To do
so more secretly, I moved into one of the dark alleys, which, after
following some time, brought me out upon a little open space, with a
small marble fountain spouting its tiny jet in the midst of a clear
and starlit pond. Though so near to the house, the spot was still and
noiseless, for the thick copse on every side effectually excluded sound.
The calming influence of the silence and the delicious freshness of the
night air induced me to linger here for a while; and even longer, too,
I should have stayed, had not the sound of voices warned me that some
persons were approaching. That they might pass without observing me, I
stepped hastily into the bosquet, and concealed myself in the thick and
leafy cover. My misery and terror may be imagined when I heard my own
name uttered, and then perceived that it was the Count and Madame von
Geysiger, who now stood within a few feet of where I was, in deep and
secret conference.

Not all my training in my odious mode of life had reconciled me to the
part of an eavesdropper. Yet what could I do? Should I discover myself,
no explanation could possibly account for my situation, nor would any
assurances on my part have satisfied them of my ignorance. I will not
presume to say that if these were my first thoughts, my second, with
some tinge of sophistry, suggested that if treachery were intended me,
it would be unpardonable in me to neglect the means of defeating it.
There is assuredly a stronger impulse in curiosity, united with fear,
than exists in most other incentives; for, reason how I would, it was
impossible for me to resist the temptation thus presented to me.

“You mistake him, Anatole,” said the lady; “believe me, you mistake
him. I have watched his countenance, and read it carefully as he sat at
cards, and my interpretation of him is, that he would never consent.”

“The greater fool he, then,” replied the other. “Take my word for it,
his splendid abilities will not stand him in such stead as his mongrel
parentage and mongrel tongue. But I do not, cannot, agree with you. It
is just possible that so long as the world goes smoothly with him, and
no immediate pressure of any kind exists, that he might refuse. But why
need that continue? If fortune will deal him bad cards, don’t you think
we might contrive to shuffle the pack ourselves?”

She muttered something I could not hear, and he quickly rejoined,--

“Even for that I am not unprepared; no, no. Be assured of one thing, he
may decline, but will not defy us.”

“I know where your confidence is, Count,” said she; “but that rapier of
yours has got you into more trouble than it has ever worked you good.”

“Parbleu, I have no reason to be ungrateful to it!” replied he,
laughing; “and, perhaps, with all its rust, it may do some service yet.”

“At all events,” said she, “bethink you well of the consequences before
you admit him to any confidence. Remember that when once he is intrusted
with our plan, he is the master of our secret, and we are without a
remedy.--Pshaw!” said she, scornfully, as if in reply to some gesture on
his part; “that remedy may be applied once too often.”

My heart beat fast and full as I heard these words, whose significance
there could not be a doubt of, as the same curiosity to discover some
clew to the scheme by which I was to be snared was superior to all my
fears, and I half resolved, at whatever risk it might cost, to suffer
myself to be drawn into the intrigue. They now moved on, and though I
could hear their voices stop in low discourse, I could not detect the
words they uttered. It was evident that some proposition was to be
made to me, the rejection of which on my part might involve me in the
greatest peril. With what straining ingenuity did I endeavor to divine
what this might be! In all likelihood, it referred to some political
intrigue, for which my character as a “secret agent” might seem to adapt
me. Yet some of the expressions they had let drop by no means favored
this interpretation. What could my “mongrel nationality,” as the Count
styled it, avail me in such a conjuncture?

As these thoughts were chasing each other through my mind, I was
threading my way through the salons, and at length, to my sincere
satisfaction, found myself in the open street. By the time I reached
the hotel I had made up my mind to start at once on my mission, without
waiting for the Count’s arrival. I hastily scratched a few lines
of commonplace acknowledgment for his attentions to me, and
half-significantly adding that I hoped to express them personally when
we met again, wished him a “good journey,” and then set out on my own.

During the rest of that night, and, indeed, for a great part of the
following day, I did not feel satisfied with myself for what I had done.
It was, indeed, an inglorious mode of escaping from a difficulty,
and argued more of fear than resolution. As time wore on, however, I
reasoned myself into the notion that against secret treachery, courage
and firmness avail little, and if a well-planned scheme was about to
environ me, I had done the wisest thing in the emergency.

I suppose the experience of others will bear me out in saying that the
actual positive ills of life are more easily endured than the vague and
shadowy dangers which seem to hover over the future, and darken the road
before us. The calamities that lie in ambush for us are ever present to
our thoughts. The hour of our misfortune may be to-day, to-morrow, or
the day after. Every chance incident of untoward aspect may herald the
bad tidings, and we live in unceasing expectancy of evil. Do what I
would, a dreary and despondent gloom now settled on me; I felt as if
I were predestined to some grievous misfortune, against which I was
utterly powerless, and the hour of which I could neither hasten nor
retard. How bitterly I reproached myself for making an acquaintance with
the Count! For years I had lived a life of solitary seclusion, avoiding
even the commonest forms of acquaintanceship. The shame my calling
inspired me with made me reluctant to know those who, perhaps, when they
discovered me to be the spy, would have regarded me with aversion! Not
that in reality the odious epithet could, with any fairness, be applied
to me. My “secret agency” had not risen beyond the mere functions of
a messenger; and though at times I was intrusted with verbal
communications, they were delivered in confidence of my trustworthiness,
and not imparted in any reliance on my skill to improve them; but I
cannot stoop to apologize for a condition to which bitter necessity
reduced me, and which I clung to as offering the last remnant of hope
to find out those who, of all the world, were the only ones who bore me
affection.

I have already said that this hope was now fast dying out; repeated
disappointment had all but extinguished it; and it was only when
the name “Reichenau” had again stirred its almost cold embers that I
determined on this last chance ere I abandoned my career forever.



CHAPTER XXXV. “DISCOVERIES”

Only ye who have felt what it is after long years of absence, after
buffeting with the wild waves of life, and learning by heart that bitter
lesson they call the world, to come back to what was once a home, can
form some notion of the mingled emotions of joy and sorrow with which I
drew near Reichenau.

As the road grew gradually more steep, and the mountain gorge became
narrower and wilder, I found myself at each moment in sight of some
well-remembered object. Now it was a well beside which I had often
rested; now a cross or a shrine beneath which I had knelt. Here was a
rocky eminence I had climbed, to gain a wider view of the winding valley
before me; here was a giant oak under which I had sheltered from a
storm. Every turn of the way brought up some scene, some incident, or
some train of long-forgotten thought of that time when, as a boy, I
wandered all alone, weaving fancies of the world, and making myself the
hero of a hundred stories. Sad and sorrowful as it is to reckon scores
with our hopes and mark how little life has borne out the promises
of our youth, yet I cannot help thinking that our grief is nobly
recompensed by the very memory of that time, that glorious time, when,
shadowed by no scepticism, nor darkened by any distrust, we were happy
and hopeful and confiding. It is not alone that we recur to those
memories with pleasure, but we are actually better for the doing so.
They tell of a time when our hearts were yet uncorrupted, our ambitions
were noble, and our aspirations generous. They remind us of a period
when the episodes of life rarely outlived the day, and our griefs never
endured through half the night. And so comes it that when, in after
years, we are tired and careworn by the world, it is not to our
experience of mankind we look for support and comfort, but to the time
when, in happy innocence, we wandered all alone, peopling space with
images of kindness and goodness, and making for ourselves an ideal
world, so much better than the real one!

It was sunset. The “Angelus” was ringing as I entered Reichenau, and
the postilion--a mountaineer--reverently descended from the saddle, and
knelt upon the roadside in silent prayer. How long was it since I had
witnessed even so much of devotion! The world in which I had mixed
had its occupations of intrigue and plot, its schemes of greatness and
wealth and power, but no space for thoughts like those of this poor
peasant. Alas! and was I not myself corrupted by their contact? That
penitent attitude--that prayerful look--those clasped hands--were now
all objects of astonishment to me, when once I had deemed them the fit
accompaniment of the hour. Too truly was I changed from what I had been!

Night was falling fast as we reached the bridge, and a light twinkled
in the little window which had once been the Herr Robert’s. A little
further on, I saw the chateau and the terrace; then came the tower of
the old church; and as we turned into the Platz, I beheld the arched
gateway, and the small diamond-paned window of the little inn. How sadly
did they all remind me of my solitary existence! for here, in the midst
of every object of my childish memory, was I, friendless and alone.
A little crowd gathered around the carriage as I got out. The staring
rustics little thought that he who then descended had been, perhaps,
their playfellow and companion. The postilion had styled me an
“Excellency,” and the landlord received me with all his deference.

I pretended that I should stay a day or two, in expectation of a
friend’s arrival, and ordered the best rooms in the house; and, as was
not unusual in those days, begged the favor of my host’s company
at supper. The invitation was gladly accepted, and Herr Kirschler
entertained me till past midnight with an account of Reichenau and its
inhabitants. I affected to know the village as a mere traveller who had
passed through it some years back, on my way to Italy; and the host,
with true innkeeper memory, remembered me perfectly. I was fatter,
or thinner, or browner, or somewhat paler than before, but in other
respects little changed. So, at least, he told me, and I accepted the
description. I reminded him that when I last came through, the château
had been a school: was it so still?

“Yes; and Monsieur Jost was still the master, although now very old and
infirm, and, of course, little able to direct it. In fact, he devoted
his time far more to beetles and butterflies than to the boys; and
so most of the scholars had left him, and the school was rapidly
declining.”

I turned the conversation on Reichenau itself, and asked in a careless
tone if strangers ever sought it as a residence. He shook his head
sorrowfully, and said rarely, if ever.

“There had,” he added, “been one or two families who had fled thither
on the outbreak of the French Revolution, but they had long since taken
their departure. One of them,” added he, rising, and opening the window,
“one of them lived yonder, where your Excellency sees that old tower;
and mean as it looks without, I can assure you it is still poorer
within; and yet they were noble,--at least, so it was said here.”

“You cannot remember the name?” said I.

“No; but it is written in one of my old ledgers.”

“Will you do me the kindness to look for it?” said I, “as these things
have a deep interest for me, since I have known so many of the exiled
families.”

It was in no spirit of curiosity that I made this request; I needed
nothing to aid me. There stood the old tower which contained my
play-room; there, the little window at which I have sat, silent and
alone, whole nights long. It was to conceal my emotion that I wished him
away; and scarcely had he left the room, when I hid my face within my
hands and sobbed aloud. The search occupied him some time; and when he
returned, I had recovered myself sufficiently to escape his notice.

“Well, have you found it?” said I.

“Yes, your Excellency, here it is,--in the lady’s own writing too.”

The words were simply the routine entry of travellers in the
“police-sheet” of the hotel, stating that Madame la Comtesse de Gabriac,
accompanied by _son secrétaire_. Monsieur Raper, had passed two days
there, and then departed for------. The word had been written, and then
blotted out.

“For where?” asked I.

“That is the strangest point of all,” said he; “for after having taken
the places for Milan, and their passports all vised for that city, when
day broke they were not to be found. Some peasants, who came to market
that day, thought they had seen them on the mountains taking the path to
Feldkirch; but wherever they went, they were never heard of more.”

“Do you mean that they had to set out on foot?”

“Parbleu! your Excellency; the route they took can be travelled in no
other fashion.”

“But their baggage, their effects”

“They were of the lightest, I assure you,” said he, laughing. “Madame
la Comtesse carried hers in a kerchief, and Monsieur le Secrétaire had a
common soldier’s knapsack, and a small bundle in his hand, when he came
here.”

I suppose the expression of my face at the ribald tone of this remark
must have intimated what I felt, but ‘tried to conceal, since he
speedily corrected himself, and said, in a voice of apology,--

“It is not, assuredly, at their poverty I would sneer, your Excellency;
but for persons of their condition this was not the suitable way to
travel.”

“Did they leave no friends behind them who might give a clew to their
mysterious departure?”

“Friends! No, your Excellency, they were too proud and too highly born
for us of Reichenau,--at least, the Comtesse was; as for Monsieur Raper,
poor fellow, he was a teacher at Monsieur Jost’s yonder, and rarely seen
amongst us.”

“And how do you explain it?--I mean, what explanation was the common one
in vogue in the village?”

“As for that, there were all manner of rumors. Some said they had fled
from their debts, which was false; for they had sold the little they
possessed, and came to pass the two last days here while paying whatever
they owed in the village. Some thought that they had been hiding from
justice, and that their refuge had been at last discovered; and some,
among whom I confess myself one, think that it was with reference to the
Count’s affairs that they had taken to flight.”

“How do you mean?” asked I.

“Oh, De Gabriac was a ‘bad subject,’ and, if report speak truly, was
implicated in many crimes. One thing is certain: before they had been
gone a week, the gensdarmes were here in search of him; they ransacked
the lodging for some clew to his hiding-place, and searched the post for
letters to or from him.”

“And so you think that it was probably to avoid him that she fled?” said
I, hazarding a question, to obtain a fuller admission than he had made.

“That is precisely my opinion; and when I tell your Excellency that it
was on receiving a letter from Paris, most probably from him, that she
hastily sold off everything, you will possibly be of my mind also.”

“And Gabriac, did he ever appear here again?”

“Some say he did; but it is doubtful. One thing, however, is certain:
there was a teacher here in Monsieur Jost’s academy, a certain Monsieur
Augustin, who gave lessons in mathematics, and the secret police gave
him some tidings that made him also leave this; and the report is,
that Gabriac was somehow the cause of this. Nobody ever thought ill of
Augustin, and it is hard to believe he was Gabriac’s accomplice.”

I could perceive, from this reply of the host, that he was “all
abroad” as to any real knowledge of events, and had only got some faint
glimmerings of the truth. I now suffered him to run on about people
and occurrences of which I knew nothing, so as to divert him from any
attention to myself, and then betook me to my bed with an anxious mind
and a wearied one.

I was up early the next morning, and hastened to the château, where
I found my old master already up, and walking in the garden. He was,
indeed, much changed. Time had told heavily on him too, and he seemed
far more feeble than I expected to find him. The letter with which I was
charged for him invited him to make me any confidential communication he
desired to impart, and to regard me as trustworthy in all respects. He
read it over, I should think, several times; for he sat down on a bench,
and seemed to study it profoundly.

“You shall have the papers,” said he at length; “but I doubt that they
will be found of use now. Dumourier’s influence is at an end with his
old adherents. The party is broken up; and, so far as human foresight
can go, the cause is lost.”

“I ought to tell you, Monsieur Jost,” then broke I in, “that although
you are speaking to one who will not abuse your confidence, that it is
also one who knows nothing of the plan you speak of.”

He appeared to reflect some minutes over my words, and then said,--

“These are matters, however, not for my judgment. If the Prince think
well of the scheme, it is enough.”

I saw that this was said unconsciously and to himself, and so I made no
remark on it.

“At all events, Monsieur Gervois,” continued he, “let them not build
upon many whose names are here. We saw what Dejaunay became t’ other
day. Jussard is little better than a spy for the First Consul; and as
for Gabriac, to whom we all trusted, he would have been even worse than
a spy, if his villany had succeeded.”

“You knew him, then, sir?” asked I.

“Knew him! Parbleu! I did know him; and better, too, than most did! I
always said he would play the traitor,--not to one, but to every cause.
He was false to all, sir,” said he, with increasing bitterness,--“to his
King; to that King’s enemies; to the Convention; to the ‘Emigration;’ to
the nobles; to the people: false everywhere and to every one! False to
her who bore his name, and to her whom he led away to ruin,--that poor
girl, whose father’s chivalrous loyalty alone might have protected
her--How do you call him?--the Marquis de Bresinart? No, not him; I mean
that old loyalist leader who lived near Valence.”

“Not the Marquis de Nipernois?” said I, in trembling eagerness.

“The same; the Marquis de Nipernois, to whose daughter he was once
betrothed, and whose fair fame and name he has tarnished forever!”

“You do not mean that Gabriac was the seducer of Madame de Bertin?” said
I.

“The world knows it as well as I do; and although one alone ever dared
to deny it, and branded the tale with the epithet of base scandal, she
came at last to see its truth; and her broken heart was the last of his
triumphs!”

“You speak of the Countess,--his wife?”

He grasped my hand within one of his own, and pressed the other across
his eyes, unable to speak, through emotion. Nor were my feelings less
moved. What a terrible revelation was this! Misfortune upon misfortune,
and De Gabriac the cause of all!

For a moment I thought of declaring myself to be his old pupil, and the
child who had called that dear Comtesse “mother;” but the morbid shame
with which I remembered what I then was, stopped me, and I was silent.

“You know, of course, whither she went from this, and what became of
her?” asked I, anxiously.

“Yes. I had two letters from her,--at long intervals, though; the last,
when about to sail for Halifax--”

“For Halifax!--gone to America?”

“Even so. She said that the Old World had been long unkind to her, and
that she would try the New! and then as their only friend in Hamburg was
dead--”

“They were at Hamburg!--you did not say that?” said I.

“Yes, to be sure. Monsieur Raper, who was a worthy, good man, and a
smart scholar besides, had obtained the place of correspondence clerk in
a rich mercantile house in that city, where he lived with credit, till
the death of the head of the firm. After that, I believe the house
ceased business, or broke up. At all events, Raper was thrown on the
world again, and resolved to emigrate. I suppose if Monsieur Geysiger
had lived--”

“Geysiger!--is that the name you said?”

“Ay; Adam Geysiger,--the great house of Geysiger, Mersman, and Dorth, of
Hamburg, the first merchants of that city.”

Though he continued to talk on, I heard no more; my thoughts become
confused, and my head felt turning with the intense effort to collect
myself. Geysiger? thought I; the very house where I had been at
Hamburg,--where I had overheard the project of a plan against myself!
Could it be, that through all my disguise of name and condition, that
they knew me? With what increase of terror did this discovery come upon
me! If they have, indeed, recognized me, it may be that some scheme
is laid against my life. I could not tell how or whence this suspicion
came; but, doubtless, some chance word let drop before me in my infancy,
and dormant since in my mind, now rushed forth to my recollection with
all the power of a fact!

I questioned the old man about this Geysiger,--where he had lived, whom
he had married, and so on; but he only knew that his wife had been an
actress. I did not ask for more. The identity was at once established.
I next tried to find out if any relations of friendship or intimacy
had subsisted between the Comtesse and Madame de Geysiger; but, on the
contrary, he told me they had not met nor known each other when she
wrote to him; and her stay after that in Hamburg was very brief. I
wearied him with asking to repeat for me several circumstances of
these strange revelations; nor was it till I saw him fatigued and half
exhausted that I could prevail on myself to cease. I had now loitered
here to the last limit of my time; and, with an affectionate leave of
my kind old master, I left Reichenau to make my way with all speed to
England.



CHAPTER XXXVI. THE ORDEAL

My first care on arriving in England was to resign my post as an “Agent
secret.” This was not, however, so easily accomplished as I thought; for
the Royalists had more than once before discovered that those in their
employment had been seduced into the service of their enemies, whose
rewards were greater, and who had a large field of patronage at their
disposal. Unable to prevent these desertions by the inducements of
profit, they had resorted to a system of secret intimidation and menace
which unquestionably had its influence over many.

I have not space here to dwell on a theme, some of whose details might,
however, prove amusing, illustrating as they did the mysterious working
of that Jesuit element which labored so zealously and so long in the
cause of the Restoration. There is a little work still extant, called
“L’Espionage et ses Dangers,” by Jules Lacoste, published at Bruxelles,
in 1802, which gives, if not a perfectly authentic, at least a very
graphic, description of this curious system. The writer distinctly
alleges that five of his colleagues met their deaths by poison, on mere
suspicion of their disloyalty, and gives the names of several whose
impaired faculties and shattered health showed that they had narrowly,
but perhaps not more fortunately, escaped a similar fate.

For my own part I must own that such perils were not mine. It is true,
I was asked to reconsider my determination. It was at first hinted
vaguely, and then positively assured me, that my long and faithful
services were on the eve of a high and substantial recognition. I was
even told that my own wishes would be consulted as to the nature of my
reward, since I was not to be treated like one of the mere herd. When
all these temptations were found to fail, I was left, as it were, to
reflect on the matter, while in reality a still more ingenious and
artful scheme was drawn around me; the Abbé being employed as its chief
agent. Affecting, in a measure, to coincide with and even encourage my
determination, he invited me constantly to his lodgings, and by degrees
insinuated himself into my confidence. At least he learned that it was
in pure disgust of the career itself that I desired to forsake it, and
not with any prospect of other advancement in life. He sought eagerly to
discover the secret subject which engaged my thoughts, for I could
not succeed in concealing my deep pre-occupation; but he cautiously
abstained from ever obtruding even a word of question or inquiry. Nor
did his ardor stop here; he studied my tastes, my passions, and my
disposition, as subjects for successful temptation. I was young,
high-couraged, and enthusiastic; and yet he found me indifferent to
pleasure, and indisposed to society and its amusements. He knew me to
be poor, and yet saw clearly that wealth did not dazzle me. I was humble
and unknown; yet no recognition of the high and great could stir my
heart nor awaken my ambitions. He was too well read in human nature
to accept these as signs of an apathetic and callous disposition: he
recognized them rather as evidences of a temperament given up to some
one and engrossing theme.

I own that in my utter destitution there was a pleasing flattery to me
in this pursuit; and I could not but feel gratified at the zeal with
which he seemed to devote himself to comprehend me. He exposed me to the
various subjects of temptation which so successfully assail youth; but
he perceived that not one could touch the secret cord of my nature.
To some I was averse; I was indifferent to others. He took me into
society,--that circle of his intimates, which really in conversational
excellence surpassed anything I had ever met before; and although I
enjoyed it at the time, I could refrain from frequenting it without a
regret.

“You are a puzzle to me, Bernard,” said he, addressing me by my former
“sobriquet,” which he always used in private; “I want to see you take
interest in something, and show that humanity is not dead within you;
but nothing seems to touch, nothing to attract you; and yet it was not
thus that Sister Ursule first represented you to me. She spoke of you
as one that could be warmed by the zeal of a great cause, and whose
faculties would expand when once engaged in it. If the monarchy be too
mean for your ambition, what say you to the church?”

I pleaded my unworthiness, but he stopped me, saying:

“The career it is that creates the man. Only resolve firmly to fulfil a
duty, and mark how capacity comes of mere volition! Ursule herself is
an instance of what I say. Bred up amidst those who only cared for the
world and its vanities, see what she became by the working of noble
devotion, and see what has Margot sunk to for want of it!”

“Margot! what of her?” asked I, eagerly. “You did not tell me that you
had tidings of her.”

The sallow cheek of the Abbé seemed tinged with a faint color as I
uttered these words with unusual warmth. Whatever his feelings, however,
they were quickly under control, as he said,--

“Margot has fallen,--fallen as never before fell one of her high
estate!”

I could not speak from emotion, but by my anxious look I entreated him
to continue. The recital, as he gave it, was a long one, but briefly
told was this: Margot had been “prepared” by her sister for admission
into the restored convent of the “Chaise Dieu,” and at length had
entered upon her novitiate. This being completed, she had returned home,
in compliance with the precepts of the order, to mix in the world and
its pleasures for three months,--the abandonment of such temptation
being accepted as the best evidence of fitness for the last solemn vow.
Dangerous as such an ordeal would seem, yet scarcely ever is one found
to fail under it. The long previous training of the mind, the deep
impression made by a life of unbroken devotion, and that isolation
that comes of a conventual existence, joined to the sense of disgrace
attendant on desertion, all combined to make the novice faithful to her
first pledge. The trial is, therefore, little other than a formality,
and she who goes through it seems rather a martyr suffering torture,
than a youthful spirit taking its last fleeting glimpse of joy forever!

To fulfil this accustomed ceremonial--for it was simply such--Margot
came home to her father’s house. The violent spirit of the Revolutionary
period had given way to a more calm and dispassionate tone, and already
the possessors of ancient names and titles were returning to the respect
they once were held in. In the little village of Linange the old Marquis
was now esteemed a high personage,--by some, indeed, was he placed above
the “Maire” himself. To do his daughter honor was, therefore, a duty;
and every one whose rank gave them the pretension, endeavored to show
her some mark of respect and attention. Small as the community was, it
had its dignitaries and its leaders, and they vied with each other on
this occasion.

Margot had been a favorite, she was about to be a nun,--two claims which
appeal to the heart by separate roads; for, while one exacts admiration,
the other disarms jealousy. Thus, even they who would have felt the
rivalry of her beauty as a subject of irritation, could now bestow their
praises on her without a pang. This flattery of admiration from every
quarter was too much for the brain of one whose chief fault was vanity.
The splendor of her dress, the presents lavished on her, the worship
which reached her wherever she went, all served to heighten the
fascination; and while Ursule prayed and entreated her to remember that
these were but as the flowers that deck the victim at the altar, she
would not heed her. How could she? Was not the swell of approving
voices which met her in society louder than the faint whisperings of her
sister’s admonition? How could the cold warnings of prudence stem the
torrent of adulation that swept through her heart? She was conscious,
too, of her beauty; and, for the first time, felt that its influence was
experienced by others. The reputation of the lovely novice spread far
and near, and strangers came to Linange to see and speak with her. The
little weekly receptions at the “Mairie” were crowded with new faces.
Officers from the garrison at Valence, and travellers, were continually
arriving; and “La Belle Margot” was a toast pledged by hundreds who
never saw her.

From Ursule alone came words of warning. The world of her acquaintance
met her with nothing but flattery, and flattery, too, more palpably
expressed than is usual, since used to one upon whom, in a few days,
life was to close forever.

Margot was told that, to waste her charms on the dull world of a little
village was an insult to her own beauty, and that Valence, which so
long had heard of should certainly see her. She believed this, and
accordingly insisted on going there. At Valence her triumphs were
greater than ever; but there she heard that Paris alone could rightly
appreciate loveliness such as hers. They told her, too, that it was
an age in which beauty was sovereign; and the nation, wearied of a
monarchy, had accepted military glory and female loveliness as the true
elements of command. The will of the novice is a law at this period, and
the old Marquis, who had now regained some remnant of his fortune, set
out for Paris.

The most hackneyed in the world’s ways knows well with what a sense
of enjoyment he finds himself in Paris, the most brilliant of all the
cities of the earth. The gorgeous panorama of life that passes there
before his eyes has nowhere its equal. What, then, must it have appeared
to the fresh enthusiasm of that young girl, eager for pleasure, for
excitement and admiration!

At first her whole soul was bent upon the gorgeous spectacle before
her,--the splendor of a scene such as she in imagination had never
realized. The palaces, the military pomp, the equipages, the dress, were
far above all she had conceived of magnificence and display; but the
theatres imparted a delight to her beyond all the rest. The ideal world
that she saw there typified a world of passionate feeling, of love,
joy, ambition, and triumph! What a glorious contrast to the grave-like
stillness of the convent,--to the living death of a poor nun’s
existence! It is true, she had been taught to regard these things as
sinful, and as the base conceptions of a depraved nature; she had even
come to witness them to confirm the abhorrence in which she held them,
and show that they appealed to no one sentiment of her heart. Alas! the
experiment was destined to prove too costly.

The splendor, the beauty, the glowing language of the scene, the
strains of music, softer and more entrancing than ever swept across her
senses,--the very picturesque effect of everything,--varied with every
artifice of light and shadow, carried her away, and bore her to an ideal
world, where she, too, had her homage of devotion, where her beauty
had its worshippers, and she was herself loved. It was in vain that she
tried to reason herself out of these fancies, and regard such displays
as unreal and fictitious. Had they been so, thought she, they could not
appeal, as I see and know they do, to the sympathies of those thousands
whose breasts are heaving in suspense, and whose hearts are throbbing
in agony. But more than that, she beheld the great actress of the day
received with all the homage rendered to a queen in the real world.

If ever there was one calculated to carry with her from the stage into
society all the admiration she excited, it was that admirable actress
who was then at the very outset of that brilliant career which for
nigh half a century adorned the French stage, and rendered it the most
celebrated in Europe. Young, beautiful in the highest sense of the word,
with a form of perfect mould, gifted and graceful in every gesture, with
a voice of thrilling sweetness and a manner that in the highest circles
found no superior, Mademoiselle Mars brought to her profession traits
and powers, any one of which might have insured success. I remember her
well! I can bring to mind the thundering applause that did not wait for
her appearance on the boards, but announced her coming; that gorgeous
circle of splendid and apparelled beauty, stimulated to a momentary
burst of enthusiasm; that waving pit, rocking and heaving like a stormy
sea,--the hoarse bray of ten thousand voices, rude and ruthless enough
many of them, and yet all raised in homage of one who spoke to the
tenderest feelings of the heart, and whose accents were the softest
sounds that ever issued from human lips. And I remember, too, how, at
the first syllable she uttered, that deafening clamor would cease, and,
by an impulse that smote every one of that vast assemblage in the same
instant of time, the stillness was like the grave!

Margot became so fascinated by her that she would not lose one single
night when she performed. It was at first a pleasure,--it then became
a passion with her. The real life she mixed in became poor, weak, and
uninteresting beside the world of intense feeling the stage presented.
The one seemed all false, unreal, and fictitious; the other truthful,
and addressing itself to the heart direct.

Mademoiselle Mars herself at length remarked the lovely girl who, with
eager gaze and steadfast, sat each night in the same place, indifferent
to everything save the business of the scene. She felt the power she
exercised over her, and saw how her whole nature was her captive. Once
or twice their eyes actually met, and Margot felt at the moment that she
was beneath the glance of one who read her very thoughts, and knew each
working of her heart.

A few nights after this, they met in society, and Mademoiselle Mars,
without introduction of any kind, approached and spoke to her. The
words were few and commonplace,--some half apology for a liberty, an
expression of pleasure at meeting her, and a kind of thankful return for
the attention by which she marked her. She saw the attraction which the
stage possessed for her, and made it the subject of their conversation.
The great actress was herself an enthusiast about her art, and when
she spoke of it, her genius kindled at once, and her words rose to high
eloquence. She told Margot the whole story of her own devotion to
the stage,--how she had been destined to the cloister, and that an
accidental visit to the theatre at Nancy had determined the entire
fortunes of her life. “I felt within me,” said she, “a power of
expression that I could not bear to bury beneath the veil of the nun.
The poetry that stirred my heart should find its utterance; nor could
I endure the stormy conflict of passion that raged within me, save in
giving it a form and a shape. I became an actress for myself; and hence
perhaps why I have met with the applause of others.”

Margot’s acquaintance thus casually formed ripened into intimacy, and
quickly into a close friendship. The ritual that prescribed the ordeal
through which she was going, ordained that it should be restricted by
scarcely a limit. The novice was really to be her own mistress for a
brief season in that world she was to leave so soon and forever.

She now accompanied Mademoiselle Mars not only into the wide circle of
Parisian society, but into that far more seductive one which consisted
of her most intimate friends. Here she met all that boasted of artistic
excellence in the capital,--the brilliant dramatist, the witty reviewer
of the “Débats,” the great actor,--it was Talma in those days,--the
prima donna who was captivating all Europe, and a host of lesser
celebrities, all brimful of spirits, joy, and gayety, as people with
whom the world went well, and whose very business in it was that of
pleasure and amusement. I need not trace the course by which Margot grew
to a perfect infatuation with such company. Wiser and calmer heads than
hers have been unable to resist the charms of a society made up of such
elements, nor was she herself to pass without admiration from them.
Her beauty and her youth, the mingled gentleness and energy of her
temperament, her girlish modesty, blended with a highly-wrought
enthusiasm, were exactly the qualities which they could value and
appreciate.

“What gifts for the stage!” said one of the greatest amongst them, one
night; “if Mademoiselle was not a Marchioness, she might be a Mars.”

“But I am going to be a nun,” said she, innocently; and a joyous burst
of laughter received the speech. “It is quite true,” said she, “and most
unkind of you to laugh at me.”

“By Saint Denis, I’ll go and turn Trappist or Carmelite to-morrow,”
 cried one, “if only to pay you a visit in your convent.”

“I wish they’d accept me as almoner to your cloister, Mademoiselle,”
 said Breslot, the comedian; “I’m getting tired of serious parts, and
would like a little light business.”

“Am I the style of thing for a superior, think ye?” said Jossard, the
life of the “Français,” throwing over his head a lace scarf of one of
the ladies, and assuming a demure look of indescribable drollery.

“How I should like to hear Mademoiselle recite those lines in your play
of ‘Cécile,’ Monsieur Bertignac,” said a famous actress of tragedy. “Her
face, figure, voice, and air are perfect for them. I mean the farewell
the novice takes of her sister as day is just breaking, and the distant
bells of the cloister announce the approach of the ceremony.”

“Where’s the book?--who has it?” called out three or four together.

“The copies have been all seized by the police,” said one. “Bertignac
was suspected of a covert satire on the authorities.”

“Or they have been bought up for distribution by the Society of ‘Bons
Livres,’” said another; “and Bertignac is to be made Gentleman of the
Pope’s Antechamber.”

“Here is one, however, fortunately rescued,” said Mademoiselle Mars,
producing the volume, which Jossard quickly snatched from her, and
began, in pompous tones, reciting the lines, beginning,--

   “Sour de mon enfance, si je te quitte pour toujours.”

“An abominable line,” cried one, “and perfectly impossible to give
without a bassoon accompaniment for the last word.”

“The epithet, too, is downright nonsense. Why sister of her infancy? Did
she cease to be so as she grew up?” said another.

“I wrote the lines after supping with Breslot,” said the author. “One is
not accountable for words uttered in moments of debility and hunger.”

“Be the lines what they may, let us hear Mademoiselle read them,” said
Talma; “and I mistake greatly but, with all our studied accuracy,
we shall learn something from one whose nature is not bound by our
trammels.”

To have adventured on such a task, before such an audience, was more
than Margot could dare to contemplate, and she grew faint and sick at
the bare thought. They were not, however, of that mould which listens to
excuses and refusals. The great familiarity which existed amongst them
excluded all deference to individual likings or dislikings, and if
servants of the public on the stage, off the boards they were the
slaves of each other. Margot, almost lifeless with terror, was therefore
obliged to comply. At first the words fell from her lips almost
inaudibly; by degrees her voice gained strength, and only a tremulous
accent betrayed the struggle within her. But at last, when she came to
the part where the nun, as if asking herself whether the world and its
fascinations had taken no hold upon her heart, confesses, with a burst
of spirit-wrung misery, that it was so, and that to leave that joyous
sunlight for the gloomy sepulchre of the cloister was worse than death
itself, her utterance grew full and strong, her dark eyes flashed, her
color heightened, her bosom heaved, and she gave the passage with such
a burst of thrilling eloquence that the last words were drowned in
thunders of applause, only hushed as they beheld her fall back fainting,
and perfectly overcome by her emotions.

“And you think you can take the veil, child?” asked Mademoiselle Mars,
when they were alone.

But Margot made no answer.

“You believe, Margot, that it will be possible for you to stifle within
you feelings such as these, and that the veil and the cord can change
your nature? No, no! If the heart be not dead, it is cruelty to bury it.
Yours is not so, and shall have another destiny.”

Mademoiselle Mars at once communicated with the old Marquis, and
endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose regarding his granddaughter;
but he would not listen to her arguments, nor heed her counsels. At
first, indeed, he could not be brought to believe that Margot herself
could concur in them. It seemed incredible to him that a child of
his house could so far forget her station and self-respect as to avow
herself unequal to any sacrifice or any trial, much less one in itself
the noblest and the highest of all martyrdom.

“You will see,” cried he, eagerly, “that it is you--not I--have mistaken
her. These gauds of the fashionable world have no real attraction for
her. Her heart is within those walls, where, in a few days more, she
will herself be forever. She shall come and tell you so with her own
lips.”

He sent a servant to call her, but she was not to be found! He searched
everywhere, but in vain. Margot was gone! From that day forth she was
not to be met with. No means were spared in prosecuting the search.
Mademoiselle Mars herself, deeply afflicted at any inducements she might
have held forth to her, joined eagerly in the pursuit, but to no end.

“But you cannot mean, Abbé,” said I, as he completed the narrative,
“that to this very hour no trace of her has been discovered?”

“I will not say so much,” said he; “for once or twice tidings have
reached her friends that she was well and happy. The career she
had chosen, she well knew would be regarded by her family as a deep
degradation; and she only said to one who saw her, ‘Tell them that their
name shall not be dishonored. As for her who bears it, she deems herself
ennobled by the stage!’ She was in Italy when last heard of, and in the
Italian theatres; and in some of Alfieri’s pieces had earned the most
triumphant successes. Poor girl! from her very cradle her destiny marked
her for misfortune. What a mockery, then, these triumphs if she but
recalls the disgrace by which they are purchased!”



CHAPTER XXXVII. THE GLOOMIEST PASSAGE OF ALL

Shall I own that Margot’s story affected me in a very different
manner from what the good Abbé had intended it should? I could neither
sympathize with the outraged pride of the old Marquis, the offended
dignity of family, nor with the insulted honor of the sacred vocation
she had abandoned. My reflections took a very different form, and turned
entirely upon the dangers of the career she had adopted,--perils which,
from what I could collect of her character, were extremely likely to
assail her. She was young, beautiful, gifted, and ambitious; and, above
all, she was friendless. What temptations would not assail her,--by what
flatteries would she not be beset! Would she be endowed with strength
to resist these? Would the dignity of her ancient descent guard her, or
would the enthusiasm for her art protect her? These were questions that
I could not solve, or, rather, I solved them in many and different ways.
For a long time had she occupied a great share in my heart; sometimes
I felt towards her as towards a sister. I thought of the hours we had
passed side by side over our books,--now working hard and eagerly, now
silent and thoughtful, as some train of ideas would wile us away from
study, and leave us forgetful of even each other,--till a chance word,
a gesture, a sigh, would recall us, and then, interchanging our
confessions,--for such they were,--we turned to our books again. But at
other times I thought of her as one dearer still than this,--as of
one to win whose praise I would adventure anything; whose chance words
lingered in my memory, suggestive of many a hope, and, alas! many a
fear. It is no graceful reflection to dwell upon, however truthful, that
our first loves are the emanations of our self-esteem. They who first
teach us to be heroes to our own hearts are our earliest idols. Ay, and
with all the changes and chances of life, they have their altars within
us to our latest years. Why should it not be so? What limit ought there
to be to our gratitude to those who first suggested noble ambitions,
high-soaring thoughts, and hopes of a glorious future,--who instilled in
us our first pride of manhood, and made us seem worthy of being loved!

Margot had done all this for me when but a child, and now she was a
woman, beautiful and gifted! The fame of her genius was world-wide. Did
she still remember me?--had she ever a thought for the long past hours
when we walked hand-in-hand together, or sat silently in some summer
arbor? I recalled all that she had ever said to me, in consolation of
the past, or with hope for the future. I pondered over little incidents,
meaningless at the time, but now full of their own strong significance;
and I felt at last assured that, when she had spoken to me of ambitious
darings and high exploits, she had been less exhorting me than giving
utterance to the bursting feelings of her own adventurous spirit.

Her outbreaks of impatience, her scarcely suppressed rebellion against
the dull ritual of our village life, her ill-disguised suspicion of
priestly influence, now rose before me; and I could see that the flame
which had burst forth at last, had been smouldering for many a year
within her. I could remember, too, the temper, little short of scorn, in
which she saw me devote myself to Jesuit readings, and labor hard at the
dry tasks the Sister Ursule had prescribed for me. And yet then all
my ambitions were of the highest and noblest. I could have braved
any dangers, or met any perils, in the career of a missionary! Labor,
endurance, suffering, martyrdom itself, had no terror for me. How was
it that this spirit did not touch her heart? Were all her sympathies
so bound up with the world that every success was valueless that won
no favor with mankind? Had she no test for nobility of soul save in
recognition of society? When I tried to answer these questions, I
suddenly bethought me of my own shortcomings. Where had this ambition
led me,--what were its fruits? Had I really pursued the proud path
I once tracked out for myself? or, worse thought again, had it no
existence whatever? Were devotion, piety, and single-heartedness nothing
but imposition, hypocrisy, and priestcraft? Were the bright examples
of missionary enterprise only cheats? were all the narratives of their
perilous existence but deception and falsehood? My latter experiences of
life had served little to exalt the world in my esteem. I had far more
frequently come into contact with corruption than with honesty. My
experiences were all those of fraud and treachery,--of such, too, from
men that the world reputed as honorable and high-minded. There was but
one step more, and that a narrow one, to include the priest in the same
category with the layman, and deem them all alike rotten and corrupted.
I must acknowledge that the Abbé himself gave no contradiction to this
unlucky theory. Artful and designing always, he scrupled at nothing to
attain an object, and could employ a casuistry to enforce his views far
more creditable to his craft than to his candor. I was no stranger to
the arts by which he thought to entrap myself. I saw him condescend to
habits and associates the very reverse of those he liked, in the hope
of pleasing me; and even when narrating the story of Margot’s fall,--for
such he called it,---I saw him watching the impression it produced upon
me, and canvassing, as it were, the chances that here at length might
possibly be found the long-wished-for means of obtaining influence over
me.

“I do not ask of you,” said he, as he concluded, “to see all these
things as I see them. You knew them in their days of poverty and
downfall; you have seen them the inhabitants of an humble village,
leading a life of obscurity and privation,--their very pretension to
rank and title a thing to conceal; their ancient blood a subject of
scorn and insult. But I remember the Marquis de Nipernois a haughty
noble in the haughtiest court of Europe; I have see that very Marquis
receiving royalty on the steps of his own château, and have witnessed
his days of greatness and grandeur.”

“True,” said I, “but even with due allowance for all this, I cannot
regard the matter in the same light that you do. To my eyes, there is no
such dignity in the life of a nun, nor any such disgrace in that of an
actress.”

I said this purposely in the very strongest terms I could employ, to see
how he would reply to it.

“And you are right, Gervois,” said he, laying his hand affectionately on
mine. “You are right. Genius and goodness can ennoble any station, and
there are few places where such qualities exert such influence as the
stage.”

I suffered him to continue without interruption in this strain,
for every word he spoke served to confirm me in my suspicion of his
dishonesty. Mistaking the attention with which I listened for an
evidence of conviction, he enlarged upon the theme, and ended at last by
the conclusion that to judge of Margot’s actions fairly we should first
learn her motives.

“Who can tell,” said he, “what good she may not have proposed to
herself!--by what years of patient endurance and study--by what passages
of suffering and sorrow--she may have planned some great and good
object! It is a narrow view of life that limits itself to the day we
live in. They who measure their station by the task they perform, and
not by its results on the world at large, are but shortsighted mortals;
and it is thus I would speak to yourself, Gervois. You are dissatisfied
with your path in life. You complain of it as irksome, and even ignoble.
Have you never asked yourself, is not this mere egotism? Have I the
right to think only of what suits me, and accommodates itself to
my caprices? Are there no higher objects than my pleasure or my
convenience? Is the great fabric of society of less account than my
likings or dislikings? Am I the judge, too, of the influence I may exert
over others, or how my actions may sway the destinies of mankind? None
should be more able to apply these facts than yourself,--you that in
a rank of which you were, I must say unjustly, ashamed, and yet
were oftentimes in possession of secrets on which thrones rested and
dynasties endured.”

He said much more in the same strain; some of his observations being
true and incontestable, and others the mere outpouring of his crafty and
subtle intellect. They both alike fell unheeded by me now. Enough for
me that I had detected, or fancied I had detected, him. I listened only,
from curiosity, and as one listens for the last time.

Yes! I vowed to myself that this should be our last meeting. I could not
descend to the meanness of dissimulation, and affect a friendship I did
not feel; nor could I expose myself to the chances of a temptation which
assailed me in so many shapes and forms. I resolved, therefore, that I
would not again visit the Abbé; and my only doubt was, whether I should
not formally declare my determination.

He had ceased to speak; and I sat, silently pondering this question in
my own mind. I forgot that I was not alone, and was only conscious of my
error when I looked up and saw his small and deep-set eyes firmly fixed
upon me.

“Well, be it so, Gervois,” said he, calmly; “but let us part friends.”

I started, and felt my face and forehead burning with a sudden flush
of shame. There are impulses that sway us sometimes stronger than our
reason; but they are hurricanes that pass away quickly, and leave the
bark of our destiny to sail on its course unswervingly.

“You ‘ll come back to me one of these days, and I will be just as ready
to say, ‘Welcome!’ as I now say ‘Good-bye! good-bye!’” and, sorrowfully
repeating the last word as he went, he waved his hand to me, and
withdrew.

For a moment I wished to follow him, to say I know not what; but calmer
thoughts prevailed, and I left the house and wandered homewards. That
same evening I sent in my demand of resignation, and the next morning
came the reply according it. My first thought was a joyful sense of
liberty and freedom from a bondage I had long rebelled against; my next
was a dreary consciousness of my helpless and friendless condition
in life. I opened my little purse upon the table, and spread out its
contents before me. There were seven pounds and a few shillings. A
portion of my salary was still due to me, but now I would have felt it
a degradation to claim it, so odious had the career become in my eyes.

I began to think over the various things for which my capacity might fit
me. They seemed a legion when I stood in no need of them, and yet none
now rose to my mind without some almost impassable barrier. I knew no
art nor handicraft. My habits rendered me unequal to daily labor with
my hands. I knew many things en amateur, but not as an artist. I could
ride, draw, fence, and had some skill in music; but in not one of these
could I compete with the humblest of those who taught them. Foreign
languages, too, I could speak, read, and write well; but of any method
to communicate their knowledge I had not the vaguest conception. After
all, these seemed my best acquirements, and I determined to try and
teach them.

With this resolve I went out and spent two pounds of my little capital
in books. It was a scanty library, but I arrayed it on a table next
my window with pride and satisfaction. I turned over the leaves of my
dictionary with something of the feeling with which a settler in a new
region of the globe might have wandered through his little territory.

My grammars I regarded as mines whose ores were to enrich me; and
my well-thumbed copy of Telemachus, and an odd volume of Lessing’s
comedies, were in themselves stores of pleasure and amusement. I suppose
it is a condition of the human mind that makes our enjoyments in the
ratio of the sacrifices they have cost us. I know of myself, that
since that day I now speak of, it has been my fortune to be wealthy, to
possess around me every luxury my wish could compass, and yet I will
own it, that I have never gazed on the well-filled shelves of a costly
library, replete with every comfort, with a tithe of the satisfaction I
then contemplated the two or three dog-eared volumes that lay before me.

My first few days of liberty were passed in planning out the future.
I studied the newspapers in hope of meeting something adapted to my
capacity; but though in appearance no lack of these, I invariably found
some fatal obstacle intervened to prevent my success. At one place,
the requirements were beyond my means; at another, the salary was
insufficient for bare support; and at one I remember my functions of
teacher were to be united with menial offices against which my
pride revolted. I resolved to adventure at last, and opened a little
school,--an evening school for those whose occupations made the day too
valuable to devote any part of it to education.

At the end of some five weeks I had three pupils; hard-working and
hard-worked men they were, who, steadily bent upon advancement in life,
now entered upon a career of labor far greater than all they had ever
encountered.

Two were about to emigrate, and their studies were geography, with some
natural history, and whatever I could acquire for them of information
about the resources of a certain portion of Upper Canada. The third
was a weaver, and desired to learn French in order to read the works of
French mathematicians, at that time sparingly translated into English.
He was a man of superior intellect, and capable of a high cultivation,
but poor to the very last degree. The thirst for knowledge had possessed
him exactly as the passion for gambling lays hold of some other men; he
lived for nothing else. The defeats and difficulties he encountered but
served to brace him to further efforts, and he seemed to forget all his
privations and his poverty in the aim of his glorious pursuit.

To keep in advance of him in his knowledge, I found impossible. All that
I could do was to aid him in acquiring French, which, strange to say,
presented great difficulties to him. He however made me a partaker of
his own enthusiasm, and I worked hard and long at pursuits for which my
habits of mind and thought little adapted me. I need scarcely say that
all this time my worldly wealth made no progress. My scholars were very
poor themselves, and the pittance I earned from them I had oftentimes to
refuse accepting. Each day showed my little resources growing smaller,
and my hopes held out no better prospect for the future.

Was I to struggle on thus to the last, and sink under the pressure? was
now the question that kept perpetually rising to my mind. My poverty
had now descended to actual misery; my clothes were ragged; my shoes
scarcely held together; more than once an entire day would pass without
my breaking my fast.

I lost all zest for life, and wandered about in lonely and unfrequented
places, in a half-dreamy state, too vague to be called melancholy. My
mind, at this time, vacillated between a childish timidity and a species
of almost savage ferocity. At some moments tears would steal along my
cheeks, and my heart vibrated to the very finest emotions; at others,
I was possessed with an almost demoniac fierceness, that seemed only in
search of some object to wreak its vengeance upon. A strange impression,
however, haunted me through both these opposite states, and this was,
that my life was menaced by some one or other, and that I went in hourly
peril of assassination. This sense of danger impressed me with either a
miserable timidity, or a reckless, even an insolent, intrepidity.

By degrees, all other thoughts were merged in this one, and every
incident, no matter how trifling, served to strengthen and confirm it.
Fortunately for my reader, I have no patience to trace out the fancies
by which I was haunted. I imagined that kings and emperors were in the
conspiracy against me, and that cabinets only plotted how to entrap me.
I sold the last remnant of my wardrobe and my few remaining books, and
quitted my dwelling, to forsake it again for another, after a few days.
Grim want was, at length, before me, and I found myself one morning--it
was a cold one of December--with only a few pence remaining. It chanced
to be one of my days of calmer temperament; for some previous ones I had
been in a state bordering on frenzy; and now the reaction had left me
weak and depressed, but reasonable.

I went over, to myself, as well as I was able, all my previous life; I
tried to recall the names of the few with whom my fate seemed to connect
me, and of whose whereabouts I knew nothing; I canvassed in my own mind
how much might be true of these stories which I used to hear of my
birth and parentage, and whether the whole might not possibly have been
invented to conceal some darker history. Such doubts had possibly not
assailed me in other times; but now, with broken hopes and shattered
strength, they took a bold possession of me. I actually possessed
nothing which might serve to confirm my pretension to station. Documents
or papers I had none; nor was there, so far as I knew, a living
witness to bear testimony to my narrative. In pondering thus I suddenly
remembered that, in the letter which I once had addressed to Mr. Pitt,
were enclosed some few memoranda in corroboration of my story.

What they were exactly, and to what extent they went, I could not recall
to memory; but it was enough that they were, in some shape, evidences
of that which already to my own mind was assuming the character of a
delusion.

To this faint chance I now attached myself with a last effort of
desperation. Some clew might possibly be found in these papers to guide
my search, and my whole thoughts were now bent upon obtaining them.
With this object I sat down and wrote a few most respectful lines to the
minister, stating the nature of my request, and humbly excusing myself
for the intrusion on his attention. A week passed over,--a week of
almost starvation,--and yet no reply reached me. I now wrote again more
pressingly than before, adding that my circumstances did not admit
of delay, and that if, by any mischance, the papers had been lost or
mislaid, I still would entreat his Excellency’s kindness to--I believe
I said recall what he could remember of these documents, and thus supply
the void left by their loss. This letter shared the same fate as my
former one. I wrote a third time, I knew not in what terms, for I wrote
late at night, after a day of mad and fevered impatience. I had fasted
for nigh two entire days. An intense thirst never ceased to torture me;
and as I wandered wildly here and there, my state alternated between
fits of cold shuddering, and a heat that seemed to be burning my very
vitals. The delusions of that terrible interval were, doubtless, the
precursors of actual madness. I bethought me of every torture I had ever
heard of,--of all the sufferings martyrdom had ever borne, but to which
death came at last as the comforter; but to me no such release seemed
possible. I felt as though I had done all that should invoke it.
“Want--sickness--suffering--despair,--are these not enough,” I asked
myself,--“must guilt and self-murder be added to the terrible list?”
 And it was, I remember, with a kind of triumphant pride I determined
against this. “If mankind reject me,” said I,--“if they make of me an
outcast and a victim, on them shall lie all the shame and all the sin.
Enough for me the misery,--I will not have the infamy of my death!”

I have said I wrote a third letter; and to make sure of its coming to
hand, I walked with it to Hounslow. The journey occupied me more than
half the night, for it was day when I arrived. I delivered it into the
hands of a servant, and, saying that I should wait for the answer, I
sat down upon a stone bench beside the door. Overcome with fatigue,
and utterly exhausted, I fell off asleep,--a sound and, strange to say,
delicious sleep, with calm and pleasant dreams. From this I was aroused
by a somewhat rude shake, and on looking up saw that a considerable
number of persons were around me.

“Stand up, my good fellow,” cried a man, who, though in plain clothes
and unarmed, proclaimed by his manner of command that he was in
authority; “stand up, if you please.”

I made an effort to obey, but sank down again upon the bench, faint and
exhausted.

“He wants a drink of water,” cried one.

“He wants summut to eat,--that’s what he wants,” said a laboring man in
front of me.

“We’ll take him where he’ll be properly looked after,” said the first
speaker. “Just stand back, good people, and leave me to deal with
him.” The crowd retired as he spoke, while, coming nearer, he bent down
towards me and said, “Is your name Paul Gervois?”

“I have gone by that name,” I replied.

“And is this in your handwriting?--Mind, you need n’t say so if you
don’t like; I only ask the question out of curiosity.”

“Yes,” said I, eagerly; “what does Mr. Pitt say?--what reply does he
make me?”

“Oh, you ‘ll hear all that time enough. Just try now if you could
n’t come along with me as far as the road; I ‘ve a carriage there
a-waiting.”

I did my best to rise, but weakness again overcame me, and I could only
stammer out a few faint words of excuse.

“Don’t you see that the man is dying?” said some one, half indignantly;
but the constable--for such he was--made some rough answer, and then,
stooping down, he passed his arm round me, and lifted me to my feet at
once. As he half carried, half pushed me along, I tried to obtain an
answer to my former question, “What reply had the minister made me?”

“You ‘ll know all that time enough, my good friend,” was all the answer
I could obtain, as, assisting me into the carriage, he took his place at
my side, and gave the word to proceed “to town.”

Not a word passed between us as we went along; for my part, I was too
indifferent to life itself to care whither he was conducting me, or with
what object. As well as utter listlessness would permit me to think, I
surmised that I had been arrested. Is it not a strange confession, that
I felt a sense of pleasure in the thought that I had not been utterly
forgotten by the world, and that my existence was recognized, even at
the cost of an accusation. I conclude that to understand this feeling
on my part, one must have been as forlorn and desolate as I was. I
experienced neither fear nor curiosity as to what might be the charge
against me; nor was my indifference that of conscious innocence,--it was
pure carelessness!

I slept that night in a prison, and ate of prison fare,--ravenously and
eagerly too; so much so that the turnkey, compassionating me, fetched me
some of his own supper to satisfy my cravings. I awoke the next day with
a gnawing sense of hunger, intensely painful, far more so than my former
suffering from want. That day, and I believe the two following ones,
I spent in durance, and at last was conveyed in the prison-cart to the
office of a magistrate.

The court was densely crowded, but the cases called seemed commonplace
and uninteresting,--at least so they appeared to me, as I tried in vain
to follow them. At length the crier called out the name of Paul Gervois,
and it was less the words than the directed looks of the vast assembly,
as they all turned towards me, showed that I was the representative of
that designation.

My sense of shame at this moment prevented my observing accurately what
went forward; but I soon rallied, and perceived that my case was then
before the court, and my accuser it was who then addressed the bench.

The effort to follow the speaker, to keep up with the narrative that
fell from his lips, was indescribably painful to me. I can compare my
struggle to nothing save the endeavor of one with a shattered limb to
keep pace with the step of his unwounded comrades. The very murmurs of
indignation that at times stirred the auditory, increased this feeling
to a kind of agony. I knew that it was all-important I should hear and
clearly understand what was said, and yet my faculties were unequal to
the effort.

The constable who arrested me came forward next, and spoke as to the
few words which passed between us, affirming how I had confessed to a
certain letter as being written by myself, and that I alone was to be
held responsible for its contents. When he left the table, the judge
called on me for my defence. I stared vaguely from side to side, and
asked to what charge?

“You have been present, prisoner, during the whole of this examination,
and have distinctly heard the allegation against you,” replied he.
“The charge is for having written a threatening letter to one of his
Majesty’s ministers of state,--a letter which in itself constitutes
a grave offence, but is seriously aggravated as being part of a
long-pursued system of intimidation, and enforced by menaces of the most
extreme violence.”

I was now suddenly recalled to a clearness of comprehension, and able
to follow him as he detailed how a certain Mr. Conway--the private
secretary of the minister--proved the receipt of the letter in question,
as well as two others in the same hand. The last of these--which
constituted the chief allegation against me--was then read aloud; and
anything more abominable and detestable it would be hard to conceive.
After recapitulating a demand for certain documents,--so vaguely worded
as to seem a mere invented and trumped-up request,--it went to speak
of great services unrewarded, and honorable zeal not only neglected
but persecuted. From this--which so far possessed a certain degree of
coherency and reason--it suddenly broke off into the wildest and most
savage menaces. It spoke of one who held life so cheaply that he felt no
sacrifice in offering it up for the gratification of his vengeance.

“Houseless, friendless, and starving; without food, without a
name,---for you have robbed me of even that,--I have crawled to your
door to avenge myself and die!”

Such were the last words of this epistle; and they ring in my ears even
yet, with shame and horror.

“I never uttered such sentiments as these,--words like those never
escaped me!” cried I, in an agony of indignation.

“There is the letter,” said the magistrate; “do you deny having written
it?”

“It is mine,--it is in my own hand,” muttered I, in a voice scarcely
audible; and I had to cling to the dock to save myself from falling.

Of what followed I know nothing, absolutely nothing. There seemed to be
a short debate and discussion of some kind; and I could catch, here and
there, some chance phrase or word that sounded compassionately towards
me. At last I heard the magistrate say,--

“If you tell me, Mr. Conway, that Mr. Pitt does not wish to press the
charge, nor do more than protect himself from future molestation, I am
willing to admit the prisoner to bail--good and sufficient bail--for his
conduct hereafter. In default of this, however, I shall feel bound to
commit him.”

Again some discussion ensued, terminated by some one asking me if I
could produce the required securities.

By this time a slight reaction to my state of debility had set in,--that
fevered condition in which passion assumed the ascendant; and I
answered, haughtily,--

“Bail for whom? Is it for him to whom they refused bread that they will
go surety? Look at these rags, sir,--see these wasted arms,--hear this
voice, hoarse as it is with hunger,--and ask yourself who could pledge
himself for such misery?”

He uttered some commonplaces--at least so they sounded to me--about
there being no necessary connection between want and crime; but I
stopped him short, saying,--

“Then you have never fasted, sir,--never known what it was to struggle
against the terrible temptations that arise in a famished heart; to sink
down upon a bed of straw, and think of the thousands at that moment in
affluence, and think of them with hate! No link between want and
crime! None, for they are one. Want is envy--want is malice. Its evil
counsellors are everywhere,--in the plash of the wave at midnight; in
the rustle of the leaves in a dark wood; in the chamber of the sick man:
wherever guilt can come, a whispering voice will say, ‘Be there!’”

Some friendly bystander here counselled me to calm myself, and not
aggravate my position by words of angry impatience. The air of sympathy
touched me, and I said no more.

I was committed to prison--remanded, I believe they said--to be called
up at some future day, when further inquiries had been made into my mode
of life and habits. The sentence--so well as I could understand it--was
not a severe one,--imprisonment without labor or any other penalty. I
was told that I had reason to be grateful! but gratitude was then at a
low ebb within me; for whatever moralists may say, it is an emotion that
never thrives on misery. As I was led away, I overheard some comments
that were passed upon me. One called me mad, and pitied me; another
said I was a practised impostor, far too leniently dealt with; a third
classed me with the vile herd of those who live by secret crimes, and
hoped for some stringent act against such criminals.

There was not one to ask, Why has he done this thing? and how shall
others be saved from his example?

They who followed me with looks of contempt and aversion never guessed
that the prison was to me a grateful home; that if the strong door shut
out liberty, it excluded starvation too; and that if I could not stray
at will through the green lanes, yet my footsteps never bore me to the
darksome pond where the black depth whispered--oblivion!



CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE STREETS

I was liberated from prison at the end of eight days. I begged hard to
be allowed to remain there, but was not permitted. This interval, short
as it was, had done much to recruit my strength and rally my faculties;
it served besides to instil into me a calm and patient resolve to depend
solely on myself; and effacing, so far as I might, all hopes of tracing
out my family, I determined now to deem no labor too humble by which I
might earn a livelihood.

I am now speaking of fifty years ago, and the world has made rapid
strides since that. The growing necessities of our great population, and
the wide field for enterprise offered by our colonies, have combined to
produce a social revolution few could have predicted once. The well-born
and the tenderly-nurtured have now gone forth in thousands to try their
fortunes in far-away lands, to brave hardships and encounter toil that
the hard sons of labor themselves are fain to shrink from; but at the
time I speak of, this bold spirit had not burst into life,--the world
was insolent in its prosperity, and never dreamed of a reverse.

By transcribing letters and papers for one of the officials while in
jail, I had earned four shillings; and with this sum, my all in the
world, I now found myself following the flood-tide of that host which
moves daily along the Strand in London. I had breakfasted heartily
before I left the prison, and resolving to hoard up my little treasure,
determined to eat nothing more on that day. As I walked along I felt
that the air, sharp and frosty as it was, excited and invigorated me.
The bright blue sky overhead, the clear outline of every object, the
brisk stir and movement of the population, all helped to cheer my
spirits, and I experienced a sense of freedom, as that of one who,
having thrown off a long-carried burden, is at last free to walk
unencumbered. A few hours before I fancied I could have been well
satisfied to wear out life within the walls of my prison, but now I felt
that liberty compensated for any hardship. The town on that morning
presented an aspect of more than ordinary stir and excitement. Men were
at work in front of all the houses, on ladders and scaffoldings; huge
frameworks, with gaudy paintings, were being hoisted from the roofs, and
signs of wonderful preparation of one kind or other were everywhere
visible. I stopped to inquire the meaning, and was told, not without a
stare of surprise, that London was about to illuminate in joyful
commemoration of the treaty of peace just signed with France. I thanked
my informant, and moved on. Assuredly there were few in either country
who had less reason to be interested in such tidings than myself. I
possessed nothing, not even a nationality, that I could safely lay claim
to. In the hope of approaching prosperity tomorrow, so forcibly
expressed in many an inscription,--in all those devices of enthusiastic
patriotism, I had no share. In fact, I was like one of another nation,
suddenly dropped in the midst of a busy population, whose feelings,
hopes, and aspirations were all new and strange to me.

As I came up to Charing Cross a dense crowd stopped the way, gazing with
wondering eyes at a great triumphal arch which spanned the thoroughfare,
and whose frail timbers gave but a sorry intimation of the splendor
it should exhibit after nightfall. Immense draperies floated from this
crazy framework, and vast transparencies displayed in tasteless allegory
the blessings of a peace. The enthusiasm of admiration was high among
the spectators; doubtless, the happy occasion itself suggested a
cordiality of approval that the preparations themselves did not warrant;
for at every step in the construction, a hearty cheer would burst forth
from the crowd, in recognition of the success of the work. My attention,
undisturbed by such emotions, was fixed upon one of the poles of the
scaffolding, which, thrown considerably out of its perpendicular,
swayed and bent at every step that approached it, and threatened, if not
speedily looked to, to occasion some disaster. I pointed this out to one
beside me, who as quickly communicated it to another, and in less than a
minute after, a panic cry was raised that the scaffold was falling.
The crowd fell back in terror, while the men upon the scaffolding, not
knowing in what quarter the danger existed, stood in terrified groups,
or madly rushed to the ladders to escape. The mad shouts and screams
of those beneath added to the confusion, and rendered it impossible
to convey warning to those in peril. At this instant a man was seen
approaching the weak part of the scaffold, and though at every step
he took, the ill-fated pole swerved further and further from the right
line, he was utterly unconscious of his danger, and seemed only bent on
gaining a rope, which, fastened by one end above, hung down to the porch
beneath. Wild cries and yells were raised to warn him of his peril, but,
not heeding, nor, perhaps, hearing them, he seized the cord and swung
himself free of the scaffold.

In an instant the fabric gave way, and, bending over, came down with a
terrible crash of falling beams and splintered timber. It fell so close
to where I stood that it struck down an old man with whom I had been
conversing the moment before. Strangely too, amidst that dense throng,
this was the only serious injury inflicted; but he was struck dead,--at
least, he only lingered for the few minutes it took to carry him to a
neighboring public-house, where he expired.

“It’s old Harry; he always said he’d die at his crossing,” said the
publican, as he recognized the features.

“He thought it was them new-fashioned curricles would do for him,
though,” said another. “He said so to me last week, for he was getting
too old to escape when he saw them coming.”

“Old! I should think he was. He was on that there crossing at the
coronation,--a matter of fifty years ago.”

“Say forty, my good friend, and you’ll be nigher the mark; but even
forty sufficed to leave him well off for the rest of his days, if he had
but had prudence to know it.”

As I stood thus listening, I leaned upon the broom which I had taken
from the old man’s hand when I lifted him up.

“I ‘ll give you a matter of ten pounds for it, master,” said a
gruff-looking fellow, addressing me, while he touched the broom with his
knuckle. “Five down on the nail, and the rest ten shillings a-week. Do
you say done?” Before I could collect myself to understand what this
offer might mean, a dozen others were crowding around me with a number
of similar proposals.

“You don’t know the rule amongst these fellows,” said the landlord,
addressing me; “but it is this, that whoever touches the broom first
after its owner is killed, succeeds to the crossing. It ‘s yours now, to
work or dispose of, as you like best.”

“He ‘ll never work it,--he does n’t know the town,” said one.

“He’d not know Charley Fox from Big Hullescoat the tailor.”

“He ‘d splash Colonel Hanyer, and sweep clean for the Duke of
Queensberry.”

“And forget to have change for Lord Bute,” cried another,--a sally
so generally applauded that it showed a full appreciation of its
truthfulness.

“I ‘ll try it, nevertheless, gentlemen,” said I, addressing the
company respectfully; “and if the landlord will only give me credit for
half-a-guinea’s worth of liquor, we’ll drink my accession to office at
once.”

This was agreeably received by all, even the landlord, who ushered us
into an inner room to enjoy ourselves.

If I had not transgressed too freely already on my reader’s patience by
details which have no immediate bearing on my own life, I should have
been greatly tempted to revive some recollections of that evening,--one
of the strangest I ever passed. Assuredly the guild of which I suddenly
found myself a member was not one in which I could have either expected
laws and regulations, or looked for anything like a rigid etiquette; yet
such was precisely the case. The rules, if not many, were imperative,
while the requirements to obtain success were considerable. It was not
enough to know every remarkable character about town, but you should
also have a knowledge of their tone and temper. Some should be dunned
with importunity; others never asked for a farthing; a Scotch accent
went far with General Dundas; a jest never failed with Mr. Sheridan.
Besides this, an unfailing memory for every one who had crossed during
the day was indispensable, and if this gift extended to chairs and
coaches, all the better was it.

My brethren, I must do them the justice to say, were no niggards
of information. To me, perhaps, they felt a sense of exultation in
describing the dignity of the craft,--perhaps they hoped to deter me
from a career so surrounded with difficulties. They little knew that
they were only stimulating the curiosity of one to whom any object or
any direction in life was a boon and a blessing. Hardship and neglect
had so far altered my appearance that, even had I cared for it, any
artificial disguisement was unnecessary. My beard and moustache covered
the lower part of my face, and my hair, long and lank, hung heavily on
my neck behind. But, were it otherwise, how few had ever known me! There
were none to blush for me,--none to feel implicated in what they might
have called the disgrace of my position. I reasoned thus,--I went even
further, and persuaded myself there was something akin to heroism in
thus braving the current of opinion, and stemming the strong tide of
the world’s prejudice. If this be my fitting station in life, thought I,
there is no impropriety in my abiding by it; and if, perchance, I might
have worthily filled a higher one, the disgrace is not with me, but with
that world that treated me so harshly.

Though all these arguments satisfied me thoroughly as I thought over
them, they did not give me the support I had hoped for. When the hour
came for me to assume my calling, I am almost ashamed to say how I
shrunk from it. I grieve to think how much more easy for me had it
been to commit a crime than to go forth, broom in hand, and earn my
livelihood! But I was determined to go on, and I did so. The first week
or so was absolute misery; I scarcely dared to look any one in the face.
If perchance I caught an eye fixed upon me, I imagined I was recognized.
I dreaded to utter a word, lest my voice might betray me. I was
repeatedly questioned about old Harry, and what had become of him; and
I could see, that with all my attempts at disguise, my accent attracted
attention, and men looked at me with curiosity, and even suspicion. Is
it not strange that there should be more real awkwardness in maintaining
a station that one deems below him than in the assumption of a rank as
unquestionably above his own? Perhaps our self-love is the cause of it,
and that, in our estimate of our own natures, we think nothing too great
or too exalted for us.

Be this as it may, my struggles were very painful; and, far from
conforming easily to the exigencies of my lot, each day’s experience
rendered them still harder to me. Two entire days passed over without my
having received a farthing. I could not bring myself to ask for payment,
and the crowd passed on, unheeding me. Some who seemed prepared with the
accustomed mite replaced it in their pockets when they saw what seemed
my indifference. One young fellow threw me a penny as he went, but I
could not have stooped for it had my life been on the issue. What a
wonderful thing is fortune!--or rather, how rarely can we plot for
ourselves any combination of circumstances so successful as those that
arise from what we deem accident! These that seemed evidences of failure
were the first promises of prosperity. My comrades had given me the
nickname of “Gentleman Jack.” The sobriquet attracted notice to me and
to my habit of never making a demand; and long ere I came to learn the
cause, I found myself deriving all the advantage of it. Few now went
by without paying; many gave me silver, some even accompanying the gift
with a passing salutation, or a word of recognition. Slight as these
were, and insignificant, they were far more precious to me than any
praises I have ever listened to in my days of prosperity!

I gradually came to know all the celebrities of the town, and be myself
known by them. How like a dream does it seem to me, as I think over
those days! When Alderman Whitbread would give me a shilling, and Wilkes
borrow a crown of me; when Colonel O’Kelly would pay me with a wink,
and Sir Philip Francis with a curse; when Baron Geramb, frizzed,
moustached, and decorated, lounged lazily along on the arm of Admiral
Payne, followed by a gorgeously-equipped chasseur,--a rare sight in
those days! Nor is it altogether an old man’s prejudice makes me think
that the leaders of fashion in those times had more unmistakably the
signs of being Grand Seigneurs than the men of our own day.

I have said that the tide of fortune had turned with me, and to an
extent scarcely credible. Many days saw my gains above a guinea; once
or twice they more than doubled that amount. I have frequently read in
newspapers announcements of the fortunes accumulated by men in the very
humblest stations,--statements which, with less experience than my own,
I might have hesitated to believe; but now I know them to be credible. I
know, too, that many of the donors who contemptuously threw their penny
as they passed were far poorer than the recipient of their bounty.

If time did not reconcile me to my lot, yet a certain hardihood to brave
destiny in any shape fortified me. I reasoned repeatedly with myself on
this wise: Fate can scarcely have anything lower in store for me; from
this there can be no descent in fortune. If, then, I can here maintain
within me the feelings which moved me in happier days, and live
unchanged in the midst of what might have been degradation, there is yet
a hope that I may emerge to hold a worthy station among my fellow-men.

I will not affirm that this feeling was not heightened by an almost
resentful sense of the world’s treatment of me,--a feeling which, combat
how I would, hourly gained more and more possession of me. To struggle
against this growing misanthropy, I formed the resolve that I would
devote all my earnings of each Sunday to charity. It was but too easy,
in my walk of life, for me to know objects of want and suffering. The
little close in which I lived--near Seven Dials--was filled with such;
and amongst them I now dispensed the seventh of my gains,--in reality
far more, since Sunday almost equalled two entire days in profit. Thus
did I vacillate betwixt good and evil influences,--now yielding, now
resisting,--but always gaining some little advantage over
selfishness and narrow-mindedness, by the training of that best of
teachers,--adversity. How my trials might have ended, had the course of
my life gone on uninterruptedly, I cannot even guess. Whether the bad
might have gained the ascendant, or the good triumphed, I know not. An
incident, too slight to advert to, save in its influence upon my fate,
suddenly gave another direction to my destiny; and though, as I have
said, in itself a mere trifle, yet for its singularity, as well as in
its consequences, requires a mention, and shall have--albeit a short
one--a chapter of its own.

The incident I am about to relate has not--at least so far as I
know--ever been made public. Up to three years ago I could have called
a witness to its truth; but I am now the only survivor of those who once
could have corroborated my tale. Still, I am not without hope that
there are some living who, having heard the circumstances before, will
generously exonerate me from any imputation of being the inventor.

This preface may excite in my reader the false expectation of something
deeply interesting; and I at once and most explicitly own that I have
none such in store for him. It is, I repeat for the third time, an
incident only curious from those engaged in it, and only claiming a
mention in such a history as mine.



CHAPTER XXXIX. A STRANGE INCIDENT TO BE A TRUE ONE

It was on one of the coldest of a cold December days, when a dry north
wind, with a blackish sky, portended the approach of a heavy snow-storm,
that I was standing at my usual post, with little to occupy me, for the
weather for some time previous had been dry and frosty. Habit, and the
security that none could recognize me, had at length inured me to my
condition; and I was beginning to feel the same indifference about my
station that I felt as to my future.

Pride may, in reality, have had much to say to this, for I was proud to
think that of the thousands who flowed past me each day I could claim
equality with a large share, and perhaps more than equality with many.
This pride, too, was somehow fostered by a sense of hope which I could
have scarcely credited; for there constantly occurred to me the thought
that one day or other I should be able to say: “Yes, my Lord Duke, I
have known you these twenty years. I remember having swept the crossing
for you in the autumn after the Peace. Ay, ay, Right Honorable Sir, I
owe you my gratitude, if only for this that you never passed me without
saying, ‘Good day, Jack!’”

Was it not strange, too, how fondly I clung to, what importance I
attached to, these little passing recognitions; they seemed to me the
last remaining ties that bound me to my fellow-men, and that to deny
them to me was to declare me an outcast forever. To this hour I feel my
thankfulness to those who thus acknowledged me; nor can I even yet
conquer an unforgiving memory of some chance, mayhap unintentional,
rudeness which, as it were, seemed to stamp my degradation more deeply
upon me. Stranger still that I must own how my political bias was
decided by these accidental causes; for while the great Tory leaders
rarely or never noticed me, the Whigs--a younger and more joyous section
in those times--always flung me a passing word, and would even
occasionally condescend to listen to my repartee.

I must guard myself from giving way to the memories which are already
crowding fast about me. Names, and characters, and events rise up
before my mind in myriads, and it is with difficulty I can refrain from
embarking on that flood of the past which now sweeps along through my
brain. The great, the high-born, the beautiful, the gifted, all dust and
ashes now!--they who once filled the whole page of each day’s history
utterly ignored and forgotten! It is scarcely more than fifty years
ago; and yet of all the eloquence that shook the “House,” of all the
fascinations that stirred the hearts of princes, of the high ambitions
that made men demigods in their time, how much have reached us? Nothing,
or less than nothing. A jest or a witticism that must be read with a
commentary, or told with an explanation,--the repartee that set the
table in a roar, now heard with a cold, half-contemptuous astonishment,
or a vacant inquiry “if such were really the wits of those times.”

Amongst those with whose appearance I had become familiar were three
young men of very fashionable exterior, who always were seen together.
They displayed, by the dress of blue coat and buff waistcoat, the
distinctive colors of the Whigs; but their buttons more emphatically
declared their party in the letters P. F., by which the friends of the
Prince then loved to designate themselves. The “Bucks” of that age had
one enormous advantage over the Dandies of ours,--they had no imitators.
They stood alone and unapproachable in all the glories of tight leathers
and low top-boots. No spurious copies of them got currency; and the man
of fashion was unmistakable amongst a thousand. The three of whom I have
made mention were good specimens of that school, which dated its
birth from the early years of the Prince, and by their habits and tone
imparted a distinctive character to the party. They dressed well,
they looked well, they comported themselves as though life went ever
pleasantly with them; and in their joyous air and easy bearing one might
read the traits of a set well adapted to be the friends and companions
of a young prince, himself passionately devoted to pleasure, and
reckless in regard to its price.

I am now speaking of long ago, and have no hesitation in giving the real
names of those to whom I allude. One was a captain in the navy, called
Payne; the second was a young colonel in the foot-guards, Conway; and
the third was an Irishman named O’Kelly, whom they called the Count or
the Chevalier, about town, from what cause or with what pretension I
never ascertained.

Even in my own narrow sphere of observation it was clear to me that this
last exercised a great influence over his companions. The tone of
his voice, his air, his every gesture, bespoke a certain degree of
dictation, to which the others seemed to lend a willing obedience.
It was just that amount of superiority which a greater buoyancy of
character confers,--a higher grade of vitality some would call it,--but
which never fails through life to make itself felt and acknowledged.
The three kept a bachelor house at Kensington, whose fame ran a close
rivalry with that of the more celebrated Carlton House. O’Kelly lived
below, Conway occupied the drawing-room story, and Payne the third
floor; and with one or other of these all the great characters of the
Opposition were constant guests. Here, amidst brilliant sallies of
wit and loud bursts of laughter, the tactics of party were planned and
conned over. While songs went round and toasts were cheered, the subtle
schemes of politics were discussed and determined on; and many a sudden
diversion of debate that seemed the accident of the moment took its
origin in some suggestion that arose in these wild orgies. The Prince
himself was a frequent guest, since the character of these meetings
allowed of many persons being admitted to his society whose birth and
position might not have warranted their being received at his own table;
and here also were many presented to him whose station could not have
claimed a more formal introduction.

It was rumored that these same meetings were wild and desperate orgies,
in which every outrage on morality was practised, and that the spirit of
libertinism raged without control or hindrance. I have not of myself any
means of judging how far this statement might be correct, but I rather
incline to believe it one of those calumnies which are so constantly
levelled at any society which assumes to itself exclusiveness and
secrecy. They who were admitted there assuredly were not given to
divulge what they saw, and this very reserve must have provoked its
interpretation.

A truce to these speculations; and now back to my story. I was standing
listlessly on the edge of the flag-way, while a long funeral procession
was passing. The dreary day and drearier object seemed to harmonize well
together. The wheels of the mourning-coaches grated sorrowfully on the
half-frozen ground, and the leaden canopy of sky appeared a suitable
covering to the melancholy picture. My thoughts were of the very
saddest, when suddenly a merry burst of laughing voices broke in upon
my ear; and without turning my head, I recognized the three young men of
whom I have just spoken, as standing close behind me.

Some jocular allusion to the slow march of the procession had set them
a-laughing; and O’Kelly said,--

“Talk as men will about the ills of life, see how tardily they move out
of it.”

“That comes of not knowing the road before them,” cried Payne.

“Egad! they might remember, though, that it is a well-worn highway by
this time,” chimed in Conway; “and now that poor Dick has gone it, who’s
to fill his place?”

“No very hard matter,” said O’Kelly. “Take every tenth fellow you ‘ll
meet from this to Temple Bar, and you ‘ll have about the same kind of
intelligence Harvey had. You gave him credit for knowing everything,
whereas his real quality was knowing everybody.”

“For that matter, so does Jack here,” cried Conway.

“And capital company he’d be, too, I’ve no doubt,” added Payne.

A moment of whispering conversation ensued, and O’Kelly said, half
aloud,--

“I ‘ll lay five hundred on it!”

“By Jove! I ‘ll have no hand in it,” said Conway.

“Nor I neither,” chimed in Payne.

“Courageous allies both,” said O’Kelly, laughing. “Happily I need not
such aid,--I ‘ll do it myself. I only ask you not to betray me.”

[Illustration: 460]

Without heeding the protestations they both poured forth, O’Kelly
stepped forward and whispered in my ear,--

“Will you dine with me to-morrow, Jack?”

I stared at him in silent astonishment, and he went on:

“I have a wager on it; and if I win, you shall have five guineas
for your share; and, to show you my confidence of success, I pay
beforehand.”

He opened his purse as he spoke; but I stopped him suddenly with,--

“No need of that, sir; I accept your invitation. The honor alone is
enough for me.”

“But you must have a coat, Jack, and ruffles, man.”

“I ‘ll not disgrace you, sir,--at least, so far as appearance goes,”
 said I.

He stared at me for a second or two, and then said,--

“By Jove! I was certain of it. Well, seven o’clock is the hour.
Kensington,--every one knows the Bird Cage.”

I touched my cap and bowed. He gravely returned my salute, and walked
on between his friends, whose loud laughter continued to ring out for a
long way down the street.

My first impressions were, I own, the reverse of agreeable, and I felt
heart-sick with shame for having accepted the invitation. The very
burst of laughter told me in what point of view they regarded the
whole incident. I was, doubtless, to be the ignoble instrument of some
practical joke. At first I tortured my ingenuity to think how I could
revenge myself for the indignity; but I suddenly remembered that I had
made myself a willing party to the scheme, whatever it might be. I had
agreed to avail myself of the invitation, and should, therefore, accept
its consequences.

With what harassing doubts did I rack my suffering brain! At one time,
frenzied with the idea of an insult passed upon my wretchedness and
poverty; at another, casuistically arguing myself into the belief that,
whatever the offence to others, to me there could be none intended.
But why revive the memory of a conflict which impressed me with all the
ignominy of my station, and made me feel myself, as it were, selected
for an affront that could not with impunity have been practised towards
another?

I decided not to go, and then just as firmly determined I would
present myself. My last resolve was to keep my promise, to attend the
dinner-party; to accept, as it were in the fullest sense, the equality
tendered to me; and, if I could detect the smallest insult, or even a
liberty taken with me, to claim my right to resent it, by virtue of
the act which admitted me to their society, and made me for the
time then-companion. I am not quite sure that such conduct was very
justifiable. I half suspect that the easier and the better course
would have been to avoid a situation in which there was nothing to be
anticipated but annoyance or difficulty.

My mind once made up, I hastened to prepare for the event, by
immediately ordering a handsome dress-suit. Carefully avoiding what
might be deemed the impertinence of assuming the colors of party, I
selected a claret-colored coat, with steel buttons; a richly-embroidered
waistcoat; and for my cravat one of French cambric, with a deep fall of
Mechlin lace. If I mention matters so trivial, it is because at the time
to which I refer, the modes of dress were made not only to represent the
sections of politics, but to distinguish between those who adhered to
an antiquated school of breeding and manners, and those who now avowed
themselves the disciples of a new teaching. I wished, if possible, to
avoid either extreme, and assumed the colors and the style usually worn
by foreigners in English society. Like them, too, I wore a sword and
buckles; for the latter I went to the extravagance of paying two guineas
for the mere hire.

If you have ever felt in life, good reader, what it was to have awaited
in anxious expectancy for the day of some great examination whose issue
was to have given the tone to all your future destiny, you may form some
notion of the state of mental excitement in which I passed the ensuing
twenty-four hours. It was to no purpose that I said to myself all that
my reason could suggest or my ingenuity fancy; a certain instinct,
stronger than reason, more convincing than ingenuity, told me that this
was about to be an eventful moment of’ my life.

The hour at length arrived; the carriage that was to convey me stood at
the door; and as I took a look at myself, full dressed and powdered, in
the glass, I remember that my sensations vibrated between the exulting
vanity and pride of a gallant about to set out for a fête, and the
terrors of a criminal on his way to the block. My head grew more and
more confused as I drove along. At moments I thought that all was a
dream, and I tried to arouse and wake myself; then I fancied that it was
the past was fictitious,--that my poverty, my want, and my hardship were
all imaginary; that my real condition was one of rank and affluence.
I examined the rich lace of my ruffles, the sparkling splendor of my
sword-knot, and said, “Surely these are not the signs of squalid misery
and want.” I called to mind my impressions of the world, my memories of
life and society, and asked, “Can these be the sentiments of a miserable
outcast?” Assuredly, my poor brain was sorely tried to reconcile these
strong contradictions; nor do I yet understand how I obtained
sufficient mastery over my emotions to present myself at the house of my
entertainer.

“What name, sir?” said the obsequious servant, who, with noiseless
footsteps, had preceded me to the drawing-room door.

“What name shall I announce, sir?” said he a second time, as,
overwhelmed with confusion, I still stood speechless before him. Till
that very moment all thought on the subject had escaped me, and I
utterly forgot that I was actually without a designation in the world.
In all my shame and misery it had been a kind of consolation to me that
the name of my father had never been degraded, and that whatever might
have been my portion of worldly hardship, the once-honored appellation
had not shared in it. To assume it at this instant was too perilous.
Another day, one short night, would again reduce me to the same
ignominious station; and I should have thus, by a momentary rashness,
compromised the greatest secret of my heart. A third time did he ask the
same question; and as I stood uncertain and overwhelmed, a quiet foot
was heard ascending the stairs, a handsome, bright-looking man came
forward, the door was flung open at his approach, and the servant called
out, “Mr. Sheridan.” I followed quickly, and the door closed behind us.
Hastily passing from Sheridan, O’Kelly came forward to me and shook
me cordially by the hand. Thanking me politely for my punctuality, he
welcomed me with all the semblance of old friendship.

“Colonel Conway and Payne you are already acquainted with,” said he;
“but your long absence from England excuses you for not knowing my
other friends. This is Mr. Sheridan,”--we bowed,--“Mr. Malcomb, Captain
Seymour, Sir George Begley,” and so on, with two or three more. He made
a rapid tour of the party, holding me by the arm as he went, till he
approached a chair where a young and very handsome man sat, laughing
immoderately at some story another at his side was whispering to him.

“What the devil am I to call you?” said O’Kelley to me in my ear. “Tell
me quickly.”

Before I could stammer out my own sense of confusion, the person seated
in the arm-chair called out,--

“By Jove! O’Kelly must hear that. Tell him, Wynd-ham.” But as suddenly
stopping, he said, “A friend of yours, O’Kelly?”

“Yes, your Royal Highness, a very old and valued friend, whom I have
not seen since our school-days. He has been vagabondizing over the whole
earth, fighting side by side with I know not how many of your Royal
Highness’s enemies; and, having made his fortune, has come back to lose
it here amongst us, as the only suitable reparation in his power for all
his past misconduct.”

“With such excellent intentions, he could not have fallen into better
hands than yours, O’Kelly,” said the Prince, laughing; “and I wish all
the fellows we have been subsidizing these ten years no worse than to be
your antagonists at piquet.” Then, addressing me, he said, “An Irishman,
I presume?”

“Yes, your Royal Highness,” said I, bowing deeply.

“He started as an something, or Mac somebody,” said O’Kelly,
interrupting; “but having been Don’d in Spain, ‘Strissemoed’ in Italy,
and almost guillotined in France for calling himself Monsieur, he has
come back to us without any designation that he dares to call his own.”

“That is exactly what happened to a very well known character in the
reign of Charles I.,” said Conway, “who called himself by the title of
his last conquest in the fair sex, saying, ‘When I take a reputation, I
accept all the reproach of the name.’”

“There was another authority,” said Sheridan,--“a fellow who called
himself the King of the Beggars, who styled himself each day after the
man who gave him most, and died inheriting the name of Bamfield Moore
Carew.”

“Carew will do admirably for my friend here, then,” said O’Kelly, “and
we ‘ll call him so henceforth.”

It may be imagined with what a strange rush of emotion I accepted this
designation, and laughingly joined in the caprice of the hour. I saw
enough to convince me that all around received O’Kelly’s story as a mere
piece of jest, and that none had any suspicion of my real condition save
himself and his two friends. This conviction served to set me much at my
ease, and I went down to dinner with far less of constraint than might
have been supposed for one in my situation.

I will not disguise the fact that I thought for the first half-hour
that every eye was on me, that whatever I did or said was the subject
of general remark, and that my manner as I ate, and my tone as I spoke,
were all watched and scrutinized. Gradually, however, I grew to perceive
that I attracted no more notice than others about me, and that, to all
purposes, I was admitted to a perfect equality with the rest.

Conversation ranged freely over a wide field. Politics of every state of
Europe, the leading public characters and statesmen, their opinions and
habits, the modes of life abroad, literature and the drama, were all
discussed, if not always with great knowledge, still with the ready
smartness of practised talkers. Anecdotes and incidents of various
kinds were narrated, quips and sharp replies abounded; and amidst much
cleverness and agreeability, a truly good-humored, convivial spirit
leavened the whole mass, and made up a most pleasant party.

So interested had I become in the conversation about me that I did not
perceive how, by degrees, I had been drawn on to talk on a variety of
subjects which travel had made me familiar with, and to speak of persons
of mark and station whom I had met and known. Still less did I remark
that I was submitted to a species of examination as to my veracity, and
that I was asked for dates, and times, and place, in a manner that might
have startled one more susceptible. Warmed with what I may dare to call
my success, and heated with wine, I grew bolder; I stigmatized as gross
ignorance and folly the policy of the English Government in maintaining
a war for what no success could ever bring back again,--the prestige of
loyalty, and the respect once tendered to nobility.

I know not into what excesses my enthusiasm may have carried me. Enough
when I say that I encountered the most brilliant talkers without fear,
and entered the list with all that the day possessed of conversational
power, without any sense of faint-heartedness. On such questions as the
military system of France, the division of parties in that country,
the probable issue to which the struggle pointed, I was, indeed, better
informed than my neighbors; but when they came to discuss the financial
condition of the French, and what it had been in the late reigns, I at
once recalled all my conversations with Law, with every detail of whose
system I was perfectly familiar.

Of the anecdotes of that time--a most amusing illustration of society
as it then existed--I remembered many; and I had the good fortune to see
that the Prince listened with evident pleasure to my recitals; and, at
last, it was in the very transport of success I found myself ascending
the stairs to the drawing-room, while O’Kelly whispered in my ear,--

“Splendidly done, by Jove! The Prince is going to invite you to Carlton
House.”

After coffee was served, the party sat down to play of various
kinds,--dice, cards, and backgammon. At the Prince’s whist-table there
was a vacant place, and I was invited to take it. I had twenty guineas
in gold in my pocket. They were my all in the world; but had they been
as many millions, I would not have scrupled to risk them at such a
moment. There was a strange, almost insane spirit that seemed to
whisper to me that nothing could be too bold to adventure--no flight too
high--no contrast with my real condition too striking to attempt! They
who have braved danger and death to ascend some great glacier, the
whole object the one triumphant moment on which they behold the blaze
of sunrise, may form some conception of the maddening ecstasy of my
sensations.

“Do you play at whist? If so, come and join us,” said the Prince.

“Take my purse,” whispered O’Kelly, endeavoring to slip it into my hand
as he spoke.

I accepted the invitation; and, without taking any notice of O’Kelly’s
offer, took my place at the table.

“We play low stakes, too low, perhaps, for you,” said his Royal
Highness,--“mere guinea points; but there’s Canthorpe, and Sedley, and
two or three more, will indulge you in any wager you fancy.”

“Fifty on the rubber, if you like, sir,” said Colonel Canthorpe, a tall,
soldier-like man, who stood with his back to the fire.

“If my friend O’Kelly will be my banker for to-night, I shall take your
offer.”

Without the slightest hesitation, O’Kelly replied, “To be sure, my boy!”
 and the game began.

My mastery at the game was soon apparent; and the Prince complimented me
by saying,--

“I wish we could discover in what you are deficient; for up to this we
have certainly not hit upon it.”

It needed not all this flattery to make me feel almost mad with
excitement. I remember little of that scene; but still there is one
trait of it fast graven on my memory, to hold its place there forever.
It was this: that while I betted largely, and lost freely considerable
sums, O’Kelly, who had become the security for my debts, never
winced for a moment, nor showed the slightest mark of discomfiture or
uneasiness. My demand, in the first instance, was suggested by the not
over generous motive of making him pay the penalty he had incurred by
having invited me. He has called me his friend before the world, thought
I, and if he means this for a cruel jest, it shall at least cost him
dearly. In a sort of savage ferocity, I fed myself with thinking of the
tortures with which I should afflict him, in return for all the agony
and suffering I had myself gone through. He also shall know what it is
to act a lie, said I to myself; and with this hateful resolve I sat down
to play. His ready acceptance of my proposition, his gentleman-like
ease and calm, his actual indifference as I lost, and lost heavily, soon
staggered all my reasonings, and routed all my theory. And when at last
the Prince, complimenting me on my skill, deplored the ill-luck that
more than balanced it, O’Kelly said, gayly,--

“Depend on ‘t, you’ll have better fortune after supper. Come and have a
glass of champagne.”

I was now impatient until we were again at the card-table.

All my former intentions were reversed, and I would have given my right
hand to have been able to repay my debt to him ere I said “Good night.”
 Perhaps he read what was passing within me; I almost suspect that
he construed aright the restless anxiety that now beset me; for he
whispered, as we went back to the drawing-room,--

“You are evidently out of luck. Wait for your revenge on another
evening.”

“Now or never,” said I. And so was it in reality. I had secretly
determined within myself to try and win back O’Kelly’s losses, and if
I failed, at once to stand forward and declare myself in my real
character. No false shame, no real dread of the ignominy to which I
should expose myself should prevent me; and with an oath to my own heart
I ratified this compact.

Again we took our places; the stakes were now doubled; and all the
excitement of mind was added to the gambler’s infatuation. Colonel
Canthorpe, who had been for some minutes occupied with his note-book,
at last tore out the leaf he had been writing on, and handed it to me,
saying,--

“Is that correct?”

The figures were six hundred and fifty,--the amount of my loss.

I simply nodded an assent, and said,--

“We go on, I suppose?”

“We ‘ll double, if you prefer it,” said he.

“What says my banker?” said I.

“He says, ‘Credit unlimited,’” cried O’Kelly, gayly.

“Egad! I wish mine would say as much,” said the Prince, laughing, as he
cut the cards for me to deal.

Although I had drunk freely, and talked excitingly, my head became
suddenly calm and collected, just as if some great emergency had
sufficed to dispel all illusions, and enabled my faculties to assume
their full exercise. Of O’Kelly I saw nothing more; he was occupied in
an adjoining room; and even this element of anxiety was spared me.

I will not ask my reader to follow me through the vicissitudes of play,
nor expect from him any share of interest in a passion which of all
others is the most bereft of good, and allied with the very lowest of
all motives, and the meanest of all ambitions. Enough that I tell the
result. After a long course of defeats and disasters, I rose, not only
clear of all my debts, but a winner of two hundred pounds.

The Prince heartily congratulated me on my good fortune, saying that
none could better deserve it. He complimented me much on my play, but
still more on my admirable temper as a loser,--a quality which, he
added, he never could lay claim to.

“I’m a bad beaten man, but you are the very reverse,” said he. “Dine
with me on Saturday, and I hope to see how you’ll comport yourself as a
winner.”

I had but time to bow my humble acknowledgment of this gracious speech,
when O’Kelly came up, saying,--

“So Canthorpe tells me you beat him, after all; but I always knew how it
would end,--play must and will tell in the long run.”

“Non numen habes si sit Prudentia,--eh, O’Kelly?” said Conway.

“Prudentia means the ace of trumps, then,” said Sheridan.

“Where shall I send you my debt?” said Canthorpe to me, in a whisper.
“What’s your club?”

“He’s only just arrived in town,” interrupted O’Kelly; “but I intend to
put him up for Brooke’s on Wednesday, and will ask you to second him.
You ‘re on the committee, I think?”

“Yes; and I ‘ll do it with great pleasure,” said Canthorpe.

“I’ll settle your score for you,” said O’Kelly to Canthorpe; and now,
with much handshaking and cordiality, the party broke up.

“Don’t go for a moment,” said O’Kelly to me, as he passed to accompany
the Prince downstairs. I sat down before the fire in the now deserted
room, and, burying my head between my hands, I endeavored to bring my
thoughts to something like order and discipline. It was to no use; the
whirlwind of emotions I had endured still raged within me, and I could
not satisfy myself which of all my characters was the real one. Was
I the outcast, destitute and miserable? or was I the friend of the
high-born, and the associate of a Prince? Where was this to end? Should
I awake to misery on the morrow, or was madness itself to be the issue
to this strange dream? Heaven forgive me if I almost wished it might be
so, and if in my abject terror I would have chosen the half-unconscious
existence of insanity to the sense of shame and self-upbraiding my
future seemed to menace!

While I sat thus, O’Kelly entered, and, having locked the door after
him, took his place beside me. I was not aware of his presence till he
said,--

“Well, Jack, I intended to mystify others; but, by Jove! it has ended in
mystifying myself. Who the devil are you? What are you?”

“If I don’t mistake me, you are the man to answer that question
yourself. You presented me not alone to your friends, but to your
Prince; and it is but fair to infer that you knew what you were about.”

He stared at me steadily without speaking. I saw the state of confusion
and embarrassment from which he suffered, and I actually revelled in the
difficulty in which I had placed him. I perceived all the advantage of
my position, and resolved to profit by it.

“One thing is quite evident,” said I, calmly and collectedly, like a man
who weighed all his words, and spoke with deep deliberation,--“one
thing is quite evident, you could scarcely have presumed to take such
a liberty with your Prince as to present to him, and place at the same
table with him, a man whom you picked up from the streets,--one whose
very station marked him for an outcast, whose exterior showed his
destitution. This, I conclude, you could not have dared to do; and yet
it is in the direct conviction that such was my position yesterday, I
sit here now, trying to reconcile such inconsistency, and asking myself
which of us two is in the wrong.”

“My good friend,” said O’Kelly, with a deliberation fully the equal of
my own, and in a way that, I must confess, somewhat abashed me,--“my
good friend, do not embarrass yourself by any anxieties for me. I
am quite able and ready to account for my actions to any who deem
themselves eligible to question them.”

“From which number,” said I, interrupting, “you would, of course, infer
that I am to be excluded?”

“By no means,” said he, “if you can satisfy me to the contrary. I shall
hold myself as responsible to you as to any one of those gentlemen who
have just left us, if you will merely show me sufficient cause.”

“As how, for instance?” asked I.

“Simply by declaring yourself the rightful possessor of a station and
rank in life for which your habits and manners plainly show you to be
fitted. Let me be convinced that you have not derogated from this by any
act unworthy of a man of honor--”

“Stop, sir,” said I. “By what right do you dare to put me on my trial?
Of your own free will you presumed to ask for my companionship. You
extended to me an equality which, if not sincere, was an insult.”

“Egad! if you be really a gentleman, your reasons are all good ones,”
 said O’Kelly. “I own, too, frankly, I intended my freak as the subject
of a wager. If I be caught in my own toils, I must only pay the
penalty.”

“And give me satisfaction?”

“That is what I mean,” replied he, bowing.

“Then you have done it already,” said I, rising. “I ask for no more than
the frank and manly readiness with which you acknowledge that poverty is
no disqualification to the assertion of an honorable pride, and that the
feeling of a gentleman may still throb in the heart of a ragged man.”

“You are surely not going to leave me this way,” said he, catching my
hand in both his own. “You’ll tell me who you are,--you ‘ll let me know
at least something of you.”

“Not now, at all events,” said I. “I’m not in a mood to encounter more
at present. Good night. Before I leave you, however, I owe it, as some
return for your hospitality, to say that I shall not hazard your credit
with your Prince,--I do not mean to accept his invitation. You must
find the fitting apology, for I shall leave England to-morrow, in all
likelihood for years,--at all events, for a period long enough to make
this incident forgotten. Good-bye.”

“By Jove! I ‘ll never forgive myself if we part in this fashion,”
 said O’Kelly. “Do--as a proof of some regard, or at least of some
consideration for me--do tell me your real name.”

“Carew,” said I, calmly.

“No, no; that was but a jest. I ask in all earnestness and sincerity;
tell me your name.”

“Jasper Carew,” said I, again; and before he could collect himself to
reply, I had reached the door, and, with a last “good-night,” I passed
out, and left him.

I could not bring myself to return to my miserable lodging again. I felt
as if a new phase of life had opened on me, and that it would be an act
of meanness to revert to the scenes of my former obscurity. I entered a
hotel, and ordered a room. My appearance and dress at once exacted every
respect and attention. A handsome chamber was immediately prepared for
me; and just as day was breaking, I fell off into a deep sleep which
lasted till late in the afternoon.



CHAPTER XL. AT SEA

I cannot attempt to describe my feelings on awaking, nor the lamentable
failure of all my efforts at recalling the events of the night before.
That many real occurrences seemed to me the mere effects of wine and a
heated imagination, and that some of the very wildest freaks of my fancy
were assumed by me as facts, I can now readily believe. In truth, my
head was in a state of the wildest credulity and the very narrowest
distrust, and my only astonishment now is, how I resisted impulses
plainly suggested by coming insanity.

At one time I thought of calling O’Kelly out; then my indignation was
directed against some other of the company, for either a real or a
fancied grievance. Perhaps they had all been in the league against
me, and that I had been invited merely to make a sport of my absurd
pretensions, and to afford laughter by my vanity. Then it occurred to me
that it was the Prince himself who was insulted by my companionship, and
that they who had dared to make me the means of such an outrage should
be held accountable.

Lastly came the thought, Is the whole a dream? Have I been drugged to
play some absurd and ridiculous part, and shall I be exposed to ridicule
when I appear abroad again? This impression was strengthened by the
appearance of my dress, so unlike anything I had ever worn before. Of
the incidents of the card-table I could remember next to nothing. A
few trivial facts of the game, an accidental event in the play itself,
remained in my memory, but that was all. I fancied I had been a heavy
loser; but how, when, or to whom, I knew not. I opened my pocket-book,
and found four notes for fifty pounds each; but how they came there I
could not conceive! And yet, said I, all this took place yesterday! and
what was I before that?--where did I live, and with whom associate? My
head began to turn, the strangest thoughts chased each other through my
brain. Incidents of the street, collisions and accidents of all kinds,
were mingled with events of the previous evening; want and squalor stood
side by side with splendor, and the bland accents of royalty blended
themselves with the brutal exclamations of my former fellows. Then there
flashed across me the thought that the drama in which I had been made
to perform was not yet played out. They mean me to figure further on the
boards, said I to myself; the money has been supplied to me to tempt
me into extravagance which shall make me even more ridiculous still. My
every action watched, my words listened to, my gestures noted down, I
am to be the butt of their sarcastic pleasure, and all my pretensions to
the’ habits, the feelings, and the manners of a gentleman be held up as
a subject for mockery and derision.

I half dreaded to ring the bell and summon the waiter, lest I should be
exposing myself to a spy on my actions. When I approached the window to
look out, I fancied that every accidental glance of a passer-by was the
prying gaze of insolent curiosity. It was in a state of fever that I
dressed myself; and even then my costume of full dinner dress made
me feel ashamed to venture abroad. At last I took courage to order
breakfast. The respectful demeanor of the waiter gave me further
confidence, and I ventured to ask him a few questions on passing events.
I learned that the hotel was one usually frequented by foreigners, for
whose accommodation two or three Continental newspapers were taken. At
my request he fetched me one of these,--“La Gazette de Paris;” and with
this for my companion, I sat myself down at my fire, resolved to remain
a close prisoner for at least a day or two.

Towards evening I sent for a tailor and ordered two suits of clothes,
with linen, and, in fact, all that I stood in need of; and when night
set in, I issued forth to make several small purchases of articles I
wanted. It was late when I entered the hotel, and, not having eaten any
dinner, I felt hungry. The waiter showed me into the coffee-room, which
was arrayed in foreign fashion, and where they supped _à la carte_.

The general appearance of the company at once proclaimed their origin;
and a less practised eye than mine even, might have seen that they
were all natives of some Continental country. They talked loudly and
gesticulated wildly, careless to all seeming of being overheard
by strangers, and little regarding in whose presence they might be
standing. Their bearing was, in fact, such as speedily set me at ease
amongst them, and made me feel myself unnoticed and unremarked.

Seated at a small table by myself, I ordered my supper, and half
carelessly watched the others while it was being prepared. Whatever they
might have been by birth or station, they seemed now all in the very
narrowest circumstances. Threadbare coats and broken boots, worn hats
and gloveless hands, bespoke their condition; nor could all the swagger
of manner, or pretentious display of a ribbon or a cross, cover over the
evidences of real poverty that oppressed them.

Had I noticed these signs earlier, I should certainly have restricted
myself to a meal more befitting the place and its occupants. The humble
suppers I saw around me of bread and cheese now shocked me at what might
well appear display on my part; and had there been time to correct my
error, I should gladly have done so. It was, however, too late. Already
had the landlord carried in a silver tureen of soup, and set it before
me; and the tall neck of a champagne bottle rose amidst the mimic
icebergs at my side.

The others took no pains to hide their astonishment at all this; they
stood in knots and groups about, with eyes directed full upon me, and
as evidently made me the subject of their remarks. I could perceive that
the landlord was far from being at his ease, and that all his endeavors
were employed either to conceal from me these demonstrations, or to give
them some harmless interpretation.

“You have travelled, sir, and know well what foreigners are,” said he,
in a whisper; “and although all these are gentlemen by birth, from one
misfortune or other they are a bit down in the world now, and they look
with jealousy at any one better off than themselves.”

“Foreigners are usually better bred than to exhibit such feelings,” said
I.

“Nor would they, perhaps, sir, if at home and in prosperity; but so
many are ruined now by wars and revolutions--so many banished and
exiled--that one ought to make large allowances for their tempers. That
old man yonder, for instance, was a duke somewhere in Brittany; and the
thin, tall one, that is gesticulating with his stick, served as colonel
in the bodyguard of the King of France. And there, next the fire,--you
see he has taken off a kind of smock-frock and is drying it at the
blaze,--that is a Pomeranian count who owned a principality once, they
tell me.”

“He looks very poor now; what means of support has he?”

“None, I believe, sir; he was bred to nothing, and can neither teach
drawing, nor music, nor the sword-exercise, like Frenchmen or Italians;
and the consequence is, that he actually--you ‘ll not believe it, but it
is true, notwithstanding--he actually sweeps a crossing at Cheapside for
his living.”

I started, as he said this, as if I had been stung by a reptile. For a
moment I was convinced that the speech was a designed insult. I thought
that the very expression of his eyes as he turned them on me was
malignant. It was all I could do not to resent the insolence; but I
restrained myself and was silent.

“Heaven knows,” continued he, “if he have eaten once to-day.”

“Do you think,” said I, “it would be possible to induce him to join me
at supper,--I mean, could it be managed without offence?”

“Egad! I should say so, sir, and easily enough, too. These poor fellows
have gone through too much to carry any excess of pride about with
them.”

“Would you undertake the office, then?” asked I.

“With pleasure, sir;” and, as he spoke, he crossed the room, and,
standing over the old man’s chair, whispered in his ear. I soon
perceived, by the manner of each, that the negotiation was not as simple
as he had fancied it. Remark, reply, and rejoinder seemed to follow
each other quickly; and I could almost detect something like an insolent
rejection of the landlord’s suit in the old man’s manner. Indeed, I had
not long to remain in doubt on the subject; for, rising from his seat,
the Count addressed some hurried words to those about him, to which they
replied by expressions of anger and astonishment. In vain the landlord
interposed, and tried to calm down their impatience; they grew more
and more excited, and I could detect expressions of insulting meaning
through what they uttered.

“What is the matter?” asked I of the landlord; but ere he could reply, a
tall, dark man, with the marked physiognomy of a Pole, came up to me and
said,--

“The Graf von Bildstein has received a grave provocation at your hands:
are you prepared to justify it?”

“I must first of all learn how I may have offended him,” said I, calmly.

“We all of us heard it,” said he, impatiently; “you insulted every man
in this room through him. Either, then, you leave it at once [and he
pointed insolently to the door], or you give him satisfaction.”

The only reply I made to this speech was a haughty laugh, as I filled my
glass with champagne. I had but done so when, with a blow of his cane,
he swept my bottle and the glasses from the table; and then, stepping
back and drawing a sword from the stick, threw himself into an attitude
of defence. I drew my sword and rushed in on him. Either that he was
not a skilful fencer, or unprepared for the suddenness of my attack, he
defended himself badly; his guards were all wide, and his eyes unsteady.
I felt my advantage in a moment, and, after a couple of passes, ran
my point through his side, just close to the ribs. A loud cry from the
bystanders, as the blood gushed forth, now stopped the encounter, and
they speedily dashed forward to catch him as he reeled and fell.

“Away with you, for Heaven’s sake, or you are a murdered man,” cried the
landlord to me, while he pushed me violently from the room and out into
the street, barring and bolting the door within, at the same instant.
The terrible clamor inside, and the efforts to force a passage, now
warned me of my danger, and I fled at the very top of my speed, not
knowing nor caring whither. I had gone considerably above a mile ere
I ventured to halt and draw breath. I was in a part of the city with
narrow streets and tall warehouses, dark, gloomy, and solitary; a small,
mean-looking alley led me down to the river’s side, from which I could
perceive the Tower quite close, and a crowd of shipping in the stream.
A small schooner, with a foresail alone set, was just getting under way,
and as she slowly moved along, boats came and went from the shore to
her.

“Want to go aboard, sir?” asked a waterman, who observed me as I stood
watching the movement of the craft. I nodded, and the next moment we
were alongside. I asked for the skipper, and heard that he was to join
us at Gravesend. The mate politely said I might go below; and, accepting
the permission, I descended to the cabin, and lay down on a bench. A boy
was cleaning plates and glasses in a little nook at one side, and from
him I learned that the schooner was the “Martha,” of Hull, bound for
Cherbourg; her captain was her owner, and usually traded between the
English coast and the Channel Islands. At all events, thought I, I am
safe out of England; and with that reflection I turned on my side and
went off to sleep.

Just as day broke, the skipper came on board, and I could perceive, by
the gushing noise beside my ear, that we were going fast through the
water. The craft lay over, too, and seemed as if under a press of
canvas. It was not for full an hour afterwards that the skipper
descended to the cabin, and, shaking me roughly by the shoulder, asked
how I came there.

I had gone asleep concocting a story to account for my presence; and so
I told him in a few words that I had just been engaged in a duel wherein
I had wounded my antagonist; that as the event had occurred suddenly,
I had no time for any preparation, but just threw myself on board the
first craft about to sail, ready and willing to pay liberally for the
succor it afforded me.

Either he disbelieved my narrative, or fancied that it might involve
himself in some trouble, for he doggedly said I had no right to come
aboard of her without his leave, and that he should certainly put in at
Ramsgate and hand me over to the authorities.

“Be it so,” said I, with an affected indifference. “The greater fool you
not to earn fifty guineas for a kind office than go out of your way to
do a churlish one.”

He left me at this to go up on deck, and came down again about half an
hour later. I heard enough to convince me that the wind was freshening,
and that a heavy sea, too, was getting up, so that in all likelihood he
would hesitate ere he ‘d try to put in at Ramsgate. He did not speak to
me this time, but sat with folded arms watching me as I lay pretending
to be asleep. At length he said,--

“I say, friend, you ‘ve got no passport, I suppose? How do you mean to
land in France? or, if there, how do you propose to travel?”

“These are matters I don’t mean to trouble you about, Captain,” said I,
haughtily; and though I said the words boldly enough, it was exactly the
very puzzle that was then working in my brain.

“Ay, sir; but they are exactly matters that concern me; for you are not
on the schooner’s manifest,--you are not one of her crew,--and I don’t
mean to get into trouble on your behalf.”

“Put me ashore at night, or leave me to reach it in any way,” said I,
half angrily; for I was well-nigh out of patience at these everlasting
difficulties.

He made no reply to this speech, but starting suddenly up, like a man
who had hastily made up his mind on some particular course, he went
up on deck. I overheard orders given, and immediately after a stir and
bustle among the sailors, and in my anxiety at once connected myself
with these movements. What project had they regarding me? In what way
did they mean to treat me?--were the questions that rose to my mind. The
heavy working of the craft showed me that her course had been altered,
and I began to dread lest we should be turning again towards England.

From these thoughts my mind wandered back and back, reviewing the chief
events of my life, and wondering whether I were ever destined to reach
one spot that I could rest in, and where my weary spirit might find
peace. To be the sport of Fortune in her most wilful of moods seemed,
indeed, my lot; and to go on through life unattached to my fellows,
appeared my fate. I remember once to have read in some French author
that the attachment we feel to home, the sacred names of son and
brother, are not more than the instincts of habit; that natural
affection, as it is called, has no real existence; and that it is the
mere force of repetition that forms the tie by which we love those whom
we call father or mother. It is a cold and a cheerless theory, and yet
now it struck me with a certain melancholy satisfaction to think that,
save in the name of parentage, I was not worse off than others.

The hours glided on unnoticed as I lay thus dreaming, and night at last
fell, dark and starless. I had almost attained to a kind of careless
indifference as to my future, when the mate, coming up to me, said,--

“Wake up, master; we ‘re going to put you ashore here.”

I made no answer: half in recklessness, half in pride, I was silent.

“You ‘d better throw my boat-cloak over you. It’s blowing fresh, and a
heavy sea running,” said he, in a kindly voice.

“Thanks,” said I, declining; “but I ‘m little used to care for my
comforts. Can I see the skipper?”

“He told me that he preferred not to see you,” said the mate,
hesitatingly, “and bade me arrange for putting you ashore myself.”

“It is a question of money--not of politeness--with me,” said I,
producing my purse. “Tell me what I owe him.”

“Not a farthing, sir. He ‘d not touch a piece of money that belonged to
you. He only wants you to go your way, and part company with him.”

“Why--what does he take me for? What means this dread of me?”

The man looked confusedly up and down, to either hand, and was silent.
At last he said,--

“Come; all this is lost time. We ‘re close in now. Are you ready, sir?”

“Quite ready,” said I, rising, and following him.

The boat’s crew was already mustered, and, springing into the boat,
she was lowered at once; and before I well knew of it, we were plunging
through a heavy sea, by the force of four strong oars.

Through the darkness and the showering spray we went,--now rising on
the crest of some swelling wave, now diving down between the foaming
cataracts. I never asked whither we were bound. I scarcely wished for
land. There was something so exciting in the sense of peril about, that
I only desired it might continue. Such a relief is physical danger to
the slow and cankering disease of a despairing heart!



CHAPTER XLI. LYS

A long, low line of coast loomed through the darkness, and towards this
we now rowed through a heavy, breaking surf. More than once did they lie
on their oars to consult as to the best landing-place, and again resume
their labor as before. At last, seeing that neither creek nor inlet
presented itself, they made straight for the shore, and when within
about thirty paces of the strand, they dropped anchor and suffered the
boat to drift into shallow water.

“There now, master,” said the steersman to me, “you’ll have to wet your
feet, for we can’t venture further in. Jump over, and you’ll soon touch
land again.”

I obeyed without a word, and ere I reached the shore the boat was
already on her way back to the schooner. As I stood gazing on the dark
expanse of sea before me, and then turned to the gloomy outline of the
land, I felt a sense of desolation no words can render. I had not the
very vaguest notion where I was. So far as I could see, there were no
traces of habitation near; and as I wandered inland, the same unbroken
succession of sand hummocks surrounded me. How strange is it that in
this old Europe of ours, so time-worn by civilization, so crossed and
recrossed by man’s labors, how many spots there are which, in this wild
solitude, might well be supposed to form parts of Africa or distant
America! The day broke to find me still wandering along these dreary
sand-hills; but to my great delight two church towers about a league off
showed me that a village was near; and thither I now proceeded to bend
my steps.

After walking about a mile I reached a high road which evidently led to
the village; and now it became necessary to bethink me what account I
should give of myself, and how explain my appearance when questioned, as
I inevitably should be, by the authorities.

My drenched and shrunk-up clothes and my way-worn look might well have
warranted the story of a shipwreck, and for some minutes I had almost
resolved to give that version of my calamity; but I was so weary of the
vicissitudes a false representation involved, so actually tired out by
the labor of sustaining a part that was not my own, that I determined to
take no heed of what was to follow, and leave myself to the chances of
destiny, without a struggle against them.

Fortune, thought I, has never been over kind to me when I did my best to
woo her; let me see if a little indifference on my part may not render
her more graciously disposed. From some peasants on their way to market
I learned that the village was called Lys, and was on the high road to
Montreuil. At all events, then, I was in France, which was almost as
much my country as England, and with even so much did I rally my spirits
and encourage my hopes. The country-people, with their pack-mules,
stared at my strange appearance, and evidently wondered what manner of
man I might be, for I still wore my full-dress suit; and my lace ruffles
and sabot, however discolored, showed undeniable signs of condition.
Many, however, saluted me respectfully, and touched their hats as to
one of rank above their own, and not one displayed anything approaching
levity or a jest at my singular exterior. It might possibly have been
the secluded character of the spot itself, or that the recent peace with
England had brought about the change; but whatever the cause, neither
police nor gendarmerie questioned me as to my passport, and I strolled
into the first café that presented itself, to take my breakfast, without
hindrance or impediment.

While I enjoyed my meal, I amused myself with the newspapers, at that
time filled with descriptions of festivities and court receptions, at
which the English were the honored guests. Instead of the accustomed
allusions to insular eccentricity, awkwardness, and boorish unsociality,
there were nothing but praises of English frankness and cordial
simplicity. I saw that the Government, for doubtless good reasons of its
own, had given the initiative to this new estimation of my countrymen;
and resolved, if possible, to reap the benefit of it, I repaired to the
Mairie and asked to see the “Maire.” In a few words, I told him that I
had laid a heavy wager to travel up to Paris and back to England without
a passport; that I had made this foolish bet at a dinner-party, which
I quitted to accomplish my undertaking. My intention had been to have
landed at Havre; but, by ill-luck, we were driven on shore to the
north’ard, and narrowly escaped shipwreck; from which having saved
myself, I reached Lys, destitute of everything save a small sum of money
I carried about me. I told this story with the air of one who really
felt that any impediment to so harmless a project must be impossible,
and with such success that the Maire invited me into his drawing-room to
repeat my tale to his family, as an excellent illustration of the length
to which English eccentricity could go.

My manners, the facility with which I spoke French, my calm assurance of
not requiring any other aid or assistance than the friendly offices of
the authorities, so gained his favor that he promised to think over the
matter, and give me his opinion in the morning. I asked for no more.
I was not impatient to get forward; and at that moment the little
grass-grown streets and alleys of Lys were as pleasing to me as the most
fashionable thoroughfares of a great city.

He did not send for me, as he promised, on the following morning. A
second day and a third passed over with the same results; and still I
remained loitering about the village and making acquaintance with every
notable monument, from its quaint old church to the little obelisk in
the marketplace, commemorating the birthplace of its great citizen, the
architect Mansard.

I had by this time formed two or three slight acquaintanceships with
the townsfolk, who, although living on a high road much traversed by
travellers, were a simple-minded and maritime set of people. The little
routine of this quaint old spot also pleased me; and I persuaded myself
that I should ask nothing better from fortune than to be able to pass my
life and end my days in Lys. Vast numbers of English poured daily into
France at this time; and it was one of my chief amusements to sit at
the little café in front of the “poste,” and watch them as they changed
horses. I do not suppose that even yet our countrymen escape from what
would appear to be the almost inevitable blunders of foreign travel;
but at the time I speak of, these mistakes and misapprehensions were
far greater. The Continent and its languages were alike new to them.
National peculiarities were all more marked, and John Bull himself less
compliant and more exacting than he now is.

As the temper and tone of the day were, however, favorable to England,
and as Englishmen were remarkable for the liberality of their payments
for all services rendered them, the nation was popular, and whatever
errors or awkwardness they committed were speedily forgotten or
forgiven. I was seated, as was my custom, one morning, watching the
tide of travellers that rolled by unceasingly, when a large travelling
carriage, with eight horses and a mounted courier in front, drew up
at the “poste.” While the horses were being harnessed, two gentlemen
descended, and, crossing the “Place,” entered the café. One was a
large, full, and somewhat handsome man, with that florid look and air so
characteristic of an English country squire; the other I had not time to
remark ere he came up to me and said,--

“Happy to meet you again, Mr. Carew; I trust you don’t forget me.’”

It was Colonel Canthorpe, whom I had met at O’Kelly’s dinner-table.

“This chance meeting is a piece of good fortune,” continued he,
“since it enables me to pay a debt I owe you. On looking over my
memorandum-book, I discovered I had lost three hundred, and not two, to
you. Am I correct?”

I professed, with truth, that I had no recollection of the matter, nor
had anything to guide me to its memory.

“I’m quite positive that I’m right, however,” said he, “and you must
allow me to acquit myself of the obligation. Who is your banker at
Paris?”

I had to say that so many years had passed over since I was there, I
really had not thought of selecting one.

“But you are going on thither?” asked he.

“Yes, in a day or two; that is, as soon as I have arranged a difficulty
about my passport.”

“If that’s the only thing that detains you,” said he, “pray accept of
mine. In travelling with my friend Mr. Fox, I need none.”

I turned at the sound of the name, and at once recognized, by the
resemblance to the prints, the bluff and manly features of the great
leader of the Opposition.

“This is our famous whist-player, Fox, Mr. Carew,” said Canthorpe,
presenting me; and the other rose and received me most courteously,
adding some little compliments on my reputed skill at the game.

While we were yet talking, their breakfast made its appearance, and I
was invited to partake of the meal,--a politeness which I accepted of
readily, while I congratulated myself by thinking that up to this time
at least O’Kelly had not divulged the secret of my former station.

The conversation turned principally on France and its relations with
England; and I was surprised to find the great parliamentary leader so
little acquainted with either the character of the people or of those
who ruled them. He seemed willing to accept all the present civil
overtures as guarantees of lasting and cordial friendship, and to regard
as antiquated and unworthy prejudices those expressions of distrust
to which, in my more intimate knowledge of France, I occasionally gave
utterance.

“Mr. Carew’s whist experiences, I perceive’,” said he, “are not his
guides in politics. He will not trust his partner.”

“There is this difference,” said I, “that in whist you sit opposite to
your ally: in politics, as in war, your vis-à-vis is your enemy.”

“For my part,” said he, good-humoredly, “I think, having fought against
each other--bravely fought, as France and England have--is one of the
very best elements towards a lasting peace. Each must by this time have
attained to a proper estimate of the other; and from that source alone
a degree of respect springs up, fit to become the foundation of true
friendship.”

“Your theory excludes all notion of a rivalry, sir.”

“Rivalry can exist only between small states or individuals. Great
countries have great ambitions, and these are usually above mere
rivalries.”

I have quoted, word for word, the expressions he made use of, less for
any importance of their own than for the sake of the man who spoke them.
They were, as I afterwards came to know, specimens of that careless
habit of talking in which he constantly indulged, and in which an
indolent goodnature rather swayed him than the use of those fine
faculties of judgment he so eminently possessed. My more intimate
acquaintance with France and its language gave me certain advantages
in our discussion which he soon perceived, and he questioned me closely
about the people and their natural tendencies.

Colonel Canthorpe came twice to announce that the horses were ready,
and yet still Mr. Fox stood, inquiring eagerly into points of which he
confessed himself quite uninformed.

“How glad I should be,” said he, “to have an opportunity of continuing
this conversation. Is there any chance of our meeting at Paris?”

I owned that the expression of his wish on the subject quite decided me
to go there.

“On what day, then, may I expect you? Shall we say Saturday, and at
dinner?”

“Most willingly,” said I, “if I can accomplish it.”

“As to the passport, nothing easier,” said Canthorpe. “This is mine--it
is perfectly regular--requires no _visé_; and once in Paris, my friend
here will obtain one for you in your own name.”

“Just so,” said Fox, shaking my hand cordially; and repeating
“Saturday--Quillac’s Hotel,” away he went, leaving me almost incredulous
of all I had seen and been saying.



CHAPTER XLII. THE COMING SHADOW

I arrived in Paris a few days after, and took up my abode at the Hôtel
Quillac, then one of the most splendid in the capital. Mr. Fox and
Colonel Canthorpe received me most courteously, willingly accepting my
guidance in their visits to the various objects of interest that this
glorious city contains. Such a knowledge of the language as I possessed
was a rarer gift at that time than it now is, when education and foreign
travel are so widely enjoyed; and I could plainly see that they regarded
their chance acquaintanceship with me as quite a piece of good fortune.
This did not, however, prevent their feeling--as I could perceive they
felt--a most lively curiosity as to what might have been my former life,
where it had been passed, and how. Too well bred to suffer this anxiety
of theirs to appear, except by a mere accident, yet it was evident to
me, by a hundred little circumstances, how it formed a constant subject
of conversation between them.

I am far from implying that their intercourse with me was marked by
anything like distrust or suspicion; on the contrary, they talked freely
in my presence on every subject, and upon politics Mr. Fox especially
spoke with a degree of openness that, had he been less distinguished, I
should have presumed to call indiscreet. He made almost daily visits at
the Tuileries, and never hesitated, on his return, to recount to us what
had passed between the First Consul and himself.

The manly character of the English statesman contributed to give the
interviews many very interesting traits, to which also his imperfect
knowledge of French lent several amusing features. Were I not afraid
of repeating well-known anecdotes, I should avail myself of this
opportunity to recall some instances of these. At all events, I am happy
to have the occasion of saying that the veriest Tory that ever inveighed
against France never had a more thoroughly English heart and spirit than
Charles Fox. I have seen it imputed to him that in his partisanship
he would willingly have accepted a dishonorable peace, and made common
cause with the First Consul on any terms; and I affirm that I am in a
position to refute this foul charge, and prove it a calumny.

Neither, as was asserted at the time, did the unquestionable fascination
of Bonaparte’s manner gain a complete ascendancy over the Englishman’s
less-cultivated tact. It is true he came back--as who would not?--from
these meetings amazed at the extensive knowledge, the vast acquirements,
and the profound sagacity of that great man; nor did he hesitate to own
that even these were thrown into the shade by the charms of his manner
and the captivation of an address which I believe at that period had
reached its very point of perfection.

An attack of gout confined Mr. Fox for some time to his room, and thus
interfered with the progress of an intimacy that might be fairly called
friendship. Who can say now how far the highest interests of mankind,
the fortunes of the whole world, may not have been influenced by that
casual indisposition! It is certain that Fox had already been able to
disabuse Bonaparte’s mind with regard to a variety of things in which
he judged erroneously. He had succeeded in setting him right on several
points of our national spirit and the spirit of our constitution. He had
even done much towards convincing him that England was not inspired with
an insane hatred to France, and would willingly live at peace with her,
only asking that a peace should have guarantees for its duration, and
not be, as it but too often is, but the interval of preparation for war.
I say then again what a change might there have been to the destinies of
mankind, had this intercourse gone on uninterruptedly! How differently
might Bonaparte have learned to regard and consider Englishmen, and
what allowances might he not have come to make for peculiarities purely
national!

How naturally might a great intelligence like his have seen that the
alliance of two such nations is the guarantee of civilization throughout
the globe, and that all our smaller rivalries and national jealousies
sink to insignificance when viewed in presence of the great perils to
which disunion exposes us,--perils that, at the hour in which I write
these lines, are neither vague nor visionary, and against which an
honest and cordial alliance can alone prevail. Let it be taken as
the tremulous terror of an old man’s mind if I add, that even banded
together, and with all their energies to the task, they will not be more
than enough for the work that is before them.

I have spoken of the friendly reception I met with from Mr. Fox. I dined
constantly with him and Colonel Canthorpe alone, and accompanied them
frequently on their evening visits amongst their acquaintances. I joined
in everything, even to the high play which they both were passionately
devoted to, and lost and won without any decisive results. Meanwhile
my resources ran lower and lower. The style of living I maintained was
costly; and at the end of some weeks I saw myself with barely sufficient
to carry me through another fortnight. To this very hour I cannot
explain to myself the calm indifference with which I contemplated my
approaching and inevitable ruin. I really know nothing of the flatteries
by which I may have beguiled my own heart, and am left to the conclusion
that the intoxicating pleasures of the time had rendered me insensible
to every thought for the future. I went further, too, than might be
supposed possible. I accepted invitations to shoot in Scotland, and pass
my Christmas at Canthorpe’s seat in Cumberland, promising everything
with the ease of one free to dispose of himself as he fancied.

Meanwhile time went on. I had asked Mr. Fox and Canthorpe to dine
with me at the Fleur-de-Pois, outside the barrier. It was a celebrated
restaurant of those times, as distinguished for the excellence of its
wine as the perfection of its cookery. I had often given myself the
airs of connoisseurship in these matters, and I was resolved that my
entertainment should not disparage my taste.

More than one morning had I passed in council over the bill of fare,
discussing the order of the courses, canvassing the appropriate sauces,
and tasting the various wines. It was to be a “Diner à soixante francs
par tête;” the reader may imagine the rest. I knew that my friends were
unacquainted with the repute this house enjoyed, and I congratulated
myself in fancying the surprise they would feel at the unexpected
perfection of every arrangement within doors. I went down early on the
morning of the eventful day to see that everything was in readiness. All
was perfect; the table was decorated with the choicest flowers, amidst
which an ornamental dessert lay scattered, as it were. The temperature
of the room, the lighting, all were cared for; and I returned to Paris
fully satisfied that nothing had been omitted or forgotten. Instead,
however, of repairing to my hotel, I went to a small restaurant near the
Luxembourg to breakfast, and lounged afterwards at the gardens there,
intending to keep myself “up” for the evening, and not dissipate any
of those conversational resources I wished to hoard for the hours of
conviviality. The reader may well smile at the inconsistency of the man
who could so collectedly devise a few hours of pleasure, and yet face
the whole future without a moment’s thought or deliberation! Towards
five o’clock I sauntered slowly back to the hotel.

“A note for you, sir,” said the porter, presenting me with a letter as
I entered. “The gentleman said it was to be given to you the moment you
came in.”

I took it with a strange, half-sickening sense of coming evil. I broke
the seal, and read:--

  Crillan, Three o’clock. Dear C,--We are off for England at
  a moment’s warning, and have only time to counsel you to the
  same. There is some mischief brewing, and the d----d Tories
  are likely to involve us in another war. Keep this to
  yourself. Get your passport ready, and let us soon see you
  across the water. With many regrets from F. and myself at
  the loss of your good dinner to-day, believe me
  Yours truly,

  George Canthorpe.

The whole fabric in which I had been living for weeks past fell at once
to the ground; all the illusions of my daily existence were suddenly
swept away; and there I stood in presence of my own heart,--a poor
bankrupt pretender, without one to know or acknowledge him!

I hastened to my room and sat down, for some minutes actually
overwhelmed by the chaotic flood of thought that now poured through my
brain. Very little calm consideration would have shown me that my real
condition in life had undergone no change, that I stood precisely as I
had done the day before,--a ruined, houseless adventurer! With a little
reflection, too, it is not impossible I might have congratulated
myself that my separation had not been brought about by any disgraceful
discovery of my actual rank in life, and that I had escaped the
humiliation of an exposure. These thoughts came later; for the moment
all was sadness and gloomy depression.

The waiter entered to say that the carriage Monsieur had ordered was at
the door, and it took me some minutes to recall my mind to the fact,
and to remember that I had ordered a carriage to convey us to the
restaurant. “Be it so,” said I to myself, “let us play out the comedy;”
 and with this resolve I proceeded to dress myself for dinner with all
the elegance I could bestow on my toilet.

Had I been about to dine at court, I could not have been more
particular. My sabot and ruffles were of the finest “Valenciennes;” my
vest was white satin, richly embroidered with gold; and the hilt of my
sword glittered with marqueseta and turquoise. I took a look at myself
in the glass, and almost started back as I saw the contrast between
this finery of my apparel and the haggard expression of my features;
for though my cheek was flushed and my eyes sparkled, my mouth was drawn
down, and my thin, parched lips denoted fever. There was that in my
looks that actually scared myself.

“To the Fleur-de-Pois,” said I, throwing myself back in the carriage;
and away we drove along the crowded Boulevard, many an eye turned on
the foppish figure that lounged so elegantly in his carriage, never
suspecting the while what the tone of his thoughts at that moment was,
and that he was gravely canvassing within himself the strange stories
that would circulate on the morrow, should his body be taken up in the
“Filets de St. Cloud.” True was it, the dark and muddy Seine, the
cold, fast-flowing river, was never out of my thoughts. It swept,
torrent-like, through all my reasoning, and the surging water seemed to
rise and swell around me. At that moment short, fitful thoughts of the
long past shot through my mind; and my mother, and Raper, and Margot
too, came and went before me. Where were all the teachings of my infancy
now; where the holy aspirations of my early boyhood; where the simple
tastes and lowly desires, the home affections and blest humility I
once loved to dream over; where that calm existence, so bounded by easy
ambitions; and where, above all, that honesty of life that spurned
every thought of deception? “A meet ending for such a career,” said I,
bitterly, as I gazed down on the river along whose bank we were driving.
“Ay,” thought I, as we passed along, “there is not one so miserable
nor so poor with whom I would not change places, only that this mockery
should cease, and that I should be something to my own heart besides a
cheat.”

The day suddenly grew overcast, the clouds massed themselves heavily
together, and the rain began to descend in torrents. When we reached
the restaurant the storm had become a hurricane, and all who had been
preparing to dine through the arbors of the garden were quickly driven
to seek shelter within doors. As I descended from the carriage, all was
tumult and confusion; for although every available spot had been given
up to the guests, yet from their numbers they were crowded together
most uncomfortably, and loud and angry complaints and remonstrances
were heard on all sides. In vain the waiters heard patiently or answered
courteously the various discontents of those who appealed to their rank
and station as claims for special consideration. Distinguished generals,
ministers, great leaders of fashion, were all condemned to the same
indiscriminate fortune of humbler natures.

From where I sat in the little _salon_ reserved for myself, I could
overhear these complaints and remonstrances, and it was in a kind of
savage irony with Fortune that I bethought me of my sumptuous lot in
comparison with the discomforts of those around me. Twice or thrice was
my door flung open by persons in search of an apartment, and in this
confusion and shame I revelled as in a momentary triumph. At length, in
an interval of comparative quiet, I thought I heard voices whispering
outside my door. I listened, and could distinguish that they were female
accents, and discussing, as it seemed, some project on which they were
not agreed. One appeared to insist as eagerly as the other was bent
upon opposing; and the words, “Mais oui,” “Mais non,” followed in
quick succession. I know not how it was, but I conceived a most intense
curiosity to learn the subject of the discussion. I felt as if I must
have some share or concern in the matter, and eagerly bent my ear to
hear further. Nor was I wrong. The question argued was, whether or not
the two ladies should appeal to the gallantry of the occupant of the
room to afford them shelter till such time as their carriage might
arrive to fetch them for Paris. She who spoke with more authority was in
favor of the appeal, while the younger voice expressed dissent to it.

Being in a measure a party to the cause, I resolved to lend what
influence I might possess towards the decision; and so, flinging wide
the door, I saluted the strangers courteously, and informing them that I
had accidentally overheard their discussion, begged they would permit
me to decide it by placing my apartment at their disposal at once. The
elder of the two immediately addressed me in a tone and manner that
bespoke a person of condition, accepting my hospitality, but only on
the condition that I myself should remain, for I had made a gesture
indicative of departure. The younger, with a veil closely drawn across
her face, courtesied without speaking. I at once acceded, and placing
chairs for my guests, requested them to be seated.

The waiter at length made his appearance to say dinner was ready
“whenever Monsieur desired it.” This was a new difficulty, and I really
felt much embarrassed by it. Resolving, however, to adopt the bold
course, I hastily apologized for the great liberty I was about to take,
and after briefly explaining the departure of the two friends I had
expected, begged they would allow me to believe that Fortune had really
been kind to me for once, in replacing them.

A sign of half-impatience by the younger was speedily corrected by the
other, as she said,--

“Monsieur forgets that we are strangers to each other.”

But there was nothing like rebuke in the tone she spoke in; but rather,
as I thought, a suggestive hint thrown out to provoke some effort at
explanation on my part. I was right in this conjecture, as I speedily
saw by the degree of attention she vouchsafed me.

Perhaps if I had had a better cause, I should not have pleaded so
successfully. I mean, that if I had been really the owner of a high name
and station, it is just possible I might not so ably have combated the
difficulty of the situation.

“At all events,” said the elder lady, “Monsieur has one advantage: he
knows who we are.”

“I shame to say, Madame,” said I, bowing low, “that, in my ignorance of
Paris, I have not that honor.”

“Indeed!” cried she, half incredulously.

“It is quite true, Madame; I have been but a few days here, and have no
acquaintance whatever.”

They now spoke to each other for a few seconds; and after what seemed
strong persuasion, the younger turned away to remove her bonnet.

“We have, then, no right to exact any concession from Monsieur,” said
the elder lady, “seeing that we preserve our own secret.”

I could not but assent to this doctrine, and had just acknowledged
it, when the younger turned abruptly round, uttering a half cry of
amazement.

“Margot!” exclaimed I; for it was she. But already had she buried her
face between her hands, and refused to look up.

“What means this?” said the elder, sternly, to me. “Do you know this
young lady?”

“I did so, once, Madame,” said I, sorrowfully.

“Well, sir?” replied she, proudly, and as if desiring me to finish my
speech.

“Yes, Madame. I knew her as a child in her grandfather’s house. I was
scarcely more than a boy myself at the time; but had the interval been
four times as great, I could not forget all that I owe to his kindness
and to hers.”

I could scarcely utter the last words from emotion. The child Margot--a
beautiful woman, graceful and fascinating--now stood before me, changed,
but still the same; her dark eyes darker and more meaning; her fair brow
expanded and more lofty.

“You know my story?” asked she, in a low, soft voice.

“Yes, Margot. And oftentimes in my saddest hours have I sought
excitement and relief in the thought of your triumphs--”

“There, child,--there!” exclaimed the elder, enthusiastically, “there
is at least one who can prize the glorious ambitions of the scene, and
knows how to appreciate the successes of high art. Stand not abashed
before him, child; he comes not here as your accuser.”

“Is it so indeed?” cried Margot, entreatingly.

“Oh, if you but knew, Margot, how proudly I have often pondered over our
hours of the past,--now fancying that in my teachings of those days some
germ of that high ambition you have tried to reach may then have been
dropped into your heart; now wondering if in your successes some memory
of me might have survived. If you but knew this, Margot, you would soon
see how this bright moment of our meeting repays all the sorrows of a
life long.”

“I am in the third act of the drama,” said the elder lady, smiling.
“Pray let me into the secret of the piece. Where, when, and how were you
first acquainted?”

Margot looked at me to speak; but I returned her glance so entreatingly
that, taking her friend’s hand between her own, she seated her at her
side and began.

While she narrated the story of our first meeting, I had full time to
look at her, and see the changes a few years had made. Beautiful as
she had been in childhood, far more lovely was she now in the grace of
developed beauty. Her art, too, had cultivated expression to its very
highest point, yet without exaggerating a trait of her features; the
tones of her voice had in them a melody I had never heard before; and I
hung on her very utterance as though it were music!

I dare not trust myself to recall more of that scene: already are
emotions struggling within me, the conflict of which this poor shattered
heart is not equal to. The great trials of life are often easier burdens
to memory than some flitting moment of passionate existence, some one
brief hour of mingled hope and fear.

Margot’s friend--it was Mademoiselle Mars herself--felt the liveliest
interest in the story of our first meeting, my boyish duel and--why
should I not say it?--my boyish love. She took pleasure in hearing
of every indication of that genius in infancy which she had seen so
splendidly displayed in womanhood, and asked me for traits of Margot’s
childhood with the greatest eagerness.

Margot--the first excitement over--seemed sad and dispirited; she even
showed impatience once or twice as Mademoiselle Mars insisted on hearing
some little incident of childhood, and then abruptly said,--

“And you, Monsieur, how has the world treated you since we met?”

“Not so flatteringly; I am not spoiled by Fortune.”

“Nor am I,” said she, hastily taking up my words.

“No, dearest, that you are not,” cried the other. “You are as first I
knew you, generous, warm-hearted, and kind.”

“I mean,” said Margot, “that these successes have not made me vain nor
proud; that I know how to esteem them at their true price, and
feel, moreover, how in my heart there lives a spirit above all this
loud-tongued flattery.”

Mademoiselle Mars looked at me while she spoke, and I thought that her
eyes conveyed the strangest meaning. There was admiration, indeed, but
blended with something of tender pity and compassion. What would I not
have given to have been able to read this glance aright! No time was
given me to think on the theme, for Margot now, with a kind of half
impetuous curiosity, asked me for my adventures.

“Tell us all, everything,” said she, laughingly,--“your successes, your
failures, your hopes, your loves, your joys and sorrows. I am eager
to hear if Fortune has not dealt more generously by you than me. This
splendid preparation here”--and she pointed to the dinner-table--“would
seem to say much.”

“The story will tell better at table,” said I, gayly, and not sorry to
relieve the awkwardness of the moment by any new incident; and with this
I ordered dinner at once. As course succeeded course of the magnificent
repast, I could not help feeling what a singular preface was all this
splendor to the confession that was to follow it, and how oddly would it
tell that the host of such a feast was without a sou in the world. Our
spirits rose as dinner went on. We talked together like old friends
who had met yesterday; we discussed passing topics--all the news of
the day--lightly and amusingly; we jested and laughed, with all the
light-hearted gayety of unburdened spirits; nor can I remember anything
more brilliant than the flow of wit and pleasantry that went on amongst
us.

What strange mysterious link unites our lowest moment of despair with a
wild and almost headlong joyousness, making of the darkness of our souls
a fitting atmosphere for the lightning play of fancy and the bright
coruscations of wit! But an hour back, and never was depression deeper
than my own; and now my brain abounded with bright-hued thoughts and
pleasant imaginings.

It was late when the carriage arrived, and we returned to Paris
to finish the evening at Mademoiselle Mars’ lodgings in the Rue de
Choiseul. The little _salons_, furnished with a consummate taste and
elegance, were crowded with visitors, as we reached them,--artists,
authors, musicians, theatrical people of every kind and sort, with
a sprinkling of the higher world, admitted as a rare favor to these
“Saturdays.”

It was in the fascination of this very class of society that Margot
had originally conceived her passion for the stage. It was in their
enthusiasm for her genius and their admiration of her beauty she had
first tasted the ambitious longing for fame and applause; and it was
still here that she revelled, as in a charmed existence,--here sought
the inspirations that quickened her spirit to its proudest darings, and
nerved her heart for efforts almost beyond human strength.

I had but to see her for a moment in the midst of this adulation to
comprehend the whole history of her life. The poet brought his verses,
the musician his strains, the sculptor laid his own image of herself at
her feet; the most rapturous verses, the most polished flatteries, met
her as she entered. Mademoiselle Mars herself swelled the chorus of
these praises, and seemed prouder in the triumphs of her _protégée_ than
she had ever been in her own. Margot accepted all this homage as a queen
might have done. She received it as a tribute that was due, and of
which none dared to defraud her. Shall I own that if at first a modest
humility and a girlish diffidence had been more gratifying to me to
witness, yet, as the hours wore on, not only had I accustomed myself
to bear with, but I actually felt myself joining in that same spirit of
adulation which seemed so meetly offered at this shrine?

What sad repinings, what terrible self-reproaches come over me as I
write these lines! My thoughts all turn to the very darkest, and yet
the most brilliant, moment of my life: the brightest in all its actual
splendor and delight,--the gloomiest in its dreary memory! Lest these
fancies should master me, I will pursue my story rapidly, coldly,
apathetically, if I may. I will not suffer a word, if I can help it,
to escape me that may unman me for my task, now all but completed. I
suppose that no man can write of himself without becoming more or less
his own apologist. Even in his self-accusings there will be mingled a
degree of commiseration, and his judgments will be found tempered
with merciful considerations. I would that I were capable of something
better, bolder, and more manly than this. I would that others might
learn of my “short-comings,” and be taught by my “over-reachings”! But
though I cannot point the moral, I will tell the tale.

Margot--it was the caprice of the moment--presented me to the society
as her cousin. I was the Chevalier de Bertin, of good family and ample
fortune. “Passionné pour les arts,” as she said, “and the devoted
slave of genius.” The introduction was well calculated to insure me a
favorable reception; and so it proved. I was at once admitted into all
the masonry of the craft. The “coulisses” of every theatre were open
to me; the private box of the prima donna, the editorial sanctum, the
dressing-room where the great actress received her chosen few, and
the little supper-table, at which a place would have been a boon to
royalty,--all were mine. To support myself, and maintain a condition
proportionate to my pretended rank, I labored immensely. I wrote for
no less than four of the great journals of Paris. I was the leading
political writer in the Bonapartist “Presse,” the royalist in the
“Gazette de la Vendée,” and the infuriated defender of the Girondins in
the terrible columns of “Le Drapeau de Pays,” theatrical and literary
criticism being my walk in the pages of the “Avant Scène.”

Two persons only were in my secret,--Sanson, the subeditor of the
“Presse,” and Jostard, who was a royalist agent, and who paid with a
liberal hand all the advocates of the Bourbons. My intimate knowledge of
the secret history of party, my acquaintance with political characters
personally, and, above all, my information on England and English
topics, gave me enormous advantages, and many of my contributions
were attributed to persons high in political station, and speaking the
sentiments of authority. I was well versed in the slashing insolence
of the military style in which the Bonapartists wrote, and knew all the
cant of the Jesuit, as well as the chosen phraseology of the wildest
republican. In this way I attacked and replied to myself vindictively,
and even savagely. Assault and counter-attack, insulting demands and
still more insulting replies, issued forth each morning to amaze the
capital, and make men ask how long could such a polemic be sustained
without personal vengeance?

In my Bonapartist capacity I assailed Pitt unceasingly. It was the theme
of which that party never wearied, and in which all their hatred to
England could be carried without openly wounding the susceptibilities of
the nation. If I assailed the covert treachery of the English minister
by the increased activity in the dockyards during a state of peace, I
hailed that very sign in a Bourbonist article as an evidence that the
cause of the exiled family had not been abandoned in Great Britain;
while in the “Drapeau” I turned attention to the glorious struggle for
freedom then sustained by the blacks of St. Domingo under the chivalrous
guidance of Toussaint, openly declaring that with the negro lay at that
moment the whole destiny of all Europe.

One of these articles--I wrote it half wild with the excitement of a
supper at the Rue Choiseul; I came home nearly distracted by a quarrel
with a Martogard--I cannot continue--was headed “Noir au Blanc,” and
was an insulting comparison between “Negro Chivalry and the White Man’s
Subserviency.” An outrageously insolent contrast of Bonaparte with
Toussaint closed the paper, and occasioned a police visit to the office
of the journal, demanding the name and address of the writer. Of these
the editor knew nothing; and though he succeeded in establishing his
innocence, the journal was declared to be suppressed, and a heavy fine
imposed upon its conductors. I was resolved, at whatever sacrifice,
to pay this, and consulted with Sanson how best to set about it. My
receipts at that time were as follows: from the “Presse” sixty francs
daily; fifty from the “Vendée;” the theatrical journal paid me one
hundred weekly; and the “Drapeau,” up to the time of its suppression,
forty francs for every article, irrespective of its length. In a word,
each day’s revenue averaged above a hundred and fifty francs, which it
was my custom to spend to the last sou-piece.

To sustain the character of wealth and fortune, I not only toiled
without ceasing, but I entered on a career of extravagance almost as
distasteful to me. Margot loved display of every kind. The theatrical
passion seemed to suggest a desire for every species of notoriety;
and to please her I set up a costly equipage, with showy liveries and
magnificent horses. The dinners I gave were of the most extravagant
kind; the bouquets I presented to her each evening at the theatre would
have in their price supported a family. My earnings could never have
compassed such outlay, and to meet it I became a gambler,--a practised,
a professional gambler,--playing with all the calm-headed skill of a
deep calculator. Fortune vacillated; but, on the whole, I was a large
winner. The fine decreed against the “Drapeau” was fifteen thousand
francs,--a large sum for me, and far above what any effort at
accumulation could possibly compass. So, indeed, Sanson told me, and
laughed at the bare thought of my attempting it. There was, however, he
said, a possibility--a mere possibility--of a way to meet this, and he
would think over it. I gave him a day or two, and at the end of that
time he told me his plan. It was this. There was a certain minister
high in the confidence of Bonaparte, whose counsels had not been always
followed, nor even listened to at times. These counsels had been founded
on the assumption that certain views and intentions of a particular
kind were maintained by the royalists,--secretly maintained, but still
occasionally shadowed forth in such a way as to be intelligible to all
in the secrets of the party. To be plain, the suspected plan was neither
more nor less than a union of the royalist with the republican faction
to overthrow the Bonapartists. This idea seemed so chimerical to
Bonaparte that to broach it was at once to lose character with him for
acuteness or political foresight. Not so to him of whom Sanson spoke,
and whom I at once pronounced to be Fouché.

“Then you are mistaken,” said he; “but to any other guess I will make no
reply, nor, if you press me on this subject, will I consent to continue
the negotiation.”

I yielded to his terms; and after a brief interval came an order for
me to hold myself in readiness on a particular evening, when a carriage
would be sent to fetch me to the house of the minister. At eight, the
hour indicated, I was ready; and scarcely had the clock struck when the
carriage rolled into the courtyard.

I have been led, as it were by accident, into the mention of this little
incident, which had no bearing nor influence on my future; but now that
I have touched upon it, I will finish it as briefly as I can.

I was received in a small office-like chamber by a man somewhat past
middle life, but whose appearance gave him the look of even age. He was
short, broad-shouldered, and slightly stooped; the figure altogether
vulgar, but the bead massive and lofty, and the face the strangest
mixture of dignity and cunning--a blending of the high-bred gentleman
with the crafty pettifogger--I ever beheld. He received me courteously,
and at once opened the business for which we met. After some compliments
on the vigor of my articles in the “Presse,” he proceeded to ask what my
peculiar opportunities might be for knowing the secret intentions of the
two great parties who opposed the government.

My replies were guarded and reserved; seeing which, he at once said,--

“This information is to be recompensed.”

I bowed coldly, and only replied that, if he would put distinct
questions to me, I should endeavor to answer them.

After some little fencing on both sides, he asked me for the writer of
the leading articles in the “Drapeau”--his name and position in life.

For reasons that may be guessed, I declined to reveal these. A similar
question as to the “Gazette” met a similar reply. Undeterred by these
refusals, he asked me my opinion of these writers’ abilities, and the
likelihood of their being available to the cause of the Government,
under suitable circumstances.

I spoke half slightingly of their talents, but professed implicit trust
in their integrity. He turned the conversation then towards politics,
and discussed with me the questions on which I had been writing so
earnestly, both for and against, in the two opposing journals. The tone
of virulent abuse of both was great; and I half hinted that a personal
_amende_ was perhaps the point to which my opponent and as well myself
were tending. He smiled slightly, but meaningly.

“That opinion is not yours, then, sir?” asked I.

“Certainly not,” said he, blandly. “Monsieur Bertin of the ‘Presse’ will
not seek satisfaction from Monsieur Bertin of the Drapeau,’ still
less of Monsieur Bertin of the ‘Gazette,’ whom he holds in such slight
esteem.”

“How, sir! Do you mean to imply that I am the writer in all these
journals?”

“You have just told me so, sir,” said he, still smiling; “and I respect
the word of a gentleman. The tone of identity assumed on paper is
exactly that you have yourself put on when advocating any of these lines
of policy. I suspected this from the first; now I know it. Ah, Monsieur
Bertin, you are in the mere nursery of craftiness,--not but I must admit
you are a very promising child of your years.”

Far from presuming on his discovery, he spoke more kindly and more
confidentially than ever to me; asked my reasons for this opinion and
for that, and seemed to think that I must have studied the questions I
wrote on deeply and maturely. There was nothing like disparagement
in his tone towards me, but, on the contrary, an almost flattering
appreciation of my ingenuity as a writer.

“Still, Monsieur Bertin,” said he, with affected gravity, “the ‘Drapeau’
went too far,--that you must allow; and, for your sake as for ours, it
is better it should be suppressed. The fine shall be paid, but it must
appear to have come from the royalists. Can I trust you for this?”

He looked at me calmly, but steadily as he spoke; and certainly I felt
as if any deceit, should I desire it, were perfectly impossible before
him. He did not wait for my reply, but, with a seriousness that savored
of sincerity, said,--

“The press in France at this moment is the expression of this man or
that, but it is no more. We live in a period of too much change to
have anything like a public opinion; so that what is written to-day is
forgotten to-morrow. Yet with all that, the people must be taught to
have one religion of the State as they have one of the Church, and
heresies of either kind must be suppressed. Now, Monsieur Bertin, my
advice to you is, be of the good fold,--not alone because it is good,
but because it is likely to be permanent. Continue to write for the
‘Gazette.’ When you want information, Sanson will procure it for you;
but you must not come here again. Temper your royalist zeal with a
seeming regard for your personal safety. Remember that a gentleman gives
larger recognizances than a _sans-culottes_; and, above all, keep in
mind that you serve us better in those columns than in our own. C’est de
la haute politique, de faire combattre ses ennemis pour soi.”

He repeated this sentiment twice over, and then with a courteous gesture
dismissed me. I was now in the secret pay of the Government,--no regular
allowance made me, but permitted to draw freely; and when any occasion
of real information offered, to pay largely for it.

Had time been given me for reflection, I believe I should have abhorred
myself for the life I now led. It was one course of daily trick and
deception. In society I was a spy; in secret, a traitor. Trusted by all,
and false to all, I hurried along in a headlong career of the wildest
excitement. To enable me to write, I had recourse to various stimulants;
and from one excess to another I became a confirmed opium-eater. I had
by habit acquired a degree of nervous irritability that almost defied
sleep. For days and days frequently I took no other rest than an
occasional half-hour’s repose when overcome, and then back to the desk
again,--if not refreshed, at least rallied. The turmoil and confusion of
my thoughts at any chance interval of quiet was terrific. So long as
I was in action, all went well; when my brain was overworked, and my
faculties stretched to their extreme tension, the excitement sustained
me, and I could develop whatever there was in me of intellectual power.
The effort over, and my task accomplished, I became almost bereft of
life; a trance-like lethargy seized me; my voice failed, my sight and
hearing grew dulled, and I would lie thus, sometimes for hours, scarcely
breathing, indifferent to everything.

When I rallied from these seizures, I hurried off to Margot, either to
her home or to the theatre. To see her, to speak to her, even to hear
her, was enough to call me back once more to life and the love, of life.
There was that in her own career, with all its changes and vicissitudes,
that seemed to fashion her mind into moods similar to my own. On one
day she would be to me like a sister,--kind and warmly affectionate; on
another, she would be as though I were her accepted lover, and show me
all the tender interest of one whose fate was bound up with my own;
and perhaps the very next meeting she would receive me coldly and
distrustfully, and darkly hint that my secret life was known to her.

These were to me moments of intense agony. To see through them was worse
than any death, and the very dread of them made existence a perfect
torture. Till I had seen her I never knew, each day, in what mood she
might feel towards me; and if I revelled in the heaven of her smiles,
felt her deep glances descending into my very heart, and thrilled with
ecstasy at each word she uttered, suddenly there would come the thought
that this was but a dream, and that to-morrow would be the dreadful
awaking!

Her conduct was inexplicable, for it changed sometimes within the
compass of a few hours, and from warmest confidence would become the
most chilling reserve. She would pour out her whole heart before me;
tell me how barren were all the triumphs she had achieved; how remote
from happiness was this eternal struggle for fame; how her nature
yearned for one true, unchanging devotion; how this mockery of passion
made shipwreck of all real feeling, and left the nature worn out,
wearied, and exhausted. She would, perhaps at our next meeting, efface
all thought of this confidence by some passionate burst of enthusiasm
for the stage, and some bold apostrophe to the glory of a great
success,--scornfully contrasting such a moment with the whole happiness
of a life spent m obscurity. I own that in these outbursts of her
wildest imagination her beauty of expression attained its highest
excellence. Her dark eyes flashed with the fire of an inspired nature,
and her whole figure seemed imbued with a more than mortal loveliness;
while in her softer moods there was a sad and plaintive tenderness about
her that subdued the spirit, and made her seem even more worthy of love
than she had been of admiration. These fitful changes, which at first
were only displayed in private, became after a while palpable to the
public eye. On one night she would thrill an audience with horror, and
in the power of her delineations make the very sternest natures yield to
terror. At another, she would shock the public by some indifference to
the exigencies of the scene, walk through her part in listless apathy,
and receive with calm unconcern the ill-disguised disapproval of the
spectators. At such times praise or blame were alike to her; she seemed
like one laboring under some pressure of thought too engrossing to admit
of any attention to passing objects; and in this dreary pre-occupation
she moved like one spell-bound and entranced.

To allude to these passing states of mind after they had occurred was
sure to give her deep offence; and although for a while I dared to do
this, yet I saw reason to abandon the attempt, and maintain silence like
the rest. The press, with less delicacy, expressed severe censure on
what they characterized as an insulting appreciation of the public,
and boldly declared that the voices which had made could still unmake a
reputation, and that the lesson of contempt might soon pass from behind
the footlights to the space before them.

It was both my province to keep these criticisms from her eye, and to
answer them in print; and for a while I succeeded. I wrote, I argued, I
declaimed,--now casuisti-cally expressing praise of what in my heart I
condemned; now seeming to discover a hidden meaning where none existed.
I even condescended to appeal to the indulgence of the public in favor
of those whose efforts were not always under their own control, and
whose passing frames of sorrow or sickness must incapacitate them at
seasons from embodying their own great conceptions. So sensitive had
she become on the subject of remark that the slightest allusion to her
health was now resented as an offence, and even Mademoiselle Mars dared
not to say that she looked paler or thinner, or in better or worse
spirits,--so certain would any allusion of the kind be to displease her.

This irritability gradually widened and extended itself to everything.
The slightest sign of inattention of the audience--any movement in the
house while she was acting--a want of ability in those _en scène_ with
her--an accidental error in even their costume--gave umbrage; and she
would stop in her part, and only by an effort seem able to recover
herself and continue. These evidences of indifference to public
opinion--for so were they construed--gradually arrayed against her
nearly the entire force of the press.

They who had been her most devoted admirers, now displayed all their
zeal in the discovery of her faults. The very excellences they had once
extolled, they now censured as stage trickery and deceit. One by one,
they despoiled her of every qualification for art, save her beauty; and
even that, they said, already proclaimed its perishable nature. My heart
sickens as I think over the refined cruelty of these daily attacks,--the
minute and careful anatomy of humanity studied to inflict misery! To
stem this torrent of opinion, I devoted myself alone. Giving up all
other writing, I thought only of Margot and her cause. I assailed
her critics with the foulest abuse. I aspersed their motives, and not
unfrequently their lives. I eagerly sought out circumstances of their
private habits and actions, and proclaimed them to the world as the men
who dared to teach the expressions by which virtues should be rendered,
and of whose very existence they were ignorant. I contrasted their means
of judgment with their daily lives. I exhibited them as mere hirelings,
the cowardly bravos of a degenerate age; and, of course,--for Paris was
always the same in this respect,--various duels were fastened on me for
my insolence.

My skill at the sword exercise carried me safely through many of these
encounters. My recklessness of life may perhaps have served to preserve
it, for I was utterly reckless of it! My neglect of politics, and all
interest about them, procured my dismissal from the Government journal.
The “Vendee” soon followed the example; and although the violence of
my articles in the “Avant Scène” had for a time amused the town, the
editors told me that my defence of Mademoiselle Margot had now been
carried far enough, and that I should look elsewhere for a new topic.

Not a few of Margot’s warmest admirers condemned the ill-advised zeal
of my advocacy. Some even affirmed that much of her unpopularity had its
origin in my indiscreet defence. I was coldly told I had “written too
much.” One said I had “fought too often.” The fastidious public--which
acknowledged no sincerity, nor would recognize such a thing as
truth--condemned, as bad taste, the excesses into which my heartfelt
indignation had hurried me. Mademoiselle Mars was a half convert to this
opinion; I shuddered one day as I suspected that even Margot seemed to
entertain it. I had been pressing her to do something--a mere trifle--to
which she dissented. I grew eager, and at last insisted; when, looking
at me steadily for some seconds, she said,--

“Has it never occurred to you that over-zeal is apt to defeat itself,
from the very suspicion that it excites, that there may be a deeper
motive than that which meets the eye?”

The words smote me to the heart. They were the death-knell to all the
hope that had sustained me through my long struggle; and though I tried
to read them in various ways less wounding to my feelings, one terrible
signification surmounted all the others, and seemed to proclaim itself
the true meaning. What if it were really so? was the dreadful question
that now struck me. What if I had been the cause of her downfall?
The thought so stunned me that I sat powerless under the spell of its
terror,--a terror which has tempered every hour of life from that day to
this.



CHAPTER XLIII. A PASSAGE IN THE DRAMA

One of the noted characters about Paris at this time was a certain
Captain Fleury; he called himself “Fleury de Montmartre.” He had been,
it was said, on Bonaparte’s staff in Egypt, but got into disgrace by
having taken Kléber’s side, in the differences between the two generals.
Disgusted with the service, in which he saw no prospect of promotion,
he quitted the army and came to live in Paris, as some thousands live
there, no one can tell how or in what manner. His chief, if not only,
occupation seemed to be the frequenting of all the low gambling-houses,
where, however, he rarely was seen to play, but rather waited for the
good fortune which befell some other, with whom he either dined, or
succeeded in borrowing a few francs. Less reputable habits than even
these were likewise attributed to him: it was said that he often thrust
quarrels upon people at the tables, which he afterwards compromised
for money, many preferring to pay rather than risk an encounter with a
professed duellist.

In his threadbare military frock and shabby hat, with broken boots
and ragged gloves, he still maintained the semblance of his former
condition, for he was eminently good-looking, and, in gait and bearing,
every inch a soldier. I had made his acquaintance by an accident. I
happened to have let fall beside my chair a bank-note for one hundred
francs, one night at play. The waiter hurried after me to restore it,
just as I was descending the stairs with this Captain Fleury at my side.
I was not aware of my loss, and insisted that the money could not be
mine. The waiter was equally positive, and appealed to the Captain to
decide the question. Fleury, instead of replying, took out a much-worn
pocket-book, and proceeded to examine its contents.

“I’ll wager as much,” cried I, “that this gentleman is the owner of the
note.”

“And you would win, sir,” said Fleury, taking it from the waiter’s
reluctant fingers, and carefully enclosing it within his case.

The waiter never uttered a syllable, but, with a look that revealed an
entire history, bowed and retired. I complimented the Captain on the
good fortune of his presence in such a critical moment, touched my hat
to him, and departed.

It was only the next morning that I recollected the sum of money I had
had about me, and perceived that the note must have been my own. It was
of course too late to think of repairing the loss, but I was far from
desiring to do so. The man’s appearance had interested me; I was deeply
struck by the signs of poverty in his dress, and only happy to have
had this slight occasion to serve him, without any infringement on his
self-respect. It was, indeed, a question I often debated with myself
whether or not he really believed that he was the owner of the note.

From that day forth we saluted whenever we met; and if by any chance we
came together, we exchanged the usual courtesies of acquaintance. There
was a degree of pleasure afforded him by even this much of recognition,
from one whose air betokened more prosperous circumstances, that I
gladly yielded. I had known even harder fortune than his, and could well
understand the importance he might attach to such a trifle.

By degrees I began to feel a strange kind of interest for this
man,--so calm, so self-possessed as he seemed in the midst of scenes of
passionate and violent excitement. What signified any sudden reverse of
fortune, thought I, in comparison with the daily misery of such a lot as
his? And yet day after day I saw him unmoved and tranquil; he came and
went like one to whom all the vicissitudes of life brought no emotion.
He was a study for me, whether I met him at the play-table or the
restaurant, or saw him at night in the theatre in his accustomed spot,
close to the orchestra, where, with folded arms and bent brows, he
stood the entire night without moving. I watched him closely during that
terrible week when, each night of Margot’s appearance, the conflict of
public opinion grew stronger and stronger, when, as her enemies gained
strength, her former friends either gathered in little despairing knots
together, or abandoned the field in defeat. I thought, or rather I
seemed to feel, that this man’s eyes were fixed upon me oftentimes when
I was not looking at him. I had a strange sense of consciousness that,
affect what bearing I might, he was reading my secret thoughts at his
leisure, and conning over traits of my character. Whenever any momentary
burst of disapprobation from the audience had made me fall back in shame
and anger within my box, I could feel that his eyes were following me
with a glance of persecuting keenness.

Margot’s enemies were triumphant; they came each night in crowds, and
by a hundred contrivances of insult displayed their bitter and undying
hatred of her. The leader of the party was a Vicomte Dechaine, whose
mistress was the rival of Margot,--if even third-rate powers could
aspire to contend with genius such as hers! Her friend, it was said, had
organized the entire conspiracy, and, being a rich man, his purse and
his influence were powerful allies. At his supper-table, the writers of
the papers, the young fashionables of society, and the professed critics
who swayed public taste, were said to meet and concert their measures.
Their victory cost them less than they had ever anticipated. Margot’s
own indiscretions--I have no other word for them--had worked faster
for her ruin than all their bitterest animosity. It was not a mere
indifference to public opinion she displayed,--it was a downright
contempt for it. If they censured any peculiarity of expression,--a
pause, or a gesture,--she was sure not only to repeat, but even
exaggerate it. Did any detail of her costume excite reproof, she at once
assumed it as a reason for maintaining it. In a word, it seemed that all
the arts others employ to win praise and secure popularity were used by
her to show her utter disdain of the world’s opinion; and this, too, in
a career where such opinion is the law, and where there exists no appeal
against it.

To restrain this spirit, even to moderate it, her friends utterly
failed. She who once heard even the humblest with deference, and
accepted suggestions with a degree of humility, now rejected all counsel
and guidance, and boldly proclaimed herself the only competent judge of
what regarded her. A frequent subject of censure amongst her critics was
a habit she had fallen into, of pressing both hands to her temples in
moments of intense passion. The gesture was not alone ungraceful, but
from its frequency it became, in a measure, a trick; and this they
assailed with a degree of virulence far out of proportion to the
offence. Mademoiselle Mars counselled her to guard against any
mannerism, and mentioned this one in illustration. Margot--once the very
emblem of obedience to her gifted friend--resented the advice with angry
indignation, and flatly declared that her own inspirations were her best
advisers.

In the temper she had now assumed, it may be imagined how difficult had
all intercourse with her become. Her waywardness increased as the public
favor declined; and she who once might have been permitted to indulge
any caprice, was now rigidly denied even the commonest liberty. At
first, the hardest task was to blind her to the censures the press was
heaping upon her. Now, however, a new difficulty arose. It was to hint
that she no longer could count upon the fickle favor of the multitude,
and that the hour of her triumph had gone by.

At moments, it is true, in some scenes of intense passion, where a deep
emotion of the soul was to find its utterance in a few broken words,
a cry, or perhaps a look, her wonderful genius shone forth still; and,
surmounting all the prejudices of sworn enemies, the theatre would burst
forth into one of those thundering peals of applause that sound like the
very artillery of human feeling. Such a passage was there in “Bajazet.”
 It is the scene where Roxalane listens to the warm protestations of her
lover, of whose perfidy she is assured, and whom she herself overheard
declaring that his love for her was little other than compassion. For
a few seconds the words of adoration seemed to act on her like a spell.
She drinks them eagerly and madly; her eyes sparkle; her bosom heaves,
her half-opened lips seem, as it were, to catch the accents; when
suddenly the truth flashes across her. Her color flies; her face becomes
livid in its paleness. A terrible shudder shakes her frame. She snatches
her hand from his grasp, and turns him a look of loathing, contemptuous
aversion such as actually sickens the very heart to behold!

From, I know not what caprice, she disliked this part now, although once
it had been her favorite above all others. Her friends made every effort
to induce her to resume it, but in vain. Their entreaties, indeed, only
served to excite her opposition; and the subject was at last dropped
as hopeless. The Court, however, had fixed on a night to visit the
“Français” and “Bajazet” was their choice. There was now no alternative
left her but to accept her part or see it filled by another. The latter
was her immediate resolve; and Mademoiselle Leonie, her rival, was at
length installed in all the honors of the “first character.” It was
evident now to all Margot’s friends that her career was over. An act of
abdication like this was always irrevocable; and the Parisian public was
never known to forgive what they regarded as an open act of insult to
their authority in taste. Well knowing that all attempts at dissuasion
would be hopeless, we made no appeal against her determination, but in
calm submission waited for the course of events,--waited, in fact, to
witness the last crash of ruin to that fame in whose edifice we once had
gloried.

Mademoiselle Mars advised Margot to travel. Italy had been always the
land of her predilection. She had even acted there with immense success
in Alfieri’s tragedies, for her knowledge of the language equalled that
of her own country. It would be a good opportunity to revisit it; “And
perhaps, who knew,” said she, “but that the echo of her fame coming over
the Alps might again rouse the enthusiasm of Paris in her favor?” I
warmly supported this plan, and Margot consented to it. A _dame de
compagnie_, an old friend of Mademoiselle de Mars, was chosen to be her
travelling companion, and I was to be of the party as secretary.

We hurried on all the arrangements as rapidly as possible. We desired
that she should leave Paris before the night of the command, and thus
remove her from all the enthusiasm of praise the press had prepared to
shower down on her rival, with the customary expressions of contemptuous
contrast for the fallen idol. We well knew the excess of adulation that
was in readiness to burst forth, and dreaded less the effect it might
produce on Margot’s mind regarding her rival than that it should inspire
her with a curiosity to witness her performance; for such was exactly
the wayward character of her mode of thinking and acting.

To our joy, we discovered that Margot’s impatience equalled, if not
exceeded, our own. She entered with an almost childish delight into
all the preparations for the journey. We hung over the map for hours
together, tracing our route, and revelling in anticipated pleasure
at the thought of all those glorious old cities of the peninsula. We
consulted guide-books and journals, and pictured to ourselves all the
delights of a happy journey. With what ecstasy she recalled the various
scenes of her former visit to Italy, and the names of those whose
friendship she had acquired, and with whom she longed to make me
acquainted! In her enthusiasm she seemed to recover her long-lost
buoyancy of heart, and to be of the same gay and happy nature I had
known her. I dare not trust myself with more of these memories; they
come upon me like the thought of those moments when on a sick bed some
dear friend has uttered words to be treasured up for years long,--words
of promise, mayhap words of hope, for a future that was never to come;
plans for a time that dark destiny had denied us!

Our arrangements were all completed, our passports procured, a courier
engaged, and everything in readiness for the road. We were to set out
on the following day. It was a Friday, and Margot’s prejudices would not
permit her to begin a journey on such an inauspicious day. I reasoned
with her and argued earnestly, for I remembered it was on that night
Mademoiselle Leonie was to appear at the Français. She was resolved,
however, to have her way, and I gave in. No allusion to the theatre, nor
to anything concerning it, had ever escaped either of us. By as it were
a tacit understanding, each avoided the theme as one only suggestive
of distressing memories; and then we had so many topics that were
delightful to talk over.

I went out early in the morning to make some purchases, some trifling
things we wanted for the road, and on my return I found Margot with
flushed face and feverish look rapidly walking to and fro in the
drawing-room. She tried to seem calm and composed as I entered, she even
made jest of her own agitation, and tried to laugh it off as a weakness
she was ashamed of; but her efforts were sad failures: her quivering lip
and trembling accents showed that deep agitation was at work within her.

“I cannot tell you, I will not tell you, what is the matter with me,”
 said she, at last; “it would but lead to some rash outbreak of your
temper,--the very last thing I could endure at such a time. No, no; let
us go; let us leave Paris at once,--to-day, now, if you wish it; I am
ready.”

This was impossible; all our arrangements had been made, and horses
ordered for the next day. My curiosity now became an agony, and I grew
almost angry at her continued refusal to satisfy me; when at last,
after exacting from me a solemn oath to do nothing nor to take any step
without her concurrence, she placed in my hands a letter, saying, “This
came while you were out.”

It ran to this effect:--

“The Vicomte Dechaine begs to offer to Mademoiselle De La Veronie
[Margot’s name in the theatre] his box at the Français for this evening,
as it must doubtless be interesting to her to witness the performance of
Roxalane by one who labors under the double difficulty of her beauty and
her reason. An answer will be called for.”

“You cannot expect me to endure this outrage, Margot!” cried I,
trembling with passion; “you could not suppose that I can live under
it?”

“I have your oath, sir,” said she, solemnly, and with a dignity that at
once recalled me to myself.

“But if I am to drag out life dishonored and degraded even to my own
heart, Margot,” said I, imploringly, “you surely would take pity on me!”

“And who would pity me, sir, were I to make you a murderer? No, no!”
 cried she, “you would have this secret,--you insisted on it; show
yourself worthy of this confidence, by keeping your solemn pledge. We
leave this to-morrow; a few hours is not too much sacrifice for one who
will give her whole life to you after.”

As she spoke she fell into my arms, and sobbed as though her heart was
breaking. As for me, my transports knew no bounds. I dropped at her
feet; I vowed and swore a thousand times that not only my life, but that
my fame, my honor, were all hers; that to deserve her there was no trial
I would not dare. Oh, the glorious ecstasy of that moment comes back
like a flood of youth once more upon this old and shattered heart; and,
as I write these lines, the hot tears are falling on the paper, and my
lips are murmuring a name I have not strength to write.

“I will put your loyalty to the test at once,” said she, gayly, and with
a degree of wild joyousness the very opposite to her late emotion. “Sit
down there, and write as I dictate.”

I obeyed, and she began:--

“‘Mademoiselle De La Veronie begs to acknowledge, with a gratitude
suitable to the occasion, the polite note of the Vicomte Déchaîne, and
to accept--’”

“What!” cried I, dropping the pen.

“Go on,” said she, calmly; “write as I tell you: ‘to accept his box this
evening at the Français.’”

“Margot, you are not in earnest!” said I, entreatingly.

“I am resolved, sir,” said she, with a voice of determination and a look
of almost reproving sternness. “I hope it is not from you, at least,
will come any doubts of my courage!”

These words seemed to indicate the spirit in which her resolution had
been taken, and to show that she preferred accepting, as it were, this
challenge, to the humbler alternative of an escape from it.

I wrote as she bade me, and despatched the letter.



CHAPTER XLIV. THE PRICE OF FAME

If the triumphs of genius be amongst the most exalted pleasures of
our nature, its defeats and reverses are also the very saddest of all
afflictions. He who has learned to live, as it were, on the sympathies
of his fellows--to be inspired by them at times, and inspire them at
others--to feel his existence like a compact with the world, wherein
he alternately gives and receives, cannot endure the thought of being
passed over and forgotten. The loss of that favor in which, as in a
sunshine, he basked, is a bereavement too great to be borne. He may
struggle for a while against this depression--he may arm himself with
pride against what his heart denounces as injustice--he may even deceive
him* self into a mock indifference of such judgments; but, do all
he will, he comes at the last to see that his greatest efforts were
prompted by the very enthusiasm they evoked,--that the impression he
produced upon others was like an image in a mirror, by which he could
view the proportions of his mind, and that the flame of his intellect
burned purest and brightest when fanned by the breath of praise.

It will be seen that I limit these observations to dramatic success;
that I am only speaking of the stage and the actor. For him there is
no refuge in the calmer judgment of posterity; there is no appeal to a
dispassionate future. The value stamped upon him now is to be his fame
forever. No other measure of his powers can be taken than the effect he
produced upon his contemporaries; and hence the great precariousness
of a career wherein each passing mood of illness, sorrow, anxiety, or
exhaustion may influence the character of a reputation that might seem
established beyond reversal.

How leniently, then, should we deal with those who labor for our
pleasure in these capacities! How indulgent should we show ourselves
even to their caprices,--justly remembering the arduous nature of a
struggle in which so many requirements are summoned, and that genius
itself is insufficient, if there be not the vigor of health, the high
promptings of ambition, and the consciousness of power that springs from
unimpaired faculties.

I have come to think over these things with a sad heart. Within the
circle of such memories lies enshrined the greatest sorrow of a life
that has not been without its share of trials. I had intended to have
revealed to my reader a painful incident, but I find that age has not
yet blunted the acute misery of my feelings; nor can I, with all the
weight of long years upon me, endure to open up again a grief whose
impress has stamped every hour of existence. Let me not be supposed as
uttering these words in any spirit of querulousness with fortune; I have
had much, far more than most men, to feel grateful for. Well do I know,
besides, that to my successes in life I can lay no claim in any merits
or deservings of my own; that my shortcomings have been numerous, and
leniently dealt with. I speak, therefore, not complainingly. I would
not, moreover, like to spend in repinings the last hours of a long life:
the goal cannot well be distant now; and as, footsore and weary, I tread
the few remaining miles of my earthly pilgrimage, I would rather cheer
my heart with the prospect of rest before me, than darken the future
with one shadow of the past.

Margot had insisted on remaining. She felt as though a challenge had
been offered to her, and it would be cowardice to decline it. Over and
over again was she wont to repeat to herself the contempt she felt
for that applause in which it was believed she exulted. She burned,
therefore, for a moment wherein she could display this haughty contempt,
and throw back with proud disdain their homage, by showing herself as
indifferent to rebuke as she had ever been to adulation. The day was
passed in moods of silence, or paroxysms of the wildest excitement.
After an hour or more perhaps of unbroken calm, she would burst forth
into a passionate denunciation of the world’s injustice, with bitter
and poignant regrets for the hour when she became a suppliant for its
favors. The proudest efforts she would make to rise above this were sure
to be defeated by some sudden sense of defeat,--an agonizing conviction
that threw her into violent weeping; a state of suffering that even now
I dread to think of.

She grew calmer towards evening, but it was a calm that terrified me:
there was a slow and careful precision in every word she spoke that
denoted effort; her smile, too, had a fixity in it that remained for
seconds after the emotion which occasioned it; and while a stern and
impassive quietude characterized her expression generally, her eyes
at times flashed and sparkled like the glaring orbs of a lioness. She
descended to the drawing-room most magnificently attired, a splendid
diamond tiara on her head, and a gorgeous bouquet of rubies and
brilliants on the corsage of her dress. Although pale as death,--for
she wore no rouge,--I had never seen her look so beautiful. There is a
Titian picture of Pompey’s daughter receiving the tidings of Pharsalia,
and, while too proud to show her agony, is yet in the very struggle of
a breaking heart: the face is like enough to have been her portrait, and
even to the color of the massive, waving hair, is wonderfully identical.

The play had already begun when we arrived at the theatre, and in
the little bustle caused by our entry into the box, a half impatient
expression ran through the audience; but as suddenly suppressed, it
became a murmur of wondering admiration. The stage was forgotten, and
every eye turned at once towards her who so often had moved their hearts
by every emotion, and who now seemed even more triumphant in the calm
self-possession of her beauty. Rank over rank leaned forward in the
boxes to gaze at her, and the entire pit turned and stood, as it were,
spell-bound at her feet. Had she wished for a triumph over her rival,
she could not have imagined a more signal one; for none now directed
their attention to the business of the play, but all seemed forgetful of
everything save her presence. Margot appeared to accept this homage with
the naughty consciousness of its being her due; her eyes ranged proudly
over the dense crowd, and slowly turned away, as though she had seen
nothing there to awaken one sentiment of emotion.

There was less an expression of disdain than of utter indifference in
her look,--it was almost like the cold impassive-ness of a statue.

For myself I am unable to speak. I saw nothing of the play or the
actors. Margot, and Margot alone, filled my eyes; and I sat far back
in the box. My glances revelled on her, watching with unceasing anxiety
that pale and passionless face. In the fourth act comes the scene where
Roxalane, aware of her lover’s falsehood, hears him profess the vows
that he but feigns to feel. It was the great triumph of Margot’s
genius,--the passage of power in which she rose unapproachably above all
others; and now in the stilled and silent assembly might be noted the
anxiety with which they awaited her rival’s delineation. Unlike the
cold, unmoved, and almost patient bearing which Margot displayed at
first, as though, having schooled her mind to a lesson, she would
practise it, had not aversion or contempt overmastered her, and in the
very sickness of her soul revealed her sorrow, the other burst forth
into a wild and passionate declamation,--an outburst of vulgar rage. A
low murmur of discontent ran through the house, and, swelling louder
and louder, drowned the words of the piece. The actress faltered and
stopped; and, as if by some resistless impulse, turned towards the
box where Margot sat, still and motionless. The entire audience turned
likewise, and every eye was now bent on her whose genius had become so
interwoven with the scene that it was as though associated with her very
identity. Slowly rising from her seat, Margot stood erect, gazing on
that dense mass with the proud look of one who defied them. The same
stern, cold stare of insult she had once bestowed on the stage she now
directed on the spectators. It was a moment of terrible interest, as
thus she stood, confronting, almost daring, those who had presumed to
condemn her; and then, in the same words Roxalane uses, she addressed
them, every accent tremulous with passion, and every syllable
vibrating with the indignant hate that worked within her. The measured
distinctness of every word rang out clear and full. It was less
invective than scornful, and scorn that seemed to sicken her as she
spoke it.

The effect upon the audience will best evidence the power of the moment.
On all sides were seen groups gathered around one who had swooned away.
Many were carried out insensible, and fearful cries of hysteric passion
betrayed the secret sympathies her words had smitten. She paused, and,
with that haughty gesture with which she takes eternal farewell of her
lover, she seemed to say, “Adieu forever!” and then pushing back her
dark ringlets, and tearing away the diamond coronet from her brows,
she burst into a fit of laughter. Oh! how terribly its very
cadence sounded,--sharp, ringing, and wild! the cry of an escaped
intellect,--the shriek of an intelligence that had fled forever!

Margot was mad. The violent conflict of passion to which her mind
was exposed had made shipwreck of a glorious intellect, and the very
exercise of emotion had exhausted the wells of feeling. I cannot go on.
Already have these memories sapped the last foundations of my broken
strength, and my old eyes are dimmed with tears.

The remainder of her life was passed in a little château near Sèvres,
where Mademoiselle Mars had made arrangements for her reception. She
lingered for three years, and died out, like one exhausted. As for me,
I worked as a laborer in the garden of the château to the day of her
death; and although I never saw her, the one thought that I was still
near her sustained and supported me,--not, indeed, with hope, for I had
long ceased to hope.

I knew the window of the room she sat in; and when, at evening, I left
the garden, I knew it was the time she walked there. These were the
two thoughts that filled up all my mind; and out of these grew the
day-dreams in which my hours were passed. Still fresh as yesterday
within my heart are the sensations with which I marked a slight change
in the curtain of her window, or bent over the impress of her foot upon
the gravel. How passionately have I kissed the flowers that I hoped she
might have plucked! how devotedly knelt beside the stalks from which she
had broken off a blossom!

These memories live still, nor would I wish it otherwise. In the tender
melancholy, I can sit and ponder over the past, more tranquilly, may be,
than if they spoke of happiness.



CHAPTER XLV. DARK PASSAGES OF LIFE

For some years after the death of Margot, my life was like a restless
dream,--a struggle, as it were, between reality and a strange scepticism
with everything and every one. At moments a wish would seize me to
push my fortune in the world,--to become rich and powerful; and then as
suddenly would I fall back upon my poverty as the condition least open
to great reverses, and hug myself in the thought that my obscurity was
a shield against adverse fortune. I tried to school my mind to a
misanthropy that might throw me still more upon myself; but I could not.
Even in my isolated, friendless condition, I loved to contemplate the
happiness of others. I could watch children for hours long at their
play; and if the sounds of laughter or pleasant revelry came from a
house as I passed at nightfall, my heart beat responsively to every note
of joy, and in my spirit I was in the midst of them. I had neither
home nor country, and my heart yearned for both. I felt the void like a
desert, bleak and desolate, within me; and it was in vain I endeavored,
by a hundred artifices, to make me suffice to myself. I came, at length,
to think that it were better to attach myself to the world by even the
interests of a crime than to live on thus, separated and apart from
all sympathy. In humble life, he who retreats from association with his
fellows must look to be severely judged. The very lightest allegation
against him will be a charge of pride; and even this is no slight
offence before such a tribunal. Vague rumors of worse will gain
currency, and far weightier derelictions be whispered about him. His
own rejection of the world now recoils upon himself, and he comes to
discover that he has neglected to cultivate the sympathies which are
not alone the ties of brotherhood between men, but the strong appeals to
mercy when mercy is needed.

By much reflection on these things, I was led to feel at last that
nothing but a strong effort could raise me from the deep depression I
had fallen into; that I should force myself to some pursuit which might
awaken zeal or ambition within me; and that, at any cost, I should throw
off the hopeless, listless lethargy of my present life. While I was yet
hesitating what course to adopt, my attention was attracted one morning
to a large placard affixed to the walls of the Hôtel de Ville, and which
set forth the tidings that “all men who had not served as soldiers, and
were between the ages of fifteen and thirty, were to present themselves
at the Prefecture at a certain hour of a certain day.” The consternation
this terrible announcement called forth may easily be imagined; for
although only a very limited number of these would be drafted, yet each
felt that the evil lot might be his own.

I really read the announcement with a sense of pleasure, It seemed to
me as though fate no longer ignored my very existence, but had at length
agreed to reckon me as one amongst the wide family of men. Nor was it
that the life of a soldier held out any prize to my ambition; I had
never at any time felt such. It was the simple fact that I should be
recognized by others, and no longer accounted a mere waif upon the shore
of existence.

The conscription is a stern ordinance. Whatever its necessities, there
is something painfully afflicting in every detail of its execution. The
disruption of a home, and the awful terrors of a dark future, are sad
elements to spread themselves over the peaceful monotony of a village
life. Nor does a war contain anything more heart-rending in all its
cruel history than the tender episodes of these separations. I have the
scene before me now as I saw it on that morning, and a sadder sight I
never have looked upon. The little village was crowded, not alone
by those summoned by the conscription, but by all their friends and
relations; and as each new batch of twelve were marched forward within
the gloomy portals of the Hôtel de Ville, a burst of pent-up sorrow
would break forth, that told fearfully the misery around. But sad
as was this, it was nothing to the scene that ensued when the lot had
fallen upon some one well known and respected by his neighbors. He who
had drawn the lowest number was enlisted, and instead of returning to
join his fellows outside, never made his appearance till his hair had
been closely cropped, and the addition of a tri-colored ribbon to his
cap proclaimed him a soldier. Of these poor fellows some seemed stunned
and stupefied, looked vaguely about them, and appeared incapable to
recognize friends or acquaintances; some endeavored to carry all off
with an air of swaggering recklessness, but in the midst of their
assumed indifference natural feeling would burst forth, and scenes of
the most harrowing misery be exhibited; and, lastly, many came forth so
drunk that they knew nothing either of what happened or where they were;
and to see these surrounded by the friends who now were to take their
last leave of them was indescribably painful.

Like most of those who care little for fortune, I was successful; that
is, I drew one of the highest numbers, and was pronounced “exempt from
service.” There was not one, however, to whom the tidings could bring
joy, nor was there one to whom I could tell the news with the hope of
hearing a word of welcome in return. I was turning away from the spot,
not sorry to leave a place so full of misery, when I came upon a group
around a young man who had fainted and been carried out for fresh air.
He had been that moment enlisted, and the shock had proved over-much for
him. Poor fellow! well might it--the same week saw him the happy father
of his firstborn, and the sworn soldier of the Empire. What a wide gulf
separates such fortunes!

I pushed my way into the midst, and offered myself to take his place.
At first none so much as listened to me; they deemed my proposal absurd,
perhaps impossible. An old sergeant who was present, however, thought
differently, and, measuring me calmly with his eye, left the spot.
He returned soon, and beckoned me to follow. I did so. A few brief
questions were put to me. I answered them, was desired to pass on to an
inner room, where, in a file of some twenty strong, the chosen recruits
were standing before a desk. A man rapidly repeated certain words, to
which we were ordered to respond by lifting the right hand to the face.

This was an oath of allegiance, and when taken we moved on to the
barber, and in a few minutes the ceremony was completed, and we were
soldiers of France.

I had imagined, and indeed I had convinced myself, that I was so
schooled in adversity I could defy fortune. I thought that mere bodily
privations and sufferings could never seriously affect me, and that,
with the freedom of my own thoughts unfettered, no real slavery could
oppress me. In this calculation I had forgotten to take count of those
feelings of self-esteem which are our defences against the promptings of
every mean ambition. I had not remembered that these may be outraged by
the very same rules of discipline that taught us to fire and load, and
march and manouvre! It was a grievous error!

France was once more at war with all the world: her armies were now
moving eastward to attack Austria, and more than mere menaces declared
the intention to invade England. Fresh troops were called for with such
urgency that a fortnight or three weeks was only allowed to drill the
new recruits and fit them for regimental duty. Severity compensated for
the briefness of the time, and the men were exercised with scarcely an
interval of repose. In periods of great emergency many things are done
which in days of calmer influences would not be thought of; and now the
officers in command of depots exercised a degree of cruelty towards the
soldiers which is the very rarest of all practices in the French army;
in consequence, desertions became frequent, and, worse again, men maimed
and mutilated themselves in the most shocking manner to escape from a
tyranny more insupportable than any disease. It is known to all that
such practices assume the characteristics of an epidemic, and when
once they have attained to a certain frequency, men’s minds become
familiarized to the occurrence, and they are regarded as the most
ordinary of events. The regiment to which I was attached--the 47th of
the line--was one of the very worst for such acts of indiscipline; and
although the commanding officers had been twice changed, and one entire
battalion broken up and reformed, the evil repute still adhered to the
corps. It is a mistake to suppose that common soldiers are indifferent
to the reputation of their regiment; even the least subordinate, those
in whom military ardor is lowest, feel acutely, too, the stigma of a
condemned corps. We had reason to experience this, on even stronger
grounds. We were despatched to Brest to garrison the prison, and hold in
check that terrible race who are sentenced to the galleys for life.
This mark of disgrace was inflicted on us as the heaviest stain upon a
regiment openly pronounced unworthy to meet the enemies of France in the
field.

This act seemed to consummate the utter degradation of our corps, from
which, weekly, some one or other was either sentenced to be shot, or
condemned to the even worse fate of a galley-slave. I shrink from the
task of recalling a period so full of horror. It was one long dream
of ruffian insubordination and cruel punishment. Time, so far from
correcting, seemed to confirm the vices of this fated regiment; and at
length a commission arrived from the ministry of war to examine into the
causes of this corruption. This inquiry lasted some weeks; and amongst
those whose evidence was taken, I was one. It chanced that no punishment
had ever been inflicted on me in the corps; nor was there a single mark
in the “conduct roll” against my name. Of course, these were favorable
circumstances, and entitled any testimony that I gave to a greater
degree of consideration. The answers I returned, and the views I had
taken, were deemed of consequence enough to require further thought. I
was ordered to be sent to Paris to be examined by General Caulincourt,
at that time the head of the _état major_.

It would little interest the reader to enter further into this question,
to which I have only made allusion from its reference to my own
fortunes. The opinions I gave, and the suggestions I made, attracted
the notice of my superiors, and I received, as a reward, the grade
of corporal, and was attached to the Chancellerie Militaire at
Strasburg,--a post I continued to occupy for upwards of two years. Two
peaceful, uneventful years were they, and to look back upon, they seem
but as a day.

The unbroken monotony of my life, the almost apathetic calm which had
come over me, and my isolation from all other men, gave me the semblance
of a despondent and melancholy nature; but I was far from unhappy, and
had schooled myself to take pleasure in a variety of simple, uncostly
pursuits which filled up my leisure hours; and thus my little
flower-garden, stolen from an angle of the glacis, was to me a domain
of matchless beauty. Every spare moment of my time was passed here,
and every little saving of my humble pay was expended on this spot. The
rose, the clematis, and the jessamine here twined their twigs together
to make an arbor, in which I used to sit at evening, gazing out upon the
spreading Rhine, or watching the sunset on the Vosges mountains. I had
trained myself not to think of the great events of the world, momentous
and important as they then were, and great with the destiny of mankind.
I never saw a newspaper,--I held no intercourse with others; to me life
had resolved itself into the very simplest of all episodes,--it was mere
existence, and no more.

This dream might possibly have ended without a waking shock, and the
long night of the grave have succeeded to the dim twilight of oblivion,
had not an event occurred to rouse me from my stupor, and bring me back
to life and its troubles.

An order had arrived from Paris to put the fortress into a state of
perfect defence. New redoubts and bastions were to be erected, the
ditches widened, and an additional force of guns to be mounted on the
walls. The telegraph had brought the news in the morning, and ere the
sunset that same evening my little garden was a desert; all my care and
toil scattered to the winds; the painful work of long months in ruin,
and my one sole object in life obliterated and gone. I had thought that
all emotions were long since dead within me. I fervently believed that
every well of feeling was dry and exhausted in my nature; but I cried
and cried bitterly as I beheld this desolation. There seemed to my eyes
a wantonness in the cruelty thus inflicted, and in my heart I inveighed
against the ruthless passions of men, and the depravity by which their
actions are directed. Was the world too much a paradise for me, I
asked, that this small spot of earth could not be spared to me? Was I
over-covetous in craving this one corner of the vast universe? In
my folly and my selfishness I fancied myself the especial mark of
adversity, and henceforth I vowed a reckless front to fortune.

He who lives for himself alone, has not only to pay the penalty of
unguided counsels, but the far heavier one of following impulses
of which egotism is the mainspring. The care for others, the
responsibilities of watching over and protecting something besides
ourselves, are the very best of all safeguards against our own hearts. I
have a right to say this.

From a life of quiet and orderly regularity, I now launched out into
utter recklessness and abandonment. I formed acquaintances with the
least reputable of my comrades, frequented their haunts, and imitated
their habits. I caught vice as men catch a malady. It was a period
little short of insanity, since every wish was perverted, and every
taste the opposite of my real nature. I, who was once the type of
punctuality and exactness, came late and irregularly to my duties. My
habits of sobriety were changed for waste, and even my appearance,
my very temper, altered; I became dissolute-looking and abandoned,
passionate in my humors, and quick to take offence.

The downward course is ever a rapid one, and vices are eminently
suggestive of each other. It took a few weeks to make me a spendthrift
and a debauchee; a few more, and I became a duellist and a brawler. I
ceased to hold intercourse with all who had once held me in esteem, and
formed friends among the dissolute and the depraved. Amidst men of this
stamp the sentence of a Provost-Marshal, or the durance of the Salle de
Police, are reckoned distinctions; and he who has oftenest insulted his
superiors and outraged discipline is deemed the most worthy of respect.
I had won no laurels of this kind, and resolved not to be behind my
comrades in such claims. My only thought was how to obtain some peculiar
notoriety by my resistance to authority.

I had now the rank of sergeant,--a grade which permitted me to frequent
the café resorted to by the officers; but as this was a privilege no
sous-officer availed himself of, I of course did not presume to take.
It now, however, occurred to me that this was precisely the kind of
infraction the consequences of which might entail the gravest events,
and yet be, all the while, within the limits of regimental discipline.
With this idea in my head I swaggered, one evening, into the “Lion
Gaune,” at that time the favorite military café of Strasburg. The look
of astonishment at my entrance was very soon converted into a most
unmistakable expression of angry indignation; and when, calling for the
waiter, I seated myself at a table, my intrusion was discussed in terms
quite loud enough for me to hear.

It was well known that the Emperor distinguished the class I belonged
to, by the most signal marks of favor: the sergeant and the corporal
might have dared to address him when the field-marshal could not have
uttered a word. It was part of his military policy to unbend to those
whose position excluded them from even the very shadow of a rivalry,
and be coldly distant to all whose station approached an equality. This
consideration restrained the feelings of those who now beheld me, and
who well knew, in any altercation, into which scale would be thrown the
weight of the imperial influence.

To desert the side of the room where I sat, and leave me in a marked
isolation, was their first move; but seeing that I rather assumed this
as a token of victory, they resorted to another tactic,--they occupied
all the tables, save one at the very door, and thus virtually placed me
in a position of obloquy and humiliation. For a night or two I held my
ground without flinching; but I felt that I could not continue a
merely defensive warfare, and determined, at any hazard, to finish the
struggle. Instead, therefore, of resuming the humble place they had
assigned me, I carried my coffee with me, and set the cup on a table
at which a lieutenant-colonel was seated, reading his newspaper by
the fire. He started up as he saw me, and called out, “What means this
insolence? Is this a place for you?”

“The general instructions of the army declare that a sous-officer has
the entrée to all public cafés and restaurants frequented by regimental
officers, although not to such as are maintained by them as clubs and
messrooms. I am, therefore, only within the limits of a right, Monsieur
Colonel,” said I, offering a military salute as I spoke.

“Leave the room, sir, and report yourself to your captain,” said he,
boiling over with rage.

I arose, and prepared to obey his command.

“If that fellow be not reduced to the ranks on to-morrow’s parade, I ‘ll
leave the service,” said he to an officer at his side.

“If I have your permission to throw him out of the window, Monsieur
Colonel, I ‘ll promise to quit the army if I don’t do it,” said a young
lieutenant of cuirassiers. He was seated at a table near me, and with
his legs in such a position as to fill up the space I had to pass out
by.

[Illustration: Struck him to the ground]

Without any apology for stepping across him, I moved forward, and
slightly--I will not say unintentionally--struck his foot with my own.
He sprang up with a loud oath, and knocked my shako off my head. I
turned quickly and struck him to the ground with my clenched hand. A
dozen swords were drawn in an instant. Had it not been for the most
intrepid interference, I should have been cut to pieces on the spot.
As it was, I received five or six severe sabre wounds, and one entirely
laid my cheek open from the eye to the mouth.

I was soon covered with blood from head to foot; but I stood calmly,
until faintness came on, without stirring; then I staggered back, and
sat down upon a chair. A surgeon bandaged my wrist, which had been
cut across, and my face; and, a carriage being sent for, I was at once
conveyed to hospital. The loss of blood perhaps saved me from fever. At
all events, I was calm and self-possessed; and, strangest of all, the
excitement which for months back had taken possession of me was gone,
and I was once again myself,--in patience and quiet submission calmly
awaiting the sentence which I well knew must be my death. We frequently
hear that great reverses of fortune elicit and develop resources of
character which under what are called happier circumstances had remained
dormant and unknown. I am strongly disposed to attribute much of this
result to purely physical changes, and that our days of prosperity
are seasons of inordinate excitement, with all the bodily ills that
accompany such a state. If it be so hard for the rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven, is it not that his whole nature has been depraved
and perverted by the consummate selfishness that comes of power? What
hardeners of the heart are days of pleasure and nights of excess! And
how look for the sympathy that consoles and comforts, from him whose
greatest sufferings are the jarring contrarieties of his own nature?

I have said I was again myself, but with this addition, that a deep and
sincere sorrow was over me for my late life, and an honest repentance
for the past. I was eleven weeks in hospital; two severe relapses had
prolonged my malady; and it was nigh three months after the occurrence I
have detailed, that I was pronounced fit to be sent forward for trial by
court-martial.

There were a considerable number awaiting their trial at the same time.
Men had been drafted to Strasburg from various places, and a commission
sat _en permanence_, to dispose of them. There was little formality,
and even less time, wasted in these proceedings. The prisoner defended
himself if he were able; if not, the reading of the charge and some
slight additions of testimony completed the investigation; the sentence
being, for form sake, reserved for a later period. Occasionally it would
happen that some member of the court would interpose a few favorable
words, or endeavor to throw a pretext over the alleged crime; but these
cases were rare, and usually nothing was heard but the charge of the
accuser.

Having determined to make no defence, my whole effort was to accustom my
mind to the circumstances of my fate, and so steel my heart to bear up
manfully to the last. My offence was one never pardoned. This I well
knew, and it only remained for me to meet the penalty like a brave man.
Few, indeed, could quit the world with less ties to break,--few could
leave it with less to regret; and yet, such is the instinctive love of
life, and so powerful are the impulses to struggle against fate, that as
the time of my trial drew nigh, I would have dared any danger with the
hope of escape, and accepted any commutation of a sentence short of
death. I believe that this is a stage of agony to which all are exposed,
and that every criminal sentenced to the scaffold must pass through this
terrible period. In my case it was prolonged, my name being one of the
very last for trial; and already five weeks had gone over before I was
called. Even then a postponement took place, for the Emperor had arrived
on his way to Germany, and a great review of the garrison superseded all
other duties.

Never had all the pomp and circumstance of war seemed so grand and so
splendid to my eyes as when, through the grating of my prison-cell, I
strained my glances after the dense columns and the clanking
squadrons, as they passed. The gorgeous group of staff-officers and the
heavy-rolling artillery had all a significance and a meaning that they
had never possessed for me before. They seemed to shadow forth great
events for the future, portentous changes in time to come, gigantic
convulsions in the condition of the world, kingdoms rocking, and thrones
overturned. The shock of battle was, too, present to my eyes,--the din,
the crash, and the uproar of conflict, with all its terrors and all its
chivalry. What a glorious thing must life be to those about to enter on
such a career! How high must beat the hearts of all who joined in this
enthusiasm!

That day was to me like whole years of existence, filled with passages
of intensest excitement and moments of the very saddest depression. My
brain, hitherto calm and collected, struggled in vain against a whole
torrent of thoughts without coherence or relation, and at length my
faculties began to wander. I forgot where I was, and the fate
that impended over me. I spoke of all that had happened to me long
before,--of my infancy, my boyhood, my adventures as a man, and those
with whom I lived in intimacy. The turnkey, an invalided sergeant of
artillery and a kind-hearted fellow, tried to recall me to myself, by
soothing and affectionate words. He even affected an interest in what I
said, to try and gain some clew to my wanderings, and caught eagerly
at anything that promised a hope of obtaining an influence over me. He
fetched the surgeon of the jail to my cell at last, and he pronounced
my case the incipient stage of a brain fever. I heard the opinion as he
whispered it, and understood its import thoroughly. I was in that state
where reason flashes at moments across the mind, but all powers of
collected thought are lost. Amongst the names that I uttered in my
ravings one alone attracted their attention: it was that of Ysaffich,
the Pole, of whom I spoke frequently.

“Do you know the Colonel Ysaffich?” said the doctor to me.

“Yes,” said I, slowly; “he is a Russian spy.”

“That answer scarcely denotes madness,” whispered the doctor to the
turnkey, with a smile, as he turned away from the bed.

“Should you like to see him?” said he, in a kind tone.

“Of all things,” replied I, eagerly; “tell him to come to me.”

I conclude that this question was asked simply to amuse my mind, and
turn it from other painful thoughts, for he shortly after retired,
without further allusion to it; but from that hour my mind was riveted
on the one idea; and to everybody that approached my sick bed, my first
demand was, “Where was Count Ysaffich, and when was he coming to see
me?”

I had been again conveyed back to the military hospital, in which I was
lying when the Emperor came to make his customary visit. The prisoners’
ward was, however, one exempted from the honor he bestowed on the rest;
and one could only hear the distant sounds of the procession as it
passed from room to room.

I was lying, with my eyes half closed, lethargic and dull, when I heard
a voice say,--

“Yes, Colonel, he has spoken of you constantly, and asks every day when
you mean to come and see him.”

“He never served in the Legion, notwithstanding,” replied another voice,
“nor do I remember ever to have seen him before.”

The tones of the speaker recalled me suddenly to myself. I looked
up, and beheld Count Ysaffich before me. Though dressed in the lancer
uniform of the Garde, his features were too marked to be forgotten, and
I accosted him at once.

“Have you forgotten your old colleague, Paul Gervois?” said I, trying to
appear calm and at ease.

“What!--is this--can you be my old friend Gervois?” cried be, laying a
hand on my shoulder, and staring hard at my face. But I could not utter
a word; shame and sorrow overcame me, and I covered my face with both my
hands.

Ysaffich was not permitted to speak more with me at the time; but he
returned soon, and passed hours with me every day to the end of my
illness. He was intimate with the officer I had insulted; and, by
immense efforts, and the kind assistance of the medical authorities,
succeeded in establishing a plea of temporary insanity for my offence,
by which I escaped punishment, and was dismissed the service. This was
a period of much suffering to me, mentally as well as bodily. I felt all
the humiliation at which my life had been purchased, and more than once
did the price appear far too great a one.



CHAPTER XLVI. YSAFFICH

I was now domesticated with Ysaffich, who occupied good quarters in
Kehl, where the Polish Legion, as it was called, was garrisoned. He
treated me with every kindness, and presented me to his comrades as an
old and valued friend. I was not sorry to find myself at once amongst
total strangers,--men of a country quite new to me, and who themselves
had seen reverses and misfortunes enough to make them lenient in their
judgments of narrow fortune. They were, besides, a fine, soldier-like
race of fellows,--good horsemen, excellent swordsmen, reckless as all
men who have neither home nor country, and ready for any deed of daring
or danger. There was a jealousy between them and the French officers
which prevented any social intercourse; and duels were by no means a
rare event whenever they had occasion to meet. The Imperial laws were
tremendously severe on this offence; and he who killed his adversary
in a duel was certain of death by the law. To evade the consequences of
such a penalty, the most extravagant devices were practised, and many a
deadly quarrel was decided in a pretended fencing-match. It was in
one of these mock trials of skill that Colonel le Brun was killed, an
officer of great merit, and younger brother of the general of that name.

From that time the attention of the military authorities was more
closely drawn to this practice; and such meetings were for the future
always attended by several gendarmes, who narrowly scrutinized every
detail of the proceeding. With such perfect good faith, however, was the
secret maintained on both sides that discovery was almost impossible.
Not only was every etiquette of familiar intimacy strictly observed on
these occasions, but a most honorable secrecy by all concerned.

I was soon to be a witness of one of these adventures. Ysaffich, whose
duties required him to repair frequently to Strasburg, had been grossly
and, as I heard, wantonly outraged by a young captain of the Imperial
staff who, seeing his name on a slip of paper on a military table
d’hôte, added with his pencil the words _Espion Musse_ after it.
Of course a meeting was at once arranged, and it was planned that
Challendrouze, the captain, and four of his brother officers were to
come over and visit the fortifications at Kehl, breakfasting with us,
and being our guests for the morning. Two only of Ysaffich’s friends
were intrusted with the project, and invited to meet the others.

I cannot say that I ever felt what could be called a sincere friendship
for Ysaffich. He was one of those men who neither inspire such
attachments, nor need them in return. It was not that he was cold and
distant, repelling familiarity and refusing sympathy. It was exactly the
opposite. He revealed everything, even to the minutest particle of his
history, and told you of himself every emotion and every feeling that
moved him. He was frankness and candor itself; but it was a frankness
that spoke of utter indifference,--perfect recklessness as to your
judgment on him, and what opinion you should form of his character.
He told you of actions that reflected on his good faith, and uttered
sentiments that arraigned his sense of honor, not only without
hesitation, but with an air of assumed superiority to all the prejudices
that sway other men in similar cases. Even in the instance of the
approaching duel, he avowed that Challendrouze’s offence was in the
manner, and not the matter, of the insult. His whole theory of life was
that every one was false, not only to others, but to himself; that no
man really felt love, patriotism, or religion in his heart, but that
he assumed one or more of these affections as a cloak to whatever vices
were most easily practised under such a disguise. It was a code to
stifle every generous feeling of the heart, and make a man’s nature
barren as a desert.

He never fully disclosed these sentiments until the evening before the
duel. It was then, in the midst of preparations for the morrow, that he
revealed to me all that he felt and thought. There was, throughout these
confessions, a tone of indifference that shocked me more, perhaps, than
actual levity; and I own I regarded him with a sense of terror, and as
one whose very contact was perilous.

“I have married since I saw you last,” said he to me, after a long
interval of silence. “My wife was a former acquaintance of yours.
You must go and see her, if this event turn out ill, and ‘break
the tidings,’ as they call it,--not that the task will demand any
extraordinary display of skill at your hands,” said he, laughing.
“Madame the Countess will bear her loss with becoming dignity; and as I
have nothing to bequeath, the disposition of my property cannot offend
her. If, however,” added he, with more energy of manner, “if, however,
the Captain should fall, we must take measures to fly. I ‘ll not risk a
_cour militaire_ in such a cause, so that we must escape.”

All his arrangements had been already made for this casualty; and I
found that relays of horses had been provided to within a short distance
of Mannheim, where we were to cross the Rhine, and trust to chances to
guide us through the Luxembourg territory down to Namur, at a little
village in the neighborhood of which town his wife was then living. My
part in the plan was to repair by daybreak to Erlauch, a small village
on the Rhine, three leagues from Kehl, and await his arrival, or such
tidings as might recall me to Kehl.

“If I be not with you by seven o’clock at the latest,” said he, “it is
because Challendrouze has _viséd_ my passports for another route.”

These were his last words to me ere I started, with, it is not too much
to say, a far heavier heart than he had who uttered them.

It was drawing towards evening, and I was standing watching the lazy
drift of a timber-raft as it floated down the river, when I heard the
clattering of a horse’s hoofs approaching at a full gallop. I turned,
and saw Ysaffich, who was coming at full speed, waving his handkerchief
by way of signal.

I hurried back to the inn to order out the horses at once, and ere many
minutes we were in the saddle, side by side, not a word having passed
between us till, as we passed out into the open country, Ysaffich
said,--

“We must ride for it, Gervois.”

“It’s all over, then?” said I.

“Yes, all over,” said he while, pressing his horse to speed, he dashed
on in front of me; nor was I sorry that even so much of space separated
us at that moment.

Through that long, bright, starry night we rode at the top speed of our
horses, and, as day was breaking, entered Rostadt, where we ate a hasty
breakfast, and again set out. Ysaffich reported himself at each military
station as the bearer of despatches, till, on the second morning, we
arrived at Hellsheim, on the Bergstrasse, where we left our horses, and
proceeded on foot to the Rhine by a little pathway across the fields. We
crossed the river, and, hiring a wagon, drove on to Erz, a hamlet on the
Moselle, at which place we found horses again ready for us. I was
terribly fatigued by this time, but Ysaffich seemed fresh as when we
started. Seeing, however, my exhaustion, he proposed to halt for a
couple of hours,--a favor I gladly accepted. The interval over, we
remounted, and so on to Namur, where we arrived on the sixth day, having
scarcely interchanged as many words with each other from the moment of
our setting out.



CHAPTER XLVII. TOWARDS HOME

Ysaffich’s retreat was a small cottage about two miles from Dinant, and
on the verge of the Ardennes forest. He had purchased it from a retired
“Garde Chasse” some years before, “seeing,” as he said, “it was exactly
the kind of place a man may lie concealed in, whenever the time comes,
as it invariably does come, that one wants to escape from recognition.”

I have already said that he was not very communicative as we went along;
but as we drew nigh to Dinant he told me in a few words the chief events
of his career since we had parted.

“I have made innumerable mistakes in life, Gervois, but my last was the
worst of all. I married! Yes, I persuaded your old acquaintance Madame
von Geysiger to accept me at last. She yielded, placed her millions
and tens of millions at my disposal, and three months after we were
beggared. Davoust found, or said he found, that I was a Russian spy;
swore that I was carrying on a secret correspondence with Sweden;
confiscated every sou we had in the world, and threw me into jail at
Lubeck, from which I managed to escape, and made my way to Paris. There
I preferred my claim against the marshal: at first before the _cour
militaire_, then to the minister, then to the Emperor. They all agreed
that Davoust was grossly unjust; that my case was one of the greatest
hardship, and so on; that the money was gone, and there was no help for
it. In fact, I was pitied by some, and laughed at by others; and out
of sheer disgust at the deplorable spectacle I presented, a daily
supplicant at some official antechamber, I agreed to take my indemnity
in the only way that offered,--a commission in the newly raised Polish
Legion, where I served for two years, and quitted three days ago in the
manner you witnessed.”

His narrative scarcely occupied more words than I have given it. He told
me the story as we led our horses up a narrow bridle-path that ascended
from the river’s side to a little elevated terrace where a cottage
stood.

“There,” said he, pointing with his whip, “there is my _pied à terre_,
all that I possess in the world, after twenty years of more persevering
pursuit of wealth than any man in Europe. Ay, Gervois, for us who are
not born to the high places in this world, there is but one road open
to power, and that is money! It matters not whether the influence
be exerted by a life of splendor or an existence of miserable
privation,--money is power, and the only power that every faction
acknowledges and bows down to. He who lends is the master, and he who
borrows is the slave. That is a doctrine that monarchs and democrats
all agree in. The best proof I can afford you that my opinion is sincere
lies in the simple fact that he who utters the sentiment lives here;”
 and with these words he tapped with the head of his riding-whip at the
door of the cottage.

Although only an hour after the sun set, the windows were barred and
shuttered for the night, and all within seemingly had retired to rest.
The Count repeated his summons louder; and at last the sounds of heavy
_sabots_ were heard approaching the door. It was opened at length, and
a sturdy-looking peasant woman, in the long-eared cap and woollen jacket
of the country, asked what we wanted.

“Don’t you know me, Lisette?” said the Count. “How is madame?”

The brown cheeks of the woman became suddenly pale, and she had to grasp
the door for support before she could speak.

“Eh heu!” said he, accosting her familiarly in the patois of the land,
“what is it? what has happened here?”

The woman looked at me and then at him, as though to say that she
desired to speak to him apart. I understood the glance, and fell back
to a little distance, occupying myself with my horse, ungirthing the
saddle, and so on. The few minutes thus employed were passed in close
whispering by the others, at the end of which the Count said aloud,--

“Well, who is to look after the beasts? Is Louis not here?”

“He was at Dinant, but would return presently.”

“Be it so,” said the Count; “we ‘ll stable them ourselves. Meanwhile,
Lisette, prepare something for our supper.--Lisette has not her equal
for an omelet,” said he to me, “and when the Meuse yields us fresh
trout, you ‘ll acknowledge that her skill will not discredit them.”

The woman’s face, as he spoke these words in an easy, jocular tone,
was actually ghastly. It seemed as if she were contending against some
sickening sensation that was over-powering her, for her eyes lost all
expression, and her ruddy lips grew livid. The only answer was a brief
nod of her head as she turned away and re-entered the house. I watched
the Count narrowly as we busied ourselves about our horses, but nothing
could be possibly more calm, and to all seeming unconcerned, than his
bearing and manner. The few words he spoke were in reference to objects
around us, and uttered with careless ease.

When we entered the cottage we found Lisette had already spread a cloth,
and was making preparations for our supper; and Ysaffich, with the
readiness of an old campaigner, proceeded to aid her in these details.
At last she left the room, and, looking after her for a second or two in
silence, he said compassionately,--

“Poor creature! she takes this to heart far more heavily than I
could have thought;” and then, seeing that the words were not quite
intelligible to me, he added, “Yes, mon cher Grégoire, I am a bachelor
once more; Madame the Countess has left me! Weary of a life of poverty
to which she had been so long unaccustomed, she has returned to the
world again--to the stage, perhaps--who knows?” added he, with a
careless indifference, and as though dismissing the theme from his
thoughts forever.

I had never liked him, but at no time of our intercourse did he appear
so thoroughly odious to me as when he uttered these words.

There is some strange fatality in the way our characters are frequently
impressed by circumstances and intimacies which seem the veriest
accidents. We linger in some baneful climate till it has made its fatal
inroad on our health; and so we as often dally amidst associations fully
as dangerous and deadly. In this way did I continue to live on with
Ysaffich, daily resolving to leave him, and yet, by some curious chain
of events, bound up inseparably with his fortunes. At one moment his
poverty was the tie between us We supported ourselves by the _chasse_,
a poor and most precarious livelihood, and one which we well knew
would fail us when the spring came. At other moments he would gain an
influence over me by the exercise of that sanguine, hopeful spirit which
seemed never to desert him. He saw, or affected to see, that the great
drama of revolution which closed the century in France must yet be
played out over the length and breadth of Europe, and that in this great
piece the chief actors would be those who had all to gain and nothing
to lose by the convulsion. “We shall have good parts in the play,
Grégoire,” would he repeat to me, time after time, till he thoroughly
filled my mind with ambitions that rose far above the region of all
probability, and, worse still, that utterly silenced every whisper of
conscience within me.

Had he attempted to corrupt me by the vulgar ideas of wealth,--by
the splendor of a life of luxurious ease and enjoyment, with all the
appliances of riches,--it is more than likely he would have failed. He
however assailed me by my weak side: the delight I always experienced
in acts of protection and benevolence--the pleasure I felt in being
regarded by others as their good genius--this was a flattery that never
ceased to sway me! The selfishness of such a part lay so hidden from
view; there was a plausibility in one’s conviction of being good and
amiable,--that the enjoyment became really of a higher order than
usually waits on mere egotism. I had been long estranged from the world,
so far as the ties of affection and friendship existed. For me there was
neither home nor family, and yet I yearned for what would bind me to the
cause of my fellow-men. All my thoughts were now centred on this object,
and innumerable were the projects by which I amused my imagination about
it. Ysaffich perhaps detected this clew to my confidence. At all events,
he made it the pivot of all reasonings with me. To be powerless with
good intentions--to have the “will” to work for good, and yet want the
“way”--was, he would say, about the severest torture poor humanity could
be called on to endure. When he had so far imbued my mind with these
notions that he found me not only penetrated with his own views, but
actually employing his own reasonings, his very expressions, to maintain
them, he then advanced a step further; and this was to demonstrate that
to every success in life there was a compromise attached, as inseparable
as were shadow and substance.

“Was there not,” he would say, “a compensation attached to every great
act of statesmanship, to every brilliant success in war,--in fact, to
every grand achievement, wherever and however accomplished? It is simply
a question of weighing the evil against the good, whatever we do in
life; and he is the best of us who has the largest balance in the scales
of virtue.”

When a subtle theory takes possession of the mind, it is curious to
mark with what ingenuity examples will suggest themselves to sustain
and support it. Ysaffich possessed a ready memory, and never failed to
supply me with illustrations of his system. There was scarcely a good
or great name of ancient or modern times that he could not bring within
this category; and many an hour have we passed in disputing the claims
of this one or that to be accounted as the benefactor or the enemy of
mankind. If I recall these memories now, it is simply to show the steps
by which a mind far more subtle and acute than my own succeeded in
establishing its influence over me.

I have said that we were very poor; our resources were derived from
the scantiest of all supplies; and even these, as the spring drew nigh,
showed signs of failure. If I at times regarded our future with gloomy
anticipations, my companion never did so. On the contrary, his hopeful
spirit seemed to rise under the pressure of each new sufferance, and he
constantly cheered me by saying, “The tide must ebb soon.” It is true,
this confidence did not prevent him suggesting various means by which we
might eke out a livelihood.

“It is the same old story over again,” said he to me one day, as we sat
at our meal of dry bread and water. “Archimedes could have moved the
world had he had a support whereon to station his lever, and so with me;
I could at» this very moment rise to wealth and power, could I but find
a similar appliance. There is a million to be made on the Bourse of
Amsterdam any morning, if one only could pay for a courier who should
arrive at speed from the Danube with the news of a defeat of the French
army. A lighted tar-barrel in the midst of the English fleet at Spithead
would n’t cost a deal of money, and yet might do great things towards
changing the fortunes of mankind. And even here,” added he, taking a
letter from his pocket, “even here are the means of wealth and fortune
to both of us, if I could rely on you for the requisite energy and
courage to play your part.”

“I have at least had courage to share your fortunes,” said I, half
angrily; “and even that much might exempt me from the reproach of
cowardice.”

Not heeding my taunt in the slightest, he resumed his speech with slow
and deliberate words:--

“I found this paper last night by a mere accident, when looking over
some old letters; but, unfortunately, it is not accompanied by any other
document which could aid us, though I have searched closely to discover
such.”

So often had it been my fate to hear him hold forth on similar
themes--on incidents which lacked but little, the veriest trifle, to
lead to fortune--that I confess I paid slight attention to his words,
and scarcely heard him as he went on describing how he had chanced upon
his present discovery, when he suddenly startled me by saying,--

“And yet, even now, if you were of the stuff to dare it, there is
wherewithal in that letter to make you a great man, and both of us rich
ones.”

Seeing that he had at least secured my attention, he went on:--

“You remember the first time we ever met, Gervois, and the evening of
our arrival at Hamburg. Well, on that same night there occurred to me
the thought of making your fortune and my own; and when I shall have
explained to you how, you will probably look less incredulous than you
now do. You may remember that the first husband of Madame von Geysiger
was a rich merchant of Hamburg. Well, there chanced to be in his
employment a certain English clerk who conducted all his correspondence
with foreign countries,--a man of great business knowledge and strict
probity, and by whose means Von Geysiger once escaped the risk of total
bankruptcy. Full of gratitude for his services, Von Geysiger wished to
give him a partnership in the house; but however flattering the prospect
for one of humble means, he positively rejected the offer; and when
pressed for his reasons for so doing, at last owned that he could not
consistently pledge himself to adhere to the fortunes of his benefactor,
since he had in heart devoted his life to another object,--one for which
he then only labored to obtain means to prosecute. I do not believe that
the secret to which he alluded was divulged at the time, nor even for a
long while after, but at length it came out that this poor fellow had no
other aim in life than to find out the heir to a certain great estate
in England which had lapsed from its rightful owner, and to obtain the
document which should establish his claim. To this end he had associated
himself with some relative of the missing youth,--a lady of rank, I have
heard tell, and of considerable personal attractions, who had braved
poverty and hardship of the severest kind in the pursuit of this one
object. I do not know where they had not travelled, nor what amount of
toil they had not bestowed on this search. Occasionally, allured by some
apparent clew, they had visited the most remote parts of the Continent;
and at last, acting on some information derived from one of their
many agents, they left Europe for America. That the pursuit is still
unsuccessful, an advertisement that I saw, a few days back, in a Dutch
newspaper, assures me. A large reward is there offered for any one who
can give certain information as to the surviving relatives of a French
lady,--the name I forget, but which at the time I remembered as one of
those connected with this story. And now, to apply the case to yourself,
there were so many circumstances of similitude in the fortunes of this
youth and your own life that it occurred to me, and not alone to me, but
to another, to make you his representative.”

For a moment I scarcely knew whether to be indignant or amused at this
shameless avowal; but the absurdity overcame my anger, and I laughed
long and heartily at it.

“Laugh if you will, my dear Gervois,” said he; “but you are not the
first, nor will you be the last, kite who has roosted in the eagle’s
nest. Take my word for it, with all the cares and provisions of law, it
is seldom enough that the rightful heir sits in the hall of his fathers;
and, in the present case, we know that the occupant is a mere pretender;
so that your claim, or mine, if you like it, is fully as good as his to
be there.”

“You have certainly excited my curiosity on one point,” said I, “and it
is to know where the resemblance lies between this gentleman’s case and
my own; pray tell me that!”

“Easily enough,” said he, “and from the very papers in my hand: a mixed
parentage, French and English--a father of one country, a mother of
another--a life of scrapes and vicissitudes; but, better than all, a
position so isolated that none can claim you. There, my dear Gervois,
there is the best feature in the whole case; and if I could only inspire
your heart with a dash of the ambitious daring that fills my own, it is
not on a straw bed nor a starvation diet we should speculate over the
future before us. Just fancy, if you can, the glorious life of ease and
enjoyment that would reward us if we succeed; and as to failure, conjure
up, if you are able, anything worse than this;” and as he spoke he made
a gesture with his hand towards the wretched furniture of our humble
chamber.

“You seem to exclude from your calculation all question of right and
wrong,” said I, “of justice or injustice.”

“I have already told you that he who now enjoys this estate is not its
real owner. It is, to all purposes, a disputed territory, where the
strongest may plant his flag,--yours to-day; another may advance to the
conquest to-morrow. I only say that to fellows like us, who, for aught I
see, may have to take the high-road for a livelihood, this chance is not
to be despised.”

“Then why not yourself attempt it?”

“For two sufficient reasons. I am a Pole, and my nationality can be
proved; and, secondly, I am full ten years too old: this youth was born
about the year 1782.”

“The very year of my own birth!” said I.

“By Jove, Gervois! everything would seem to aid us. There is but one
deficiency,” added he, after a pause, and a look towards me of such
significance that I could not misunderstand it.

“I know what you mean,” said I; “the want lies in me,--in my lack of
energy and courage. I might, perhaps, give another name to it,” added
I, after waiting in vain for some reply on his part, “and speak of
reluctance to become a swindler.”

A long silence now ensued between us. Each seemed to feel that another
word might act like a spark in a magazine, and produce a fearful
explosion; and so we sat, scarcely daring to look each other in the
face. As we remained thus, my eyes fell upon the paper in his hand, and
read the following words: “Son of Walter Carew, of Castle Carew, and
Josephine de Courtois, his wife,” I snatched the document from his
fingers, and read on. “The proof of this marriage wanting, but supposed
to have been solemnized at or about the year 1780 or ‘81. No trace of
Mademoiselle de Courtois’ family obtainable, save her relationship to
Count de Gabriac, who died in England three years ago. The youth Jasper
Carew served in the Bureau of the Minister of War at Paris in ‘95, and
was afterwards seen in the provinces, supposed to be employed by the
Legitimist party as an agent; traced thence to England, and believed
to have gone to America, or the West Indies.” Then followed some vague
speculations as to where and how this youth was possibly employed,
and some equally delusive guesses as to the signs by which he might be
recognized.

“Does that interest you, Gervois?” said Ysaffich. “This is the best part
of the narrative, to my thinking; read that, and say if your heart does
not bound at the very notion of such a prize.”

The paper which he now handed to me was closely and carefully written,
and headed, “Descriptive sketch of the lands and estate of the late
Walter Carew, Esq., known as the demesne of Castle Carew, in the county
of Wicklow, in Ireland.”

“Two thousand seven hundred acres of a park, and a princely mansion!”
 exclaimed the Count. “An estate of at least twelve thousand pounds a
year! Gervois, my boy, why not attempt it?”

“You talk wildly, Ysaffich,” said I, restraining by a great effort the
emotions that were almost suffocating me. “Bethink you who I am,--poor,
friendless, and unprotected. Take it, even, that I had the most
indisputable right to this fortune; assume, if you will, that I am the
very person here alluded to,--where is there a single document to
prove my claim? Should I not be scouted at the bare mention of such
pretensions?”

“That would all depend on the way the affair was managed,” said he. “If
these solicitors whose names and addresses I have here, were themselves
convinced or even disposed to credit the truth of the tale we should
tell them, they would embark in the suit with all their influence and
all their wealth. Once engaged in it, self-interest would secure their
zealous co-operation. As to documents, proofs, and all that, these
things are a material that lawyers know how to supply, or, if need be,
explain the absence of. Of this missing youth’s story I already know
enough for our purpose; and when you have narrated for me your own life,
we will arrange the circumstances together, and weave of the two one
consistent and plausible tale. Take my word for it, that if we can once
succeed in interesting counsel in your behalf, the very novelty of
the incident will enlist public sympathy. Jurors are, after all, but
representatives of that same passing opinion, and will be well disposed
to befriend our cause. I speak as if the matter must come to a head; but
it need not go so far. When our plans are laid and all our advances duly
prepared, we may condescend to treat with the enemy. Ay, Gervois, we may
be inclined to accept a compromise of our claim. These things are done
every day. The men who seem to sit in all the security of undisturbed
possession are buying off demands here, paying hush-money to this man,
and bribery to that.”

“But if the real claimant should appear on the stage--”

“I have reason to believe he is dead these many years,” said he,
interrupting; “but were it otherwise, these friends of his are of such
a scrupulous temperament, they would not adventure on the suit without
such a mass of proof as no concurrence of accidents could possibly
accumulate. They have not the nerve to accomplish an undertaking of this
kind, where much must be hazarded, and many things done at risk.”

“Which means, in plain words, done fraudulently,” said I, solemnly.

“Let us not fall out about words,” said he, smiling. “When a state
issues a paper currency, it waits for the day of prosperity to recall
the issue and redeem the debt; and if we live and do well, what shall
prevent us making an equally good use of our fortune? But you may leave
all this to me; I will undertake every document, from the certificate
of your father’s marriage to your own baptism; I will legalize you and
legitimatize you; you have only to be passive.”

“I half suspect, Count,” said I, laughing, “that if my claim to
this estate were a real one, I should not be so sure of your aid and
assistance.”

“And you are right there, Gervois. It is in the very daring and danger
of this pursuit I feel the pleasure. The game on which I risk nothing
has no excitement for me; but here the stake is a heavy one.”

“And how would you proceed?” asked I, not heeding this remark.

“By opening a correspondence with Bickering and Ragge, the lawyers. They
have long been in search of the heir, and would be delighted to hear
there were any tidings of his existence. My name is already known to
them, and I could address them with confidence. They would, of course,
require to see you, and either come over here or send for you. In either
case you would be preceded by your story; the family parts should be
supplied by me; the other details you should fill in at will. All
this, however, should be concerted together. The first point is your
consent,--your hearty consent; and even that I would not accept, unless
ratified by a solemn oath, to persist to the last, and never falter nor
give in to the end, whatever it be!”

I at first hesitated, but at last consented to give the required pledge;
and though for a while it occurred to me that a frank avowal of my real
claim to be the person designated might best suit the object I had in
view, I suddenly bethought me that if Ysaffich once believed that he
himself was not the prime mover in the scheme, and that I was other than
a mere puppet in his hand, he was far more likely to mar than to make
our fortune. Intrigue and trick were the very essence of the man’s
nature; and it was enough that the truthful entered into anything to
destroy its whole value or interest in his eyes. That this plot had long
been lying in his mind, I had but to remember the night in the garden at
Hamburg to be convinced of, and since that time he had never ceased to
ruminate upon it. Indeed, he now told me that it constantly occurred to
him to fancy that this piece of success was to be a crowning recompense
for a long life of reverses and failures.

How gladly did my thoughts turn from him and all his crafty counsels to
think of that true friend, poor Raper, and my dear, dear mother, as
I used to call her, who had, in the midst of their own hard trials,
devoted their best energies to my cause. It is not necessary to say that
Raper was the faithful clerk, and Polly the unknown lady who had given
the impulse to this search. The papers, of which Ysaffich showed me
several, were all in the handwriting of one or other of them; a few of
my father’s own letters were also in one packet, and though referring to
matters far remote from this object, had an indescribable interest for
me.

“Seven years ago,” said the Count, “this estate was in the possession
of a certain Mr. Curtis, who claimed to be the next of kin of the
late owner, and who, I believe, was so, in the failure of this youth’s
legitimacy. This is now our great fact, since we have already found the
individual. Eh, Gervois?” said he, laughing. “Our man is here, and from
this hour forth your name is--let me see what it is--ay, here we have
it: Jasper Carew, son of Walter Carew and Josephine de Courtois, his
wife.”

“Jasper Carew am I from this day, then, and never to be called by any
other name,” said I.

“Ay, but you must have your lesson perfect,” said he; “you must not
forget the name of your parents.”

“Never fear,” said I; “Walter Carew and Josephine de Courtois are easily
remembered.”

“All correct,” said he, well pleased at my accuracy. “Now, as to family
history, this paper will tell you enough. It is drawn out by Mr. Raper,
and is minutely exact. There is not a strong point of the case omitted,
nor a weak one forgotten. Read it over carefully; mark the points in
which you trace resemblance to your own life; study well where any
divergence or difficulty may occur; and, lastly, draw up a brief
memoir in the character of Jasper Carew, with all your recollections of
childhood: for remember that up to the age of twelve or thirteen, if not
later, you were domesticated with this Countess de Gabriac, and educated
by Raper. After that you are free to follow out what fancy, or reality,
if you like it better, may suggest. When you have drawn up everything,
with all the consistency and plausibility you can, avoid none of the
real difficulties, but rather show yourself fully aware of them, and
also of all their importance. Let the task of having persuaded you to
address Messrs. Bickering and Ragge be left to me; I have already held
correspondence with them, and on this very subject. I give you three
days to do this; meanwhile I start at once for Brussels, where I can
consult a lawyer, an old friend of mine, as to our first steps in the
campaign.”

The man who stoops once to a minute dissection of his life must perforce
steel his heart against many a sense of shame, since even in the story
of the good and the upright are passages of dark omen, moments when the
bad has triumphed, and seasons when the true has been postponed by the
false. It is not now that, having revealed so much as I have done of
my secret history, I dare make any pretensions to superior honesty,
or affect to be one of the “unblemished few.” Still, I have a craving
desire not to be judged over harshly,--a painful feeling of anxiety that
no evil construction should be put upon those actions of my life
other than what they absolutely merit. My “over-reachings” have been
many,--my “shortcomings” still more; but, with all their weight and
gravity before me, I still entreat a merciful judgment, and hope that
if the sentence be “guilty,” there will be at least the alleviation of
“attenuating circumstances.”

I am now an old man; the world has no more any bribe to my ambition than
have I within me the energy to attempt it. The friendships that warmed
up the late autumn of my life are departed; they lie in the churchyard,
and none have ever replaced them. In these confessions, therefore,
humiliating as they often would seem, there are none to suffer pain. I
make them at the cost of my own feelings alone, and in some sense I do
so as an act of atonement and reparation to a world that, with some
hard lessons, has still treated me with kindness, and to whom, with the
tremulous fingers of old age, I write myself most grateful.

If they who read this story suppose that I should not have hesitated to
propose myself a claimant for an estate to which I had no right, I have
no better answer to give them than a mere denial, and even that uttered
in all humility, since it comes from one whose good name has been
impeached, and whose good faith may be questioned. Still do I repeat
it, this was an act I could not have done. There is a kind of half-way
rectitude in the world which never scruples at the means of any success
so long as it injures no other, but which recoils from the thought of
any advantage obtained at another’s cost and detriment. Such I suspect
to have been mine. At least, I can declare with truth that I am not
conscious of an incident in my life which will bear the opposite
construction.

But to what end should I endeavor to defend my motives, since my actions
are already before the world, and each will read them by the light his
own conscience lends? Let me rather hasten to complete a task which,
since it has involved an apology, has become almost painful to pursue.

So successfully had Ysaffich employed his time at Brussels that a
well-known notary there had already consented to aid our plans and
furnish means for our journey to England. I cannot go over with
minuteness details in which the deceptions I had to concur in still
revive my shame. I could, it is true, recite the story of my birth and
parentage, my early years abroad, and so on, with the conscious force of
truth; but there were supplementary evidences required of me with which
I could not bring myself to comply. Ysaffich, naturally enough, could
not understand the delicacy of scruples which only took alarm by mere
caprice, nor could he comprehend why he who was willing to feign a name
and falsify a position should hesitate about assuming any circumstances
that might be useful to sustain it.

Of course I could not explain this mystery, and was obliged to endure
all the sarcastic allusions he vented on the acuteness of my sense of
honor and the extreme susceptibility of my notions of right. It
chanced, however, that this very repugnance on my part should prove more
favorable for us than all his most artful devices, and indeed it shows
with clearness how often the superadded efforts fraud contributes to
insure success are as frequently the very sources of its failure,--just
as we see in darker crimes how the over care and caution of the murderer
have been the clew that has elicited the murder.

Ysaffich wished me to detail, amongst the memories of my childhood, the
having heard often of the great estate and vast fortune to which I was
entitled. He wanted me to supply, as it were from memory, many links
of the chain of evidence that seemed deficient,--vague recollections of
having heard this, that, and the other; but, with an obstinacy that
to him appeared incomprehensible, I held to my own unadorned tale, and
would not add a word beyond my own conviction.

Mr. Ragge, the solicitor by whom the case was undertaken, seemed most
favorably impressed by this reserve on my part; and, far from being
discouraged by my ignorance of certain points, appeared, on the
contrary, only the more satisfied as to the genuineness of my story.
Over and over have I felt in my conversations with him how impossible it
would have been for me to practise any deception successfully with him.
Without any semblance of cross-examination, he still contrived to bring
me again and again over the same ground, viewing the same statement from
different sides, and trying to discover a discrepancy in my narrative.
When at length assured, to all appearance, at least, of my being the
person I claimed to be, he drew up a statement of my case for
counsel, and a day was named when I should be personally examined by a
distinguished member of the bar. I cannot even now recall that interview
without a thrill of emotion. My sense of hope, dashed as it was by a
conscious feeling that I was, in some sort, practising a deception,--for
in all my compact with Ysaffich our attempt was purely a fraud,--I
entered the chamber with a faltering step and a failing heart Far,
however, from questioning and cross-questioning, like the solicitor, the
lawyer suffered me to tell my story without even so much as a word of
interruption. I had, I ought to remark, divested my tale of many of
the incidents which really befell me. I made my life one of commonplace
events and unexciting adventures, in which poverty occupied the
prominent place. I as cautiously abstained from all mention of the
distinguished persons with whom accident had brought me into contact,
since any allusion to them would have compromised the part I Was obliged
to play with Ysaffich. When asked what documents or written evidence
I had to adduce in support of my pretensions, and I had confessed to
possessing none, the old lawyer leaned back in his chair, and, closing
his eyes, seemed lost in thought.

“At the best,” said he, at length, “it is a case for a compromise. There
is really so little to go upon, I can advise nothing better.”

I need not go into the discussion that ensued further than to say
the weight of argument was on the side of those who counselled the
compromise, and, however little disposed to yield, I felt myself
overborne by numbers, and compelled to give in.

Weeks, even months, were now passed without any apparent progress in our
suit. The party in possession of the estate treated our first advances
with the most undisguised contempt, and even met our proposals with
menaces of legal vengeance. Undeterred by these signs of strength, Mr.
Ragge persevered in his search for evidence, sent his emissaries hither
and thither, and entered upon the case with all the warm zeal of a
devoted friend. It was at length thought that a visit to Ireland might
possibly elicit some information on certain points, and thither we went
together.

It was little more than a quarter of a century since the date of my
father’s death, and yet such had been the changes in the condition of
Ireland, and so great the social revolution accomplished there, that men
talked of the bygone period like some long-past history. The days of the
parliaments, and the men who figured in them, were alike for* gotten;
and although there were many who had known my father well, all memory,
not to speak of affection for him, had lapsed from their natures.

Crowther and Fagan were dead, but Joe Curtis was alive, and continued to
live in Castle Carew in a style of riotous debauchery that scandalized
the whole country. In fact, the mere mention of his name was sufficient
to elicit the most disgraceful anecdotes of his habits. Unknown to
and unrecognized by his equals, this old man had condescended to form
intimacy with all that Dublin contained of the profligate and abandoned;
and, surrounded by men and women of this class, his days and nights were
one continued orgie. Although the estate was a large one, it was rumored
that he was deeply in debt, and only obtained means for this wasteful
existence by loans on ruinous conditions. In vain Mr. Ragge made
inquiries for some one who might possess his confidence and have the
legal direction of his affairs. He had changed from this man to that
so often that it was scarcely possible to discover in what quarter the
property was managed. Without any settled plan of procedure, but half
to watch the eventualities that might arise, it was determined that I
should proceed to Castle Carew and present myself as the son and the
heir of the last owner.

If there were circumstances attendant on this step which I by no means
fancied, there was one gratification that more than atoned for them
all: I should see the ancient home of my family; the halls wherein my
father’s noble hospitalities had been practised; the chamber which had
been my dear mother’s! I own that the sight of the princely domain and
all its attendant wealth, contrasting with my own poverty, served to
extinguish within me the last spark of hope. How could I possibly dream
of success against the power of such adjuncts as these? Were my cause
fortified by every document and evidence, how little would it avail
against the might of vast wealth and resources! Curtis would laugh my
pretensions to scorn, if not treat them with greater violence; and
with such thoughts I found myself one bright morning of June slowly
traversing the approach to the Castle. The sight of the dense dark
woods, the swelling lawns dotted over with grazing cattle, the distant
corn-fields waving beneath a summer wind, and the tall towers of the
Castle itself far off above the trees, all filled my heart with a
strange chaos, in which hope, and fear, and proud ambition, and the very
humblest terrors were all commingled. Although my plan of procedure had
been carefully sketched out for me by Ragge, so confused were all my
thoughts that I forgot everything. I could not even bethink me in what
character and with what pretension I was to present myself, and I was
actually at the very entrance of the Castle, still trying to remember
the part I was to play.

There before me rose the grand and massive edifice, to erect which had
been one of the chief elements of my poor father’s ruin. Though far
from architecturally correct in its details, the effect of the whole was
singularly fine. Between two square towers of great size extended a long
facade, in which, from the ornamented style of architraves and brackets,
it was easy to see the chief suite of apartments lay; and in front of
this the ground had been artificially terraced, and gardens formed in
the Italian taste, the entire being defended by a deep fosse in front,
and crossed by a drawbridge. Neglect and dilapidation had, however,
disfigured all these; the terraces were broken down by the cattle,
the cordage of the bridge hung in fragments in the wind, and even the
stained-glass windows were smashed, and their places filled by paper
or wooden substitutes. As I came nearer, these signs of ruin and
devastation were still more apparent. The marble statues were fractured,
and fissured by bullet-marks; the pastures were cut up by horses’ feet;
and even fragments of furniture were strewn about, as though thrown from
the windows in some paroxysm of passionate debauchery. The door of
the mansion was open, and evidences of even greater decay presented
themselves within. Massive cornices of carved oak hung broken and
shattered from the walls; richly cut wainscotings were split and
fissured; a huge marble table of immense thickness was smashed through
the centre, and the fragments still lay scattered on the floor
where they had fallen. As I stood, in mournful mood, gazing on this
desecration of what once had been a noble and costly estate, an
ill-dressed, slatternly woman-servant chanced to cross the hall, and
stopped with some astonishment to stare at me. To my inquiry if I could
see Mr. Curtis, she replied by a burst of laughter too natural to be
deemed offensive.

“By coorse you couldn’t,” said she, at length; “sure there’s nobody
stirrin’, nor won’t be these two hours.”

“At what time, then, might I hope to be more fortunate?”

If I came about three or four in the afternoon, when the gentlemen were
at breakfast, I might see Mr. Archy,--Archy M’Clean.

This gentleman was, as she told me, the nephew of Mr. Curtis, and his
reputed heir.

Having informed her that I was a stranger in Ireland, and come from a
long distance off to pay this visit, she good-naturedly suffered me to
enter the house and rest myself in a small and meanly furnished chamber
adjoining the hall. If I could but recall the sensations which passed
through my mind as I sat in that solitary room, I could give a more
correct picture of my nature than by all I have narrated of my actual
life. Hour after hour glided by at first, in all the stillness of
midnight; but gradually a faint noise would be heard afar off, and
now and again a voice would echo through the long corridors, the very
accents of which seemed to bring up thoughts of savage revelry and
debauch. It had been decided by my lawyers that I should present myself
to Curtis, without any previous notification of my identity or my claim;
that, in fact, not to prejudice my chances of success by any written
application for an audience, I should contrive to see him without his
having expected me; and thus derive whatever advantage might accrue from
any admissions his surprise should betray him into. I had been drilled
into my part by repeated lessons. I was instructed as to every word I
was to utter, and every phrase I was to use; but now that the moment to
employ these arts drew nigh, I had utterly forgotten them all. The one
absorbing thought: that beneath the very roof under which I now stood,
my father and mother had lived; that these walls were their own
home; that within them had been passed the short life they had shared
together,--overcame me so completely that I lost all consciousness about
myself and my object there.

At length the loud tones of many voices aroused me from my half
stupor, and on drawing nigh the door I perceived a number of servants,
ill-dressed and disorderly looking, carrying hurriedly across the hall
the materials for a breakfast. I addressed myself to one of these, with
a request to know when and how I could see Mr. Curtis. A bold stare
and a rude burst of laughter was, however, the only reply he made me.
I tried another, who did not even vouchsafe to hear more than half my
question, when he passed on.

“Is it possible,” said I, indignantly, “that none of you will take a
message for your master?”

“Begad, we have so many masters,” said one, jocosely, “it’s hard to say
where we ought to deliver it;” and the speech was received with a roar
of approving laughter.

“It is Mr. Curtis I desire to see,” said I.

“It’s four hours too early, then,” said the same speaker. “Old Joe won’t
be stirring till nigh eight o’clock. If Mr. Archy would do, he’s in the
stables, and it’s the best time to talk to him.”

“And if it’s the master you want,” chimed in another, “he ‘s your man.”

“Lead me to him, then,” said I, resolving at least to see the person who
claimed to be supreme in this strange household. Traversing a number of
passages and dirty, ill-kept rooms, we descended by a small stone stair
into an ample courtyard, two sides of which were occupied by ranges of
stables. The spacious character of the building and the costly style
of the arrangements were evident at a glance; and even a glance was all
that I had time for, when my guide, whispering, “There is Mr. Archy,”
 hurriedly withdrew and left me. The person indicated was standing as
if to examine a young horse which had met with some accident, for the
animal could scarcely move, and with the greatest difficulty could bring
up his hind legs.

I had time to observe him; and certainly, though by no means deficient
as regarded good features, I had rarely seen anything so repulsive
as the expression of his face. Coarsely sensual and brutal, they were
rendered worse by habits of dissipation and debauch; and in the
filmy eye and the tremulous lip might be read the signs of habitual
drunkenness. In figure he was large and most powerfully built, and if
not over-fleshy, must have been of great muscular strength.

“Shoot him, Ned,” he cried, after a few minutes of close scrutiny; “he’s
as great a cripple as old Joe himself.”

“I suppose, your honor,” said the groom, “there’s nothing else to be
done, it ‘s in the back it is.”

“I don’t care a curse where it is,” said the other, savagely; “I only
know when a horse can’t go. You can put a bullet in him, and more’s the
pity all other useless animals are not as easily disposed of.--And who
is our friend here?” added he, turning and approaching where I stood.

I briefly said that I was a stranger desirous of seeing and speaking
with Mr. Curtis; that my business was one of importance not less to
myself than to him; and that I would feel obliged if he could procure me
the opportunity I sought for.

“If you talk of business, and important business,” said he, sternly,
“you ought to know, if you haven’t heard it already, that the man you
want to discuss it with is upwards of a hundred years of age; that he is
a doting idiot; and that, for many a day, the only one who has given any
orders here now stands before you.”

“In that case,” said I, courteously, “I am equally prepared to address
myself to him. Will you kindly accord me an interview?”

“Are you a dun?” said he, rudely.

“No,” said I, smiling at the abruptness of the demand.

“Are you a tenant in arrear of his rent? or wanting an abatement?”

“Neither one nor the other.”

“Are you sent by a friend with a hostile message?”

“Not even that,” said I, with impassive gravity.

“Then, what the devil are you?” said he, rudely; “for I don’t recognize
you as one of my friends or acquaintances.”

I hesitated for a moment what reply I should make to this coarsely
uttered speech. Had I reflected a little longer, it is possible that
good sense might have prevailed, and taught me how inopportune was
the time for such reprisals; but I was stung by an insult offered in
presence of many others; and in a tone of angry defiance answered,--

“You may discover to your cost, sir, that my right to be here is
somewhat better than your own, and that the day is not very distant when
your presence in this domain will be more surely questioned than is
mine now. Is that name new to you?” And as I spoke I handed him my
card, whereupon, with my name, the ancient arms of my family were also
engraved. A livid paleness suddenly spread over his features as he read
the words, and then as quickly his face became purple red.

“Do you mean,” said he, in a voice guttural with passion, “do you mean
to impose upon a man of my stamp with such stupid balderdash as that?
And do you fancy that such a paltry attempt at a cheat will avail you
here? Now, I’ll show you how we treat such pretensions without any help
from lawyers. Garvey,” cried he, addressing one of the grooms who stood
by, laughing heartily at his master’s wit, “Garvey, go in and rouse the
gentlemen; tell them to dress quickly and come downstairs; for I ‘ve
got sport for them. And you, Mick, saddle Ranty for me, and get out the
dogs. Now, Mr. Carew, I like fair play, and so I’ll give you fifteen
minutes law. Take the shortest cut you can out of these grounds; for, by
the rock of Cashel, if you ‘re caught, I would n’t be in your skin for a
trifle.”

A regular burst of savage laughter from the bystanders met this brutal
speech, and the men scattered in all directions to obey the orders,
while I, overwhelmed with passion, stood motionless in the now deserted
yard. M’Clean himself had entered the house, and it was only when a
signal from one of the grooms attracted my notice that I remarked his
absence.

“This way--this way, sir, and don’t lose a second,” said the man; “take
that path outside the garden wall, and cross the nursery beyond it. If
you don’t make haste, it’s all over with you.”

“He would n’t dare--”

“Would n’t he?” said he, stopping me. “It’s little you know him. The
dogs themselves has more mercy than himself when his blood is up.”

“Get the cob ready for me, Joe,” cried a half-dressed man from one of
the upper windows of the house, “and a snaffle bridle, remember.”

“Yes, sir,” was the quick reply. “That’s ould Delany of Shanestown, and
a greater devil there isn’t from this to his own place. Blood and ages,”
 cried he, addressing me, “won’t you give yourself a chance? do you want
them to tear you to pieces where you stand?”

The man’s looks impressed me still more than his words; and though I
scarcely believed it possible that my peril could be such as he spoke
of, the terrified faces about me struck fear into my heart.

“Would men stand by,” cried I, “and see such an infamous cruelty?”

“Arrah! how could we help it?” said one, stopping me; “and if you won’t
do anything for yourself, what use can we be?”

“There, be off, you, in the name of Heaven,” said another, pushing me
through a small door that opened into a shrubbery; “down that lane as
fast as you can, and keep to the right after you pass the fish-pond.”

“It wouldn’t be bad to swim to one of the islands!” muttered another;
but the counsel was overruled by the rest.

By this time, the contagion of terror had so completely seized upon
me that I yielded myself to the impulse of the moment, and, taking the
direction they pointed out, I fled along the path beneath the garden
wall at full speed.

In the unbroken stillness I could hear nothing but the tramp of my own
feet, or the rustling of the branches as I tore through them. I gained
at last the open fields, and with one hurried glance behind to see that
I was not pursued, still dashed onwards. The young cattle started off at
full speed as they saw me, and the snorting horses galloped wildly here
and there as I went.

Again, beneath the shade of a wood I would have halted to repose myself,
but suddenly a sound came floating along the air, which swelled louder
and louder, till I could recognize in it the deep, hoarse bay of dogs,
as in wild chorus they yelped together; and high above all could
be heard the more savage notes of men’s voices cheering them on and
encouraging them. With the mad speed of terror, I now fled onward; the
very air around me seeming to resound with the dreadful cries of my
pursuers. Now tumbling headlong over the tangled roots, now dashing
recklessly forward through stony watercourses or fissured crevices of
ground, I ran with mad impulse, heedless of all peril but one. At some
moments the deafening sounds of the wild pack seemed close about me; at
others, all was still as the grave around.

[Illustration: 564]

I had forgotten every direction the men had given me, and only thought
of pressing onward without any thought of whither. At last I came to a
rapid but narrow river, with steep and rugged banks at either side.
To place this between myself and my pursuers seemed the best chance of
escape, and without a second’s hesitation I dashed into the stream. Far
stronger than I had supposed, the current bore me down a considerable
distance, and it was not till after a long and tremendous effort that
I gained the bank. Just as I had reached it, the wild cry of the dogs
again met my ears; and, faint and dripping as I was, once more I took to
speed.

Through dark woods and waving plains of tall grass, over deep
tillage ground and through the yellow corn, I fled like one bereft of
reason,--the terror of a horrible and inglorious death urging me on to
efforts that my strength seemed incapable of making. Cut and bleeding in
many places, my limbs were at last yielding to fatigue, when I saw at
a short distance in front of me a tall but dilapidated stone wall. With
one last effort I reached this, and, climbing by the crevices, gained
the top. But scarcely had I gained it when my head reeled, my senses
left me, and, overcome by sickness and exhaustion, I fell headlong to
the ground beneath.

[Illustration: Fell headlong to the ground]

It was already evening when I came to myself, and
still lay there stunned, but uninjured. A wild plain, studded over with
yellow furze bushes, lay in front, and beyond in the distance I could
see the straggling huts of a small village. It was a wild and dreary
scene; but the soft light of a summer’s evening beamed calmly over
it, and the silence was unbroken around. With an effort, I arose, and,
though weak and sorely bruised, found that I could walk. My faculties
were yet so confused that of the late events I could remember but little
with any distinctness. At times I fancied I had been actually torn and
worried by savage dogs; and then I would believe that the whole was but
a wild and feverish dream, brought on by intense anxiety and care. My
tattered and ragged clothes, clotted over with blood, confused, but did
not aid, my memory; and thus struggling with my thoughts, I wandered
along, and, as night was falling, reached the little village of
Shanestown. Directing my steps towards a cabin where I perceived a
light, I discovered that it was the alehouse of the village. Two or
three country people were sitting smoking on a bench before the door,
who arose as I came forward, half in curiosity, half in respect; and as
I was asking them in what quarter I might find a lodging for the night,
the landlord came out. No sooner did his eyes fall on me than he started
back in seeming terror, and, after a pause of a few seconds, cried
out,--

“Molly! Molly! come here quick! Who’s that standing there?” said he, as
he pointed with his finger towards me.

“The heavens be about us! but it’s Mr. Walter Carew himself,” said the
woman, crossing herself.

This sudden recognition of my resemblance to my father so overcame me
that though I struggled hard for speech, the words would not come; and I
stood pale and gasping before them.

“For Heaven’s sake, speak!” cried the man, in terror.

I heard no more; faint, agitated, and exhausted, I tottered towards the
bank, and swooned away.



CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PERILS OF EVIL

The last few pages I mean to append to these notices of my life might
be, perhaps, equally well derived from the public newspapers of the
time. At a period when great events were occurring; when the conquering
armies of France marched over the length and breadth of Europe,--the
humble historian of these pages was able, for a brief space, to engage
public attention, and become for a short season the notoriety of the
hour. I will not presume so far as to say that the fame to which I
attained was of that kind which flatters most, or that the reputation
attaching to me was above reproach. Still, I had my partisans
and adherents, nay, I believe I might even aver, my friends and
well-wishers. He must, perchance, have had a fortunate existence who can
say more.

Of what followed after the event detailed in my last chapter I can
relate nothing, for I was seized with shivering and other signs of fever
that same night, and for several weeks my life was despaired of. Even
when the dangerous period passed over, my convalescence made but little
progress. For me there were none of those aids which so powerfully
assist the return to health. The sympathy of friends, the affections of
family, the very hope of once more assuming one’s place at hearth and
board,--I had none of these. If the past was filled with trouble and
suffering, the future was a bleak expanse that offered nothing to
speculate on. My thoughts turned to the New World beyond the seas, to a
region wherein nothing should recall a memory of the bygone, and where
even I might at last forget the early years of my own life. There were
not then, as now, the rapid means of intercourse between this country
and America; as little, too, was there of that knowledge of the great
continent of the west which now prevails. Men talked of it as a far-away
land only emerging into civilization, and whose vast regions were still
untrodden and unexplored. Dreamy visions of the existence men might
carve out for themselves in such a scene formed the amusements of the
long hours of my solitary sick bed. I fancied myself at times a lone
settler on the bank of some nameless river, and at other moments as a
member of some Indian tribe, following their fortunes to the chase
and to the battle-field, and dreaming through life in the uneventful
stillness of the forest.

In part from the effect of malady itself, in part from this dreamy
state of mind, I sank into a state of impassive lethargy wherein nothing
pleased or displeased me. Worse than actual despondency, a sense of
indifference had settled down on all my feelings; and if I could have
asked a boon, it would have been to have been left utterly alone.
To reply when spoken to became irksome; even to listen was a painful
exertion to me. Looking back now on this period, it seems to me that
such intervals of apathetic repose are often inserted in the lives of
men of more than ordinary activity, acting as sleep does in our habitual
existence, and serving to rest and recruit faculties overcharged and
overworked.

I was in a very humble lodging in a very humble street, still attended
by doctors, and besieged by lawyers and solicitors, who came and went,
held consultations, questioned and cross-questioned me with a greedy
avidity on themes in which my own interest had long ceased, and which I
was gradually learning to think of with absolute aversion.

Ysaffich, whose confidence in our success rose higher every day,
appeared from time to time to see me; but his visits were generally
hurried ones, as he was constantly on the road, travelling hither
and thither, exploring registries here, and certificates there, and
fortifying our case by every possible means he could think of.
His energy was untiring; and in the shrewd devices of his quick
intelligence, even the long-practised acuteness of the lawyers
discovered great resources.

Paragraphs of a half mysterious kind in the public newspapers announced
to the world that a most remarkable case might ere long transpire, and
a claim be preferred which should threaten the possession of one of
the largest estates in a county adjacent to the metropolis. To these
succeeded others, more openly expressed, in which it was announced that
some of the most distinguished members of the inner bar had received
retainers for a cause that would soon astonish the world, wherein the
plaintiff was represented to be the son and heir of one who once had
figured most conspicuously in the fashionable and political circles of
Dublin.

As the time approached for bringing the case to trial it was judged
expedient that I should be provided with lodgings in a more fashionable
quarter of the town, be seen abroad in places of public resort, and, in
fact, a certain _éclat_ be imparted to my presence, which should enlist,
so far as might be, popular feeling in my favor. The chief adviser and
leader of my case was a lawyer of great repute in the Irish bar of those
days,--a certain Samuel Hanchett,--one of those men who owe their
success in life less to actual learning than to the possession of
immense natural acuteness, great resources in difficulty, and a vast
acquaintance with all the arts of their fellow-men. There had been, I
believe, considerable difficulty in securing his services originally in
our behalf. It was reported that he disliked such cases; that they were
not what “suited him.” He made various objections when first addressed,
and threw every discouragement when the cause was submitted for his
opinion. He asked for evidence that was not to be obtained, and proofs
that were not forthcoming. The merest accident--if I am justified in
calling such what was to be followed by consequences so important to
myself--overruled these objections on his part. It chanced that in one
of my solitary walks on a Sunday afternoon I happened to find myself at
the bank of a little stream near Milltown, with an elderly man who
seemed to have some apprehensions about crossing on the slippery and
uncertain stepping-stones by which the passage was forded. Perceiving
his difficulty, I tendered my assistance to him at once, which he
accepted. On arriving at then opposite bank, and finding that our roads
led in the same direction, we began to converse together, during which
my accidental pronunciation of a word with a slightly foreign accent
attracted his notice. To a question on his part, I mentioned that a
great part of my life had been passed abroad; and amongst the places to
which I alluded was Reichenau. He asked me in what year I had been
there, and inquired if by any chance I had ever heard of a certain
school there in which it was said the son of the late Duke of Orleans
had been a teacher.

“You are speaking of Monsieur Jost, my old master?” said I, warmed up by
even this passing remembrance of happier days.

“Will you pardon the liberty I am about to take,” said he, with some
earnestness, “and allow me to ask, with whom I have the honor to speak?”

“My name is Jasper Carew, sir,” said I, with a degree of stern pride a
man feels in asserting a claim that he knows may be contested.

“Jasper Carew!” repeated he, slowly, while he stood still and stared
steadfastly at me--“Jasper Carew! You are then the claimant to the
estates of Castle Carew and Crone Lofty in Wicklow?”

“The property of my late father,” said I, assentingly.

“What a singular coincidence should have brought us together,” said he,
after a pause. “Do you know, sir, that when you overtook me half an hour
ago, and saw me standing on the side of the stream there, I was less
occupied in thinking how I should cross it than how I could reconcile
certain strange statements which had been made to me respecting your
claim. I am Mr. Hanchett, sir, the counsel to whom your case has been
submitted.”

“It is indeed a curious accident that has brought us thus in contact,”
 exclaimed I, in surprise.

“I should like to give it another name, young gentleman,” said he,
thoughtfully, while he walked along at my side for some moments in
silence. “Has it ever been explained to you, Mr. Carew,” said he,
gravely, “what dangers attend such a course of proceeding as you are
now engaged in? How necessarily you must be prepared to give in your
adhesion to many things your advisers deem essential, and of which you
can have no cognizance personally,--in a word, how frequently you
will be forced into a responsibility which you never contemplated or
anticipated? Have all these circumstances been placed fairly and clearly
before you?”

“Never!” replied I.

“Then suffer me to endeavor, in a very few words, to show you some at
least of the perils I allude to.” In a few short and graphic sentences
he stated my case, with all its favorable points forcibly and well
delineated. He then exhibited its various weaknesses and deficiencies,
the assumptions for which no proofs were forthcoming, the positions
which were taken without power to maintain them. “To give the required
coherence and consistency to these, your advisers will of course take
all due precaution; but they will require aid also from you. You will
be asked for information you have no means of obtaining, for details you
cannot supply. A lawsuit is like a chase: the ardor of pursuit deadens
every sense of peril, and in the desire to win you become reckless for
the cost. I perceive,” said he, “that you demur to some of this; but
remember that as yet you have not entered the field, that you have only
viewed the sport from afar, and its passions of hope and fear are all
untasted by you!”

“It may be as you say,” said I, “and that hereafter I may seem to feel
differently; but for the present I can promise you that to secure a
verdict in my favor, not only would I not strain any point myself, but I
would not condescend to accept the benefit of such a sacrifice from
another. I believe--I have strong reasons to believe--that I am
asserting a rightful claim; the arguments that shall be sufficient to
convince others that I am wrong will, doubtless, be strong enough to
satisfy me.”

He had fixed his eyes steadily on me while I was speaking these words,
and I could, easily perceive that the impression they produced on
him was favorable. He then led me on to speak of my life and its
vicissitudes, and I could detect in many of his questions that he had
formed erroneous notions as to various parts of my story. I cannot
attempt to explain why it was so; but the fact unquestionably was, that
I opened my heart more freely and unreservedly to this stranger than I
had ever done to any of those with whom I had before conversed; and when
we parted at length, it was like old friends.

The accident of our meeting was not known to others, and there was
considerable astonishment excited when it was heard that Hanchett, who
had hitherto shown no disposition to engage in the cause, now accepted
the brief and exhibited the warmest anxiety for success. His acute
intelligence quickly detected many things which had been passed over
as immaterial, and by his activity various channels of information were
opened which others had not thought of. In these details Ysaffich came
more than once before him; and it was remarkable with what shrewdness
he read the man’s nature, bold, resolute, and unscrupulous as it was.
Between the two, the feeling of distrust rapidly ripened into open
hatred, each not hesitating to accuse the other of treachery; and thus
was a new element of difficulty added to a case whose complications were
already more than enough.

My own position at this period was embarrassing in the extreme. Hanchett
frequently invited me to his house, and presented me freely to his
friends; while Ysaffich continued to suggest doubts of his good faith
on every occasion, and by a hundred petty slights showed his implacable
enmity towards him. Day after day this breach grew wider and wider,
every effort of the one being sure to excite the animosity and
opposition of the other. Ysaffich, too, far from endeavoring to repress
this spirit on his part, seemed to foster and encourage it, sneering at
the old lawyer’s caution and reserve, and even insinuating against him
darker and more treacherous intentions.

“To what end,” said he, at length, one morning when our discussion had
become unusually warm and animated, “to what end the inquiries to which
this learned adviser of yours would push us: he wants to discover the
Countess of Ga-briac and Raper. Why, bethink you, my worthy friend, that
these are the very people we hope never to hear more of; that if by any
mischance they could possibly be forthcoming, our whole scheme is blown
up at once. We have now enough, or we shall have enough by the end of
the month, to go to a jury. There is not a document nor a paper that
will not, in some form or other, be supplied. Let us stand or fall by
that issue; but, of all things, let us not protract the campaign till
the arrival of the forces that shall overwhelm us. If this be your
policy, Master Gervois, speak it out freely, and let us be frank with
each other.”

There was a tone of bold defiance in this speech that startled me; but
the way in which he addressed me, as Gervois, a name he had never called
me by for several months, in even our closest intimacy, was like a
declaration of open hostility.

“I claim to be called Jasper Carew,” said I, calmly and slowly; “I will
accept no other designation from you nor any one.”

“You have learned your part admirably,” said he, with a sneer; “but
remember that I am myself the prompter; so pray reserve the triumphs of
your art for the public!”

“Anatole,” said I, addressing him with an emotion I could not repress,
“I desire to be frank and candid with you. This name of Jasper Carew I
believe firmly to be mine.”

A burst of laughter, insulting to the last degree, stopped me in my
speech.

“Why, Gervois, this is madness, my worthy fellow. Just bethink you of
how this plot originated; who suggested, who carried it on,--ay, and
where it stands at this very moment. That you yourself are as nothing
in it; the breath that made can still unmake you; and that I have but
to declare you an impostor and a cheat,--hard words, but you will have
them,--and the law will deal with you as it knows how to deal with those
who trade on false pretences. Yours be the blame if I be pushed to such
reprisals!”

“And what if I defied you, Count Ysaffich?” said I, boldly.

“If you but dared to do it!” said he, with a menace of his clenched
hand.

“Now listen to me calmly,” said I; “and there is the more need of calm,
since, possibly, these are the very last words that shall ever pass
between us. My claim can neither be aided nor opposed by you.”

“Is the fellow mad?” exclaimed he, staring wildly at me.

“I am in my calm and sober senses,” replied I, quietly.

“Then what say you to this bond?” said he, taking a paper from his
pocket-book. “Is this a written promise that if you succeed to the
fortune and estates of the late Walter Carew, you will pay me, Count
Anatole Ysaffich, one hundred thousand pounds?”

“I own every word of it,” said I.

“And for what service is this the recompense? Answer me that.”

“That I am indebted to you for having opened to me the path by which my
right was to be established.”

“Say rather that by me was the fraud of a false name, and birth, and
rank first suggested; that from Gervois the courier I created you Carew
the gentleman. The whole scheme was and is my own. You are as nothing in
it.”

Stupefied, almost stunned, by the outrageous insult of his words, I did
not speak, and he went on,--

“But you have not taken me unawares. I was not without my suspicion
that such an incident as this might arise. I foresaw at least its
possibility, and was prepared for it. Be advised, then, in time, since
if your foot was on the very threshold of that door you hope to call
your own, the power lies with me to drag you back again and proclaim you
to all the world a swindler.”

My passion boiled over at the word, and I sprung towards him, I know not
with what thoughts of vengeance. He darted back suddenly, and gained the
door.

“If you had dared,” said he, with a savage grin, “you had been a corpse
on that floor the minute after.”

The shining blade of a stiletto glanced within his waistcoat as he
spoke. The next moment he had descended the stairs, and was gone.

I will not speak of the suffering this scene cost me,--a misery, I am
free to declare, less proceeding from my dread of his resentment than
from the thought that one of the very few with whom I had ever lived on
terms approaching friendship had now become a declared and bitter enemy.
Oh for the hollowness of such attachments! The bonds which bind men to
evil are the deadliest snares that beset us; and thus the very qualities
which seem our best and purest, are among the weakest and the worst of
our depraved natures.

To add to my discomfiture, Hanchett was obliged to go over to London in
some case before the House of Lords, and my cause was intrusted to
the second counsel, one with whom I had little intercourse, and few
opportunities of knowing. Ysaffich’s defection, too, threw a great gloom
over all my supporters. His readiness in every difficulty was not less
remarkable than his unwearied and untiring energy. He was, in fact, the
bond of union between all the parties, stimulating, encouraging,
and cheering them on. Even they who were least disposed towards him
personally, avowed that his loss was irreparable; and some, taking a
still graver view of the matter, owned their fears that he might seek
service with the enemy.

I cannot tell the relief I experienced on hearing that he had sailed
from Ireland the very night of our quarrel; and, from the observations
he had dropped, it was believed with the intention of going abroad.

As the day fixed for the trial drew nigh, public curiosity rose to the
very highest degree. The real nature of the claim to be set up was no
longer a secret, and the case became the town talk of every club and
society of the capital. Curtis had long ceased to be popular with any
party. His dissolute life had thrown a disrepute upon those who sided
with him; and the newspapers, almost without an exception, inclined
towards my side. There is, perhaps, something too that savors of
generosity in such cases, and disposes many to favor what they feel to
be the weaker party. I am sure I had reason to experience much of this
kind of sympathy, nor do I think of it even now without gratitude.

Early as it was when I prepared to leave my hotel, I found a
considerable crowd had assembled in the street without, curious to see
one whose story had attracted so much popular notice. They were mostly
of the lower classes, but I observed that a knot of gentlemen had
gathered on the steps of an adjoining door, and were eagerly watching
for my appearance. As the window of my room was almost directly over
their heads, and lay open, I could hear the conversation which passed
between them. Shall I own that the words I overheard set my heart a
beating violently?

“You knew Carew intimately, Parsons?” asked one.

“Watty! to be sure I did. We were class-fellows at school and at
college.”

“And liked him, I have heard you say?”

“Extremely. There was no better fellow to be found. He had his
weaknesses like the rest of us; but he was a true-hearted, generous
friend, and a resolute enemy also.”

“Were you acquainted with his wife, Ned?” asked another.

“I was presented to her the day he brought her over,” replied he; “we
all lunched with him at the hotel, but I never saw her after. The fact
was, Watty made a foolish match, and never was the same man to his
old friends after. Perhaps we were as much in fault as he was; at all
events, except MacNaghten and a few who were very intimate with him, all
fell off, and Carew, who was a haughty fellow, drew back from us, and
left the breach still wider.”

“And what’s your opinion of this claim?” asked another, who had not
spoken before.

“That I ‘d not give sixpence for the chance of its success,” said
he, laughingly. “Why, everybody knows that no trace of any document
establishing Carew’s marriage could be found after his death. Some went
so far as to say that there never had been a marriage at all; and as to
the child, Dan MacNaghten told me years ago that the boy was killed
in some street skirmish in Paris,--so that, taking all the doubts and
difficulties together, and bearing in mind that old Joe Curtis has a
strong purse and is in possession, is there any man with common sense to
guide him would think the contest worth a trial?”

“Have you seen this young fellow yet?”

“No; and I am rather curious to have a look at him, for there were
strong family traits about the Carews.”

As I heard these last words, I walked boldly out upon the balcony as if
to examine the state of the weather. There was a slight murmur of voices
heard beneath as I came forward, and one speaker exclaimed, “Indeed!” to
which Parsons quickly replied,--

“Positively astounding! It is not only that he has Carew’s features,
but the carriage of the head and a certain half supercilious look are
exactly his!”

The words sent a thrill of hope through me, more than enough to
recompense me for the pain his former speech had inflicted; and as I
left the window, I felt a degree of confidence in the future that never
entirely deserted me after.



CHAPTER XLIX. THE FIRST DAY

I can more easily imagine a man being able to preserve the memory of
all his sensations during some tremendous operation of surgery than to
recall the varied tortures of his mind in the progress of a long
and eventful trial. Certain incidents will impress themselves more
powerfully than others, not always those of the deepest importance,--far
from it; the veriest trifles--a stern look of the presiding judge, a
murmur in the court--will live in the recollection for long years after
the great events of the scene; and a casual glance, a half-uttered word,
become texts of sorrow for many a day to come.

I could myself be better able to record my sensations throughout a long
fever than tell of the emotions which I suffered in the three days of
that trial. I awake occasionally from a dream full of every circumstance
all sharply defined, clear, and distinct. My throbbing temples and moist
brow evidence the agonies I have gone through; my nerves still tingle
with the torture; but with the first moments of wakefulness the memory
is gone!--the sense of pain alone remains; but the cause fades away in
dim indistinctness, and my heart throbs with gratitude at last to know
it was but a dream, and has passed away.

But there are days, too, when all these memories are revived; and I
could recount, even to the slightest circumstance, the whole progress of
the case, from the moment when a doorkeeper drew aside a heavy curtain
to let me pass into the court, to the dreadful instant when--But I
cannot go on; already are images and forms crowding around me. To
continue this theme would be to call up spirits of torture to the
bedside, or the lonely chamber where, friendless and solitary, I sit as
I write these lines.

I owe it to him whose patience and sympathy may have carried him so far
as my listener, to complete this much of the story of my life; happily a
few words will now suffice to do so.

A newspaper of “Old Dublin,” a great authority in those days, the
“Morning Advertiser,” informed its readers on a certain day of February
that the interesting events of a recent trial should be its apology for
any deficiency in its attention to foreign news, or even the domestic
occurrences of the country, since the editor could not but participate
in the intense anxiety felt by all classes of his fellow-citizens in
the progress of one of the most remarkable cases ever submitted before a
jury.

After a brief announcement of the trial, he proceeds:

“Mr. Foxley opened the plaintiff’s case, in the absence of Serjeant
Hanchett; and certainly even the distinguished leader of the Western
Circuit never exceeded in clearness, accuracy, or close reasoning the
admirable statement then delivered,--a statement which, while supported
by a vast variety of well-known incident, may yet vie with romance for
the strangeness of the events it records.

“Probably, with a view of enlisting public sympathy in his client’s
behalf, not impossibly also to give a semblance of consistency to a
narrative wherein any individual incident might have startled credulity,
the learned counsel gave a brief history of the claimant from his birth;
and certainly a stranger tale it would be hard to conceive. Following
all the vicissitudes of fortune, fighting to-day in the ranks of the
revolutionists in Paris, we find him to-morrow the bearer of important
despatches from crowned heads to the members of the exiled family of
France. Ever active, ever employed, and ever faithful to his trust, this
extraordinary youth became mixed up with great events, and conversant
with great people everywhere. If a consciousness that he was a man of
birth, and with just claims to station and property, often sustained
him in moments of difficulty, there were also times when this thought
suggested his very saddest reflections. He saw himself poor, and almost
unfriended; he knew the scarcely passable barriers the law erects
against all pretenders, whatever the justice of their demands; he was
aware that his adversary would have all the benefit which vast resources
and great wealth can command. No wonder, then, if he felt faint-hearted
and dispirited! Another and a very different train of reasoning may,
possibly, have also had its influence on his mind.

“This boy grew up to manhood in the midst of all the startling theories
of the French Revolution. He had imbibed the doctrines of equality and
universal brotherhood; he had been taught that a state was a family,
and its population were the children, amongst whom no inequality of
condition should prevail. To sue for the restitution of his own was,
then, but a sorry recognition of the principles he professed. The
society of the time enjoined the theory that property was a mere
usurpation; and I say it is by no means improbable that, educated in
such opinions, he should have deemed the prosecution of such a suit a
direct falsification of his professions. The world, however, changed.

“After the Revolution came the reaction of order. To the guillotine
succeeded the court-martial; then the Consulate, then the Empire. All
the external forms of society underwent a less change than did the very
nature of men themselves.

“Wearied of anarchy, they sought the repose of a despotism. With
monarchy, too, came back all the illusions of pomp and splendor, all
the tastes that wealth fosters and wealth alone confers. Carew, who
had never bewailed his condition when a ‘sansculottes,’ now saw himself
degraded in the midst of the new movement. He knew that he had been
born to fortune and high estate. He had heard of the vast domains of
his ancestry, from his cradle. He had got off by heart the names of
townlands and baronies that all belonged to his family; and though, at
the time he learned the lesson, the more stern teaching of democracy
instilled the maxim that ‘all property was a wrong,’ yet now another
impression had gained currency in the world, and he saw that even for
the purposes of public utility, and the benefit of society, a man was
powerless who was poor.

“Alas, however, for his prospects! every document, every letter, every
scrap of writing that could have authenticated his claim was gone.
Of the very nature of these papers he scarcely retains a recollection
himself; he only knows that Madame de Gabriac, whose name I have already
introduced to your notice, deemed them all-sufficient, if only backed by
one essential document,--the certificate of his father’s marriage with
his mother. To obtain this had been the great object of her whole life.

“With a heroic devotion to the cause of her friend’s orphan child, she
had travelled over Europe in every direction, and during times of the
greatest peril and disturbance. Accompanied by one trusty companion, Mr.
Raper, she had never wearied in her pursuit.

“Probably, if the occasion permitted, the story I could tell of her
efforts in this cause would surprise you not less than that of my client
himself. Enough that I say that she stooped to poverty and privation of
the very severest kind; she toiled, and labored, and suffered for years
long; and, when having exhausted every resource the Old World seemed
to offer to her search, she set out for the New! Since that she has not
been heard of. The solicitors with whom she had corresponded have long
since ceased to receive tidings of her. The belief in her death was so
complete that her father, a well-known citizen of Dublin, who died
two years back, bequeathed his vast fortune to various charitable
institutions, alleging his childless condition as the cause.

“I have told you how, originally, my client, then a mere boy, became
separated from her he had ever regarded as his mother; I have traced him
through some, but far from the whole, of the strange incidents of his
eventful career; and it now only remains that I should speak of the
extraordinary accident by which he came upon the clew to his long
sought-for, long despaired-of, inheritance.

“A short statement will suffice here, since the witnesses I mean to
call before you will amply elucidate this part of my case. It was while
travelling with despatches to the North of Europe my client formed
acquaintance with a certain Count Ysaffich, at that time himself
employed in the diplomatic service; and though at the period a warm
friendship grew up between them, it was not till after the lapse of many
years that the Count came to know that a large mass of papers--copies of
documents drawn out by Raper, and which had come into the Count’s hands
in a manner I shall relate to you--actually bore reference to his former
acquaintance,--the casual intimate of a journey.

“These two men, thrown together by one of the most extraordinary chances
of fortune, sit down to recount their lives to each other. Beside the
fire of an humble chalet, in a forest, Carew hears again the story he
had once listened to in his infancy; the very tale his dear mother had
repeated to him in the midst of the Alps, he now hears from the lips
of one almost a stranger. Names once familiar, but long forgotten, come
back to him. The very sounds thrilled through his heart like as the
notes of the Swiss melody awaken in the far-away wanderer thoughts
of home and fatherland. In an instant he throws off the apathy of his
former life, he ceases to be the sport and plaything of fortune, and
devotes himself heart and soul to the restitution of the ancient name of
his house and the long dormant honors of a distinguished family.

“We cannot,” writes the journalist, “undertake at this late hour to
follow the learned counsel into the minute enumeration he went into,
of small circumstances of proof, memoranda of conversations, scraps
of letters, allusions in the course of correspondence, and so on; the
object of which was to show that although the late Walter Carew had some
secret reason of his own for maintaining a mystery about his marriage,
that of the fact of the marriage there could be no doubt,--nor of the
legitimacy of him who claimed to be his heir; neither are we able to
enter upon the intricate question of establishing the identity of the
present claimant; suffice it to say that he succeeded in connecting him
with a number of events from the days of his earliest childhood to a
comparatively recent period, all corroboratory of his assumption; the
possession of the seal and arms of his family, his name, and, above all,
the unmistakable traits of family resemblance, being wonderful evidences
in his favor. Indeed, we are not aware of a more dramatic incident in
the administration of justice than our court presented yesterday,
when, at the close of his seven hours’ speech, full of all its details,
narrative and legal, the able counsel suddenly paused, and, in a voice
of subdued accent, asked if there chanced at that moment to be present
in the court any of those who once enjoyed the friendship or even the
acquaintance of the late Walter Carew. He was one, continued he, not
easily to be forgotten, even by a casual observer. His tall and manly
figure, the type at once of dignity and strength, his bold, high
forehead, his deep-set blue eyes, soft as a child’s in their expression,
or sparkling like the orbs of an eagle; his mouth more characteristic
than all, since, though marked by an air of pride, it never moved
without an expression of genial kindliness and good-humor,--the traits
that we love to think eminently national; the mingled nature of daring
intrepidity with a careless ease; the dash of almost reckless courage
with a still milder gayety,--these were all his. Are there not some
here, is there not even one who can recall them? And if there be, let
him look there! and he pointed to the gallery beside the jury-box, at
the end of which was seated a young man, pale and sickly-looking, it is
true, but whose countenance at once corroborated the picture. The vast
multitude that filled the body of the court, crowding every avenue and
space, and even invading the seats reserved for the Bar, rose as one
man, and turned to gaze on the living evidence of the description. It
would be difficult to conceive a more striking scene enacted within
walls where the solemnity of the law usually represses every semblance
of popular emotion; nor was it till after several seconds had elapsed
that the judges were enabled to recall the Court to the observance of
the rigid propriety of the justice-seat.

“Himself exhausted by his efforts, and really overborne by feeling, the
counsel was unable to continue his address, and the Court, willingly
granting an indulgence that his exertions amply deserved, adjourned till
to-morrow, when at ten o’clock this remarkable case will be resumed;
though it is believed, from the number of witnesses to be examined,
and the necessary length of ‘the reply,’ the trial cannot be completed
before Saturday evening.”



CHAPTER L. A TRIAL--CONCLUSION

The second day was chiefly occupied in examining witnesses,--old
acquaintances of my father’s, for the most part, who had known him on
his return to Ireland, and who could bear their testimony as to the
manner in which he lived, and the acceptance he and my mother had met
with in the best society of the capital. Though their evidence really
went no further than a mere impression on their part, it was easy to
perceive that its effect was most favorable on the jury; nor could
cross-examination elicit the slightest flaw in the belief that they
lived amongst their equals, without the shadow of aspersion on their
honor.

An uninterested spectator of the scene might have felt amusement in
contrasting the description of manners and habits with the customs of
the present time; for although the evidence referred to a period so
recent, yet were all the details mixed up with usages, opinions,
and ways that seemed those of a long-past epoch. Men were just then
awakening after that long and splendid orgie which had formed the life
of Ireland before the Union. With bankrupt fortunes and ruined
estates, they saw themselves the successors of a race whose princely
hospitalities had never known a limit, and who had really imparted a
character of barbaric splendor to lives of reckless extravagance.

A certain Mr. Archdall was examined as to his recollection of Castle
Carew and the company who frequented there. He had been my father’s
guest when the Viceroy visited him; and certainly his account of the
festivities might well have startled the credulity of his hearers.
It was not at first apparent with what object these revelations were
elicited by the cross-examination; but at length it came out that they
were intended to show that my father, having no heir, nor expecting
to have any, suffered himself to follow a career of the wildest
wastefulness. With equal success they drew forth from the witness
stories of my mother’s unpopularity with the ladies of her own set
in society, and the suspicion and distrust that pervaded the world of
fashion that she had not originally been born in, or belonged to, the
class with which she was then associating.

It was but too plain to what all this pointed; and although old servants
of the family were brought forward to show the deference with which my
mother’s position was ever regarded, and the degree of respect, almost
amounting to state, with which she was treated, yet the artfulness of
the cross-examiner had at least succeeded in representing her to the
jury as self-willed, vain, and capricious, constantly longing for a
return to France, and cordially hating her banishment to Ireland.
My mother’s friendship and attachment to Polly Fagan was ingeniously
alluded to as a strange incident in the life of one whose circumstances
might seem to have separated her from such companionship; and the able
counsel dwelt most effectively on the disparity which separated their
conditions.

These circumstances were, however, not pressed home, but rather left to
make their impression, with more or less of force, while other incidents
were being related. To rebut in some measure these impressions, Foxley
showed that my mother had been a guest at the Viceroy’s table,--an honor
which could not have been conferred on her on any questionable grounds.
Unimportant and trivial as was the fact, the mode of eliciting it formed
one of the amusing episodes of the trial, since it brought forward
on the witness-table a well-known character of old Dublin,--no less a
functionary than Samuel Cotterell, the hall trumpeter, now pensioned off
and retired, but still, with all the weight of nearly fourscore-and-ten
years, bearing himself erect, and carrying in his port the consciousness
of his once high estate and dignity.

It was some time before the old man could be persuaded that in all
the state and pomp of the justice-seat there was not occasion for some
exercise of his ancient functions.

He seemed ashamed at appearing without his tabard, and looked anxiously
around for his trumpet; but once launched upon the subject of his
recollections, he appeared to revel with eager delight in all the
associations they called up. It was perfectly miraculous to see with
what tenacity he retained a memory of the festivities of old Viceregal
times; they lived, however, in his mind like distinct pictures,
unconnected with all around him. There was a duke in his “garter,” and a
duchess in her diamonds; a gorgeously decked table; pineapples that came
from France; and a dessert wine newly arrived from Portugal, some of
which Sir Amyrald Fitzgerald spilled on Madame Carew’s dress; at which
she laughed pleasantly, and, in showing the stains, displayed her ankles
to Barry Rutledge, who whispered his Grace that there was not such a
foot and leg in Ireland. Lord Gartymore backed Kitty O’Dwyer’s for fifty
pounds, and lost his wager.

“How, then, was the bet decided, Mr. Cotterell?”

“We saw her dance the minuet with Colonel Candler, and my Lord said he
had lost.”

“Madame Carew was, then, much admired at Court?”

“She was.”

“And a favorite guest, too?”

“We asked her on Wednesdays generally; they were the small dinners, but
many thought them the pleasantest.”

“Her Grace noticed her particularly, you say?”

“She did so on one Patrick’s night, and said she had never seen such
lace before; and Madame Carew told her she would show her some still
handsomer, for it had been given by the king to her grandmother, whom I
think they called Madame Barry, or Du Barry, or something like that.”

Though little in reality beyond the gossiping revelation of a very
old man, Cotterell’s evidence tended to show that my mother had been a
welcome and a favored guest in all the best houses of the day, and
that, living as she did in the very centre of scandal, not the slightest
imputation had been ever thrown upon her position or her conduct.

The counsel probably saw that, not having any direct proof of the
marriage,--when, and how, and where solemnized,--it was more than ever
necessary to show the rank my mother had always occupied in the world,
and the respect with which she was ever received in society.

He had--I know not with what, if any, grounds--a little narrative of her
family and birthplace in France, and most conveniently disposed of all
belonging to her,--fortune, friends, and home,--by the events of “that
disastrous Revolution, which swept away not only the nobles of the land,
but every archive and document that had pertained to them.”

When he came to my own birth, he was fortunate enough to obtain all the
evidence he wanted. The priest of Rathmullen, who had officiated at my
christening, was yet alive, and related, with singular clearness of
recollection, every circumstance of that sorrowful night when the
tidings of my father’s violent death reached the village beside Castle
Carew. Of those present on this occasion, among whom were Polly Fagan
and MacNaghten, he could not yet point to where one could be found.

There now only remained to sum up the evidence, and impart that
consistency and coherence to the story which should carry conviction to
the minds of the jury; and this task he performed with a most consummate
ability, concluding all with an account of my own visit to the home of
my fathers, and the reception which there had met me. The passionate
vehemence of his indignation seemed fired by the theme; and, warming
as he proceeded, he denounced the infamy of that morning as not only a
stain upon the nation, but the age, and called upon the jury, whatever
their decision might be in the cause itself,--whether to restore the
heir to his own, or send him a beggared wanderer through the world,--to
mark by some expression of their own the horror and disgust this act of
barbaric cruelty had filled them with.

A burst of applause and indignation commingled saluted the orator as
he sat down; nor was it till after repeated efforts of the criers that
silence was again restored, and the business of the trial proceeded
with.

Mr. M’Clelland, to whom the chief duty of the defence was intrusted,
requested permission of the court to defer the reply to the following
day, and, the leave being granted, the court arose.

I dined that day with Mr. Fozley. I would fain have been alone. The
intense excitement of the scene had made me feverish, and I would gladly
have felt myself at ease, and free to give way, in solitude, to the
emotions which were almost suffocating me; but he insisted on my
presence, and I went. The company included many very distinguished
names,--members of both Houses of Parliament, and men of high
consideration; and by all of them was I received with more than
kindness, and some went so far as to congratulate me on a victory which,
if not yet gazetted, was just as certainly achieved.

I dare not trust myself to dwell on this subject; the tremors of hope
and fear I then went through threaten even yet to come back in memory.
A few more words, and I have done. Would that I could spare myself the
pain of these! But it cannot be so; my task must be completed.

I suppose that very few persons have ever formed a rightful estimate
of the extent to which the skill and cleverness of an able lawyer
have enabled him to wound their feelings and insult their self-love. I
conclude this to be the case, not alone from my own brief and unhappy
experience, but from reading a vast number of trials and always
experiencing a sense of astonishment at the powerful perversity of these
men. The cruel insinuation, the imputed meanness, the perversion of
meaning, the insinuations of unworthy motive, are all acquired and
cultivated, like the feints and parries of an accomplished fencer. The
depreciation of a certain testimony, and the exaggerated estimate of
some other; the sneering acknowledgment of this, or the triumphant
assertion of that; the dark menace of a hidden meaning here, and the
subtle insinuation that there was more than met the eye there,--are all
studied and practised efforts, as artificial as the stage-trick of the
actor. And yet how little does all our conviction of this artifice avail
against their influence!

Bad as these are, they are as nothing to the resources in store when the
object is to assail the reputation and blacken the character; to hold
up some poor fellow-man--frail and erring as he may be--to everlasting
shame, and mark him with ignominy forever. Alas for the best and purest!
what an alloy of meanness and littleness, what vanity and self-seeking
mingle with their very noblest and highest efforts. What need, then, to
overwhelm the guilty with more than his guilt, and quote the “Heart”
 in the indictment as well as the Crime? No, no; if the best be not all
good, believe me the worst are not all and hopelessly depraved. I have
a right to speak of these things, as one who has felt them. For eight
hours and more I listened to such a character of myself as made me sick,
to very loathing, at my own identity; I heard a man in a great assembly
denounce me as one of the most corrupt and infamous of mankind! I felt
the eyes that were turned towards me, I almost thought I overheard the
muttered reprobation that surrounded me. A number of the incidents of
my changeful life--how learned I know not--were related with every
exaggeration and every perversion that malice could invest them with.
For a while, a sense of guiltlessness supported me; I knew many of the
accusations to be false, others grossly overstated. The scenes in
which I was often depicted as an actor had either no existence, or were
falsehoods based upon some small germ of truth; and yet I heard them
detailed with a semblance of reality, and a degree of coherence as to
time and place, that smote me with very terror, since, though I might
deny, I could not disprove them.

To stamp me as an impostor, and my claim as a cheat, appeared to be the
entire line of the defence. Indeed, he avowed openly that with all the
evidence so painstakingly elicited by the opposite counsel, he should
not trouble the jury with one remark. “When I tell you,” said he, “who
this claimant really is, and how his claim originated, you will forgive
me that I have not embarrassed you with details quite irrelevant to this
action, since of Walter Carew or of any descendant of his there is no
question here! I will produce before you on that table, I will leave
him to all the ingenuity of my learned friend to cross-examine, one who
shall account to you how the first impulse to this daring imposture was
conceived. You will be astounded. It will be, I am aware, a tremendous
tax upon your credulity to compass it; but I will show to your entire
conviction that the man who aspires to the rank of an Irish gentleman,
a vast estate, and an illustrious name, is a foreigner of unknown origin
who began life as an emissary of the French revolutionary party. When
secret treachery superseded the guillotine, he served as a spy; this
trade failing, he fell into the straits and difficulties of the most
abject poverty; the materials of that period of his history are, of
course, difficult to come at. They who walk in such paths, walk darkly
and secretly; but we may be able to display some, at least, of his
actions at this time,--one of them, at all events, will exhibit the
character of the individual, and at the same time put you in possession
of an incident which, in all likelihood, originated this extraordinary
action.

“There may be some now present in this court sufficiently familiar with
London to remember a certain character well known in the precincts of
Charing Cross by the nickname of Gentleman Jack. To those not acquainted
with this individual I may mention that he swept a crossing in that
locality, and had, by a degree of pretension in his appearance, aided by
a natural smartness in repartee, attracted notice from many of the idle
loungers of fashion who daily passed and repassed there. I am not able
to say if his gifts were in any respect above the common. Indeed, I have
heard that it was rather the singular fact that a man in such a station
should be remarkable for any claim to notice whatever, which endowed him
with the popularity he enjoyed. At all events, he was remarkable enough
to be generally, I might say universally, known; and it was the caprice
of certain fashionable folk to accord him a recognition as they passed
by. This degree of attention was harmless, at least, and had it stopped
at that point, might never have called for any reprobation; but modish
follies occasionally take an offensive shape, and this man’s pretension
offered the opportunity to display such.

“You have all heard of Carlton House, gentlemen,--of the society of wits
who frequent there, and the charms of a circle in which the chief figure
is not more distinguished for his rank than for the gifts which
elevate social intercourse. To the freedom which this exalted personage
permitted those who approached him thus nearly, there seemed to be
scarcely any limit. Admitting them to his friendship, he endowed them
with almost equality; and there was not a liberty nor a license which
could be practised in ordinary polite intercourse that was not allowed
at that hospitable board.

“You might imagine that men who enjoyed such a privilege would have been
guardedly careful against abusing it; you might fancy that even worldly
motives might have rendered them cautious about imperilling the princely
favor! Not so; they would seem to have lost every consciousness of
propriety in the intoxication of this same flattery; and they actually
dared to take a liberty with this Prince which had been more than
hazardous if ventured upon with a gentleman of private station.

“The story goes that, offended by his Royal Highness having pronounced
marked eulogium on the manners and breeding of an individual who was not
of their set either in politics or society, one of the party--I am not
disposed to give his name, if it can be avoided--dared to make a wager
that he would take a fellow off the streets, give him ruffles and
a dress-coat, and pass him off on the Prince as one of the most
accomplished and well-bred men in Europe.

“Gentlemen, you may fancy that in this anecdote which I have taken the
liberty to relate to you, I am endeavoring to compete with the very
marvellous histories which my learned brother on the opposite side
addressed to your notice. I beg most distinctly to disclaim all such
rivalry. My story has none of those stirring incidents with which his
abounded. The characters and the scene are all of home growth. It has
neither remoteness in point of time, nor distance in country, to lend
it attraction. It has, however, one merit which my learned friend might
reasonably envy, and this is, that it is true. Yes, gentlemen, every
particular I have stated is a fact. I will prove it by a witness whose
evidence will be beyond gainsay. The wager was accepted, and for a
considerable sum too, and a dinnerparty arranged as the occasion by
which to test it. The secrecy which I wish to observe as to the actors
in this most unpardonable piece of levity will prevent my mentioning the
names of those most deeply implicated. One who does not stand in this
unenviable category is now in court, and I will call him before you.”

Colonel Whyte Morris was now called to appear, and, after a brief delay,
a tall, soldier-like, and handsome man, somewhat advanced in life,
ascended the witness-table. I had no recollection of ever having seen
him before; but it is needless to say with what anxiety I followed every
word he uttered.

The ordinary preliminaries over, he was asked if he remembered a certain
dinner-party, of which he was a guest, on a certain day in the autumn of
the year.

He remembered it perfectly, and recounted that it was not easily to be
forgotten, since it took place to decide a very extraordinary wager, the
circumstances of which he briefly related.

“Gentleman Jack was the individual selected by a friend of mine,”
 said he, “and who should succeed in winning his Royal Highnesses good
opinion, so as to obtain a flattering estimate of his manners and
good-breeding. To what precise extent the praise was to go was not
specified. There was nothing beyond a gentleman-like understanding that
if Jack passed muster as a man of fashion and ton, his backer was to
have won; if, on the contrary, the Prince should detect any anomalies
in his breeding, so as to throw suspicion upon his real rank, then the
wager was lost.

“I was present,” said the Colonel, “when the ceremony of presenting him
to the Prince took place; I did not know the man myself, nor had I
the slightest suspicion of any trick being practised. I had recently
returned from foreign service, and was almost a stranger to all the
company. Standing close beside Colonel O’Kelly, however, I overheard
what passed, and as the words were really very remarkable, under the
circumstances, I have not forgotten them.” Being asked to relate the
incident, he went on:

“There was a doubt in what manner--I mean rather by what name--the
stranger should be presented to his Royal Highness: some suggesting
one name,--others, a different one; and O’Kelly grew impatient, almost
angry, at the delay, and said, ‘D----n it all him something: what shall
it be, Sheridan?’ ‘The King of the Beggars, say I,’ cried Sheridan, and
in a voice, as I thought, to be easily heard all around. ‘Who was he?’
asked O’Kelly. ‘Bamfield Moore Carew,’ answered the other. ‘So be it,
then,’ said O’Kelly. ‘Your Royal Highness will permit me to present a
very distinguished friend of mine, recently arrived in England, and who,
like every true Englishman, feels that his first homage is due to the
Prince who rules in all our hearts.’--‘Your friend’s name?’--‘Carew,
your Royal Highness; but being a wanderer and a vagabond, he has gone
by half-a-dozen names.’ The Prince laughed, and turned to hear the
remainder of a story that some one at his side was relating. Meanwhile
the stranger had gone through his introduction, and as Mr. Carew was in
succession presented to the other members of the company--”

“Was he never addressed by any other designation, Colonel?” asked the
lawyer.

“Certainly not,--on that evening, at least.”

“Were you acquainted with his real name?” “No; O’Kelly told me, the
day after the dinner, that the fellow had made his escape from London,
doubtless dreading the consequences of his freak, and all trace of him
was lost.”

“Should you be able to recognize him were you to see him again, Colonel
Morris?”

“Unquestionably; his features were very marked, and I took especial
notice of him as he sat at the card-table.”

“Will you cast your eyes about you through the court, and inform us if
you see him here at present?”

The Colonel turned, and, putting his glass to his eye, scanned the faces
in the gallery and along the crowded ranks beneath it. He then surveyed
the body of the court, and at length fixed his glance on the inner bar,
where, seated beside Mr. Foxley, I sat, pale and almost breathless with
terror. “There he is! that man next but one to the pillar; that is the
man!”

It was the second time that I had stood beneath the concentrated stare
of a vast crowd of people; but oh, how differently this from the last
time! No longer with aspects of compassionate interest and kind feeling,
every glance now was the triumphant sparkle over detected iniquity, the
haughty look of insolent condemnation.

“Tell me of this--what does this mean?” wrote my adviser, on a slip of
paper, and handed it, unperceived, to me.

“It is true!” whispered I, in an accent that almost rent my heart to
utter.

The commotion in the court was now great; the intense anxiety to catch a
sight of me, added to the expressions of astonishment making up a
degree of tumult that the officers essayed vainly to suppress. That the
evidence thus delivered had been a great shock to my advisers was easily
seen; and though Foxley proceeded to cross-examine the Colonel, the
statement was not to be shaken.

“We purpose to afford my learned friend a further exercise for his
ingenuity,” said M’Clelland; “for we shall now summon to the table a
gentleman who has known the plaintiff long and intimately; who knew him
in his real character of secret political agent abroad; and who will be
able not alone to give a correct history of the individual, but also
to inform the jury by what circumstances the first notion of this most
audacious fraud was first suggested, and how it occurred to him to
assume the character and name he had dared to preface this suit by
taking. Before the witness shall leave that table I pledge myself to
establish, beyond the possibility of a cavil, one of the most daring,
most outrageous, and consummate pieces of rascality that has ever come
before the notice of a jury. It is needless that I should say one word
to exonerate my learned friends opposite,--they could, of course, know
nothing of the evidence we shall produce here this day; the worst that
can be alleged against them will be, the insufficiency of their own
searches, and the inadequacy of the proofs on which they began this suit
I can afford to reflect, however, upon their professional skill, as the
recompense for not aspersing their reputation; and I will say that a
more baseless, unsupported action never was introduced into a court of
justice. Call Count Anatole Ysaffich!”

I shall not attempt to describe a scene, the humiliation of which
no vindication of my honor can ever erase. For nearly three hours I
listened to such details, not one of which I could boldly deny, and
yet not one of which was the pure truth, that actually made me feel a
perfect monster of treachery and corruption. Of that life which my own
lawyer had given such a picturesque account, a new version was now to
be heard; the history of my birth I had once given to Ysafflch was all
related circumstantially.

He tracked me as the “adventurer” through every event and incident of my
career,--ever aiming at fortune, ever failing; the hired spy of a party,
the corrupt partisan of the press,--a fellow, in fact, without family,
friends, or country, and just as bereft of every principle of honor.

Ysafflch went on to say that, having shown me Raper’s letters and
memoranda on one occasion, I had, on reading them, originated the notion
of this suit, suggesting my own obscure birth and origin as sufficient
to defy all inquiry or investigation. He represented me as stating that
such actions were constantly brought, and as constantly successful;
and even where the best grounds of defence existed, they who were in
possession frequently preferred to compromise a claim rather than to
contest it in open litigation. Though the Count always endeavored to
screen himself behind his ignorance of English law and justice, he made
no scruple of avowing his own complicity in the scheme. He detailed
all the earliest steps of the venture,--where the family crest had
been obtained; by whom it had been ‘engraved on my visiting-cards. He
mentioned, with strict accuracy, the very date I had first assumed
the name of Carew; he actually exhibited a letter written by me on the
evening before, and in which I signed myself “Paul Gervois.” With these
matters of fact he mixed up other details, totally untrue,--such as a
mock certificate of my father’s marriage at a small town in Normandy,
and which I had never seen nor heard of till that moment. He convulsed
the court with laughter by describing the way in which I used to
rehearse the part of heir and descendant of Walter Carew before him; and
after a vast variety of details, either wholly or partially untrue, he
produced my written promise to pay him an enormous sum, in the event of
the success of the present action. Truly had the lawyer said, “Such an
exposure was never before witnessed in a court of justice.” And now
for above an hour did he continue to accumulate evidences of fraud and
deception,--in the allegations made by me before officials of the court;
affidavits sworn to; documents attested before consuls in Holland;
inaccuracies of expression; faults even of spelling,--not very difficult
to account for in one whose education and life for the most part had
been spent abroad,--were all quoted and adduced, as showing the actual
insolence of presumption which had marked every step of this imposture.

The Court interrupted the counsel at this conjuncture by an observation
which I could not hear, to which the lawyer replied, “It shall be as
your Lordship suggests; though, were I permitted a choice, I should
infinitely prefer to probe this foul wound to its last depth. I would
far rather display this consummate impostor to the world, less as a
punishment to himself than as a warning and a terror to others.”

Here my counsel rose, and said that he had conferred with his learned
friends in the case as to the course he ought to pursue. He could
not express the emotions which he felt at the exposures they had just
witnessed; nor did he deem it necessary to say for himself and his
brother-barristers, as well as for the respectable solicitors employed,
that the revelations then made had come upon them entirely by surprise.
Well weighing the responsible position they occupied towards the
plaintiff, whose advocates they were, they still felt, after the
appalling exhibition they had witnessed,--an exposure unparalleled in a
court of justice,--it would be unbefitting their station as gentlemen,
and unworthy of their duty as barristers, any longer to continue this
contest.

A low murmur of approbation ran through the court as the words were
concluded, and the Judge solemnly added, “You have shown a very
wise discretion, sir, and which completely exonerates you from any
foreknowledge of this fraud.”

The defendant’s counsel then requested that the Court would not permit
the plaintiff to leave.

“We intend to prefer charges of forgery and perjury against him, my
Lord,” said he; “and meanwhile I desire that the various documents we
have seen may be impounded.”

On an order from the Judge, the plaintiff was now taken into custody;
and after, as it appeared, one or two vain efforts to address the Court,
in which his voice utterly failed him, he was removed.

Mr. M’Clelland could not take his farewell of the case without
expressing his full concurrence in the opinion expressed by the Court
regarding his learned friends opposite, whose ability during the contest
was only to be equalled by the integrity with which they guided their
conduct when defence had become worse than hopeless.

The defence of this remarkable suit will cost Mr. Curtis, it is said,
upwards of seven thousand pounds.

A very few words will now complete this history. Let him who writes them
be permitted to derive them from the public journals of the time, since
it is no longer without deep humiliation he can venture to speak of
himself. Alas and alas! too true is it, the penalties of crime are as
stigmatizing as crime itself! The stripes upon the back, the brand upon
the brow, are more enduring than the other memories of vice. Be innocent
of all offence, appeal to your own heart with conscious rectitude, yet
say, if the chain has galled your ankle, and the iron bar has divided
the sunlight that streamed into your cell,--say, if you can, that
self-esteem came out intact and unwounded, after such indignity.

I speak this with no malice to my fellow-men--I bear no grudge against
those who sentenced me; too deeply conscious am I of my many offences
against the world to assume even to myself the pretension of martyr;
but I do assert that vindication of character, restitution to fair fame,
comes late when once the terrible ordeal of public condemnation has been
passed. The very pity men extend to you humiliates--their compassion
savors of mercy; and mercy is the attribute of One alone!

The “Morning Advertiser” informed its readers, amidst its paragraphs of
events, “That, on Wednesday last, Paul Gervois, the celebrated claimant
to the estates of the late Walter Carew, was forwarded to Cork, previous
to embarking on board the transport-ship ‘Craven Castle,’ in pursuance
of the sentence passed upon him last assizes, of banishment beyond the
seas for the term of his natural life. The wretched man, who since the
discovery that marked the concluding scene of his trial, has scarcely
uttered a word, declined all defence, and while obstinately rejecting
any assistance from counsel, still persisted in pleading not guilty, to
the last.

“It is asserted, we know not with what authority, that the eminent
leader of the Western Circuit is fully persuaded not only of Gervois’
innocence, but actually of his right to the vast property to which he
pretended to be the heir; and had it not been for a severe attack of
gout, Mr. Hanchett would have defended him on his late trial.”

Amidst the fashionable intelligence of the same day, we read that “a
very large and brilliant company are passing the Easter holidays at
the hospitable seat of Joseph Curtis, Castle Carew, amongst whom we
recognized Lord and Lady Ogletown, Sir Massy Digby, the Right Hon.
Francis Malone, Major-General Count Ysaffich, Knight of various orders,
and Augustus Clifford, etc.”

I was on board of a convict hulk in Cork harbor from March till the
latter end of November, not knowing, nor indeed caring, why my sentence
of transportation had not been carried out. The shock under which I had
fallen still stunned me. Life was become a dreary, monotonous dream,
but I had no wish to awake from it; on the contrary, the only acute
suffering I can trace to that period was, when the unhappy fate which
attached to me excited sentiments of either compassion or curiosity in
others. Prison discipline had not, at the time I speak of, received
the development it has since attained; greater freedom of action was
permitted to those in charge of prisoners, who, provided that their
safety was assured, were suffered to treat them with any degree of
severity or harshness that they fancied.

The extraordinary features of the trial in which I had figured--the
“outrageous daring of my pretensions,” as the newspapers styled
it--attracted towards me some of that half-morbid interest which,
somehow, attaches to any remarkable crime. Scarcely a week passed
without some visitor or other desiring to see me; and I was ordered
to come up on deck, or to “walk aft on the poop,” to be stared at and
surveyed, as though I had been some newly discovered animal of the
woods.

These were very mortifying moments to me, and as I well knew that their
humiliation formed no part of my sentence, I felt disposed to rebel
against this infliction. The resolution required more energy, however,
than I possessed, nor was it till after long and painful endurance that
I resolved finally to resist. As I could not refuse to walk up on deck
when ordered, the only resistance in my power was to maintain silence,
and not reply to a single question of those whose vulgar and heartless
curiosity prompted them to make an amusement of my suffering.

“The fellow won’t speak, gentlemen,” said the superintendent one
morning to a very numerous party, who, in all the joyousness of life and
liberty, came to heighten their zest for pleasure by the sight of sorrow
and pain. “He was never very communicative about himself, but latterly
he refuses to utter a word.”

“He still persists in asserting his innocence?” asked one of the
strangers, but in a voice easily overheard by me.

“Not to any of us, sir,” replied the turnkey, gruffly; “he may do so
with his fellows below in the hold, but he knows better than to try on
that gammon with us.”

“I must say,” said one, in a half-whisper, “that, even in that dress, he
has the look of a gentleman about him.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed another, “if his story were to be true!”

I know not what chord in my heart responded to that sudden burst
of feeling. I am fully convinced that, to anything like systematic
condolence or well-worded compassion, I should have been cold as a
stone; and yet I burst into tears as he spoke, and sobbed convulsively.

“Ah! he’s a deep one,” muttered the turnkey. “Take him down with you,
corporal;” and I was marched away, glad to hide my shame and my sorrow
in secret.

Various drafts had been made of those who had been my companions, until
at last not one remained of those originally sentenced at the same
assizes with myself. What this might portend I knew not. Was I destined
to end my days on board of this dark and dismal hulk?--was I never to
press earth once more with my feet? How simply that sounds; but let me
tell you, there is some strange, high instinct in the heart of man that
attaches him to the very soil of earth. That clay of which we came, and
to which we are one day to return, has a powerful hold upon our hearts.
He who toils in it loves it with a fonder love than the great lord who
owns it. Its varied aspects in sunshine and in shade, its changeful hues
of season, its fragrance and its barrenness, are the books in which
he reads; its years of fruitfulness are the joyous episodes of his
existence. The mother earth is the parent that makes all men akin, and
teaches us to love each other like brethren.

“Well, Gervois,” said the turnkey to me one morning, “you are to go at
last, they say. Old Hanchett has argued your case till there is no more
to be said of it; but the Lords have decided against you, and now you
are to sail with the next batch.”

The announcement gave me neither pleasure nor pain; even this evidence
of Hanchett’s kindness towards me did not touch my feelings, for I had
outlived every sentiment of regard or esteem, and lay cold and apathetic
to whatever might betide me.

Possibly this indifference of mine might have piqued him, for he tried
to stimulate me to some show of interest, or even of curiosity about my
own case, by dropping hints of the points of law on which the appeal was
grounded, and the ingenuity by which counsel endeavored to rescue me.
But all his efforts failed; I was dead to the past, and careless for the
future.

“Here’s another order come about you,” said he to me about a week after
this; “you are not to be shipped off next time. They ‘ve found something
else in your case now, which, they say, will puzzle the twelve judges.
Mayhap you ‘d like to read it, if I could get you the newspaper?”

“It were kinder to leave me as I am,” replied I. “He who can only awake
to sorrow had better be let sleep on.”

“Just as you please, my man,” rejoined he, gruffly; “though, if I were
you, I ‘d like to know that my case was not hopeless.”

“You fancy that it matters to me whether my sentence be seven years or
seventy; whether I be condemned to chains here, or hard labor there, or
mere imprisonment without either; but I tell you that for the terms of
the penalty I care almost nothing. The degradation of the felon absorbs
all the rest. When the law has once separated from all save the guilty,
it has done its worst.”

This was the second attempt he made to stimulate my curiosity. His third
venture was more successful.

“So, Gervois,” said he, seating himself opposite me, “they ‘re on the
right scent at last in your business; they’re likely to discover the
real heir to that property you tried for.”

“What do you mean?” asked I.

“Why, it seems somehow there is, or there ought to be somewhere, a young
fellow, a son to this same Carew; and if what the newspapers here say be
true, his right to the estate can be soon established.”

I stared at him with amazement, and he went on.

“Listen to this: ‘Our readers cannot fail to remember a very remarkable
suit which lately occupied no small share of public attention, by the
efforts of a fraudulent conspiracy to undermine the title of one of the
largest landed proprietors in this kingdom. It would appear now that
some very important discoveries have been made in America respecting
this claim, particulars of which have been already forwarded to England.
As the parties who have made these discoveries may soon be expected
in this country, it is not impossible that we may soon hear of another
action of ejectment, although on very different grounds, and with very
different results from the late one.’”

A very few days after this there appeared another and still more
remarkable paragraph, copied from the “London Chronicle,” which ran
thus:--

“We mentioned a few days back that an estate, the claim to which was the
subject of a late most remarkable lawsuit, was likely again to furnish
matter for the occupation of the gentlemen of the long robe. There would
seem now to be no doubt upon the subject, as one of the most eminent
solicitors in this country has received instructions to take the
necessary steps preliminary to a new action at law. The newly discovered
facts are sufficiently curious to deserve mention. The late Walter
Carew, Esq., was reputed to have married a French lady, who, although
believed to have been of high and distinguished rank, was no longer
traceable to any family, nor indeed to any locality in France» There
were many mysterious circumstances attending this alleged union, which
made the fact of a marriage very doubtful. Nothing certainly could
be discovered amongst Carew’s papers, or little to authenticate the
circumstances, nor was there a single allusion to be found to it in his
handwriting. A singular accident has at length brought this document
to light; and although the individual whose fortune it most nearly
concerned has ceased to exist,--he died, it is believed, in the affair
of the Sections at Paris,--the result will, in all probability, affect
the possession of the vast property in question.

“The discovery to which we allude is as follows: A mass of papers and
family documents were deposited by the late Duke of Montpensier in the
hands of certain bankers in Philadelphia, in whose possession they have
remained, undisturbed and unexplored, up to within a few weeks back,
when the Duke of Orleans, desiring to know if a particular document that
he sought for was amongst the number, addressed himself to the firm for
this purpose. Whether success attended the search in question we know
not, but it certainly elicited another and most curious discovery:
no less than that the late Madame de Carew was a natural daughter
of Philippe, Duke of Orleans, the celebrated ‘Égalité,’ and that her
marriage had been the result of a wager lost by the Duke to Carew. We
are not at liberty to divulge any more of the singular circumstances of
this strange compact, though we may add, what in the present is the more
important element of the case, no less than this marriage certificate
of Walter Carew and Josephine de Courtois, forwarded to the Duke in a
letter from the Duchesse de Sargance, who had accompanied them.

“The letter of the Duchess herself is not one of the least singular
parts of this most strange history, since it mentions the marriage in
a style of apology, and consoles the Duke for the _mésalliance_ by the
assurance that, probably, in the obscurity of Ireland, they will never
more be heard of.

“Amongst the strange coincidences of this strange event, another still
remains to be told. It was in the hands of the firm of Rogers and Raper
that these documents were deposited, and Mr. Raper himself has passed
half a lifetime in the vain search for the very piece of evidence which
mere chance has thus presented to him.

“That Gervois, the celebrated impostor in this case, must have, by some
means or other, obtained an insight into the strange circumstances of
this story, is quite evident, and we understand that the order for
his departure has been countermanded till he be interrogated as to the
amount of his knowledge, and the sources from which he derived it. Mr.
Raper and the Countess of Gabriac, an Irishwoman by birth, are expected
daily to arrive in this country, and we may look forward to their coming
for the elucidation of one of the most curious stories in our domestic
annals.

“There is a story current that Lady Hester Stanhope remembers, some
years back, a young man having presented himself to Mr. Pitt as the son
of the late Walter Carew, and shown certain papers to authenticate his
claim; and as the occurrence took place subsequent to the year ‘95, it
is evident that if his pretensions were well founded, there could be
no truth in the account of his having fallen in the ‘Battle of the
Sections.’”

I have no heart to speak of how these passages affected me. To hear that
my dear mother and Raper still lived; that they not only remembered me,
but that their deep devotion to my cause still animated them,--was too
much to bear! Bruised, and shattered, and broken down by fortune, this
proof of affection kindled the almost dead embers of feeling within me,
and I fell upon my knees in thankful prayer to Heaven that I was not
deserted nor forgotten! It was no longer rank, and wealth, and riches
that glittered before me. I sought for no splendors of fortune or high
estate. All that I asked, all that I prayed for, was an honorable
name before man, and that love which should once more reconcile me to
myself,--lift me from the lonely depths of my isolation, and make a home
for me with those to whom I was dear.

“On deck, Gervois,” said the turnkey, arousing me from a deep revery a
few days after this interview; “on deck--here are some strangers want to
have a look at ye.”

I slowly followed him up the ladder. I was weak and sickly, but no
longer dispirited nor depressed; a faint flickering of hope now burned
within me, and I felt that, even to the vulgar stare of curiosity, I
could present the steady gaze of one whose vindication might one day be
pronounced. I had but touched the deck with my foot when I was clasped
in a strong embrace, and Polly’s voice, as she kissed me, cried, “My own
dear, dear boy; my own long-lost child!”

Raper’s arms were around me too; and another that I knew not, a
white-haired man, old and sorrow-stricken, but noble-looking, grasped my
hand in his, and said,--

“His father, every inch of him!”

Poor MacNaghten! he had come from fourteen years of imprisonment to
devote his first moment of liberty to bless and embrace me.

Oh! you who have known what it is to be rescued from death when every
hope of life had left you; who have from the storm-tossed raft watched
the sail as it came nearer and nearer, and at last heard the loud
cheer that said, “Be of good courage--a moment more and we will be with
you!”--even you, in that moment of blissful agony, cannot sound the
depth of emotion which was mine, as, throwing off the stain of the
felon, I stood forth in the pride of my guiltlessness, able to say
to the world, See how you have wronged me! See how, confounding the
weakness and the folly of the human heart with direct and actual
criminality, you have suffered the probable or the possible to usurp the
place of the inevitably true; have been so carried away by prejudice
or by passion as to sentence an innocent man!--see, I say, that your
judgments are fallible and your tests are weak; and bethink you that all
you can do hereafter in atonement of your error can never erase the deep
welt of the fetter on his limb, or the more terrible brand that stamped
“guilty” on his name. If you cannot be always just, be sometimes
merciful; distrust, at least, the promptings that disposed you to
condemn, and say to your heart, “Good God, if this man were to prove
innocent!”

I am now wealthy and rich. Years of prosperity have rolled over
me,--years of tranquil happiness and sincere enjoyment. There is not
a day on which I have not to thank Heaven for blessings of health
and vigor, for the love of kind hearts, and for the affection of many
benevolent natures. I know and I acknowledge that these are more than
the recompense of any sorrows I have suffered; and in my daily walk of
life I try to aid those who suffer, to console affliction, and to cheer
weak-heartedness. The happiness that others seek and find within the
circle of their own, I look for in the wider family of mankind, and I am
not disappointed.

Polly and Raper live with me. MacNaghten, too, inhabits the old room
that once was his. Poor fellow, in his extreme old age he loves every
spot that revives a memory of the past, and in his wanderings often
calls me “Walter.”

It remains for me but to say that the singular events which ultimately
restored me to my own, attracted the attention of royalty. The various
details which came out upon the trial, with the evidence given by the
Countess of Gabriac and Raper,--all of which, involving so much already
known, I have spared the reader,--so far interested the King that he
expressed a desire to see me at Court.

I hastened, of course, to obey the command, and from the royal hand
received the honor of knighthood, his Majesty saying, “We should have
made you a baronet, only that it would have been of no use to you,
seeing that you are the last of the Carews of Castle Carew.”

Yes, kind reader, and these, too, are our last words to you. Would that
anything in these memorials of a life may have served to lighten a weary
hour, or softened a moment of suffering; since to the higher purposes of
instruction or improvement they lay no claim. At all events, think of
me as one too deeply conscious of his own faults to hide or to extenuate
them, and too sincerely sensible of his good fortune not to strive to
extend its blessings to others.--Adieu!

THE END.





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