Title: The Virginians
Author: Thackeray, William Makepeace
Language: English
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THE VIRGINIANS

A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY


By William Makepeace Thackeray



TO SIR HENRY MADISON, Chief Justice of Madras, this book is inscribed by
an affectionate old friend.

London, September 7, 1859.



CONTENTS

  CHAPTER
      I  In which one of the Virginians visits Home
     II  In which Harry has to pay for his Supper
    III  The Esmonds in Virginia
     IV  In which Harry finds a New Relative
      V  Family Jars
     VI  The Virginians begin to see the World
    VII  Preparations for War
   VIII  In which George suffers from a common Disease
     IX  Hospitalities
      X  A Hot Afternoon
     XI  Wherein the two Georges prepare for Blood
    XII  News from the Camp
   XIII  Profitless Quest
    XIV  Harry in England
     XV  A Sunday at Castlewood
    XVI  In which Gumbo shows Skill with the Old English Weapon
   XVII  On the Scent
  XVIII  An Old Story
    XIX  Containing both Love and Luck
     XX  Facilis Descensus
    XXI  Samaritans
   XXII  In Hospital
  XXIII  Holydays
   XXIV  From Oakhurst to Tunbridge
    XXV  New Acquaintances
   XXVI  In which we are at a very great distance from Oakhurst
  XXVII  Plenum Opus Aleae
 XXVIII  The Way of the World
   XXIX  In which Harry continues to enjoy Otium sine Dignitate
    XXX  Contains a Letter to Virginia
   XXXI  The Bear and the Leader
  XXXII  In which a Family Coach is ordered
 XXXIII  Contains a Soliloquy by Hester
  XXXIV  In which Mr. Warrington treats the Company with Tea and a Ball
   XXXV  Entanglements
  XXXVI  Which seems to mean Mischief
 XXXVII  In which various Matches are fought
XXXVIII Sampson and the Philistines  XXXIX  Harry to the Rescue
     XL  In which Harry pays off an Old Debt, and incurs some New Ones
    XLI  Rake’s Progress
   XLII  Fortunatus Nimium
  XLIII  In which Harry flies high
   XLIV  Contains what might, perhaps, have been expected
    XLV  In which Harry finds two Uncles
   XLVI  Chains and Slavery
  XLVII  Visitors in Trouble
 XLVIII  An Apparition
   XLIX  Friends in Need
      L  Contains a Great deal of the Finest Morality
     LI  Conticuere Omnes
    LII  Intentique Ora tenebant
   LIII  Where we remain at the Court End of the Town
    LIV  During which Harry sits smoking his Pipe at Home
     LV  Between Brothers
    LVI  Ariadne
   LVII  In which Harry’s Nose continues to be put out of joint
  LVIII  Where we do what Cats may do
    LIX  In which we are treated to a Play
     LX  Which treats of Macbeth, a Supper, and a Pretty Kettle of Fish
    LXI  In which the Prince marches up the Hill and down again
   LXII  Arma Virumque
  LXIII  Melpomene
   LXIV  In which Harry lives to fight another day
    LXV  Soldier’s Return
   LXVI  In which we go a-courting
  LXVII  In which a Tragedy is acted, and two more begun
 LXVIII  In which Harry goes Westward
   LXIX  A Little Innocent
    LXX  In which Cupid plays a considerable part
   LXXI  With Favours
  LXXII  (From the Warrington MS.) In which my Lady is on the Top
           of the Ladder
 LXXIII  We keep Christmas at Castlewood. 1759
  LXXIV  News from Canada
   LXXV  The Course of True Love
  LXXVI  Informs us how Mr. Warrington jumped into a Landau
 LXXVII  And how everybody got out again
LXXVIII Pyramus and Thisbe
LXXIX  Containing both Comedy and Tragedy
   LXXX  Pocahontas
  LXXXI  Res Angusta Domi
 LXXXII  Mile’s Moidore
LXXXIII Troubles and Consolations
 LXXXIV  In which Harry submits to the Common Lot
  LXXXV  Inveni Portum
 LXXXVI  At Home
LXXXVII The Last of God Save the King LXXXVIII Yankeee Doodle comes to
Town LXXXIX  A Colonel without a Regiment
     XC  In which we both fight and run away
    XCI  Satis Pugnae
   XCII  Under Vine and Fig-Tree



THE VIRGINIANS



CHAPTER I. In which one of the Virginians visits home


On the library wall of one of the most famous writers of America, there
hang two crossed swords, which his relatives wore in the great War of
Independence. The one sword was gallantly drawn in the service of
the king, the other was the weapon of a brave and honoured republican
soldier. The possessor of the harmless trophy has earned for himself a
name alike honoured in his ancestors’ country and his own, where genius
such as his has always a peaceful welcome.

The ensuing history reminds me of yonder swords in the historian’s study
at Boston. In the Revolutionary War, the subjects of this story, natives
of America, and children of the Old Dominion, found themselves engaged
on different sides in the quarrel, coming together peaceably at its
conclusion, as brethren should, their love ever having materially
diminished, however angrily the contest divided them. The colonel in
scarlet, and the general in blue and buff, hang side by side in the
wainscoted parlour of the Warringtons, in England, where a descendant
of one of the brothers has shown their portraits to me, with many of
the letters which they wrote, and the books and papers which belonged
to them. In the Warrington family, and to distinguish them from other
personages of that respectable race, these effigies have always gone
by the name of “The Virginians”; by which name their memoirs are
christened.

They both of them passed much time in Europe. They lived just on the
verge of that Old World from which we are drifting away so swiftly. They
were familiar with many varieties of men and fortune. Their lot brought
them into contact with personages of whom we read only in books, who
seem alive, as I read in the Virginians’ letters regarding them, whose
voices I almost fancy I hear, as I read the yellow pages written scores
of years since, blotted with the boyish tears of disappointed passion,
dutifully despatched after famous balls and ceremonies of the grand Old
World, scribbled by camp-fires, or out of prison; nay, there is one that
has a bullet through it, and of which a greater portion of the text is
blotted out with the blood of the bearer.

These letters had probably never been preserved, but for the
affectionate thrift of one person, to whom they never failed in their
dutiful correspondence. Their mother kept all her sons’ letters, from
the very first, in which Henry, the younger of the twins, sends his
love to his brother, then ill of a sprain at his grandfather’s house of
Castlewood, in Virginia, and thanks his grandpapa for a horse which he
rides with his tutor, down to the last, “from my beloved son,” which
reached her but a few hours before her death. The venerable lady never
visited Europe, save once with her parents in the reign of George the
Second; took refuge in Richmond when the house of Castlewood was burned
down during the war; and was called Madam Esmond ever after that event;
never caring much for the name or family of Warrington, which she held
in very slight estimation as compared to her own.

The letters of the Virginians, as the reader will presently see, from
specimens to be shown to him, are by no means full. They are hints
rather than descriptions--indications and outlines chiefly: it may be,
that the present writer has mistaken the forms, and filled in the colour
wrongly: but, poring over the documents, I have tried to imagine the
situation of the writer, where he was, and by what persons surrounded. I
have drawn the figures as I fancied they were; set down conversations
as I think I might have heard them; and so, to the best of my ability,
endeavoured to revivify the bygone times and people. With what success
the task has been accomplished, with what profit or amusement to
himself, the kind reader will please to determine.

One summer morning in the year 1756, and in the reign of his Majesty
King George the Second, the Young Rachel, Virginian ship, Edward Franks
master, came up the Avon river on her happy return from her annual
voyage to the Potomac. She proceeded to Bristol with the tide, and
moored in the stream as near as possible to Trail’s wharf, to which she
was consigned. Mr. Trail, her part owner, who could survey his ship from
his counting-house windows, straightway took boat and came up her side.
The owner of the Young Rachel, a large grave man in his own hair, and of
a demure aspect, gave the hand of welcome to Captain Franks, who stood
on his deck, and congratulated the captain upon the speedy and fortunate
voyage which he had made. And, remarking that we ought to be thankful
to Heaven for its mercies, he proceeded presently to business by asking
particulars relative to cargo and passengers.

Franks was a pleasant man, who loved a joke. “We have,” says he, “but
yonder ugly negro boy, who is fetching the trunks, and a passenger who
has the state cabin to himself.”

Mr. Trail looked as if he would have preferred more mercies from Heaven.
“Confound you, Franks, and your luck! The Duke William, which came in
last week, brought fourteen, and she is not half of our tonnage.”

“And this passenger, who has the whole cabin, don’t pay nothin’,”
 continued the Captain. “Swear now, it will do you good, Mr. Trail,
indeed it will. I have tried the medicine.”

“A passenger take the whole cabin and not pay? Gracious mercy, are you a
fool, Captain Franks?”

“Ask the passenger himself, for here he comes.” And, as the master
spoke, a young man of some nineteen years of age came up the hatchway.
He had a cloak and a sword under his arm, and was dressed in deep
mourning, and called out, “Gumbo, you idiot, why don’t you fetch the
baggage out of the cabin? Well, shipmate, our journey is ended. You will
see all the little folks to-night whom you have been talking about. Give
my love to Polly, and Betty, and Little Tommy; not forgetting my duty to
Mrs. Franks. I thought, yesterday, the voyage would never be done, and
now I am almost sorry it is over. That little berth in my cabin looks
very comfortable now I am going to leave it.”

Mr. Trail scowled at the young passenger who had paid no money for
his passage. He scarcely nodded his head to the stranger, when Captain
Franks said, “This here gentleman is Mr. Trail, sir, whose name you have
a-heerd of.”

“It’s pretty well known in Bristol, sir,” says Mr. Trail, majestically.

“And this is Mr. Warrington, Madam Esmond Warrington’s son, of
Castlewood,” continued the Captain.

The British merchant’s hat was instantly off his head, and the owner of
the beaver was making a prodigious number of bows as if a crown prince
were before him.

“Gracious powers, Mr. Warrington! This is a delight, indeed! What a
crowning mercy that your voyage should have been so prosperous! You must
have my boat to go on shore. Let me cordially and respectfully welcome
you to England: let me shake your hand as the son of my benefactress and
patroness, Mrs. Esmond Warrington, whose name is known and honoured on
Bristol ‘Change, I warrant you. Isn’t it, Franks?”

“There’s no sweeter tobacco comes from Virginia, and no better brand
than the Three Castles,” says Mr. Franks, drawing a great brass
tobacco-box from his pocket, and thrusting a quid into his jolly mouth.
“You don’t know what a comfort it is, sir! you’ll take to it, bless you,
as you grow older. Won’t he, Mr. Trail? I wish you had ten shiploads of
it instead of one. You might have ten shiploads: I’ve told Madam Esmond
so; I’ve rode over her plantation; she treats me like a lord when I go
to the house; she don’t grudge me the best of wine, or keep me cooling
my heels in the counting-room as some folks does” (with a look at Mr.
Trail). “She is a real born lady, she is; and might have a thousand
hogsheads as easy as her hundreds, if there were but hands enough.”

“I have lately engaged in the Guinea trade, and could supply her
ladyship with any number of healthy young negroes before next fall,”
 said Mr. Trail, obsequiously.

“We are averse to the purchase of negroes from Africa,” said the young
gentleman, coldly. “My grandfather and my mother have always objected to
it, and I do not like to think of selling or buying the poor wretches.”

“It is for their good, my dear young sir! for their temporal and their
spiritual good!” cried Mr. Trail. “And we purchase the poor creatures
only for their benefit; let me talk this matter over with you at my own
house. I can introduce you to a happy home, a Christian family, and a
British merchant’s honest fare. Can’t I, Captain Franks?”

“Can’t say,” growled the Captain. “Never asked me to take bite or sup at
your table. Asked me to psalm-singing once, and to hear Mr. Ward preach:
don’t care for them sort of entertainments.”

Not choosing to take any notice of this remark, Mr. Trail continued in
his low tone: “Business is business, my dear young sir, and I know,
‘tis only my duty, the duty of all of us, to cultivate the fruits of the
earth in their season. As the heir of Lady Esmond’s estate--for I speak,
I believe, to the heir of that great property?--”

The young gentleman made a bow.

“--I would urge upon you, at the very earliest moment, the propriety,
the duty of increasing the ample means with which Heaven has blessed
you. As an honest factor, I could not do otherwise; as a prudent man,
should I scruple to speak of what will tend to your profit and mine? No,
my dear Mr. George.”

“My name is not George; my name is Henry,” said the young man as he
turned his head away, and his eyes filled with tears.

“Gracious powers! what do you mean, sir? Did you not say you were my
lady’s heir? and is not George Esmond Warrington, Esq.----”

“Hold your tongue, you fool!” cried Mr. Franks, striking the merchant a
tough blow on his sleek sides, as the young lad turned away. “Don’t
you see the young gentleman a-swabbing his eyes, and note his black
clothes?”

“What do you mean, Captain Franks, by laying your hand on your owners?
Mr. George is the heir; I know the Colonel’s will well enough.”

“Mr. George is there,” said the Captain, pointing with his thumb to the
deck.

“Where?” cries the factor.

“Mr. George is there!” reiterated the Captain, again lifting up his
finger towards the topmast, or the sky beyond. “He is dead a year, sir,
come next 9th of July. He would go out with General Braddock on that
dreadful business to the Belle Riviere. He and a thousand more never
came back again. Every man of them was murdered as he fell. You know
the Indian way, Mr. Trail?” And here the Captain passed his hand rapidly
round his head. “Horrible! ain’t it, sir? horrible! He was a fine young
man, the very picture of this one; only his hair was black, which is now
hanging in a bloody Indian wigwam. He was often and often on board of
the Young Rachel, and would have his chests of books broke open on deck
before they was landed. He was a shy and silent young gent: not like
this one, which was the merriest, wildest young fellow, full of his
songs and fun. He took on dreadful at the news; went to his bed, had
that fever which lays so many of ‘em by the heels along that swampy
Potomac, but he’s got better on the voyage: the voyage makes every one
better; and, in course, the young gentleman can’t be for ever a-crying
after a brother who dies and leaves him a great fortune. Ever since we
sighted Ireland he has been quite gay and happy, only he would go off at
times, when he was most merry, saying, ‘I wish my dearest Georgy
could enjoy this here sight along with me, and when you mentioned
the t’other’s name, you see, he couldn’t stand it.’” And the honest
Captain’s own eyes filled with tears, as he turned and looked towards
the object of his compassion.

Mr. Trail assumed a lugubrious countenance befitting the tragic
compliment with which he prepared to greet the young Virginian; but the
latter answered him very curtly, declined his offers of hospitality, and
only stayed in Mr. Trail’s house long enough to drink a glass of wine
and to take up a sum of money of which he stood in need. But he and
Captain Franks parted on the very warmest terms, and all the little crew
of the Young Rachel cheered from the ship’s side as their passenger left
it.

Again and again Harry Warrington and his brother had pored over the
English map, and determined upon the course which they should take
upon arriving at Home. All Americans who love the old country--and what
gently-nurtured man or woman of Anglo-Saxon race does not?--have ere
this rehearsed their English travels, and visited in fancy the spots
with which their hopes, their parents’ fond stories, their friends’
descriptions, have rendered them familiar. There are few things to me
more affecting in the history of the quarrel which divided the two great
nations than the recurrence of that word Home, as used by the younger
towards the elder country. Harry Warrington had his chart laid out.
Before London, and its glorious temples of St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s;
its grim Tower, where the brave and loyal had shed their blood, from
Wallace down to Balmerino and Kilmarnock, pitied by gentle hearts;
before the awful window of Whitehall, whence the martyr Charles
had issued, to kneel once more, and then ascend to Heaven;--before
Playhouses, Parks, and Palaces, wondrous resorts of wit, pleasure, and
splendour;--before Shakspeare’s Resting-place under the tall spire which
rises by Avon, amidst the sweet Warwickshire pastures;--before Derby,
and Falkirk, and Culloden, where the cause of honour and loyalty had
fallen, it might be to rise no more:--before all these points of their
pilgrimage there was one which the young Virginian brothers held even
more sacred, and that was the home of their family,--that old Castlewood
in Hampshire, about which their parents had talked so fondly. From
Bristol to Bath, from Bath to Salisbury, to Winchester, to Hexton, to
Home; they knew the way, and had mapped the journey many and many a
time.

We must fancy our American traveller to be a handsome young fellow,
whose suit of sables only made him look the more interesting. The plump
landlady from her bar, surrounded by her china and punch-bowls, and
stout gilded bottles of strong waters, and glittering rows of silver
flagons, looked kindly after the young gentleman as he passed through
the inn-hall from his post-chaise, and the obsequious chamberlain bowed
him upstairs to the Rose or the Dolphin. The trim chambermaid dropped
her best curtsey for his fee, and Gumbo, in the inn-kitchen, where the
townsfolk drank their mug of ale by the great fire, bragged of his young
master’s splendid house in Virginia, and of the immense wealth to which
he was heir. The postchaise whirled the traveller through the most
delightful home-scenery his eyes had ever lighted on. If English
landscape is pleasant to the American of the present day, who must needs
contrast the rich woods and glowing pastures, and picturesque ancient
villages of the old country with the rough aspect of his own, how much
pleasanter must Harry Warrington’s course have been, whose journeys had
lain through swamps and forest solitudes from one Virginian ordinary
to another log-house at the end of the day’s route, and who now lighted
suddenly upon the busy, happy, splendid scene of English summer? And the
highroad, a hundred years ago, was not that grass-grown desert of the
present time. It was alive with constant travel and traffic: the country
towns and inns swarmed with life and gaiety. The ponderous waggon, with
its bells and plodding team; the light post-coach that achieved the
journey from the White Hart, Salisbury, to the Swan with Two Necks,
London, in two days; the strings of packhorses that had not yet left the
road; my lord’s gilt postchaise-and-six, with the outriders galloping
on ahead; the country squire’s great coach and heavy Flanders mares; the
farmers trotting to market, or the parson jolting to the cathedral town
on Dumpling, his wife behind on the pillion--all these crowding sights
and brisk people greeted the young traveller on his summer journey.
Hodge, the farmer’s boy, took off his hat, and Polly, the milkmaid,
bobbed a curtsey, as the chaise whirled over the pleasant village-green,
and the white-headed children lifted their chubby faces and cheered.
The church-spires glistened with gold, the cottage-gables glared in
sunshine, the great elms murmured in summer, or cast purple shadows over
the grass. Young Warrington never had such a glorious day, or witnessed
a scene so delightful. To be nineteen years of age, with high health,
high spirits, and a full purse, to be making your first journey, and
rolling through the country in a postchaise at nine miles an hour--O
happy youth! almost it makes one young to think of him! But Harry was
too eager to give more than a passing glance at the Abbey at Bath,
or gaze with more than a moment’s wonder at the mighty Minster at
Salisbury. Until he beheld Home it seemed to him he had no eyes for any
other place.

At last the young gentleman’s postchaise drew up at the rustic inn on
Castlewood Green, of which his grandsire had many a time talked to him,
and which bears as its ensign, swinging from an elm near the inn porch,
the Three Castles of the Esmond family. They had a sign, too, over the
gateway of Castlewood House, bearing the same cognisance. This was the
hatchment of Francis, Lord Castlewood, who now lay in the chapel hard
by, his son reigning in his stead.

Harry Warrington had often heard of Francis, Lord Castlewood. It was
for Frank’s sake, and for his great love towards the boy, that Colonel
Esmond determined to forgo his claim to the English estates and rank of
his family, and retired to Virginia. The young man had led a wild youth;
he had fought with distinction under Marlborough; he had married a
foreign lady, and most lamentably adopted her religion. At one time he
had been a Jacobite (for loyalty to the sovereign was ever hereditary
in the Esmond family), but had received some slight or injury from the
Prince, which had caused him to rally to King George’s side. He had,
on his second marriage, renounced the errors of Popery which he had
temporarily embraced, and returned to the Established Church again. He
had, from his constant support of the King and the Minister of the time
being, been rewarded by his Majesty George II., and died an English
peer. An earl’s coronet now figured on the hatchment which hung over
Castlewood gate--and there was an end of the jolly gentleman. Between
Colonel Esmond, who had become his stepfather, and his lordship there
had ever been a brief but affectionate correspondence--on the Colonel’s
part especially, who loved his stepson, and had a hundred stories to
tell about him to his grandchildren. Madam Esmond, however, said she
could see nothing in her half-brother. He was dull, except when he drank
too much wine, and that, to be sure, was every day at dinner. Then
he was boisterous, and his conversation not pleasant. He was
good-looking--yes--a fine tall stout animal; she had rather her boys
should follow a different model. In spite of the grandfather’s encomium
of the late lord, the boys had no very great respect for their kinsman’s
memory. The lads and their mother were staunch Jacobites, though having
every respect for his present Majesty; but right was right, and nothing
could make their hearts swerve from their allegiance to the descendants
of the martyr Charles.

With a beating heart Harry Warrington walked from the inn towards
the house where his grandsire’s youth had been passed. The little
village-green of Castlewood slopes down towards the river, which is
spanned by an old bridge of a single broad arch, and from this the
ground rises gradually towards the house, grey with many gables and
buttresses, and backed by a darkling wood. An old man sate at the wicket
on a stone bench in front of the great arched entrance to the house,
over which the earl’s hatchment was hanging. An old dog was crouched at
the man’s feet. Immediately above the ancient sentry at the gate was an
open casement with some homely flowers in the window, from behind which
good-humoured girls’ faces were peeping. They were watching the young
traveller dressed in black as he walked up gazing towards the castle,
and the ebony attendant who followed the gentleman’s steps also
accoutred in mourning. So was he at the gate in mourning, and the girls
when they came out had black ribbons.

To Harry’s surprise, the old man accosted him by his name. “You have had
a nice ride to Hexton, Master Harry, and the sorrel carried you well.”

“I think you must be Lockwood,” said Harry, with rather a tremulous
voice, holding out his hand to the old man. His grandfather had often
told him of Lockwood, and how he had accompanied the Colonel and the
young Viscount in Marlborough’s wars forty years ago. The veteran seemed
puzzled by the mark of affection which Harry extended to him. The old
dog gazed at the new-comer, and then went and put his head between his
knees. “I have heard of you often. How did you know my name?”

“They say I forget most things,” says the old man, with a smile; “but
I ain’t so bad as that quite. Only this mornin’, when you went out, my
darter says, ‘Father, do you know why you have a black coat on?’ ‘In
course I know why I have a black coat,’ says I. ‘My lord is dead. They
say ‘twas a foul blow, and Master Frank is my lord now, and Master
Harry’--why, what have you done since you’ve went out this morning? Why,
you have a-grow’d taller and changed your hair--though I know--I know
you.”

One of the young women had tripped out by this time from the porter’s
lodge, and dropped the stranger a pretty curtsey. “Grandfather sometimes
does not recollect very well,” she said, pointing to her head. “Your
honour seems to have heard of Lockwood?”

“And you, have you never heard of Colonel Francis Esmond?”

“He was Captain and Major in Webb’s Foot, and I was with him in two
campaigns, sure enough,” cries Lockwood. “Wasn’t I, Ponto?”

“The Colonel as married Viscountess Rachel, my late lord’s mother? and
went to live amongst the Indians? We have heard of him. Sure we have his
picture in our gallery, and hisself painted it.”

“Went to live in Virginia, and died there seven years ago, and I am his
grandson.”

“Lord, your honour! Why, your honour’s skin’s as white as mine,” cries
Molly. “Grandfather, do you hear this? His honour is Colonel Esmond’s
grandson that used to send you tobacco, and his honour have come all the
way from Virginia.”

“To see you, Lockwood,” says the young man, “and the family. I only set
foot on English ground yesterday, and my first visit is for home. I may
see the house, though the family are from home?” Molly dared to say Mrs.
Barker would let his honour see the house, and Harry Warrington made
his way across the court, seeming to know the place as well as if he had
been born there, Miss Molly thought, who followed, accompanied by Mr.
Gumbo making her a profusion of polite bows and speeches.



CHAPTER II. In which Harry has to pay for his Supper


Colonel Esmond’s grandson rang for a while at his ancestors’ house of
Castlewood, before any one within seemed inclined to notice his summons.
The servant, who at length issued from the door, seemed to be very
little affected by the announcement that the visitor was a relation of
the family. The family was away, and in their absence John cared very
little for their relatives, but was eager to get back to his game at
cards with Thomas in the window-seat. The housekeeper was busy getting
ready for my lord and my lady, who were expected that evening. Only by
strong entreaties could Harry gain leave to see my lady’s sitting-room
and the picture-room, where, sure enough, was a portrait of his
grandfather in periwig and breastplate, the counterpart of their picture
in Virginia, and a likeness of his grandmother, as Lady Castlewood, in a
yet earlier habit of Charles II.’s time; her neck bare, her fair golden
hair waving over her shoulders in ringlets which he remembered to have
seen snowy white. From the contemplation of these sights the sulky
housekeeper drove him. Her family was about to arrive. There was my lady
the Countess, and my lord and his brother, and the young ladies, and the
Baroness, who was to have the state bedroom. Who was the Baroness? The
Baroness Bernstein, the young ladies’ aunt. Harry wrote down his name
on a paper from his own pocket-book, and laid it on a table in the hall.
“Henry Esmond Warrington, of Castlewood, in Virginia, arrived in England
yesterday--staying at the Three Castles in the village.” The lackeys
rose up from their cards to open the door to him, in order to get their
“wails,” and Gumbo quitted the bench at the gate, where he had been
talking with old Lockwood, the porter, who took Harry’s guinea, hardly
knowing the meaning of the gift. During the visit to the home of his
fathers, Harry had only seen little Polly’s countenance that was
the least unselfish or kindly: he walked away, not caring to own how
disappointed he was, and what a damp had been struck upon him by the
aspect of the place. They ought to have known him. Had any of them
ridden up to his house in Virginia, whether the master were present or
absent, the guests would have been made welcome, and, in sight of his
ancestors’ hall, he had to go and ask for a dish of bacon and eggs at a
country alehouse!

After his dinner, he went to the bridge and sate on it, looking towards
the old house, behind which the sun was descending as the rooks came
cawing home to their nests in the elms. His young fancy pictured to
itself many of the ancestors of whom his mother and grandsire had told
him. He fancied knights and huntsmen crossing the ford;--cavaliers
of King Charles’s days; my Lord Castlewood, his grandmother’s first
husband, riding out with hawk and hound. The recollection of his dearest
lost brother came back to him as he indulged in these reveries, and
smote him with a pang of exceeding tenderness and longing, insomuch that
the young man hung his head and felt his sorrow renewed for the dear
friend and companion with whom, until of late, all his pleasures and
griefs had been shared. As he sate plunged in his own thoughts, which
were mingled up with the mechanical clinking of the blacksmith’s forge
hard by, the noises of the evening, the talk of the rooks, and the
calling of the birds round about--a couple of young men on horseback
dashed over the bridge. One of them, with an oath, called him a fool,
and told him to keep out of the way--the other, who fancied he might
have jostled the foot-passenger, and possibly might have sent him over
the parapet, pushed on more quickly when he reached the other side of
the water, calling likewise to Tom to come on; and the pair of young
gentlemen were up the hill on their way to the house before Harry had
recovered himself from his surprise at their appearance, and wrath at
their behaviour. In a minute or two, this advanced guard was followed by
two livery servants on horseback, who scowled at the young traveller
on the bridge a true British welcome of Curse you, who are you? After
these, in a minute or two, came a coach-and-six, a ponderous vehicle
having need of the horses which drew it, and containing three ladies, a
couple of maids, and an armed man on a seat behind the carriage. Three
handsome pale faces looked out at Harry Warrington as the carriage
passed over the bridge, and did not return the salute which, recognising
the family arms, he gave it. The gentleman behind the carriage glared at
him haughtily. Harry felt terribly alone. He thought he would go back to
Captain Franks. The Rachel and her little tossing cabin seemed a cheery
spot in comparison to that on which he stood. The inn-folks did not know
his name of Warrington. They told him that was my lady in the coach,
with her stepdaughter, my Lady Maria, and her daughter, my Lady Fanny;
and the young gentleman in the grey frock was Mr. William, and he with
powder on the chestnut was my lord. It was the latter had sworn the
loudest, and called him a fool; and it was the grey frock which had
nearly galloped Harry into the ditch.

The landlord of the Three Castles had shown Harry a bedchamber, but
he had refused to have his portmanteaux unpacked, thinking that, for a
certainty, the folks of the great house would invite him to theirs. One,
two, three hours passed, and there came no invitation. Harry was fain
to have his trunks open at last, and to call for his slippers and
gown. Just before dark, about two hours after the arrival of the first
carriage, a second chariot with four horses had passed over the bridge,
and a stout, high-coloured lady, with a very dark pair of eyes, had
looked hard at Mr. Warrington. That was the Baroness Bernstein, the
landlady said, my lord’s aunt, and Harry remembered the first Lady
Castlewood had come of a German family. Earl, and Countess, and
Baroness, and postillions, and gentlemen, and horses, had all
disappeared behind the castle gate, and Harry was fain to go to bed at
last, in the most melancholy mood and with a cruel sense of neglect and
loneliness in his young heart. He could not sleep, and, besides, ere
long, heard a prodigious noise, and cursing, and giggling, and screaming
from my landlady’s bar, which would have served to keep him awake.

Then Gumbo’s voice was heard without, remonstrating, “You cannot go in,
sar--my master asleep, sar!” but a shrill voice, with many oaths,
which Harry Warrington recognised, cursed Gumbo for a stupid, negro
woolly-pate, and he was pushed aside, giving entrance to a flood of
oaths into the room, and a young gentleman behind them.

“Beg your pardon, Cousin Warrington,” cried the young blasphemer, “are
you asleep? Beg your pardon for riding you over on the bridge. Didn’t
know you--course shouldn’t have done it--thought it was a lawyer with a
writ--dressed in black, you know. Gad! thought it was Nathan come to nab
me.” And Mr. William laughed incoherently. It was evident that he was
excited with liquor.

“You did me great honour to mistake me for a sheriff’s-officer, cousin,”
 says Harry, with great gravity, sitting up in his tall nightcap.

“Gad! I thought it was Nathan, and was going to send you souse into the
river. But I ask your pardon. You see I had been drinking at the Bell at
Hexton, and the punch is good at the Bell at Hexton. Hullo! you, Davis!
a bowl of punch; d’you hear?”

“I have had my share for to-night, cousin, and I should think you have,”
 Harry continues, always in the dignified style.

“You want me to go, Cousin What’s-your-name, I see,” Mr. William said,
with gravity. “You want me to go, and they want me to come, and I didn’t
want to come. I said, I’d see him hanged first,--that’s what I said. Why
should I trouble myself to come down all alone of an evening, and look
after a fellow I don’t care a pin for? Zackly what I said. Zackly what
Castlewood said. Why the devil should he go down? Castlewood says,
and so said my lady, but the Baroness would have you. It’s all the
Baroness’s doing, and if she says a thing, it must be done; so you must
just get up and come.” Mr. Esmond delivered these words with the most
amiable rapidity and indistinctness, running them into one another, and
tacking about the room as he spoke. But the young Virginian was in
great wrath. “I tell you what, cousin,” he cried, “I won’t move for the
Countess, or for the Baroness, or for all the cousins in Castlewood.”
 And when the landlord entered the chamber with the bowl of punch, which
Mr. Esmond had ordered, the young gentleman in bed called out fiercely
to the host, to turn that sot out of the room.

“Sot, you little tobacconist! Sot, you Cherokee!” screams out Mr.
William. “Jump out of bed, and I’ll drive my sword through your body.
Why didn’t I do it to-day when I took you for a bailiff--a confounded
pettifogging bum-bailiff!” And he went on screeching more oaths and
incoherencies, until the landlord, the drawer, the hostler, and all the
folks of the kitchen were brought to lead him away. After which Harry
Warrington closed his tent round him in sulky wrath, and, no doubt,
finally went fast to sleep.


My landlord was very much more obsequious on the next morning when he
met his young guest, having now fully learned his name and quality.
Other messengers had come from the castle on the previous night to bring
both the young gentlemen home, and poor Mr. William, it appeared, had
returned in a wheelbarrow, being not altogether unaccustomed to that
mode of conveyance. “He never remembers nothin’ about it the next day.
He is of a real kind nature, Mr. William,” the landlord vowed, “and
the men get crowns and half-crowns from him by saying that he beat them
overnight when he was in liquor. He’s the devil when he’s tipsy,
Mr. William, but when he is sober he is the very kindest of young
gentlemen.”

As nothing is unknown to writers of biographies of the present kind, it
may be as well to state what had occurred within the walls of Castlewood
House, whilst Harry Warrington was without, awaiting some token of
recognition from his kinsmen. On their arrival at home the family
had found the paper on which the lad’s name was inscribed, and his
appearance occasioned a little domestic council. My Lord Castlewood
supposed that must have been the young gentleman whom they had seen on
the bridge, and as they had not drowned him they must invite him. Let a
man go down with the proper messages, let a servant carry a note. Lady
Fanny thought it would be more civil if one of the brothers would go to
their kinsman, especially considering the original greeting which
they had given. Lord Castlewood had not the slightest objection to his
brother William going--yes, William should go. Upon this Mr. William
said (with a yet stronger expression) that he would be hanged if he
would go. Lady Maria thought the young gentleman whom they had remarked
at the bridge was a pretty fellow enough. Castlewood is dreadfully dull,
I am sure neither of my brothers do anything to make it amusing. He may
be vulgar--no doubt, he is vulgar--but let us see the American. Such was
Lady Maria’s opinion. Lady Castlewood was neither for inviting nor for
refusing him, but for delaying. “Wait till your aunt comes, children;
perhaps the Baroness won’t like to see the young man; at least, let us
consult her before we ask him.” And so the hospitality to be offered by
his nearest kinsfolk to poor Harry Warrington remained yet in abeyance.

At length the equipage of the Baroness Bernstein made its appearance,
and whatever doubt there might be as to the reception of the Virginian
stranger, there was no lack of enthusiasm in this generous family
regarding their wealthy and powerful kinswoman. The state-chamber had
already been prepared for her. The cook had arrived the previous day
with instructions to get ready a supper for her such as her ladyship
liked. The table sparkled with old plate, and was set in the oak
dining-room with the pictures of the family round the walls. There was
the late Viscount, his father, his mother, his sister--these two lovely
pictures. There was his predecessor by Vandyck, and his Viscountess.
There was Colonel Esmond, their relative in Virginia, about whose
grandson the ladies and gentlemen of the Esmond family showed such a
very moderate degree of sympathy.

The feast set before their aunt, the Baroness, was a very good one,
and her ladyship enjoyed it. The supper occupied an hour or two, during
which the whole Castlewood family were most attentive to their guest.
The Countess pressed all the good dishes upon her, of which she freely
partook: the butler no sooner saw her glass empty than he filled it with
champagne: the young folks and their mother kept up the conversation,
not so much by talking, as by listening appropriately to their friend.
She was full of spirits and humour. She seemed to know everybody in
Europe, and about those everybodies the wickedest stories. The Countess
of Castlewood, ordinarily a very demure, severe woman, and a stickler
for the proprieties, smiled at the very worst of these anecdotes; the
girls looked at one another and laughed at the maternal signal; the boys
giggled and roared with especial delight at their sisters’ confusion.
They also partook freely of the wine which the butler handed round, nor
did they, or their guest, disdain the bowl of smoking punch, which was
laid on the table after the supper. Many and many a night, the Baroness
said, she had drunk at that table by her father’s side. “That was his
place,” she pointed to the place where the Countess now sat. She saw
none of the old plate. That was all melted to pay his gambling debts.
She hoped, “Young gentlemen, that you don’t play.”

“Never, on my word,” says Castlewood.

“Never, ‘pon honour,” says Will--winking at his brother.

The Baroness was very glad to hear they were such good boys. Her face
grew redder with the punch; and she became voluble, might have been
thought coarse, but that times were different, and those critics were
inclined to be especially favourable.

She talked to the boys about their father, their grandfather--other men
and women of the house. “The only man of the family was that,” she said,
pointing (with an arm that was yet beautifully round and white) towards
the picture of the military gentleman in the red coat and cuirass, and
great black periwig.

“The Virginian? What is he good for? I always thought he was good for
nothing but to cultivate tobacco and my grandmother,” says my lord,
laughing.

She struck her hand upon the table with an energy that made the glasses
dance. “I say he was the best of you all. There never was one of the
male Esmonds that had more brains than a goose, except him. He was not
fit for this wicked, selfish old world of ours, and he was right to go
and live out of it. Where would your father have been, young people, but
for him?”

“Was he particularly kind to our papa?” says Lady Maria.

“Old stories, my dear Maria!” cries the Countess. “I am sure my dear
Earl was very kind to him in giving him that great estate in Virginia.”

“Since his brother’s death, the lad who has been here to-day is heir to
that. Mr. Draper told me so! Peste! I don’t know why my father gave up
such a property.”

“Who has been here to-day?” asked the Baroness, highly excited.

“Harry Esmond Warrington, of Virginia,” my lord answered: “a lad whom
Will nearly pitched into the river, and whom I pressed my lady the
Countess to invite to stay here.”

“You mean that one of the Virginian boys has been to Castlewood, and has
not been asked to stay here?”

“There is but one of them, my dear creature,” interposes the Earl. “The
other, you know, has just been----”

“For shame, for shame!”

“Oh! it ain’t pleasant, I confess, to be se----”

“Do you mean that a grandson of Henry Esmond, the master of this house,
has been here, and none of you have offered him hospitality?”

“Since we didn’t know it, and he is staying at the Castles?” interposes
Will.

“That he is staying at the Inn, and you are sitting there!” cries the
old lady. “This is too bad--call somebody to me. Get me my hood--I’ll go
to the boy myself. Come with me this instant, my Lord Castlewood.”

The young man rose up, evidently in wrath. “Madame the Baroness of
Bernstein,” he said, “your ladyship is welcome to go; but as for me, I
don’t choose to have such words as ‘shameful’ applied to my conduct. I
won’t go and fetch the young gentleman from Virginia, and I propose to
sit here and finish this bowl of punch. Eugene! Don’t Eugene me, madam.
I know her ladyship has a great deal of money, which you are desirous
should remain in our amiable family. You want it more than I do. Cringe
for it--I won’t.” And he sank back in his chair.

The Baroness looked at the family, who held their heads down, and then
at my lord, but this time without any dislike. She leaned over to him
and said rapidly in German, “I had unright when I said the Colonel was
the only man of the family. Thou canst, if thou willest, Eugene.” To
which remark my lord only bowed.

“If you do not wish an old woman to go out at this hour of the night,
let William, at least, go and fetch his cousin,” said the Baroness.

“The very thing I proposed to him.”

“And so did we--and so did we!” cried the daughters in a breath.

“I am sure, I only wanted the dear Baroness’s consent!” said their
mother, “and shall be charmed for my part to welcome our young
relative.”

“Will! Put on thy pattens and get a lantern, and go fetch the
Virginian,” said my lord.

“And we will have another bowl of punch when he comes,” says William,
who by this time had already had too much. And he went forth--how we
have seen; and how he had more punch; and how ill he succeeded in his
embassy.

The worthy lady of Castlewood, as she caught sight of young Harry
Warrington by the river-side, must have seen a very handsome and
interesting youth, and very likely had reasons of her own for not
desiring his presence in her family. All mothers are not eager to
encourage the visits of interesting youths of nineteen in families where
there are virgins of twenty. If Harry’s acres had been in Norfolk or
Devon, in place of Virginia, no doubt the good Countess would have been
rather more eager in her welcome. Had she wanted him she would have
given him her hand readily enough. If our people of ton are selfish, at
any rate they show they are selfish; and, being cold-hearted, at least
have no hypocrisy of affection.

Why should Lady Castlewood put herself out of the way to welcome the
young stranger? Because he was friendless? Only a simpleton could ever
imagine such a reason as that. People of fashion, like her ladyship, are
friendly to those who have plenty of friends. A poor lad, alone, from a
distant country, with only very moderate means, and those not as yet in
his own power, with uncouth manners very likely, and coarse provincial
habits; was a great lady called upon to put herself out of the way for
such a youth? Allons donc! He was quite as well at the alehouse as at
the castle.

This, no doubt, was her ladyship’s opinion, which her kinswoman, the
Baroness Bernstein, who knew her perfectly well, entirely understood.
The Baroness, too, was a woman of the world, and, possibly, on occasion,
could be as selfish as any other person of fashion. She fully understood
the cause of the deference which all the Castlewood family showed to
her--mother, and daughter, and sons,--and being a woman of great humour,
played upon the dispositions of the various members of this family,
amused herself with their greedinesses, their humiliations, their
artless respect for her money-box, and clinging attachment to her purse.
They were not very rich; Lady Castlewood’s own money was settled on
her children. The two elder had inherited nothing but flaxen heads from
their German mother, and a pedigree of prodigious distinction. But
those who had money, and those who had none, were alike eager for the
Baroness’s; in this matter the rich are surely quite as greedy as the
poor.

So if Madam Bernstein struck her hand on the table, and caused the
glasses and the persons round it to tremble at her wrath, it was because
she was excited with plenty of punch and champagne, which her ladyship
was in the habit of taking freely, and because she may have had a
generous impulse when generous wine warmed her blood, and felt indignant
as she thought of the poor lad yonder, sitting friendless and lonely on
the outside of his ancestors’ door; not because she was specially angry
with her relatives, who she knew would act precisely as they had done.

The exhibition of their selfishness and humiliation alike amused her,
as did Castlewood’s act of revolt. He was as selfish as the rest of the
family, but not so mean; and, as he candidly stated, he could afford the
luxury of a little independence, having tolerable estate to fall back
upon.

Madam Bernstein was an early woman, restless, resolute, extraordinarily
active for her age. She was up long before the languid Castlewood
ladies (just home from their London routs and balls) had quitted their
feather-beds, or jolly Will had slept off his various potations of
punch. She was up, and pacing the green terraces that sparkled with the
sweet morning dew, which lay twinkling, also, on a flowery wilderness
of trim parterres, and on the crisp walls of the dark box hedges, under
which marble fauns and dryads were cooling themselves, whilst a thousand
birds sang, the fountains plashed and glittered in the rosy morning
sunshine, and the rooks cawed from the great wood.

Had the well-remembered scene (for she had visited it often in
childhood) a freshness and charm for her? Did it recall days of
innocence and happiness, and did its calm beauty soothe or please,
or awaken remorse in her heart? Her manner was more than ordinarily
affectionate and gentle, when, presently, after pacing the walks for a
half-hour, the person for whom she was waiting came to her. This was our
young Virginian, to whom she had despatched an early billet by one of
the Lockwoods. The note was signed B. Bernstein, and informed Mr. Esmond
Warrington that his relatives at Castlewood, and among them a dear
friend of his grandfather, were most anxious that he should come to
“Colonel Esmond’s house in England.” And now, accordingly, the lad made
his appearance, passing under the old Gothic doorway, tripping down the
steps from one garden terrace to another, hat in hand, his fair hair
blowing from his flushed cheeks, his slim figure clad in mourning. The
handsome and modest looks, the comely face and person, of the young lad
pleased the lady. He made her a low bow which would have done credit
to Versailles. She held out a little hand to him, and, as his own palm
closed over it, she laid the other hand softly on his ruffle. She looked
very kindly and affectionately in the honest blushing face.

“I knew your grandfather very well, Harry,” she said. “So you came
yesterday to see his picture, and they turned you away, though you know
the house was his of right?”

Harry blushed very red. “The servants did not know me. A young gentleman
came to me last night,” he said, “when I was peevish, and he, I fear,
was tipsy. I spoke rudely to my cousin, and would ask his pardon.
Your ladyship knows that in Virginia our manners towards strangers are
different. I own I had expected another kind of welcome. Was it you,
madam, who sent my cousin to me last night?”

“I sent him; but you will find your cousins most friendly to you to-day.
You must stay here. Lord Castlewood would have been with you this
morning, only I was so eager to see you. There will be breakfast in
an hour; and meantime you must talk to me. We will send to the Three
Castles for your servant and your baggage. Give me your arm. Stop, I
dropped my cane when you came. You shall be my cane.”

“My grandfather used to call us his crutches,” said Harry.

“You are like him, though you are fair.”

“You should have seen--you should have seen George,” said the boy, and
his honest eyes welled with tears. The recollection of his brother,
the bitter pain of yesterday’s humiliation, the affectionateness of the
present greeting--all, perhaps, contributed to soften the lad’s heart.
He felt very tenderly and gratefully towards the lady who had received
him so warmly. He was utterly alone and miserable a minute since, and
here was a home and a kind hand held out to him. No wonder he clung to
it. In the hour during which they talked together, the young fellow
had poured out a great deal of his honest heart to the kind new-found
friend; when the dial told breakfast-time, he wondered to think how much
he had told her. She took him to the breakfast-room; she presented
him to his aunt, the Countess, and bade him embrace his cousins. Lord
Castlewood was frank and gracious enough. Honest Will had a headache,
but was utterly unconscious of the proceedings of the past night. The
ladies were very pleasant and polite, as ladies of their fashion know
how to be. How should Harry Warrington, a simple truth-telling lad
from a distant colony, who had only yesterday put his foot upon English
shore, know that my ladies, so smiling and easy in demeanour, were
furious against him, and aghast at the favour with which Madam Bernstein
seemed to regard him?

She was folle of him, talked of no one else, scarce noticed the
Castlewood young people, trotted with him over the house, and told him
all its story, showed him the little room in the courtyard where his
grandfather used to sleep, and a cunning cupboard over the fireplace
which had been made in the time of the Catholic persecutions; drove out
with him in the neighbouring country, and pointed out to him the most
remarkable sites and houses, and had in return the whole of the young
man’s story.

This brief biography the kind reader will please to accept, not in
the precise words in which Mr. Harry Warrington delivered it to Madam
Bernstein, but in the form in which it has been cast in the Chapters
next ensuing.



CHAPTER III. The Esmonds in Virginia


Henry Esmond, Esq., an office who had served with the rank of Colonel
during the wars of Queen Anne’s reign, found himself, at its close,
compromised in certain attempts for the restoration of the Queen’s
family to the throne of these realms. Happily for itself, the nation
preferred another dynasty; but some of the few opponents of the house
of Hanover took refuge out of the three kingdoms, and amongst others,
Colonel Esmond was counselled by his friends to go abroad. As Mr. Esmond
sincerely regretted the part which he had taken, and as the august
Prince who came to rule over England was the most pacable of sovereigns,
in a very little time the Colonel’s friends found means to make his
peace.

Mr. Esmond, it has been said, belonged to the noble English family which
takes its title from Castlewood, in the county of Hants; and it was
pretty generally known that King James II. and his son had offered the
title of Marquis to Colonel Esmond and his father, and that the former
might have assumed the (Irish) peerage hereditary in his family, but
for an informality which he did not choose to set right. Tired of the
political struggles in which he had been engaged, and annoyed by family
circumstances in Europe, he preferred to establish himself in Virginia,
where he took possession of a large estate conferred by King Charles I.
upon his ancestor. Here Mr. Esmond’s daughter and grandsons were born,
and his wife died. This lady, when she married him, was the widow of the
Colonel’s kinsman, the unlucky Viscount Castlewood, killed in a duel by
Lord Mohun, at the close of King William’s reign.

Mr. Esmond called his American house Castlewood, from the patrimonial
home in the old country. The whole usages of Virginia, indeed, were
fondly modelled after the English customs. It was a loyal colony. The
Virginians boasted that King Charles II. had been king in Virginia
before he had been king in England. English king and English church were
alike faithfully honoured there. The resident gentry were allied to good
English families. They held their heads above the Dutch traders of New
York, and the money-getting Roundheads of Pennsylvania and New England.
Never were people less republican than those of the great province which
was soon to be foremost in the memorable revolt against the British
Crown.

The gentry of Virginia dwelt on their great lands after a fashion almost
patriarchal. For its rough cultivation, each estate had a multitude
of hands--of purchased and assigned servants--who were subject to the
command of the master. The land yielded their food, live stock, and
game. The great rivers swarmed with fish for the taking. From their
banks the passage home was clear. Their ships took the tobacco off their
private wharves on the banks of the Potomac or the James river, and
carried it to London or Bristol,--bringing back English goods and
articles of home manufacture in return for the only produce which the
Virginian gentry chose to cultivate. Their hospitality was boundless.
No stranger was ever sent away from their gates. The gentry received one
another, and travelled to each other’s houses, in a state almost feudal.
The question of Slavery was not born at the time of which we write. To
be the proprietor of black servants shocked the feelings of no Virginian
gentleman; nor, in truth, was the despotism exercised over the negro
race generally a savage one. The food was plenty; the poor black people
lazy and not unhappy. You might have preached negro emancipation to
Madam Esmond of Castlewood as you might have told her to let the horses
run loose out of her stables; she had no doubt but that the whip and the
corn-bag were good for both.

Her father may have thought otherwise, being of a sceptical turn on very
many points, but his doubts did not break forth in active denial, and
he was rather disaffected than rebellious. At one period, this gentleman
had taken a part in active life at home, and possibly might have been
eager to share its rewards; but in latter days he did not seem to care
for them. A something had occurred in his life, which had cast a tinge
of melancholy over all his existence. He was not unhappy--to those about
him most kind--most affectionate, obsequious even to the women of
his family, whom be scarce ever contradicted; but there had been some
bankruptcy of his heart, which his spirit never recovered. He submitted
to life, rather than enjoyed it, and never was in better spirits than in
his last hours when he was going to lay it down.

Having lost his wife, his daughter took the management of the Colonel
and his affairs; and he gave them up to her charge with an entire
acquiescence. So that he had his books and his quiet, he cared for no
more. When company came to Castlewood, he entertained them handsomely,
and was of a very pleasant, sarcastical turn. He was not in the least
sorry when they went away.

“My love, I shall not be sorry to go myself,” he said to his daughter,
“and you, though the most affectionate of daughters, will console
yourself after a while. Why should I, who am so old, be romantic? You
may, who are still a young creature.” This he said, not meaning all he
said, for the lady whom he addressed was a matter-of-fact little person,
with very little romance in her nature.

After fifteen years’ residence upon his great Virginian estate, affairs
prospered so well with the worthy proprietor, that he acquiesced in his
daughter’s plans for the building of a mansion much grander and more
durable than the plain wooden edifice in which he had been content to
live, so that his heirs might have a habitation worthy of their noble
name. Several of Madam Warrington’s neighbours had built handsome houses
for themselves; perhaps it was her ambition to take rank in the country,
which inspired this desire for improved quarters. Colonel Esmond, of
Castlewood, neither cared for quarters nor for quarterings. But his
daughter had a very high opinion of the merit and antiquity of her
lineage; and her sire, growing exquisitely calm and good-natured in his
serene, declining years, humoured his child’s peculiarities in an easy,
bantering way,--nay, helped her with his antiquarian learning, which was
not inconsiderable, and with his skill in the art of painting, of which
he was a proficient. A knowledge of heraldry, a hundred years ago,
formed part of the education of most noble ladies and gentlemen: during
her visit to Europe, Miss Esmond had eagerly studied the family history
and pedigrees, and returned thence to Virginia with a store of documents
relative to her family on which she relied with implicit gravity and
credence, and with the most edifying volumes then published in France
and England, respecting the noble science. These works proved, to her
perfect satisfaction, not only that the Esmonds were descended from
noble Norman warriors, who came into England along with their victorious
chief, but from native English of royal dignity: and two magnificent
heraldic trees, cunningly painted by the hand of the Colonel,
represented the family springing from the Emperor Charlemagne on the
one hand, who was drawn in plate-armour, with his imperial mantle and
diadem, and on the other from Queen Boadicea, whom the Colonel insisted
upon painting in the light costume of an ancient British queen, with
a prodigious gilded crown, a trifling mantle of furs, and a lovely
symmetrical person, tastefully tattooed with figures of a brilliant blue
tint. From these two illustrious stocks the family-tree rose until
it united in the thirteenth century somewhere in the person of the
fortunate Esmond who claimed to spring from both.

Of the Warrington family, into which she married, good Madam Rachel
thought but little. She wrote herself Esmond Warrington, but was
universally called Madam Esmond of Castlewood, when after her father’s
decease she came to rule over that domain. It is even to be feared that
quarrels for precedence in the colonial society occasionally disturbed
her temper; for though her father had had a marquis’s patent from King
James, which he had burned and disowned, she would frequently act as if
that document existed and was in full force. She considered the English
Esmonds of an inferior dignity to her own branch; and as for the
colonial aristocracy, she made no scruple of asserting her superiority
over the whole body of them. Hence quarrels and angry words, and even
a scuffle or two, as we gather from her notes, at the Governor’s
assemblies at Jamestown. Wherefore recall the memory of these squabbles?
Are not the persons who engaged in them beyond the reach of quarrels
now, and has not the republic put an end to these social inequalities?
Ere the establishment of Independence, there was no more aristocratic
country in the world than Virginia; so the Virginians, whose history
we have to narrate, were bred to have the fullest respect for the
institutions of home, and the rightful king had not two more faithful
little subjects than the young twins of Castlewood.

When the boys’ grandfather died, their mother, in great state,
proclaimed her eldest son George her successor and heir of the estate;
and Harry, George’s younger brother by half an hour, was always enjoined
to respect his senior. All the household was equally instructed to pay
him honour; the negroes, of whom there was a large and happy family, and
the assigned servants from Europe, whose lot was made as bearable as it
might be under the government of the lady of Castlewood. In the whole
family there scarcely was a rebel save Mrs. Esmond’s faithful friend and
companion, Madam Mountain, and Harry’s foster-mother, a faithful negro
woman, who never could be made to understand why her child should not be
first, who was handsomer, and stronger, and cleverer than his brother,
as she vowed; though, in truth, there was scarcely any difference in the
beauty, strength, or stature of the twins. In disposition, they were in
many points exceedingly unlike; but in feature they resembled each other
so closely, that but for the colour of their hair it had been difficult
to distinguish them. In their beds, and when their heads were covered
with those vast ribboned nightcaps which our great and little ancestors
wore, it was scarcely possible for any but a nurse or mother to tell the
one from the other child.

Howbeit alike in form, we have said that they differed in temper. The
elder was peaceful, studious, and silent; the younger was warlike
and noisy. He was quick at learning when he began, but very slow at
beginning. No threats of the ferule would provoke Harry to learn in
an idle fit, or would prevent George from helping his brother in his
lesson. Harry was of a strong military turn, drilled the little
negroes on the estate and caned them like a corporal, having many
good boxing-matches with them, and never bearing malice if he was
worsted;--whereas George was sparing of blows and gentle with all about
him. As the custom in all families was, each of the boys had a special
little servant assigned him; and it was a known fact that George,
finding his little wretch of a blackamoor asleep on his master’s bed,
sat down beside it and brushed the flies off the child with a feather
fan, to the horror of old Gumbo, the child’s father, who found his young
master so engaged, and to the indignation of Madam Esmond, who ordered
the young negro off to the proper officer for a whipping. In vain George
implored and entreated--burst into passionate tears, and besought a
remission of the sentence. His mother was inflexible regarding the young
rebel’s punishment, and the little negro went off beseeching his young
master not to cry.

A fierce quarrel between mother and son ensued out of this event. Her
son would not be pacified. He said the punishment was a shame--a shame;
that he was the master of the boy, and no one--no, not his mother,--had
a right to touch him; that she might order him to be corrected, and that
he would suffer the punishment, as he and Harry often had, but no
one should lay a hand on his boy. Trembling with passionate rebellion
against what he conceived the injustice of procedure, he vowed--actually
shrieking out an oath, which shocked his fond mother and governor, who
never before heard such language from the usually gentle child--that on
the day he came of age he would set young Gumbo free--went to visit the
child in the slaves’ quarters, and gave him one of his own toys.

The young black martyr was an impudent, lazy, saucy little personage,
who would be none the worse for a whipping, as the Colonel no doubt
thought; for he acquiesced in the child’s punishment when Madam Esmond
insisted upon it, and only laughed in his good-natured way when his
indignant grandson called out,

“You let mamma rule you in everything, grandpapa.”

“Why, so I do,” says grandpapa. “Rachel, my love, the way in which I am
petticoat-ridden is so evident that even this baby has found it out.”

“Then why don’t you stand up like a man?” says little Harry’, who always
was ready to abet his brother.

Grandpapa looked queerly.

“Because I like sitting down best, my dear,” he said. “I am an old
gentleman, and standing fatigues me.”

On account of a certain apish drollery and humour which exhibited itself
in the lad, and a liking for some of the old man’s pursuits, the first
of the twins was the grandfather’s favourite and companion, and would
laugh and talk out all his infantine heart to the old gentleman, to whom
the younger had seldom a word to say. George was a demure studious boy,
and his senses seemed to brighten up in the library, where his brother
was so gloomy. He knew the books before he could well-nigh carry them,
and read in them long before he could understand them. Harry, on the
other hand, was all alive in the stables or in the wood, eager for all
parties of hunting and fishing, and promised to be a good sportsman from
a very early age. Their grandfather’s ship was sailing for Europe once
when the boys were children, and they were asked, what present Captain
Franks should bring them back? George was divided between books and a
fiddle; Harry instantly declared for a little gun: and Madam Warrington
(as she then was called) was hurt that her elder boy should have low
tastes, and applauded the younger’s choice as more worthy of his name
and lineage. “Books, papa, I can fancy to be a good choice,” she replied
to her father, who tried to convince her that George had a right to his
opinion, “though I am sure you must have pretty nigh all the books in
the world already. But I never can desire--I may be wrong, but I never
can desire--that my son, and the grandson of the Marquis of Esmond,
should be a fiddler.”

“Should be a fiddlestick, my dear,” the old Colonel answered.

“Remember that Heaven’s ways are not ours, and that each creature born
has a little kingdom of thought of his own, which it is a sin in us to
invade. Suppose George loves music? You can no more stop him than you
can order a rose not to smell sweet, or a bird not to sing.”

“A bird! A bird sings from nature; George did not come into the world
with a fiddle in his hand,” says Mrs. Warrington, with a toss of her
head. “I am sure I hated the harpsichord when a chit at Kensington
School, and only learned it to please my mamma. Say what you will,
dear sir, I can not believe that this fiddling is work for persons of
fashion.”

“And King David who played the harp, my dear?”

“I wish my papa would read him more, and not speak about him in that
way,” said Mrs. Warrington.

“Nay, my dear, it was but by way of illustration,” the father replied
gently. It was Colonel Esmond’s nature, as he has owned in his own
biography, always to be led by a woman; and, his wife dead, he coaxed
and dandled and spoiled his daughter; laughing at her caprices, but
humouring them; making a joke of her prejudices, but letting them have
their way; indulging, and perhaps increasing, her natural imperiousness
of character, though it was his maxim that we can’t change dispositions
by meddling, and only make hypocrites of our children by commanding them
over-much.

At length the time came when Mr. Esmond was to have done with the
affairs of this life, and he laid them down as if glad to be rid of
their burthen. We must not ring in an opening history with tolling
bells, or preface it with a funeral sermon. All who read and heard
that discourse, wondered where Parson Broadbent of Jamestown found the
eloquence and the Latin which adorned it. Perhaps Mr. Dempster knew, the
boys’ Scotch tutor, who corrected the proofs of the oration, which was
printed, by desire of his Excellency and many persons of honour, at Mr.
Franklin’s press in Philadelphia. No such sumptuous funeral had ever
been seen in the country as that which Madam Esmond Warrington ordained
for her father, who would have been the first to smile at that pompous
grief. The little lads of Castlewood, almost smothered in black trains
and hatbands, headed the procession, and were followed by my Lord
Fairfax from Greenway Court, by his Excellency the Governor of Virginia
(with his coach), by the Randolphs, the Careys, the Harrisons, the
Washingtons, and many others, for the whole county esteemed the departed
gentleman, whose goodness, whose high talents, whose benevolence
and unobtrusive urbanity had earned for him the just respect of his
neighbours. When informed of the event, the family of Colonel Esmond’s
stepson, the Lord Castlewood of Hampshire in England, asked to be at the
charges of the marble slab which recorded the names and virtues of his
lordship’s mother and her husband; and after due time of preparation,
the monument was set up, exhibiting the arms and coronet of the Esmonds,
supported by a little chubby group of weeping cherubs, and reciting an
epitaph which for once did not tell any falsehoods.



CHAPTER IV. In which Harry finds a New Relative


Kind friends, neighbours hospitable, cordial, even respectful,--an
ancient name, a large estate and a sufficient fortune, a comfortable
home, supplied with all the necessaries and many of the luxuries
of life, and a troop of servants, black and white, eager to do your
bidding; good health, affectionate children, and, let us humbly add, a
good cook, cellar, and library--ought not a person in the possession of
all these benefits to be considered very decently happy? Madam Esmond
Warrington possessed all these causes for happiness; she reminded
herself of them daily in her morning and evening prayers. She was
scrupulous in her devotions, good to the poor, never knowingly did
anybody a wrong. Yonder I fancy her enthroned in her principality of
Castlewood, the country gentlefolks paying her court, the sons dutiful
to her, the domestics tumbling over each other’s black heels to do her
bidding, the poor whites grateful for her bounty and implicitly taking
her doses when they were ill, the smaller gentry always acquiescing in
her remarks, and for ever letting her win at backgammon--well, with all
these benefits, which are more sure than fate allots to most mortals, I
don’t think the little Princess Pocahontas, as she was called, was to
be envied in the midst of her dominions. The Princess’s husband, who
was cut off in early life, was as well perhaps out of the way. Had
he survived his marriage by many years, they would have quarrelled
fiercely, or, he would infallibly have been a henpecked husband, of
which sort there were a few specimens still extant a hundred years ago.
The truth is, little Madam Esmond never came near man or woman, but she
tried to domineer over them. If people obeyed, she was their very good
friend; if they resisted, she fought and fought until she or they gave
in. We are all miserable sinners that’s a fact we acknowledge in public
every Sunday--no one announced it in a more clear resolute voice than
the little lady. As a mortal, she may have been in the wrong, of course;
only she very seldom acknowledged the circumstance to herself, and to
others never. Her father, in his old age, used to watch her freaks of
despotism, haughtiness, and stubbornness, and amuse himself with them.
She felt that his eye was upon her; his humour, of which quality she
possessed little herself, subdued and bewildered her. But, the Colonel
gone, there was nobody else whom she was disposed to obey,--and so I
am rather glad for my part that I did not live a hundred years ago at
Castlewood in Westmorland County in Virginia. I fancy, one would not
have been too happy there. Happy, who is happy? Was not there a serpent
in Paradise itself? and if Eve had been perfectly happy beforehand,
would she have listened to him?

The management of the house of Castlewood had been in the hands of the
active little lady long before the Colonel slept the sleep of the just.
She now exercised a rigid supervision over the estate; dismissed
Colonel Esmond’s English factor and employed a new one; built, improved,
planted, grew tobacco, appointed a new overseer, and imported a new
tutor. Much as she loved her father, there were some of his maxims by
which she was not inclined to abide. Had she not obeyed her papa and
mamma during all their lives, as a dutiful daughter should? So ought
all children to obey their parents, that their days might be long in
the land. The little Queen domineered over her little dominion, and the
Princes her sons were only her first subjects. Ere long she discontinued
her husband’s name of Warrington and went by the name of Madam Esmond
in the country. Her family pretensions were known there. She had no
objection to talk of the Marquis’s title which King James had given to
her father and grandfather. Her papa’s enormous magnanimity might induce
him to give up his titles and rank to the younger branch of the family,
and to her half-brother, my Lord Castlewood and his children; but she
and her sons were of the elder branch of the Esmonds, and she expected
that they should be treated accordingly. Lord Fairfax was the only
gentleman in the colony of Virginia to whom she would allow precedence
over her. She insisted on the pas before all Lieutenant-Governors’ and
Judges’ ladies; before the wife of the Governor of a colony she would,
of course, yield as to the representative of the Sovereign. Accounts
are extant, in the family papers and letters, of one or two tremendous
battles which Madam fought with the wives of colonial dignitaries upon
these questions of etiquette. As for her husband’s family of Warrington,
they were as naught in her eyes. She married an English baronet’s
younger son out of Norfolk to please her parents, whom she was always
bound to obey. At the early age at which she married--a chit out of
a boarding-school--she would have jumped overboard if her papa had
ordered. “And that is always the way with the Esmonds,” she said.

The English Warringtons were not over-much flattered by the little
American Princess’s behaviour to them, and her manner of speaking about
them. Once a year a solemn letter used to be addressed to the Warrington
family, and to her noble kinsmen the Hampshire Esmonds; but a Judge’s
lady with whom Madam Esmond had quarrelled returning to England out of
Virginia chanced to meet Lady Warrington, who was in London with
Sir Miles attending Parliament, and this person repeated some of the
speeches which the Princess Pocahontas was in the habit of making
regarding her own and her husband’s English relatives, and my Lady
Warrington, I suppose, carried the story to my Lady Castlewood; after
which the letters from Virginia were not answered, to the surprise and
wrath of Madam Esmond, who speedily left off writing also.

So this good woman fell out with her neighbours, with her relatives,
and, as it must be owned, with her sons also.

A very early difference which occurred between the Queen and Crown
Prince arose out of the dismissal of Mr. Dempster, the lad’s tutor and
the late Colonel’s secretary. In her father’s life Madam Esmond bore him
with difficulty, or it should be rather said Mr. Dempster could scarce
put up with her. She was jealous of books somehow, and thought your
bookworms dangerous folks, insinuating bad principles. She had heard
that Dempster was a Jesuit in disguise, and the poor fellow was obliged
to go build himself a cabin in a clearing, and teach school and practise
medicine where he could find customers among the sparse inhabitants of
the province. Master George vowed he never would forsake his old tutor,
and kept his promise. Harry had always loved fishing and sporting better
than books, and he and the poor Dominie had never been on terms of close
intimacy. Another cause of dispute presently ensued.

By the death of an aunt, and at his father’s demise, the heir of Mr.
George Warrington became entitled to a sum of six thousand pounds, of
which their mother was one of the trustees. She never could be made to
understand that she was not the proprietor, and not merely the trustee
of this money; and was furious with the London lawyer, the other
trustee, who refused to send it over at her order. “Is not all I have
my sons’?” she cried, “and would I not cut myself into little pieces
to serve them? With the six thousand pounds I would have bought Mr.
Boulter’s estate and negroes, which would have given us a good thousand
pounds a year, and made a handsome provision for my Harry.” Her young
friend and neighbour, Mr. Washington of Mount Vernon, could not convince
her that the London agent was right, and must not give up his trust
except to those for whom he held it. Madam Esmond gave the London lawyer
a piece of her mind, and, I am sorry to say, informed Mr. Draper that
he was an insolent pettifogger, and deserved to be punished for
doubting the honour of a mother and an Esmond. It must be owned that the
Virginian Princess had a temper of her own.

George Esmond, her firstborn, when this little matter was referred to
him, and his mother vehemently insisted that he should declare himself,
was of the opinion of Mr. Washington, and Mr. Draper, the London lawyer.
The boy said he could not help himself. He did not want the money: he
would be very glad to think otherwise, and to give the money to his
mother, if he had the power. But Madam Esmond would not hear any of
these reasons. Feelings were her reasons. Here was a chance of making
Harry’s fortune--dear Harry, who was left with such a slender younger
brother’s; pittance--and the wretches in London would not help him; his
own brother, who inherited all her papa’s estate, would not help him.
To think of a child of hers being so mean at fourteen year of age! etc.
etc. Add tears, scorn, frequent innuendo, long estrangement, bitter
outbreak, passionate appeals to Heaven, and the like, and we may fancy
the widow’s state of mind. Are there not beloved beings of the gentler
sex who argue in the same way nowadays? The book of female logic is
blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is for ever in
a passion.

This occurrence set the widow resolutely saving for her younger son,
for whom, as in duty bound, she was eager to make a portion. The fine
buildings were stopped which the Colonel had commenced at Castlewood,
who had freighted ships from New York with Dutch bricks, and imported,
at great charges, mantelpieces, carved cornice-work, sashes and glass,
carpets and costly upholstery from home. No more books were bought.
The agent had orders to discontinue sending wine. Madam Esmond deeply
regretted the expense of a fine carriage which she had had from England,
and only rode in it to church groaning in spirit, and crying to the sons
opposite her, “Harry, Harry! I wish I had put by the money for thee, my
poor portionless child--three hundred and eighty guineas of ready money
to Messieurs Hatchett!”

“You will give me plenty while you live, and George will give me plenty
when you die,” says Harry, gaily.

“Not unless he changes in spirit, my dear,” says the lady, with a
grim glance at her elder boy. “Not unless Heaven softens his heart and
teaches him charity, for which I pray day and night; as Mountain knows;
do you not, Mountain?”

Mrs. Mountain, Ensign Mountain’s widow, Madam Esmond’s companion and
manager, who took the fourth seat in the family coach on these Sundays,
said, “Humph! I know you are always disturbing yourself and crying out
about this legacy, and I don’t see that there is any need.”

“Oh no! no need!” cries the widow, rustling in her silks; “of course I
have no need to be disturbed, because my eldest born is a disobedient
son and an unkind brother--because he has an estate, and my poor Harry,
bless him, but a mess of pottage.”

George looked despairingly at his mother until he could see her no more
for eyes welled up with tears. “I wish you would bless me, too, O my
mother!” he said, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Harry’s
arms were in a moment round his brother’s neck, and he kissed George a
score of times.

“Never mind, George. I know whether you are a good brother or not. Don’t
mind what she says. She don’t mean it.”

“I do mean it, child,” cries the mother. Would to Heaven----”

“HOLD YOUR TONGUE, I SAY” roars out Harry. “It’s a shame to speak so to
him, ma’am.”

“And so it is, Harry,” says Mrs. Mountain, shaking his hand. “You never
said a truer word in your life.”

“Mrs. Mountain, do you dare to set my children against me?” cries the
widow. “From this very day, madam----”

“Turn me and my child into the street? Do,” says Mrs. Mountain. “That
will be a fine revenge because the English lawyer won’t give you the
boy’s money. Find another companion who will tell you black is white,
and flatter you: it is not my way, madam. When shall I go? I shan’t be
long a-packing. I did not bring much into Castlewood House, and I shall
not take much out.”

“Hush! the bells are ringing for church, Mountain. Let us try, if you
please, and compose ourselves,” said the widow, and she looked with eyes
of extreme affection, certainly at one--perhap at both--of her children.
George kept his head down, and Harry, who was near, got quite close to
him during the sermon, and sat with his arm round his brother’s neck.


Harry had proceeded in his narrative after his own fashion,
interspersing it with many youthful ejaculations, and answering a number
of incidental questions asked by his listener. The old lady seemed never
tired of hearing him. Her amiable hostess and her daughters came more
than once, to ask if she would ride, or walk, or take a dish of tea, or
play a game at cards; but all these amusements Madam Bernstein declined,
saying that she found infinite amusement in Harry’s conversation.
Especially when any of the Castlewood family were present, she redoubled
her caresses, insisted upon the lad speaking close to her ear, and would
call out to the others, “Hush, my dears! I can’t hear our cousin speak.”
 And they would quit the room, striving still to look pleased.

“Are you my cousin, too?” asked the honest boy. “You see kinder than my
other cousins.”

Their talk took place in the wainscoted parlour, where the family had
taken their meals in ordinary for at least two centuries past, and
which, as we have said, was hung with portraits of the race. Over
Madam Bernstein’s great chair was a Kneller, one of the most brilliant
pictures of the gallery, representing a young lady of three or four
and twenty, in the easy flowing dress and loose robes of Queen Anne’s
time--a hand on a cushion near her, a quantity of auburn hair parted off
a fair forehead, and flowing over pearly shoulders and a lovely neck.
Under this sprightly picture the lady sate with her knitting-needles.

When Harry asked, “Are you my cousin, too?” she said, “That picture is
by Sir Godfrey, who thought himself the greatest painter in the world.
But he was not so good as Lely, who painted your grandmother--my--my
Lady Castlewood, Colonel Esmond’s wife; nor he so good as Sir Anthony
Van Dyck, who painted your great-grandfather, yonder--and who looks,
Harry, a much finer gentleman than he was. Some of us are painted
blacker than we are. Did you recognise your grandmother in that picture?
She had the loveliest fair hair and shape of any woman of her time.”

“I fancied I knew the portrait from instinct, perhaps, and a certain
likeness to my mother.”

“Did Mrs. Warrington--I beg her pardon, I think she calls herself Madam
or my Lady Esmond now----?”

“They call my mother so in our province,” said the boy.

“Did she never tell you of another daughter her mother had in England,
before she married your grandfather?”

“She never spoke of one.”

“Nor your grandfather?”

“Never. But in his picture-books, which he constantly made for us
children, he used to draw a head very like that above your ladyship.
That, and Viscount Francis, and King James III., he drew a score of
times, I am sure.”

“And the picture over me reminds you of no one, Harry?”

“No, indeed.”

“Ah! Here is a sermon!” says the lady, with a sigh. “Harry, that was my
face once--yes, it was--and then I was called Beatrix Esmond. And your
mother is my half-sister, child, and she has never even mentioned my
name!”



CHAPTER V. Family Jars


As Harry Warrington related to his new-found relative the simple story
of his adventures at home, no doubt Madam Bernstein, who possessed a
great sense of humour and a remarkable knowledge of the world, formed
her judgment respecting the persons and events described; and if her
opinion was not in all respects favourable, what can be said but that
men and women are imperfect, and human life not entirely pleasant or
profitable? The court and city-bred lady recoiled at the mere thought of
her American sister’s countrified existence. Such a life would be rather
wearisome to most city-bred ladies. But little Madam Warrington knew no
better, and was satisfied with her life, as indeed she was with herself
in general. Because you and I are epicures or dainty feeders, it does
not follow that Hodge is miserable with his homely meal of bread and
bacon. Madam Warrington had a life of duties and employments which might
be humdrum, but at any rate were pleasant to her. She was a brisk little
woman of business, and all the affairs of her large estate came under
her cognisance. No pie was baked at Castlewood but her little finger was
in it. She set the maids to their spinning, she saw the kitchen wenches
at their work, she trotted afield on her pony, and oversaw the overseers
and the negro hands as they worked in the tobacco-and corn-fields. If a
slave was ill, she would go to his quarters in any weather, and doctor
him with great resolution. She had a book full of receipts after the old
fashion, and a closet where she distilled waters and compounded elixirs,
and a medicine-chest which was the terror of her neighbours. They
trembled to be ill, lest the little lady should be upon them with her
decoctions and her pills.

A hundred years back there were scarce any towns in Virginia; the
establishments of the gentry were little villages in which they
and their vassals dwelt. Rachel Esmond ruled like a little queen in
Castlewood; the princes, her neighbours, governed their estates round
about. Many of these were rather needy potentates, living plentifully
but in the roughest fashion, having numerous domestics whose liveries
were often ragged; keeping open houses, and turning away no stranger
from their gates; proud, idle, fond of all sorts of field sports
as became gentlemen of good lineage. The widow of Castlewood was as
hospitable as her neighbours, and a better economist than most of
them. More than one, no doubt, would have had no objection to share her
life-interest in the estate, and supply the place of papa to her boys.
But where was the man good enough for a person of her ladyship’s exalted
birth? There was a talk of making the Duke of Cumberland viceroy, or
even king, over America. Madam Warrington’s gossips laughed, and said
she was waiting for him. She remarked, with much gravity and dignity,
that persons of as high birth as his Royal Highness had made offers of
alliance to the Esmond family.

She had, as lieutenant under her, an officer’s widow who has been before
named, and who had been Madam Esmond’s companion at school, as her late
husband had been the regimental friend of the late Mr. Warrington. When
the English girls at the Kensington Academy, where Rachel Esmond had her
education, teased and tortured the little American stranger, and laughed
at the princified airs which she gave herself from a very early age,
Fanny Parker defended and befriended her. They both married ensigns
in Kingsley’s. They became tenderly attached to each other. It was “my
Fanny” and “my Rachel” in the letters of the young ladies. Then, my
Fanny’s husband died in sad out-at-elbowed circumstances, leaving
no provision for his widow and her infant; and, in one of his annual
voyages, Captain Franks brought over Mrs. Mountain, in the Young Rachel,
to Virginia.

There was plenty of room in Castlewood House, and Mrs. Mountain served
to enliven the place. She played cards with the mistress: she had some
knowledge of music, and could help the eldest boy in that way: she
laughed and was pleased with the guests: she saw to the strangers’
chambers, and presided over the presses and the linen. She was a kind,
brisk, jolly-looking widow, and more than one unmarried gentleman of the
colony asked her to change her name for his own. But she chose to keep
that of Mountain, though, and perhaps because, it had brought her no
good fortune. One marriage was enough for her, she said. Mr. Mountain
had amiably spent her little fortune and his own. Her last trinkets went
to pay his funeral; and, as long as Madam Warrington would keep her at
Castlewood, she preferred a home without a husband to any which as
yet had been offered to her in Virginia. The two ladies quarrelled
plentifully; but they loved each other: they made up their differences:
they fell out again, to be reconciled presently. When either of the boys
was ill, each lady vied with the other in maternal tenderness and care.
In his last days and illness, Mrs. Mountain’s cheerfulness and kindness
had been greatly appreciated by the Colonel, whose memory Madam
Warrington regarded more than that of any living person. So that, year
after year, when Captain Franks would ask Mrs. Mountain, in his pleasant
way, whether she was going back with him that voyage? she would decline,
and say that she proposed to stay a year more.

And when suitors came to Madam Warrington, as come they would, she would
receive their compliments and attentions kindly enough, and asked more
than one of these lovers whether it was Mrs. Mountain he came after? She
would use her best offices with Mountain. Fanny was the best creature,
was of a good English family, and would make any gentleman happy. Did
the Squire declare it was to her and not her dependant that he paid his
addresses; she would make him her gravest curtsey, say that she really
had been utterly mistaken as to his views, and let him know that the
daughter of the Marquis of Esmond lived for her people and her sons,
and did not propose to change her condition. Have we not read how Queen
Elizabeth was a perfectly sensible woman of business, and was pleased to
inspire not only terror and awe, but love in the bosoms of her subjects?
So the little Virginian princess had her favourites, and accepted their
flatteries, and grew tired of them, and was cruel or kind to them as
suited her wayward imperial humour. There was no amount of compliment
which she would not graciously receive and take as her due. Her little
foible was so well known that the wags used to practise upon it.
Rattling Jack Firebrace of Henrico county had free quarters for months
at Castlewood, and was a prime favourite with the lady there, because
he addressed verses to her which he stole out of the pocket-books. Tom
Humbold of Spotsylvania wagered fifty hogsheads against five that he
would make her institute an order of knighthood, and won his wager.

The elder boy saw these freaks and oddities of his good mother’s
disposition, and chafed and raged at them privately. From very early
days he revolted when flatteries and compliments were paid to the little
lady, and strove to expose them with his juvenile satire; so that
his mother would say gravely, “The Esmonds were always of a jealous
disposition, and my poor boy takes after my father and mother in this.”
 George hated Jack Firebrace and Tom Humbold, and all their like;
whereas Harry went out sporting with them, and fowling, and fishing, and
cock-fighting, and enjoyed all the fun of the country.

One winter, after their first tutor had been dismissed, Madam Esmond
took them to Williamsburg, for such education as the schools and college
there afforded, and there it was the fortune of the family to listen to
the preaching of the famous Mr. Whitfield, who had come into Virginia,
where the habits and preaching of the established clergy were not very
edifying. Unlike many of the neighbouring provinces, Virginia was a
Church of England colony: the clergymen were paid by the State and had
glebes allotted to them; and, there being no Church of England bishop as
yet in America, the colonists were obliged to import their divines from
the mother-country. Such as came were not, naturally, of the very best
or most eloquent kind of pastors. Noblemen’s hangers-on, insolvent
parsons who had quarrelled with justice or the bailiff, brought their
stained cassocks into the colony in the hopes of finding a living there.
No wonder that Whitfield’s great voice stirred those whom harmless Mr.
Broadbent, the Williamsburg chaplain, never could awaken. At first the
boys were as much excited as their mother by Mr. Whitfield: they sang
hymns, and listened to him with fervour, and, could he have remained
long enough among them, Harry and George had both worn black coats
probably instead of epaulettes. The simple boys communicated their
experiences to one another, and were on the daily and nightly look-out
for the sacred “call,” in the hope or the possession of which such a
vast multitude of Protestant England was thrilling at the time.

But Mr. Whitfield could not stay always with the little congregation of
Williamsburg. His mission was to enlighten the whole benighted people of
the Church, and from the East to the West to trumpet the truth and bid
slumbering sinners awaken. However, he comforted the widow with precious
letters, and promised to send her a tutor for her sons who should be
capable of teaching them not only profane learning, but of strengthening
and confirming them in science much more precious.

In due course, a chosen vessel arrived from England. Young Mr. Ward had
a voice as loud as Mr. Whitfield’s, and could talk almost as readily
and for as long a time. Night and evening the hall sounded with his
exhortations. The domestic negroes crept to the doors to listen to him.
Other servants darkened the porch windows with their crisp heads to hear
him discourse. It was over the black sheep of the Castlewood flock that
Mr. Ward somehow had the most influence. These woolly lamblings were
immensely affected by his exhortations, and, when he gave out the hymn,
there was such a negro chorus about the house as might be heard across
the Potomac--such a chorus as would never have been heard in the
Colonel’s time--for that worthy gentleman had a suspicion of all
cassocks, and said he would never have any controversy with a clergyman
but upon backgammon. Where money was wanted for charitable purposes no
man was more ready, and the good, easy Virginian clergyman, who loved
backgammon heartily, too, said that the worthy Colonel’s charity must
cover his other shortcomings.

Ward was a handsome young man. His preaching pleased Madam Esmond from
the first, and, I daresay, satisfied her as much as Mr. Whitfield’s. Of
course it cannot be the case at the present day when they are so finely
educated, but women, a hundred years ago, were credulous, eager to
admire and believe, and apt to imagine all sorts of excellences in the
object of their admiration. For weeks, nay, months, Madam Esmond
was never tired of hearing Mr. Ward’s great glib voice and voluble
commonplaces: and, according to her wont, she insisted that her
neighbours should come and listen to him, and ordered them to be
converted. Her young favourite, Mr. Washington, she was especially
anxious to influence; and again and again pressed him to come and
stay at Castlewood and benefit by the spiritual advantages there to
be obtained. But that young gentleman found he had particular business
which called him home or away from home, and always ordered his horse
of evenings when the time was coming for Mr. Ward’s exercises. And--what
boys are just towards their pedagogue?--the twins grew speedily tired
and even rebellious under their new teacher.

They found him a bad scholar, a dull fellow, and ill-bred to boot.
George knew much more Latin and Greek than his master, and caught him
in perpetual blunders and false quantities. Harry, who could take much
greater liberties than were allowed to his elder brother, mimicked
Ward’s manner of eating and talking, so that Mrs. Mountain and even
Madam Esmond were forced to laugh, and little Fanny Mountain would crow
with delight. Madam Esmond would have found the fellow out for a vulgar
quack but for her sons’ opposition, which she, on her part, opposed with
her own indomitable will. “What matters whether he has more or less of
profane learning?” she asked; “in that which is most precious, Mr. W.
is able to be a teacher to all of us. What if his manners are a little
rough? Heaven does not choose its elect from among the great and
wealthy. I wish you knew one book, children, as well as Mr. Ward does.
It is your wicked pride--the pride of all the Esmonds--which prevents
you from listening to him. Go down on your knees in your chamber and
pray to be corrected of that dreadful fault.” Ward’s discourse that
evening was about Naaman the Syrian, and the pride he had in his native
rivers of Abana and Pharpar, which he vainly imagined to be superior to
the healing waters of Jordan--the moral being, that he, Ward, was the
keeper and guardian of the undoubted waters of Jordan, and that the
unhappy, conceited boys must go to perdition unless they came to him.

George now began to give way to a wicked sarcastic method, which,
perhaps, he had inherited from his grandfather, and with which, when a
quiet, skilful young person chooses to employ it, he can make a whole
family uncomfortable. He took up Ward’s pompous remarks and made jokes
of them, so that that young divine chafed and almost choked over his
great meals. He made Madam Esmond angry, and doubly so when he sent
off Harry into fits of laughter. Her authority was defied, her officer
scorned and insulted, her youngest child perverted, by the obstinate
elder brother. She made a desperate and unhappy attempt to maintain her
power.

The boys were fourteen years of age, Harry being taller and much more
advanced than his brother, who was delicate, and as yet almost childlike
in stature and appearance. The baculine method was a quite common mode
of argument in those days. Sergeants, schoolmasters, slave-overseers,
used the cane freely. Our little boys had been horsed many a day by Mr.
Dempster, their Scotch tutor, in their grandfather’s time; and Harry,
especially, had got to be quite accustomed to the practice, and made
very light of it. But, in the interregnum after Colonel Esmond’s death,
the cane had been laid aside, and the young gentlemen of Castlewood
had been allowed to have their own way. Her own and her lieutenant’s
authority being now spurned by the youthful rebels, the unfortunate
mother thought of restoring it by means of coercion. She took counsel
of Mr. Ward. That athletic young pedagogue could easily find chapter and
verse to warrant the course which he wished to pursue--in fact, there
was no doubt about the wholesomeness of the practice in those clays. He
had begun by flattering the boys, finding a good berth and snug quarters
at Castlewood, and hoping to remain there.

But they laughed at his flattery, they scorned his bad manners, they
yawned soon at his sermons; the more their mother favoured him, the more
they disliked him; and so the tutor and the pupils cordially hated each
other. Mrs. Mountain, who was the boys’ friend, especially George’s
friend, whom she thought unjustly treated by his mother, warned the lads
to be prudent, and that some conspiracy was hatching against them. “Ward
is more obsequious than ever to your mamma. It turns my stomach, it
does, to hear him flatter, and to see him gobble--the odious wretch! You
must be on your guard, my poor boys--you must learn your lessons, and
not anger your tutor. A mischief will come, I know it will. Your mamma
was talking about you to Mr. Washington the other day, when I came into
the room. I don’t like that Major Washington, you know I don’t. Don’t
say--O Mounty! Master Harry. You always stand up for your friends, you
do. The Major is very handsome and tall, and he may be very good, but he
is much too old a young man for me. Bless you, my dears, the quantity
of wild oats your father sowed and my own poor Mountain when they were
ensigns in Kingsley’s, would fill sacks full! Show me Mr. Washington’s
wild oats, I say--not a grain! Well, I happened to step in last Tuesday,
when he was here with your mamma; and I am sure they were talking about
you, for he said, ‘Discipline is discipline, and must be preserved.
There can be but one command in a house, ma’am, and you must be the
mistress of yours.’”

“The very words he used to me,” cries Harry. “He told me that he did not
like to meddle with other folks’ affairs, but that our mother was very
angry, dangerously angry, he said, and he begged me to obey Mr. Ward,
and specially to press George to do so.”

“Let him manage his own house, not mine,” says George, very haughtily.
And the caution, far from benefiting him, only rendered the lad more
supercilious and refractory.

On the next day the storm broke, and vengeance fell on the little
rebel’s head. Words passed between George and Mr. Ward during the
morning study. The boy was quite insubordinate and unjust: even his
faithful brother cried out, and owned that he was in the wrong. Mr. Ward
kept his temper--to compress, bottle up, cork down, and prevent your
anger from present furious explosion, is called keeping your temper--and
said he should speak upon this business to Madam Esmond. When the family
met at dinner, Mr. Ward requested her ladyship to stay, and, temperately
enough, laid the subject of dispute before her.

He asked Master Harry to confirm what he had said: and poor Harry was
obliged to admit all the dominie’s statements.

George, standing under his grandfather’s portrait by the chimney, said
haughtily that what Mr. Ward had said was perfectly correct.

“To be a tutor to such a pupil is absurd,” said Mr. Ward, making a long
speech, interspersed with many of his usual Scripture phrases, at each
of which, as they occurred, that wicked young George smiled, and pished
scornfully, and at length Ward ended by asking her honour’s leave to
retire.

“Not before you have punished this wicked and disobedient child,” said
Madam Esmond, who had been gathering anger during Ward’s harangue, and
especially at her son’s behaviour.

“Punish!” says George.

“Yes, sir, punish! If means of love and entreaty fail, as they have with
your proud heart, other means must be found to bring you to obedience.
I punish you now, rebellious boy, to guard you from greater punishment
hereafter. The discipline of this family must be maintained. There can
be but one command in a house, and I must be the mistress of mine. You
will punish this refractory boy, Mr. Ward, as we have agreed that you
should do, and if there is the least resistance on his part, my overseer
and servants will lend you aid.”

In some such words the widow no doubt must have spoken, but with many
vehement Scriptural allusions, which it does not become this
chronicler to copy. To be for ever applying to the Sacred Oracles, and
accommodating their sentences to your purpose--to be for ever taking
Heaven into your confidence about your private affairs, and
passionately calling for its interference in your family quarrels and
difficulties--to be so familiar with its designs and schemes as to be
able to threaten your neighbour with its thunders, and to know precisely
its intentions regarding him and others who differ from your infallible
opinion--this was the schooling which our simple widow had received from
her impetuous young spiritual guide, and I doubt whether it brought her
much comfort.

In the midst of his mother’s harangue, in spite of it, perhaps, George
Esmond felt he had been wrong. “There can be but one command in the
house, and you must be mistress--I know who said those words before
you,” George said, slowly, and looking very white--“and--and I know,
mother, that I have acted wrongly to Mr. Ward.”

“He owns it! He asks pardon!” cries Harry. “That’s right, George! That’s
enough: isn’t it?”

“No, it is not enough!” cried the little woman. “The disobedient boy
must pay the penalty of his disobedience. When I was headstrong, as I
sometimes was as a child before my spirit was changed and humbled, my
mamma punished me, and I submitted. So must George. I desire you will do
your duty, Mr. Ward.”

“Stop, mother!--you don’t quite know what you are doing,” George said,
exceedingly agitated.

“I know that he who spares the rod spoils the child, ungrateful boy!”
 says Madam Esmond, with more references of the same nature, which George
heard, looking very pale and desperate.

Upon the mantelpiece, under the Colonel’s portrait, stood a china
cup, by which the widow set great store, as her father had always been
accustomed to drink from it. George suddenly took it, and a strange
smile passed over his pale face.

“Stay one minute. Don’t go away yet,” he cried to his mother, who was
leaving the room. “You--you are very fond of this cup, mother?”--and
Harry looked at him, wondering. “If I broke it, it could never be
mended, could it? All the tinkers’ rivets would not make it a whole cup
again. My dear old grandpapa’s cup! I have been wrong. Mr. Ward, I ask
pardon. I will try and amend.”

The widow looked at her son indignantly, almost scornfully. “I thought,”
 she said, “I thought an Esmond had been more of a man than to be afraid,
and--” here she gave a little scream as Harry uttered an exclamation,
and dashed forward with his hands stretched out towards his brother.

George, after looking at the cup, raised it, opened his hand, and let it
fall on the marble slab below him. Harry had tried in vain to catch it.

“It is too late, Hal,” George said. “You will never mend that
again--never. Now, mother, I am ready, as it is your wish. Will you come
and see whether I am afraid? Mr. Ward, I am your servant. Your servant?
Your slave! And the next time I meet Mr. Washington, madam, I will thank
him for the advice which he gave you.”

“I say, do your duty, sir!” cried Mrs. Esmond, stamping her little foot.
And George, making a low bow to Mr. Ward, begged him to go first out of
the room to the study.

“Stop! For God’s sake, mother, stop!” cried poor Hal. But passion was
boiling in the little woman’s heart, and she would not hear the boy’s
petition. “You only abet him, sir!” she cried.--“If I had to do it
myself, it should be done!” And Harry, with sadness and wrath in his
countenance, left the room by the door through which Mr. Ward and his
brother had just issued.

The widow sank down on a great chair near it, and sat a while vacantly
looking at the fragments of the broken cup. Then she inclined her head
towards the door--one of half a dozen of carved mahogany which the
Colonel had brought from Europe. For a while there was silence: then a
loud outcry, which made the poor mother start.

In another minute Mr. Ward came out bleeding, from a great wound on his
head, and behind him Harry, with flaring eyes, and brandishing a little
couteau-de-chasse of his grandfather, which hung, with others of the
Colonel’s weapons, on the library wall.

“I don’t care. I did it,” says Harry. “I couldn’t see this fellow strike
my brother; and, as he lifted his hand, I flung the great ruler at him.
I couldn’t help it. I won’t bear it; and, if one lifts a hand to me or
my brother, I’ll have his life,” shouts Harry, brandishing the hanger.

The widow gave a great gasp and a sigh as she looked at the young
champion and his victim. She must have suffered terribly during the few
minutes of the boys’ absence; and the stripes which she imagined had
been inflicted on the elder had smitten her own heart. She longed
to take both boys to it. She was not angry now. Very likely she was
delighted with the thought of the younger’s prowess and generosity.
“You are a very naughty disobedient child,” she said, in an exceedingly
peaceable voice. “My poor Mr. Ward! What a rebel, to strike you! Papa’s
great ebony ruler, was it? Lay down that hanger, child. ‘Twas General
Webb gave it to my papa after the siege of Lille. Let me bathe your
wound, my good Mr. Ward, and thank Heaven it was no worse. Mountain!
Go fetch me some court-plaster out of the middle drawer in the japan
cabinet. Here comes George. Put on your coat and waistcoat, child! You
were going to take your punishment, sir, and that is sufficient. Ask
pardon, Harry, of good Mr. Ward, for your wicked rebellious spirit,--I
do, with all my heart, I am sure. And guard against your passionate
nature, child--and pray to be forgiven. My son, O my son!” Here, with a
burst of tears which she could no longer control, the little woman threw
herself on the neck of her eldest-born; whilst Harry, laying the hanger
down, went up very feebly to Mr. Ward, and said, “Indeed, I ask your
pardon, sir. I couldn’t help it; on my honour I couldn’t; nor bear to
see my brother struck.”

The widow was scared, as after her embrace she looked up at George’s
pale face. In reply to her eager caresses, he coldly kissed her on the
forehead, and separated from her. “You meant for the best, mother,” he
said, “and I was in the wrong. But the cup is broken; and all the king’s
horses and all the king’s men cannot mend it. There--put the fair side
outwards on the mantelpiece, and the wound will not show.”

Again Madam Esmond looked at the lad, as he placed the fragments of the
poor cup on the ledge where it had always been used to stand. Her power
over him was gone. He had dominated her. She was not sorry for the
defeat; for women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered; and
from that day the young gentleman was master at Castlewood. His mother
admired him as he went up to Harry, graciously and condescendingly gave
Hal his hand, and said, “Thank you, brother!” as if he were a prince,
and Harry a general who had helped him in a great battle.

Then George went up to Mr. Ward, who was still piteously bathing his
eye and forehead in the water. “I ask pardon for Hal’s violence, sir,”
 George said, in great state. “You see, though we are very young, we
are gentlemen, and cannot brook an insult from strangers. I should
have submitted, as it was mamma’s desire; but I am glad she no longer
entertains it.”

“And pray, sir, who is to compensate me?” says Mr. Ward; “who is to
repair the insult done to me?”

“We are very young,” says George, with another of his old-fashioned
bows. “We shall be fifteen soon. Any compensation that is usual amongst
gentlemen”

“This, sir, to a minister of the Word!” bawls out Ward, starting up,
and who knew perfectly well the lads’ skill in fence, having a score of
times been foiled by the pair of them.

“You are not a clergyman yet. We thought you might like to be considered
as a gentleman. We did not know.”

“A gentleman! I am a Christian, sir!” says Ward, glaring furiously, and
clenching his great fists.

“Well, well, if you won’t fight, why don’t you forgive?” says Harry. “If
you don’t forgive, why don’t you fight? That’s what I call the horns of
a dilemma;” and he laughed his frank, jolly laugh.


But this was nothing to the laugh a few days afterwards, when, the
quarrel having been patched up, along with poor Mr. Ward’s eye, the
unlucky tutor was holding forth according to his custom. He tried to
preach the boys into respect for him, to reawaken the enthusiasm which
the congregation had felt for him; he wrestled with their manifest
indifference, he implored Heaven to warm their cold hearts again, and to
lift up those who were falling back. All was in vain. The widow wept no
more at his harangues, was no longer excited by his loudest tropes and
similes, nor appeared to be much frightened by the very hottest menaces
with which he peppered his discourse. Nay, she pleaded headache, and
would absent herself of an evening, on which occasion the remainder of
the little congregation was very cold indeed. One day, then, Ward,
still making desperate efforts to get back his despised authority, was
preaching on the beauty of subordination, the present lax spirit of the
age, and the necessity of obeying our spiritual and temporal rulers.
“For why, my dear friends,” he nobly asked (he was in the habit of
asking immensely dull questions, and straightway answering them with
corresponding platitudes), “why are governors appointed, but that we
should be governed? Why are tutors engaged, but that children should be
taught?” (here a look at the boys). “Why are rulers----” Here he paused,
looking with a sad, puzzled face at the young gentlemen. He saw in their
countenances the double meaning of the unlucky word he had uttered,
and stammered, and thumped the table with his fist. “Why, I say, are
rulers----”

“Rulers,” says George, looking at Harry.

“Rulers!” says Hal, putting his hand to his eye, where the poor tutor
still bore marks of the late scuffle. Rulers, o-ho! It was too much. The
boys burst out in an explosion of laughter. Mrs. Mountain, who was full
of fun, could not help joining in the chorus; and little Fanny, who had
always behaved very demurely and silently at these ceremonies, crowed
again, and clapped her little hands at the others laughing, not in the
least knowing the reason why.

This could not be borne. Ward shut down the book before him; in a few
angry, but eloquent and manly words, said he would speak no more in that
place; and left Castlewood not in the least regretted by Madam Esmond,
who had doted on him three months before.



CHAPTER VI. The Virginians begin to see the World


After the departure of her unfortunate spiritual adviser and chaplain,
Madam Esmond and her son seemed to be quite reconciled: but although
George never spoke of the quarrel with his mother, it must have weighed
upon the boy’s mind very painfully, for he had a fever soon after the
last recounted domestic occurrences, during which illness his brain
once or twice wandered, when he shrieked out, “Broken! Broken! It never,
never can be mended!” to the silent terror of his mother, who sate
watching the poor child as he tossed wakeful upon his midnight bed.
His malady defied her skill, and increased in spite of all the nostrums
which the good widow kept in her closet and administered so freely to
her people. She had to undergo another humiliation, and one day little
Mr. Dempster beheld her at his door on horseback. She had ridden through
the snow on her pony, to implore him to give his aid to her poor boy. “I
shall bury my resentment, madam,” said he, “as your ladyship buried your
pride. Please God, I maybe time enough to help my dear young pupil!” So
he put up his lancet, and his little provision of medicaments; called
his only negro-boy after him, shut up his lonely hut, and once more
returned to Castlewood. That night and for some days afterwards it
seemed very likely that poor Harry would become heir of Castlewood; but
by Mr. Dempster’s skill the fever was got over, the intermittent attacks
diminished in intensity, and George was restored almost to health again.
A change of air, a voyage even to England, was recommended, but the
widow had quarrelled with her children’s relatives there, and owned with
contrition that she had been too hasty. A journey to the north and east
was determined on, and the two young gentlemen, with Mr. Dempster as
their tutor, and a couple of servants to attend them, took a voyage to
New York, and thence up the beautiful Hudson river to Albany, where they
were received by the first gentry of the province, and thence into the
French provinces, where they had the best recommendations, and were
hospitably entertained by the French gentry. Harry camped with the
Indians, and took furs and shot bears. George, who never cared for
field-sports, and whose health was still delicate, was a special
favourite with the French ladies, who were accustomed to see very few
young English gentlemen speaking the French language so readily as our
young gentlemen. George especially perfected his accent so as to be able
to pass for a Frenchman. He had the bel air completely, every person
allowed. He danced the minuet elegantly. He learned the latest imported
French catches and songs, and played them beautifully on his violin,
and would have sung them too but that his voice broke at this time, and
changed from treble to bass; and, to the envy of poor Harry, who was
absent on a bear-hunt, he even had an affair of honour with a young
ensign of the regiment of Auvergne, the Chevalier de la Jabotiere, whom
he pinked in the shoulder, and with whom he afterwards swore an eternal
friendship. Madame de Mouchy, the superintendent’s lady, said the mother
was blest who had such a son, and wrote a complimentary letter to Madam
Esmond upon Mr. George’s behaviour. I fear, Mr. Whitfield would not
have been over-pleased with the widow’s elation on hearing of her son’s
prowess.

When the lads returned home at the end of ten delightful months, their
mother was surprised at their growth and improvement. George especially
was so grown as to come up to his younger-born brother. The boys could
hardly be distinguished one from another, especially when their hair was
powdered; but that ceremony being too cumbrous for country life, each
of the gentlemen commonly wore his own hair, George his raven black, and
Harry his light locks tied with a ribbon.

The reader who has been so kind as to look over the first pages of the
lad’s simple biography, must have observed that Mr. George Esmond was
of a jealous and suspicious disposition, most generous and gentle and
incapable of an untruth, and though too magnanimous to revenge, almost
incapable of forgiving any injury. George left home with no goodwill
towards an honourable gentleman, whose name afterwards became one of the
most famous in the world; and he returned from his journey not in the
least altered in his opinion of his mother’s and grandfather’s friend.
Mr. Washington, though then but just of age, looked and felt much older.
He always exhibited an extraordinary simplicity and gravity; he had
managed his mother’s and his family’s affairs from a very early age, and
was trusted by all his friends and the gentry of his county more than
persons twice his senior.

Mrs. Mountain, Madam Esmond’s friend and companion, who dearly loved the
two boys and her patroness, in spite of many quarrels with the latter,
and daily threats of parting, was a most amusing, droll letter-writer,
and used to write to the two boys on their travels. Now, Mrs. Mountain
was of a jealous turn likewise; especially she had a great turn for
match-making, and fancied that everybody had a design to marry everybody
else. There scarce came an unmarried man to Castlewood but Mountain
imagined the gentleman had an eye towards the mistress of the mansion.
She was positive that odious Mr. Ward intended to make love to
the widow, and pretty sure the latter liked him. She knew that Mr.
Washington wanted to be married, was certain that such a shrewd young
gentleman would look out for a rich wife, and, as for the differences of
ages, what matter that the Major (major was his rank in the militia)
was fifteen years younger than Madam Esmond? They were used to such
marriages in the family; my lady her mother was how many years older
than the Colonel when she married him?--When she married him and was so
jealous that she never would let the poor Colonel out of her sight.
The poor Colonel! after his wife, he had been henpecked by his little
daughter. And she would take after her mother, and marry again, be
sure of that. Madam was a little chit of a woman, not five feet in her
highest headdress and shoes, and Mr. Washington a great tall man of
six feet two. Great tall men always married little chits of women:
therefore, Mr. W. must be looking after the widow. What could be more
clear than the deduction?

She communicated these sage opinions to her boy, as she called George,
who begged her, for Heaven’s sake, to hold her tongue. This she said she
could do, but she could not keep her eyes always shut; and she narrated
a hundred circumstances which had occurred in the young gentleman’s
absence, and which tended, as she thought, to confirm her notions. Had
Mountain imparted these pretty suspicions to his brother? George asked
sternly. No. George was her boy; Harry was his mother’s boy. “She likes
him best, and I like you best, George,” cries Mountain. “Besides, if I
were to speak to him, he would tell your mother in a minute. Poor Harry
can keep nothing quiet, and then there would be a pretty quarrel between
Madam and me!”

“I beg you to keep this quiet, Mountain,” said Mr. George, with great
dignity, “or you and I shall quarrel too. Neither to me nor to any one
else in the world must you mention such an absurd suspicion.”

Absurd! Why absurd? Mr. Washington was constantly with the widow. His
name was forever in her mouth. She was never tired of pointing out his
virtues and examples to her sons. She consulted him on every question
respecting her estate and its management. She never bought a horse
or sold a barrel of tobacco without his opinion. There was a room at
Castlewood regularly called Mr. Washington’s room. “He actually leaves
his clothes here and his portmanteau when he goes away. Ah! George,
George! One day will come when he won’t go away,” groaned Mountain, who,
of course, always returned to the subject of which she was forbidden
to speak. Meanwhile Mr. George adopted towards his mother’s favourite a
frigid courtesy, at which the honest gentleman chafed but did not care
to remonstrate, or a stinging sarcasm, which he would break through as
he would burst through so many brambles on those hunting excursions
in which he and Harry Warrington rode so constantly together; whilst
George, retreating to his tents, read mathematics, and French, and
Latin, and sulked in his book-room more and more lonely.

Harry was away from home with some other sporting friends (it is to be
feared the young gentleman’s acquaintances were not all as eligible as
Mr. Washington), when the latter came to pay a visit at Castlewood. He
was so peculiarly tender and kind to the mistress there, and received by
her with such special cordiality, that George Warrington’s jealousy had
well-nigh broken out in open rupture. But the visit was one of adieu, as
it appeared.

Major Washington was going on a long and dangerous journey, quite to the
western Virginia frontier and beyond it. The French had been for some
time past making inroads into our territory. The government at home,
as well as those of Virginia and Pennsylvania, were alarmed at this
aggressive spirit of the Lords of Canada and Louisiana. Some of our
settlers had already been driven from their holdings by Frenchmen in
arms, and the governors of the British provinces were desirous to stop
their incursions, or at any rate to protest against their invasion.

We chose to hold our American colonies by a law that was at least
convenient for its framers. The maxim was, that whoever possessed the
coast had a right to all the territory inland as far as the Pacific; so
that the British charters only laid down the limits of the colonies from
north to south, leaving them quite free from east to west. The French,
meanwhile, had their colonies to the north and south, and aimed at
connecting them by the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence and the great
intermediate lakes and waters lying to the westward of the British
possessions. In the year 1748, though peace was signed between the
two European kingdoms, the colonial question remained unsettled, to be
opened again when either party should be strong enough to urge it. In
the year 1753, it came to an issue, on the Ohio river, where the British
and French settlers met. To be sure, there existed other people besides
French and British, who thought they had a title to the territory about
which the children of their White Fathers were battling, namely, the
native Indians and proprietors of the soil. But the logicians of St.
James’s and Versailles wisely chose to consider the matter in dispute
as a European and not a Red-man’s question, eliminating him from the
argument, but employing his tomahawk as it might serve the turn of
either litigant.

A company, called the Ohio Company, having grants from the Virginia
government of lands along that river, found themselves invaded in their
settlements by French military detachments, who roughly ejected the
Britons from their holdings. These latter applied for protection to Mr.
Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, who determined upon sending
an ambassador to the French commanding officer on the Ohio, demanding
that the French should desist from their inroads upon the territories of
his Majesty King George.

Young Mr. Washington jumped eagerly at the chance of distinction which
this service afforded him, and volunteered to leave his home and his
rural and professional pursuits in Virginia, to carry the governor’s
message to the French officer. Taking a guide, an interpreter, and a
few attendants, and following the Indian tracks, in the fall of the year
1753, the intrepid young envoy made his way from Williamsburg almost
to the shores of Lake Erie, and found the French commander at Fort le
Boeuf. That officer’s reply was brief: his orders were to hold the place
and drive all the English from it. The French avowed their intention of
taking possession of the Ohio. And with this rough answer the messenger
from Virginia had to return through danger and difficulty, across lonely
forest and frozen river, shaping his course by the compass, and camping
at night in the snow by the forest fires.

Harry Warrington cursed his ill-fortune that he had been absent from
home on a cock-fight, when he might have had chance of sport so much
nobler; and on his return from his expedition, which he had conducted
with an heroic energy and simplicity, Major Washington was a greater
favourite than ever with the lady of Castlewood. She pointed him out
as a model to both her sons. “Ah, Harry!” she would say, “think of you,
with your cock-fighting and your racing-matches, and the Major away
there in the wilderness, watching the French, and battling with the
frozen rivers! Ah, George! learning may be a very good thing, but I wish
my eldest son were doing something in the service of his country!”

“I desire no better than to go home and seek for employment, ma’am,”
 says George. “You surely will not have me serve under Mr. Washington, in
his new regiment, or ask a commission from Mr. Dinwiddie?”

“An Esmond can only serve with the king’s commission,” says Madam, “and
as for asking a favour from Mr. Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie, I would
rather beg my bread.”

Mr. Washington was at this time raising such a regiment as, with the
scanty pay and patronage of the Virginian government, he could get
together, and proposed, with the help of these men-of-war, to put a more
peremptory veto upon the French invaders than the solitary ambassador
had been enabled to lay. A small force under another officer, Colonel
Trent, had been already despatched to the west, with orders to fortify
themselves so as to be able to resist any attack of the enemy. The
French troops, greatly outnumbering ours, came up with the English
outposts, who were fortifying themselves at a place on the confines of
Pennsylvania where the great city of Pittsburg now stands. A Virginian
officer with but forty men was in no condition to resist twenty times
that number of Canadians, who appeared before his incomplete works. He
was suffered to draw back without molestation; and the French, taking
possession of his fort, strengthened it, and christened it by the name
of the Canadian governor, Du Quesne. Up to this time no actual blow of
war had been struck. The troops representing the hostile nations were in
presence--the guns were loaded, but no one as yet had cried “Fire.” It
was strange, that in a savage forest of Pennsylvania, a young Virginian
officer should fire a shot, and waken up a war which was to last for
sixty years, which was to cover his own country and pass into Europe, to
cost France her American colonies, to sever ours from us, and create the
great Western republic; to rage over the Old World when extinguished in
the New; and, of all the myriads engaged in the vast contest, to leave
the prize of the greatest fame with him who struck the first blow!

He little knew of the fate in store for him. A simple gentleman, anxious
to serve his king and do his duty, he volunteered for the first service,
and executed it with admirable fidelity. In the ensuing year he took the
command of the small body of provincial troops with which he marched to
repel the Frenchmen. He came up with their advanced guard and fired upon
them, killing their leader. After this he had himself to fall back
with his troops, and was compelled to capitulate to the superior French
force. On the 4th of July, 1754, the Colonel marched out with his troops
from the little fort where he had hastily entrenched himself (and which
they called Fort Necessity), gave up the place to the conqueror, and
took his way home.

His command was over: his regiment disbanded after the fruitless,
inglorious march and defeat. Saddened and humbled in spirit, the
young officer presented himself after a while to his old friends at
Castlewood. He was very young: before he set forth on his first campaign
he may have indulged in exaggerated hopes of success, and uttered them.
“I was angry when I parted from you,” he said to George Warrington,
holding out his hand, which the other eagerly took. “You seemed to
scorn me and my regiment, George. I thought you laughed at us, and your
ridicule made me angry. I boasted too much of what we would do.”

“Nay, you have done your best, George,” says the other, who quite forgot
his previous jealousy in his old comrade’s misfortune. “Everybody knows
that a hundred and fifty starving men, with scarce a round of ammunition
left, could not face five times their number perfectly armed, and
everybody who knows Mr. Washington knows that he would do his duty.
Harry and I saw the French in Canada last year. They obey but one will:
in our provinces each governor has his own. They were royal troops the
French sent against you...”

“Oh, but that some of ours were here!” cries Madam Esmond, tossing her
head up. “I promise you a few good English regiments would make the
white-coats run.”

“You think nothing of the provincials: and I must say nothing now we
have been so unlucky,” said the Colonel, gloomily. “You made much of me
when I was here before. Don’t you remember what victories you prophesied
for me--how much I boasted myself very likely over your good wine? All
those fine dreams are over now. ‘Tis kind of your ladyship to receive a
poor beaten fellow as you do:” and the young soldier hung down his head.

George Warrington, with his extreme acute sensibility, was touched at
the other’s emotion and simple testimony of sorrow under defeat. He was
about to say something friendly to Mr. Washington, had not his mother,
to whom the Colonel had been speaking, replied herself: “Kind of us to
receive you, Colonel Washington!” said the widow. “I never heard that
when men were unhappy, our sex were less their friends.”

And she made the Colonel a very fine curtsey, which straightway caused
her son to be more jealous of him than ever.



CHAPTER VII. Preparations for War


Surely no man can have better claims to sympathy than bravery, youth,
good looks, and misfortune. Madam Esmond might have had twenty sons, and
yet had a right to admire her young soldier. Mr. Washington’s room
was more than ever Mr. Washington’s room now. She raved about him
and praised him in all companies. She more than ever pointed out his
excellences to her sons, contrasting his sterling qualities with Harry’s
love of pleasure (the wild boy!) and George’s listless musings over his
books. George was not disposed to like Mr. Washington any better for
his mother’s extravagant praises. He coaxed the jealous demon within him
until he must have become a perfect pest to himself and all the friends
round about him. He uttered jokes so deep that his simple mother did not
know their meaning, but sate bewildered at his sarcasms, and powerless
what to think of his moody, saturnine humour.

Meanwhile, public events were occurring which were to influence the
fortunes of all our homely family. The quarrel between the French and
English North Americans, from being a provincial, had grown to be a
national, quarrel. Reinforcements from France had already arrived in
Canada; and English troops were expected in Virginia. “Alas! my dear
friend!” wrote Madame la Presidente de Mouchy, from Quebec, to her young
friend George Warrington. “How contrary is the destiny to us! I see you
quitting the embrace of an adored mother to precipitate yourself in the
arms of Bellona. I see you pass wounded after combats. I hesitate almost
to wish victory to our lilies when I behold you ranged under the
banners of the Leopard. There are enmities which the heart does not
recognise--ours assuredly are at peace among the tumults. All here love
and salute you, as well as Monsieur the Bear-hunter, your brother (that
cold Hippolyte who preferred the chase to the soft conversation of our
ladies!) Your friend, your enemy, the Chevalier de la Jabotiere, burns
to meet on the field of Mars his generous rival. M. Du Quesne spoke
of you last night at supper. M. Du Quesne, my husband, send affectuous
remembrances to their young friend, with which are ever joined those of
your sincere Presidente de Mouchy.”

“The banner of the Leopard,” of which George’s fair correspondent wrote,
was, indeed, flung out to the winds, and a number of the king’s soldiers
were rallied round it. It was resolved to wrest from the French all the
conquests they had made upon British dominion. A couple of regiments
were raised and paid by the king in America, and a fleet with a couple
more was despatched from home under an experienced commander. In
February, 1755, Commodore Keppel, in the famous ship Centurion, in which
Anson had made his voyage round the world, anchored in Hampton Roads
with two ships of war under his command, and having on board General
Braddock, his staff, and a part of his troops. Mr. Braddock was
appointed by the Duke. A hundred years ago the Duke of Cumberland was
called The Duke par excellence in England--as another famous warrior has
since been called. Not so great a Duke certainly was that first-named
Prince as his party esteemed him, and surely not so bad a one as his
enemies have painted him. A fleet of transports speedily followed Prince
William’s general, bringing stores, and men, and money in plenty.

The great man landed his troops at Alexandria on the Potomac river, and
repaired to Annapolis in Maryland, where he ordered the governors of the
different colonies to meet him in council, urging them each to call upon
their respective provinces to help the common cause in this strait.

The arrival of the General and his little army caused a mighty
excitement all through the provinces, and nowhere greater than at
Castlewood. Harry was off forthwith to see the troops under canvas at
Alexandria. The sight of their lines delighted him, and the inspiring
music of their fifes and drums. He speedily made acquaintance with the
officers of both regiments; he longed to join in the expedition upon
which they were bound, and was a welcome guest at their mess.

Madam Esmond was pleased that her sons should have an opportunity of
enjoying the society of gentlemen of good fashion from England. She had
no doubt their company was improving, that the English gentlemen were
very different from the horse-racing, cock-fighting Virginian
squires, with whom Master Harry would associate, and the lawyers, and
pettifoggers, and toad-eaters at the lieutenant-governor’s table. Madam
Esmond had a very keen eye for detecting flatterers in other folks’
houses. Against the little knot of official people at Williamsburg she
was especially satirical, and had no patience with their etiquettes and
squabbles for precedence.

As for the company of the king’s officers, Mr. Harry and his elder
brother both smiled at their mamma’s compliments to the elegance and
propriety of the gentlemen of the camp. If the good lady had but known
all, if she could but have heard their jokes and the songs which they
sang over their wine and punch, if she could have seen the condition
of many of them as they were carried away to their lodgings, she would
scarce have been so ready to recommend their company to her sons. Men
and officers swaggered the country round, and frightened the peaceful
farm and village folk with their riot: the General raved and stormed
against his troops for their disorder; against the provincials for their
traitorous niggardliness; the soldiers took possession almost as of a
conquered country, they scorned the provincials, they insulted the wives
even of their Indian allies, who had come to join the English warriors,
upon their arrival in America, and to march with them against the
French. The General was compelled to forbid the Indian women his
camp. Amazed and outraged their husbands retired, and but a few months
afterwards their services were lost to him, when their aid would have
been most precious.

Some stories against the gentlemen of the camp, Madam Esmond might have
heard, but she would have none of them. Soldiers would be soldiers, that
everybody knew; those officers who came over to Castlewood on her son’s
invitation were most polite gentlemen, and such indeed was the case. The
widow received them most graciously, and gave them the best sport the
country afforded. Presently, the General himself sent polite messages
to the mistress of Castlewood. His father had served with hers under
the glorious Marlborough, and Colonel Esmond’s name was still known and
respected in England. With her ladyship’s permission, General Braddock
would have the honour of waiting upon her at Castlewood, and paying his
respects to the daughter of so meritorious an officer.

If she had known the cause of Mr. Braddock’s politeness, perhaps
his compliments would not have charmed Madam Esmond so much. The
Commander-in-Chief held levees at Alexandria, and among the gentry of
the country, who paid him their respects, were our twins of Castlewood,
who mounted their best nags, took with them their last London suits,
and, with their two negro-boys, in smart liveries behind them, rode
in state to wait upon the great man. He was sulky and angry with the
provincial gentry, and scarce took any notice of the young gentlemen,
only asking, casually, of his aide-de-camp at dinner, who the young
Squire Gawkeys were in blue and gold and red waistcoats?

Mr. Dinwiddie, the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, the Agent from
Pennsylvania, and a few more gentlemen, happened to be dining with
his Excellency. “Oh!” says Mr. Dinwiddie, “those are the sons of the
Princess Pocahontas;” on which, with a tremendous oath, the General
asked, “Who the deuce was she?”

Dinwiddie, who did not love her, having indeed undergone a hundred
pertnesses from the imperious little lady, now gave a disrespectful and
ridiculous account of Madam Esmond, made merry with her pomposity and
immense pretensions, and entertained General Braddock with anecdotes
regarding her, until his Excellency fell asleep.

When he awoke, Dinwiddie was gone, but the Philadelphia gentleman was
still at table, deep in conversation with the officers there present.
The General took up the talk where it had been left when he fell asleep,
and spoke of Madam Esmond in curt, disrespectful terms, such as soldiers
were in the habit of using in those days, and asking, again, what was
the name of the old fool about whom Dinwiddie had been talking? He then
broke into expressions of contempt and wrath against the gentry, and the
country in general.

Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia repeated the widow’s name, took quite
a different view of her character from that Mr. Dinwiddie had given,
seemed to know a good deal about her, her father, and her estate; as,
indeed, he did about every man or subject which came under discussion;
explained to the General that Madam Esmond had beeves, and horses, and
stores in plenty, which might be very useful at the present juncture,
and recommended him to conciliate her by all means. The General
had already made up his mind that Mr. Franklin was a very shrewd,
intelligent person, and graciously ordered an aide-de-camp to invite the
two young men to the next day’s dinner. When they appeared he was very
pleasant and good-natured; the gentlemen of the General’s family made
much of them. They behaved, as became persons of their name, with
modesty and good-breeding; they returned home delighted with their
entertainment, nor was their mother less pleased at the civilities which
his Excellency had shown to her boys. In reply to Braddock’s message,
Madam Esmond penned a billet in her best style, acknowledging his
politeness, and begging his Excellency to fix the time when she might
have the honour to receive him at Castlewood.

We may be sure that the arrival of the army and the approaching campaign
formed the subject of continued conversation in the Castlewood family.
To make the campaign was the dearest wish of Harry’s life. He
dreamed only of war and battle; he was for ever with the officers at
Williamsburg; he scoured and cleaned and polished all the guns and
swords in the house; he renewed the amusements of his childhood, and had
the negroes under arms. His mother, who had a gallant spirit, knew that
the time was come when one of her boys must leave her and serve the
king. She scarce dared to think on whom the lot should fall. She admired
and respected the elder, but she felt that she loved the younger boy
with all the passion of her heart.

Eager as Harry was to be a soldier, and with all his thoughts bent on
that glorious scheme, he too scarcely dared to touch on the subject
nearest his heart. Once or twice when he ventured on it with George, the
latter’s countenance wore an ominous look. Harry had a feudal attachment
for his elder brother, worshipped him with an extravagant regard, and in
all things gave way to him as the chief. So Harry saw, to his infinite
terror, how George, too, in his grave way, was occupied with military
matters. George had the wars of Eugene and Marlborough down from his
bookshelves, all the military books of his grandfather, and the most
warlike of Plutarch’s lives. He and Dempster were practising with the
foils again. The old Scotchman was an adept in the military art, though
somewhat shy of saying where he learned it.

Madam Esmond made her two boys the bearers of the letter in reply to his
Excellency’s message, accompanying her note with such large and handsome
presents for the General’s staff and the officers of the two Royal
Regiments, as caused the General more than once to thank Mr. Franklin
for having been the means of bringing this welcome ally into the camp.
“Would not one of the young gentlemen like to see the campaign?”
 the General asked. “A friend of theirs, who often spoke of them--Mr.
Washington, who had been unlucky in the affair of last year--had already
promised to join him as aide-de-camp, and his Excellency would gladly
take another young Virginian gentleman into his family.” Harry’s eyes
brightened and his face flushed at this offer. “He would like with all
his heart to go!” he cried out. George said, looking hard at his younger
brother, that one of them would be proud to attend his Excellency,
whilst it would be the other’s duty to take care of their mother
at home. Harry allowed his senior to speak. His will was even still
obedient to George’s. However much he desired to go, he would not
pronounce until George had declared himself. He longed so for the
campaign, that the actual wish made him timid. He dared not speak on the
matter as he went home with George. They rode for miles in silence, or
strove to talk upon indifferent subjects; each knowing what was passing
in the other’s mind, and afraid to bring the awful question to an issue.

On their arrival at home the boys told their mother of General
Braddock’s offer. “I knew it must happen,” she said; “at such a crisis
in the country our family must come forward. Have you--have you settled
yet which of you is to leave me?” and she looked anxiously from one to
another, dreading to hear either name.

“The youngest ought to go, mother; of course I ought to go!” cries
Harry, turning very red.

“Of course he ought,” said Mrs. Mountain, who was present at their talk.

“There! Mountain says so! I told you so!” again cries Harry, with a
sidelong look at George.

“The head of the family ought to go, mother,” says George, sadly.

“No! no! you are ill, and have never recovered your fever. Ought he to
go, Mountain?”

“You would make the best soldier, I know that, dearest Hal. You and
George Washington are great friends, and could travel well together, and
he does not care for me, nor I for him, however much he is admired in
the family. But, you see, ‘tis the law of Honour, my Harry.” (He
here spoke to his brother with a voice of extraordinary kindness and
tenderness.) “The grief I have had in this matter has been that I must
refuse thee. I must go. Had Fate given you the benefit of that extra
half-hour of life which I have had before you, it would have been your
lot, and you would have claimed your right to go first, you know you
would.”

“Yes, George,” said poor Harry, “I own I should.”

“You will stay at home, and take care of Castlewood and our mother. If
anything happens to me, you are here to fill my place. I would like to
give way, my dear, as you, I know, would lay down your life to serve me.
But each of us must do his duty. What would our grandfather say if he
were here?”

The mother looked proudly at her two sons. “My papa would say that his
boys were gentlemen,” faltered Madam Esmond, and left the young men, not
choosing, perhaps, to show the emotion which was filling her heart. It
was speedily known amongst the servants that Mr. George was going on the
campaign. Dinah, George’s foster-mother, was loud in her lamentations
at losing him; Phillis, Harry’s old nurse, was as noisy because Master
George, as usual, was preferred over Master Harry. Sady, George’s
servant, made preparations to follow his master, bragging incessantly
of the deeds which he would do, while Gumbo, Harry’s boy, pretended to
whimper at being left behind, though, at home, Gumbo was anything but a
fire-eater.

But, of all in the house, Mrs. Mountain was the most angry at George’s
determination to go on the campaign. She had no patience with him. He
did not know what he was doing by leaving home. She begged, implored,
insisted that he should alter his determination; and vowed that nothing
but mischief would come from his departure.

George was surprised at the pertinacity of the good lady’s opposition.
“I know, Mountain,” said he, “that Harry would be the better soldier;
but, after all, to go is my duty.”

“To stay is your duty!” says Mountain, with a stamp of her foot.

“Why did not my mother own it when we talked of the matter just now?”

“Your mother!” says Mrs. Mountain, with a most gloomy, sardonic laugh;
“your mother, my poor child!”

“What is the meaning of that mournful countenance, Mountain?”

“It may be that your mother wishes you away, George!” Mrs. Mountain
continued, wagging her head. “It may be, my poor deluded boy, that you
will find a father-in-law when you come back.”

“What in heaven do you mean?” cried George, the blood rushing into his
face.

“Do you suppose I have no eyes, and cannot see what is going on? I tell
you, child, that Colonel Washington wants a rich wife. When you are
gone, he will ask your mother to marry him, and you will find him master
here when you come back. That is why you ought not to go away, you poor,
unhappy, simple boy! Don’t you see how fond she is of him? how much
she makes of him? how she is always holding him up to you, to Harry, to
everybody who comes here?”

“But he is going on the campaign, too,” cried George.

“He is going on the marrying campaign, child!” insisted the widow.

“Nay; General Braddock himself told me that Mr. Washington had accepted
the appointment of aide-de-camp.”

“An artifice! an artifice to blind you, my poor child!” cries Mountain.
“He will be wounded and come back--you will see if he does not. I have
proofs of what I say to you--proofs under his own hand--look here!” And
she took from her pocket a piece of paper in Mr. Washington’s well-known
handwriting.

“How came you by this paper?” asked George, turning ghastly pale.

“I--I found it in the Major’s chamber!” says Mrs. Mountain, with a
shamefaced look.

“You read the private letters of a guest staying in our house?” cried
George. “For shame! I will not look at the paper!” And he flung it from
him on to the fire before him.

“I could not help it, George; ‘twas by chance, I give you my word, by
the merest chance. You know Governor Dinwiddie is to have the Major’s
room, and the state-room is got ready for Mr. Braddock, and we are
expecting ever so much company, and I had to take the things which
the Major leaves here--he treats the house just as if it was his own
already--into his new room, and this half-sheet of paper fell out of his
writing-book, and I just gave one look at it by the merest chance, and
when I saw what it was it was my duty to read it.”

“Oh, you are a martyr to duty, Mountain!” George said grimly. “I dare
say Mrs. Bluebeard thought it was her duty to look through the keyhole.”

“I never did look through the keyhole, George. It’s a shame you should
say so! I, who have watched, and tended, and nursed you, like a mother;
who have sate up whole weeks with you in fevers, and carried you from
your bed to the sofa in these arms. There, sir, I don’t want you there
now. My dear Mountain, indeed! Don’t tell me! You fly into a passion,
and, call names, and wound my feelings, who have loved you like your
mother--like your mother?--I only hope she may love you half as well. I
say you are all ungrateful. My Mr. Mountain was a wretch, and every one
of you is as bad.”

There was but a smouldering log or two in the fireplace, and no doubt
Mountain saw that the paper was in no danger as it lay amongst the
ashes, or she would have seized it at the risk of burning her own
fingers, and ere she uttered the above passionate defence of her
conduct. Perhaps George was absorbed in his dismal thoughts; perhaps
his jealousy overpowered him, for he did not resist any further when she
stooped down and picked up the paper.

“You should thank your stars, child, that I saved the letter,” cried
she. “See! here are his own words, in his great big handwriting like
a clerk. It was not my fault that he wrote them, or that I found them.
Read for yourself, I say, George Warrington, and be thankful that your
poor dear old Mounty is watching over you!”

Every word and letter upon the unlucky paper was perfectly clear.
George’s eyes could not help taking in the contents of the document
before him. “Not a word of this, Mountain,” he said, giving her a
frightful look. “I--I will return this paper to Mr. Washington.”

Mountain was scared at his face, at the idea of what she had done, and
what might ensue. When his mother, with alarm in her countenance, asked
him at dinner what ailed him that he looked so pale? “Do you suppose,
madam,” says he, filling himself a great bumper of wine, “that to leave
such a tender mother as you does not cause me cruel grief?”

The good lady could not understand his words, his strange, fierce looks,
and stranger laughter. He bantered all at the table; called to the
servants and laughed at them, and drank more and more. Each time the
door was opened, he turned towards it; and so did Mountain, with a
guilty notion that Mr. Washington would step in.



CHAPTER VIII. In which George suffers from a Common Disease


On the day appointed for Madam Esmond’s entertainment to the General,
the house of Castlewood was set out with the greatest splendour; and
Madam Esmond arrayed herself in a much more magnificent dress than she
was accustomed to wear. Indeed, she wished to do every honour to her
guest, and to make the entertainment--which, in reality, was a sad
one to her--as pleasant as might be for her company. The General’s new
aide-de-camp was the first to arrive. The widow received him in the
covered gallery before the house. He dismounted at the steps, and
his servants led away his horses to the well-known quarters. No young
gentleman in the colony was better mounted or a better horseman than Mr.
Washington.

For a while ere the Major retired to divest himself of his riding-boots,
he and his hostess paced the gallery in talk. She had much to say to
him; she had to hear from him a confirmation of his own appointment as
aide-de-camp to General Braddock, and to speak of her son’s approaching
departure. The negro servants bearing the dishes for the approaching
feast were passing perpetually as they talked. They descended the steps
down to the rough lawn in front of the house, and paced a while in the
shade. Mr. Washington announced his Excellency’s speedy approach, with
Mr. Franklin of Pennsylvania in his coach.

This Mr. Franklin had been a common printer’s boy, Mrs. Esmond had
heard; a pretty pass things were coming to when such persons rode in the
coach of the Commander-in-Chief! Mr. Washington said, a more shrewd and
sensible gentleman never rode in coach or walked on foot. Mrs. Esmond
thought the Major was too liberally disposed towards this gentleman; but
Mr. Washington stoutly maintained against the widow that the printer was
a most ingenious, useful, and meritorious man.

“I am glad, at least, that, as my boy is going to make the campaign, he
will not be with tradesmen, but with gentlemen, with gentlemen of honour
and fashion,” says Madam Esmond, in her most stately manner.

Mr. Washington had seen the gentlemen of honour and fashion over their
cups, and perhaps thought that all their sayings and doings were not
precisely such as would tend to instruct or edify a young man on his
entrance into life; but he wisely chose to tell no tales out of school,
and said that Harry and George, now they were coming into the world,
must take their share of good and bad, and hear what both sorts had to
say.

“To be with a veteran officer of the finest army in the world,” faltered
the widow; “with gentlemen who have been bred in the midst of the Court;
with friends of his Royal Highness, the Duke----”

The widow’s friend only inclined his head. He did not choose to allow
his countenance to depart from its usual handsome gravity.

“And with you, dear Colonel Washington, by whom my father always set
such store. You don’t know how much he trusted in you. You will take
care of my boy, sir, will not you? You are but five years older, yet
I trust to you more than to his seniors; my father always told the
children, I alway bade them, to look up to Mr. Washington.”

“You know I would have done anything to win Colonel Esmond’s favour.
Madam, how much would I not venture to merit his daughter’s?”

The gentleman bowed with not too ill a grace. The lady blushed,
and dropped one of the lowest curtsies. (Madam Esmond’s curtsey was
considered unrivalled over the whole province.) “Mr. Washington,” she
said, “will be always sure of a mother’s affection, whilst he gives so
much of his to her children.” And so saying she gave him her hand, which
he kissed with profound politeness. The little lady presently re-entered
her mansion, leaning upon the tall young officer’s arm. Here they were
joined by George, who came to them, accurately powdered and richly
attired, saluting his parent and his friend alike with low and
respectful bows. Nowadays, a young man walks into his mother’s room with
hobnailed high-lows, and a wideawake on his head; and instead of making
her a bow, puffs a cigar into her face.

But George, though he made the lowest possible bow to Mr. Washington and
his mother, was by no means in good-humour with either of them. A
polite smile played round the lower part of his countenance, whilst
watchfulness and wrath glared out from the two upper windows. What had
been said or done? Nothing that might not have been performed or uttered
before the most decent, polite, or pious company. Why then should Madam
Esmond continue to blush, and the brave Colonel to look somewhat red, as
he shook his young friend’s hand?

The Colonel asked Mr. George if he had had good sport? “No,” says
George, curtly. “Have you?” And then he looked at the picture of his
father, which hung in the parlour.

The Colonel, not a talkative man ordinarily, straightway entered into
a long description of his sport, and described where he had been in the
morning, and what woods he had hunted with the king’s officers; how many
birds they had shot, and what game they had brought down. Though not
a jocular man ordinarily, the Colonel made a long description of Mr.
Braddock’s heavy person and great boots, as he floundered through
the Virginian woods, hunting, as they called it, with a pack of dogs
gathered from various houses, with a pack of negroes barking as loud as
the dogs, and actually shooting the deer when they came in sight of him.
“Great God, sir!” says Mr. Braddock, puffing and blowing, “what
would Sir Robert have said in Norfolk, to see a man hunting with a
fowling-piece in his hand, and a pack of dogs actually laid on to a
turkey!”

“Indeed, Colonel, you are vastly comical this afternoon!” cries Madam
Esmond, with a neat little laugh, whilst her son listened to the story,
looking more glum than ever. “What Sir Robert is there at Norfolk? Is he
one of the newly arrived army-gentlemen?”

“The General meant Norfolk at home, madam, not Norfolk in Virginia,”
 said Colonel Washington. “Mr. Braddock had been talking of a visit to
Sir Robert Walpole, who lived in that county, and of the great hunts the
old Minister kept there, and of his grand palace, and his pictures at
Houghton. I should like to see a good field and a good fox-chase at home
better than any sight in the world,” the honest sportsman added with a
sigh.

“Nevertheless, there is good sport here, as I was saying,” said young
Esmond, with a sneer.

“What sport?” cries the other, looking at him.

“Why, sure you know, without looking at me so fiercely, and stamping
your foot, as if you were going to charge me with the foils. Are you not
the best sportsman of the country-side? Are there not all the fish
of the field, and the beasts of the trees, and the fowls of the
sea--no--the fish of the trees, and the beasts of the sea--and the--bah!
You know what I mean. I mean shad, and salmon, and rock-fish, and
roe-deer, and hogs, and buffaloes, and bisons, and elephants, for what I
know. I’m no sportsman.”

“No, indeed,” said Mr. Washington, with a look of scarcely repressed
scorn.

“Yes, I understand you. I am a milksop. I have been bred at my mamma’s
knee. Look at these pretty apron-strings, Colonel! Who would not like to
be tied to them? See of what a charming colour they are! I remember when
they were black--that was for my grandfather.”

“And who would not mourn for such a gentleman?” said the Colonel, as the
widow, surprised, looked at her son.

“And, indeed, I wish my grandfather were here, and would resurge, as he
promises to do on his tombstone; and would bring my father, the Ensign,
with him.”

“Ah, Harry!” cries Mrs. Esmond, bursting into tears, as at this juncture
her second son entered the room--in just such another suit, gold-corded
frock, braided waistcoat, silver-hilted sword, and solitaire, as that
which his elder brother wore. “Oh, Harry, Harry!” cries Madam Esmond,
and flies to her younger son.

“What is it, mother?” asks Harry, taking her in his arms. “What is the
matter, Colonel?”

“Upon my life, it would puzzle me to say,” answered the Colonel, biting
his lips.

“A mere question, Hal, about pink ribbons, which I think vastly becoming
to our mother; as, no doubt, the Colonel does.”

“Sir, will you please to speak for yourself?” cried the Colonel,
bustling up, and then sinking his voice again.

“He speaks too much for himself,” wept the widow.

“I protest I don’t any more know the source of these tears, than the
source of the Nile,” said George, “and if the picture of my father were
to begin to cry, I should almost as much wonder at the paternal tears.
What have I uttered? An allusion to ribbons! Is there some poisoned pin
in them, which has been struck into my mother’s heart by a guilty fiend
of a London mantua-maker? I professed to wish to be led in these lovely
reins all my life long,” and he turned a pirouette on his scarlet heels.

“George Warrington! what devil’s dance are you dancing now?” asked
Harry, who loved his mother, who loved Mr. Washington, but who, of all
creatures, loved and admired his brother George.

“My dear child, you do not understand dancing--you care not for the
politer arts--you can get no more music out of a spinet than by pulling
a dead hog by the ear. By nature you were made for a man--a man of
war--I do not mean a seventy-four, Colonel George, like that hulk which
brought the hulking Mr. Braddock into our river. His Excellency, too,
is a man of warlike turn, a follower of the sports of the field. I am a
milksop, as I have had the honour to say.”

“You never showed it yet. You beat that great Maryland man was twice
your size,” breaks out Harry.

“Under compulsion, Harry. ‘Tis tuptu, my lad, or else ‘tis tuptomai, as
thy breech well knew when we followed school. But I am of a quiet turn,
and would never lift my hand to pull a trigger, no, nor a nose, nor
anything but a rose,” and here he took and handled one of Madam Esmond’s
bright pink apron ribbons. “I hate sporting, which you and the Colonel
love, and I want to shoot nothing alive, not a turkey, nor a titmouse,
nor an ox, nor an ass, nor anything that has ears. Those curls of Mr.
Washington’s are prettily powdered.”

The militia colonel, who had been offended by the first part of the
talk, and very much puzzled by the last, had taken a modest draught from
the great china bowl of apple-toddy which stood to welcome the guests
in this as in all Virginian houses, and was further cooling himself by
pacing the balcony in a very stately manner.

Again almost reconciled with the elder, the appeased mother stood giving
a hand to each of her sons. George put his disengaged hand on Harry’s
shoulder. “I say one thing, George,” says he with a flushing face.

“Say twenty things, Don Enrico,” cries the other.

“If you are not fond of sporting and that, and don’t care for killing
game and hunting, being cleverer than me, why shouldst thou not stop
at home and be quiet, and let me go out with Colonel George and Mr.
Braddock?--that’s what I say,” says Harry, delivering himself of his
speech.

The widow looked eagerly from the dark-haired to the fair-haired boy.
She knew not from which she would like to part.

“One of our family must go because honneur oblige, and my name being
number one, number one must go first,” says George.

“Told you so,” said poor Harry.

“One must stay, or who is to look after mother at home? We cannot afford
to be both scalped by Indians or fricasseed by French.”

“Fricasseed by French!” cries Harry; “the best troops of the world!
Englishmen! I should like to see them fricasseed by the French!--What a
mortal thrashing you will give them!” and the brave lad sighed to think
he should not be present at the battue.

George sate down to the harpsichord and played and sang “Malbrouk s’en
va-t-en guerre, Mironton, mironton, mirontaine,” at the sound of which
music the gentleman from the balcony entered. “I am playing ‘God save
the King,’ Colonel, in compliment to the new expedition.”

“I never know whether thou art laughing or in earnest,” said the simple
gentleman, “but surely methinks that is not the air.”

George performed ever so many trills and quavers upon his harpsichord,
and their guest watched him, wondering, perhaps, that a gentleman of
George’s condition could set himself to such an effeminate business.
Then the Colonel took out his watch, saying that his Excellency’s coach
would be here almost immediately, and asking leave to retire to his
apartment, and put himself in a fit condition to appear before her
ladyship’s company.

“Colonel Washington knows the way to his room pretty well,” said George,
from the harpsichord, looking over his shoulder, but never offering to
stir.”

“Let me show the Colonel to his chamber,” cried the widow, in great
wrath, and sailed out of the apartment, followed by the enraged and
bewildered Colonel, as George continued crashing among the keys. Her
high-spirited guest felt himself insulted, he could hardly say how; he
was outraged and he could not speak; he was almost stifling with anger.

Harry Warrington remarked their friend’s condition. “For heaven’s sake,
George, what does this all mean?” he asked his brother. “Why shouldn’t
he kiss her hand?” (George had just before fetched out his brother from
their library, to watch this harmless salute.) “I tell you it is nothing
but common kindness.”

“Nothing but common kindness!” shrieked out George. “Look at that, Hal!
Is that common kindness?” and he showed his junior the unlucky paper
over which he had been brooding for some time. It was but a fragment,
though the meaning was indeed clear without the preceding text.

The paper commenced: “... is older than myself, but I, again, am older
than my years; and you know, dear brother, have ever been considered a
sober person. All children are better for a father’s superintendence,
and her two, I trust, will find in me a tender friend and guardian.”

“Friend and guardian! Curse him!” shrieked out George, clenching his
fists--and his brother read on:

“... The flattering offer which General Braddock hath made me, will, of
course, oblige me to postpone this matter until after the campaign. When
we have given the French a sufficient drubbing, I shall return to repose
under my own vine and fig-tree.”

“He means Castlewood. These are his vines,” George cries again, shaking
his fist at the creepers sunning themselves on the wall.

“... Under my own vine and fig-tree; where I hope soon to present my
dear brother to his new sister-in-law. She has a pretty Scripture name,
which is...”--and here the document ended.

“Which is Rachel,” George went on bitterly. “Rachel is by no means
weeping for her children, and has every desire to be comforted. Now,
Harry! Let us upstairs at once, kneel down as becomes us, and say, ‘Dear
papa, welcome to your house of Castlewood.’”



CHAPTER IX. Hospitalities


His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief set forth to pay his visit to
Madam Esmond in such a state and splendour as became the first personage
in all his Majesty’s colonies, plantations, and possessions of North
America. His guard of dragoons preceded him out of Williamsburg in the
midst of an immense shouting and yelling of a loyal, and principally
negro, population. The General rode in his own coach. Captain Talmadge,
his Excellency’s Master of the Horse, attended him at the door of the
ponderous emblazoned vehicle, and riding by the side of the carriage
during the journey from Williamsburg to Madam Esmond’s house. Major
Danvers, aide-de-camp, sate in the front of the carriage with the little
postmaster from Philadelphia, Mr. Franklin, who, printer’s boy as he had
been, was a wonderful shrewd person, as his Excellency and the gentlemen
of his family were fain to acknowledge, having a quantity of the most
curious information respecting the colony, and regarding England too,
where Mr. Franklin had been more than once. “‘Twas extraordinary how
a person of such humble origin should have acquired such a variety
of learning and such a politeness of breeding too, Mr. Franklin!” his
Excellency was pleased to observe, touching his hat graciously to the
postmaster.

The postmaster bowed, said it had been his occasional good fortune to
fall into the company of gentlemen like his Excellency, and that he had
taken advantage of his opportunity to study their honours’ manners, and
adapt himself to them as far as he might. As for education, he could not
boast much of that--his father being but in straitened circumstances,
and the advantages small in his native country of New England: but he
had done to the utmost of his power, and gathered what he could--he knew
nothing like what they had in England.

Mr. Braddock burst out laughing, and said, “As for education, there were
gentlemen of the army, by George, who didn’t know whether they should
spell bull with two b’s or one. He had heard the Duke of Marlborough
was no special good penman. He had not the honour of serving under that
noble commander--his Grace was before his time--but he thrashed the
French soundly, although he was no scholar.”

Mr. Franklin said he was aware of both those facts.

“Nor is my Duke a scholar,” went on Mr. Braddock--“aha, Mr. Postmaster,
you have heard that, too--I see by the wink in your eye.”

Mr. Franklin instantly withdrew the obnoxious or satirical wink in his
eye, and looked in the General’s jolly round face with a pair of orbs as
innocent as a baby’s. “He’s no scholar, but he is a match for any French
general that ever swallowed the English for fricassee de crapaud.
He saved the crown for the best of kings, his royal father, his Most
Gracious Majesty King George.”

Off went Mr. Franklin’s hat, and from his large buckled wig escaped a
great halo of powder.

“He is the soldier’s best friend, and has been the uncompromising enemy
of all beggarly red-shanked Scotch rebels and intriguing Romish Jesuits
who would take our liberty from us, and our religion, by George. His
Royal Highness, my gracious master, is not a scholar neither, but he is
one of the finest gentlemen in the world.”

“I have seen his Royal Highness on horseback, at a review of the Guards,
in Hyde Park,” says Mr. Franklin. “The Duke is indeed a very fine
gentleman on horseback.”

“You shall drink his health to-day, Postmaster. He is the best of
masters, the best of friends, the best of sons to his royal old father;
the best of gentlemen that ever wore an epaulet.”

“Epaulets are quite out of my way, sir,” says Mr. Franklin, laughing.
“You know I live in a Quaker City.”

“Of course they are out of your way, my good friend. Every man to his
business. You, and gentlemen of your class, to your books, and welcome.
We don’t forbid you; we encourage you. We, to fight the enemy and govern
the country. Hey, gentlemen? Lord! what roads you have in this colony,
and how this confounded coach plunges! Who have we here, with the two
negro boys in livery? He rides a good gelding.”

“It is Mr. Washington,” says the aide-de-camp.

“I would like him for a corporal of the Horse Grenadiers,” said the
General. “He has a good figure on a horse. He knows the country too, Mr.
Franklin.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And is a monstrous genteel young man, considering the opportunities he
has had. I should have thought he had the polish of Europe, by George I
should.”

“He does his best,” says Mr. Franklin, looking innocently at the stout
chief, the exemplar of English elegance, who sat swagging from one side
to the other of the carriage, his face as scarlet as his coat--swearing
at every other word; ignorant on every point off parade, except the
merits of a bottle and the looks of a woman; not of high birth, yet
absurdly proud of his no-ancestry; brave as a bulldog; savage, lustful,
prodigal, generous; gentle in soft moods; easy of love and laughter;
dull of wit; utterly unread; believing his country the first in the
world, and he as good a gentleman as any in it. “Yes, he is mighty well
for a provincial, upon my word. He was beat at Fort What-d’ye-call-um
last year, down by the Thingamy river. What’s the name on’t, Talmadge?”

“The Lord knows, sir,” says Talmadge; “and I dare say the Postmaster,
too, who is laughing at us both.”

“Oh, Captain!”

“Was caught in a regular trap. He had only militia and Indians with him.
Good day, Mr. Washington. A pretty nag, sir. That was your first affair,
last year?”

“That at Fort Necessity? Yes, sir,” said the gentleman, gravely
saluting, as he rode up, followed by a couple of natty negro grooms,
in smart livery-coats and velvet hunting-caps. “I began ill, sir, never
having been in action until that unlucky day.”

“You were all raw levies, my good fellow. You should have seen our
militia run from the Scotch, and be cursed to them. You should have had
some troops with you.”

“Your Excellency knows ‘tis my passionate desire to see and serve with
them,” said Mr. Washington.

“By George, we shall try and gratify you, sir,” said the General, with
one of his usual huge oaths; and on the heavy carriage rolled towards
Castlewood; Mr. Washington asking leave to gallop on ahead, in order to
announce his Excellency’s speedy arrival to the lady there.

The progress of the Commander-in-Chief was so slow, that several
humbler persons who were invited to meet his Excellency came up with
his carriage, and, not liking to pass the great man on the road, formed
quite a procession in the dusty wake of his chariot-wheels. First
came Mr. Dinwiddie, the Lieutenant-Governor of his Majesty’s province,
attended by his negro servants, and in company of Parson Broadbent, the
jolly Williamsburg chaplain. These were presently joined by little Mr.
Dempster, the young gentlemen’s schoolmaster, in his great Ramillies
wig, which he kept for occasions of state. Anon appeared Mr. Laws, the
judge of the court, with Madam Laws on a pillion behind him, and their
negro man carrying a box containing her ladyship’s cap, and bestriding
a mule. The procession looked so ludicrous, that Major Danvers and Mr.
Franklin espying it, laughed outright, though not so loud as to disturb
his Excellency, who was asleep by this time, bade the whole of this
queer rearguard move on, and leave the Commander-in-Chief and his
escort of dragoons to follow at their leisure. There was room for all at
Castlewood when they came. There was meat, drink, and the best tobacco
for his Majesty’s soldiers; and laughing and jollity for the negroes;
and a plenteous welcome for their masters.

The honest General required to be helped to most dishes at the table,
and more than once, and was for ever holding out his glass for drink;
Nathan’s sangaree he pronounced to be excellent, and had drunk largely
of it on arriving before dinner. There was cider, ale, brandy, and
plenty of good Bordeaux wine, some which Colonel Esmond himself had
brought home with him to the colony, and which was fit for ponteeficis
coenis, said little Mr. Dempster, with a wink to Mr. Broadbent, the
clergyman of the adjoining parish. Mr. Broadbent returned the wink and
nod, and drank the wine without caring about the Latin, as why should
he, never having hitherto troubled himself about the language? Mr.
Broadbent was a gambling, guzzling, cock-fighting divine, who had passed
much time in the Fleet Prison, at Newmarket, at Hockley-in-the-Hole; and
having gone of all sorts of errands for his friend, Lord Cingbars,
Lord Ringwood’s son (my Lady Cingbars’s waiting-woman being Mr. B.’s
mother--I dare say the modern reader had best not be too particular
regarding Mr. Broadbent’s father’s pedigree), had been of late sent out
to a church-living in Virginia. He and young George had fought many
a match of cocks together, taken many a roe in company, hauled in
countless quantities of shad and salmon, slain wild geese and wild
swans, pigeons and plovers, and destroyed myriads of canvas-backed
ducks. It was said by the envious that Broadbent was the midnight
poacher on whom Mr. Washington set his dogs, and whom he caned by the
river-side at Mount Vernon. The fellow got away from his captor’s grip,
and scrambled to his boat in the dark; but Broadbent was laid up for
two Sundays afterwards, and when he came abroad again had the evident
remains of a black eye and a new collar to his coat. All the games
at the cards had George Esmond and Parson Broadbent played together,
besides hunting all the birds in the air, the beasts in the forest, and
the fish of the sea. Indeed, when the boys rode together to get their
reading with Mr. Dempster, I suspect that Harry stayed behind and
took lessons from the other professor of European learning and
accomplishments,--George going his own way, reading his own books, and,
of course, telling no tales of his younger brother.

All the birds of the Virginia air, and all the fish of the sea in season
were here laid on Madam Esmond’s board to feed his Excellency and the
rest of the English and American gentlemen. The gumbo was declared to be
perfection (young Mr. George’s black servant was named after this
dish, being discovered behind the door with his head in a bowl of this
delicious hotch-potch, by the late Colonel, and grimly christened on the
spot), the shad were rich and fresh, the stewed terrapins were worthy of
London aldermen (before George, he would like the Duke himself to taste
them, his Excellency deigned to say), and indeed, stewed terrapins are
worthy of any duke or even emperor. The negro-women have a genius for
cookery, and in Castlewood kitchens there were adepts in the art brought
up under the keen eye of the late and the present Madam Esmond. Certain
of the dishes, especially the sweets and flan, Madam Esmond prepared
herself with great neatness and dexterity; carving several of the
principal pieces, as the kindly cumbrous fashion of the day was, putting
up the laced lappets of her sleeves, and showing the prettiest round
arms and small hands and wrists as she performed this ancient rite of
a hospitality not so languid as ours. The old law of the table was that
the mistress was to press her guests with a decent eagerness, to watch
and see whom she could encourage to further enjoyment, to know culinary
anatomic secrets, and execute carving operations upon fowls, fish, game,
joints of meat, and so forth; to cheer her guests to fresh efforts, to
whisper her neighbour, Mr. Braddock “I have kept for your Excellency
the jowl of this salmon.--I will take no denial! Mr. Franklin, you drink
only water, sir, though our cellar has wholesome wine which gives no
headaches.--Mr. Justice, you love woodcock pie?”

“Because I know who makes the pastry,” says Mr. Laws, the judge, with
a profound bow. “I wish, madam, we had such a happy knack of pastry at
home as you have at Castlewood. I often say to my wife, ‘My dear, I wish
you had Madam Esmond’s hand.’”

“It is a very pretty hand; I am sure others would like it too,” says Mr.
Postmaster of Boston, at which remark Mr. Esmond looks but half-pleased
at the little gentleman.

“Such a hand for a light pie-crust,” continues the Judge, “and
my service to you, madam.” And he thinks the widow cannot but be
propitiated by this compliment. She says simply that she had lessons
when she was at home in England for her education, and that there were
certain dishes which her mother taught her to make, and which her father
and sons both liked. She was very glad if they pleased her company. More
such remarks follow: more dishes; ten times as much meat as is
needful for the company. Mr. Washington does not embark in the general
conversation much, but he and Mr. Talmadge, and Major Danvers, and
the Postmaster, are deep in talk about roads, rivers, conveyances,
sumpter-horses and artillery train; and the provincial militia Colonel
has bits of bread laid at intervals on the table before him, and
stations marked out, on which he has his finger, and regarding which he
is talking to his brother aides-de-camp, till a negro servant, changing
the courses, brushes off the Potomac with a napkin, and sweeps up the
Ohio in a spoon.

At the end of dinner, Mr. Broadbent leaves his place and walks up behind
the Lieutenant-Governor’s chair, where he says grace, returning to his
seat and resuming his knife and fork when this work of devotion is over.
And now the sweets and puddings are come, of which I can give you a
list, if you like; but what young lady cares for the puddings of to-day,
much more for those which were eaten a hundred years ago, and which
Madam Esmond had prepared for her guests with so much neatness and
skill? Then, the table being cleared, Nathan, her chief manager, lays a
glass to every person, and fills his mistress’s. Bowing to the company,
she says she drinks but one toast, but knows how heartily all the
gentlemen present will join her. Then she calls, “His Majesty,” bowing
to Mr. Braddock, who with his aides-de-camp and the colonial gentlemen
all loyally repeat the name of their beloved and gracious Sovereign. And
hereupon, having drunk her glass of wine and saluted all the company,
the widow retires between a row of negro servants, performing one of her
very handsomest curtsies at the door.

The kind Mistress of Castlewood bore her part in the entertainment with
admirable spirit, and looked so gay and handsome, and spoke with such
cheerfulness and courage to all her company, that the few ladies who
were present at the dinner could not but congratulate Madam Esmond upon
the elegance of the feast, and especially upon her manner of presiding
at it. But they were scarcely got to her drawing-room when her
artificial courage failed her, and she burst into tears on the sofa by
Mrs. Laws’ side, just in the midst of a compliment from that lady. “Ah,
madam!” she said, “it may be an honour, as you say, to have the
King’s representative in my house, and our family has received greater
personages than Mr. Braddock. But he comes to take one of my sons away
from me. Who knows whether my boy will return, or how? I dreamed of him
last night as wounded, and quite white, with blood streaming from his
side. I would not be so ill-mannered as to let my grief be visible
before the gentlemen; but, my good Mrs. Justice, who has parted with
children, and who has a mother’s heart of her own, would like me none
the better, if mine were very easy this evening.”

The ladies administered such consolations as seemed proper or palatable
to their hostess, who tried not to give way further to her melancholy,
and remembered that she had other duties to perform, before yielding to
her own sad mood. “It will be time enough, madam, to be sorry when they
are gone,” she said to the Justice’s wife, her good neighbour. “My boy
must not see me following him with a wistful face, and have our parting
made more dismal by my weakness. It is good that gentlemen of his rank
and station should show themselves where their country calls them.
That has always been the way of the Esmonds, and the same Power which
graciously preserved my dear father through twenty great battles in the
Queen’s time, I trust and pray, will watch over my son now his turn
is come to do his duty.” And, now, instead of lamenting her fate, or
further alluding to it, I dare say the resolute lady sate down with
her female friends to a pool of cards and a dish of coffee, whilst the
gentlemen remained in the neighbouring parlour, still calling their
toasts and drinking their wine. When one lady objected that these latter
were sitting rather long, Madam Esmond said: “It would improve and amuse
the boys to be with the English gentlemen. Such society was very rarely
to be had in their distant province, and though their conversation
sometimes was free, she was sure that gentleman and men of fashion would
have regard to the youth of her sons, and say nothing before them which
young people should not hear.”

It was evident that the English gentlemen relished the good cheer
provided for them. Whilst the ladies were yet at their cards, Nathan
came in and whispered Mrs. Mountain, who at first cried out--“No! she
would give no more--the common Bordeaux they might have, and welcome,
if they still wanted more--but she would not give any more of the
Colonel’s.” It appeared that the dozen bottles of particular claret had
been already drunk up by the gentlemen, “besides ale, cider, Burgundy,
Lisbon, and Madeira,” says Mrs. Mountain, enumerating the supplies.

But Madam Esmond was for having no stint in the hospitality of the
night. Mrs. Mountain was fain to bustle away with her keys to the sacred
vault where the Colonel’s particular Bordeaux lay, surviving its master,
who, too, had long passed underground. As they went on their journey,
Mrs. Mountain asked whether any of the gentlemen had had too much?
Nathan thought Mister Broadbent was tipsy--he always tipsy; be then
thought the General gentleman was tipsy; and he thought Master George
was a lilly drunk.

“Master George!” cries Mrs. Mountain: “why, he will sit for days without
touching a drop.”

Nevertheless, Nathan persisted in his notion that Master George was
a lilly drunk. He was always filling his glass, he had talked, he had
sung, he had cut jokes, especially against Mr. Washington, which made
Mr. Washington quite red and angry, Nathan said. “Well, well!” Mrs.
Mountain cried eagerly; “it was right a gentleman should make himself
merry in good company, and pass the bottle along with his friends.”
 And she trotted to the particular Bordeaux cellar with only the more
alacrity.

The tone of freedom and almost impertinence which young George Esmond
had adopted of late days towards Mr. Washington had very deeply vexed
and annoyed that gentleman. There was scarce half a dozen years’
difference of age between him and the Castlewood twins;--but Mr.
Washington had always been remarked for a discretion and sobriety much
beyond his time of life, whilst the boys of Castlewood seemed younger
than theirs. They had always been till now under their mother’s anxious
tutelage, and had looked up to their neighbour of Mount Vernon as their
guide, director, friend--as, indeed, almost everybody seemed to do who
came in contact with the simple and upright young man. Himself of the
most scrupulous gravity and good breeding, in his communication with
other folks he appeared to exact, or, at any rate, to occasion, the same
behaviour. His nature was above levity and jokes: they seemed out of
place when addressed to him. He was slow of comprehending them: and they
slunk as it were abashed out of his society. “He always seemed great to
me,” says Harry Warrington, in one of his letters many years after the
date of which we are writing; “and I never thought of him otherwise than
of a hero. When he came over to Castlewood and taught us boys surveying,
to see him riding to hounds was as if he was charging an army. If he
fired a shot, I thought the bird must come down, and if be flung a net,
the largest fish in the river were sure to be in it. His words were
always few, but they were always wise; they were not idle, as our words
are, they were grave, sober, and strong, and ready on occasion to do
their duty. In spite of his antipathy to him, my brother respected and
admired the General as much as I did--that is to say, more than any
mortal man.”

Mr. Washington was the first to leave the jovial party which were doing
so much honour to Madam Esmond’s hospitality. Young George Esmond, who
had taken his mother’s place when she left it, had been free with the
glass and with the tongue. He had said a score of things to his guest
which wounded and chafed the latter, and to which Mr. Washington could
give no reply. Angry beyond all endurance, he left the table at length,
and walked away through the open windows into the broad verandah or
porch which belonged to Castlewood as to all Virginian houses.

Here Madam Esmond caught sight of her friend’s tall frame as it strode
up and down before the windows; and, the evening being warm, or her game
over, she gave up her cards to one of the other ladies, and joined her
good neighbour out of doors. He tried to compose his countenance as well
as he could: it was impossible that he should explain to his hostess why
and with whom he was angry.

“The gentlemen are long over their wine,” she said; “gentlemen of the
army are always fond of it.”

“If drinking makes good soldiers, some yonder are distinguishing
themselves greatly, madam,” said Mr. Washington.

“And I dare say the General is at the head of his troops?”

“No doubt, no doubt,” answered the Colonel, who always received this
lady’s remarks, playful or serious, with a peculiar softness and
kindness. “But the General is the General, and it is not for me to make
remarks on his Excellency’s doings at table or elsewhere. I think very
likely that military gentlemen born and bred at home are different from
us of the colonies. We have such a hot sun, that we need not wine to
fire our blood as they do. And drinking toasts seems a point of honour
with them. Talmadge hiccupped to me--I should say, whispered to me just
now, that an officer could no more refuse a toast than a challenge, and
he said that it was after the greatest difficulty and dislike at first
that he learned to drink. He has certainly overcome his difficulty with
uncommon resolution.”

“What, I wonder, can you talk of for so many hours?” asked the lady.

“I don’t think I can tell you all we talk of, madam, and I must not
tell tales out of school. We talked about the war, and of the force Mr.
Contrecoeur has, and how we are to get at him. The General is for making
the campaign in his coach, and makes light of it and the enemy. That we
shall beat them, if we meet them, I trust there is no doubt.”

“How can there be?” says the lady, whose father had served under
Marlborough.

“Mr. Franklin, though he is only from New England,” continued the
gentleman, “spoke great good sense, and would have spoken more if the
English gentlemen would let him; but they reply invariably that we are
only raw provincials, and don’t know what disciplined British troops can
do. Had they not best hasten forwards and make turnpike roads and
have comfortable inns ready for his Excellency at the end of the day’s
march?--‘There’s some sort of inns, I suppose,’ says Mr. Danvers, ‘not
so comfortable as we have in England: we can’t expect that.’--‘No,
you can’t expect that,’ says Mr. Franklin, who seems a very shrewd
and facetious person. He drinks his water, and seems to laugh at the
Englishmen, though I doubt whether it is fair for a water-drinker to sit
by and spy out the weaknesses of gentlemen over their wine.”

“And my boys? I hope they are prudent?” said the widow, laying her hand
on her guest’s arm. “Harry promised me, and when he gives his word, I
can trust him for anything. George is always moderate. Why do you look
so grave?”

“Indeed, to be frank with you, I do not know what has come over George
in these last days,” says Mr. Washington. “He has some grievance against
me which I do not understand, and of which I don’t care to ask the
reason. He spoke to me before the gentlemen in a way which scarcely
became him. We are going the campaign together, and ‘tis a pity we begin
such ill friends.”

“He has been ill. He is always wild and wayward, and hard to understand.
But he has the most affectionate heart in the world. You will bear with
him, you will protect him--promise me you will.”

“Dear lady, I will do so with my life,” Mr. Washington said with great
fervour. “You know I would lay it down cheerfully for you or any you
love.”

“And my father’s blessing and mine go with you, dear friend!” cried the
widow, full of thanks and affection.

As they pursued their conversation, they had quitted the porch under
which they had first began to talk, and where they could hear the
laughter and toasts of the gentlemen over their wine, and were pacing a
walk on the rough lawn before the house. Young George Warrington, from
his place at the head of the table in the dining-room, could see the
pair as they passed to and fro, and had listened for some time past,
and replied in a very distracted manner to the remarks of the gentlemen
round about him, who were too much engaged with their own talk and
jokes, and drinking, to pay much attention to their young host’s
behaviour. Mr. Braddock loved a song after dinner, and Mr. Danvers, his
aide-de-camp, who had a fine tenor voice, was delighting his General
with the latest ditty from Marybone Gardens, when George Warrington,
jumping up, ran towards the window, and then returned and pulled his
brother Harry by the sleeve, who sate with his back towards the window.

“What is it?” says Harry, who, for his part, was charmed, too, with the
song and chorus.

“Come,” cried George, with a stamp of his foot, and the younger followed
obediently.

“What is it?” continued George, with a bitter oath. “Don’t you see what
it is? They were billing and cooing this morning; they are billing and
cooing now before going to roost. Had we not better both go into the
garden, and pay our duty to our mamma and papa?” and he pointed to Mr.
Washington, who was taking the widow’s hand very tenderly in his.



CHAPTER X. A Hot Afternoon


General Braddock and the other guests of Castlewood being duly consigned
to their respective quarters, the boys retired to their own room, and
there poured out to one another their opinions respecting the great
event of the day. They would not bear such a marriage--no. Was the
representative of the Marquises of Esmond to marry the younger son of
a colonial family, who had been bred up as a land-surveyor? Castlewood,
and the boys at nineteen years of age, handed over to the tender mercies
of a stepfather of three-and-twenty! Oh, it was monstrous! Harry was for
going straightway to his mother in her bedroom--where her black maidens
were divesting her ladyship of the simple jewels and fineries which she
had assumed in compliment to the feast--protesting against the odious
match, and announcing that they would go home, live upon their little
property there, and leave her for ever, if the unnatural union took
place.

George advocated another way of stopping it, and explained his plan to
his admiring brother. “Our mother,” he said, “can’t marry a man with
whom one or both of us has been out on the field, and who has wounded us
or killed us, or whom we have wounded or killed. We must have him out,
Harry.”

Harry saw the profound truth conveyed in George’s statement, and admired
his brother’s immense sagacity. “No, George,” says he, “you are right.
Mother can’t marry our murderer; she won’t be as bad as that. And if we
pink him he is done for. ‘Cadit quaestio,’ as Mr. Dempster used to say.
Shall I send my boy with a challenge to Colonel George now?”

“My dear Harry,” the elder replied, thinking with some complacency of
his affair of honour at Quebec, “you are not accustomed to affairs of
this sort.”

“No,” owned Harry, with a sigh, looking with envy and admiration on his
senior.

“We can’t insult a gentleman in our own house,” continued George, with
great majesty; “the laws of honour forbid such inhospitable treatment.
But, sir, we can ride out with him, and, as soon as the park gates are
closed, we can tell him our mind.”

“That we can, by George!” cries Harry, grasping his brother’s hand, “and
that we will, too. I say, Georgy...” Here the lad’s face became very
red, and his brother asked him what he would say?

“This is my turn, brother,” Harry pleaded. “If you go the campaign, I
ought to have the other affair. Indeed, indeed, I ought.” And he prayed
for this bit of promotion.

“Again the head of the house must take the lead, my dear,” George said,
with a superb air. “If I fall, my Harry will avenge me. But I must fight
George Washington, Hal: and ‘tis best I should; for, indeed, I hate him
the worst. Was it not he who counselled my mother to order that wretch,
Ward, to lay hands on me?”

“Ah, George,” interposed the more pacable younger brother, “you ought to
forget and forgive.”

“Forgive? Never, sir, as long as I remember. You can’t order remembrance
out of a man’s mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a
wrong to-morrow. I never, of my knowledge, did one to any man, and I
never will suffer one, if I can help it. I think very ill of Mr. Ward,
but I don’t think so badly of him as to suppose he will ever forgive
thee that blow with the ruler. Colonel Washington is our enemy, mine
especially. He has advised one wrong against me, and he meditates a
greater. I tell you, brother, we must punish him.”

The grandsire’s old Bordeaux had set George’s ordinarily pale
countenance into a flame. Harry, his brother’s fondest worshipper,
could not but admire George’s haughty bearing and rapid declamation, and
prepared himself, with his usual docility, to follow his chief. So the
boys went to their beds, the elder conveying special injunctions to his
junior to be civil to all the guests so long as they remained under the
maternal roof on the morrow.

Good manners and a repugnance to telling tales out of school, forbid us
from saying which of Madam Esmond’s guests was the first to fall under
the weight of her hospitality. The respectable descendants of Messrs.
Talmadge and Danvers, aides-de-camp to his Excellency, might not care to
hear how their ancestors were intoxicated a hundred years ago; and yet
the gentlemen themselves took no shame in the fact, and there is little
doubt they or their comrades were tipsy twice or thrice in the week.
Let us fancy them reeling to bed, supported by sympathising negroes; and
their vinous General, too stout a toper to have surrendered himself to
a half-dozen bottles of Bordeaux, conducted to his chamber by the young
gentlemen of the house, and speedily sleeping the sleep which friendly
Bacchus gives. The good lady of Castlewood saw the condition of her
guests without the least surprise or horror; and was up early in the
morning, providing cooling drinks for their hot palates, which the
servants carried to their respective chambers. At breakfast, one of
the English officers rallied Mr. Franklin, who took no wine at all, and
therefore refused the morning cool draught of toddy, by showing how the
Philadelphia gentleman lost two pleasures, the drink and the toddy. The
young fellow said the disease was pleasant and the remedy delicious, and
laughingly proposed to continue repeating them both. The General’s new
American aide-de-camp, Colonel Washington, was quite sober and serene.
The British officers vowed they must take him in hand, and teach him
what the ways of the English army were; but the Virginian gentleman
gravely said he did not care to learn that part of the English military
education.

The widow, occupied as she had been with the cares of a great dinner,
followed by a great breakfast on the morning ensuing, had scarce leisure
to remark the behaviour of her sons very closely, but at least saw that
George was scrupulously polite to her favourite, Colonel Washington, as
to all the other guests of the house.

Before Mr. Braddock took his leave, he had a private audience of Madam
Esmond, in which his Excellency formally offered to take her son into
his family; and when the arrangements for George’s departure were
settled between his mother and future chief, Madam Esmond, though she
might feel them, did not show any squeamish terrors about the dangers
of the bottle, which she saw were amongst the severest and most certain
which her son would have to face. She knew her boy must take his part in
the world, and encounter his portion of evil and good. “Mr. Braddock
is a perfect fine gentleman in the morning,” she said stoutly to her
aide-de-camp, Mrs. Mountain; “and though my papa did not drink, ‘tis
certain that many of the best company in England do.” The jolly General
good-naturedly shook hands with George, who presented himself to his
Excellency after the maternal interview was over, and bade George
welcome, and to be in attendance at Frederick three days hence; shortly
after which time the expedition would set forth.

And now the great coach was again called into requisition, the General’s
escort pranced round it, the other guests and their servants went to
horse. The lady of Castlewood attended his Excellency to the steps of
the verandah in front of her house, the young gentlemen followed, and
stood on each side of his coach-door. The guard trumpeter blew a shrill
blast, the negroes shouted “Huzzay, and God sabe de King,” as Mr.
Braddock most graciously took leave of his hospitable entertainers, and
rolled away on his road to headquarters.

As the boys went up the steps, there was the Colonel once more taking
leave of their mother. No doubt she had been once more recommending
George to his namesake’s care; for Colonel Washington said: “With my
life. You may depend on me,” as the lads returned to their mother and
the few guests still remaining in the porch. The Colonel was booted and
ready to depart. “Farewell, my dear Harry,” he said. “With you, George,
‘tis no adieu. We shall meet in three days at the camp.”

Both the young men were going to danger, perhaps to death. Colonel
Washington was taking leave of her, and she was to see him no more
before the campaign. No wonder the widow was very much moved.

George Warrington watched his mother’s emotion, and interpreted it with
a pang of malignant scorn. “Stay yet a moment, and console our mamma,”
 he said with a steady countenance, “only the time to get ourselves
booted, and my brother and I will ride with you a little way, George.”
 George Warrington had already ordered his horses. The three young
men were speedily under way, their negro grooms behind them, and Mrs.
Mountain, who knew she had made mischief between them and trembled for
the result, felt a vast relief that Mr. Washington was gone without a
quarrel with the brothers, without, at any rate, an open declaration of
love to their mother.

No man could be more courteous in demeanour than George Warrington to
his neighbour and namesake, the Colonel. The latter was pleased and
surprised at his young friend’s altered behaviour. The community of
danger, the necessity of future fellowship, the softening influence of
the long friendship which bound him to the Esmond family, the tender
adieux which had just passed between him and the mistress of Castlewood,
inclined the Colonel to forget the unpleasantness of the past days, and
made him more than usually friendly with his young companion. George
was quite gay and easy: it was Harry who was melancholy now: he rode
silently and wistfully by his brother, keeping away from Colonel
Washington, to whose side he used always to press eagerly before. If
the honest Colonel remarked his young friend’s conduct, no doubt he
attributed it to Harry’s known affection for his brother, and his
natural anxiety to be with George now the day of their parting was so
near.

They talked further about the war, and the probable end of the campaign:
none of the three doubted its successful termination. Two thousand
veteran British troops with their commander must get the better of any
force the French could bring against them, if only they moved in decent
time. The ardent young Virginian soldier had an immense respect for the
experienced valour and tactics of the regular troops. King George II.
had no more loyal subject than Mr. Braddock’s new aide-de-camp.

So the party rode amicably together, until they reached a certain rude
log-house, called Benson’s, of which the proprietor, according to the
custom of the day and country, did not disdain to accept money from
his guests in return for hospitalities provided. There was a recruiting
station here, and some officers and men of Halkett’s regiment assembled,
and here Colonel Washington supposed that his young friends would take
leave of him.

Whilst their horses were baited, they entered the public room, and
found a rough meal prepared for such as were disposed to partake. George
Warrington entered the place with a particularly gay and lively air,
whereas poor Harry’s face was quite white and woebegone.

“One would think, Squire Harry, ‘twas you who was going to leave home
and fight the French and Indians, and not Mr. George,” says Benson.

“I may be alarmed about danger to my brother,” said Harry, “though I
might bear my own share pretty well. ‘Tis not my fault that I stay at
home.”

“No, indeed, brother,” cries George.

“Harry Warrington’s courage does not need any proof!” cries Mr.
Washington.

“You do the family honour by speaking so well of us, Colonel,” says Mr.
George, with a low bow. “I dare say we can hold our own, if need be.”

Whilst his friend was vaunting his courage, Harry looked, to say the
truth, by no means courageous. As his eyes met his brother’s, he read in
George’s look an announcement which alarmed the fond faithful lad. “You
are not going to do it now?” he whispered his brother.

“Yes, now,” says Mr. George, very steadily.

“For God’s sake, let me have the turn. You are going on the campaign,
you ought not to have everything--and there may be an explanation,
George. We may be all wrong.”

“Psha, how can we? It must be done now--don’t be alarmed. No names shall
be mentioned--I shall easily find a subject.”

A couple of Halkett’s officers, whom our young gentlemen knew, were
sitting under the porch, with the Virginian toddy-bowl before them.

“What are you conspiring, gentlemen?” cried one of them. “Is it a
drink?”

By the tone of their voices and their flushed cheeks, it was clear the
gentlemen had already been engaged in drinking that morning.

“The very thing, sir,” George said gaily. “Fresh glasses, Mr. Benson!
What, no glasses? Then we must have at the bowl.”

“Many a good man has drunk from it,” says Mr. Benson; and the lads one
after another, and bowing first to their military acquaintance, touched
the bowl with their lips. The liquor did not seem to be much diminished
for the boys’ drinking, though George especially gave himself a toper’s
airs, and protested it was delicious after their ride. He called out
to Colonel Washington, who was at the porch, to join his friends, and
drink.

The lad’s tone was offensive, and resembled the manner lately adopted by
him, and which had so much chafed Mr. Washington. He bowed, and said he
was not thirsty.

“Nay, the liquor is paid for,” says George; “never fear, Colonel.”

“I said I was not thirsty. I did not say the liquor was not paid for,”
 said the young Colonel, drumming with his foot.

“When the King’s health is proposed, an officer can hardly say no. I
drink the health of his Majesty, gentlemen,” cried George. “Colonel
Washington can drink it or leave it. The King!”

This was a point of military honour. The two British officers of
Halkett’s, Captain Grace and Mr. Waring, both drank “The King.” Harry
Warrington drank “The King.” Colonel Washington, with glaring eyes,
gulped, too, a slight draught from the bowl.

Then Captain Grace proposed “The Duke and the Army,” which toast there
was likewise no gainsaying. Colonel Washington had to swallow “The Duke
and the Army.”

“You don’t seem to stomach the toast, Colonel,” said George.

“I tell you again, I don’t want to drink,” replied the Colonel. “It
seems to me the Duke and the Army would be served all the better if
their healths were not drunk so often.”

“You are not up to the ways of regular troops as yet,” said Captain
Grace, with rather a thick voice.

“May be not, sir.”

“A British officer,” continues Captain Grace, with great energy but
doubtful articulation, “never neglects a toast of that sort, nor any
other duty. A man who refuses to drink the health of the Duke--hang me,
such a man should be tried by a court-martial!”

“What means this language to me? You are drunk, sir!” roared Colonel
Washington, jumping up, and striking the table with his fist.

“A cursed provincial officer say I’m drunk!” shrieks out Captain Grace.
“Waring, do you hear that?”

“I heard it, sir!” cried George Warrington. “We all heard it. He
entered at my invitation--the liquor called for was mine: the table was
mine--and I am shocked to hear such monstrous language used at it as
Colonel Washington has just employed towards my esteemed guest, Captain
Waring.”

“Confound your impudence, you infernal young jackanapes!” bellowed out
Colonel Washington. “You dare to insult me before British officers, and
find fault with my language? For months past, I have borne with such
impudence from you, that if I had not loved your mother--yes, sir, and
your good grandfather and your brother--I would--I would--” Here his
words failed him, and the irate Colonel, with glaring eyes and purple
face, and every limb quivering with wrath, stood for a moment speechless
before his young enemy.

“You would what, sir?” says George, very quietly, “if you did not
love my grandfather, and my brother, and my mother. You are making her
petticoat a plea for some conduct of yours--you would do what, sir, may
I ask again?”

“I would put you across my knee and whip you, you snarling little puppy,
that’s what I would do!” cried the Colonel, who had found breath by this
time, and vented another explosion of fury.

“Because you have known us all our lives, and made our house your own,
that is no reason you should insult either of us!” here cried Harry,
starting up. “What you have said, George Washington, is an insult to me
and my brother alike. You will ask pardon, sir!”

“Pardon?”

“Or give us the reparation that is due to gentlemen,” continues Harry.

The stout Colonel’s heart smote him to think that he should be at mortal
quarrel or called upon to shed the blood of one of the lads he loved.
As Harry stood facing him, with his fair hair, flushing cheeks, and
quivering voice, an immense tenderness and kindness filled the bosom of
the elder man. “I--I am bewildered,” he said. “My words, perhaps, were
very hasty. What has been the meaning of George’s behaviour to me for
months back? Only tell me, and, perhaps----”

The evil spirit was awake and victorious in young George Warrington:
his black eyes shot out scorn and hatred at the simple and guileless
gentleman before him. “You are shirking from the question, sir, as you
did from the toast just now,” he said. “I am not a boy to suffer under
your arrogance. You have publicly insulted me in a public place, and I
demand a reparation.”

“In Heaven’s name, be it!” says Mr. Washington, with the deepest grief
in his face.

“And you have insulted me,” continues Captain Grace, reeling towards
him. “What was it he said? Confound the militia captain--colonel, what
is he? You’ve insulted me! Oh, Waring! to think I should be insulted by
a captain of militia!” And tears bedewed the noble Captain’s cheek as
this harrowing thought crossed his mind.

“I insult you, you hog!” the Colonel again yelled out, for he was little
affected by humour, and had no disposition to laugh as the others had at
the scene. And, behold, at this minute a fourth adversary was upon him.

“Great Powers, sir!” said Captain Waring, “are three affairs not enough
for you, and must I come into the quarrel, too? You have a quarrel with
these two young gentlemen.”

“Hasty words, sir!” cries poor Harry once more.

“Hasty words, sir!” cries Captain Waring. “A gentleman tells another
gentleman that he will put him across his knees and whip him, and you
call those hasty words? Let me tell you if any man were to say to me,
‘Charles Waring,’ or ‘Captain Waring, I’ll put you across my knees and
whip you,’ I’d say, ‘I’ll drive my cheese-toaster through his body,’
if he were as big as Goliath, I would. That’s one affair with young Mr.
George Warrington. Mr. Harry, of course, as a young man of spirit, will
stand by his brother. That’s two. Between Grace and the Colonel apology
is impossible. And, now--run me through the body!--you call an officer
of my regiment--of Halkett’s, sir!--a hog before my face! Great heavens,
sir! Mr. Washington, are you all like this in Virginia? Excuse me, I
would use no offensive personality, as, by George! I will suffer none
from any man! but, by Gad, Colonel! give me leave to tell you that you
are the most quarrelsome man I ever saw in my life. Call a disabled
officer of my regiment--for he is disabled, ain’t you, Grace?--call him
a hog before me! You withdraw it, sir--you withdraw it?”

“Is this some infernal conspiracy in which you are all leagued against
me?” shouted the Colonel. “It would seem as if I was drunk, and not you,
as you all are. I withdraw nothing. I apologise for nothing. By heavens!
I will meet one or half a dozen of you in your turn, young or old, drunk
or sober.”

“I do not wish to hear myself called more names,” cried Mr. George
Warrington. “This affair can proceed, sir, without any further insult on
your part. When will it please you to give me the meeting?”

“The sooner the better, sir!” said the Colonel, fuming with rage.

“The sooner the better,” hiccupped Captain Grace, with many oaths
needless to print--(in those days, oaths were the customary garnish of
all gentlemen’s conversation)--and he rose staggering from his seat, and
reeled towards his sword, which he had laid by the door, and fell as he
reached the weapon. “The sooner the better!” the poor tipsy wretch again
cried out from the ground, waving his weapon and knocking his own hat
over his eyes.

“At any rate, this gentleman’s business will keep cool till to-morrow,”
 the militia Colonel said, turning to the other king’s officer. “You will
hardly bring your man out to-day, Captain Waring?”

“I confess that neither his hand nor mine are particularly steady,” said
Waring.

“Mine is!” cried Mr. Warrington, glaring at his enemy.

His comrade of former days was as hot and as savage. “Be it so--with
what weapon, sir?” Washington said sternly.

“Not with small-swords, Colonel. We can beat you with them. You know
that from our old bouts. Pistols had better be the word.”

“As you please, George Warrington--and God forgive you, George! God
pardon you, Harry! for bringing me into this quarrel,” said the Colonel,
with a face full of sadness and gloom.

Harry hung his head, but George continued with perfect calmness: “I,
sir? It was not I who called names, who talked of a cane, who insulted a
gentleman in a public place before gentlemen of the army. It is not the
first time you have chosen to take me for a negro, and talked of the
whip for me.”

The Colonel started back, turning very red, and as if struck by a sudden
remembrance.

“Great heavens, George! is it that boyish quarrel you are still
recalling?”

“Who made you the overseer of Castlewood?” said the boy, grinding his
teeth. “I am not your slave, George Washington, and I never will be. I
hated you then, and I hate you now. And you have insulted me, and I am a
gentleman, and so are you. Is that not enough?”

“Too much, only too much,” said the Colonel, with a genuine grief on
his face, and at his heart. “Do you bear malice too, Harry? I had not
thought this of thee!”

“I stand by my brother,” said Harry, turning away from the Colonel’s
look, and grasping George’s hand. The sadness on their adversary’s face
did not depart. “Heaven be good to us! ‘Tis all clear now,” he muttered
to himself. “The time to write a few letters, and I am at your service,
Mr. Warrington,” he said.

“You have your own pistols at your saddle. I did not ride out with
any; but will send Sady back for mine. That will give you time enough,
Colonel Washington?”

“Plenty of time, sir.” And each gentleman made the other a low bow,
and, putting his arm in his brother’s, George walked away. The Virginian
officer looked towards the two unlucky captains, who were by this time
helpless with liquor. Captain Benson, the master of the tavern, was
propping the hat of one of them over his head.

“It is not altogether their fault, Colonel,” said my landlord, with a
grim look of humour. “Jack Firebrace and Tom Humbold of Spotsylvania was
here this morning, chanting horses with ‘em. And Jack and Tom got ‘em to
play cards; and they didn’t win--the British Captains didn’t. And Jack
and Tom challenged them to drink for the honour of Old England, and
they didn’t win at that game, neither, much. They are kind, free-handed
fellows when they are sober, but they are a pretty pair of fools--they
are.”

“Captain Benson, you are an old frontier man, and an officer of ours,
before you turned farmer and taverner. You will help me in this matter
with yonder young gentlemen?” said the Colonel.

“I’ll stand by and see fair play, Colonel. I won’t have no hand in it,
beyond seeing fair play. Madam Esmond has helped me many a time, tended
my poor wife in her lying-in, and doctored our Betty in the fever. You
ain’t a-going to be very hard with them poor boys? Though I seen ‘em
both shoot: the fair one hunts well, as you know, but the old one’s a
wonder at an ace of spades.”

“Will you be pleased to send my man with my valise, Captain, into any
private room which you can spare me? I must write a few letters before
this business comes on. God grant it were well over!” And the Captain
led the Colonel into almost the only other room of his house, calling,
with many oaths, to a pack of negro servants, to disperse thence, who
were chattering loudly among one another, and no doubt discussing the
quarrel which had just taken place. Edwin, the Colonel’s man, returned
with his master’s portmanteau, and as he looked from the window, he
saw Sady, George Warrington’s negro, galloping away upon his errand,
doubtless, and in the direction of Castlewood. The Colonel, young and
naturally hot-headed, but the most courteous and scrupulous of men, and
ever keeping his strong passions under guard, could not but think with
amazement of the position in which he found, himself, and of the three,
perhaps four enemies, who appeared suddenly before him, menacing his
life. How had this strange series of quarrels been brought about? He
had ridden away a few hours since from Castlewood, with his young
companions, and, to all seeming, they were perfect friends. A shower of
rain sends them into a tavern, where there are a couple of recruiting
officers, and they are not seated for half an hour at a social table,
but he has quarrelled with the whole company, called this one names,
agreed to meet another in combat, and threatened chastisement to a
third, the son of his most intimate friend!



CHAPTER XI. Wherein the two Georges prepare for Blood


The Virginian Colonel remained in one chamber of the tavern, occupied
with gloomy preparations for the ensuing meeting; his adversary in the
other room thought fit to make his testamentary dispositions, too, and
dictated, by his obedient brother and secretary, a grandiloquent letter
to his mother, of whom, and by that writing, he took a solemn farewell.
She would hardly, he supposed, pursue the scheme which she had in view
(a peculiar satirical emphasis was laid upon the scheme which she had
in view), after the event of that morning, should he fall, as, probably,
would be the case.

“My dear, dear George, don’t say that!” cried the affrighted secretary.

“‘As probably will be the case,’” George persisted with great majesty.
“You know what a good shot Colonel George is, Harry. I, myself, am
pretty fair at a mark, and ‘tis probable that one or both of us will
drop.--‘I scarcely suppose you will carry out the intentions you have
at present in view.’” This was uttered in a tone of still greater
bitterness than George had used even in the previous phrase. Harry wept
as he took it down.

“You see I say nothing; Madame Esmond’s name does not even appear in the
quarrel. Do you not remember in our grandfather’s life of himself, how
he says that Lord Castlewood fought Lord Mohun on a pretext of a quarrel
at cards? and never so much as hinted at the lady’s name, who was the
real cause of the duel? I took my hint, I confess, from that, Harry.
Our mother is not compromised in the--Why, child, what have you been
writing, and who taught thee to spell?” Harry had written the last
words “in view,” in vew, and a great blot of salt water from his honest,
boyish eyes may have obliterated some other bad spelling.

“I can’t think about the spelling now, Georgy,” whimpered George’s
clerk. “I’m too miserable for that. I begin to think, perhaps it’s all
nonsense, perhaps Colonel George never----”

“Never meant to take possession of Castlewood; never gave himself airs,
and patronised us there; never advised my mother to have me flogged,
never intended to marry her; never insulted me, and was insulted before
the king’s officers; never wrote to his brother to say we should be the
better for his parental authority? The paper is there,” cried the young
man, slapping his breast-pocket, “and if anything happens to me, Harry
Warrington, you will find it on my corse!”

“Write yourself, Georgy, I can’t write,” says Harry, digging his fists
into his eyes, and smearing over the whole composition, bad spelling and
all, with his elbows.

On this, George, taking another sheet of paper, sate down at his
brother’s place, and produced a composition in which he introduced the
longest words, the grandest Latin quotations, and the most profound
satire of which the youthful scribe was master. He desired that his
negro boy, Sady, should be set free; that his Horace, a choice of his
books, and, if possible, a suitable provision should be made for his
affectionate tutor, Mr. Dempster; that his silver fruit-knife, his
music-books, and harpsichord, should be given to little Fanny Mountain;
and that his brother should take a lock of his hair, and wear it in
memory of his ever fond and faithfully attached George. And he sealed
the document with the seal of arms that his grandfather had worn.

“The watch, of course, will be yours,” said George, taking out his
grandfather’s gold watch, and looking at it. “Why, two hours and a-half
are gone! ‘Tis time that Sady should be back with the pistols. Take the
watch, Harry dear.”

“It’s no good!” cried out Harry, flinging his arms round his brother.
“If he fights you, I’ll fight him, too. If he kills my Georgy, ---- him,
he shall have a shot at me!” and the poor lad uttered more than one of
those expressions, which are said peculiarly to affect recording angels,
who have to take them down at celestial chanceries.

Meanwhile, General Braddock’s new aide-de-camp had written five letters
in his large resolute hand, and sealed them with his seal. One was to
his mother, at Mount Vernon; one to his brother; one was addressed M. C.
only; and one to his Excellency, Major-General Braddock. “And one, young
gentleman, is for your mother, Madam Esmond,” said the boys’ informant.

Again the recording angel had to fly off with a violent expression,
which parted from the lips of George Warrington. The chancery previously
mentioned was crowded with such cases, and the messengers must have been
for ever on the wing. But I fear for young George and his oath there was
no excuse; for it was an execration uttered from a heart full of hatred,
and rage, and jealousy.

It was the landlord of the tavern who communicated these facts to the
young men. The Captain had put on his old militia uniform to do honour
to the occasion, and informed the boys that the Colonel was walking up
and down the garden a-waiting for ‘em, and that the Reg’lars was a’most
sober, too, by this time.

A plot of ground near the Captain’s log-house had been enclosed with
shingles, and cleared for a kitchen-garden; there indeed paced Colonel
Washington, his hands behind his back, his head bowed down, a grave
sorrow on his handsome face. The negro servants were crowded at the
palings, and looking over. The officers under the porch had wakened
up also, as their host remarked. Captain Waring was walking, almost
steadily, under the balcony formed by the sloping porch and roof of the
wooden house; and Captain Grace was lolling over the railing, with eyes
which stared very much, though perhaps they did not see very clearly.
Benson’s was a famous rendezvous for cock-fights, horse-matches, boxing,
and wrestling-matches, such as brought the Virginian country-folks
together. There had been many brawls at Benson’s, and men who came
thither sound and sober, had gone thence with ribs broken and eyes
gouged out. And squires, and farmers, and negroes, all participated in
the sport.

There, then, stalked the tall young Colonel, plunged in dismal
meditation. There was no way out of his scrape, but the usual cruel one,
which the laws of honour and the practice of the country ordered. Goaded
into fury by the impertinence of a boy, he had used insulting words. The
young man had asked for reparation. He was shocked to think that George
Warrington’s jealousy and revenge should have rankled in the young
fellow so long but the wrong had been the Colonel’s, and he was bound to
pay the forfeit.

A great hallooing and shouting, such as negroes use, who love noise at
all times, and especially delight to yell and scream when galloping on
horseback, was now heard at a distance, and all the heads, woolly and
powdered, were turned in the direction of this outcry. It came from the
road over which our travellers had themselves passed three hours before,
and presently the clattering of a horse’s hoofs was heard, and now Mr.
Sady made his appearance on his foaming horse, and actually fired a
pistol off in the midst of a prodigious uproar from his woolly brethren.
Then he fired another pistol off, to which noises Sady’s horse, which
had carried Harry Warrington on many a hunt, was perfectly accustomed;
and now he was in the courtyard, surrounded by a score of his bawling
comrades, and was descending amidst fluttering fowls and turkeys,
kicking horses and shrieking frantic pigs; and brother-negroes crowded
round him, to whom he instantly began to talk and chatter.

“Sady, sir, come here!” roars out Master Harry.

“Sady, come here! Confound you!” shouts Master George. (Again the
recording angel is in requisition, and has to be off on one of his
endless errands to the register office.) “Come directly, mas’r,” says
Sady, and resumes his conversation with his woolly brethren. He grins.
He takes the pistols out of the holster. He snaps the locks. He points
them at a grunter, which plunges through the farmyard. He points down
the road, over which he has just galloped, and towards which the woolly
heads again turn. He says again, “Comin’, mas’r. Everybody a-comin’.”
 And now, the gallop of other horses is heard. And who is yonder? Little
Mr. Dempster, spurring and digging into his pony; and that lady in a
riding-habit on Madam Esmond’s little horse, can it be Madam Esmond? No.
It is too stout. As I live it is Mrs. Mountain on Madam’s grey!

“O Lor! O Golly! Hoop! Here dey come! Hurray!” A chorus of negroes rises
up. “Here dey are!” Dr. Dempster and Mrs. Mountain have clattered
into the yard, have jumped from their horses, have elbowed through the
negroes, have rushed into the house, have run through it and across the
porch, where the British officers are sitting in muzzy astonishment;
have run down the stairs to the garden where George and Harry are
walking, their tall enemy stalking opposite to them; and almost ere
George Warrington has had time sternly to say, “What do you do here,
madam?” Mrs. Mountain has flung her arms round his neck and cries:
“Oh, George, my darling! It’s a mistake! It’s a mistake, and is all my
fault!”

“What’s a mistake?” asks George, majestically separating himself from
the embrace.

“What is it, Mounty?” cries Harry, all of a tremble.

“That paper I took out of his portfolio, that paper I picked up,
children; where the Colonel says he is going to marry a widow with two
children. Who should it be but you, children, and who should it be but
your mother?”

“Well?”

“Well, it’s--it’s not your mother. It’s that little widow Custis whom
the Colonel is going to marry. He’d always take a rich one; I knew he
would. It’s not Mrs. Rachel Warrington. He told Madam so to-day, just
before he was going away, and that the marriage was to come off after
the campaign. And--and your mother is furious, boys. And when Sady came
for the pistols, and told the whole house how you were going to fight,
I told him to fire the pistols off; and I galloped after him, and I’ve
nearly broken my poor old bones in coming to you.”

“I have a mind to break Mr. Sady’s,” growled George. “I specially
enjoined the villain not to say a word.”

“Thank God he did, brother!” said poor Harry. “Thank God he did!”

“What will Mr. Washington and those gentlemen think of my servant
telling my mother at home that I was going to fight a duel?” asks Mr.
George, still in wrath.

“You have shown your proofs before, George,” says Harry, respectfully.
“And, thank Heaven, you are not going to fight our old friend,--our
grandfather’s old friend. For it was a mistake and there is no quarrel
now, dear, is there? You were unkind to him under a wrong impression.”

“I certainly acted under a wrong impression,” owns George, “but----”

“George! George Washington!” Harry here cries out, springing over
the cabbage-garden towards the bowling-green, where the Colonel was
stalking, and though we cannot hear him, we see him, with both his hands
out, and with the eagerness of youth, and with a hundred blunders, and
with love and affection thrilling in his honest voice we imagine the lad
telling his tale to his friend.

There was a custom in those days which has disappeared from our manners
now, but which then lingered. When Harry had finished his artless story,
his friend the Colonel took him fairly to his arms, and held him to
his heart: and his voice faltered as he said, “Thank God, thank God for
this!”

“Oh, George,” said Harry, who felt now how he loved his friend with all
his heart, “how I wish I was going with you on the campaign!” The other
pressed both the boy’s hands, in a grasp of friendship, which each knew
never would slacken.

Then the Colonel advanced, gravely holding out his hand to Harry’s elder
brother. Perhaps Harry wondered that the two did not embrace as he and
the Colonel had just done. But, though hands were joined, the salutation
was only formal and stern on both sides.

“I find I have done you a wrong, Colonel Washington,” George said, “and
must apologise, not for the error, but for much of my late behaviour
which has resulted from it.”

“The error was mine! It was I who found that paper in your room, and
showed it to George, and was jealous of you, Colonel. All women are
jealous,” cried Mrs. Mountain.

“‘Tis a pity you could not have kept your eyes off my paper, madam,”
 said Mr. Washington. “You will permit me to say so. A great deal of
mischief has come because I chose to keep a secret which concerned only
myself and another person. For a long time George Warrington’s heart has
been black with anger against me, and my feeling towards him has, I own,
scarce been more friendly. All this pain might have been spared to both
of us, had my private papers only been read by those for whom they were
written. I shall say no more now, lest my feelings again should betray
me into hasty words. Heaven bless thee, Harry! Farewell, George! And
take a true friend’s advice, and try and be less ready to think evil of
your friends. We shall meet again at the camp, and will keep our weapons
for the enemy. Gentlemen! if you remember this scene to-morrow, you
will know where to find me.” And with a very stately bow to the English
officers, the Colonel left the abashed company, and speedily rode away.



CHAPTER XII. News from the Camp


We must fancy that the parting between the brothers is over, that George
has taken his place in Mr. Braddock’s family, and Harry has returned
home to Castlewood and his duty. His heart is with the army, and his
pursuits at home offer the boy no pleasure. He does not care to own how
deep his disappointment is, at being obliged to stay under the homely,
quiet roof, now more melancholy than ever since George is away. Harry
passes his brother’s empty chamber with an averted face; takes George’s
place at the head of the table, and sighs as he drinks from his silver
tankard. Madam Warrington calls the toast of “The King” stoutly every
day; and, on Sundays, when Harry reads the service, and prays for all
travellers by land and by water, she says, “We beseech Thee to hear
us,” with a peculiar solemnity. She insists on talking about George
constantly, but quite cheerfully, and as if his return was certain. She
walks into his vacant room, with head upright, and no outward signs of
emotion. She sees that his books, linen, papers, etc., are arranged
with care; talking of him with a very special respect, and specially
appealing to the old servants at meals, and so forth, regarding things
which are to be done “when Mr. George comes home.” Mrs. Mountain is
constantly on the whimper when George’s name is mentioned, and Harry’s
face wears a look of the most ghastly alarm; but his mother’s is
invariably grave and sedate. She makes more blunders at piquet and
backgammon than you would expect from her; and the servants find her
awake and dressed, however early they may rise. She has prayed Mr.
Dempster to come back into residence at Castlewood. She is not severe or
haughty (as her wont certainly was) with any of the party, but quiet in
her talk with them, and gentle in assertion and reply. She is for ever
talking of her father and his campaigns, who came out of them all with
no very severe wounds to hurt him; and so she hopes and trusts will her
eldest son.

George writes frequent letters home to his brother, and, now the army
is on its march, compiles a rough journal, which he forwards as occasion
serves. This document is perused with great delight and eagerness by
the youth to whom it is addressed, and more than once read out in family
council, on the long summer nights, as Madam Esmond sits upright at her
tea-table--(she never condescends to use the back of a chair)--as
little Fanny Mountain is busy with her sewing, as Mr. Dempster and Mrs.
Mountain sit over their cards, as the hushed old servants of the house
move about silently in the gloaming, and listen to the words of the
young master. Hearken to Harry Warrington reading out his brother’s
letter! As we look at the slim characters on the yellow page, fondly
kept and put aside, we can almost fancy him alive who wrote and who read
it--and yet, lo! they are as if they never had been; their portraits
faint images in frames of tarnished gold. Were they real once, or are
they mere phantasms? Did they live and die once? Did they love each
other as true brothers, and loyal gentlemen? Can we hear their voices
in the past? Sure I know Harry’s, and yonder he sits in the warm summer
evening, and reads his young brother’s simple story:

“It must be owned that the provinces are acting scurvily by his Majesty
King George II., and his representative here is in a flame of fury.
Virginia is bad enough, and poor Maryland not much better, but
Pennsylvania is worst of all. We pray them to send us troops from home
to fight the French; and we promise to maintain the troops when they
come. We not only don’t keep our promise, and make scarce any provision
for our defenders, but our people insist upon the most exorbitant prices
for their cattle and stores, and actually cheat the soldiers who are
come to fight their battles. No wonder the General swears, and the
troops are sulky. The delays have been endless. Owing to the failure
of the several provinces to provide their promised stores and means of
locomotion, weeks and months have elapsed, during which time, no doubt,
the French have been strengthening themselves on our frontier and in the
forts they have turned us out of. Though there never will be any love
lost between me and Colonel Washington, it must be owned that your
favourite (I am not jealous, Hal) is a brave man and a good officer.
The family respect him very much, and the General is always asking his
opinion. Indeed, he is almost the only man who has seen the Indians in
their war-paint, and I own I think he was right in firing upon Mons.
Jumonville last year.

“There is to be no more suite to that other quarrel at Benson’s Tavern
than there was to the proposed battle between Colonel W. and a certain
young gentleman who shall be nameless. Captain Waring wished to pursue
it on coming into camp, and brought the message from Captain Grace,
which your friend, who is as bold as Hector, was for taking up, and
employed a brother aide-de-camp, Colonel Wingfield, on his side. But
when Wingfield heard the circumstances of the quarrel, how it had arisen
from Grace being drunk, and was fomented by Waring being tipsy, and how
the two 44th gentlemen had chosen to insult a militia officer, he swore
that Colonel Washington should not meet the 44th men; that he would
carry the matter straightway to his Excellency, who would bring the
two captains to a court-martial for brawling with the militia, and
drunkenness, and indecent behaviour, and the captains were fain to put
up their toasting-irons, and swallow their wrath. They were good-natured
enough out of their cups, and ate their humble-pie with very good
appetites at a reconciliation dinner which Colonel W. had with the 44th,
and where he was as perfectly stupid and correct as Prince Prettyman
need be. Hang him! He has no faults, and that’s why I dislike him. When
he marries that widow--ah me! what a dreary life she will have of it.”

“I wonder at the taste of some men, and the effrontery of some women,”
 says Madam Esmond, laying her teacup down. “I wonder at any woman who
has been married once, so forgetting herself as to marry again! Don’t
you, Mountain?”

“Monstrous!” says Mountain, with a queer look.

Dempster keeps his eyes steadily fixed on his glass of punch. Harry
looks as if he was choking with laughter, or with some other concealed
emotion, but his mother says, “Go on, Harry! Continue with your
brother’s journal. He writes well: but, ah, will he ever be able to
write like my papa?”

Harry resumes: “We keep the strictest order here in camp, and the orders
against drunkenness and ill-behaviour on the part of the men are very
severe. The roll of each company is called at morning, noon, and night,
and a return of the absent and disorderly is given in by the officer
to the commanding officer of the regiment, who has to see that they are
properly punished. The men are punished, and the drummers are always at
work. Oh, Harry, but it made one sick to see the first blood drawn from
a great strong white back, and to hear the piteous yell of the poor
fellow.”

“Oh, horrid!” says Madam Esmond.

“I think I should have murdered Ward if he had flogged me. Thank Heaven
he got off with only a crack of the ruler! The men, I say, are looked
after carefully enough. I wish the officers were. The Indians have just
broken up their camp, and retired in dudgeon, because the young officers
were for ever drinking with the squaws--and--and--hum--ha.” Here Mr.
Harry pauses, as not caring to proceed with the narrative, in the
presence of little Fanny, very likely, who sits primly in her chair by
her mother’s side, working her little sampler.

“Pass over that about the odious tipsy creatures,” says Madam. And Harry
commences, in a loud tone, a much more satisfactory statement: “Each
regiment has Divine Service performed at the head of its colours every
Sunday. The General does everything in the power of mortal man to
prevent plundering, and to encourage the people round about to bring in
provisions. He has declared soldiers shall be shot who dare to interrupt
or molest the market-people. He has ordered the price of provisions to
be raised a penny a pound, and has lent money out of his own pocket to
provide the camp. Altogether, he is a strange compound, this General. He
flogs his men without mercy, but he gives without stint. He swears most
tremendous oaths in conversation, and tells stories which Mountain would
be shocked to hear--”

“Why me?” asks Mountain; “and what have I to do with the General’s silly
stories?”

“Never mind the stories; and go on, Harry,” cries the mistress of the
house.

“--would be shocked to hear after dinner; but he never misses service.
He adores his Great Duke, and has his name constantly on his lips. Our
two regiments both served in Scotland, where I dare say Mr. Dempster
knew the colour of their facings.”

“We saw the tails of their coats, as well as their facings,” growls the
little Jacobite tutor.

“Colonel Washington has had the fever very smartly, and has hardly been
well enough to keep up with the march. Had he not better go home and
be nursed by his widow? When either of us is ill, we are almost as good
friends again as ever. But I feel somehow as if I can’t forgive him for
having wronged him. Good Powers! How I have been hating him for these
months past! Oh, Harry! I was in a fury at the tavern the other day,
because Mountain came up so soon, and put an end to our difference. We
ought to have burned a little gunpowder between us, and cleared the air.
But though I don’t love him, as you do, I know he is a good soldier, a
good officer, and a brave, honest man; and, at any rate, shall love him
none the worse for not wanting to be our stepfather.”

“A stepfather, indeed!” cries Harry’s mother. “Why, jealousy and
prejudice have perfectly maddened the poor child! Do you suppose the
Marquis of Esmond’s daughter and heiress could not have found other
stepfathers for her sons than a mere provincial surveyor? If there are
any more such allusions in George’s journal, I beg you skip ‘em, Harry,
my dear. About this piece of folly and blundering, there hath been quite
talk enough already.”

“‘Tis a pretty sight,” Harry continued, reading from his brother’s
journal, “to see a long line of redcoats, threading through the woods
or taking their ground after the march. The care against surprise is so
great and constant, that we defy prowling Indians to come unawares upon
us, and our advanced sentries and savages have on the contrary fallen in
with the enemy and taken a scalp or two from them. They are such cruel
villains, these French and their painted allies, that we do not think
of showing them mercy. Only think, we found but yesterday a little
boy scalped but yet alive in a lone house, where his parents had been
attacked and murdered by the savage enemy, of whom--so great is his
indignation at their cruelty--our General has offered a reward of five
pounds for all the Indian scalps brought in.

“When our march is over, you should see our camp, and all the care
bestowed on it. Our baggage and our General’s tents and guard are placed
quite in the centre of the camp. We have outlying sentries by twos, by
threes, by tens, by whole companies. At the least surprise, they are
instructed to run in on the main body and rally round the tents
and baggage, which are so arranged themselves as to be a strong
fortification. Sady and I, you must know, are marching on foot now, and
my horses are carrying baggage. The Pennsylvanians sent such rascally
animals into camp that they speedily gave in. What good horses were
left, ‘twas our duty to give up: and Roxana has a couple of packs upon
her back instead of her young master. She knows me right well, and
whinnies when she sees me, and I walk by her side, and we have many a
talk together on the march.

“July 4. To guard against surprises, we are all warned to pay especial
attention to the beat of the drum; always halting when they hear the
long roll beat, and marching at the beat of the long march. We are
more on the alert regarding the enemy now. We have our advanced pickets
doubled, and two sentries at every post. The men on the advanced pickets
are constantly under arms, with fixed bayonets, all through the night,
and relieved every two hours. The half that are relieved lie down by
their arms, but are not suffered to leave their pickets. ‘Tis evident
that we are drawing very near to the enemy now. This packet goes out
with the General’s to Colonel Dunbar’s camp, who is thirty miles behind
us; and will be carried thence to Frederick, and thence to my honoured
mother’s house at Castlewood, to whom I send my duty, with kindest
remembrances, as to all friends there, and bow much love I need not say
to my dearest brother from his affectionate--GEORGE E. WARRINGTON.”

The whole land was now lying parched and scorching in the July heat. For
ten days no news had come from the column advancing on the Ohio. Their
march, though it toiled but slowly through the painful forest, must
bring them ere long up with the enemy; the troops, led by consummate
captains, were accustomed now to the wilderness, and not afraid of
surprise. Every precaution had been taken against ambush. It was the
outlying enemy who were discovered, pursued, destroyed, by the vigilant
scouts and skirmishers of the British force. The last news heard
was that the army had advanced considerably beyond the ground of Mr.
Washington’s discomfiture on the previous year, and two days after must
be within a day’s march of the French fort. About taking it no fears
were entertained; the amount of the French reinforcements from Montreal
was known. Mr. Braddock, with his two veteran regiments from Britain,
and their allies of Virginia and Pennsylvania, were more than a match
for any troops that could be collected under the white flag.

Such continued to be the talk, in the sparse towns of our Virginian
province, at the gentry’s houses, and the rough roadside taverns, where
people met and canvassed the war. The few messengers who were sent back
by the General reported well of the main force. ‘Twas thought the enemy
would not stand or defend himself at all. Had he intended to attack, he
might have seized a dozen occasions for assaulting our troops at passes
through which they had been allowed to go entirely free. So George had
given up his favourite mare, like a hero as he was, and was marching
afoot with the line? Madam Esmond vowed that he should have the best
horse in Virginia or Carolina in place of Roxana. There were horses
enough to be had in the provinces, and for money. It was only for the
King’s service that they were not forthcoming.

Although at their family meetings and repasts the inmates of Castlewood
always talked cheerfully, never anticipating any but a triumphant issue
to the campaign, or acknowledging any feeling of disquiet, yet, it must
be owned they were mighty uneasy when at home, quitting it ceaselessly,
and for ever on the trot from one neighbour’s house to another in quest
of news. It was prodigious how quickly reports ran and spread. When,
for instance, a certain noted border warrior, called Colonel Jack, had
offered himself and his huntsmen to the General, who had declined the
ruffian’s terms or his proffered service, the defection of Jack and his
men was the talk of thousands of tongues immediately. The house negroes,
in their midnight gallops about the country, in search of junketing or
sweethearts, brought and spread news over amazingly wide districts. They
had a curious knowledge of the incidents of the march for a fortnight
at least after its commencement. They knew and laughed at the cheats
practised on the army, for horses, provisions, and the like; for a good
bargain over the foreigner was not an unfrequent or unpleasant practice
among New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, or Marylanders; though ‘tis known
that American folks have become perfectly artless and simple in later
times, and never grasp, and never overreach, and are never selfish
now. For three weeks after the army’s departure, the thousand reports
regarding it were cheerful; and when our Castlewood friends met at their
supper, their tone was confident and their news pleasant.

But on the 10th of July a vast and sudden gloom spread over the
province. A look of terror and doubt seemed to fall upon every face.
Affrighted negroes wistfully eyed their masters and retired, and hummed
and whispered with one another. The fiddles ceased in the quarters: the
song and laugh of those cheery black folk were hushed. Right and left,
everybody’s servants were on the gallop for news. The country taverns
were thronged with horsemen, who drank and cursed and brawled at the
bars, each bringing his gloomy story. The army had been surprised. The
troops had fallen into an ambuscade, and had been cut up almost to a
man. All the officers were taken down by the French marksmen and the
savages. The General had been wounded, and carried off the field in his
sash. Four days afterwards the report was that the General was dead, and
scalped by a French Indian.

Ah, what a scream poor Mrs. Mountain gave, when Gumbo brought this
news from across the James River, and little Fanny sprang crying to her
mother’s arms! “Lord God Almighty, watch over us, and defend my boy!”
 said Mrs. Esmond, sinking down on her knees, and lifting her rigid hands
to Heaven. The gentlemen were not at home when this rumour arrived, but
they came in an hour or two afterwards, each from his hunt for news.
The Scots tutor did not dare to look up and meet the widow’s agonising
looks. Harry Warrington was as pale as his mother. It might not be true
about the manner of the General’s death--but he was dead. The army had
been surprised by Indians, and had fled, and been killed without seeing
the enemy. An express had arrived from Dunbar’s camp. Fugitives were
pouring in there. Should he go and see? He must go and see. He and stout
little Dempster armed themselves and mounted, taking a couple of mounted
servants with them.

They followed the northward track which the expeditionary army had hewed
out for itself, and at every step which brought them nearer to the scene
of action, the disaster of the fearful day seemed to magnify. The day
after the defeat a number of the miserable fugitives from the fatal
battle of the 9th July had reached Dunbar’s camp, fifty miles from the
field. Thither poor Harry and his companions rode, stopping stragglers,
asking news, giving money, getting from one and all the same gloomy
tale--a thousand men were slain--two-thirds of the officers were
down--all the General’s aides-de-camp were hit. Were hit?--but were they
killed? Those who fell never rose again. The tomahawk did its work upon
them. O brother, brother! All the fond memories of their youth, all the
dear remembrances of their childhood, the love and the laughter, the
tender romantic vows which they had pledged to each other as lads, were
recalled by Harry with pangs inexpressibly keen. Wounded men looked up
and were softened by his grief: rough women melted as they saw the woe
written on the handsome young face: the hardy old tutor could scarcely
look at him for tears, and grieved for him even more than for his dear
pupil who lay dead under the savage Indian knife.



CHAPTER XIII. Profitless Quest


At every step which Harry Warrington took towards Pennsylvania, the
reports of the British disaster were magnified and confirmed. Those two
famous regiments which had fought in the Scottish and Continental wars,
had fled from an enemy almost unseen, and their boasted discipline and
valour had not enabled them to face a band of savages and a few French
infantry. The unfortunate commander of the expedition had shown the
utmost bravery and resolution. Four times his horse had been shot under
him. Twice he had been wounded, and the last time of the mortal hurt
which ended his life three days after the battle. More than one of
Harry’s informants described the action to the poor lad,--the passage of
the river, the long line of advance through the wilderness, the firing
in front, the vain struggle of the men to advance, and the artillery
to clear the way of the enemy; then the ambushed fire from behind every
bush and tree, and the murderous fusillade, by which at least half of
the expeditionary force had been shot down. But not all the General’s
suite were killed, Harry heard. One of his aides-de-camp, a Virginian
gentleman, was ill of fever and exhaustion at Dunbar’s camp.

One of them--but which? To the camp Harry hurried, and reached it at
length. It was George Washington Harry found stretched in a tent
there, and not his brother. A sharper pain than that of the fever Mr.
Washington declared he felt, when he saw Harry Warrington, and could
give him no news of George.

Mr. Washington did not dare to tell Harry all. For three days after
the fight his duty had been to be near the General. On the fatal 9th of
July, he had seen George go to the front with orders from the chief,
to whose side he never returned. After Braddock himself died, the
aide-de-camp had found means to retrace his course to the field. The
corpses which remained there were stripped and horribly mutilated.
One body he buried which he thought to be George Warrington’s. His
own illness was increased, perhaps occasioned, by the anguish which he
underwent in his search for the unhappy young volunteer.

“Ah, George! If you had loved him you would have found him dead or
alive,” Harry cried out. Nothing would satisfy him but that he, too,
should go to the ground and examine it. With money he procured a guide
or two. He forded the river at the place where the army had passed
over: he went from one end to the other of the dreadful field. It was
no longer haunted by Indians now. The birds of prey were feeding on
the mangled festering carcases. Save in his own grandfather, lying very
calm, with a sweet smile on his lip, Harry had never yet seen the face
of Death. The horrible spectacle of mutilation caused him to turn away
with shudder and loathing. What news could the vacant woods, or those
festering corpses lying under the trees, give the lad of his lost
brother? He was for going, unarmed and with a white flag, to the French
fort, whither, after their victory, the enemy had returned; but his
guides refused to advance with him. The French might possibly respect
them, but the Indians would not. “Keep your hair for your lady mother,
my young gentleman,” said the guide. “‘Tis enough that she loses one son
in this campaign.”

When Harry returned to the English encampment at Dunbar’s, it was his
turn to be down with the fever. Delirium set in upon him, and he lay
some time in the tent and on the bed from which his friend had just
risen convalescent. For some days he did not know who watched him; and
poor Dempster, who had tended him in more than one of these maladies,
thought the widow must lose both her children; but the fever was so
far subdued that the boy was enabled to rally somewhat, and get to
horseback. Mr. Washington and Dempster both escorted him home. It was
with a heavy heart, no doubt, that all three beheld once more the gates
of Castlewood.

A servant in advance had been sent to announce their coming. First came
Mrs. Mountain and her little daughter, welcoming Harry with many
tears and embraces, but she scarce gave a nod of recognition to Mr.
Washington; and the little girl caused the young officer to start, and
turn deadly pale, by coming up to him with her hands behind her, and
asking, “Why have you not brought George back too?” Harry did not hear.
The sobs and caresses of his good friend and nurse luckily kept him from
listening to little Fanny.

Dempster was graciously received by the two ladies. “Whatever could be
done, we know you would do, Mr. Dempster,” says Mrs. Mountain, giving
him her hand. “Make a curtsey to Mr. Dempster, Fanny, and remember,
child, to be grateful to all who have been friendly to our benefactors.
Will it please you to take any refreshment before you ride, Colonel
Washington?”

Mr. Washington had had a sufficient ride already, and counted as
certainly upon the hospitality of Castlewood, as he would upon the
shelter of his own house.

“The time to feed my horse, and a glass of water for myself, and I will
trouble Castlewood hospitality no further,” Mr. Washington said.

“Sure, George, you have your room here, and my mother is above-stairs
getting it ready!” cries Harry. “That poor horse of yours stumbled with
you, and can’t go farther this evening.”

“Hush! Your mother won’t see him, child,” whispered Mrs. Mountain.

“Not see George? Why, he is like a son of the house,” cries Harry.

“She had best not see him. I don’t meddle any more in family matters,
child: but when the Colonel’s servant rode in, and said you were coming,
Madam Esmond left this room, my dear, where she was sitting reading
Drelincourt, and said she felt she could not see Mr. Washington. Will
you go to her?” Harry took his friend’s arm, and excusing himself to the
Colonel, to whom he said he would return in a few minutes, he left the
parlour in which they had assembled, and went to the upper rooms, where
Madam Esmond was.

He was hastening across the corridor, and, with an averted head, passing
by one especial door, which he did not like to look at, for it was that
of his brother’s room; but as he came to it, Madam Esmond issued from
it, and folded him to her heart, and led him in. A settee was by the
bed, and a book of psalms lay on the coverlet. All the rest of the room
was exactly as George had left it.

“My poor child! How thin thou art grown--how haggard you look! Never
mind. A mother’s care will make thee well again. ‘Twas nobly done to go
and brave sickness and danger in search of your brother. Had others been
as faithful, he might be here now. Never mind, my Harry; our hero will
come back to us,--I know he is not dead. One so good, and so brave,
and so gentle, and so clever as he was, I know is not lost to us
altogether.” (Perhaps Harry thought within himself that his mother had
not always been accustomed so to speak of her eldest son.) “Dry up thy
tears, my dear! He will come back to us, I know he will come.” And when
Harry pressed her to give a reason for her belief, she said she had seen
her father two nights running in a dream, and he had told her that her
boy was a prisoner among the Indians.

Madam Esmond’s grief had not prostrated her as Harry’s had when first
it fell upon him; it had rather stirred and animated her: her eyes were
eager, her countenance angry and revengeful. The lad wondered almost at
the condition in which he found his mother.

But when he besought her to go downstairs, and give a hand of welcome
to George Washington, who had accompanied him, the lady’s excitement
painfully increased. She said she should shudder at touching his hand.
She declared Mr. Washington had taken her son from her, she could not
sleep under the same roof with him.

“He gave me his bed when I was ill, mother; and if our George is alive,
how has George Washington a hand in his death? Ah! please God it be only
as you say,” cried Harry, in bewilderment.

“If your brother returns, as return he will, it will not be through Mr.
Washington’s help,” said Madam Esmond. “He neither defended George on
the field, nor would he bring him out of it.”

“But he tended me most kindly in my fever,” interposed Harry. “He was
yet ill when he gave up his bed to me, and was thinking only of his
friend, when any other man would have thought only of himself.”

“A friend! A pretty friend!” sneers the lady. “Of all his Excellency’s
aides-de-camp, my gentleman is the only one who comes back unwounded.
The brave and noble fall, but he, to be sure, is unhurt. I confide
my boy to him, the pride of my life, whom he will defend with his,
forsooth! And he leaves my George in the forest, and brings me back
himself! Oh, a pretty welcome I must give him!”

“No gentleman,” cried Harry, warmly, “was ever refused shelter under my
grandfather’s roof.”

“Oh no--no gentleman!” exclaims the little widow; “let us go down, if
you like, son, and pay our respects to this one. Will you please to give
me your arm?” And taking an arm which was very little able to give her
support, she walked down the broad stairs, and into the apartment where
the Colonel sate.

She made him a ceremonious curtsey, and extended one of the little
hands, which she allowed for a moment to rest in his. “I wish that our
meeting had been happier, Colonel Washington,” she said.

“You do not grieve more than I do that it is otherwise, madam,” said the
Colonel.

“I might have wished that the meeting had been spared, that I might not
have kept you from friends whom you are naturally anxious to see,--that
my boy’s indisposition had not detained you. Home and his good nurse
Mountain, and his mother and our good Doctor Dempster, will soon restore
him. ‘Twas scarce necessary, Colonel, that you, who have so many affairs
on your hands, military and domestic, should turn doctor too.”

“Harry was ill and weak, and I thought it was my duty to ride by him,”
 faltered the Colonel.

“You yourself, sir, have gone through the fatigues and dangers of the
campaign in the most wonderful manner,” said the widow, curtseying
again, and looking at him with her impenetrable black eyes.

“I wish to Heaven, madam, some one else had come back in my place!”

“Nay, sir, you have ties which must render your life more than ever
valuable and dear to you, and duties to which, I know, you must be
anxious to betake yourself. In our present deplorable state of doubt and
distress, Castlewood can be a welcome place to no stranger, much less
to you, and so I know, sir, you will be for leaving us ere long. And you
will pardon me if the state of my own spirits obliges me for the most
part to keep my chamber. But my friends here will bear you company as
long as you favour us, whilst I nurse my poor Harry upstairs. Mountain,
you will have the cedar-room on the ground-floor ready for Mr.
Washington, and anything in the house is at his command. Farewell, sir.
Will you be pleased to present my compliments to your mother, who will
be thankful to have her son safe and sound out of the war,--as also
to my young friend Martha Custis, to whom and to whose children I
wish every happiness. Come, my son!” and with these words, and another
freezing curtsey, the pale little woman retreated, looking steadily at
the Colonel, who stood dumb on the floor.

Strong as Madam Esmond’s belief appeared to be respecting her son’s
safety, the house of Castlewood naturally remained sad and gloomy.
She might forbid mourning for herself and family; but her heart was
in black, whatever face the resolute little lady persisted in wearing
before the world. To look for her son, was hoping against hope. No
authentic account of his death had indeed arrived, and no one appeared
who had seen him fall; but hundreds more had been so stricken on that
fatal day, with no eyes to behold their last pangs, save those of the
lurking enemy and the comrades dying by their side. A fortnight after
the defeat, when Harry was absent on his quest, George’s servant,
Sady, reappeared wounded and maimed at Castlewood. But he could give
no coherent account of the battle, only of his flight from the centre,
where he was with the baggage. He had no news of his master since the
morning of the action. For many days Sady lurked in the negro quarters
away from the sight of Madam Esmond, whose anger he did not dare to
face. That lady’s few neighbours spoke of her as labouring under a
delusion. So strong was it, that there were times when Harry and the
other members of the little Castlewood family were almost brought to
share in it. It seemed nothing strange to her, that her father out of
another world should promise her her son’s life. In this world or the
next, that family sure must be of consequence, she thought. Nothing
had ever yet happened to her sons, no accident, no fever, no important
illness, but she had a prevision of it. She could enumerate half a dozen
instances, which, indeed, her household was obliged more or less to
confirm, how, when anything had happened to the boys at ever so great a
distance, she had known of their mishap and its consequences. No, George
was not dead; George was a prisoner among the Indians; George would come
back and rule over Castlewood; as sure, as sure as his Majesty would
send a great force from home to recover the tarnished glory of the
British arms, and to drive the French out of the Americas.

As for Mr. Washington, she would never with her own goodwill behold him
again. He had promised to protect George with his life. Why was her son
gone and the Colonel alive? How dared he to face her after that promise,
and appear before a mother without her son? She trusted she knew her
duty. She bore illwill to no one: but as an Esmond, she had a sense of
honour, and Mr. Washington had forfeited hers in letting her son out of
his sight. He had to obey superior orders (some one perhaps objected)?
Psha! a promise was a promise. He had promised to guard George’s life
with his own, and where was her boy? And was not the Colonel (a pretty
Colonel, indeed!) sound and safe? Do not tell me that his coat and hat
had shots through them! (This was her answer to another humble plea in
Mr. Washington’s behalf.) Can’t I go into the study this instant and
fire two shots with my papa’s pistols through this paduasoy skirt,--and
should I be killed? She laughed at the notion of death resulting from
any such operation; nor was her laugh very pleasant to hear. The satire
of people who have little natural humour is seldom good sport for
bystanders. I think dull men’s faceticae are mostly cruel.

So, if Harry wanted to meet his friend, he had to do so in secret, at
court-houses, taverns, or various places of resort; or in their little
towns, where the provincial gentry assembled. No man of spirit, she
vowed, could meet Mr. Washington after his base desertion of her family.
She was exceedingly excited when she heard that the Colonel and her son
absolutely had met. What a heart must Harry have to give his hand to one
whom she considered as little better than George’s murderer! For shame
to say so! For shame upon you, ungrateful boy, forgetting the dearest,
noblest, most perfect of brothers, for that tall, gawky, fox-hunting
Colonel, with his horrid oaths! How can he be George’s murderer, when
I say my boy is not dead? He is not dead, because my instinct never
deceived me: because, as sure as I see his picture now before me,--only
‘tis not near so noble or so good as he used to look,--so surely two
nights running did my papa appear to me in my dreams. You doubt about
that, very likely? ‘Tis because you never loved anybody sufficiently, my
poor Harry; else you might have leave to see them in dreams, as has been
vouchsafed to some.”

“I think I loved George, mother,” cried Harry. “I have often prayed that
I might dream about him, and I don’t.”

“How you can talk, sir, of loving George, and then--go and meet your Mr.
Washington at horse-races, I can’t understand! Can you, Mountain?”

“We can’t understand many things in our neighbours’ characters. I can
understand that our boy is unhappy, and that he does not get strength,
and that he is doing no good here, in Castlewood, or moping at the
taverns and court-houses with horse-coupers and idle company,” grumbled
Mountain in reply to her patroness; and, in truth, the dependant was
right.

There was not only grief in the Castlewood House, but there was
disunion. “I cannot tell how it came,” said Harry, as he brought the
story to an end, which we have narrated in the last two numbers,
and which he confided to his new-found English relative, Madame de
Bernstein; “but since that fatal day of July, last year, and my return
home, my mother never has been the same woman. She seemed to love none
of us as she used. She was for ever praising George, and yet she did
not seem as if she liked him much when he was with us. She hath plunged,
more deeply than ever, into her books of devotion, out of which she
only manages to extract grief and sadness, as I think. Such a gloom has
fallen over our wretched Virginian house of Castlewood, that we all
grew ill, and pale as ghosts, who inhabited it. Mountain told me, madam,
that, for nights, my mother would not close her eyes. I have had her at
my bedside, looking so ghastly, that I have started from my own sleep,
fancying a ghost before me. By one means or other she has wrought
herself into a state of excitement which if not delirium, is akin to
it. I was again and again struck down by the fever, and all the Jesuits’
bark in America could not cure me. We have a tobacco-house and some land
about the new town of Richmond, in our province, and went thither, as
Williamsburg is no wholesomer than our own place; and there I mended a
little, but still did not get quite well, and the physicians strongly
counselled a sea-voyage. My mother, at one time, had thoughts of coming
with me, but--” (and here the lad blushed and hung his head down)
“--we did not agree very well, though I know we loved each other very
heartily, and ‘twas determined that I should see the world for myself.
So I took passage in our ship from the James River, and was landed at
Bristol. And ‘twas only on the 9th of July, this year, at sea, as had
been agreed between me and Madam Esmond, that I put mourning on for my
dear brother.”

So that little Mistress of the Virginian Castlewood, for whom, I am
sure, we have all the greatest respect, had the knack of rendering the
people round about her uncomfortable; quarrelled with those she loved
best, and exercised over them her wayward jealousies and imperious
humours, until they were not sorry to leave her. Here was money enough,
friends enough, a good position, and the respect of the world; a house
stored with all manner of plenty, and good things, and poor Harry
Warrington was glad to leave them all behind him. Happy! Who is
happy? What good in a stalled ox for dinner every day, and no content
therewith? Is it best to be loved and plagued by those you love, or to
have an easy, comfortable indifference at home; to follow your fancies,
live there unmolested, and die without causing any painful regrets or
tears?

To be sure, when her boy was gone, Madam Esmond forgot all these little
tiffs and differences. To hear her speak of both her children, you would
fancy they were perfect characters, and had never caused her a moment’s
worry or annoyance. These gone, Madam fell naturally upon Mrs. Mountain
and her little daughter, and worried and annoyed them. But women
bear with hard words more easily than men, are more ready to forgive
injuries, or, perhaps, to dissemble anger. Let us trust that Madam
Esmond’s dependants found their life tolerable, that they gave her
ladyship sometimes as good as they got, that if they quarrelled in the
morning they were reconciled at night, and sate down to a tolerably
friendly game at cards and an amicable dish of tea.

But, without the boys, the great house of Castlewood was dreary to the
widow. She left an overseer there to manage her estates, and only paid
the place an occasional visit. She enlarged and beautified her house
in the pretty little city of Richmond, which began to grow daily in
importance. She had company there, and card-assemblies, and preachers in
plenty; and set up her little throne there, to which the gentlefolks of
the province were welcome to come and bow. All her domestic negroes,
who loved society as negroes will do, were delighted to exchange the
solitude of Castlewood for the gay and merry little town; where, for
a time, and while we pursue Harry Warrington’s progress in Europe, we
leave the good lady.



CHAPTER XIV. Harry in England


When the famous Trojan wanderer narrated his escapes and adventures to
Queen Dido, her Majesty, as we read, took the very greatest interest
in the fascinating story-teller who told his perils so eloquently. A
history ensued, more pathetic than any of the previous occurrences in
the life of Pius Aeneas, and the poor princess had reason to rue the day
when she listened to that glib and dangerous orator. Harry Warrington
had not pious Aeneas’s power of speech, and his elderly aunt, we may
presume, was by no means so soft-hearted as the sentimental Dido;
but yet the lad’s narrative was touching, as he delivered it with his
artless eloquence and cordial voice; and more than once, in the course
of his story, Madam Bernstein found herself moved to a softness to which
she had very seldom before allowed herself to give way. There were not
many fountains in that desert of a life--not many sweet, refreshing
resting-places. It had been a long loneliness, for the most part, until
this friendly voice came and sounded in her ears and caused her heart to
beat with strange pangs of love and sympathy. She doted on this lad,
and on this sense of compassion and regard so new to her. Save once,
faintly, in very very early youth, she had felt no tender sentiment for
any human being. Such a woman would, no doubt, watch her own sensations
very keenly, and must have smiled after the appearance of this boy, to
mark how her pulses rose above their ordinary beat. She longed after
him. She felt her cheeks flush with happiness when he came near. Her
eyes greeted him with welcome, and followed him with fond pleasure. “Ah,
if she could have had a son like that, how she would have loved him!”
 “Wait,” says Conscience, the dark scoffer mocking within her, “wait,
Beatrix Esmond! You know you will weary of this inclination, as you have
of all. You know, when the passing fancy has subsided, that the boy may
perish, and you won’t have a tear for him; or talk, and you weary of
his stories; and that your lot in life is to be lonely--lonely.” Well?
suppose life be a desert? There are halting-places and shades, and
refreshing waters; let us profit by them for to-day. We know that we
must march when to-morrow comes, and tramp on our destiny onward.

She smiled inwardly, whilst following the lad’s narrative, to recognise
in his simple tales about his mother, traits of family resemblance.
Madam Esmond was very jealous?--Yes, that Harry owned. She was fond of
Colonel Washington? She liked him, but only as a friend, Harry declared.
A hundred times he had heard his mother vow that she had no other
feeling towards him. He was ashamed to have to own that he himself had
been once absurdly jealous of the Colonel. “Well, you will see that my
half-sister will never forgive him,” said Madam Beatrix. “And you need
not be surprised, sir, at women taking a fancy to men younger than
themselves; for don’t I dote upon you; and don’t all these Castlewood
people crevent with jealousy?”

However great might be their jealousy of Madame de Bernstein’s new
favourite, the family of Castlewood allowed no feeling of illwill to
appear in their language or behaviour to their young guest and
kinsman. After a couple of days’ stay in the ancestral house, Mr.
Harry Warrington had become Cousin Harry with young and middle-aged.
Especially in Madame Bernstein’s presence, the Countess of Castlewood
was most gracious to her kinsman, and she took many amiable private
opportunities of informing the Baroness how charming the young Huron
was, of vaunting the elegance of his manners and appearance, and
wondering how, in his distant province, the child should ever have
learned to be so polite?

These notes of admiration or interrogation, the Baroness took with
equal complacency (speaking parenthetically, and, for his own part, the
present chronicler cannot help putting in a little respectful remark
here, and signifying his admiration of the conduct of ladies towards one
another, and of the things which they say, which they forbear to say,
and which they say behind each other’s backs. With what smiles and
curtseys they stab each other! with what compliments they hate each
other! with what determination of long-suffering they won’t be offended!
with what innocent dexterity they can drop the drop of poison into the
cup of conversation, hand round the goblet, smiling, to the whole family
to drink, and make the dear, domestic circle miserable!)--I burst out of
my parenthesis. I fancy my Baroness and Countess smiling at each other
a hundred years ago, and giving each other the hand or the cheek, and
calling each other, My dear, My dear creature, My dear Countess, My dear
Baroness, My dear sister--even, when they were most ready to fight.

“You wonder, my dear Maria, that the boy should be so polite?” cries
Madame de Bernstein. “His mother was bred up by two very perfect
gentlefolks. Colonel Esmond had a certain grave courteousness, and a
grand manner, which I do not see among the gentlemen nowadays.”

“Eh, my dear, we all of us praise our own time! My grandmamma used to
declare there was nothing like Whitehall and Charles the Second.”

“My mother saw King James the Second’s court for a short while, and
though not a court-educated person, as you know,--her father was a
country clergyman--yet was exquisitely well-bred. The Colonel, her
second husband, was a person of great travel and experience, as well as
of learning, and had frequented the finest company of Europe. They could
not go into their retreat and leave their good manners behind them, and
our boy has had them as his natural inheritance.”

“Nay, excuse me, my dear, for thinking you too partial about your
mother. She could not have been that perfection which your filial
fondness imagines. She left off liking her daughter--my dear creature,
you have owned that she did--and I cannot fancy a complete woman who has
a cold heart. No, no, my dear sister-in-law! Manners are very requisite,
no doubt, and, for a country parson’s daughter, your mamma was very
well--I have seen many of the cloth who are very well. Mr. Sampson, our
chaplain, is very well. Dr. Young is very well. Mr. Dodd is very well;
but they have not the true air--as how should they? I protest, I beg
pardon! I forgot my lord bishop, your ladyship’s first choice. But, as I
said before, to be a complete woman, one must have, what you have, what
I may say and bless Heaven for, I think I have--a good heart. Without
the affections, all the world is vanity, my love! I protest I only live,
exist, eat, drink, rest, for my sweet, sweet children!--for my wicked
Willy, for my self-willed Fanny, dear naughty loves!” (She
rapturously kisses a bracelet on each arm which contains the miniature
representations of those two young persons.) “Yes, Mimi! yes, Fanchon!
you know I do, you dear, dear little things! and if they were to die,
or you were to die, your poor mistress would die too!” Mimi and Fanchon,
two quivering Italian greyhounds, jump into their lady’s arms, and kiss
her hands, but respect her cheeks, which are covered with rouge. “No,
my dear! For nothing do I bless Heaven so much (though it puts me
to excruciating torture very often) as for having endowed me with
sensibility and a feeling heart!”

“You are full of feeling, dear Anna,” says the Baroness. “You are
celebrated for your sensibility. You must give a little of it to our
American nephew--cousin--I scarce know his relationship.”

“Nay, I am here but as a guest in Castlewood now. The house is my Lord
Castlewood’s, not mine, or his lordship’s whenever he shall choose to
claim it. What can I do for the young Virginian that has not been done?
He is charming. Are we even jealous of him for being so, my dear? and
though we see what a fancy the Baroness de Bernstein has taken for him,
do your ladyship’s nephews and nieces--your real nephews and nieces--cry
out? My poor children might be mortified, for indeed, in a few hours,
the charming young man has made as much way as my poor things have been
able to do in all their lives: but are they angry? Willy hath taken him
out to ride. This morning, was not Maria playing the harpsichord whilst
my Fanny taught him the minuet? ‘Twas a charming young group, I assure
you, and it brought tears into my eyes to look at the young creatures.
Poor lad! we are as fond of him as you are, dear Baroness!”

Now, Madame de Bernstein had happened, through her own ears or her
maid’s, to overhear what really took place in consequence of this
harmless little scene. Lady Castlewood had come into the room where the
young people were thus engaged in amusing and instructing themselves,
accompanied by her son William, who arrived in his boots from the
kennel.

“Bravi, bravi! Oh, charming!” said the Countess, clapping her hands,
nodding with one of her best smiles to Harry Warrington, and darting a
look at his partner, which my Lady Fanny perfectly understood; and
so, perhaps, did my Lady Maria at her harpsichord, for she played with
redoubled energy, and nodded her waving curls, over the chords.

“Infernal young Choctaw! Is he teaching Fanny the war-dance? and is Fan
going to try her tricks upon him now?” asked Mr. William, whose temper
was not of the best.

And that was what Lady Castlewood’s look said to Fanny. “Are you going
to try your tricks upon him now?”

She made Harry a very low curtsey, and he blushed, and they both stopped
dancing, somewhat disconcerted. Lady Maria rose from the harpsichord and
walked away.

“Nay, go on dancing, young people! Don’t let me spoil sport, and let me
play for you,” said the Countess; and she sate down to the instrument
and played.

“I don’t know how to dance,” says Harry, hanging his head down, with a
blush that the Countess’s finest carmine could not equal.

“And Fanny was teaching you? Go on teaching him, dearest Fanny!”

“Go on, do!” says William, with a sidelong growl.

“I--I had rather not show off my awkwardness in company,” adds Harry,
recovering himself. “When I know how to dance a minuet, be sure I will
ask my cousin to walk one with me.”

“That will be very soon, dear Cousin Warrington, I am certain,” remarks
the Countess, with her most gracious air.

“What game is she hunting now?” thinks Mr. William to himself, who
cannot penetrate his mother’s ways; and that lady, fondly calling her
daughter to her elbow, leaves the room.

They are no sooner in the tapestried passage leading away to their
own apartment, but Lady Castlewood’s bland tone entirely changes. “You
booby!” she begins to her adored Fanny. “You double idiot! What are
you going to do with the Huron? You don’t want to marry a creature like
that, and be a squaw in a wigwam?”

“Don’t, mamma!” gasps Lady Fanny. Mamma was pinching her ladyship’s arm
black-and-blue. “I am sure our cousin is very well,” Fanny whimpers,
“and you said so yourself.”

“Very well! Yes; and heir to a swamp, a negro, a log-cabin and a barrel
of tobacco! My Lady Frances Esmond, do you remember what your ladyship’s
rank is, and what your name is, and who was your ladyship’s mother,
when, at three days’ acquaintance, you commence dancing--a pretty dance,
indeed--with this brat out of Virginia?”

“Mr. Warrington is our cousin,” pleads Lady Fanny.

“A creature come from nobody knows where is not your cousin! How do we
know he is your cousin? He may be a valet who has taken his master’s
portmanteau, and run away in his postchaise.”

“But Madame de Bernstein says he is our cousin,” interposes Fanny; “and
he is the image of the Esmonds.”

“Madame de Bernstein has her likes and dislikes, takes up people and
forgets people; and she chooses to profess a mighty fancy for this young
man. Because she likes him to-day, is that any reason why she should
like him to-morrow? Before company, and in your aunt’s presence,
your ladyship will please to be as civil to him as necessary; but, in
private, I forbid you to see him or encourage him.”

“I don’t care, madam, whether your ladyship forbids me or not!” cries
out Lady Fanny, wrought up to a pitch of revolt.

“Very good, Fanny! then I speak to my lord, and we return to Kensington.
If I can’t bring you to reason, your brother will.”

At this juncture the conversation between mother and daughter stopped,
or Madame de Bernstein’s informer had no further means of hearing or
reporting it.

It was only in after days that she told Harry Warrington a part of what
she knew. At present he but saw that his kinsfolks received him not
unkindly. Lady Castlewood was perfectly civil to him; the young ladies
pleasant and pleased; my Lord Castlewood, a man of cold and haughty
demeanour, was not more reserved towards Harry than to any of the rest
of the family; Mr. William was ready to drink with him, to ride with
him, to go to races with him, and to play cards with him. When he
proposed to go away, they one and all pressed him to stay. Madame de
Bernstein did not tell him how it arose that he was the object of
such eager hospitality. He did not know what schemes he was serving or
disarranging, whose or what anger he was creating. He fancied he was
welcome because those around him were his kinsmen, and never thought
that those could be his enemies out of whose cup he was drinking, and
whose hand he was pressing every night and morning.



CHAPTER XV. A Sunday at Castlewood


The second day after Harry’s arrival at Castlewood was a Sunday. The
chapel appertaining to the castle was the village church. A door from
the house communicated with a great state pew which the family occupied,
and here after due time they all took their places in order, whilst a
rather numerous congregation from the village filled the seats below. A
few ancient dusty banners hung from the church roof; and Harry pleased
himself in imagining that they had been borne by retainers of his family
in the Commonwealth wars, in which, as he knew well, his ancestors had
taken a loyal and distinguished part. Within the altar-rails was the
effigy of the Esmond of the time of King James the First, the common
forefather of all the group assembled in the family pew. Madame de
Bernstein, in her quality of Bishop’s widow, never failed in attendance,
and conducted her devotions with a gravity almost as exemplary as that
of the ancestor yonder, in his square beard and red gown, for ever
kneeling on his stone hassock before his great marble desk and
book, under his emblazoned shield of arms. The clergyman, a tall,
high-coloured, handsome young man, read the service in a lively,
agreeable voice, giving almost a dramatic point to the chapters of
Scripture which he read. The music was good--one of the young ladies
of the family touching the organ--and would have been better but for an
interruption and something like a burst of laughter from the servants’
pew, which was occasioned by Mr. Warrington’s lacquey Gumbo, who,
knowing the air given out for the psalm, began to sing it in a voice so
exceedingly loud and sweet, that the whole congregation turned towards
the African warbler; the parson himself put his handkerchief to his
mouth, and the liveried gentlemen from London were astonished out of all
propriety. Pleased, perhaps, with the sensation which he had created,
Mr. Gumbo continued his performance until it became almost a solo, and
the voice of the clerk himself was silenced. For the truth is, that
though Gumbo held on to the book, along with pretty Molly, the porter’s
daughter, who had been the first to welcome the strangers to Castlewood,
he sang and recited by ear and not by note, and could not read a
syllable of the verses in the book before him.

This choral performance over, a brief sermon in due course followed,
which, indeed, Harry thought a deal too short. In a lively, familiar,
striking discourse the clergyman described a scene of which he had
been witness the previous week--the execution of a horse-stealer after
Assizes. He described the man and his previous good character, his
family, the love they bore one another, and his agony at parting from
them. He depicted the execution in a manner startling, terrible,
and picturesque. He did not introduce into his sermon the Scripture
phraseology, such as Harry had been accustomed to hear it from those
somewhat Calvinistic preachers whom his mother loved to frequent, but
rather spoke as one man of the world to other sinful people, who might
be likely to profit by good advice. The unhappy man just gone, had begun
as a farmer of good prospects; he had taken to drinking, card-playing,
horse-racing, cock-fighting, the vices of the age; against which the
young clergyman was generously indignant. Then he had got to poaching
and to horse-stealing, for which he suffered. The divine rapidly drew
striking and fearful pictures of these rustic crimes. He startled his
hearers by showing that the Eye of the Law was watching the poacher
at midnight, and setting traps to catch the criminal. He galloped the
stolen horse over highway and common, and from one county into another,
but showed Retribution ever galloping after, seizing the malefactor in
the country fair, carrying him before the justice, and never unlocking
his manacles till he dropped them at the gallows-foot. Heaven be pitiful
to the sinner! The clergyman acted the scene. He whispered in the
criminal’s ear at the cart. He dropped his handkerchief on the clerk’s
head. Harry started back as that handkerchief dropped. The clergyman had
been talking for more than twenty minutes. Harry could have heard
him for an hour more, and thought he had not been five minutes in the
pulpit. The gentlefolks in the great pew were very much enlivened by the
discourse. Once or twice, Harry, who could see the pew where the house
servants sate, remarked these very attentive; and especially Gumbo, his
own man, in an attitude of intense consternation. But the smockfrocks
did not seem to heed, and clamped out of church quite unconcerned.
Gaffer Brown and Gammer Jones took the matter as it came, and the
rosy-cheeked, red-cloaked village lasses sate under their broad
hats entirely unmoved. My lord, from his pew, nodded slightly to the
clergyman in the pulpit, when that divine’s head and wig surged up from
the cushion.

“Sampson has been strong to-day,” said his lordship. “He has assaulted
the Philistines in great force.”

“Beautiful, beautiful!” says Harry.

“Bet five to four it was his Assize sermon. He has been over to Winton
to preach, and to see those dogs,” cries William.

The organist had played the little congregation out into the sunshine.
Only Sir Francis Esmond, temp. Jac. I., still knelt on his marble
hassock, before his prayer-book of stone. Mr. Sampson came out of his
vestry in his cassock, and nodded to the gentlemen still lingering in
the great pew.

“Come up, and tell us about those dogs,” says Mr. William, and the
divine nodded a laughing assent.

The gentlemen passed out of the church into the gallery of their house,
which connected them with that sacred building. Mr. Sampson made his
way through the court, and presently joined them. He was presented by my
lord to the Virginian cousin of the family, Mr. Warrington: the chaplain
bowed very profoundly, and hoped Mr. Warrington would benefit by the
virtuous example of his European kinsmen. Was he related to Sir Miles
Warrington of Norfolk? Sir Miles was Mr. Warrington’s father’s elder
brother. What a pity he had a son! ‘Twas a pretty estate, and Mr.
Warrington looked as if he would become a baronetcy, and a fine estate
in Norfolk.

“Tell me about my uncle,” cried Virginian Harry.

“Tell us about those dogs!” said English Will, in a breath.

“Two more jolly dogs, two more drunken dogs, saving your presence, Mr.
Warrington, than Sir Miles and his son, I never saw. Sir Miles was a
staunch friend and neighbour of Sir Robert’s. He can drink down any man
in the county, except his son and a few more. The other dogs about which
Mr. William is anxious, for Heaven hath made him a prey to dogs and all
kinds of birds, like the Greeks in the Iliad----”

“I know that line in the Iliad,” says Harry, blushing. “I only know five
more, but I know that one.” And his head fell. He was thinking, “Ah, my
dear brother George knew all the Iliad and all the Odyssey, and almost
every book that was ever written besides!”

“What on earth” (only he mentioned a place under the earth) “are you
talking about now?” asked Will of his reverence.

The chaplain reverted to the dogs and their performance. He thought Mr.
William’s dogs were more than a match for them. From dogs they went off
to horses. Mr. William was very eager about the Six Year Old Plate at
Huntingdon. “Have you brought any news of it, Parson?”

“The odds are five to four on Brilliant against the field,” says the
parson, gravely, “but, mind you, Jason is a good horse.”

“Whose horse?” asks my lord.

“Duke of Ancaster’s. By Cartouche out of Miss Langley,” says the divine.
“Have you horse-races in Virginia, Mr. Warrington?”

“Haven’t we!” cries Harry; “but oh! I long to see a good English race!”

“Do you--do you--bet a little?” continues his reverence.

“I have done such a thing,” replies Harry with a smile.

“I’ll take Brilliant even against the field, for ponies with you,
cousin!” shouts out Mr. William.

“I’ll give or take three to one against Jason!” says the clergyman.

“I don’t bet on horses I don’t know,” said Harry, wondering to hear the
chaplain now, and remembering his sermon half an hour before.

“Hadn’t you better write home, and ask your mother?” says Mr. William,
with a sneer.

“Will, Will!” calls out my lord, “our cousin Warrington is free to bet,
or not, as he likes. Have a care how you venture on either of them,
Harry Warrington. Will is an old file, in spite of his smooth face, and
as for Parson Sampson, I defy our ghostly enemy to get the better of
him.”

“Him and all his works, my lord!” said Mr. Sampson, with a bow.

Harry was highly indignant at this allusion to his mother. “I’ll tell
you what, cousin Will,” he said, “I am in the habit of managing my own
affairs in my own way, without asking any lady to arrange them for me.
And I’m used to make my own bets upon my own judgment, and don’t need
any relations to select them for me, thank you. But as I am your
guest, and, no doubt, you want to show me hospitality, I’ll take your
bet--there. And so Done and Done.”

“Done,” says Will, looking askance.

“Of course it is the regular odds that’s in the paper which you give me,
cousin?”

“Well, no, it isn’t,” growled Will. “The odds are five to four, that’s
the fact, and you may have ‘em, if you like.”

“Nay, cousin, a bet is a bet; and I take you, too, Mr. Sampson.”

“Three to one against Jason. I lay it. Very good,” says Mr. Sampson.

“Is it to be ponies too, Mr. Chaplain?” asks Harry with a superb air, as
if he had Lombard Street in his pocket.

“No, no. Thirty to ten. It is enough for a poor priest to win.”

“Here goes a great slice out of my quarter’s hundred,” thinks Harry.
“Well, I shan’t let these Englishmen fancy that I am afraid of them. I
didn’t begin, but for the honour of Old Virginia I won’t go back.”

These pecuniary transactions arranged, William Esmond went away scowling
towards the stables, where he loved to take his pipe with the grooms;
the brisk parson went off to pay his court to the ladies, and partake of
the Sunday dinner which would presently be served. Lord Castlewood and
Harry remained for a while together. Since the Virginian’s arrival
my lord had scarcely spoken with him. In his manners he was perfectly
friendly, but so silent that he would often sit at the head of his
table, and leave it without uttering a word.

“I suppose yonder property of yours is a fine one by this time?” said my
lord to Harry.

“I reckon it’s almost as big as an English county,” answered Harry, “and
the land’s as good, too, for many things.” Harry would not have the Old
Dominion, nor his share in it, underrated.

“Indeed!” said my lord, with a look of surprise. “When it belonged to my
father it did not yield much.”

“Pardon me, my lord. You know how it belonged to your father,” cried the
youth, with some spirit. “It was because my grandfather did not choose
to claim his right.” [This matter is discussed in the Author’s previous
work, The Memoirs of Colonel Esmond.]

“Of course, of course,” says my lord, hastily.

“I mean, cousin, that we of the Virginian house owe you nothing but
our own,” continued Harry Warrington; “but our own, and the hospitality
which you are now showing me.”

“You are heartily welcome to both. You were hurt by the betting just
now?”

“Well,” replied the lad, “I am sort o’ hurt. Your welcome, you see, is
different to our welcome, and that’s the fact. At home we are glad to
see a man, hold out a hand to him, and give him of our best. Here you
take us in, give us beef and claret enough, to be sure, and don’t seem
to care when we come, or when we go. That’s the remark which I have been
making since I have been in your lordship’s house; I can’t help telling
it out, you see, now ‘tis on my mind; and I think I am a little easier
now I have said it.” And with this, the excited young fellow knocked
a billiard-ball across the table, and then laughed, and looked at his
elder kinsman.

“A la bonne heure! We are cold to the stranger within and without our
gates. We don’t take Mr. Harry Warrington into our arms, and cry when we
see our cousin. We don’t cry when he goes away--but do we pretend?”

“No, you don’t. But you try to get the better of him in a bet,” says
Harry, indignantly.

“Is there no such practice in Virginia, and don’t sporting men there try
to overreach one another? What was that story I heard you telling our
aunt, of the British officers and Tom somebody of Spotsylvania!”

“That’s fair!” cries Harry. “That is, it’s usual practice, and a
stranger must look out. I don’t mind the parson; if he wins, he may
have, and welcome. But a relation! To think that my own blood cousin
wants money out of me!”

“A Newmarket man would get the better of his father. My brother has
been on the turf since he rode over to it from Cambridge. If you play at
cards with him--and he will if you will let him--he will beat you if he
can.”

“Well, I’m ready!” cries Harry. “I’ll play any game with him that I
know, or I’ll jump with him, or I’ll ride with him, or I’ll row with
him, or I’ll wrestle with him, or I’ll shoot with him--there--now.”

The senior was greatly entertained, and held out his hand to the boy.
“Anything, but don’t fight with him,” said my lord.

“If I do, I’ll whip him! hanged if I don’t!” cried the lad. But a look
of surprise and displeasure on the nobleman’s part recalled him to
better sentiments. “A hundred pardons, my lord!” he said, blushing very
red, and seizing his cousin’s hand. “I talked of ill manners, being
angry and hurt just now; but ‘tis doubly ill-mannered of me to show my
anger, and boast about my prowess to my own host and kinsman. It’s not
the practice with us Americans to boast, believe me, it’s not.”

“You are the first I ever met,” says my lord, with a smile, “and I take
you at your word. And I give you fair warning about the cards, and the
betting, that is all, my boy.”

“Leave a Virginian alone! We are a match for most men, we are,” resumed
the boy.

Lord Castlewood did not laugh. His eyebrows only arched for a moment,
and his grey eyes turned towards the ground. “So you can bet fifty
guineas, and afford to lose them? So much the better for you, cousin.
Those great Virginian estates yield a great revenue, do they?”

“More than sufficient for all of us--for ten times as many as we are
now,” replied Harry. (“What, he is pumping me,” thought the lad.)

“And your mother makes her son and heir a handsome allowance?”

“As much as ever I choose to draw, my lord!” cried Harry.

“Peste! I wish I had such a mother!” cried my lord. “But I have only the
advantage of a stepmother, and she draws me. There is the dinner-bell.
Shall we go into the eating-room?” And taking his young friend’s arm, my
lord led him to the apartment where that meal was waiting.

Parson Sampson formed the delight of the entertainment, and amused the
ladies with a hundred agreeable stories. Besides being chaplain to his
lordship, he was a preacher in London, at the new chapel in Mayfair, for
which my Lady Whittlesea (so well known in the reign of George I.) had
left an endowment. He had the choicest stories of all the clubs and
coteries--the very latest news of who had run away with whom--the last
bon-mot of Mr. Selwyn--the last wild bet of March and Rockingham. He
knew how the old king had quarrelled with Madame Walmoden, and the Duke
was suspected of having a new love; who was in favour at Carlton House
with the Princess of Wales, and who was hung last Monday, and how
well he behaved in the cart. My lord’s chaplain poured out all this
intelligence to the amused ladies and the delighted young provincial,
seasoning his conversation with such plain terms and lively jokes as
made Harry stare, who was newly arrived from the colonies, and unused to
the elegances of London life. The ladies, old and young, laughed quite
cheerfully at the lively jokes. Do not be frightened, ye fair readers
of the present day! We are not going to outrage your sweet modesties,
or call blushes on your maiden cheeks. But ‘tis certain that their
ladyships at Castlewood never once thought of being shocked, but sate
listening to the parson’s funny tales, until the chapel bell, clinking
for afternoon service, summoned his reverence away for half an hour.
There was no sermon. He would be back in the drinking of a bottle of
Burgundy. Mr. Will called a fresh one, and the chaplain tossed off a
glass ere he ran out.

Ere the half-hour was over, Mr. Chaplain was back again bawling for
another bottle. This discussed, they joined the ladies, and a couple
of card-tables were set out, as, indeed, they were for many hours every
day, at which the whole of the family party engaged. Madame de Bernstein
could beat any one of her kinsfolk at piquet, and there was only Mr.
Chaplain in the whole circle who was at all a match for her ladyship.

In this easy manner the Sabbath-day passed. The evening was beautiful,
and there was talk of adjourning to a cool tankard and a game of whist
in a summer-house; but the company voted to sit indoors, the ladies
declaring they thought the aspect of three honours in their hand,
and some good court-cards, more beautiful than the loveliest scene of
nature; and so the sun went behind the elms, and still they were at
their cards; and the rooks came home cawing their evensong, and they
never stirred except to change partners; and the chapel clock tolled
hour after hour unheeded, so delightfully were they spent over the
pasteboard; and the moon and stars came out; and it was nine o’clock,
and the groom of the chambers announced that supper was ready.

Whilst they sate at that meal, the postboy’s twanging horn was heard,
as he trotted into the village with his letter-bag. My lord’s bag was
brought in presently from the village, and his letters, which he put
aside, and his newspaper which he read. He smiled as he came to a
paragraph, looked at his Virginian cousin, and handed the paper over
to his brother Will, who by this time was very comfortable, having had
pretty good luck all the evening, and a great deal of liquor.

“Read that, Will,” says my lord.

Mr. William took the paper, and, reading the sentence pointed out by his
brother, uttered an exclamation which caused all the ladies to cry out.

“Gracious heavens, William! What has happened?” cries one or the other
fond sister.

“Mercy, child, why do you swear so dreadfully?” asks the young man’s
fond mamma.

“What’s the matter?” inquires Madame de Bernstein, who has fallen into a
doze after her usual modicum of punch and beer.

“Read it, Parson!” says Mr. William, thrusting the paper over to the
chaplain, and looking as fierce as a Turk.

“Bit, by the Lord!” roars the chaplain, dashing down the paper.

“Cousin Harry, you are in luck,” said my lord, taking up the sheet, and
reading from it. “The Six Year Old Plate at Huntingdon was won by Jason,
beating Brilliant, Pytho, and Ginger. The odds were five to four on
Brilliant against the field, three to one against Jason, seven to two
against Pytho, and twenty to one against Ginger.”

“I owe you a half-year’s income of my poor living, Mr. Warrington,”
 groaned the parson. “I will pay when my noble patron settles with me.”

“A curse upon the luck!” growls Mr. William; “that comes of betting on a
Sunday,”--and he sought consolation in another great bumper.

“Nay, cousin Will. It was but in jest,” cried Harry. “I can’t think of
taking my cousin’s money.”

“Curse me, sir, do you suppose, if I lose, I can’t pay?” asks Mr.
William; “and that I want to be beholden to any man alive? That is a
good joke. Isn’t it, Parson?”

“I think I have heard better,” said the clergyman; to which William
replied, “Hang it, let us have another bowl.”

Let us hope the ladies did not wait for this last replenishment of
liquor, for it is certain they had had plenty already during the
evening.



CHAPTER XVI. In which Gumbo shows Skill with the Old English Weapon


Our young Virginian having won these sums of money from his cousin and
the chaplain, was in duty bound to give them a chance of recovering
their money, and I am afraid his mamma and other sound moralists would
scarcely approve of his way of life. He plays at cards a great deal too
much. Besides the daily whist or quadrille with the ladies, which set in
soon after dinner at three o’clock, and lasted until supper-time, there
occurred games involving the gain or loss of very considerable sums of
money, in which all the gentlemen, my lord included, took part. Since
their Sunday’s conversation, his lordship was more free and confidential
with his kinsman than he had previously been, betted with him quite
affably, and engaged him at backgammon and piquet. Mr. William and the
pious chaplain liked a little hazard; though this diversion was enjoyed
on the sly, and unknown to the ladies of the house, who had exacted
repeated promises from cousin Will that he would not lead the Virginian
into mischief, and that he would himself keep out of it. So Will
promised as much as his aunt or his mother chose to demand from him,
gave them his word that he would never play--no, never; and when the
family retired to rest, Mr. Will would walk over with a dice-box and
a rum-bottle to cousin Harry’s quarters, where he, and Hal, and his
reverence would sit and play until daylight.

When Harry gave to Lord Castlewood those flourishing descriptions of the
maternal estate in America, he had not wished to mislead his kinsman,
or to boast, or to tell falsehoods, for the lad was of a very honest and
truth-telling nature; but, in his life at home, it must be owned
that the young fellow had had acquaintance with all sorts of queer
company,--horse-jockeys, tavern loungers, gambling and sporting men,
of whom a great number were found in his native colony. A landed
aristocracy, with a population of negroes to work their fields, and
cultivate their tobacco and corn, had little other way of amusement
than in the hunting-field, or over the cards and the punch-bowl. The
hospitality of the province was unbounded: every man’s house was his
neighbour’s; and the idle gentlefolks rode from one mansion to another,
finding in each pretty much the same sport, welcome, and rough plenty.
The Virginian squire had often a barefooted valet, and a cobbled saddle;
but there was plenty of corn for the horses, and abundance of drink and
venison for the master within the tumble-down fences, and behind the
cracked windows of the hall. Harry had slept on many a straw mattress,
and engaged in endless jolly night-bouts over claret and punch in
cracked bowls till morning came, and it was time to follow the hounds.
His poor brother was of a much more sober sort, as the lad owned with
contrition. So it is that Nature makes folks; and some love books and
tea, and some like Burgundy and a gallop across country. Our young
fellow’s tastes were speedily made visible to his friends in England.
None of them were partial to the Puritan discipline; nor did they like
Harry the worse for not being the least of a milksop. Manners, you see,
were looser a hundred years ago; tongues were vastly more free-and-easy;
names were named, and things were done, which we should screech now to
hear mentioned. Yes, madam, we are not as our ancestors were. Ought we
not to thank the Fates that have improved our morals so prodigiously,
and made us so eminently virtuous?

So, keeping a shrewd keen eye upon people round about him, and fancying,
not incorrectly, that his cousins were disposed to pump him, Harry
Warrington had thought fit to keep his own counsel regarding his own
affairs, and in all games of chance or matters of sport was quite a
match for the three gentlemen into whose company he had fallen. Even in
the noble game of billiards he could hold his own after a few days’ play
with his cousins and their revered pastor. His grandfather loved the
game, and had over from Europe one of the very few tables which existed
in his Majesty’s province of Virginia. Nor, though Mr. Will could
beat him at the commencement, could he get undue odds out of the young
gamester. After their first bet, Harry was on his guard with Mr. Will,
and cousin William owned, not without respect, that the American was his
match in most things, and his better in many. But though Harry played so
well that he could beat the parson, and soon was the equal of Will, who
of course could beat both the girls, how came it, that in the contests
with these, especially with one of them, Mr. Warrington frequently
came off second? He was profoundly courteous to every being who wore a
petticoat; nor has that traditional politeness yet left his country. All
the women of the Castlewood establishment loved the young gentleman.
The grim housekeeper was mollified by him: the fat cook greeted him with
blowsy smiles; the ladies’-maids, whether of the French or the English
nation, smirked and giggled in his behalf; the pretty porter’s daughter
at the lodge had always a kind word in reply to his. Madame de Bernstein
took note of all these things, and, though she said nothing, watched
carefully the boy’s disposition and behaviour.

Who can say how old Lady Maria Esmond was? Books of the Peerage were
not so many in those days as they are in our blessed times, and I cannot
tell to a few years, or even a lustre or two. When Will used to say she
was five-and-thirty, he was abusive, and, besides, was always given
to exaggeration. Maria was Will’s half-sister. She and my lord were
children of the late Lord Castlewood’s first wife, a German lady, whom,
‘tis known, my lord married in the time of Queen Anne’s wars. Baron
Bernstein, who married Maria’s Aunt Beatrix, Bishop Tusher’s widow, was
also a German, a Hanoverian nobleman, and relative of the first Lady
Castlewood. If my Lady Maria was born under George I., and his Majesty
George II. had been thirty years on the throne, how could she be
seven-and-twenty, as she told Harry Warrington she was? “I am old,
child,” she used to say. She used to call Harry “child” when they were
alone. “I am a hundred years old. I am seven-and-twenty. I might be your
mother almost.” To which Harry would reply, “Your ladyship might be the
mother of all the cupids, I am sure. You don’t look twenty, on my word
you do Dot!”

Lady Maria looked any age you liked. She was a fair beauty with a
dazzling white and red complexion, an abundance of fair hair which
flowed over her shoulders, and beautiful round arms which showed to
uncommon advantage when she played at billiards with cousin Harry. When
she had to stretch across the table to make a stroke, that youth caught
glimpses of a little ankle, a little clocked stocking, and a little
black satin slipper with a little red heel, which filled him with
unutterable rapture, and made him swear that there never was such a
foot, ankle, clocked stocking, satin slipper in the world. And yet, oh,
you foolish Harry! your mother’s foot was ever so much more slender, and
half an inch shorter, than Lady Maria’s. But, somehow, boys do not look
at their mammas’ slippers and ankles with rapture.

No doubt Lady Maria was very kind to Harry when they were alone. Before
her sister, aunt, stepmother, she made light of him, calling him a
simpleton, a chit, and who knows what trivial names? Behind his back,
and even before his face, she mimicked his accent, which smacked
somewhat of his province. Harry blushed and corrected the faulty
intonation, under his English monitresses. His aunt pronounced that they
would soon make him a pretty fellow.

Lord Castlewood, we have said, became daily more familiar and friendly
with his guest and relative. Till the crops were off the ground there
was no sporting, except an occasional cock-match at Winchester, and a
bull-baiting at Hexton Fair. Harry and Will rode off to many jolly fairs
and races round about the young Virginian was presented to some of the
county families--the Henleys of the Grange, the Crawleys of Queen’s
Crawley, the Redmaynes of Lionsden, and so forth. The neighbours came
in their great heavy coaches, and passed two or three days in country
fashion. More of them would have come, but for the fear all the
Castlewood family had of offending Madame de Bernstein. She did not like
country company; the rustical society and conversation annoyed her. “We
shall be merrier when my aunt leaves us,” the young folks owned. “We
have cause, as you may imagine, for being very civil to her. You know
what a favourite she was with our papa? And with reason. She got him his
earldom, being very well indeed at Court at that time with the King and
Queen. She commands here naturally, perhaps a little too much. We are
all afraid of her: even my elder brother stands in awe of her, and my
stepmother is much more obedient to her than she ever was to my papa,
whom she ruled with a rod of iron. But Castlewood is merrier when our
aunt is not here. At least we have much more company. You will come to
us in our gay days, Harry, won’t you? Of course you will: this is your
home, sir. I was so pleased--oh, so pleased--when my brother said he
considered it was your home!”

A soft hand is held out after this pretty speech, a pair of very well
preserved blue eyes look exceedingly friendly. Harry grasps his cousin’s
hand with ardour. I do not know what privilege of cousinship he would
not like to claim, only he is so timid. They call the English selfish
and cold. He at first thought his relatives were so: but how mistaken he
was! How kind and affectionate they are, especially the Earl,--and
dear, dear Maria! How he wishes he could recall that letter which he
had written to Mrs. Mountain and his mother, in which he hinted that his
welcome had been a cold one! The Earl his cousin was everything that was
kind, had promised to introduce him to London society, and present him
at Court, and at White’s. He was to consider Castlewood as his English
home. He had been most hasty in his judgment regarding his relatives
in Hampshire. All this, with many contrite expressions, he wrote in his
second despatch to Virginia. And he added, for it hath been hinted
that the young gentleman did not spell at this early time with especial
accuracy, “My cousin, the Lady Maria, is a perfect Angle.”

“Ille praeter omnes angulus ridet,” muttered little Mr. Dempster, at
home in Virginia.

“The child can’t be falling in love with his angle, as he calls her!”
 cries out Mountain.

“Pooh, pooh! my niece Maria is forty!” says Madam Esmond. “I perfectly
well recollect her when I was at home--a great, gawky, carroty creature,
with a foot like a pair of bellows.” Where is truth, forsooth, and who
knoweth it? Is Beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it
so? Does Venus squint? Has she got a splay-foot, red hair, and a crooked
back? Anoint my eyes, good Fairy Puck, so that I may ever consider the
Beloved Object a paragon! Above all, keep on anointing my mistress’s
dainty peepers with the very strongest ointment, so that my noddle may
ever appear lovely to her, and that she may continue to crown my honest
ears with fresh roses!

Now, not only was Harry Warrington a favourite with some in the
drawing-room, and all the ladies of the servants’-hall, but, like master
like man, his valet Gumbo was very much admired and respected by very
many of the domestic circle. Gumbo had a hundred accomplishments. He
was famous as a fisherman, huntsman, blacksmith. He could dress hair
beautifully, and improved himself in the art under my lord’s own Swiss
gentleman. He was great at cooking many of his Virginian dishes, and
learned many new culinary secrets from my lord’s French man. We have
heard how exquisitely and melodiously he sang at church; and he sang not
only sacred but secular music, often inventing airs and composing rude
words after the habit of his people. He played the fiddle so charmingly,
that he set all the girls dancing in Castlewood Hall, and was ever
welcome to a gratis mug of ale at the Three Castles in the village, if
he would but bring his fiddle with him. He was good-natured and loved
to play for the village children: so that Mr. Warrington’s negro was a
universal favourite in all the Castlewood domain.

Now it was not difficult for the servants’-hall folks to perceive that
Mr. Gumbo was a liar, which fact was undoubted in spite of all his good
qualities. For instance, that day at church, when he pretended to read
out of Molly’s psalm-book, he sang quite other words than those which
were down in the book, of which he could not decipher a syllable. And
he pretended to understand music, whereupon the Swiss valet brought him
some, and Master Gumbo turned the page upside down. These instances of
long-bow practice daily occurred, and were patent to all the Castlewood
household. They knew Gumbo was a liar, perhaps not thinking the worse
of him for this weakness; but they did not know how great a liar he
was, and believed him much more than they had any reason for doing, and
because, I suppose, they liked to believe him.

Whatever might be his feelings of wonder and envy on first viewing the
splendour and comforts of Castlewood, Mr. Gumbo kept his sentiments
to himself, and examined the place, park, appointments, stables, very
coolly. The horses, he said, were very well, what there were of them;
but at Castlewood in Virginia they had six times as many, and let
me see, fourteen eighteen grooms to look after them. Madam Esmond’s
carriages were much finer than my lord’s,--great deal more gold on the
panels. As for her gardens, they covered acres, and they grew every kind
of flower and fruit under the sun. Pineapples and peaches? Pineapples
and peaches were so common, they were given to pigs in his country. They
had twenty forty gardeners, not white gardeners, all black gentlemen,
like hisself. In the house were twenty forty gentlemen in
livery, besides women-servants--never could remember how
many women-servants,--dere were so many: tink dere were fifty
women-servants--all Madam Esmond’s property, and worth ever so many
hundred pieces of eight apiece. How much was a piece of eight? Bigger
than a guinea, a piece of eight was. Tink, Madam Esmond have twenty
thirty thousand guineas a year,--have whole rooms full of gold and
plate. Came to England in one of her ships; have ever so many ships,
Gumbo can’t count how many ships; and estates, covered all over with
tobacco and negroes, and reaching out for a week’s journey. Was Master
Harry heir to all this property? Of course, now Master George was killed
and scalped by the Indians. Gumbo had killed ever so many Indians, and
tried to save Master George, but he was Master Harry’s boy,--and Master
Harry was as rich,--oh, as rich as ever he like. He wore black now,
because Master George was dead; but you should see his chests full of
gold clothes, and lace, and jewels at Bristol. Of course, Master
Harry was the richest man in all Virginia, and might have twenty sixty
servants; only he liked travelling with one best, and that one, it need
scarcely be said, was Gumbo.

This story was not invented at once, but gradually elicited from Mr.
Gumbo, who might have uttered some trifling contradictions during the
progress of the narrative, but by the time he had told his tale twice or
thrice in the servants’-hall or the butler’s private apartment, he
was pretty perfect and consistent in his part, and knew accurately the
number of slaves Madam Esmond kept, and the amount of income which she
enjoyed. The truth is, that as four or five blacks are required to do
the work of one white man, the domestics in American establishments
are much more numerous than in ours; and, like the houses of most other
Virginian landed proprietors, Madam Esmond’s mansion and stables swarmed
with negroes.

Mr. Gumbo’s account of his mistress’s wealth and splendour was carried
to my lord by his lordship’s man, and to Madame de Bernstein and my
ladies by their respective waiting-women, and, we may be sure, lost
nothing in the telling. A young gentleman in England is not the
less liked because he is reputed to be the heir to vast wealth and
possessions; when Lady Castlewood came to hear of Harry’s prodigious
expectations, she repented of her first cool reception of him, and of
having pinched her daughter’s arm till it was black-and-blue for having
been extended towards the youth in too friendly a manner. Was it too
late to have him back into those fair arms? Lady Fanny was welcome to
try, and resumed the dancing-lessons. The Countess would play the music
with all her heart. But, how provoking! that odious, sentimental Maria
would always insist upon being in the room; and, as sure as Fanny walked
in the gardens or the park, so sure would her sister come trailing after
her. As for Madame de Bernstein, she laughed, and was amused at the
stories of the prodigious fortune of her Virginian relatives. She knew
her half-sister’s man of business in London, and very likely was aware
of the real state of Madame Esmond’s money matters; but she did not
contradict the rumours which Gumbo and his fellow-servants had set
afloat; and was not a little diverted by the effect which these reports
had upon the behaviour of the Castlewood family towards their young
kinsman.

“Hang him! Is he so rich, Molly?” said my lord to his elder sister.
“Then good-bye to our chances with your aunt. The Baroness will be sure
to leave him all her money to spite us, and because he doesn’t want
it. Nevertheless, the lad is a good lad enough, and it is not his fault
being rich, you know.”

“He is very simple and modest in his habits for one so wealthy,” remarks
Maria.

“Rich people often are so,” says my lord. “If I were rich, I often think
I would be the greatest miser, and live in rags and on a crust. Depend
on it there is no pleasure so enduring as money-getting. It grows on
you, and increases with old age. But because I am as poor as Lazarus, I
dress in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day.”

Maria went to the book-room and got the History of Virginia, by R. B.
Gent--and read therein what an admirable climate it was, and how all
kinds of fruit and corn grew in that province, and what noble rivers
were those of Potomac and Rappahannoc, abounding in all sorts of fish.
And she wondered whether the climate would agree with her, and whether
her aunt would like her? And Harry was sure his mother would adore
her, so would Mountain. And when he was asked about the number of his
mother’s servants, he said, they certainly had more servants than are
seen in England--he did not know how many. But the negroes did not do
near as much work as English servants did hence the necessity of keeping
so great a number. As for some others of Gumbo’s details which were
brought to him, he laughed and said the boy was wonderful as a romancer,
and in telling such stories he supposed was trying to speak out for the
honour of the family.

So Harry was modest as well as rich! His denials only served to confirm
his relatives’ opinion regarding his splendid expectations. More and
more the Countess and the ladies were friendly and affectionate with
him. More and more Mr. Will betted with him, and wanted to sell him
bargains. Harry’s simple dress and equipage only served to confirm his
friends’ idea of his wealth. To see a young man of his rank and means
with but one servant, and without horses or a carriage of his own--what
modesty! When he went to London he would cut a better figure? Of course
he would. Castlewood would introduce him to the best society in the
capital, and he would appear as he ought to appear at St. James’s. No
man could be more pleasant, wicked, lively, obsequious than the worthy
chaplain, Mr. Sampson. How proud he would be if he could show his young
friend a little of London life!--if he could warn rogues off him, and
keep him out of the way of harm! Mr. Sampson was very kind: everybody
was very kind. Harry liked quite well the respect that was paid to him.
As Madam Esmond’s son he thought perhaps it was his due: and took for
granted that he was the personage which his family imagined him to be.
How should he know better, who had never as yet seen any place but his
own province, and why should he not respect his own condition when other
people respected it so? So all the little knot of people at Castlewood
House, and from these the people in Castlewood village, and from thence
the people in the whole county, chose to imagine that Mr. Harry Esmond
Warrington was the heir of immense wealth, and a gentleman of very
great importance, because his negro valet told lies about him in the
servants’-hall.

Harry’s aunt, Madame de Bernstein, after a week or two, began to tire of
Castlewood and the inhabitants of that mansion, and the neighbours who
came to visit them. This clever woman tired of most things and people
sooner or later. So she took to nodding and sleeping over the chaplain’s
stories, and to doze at her whist and over her dinner, and to be very
snappish and sarcastic in her conversation with her Esmond nephews and
nieces, hitting out blows at my lord and his brother the jockey, and my
ladies, widowed and unmarried, who winced under her scornful remarks,
and bore them as they best might. The cook, whom she had so praised on
first coming, now gave her no satisfaction; the wine was corked; the
house was damp, dreary, and full of draughts; the doors would not shut,
and the chimneys were smoky. She began to think the Tunbridge waters
were very necessary for her, and ordered the doctor, who came to her
from the neighbouring town of Hexton, to order those waters for her
benefit.

“I wish to heaven she would go!” growled my lord, who was the most
independent member of his family. “She may go to Tunbridge, or she may
go to Bath, or she may go to Jericho, for me.”

“Shall Fanny and I come with you to Tunbridge, dear Baroness?” asked
Lady Castlewood of her sister-in-law.

“Not for worlds, my dear! The doctor orders me absolute quiet, and if
you came I should have the knocker going all day, and Fanny’s lovers
would never be out of the house,” answered the Baroness, who was quite
weary of Lady Castlewood’s company.

“I wish I could be of any service to my aunt!” said the sentimental Lady
Maria, demurely.

“My good child, what can you do for me? You cannot play piquet so well
as my maid, and I have heard all your songs till I am perfectly tired of
them! One of the gentlemen might go with me: at least make the journey,
and see me safe from highwaymen.”

“I’m sure, ma’am, I shall be glad to ride with you,” said Mr. Will.

“Oh, not you! I don’t want you, William,” cried the young man’s
aunt. “Why do not you offer, and where are your American manners, you
ungracious Harry Warrington? Don’t swear, Will, Harry is much better
company than you are, and much better ton too, sir.”

“Tong, indeed! Confound his tong,” growled envious Will to himself.

“I dare say I shall be tired of him, as I am of other folks,” continued
the Baroness. “I have scarcely seen Harry at all in these last days. You
shall ride with me to Tunbridge, Harry!”

At this direct appeal, and to no one’s wonder more than that of his
aunt, Mr. Harry Warrington blushed, and hemmed and ha’d and at length
said, “I have promised my cousin Castlewood to go over to Hexton Petty
Sessions with him to-morrow. He thinks I should see how the Courts here
are conducted--and--and--the partridge-shooting will soon begin, and
I have promised to be here for that, ma’am.” Saying which words, Harry
Warrington looked as red as a poppy, whilst Lady Maria held her meek
face downwards, and nimbly plied her needle.

“You actually refuse to go with me to Tunbridge Wells?” called out
Madame Bernstein, her eyes lightening, and her face flushing up with
anger, too.

“Not to ride with you, ma’am; that I will do with all my heart; but to
stay there--I have promised...”

“Enough, enough, sir! I can go alone, and don’t want your escort,” cried
the irate old lady, and rustled out of the room.

The Castlewood family looked at each other with wonder. Will whistled.
Lady Castlewood glanced at Fanny, as much as to say, His chance is over.
Lady Maria never lifted up her eyes from her tambour-frame.



CHAPTER XVII. On the Scent


Young Harry Warrington’s act of revolt came so suddenly upon Madame
de Bernstein, that she had no other way of replying to it, than by the
prompt outbreak of anger with which we left her in the last chapter. She
darted two fierce glances at Lady Fanny and her mother as she quitted
the room. Lady Maria over her tambour-frame escaped without the least
notice, and scarcely lifted up her head from her embroidery, to watch
the aunt retreating, or the looks which mamma-in-law and sister threw at
one another.

“So, in spite of all, you have, madam?” the maternal looks seemed to
say.

“Have what?” asked Lady Fanny’s eyes. But what good in looking innocent?
She looked puzzled. She did not look one-tenth part as innocent as
Maria. Had she been guilty, she would have looked not guilty much more
cleverly; and would have taken care to study and compose a face so as to
be ready to suit the plea. Whatever was the expression of Fanny’s eyes,
mamma glared on her as if she would have liked to tear them out.

But Lady Castlewood could not operate upon the said eyes then and there,
like the barbarous monsters in the stage-direction in King Lear. When
her ladyship was going to tear out her daughter’s eyes, she would retire
smiling, with an arm round her dear child’s waist, and then gouge her in
private.

“So you don’t fancy going with the old lady to Tunbridge Wells?” was
all she said to Cousin Warrington, wearing at the same time a perfectly
well-bred simper on her face.

“And small blame to our cousin!” interposed my lord. (The face over the
tambour-frame looked up for one instant.) “A young fellow must not have
it all idling and holiday. Let him mix up something useful with his
pleasures, and go to the fiddles and pump-rooms at Tunbridge or the Bath
later. Mr. Warrington has to conduct a great estate in America: let him
see how ours in England are carried on. Will hath shown him the kennel
and the stables; and the games in vogue, which I think, cousin, you
seem to play as well as your teachers. After harvest we will show him
a little English fowling and shooting: in winter we will take him
out a-hunting. Though there has been a coolness between us and our
aunt-kinswoman in Virginia, yet we are of the same blood. Ere we
send our cousin back to his mother, let us show him what an English
gentleman’s life at home is. I should like to read with him as well as
sport with him, and that is why I have been pressing him of late to stay
and bear me company.”

My lord spoke with such perfect frankness that his mother-in-law and
half-brother and sister could not help wondering what his meaning
could be. The three last-named persons often held little conspiracies
together, and caballed or grumbled against the head of the house. When
he adopted that frank tone, there was no fathoming his meaning: often it
would not be discovered until months had passed. He did not say, “This
is true,” but, “I mean that this statement should be accepted and
believed in my family.” It was then a thing convenue, that my Lord
Castlewood had a laudable desire to cultivate the domestic affections,
and to educate, amuse, and improve his young relative; and that he had
taken a great fancy to the lad, and wished that Harry should stay for
some time near his lordship.

“What is Castlewood’s game now?” asked William of his mother and sister
as they disappeared into the corridors. “Stop! By George, I have it!”

“What, William?”

“He intends to get him to play, and to win the Virginia estate back from
him. That’s what it is!”

“But the lad has not got the Virginia estate to pay, if he loses,”
 remarks mamma.

“If my brother has not some scheme in view, may I be----.”

“Hush! Of course he has a scheme in view. But what is it?”

“He can’t mean Maria--Maria is as old as Harry’s mother,” muses Mr.
William.

“Pooh! with her old face and sandy hair and freckled skin! Impossible!”
 cries Lady Fanny, with somewhat of a sigh.

“Of course, your ladyship had a fancy for the Iroquois, too!” cried
mamma.

“I trust I know my station and duty better, madam! If I had liked him,
that is no reason why I should marry him. Your ladyship hath taught me
as much as that.”

“My Lady Fanny!”

“I am sure you married our papa without liking him. You have told me so
a thousand times!”

“And if you did not love our father before marriage, you certainly did
not fall in love with him afterwards,” broke in Mr. William, with a
laugh. “Fan and I remember how our honoured parents used to fight. Don’t
us, Fan? And our brother Esmond kept the peace.”

“Don’t recall those dreadful low scenes, William!” cries mamma. “When
your father took too much drink, he was like a madman; and his conduct
should be a warning to you, sir, who are fond of the same horrid
practice.”

“I am sure, madam, you were not much the happier for marrying the man
you did not like, and your ladyship’s title hath brought very little
along with it,” whimpered out Lady Fanny. “What is the use of a coronet
with the jointure of a tradesman’s wife?--how many of them are richer
than we are? There is come lately to live in our Square, at Kensington,
a grocer’s widow from London Bridge, whose daughters have three gowns
where I have one; and who, though they are waited on but by a man and a
couple of maids, I know eat and drink a thousand times better than we
do with our scraps of cold meat on our plate, and our great flaunting,
trapesing, impudent, lazy lacqueys!”

“He! he! glad I dine at the palace, and not at home!” said Mr. Will.
(Mr. Will, through his aunt’s interest with Count Puffendorff, Groom
of the Royal {and Serene Electoral} Powder-Closet, had one of the many
small places at Court, that of Deputy Powder.)

“Why should I not be happy without any title except my own?” continued
Lady Frances. “Many people are. I dare say they are even happy in
America.”

“Yes!--with a mother-in-law who is a perfect Turk and Tartar, for all I
hear--with Indian war-whoops howling all around you and with a danger
of losing your scalp, or of being eat up by a wild beast every time you
went to church.”

“I wouldn’t go to church,” said Lady Fanny.

“You’d go with anybody who asked you, Fan!” roared out Mr. Will: “and
so would old Maria, and so would any woman, that’s the fact.” And Will
laughed at his own wit.

“Pray, good folks, what is all your merriment about?” here asked Madame
Bernstein, peeping in on her relatives from the tapestried door which
led into the gallery where their conversation was held.

Will told her that his mother and sister had been having a fight (which
was not a novelty, as Madame Bernstein knew), because Fanny wanted to
marry their cousin, the wild Indian, and my lady Countess would not let
her. Fanny protested against this statement. Since the very first day
when her mother had told her not to speak to the young gentleman, she
had scarcely exchanged two words with him. She knew her station better.
She did not want to be scalped by wild Indians, or eat up by bears.

Madame de Bernstein looked puzzled. “If he is not staying for you, for
whom is he staying?” she asked. “At the houses to which he has been
carried, you have taken care not to show him a woman that is not a
fright or in the nursery; and I think the boy is too proud to fall in
love with a dairymaid, Will.”

“Humph! That is a matter of taste, ma’am,” says Mr. William, with a
shrug of his shoulders.

“Of Mr. William Esmond’s taste, as you say; but not of yonder boy’s. The
Esmonds of his grandfather’s nurture, sir, would not go a-courting in
the kitchen.”

“Well, ma’am, every man to his taste, I say again. A fellow might go
farther and fare worse than my brother’s servants’-hall, and besides
Fan, there’s only the maids or old Maria to choose from.”

“Maria! Impossible!” And yet, as she spoke the very words, a sudden
thought crossed Madame Bernstein’s mind, that this elderly Calypso might
have captivated her young Telemachus. She called to mind half a dozen
instances in her own experience of young men who had been infatuated by
old women. She remembered how frequent Harry Warrington’s absences
had been of late--absences which she attributed to his love for field
sports. She remembered how often, when he was absent, Maria Esmond
was away too. Walks in cool avenues, whisperings in garden temples, or
behind clipt hedges, casual squeezes of the hand in twilight corridors,
or sweet glances and ogles in meetings on the stairs,--a lively fancy,
an intimate knowledge of the world, very likely a considerable personal
experience in early days, suggested all these possibilities and
chances to Madame de Bernstein, just as she was saying that they were
impossible.

“Impossible, ma’am! I don’t know,” Will continued. “My mother warned Fan
off him.”

“Oh, your mother did warn Fanny off?”

“Certainly, my dear Baroness!”

“Didn’t she? Didn’t she pinch Fanny’s arm black-and-blue? Didn’t they
fight about it?”

“Nonsense, William! For shame, William!” cry both the implicated ladies
in a breath.

“And now, since we have heard how rich he is, perhaps it is sour grapes,
that is all. And now, since he is warned off the young bird, perhaps he
is hunting the old one, that’s all. Impossible why impossible? You know
old Lady Suffolk, ma’am?”

“William, how can you speak about Lady Suffolk to your aunt?”

A grin passed over the countenance of the young gentleman. “Because
Lady Suffolk was a special favourite at Court? Well, other folks have
succeeded her.”

“Sir!” cries Madame de Bernstein, who may have had her reasons to take
offence.

“So they have, I say; or who, pray, is my Lady Yarmouth now? And didn’t
old Lady Suffolk go and fall in love with George Berkeley, and marry him
when she was ever so old? Nay, ma’am, if I remember right--and we hear
a deal of town-talk at our table--Harry Estridge went mad about your
ladyship when you were somewhat rising twenty; and would have changed
your name a third time if you would but have let him.”

This allusion to an adventure of her own later days, which was, indeed,
pretty notorious to all the world, did not anger Madame de Bernstein,
like Will’s former hint about his aunt having been a favourite at George
the Second’s Court; but, on the contrary, set her in good-humour.

“Au fait,” she said, musing, as she played a pretty little hand on the
table, and no doubt thinking about mad young Harry Estridge; ‘tis not
impossible, William, that old folks, and young folks, too, should play
the fool.”

“But I can’t understand a young fellow being in love with Maria,”
 continued Mr. William, “however he might be with you, ma’am. That’s oter
shose, as our French tutor used to say. You remember the Count, ma’am;
he! he!--and so does Maria!”

“William!”

“And I dare say the Count remembers the bastinado Castlewood had given
to him. A confounded French dancing-master calling himself a count, and
daring to fall in love in our family! Whenever I want to make myself
uncommonly agreeable to old Maria, I just say a few words of parly voo
to her. She knows what I mean.”

“Have you abused her to your cousin, Harry Warrington?” asked Madame de
Bernstein.

“Well--I know she is always abusing me--and I have said my mind about
her,” said Will.

“Oh, you idiot!” cried the old lady. “Who but a gaby ever spoke ill of a
woman to her sweetheart? He will tell her everything, and they both will
hate you.”

“The very thing, ma’am!” cried Will, bursting into a great laugh. “I
had a sort of a suspicion, you see, and two days ago, as we were riding
together, I told Harry Warrington a bit of my mind about Maria;--why
shouldn’t I, I say? She is always abusing me, ain’t she, Fan? And your
favourite turned as red as my plush waistcoat--wondered how a gentleman
could malign his own flesh and blood, and, trembling all over with rage,
said I was no true Esmond.”

“Why didn’t you chastise him, sir, as my lord did the dancing-master?”
 cried Lady Castlewood.

“Well, mother,--you see that at quarter-staff there’s two sticks used,”
 replied Mr. William; “and my opinion is, that Harry Warrington can guard
his own head uncommonly well. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I
did not offer to treat my cousin to a caning. And now you say so, ma’am,
I know he has told Maria. She has been looking battle, murder, and
sudden death at me ever since. All which shows----” and here he turned
to his aunt.

“All which shows what?”

“That I think we are on the right scent; and that we’ve found Maria--the
old fox!” And the ingenuous youth here clapped his hand to his mouth,
and gave a loud halloo.

How far had this pretty intrigue gone? now was the question. Mr. Will
said, that at her age, Maria would be for conducting matters as rapidly
as possible, not having much time to lose. There was not a great deal of
love lost between Will and his half-sister.

“Who would sift the matter to the bottom? Scolding one party or the
other was of no avail. Threats only serve to aggravate people in such
cases. I never was in danger but once, young people,” said Madame de
Bernstein, “and I think that was because my poor mother contradicted me.
If this boy is like others of his family, the more we oppose him, the
more entete he will be; and we shall never get him out of his scrape.”

“Faith, ma’am, suppose we leave him in it?” grumbled Will. “Old Maria
and I don’t love each other too much, I grant you; but an English earl’s
daughter is good enough for an American tobacco-planter, when all is
said and done.”

Here his mother and sister broke out. They would not hear of such a
union. To which Will answered, “You are like the dog in the manger. You
don’t want the man yourself, Fanny”

“I want him, indeed!” cries Lady Fanny, with a toss of her head.

“Then why grudge him to Maria? I think Castlewood wants her to have
him.”

“Why grudge him to Maria, sir?” cried Madame de Bernstein, with great
energy. “Do you remember who the poor boy is, and what your house owes
to his family? His grandfather was the best friend your father ever had,
and gave up this estate, this title, this very castle, in which you
are conspiring against the friendless Virginian lad, that you and yours
might profit by it. And the reward for all this kindness is, that you
all but shut the door on the child when he knocks at it, and talk of
marrying him to a silly elderly creature who might be his mother! He
shan’t marry her.”

“The very thing we were saying and thinking, my dear Baroness!”
 interposes Lady Castlewood. “Our part of the family is not eager about
the match, though my lord and Maria may be.”

“You would like him for yourself, now that you hear he is rich--and may
be richer, young people, mind you that,” cried Madam Beatrix, turning
upon the other women.

“Mr. Warrington may be ever so rich, madam, but there is no need why
your ladyship should perpetually remind us that we are poor,” broke
in Lady Castlewood, with some spirit. “At least there is very little
disparity in Fanny’s age and Mr. Harry’s; and you surely will be the
last to say that a lady of our name and family is not good enough for
any gentleman born in Virginia or elsewhere.”

“Let Fanny take an English gentleman, Countess, not an American. With
such a name and such a mother to help her, and with all her good looks
and accomplishments, sure, she can’t fail of finding a man worthy of
her. But from what I know about the daughters of this house, and what I
imagine about our young cousin, I am certain that no happy match could
be made between them.”

“What does my aunt know about me?” asked Lady Fanny, turning very red.

“Only your temper, my dear. You don’t suppose that I believe all the
tittle-tattle and scandal which one cannot help hearing in town? But
the temper and early education are sufficient. Only fancy one of you
condemned to leave St. James’s and the Mall, and live in a plantation
surrounded by savages! You would die of ennui, or worry your husband’s
life out with your ill-humour. You are born, ladies, to ornament
courts--not wigwams. Let this lad go back to his wilderness with a wife
who is suited to him.”

The other two ladies declared in a breath that, for their parts, they
desired no better, and, after a few more words, went on their way, while
Madame de Bernstein, lifting up her tapestried door, retired into her
own chamber. She saw all the scheme now; she admired the ways of women,
calling a score of little circumstances back to mind. She wondered at
her own blindness during the last few days, and that she should not have
perceived the rise and progress of this queer little intrigue. How far
had it gone? was now the question. Was Harry’s passion of the serious
and tragical sort, or a mere fire of straw which a day or two would burn
out? How deeply was he committed? She dreaded the strength of Harry’s
passion, and the weakness of Maria’s. A woman of her age is so
desperate, Madame Bernstein may have thought, that she will make any
efforts to secure a lover. Scandal, bah! She will retire and be a
princess in Virginia, and leave the folks in England to talk as much
scandal as they choose.

Is there always, then, one thing which women do not tell to one another,
and about which they agree to deceive each other? Does the concealment
arise from deceit or modesty? A man, as soon as he feels an inclination
for one of the other sex, seeks for a friend of his own to whom he may
impart the delightful intelligence. A woman (with more or less skill)
buries her secret away from her kind. For days and weeks past, had not
this old Maria made fools of the whole house,--Maria, the butt of the
family?

I forbear to go into too curious inquiries regarding the Lady Maria’s
antecedents. I have my own opinion about Madame Bernstein’s. A hundred
years ago people of the great world were not so straitlaced as they
are now, when everybody is good, pure, moral, modest; when there is no
skeleton in anybody’s closet; when there is no scheming; no slurring
over old stories; when no girl tries to sell herself for wealth, and no
mother abets her. Suppose my Lady Maria tries to make her little game,
wherein is her ladyship’s great eccentricity?

On these points no doubt the Baroness de Bernstein thought, as she
communed with herself in her private apartment.



CHAPTER XVIII. An Old Story


As my Lady Castlewood and her son and daughter passed through one
door of the saloon where they had all been seated, my Lord Castlewood
departed by another issue; and then the demure eyes looked up from the
tambour-frame on which they had persisted hitherto in examining the
innocent violets and jonquils. The eyes looked up at Harry Warrington,
who stood at an ancestral portrait under the great fireplace. He had
gathered a great heap of blushes (those flowers which bloom so rarely
after gentlefolks’ springtime), and with them ornamented his honest
countenance, his cheeks, his forehead, nay, his youthful ears.

“Why did you refuse to go with our aunt, cousin?” asked the lady of the
tambour frame.

“Because your ladyship bade me stay,” answered the lad.

“I bid you stay! La! child! What one says in fun, you take in earnest!
Are all you Virginian gentlemen so obsequious as to fancy every idle
word a lady says is a command? Virginia must be a pleasant country for
our sex if it be so!”

“You said--when--when we walked in the terrace two nights since,--O
heaven!” cried Harry, with a voice trembling with emotion.

“Ah, that sweet night, cousin!” cries the Tambour-frame.

“Whe--whe--when you gave me this rose from your own neck,”--roared
out Harry, pulling suddenly a crumpled and decayed vegetable from his
waistcoat--“which I will never part with--with, no, by heavens, whilst
this heart continues to beat! You said, ‘Harry, if your aunt asks you
to go away, you will go, and if you go, you will forget me.’--Didn’t you
say so?”

“All men forget!” said the Virgin, with a sigh.

“In this cold selfish country they may, cousin, not in ours,” continues
Harry, yet in the same state of exaltation--“I had rather have lost an
arm almost than refused the old lady. I tell you it went to my heart
to say no to her, and she so kind to me, and who had been the means of
introducing me to--to--O heaven!”

(Here a kick to an intervening spaniel, which flies yelping from before
the fire, and a rapid advance on the tambour-frame.) “Look here, cousin!
If you were to bid me jump out of yonder window, I should do it; or
murder, I should do it.”

“La! but you need not squeeze one’s hand so, you silly child!” remarks
Maria.

“I can’t help it--we are so in the south. Where my heart is, I can’t
help speaking my mind out, cousin--and you know where that heart is!
Ever since that evening--that--O heaven! I tell you I have hardly slept
since--I want to do something--to distinguish myself--to be ever so
great. I wish there was giants, Maria, as I have read of in--in books,
that I could go and fight ‘em. I wish you was in distress, that I might
help you, somehow. I wish you wanted my blood, that I might spend
every drop of it for you. And when you told me not to go with Madame
Bernstein...”

“I tell thee, child? never.”

“I thought you told me. You said you knew I preferred my aunt to my
cousin, and I said then what I say now, ‘Incomparable Maria! I prefer
thee to all the women in the world and all the angels in Paradise--and
I would go anywhere, were it to dungeons, if you ordered me!’ And do you
think I would not stay anywhere, when you only desired that I should be
near you?” he added, after a moment’s pause.

“Men always talk in that way--that is,--that is, I have heard so,” said
the spinster, correcting herself; “for what should a country-bred woman
know about you creatures? When you are near us, they say you are all
raptures and flames and promises and I don’t know what; when you are
away, you forget all about us.”

“But I think I never want to go away as long as I live,” groaned out
the young man. “I have tired of many things; not books and that, I never
cared for study much, but games and sports which I used to be fond
of when I was a boy. Before I saw you, it was to be a soldier I most
desired; I tore my hair with rage when my poor dear brother went away
instead of me on that expedition in which we lost him. But now, I only
care for one thing in the world, and you know what that is.”

“You silly child! don’t you know I am almost old enough to be...?”

“I know--I know! but what is that to me? Hasn’t your br...--well, never
mind who, some of ‘em-told me stories against you, and didn’t they show
me the Family Bible, where all your names are down, and the dates of
your birth?”

“The cowards! Who did that?” cried out Lady Maria. “Dear Harry, tell me
who did that? Was it my mother-in-law, the grasping, odious, abandoned,
brazen harpy? Do you know all about her? How she married my father in
his cups--the horrid hussey!--and...”

“Indeed it wasn’t Lady Castlewood,” interposed the wondering Harry.

“Then it was my aunt,” continued the infuriate lady. “A pretty moralist,
indeed! A bishop’s widow, forsooth, and I should like to know whose
widow before and afterwards. Why, Harry, she intrigue: with the
Pretender, and with the Court of Hanover, and, I dare say, would with
the Court of Rome and the Sultan of Turkey if she had had the means. Do
you know who her second husband was? A creature who...”

“But our aunt never spoke a word against you,” broke in Harry, more and
more amazed at the nymph’s vehemence.

She checked her anger. In the inquisitive countenance opposite to
her she thought she read some alarm as to the temper which she was
exhibiting.

“Well, well! I am a fool,” she said. “I want thee to think well of me,
Harry!”

A hand is somehow put out and seized and, no doubt, kissed by the
rapturous youth. “Angel!” he cries, looking into her face with his
eager, honest eyes.

Two fish-pools irradiated by a pair of stars would not kindle to greater
warmth than did those elderly orbs into which Harry poured his gaze.
Nevertheless, he plunged into their blue depths, and fancied he saw
heaven in their calm brightness. So that silly dog (of whom Aesop or the
Spelling-book used to tell us in youth) beheld a beef-bone in the pond,
and snapped at it, and lost the beef-bone he was carrying. O absurd cur!
He saw the beefbone in his own mouth reflected in the treacherous pool,
which dimpled, I dare say, with ever so many smiles, coolly sucked up
the meat, and returned to its usual placidity. Ah! what a heap of wreck
lie beneath some of those quiet surfaces! What treasures we have dropped
into them! What chased golden dishes, what precious jewels of love, what
bones after bones, and sweetest heart’s flesh! Do not some very faithful
and unlucky dogs jump in bodily, when they are swallowed up heads and
tails entirely? When some women come to be dragged, it is a marvel what
will be found in the depths of them. Cavete, canes! Have a care how ye
lap that water. What do they want with us, the mischievous siren sluts?
A green-eyed Naiad never rests until she has inveigled a fellow under
the water; she sings after him, she dances after him; she winds round
him, glittering tortuously; she warbles and whispers dainty secrets at
his cheek, she kisses his feet, she leers at him from out of her rushes:
all her beds sigh out, “Come, sweet youth! Hither, hither, rosy Hylas!”
 Pop goes Hylas. (Surely the fable is renewed for ever and ever?) Has his
captivator any pleasure? Doth she take any account of him? No more than
a fisherman landing at Brighton does of one out of a hundred thousand
herrings.... The last time. Ulysses rowed by the Sirens’ bank, he and
his men did not care though a whole shoal of them were singing and
combing their longest locks. Young Telemachus was for jumping overboard:
but the tough old crew held the silly, bawling lad. They were deaf, and
could not hear his bawling nor the sea-nymphs’ singing. They were dim
of sight, and did not see how lovely the witches were. The stale, old,
leering witches! Away with ye! I dare say you have painted your cheeks
by this time; your wretched old songs are as out of fashion as Mozart,
and it is all false hair you are combing!

In the last sentence you see Lector Benevolus and Scriptor Doctissimus
figure as tough old Ulysses and his tough old Boatswain, who do not care
a quid of tobacco for any Siren at Sirens’ Point; but Harry Warrington
is green Telemachus, who, be sure, was very unlike the soft youth in the
good Bishop of Cambray’s twaddling story. He does not see that the siren
paints the lashes from under which she ogles him; will put by into a box
when she has done the ringlets into which she would inveigle him; and
if she eats him, as she proposes to do, will crunch his bones with a new
set of grinders just from the dentist’s, and warranted for mastication.
The song is not stale to Harry Warrington, nor the voice cracked or out
of tune that sings it. But--but--oh, dear me, Brother Boatswain! Don’t
you remember how pleasant the opera was when we first heard it? Cosi
fan tutti was its name--Mozart’s music. Now, I dare say, they have other
words, and other music, and other singers and fiddlers, and another
great crowd in the pit. Well, well, Cosi fan tutti is still upon the
bills, and they are going on singing it over and over and over.

Any man or woman with a pennyworth of brains, or the like precious
amount of personal experience, or who has read a novel before, must,
when Harry pulled out those faded vegetables just now, have gone off
into a digression of his own, as the writer confesses for himself he was
diverging whilst he has been writing the last brace of paragraphs. If he
sees a pair of lovers whispering in a garden alley or the embrasure of
a window, or a pair of glances shot across the room from Jenny to the
artless Jessamy, he falls to musing on former days when, etc. etc. These
things follow each other by a general law, which is not as old as the
hills, to be sure, but as old as the people who walk up and down them.
When, I say, a lad pulls a bunch of amputated and now decomposing greens
from his breast and falls to kissing it, what is the use of saying much
more? As well tell the market-gardener’s name from whom the slip-rose
was bought--the waterings, clippings, trimmings, manurings, the plant
has undergone--as tell how Harry Warrington came by it. Rose, elle a
vecu la vie des roses, has been trimmed, has been watered, has been
potted, has been sticked, has been cut, worn, given away, transferred
to yonder boy’s pocket-book and bosom, according to the laws and fate
appertaining to roses.

And how came Maria to give it to Harry? And how did he come to want it
and to prize it so passionately when he got the bit of rubbish? Is not
one story as stale as the other? Are not they all alike? What is the
use, I say, of telling them over and over? Harry values that rose
because Maria has ogled him in the old way; because she has happened to
meet him in the garden in the old way; because he has taken her hand in
the old way; because they have whispered to one another behind the old
curtain (the gaping old rag, as if everybody could not peep through
it!); because, in this delicious weather, they have happened to be early
risers and go into the park; because dear Goody Jenkins in the village
happened to have a bad knee, and my lady Maria went to read to her, and
gave her calves’-foot jelly, and because somebody, of course, must carry
the basket. Whole chapters might have been written to chronicle
all these circumstances, but A quoi bon? The incidents of life, and
love-making especially, I believe to resemble each other so much, that
I am surprised, gentlemen and ladies, you read novels any more. Psha! Of
course that rose in young Harry’s pocket-book had grown, and had budded,
and had bloomed, and was now rotting, like other roses. I suppose you
will want me to say that the young fool kissed it next? Of course he
kissed it. What were lips made for, pray, but for smiling and simpering,
and (possibly) humbugging, and kissing, and opening to receive
mutton-chops, cigars, and so forth? I cannot write this part of the
story of our Virginians, because Harry did not dare to write it himself
to anybody at home, because, if he wrote any letters to Maria (which,
of course, he did, as they were in the same house, and might meet each
other as much as they liked), they were destroyed; because he afterwards
chose to be very silent about the story, and we can’t have it from her
ladyship, who never told the truth about anything. But cui bono? I say
again. What is the good of telling the story? My gentle reader, take
your story: take mine. To-morrow it shall be Miss Fanny’s, who is just
walking away with her doll to the schoolroom and the governess (poor
victim! she has a version of it in her desk): and next day it shall be
Baby’s, who is bawling out on the stairs for his bottle.

Maria might like to have and exercise power over the young Virginian;
but she did not want that Harry should quarrel with his aunt for her
sake, or that Madame de Bernstein should be angry with her. Harry was
not the Lord of Virginia yet: he was only the Prince, and the Queen
might marry and have other Princes, and the laws of primogeniture might
not be established in Virginia, qu’en savait elle? My lord her brother
and she had exchanged no words at all about the delicate business. But
they understood each other, and the Earl had a way of understanding
things without speaking. He knew his Maria perfectly well: in the course
of a life of which not a little had been spent in her brother’s company
and under his roof, Maria’s disposition, ways, tricks, faults, had come
to be perfectly understood by the head of the family; and she would find
her little schemes checked or aided by him, as to his lordship seemed
good, and without need of any words between them. Thus three days
before, when she happened to be going to see that poor dear old Goody,
who was ill with the sore knee in the village (and when Harry Warrington
happened to be walking behind the elms on the green too), my lord with
his dogs about him, and his gardener walking after him, crossed the
court, just as Lady Maria was tripping to the gate-house--and his
lordship called his sister, and said: “Molly, you are going to see Goody
Jenkins. You are a charitable soul, my dear. Give Gammer Jenkins this
half-crown for me--unless our cousin, Warrington, has already given her
money. A pleasant walk to you. Let her want for nothing.” And at supper,
my lord asked Mr. Warrington many questions about the poor in Virginia,
and the means of maintaining them, to which the young gentleman gave the
best answers he might. His lordship wished that in the old country there
were no more poor people than in the new: and recommended Harry to
visit the poor and people of every degree, indeed, high and low--in the
country to look at the agriculture, in the city at the manufactures
and municipal institutions--to which edifying advice Harry acceded with
becoming modesty and few words, and Madame Bernstein nodded approval
over her piquet with the chaplain. Next day, Harry was in my lord’s
justice-room: the next day he was out ever so long with my lord on
the farm--and coming home, what does my lord do, but look in on a
sick tenant? I think Lady Maria was out on that day, too; she had been
reading good books to that poor dear Goody Jenkins, though I don’t
suppose Madame Bernstein ever thought of asking about her niece.


“CASTLEWOOD, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND, August 5, 1757.

“MY DEAR MOUNTAIN--At first, as I wrote, I did not like Castlewood, nor
my cousins there, very much. Now, I am used to their ways, and we begin
to understand each other much better. With my duty to my mother, tell
her, I hope, that considering her ladyship’s great kindness to me, Madam
Esmond will be reconciled to her half-sister, the Baroness de Bernstein.
The Baroness, you know, was my Grandmamma’s daughter by her first
husband, Lord Castlewood (only Grandpapa really was the real lord);
however, that was not his, that is, the other Lord Castlewood’s fault,
you know, and he was very kind to Grandpapa, who always spoke most
kindly of him to us as you know.

“Madame the Baroness Bernstein first married a clergyman, Reverend
Mr. Tusher, who was so learned and good, and such a favourite of his
Majesty, as was my aunt too, that he was made a Bishop. When he died,
Our gracious King continued his friendship to my aunt; who married a
Hanoverian nobleman, who occupied a post at the Court--and, I believe,
left the Baroness very rich. My cousin, my Lord Castlewood, told me
so much about her, and I am sure I have found from her the greatest
kindness and affection.

“The (Dowiger) Countess Castlewood and my cousins Will and Lady Fanny
have been described per last, that went by the Falmouth packet on the
20th ult. The ladies are not changed since then. Me and Cousin Will are
very good friends. We have rode out a good deal. We have had some famous
cocking matches at Hampton and Winton. My cousin is a sharp blade, but I
think I have shown him that we in Virginia know a thing or two. Reverend
Mr. Sampson, chaplain of the famaly, most excellent preacher, without
any biggatry.

“The kindness of my cousin the Earl improves every day, and by next
year’s ship I hope my mother will send his lordship some of our best
roll tobacco (for tennants) and hamms. He is most charatable to the
poor. His sister, Lady Maria, equally so. She sits for hours reading
good books to the sick: she is most beloved in the village.”


“Nonsense!” said a lady to whom Harry submitted his precious manuscript.
“Why do you flatter me, cousin?”

“You are beloved in the village and out of it,” said Harry, with a
knowing emphasis, “and I have flattered you, as you call it, a little
more still, farther on.”


“There is a sick old woman there, whom Madam Esmond would like, a most
raligious, good, old lady.

“Lady Maria goes very often to read to her; which, she says, gives
her comfort. But though her Ladyship hath the sweetest voice, both in
speaking and singeing (she plays the church organ, and singes there most
beautifully), I cannot think Gammer Jenkins can have any comfort from
it, being very deaf, by reason of her great age. She has her memory
perfectly, however, and remembers when my honoured Grandmother Rachel
Lady Castlewood lived here. She says, my Grandmother was the best woman
in the whole world, gave her a cow when she was married, and cured her
husband, Gaffer Jenkins, of the collects, which he used to have very
bad. I suppose it was with the Pills and Drops which my honoured Mother
put up in my boxes, when I left dear Virginia. Having never been ill
since, have had no use for the pills. Gumbo hath, eating and drinking
a great deal too much in the Servants’ Hall. The next angel to my
Grandmother (N.B. I think I spelt angel wrong per last), Gammer Jenkins
says, is Lady Maria, who sends her duty to her Aunt in Virginia, and
remembers her, and my Grandpapa and Grandmamma when they were in Europe,
and she was a little girl. You know they have Grandpapa’s picture here,
and I live in the very rooms which he had, and which are to be called
mine, my Lord Castlewood says.

“Having no more to say, at present, I close with best love and duty to
my honoured Mother, and with respects to Mr. Dempster, and a kiss for
Fanny, and kind remembrances to Old Gumbo, Nathan, Old and Young Dinah,
and the pointer dog and Slut, and all friends, from their well-wisher                                               HENRY ESMOND WARRINGTON.”

“Have wrote and sent my duty to my Uncle Warrington in Norfolk. No anser
as yet.”


“I hope the spelling is right, cousin?” asked the author of the letter,
from the critic to whom he showed it.

“‘Tis quite well enough spelt for any person of fashion,” answered
Lady Maria, who did not choose to be examined too closely regarding the
orthography.

“One word ‘Angel,’ I know, I spelt wrong in writing to my mamma, but I
have learned a way of spelling it right, now.”

“And how is that, sir?”

“I think ‘tis by looking at you, cousin;” saying which words, Mr. Harry
made her ladyship a low bow, and accompanied the bow by one of his best
blushes, as if he were offering her a bow and a bouquet.



CHAPTER XIX. Containing both Love and Luck


At the next meal, when the family party assembled, there was not a trace
of displeasure in Madame de Bernstein’s countenance, and her behaviour
to all the company, Harry included, was perfectly kind and cordial. She
praised the cook this time, declared the fricassee was excellent, and
that there were no eels anywhere like those in the Castlewood moats;
would not allow that the wine was corked, or hear of such extravagance
as opening a fresh bottle for a useless old woman like her; gave Madam
Esmond Warrington, of Virginia, as her toast, when the new wine was
brought, and hoped Harry had brought away his mamma’s permission to take
back an English wife with him. He did not remember his grandmother; her,
Madame de Bernstein’s, dear mother? The Baroness amused the company
with numerous stories of her mother, of her beauty and goodness, of her
happiness with her second husband, though the wife was so much older
than Colonel Esmond. To see them together was delightful, she had heard.
Their attachment was celebrated all through the country. To talk of
disparity in marriages was vain after that. My Lady Castlewood and her
two children held their peace whilst Madame Bernstein prattled. Harry
was enraptured, and Maria surprised. Lord Castlewood was puzzled to know
what sudden freak or scheme had occasioned this prodigious amiability
on the part of his aunt; but did not allow the slightest expression of
solicitude or doubt to appear on his countenance, which wore every mark
of the most perfect satisfaction.

The Baroness’s good-humour infected the whole family; not one person at
table escaped a gracious word from her. In reply to some compliment to
Mr. Will, when that artless youth uttered an expression of satisfaction
and surprise at his aunt’s behaviour, she frankly said: “Complimentary,
my dear! Of course I am. I want to make up with you for having been
exceedingly rude to everybody this morning. When I was a child, and my
father and mother were alive, and lived here, I remember I used to adopt
exactly the same behaviour. If I had been naughty in the morning, I used
to try and coax my parents at night. I remember in this very room, at
this very table--oh, ever so many hundred years ago!--so coaxing my
father, and mother, and your grandfather, Harry Warrington; and there
were eels for supper, as we have had them to-night, and it was that dish
of collared eels which brought the circumstance back to my mind. I
had been just as wayward that day, when I was seven years old, as I
am to-day, when I am seventy, and so I confess my sins, and ask to be
forgiven, like a good girl.”

“I absolve your ladyship!” cried the chaplain, who made one of the
party.

“But your reverence does not know how cross and ill-tempered I was. I
scolded my sister, Castlewood: I scolded her children, I boxed Harry
Warrington’s ears: and all because he would not go with me to Tunbridge
Wells.”

“But I will go, madam; I will ride with you with all the pleasure in
life,” said Mr. Warrington.

“You see, Mr. Chaplain, what good, dutiful children they all are. ‘Twas
I alone who was cross and peevish. Oh, it was cruel of me to treat them
so! Maria, I ask your pardon, my dear.”

“Sure, madam, you have done me no wrong,” says Maria to this humble
suppliant.

“Indeed, I have, a very great wrong, child! Because I was weary of
myself, I told you that your company would be wearisome to me. You
offered to come with me to Tunbridge, and I rudely refused you.”

“Nay, ma’am, if you were sick, and my presence annoyed you...

“But it will not annoy me! You were most kind to say that you would
come. I do, of all things, beg, pray, entreat, implore, command that you
will come.”

My lord filled himself a glass, and sipped it. Most utterly unconscious
did his lordship look. This, then, was the meaning of the previous
comedy.

“Anything which can give my aunt pleasure, I am sure, will delight me,”
 said Maria, trying to look as happy as possible.

“You must come and stay with me, my dear, and I promise to be good and
good-humoured. My dear lord, you will spare your sister to me?”

“Lady Maria Esmond is quite of age to judge for herself about such a
matter,” said his lordship, with a bow. “If any of us can be of use
to you, madam, you sure ought to command us.” Which sentence, being
interpreted, no doubt meant, “Plague take the old woman! She is taking
Maria away in order to separate her from this young Virginian.”

“Oh, Tunbridge will be delightful!” sighed Lady Maria.

“Mr. Sampson will go and see Goody Jones for you,” my lord continued.

Harry drew pictures with his finger on the table. What delights had
he not been speculating on? What walks, what rides, what interminable
conversations, what delicious shrubberies and sweet sequestered
summer-houses, what poring over music-books, what moonlight, what
billing and cooing, had he not imagined! Yes, the day was coming. They
were all departing--my Lady Castlewood to her friends, Madame
Bernstein to her waters--and he was to be left alone with his divine
charmer--alone with her and unutterable rapture! The thought of the
pleasure was maddening. That these people were all going away. That he
was to be left to enjoy that heaven--to sit at the feet of that angel
and kiss the hem of that white robe. O Gods! ‘twas too great bliss to
be real! “I knew it couldn’t be,” thought poor Harry. “I knew something
would happen to take her from me.”

“But you will ride with us to Tunbridge, nephew Warrington, and keep us
from the highwaymen?” said Madame de Bernstein.

Harry Warrington hoped the company did not see how red he grew. He tried
to keep his voice calm and without tremor. Yes, he would ride with their
ladyships, and he was sure they need fear no danger. Danger! Harry
felt he would rather like danger than not. He would slay ten thousand
highwaymen if they approached his mistress’s coach. At least, he would
ride by that coach, and now and again see her eyes at the window. He
might not speak to her, but he should be near her. He should press the
blessed hand at the inn at night, and feel it reposing on his as he led
her to the carriage at morning. They would be two whole days going
to Tunbridge, and one day or two he might stay there. Is not the poor
wretch who is left for execution at Newgate thankful for even two or
three days of respite?

You see, we have only indicated, we have not chosen to describe,
at length, Mr. Harry Warrington’s condition, or that utter depth of
imbecility into which the poor young wretch was now plunged. Some boys
have the complaint of love favourably and gently. Others, when they get
the fever, are sick unto death with it; or, recovering, carry the marks
of the malady down with them to the grave, or to remotest old age.
I say, it is not fair to take down a young fellow’s words when he is
raging in that delirium. Suppose he is in love with a woman twice as old
as himself; have we not all read of the young gentleman who committed
suicide in consequence of his fatal passion for Mademoiselle Ninon de
l’Enclos who turned out to be his grandmother? Suppose thou art making
an ass of thyself, young Harry Warrington, of Virginia! are there not
people in England who heehaw too? Kick and abuse him, you who have never
brayed; but bear with him, all honest fellow-cardophagi: long-eared
messmates, recognise a brother-donkey!

“You will stay with us for a day or two at the Wells,” Madame Bernstein
continued. “You will see us put into our lodgings. Then you can return
to Castlewood and the partridge-shooting, and all the fine things which
you and my lord are to study together.”

Harry bowed an acquiescence. A whole week of heaven! Life was not
altogether a blank, then.

“And as there is sure to be plenty of company at the Wells, I shall be
able to present you,” the lady graciously added.

“Company! ah! I shan’t need company,” sighed out Harry. “I mean that I
shall be quite contented in the company of you two ladies,” he added,
eagerly; and no doubt Mr. Will wondered at his cousin’s taste.

As this was to be the last night of cousin Harry’s present visit to
Castlewood, cousin Will suggested that he, and his reverence, and
Warrington should meet at the quarters of the latter and make up
accounts, to which process, Harry, being a considerable winner in his
play transactions with the two gentlemen, had no objection. Accordingly,
when the ladies retired for the night, and my lord withdrew--as his
custom was--to his own apartments, the three gentlemen all found
themselves assembled in Mr. Harry’s little room before the punch-bowl,
which was Will’s usual midnight companion.

But Will’s method of settling accounts was by producing a couple of
fresh packs of cards, and offering to submit Harry’s debt to the process
of being doubled or acquitted. The poor chaplain had no more ready cash
than Lord Castlewood’s younger brother. Harry Warrington wanted to win
the money of neither. Would he give pain to the brother of his adored
Maria, or allow any one of her near kinsfolk to tax him with any want of
generosity or forbearance? He was ready to give them their revenge, as
the gentlemen proposed. Up to midnight he would play with them for what
stakes they chose to name. And so they set to work, and the dice-box was
rattled and the cards shuffled and dealt.

Very likely he did not think about the cards at all. Very likely he was
thinking;--“At this moment, my beloved one is sitting with her beauteous
golden locks outspread under the fingers of her maid. Happy maid! Now
she is on her knees, the sainted creature, addressing prayers to that
Heaven which is the abode of angels like her. Now she has sunk to rest
behind her damask curtains. Oh, bless, bless her!” “You double us all
round? I will take a card upon each of my two. Thank you, that will
do--a ten--now, upon the other, a queen,--two natural vingt-et-uns, and
as you doubled us you owe me so-and-so.”

I imagine volleys of oaths from Mr. William, and brisk pattering of
imprecations from his reverence, at the young Virginian’s luck. He won
because he did not want to win. Fortune, that notoriously coquettish
jade, came to him, because he was thinking of another nymph, who
possibly was as fickle. Will and the chaplain may have played against
him, solicitous constantly to increase their stakes, and supposing that
the wealthy Virginian wished to let them recover all their losings. But
this was by no means Harry Warrington’s notion. When he was at home he
had taken a part in scores of such games as these (whereby we may be led
to suppose that he kept many little circumstances of his life mum from
his lady mother), and had learned to play and pay. And as he practised
fair play towards his friends he expected it from them in return.

“The luck does seem to be with me, cousin,” he said, in reply to some
more oaths and growls of Will, “and I am sure I do not want to press it;
but you don’t suppose I’m going to be such a fool as to fling it away
altogether? I have quite a heap of your promises on paper by this time.
If we are to go on playing, let us have the dollars on the table, if you
please; or, if not the money, the worth of it.”

“Always the way with you rich men,” grumbled Will. “Never lend except on
security--always win because you are rich.”

“Faith, cousin, you have been of late for ever flinging my riches into
my face. I have enough for my wants and for my creditors.”

“Oh, that we could all say as much!” groaned the chaplain. “How happy
we, and how happy the duns would be! What have we got to play against
our conqueror? There is my new gown, Mr. Warrington. Will you set me
five pieces against it? I have but to preach in stuff if I lose. Stop! I
have a Chrysostom, a Foxe’s Martyrs, a Baker’s Chronicle, and a cow and
her calf. What shall we set against these?”

“I will bet one of cousin Will’s notes for twenty pounds,” cried Mr.
Warrington, producing one of those documents.

“Or I have my brown mare, and will back her red against your honour’s
notes of hand, but against ready money.”

“I have my horse. I will back my horse against you for fifty,” bawls out
Will.

Harry took the offers of both gentlemen. In the course of ten minutes
the horse and the bay mare had both changed owners. Cousin William swore
more fiercely than ever. The parson dashed his wig to the ground,
and emulated his pupil in the loudness of his objurgations. Mr. Harry
Warrington was quite calm, and not the least elated by his triumph.
They had asked him to play, and he had played. He knew he should win. O
beloved slumbering angel! he thought, am I not sure of victory when you
are kind to me? He was looking out from his window towards the casement
on the opposite side of the court, which he knew to be hers. He had
forgot about his victims and their groans, and ill-luck, ere they
crossed the court. Under yonder brilliant flickering star, behind yonder
casement where the lamp was burning faintly, was his joy, and heart, and
treasure.



CHAPTER XX. Facilis Descensus


Whilst the good old Bishop of Cambray, in his romance lately mentioned,
described the disconsolate condition of Calypso at the departure of
Ulysses, I forget whether he mentioned the grief of Calypso’s lady’s
maid on taking leave of Odysseus’s own gentleman. The menials must have
wept together in the kitchen precincts whilst the master and mistress
took a last wild embrace in the drawing-room; they must have hung round
each other in the fore-cabin, whilst their principals broke their hearts
in the grand saloon. When the bell rang for the last time, and Ulysses’s
mate bawled, “Now! any one for shore!” Calypso and her female attendant
must have both walked over the same plank, with beating hearts and
streaming eyes; both must have waved pocket-handkerchiefs (of far
different value and texture), as they stood on the quay, to their
friends on the departing vessel, whilst the people on the land, and the
crew crowding in the ship’s bows, shouted hip, hip, huzzay (or whatever
may be the equivalent Greek for the salutation) to all engaged on that
voyage. But the point to be remembered is, that if Calypso ne pouvait
se consoler, Calypso’s maid ne pouvait se consoler non plus. They had to
walk the same plank of grief, and feel the same pang of separation; on
their return home, they might not use pocket-handkerchiefs of the same
texture and value, but the tears, no doubt, were as salt and plentiful
which one shed in her marble halls, and the other poured forth in the
servants’ ditto.

Not only did Harry Warrington leave Castlewood a victim to love, but
Gumbo quitted the same premises a prey to the same delightful passion.
His wit, accomplishments, good-humour, his skill in dancing, cookery,
and music, had endeared him to the whole female domestic circle. More
than one of the men might be jealous of him, but the ladies all were
with him. There was no such objection to the poor black men then in
England as has obtained since among white-skinned people. Theirs was
a condition not perhaps of equality, but they had a sufferance and
a certain grotesque sympathy from all; and from women, no doubt, a
kindness much more generous. When Ledyard and Parke, in Blackmansland,
were persecuted by the men, did they not find the black women pitiful
and kind to them? Women are always kind towards our sex. What (mental)
negroes do they not cherish? what (moral) hunchbacks do they not adore?
what lepers, what idiots, what dull drivellers, what misshapen monsters
(I speak figuratively) do they not fondle and cuddle? Gumbo was treated
by the women as kindly as many people no better than himself: it was
only the men in the servants’-hall who rejoiced at the Virginian lad’s
departure. I should like to see him taking leave. I should like to see
Molly housemaid stealing to the terrace-gardens in the grey dawning to
cull a wistful posy. I should like to see Betty kitchenmaid cutting off
a thick lock of her chestnut ringlets which she proposed to exchange for
a woolly token from young Gumbo’s pate. Of course he said he was regum
progenies, a descendant of Ashantee kings. In Caffraria, Connaught and
other places now inhabited by hereditary bondsmen, there must have been
vast numbers of these potent sovereigns in former times, to judge from
their descendants now extant.

At the morning announced for Madame de Bernstein’s departure, all the
numerous domestics of Castlewood crowded about the doors and passages,
some to have a last glimpse of her ladyship’s men and the fascinating
Gumbo, some to take leave of her ladyship’s maid, all to waylay the
Baroness and her nephew for parting fees, which it was the custom of
that day largely to distribute among household servants. One and the
other gave liberal gratuities to the liveried society, to the gentlemen
in black and ruffles, and to the swarm of female attendants. Castlewood
was the home of the Baroness’s youth; and as for her honest Harry, who
had not only lived at free charges in the house, but had won horses and
money--or promises of money--from his cousin and the unlucky chaplain,
he was naturally of a generous turn, and felt that at this moment he
ought not to stint his benevolent disposition. “My mother, I know,” he
thought, “will wish me to be liberal to all the retainers of the Esmond
family.” So he scattered about his gold pieces to right and left, and
as if he had been as rich as Gumbo announced him to be. There was no one
who came near him but had a share in his bounty. From the major-domo to
the shoeblack, Mr. Harry had a peace-offering for them all. To the grim
housekeeper in her still-room, to the feeble old porter in his lodge,
he distributed some token of his remembrance. When a man is in love with
one woman in a family, it is astonishing how fond he becomes of every
person connected with it. He ingratiates himself with the maids; he is
bland with the butler; he interests himself about the footman; he runs
on errands for the daughters; he gives advice and lends money to the
young son at college; he pats little dogs which he would kick otherwise;
he smiles at old stories which would make him break out in yawns, were
they uttered by any one but papa; he drinks sweet port wine for which he
would curse the steward and the whole committee of a club; he bears even
with the cantankerous old maiden aunt; he beats time when darling little
Fanny performs her piece on the piano; and smiles when wicked, lively
little Bobby upsets the coffee over his shirt.

Harry Warrington, in his way, and according to the customs of that age,
had for a brief time past (by which I conclude that only for a brief
time had his love been declared and accepted) given to the Castlewood
family all these artless testimonies of his affection for one of them.
Cousin Will should have won back his money and welcome, or have won
as much of Harry’s own as the lad could spare. Nevertheless, the lad,
though a lover, was shrewd, keen, and fond of sport and fair play, and a
judge of a good horse when he saw one. Having played for and won all the
money which Will had, besides a great number of Mr. Esmond’s valuable
autographs, Harry was very well pleased to win Will’s brown horse--that
very quadruped which had nearly pushed him into the water on the
first evening of his arrival at Castlewood. He had seen the horse’s
performance often, and in the midst of all his passion and romance, was
not sorry to be possessed of such a sound, swift, well-bred hunter and
roadster. When he had gazed at the stars sufficiently as they shone over
his mistress’s window, and put her candle to bed, he repaired to his own
dormitory, and there, no doubt, thought of his Maria and his horse with
youthful satisfaction, and how sweet it would be to have one pillioned
on the other, and to make the tour of all the island on such an
animal with such a pair of white arms round his waist. He fell asleep
ruminating on these things, and meditating a million of blessings on his
Maria, in whose company he was to luxuriate at least for a week more.

In the early morning poor Chaplain Sampson sent over his little black
mare by the hands of his groom, footman, and gardener, who wept and
bestowed a great number of kisses on the beast’s white nose as he
handed him over to Gumbo. Gumbo and his master were both affected by the
fellow’s sensibility; the negro servant showing his sympathy by weeping,
and Harry by producing a couple of guineas, with which he astonished and
speedily comforted the chaplain’s boy. Then Gumbo and the late groom led
the beast away to the stable, having commands to bring him round with
Mr. William’s horse after breakfast, at the hour when Madam Bernstein’s
carriages were ordered.

So courteous was he to his aunt, or so grateful for her departure, that
the master of the house even made his appearance at the morning meal,
in order to take leave of his guests. The ladies and the chaplain were
present--the only member of the family absent was Will: who, however,
left a note for his cousin, in which Will stated, in exceedingly
bad spelling, that he was obliged to go away to Salisbury Races that
morning, but that he had left the horse which his cousin won last night,
and which Tom, Mr. Will’s groom, would hand over to Mr. Warrington’s
servant. Will’s absence did not prevent the rest of the party from
drinking a dish of tea amicably, and in due time the carriages rolled
into the courtyard, the servants packed them with the Baroness’s
multiplied luggage, and the moment of departure arrived.

A large open landau contained the stout Baroness and her niece; a
couple of men-servants mounting on the box before them with pistols and
blunderbusses ready in event of a meeting with highwaymen. In another
carriage were their ladyships’ maids, and another servant in guard
of the trunks, which, vast and numerous as they were, were as nothing
compared to the enormous baggage-train accompanying a lady of the
present time. Mr. Warrington’s modest valises were placed in this second
carriage under the maid’s guardianship, and Mr. Gumbo proposed to ride
by the window for the chief part of the journey.

My lord, with his stepmother and Lady Fanny, accompanied their kinswoman
to the carriage steps, and bade her farewell with many dutiful embraces.
Her Lady Maria followed in a riding-dress, which Harry Warrington
thought the most becoming costume in the world. A host of servants stood
around, and begged Heaven bless her ladyship. The Baroness’s departure
was known in the village, and scores of the folks there stood waiting
under the trees outside the gates, and huzzayed and waved their hats as
the ponderous vehicles rolled away.

Gumbo was gone for Mr. Warrington’s horses, as my lord, with his arm
under his young guest’s, paced up and down the court. “I hear you carry
away some of our horses out of Castlewood?” my lord said.

Harry blushed. “A gentleman cannot refuse a fair game at the cards,” he
said. “I never wanted to play, nor would have played for money had not
my cousin William forced me. As for the chaplain, it went to my heart to
win from him, but he was as eager as my cousin.”

“I know--I know! There is no blame to you, my boy. At Rome you can’t
help doing as Rome does; and I am very glad that you have been able to
give Will a lesson. He is mad about play--would gamble his coat off his
back--and I and the family have had to pay his debts ever so many times.
May I ask how much you have won of him?”

“Well, some eighteen pieces the first day or two, and his note for a
hundred and twenty more, and the brown horse, sixty--that makes nigh
upon two hundred. But, you know, cousin, all was fair, and it was even
against my will that we played at all. Will ain’t a match for me, my
lord--that is the fact. Indeed he is not.”

“He is a match for most people, though,” said my lord. “His brown horse,
I think you said?”

“Yes. His brown horse--Prince William, out of Constitution. You don’t
suppose I would set him sixty against his bay, my lord?”

“Oh, I didn’t know. I saw Will riding out this morning; most likely I
did not remark what horse he was on. And you won the black mare from the
parson?”

“For fourteen. He will mount Gumbo very well. Why does not the rascal
come round with the horses?” Harry’s mind was away to lovely Maria. He
longed to be trotting by her side.

“When you get to Tunbridge, cousin Harry, you must be on the look-out
against sharper players than the chaplain and Will. There is all sorts
of queer company at the Wells.”

“A Virginian learns pretty well to take care of himself, my lord, says
Harry, with a knowing nod.

“So it seems! I recommend my sister to thee, Harry. Although she is not
a baby in years, she is as innocent as one. Thou wilt see that she comes
to no mischief?”

“I will guard her with my life, my lord!” cries Harry.

“Thou art a brave fellow. By the way, cousin, unless you are very fond
of Castlewood, I would in your case not be in a great hurry to return to
this lonely, tumble-down old house. I want myself to go to another place
I have, and shall scarce be back here till the partridge-shooting. Go
you and take charge of the women, of my sister and the Baroness, will
you?”

“Indeed I will,” said Harry, his heart beating with happiness at the
thought.

“And I will write thee word when you shall bring my sister back to me.
Here come the horses. Have you bid adieu to the Countess and Lady Fanny?
They are kissing their hands to you from the music-room balcony.”

Harry ran up to bid these ladies a farewell. He made that ceremony very
brief, for he was anxious to be off to the charmer of his heart; and
came downstairs to mount his newly-gotten steed, which Gumbo, himself
astride on the parson’s black mare, held by the rein.

There was Gumbo on the black mare, indeed, and holding another horse.
But it was a bay horse, not a brown--a bay horse with broken knees--an
aged, worn-out quadruped.

“What is this?” cries Harry.

“Your honour’s new horse,” says the groom, touching his cap.

“This brute?” exclaims the young gentleman, with one or more of those
expressions then in use in England and Virginia. “Go and bring me round
Prince William, Mr. William’s horse, the brown horse.”

“Mr. William have rode Prince William this morning away to Salisbury
Races. His last words was, ‘Sam, saddle my bay horse, Cato, for Mr.
Warrington this morning. He is Mr. Warrington’s horse now. I sold him to
him last night.’ And I know your honour is bountiful: you will consider
the groom.”

My lord could not help breaking into a laugh at these words of Sam the
groom, whilst Harry, for his part, indulged in a number more of those
remarks which politeness does not admit of our inserting here.

“Mr. William said he never could think of parting with the Prince under
a hundred and twenty,” said the groom, looking at the young man.

Lord Castlewood only laughed the more. “Will has been too much for thee,
Harry Warrington.”

“Too much for me, my lord! So may a fellow with loaded dice throw sixes,
and be too much for me. I do not call this betting, I call it ch----”

“Mr. Warrington! Spare me bad words about my brother, if you please.
Depend on it, I will take care that you are righted. Farewell. Ride
quickly, or your coaches will be at Farnham before you;” and waving him
an adieu, my lord entered into the house, whilst Harry and his companion
rode out of the courtyard. The young Virginian was much too eager to
rejoin the carriages and his charmer, to remark the unutterable love and
affection which Gumbo shot from his fine eyes towards a young creature
in the porter’s lodge.

When the youth was gone, the chaplain and my lord sate down to finish
their breakfast in peace and comfort. The two ladies did not return to
this meal.

“That was one of Will’s confounded rascally tricks,” says my lord. “If
our cousin breaks Will’s head I should not wonder.”

“He is used to the operation, my lord, and yet,” adds the chaplain, with
a grin, “when we were playing last night, the colour of the horse was
not mentioned. I could not escape, having but one: and the black boy
has ridden off on him. The young Virginian plays like a man, to do him
justice.”

“He wins because he does not care about losing. I think there can be
little doubt but that he is very well to do. His mother’s law-agents are
my lawyers, and they write that the property is quite a principality,
and grows richer every year.”

“If it were a kingdom I know whom Mr. Warrington would make queen of
it,” said the obsequious chaplain.

“Who can account for taste, parson?” asks his lordship, with a sneer.
“All men are so. The first woman I was in love with myself was forty;
and as jealous as if she had been fifteen. It runs in the family.
Colonel Esmond (he in scarlet and the breastplate yonder) married my
grandmother, who was almost old enough to be his. If this lad chooses to
take out an elderly princess to Virginia, we must not balk him.”

“‘Twere a consummation devoutly to be wished!” cries the chaplain. “Had
I not best go to Tunbridge Wells myself, my lord, and be on the spot,
and ready to exercise my sacred function in behalf of the young couple?”

“You shall have a pair of new nags, parson, if you do,” said my lord.
And with this we leave them peaceable over a pipe of tobacco after
breakfast.

Harry was in such a haste to join the carriages that he almost forgot
to take off his hat, and acknowledge the cheers of the Castlewood
villagers: they all liked the lad, whose frank cordial ways and honest
face got him a welcome in most places. Legends were still extant in
Castlewood, of his grandparents, and how his grandfather, Colonel
Esmond, might have been Lord Castlewood, but would not. Old Lockwood at
the gate often told of the Colonel’s gallantry in Queen Anne’s wars.
His feats were exaggerated, the behaviour of the present family was
contrasted with that of the old lord and lady: who might not have been
very popular in their time, but were better folks than those now in
possession. Lord Castlewood was a hard landlord: perhaps more disliked
because he was known to be poor and embarrassed than because he was
severe. As for Mr. Will, nobody was fond of him. The young gentleman had
had many brawls and quarrels about the village, had received and given
broken heads, had bills in the neighbouring towns which he could not or
would not pay; had been arraigned before the magistrates for tampering
with village girls, and waylaid and cudgelled by injured husbands,
fathers, sweethearts. A hundred years ago his character and actions
might have been described at length by the painter of manners; but the
Comic Muse, nowadays, does not lift up Molly Seagrim’s curtain; she only
indicates the presence of some one behind it, and passes on primly, with
expressions of horror, and a fan before her eyes. The village had
heard how the young Virginian squire had beaten Mr. Will at riding, at
jumping, at shooting, and finally at card-playing, for everything is
known; and they respected Harry all the more for this superiority. Above
all, they admired him on account of the reputation of enormous wealth
which Gumbo had made for his master. This fame had travelled over the
whole county, and was preceding him at this moment on the boxes of
Madame Bernstein’s carriages, from which the valets, as they descended
at the inns to bait, spread astounding reports of the young Virginian’s
rank and splendour. He was a prince in his own country. He had gold
mines, diamond mines, furs, tobaccos, who knew what, or how much?
No wonder the honest Britons cheered him and respected him for his
prosperity, as the noble-hearted fellows always do. I am surprised city
corporations did not address him, and offer gold boxes with the freedom
of the city--he was so rich. Ah, a proud thing it is to be a Briton, and
think that there is no country where prosperity is so much respected as
in ours; and where success receives such constant affecting testimonials
of loyalty!

So, leaving the villagers bawling, and their hats tossing in the air,
Harry spurred his sorry beast, and galloped, with Gumbo behind him,
until he came up with the cloud of dust in the midst of which his
charmer’s chariot was enveloped. Penetrating into this cloud, he found
himself at the window of the carriage. The Lady Maria had the back seat
to herself; by keeping a little behind the wheels, he could have the
delight of seeing her divine eyes and smiles. She held a finger to her
lip. Madame Bernstein was already dozing on her cushions. Harry did not
care to disturb the old lady. To look at his cousin was bliss enough for
him. The landscape around him might be beautiful, but what did he heed
it? All the skies and trees of summer were as nothing compared to
yonder face; the hedgerow birds sang no such sweet music as her sweet
monosyllables.

The Baroness’s fat horses were accustomed to short journeys, easy paces,
and plenty of feeding; so that, ill as Harry Warrington was mounted, he
could, without much difficulty, keep pace with his elderly kinswoman. At
two o’clock they baited for a couple of hours for dinner. Mr. Warrington
paid the landlord generously. What price could be too great for the
pleasure which he enjoyed in being near his adored Maria, and having the
blissful chance of a conversation with her, scarce interrupted by the
soft breathing of Madame de Bernstein, who, after a comfortable meal,
indulged in an agreeable half-hour’s slumber? In voices soft and low,
Maria and her young gentleman talked over and over again those delicious
nonsenses which people in Harry’s condition never tire of hearing and
uttering.

They were going to a crowded watering-place, where all sorts of beauty
and fashion would be assembled; timid Maria was certain that amongst the
young beauties, Harry would discover some, whose charms were far more
worthy to occupy his attention, than any her homely face and figure
could boast of. By all the gods, Harry vowed that Venus herself could
not tempt him from her side. It was he who for his part had occasion to
fear. When the young men of fashion beheld his peerless Maria they would
crowd round her car; they would cause her to forget the rough and humble
American lad who knew nothing of fashion or wit, who had only a faithful
heart at her service.

Maria smiles, she casts her eyes to heaven, she vows that Harry knows
nothing of the truth and fidelity of women; it is his sex, on the
contrary, which proverbially is faithless, and which delights to play
with poor female hearts. A scuffle ensues; a clatter is heard among the
knives and forks of the dessert; a glass tumbles over and breaks. An
“Oh!” escapes from the innocent lips of Maria, The disturbance has
been caused by the broad cuff of Mr. Warrington’s coat, which has been
stretched across the table to seize Lady Maria’s hand, and has upset the
wine-glass in so doing. Surely nothing could be more natural, or indeed
necessary, than that Harry, upon hearing his sex’s honour impeached,
should seize upon his fair accuser’s hand, and vow eternal fidelity upon
those charming fingers?

What a part they play, or used to play, in love-making, those hands! How
quaintly they are squeezed at that period of life! How they are pushed
into conversation! what absurd vows and protests are palmed off by their
aid! What good can there be in pulling and pressing a thumb and four
fingers? I fancy I see Alexis laugh, who is haply reading this page by
the side of Araminta. To talk about thumbs indeed!... Maria looks round,
for her part, to see if Madame Bernstein has been awakened by the crash
of glass; but the old lady slumbers quite calmly in her arm-chair, so
her niece thinks there can be no harm in yielding to Harry’s gentle
pressure.

The horses are put to: Paradise is over--at least until the next
occasion. When my landlord enters with the bill, Harry is standing quite
at a distance from his cousin, looking from the window at the cavalcade
gathering below. Madame Bernstein wakes up from her slumber, smiling and
quite unconscious. With what profound care and reverential politeness
Mr. Warrington hands his aunt to her carriage! how demure and simple
looks Lady Maria as she follows! Away go the carriages, in the midst
of a profoundly bowing landlord and waiters; of country-folks gathered
round the blazing inn-sign; of shopmen gazing from their homely
little doors; of boys and market-folks under the colonnade of the
old town-hall; of loungers along the gabled street. “It is the famous
Baroness Bernstein. That is she, the old lady in the capuchin. It is
the rich young American who is just come from Virginia, and is worth
millions and millions. Well, sure, he might have a better horse.” The
cavalcade disappears, and the little town lapses into its usual quiet.
The landlord goes back to his friends at the club, to tell how the great
folks are going to sleep at The Bush, at Farnham, to-night.

The inn dinner had been plentiful, and all the three guests of the inn
had done justice to the good cheer. Harry had the appetite natural to
his period of life. Maria and her aunt were also not indifferent to
a good dinner: Madame Bernstein had had a comfortable nap after hers,
which had no doubt helped her to bear all the good things of the
meal--the meat pies, and the fruit pies, and the strong ale, and the
heady port wine. She reclined at ease on her seat of the landau, and
looked back affably, and smiled at Harry and exchanged a little talk
with him as he rode by the carriage side. But what ailed the beloved
being who sate with her back to the horses? Her complexion, which was
exceedingly fair, was further ornamented with a pair of red cheeks,
which Harry took to be natural roses. (You see, madam, that your
surmises regarding the Lady Maria’s conduct with her cousin are
quite wrong and uncharitable, and that the timid lad had made no such
experiments as you suppose, in order to ascertain whether the roses were
real or artificial. A kiss, indeed! I blush to think you should imagine
that the present writer could indicate anything so shocking!) Maria’s
bright red cheeks, I say still, continued to blush as it seemed with
a strange metallic bloom: but the rest of her face, which had used to
rival the lily in whiteness, became of a jonquil colour. Her eyes stared
round with a ghastly expression. Harry was alarmed at the agony depicted
in the charmer’s countenance; which not only exhibited pain, but was
exceedingly unbecoming. Madame Bernstein also at length remarked
her niece’s indisposition, and asked her if sitting backwards in the
carriage made her ill, which poor Maria confessed to be the fact. On
this, the elder lady was forced to make room for her niece on her own
side, and, in the course of the drive to Farnham, uttered many gruff,
disagreeable, sarcastic remarks to her fellow-traveller, indicating her
great displeasure that Maria should be so impertinent as to be ill on
the first day of a journey.

When they reached the Bush Inn at Farnham, under which name a famous
inn has stood in Farnham town for these three hundred years--the dear
invalid retired with her maid to her bedroom: scarcely glancing a
piteous look at Harry as she retreated, and leaving the lad’s mind in a
strange confusion of dismay and sympathy. Those yellow, yellow cheeks,
those livid wrinkled eyelids, that ghastly red--how ill his blessed
Maria looked! And not only how ill, but how--away, horrible thought,
unmanly suspicion! He tried to shut the idea out from his mind. He had
little appetite for supper, though the jolly Baroness partook of that
repast as if she had had no dinner; and certainly as if she had no
sympathy with her invalid niece.

She sent her major-domo to see if Lady Maria would have anything from
the table. The servant brought back word that her ladyship was still
very unwell, and declined any refreshment.

“I hope she intends to be well to-morrow morning,” cried Madame
Bernstein, rapping her little hand on the table. “I hate people to be
ill in an inn, or on a journey. Will you play piquet with me, Harry?”

Harry was happy to be able to play piquet with his aunt. “That absurd
Maria!” says Madame Bernstein, drinking from a great glass of negus,
“she takes liberties with herself. She never had a good constitution.
She is forty-one years old. All her upper teeth are false, and she can’t
eat with them. Thank Heaven, I have still got every tooth in my head.
How clumsily you deal, child!”

Deal clumsily indeed! Had a dentist been extracting Harry’s own grinders
at that moment, would he have been expected to mind his cards and deal
them neatly? When a man is laid on the rack at the Inquisition, is it
natural that he should smile and speak politely and coherently to the
grave, quiet Inquisitor? Beyond that little question regarding the
cards, Harry’s Inquisitor did not show the smallest disturbance. Her
face indicated neither surprise, nor triumph, nor cruelty. Madame
Bernstein did not give one more stab to her niece that night: but she
played at cards, and prattled with Harry, indulging in her favourite
talk about old times, and parting from him with great cordiality and
good-humour. Very likely he did not heed her stories. Very likely other
thoughts occupied his mind. Maria is forty-one years old, Maria has
false ----. Oh, horrible, horrible! Has she a false eye? Has she false
hair? Has she a wooden leg? I envy not that boy’s dreams that night.

Madame Bernstein, in the morning, said she had slept as sound as a top.
She had no remorse, that was clear. (Some folks are happy and easy in
mind when their victim is stabbed and done for.) Lady Maria made her
appearance at the breakfast-table, too. Her ladyship’s indisposition was
fortunately over: her aunt congratulated her affectionately on her good
looks. She sate down to her breakfast. She looked appealingly in Harry’s
face. He remarked, with his usual brilliancy and originality, that he
was very glad her ladyship was better. Why, at the tone of his voice,
did she start, and again gaze at him with frightened eyes? There sate
the Chief Inquisitor, smiling, perfectly calm, eating ham and muffins.
O poor writhing, rack-rent victim! O stony Inquisitor! O Baroness
Bernstein! It was cruel! cruel!

Round about Farnham the hops were gloriously green in the sunshine, and
the carriages drove through the richest, most beautiful country. Maria
insisted upon taking her old seat. She thanked her dear aunt. It
would not in the least incommode her now. She gazed, as she had done
yesterday, in the face of the young knight riding by the carriage side.
She looked for those answering signals which used to be lighted up in
yonder two windows, and told that love was burning within. She smiled
gently at him, to which token of regard he tried to answer with a sickly
grin of recognition. Miserable youth! Those were not false teeth he saw
when she smiled. He thought they were, and they tore and lacerated him.

And so the day sped on--sunshiny and brilliant overhead, but all over
clouds for Harry and Maria. He saw nothing: he thought of Virginia: he
remembered how he had been in love with Parson Broadbent’s daughter at
Jamestown, and how quickly that business had ended. He longed vaguely to
be at home again. A plague on all these cold-hearted English relations!
Did they not all mean to trick him? Were they not all scheming against
him? Had not that confounded Will cheated him about the horse?

At this very juncture, Maria gave a scream so loud and shrill that
Madame Bernstein woke, that the coachman pulled his horses up, and the
footman beside him sprang down from his box in a panic.

“Let me out! let me out!” screamed Maria. “Let me go to him! let me go
to him!”

“What is it?” asked the Baroness.

It was that Will’s horse had come down on his knees and nose, had sent
his rider over his head, and Mr. Harry, who ought to have known better,
was lying on his own face quite motionless.

Gumbo, who had been dallying with the maids of the second carriage,
clattered up, and mingled his howls with Lady Maria’s lamentations.
Madame Bernstein descended from her landau, and came slowly up,
trembling a good deal.

“He is dead--he is dead!” sobbed Maria.

“Don’t be a goose, Maria!” her aunt said. “Ring at that gate, some one!”

Will’s horse had gathered himself up and stood perfectly quiet after his
feat: but his late rider gave not the slightest sign of life.



CHAPTER XXI. Samaritans


Lest any tender-hearted reader should be in alarm for Mr. Harry
Warrington’s safety, and fancy that his broken-kneed horse had carried
him altogether out of this life and history, let us set her mind easy at
the beginning of this chapter by assuring her that nothing very serious
has happened. How can we afford to kill off our heroes, when they are
scarcely out of their teens, and we have not reached the age of manhood
of the story? We are in mourning already for one of our Virginians, who
has come to grief in America; surely we cannot kill off the other in
England? No, no. Heroes are not despatched with such hurry and violence
unless there is a cogent reason for making away with them. Were a
gentleman to perish every time a horse came down with him, not only the
hero, but the author of this chronicle would have gone under ground,
whereas the former is but sprawling outside it, and will be brought to
life again as soon as he has been carried into the house where Madame de
Bernstein’s servants have rung the bell.

And to convince you that at least this youngest of the Virginians is
still alive, here is an authentic copy of a letter from the lady into
whose house he was taken after his fall from Mr. Will’s brute of a
broken-kneed horse, and in whom he appears to have found a kind friend:


 “TO MRS. ESMOND WARRINGTON, OF CASTLEWOOD

 “At her House at Richmond, in Virginia

“If Mrs. Esmond Warrington of Virginia can call to mind twenty-three
years ago, when Miss Rachel Esmond was at Kensington Boarding School,
she may perhaps remember Miss Molly Benson, her class-mate, who has
forgotten all the little quarrels which they used to have together (in
which Miss Molly was very often in the wrong), and only remembers
the generous, high-spirited, sprightly, Miss Esmond, the Princess
Pocahontas, to whom so many of our school-fellows paid court.

“Dear madam! I cannot forget that you were dear Rachel once upon a time,
as I was your dearest Molly. Though we parted not very good friends when
you went home to Virginia, yet you know how fond we once were. I
still, Rachel, have the gold etui your papa gave me when he came to our
speech-day at Kensington, and we two performed the quarrel of Brutus
and Cassius out of Shakspeare; and ‘twas only yesterday morning I was
dreaming that we were both called up to say our lesson before the awful
Miss Hardwood, and that I did not know it, and that as usual Miss Rachel
Esmond went above me. How well remembered those old days are! How young
we grow as we think of them! I remember our walks and our exercises,
our good King and Queen as they walked in Kensington Gardens, and their
court following them, whilst we of Miss Hardwood’s school curtseyed in
a row. I can tell still what we had for dinner on each day of the week,
and point to the place where your garden was, which was always so much
better kept than mine. So was Miss Esmond’s chest of drawers a model of
neatness, whilst mine were in a sad condition. Do you remember how we
used to tell stories in the dormitory, and Madame Hibou, the French
governess, would come out of bed and interrupt us with her hooting? Have
you forgot the poor dancing-master, who told us he had been waylaid by
assassins, but who was beaten, it appears, by my lord your brother’s
footmen? My dear, your cousin, the Lady Maria Esmond (her papa was, I
think, but Viscount Castlewood in those times), has just been on a visit
to this house, where you may be sure I did not recall those sad times to
her remembrance, about which I am now chattering to Mrs. Esmond.

“Her ladyship has been staying here, and another relative of yours, the
Baroness of Bernstein, and the two ladies are both gone on to Tunbridge
Wells; but another and dearer relative still remains in my house, and
is sound asleep, I trust, in the very next room, and the name of this
gentleman is Mr. Henry Esmond Warrington. Now, do you understand how you
come to hear from an old friend? Do not be alarmed, dear madam! I know
you are thinking at this moment, ‘My boy is ill. That is why Miss Molly
Benson writes to me.’ No, my dear; Mr. Warrington was ill yesterday, but
to-day he is very comfortable; and our doctor, who is no less a person
than my dear husband, Colonel Lambert, has blooded him, has set his
shoulder, which was dislocated, and pronounces that in two days more Mr.
Warrington will be quite ready to take the road.

“I fear I and my girls are sorry that he is so soon to be well.
Yesterday evening, as we were at tea, there came a great ringing at our
gate, which disturbed us all, as the bell very seldom sounds in this
quiet place, unless a passing beggar pulls it for charity; and the
servants, running out, returned with the news, that a young gentleman,
who had a fall from his horse, was lying lifeless on the road,
surrounded by the friends in whose company he was travelling. At this,
my Colonel (who is sure the most Samaritan of men!) hastens away, to see
how he can serve the fallen traveller, and presently, with the aid of
the servants, and followed by two ladies, brings into the house such
a pale, lifeless, beautiful, young man! Ah, my dear, how I rejoice to
think that your child has found shelter and succour under my roof! that
my husband has saved him from pain and fever, and has been the means of
restoring him to you and health! We shall be friends again now, shall we
not? I was very ill last year, and ‘twas even thought I should die. Do
you know, that I often thought of you then, and how you had parted from
me in anger so many years ago? I began then a foolish note to you, which
I was too sick to finish, to tell you that if I went the way appointed
for us all, I should wish to leave the world in charity with every
single being I had known in it.

“Your cousin, the Right Honourable Lady Maria Esmond, showed a great
deal of maternal tenderness and concern for her young kinsman after his
accident. I am sure she hath a kind heart. The Baroness de Bernstein,
who is of an advanced age, could not be expected to feel so keenly as
we young people; but was, nevertheless, very much moved and interested
until Mr. Warrington was restored to consciousness, when she said she
was anxious to get on towards Tunbridge, whither she was bound, and
was afraid of all things to lie in a place where there was no doctor at
hand. My Aesculapius laughingly said, he would not offer to attend upon
a lady of quality, though he would answer for his young patient.
Indeed, the Colonel, during his campaigns, has had plenty of practice in
accidents of this nature, and I am certain, were we to call in all
the faculty for twenty miles round, Mr. Warrington could get no better
treatment. So, leaving the young gentleman to the care of me and my
daughters, the Baroness and her ladyship took their leave of us, the
latter very loth to go. When he is well enough, my Colonel will ride
with him as far as Westerham, but on his own horses, where an old
army-comrade of Mr. Lambert’s resides. And, as this letter will not take
the post for Falmouth until, by God’s blessing, your son is well and
perfectly restored, you need be under no sort of alarm for him whilst
under the roof of, madam, your affectionate, humble servant, MARY
LAMBERT.

“P.S. Thursday.

“I am glad to hear (Mr. Warrington’s coloured gentleman hath informed
our people of the gratifying circumstance) that Providence hath blessed
Mrs. Esmond with such vast wealth, and with an heir so likely to do
credit to it. Our present means are amply sufficient, but will be small
when divided amongst our survivors. Ah, dear madam! I have heard of
your calamity of last year. Though the Colonel and I have reared many
children (five), we have lost two, and a mother’s heart can feel for
yours! I own to you, mine yearned to your boy to-day, when (in a manner
inexpressibly affecting to me and Mr. Lambert) he mentioned his dear
brother. ‘Tis impossible to see your son, and not to love and regard
him. I am thankful that it has been our lot to succour him in his
trouble, and that in receiving the stranger within our gates we should
be giving hospitality to the son of an old friend.”


Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men’s faces, which is
honoured almost wherever presented. Harry Warrington’s countenance was
so stamped in his youth. His eyes were so bright, his cheek so red and
healthy, his look so frank and open, that almost all who beheld him,
nay, even those who cheated him, trusted him. Nevertheless, as we have
hinted, the lad was by no means the artless stripling he seemed to be.
He was knowing enough with all his blushing cheeks; perhaps more wily
and wary than he grew to be in after-age. Sure, a shrewd and generous
man (who has led an honest life and has no secret blushes for his
conscience) grows simpler as he grows older; arrives at his sum of
right by more rapid processes of calculation; learns to eliminate false
arguments more readily, and hits the mark of truth with less previous
trouble of aiming, and disturbance of mind. Or is it only a senile
delusion, that some of our vanities are cured with our growing years,
and that we become more just in our perceptions of our own and our
neighbour’s shortcomings? ... I would humbly suggest that young people,
though they look prettier, have larger eyes, and not near so many
wrinkles about their eyelids, are often as artful as some of their
elders. What little monsters of cunning your frank schoolboys are!
How they cheat mamma! how they hoodwink papa! how they humbug the
housekeeper! how they cringe to the big boy for whom they fag at school!
what a long lie and five years’ hypocrisy and flattery is their conduct
towards Dr. Birch! And the little boys’ sisters? Are they any better,
and is it only after they come out in the world that the little darlings
learn a trick or two?

You may see, by the above letter of Mrs. Lambert, that she, like all
good women (and, indeed, almost all bad women), was a sentimental
person; and, as she looked at Harry Warrington laid in her best bed,
after the Colonel had bled him and clapped in his shoulder, as holding
by her husband’s hand she beheld the lad in a sweet slumber, murmuring a
faint inarticulate word or two in his sleep, a faint blush quivering on
his cheek, she owned he was a pretty lad indeed, and confessed with
a sort of compunction that neither of her two boys--Jack who was
at Oxford, and Charles who was just gone back to school after the
Bartlemytide holidays--was half so handsome as the Virginian. What a
good figure the boy had! and when papa bled him, his arm was as white as
any lady’s!

“Yes, as you say, Jack might have been as handsome but for the
small-pox: and as for Charley----” “Always took after his papa, my dear
Molly,” said the Colonel, looking at his own honest face in a little
looking-glass with a cut border and a japanned frame, by which the chief
guests of the worthy gentleman and lady had surveyed their patches and
powder, or shaved their hospitable beards.

“Did I say so, my love?” whispered Mrs. Lambert, looking rather scared.

“No; but you thought so, Mrs. Lambert.”

“How can you tell one’s thoughts so, Martin?” asks the lady.

“Because I am a conjurer, and because you tell them yourself, my dear,”
 answered her husband. “Don’t be frightened: he won’t wake after that
draught I gave him. Because you never see a young fellow but you are
comparing him with your own. Because you never hear of one but you are
thinking which of our girls he shall fall in love with and marry.”

“Don’t be foolish, sir,” says the lady, putting a hand up to the
Colonel’s lips. They have softly trodden out of their guest’s bedchamber
by this time, and are in the adjoining dressing-closet, a snug little
wainscoted room looking over gardens, with India curtains, more Japan
chests and cabinets, a treasure of china, and a most refreshing odour of
fresh lavender.

“You can’t deny it, Mrs. Lambert,” the Colonel resumes; “as you were
looking at the young gentleman just now, you were thinking to yourself
which of my girls will he marry? Shall it be Theo, or shall it be
Hester? And then you thought of Lucy who was at boarding-school.”

“There is no keeping anything from you, Martin Lambert,” sighs the wife.

“There is no keeping it out of your eyes, my dear. What is this burning
desire all you women have for selling and marrying your daughters? We
men don’t wish to part with ‘em. I am sure, for my part, I should not
like yonder young fellow half as well if I thought he intended to carry
one of my darlings away with him.”

“Sure, Martin, I have been so happy myself,” says the fond wife and
mother, looking at her husband with her very best eyes, “that I must
wish my girls to do as I have done, and be happy, too!”

“Then you think good husbands are common, Mrs. Lambert, and that you may
walk any day into the road before the house and find one shot out at the
gate like a sack of coals?”

“Wasn’t it providential, sir, that this young gentleman should be thrown
over his horse’s head at our very gate, and that he should turn out to
be the son of my old schoolfellow and friend?” asked the wife. “There
is something more than accident in such cases, depend upon that, Mr.
Lambert!”

“And this was the stranger you saw in the candle three nights running, I
suppose?”

“And in the fire, too, sir; twice a coal jumped out close by Theo. You
may sneer, sir, but these things are not to be despised. Did I not see
you distinctly coming back from Minorca, and dream of you at the very
day and hour when you were wounded in Scotland?”

“How many times have you seen me wounded, when I had not a scratch, my
dear? How many times have you seen me ill when I had no sort of hurt?
You are always prophesying, and ‘twere very hard on you if you were not
sometimes right. Come! Let us leave our guest asleep comfortably, and go
down and give the girls their French lesson.”

So saying, the honest gentleman put his wife’s arm under his, and they
descended together the broad oak staircase of the comfortable old
hall, round which hung the effigies of many foregone Lamberts, worthy
magistrates, soldiers, country gentlemen, as was the Colonel whose
acquaintance we have just made. The Colonel was a gentleman of pleasant,
waggish humour. The French lesson which he and his daughters conned
together was a scene out of Monsieur Moliere’s comedy of “Tartuffe,”
 and papa was pleased to be very facetious with Miss Theo, by calling
her Madam, and by treating her with a great deal of mock respect and
ceremony. The girls read together with their father a scene or two of
his favourite author (nor were they less modest in those days, though
their tongues were a little more free), and papa was particularly arch
and funny as he read from Orgon’s part in that celebrated play:


  “ORGON.
  Or sus, nous voila bien. J’ai, Mariane, en vous
  Reconnu de tout temps un esprit assez doux,
  Et de tout temps aussi vous m’avez ete chere.

  MARIANE.
  Je suis fort redevable a cet amour de pere.

  ORGON.
  Fort bien. Que dites-vous de Tartuffe notre hote?

  MARIANE.
  Qui? Moi?

  ORGON.
  Vous. Voyez bien comme vous repondrez.

  MARIANE.
  Helas! J’en dirai, moi, tout ce que vous voudrez!

(Mademoiselle Mariane laughs and blushes in spite of herself, whilst
reading this line.)

  ORGON.
  C’est parler sagement. Dites-moi donc, ma fille,
  Qu’en toute sa personne un haut merite brille,
  Qu’il touche votre coeur, et qu’il vous seroit doux
  De le voir par men choix devenir votre epoux!”


“Have we not read the scene prettily, Elmire?” says the Colonel,
laughing, and turning round to his wife.

Elmira prodigiously admired Orgon’s reading, and so did his daughters,
and almost everything besides which Mr. Lambert said or did. Canst thou,
O friendly reader, count upon the fidelity of an artless and tender
heart or two, and reckon among the blessings which Heaven hath bestowed
on thee the love of faithful women! Purify thine own heart, and try to
make it worthy theirs. On thy knees, on thy knees, give thanks for the
blessing awarded thee! All the prizes of life are nothing compared to
that one. All the rewards of ambition, wealth, pleasure, only vanity and
disappointment--grasped at greedily and fought for fiercely, and, over
and over again, found worthless by the weary winners. But love seems to
survive life, and to reach beyond it. I think we take it with us past
the grave. Do we not still give it to those who have left us? May we not
hope that they feel it for us, and that we shall leave it here in one or
two fond bosoms, when we also are gone?

And whence, or how, or why, pray, this sermon? You see I know more about
this Lambert family than you do to whom I am just presenting them:
as how should you who never heard of them before! You may not like my
friends; very few people do like strangers to whom they are presented
with an outrageous flourish of praises on the part of the introducer.
You say (quite naturally), What? Is this all? Are these the people he
is so fond of? Why, the girl’s not a beauty--the mother is good-natured,
and may have been good-looking once, but she has no trace of it
now--and, as for the father, he is quite an ordinary man. Granted but
don’t you acknowledge that the sight of an honest man, with an honest,
loving wife by his side, and surrounded by loving and obedient children,
presents something very sweet and affecting to you? If you are made
acquainted with such a person, and see the eager kindness of the fond
faces round about him, and that pleasant confidence and affection
which beams from his own, do you mean to say you are not touched and
gratified? If you happen to stay in such a man’s house, and at morning
or evening see him and his children and domestics gathered together in a
certain name, do you not join humbly in the petitions of those servants,
and close them with a reverent Amen? That first night of his stay at
Oakhurst, Harry Warrington, who had had a sleeping potion, and was awake
sometimes rather feverish, thought he heard the Evening Hymn, and that
his dearest brother George was singing it at home, in which delusion the
patient went off again to sleep.



CHAPTER XXII. In Hospital


Sinking into a sweet slumber, and lulled by those harmonious sounds, our
young patient passed a night of pleasant unconsciousness, and awoke in
the morning to find a summer sun streaming in at the window, and his
kind host and hostess smiling at his bed-curtains. He was ravenously
hungry, and his doctor permitted him straightway to partake of a mess of
chicken, which the doctor’s wife told him had been prepared by the hands
of one of her daughters.

One of her daughters? A faint image of a young person--of two young
persons--with red cheeks and black waving locks, smiling round his
couch, and suddenly departing thence, soon after he had come to
himself, arose in the young man’s mind. Then, then, there returned the
remembrance of a female--lovely, it is true, but more elderly--certainly
considerably older--and with f----. Oh, horror and remorse! He writhed
with anguish, as a certain recollection crossed him. An immense gulf of
time gaped between him and the past. How long was it since he had heard
that those pearls were artificial,--that those golden locks were only
pinchbeck? A long, long time ago, when he was a boy, an innocent boy.
Now he was a man,--quite an old man. He had been bled copiously; he had
a little fever; he had had nothing to eat for very many hours; he had a
sleeping-draught, and a long, deep slumber after.

“What is it, my dear child?” cries kind Mrs. Lambert, as he started.

“Nothing, madam; a twinge in my shoulder,” said the lad. “I speak to my
host and hostess? Sure you have been very kind to me.”

“We are old friends, Mr. Warrington. My husband, Colonel Lambert,
knew your father, and I and your mamma were schoolgirls together at
Kensington. You were no stranger to us when your aunt and cousin told us
who you were.”

“Are they here?” asked Harry, looking a little blank.

“They must have lain at Tunbridge Wells last night. They sent a horseman
from Reigate yesterday for news of you.”

“Ah! I remember,” says Harry, looking at his bandaged arm.

“I have made a good cure of you, Mr. Warrington. And now Mrs. Lambert
and the cook must take charge of you.”

“Nay; Theo prepared the chicken and rice, Mr. Lambert,” said the lady.
“Will Mr. Warrington get up after he has had his breakfast? We will send
your valet to you.”

“If howling proves fidelity, your man must be a most fond, attached
creature,” says Mr. Lambert.

“He let your baggage travel off after all in your aunt’s carriage,” said
Mrs. Lambert. “You must wear my husband’s linen, which, I dare say, is
not so fine as yours.”

“Pish, my dear! my shirts are good shirts enough for any Christian,”
 cries the Colonel.

“They are Theo’s and Hester’s work,” says mamma. At which her husband
arches his eyebrows and looks at her. “And Theo hath ripped and sewed
your sleeve to make it quite comfortable for your shoulder,” the lady
added.

“What beautiful roses!” cries Harry, looking at a fine China vase full
of them that stood on the toilet-table, under the japan-framed glass.

“My daughter Theo cut them this morning. Well, Mr. Lambert? She did cut
them!”

I suppose the Colonel was thinking that his wife introduced Theo too
much into the conversation, and trod on Mrs. Lambert’s slipper, or
pulled her robe, or otherwise nudged her into a sense of propriety.

“And I fancied I heard some one singing the Evening Hymn very sweetly
last night--or was it only a dream?” asked the young patient.

“Theo again, Mr. Warrington!” said the Colonel, laughing. “My servants
said your negro man began to sing it in the kitchen as if he was a
church organ.”

“Our people sing it at home, sir. My grandpapa used to love it very
much. His wife’s father was a great friend of good Bishop Ken, who wrote
it; and--and my dear brother used to love it too;” said the boy, his
voice dropping.

It was then, I suppose, that Mrs. Lambert felt inclined to give the boy
a kiss. His little accident, illness and recovery, the kindness of
the people round about him, had softened Harry Warrington’s heart, and
opened it to better influences than those which had been brought to bear
on it for some six weeks past. He was breathing a purer air than that
tainted atmosphere of selfishness, and worldliness, and corruption, into
which he had been plunged since his arrival in England. Sometimes the
young man’s fate, or choice, or weakness, leads him into the fellowship
of the giddy and vain; happy he, whose lot makes him acquainted with
the wiser company, whose lamps are trimmed, and whose pure hearts keep
modest watch.

The pleased matron left her young patient devouring Miss Theo’s mess of
rice and chicken, and the Colonel seated by the lad’s bedside. Gratitude
to his hospitable entertainers, and contentment after a comfortable
meal, caused in Mr. Warrington a very pleasant condition of mind and
body. He was ready to talk now more freely than usually was his custom;
for, unless excited by a strong interest or emotion, the young man was
commonly taciturn and cautious in his converse with his fellows, and was
by no means of an imaginative turn. Of books our youth had been but a
very remiss student, nor were his remarks on such simple works as he
had read, very profound or valuable; but regarding dogs, horses, and
the ordinary business of life, he was a far better critic; and, with any
person interested in such subjects, conversed on them freely enough.

Harry’s host, who had considerable shrewdness, and experience of books,
and cattle, and men, was pretty soon able to take the measure of his
young guest in the talk which they now had together. It was now, for the
first time, the Virginian learned that Mrs. Lambert had been an early
friend of his mother’s, and that the Colonel’s own father had served
with Harry’s grandfather, Colonel Esmond, in the famous wars of Queen
Anne. He found himself in a friend’s country. He was soon at ease with
his honest host, whose manners were quite simple and cordial, and who
looked and seemed perfectly a gentleman, though he wore a plain fustian
coat, and a waistcoat without a particle of lace.

“My boys are both away,” said Harry’s host, “or they would have shown
you the country when you got up, Mr. Warrington. Now you can only have
the company of my wife and her daughters. Mrs. Lambert hath told you
already about one of them, Theo, our eldest, who made your broth, who
cut your roses, and who mended your coat. She is not such a wonder
as her mother imagines her to be: but little Theo is a smart little
housekeeper, and a very good and cheerful lass, though her father says
it.”

“It is very kind of Miss Lambert to take so much care for me,” says the
young patient.

“She is no kinder to you than to any other mortal, and doth but her
duty.” Here the Colonel smiled. “I laugh at their mother for praising
our children,” he said, “and I think I am as foolish about them myself.
The truth is, God hath given us very good and dutiful children, and I
see no reason why I should disguise my thankfulness for such a blessing.
You have never a sister, I think?”

“No, sir, I am alone now,” Mr. Warrington said.

“Ay, truly, I ask your pardon for my thoughtlessness. Your man hath told
our people what befell last year. I served with Braddock in Scotland;
and hope he mended before he died. A wild fellow, sir, but there was
a fund of truth about the man, and no little kindness under his rough
swaggering manner. Your black fellow talks very freely about his master
and his affairs. I suppose you permit him these freedoms as he rescued
you----”

“Rescued me?” cries Mr. Warrington.

“From ever so many Indians on that very expedition. My Molly and I did
not know we were going to entertain so prodigiously wealthy a gentleman.
He saith that half Virginia belongs to you; but if the whole of North
America were yours, we could but give you our best.”

“Those negro boys, sir, lie like the father of all lies. They think it
is for our honour to represent us as ten times as rich as we are. My
mother has what would be a vast estate in England, and is a very good
one at home. We are as well off as most of our neighbours, sir, but no
better; and all our splendour is in Mr. Gumbo’s foolish imagination. He
never rescued me from an Indian in his life, and would run away at the
sight of one, as my poor brother’s boy did on that fatal day when he
fell.”

“The bravest man will do so at unlucky times,” said the Colonel. “I
myself saw the best troops in the world run at Preston, before a ragged
mob of Highland savages.”

“That was because the Highlanders fought for a good cause, sir.”

“Do you think,” asks Harry’s host, “that the French Indians had the good
cause in the fight of last year?”

“The scoundrels! I would have the scalp of every murderous redskin among
‘em!” cried Harry, clenching his fist. “They were robbing and invading
the British territories, too. But the Highlanders were fighting for
their king.”

“We, on our side, were fighting for our king; and we ended by winning
the battle,” said the Colonel, laughing.

“Ah!” cried Harry; “if his Royal Highness the Prince had not turned back
at Derby, your king and mine, now, would be his Majesty King James the
Third!”

“Who made such a Tory of you, Mr. Warrington?” asked Lambert.

“Nay, sir, the Esmonds were always loyal!” answered the youth. “Had we
lived at home, and twenty years sooner, brother and I often and often
agreed that our heads would have been in danger. We certainly would have
staked them for the king’s cause.”

“Yours is better on your shoulders than on a pole at Temple Bar. I have
seen them there, and they don’t look very pleasant, Mr. Warrington.”

“I shall take off my hat, and salute them, whenever I pass the gate,”
 cried the young man, “if the king and the whole court are standing by!”

“I doubt whether your relative, my Lord Castlewood, is as staunch a
supporter of the king over the water,” said Colonel Lambert, smiling:
“or your aunt, the Baroness of Bernstein, who left you in our charge.
Whatever her old partialities may have been, she has repented of them;
she has rallied to our side, landed her nephews in the Household,
and looks to find a suitable match for her nieces. If you have Tory
opinions, Mr. Warrington, take an old soldier’s advice, and keep them to
yourself.”

“Why, sir, I do not think that you will betray me!” said the boy.

“Not I, but others might. You did not talk in this way at Castlewood? I
mean the old Castlewood which you have just come from.”

“I might be safe amongst my own kinsmen, surely, sir!” cried Harry.

“Doubtless. I would not say no. But a man’s own kinsmen can play him
slippery tricks at times, and he finds himself none the better for
trusting them. I mean no offence to you or any of your family; but
lacqueys have ears as well as their masters, and they carry about all
sorts of stories. For instance, your black fellow is ready to tell all
he knows about you, and a great deal more besides, as it would appear.”

“Hath he told about the broken-kneed horse?” cried out Harry, turning
very red.

“To say truth, my groom seemed to know something of the story, and said
it was a shame a gentleman should sell another such a brute; let alone
a cousin. I am not here to play the Mentor to you, or to carry about
servants’ tittle-tattle. When you have seen more of your cousins, you
will form your own opinion of them; meanwhile, take an old soldier’s
advice, I say again, and be cautious with whom you deal, and what you
say.”

Very soon after this little colloquy, Mr. Lambert’s guest rose, with the
assistance of Gumbo, his valet, to whom he, for the hundredth time at
least, promised a sound caning if ever he should hear that Gumbo had
ventured to talk about his affairs again in the servants’-hall,--which
prohibition Gumbo solemnly vowed and declared he would for ever obey;
but I dare say he was chattering the whole of the Castlewood secrets
to his new friends of Colonel Lambert’s kitchen; for Harry’s hostess
certainly heard a number of stories concerning him which she could
not prevent her housekeeper from telling; though of course I would not
accuse that worthy lady, or any of her sex or ours, of undue curiosity
regarding their neighbours’ affairs. But how can you prevent servants
talking, or listening when the faithful attached creatures talk to you?

Mr. Lambert’s house stood on the outskirts of the little town of
Oakhurst, which, if he but travels in the right direction, the patient
reader will find on the road between Farnham and Reigate,--and Madame
Bernstein’s servants naturally pulled at the first bell at hand, when
the young Virginian met with his mishap. A few hundred yards farther,
was the long street of the little old town, where hospitality might have
been found under the great swinging ensigns of a couple of tuns, and
medical relief was to be had, as a blazing gilt pestle and mortar
indicated. But what surgeon could have ministered more cleverly to
a patient than Harry’s host, who tended him without a fee, or what
Boniface could make him more comfortably welcome?

Two tall gates, each surmounted by a couple of heraldic monsters, led
from the highroad up to a neat, broad stone terrace, whereon stood
Oakhurst House; a square brick building, with windows faced with stone,
and many high chimneys, and a tall roof surmounted by a fair balustrade.
Behind the house stretched a large garden, where there was plenty of
room for cabbages as well as roses to grow; and before the mansion,
separated from it by the highroad, was a field of many acres, where the
Colonel’s cows and horses were at grass. Over the centre window was a
carved shield supported by the same monsters who pranced or ramped upon
the entrance-gates; and a coronet over the shield. The fact is, that the
house had been originally the jointure-house of Oakhurst Castle, which
stood hard by,--its chimneys and turrets appearing over the surrounding
woods, now bronzed with the darkest foliage of summer. Mr. Lambert’s
was the greatest house in Oakhurst town; but the Castle was of
more importance than all the town put together. The Castle and the
jointure-house had been friends of many years’ date. Their fathers had
fought side by side in Queen Anne’s wars. There were two small pieces
of ordnance on the terrace of the jointure-house, and six before the
Castle, which had been taken out of the same privateer, which Mr.
Lambert and his kinsman and commander, Lord Wrotham, had brought into
Harwich in one of their voyages home from Flanders with despatches from
the great Duke.

His toilet completed with Mr. Gumbo’s aid, his fair hair neatly dressed
by that artist, and his open ribboned sleeve and wounded shoulder
supported by a handkerchief which hung from his neck, Harry Warrington
made his way out of the sick-chamber, preceded by his kind host, who
led him first down a broad oak stair, round which hung many pikes and
muskets of ancient shape, and so into a square marble-paved room, from
which the living-rooms of the house branched off. There were more arms
in this hall-pikes and halberts of ancient date, pistols and jack-boots
of more than a century old, that had done service in Cromwell’s wars,
a tattered French guidon which had been borne by a French gendarme at
Malplaquet, and a pair of cumbrous Highland broadswords, which, having
been carried as far as Derby, had been flung away on the fatal field of
Culloden. Here were breastplates and black morions of Oliver’s troopers,
and portraits of stern warriors in buff jerkins and plain bands and
short hair. “They fought against your grandfathers and King Charles, Mr.
Warrington,” said Harry’s host. “I don’t hide that. They rode to join
the Prince of Orange at Exeter. We were Whigs, young gentleman, and
something more. John Lambert, the Major-General, was a kinsman of our
house, and we were all more or less partial to short hair and long
sermons. You do not seem to like either?” Indeed, Harry’s face
manifested signs of anything but pleasure whilst he examined the
portraits of the Parliamentary heroes. “Be not alarmed, we are very
good Churchmen now. My eldest son will be in orders ere long. He is now
travelling as governor to my Lord Wrotham’s son in Italy, and as for our
women, they are all for the Church, and carry me with ‘em. Every woman
is a Tory at heart. Mr. Pope says a rake, but I think t’other is the
more charitable word. Come, let us go see them,” and, flinging open
the dark oak door, Colonel Lambert led his young guest into the parlour
where the ladies were assembled.

“Here is Miss Hester,” said the Colonel, “and this is Miss Theo, the
soup-maker, the tailoress, the harpsichord-player, and the songstress,
who set you to sleep last night. Make a curtsey to the gentleman, young
ladies! Oh, I forgot, and Theo is the mistress of the roses which you
admired a short while since in your bedroom. I think she has kept some
of them in her cheeks.”

In fact, Miss Theo was making a profound curtsey and blushing
most modestly as her papa spoke. I am not going to describe her
person,--though we shall see a great deal of her in the course of this
history. She was not a particular beauty. Harry Warrington was not over
head and ears in love with her at an instant’s warning, and faithless
to--to that other individual with whom, as we have seen, the youth had
lately been smitten. Miss Theo had kind eyes and a sweet voice; a ruddy
freckled cheek and a round white neck, on which, out of a little cap
such as misses wore in those times, fell rich curling clusters of dark
brown hair. She was not a delicate or sentimental-looking person. Her
arms, which were worn bare from the elbow like other ladies’ arms in
those days, were very jolly and red. Her feet were not so miraculously
small but that you could see them without a telescope. There was nothing
waspish about her waist. This young person was sixteen years of age, and
looked older. I don’t know what call she had to blush so when she made
her curtsey to the stranger. It was such a deep ceremonial curtsey as
you never see at present. She and her sister both made these “cheeses”
 in compliment to the new comer, and with much stately agility.

As Miss Theo rose up out of this salute, her papa tapped her under the
chin (which was of the double sort of chins), and laughingly hummed out
the line which he had read the day. “Eh bien! que dites-vous, ma fille,
de notre hote?”

“Nonsense, Mr. Lambert!” cries mamma.

“Nonsense is sometimes the best kind of sense in the world,” said
Colonel Lambert. His guest looked puzzled.

“Are you fond of nonsense?” the Colonel continued to Harry, seeing by
the boy’s face that the latter had no great love or comprehension of his
favourite humour. “We consume a vast deal of it in this house.
Rabelais is my favourite reading. My wife is all for Mr. Fielding and
Theophrastus. I think Theo prefers Tom Brown, and Mrs. Hetty here loves
Dean Swift.”

“Our papa is talking what he loves,” says Miss Hetty.

“And what is that, miss?” asks the father of his second daughter.

“Sure, sir, you said yourself it was nonsense,” answers the young lady,
with a saucy toss of her head.

“Which of them do you like best, Mr. Warrington?” asked the honest
Colonel.

“Which of whom, sir?”

“The Curate of Meudon, or the Dean of St. Patrick’s, or honest Tom, or
Mr. Fielding?”

“And what were they, sir?”

“They! Why, they wrote books.”

“Indeed, sir. I never heard of either one of ‘em,” said Harry, hanging
down his head. “I fear my book-learning was neglected at home, sir. My
brother had read every book that ever was wrote, I think. He could have
talked to you about ‘em for hours together.”

With this little speech Mrs. Lambert’s eyes turned to her daughter, and
Miss Theo cast hers down and blushed.

“Never mind, honesty is better than books any day, Mr. Warrington!”
 cried the jolly Colonel. “You may go through the world very honourably
without reading any of the books I have been talking of, and some of
them might give you more pleasure than profit.”

“I know more about horses and dogs than Greek and Latin, sir. We most of
us do in Virginia,” said Mr. Warrington.

“You are like the Persians; you can ride and speak the truth.”

“Are the Prussians very good on horseback, sir? I hope I shall see their
king and a campaign or two, either with ‘em or against ‘em,” remarked
Colonel Lambert’s guest. Why did Miss Theo look at her mother, and why
did that good woman’s face assume a sad expression?

Why? Because young lasses are bred in humdrum country towns, do you
suppose they never indulge in romances? Because they are modest and have
never quitted mother’s apron, do you suppose they have no thoughts of
their own? What happens in spite of all those precautions which the
King and Queen take for their darling princess, those dragons, and
that impenetrable forest, and that castle of steel? The fairy prince
penetrates the impenetrable forest, finds the weak point in the dragon’s
scale armour, and gets the better of all the ogres who guard the castle
of steel. Away goes the princess to him. She knew him at once. Her
bandboxes and portmanteaux are filled with her best clothes and all her
jewels. She has been ready ever so long.

That is in fairy tales, you understand--where the blessed hour and youth
always arrive, the ivory horn is blown at the castle gate; and far off
in her beauteous bower the princess hears it, and starts up, and knows
that there is the right champion. He is always ready. Look! how the
giants’ heads tumble off as, falchion in hand, he gallops over the
bridge on his white charger! How should that virgin, locked up in that
inaccessible fortress, where she has never seen any man that was not
eighty, or humpbacked, or her father, know that there were such beings
in the world as young men? I suppose there’s an instinct. I suppose
there’s a season. I never spoke for my part to a fairy princess, or
heard as much from any unenchanted or enchanting maiden. Ne’er a one
of them has ever whispered her pretty little secrets to me, or perhaps
confessed them to herself, her mamma, or her nearest and dearest
confidante. But they will fall in love. Their little hearts are
constantly throbbing at the window of expectancy on the lookout for the
champion. They are always hearing his horn. They are for ever on the
tower looking out for the hero. Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see him?
Surely ‘tis a knight with curling mustachios, a flashing scimitar, and a
suit of silver armour. Oh no! it is only a costermonger with his donkey
and a pannier of cabbage! Sister Ann, Sister Ann, what is that cloud of
dust? Oh, it is only a farmer’s man driving a flock of pigs from market.
Sister Ann, Sister Ann, who is that splendid warrior advancing in
scarlet and gold? He nears the castle, he clears the drawbridge, he
lifts the ponderous hammer at the gate. Ah me, he knocks twice! ‘Tis
only the postman with a double letter from Northamptonshire! So it is we
make false starts in life. I don’t believe there is any such thing known
as first love--not within man’s or woman’s memory. No male or female
remembers his or her first inclination any more than his or her own
christening. What? You fancy that your sweet mistress, your spotless
spinster, your blank maiden just out of the schoolroom, never cared
for any but you? And she tells you so? Oh, you idiot! When she was four
years old she had a tender feeling towards the Buttons who brought the
coals up to the nursery, or the little sweep at the crossing, or the
music-master, or never mind whom. She had a secret longing towards
her brother’s schoolfellow, or the third charity boy at church, and
if occasion had served, the comedy enacted with you had been performed
along with another. I do not mean to say that she confessed this amatory
sentiment, but that she had it. Lay down this page, and think how
many and many and many a time you were in love before you selected the
present Mrs. Jones as the partner of your name and affections!

So, from the way in which Theo held her head down, and exchanged looks
with her mother, when poor unconscious Harry called the Persians the
Prussians, and talked of serving a campaign with them, I make no doubt
she was feeling ashamed, and thinking within herself, “Is this the hero
with whom my mamma and I have been in love for these twenty-four hours,
and whom we have endowed with every perfection? How beautiful, pale, and
graceful he looked yesterday as he lay on the ground! How his curls fell
over his face! How sad it was to see his poor white arm, and the blood
trickling from it when papa bled him! And now he is well and amongst us,
he is handsome certainly, but oh, is it possible he is--he is stupid?”
 When she lighted the lamp and looked at him, did Psyche find Cupid out;
and is that the meaning of the old allegory? The wings of love drop
off at this discovery. The fancy can no more soar and disport in skyey
regions, the beloved object ceases at once to be celestial, and remains
plodding on earth, entirely unromantic and substantial.



CHAPTER XXIII. Holidays


Mrs. Lambert’s little day-dream was over. Miss Theo and her mother were
obliged to confess in their hearts that their hero was but an ordinary
mortal. They uttered few words on the subject, but each knew the other’s
thoughts as people who love each other do; and mamma, by an extra
tenderness and special caressing manner towards her daughter, sought to
console her for her disappointment. “Never mind, my dear”--the maternal
kiss whispered on the filial cheek--“our hero has turned out to be but
an ordinary mortal, and none such is good enough for my Theo. Thou shalt
have a real husband ere long, if there be one in England. Why, I was
scarce fifteen when your father saw me at the Bury Assembly, and while I
was yet at school, I used to vow that I never would have any other
man. If Heaven gave me such a husband--the best man in the whole
kingdom--sure it will bless my child equally, who deserves a king if she
fancies him!” Indeed, I am not sure that Mrs. Lambert--who, of course,
knew the age of the Prince of Wales, and was aware how handsome and good
a young prince he was--did not expect that he too would come riding by
her gate, and perhaps tumble down from his horse there, and be taken
into the house, and be cured, and cause his royal grandpapa to give
Martin Lambert a regiment, and fall in love with Theo.

The Colonel for his part, and his second daughter, Miss Hetty, were on
the laughing, scornful, unbelieving side. Mamma was always match-making.
Indeed, Mrs. Lambert was much addicted to novels, and cried her eyes out
over them with great assiduity. No coach ever passed the gate, but she
expected a husband for her girls would alight from it and ring the bell.
As for Miss Hetty, she allowed her tongue to wag in a more than
usually saucy way: she made a hundred sly allusions to their guest. She
introduced Prussia and Persia into their conversation with abominable
pertness and frequency. She asked whether the present King of Prussia
was called the Shaw or the Sophy, and how far it was from Ispahan to
Saxony, which his Majesty was at present invading, and about which war
papa was so busy with his maps and his newspapers? She brought down the
Persian Tales from her mamma’s closet, and laid them slily on the table
in the parlour where the family sate. She would not marry a Persian
prince for her part; she would prefer a gentleman who might not have
more than one wife at a time. She called our young Virginian Theo’s
gentleman, Theo’s prince. She asked her mamma if she wished her, Hetty,
to take the other visitor, the black prince, for herself? Indeed, she
rallied her sister and her mother unceasingly on their sentimentalities,
and would never stop until she had made them angry, when she would begin
to cry herself, and kiss them violently one after the other, and coax
them back into good-humour. Simple Harry Warrington, meanwhile, knew
nothing of all the jokes, the tears, quarrels, reconciliations, hymeneal
plans, and so forth, of which he was the innocent occasion. A hundred
allusions to the Prussians and Persians were shot at him, and those
Parthian arrows did not penetrate his hide at all. A Shaw? A Sophy?
Very likely he thought a Sophy was a lady, and would have deemed it the
height of absurdity that a man with a great black beard should have
any such name. We fall into the midst of a quiet family: we drop like a
stone, say, into a pool,--we are perfectly compact and cool, and little
know the flutter and excitement we make there, disturbing the fish,
frightening the ducks, and agitating the whole surface of the water.
How should Harry know the effect which his sudden appearance produced in
this little, quiet, sentimental family? He thought quite well enough of
himself on many points, but was diffident as yet regarding women, being
of that age when young gentlemen require encouragement and to be brought
forward, and having been brought up at home in very modest and primitive
relations towards the other sex. So Miss Hetty’s jokes played round the
lad, and he minded them no more than so many summer gnats. It was not
that he was stupid, as she certainly thought him: he was simple, too
much occupied with himself and his own honest affairs to think of
others. Why, what tragedies, comedies, interludes, intrigues, farces,
are going on under our noses in friends’ drawing-rooms where we visit
every day, and we remain utterly ignorant, self-satisfied, and blind!
As these sisters sate and combed their flowing ringlets of nights, or
talked with each other in the great bed where, according to the fashion
of the day, they lay together, how should Harry know that he had so
great a share in their thoughts, jokes, conversation? Three days after
his arrival, his new and hospitable friends were walking with him in my
Lord Wrotham’s fine park, where they were free to wander; and here, on a
piece of water, they came to some swans, which the young ladies were
in the habit of feeding with bread. As the birds approached the young
women, Hetty said, with a queer look at her mother and sister, and
then a glance at her father, who stood by, honest, happy, in a red
waistcoat,--Hetty said: “Mamma’s swans are something like these, papa.”

“What swans, my dear?” says mamma.

“Something like, but not quite. They have shorter necks than these, and
are, scores of them, on our common,” continues Miss Hetty. “I saw Betty
plucking one in the kitchen this morning. We shall have it for dinner,
with apple-sauce and----”

“Don’t be a little goose!” says Miss Theo.

“And sage and onions. Do you love swan, Mr. Warrington?”

“I shot three last winter on our river,” said the Virginian gentleman.
“Ours are not such white birds as these--they eat very well, though.”
 The simple youth had not the slightest idea that he himself was an
allegory at that very time, and that Miss Hetty was narrating a fable
regarding him. In some exceedingly recondite Latin work I have read
that, long before Virginia was discovered, other folks were equally dull
of comprehension.

So it was a premature sentiment on the part of Miss Theo--that little
tender flutter of the bosom which we have acknowledged she felt on first
beholding the Virginian, so handsome, pale, and bleeding. This was not
the great passion which she knew her heart could feel. Like the birds,
it had wakened and begun to sing at a false dawn. Hop back to thy perch,
and cover thy head with thy wing, thou tremulous little fluttering
creature! It is not yet light, and roosting is as yet better than
singing. Anon will come morning, and the whole sky will redden, and you
shall soar up into it and salute the sun with your music.

One little phrase, some three-and-thirty lines back, perhaps the fair
and suspicious reader has remarked: “Three days after his arrival, Harry
was walking with,” etc. etc. If he could walk--which it appeared he
could do perfectly well--what business had he to be walking with anybody
but Lady Maria Esmond on the Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells? His shoulder
was set: his health was entirely restored: he had not even a change of
coats, as we have seen, and was obliged to the Colonel for his raiment.
Surely a young man in such a condition had no right to be lingering
on at Oakhurst, and was bound by every tie of duty and convenience,
by love, by relationship, by a gentle heart waiting for him, by the
washerwoman finally, to go to Tunbridge. Why did he stay behind, unless
he was in love with either of the young ladies (and we say he wasn’t)?
Could it be that he did not want to go? Hath the gracious reader
understood the meaning of the mystic S with which the last chapter
commences, and in which the designer has feebly endeavoured to depict
the notorious Sinbad the Sailor, surmounted by that odious old man of
the sea? What if Harry Warrington should be that sailor, and his fate
that choking, deadening, inevitable old man? What if for two days past
he has felt those knees throttling him round the neck? if his fell
aunt’s purpose is answered, and if his late love is killed as dead
by her poisonous communications as fair Rosamond was by her royal and
legitimate rival? Is Hero then lighting the lamp up, and getting ready
the supper, whilst Leander is sitting comfortably with some other party,
and never in the least thinking of taking to the water? Ever since
that coward’s blow was struck in Lady Maria’s back by her own relative,
surely kind hearts must pity her ladyship. I know she has faults--ay,
and wears false hair and false never mind what. But a woman in distress,
shall we not pity her--a lady of a certain age, are we going to laugh at
her because of her years? Between her old aunt and her unhappy delusion,
be sure my Lady Maria Esmond is having no very pleasant time of it at
Tunbridge Wells. There is no one to protect her. Madam Beatrix has her
all to herself. Lady Maria is poor, and hopes for money from her aunt.
Lady Maria has a secret or two which the old woman knows, and brandishes
over her. I for one am quite melted and grow soft-hearted as I think
of her. Imagine her alone, and a victim to that old woman! Paint to
yourself that antique Andromeda (if you please we will allow that rich
flowing head of hair to fall over her shoulders) chained to a rock
on Mount Ephraim, and given up to that dragon of a Baroness! Succour,
Perseus! Come quickly with thy winged feet and flashing falchion!
Perseus is not in the least hurry. The dragon has her will of Andromeda
for day after day.

Harry Warrington, who would not have allowed his dislocated and mended
shoulder to keep him from going out hunting, remained day after day
contentedly at Oakhurst, with each day finding the kindly folks who
welcomed him more to his liking. Perhaps he had never, since his
grandfather’s death, been in such good company. His lot had lain amongst
fox-hunting Virginian squires, with whose society he had put up very
contentedly, riding their horses, living their lives, and sharing their
punch-bowls. The ladies of his own and mother’s acquaintance were
very well bred, and decorous, and pious, no doubt, but somewhat
narrow-minded. It was but a little place, his home, with its pompous
ways, small etiquettes and punctilios, small flatteries, small
conversations and scandals. Until he had left the place, some time
after, he did not know how narrow and confined his life had been there.
He was free enough personally. He had dogs and horses, and might shoot
and hunt for scores of miles round about: but the little lady-mother
domineered at home, and when there he had to submit to her influence and
breathe her air.

Here the lad found himself in the midst of a circle where everything
about him was incomparably gayer, brighter, and more free. He was living
with a man and woman who had seen the world, though they lived retired
from it, who had both of them happened to enjoy from their earliest
times the use not only of good books, but of good company--those live
books, which are such pleasant and sometimes such profitable reading.
Society has this good at least: that it lessens our conceit, by teaching
us our insignificance, and making us acquainted with our betters. If you
are a young person who read this, depend upon it, sir or madam, there is
nothing more wholesome for you than to acknowledge and to associate with
your superiors. If I could, I would not have my son Thomas first Greek
and Latin prize boy, first oar, and cock of the school. Better for his
soul’s and body’s welfare that he should have a good place, not the
first--a fair set of competitors round about him, and a good thrashing
now and then, with a hearty shake afterwards of the hand which
administered the beating. What honest man that can choose his lot would
be a prince, let us say, and have all society walking backwards before
him, only obsequious household-gentlemen to talk to, and all mankind mum
except when your High Mightiness asks a question and gives permission
to speak? One of the great benefits which Harry Warrington received from
this family, before whose gate Fate had shot him, was to begin to learn
that he was a profoundly ignorant young fellow, and that there were many
people in the world far better than he knew himself to be. Arrogant
a little with some folks, in the company of his superiors he was
magnanimously docile. We have seen how faithfully he admired his brother
at home, and his friend, the gallant young Colonel of Mount Vernon: of
the gentlemen, his kinsmen at Castlewood, he had felt himself at least
the equal. In his new acquaintance at Oakhurst he found a man who had
read far more books than Harry could pretend to judge of, who had seen
the world and come unwounded out of it, as he had out of the dangers
and battles which he had confronted, and who had goodness and honesty
written on his face and breathing from his lips, for which qualities our
brave lad had always an instinctive sympathy and predilection.

As for the women, they were the kindest, merriest, most agreeable he had
as yet known. They were pleasanter than Parson Broadbent’s black-eyed
daughter at home, whose laugh carried as far as a gun. They were quite
as well-bred as the Castlewood ladies, with the exception of Madam
Beatrix (who, indeed, was as grand as an empress on some occasions).
But somehow, after a talk with Madam Beatrix, and vast amusement and
interest in her stories, the lad would come away as with a bitter taste
in his mouth, and fancy all the world wicked round about him. They were
not in the least squeamish; and laughed over pages of Mr. Fielding, and
cried over volumes of Mr. Richardson, containing jokes and incidents
which would make Mrs. Grundy’s hair stand on end, yet their merry
prattle left no bitterness behind it: their tales about this neighbour
and that were droll, not malicious; the curtseys and salutations with
which the folks of the little neighbouring town received them, how
kindly and cheerful! their bounties how cordial! Of a truth it is good
to be with good people. How good Harry Warrington did not know at the
time, perhaps, or until subsequent experience showed him contrasts, or
caused him to feel remorse. Here was a tranquil, sunshiny day of a life
that was to be agitated and stormy--a happy hour or two to remember.
Not much happened during the happy hour or two. It was only sweet sleep,
pleasant waking, friendly welcome, serene pastime. The gates of the old
house seemed to shut the wicked world out somehow, and the inhabitants
within to be better, and purer, and kinder than other people. He was
not in love; oh no! not the least, either with saucy Hetty or generous
Theodosia but when the time came for going away, he fastened on both
their hands, and felt an immense regard for them. He thought he should
like to know their brothers, and that they must be fine fellows; and as
for Mrs. Lambert, I believe she was as sentimental at his departure as
if he had been the last volume of Clarissa Harlowe.

“He is very kind and honest,” said Theo, gravely, as, looking from the
terrace, they saw him and their father and servants riding away on the
road to Westerham.

“I don’t think him stupid at all now,” said little Hetty; “and, mamma, I
think, he is very like a swan indeed.”

“It felt just like one of the boys going to school,” said mamma.

“Just like it,” said Theo, sadly.

“I am glad he has got papa to ride with him to Westerham,” resumed Miss
Hetty, “and that he bought Farmer Briggs’s horse. I don’t like his going
to those Castlewood people. I am sure that Madame Bernstein is a wicked
old woman. I expected to see her ride away on her crooked stick.”

“Hush, Hetty!”

“Do you think she would float if they tried her in the pond, as poor old
mother Hely did at Elmhurst? The other old woman seemed fond of him--I
mean the one with the fair tour. She looked very melancholy when she
went away; but Madame Bernstein whisked her off with her crutch, and she
was obliged to go. I don’t care, Theo. I know she is a wicked woman.
You think everybody good, you do, because you never do anything wrong
yourself.”

“My Theo is a good girl,” says the mother, looking fondly at both her
daughters.

“Then why do we call her a miserable sinner?”

“We are all so, my love,” said mamma.

“What, papa too? You know you don’t think so,” cries Miss Hester. And to
allow this was almost more than Mrs. Lambert could afford.

“What was that you told John to give to Mr. Warrington’s black man?”

Mamma owned, with some shamefacedness, it was a bottle of her cordial
water and a cake which she had bid Betty make. “I feel quite like a
mother to him, my dears, I can’t help owning it,--and you know both
our boys still like one of our cakes to take to school or college with
them.”



CHAPTER XXIV. From Oakhurst to Tunbridge


Having her lily handkerchief in token of adieu to the departing
travellers, Mrs. Lambert and her girls watched them pacing leisurely on
the first few hundred yards of their journey, and until such time as a
tree-clumped corner of the road hid them from the ladies’ view. Behind
that clump of limes the good matron had many a time watched those she
loved best disappear. Husband departing to battle and danger, sons to
school, each after the other had gone on his way behind yonder green
trees, returning as it pleased Heaven’s will at his good time, and
bringing pleasure and love back to the happy little family. Besides
their own instinctive nature (which to be sure aids wonderfully in the
matter), the leisure and contemplation attendant upon their home life
serve to foster the tenderness and fidelity of our women. The men gone,
there is all day to think about them, and to-morrow and to-morrow--when
there certainly will be a letter--and so on. There is the vacant room
to go look at, where the boy slept last night, and the impression of his
carpet bag is still on the bed. There is his whip hung up in the hall,
and his fishing-rod and basket--mute memorials of the brief bygone
pleasures. At dinner there comes up that cherry-tart, half of which
our darling ate at two o’clock in spite of his melancholy, and with a
choking little sister on each side of him. The evening prayer is said
without that young scholar’s voice to utter the due responses. Midnight
and silence come, and the good mother lies wakeful, thinking how one of
the dear accustomed brood is away from the nest. Morn breaks, home and
holidays have passed away, and toil and labour have begun for him. So
those rustling limes formed, as it were, a screen between the world and
our ladies of the house at Oakhurst. Kind-hearted Mrs. Lambert always
became silent and thoughtful, if by chance she and her girls walked up
to the trees in the absence of the men of the family. She said she would
like to carve their names up on the grey silvered trunks, in the midst
of true-lovers’ knots, as was then the kindly fashion; and Miss Theo,
who had an exceeding elegant turn that way, made some verses regarding
the trees, which her delighted parent transmitted to a periodical of
those days.

“Now we are out of sight of the ladies,” says Colonel Lambert, giving a
parting salute with his hat, as the pair of gentlemen trotted past the
limes in question. “I know my wife always watches at her window until we
are round this corner. I hope we shall have you seeing the trees and the
house again, Mr. Warrington; and the boys being at home, mayhap there
will be better sport for you.”

“I never want to be happier, sir, than I have been,” replied Mr.
Warrington; “and I hope you will let me say, that I feel as if I am
leaving quite old friends behind me.”

“The friend at whose house we shall sup to-night hath a son, who is
an old friend of our family, too; and my wife, who is an inveterate
marriage-monger, would have made a match between him and one of my
girls, but that the Colonel hath chosen to fall in love with somebody
else.”

“Ah!” sighed Mr. Warrington.

“Other folks have done the same thing. There were brave fellows before
Agamemnon.”

“I beg your pardon, sir. Is the gentleman’s name--Aga----? I did not
quite gather it,” meekly inquired the young traveller.

“No, his name is James Wolfe,” cried the Colonel, smiling. “He is a
young fellow still, or what we call so, being scarce thirty years old.
He is the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the army, unless, to be sure,
we except a few scores of our nobility, who take rank before us common
folk.”

“Of course of course!” says the Colonel’s young companion with true
colonial notions of aristocratic precedence.

“And I have seen him commanding captains, and very brave captains, who
were thirty years his seniors, and who had neither his merit nor his
good fortune. But, lucky as he hath been, no one envies his superiority,
for, indeed, most of us acknowledge that he is our superior. He is
beloved by every man of our old regiment and knows every one of them. He
is a good scholar as well as a consummate soldier, and a master of many
languages.”

“Ah, sir!” said Harry Warrington, with a sigh of great humility; “I feel
that I have neglected my own youth sadly; and am come to England but an
ignoramus. Had my dear brother been alive, he would have represented our
name and our colony, too, better than I can do. George was a scholar;
George was a musician; George could talk with the most learned people
in our country, and I make no doubt would have held his own here. Do you
know, sir, I am glad to have come home, and to you especially, if but to
learn how ignorant I am.”

“If you know that well, ‘tis a great gain already,” said the Colonel,
with a smile.

“At home, especially of late, and since we lost my brother, I used to
think myself a mighty fine fellow, and have no doubt that the folks
round about flattered me. I am wiser now,--that is, I hope I am,--though
perhaps I am wrong, and only bragging again. But you see, sir, the
gentry in our colony don’t know very much, except about dogs and horses,
and betting and games. I wish I knew more about books, and less about
them.”

“Nay. Dogs and horses are very good books, too, in their way, and we may
read a deal of truth out of ‘em. Some men are not made to be scholars,
and may be very worthy citizens and gentlemen in spite of their
ignorance. What call have all of us to be especially learned or wise, or
to take a first place in the world? His Royal Highness is commander, and
Martin Lambert is colonel, and Jack Hunt, who rides behind yonder, was a
private soldier, and is now a very honest, worthy groom. So as we all
do our best in our station, it matters not much whether that be high
or low. Nay, how do we know what is high and what is low? and whether
Jack’s currycomb, or my epaulets, or his Royal Highness’s baton, may
not turn out to be pretty equal? When I began life, et militavi non
sine--never mind what--I dreamed of success and honour; now I think of
duty, and yonder folks, from whom we parted a few hours ago. Let us trot
on, else we shall not reach Westerham before nightfall.”

At Westerham the two friends were welcomed by their hosts, a stately
matron, an old soldier, whose recollections and services were of
five-and-forty years back, and the son of this gentleman and lady, the
Lieutenant-Colonel of Kingsley’s regiment, that was then stationed at
Maidstone, whence the Colonel had come over on a brief visit to his
parents. Harry looked with some curiosity at this officer, who, young
as he was, had seen so much service, and obtained a character so high.
There was little of the beautiful in his face. He was very lean and very
pale; his hair was red, his nose and cheek-bones were high; but he had
a fine courtesy towards his elders, a cordial greeting towards his
friends, and an animation in conversation which caused those who heard
him to forget, even to admire, his homely looks.

Mr. Warrington was going to Tunbridge? Their James would bear him
company, the lady of the house said, and whispered something to Colonel
Lambert at supper, which occasioned smiles and a knowing wink or two
from that officer. He called for wine, and toasted “Miss Lowther.” “With
all my heart,” cried the enthusiastic Colonel James, and drained his
glass to the very last drop. Mamma whispered her friend how James and
the lady were going to make a match, and how she came of the famous
Lowther family of the North.

“If she was the daughter of King Charlemagne,” cries Lambert, “she is
not too good for James Wolfe, or for his mother’s son.”

“Mr. Lambert would not say so if he knew her,” the young Colonel
declared.

“Oh, of course, she is the priceless pearl, and you are nothing,” cries
mamma. “No. I am of Colonel Lambert’s opinion; and, if she brought all
Cumberland to you for a jointure, I should say it was my James’s due.
That is the way with ‘em, Mr. Warrington. We tend our children through
fevers, and measles, and whooping-cough, and small-pox; we send them to
the army and can’t sleep at night for thinking; we break our hearts at
parting with ‘em, and have them at home only for a week or two in the
year, or maybe ten years, and, after all our care, there comes a lass
with a pair of bright eyes, and away goes our boy, and never cares a fig
for us afterwards.”

“And pray, my dear, how did you come to marry James’s papa?” said
the elder Colonel Wolfe. “And why didn’t you stay at home with your
parents?”

“Because James’s papa was gouty, and wanted somebody to take care of
him, I suppose; not because I liked him a bit,” answers the lady: and so
with much easy talk and kindness the evening passed away.

On the morrow, and with many expressions of kindness and friendship for
his late guest, Colonel Lambert gave over the young Virginian to Mr.
Wolfe’s charge, and turned his horse’s head homewards, while the two
gentlemen sped towards Tunbridge Wells. Wolfe was in a hurry to reach
the place, Harry Warrington was, perhaps, not quite so eager: nay, when
Lambert rode towards his own home, Harry’s thoughts followed him with
a great deal of longing desire to the parlour at Oakhurst, where he
had spent three days in happy calm. Mr. Wolfe agreed in all Harry’s
enthusiastic praises of Mr. Lambert, and of his wife, and of his
daughters, and of all that excellent family. “To have such a good name,
and to live such a life as Colonel Lambert’s,” said Wolfe, “seem to me
now the height of human ambition.”

“And glory and honour?” asked Warrington, “are those nothing? and would
you give up the winning of them?”

“They were my dreams once,” answered the Colonel, who had now different
ideas of happiness, “and now my desires are much more tranquil. I have
followed arms ever since I was fourteen years of age. I have seen almost
every kind of duty connected with my calling. I know all the garrison
towns in this country, and have had the honour to serve wherever there
has been work to be done during the last ten years. I have done pretty
near the whole of a soldier’s duty, except, indeed, the command of
an army, which can hardly be hoped for by one of my years; and now,
methinks, I would like quiet, books to read, a wife to love me, and some
children to dandle on my knee. I have imagined some such Elysium for
myself, Mr. Warrington. True love is better than glory; and a tranquil
fireside, with the woman of your heart seated by it, the greatest good
the gods can send to us.”

Harry imagined to himself the picture which his comrade called up. He
said “Yes,” in answer to the other’s remark; but, no doubt, did not give
a very cheerful assent, for his companion observed upon the expression
of his face.

“You say ‘Yes’ as if a fireside and a sweetheart were not particularly
to your taste.”

“Why, look you, Colonel, there are other things which a young fellow
might like to enjoy. You have had sixteen years of the world: and I am
but a few months away from my mother’s apron-strings. When I have seen
a campaign or two, or six, as you have: when I have distinguished myself
like Mr. Wolfe, and made the world talk of me, I then may think of
retiring from it.”

To these remarks, Mr. Wolfe, whose heart was full of a very different
matter, replied by breaking out in a further encomium of the joys of
marriage; and a special rhapsody upon the beauties and merits of his
mistress--a theme intensely interesting to himself, though not so,
possibly, to his hearer, whose views regarding a married life, if
he permitted himself to entertain any, were somewhat melancholy and
despondent. A pleasant afternoon brought them to the end of their ride;
nor did any accident or incident accompany it, save, perhaps, a mistake
which Harry Warrington made at some few miles’ distance from Tunbridge
Wells, where two horsemen stopped them, whom Harry was for charging,
pistol in hand, supposing them to be highwaymen. Colonel Wolfe,
laughing, bade Mr. Warrington reserve his fire, for these folks were
only innkeepers’ agents, and not robbers (except in their calling).
Gumbo, whose horse ran away with him at this particular juncture, was
brought back after a great deal of bawling on his master’s part, and the
two gentlemen rode into the little town, alighted at their inn, and then
separated, each in quest of the ladies whom he had come to visit.

Mr. Warrington found his aunt installed in handsome lodgings, with a
guard of London lacqueys in her anteroom, and to follow her chair when
she went abroad. She received him with the utmost kindness. His cousin,
my Lady Maria, was absent when he arrived: I don’t know whether the
young gentleman was unhappy at not seeing her: or whether he disguised
his feelings, or whether Madame de Bernstein took any note regarding
them.

A beau in a rich figured suit, the first specimen of the kind Harry had
seen, and two dowagers with voluminous hoops and plenty of rouge, were
on a visit to the Baroness when her nephew made his bow to her. She
introduced the young man to these personages as her nephew, the young
Croesus out of Virginia, of whom they had heard. She talked about the
immensity of his estate, which was as large as Kent; and, as she had
read, infinitely more fruitful. She mentioned how her half-sister, Madam
Esmond, was called Princess Pocahontas in her own country. She never
tired in her praises of mother and son, of their riches and their good
qualities. The beau shook the young man by the hand, and was delighted
to have the honour to make his acquaintance. The ladies praised him
to his aunt so loudly that the modest youth was fain to blush at their
compliments. They went away to inform the Tunbridge society of the news
of his arrival. The little place was soon buzzing with accounts of the
wealth, the good breeding, and the good looks of the Virginian.

“You could not have come at a better moment, my dear,” the Baroness said
to her nephew, as her visitors departed with many curtseys and congees.
“Those three individuals have the most active tongues in the Wells. They
will trumpet your good qualities in every company where they go. I have
introduced you to a hundred people already, and, Heaven help me! have
told all sorts of fibs about the geography of Virginia in order to
describe your estate. It is a prodigious large one, but I am afraid I
have magnified it. I have filled it with all sorts of wonderful animals,
gold mines, spices; I am not sure I have not said diamonds. As for
your negroes, I have given your mother armies of them, and, in fact,
represented her as a sovereign princess reigning over a magnificent
dominion. So she has a magnificent dominion: I cannot tell to a few
hundred thousand pounds how much her yearly income is, but I have no
doubt it is a very great one. And you must prepare, sir, to be treated
here as the heir-apparent of this royal lady. Do not let your head be
turned. From this day forth you are going to be flattered as you have
never been flattered in your life.”

“And to what end, ma’am?” asked the young gentleman. “I see no reason
why I should be reputed so rich, or get so much flattery.”

“In the first place, sir, you must not contradict your old aunt, who
has no desire to be made a fool of before her company. And as for your
reputation, you must know we found it here almost ready-made on our
arrival. A London newspaper has somehow heard of you, and come out with
a story of the immense wealth of a young gentleman from Virginia lately
landed, and a nephew of my Lord Castlewood. Immensely wealthy you are,
and can’t help yourself. All the world is eager to see you. You shall
go to church to-morrow morning, and see how the whole congregation will
turn away from its books and prayers, to worship the golden calf in your
person. You would not have had me undeceive them, would you, and speak
ill of my own flesh and blood?”

“But how am I bettered by this reputation for money?” asked Harry.

“You are making your entry into the world, and the gold key will open
most of its doors to you. To be thought rich is as good as to be rich.
You need not spend much money. People will say that you hoard it, and
your reputation for avarice will do you good rather than harm. You’ll
see how the mothers will smile upon you, and the daughters will curtsey!
Don’t look surprised! When I was a young woman myself I did as all
the rest of the world did, and tried to better myself by more than one
desperate attempt at a good marriage. Your poor grandmother, who was a
saint upon earth to be sure, bating a little jealousy, used to scold me,
and called me worldly. Worldly, my dear! So is the world worldly; and
we must serve it as it serves us; and give it nothing for nothing. Mr.
Henry Esmond Warrington--I can’t help loving the two first names, sir,
old woman as I am, and that I tell you--on coming here or to London,
would have been nobody. Our protection would have helped him but little.
Our family has little credit, and, entre nous, not much reputation. I
suppose you know that Castlewood was more than suspected in ‘45, and
hath since ruined himself by play?”

Harry had never heard about Lord Castlewood or his reputation.

“He never had much to lose, but he has lost that and more: his wretched
estate is eaten up with mortgages. He has been at all sorts of schemes
to raise money:--my dear, he has been so desperate at times, that I did
not think my diamonds were safe with him; and have travelled to and from
Castlewood without them. Terrible, isn’t it, to speak so of one’s own
nephew? But you are my nephew, too, and not spoiled by the world yet,
and I wish to warn you of its wickedness. I heard of your play-doings
with Will and the chaplain, but they could do you no harm,--nay, I am
told you had the better of them. Had you played with Castlewood, you
would have had no such luck: and you would have played, had not an old
aunt of yours warned my Lord Castlewood to keep his hands off you.”

“What, ma’am, did you interfere to preserve me?”

“I kept his clutches off from you: be thankful that you are come out of
that ogre’s den with any flesh on your bones! My dear, it has been the
rage and passion of all our family. My poor silly brother played; both
his wives played, especially the last one, who has little else to live
upon now but her nightly assemblies in London, and the money for the
cards. I would not trust her at Castlewood alone with you: the passion
is too strong for them, and they would fall upon you, and fleece you;
and then fall upon each other, and fight for the plunder. But for his
place about the Court my poor nephew hath nothing, and that is Will’s
fortune, too, sir, and Maria’s and her sister’s.”

“And are they, too, fond of the cards?”

“No; to do poor Molly justice, gaming is not her passion: but when she
is amongst them in London, little Fanny will bet her eyes out of her
head. I know what the passion is, sir: do not look so astonished; I have
had it, as I had the measles when I was a child. I am not cured quite.
For a poor old woman there is nothing left but that. You will see some
high play at my card-tables to-night. Hush! my dear. It was that I
wanted, and without which I moped so at Castlewood! I could not win of
my nieces or their mother. They would not pay if they lost. ‘Tis best to
warn you, my dear, in time, lest you should be shocked by the discovery.
I can’t live without the cards, there’s the truth!”

A few days before, and while staying with his Castlewood relatives,
Harry, who loved cards, and cock-fighting, and betting, and every
conceivable sport himself, would have laughed very likely at this
confession. Amongst that family into whose society he had fallen, many
things were laughed at, over which some folks looked grave. Faith and
honour were laughed at; pure lives were disbelieved; selfishness was
proclaimed as common practice; sacred duties were sneeringly spoken of,
and vice flippantly condoned. These were no Pharisees: they professed no
hypocrisy of virtue, they flung no stones at discovered sinners:--they
smiled, shrugged their shoulders, and passed on. The members of this
family did not pretend to be a whit better than their neighbours, whom
they despised heartily; they lived quite familiarly with the folks about
whom and whose wives they told such wicked, funny stories; they took
their share of what pleasure or plunder came to hand, and lived from day
to day till their last day came for them. Of course there are no such
people now; and human nature is very much changed in the last hundred
years. At any rate, card-playing is greatly out of mode: about that
there can be no doubt: and very likely there are not six ladies of
fashion in London who know the difference between Spadille and Manille.

“How dreadfully dull you must have found those humdrum people at that
village where we left you--but the savages were very kind to you,
child!” said Madame de Bernstein, patting the young man’s cheek with her
pretty old hand.

“They were very kind; and it was not at all dull, ma’am, and I think
they are some of the best people in the world,” said Harry, with his
face flushing up. His aunt’s tone jarred upon him. He could not bear
that any one should speak or think lightly of the new friends whom he
had found. He did not want them in such company.

The old lady, imperious and prompt to anger, was about to resent the
check she had received, but a second thought made her pause. “Those two
girls,” she thought, “a sick-bed--an interesting stranger--of course
he has been falling in love with one of them.” Madame Bernstein looked
round with a mischievous glance at Lady Maria, who entered the room at
this juncture.



CHAPTER XXV. New Acquaintances


Cousin Maria made her appearance, attended by a couple of gardener’s
boys bearing baskets of flowers, with which it was proposed to decorate
Madame de Bernstein’s drawing-room against the arrival of her ladyship’s
company. Three footmen in livery, gorgeously laced with worsted, set out
twice as many card-tables. A major-domo in black and a bag, with fine
laced ruffles; and looking as if he ought to have a sword by his side,
followed the lacqueys bearing fasces of wax candles, which he placed
a pair on each card-table, and in the silver sconces on the wainscoted
wall that was now gilt with the slanting rays of the sun, as was the
prospect of the green common beyond, with its rocks and clumps of trees
and houses twinkling in the sunshine. Groups of many-coloured figures in
hoops and powder and brocade sauntered over the green, and dappled the
plain with their shadows. On the other side from the Baroness’s windows
you saw the Pantiles, where a perpetual fair was held, and heard the
clatter and buzzing of the company. A band of music was here performing
for the benefit of the visitors to the Wells. Madame Bernstein’s chief
sitting-room might not suit a recluse or a student, but for those who
liked bustle, gaiety, a bright cross light, and a view of all that was
going on in the cheery busy place, no lodging could be pleasanter. And
when the windows were lighted up, the passengers walking below were
aware that her ladyship was at home and holding a card-assembly, to
which an introduction was easy enough. By the way, in speaking of the
past, I think the night-life of society a hundred years since was rather
a dark life. There was not one wax-candle for ten which we now see in a
lady’s drawing-room: let alone gas and the wondrous new illuminations
of clubs. Horrible guttering tallow smoked and stunk in passages. The
candle-snuffer was a notorious officer in the theatre. See Hogarth’s
pictures: how dark they are, and how his feasts are, as it were,
begrimed with tallow! In “Marriage a la Mode,” in Lord Viscount
Squanderfield’s grand saloons, where he and his wife are sitting yawning
before the horror-stricken steward when their party is over--there are
but eight candles--one on each card-table, and half a dozen in a brass
chandelier. If Jack Briefless convoked his friends to oysters and beer
in his chambers, Pump Court, he would have twice as many. Let us comfort
ourselves by thinking that Louis Quatorze in all his glory held his
revels in the dark, and bless Mr. Price and other Luciferous benefactors
of mankind, for banishing the abominable mutton of our youth.

So Maria with her flowers (herself the fairest flower), popped her
roses, sweet-williams, and so forth, in vases here and there, and
adorned the apartment to the best of her art. She lingered fondly over
this bowl and that dragon jar, casting but sly timid glances the while
at young cousin Harry, whose own blush would have become any young
woman, and you might have thought that she possibly intended to outstay
her aunt; but that Baroness, seated in her arm-chair, her crooked
tortoiseshell stick in her hand, pointed the servants imperiously to
their duty; rated one and the other soundly: Tom for having a darn in
his stocking; John for having greased his locks too profusely out of the
candle-box; and so forth--keeping a stern domination over them. Another
remark concerning poor Jeames of a hundred years ago: Jeames slept two
in a bed, four in a room, and that room a cellar very likely, and he
washed in a trough such as you would hardly see anywhere in London now
out of the barracks of her Majesty’s Foot Guards.

If Maria hoped a present interview, her fond heart was disappointed.
“Where are you going to dine, Harry?” asks Madame de Bernstein. “My
niece Maria and I shall have a chicken in the little parlour--I think
you should go to the best ordinary. There is one at the White Horse
at three, we shall hear his bell in a minute or two. And you will
understand, sir, that you ought not to spare expense, but behave like
Princess Pocahontas’s son. Your trunks have been taken over to the
lodging I have engaged for you. It is not good for a lad to be always
hanging about the aprons of two old women. Is it, Maria?”

“No,” says her ladyship, dropping her meek eyes; whilst the other lady’s
glared in triumph. I think Andromeda had been a good deal exposed to the
Dragon in the course of the last five or six days: and if Perseus
had cut the latter’s cruel head off he would have committed not
unjustifiable monstricide. But he did not bare sword or shield; he only
looked mechanically at the lacqueys in tawny and blue as they creaked
about the room.

“And there are good mercers and tailors from London always here to wait
on the company at the Wells. You had better see them, my dear, for your
suit is not of the very last fashion--a little lace----”

“I can’t go out of mourning, ma’am,” said the young man, looking down at
his sables.

“Ho, sir,” cried the lady, rustling up from her chair and rising on her
cane, “wear black for your brother till you are as old as Methuselah,
if you like. I am sure I don’t want to prevent you. I only want you to
dress, and to do like other people, and make a figure worthy of your
name.”

“Madam,” said Mr. Warrington with great state, “I have not done anything
to disgrace it that I know.”

Why did the old Woman stop and give a little start as if she had been
struck? Let bygones be bygones. She and the boy had a score of little
passages of this kind in which swords were crossed and thrusts rapidly
dealt or parried. She liked Harry none the worse for his courage in
facing her. “Sure a little finer linen than that shirt you wear will not
be a disgrace to you, sir,” she said, with rather a forced laugh.

Harry bowed and blushed. It was one of the homely gifts of his Oakhurst
friends. He felt pleased somehow to think he wore it; thought of the
new friends, so good, so pure, so simple, so kindly, with immense
tenderness, and felt, while invested in this garment, as if evil could
not touch him. He said he would go to his lodging, and make a point of
returning arrayed in the best linen he had.

“Come back here, sir,” said Madame Bernstein, “and if our company has
not arrived, Maria and I will find some ruffles for you!” And herewith,
under a footman’s guidance, the young fellow walked off to his new
lodgings.

Harry found not only handsome and spacious apartments provided for him,
but a groom in attendance waiting to be engaged by his honour, and a
second valet, if he was inclined to hire one to wait upon Mr. Gumbo. Ere
he had been many minutes in his rooms, emissaries from a London tailor
and bootmaker waited him with the cards and compliments of their
employers, Messrs. Regnier and Tull; the best articles in his modest
wardrobe were laid out by Gumbo, and the finest linen with which
his thrifty Virginian mother had provided him. Visions of the
snow-surrounded home in his own country, of the crackling logs and the
trim quiet ladies working by the fire, rose up before him. For the
first time a little thought that the homely clothes were not quite smart
enough, the home-worked linen not so fine as it might be, crossed the
young man’s mind. That he should be ashamed of anything belonging to him
or to Castlewood! That was strange. The simple folks there were only too
well satisfied with all things that were done, or said, or produced
at Castlewood; and Madam Esmond, when she sent her son forth on his
travels, thought no young nobleman need be better provided. The clothes
might have fitted better and been of a later fashion, to be sure--but
still the young fellow presented a comely figure enough when he issued
from his apartments, his toilet over; and Gumbo calling a chair, marched
beside it, until they reached the ordinary where the young gentleman was
to dine.

Here he expected to find the beau whose acquaintance he had made a few
hours before at his aunt’s lodging, and who had indicated to Harry that
the White Horse was the most modish place for dining at the Wells, and
he mentioned his friend’s name to the host: but the landlord and waiters
leading him into the room with many smiles and bows assured his honour
that his honour did not need any other introduction than his own, helped
him to hang up his coat and sword on a peg, asked him whether he would
drink Burgundy, Pontac, or champagne to his dinner, and led him to a
table.

Though the most fashionable ordinary in the village, the White Horse did
not happen to be crowded on this day. Monsieur Barbeau, the landlord,
informed Harry that there was a great entertainment at Summer Hill,
which had taken away most of the company; indeed, when Harry entered
the room, there were but four other gentlemen in it. Two of these guests
were drinking wine, and had finished their dinner: the other two were
young men in the midst of their meal, to whom the landlord, as he
passed, must have whispered the name of the new-comer, for they looked
at him with some appearance of interest, and made him a slight bow
across the table as the smiling host bustled away for Harry’s dinner.

Mr. Warrington returned the salute of the two gentlemen, who bade him
welcome to Tunbridge, and hoped he would like the place upon better
acquaintance. Then they smiled and exchanged waggish looks with each
other, of which Harry did not understand the meaning, nor why they cast
knowing glances at the two other guests over their wine.

One of these persons was in a somewhat tarnished velvet coat with a huge
queue and bag, and voluminous ruffles and embroidery. The other was a
little beetle-browed, hook-nosed, high-shouldered gentleman, whom his
opposite companion addressed as milor, or my lord, in a very high voice.
My lord, who was sipping the wine before him, barely glanced at the
new-comer, and then addressed himself to his own companion.

“And so you know the nephew of the old woman--the Croesus who comes to
arrive?”

“You’re thrown out there, Jack!” says one young gentleman to the other.

“Never could manage the lingo,” said Jack. The two elders had begun to
speak in the French language.

“But assuredly, my dear lord!” says the gentleman with the long queue.

“You have shown energy, my dear Baron! He has been here but two hours.
My people told me of him only as I came to dinner.”

“I knew him before!--I have met him often in London with the Baroness
and my lord, his cousin,” said the Baron.

A smoking soup for Harry here came in, borne by the smiling host.
“Behold, sir! Behold a potage of my fashion!” says my landlord, laying
down the dish and whispering to Harry the celebrated name of the
nobleman opposite. Harry thanked Monsieur Barbeau in his own language,
upon which the foreign gentleman, turning round, grinned most graciously
at Harry, and said, “Fous bossedez notre langue barfaidement, monsieur.”
 Mr. Warrington had never heard the French language pronounced in that
manner in Canada. He bowed in return to the foreign gentleman.

“Tell me more about the Croesus, my good Baron,” continued his lordship,
speaking rather superciliously to his companion, and taking no notice of
Harry, which perhaps somewhat nettled the young man.

“What will you, that I tell you, my dear lord? Croesus is a youth like
other youths; he is tall, like other youths; he is awkward, like other
youths; he has black hair, as they all have who come from the Indies.
Lodgings have been taken for him at Mrs. Rose’s toy-shop.”

“I have lodgings there too,” thought Mr. Warrington. “Who is Croesus
they are talking of? How good the soup is!”

“He travels with a large retinue,” the Baron continued, “four servants,
two postchaises, and a pair of outriders. His chief attendant is a black
man who saved his life from the savages in America, and who will
not hear, on any account, of being made free. He persists in wearing
mourning for his elder brother from whom he inherits his principality.”

“Could anything console you for the death of yours, Chevalier?” cried
out the elder gentleman.

“Milor! his property might,” said the Chevalier, “which you know is not
small.”

“Your brother lives on his patrimony--which you have told me is
immense--you by your industry, my dear Chevalier.”

“Milor!” cries the individual addressed as Chevalier.

“By your industry or your esprit,--how much more noble! Shall you be
at the Baroness’s to-night? She ought to be a little of your parents,
Chevalier?”

“Again I fail to comprehend your lordship,” said the other gentleman,
rather sulkily.

“Why, she is a woman of great wit--she is of noble birth--she has
undergone strange adventures--she has but little principle (there you
happily have the advantage of her). But what care we men of the world?
You intend to go and play with the young Creole, no doubt, and get as
much money from him as you can. By the way, Baron, suppose he should
be a guet-apens, that young Creole? Suppose our excellent friend has
invented him up in London, and brings him down with his character for
wealth to prey upon the innocent folks here?”

“J’y ai souvent pense, milor,” says the little Baron, placing his finger
to his nose very knowingly, “that Baroness is capable of anything.”

“A Baron--a Baroness, que voulez-vous, my friend? I mean the late
lamented husband. Do you know who he was?”

“Intimately. A more notorious villain never dealt a card. At Venice, at
Brussels, at Spa, at Vienna--the gaols of every one of which places he
knew. I knew the man, my lord.”

“I thought you would. I saw him at the Hague, where I first had the
honour of meeting you, and a more disreputable rogue never entered my
doors. A minister must open them to all sorts of people, Baron,--spies,
sharpers, ruffians of every sort.”

“Parbleu, milor, how you treat them!” says my lord’s companion.

“A man of my rank, my friend--of the rank I held then--of course, must
see all sorts of people--entre autres your acquaintance. What his wife
could want with such a name as his I can’t conceive.”

“Apparently, it was better than the lady’s own.”

“Effectively! So I have heard of my friend Paddy changing clothes with
the scarecrow. I don’t know which name is the most distinguished, that
of the English bishop or the German baron.”

“My lord,” cried the other gentleman, rising and laying his hand on
a large star on his coat, “you forget that I, too, am a Baron and a
Chevalier of the Holy Roman----”

“--Order of the Spur!--not in the least, my dear knight and baron!
You will have no more wine? We shall meet at Madame de Bernstein’s
to-night.” The knight and baron quitted the table, felt in his
embroidered pockets, as if for money to give the waiter, who brought him
his great laced hat, and waving that menial off with a hand surrounded
by large ruffles and blazing rings, he stalked away from the room.

It was only when the person addressed as my lord had begun to speak of
the bishop’s widow and the German baron’s wife that Harry Warrington
was aware how his aunt and himself had been the subject of the two
gentlemen’s conversation. Ere the conviction had settled itself on his
mind, one of the speakers had quitted the room, and the other, turning
to a table at which two gentlemen sate, said, “What a little sharper it
is! Everything I said about Bernstein relates mutato nomine to him. I
knew the fellow to be a spy and a rogue. He has changed his religion I
don’t know how many times. I had him turned out of the Hague myself when
I was ambassador, and I know he was caned in Vienna.”

“I wonder my Lord Chesterfield associates with such a villain!” called
out Harry from his table. The other couple of diners looked at him. To
his surprise the nobleman so addressed went on talking.

“There cannot be a more fieffe coquin than this Poellnitz. Why, Heaven
be thanked, he has actually left me my snuff-box! You laugh?--the fellow
is capable of taking it.” And my lord thought it was his own satire at
which the young men were laughing.

“You are quite right, sir,” said one of the two diners, turning to Mr.
Warrington, “though, saving your presence, I don’t know what business it
is of yours. My lord will play with anybody who will set him. Don’t be
alarmed, he is as deaf as a post, and did not hear a word that you said;
and that’s why my lord will play with anybody who will put a pack of
cards before him, and that is the reason why he consorts with this
rogue.”

“Faith, I know other noblemen who are not particular as to their
company,” says Mr. Jack.

“Do you mean because I associate with you? I know my company, my good
friend, and I defy most men to have the better of me.”

Not having paid the least attention to Mr. Warrington’s angry
interruption, my lord opposite was talking in his favourite French with
Monsieur Barbeau, the landlord, and graciously complimenting him on
his dinner. The host bowed again and again; was enchanted that his
Excellency was satisfied: had not forgotten the art which he had learned
when he was a young man in his Excellency’s kingdom of Ireland. The
salmi was to my lord’s liking? He had just served a dish to the young
American seigneur who sate opposite, the gentleman from Virginia.

“To whom?” My lord’s pale face became red for a moment, as he asked this
question, and looked towards Harry Warrington, opposite to him.

“To the young gentleman from Virginia who has just arrived, and who
perfectly possesses our beautiful language!” says Mr. Barbeau, thinking
to kill two birds, as it were, with this one stone of a compliment.

“And to whom your lordship will be answerable for language reflecting
upon my family, and uttered in the presence of these gentlemen,”
 cried out Mr. Warrington, at the top of his voice, determined that his
opponent should hear.

“You must go and call into his ear, and then he may perchance hear you,”
 said one of the younger guests.

“I will take care that his lordship shall understand my meaning, one way
or other,” Mr. Warrington said, with much dignity; “and will not suffer
calumnies regarding my relatives to be uttered by him or any other man!”

Whilst Harry was speaking, the little nobleman opposite to him did
not hear him, but had time sufficient to arrange his own reply. He had
risen, passing his handkerchief once or twice across his mouth, and
laying his slim fingers on the table. “Sir,” said he, “you will believe,
on the word of a gentleman, that I had no idea before whom I was
speaking, and it seems that my acquaintance, Monsieur de Poellnitz, knew
you no better than myself. Had I known you, believe me that I should
have been the last man in the world to utter a syllable that should give
you annoyance; and I tender you my regrets and apologies, before my Lord
March and Mr. Morris here present.”

To these words, Mr. Warrington could only make a bow, and mumble out a
few words of acknowledgment: which speech having made believe to hear,
my lord made Harry another very profound bow, and saying he should have
the honour of waiting upon Mr. Warrington at his lodgings, saluted the
company, and went away.



CHAPTER XXVI. In which we are at a very Great Distance from Oakhurst


Within the precinct of the White Horse Tavern, and coming up to the
windows of the eating-room, was a bowling-green, with a table or two,
where guests might sit and partake of punch or tea. The three gentlemen
having come to an end of their dinner about the same time, Mr. Morris
proposed that they should adjourn to the Green, and there drink a cool
bottle. “Jack Morris would adjourn to the Dust Hole, as a pretext for
a fresh drink,” said my lord. On which Jack said he supposed each
gentleman had his own favourite way of going to the deuce. His weakness,
he owned, was a bottle.

“My Lord Chesterfield’s deuce is deuce-ace,” says my Lord March. “His
lordship can’t keep away from the cards or dice.”

“My Lord March has not one devil, but several devils. He loves gambling,
he loves horse-racing, he loves betting, he loves drinking, he loves
eating, he loves money, he loves women; and you have fallen into bad
company, Mr. Warrington, when you lighted upon his lordship. He will
play you for every acre you have in Virginia.”

“With the greatest pleasure in life, Mr. Warrington!” interposes my
lord.

“And for all your tobacco, and for all your spices, and for all your
slaves, and for all your oxen and asses, and for everything that is
yours.”

“Shall we begin now? Jack, you are never without a dice-box or a
bottle-screw. I will set Mr. Warrington for what he likes.”

“Unfortunately, my lord, the tobacco, and the slaves, and the asses, and
the oxen, are not mine, as yet. I am just of age, and my mother, scarce
twenty years older, has quite as good chance of long life as I have.”

“I will bet you that you survive her. I will pay you a sum now against
four times the sum to be paid at her death. I will set you a fair sum
over this table against the reversion of your estate in Virginia at the
old lady’s departure. What do you call your place?”

“Castlewood.”

“A principality, I hear it is. I will bet that its value has been
exaggerated ten times at least amongst the quidnuncs here. How came
you by the name of Castlewood?--you are related to my lord? Oh, stay: I
know,--my lady, your mother, descends from the real head of the house.
He took the losing side in ‘15. I have had the story a dozen times from
my old Duchess. She knew your grandfather. He was friend of Addison and
Steele, and Pope and Milton, I dare say, and the bigwigs. It is a pity
he did not stay at home, and transport the other branch of the family to
the plantations.”

“I have just been staying at Castlewood with my cousin there,” remarked
Mr. Warrington.

“Hm! Did you play with him? He’s fond of pasteboard and bones.”

“Never, but for sixpences and a pool of commerce with the ladies.”

“So much the better for both of you. But you played with Will Esmond if
he was at home? I will lay ten to one you played with Will Esmond.”

Harry blushed, and owned that of an evening his cousin and he had had a
few games at cards.

“And Tom Sampson, the chaplain,” cried Jack Morris, “was he of the
party? I wager that Tom made a third, and the Lord deliver you from Tom
and Will Esmond together!”

“Nay; the truth is, I won of both of them,” said Mr. Warrington.

“And they paid you? Well, miracles will never cease!”

“I did not say anything about miracles,” remarked Mr. Harry, smiling
over his wine.

“And you don’t tell tales out of school--the volto sciolto--hey, Mr.
Warrington?” says my lord.

“I beg your pardon,” said downright Harry, “French is the only language
besides my own of which I know a little.”

“My Lord March has learned Italian at the Opera, and a pretty penny
his lessons have cost him,” remarked Jack Morris. “We must show him the
Opera--mustn’t we, March?”

“Must we, Morris?” said my lord, as if he only half liked the other’s
familiarity.

Both of the two gentlemen were dressed alike, in small scratch-wigs
without powder, in blue frocks with plate buttons, in buckskins and
riding-boots, in little hats with a narrow cord of lace, and no outward
mark of fashion.

“I don’t care about the Opera much, my lord,” says Harry, warming with
his wine; “but I should like to go to Newmarket, and long to see a good
English hunting-field.”

“We will show you Newmarket and the hunting-field, sir. Can you ride
pretty well?”

“I think I can,” Harry said; “and I can shoot pretty well, and jump
some.”

“What’s your weight? I bet you we weigh even, or I weigh most. I bet you
Jack Morris beats you at birds or a mark, at five-and-twenty paces. I
bet you I jump farther than you on flat ground, here on this green.”

“I don’t know Mr. Morris’s shooting--I never saw either gentleman
before--but I take your bets, my lord, at what you please,” cries Harry,
who by this time was more than warm with Burgundy.

“Ponies on each!” cried my lord.

“Done and done!” cried my lord and Harry together. The young man thought
it was for the honour of his country not to be ashamed of any bet made
to him.

“We can try the last bet now, if your feet are pretty steady,” said my
lord, springing up, stretching his arms and limbs, and looking at the
crisp, dry grass. He drew his boots off, then his coat and waistcoat,
buckling his belt round his waist, and flinging his clothes down to the
ground.

Harry had more respect for his garments. It was his best suit. He took
off the velvet coat and waistcoat, folded them up daintily, and, as the
two or three tables round were slopped with drink, went to place the
clothes on a table in the eating-room, of which the windows were open.

Here a new guest had entered; and this was no other than Mr. Wolfe,
who was soberly eating a chicken and salad, with a modest pint of wine.
Harry was in high spirits. He told the Colonel he had a bet with my Lord
March--would Colonel Wolfe stand him halves? The Colonel said he was too
poor to bet. Would he come out and see fair play? That he would with
all his heart. Colonel Wolfe set down his glass, and stalked through the
open window after his young friend.

“Who is that tallow-faced Put with the carroty hair?” says Jack Morris,
on whom the Burgundy had had its due effect.

Mr. Warrington explained that this was Lieutenant-Colonel Wolfe, of the
20th Regiment.

“Your humble servant, gentlemen!” says the Colonel, making the company a
rigid military bow.

“Never saw such a figure in my life!” cries Jack Morris. “Did
you--March?”

“I beg your pardon, I think you said March?” said the Colonel, looking
very much surprised.

“I am the Earl of March, sir, at Colonel Wolfe’s service,” said the
nobleman, bowing. “My friend, Mr. Morris, is so intimate with me, that,
after dinner, we are quite like brothers.”

Why is not all Tunbridge Wells by to hear this? thought Morris. And he
was so delighted that he shouted out, “Two to one on my lord!”

“Done!” calls out Mr. Warrington; and the enthusiastic Jack was obliged
to cry “Done!” too.

“Take him, Colonel,” Harry whispers to his friend.

But the Colonel said he could not afford to lose, and therefore could
not hope to win.

“I see you have won one of our bets already, Mr. Warrington,” my Lord
March remarked. “I am taller than you by an inch or two, but you are
broader round the shoulders.”

“Pooh, my dear Will! I bet you you weigh twice as much as he does!”
 cries Jack Morris.

“Done, Jack!” says my lord, laughing. “The bets are all ponies. Will you
take him, Mr. Warrington?”

“No, my dear fellow--one’s enough,” says Jack.

“Very good, my dear fellow,” says my lord; “and now we will settle the
other wager.”

Having already arrayed himself in his best silk stockings, black
satin-net breeches, and neatest pumps, Harry did not care to take off
his shoes as his antagonist had done, whose heavy riding-boots and spurs
were, to be sure, little calculated for leaping. They had before them
a fine even green turf of some thirty yards in length, enough for a run
and enough for a jump. A gravel walk ran around this green, beyond which
was a wall and gate-sign--a field azure, bearing the Hanoverian White
Horse rampant between two skittles proper, and for motto the name of the
landlord and of the animal depicted.

My lord’s friend laid a handkerchief on the ground as the mark whence
the leapers were to take their jump, and Mr. Wolfe stood at the other
end of the grass-plat to note the spot where each came down. “My lord
went first,” writes Mr. Warrington, in a letter to Mrs. Mountain, at
Castlewood, Virginia, still extant. “He was for having me take the lead;
but, remembering the story about the Battel of Fontanoy which my dearest
George used to tell, I says, ‘Monseigneur le Comte, tirez le premier,
s’il vous play.’ So he took his run in his stocken feet, and for the
honour of Old Virginia, I had the gratafacation of beating his lordship
by more than two feet--viz., two feet nine inches--me jumping twenty-one
feet three inches, by the drawer’s measured tape, and his lordship only
eighteen six. I had won from him about my weight before (which I knew
the moment I set my eye upon him). So he and Mr. Jack paid me these two
betts. And with my best duty to my mother--she will not be displeased
with me, for I bett for the honor of the Old Dominion, and my opponent
was a nobleman of the first quality, himself holding two Erldomes, and
heir to a Duke. Betting is all the rage here, and the bloods and young
fellows of fashion are betting away from morning till night.

“I told them--and that was my mischief perhaps--that there was a
gentleman at home who could beat me by a good foot; and when they asked
who it was, and I said Col. G. Washington, of Mount Vernon--as you know
he can, and he’s the only man in his county or mine that can do it--Mr.
Wolfe asked me ever so many questions about Col. G. W., and showed that
he had heard of him, and talked over last year’s unhappy campane as
if he knew every inch of the ground, and he knew the names of all our
rivers, only he called the Potowmac Pottamac, at which we had a
good laugh at him. My Lord of March and Ruglen was not in the least
ill-humour about losing, and he and his friend handed me notes out of
their pocket-books, which filled mine that was getting very empty, for
the vales to the servants at my cousin Castlewood’s house and buying
a horse at Oakhurst have very nearly put me on the necessity of making
another draft upon my honoured mother or her London or Bristol agent.”

These feats of activity over, the four gentlemen now strolled out of the
tavern garden into the public walk, where, by this time, a great deal of
company was assembled: upon whom Mr. Jack, who was of a frank and free
nature, with a loud voice, chose to make remarks that were not always
agreeable. And here, if my Lord March made a joke, of which his lordship
was not sparing, Jack roared, “Oh, ho, ho! Oh, good Gad! Oh, my dear
earl! Oh, my dear lord, you’ll be the death of me!” “It seemed as if he
wished everybody to know,” writes Harry sagaciously to Mrs. Mountain,
“that his friend and companion was an Erl!”

There was, indeed, a great variety of characters who passed. M.
Poellnitz, no finer dressed than he had been at dinner, grinned, and
saluted with his great laced hat and tarnished feathers. Then came by
my Lord Chesterfield, in a pearl-coloured suit, with his blue ribbon and
star, and saluted the young men in his turn.

“I will back the old boy for taking his hat off against the whole
kingdom, and France either,” says my Lord March. “He has never changed
the shape of that hat of his for twenty years. Look at it. There it goes
again! Do you see that great, big, awkward, pock-marked, snuff-coloured
man, who hardly touches his clumsy beaver in reply. D---- his confounded
impudence--do you know who that is?”

“No, curse him! Who is it, March?” asks Jack, with an oath.

“It’s one Johnson, a Dictionary-maker, about whom my Lord Chesterfield
wrote some most capital papers, when his dixonary was coming out, to
patronise the fellow. I know they were capital. I’ve heard Horry Walpole
say so, and he knows all about that kind of thing. Confound the impudent
schoolmaster!”

“Hang him, he ought to stand in the pillory!” roars Jack.

“That fat man he’s walking with is another of your writing fellows,--a
printer,--his name is Richardson; he wrote Clarissa, you know.”

“Great heavens! my lord, is that the great Richardson? Is that the man
who wrote Clarissa?” called out Colonel Wolfe and Mr. Warrington, in a
breath.

Harry ran forward to look at the old gentleman toddling along the walk
with a train of admiring ladies surrounding him.

“Indeed, my very dear sir,” one was saying, “you are too great and good
to live in such a world; but sure you were sent to teach it virtue!”

“Ah, my Miss Mulso! Who shall teach the teacher?” said the good, fat old
man, raising a kind, round face skywards. “Even he has his faults and
errors! Even his age and experience does not prevent him from stumbl---.
Heaven bless my soul, Mr. Johnson! I ask your pardon if I have trodden
on your corn.”

“You have done both, sir. You have trodden on the corn, and received the
pardon,” said Mr. Johnson, and went on mumbling some verses, swaying to
and fro, his eyes turned towards the ground, his hands behind him, and
occasionally endangering with his great stick the honest, meek eyes of
his companion-author.

“They do not see very well, my dear Mulso,” he says to the young lady,
“but such as they are, I would keep my lash from Mr. Johnson’s cudgel.
Your servant, sir.” Here he made a low bow, and took off his hat to Mr.
Warrington, who shrank back with many blushes, after saluting the great
author. The great author was accustomed to be adored. A gentler wind
never puffed mortal vanity. Enraptured spinsters flung tea-leaves round
him, and incensed him with the coffee-pot. Matrons kissed the slippers
they had worked for him. There was a halo of virtue round his nightcap.
All Europe had thrilled, panted, admired, trembled, wept, over the pages
of the immortal little, kind, honest man with the round paunch. Harry
came back quite glowing and proud at having a bow from him. “Ah!” says
he, “my lord, I am glad to have seen him!”

“Seen him! why, dammy, you may see him any day in his shop, I suppose?”
 says Jack, with a laugh.

“My brother declared that he, and Mr. Fielding, I think, was the name,
were the greatest geniuses in England; and often used to say, that when
we came to Europe, his first pilgrimage would be to Mr. Richardson,”
 cried Harry, always impetuous, honest, and tender, when he spoke of the
dearest friend.

“Your brother spoke like a man,” cried Mr. Wolfe, too, his pale face
likewise flushing up. “I would rather be a man of genius, than a peer of
the realm.”

“Every man to his taste, Colonel,” says my lord, much amused. “Your
enthusiasm--I don’t mean anything personal--refreshes me, on my honour
it does.”

“So it does me--by gad--perfectly refreshes me,” cries Jack

“So it does Jack--you see--it actually refreshes Jack! I say, Jack,
which would you rather be?--a fat old printer,” who has written a story
about a confounded girl and a fellow that ruins her,--or a peer of
Parliament with ten thousand a year?”

“March--my Lord March, do you take me for a fool?” says Jack, with a
tearful voice. “Have I done anything to deserve this language from you?”

“I would rather win honour than honours: I would rather have genius than
wealth. I would rather make my name than inherit it, though my father’s,
thank God, is an honest one,” said the young Colonel. “But pardon me,
gentlemen,” and here making, them a hasty salutation, he ran across the
parade towards a young and elderly lady and a gentleman, who were now
advancing.

“It is the beautiful Miss Lowther. I remember now,” says my lord. “See!
he takes her arm! The report is, he is engaged to her.”

“You don’t mean to say such a fellow is engaged to any of the Lowthers
of the North?” cries out Jack. “Curse me, what is the world come to,
with your printers, and your half-pay ensigns, and your schoolmasters,
and your infernal nonsense?”

The Dictionary-maker, who had shown so little desire to bow to my Lord
Chesterfield, when that famous nobleman courteously saluted him, was
here seen to take off his beaver, and bow almost to the ground, before
a florid personage in a large round hat, with bands and a gown, who
made his appearance in the Walk. This was my Lord Bishop of Salisbury,
wearing complacently the blue riband and badge of the Garter, of which
Noble Order his lordship was prelate.

Mr. Johnson stood, hat in hand, during the whole time of his
conversation with Dr. Gilbert; who made many flattering and benedictory
remarks to Mr. Richardson, declaring that he was the supporter of
virtue, the preacher of sound morals, the mainstay of religion, of all
which points the honest printer himself was perfectly convinced.

Do not let any young lady trip to her grandpapa’s bookcase in
consequence of this eulogium, and rashly take down Clarissa from the
shelf. She would not care to read the volumes, over which her pretty
ancestresses wept and thrilled a hundred years ago; which were commended
by divines from pulpits and belauded all Europe over. I wonder, are our
women more virtuous than their grandmothers, or only more squeamish? If
the former, then Miss Smith of New York is certainly more modest than
Miss Smith of London, who still does not scruple to say that tables,
pianos, and animals have legs. Oh, my faithful, good old Samuel
Richardson! Hath the news yet reached thee in Hades that thy sublime
novels are huddled away in corners, and that our daughters may no more
read Clarissa than Tom Jones? Go up, Samuel, and be reconciled with
thy brother-scribe, whom in life thou didst hate so. I wonder whether
a century hence the novels of to-day will be hidden behind locks and
wires, and make pretty little maidens blush?

“Who is yonder queer person in the high headdress of my grandmother’s
time, who stops and speaks to Mr. Richardson?” asked Harry, as a
fantastically dressed lady came up, and performed a curtsey and a
compliment to the bowing printer.

Jack Morris nervously struck Harry a blow in the side with the butt end
of his whip. Lord March laughed.

“Yonder queer person is my gracious kinswoman, Katharine, Duchess of
Dover and Queensberry, at your service, Mr. Warrington. She was a beauty
price! She is changed now, isn’t she? What an old Gorgon it is! She is a
great patroness of your book-men and when that old frump was young, they
actually made verses about her.”

The Earl quitted his friends for a moment to make his bow to the old
Duchess, Jack Morris explaining to Mr. Warrington how, at the Duke’s
death, my Lord of March and Ruglen would succeed to his cousin’s
dukedoms.

“I suppose,” says Harry, simply, “his lordship is here in attendance
upon the old lady?”

Jack burst into a loud laugh.

“Oh yes! very much! exactly!” says he. “Why, my dear fellow, you don’t
mean to say you haven’t heard about the little Opera-dancer?”

“I am but lately arrived in England, Mr. Morris,” said Harry, with a
smile, “and in Virginia, I own, we have not heard much about the little
Opera-dancer.”

Luckily for us, the secret about the little Opera-dancer never was
revealed, for the young men’s conversation was interrupted by a lady in
a cardinal cape, and a hat by no means unlike those lovely headpieces
which have returned into vogue a hundred years after the date of our
present history, who made a profound curtsey to the two gentlemen and
received their salutation in return. She stopped opposite to Harry; she
held out her hand, rather to his wonderment:

“Have you so soon forgotten me, Mr. Warrington?” she said.

Off went Harry’s hat in an instant. He started, blushed, stammered, and
called out Good Heavens! as if there had been any celestial wonder in
the circumstance! It was Lady Maria come out for a walk. He had not been
thinking about her. She was, to say truth, for the moment so utterly
out of the young gentleman’s mind, that her sudden re-entry there and
appearance in the body startled Mr. Warrington’s faculties, and caused
those guilty blushes to crowd into his cheeks.

No. He was not even thinking of her! A week ago--a year, a hundred years
ago it seemed--he would not have been surprised to meet her anywhere.
Appearing from amidst darkling shrubberies, gliding over green garden
terraces, loitering on stairs or corridors, hovering even in his dreams,
all day or all night, bodily or spiritually, he had been accustomed to
meet her. A week ago his heart used to beat. A week ago, and at the very
instant when he jumped out of his sleep, there was her idea smiling on
him. And it was only last Tuesday that his love was stabbed and slain,
and he not only had left off mourning for her, but had forgotten her!

“You will come and walk with me a little?” she said. “Or would you like
the music best? I dare say you will like the music best.”

“You know,” said Harry, “I don’t care about any music much, except”--he
was thinking of the evening hymn--“except of your playing.” He turned
very red again as he spoke, he felt he was perjuring himself horribly.

The poor lady was agitated herself by the flutter and agitation which
she saw in her young companion. Gracious Heaven! Could that tremor
and excitement mean that she was mistaken, and that the lad was still
faithful? “Give me your arm, and let us take a little walk,” she said,
waving round a curtsey to the other two gentlemen: “my aunt is asleep
after her dinner.” Harry could not but offer the arm, and press the hand
that lay against his heart. Maria made another fine curtsey to Harry’s
bowing companions, and walked off with her prize. In her griefs, in
her rages, in the pains and anguish of wrong and desertion, how a woman
remembers to smile, curtsey, caress, dissemble! How resolutely they
discharge the social proprieties; how they have a word, or a hand, or
a kind little speech or reply for the passing acquaintance who crosses
unknowing the path of the tragedy, drops a light airy remark or two
(happy self-satisfied rogue!) and passes on. He passes on, and thinks
that woman was rather pleased with what I said. “That joke I made was
rather neat. I do really think Lady Maria looks rather favourably at me,
and she’s a dev’lish fine woman, begad she is!” O you wiseacre! Such was
Jack Morris’s observation and case as he walked away leaning on the arm
of his noble friend, and thinking the whole Society of the Wells was
looking at him. He had made some exquisite remarks about a particular
run of cards at Lady Flushington’s the night before, and Lady Maria had
replied graciously and neatly, and so away went Jack perfectly happy.

The absurd creature! I declare we know nothing of anybody (but that for
my part I know better and better every day). You enter smiling to see
your new acquaintance, Mrs. A. and her charming family. You make your
bow in the elegant drawing-room of Mr. and Mrs. B.? I tell you that in
your course through life you are for ever putting your great clumsy foot
upon the mute invisible wounds of bleeding tragedies. Mrs. B.’s closets
for what you know are stuffed with skeletons. Look there under the
sofa-cushion. Is that merely Missy’s doll, or is it the limb of
a stifled Cupid peeping out? What do you suppose are those ashes
smouldering in the grate?--Very likely a suttee has been offered up
there just before you came in: a faithful heart has been burned out upon
a callous corpse, and you are looking on the cineri doloso. You see B.
and his wife receiving their company before dinner. Gracious powers! Do
you know that that bouquet which she wears is a signal to Captain C.,
and that he will find a note under the little bronze Shakespeare on
the mantelpiece in the study? And with all this you go up and say
some uncommonly neat thing (as you fancy) to Mrs. B. about the weather
(clever dog!), or about Lady E.’s last party (fashionable buck!), or
about the dear children in the nursery (insinuating rogue!). Heaven and
earth, my good sir, how can you tell that B. is not going to pitch all
the children out of the nursery window this very night, or that his lady
has not made an arrangement for leaving them, and running off with
the Captain? How do you know that those footmen are not disguised
bailiffs?--that yonder large-looking butler (really a skeleton) is not
the pawnbroker’s man? and that there are not skeleton rotis and entrees
under every one of the covers? Look at their feet peeping from under the
tablecloth. Mind how you stretch out your own lovely little slippers,
madam, lest you knock over a rib or two. Remark the death’s-head moths
fluttering among the flowers. See, the pale winding-sheets gleaming in
the wax-candles! I know it is an old story, and especially that this
preacher has yelled vanitas vanitatum five hundred times before. I can’t
help always falling upon it, and cry out with particular loudness and
wailing, and become especially melancholy, when I see a dead love tied
to a live love. Ha! I look up from my desk, across the street: and there
come in Mr. and Mrs. D. from their walk in Kensington Gardens. How she
hangs on him! how jolly and happy he looks, as the children frisk round!
My poor dear benighted Mrs. D., there is a Regent’s Park as well as
a Kensington Gardens in the world. Go in, fond wretch! Smilingly lay
before him what you know he likes for dinner. Show him the children’s
copies and the reports of their masters. Go with Missy to the piano, and
play your artless duet together; and fancy you are happy!

There go Harry and Maria taking their evening walk on the common, away
from the village which is waking up from its after-dinner siesta, and
where the people are beginning to stir and the music to play. With the
music Maria knows Madame de Bernstein will waken: with the candles
she must be back to the tea-table and the cards. Never mind. Here is a
minute. It may be my love is dead, but here is a minute to kneel over
the grave and pray by it. He certainly was not thinking about her: he
was startled and did not even know her. He was laughing and talking
with Jack Morris and my Lord March. He is twenty years younger than she.
Never mind. To-day is to-day in which we are all equal. This moment is
ours. Come, let us walk a little way over the heath, Harry. She will go,
though she feels a deadly assurance that he will tell her all is over
between them, and that he loves the dark-haired girl at Oakhurst.



CHAPTER XXVII. Plenus Opus Aleae


“Let me hear about those children, child, whom I saw running about at
the house where they took you in, poor dear boy, after your dreadful
fall?” says Maria, as they paced the common. “Oh, that fall, Harry! I
thought I should have died when I saw it! You needn’t squeeze one’s arm
so. You know you don’t care for me?”

“The people are the very best, kindest, dearest people I have ever met
in the world,” cries Mr. Warrington. “Mrs. Lambert was a friend of my
mother when she was in Europe for her education. Colonel Lambert is a
most accomplished gentleman, and has seen service everywhere. He was in
Scotland with his Royal Highness, in Flanders, at Minorca. No natural
parents could be kinder than they were to me. How can I show my
gratitude to them? I want to make them a present: I must make them
a present,” says Harry, clapping his hand into his pocket, which was
filled with the crisp spoils of Morris and March.

“We can go to the toy-shop, my dear, and buy a couple of dolls for the
children,” says Lady Maria. “You would offend the parents by offering
anything like payment for their kindness.”

“Dolls for Hester and Theo! Why, do you think a woman is not woman
till she is forty, Maria?” (The arm under Harry’s here gave a wince
perhaps,--ever so slight a wince.) “I can tell you Miss Hester by no
means considers herself a child, and Miss Theo is older than her sister.
They know ever so many languages. They have read books--oh! piles
and piles of books! They play on the harpsichord and sing together
admirable; and Theo composes, and sings songs of her own.”

“Indeed! I scarcely saw them. I thought they were children. They looked
quite childish. I had no idea they had all these perfections, and were
such wonders of the world.”

“That’s just the way with you women! At home, if me or George praised a
woman, Mrs. Esmond. and Mountain, too, would be sure to find fault with
her!” cries Harry.

“I am sure I would find fault with no one who is kind to you, Mr.
Warrington,” sighed Maria, “though you are not angry with me for envying
them because they had to take care of you when you were wounded and
ill--whilst I--I had to leave you?”

“You dear good Maria!”

“No, Harry! I am not dear and good. There, sir, you needn’t be so
pressing in your attentions. Look! There is your black man walking with
a score of other wretches in livery. The horrid creatures are going
to fuddle at the tea-garden, and get tipsy like their masters. That
dreadful Mr. Morris was perfectly tipsy when I came to you, and
frightened you so.”

“I had just won great bets from both of them. What shall I buy for
you, my dear cousin?” And Harry narrated the triumphs which he had just
achieved. He was in high spirits: he laughed, he bragged a little. “For
the honour of Virginia I was determined to show them what jumping was,”
 he said. “With a little practice I think I could leap two foot farther.”

Maria was pleased with the victories of her young champion. “But you
must beware about play, child,” she said. “You know it hath been the
ruin of our family. My brother Castlewood, Will, our poor father, our
aunt, Lady Castlewood herself, they have all been victims to it: as for
my Lord March, he is the most dreadful gambler and the most successful
of all the nobility.”

“I don’t intend to be afraid of him, nor of his friend Mr. Jack Morris
neither,” says Harry, again fingering the delightful notes. “What do you
play at Aunt Bernstein’s? Cribbage, all-fours, brag, whist, commerce,
piquet, quadrille? I’m ready at any of ‘em. What o’clock is that
striking--sure ‘tis seven!”

“And you want to begin now,” said the plaintive Maria. “You don’t care
about walking with your poor cousin. Not long ago you did.”

“Hey! Youth is youth, cousin!” cried Mr. Harry, tossing up his head,
“and a young fellow must have his fling!” and he strutted by his
partner’s side, confident, happy, and eager for pleasure. Not long ago
he did like to walk with her. Only yesterday, he liked to be with Theo
and Hester, and good Mrs. Lambert; but pleasure, life, gaiety, the
desire to shine and to conquer, had also their temptations for the lad,
who seized the cup like other lads, and did not care to calculate on
the headache in store for the morning. Whilst he and his cousin were
talking, the fiddles from the open orchestra on the Parade made a great
tuning and squeaking, preparatory to their usual evening concert. Maria
knew her aunt was awake again, and that she must go back to her slavery.
Harry never asked about that slavery, though he must have known it, had
he taken the trouble to think. He never pitied his cousin. He was not
thinking about her at all. Yet when his mishap befell him, she had been
wounded far more cruelly than he was. He had scarce ever been out of her
thoughts, which of course she had had to bury under smiling hypocrisies,
as is the way with her sex. I know, my dear Mrs. Grundy, you think she
was an old fool? Ah! do you suppose fools’ caps do not cover grey hair,
as well as jet or auburn? Bear gently with our elderly fredaines, O you
Minerva of a woman! Or perhaps you are so good and wise that you don’t
read novels at all. This I know, that there are late crops of wild oats,
as well as early harvests of them; and (from observation of self and
neighbour) I have an idea that the avena fatua grows up to the very last
days of the year.

Like worldly parents anxious to get rid of a troublesome child, and go
out to their evening party, Madame Bernstein and her attendants had put
the sun to bed, whilst it was as yet light, and had drawn the curtains
over it, and were busy about their cards and their candles, and their
tea and negus, and other refreshments. One chair after another landed
ladies at the Baroness’s door, more or less painted, patched, brocaded.
To these came gentlemen in gala raiment. Mr. Poellnitz’s star was the
largest, and his coat the most embroidered of all present. My Lord of
March and Ruglen, when he made his appearance, was quite changed from
the individual with whom Harry had made acquaintance at the White Horse.
His tight brown scratch was exchanged for a neatly curled feather
top, with a bag and grey powder, his jockey-dress and leather breeches
replaced by a rich and elegant French suit. Mr. Jack Morris had just
such another wig and a suit of stuff as closely as possible resembling
his lordship’s. Mr. Wolfe came in attendance upon his beautiful
mistress, Miss Lowther, and her aunt who loved cards, as all the world
did. When my Lady Maria Esmond made her appearance, ‘tis certain that
her looks belied Madame Bernstein’s account of her. Her shape was very
fine, and her dress showed a great deal of it. Her complexion was by
nature exceeding fair, and a dark frilled ribbon, clasped by a jewel,
round her neck, enhanced its. snowy whiteness. Her cheeks were not
redder than those of other ladies present, and the roses were pretty
openly purchased by everybody at the perfumery-shops. An artful patch
or two, it was supposed, added to the lustre of her charms. Her hoop was
not larger than the iron contrivances which ladies of the present day
hang round their persons; and we may pronounce that the costume, if
absurd in some points, was pleasing altogether. Suppose our ladies took
to wearing of bangles and nose-rings? I dare say we should laugh at the
ornaments, and not dislike them, and lovers would make no difficulty
about lifting up the ring to be able to approach the rosy lips
underneath.

As for the Baroness de Bernstein, when that lady took the pains of
making a grand toilette, she appeared as an object, handsome still, and
magnificent, but melancholy, and even somewhat terrifying to behold.
You read the past in some old faces, while some others lapse into
mere meekness and content. The fires go quite out of some eyes, as the
crow’s-feet pucker round them; they flash no longer with scorn, or
with anger, or love; they gaze, and no one is melted by their sapphire
glances; they look, and no one is dazzled. My fair young reader, if
you are not so perfect a beauty as the peerless Lindamira, Queen of the
Ball; if, at the end of it, as you retire to bed, you meekly own that
you have had but two or three partners, whilst Lindamira has had a crowd
round her all night--console yourself with thinking that, at fifty, you
will look as kind and pleasant as you appear now at eighteen. You will
not have to lay down your coach-and-six of beauty and see another step
into it, and walk yourself through the rest of life. You will have
to forgo no long-accustomed homage; you will not witness and own the
depreciation of your smiles. You will not see fashion forsake your
quarter; and remain all dust, gloom, cobwebs within your once splendid
saloons, and placards in your sad windows, gaunt, lonely, and to let!
You may not have known any grandeur, but you won’t feel any desertion.
You will not have enjoyed millions, but you will have escaped
bankruptcy. “Our hostess,” said my Lord Chesterfield to his friend in a
confidential whisper, of which the utterer did not in the least know the
loudness, “puts me in mind of Covent Garden in my youth. Then it was
the court end of the town, and inhabited by the highest fashion. Now, a
nobleman’s house is a gaming-house, or you may go in with a friend and
call for a bottle.”

“Hey! a bottle and a tavern are good things in their way,” says my Lord
March, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I was not born before the
Georges came in, though I intend to live to a hundred. I never knew the
Bernstein but as an old woman; and if she ever had beauty, hang me if I
know how she spent it.”

“No, hang me, how did she spend it?” laughs out Jack Morris.

“Here’s a table! Shall we sit down and have a game?--Don’t let the
Frenchman come in. He won’t pay. Mr. Warrington, will you take a card?”
 Mr. Warrington and my Lord Chesterfield found themselves partners
against Mr. Morris and the Earl of March. “You have come too late,
Baron,” says the elder nobleman to the other nobleman who was advancing.
“We have made our game. What, have you forgotten Mr. Warrington of
Virginia--the young gentleman whom you met in London?”

“The young gentleman whom I met at Arthur’s Chocolate House had black
hair, a little cocked nose, and was by no means so fortunate in his
personal appearance as Mr. Warrington,” said the Baron, with much
presence of mind. “Warrington, Dorrington, Harrington? We of the
continent cannot retain your insular names. I certify that this
gentleman is not the individual of whom I spoke at dinner.” And,
glancing kindly upon him, the old beau sidled away to a farther end
of the room, where Mr. Wolfe and Miss Lowther were engaged in deep
conversation in the embrasure of a window. Here the Baron thought fit to
engage the Lieutenant-Colonel upon the Prussian manual exercise, which
had lately been introduced into King George II.’s army--a subject with
which Mr. Wolfe was thoroughly familiar, and which no doubt would
have interested him at any other moment but that. Nevertheless the old
gentleman uttered his criticisms and opinions, and thought he perfectly
charmed the two persons to whom he communicated them.

At the commencement of the evening the Baroness received her guests
personally, and as they arrived engaged them in talk and introductory
courtesies. But as the rooms and tables filled, and the parties were
made up, Madame de Bernstein became more and more restless, and finally
retreated with three friends to her own corner, where a table specially
reserved for her was occupied by her major-domo. And here the old lady
sate down resolutely, never changing her place or quitting her game till
cock-crow. The charge of receiving the company devolved now upon my Lady
Maria, who did not care for cards, but dutifully did the honours of the
house to her aunt’s guests, and often rustled by the table where her
young cousin was engaged with his three friends.

“Come and cut the cards for us,” said my Lord March to her ladyship as
she passed on one of her wistful visits. “Cut the cards and bring us
luck, Lady Maria! We have had none to-night, and Mr. Warrington is
winning everything.”

“I hope you are not playing high, Harry?” said the lady, timidly.

“Oh no, only sixpences,” cried my lord, dealing.

“Only sixpences,” echoed Mr. Morris, who was Lord March’s partner. But
Mr. Morris must have been very keenly alive to the value of sixpence, if
the loss of a few such coins could make his round face look so dismal.
My Lord Chesterfield sate opposite Mr. Warrington, sorting his cards. No
one could say, by inspecting that calm physiognomy, whether good or ill
fortune was attending his lordship.

Some word, not altogether indicative of delight, slipped out of Mr.
Morris’s lips, on which his partner cried out, “Hang it, Morris, play
your cards, and hold your tongue!” Considering they were only playing
for sixpences, his lordship, too, was strangely affected.

Maria, still fondly lingering by Harry’s chair, with her hand at the
back of it, could see his cards, and that a whole covey of trumps was
ranged in one corner. She had not taken away his luck. She was pleased
to think she had cut that pack which had dealt him all those pretty
trumps. As Lord March was dealing, he had said in a quiet voice to Mr.
Warrington, “The bet as before, Mr. Warrington, or shall we double it?”

“Anything you like, my lord,” said Mr. Warrington, very quietly.

“We will say, then,--shillings.”

“Yes, shillings,” says Mr. Warrington, and the game proceeded.

The end of the day’s, and some succeeding days’ sport may be gathered
from the following letter, which was never delivered to the person to
whom it was addressed, but found its way to America in the papers of Mr.
Henry Warrington:


“TUNBRIDGE WELLS, August 10, 1756.

“DEAR GEORGE--As White’s two bottles of Burgundy and a pack of cards
constitute all the joys of your life, I take for granted that you are in
London at this moment, preferring smoke and faro to fresh air and fresh
haystacks. This will be delivered to you by a young gentleman with whom
I have lately made acquaintance, and whom you will be charmed to know.
He will play with you at any game for any stake, up to any hour of the
night, and drink any reasonable number of bottles during the play.
Mr. Warrington is no other than the Fortunate Youth about whom so many
stories have been told in the Public Advertiser and other prints. He
has an estate in Virginia as big as Yorkshire, with the incumbrance of a
mother, the reigning Sovereign; but, as the country is unwholesome, and
fevers plentiful, let us hope that Mrs. Esmond will die soon, and
leave this virtuous lad in undisturbed possession. She is aunt of that
polisson of a Castlewood, who never pays his play-debts, unless he is
more honourable in his dealings with you than he has been with me. Mr.
W. is de bonne race. We must have him of our society, if it be only that
I may win my money back from him.

“He has had the devil’s luck here, and has been winning everything,
whilst his old card-playing beldam of an aunt has been losing. A few
nights ago, when I first had the ill-luck to make his acquaintance, he
beat me in jumping (having practised the art amongst the savages, and
running away from bears in his native woods); he won bets off me and
Jack Morris about my weight; and at night, when we sat down to play, at
old Bernstein’s, he won from us all round. If you can settle our last
Epsom account please hand over to Mr. Warrington 350 pounds, which I
still owe him, after pretty well emptying my pocket-book. Chesterfield
has dropped six hundred to him, too; but his lordship does not wish
to have it known, having sworn to give up play and live cleanly. Jack
Morris, who has not been hit as hard as either of us, and can afford it
quite as well, for the fat chuff has no houses nor train to keep up, and
all his misbegotten father’s money in hand, roars like a bull of Bashan
about his losses. We had a second night’s play, en petit comite, and
Barbeau served us a fair dinner in a private room. Mr. Warrington
holds his tongue like a gentleman, and none of us have talked about our
losses; but the whole place does, for us. Yesterday the Cattarina looked
as sulky as thunder, because I would not give her a diamond necklace,
and says I refuse her because I have lost five thousand to the
Virginian. My old Duchess of Q. has the very same story, besides knowing
to a fraction what Chesterfield and Jack have lost.

“Warrington treated the company to breakfast and music at the rooms; and
you should have seen how the women tore him to pieces. That fiend of
a Cattarina ogled him out of my vis-a-vis, and under my very nose,
yesterday, as we were driving to Penshurst, and I have no doubt has sent
him a billet-doux ere this. He shot Jack Morris all to pieces at a mark:
we shall try him with partridges when the season comes.

“He is a fortunate fellow, certainly. He has youth (which is not
deboshed by evil courses in Virginia, as ours is in England); he has
good health, good looks, and good luck.

“In a word, Mr. Warrington has won our money in a very gentlemanlike
manner; and, as I like him, and wish to win some of it back again, I put
him under your worship’s saintly guardianship. Adieu! I am going to the
North, and shall be back for Doncaster.--Yours ever, dear George,                                                             M. et R.”

“To George Augustus Selwyn, Esq., at White’s Chocolate House, St.
James’s Street.”



CHAPTER XXVIII. The Way of the World


Our young Virginian found himself, after two or three days at Tunbridge
Wells, by far the most important personage in that merry little
watering-place. No nobleman in the place inspired so much curiosity. My
Lord Bishop of Salisbury himself was scarce treated with more respect.
People turned round to look after Harry as he passed, and country-folks
stared at him as they came into market. At the rooms, matrons encouraged
him to come round to them, and found means to leave him alone with their
daughters, most of whom smiled upon him. Everybody knew, to an acre and
a shilling, the extent of his Virginian property, and the amount of his
income. At every tea-table in the Wells, his winnings at play were told
and calculated. Wonderful is the knowledge which our neighbours have
of our affairs! So great was the interest and curiosity which Harry
inspired, that people even smiled upon his servant, and took Gumbo aside
and treated him with ale and cold meat, in order to get news of the
young Virginian. Mr. Gumbo fattened under the diet, became a leading
member of the Society of Valets in the place, and lied more enormously
than ever. No party was complete unless Mr. Warrington attended it. The
lad was not a little amused and astonished by this prosperity, and bore
his new honours pretty well. He had been bred at home to think too well
of himself, and his present good fortune no doubt tended to confirm his
self-satisfaction. But he was not too much elated. He did not brag about
his victories or give himself any particular airs. In engaging in play
with the gentlemen who challenged him, he had acted up to his queer code
of honour. He felt as if he was bound to meet them when they summoned
him, and that if they invited him to a horse-race, or a drinking-bout,
or a match at cards, for the sake of Old Virginia he must not draw back.
Mr. Harry found his new acquaintances ready to try him at all these
sports and contests. He had a strong head, a skilful hand, a firm seat,
an unflinching nerve. The representative of Old Virginia came off very
well in his friendly rivalry with the mother-country.

Madame de Bernstein, who got her fill of cards every night, and, no
doubt, repaired the ill-fortune of which we heard in the last chapter,
was delighted with her nephew’s victories and reputation. He had shot
with Jack Morris and beat him; he had ridden a match with Mr. Scamper
and won it. He played tennis with Captain Batts, and, though the boy had
never tried the game before, in a few days he held his own uncommonly
well. He had engaged in play with those celebrated gamesters, my Lords
of Chesterfield and March; and they both bore testimony to his coolness,
gallantry, and good breeding. At his books Harry was not brilliant
certainly; but he could write as well as a great number of men of
fashion; and the naivete of his ignorance amused the old lady. She had
read books in her time, and could talk very well about them with bookish
people: she had a relish for humour and delighted in Moliere and Mr.
Fielding, but she loved the world far better than the library, and was
never so interested in any novel but that she would leave it for a
game of cards. She superintended with fond pleasure the improvements of
Harry’s toilette: rummaged out fine laces for his ruffles and shirt,
and found a pretty diamond-brooch for his frill. He attained the post of
prime favourite of all her nephews and kinsfolk. I fear Lady Maria was
only too well pleased at the lad’s successes, and did not grudge him his
superiority over her brothers; but those gentlemen must have quaked with
fear and envy when they heard of Mr. Warrington’s prodigious successes,
and the advance which he had made in their wealthy aunt’s favour.

After a fortnight of Tunbridge, Mr. Harry had become quite a personage.
He knew all the good company in the place. Was it his fault if he became
acquainted with the bad likewise? Was he very wrong in taking the world
as he found it, and drinking from that sweet sparkling pleasure-cup,
which was filled for him to the brim? The old aunt enjoyed his triumphs,
and for her part only bade him pursue his enjoyments. She was not a
rigorous old moralist, nor, perhaps, a very wholesome preceptress for
youth. If the Cattarina wrote him billets-doux, I fear Aunt Bernstein
would have bade him accept the invitations: but the lad had brought with
him from his colonial home a stock of modesty which he still wore
along with the honest homespun linen. Libertinism was rare in those
thinly-peopled regions from which he came. The vices of great cities
were scarce known or practised in the rough towns of the American
continent. Harry Warrington blushed like a girl at the daring talk of
his new European associates: even Aunt Bernstein’s conversation and
jokes astounded the young Virginian, so that the worldly old woman would
call him Joseph, or simpleton.

But, however innocent he was, the world gave him credit for being as
bad as other folks. How was he to know that he was not to associate with
that saucy Cattarina? He had seen my Lord March driving her about in his
lordship’s phaeton. Harry thought there was no harm in giving her his
arm, and parading openly with her in the public walks. She took a fancy
to a trinket at the toy-shop; and, as his pockets were full of money,
he was delighted to make her a present of the locket, which she coveted.
The next day it was a piece of lace: again Harry gratified her. The
next day it was something else: there was no end to Madame Cattarina’s
fancies: but here the young gentleman stopped, turning off her request
with a joke and a laugh. He was shrewd enough, and not reckless or
prodigal, though generous. He had no idea of purchasing diamond drops
for the petulant little lady’s pretty ears.

But who was to give him credit for his Modesty? Old Bernstein insisted
upon believing that her nephew was playing Don Juan’s part, and
supplanting my Lord March. She insisted the more when poor Maria was
by; loving to stab the tender heart of that spinster, and enjoying her
niece’s piteous silence and discomfiture.

“Why, my dear,” says the Baroness, “boys will be boys, and I don’t want
Harry to be the first milksop in his family!” The bread which Maria
ate at her aunt’s expense choked her sometimes. O me, how hard and
indigestible some women know how to make it!

Mr. Wolfe was for ever coming over from Westerham to pay court to the
lady of his love; and, knowing that the Colonel was entirely engaged
in that pursuit, Mr. Warrington scarcely expected to see much of him,
however much he liked that officer’s conversation and society. It was
different from the talk of the ribald people round about Harry. Mr.
Wolfe never spoke of cards, or horses’ pedigrees; or bragged of his
performances in the hunting-field; or boasted of the favours of women;
or retailed any of the innumerable scandals of the time. It was not a
good time. That old world was more dissolute than ours. There was an old
king with mistresses openly in his train, to whom the great folks of
the land did honour. There was a nobility, many of whom were mad and
reckless in the pursuit of pleasure; there was a looseness of words
and acts which we must note, as faithful historians, without going into
particulars, and needlessly shocking honest readers. Our young gentleman
had lighted upon some of the wildest of these wild people, and had found
an old relative who lived in the very midst of the rout.

Harry then did not remark how Colonel Wolfe avoided him, or when they
casually met, at first, notice the Colonel’s cold and altered demeanour.
He did not know the stories that were told of him. Who does know the
stories that are told of him? Who makes them? Who are the fathers of
those wondrous lies? Poor Harry did not know the reputation he was
getting; and that, whilst he was riding his horse and playing his game
and taking his frolic, he was passing amongst many respectable persons
for being the most abandoned and profligate and godless of young men.

Alas, and alas! to think that the lad whom we liked so, and who was so
gentle and quiet when with us, so simple and so easily pleased, should
be a hardened profligate, a spendthrift, a confirmed gamester, a
frequenter of abandoned women! These stories came to honest Colonel
Lambert at Oakhurst: first one bad story, then another, then crowds of
them, till the good man’s kind heart was quite filled with grief and
care, so that his family saw that something annoyed him. At first he
would not speak on the matter at all, and put aside the wife’s fond
queries. Mrs. Lambert thought a great misfortune had happened; that
her husband had been ruined; that he had been ordered on a dangerous
service; that one of the boys was ill, disgraced, dead; who can resist
an anxious woman, or escape the cross-examination of the conjugal
pillow? Lambert was obliged to tell a part of what he knew about Harry
Warrington. The wife was as much grieved and amazed as her husband had
been. From papa’s and mamma’s bedroom the grief, after being stifled for
a while under the bed-pillows there, came downstairs. Theo and Hester
took the complaint after their parents, and had it very bad. O kind,
little, wounded hearts! At first Hester turned red, flew into a great
passion, clenched her little fists, and vowed she would not believe a
word of the wicked stories; but she ended by believing them. Scandal
almost always does master people; especially good and innocent people.
Oh, the serpent they had nursed by their fire! Oh, the wretched,
wretched boy! To think of his walking about with that horrible painted
Frenchwoman, and giving her diamond necklaces, and parading his shame
before all the society at the Wells! The three ladies having cried over
the story, and the father being deeply moved by it, took the parson
into their confidence. In vain he preached at church next Sunday his
favourite sermon about scandal, and inveighed against our propensity to
think evil. We repent we promise to do so no more; but when the next
bad story comes about our neighbour we believe it. So did those kind,
wretched Oakhurst folks believe what they heard about poor Harry
Warrington.

Harry Warrington meanwhile was a great deal too well pleased with
himself to know how ill his friends were thinking of him, and was
pursuing a very idle and pleasant, if unprofitable, life, without having
the least notion of the hubbub he was creating, and the dreadful repute
in which he was held by many good men. Coming out from a match at tennis
with Mr. Batts, and pleased with his play and all the world, Harry
overtook Colonel Wolfe, who had been on one of his visits to the lady
of his heart. Harry held out his hand, which the Colonel took, but
the latter’s salutation was so cold, that the young man could not help
remarking it, and especially noting how Mr. Wolfe, in return for a fine
bow from Mr. Batts’s hat, scarcely touched his own with his forefinger.
The tennis Captain walked away looking somewhat disconcerted, Harry
remaining behind to talk with his friend of Westerham. Mr. Wolfe walked
by him for a while, very erect, silent, and cold.

“I have not seen you these many days,” says Harry.

“You have had other companions,” remarks Mr. Wolfe, curtly.

“But I had rather be with you than any of them,” cries the young man.

“Indeed I might be better company for you than some of them,” says the
other.

“Is it Captain Batts you mean?” asked Harry.

“He is no favourite of mine, I own; he bore a rascally reputation when
he was in the army, and I doubt has not mended it since he was turned
out. You certainly might find a better friend than Captain Batts. Pardon
the freedom which I take in saying so,” says Mr. Wolfe, grimly.

“Friend! he is no friend: he only teaches me to play tennis: he is
hand-in-glove with my lord, and all the people of fashion here who
play.”

“I am not a man of fashion,” says Mr. Wolfe.

“My dear Colonel, what is the matter? Have I angered you in any way? You
speak almost as if I had, and I am not conscious of having done anything
to forfeit your regard,” said Mr. Warrington.

“I will be free with you, Mr. Warrington,” said the Colonel, gravely,
“and tell you with frankness that I don’t like some of your friends!”

“Why, sure, they are men of the first rank and fashion in England,”
 cries Harry, not choosing to be offended with his companion’s bluntness.

“Exactly, they are men of too high rank and too great fashion for a
hard-working poor soldier like me; and if you continue to live with
such, believe me, you will find numbers of us humdrum people can’t
afford to keep such company. I am here, Mr. Warrington, paying my
addresses to an honourable lady. I met you yesterday openly walking with
a French ballet-dancer, and you took off your hat. I must frankly tell
you, that I had rather you would not take off your hat when you go out
in such company.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Warrington, growing very red, “do you mean that I am to
forgo the honour of Colonel Wolfe’s acquaintance altogether?”

“I certainly shall request you to do so when you are in company with
that person,” said Colonel Wolfe, angrily; but he used a word not to be
written at present, though Shakespeare puts it in the mouth of Othello.

“Great heavens! what a shame it is to speak so of any woman!” cries
Mr. Warrington. “How dare any man say that that poor creature is not
honest?”

“You ought to know best, sir,” says the other, looking at Harry with
some surprise, “or the world belies you very much.”

“What ought I to know best? I see a poor little French dancer who is
come hither with her mother, and is ordered by the doctors to drink the
waters. I know that a person of my rank in life does not ordinarily
keep company with people of hers; but really, Colonel Wolfe, are you so
squeamish? Have I not heard you say that you did not value birth, and
that all honest people ought to be equal? Why should I not give this
little unprotected woman my arm? there are scarce half a dozen people
here who can speak a word of her language. I can talk a little French,
and she is welcome to it; and if Colonel Wolfe does not choose to touch
his hat to me, when I am walking with her, by George he may leave it
alone,” cried Harry, flushing up.

“You don’t mean to say,” says Mr. Wolfe, eyeing him, “that you don’t
know the woman’s character?”

“Of course, sir, she is a dancer, and, I suppose, no better or worse
than her neighbours. But I mean to say that, had she been a duchess, or
your grandmother, I couldn’t have respected her more.”

“You don’t mean to say that you did not win her at dice, from Lord
March?”

“At what?”

“At dice, from Lord March. Everybody knows the story. Not a person at
the Wells is ignorant of it. I heard it but now, in the company of that
good old Mr. Richardson, and the ladies were saying that you would be a
character for a colonial Lovelace.”

“What on earth else have they said about me?” asked Harry Warrington;
and such stories as he knew the Colonel told. The most alarming accounts
of his own wickedness and profligacy were laid before him. He was a
corrupter of virtue, an habitual drunkard and gamester, a notorious
blasphemer and freethinker, a fitting companion for my Lord March,
finally, and the company into whose society he had fallen. “I tell you
these things,” said Mr. Wolfe, “because it is fair that you should know
what is said of you, and because I do heartily believe, from your manner
of meeting the last charge brought against you, that you are innocent of
most of the other counts. I feel, Mr. Warrington, that I, for one, have
been doing you a wrong; and sincerely ask you to pardon me.”

Of course, Harry was eager to accept his friend’s apology, and they
shook hands with sincere cordiality this time. In respect of most of the
charges brought against him, Harry rebutted them easily enough: as for
the play, he owned to it. He thought that a gentleman should not refuse
a fair challenge from other gentlemen, if his means allowed him: and he
never would play beyond his means. After winning considerably at first,
he could afford to play large stakes, for he was playing with other
people’s money. Play, he thought, was fair,--it certainly was pleasant.
Why, did not all England, except the Methodists, play? Had he not seen
the best company at the Wells over the cards--his aunt amongst them?

Mr. Wolfe made no immediate comment upon Harry’s opinion as to the
persons who formed the best company at the Wells, but he frankly talked
with the young man, whose own frankness had won him, and warned him that
the life he was leading might be the pleasantest, but surely was not the
most profitable of lives. “It can’t be, sir,” said the Colonel, “that
a man is to pass his days at horse-racing and tennis, and his nights
carousing or at cards. Sure, every man was made to do some work: and a
gentleman, if he has none, must make some. Do you know the laws of your
country, Mr. Warrington? Being a great proprietor, you will doubtless
one day be a magistrate at home. Have you travelled over the country,
and made yourself acquainted with its trades and manufactures? These
are fit things for a gentleman to study, and may occupy him as well as
a cock-fight or a cricket-match. Do you know anything of our profession?
That, at least, you will allow, is a noble one; and, believe me, there
is plenty in it to learn, and suited, I should think, to you. I speak of
it rather than of books and the learned professions, because, as far as
I can judge, your genius does not lie that way. But honour is the aim of
life,” cried Mr. Wolfe, “and every man can serve his country one way or
the other. Be sure, sir, that idle bread is the most dangerous of all
that is eaten; that cards and pleasure may be taken by way of pastime
after work, but not instead of work, and all day. And do you know, Mr.
Warrington, instead of being the Fortunate Youth, as all the world calls
you, I think you are rather Warrington the Unlucky, for you are followed
by daily idleness, daily flattery, daily temptation, and the Lord, I
say, send you a good, deliverance out of your good fortune.”

But Harry did not like to tell his aunt that afternoon why it was he
looked so grave. He thought he would not drink, but there were some
jolly fellows at the ordinary who passed the bottle round; and he meant
not to play in the evening, but a fourth was wanted at his aunt’s table,
and how could he resist? He was the old lady’s partner several times
during the night, and he had Somebody’s own luck to be sure; and once
more he saw the dawn, and feasted on chickens and champagne at sunrise.



CHAPTER XXIX. In which Harry continues to enjoy Otium sine Dignitate


Whilst there were card-players enough to meet her at her lodgings and
the assembly-rooms, Madame de Bernstein remained pretty contentedly at
the Wells, scolding her niece, and playing her rubber. At Harry’s age
almost all places are pleasant, where you can have lively company,
fresh air, and your share of sport and diversion. Even all pleasure is
pleasant at twenty. We go out to meet it with alacrity, speculate upon
its coming, and when its visit is announced, count the days until it and
we shall come together. How very gently and coolly we regard it towards
the close of Life’s long season! Madam, don’t you recollect your first
ball; and does not your memory stray towards that happy past, sometimes,
as you sit ornamenting the wall whilst your daughters are dancing? I,
for my part, can remember when I thought it was delightful to walk three
miles and back in the country to dine with old Captain Jones. Fancy
liking to walk three miles, now, to dine with Jones and drink his
half-pay port! No doubt it was bought from the little country-town
wine-merchant, and cost but a small sum; but ‘twas offered with a kindly
welcome, and youth gave it a flavour which no age of wine or man can
impart to it nowadays. Viximus nuper. I am not disposed to look so
severely upon young Harry’s conduct and idleness, as his friend the
stern Colonel of the Twentieth Regiment. O blessed idleness! Divine lazy
nymph! Reach me a novel as I lie in my dressing-gown at three o’clock in
the afternoon; compound a sherry-cobbler for me, and bring me a cigar!
Dear slatternly, smiling Enchantress! They may assail thee with bad
names--swear thy character away, and call thee the Mother of Evil; but,
for all that, thou art the best company in the world!

My Lord of March went away to the North; and my Lord Chesterfield,
finding the Tunbridge waters did no good to his deafness, returned to
his solitude at Blackheath; but other gentlemen remained to sport and
take their pleasure, and Mr. Warrington had quite enough of companions
at his ordinary at the White Horse. He soon learned to order a French
dinner as well as the best man of fashion out of St. James’s; could
talk to Monsieur Barbeau, in Monsieur B.’s native language, much more
fluently than most other folks,--discovered a very elegant and decided
taste in wines, and could distinguish between Clos Vougeot and Romande
with remarkable skill. He was the young King of the Wells, of which
the general frequenters were easygoing men of the world, who were by no
means shocked at that reputation for gallantry and extravagance which
Harry had got, and which had so frightened Mr. Wolfe.

Though our Virginian lived amongst the revellers, and swam and sported
in the same waters with the loose fish, the boy had a natural shrewdness
and honesty which kept him clear of the snares and baits which are
commonly set for the unwary. He made very few foolish bets with the
jolly idle fellows round about him, and the oldest hands found it
difficult to take him in. He engaged in games outdoors and in, because
he had a natural skill and aptitude for them, and was good to hold
almost any match with any fair competitor. He was scrupulous to play
only with those gentlemen whom he knew, and always to settle his own
debts on the spot. He would have made but a very poor figure at a
college examination; though he possessed prudence and fidelity, keen,
shrewd perception, great generosity, and dauntless personal courage.

And he was not without occasions for showing of what stuff he was made.
For instance, when that unhappy little Cattarina, who had brought him
into so much trouble, carried her importunities beyond the mark at which
Harry thought his generosity should stop, he withdrew from the advances
of the Opera-House Siren with perfect coolness and skill, leaving her
to exercise her blandishments upon some more easy victim. In vain the
mermaid’s hysterical mother waited upon Harry, and vowed that a cruel
bailiff had seized all her daughter’s goods for debt, and that her
venerable father was at present languishing in a London gaol. Harry
declared that between himself and the bailiff there could be no
dealings, and that because he had had the good fortune to become known
to Mademoiselle Cattarina, and to gratify her caprices by presenting her
with various trinkets and knick-knacks for which she had a fancy, he was
not bound to pay the past debts of her family, and must decline being
bail for her papa in London, or settling her outstanding accounts at
Tunbridge. The Cattarina’s mother first called him a monster and an
ingrate, and then asked him, with a veteran smirk, why he did not take
pay for the services he had rendered to the young person? At first, Mr.
Warrington could not understand what the nature of the payment might be:
but when that matter was explained by the old woman, the honest lad
rose up in horror, to think that a woman should traffic in her child’s
dishonour, told her that he came from a country where the very savages
would recoil from such a bargain; and, having bowed the old lady
ceremoniously to the door, ordered Gumbo to mark her well, and never
admit her to his lodgings again. No doubt she retired breathing
vengeance against the Iroquois: no Turk or Persian, she declared, would
treat a lady so: and she and her daughter retreated to London as soon
as their anxious landlord would let them. Then Harry had his perils of
gaming, as well as his perils of gallantry. A man who plays at bowls,
as the phrase is, must expect to meet with rubbers. After dinner at the
ordinary, having declined to play piquet any further with Captain Batts,
and being roughly asked his reason for refusing, Harry fairly told the
Captain that he only played with gentlemen who paid, like himself:
but expressed himself so ready to satisfy Mr. Batts, as soon as their
outstanding little account was settled, that the Captain declared
himself satisfied d’avance, and straightway left the Wells without
paying Harry or any other creditor. Also he had an occasion to show
his spirit by beating a chairman who was rude to old Miss Whiffler one
evening as she was going to the assembly: and finding that the calumny
regarding himself and that unlucky opera-dancer was repeated by Mr.
Hector Buckler, one of the fiercest frequenters of the Wells, Mr.
Warrington stepped up to Mr. Buckler in the pump-room, where the latter
was regaling a number of water-drinkers with the very calumny, and
publicly informed Mr. Buckler that the story was a falsehood, and that
he should hold any person accountable to himself who henceforth uttered
it. So that though our friend, being at Rome, certainly did as Rome did,
yet he showed himself to be a valorous and worthy Roman; and, hurlant
avec les loups, was acknowledged by Mr. Wolfe himself to be as brave as
the best of the wolves.

If that officer had told Colonel Lambert the stories which had given the
latter so much pain, we may be sure that when Mr. Wolfe found his young
friend was innocent, he took the first opportunity to withdraw the
odious charges against him. And there was joy among the Lamberts,
in consequence of the lad’s acquittal--something, doubtless, of that
pleasure, which is felt by higher natures than ours, at the recovery of
sinners. Never had the little family been so happy--no, not even when
they got the news of Brother Tom winning his scholarship--as when
Colonel Wolfe rode over with the account of the conversation which he
had with Harry Warrington. “Hadst thou brought me a regiment, James,
I think I should not have been better pleased,” said Mr. Lambert. Mrs.
Lambert called to her daughters who were in the garden, and kissed
them both when they came in, and cried out the good news to them. Hetty
jumped for joy, and Theo performed some uncommonly brilliant operations
upon the harpsichord that night; and when Dr. Boyle came in for his
backgammon, he could not, at first, account for the illumination in all
their faces, until the three ladies, in a happy chorus, told him how
right he had been in his sermon, and how dreadfully they had wronged
that poor dear, good young Mr. Warrington.

“What shall we do, my dear?” says the Colonel to his wife. “The hay is
in, the corn won’t be cut for a fortnight,--the horses have nothing to
do. Suppose we...” And here he leans over the table and whispers in her
ear.

“My dearest Martin! The very thing!” cries Mrs. Lambert, taking her
husband’s hand and pressing it.

“What’s the very thing, mother?” cries young Charley, who is home for
his Bartlemytide holidays.

“The very thing is to go to supper. Come, Doctor! We will have a bottle
of wine to-night, and drink repentance to all who think evil.”

“Amen,” says the Doctor; “with all my heart!” And with this the worthy
family went to their supper.



CHAPTER XXX. Contains a Letter to Virginia


Having repaired one day to his accustomed dinner at the White Horse
ordinary, Mr. Warrington was pleased to see amongst the faces round the
table the jolly, good-looking countenance of Parson Sampson, who was
regaling the company when Harry entered, with stories and bons-mots,
which kept them in roars of laughter. Though he had not been in London
for some months, the parson had the latest London news, or what passed
for such with the folks at the ordinary: what was doing in the King’s
house at Kensington; and what in the Duke’s in Pall Mall: how Mr. Byng
was behaving in prison, and who came to him: what were the odds at
Newmarket, and who was the last reigning toast in Covent Garden;--the
jolly chaplain could give the company news upon all these points,--news
that might not be very accurate indeed, but was as good as if it
were for the country gentlemen who heard it. For suppose that my Lord
Viscount Squanderfield was ruining himself for Mrs. Polly, and Sampson
called her Mrs. Lucy? that it was Lady Jane who was in love with
the actor, and not Lady Mary? that it was Harry Hilton, of the Horse
Grenadiers, who had the quarrel with Chevalier Solingen, at Marybone
Garden, and not Tommy Ruffler, of the Foot Guards? The names and dates
did not matter much. Provided the stories were lively and wicked, their
correctness was of no great importance; and Mr. Sampson laughed and
chattered away amongst his country gentlemen, charmed them with his
spirits and talk, and drank his share of one bottle after another, for
which his delighted auditory persisted in calling. A hundred years ago,
the Abbe Parson, the clergyman who frequented the theatre, the tavern,
the racecourse, the world of fashion, was no uncommon character
in English society: his voice might be heard the loudest in the
hunting-field; he could sing the jolliest song at the Rose or the
Bedford Head, after the play was over at Covent Garden, and could call a
main as well as any at the gaming-table.

It may have been modesty, or it may have been claret, which caused his
reverence’s rosy face to redden deeper, but when he saw Mr. Warrington
enter, he whispered “Maxima debetur” to the laughing country squire who
sat next him in his drab coat and gold-laced red waistcoat, and rose up
from his chair and ran, nay, stumbled forward, in his haste to greet the
Virginian: “My dear sir, my very dear sir, my conqueror of spades, and
clubs, and hearts, too, I am delighted to see your honour looking so
fresh and well,” cries the chaplain.

Harry returned the clergyman’s greeting with great pleasure: he was glad
to see Mr. Sampson; he could also justly compliment his reverence upon
his cheerful looks and rosy gills.

The squire in the drab coat knew Mr. Warrington; he made a place beside
himself; he called out to the parson to return to his seat on the other
side, and to continue his story about Lord Ogle and the grocer’s wife
in------. Where he did not say, for his sentence was interrupted by a
shout and an oath addressed to the parson for treading on his gouty toe.

The chaplain asked pardon, hurriedly turned round to Mr. Warrington,
and informed him, and the rest of the company indeed, that my Lord
Castlewood sent his affectionate remembrances to his cousin, and had
given special orders to him (Mr. Sampson) to come to Tunbridge Wells and
look after the young gentleman’s morals; that my Lady Viscountess and my
Lady Fanny were gone to Harrogate for the waters; that Mr. Will had won
his money at Newmarket, and was going on a visit to my Lord Duke;
that Molly the housemaid was crying her eyes out about Gumbo, Mr.
Warrington’s valet;--in fine, all the news of Castlewood and its
neighbourhood. Mr. Warrington was beloved by all the country round,
Mr. Sampson told the company, managing to introduce the names of some
persons of the very highest rank into his discourse. “All Hampshire had
heard of his successes at Tunbridge, successes of every kind,” says
Mr. Sampson, looking particularly arch; my lord hoped, their ladyships
hoped, Harry would not be spoilt for his quiet Hampshire home.

The guests dropped off one by one, leaving the young Virginian to his
bottle of wine and the chaplain.

“Though I have had plenty,” says the jolly chaplain, “that is no reason
why I should not have plenty more,” and he drank toast after toast, and
bumper after bumper, to the amusement of Harry, who always enjoyed his
society.

By the time when Sampson had had his “plenty more,” Harry, too, was
become specially generous, warm-hearted, and friendly. A lodging--why
should Mr. Sampson go to the expense of an inn, when there was a room
at Harry’s quarters? The chaplain’s trunk was ordered thither, Gumbo was
bidden to make Mr. Sampson comfortable--most comfortable; nothing would
satisfy Mr. Warrington but that Sampson should go down to his stables
and see his horses; he had several horses now; and when at the stable
Sampson recognised his own horse which Harry had won from him; and the
fond beast whinnied with pleasure, and rubbed his nose against his old
master’s coat; Harry rapped out a brisk energetic expression or two, and
vowed by Jupiter that Sampson should have his old horse back again:
he would give him to Sampson, that he would; a gift which the chaplain
accepted by seizing Harry’s hand, and blessing him,--by flinging his
arms round the horse’s neck, and weeping for joy there, weeping tears
of Bordeaux and gratitude. Arm-in-arm the friends walked to Madame
Bernstein’s from the stable, of which they brought the odours into her
ladyship’s apartment. Their flushed cheeks and brightened eyes showed
what their amusement had been. Many gentlemen’s cheeks were in the habit
of flushing in those days, and from the same cause.

Madame Bernstein received her nephew’s chaplain kindly enough. The old
lady relished Sampson’s broad jokes and rattling talk from time to time,
as she liked a highly-spiced dish or a new entree composed by her cook,
upon its two or three first appearances. The only amusement of which she
did not grow tired, she owned, was cards. “The cards don’t cheat,” she
used to say. “A bad hand tells you the truth to your face: and there is
nothing so flattering in the world as a good suite of trumps.” And when
she was in a good humour, and sitting down to her favourite pastime, she
would laughingly bid her nephew’s chaplain say grace before the meal.
Honest Sampson did not at first care to take a hand at Tunbridge Wells.
Her ladyship’s play was too high for him, he would own, slapping his
pocket with a comical piteous look, and its contents had already been
handed over to the fortunate youth at Castlewood. Like most persons of
her age, and indeed her sex, Madame Bernstein was not prodigal of money.
I suppose it must have been from Harry Warrington, whose heart was
overflowing with generosity as his purse with guineas, that the chaplain
procured a small stock of ready coin, with which he was presently
enabled to appear at the card-table.

Our young gentleman welcomed Mr. Sampson to his coin, as to all the rest
of the good things which he had gathered about him. ‘Twas surprising how
quickly the young Virginian adapted himself to the habits of life of
the folks amongst whom he lived. His suits were still black, but of the
finest cut and quality. “With a star and ribbon, and his stocking down,
and his hair over his shoulder, he would make a pretty Hamlet,” said the
gay old Duchess Queensberry. “And I make no doubt he has been the death
of a dozen Ophelias already, here and amongst the Indians,” she added,
thinking not at all the worse of Harry for his supposed successes among
the fair. Harry’s lace and linen were as fine as his aunt could desire.
He purchased fine shaving-plate of the toy-shop women, and a couple of
magnificent brocade bedgowns, in which his worship lolled at ease, and
sipped his chocolate of a morning. He had swords and walking-canes, and
French watches with painted backs and diamond settings, and snuff boxes
enamelled by artists of the same cunning nation. He had a levee of
grooms, jockeys, tradesmen, daily waiting in his anteroom, and admitted
one by one to him and Parson Sampson, over his chocolate, by Gumbo, the
groom of the chambers. We have no account of the number of men whom Mr.
Gumbo now had under him. Certain it is that no single negro could have
taken care of all the fine things which Mr. Warrington now possessed,
let alone the horses and the postchaise which his honour had bought.
Also Harry instructed himself in the arts which became a gentleman in
those days. A French fencing-master, and a dancing-master of the same
nation, resided at Tunbridge during that season when Harry made
his appearance: these men of science the young Virginian sedulously
frequented, and acquired considerable skill and grace in the peaceful
and warlike accomplishments which they taught. Ere many weeks were over
he could handle the foils against his master or any frequenter of the
fencing-school,--and, with a sigh, Lady Maria (who danced very elegantly
herself) owned that there was no gentleman at court who could walk a
minuet more gracefully than Mr. Warrington. As for riding, though Mr.
Warrington took a few lessons on the great horse from a riding-master
who came to Tunbridge, he declared that their own Virginian manner was
well enough for him, and that he saw no one amongst the fine folks
and the jockeys who could ride better than his friend Colonel George
Washington of Mount Vernon.

The obsequious Sampson found himself in better quarters than he had
enjoyed for ever so long a time. He knew a great deal of the world, and
told a great deal more, and Harry was delighted with his stories, real
or fancied. The man of twenty looks up to the man of thirty, admires
the latter’s old jokes, stale puns, and tarnished anecdotes, that are
slopped with the wine of a hundred dinner-tables. Sampson’s town and
college pleasantries were all new and charming to the young Virginian. A
hundred years ago,--no doubt there are no such people left in the world
now,--there used to be grown men in London who loved to consort with
fashionable youths entering life; to tickle their young fancies with
merry stories; to act as Covent Garden Mentors and masters of ceremonies
at the Round-house; to accompany lads to the gaming-table, and perhaps
have an understanding with the punters; to drink lemonade to Master
Hopeful’s Burgundy, and to stagger into the streets with perfectly
cool heads when my young lord reeled out to beat the watch. Of this, no
doubt, extinct race, Mr. Sampson was a specimen: and a great comfort it
is to think (to those who choose to believe the statement) that in Queen
Victoria’s reign there are no flatterers left, such as existed in the
reign of her royal great-grandfather, no parasites pandering to the
follies of young men; in fact, that all the toads have been eaten off
the face of the island (except one or two that are found in stones,
where they have lain perdus these hundred years), and the toad-eaters
have perished for lack of nourishment.

With some sauces, as I read, the above-mentioned animals are said to
be exceedingly fragrant, wholesome, and savoury eating. Indeed, no man
could look more rosy and healthy, or flourish more cheerfully, than
friend Sampson upon the diet. He became our young friend’s confidential
leader, and, from the following letter, which is preserved in the
Warrington correspondence, it will be seen that Mr. Harry not only
had dancing and fencing masters, but likewise a tutor, chaplain, and
secretary:--


TO MRS. ESMOND WARRINGTON OF CASTLEWOOD AT HER HOUSE AT RICHMOND,
VIRGINIA

Mrs. Bligh’s Lodgings, Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells,

“August 25th, 1756.

“HONOURED MADAM--Your honoured letter of 20 June, per Mr. Trail of
Bristol, has been forwarded to me duly, and I have to thank your
goodness and kindness for the good advice which you are pleased to give
me, as also for the remembrances of dear home, which I shall love never
the worse for having been to the home of our ancestors in England.

“I writ you a letter by the last monthly packet, informing my honoured
mother of the little accident I had on the road hither, and of the
kind friends who I found and whom took me in. Since then I have been
profiting of the fine weather and the good company here, and have made
many friends among our nobility, whose acquaintance I am sure you will
not be sorry that I should make. Among their lordships I may mention the
famous Earl of Chesterfield, late Ambassador to Holland, and Viceroy of
the Kingdom of Ireland; the Earl of March and Ruglen, who will be Duke
of Queensberry at the death of his Grace; and her Grace the Duchess, a
celebrated beauty of the Queen’s time, when she remembers my grandpapa
at Court. These and many more persons of the first fashion attend my
aunt’s assemblies, which are the most crowded at this crowded place.
Also on my way hither I stayed at Westerham, at the house of an officer,
Lieut.-Gen. Wolfe, who served with my grandfather and General Webb
in the famous wars of the Duke of Marlborough. Mr. Wolfe has a son,
Lieut.-Col. James Wolfe, engaged to be married to a beautiful lady now
in this place, Miss Lowther of the North--and though but 30 years old he
is looked up to as much as any officer in the whole army, and has served
with honour under his Royal Highness the Duke wherever our arms have
been employed.

“I thank my honoured mother for announcing to me that a quarter’s
allowance of 52l. 10s. will be paid me by Mr. Trail. I am in no present
want of cash, and by practising a rigid economy, which will be necessary
(as I do not disguise) for the maintenance of horses, Gumbo, and the
equipage and apparel requisite for a young gentleman of good family,
hope to be able to maintain my credit without unduly trespassing upon
yours. The linnen and clothes which I brought with me will with due care
last for some years--as you say. ‘Tis not quite so fine as worn here by
persons of fashion, and I may have to purchase a few very fine shirts
for great days: but those I have are excellent for daily wear.

“I am thankful that I have been quite without occasion to use your
excellent family pills. Gumbo hath taken them with great benefit, who
grows fat and saucy upon English beef, ale, and air. He sends his humble
duty to his mistress, and prays Mrs. Mountain to remember him to all
his fellow-servants, especially Dinah and Lily, for whom he has bought
posey-rings at Tunbridge Fair.

“Besides partaking of all the pleasures of the place, I hope my honoured
mother will believe that I have not been unmindful of my education.
I have had masters in fencing and dancing, and my Lord Castlewood’s
chaplain, the Reverend Mr. Sampson, having come hither to drink the
waters, has been so good as to take a vacant room at my lodging. Mr. S.
breakfasts with me, and we read together of a morning--he saying that I
am not quite such a dunce as I used to appear at home. We have read
in Mr. Rapin’s History, Dr. Barrow’s Sermons, and, for amusement,
Shakspeare, Mr. Pope’s Homer, and (in French) the translation of an
Arabian Work of Tales, very diverting. Several men of learning have been
staying here besides the persons of fashion; and amongst the former was
Mr. Richardson, the author of the famous books which you and Mountain
and my dearest brother used to love so. He was pleased when I told him
that his works were in your closet in Virginia, and begged me to convey
his respectful compliments to my lady-mother. Mr. R. is a short fat man,
with little of the fire of genius visible in his eye or person.

“My aunt and my cousin, the Lady Maria, desire their affectionate
compliments to you, and with best regards for Mountain, to whom I
enclose a note, I am,--Honoured madam, your dutiful son, H. ESMOND
WARRINGTON.”

Note in Madam Esmond’s Handwriting,

“From my son. Received October 15 at Richmond. Sent 16 jars preserved
peaches, 224 lbs. best tobacco, 24 finest hams, per Royal William of
Liverpool, 8 jars peaches, 12 hams for my nephew, the Rt. Honourable
the Earl of Castlewood. 4 jars, 6 hams for the Baroness Bernstein, ditto
ditto for Mrs. Lambert of Oakhurst, Surrey, and 1/2 cwt. tobacco.
Packet of Infallible Family Pills for Gumbo. My Papa’s large silver-gilt
shoe-buckles for H., and red silver-laced saddle-cloth.”


II. (enclosed in No. I.)

“For Mrs. Mountain.

“What do you mien, you silly old Mountain, by sending an order for your
poor old divadends dew at Xmas? I’d have you to know I don’t want your
7l. 10, and have toar your order up into 1000 bitts. I’ve plenty of
money. But I’m obleaged to you all same. A kiss to Fanny from--Your
loving HARRY.”

Note in Madam Esmond’s Handwriting

“This note, which I desired M. to show to me, proves that she hath a
good heart, and that she wished to show her gratitude to the family, by
giving up her half-yearly divd. (on L500 3 per ct.) to my boy. Hence
I reprimanded her very slightly for daring to send money to Mr. E.
Warrington, unknown to his mother. Note to Mountain not so well spelt as
letter to me.

“Mem. to write to Revd. Mr. Sampson desire to know what theolog. books
he reads with H. Recommend Law, Baxter, Drelincourt.--Request H. to say
his catechism to Mr. S., which he has never quite been able to master.
By next ship peaches (3), tobacco 1/2 cwt. Hams for Mr. S.”


The mother of the Virginians and her sons have long long since passed
away. So how are we to account for the fact, that of a couple of letters
sent under one enclosure and by one packet, one should be well spelt,
and the other not entirely orthographical? Had Harry found some
wonderful instructor, such as exists in the present lucky times, and
who would improve his writing in six lessons? My view of the case, after
deliberately examining the two notes, is this: No. 1, in which there
appears a trifling grammatical slip (“the kind, friends who I found and
whom took me in”), must have been re-written from a rough copy which
had probably undergone the supervision of a tutor or friend. The more
artless composition, No. 2, was not referred to the scholar who prepared
No. 1 for the maternal eye, and to whose corrections of “who” and “whom”
 Mr. Warrington did not pay very close attention. Who knows how he
may have been disturbed? A pretty milliner may have attracted Harry’s
attention out of window--a dancing bear with pipe and tabor may have
passed along the common--a jockey come under his windows to show off a
horse there? There are some days when any of us may be ungrammatical and
spell ill. Finally, suppose Harry did not care to spell so elegantly for
Mrs. Mountain as for his lady-mother, what affair is that of the
present biographer, century, reader? And as for your objection that Mr.
Warrington, in the above communication to his mother, showed some little
hypocrisy and reticence in his dealings with that venerable person, I
dare say, young folks, you in your time have written more than one prim
letter to your papas and mammas in which not quite all the transactions
of your lives were narrated, or if narrated, were exhibited in the most
favourable light for yourselves--I dare say, old folks! you, in your
time, were not altogether more candid. There must be a certain distance
between me and my son Jacky. There must be a respectful, an amiable, a
virtuous hypocrisy between us. I do not in the least wish that he should
treat me as his equal, that he should contradict me, take my arm-chair,
read the newspaper first at breakfast, ask unlimited friends to dine
when I have a party of my own, and so forth. No; where there is not
equality there must be hypocrisy. Continue to be blind to my faults; to
hush still as mice when I fall asleep after dinner; to laugh at my old
jokes; to admire my sayings; to be astonished at the impudence of those
unbelieving reviewers; to be dear filial humbugs, O my children! In my
castle I am king. Let all my royal household back before me. ‘Tis not
their natural way of walking, I know: but a decorous, becoming, and
modest behaviour highly agreeable to me. Away from me they may do, nay,
they do do, what they like. They may jump, skip, dance, trot, tumble
over heads and heels, and kick about freely, when they are out of the
presence of my majesty. Do not then, my dear young friends, be surprised
at your mother and aunt when they cry out, “Oh, it was highly immoral
and improper of Mr. Warrington to be writing home humdrum demure letters
to his dear mamma, when he was playing all sorts of merry pranks!”--but
drop a curtsey, and say, “Yes, dear grandmamma (or aunt, as may be),
it was very wrong of him: and I suppose you never had your fun when you
were young.” Of course, she didn’t! And the sun never shone, and the
blossoms never budded, and the blood never danced, and the fiddles never
sang, in her spring-time. Eh, Babet! mon lait de poule et mon bonnet
de nuit! Ho, Betty! my gruel and my slippers! And go, ye frisky, merry
little souls! and dance, and have your merry little supper of cakes and
ale!



CHAPTER XXXI. The Bear and the Leader


Our candid readers know the real state of the case regarding Harry
Warrington and that luckless Cattarina; but a number of the old ladies
at Tunbridge Wells supposed the Virginian to be as dissipated as any
young English nobleman of the highest quality, and Madame de Bernstein
was especially incredulous about her nephew’s innocence. It was the old
lady’s firm belief that Harry was leading not only a merry life, but a
wicked one, and her wish was father to the thought that the lad might
be no better than his neighbours. An old Roman herself, she liked her
nephew to do as Rome did. All the scandal regarding Mr. Warrington’s
Lovelace adventures she eagerly and complacently accepted. We have seen
how, on one or two occasions, he gave tea and music to the company at
the Wells; and he was so gallant and amiable to the ladies (to ladies of
a much better figure and character than the unfortunate Cattarina), that
Madame Bernstein ceased to be disquieted regarding the silly love affair
which had had a commencement at Castlewood, and relaxed in her vigilance
over Lady Maria. Some folks--many old folks--are too selfish to interest
themselves long about the affairs of their neighbours. The Baroness had
her trumps to think of, her dinners, her twinges of rheumatism: and her
suspicions regarding Maria and Harry, lately so lively, now dozed, and
kept a careless, unobservant watch. She may have thought that the danger
was over, or she may have ceased to care whether it existed or not, or
that artful Maria, by her conduct, may have quite cajoled, soothed, and
misguided the old Dragon, to whose charge she was given over. At Maria’s
age, nay, earlier indeed, maidens have learnt to be very sly, and at
Madame Bernstein’s time of life dragons are not so fierce and alert.
They cannot turn so readily, some of their old teeth have dropped out,
and their eyes require more sleep than they needed in days when they
were more active, venomous, and dangerous. I, for my part, know a few
female dragons, de par le monde, and, as I watch them and remember what
they were, admire the softening influence of years upon these whilom
destroyers of man- and woman-kind. Their scales are so soft that any
knight with a moderate power of thrust can strike them: their claws,
once strong enough to tear out a thousand eyes, only fall with a feeble
pat that scarce raises the skin: their tongues, from their toothless old
gums, dart a venom which is rather disagreeable than deadly. See them
trailing their languid tails, and crawling home to their caverns
at roosting-time! How weak are their powers of doing injury! their
maleficence how feeble! How changed are they since the brisk days when
their eyes shot wicked fire; their tongue spat poison; their breath
blasted reputation; and they gobbled up a daily victim at least!

If the good folks at Oakhurst could not resist the testimony which
was brought to them regarding Harry’s ill-doings, why should Madame
Bernstein, who in the course of her long days had had more experience of
evil than all the Oakhurst family put together, be less credulous
than they? Of course every single old woman of her ladyship’s society
believed every story that was told about Mr. Harry Warrington’s
dissipated habits, and was ready to believe as much more ill of him as
you please. When the little dancer went back to London, as she did,
it was because that heartless Harry deserted her. He deserted her for
somebody else, whose name was confidently given,--whose name?--whose
half-dozen names the society at Tunbridge Wells would whisper about;
where there congregated people of all ranks and degrees, women of
fashion, women of reputation, of demi-reputation, of virtue, of no
virtue,--all mingling in the same rooms, dancing to the same fiddles,
drinking out of the same glasses at the Wells, and alike in search of
health, or society, or pleasure. A century ago, and our ancestors, the
most free or the most straitlaced, met together at a score of such merry
places as that where our present scene lies, and danced, and frisked,
and gamed, and drank at Epsom, Bath, Tunbridge, Harrogate, as they do at
Homburg and Baden now.

Harry’s bad reputation, then, comforted his old aunt exceedingly, and
eased her mind in respect to the boy’s passion for Lady Maria. So easy
was she in her mind, that when the chaplain said he came to escort
her ladyship home, Madame Bernstein did not even care to part from her
niece. She preferred rather to keep her under her eye, to talk to her
about her wicked young cousin’s wild extravagances, to whisper to her
that boys would be boys, to confide to Maria her intention of getting
a proper wife for Harry,--some one of a suitable age,--some one with a
suitable fortune,--all which pleasantries poor Maria had to bear with as
much fortitude as she could muster.

There lived, during the last century, a certain French duke and marquis,
who distinguished himself in Europe, and America likewise, and has
obliged posterity by leaving behind him a choice volume of memoirs,
which the gentle reader is specially warned not to consult. Having
performed the part of Don Juan in his own country, in ours, and in
other parts of Europe, he has kindly noted down the names of many
court-beauties who fell victims to his powers of fascination; and very
pleasant reading no doubt it must be for the grandsons and descendants
of the fashionable persons amongst whom our brilliant nobleman moved,
to find the names of their ancestresses adorning M. le Duc’s sprightly
pages, and their frailties recorded by the candid writer who caused
them.

In the course of the peregrinations of this nobleman, he visited North
America, and, as had been his custom in Europe, proceeded straightway to
fall in love. And curious it is to contrast the elegant refinements of
European society, where, according to monseigneur, he had but to lay
siege to a woman in order to vanquish her, with the simple lives and
habits of the colonial folks, amongst whom this European enslaver of
hearts did not, it appears, make a single conquest. Had he done so, he
would as certainly have narrated his victories in Pennsylvania and New
England, as he described his successes in this and his own country.
Travellers in America have cried out quite loudly enough against the
rudeness and barbarism of transatlantic manners; let the present writer
give the humble testimony of his experience that the conversation of
American gentlemen is generally modest, and, to the best of his belief,
the lives of the women pure.

We have said that Mr. Harry Warrington brought his colonial modesty
along with him to the old country; and though he could not help hearing
the free talk of the persons amongst whom he lived, and who were men
of pleasure and the world, he sat pretty silent himself in the midst of
their rattle; never indulged in double entendre in his conversation
with women; had no victories over the sex to boast of; and was shy and
awkward when he heard such narrated by others.

This youthful modesty Mr. Sampson had remarked during his intercourse
with the lad at Castlewood, where Mr. Warrington had more than once
shown himself quite uneasy whilst cousin Will was telling some of his
choice stories; and my lord had curtly rebuked his brother, bidding
him keep his jokes for the usher’s table at Kensington, and not give
needless offence to their kinsman. Hence the exclamation of “Reverentia
pueris,” which the chaplain had addressed to his neighbour at the
ordinary on Harry’s first appearance there. Mr. Sampson, if he had not
strength sufficient to do right himself, at least had grace enough not
to offend innocent young gentlemen by his cynicism.

The chaplain was touched by Harry’s gift of the horse; and felt a
genuine friendliness towards the lad. “You see, sir,” says he, “I am of
the world, and must do as the rest of the world does. I have led a rough
life, Mr. Warrington, and can’t afford to be more particular than my
neighbours. Video meliora, deteriora sequor, as we said at college. I
have got a little sister, who is at boarding-school, not very far from
here, and, as I keep a decent tongue in my head when I am talking with
my little Patty, and expect others to do as much, sure I may try and do
as much by you.”

The chaplain was loud in his praises of Harry to his aunt, the old
Baroness. She liked to hear him praised. She was as fond of him as she
could be of anything; was pleased in his company, with his good looks,
his manly courageous bearing, his blushes, which came so readily, his
bright eyes, his deep youthful voice. His shrewdness and simplicity
constantly amused her; she would have wearied of him long before, had he
been clever, or learned, or witty, or other than he was. “We must find
a good wife for him, Chaplain,” she said to Mr. Sampson. “I have one or
two in my eye, who, I think, will suit him. We must set him up here;
he never will bear going back to his savages again, or to live with his
little Methodist of a mother.”

Now about this point Mr. Sampson, too, was personally anxious, and
had also a wife in his eye for Harry. I suppose he must have had some
conversations with his lord at Castlewood, whom we have heard expressing
some intention of complimenting his chaplain with a good living or other
provision, in event of his being able to carry out his lordship’s wishes
regarding a marriage for Lady Maria. If his good offices could help that
anxious lady to a husband, Sampson was ready to employ them: and he now
waited to see in what most effectual manner he could bring his influence
to bear.

Sampson’s society was most agreeable, and he and his young friend were
intimate in the course of a few hours. The parson rejoiced in
high spirits, good appetite, good humour; pretended to no sort of
squeamishness, and indulged in no sanctified hypocritical conversation;
nevertheless, he took care not to shock his young friend by any needless
outbreaks of levity or immorality of talk, initiating his pupil, perhaps
from policy, perhaps from compunction, only into the minor mysteries,
as it were; and not telling him the secrets with which the unlucky adept
himself was only too familiar. With Harry, Sampson was only a brisk,
lively, jolly companion, ready for any drinking bout, or any sport, a
cock-fight, a shooting-match, a game at cards, or a gallop across the
common; but his conversation was decent, and he tried much more to
amuse the young man, than to lead him astray. The chaplain was quite
successful: he had immense animal spirits as well as natural wit, and
aptitude as well as experience in that business of toad-eater which
had been his calling and livelihood from his very earliest years,--ever
since he first entered college as a servitor, and cast about to see by
whose means he could make his fortune in life. That was but satire just
now, when we said there were no toad-eaters left in the world. There are
many men of Sampson’s profession now, doubtless; nay, little boys at our
public schools are sent thither at the earliest age, instructed by their
parents, and put out apprentices to toad-eating. But the flattery is not
so manifest as it used to be a hundred years since. Young men and old
have hangers-on, and led captains, but they assume an appearance of
equality, borrow money, or swallow their toads in private, and walk
abroad arm-in-arm with the great man, and call him by his name without
his title. In those good old times, when Harry Warrington first came
to Europe, a gentleman’s toad-eater pretended to no airs of equality at
all; openly paid court to his patron, called him by that name to other
folks, went on his errands for him,--any sort of errands which the
patron might devise,--called him sir in speaking to him, stood up in
his presence until bidden to sit down, and flattered him ex officio. Mr.
Sampson did not take the least shame in speaking of Harry as his young
patron,--as a young Virginian nobleman recommended to him by his other
noble patron, the Earl of Castlewood. He was proud of appearing at
Harry’s side, and as his humble retainer, in public talked about him to
the company, gave orders to Harry’s tradesmen, from whom, let us hope,
he received a percentage in return for his recommendations, performed
all the functions of aide-de-camp--others, if our young gentleman
demanded them from the obsequious divine, who had gaily discharged the
duties of ami du prince to ever so many young men of fashion, since
his own entrance into the world. It must be confessed that, since his
arrival in Europe, Mr. Warrington had not been uniformly lucky in the
friendships which he had made.

“What a reputation, sir, they have made for you in this place!” cries
Mr. Sampson, coming back from the coffee-house to his patron. “Monsieur
de Richelieu was nothing to you!”

“How do you mean, Monsieur de Richelieu?--Never was at Minorca in my
life,” says downright Harry, who had not heard of those victories at
home, which made the French duke famous.

Mr. Sampson explained. The pretty widow Patcham who had just arrived
was certainly desperate about Mr. Warrington: her way of going on at
the rooms, the night before, proved that. As for Mrs. Hooper, that was a
known case, and the Alderman had fetched his wife back to London for no
other reason. It was the talk of the whole Wells.

“Who says so?” cries out Harry, indignantly. “I should like to meet the
man who dares say so, and confound the villain!”

“I should not like to show him to you,” says Mr. Sampson, laughing. “It
might be the worse for him.”

“It’s a shame to speak with such levity about the character of ladies or
of gentlemen either,” continues Mr. Warrington, pacing up and down the
room in a fume.

“So I told them,” says the chaplain, wagging his head and looking very
much moved and very grave, though, if the truth were known, it had never
come into his mind at all to be angry at hearing charges of this nature
against Harry.

“It’s a shame, I say, to talk away the reputation of any man or woman as
people do here. Do you know, in our country, a fellow’s ears would not
be safe; and a little before I left home, three brothers shot down a
man, for having spoken ill of their sister.”

“Serve the villain right!” cries Sampson.

“Already they have had that calumny about me set a-going here,
Sampson,--about me and the poor little French dancing-girl.”

“I have heard,” says Mr. Sampson, shaking powder out of his wig.

“Wicked; wasn’t it?”

“Abominable.”

“They said the very same thing about my Lord March. Isn’t it shameful?”

“Indeed it is,” says Mr. Sampson, preserving a face of wonderful
gravity.

“I don’t know what I should do if these stories were to come to my
mother’s ears. It would break her heart, I do believe it would. Why,
only a few days before you came, a military friend of mine, Mr. Wolfe,
told me how the most horrible lies were circulated about me. Good
heavens! What do they think a gentleman of my name and country can
be capable of--I a seducer of women? They might as well say I was a
horse-stealer or a housebreaker. I vow if I hear any man say so, I’ll
have his ears!”

“I have read, sir, that the Grand Seignior of Turkey has bushels of ears
sometimes sent in to him,” says Mr. Sampson, laughing. “If you took all
those that had heard scandal against you or others, what basketsful you
would fill!”

“And so I would, Sampson, as soon as look at ‘em:--any fellow’s who said
a word against a lady or a gentleman of honour!” cries the Virginian.

“If you’ll go down to the Well, you’ll find a harvest of ‘em. I just
came from there. It was the high tide of Scandal. Detraction was at its
height. And you may see the nymphas discentes and the aures satyrorum
acutas,” cries the chaplain, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“That may be as you say, Sampson,” Mr. Warrington replies, “but if ever
I hear any man speak against my character I’ll punish him. Mark that.”

“I shall be very sorry for his sake, that I should; for you’ll mark him
in a way he won’t like, sir; and I know you are a man of your word.”

“You may be sure of that, Sampson. And now shall we go to dinner, and
afterwards to my Lady Trumpington’s tea?”

“You know, sir, I can’t resist a card or a bottle,” says Mr. Sampson.
“Let us have the last first and then the first shall come last.” And
with this the two gentlemen went off to their accustomed place of
refection.

That was an age in which wine-bibbing was more common than in our
politer time; and, especially since the arrival of General Braddock’s
army in his native country, our young Virginian had acquired rather
a liking for the filling of bumpers and the calling of toasts; having
heard that it was a point of honour among the officers never to decline
a toast or a challenge. So Harry and his chaplain drank their claret in
peace and plenty, naming, as the simple custom was, some favourite lady
with each glass.

The chaplain had reasons of his own for desiring to know how far
the affair between Harry and my Lady Maria had gone; whether it was
advancing, or whether it was ended; and he and his young friend were
just warm enough with the claret to be able to talk with that great
eloquence, that candour, that admirable friendliness, which good wine
taken in rather injudicious quantity inspires. O kindly harvests of
the Aquitanian grape! O sunny banks of Garonne! O friendly caves of
Gledstane and Morol, where the dusky flasks lie recondite! May we not
say a word of thanks for all the pleasure we owe you? Are the Temperance
men to be allowed to shout in the public places? are the Vegetarians to
bellow “Cabbage for ever?” and may we modest Enophilists not sing the
praises of our favourite plant? After the drinking of good Bordeaux
wine, there is a point (I do not say a pint) at which men arrive, when
all the generous faculties of the soul are awakened and in full vigour;
when the wit brightens and breaks out in sudden flashes; when the
intellects are keenest; when the pent-up words and confined thoughts get
a night-rule, and rush abroad and disport themselves; when the kindliest
affection, come out and shake hands with mankind, and the timid Truth
jumps up naked out of his well and proclaims himself to all the world.
How, by the kind influence of the wine-cup, we succour the poor and
humble! How bravely we rush to the rescue of the oppressed! I say, in
the face of all the pumps which ever spouted, that there is a moment in
a bout of good wine at which, if a man could but remain, wit, wisdom,
courage, generosity, eloquence, happiness were his; but the moment
passes, and that other glass somehow spoils the state of beatitude.
There is a headache in the morning; we are not going into Parliament
for our native town; we are not going to shoot those French officers
who have been speaking disrespectfully of our country; and poor Jeremy
Diddler calls about eleven o’clock for another half-sovereign, and we
are unwell in bed, and can’t see him, and send him empty away.

Well, then, as they sate over their generous cups, the company having
departed, and the bottle of claret being brought in by Monsieur Barbeau,
the chaplain found himself in an eloquent state, with a strong desire
for inculcating sublime moral precepts whilst Harry was moved by an
extreme longing to explain his whole private history, and to impart all
his present feelings to his new friend. Mark that fact. Why must a
man say everything that comes uppermost in his noble mind, because,
forsooth, he has swallowed a half-pint more wine than he ordinarily
drinks? Suppose I had committed a murder (of course I allow the sherry,
and champagne at dinner), should I announce that homicide somewhere
about the third bottle (in a small party of men) of claret at dessert?
Of course: and hence the fidelity to water-gruel announced a few pages
back.

“I am glad to hear what your conduct has really been with regard to the
Cattarina, Mr. Warrington; I am glad from my soul,” says the impetuous
chaplain. “The wine is with you. You have shown that you can bear down
calumny, and resist temptation. Ah! my dear sir, men are not all so
fortunate. What famous good wine this is!” and he sucks up a glass with
“A toast from you, my dear sir, if you please?”

“I give you ‘Miss Fanny Mountain, of Virginia,’” says Mr. Warrington,
filling a bumper as his thoughts fly straightway, ever so many thousand
miles, to home.

“One of your American conquests, I suppose?” says the chaplain.

“Nay, she is but ten years old, and I have never made any conquests at
all in Virginia, Mr. Sampson,” says the young gentleman.

“You are like a true gentleman, and don’t kiss and tell, sir.”

“I neither kiss nor tell. It isn’t the custom of our country, Sampson,
to ruin girls, or frequent the society of low women. We Virginian
gentlemen honour women: we don’t wish to bring them to shame,” cries the
young toper, looking very proud and handsome. “The young lady whose
name I mentioned hath lived in our family since her infancy, and I would
shoot the man who did her a wrong;--by Heaven, I would!”

“Your sentiments do you honour! Let me shake hands with you! I will
shake hands with you, Mr. Warrington,” cried the enthusiastic Sampson.
“And let me tell you ‘tis the grasp of honest friendship offered you,
and not merely the poor retainer paying court to the wealthy patron. No!
with such liquor as this, all men are equal;--faith, all men are rich,
whilst it lasts! and Tom Sampson is as wealthy with his bottle as your
honour with all the acres of your principality!”

“Let us have another bottle of riches,” says Harry, with a laugh.
“Encore du cachet jaune, mon bon Monsieur Barbeau!” and exit Monsieur
Barbeau to the caves below.

“Another bottle of riches! Capital, capital! How beautifully you speak
French, Mr. Harry!”

“I do speak it well,” says Harry. “At least, when I speak, Monsieur
Barbeau understands me well enough.”

“You do everything well, I think. You succeed in whatever you try. That
is why they have fancied here you have won the hearts of so many women,
sir.”

“There you go again about the women! I tell you I don’t like these
stories about women. Confound me, Sampson, why is a gentleman’s
character to be blackened so?”

“Well, at any rate, there is one, unless my eyes deceive me very much
indeed, sir!” cries the chaplain.

“Whom do you mean?” asked Harry, flushing very red.

“Nay, I name no names. It isn’t for a poor chaplain to meddle with his
betters’ doings, or to know their thoughts,” says Mr. Sampson.

“Thoughts! what thoughts, Sampson?”

“I fancied I saw, on the part of a certain lovely and respected lady at
Castlewood, a preference exhibited. I fancied, on the side of a certain
distinguished young gentleman, a strong liking manifested itself: but I
may have been wrong, and ask pardon.”

“Oh, Sampson, Sampson!” broke out the young man. “I tell you I am
miserable. I tell you I have been longing for some one to confide in,
or ask advice of. You do know, then, that there has been something
going on--something between me and--help Mr. Sampson, Monsieur
Barbeau--and--and some one else?”

“I have watched it this month past,” says the chaplain.

“Confound me, sir, do you mean you have been a spy on me?” says the
other hotly.

“A spy! You made little disguise of the matter, Mr. Warrington, and
her ladyship wasn’t a much better hand at deceiving. You were always
together. In the shrubberies, in the walks, in the village, in the
galleries of the house,--you always found a pretext for being together,
and plenty of eyes besides mine watched you.”

“Gracious powers! What did you see, Sampson?” cries the lad.

“Nay, sir, ‘tis forbidden to kiss and tell. I say so again,” says the
chaplain.

The young man turned very red. “Oh, Sampson!” he cried, “can I--can I
confide in you?”

“Dearest sir--dear generous youth--you know I would shed my heart’s
blood for you!” exclaimed the chaplain, squeezing his patron’s hand, and
turning a brilliant pair of eyes ceilingwards.

“Oh, Sampson! I tell you I am miserable. With all this play and wine,
whilst I have been here, I tell you I have been trying to drive away
care. I own to you that when we were at Castlewood there were things
passed between a certain lady and me.”

The parson gave a slight whistle over his glass of Bordeaux.

“And they’ve made me wretched, those things have. I mean, you see, that
if a gentleman has given his word, why, it’s his word, and he must stand
by it, you know. I mean that I thought I loved her,--and so I do very
much, and she’s a most dear, kind, darling, affectionate creature, and
very handsome, too,--quite beautiful; but then, you know, our ages,
Sampson! Think of our ages, Sampson! She’s as old as my mother!”

“Who would never forgive you.”

“I don’t intend to let anybody meddle in my affairs, not Madam Esmond
nor anybody else,” cries Harry: “but you see, Sampson, she is old--and,
oh, hang it! Why did Aunt Bernstein tell me----?”

“Tell you what?”

“Something I can’t divulge to anybody, something that tortures me!”

“Not about the--the----” the chaplain paused: he was going to say about
her ladyship’s little affair with the French dancing-master; about other
little anecdotes affecting her character. But he had not drunk wine
enough to be quite candid, or too much, and was past the real moment of
virtue.

“Yes, yes, every one of ‘em false--every one of ‘em!” shrieks out Harry.

“Great powers, what do you mean?” asks his friend.

“These, sir, these!” says Harry, beating a tattoo on his own white
teeth. “I didn’t know it when I asked her. I swear I didn’t know it.
Oh, it’s horrible--it’s horrible! and it has caused me nights of agony,
Sampson. My dear old grandfather had a set a Frenchman at Charleston
made them for him, and we used to look at ‘em grinning in a tumbler, and
when they were out, his jaws used to fall in--I never thought she had
‘em.”

“Had what, sir?” again asked the chaplain.

“Confound it, sir, don’t you see I mean teeth?” says Harry, rapping the
table.

“Nay, only two.”

“And how the devil do you know, sir?” asks the young man, fiercely.

“I--I had it from her maid. She had two teeth knocked out by a stone
which cut her lip a little, and they have been replaced.”

“Oh, Sampson, do you mean to say they ain’t all sham ones?” cries the
boy.

“But two, sir, at least so Peggy told me, and she would just as soon
have blabbed about the whole two-and-thirty--the rest are as sound as
yours, which are beautiful.”

“And her hair, Sampson, is that all right, too?” asks the young
gentleman.

“‘Tis lovely--I have seen that. I can take my oath to that. Her ladyship
can sit upon it; and her figure is very fine; and her skin is as white
as snow; and her heart is the kindest that ever was; and I know, that is
I feel sure, it is very tender about you, Mr. Warrington.”

“Oh, Sampson! Heaven, Heaven bless you! What a weight you’ve taken off
my mind with those--those--never mind them! Oh, Sam! How happy--that is,
no, no--ob, how miserable I am! She’s as old as Madam Esmond--by George
she is--she’s as old as my mother. You wouldn’t have a fellow marry
a woman as old as his mother? It’s too bad: by George it is. It’s too
bad.” And here, I am sorry to say, Harry Esmond Warrington, Esquire, of
Castlewood, in Virginia, began to cry. The delectable point, you see,
must have been passed several glasses ago.

“You don’t want to marry her, then?” asks the chaplain.

“What’s that to you, sir? I’ve promised her, and an Esmond--a Virginia
Esmond mind that--Mr. What’s-your-name--Sampson--has but his word!”
 The sentiment was noble, but delivered by Harry with rather a doubtful
articulation.

“Mind you, I said a Virginia Esmond,” continued poor Harry, lifting up
his finger. “I don’t mean the younger branch here. I don’t mean Will,
who robbed me about the horse, and whose bones I’ll break. I give you
Lady Maria--Heaven bless her, and Heaven bless you, Sampson, and you
deserve to be a bishop, old boy!”

“There are letters between you, I suppose?” says Sampson.

“Letters! Dammy, she’s always writing me letters!--never lets me into a
window but she sticks one in my cuff. Letters! that is a good idea! Look
here! Here’s letters!” And he threw down a pocket-book containing a heap
of papers of the poor lady’s composition.

“Those are letters, indeed. What a post-bag!” says the chaplain.

“But any man who touches them--dies--dies on the spot!” shrieks Harry,
starting from his seat, and reeling towards his sword; which he draws,
and then stamps with his foot, and says, “Ha! ha!” and then lunges at
M. Barbeau, who skips away from the lunge behind the chaplain, who looks
rather alarmed. I know we could have had a much more exciting picture
than either of those we present of Harry this month, and the lad, with
his hair dishevelled, raging about the room flamberge au vent, and
pinking the affrighted innkeeper and chaplain, would have afforded a
good subject for the pencil. But oh, to think of him stumbling over a
stool, and prostrated by an enemy who has stole away his brains! Come,
Gumbo! and help your master to bed!



CHAPTER XXXII. In which a Family Coach is ordered


Our pleasing duty now is to divulge the secret which Mr. Lambert
whispered in his wife’s ear at the close of the antepenultimate chapter,
and the publication of which caused such great pleasure to the whole of
the Oakhurst family. As the hay was in, the corn not ready for cutting,
and by consequence the farm horses disengaged, why, asked Colonel
Lambert, should they not be put into the coach, and should we not all
pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells, taking friend Wolfe at Westerham on our
way?

Mamma embraced this proposal, and I dare say the honest gentleman who
made it. All the children jumped for joy. The girls went off straightway
to get together their best calamancoes, paduasoys, falbalas, furbelows,
capes, cardinals, sacks, negligees, solitaires, caps, ribbons, mantuas,
clocked stockings, and high-heeled shoes, and I know not what articles
of toilet. Mamma’s best robes were taken from the presses, whence they
only issued on rare, solemn occasions, retiring immediately afterwards
to lavender and seclusion; the brave Colonel produced his laced hat and
waistcoat and silver-hilted hanger; Charley rejoiced in a rasee holiday
suit of his father’s, in which the Colonel had been married, and which
Mrs. Lambert cut up, not without a pang. Ball and Dumpling had their
tails and manes tied with ribbon, and Chump, the old white cart-horse,
went as unicorn leader, to help the carriage-horses up the first hilly
five miles of the road from Oakhurst to Westerham. The carriage was an
ancient vehicle, and was believed to have served in the procession which
had brought George I. from Greenwich to London, on his first arrival to
assume the sovereignty of these realms. It had belonged to Mr. Lambert’s
father, and the family had been in the habit of regarding it, ever since
they could remember anything, as one of the most splendid coaches in the
three kingdoms. Brian, coachman, and--must it also be owned?--ploughman,
of the Oakhurst family, had a place on the box, with Mr. Charley by his
side. The precious clothes were packed in imperials on the roof. The
Colonel’s pistols were put in the pockets of the carriage, and the
blunderbuss hung behind the box, in reach of Brian, who was an old
soldier. No highwayman, however, molested the convoy; not even an
innkeeper levied contributions on Colonel Lambert, who, with a slender
purse and a large family, was not to be plundered by those or any other
depredators on the king’s highway; and a reasonable cheap modest lodging
had been engaged for them by young Colonel Wolfe, at the house where he
was in the habit of putting up, and whither he himself accompanied them
on horseback.

It happened that these lodgings were opposite Madame Bernstein’s; and as
the Oakhurst family reached their quarters on a Saturday evening, they
could see chair after chair discharging powdered beaux and patched and
brocaded beauties at the Baroness’s door, who was holding one of her
many card-parties. The sun was not yet down (for our ancestors began
their dissipations at early hours, and were at meat, drink, or cards,
any time after three o’clock in the afternoon until any time in the
night or morning), and the young country ladies and their mother from
their window could see the various personages as they passed into the
Bernstein rout. Colonel Wolfe told the ladies who most of the characters
were. ‘Twas almost as delightful as going to the party themselves, Hetty
and Theo thought, for they not only could see the guests arriving, but
look into the Baroness’s open casements and watch many of them there. Of
a few of the personages we have before had a glimpse. When the Duchess
of Queensberry passed, and Mr. Wolfe explained who she was, Martin
Lambert was ready with a score of lines about “Kitty, beautiful and
young,” from his favourite Mat Prior.

“Think that that old lady was once like you, girls!” cries the Colonel.

“Like us, papa? Well, certainly we never set up for being beauties!”
 says Miss Hetty, tossing up her little head.

“Yes, like you, you little baggage; like you at this moment, who want to
go to that drum yonder:--

    ‘Inflamed with rage at sad restraint
       Which wise mamma ordained,
     And sorely vexed to play the saint
       Whilst wit and beauty reigned.’”

“We were never invited, papa; and I am sure if there’s no beauty more
worth seeing than that, the wit can’t be much worth the hearing,” again
says the satirist of the family.

“Oh, but he’s a rare poet, Mat Prior!” continues the Colonel; “though,
mind you, girls, you’ll skip over all the poems I have marked with a
cross. A rare poet! and to think you should see one of his heroines!
‘Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way’ (she always will, Mrs. Lambert!)--

    ‘Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way,
       Kitty at heart’s desire
     Obtained the chariot for a day,
       And set the world on fire!’”

“I am sure it must have been very inflammable,” says mamma.

“So it was, my dear, twenty years ago, much more inflammable than it is
now,” remarks the Colonel.

“Nonsense, Mr. Lambert,” is mamma’s answer.

“Look, look!” cries Hetty, running forward and pointing to the little
square, and the covered gallery, where was the door leading to Madame
Bernstein’s apartments, and round which stood a crowd of street urchins,
idlers, and yokels, watching the company.

“It’s Harry Warrington!” exclaims Theo, waving a handkerchief to the
young Virginian: but Warrington did not see Miss Lambert. The Virginian
was walking arm-in-arm with a portly clergyman in a crisp rustling silk
gown, and the two went into Madame de Bernstein’s door.

“I heard him preach a most admirable sermon here last Sunday,” says Mr.
Wolfe; “a little theatrical, but most striking and eloquent.”

“You seem to be here most Sundays, James,” says Mrs. Lambert.

“And Monday, and soon till Saturday,” adds the Colonel. “See, Harry has
beautified himself already, hath his hair in buckle, and I have no doubt
is going to the drum too.”

“I had rather sit quiet generally of a Saturday evening,” says sober Mr.
Wolfe; “at any rate, away from card-playing and scandal; but I own, dear
Mrs. Lambert, I am under orders. Shall I go across the way and send Mr.
Warrington to you?”

“No, let him have his sport. We shall see him to-morrow. He won’t care
to be disturbed amidst his fine folks by us country-people,” said meek
Mrs. Lambert.

“I am glad he is with a clergyman who preaches so well,” says Theo,
softly; and her eyes seemed to say, You see, good people, he is not so
bad as you thought him, and as I, for my part, never believed him to be.
“The clergyman has a very kind, handsome face.”

“Here comes a greater clergyman,” cries Mr. Wolfe. “It is my Lord of
Salisbury, with his blue ribbon, and a chaplain behind him.”

“And whom a mercy’s name have we here?” breaks in Mrs. Lambert, as a
sedan-chair, covered with gilding, topped with no less than five earl’s
coronets, carried by bearers in richly laced clothes, and preceded by
three footmen in the same splendid livery, now came up to Madame de
Bernstein’s door. The Bishop, who had been about to enter, stopped, and
ran back with the most respectful bows and curtseys to the sedan-chair,
giving his hand to the lady who stepped thence.

“Who on earth is this?” asks Mrs. Lambert.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch? Ja, meinherr. Nichts verstand,” says the waggish
Colonel.

“Pooh, Martin.”

“Well, if you can’t understand High Dutch, my love, how can I help it?
Your education was neglected at school. Can you understand heraldry?--I
know you can.”

“I make.” cries Charley, reciting the shield, “three merions on a field
or, with an earl’s coronet.”

“A countess’s coronet, my son. The Countess of Yarmouth, my son.”

“And pray who is she?”

“It hath ever been the custom of our sovereigns to advance persons
of distinction to honour,” continues the Colonel, gravely, “and this
eminent lady hath been so promoted by our gracious monarch, to the rank
of Countess of this kingdom.”

“But why, papa?” asked the daughters together.

“Never mind, girls!” said mamma.

But that incorrigible Colonel would go on.

“Y, my children, is one of the last and the most awkward letters of the
whole alphabet. When I tell you stories, you are always saying Why. Why
should my Lord Bishop be cringing to that lady? Look at him rubbing his
fat hands together, and smiling into her face! It’s not a handsome face
any longer. It is all painted red and white like Scaramouch’s in the
pantomime. See, there comes another blue-riband, as I live. My Lord
Bamborough. The descendant of the Hotspurs. The proudest man in England.
He stops, he bows, he smiles; he is hat in hand, too. See, she taps him
with her fan. Get away, you crowd of little blackguard boys, and don’t
tread on the robe of the lady whom the King delights to honour.”

“But why does the King honour her?” ask the girls once more.

“There goes that odious last letter but one! Did you ever hear of her
Grace the Duchess of Kendal? No. Of the Duchess of Portsmouth? Non plus.
Of the Duchess of La Valliore? Of Fair Rosamond, then?”

“Hush, papa! There is no need to bring blushes on the cheeks of my
dear ones, Martin Lambert!” said the mother, putting her finger to her
husband’s lips.

“‘Tis not I; it is their sacred Majesties who are the cause of the
shame,” cries the son of the old republican. “Think of the bishops of
the Church and the proudest nobility of the world cringing and bowing
before that painted High Dutch Jezebel. Oh, it’s a shame! a shame!”

“Confusion!” here broke out Colonel Wolfe, and making a dash at his hat,
ran from the room. He had seen the young lady whom he admired and her
guardian walking across the Pantiles on foot to the Baroness’s party,
and they came up whilst the Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden was engaged
in conversation with the two lords spiritual and temporal, and these two
made the lowest reverences and bows to the Countess, and waited until
she had passed in at the door on the Bishop’s arm.

Theo turned away from the window with a sad, almost awestricken face.
Hetty still remained there, looking from it with indignation in her
eyes, and a little red spot on each cheek.

“A penny for little Hetty’s thoughts,” says mamma, coming to the window
to lead the child away.

“I am thinking what I should do if I saw papa bowing to that woman,”
 says Hetty.

Tea and a hissing kettle here made their appearance, and the family sate
down to partake of their evening meal,--leaving, however, Miss Hetty,
from her place, command of the window, which she begged her brother
not to close. That young gentleman had been down amongst the crowd to
inspect the armorial bearings of the Countess’s and other sedans, no
doubt, and also to invest sixpence in a cheese-cake, by mamma’s order
and his own desire, and he returned presently with this delicacy wrapped
up in a paper.

“Look, mother,” he comes back and says, “do you see that big man in
brown beating all the pillars with a stick? That is the learned Mr.
Johnson. He comes to the Friars sometimes to see our master. He was
sitting with some friends just now at the tea-table before Mrs. Brown’s
tart-shop. They have tea there, twopence a cup; I heard Mr. Johnson say
he had had seventeen cups--that makes two-and-tenpence--what a sight of
money for tea!”

“What would you have, Charley?” asks Theo.

“I think I would have cheese-cakes,” says Charley, sighing, as his teeth
closed on a large slice, “and the gentleman whom Mr. Johnson was with,”
 continues Charley, with his mouth quite full, “was Mr. Richardson who
wrote----”

“Clarissa!” cry all the women in a breath, and run to the window to see
their favourite writer. By this time the sun was sunk, the stars were
twinkling overhead, and the footman came and lighted the candles in the
Baroness’s room opposite our spies.

Theo and her mother were standing together looking from their place of
observation. There was a small illumination at Mrs. Brown’s tart-
and tea-shop, by which our friends could see one lady getting Mr.
Richardson’s hat and stick, and another tying a shawl round his neck,
after which he walked home.

“Oh dear me! he does not look like Grandison!” cries Theo.

“I rather think I wish we had not seen him, my dear,” says mamma, who
has been described as a most sentimental woman and eager novel-reader;
and here again they were interrupted by Miss Hetty, who cried:

“Never mind that little fat man, but look yonder, mamma.”

And they looked yonder. And they saw, in the first place, Mr. Warrington
undergoing the honour of a presentation to the Countess of Yarmouth, who
was still followed by the obsequious peer and prelate with blue ribands.
And now the Countess graciously sate down to a card-table, the Bishop
and the Earl and a fourth person being her partners. And now Mr.
Warrington came into the embrasure of the window with a lady whom they
recognised as the lady whom they had seen for a few minutes at Oakhurst.

“How much finer he is!” remarks mamma.

“How he is improved in his looks! What has he done to himself?” asks
Theo.

“Look at his grand lace frills and rules! My dear, he has not got on our
shirts any more,” cries the matron.

“What are you talking about, girls?” asks papa, reclining on his sofa,
where, perhaps, he was dozing after the fashion of honest house-fathers.

The girls said how Harry Warrington was in the window, talking with his
cousin Lady Maria Esmond.

“Come away!” cries papa. “You have no right to be spying the young
fellow. Down with the curtains, I say!”

And down the curtains went, so that the girls saw no more of Madame
Bernstein’s guests or doings for that night.

I pray you be not angry at my remarking, if only by way of contrast
between these two opposite houses, that while Madame Bernstein and her
guests--bishop, dignitaries, noblemen, and what not--were gambling or
talking scandal, or devouring champagne and chickens (which I hold to be
venial sin), or doing honour to her ladyship the king’s favourite, the
Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden, our country friends in their lodgings
knelt round their table, whither Mr. Brian the coachman came as silently
as his creaking shoes would let him, whilst Mr. Lambert, standing up,
read in a low voice, a prayer that Heaven would lighten their darkness
and defend them from the perils of that night, and a supplication that
it would grant the request of those two or three gathered together.

Our young folks were up betimes on Sunday morning, and arrayed
themselves in those smart new dresses which were to fascinate the
Tunbridge folks, and, with the escort of brother Charley, paced the
little town, and the quaint Pantiles, and the pretty common, long ere
the company was at breakfast, or the bells had rung to church. It
was Hester who found out where Harry Warrington’s lodging must be, by
remarking Mr. Gumbo in an undress, with his lovely hair in curl-papers,
drawing a pair of red curtains aside, and opening a window-sash, whence
he thrust his head and inhaled the sweet morning breeze. Mr. Gumbo did
not happen to see the young people from Oakhurst, though they beheld him
clearly enough. He leaned gracefully from the window; he waved a large
feather brush, with which he condescended to dust the furniture of
the apartment within; he affably engaged in conversation with a
cherry-cheeked milkmaid, who was lingering under the casement, and
kissed his lily hand to her. Gumbo’s hand sparkled with rings, and his
person was decorated with a profusion of jewellery--gifts, no doubt, of
the fair who appreciated the young African. Once or twice more before
breakfast-time the girls passed near that window. It remained opened,
but the room behind it was blank. No face of Harry Warrington appeared
there. Neither spoke to the other of the subject on which both were
brooding. Hetty was a little provoked with Charley, who was clamorous
about breakfast, and told him he was always thinking of eating. In reply
to her sarcastic inquiry, he artlessly owned he should like another
cheese-cake, and good-natured Theo, laughing, said she had a sixpence,
and if the cake-shop were open of a Sunday morning Charley should have
one. The cake-shop was open: and Theo took out her little purse, netted
by her dearest friend at school, and containing her pocket-piece, her
grandmother’s guinea, her slender little store of shillings--nay, some
copper money at one end; and she treated Charley to the meal which he
loved.

A great deal of fine company was at church. There was that funny old
Duchess, and old Madame Bernstein, with Lady Maria at her side; and Mr.
Wolfe, of course, by the side of Miss Lowther, and singing with her out
of the same psalm-book; and Mr. Richardson with a bevy of ladies. One
of them is Miss Fielding, papa tells them after church, Harry Fielding’s
sister. “Oh, girls, what good company he was! And his books are worth
a dozen of your milksop Pamelas and Clarissas, Mrs. Lambert: but what
woman ever loved true humour? And there was Mr. Johnson sitting amongst
the charity children. Did you see how he turned round to the altar
at the Belief, and upset two or three of the scared little urchins in
leather breeches? And what a famous sermon Harry’s parson gave, didn’t
he? A sermon about scandal. How, he touched up some of the old harridans
who were seated round! Why wasn’t Mr. Warrington at church? It was a
shame he wasn’t at church.”

“I really did not remark whether he was there or not,” says Miss Hetty,
tossing her head up.

But Theo, who was all truth, said, “Yes, I thought of him, and was sorry
he was not there; and so did you think of him, Hetty.”

“I did no such thing, miss,” persists Hetty.

“Then why did you whisper to me it was Harry’s clergyman who preached?”

“To think of Mr. Warrington’s clergyman is not to think of Mr.
Warrington. It was a most excellent sermon, certainly, and the children
sang most dreadfully out of tune. And there is Lady Maria at the window
opposite, smelling at the roses; and that is Mr. Wolfe’s step, I know
his great military tramp. Right left--right left! How do you do, Colonel
Wolfe?”

“Why do you look so glum, James?” asks Colonel Lambert, good-naturedly.
“Has the charmer been scolding thee, or is thy conscience pricked by the
sermon. Mr. Sampson, isn’t the parson’s name? A famous preacher, on my
word!”

“A pretty preacher, and a pretty practitioner!” says Mr. Wolfe, with a
shrug of his shoulders.

“Why, I thought the discourse did not last ten minutes, and madam did
not sleep one single wink during the sermon, didst thou, Molly?”

“Did you see when the fellow came into church?” asked the indignant
Colonel Wolfe. “He came in at the open door of the common, just in time,
and as the psalm was over.”

“Well, he had been reading the service probably to some sick person;
there are many here,” remarks Mrs. Lambert.

“Reading the service! Oh, my good Mrs. Lambert! Do you know where I
found him? I went to look for your young scapegrace of a Virginian.”

“His own name is a very pretty name, I’m sure,” cries out Hetty. “It
isn’t Scapegrace! It is Henry Esmond Warrington, Esquire.”

“Miss Hester, I found the parson in his cassock, and Henry Esmond
Warrington, Esquire, in his bedgown, at a quarter before eleven o’clock
in the morning, when all the Sunday bells were ringing, and they were
playing over a game of piquet they had had the night before!”

“Well, numbers of good people play at cards of a Sunday. The King plays
at cards of a Sunday.”

“Hush, my dear!”

“I know he does,” says Hetty, “with that painted person we saw
yesterday--that Countess what-d’you-call-her?”

“I think, my dear Miss Hester, a clergyman had best take to God’s books
instead of the Devil’s books on that day--and so I took the liberty of
telling your parson.” Hetty looked as if she thought it was a liberty
which Mr. Wolfe had taken. “And I told our young friend that I thought
he had better have been on his way to church than there in his bedgown.”

“You wouldn’t have Harry go to church in a dressing-gown and nightcap,
Colonel Wolfe? That would be a pretty sight, indeed!” again says Hetty,
fiercely.

“I would have my little girl’s tongue not wag quite so fast,” remarks
papa, patting the girl’s flushed little cheek.

“Not speak when a friend is attacked, and nobody says a word in his
favour? No; nobody!”

Here the two lips of the little mouth closed on each other: the whole
little frame shook: the child flung a parting look of defiance at Mr.
Wolfe, and went out of the room, just in time to close the door, and
burst out crying on the stair.

Mr. Wolfe looked very much discomfited. “I am sure, Aunt Lambert, I did
not intend to hurt Hester’s feelings.”

“No, James,” she said, very kindly--the young officer used to call her
Aunt Lambert in quite early days--and she gave him her hand.

Mr. Lambert whistled his favourite tune of “Over the hills and far
away,” with a drum accompaniment performed by his fingers on the window.
“I say, you mustn’t whistle on Sunday, papa!” cries the artless young
gown-boy from Grey Friars; and then suggested that it was three hours
from breakfast, and he should like to finish Theo’s cheese-cake.

“Oh, you greedy child!” cries Theo. But here, hearing a little
exclamatory noise outside, she ran out of the room, closing the door
behind her. And we will not pursue her. The noise was that sob which
broke from Hester’s panting, overloaded heart; and, though we cannot
see, I am sure the little maid flung herself on her sister’s neck, and
wept upon Theo’s kind bosom.

Hetty did not walk out in the afternoon when the family took the air
on the common, but had a headache and lay on her bed, where her mother
watched her. Charley had discovered a comrade from Grey Friars: Mr.
Wolfe of course paired off with Miss Lowther: and Theo and her father,
taking their sober walk in the Sabbath sunshine, found Madame Bernstein
basking on a bench under a tree, her niece and nephew in attendance.
Harry ran up to greet his dear friends: he was radiant with pleasure at
beholding them--the elder ladies were most gracious to the Colonel and
his wife, who had so kindly welcomed their Harry.

How noble and handsome he looked! Theo thought: she called him by his
Christian name, as if he were really her brother. “Why did we not see
you sooner to-day, Harry?” she asked.

“I never thought you were here, Theo.”

“But you might have seen us if you wished.”

“Where?” asked Harry.

“There, sir,” she said, pointing to the church. And she held her hand
up as if in reproof; but a sweet kindness beamed in her honest face.
Ah, friendly young reader, wandering on the world and struggling with
temptation, may you also have one or two pure hearts to love and pray
for you!



CHAPTER XXXIII. Contains a Soliloquy by Hester


Martin Lambert’s first feeling, upon learning the little secret which
his younger daughter’s emotion had revealed, was to be angry with the
lad who had robbed his child’s heart away from him and her family. “A
plague upon all scapegraces, English or Indian!” cried the Colonel to
his wife. “I wish this one had broke his nose against any doorpost but
ours.”

“Perhaps we are to cure him of being a scapegrace, my dear,” says Mrs.
Lambert, mildly interposing, “and the fall at our door hath something
providential in it. You laughed at me, Mr. Lambert, when I said so
before; but if Heaven did not send the young gentleman to us, who did?
And it may be for the blessing and happiness of us all that he came,
too.”

“It’s hard, Molly!” groaned the Colonel. “We cherish and fondle and rear
‘em: we tend them through sickness and health: we toil and we scheme:
we hoard away money in the stocking, and patch our own old coats: if
they’ve a headache we can’t sleep for thinking of their ailment; if
they have a wish or fancy, we work day and night to compass it, and ‘tis
darling daddy and dearest pappy, and whose father is like ours? and so
forth. On Tuesday morning I am king of my house and family. On Tuesday
evening Prince Whippersnapper makes his appearance, and my reign is
over. A whole life is forgotten and forsworn for a pair of blue eyes, a
pair of lean shanks, and a head of yellow hair.”

“‘Tis written that we women should leave all to follow our husband. I
think our courtship was not very long, dear Martin!” said the matron,
laying her hand on her husband’s arm.

“‘Tis human nature, and what can you expect of the jade?” sighed the
Colonel.

“And I think I did my duty to my husband, though I own I left my papa
for him,” added Mrs. Lambert, softly.

“Excellent wench! Perdition catch my soul! but I do love thee, Molly!”
 says the good Colonel; “but, then, mind you, your father never did me;
and if ever I am to have sons-in-law----”

“Ever, indeed! Of course my girls are to have husbands, Mr. Lambert!”
 cries mamma.

“Well, when they come, I’ll hate them, madam, as your father did me; and
quite right too, for taking his treasure away from him.”

“Don’t be irreligious and unnatural, Martin Lambert! I say you are
unnatural, sir!” continues the matron.

“Nay, my dear, I have an old tooth in my left jaw, here; and ‘tis
natural that the tooth should come out. But when the toothdrawer pulls
it, ‘tis natural that I should feel pain. Do you suppose, madam, that
I don’t love Hetty better than any tooth in my head?” asks Mr. Lambert.
But no woman was ever averse to the idea of her daughter getting a
husband, however fathers revolt against the invasion of the son-in-law.
As for mothers and grandmothers, those good folks are married over again
in the marriage of their young ones; and their souls attire themselves
in the laces and muslins of twenty-forty years ago; the postillion’s
white ribbons bloom again, and they flutter into the postchaise, and
drive away. What woman, however old, has not the bridal favours and
raiment stowed away, and packed in lavender, in the inmost cupboards of
her heart?

“It will be a sad thing, parting with her,” continued Mrs. Lambert, with
a sigh.

“You have settled that point already, Molly,” laughs the Colonel. “Had I
not best go out and order raisins and corinths for the wedding-cake?”

“And then I shall have to leave the house in their charge when I go to
her, you know, in Virginia. How many miles is it to Virginia, Martin? I
should think it must be thousands of miles.”

“A hundred and seventy-three thousand three hundred and ninety-one and
three-quarters, my dear, by the near way,” answers Lambert, gravely;
“that through Prester John’s country. By the other route, through
Persia----”

“Oh, give me the one where there is the least of the sea, and your
horrid ships, which I can’t bear!” cries the Colonel’s spouse. “I hope
Rachel Esmond and I shall be better friends. She had a very high spirit
when we were girls at school.”

“Had we not best go about the baby-linen, Mrs. Martin Lambert?” here
interposed her wondering husband. Now, Mrs. Lambert, I dare say, thought
there was no matter for wonderment at all, and had remarked some very
pretty lace caps and bibs in Mrs. Bobbinit’s toy-shop. And on that
Sunday afternoon, when the discovery was made, and while little Hetty
was lying upon her pillow with feverish cheeks, closed eyes, and a
piteous face, her mother looked at the child with the most perfect ease
of mind, and seemed to be rather pleased than otherwise at Hetty’s woe.

The girl was not only unhappy, but enraged with herself for having
published her secret. Perhaps she had not known it until the sudden
emotion acquainted her with her own state of mind; and now the little
maid chose to be as much ashamed as if she had done a wrong, and been
discovered in it. She was indignant with her own weakness, and broke
into transports of wrath against herself. She vowed she never would
forgive herself for submitting to such a humiliation. So the young pard,
wounded by the hunter’s dart, chafes with rage in the forest, is angry
with the surprise of the rankling steel in her side, and snarls and
bites at her sister-cubs, and the leopardess, her spotted mother.

Little Hetty tore and gnawed, and growled, so that I should not like to
have been her fraternal cub, or her spotted dam or sire. “What business
has any young woman,” she cried out, “to indulge in any such nonsense?
Mamma, I ought to be whipped, and sent to bed. I know perfectly well
that Mr. Warrington does not care a fig about me. I dare say he likes
French actresses and the commonest little milliner-girl in the toy-shop
better than me. And so he ought, and so they are better than me. Why,
what a fool I am to burst out crying like a ninny about nothing, and
because Mr. Wolfe said Harry played cards of a Sunday! I know he is not
clever, like papa. I believe he is stupid--I am certain he is stupid:
but he is not so stupid as I am. Why, of course, I can’t marry him.
How am I to go to America, and leave you and Theo? Of course, he likes
somebody else, at America, or at Tunbridge, or at Jericho, or somewhere.
He is a prince in his own country, and can’t think of marrying a poor
half-pay officer’s daughter, with twopence to her fortune. Used not you
to tell me how, when I was a baby, I cried and wanted the moon? I am
a baby now, a most absurd, silly, little baby--don’t talk to me, Mrs.
Lambert, I am. Only there is this to be said, he don’t know anything
about it, and I would rather cut my tongue out than tell him.”

Dire were the threats with which Hetty menaced Theo, in case her
sister should betray her. As for the infantile Charley, his mind being
altogether set on cheese-cakes, he had not remarked or been moved by
Miss Hester’s emotion; and the parents and the kind sister of course all
promised not to reveal the little maid’s secret.

“I begin to think it had been best for us to stay at home,” sighed Mrs.
Lambert to her husband.

“Nay, my dear,” replied the other. “Human nature will be human nature;
surely Hetty’s mother told me herself that she had the beginning of a
liking for a certain young curate before she fell over head and ears in
love with a certain young officer of Kingsley’s. And as for me, my
heart was wounded in a dozen places ere Miss Molly Benson took entire
possession of it. Our sons and daughters must follow in the way of their
parents before them, I suppose. Why, but yesterday, you were scolding me
for grumbling at Miss Het’s precocious fancies. To do the child justice,
she disguises her feelings entirely, and I defy Mr. Warrington to know
from her behaviour how she is disposed towards him.”

“A daughter of mine and yours, Martin,” cries the mother, with great
dignity, “is not going to fling herself at a gentleman’s head!”

“Neither herself nor the teacup, my dear,” answers the Colonel. Little
Miss Het treats Mr. Warrington like a vixen. He never comes to us, but
she boxes his ears in one fashion or t’other. I protest she is barely
civil to him; but, knowing what is going on in the young hypocrite’s
mind, I am not going to be angry at her rudeness.”

“She hath no need to be rude at all, Martin; and our girl is good
enough for any gentleman in England or America. Why, if their ages suit,
shouldn’t they marry after all, sir?”

“Why, if he wants her, shouldn’t he ask her, my dear? I am sorry we
came. I am for putting the horses into the carriage, and turning their
heads towards home again.”

But mamma fondly said, “Depend on it, my dear, that these matters are
wisely ordained for us. Depend upon it, Martin, it was not for nothing
that Harry Warrington was brought to our gate in that way; and that he
and our children are thus brought together again. If that marriage has
been decreed in Heaven, a marriage it will be.”

“At what age, Molly, I wonder, do women begin and leave off
match-making? If our little chit falls in love and falls out again, she
will not be the first of her sex, Mrs. Lambert. I wish we were on our
way home again, and, if I had my will, would trot off this very night.”

“He has promised to drink his tea here to-night. You would not take away
our child’s pleasure, Martin?” asked the mother, softly.

In his fashion, the father was not less good-natured. “You know, my
dear,” says Lambert, “that if either of ‘em had a fancy to our ears, we
would cut them off and serve them in a fricassee.”

Mary Lambert laughed at the idea of her pretty little delicate ears
being so served. When her husband was most tender-hearted, his habit
was to be most grotesque. When he pulled the pretty little delicate ear,
behind which the matron’s fine hair was combed back, wherein twinkled
a shining line or two of silver, I dare say he did not hurt her much. I
dare say she was thinking of the soft, well-remembered times of her own
modest youth and sweet courtship. Hallowed remembrances of sacred times!
If the sight of youthful love is pleasant to behold, how much more
charming the aspect of the affection that has survived years, sorrows,
faded beauty perhaps, and life’s doubts, differences, trouble!

In regard of her promise to disguise her feelings for Mr. Warrington in
that gentleman’s presence, Miss Hester was better, or worse if you will,
than her word. Harry not only came to take tea with his friends, but
invited them for the next day to an entertainment at the Rooms, to be
given in their special honour.

“A dance, and given for us!” cries Theo. “Oh, Harry, how delightful! I
wish we could begin this very minute!”

“Why, for a savage Virginian, I declare, Harry Warrington, thou art the
most civilised young man possible!” says the Colonel. “My dear, shall we
dance a minuet together?”

“We have done such a thing before, Martin Lambert!” says the soldier’s
fond wife. Her husband hums a minuet tune; whips a plate from the
tea-table, and makes a preparatory bow and flourish with it as if it
were a hat, whilst madam performs her best curtsey.

Only Hetty, of the party, persists in looking glum and displeased. “Why,
child, have you not a word of thanks to throw to Mr. Warrington?” asks
Theo of her sister.

“I never did care for dancing much,” says Hetty. “What is the use of
standing up opposite a stupid man, and dancing down a room with him?”

“Merci du compliment!” says Mr. Warrington.

“I don’t say that you are stupid--that is--that is, I--I only meant
country dances,” says Hetty, biting her lips, as she caught her sister’s
eye. She remembered she had said Harry was stupid, and Theo’s droll
humorous glance was her only reminder.

But with this Miss Hetty chose to be as angry as if it had been quite a
cruel rebuke. “I hate dancing--there--I own it,” she says, with a toss
of her head.

“Nay, you used to like it well enough, child!!” interposes her mother.

“That was when she was a child: don’t you see she is grown up to be an
old woman?” remarks Hetty’s father. “Or perhaps Miss Hester has got the
gout?”

“Fiddle!” says Hester, snappishly, drubbing with her little feet.

“What’s a dance without a fiddle?” says imperturbed papa.

Darkness has come over Harry Warrington’s face. “I come to try my best,
and give them pleasure and a dance,” he thinks, “and the little thing
tells me she hates dancing. We don’t practise kindness, or acknowledge
hospitality so in our country. No--nor speak to our parents so,
neither.” I am afraid, in this particular usages have changed in the
United States during the last hundred years, and that the young folks
there are considerably Hettified.

Not content with this, Miss Hester must proceed to make such fun of
all the company at the Wells, and especially of Harry’s own immediate
pursuits and companions, that the honest lad was still further pained at
her behaviour; and, when he saw Mrs. Lambert alone, asked how or in
what he had again offended, that Hester was so angry with him? The kind
matron felt more than ever well disposed towards the boy, after her
daughter’s conduct to him. She would have liked to tell the secret
which Hester hid so fiercely. Theo, too, remonstrated with her sister in
private; but Hester would not listen to the subject, and was as angry in
her bedroom, when the girls were alone, as she had been in the parlour
before her mother’s company. “Suppose he hates me?” says she. “I expect
he will. I hate myself, I do, and scorn myself for being such an idiot.
How ought he to do otherwise than hate me? Didn’t I abuse him, call him
goose, all sorts of names? And know he is not clever all the time. I
know I have better wits than he has. It is only because he is tall, and
has blue eyes, and a pretty nose that I like him. What an absurd fool a
girl must be to like a man merely because he has a blue nose and hooked
eyes! So I am a fool, and I won’t have you say a word to the contrary,
Theo!”

Now Theo thought that her little sister, far from being a fool, was
a wonder of wonders, and that if any girl was worthy of any prince in
Christendom, Hetty was that spinster. “You are silly sometimes, Hetty,”
 says Theo, “that is when you speak unkindly to people who mean you well,
as you did to Mr. Warrington at tea to-night. When he proposed to us his
party at the Assembly Rooms, and nothing could be more gallant of him,
why did you say you didn’t care for music, or dancing, or tea? You know
you love them all!”

“I said it merely to vex myself, Theo, and annoy myself, and whip
myself, as I deserve, child. And, besides, how can you expect such an
idiot as I am to say anything but idiotic things? Do you know, it
quite pleased me to see him angry. I thought, ah! now I have hurt his
feelings! Now he will say, Hetty Lambert is an odious little set-up,
sour-tempered vixen. And that will teach him, and you, and mamma, and
papa, at any rate, that I am not going to set my cap at Mr. Harry. No;
our papa is ten times as good as he is. I will stay by our papa, and if
he asked me to go to Virginia with him to-morrow, I wouldn’t, Theo. My
sister is worth all the Virginians that ever were made since the world
began.”

And here, I suppose, follow osculations between the sisters, and
mother’s knock comes to the door, who has overheard their talk through
the wainscot, and calls out, “Children, ‘tis time to go to sleep.”
 Theo’s eyes close speedily, and she is at rest; but ob, poor little
Hetty! Think of the hours tolling one after another, and the child’s
eyes wide open, as she lies tossing and wakeful with the anguish of the
new wound!

“It is a judgment upon me,” she says, “for having thought and spoke
scornfully of him. Only, why should there be a judgment upon me? I was
only in fun. I knew I liked him very much all the time: but I thought
Theo liked him too, and I would give up anything for my darling Theo. If
she had, no tortures should ever have drawn a word from me--I would have
got a rope-ladder to help her to run away with Harry, that I would,
or fetched the clergyman to marry them. And then I would have retired
alone, and alone, and alone, and taken care of papa and mamma, and of
the poor in the village, and have read sermons, though I hate ‘em, and
would have died without telling a word--not a word--and I shall die
soon, I know I shall.” But when the dawn rises, the little maid is
asleep, nestling by her sister, the stain of a tear or two upon her
flushed downy cheek.

Most of us play with edged tools at some period of our lives, and cut
ourselves accordingly. At first the cut hurts and stings, and down drops
the knife, and we cry out like wounded little babies as we are. Some
very very few and unlucky folks at the game cut their heads sheer off,
or stab themselves mortally, and perish outright, and there is an end
of them. But,--heaven help us!--many people have fingered those ardentes
sagittas which Love sharpens on his whetstone, and are stabbed, scarred,
pricked, perforated, tattooed all over with the wounds, who recovered,
and live to be quite lively. Wir auch have tasted das irdische Glueck;
we also have gelebt and--und so weiter. Warble your death-song, sweet
Thekla! Perish off the face of the earth, poor pulmonary victim, if so
minded! Had you survived to a later period of life, my dear, you would
have thought of a sentimental disappointment without any reference to
the undertaker. Let us trust there is no present need of a sexton for
Miss Hetty. But meanwhile, the very instant she wakes, there, tearing
at her little heart, will that Care be, which has given her a few hours’
respite, melted, no doubt, by her youth and her tears.



CHAPTER XXXIV. In which Mr. Warrington treats the Company with Tea and a
Ball


Generous with his very easily gotten money, hospitable and cordial to
all, our young Virginian, in his capacity of man of fashion, could
not do less than treat his country friends to an entertainment at the
Assembly Rooms, whither, according to the custom of the day, he invited
almost all the remaining company at the Wells. Card-tables were set in
one apartment, for all those who could not spend an evening without the
pastime then common to all European society: a supper with champagne in
some profusion and bowls of negus was prepared in another chamber: the
large assembly-room was set apart for the dance, of which enjoyment
Harry Warrington’s guests partook in our ancestors’ homely fashion. I
cannot fancy that the amusement was especially lively. First, minuets
were called, two or three of which were performed by as many couple. The
spinsters of the highest rank in the assembly went out for the minuet,
and my Lady Maria Esmond, being an earl’s daughter, and the person of
the highest rank present (with the exception of Lady Augusta Crutchley,
who was lame), Mr. Warrington danced the first minuet with his cousin,
acquitting himself to the satisfaction of the whole room, and performing
much more elegantly than Mr. Wolfe, who stood up with Miss Lowther.
Having completed the dance with Lady Maria, Mr. Warrington begged Miss
Theo to do him the honour of walking the next minuet, and accordingly
Miss Theo, blushing and looking very happy, went through her exercise to
the great delight of her parents and the rage of Miss Humpleby, Sir John
Humpleby’s daughter, of Liphook, who expected, at least, to have stood
up next after my Lady Maria. Then, after the minuets, came country
dances, the music being performed by a harp, fiddle, and flageolet,
perched in a little balcony, and thrumming through the evening rather
feeble and melancholy tunes. Take up an old book of music, and play a
few of those tunes now, and one wonders how people at any time could
have found the airs otherwise than melancholy. And yet they loved and
frisked and laughed and courted to that sad accompaniment. There is
scarce one of the airs that has not an amari aliquid, a tang of sadness.
Perhaps it is because they are old and defunct, and their plaintive
echoes call out to us from the limbo of the past, whither they have been
consigned for this century. Perhaps they were gay when they were alive;
and our descendants when they hear--well, never mind names--when they
hear the works of certain maestri now popular, will say: Bon Dieu, is
this the music which amused our forefathers?

Mr. Warrington had the honour of a duchess’s company at his
tea-drinking--Colonel Lambert’s and Mr. Prior’s heroine, the Duchess
of Queensberry. And though the duchess carefully turned her back upon a
countess who was present, laughed loudly, glanced at the latter over her
shoulder, and pointed at her with her fan, yet almost all the company
pushed, and bowed, and cringed, and smiled, and backed before this
countess, scarcely taking any notice of her Grace of Queensberry and her
jokes, and her fan, and her airs. Now this countess was no other than
the Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden, the lady whom his Majesty George the
Second, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the
Faith, delighted to honour. She had met Harry Warrington in the walks
that morning, and had been mighty gracious to the young Virginian. She
had told him they would have a game at cards that night; and purblind
old Colonel Blinkinsop, who fancied the invitation had been addressed to
him, had made the profoundest of bows. “Pooh! pooh!” said the Countess
of England and Hanover, “I don’t mean you. I mean the young Firshinian!”
 And everybody congratulated the youth on his good fortune. At night, all
the world, in order to show their loyalty, doubtless, thronged round
my Lady Yarmouth; my Lord Bamborough was eager to make her parti at
quadrille. My Lady Blanche Pendragon, that model of virtue; Sir Lancelot
Quintain, that pattern of knighthood and valour; Mr. Dean of Ealing,
that exemplary divine and preacher; numerous gentlemen, noblemen,
generals, colonels, matrons, and spinsters of the highest rank, were
on the watch for a smile from her, or eager to jump up and join her
card-table. Lady Maria waited upon her with meek respect, and Madame
de Bernstein treated the Hanoverian lady with profound gravity and
courtesy.

Harry’s bow had been no lower than hospitality required; but, such as it
was, Miss Hester chose to be indignant with it. She scarce spoke a word
to her partner during their dance together; and when he took her to the
supper-room for refreshment she was little more communicative. To
enter that room they had to pass by Madame Walmoden’s card-table, who
good-naturedly called out to her host as he was passing, and asked him
if his “breddy liddle bardner liked tanzing?”

“I thank your ladyship, I don’t like tanzing, and I don’t like cards,”
 says Miss Hester, tossing up her head; and, dropping a curtsey like a
“cheese,” she strutted away from the Countess’s table.

Mr. Warrington was very much offended. Sarcasm from the young to the old
pained him: flippant behaviour towards himself hurt him. Courteous in
his simple way to all persons whom he met, he expected a like politeness
from them. Hetty perfectly well knew what offence she was giving; could
mark the displeasure reddening on her partner’s honest face, with a
sidelong glance of her eye; nevertheless she tried to wear her most
ingenuous smile; and, as she came up to the sideboard where the
refreshments were set, artlessly said:

“What a horrid, vulgar old woman that is; don’t you think so?”

“What woman?” asked the young man.

“That German woman--my Lady Yarmouth--to whom all the men are bowing and
cringing.”

“Her ladyship has been very kind to me,” says Harry, grimly. “Won’t you
have some of this custard?”

“And you have been bowing to her, too! You look as if your negus was not
nice,” harmlessly continues Miss Hetty.

“It is not very good negus,” says Harry, with a gulp.

“And the custard is bad too! I declare ‘tis made with bad eggs!” cries
Miss Lambert.

“I wish, Hester, that the entertainment and the company had been better
to your liking,” says poor Harry.

“‘Tis very unfortunate; but I dare say you could not help it,” cries the
young woman, tossing her little curly head.

Mr. Warrington groaned in spirit, perhaps in body, and clenched his
fists and his teeth. The little torturer artlessly continued, “You seem
disturbed: shall we go to my mamma?”

“Yes, let us go to your mamma,” cries Mr. Warrington, with glaring eyes
and a “Curse you, why are you always standing in the way?” to an unlucky
waiter.

“La! Is that the way you speak in Virginia?” asks Miss Pertness.

“We are rough there sometimes, madam, and can’t help being disturbed,”
 he says slowly, and with a quiver in his whole frame, looking down upon
her with fire flashing out of his eyes. Hetty saw nothing distinctly
afterwards, and until she came to her mother. Never had she seen Harry
look so handsome or so noble.

“You look pale, child!” cries mamma, anxious, like all pavidae matres.

“‘Tis the cold--no, I mean the heat. Thank you, Mr. Warrington.” And
she makes him a faint curtsey, as Harry bows a tremendous bow, and
walks elsewhere amongst his guests. He hardly knows what is happening at
first, so angry is he.

He is aroused by another altercation, between his aunt and the Duchess
of Queensberry. When the royal favourite passed the Duchess, her Grace
gave her Ladyship an awful stare out of eyes that were not so bright now
as they had been in the young days when they “set the world on fire;”
 turned round with an affected laugh to her neighbour, and shot at
the jolly Hanoverian lady a ceaseless fire of giggles and sneers.
The Countess pursued her game at cards, not knowing, or not choosing,
perhaps, to know how her enemy was gibing at her. There had been a feud
of many years’ date between their Graces of Queensberry and the family
on the throne.

“How you all bow down to the idol! Don’t tell me! You are as bad as
the rest, my good Madame Bernstein!” the Duchess says. “Ah, what a true
Christian country this is! and how your dear first husband, the Bishop,
would have liked to see such a sight!”

“Forgive me, if I fail quite to understand your Grace.”

“We are both of us growing old, my good Bernstein, or, perhaps, we won’t
understand when we don’t choose to understand. That is the way with us
women, my good young Iroquois.”

“Your Grace remarked, that it was a Christian country,” said Madame de
Bernstein, “and I failed to perceive the point of the remark.”

“Indeed, my good creature, there is very little point in it! I meant
we were such good Christians, because we were so forgiving. Don’t
you remember reading, when you were young, or your husband the Bishop
reading, when he was in the pulpit, how when a woman amongst the Jews
was caught doing wrong, the Pharisees were for stoning her out of hand?
Far from stoning such a woman now, look, how fond we are of her! Any man
in this room would go round it on his knees if yonder woman bade him.
Yes, Madame Walmoden, you may look up from your cards with your great
painted face, and frown with your great painted eyebrows at me. You know
I am talking about you; and intend to go on talking about you, too. I
say any man here would go round the room on his knees, if you bade him!”

“I think, madam, I know two or three who wouldn’t!” says Mr. Warrington,
with some spirit.

“Quick, let me hug them to my heart of hearts!” cries the old Duchess.
“Which are they? Bring ‘em to me, my dear Iroquois! Let us have a game
of four--of honest men and women; that is to say, if we can find a
couple more partners, Mr. Warrington!”

“Here are we three,” says the Baroness Bernstein, with a forced laugh;
“let us play a dummy.”

“Pray, madam, where is the third?” asks the old Duchess, looking round.

“Madam!” cries out the other elderly lady, “I leave your Grace to boast
of your honesty, which I have no doubt is spotless: but I will thank you
not to doubt mine before my own relatives and children!”

“See how she fires up at a word! I am sure, my dear creature, you are
quite as honest as most of the company,” says the Duchess.

“Which may not be good enough for her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry
and Dover, who, to be sure, might have stayed away in such a case, but
it is the best my nephew could get, madam, and his best he has given
you. You look astonished, Harry, my dear--and well you may. He is not
used to our ways, madam.”

“Madam, he has found an aunt who can teach him our ways, and a great
deal more!” cries the Duchess, rapping her fan.

“She will teach him to try and make all his guests welcome, old or
young, rich or poor. That is the Virginian way, isn’t it, Harry? She
will tell him, when Catherine Hyde is angry with his old aunt, that they
were friends as girls, and ought not to quarrel now they are old women.
And she will not be wrong, will she, Duchess?” And herewith the
one dowager made a superb curtsey to the other, and the battle just
impending between them passed away.

“Egad, it was like Byng and Galissoniere!” cried Chaplain Sampson, as
Harry talked over the night’s transactions with his tutor next morning.
“No power on earth, I thought, could have prevented those two from going
into action!”

“Seventy-fours at least--both of ‘em!” laughs Harry.

“But the Baroness declined the battle, and sailed out of fire with
inimitable skill.”

“Why should she be afraid? I have heard you say my aunt is as witty as
any woman alive, and need fear the tongue of no dowager in England.”

“Hem! Perhaps she had good reasons for being peaceable!” Sampson knew
very well what they were, and that poor Bernstein’s reputation was so
hopelessly flawed and cracked, that any sarcasms levelled at Madame
Walmoden were equally applicable to her.

“Sir,” cried Harry, in great amazement, “you don’t mean to say there is
anything against the character of my aunt, the Baroness de Bernstein!”

The chaplain looked at the young Virginian with such an air of utter
wonderment, that the latter saw there must be some history against his
aunt, and some charge which Sampson did not choose to reveal. “Good
heavens!” Harry groaned out, “are there two then in the family, who
are----?”

“Which two?” asked the chaplain.

But here Harry stopped, blushing very red. He remembered, and we shall
presently have to state, whence he had got his information regarding the
other family culprit, and bit his lip, and was silent.

“Bygones are always unpleasant things, Mr. Warrington,” said the
chaplain; “and we had best hold our peace regarding them. No man or
woman can live long in this wicked world of ours without some scandal
attaching to them, and I fear our excellent Baroness has been no more
fortunate than her neighbours. We cannot escape calumny, my dear young
friend! You have had sad proof enough of that in your brief stay amongst
us. But we can have clear consciences, and that is the main point!” And
herewith the chaplain threw his handsome eyes upward, and tried to look
as if his conscience was as white as the ceiling.

“Has there been anything very wrong, then, about my Aunt Bernstein?”
 continued Harry, remembering how at home his mother had never spoken of
the Baroness.

“O sancta simplicitas!” the chaplain muttered to himself. “Stories, my
dear sir, much older than your time or mine. Stories such as were told
about everybody, de me, de te; you know with what degree of truth in
your own case.”

“Confound the villain! I should like to hear any scoundrel say a word
against the dear old lady,” cries the young gentleman. “Why, this world,
parson, is full of lies and scandal!”

“And you are just beginning to find it out, my dear sir,” cries the
clergyman, with his most beatified air. “Whose character has not been
attacked? My lord’s, yours, mine,--every one’s. We must bear as well as
we can, and pardon to the utmost of our power.”

“You may. It’s your cloth, you know; but, by George, I won’t!” cries Mr.
Warrington, and again goes down the fist with a thump on the table. “Let
any fellow say a word in my hearing against that dear old creature, and
I’ll pull his nose, as sure as my name is Harry Esmond. How do you do,
Colonel Lambert? You find us late again, sir. Me and his reverence kept
it up pretty late with some of the young fellows, after the ladies
went away. I hope the dear ladies are well, sir?” and here Harry rose,
greeting his friend the Colonel very kindly, who had come to pay him
a morning visit, and had entered the room followed by Mr. Gumbo (the
latter preferred walking very leisurely about all the affairs of life),
just as Harry--suiting the action to the word--was tweaking the nose of
Calumny.

“The ladies are purely. Whose nose were you pulling when I came in, Mr.
Warrington?” says the Colonel, laughing.

“Isn’t it a shame, sir? The parson, here, was telling me that there
are villains here who attack the character of my aunt, the Baroness of
Bernstein!”

“You don’t mean to say so!” cries Mr. Lambert.

“I tell Mr. Harry that everybody is calumniated!” says the chaplain,
with a clerical intonation; but, at the same time, he looks at Colonel
Lambert and winks, as much as to say, “He knows nothing--keep him in the
dark.”

The Colonel took the hint. “Yes,” says he, “the jaws of slander are for
ever wagging. Witness that story about the dancing-girl, that we all
believed against you, Harry Warrington.”

“What, all, sir?”

“No, not all. One didn’t--Hetty didn’t. You should have heard her
standing up for you, Harry, t’other day, when somebody--a little
bird--brought us another story about you; about a game at cards on
Sunday morning, when you and a friend of yours might have been better
employed.” And here there was a look of mingled humour and reproof at
the clergyman.

“Faith, I own it, sir!” says the chaplain. “It was mea culpa, mea
maxima--no, mea minima culpa, only the rehearsal of an old game at
piquet, which we had been talking over.”

“And did Miss Hester stand up for me?” says Harry.

“Miss Hester did. But why that wondering look?” asks the Colonel.

“She scolded me last night like--like anything,” says downright Harry.
“I never heard a young girl go on so. She made fun of everybody--hit
about at young and old--so that I couldn’t help telling her, sir, that
in our country, leastways in Virginia (they say the Yankees are very
pert), young people don’t speak of their elders so. And, do you know,
sir, we had a sort of a quarrel, and I’m very glad you’ve told me she
spoke kindly of me,” says Harry, shaking his friend’s hand, a ready
boyish emotion glowing in his cheeks and in his eyes.

“You won’t come to much hurt if you find no worse enemy than Hester, Mr.
Warrington,” said the girl’s father, gravely, looking not without a
deep thrill of interest at the flushed face and moist eyes of his young
friend. “Is he fond of her?” thought the Colonel. “And how fond? ‘Tis
evident he knows nothing, and Miss Het has been performing some of
her tricks. He is a fine, honest lad, and God bless him!” And Colonel
Lambert looked towards Harry with that manly, friendly kindness which
our lucky young Virginian was not unaccustomed to inspire, for he was
comely to look at, prone to blush, to kindle, nay, to melt, at a kind
story. His laughter was cheery to hear: his eyes shone confidently: his
voice spoke truth.

“And the young lady of the minuet? She distinguished herself to
perfection: the whole room admired,” asked the courtly chaplain. “I
trust Miss--Miss----”

“Miss Theodosia is perfectly well, and ready to dance at this minute
with your reverence,” says her father. “Or stay, Chaplain, perhaps you
only dance on Sunday?” The Colonel then turned to Harry again. “You
paid your court very neatly to the great lady, Mr. Flatterer. My Lady
Yarmouth has been trumpeting your praises at the Pump Room. She says
she has got a leedel boy in Hannover dat is wery like you, and you are a
sharming young mans.”

“If her ladyship were a queen, people could scarcely be more respectful
to her,” says the chaplain.

“Let us call her a vice-queen, parson,” says the Colonel, with a twinkle
of his eye.

“Her Majesty pocketed forty of my guineas at quadrille,” cries Mr.
Warrington, with a laugh.

“She will play you on the same terms another day. The Countess is fond
of play, and she wins from most people,” said the Colonel, drily. “Why
don’t you bet her ladyship five thousand on a bishopric, parson? I have
heard of a clergyman who made such a bet, and who lost it, and who paid
it, and who got the bishopric.

“Ah! who will lend me the five thousand? Will you, sir? asked the
chaplain.

“No, sir! I won’t give her five thousand to be made Commander-in-Chief
or Pope of Rome,” says the Colonel, stoutly. “I shall fling no stones
at the woman; but I shall bow no knee to her, as I see a pack of rascals
do. No offence--I don’t mean you. And I don’t mean Harry Warrington,
who was quite right to be civil to her, and to lose his money with
good-humour. Harry, I am come to bid thee farewell, my boy. We have had
our pleasuring--my money is run out, and we must jog back to Oakhurst.
Will you ever come and see the old place again?”

“Now, sir, now! I’ll ride back with you!” cries Harry, eagerly.

“Why--no--not now,” says the Colonel, in a hurried manner. “We haven’t
got room--that is, we’re--we’re expecting some friends.” [“The Lord
forgive me for the lie!” he mutters.] “But--but you’ll come to us
when--when Tom’s at home--yes, when Tom’s at home. That will be
famous fun--and I’d have you to know, sir, that my wife and I love you
sincerely, sir--and so do the girls, however much they scold you. And if
you ever are in a scrape--and such things have happened, Mr. Chaplain!
you will please to count upon me. Mind that, sir!”

And the Colonel was for taking leave of Harry then and there, on the
spot, but the young man followed him down the stairs, and insisted upon
saying good-bye to his dear ladies.

Instead, however, of proceeding immediately to Mr. Lambert’s lodging,
the two gentlemen took the direction of the common, where, looking
from Harry’s windows, Mr. Sampson saw the pair in earnest conversation.
First, Lambert smiled and looked roguish. Then, presently, at a farther
stage of the talk, he flung up both his hands and performed other
gestures indicating surprise and agitation.

“The boy is telling him,” thought the chaplain. When Mr. Warrington came
back in an hour, he found his reverence deep in the composition of a
sermon. Harry’s face was grave and melancholy; he flung down his hat,
buried himself in a great chair, and then came from his lips something
like an execration.

“The young ladies are going, and our heart is affected?” said the
chaplain, looking up from his manuscript.

“Heart!” sneered Harry.

“Which of the young ladies is the conqueror, sir? I thought the
youngest’s eyes followed you about at your ball.”

“Confound the little termagant!” broke out Harry. “What does she mean by
being so pert to me? She treats me as if I was a fool!”

“And no man is, sir, with a woman!” said the scribe of the sermon.

“Ain’t they, Chaplain?” And Harry growled out more naughty words
expressive of inward disquiet.

“By the way, have you heard anything of your lost property?” asked the
chaplain, presently looking up from his pages.

Harry said “No!” with another word, which I would not print for the
world.

“I begin to suspect, sir, that there was more money than you like to own
in that book. I wish I could find some.”

“There were notes in it,” said Harry, very gloomily, “and--and papers
that I am very sorry to lose. What the deuce has come of it? I had it
when we dined together.”

“I saw you put it in your pocket,” cried the chaplain. “I saw you take
it out and pay at the toy-shop a bill for a gold thimble and workbox for
one of your young ladies. Of course you have asked there, sir?”

“Of course I have,” says Mr. Warrington, plunged in melancholy.

“Gumbo put you to bed--at least, if I remember right. I was so cut
myself that I scarce remember anything. Can you trust those black
fellows, sir?”

“I can trust him with my head. With my head?” groaned out Mr.
Warrington, bitterly., “I can’t trust myself with it.”

“‘Oh, that a man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his
brains!’”

“You may well call it an enemy, Chaplain. Hang it, I have a great mind
to make a vow never to drink another drop! A fellow says anything when
he is in drink.”

The chaplain laughed. “You, sir,” he said, “are close enough!” And the
truth was, that, for the last few days, no amount of wine would unseal
Mr. Warrington’s lips, when the artless Sampson by chance touched on the
subject of his patron’s loss.

“And so the little country nymphs are gone, or going, sir?” asked the
chaplain. “They were nice, fresh little things; but I think the mother
was the finest woman of the three. I declare, a woman at five-and-thirty
or so is at her prime. What do you say, sir?”

Mr. Warrington looked, for a moment, askance at the clergyman. “Confound
all women, I say!” muttered the young misogynist. For which sentiment
every well-conditioned person will surely rebuke him.



CHAPTER XXXV. Entanglements


Our good Colonel had, no doubt, taken counsel with his good wife, and
they had determined to remove their little Hetty as speedily as possible
out of the reach of the charmer. In complaints such as that under which
the poor little maiden was supposed to be suffering, the remedy of
absence and distance often acts effectually with men; but I believe
women are not so easily cured by the alibi treatment. Some of them will
go away ever so far, and forever so long, and the obstinate disease
hangs by them, spite of distance or climate. You may whip, abuse,
torture, insult them, and still the little deluded creatures will
persist in their fidelity. Nay, if I may speak, after profound and
extensive study and observation, there are few better ways of securing
the faithfulness and admiration of the beautiful partners of our
existence than a little judicious ill-treatment, a brisk dose of
occasional violence as an alterative, and, for general and wholesome
diet, a cooling but pretty constant neglect. At sparing intervals
administer small quantities of love and kindness; but not every day, or
too often, as this medicine, much taken, loses its effect. Those dear
creatures who are the most indifferent to their husbands, are those who
are cloyed by too much surfeiting of the sugar-plums and lollipops of
Love. I have known a young being, with every wish gratified, yawn in her
adoring husband’s face, and prefer the conversation and petits soins
of the merest booby and idiot; whilst, on the other hand, I have seen
Chloe,--at whom Strephon has flung his bootjack in the morning, or whom
he has cursed before the servants at dinner,--come creeping and fondling
to his knee at tea-time, when he is comfortable after his little nap and
his good wine; and pat his head and play him his favourite tunes; and,
when old John, the butler, or old Mary, the maid, comes in with the
bed-candles, look round proudly, as much as to say, Now, John, look how
good my dearest Henry is! Make your game, gentlemen, then! There is the
coaxing, fondling, adoring line, when you are henpecked, and Louisa
is indifferent, and bored out of her existence. There is the manly,
selfish, effectual system, where she answers to the whistle and comes in
at “Down Charge;” and knows her master; and frisks and fawns about him;
and nuzzles at his knees; and “licks the hand that’s raised”--that’s
raised to do her good, as (I quote from memory) Mr. Pope finely
observes. What used the late lamented O’Connell to say, over whom a
grateful country has raised such a magnificent testimonial? “Hereditary
bondsmen,” he used to remark, “know ye not, who would be free,
themselves must strike the blow?” Of course you must, in political as in
domestic circles. So up with your cudgels, my enslaved, injured boys!

Women will be pleased with these remarks, because they have such a taste
for humour and understand irony; and I should not be surprised if young
Grubstreet, who corresponds with three penny papers and describes the
persons and conversation of gentlemen whom he meets at his “clubs,”
 will say, “I told you so! He advocates the thrashing of women! He has
no nobility of soul! He has no heart!” Nor have I, my eminent young
Grubstreet! any more than you have ears. Dear ladies! I assure you I am
only joking in the above remarks,--I do not advocate the thrashing of
your sex at all,--and, as you can’t understand the commonest bit of fun,
beg leave flatly to tell you, that I consider your sex a hundred times
more loving and faithful than ours.

So, what is the use of Hetty’s parents taking her home, if the little
maid intends to be just as fond of Harry absent as of Harry present?
Why not let her see him before Ball and Dobbin are put to, and say,
“Good-bye, Harry! I was very wilful and fractious last night, and you
were very kind: but good-bye, Harry!” She will show no special emotion:
she is so ashamed of her secret, that she will not betray it. Harry is
too much preoccupied to discover it for himself. He does not know what
grief is lying behind Hetty’s glances, or hidden under the artifice of
her innocent young smiles. He has, perhaps, a care of his own. He will
part from her calmly, and fancy she is happy to get back to her music
and her poultry and her flower-garden.

He did not even ride part of the way homewards by the side of his
friend’s carriage. He had some other party arranged for, that afternoon,
and when he returned thence, the good Lamberts were gone from Tunbridge
Wells. There were their windows open, and the card in one of them
signifying that the apartments were once more to let. A little passing
sorrow at the blank aspect of the rooms lately enlivened by countenances
so frank and friendly, may have crossed the young gentleman’s mind; but
he dines at the White Horse at four o’clock, and eats his dinner and
calls fiercely for his bottle. Poor little Hester will choke over her
tea about the same hour when the Lamberts arrive to sleep at the house
of their friends at Westerham. The young roses will be wan in her cheeks
in the morning, and there will be black circles round her eyes. It was
the thunder: the night was hot: she could not sleep: she will be better
when she gets home again the next day. And home they come. There is the
gate where he fell. There is the bed he lay in, the chair in which he
used to sit--what ages seem to have passed! What a gulf between to-day
and yesterday! Who is that little child calling her chickens, or
watering her roses yonder? Are she and that girl the same Hester
Lambert? Why, she is ever so much older than Theo now--Theo, who has
always been so composed, and so clever, and so old for her age. But in
a night or two Hester has lived--oh, long, long years! So have many
besides: and poppy and mandragora will never medicine them to the sweet
sleep they tasted yesterday.

Maria Esmond saw the Lambert cavalcade drive away, and felt a grim
relief. She looks with hot eyes at Harry when he comes into his aunt’s
card-tables, flushed with Barbeau’s good wine. He laughs, rattles in
reply to his aunt, who asks him which of the girls is his sweetheart? He
gaily says he loves them both like sisters. He has never seen a better
gentleman, nor better people, than the Lamberts. Why is Lambert not a
general? He has been a most distinguished officer: his Royal Highness
the Duke is very fond of him. Madame Bernstein says that Harry must make
interest with Lady Yarmouth for his protege.

“Elle ravvole de fous, cher bedid anche!” says Madame Bernstein,
mimicking the Countess’s German accent. The Baroness is delighted with
her boy’s success. “You carry off the hearts of all the old women,
doesn’t he, Maria?” she says, with a sneer at her niece, who quivers
under the stab.

“You were quite right, my dear, not to perceive that she cheated
at cards, and you play like a grand seigneur,” continues Madame de
Bernstein.

“Did she cheat?” cries Harry, astonished. “I am sure, ma’am, I saw no
unfair play.”

“No more did I, my dear, but I am sure she cheated. Bah! every woman
cheats, I and Maria included, when we can get a chance. But when you
play with the Walmoden, you don’t do wrong to lose in moderation; and
many men cheat in that way. Cultivate her. She has taken a fancy to your
beaux yeux. Why should your Excellency not be Governor of Virginia,
sir? You must go and pay your respects to the Duke and his Majesty at
Kensington. The Countess of Yarmouth will be your best friend at court.”

“Why should you not introduce me, aunt?” asked Harry.

The old lady’s rouged cheek grew a little redder. “I am not in favour at
Kensington,” she said. “I may have been once; and there are no faces
so unwelcome to kings as those they wish to forget. All of us want to
forget something or somebody. I dare say our ingenu here would like to
wipe a sum or two off the slate. Wouldst thou not, Harry?”

Harry turned red, too, and so did Maria, and his aunt laughed one of
those wicked laughs which are not altogether pleasant to hear. What
meant those guilty signals on the cheeks of her nephew and niece? What
account was scored upon the memory of either, which they were desirous
to efface? I fear Madame Bernstein was right, and that most folks have
some ugly reckonings written up on their consciences, which we were glad
to be quit of.

Had Maria known one of the causes of Harry’s disquiet, the middle-aged
spinster would have been more unquiet still. For some days he had missed
a pocket-book. He had remembered it in his possession on that day when
he drank so much claret at the White Horse, and Gumbo carried him to
bed. He sought for it in the morning, but none of his servants had seen
it. He had inquired for it at the White Horse, but there were no traces
of it. He could not cry the book, and could only make very cautious
inquiries respecting it. He must not have it known that the book was
lost. A pretty condition of mind Lady Maria Esmond would be in, if she
knew that the outpourings of her heart were in the hands of the public!
The letters contained all sorts of disclosures: a hundred family secrets
were narrated by the artless correspondent: there were ever so much
satire and abuse of persons with whom she and Mr. Warrington came in
contact. There were expostulations about his attentions to other ladies.
There was scorn, scandal, jokes, appeals, protests of eternal fidelity;
the usual farrago, dear madam, which you may remember you wrote to your
Edward, when you were engaged to him, and before you became Mrs.
Jones. Would you like those letters to be read by any one else? Do you
recollect what you said about the Miss Browns in two or three of those
letters, and the unfavourable opinion you expressed of Mrs. Thompson’s
character? Do you happen to recall the words which you used regarding
Jones himself, whom you subsequently married (for in consequence of
disputes about the settlements your engagement with Edward was broken
off)? and would you like Mr. J. to see those remarks? You know you
wouldn’t. Then be pleased to withdraw that imputation which you have
already cast in your mind upon Lady Maria Esmond. No doubt her letters
were very foolish, as most love-letters are, but it does not follow that
there was anything wrong in them. They are foolish when written by young
folks to one another, and how much more foolish when written by an old
man to a young lass, or by an old lass to a young lad! No wonder
Lady Maria should not like her letters to be read. Why, the very
spelling--but that didn’t matter so much in her ladyship’s days, and
people are just as foolish now, though they spell better. No, it is not
the spelling which matters so much; it is the writing at all. I for one,
and for the future, am determined never to speak or write my mind out
regarding anything or anybody. I intend to say of every woman that she
is chaste and handsome; of every man that he is handsome, clever, and
rich; of every book that it is delightfully interesting; of Snobmore’s
manners that they are gentlemanlike; of Screwby’s dinners that they are
luxurious; of Jawkins’s conversation that it is lively and amusing; of
Xantippe, that she has a sweet temper; of Jezebel, that her colour is
natural; of Bluebeard, that he really was most indulgent to his wives,
and that very likely they died of bronchitis. What? a word against the
spotless Messalina? What an unfavourable view of human nature! What?
King Cheops was not a perfect monarch? Oh, you railer at royalty and
slanderer of all that is noble and good! When this book is concluded, I
shall change the jaundiced livery which my books have worn since I began
to lisp in numbers, have rose-coloured coats for them with cherubs on
the cover, and all the characters within shall be perfect angels.

Meanwhile we are in a society of men and women, from whose shoulders
no sort of wings have sprouted as yet, and who, without any manner of
doubt, have their little failings. There is Madame Bernstein: she has
fallen asleep after dinner, and eating and drinking too much,--those are
her ladyship’s little failings. Mr. Harry Warrington has gone to play
a match at billiards with Count Caramboli: I suspect idleness is his
failing. That is what Mr. Chaplain Sampson remarks to Lady Maria, as
they are talking together in a low tone, so as not to interrupt Aunt
Bernstein’s doze in the neighbouring room.

“A gentleman of Mr. Warrington’s means can afford to be idle,” says Lady
Maria. “Why, sure you love cards and billiards yourself, my good Mr.
Sampson?”

“I don’t say, madam, my practice is good, only my doctrine is sound,”
 says Mr. Chaplain with a sigh. “This young gentleman should have some
employment. He should appear at court, and enter the service of his
country, as befits a man of his station. He should settle down, and
choose a woman of a suitable rank as his wife.” Sampson looks in her
ladyship’s face as he speaks.

“Indeed, my cousin is wasting his time,” says Lady Maria, blushing
slightly.

“Mr. Warrington might see his relatives of his father’s family,”
 suggests Mr. Chaplain.

“Suffolk country boobies drinking beer and hallooing after foxes! I
don’t see anything to be gained by his frequenting them, Mr. Sampson!”

“They are of an ancient family, of which the chief has been knight of
the shire these hundred years,” says the chaplain. “I have heard Sir
Miles hath a daughter of Mr. Harry’s age--and beauty, too.”

“I know nothing, sir, about Sir Miles Warrington, and his daughters, and
his beauties!” cries Maria, in a fluster.

“The Baroness stirred--no--her ladyship is in a sweet sleep,” says the
chaplain, in a very soft voice. “I fear, madam, for your ladyship’s
cousin, Mr. Warrington. I fear for his youth; for designing persons who
may get about him; for extravagances, follies, intrigues even into which
he will be led, and into which everybody will try to tempt him. His
lordship, my kind patron, bade me to come and watch over him, and I am
here accordingly, as your ladyship knoweth. I know the follies of young
men. Perhaps I have practised them myself. I own it with a blush,” adds
Mr. Sampson with much unction--not, however, bringing the promised blush
forward to corroborate the asserted repentance.

“Between ourselves, I fear Mr. Warrington is in some trouble now,
madam,” continues the chaplain, steadily looking at Lady Maria.

“What, again?” shrieks the lady.

“Hush! Your ladyship’s dear invalid!” whispers the chaplain again
pointing towards Madame Bernstein. “Do you think your cousin has any
partiality for any--any member of Mr. Lambert’s family? for example,
Miss Lambert?”

“There is nothing between him and Miss Lambert,” says Lady Maria.

“Your ladyship is certain?”

“Women are said to have good eyes in such matters, my good Sampson,”
 says my lady, with an easy air. “I thought the little girl seemed to be
following him.”

“Then I am at fault once more,” the frank chaplain said. “Mr. Warrington
said of the young lady, that she ought to go back to her doll, and
called her a pert, stuck-up little hussy.”

“Ah!” sighed Lady Maria, as if relieved by the news.

“Then, madam, there must be somebody else,” said the chaplain. Has he
confided nothing to your ladyship?”

“To me, Mr. Sampson? What? Where? How?” exclaims Maria.

“Some six days ago, after we had been dining at the White Horse, and
drinking too freely, Mr. Warrington lost a pocket-book containing
letters.”

“Letters?” gasps Lady Maria.

“And probably more money than he likes to own,” continues Mr. Sampson,
with a grave nod of the head. “He is very much disturbed about the
book. We have both made cautious inquiries about it. We have----Gracious
powers, is your ladyship ill?”

Here my Lady Maria gave three remarkably shrill screams, and tumbled off
her chair.

“I will see the Prince. I have a right to see him. What’s this?--Where
am I?--What’s the matter?” cries Madame Bernstein, waking up from her
sleep. She had been dreaming of old days, no doubt. The old lady shook
in all her limbs--her face was very much flushed. She stared about
wildly a moment, and then tottered forward on her tortoiseshell cane.
“What--what’s the matter?” she asked again. “Have you killed her, sir?”

“Some sudden qualm must have come over her ladyship. Shall I cut her
laces, madam? or send for a doctor?” cries the chaplain, with every look
of innocence and alarm.

“What has passed between you, sir?” asked the old lady, fiercely.

“I give you my honour, madam, I have done I don’t know what. I but
mentioned that Mr. Warrington had lost a pocket-book containing letters,
and my lady swooned, as you see.”

Madame Bernstein dashed water on her niece’s face. A feeble moan told
presently that the lady was coming to herself.

The Baroness looked sternly after Mr. Sampson, as she sent him away on
his errand for the doctor. Her aunt’s grim countenance was of little
comfort to poor Maria when she saw it on waking up from her swoon.

“What has happened?” asked the younger lady, bewildered and gasping.

“H’m! You know best what has happened, madam, I suppose. What hath
happened before in our family?” cried the old Baroness, glaring at her
niece with savage eyes.

“Ah, yes! the letters have been lost--ach lieber Himmel!” And Maria, as
she would sometimes do, when much moved, began to speak in the language
of her mother.

“Yes! the seal has been broken, and the letters have been lost, ‘tis the
old story of the Esmonds,” cried the elder, bitterly.

“Seal broken, letters lost? What do you mean,--aunt?” asked Maria,
faintly.

“I mean that my mother was the only honest woman that ever entered the
family!” cried the Baroness, stamping her foot. “And she was a parson’s
daughter of no family in particular, or she would have gone wrong, too.
Good heavens! is it decreed that we are all to be...?”

“To be what, madam?” cried Maria.

“To be what my Lady Queensberry said we were last night. To be what we
are! You know the word for it!” cried the indignant old woman. “I say,
what has come to the whole race? Your father’s mother was an honest
woman, Maria. Why did I leave her? Why couldn’t you remain so?”

“Madam!” exclaims Maria, “I declare, before Heaven, I am as----”

“Bah! Don’t madam me! Don’t call heaven to witness--there’s nobody by!
And if you swore to your innocence till the rest of your teeth dropped
out of your mouth, my Lady Maria Esmond, I would not believe you!”

“Ah! it was you told him!” gasped Maria. She recognised an arrow out of
her aunt’s quiver.

“I saw some folly going on between you and the boy, and I told him that
you were as old as his mother. Yes, I did! Do you suppose I am going
to let Henry Esmond’s boy fling himself and his wealth away upon such
a battered old rock as you? The boy shan’t be robbed and cheated in our
family. Not a shilling of mine shall any of you have if he comes to any
harm amongst you.

“Ah! you told him!” cried Maria, with a sudden burst of rebellion.
“Well, then! I’d have you to know that I don’t care a penny, madam,
for your paltry money! I have Mr. Harry Warrington’s word--yes, and his
letters--and I know he will die rather than break it.”

“He will die if he keeps it!” (Maria shrugged her shoulders.)

“But you don’t care for that--you’ve no more heart----”

“Than my father’s sister, madam!” cries Maria again. The younger woman,
ordinarily submissive, had turned upon here persecutor.

“Ah! Why did not I marry an honest man?” said the of lady, shaking her
head sadly. “Henry Esmond was noble and good, and perhaps might have
made me so. But no, no--we have all got the taint in us--all! You don’t
mean to sacrifice this boy, Maria?”

“Madame ma tante, do you take me for a fool at my age?” asks Maria.

“Set him free! I’ll give you five thousand pounds--in my--in my will,
Maria. I will, on my honour!”

“When you were young, and you liked Colonel Esmond, you threw him aside
for an earl, and the earl for a duke?”

“Yes.”

“Eh! Bon sang ne peut mentir! I have no money, I have no friends.
My father was a spendthrift, my brother is a beggar. I have Mr.
Warrington’s word, and I know, madam, he will keep it. And that’s what I
tell your ladyship!” cries Lady Maria with a wave of her hand. “Suppose
my letters are published to all the world to-morrow? Apres? I know they
contain things I would as lieve not tell. Things not about me alone.
Comment! Do you suppose there are no stories but mine in the family?
It is not my letters that I am afraid of, so long as I have his, madam.
Yes, his and his word, and I trust them both.”

“I will send to my merchant, and give you the money now, Maria,” pleaded
the old lady.

“No, I shall have my pretty Harry, and ten times five thousand pounds!”
 cries Maria.

“Not till his mother’s death, madam, who is just your age!”

“We can afford to wait, aunt. At my age, as you say, I am not so eager
as young chits for a husband.”

“But to wait my sister’s death, at least, is a drawback?”

“Offer me ten thousand pounds, Madam Tusher, and then we will see!”
 cries Maria.

“I have not so much money in the world, Maria,” said the old lady.

“Then, madam, let me make what I can for myself!” says Maria.

“Ah, if he heard you?”

“Apres? I have his word. I know he will keep it. I can afford to wait,
madam,” and she flung out of the room, just as the chaplain returned.
It was Madame Bernstein who wanted cordials now. She was immensely moved
and shocked by the news which had been thus suddenly brought to her.



CHAPTER XXXVI. Which seems to mean Mischief


Though she had clearly had the worst of the battle described in the last
chapter, the Baroness Bernstein, when she next met her niece showed
no rancour or anger. “Of course, my Lady Maria,” she said, “you can’t
suppose that I, as Harry Warrington’s near relative, can be pleased at
the idea of his marrying a woman who is as old as his mother, and has
not a penny to her fortune; but if he chooses to do so silly a thing,
the affair is none of mine; and I doubt whether I should have been
much inclined to be taken au serieux with regard to that offer of five
thousand pounds which I made in the heat of our talk. So it was already
at Castlewood that this pretty affair was arranged? Had I known how far
it had gone, my dear, I should have spared some needless opposition.
When a pitcher is broken, what railing can mend it?”

“Madam!” here interposed Maria.

“Pardon me--I mean nothing against your ladyship’s honour or character,
which, no doubt, are quite safe. Harry says so, and you say so--what
more can one ask?”

“You have talked to Mr. Warrington, madam?”

“And he has owned that he made you a promise at Castlewood: that you
have it in his writing.”

“Certainly I have, madam!” says Lady Maria.

“Ah!” (the elder lady did not wince at this). “And I own, too, that at
first I put a wrong construction upon the tenor of your letters to him.
They implicate other members of the family----”

“Who have spoken most wickedly of me, and endeavoured to prejudice me
in every way in my dear Mr. Warrington’s eyes. Yes, madam, I own I have
written against them, to justify myself.”

“But, of course, are pained to think that any wretch should get
possession of stories to the disadvantage of our family, and make them
public scandal. Hence your disquiet just now.”

“Exactly so,” said Lady Maria. “From Mr. Warrington I could have nothing
concealed henceforth, and spoke freely to him. But that is a very
different thing from wishing all the world to know the disputes of a
noble family.”

“Upon my word, Maria, I admire you, and have done you injustice.
These--these twenty years, let us say.”

“I am very glad, madam, that you end by doing me justice at all,” said
the niece.

“When I saw you last night, opening the ball with my nephew, can you
guess what I thought of, my dear?”

“I really have no idea what the Baroness de Bernstein thought of,” said
Lady Maria, haughtily.

“I remembered that you had performed to that very tune with the
dancing-master at Kensington, my dear!”

“Madam, it was an infamous calumny.”

“By which the poor dancing-master got a cudgelling for nothing!”

“It is cruel and unkind, madam, to recall that calumny--and I shall
beg to decline living any longer with any one who utters it,” continued
Maria, with great spirit.

“You wish to go home? I can fancy you won’t like Tunbridge. It will be
very hot for you if those letters are found.”

“There was not a word against you in them, madam: about that I can make
your mind easy.”

“So Harry said, and did your ladyship justice. Well, my dear, we are
tired of one another, and shall be better apart for a while.”

“That is precisely my own opinion,” said Lady Maria, dropping a curtsey.

“Mr. Sampson can escort you to Castlewood. You and your maid can take a
postchaise.”

“We can take a postchaise, and Mr. Sampson can escort me,” echoed the
younger lady. “You see, madam, I act like a dutiful niece.”

“Do you know, my dear, I have a notion that Sampson has got the
letters?” said the Baroness, frankly.

“I confess that such a notion has passed through my own mind.”

“And you want to go home in the chaise, and coax the letters from him!
Delilah! Well, they can be no good to me, and I trust you may get them.
When will you go? The sooner the better, you say? We are women of the
world, Maria. We only call names when we are in a passion. We don’t want
each other’s company; and we part on good terms. Shall we go to my Lady
Yarmouth’s? ‘Tis her night. There is nothing like a change of scene
after one of those little nervous attacks you have had, and cards drive
away unpleasant thoughts better than any doctor.”

Lady Maria agreed to go to Lady Yarmouth’s cards, and was dressed and
ready first, awaiting her aunt in the drawing-room. Madame Bernstein, as
she came down, remarked Maria’s door was left open. “She has the
letters upon her,” thought the old lady. And the pair went off to their
entertainment in their respective chairs, and exhibited towards each
other that charming cordiality and respect which women can show after,
and even during, the bitterest quarrels.

That night, on their return from the Countess’s drum, Mrs. Brett, Madame
Bernstein’s maid, presented herself to my Lady Maria’s call, when that
lady rang her hand-bell upon retiring to her room. Betty, Mrs. Brett was
ashamed to say, was not in a fit state to come before my lady. Betty had
been a-junketing and merry-making with Mr. Warrington’s black gentleman,
with my Lord Bamborough’s valet, and several more ladies and gentlemen
of that station, and the liquor--Mrs. Brett was shocked to own it--had
proved too much for Mrs. Betty. Should Mrs. Brett undress my lady? My
lady said she would undress without a maid, and gave Mrs. Brett leave to
withdraw. “She has the letters in her stays,” thought Madame Bernstein.
They had bidden each other an amicable good-night on the stairs.

Mrs. Betty had a scolding the next morning, when she came to wait on
her mistress, from the closet adjoining Lady Maria’s apartment, in which
Betty lay. She owned, with contrition, her partiality for rum-punch,
which Mr. Gumbo had the knack of brewing most delicate. She took her
scolding with meekness, and, having performed her usual duties about her
lady’s person, retired.

Now Betty was one of the Castlewood girls who had been so fascinated by
Gumbo, and was a very good-looking, blue-eyed lass, upon whom Mr.
Case, Madame Bernstein’s confidential man, had also cast the eyes
of affection. Hence, between Messrs. Gumbo and Case, there had been
jealousies and even quarrels; which had caused Gumbo, who was of a
peaceful disposition, to be rather shy of the Baroness’s gentlemen, the
chief of whom vowed he would break the bones, or have the life of Gumbo,
if he persisted in his attentions to Mrs. Betty.

But on the night of the rum-punch, though Mr. Case found Gumbo and Mrs.
Betty whispering in the doorway, in the cool breeze, and Gumbo would
have turned pale with fear had he been able so to do, no one could be
more gracious than Mr. Case. It was he who proposed the bowl of punch,
which was brewed and drunk in Mrs. Betty’s room, and which Gumbo
concocted with exquisite skill. He complimented Gumbo on his music.
Though a sober man ordinarily, he insisted upon more and more drinking,
until poor Mrs. Betty was reduced to the state which occasioned her
ladyship’s just censure.

As for Mr. Case himself, who lay out of the house, he was so ill with
the punch, that he kept his bed the whole of the next day, and did
not get strength to make his appearance, and wait on his ladies, until
supper-time; when his mistress good-naturedly rebuked him, saying that
it was not often he sinned in that way.

“Why, Case, I could have made oath it was you I saw on horseback this
morning galloping on the London road,” said Mr. Warrington, who was
supping with his relatives.

“Me! law bless you, sir! I was a-bed, and I thought my head would come
off with the aching. I ate a bit at six o’clock, and drunk a deal of
small beer, and I am almost my own man again now. But that Gumbo, saving
your honour’s presence, I won’t taste none of his punch again.” And the
honest major-domo went on with his duties among the bottles and glasses.

As they sate after their meal, Madame Bernstein was friendly enough. She
prescribed strong fortifying drinks for Maria, against the recurrence of
her fainting fits. The lady had such attacks not unfrequently. She urged
her to consult her London physician, and to send up an account of her
case by Harry. By Harry! asked the lady. Yes. Harry was going for two
days on an errand for his aunt to London. “I do not care to tell you, my
dear, that it is on business which will do him good. I wish Mr. Draper
to put him into my will, and as I am going travelling upon a round
of visits when you and I part, I think, for security, I shall ask Mr.
Warrington to take my trinket-box in his postchaise to London with him,
for there have been robberies of late, and I have no fancy for being
stopped by highwaymen.”

Maria looked blank at the notion of the young gentleman’s departure,
but hoped that she might have his escort back to Castlewood, whither her
elder brother had now returned. “Nay,” says his aunt, “the lad hath been
tied to our apron-strings long enough. A day in London will do him no
harm. He can perform my errand for me and be back with you by Saturday.”

“I would offer to accompany Mr. Warrington, but I preach on Friday
before her ladyship,” says Mr. Sampson. He was anxious that my Lady
Yarmouth should judge of his powers as a preacher; and Madame Bernstein
had exerted her influence with the king’s favourite to induce her to
hear the chaplain.

Harry relished the notion of a rattling journey to London, and a day or
two of sport there. He promised that his pistols were good, and that
he would hand the diamonds over in safety to the banker’s strong-room.
Would he occupy his aunt’s London house? No, that would be a dreary
lodging with only a housemaid and a groom in charge of it. He would go
to the Star and Garter in Pall Mall, or to an inn in Covent Garden.
“Ah! I have often talked over that journey,” said Harry, his countenance
saddening.

“And with whom, sir?” asked Lady Maria.

“With one who promised to make it with me,” said the young man,
thinking, as he always did, with an extreme tenderness of the lost
brother.

“He has more heart, my good Maria, than some of us!” says Harry’s
aunt, witnessing his emotion. Uncontrollable gusts of grief would,
not unfrequently, still pass over our young man. The parting from his
brother; the scene and circumstances of George’s fall last year; the
recollection of his words, or of some excursion at home which they had
planned together; would recur to him and overcome him. “I doubt, madam,”
 whispered the chaplain, demurely, to Madame Bernstein, after one of
these bursts of sorrow, “whether some folks in England would suffer
quite so much at the death of their elder brother.”

But, of course, this sorrow was not to be perpetual; and we can fancy
Mr. Warrington setting out on his London journey eagerly enough, and
very gay and happy, if it must be owned, to be rid of his elderly
attachment. Yes. There was no help for it. At Castlewood, on one unlucky
evening, he had made an offer of his heart and himself to his mature
cousin, and she had accepted the foolish lad’s offer. But the marriage
now was out of the question. He must consult his mother. She was the
mistress for life of the Virginian property. Of course she would refuse
her consent to such a union. The thought of it was deferred to a late
period. Meanwhile, it hung like a weight round the young man’s neck, and
caused him no small remorse and disquiet.

No wonder that his spirits rose more gaily as he came near London, and
that he looked with delight from his postchaise windows upon the city
as he advanced towards it. No highwayman stopped our traveller on
Blackheath. Yonder are the gleaming domes of Greenwich, canopied with
woods. There is the famous Thames, with its countless shipping; there
actually is the Tower of London. “Look, Gumbo! There is the Tower!”
 “Yes, master,” says Gumbo, who has never heard of the Tower; but Harry
has, and remembers how he has read about it in Howell’s Medulla, and how
he and his brother used to play at the Tower, and he thinks with delight
now, how he is actually going to see the armour and the jewels and the
lions. They pass through Southwark and over that famous London Bridge,
which was all covered with houses like a street two years ago. Now there
is only a single gate left, and that is coming down. Then the chaise
rolls through the city; and, “Look, Gumbo, that is Saint Paul’s!” “Yes,
master; Saint Paul’s,” says Gumbo, obsequiously, but little struck by
the beauties of the architecture. And so by the well-known course we
reach the Temple, and Gumbo and his master look up with awe at the rebel
heads on Temple Bar.

The chaise drives to Mr. Draper’s chambers in Middle Temple Lane, where
Harry handed the precious box over to Mr. Draper, and a letter from
his aunt, which the gentleman read with some interest seemingly, and
carefully put away. He then consigned the trinket-box to his strong
closet, went into the adjoining room, taking his clerk with him, and
then was at Mr. Warrington’s service to take him to an hotel. An hotel
in Covent Garden was fixed upon as the best place for his residence.
“I shall have to keep you for two or three days, Mr. Warrington,” the
lawyer said. “I don’t think the papers which the Baroness wants can be
ready until then. Meanwhile, I am at your service to see the town. I
live out of it myself, and have a little box at Camberwell, where I
shall be proud to have the honour of entertaining Mr. Warrington; but a
young man, I suppose, will like his inn and his liberty best, sir?”

Harry said yes, he thought the inn would be best; and the postchaise,
and a clerk of Mr. Draper’s inside, was despatched to the Bedford,
whither the two gentlemen agreed to walk on foot.

Mr. Draper and Mr. Warrington sat and talked for a while. The Drapers,
father and son, had been lawyers time out of mind to the Esmond family,
and the attorney related to the young gentleman numerous stories
regarding his ancestors of Castlewood. Of the present Earl Mr.
Draper was no longer the agent: his father and his lordship had had
differences, and his lordship’s business had been taken elsewhere: but
the Baroness was still their honoured client, and very happy indeed was
Mr. Draper to think that her ladyship was so well disposed towards her
nephew.

As they were taking their hats to go out, a young clerk of the house
stopped his principal in the passage, and said: “If you please, sir,
them papers of the Baroness was given to her ladyship’s man, Mr. Case,
two days ago.”

“Just please to mind your own business, Mr. Brown,” said the lawyer,
rather sharply. “This way, Mr. Warrington. Our Temple stairs are rather
dark. Allow me to show you the way.”

Harry saw Mr. Draper darting a Parthian look of anger at Mr. Brown. “So
it was Case I saw on the London Road two days ago,” he thought. “What
business brought the old fox to London?” Wherewith, not choosing to be
inquisitive about other folks’ affairs, he dismissed the subject from
his mind.

Whither should they go first? First, Harry was for going to see the
place where his grandfather and Lord Castlewood had fought a duel
fifty-six years ago, in Leicester Field. Mr. Draper knew the place well,
and all about the story. They might take Covent Garden on their way to
Leicester Field, and see that Mr. Warrington was comfortably lodged.
“And order dinner,” says Mr. Warrington. No, Mr. Draper could not
consent to that. Mr. Warrington must be so obliging as to honour him on
that day. In fact, he had made so bold as to order a collation from the
Cock. Mr. Warrington could not decline an invitation so pressing, and
walked away gaily with his friend, passing under that arch where
the heads were, and taking off his hat to them, much to the lawyer’s
astonishment.

“They were gentlemen who died for their king, sir. My dear brother
George and I always said we would salute ‘em when we saw ‘em,” Mr.
Warrington said.

“You’ll have a mob at your heels if you do, sir,” said the alarmed
lawyer.

“Confound the mob, sir,” said Mr. Harry, loftily, but the passers-by,
thinking about their own affairs, did not take any notice of Mr.
Warrington’s conduct; and he walked up the thronging Strand, gazing
with delight upon all he saw, remembering, I dare say, for all his
life after, the sights and impressions there presented to him, but
maintaining a discreet reserve; for he did not care to let the lawyer
know how much he was moved, or the public perceive that he was a
stranger. He did not hear much of his companion’s talk, though the
latter chattered ceaselessly on the way. Nor was Mr. Draper displeased
by the young Virginian’s silent and haughty demeanour. A hundred years
ago a gentleman was a gentleman, and his attorney his very humble
servant.

The chamberlain at the Bedford showed Mr. Warrington to his rooms,
bowing before him with delightful obsequiousness, for Gumbo had already
trumpeted his master’s greatness, and Mr. Draper’s clerk announced that
the new-comer was a “high fellar.” Then, the rooms surveyed, the two
gentlemen went to Leicester Field, Mr. Gumbo strutting behind his
master: and, having looked at the scene of his grandsire’s wound, and
poor Lord Castlewood’s tragedy, they returned to the Temple to Mr.
Draper’s chambers.

Who was that shabby-looking big man Mr. Warrington bowed to as they went
out after dinner for a walk in the gardens? That was Mr. Johnson, an
author, whom he had met at Tunbridge Wells. “Take the advice of a man of
the world, sir,” says Mr. Draper, eyeing the shabby man of letters very
superciliously; “the less you have to do with that kind of person, the
better. The business we have into our office about them literary men is
not very pleasant, I can tell you.” “Indeed!” says Mr. Warrington. He
did not like his new friend the more as the latter grew more familiar.
The theatres were shut. Should they go to Sadler’s Wells? or Marybone
Gardens? or Ranelagh? or how? “Not Ranelagh,” says Mr. Draper, “because
there’s none of the nobility in town;” but, seeing in the newspaper that
at the entertainment at Sadler’s Wells, Islington, there would be the
most singular kind of diversion on eight hand-bells by Mr. Franklyn, as
well as the surprising performances of Signora Catherina, Harry wisely
determined that he would go to Marybone Gardens, where they had a
concert of music, a choice of tea, coffee, and all sorts of wines,
and the benefit of Mr. Draper’s ceaseless conversation. The lawyer’s
obsequiousness only ended at Harry’s bedroom door, where, with haughty
grandeur, the young gentleman bade his talkative host good night.

The next morning Mr. Warrington, arrayed in his brocade bedgown, took
his breakfast, read the newspaper, and enjoyed his ease in his inn. He
read in the paper news from his own country. And when he saw the words,
Williamsburg, Virginia, June 7th, his eyes grew dim somehow. He had
just had letters by that packet of June 7th, but his mother did not
tell how--“A great number of the principal gentry of the colony have
associated themselves under the command of the Honourable Peyton
Randolph, Esquire, to march to the relief of their distressed
fellow-subjects, and revenge the cruelties of the French and their
barbarous allies. They are in a uniform: viz., a plain blue frock,
nanquin or brown waistcoats and breeches, and plain hats. They are armed
each with a light firelock, a brace of pistols, and a cutting sword.”

“Ah, why ain’t we there, Gumbo?” cried out Harry.

“Why ain’t we dar?” shouted Gumbo.

“Why am I here, dangling at women’s trains?” continued the Virginian.

“Think dangling at women’s trains very pleasant, Master Harry!” says the
materialistic Gumbo, who was also very little affected by some further
home news which his master read, viz., that The Lovely Sally, Virginia
ship, had been taken in sight of port by a French privateer.

And now, reading that the finest mare in England, and a pair of very
genteel bay geldings, were to be sold at the Bull Inn, the lower end
of Hatton Garden, Harry determined to go and look at the animals, and
inquired his way to the place. He then and there bought the genteel bay
geldings, and paid for them with easy generosity. He never said what
he did on that day, being shy of appearing like a stranger; but it is
believed that he took a coach and went to Westminster Abbey, from which
he bade the coachman drive him to the Tower, then to Mrs. Salmon’s
Waxwork, then to Hyde Park and Kensington Palace; then he had given
orders to go to the Royal Exchange, but catching a glimpse of Covent
Garden, on his way to the Exchange, he bade Jehu take him to his
inn, and cut short his enumeration of places to which he had been, by
flinging the fellow a guinea.

Mr. Draper had called in his absence, and said he would come again; but
Mr. Warrington, having dined sumptuously by himself, went off nimbly to
Marybone Gardens again, in the same noble company.

As he issued forth the next day, the bells of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden,
were ringing for morning prayers, and reminded him that friend Sampson
was going to preach his sermon. Harry smiled. He had begun to have a
shrewd and just opinion of the value of Mr. Sampson’s sermons.



CHAPTER XXXVII. In which various Matches are fought


Reading in the London Advertiser, which was served to his worship with
his breakfast, an invitation to all lovers of manly British sport to
come and witness a trial of skill between the great champions Sutton and
Figg, Mr. Warrington determined upon attending these performances, and
accordingly proceeded to the Wooden House, in Marybone Fields, driving
thither the pair of horses which he had purchased on the previous day.
The young charioteer did not know the road very well, and veered and
tacked very much more than was needful upon his journey from Covent
Garden, losing himself in the green lanes behind Mr. Whitfield’s round
Tabernacle of Tottenham Road, and the fields in the midst of which
Middlesex Hospital stood. He reached his destination at length,
however, and found no small company assembled to witness the valorous
achievements of the two champions.

A crowd of London blackguards was gathered round the doors of this
temple of British valour; together with the horses and equipages of a
few persons of fashion, who came, like Mr. Warrington, to patronise
the sport. A variety of beggars and cripples hustled round the young
gentleman, and whined to him for charity. Shoeblack-boys tumbled
over each other for the privilege of blacking his honour’s boots;
nosegay-women and flying fruiterers plied Mr. Gumbo with their wares;
piemen, pads, tramps, strollers of every variety, hung round the
battle-ground. A flag was flying upon the building; and, on to the
stage in front, accompanied by a drummer and a horn-blower, a manager
repeatedly issued to announce to the crowd that the noble English sports
were just about to begin.

Mr. Warrington paid his money, and was accommodated with a seat in a
gallery commanding a perfect view of the platform whereon the sports
were performed; Mr. Gumbo took his seat in the amphitheatre below; or,
when tired, issued forth into the outer world to drink a pot of beer,
or play a game at cards with his brother-lacqueys, and the gentlemen’s
coachmen on the boxes of the carriages waiting without. Lacqueys,
liveries, footmen--the old society was encumbered with a prodigious
quantity of these. Gentlemen or women could scarce move without one,
sometimes two or three, vassals in attendance. Every theatre had its
footman’s gallery: an army of the liveried race hustled around every
chapel-door: they swarmed in anterooms: they sprawled in halls and on
landings: they guzzled, devoured, debauched, cheated, played cards,
bullied visitors for vails:--that noble old race of footmen is well-nigh
gone. A few thousand of them may still be left among us. Grand, tall,
beautiful, melancholy, we still behold them on levee days, with their
nosegays and their buckles, their plush and their powder. So have I seen
in America specimens, nay camps and villages, of Red Indians. But the
race is doomed. The fatal decree has gone forth, and Uncas with his
tomahawk and eagle’s plume, and Jeames with his cocked hat and long
cane, are passing out of the world where they once walked in glory.

Before the principal combatants made their appearance, minor warriors
and exercises were exhibited. A boxing-match came off, but neither of
the men were very game or severely punished, so that Mr. Warrington
and the rest of the spectators had but little pleasure out of that
encounter. Then ensued some cudgel-playing; but the heads broken were
of so little note, and the wounds given so trifling and unsatisfactory,
that no wonder the company began to hiss, grumble, and show other signs
of discontent. “The masters, the masters!” shouted the people, whereupon
those famous champions at length thought fit to appear.

The first who walked up the steps to the stage was the intrepid Sutton,
sword in hand, who saluted the company with his warlike weapon, making
an especial bow and salute to a private box or gallery in which sate a
stout gentleman, who was seemingly a person of importance. Sutton was
speedily followed by the famous Figg, to whom the stout gentleman waved
a hand of approbation. Both men were in their shirts, their heads were
shaven clean, but bore the cracks and scars of many former glorious
battles. On his burly sword-arm, each intrepid champion wore an
“armiger,” or ribbon of his colour. And now the gladiators shook
hands, and, as a contemporary poet says: “The word it was bilboe.”
 [The antiquarian reader knows the pleasant poem in the sixth volume of
Dodsley’s Collection, in which the above combat is described.]

At the commencement of the combat the great Figg dealt a blow so
tremendous at his opponent, that had it encountered the other’s honest
head, that comely noddle would have been shorn off as clean as the
carving-knife chops the carrot. But Sutton received his adversary’s
blade on his own sword, whilst Figg’s blow was delivered so mightily
that the weapon brake in his hands, less constant than the heart of
him who wielded it. Other sword were now delivered to the warriors. The
first blood drawn spouted from the panting side of Figg amidst a yell
of delight from Sutton’s supporters; but the veteran appealing to his
audience, and especially, as it seemed, to the stout individual in the
private gallery, showed that his sword broken in the previous encounter
had caused the wound.

Whilst the parley occasioned by this incident was going on, Mr.
Warrington saw a gentleman in a riding-frock and plain scratch-wig enter
the box devoted to the stout personage, and recognised with pleasure his
Tunbridge Wells friend, my Lord of March and Ruglen. Lord March, who was
by no means prodigal of politeness seemed to show singular deference to
the stout gentleman, and Harry remarked how his lordship received,
with a profound bow, some bank-bills which the other took out from a
pocket-book and handed to him. Whilst thus engaged, Lord March spied out
our Virginian, and, his interview with the stout personage finished, my
lord came over to Harry’s gallery and warmly greeted his young friend.
They sat and beheld the combat waging with various success, but
with immense skill and valour on both sides. After the warriors had
sufficiently fought with swords, they fell to with the quarter-staff,
and the result of this long and delightful battle was, that victory
remained with her ancient champion Figg.

Whilst the warriors were at battle, a thunderstorm had broken over the
building, and Mr. Warrington gladly enough accepted a seat in my Lord
March’s chariot, leaving his own phaeton to be driven home by his groom.
Harry was in great delectation with the noble sight he had witnessed:
be pronounced this indeed to be something like sport, and of the best
he had seen since his arrival in England: and, as usual, associating any
pleasure which he enjoyed with the desire that the dear companion of
his boyhood should share the amusement in common with him, he began by
sighing out, “I wish...” then he stopped. “No, I don’t,” says he.

“What do you wish and what don’t you wish?” asks Lord March.

“I was thinking, my lord, of my elder brother, and wished he had been
with me. We had promised to have our sport together at home, you see;
and many’s the time we talked of it. But he wouldn’t have liked this
rough sort of sport, and didn’t care for fighting, though he was the
bravest lad alive.”

“Oh! he was the bravest lad alive, was he?” asks my lord, lolling on his
cushion, and eyeing his Virginian friend with some curiosity.

“You should have seen him in a quarrel with a very gallant officer,
our friend--an absurd affair, but it was hard to keep George off him. I
never saw a fellow so cool, nor more savage and determined, God help me.
Ah! I wish for the honour of the country, you know, that he could have
come here instead of me, and shown you a real Virginian gentleman.”

“Nay, sir, you’ll do very well. What is this I hear of Lady Yarmouth
taking you into favour?” said the amused nobleman.

“I will do as well as another. I can ride, and, I think, I can shoot
better than George; but then my brother had the head, sir, the head!”
 says Harry, tapping his own honest skull. “Why, I give you my word, my
lord, that he had read almost every book that was ever written; could
play both on the fiddle and harpsichord, could compose poetry and
sermons most elegant. What can I do? I am only good to ride and play at
cards, and drink Burgundy.” And the penitent hung down his head. “But
them I can do as well as most fellows, you see. In fact, my lord, I’ll
back myself,” he resumed, to the other’s great amusement.

Lord March relished the young man’s naivete, as the jaded voluptuary
still to the end always can relish the juicy wholesome mutton-chop. “By
Gad, Mr. Warrington,” says he, “you ought to be taken to Exeter ‘Change,
and put in a show.”

“And for why?”

“A gentleman from Virginia who has lost his elder brother and absolutely
regrets him. The breed ain’t known in this country. Upon my honour and
conscience, I believe that you would like to have him back again.”

“Believe!” cries the Virginian, growing red in the face.

“That is, you believe you believe you would like him back again. But
depend on it you wouldn’t. ‘Tis not in human nature, sir; not as I read
it, at least. Here are some fine houses we are coming to. That at the
corner is Sir Richard Littleton’s, that great one was my Lord Bingley’s.
‘Tis a pity they do nothing better with this great empty space of
Cavendish Square than fence it with these unsightly boards. By George!
I don’t know where the town’s running. There’s Montagu House made into
a confounded Don Saltero’s museum, with books and stuffed birds and
rhinoceroses. They have actually run a cursed cut--New Road they call
it--at the back of Bedford House Gardens, and spoilt the Duke’s comfort,
though, I guess, they will console him in the pocket. I don’t know
where the town will stop. Shall we go down Tyburn Road and the Park, or
through Swallow Street, and into the habitable quarter of the town? We
can dine at Pall Mall, or, if you like, with you; and we can spend the
evening as you like--with the Queen of Spades, or...”

“With the Queen of Spades, if your lordship pleases,” says Mr.
Warrington, blushing. So the equipage drove to his hotel in Covent
Garden, where the landlord came forward with his usual obsequiousness,
and recognising my Lord of March and Ruglen, bowed his wig on to my
lord’s shoes in his humble welcomes to his lordship. A rich young
English peer in the reign of George the Second; a wealthy patrician
in the reign of Augustus; which would you rather have been? There is a
question for any young gentlemen’s debating-clubs of the present day.

The best English dinner which could be produced, of course, was at the
service of the young Virginian and his noble friend. After dinner came
wine in plenty, and of quality good enough even for the epicurean earl.
Over the wine there was talk of going to see the fireworks at Vauxhall,
or else of cards. Harry, who had never seen a firework beyond an
exhibition of a dozen squibs at Williamsburg on the fifth of November
(which he thought a sublime display), would have liked the Vauxhall, but
yielded to his guest’s preference for piquet; and they were very soon
absorbed in that game.

Harry began by winning as usual; but, in the course of a half-hour, the
luck turned and favoured my Lord March, who was at first very surly when
Mr. Draper, Mr. Warrington’s man of business, came bowing into the room,
where he accepted Harry’s invitation to sit and drink. Mr. Warrington
always asked everybody to sit and drink, and partake of his best. Had he
a crust, he would divide it; had he a haunch, he would share it; had
he a jug of water, he would drink about with a kindly spirit; had he a
bottle of Burgundy, it was gaily drunk with a thirsty friend. And don’t
fancy the virtue is common. You read of it in books, my dear sir, and
fancy that you have it yourself because you give six dinners of twenty
people and pay your acquaintance all round; but the welcome, the
friendly spirit, the kindly heart? Believe me, these are rare qualities
in our selfish world. We may bring them with us from the country when we
are young, but they mostly wither after transplantation, and droop and
perish in the stifling London air.

Draper did not care for wine very much, but it delighted the lawyer to
be in the company of a great man. He protested that he liked nothing
better than to see piquet played by two consummate players and men of
fashion; and, taking a seat, undismayed by the sidelong scowls of his
lordship, surveyed the game between the gentlemen. Harry was not near
a match for the experienced player of the London clubs. To-night, too,
Lord March held better cards to aid his skill.

What their stakes were was no business of Mr. Draper’s. The gentlemen
said they would play for shillings, and afterwards counted up their
gains and losses, with scarce any talking, and that in an undertone. A
bow on both sides, a perfectly grave and polite manner on the part of
each, and the game went on.

But it was destined to a second interruption, which brought an
execration from Lord March’s lips. First was heard a scuffling
without--then a whispering--then an outcry as of a woman in tears,
and then, finally, a female rushed into the room, and produced that
explosion of naughty language from Lord March.

“I wish your women would take some other time for coming, confound ‘em,”
 says my lord, laying his cards down in a pet.

“What, Mrs. Betty!” cried Harry.

Indeed it was no other than Mrs. Betty, Lady Maria’s maid; and Gumbo
stood behind her, his fine countenance beslobbered with tears.

“What has happened?” asks Mr. Warrington, in no little perturbation of
spirit. “The Baroness is well?”

“Help! help! sir, your honour!” ejaculates Mrs. Betty, and proceeds to
fall on her knees.

“Help whom?”

A howl ensues from Gumbo.

“Gumbo! you scoundrel! has anything happened between Mrs. Betty and
you?” asks the black’s master.

Mr. Gumbo steps back with great dignity, laying his hand on his heart,
and saying, “No, sir; nothing hab happened ‘twix’ this lady and me.”

“It’s my mistress, sir,” cries Betty. “Help! help! here’s the letter she
have wrote, sir! They have gone and took her, sir!”

“Is it only that old Molly Esmond? She’s known to be over head and heels
in debt! Dry your eyes in the next room, Mrs. Betty, and let me and Mr.
Warrington go on with our game,” says my lord, taking up his cards.

“Help! help her!” cries Betty again. “Oh, Mr. Harry! you won’t be
a-going on with your cards, when my lady calls out to you to come and
help her! Your honour used to come quick enough when my lady used to
send me to fetch you at Castlewood!”

“Confound you! can’t you hold your tongue?” says my lord, with more
choice words and oaths.

But Betty would not cease weeping, and it was decreed that Lord March
was to cease winning for that night. Mr. Warrington rose from his seat,
and made for the bell, saying:

“My dear lord, the game must be over for to-night. My relative writes to
me in great distress, and I am bound to go to her.”

“Curse her! Why couldn’t she wait till to-morrow?” cries my lord,
testily.

Mr. Warrington ordered a postchaise instantly. His own horses would take
him to Bromley.

“Bet you, you don’t do it within the hour! bet you, you don’t do it
within five quarters of an hour! bet you four to one--or I’ll take your
bet, which you please--that you’re not robbed on Blackheath! Bet you,
you are not at Tunbridge Wells before midnight!” cries Lord March.

“Done!” says Mr. Warrington. And my lord carefully notes down the terms
of the four wagers in his pocket-book.

Lady Maria’s letter ran as follows:--


“MY DEAR COUSIN--I am fell into a trapp, which I perceive the
machinations of villians. I am a prisner. Betty will tell you all. Ah,
my Henrico! come to the resque of your MOLLY.”


In half an hour after the receipt of this missive, Mr. Warrington was
in his postchaise and galloping over Westminster Bridge on the road to
succour his kinswoman.



CHAPTER XXXVIII. Sampson and the Philistines


My happy chance in early life led me to become intimate with a
respectable person who was born in a certain island, which is pronounced
to be the first gem of the ocean by, no doubt, impartial judges of
maritime jewellery. The stories which that person imparted to me
regarding his relatives who inhabited the gem above-mentioned, were such
as used to make my young blood curdle with horror to think there should
be so much wickedness in the world. Every crime which you can think of;
the entire Ten Commandments broken in a general smash; such rogueries
and knaveries as no storyteller could invent; such murders and robberies
as Thurtell or Turpin scarce ever perpetrated;--were by my informant
accurately remembered, and freely related, respecting his nearest
kindred, to any one who chose to hear him. It was a wonder how any of
the family still lived out of the hulks. Me brother Tim had brought
his fawther’s gree hairs with sorrow to the greeve; me brother Mick had
robbed the par’sh church repaytedly; me sisther Annamaroia had jilted
the Captain and run off with the Ensign, forged her grandmother’s will,
and stole the spoons, which Larry the knife-boy was hanged for.
The family of Atreus was as nothing compared to the race of
O’What-d’ye-call-’em, from which my friend sprung; but no power on earth
would, of course, induce me to name the country whence he came.

How great then used to be my naif astonishment to find these murderers,
rogues, parricides, habitual forgers of bills of exchange, and so forth,
every now and then writing to each other as “my dearest brother,” “my
dearest sister,” and for months at a time living on the most amicable
terms! With hands reeking with the blood of his murdered parents, Tim
would mix a screeching tumbler, and give Maria a glass from it. With
lips black with the perjuries he had sworn in court respecting his
grandmother’s abstracted testament, or the murder of his poor brother
Thady’s helpless orphans, Mick would kiss his sister Julia’s bonny
cheek, and they would have a jolly night, and cry as they talked about
old times, and the dear old Castle What-d’ye-call-’em, where they were
born, and the fighting Onetyoneth being quarthered there, and the Major
proposing for Cyaroloine, and the tomb of their seented mother (who had
chayted them out of the propertee). Heaven bless her soul! They used to
weep and kiss so profusely at meeting and parting, that it was touching
to behold them. At the sight of their embraces one forgot those painful
little stories, and those repeated previous assurances that, did they
tell all, they could hang each other all round.

What can there be finer than forgiveness? What more rational than, after
calling a man by every bad name under the sun, to apologise, regret
hasty expressions, and so forth, withdraw the decanter (say) which you
have flung at your enemy’s head, and be friends as before? Some folks
possess this admirable, this angellike gift of forgiveness. It was
beautiful, for instance, to see our two ladies at Tunbridge Wells
forgiving one another, smiling, joking, fondling almost in spite of
the hard words of yesterday--yes, and forgetting bygones, though they
couldn’t help remembering them perfectly well. I wonder, can you and I
do as much? Let us strive, my friend, to acquire this pacable, Christian
spirit. My belief is that you may learn to forgive bad language employed
to you; but, then, you must have a deal of practice, and be accustomed
to hear and use it. You embrace after a quarrel and mutual bad language.
Heaven bless us! Bad words are nothing when one is accustomed to them,
and scarce need ruffle the temper on either side.

So the aunt and niece played cards very amicably together, and drank to
each other’s health, and each took a wing of the chicken, and pulled
a bone of the merry-thought, and (in conversation) scratched their
neighbours’, not each other’s, eyes out. Thus we have read how the
Peninsular warriors, when the bugles sang truce, fraternised and
exchanged tobacco-pouches and wine, ready to seize their firelocks and
knock each other’s heads off when the truce was over; and thus our old
soldiers, skilful in war, but knowing the charms of a quiet life, laid
their weapons down for the nonce, and hob-and-nobbed gaily together. Of
course, whilst drinking with Jack Frenchman, you have your piece handy
to blow his brains out if he makes a hostile move: but, meanwhile, it is
A votre sante, mon camarade! Here’s to you, mounseer! and everything is
as pleasant as possible. Regarding Aunt Bernstein’s threatened gout? The
twinges had gone off. Maria was so glad! Maria’s fainting fits? She had
no return of them. A slight recurrence last night. The Baroness was so
sorry! Her niece must see the best doctor, take everything to fortify
her, continue to take the steel, even after she left Tunbridge. How kind
of Aunt Bernstein to offer to send some of the bottled waters after her!
Suppose Madame Bernstein says in confidence to her own woman, “Fainting
fits!--pooh!--epilepsy! inherited from that horrible scrofulous German
mother!” What means have we of knowing the private conversation of the
old lady and her attendant? Suppose Lady Maria orders Mrs. Betty,
her ladyship’s maid, to taste every glass of medicinal water, first
declaring that her aunt is capable of poisoning her? Very likely such
conversations take place. These are but precautions--these are the
firelocks which our old soldiers have at their sides, loaded and cocked,
but at present lying quiet on the grass.

Having Harry’s bond in her pocket, the veteran Maria did not choose to
press for payment. She knew the world too well for that. He was bound
to her, but she gave him plenty of day-rule, and leave of absence on
parole. It was not her object needlessly to chafe and anger her young
slave. She knew the difference of ages, and that Harry must have his
pleasures and diversions. “Take your ease and amusement, cousin,” says
Lady Maria. “Frisk about, pretty little mousekin,” says grey Grimalkin,
purring in the corner, and keeping watch with her green eyes. About all
that Harry was to see and do on his first visit to London, his female
relatives had of course talked and joked. Both of the ladies knew
perfectly what were a young gentleman’s ordinary amusements in those
days, and spoke of them with the frankness which characterised those
easy times.

Our wily Calypso consoled herself, then, perfectly, in the absence of
her young wanderer, and took any diversion which came to hand. Mr. Jack
Morris, the gentleman whom we have mentioned as rejoicing in the company
of Lord March and Mr. Warrington, was one of these diversions. To live
with titled personages was the delight of Jack Morris’s life; and to
lose money at cards to an earl’s daughter was almost a pleasure to him.
Now, the Lady Maria Esmond was an earl’s daughter who was very glad to
win money. She obtained permission to take Mr. Morris to the Countess
of Yarmouth’s assembly, and played cards with him--and so everybody was
pleased.

Thus the first eight-and-forty hours after Mr. Warrington’s departure
passed pretty cheerily at Tunbridge Wells, and Friday arrived, when the
sermon was to be delivered which we have seen Mr. Sampson preparing. The
company at the Wells were ready enough to listen to it. Sampson had a
reputation for being a most amusing and eloquent preacher; and if there
were no breakfast, conjurer, dancing bears, concert going on, the good
Wells folk would put up with a sermon. He knew Lady Yarmouth was coming,
and what a power she had in the giving of livings and the dispensing of
bishoprics, the Defender of the Faith of that day having a remarkable
confidence in her ladyship’s opinion upon these matters;--and so we
may be sure that Mr. Sampson prepared his very best discourse for her
hearing. When the Great Man is at home at the Castle, and walks over to
the little country church, in the park, bringing the Duke, the Marquis,
and a couple of Cabinet Ministers with him, has it ever been your lot
to sit among the congregation, and watch Mr. Trotter the curate and his
sermon? He looks anxiously at the Great Pew; he falters as he gives out
his text, and thinks, “Ah! perhaps his lordship may give me a living!”
 Mrs. Trotter and the girls look anxiously at the Great Pew too,
and watch the effects of papa’s discourse--the well-known favourite
discourse--upon the big-wigs assembled. Papa’s first nervousness is
over: his noble voice clears, warms to his sermon: he kindles: he takes
his pocket-handkerchief out: he is coming to that exquisite passage
which has made them all cry at the parsonage: he has begun it! Ah! What
is that humming noise, which fills the edifice, and causes hob-nailed
Melibaeus to grin at smock-frocked Tityrus? It is the Right Honourable
Lord Naseby snoring in the pew by the fire! And poor Trotter’s visionary
mitre disappears with the music.

Sampson was the domestic chaplain of Madame Bernstein’s nephew. The two
ladies of the Esmond family patronised the preacher. On the day of the
sermon, the Baroness had a little breakfast in his honour, at which
Sampson made his appearance, rosy and handsome, with a fresh-flowered
wig, and a smart, rustling, new cassock, which he had on credit
from some church-admiring mercer at the Wells. By the side of his
patronesses, their ladyships’ lacqueys walking behind them with their
great gilt prayer-books, Mr. Sampson marched from breakfast to church.
Every one remarked how well the Baroness Bernstein looked; she laughed,
and was particularly friendly with her niece; she had a bow and a
stately smile for all, as she moved on, with her tortoiseshell cane. At
the door there was a dazzling conflux of rank and fashion--all the
fine company of the Wells trooping in; and her ladyship of Yarmouth,
conspicuous with vermilion cheeks, and a robe of flame-coloured taffeta.
There were shabby people present, besides the fine company, though these
latter were by far the most numerous. What an odd-looking pair, for
instance, were those in ragged coats, one of them with his carroty hair
appearing under his scratch-wig, and who entered the church just as
the organ stopped! Nay, he could not have been a Protestant, for he
mechanically crossed himself as he entered the place, saying to
his comrade, “Bedad, Tim, I forgawt!” by which I conclude that
the individual came from an island which has been mentioned at the
commencement of this chapter. Wherever they go a rich fragrance of
whisky spreads itself. A man may be a heretic, but possess genius: these
Catholic gentlemen have come to pay homage to Mr. Sampson.

Nay, there are not only members of the old religion present, but
disciples of a creed still older. Who are those two individuals with
hooked noses and sallow countenances, who worked into the church in
spite of some little opposition on the part of the beadle? Seeing the
greasy appearance of these Hebrew strangers, Mr. Beadle was for
denying them admission. But one whispered into his ear, “We wants to
be conwerted, gov’nor!” another slips money into his hand,--Mr. Beadle
lifts up the mace with which he was barring the doorway, and the Hebrew
gentlemen enter. There goes the organ! the doors have closed. Shall we
go in, and listen to Mr. Sampson’s sermon, or lie on the grass without?

Preceded by that beadle in gold lace, Sampson walked up to the pulpit,
as rosy and jolly a man as you could wish to see. Presently, when he
surged up out of his plump pulpit cushion, why did his Reverence turn as
pale as death? He looked to the western church-door--there, on each
side of it, were those horrible Hebrew caryatides. He then looked to the
vestry-door, which was hard by the rector’s pew, in which Sampson
had been sitting during the service, alongside of their ladyships his
patronesses. Suddenly a couple of perfumed Hibernian gentlemen slipped
out of an adjacent seat, and placed themselves on a bench close by that
vestry-door and rector’s pew, and so sate till the conclusion of the
sermon, with eyes meekly cast down to the ground. How can we describe
that sermon, if the preacher himself never knew how it came to an end?

Nevertheless, it was considered an excellent sermon. When it was over,
the fine ladies buzzed into one another’s ears over their pews, and
uttered their praise and comments. Madame Walmoden, who was in the next
pew to our friends, said it was bewdiful, and made her dremble all over.
Madame Bernstein said it was excellent. Lady Maria was pleased to think
that the family chaplain should so distinguish himself. She looked up
at him, and strove to catch his reverence’s eye, as he still sate in his
pulpit; she greeted him with a little wave of the hand and flutter of
her handkerchief. He scarcely seemed to note the compliment; his face
was pale, his eyes were looking yonder, towards the font, where those
Hebrews still remained. The stream of people passed by them--in a rush,
when they were lost to sight,--in a throng--in a march of twos and
threes--in a dribble of one at a time. Everybody was gone. The two
Hebrews were still there by the door.

The Baroness de Bernstein and her niece still lingered in the rector’s
pew, where the old lady was deep in conversation with that gentleman.

“Who are those horrible men at the door? and what a smell of spirits
there is!” cries Lady Maria, to Mrs. Brett, her aunt’s woman, who had
attended the two ladies.

“Farewell, doctor; you have a darling little boy: is he to be a
clergyman, too?” asks Madame de Bernstein. “Are you ready, my dear?” And
the pew is thrown open, and Madame Bernstein, whose father was only
a viscount, insists that her niece, Lady Maria, who was an earl’s
daughter, should go first out of the pew.

As she steps forward, those individuals whom her ladyship designated as
two horrible men, advance. One of them pulls a long strip of paper out
of his pocket, and her ladyship starts and turns pale. She makes for the
vestry, in a vague hope that she can clear the door and close it behind
her. The two whiskified gentlemen are up with her, however; one of them
actually lays his hand on her shoulder, and says:

“At the shuit of Misthress Pincott, of Kinsington, mercer, I have the
honour of arresting your leedyship. Me neem is Costigan, madam, a poor
gentleman of Oireland, binding to circumstances and forced to follow a
disagrayable profession. Will your leedyship walk, or shall me man go
fetch a cheer?”

For reply Lady Maria Esmond gives three shrieks, and falls swooning to
the ground. “Keep the door, Mick!” shouts Mr. Costigan. “Best let in no
one else, madam,” he says, very politely, to Madame de Bernstein. “Her
ladyship has fallen in a feenting fit, and will recover here, at her
aise.”

“Unlace her, Brett!” cries the old lady, whose eyes twinkle oddly; and
as soon as that operation is performed, Madame Bernstein seizes a little
bag suspended by a hair chain, which Lady Maria wears round her neck,
and snips the necklace in twain. “Dash some cold water over her face, it
always recovers her!” says the Baroness. “You stay with her, Brett. How
much is your suit gentlemen?”

Mr. Costigan says, “The deem we have against her leedyship for one
hundred and thirty-two pounds, in which she is indebted to Misthress
Eliza Pincott”

Meanwhile, where is the Reverend Mr. Sampson? Like the fabled opossum we
have read of, who, when he spied the unerring gunner from his gum-tree,
said: “It’s no use Major, I will come down,” so Sampson gave himself up
to his pursuers. “At whose suit, Simons?” he sadly asked. Sampson knew
Simons: they had met many a time before.

“Buckleby Cordwainer,” says Mr. Simons.

“Forty-eight pound and charges, I know,” says Mr. Sampson, with a sigh.
“I haven’t got the money. What officer is there here?” Mr. Simons’s
companion, Mr. Lyons, here stepped forward, and said his house was most
convenient, and often used by gentlemen, and he should be most happy and
proud to accommodate his reverence.

Two chairs happened to be in waiting outside the chapel. In those two
chairs my Lady Maria Esmond and Mr. Sampson placed themselves, and went
to Mr. Lyons’s residence, escorted by the gentlemen to whom we have just
been introduced.

Very soon after the capture the Baroness Bernstein sent Mr. Case, her
confidential servant, with a note to her niece, full of expressions of
the most ardent affection: but regretting that her heavy losses at cards
rendered the payment of such a sum as that in which Lady Maria stood
indebted quite impossible. She had written off to Mrs. Pincott, by that
very post, however, to entreat her to grant time, and as soon as ever
she had an answer, would not fail to acquaint her dear unhappy niece.

Mrs. Betty came over to console her mistress: and the two poor women
cast about for money enough to provide a horse and chaise for Mrs.
Betty, who had very nearly come to misfortune, too. Both my Lady Maria
and her maid had been unlucky at cards, and could not muster more than
eighteen shillings between them: so it was agreed that Betty should sell
a gold chain belonging to her lady, and with the money travel to London.
Now, Betty took the chain to the very toy-shop man who had sold it to
Mr. Warrington, who had given it to his cousin; and the toy-shop man,
supposing that she had stolen the chain, was for bringing in a constable
to Betty. Hence, she had to make explanations, and to say how her
mistress was in durance; and, ere the night closed, all Tunbridge Wells
knew that my Lady Maria Esmond was in the hands of bailiffs. Meanwhile,
however, the money was found, and Mrs. Betty whisked up to London in
search of the champion in whom the poor prisoner confided.

“Don’t say anything about that paper being gone! Oh, the wretch, the
wretch! She shall pay it me!” I presume that Lady Maria meant her aunt
by the word “wretch.” Mr. Sampson read a sermon to her ladyship, and
they passed the evening over revenge and backgammon; with well-grounded
hopes that Harry Warrington would rush to their rescue as soon as ever
he heard of their mishap.

Though, ere the evening was over, every soul at the Wells knew what had
happened to Lady Maria, and a great deal more; though they knew she was
taken in execution, the house where she lay, the amount--nay, ten times
the amount--for which she was captured, and that she was obliged to pawn
her trinkets to get a little money to keep her in jail; though everybody
said that old fiend of a Bernstein was at the bottom of the business,
of course they were all civil and bland in society; and, at my Lady
Trumpington’s cards that night, where Madame Bernstein appeared, and
as long as she was within hearing, not a word was said regarding the
morning’s transactions. Lady Yarmouth asked the Baroness news of her
breddy nephew, and heard Mr. Warrington was in London. My Lady Maria
was not coming to Lady Trumpington’s that evening? My Lady Maria was
indisposed, had fainted at church that morning, and was obliged to keep
her room. The cards were dealt, the fiddles sang, the wine went round,
the gentlefolks talked, laughed, yawned, chattered, the footmen waylaid
the supper, the chairmen drank and swore, the stars climbed the sky,
just as though no Lady Maria was imprisoned, and no poor Sampson
arrested. ‘Tis certain, dearly beloved brethren, that the little griefs,
stings, annoyances, which you and I feel acutely in our own persons,
don’t prevent our neighbours from sleeping; and that when we slip out of
the world the world does not miss us. Is this humiliating to our vanity?
So much the better. But, on the other hand, is it not a comfortable and
consoling truth? And mayn’t we be thankful for our humble condition? If
we were not selfish--passez-moi le mot, s.v.p.--and if we had to care
for other people’s griefs as much as our own, how intolerable human life
would be! If my neighbour’s tight boot pinched my corn; if the calumny
uttered against Jones set Brown into fury; if Mrs. A’s death plunged
Messrs. B, C, D, E, F, into distraction, would there be any bearing of
the world’s burthen? Do not let us be in the least angry or surprised if
all the company played on, and were happy, although Lady Maria had come
to grief. Countess, the deal is with you! Are you going to Stubblefield
to shoot as usual, Sir John? Captain, we shall have you running off to
the Bath after the widow! So the clatter goes on; the lights burns; the
beaux and the ladies flirt, laugh, ogle; the prisoner rages in his cell;
the sick man tosses on his bed.

Perhaps Madame de Bernstein stayed at the assembly until the very last,
not willing to allow the company the chance of speaking of her as soon
as her back should be turned. Ah, what a comfort it is, I say again,
that we have backs, and that our ears don’t grow on them! He that has
ears to hear, let him stuff them with cotton. Madame Bernstein might
have heard folks say it was heartless of her to come abroad, and play
at cards, and make merry when her niece was in trouble. As if she could
help Maria by staying at home, indeed! At her age, it is dangerous to
disturb an old lady’s tranquillity. “Don’t tell me!” says Lady Yarmouth.
“The Bernstein would play at cards over her niece’s coffin. Talk about
her heart! who ever said she had one? That old spy lost it to the
Chevalier a thousand years ago, and has lived ever since perfectly well
without one. For how much is the Maria put in prison? If it were only a
small sum we would pay it, it would vex her aunt so. Find out, Fuchs, in
the morning, for how much Lady Maria Esmond is put in prison.” And the
faithful Fuchs bowed, and promised to do her Excellency’s will.

Meanwhile, about midnight, Madame de Bernstein went home, and presently
fell into a sound sleep, from which she did not wake up until a late
hour of the morning, when she summoned her usual attendant, who arrived
with her ladyship’s morning dish of tea. If I told you she took a dram
with it, you would be shocked. Some of our great-grandmothers used to
have cordials in their “closets.” Have you not read of the fine lady in
Walpole, who said, “If I drink more, I shall be ‘muckibus!’?” As surely
as Mr. Gough is alive now, our ancestresses were accustomed to partake
pretty freely of strong waters.

So, having tipped off the cordial, Madame Bernstein rouses and asks Mrs.
Brett the news.

“He can give it you,” says the waiting-woman, sulkily.

“He? Who?”

Mrs. Brett names Harry, and says Mr. Warrington arrived about midnight
yesterday--and Betty, my Lady Maria’s maid, was with him. “And my Lady
Maria sends your ladyship her love and duty, and hopes you slept well,”
 says Brett.

“Excellently, poor thing! Is Betty gone to her?”

“No; she is here,” says Mrs. Brett.

“Let me see her directly,” cries the old lady.

“I’ll tell her,” replies the obsequious Brett, and goes away upon
her mistress’s errand, leaving the old lady placidly reposing on her
pillows. Presently, two pairs of high-heeled shoes are heard pattering
over the deal floor of the bedchamber. Carpets were luxuries scarcely
known in bedrooms of those days.

“So, Mrs. Betty, you were in London yesterday?” calls Bernstein from her
curtains.

“It is not Betty--it is I! Good morning, dear aunt! I hope you slept
well?” cries a voice which made old Bernstein start on her pillow. It
was the voice of Lady Maria, who drew the curtains aside, and dropped
her aunt a low curtsey. Lady Maria looked very pretty, rosy, and happy.
And with the little surprise incident at her appearance through Madame
Bernstein’s curtains, I think we may bring this chapter to a close.



CHAPTER XXXIX. Harry to the Rescue


“My dear Lord March” (wrote Mr. Warrington from Tunbridge Wells, on
Saturday morning, the 25th August, 1756): “This is to inform you (with
satisfaction) that I have one all our three betts. I was at Bromley two
minutes within the hour; my new horses kep a-going at a capital rate. I
drove them myself, having the postilion by me to show me the way, and
my black man inside with Mrs. Betty. Hope they found the drive very
pleasant. We were not stopped on Blackheath, though two fellows on
horseback rode up to us, but not liking the looks of our countenantses,
rode off again; and we got into Tunbridge Wells (where I transacted my
business) at forty-five minutes after eleven. This makes me quitts with
your lordship after yesterday’s piquet, which I shall be very happy to
give your revenge, and am--Your most obliged, faithful servant,                                                H. ESMOND WARRINGTON.”


And now, perhaps, the reader will understand by what means Lady Maria
Esmond was enabled to surprise her dear aunt in her bed on Saturday
morning, and walk out of the house of captivity. Having despatched Mrs.
Betty to London, she scarcely expected that her emissary would return
on the day of her departure; and she and the chaplain were playing their
cards at midnight, after a small refection which the bailiff’s wife
had provided for them, when the rapid whirling of wheels was heard
approaching their house, and caused the lady to lay her trumps down,
and her heart to beat with more than ordinary emotion. Whirr came the
wheels--the carriage stopped at the very door: there was a parley at the
gate: then appeared Mrs. Betty, with a face radiant with joy, though her
eyes were full of tears; and next, who is that tall young gentleman who
enters? Can any of my readers guess? Will they be very angry if I say
that the chaplain slapped down his cards with a huzzay, whilst Lady
Maria, turning as white as a sheet, rose up from her chair, tottered
forward a step or two, and, with an hysterical shriek, flung herself in
her cousin’s arms? How many kisses did he give her? If they were mille,
deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, and so on, I am
not going to cry out. He had come to rescue her. She knew he would; he
was her champion, her preserver from bondage and ignominy. She wept a
genuine flood of tears upon his shoulder, and as she reclines there,
giving way to a hearty emotion, I protest I think she looks handsomer
than she has looked during the whole course of this history. She did not
faint this time; she went home, leaning lovingly on her cousin’s arm,
and may have had one or two hysterical outbreaks in the night; but
Madame Bernstein slept soundly, and did not hear her.

“You are both free to go home,” were the first words Harry said. “Get
my lady’s hat and cardinal, Betty, and, Chaplain, we’ll smoke a pipe
together at our lodgings, it will refresh me after my ride.” The
chaplain, who, too, had a great deal of available sensibility, was very
much overcome; he burst into tears as he seized Harry’s hand, and
kissed it, and prayed God to bless his dear, generous, young patron. Mr.
Warrington felt a glow of pleasure thrill through his frame. It is good
to be able to help the suffering and the poor; it is good to be able
to turn sorrow into joy. Not a little proud and elated was our young
champion, as, with his hat cocked, he marched by the side of his rescued
princess. His feelings came out to meet him, as it were, and beautiful
happinesses with kind eyes and smiles danced before him, and clad him in
a robe of honour, and scattered flowers on his path, and blew trumpets
and shawms of sweet gratulation, calling, “Here comes the conqueror!
Make way for the champion!” And so they led him up to the king’s house,
and seated him in the hall of complacency, upon the cushions of comfort.
And yet it was not much he had done. Only a kindness. He had but to put
his hand in his pocket, and with an easy talisman, drive off the dragon
which kept the gate, and cause the tyrant to lay down his axe, who had
got Lady Maria in execution. Never mind if his vanity is puffed up; he
is very good-natured; he has rescued two unfortunate people, and pumped
tears of goodwill and happiness out of their eyes:--and if he brags a
little to-night, and swaggers somewhat to the chaplain, and talks about
London, and Lord March, and White’s, and Almack’s, with the air of a
macaroni, I don’t think we need like him much the less.

Sampson continued to be prodigiously affected. This man had a nature
most easily worked upon, and extraordinarily quick to receive pain
and pleasure, to tears, gratitude, laughter, hatred, liking. In his
preaching profession he had educated and trained his sensibilities so
that they were of great use to him; he was for the moment what he acted.
He wept quite genuine tears, finding that he could produce them freely.
He loved you whilst he was with you; he had a real pang of grief as he
mingled his sorrow with the widow or orphan; and, meeting Jack as he
came out of the door, went to the tavern opposite, and laughed and
roared over the bottle. He gave money very readily, but never repaid
when he borrowed. He was on this night in a rapture of gratitude and
flattery towards Harry Warrington. In all London, perhaps, the unlucky
Fortunate Youth could not have found a more dangerous companion.

To-night he was in his grateful mood, and full of enthusiasm for the
benefactor who had released him from durance. With each bumper his
admiration grew stronger. He exalted Harry as the best and noblest of
men, and the complacent young simpleton, as we have said, was disposed
to take these praises as very well deserved. “The younger branch of our
family,” said Mr. Harry, with a superb air, “have treated you scurvily;
but, by Jove, Sampson my boy, I’ll stand by you!” At a certain period of
Burgundian excitement Mr. Warrington was always very eloquent respecting
the splendour of his family. “I am very glad I was enabled to help you
in your strait. Count on me whenever you want me, Sampson. Did you not
say you had a sister at boarding-school? You will want money for her,
sir. Here is a little bill which may help to pay her schooling.” And the
liberal young fellow passed a bank-note across to the chaplain.

Again the man was affected to tears. Harry’s generosity smote him.

“Mr. Warrington,” he said, putting the bank-note a short distance from
him, “I--I don’t deserve your kindness--by George, I don’t!” and he
swore an oath to corroborate his passionate assertion.

“Psha!” says Harry. “I have plenty more of ‘em. There was no money in
that confounded pocket-book which I lost last week.”

“No, sir. There was no money!” says Mr. Sampson, dropping his head.

“Hallo! How do you know, Mr. Chaplain?” asks the young gentleman.

“I know because I am a villain, sir. I am not worthy of your kindness.
I told you so. I found the book, sir, that night, when you had too much
wine at Barbeau’s.”

“And read the letters?” asked Mr. Warrington, starting up and turning
very red.

“They told me nothing I did not know, sir,” said the chaplain “You have
had spies about you whom you little suspect--from whom you are much too
young and simple to be able to keep your secret.”

“Are those stories about Lady Fanny, and my cousin Will and his doings,
true then?” inquired Harry.

“Yes, they are true,” sighed the chaplain. “The house of Castlewood has
not been fortunate, sir, since your honour’s branch, the elder branch,
left it.”

“Sir, you don’t dare for to breathe a word against my Lady Maria?” Harry
cried out.

“Oh, not for worlds!” says Mr. Sampson, with a queer look at his young
friend. “I may think she is too old for your honour, and that ‘tis a
pity you should not have a wife better suited to your age, though
I admit she looks very young for hers, and hath every virtue and
accomplishment.”

“She is too old, Sampson, I know she is,” says Mr. Warrington, with much
majesty; “but she has my word, and you see, sir, how fond she is of
me. Go bring me the letters, sir, which you found, and let me try and
forgive you for having seized upon them.”

“My benefactor, let me try and forgive myself!” cries Mr. Sampson, and
departed towards his chamber, leaving his young patron alone over his
wine.

Sampson returned presently, looking very pale. “What has happened, sir?”
 says Harry, with an imperious air.

The chaplain held out a pocket-book. “With your name in it, sir,” he
said.

“My brother’s name in it,” says Harry; “it was George who gave it to
me.”

“I kept it in a locked chest, sir, in which I left it this morning
before I was taken by those people. Here is the book, sir, but the
letters are gone. My trunk and valise have also been tampered with. And
I am a miserable, guilty man, unable to make you the restitution which
I owe you.” Sampson looked the picture of woe as he uttered these
sentiments. He clasped his hands together, and almost knelt before Harry
in an attitude the most pathetic.

Who had been in the rooms in Mr. Sampson’s and Mr. Warrington’s absence?
The landlady was ready to go on her knees, and declare that nobody
had come in: nor, indeed, was Mr. Warrington’s chamber in the least
disturbed, nor anything abstracted from Mr. Sampson’s scanty wardrobe
and possessions, except those papers of which he deplored the absence.

Whose interest was it to seize them? Lady Maria’s? The poor woman
had been a prisoner all day, and during the time when the capture was
effected.

She certainly was guiltless of the rape of the letters. The sudden
seizure of the two--Case, the house-steward’s secret journey to
London,--Case, who knew the shoemaker at whose house Sampson lodged in
London, and all the secret affairs of the Esmond family,--these points,
considered together and separately, might make Mr. Sampson think that
the Baroness Bernstein was at the bottom of this mischief. But why
arrest Lady Maria? The chaplain knew nothing as yet about that letter
which her ladyship had lost; for poor Maria had not thought it necessary
to confide her secret to him.

As for the pocket-book and its contents, Mr. Harry was so swollen up
with self-satisfaction that evening, at winning his three bets, at
rescuing his two friends, at the capital premature cold supper of
partridges and ancient Burgundy which obsequious Monsieur Barbeau had
sent over to the young gentleman’s lodgings, that he accepted Sampson’s
vows of contrition, and solemn promises of future fidelity, and reached
his gracious hand to the chaplain, and condoned his offence. When the
latter swore his great gods, that henceforth he would be Harry’s truest,
humblest friend and follower, and at any moment would be ready to die
for Mr. Warrington, Harry said, majestically, “I think, Sampson, you
would; I hope you would. My family--the Esmond family--has always been
accustomed to have faithful friends round about ‘em--and to reward ‘em
too. The wine’s with you, Chaplain. What toast do you call, sir?”

“I call a blessing on the house of Esmond-Warrington!” cries the
chaplain, with real tears in his eyes.

“We are the elder branch, sir. My grandfather was the Marquis of
Esmond,” says Mr. Harry, in a voice noble but somewhat indistinct.
“Here’s to you, Chaplain--and I forgive you, sir--and God bless you,
sir--and if you had been took for three times as much, I’d have paid
it. Why, what’s that I see through the shutters? I am blest if the sun
hasn’t risen again! We have no need of candles to go to bed, ha, ha!”
 And once more extending his blessing to his chaplain, the young fellow
went off to sleep.

About noon Madame de Bernstein sent over a servant to say that she would
be glad if her nephew would come over and drink a dish of chocolate with
her, whereupon our young friend rose and walked to his aunt’s lodgings.
She remarked, not without pleasure, some alteration in his toilette: in
his brief sojourn in London he had visited a tailor or two, and had
been introduced by my Lord March to some of his lordship’s purveyors and
tradesmen.

Aunt Bernstein called him “my dearest child,” and thanked him for his
noble, his generous behaviour to dear Maria. What a shock that seizure
in church had been to her! A still greater shock that she had lost three
hundred only on the Wednesday night to Lady Yarmouth, and was quite a
sec. “Why,” said the Baroness, “I had to send Case to London to my agent
to get me money to pay--I could not leave Tunbridge in her debt.”

“So Case did go to London?” says Mr. Harry.

“Of course he did: the Baroness de Bernstein can’t afford to say she is
court d’argent. Canst thou lend me some, child?”

“I can give your ladyship twenty-two pounds,” said Harry, blushing very
red: “I have but forty-four left till I get my Virginian remittances. I
have bought horses and clothes, and been very extravagant, aunt.”

“And rescued your poor relations in distress, you prodigal good boy.
No, child, I do not want thy money. I can give thee some. Here is a note
upon my agent for fifty pounds, vaurien! Go and spend it, and be merry!
I dare say thy mother will repay me, though she does not love me.” And
she looked quite affectionate, and held out a pretty hand, which the
youth kissed.

“Your mother did not love me, but your mother’s father did once. Mind,
sir, you always come to me when you have need of me.”

When bent on exhibiting them, nothing could exceed Beatrix Bernstein’s
grace or good-humour. “I can’t help loving you, child,” she continued,
“and yet I am so angry with you that I have scarce the patience to speak
to you. So you have actually engaged yourself to poor Maria, who is
as old as your mother? What will Madam Esmond say? She may live three
hundred years, and you will not have wherewithal to support yourselves.”

“I have ten thousand pounds from my father, of my own, now my poor
brother is gone,” said Harry, “that will go some way.”

“Why, the interest will not keep you in card-money.”

“We must give up cards,” says Harry.

“It is more than Maria is capable of. She will pawn the coat off your
back to play. The rage for it runs in all my brother’s family--in me
too, I own it. I warned you. I prayed you not to play with them, and
now a lad of twenty to engage himself to a woman of forty-two!--to write
letters on his knees and signed with his heart’s blood (which he spells
like hartshorn), and say that he will marry no other woman than his
adorable cousin, Lady Maria Esmond. Oh! it’s cruel--cruel!”

“Great heavens! madam, who showed you my letter?” asked Harry, burning
with a blush again.

“An accident. She fainted when she was taken by those bailiffs. Brett
cut her laces for her; and when she was carried off, poor thing, we
found a little sachet on the floor, which I opened, not knowing in the
least what it contained. And in it was Mr. Harry Warrington’s precious
letter. And here, sir, is the case.”

A pang shot through Harry’s heart. “Great heavens! why didn’t she
destroy it?” he thought.

“I--I will give it back to Maria,” he said, stretching out his hand for
the little locket.

“My dear, I have burned the foolish letter,” said the old lady.

“If you choose to betray me I must take the consequence. If you choose
to write another, I cannot help thee. But, in that case, Harry Esmond,
I had rather never see thee again. Will you keep my secret? Will you
believe an old woman who loves you and knows the world better than you
do? I tell you, if you keep that foolish promise, misery and ruin are
surely in store for you. What is a lad like you in the hands of a wily
woman of the world, who makes a toy of you? She has entrapped you into a
promise, and your old aunt has cut the strings and set you free. Go back
again! Betray me if you will, Harry.”

“I am not angry with you, aunt--I wish I were,” said Mr. Warrington,
with very great emotion. “I--I shall not repeat what you told me.”

“Maria never will, child--mark my words!” cried the old lady, eagerly.
“She will never own that she has lost that paper. She will tell you that
she has it.”

“But I am sure she--she is very fond of me; you should have seen her
last night,” faltered Harry.

“Must I tell more stories against my own flesh and blood?” sobs out the
Baroness. “Child, you do not know her past life!”

“And I must not, and I will not!” cries Harry, starting up. “Written or
said--it does not matter which! But my word is given; they may play with
such things in England, but we gentlemen of Virginia don’t break ‘em.
If she holds me to my word, she shall have me. If we are miserable, as
I dare say we shall be, I’ll take a firelock, and go join the King of
Prussia, or let a ball put an end to me.”

“I--I have no more to say. Will you be pleased to ring that bell? I--I
wish you a good morning, Mr. Warrington,” and dropping a very stately
curtsey, the old lady rose on her tortoiseshell stick, and turned
towards the door. But, as she made her first step, she put her hand
to her heart, sank on the sofa again, an shed the first tears that had
dropped for long years from Beatrix Esmond’s eyes.

Harry was greatly moved, too. He knelt down by her. He seized her cold
hand, and kissed it. He told her, in his artless way, how very keenly he
had felt her love for him, and how, with all his heart, he returned it.
“Ah, aunt!” said he, “you don’t know what a villain I feel myself. When
you told me, just now how that paper was burned--oh! I was ashamed to
think how glad I was.” He bowed his comely head over her hand. She felt
hot drops from his eyes raining on it. She had loved this boy. For half
a century past--never, perhaps, in the course of her whole worldly
life, had she felt a sensation so tender and so pure. The hard heart was
wounded now, softened, overcome. She put her two hands on his shoulders,
and lightly kissed his forehead.

“You will not tell her what I have done, child?” she said.

He declared never! never! And demure Mrs. Brett, entering at her
mistress’s summons, found the nephew and aunt in this sentimental
attitude.



CHAPTER XL. In which Harry pays off an Old Debt, and incurs some New
Ones


Our Tunbridge friends were now weary of the Wells, and eager to take
their departure. When the autumn should arrive, Bath was Madame de
Bernstein’s mark. There were more cards, company, life, there. She
would reach it after paying a few visits to her country friends. Harry
promised, with rather a bad grace, to ride with Lady Maria and the
chaplain to Castlewood. Again they passed by Oakhurst village, and the
hospitable house where Harry had been so kindly entertained. Maria
made so many keen remarks about the young ladies of Oakhurst, and their
setting their caps at Harry, and the mother’s evident desire to catch
him for one of them, that, somewhat in a pet, Mr. Warrington said he
would pass his friends’ door, as her ladyship disliked and abused
them; and was very haughty and sulky that evening at the inn where they
stopped, some few miles farther on the road. At supper, my Lady Maria’s
smiles brought no corresponding good-humour to Harry’s face; her tears
(which her ladyship had at command) did not seem to create the least
sympathy from Mr. Warrington; to her querulous remarks he growled a
surly reply; and my lady was obliged to go to bed at length without
getting a single tete-a-tete with her cousin,--that obstinate chaplain,
as if by order, persisting in staying in the room. Had Harry given
Sampson orders to remain? She departed with a sigh. He bowed her to the
door with an obstinate politeness, and consigned her to the care of the
landlady and her maid.

What horse was that which galloped out of the inn-yard ten minutes after
Lady Maria had gone to her chamber? An hour after her departure
from their supper-room, Mrs. Betty came in for her lady’s bottle of
smelling-salts, and found Parson Sampson smoking a pipe alone.
Mr. Warrington was gone to bed--was gone to fetch a walk in the
moonlight--how should he know where Mr. Harry was? Sampson answered,
in reply to the maid’s interrogatories. Mr. Warrington was ready to set
forward the next morning, and took his place by the side of Lady Maria’s
carriage. But his brow was black--the dark spirit was still on him. He
hardly spoke to her during the journey. “Great heavens! she must have
told him that she stole it!” thought Lady Maria within her own mind.

The fact is, that, as they were walking up that steep hill which lies
about three miles from Oakhurst, on the Westerham road, Lady Maria
Esmond, leaning on her fond youth’s arm, and indeed very much in love
with him, had warbled into his ear the most sentimental vows, protests,
and expressions of affection. As she grew fonder, he grew colder. As she
looked up in his face, the sun shone down upon hers, which, fresh and
well-preserved as it was, yet showed some of the lines and wrinkles of
twoscore years; and poor Harry, with that arm leaning on his, felt it
intolerably weighty, and by no means relished his walk up the hill. To
think that all his life, that drag was to be upon him! It was a dreary
look forward and he cursed the moonlight walk, and the hot evening, and
the hot wine which had made him give that silly pledge by which he was
fatally bound.

Maria’s praises and raptures annoyed Harry beyond measure. The poor
thing poured out scraps of the few plays which she knew that had
reference to her case, and strove with her utmost power to charm her
young companion. She called him, over and over again, her champion, her
Henrico, her preserver, and vowed that his Molinda would be ever, ever
faithful to him. She clung to him. “Ah, child! have I not thy precious
image, thy precious hair, thy precious writing here?” she said, looking
in his face. “Shall it not go with me to the grave? It would, sir, were
I to meet with unkindness from my Henrico!” she sighed out.

Here was a strange story! Madame Bernstein had given him the little
silken case--she had burned the hair and the note which the case
contained, and Maria had it still on her heart! It was then, at the
start which Harry gave, as she was leaning on his arm--at the sudden
movement as if he would drop hers--that Lady Maria felt her first pang
of remorse that she had told a fib, or rather, that she was found out in
telling a fib, which is a far more cogent reason for repentance. Heaven
help us! if some people were to do penance for telling lies, would they
ever be out of sackcloth and ashes?

Arrived at Castlewood, Mr. Harry’s good-humour was not increased. My
lord was from home; the ladies also were away; the only member of
the family whom Harry found, was Mr. Will, who returned from
partridge-shooting just as the chaise and cavalcade reached the gate,
and who turned very pale when he saw his cousin, and received a sulky
scowl of recognition from the young Virginian.

Nevertheless, he thought to put a good face on the matter, and they met
at supper, where, before my Lady Maria, their conversation was at first
civil, but not lively. Mr. Will had been to some races? To several. He
had been pretty successful in his bets? Mr. Warrington hopes. Pretty
well. “And you have brought back my horse sound?” asked Mr. Warrington.

“Your horse! what horse?” asked Mr. Will.

“What horse? my horse!” says Mr. Harry, curtly.

“Protest I don’t understand you,” says Will.

“The brown horse for which I played you, and which I won of you the
night before you rode away upon it,” says Mr. Warrington, sternly. “You
remember the horse, Mr. Esmond.”

“Mr. Warrington, I perfectly well remember playing you for a horse,
which my servant handed over to you on the day of your departure.”

“The chaplain was present at our play. Mr. Sampson, will you be umpire
between us?” Mr. Warrington said, with much gentleness.

“I am bound to decide that Mr. Warrington played for the brown horse,”
 says Mr. Sampson.

“Well, he got the other one,” said sulky Mr. Will, with a grin.

“And sold it for thirty shillings!” said Mr. Warrington, always
preserving his calm tone.

Will was waggish. “Thirty shillings? and a devilish good price, too, for
the broken-kneed old rip. Ha, ha!”

“Not a word more. ‘Tis only a question about a bet, my dear Lady Maria.
Shall I serve you some more chicken?” Nothing could be more studiously
courteous and gay than Mr. Warrington was, so long as the lady remained
in the room. When she rose to go, Harry followed her to the door, and
closed it upon her with the most courtly bow of farewell. He stood at
the closed door for a moment, and then he bade the servants retire. When
those menials were gone, Mr. Warrington locked the heavy door before
them, and pocketed the key.

As it clicked in the lock, Mr. Will, who had been sitting over his
punch, looking now and then askance at his cousin, asked, with one
of the oaths which commonly garnished his conversation, what the--Mr.
Warrington meant by that?

“I guess there’s going to be a quarrel,” said Mr. Warrington, blandly,
“and there is no use in having these fellows look on at rows between
their betters.”

“Who is going to quarrel here, I should like to know?” asked Will,
looking very pale, and grasping a knife.

“Mr. Sampson, you were present when I played Mr. Will fifty guineas
against his brown horse?”

“Against his horse!” bawls out Mr. Will.

“I am not such a something fool as you take me for,” says Mr.
Warrington, “although I do come from Virginia!” And he repeated his
question: “Mr. Sampson, you were here when I played the Honourable
William Esmond, Esquire, fifty guineas against his brown horse?”

“I must own it, sir,” says the chaplain, with a deprecatory look towards
his lord’s brother.

“I don’t own no such a thing,” says Mr. Will, with rather a forced
laugh.

“No, sir: because it costs you no more pains to lie than to cheat,” said
Mr. Warrington, walking up to his cousin. “Hands off, Mr. Chaplain, and
see fair play! Because you are no better than a--ha!----”

No better than a what we can’t say, and shall never know, for as Harry
uttered the exclamation, his dear cousin flung a wine bottle at Mr.
Warrington’s head, who bobbed just in time, so that the missile flew
across the room, and broke against the wainscot opposite, breaking
the face of a pictured ancestor of the Esmond family, and then itself
against the wall, whence it spirted a pint of good port wine over the
chaplain’s face and flowered wig. “Great heavens, gentlemen, I pray you
to be quiet!” cried the parson, dripping with gore.

But gentlemen are not inclined at some moments to remember the commands
of the Church. The bottle having failed, Mr. Esmond seized the large
silver-handled knife and drove at his cousin. But Harry caught up
the other’s right hand with his left, as he had seen the boxers do at
Marybone; and delivered a rapid blow upon Mr. Esmond’s nose, which sent
him reeling up against the oak panels, and I dare say caused him to see
ten thousand illuminations. He dropped his knife in his retreat against
the wall, which his rapid antagonist kicked under the table.

Now Will, too, had been at Marybone and Hockley-in-the-Hole, and after
a gasp for breath and a glare over his bleeding nose at his enemy, he
dashed forward his head as though it had been a battering-ram, intending
to project it into Mr. Henry Warrington’s stomach.

This manoeuvre Harry had seen, too, on his visit to Marybone, and
amongst the negroes upon the maternal estate, who would meet in combat
like two concutient cannon-balls, each harder than the other. But Harry
had seen and marked the civilised practice of the white man. He skipped
aside, and, saluting his advancing enemy with a tremendous blow on the
right ear, felled him, so that he struck his head against the heavy oak
table and sank lifeless to the ground.

“Chaplain, you will bear witness that it has been a fair fight!” said
Mr. Warrington, still quivering with the excitement of the combat, but
striving with all his might to restrain himself and look cool. And he
drew the key from his pocket and opened the door in the lobby, behind
which three or four servants were gathered. A crash of broken glass, a
cry, a shout, an oath or two, had told them that some violent scene was
occurring within, and they entered, and behold two victims bedabbled
with red--the chaplain bleeding port wine, and the Honourable William
Esmond, Esquire, stretched in his own gore.

“Mr. Sampson will bear witness that I struck fair, and that Mr.
Esmond hit the first blow,” said Mr. Warrington. “Undo his neckcloth,
somebody--he may be dead; and get a fleam, Gumbo, and bleed him. Stop!
He is coming to himself! Lift him up, you, and tell a maid to wash the
floor.”

Indeed, in a minute, Mr. Will did come to himself. First his eyes rolled
about, or rather, I am ashamed to say, his eye, one having been closed
by Mr. Warrington’s first blow. First, then, his eye rolled about; then
he gasped and uttered an inarticulate moan or two, then he began to
swear and curse very freely and articulately.

“He is getting well,” said Mr. Warrington.

“Oh, praise be Mussy!” sighs the sentimental Betty.

“Ask him, Gumbo, whether he would like any more?” said Mr. Warrington,
with a stern humour.

“Massa Harry say, wool you like any maw?” asked obedient Gumbo, bowing
over the prostrate gentleman.

“No, curse you, you black devil!” says Mr. Will, hitting up at the black
object before him. (“So he nearly cut my tongue in to in my mouf!” Gumbo
explained to the pitying Betty.) “No, that is, yes! You infernal Mohock!
Why does not somebody kick him out of the place?”

“Because nobody dares, Mr. Esmond,” says Mr. Warrington, with great
state, arranging his ruffles--his ruffled ruffles.

“And nobody won’t neither,” growled the men. They had all grown to love
Harry, whereas Mr. Will had nobody’s good word.

“We know all’s fair, sir. It ain’t the first time Master William have
been served so.”

“And I hope it won’t be the last,” cries shrill Betty. “To go for to
strike a poor black gentleman so!”

Mr. Will had gathered himself up by this time, had wiped his bleeding
face with a napkin, and was skulking off to bed.

“Surely it’s manners to say good night to the company. Good night, Mr.
Esmond,” says Mr. Warrington, whose jokes, though few, were not very
brilliant; but the honest lad relished the brilliant sally and laughed
at it inwardly.

“He’s ad his zopper, and he goes to baid!” says Betty, in her native
dialect, at which everybody laughed outright, except Mr. William, who
went away leaving a black fume of curses, as it were, rolling out of
that funnel, his mouth.

It must be owned that Mr. Warrington continued to be witty the next
morning. He sent a note to Mr. Will begging to know whether he was for
a ride to town or anywheres else. If he was for London, that he would
friten the highwaymen on Hounslow Heath, and look a very genteel figar
at the Chocolate House. Which letter, I fear, Mr. Will received with his
usual violence, requesting the writer to go to some place--not Hounslow.

And, besides the parley between Will and Harry, there comes a maiden
simpering to Mr. Warrington’s door, and Gumbo advances, holding
something white and triangular in his ebon fingers.

Harry knew what it was well enough. “Of course it’s a letter,” groans
he. Molinda greets her Enrico, etc. etc. etc. No sleep has she known
that night, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Has Enrico slept
well in the halls of his fathers? und so weiter, und so weiter. He must
never never quaril and be so cruel again. Kai ta loipa. And I protest I
shan’t quote any more of this letter. Ah, tablets, golden once,--are ye
now faded leaves? Where is the juggler who transmuted you, and why is
the glamour over?

After the little scandal with cousin Will, Harry’s dignity would not
allow him to stay longer at Castlewood: he wrote a majestic letter
to the lord of the mansion, explaining the circumstances which had
occurred, and, as he called in Parson Sampson to supervise the document,
no doubt it contained none of those eccentricities in spelling which
figured in his ordinary correspondence at this period. He represented to
poor Maria, that after blackening the eye and damaging the nose of a son
of the house, he should remain in it with a very bad grace; and she was
forced to acquiesce in the opinion that, for the present, his absence
would best become him. Of course, she wept plentiful tears at parting
with him. He would go to London, and see younger beauties: he would find
none, none who would love him like his fond Maria. I fear Mr. Warrington
did not exhibit any profound emotion on leaving her: nay, he cheered
up immediately after he crossed Castlewood Bridge, and made his horses
whisk over the road at ten miles an hour: he sang to them to go along:
he nodded to the pretty girls by the roadside: he chucked my landlady
under the chin: he certainly was not inconsolable. Truth is, he
longed to be back in London again, to make a figure at St. James’s,
at Newmarket, wherever the men of fashion congregated. All that petty
Tunbridge society of women and card-playing seemed child’s-play to him
now he had tasted the delight of London life.

By the time he reached London again, almost all the four-and-forty
pounds which we have seen that he possessed at Tunbridge had slipped out
of his pocket, and further supplies were necessary. Regarding these he
made himself presently easy. There were the two sums of 5000 pounds in
his own and his brother’s name, of which he was the master. He would
take up a little money, and with a run or two of good luck at play he
could easily replace it. Meantime he must live in a manner becoming his
station, and it must be explained to Madam Esmond that a gentleman
of his rank cannot keep fitting company, and appear as becomes him in
society, upon a miserable pittance of two hundred a year.

Mr. Warrington sojourned at the Bedford Coffee-House as before, but only
for a short while. He sought out proper lodgings at the Court end of the
town, and fixed on some apartments in Bond Street, where he and
Gumbo installed themselves, his horses standing at a neighbouring
livery-stable. And now tailors, mercers, and shoemakers were put in
requisition. Not without a pang of remorse, he laid aside his mourning
and figured in a laced hat and waistcoat. Gumbo was always dexterous in
the art of dressing hair, and with a little powder flung into his fair
locks Mr. Warrington’s head was as modish as that of any gentleman in
the Mall. He figured in the Ring in his phaeton. Reports of his great
wealth had long since preceded him to London, and not a little curiosity
was excited about the fortunate Virginian.

Until our young friend could be balloted for at the proper season,
my Lord March had written down his name for the club at White’s
Chocolate-House, as a distinguished gentleman from America. There were
as yet but few persons of fashion in London, but with a pocket full of
money at one-and-twenty, a young fellow can make himself happy even out
of the season; and Mr. Harry was determined to enjoy.

He ordered Mr. Draper, then, to sell five hundred pounds of his stock.
What would his poor mother have said had she known that the young
spendthrift was already beginning to dissipate his patrimony? He dined
at the tavern, he supped at the club, where Jack Morris introduced him,
with immense eulogiums, to such gentlemen as were in town. Life and
youth and pleasure were before him, the wine was set a-running, and the
eager lad was greedy to drink. Do you see, far away in the west yonder,
the pious widow at her prayers for her son? Behind the trees at Oakhurst
a tender little heart, too, is beating for him, perhaps. When the
Prodigal Son was away carousing, were not love and forgiveness still on
the watch for him?

Amongst the inedited letters of the late Lord Orford, there is one which
the present learned editor, Mr. Peter Cunningbam, has omitted from his
collection, doubting possibly the authenticity of the document. Nay,
I myself have only seen a copy of it in the Warrington papers in Madam
Esmond’s prim handwriting, and noted “Mr. H. Walpole’s account of my son
Henry at London, and of Baroness Tusher,--wrote to General Conway.”


“ARLINGTON STREET, Friday Night.

“I have come away, child, for a day or two from my devotions to our Lady
of Strawberry. Have I not been on my knees to her these three weeks,
and aren’t the poor old joints full of rheumatism? A fit took me that
I would pay London a visit, that I would go to Vauxhall and Ranelagh.
Quoi! May I not have my rattle as well as other elderly babies? Suppose,
after being so long virtuous, I take a fancy to cakes and ale, shall
your reverence say nay to me? George Selwyn and Tony Storer and
your humble servant took boat at Westminster t’other night. Was it
Tuesday?--no, Tuesday I was with their Graces of Norfolk, who are just
from Tunbridge--it was Wednesday. How should I know? Wasn’t I dead drunk
with a whole pint of lemonade I took at White’s?

“The Norfolk folk had been entertaining me on Tuesday with the account
of a young savage Iroquois, Choctaw, or Virginian, who has lately been
making a little noise in our quarter of the globe. He is an offshoot of
that disreputable family of Esmond, Castlewood, of whom all the men are
gamblers and spendthrifts, and all the women--well, I shan’t say the
word, lest Lady Ailesbury should be looking over your shoulder. Both the
late lords, my father told me, were in his pay, and the last one, a beau
of Queen Anne’s reign, from a viscount advanced to be an earl through
the merits and intercession of his notorious old sister Bernstein, late
Tusher, nee Esmond--a great beauty, too, of her day, a favourite of the
old Pretender. She sold his secrets to my papa, who paid her for them;
and being nowise particular in her love for the Stuarts, came over to
the august Hanoverian house at present reigning over us. ‘Will Horace
Walpole’s tongue never stop scandal?’ says your wife over your shoulder.
I kiss your ladyship’s hand. I am dumb. The Bernstein is a model of
virtue. She had no good reasons for marrying her father’s chaplain.
Many of the nobility omit the marriage altogether. She wasn’t ashamed
of being Mrs. Tusher, and didn’t take a German Baroncino for a second
husband, whom nobody out of Hanover ever saw. The Yarmouth bears no
malice. Esther and Vashti are very good friends, and have been cheating
each other at Tunbridge at cards all the summer.

“‘And what has all this to do with the Iroquois?’ says your ladyship.
The Iroquois has been at Tunbridge, too--not cheating, perhaps, but
winning vastly. They say he has bled Lord March of thousands--Lord
March, by whom so much blood hath been shed, that he has quarrelled with
everybody, fought with everybody, rode over everybody, been fallen in
love with by everybody’s wife except Mr. Conway’s, and not excepting her
present Majesty, the Countess of England, Scotland, France and Ireland,
Queen of Walmoden and Yarmouth, whom Heaven preserve to us.

“You know an offensive little creature, de par le monde, one Jack
Morris, who skips in and out of all the houses of London. When we were
at Vauxhall, Mr. Jack gave us a nod under the shoulder of a pretty young
fellow enough, on whose arm he was leaning, and who appeared hugely
delighted with the enchantments of the garden. Lord, how he stared
at the fireworks! Gods, how he huzzayed at the singing of a horrible
painted wench who shrieked the ears off my head! A twopenny string of
glass beads and a strip of tawdry cloth are treasures in Iroquois-land,
and our savage valued them accordingly.

“A buzz went about the place that this was the fortunate youth. He won
three hundred at White’s last night very genteelly from Rockingham and
my precious nephew, and here he was bellowing and huzzaying over the
music so as to do you good to hear. I do not love a puppet-show, but I
love to treat children to one, Miss Conway! I present your ladyship my
compliments, and hope we shall go and see the dolls together.

“When the singing woman came down from her throne, Jack Morris must
introduce my Virginian to her. I saw him blush up to the eyes, and make
her, upon my word, a very fine bow, such as I had no idea was practised
in wigwams. ‘There is a certain jenny squaw about her, and that’s why
the savage likes her,’ George said--a joke certainly not as brilliant as
a firework. After which it seemed to me that the savage and the savages
retired together.

“Having had a great deal too much to eat and drink three hours before,
my partners must have chicken and rack-punch at Vauxhall, where George
fell asleep straightway, and for my sins I must tell Tony Storer what
I knew about this Virginian’s amiable family, especially some of the
Bernstein’s antecedents, and the history of another elderly beauty of
the family, a certain Lady Maria, who was au mieux with the late Prince
of Wales. What did I say? I protest not half of what I knew, and of
course not a tenth part of what I was going to tell, for who should
start out upon us but my savage, this time quite red in the face; and in
his war paint. The wretch had been drinking fire-water in the next box!

“He cocked his hat, clapped his hand to his sword, asked which of the
gentleman was it that was maligning his family? so that I was obliged to
entreat him not to make such a noise, lest he should wake my friend, Mr.
George Selwyn. And I added, ‘I assure you, sir, I had no idea that you
were near me, and most sincerely apologise for giving you pain.’

“The Huron took his hand off his tomahawk at this pacific rejoinder,
made a bow not ungraciously, said he could not, of course, ask more than
an apology from a gentleman of my age (Merci, monsieur!), and, hearing
the name of Mr. Selwyn, made another bow to George, and said he had
a letter to him from Lord March, which he had had the ill-fortune to
mislay. George has put him up for the club, it appears, in conjunction
with March, and no doubt these three lambs will fleece each other.
Meanwhile, my pacified savage sate down with us, and buried the hatchet
in another bowl of punch, for which these gentlemen must call. Heaven
help us! ‘Tis eleven o’clock, and here comes Bedson with my gruel! H. W.

“To the Honourable. H. S. Conway.”



CHAPTER XLI. Rake’s Progress


People were still very busy in Harry Warrington’s time (not that our
young gentleman took much heed of the controversy) in determining
the relative literary merits of the ancients and the moderns; and the
learned, and the world with them, indeed, pretty generally pronounced in
favour of the former. The moderns of that day are the ancients of
ours, and we speculate upon them in the present year of grace, as our
grandchildren, a hundred years hence, will give their judgment about us.
As for your book-learning, O respectable ancestors (though, to be sure,
you have the mighty Gibbon with you), I think you will own that you
are beaten, and could point to a couple of professors at Cambridge and
Glasgow who know more Greek than was to be had in your time in all
the universities of Europe, including that of Athens, if such an one
existed. As for science, you were scarce more advanced than those
heathen to whom in literature you owned yourselves inferior. And in
public and private morality? Which is the better, this actual year 1858,
or its predecessor a century back? Gentlemen of Mr. Disraeli’s House of
Commons! has every one of you his price, as in Walpole’s or Newcastle’s
time,--or (and that is the delicate question) have you almost all of you
had it? Ladies, I do not say that you are a society of Vestals--but the
chronicle of a hundred years since contains such an amount of scandal,
that you may be thankful you did not live in such dangerous times. No:
on my conscience, I believe that men and women are both better; not only
that the Susannas are more numerous, but that the Elders are not nearly
so wicked. Did you ever hear of such books as Clarissa, Tom Jones,
Roderick Random; paintings by contemporary artists, of the men and
women, the life and society, of their day? Suppose we were to describe
the doings of such a person as Mr. Lovelace or my Lady Bellaston, or
that wonderful “Lady of Quality” who lent her memoirs to the author of
Peregrine Pickle. How the pure and outraged Nineteenth Century would
blush, scream, run out of the room, call away the young ladies, and
order Mr. Mudie never to send one of that odious author’s books again!
You are fifty-eight years old, madam, and it may be that you are too
squeamish, that you cry out before you are hurt, and when nobody had
any intention of offending your ladyship. Also, it may be that the
novelist’s art is injured by the restraints put upon him as many an
honest, harmless statue at St. Peter’s and the Vatican is spoiled by the
tin draperies in which ecclesiastical old women have swaddled the fair
limbs of the marble. But in your prudery there is reason. So there is in
the state censorship of the Press. The page may contain matter dangerous
to bonos mores. Out with your scissors, censor, and clip off the
prurient paragraph! We have nothing for it but to submit. Society, the
despot, has given his imperial decree. We may think the statue had been
seen to greater advantage without the tin drapery; we may plead that the
moral were better might we recite the whole fable. Away with him--not a
word! I never saw the pianofortes in the United States with the frilled
muslin trousers on their legs; but, depend on it, the muslin covered
some of the notes as well as the mahogany, muffled the music, and
stopped the player.

To what does this prelude introduce us? I am thinking of Harry
Warrington, Esquire, in his lodgings in Bond Street, London, and of the
life which he and many of the young bucks of fashion led in those times,
and how I can no more take my faire young reader into them, than
Lady Squeams can take her daughter to Cremorne Gardens on an ordinary
evening. My dear Miss Diana (psha! I know you are eight-and-thirty,
although you are so wonderfully shy, and want to make us believe
you have just left off schoolroom dinners and a pinafore), when your
grandfather was a young man about town, and a member of one of the clubs
at White’s, and dined at Pontac’s off the feasts provided by Braund and
Lebeck, and rode to Newmarket with March and Rockingham, and toasted
the best in England with Gilly Williams and George Selwyn (and didn’t
understand George’s jokes, of which, indeed, the flavour has very much
evaporated since the bottling)--the old gentleman led a life of which
your noble aunt (author of Legends of the Squeams’s; or, Fair Fruits of
a Family Tree) has not given you the slightest idea.

It was before your grandmother adopted those serious views for which
she was distinguished during her last long residence at Bath, and after
Colonel Tibbalt married Miss Lye, the rich soap-boiler’s heiress, that
her ladyship’s wild oats were sown. When she was young, she was as giddy
as the rest of the genteel world. At her house in Hill Street, she had
ten card-tables on Wednesdays and Sunday evenings, except for a short
time when Ranelagh was open on Sundays. Every night of her life she
gambled for eight, nine, ten hours. Everybody else in society did the
like. She lost; she won; she cheated; she pawned her jewels; who knows
what else she was not ready to pawn, so as to find funds to supply her
fury for play? What was that after-supper duel at the Shakspeare’s Head
in Covent Garden, between your grandfather and Colonel Tibbalt: where
they drew swords and engaged only in the presence of Sir John Screwby,
who was drunk under the table? They were interrupted by Mr. John
Fielding’s people, and your grandfather was carried home to Hill Street
wounded in a chair. I tell you those gentlemen in powder and ruffles,
who turned out the toes of their buckled pumps so delicately, were
terrible fellows. Swords were perpetually being drawn; bottles
after bottles were drunk; oaths roared unceasingly in conversation;
tavern-drawers and watchmen were pinked and maimed; chairmen belaboured;
citizens insulted by reeling pleasure-hunters. You have been to Cremorne
with proper “vouchers” of course? Do you remember our great theatres
thirty years ago? You were too good to go to a play. Well, you have
no idea what the playhouses were, or what the green boxes were, when
Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard were playing before them! And I, for my
children’s sake, thank that good Actor in his retirement who was
the first to banish that shame from the theatre. No, madam, you are
mistaken; I do not plume myself on my superior virtue. I do not say you
are naturally better than your ancestress in her wild, rouged, gambling,
flaring tearing days; or even than poor Polly Fogle, who is just taken
up for shoplifting, and would have been hung for it a hundred years ago.
Only, I am heartily thankful that my temptations are less, having quite
enough to do with those of the present century.

So, if Harry Warrington rides down to Newmarket to the October meeting,
and loses or wins his money there; if he makes one of a party at the
Shakspeare or Bedford Head; if he dines at White’s ordinary, and sits
down to macco and lansquenet afterwards; if he boxes the watch, and
makes his appearance at the Roundhouse; if he turns out for a short
space a wild dissipated, harum-scarum young Harry Warrington; I, knowing
the weakness of human nature, am not going to be surprised; and, quite
aware of my own shortcomings, don’t intend to be very savage at my
neighbour’s. Mr. Sampson was: in his chapel in Long Acre he whipped Vice
tremendously; gave Sin no quarter; out-cursed Blasphemy with superior
Anathemas; knocked Drunkenness down, and trampled on the prostrate brute
wallowing in the gutter; dragged out conjugal Infidelity, and pounded
her with endless stones of rhetoric--and, after service, came to dinner
at the Star and Garter, made a bowl of punch for Harry and his friends
at the Bedford Head, or took a hand at whist at Mr. Warrington’s
lodgings or my Lord March’s, or wherever there was a supper and good
company for him.

I often think, however, in respect of Mr. Warrington’s doings at this
period of his coming to London, that I may have taken my usual degrading
and uncharitable views of him--for, you see, I have not uttered a single
word of virtuous indignation against his conduct, and if it was not
reprehensible, have certainly judged him most cruelly. O the Truthful,
O the Beautiful, O Modesty, O Benevolence, O Pudor, O Mores, O Blushing
Shame, O Namby Pamby--each with your respective capital letters to your
honoured names! O Niminy, O Piminy! how shall I dare for to go for to
say that a young man ever was a young man?

No doubt, dear young lady, I am calumniating Mr. Warrington according to
my heartless custom. As a proof here is a letter out of the Warrington
collection, from Harry to his mother in which there is not a single word
that would lead you to suppose he was leading a wild life. And such a
letter from an only son to a fond and exemplary parent, we know must be
true:--


“BOND STREET, LONDON, October 25, 1756.

“HONORD MADAM--I take up my pen to acknowledge your honored favor of 10
July per Lively Virginia packet, which has duly come to hand, forwarded
by our Bristol agent, and rejoice to hear that the prospect of the crops
is so good. ‘Tis Tully who says that agriculture is the noblest pursuit;
how delightful when that pursuit is also prophetable!

“Since my last, dated from Tunbridge Wells, one or two insadence have
occurred of which it is nessasery [This word has been much operated
upon with the penknife, but is left sic, no doubt to the writer’s
satisfaction.] I should advise my honored Mother. Our party there broke
up end of August: the partridge-shooting commencing. Baroness Bernstein,
whose kindness to me has been most invariable, has been to Bath, her
usual winter resort, and has made me a welcome present of a fifty-pound
bill. I rode back with Rev. Mr. Sampson, whose instruction I find
most valluble, and my cousin, Lady Maria, to Castlewood. [Could Parson
Sampson have been dictating the above remarks to Mr. Warrington?] I paid
a flying visit on the way to my dear kind friends Col. and Mrs. Lambert,
Oakhurst House, who send my honored mother their most affectionate
remembrances. The youngest Miss Lambert, I grieve to say, was dellicate;
and her parents in some anxiety.

“At Castlewood I lament to state my stay was short, owing to a quarrel
with my cousin William. He is a young man of violent passions, and alas!
addicted to liquor, when he has no controul over them. In a triffling
dispute about a horse, high words arose between us, and he aymed a blow
at me or its equivulent--which my Grandfathers my honored mothers child
could not brook. I rejoyned, and feld him to the ground, whents he was
carried almost sencelis to bed. I sent to enquire after his health in
the morning: but having no further news of him, came away to London
where I have been ever since with brief intavles of absence.

“Knowing you would wish me to see my dear Grandfathers University of
Cambridge, I rode thither lately in company with some friends, passing
through part of Harts, and lying at the famous bed of Ware. The October
meeting was just begun at Cambridge when I went. I saw the students in
their gownds and capps, and rode over to the famous Newmarket Heath,
where there happened to be some races--my friend Lord Marchs horse
Marrowbones by Cleaver coming off winner of a large steak. It was an
amusing day--the jockeys, horses, etc., very different to our poor races
at home--the betting awful--the richest noblemen here mix with the jox,
and bett all round. Cambridge pleased me: especially King’s College
Chapel, of a rich but elegant Gothick.

“I have been out into the world, and am made member of the Club
at White’s, where I meet gentlemen of the first fashion. My Lords
Rockingham, Carlisle, Orford, Bolingbroke, Coventry are of my friends,
introduced to me by my Lord March, of whom I have often wrote before.
Lady Coventry is a fine woman, but thinn. Every lady paints here, old
and young; so, if you and Mountain and Fanny wish to be in fashion,
I must send you out some roogepots: everybody plays--eight, ten,
card-tables at every house on every receiving-night. I am sorry to say
all do not play fair, and some do not pay fair. I have been obliged
to sit down, and do as Rome does, and have actually seen ladies whom I
could name take my counters from before my face!

“One day, his regiment the 20th being paraded in St. James’s Park, a
friend of mine, Mr. Wolfe, did me the honour to present me to his
Royal Highness the Captain-General, who was most gracious; a fat, jolly
Prince, if I may speak so without disrespect, reminding me in his manner
of that unhappy General Braddock; whom we knew to our sorrow last year.
When he heard my name, and how dearest George had served and fallen in
Braddock’s unfortunate campaign, he talked a great deal with me; asked
why a young fellow like me did not serve too; why I did not go to the
King of Prussia, who was a great General, and see a campaign or two;
and whether that would not be better than dawdling about at routs and
card-parties in London? I said, I would like to go with all my heart,
but was an only son now, on leave from my mother, and belonged to our
estate in Virginia. His Royal Highness said, Mr. Braddock had wrote home
accounts of Mrs. Esmond’s loyalty, and that he would gladly serve me.
Mr. Wolfe and I have waited on him since, at his Royal Highness’s house
in Pall Mall. The latter, who is still quite a young man, made the Scots
campaign with his Highness, whom Mr. Dempster loves so much at home. To
be sure, he was too severe: if anything can be top severe against rebels
in arms.

“Mr. Draper has had half the Stock, my late Papa’s property, transferred
to my name. Until there can be no doubt of that painful loss in our
family which I would give my right hand to replace, the remaining stock
must remain in the trustees’ name in behalf of him who inherited it.
Ah, dear mother! There is no day, scarce any hour, when I don’t think of
him. I wish he were by me often. I feel like as if I was better when I
am thinking of him, and would like, for the honour of my family, that he
was representing of it here instead of--Honored madam, your dutiful and
affectionate son, HENRY ESMOND WARRINGTON.”

“P.S.--I am like your sex, who always, they say, put their chief news in
a poscrip. I had something to tell you about a person to whom my heart
is engaged. I shall write more about it, which there is no hurry. Safice
she is a nobleman’s daughter, and her family as good as our own.”


“CLARGIS STREET, LONDON, October 23, 1756.

“I think, my good sister, we have been all our lives a little more than
kin and less than kind, to use the words of a poet whom your dear father
loved dearly. When you were born in our Western Principallitie, my
mother was not as old as Isaac’s; but even then I was much more than old
enough to be yours. And though she gave you all she could leave or give,
including the little portion of love that ought to have been my share,
yet, if we can have good will for one another, we may learn to do
without affection: and some little kindness you owe me, for your son’s
sake; as well as your father’s, whom I loved and admired more than any
man I think ever I knew in this world: he was greater than almost all,
though he made no noyse in it. I have seen very many who have, and,
believe me, have found but few with such good heads and good harts as
Mr. Esmond.

“Had we been better acquainted, I might have given you some advice
regarding your young gentleman’s introduction to Europe, which you would
have taken or not, as people do in this world. At least you would have
sed afterwards, ‘What she counselled me was right, and had Harry done as
Madam Beatrix wisht, it had been better for him.’ My good sister, it was
not for you to know, or for me to whom you never wrote to tell you,
but your boy in coming to England and Castlewood found but ill friends
there; except one, an old aunt, of whom all kind of evil hath been
spoken and sed these fifty years past--and not without cawse too,
perhaps.

“Now, I must tell Harry’s mother what will doubtless scarce astonish
her, that almost everybody who knows him loves him. He is prudent of
his tongue, generous of his money, as bold as a lyon, with an imperious
domineering way that sets well upon him; you know whether he is handsome
or not: my dear, I like him none the less for not being over witty or
wise, and never cared for your sett-the-Thames afire gentlemen, who are
so much more clever than their neighbours. Your father’s great friend,
Mr. Addison, seemed to me but a supercillious prig, and his follower,
Sir Dick Steele, was not pleasant in his cupps, nor out of ‘em. And
(revenons a luy) your Master Harry will certainly, pot burn the river
up with his wits. Of book-learning he is as ignorant as any lord in
England, and for this I hold him none the worse. If Heaven have not
given him a turn that way, ‘tis of no use trying to bend him.

“Considering the place he is to hold in his own colony when he returns,
and the stock he comes from, let me tell you, that he hath not means
enough allowed him to support his station, and is likely to make the
more depence from the narrowness of his income--from sheer despair
breaking out of all bounds, and becoming extravagant, which is not his
turn. But he likes to live as well as the rest of his company, and,
between ourselves, has fell into some of the finist and most rakish in
England. He thinks ‘tis for the honour of the family not to go back, and
many a time calls for ortolans and champaign when he would as leaf dine
with a stake and a mugg of beer. And in this kind of spirit I have no
doubt from what he hath told me in his talk (which is very naif, as the
French say), that his mamma hath encouraged him in his high opinion of
himself. We women like our belongings to have it, however little we love
to pay the cost. Will you have your ladd make a figar in London? Trebble
his allowance at the very least, and his Aunt Bernstein (with his
honored mamma’s permission) will add a little more on to whatever summ
you give him. Otherwise he will be spending the little capital I learn
he has in this country, which, when a ladd once begins to manger, there
is very soon an end to the loaf. Please God, I shall be able to leave
Henry Esmond’s grandson something at my death; but my savings are small,
and the pension with which my gracious Sovereign hath endowed me dies
with me. As for feu M. de Bernstein, he left only debt at his decease:
the officers of his Majesty’s Electoral Court of Hannover are but
scantily paid.

“A lady who is at present very high in his Majesty’s confidence hath
taken a great phancy to your ladd, and will take an early occasion to
bring him to the Sovereign’s favorable notice. His Royal Highness the
Duke he hath seen. If live in America he must, why should not Mr. Esmond
Warrington return as Governor of Virginia, and with a title to his name?
That is what I hope for him.

“Meanwhile, I must be candid with you, and tell you I fear he hath
entangled himself here in a very silly engagement. Even to marry an
old woman for money is scarce pardonable--the game ne valant gueres la
chandelle--Mr. Bernstein, when alive, more than once assured me of this
fact, and I believe him, poor gentleman! to engage yourself to an old
woman without money, and to marry her merely because you have promised
her, this seems to me a follie which only very young lads fall into,
and I fear Mr. Warrington is one. How, or for what consideration, I know
not, but my niece Maria Esmond hath escamote a promise from Harry. He
knows nothing of her antecedens, which I do. She hath laid herself out
for twenty husbands these twenty years past. I care not how she hath
got the promise from him. ‘Tis a sin and a shame that a woman more than
forty years old should surprize the honour of a child like that, and
hold him to his word. She is not the woman she pretends to be. A horse
jockey (he saith) cannot take him in--but a woman!

“I write this news to you advisedly, displeasant as it must be. Perhaps
‘twill bring you to England: but I would be very cautious, above all,
very gentle, for the bitt will instantly make his high spirit restive.
I fear the property is entailed, so that threats of cutting him off from
it will not move Maria. Otherwise I know her to be so mercenary that
(though she really hath a great phancy for this handsome ladd) without
money she would not hear of him. All I could, and more than I ought, I
have done to prevent the match. What and more I will not say in writing;
but that I am, for Henry Esmond’s sake, his grandson’s sincerest friend,
and madam,--Your faithful sister and servant, BEATRIX BARONESS DE
BERNSTEIN.

“To Mrs. Esmond Warrington of Castlewood, in Virginia.”


On the back of this letter is written, in Madam Esmond’s hand, “My
sister Bernstein’s letter, received with Henry’s December 24 on receipt
of which it was determined my son should instantly go home.”



CHAPTER XLII. Fortunatus Nimium


Though Harry Warrington persisted in his determination to keep that
dismal promise which his cousin had extracted from him, we trust no
benevolent reader will think so ill of him as to suppose that the
engagement was to the young fellow’s taste, and that he would not be
heartily glad to be rid of it. Very likely the beating administered to
poor Will was to this end; and Harry may have thought, “A boxing-match
between us is sure to bring on a quarrel with the family; in the quarrel
with the family, Maria may take her brother’s side. I, of course,
will make no retraction or apology. Will, in that case, may call me to
account, when I know which is the better man. In the midst of the feud,
the agreement may come to an end, and I may be a free man once more.”

So honest Harry laid his train, and fired it: but, the explosion over,
no harm was found to be done, except that William Esmond’s nose was
swollen, and his eye black for a week. He did not send a challenge to
his cousin, Harry Warrington; and, in consequence, neither killed Harry,
nor was killed by him. Will was knocked down, and he got up again. How
many men of sense would do the same, could they get their little account
settled in a private place, with nobody to tell how the score was paid!
Maria by no means took her family’s side in the quarrel, but declared
for her cousin, as did my lord, when advised of the disturbance. Will
had struck the first blow, Lord Castlewood said, by the chaplain’s
showing. It was not the first or the tenth time he had been found
quarrelling in his cups. Mr. Warrington only showed a proper spirit in
resenting the injury, and it was for Will, not for Harry, to ask pardon.

Harry said he would accept no apology as long as his horse was not
returned or his bet paid. The chronicler has not been able to find out,
from any of the papers which have come under his view, how that affair
of the bet was finally arranged; but ‘tis certain the cousins presently
met in the houses of various friends, and without mauling each other.

Maria’s elder brother had been at first quite willing that his sister,
who had remained unmarried for so many years, and on the train of whose
robe, in her long course over the path of life, so many briars, so much
mud, so many rents and stains had naturally gathered, should marry
with any bridegroom who presented himself, and if with a gentleman from
Virginia, so much the better. She would retire to his wigwam in the
forest, and there be disposed of. In the natural course of things, Harry
would survive his elderly bride, and might console himself or not, as he
preferred, after her departure.

But, after an interview with Aunt Bernstein, which his lordship had on
his coming to London, he changed his opinion: and even went so far as
to try and dissuade Maria from the match; and to profess a pity for the
young fellow who was made to undergo a life of misery on account of a
silly promise given at one-and-twenty!

Misery, indeed! Maria was at a loss to know why he was to be miserable.
Pity, forsooth! My lord at Castlewood had thought it was no pity at all.
Maria knew what pity meant. Her brother had been with Aunt Bernstein:
Aunt Bernstein had offered money to break this match off. She understood
what my lord meant, but Mr. Warrington was a man of honour, and she
could trust him. Away, upon this, walks my lord to White’s, or to
whatever haunts he frequented. It is probable that his sister had
guessed too accurately what the nature of his conversation wit Madame
Bernstein had been.

“And so,” thinks he, “the end of my virtue is likely to be that the
Mohock will fall a prey to others, and that there is no earthly use in
my sparing him. ‘Quem deus vult’--what was that schoolmaster’s adage? If
I don’t have him, somebody else will, that is clear. My brother has had
a slice; my dear sister wants to swallow the whole of him bodily.
Here have I been at home respecting his youth and innocence forsooth,
declining to play beyond the value of a sixpence, and acting guardian
and Mentor to him. Why, I am but a fool to fatten a goose for other
people to feed off! Not many a good action have I done in this life,
and here is this one, that serves to benefit whom?--other folks. Talk of
remorse! By all the fires and furies, the remorse I have is for things I
haven’t done and might have done! Why did I spare Lucretia? She hated me
ever after, and her husband went the way for which he was predestined.
Why have I let this lad off?--that March and the rest, who don’t want
him, may pluck him! And I have a bad repute; and I am the man people
point at, and call the wicked lord, and against whom women warn their
sons! Pardi, I am not a penny worse, only a great deal more unlucky
than my neighbours, and ‘tis only my cursed weakness that has been my
greatest enemy!” Here, manifestly, in setting down a speech which a
gentleman only thought, a chronicler overdraws his account with
the patient reader, who has a right not to accept this draft on his
credulity. But have not Livy, and Thucydides, and a score more of
historians, made speeches for their heroes, which we know the latter
never thought of delivering? How much more may we then, knowing my Lord
Castlewood’s character so intimately as we do, declare what was passing
in his mind, and transcribe his thoughts on this paper? What? a whole
pack of the wolves are on the hunt after this lamb, and will make a meal
of him presently, and one hungry old hunter is to stand by, and not have
a single cutlet? Who has not admired that noble speech of my Lord Clive,
when reproached on his return from India with making rather too free
with jaghires, lakhs, gold mohurs, diamonds, pearls, and what not? “Upon
my life,” said the hero of Plassy, “when I think of my opportunities, I
am surprised I took so little!”

To tell disagreeable stories of a gentleman, until one is in a manner
forced to impart them, is always painful to a feeling mind. Hence,
though I have known, before the very first page of this history was
written, what sort of a person my Lord Castlewood was, and in what
esteem he was held by his contemporaries, I have kept back much that was
unpleasant about him, only allowing the candid reader to perceive that
he was a nobleman who ought not to be at all of our liking. It is true
that my Lord March, and other gentlemen of whom he complained, would
have thought no more of betting with Mr. Warrington for his last
shilling, and taking their winnings, than they would scruple to pick the
bones of a chicken; that they would take any advantage of the game, or
their superior skill in it, of the race, and their private knowledge
of the horses engaged; in so far, they followed the practice of all
gentlemen: but when they played, they played fair; and when they lost,
they paid.

Now Madame Bernstein was loth to tell her Virginian nephew all she knew
to his family’s discredit; she was even touched by my lord’s forbearance
in regard to Harry on his first arrival in Europe; and pleased with his
lordship’s compliance with her wishes in this particular. But in the
conversation which she had with her nephew Castlewood regarding Maria’s
designs on Harry, he had spoken his mind out with his usual cynicism,
voted himself a fool for having spared a lad whom no sparing would
eventually keep from ruin; pointed out Mr. Harry’s undeniable
extravagances and spendthrift associates, his nights at faro and hazard,
and his rides to Newmarket, and asked why he alone should keep his hands
from the young fellow? In vain Madame Bernstein pleaded that Harry was
poor. Bah! he was heir to a principality which ought to have been his,
Castlewood’s, and might have set up their ruined family. (Indeed Madame
Bernstein thought Mr. Warrington’s Virginian property much greater than
it was.) Were there not money-lenders in the town who would give him
money on postobits in plenty? Castlewood knew as much to his cost: he
had applied to them in his father’s lifetime, and the cursed crew
had eaten up two-thirds of his miserable income. He spoke with such
desperate candour and ill-humour, that Madame Bernstein began to be
alarmed for her favourite, and determined to caution him at the first
opportunity.

That evening she began to pen a billet to Mr. Warrington: but all her
life long she was slow with her pen, and disliked using it. “I never
knew any good come of writing more than bon jour or business,” she used
to say. “What is the use of writing ill, when there are so many clever
people who can do it well? and even then it were best left alone.” So
she sent one of her men to Mr. Harry’s lodgings, bidding him come and
drink a dish of tea with her next day, when she proposed to warn him.

But the next morning she was indisposed, and could not receive Mr. Harry
when he came: and she kept her chamber for a couple of days, and the
next day there was a great engagement, and the next day Mr. Harry was
off on some expedition of his own. In the whirl of London life, what man
sees his neighbour, what brother his sister, what schoolfellow his old
friend? Ever so many days passed before Mr. Warrington and his aunt had
that confidential conversation which the latter desired.

She began by scolding him mildly about his extravagance and madcap
frolics (though, in truth, she was charmed with him for both)--he
replied that young men will be young men, and that it was in dutifully
waiting in attendance on his aunt, he had made the acquaintance with
whom he mostly lived at present. She then with some prelude, began to
warn him regarding his cousin, Lord Castlewood; on which he broke into a
bitter laugh, and said the good-natured world had told him plenty about
Lord Castlewood already. “To say of a man of his lordship’s rank, or
of any gentleman, ‘Don’t play with him,’ is more than I like to do,”
 continued the lady; “but...”

“Oh, you may say on, aunt!” said Harry, with something like an
imprecation on his lips.

“And have you played with your cousin already?” asked the young man’s
worldly old monitress.

“And lost and won, madam!” answers Harry, gallantly. “It don’t become me
to say which. If we have a bout with a neighbour in Virginia, a bottle,
or a pack of cards, or a quarrel, we don’t go home and tell our mothers.
I mean no offence, aunt!” And, blushing, the handsome young fellow went
up and kissed the old lady. He looked very brave and brilliant, with his
rich lace, his fair face and hair, his fine new suit of velvet and gold.
On taking leave of his aunt he gave his usual sumptuous benefaction to
her servants, who crowded round him. It was a rainy wintry day, and my
gentleman, to save his fine silk stockings, must come in a chair. “To
White’s!” he called out to the chairmen, and away they carried him to
the place where he passed a great deal of his time.

Our Virginian’s friends might have wished that he had been a less
sedulous frequenter of that house of entertainment; but so much may be
said in favour of Mr. Warrington that, having engaged in play, he fought
his battle like a hero. He was not flustered by good luck, and perfectly
calm when the chances went against him. If Fortune is proverbially
fickle to men at play, how many men are fickle to Fortune, run away
frightened from her advances; and desert her, who, perhaps, had never
thought of leaving them but for their cowardice. “By George, Mr.
Warrington,” said Mr. Selwyn, waking up in a rare fit of enthusiasm,
“you deserve to win! You treat your luck as a gentleman should, and
as long as she remains with you, behave to her with the most perfect
politeness. Si celeres quatit pennas--you know the rest--no? Well, you
are not much the worse off--you will call her ladyship’s coach, and make
her a bow at the step. Look at Lord Castlewood yonder, passing the box.
Did you ever hear a fellow curse and swear so at losing five or six
pieces? She must be a jade indeed, if she long give her favours to such
a niggardly canaille as that!”

“We don’t consider our family canaille, sir,” says Mr. Warrington, “and
my Lord Castlewood is one of them.”

“I forgot. I forgot, and ask your pardon! And I make you my compliment
upon my lord, and Mr. Will Esmond, his brother,” says Harry’s neighbour
at the hazard-table. “The box is with me. Five’s the main! Deuce Ace! my
usual luck. Virtute mea me involvo!” and he sinks back in his chair.

Whether it was upon this occasion of taking the box, that Mr. Harry
threw the fifteen mains mentioned in one of those other letters of Mr.
Walpole’s, which have not come into his present learned editor’s hands,
I know not; but certain it is, that on his first appearance at White’s,
Harry had five or six evenings of prodigious good luck, and seemed more
than ever the Fortunate Youth. The five hundred pounds withdrawn from
his patrimonial inheritance had multiplied into thousands. He bought
fine clothes, purchased fine horses, gave grand entertainments, made
handsome presents, lived as if he had been as rich as Sir James Lowther,
or his Grace of Bedford, and yet the five thousand pounds never seemed
to diminish. No wonder that he gave where giving was so easy; no wonder
that he was generous with Fortunatus’s purse in his pocket. I say no
wonder that he gave, for such was his nature. Other Fortunati tie up the
endless purse, drink small beer, and go to bed with a tallow candle.

During this vein of his luck, what must Mr. Harry do, but find out from
Lady Maria what her ladyship’s debts were, and pay them off to the
last shilling. Her stepmother and half-sister, who did not love her, he
treated to all sorts of magnificent presents. “Had you not better get
yourself arrested, Will?” my lord sardonically said to his brother.
“Although you bit him in that affair of the horse, the Mohock will
certainly take you out of pawn.” It was then that Mr. William felt a
true remorse, although not of that humble kind which sent the repentant
Prodigal to his knees. “Confound it,” he groaned, “to think that I have
let this fellow slip for such a little matter as forty pound! Why, he
was good for a thousand at least.”

As for Maria, that generous creature accepted the good fortune sent
her with a grateful heart; and was ready to accept as much more as you
pleased. Having paid off her debts to her various milliners, tradesmen,
and purveyors, she forthwith proceeded to contract new ones. Mrs. Betty,
her ladyship’s maid, went round informing the tradespeople that her
mistress was about to contract a matrimonial alliance with a young
gentleman of immense fortune; so that they might give my lady credit
to any amount. Having heard the same story twice or thrice before, the
tradesfolk might not give it entire credit, but their bills were paid:
even to Mrs. Pincott, of Kensington, my lady showed no rancour, and
affably ordered fresh supplies from her: and when she drove about from
the mercer to the toy-shop, and from the toy-shop to the jeweller in
a coach, with her maid and Mr. Warrington inside, they thought her a
fortunate woman indeed, to have secured the Fortunate Youth, though they
might wonder at the taste of this latter in having selected so elderly a
beauty. Mr. Sparks, of Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, took the liberty
of waiting upon Mr. Warrington at his lodgings in Bond Street, with the
pearl necklace and the gold etwee which he had bought in Lady Maria’s
company the day before; and asking whether he, Sparks, should leave them
at his honour’s lodging, or send them to her ladyship with his honour’s
compliments? Harry added a ring out of the stock which the jeweller
happened to bring with him, to the necklace and the etwee; and
sumptuously bidding that individual to send him in the bill, took a
majestic leave of Mr. Sparks, who retired, bowing even to Gumbo, as he
quitted his honour’s presence.

Nor did his bounties end here. Ere many days the pleased young fellow
drove up in his phaeton to Mr. Sparks’ shop, and took a couple of
trinkets for two young ladies, whose parents had been kind to him, and
for whom he entertained a sincere regard. “Ah!” thought he, “how I wish
I had my poor George’s wit, and genius for poetry! I would send these
presents with pretty verses to Hetty and Theo. I am sure, if goodwill
and real regard could make a poet of me, I should have no difficulty in
finding rhymes.” And so he called in Parson Sampson, and they concocted
a billet together.



CHAPTER XLIII. In which Harry flies High


So Mr. Harry Warrington, of Virginia, had his lodgings in Bond Street,
London, England, and lived upon the fat of the land, and drank bumpers
of the best wine thereof. His title of Fortunate Youth was pretty
generally recognised. Being young, wealthy, good-looking, and fortunate,
the fashionable world took him by the hand and made him welcome.
And don’t, my dear brethren, let us cry out too loudly against the
selfishness of the world for being kind to the young, handsome, and
fortunate, and frowning upon you and me, who may be, for argument’s
sake, old, ugly, and the miserablest dogs under the sun. If I have a
right to choose my acquaintance, and--at the club, let us say prefer the
company of a lively, handsome, well-dressed, gentleman like young
man, who amuses me, to that of a slouching, ill-washed, misanthropic
H-murderer, a ceaselessly prating coxcomb, or what not; has not
society--the aggregate you and I--a right to the same choice? Harry was
liked because he was likeable; because he was rich, handsome, jovial,
well-born, well-bred, brave; because, with jolly topers, he liked a
jolly song and a bottle; because, with gentlemen sportsmen, he loved
any game that was a-foot or a-horseback; because, with ladies, he had a
modest blushing timidity which rendered the lad interesting; because,
to those humbler than himself in degree he was always magnificently
liberal, and anxious to spare annoyance. Our Virginian was very
grand, and high and mighty, to be sure; but, in those times, when the
distinction of ranks yet obtained, to be high and distant with his
inferiors, brought no unpopularity to a gentleman. Remember that, in
those days, the Secretary of State always knelt when he went to the king
with his despatches of a morning, and the Under-Secretary never dared to
sit down in his chief’s presence. If I were Secretary of State (and such
there have been amongst men of letters since Addison’s days) I should
not like to kneel when I went in to my audience with my despatch-bog. If
I were Under-Secretary, I should not like to have to stand, whilst the
Right Honourable Benjamin or the Right Honourable Sir Edward looked over
the papers. But there is a modus in rebus: there are certain lines
which must be drawn: and I am only half pleased for my part, when Bob
Bowstreet, whose connection with letters is through Policeman X and
Y, and Tom Garbage, who is an esteemed contributor to the Kennel
Miscellany, propose to join fellowship as brother literary men, slap me
on the back, and call me old boy, or by my Christian name.

As much pleasure as the town could give in the winter season of 1756-57,
Mr. Warrington had for the asking. There were operas for him, in which
he took but moderate delight. (A prodigious deal of satire was brought
to bear against these Italian Operas, and they were assailed for being
foolish, Popish, unmanly, unmeaning; but people went, nevertheless.)
There were the theatres, with Mr. Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard at one
house, and Mrs. Clive at another. There were masquerades and ridottos
frequented by all the fine society; there were their lordships’ and
ladyships’ own private drums and assemblies, which began and ended with
cards, and which Mr. Warrington did not like so well as White’s, because
the play there was neither so high nor so fair as at the club-table.

One day his kinsman, Lord Castlewood, took him to court, and presented
Harry to his Majesty, who was now come to town from Kensington. But that
gracious sovereign either did not like Harry’s introducer, or had other
reasons for being sulky. His Majesty only said, “Oh, heard of you from
Lady Yarmouth. The Earl of Castlewood” (turning to his lordship, and
speaking in German) “shall tell him that he plays too much!” And so
saying, the Defender of the Faith turned his royal back.

Lord Castlewood shrank back quite frightened at this cold reception of
his august master.

“What does he say?” asked Harry.

“His Majesty thinks they play too high at White’s, and is displeased,”
 whispered the nobleman.

“If he does not want us, we had better not come again, that is all,”
 said Harry, simply. “I never, somehow, considered that German fellow a
real King of England.”

“Hush! for Heaven’s sake, hold your confounded colonial tongue!” cries
out my lord. “Don’t you see the walls here have ears!”

“And what then?” asks Mr. Warrington. “Why, look at the people! Hang me,
if it is not quite a curiosity! They were all shaking hands with me, and
bowing to me, and flattering me just now; and at present they avoid me
as if I were the plague!”

“Shake hands, nephew,” said a broad-faced, broad-shouldered gentleman,
in a scarlet-laced waistcoat, and a great old-fashioned wig. “I heard
what you said. I have ears like the wall, look you. And, now, if other
people show you the cold shoulder, I’ll give you my hand;” and so
saying, the gentleman put out a great brown hand, with which he grasped
Harry’s. “Something of my brother about your eyes and face. Though I
suppose in your island you grow more wiry and thin like. I am thine
uncle, child. My name is Sir Miles Warrington. My lord knows me well
enough.”

My lord looked very frightened and yellow. “Yes, my dear Harry. This is
your paternal uncle, Sir Miles Warrington.”

“Might as well have come to see us in Norfolk, as dangle about playing
the fool at Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Warrington, or Mr. Esmond,--which do
you call yourself?” said the Baronet. “The old lady calls herself Madam
Esmond, don’t she?”

“My mother is not ashamed of her father’s name, nor am I, uncle,” said
Mr. Harry, rather proudly.

“Well said, lad! Come home and eat a bit of mutton with Lady Warrington,
at three, in Hill Street,--that is if you can do without your White’s
kickshaws. You need not look frightened, my Lord Castlewood! I shall
tell no tales out of school.”

“I--I am sure Sir Miles Warrington will act as a gentleman!” says my
lord, in much perturbation.

“Belike, he will,” growled the Baronet, turning on his heel. “And thou
wilt come, young man, at three; and mind, good roast mutton waits for
nobody. Thou hast a great look of thy father. Lord bless us, how we used
to beat each other! He was smaller than me, and in course younger; but
many a time he had the best of it. Take it he was henpecked when he
married, and Madam Esmond took the spirit out of him when she got him in
her island. Virginia is an island. Ain’t it an island?”

Harry laughed, and said “No!” And the jolly Baronet, going off, said,
“Well, island or not, thou must come and tell all about it to my lady.
She’ll know whether ‘tis an island or not.”

“My dear Mr. Warrington,” said my lord, with an appealing look, “I need
not tell you that, in this great city, every man has enemies, and that
there is a great, great deal of detraction and scandal. I never spoke
to you about Sir Miles Warrington, precisely because I did know him,
and because we have had differences together. Should he permit himself
remarks to my disparagement, you will receive them cum grano, and
remember that it is from an enemy they come.” And the pair walked out
of the King’s apartments and into Saint James’s Street. Harry found the
news of his cold reception at court had already preceded him to White’s.
The King had turned his back upon him. The King was jealous of Harry’s
favour with the favourite. Harry was au mieux with Lady Yarmouth. A
score of gentlemen wished him a compliment upon his conquest. Before
night it was a settled matter that this was amongst the other victories
of the Fortunate Youth.

Sir Miles told his wife and Harry as much, when the young man appeared
at the appointed hour at the Baronet’s dinner-table, and he rallied
Harry in his simple rustic fashion. The lady, at first a grand and
stately personage, told Harry, on their further acquaintance, that the
reputation which the world had made for him was so bad, that at first
she had given him but a frigid welcome. With the young ladies, Sir
Miles’s daughters, it was “How d’ye do, cousin?” and “No, thank you,
cousin,” and a number of prim curtseys to the Virginian, as they greeted
him and took leave of him. The little boy, the heir of the house, dined
at table, under the care of his governor; and, having his glass of port
by papa after dinner, gave a loose to his innocent tongue, and asked
many questions of his cousin. At last the innocent youth said, after
looking hard in Harry’s face, “Are you wicked, cousin Harry? You don’t
look very wicked!”

“My dear Master Miles!” expostulates the tutor, turning very red.

“But you know you said he was wicked!” cried the child.

“We are all miserable sinners, Miley,” explains papa. “Haven’t you heard
the clergyman say so every Sunday?”

“Yes, but not so very wicked as cousin Harry. Is it true that you
gamble, cousin, and drink all night with wicked men, and frequent the
company of wicked women? You know you said so, Mr. Walker--and mamma
said so, too, that Lady Yarmouth was a wicked woman.”

“And you are a little pitcher,” cries papa: “and my wife, nephew Harry,
is a staunch Jacobite--you won’t like her the worse for that. Take Miles
to his sisters, Mr. Walker, and Topsham shall give thee a ride in the
park, child, on thy little horse.” The idea of the little horse consoled
Master Miles; for, when his father ordered him away to his sisters, he
had begun to cry bitterly, bawling out that he would far rather stay
with his wicked cousin.

“They have made you a sad reputation among ‘em, nephew!” says the jolly
Baronet. “My wife, you must know, of late years, and since the death of
my poor eldest son, has taken to,--to, hum!--to Tottenham Court Road and
Mr. Whitfield’s preaching: and we have had one Ward about the house, a
friend of Mr. Walker’s yonder, who has recounted sad stories about you
and your brother at home.”

“About me, Sir Miles, as much as he pleases,” cries Harry, warm with
port: “but I’ll break any man’s bones who dares say a word against my
brother! Why, sir, that fellow was not fit to buckle my dear George’s
shoe; and if I find him repeating at home what he dared to say in our
house in Virginia, I promise him a second caning.”

“You seem to stand up for your friends, nephew Harry,” says the Baronet.
“Fill thy glass, lad, thou art not as bad as thou hast been painted.
I always told my lady so. I drink Madam Esmond Warrington’s health, of
Virginia, and will have a full bumper for that toast.”

Harry, as in duty bound, emptied his glass, filled again, and drank Lady
Warrington and Master Miles.

“Thou wouldst be heir to four thousand acres in Norfolk, did he die,
though,” said the Baronet.

“God forbid, sir, and be praised that I have acres enough in Virginia
of my own!” says Mr. Warrington. He went up presently and took a dish of
coffee with Lady Warrington: he talked to the young ladies of the house.
He was quite easy, pleasant, and natural. There was one of them somewhat
like Fanny Mountain, and this young lady became his special favourite.
When he went away, they all agreed their wicked cousin was not near so
wicked as they had imagined him to be: at any rate, my lady had strong
hopes of rescuing him from the pit. She sent him a good book that
evening, whilst Mr. Harry was at White’s; with a pretty note, praying
that Law’s Call might be of service to him: and, this despatched, she
and her daughters went off to a rout at the house of a minister’s lady.
But Harry, before he went to White’s, had driven to his friend Mr.
Sparks, in Tavistock Street, and purchased more trinkets for his female
cousins--“from their aunt in Virginia,” he said. You see, he was full of
kindness: he kindled and warmed with prosperity. There are men on whom
wealth hath no such fortunate influence. It hardens base hearts: it
makes those who were mean and servile, mean and proud. If it should
please the gods to try me with ten thousand a year, I will, of course,
meekly submit myself to their decrees, but I will pray them to give me
strength enough to bear the trial. All the girls in Hill Street were
delighted at getting the presents from Aunt Warrington in Virginia and
addressed a collective note, which must have astonished that good lady
when she received it in spring-time, when she and Mountain and Fanny
were on a visit to grim deserted Castlewood, when the snows had cleared
away and a thousand peach-trees flushed with blossoms. “Poor boy!” the
mother thought “This is some present he gave his cousins in my name,
in the time of his prosperity--nay, of his extravagance and folly. How
quickly his wealth has passed away! But he ever had a kind heart for the
poor Mountain; and we must not forget him in his need. It behoves us to
be more than ever careful of our own expenses, my good people!” And so,
I dare say, they warmed themselves by one log, and ate of one dish, and
worked by one candle. And the widow’s servants, whom the good soul began
to pinch more and more I fear, lied, stole, and cheated more and more:
and what was saved in one way, was stole in another.

One afternoon, Mr. Harry sate in his Bond Street lodgings, arrayed in
his dressing-gown, sipping his chocolate, surrounded by luxury, encased
in satin, and yet enveloped in care. A few weeks previously when the
luck was with him, and he was scattering his benefactions to and fro,
he had royally told Parson Sampson to get together a list of his debts
which he, Mr. Warrington, would pay. Accordingly Sampson had gone to
work, and had got together a list, not of all his debts--no man ever
does set down all,--but such a catalogue as he thought sufficient to
bring in to Mr. Warrington, at whose breakfast-table the divine had
humbly waited until his honour should choose to attend it.

Harry appeared at length, very pale and languid, in curl-papers, and
scarce any appetite for his breakfast; and the chaplain, fumbling with
his schedule in his pocket, humbly asked if his patron had had a bad
night? He had been brought home from White’s by two chairmen at five
o’clock in the morning; had caught a confounded cold, for one of the
windows of the chair would not shut, and the rain and snow came in,
finally, was in such a bad humour, that all poor Sampson’s quirks and
jokes could scarcely extort a smile from him.

At last, to be sure, Mr. Warrington burst into a loud laugh. It was when
the poor chaplain, after a sufficient discussion of muffins, eggs, tea,
the news, the theatres, and so forth, pulled a paper out of his pocket
and in a piteous tone said, “Here is that schedule of debts which your
honour asked for--two hundred and forty-three pounds--every shilling I
owe in the world, thank Heaven!--that is--ahem!--every shilling of which
the payment will in the least inconvenience me--and I need not tell my
dearest patron that I shall consider him my saviour and benefactor!”

It was then that Harry, taking the paper and eyeing the chaplain with
rather a wicked look, burst into a laugh, which was, however, anything
but jovial. Wicked execrations, moreover, accompanied this outbreak of
humour, and the luckless chaplain felt that his petition had come at the
wrong moment.

“Confound it, why didn’t you bring it on Monday?” Harry asked.

“Confound me, why did I not bring it on Monday?” echoed the chaplain’s
timid soul. “It is my luck--my usual luck. Have the cards been against
you, Mr. Warrington?”

“Yes: a plague on them. Monday night, and last night, have both gone
against me. Don’t be frightened, chaplain, there’s money enough in the
locker yet. But I must go into the City and get some.”

“What, sell out, sir?” asks his reverence, with a voice that was
reassured, though it intended to be alarmed.

“Sell out, sir? Yes! I borrowed a hundred off Mackreth in counters last
night, and must pay him at dinner-time. I will do your business for you
nevertheless, and never fear, my good Mr. Sampson. Come to breakfast
to-morrow, and we will see and deliver your reverence from the
Philistines.” But though he laughed in Sampson’s presence, and strove
to put a good face upon the matter, Harry’s head sank down on his chest
when the parson quitted him, and he sate over the fire, beating the
coals about with the poker, and giving utterance to many disjointed
naughty words, which showed, but did not relieve, the agitation of his
spirit.

In this mood, the young fellow was interrupted by the appearance of a
friend, who, on any other day--even on that one when his conscience was
so uneasy--was welcome to Mr. Warrington. This was no other than Mr.
Lambert, in his military dress, but with a cloak over him, who had come
from the country, had been to the Captain-General’s levee that morning,
and had come thence to visit his young friend in Bond Street.

Harry may have thought Lambert’s greeting rather cold; but being
occupied with his own affairs, he put away the notion. How were the
ladies of Oakhurst, and Miss Hetty, who was ailing when he passed
through in the autumn? Purely? Mr. Warrington was very glad. They were
come to stay a while in London with their friend, Lord Wrotham? Mr.
Harry was delighted--though it must be confessed his face did not
exhibit any peculiar signs of pleasure when he heard the news.

“And so you live at White’s, and with the great folks; and you fare
sumptuously every day, and you pay your court at St. James’s, and make
one at my Lady Yarmouth’s routs, and at all the card-parties in the
Court end of the town?” asks the Colonel.

“My dear Colonel, I do what other folks do,” says Harry, with rather a
high manner.

“Other folks are richer folks than some folks, my dear lad.”

“Sir!” says Mr. Warrington, “I would thank you to believe that I owe
nothing for which I cannot pay!”

“I should never have spoken about your affairs,” said the other, not
noticing the young man’s haughty tone, “but that you yourself confided
them to me. I hear all sorts of stories about the Fortunate Youth. Only
at his Royal Highness’s even today, they were saying how rich you were
already, and I did not undeceive them----”

“Colonel Lambert, I cannot help the world gossiping about me!” cries Mr.
Warrington, more and more impatient.

“--And what prodigious sums you had won. Eighteen hundred one night--two
thousand another--six or eight thousand in all! Oh! there were gentlemen
from White’s at the levee too, I can assure you, and the army can fling
a main as well as you civilians!”

“I wish they would meddle with their own affairs,” says Harry, scowling
at his old friend.

“And I, too, you look as if you were going to say. Well, my boy, it is
my affair and you must let Theo’s father and Hetty’s father, and Harry
Warrington’s father’s old friend say how it is my affair.” Here the
Colonel drew a packet out of his pocket, whereof the lappets and the
coat-tails and the general pocket accommodations were much more ample
than in the scant military garments of present warriors. “Look you,
Harry. These trinkets which you sent with the kindest heart in the world
to people who love you, and would cut off their little hands to spare
you needless pain, could never be bought by a young fellow with two or
three hundred a year. Why, a nobleman might buy these things, or a rich
City banker, and send them to his--to his daughters, let us say.”

“Sir, as you say, I meant only kindness,” says Harry, blushing
burning-red.

“But you must not give them to my girls, my boy. Hester and Theodosia
Lambert must not be dressed up with the winnings off the gaming-table,
saving your presence. It goes to my heart to bring back the trinkets.
Mrs. Lambert will keep her present, which is of small value, and sends
you her love and a God bless you--and so say I, Harry Warrington, with
all my heart.” Here the good Colonel’s voice was much moved, and his
face grew very red, and he passed his hand over his eyes ere he held it
out.

But the spirit of rebellion was strong in Mr. Warrington. He rose up
from his seat, never offering to take the hand which his senior held out
to him. “Give me leave to tell Colonel Lambert,” he said, “that I have
had somewhat too much advice from him. You are for ever volunteering it,
sir, and when I don’t ask it. You make it your business to inquire about
my gains at play, and about the company I keep. What right have you to
control my amusements or my companions? I strive to show my sense
of your former kindness by little presents to your family, and you
fling--you bring them back.”

“I can’t do otherwise, Mr. Warrington,” says the Colonel, with a very
sad face.

“Such a slight may mean nothing here, sir, but in our country it means
war, sir!” cries Mr. Warrington. “God forbid I should talk of drawing a
sword against the father of ladies who have been as mother and sister
to me: but you have wounded my heart, Colonel Lambert--you have, I won’t
say insulted, but humiliated me, and this is a treatment I will bear
from no man alive! My servants will attend you to the door, sir!” Saying
which, and rustling in his brocade dressing-gown, Mr. Warrington, with
much state, walked off to his bedroom.



CHAPTER XLIV. Contains what might, perhaps, have been expected


On the rejection of his peace-offerings, our warlike young American
chief chose to be in great wrath not only against Colonel Lambert, but
the whole of that gentleman’s family. “He has humiliated me before
the girls!” thought the young man. “He and Mr. Wolfe, who were forever
preaching morality to me, and giving themselves airs of superiority and
protection, have again been holding me up to the family as a scapegrace
and prodigal. They are so virtuous that they won’t shake me by the hand,
forsooth; and when I want to show them a little common gratitude, they
fling my presents in my face!”

“Why, sir, the things must be worth a little fortune!” says Parson
Sampson, casting an eye of covetousness on the two morocco boxes,
in which, on their white satin cushions, reposed Mr. Sparks’s golden
gewgaws.

“They cost some money, Sampson,” says the young man. “Not that I would
grudge ten times the amount to people who have been kind to me.”

“No, faith, sir, not if I know your honour!” interjects Sampson, who
never lost a chance of praising his young patron to his face.

“The repeater, they told me, was a great bargain, and worth a hundred
pounds at Paris. Little Miss Hetty I remember saying that she longed to
have a repeating watch.”

“Oh, what a love!” cries the chaplain, “with a little circle of pearls
on the back, and a diamond knob for the handle! Why, ‘twould win any
woman’s heart, Sir!”

“There passes an apple-woman with a basket. I have a mind to fling the
thing out to her!” cries Mr. Warrington, fiercely.

When Harry went out upon business, which took him to the City and the
Temple, his parasite did not follow him very far into the Strand;
but turned away, owning that he had a terror of Chancery Lane, its
inhabitants, and precincts. Mr. Warrington went then to his broker, and
they walked to the Bank together, where they did some little business,
at the end of which, and after the signing of a trifling signature or
two, Harry departed with a certain number of crisp bank-notes in his
pocket. The broker took Mr. Warrington to one of the great dining-houses
for which the City was famous then as now; and afterwards showed Mr.
Warrington the Virginian walk upon ‘Change, through which Harry passed
rather shamefacedly. What would a certain lady in Virginia say, he
thought, if she knew that he was carrying off in that bottomless
gambler’s pocket a great portion of his father’s patrimony? Those are
all Virginia merchants, thinks he, and they are all talking to one
another about me, and all saying, “That is young Esmond, of Castlewood,
on the Potomac, Madam Esmond’s son; and he has been losing his money at
play, and he has been selling out so much, and so much, and so much.”

His spirits did not rise until he had passed under the traitors’ heads
of Temple Bar, and was fairly out of the City. From the Strand Mr. Harry
walked home, looking in at St. James’s Street by the way; but there was
nobody there as yet, the company not coming to the Chocolate-House till
a later hour.

Arrived at home, Mr. Harry pulls out his bundle of bank-notes; puts
three of them into a sheet of paper, which he seals carefully, having
previously written within the sheet the words, “Much good may they
do you. H. E. W.” And this packet he directs to the Reverend Mr.
Sampson,--leaving it on the chimney-glass, with directions to his
servants to give it to that divine when he should come in.

And now his honour’s phaeton is brought to the door, and he steps in,
thinking to drive round the park; but the rain coming on, or the east
wind blowing, or some other reason arising, his honour turns his horses’
heads down St. James’s Street, and is back at White’s at about three
o’clock. Scarce anybody has come in yet. It is the hour when folks are
at dinner. There, however, is my cousin Castlewood, lounging over the
Public Advertiser, having just come off from his duty at Court hard by.

Lord Castlewood is yawning over the Public Advertiser. What shall they
do? Shall they have a little piquet? Harry has no objections to a little
piquet. “Just for an hour,” says Lord Castlewood. “I dine at Arlington
Street at four.” “Just for an hour,” says Mr. Warrington; and they call
for cards.

“Or shall we have ‘em in upstairs?” says my lord. “Out of the noise?”

“Certainly, out of the noise,” says Harry.

At five o’clock a half-dozen of gentlemen have come in after their
dinner, and are at cards, or coffee, or talk. The folks from the
ordinary have not left the table yet. There the gentlemen of White’s
will often sit till past midnight.

One toothpick points over the coffee-house blinds into the street.
“Whose phaeton?” asks Toothpick 1 of Toothpick 2.

“The Fortunate Youth’s,” says No. 2.

“Not so fortunate the last three nights. Luck confoundedly against him.
Lost, last night, thirteen hundred to the table. Mr. Warrington been
here to-day, John?”

“Mr. Warrington is in the house now, sir. In the little tea-room with
Lord Castlewood since three o’clock. They are playing at piquet,” says
John.

“What fun for Castlewood!” says No. 1, with a shrug.

The second gentleman growls out an execration. “Curse the fellow!” he
says. “He has no right to be in this club at all. He doesn’t pay if he
loses. Gentlemen ought not to play with him. Sir Miles Warrington told
me at court the other day, that Castlewood has owed him money on a bet
these three years.”

“Castlewood,” says No. 1, “don’t lose if he plays alone. A large company
flurries him, you see--that’s why he doesn’t come to the table.” And the
facetious gentleman grins, and shows all his teeth, polished perfectly
clean.

“Let’s go up and stop ‘em,” growls No. 2.

“Why?” asks the other. “Much better look out a-window. Lamplighter going
up the ladder--famous sport. Look at that old putt in the chair: did you
ever see such an old quiz?”

“Who is that just gone out of the house? As I live, it’s Fortunatus! He
seems to have forgotten that his phaeton has been here, waiting all the
time. I bet you two to one he has been losing to Castlewood.”

“Jack, do you take me to be a fool?” asks the one gentleman of the
other. “Pretty pair of horses the youth has got. How he is flogging
‘em!” And they see Mr. Warrington galloping up the street, and scared
coachmen and chairmen clearing before him: presently my Lord Castlewood
is seen to enter a chair, and go his way.

Harry drives up to his own door. It was but a few yards, and those poor
horses have been beating the pavement all this while in the rain. Mr.
Gumbo is engaged at the door in conversation with a countrified-looking
lass, who trips off with a curtsey. Mr. Gumbo is always engaged with
some pretty maid or other.

“Gumbo, has Mr. Sampson been here?” asks Gumbo’s master from his
driving-seat.

“No, sar. Mr. Sampson have not been here!” answers Mr. Warrington’s
gentleman. Harry bids him to go upstairs and bring down a letter
addressed to Mr. Sampson.

“Addressed to Mr. Sampson? Oh yes, sir,” says Mr. Gumbo, who can’t read.

“A sealed letter, stupid! on the mantelpiece, in the glass!” says Harry;
and Gumbo leisurely retires to fetch that document. As soon as Harry has
it, he turns his horses’ heads towards St. James’s Street, and the
two gentlemen, still yawning out of the window at White’s, behold the
Fortunate Youth, in an instant, back again.

As they passed out of the little tea-room where he and Lord Castlewood
had had their piquet together, Mr. Warrington had seen that several
gentlemen had entered the play-room, and that there was a bank there.
Some were already steadily at work, and had their gaming jackets on:
they kept such coats at the club, which they put on when they had a mind
to sit down to a regular night’s play.

Mr. Warrington goes to the clerk’s desk, pays his account of the
previous night, and, sitting down at the table, calls for fresh
counters. This has been decidedly an unlucky week with the Fortunate
Youth, and to-night is no more fortunate than previous nights have been.
He calls for more counters, and more presently. He is a little pale and
silent, though very easy and polite when talked to. But he cannot win.

At last he gets up. “Hang it! stay and mend your luck!” says Lord March,
who is sitting by his side with a heap of counters before him, green and
white. “Take a hundred of mine, and go on!”

“I have had enough for to-night, my lord,” says Harry, and rises and
goes away, and eats a broiled bone in the coffee-room, and walks back to
his lodgings some time about midnight. A man after a great catastrophe
commonly sleeps pretty well. It is the waking in the morning which is
sometimes queer and unpleasant. Last night you proposed to Miss Brown:
you quarrelled over your cups with Captain Jones, and valorously pulled
his nose: you played at cards with Colonel Robinson, and gave him--oh,
how many I O U’s! These thoughts, with a fine headache, assail you
in the morning watches. What a dreary, dreary gulf between to-day and
yesterday! It seems as if you are years older. Can’t you leap back over
that chasm again, and is it not possible that Yesterday is but a dream?
There you are, in bed. No daylight in at the windows yet. Pull your
nightcap over your eyes, the blankets over your nose, and sleep away
Yesterday. Psha, man, it was but a dream! Oh no, no! The sleep won’t
come. The watchman bawls some hour--what hour? Harry minds him that he
has got the repeating watch under his pillow which he had bought for
Hester. Ting, ting, ting! the repeating watch sings out six times in
the darkness, with a little supplementary performance indicating the
half-hour. Poor dear little Hester!--so bright, so gay, so innocent! he
would have liked her to have that watch. What will Maria say? (Oh, that
old Maria! what a bore she is beginning to be! he thinks.) What will
Madam Esmond at home say when she hears that he has lost every shilling
of his ready money--of his patrimony? All his winnings, and five
thousand pounds besides, in three nights. Castlewood could not have
played him false? No. My lord knows piquet better than Harry does, but
he would not deal unfairly with his own flesh and blood. No, no. Harry
is glad his kinsman, who wanted the money, has got it. And for not one
more shilling than he possessed, would he play. It was when he counted
up his losses at the gaming-table, and found they would cover all the
remainder of his patrimony, that he passed the box and left the table.
But, O cursed bad company! O extravagance and folly! O humiliation and
remorse! “Will my mother at home forgive me?” thinks the young prodigal.
“Oh, that I were there, and had never left it!”

The dreary London dawn peeps at length through shutters and curtains.
The housemaid enters to light his honour’s fire and admit the dun
morning into his windows. Her Mr. Gumbo presently follows, who warms his
master’s dressing-gown and sets out his shaving-plate and linen. Then
arrives the hairdresser to curl and powder his honour, whilst he reads
his morning’s letters; and at breakfast-time comes that inevitable
Parson Sampson, with eager looks and servile smiles, to wait on his
patron. The parson would have returned yesterday according to mutual
agreement, but some jolly fellows kept him to dinner at the St. Alban’s,
and, faith, they made a night of it.

“Oh, Parson!” groans Harry, “‘twas the worst night you ever made in your
life! Look here, sir!”

“Here is a broken envelope with the words, ‘Much good may it do you,’
written within,” says the chaplain, glancing at the paper.

“Look on the outside, sir!” cries Mr. Warrington. “The paper was
directed to you.” The poor chaplain’s countenance exhibited great alarm.
“Has some one broke it open, sir?” he asks.

“Some one, yes. I broke it open, Sampson. Had you come here as you
proposed yesterday afternoon, you would have found that envelope full of
bank-notes. As it is, they were all dropped at the infernal macco-table
last night.”

“What, all?” says Sampson.

“Yes, all, with all the money I brought away from the city, and all the
ready money I have left in the world. In the afternoon I played piquet
with my cous--with a gentleman at White’s--and he eased me of all the
money I had about me. Remembering that there was still some money left
here, unless you had fetched it, I came home and carried it back and
left it at the macco-table, with every shilling besides that belongs to
me--and--great heaven, Sampson, what’s the matter, man?”

“It’s my luck, it’s my usual luck,” cries out the unfortunate chaplain,
and fairly burst into tears.

“What! You are not whimpering like a baby at the loss of a loan of a
couple of hundred pounds?” cries out Mr. Warrington, very fierce and
angry. “Leave the room, Gumbo! Confound you! why are you always poking
your woolly head in at that door!”

“Some one below wants to see master with a little bill,” says Mr. Gumbo.

“Tell him to go to Jericho!” roars out Mr. Warrington. “Let me see
nobody! I am not at home, sir, at this hour of the morning!”

A murmur or two, a scuffle is heard on the landing-place, and silence
finally ensues. Mr. Warrington’s scorn and anger are not diminished by
this altercation. He turns round savagely upon unhappy Sampson, who sits
with his head buried in his breast.

“Hadn’t you better take a bumper of brandy to keep your spirits up, Mr.
Sampson?” he asks. “Hang it, man! don’t be snivelling like a woman!”

“Oh, it’s not me!” says Sampson, tossing his head. “I am used to it,
sir.”

“Not you! Who, then? Are you crying because somebody else is hurt,
pray?” asks Mr. Warrington.

“Yes, sir!” says the chaplain, with some spirit; “because somebody else
is hurt, and through my fault. I have lodged for many years in London
with a bootmaker, a very honest man: and, a few days since, having a
perfect reliance upon--upon a friend who had promised to accommodate me
with a loan--I borrowed sixty pounds from my landlord which he was about
to pay to his own. I can’t get the money. My poor landlord’s goods will
be seized for rent; his wife and dear young children will be turned into
the street; and this honest family will be ruined through my fault. But,
as you say, Mr. Warrington, I ought not to snivel like a woman. I will
remember that you helped me once, and will bid you farewell, sir.”

And, taking his broad-leafed hat, Mr. Chaplain walked out of the room.

An execration and a savage laugh, I am sorry to say, burst out of
Harry’s lips at this sudden movement of the chaplain’s. He was in such
a passion with himself, with circumstances, with all people round about
him, that he scarce knew where to turn, or what he said. Sampson heard
the savage laughter, and then the voice of Harry calling from the
stairs, “Sampson, Sampson! hang you! come back! It’s a mistake! I beg
your pardon!” But the chaplain was cut to the soul, and walked on. Harry
heard the door of the street as the parson slammed it. It thumped on his
own breast. He entered his room, and sank back on his luxurious chair
there. He was Prodigal, amongst the swine--his foul remorses; they had
tripped him up, and were wallowing over him. Gambling, extravagance,
debauchery, dissolute life, reckless companions, dangerous women--they
were all upon him in a herd, and were trampling upon the prostrate young
sinner.

Prodigal was not, however, yet utterly overcome, and had some fight left
in him. Dashing the filthy importunate brutes aside, and, as it were,
kicking his ugly remembrances away from him, Mr. Warrington seized
a great glass of that fire-water which he had recommended to poor
humiliated Parson Sampson, and, flinging off his fine damask robe, rang
for the trembling Gumbo, and ordered his coat. “Not that!” roars he, as
Gumbo brings him a fine green coat with plated buttons and a gold cord.
“A plain suit--the plainer the better! The black clothes.” And Gumbo
brings the mourning-coat which his master had discarded for some months
past.

Mr. Harry then takes:--1, his fine new gold watch; 2, his repeater (that
which he had bought for Hetty), which he puts into his other fob; 3,
his necklace, which he had purchased for Theo; 4, his rings, of which
my gentleman must have half a dozen at least (with the exception of
his grandfather’s old seal ring, which he kisses and lays down on the
pincushion again); 5, his three gold snuff boxes: and 6, his purse,
knitted by his mother, and containing three shillings and sixpence and a
pocket-piece brought from Virginia: and, putting on his hat, issues from
his door.

At the landing he is met by Mr. Ruff, his landlord, who bows and cringes
and puts into his honour’s hand a strip of paper a yard long. “Much
obliged if Mr. Warrington will settle. Mrs. Ruff has a large account
to make up to-day.” Mrs. Ruff is a milliner. Mr. Ruff is one of the
head-waiters and aides-de-camp of Mr. Mackreth, the proprietor of
White’s Club. The sight of the landlord does not add to the lodger’s
good-humour.

“Perhaps his honour will have the kindness to settle the little
account?” asks Mr. Ruff.

“Of course I will settle the account,” says Harry, glumly looking down
over Mr. Ruffs head from the stair above him.

“Perhaps Mr. Warrington will settle it now?”

“No, Sir, I will not settle it now!” says Mr. Warrington, bullying
forward.

“I’m very--very much in want of money, sir,” pleads the voice under him.
“Mrs. Ruff is----”

“Hang you, sir, get out of the way!” cries Mr. Warrington, ferociously,
and driving Mr. Ruff backward to the wall, sending him almost
topsy-turvy down his own landing, he tramps down the stair, and walks
forth into Bond Street.

The Guards were at exercise at the King’s Mews at Charing Cross, as
Harry passed, and he heard their drums and fifes, and looked in at the
gate, and saw them at drill. “I can shoulder a musket at any rate,”
 thought he to himself gloomily, as he strode on. He crossed St. Martin’s
Lane (where he transacted some business), and so made his way into Long
Acre, and to the bootmaker’s house where friend Sampson lodged. The
woman of the house said Mr. Sampson was not at home, but had promised to
be at home at one; and, as she knew Mr. Warrington, showed him up to the
parson’s apartments, where he sate down, and, for want of occupation,
tried to read an unfinished sermon of the chaplain’s. The subject was
the Prodigal Son. Mr. Harry did not take very accurate cognisance of the
sermon.

Presently he heard the landlady’s shrill voice on the stair, pursuing
somebody who ascended, and Sampson rushed into the room, followed by the
sobbing woman.

At seeing Harry, Sampson started, and the landlady stopped. Absorbed
in her own domestic cares, she had doubtless forgot that a visitor was
awaiting her lodger. “There’s only thirteen pound in the house, and he
will be here at one, I tell you!” she was bawling out, as she pursued
her victim.

“Hush, hush! my good creature!” cries the gasping chaplain, pointing
to Harry, who rose from the window-seat. “Don’t you see Mr. Warrington?
I’ve business with him--most important business. It will be all right, I
tell you!” And he soothed and coaxed Mrs. Landlady out of the room, with
the crowd of anxious little ones hanging at her coats.

“Sampson, I have come to ask your pardon again,” says Mr. Warrington,
rising up. “What I said to-day to you was very cruel and unjust, and
unlike a gentleman.”

“Not a word more, sir,” says the other, coldly and sadly, bowing and
scarcely pressing the hand which Harry offered him.

“I see you are still angry with me,” Harry continues.

“Nay, sir, an apology is an apology. A man of my station can ask for no
more from one of yours. No doubt you did not mean to give me pain. And
what if you did? And you are not the only one of the family who has,” he
said, as he looked piteously round the room. “I wish I had never known
the name of Esmond or Castlewood,” he continues, “or that place yonder
of which the picture hangs over my fireplace, and where I have buried
myself these long, long years. My lord, your cousin, took a fancy to me,
said he would make my fortune, has kept me as his dependant till fortune
has passed by me, and now refuses me my due.”

“How do you mean your due, Mr. Sampson?” asks Harry.

“I mean three years’ salary which he owes me as chaplain of Castlewood.
Seeing you could give me no money, I went to his lordship this morning
and asked him. I fell on my knees, and asked him, sir. But his lordship
had none. He gave me civil words, at least (saving your presence, Mr.
Warrington), but no money--that is, five guineas, which he declared was
all he had and which I took. But what are five guineas amongst so many
Oh, those poor little children! those poor little children!”

“Lord Castlewood said he had no money?” cries out Harry. “He won eleven
hundred pounds, yesterday, of me at piquet--which I paid him out of this
pocket-book.”

“I dare say, sir, I dare say, sir. One can’t believe a word his lordship
says, sir,” says Mr. Sampson; “but I am thinking of execution in this
house, and ruin upon these poor folks to-morrow.”

“That need not happen,” says Mr. Warrington. “Here are eighty guineas,
Sampson. As far as they go, God help you! ‘Tis all I have to give you.
I wish to my heart I could give more as I promised; but you did not come
at the right time, and I am a poor devil now until I get my remittances
from Virginia.”

The chaplain gave a wild look of surprise, and turned quite white. He
flung himself down on his knees and seized Harry’s hand.

“Great powers, sir!” says he, “are you a guardian angel that Heaven hath
sent me? You quarrelled with my tears this morning, Mr. Warrington. I
can’t help them now. They burst, sir, from a grateful heart. A rock of
stone would pour them forth, sir, before such goodness as yours! May
Heaven eternally bless you, and give you prosperity! May my unworthy
prayers be heard in your behalf, my friend, my best benefactor! May----”

“Nay, nay! get up, friend--get up, Sampson!” says Harry, whom the
chaplain’s adulation and fine phrases rather annoyed.

“I am glad to have been able to do you a service--sincerely glad.
There--there! Don’t be on your knees to me!”

“To Heaven who sent you to me, sir!” cries the chaplain. Mrs. Weston!
Mrs. Weston!”

“What is it, sir?” says the landlady, instantly, who, indeed, had been
at the door the whole time. “We are saved, Mrs. Weston! We are saved!”
 cries the chaplain. “Kneel, kneel, woman, and thank our benefactor!
Raise your innocent voices, children, and bless him!” A universal
whimper arose round Harry, which the chaplain led off, whilst the
young Virginian stood, simpering and well pleased, in the midst of this
congregation. They would worship, do what he might. One of the children,
not understanding the kneeling order, and standing up, the mother
fetched her a slap on the ear, crying, “Drat it, Jane, kneel down, and
bless the gentleman, I tell ‘ee!”... We leave them performing this sweet
benedictory service. Mr. Harry walks off from Long Acre, forgetting
almost the griefs of the former four or five days, and tingling with the
consciousness of having done a good action.


The young woman with whom Gumbo had been conversing on that evening
when Harry drove up from White’s to his lodging, was Mrs. Molly, from
Oakhurst, the attendant of the ladies there. Wherever that fascinating
Gumbo went, he left friends and admirers in the servants’-hall. I think
we said it was on a Wednesday evening he and Mrs. Molly had fetched a
walk together, and they were performing the amiable courtesies incident
upon parting, when Gumbo’s master came up, and put an end to their
twilight whisperings and what not.

For many hours on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday, a pale little
maiden sate at a window in Lord Wrotham’s house, in Hill Street, her
mother and sister wistfully watching her. She would not go out. They
knew whom she was expecting. He passed the door once, and she might
have thought he was coming, but he did not. He went into a neighbouring
house. Papa had never told the girls of the presents which Harry had
sent, and only whispered a word or two to their mother regarding his
quarrel with the young Virginian.

On Saturday night there was an opera of Mr. Handel’s, and papa brought
home tickets for the gallery. Hetty went this evening. The change would
do her good, Theo thought, and--and, perhaps there might be Somebody
amongst the fine company; but Somebody was not there; and Mr. Handel’s
fine music fell blank upon the poor child. It might have been Signor
Bononcini’s, and she would have scarce known the difference.

As the children are undressing and taking off those smart new satin
sacks in which they appeared at the Opera, looking so fresh and so
pretty amongst all the tawdry rouged folks, Theo remarks how very sad
and woebegone Mrs. Molly their maid appears. Theo is always anxious when
other people seem in trouble; not so Hetty, now, who is suffering, poor
thing, one of the most selfish maladies which ever visits mortals. Have
you ever been amongst insane people, and remarked how they never, never
think of any but themselves?

“What is the matter, Molly?” asks kind Theo: and indeed, Molly has been
longing to tell her young ladies. “Oh, Miss Theo! Oh, Miss Hetty!”
 she says. “How ever can I tell you? Mr. Gumbo have been here, Mr.
Warrington’s coloured gentleman, miss; and he says Mr. Warrington have
been took by two bailiffs this evening, as he comes out of Sir Miles
Warrington’s house three doors off.”

“Silence!” cries Theo, quite sternly. Who is it that gives those three
shrieks? It is Mrs. Molly, who chooses to scream, because Miss Hetty has
fallen fainting from her chair.



CHAPTER XLV. In which Harry finds two Uncles


We have all of us, no doubt, had a fine experience of the world, and a
vast variety of characters have passed under our eyes; but there is one
sort of men not an uncommon object of satire in novels and plays--of
whom I confess to have met with scarce any specimens at all in my
intercourse with this sinful mankind. I mean, mere religious hypocrites,
preaching for ever, and not believing a word of their own sermons;
infidels in broad brims and sables, expounding, exhorting, comminating,
blessing, without any faith in their own paradise, or fear about their
pandemonium. Look at those candid troops of hobnails clumping to church
on a Sunday evening; those rustling maid-servants in their ribbons whom
the young apprentices follow; those little regiments of schoolboys;
those trim young maidens and staid matrons, marching with their
glistening prayer-books, as the chapel bell chinks yonder (passing
Ebenezer, very likely, where the congregation of umbrellas, great
bonnets, and pattens, is by this time assembled under the flaring
gas-lamps). Look at those! How many of them are hypocrites, think you?
Very likely the maid-servant is thinking of her sweetheart: the grocer
is casting about how he can buy that parcel of sugar, and whether the
County Bank will take any more of his paper: the head-schoolboy is
conning Latin verses for Monday’s exercise: the young scapegrace
remembers that after his service and sermon, there will be papa’s
exposition at home, but that there will be pie for supper: the clerk who
calls out the psalm has his daughter in trouble, and drones through his
responses scarcely aware of their meaning: the very moment the parson
hides his face on his cushion, he may be thinking of that bill which is
coming due on Monday. These people are not heavenly-minded; they are of
the world, worldly, and have not yet got their feet off of it; but they
are not hypocrites, look you. Folks have their religion in some handy
mental lock-up, as it were--a valuable medicine, to be taken in
ill health; and a man administers his nostrum to his neighbour, and
recommends his private cure for the other’s complaint. “My dear madam,
you have spasms? You will find these drops infallible!” “You have been
taking too much wine, my good sir? By this pill you may defy any evil
consequences from too much wine, and take your bottle of port daily.” Of
spiritual and bodily physic, who are more fond and eager dispensers than
women? And we know that, especially a hundred years ago, every lady
in the country had her still-room, and her medicine chest, her pills,
powders, potions, for all the village round.

My Lady Warrington took charge of the consciences and the digestions of
her husband’s tenants and family. She had the faith and health of the
servants’-hall in keeping. Heaven can tell whether she knew how to
doctor them rightly: but, was it pill or doctrine, she administered one
or the other with equal belief in her own authority, and her disciples
swallowed both obediently. She believed herself to be one of the most
virtuous, self-denying, wise, learned women in the world; and, dinning
this opinion perpetually into the ears of all round about her, succeeded
in bringing not few persons to join in her persuasion.

At Sir Miles’s dinner there was so fine a sideboard of plate, and such
a number of men in livery, that it required some presenter: of mind
to perceive that the beer was of the smallest which the butler brought
round in the splendid tankard, and that there was but one joint of
mutton on the grand silver dish. When Sir Miles called the King’s
health, and smacked his jolly lips over his wine, he eyed it and the
company as if the liquor was ambrosia. He asked Harry Warrington whether
they had port like that in Virginia? He said that was nothing to the
wine Harry should taste in Norfolk. He praised the wine so, that Harry
almost believed that it was good, and winked into his own glass, trying
to see some of the merits which his uncle perceived in the ruby nectar.

Just as we see in many a well-regulated family of this present century,
the Warringtons had their two paragons. Of the two grown daughters, the
one was the greatest beauty, the other the greatest genius and angel of
any young lady then alive, as Lady Warrington told Harry. The eldest,
the Beauty, was engaged to dear Tom Claypool, the fond mother informed
her cousin Harry in confidence. But the second daughter, the Genius and
Angel, was for ever set upon our young friend to improve his wits and
morals. She sang to him at the harpsichord--rather out of tune for
an angel, Harry thought; she was ready with advice, instruction,
conversation--with almost too much instruction and advice, thought
Harry, who would have far preferred the society of the little cousin
who reminded him of Fanny Mountain at home. But the last-mentioned young
maiden after dinner retired to her nursery commonly. Beauty went off
on her own avocations; mamma had to attend to her poor or write her
voluminous letters; papa dozed in his arm-chair; and the Genius remained
to keep her young cousin company.

The calm of the house somehow pleased the young man, and he liked
to take refuge there away from the riot and dissipation in which he
ordinarily lived. Certainly no welcome could be kinder than that which
he got. The doors were opened to him at all hours. If Flora was not at
home, Dora was ready to receive him. Ere many days’ acquaintance, he and
his little cousin Miles had been to have a galloping-match in the Park,
and Harry, who was kind and generous to every man alive who came near
him, had in view the purchase of a little horse for his cousin, far
better than that which the boy rode, when the circumstances occurred
which brought all our poor Harry’s coaches and horses to a sudden
breakdown.

Though Sir Miles Warrington had imagined Virginia to be an island, the
ladies were much better instructed in geography, and anxious to hear
from Harry all about his home and his native country. He, on his part,
was not averse to talk about it. He described to them the length and
breadth of his estate; the rivers which it coasted; the produce which
it bore. He had had with a friend a little practice of surveying in
his boyhood. He made a map of his county, with some fine towns here and
there, which, in truth, were but log-huts (but, for the honour of his
country, he was desirous that they should wear as handsome a look as
possible). Here was Potomac; here was James river; here were the wharves
whence his mother’s ships and tobacco were brought to the sea. In truth,
the estate was as large as a county. He did not brag about the place
overmuch. To see the handsome young fellow, in a fine suit of velvet and
silver lace, making his draught, pointing out this hill and that forest
or town, you might have imagined him a travelling prince describing the
realms of the queen his mother. He almost fancied himself to be so at
times. He had miles where gentlemen in England had acres. Not only Dora
listened but the beauteous Flora bowed her fair head and heard him with
attention. Why, what was young Tom Claypool, their brother baronet’s son
in Norfolk with his great boots, his great voice, and his heirdom to
a poor five thousand acres, compared to this young American prince and
charming stranger? Angel as she was, Dora began to lose her angelic
temper, and to twit Flora for a flirt. Claypool in his red waistcoat,
would sit dumb before the splendid Harry in his ruffles and laces,
talking of March and Chesterfield, Selwyn and Bolingbroke, and the whole
company of macaronis. Mamma began to love Harry more and more as a son.
She was anxious about the spiritual welfare of those poor Indians, of
those poor negroes in Virginia. What could she do to help dear Madam
Esmond (a precious woman, she knew!) in the good work? She had a serious
butler and housekeeper: they were delighted with the spiritual behaviour
and sweet musical gifts of Gumbo.

“Ah! Harry, Harry! you have been a sad wild boy! Why did you not come
sooner to us, sir, and not lose your time amongst the spendthrifts and
the vain world? But ‘tis not yet too late. We must reclaim thee, dear
Harry! Mustn’t we, Sir Miles? Mustn’t we Dora? Mustn’t we, Flora?”

The three ladies all look up to the ceiling. They will reclaim the dear
prodigal. It is which shall reclaim him most. Dora sits by and watches
Flora. As for mamma when the girls are away, she talks to him more and
more seriously, more and more tenderly. She will be a mother to him in
the absence of his own admirable parent. She gives him a hymn-book.
She kisses him on the forehead. She is actuated by the purest love,
tenderness, religious regard, towards her dear, wayward, wild, amiable
nephew.

Whilst these sentimentalities were going on, it is to be presumed that
Mr. Warrington kept his own counsel about his affairs out-of-doors,
which we have seen were in the very worst condition. He who had been
favoured by fortune for so many weeks was suddenly deserted by her, and
a few days had served to kick down all his heap of winnings. Do we say
that my Lord Castlewood, his own kinsman, had dealt unfairly by the
young Virginian, and in the course of a couple of afternoons’ closet
practice had robbed him? We would insinuate nothing so disrespectful to
his lordship’s character; but he had won from Harry every shilling which
properly belonged to him, and would have played him for his reversions,
but that the young man flung up his hands when he saw himself so
far beaten, and declared that he must continue the battle no more.
Remembering that there still remained a spar out of the wreck, as
it were--that portion which he had set aside for poor Sampson--Harry
ventured it at the gaming-table; but that last resource went down along
with the rest of Harry’s possessions, and Fortune fluttered off in the
storm, leaving the luckless adventurer almost naked on the shore.

When a man is young and generous and hearty the loss of money scarce
afflicts him. Harry would sell his horses and carriages, and diminish
his train of life. If he wanted immediate supplies of money, would not
his Aunt Bernstein be his banker, or his kinsman who had won so much
from him, or his kind Uncle Warrington and Lady Warrington who were
always talking virtue and benevolence, and declaring that they loved
him as a son? He would call upon these, or any one of them whom he might
choose to favour, at his leisure; meanwhile, Sampson’s story of his
landlord’s distress touched the young gentleman, and, in order to raise
a hasty supply for the clergyman, he carried off all his trinkets to a
certain pawnbroker’s shop in St. Martin’s Lane.

Now this broker was a relative or partner of that very Mr. Sparks
of Tavistock Street, from whom Harry had purchased--purchased did we
say?--no; taken the trinkets which he had intended to present to his
Oakhurst friends; and it chanced that Mr. Sparks came to visit his
brother-tradesman very soon after Mr. Warrington had disposed of his
goods. Recognising immediately the little enamelled diamond-handled
repeater which he had sold to the Fortunate Youth, the jeweller broke
out into expressions regarding Harry which I will not mention here,
being already accused of speaking much too plainly. A gentleman who
is acquainted with a pawnbroker, we may be sure has a bailiff or two
amongst his acquaintances; and those bailiffs have followers who, at the
bidding of the impartial Law, will touch with equal hand the fiercest
captain’s epaulet or the finest macaroni’s shoulder. The very gentlemen
who had seized upon Lady Maria at Tunbridge were set upon her cousin in
London. They easily learned from the garrulous Gumbo that his honour was
at Sir Miles Warrington’s house in Hill Street, and whilst the black was
courting Mrs. Lambert’s maid at the adjoining mansion, Mr. Costigan and
his assistant lay in wait for poor Harry, who was enjoying the delights
of intercourse with a virtuous family circle assembled round his
aunt’s table. Never had Uncle Miles been more cordial, never had Aunt
Warrington been more gracious, gentle, and affectionate; Flora looked
unusually lovely, Dora had been more than ordinarily amiable. At
parting, my lady gave him both her hands, and called benedictions from
the ceiling down upon him. Papa had said in his most jovial manner,
“Hang it, nephew! when I was thy age I should have kissed two such fine
girls as Do and Flo ere this, and my own flesh and blood too! Don’t tell
me! I should, my Lady Warrington! Odds-fish! ‘tis the boy blushes, and
not the girls! I think--I suppose they are used to it. He, he!”

“Papa!” cry the virgins.

“Sir Miles!” says the august mother at the same instant.

“There, there!” says papa. “A kiss won’t do no harm, and won’t tell no
tales: will it, nephew Harry?” I suppose, during the utterance of the
above three brief phrases, the harmless little osculatory operation has
taken place, and blushing cousin Harry has touched the damask cheek of
cousin Flora and cousin Dora.

As he goes downstairs with his uncle, mamma makes a speech to the
girls, looking, as usual, up to the ceiling, and saying, “What precious
qualities your poor dear cousin has! What shrewdness mingled with his
simplicity, and what a fine genteel manner, though upon mere worldly
elegance I set little store. What a dreadful pity to think that such a
vessel should ever be lost! We must rescue him, my loves. We must
take him away from those wicked companions, and those horrible
Castlewoods--not that I would speak ill of my neighbours. But I shall
hope, I shall pray, that he may be rescued from his evil courses!” And
again Lady Warrington eyes the cornice in a most determined manner, as
the girls wistfully look towards the door behind which their interesting
cousin has just vanished.

His uncle will go downstairs with him. He calls “God bless you, my boy!”
 most affectionately: he presses Harry’s hand, and repeats his valuable
benediction at the door. As it closes, the light from the hall within
having sufficiently illuminated Mr. Warrington’s face and figure, two
gentlemen, who have been standing on the opposite side of the way,
advance rapidly, and one of them takes a strip of paper out of his
pocket, and putting his hand upon Mr. Warrington’s shoulder, declares
him his prisoner. A hackney-coach is in attendance, and poor Harry goes
to sleep in Chancery Lane.

Oh, to think that a Virginian prince’s back should be slapped by a
ragged bailiffs follower!--that Madam Esmond’s son should be in a
spunging-house in Cursitor Street! I do not envy our young prodigal his
rest on that dismal night. Let us hit him now he is down, my beloved
young friends. Let us imagine the stings of remorse keeping him wakeful
on his dingy pillow; the horrid jollifications of other hardened inmates
of the place ringing in his ears from the room hard by, where they sit
boozing; the rage and shame and discomfiture. No pity on him, I say,
my honest young gentlemen, for you, of course, have never indulged in
extravagance or folly, or paid the reckoning of remorse.



CHAPTER XLVI. Chains and Slavery


Remorse for past misdeeds and follies Harry sincerely felt, when he
found himself a prisoner in that dismal lock-up house, and wrath and
annoyance at the idea of being subjected to the indignity of arrest; but
the present unpleasantry he felt sure could only be momentary. He had
twenty friends who would release him from his confinement: to which of
them should he apply, was the question. Mr. Draper, the man of business,
who had been so obsequious to him: his kind uncle the Baronet, who had
offered to make his house Harry’s home, who loved him as a son: his
cousin Castlewood, who had won such large sums from him: his noble
friends at the Chocolate-House, his good Aunt Bernstein--any one of
these Harry felt sure would give him a help in his trouble, though some
of the relatives, perhaps, might administer to him a little scolding for
his imprudence. The main point was, that the matter should be transacted
quietly, for Mr. Warrington was anxious that as few as possible of the
public should know how a gentleman of his prodigious importance had been
subject to such a vulgar process as an arrest. As if the public does
not end by knowing everything it cares to know. As if the dinner I shall
have to-day, and the hole in the stocking which I wear at this present
writing, can be kept a secret from some enemy or other who has a mind
to pry it out--though my boots are on, and my door was locked when I
dressed myself! I mention that hole in the stocking for sake of example
merely. The world can pry out everything about us which it has a mind to
know. But then there is this consolation, which men will never accept
in their own cases, that the world doesn’t care. Consider the amount of
scandal it has been forced to hear in its time, and how weary and blase
it must be of that kind of intelligence. You are taken to prison,
and fancy yourself indelibly disgraced? You are bankrupt under odd
circumstances? You drive a queer bargain with your friends and are found
out, and imagine the world will punish you? Psha! Your shame is only
vanity. Go and talk to the world as if nothing had happened, and nothing
has happened. Tumble down; brush the mud off your clothes; appear with
a smiling countenance, and nobody cares. Do you suppose Society is going
to take out its pocket-handkerchief and be inconsolable when you die?
Why should it care very much, then, whether your worship graces yourself
or disgraces yourself? Whatever happens it talks, meets, jokes, yawns,
has its dinner, pretty much as before. Therefore don’t be so conceited
about yourself as to fancy your private affairs of so much importance,
mi fili. Whereas Mr. Harry Warrington chafed and fumed as though all the
world was tingling with the touch of that hand which had been laid on
his sublime shoulder.

“A pretty sensation my arrest must have created at the club!” thought
Harry. “I suppose that Mr. Selwyn will be cutting all sorts of jokes
about my misfortune, plague take him! Everybody round the table will
have heard of it. March will tremble about the bet I have with him;
and, faith, ‘twill be difficult to pay him when I lose. They will all
be setting up a whoop of congratulation at the Savage, as they call me,
being taken prisoner. How shall I ever be able to appear in the world
again? Whom shall I ask to come to my help? No,” thought he, with his
mingled acuteness and simplicity, “I will not send in the first instance
to any of my relations or my noble friends at White’s. I will have
Sampson’s counsel. He has often been in a similar predicament, and
will know how to advise me.” Accordingly, as soon as the light of dawn
appeared, after an almost intolerable delay--for it seemed to Harry as
if the sun had forgotten to visit Cursitor Street in his rounds that
morning--and as soon as the inmates of the house of bondage were
stirring, Mr. Warrington despatched a messenger to his friend in Long
Acre, acquainting the chaplain with the calamity just befallen him,
and beseeching his reverence to give him the benefit of his advice and
consolation.

Mr. Warrington did not know, to be sure, that to send such a message to
the parson was as if he said, “I am fallen amongst the lions. Come
down, my dear friend, into the pit with me.” Harry very likely thought
Sampson’s difficulties were over; or, more likely still, was so much
engrossed with his own affairs and perplexities, as to bestow little
thought upon his neighbour’s. Having sent off his missive, the captive’s
mind was somewhat more at ease, and he condescended to call for
breakfast, which was brought to him presently. The attendant who served
him with his morning repast asked him whether he would order dinner, or
take his meal at Mrs. Bailiff’s table with some other gentlemen? No.
Mr. Warrington would not order dinner. He should quit the place before
dinner-time, he informed the chamberlain who waited on him in that grim
tavern. The man went away, thinking no doubt that this was not the first
young gentleman who had announced that he was going away ere two hours
were over. “Well, if your honour does stay, there is good beef and
carrot at two o’clock,” says the sceptic, and closes the door on Mr.
Harry and his solitary meditations.

Harry’s messenger to Mr. Sampson brought back a message from that
gentleman to say that he would be with his patron as soon as might be:
but ten o’clock came, eleven o’clock, noon, and no Sampson. No Sampson
arrived, but about twelve Gumbo with a portmanteau of his master’s
clothes, who flung himself, roaring with grief, at Harry’s feet: and
with a thousand vows of fidelity, expressed himself ready to die, to
sell himself into slavery over again, to do anything to rescue his
beloved Master Harry from this calamitous position. Harry was touched
with the lad’s expressions of affection, and told him to get up from
the ground where he was grovelling on his knees, embracing his master’s.
“All you have to do, sir, is to give me my clothes to dress, and to hold
your tongue about this business. Mind you, not a word, sir, about it to
anybody!” says Mr. Warrington, severely.

“Oh no, sir, never to nobody!” says Gumbo, looking most solemnly, and
proceeded to dress his master carefully, who had need of a change and a
toilette after his yesterday’s sudden capture, and night’s dismal rest.
Accordingly Gumbo flung a dash of powder in Harry’s hair, and arrayed
his master carefully and elegantly, so that he made Mr. Warrington look
as fine and splendid as if he had been stepping into his chair to go to
St. James’s.

Indeed all that love and servility could do Mr. Gumbo faithfully did for
his master, for whom he had an extreme regard and attachment. But there
were certain things beyond Gumbo’s power. He could not undo things which
were done already; and he could not help lying and excusing himself when
pressed upon points disagreeable to himself. The language of slaves is
lies (I mean black slaves and white). The creature slinks away and hides
with subterfuges, as a hunted animal runs to his covert at the sight
of man, the tyrant and pursuer. Strange relics of feudality, and
consequence of our ever-so-old social life! Our domestics (are they not
men, too, and brethren?) are all hypocrites before us. They never speak
naturally to us, or the whole truth. We should be indignant: we should
say, confound their impudence: we should turn them out of doors if they
did. But quo me rapis, O my unbridled hobby?

Well, the truth is, that as for swearing not to say a word about his
master’s arrest--such an oath as that was impossible to keep for, with
a heart full of grief, indeed, but with a tongue that never could cease
wagging, bragging, joking, and lying, Mr. Gumbo had announced the
woeful circumstance to a prodigious number of his acquaintances already,
chiefly gentlemen of the shoulder-knot and worsted lace. We have
seen how he carried the news to Colonel Lambert’s and Lord Wrotham’s
servants: he had proclaimed it at the footman’s club to which he
belonged, and which was frequented by the gentlemen of some of the first
nobility. He had subsequently condescended to partake of a mug of ale
in Sir Miles Warrington’s butler’s room, and there had repeated and
embellished the story. Then he had gone off to Madame Bernstein’s
people, with some of whom he was on terms of affectionate intercourse,
and had informed that domestic circle of his grief and, his master being
captured, and there being no earthly call for his personal services that
evening, Gumbo had stepped up to Lord Castlewood’s, and informed the
gentry there of the incident which had just come to pass. So when,
laying his hand on his heart, and with gushing floods of tears, Gumbo
says, in reply to his master’s injunction, “Oh no, master! nebber to
nobody!” we are in a condition to judge of the degree of credibility
which ought to be given to the lad’s statement.

The black had long completed his master’s toilet: the dreary breakfast
was over: slow as the hours went to the prisoner, still they were
passing one after another, but no Sampson came in accordance with the
promise sent in the morning. At length, some time after noon, there
arrived, not Sampson, but a billet from him, sealed with a moist wafer,
and with the ink almost yet wet. The unlucky divine’s letter ran as
follows:


“Oh, sir, dear sir, I have done all that a man can at the command and
in the behalf of his patron! You did not know, sir, to what you were
subjecting me, did you? Else, if I was to go to prison, why did I not
share yours, and why am I in a lock-up house three doors off?

“Yes. Such is the fact. As I was hastening to you, knowing full well the
danger to which I was subject:--but what danger will I not affront at
the call of such a benefactor as Mr. Warrington hath been to me?--I was
seized by two villains who had a writ against me, and who have lodged me
at Naboth’s, hard by, and so close to your honour, that we could almost
hear each other across the garden walls of the respective houses where
we are confined.

“I had much and of importance to say, which I do not care to write down
on paper regarding your affairs. May they mend! May my cursed fortunes,
too, better themselves, is the prayer of--

“Your honour’s afflicted Chaplain-in-Ordinary, J. S.”


And now, as Mr. Sampson refuses to speak, it will be our duty to
acquaint the reader with those matters whereof the poor chaplain did not
care to discourse on paper.

Gumbo’s loquacity had not reached so far as Long Acre, and Mr. Sampson
was ignorant of the extent of his patron’s calamity until he received
Harry’s letter and messenger from Chancery Lane. The divine was still
ardent with gratitude for the service Mr. Warrington had just conferred
on him, and eager to find some means to succour his distressed patron.
He knew what a large sum Lord Castlewood had won from his cousin, had
dined in company with his lordship on the day before, and now ran to
Lord Castlewood’s house, with a hope of arousing him to some pity for
Mr. Warrington. Sampson made a very eloquent and touching speech to
Lord Castlewood about his kinsman’s misfortune, and spoke with a real
kindness and sympathy, which, however, failed to touch the nobleman to
whom he addressed himself.

My lord peevishly and curtly put a stop to the chaplain’s passionate
pleading. “Did I not tell you, two days since, when you came for money,
that I was as poor as a beggar, Sampson,” said his lordship, “and has
anybody left me a fortune since? The little sum I won from my cousin was
swallowed up by others. I not only can’t help Mr. Warrington, but, as I
pledge you my word, not being in the least aware of his calamity, I had
positively written to him this morning to ask him to help me.” And
a letter to this effect did actually reach Mr. Warrington from his
lodgings, whither it had been despatched by the penny post.

“I must get him money, my lord. I know he had scarcely anything left in
his pocket after relieving me. Were I to pawn my cassock and bands, he
must have money,” cried the chaplain.

“Amen. Go and pawn your bands, your cassock, anything you please. Your
enthusiasm does you credit,” said my lord; and resumed the reading of
his paper, whilst, in the deepest despondency, poor Sampson left him.

My Lady Maria meanwhile had heard that the chaplain was with her
brother, and conjectured what might be the subject on which they had
been talking. She seized upon the parson as he issued from out his
fruitless interview with my lord. She drew him into the dining-room: the
strongest marks of grief and sympathy were in her countenance. “Tell me,
what is this has happened to Mr. Warrington?” she asked.

“Your ladyship, then, knows?” asked the chaplain.

“Have I not been in mortal anxiety ever since his servant brought the
dreadful news last night?” asked my lady. “We had it as we came from the
opera--from my Lady Yarmouth’s box--my lord, my Lady Castlewood, and I.”

“His lordship, then, did know?” continued Sampson.

“Benson told the news when we came from the playhouse to our tea,”
 repeats Lady Maria.

The chaplain lost all patience and temper at such duplicity. “This
is too bad,” he said, with an oath; and he told Lady Maria of the
conversation which he had just had with Lord Castlewood, and of the
latter’s refusal to succour his cousin, after winning great sums of
money from him, and with much eloquence and feeling, of Mr. Warrington’s
most generous behaviour to himself.

Then my Lady Maria broke out with a series of remarks regarding her own
family, which were by no means complimentary to her own kith and kin.
Although not accustomed to tell truth commonly, yet, when certain
families fall out, it is wonderful what a number of truths they will
tell about one another. With tears, imprecations, I do not like to
think how much stronger language, Lady Maria burst into a furious and
impassioned tirade, in which she touched upon the history of almost all
her noble family. She complimented the men and the ladies alike; she
shrieked out interrogatories to Heaven, inquiring why it had made such
(never mind what names she called her brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
parents); and, emboldened with wrath, she dashed at her brother’s
library door, so shrill in her outcries, so furious in her demeanour,
that the alarmed chaplain, fearing the scene which might ensue, made for
the street.

My lord, looking up from the book or other occupation which engaged
him, regarded the furious woman with some surprise, and selected a good
strong oath to fling at her, as it were, and check her onset.

But, when roused, we have seen how courageous Maria could be. Afraid
as she was ordinarily of her brother, she was not in a mood to be
frightened now by any language of abuse or sarcasm at his command.

“So, my lord!” she called out, “you sit down with him in private to
cards, and pigeon him! You get the poor boy’s last shilling, and you
won’t give him a guinea out of his own winnings now he is penniless!”

“So that infernal chaplain has been telling tales!” says my lord.

“Dismiss him: do! Pay him his wages, and let him go,--he will be glad
enough!” cries Maria.

“I keep him to marry one of my sisters, in case he is wanted,” says
Castlewood, glaring at her.

“What can the women be in a family where there are such men?” says the
lady.

“Effectivement!” says my lord, with a shrug of his shoulder.

“What can we be, when our fathers and brothers are what they are? We are
bad enough, but what are you? I say, you neither have courage--no, nor
honour, nor common feeling. As your equals won’t play with you, my
Lord Castlewood, you must take this poor lad out of Virginia, your own
kinsman, and pigeon him! Oh, it’s a shame--a shame!”

“We are all playing our own game, I suppose. Haven’t you played and won
one, Maria? Is it you that are squeamish of a sudden about the poor
lad from Virginia? Has Mr. Harry cried off, or has your ladyship got
a better offer?” cried my Lord. “If you won’t have him, one of the
Warrington girls will, I promise you; and the old Methodist woman in
Hill Street will give him the choice of either. Are you a fool, Maria
Esmond? A greater fool, I mean, than in common?”

“I should be a fool if I thought that either of my brothers could act
like an honest man, Eugene!” said Maria. “I am a fool to expect that you
will be other than you are; that if you find any relative in distress
you will help him; that if you can meet with a victim you won’t fleece
him.”

“Fleece him! Psha! What folly are you talking! Have you not seen, from
the course which the lad has been running for months past, how he would
end? If I had not won his money, some other would? I never grudged thee
thy little plans regarding him. Why shouldst thou fly in a passion,
because I have just put out my hand to take what he was offering to all
the world? I reason with you, I don’t know why, Maria. You should be old
enough to understand reason, at any rate. You think this money belonged
of right to Lady Maria Warrington and her children? I tell you that in
three months more every shilling would have found its way to White’s
macco-table, and that it is much better spent in paying my debts. So
much for your ladyship’s anger, and tears, and menaces, and naughty
language. See! I am a good brother, and repay them with reason and kind
words.”

“My good brother might have given a little more than kind words to the
lad from whom he has just taken hundreds,” interposed the sister of this
affectionate brother.

“Great heavens, Maria! Don’t you see that even out of this affair,
unpleasant as it seems, a clever woman may make her advantage,” cries my
lord. Maria said she failed to comprehend.

“As thus. I name no names; I meddle in no person’s business, having
quite enough to do to manage my own cursed affairs. But suppose I happen
to know of a case in another family which may be applicable to ours. It
is this. A green young lad of tolerable expectations, comes up from the
country to his friends in town--never mind from what country: never
mind to what town. An elderly female relative, who has been dragging her
spinsterhood about these--how many years shall we say?--extort a promise
of marriage from my young gentleman, never mind on what conditions.”

“My lord, do you want to insult your sister as well as to injure your
cousin?” asks Maria.

“My good child, did I say a single word about fleecing or cheating, or
pigeoning, or did I fly into a passion when you insulted me? I know the
allowance that must be made for your temper, and the natural folly of
your sex. I say I treated you with soft words--I go on with my story.
The elderly relative extracts a promise of marriage from the young lad,
which my gentleman is quite unwilling to keep. No, he won’t keep it.
He is utterly tired of his elderly relative: he will plead his mother’s
refusal: he will do anything to get out of his promise.”

“Yes; if he was one of us Esmonds, my Lord Castlewood. But this is a
man of honour we are speaking of,” cried Maria, who, I suppose, admired
truth in others, however little she saw it in her own family.

“I do not contradict either of my dear sister’s remarks. One of us
would fling the promise to the winds, especially as it does not exist in
writing.”

“My lord!” gasps out Maria.

“Bah! I know all. That little coup of Tunbridge was played by the Aunt
Bernstein with excellent skill. The old woman is the best man of our
family. While you were arrested, your boxes were searched for the
Mohock’s letters to you. When you were let loose, the letters had
disappeared, and you said nothing, like a wise woman, as you are
sometimes. You still hanker after your Cherokee. Soit. A woman of your
mature experience knows the value of a husband. What is this little loss
of two or three hundred pounds?”

“Not more than three hundred, my lord?” interposes Maria.

“Eh! never mind a hundred or two, more or less. What is this loss at
cards? A mere bagatelle! You are playing for a principality. You want
your kingdom in Virginia; and if you listen to my opinion, the little
misfortune which has happened to your swain is a piece of great
good-fortune to you.”

“I don’t understand you, my lord.”

“C’est possible; but sit down, and I will explain what I mean in a
manner suited to your capacity.” And so Maria Esmond, who had advanced
to her brother like a raging lion, now sate down at his feet like a
gentle lamb.


Madame de Bernstein was not a little moved at the news of her nephew’s
arrest, which Mr. Gumbo brought to Clarges Street on the night of the
calamity. She would have cross-examined the black, and had further
particulars respecting Harry’s mishap; but Mr. Gumbo, anxious to carry
his intelligence to other quarters, had vanished when her ladyship sent
for him. Her temper was not improved by the news, or by the sleepless
night which she spent. I do not envy the dame de compagnie who played
cards with her, or the servant who had to lie in her chamber. An arrest
was an everyday occurrence, as she knew very well as a woman of the
world. Into what difficulties had her scapegrace of a nephew fallen? How
much money should she be called upon to pay to release him? And had
he run through all his own? Provided he had not committed himself
very deeply, she was quite disposed to aid him. She liked even his
extravagances and follies. He was the only being in the world on whom,
for long, long years, that weary woman had been able to bestow a little
natural affection. So, on their different beds, she and Harry were lying
wakeful together; and quite early in the morning the messengers which
each sent forth on the same business may have crossed each other.

Madame Bernstein’s messenger was despatched to the chambers of her man
of business, Mr. Draper, with an order that Mr. D. should ascertain for
what sums Mr. Warrington had been arrested, and forthwith repair to the
Baroness. Draper’s emissaries speedily found out that Mr. Warrington was
locked up close beside them, and the amount of detainers against him
so far. Were there other creditors, as no doubt there were, they
would certainly close upon him when they were made acquainted with his
imprisonment.

To Mr. Sparks, the jeweller, for those unlucky presents, so much; to the
landlord in Bond Street, for board, fire, lodging, so much: these were
at present the only claims against Mr. Warrington, Mr. Draper found. He
was ready, at a signal from her ladyship, to settle them at a moment.
The jeweller’s account ought especially to be paid, for Mr. Harry had
acted most imprudently in taking goods from Mr. Sparks on credit, and
pledging them with a pawnbroker. He must have been under some immediate
pressure for money; intended to redeem the goods immediately, meant
nothing but what was honourable of course; but the affair would have an
ugly look, if made public, and had better be settled out of hand. “There
cannot be the least difficulty regarding a thousand pounds more or less,
for a gentleman of Mr. Warrington’s rank and expectations,” said Madame
de Bernstein. Not the least: her ladyship knew very well that there
were funds belonging to Mr. Warrington, on which money could be at once
raised with her ladyship’s guarantee.

Should he go that instant and settle the matter with Messrs. Amos? Mr.
Harry might be back to dine with her at two, and to confound the people
at the clubs, “who are no doubt rejoicing over his misfortunes,” said
the compassionate Mr. Draper.

But the Baroness had other views. “I think, my good Mr. Draper,” she
said, “that my young gentleman has sown wild oats enough; and when he
comes out of prison I should like him to come out clear, and without any
liabilities at all. You are not aware of all his.”

“No gentleman ever does tell all his debts, madam,” says Mr. Draper; “no
one I ever had to deal with.”

“There is one which the silly boy has contracted, and from which he
ought to be released, Mr. Draper. You remember a little circumstance
which occurred at Tunbridge Wells in the autumn? About which I sent up
my man Case to you?”

“When your ladyship pleases to recall it, I remember it--not otherwise,”
 says Mr. Draper, with a bow. “A lawyer should be like a Popish
confessor,--what is told him is a secret for ever, and for everybody.”
 So we must not whisper Madame Bernstein’s secret to Mr. Draper; but the
reader may perhaps guess it from the lawyer’s conduct subsequently.

The lawyer felt pretty certain that ere long he would receive a summons
from the poor young prisoner in Cursitor Street, and waited for that
invitation before he visited Mr. Warrington. Six-and-thirty hours passed
ere the invitation came, during which period Harry passed the dreariest
two days which he ever remembered to have spent.

There was no want of company in the lock-up house, the bailiff’s rooms
were nearly always full; but Harry preferred the dingy solitude of his
own room to the society round his landlady’s table, and it was only
on the second day of his arrest, and when his purse was emptied by the
heavy charges of the place, that he made up his mind to apply to
Mr. Draper. He despatched a letter then to the lawyer at the Temple,
informing him of his plight, and desiring him, in an emphatic
postscript, not to say one word about the matter to his aunt, Madame de
Bernstein.

He had made up his mind not to apply to the old lady except at the
very last extremity. She had treated him with so much kindness that he
revolted from the notion of trespassing on her bounty, and for a while
tried to please himself with the idea that he might get out of durance
without her even knowing that any misfortune at all had befallen him.
There seemed to him something humiliating in petitioning a woman for
money. No! He would apply first to his male friends, all of whom might
help him if they would. It had been his intention to send Sampson to one
or other of them as a negotiator, had not the poor fellow been captured
on his way to succour his friend.

Sampson gone, Harry was obliged to have recourse to his own negro
servant, who was kept on the trot all day between Temple Bar and the
Court end of the town with letters from his unlucky master. Firstly,
then, Harry sent off a most private and confidential letter to his
kinsman, the Right Honourable the Earl of Castlewood, saying how he had
been cast into prison, and begging Castlewood to lend him the amount
of the debt. “Please to keep my application, and the cause of it, a
profound secret from the dear ladies,” wrote poor Harry.

“Was ever anything so unfortunate?” wrote back Lord Castlewood, in
reply. “I suppose you have not got my note of yesterday? It must be
lying at your lodgings, where--I hope in heaven!--you will soon be, too.
My dear Mr. Warrington, thinking you were as rich as Croesus--otherwise
I never should have sate down to cards with you--I wrote to you
yesterday, begging you to lend me some money to appease some hungry duns
whom I don’t know how else to pacify. My poor fellow! every shilling
of your money went to them, and but for my peer’s privilege I might be
hob-and-nob with you now in your dungeon. May you soon escape from it,
is the prayer of your sincere CASTLEWOOD.”

This was the result of application number one: and we may imagine that
Mr. Harry read the reply to his petition with rather a blank face. Never
mind! There was kind, jolly Uncle Warrington. Only last night his aunt
had kissed him and loved him like a son. His uncle had called down
blessings on his head, and professed quite a paternal regard for him.
With a feeling of shyness and modesty in presence of those virtuous
parents and family. Harry had never said a word about his wild doings,
or his horse-racings, or his gamblings, or his extravagances. It must
all out now. He must confess himself a Prodigal and a Sinner, and ask
for their forgiveness and aid. So Prodigal sate down and composed a
penitent letter to Uncle Warrington, and exposed his sad case, and
besought him to come to the rescue. Was not that a bitter nut to crack
for our haughty young Virginian? Hours of mortification and profound
thought as to the pathos of the composition did Harry pass over that
letter; sheet after sheet of Mr. Amos’s sixpence-a-sheet letter-paper
did he tear up before the missive was complete, with which poor
blubbering Gumbo (much vilified by the bailiff’s followers and
parasites, whom he was robbing, as they conceived, of their perquisites)
went his way.

At evening the faithful negro brought back a thick letter in his aunt’s
handwriting. Harry opened the letter with a trembling hand. He thought
it was full of bank-notes. Ah me! it contained a sermon (Daniel in the
Lions’ Den) by Mr. Whitfield, and a letter from Lady Warrington saying
that, in Sir Miles’s absence from London, she was in the habit of
opening his letters, and hence, perforce, was become acquainted with a
fact which she deplored from her inmost soul to learn, namely, that her
nephew Warrington had been extravagant and was in debt. Of course, in
the absence of Sir Miles, she could not hope to have at command such
a sum as that for which Mr. Warrington wrote, but she sent him her
heartfelt prayers, her deepest commiseration, and a discourse by dear
Mr. Whitfield, which would comfort him in his present (alas! she feared
not undeserved) calamity. She added profuse references to particular
Scriptural chapters which would do him good. If she might speak of
things worldly, she said, at such a moment, she would hint to Mr.
Warrington that his epistolary orthography was anything but correct. She
would not fail for her part to comply with his express desire that his
dear cousins should know nothing of this most painful circumstance,
and with every wish for his welfare here and elsewhere, she subscribed
herself his loving aunt, MARGARET WARRINGTON.

Poor Harry hid his face between his hands, and sate for a while with
elbows on the greasy table blankly staring into the candle before him.
The bailiff’s servant, who was touched by his handsome face, suggested a
mug of beer for his honour, but Harry could not drink, nor eat the meat
that was placed before him. Gumbo, however, could, whose grief did not
deprive him of appetite, and who, blubbering the while, finished all
the beer, and all the bread and the meat. Meanwhile, Harry had finished
another letter, with which Gumbo was commissioned to start again, and
away the faithful creature ran upon his errand.

Gumbo ran as far as White’s Club, to which house he was ordered in the
first instance to carry the letter, and where he found the person
to whom it was addressed. Even the prisoner, for whom time passed so
slowly, was surprised at the celerity with which his negro had performed
his errand.

At least the letter which Harry expected had not taken long to write.
“My lord wrote it at the hall-porter’s desk, while I stood there then
with Mr Mr. Morris,” said Gumbo, and the letter was to this effect:--


“DEAR SIR--I am sorry I cannot comply with your wish, I’m short of
money at present, having paid large sums to you as well as to other
gentlemen.--Yours obediently, MARCH AND R.

“Henry Warrington, Esq.”


“Did Lord March say anything?” asked Mr. Warrington looking very pale.

“He say it was the coolest thing he ever knew. So did Mr. Morris. He
showed him your letter, Master Harry. Yes, Mr. Morris say, ‘Dam his
imperence!’” added Gumbo.

Harry burst into such a yell of laughter that his landlord thought he
had good news, and ran in in alarm lest he was about to lose his tenant.
But by this time poor Harry’s laughter was over, and he was flung down
in his chair gazing dismally in the fire.

“I--I should like to smoke a pipe of Virginia” he groaned.

Gumbo burst into tears: he flung himself at Harry’s knees. He kissed his
knees and his hands. “Oh, master, my dear master, what will they say at
home?” he sobbed out.

The jailor was touched at the sight of the black’s grief and fidelity,
and at Harry’s pale face as he sank back in his chair quite overcome and
beaten by his calamity.

“Your honour ain’t eat anything these two days,” the man said, in a
voice of rough pity. “Pluck up a little, sir. You aren’t the first
gentleman who has been in and out of grief before this. Let me go down
and get you a glass of punch and a little supper.”

“My good friend,” said Harry, a sickly smile playing over his white
face, “you pay ready money for everything in this house, don’t you? I
must tell you that I haven’t a shilling left to buy a dish of meat. All
the money I have I want for letter-paper.”

“Oh, master, my master!” roared out Gumbo. “Look here, my dear Master
Harry! Here’s plenty of money--here’s twenty-three five-guineas. Here’s
gold moidore from Virginia--here--no, not that--that’s keepsakes the
girls gave me. Take everything--everything. I go sell myself to-morrow
morning; but here’s plenty for to-night, master!”

“God bless you, Gumbo!” Harry said, laying his hand on the lad’s woolly
head. “You are free if I am not, and Heaven forbid I should not take the
offered help of such a friend as you. Bring me some supper: but the pipe
too, mind--the pipe too!” And Harry ate his supper with a relish: and
even the turnkeys and bailiff’s followers, when Gumbo went out of the
house that night, shook hands with him, and ever after treated him well.



CHAPTER XLVII. Visitors in Trouble


Mr. Gumbo’s generous and feeling conduct soothed and softened the angry
heart of his master, and Harry’s second night in the spunging-house was
passed more pleasantly than the first. Somebody at least there was to
help and compassionate with him. Still, though softened in that one
particular spot, Harry’s heart was hard and proud towards almost all
the rest of the world. They were selfish and ungenerous, he thought.
His pious Aunt Warrington, his lordly friend March, his cynical cousin
Castlewood,--all had been tried, and were found wanting. Not to avoid
twenty years of prison would he stoop to ask a favour of one of them
again. Fool that he had been, to believe in their promises, and confide
in their friendship! There was no friendship in this cursed, cold,
selfish country. He would leave it. He would trust no Englishman, great
or small. He would go to Germany, and make a campaign with the king; or
he would go home to Virginia, bury himself in the woods there, and
hunt all day; become his mother’s factor and land-steward; marry Polly
Broadbent, or Fanny Mountain; turn regular tobacco-grower and farmer; do
anything, rather than remain amongst these English fine gentlemen. So he
arose with an outwardly cheerful countenance, but an angry spirit; and
at an early hour in the morning the faithful Gumbo was in attendance
in his master’s chamber, having come from Bond Street, and brought Mr.
Harry’s letters thence. “I wanted to bring some more clothes,” honest
Gumbo said; “but Mr. Ruff, the landlord, he wouldn’t let me bring no
more.”

Harry did not care to look at the letters: he opened one, two, three;
they were all bills. He opened a fourth; it was from the landlord, to
say that he would allow no more of Mr. Warrington’s things to go out of
the house,--that unless his bill was paid he should sell Mr. W.’s goods
and pay himself: and that his black man must go and sleep elsewhere. He
would hardly let Gumbo take his own clothes and portmanteau away. The
black said he had found refuge elsewhere--with some friends at Lord
Wrotham’s house. “With Colonel Lambert’s people,” says Mr. Gumbo,
looking very hard at his master. “And Miss Hetty she fall down in a
faint, when she hear you taken up; and Mr. Lambert, he very good man,
and he say to me this morning, he say, ‘Gumbo, you tell your master if
he want me he send to me, and I come to him.’”

Harry was touched when he heard that Hetty had been afflicted by his
misfortune. He did not believe Gumbo’s story about her fainting; he
was accustomed to translate his black’s language and to allow for
exaggeration. But when Gumbo spoke of the Colonel the young Virginian’s
spirit was darkened again. “I send to Lambert” he thought, grinding his
teeth, “the man who insulted me, and flung my presents back in my face!
If I were starving I would not ask him for a crust!” And presently,
being dressed, Mr. Warrington called for his breakfast, and despatched
Gumbo with a brief note to Mr. Draper in the Temple, requiring that
gentleman’s attendance.

“The note was as haughty as if he was writing to one of his negroes, and
not to a freeborn English gentleman,” Draper said; whom indeed Harry had
always treated with insufferable condescension. “It’s all very well
for a fine gentleman to give himself airs; but for a fellow in a
spunging-house! Hang him!” says Draper, “I’ve a great mind not to
go!” Nevertheless, Mr. Draper did go, and found Mr. Warrington in his
misfortune even more arrogant than he had ever been in the days of his
utmost prosperity. Mr. W. sat on his bed, like a lord, in a splendid
gown with his hair dressed. He motioned his black man to fetch him a
chair.

“Excuse me, madam, but such haughtiness and airs I ain’t accustomed to!”
 said the outraged attorney.

“Take a chair and go on with your story, my good Mr. Draper!” said
Madame de Bernstein, smiling, to whom he went to report proceedings.
She was amused at the lawyer’s anger. She liked her nephew for being
insolent in adversity.

The course which Draper was to pursue in his interview with Harry
had been arranged between the Baroness and her man of business on the
previous day. Draper was an able man, and likely in most cases to do a
client good service: he failed in the present instance because he was
piqued and angry, or, more likely still, because he could not understand
the gentleman with whom he had to deal. I presume that he who casts his
eye on the present page is the most gentle of readers. Gentleman, as
you unquestionably are, then, my dear sir, have you not remarked in
your dealings with people who are no gentlemen, that you offend them not
knowing the how or the why? So the man who is no gentleman offends you
in a thousand ways of which the poor creature has no idea himself. He
does or says something which provokes your scorn. He perceives that
scorn (being always on the watch, and uneasy about himself, his manners
and behaviour) and he rages. You speak to him naturally, and he fancies
still that you are sneering at him. You have indifference towards
him, but he hates you, and hates you the worse because you don’t
care. “Gumbo, a chair to Mr. Draper!” says Mr. Warrington, folding his
brocaded dressing-gown round his legs as he sits on the dingy bed. “Sit
down, if you please, and let us talk my business over. Much obliged to
you for coming so soon in reply to my message. Had you heard of this
piece of ill-luck before?”

Mr. Draper had heard of the circumstance. “Bad news travel quick, Mr.
Warrington,” he said; “and I was eager to offer my humble services as
soon as ever you should require them. Your friends, your family, will be
much pained that a gentleman of your rank should be in such a position.”

“I have been very imprudent, Mr. Draper. I have lived beyond my means.”
 (Mr. Draper bowed.) “I played in company with gentlemen who were much
richer than myself, and a cursed run of ill-luck has carried away all my
ready money, leaving me with liabilities to the amount of five hundred
pounds, and more.”

“Five hundred now in the office,” says Mr. Draper.

“Well, this is such a trifle that I thought by sending to one or two
friends, yesterday, I could have paid my debt and gone home without
further to do. I have been mistaken; and will thank you to have the
kindness to put me in the way of raising the money as soon as may be.”

Mr. Draper said “Hm!” and pulled a very grave and long face.

“Why, sir, it can be done!” says Mr. Warrington, staring at the lawyer.

It not only could be done, but Mr. Draper had proposed to Madame
Bernstein on the day before instantly to pay the money, and release
Mr. Warrington. That lady had declared she intended to make the young
gentleman her heir. In common with the rest of the world, Draper
believed Harry’s hereditary property in Virginia to be as great in
money-value as in extent. He had notes in his pocket, and Madame
Bernstein’s order to pay them under certain conditions: nevertheless,
when Harry said, “It can be done!” Draper pulled his long face, and
said, “It can be done in time, sir; but it will require a considerable
time. To touch the property in England which is yours on Mr. George
Warrington’s death, we must have the event proved, the trustees
released: and who is to do either? Lady Esmond Warrington in Virginia,
of course, will not allow her son to remain in prison, but we must wait
six months before we hear from her. Has your Bristol agent any authority
to honour your drafts?”

“He is only authorised to pay me two hundred pounds a year,” says Mr.
Warrington. “I suppose I have no resource, then, but to apply to my
aunt, Madame de Bernstein. She will be my security.”

“Her ladyship will do anything for you, sir; she has said so to me,
often and often,” said the lawyer; “and, if she gives the word at that
moment you can walk out of this place.”

“Go to her, then, from me, Mr. Draper. I did not want to have troubled
my relations: but rather than continue in this horrible needless
imprisonment, I must speak to her. Say where I am, and what has befallen
me. Disguise nothing! And tell her, that I confide in her affection
and kindness for me to release me from this--this disgrace,” and Mr.
Warrington’s voice shook a little, and he passed his hand across his
eyes.

“Sir,” says Mr. Draper, eyeing the young man, “I was with her ladyship
yesterday, when we talked over the whole of this here most unpleasant--I
won’t say as you do, disgraceful business.”

“What do you mean, sir? Does Madame de Bernstein know of my misfortune?”
 asked Harry.

“Every circumstance, sir; the pawning the watches, and all.”

Harry turned burning red. “It is an unfortunate business, the pawning
them watches and things which you had never paid for,” continued the
lawyer. The young man started up from the bed, looking so fierce that
Draper felt a little alarmed.

“It may lead to litigation and unpleasant remarks being made, in court,
sir. Them barristers respect nothing; and when they get a feller in the
box----”

“Great Heaven, sir, you don’t suppose a gentleman of my rank can’t take
a watch upon credit without intending to cheat the tradesman?” cried
Harry, in the greatest agitation.

“Of course you meant everything that’s honourable; only, you see, the
law mayn’t happen to think so,” says Mr. Draper, winking his eye. (“Hang
the supercilious beast; I touch him there!) Your aunt says it’s the most
imprudent thing ever she heard of--to call it by no worse name.”

“You call it by no worse name yourself, Mr. Draper?” says Harry,
speaking each word very slow, and evidently trying to keep a command of
himself.

Draper did not like his looks. “Heaven forbid that I should say anything
as between gentleman and gentleman,--but between me and my client, it’s
my duty to say, ‘Sir, you are in a very unpleasant scrape,’ just as a
doctor would have to tell his patient, ‘Sir, you are very ill.’”

“And you can’t help me to pay this debt off,--and you have come only to
tell me that I may be accused of roguery?” says Harry.

“Of obtaining goods under false pretences? Most undoubtedly, yes. I
can’t help it, sir. Don’t look as if you would knock me down. (Curse
him, I am making him wince, though.) A young gentleman, who has only two
hundred a year from his ma’, orders diamonds and watches, and takes ‘em
to a pawnbroker. You ask me what people will think of such behaviour,
and I tell you honestly. Don’t be angry with me, Mr. Warrington.”

“Go on, sir!” says Harry, with a groan.

The lawyer thought the day was his own. “But you ask if I can’t help
to pay this debt off? And I say Yes--and that here is the money in my
pocket to do it now, if you like--not mine, sir, my honoured client’s,
your aunt, Lady Bernstein. But she has a right to impose her conditions,
and I’ve brought ‘em with me.”

“Tell them, sir,” says Mr. Harry.

“They are not hard. They are only for your own good: and if you say Yes,
we can call a hackney-coach, and go to Clarges Street together, which
I have promised to go there, whether you will or no. Mr. Warrington, I
name no names, but there was a question of marriage between you and a
certain party.”

“Ah!” said Harry; and his countenance looked more cheerful than it had
yet done.

“To that marriage my noble client, the Baroness, is most averse--having
other views for you, and thinking it will be your ruin to marry a
party,--of noble birth and title it is true; but, excuse me, not of
first-rate character, and so much older than yourself. You had given an
imprudent promise to that party.”

“Yes; and she has it still,” says Mr. Warrington.

“It has been recovered. She dropped it by an accident at Tunbridge,”
 says Mr. Draper, “so my client informed me; indeed her ladyship showed
it me, for the matter of that. It was wrote in bl----”

“Never mind, sir!” cries Harry, turning almost as red as the ink which
he had used to write his absurd promise, of which the madness and folly
had smote him with shame a thousand times over.

“At the same time letters, wrote to you, and compromising a noble
family, were recovered,” continues the lawyer. “You had lost ‘em. It was
no fault of yours. You were away when they were found again. You may
say that that noble family, that you yourself, have a friend such as few
young men have. Well, sir, there’s no earthly promise to bind you--only
so many idle words said over a bottle, which very likely any gentleman
may forget. Say you won’t go on with this marriage--give me and my noble
friend your word of honour. Cry off, I say, Mr. W.! Don’t be such a
d----fool, saving your presence, as to marry an old woman who has jilted
scores of men in her time. Say the word, and I step downstairs, pay
every shilling against you in the office, and put you down in my coach,
either at your aunt’s or at White’s Club, if you like, with a couple of
hundred in your pocket. Say yes; and give us your hand! There’s no use
in sitting grinning behind these bars all day!”

So far Mr. Draper had had the best of the talk. Harry only longed
himself to be rid of the engagement from which his aunt wanted to free
him. His foolish flame for Maria Esmond had died out long since. If she
would release him, how thankful would he be! “Come! give us your hand,
and say done!” says the lawyer, with a knowing wink. “Don’t stand
shilly-shallying, sir. Law bless you, Mr. W., if I had married everybody
I promised, I should be like the Grand Turk, or Captain Macheath in the
play!”

The lawyer’s familiarity disgusted Harry, who shrank from Draper,
scarcely knowing that he did so. He folded his dressing gown round him,
and stepped back from the other’s proffered hand. “Give me a little time
to think of the matter, if you please, Mr. Draper,” he said, “and have
the goodness to come to me again in an hour.

“Very good, sir, very good, sir!” says the lawyer, biting his lips, and,
as he seized up his hat, turning very red. “Most parties would not want
an hour to consider about such an offer as I make you: but I suppose my
time must be yours, and I’ll come again, and see whether you are to
go or to stay. Good morning, sir, good morning:” and he went his way,
growling curses down the stairs. “Won’t take my hand, won’t he? Will
tell me in an hour’s time! Hang his impudence! I’ll show him what an
hour is!”

Mr. Draper went to his chambers in dudgeon then; bullied his clerks all
round, sent off a messenger to the Baroness, to say that he had
waited on the young gentleman, who had demanded a little time for
consideration, which was for form’s sake, as he had no doubt; the lawyer
then saw clients, transacted business, went out to his dinner in the
most leisurely manner; and then finally turned his steps towards the
neighbouring Cursitor Street. “He’ll be at home when I call, the haughty
beast!” says Draper, with a sneer. “The Fortunate Youth in his room?”
 the lawyer asked of the sheriff’s officer’s aide-de-camp who came to
open the double doors.

“Mr. Warrington is in his apartment,” said the gentleman, “but----” and
here the gentleman winked at Mr. Draper, and laid his hand on his nose.

“But what, Mr. Paddy from Cork?” said the lawyer.

“My name is Costigan; me familee is noble, and me neetive place is the
Irish methrawpolis, Mr. Six-and-eightpence!” said the janitor, scowling
at Draper. A rich odour of spirituous liquors filled the little space
between the double doors where he held the attorney in conversation.

“Confound you, sir, let me pass!” bawled out Mr. Draper.

“I can hear you perfectly well, Six-and-eightpence, except your h’s,
which you dthrop out of your conversation. I’ll thank ye not to call
neems, me good friend, or me fingers and your nose will have to make an
intimate hic-quaintance. Walk in, sir! Be polite for the future to your
shupariors in birth and manners, though they may be your infariors in
temporary station. Confound the kay! Walk in, sir, I say!--Madam, I have
the honour of saluting ye most respectfully!”

A lady with her face covered with a capuchin, and further hidden by her
handkerchief, uttered a little exclamation as of alarm as she came down
the stairs at this instant and hurried past the lawyer. He was pressing
forward to look at her--for Mr. Draper was very cavalier in his manners
to women--but the bailiff’s follower thrust his leg between Draper and
the retreating lady, crying, “Keep your own distance, if you plaise!
This way, madam! I at once recognised your ladysh----” Here he closed
the door on Draper’s nose, and left that attorney to find his own way to
his client upstairs.

At six o’clock that evening the old Baroness de Bernstein was pacing up
and down her drawing-crutch, and for ever running to the window when the
noise of a coach was heard passing in Clarges Street. She had delayed
her dinner from hour to hour: she who scolded so fiercely, on ordinary
occasions, if her cook was five minutes after his time. She had ordered
two covers to be laid, plate to be set out, and some extra dishes to be
prepared as if for a little fete. Four--five o’clock passed, and at six
she looked from the window, and a coach actually stopped at her door.

“Mr. Draper” was announced, and entered bowing profoundly.

The old lady trembled on her stick. “Where is the boy?” she said
quickly. “I told you to bring him, sir! How dare you come without him?”

“It is not my fault, madam, that Mr. Warrington refuses to come.” And
Draper gave his version of the interview which had just taken place
between himself and the young Virginian.



CHAPTER XLVIII. An Apparition


Going off in his wrath from his morning’s conversation with Harry,
Mr. Draper thought he heard the young prisoner speak behind him; and,
indeed, Harry had risen, and uttered a half-exclamation to call the
lawyer back. But he was proud, and the other offended: Harry checked
words, and Draper did not choose to stop. It wound Harry’s pride to be
obliged to humble himself before the lawyer, and to have to yield from
mere lack and desire of money. “An hour hence will do as well,” thought
Harry, and lapsed sulkily on to the bed again. No, he did not care
for Maria Esmond! No: he was ashamed of the way in which he had been
entrapped into that engagement. A wily and experienced woman, she had
cheated his boyish ardour. She had taken unfair advantage of him, as her
brother had at play. They were his own flesh and blood, and they ought
to have spared him. Instead, one and the other had made a prey of
him, and had used him for their selfish ends. He thought how they had
betrayed the rights of hospitality: how they had made a victim of the
young kinsman who came confiding within their gates. His heart was sore
wounded: his head sank back on his pillow: bitter tears wetted it.
“Had they come to Virginia,” he thought, “I had given them a different
welcome!”

He was roused from this mood of despondency by Gumbo’s grinning face at
his door, who said a lady was come to see Master Harry, and behind the
lad came the lady in the capuchin, of whom we have just made mention.
Harry sat up, pale and haggard, on his bed. The lady, with a sob, and
almost ere the servant-man withdrew, ran towards the young prisoner,
put her arms round his neck with real emotion and a maternal tenderness,
sobbed over his pale cheek and kissed it in the midst of plentiful
tears, and cried out--

“Oh, my Harry! Did I ever, ever think to see thee here?”

He started back, scared as it seemed at her presence, but she sank down
at the bedside, and seized his feverish hand, and embraced his knees.
She had a real regard and tenderness for him. The wretched place in
which she found him, his wretched look, filled her heart with a sincere
love and pity.

“I--I thought none of you would come!” said poor Harry, with a groan.

More tears, more kisses of the hot young hand, more clasps and pressure
with hers, were the lady’s reply for a moment or two.

“Oh, my dear! my dear! I cannot bear to think of thee in misery,” she
sobbed out.

Hardened though it might be, that heart was not all marble--that dreary
life not all desert. Harry’s mother could not have been fonder, nor her
tones more tender than those of his kinswoman now kneeling at his feet.

“Some of the debts, I fear, were owing to my extravagance!” she said
(and this was true). “You bought trinkets and jewels in order to give me
pleasure. Oh, how I hate them now! I little thought I ever could! I have
brought them all with me, and more trinkets--here! and here! and all the
money I have in the world!”

And she poured brooches, rings, a watch, and a score or so of guineas
into Harry’s lap. The sight of which strangely agitated and immensely
touched the young man.

“Dearest, kindest cousin!” he sobbed out.

His lips found no more words to utter, but yet, no doubt they served to
express his gratitude, his affection, his emotion.

He became quite gay presently, and smiled as he put away some of the
trinkets, his presents to Maria, and told her into what danger he had
fallen by selling other goods which he had purchased on credit; and how
a lawyer had insulted him just now upon this very point. He would
not have his dear Maria’s money--he had enough, quite enough for the
present: but he valued her twenty guineas as much as if they had been
twenty thousand. He would never forget her love and kindness: no, by
all that was sacred he would not! His mother should know of all her
goodness. It had had cheered him when he was just on the point of
breaking down under his disgrace and misery. Might Heaven bless her for
it! There is no need to pursue beyond this, the cousins’ conversation.
The dark day seemed brighter to Harry after Maria’s visit: the
imprisonment not so hard to bear. The world was not all selfish and
cold. Here was a fond creature who really and truly loved him. Even
Castlewood was not so bad as he had thought. He had expressed the
deepest grief at not being able to assist his kinsman. He was hopelessly
in debt. Every shilling he had won from Harry he had lost on the next
day to others. Anything that lay in his power he would do. He would come
soon and see Mr. Warrington: he was in waiting to-day, and as much
a prisoner as Harry himself. So the pair talked on cheerfully and
affectionately until the darkness began to close in, when Maria, with a
sigh, bade Harry farewell.

The door scarcely closed upon her, when it opened to admit Draper.

“Your humble servant, sir,” says the attorney. His voice jarred upon
Harry’s ear, and his presence offended the young man.

“I had expected you some hours ago, sir,” he curtly said.

“A lawyer’s time is not always his own, sir,” said Mr. Draper, who had
just been in consultation with a bottle of port at the Grecian. “Never
mind, I’m at your orders now. Presume it’s all right, Mr. Warrington.
Packed your trunk? Why, now there you are in your bedgown still. Let me
go down and settle whilst you call in your black man and titivate a bit.
I’ve a coach at the door, and we’ll be off and dine with the old lady.”

“Are you going to dine with the Baroness de Bernstein, pray?”

“Not me--no such honour. Had my dinner already. It’s you are a-going to
dine with your aunt, I suppose?”

“Mr. Draper, you suppose a great deal more than you know,” says Mr.
Warrington, looking very fierce and tall, as he folds his brocade
dressing-gown round him.

“Great goodness, sir, what do you mean?” asks Draper.

“I mean, sir, that I have considered, and, that having given my word to
a faithful and honourable lady, it does not become me to withdraw it.”

“Confound it, sir!” shrieks the lawyer, “I tell you she has lost the
paper. There’s nothing to bind you--nothing. Why she’s old enough to
be----”

“Enough, sir,” says Mr. Warrington, with a stamp of his foot. “You
seem to think you are talking to some other pettifogger. I take it, Mr.
Draper, you are not accustomed to have dealings with men of honour.”

“Pettifogger, indeed!” cries Draper in a fury. “Men of honour, indeed!
I’d have you to know, Mr. Warrington, that I’m as good a man of honour
as you. I don’t know so many gamblers and horse-jockeys, perhaps. I
haven’t gambled away my patrimony, and lived as if I was a nobleman
on two hundred a year. I haven’t bought watches on credit, and
pawned--touch me if you dare, sir,” and the lawyer sprang to the door.

“That is the way out, sir. You can’t go through the window, because it
is barred,” says Mr. Warrington.

“And the answer I take to my client is No, then!” screamed out Draper.

Harry stepped forward, with his two hands clenched. “If you utter
another word,” he said, “I’ll----” The door was shut rapidly--the
sentence was never finished, and Draper went away furious to Madame de
Bernstein, from whom, though he gave her the best version of his story,
he got still fiercer language than he had received from Mr. Warrington
himself.

“What? Shall she trust me, and I desert her?” says Harry, stalking up
and down his room in his flowing, rustling brocade. “Dear, faithful,
generous woman! If I lie in prison for years, I’ll be true to her.”


Her lawyer dismissed after a stormy interview, the desolate old woman
was fain to sit down to the meal which she had hoped to share with
her nephew. The chair was before her which he was to have filled, the
glasses shining by the silver. One dish after another was laid before
her by the silent major-domo, and tasted and pushed away. The man
pressed his mistress at last. “It is eight o’clock,” he said. “You have
had nothing all day. It is good for you to eat.” She could not eat. She
would have her coffee. Let Case go get her her coffee. The lacqueys bore
the dishes off the table, leaving their mistress sitting at it before
the vacant chair.

Presently the old servant re-entered the room without his lady’s coffee
and with a strange scared face, and said, “Mr. WARRINGTON!”

The old woman uttered an exclamation, got up from her armchair, but sank
back in it trembling very much. “So you are come, sir, are you?” she
said, with a fond shaking voice. “Bring back the----Ah!” here she
screamed, “Gracious God, who is it?” Her eyes stared wildly: her white
face looked ghastly through her rouge. She clung to the arms of her
chair for support, as the visitor approached her.

A gentleman whose face and figure exactly resembled Harry Warrington and
whose voice, when he spoke, had tones strangely similar, had followed
the servant into the room. He bowed towards the Baroness.

“You expected my brother, madam?” he said “I am but now arrived in
London. I went to his house. I met his servant at your door, who was
bearing this letter for you. I thought I would bring it to your ladyship
before going to him,”--and the stranger laid down a letter before Madam
Bernstein.

“Are you”--gasped out the Baroness--“are you my nephew, that we supposed
was----”

“Was killed--and is alive! I am George Warrington, madam and I ask his
kinsfolk what have you done with my brother?”

“Look, George!” said the bewildered old lady “I expected him here
to-night--that chair was set for him--I have been waiting for him, sir,
till now--till I am quite faint--I don’t like--I don’t like being alone.
Do stay an sup with me!”

“Pardon me, madam. Please God, my supper will be with Harry tonight!”

“Bring him back. Bring him back here on any conditions! It is but five
hundred pounds! Here is the money, sir, if you need it!”

“I have no want, madam. I have money with me that can’t be better
employed than in my brother’s service.”

“And you will bring him to me, sir! Say you will bring him to me!”

Mr. Warrington made a very stately bow for answer, and quitted the room,
passing by the amazed domestics, and calling with an air of authority to
Gumbo to follow him.

Had Mr. Harry received no letters from home? Master Harry had not
opened all his letters the last day or two. Had he received no letter
announcing his brother’s escape from the French settlements and return
to Virginia? Oh no! No such letter had come, else Master Harry certainly
tell Gumbo. Quick, horses! Quick by Strand to Temple Bar! Here is the
house of Captivity and the Deliverer come to the rescue!



CHAPTER XLIX. Friends in Need


Quick, hackneycoach steeds, and bear George Warrington through Strand
and Fleet Street to his imprisoned brother’s rescue! Any one who
remembers Hogarth’s picture of a London hackneycoach and a London street
road at that period, may fancy how weary the quick time was, and how
long seemed the journey:--scarce any lights, save those carried by
link-boys; badly hung coaches; bad pavements; great holes in the road,
and vast quagmires of winter mud. That drive from Piccadilly to Fleet
Street seemed almost as long to our young man, as the journey from
Marlborough to London which he had performed in the morning.

He had written to Harry, announcing his arrival at Bristol. He had
previously written to his brother, giving the great news of his
existence and his return from captivity. There was war between England
and France at that time; the French privateers were for ever on the
look-out for British merchant-ships, and seized them often within sight
of port. The letter bearing the intelligence of George’s restoration
must have been on board one of the many American ships of which the
French took possession. The letter telling of George’s arrival in
England was never opened by poor Harry; it was lying at the latter’s
apartments, which it reached on the third morning after Harry’s
captivity, when the angry Mr. Ruff had refused to give up any single
item more of his lodger’s property.

To these apartments George first went on his arrival in London,
and asked for his brother. Scared at the likeness between them, the
maid-servant who opened the door screamed, and ran back to her mistress.
The mistress not liking to tell the truth, or to own that poor Harry was
actually a prisoner at her husband’s suit, said Mr. Warrington had left
his lodgings; she did not know where Mr. Warrington was. George knew
that Clarges Street was close to Bond Street. Often and often had he
looked over the London map. Aunt Bernstein would tell him where Harry
was. He might be with her at that very moment. George had read in
Harry’s letters to Virginia about Aunt Bernstein’s kindness to Harry.
Even Madam Esmond was softened by it (and especially touched by a letter
which the Baroness wrote--the letter which caused George to pack off
post-haste for Europe, indeed). She heartily hoped and trusted that
Madam Beatrix had found occasion to repent of her former bad ways. It
was time, indeed, at her age; and Heaven knows that she had plenty
to repent of! I have known a harmless, good old soul of eighty, still
bepommelled and stoned by irreproachable ladies of the straitest sect of
the Pharisees, for a little slip which occurred long before the present
century was born, or she herself was twenty years old. Rachel Esmond
never mentioned her eldest daughter: Madam Esmond Warrington never
mentioned her sister. No. In spite of the order for remission of the
sentence--in spite of the handwriting on the floor of the Temple--there
is a crime which some folks never will pardon, and regarding which
female virtue, especially, is inexorable.

I suppose the Virginians’ agent at Bristol had told George fearful
stories of his brother’s doings. Gumbo, whom he met at his aunt’s door,
as soon as the lad recovered from his terror at the sudden reappearance
of the master whom he supposed dead, had leisure to stammer out a word
or two respecting his young master’s whereabouts, and present pitiable
condition; and hence Mr. George’s sternness of demeanour when he
presented himself to the old lady. It seemed to him a matter of course
that his brother in difficulty should be rescued by his relations. Oh,
George, how little you know about London and London ways! Whenever you
take your walks abroad how many poor you meet--if a philanthropist were
for rescuing all of them, not all the wealth of all the provinces of
America would suffice him!

But the feeling and agitation displayed by the old lady touched her
nephew’s heart when, jolting through the dark streets towards the
house of his brother’s captivity, George came to think of his aunt’s
behaviour. “She does feel my poor Harry’s misfortune,” he thought to
himself, “I have been too hasty in judging her.” Again and again, in the
course of his life, Mr. George had to rebuke himself with the same crime
of being too hasty. How many of us have not? And, alas, the mischief
done, there’s no repentance will mend it. Quick, coachman! We are almost
as slow as you are in getting from Clarges Street to the Temple. Poor
Gumbo knows the way to the bailiff’s house well enough. Again the bell
is set ringing. The first door is opened to George and his negro; then
that first door is locked warily upon them, and they find themselves
in a little passage with a little Jewish janitor; then a second door is
unlocked, and they enter into the house. The Jewish janitor stares, as
by his flaring tallow-torch he sees a second Mr. Warrington before
him. Come to see that gentleman? Yes. But wait a moment. This is Mr.
Warrington’s brother from America. Gumbo must go and prepare his master
first. Step into this room. There’s a gentleman already there about
Mr. W.’s business (the porter says), and another upstairs with him now.
There’s no end of people have been about him.

The room into which George was introduced was a small apartment which
went by the name of Mr. Amos’s office, and where, by a guttering candle,
and talking to the bailiff, sat a stout gentleman in a cloak and a laced
hat. The young porter carried his candle, too, preceding Mr. George, so
there was a sufficiency of light in the apartment.

“We are not angry any more, Harry!” says the stout gentleman, in a
cheery voice, getting up and advancing with an outstretched hand to
the new-comer. “Thank God, my boy! Mr. Amos here says, there will be
no difficulty about James and me being your bail, and we will do your
business by breakfast-time in the morning. Why... Angels and ministers
of grace! who are you?” And he started back as the other had hold of his
hand.

But the stranger grasped it only the more strongly. “God bless you,
sir!” he said, “I know who you are. You must be Colonel Lambert, of
whose kindness to him my poor Harry wrote. And I am the brother whom you
have heard of, sir; and who was left for dead in Mr. Braddock’s action;
and came to life again after eighteen months amongst the French;
and live to thank God and thank you for your kindness to my Harry,”
 continued the lad with a faltering voice.

“James! James! Here is news!” cries Mr. Lambert to a gentleman in red,
who now entered the room. “Here are the dead come alive! Here is Harry
Scapegrace’s brother come back, and with his scalp on his head, too!”
 (George had taken his hat off, and was standing by the light.) “This is
my brother-bail, Mr. Warrington! This is Lieutenant-Colonel James
Wolfe, at your service. You must know there has been a little difference
between Harry and me, Mr. George. He is pacified, is he, James?”

“He is full of gratitude,” says Mr. Wolfe, after making his bow to Mr.
Warrington.

“Harry wrote home about Mr. Wolfe, too, sir,” said the young man, “and I
hope my brother’s friends will be so kind as to be mine.”

“I wish he had none other but us, Mr. Warrington. Poor Harry’s fine
folks have been too fine for him, and have ended by landing him here.”

“Nay, your honours, I have done my best to make the young gentleman
comfortable; and, knowing your honour before, when you came to bail
Captain Watkins, and that your security is perfectly good,--if your
honour wishes, the young gentleman can go out this very night, and I
will make it all right with the lawyer in the morning,” says Harry’s
landlord, who knew the rank and respectability of the two gentlemen who
had come to offer bail for his young prisoner.

“The debt is five hundred and odd pounds, I think?” said Mr. Warrington.
“With a hundred thanks to these gentlemen, I can pay the amount at this
moment into the officers’ hands, taking the usual acknowledgment and
caution. But I can never forget, gentlemen, that you helped my brother
at his need, and, for doing so, I say thank you, and God bless you, in
my mother’s name and mine.”

Gumbo had, meanwhile, gone upstairs to his master’s apartment, where
Harry would probably have scolded the negro for returning that night,
but that the young gentleman was very much soothed and touched by the
conversation he had had with the friend who had just left him. He was
sitting over his pipe of Virginia in a sad mood (for, somehow, even
Maria’s goodness and affection, as she had just exhibited them, had not
altogether consoled him; and he had thought, with a little dismay, of
certain consequences to which that very kindness and fidelity bound
him), when Mr. Wolfe’s homely features and eager outstretched hand came
to cheer the prisoner, and he heard how Mr. Lambert was below, and
the errand upon which the two officers had come. In spite of himself,
Lambert would be kind to him. In spite of Harry’s ill-temper, and
needless suspicion and anger, the good gentleman was determined to help
him if he might--to help him even against Mr. Wolfe’s own advice, as the
latter frankly told Harry, “For you were wrong, Mr. Warrington,” said
the Colonel, “and you wouldn’t be set right; and you, a young man, used
hard words and unkind behaviour to your senior, and what is more, one of
the best gentlemen who walks God’s earth. You see, sir, what his answer
hath been to your wayward temper. You will bear with a friend who speaks
frankly with you? Martin Lambert hath acted in this as he always doth,
as the best Christian, the best friend, the most kind and generous of
men. Nay, if you want another proof of his goodness, here it is: He has
converted me, who, as I don’t care to disguise, was angry with you for
your treatment of him, and has absolutely brought me down here to be
your bail. Let us both cry Peccavimus! Harry, and shake our friend by
the hand! He is sitting in the room below. He would not come here till
he knew how you would receive him.”

“I think he is a good man!” groaned out Harry. “I was very angry and
wild at the time when he and I met last, Colonel Wolfe. Nay, perhaps he
was right in sending back those trinkets, hurt as I was at his doing so.
Go down to him, will you be so kind, sir? and tell him I am sorry, and
ask his pardon, and--and, God bless him for his generous behaviour.”
 And here the young gentleman turned his head away, and rubbed his hand
across his eyes.

“Tell him all this thyself, Harry!” cries the Colonel, taking the young
fellow’s hand. “No deputy will ever say it half so well. Come with me
now.”

“You go first, and I’ll--I’ll follow,--on my word I will. See! I am in
my morning-gown! I will but put on a coat and come to him. Give him my
message first. Just--just prepare him for me!” says poor Harry, who
knew he must do it, but yet did not much like that process of eating of
humble-pie.

Wolfe went out smiling--understanding the lad’s scruples well enough,
perhaps. As he opened the door, Mr. Gumbo entered it; almost forgetting
to bow to the gentleman, profusely courteous as he was on ordinary
occasions,--his eyes glaring round, his great mouth grinning--himself in
a state of such high excitement and delight that his master remarked his
condition.

“What, Gum? What has happened to thee? Hast thou got a new sweetheart?”

No, Gum had not got no new sweetheart, master.

“Give me my coat. What has brought thee back?”

Gum grinned prodigiously. “I have seen a ghost, mas’r!” he said.

“A ghost! and whose, and where?”

“Whar? Saw him at Madame Bernstein’s house. Come with him here in
the coach! He downstairs now with Colonel Lambert!” Whilst Gumbo is
speaking, as he is putting on his master’s coat, his eyes are rolling,
his head is wagging, his hands are trembling, his lips are grinning.

“Ghost--what ghost?” says Harry, in a strange agitation. Is
anybody--is--my mother come?”

“No, sir; no, Master Harry!” Gumbo’s head rolls nearly off its violent
convolutions, and his master, looking oddly at him, flings the door
open, and goes rapidly down the stair.

He is at the foot of it, just as a voice within the little office, of
which the door is open, is saying, “and for doing so, I say thank you,
and God bless you, in my mother’s name and mine.”

“Whose voice is that?” calls out Harry Warrington, with a strange cry in
his own voice.

“It’s the ghost’s, mas’r!” says Gumbo, from behind; and Harry runs
forward to the room,--where, if you please, we will pause a little
minute before we enter. The two gentlemen who were there, turned their
heads away. The lost was found again. The dead was alive. The
prodigal was on his brother’s heart,--his own full of love, gratitude,
repentance.

“Come away, James! I think we are not wanted any more here,” says the
Colonel. “Good-night, boys. Some ladies in Hill Street won’t be able to
sleep for this strange news. Or will you go home and sup with ‘em, and
tell them the story?”

No, with many thanks, the boys would not go and sup to-night. They had
stories of their own to tell. “Quick, Gumbo, with the trunks! Good-bye,
Mr. Amos!” Harry felt almost unhappy when he went away.



CHAPTER L. Contains a Great deal of the Finest Morality


When first we had the honour to be presented to Sir Miles Warrington at
the King’s drawing-room, in St. James’s Palace, I confess that I, for
one--looking at his jolly round face, his broad round waistcoat, his
hearty country manner,--expected that I had lighted upon a most eligible
and agreeable acquaintance at last, and was about to become intimate
with that noblest specimen of the human race, the bepraised of songs and
men, the good old English country gentleman. In fact, to be a good old
country gentleman is to hold a position nearest the gods, and at the
summit of earthly felicity. To have a large unencumbered rent-roll, and
the rents regularly paid by adoring farmers, who bless their stars at
having such a landlord as his honour; to have no tenant holding back
with his money, excepting just one, perhaps, who does so in order to
give occasion to Good Old Country Gentleman to show his sublime charity
and universal benevolence of soul; to hunt three days a week, love the
sport of all things, and have perfect good health and good appetite in
consequence; to have not only good appetite, but a good dinner; to sit
down at church in the midst of a chorus of blessings from the villagers,
the first man in the parish, the benefactor of the parish, with a
consciousness of consummate desert, saying, “Have mercy upon us,
miserable sinners,” to be sure, but only for form’s sake, because the
words are written in the book, and to give other folks an example--a G.
O. C. G. a miserable sinner! So healthy, so wealthy, so jolly, so much
respected by the vicar, so much honoured by the tenants, so much beloved
and admired by his family, amongst whom his story of grouse in the
gunroom causes laughter from generation to generation;--this perfect
being a miserable sinner! Allons donc! Give any man good health and
temper, five thousand a year, the adoration of his parish, and the love
and worship of his family, and I’ll defy you to make him so heartily
dissatisfied with his spiritual condition as to set himself down a
miserable anything. If you were a Royal Highness, and went to church
in the most perfect health and comfort, the parson waiting to begin the
service until your R. H. came in, would you believe yourself to be a
miserable, etc.? You might when racked with gout, in solitude, the fear
of death before your eyes, the doctor having cut off your bottle of
claret, and ordered arrowroot and a little sherry,--you might then be
humiliated, and acknowledge your own shortcomings, and the vanity of
things in general; but, in high health, sunshine, spirits, that word
miserable is only a form. You can’t think in your heart that you are
to be pitied much for the present. If you are to be miserable, what is
Colin Ploughman, with the ague, seven children, two pounds a year rent
to pay for his cottage, and eight shillings a week? No: a healthy, rich,
jolly, country gentleman, if miserable, has a very supportable misery:
if a sinner, has very few people to tell him so.

It may be he becomes somewhat selfish; but at least he is satisfied with
himself. Except my lord at the castle, there is nobody for miles and
miles round so good or so great. His admirable wife ministers to him,
and to the whole parish, indeed: his children bow before him: the vicar
of the parish reverences him: he is respected at quarter-sessions: he
causes poachers to tremble: off go all hats before him at market: and
round about his great coach, in which his spotless daughters and sublime
lady sit, all the country-town tradesmen cringe, bareheaded, and the
farmeers’ women drop innumerable curtseys. From their cushions in the
great coach the ladies look down beneficently, and smile on the poorer
folk. They buy a yard of ribbon with affability; they condescend to
purchase an ounce of salts, or a packet of flower-seeds: they deign to
cheapen a goose: their drive is like a royal progress; a happy people
is supposed to press round them and bless them. Tradesmen bow, farmers’
wives bob, town-boys, waving their ragged hats, cheer the red-faced
coachman as he drives the fat bays, and cry, “Sir Miles for ever! Throw
us a halfpenny, my lady!”

But suppose the market-woman should hide her fat goose when Sir Miles’s
coach comes, out of terror lest my lady, spying the bird, should insist
on purchasing it a bargain? Suppose no coppers ever were known to come
out of the royal coach window? Suppose Sir Miles regaled his tenants
with notoriously small beer, and his poor with especially thin broth?
This may be our fine old English gentleman’s way. There have been not a
few fine English gentlemen and ladies of this sort; who patronised the
poor without ever relieving them, who called out “Amen!” at church
as loud as the clerk; who went through all the forms of piety, and
discharged all the etiquette of old English gentlemanhood; who bought
virtue a bargain, as it were, and had no doubt they were honouring
her by the purchase. Poor Harry in his distress asked help from his
relations: his aunt sent him a tract and her blessing; his uncle had
business out of town, and could not, of course, answer the poor boy’s
petition. How much of this behaviour goes on daily in respectable life,
think you? You can fancy Lord and Lady Macbeth concocting a murder,
and coming together with some little awkwardness, perhaps, when the
transaction was done and over; but my Lord and Lady Skinflint, when they
consult in their bedroom about giving their luckless nephew a helping
hand, and determine to refuse, and go down to family prayers, and meet
their children and domestics, and discourse virtuously before them, and
then remain together, and talk nose to nose,--what can they think of one
another? and of the poor kinsman fallen among the thieves, and groaning
for help unheeded? How can they go on with those virtuous airs? How can
they dare look each other in the face?

Dare? Do you suppose they think they have done wrong? Do you suppose
Skinflint is tortured with remorse at the idea of the distress which
called to him in vain, and of the hunger which he sent empty away? Not
he. He is indignant with Prodigal for being a fool: he is not ashamed
of himself for being a curmudgeon. What? a young man with such
opportunities throw them away? A fortune spent amongst gamblers and
spendthrifts? Horrible, horrible! Take warning, my child, by this
unfortunate young man’s behaviour, and see the consequences of
extravagance. According to the great and always Established Church of
the Pharisees, here is an admirable opportunity for a moral discourse,
and an assertion of virtue. “And to think of his deceiving us so!” cries
out Lady Warrington.

“Very sad, very sad, my dear!” says Sir Miles, wagging his head.

“To think of so much extravagance in one so young!” cries Lady
Warrington. “Cards, bets, feasts at taverns of the most wicked
profusion, carriage and riding horses, the company of the wealthy and
profligate of his own sex, and, I fear, of the most iniquitous persons
of ours.”

“Hush, my Lady Warrington!” cries her husband, glancing towards the
spotless Dora and Flora, who held down their blushing heads, at the
mention of the last naughty persons.

“No wonder my poor children hide their faces!” mamma continues. “My
dears, I wish even the existence of such creatures could be kept from
you!”

“They can’t go to an opera, or the park, without seeing ‘em, to be
sure,” says Sir Miles.

“To think we should have introduced such a young serpent into the
bosom of our family! and have left him in the company of that guileless
darling!” and she points to Master Miles.

“Who’s a serpent, mamma?” inquires that youth. “First you said cousin
Harry was bad: then he was good: now he is bad again. Which is he, Sir
Miles?”

“He has faults, like all of us, Miley, my dear. Your cousin has been
wild, and you must take warning by him.”

“Was not my elder brother, who died--my naughty brother--was not he wild
too? He was not kind to me when I was quite a little boy. He never gave
me money, nor toys, nor rode with me, nor--why do you cry, mamma? Sure I
remember how Hugh and you were always fight----”

“Silence, sir!” cry out papa and the girls in a breath. “Don’t you know
you are never to mention that name?”

“I know I love Harry, and I didn’t love Hugh,” says the sturdy little
rebel. “And if cousin Harry is in prison, I’ll give him my half-guinea
that my godpapa gave me, and anything I have--yes, anything,
except--except my little horse--and my silver waistcoat--and--and
Snowball and Sweetlips at home--and--and, yes, my custard after dinner.”
 This was in reply to a hint of sister Dora. “But I’d give him some of
it,” continues Miles, after a pause.

“Shut thy mouth with it, child, and then go about thy business,” says
papa, amused. Sir Miles Warrington had a considerable fund of easy
humour.

“Who would have thought he should ever be so wild?” mamma goes on.

“Nay. Youth is the season for wild oats, my dear.”

“That we should be so misled in him!” sighed the girls.

“That he should kiss us both!” cries papa.

“Sir Miles Warrington, I have no patience with that sort of vulgarity!”
 says the majestic matron.

“Which of you was the favourite yesterday, girls?” continues the father.

“Favourite, indeed! I told him over and over again of my engagement
to dear Tom--I did, Dora--why do you sneer, if you please?” says the
handsome sister.

“Nay, to do her justice, so did Dora too,” said papa.

“Because Flora seemed to wish to forget her engagement with dear Tom
sometimes,” remarks the sister.

“I never, never, never wished to break with Tom! It’s wicked of you to
say so, Dora! It is you who were for ever sneering at him: it is you who
are always envious because I happen--at least, because gentlemen imagine
that I am not ill-looking, and prefer me to some folks, in spite of
all their learning and wit!” cries Flora, tossing her head over her
shoulder, and looking at the glass.

“Why are you always looking there, sister?” says the artless Miles
junior. “Sure, you must know your face well enough!”

“Some people look at it just as often, child, who haven’t near such good
reason,” says papa, gallantly.

“If you mean me, Sir Miles, I thank you,” cries Dora. “My face is as
Heaven made it, and my father and mother gave it me. ‘Tis not my fault
if I resemble my papa’s family. If my head is homely, at least I have
got some brains in it. I envious of Flora, indeed, because she has found
favour in the sight of poor Tom Claypool! I should as soon be proud of
captivating a ploughboy!”

“Pray, miss, was your Mr. Harry, of Virginia, much wiser than Tom
Claypool? You would have had him for the asking!” exclaims Flora.

“And so would you, miss, and have dropped Tom Claypool into the sea!”
 cries Dora.

“I wouldn’t.”

“You would.”

“I wouldn’t;”--and da capo goes the conversation--the shuttlecock of
wrath being briskly battled from one sister to another.

“Oh, my children! Is this the way you dwell together in unity?” exclaims
their excellent female parent, laying down her embroidery. “What an
example you set to this Innocent!”

“Like to see ‘em fight, my lady!” cries the Innocent, rubbing his hands.

“At her, Flora! Worry her, Dora! To it again, you little rogues!” says
facetious papa. ‘Tis good sport, ain’t it, Miley?”

“Oh, Sir Miles! Oh, my children! These disputes are unseemly. They tear
a fond mother’s heart,” says mamma, with majestic action, though bearing
the laceration of her bosom with much seeming equanimity. “What cause
for thankfulness ought we to have that watchful parents have prevented
any idle engagements between you and your misguided cousin. If we have
been mistaken in him, is it not a mercy that we have found out our error
in time? If either of you had any preference for him, your excellent
good sense, my loves, will teach you to overcome, to eradicate, the vain
feeling. That we cherished and were kind to him can never be a source of
regret. ‘Tis a proof of our good-nature. What we have to regret, I fear,
is, that your cousin should have proved unworthy of our kindness, and,
coming away from the society of gamblers, play-actors, and the like,
should have brought contamination--pollution, I had almost said--into
this pure family!”

“Oh, bother mamma’s sermons!” says Flora, as my lady pursues a harangue
of which we only give the commencement here, but during which papa,
whistling, gently quits the room on tiptoe, whilst the artless Miles
junior winds his top and pegs it under the robes of his sisters. It has
done humming, and staggered and tumbled over, and expired in its usual
tipsy manner, long ere Lady Warrington has finished her sermon.

“Were you listening to me, my child?” she asks, laying her hand on her
darling’s head.

“Yes, mother,” says he, with the whipcord in his mouth, and proceeding
to wind up his sportive engine. “You was a-saying that Harry was very
poor now, and that we oughtn’t to help him. That’s what you was saying;
wasn’t it, madam?”

“My poor child, thou wilt understand me better when thou art older!”
 says mamma, turning towards that ceiling to which her eyes always have
recourse.

“Get out, you little wretch!” cries one of the sisters. The artless one
has pegged his top at Dora’s toes, and laughs with the glee of merry
boyhood at his sister’s discomfiture.

But what is this? Who comes here? Why does Sir Miles return to the
drawing-room, and why does Tom Claypool, who strides after the Baronet,
wear a countenance so disturbed?

“Here’s a pretty business, my Lady Warrington!” cries Sir Miles. “Here’s
a wonderful wonder of wonders, girls!”

“For goodness’ sake, gentlemen, what is your intelligence?” asks the
virtuous matron.

“The whole town’s talking about it, my lady!” says Tom Claypool puffing
for breath.

“Tom has seen him,” continued Sir Miles.

“Seen both of them, my Lady Warrington. They were at Ranelagh last
night, with a regular mob after ‘em. And so like, that but for their
different ribbons you would hardly have told one from the other. One was
in blue, the other in brown; but I’m certain he has worn both the suits
here.”

“What suits?”

“What one,--what other?” call the girls.

“Why, your fortunate youth, to be sure.”

“Our precious Virginian, and heir to the principality!” says Sir Miles.

“Is my nephew, then, released from his incarceration?” asks her
ladyship. “And is he again plunged in the vortex of dissip----”

“Confound him!” roars out the Baronet, with an expression which I fear
was even stronger. “What should you think, my Lady Warrington, if this
precious nephew of mine should turn out to be an impostor; by George! no
better than an adventurer?”

“An inward monitor whispered me as much!” cried the lady; “but I
dashed from me the unworthy suspicion. Speak, Sir Miles, we burn with
impatience to listen to your intelligence.”

“I’ll--speak, my love, when you’ve done,” says Sir Miles. “Well, what do
you think of my gentleman, who comes into my house, dines at my table,
is treated as one of this family, kisses my--”

“What?” asks Tom Claypool, firing as red as his waistcoat.

“--Hem! Kisses my wife’s hand, and is treated in the fondest manner, by
George! What do you think of this fellow, who talks of his property and
his principality, by Jupiter!--turning out to be a beggarly SECOND SON!
A beggar, my Lady Warrington, by----”

“Sir Miles Warrington, no violence of language before these dear ones!
I sink to the earth, confounded by this unutterable hypocrisy. And did
I entrust thee to a pretender, my blessed boy? Did I leave thee with an
impostor, my innocent one?” the matron cries, fondling her son.

“Who’s an impostor, my lady?” asks the child.

“That confounded young scamp of a Harry Warrington!” bawls out papa; on
which the little Miles, after wearing a puzzled look for a moment, and
yielding to I know not what hidden emotion, bursts out crying.

His admirable mother proposes to clutch him to her heart, but he rejects
the pure caress, bawling only the louder, and kicking frantically about
the maternal gremium, as the butler announces “Mr. George Warrington,
Mr. Henry Warrington!” Miles is dropped from his mother’s lap. Sir
Miles’s face emulates Mr. Claypool’s waistcoat. The three ladies rise
up, and make three most frigid curtseys, as our two young men enter the
room.

Little Miles runs towards them. He holds out a little hand. “Oh, Harry!
No! which is Harry? You’re my Harry,” and he chooses rightly this time.
“Oh, you dear Harry! I’m so glad you are come! and they’ve been abusing
you so!”

“I am come to pay my duty to my uncle,” says the dark-haired Mr.
Warrington; “and to thank him for his hospitalities to my brother
Henry.”

“What, nephew George? My brother’s face and eyes! Boys both, I am
delighted to see you!” cries their uncle, grasping affectionately a hand
of each, as his honest face radiates with pleasure.

“This indeed hath been a most mysterious and a most providential
resuscitation,” says Lady Warrington. “Only I wonder that my nephew
Henry concealed the circumstance until now,” she adds, with a sidelong
glance at both young gentlemen.

“He knew it no more than your ladyship,” says Mr. Warrington. The young
ladies looked at each other with downcast eyes.

“Indeed, sir! a most singular circumstance,” says mamma, with another
curtsey. “We had heard of it, sir; and Mr. Claypool, our county
neighbour, had just brought us the intelligence, and it even now formed
the subject of my conversation with my daughters.”

“Yes,” cries out a little voice, “and do you know, Harry, father and
mother said you was a--a imp----”

“Silence, my child! Screwby, convey Master Warrington to his own
apartment! These, Mr. Warrington--or, I suppose I should say nephew
George--are your cousins.” Two curtseys--two cheeses are made--two hands
are held out. Mr. Esmond Warrington makes a profound low bow, which
embraces (and it is the only embrace which the gentleman offers) all
three ladies. He lays his hat to his heart. He says, “It is my duty,
madam, to pay my respects to my uncle and cousins, and to thank your
ladyship for such hospitality as you have been enabled to show to my
brother.”

“It was not much, nephew, but it was our best. Ods bobs!” cries the
hearty Sir Miles, “it was our best!”

“And I appreciate it, sir,” says Mr. Warrington, looking gravely round
at the family.

“Give us thy hand. Not a word more,” says Sir Miles “What? do you think
I’m a cannibal, and won’t extend the hand of hospitality to my dear
brother’s son? What say you, lads? Will you eat our mutton at three?
This is my neighbour, Tom Claypool, son to Sir Thomas Claypool, Baronet,
and my very good friend. Hey, Tom! Thou wilt be of the party, Tom? Thou
knowest our brew, hey, my boy?”

“Yes, I know it, Sir Miles,” replies Tom, with no peculiar expression of
rapture on his face.

“And thou shalt taste it, my boy,” thou shalt taste it! What is
there for dinner, my Lady Warrington? Our food is plain, but plenty,
lads--plain, but plenty!”

“We cannot partake of it to-day, sir. We dine with a friend who occupies
my Lord Wrotham’s house, your neighbour. Colonel Lambert--Major-General
Lambert he has just been made.”

“With two daughters, I think--countrified-looking girls--are they not?”
 asks Flora.

“I think I have remarked two little rather dowdy things,” says Dora.

“They are as good girls as any in England!” breaks out Harry, to whom no
one had thought of saying a single word. His reign was over, you see. He
was nobody. What wonder, then, that he should not be visible?

“Oh, indeed, cousin!” says Dora, with a glance at the young man, who
sate with burning cheeks, chafing at the humiliation put upon him, but
not knowing how or whether he should notice it. “Oh, indeed, cousin! You
are very charitable--or very lucky, I’m sure! You see angels where we
only see ordinary little persons. I’m sure I could not imagine who were
those odd-looking people in Lord Wrotham’s coach, with his handsome
liveries. But if they were three angels, I have nothing to say.”

“My brother is an enthusiast,” interposes George. “He is often mistaken
about women.”

“Oh, really!” says Dora, looking a little uneasy.

“I fear my nephew Henry has indeed met with some unfavourable specimens
of our sex,” the matron remarks, with a groan.

“We are so easily taken in, madam--we are both very young yet--we shall
grow older and learn better.”

“Most sincerely, nephew George, I trust you may. You have my best
wishes, my prayers, for your brother’s welfare and your own. No efforts
of ours have been wanting. At a painful moment, to which I will not
further allude--”

“And when my uncle Sir Miles was out of town,” says George, looking
towards the Baronet, who smiles at him with affectionate approval.

“--I sent your brother a work which I thought might comfort him, and I
know might improve him. Nay, do not thank me; I claim no credit; I did
but my duty--a humble woman’s duty--for what are this world’s goods,
nephew, compared to the welfare of a soul? If I did good, I am thankful;
if I was useful, I rejoice. If, through my means, you have been brought,
Harry, to consider----”

“Oh! the sermon, is it?” breaks in downright Harry. “I hadn’t time to
read a single syllable of it, aunt--thank you. You see I don’t care much
about that kind of thing--but thank you all the same.”

“The intention is everything,” says Mr. Warrington, “and we are both
grateful. Our dear friend, General Lambert, intended to give bail for
Harry; but, happily, I had funds of Harry’s with me to meet any demands
upon us. But the kindness is the same, and I am grateful to the friend
who hastened to my brother’s rescue when he had most need of aid, and
when his own relations happened--so unfortunately--to be out of town.”

“Anything I could do, my dear boy, I’m sure--my brother’s son--my own
nephew--ods bobs! you know--that is, anything--anything, you know!”
 cries Sir Miles, bringing his own hand into George’s with a generous
smack. “You can’t stay and dine with us? Put off the Colonel--the
General--do, now! Or name a day. My Lady Warrington, make my nephew name
a day when he will sit under his grandfather’s picture, and drink some
of his wine!”

“His intellectual faculties seem more developed than those of his
unlucky younger brother,” remarked my lady, when the young gentlemen had
taken their leave. “The younger must be reckless and extravagant about
money indeed, for did you remark, Sir Miles, the loss of his
reversion in Virginia--the amount of which has, no doubt, been grossly
exaggerated, but, nevertheless, must be something considerable--did
you, I say, remark that the ruin of Harry’s prospects scarcely seemed to
affect him?”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised that the elder turns out to be as poor
as the young one,” says Dora, tossing her head.

“He! he! Did you see that cousin George had one of cousin Harry’s suits
of clothes on--the brown and gold--that one he wore when he went with
you to the oratorio, Flora?”

“Did he take Flora to an oratorio?” asks Mr. Claypool, fiercely.

“I was ill and couldn’t go, and my cousin went with her,” says Dora.

“Far be it from me to object to any innocent amusement, much less to the
music of Mr. Handel, dear Mr. Claypool,” says mamma. “Music refines the
soul, elevates the understanding, is heard in our churches, and
‘tis well known was practised by King David. Your operas I shun as
deleterious; your ballets I would forbid to my children as most
immoral; but music, my dears! May we enjoy it, like everything else in
reason--may we----”

“There’s the music of the dinner-bell,” says papa, rubbing his hands.
“Come, girls. Screwby, go and fetch Master Miley. Tom take down my
lady.”

“Nay, dear Thomas, I walk but slowly. Go you with dearest Flora
downstairs,” says Virtue.

But Dora took care to make the evening pleasant by talking of Handel and
oratorios constantly during dinner.



CHAPTER LI. Conticuere Omnes


Across the way, if the gracious reader will please to step over with
us, he will find our young gentlemen at Lord Wrotham’s house, which
his lordship has lent to his friend the General, and that little
family party assembled, with which we made acquaintance at Oakhurst and
Tunbridge Wells. James Wolfe has promised to come to dinner; but James
is dancing attendance upon Miss Lowther, and would rather have a glance
from her eyes than the finest kickshaws dressed by Lord Wrotham’s cook,
or the dessert which is promised for the entertainment at which you
are just going to sit down. You will make the sixth. You may take Mr.
Wolfe’s place. You may be sure he won’t come. As for me, I will stand at
the sideboard and report the conversation.

Note first, how happy the women look! When Harry Warrington was taken
by those bailiffs, I had intended to tell you how the good Mrs. Lambert,
hearing of the boy’s mishap, had flown to her husband, and had begged,
implored, insisted, that her Martin should help him. “Never mind his
rebeldom of the other day; never mind about his being angry that his
presents were returned--of course anybody would be angry, much more such
a high-spirited lad as Harry! Never mind about our being so poor, and
wanting all our spare money for the boys at college; there must be some
way of getting him out of the scrape. Did you not get Charles Watkins
out of the scrape two years ago; and did he not pay you back every
halfpenny? Yes; and you made a whole family happy, blessed be God! and
Mrs. Watkins prays for you and blesses you to this very day, and I think
everything has prospered with us since. And I have no doubt it has made
you a major-general--no earthly doubt,” says the fond wife.

Now, as Martin Lambert requires very little persuasion to do a kind
action, he in this instance lets himself be persuaded easily enough, and
having made up his mind to seek for friend James Wolfe, and give bail
for Harry, he takes his leave and his hat, and squeezes Theo’s hand, who
seems to divine his errand (or perhaps that silly mamma has blabbed it),
and kisses little Hetty’s flushed cheek, and away he goes out of the
apartment where the girls and their mother are sitting, though he is
followed out of the room by the latter.

When she is alone with him, that enthusiastic matron cannot control
her feelings any longer. She flings her arms round her husband’s neck,
kisses him a hundred and twenty-five times in an instant--calls God to
bless him--cries plentifully on his shoulder; and in this sentimental
attitude is discovered by old Mrs. Quiggett, my lord’s housekeeper, who
is bustling about the house, and, I suppose, is quite astounded at the
conjugal phenomenon.

“We have had a tiff, and we are making it up! Don’t tell tales out of
school, Mrs. Quiggett!” says the gentleman, walking off.

“Well, I never!” says Mrs. Quiggett, with a shrill, strident laugh, like
a venerable old cockatoo--which white, hook-nosed, long-lived bird Mrs.
Quiggett strongly resembles. “Well, I never!” says Quiggett, laughing
and shaking her old sides till all her keys, and, as one may fancy, her
old ribs clatter and jingle.

“Oh, Quiggett!” sobs out Mrs. Lambert, “what a man that is!”

“You’ve been a-quarrelling, have you, mum, and making it up? That’s
right.”

“Quarrel with him? He never told a greater story. My General is an
angel, Quiggett. I should like to worship him. I should like to fall
down at his boots and kiss ‘em, I should! There never was a man so good
as my General. What have I done to have such a man? How dare I have such
a good husband?”

“My dear, I think there’s a pair of you,” says the old cockatoo; “and
what would you like for your supper?”

When Lambert comes back very late to that meal, and tells what has
happened, how Harry is free, and how his brother has come to life, and
rescued him, you may fancy what a commotion the whole of those people
are in! If Mrs. Lambert’s General was an angel before, what is he now!
If she wanted to embrace his boots in the morning, pray what further
office of wallowing degradation would she prefer in the evening? Little
Hetty comes and nestles up to her father quite silent, and drinks
a little drop out of his glass. Theo’s and mamma’s faces beam with
happiness, like two moons of brightness.... After supper, those four at
a certain signal fall down on their knees--glad homage paying in awful
mirth-rejoicing, and with such pure joy as angels do, we read, for the
sinner that repents. There comes a great knocking at the door whilst
they are so gathered together. Who can be there? My lord is in the
country miles off. It is past midnight now; so late have they been, so
long have they been talking! I think Mrs. Lambert guesses who is there.

“This is George,” says a young gentleman, leading in another. “We have
been to Aunt Bernstein. We couldn’t go to bed, Aunt Lambert, without
coming to thank you too. You dear, dear, good----” There is no more
speech audible. Aunt Lambert is kissing Harry, Theo has snatched up
Hetty who is as pale as death, and is hugging her into life again.
George Warrington stands with his hat off, and then (when Harry’s
transaction is concluded) goes up and kisses Mrs. Lambert’s hand: the
General passes his across his eyes. I protest they are all in a very
tender and happy state. Generous hearts sometimes feel it, when Wrong
is forgiven, when Peace is restored, when Love returns that had been
thought lost.

“We came from Aunt Bernstein’s; we saw lights here, you see; we couldn’t
go to sleep without saying good-night to you all,” says Harry. “Could
we, George?”

“‘Tis certainly a famous nightcap you have brought us, boys,” says the
General. “When are you to come and dine with us? To-morrow?” No, they
must go to Madame Bernstein’s to-morrow.

The next day, then? Yes, they would come the next day--and that is the
very day we are writing about: and this is the very dinner, at which, in
the room of Lieutenant-Colonel James Wolfe, absent on private affairs,
my gracious reader has just been invited to sit down.

To sit down, and why, if you please? Not to a mere Barmecide dinner--no,
no--but to hear MR. GEORGE ESMOND WARRINGTON’S STATEMENT, which of
course he is going to make. Here they all sit--not in my lord’s grand
dining-room, you know, but in the snug study or parlour in front. The
cloth has been withdrawn, the General has given the King’s health, the
servants have left the room, the guests sit conticent, and so, after a
little hemming and blushing, Mr. George proceeds:--

“I remember, at the table of our General, how the little Philadelphia
agent, whose wit and shrewdness we had remarked at home, made the very
objections to the conduct of the campaign of which its disastrous issue
showed the justice. ‘Of course,’ says he, ‘your Excellency’s troops once
before Fort Duquesne, such a weak little place will never be able to
resist such a general, such an army, such artillery, as will there be
found attacking it. But do you calculate, sir, on the difficulty of
reaching the place? Your Excellency’s march will be through woods almost
untrodden, over roads which you will have to make yourself, and your
line will be some four miles long. This slender line, having to make its
way through the forest, will be subject to endless attacks in front, in
rear, in flank, by enemies whom you will never see, and whose constant
practice in war is the dexterous laying of ambuscades.’--‘Psha, sir!’
says the General, ‘the savages may frighten your raw American militia’
(Thank your Excellency for the compliment, Mr. Washington seems to
say, who is sitting at the table), ‘but the Indians will never make
any impression on his Majesty’s regular troops.’--‘I heartily hope not,
sir,’ says Mr. Franklin, with a sigh; and of course the gentlemen of the
General’s family sneered at the postmaster, as at a pert civilian who
had no call to be giving his opinion on matters entirely beyond his
comprehension.

“We despised the Indians on our own side, and our commander made light
of them and their service. Our officers disgusted the chiefs who were
with us by outrageous behaviour to their women. There were not above
seven or eight who remained with our force. Had we had a couple of
hundred in our front on that fatal 9th of July, the event of the day
must have been very different. They would have flung off the attack of
the French Indians; they would have prevented the surprise and panic
which ensued. ‘Tis known now that the French had even got ready to give
up their fort, never dreaming of the possibility of a defence, and
that the French Indians themselves remonstrated against the audacity of
attacking such an overwhelming force as ours.

“I was with our General with the main body of the troops when the
firing began in front of us, and one aide-de-camp after another was sent
forwards. At first the enemy’s attack was answered briskly by our own
advanced people, and our men huzzaed and cheered with good heart. But
very soon our fire grew slacker, whilst from behind every tree and bush
round about us came single shots, which laid man after man low. We were
marching in orderly line, the skirmishers in front, the colours and two
of our small guns in the centre, the baggage well guarded bringing up
the rear, and were moving over a ground which was open and clear for a
mile or two, and for some half mile in breadth, a thick tangled covert
of brushwood and trees on either side of us. After the firing had
continued for some brief time in front, it opened from both sides of the
environing wood on our advancing column. The men dropped rapidly, the
officers in greater number than the men. At first, as I said, these
cheered and answered the enemy’s fire, our guns even opening on the
wood, and seeming to silence the French in ambuscade there. But the
hidden rifle-firing began again. Our men halted, huddled up together, in
spite of the shouts and orders of the General and officers to advance,
and fired wildly into the brushwood--of course making no impression.
Those in advance came running back on the main body frightened, and many
of them wounded. They reported there were five thousand Frenchmen and a
legion of yelling Indian devils in front, who were scalping our people
as they fell. We could hear their cries from the wood around as our
men dropped under their rifles. There was no inducing the people to go
forward now. One aide-de-camp after another was sent forward, and never
returned. At last it came to be my turn, and I was sent with a message
to Captain Fraser of Halkett’s in front, which he was never to receive
nor I to deliver.

“I had not gone thirty yards in advance when a rifle-ball struck my
leg, and I fell straightway to the ground. I recollect a rush forward
of Indians and Frenchmen after that, the former crying their fiendish
war-cries, the latter as fierce as their savage allies. I was amazed and
mortified to see how few of the whitecoats there were. Not above a score
passed me; indeed there were not fifty in the accursed action in which
two of the bravest regiments of the British army were put to rout.

“One of them, who was half Indian half Frenchman, with mocassins and
a white uniform coat and cockade, seeing me prostrate on the ground,
turned back and ran towards me, his musket clubbed over his head to dash
my brains out and plunder me as I lay. I had my little fusil which
my Harry gave me when I went on the campaign; it had fallen by me and
within my reach, luckily: I seized it, and down fell the Frenchman dead
at six yards before me. I was saved for that time, but bleeding from my
wound and very faint. I swooned almost in trying to load my piece,
and it dropped from my hand, and the hand itself sank lifeless to the
ground.

“I was scarcely in my senses, the yells and shots ringing dimly in
my ears, when I saw an Indian before me, busied over the body of the
Frenchman I had just shot, but glancing towards me as I lay on the
ground bleeding. He first rifled the Frenchman, tearing open his coat,
and feeling in his pockets: he then scalped him, and with his bleeding
knife in his mouth advanced towards me. I saw him coming as through a
film, as in a dream--I was powerless to move, or to resist him.

“He put his knee upon my chest: with one bloody hand he seized my long
hair and lifted my head from the ground, and as he lifted it, he enabled
me to see a French officer rapidly advancing behind him.

“Good God! It was young Florac, who was my second in the duel at Quebec.
‘A moi, Florac!’ I cried out. ‘C’est Georges! aide moi!’

“He started; ran up to me at the cry, laid his hand on the Indian’s
shoulder, and called him to hold. But the savage did not understand
French, or choose to understand it. He clutched my hair firmer, and
waving his dripping knife round it, motioned to the French lad to leave
him to his prey. I could only cry out again and piteously, ‘A moi!’

“‘Ah, canaille, tu veux du sang? Prends!’ said Florac, with a curse; and
the next moment, and with an ugh, the Indian fell over my chest dead,
with Florac’s sword through his body.

“My friend looked round him. ‘Eh!’ says he, ‘la belle affaire! Where art
thou wounded? in the leg?’ He bound my leg tight round with his sash.
‘The others will kill thee if they find thee here. Ah, tiens! Put me on
this coat, and this hat with the white cockade. Call out in French if
any of our people pass. They will take thee for one of us. Thou art
Brunet of the Quebec Volunteers. God guard thee, Brunet! I must go
forward. ‘Tis a general debacle, and the whole of your redcoats are on
the run, my poor boy.’ Ah, what a rout it was! What a day of disgrace
for England!

“Florac’s rough application stopped the bleeding of my leg, and the kind
creature helped me to rest against a tree, and to load my fusil, which
he placed within reach of me, to protect me in case any other marauder
should have a mind to attack me. And he gave me the gourd of that
unlucky French soldier, who had lost his own life in the deadly game
which he had just played against me, and the drink the gourd contained
served greatly to refresh and invigorate me. Taking a mark of the tree
against which I lay, and noting the various bearings of the country, so
as to be able again to find me, the young lad hastened on to the front.
‘Thou seest how much I love thee, George,’ he said, ‘that I stay behind
in a moment like this.’ I forget whether I told thee Harry, that Florac
was under some obligation to me. I had won money of him at cards,
at Quebec--only playing at his repeated entreaty--and there was a
difficulty about paying, and I remitted his debt to me, and lighted
my pipe with his note-of-hand. You see, sir, that you are not the only
gambler in the family.

“At evening, when the dismal pursuit was over, the faithful fellow came
back to me, with a couple of Indians, who had each reeking scalps at
their belts, and whom he informed that I was a Frenchman, his brother,
who had been wounded early in the day, and must be carried back to the
fort. They laid me in one of their blankets, and carried me, groaning,
with the trusty Florac by my side. Had he left me, they would assuredly
have laid me down, plundered me, and added my hair to that of the
wretches whose bleeding spoils hung at their girdles. He promised them
brandy at the fort, if they brought me safely there: I have but a dim
recollection of the journey: the anguish of my wound was extreme: I
fainted more than once. We came to the end of our march at last. I was
taken into the fort, and carried to the officer’s log-house, and laid
upon Florac’s own bed.

“Happy for me was my insensibility. I had been brought into the fort
as a wounded French soldier of the garrison. I heard afterwards, that
during my delirium the few prisoners who had been made on the day of our
disaster, had been brought under the walls of Duquesne by their savage
captors, and there horribly burned, tortured, and butchered by the
Indians, under the eyes of the garrison.”

As George speaks, one may fancy a thrill of horror running through his
sympathising audience. Theo takes Hetty’s hand, and looks at George in
a very alarmed manner. Harry strikes his fist upon the table, and cries,
“The bloody, murderous, red-skinned villains! There will never be peace
for us until they are all hunted down!”

“They were offering a hundred and thirty dollars apiece for Indian
scalps in Pennsylvania, when I left home,” says George, demurely, “and
fifty for women.”

“Fifty for women, my love! Do you hear that, Mrs. Lambert?” cries the
Colonel, lifting up his wife’s hair.

“The murderous villains!” says Harry, again. “Hunt ‘em down, sir! Hunt
‘em down!”

“I know not how long I lay in my fever,” George resumed. “When I awoke
to my senses, my dear Florac was gone. He and his company had been
despatched on an enterprise against an English fort on the Pennsylvanian
territory, which the French claimed, too. In Duquesne, when I came to
be able to ask and understand what was said to me, there were not above
thirty Europeans left. The place might have been taken over and over
again, had any of our people had the courage to return after their
disaster.

“My old enemy the ague-fever set in again upon me as I lay here by the
river-side. ‘Tis a wonder how I ever survived. But for the goodness of
a half-breed woman in the fort, who took pity on me, and tended me, I
never should have recovered, and my poor Harry would be what he fancied
himself yesterday, our grandfather’s heir, our mother’s only son.

“I remembered how, when Florac laid me in his bed, he put under my
pillow my money, my watch, and a trinket or two which I had. When I
woke to myself these were all gone; and a surly old sergeant, the only
officer left in the quarter, told me, with a curse, that I was lucky
enough to be left with my life at all; that it was only my white cockade
and coat had saved me from the fate which the other canaille of Rosbifs
had deservedly met with.

“At the time of my recovery the fort was almost emptied of the garrison.
The Indians had retired enriched with British plunder, and the chief
part of the French regulars were gone upon expeditions northward. My
good Florac had left me upon his service, consigning me to the care of
an invalided sergeant. Monsieur de Contrecoeur had accompanied one of
these expeditions, leaving an old lieutenant, Museau by name, in command
at Duquesne.

“This man had long been out of France, and serving in the colonies. His
character, doubtless, had been indifferent at home; and he knew that,
according to the system pursued in France, where almost all promotion is
given to the noblesse, he never would advance in rank. And he had made
free with my guineas, I suppose, as he had with my watch, for I saw it
one day on his chest when I was sitting with him in his quarter.

“Monsieur Museau and I managed to be pretty good friends. If I could be
exchanged, or sent home, I told him that my mother would pay liberally
for my ransom; and I suppose this idea excited the cupidity of the
commandant, for a trapper coming in the winter, whilst I still lay very
ill with fever, Museau consented that I should write home to my mother,
but that the letter should be in French, that he should see it, and
that I should say I was in the hands of the Indians, and should not be
ransomed under ten thousand livres.

“In vain I said I was a prisoner to the troops of his Most Christian
Majesty, that I expected the treatment of a gentleman and an officer.
Museau swore that letter should go, and no other; that if I hesitated,
he would fling me out of the fort, or hand me over to the tender mercies
of his ruffian Indian allies. He would not let the trapper communicate
with me except in his presence. Life and liberty are sweet. I resisted
for a while, but I was pulled down with weakness, and shuddering with
fever; I wrote such a letter as the rascal consented to let pass, and
the trapper went away with my missive, which he promised, in three
weeks, to deliver to my mother in Virginia.

“Three weeks, six, twelve, passed. The messenger never returned. The
winter came and went, and all our little plantations round the fort,
where the French soldiers had cleared corn-ground and planted gardens
and peach- and apple-trees down to the Monongahela, were in full
blossom. Heaven knows how I crept through the weary time! When I was
pretty well, I made drawings of the soldiers of the garrison, and of the
half-breed and her child (Museau’s child), and of Museau himself, whom,
I am ashamed to say, I flattered outrageously; and there was an old
guitar left in the fort, and I sang to it, and played on it some French
airs which I knew, and ingratiated myself as best I could with my
gaolers; and so the weary months passed, but the messenger never
returned.

“At last news arrived that he had been shot by some British Indians in
Maryland: so there was an end of my hope of ransom for some months more.
This made Museau very savage and surly towards me; the more so as his
sergeant inflamed his rage by telling him that the Indian woman was
partial to me--as I believe, poor thing, she was. I was always gentle
with her, and grateful to her. My small accomplishments seemed wonders
in her eyes; I was ill and unhappy, too, and these are always claims to
a woman’s affection.

“A captive pulled down by malady, a ferocious gaoler, and a young woman
touched by the prisoner’s misfortunes--sure you expect that, with these
three prime characters in a piece, some pathetic tragedy is going to be
enacted? You, Miss Hetty, are about to guess that the woman saved me?”

“Why, of course she did!” cries mamma.

“What else is she good for?” says Hetty.

“You, Miss Theo, have painted her already as a dark beauty--is it not
so? A swift huntress--”

“Diana with a baby,” says the Colonel.

“--Who scours the plain with her nymphs, who brings down the game with
her unerring bow, who is queen of the forest--and I see by your looks
that you think I am madly in love with her?”

“Well, I suppose she is an interesting creature, Mr. George?” says Theo,
with a blush.

“What think you of a dark beauty, the colour of new mahogany with long
straight black hair, which was usually dressed with a hair-oil or
pomade by no means pleasant to approach, with little eyes, with high
cheek-bones, with a flat nose, sometimes ornamented with a ring, with
rows of glass beads round her tawny throat, her cheeks and forehead
gracefully tattooed, a great love of finery, and inordinate passion
for--oh! must I own it?”

“For coquetry. I know you are going to say that!” says Miss Hetty.

“For whisky, my dear Miss Hester--in which appetite my gaoler partook;
so that I have often sate by, on the nights when I was in favour with
Monsieur Museau, and seen him and his poor companion hob-and-nobbing
together until they could scarce hold the noggin out of which they
drank. In these evening entertainments, they would sing, they would
dance, they would fondle, they would quarrel, and knock the cans and
furniture about; and, when I was in favour, I was admitted to share
their society, for Museau, jealous of his dignity, or not willing that
his men should witness his behaviour, would allow none of them to be
familiar with him.

“Whilst the result of the trapper’s mission to my home was yet
uncertain, and Museau and I myself expected the payment of my ransom, I
was treated kindly enough, allowed to crawl about the fort, and even to
go into the adjoining fields and gardens, always keeping my parole, and
duly returning before gun-fire. And I exercised a piece of hypocrisy,
for which, I hope, you will hold me excused. When my leg was sound (the
ball came out in the winter, after some pain and inflammation, and the
wound healed up presently), I yet chose to walk as if I was disabled
and a cripple; I hobbled on two sticks, and cried Ah! and Oh! at every
minute, hoping that a day might come when I might treat my limbs to a
run.

“Museau was very savage when he began to give up all hopes of the first
messenger. He fancied that the man might have got the ransom-money and
fled with it himself. Of course he was prepared to disown any part in
the transaction, should my letter be discovered. His treatment of me
varied according to his hopes or fears, or even his mood for the time
being. He would have me consigned to my quarters for several days at a
time; then invite me to his tipsy supper-table, quarrel with me there,
and abuse my nation; or again break out into maudlin sentimentalities
about his native country of Normandy, where he longed to spend his old
age, to buy a field or two, and to die happy.

“‘Eh, Monsieur Museau!’ says I, ‘ten thousand livres of your money would
buy a pretty field or two in your native country? You can have it for
the ransom of me, if you will but let me go. In a few months you must
be superseded in your command here, and then adieu the crowns and
the fields in Normandy! You had better trust a gentleman and a man of
honour. Let me go home, and I give you my word the ten thousand livres
shall be paid to any agent you may appoint in France or in Quebec.’

“‘Ah, young traitor!’ roars he, ‘do you wish to tamper with my honour?
Do you believe an officer of France will take a bribe? I have a mind to
consign thee to my black-hole, and to have thee shot in the morning.’

“‘My poor body will never fetch ten thousand livres,’ says I; ‘and a
pretty field in Normandy with a cottage...’

“‘And an orchard. Ah, sacre bleu!’ says Museau, whimpering, ‘and a dish
of tripe a la mode du pays!...”

“This talk happened between us again and again, and Museau would order
me to my quarters, and then ask me to supper the next night, and return
to the subject of Normandy, and cider, and trippes a la mode de Caen. My
friend is dead now--”

“He was hung, I trust?” breaks in Colonel Lambert.

“--And I need keep no secret about him. Ladies, I wish I had to offer
you the account of a dreadful and tragical escape; how I slew all the
sentinels of the fort; filed through the prison windows, destroyed a
score or so of watchful dragons, overcame a million of dangers, and
finally effected my freedom. But, in regard of that matter, I have no
heroic deeds to tell of, and own that, by bribery and no other means, I
am where I am.”

“But you would have fought, Georgy, if need were,” says Harry; “and you
couldn’t conquer a whole garrison, you know!” And herewith Mr. Harry
blushed very much.

“See the women, how disappointed they are!” says Lambert. “Mrs. Lambert,
you bloodthirsty woman, own that you are balked of a battle; and look at
Hetty, quite angry because Mr. George did not shoot the commandant.”

“You wished he was hung yourself, papa!” cries Miss Hetty, “and I am
sure I wish anything my papa wishes.”

“Nay, ladies,” says George, turning a little red, “to wink at a
prisoner’s escape was not a very monstrous crime; and to take money?
Sure other folks besides Frenchmen have condescended to a bribe before
now. Although Monsieur Museau set me free, I am inclined, for my part,
to forgive him. Will it please you to hear how that business was done?
You see, Miss Hetty, I cannot help being alive to tell it.”

“Oh, George!--that is, I mean, Mr. Warrington!--that is, I mean, I beg
your pardon!” cries Hester.

“No pardon, my dear! I never was angry yet or surprised that any one
should like my Harry better than me. He deserves all the liking that
any man or woman can give him. See, it is his turn to blush now,” says
George.

“Go on, Georgy, and tell them about the escape out of Duquesne!” cries
Harry, and he said to Mrs. Lambert afterwards in confidence, “You know
he is always going on saying that he ought never to have come to life
again, and declaring that I am better than he is. The idea of my being
better than George, Mrs. Lambert! a poor, extravagant fellow like me!
It’s absurd!”



CHAPTER LII. Intentique Ora tenebant


“We continued for months our weary life at the fort, and the commandant
and I had our quarrels and reconciliations, our greasy games at cards,
our dismal duets with his asthmatic flute and my cracked guitar. The
poor Fawn took her beatings and her cans of liquor as her lord and
master chose to administer them; and she nursed her papoose, or her
master in the gout, or her prisoner in the ague; and so matters went on
until the beginning of the fall of last year, when we were visited by a
hunter who had important news to deliver to the commandant, and such as
set the little garrison in no little excitement. The Marquis de Montcalm
had sent a considerable detachment to garrison the forts already in the
French hands, and to take up further positions in the enemy’s--that is,
in the British--possessions. The troops had left Quebec and Montreal,
and were coming up the St. Lawrence and the lakes in bateaux, with
artillery and large provisions of warlike and other stores. Museau would
be superseded in his command by an officer of superior rank, who might
exchange me, or who might give me up to the Indians in reprisal for
cruelties practised by our own people on many and many an officer
and soldier of the enemy. The men of the fort were eager for the
reinforcements; they would advance into Pennsylvania and New York; they
would seize upon Albany and Philadelphia; they would drive the Rosbifs
into the sea, and all America should be theirs from the Mississippi to
Newfoundland.

“This was all very triumphant: but yet, somehow, the prospect of the
French conquest did not add to Mr. Museau’s satisfaction.

“‘Eh, commandant!’ says I, ‘’tis fort bien, but meanwhile your farm in
Normandy, the pot of cider, and the trippes a la mode de Caen, where are
they?’

“‘Yes; ‘tis all very well, my garcon,’ says he. ‘But where will you
be when poor old Museau is superseded? Other officers are not good
companions like me. Very few men in the world have my humanity. When
there is a great garrison here, will my successors give thee the
indulgences which honest Museau has granted thee? Thou wilt be kept in
a sty like a pig ready for killing. As sure as one of our officers falls
into the hands of your brigands of frontier-men, and evil comes to him,
so surely wilt thou have to pay with thy skin for his. Thou wilt be
given up to our red allies--to the brethren of La Biche yonder. Didst
thou see, last year, what they did to thy countrymen whom we took in
the action with Braddock? Roasting was the very smallest punishment, ma
foi--was it not, La Biche?’

“And he entered into a variety of jocular descriptions of tortures
inflicted, eyes burned out of their sockets, teeth and nails wrenched
out, limbs and bodies gashed--You turn pale, dear Miss Theo! Well, I
will have pity, and will spare you the tortures which honest Museau
recounted in his pleasant way as likely to befall me.

“La Biche was by no means so affected as you seem to be, ladies, by the
recital of these horrors. She had witnessed them in her time. She came
from the Senecas, whose villages lie near the great cataract between
Ontario and Erie; her people made war for the English, and against them:
they had fought with other tribes; and, in the battles between us
and them, it is difficult to say whether whiteskin or redskin is most
savage.

“‘They may chop me into cutlets and broil me, ‘tis true, commandant,’
says I, coolly. ‘But again, I say, you will never have the farm in
Normandy.’

“‘Go get the whisky-bottle, La Biche,’ says Museau.

“‘And it is not too late, even now. I will give the guide who takes me
home a large reward. And again I say, I promise, as a man of honour,
ten thousand livres to--whom shall I say? to one who shall bring me any
token--who shall bring me, say, my watch and seal with my grandfather’s
arms--which I have seen in a chest somewhere in this fort.’

“‘Ah, scelerat!’ roars out the commandant, with a hoarse yell of
laughter. ‘Thou hast eyes, thou! All is good prize in war.’

“‘Think of a house in your village, of a fine field hard by with a
half-dozen of cows--of a fine orchard all covered with fruit.’

“‘And Javotte at the door with her wheel, and a rascal of a child,
or two, with cheeks as red as the apples! O my country! O my mother!”
 whimpers out the commandant. ‘Quick, La Biche, the whisky!’

“All that night the commandant was deep in thought, and La Biche, too,
silent and melancholy. She sate away from us, nursing her child, and
whenever my eyes turned towards her I saw hers were fixed on me. The
poor little infant began to cry, and was ordered away by Museau, with
his usual foul language, to the building which the luckless Biche
occupied with her child. When she was gone, we both of us spoke our
minds freely; and I put such reasons before monsieur as his cupidity
could not resist.

“‘How do you know,’ he asked, ‘that this hunter will serve you?’

“‘That is my secret,’ says I. But here, if you like, as we are not on
honour, I may tell it. When they come into the settlements for their
bargains, the hunters often stop a day or two for rest and drink and
company, and our new friend loved all these. He played at cards with
the men: he set his furs against their liquor: he enjoyed himself at
the fort, singing, dancing, and gambling with them. I think I said they
liked to listen to my songs, and for want of better things to do, I was
often singing and guitar-scraping: and we would have many a concert,
the men joining in chorus, or dancing to my homely music, until it was
interrupted by the drums and the retraite.

“Our guest the hunter was present at one or two of these concerts, and I
thought I would try if possibly he understood English. After we had had
our little stock of French songs, I said, ‘My lads, I will give you an
English song,’ and to the tune of ‘Over the hills and far away,’ which
my good old grandfather used to hum as a favourite air in Marlborough’s
camp, I made some doggerel words:--‘This long, long year, a prisoner
drear; Ah, me! I’m tired of lingering here: I’ll give a hundred guineas
gay, To be over the hills and far away.’

“‘What is it?’ says the hunter. ‘I don’t understand.’

“‘’Tis a girl to her lover,’ I answered; but I saw by the twinkle in the
man’s eye that he understood me.

“The next day, when there were no men within hearing, the trapper showed
that I was right in my conjecture, for as he passed me he hummed in a
low tone, but in perfectly good English, ‘Over the hills and far away,’
the burden of my yesterday’s doggerel.

“‘If you are ready,’ says he, ‘I am ready. I know who your people are,
and the way to them. Talk to the Fawn, and she will tell you what to
do. What! You will not play with me?’ Here he pulled out some cards, and
spoke in French as two soldiers came up. ‘Milor est trop grand seigneur?
Bonjour, my lord!’

“And the man made me a mock bow, and walked away, shrugging up his
shoulders, to offer to play and drink elsewhere.

“I knew now that the Biche was to be the agent in the affair, and that
my offer to Museau was accepted. The poor Fawn performed her part very
faithfully and dexterously. I had not need of a word more with Museau;
the matter was understood between us. The Fawn had long been allowed
free communication with me. She had tended me during my wound and in my
illnesses, helped to do the work of my little chamber, my cooking, and
so forth. She was free to go out of the fort, as I have said, and to
the river and the fields whence the corn and garden-stuff of the little
garrison were brought in.

“Having gambled away most of the money which he received for his
peltries, the trapper now got together his store of flints, powder, and
blankets, and took his leave. And, three days after his departure, the
Fawn gave me the signal that the time was come for me to make my little
trial for freedom.

“When first wounded, I had been taken by my kind Florac and placed on
his bed in the officers’ room. When the fort was emptied of all officers
except the old lieutenant left in command, I had been allowed to remain
in my quarters, sometimes being left pretty free, sometimes being locked
up and fed on prisoners’ rations, sometimes invited to share his mess by
my tipsy gaoler.

“This officers’ house, or room, was of logs like the half-dozen others
within the fort, which mounted only four guns of small calibre, of which
one was on the bastion behind my cabin. Looking westward over this gun,
you could see a small island at the confluence of the two rivers Ohio
and Monongahela whereon Duquesne is situated. On the shore opposite this
island were some trees.

“‘You see those trees?’ my poor Biche said to me the day before, in her
French jargon. ‘He wait for you behind those trees.’

“In the daytime the door of my quarters was open, and the Biche free to
come and go. On the day before she came in from the fields with a pick
in her hand and a basketful of vegetables and potherbs for soup. She sat
down on a bench at my door, the pick resting against it, and the basket
at her side. I stood talking to her for a while: but I believe I was so
idiotic that I never should have thought of putting the pick to any use
had she actually pushed it into my open door, so that it fell into my
room. ‘Hide it’ she said; ‘want it soon.’ And that afternoon it was, she
pointed out the trees to me.

“On the next day, she comes, pretending to be very angry, and calls out,
‘My lord! my lord! why you not come to commandant’s dinner? He very bad!
Entendez-vows?’ And she peeps into the room as she speaks, and flings a
coil of rope at me.

“‘I am coming, La Biche,’ says I, and hobbled after her on my crutch.
As I went in to the commandant’s quarters she says, ‘Pour ce soir.’ And
then I knew the time was come.

“As for Museau, he knew nothing about the matter. Not he! He growled at
me, and said the soup was cold. He looked me steadily in the face, and
talked of this and that; not only whilst his servant was present, but
afterwards as we smoked our pipes and played our game at piquet; whilst
according to her wont, the poor Biche sate cowering in a corner.

“My friend’s whisky-bottle was empty; and he said, with rather a knowing
look, he must have another glass--we must both have a glass that night.
And rising from the table he stumped to the inner room where he kept his
fire-water under lock and key, and away from the poor Biche, who could
not resist that temptation.

“As he turned his back the Biche raised herself; and he was no sooner
gone but she was at my feet, kissing my hand, pressing it to her heart,
and bursting into tears over my knees. I confess I was so troubled by
this testimony of the poor creature’s silent attachment and fondness,
the extent of which I scarce had suspected before, that when Museau
returned, I had not recovered my equanimity, though the poor Fawn was
back in her corner again and shrouded in her blanket.

“He did not appear to remark anything strange in the behaviour of
either. We sate down to our game, though my thoughts were so preoccupied
that I scarcely knew what cards were before me.

“‘I gain everything from you to-night, milor,’ says he, grimly. ‘We play
upon parole.’

“‘And you may count upon mine,’ I replied.

“‘Eh! ‘tis all that you have!’ says he.

“‘Monsieur,’ says I, ‘my word is good for ten thousand livres;’ and we
continued our game.

“At last he said he had a headache, and would go to bed, and I
understood the orders too, that I was to retire. ‘I wish you a good
night, mon petit milor,’ says he,--‘stay, you will fall without your
crutch,’--and his eyes twinkled at me, and his face wore a sarcastic
grin. In the agitation of the moment I had quite forgotten that I was
lame, and was walking away at a pace as good as a grenadier’s.

“‘What a vilain night!’ says he, looking out. In fact there was a
tempest abroad, and a great roaring, and wind. ‘Bring a lanthorn, La
Tulipe, and lock my lord comfortably into his quarters!’ He stood a
moment looking at me from his own door, and I saw a glimpse of the poor
Biche behind him.

“The night was so rainy that the sentries preferred their boxes, and did
not disturb me in my work. The log-house was built with upright posts,
deeply fixed in the ground, and horizontal logs laid upon it. I had to
dig under these, and work a hole sufficient to admit my body to pass. I
began in the dark, soon after tattoo. It was some while after midnight
before my work was done, when I lifted my hand up under the log and felt
the rain from without falling upon it. I had to work very cautiously for
two hours after that, and then crept through to the parapet and silently
flung my rope over the gun; not without a little tremor of heart, lest
the sentry should see me and send a charge of lead into my body.

“The wall was but twelve feet, and my fall into the ditch easy enough. I
waited a while there, looking steadily under the gun, and trying to see
the river and the island. I heard the sentry pacing up above and humming
a tune. The darkness became more clear to me ere long, and the moon
rose, and I saw the river shining before me, and the dark rocks and
trees of the island rising in the waters.

“I made for this mark as swiftly as I could, and for the clump of trees
to which I had been directed. Oh, what a relief I had when I heard a low
voice humming there, ‘Over the hills and far away’!”

When Mr. George came to this part of his narrative, Miss Theo, who was
seated by a harpsichord, turned round and dashed off the tune on the
instrument, whilst all the little company broke out into the merry
chorus.

“Our way,” the speaker went on, “lay through a level tract of
forest with which my guide was familiar, upon the right bank of the
Monongahela. By daylight we came to a clearer country, and my trapper
asked me--Silverheels was the name by which he went--had I ever seen
the spot before? It was the fatal field where Braddock had fallen, and
whence I had been wonderfully rescued in the summer of the previous
year. Now, the leaves were beginning to be tinted with the magnificent
hues of our autumn.”

“Ah, brother!” cries Harry, seizing his brother’s hand. “I was gambling
and making a fool of myself at the Wells and in London, when my
George was flying for his life in the wilderness! Oh, what a miserable
spendthrift I have been!”

“But I think thou art not unworthy to be called thy mother’s son,” said
Mrs. Lambert, very softly, and with moistened eyes. Indeed, if Harry
had erred, to mark his repentance, his love, his unselfish joy and
generosity, was to feel that there was hope for the humbled and kind
young sinner.

“We presently crossed the river” George resumed, “taking our course
along the base of the western slopes of the Alleghanies; and through a
grand forest region of oaks and maple, and enormous poplars that grow
a hundred feet high without a branch. It was the Indians whom we had
to avoid, besides the outlying parties of French. Always of doubtful
loyalty, the savages have been specially against us, since our
ill-treatment of them, and the French triumph over us two years ago.

“I was but weak still, and our journey through the wilderness lasted a
fortnight or more. As we advanced, the woods became redder and redder.
The frost nipped sharply of nights. We lighted fires at our feet, and
slept in our blankets as best we might. At this time of year the hunters
who live in the mountains get their sugar from the maples. We came upon
more than one such family, camping near their trees by the mountain
streams; and they welcomed us at their fires, and gave us of their
venison. So we passed over the two ranges of the Laurel Hills and the
Alleghanies. The last day’s march of my trusty guide and myself took us
down that wild, magnificent pass of Will’s Creek, a valley lying between
cliffs near a thousand feet high--bald, white, and broken into towers
like huge fortifications, with eagles wheeling round the summits of the
rocks, and watching their nests among the crags.

“And hence we descended to Cumberland, whence we had marched in the year
before, and where there was now a considerable garrison of our people.
Oh! you may think it was a welcome day when I saw English colours again
on the banks of our native Potomac!”



CHAPTER LIII. Where we remain at the Court End of the Town


George Warrington had related the same story, which we have just heard,
to Madame de Bernstein on the previous evening--a portion, that is, of
the history; for the old lady nodded off to sleep many times during
the narration, only waking up when George paused, saying it was most
interesting, and ordering him to continue. The young gentleman hem’d and
ha’d, and stuttered, and blushed, and went on, much against his will,
and did not speak half so well as he did to his friendly little auditory
in Hill Street, where Hetty’s eyes of wonder and Theo’s sympathising
looks, and mamma’s kind face, and papa’s funny looks, were applause
sufficient to cheer any modest youth who required encouragement for his
eloquence. As for mamma’s behaviour, the General said, ‘twas as good as
Mr. Addison’s trunk-maker, and she would make the fortune of any tragedy
by simply being engaged to cry in the front boxes. That is why we chose
my Lord Wrotham’s house as the theatre where George’s first piece should
be performed, wishing that he should speak to advantage, and not as when
he was heard by that sleepy, cynical old lady, to whom he had to narrate
his adventures.

“Very good and most interesting, I am sure, my dear sir,” says Madame
Bernstein, putting up three pretty little fingers covered with a lace
mitten, to hide a convulsive movement of her mouth. “And your mother
must have been delighted to see you.”

George shrugged his shoulders ever so little, and made a low bow, as his
aunt looked up at him for a moment with her keen old eyes.

“Have been delighted to see you” she continued drily, “and killed the
fatted calf, and--and that kind of thing. Though why I say calf, I don’t
know, nephew George, for you never were the prodigal. I may say calf to
thee, my poor Harry! Thou hast been amongst the swine sure enough. And
evil companions have robbed the money out of thy pocket and the coat off
thy back.

“He came to his family in England, madam,” says George, with some heat,
“and his friends were your ladyship’s.”

“He could not have come to worse advisers, nephew Warrington, and so I
should have told my sister earlier, had she condescended to write to me
by him, as she has done by you,” said the old lady, tossing up her head.
“Hey! hey!” she said, at night, as she arranged herself for the rout to
which she was going, to her waiting-maid: “this young gentleman’s mother
is half sorry that he has come to life again, I could see that in his
face. She is half sorry, and I am perfectly furious! Why didn’t he
lie still when he dropped there under the tree, and why did that young
Florac carry him to the fort? I knew those Floracs when I was at Paris,
in the time of Monsieur le Regent. They were of the Floracs of Ivry. No
great house before Henri IV. His ancestor was the king’s favourite.
His ancestor--he! he!--his ancestress! Brett! entendez-vous? Give me my
card-purse. I don’t like the grand airs of this Monsieur George; and yet
he resembles, very much, his grandfather--the same look and sometimes
the same tones. You have heard of Colonel Esmond when I was young? This
boy has his eyes. I suppose I liked the Colonel’s because he loved me.”

Being engaged, then, to a card-party,--an amusement which she never
missed, week-day or Sabbath, as long as she had strength to hold trumps
or sit in a chair,--very soon after George had ended his narration the
old lady dismissed her two nephews, giving to the elder a couple of
fingers and a very stately curtsey; but to Harry two hands and a kindly
pat on the cheek.

“My poor child, now thou art disinherited, thou wilt see how differently
the world will use thee!” she said. “There is only, in all London, a
wicked, heartless old woman who will treat thee as before. Here is a
pocket-book for you, child! Do not lose it at Ranelagh to-night. That
suit of yours does not become your brother half so well as it sat upon
you! You will present your brother to everybody, and walk up and down
the room for two hours at least, child. Were I you, I would then go to
the Chocolate-House, and play as if nothing had happened. Whilst you are
there, your brother may come back to me and eat a bit of chicken
with me. My Lady Flint gives wretched suppers, and I want to talk his
mother’s letter over with him. Au revoir, gentlemen!” and she went away
to her toilette. Her chairmen and flambeaux were already waiting at the
door.

The gentlemen went to Ranelagh, where but a few of Mr. Harry’s
acquaintances chanced to be present. They paced the round, and met Mr.
Tom Claypool with some of his country friends; they heard the music;
they drank tea in a box; Harry was master of ceremonies, and introduced
his brother to the curiosities of the place; and George was even more
excited than his brother had been on his first introduction to this
palace of delight. George loved music much more than Harry ever did;
he heard a full orchestra for the first time, and a piece of Mr. Handel
satisfactorily performed; and a not unpleasing instance of Harry’s
humility and regard for his elder brother was, that he could even hold
George’s love of music in respect at a time when fiddling was voted
effeminate and unmanly in England, and Britons were, every day, called
upon by the patriotic prints to sneer at the frivolous accomplishments
of your Squallinis, Monsieurs, and the like. Nobody in Britain is proud
of his ignorance now. There is no conceit left among us. There is no
such thing as dulness. Arrogance is entirely unknown... Well, at any
rate, Art has obtained her letters of naturalisation, and lives here on
terms of almost equality. If Mrs. Thrale chose to marry a music-master
now, I don’t think her friends would shudder at the mention of her name.
If she had a good fortune and kept a good cook, people would even go and
dine with her in spite of the misalliance, and actually treat Mr. Piozzi
with civility.

After Ranelagh, and pursuant to Madam Bernstein’s advice, George
returned to her ladyship’s house, whilst Harry showed himself at the
club, where gentlemen were accustomed to assemble at night to sup, and
then to gamble. No one, of course, alluded to Mr. Warrington’s little
temporary absence, and Mr. Ruff, his ex-landlord, waited upon him with
the utmost gravity and civility, and as if there had never been any
difference between them. Mr. Warrington had caused his trunks and
habiliments to be conveyed away from Bond Street in the morning, and he
and his brother were now established in apartments elsewhere.

But when the supper was done, and the gentlemen, as usual, were about to
seek the macco-table upstairs, Harry said he was not going to play
any more. He had burned his fingers already, and could afford no more
extravagance.

“Why,” says Mr. Morris, in a rather flippant manner, “you must have won
more than you have lost, Mr. Warrington, after all is said and done.”

“And of course I don’t know my own business as well as you do, Mr.
Morris,” says Harry sternly, who had not forgotten the other’s behaviour
on hearing of his arrest; “but I have another reason. A few months
or days ago, I was heir to a great estate, and could afford to lose
a little money. Now, thank God, I am heir to nothing.” And he looked
round, blushing not a little, to the knot of gentlemen, his gaming
associates, who were lounging at the tables or gathered round the fire.

“How do you mean, Mr. Warrington?” cries my Lord March, “Have you lost
Virginia, too? Who has won it? I always had a fancy to play you myself
for that stake.”

“And grow an improved breed of slaves in the colony,” says another.

“The right owner has won it. You have heard me tell of my twin elder
brother?”

“Who was killed in that affair of Braddock’s two years ago! Yes.
Gracious goodness, my dear sir, I hope in heaven he has not come to life
again?”

“He arrived in London two days since. He has been a prisoner in a French
fort for eighteen months; he only escaped a few months ago, and left our
house in Virginia very soon after his release.”

“You haven’t had time to order mourning, I suppose, Mr. Warrington?”
 asks Mr. Selwyn very good-naturedly, and simple Harry hardly knew the
meaning of his joke until his brother interpreted it to him.

“Hang me, if I don’t believe the fellow is absolutely glad of the
reappearance of his confounded brother!” cries my Lord March, as they
continued to talk of the matter when the young Virginian had taken his
leave.

“These savages practise the simple virtues of affection--they are barely
civilised in America yet,” yawns Selwyn.

“They love their kindred, and they scalp their enemies,” simpers Mr.
Walpole. “It’s not Christian, but natural. Shouldn’t you like to be
present at a scalping-match, George, and see a fellow skinned alive?”

“A man’s elder brother is his natural enemy,” says Mr. Selwyn, placidly
ranging his money and counters before him.

“Torture is like broiled bones and pepper. You wouldn’t relish simple
hanging afterwards, George!” continues Horry.

“I’m hanged if there’s any man in England who would like to see his
elder brother alive,” says my lord.

“No, nor his father either, my lord!” cries Jack Morris.

“First time I ever knew you had one, Jack. Give me counters for five
hundred.”

“I say, ‘tis all mighty fine about dead brothers coming to life again,”
 continues Jack. “Who is to know that it wasn’t a scheme arranged between
these two fellows? Here comes a young fellow who calls himself the
Fortunate Youth, who says he is a Virginian Prince and the deuce knows
what, and who gets into our society----”

A great laugh ensues at Jack’s phrase of “our society.”

“Who is to know that it wasn’t a cross?” Jack continues. “The young one
is to come first. He is to marry an heiress, and, when he has got her,
up is to rise the elder brother! When did this elder brother show? Why,
when the younger’s scheme was blown, and all was up with him! Who shall
tell me that the fellow hasn’t been living in Seven Dials, or in a
cellar dining off tripe and cow-heel until my younger gentleman was
disposed of? Dammy, as gentlemen, I think we ought to take notice of it:
and that this Mr. Warrington has been taking a most outrageous liberty
with the whole club.”

“Who put him up? It was March, I think, put him up?” asks a bystander.

“Yes. But my lord thought he was putting up a very different person.
Didn’t you, March?”

“Hold your confounded tongue, and mind your game!” says the nobleman
addressed: but Jack Morris’s opinion found not a few supporters in the
world. Many persons agreed that it was most indecorous of Mr. Harry
Warrington to have ever believed in his brother’s death: that there
was something suspicious about the young man’s first appearance and
subsequent actions, and, in fine, that regarding these foreigners,
adventurers, and the like, we ought to be especially cautious.

Though he was out of prison and difficulty; though he had his aunt’s
liberal donation of money in his pocket; though his dearest brother
was restored to him, whose return to life Harry never once thought of
deploring, as his friends at White’s supposed he would do; though Maria
had shown herself in such a favourable light by her behaviour during
his misfortune: yet Harry, when alone, felt himself not particularly
cheerful, and smoked his pipe of Virginia with a troubled mind. It was
not that he was deposed from his principality; the loss of it never once
vexed him; he knew that his brother would share with him as he would
have done with his brother; but after all those struggles and doubts
in his own mind, to find himself poor, and yet irrevocably bound to his
elderly cousin! Yes, she was elderly, there was no doubt about it. When
she came to that horrible den in Cursitor Street and the tears washed
her rouge off, why, she looked as old as his mother! her face was all
wrinkled and yellow, and as he thought of her he felt just such a qualm
as he had when she was taken ill that day in the coach on their road
to Tunbridge. What would his mother say when he brought her home, and,
Lord, what battles there would be between them! He would go and live on
one of the plantations--the farther from home the better--and have a
few negroes, and farm as best he might, and hunt a good deal; but at
Castlewood or in her own home, such as he could make it for her, what a
life for poor Maria, who had been used to go to court and to cards and
balls and assemblies every night! If he could be but the overseer of the
estates--oh, he would be an honest factor, and try and make up for his
useless life and extravagance in these past days! Five thousand pounds,
all his patrimony and the accumulations of his long minority squandered
in six months! He a beggar, except for dear George’s kindness, with
nothing in life left to him but an old wife,--a pretty beggar, dressed
out in velvet and silver lace forsooth--the poor lad was arrayed in his
best clothes--a pretty figure he had made in Europe, and a nice end he
was come to! With all his fine friends at White’s and Newmarket, with
all his extravagance, had he been happy a single day since he had been
in Europe? Yes, three days, four days, yesterday evening, when he had
been with dear dear Mrs. Lambert, and those affectionate kind girls, and
that brave good Colonel. And the Colonel was right when he rebuked him
for his spendthrift follies, and he had been a brute to be angry as he
had been, and God bless them all for their generous exertions in his
behalf! Such were the thoughts which Harry put into his pipe, and he
smoked them whilst he waited his brother’s return from Madame Bernstein.



CHAPTER LIV. During which Harry sits smoking his Pipe at Home


The maternal grandfather of our Virginians, the Colonel Esmond of whom
frequent mention has been made, and who had quitted England to reside in
the New World, had devoted some portion of his long American leisure
to the composition of the memoirs of his early life. In these volumes,
Madame de Bernstein (Mrs. Beatrice Esmond was her name as a
spinster) played a very considerable part; and as George had read his
grandfather’s manuscript many times over, he had learned to know his
kinswoman long before he saw her,--to know, at least, the lady, young,
beautiful, and wilful, of half a century since, with whom he now became
acquainted in the decline of her days. When cheeks are faded and eyes
are dim, is it sad or pleasant, I wonder, for the woman who is a beauty
no more, to recall the period of her bloom! When the heart is withered,
do the old love to remember how it once was fresh and beat with warm
emotions? When the spirits are languid and weary, do we like to think
how bright they were in other days, the hope how buoyant, the sympathies
how ready, the enjoyment of life how keen and eager? So they fall--the
buds of prime, the roses of beauty, the florid harvests of summer,--fall
and wither, and the naked branches shiver in the winter.

“And that was a beauty once!” thinks George Warrington, as his aunt,
in her rouge and diamonds, comes in from her rout, “and that ruin was
a splendid palace. Crowds of lovers have sighed before those decrepit
feet, and been bewildered by the brightness of those eyes.” He
remembered a firework at home, at Williamsburg, on the King’s birthday,
and afterwards looking at the skeleton-wheel and the sockets of the
exploded Roman candles. The dazzle and brilliancy of Aunt Beatrice’s
early career passed before him, as he thought over his grandsire’s
journals. Honest Harry had seen them, too, but Harry was no bookman,
and had not read the manuscript very carefully: nay, if he had, he would
probably not have reasoned about it as his brother did, being by no
means so much inclined to moralising as his melancholy senior.

Mr. Warrington thought that there was no cause why he should tell his
aunt how intimate he was with her early history, and accordingly held
his peace upon that point. When their meal was over, she pointed with
her cane to her escritoire, and bade her attendant bring the letter
which lay under the inkstand there; and George, recognising the
superscription, of course knew the letter to be that of which he had
been the bearer from home.

“It would appear by this letter,” said the old lady, looking hard at her
nephew, “that ever since your return, there have been some differences
between you and my sister.”

“Indeed? I did not know that Madam Esmond had alluded to them,” George
said.

The Baroness puts a great pair of glasses upon eyes which shot fire and
kindled who knows how many passions in old days, and, after glancing
over the letter, hands it to George, who reads as follows:--


“RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, December 26th, 1756.

“HONOURED MADAM! AND SISTER!--I have received, and thankfully
acknowledge, your ladyship’s favour, per Rose packet, of October 23
ult.; and straightway answer you at a season which should be one of
goodwill and peace to all men: but in which Heaven hath nevertheless
decreed we should still bear our portion of earthly sorrow and trouble.
My reply will be brought to you by my eldest son, Mr. Esmond Warrington,
who returned to us so miraculously out of the Valley of the Shadow of
Death (as our previous letters have informed my poor Henry), and who is
desirous, not without my consent to his wish, to visit Europe, though he
has been amongst us so short a while. I grieve to think that my dearest
Harry should have appeared at home--I mean in England--under false
colours, as it were; and should have been presented to his Majesty, to
our family, and his own, as his father’s heir, whilst my dear son George
was still alive, though dead to us. Ah, madam! During the eighteen
months of his captivity, what anguish have his mother’s, his brother’s,
hearts undergone! My Harry’s is the tenderest of any man’s now alive. In
the joy of seeing Mr. Esmond Warrington returned to life, he will
forget the worldly misfortune which befalls him. He will return to
(comparative) poverty without a pang. The most generous, the most
obedient of human beings, of sons, he will gladly give up to his elder
brother that inheritance which had been his own but for the accident of
birth, and for the providential return of my son George.

“Your beneficent intentions towards dearest Harry will be more than ever
welcome, now he is reduced to a younger brother’s slender portion! Many
years since, an advantageous opportunity occurred of providing for him
in this province, and he would by this time have been master of a noble
estate and negroes, and have been enabled to make a figure with most
here, could his mother’s wishes have been complied with, and his
father’s small portion, now lying at small interest in the British
funds, have been invested in this most excellent purchase. But the forms
of the law, and, I grieve to own, my elder son’s scruples, prevailed,
and this admirable opportunity was lost to me! Harry will find the
savings of his income have been carefully accumulated--long, long may
he live to enjoy them! May Heaven bless you, dear sister, for what your
ladyship may add to his little store! As I gather from your letter, that
the sum which has been allowed to him has not been sufficient for his
expenses in the fine company which he has kept (and the grandson of the
Marquis of Esmond--one who had so nearly been his lordship’s heir--may
sure claim equality with any other nobleman in Great Britain), and
having a sum by me which I had always intended for the poor child’s
establishment, I entrust it to my eldest son, who, to do him justice,
hath a most sincere regard for his brother, to lay it out for Harry’s
best advantage.”


“It took him out of prison yesterday, madam. I think that was the best
use to which we could put it,” interposed George, at this stage of his
mother’s letter.

“Nay, sir, I don’t know any such thing! Why not have kept it to buy
a pair of colours for him, or to help towards another estate and some
negroes, if he has a fancy for home?” cried the old lady. “Besides, I
had a fancy to pay that debt myself.”

“I hope you will let his brother do that. I ask leave to be my brother’s
banker in this matter, and consider I have borrowed so much from my
mother, to be paid back to my dear Harry.”

“Do you say so, sir? Give me a glass of wine! You are an extravagant
fellow! Read on, and you will see your mother thinks so. I drink to your
health, nephew George! ‘Tis good Burgundy. Your grandfather never loved
Burgundy. He loved claret, the little he drank.”

And George proceeded with the letter:


“This remittance will, I trust, amply cover any expenses which, owing to
the mistake respecting his position, dearest Harry may have incurred.
I wish I could trust his elder brother’s prudence as confidently as
my Harry’s! But I fear that, even in his captivity, Mr. Esmond W. has
learned little of that humility which becomes all Christians, and which
I have ever endeavoured to teach to my children. Should you by chance
show him these lines, when, by the blessing of Heaven on those who go
down to the sea in ships, the Great Ocean divides us! he will know that
a fond mother’s blessing and prayers follow both her children, and
that there is no act I have ever done, no desire I have ever expressed
(however little he may have been inclined to obey it!) but hath been
dictated by the fondest wishes for my dearest boys’ welfare.”


“There is a scratch with a penknife, and a great blot upon the letter
there, as if water had fallen on it. Your mother writes well, George. I
suppose you and she had a difference?” said George’s aunt, not unkindly.

“Yes, ma’am, many,” answered the young man, sadly. “The last was about
a question of money--of ransom which I promised to the old lieutenant of
the fort who aided me to make my escape. I told you he had a mistress, a
poor Indian woman, who helped me, and was kind to me. Six weeks after my
arrival at home, the poor thing made her appearance at Richmond, having
found her way through the wood by pretty much the same track which I had
followed, and bringing me the token which Museau had promised to send me
when he connived to my flight. A commanding officer and a considerable
reinforcement had arrived at Duquesne. Charges, I don’t know of what
peculation (for his messenger could not express herself very clearly),
had been brought against this Museau. He had been put under arrest, and
had tried to escape; but, less fortunate than myself, he had been
shot on the rampart, and he sent the Indian woman to me, with my
grandfather’s watch, and a line scrawled in his prison on his deathbed,
begging me to send ce que je scavais to a notary at Havre de Grace in
France to be transmitted to his relatives at Caen in Normandy. My friend
Silverheels, the hunter, had helped my poor Indian on her way. I don’t
know how she would have escaped scalping else. But at home they received
the poor thing sternly. They hardly gave her a welcome. I won’t say
what suspicions they had regarding her and me. The poor wretch fell to
drinking whenever she could find means. I ordered that she should have
food and shelter, and she became the jest of our negroes, and formed the
subject of the scandal and tittle-tattle of the old fools in our little
town. Our Governor was, luckily, a man of sense, and I made interest
with him, and procured a pass to send her back to her people. Her very
grief at parting with me only served to confirm the suspicions against
her. A fellow preached against me from the pulpit, I believe; I had
to treat another with a cane. And I had a violent dispute with Madam
Esmond--a difference which is not healed yet--because I insisted upon
paying to the heirs Museau pointed out the money I had promised for
my deliverance. You see that scandal flourishes at the borders of the
wilderness, and in the New World as well as the Old.”

“I have suffered from it myself, my dear!” said Madame Bernstein,
demurely. “Fill thy glass, child! A little tass of cherry-brandy! ‘Twill
do thee all the good in the world.”


“As for my poor Harry’s marriage,” Madam Esmond’s letter went on,
“though I know too well, from sad experience, the dangers to which youth
is subject, and would keep my boy, at any price, from them, though I
should wish him to marry a person of rank, as becomes his birth, yet my
Lady Maria Esmond is out of the question. Her age is almost the same as
mine; and I know my brother Castlewood left his daughters with the very
smallest portions. My Harry is so obedient that I know a desire from me
will be sufficient to cause him to give up this imprudent match. Some
foolish people once supposed that I myself once thought of a second
union, and with a person of rank very different from ours. No! I knew
what was due to my children. As succeeding to this estate after me, Mr.
Esmond W. is amply provided for. Let my task now be to save for his less
fortunate younger brother: and, as I do not love to live quite alone,
let him return without delay to his fond and loving mother.

“The report which your ladyship hath given of my Harry fills my heart
with warmest gratitude. He is all indeed a mother may wish. A year in
Europe will have given him a polish and refinement which he could
not acquire in our homely Virginia. Mr. Stack, one of our invaluable
ministers in Richmond, hath a letter from Mr. Ward--my darlings’ tutor
of early days--who knows my Lady Warrington and her excellent family,
and saith that my Harry has lived much with his cousins of late. I am
grateful to think that my boy has the privilege of being with his good
aunt. May he follow her counsels, and listen to those around him who
will guide him on the way of his best welfare! Adieu, dear madam and
sister! For your kindness to my boy accept the grateful thanks of a
mother’s heart. Though we have been divided hitherto, may these kindly
ties draw us nearer and nearer. I am thankful that you should speak of
my dearest father so. He was, indeed, one of the best of men! He, too,
thanks you, I know, for the love you have borne to one of his children;
and his daughter subscribes herself,--With sincere thanks, your
ladyship’s most dutiful and grateful sister and servant, RACHEL ESMOND
WN.

“P.S.--I have communicated with my Lady Maria; but there will no need to
tell her and dear Harry that his mother or your ladyship hope to be able
to increase his small fortune. The match is altogether unsuitable.”


“As far as regards myself, madam,” George said, laying down the paper,
“my mother’s letter conveys no news to me. I always knew that Harry was
the favourite son with Madam Esmond, as he deserves indeed to be. He has
a hundred good qualities which I have not the good fortune to possess.
He has better looks----”

“Nay, that is not your fault,” said the old lady, slily looking at him;
“and, but that he is fair and you are brown, one might almost pass for
the other.”

Mr. George bowed, and a faint blush tinged his pale cheek.

“His disposition is bright, and mine is dark,” he continued; “Harry
is cheerful, and I am otherwise, perhaps. He knows how to make himself
beloved by every one, and it has been my lot to find but few friends.”

“My sister and you have pretty little quarrels. There were such in old
days in our family,” the Baroness said; “and if Madam Esmond takes after
our mother----”

“My mother has always described hers as an angel upon earth,” interposed
George.

“Eh! That is a common character for people when they are dead!” cried
the Baroness; “and Rachel Castlewood was an angel, if you like--at least
your grandfather thought so. But let me tell you, sir, that angels are
sometimes not very commodes a vivre. It may be they are too good to live
with us sinners, and the air down below here don’t agree with them. My
poor mother was so perfect that she never could forgive me for being
otherwise. Ah, mon Dieu! how she used to oppress me with those angelical
airs!”

George cast down his eyes, and thought of his own melancholy youth.
He did not care to submit more of his family secrets to the cynical
inquisition of this old worldling, who seemed, however, to understand
him in spite of his reticence.

“I quite comprehend you, sir, though you hold your tongue,” the Baroness
continued. “A sermon in the morning: a sermon at night: and two or three
of a Sunday. That is what people call being good. Every pleasure cried
fie upon; all us worldly people excommunicated; a ball an abomination of
desolation; a play a forbidden pastime; and a game of cards perdition!
What a life! Mon Dieu, what a life!”

“We played at cards every night, if we were so inclined,” said George,
smiling; “and my grandfather loved Shakspeare so much, that my mother
had not a word to say against her father’s favourite author.”

“I remember. He could say whole pages by heart; though, for my part,
I like Mr. Congreve a great deal better. And then, there was that
dreadful, dreary Milton, whom he and Mr. Addison pretended to admire!”
 cried the old lady, tapping her fan.

“If your ladyship does not like Shakspeare, you will not quarrel with
my mother for being indifferent to him, too,” said George. “And indeed I
think, and I am sure, that you don’t do her justice. Wherever there are
any poor she relieves them; wherever there are any sick she----”

“She doses them with her horrible purges and boluses!” cried the
Baroness. “Of course, just as my mother did!”

“She does her best to cure them! She acts for the best, and performs her
duty as far as she knows it.”

“I don’t blame you, sir, for doing yours, and keeping your own counsel
about Madam Esmond,” said the old lady. “But at least there is one
point upon which we all three agree--that this absurd marriage must be
prevented. Do you know how old the woman is? I can tell you, though she
has torn the first leaf out of the family Bible at Castlewood.”

“My mother has not forgotten her cousin’s age, and is shocked at the
disparity between her and my poor brother. Indeed, a city-bred lady of
her time of life, accustomed to London gaiety and luxury, would find but
a dismal home in our Virginian plantation. Besides, the house, such as
it is, is not Harry’s. He is welcome there, Heaven knows; more welcome,
perhaps, than I, to whom the property comes in natural reversion; but,
as I told him, I doubt how his wife would--would like our colony,”
 George said, with a blush, and a hesitation in his sentence.

The old lady laughed shrilly. “He, he! nephew Warrington!” she said,
“you need not scruple to speak your mind out. I shall tell no tales to
your mother: though ‘tis no news to me that she has a high temper, and
loves her own way. Harry has held his tongue, too; but it needed no
conjurer to see who was the mistress at home, and what sort of a life
my sister led you. I love my niece, my Lady Molly, so well, that I could
wish her two or three years of Virginia, with your mother reigning over
her. You may well look alarmed, sir! Harry has said quite enough to show
me who governs the family.”

“Madam,” said George, smiling, “I may say as much as this, that I don’t
envy any woman coming into our house against my mother’s will: and my
poor brother knows this perfectly well.”

“What? You two have talked the matter over? No doubt you have. And the
foolish child considers himself bound in honour--of course he does, the
gaby!”

“He says Lady Maria has behaved most nobly to him. When he was sent to
prison, she brought him her trinkets and jewels, and every guinea she
had in the world. This behaviour has touched him so, that he feels more
deeply than ever bound to her ladyship. But I own my brother seems bound
by honour rather than love--such at least is his present feeling.”

“My good creature,” cries Madame Bernstein, “don’t you see that Maria
brings a few twopenny trinkets and a half-dozen guineas to Mr. Esmond,
the heir of the great estate in Virginia,--not to the second son, who is
a beggar, and has just squandered away every shilling of his fortune?
I swear to you, on my credit as a gentlewoman, that, knowing Harry’s
obstinacy, and the misery he had in store for himself, I tried to bribe
Maria to give up her engagement with him, and only failed because I
could not bribe high enough! When he was in prison, I sent my lawyer to
him, with orders to pay his debts immediately, if he would but part from
her, but Maria had been beforehand with us, and Mr. Harry chose not to
go back from his stupid word. Let me tell you what has passed in the
last month!” And here the old lady narrated at length the history which
we know already, but in that cynical language which was common in her
times, when the finest folks and the most delicate ladies called things
and people by names which we never utter in good company nowadays. And
so much the better on the whole. We mayn’t be more virtuous, but it
is something to be more decent: perhaps we are not more pure, but of a
surety we are more cleanly.

Madame Bernstein talked so much, so long, and so cleverly, that she was
quite pleased with herself and her listener; and when she put herself
into the hands of Mrs. Brett to retire for the night, informed the
waiting-maid that she had changed her opinion about her eldest nephew,
and that Mr. George was handsome, that he was certainly much wittier
than poor Harry (whom Heaven, it must be confessed, had not furnished
with a very great supply of brains), and that he had quite the bel
air--a something melancholy--a noble and distinguished je ne scais
quoy--which reminded her of the Colonel. Had she ever told Brett about
the Colonel? Scores of times, no doubt. And now she told Brett about the
Colonel once more. Meanwhile, perhaps, her new favourite was not quite
so well pleased with her as she was with him. What a strange picture of
life and manners had the old lady unveiled to her nephew! How she railed
at all the world round about her! How unconsciously did she paint her
own family--her own self; how selfish, one and all; pursuing what
mean ends; grasping and scrambling frantically for what petty prizes;
ambitious for what shabby recompenses; trampling--from life’s beginning
to its close--through what scenes of stale dissipations and faded
pleasures! “Are these the inheritors of noble blood?” thought George, as
he went home quite late from his aunt’s house, passing by doors whence
the last guests of fashion were issuing, and where the chairmen were
yawning over their expiring torches. “Are these the proud possessors of
ancestral honours and ancient names, and were their forefathers, when in
life, no better? We have our pedigree at home with noble coats-of-arms
emblazoned all over the branches, and titles dating back before the
Conquest and the Crusaders. When a knight of old found a friend in want,
did he turn his back upon him, or an unprotected damsel, did he delude
her and leave her? When a nobleman of the early time received a young
kinsman, did he get the better of him at dice, and did the ancient
chivalry cheat in horseflesh? Can it be that this wily woman of the
world, as my aunt has represented, has inveigled my poor Harry into an
engagement, that her tears are false, and that as soon as she finds him
poor she will desert him? Had we not best pack the trunks and take a
cabin in the next ship bound for home?” George reached his own door
revolving these thoughts, and Gumbo came up yawning with a candle, and
Harry was asleep before the extinguished fire, with the ashes of his
emptied pipe on the table beside him.

He starts up; his eyes, for a moment dulled by sleep, lighten with
pleasure as he sees his dear George. He puts his arm round his brother
with a boyish laugh.

“There he is in flesh and blood, thank God!” he says; “I was dreaming of
thee but now, George, and that Ward was hearing us our lesson! Dost
thou remember the ruler, Georgy? Why, bless my soul, ‘tis three o’clock!
Where have you been a-gadding, Mr. George? Hast thou supped? I supped at
White’s, but I’m hungry again. I did not play, sir,--no, no; no more of
that for younger brothers! And my Lord March paid me fifty he lost to
me. I bet against his horse and on the Duke of Hamilton’s! They both
rode the match at Newmarket this morning, and he lost because he was
under weight. And he paid me, and he was as sulky as a bear. Let us have
one pipe, Georgy!--just one.”

And after the smoke the young men went to bed, where I, for one, wish
them a pleasant rest, for sure it is a good and pleasant thing to see
brethren who love one another.



CHAPTER LV. Between Brothers


Of course our young men had had their private talk about home, and all
the people and doings there, and each had imparted to the other full
particulars of his history since their last meeting. How were Harry’s
dogs, and little Dempster, and good old Nathan, and the rest of the
household? Was Mountain well, and Fanny grown to be a pretty girl? So
Parson Broadbent’s daughter was engaged to marry Tom Barker of Savannah,
and they were to go and live in Georgia! Harry owns that at one period
he was very sweet upon Parson Broadbent’s daughter, and lost a
great deal of pocket-money at cards, and drank a great quantity of
strong-waters with the father, in order to have a pretext for being near
the girl. But, Heaven help us! Madam Esmond would never have consented
to his throwing himself away upon Polly Broadbent. So Colonel G.
Washington’s wife was a pretty woman, very good-natured and pleasant,
and with a good fortune? He had brought her into Richmond, and paid a
visit of state to Madam Esmond. George described, with much humour, the
awful ceremonials at the interview between these two personages, and the
killing politeness of his mother to Mr. Washington’s young wife. “Never
mind, George, my dear!” says Mrs. Mountain. “The Colonel has taken
another wife, but I feel certain that at one time two young gentlemen I
know of ran a very near chance of having a tall stepfather six feet two
in his boots.” To be sure, Mountain was for ever match-making in her
mind. Two people could not play a game at cards together, or sit down
to a dish of tea, but she fancied their conjunction was for life. It was
she--the foolish tattler--who had set the report abroad regarding the
poor Indian woman. As for Madam Esmond, she had repelled the insinuation
with scorn when Parson Stack brought it to her, and said, “I should as
soon fancy Mr. Esmond stealing the spoons, or marrying a negro woman
out of the kitchen.” But, though she disdained to find the poor Biche
guilty, and even thanked her for attending her son in his illness, she
treated her with such a chilling haughtiness of demeanour, that the
Indian slunk away into the servants’ quarters, and there tried to drown
her disappointments with drink. It was not a cheerful picture that which
George gave of his two months at home. “The birthright is mine, Harry,”
 he said, “but thou art the favourite, and God help me! I think my mother
almost grudges it to me. Why should I have taken the pas, and preceded
your worship into the world? Had you been the eider, you would have had
the best cellar, and ridden the best nag, and been the most popular
man in the country, whereas I have not a word to say for myself, and
frighten people by my glum face: I should have been second son, and set
up as lawyer, or come to England and got my degrees, and turned parson,
and said grace at your honour’s table. The time is out of joint, sir. O
cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!”

“Why, Georgy, you are talking verses, I protest you are!” says Harry.

“I think, my dear, some one else talked those verses before me,” says
George, with a smile.

“It’s out of one of your books. You know every book that ever was wrote,
that I do believe!” cries Harry, and then told his brother how he had
seen the two authors at Tunbridge, and how he had taken off his hat to
them. “Not that I cared much about their books, not being clever enough.
But I remembered how my dear old George used to speak of ‘em,” says
Harry, with a choke in his voice, “and that’s why I liked to see them. I
say, dear, it’s like a dream seeing you over again. Think of that bloody
Indian with his knife at my George’s head! I should like to give that
Monsieur de Florac something for saving you--but I haven’t got much now,
only my little gold knee-buckles, and they ain’t worth two guineas.”

“You have got the half of what I have, child, and we’ll divide as soon
as I have paid the Frenchman,” George said.

On which Harry broke out not merely into blessings but actual
imprecations, indicating his intense love and satisfaction; and he swore
that there never was such a brother in the world as his brother George.
Indeed, for some days after his brother’s arrival his eyes followed
George about: he would lay down his knife and fork, or his newspaper,
when they were sitting together, and begin to laugh to himself. When he
walked with George on the Mall or in Hyde Park, he would gaze round at
the company, as much as to say, “Look here, gentlemen! This is he.
This is my brother, that was dead and is alive again! Can any man in
Christendom produce such a brother as this?”

Of course he was of opinion that George should pay to Museau’s heirs
the sum which he had promised for his ransom. This question had been the
cause of no small unhappiness to poor George at home. Museau dead, Madam
Esmond argued with much eagerness, and not a little rancour, the bargain
fell to the ground, and her son was free. The man was a rogue in the
first instance. She would not pay the wages of iniquity. Mr. Esmond had
a small independence from his father, and might squander his patrimony
if he chose. He was of age, and the money was in his power; but she
would be no party to such extravagance, as giving twelve thousand livres
to a parcel of peasants in Normandy with whom we were at war, and who
would very likely give it all to the priests and the pope. She would not
subscribe to any such wickedness. If George wanted to squander away his
father’s money (she must say that formerly he had not been so eager,
and when Harry’s benefit was in question had refused to touch a penny of
it!)--if he wished to spend it now, why not give it to his own flesh and
blood, to poor Harry, who was suddenly deprived of his inheritance, and
not to a set of priest-ridden peasants in France? This dispute had raged
between mother and son during the whole of the latter’s last days
in Virginia. It had never been settled. On the morning of George’s
departure, Madam Esmond had come to his bedside after a sleepless night,
and asked him whether he still persisted in his intention to fling away
his father’s property?

He replied in a depth of grief and perplexity, that his word was passed,
and he must do as his honour bade him. She answered that she would
continue to pray that Heaven might soften his proud heart, and enable
her to bear her heavy trials: and the last view George had of his
mother’s face was as she stood yet a moment by his bedside, pale and
with tearless eyes, before she turned away and slowly left his chamber.

“Where didst thou learn the art of winning over everybody to thy side,
Harry?” continued George; “and how is it that you and all the world
begin by being friends? Teach me a few lessons in popularity, nay,
I don’t know that I will have them; and when I find and hear certain
people hate me, I think I am rather pleased than angry. At first, at
Richmond, Mr. Esmond Warrington, the only prisoner who had escaped from
Braddock’s field--the victim of so much illness and hardship--was a
favourite with the town-folks, and received privately and publicly with
no little kindness. The parson glorified my escape in a sermon; the
neighbours came to visit the fugitive; the family coach was ordered out,
and Madam Esmond and I paid our visits in return. I think some pretty
little caps were set at me. But these our mother routed off, and
frightened with the prodigious haughtiness of her demeanour; and my
popularity was already at the decrease before the event occurred which
put the last finishing stroke to it. I was not jolly enough for the
officers, and didn’t care for their drinking-bouts, dice-boxes, and
swearing. I was too sarcastic for the ladies, and their tea and tattle
stupefied me almost as much as the men’s blustering and horse-talk. I
cannot tell thee, Harry, how lonely I felt in that place, amidst the
scandal and squabbles: I regretted my prison almost, and found myself
more than once wishing for the freedom of thought, and the silent ease
of Duquesne. I am very shy, I suppose: I can speak unreservedly to very
few people. Before most, I sit utterly silent. When we two were at home,
it was thou who used to talk at table, and get a smile now and then from
our mother. When she and I were together we had no subject in common,
and we scarce spoke at all until we began to dispute about law and
divinity.

“So the gentlemen had determined I was supercilious, and a dull
companion (and, indeed, I think their opinion was right), and the ladies
thought I was cold and sarcastic,--could never make out whether I was
in earnest or no, and, I think, generally voted I was a disagreeable
fellow, before my character was gone quite away; and that went with the
appearance of the poor Biche. Oh, a nice character they made for me, my
dear!” cried George, in a transport of wrath, “and a pretty life they
led me after Museau’s unlucky messenger had appeared amongst us! The
boys hooted the poor woman if she appeared in the street; the ladies
dropped me half-curtseys, and walked over to the other side. That
precious clergyman went from one tea-table to another preaching on the
horrors of seduction, and the lax principles which young men learned in
popish countries and brought back thence. The poor Fawn’s appearance
at home a few weeks after my return home, was declared to be a scheme
between her and me; and the best informed agreed that she had waited on
the other side of the river until I gave her the signal to come and
join me in Richmond. The officers bantered me at the coffee-house, and
cracked their clumsy jokes about the woman I had selected. Oh, the world
is a nice charitable world! I was so enraged that I thought of going to
Castlewood and living alone there,--for our mother finds the place dull,
and the greatest consolation in precious Mr. Stack’s ministry,--when
the news arrived of your female perplexity, and I think we were all glad
that I should have a pretext for coming to Europe.”

“I should like to see any of the infernal scoundrels who said word
against you, and break their rascally bones,” roars out Harry, striding
up and down the room.

“I had to do something like it for Bob Clubber.”

“What! that little sneaking, backbiting, toad-eating wretch, who is
always hanging about my lord at Greenway Court, and spunging on every
gentleman in the country? If you whipped him, I hope you whipped him
well, George?”

“We were bound over to keep the peace; and I offered to go into Maryland
with him and settle our difference there, and of course the good folk
said, that having made free with the seventh commandment I was inclined
to break the sixth. So, by this and by that--and being as innocent of
the crime imputed to me as you are--I left home, my dear Harry, with as
awful a reputation as ever a young gentleman earned.”

Ah, what an opportunity is there here to moralise! If the esteemed
reader and his humble servant could but know--could but write down in
a book--could but publish, with illustrations, a collection of the
lies which have been told regarding each of us since we came to man’s
estate,--what a harrowing and thrilling work of fiction that romance
would be! Not only is the world informed of everything about you, but
of a great deal more. Not long since the kind postman brought a paper
containing a valuable piece of criticism, which stated--“This author
states he was born in such and such a year. It is a lie. He was born in
the year so and so.” The critic knew better: of course he did. Another
(and both came from the country which gave MULLIGAN birth) warned some
friend, saying, “Don’t speak of New South Wales to him. He has a brother
there, and the family never mention his name.” But this subject is too
vast and noble for a mere paragraph. I shall prepare a memoir, or let
us have rather, par une societe de gens de lettres, a series of
biographies, of lives of gentlemen, as told by their dear friends whom
they don’t know.

George having related his exploits as champion and martyr, of course
Harry had to unbosom himself to his brother, and lay before his elder
an account of his private affairs. He gave up all the family of
Castlewood--my lord, not for getting the better of him at play; for
Harry was a sporting man, and expected to pay when he lost, and receive
when he won; but for refusing to aid the chaplain in his necessity, and
dismissing him with such false and heartless pretexts. About Mr. Will he
had made up his mind, after the horse-dealing matter, and freely
marked his sense of the latter’s conduct upon Mr. Will’s eyes and nose.
Respecting the Countess and Lady Fanny, Harry spoke in a manner more
guarded, but not very favourable. He had heard all sorts of stories
about them. The Countess was a card-playing old cat; Lady Fanny was a
desperate flirt. Who told him? Well, he had heard the stories from a
person who knew them both very well indeed. In fact, in those days
of confidence, of which we made mention in the last volume, Maria had
freely imparted to her cousin a number of anecdotes respecting her
stepmother and her half-sister, which were by no means in favour of
those ladies.

But in respect to Lady Maria herself, the young man was staunch and
hearty. “It may be imprudent: I don’t say no, George. I may be a fool:
I think I am. I know there will be a dreadful piece of work at home, and
that Madam and she will fight. Well! we must live apart. Our estate is
big enough to live on without quarrelling, and I can go elsewhere than
to Richmond or Castlewood. When you come to the property, you’ll give me
a bit--at any rate, Madam will let me off at an easy rent--or I’ll make
a famous farmer or factor. I can’t and won’t part from Maria. She has
acted so nobly by me, that I should be a rascal to turn my back on her.
Think of her bringing me every jewel she had in the world, dear
brave creature! and flinging them into my lap with her last
guineas,--and--and--God bless her!” Here Harry dashed his sleeve across
his eyes, with a stamp of his foot, and said, “No, brother, I won’t part
with her--not to be made Governor of Virginia tomorrow; and my dearest
old George would never advise me to do so, I know that.”

“I am sent here to advise you,” George replied. “I am sent to break the
marriage off, if I can: and a more unhappy one I can’t imagine. But I
can’t counsel you to break your word, my boy.”

“I knew you couldn’t! What’s said is said, George. I have made my bed,
and must lie on it,” says Mr. Harry, gloomily.

Such had been the settlement between our two young worthies, when
they first talked over Mr. Harry’s love affair. But after George’s
conversation with his aunt, and the further knowledge of his family,
which he acquired through the information of that keen old woman of the
world, Mr. Warrington, who was naturally of a sceptical turn, began to
doubt about Lady Maria, as well as regarding her brothers and sister,
and looked at Harry’s engagement with increased distrust and alarm. Was
it for his wealth that Maria wanted Harry? Was it his handsome young
person that she longed after? Were those stories true which Aunt
Bernstein had told of her? Certainly he could not advise Harry to
break his word; but he might cast about in his mind for some scheme for
putting Maria’s affection to the trial; and his ensuing conduct, which
appeared not very amiable, I suppose resulted from this deliberation.



CHAPTER LVI. Ariadne


My Lord Castlewood had a house in Kensington Square spacious enough to
accommodate the several members of his noble family, and convenient for
their service at the palace hard by, when his Majesty dwelt there. Her
ladyship had her evenings, and gave her card-parties here for such as
would come; but Kensington was a long way from London a hundred years
since, and George Selwyn said he for one was afraid to go, for fear
of being robbed of a night,--whether by footpads with crape over their
faces, or by ladies in rouge at the quadrille-table, we have no means of
saying. About noon on the day after Harry had made his reappearance at
White’s, it chanced that all his virtuous kinsfolks partook of breakfast
together, even Mr. Will being present, who was to go into waiting in the
afternoon.

The ladies came first to their chocolate: them Mr. Will joined in his
court suit; finally, my lord appeared, languid, in his bedgown and
nightcap, having not yet assumed his wig for the day. Here was news
which Will had brought home from the Star and Garter last night, when he
supped in company with some men who had heard it at White’s and seen it
at Ranelagh!

“Heard what? seen what?” asked the head of the house, taking up his
Daily Advertiser.

“Ask Maria!” says Lady Fanny. My lord turns to his elder sister, who
wears a face of portentous sadness, and looks as pale as a tablecloth.

“‘Tis one of Will’s usual elegant and polite inventions,” says Maria.

“No,” swore Will, with several of his oaths; “it was no invention of
his. Tom Claypool of Norfolk saw ‘em both at Ranelagh; and Jack Morris
came out of White’s, where he heard the story from Harry Warrington’s
own lips. Curse him, I’m glad of it!” roars Will, slapping the table.
“What do you think of your Fortunate Youth, your Virginian, whom your
lordship made so much of, turning out to be a second son?”

“The elder brother not dead?” says my lord.

“No more dead than you are. Never was. It’s my belief that it was a
cross between the two.”

“Mr. Warrington is incapable of such duplicity!” cries Maria.

“I never encouraged the fellow, I am sure you will do me justice there,”
 says my lady. “Nor did Fanny: not we, indeed!”

“Not we, indeed!” echoes my Lady Fanny.

“The fellow is only a beggar, and, I dare say, has not paid for the
clothes on his back,” continues Will. “I’m glad of it, for, hang him, I
hate him!”

“You don’t regard him with favourable eyes; especially since he blacked
yours, Will!” grins my lord. “So the poor fellow has found his brother,
and lost his estate!” And here he turned towards his sister Maria, who,
although she looked the picture of woe, must have suggested something
ludicrous to the humourist near whom she sate; for his lordship, having
gazed at her for a minute, burst into a shrill laugh, which caused the
poor lady’s face to flush, and presently her eyes to pour over with
tears. “It’s a shame! it’s a shame!” she sobbed out, and hid her face
in her handkerchief. Maria’s stepmother and sister looked at each other.
“We never quite understand your lordship’s humour,” the former lady
remarked, gravely.

“I don’t see there is the least reason why you should,” said my lord,
coolly. “Maria, my dear, pray excuse me if I have said--that is, done
anything, to hurt your feelings.”

“Done anything! You pillaged the poor lad in his prosperity, and laugh
at him in his ruin!” says Maria, rising from table, and glaring round at
all her family.

“Excuse me, my dear sister, I was not laughing at him,” said my lord,
gently.

“Oh, never mind at what or whom else, my lord! You have taken from him
all he had to lose. All the world points at you as the man who feeds on
his own flesh and blood. And now you have his all, you make merry over
his misfortune!” And away she rustled from the room, flinging looks of
defiance at all the party there assembled.

“Tell us what has happened, or what you have heard, Will, and my
sister’s grief will not interrupt us.” And Will told, at great length,
and with immense exultation at Harry’s discomfiture, the story now
buzzed through all London, of George Warrington’s sudden apparition.
Lord Castlewood was sorry for Harry: Harry was a good, brave lad, and
his kinsman liked him, as much as certain worldly folks like each other.
To be sure he played Harry at cards, and took the advantage of the
market upon him; but why not? The peach which other men would certainly
pluck, he might as well devour. Eh! if that were all my conscience had
to reproach me with, I need not be very uneasy! my lord thought. “Where
does Mr. Warrington live?”

Will expressed himself ready to enter upon a state of reprobation if he
knew or cared.

“He shall be invited here, and treated with every respect,” said my
lord.

“Including piquet, I suppose!” growls Will.

“Or will you take him to the stables, and sell him one of your bargains
of horseflesh, Will?” asks Lord Castlewood. “You would have won of Harry
Warrington fast enough, if you could; but you cheat so clumsily at your
game that you got paid with a cudgel. I desire, once more, that every
attention may be paid to our cousin Warrington.”

“And that you are not to be disturbed, when you sit down to play, of
course, my lord!” cries Lady Castlewood.

“Madam, I desire fair play, for Mr. Warrington, and for myself, and
for every member of this amiable family,” retorted Lord Castlewood,
fiercely.

“Heaven help the poor gentleman if your lordship is going to be kind to
him,” said the stepmother, with a curtsey; and there is no knowing
how far this family dispute might have been carried, had not, at this
moment, a phaeton driven up to the house, in which were seated the two
young Virginians.

It was the carriage which our young Prodigal had purchased in the days
of his prosperity. He drove it still: George sate in it by his side;
their negroes were behind them. Harry had been for meekly giving the
whip and reins to his brother, and ceding the whole property to him.
“What business has a poor devil like me with horses and carriages,
Georgy?” Harry had humbly said. “Beyond the coat on my back, and
the purse my aunt gave me, I have nothing in the world. You take
the driving-seat, brother; it will ease my mind if you will take the
driving-seat.” George laughingly said he did not know the way, and Harry
did; and that, as for the carriage, he would claim only a half of it,
as he had already done with his brother’s wardrobe. “But a bargain is
a bargain; if I share thy coats, thou must divide my breeches’ pocket,
Harry; that is but fair dealing!” Again and again Harry swore there
never was such a brother on earth. How he rattled his horses over the
road! How pleased and proud he was to drive such a brother! They came
to Kensington in famous high spirits; and Gumbo’s thunder upon Lord
Castlewood’s door was worthy of the biggest footman in all St. James’s.

Only my Lady Castlewood and her daughter Lady Fanny were in the room
into which our young gentlemen were ushered. Will had no particular
fancy to face Harry, my lord was not dressed, Maria had her reasons
for being away, at least till her eyes were dried. When we drive up to
friends’ houses nowadays in our coaches-and-six, when John carries up
our noble names, when, finally, we enter the drawing-room with our
best hat and best Sunday smile foremost, does it ever happen that we
interrupt a family row! that we come simpering and smiling in, and
stepping over the delusive ashes of a still burning domestic heat? that
in the interval between the hall-door and the drawing-room, Mrs., Mr.,
and the Misses Jones have grouped themselves in a family tableau;
this girl artlessly arranging flowers in a vase, let us say; that one
reclining over an illuminated work of devotion; mamma on the sofa, with
the butcher’s and grocer’s book pushed under the cushion, some elegant
work in her hand, and a pretty little foot pushed out advantageously;
while honest Jones, far from saying, “Curse that Brown, he is always
calling here!” holds out a kindly hand, shows a pleased face, and
exclaims, “What, Brown my boy, delighted to see you! Hope you’ve come
to lunch!” I say, does it ever happen to us to be made the victims of
domestic artifices, the spectators of domestic comedies got up for our
special amusement? Oh, let us be thankful, not only for faces, but
for masks! not only for honest welcome, but for hypocrisy, which hides
unwelcome things from us! Whilst I am talking, for instance, in this
easy, chatty way, what right have you, my good sir, to know what is
really passing in my mind? It may be that I am racked with gout, or
that my eldest son has just sent me in a thousand pounds’ worth of
college-bills, or that I am writhing under an attack of the Stoke Pogis
Sentinel, which has just been sent me under cover, or that there is a
dreadfully scrappy dinner, the evident remains of a party to which I
didn’t invite you, and yet I conceal my agony, I wear a merry smile; I
say, “What! come to take pot-luck with us, Brown my boy! Betsy! put a
knife and fork for Mr. Brown. Eat! Welcome! Fall to! It’s my best!” I
say that humbug which I am performing is beautiful self-denial--that
hypocrisy is true virtue. Oh, if every man spoke his mind what an
intolerable society ours would be to live in!

As the young gentlemen are announced, Lady Castlewood advances towards
them with perfect ease and good-humour. “We have heard, Harry,” she
says, looking at the latter with a special friendliness, “of this most
extraordinary circumstance. My Lord Castlewood said at breakfast that he
should wait on you this very day, Mr. Warrington, and, cousin Harry, we
intend not to love you any the less because you are poor.”

“We shall be able to show now that it is not for your acres that we like
you, Harry!” says Lady Fanny, following her mamma’s lead.

“And I to whom the acres have fallen?” says Mr. George, with a smile and
a bow.

“Oh, cousin, we shall like you for being like Harry!” replies the arch
Lady Fanny.

Ah! who that has seen the world, has not admired that astonishing ease
with which fine ladies drop you and pick you up again? Both the ladies
now addressed themselves almost exclusively to the younger brother. They
were quite civil to Mr. George: but with Mr. Harry they were fond, they
were softly familiar, they were gently kind, they were affectionately
reproachful. Why had Harry not been for days and days to see them?

“Better to have had a dish of tea and a game at piquet with them than
with some other folks,” says Lady Castlewood. “If we had won enough
to buy a paper of pins from you we should have been content; but young
gentlemen don’t know what is for their own good,” says mamma.

“Now you have no more money to play with, you can come and play with
us, cousin!” cries fond Lady Fanny, lifting up a finger, “and so your
misfortune will be good fortune to us.”

George was puzzled. This welcome of his brother was very different from
that to which he had looked. All these compliments and attentions paid
to the younger brother, though he was without a guinea! Perhaps the
people were not so bad as they were painted? The Blackest of all Blacks
is said not to be of quite so dark a complexion as some folks describe
him.

This affectionate conversation continued for some twenty minutes, at the
end of which period my Lord Castlewood made his appearance, wig on head,
and sword by side. He greeted both the young men with much politeness:
one not more than the other. “If you were to come to us--and I, for one,
cordially rejoice to see you--what a pity it is you did not come a few
months earlier! A certain evening at piquet would then most likely never
have taken place. A younger son would have been more prudent.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Harry.

“Or a kinsman more compassionate. But I fear that love of play runs in
the blood of all of us. I have it from my father, and it has made me the
poorest peer in England. Those fair ladies whom you see before you are
not exempt. My poor brother Will is a martyr to it; and what I, for my
part, win on one day, I lose on the next. ‘Tis shocking, positively, the
rage for play in England. All my poor cousin’s bank-notes parted company
from me within twenty-four hours after I got them.”

“I have played, like other gentlemen, but never to hurt myself, and
never indeed caring much for the sport,” remarked Mr. Warrington.

“When we heard that my lord had played with Harry, we did so scold him,”
 cried the ladies.

“But if it had not been I, thou knowest, cousin Warrington, some other
person would have had thy money. ‘Tis a poor consolation, but as such
Harry must please to take it, and be glad that friends won his money,
who wish him well, not strangers, who cared nothing for him, and fleeced
him.”

“Eh! a tooth out is a tooth out, though it be your brother who pulls it,
my lord!” said Mr. George, laughing. “Harry must bear the penalty of his
faults, and pay his debts, like other men.”

“I am sure I have never said or thought otherwise. ‘Tis not like an
Englishman to be sulky because he is beaten,” says Harry.

“Your hand, cousin! You speak like a man!” cries my lord, with delight.
The ladies smiled to each other.

“My sister, in Virginia, has known how to bring up her sons as
gentlemen!” exclaims Lady Castlewood, enthusiastically.

“I protest you must not be growing so amiable now you are poor, cousin
Harry!” cries cousin Fanny. “Why, mamma, we did not know half his good
qualities when he was only Fortunate Youth and Prince of Virginia! You
are exactly like him, cousin George, but I vow you can’t be as amiable
as your brother!”

“I am the Prince of Virginia, but I fear I am not the Fortunate Youth,”
 said George, gravely.

Harry was beginning, “By Jove, he is the best----” when the noise of a
harpsichord was heard from the upper room. The lad blushed: the ladies
smiled.

“‘Tis Maria, above,” said Lady Castlewood. “Let some of us go up to
her.”

The ladies rose, and made way towards the door; and Harry followed
them, blushing very much. George was about to join the party, but Lord
Castlewood checked him. “Nay, if all the ladies follow your brother”
 his lordship said, “let me at least have the benefit of your company and
conversation. I long to hear the account of your captivity and rescue,
cousin George!”

“Oh, we must hear that too!” cried one of the ladies, lingering.

“I am greedy, and should like it all by myself,” said Lord Castlewood,
looking at her very sternly; and followed the women to the door, and
closed it upon them with a low bow.

“Your brother has no doubt acquainted you with the history of all
that has happened to him in this house, cousin George?” asked George’s
kinsman.

“Yes, including the quarrel with Mr. Will and the engagement to my Lady
Maria,” replies George, with a bow. “I may be pardoned for saying that
he hath met with but ill fortune here, my lord.”

“Which no one can deplore more cordially than myself. My brother lives
with horse jockeys and trainers, and the wildest bloods of the town,
and between us there is very little sympathy. We should not all live
together, were we not so poor. This is the house which our grandmother
occupied before she went to America and married Colonel Esmond. Much
of the furniture belonged to her.” George looked round the wainscoted
parlour with some interest. “Our house has not flourished in the last
twenty years; though we had a promotion of rank a score of years since,
owing to some interest we had at court, then. But the malady of play has
been the ruin of us all. I am a miserable victim to it: only too
proud to sell myself and title to a roturiere, as many noblemen, less
scrupulous, have done. Pride is my fault, my dear cousin. I remember how
I was born!” And his lordship laid his hand on his shirt-frill, turned
out his toe, and looked his cousin nobly in the face.

Young George Warrington’s natural disposition was to believe everything
which everybody said to him. When once deceived, however, or undeceived
about the character of a person, he became utterly incredulous, and
he saluted this fine speech of my lord’s with a sardonical, inward
laughter, preserving his gravity, however, and scarce allowing any of
his scorn to appear in his words.

“We have all our faults, my lord. That of play hath been condoned over
and over again in gentlemen of our rank. Having heartily forgiven my
brother, surely I cannot presume to be your lordship’s judge in the
matter; and instead of playing and losing, I wish sincerely that you had
both played and won!”

“So do I, with all my heart!” says my lord with a sigh. “I augur
well for your goodness when you can speak in this way, and for your
experience and knowledge of the world, too, cousin, of which you seem to
possess a greater share than most young men of your age. Your poor Harry
hath the best heart in the world; but I doubt whether his head be very
strong.”

“Not very strong, indeed. But he hath the art to make friends wherever
he goes, and in spite of all his imprudences most people love him.”

“I do--we all do, I’m sure! as if he were our brother!” cries my lord.

“He has often described in his letters his welcome at your lordship’s
house. My mother keeps them all, you may be sure. Harry’s style is not
very learned, but his heart is so good, that to read him is better than
wit.”

“I may be mistaken, but I fancy his brother possesses a good heart and a
good wit, too!” says my lord, obstinately gracious.

“I am as Heaven made me, cousin; and perhaps some more experience and
sorrow than has fallen to the lot of most young men.”

“This misfortune of your poor brother--I mean this piece of good
fortune, your sudden reappearance--has not quite left Harry without
resources?” continued Lord Castlewood, very gently.

“With nothing but what his mother can leave him, or I, at her death,
can spare him. What is the usual portion here of a younger brother, my
lord?”

“Eh! a younger brother here is--you know--in fine, everybody knows what
a younger brother is,” said my lord, and shrugged his shoulders and
looked his guest in the face.

The other went on: “We are the best of friends, but we are flesh and
blood: and I don’t pretend to do more for him than is usually done for
younger brothers. Why give him money? That he should squander it at
cards or horse-racing? My lord, we have cards and jockeys in Virginia,
too; and my poor Harry hath distinguished himself in his own country
already, before he came to yours. He inherits the family failing for
dissipation.”

“Poor fellow, poor fellow, I pity him!”

“Our estate, you see, is great, but our income is small. We have little
more money than that which we get from England for our tobacco--and very
little of that too--for our tobacco comes back to us in the shape of
goods, clothes, leather, groceries, ironmongery, nay, wine and beer for
our people and ourselves. Harry may come back and share all these:
there is a nag in the stable for him, a piece of venison on the table,
a little ready money to keep his pocket warm, and a coat or two every
year. This will go on whilst my mother lives, unless, which is far from
improbable, he gets into some quarrel with Madam Esmond. Then, whilst I
live he will have the run of the house and all it contains: then, if I
die leaving children, he will be less and less welcome. His future,
my lord, is a dismal one, unless some strange piece of luck turn up on
which we were fools to speculate. Henceforth he is doomed to dependence,
and I know no worse lot than to be dependent on a self-willed woman like
our mother. The means he had to make himself respected at home he
hath squandered away here. He has flung his patrimony to the dogs,
and poverty and subserviency are now his only portion.” Mr. Warrington
delivered this speech with considerable spirit and volubility, and his
cousin heard him respectfully.

“You speak well, Mr. Warrington. Have you ever thought of public life?”
 said my lord.

“Of course I have thought of public life like every man of my
station--every man, that is, who cares for something beyond a dice-box
or a stable,” replies George. “I hope, my lord, to be able to take my
own place, and my unlucky brother must content himself with his. This I
say advisedly, having heard from him of certain engagements which he has
formed, and which it would be misery to all parties were he to attempt
to execute now.”

“Your logic is very strong,” said my lord. “Shall we go up and see the
ladies? There is a picture above-stairs which your grandfather is said
to have executed. Before you go, my dear cousin, you will please to fix
a day when our family may have the honour of receiving you. Castlewood,
you know, is always your home when we are there. It is something like
your Virginian Castlewood, cousin, from your account. We have beef,
and mutton, and ale, and wood, in plenty; but money is woefully scarce
amongst us.”

They ascended to the drawing-room, where, however, they found only one
of the ladies of the family. This was my Lady Maria, who came out of the
embrasure of a window, where she and Harry Warrington had been engaged
in talk.

George made his best bow, Maria her lowest curtsey. “You are indeed
wonderfully like your brother,” she said, giving him her hand. “And from
what he says, cousin George, I think you are as good as he is.”

At the sight of her swollen eyes and tearful face George felt a pang
of remorse. “Poor thing!” he thought. “Harry has been vaunting my
generosity and virtue to her, and I have beer, playing the selfish elder
brother downstairs! How old she looks! How could he ever have a passion
for such a woman as that?” How? Because he did not see with your eyes,
Mr. George. He saw rightly too now with his own, perhaps. I never know
whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

After the introduction a little talk took place, which for a while Lady
Maria managed to carry on in an easy manner: but though ladies in this
matter of social hypocrisy are, I think, far more consummate performers
than men, after a sentence or two the poor lady broke out into a sob,
and, motioning Harry away with her hand, fairly fled from the room.

Harry was rushing forward, but stopped--checked by that sign. My lord
said his poor sister was subject to these fits of nerves, and had
already been ill that morning. After this event our young gentlemen
thought it was needless to prolong their visit. Lord Castlewood followed
them downstairs, accompanied them to the door, admired their nags in the
phaeton, and waved them a friendly farewell.

“And so we have been coaxing and cuddling in the window, and we part
good friends, Harry? Is it not so?” says George to his charioteer.

“Oh, she is a good woman!” cries Harry, lashing the horses. “I know
you’ll think so when you come to know her.”

“When you take her home to Virginia? A pretty welcome our mother will
give her. She will never forgive me for not breaking the match off, nor
you for making it.”

“I can’t help it, George! Don’t you be popping your ugly head so close
to my ears, Gumbo! After what has passed between us, I am bound in
honour to stand by her. If she sees no objection, I must find none. I
told her all. I told her that Madam would be very rusty at first; but
that she was very fond of me, and must end by relenting. And when you
come to the property, I told her that I knew my dearest George so well,
that I might count upon sharing with him.”

“The deuce you did! Let me tell you, my dear, that I have been telling
my Lord Castlewood quite a different story. That as an elder brother I
intend to have all my rights--there, don’t flog that near horse so--and
that you can but look forward to poverty and dependence.”

“What! You won’t help me?” cries Harry, turning quite pale.

“George, I don’t believe it, though I hear it out of your own mouth!
There was a minute’s pause after this outbreak, during which Harry did
not even look at his brother, but sate, gazing blindly before him, the
picture of grief and gloom. He was driving so near to a road-post that
the carriage might have been upset but for George’s pulling the rein.

“You had better take the reins, sir,” said Harry. “I told you you had
better take them.”

“Did you ever know me fail you, Harry?” George asked.

“No,” said the other, “not till now”--the tears were rolling down his
cheeks as he spoke.

“My dear, I think one day you will say I have done my duty.”

“What have you done? asked Harry.

“I have said you were a younger brother--that you have spent all your
patrimony, and that your portion at home must be very slender. Is it not
true?”

“Yes, but I would not have believed it, if ten thousand men had told
me,” said Harry. “Whatever happened to me, I thought I could trust you,
George Warrington.” And in this frame of mind Harry remained during the
rest of the drive.

Their dinner was served soon after their return to their lodgings, of
which Harry scarce ate any, though he drank freely of the wine before
him.

“That wine is a bad consoler in trouble, Harry,” his brother remarked.

“I have no other, sir,” said Harry, grimly; and having drunk glass after
glass in silence, he presently seized his hat, and left the room.

He did not return for three hours. George, in much anxiety about his
brother, had not left home meanwhile, but read his book, and smoked the
pipe of patience. “It was shabby to say I would not aid him, and,
God help me, it was not true. I won’t leave him, though he marries a
blackamoor,” thought George “have I not done him harm enough already, by
coming to life again? Where has he gone; has he gone to play?”

“Good God! what has happened to thee?” cried George Warrington,
presently, when his brother came in, looking ghastly pale.

He came up and took his brother’s hand. “I can take it now, Georgy,”
 he said. “Perhaps what you did was right, though. I for one will never
believe that you would throw your brother off in distress. I’ll tell you
what. At dinner, I thought suddenly, I’ll go back to her and speak to
her. I’ll say to her, ‘Maria, poor as I am, your conduct to me has been
so noble, that, by heaven! I am yours to take or to leave. If you will
have me, here I am: I will enlist: I will work: I will try and make a
livelihood for myself somehow, and my bro----my relations will relent,
and give us enough to live on.’ That’s what I determined to tell her;
and I did, George. I ran all the way to Kensington in the rain--look, I
am splashed from head to foot,--and found them all at dinner, all except
Will, that is. I spoke out that very moment to them all, sitting round
the table, over their wine. ‘Maria,’ says I, ‘a poor fellow wants to
redeem his promise which he made when he fancied he was rich. Will you
take him?’ I found I had plenty of words, and didn’t hem and stutter as
I’m doing now. I spoke ever so long, and I ended by saying I would do my
best and my duty by her, so help me God!

“When I had done, she came up to me quite kind. She took my hand, and
kissed it before the rest. ‘My dearest, best Harry!’ she said (those
were her words, I don’t want otherwise to be praising myself), ‘you are
a noble heart, and I thank you with all mine. But, my dear, I have long
seen it was only duty, and a foolish promise made by a young man to an
old woman, that has held you to your engagement. To keep it would make
you miserable, my dear. I absolve you from it, thanking you with all my
heart for your fidelity, and blessing and loving my dear cousin always.’
And she came up and kissed me before them all, and went out of the
room quite stately, and without a single tear. They were all crying,
especially my lord, who was sobbing quite loud. I didn’t think he had so
much feeling. And she, George? Oh, isn’t she a noble creature?”

“Here’s her health!” cries George, filling one of the glasses that still
stood before him.

“Hip, hip, huzzay!” says Harry. He was wild with delight at being free.



CHAPTER LVII. In which Mr. Harry’s Nose continues to be put out of joint


Madame de Bernstein was scarcely less pleased than her Virginian
nephews at the result of Harry’s final interview with Lady Maria. George
informed the Baroness of what had passed, in a billet which he sent
to her the same evening; and shortly afterwards her nephew Castlewood,
whose visits to his aunt were very rare, came to pay his respects to
her, and frankly spoke about the circumstances which had taken place;
for no man knew better than my Lord Castlewood how to be frank upon
occasion, and now that the business between Maria and Harry was ended
what need was there of reticence or hypocrisy? The game had been played,
and was over: he had no objection now to speak of its various
moves, stratagems, finesses. “She is my own sister,” said my lord,
affectionately; “she won’t have many more chances--many more such
chances of marrying and establishing herself. I might not approve of the
match in all respects, and I might pity your ladyship’s young Virginian
favourite: but of course such a piece of good fortune was not to be
thrown away, and I was bound to stand by my own flesh and blood.”

“Your candour does your lordship honour,” says Madame de Bernstein, “and
your love for your sister is quite edifying!”

“Nay, we have lost the game, and I am speaking sans rancune. It is not
for you, who have won, to bear malice,” says my lord, with a bow.

Madame de Bernstein protested she was never in her life in better
humour. “Confess, now, Eugene, that visit of Maria to Harry at the
spunging-house--that touching giving up of all his presents to her, was
a stroke of thy invention?”

“Pity for the young man, and a sense of what was due from Maria to her
friend--her affianced lover--in misfortune, sure these were motives
sufficient to make her act as she did,” replies Lord Castlewood,
demurely.

“But ‘twas you advised her, my good nephew?”

Castlewood, with a shrug of his shoulders, owned that he did advise his
sister to see Mr. Henry Warrington. “But we should have won, in spite
of your ladyship,” he continued, “had not the elder brother made his
appearance. And I have been trying to console my poor Maria by showing
her what a piece of good fortune it is after all, that we lost.”

“Suppose she had married Harry, and then cousin George had made his
appearance?” remarks the Baroness.

“Effectivement,” cries Eugene, taking snuff. “As the grave was to give
up its dead, let us be thankful to the grave for disgorging in time! I
am bound to say, that Mr. George Warrington seems to be a man of sense,
and not more selfish than other elder sons and men of the world. My poor
Molly fancied that he might be a--what shall I say?--a greenhorn perhaps
is the term--like his younger brother. She fondly hoped that he might be
inclined to go share and share alike with Twin junior; in which case, so
infatuated was she about the young fellow, that I believe she would have
taken him. ‘Harry Warrington, with half a loaf, might do very well,’
says I, ‘but Harry Warrington with no bread, my dear!’”

“How no bread?” asks the Baroness.

“Well, no bread except at his brother’s side-table. The elder said as
much.”

“What a hard-hearted wretch!” cries Madame de Bernstein.

“Ah, bah! I play with you, aunt, cartes sur table! Mr. George only did
what everybody else would do; and we have no right to be angry with him,
really we haven’t. Molly herself acknowledged as much, after her first
burst of grief was over, and I brought her to listen to reason. The
silly old creature! to be so wild about a young lad at her time of
life!”

“‘Twas a real passion, I almost do believe,” said Madame de Bernstein.

“You should have heard her take leave of him. C’etait touchant, ma
parole d’honneur! I cried. Before George, I could not help myself. The
young fellow with muddy stockings, and his hair about his eyes, flings
himself amongst us when we were at dinner; makes his offer to Molly in a
very frank and noble manner, and in good language too; and she replies.
Begad, it put me in mind of Mrs. Woffington in the new Scotch play, that
Lord Bute’s man has wrote--Douglas--what d’ye call it? She clings round
the lad: she bids him adieu in heartrending accents. She steps out of
the room in a stately despair--no more chocolate, thank you. If she had
made a mauvais pas no one could retire from it with more dignity. ‘Twas
a masterly retreat after a defeat. We were starved out of our position,
but we retired with all the honours of war.”

“Molly won’t die of the disappointment!” said my lord’s aunt, sipping
her cup.

My lord snarled a grin, and showed his yellow teeth. “He, he!” he
said, “she hath once or twice before had the malady very severely, and
recovered perfectly. It don’t kill, as your ladyship knows, at Molly’s
age.”

How should her ladyship know? She did not marry Doctor Tusher until she
was advanced in life. She did not become Madame de Bernstein until still
later. Old Dido, a poet remarks, was not ignorant of misfortune, and
hence learned to have compassion on the wretched.

People in the little world, as I have been told, quarrel and fight, and
go on abusing each other, and are not reconciled for ever so long. But
people in the great world are surely wiser in their generation. They
have differences; they cease seeing each other. They make it up and come
together again, and no questions are asked. A stray prodigal, or a stray
puppy-dog, is thus brought in under the benefit of an amnesty, though
you know he has been away in ugly company. For six months past, ever
since the Castlewoods and Madame de Bernstein had been battling for
possession of poor Harry Warrington, these two branches of the Esmond
family had remained apart. Now, the question being settled, they were
free to meet again, as though no difference ever had separated them: and
Madame de Bernstein drove in her great coach to Lady Castlewood’s rout,
and the Esmond ladies appeared smiling at Madame de Bernstein’s drums,
and loved each other just as much as they previously had done.

“So, sir, I hear you have acted like a hard-hearted monster about your
poor brother Harry!” says the Baroness, delighted, and menacing George
with her stick.

“I acted but upon your ladyship’s hint, and desired to see whether it
was for himself or his reputed money that his kinsfolk wanted to have
him,” replies George, turning rather red.

“Nay, Maria could not marry a poor fellow who was utterly penniless, and
whose elder brother said he would give him nothing!”

“I did it for the best, madam,” says George, still blushing.

“And so thou didst, O thou hypocrite!” cries the old lady.

“Hypocrite, madam! and why?” asks Mr. Warrington, drawing himself up in
much state.

“I know all, my infant!” says the Baroness in French. “Thou art very
like thy grandfather. Come, that I embrace thee! Harry has told me all,
and that thou hast divided thy little patrimony with him!”

“It was but natural, madam. We have had common hearts and purses since
we were born. I but feigned hard-heartedness in order to try those
people yonder,” says George, with filling eyes.

“And thou wilt divide Virginia with him too?” asks the Bernstein.

“I don’t say so. It were not just,” replied Mr. Warrington. “The land
must go to the eldest born, and Harry would not have it otherwise: and
it may be I shall die, or my mother outlive the pair of us. But half of
what is mine is his: and he, it must be remembered, only was extravagant
because he was mistaken as to his position.”

“But it is a knight of old, it is a Bayard, it is the grandfather
come to life!” cried Madame de Bernstein to her attendant, as she was
retiring for the night. And that evening, when the lads left her, it was
to poor Harry she gave the two fingers, and to George the rouged cheek,
who blushed, for his part, almost as deep as that often-dyed rose, at
such a mark of his old kinswoman’s favour.

Although Harry Warrington was the least envious of men, and did honour
to his brother as in all respects his chief, guide, and superior, yet no
wonder a certain feeling of humiliation and disappointment oppressed the
young man after his deposition from his eminence as Fortunate Youth and
heir to boundless Virginian territories. Our friends at Kensington might
promise and vow that they would love him all the better after his fall;
Harry made a low bow and professed himself very thankful; but he
could not help perceiving, when he went with his brother to the state
entertainment with which my Lord Castlewood regaled his new-found
kinsman, that George was all in all to his cousins: had all the talk,
compliments, and petits soins for himself, whilst of Harry no one took
any notice save poor Maria, who followed him with wistful looks, pursued
him with eyes conveying dismal reproaches, and, as it were, blamed him
because she had left him. “Ah!” the eyes seemed to say, “‘tis mighty
well of you, Harry, to have accepted the freedom which I gave you; but I
had no intention, sir, that you should be so pleased at being let off.”
 She gave him up, but yet she did not quite forgive him for taking her
at her word. She would not have him, and yet she would. Oh, my young
friends, how delightful is the beginning of a love-business, and how
undignified, sometimes, the end! What a romantic vista is before young
Damon and young Phillis (or middle-aged ditto ditto) when, their artless
loves made known to each other, they twine their arms round each other’s
waists and survey that charming pays du tendre which lies at their feet!
Into that country, so linked together, they will wander from now until
extreme old age. There may be rocks and roaring rivers, but will not
Damon’s strong true love enable him to carry Sweetheart over them? There
may be dragons and dangers in the path, but shall not his courageous
sword cut them down? Then at eve, how they will rest cuddled together,
like two pretty babes in the wood, the moss their couch, the stars their
canopy, their arms their mutual pillows! This is the wise plan young
folks make when they set out on the love journey; and--O me!--they have
not got a mile when they come to a great wall and find they must walk
back again. They are squabbling with the post-boy at Barnet (the first
stage on the Gretna Road, I mean), and, behold, perhaps Strephon has not
got any money, or here is papa with a whacking horsewhip, who takes Miss
back again, and locks her up crying in the schoolroom. The parting
is heart-breaking; but, when she has married the banker and had eight
children, and he has become, it may be, a prosperous barrister,--it may
be, a seedy raff who has gone twice or thrice into the Gazette; when,
I say, in after years Strephon and Delia meet again, is not the meeting
ridiculous? Nevertheless, I hope no young man will fall in love, having
any doubt in his mind as to the eternity of his passion. ‘Tis when a
man has had a second or third amorous attack that he begins to grow
doubtful; but some women are romantic to the end, and from eighteen to
eight-and-fifty (for what I know) are always expecting their hearts to
break. In fine, when you have been in love and are so no more, when the
King of France, with twenty thousand men, with colours flying, music
playing, and all the pomp of war, having marched up the hill, then
proceeds to march down again, he and you are in an absurd position.

This is what Harry Warrington, no doubt, felt when he went to Kensington
and encountered the melancholy, reproachful eyes of his cousin. Yes! it
is a foolish position to be in; but it is also melancholy to look into
a house you have once lived in, and see black casements and emptiness
where once shone the fires of welcome. Melancholy? Yes; but, ha! how
bitter, how melancholy, how absurd to look up as you pass sentimentally
by No. 13, and see somebody else grinning out of window, and evidently
on the best terms with the landlady. I always feel hurt, even at an inn
which I frequent, if I see other folks’ trunks and boots at the doors
of the rooms which were once mine. Have those boots lolled on the sofa
which once I reclined on? I kick you from before me, you muddy, vulgar
highlows!

So considering that his period of occupation was over, and Maria’s
rooms, if not given up to a new tenant, were, at any rate, to let, Harry
did not feel very easy in his cousin’s company, nor she possibly in his.
He found either that he had nothing to say to her, or that what she had
to say to him was rather dull and commonplace, and that the red lip of
a white-necked pipe of Virginia was decidedly more agreeable to him now
than Maria’s softest accents and most melancholy moue. When George went
to Kensington, then, Harry did not care much about going, and pleaded
other engagements.

At his uncle’s house in Hill Street the poor lad was no better amused,
and, indeed, was treated by the virtuous people there with scarce any
attention at all. The ladies did not scruple to deny themselves when
he came; he could scarce have believed in such insincerity after their
caresses, their welcome, their repeated vows of affection; but happening
to sit with the Lamberts for an hour after he had called upon his aunt,
he saw her ladyship’s chairmen arrive with an empty chair, and his aunt
step out and enter the vehicle, and not even blush when he made her a
bow from the opposite window. To be denied by his own relations--to have
that door which had opened to him so kindly, slammed in his face! He
would not have believed such a thing possible, poor simple Harry said.
Perhaps he thought the door-knocker had a tender heart, and was not made
of brass; not more changed than the head of that knocker was my Lady
Warrington’s virtuous face when she passed her nephew.

“My father’s own brother’s wife! What have I done to offend her? Oh,
Aunt Lambert, Aunt Lambert, did you ever see such cold-heartedness?”
 cries out Harry, with his usual impetuosity.

“Do we make any difference to you, my dear Harry?” says Aunt Lambert,
with a side look at her youngest daughter. “The world may look coldly at
you, but we don’t belong to it: so you may come to us in safety.”

“In this house you are different from other people,” replies Harry. “I
don’t know how, but I always feel quiet and happy somehow when I come to
you.”

    “Quis me uno vivit felicior? aut magis hac est
     Optandum vita dicere quis potuit?”

calls out General Lambert. “Do you know where I got these verses, Mr.
Gownsman?” and he addresses his son from college, who is come to pass
an Easter holiday with his parents. “You got them out of Catullus, sir,”
 says the scholar.

“I got them out of no such thing, sir. I got them out of my favourite
Democritus Junior--out of old Burton, who has provided many indifferent
scholars with learning;” and who and Montaigne, were favourite authors
with the good General.



CHAPTER LVIII. Where we do what Cats may do


We have said how our Virginians, with a wisdom not uncommon in
youth, had chosen to adopt strong Jacobite opinions, and to profess a
prodigious affection for the exiled royal family. The banished prince
had recognised Madam Esmond’s father as Marquis of Esmond, and she did
not choose to be very angry with an unfortunate race, that, after all,
was so willing to acknowledge the merits of her family. As for any
little scandal about her sister, Madame de Bernstein, and the Old
Chevalier, she tossed away from her with scorn the recollection of that
odious circumstance, asserting, with perfect truth, that the two first
monarchs of the House of Hanover were quite as bad as any Stuarts in
regard to their domestic morality. But the king de facto was the king,
as well as his Majesty de jure. De Facto had been solemnly crowned and
anointed at church, and had likewise utterly discomfited De Jure, when
they came to battle for the kingdom together. Madam’s clear opinion was,
then, that her sons owed it to themselves as well as the sovereign to
appear at his royal court. And if his Majesty should have been minded
to confer a lucrative post, or a blue or red ribbon upon either of them,
she, for her part, would not have been in the least surprised. She made
no doubt but that the King knew the Virginian Esmonds as well as any
other members of his nobility. The lads were specially commanded, then,
to present themselves at court, and, I dare say, their mother would have
been very angry had she known that George took Harry’s laced coat on the
day when he went to make his bow at Kensington.

A hundred years ago the King’s drawing-room was open almost every day
to his nobility and gentry; and loyalty--especially since the war had
begun--could gratify itself a score of times in a month with the august
sight of the sovereign. A wise avoidance of the enemy’s ships of war, a
gracious acknowledgment of the inestimable loss the British Isles would
suffer by the seizure of the royal person at sea, caused the monarch to
forgo those visits to his native Hanover which were so dear to his
royal heart, and compelled him to remain, it must be owned, unwillingly
amongst his loving Britons. A Hanoverian lady, however, whose virtues
had endeared her to the prince, strove to console him for his enforced
absence from Herrenhausen. And from the lips of the Countess of Walmoden
(on whom the imperial beneficence had gracefully conferred a high title
of British honour) the revered Defender of the Faith could hear the
accents of his native home.

To this beloved Sovereign, Mr. Warrington requested his uncle, an
assiduous courtier, to present him; and as Mr. Lambert had to go
to court likewise, and thank his Majesty for his promotion, the
two gentlemen made the journey to Kensington together, engaging a
hackney-coach for the purpose, as my Lord Wrotham’s carriage was now
wanted by its rightful owner, who had returned to his house in town.
They alighted at Kensington Palace Gate, where the sentries on duty knew
and saluted the good General, and hence modestly made their way on foot
to the summer residence of the sovereign. Walking under the portico
of the Palace, they entered the gallery which leads to the great black
marble staircase (which hath been so richly decorated and painted by Mr.
Kent), and then passed through several rooms, richly hung with tapestry
and adorned with pictures and bustos, until they came to the King’s
great drawing-room, where that famous “Venus” by Titian is, and, amongst
other masterpieces, the picture of “St. Francis adoring the infant
Saviour,” performed by Sir Peter Paul Rubens; and here, with the rest of
the visitors to the court, the gentlemen waited until his Majesty issued
from his private apartments, where he was in conference with certain
personages who were called in the newspaper language of that day his
M-j-ty’s M-n-st-rs.

George Warrington, who had never been in a palace before, had leisure to
admire the place, and regard the people round him. He saw fine pictures
for the first time too, and I dare say delighted in that charming piece
of Sir Athony Vandyck, representing King Charles the First, his Queen
and Family, and the noble picture of “Esther before Ahasuerus,” painted
by Tintoret, and in which all the figures are dressed in the magnificent
Venetian habit. With the contemplation of these works he was so
enraptured, that he scarce heard all the remarks of his good friend the
General, who was whispering into his young companion’s almost heedless
ear the names of some of the personages round about them.

“Yonder,” says Mr. Lambert, “are two of my Lords of the Admiralty, Mr.
Gilbert Elliot and Admiral Boscawen: your Boscawen, whose fleet fired
the first gun in your waters two years ago. That stout gentleman all
belated with gold is Mr. Fox, that was Minister, and is now content to
be Paymaster with a great salary.

“He carries the auri fames on his person. Why, his waistcoat is a
perfect Potosi!” says George.

“Aliena appetens--how goes the text? He loves to get money and to spend
it,” continues General Lambert. “Yon is my Lord Chief Justice Willes,
talking to my Lord of Salisbury, Doctor Headley, who, if he serve
his God as he serves his King, will be translated to some very high
promotion in Heaven. He belongs to your grandfather’s time, and was
loved by Dick Steele and hated by the Dean. With them is my Lord of
London, the learned Doctor Sherlock. My lords of the lawn sleeves have
lost half their honours now. I remember when I was a boy in my mother’s
hand, she made me go down on my knees to the Bishop of Rochester; him
who went over the water, and became Minister to somebody who shall be
nameless--Perkin’s Bishop. That handsome fair man is Admiral Smith. He
was president of poor Byng’s court-martial, and strove in vain to get
him off his penalty; Tom of Ten Thousand they call him in the fleet. The
French Ambassador had him broke, when he was a lieutenant, for making a
French man-of-war lower topsails to him, and the King made Tom a
captain the next day. That tall, haughty-looking man is my Lord George
Sackville, who, now I am a Major-General myself, will treat me somewhat
better than a footman. I wish my stout old Blakeney were here; he is the
soldier’s darling, and as kind and brave as yonder poker of a nobleman
is brave and--I am your lordship’s very humble servant. This is a young
gentleman who is just from America, and was in Braddock’s sad business
two years ago.”

“Oh, indeed!” says the poker of a nobleman. “I have the honour of
speaking to Mr.----?”

“To Major-General Lambert, at your lordship’s service, and who was in
his Majesty’s some time before you entered it. That, Mr. Warrington, is
the first commoner in England, Mr. Speaker Onslow. Where is your uncle?
I shall have to present you myself to his Majesty if Sir Miles delays
much longer.” As he spoke, the worthy General addressed himself entirely
to his young friend, making no sort of account of his colleague, who
stalked away with a scared look as if amazed at the other’s audacity. A
hundred years ago, a nobleman was a nobleman, and expected to be admired
as such.

Sir Miles’s red waistcoat appeared in sight presently, and many cordial
greetings passed between him, his nephew, and General Lambert: for we
have described how Sir Miles was the most affectionate of men. So
the General had quitted my Lord Wrotham’s house? It was time, as his
lordship himself wished to occupy it? Very good; but consider what a
loss for the neighbours!

“We miss you, we positively miss you, my dear General,” cries Sir Miles.
“My daughters were in love with those lovely young ladies--upon my word,
they were; and my Lady Warrington and my girls were debating over
and over again how they should find an opportunity of making the
acquaintance of your charming family. We feel as if we were old friends
already; indeed we do, General, if you will permit me the liberty of
saying so; and we love you, if I may be allowed to speak frankly, on
account of your friendship and kindness to our dear nephews: though we
were a little jealous, I own a little jealous of them, because they went
so often to see you. Often and often have I said to my Lady Warrington,
‘My dear, why don’t we make acquaintance with the General? Why don’t we
ask him and his ladies to come over in a family way and dine with some
other plain country gentlefolks?’ Carry my most sincere respects to
Mrs. Lambert, I pray, sir; and thank her for her goodness to these young
gentlemen. My own flesh and blood, sir; my dear, dear brother’s boys!”
 He passed his hand across his manly eyes: he was choking almost with
generous and affectionate emotion.

Whilst they were discoursing--George Warrington the while restraining
his laughter with admirable gravity--the door of the King’s apartments
opened, and the pages entered, preceding his Majesty. He was followed
by his burly son, his Royal Highness the Duke, a very corpulent Prince,
with a coat and face of blazing scarlet: behind them came various
gentlemen and officers of state; among whom George at once recognised
the famous Mr. Secretary Pitt, by his tall stature, his eagle eye and
beak, his grave and majestic presence. As I see that solemn figure
passing, even a hundred years off, I protest I feel a present awe, and a
desire to take my hat off. I am not frightened at George the Second; nor
are my eyes dazzled by the portentous appearance of his Royal Highness
the Duke of Culloden and Fontenoy; but the Great Commoner, the terrible
Cornet of Horse! His figure bestrides our narrow isle of a century
back like a Colossus; and I hush as he passes in his gouty shoes, his
thunderbolt hand wrapped in flannel. Perhaps as we see him now, issuing
with dark looks from the royal closet, angry scenes have been passing
between him and his august master. He has been boring that old monarch
for hours with prodigious long speeches, full of eloquence, voluble
with the noblest phrases upon the commonest topics; but, it must be
confessed, utterly repulsive to the little shrewd old gentleman, “at
whose feet he lays himself,” as the phrase is, and who has the most
thorough dislike for fine boedry and for fine brose too! The sublime
Minister passes solemnly through the crowd; the company ranges itself
respectfully round the wall; and his Majesty walks round the circle, his
royal son lagging a little behind, and engaging select individuals in
conversation for his own part.

The monarch is a little, keen, fresh-coloured old man, with very
protruding eyes, attired in plain, old-fashioned, snuff-coloured clothes
and brown stockings, his only ornament the blue ribbon of his Order of
the Garter. He speaks in a German accent, but with ease, shrewdness, and
simplicity, addressing those individuals whom he has a mind to notice,
or passing on with a bow. He knew Mr. Lambert well, who had served under
his Majesty at Dettingen, and with his royal son in Scotland, and he
congratulated him good-humouredly on his promotion.

“It is not always,” his Majesty was pleased to say, “that we can do
as we like; but I was glad when, for once, I could give myself that
pleasure in your case, General; for my army contains no better officer
as you.”

The veteran blushed and bowed, deeply gratified at this speech.
Meanwhile, the Best of Monarchs was looking at Sir Miles Warrington
(whom his Majesty knew perfectly, as the eager recipient of all favours
from all Ministers), and at the young gentleman by his side.

“Who is this?” the Defender of the Faith condescended to ask, pointing
towards George Warrington, who stood before his sovereign in a
respectful attitude, clad in poor Harry’s best embroidered suit.

With the deepest reverence Sir Miles informed his King, that the young
gentleman was his nephew, Mr. George Warrington, of Virginia, who asked
leave to pay his humble duty.

“This, then, is the other brother?” the Venerated Prince deigned to
observe. “He came in time, else the other brother would have spent all
the money. My Lord Bishop of Salisbury, why do you come out in this
bitter weather? You had much better stay at home!” and with this, the
revered wielder of Britannia’s sceptre passed on to other lords and
gentlemen of his court. Sir Miles Warrington was deeply affected at the
royal condescension. He clapped his nephew’s hands. “God bless you, my
boy,” he cried; “I told you that you would see the greatest monarch and
the finest gentleman in the world. Is he not so, my Lord Bishop?”

“That, that he is!” cried his lordship, clasping his ruffled hands, and
turning his fine eyes up to the sky, “the best of princes and of men.”

“That is Master Louis, my Lady Yarmouth’s favourite nephew,” says
Lambert, pointing to a young gentleman who stood with a crowd round him;
and presently the stout Duke of Cumberland came up to our little group.

His Royal Highness held out his hand to his old companion-in-arms.
“Congratulate you on your promotion, Lambert,” he said good-naturedly.
Sir Miles Warrington’s eyes were ready to burst out of his head with
rapture.

“I owe it, sir, to your Royal Highness’s good offices,” said the
grateful General.

“Not at all; not at all: ought to have had it a long time before. Always
been a good officer; perhaps there’ll be some employment for you soon.
This is the gentleman whom James Wolfe introduced to me?”

“His brother, sir.”

“Oh, the real Fortunate Youth! You were with poor Ned Braddock in
America--a prisoner, and lucky enough to escape. Come and see me, sir,
in Pall Mall. Bring him to my levee, Lambert.” And the broad back of the
Royal Prince was turned to our friends.

“It is raining! You came on foot, General Lambert? You and George must
come home in my coach. You must and shall come home with me, I say. By
George, you must! I’ll have no denial,” cried the enthusiastic Baronet;
and he drove George and the General back to Hill Street, and presented
the latter to my Lady Warrington and his darlings, Flora and Dora, and
insisted upon their partaking of a collation, as they must be hungry
after their ride. “What, there is only cold mutton? Well, an old soldier
can eat cold mutton. And a good glass of my Lady Warrington’s own
cordial, prepared with her own hands, will keep the cold wind out.
Delicious cordial! Capital mutton! Our own, my dear General,” says the
hospitable Baronet, “our own from the country, six years old if a day.
We keep a plain table; but all the Warringtons since the Conqueror have
been remarkable for their love of mutton; and our meal may look a little
scanty, and is, for we are plain people, and I am obliged to keep my
rascals of servants on board-wages. Can’t give them seven-year-old
mutton, you know.”

Sir Miles, in his nephew’s presence and hearing, described to his wife
and daughters George’s reception at court in such flattering terms that
George hardly knew himself, or the scene at which he had been present,
or how to look his uncle in the face, or how to contradict him before
his family in the midst of the astonishing narrative he was relating.
Lambert sat by for a while with open eyes. He, too, had been at
Kensington. He had seen none of the wonders which Sir Miles described.

“We are proud of you, dear George. We love you, my dear nephew--we all
love you, we are all proud of you--”

“Yes; but I like Harry best,” says a little voice.

“--not because you are wealthy! Screwby, take Master Miles to his
governor. Go, dear child. Not because you are blest with great estates
and an ancient name; but because, George, you have put to good use the
talents with which Heaven has adorned you; because you have fought and
bled in your country’s cause, in your monarch’s cause, and as such are
indeed worthy of the favour of the best of sovereigns. General Lambert,
you have kindly condescended to look in on a country family, and partake
of our unpretending meal. I hope we may see you some day when our
hospitality is a little less homely. Yes, by George, General, you must
and shall name a day when you and Mrs. Lambert, and your dear girls,
will dine with us. I’ll take no refusal now, by George I won’t,” bawls
the knight.

“You will accompany us, I trust, to my drawing-room?” says my lady,
rising.

Mr. Lambert pleaded to be excused; but the ladies on no account would
let dear George go away. No, positively, he should not go. They wanted
to make acquaintance with their cousin. They must hear about that
dreadful battle and escape from the Indians. Tom Claypool came in and
heard some of the story. Flora was listening to it with her handkerchief
to her eyes, and little Miles had just said--

“Why do you take your handkerchief, Flora? You’re not crying a bit.”

Being a man of great humour, Martin Lambert, when he went home, could
not help entertaining his wife with an account of the new family with
which he had made acquaintance. A certain cant word called humbug had
lately come into vogue. Will it be believed that the General used it to
designate the family of this virtuous country gentleman? He described
the eager hospitalities of the father, the pompous flatteries of the
mother, and the daughters’ looks of admiration; the toughness and
security of the mutton, and the abominable taste and odour of the
cordial; and we may be sure Mrs. Lambert contrasted Lady Warrington’s
recent behaviour to poor Harry with her present conduct to George.

“Is this Miss Warrington really handsome?” asks Mrs Lambent.

“Yes; she is very handsome indeed, and the most astounding flirt I have
ever set eyes on,” replies the General.

“The hypocrite! I have no patience with such people!” cries the lady.

To which the General, strange to say, only replied by the monosyllable
“Bo!”

“Why do you say ‘Bo!’ Martin?” asks the lady.

“I say ‘Bo!’ to a goose, my dear,” answers the General.

And his wife vows she does not know what he means, or of what he is
thinking, and the General says--

“Of course not.”



CHAPTER LIX. In which we are treated to a Play


The real business of life, I fancy, can form but little portion of the
novelist’s budget. When he is speaking of the profession of arms, in
which men can show courage or the reverse, and in treating of which the
writer naturally has to deal with interesting circumstances, actions,
and characters, introducing recitals of danger, devotedness, heroic
deaths, and the like, the novelist may perhaps venture to deal with
actual affairs of life: but otherwise, they scarcely can enter into our
stories. The main part of Ficulnus’s life, for instance, is spent in
selling sugar, spices and cheese; of Causidicus’s in poring over musty
volumes of black-letter law; of Sartorius’s in sitting, cross-legged,
on a board after measuring gentlemen for coats and breeches. What can a
story-teller say about the professional existence of these men? Would a
real rustical history of hobnails and eighteenpence a day be endurable?
In the days whereof we are writing, the poets of the time chose to
represent a shepherd in pink breeches and a chintz waistcoat, dancing
before his flocks, and playing a flageolet tied up with a blue satin
ribbon. I say, in reply to some objections which have been urged by
potent and friendly critics, that of the actual affairs of life the
novelist cannot be expected to treat--with the almost single exception
of war before named. But law, stockbroking, polemical theology,
linen-drapery, apothecary-business, and the like, how can writers manage
fully to develop these in their stories? All authors can do, is to
depict men out of their business--in their passions, loves, laughters,
amusements, hatreds, and what not--and describe these as well as they
can, taking the business part for granted, and leaving it as it were for
subaudition.

Thus, in talking of the present or the past world, I know I am
only dangling about the theatre-lobbies, coffee-houses, ridottos,
pleasure-haunts, fair-booths, and feasting- and fiddling-rooms of life;
that, meanwhile, the great serious past or present world is plodding in
its chambers, toiling at its humdrum looms, or jogging on its accustomed
labours, and we are only seeing our characters away from their work.
Corydon has to cart the litter and thresh the barley, as well as to make
love to Phillis; Ancillula has to dress and wash the nursery, to wait at
breakfast and on her misses, to take the children out, etc., before
she can have her brief sweet interview through the area-railings with
Boopis, the policeman. All day long have his heels to beat the stale
pavement before he has the opportunity to snatch the hasty kiss or the
furtive cold pie. It is only at moments, and away from these labours,
that we can light upon one character or the other; and hence, though
most of the persons of whom we are writing have doubtless their grave
employments and avocations, it is only when they are disengaged and
away from their work, that we can bring them and the equally disengaged
reader together.

The macaronis and fine gentlemen at White’s and Arthur’s continued to
show poor Harry Warrington such a very cold shoulder, that he sought
their society less and less, and the Ring and the Mall and the
gaming-table knew him no more. Madame de Bernstein was for her nephew’s
braving the indifference of the world, and vowed that it would be
conquered, if he would but have courage to face it; but the young man
was too honest to wear a smiling face when he was discontented; to
disguise mortification or anger; to parry slights by adroit flatteries
or cunning impudence; as many gentlemen and gentlewomen must and do who
wish to succeed in society.

“You pull a long face, Harry, and complain of the world’s treatment of
you,” the old lady said. “Fiddlededee, sir! Everybody has to put up with
impertinences: and if you get a box on the ear now you are poor and cast
down, you must say nothing about it, bear it with a smile, and if
you can, revenge it ten years after. Moi qui vous parle, sir!--do you
suppose I have had no humble-pie to eat? All of us in our turn are
called upon to swallow it: and, now you are no longer the Fortunate
Youth, be the Clever Youth, and win back the place you have lost by your
ill luck. Go about more than ever. Go to all the routs and parties to
which you are asked, and to more still. Be civil to everybody--to all
women especially. Only of course take care to show your spirit, of
which you have plenty. With economy, and by your brother’s, I must say,
admirable generosity, you can still make a genteel figure. With your
handsome person, sir, you can’t fail to get a rich heiress. Tenez! You
should go amongst the merchants in the City, and look out there. They
won’t know that you are out of fashion at the Court end of the town.
With a little management, there is not the least reason, sir, why you
should not make a good position for yourself still. When did you go to
see my Lady Yarmouth, pray? Why did you not improve that connexion?
She took a great fancy to you. I desire you will be constant at her
ladyship’s evenings, and lose no opportunity of paying court to her.”

Thus the old woman who had loved Harry so on his first appearance in
England, who had been so eager for his company, and pleased with his
artless conversation, was taking the side of the world, and turning
against him. Instead of the smiles and kisses with which the fickle old
creature used once to greet him, she received him with coldness; she
became peevish and patronising; she cast gibes and scorn at him before
her guests, making his honest face flush with humiliation, and awaking
the keenest pangs of grief and amazement in his gentle, manly heart.
Madame de Bernstein’s servants, who used to treat him with such
eager respect, scarcely paid him now any attention. My lady was often
indisposed or engaged when he called on her; her people did not press
him to wait; did not volunteer to ask whether he would stay and dine, as
they used in the days when he was the Fortunate Youth and companion
of the wealthy and great. Harry carried his woes to Mrs. Lambert. In a
passion of sorrow he told her of his aunt’s cruel behaviour to him. He
was stricken down and dismayed by the fickleness and heartlessness of
the world in its treatment of him. While the good lady and her daughters
would move to and fro, and busy themselves with the cares of the house,
our poor lad would sit glum in a window-seat, heart-sick and silent.

“I know you are the best people alive,” he would say to the ladies, “and
the kindest, and that I must be the dullest company in the world--yes,
that I am.”

“Well, you are not very lively, Harry,” says Miss Hetty, who began to
command him, and perhaps to ask herself, “What? Is this the gentleman
whom I took to be such a hero?”

“If he is unhappy, why should he be lively?” asks Theo, gently. “He has
a good heart, and is pained at his friends’ desertion of him. Sure there
is no harm in that?”

“I would have too much spirit to show I was hurt, though,” cries Hetty,
clenching her little fists. “And I would smile, though that horrible
old painted woman boxed my ears. She is horrible, mamma. You think so
yourself, Theo! Own, now, you think so yourself! You said so last
night, and acted her coming in on her crutch, and grinning round to the
company.”

“I mayn’t like her,” said Theo, turning very red. “But there is no
reason why I should call Harry’s aunt names before Harry’s face.”

“You provoking thing; you are always right!” cries Hetty, “and that’s
what makes me so angry. Indeed, Harry, it was very wrong of me to make
rude remarks about any of your relations.”

“I don’t care about the others, Hetty; but it seems hard that this one
should turn upon me. I had got to be very fond of her; and you see, it
makes me mad, somehow, when people I’m very fond of turn away from me,
or act unkind to me.”

“Suppose George were to do so?” asks Hetty. You see, it was George and
Hetty, and Theo and Harry, amongst them now.

“You are very clever and very lively, and you may suppose a number of
things; but not that, Hetty, if you please,” cried Harry, standing up
and looking very resolute and angry. “You don’t know my brother as
I know him--or you wouldn’t take--such a--liberty as to suppose--my
brother George could do anything unkind or unworthy!” Mr. Harry was
quite in a flush as he spoke.

Hetty turned very white. Then she looked up at Harry, and then she did
not say a single word.

Then Harry said, in his simple way, before taking leave, “I’m very
sorry, and I beg your pardon, Hetty, if I said anything rough, or that
seemed unkind; but I always fight up if anybody says anything against
George.”

Hetty did not answer a word out of her pale lips, but gave him her hand,
and dropped a prim little curtsey.

When she and Theo were together at night, making curl-paper confidences,
“Oh!” said Hetty, “I thought it would be so happy to see him every day,
and was so glad when papa said we were to stay in London! And now I do
see him, you see, I go on offending him. I can’t help offending him;
and I know he is not clever, Theo. But oh! isn’t he good, and kind, and
brave? Didn’t he look handsome when he was angry?”

“You silly little thing, you are always trying to make him look
handsome,” Theo replied.

It was Theo and Hetty, and Harry and George, among these young people,
then; and I dare say the reason why General Lambert chose to apply the
monosyllable “Bo” to the mother of his daughters, was as a rebuke to
that good woman for the inveterate love of sentiment and propensity to
match-making which belonged to her (and every other woman in the world
whose heart is worth a fig); and as a hint that Madam Lambert was a
goose if she fancied the two Virginian lads were going to fall in love
with the young women of the Lambert house. Little Het might have her
fancy; little girls will; but they get it over: “and you know, Molly”
 (which dear, soft-hearted Mrs. Lambert could not deny), “you fancied
somebody else before you fancied me,” says the General; but Harry had
evidently not been smitten by Hetty; and now he was superseded, as it
were, by having an elder brother over him, and could not even call the
coat upon his back his own, Master Harry was no great catch.

“Oh yes: now he is poor we will show him the door, as all the rest of
the world does, I suppose,” says Mrs. Lambert.

“That is what I always do, isn’t it, Molly? turn my back on my friends
in distress?” asks the General.

“No, my dear! I am a goose, now, and that I own, Martin!” says the wife,
having recourse to the usual pocket-handkerchief.

“Let the poor boy come to us and welcome: ours is almost the only house
in this selfish place where so much can be said for him. He is unhappy,
and to be with us puts him at ease; in God’s name let him be with us!”
 says the kind-hearted officer. Accordingly, whenever poor crestfallen
Hal wanted a dinner, or an evening’s entertainment, Mr. Lambert’s table
had a corner for him. So was George welcome, too. He went among the
Lamberts, not at first with the cordiality which Harry felt for these
people, and inspired among them: for George was colder in his manner,
and more mistrustful of himself and others than his twin-brother: but
there was a goodness and friendliness about the family which touched
almost all people who came into frequent contact with them; and George
soon learned to love them for their own sake, as well as for their
constant regard and kindness to his brother. He could not but see
and own how sad Harry was, and pity his brother’s depression. In his
sarcastic way, George would often take himself to task before his
brother for coming to life again, and say, “Dear Harry, I am George the
Unlucky, though you have ceased to be Harry the Fortunate. Florac would
have done much better not to pass his sword through that Indian’s body,
and to have left my scalp as an ornament for the fellow’s belt. I say he
would, sir! At White’s the people would have respected you. Our mother
would have wept over me, as a defunct angel, instead of being angry
with me for again supplanting her favourite--you are her favourite, you
deserve to be her favourite: everybody’s favourite: only, if I had not
come back, your favourite, Maria, would have insisted on marrying you;
and that is how the gods would have revenged themselves upon you for
your prosperity.”

“I never know whether you are laughing at me or yourself, George” says
the brother. I never know whether you are serious or jesting.

“Precisely my own case, Harry, my dear!” says George.

“But this I know, that there never was a better brother in the world;
and never better people than the Lamberts.”

“Never was truer word said!” cries George, taking his brother’s hand.

“And if I’m unhappy, ‘tis not your fault--nor their fault--nor perhaps
mine, George,” continues the younger. ‘Tis fate, you see, ‘tis the
having nothing to do. I must work; and how, George? that is the
question.”

“We will see what our mother says. We must wait till we hear from her,”
 says George.

“I say, George! Do you know, I don’t think I should much like going back
to Virginia?” says Harry, in a low, alarmed voice.

“What! in love with one of the lasses here?”

“Love ‘em like sisters--with all my heart, of course, dearest, best
girls! but, having come out of that business, thanks to you, I don’t
want to go back, you know. No! no! It is not for that I fancy staying
in Europe better than going home. But, you see, I don’t fancy hunting,
duck-shooting, tobacco-planting, whist-playing, and going to sermon,
over and over and over again, for all my life, George. And what else is
there to do at home? What on earth is there for me to do at all, I say?
That’s what makes me miserable. It would not matter for you to be a
younger son you are so clever you would make your way anywhere; but,
for a poor fellow like me, what chance is there? Until I do something,
George, I shall be miserable, that’s what I shall!”

“Have I not always said so? Art thou not coming round to my opinion?”

“What opinion, George? You know pretty much whatever you think, I think,
George!” says the dutiful junior.

“That Florac had best have left the Indian to take my scalp, my dear!”

At which Harry bursts away with an angry exclamation; and they continue
to puff their pipes in friendly union.

They lived together, each going his own gait; and not much intercourse,
save that of affection, was carried on between them. Harry never would
venture to meddle with George’s books, and would sit as dumb as a mouse
at the lodgings whilst his brother was studying. They removed presently
from the Court end of the town, Madame de Bernstein pishing and
pshaing at their change of residence. But George took a great fancy to
frequenting Sir Hans Sloane’s new reading-room and museum, just set
up in Montagu House, and he took cheerful lodgings in Southampton Row,
Bloomsbury, looking over the delightful fields towards Hampstead, at the
back of the Duke of Bedford’s gardens. And Lord Wrotham’s family coming
to Mayfair, and Mr. Lambert having business which detained him in
London, had to change his house, too, and engaged furnished apartments
in Soho, not very far off from the dwelling of our young men; and it
was, as we have said, with the Lamberts that Harry, night after night,
took refuge.

George was with them often, too; and, as the acquaintance ripened, he
frequented their house with increasing assiduity, finding their company
more to his taste than that of Aunt Bernstein’s polite circle of
gamblers, than Sir Miles Warrington’s port and mutton, or the daily
noise and clatter of the coffee-houses. And as he and the Lambert ladies
were alike strangers in London, they partook of its pleasures together,
and, no doubt, went to Vauxhall and Ranelagh, to Marybone Gardens, and
the play, and the Tower, and wherever else there was honest amusement to
be had in those days. Martin Lambert loved that his children should
have all the innocent pleasure which he could procure for them, and Mr.
George, who was of a most generous, open-handed disposition, liked to
treat his friends likewise, especially those who had been so admirably
kind to his brother.

With all the passion of his heart Mr. Warrington loved a play. He had
never enjoyed this amusement in Virginia, and only once or twice at
Quebec, when he visited Canada; and when he came to London, where the
two houses were in their full glory, I believe he thought he never could
have enough of the delightful entertainment. Anything he liked himself,
he naturally wished to share amongst his companions. No wonder that he
was eager to take his friends to the theatre, and we may be sure our
young countryfolks were not unwilling. Shall it be Drury Lane or Covent
Garden, ladies? There was Garrick and Shakspeare at Drury Lane. Well,
will it be believed, the ladies wanted to hear the famous new author
whose piece was being played at Covent Garden?

At this time a star of genius had arisen, and was blazing with quite a
dazzling brilliancy. The great Mr. John Home, of Scotland, had produced
a tragedy, than which, since the days of the ancients, there had been
nothing more classic and elegant. What had Mr. Garrick meant by refusing
such a masterpiece for his theatre? Say what you will about Shakspeare;
in the works of that undoubted great poet (who had begun to grow vastly
more popular in England since Monsieur Voltaire attacked him) there were
many barbarisms that could not but shock a polite auditory; whereas,
Mr. Home, the modern author, knew how to be refined in the very midst of
grief and passion; to represent death, not merely as awful, but graceful
and pathetic; and never condescended to degrade the majesty of the
Tragic Muse by the ludicrous apposition of buffoonery and familiar
punning, such as the elder playwright certainly had resort to. Besides,
Mr. Home’s performance had been admired in quarters so high, and by
personages whose taste was known to be as elevated as their rank, that
all Britons could not but join in the plaudits for which august hands
had given the signal. Such, it was said, was the opinion of the very
best company, in the coffee-houses, and amongst the wits about town.
Why, the famous Mr. Gray, of Cambridge, said there had not been for a
hundred years any dramatic dialogue of such a true style; and as for the
poet’s native capital of Edinburgh, where the piece was first brought
out, it was even said that the triumphant Scots called out from the pit
(in their dialect), “Where’s Wully Shakspeare noo?”

“I should like to see the man who could beat Willy Shakspeare?” says the
General, laughing.

“Mere national prejudice,” says Mr. Warrington.

“Beat Shakspeare, indeed!” cries Mrs. Lambert.

“Pooh, pooh! you have cried more over Mr. Sam Richardson than ever you
did over Mr. Shakspeare, Molly!” remarks the General. “I think few women
love to read Shakspeare: they say they love it, but they don’t.”

“Oh, papa!” cry three ladies, throwing up three pair of hands.

“Well, then, why do you all three prefer Douglas? And you, boys, who are
such Tories, will you go see a play which is wrote by a Whig Scotchman,
who was actually made prisoner at Falkirk?”

“Relicta non bene parmula,” says Mr. Jack the scholar.

“Nay; it was relicta bene parmula,” cried the General. “It was the
Highlanders who flung their targes down, and made fierce work among us
redcoats. If they had fought all their fields as well as that, and young
Perkin had not turned back from Derby----”

“I know which side would be rebels, and who would be called the Young
Pretender,” interposed George.

“Hush! you must please to remember my cloth, Mr. Warrington,” said the
General, with some gravity; “and that the cockade I wear is a black, not
a white one! Well, if you will not love Mr. Home for his politics, there
is, I think, another reason, George, why you should like him.”

“I may have Tory fancies, Mr. Lambert, but I think I know how to love
and honour a good Whig,” said George, with a bow to the General: “but
why should I like this Mr. Home, sir?”

“Because, being a Presbyterian clergyman, he has committed the heinous
crime of writing a play, and his brother-parsons have barked out an
excommunication at him. They took the poor fellow’s means of livelihood
away from him for his performance; and he would have starved, but that
the young Pretender on our side of the water has given him a pension.”

“If he has been persecuted by the parsons, there is hope for him,” said
George, smiling. “And henceforth I declare myself ready to hear his
sermons.”

“Mrs. Woffington is divine in it, though not generally famous in
tragedy. Barry is drawing tears from all eyes; and Garrick is wild
at having refused the piece. Girls, you must bring each half a dozen
handkerchiefs! As for mamma, I cannot trust her; and she positively must
be left at home.”

But mamma persisted she would go; and, if need were to weep, she would
sit and cry her eyes out in a corner. They all went to Covent Garden,
then; the most of the party duly prepared to see one of the masterpieces
of the age and drama. Could they not all speak long pages of Congreve;
had they not wept and kindled over Otway and Rowe? O ye past literary
glories, that were to be eternal, how long have you been dead? Who knows
much more now than where your graves are? Poor, neglected Muse of the
bygone theatre! She pipes for us, and we will not dance; she tears her
hair, and we will not weep. And the Immortals of our time, how soon
shall they be dead and buried, think you? How many will survive? How
long shall it be ere Nox et Domus Plutonia shall overtake them?

So away went the pleased party to Covent Garden to see the tragedy of
the immortal John Home. The ladies and the General were conveyed in a
glass coach, and found the young men in waiting to receive them at
the theatre door. Hence they elbowed their way through a crowd of
torch-boys, and a whole regiment of footmen. Little Hetty fell to
Harry’s arm in this expedition, and the blushing Miss Theo was handed
to the box by Mr. George. Gumbo had kept the places until his masters
arrived, when he retired, with many bows, to take his own seat in the
footman’s gallery. They had good places in a front box, and there was
luckily a pillar behind which mamma could weep in comfort. And opposite
them they had the honour to see the august hope of the empire, his Royal
Highness George Prince of Wales, with the Princess Dowager his mother,
whom the people greeted with loyal, but not very enthusiastic, plaudits.
That handsome man standing behind his Royal Highness was my Lord
Bute, the Prince’s Groom of the Stole, the patron of the poet whose
performance they had come to see, and over whose work the Royal party
had already wept more than once.

How can we help it, if during the course of the performance, Mr. Lambert
would make his jokes and mar the solemnity of the scene? At first, as
the reader of the tragedy well knows, the characters are occupied in
making a number of explanations. Lady Randolph explains how it is that
she is so melancholy. Married to Lord Randolph somewhat late in life,
she owns, and his lordship perceives, that a dead lover yet occupies
all her heart; and her husband is fain to put up with this dismal,
second-hand regard, which is all that my lady can bestow. Hence, an
invasion of Scotland by the Danes is rather a cause of excitement
than disgust to my lord, who rushes to meet the foe, and forgets the
dreariness of his domestic circumstances. Welcome, Vikings and Norsemen!
Blow, northern blasts, the invaders’ keels to Scotland’s shore! Randolph
and other heroes will be on the beach to give the foemen a welcome! His
lordship has no sooner disappeared behind the trees of the forest, but
Lady Randolph begins to explain to her confidante the circumstances of
her early life. The fact was, she had made a private marriage, and what
would the confidante say, if, in early youth, she, Lady Randolph, had
lost a husband? In the cold bosom of the earth was lodged the husband of
her youth, and in some cavern of the ocean lies her child and his!

Up to this the General behaved with as great gravity as any of his young
companions to the play; but when Lady Randolph proceeded to say, “Alas!
Hereditary evil was the cause of my misfortunes,” he nudged George
Warrington, and looked so droll, that the young man burst out laughing.

The magic of the scene was destroyed after that. These two gentlemen
went on cracking jokes during the whole of the subsequent performance,
to their own amusement, but the indignation of their company, and
perhaps of the people in the adjacent boxes. Young Douglas, in those
days, used to wear a white satin “shape” slashed at the legs and body,
and when Mr. Barry appeared in this droll costume, the General vowed it
was the exact dress of the Highlanders in the late war. The Chevalier’s
Guard, he declared, had all white satin slashed breeches, and red
boots--“only they left them at home, my dear,” adds this wag. Not one
pennyworth of sublimity would he or George allow henceforth to Mr.
Home’s performance. As for Harry, he sate in very deep meditation over
the scene; and when Mrs. Lambert offered him a penny for his thoughts,
he said, “That he thought, Young Norval, Douglas, What-d’ye-call-’em,
the fellow in white satin--who looked as old as his mother--was very
lucky to be able to distinguish himself so soon. I wish I could get
a chance, Aunt Lambert,” says he, drumming on his hat; on which mamma
sighed, and Theo, smiling, said, “We must wait, and perhaps the Danes
will land.”

“How do you mean?” asks simple Harry.

“Oh, the Danes always land, pour qui scait attendre!” says kind Theo,
who had hold of her sister’s little hand, and, I dare say, felt its
pressure.

She did not behave unkindly--that was not in Miss Theo’s nature--but
somewhat coldly to Mr. George, on whom she turned her back, addressing
remarks, from time to time, to Harry. In spite of the gentlemen’s scorn,
the women chose to be affected. A mother and son, meeting in love and
parting in tears, will always awaken emotion in female hearts.

“Look, papa! there is an answer to all your jokes!” says Theo, pointing
towards the stage.

At a part of the dialogue between Lady Randolph and her son, one of the
grenadiers on guard on each side of the stage, as the custom of those
days was, could not restrain his tears, and was visibly weeping before
the side-box.

“You are right, my dear,” says papa.

“Didn’t I tell you she always is?” interposes Hetty.

“Yonder sentry is a better critic than we are, and a touch of nature
masters us all.”

“Tamen usque recurrit!” cries the young student from college.

George felt abashed somehow, and interested too. He had been sneering,
and Theo sympathising. Her kindness was better--nay, wiser--than his
scepticism, perhaps. Nevertheless, when, at the beginning of the fifth
act of the play, young Douglas, drawing his sword and looking up at the
gallery, bawled out--

    “Ye glorious stars! high heaven’s resplendent host!
     To whom I oft have of my lot complained,
     Hear and record my soul’s unaltered wish
     Living or dead, let me but be renowned!
     May Heaven inspire some fierce gigantic Dane
     To give a bold defiance to our host!
     Before he speaks it out, I will accept,
     Like Douglas conquer, or like Douglas die!”--

The gods, to whom Mr. Barry appealed, saluted this heroic wish with
immense applause, and the General clapped his hands prodigiously. His
daughter was rather disconcerted.

“This Douglas is not only brave, but he is modest!” says papa.

“I own I think he need not have asked for a gigantic Dane,” says Theo,
smiling, as Lady Randolph entered in the midst of the gallery thunder.

When the applause had subsided, Lady Randolph is made to say--

    “My son, I heard a voice!”

“I think she did hear a voice!” cries papa. “Why, the fellow was
bellowing like a bull of Bashan.” And the General would scarcely behave
himself from thenceforth to the end of the performance. He said he
was heartily glad that the young gentleman was put to death behind
the scenes. When Lady Randolph’s friend described how her mistress had
“flown like lightning up the hill, and plunged herself into the empty
air,” Mr. Lambert said he was delighted to be rid of her. “And as for
that story of her early marriage,” says he, “I have my very strongest
doubts about it.”

“Nonsense, Martin! Look, children! their Royal Highnesses are moving.”

The tragedy over, the Princess Dowager and the Prince were, in fact,
retiring; though, I dare say, the latter, who was always fond of a
farce, would have been far better pleased with that which followed than
he had been with Mr. Home’s dreary tragic masterpiece.



CHAPTER LX. Which treats of Macbeth, a Supper, and a Pretty Kettle of
Fish


When the performances were concluded, our friends took coach for Mr.
Warrington’s lodging, where the Virginians had provided an elegant
supper. Mr. Warrington was eager to treat them in the handsomest
manner, and the General and his wife accepted the invitation of the two
bachelors, pleased to think that they could give their young friends
pleasure. General and Mrs. Lambert, their son from college, their two
blooming daughters, and Mr. Spencer of the Temple, a new friend whom
George had met at the coffee-house, formed the party, and partook with
cheerfulness of the landlady’s fare. The order of their sitting I have
not been able exactly to ascertain; but, somehow, Miss Theo had a place
next to the chickens and Mr. George Warrington, whilst Miss Hetty and a
ham divided the attentions of Mr. Harry. Mrs. Lambert must have been on
George’s right hand, so that we have but to settle the three places of
the General, his son, and the Templar.

Mr. Spencer had been at the other theatre, where, on a former day, he
had actually introduced George to the greenroom. The conversation about
the play was resumed, and some of the party persisted in being delighted
with it.

“As for what our gentlemen say, sir,” cries Mrs. Lambert to Mr. Spencer,
“you must not believe a word of it. ‘Tis a delightful piece, and my
husband and Mr. George behaved as ill as possible.”

“We laughed in the wrong place, and when we ought to have cried,” the
General owned, “that’s the truth.”

“You caused all the people in the boxes about us to look round and cry
‘Hush!’ You made the pit folks say, ‘Silence in the boxes, yonder!’ Such
behaviour I never knew, and quite blushed for you, Mr. Lambert!”

“Mamma thought it was a tragedy, and we thought it was a piece of fun,”
 says the General. “George and I behaved perfectly well, didn’t we,
Theo?”

“Not when I was looking your way, papa!” Theo replies. At which the
General asks, “Was there ever such a saucy baggage seen?”

“You know, sir, I didn’t speak till I was bid,” Theo continues,
modestly. “I own I was very much moved by the play, and the beauty and
acting of Mrs. Woffington. I was sorry that the poor mother should find
her child, and lose him. I am sorry, too, papa, if I oughtn’t to have
been sorry!” adds the young lady, with a smile.

“Women are not so clever as men, you know, Theo,” cries Hetty from her
end of the table, with a sly look at Harry. “The next time we go to the
play, please, brother Jack, pinch us when we ought to cry, or give us a
nudge when it is right to laugh.”

“I wish we could have had the fight,” said General Lambert, “the fight
between little Norval and the gigantic Norwegian--that would have been
rare sport: and you should write, Jack, and suggest it to Mr. Rich, the
manager.”

“I have not seen that: but I saw Slack and Broughton at Marybone
Gardens!” says Harry, gravely; and wondered if he had said something
witty, as all the company laughed so? “It would require no giant,” he
added, “to knock over yonder little fellow in the red boots. I, for one,
could throw him over my shoulder.”

“Mr. Garrick is a little man. But there are times when he looks a
giant,” says Mr. Spencer. “How grand he was in Macbeth, Mr. Warrington!
How awful that dagger-scene was! You should have seen our host, ladies!
I presented Mr. Warrington, in the greenroom, to Mr. Garrick and Mrs.
Pritchard, and Lady Macbeth did him the honour to take a pinch out of
his box.”

“Did the wife of the Thane of Cawdor sneeze?” asked the General, in an
awful voice.

“She thanked Mr. Warrington, in tones so hollow and tragic, that he
started back, and must have upset some of his rappee, for Macbeth
sneezed thrice.”

“Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth!” cries the General.

“And the great philosopher who was standing by Mr. Johnson, says, ‘You
must mind, Davy, lest thy sneeze should awaken Duncan!’ who, by the way,
was talking with the three witches as they sat against the wall.”

“What! Have you been behind the scenes at the play? Oh, I would give
worlds to go behind the scenes!” cries Theo.

“And see the ropes pulled, and smell the tallow-candles, and look at the
pasteboard gold, and the tinsel jewels, and the painted old women, Theo?
No. Do not look too close,” says the sceptical young host, demurely
drinking a glass of hock. “You were angry with your papa and me.”

“Nay, George!” cries the girl.

“Nay? I say, yes! You were angry with us because we laughed when you
were disposed to be crying. If I may speak for you, sir, as well as
myself,” says George (with a bow to his guest, General Lambert), “I
think we were not inclined to weep, like the ladies, because we stood
behind the author’s scenes of the play, as it were. Looking close up to
the young hero, we saw how much of him was rant and tinsel; and as for
the pale, tragical mother, that her pallor was white chalk, and her
grief her pocket-handkerchief. Own now, Theo, you thought me very
unfeeling?”

“If you find it out, sir, without my owning it,--what is the good of my
confessing?” says Theo.

“Suppose I were to die?” goes on George, “and you saw Harry in grief,
you would be seeing a genuine affliction, a real tragedy; you would
grieve too. But you wouldn’t be affected if you saw the undertaker in
weepers and a black cloak!”

“Indeed, but I should, sir!” says Mrs. Lambert; “and so, I promise you,
would any daughter of mine.”

“Perhaps we might find weepers of our own, Mr. Warrington,” says Theo,
“in such a case.”

“Would you?” cries George, and his cheeks and Theo’s simultaneously
flushed up with red; I suppose because they both saw Hetty’s bright
young eyes watching them.

“The elder writers understood but little of the pathetic,” remarked Mr.
Spencer, the Temple wit.

“What do you think of Sophocles and Antigone?” calls out Mr. John
Lambert.

“Faith, our wits trouble themselves little about him, unless an Oxford
gentleman comes to remind us of him! I did not mean to go back farther
than Mr. Shakspeare, who, as you will all agree, does not understand
the elegant and pathetic as well as the moderns. Has he ever approached
Belvidera, or Monimia, or Jane Shore; or can you find in his comic
female characters the elegance of Congreve?” and the Templar offered
snuff to the right and left.

“I think Mr. Spencer himself must have tried his hand?” asks some one.

“Many gentlemen of leisure have. Mr. Garrick, I own, has had a piece of
mine and returned it.”

“And I confess that I have four acts of a play in one of my boxes,” says
George.

“I’ll be bound to say it’s as good as any of ‘em,” whispers Harry to his
neighbour.

“Is it a tragedy or a comedy?” asks Mrs. Lambert.

“Oh, a tragedy, and two or three dreadful murders at least!” George
replies.

“Let us play it, and let the audience look to their eyes! Yet my chief
humour is for a tyrant,” says the General.

“The tragedy, the tragedy! Go and fetch the tragedy this moment,
Gumbo!” calls Mrs. Lambert to the black. Gumbo makes a low bow and says,
“Tragedy? yes, madam.”

“In the great cowskin trunk, Gumbo,” George says, gravely.

Gumbo bows and says, “Yes, sir,” with still superior gravity.

“But my tragedy is at the bottom of I don’t know how much linen,
packages, books, and boots, Hetty.”

“Never mind, let us have it, and fling the linen out of window!” cries
Miss Hetty.

“And the great cowskin trunk is at our agent’s at Bristol: so Gumbo must
get post-horses, and we can keep it up till he returns the day after
to-morrow,” says George.

The ladies groaned a comical “Oh!” and papa, perhaps more seriously,
said, “Let us be thankful for the escape. Let us be thinking of going
home too. Our young gentlemen have treated us nobly, and we will all
drink a parting bumper to Madam Esmond Warrington of Castlewood, in
Virginia. Suppose, boys, you were to find a tall, handsome stepfather
when you got home? Ladies as old as she have been known to marry before
now.”

“To Madam Esmond Warrington, my old schoolfellow!” cries Mrs. Lambert.
“I shall write and tell her what a pretty supper her sons have given us:
and, Mr. George, I won’t say how ill you behaved at the play!” And,
with this last toast, the company took leave; the General’s coach and
servant, with a flambeau, being in waiting to carry his family home.

After such an entertainment as that which Mr. Warrington had given, what
could be more natural or proper than a visit from him to his guests,
to inquire how they had reached home and rested? Why, their coach might
have taken the open country behind Montague House, in the direction
of Oxford Road, and been waylaid by footpads in the fields. The ladies
might have caught cold or slept ill after the excitement of the tragedy.
In a word, there was no reason why he should make any excuse at all to
himself or them for visiting his kind friends; and he shut his books
early at the Sloane Museum, and perhaps thought, as he walked away
thence, that he remembered very little about what he had been reading.

Pray what is the meaning of this eagerness, this hesitation, this
pshaing and shilly-shallying, these doubts, this tremor as he knocks
at the door of Mr. Lambert’s lodgings in Dean Street, and survey the
footman who comes to his summons? Does any young man read? does any
old one remember? does any wearied, worn, disappointed pulseless heart
recall the time of its full beat and early throbbing? It is ever so many
hundred years since some of us were young; and we forget, but do not all
forget. No, madam, we remember with advantages, as Shakspeare’s Harry
promised his soldiers they should do if they survived Agincourt and
that day of St. Crispin. Worn old chargers turned out to grass, if the
trumpet sounds over the hedge, may we not kick up our old heels, and
gallop a minute or so about the paddock, till we are brought up roaring?
I do not care for clown and pantaloon now, and think the fairy ugly, and
her verses insufferable: but I like to see children at a pantomime. I
do not dance, or eat supper any more; but I like to watch Eugenio and
Flirtilla twirling round in a pretty waltz, or Lucinda and Ardentio
pulling a cracker. Burn your little fingers, children! Blaze out little
kindly flames from each other’s eyes! And then draw close together and
read the motto (that old namby-pamby motto, so stale and so new!)--I
say, let her lips read it, and his construe it; and so divide the
sweetmeat, young people, and crunch it between you. I have no teeth.
Bitter almonds and sugar disagree with me, I tell you; but, for all
that, shall not bonbons melt in the mouth?

We follow John upstairs to the General’s apartments, and enter with Mr.
George Esmond Warrington, who makes a prodigious fine bow. There is
only one lady in the room, seated near a window: there is not often much
sunshine in Dean Street: the young lady in the window is no especial
beauty: but it is spring-time, and she is blooming vernally. A bunch
of fresh roses is flushing in her honest cheek. I suppose her eyes are
violets. If we lived a hundred years ago, and wrote in the Gentleman’s
or the London Magazine, we should tell Mr. Sylvanus Urban that her neck
was the lily, and her shape the nymph’s: we should write an acrostic
about her, and celebrate our Lambertella in an elegant poem, still to be
read between a neat new engraved plan of the city of Prague and the King
of Prussia’s camp, and a map of Maryland and the Delaware counties.

Here is Miss Theo blushing like a rose. What could mamma have meant an
hour since by insisting that she was very pale and tired, and had best
not come out to-day with the rest of the party? They were gone to pay
their compliments to my Lord Wrotham’s ladies, and thank them for the
house in their absence; and papa was at the Horse Guards. He is in great
spirits. I believe he expects some command, though mamma is in a sad
tremor lest he should again be ordered abroad.

“Your brother and mine are gone to see our little brother at his school
at the Chartreux. My brothers are both to be clergymen, I think,” Miss
Theo continues. She is assiduously hemming at some article of boyish
wearing apparel as she talks. A hundred years ago, young ladies were not
afraid either to make shirts, or to name them. Mind, I don’t say they
were the worse or the better for that plain stitching or plain speaking:
and have not the least desire, my dear young lady, that you should make
puddings or I should black boots.

So Harry has been with them? “He often comes, almost every day,” Theo
says, looking up in George’s face. “Poor fellow! He likes us better than
the fine folks, who don’t care for him now--now he is no longer a fine
folk himself,” adds the girl, smiling. “Why have you not set up for the
fashion, and frequented the chocolate-houses and the racecourses, Mr.
Warrington?”

“Has my brother got so much good out of his gay haunts or his grand
friends, that I should imitate him?”

“You might at least go to Sir Miles Warrington; sure his arms are open
to receive you. Her ladyship was here this morning in her chair, and
to hear her praises of you! She declares you are in a certain way to
preferment. She says his Royal Highness the Duke made much of you at
court. When you are a great man will you forget us, Mr. Warrington?”

“Yes, when I am a great man I will, Miss Lambert.”

“Well! Mr. George, then----”

“--Mr. George!”

“When papa and mamma are here, I suppose there need be no mistering,”
 says Theo, looking out of the window, ever so little frightened. “And
what have you been doing, sir? Reading books, or writing more of your
tragedy? Is it going to be a tragedy to make us cry, as we like them, or
only to frighten us, as you like them?”

“There is plenty of killing, but, I fear, not much crying. I have not
met many women. I have not been very intimate with those. I daresay what
I have written is only taken out of books or parodied from poems which
I have read and imitated like other young men. Women do not speak to me,
generally; I am said to have a sarcastic way which displeases them.”

“Perhaps you never cared to please them?” inquires Miss Theo, with a
blush.

“I displeased you last night; you know I did?”

“Yes; only it can’t be called displeasure, and afterwards thought I was
wrong.”

“Did you think about me at all when I was away, Theo?”

“Yes, George--that is, Mr.--well, George! I thought you and papa were
right about the play; and, as you said, that it was no real sorrow, only
affectation, which was moving us. I wonder whether it is good or ill
fortune to see so clearly? Hetty and I agreed that we would be very
careful, for the future, how we allowed ourselves to enjoy a tragedy.
So, be careful when yours comes! What is the name of it?”

“He is not christened. Will you be the godmother? The name of the chief
character is----” But at this very moment mamma and Miss Hetty arrived
from their walk; and mamma straightway began protesting that she never
expected to see Mr. Warrington at all that day--that is, she thought he
might come--that is, it was very good of him to come, and the play and
the supper of yesterday were all charming, except that Theo had a little
headache this morning.

“I dare say it is better now, mamma,” says Miss Hetty.

“Indeed, my dear, it never was of any consequence; and I told mamma so,”
 says Miss Theo, with a toss of her head.

Then they fell to talking about Harry. He was very low. He must have
something to do. He was always going to the Military Coffee-House, and
perpetually poring over the King of Prussia’s campaigns. It was not fair
upon him, to bid him remain in London, after his deposition, as it were.
He said nothing, but you could see how he regretted his previous useless
life, and felt his present dependence, by the manner in which he avoided
his former haunts and associates. Passing by the guard at St. James’s,
with John Lambert, he had said to brother Jack, “Why mayn’t I be
a soldier too? I am as tall as yonder fellow, and can kill with a
fowling-piece as well as any man I know. But I can’t earn so much as
sixpence a day. I have squandered my own bread, and now I am eating half
my brother’s. He is the best of brothers, but so much the more shame
that I should live upon him. Don’t tell my brother, Jack Lambert.” “And
my boy promised he wouldn’t tell,” says Mrs. Lambert. No doubt. The
girls were both out of the room when their mother made this speech to
George Warrington. He, for his part, said he had written home to his
mother--that half his little patrimony, the other half likewise, if
wanted, were at Harry’s disposal, for purchasing a commission, or for
any other project which might bring him occupation or advancement.

“He has got a good brother, that is sure. Let us hope for good times for
him,” sighs the lady.

“The Danes always come pour qui scait attendre,” George said, in a low
voice.

“What, you heard that? Ah, George! my Theo is an----Ah! never mind what
she is, George Warrington,” cried the pleased mother, with brimful eyes.
“Bah! I am going to make a gaby of myself, as I did at the tragedy.”

Now Mr. George had been revolving a fine private scheme, which
he thought might turn to his brother’s advantage. After George’s
presentation to his Royal Highness at Kensington, more persons than
one, his friend General Lambert included, had told him that the Duke had
inquired regarding him, and had asked why the young man did not come to
his levee. Importunity so august could not but be satisfied. A day was
appointed between Mr. Lambert and his young friend, and they went to pay
their duty to his Royal Highness at his house in Pall Mall.

When it came to George’s turn to make a bow, the Prince was especially
gracious; he spoke to Mr. Warrington at some length about Braddock and
the war, and was apparently pleased with the modesty and intelligence
of the young gentleman’s answers. George ascribed the failure of the
expedition to the panic and surprise certainly, but more especially to
the delays occasioned by the rapacity, selfishness, and unfair dealing
of the people of the colonies towards the King’s troops who were come
to defend them. “Could we have moved, sir, a month sooner, the fort
was certainly ours, and the little army had never been defeated,”
 Mr. Warrington said; in which observation his Royal Highness entirely
concurred.

“I am told you saved yourself, sir, mainly by your knowledge of the
French language,” the Royal Duke then affably observed. Mr. Warrington
modestly mentioned how he had been in the French colonies in his youth,
and had opportunities of acquiring that tongue.

The Prince (who had a great urbanity when well pleased, and the finest
sense of humour) condescended to ask who had taught Mr. Warrington the
language; and to express his opinion, that, for the pronunciation, the
French ladies were by far the best teachers.

The young Virginian gentleman made a low bow, and said it was not for
him to gainsay his Royal Highness; upon which the Duke was good enough
to say (in a jocose manner) that Mr. Warrington was a sly dog.

Mr. W. remaining respectfully silent, the Prince continued, most kindly:
“I take the field immediately against the French, who, as you know, are
threatening his Majesty’s Electoral dominions, If you have a mind to
make the campaign with me, your skill in the language may be useful,
and I hope we shall be more fortunate than poor Braddock!” Every eye
was fixed on a young man to whom so great a Prince offered so signal a
favour.

And now it was that Mr. George thought he would make his very cleverest
speech. “Sir,” he said, “your Royal Highness’s most kind proposal does
me infinite honour, but----”

“But what, sir?” says the Prince, staring at him.

“But I have entered myself of the Temple, to study our laws, and to fit
myself for my duties at home. If my having been wounded in the service
of my country be any claim on your kindness, I would humbly ask that my
brother, who knows the French language as well as myself, and has far
more strength, courage, and military genius, might be allowed to serve
your Royal Highness; in the place of----”

“Enough, enough, sir!” cried out the justly irritated son of the
monarch. “What? I offer you a favour, and you hand it over to your
brother? Wait, sir, till I offer you another!” And with this the Prince
turned his back upon Mr. Warrington, just as abruptly as he turned it on
the French a few months afterwards.

“Oh, George! oh, George! Here’s a pretty kettle of fish!” groaned
General Lambert, as he and his young friend walked home together.



CHAPTER LXI. In which the Prince marches up the Hill and down again


We understand the respectful indignation of all loyal Britons when they
come to read of Mr. George Warrington’s conduct towards a gallant
and gracious Prince, the beloved son of the best of monarchs, and the
Captain-General of the British army. What an inestimable favour has not
the young man slighted! What a chance of promotion had he not thrown
away! Will Esmond, whose language was always rich in blasphemies,
employed his very strongest curses in speaking of his cousin’s
behaviour, and expressed his delight that the confounded young Mohock
was cutting his own throat. Cousin Castlewood said that a savage
gentleman had a right to scalp himself if he liked; or perhaps, he added
charitably, our cousin Mr. Warrington heard enough of the war-whoop
in Braddock’s affair, and has no more stomach for fighting. Mr. Will
rejoiced that the younger brother had gone to the deuce, and he rejoiced
to think that the elder was following him. The first time he met the
fellow, Will said, he should take care to let Mr. George know what he
thought of him.

“If you intend to insult George, at least you had best take care that
his brother Harry is out of hearing!” cried Lady Maria--on which we may
fancy more curses uttered by Mr. Will, with regard to his twin kinsfolk.

“Ta, ta, ta!” says my lord. “No more of this squabbling! We can’t be all
warriors in the family!”

“I never heard your lordship laid claim to be one!” says Maria.

“Never, my dear; quite the contrary! Will is our champion, and one is
quite enough in the house. So I dare say with the two Mohocks;--George
is the student, and Harry is the fighting man. When you intended
to quarrel, Will, what a pity it was you had not George, instead of
t’other, to your hand!”

“Your lordship’s hand is famous--at piquet,” says Will’s mother.

“It is a pretty one,” says my lord, surveying his fingers, with a
simper. “My Lord Hervey’s glove and mine were of a size. Yes, my hand,
as you say, is more fitted for cards than for war. Yours, my Lady
Castlewood, is pretty dexterous, too. How I bless the day when you
bestowed it on my lamented father!” In this play of sarcasm, as in some
other games of skill, his lordship was not sorry to engage, having a
cool head, and being able to beat his family all round.

Madame de Bernstein, when she heard of Mr. Warrington’s bevue, was
exceedingly angry, stormed, and scolded her immediate household; and
would have scolded George but she was growing old, and had not the
courage of her early days. Moreover, she was a little afraid of her
nephew, and respectful in her behaviour to him. “You will never make
your fortune at court, nephew!” she groaned, when, soon after his
discomfiture, the young gentleman went to wait upon her.

“It was never my wish, madam,” said Mr. George, in a very stately
manner.

“Your wish was to help Harry? You might hereafter have been of service
to your brother, had you accepted the Duke’s offer. Princes do not
love to have their favours refused, and I don’t wonder that his Royal
Highness was offended.”

“General Lambert said the same thing,” George confessed, turning rather
red; “and I see now that I was wrong. But you must please remember that
I had never seen a court before, and I suppose I am scarce likely to
shine in one.”

“I think possibly not, my good nephew,” says the aunt, taking snuff.

“And what then?” asked George. “I never had ambition for that kind
of glory, and can make myself quite easy without it. When his Royal
Highness spoke to me--most kindly, as I own--my thought was, I shall
make a very bad soldier, and my brother would be a very good one. He has
a hundred good qualities for the profession, in which I am deficient;
and would have served a Commanding Officer far better than I ever could.
Say the Duke is in battle, and his horse is shot, as my poor chief’s
was at home, would he not be better for a beast that had courage and
strength to bear him anywhere, than with one that could not carry his
weight?”

“Au fait. His Royal Highness’s charger must be a strong one, my dear!”
 says the old lady.

“Expende Hannibalem,” mutters George, with a shrug. “Our Hannibal weighs
no trifle.”

“I don’t quite follow you, sir, and your Hannibal,” the Baroness
remarks.

“When Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Lambert remonstrated with me as you have done,
madam,” George rejoins, with a laugh, “I made this same defence which I
am making to you. I said I offered to the Prince the best soldier in the
family, and the two gentlemen allowed that my blunder at least had
some excuse. Who knows but that they may set me right with his Royal
Highness? The taste I have had of battles has shown me how little my
genius inclines that way. We saw the Scotch play which everybody is
talking about t’other night. And when the hero, young Norval, said how
he longed to follow to the field some warlike lord, I thought to myself,
‘how like my Harry is to him, except that he doth not brag.’ Harry is
pining now for a red coat, and if we don’t mind, will take the shilling.
He has the map of Germany for ever under his eyes, and follows the King
of Prussia everywhere. He is not afraid of men or gods. As for me, I
love my books and quiet best, and to read about battles in Homer or
Lucan.”

“Then what made a soldier of you at all, my dear? And why did you not
send Harry with Mr. Braddock, instead of going yourself?” asked Madame
de Bernstein.

“My mother loved her younger son the best,” said George, darkly.
“Besides, with the enemy invading our country, it was my duty, as the
head of our family, to go on the campaign. Had I been a Scotchman twelve
years ago, I should have been a----”

“Hush, sir! or I shall be more angry than ever!” said the old lady, with
a perfectly pleased face.

George’s explanation might thus appease Madame de Bernstein, an old
woman whose principles we fear were but loose: but to the loyal heart of
Sir Miles Warrington and his lady, the young man’s conduct gave a severe
blow indeed! “I should have thought,” her ladyship said, “from my sister
Esmond Warrington’s letter, that my brother’s widow was a woman of good
sense and judgment, and that she had educated her sons in a becoming
manner. But what, Sir Miles, what, my dear Thomas Claypool, can we think
of an education which has resulted so lamentably for both these young
men?”

“The elder seems to know a power of Latin, though, and speaks the
French and the German too. I heard him with the Hanover Envoy, at the
Baroness’s rout,” says Mr. Claypool. “The French he jabbered quite easy:
and when he was at a loss for the High Dutch, he and the Envoy began in
Latin, and talked away till all the room stared.”

“It is not language, but principles, Thomas Claypool!” exclaims the
virtuous matron. “What must Mr. Warrington’s principles be, when he
could reject an offer made him by his Prince? Can he speak the High
Dutch? So much the more ought he to have accepted his Royal Highness’s
condescension, and made himself useful in the campaign! Look at our son,
look at Miles!”

“Hold up thy head, Miley, my boy!” says papa.

“I trust, Sir Miles, that, as a member of the House of Commons, as an
English gentleman, you will attend his Royal Highness’s levee to-morrow,
and say, if such an offer had been made to us for that child, we would
have taken it, though our boy is but ten years of age.”

“Faith, Miley, thou wouldst make a good little drummer or fifer!” says
papa. “Shouldst like to be a little soldier, Miley?”

“Anything, sir, anything! a Warrington ought to be ready at any moment
to have himself cut in pieces for his sovereign!” cries the matron,
pointing to the boy; who, as soon as he comprehended his mother’s
proposal, protested against it by a loud roar, in the midst of which he
was removed by Screwby. In obedience to the conjugal orders, Sir Miles
went to his Royal Highness’s levee the next day, and made a protest of
his love and duty, which the Prince deigned to accept, saying:

“Nobody ever supposed that Sir Miles Warrington would ever refuse any
place offered to him.”

A compliment gracious indeed, and repeated everywhere by Lady
Warrington, as showing how implicitly the august family on the throne
could rely on the loyalty of the Warringtons.

Accordingly, when this worthy couple saw George, they received him with
a ghastly commiseration, such as our dear relatives or friends will
sometimes extend to us when we have done something fatal or clumsy in
life; when we have come badly out of our lawsuit; when we enter the room
just as the company has been abusing us; when our banker has broke; or
we for our sad part have had to figure in the commercial columns of the
London Gazette;--when, in a word, we are guilty of some notorious fault,
or blunder, or misfortune. Who does not know that face of pity? Whose
dear relations have not so deplored him, not dead, but living? Not
yours? Then, sir, if you have never been in scrapes; if you have never
sowed a handful of wild oats or two; if you have always been fortunate,
and good, and careful, and butter has never melted in your mouth, and
an imprudent word has never come out of it; if you have never sinned and
repented, and been a fool and been sorry--then, sir, you are a wiseacre
who won’t waste your time over an idle novel, and it is not de te that
the fable is narrated at all.

Not that it was just on Sir Miles’s part to turn upon George, and be
angry with his nephew for refusing the offer of promotion made by his
Royal Highness, for Sir Miles himself had agreed in George’s view of
pursuing quite other than a military career, and it was in respect to
this plan of her son’s that Madam Esmond had written from Virginia
to Sir Miles Warrington. George had announced to her his intention of
entering at the Temple, and qualifying himself for the magisterial
and civil duties which, in the course of nature, he would be called to
fulfil; nor could any one applaud his resolution more cordially than his
uncle Sir Miles, who introduced George to a lawyer of reputation, under
whose guidance we may fancy the young gentleman reading leisurely.
Madam Esmond from home signified her approval of her son’s course, fully
agreeing with Sir Miles (to whom and his lady she begged to send her
grateful remembrances) that the British Constitution was the envy of
the world, and the proper object of every English gentleman’s admiring
study. The chief point to which George’s mother objected was the notion
that Mr. Warrington should have to sit down in the Temple dinner-ball,
and cut at a shoulder of mutton, and drink small-beer out of tin
pannikins, by the side of rough students who wore gowns like the
parish-clerk. George’s loyal younger brother shared too this repugnance.
Anything was good enough for him, Harry said; he was a younger son, and
prepared to rough it; but George, in a gown, and dining in a mess with
three nobody’s sons off dirty pewter platters! Harry never could relish
this condescension on his brother’s part, or fancy George in his proper
place at any except the high table; and was sorry that a plan Madam
Esmond hinted at in her letters was not feasible--viz., that an
application should be made to the Master of the Temple, who should be
informed that Mr. George Warrington was a gentleman of most noble birth,
and of great property in America, and ought only to sit with the very
best company in the Hall. Rather to Harry’s discomfiture, when he
communicated his own and his mother’s ideas to the gentlemen’s new
coffee-house friend, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Spencer received the proposal with
roars of laughter; and I cannot learn, from the Warrington papers, that
any application was made to the Master of the Temple on this subject.
Besides his literary and historical pursuits, which were those he
most especially loved, Mr. Warrington studied the laws of his country,
attended the courts at Westminster, where he heard a Henley, a Pratt,
a Murray, and those other great famous schools of eloquence and
patriotism, the two houses of parliament.

Gradually Mr. Warrington made acquaintance with some of the members of
the House and the Bar; who, when they came to know him, spoke of him
as a young gentleman of good parts and good breeding, and in terms so
generally complimentary, that his good uncle’s heart relented towards
him, and Dora and Flora began once more to smile upon him. This
reconciliation dated from the time when his Royal Highness the Duke,
after having been defeated by the French, in the affair of Hastenbeck,
concluded the famous capitulation with the French, which his Majesty
George II. refused to ratify. His Royal Highness, as ‘tis well known,
flung up his commissions after this disgrace, laid down his commander’s
baton--which, it must be confessed, he had not wielded with much luck or
dexterity--and never again appeared at the head of armies or in public
life. The stout warrior would not allow a word of complaint against his
father and sovereign to escape his lips; but, as he retired with his
wounded honour, and as he would have no interest or authority more, nor
any places to give, it may be supposed that Sir Miles Warrington’s anger
against his nephew diminished as his respect for his Royal Highness
diminished.

As our two gentlemen were walking in St. James’s Park, one day, with
their friend Mr. Lambert, they met his Royal Highness in plain clothes
and without a star, and made profound bows to the Prince, who was
pleased to stop and speak to them.

He asked Mr. Lambert how he liked my Lord Ligonier, his new chief at
the Horse Guards, and the new duties there in which he was engaged? And,
recognising the young men, with that fidelity of memory for which his
Royal race hath ever been remarkable, he said to Mr. Warrington:

“You did well, sir, not to come with me when I asked you in the spring.”

“I was sorry, then, sir,” Mr. Warrington said, making a very low
reverence, “but I am more sorry now.”

On which the Prince said, “Thank you, sir,” and, touching his hat,
walked away. And the circumstances of this interview, and the discourse
which passed at it, being related to Mrs. Esmond Warrington in a letter
from her younger son, created so deep an impression in that lady’s mind,
that she narrated the anecdote many hundreds of times until all her
friends and acquaintances knew and, perhaps, were tired of it.

Our gentlemen went through the Park, and so towards the Strand, where
they had business. And Mr. Lambert, pointing to the lion on the top of
the Earl of Northumberland’s house at Charing Cross, says:

“Harry Warrington! your brother is like yonder lion.”

“Because he is as brave as one,” says Harry.

“Because I respect virgins!” says George, laughing.

“Because you are a stupid lion. Because you turn your back on the East,
and absolutely salute the setting sun. Why, child, what earthly good can
you get by being civil to a man in hopeless dudgeon and disgrace? Your
uncle will be more angry with you than ever--and so am I, sir.” But Mr.
Lambert was always laughing in his waggish way, and, indeed, he did not
look the least angry.



CHAPTER LXII. Arma Virumque


Indeed, if Harry Warrington had a passion for military pursuits and
studies, there was enough of war stirring in Europe, and enough talk in
all societies which he frequented in London, to excite and inflame him.
Though our own gracious Prince of the house of Hanover had been beaten,
the Protestant Hero, the King of Prussia, was filling the world with
his glory, and winning those astonishing victories in which I deem it
fortunate on my own account that my poor Harry took no part; for
then his veracious biographer would have had to narrate battles the
description whereof has been undertaken by another pen. I am glad, I
say, that Harry Warrington was not at Rossbach on that famous Gunpowder
Fete-day, on the 5th of November, in the year 1757; nor at that
tremendous slaughtering-match of Leuthen, which the Prussian king played
a month afterwards; for these prodigious actions will presently be
narrated in other volumes, which I and all the world are eager to
behold. Would you have this history compete with yonder book? Could
my jaunty, yellow park-phaeton run counter to that grim chariot of
thundering war? Could my meek little jog-trot Pegasus meet the shock of
yon steed of foaming bit and flaming nostril? Dear, kind reader (with
whom I love to talk from time to time, stepping down from the stage
where our figures are performing, attired in the habits and using the
parlance of past ages),--my kind, patient reader! it is a mercy for both
of us that Harry Warrington did not follow the King of the Borussians,
as he was minded to do, for then I should have had to describe battles
which Carlyle is going to paint; and I don’t wish you should make odious
comparisons between me and that master.

Harry Warrington not only did not join the King of the Borussians, but
he pined and chafed at not going. He led a sulky useless life, that is
the fact. He dangled about the military coffee-houses. He did not care
for reading anything save a newspaper. His turn was not literary. He
even thought novels were stupid; and, as for the ladies crying their
eyes out over Mr. Richardson, he could not imagine how they could be
moved by any such nonsense. He used to laugh in a very hearty jolly
way, but a little late, and some time after the joke was over. Pray, why
should all gentlemen have a literary turn? And do we like some of our
friends the worse because they never turned a couplet in their lives?
Ruined, perforce idle, dependent on his brother for supplies, if he read
a book falling asleep over it, with no fitting work for his great strong
hands to do--how lucky it is that he did not get into more trouble! Why,
in the case of Achilles himself, when he was sent by his mamma to the
court of King What-d’ye-call-’em in order to be put out of harm’s reach,
what happened to him amongst a parcel of women with whom he was made to
idle his life away? And how did Pyrrhus come into the world? A powerful
mettlesome young Achilles ought not to be leading-stringed by women too
much; is out of his place dawdling by distaffs or handing coffee-cups;
and when he is not fighting, depend on it, is likely to fall into much
worse mischief.

Those soft-hearted women, the two elder ladies of the Lambert family,
with whom he mainly consorted, had an untiring pity and kindness for
Harry, such as women only--and only a few of those--can give. If a man
is in grief, who cheers him; in trouble, who consoles him; in wrath,
who soothes him; in joy, who makes him doubly happy; in prosperity, who
rejoices; in disgrace, who backs him against the world, and dresses
with gentle unguents and warm poultices the rankling wounds made by the
slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune? Who but woman, if you please?
You who are ill and sore from the buffets of Fate, have you one or two
of these sweet physicians? Return thanks to the gods that they have
left you so much of consolation. What gentleman is not more or less a
Prometheus? Who has not his rock (ai, ai), his chain (ea, ea), and his
liver in a deuce of a condition? But the sea-nymphs come--the gentle,
the sympathising; they kiss our writhing feet; they moisten our parched
lips with their tears; they do their blessed best to console us Titans;
they don’t turn their backs upon us after our overthrow.

Now Theo and her mother were full of pity for Harry; but Hetty’s heart
was rather hard and seemingly savage towards him. She chafed that
his position was not more glorious; she was angry that he was still
dependent and idle. The whole world was in arms, and could he not carry
a musket? It was harvest-time, and hundreds of thousands of reapers were
out with their flashing sickles; could he not use his, and cut down his
sheaf or two of glory?

“Why, how savage the little thing is with him!” says papa, after a scene
in which, according to her wont, Miss Hetty had been firing little
shots into that quivering target which came and set itself up in Mrs.
Lambert’s drawing-room every day.

“Her conduct is perfectly abominable!” cries mamma; “she deserves to be
whipped, and sent to bed.”

“Perhaps, mother, it is because she likes him better than any of us do,”
 says Theo, “and it is for his sake that Hetty is angry. If I were fond
of--of some one, I should like to be able to admire and respect him
always--to think everything he did right--and my gentleman better than
all the gentlemen in the world.”

“The truth is, my dear,” answers Mrs. Lambert, “that your father is so
much better than all the world, he has spoiled us. Did you ever see any
one to compare with him?”

“Very few, indeed,” owns Theo, with a blush.

“Very few. Who is so good-tempered?”

“I think nobody, mamma,” Theo acknowledges.

“Or so brave?”

“Why, I dare say Mr. Wolfe, or Harry, or Mr. George, are very brave.”

“Or so learned and witty?”

“I am sure Mr. George seems very learned, and witty too, in his way,”
 says Theo; “and his manners are very fine--you own they are. Madame de
Bernstein says they are, and she hath seen the world. Indeed, Mr. George
has a lofty way with him, which I don’t see in other people; and, in
reading books, I find he chooses the fine noble things always, and loves
them in spite of all his satire. He certainly is of a satirical turn,
but then he is only bitter against mean things and people. No gentleman
hath a more tender heart I am sure; and but yesterday, after he had been
talking so bitterly as you said, I happened to look out of window, and
saw him stop and treat a whole crowd of little children to apples at the
stall at the corner. And the day before yesterday, when he was coming
and brought me the Moliere, he stopped and gave money to a beggar, and
how charmingly, sure, he reads the French! I agree with him though about
Tartuffe, though ‘tis so wonderfully clever and lively, that a mere
villain and hypocrite is a figure too mean to be made the chief of a
great piece. Iago, Mr. George said, is near as great a villain; but then
he is not the first character of the tragedy, which is Othello, with
his noble weakness. But what fine ladies and gentlemen Moliere
represents--so Mr. George thinks--and--but oh, I don’t dare to repeat
the verses after him.”

“But you know them by heart, my dear?” asks Mrs. Lambert.

And Theo replies, “Oh yes, mamma! I know them by... Nonsense!”

I here fancy osculations, palpitations, and exit Miss Theo, blushing
like a rose. Why had she stopped in her sentence? Because mamma was
looking at her so oddly. And why was mamma looking at her so oddly? And
why had she looked after Mr. George when he was going away, and looked
for him when he was coming? Ah, and why do cheeks blush, and why do
roses bloom? Old Time is still a-flying. Old spring and bud time; old
summer and bloom time; old autumn and seed time; old winter time, when
the cracking, shivering old tree-tops are bald or covered with snow.

A few minutes after George arrived, Theo would come downstairs with
a fluttering heart, may be, and a sweet nosegay in her cheeks, just
culled, as it were, fresh in his honour; and I suppose she must have
been constantly at that window which commanded the street, and whence
she could espy his generosity to the sweep, or his purchases from the
apple-woman. But if it was Harry who knocked, she remained in her own
apartment with her work or her books, sending her sister to receive
the young gentleman, or her brothers when the elder was at home from
college, or Doctor Crusius from the Chartreux gave the younger leave
to go home. And what good eyes Theo must have had--and often in the
evening, too--to note the difference between Harry’s yellow hair and
George’s dark locks--and between their figures, though they were so like
that people continually were mistaking one for the other brother. Now it
is certain that Theo never mistook one or t’other; and that Hetty, for
her part, was not in the least excited, or rude, or pert, when she found
the black-haired gentleman in her mother’s drawing-room.

Our friends could come when they liked to Mr. Lambert’s house, and stay
as long as they chose; and, one day, he of the golden locks was sitting
on a couch there, in an attitude of more than ordinary idleness and
despondency, when who should come down to him but Miss Hetty? I say it
was a most curious thing (though the girls would have gone to the rack
rather than own any collusion), that when Harry called, Hetty appeared;
when George arrived, Theo somehow came; and so, according to the usual
dispensation, it was Miss Lambert, junior, who now arrived to entertain
the younger Virginian.

After usual ceremonies and compliments we may imagine that the lady says
to the gentleman:

“And pray, sir, what makes your honour look so glum this morning?”

“Ah, Hetty!” says he, “I have nothing else to do but to look glum. I
remember when we were boys--and I a rare idle one, you may be sure--I
would always be asking my tutor for a holiday, which I would pass very
likely swinging on a gate, or making ducks and drakes over the pond, and
those do-nothing days were always the most melancholy. What have I got
to do now from morning till night?”

“Breakfast, walk--dinner, walk--tea, supper, I suppose; and a pipe of
your Virginia,” says Miss Hetty, tossing her head.

“I tell you what, when I went back with Charley to the Chartreux,
t’other night, I had a mind to say to the master, ‘Teach me, sir. Here’s
a boy knows a deal more Latin and Greek, at thirteen, than I do, who
am ten years older. I have nothing to do from morning till night, and I
might as well go to my books again, and see if I can repair my idleness
as a boy.’ Why do you laugh, Hetty?”

“I laugh to fancy you at the head of a class, and called up by the
master!” cries Hetty.

“I shouldn’t be at the head of the class,” Harry says, humbly. “George
might be at the head of any class, but I am not a bookman, you see; and
when I was young neglected myself, and was very idle. We would not let
our tutors cane us much at home, but, if we had, it might have done me
good.”

Hetty drubbed with her little foot, and looked at the young man sitting
before her--strong, idle, melancholy.

“Upon my word, it might do you good now!” she was minded to say. “What
does Tom say about the caning at school? Does his account of it set you
longing for it, pray?” she asked.

“His account of his school,” Harry answered simply, “makes me see that I
have been idle when I ought to have worked, and that I have not a genius
for books, and for what am I good? Only to spend my patrimony when I
come abroad, or to lounge at coffee-houses or racecourses, or to gallop
behind dogs when I am at home. I am good for nothing, I am.”

“What, such a great, brave, strong fellow as you good for nothing?”
 cries Het. “I would not confess as much to any woman, if I were twice as
good for nothing!”

“What am I to do? I ask for leave to go into the army, and Madam Esmond
does not answer me. ‘Tis the only thing I am fit for. I have no money to
buy. Having spent all my own, and so much of my brother’s, I cannot and
won’t ask for more. If my mother would but send me to the army, you know
I would jump to go.”

“Eh! A gentleman of spirit does not want a woman to buckle his sword on
for him or to clean his firelock! What was that our papa told us of the
young gentleman at court yesterday?--Sir John Armytage----”

“Sir John Armytage? I used to know him when I frequented White’s and
the club-houses--a fine, noble young gentleman, of a great estate in the
North.”

“And engaged to be married to a famous beauty, too--Miss Howe, my Lord
Howe’s sister--but that, I suppose, is not an obstacle to gentlemen?”

“An obstacle to what?” asks the gentleman.

“An obstacle to glory!” says Miss Hetty. “I think no woman of spirit
would say ‘Stay!’ though she adored her lover ever so much, when his
country said ‘Go!’ Sir John had volunteered for the expedition which is
preparing, and being at court yesterday his Majesty asked him when he
would be ready to go? ‘Tomorrow, please your Majesty,’ replies Sir John,
and the king said, that was a soldier’s answer. My father himself is
longing to go, though he has mamma and all us brats at home. Oh dear,
oh dear! Why wasn’t I a man myself? Both my brothers are for the Church;
but, as for me, I know I should have made a famous little soldier!” And,
so speaking, this young person strode about the room, wearing a most
courageous military aspect, and looking as bold as Joan of Arc.

Harry beheld her with a tender admiration. “I think,” says he, “I would
hardly like to see a musket on that little shoulder, nor a wound on that
pretty face, Hetty.”

“Wounds! who fears wounds?” cries the little maid. “Muskets? If I could
carry one, I would use it. You men fancy that we women are good for
nothing but to make puddings or stitch samplers. Why wasn’t I a man, I
say? George was reading to us yesterday out of Tasso--look, here it is,
and I thought the verses applied to me. See! Here is the book, with the
mark in it where we left off.”

“With the mark in it?” says Harry dutifully.

“Yes! it is about a woman who is disappointed because--because her
brother does not go to war, and she says of herself--

    “‘Alas! why did not Heaven these members frail
      With lively force and vigour strengthen, so
      That I this silken gown...’”

“Silken gown?” says downright Harry, with a look of inquiry.

“Well, sir, I know ‘tis but Calimanco;--but so it is in the book--

       “‘... this silken gown and slender veil
     Might for a breastplate and a helm forgo;
     Then should not heat, nor cold, nor rain, nor hail,
     Nor storms that fall, nor blust’ring winds that blow,
        Withhold me; but I would, both day and night,
        In pitched field or private combat, fight--’

“Fight? Yes, that I would! Why are both my brothers to be parsons, I
say? One of my papa’s children ought to be a soldier!”

Harry laughed, a very gentle, kind laugh, as he looked at her. He felt
that he would not like much to hit such a tender little warrior as that.

“Why,” says he, holding a finger out, “I think here is a finger nigh as
big as your arm. How would you stand up before a great, strong man? I
should like to see a man try and injure you, though; I should just like
to see him! You little, delicate, tender creature! Do you suppose any
scoundrel would dare to do anything unkind to you?” And, excited by this
flight of his imagination, Harry fell to walking up and down the room,
too, chafing at the idea of any rogue of a Frenchman daring to be rude
to Miss Hester Lambert.

It was a belief in this silent courage of his which subjugated Hetty,
and this quality which she supposed him to possess, which caused her
specially to admire him. Miss Hetty was no more bold, in reality, than
Madam Erminia, whose speech she had been reading out of the book, and
about whom Mr. Harry Warrington never heard one single word. He may have
been in the room when brother George was reading his poetry out to the
ladies, but his thoughts were busy with his own affairs, and he was
entirely bewildered with your Clotildas and Erminias, and giants, and
enchanters, and nonsense. No, Miss Hetty, I say and believe, had nothing
of the virago in her composition; else, no doubt, she would have taken
a fancy to a soft young fellow with a literary turn, or a genius for
playing the flute, according to the laws of contrast and nature provided
in those cases; and who has not heard how great, strong men have an
affinity for frail, tender little women; how tender little women are
attracted by great, honest, strong men; and how your burly heroes and
champions of war are constantly henpecked? If Mr. Harry Warrington falls
in love with a woman who is like Miss Lambert in disposition, and if he
marries her--without being conjurers, I think we may all see what the
end will be.

So, whilst Hetty was firing her little sarcasms into Harry, he for a
while scarcely felt that they were stinging him, and let her shoot on
without so much as taking the trouble to shake the little arrows out of
his hide. Did she mean by her sneers and innuendoes to rouse him into
action? He was too magnanimous to understand such small hints. Did she
mean to shame him by saying that she, a weak woman, would don the casque
and breastplate? The simple fellow either melted at the idea of her
being in danger, or at the notion of her fighting fell a-laughing.

“Pray what is the use of having a strong hand if you only use it to hold
a skein of silk for my mother?” cries Miss Hester; “and what is the good
of being ever so strong in a drawing-room? Nobody wants you to throw
anybody out of window, Harry! A strong man, indeed! I suppose there’s a
stronger at Bartholomew Fair. James Wolfe is not a strong man. He seems
quite weakly and ill. When he was here last he was coughing the whole
time, and as pale as if he had seen a ghost.”

“I never could understand why a man should be frightened at a ghost,”
 says Harry.

“Pray, have you seen one, sir?” asks the pert young lady.

“No. I thought I did once at home--when we were boys; but it was only
Nathan in his night-shirt; but I wasn’t frightened when I thought he
was a ghost. I believe there’s no such things. Our nurses tell a pack of
lies about ‘em,” says Harry, gravely. “George was a little frightened;
but then he’s----” Here he paused.

“Then George is what?” asked Hetty.

“George is different from me, that’s all. Our mother’s a bold woman as
ever you saw, but she screams at seeing a mouse--always does--can’t help
it. It’s her nature. So, you see, perhaps my brother can’t bear ghosts.
I don’t mind ‘em.”

“George always says you would have made a better soldier than he.”

“So I think I should, if I had been allowed to try. But he can do a
thousand things better than me, or anybody else in the world. Why didn’t
he let me volunteer on Braddock’s expedition? I might have got knocked
on the head, and then I should have been pretty much as useful as I
am now, and then I shouldn’t have ruined myself, and brought people to
point at me and say that I had disgraced the name of Warrington. Why
mayn’t I go on this expedition, and volunteer like Sir John Armytage?
Oh, Hetty! I’m a miserable fellow--that’s what I am,” and the miserable
fellow paced the room at double quick time. “I wish I had never come to
Europe,” he groaned out.

“What a compliment to us! Thank you, Harry!” But presently, on an
appealing look from the gentleman, she added, “Are you--are you thinking
of going home?”

“And have all Virginia jeering at me! There’s not a gentleman there
that wouldn’t, except one, and him my mother doesn’t like. I should
be ashamed to go home now, I think. You don’t know my mother, Hetty. I
ain’t afraid of most things; but, somehow, I am of her. What shall I say
to her, when she says, ‘Harry, where’s your patrimony?’ ‘Spent, mother,’
I shall have to say. ‘What have you done with it?’ ‘Wasted it, mother,
and went to prison after.’ ‘Who took you out of prison?’ ‘Brother
George, ma’am, he took me out of prison; and now I’m come back,
having done no good for myself, with no profession, no prospects, no
nothing--only to look after negroes, and be scolded at home; or to go to
sleep at sermons; or to play at cards, and drink, and fight cocks at the
taverns about.’ How can I look the gentlemen of the country in the face?
I’m ashamed to go home in this way, I say. I must and will do something!
What shall I do, Hetty? Ah! what shall I do?”

“Do? What did Mr. Wolfe do at Louisbourg? Ill as he was, and in love as
we knew him to be, he didn’t stop to be nursed by his mother, Harry, or
to dawdle with his sweetheart. He went on the King’s service, and hath
come back covered with honour. If there is to be another great campaign
in America, papa says he is sure of a great command.”

“I wish he would take me with him, and that a ball would knock me on the
head and finish me,” groaned Harry. “You speak to me, Hetty, as though
it were my fault that I am not in the army, when you know I would
give--give, forsooth, what have I to give?--yes! my life to go on
service!”

“Life indeed!” says Miss Hetty, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“You don’t seem to think that of much value, Hetty,” remarked Harry,
sadly. “No more it is--to anybody. I’m a poor useless fellow. I’m not
even free to throw it away as I would like, being under orders here and
at home.”

“Orders indeed! Why under orders?” cries Miss Hetty. “Aren’t you tall
enough, and old enough, to act for yourself, and must you have George
for a master here, and your mother for a schoolmistress at home? If
I were a man, I would do something famous before I was two-and-twenty
years old, that I would! I would have the world speak of me. I wouldn’t
dawdle at apron-strings. I wouldn’t curse my fortune--I’d make it. I vow
and declare I would!”

Now, for the first time, Harry began to wince at the words of his young
lecturer.

“No negro on our estate is more a slave than I am, Hetty,” he said,
turning very red as he addressed her; “but then, Miss Lambert, we don’t
reproach the poor fellow for not being free. That isn’t generous. At
least, that isn’t the way I understand honour. Perhaps with women it’s
different, or I may be wrong, and have no right to be hurt at a young
girl telling me what my faults are. Perhaps my faults are not my
faults--only my cursed luck. You have been talking ever so long about
this gentleman volunteering, and that man winning glory, and cracking up
their courage as if I had none of my own. I suppose, for the matter of
that, I’m as well provided as other gentlemen. I don’t brag but I’m not
afraid of Mr. Wolfe, nor of Sir John Armytage, nor of anybody else that
ever I saw. How can I buy a commission when I’ve spent my last shilling,
or ask my brother for more who has already halved with me? A gentleman
of my rank can’t go a common soldier--else, by Jupiter, I would! And if
a ball finished me, I suppose Miss Hetty Lambert wouldn’t be very sorry.
It isn’t kind, Hetty--I didn’t think it of you.”

“What is it I have said?” asks the young lady. “I have only said Sir
John Armytage has volunteered, and Mr. Wolfe has covered himself with
honour, and you begin to scold me! How can I help it if Mr. Wolfe is
brave and famous? Is that any reason you should be angry, pray?”

“I didn’t say angry,” said Harry, gravely. “I said I was hurt.”

“Oh, indeed! I thought such a little creature as I am couldn’t hurt
anybody! I’m sure ‘tis mighty complimentary to me to say that a young
lady whose arm is no bigger than your little finger can hurt such a
great strong man as you!”

“I scarce thought you would try, Hetty,” the young man said. You see,
I’m not used to this kind of welcome in this house.”

“What is it, my poor boy?” asks kind Mrs. Lambert, looking in at
the door at this juncture, and finding the youth with a very woeworn
countenance.

“Oh, we have heard the story before, mamma!” says Hetty, hurriedly.
“Harry is making his old complaint of having nothing to do. And he is
quite unhappy; and he is telling us so over and over again, that’s all.”

“So are you hungry over and over again, my dear! Is that a reason why
your papa and I should leave off giving you dinner?” cries mamma, with
some emotion. “Will you stay and have ours, Harry? ‘Tis just three
o’clock!” Harry agreed to stay, after a few faint negations. “My husband
dines abroad. We are but three women, so you will have a dull dinner,”
 remarks Mrs. Lambert.

“We shall have a gentleman to enliven us, mamma, I dare say!” says Madam
Pert, and then looked in mamma’s face with that admirable gaze of
blank innocence which Madam Pert knows how to assume when she has been
specially and successfully wicked.

When the dinner appeared. Miss Hetty came downstairs, and was
exceedingly chatty, lively, and entertaining. Theo did not know that any
little difference had occurred (such, alas, my Christian friends,
will happen in the most charming families), did not know, I say, that
anything had happened until Hetty’s uncommon sprightliness and
gaiety roused her suspicions. Hetty would start a dozen subjects of
conversation--the King of Prussia, and the news from America; the last
masquerade, and the highwayman shot near Barnet; and when her sister,
admiring this volubility, inquired the reason of it, with her eyes,--

“Oh, my dear, you need not nod and wink at me!” cries Hetty. “Mamma
asked Harry on purpose to enliven us, and I am talking until he begins,
just like the fiddles at the playhouse, you know, Theo! First the
fiddles. Then the play. Pray begin, Harry!”

“Hester!” cries mamma.

“I merely asked Harry to entertain us. You said yourself, mother, that
we were only three women, and the dinner would be dull for a gentleman;
unless, indeed, he chose to be very lively.”

“I’m not that on most days--and, Heaven knows, on this day less than
most,” says poor Harry.

“Why on this day less than another? Tuesday is as good a day to be
lively as Wednesday. The only day when we mustn’t be lively is Sunday.
Well, you know it is, ma’am! We mustn’t sing, nor dance, nor do anything
on Sunday.”

And in this naughty way the young woman went on for the rest of the
evening, and was complimented by her mother and sister when poor Harry
took his leave. He was not ready of wit, and could not fling back the
taunts which Hetty cast against him. Nay, had he been able to retort, he
would have been silent. He was too generous to engage in that small war,
and chose to take all Hester’s sarcasms without an attempt to parry
or evade them. Very likely the young lady watched and admired that
magnanimity, while she tried it so cruelly. And after one of her fits of
ill-behaviour, her parents and friends had not the least need to scold
her, as she candidly told them, because she suffered a great deal more
than they would ever have had her, and her conscience punished her a
great deal more severely than her kind elders would have thought of
doing. I suppose she lies awake all that night, and tosses and tumbles
in her bed. I suppose she wets her pillow with tears, and should not
mind about her sobbing: unless it kept her sister awake; unless she was
unwell the next day, and the doctor had to be fetched; unless the whole
family is to be put to discomfort; mother to choke over her dinner in
flurry and indignation; father to eat his roast-beef in silence and with
bitter sauce; everybody to look at the door each time it opens, with a
vague hope that Harry is coming in. If Harry does not come, why at least
does not George come? thinks Miss Theo.

Some time in the course of the evening comes a billet from George
Warrington, with a large nosegay of lilacs, per Mr. Gumbo. “‘I send my
best duty and regards to Mrs. Lambert and the ladies,’” George says,
“‘and humbly beg to present to Miss Theo this nosegay of lilacs, which
she says she loves in the early spring. You must not thank me for them,
please, but the gardener of Bedford House, with whom I have made great
friends by presenting him with some dried specimens of a Virginian plant
which some ladies don’t think as fragrant as lilacs.

“‘I have been in the garden almost all the day. It is alive with
sunshine and spring; and I have been composing two scenes of you know
what, and polishing the verses which the Page sings in the fourth act,
under Sybilla’s window, which she cannot hear, poor thing, because she
has just had her head off.’”

“Provoking! I wish he would not always sneer and laugh! The verses are
beautiful,” says Theo.

“You really think so, my dear? How very odd!” remarks papa.

Little Het looks up from her dismal corner with a faint smile of humour.
Theo’s secret is a secret for nobody in the house, it seems. Can any
young people guess what it is? Our young lady continues to read:

“‘Spencer has asked the famous Mr. Johnson to breakfast to-morrow,
who condescends to hear the play, and who won’t, I hope, be too angry
because my heroine undergoes the fate of his in Irene. I have heard he
came up to London himself as a young man with only his tragedy in his
wallet. Shall I ever be able to get mine played? Can you fancy the
catcall music beginning, and the pit hissing at that perilous part of
the fourth act, where my executioner comes out from the closet with his
great sword, at the awful moment when he is called upon to amputate?
They say Mr. Fielding, when the pit hissed at a part of one of his
pieces, about which Mr. Garrick had warned him, said, ‘Hang them, they
have found it out, have they?’ and finished his punch in tranquillity.
I suppose his wife was not in the boxes. There are some women to whom I
would be very unwilling to give pain, and there are some to whom I would
give the best I have.’”

“Whom can he mean? The letter is to you, my dear. I protest he is making
love to your mother before my face!” cries papa to Hetty, who only gives
a little sigh, puts her hand in her father’s hand, and then withdraws
it.

“‘To whom I would give the best I have. To-day it is only a bunch of
lilacs. To-morrow it may be what?--a branch of rue--a sprig of bays,
perhaps--anything, so it be my best and my all.

“‘I have had a fine long day, and all to myself. What do you think of
Harry playing truant?’” (Here we may imagine, what they call in France,
or what they used to call, when men dared to speak or citizens to hear,
sensation dans l’auditoire.)

“‘I suppose Carpezan wearied the poor fellow’s existence out. Certain it
is he has been miserable for weeks past; and a change of air and scene
may do him good. This morning, quite early, he came to my room, and told
me he had taken a seat in the Portsmouth machine, and proposed to go to
the Isle of Wight, to the army there.’”

The army! Hetty looks very pale at this announcement, and her mother
continues:

“‘And a little portion of it, namely, the thirty-second regiment, is
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Richmond Webb--the nephew of the famous
old General under whom my grandfather Esmond served in the great wars of
Marlborough. Mr. Webb met us at our uncle’s, accosting us very politely,
and giving us an invitation to visit him at his regiment. Let my poor
brother go and listen to his darling music of fife and drum! He bade me
tell the ladies that they should hear from him. I kiss their hands, and
go to dress for dinner, at the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall. We are to
have Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Walpole, possibly, if he is
not too fine to dine in a tavern; a young Irishman, a Mr. Bourke, who
they say is a wonder of eloquence and learning--in fine, all the wits of
Mr. Dodsley’s shop. Quick, Gumbo, a coach, and my French grey suit! And
if gentlemen ask me, ‘Who gave you that sprig of lilac you wear on your
heart-side?’ I shall call a bumper, and give Lilac for a toast.’”

I fear there is no more rest for Hetty on this night than on the
previous one, when she had behaved so mutinously to poor Harry
Warrington. Some secret resolution must have inspired that gentleman,
for, after leaving Mr. Lambert’s table, he paced the streets for
a while, and appeared at a late hour in the evening at Madame de
Bernstein’s house in Clarges Street. Her ladyship’s health had been
somewhat ailing of late, so that even her favourite routs were denied
her, and she was sitting over a quiet game of ecarte, with a divine of
whom our last news were from a lock-up house hard by that in which Harry
Warrington had been himself confined. George, at Harry’s request, had
paid the little debt under which Mr. Sampson had suffered temporarily.
He had been at his living for a year. He may have paid and contracted
ever so many debts, have been in and out of jail many times since we saw
him. For some time past he had been back in London stout and hearty
as usual, and ready for any invitation to cards or claret. Madame de
Bernstein did not care to have her game interrupted by her nephew, whose
conversation had little interest now for the fickle old woman. Next to
the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the
heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down
from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive
into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans
teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy? How fared it
with those patriarchs of old who lived for their nine centuries, and
when were life’s conditions so changed that, after threescore years and
ten, it became but a vexation and a burden?

Getting no reply but Yes and No to his brief speeches, poor Harry sat a
while on a couch opposite his aunt, who shrugged her shoulders, had her
back to her nephew, and continued her game with the chaplain. Sampson
sat opposite Mr. Warrington, and could see that something disturbed him.
His face was very pale, and his countenance disturbed and full of gloom.
“Something has happened to him, ma’am,” he whispered to the Baroness.

“Bah!” She shrugged her shoulders again, and continued to deal her
cards. “What is the matter with you, sir,” she at last said, at a pause
in the game, “that you have such a dismal countenance? Chaplain, that
last game makes us even, I think!”

Harry got up from his place. “I am going on a journey: I am come to bid
you good-bye, aunt,” he said, in a very tragical voice.

“On a journey! Are you going home to America? I mark the king, Chaplain,
and play him.”

No, Harry said: he was not going to America yet going to the Isle of
Wight for the present.

“Indeed!--a lovely spot!” says the Baroness. “Bon jour, mon ami, et bon
voyage!” And she kissed a hand to her nephew.

“I mayn’t come back for some time, aunt,” he groaned out.

“Indeed! We shall be inconsolable without you! Unless you have a spade,
Mr. Sampson, the game is mine. Good-bye, my child! No more about your
journey at present: tell us about it when you come back!” And she gaily
bade him farewell. He looked for a moment piteously at her, and was
gone.

“Something grave has happened, madam,” says the chaplain.

“Oh! The boy is always getting into scrapes! I suppose he has been
falling in love with one of those country girls--what are their names,
Lamberts?--with whom he is ever dawdling about. He has been doing no
good here for some time. I am disappointed in him, really quite grieved
about him--I will take two cards, if you please--again?--quite grieved.
What do you think they say of his cousin--the Miss Warrington who made
eyes at him when she thought he was a prize--they say the King has
remarked her, and the Yarmouth is creving with rage. He, be!--those
methodistical Warringtons! They are not a bit less worldly than
their neighbours; and, old as he is, if the Grand Seignior throws his
pocket-handkerchief, they will jump to catch it!”

“Ah, madam; how your ladyship knows the world!” sighs the chaplain. “I
propose, if you please!”

“I have lived long enough in it, Mr. Sampson, to know something of
it. ‘Tis sadly selfish, my dear sir, sadly selfish; and everybody is
struggling to pass his neighbour! No, I can’t give you any more cards.
You haven’t the king? I play queen, knave, and a ten,--a sadly selfish
world, indeed. And here comes my chocolate!”

The more immediate interest of the cards entirely absorbs the old woman.
The door shuts out her nephew and his cares. Under his hat, he bears
them into the street, and paces the dark town for a while.

“Good God!” he thinks, “what a miserable fellow I am, and what a
spendthrift of my life I have been! I sit silent with George and his
friends. I am not clever and witty as he is. I am only a burthen to
him; and, if I would help him ever so much, don’t know how. My dear Aunt
Lambert’s kindness never tires, but I begin to be ashamed of trying it.
Why, even Hetty can’t help turning on me; and when she tells me I am
idle and should be doing something, ought I to be angry? The rest have
left me. There’s my cousins and uncle and my lady my aunt, they have
shown me the cold shoulder this long time. They didn’t even ask me to
Norfolk when they went down to the country, and offer me so much as
a day’s partridge-shooting. I can’t go to Castlewood--after what has
happened; I should break that scoundrel William’s bones; and, faith, am
well out of the place altogether.”

He laughs a fierce laugh as he recalls his adventures since he has been
in Europe. Money, friends, pleasure, all have passed away, and he feels
the past like a dream. He strolls into White’s Chocolate-House, where
the waiters have scarce seen him for a year. The parliament is up.
Gentlemen are away; there is not even any play going on:--not that he
would join it, if there were.

He has but a few pieces in his pocket; George’s drawer is open, and he
may take what money he likes thence; but very, very sparingly will he
avail himself of his brother’s repeated invitation. He sits and drinks
his glass in moody silence. Two or three officers of the Guards enter
from St. James’s. He knew them in former days, and the young men, who
have been already dining and drinking on guard, insist on more drink at
the club. The other battalion of their regiment is at Winchester: it is
going on this great expedition, no one knows whither, which everybody
is talking about. Cursed fate that they do not belong to the other
battalion; and must stay and do duty in London and at Kensington! There
is Webb, who was of their regiment: he did well to exchange his company
in the Coldstreams for the lieutenant-colonelcy of the thirty-second.
He will be of the expedition. Why, everybody is going; and the young
gentlemen mention a score of names of men of the first birth and fashion
who have volunteered. “It ain’t Hanoverians this time, commanded by the
big Prince,” says one young gentleman (whose relatives may have been
Tories forty years ago)--“it’s Englishmen, with the Guards at the head
of ‘em, and a Marlborough for a leader! Will the Frenchmen ever stand
against them? No, by George, they are irresistible.” And a fresh bowl is
called, and loud toasts are drunk to the success of the expedition.

Mr. Warrington, who is a cup too low, the young Guardsmen say, walks
away when they are not steady enough to be able to follow him, thinks
over the matter on his way to his lodgings, and lies thinking of it all
through the night.

“What is it, my boy?” asks George Warrington of his brother, when the
latter enters his chamber very early on a blushing May morning.

“I want a little money out of the drawer,” says Harry, looking at his
brother. “I am sick and tired of London.”

“Good heavens! Can anybody be tired of London?” George asks, who has
reasons for thinking it the most delightful place in the world.

“I am for one. I am sick and ill,” says Harry.

“You and Hetty have been quarrelling?”

“She don’t care a penny-piece about me, nor I for her neither,” says
Harry, nodding his head. “But I am ill, and a little country air will
do me good,” and he mentions how he thinks of going to visit Mr. Webb in
the Isle of Wight, and how a Portsmouth coach starts from Holborn.

“There’s the till, Harry,” says George, pointing from his bed. “Put your
hand in, and take what you will. What a lovely morning, and how fresh
the Bedford House garden looks!”

“God bless you, brother!” Harry says.

“Have a good time, Harry!” and down goes George’s head on the pillow
again, and he takes his pencil and notebook from under his bolster,
and falls to polishing his verses, as Harry, with his cloak over his
shoulder and a little valise in his hand, walks to the inn in Holborn
whence the Portsmouth machine starts.



CHAPTER LXIII. Melpomene


George Warrington by no means allowed his legal studies to obstruct
his comfort and pleasures, or interfere with his precious health. Madam
Esmond had pointed out to him in her letters that though he wore
a student’s gown, and sate down with a crowd of nameless people to
hall-commons, he had himself a name, and a very ancient one, to support,
and could take rank with the first persons at home or in his own
country; and desired that he would study as a gentleman, not a mere
professional drudge. With this injunction the young man complied
obediently enough: so that he may be said not to have belonged to the
rank and file of the law, but may be considered to have been a volunteer
in her service, like some young gentlemen of whom we have just heard.
Though not so exacting as she since has become--though she allowed her
disciples much more leisure, much more pleasure, much more punch, much
more frequenting of coffee-houses and holiday-making, than she admits
nowadays, when she scarce gives her votaries time for amusement,
recreation, instruction, sleep, or dinner--the law a hundred years ago
was still a jealous mistress, and demanded a pretty exclusive attention.
Murray, we are told, might have been an Ovid, but he preferred to be
Lord Chief Justice, and to wear ermine instead of bays. Perhaps Mr.
Warrington might have risen to a peerage and the woolsack, had he
studied very long and assiduously,--had he been a dexterous courtier,
and a favourite of attorneys: had he been other than he was, in a word.
He behaved to Themis with a very decent respect and attention; but he
loved letters more than law always; and the black-letter of Chaucer was
infinitely more agreeable to him than the Gothic pages of Hale and Coke.

Letters were loved indeed in those quaint times, and authors were
actually authorities. Gentlemen appealed to Virgil or Lucan in the
Courts or the House of Commons. What said Statius, Juvenal--let alone
Tully or Tacitus--on such and such a point? Their reign is over now, the
good old Heathens: the worship of Jupiter and Juno is not more out
of mode than the cultivation of Pagan poetry or ethics. The age of
economists and calculators has succeeded, and Tooke’s Pantheon is
deserted and ridiculous. Now and then, perhaps, a Stanley kills a kid,
a Gladstone bangs up a wreath, a Lytton burns incense, in honour of
the Olympians. But what do they care at Lambeth, Birmingham, the Tower
Hamlets, for the ancient rites, divinities, worship? Who the plague are
the Muses, and what is the use of all that Greek and Latin rubbish? What
is Elicon, and who cares? Who was Thalia, pray, and what is the length
of her i? Is Melpomene’s name in three syllables or four? And do you
know from whose design I stole that figure of Tragedy which adorns the
initial G of this chapter?

Now, it has been said how Mr. George in his youth, and in the long
leisure which he enjoyed at home, and during his imprisonment in the
French fort on the banks of Monongahela, had whiled away his idleness by
paying court to Melpomene; and the result of their union was a tragedy,
which has been omitted in Bell’s Theatre, though I dare say it is no
worse than some of the pieces printed there. Most young men pay their
respects to the Tragic Muse first, as they fall in love with women who
are a great deal older than themselves. Let the candid reader own, if
ever he had a literary turn, that his ambition was of the very
highest, and that however, in his riper age, he might come down in his
pretensions, and think that to translate an ode of Horace, or to turn a
song of Waller or Prior into decent alcaics or sapphics, was about the
utmost of his capability, tragedy and epic only did his green unknowing
youth engage, and no prize but the highest was fit for him.

George Warrington, then, on coming to London, attended the theatrical
performances at both houses, frequented the theatrical coffee-houses,
and heard the opinions of the critics, and might be seen at the Bedford
between the plays, or supping at the Cecil along with the wits and
actors when the performances were over. Here he gradually became
acquainted with the players and such of the writers and poets as were
known to the public. The tough old Macklin, the frolicsome Foote,
the vivacious Hippisley, the sprightly Mr. Garrick himself, might
occasionally be seen at these houses of entertainment; and our
gentleman, by his wit and modesty, as well, perhaps, as for the high
character for wealth which he possessed, came to be very much liked in
the coffee-house circles, and found that the actors would drink a
bowl of punch with him, and the critics sup at his expense with great
affability. To be on terms of intimacy with an author or an actor has
been an object of delight to many a young man; actually to hob and nob
with Bobadil or Henry the Fifth or Alexander the Great, to accept a
pinch out of Aristarchus’s own box, to put Juliet into her coach, or
hand Monimia to her chair, are privileges which would delight most young
men of a poetic turn; and no wonder George Warrington loved the theatre.
Then he had the satisfaction of thinking that his mother only half
approved of plays and playhouses, and of feasting on fruit forbidden at
home. He gave more than one elegant entertainment to the players, and it
was even said that one or two distinguished geniuses had condescended to
borrow money of him.

And as he polished and added new beauties to his masterpiece, we may be
sure that he took advice of certain friends of his, and that they gave
him applause and counsel. Mr. Spencer, his new acquaintance, of the
Temple, gave a breakfast at his chambers in Fig Tree Court, when Mr.
Warrington read part of his play, and the gentlemen present pronounced
that it had uncommon merit. Even the learned Mr. Johnson, who was
invited, was good enough to say that the piece had showed talent. It
warred against the unities, to be sure; but these had been violated
by other authors, and Mr. Warrington might sacrifice them as well as
another. There was in Mr. W.’s tragedy a something which reminded him
both of Coriolanus and Othello. “And two very good things too, sir!” the
author pleaded. “Well, well, there was no doubt on that point; and ‘tis
certain your catastrophe is terrible, just, and being in part true, is
not the less awful,” remarks Mr. Spencer.

Now the plot of Mr. Warrington’s tragedy was quite full indeed of battle
and murder. A favourite book of his grandfather had been the life of old
George Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a colonel of foot-folk in the Imperial
service at Pavia fight, and during the wars of the Constable Bourbon:
and one of Frundsberg’s military companions was a certain Carpzow, or
Carpezan, whom our friend selected as his tragedy hero. His first
act, as it at present stands in Sir George Warrington’s manuscript,
is supposed to take place before a convent on the Rhine, which the
Lutherans, under Carpezan, are besieging. A godless gang these Lutherans
are. They have pulled the beards of Roman friars, and torn the veils of
hundreds of religious women. A score of these are trembling within the
walls of the convent yonder, of which the garrison, unless the expected
succours arrive before midday, has promised to surrender. Meanwhile
there is armistice, and the sentries within look on with hungry eyes, as
the soldiers and camp people gamble on the grass before the gate. Twelve
o’clock, ding, ding, dong! it sounds upon the convent bell. No succours
have arrived. Open gates, warder! and give admission to the famous
Protestant hero, the terror of Turks on the Danube, and Papists in the
Lombard plains--Colonel Carpezan! See, here he comes, clad in complete
steel, his hammer of battle over his shoulder, with which he has
battered so many infidel sconces, his flags displayed, his trumpets
blowing. “No rudeness, my men,” says Carpezan; “the wine is yours,
and the convent larder and cellar are good: the church plate shall
be melted: any of the garrison who choose to take service with Gaspar
Carpezan are welcome, and shall have good pay. No insult to the
religious ladies! I have promised them a safe-conduct, and he who lays a
finger on them, hangs! Mind that Provost Marshal!” The Provost Marshal,
a huge fellow in a red doublet, nods his head.

“We shall see more of that Provost Marshal, or executioner,” Mr. Spencer
explains to his guests.

“A very agreeable acquaintance, I am sure,--shall be delighted to meet
the gentleman again!” says Mr. Johnson, wagging his head over his tea.
“This scene of the mercenaries, the camp followers, and their wild
sports, is novel and stirring, Mr. Warrington, and I make you my
compliments on it. The Colonel has gone into the convent, I think? Now
let us hear what he is going to do there.”

The Abbess, and one or two of her oldest ladies, make their appearance
before the conqueror. Conqueror as he is, they heard him in their
sacred halls. They have heard of his violent behaviour in conventual
establishments before. That hammer, which he always carries in action,
has smashed many sacred images in religious houses. Pounds and pounds of
convent plate is he known to have melted, the sacrilegious plunderer! No
wonder the Abbess-Princess of St. Mary’s, a lady of violent prejudices,
free language, and noble birth, has a dislike to the lowborn heretic who
lords it in her convent, and tells Carpezan a bit of her mind, as the
phrase is. This scene, in which the lady gets somewhat better of the
Colonel, was liked not a little by Mr. Warrington’s audience at the
Temple. Terrible as he might be in war, Carpezan was shaken at first by
the Abbess’s brisk opening charge of words; and, conqueror as he was,
seemed at first to be conquered by his actual prisoner. But such an old
soldier was not to be beaten ultimately by any woman. “Pray, madam,”
 says he, “how many ladies are there in your convent, for whom my people
shall provide conveyance?” The Abbess, with a look of much trouble and
anger, says that, “besides herself, the noble sisters of Saint Mary’s
House are twenty--twenty-three.” She was going to say twenty-four, and
now says twenty-three? “Ha! why this hesitation?” asks Captain Ulric,
one of Carpezan’s gayest officers.

The dark chief pulls a letter from his pocket. “I require from you,
madam,” he says sternly to the Lady Abbess, “the body of the noble lady
Sybilla of Hoya. Her brother was my favourite captain, slain by my side,
in the Milanese. By his death, she becomes heiress of his lands. ‘Tis
said a greedy uncle brought her hither; and fast immured the lady
against her will. The damsel shall herself pronounce her fate--to stay a
cloistered sister of Saint Mary’s, or to return to home and liberty, as
Lady Sybil, Baroness of ------.” Ha! The Abbess was greatly disturbed
by this question. She says, haughtily: “There is no Lady Sybil in this
house: of which every inmate is under your protection, and sworn to go
free. The Sister Agnes was a nun professed, and what was her land and
wealth revert to this Order.”

“Give me straightway the body of the Lady Sybil of Hoya!” roars
Carpezan, in great wrath. “If not, I make a signal to my Reiters, and
give you and your convent up to war.”

“Faith, if I lead the storm, and have my right, ‘tis not my Lady Abbess
that I’ll choose,” says Captain Ulric, “but rather some plump, smiling,
red-lipped maid like--like----” Here, as he, the sly fellow, is looking
under the veils of the two attendant nuns, the stern Abbess cries,
“Silence, fellow, with thy ribald talk! The lady, warrior, whom you ask
of me is passed away from sin, temptation, vanity, and three days since
our Sister Agnes--died.”

At this announcement Carpezan is immensely agitated. The Abbess calls
upon the chaplain to confirm her statement. Ghastly and pale, the old
man has to own that three days since the wretched Sister Agnes was
buried.

This is too much! In the pocket of his coat of mail Carpezan has a
letter from Sister Agnes herself, in which she announces that she is
going to be buried indeed, but in an oubliette of the convent, where
she may either be kept on water and bread, or die starved outright. He
seizes the unflinching Abbess by the arm, whilst Captain Ulric lays hold
of the chaplain by the throat. The Colonel blows a blast upon his horn:
in rush his furious Lanzknechts from without. Crash, bang! They knock
the convent walls about. And in the midst of flames, screams, and
slaughter, who is presently brought in by Carpezan himself, and fainting
on his shoulder, but Sybilla herself? A little sister nun (that gay one
with the red lips) had pointed out to the Colonel and Ulric the way to
Sister Agnes’s dungeon, and, indeed, had been the means of making her
situation known to the Lutheran chief.

“The convent is suppressed with a vengeance,” says Mr. Warrington. “We
end our first act with the burning of the place, the roars of triumph
of the soldiery, and the outcries of the nuns. They had best go change
their dresses immediately, for they will have to be court ladies in the
next act--as you will see.” Here the gentlemen talked the matter over.
If the piece were to be done at Drury Lane, Mrs. Pritchard would hardly
like to be Lady Abbess, as she doth but appear in the first act. Miss
Pritchard might make a pretty Sybilla, and Miss Gates the attendant
nun. Mr. Garrick was scarce tall enough for Carpezan--though, when he
is excited, nobody ever thinks of him but as big as a grenadier. Mr.
Johnson owns Woodward will be a good Ulric, as he plays the Mercutio
parts very gaily; and so, by one and t’other, the audience fancies the
play already on the boards, and casts the characters.

In act the second, Carpezan has married Sybilla. He has enriched himself
in the wars, has been ennobled by the Emperor, and lives at his castle
on the Danube in state and splendour.

But, truth to say, though married, rich, and ennobled, the Lord Carpezan
was not happy. It may be that in his wild life, as leader of condottieri
on both sides, he had committed crimes which agitated his mind with
remorse. It may be that his rough soldier-manners consorted ill with his
imperious highborn bride. She led him such a life--I am narrating as
it were the Warrington manuscript, which is too long to print in
entire--taunting him with his low birth, his vulgar companions, whom the
old soldier loved to see about him, and so forth--that there were
times when he rather wished that he had never rescued this lovely,
quarrelsome, wayward vixen from the oubliette out of which he fished
her. After the bustle of the first act this is a quiet one, and passed
chiefly in quarrelling between the Baron and Baroness Carpezan, until
horns blow, and it is announced that the young King of Bohemia and
Hungary is coming bunting that way.

Act III. is passed at Prague, whither his Majesty has invited Lord
Carpezan and his wife, with noble offers of preferment to the latter.
From Baron he shall be promoted to be Count, from Colonel he shall be
General-in-Chief. His wife is the most brilliant and fascinating of all
the ladies of the court--and as for Carpzoff----

“Oh, stay--I have it--I know your story, sir, now,” says Mr. Johnson.
“‘Tis in ‘Meteranus,’ in the Theatrum Universum. I read it in Oxford as
a boy--Carpezanus or Carpzoff----”

“That is the fourth act,” says Mr. Warrington. In the fourth act the
young King’s attentions towards Sybilla grow more and more marked; but
her husband, battling against his jealousy, long refuses to yield to it,
until his wife’s criminality is put beyond a doubt--and here he read
the act, which closes with the terrible tragedy which actually happened.
Being convinced of his wife’s guilt, Carpezan caused the executioner who
followed his regiment to slay her in her own palace. And the curtain of
the act falls just after the dreadful deed is done, in a side-chamber
illuminated by the moon shining through a great oriel window, under
which the King comes with his lute, and plays the song which was to be
the signal between him and his guilty victim.

This song (writ in the ancient style, and repeated in the piece, being
sung in the third act previously at a great festival given by the King
and Queen) was pronounced by Mr. Johnson to be a happy imitation of Mr.
Waller’s manner, and its gay repetition at the moment of guilt, murder,
and horror, very much deepened the tragic gloom of the scene.

“But whatever came afterwards?” he asked. “I remember in the Theatrum,
Carpezan is said to have been taken into favour again by Count
Mansfield, and doubtless to have murdered other folks on the reformed
side.”

Here our poet has departed from historic truth. In the fifth act
of Carpezan King Louis of Hungary and Bohemia (sufficiently
terror-stricken, no doubt, by the sanguinary termination of his
intrigue) has received word that the Emperor Solyman is invading his
Hungarian dominions. Enter two noblemen who relate how, in the
council which the King held upon the news, the injured Carpezan rushed
infuriated into the royal presence, broke his sword, and flung it at the
King’s feet--along with a glove which he dared him to wear, and which he
swore he would one day claim. After that wild challenge the rebel fled
from Prague, and had not since been heard of; but it was reported that
he had joined the Turkish invader, assumed the turban, and was now
in the camp of the Sultan, whose white tents glance across the river
yonder, and against whom the King was now on his march. Then the King
comes to his tent with his generals, prepares his order of battle; and
dismisses them to their posts, keeping by his side an aged and faithful
knight, his master of the horse, to whom he expresses his repentance
for his past crimes, his esteem for his good and injured Queen, and his
determination to meet the day’s battle like a man.

“What is this field called?”

“Mohacz, my liege!” says the old warrior, adding the remark that “Ere
set of sun, Mohacz will see a battle bravely won.”

Trumpets and alarms now sound; they are the cymbals and barbaric music
of the Janissaries: we are in the Turkish camp, and yonder, surrounded
by turbaned chiefs, walks the Sultan Solyman’s friend, the conqueror of
Rhodes, the redoubted Grand Vizier.

Who is that warrior in an Eastern habit, but with a glove in his cap?
‘Tis Carpezan. Even Solyman knew his courage and ferocity as a soldier.
He knows; the ordnance of the Hungarian host; in what arms King Louis
is weakest: how his cavalry, of which the shock is tremendous, should
be received, and inveigled into yonder morass, where certain death may
await them--he prays for a command in the front, and as near as possible
to the place where the traitor King Louis will engage. “‘Tis well,” says
the grim Vizier, “our invincible Emperor surveys the battle from yonder
tower. At the end of the day, he will know how to reward your valour.”
 The signal-guns fire--the trumpets blow--the Turkish captains retire,
vowing death to the infidel, and eternal fidelity to the Sultan.

And now the battle begins in earnest, and with those various incidents
which the lover of the theatre knoweth. Christian knights and Turkish
warriors clash and skirmish over the stage. Continued alarms are
sounded. Troops on both sides advance and retreat. Carpezan, with his
glove in his cap, and his dreadful hammer smashing all before him, rages
about the field, calling for King Louis. The renegade is about to slay
a warrior who faces him, but recognising young Ulric, his ex-captain, he
drops the uplifted hammer, and bids him fly, and think of Carpezan. He
is softened at seeing his young friend, and thinking of former times
when they fought and conquered together in the cause of Protestantism.
Ulric bids him to return, but of course that is now out of the question.
They fight. Ulric will have it, and down he goes under the hammer. The
renegade melts in sight of his wounded comrade, when who appears but
King Louis, his plumes torn, his sword hacked, his shield dented with
a thousand blows which he has received and delivered during the day’s
battle. Ha! who is this? The guilty monarch would turn away (perhaps
Macbeth may have done so before), but Carpezan is on him. All his
softness is gone. He rages like a fury. “An equal fight!” he roars. “A
traitor against a traitor! Stand, King Louis! False King, false knight,
false friend--by this glove in my helmet, I challenge you!” And he tears
the guilty token out of his cap, and flings it at the King.

Of course they set to, and the monarch falls under the terrible arm of
the man whom he has injured. He dies, uttering a few incoherent words
of repentance, and Carpezan, leaning upon his murderous mace, utters a
heartbroken soliloquy over the royal corpse. The Turkish warriors have
gathered meanwhile: the dreadful day is their own. Yonder stands the
dark Vizier, surrounded by his Janissaries, whose bows and swords are
tired of drinking death. He surveys the renegade standing over the
corpse of the King.

“Christian renegade!” he says, “Allah has given us a great victory. The
arms of the Sublime Emperor are everywhere triumphant. The Christian
King is slain by you.”

“Peace to his soul! He died like a good knight,” gasps Ulric, himself
dying on the field.

“In this day’s battle,” the grim Vizier continues, “no man hath
comported himself more bravely than you. You are made Bassa of
Transylvania! Advance bowmen--Fire!”

An arrow quivers in the breast of Carpezan.

“Bassa of Transylvania, you were a traitor to your King, who lies
murdered by your hand!” continues grim Vizier. “You contributed more
than any soldier to this day’s great victory. ‘Tis thus my sublime
Emperor meetly rewards you. Sound trumpets! We march for Vienna
to-night!”

And the curtain drops as Carpezan, crawling towards his dying comrade,
kisses his hands, and gasps--

“Forgive me, Ulric!”


When Mr. Warrington has finished reading his tragedy, he turns round to
Mr. Johnson, modestly, and asks,--

“What say you, sir? Is there any chance for me?”

But the opinion of this most eminent critic is scarce to be given, for
Mr. Johnson had been asleep for some time, and frankly owned that he had
lost the latter part of the play.

The little auditory begins to hum and stir as the noise of the speaker
ceased. George may have been very nervous when he first commenced to
read; but everybody allows that he read the last two acts uncommonly
well, and makes him a compliment upon his matter and manner. Perhaps
everybody is in good-humour because the piece has come to an end. Mr.
Spencer’s servant hands about refreshing drinks. The Templars speak out
their various opinions whilst they sip the negus. They are a choice band
of critics, familiar with the pit of the theatre, and they treat Mr.
Warrington’s play with the gravity which such a subject demands.

Mr. Fountain suggests that the Vizier should not say “Fire!” when he
bids the archers kill Carpezan, as you certainly don’t fire with a bow
and arrows. A note is taken of the objection.

Mr. Figtree, who is of a sentimental turn, regrets that Ulric could not
be saved, and married to the comic heroine.

“Nay, sir, there was an utter annihilation of the Hungarian army at
Mohacz,” says Mr. Johnson, “and Ulric must take his knock on the head
with the rest. He could only be saved by flight, and you wouldn’t have
a hero run away! Pronounce sentence of death against Captain Ulric, but
kill him with honours of war.”

Messrs. Essex and Tanfield wonder to one another who is this
queer-looking pert whom Spencer has invited, and who contradicts
everybody; and suggest a boat up the river and a little fresh air after
the fatigues of the tragedy.

The general opinion is decidedly favourable to Mr. Warrington’s
performance; and Mr. Johnson’s opinion, on which he sets a special
value, is the most favourable of all. Perhaps Mr. Johnson is not sorry
to compliment a young gentleman of fashion and figure like Mr. W. “Up to
the death of the heroine,” he says, “I am frankly with you, sir. And I
may speak, as a playwright who have killed my own heroine, and had my
share of the plausus in the atro. To hear your own lines nobly delivered
to an applauding house, is indeed a noble excitement. I like to see a
young man of good name and lineage who condescends to think that the
Tragic Muse is not below his advances. It was to a sordid roof that
I invited her, and I asked her to rescue me from poverty and squalor.
Happy you, sir, who can meet her upon equal terms, and can afford to
marry her without a portion!”

“I doubt whether the greatest genius is not debased who has to make a
bargain with Poetry,” remarks Mr. Spencer.

“Nay, sir,” Mr. Johnson answered, “I doubt if many a great genius would
work at all without bribes and necessities; and so a man had better
marry a poor Muse for good and all, for better or worse, than dally with
a rich one. I make you my compliment to your play, Mr. Warrington, and
if you want an introduction to the stage, shall be very happy if I can
induce my friend Mr. Garrick to present you.”

“Mr. Garrick shall be his sponsor,” cried the florid Mr. Figtree.
“Melpomene shall be his godmother, and he shall have the witches’
caldron in Macbeth for a christening font.”

“Sir, I neither said font nor godmother!”--remarks the man of letters.
“I would have no play contrary to morals or religion nor, as I conceive,
is Mr. Warrington’s piece otherwise than friendly to them. Vice is
chastised, as it should be, even in kings, though perhaps we judge of
their temptations too lightly. Revenge is punished--as not to be lightly
exercised by our limited notion of justice. It may have been Carpezan’s
wife who perverted the King, and not the King who led the woman astray.
At any rate, Louis is rightly humiliated for his crime, and the Renegade
most justly executed for his. I wish you a good afternoon, gentlemen!”
 And with these remarks, the great author took his leave of the company.

Towards the close of the reading, General Lambert had made his
appearance at Mr. Spencer’s chambers, and had listened to the latter
part of the tragedy. The performance over, he and George took their way
to the latter’s lodgings in the first place, and subsequently to the
General’s own house, where the young author was expected, in order to
recount the reception which his play had met from his Temple critics.

At Mr. Warrington’s apartments in Southampton Row, they found a letter
awaiting George, which the latter placed in his pocket unread, so that
he might proceed immediately with his companion to Soho. We may be sure
the ladies there were eager to know about the Carpezan’s fate in the
morning’s small rehearsal.

Hetty said George was so shy, that perhaps it would be better for all
parties if some other person had read the play. Theo, on the contrary,
cried out:

“Read it, indeed! Who can read a poem better than the author who feels
it in his heart? And George had his whole heart in the piece!”

Mr. Lambert very likely thought that somebody else’s whole heart was in
the piece too, but did not utter this opinion to Miss Theo.

“I think Harry would look very well in your figure of a Prince,”
 says the General. “That scene where he takes leave of his wife before
departing for the wars reminds me of your brother’s manner not a
little.”

“Oh, papa! surely Mr. Warrington himself would act the Prince’s part
best!” cries Miss Theo.

“And be deservedly slain in battle at the end?” asks the father of the
house.

“I did not say that,--only that Mr. George would make a very good
Prince, papa!” cries Miss Theo.

“In which case he would find a suitable Princess, I have no doubt. What
news of your brother Harry?”

George, who had been thinking about theatrical triumphs; about
monumentum aere perennius; about lilacs; about love whispered and
tenderly accepted, remembers that he has a letter from Harry in his
pocket, and gaily produces it.

“Let us hear what Mr. Truant says for himself, Aunt Lambert!” cries
George, breaking the seal.

Why is he so disturbed, as he reads the contents of his letter? Why do
the women look at him with alarmed eyes? And why, above all, is Hetty so
pale?

“Here is the letter,” says George, and begins to read it:


“RYDE, June 1, 1758.

“I did not tell my dearest George what I hoped and intended, when I left
home on Wednesday. ‘Twas to see Mr. Webb at Portsmouth or the Isle of
Wight, wherever his Regiment was, and if need was to go down on my
knees to him to take me as volunteer on the Expedition. I took boat from
Portsmouth, where I learned that he was with our regiment incampt at
the village of Ryde. Was received by him most kindly, and my petition
granted out of hand. That is why I say our regiment. We are eight
gentlemen volunteers with Mr. Webb, all men of birth, and good fortunes
except poor me, who don’t deserve one. We are to mess with the officers;
we take the right of the collumn, and have always the right to be
in front, and in an hour we embark on board his Majesty’s Ship the
Rochester of 60 guns, while our Commodore’s, Mr. Howe’s, is the Essex,
70. His squadron is about 20 ships, and I should think 100 transports at
least. Though ‘tis a secret expedition, we make no doubt France is our
destination--where I hope to see my friends the Monsieurs once more,
and win my colours, a la point de mon epee, as we used to say in Canada.
Perhaps my service as interpreter may be useful; I speaking the language
not so well as some one I know, but better than most here.

“I scarce venture to write to our mother to tell her of this step. Will
you, who have a coxing tongue will wheadle any one, write to her as soon
as you have finisht the famous tradgedy? Will you give my affectionate
respects to dear General Lambert and ladies? and if any accident should
happen, I know you will take care of poor Gumbo as belonging to my
dearest best George’s most affectionate brother, HENRY E. WARRINGTON.

“P.S.--Love to all at home when you write, including Dempster, Mountain,
and Fanny M. and all the people, and duty to my honoured mother, wishing
I had pleased her better. And if I said anything unkind to dear Miss
Hester Lambert, I know she will forgive me, and pray God bless all.--H.
E. W.”

“To G. Esmond Warrington, Esq., at Mr. Scrace’s House in Southampton
Row, Opposite Bedford House Gardens, London.”


He has not read the last words with a very steady voice. Mr. Lambert
sits silent, though not a little moved. Theo and her mother look at one
another; but Hetty remains with a cold face and a stricken heart. She
thinks, “He is gone to danger, perhaps to death, and it was I sent him!”



CHAPTER LXIV. In which Harry lives to fight another Day


The trusty Gumbo could not console himself for the departure of his
beloved master: at least, to judge from his tears and howls on first
hearing the news of Mr. Harry’s enlistment, you would have thought
the negro’s heart must break at the separation. No wonder he went for
sympathy to the maid-servants at Mr. Lambert’s lodgings. Wherever that
dusky youth was, he sought comfort in the society of females. Their fair
and tender bosoms knew how to feel pity for the poor African, and
the darkness of Gumbo’s complexion was no more repulsive to them than
Othello’s to Desdemona. I believe Europe has never been so squeamish
in regard to Africa, as a certain other respected Quarter. Nay, some
Africans--witness the Chevalier de St. Georges, for instance--have been
notorious favourites with the fair sex.

So, in his humbler walk, was Mr. Gumbo. The Lambert servants wept freely
in his company; the maids kindly considered him not only as Mr. Harry’s
man, but their brother. Hetty could not help laughing when she found
Gumbo roaring because his master had gone a volumteer, as he called it,
and had not taken him. He was ready to save Master Harry’s life any day,
and would have done it and had himself cut in twenty thousand hundred
pieces for Master Harry, that he would! Meanwhile, Nature must be
supported, and he condescended to fortify her by large supplies of beer
and cold meat in the kitchen. That he was greedy, idle, and told lies,
is certain; but yet Hetty gave him half a crown, and was especially kind
to him. Her tongue, that was wont to wag so pertly, was so gentle now,
that you might fancy it had never made a joke. She moved about the house
mum and meek. She was humble to mamma; thankful to John and Betty when
they waited at dinner; patient to Polly when the latter pulled her hair
in combing it; long-suffering when Charley from school trod on her
toes, or deranged her workbox; silent in papa’s company,--oh, such a
transmogrified little Hetty! If papa had ordered her to roast the leg of
mutton, or walk to church arm-in-arm with Gumbo, she would have made a
curtsey, and said, “Yes, if you please, dear papa!” Leg of mutton! What
sort of meal were some poor volunteers having, with the cannon-balls
flying about their heads? Church! When it comes to the prayer in time of
war, oh, how her knees smite together as she kneels, and hides her head
in the pew! She holds down her head when the parson reads out, “Thou
shalt do no murder,” from the communion-rail, and fancies he must be
looking at her. How she thinks of all travellers by land or by water!
How she sickens as she runs to the paper to read if there is news of the
Expedition! How she watches papa when he comes home from his Ordnance
Office, and looks in his face to see if there is good news or bad! Is
he well? Is he made a General yet? Is he wounded and made a prisoner?
ah me! or, perhaps, are both his legs taken off by one shot, like that
pensioner they saw in Chelsea Garden t’other day? She would go on wooden
legs all her life, if his can but bring him safe home; at least, she
ought never to get up off her knees until he is returned. “Haven’t you
heard of people, Theo,” says she, “whose hair has grown grey in a single
night? I shouldn’t wonder if mine did,--shouldn’t wonder in the least.”
 And she looks in the glass to ascertain that phenomenon.

“Hetty dear, you used not to be so nervous when papa was away in
Minorca,” remarks Theo.

“Ah, Theo! one may very well see that George is not with the army, but
safe at home,” rejoins Hetty; whereat the elder sister blushes, and
looks very pensive. Au fait, if Mr. George had been in the army, that,
you see, would have been another pair of boots. Meanwhile, we don’t
intend to harrow anybody’s kind feelings any longer, but may as well
state that Harry is, for the present, as safe as any officer of the Life
Guards at Regent’s Park Barracks.

The first expedition in which our gallant volunteer was engaged may be
called successful, but certainly was not glorious. The British Lion,
or any other lion, cannot always have a worthy enemy to combat, or a
battle-royal to deliver. Suppose he goes forth in quest of a tiger who
won’t come, and lays his paws on a goose, and gobbles him up? Lions, we
know, must live like any other animals. But suppose, advancing into the
forest in search of the tiger aforesaid, and bellowing his challenge
of war, he espies not one but six tigers coming towards him? This
manifestly is not his game at all. He puts his tail between his royal
legs, and retreats into his own snug den as quickly as he may. Were he
to attempt to go and fight six tigers, you might write that Lion down an
Ass.

Now, Harry Warrington’s first feat of war was in this wise. He and about
13,000 other fighting men embarked in various ships and transports on
the 1st of June, from the Isle of Wight, and at daybreak on the 5th the
fleet stood in to the Bay of Cancale in Brittany. For a while he and the
gentlemen volunteers had the pleasure of examining the French coast
from their ships, whilst the Commander-in-Chief and the Commodore
reconnoitred the bay in a cutter. Cattle were seen, and some dragoons,
who trotted off into the distance; and a little fort with a couple
of guns had the audacity to fire at his Grace of Marlborough and the
Commodore in the cutter. By two o’clock the whole British fleet was at
anchor, and signal was made for all the grenadier companies of eleven
regiments to embark on board flat-bottomed boats and assemble round the
Commodore’s ship, the Essex. Meanwhile, Mr. Howe, hoisting his broad
pennant on board the Success frigate, went in as near as possible to
shore, followed by the other frigates, to protect the landing of
the troops; and, now, with Lord George Sackville and General Dury in
command, the gentlemen volunteers, the grenadier companies, and three
battalions of guards pulled to shore.

The gentlemen volunteers could not do any heroic deed upon this
occasion, because the French, who should have stayed to fight them, ran
away, and the frigates having silenced the fire of the little fort which
had disturbed the reconnaissance of the Commander-in-Chief, the army
presently assaulted it, taking the whole garrison prisoner, and shooting
him in the leg. Indeed, he was but one old gentleman, who gallantly had
fired his two guns, and who told his conquerors, “If every Frenchman had
acted like me, you would not have landed at Cancale at all.”

The advanced detachment of invaders took possession of the village of
Cancale, where they lay upon their arms all night; and our volunteer was
joked by his comrades about his eagerness to go out upon the war-path,
and bring in two or three scalps of Frenchmen. None such, however,
fell under his tomahawk; the only person slain on the whole day being a
French gentleman, who was riding with his servant, and was surprised
by volunteer Lord Downe, marching in the front with a company of
Kingsley’s. My Lord Downe offered the gentleman quarter, which he
foolishly refused, whereupon he, his servant, and the two horses, were
straightway shot.

Next day the whole force was landed, and advanced from Cancale to St.
Malo. All the villages were emptied through which the troops passed, and
the roads were so narrow in many places that the men had to march single
file, and might have been shot down from behind the tall leafy hedges
had there been any enemy to disturb them.

At nightfall the army arrived before St. Malo, and were saluted by
a fire of artillery from that town, which did little damage in the
darkness. Under cover of this, the British set fire to the ships, wooden
buildings, pitch and tar magazines in the harbour, and made a prodigious
conflagration that lasted the whole night.

This feat was achieved without any attempt on the part of the French to
molest the British force: but, as it was confidently asserted that there
was a considerable French force in the town of St. Malo, though they
wouldn’t come out, his Grace the Duke of Marlborough and my Lord George
Sackville determined not to disturb the garrison, marched back to
Cancale again, and--and so got on board their ships.

If this were not a veracious history, don’t you see that it would have
been easy to send our Virginian on a more glorious campaign? Exactly
four weeks after his departure from England, Mr. Warrington found
himself at Portsmouth again, and addressed a letter to his brother
George, with which the latter ran off to Dean Street so soon as ever he
received it.

“Glorious news, ladies!” cries he, finding the Lambert family all at
breakfast. “Our champion has come back. He has undergone all sorts of
dangers, but has survived them all. He has seen dragons--upon my word,
he says so.”

“Dragons! What do you mean, Mr. Warrington?”

“But not killed any--he says so, as you shall hear. He writes:

“‘DEAREST BROTHER--I think you will be glad to hear that I am returned,
without any commission as yet; without any wounds or glory; but,--at any
rate, alive and harty. On board our ship, we were almost as crowded as
poor Mr. Holwell and his friends in their Black Hole at Calicutta. We
had rough weather, and some of the gentlemen volunteers, who prefer
smooth water, grumbled not a little. My gentlemen’s stomachs are dainty;
and after Braund’s cookery and White’s kick-shaws, they don’t like plain
sailor’s rum and bisket. But I, who have been at sea before, took my
rations and can of flip very contentedly: being determined to put a good
face on everything before our fine English macaronis, and show that a
Virginia gentleman is as good as the best of ‘em. I wish, for the honour
of old Virginia, that I had more to brag about. But all I can say in
truth is, that we have been to France and come back again. Why, I don’t
think even your tragick pen could make anything of such a campaign as
ours has been. We landed on the 6 at Cancalle Bay, we saw a few dragons
on a hill...’

“There! Did I not tell you there were dragons?” asks George, laughing.

“Mercy! What can he mean by dragons?” cries Hetty.

“Immense, long-tailed monsters, with steel scales on their backs, who
vomit fire, and gobble up a virgin a day. Haven’t you read about them in
The Seven Champions?” says papa. “Seeing St. George’s flag, I suppose,
they slunk off.”

“I have read of ‘em,” says the little boy from Chartreux, solemnly.
“They like to eat women. One was going to eat Andromeda, you know, papa;
and Jason killed another, who was guarding the apple-tree.”

“... A few dragons on a hill,” George resumes, “who rode away from us
without engaging. We slept under canvass. We marched to St. Malo, and
burned ever so many privateers there. And we went on board shipp again,
without ever crossing swords with an enemy or meeting any except a
few poor devils whom the troops plundered. Better luck next time! This
hasn’t been very much nor particular glorious: but I have liked it for
my part. I have smelt powder, besides a good deal of rosn and pitch we
burned. I’ve seen the enemy; have sleppt under canvass, and been dredful
crowdid and sick at sea. I like it. My best compliments to dear Aunt
Lambert, and tell Miss Hetty I wasn’t very much fritened when I saw the
French horse.--Your most affectionate brother, H. E. WARRINGTON.”

We hope Miss Hetty’s qualms of conscience were allayed by Harry’s
announcement that his expedition was over, and that he had so far taken
no hurt. Far otherwise. Mr. Lambert, in the course of his official
duties, had occasion to visit the troops at Portsmouth and the Isle of
Wight, and George Warrington bore him company. They found Harry vastly
improved in spirits and health from the excitement produced by the
little campaign, quite eager and pleased to learn his new military
duties, active, cheerful, and healthy, and altogether a different person
from the listless moping lad who had dawdled in London coffee-houses and
Mrs. Lambert’s drawing-room. The troops were under canvas; the weather
was glorious, and George found his brother a ready pupil in a fine
brisk open-air school of war. Not a little amused, the elder brother,
arm-in-arm with the young volunteer, paced the streets of the warlike
city, recalled his own brief military experiences of two years back,
and saw here a much greater army than that ill-fated one of which he
had shared the disasters. The expedition, such as we have seen it, was
certainly not glorious, and yet the troops and the nation were in high
spirits with it. We were said to have humiliated the proud Gaul. We
should have vanquished as well as humbled him had he dared to appear.
What valour, after all, is like British valour? I dare say some such
expressions have been heard in later times. Not that I would hint that
our people brag much more than any other, or more now than formerly.
Have not these eyes beheld the battle-grounds of Leipzig, Jena, Dresden,
Waterloo, Blenheim, Bunker’s Hill, New Orleans? What heroic nation has
not fought, has not conquered, has not run away, has not bragged in its
turn? Well, the British nation was much excited by the glorious victory
of St. Malo. Captured treasures were sent home and exhibited in London.
The people were so excited, that more laurels and more victories were
demanded, and the enthusiastic army went forth to seek some.

With this new expedition went a volunteer so distinguished, that we must
give him precedence of all other amateur soldiers or sailors. This was
our sailor Prince, H.R.H. Prince Edward, who was conveyed on board the
Essex in the ship’s twelve-oared barge, the standard of England flying
in the bow of the boat, the Admiral with his flag and boat following the
Prince’s, and all the captains following in seniority.

Away sails the fleet, Harry, in high health and spirits, waving his hat
to his friends as they cheer from the shore. He must and will have his
commission before long. There can be no difficulty about that, George
thinks. There is plenty of money in his little store to buy his
brother’s ensigncy; but if he can win it without purchase by gallantry
and good conduct, that were best. The colonel of the regiment reports
highly of his recruit; men and officers like him. It is easy to see that
he is a young fellow of good promise and spirit.

Hip, hip, huzzay! What famous news are these which arrive ten days after
the expedition has sailed? On the 7th and 8th of August his Majesty’s
troops had effected a landing in the Bay des Marais, two leagues
westward of Cherbourg, in the face of a large body of the enemy. Awed
by the appearance of British valour, that large body of the enemy has
disappeared. Cherbourg has surrendered at discretion; and the English
colours are hoisted on the three outlying forts. Seven-and-twenty ships
have been burned in the harbours, and a prodigious number of fine brass
cannon taken. As for your common iron guns, we have destroyed ‘em,
likewise the basin (about which the mounseers bragged so), and the two
piers at the entrance to the harbour.

There is no end of jubilation in London; just as Mr. Howe’s guns arrive
from Cherbourg, come Mr. Wolfe’s colours captured at Louisbourg. The
colours are taken from Kensington to St Paul’s, escorted by fourscore
life-guards and fourscore horse-grenadiers with officers in proportion,
their standards, kettle-drums, and trumpets. At St. Paul’s they
are received by the Dean and Chapter at the West Gate, and at that
minute--bang, bong, bung--the Tower and Park guns salute them! Next day
is the turn of the Cherbourg cannon and mortars. These are the guns
we took. Look at them with their carving and flaunting emblems--their
lilies, and crowns, and mottoes! Here they are, the Teneraire, the
Malfaisant, the Vainqueur (the Vainqueur, indeed! a pretty vainqueur of
Britons!), and ever so many more. How the people shout as the pieces
are trailed through the streets in procession! As for Hetty and Mrs.
Lambert, I believe they are of opinion that Harry took every one of the
guns himself, dragging them out of the batteries, and destroying the
artillerymen. He has immensely risen in the general estimation in the
last few days. Madame de Bernstein has asked about him. Lady Maria has
begged her dear cousin George to see her, and, if possible, give her
news of his brother. George, who was quite the head of the family
a couple of months since, finds himself deposed, and of scarce any
account, in Miss Hetty’s eyes at least. Your wit, and your learning, and
your tragedies, may be all very well; but what are these in comparison
to victories and brass cannon? George takes his deposition very meekly.
They are fifteen thousand Britons. Why should they not march and take
Paris itself? Nothing more probable, think some of the ladies. They
embrace; they congratulate each other; they are in a high state of
excitement. For once, they long that Sir Miles and Lady Warrington were
in town, so that they might pay her ladyship a visit, and ask, “What
do you say to your nephew now, pray? Has he not taken twenty-one finest
brass cannon; flung a hundred and twenty iron guns into the water,
seized twenty-seven ships in the harbour, and destroyed the basin
and the two piers at the entrance?” As the whole town rejoices and
illuminates, so these worthy folks display brilliant red hangings in
their cheeks, and light up candles of joy in their eyes, in honour of
their champion and conqueror.

But now, I grieve to say, comes a cloudy day after the fair weather. The
appetite of our commanders, growing by what it fed on, led them to think
they had not feasted enough on the plunder of St. Malo; and thither,
after staying a brief time at Portsmouth and the Wight, the conquerors
of Cherbourg returned. They were landed in the Bay of St. Lunar, at
a distance of a few miles from the place, and marched towards it,
intending to destroy it this time. Meanwhile the harbour of St. Lunar
was found insecure, and the fleet moved up to St. Cas, keeping up its
communication with the invading army.

Now the British Lion found that the town of St. Malo--which he had
proposed to swallow at a single mouthful--was guarded by an army of
French, which the Governor of Brittany had brought to the succour of
his good town, and the meditated coup-de-main being thus impossible,
our leaders marched for their ships again, which lay duly awaiting our
warriors in the Bay of St. Cas.

Hide, blushing glory, hide St. Cas’s day! As our troops were marching
down to their ships they became aware of an army following them, which
the French governor of the province had sent from Brest. Two-thirds
of the troops, and all the artillery, were already embarked, when the
Frenchmen came down upon the remainder. Four companies of the first
regiment of guards and the grenadier companies of the army, faced
about on the beach to await the enemy, whilst the remaining troops were
carried off in the boats. As the French descended from the heights round
the bay, these guards and grenadiers marched out to attack them, leaving
an excellent position which they had occupied--a great dyke raised on
the shore, and behind which they might have resisted to advantage. And
now, eleven hundred men were engaged with six--nay, ten times their
number; and, after a while, broke and made for the boats with a sauve
qui peut! Seven hundred out of the eleven were killed, drowned, or
taken prisoners--the General himself was killed--and, ah! where were the
volunteers?

A man of peace myself, and little intelligent of the practice or the
details of war, I own I think less of the engaged troops than of the
people they leave behind. Jack the Guardsman and La Tulipe of the Royal
Bretagne are face to face, and striving to knock each other’s brains
out. Bon! It is their nature to--like the bears and lions--and we will
not say Heaven, but some power or other has made them so to do. But the
girl of Tower Hill, who hung on Jack’s neck before he departed; and the
lass at Quimper, who gave the Frenchman his brule-gueule and tobacco-box
before he departed on the noir trajet? What have you done, poor little
tender hearts, that you should grieve so? My business is not with the
army, but with the people left behind. What a fine state Miss Hetty
Lambert must be in, when she hears of the disaster to the troops and the
slaughter of the grenadier companies! What grief and doubt are in George
Warrington’s breast; what commiseration in Martin Lambert’s, as he looks
into his little girl’s face and reads her piteous story there! Howe, the
brave Commodore, rowing in his barge under the enemy’s fire, has rescued
with his boats scores and scores of our flying people. More are drowned;
hundreds are prisoners, or shot on the beach. Among these, where is our
Virginian?



CHAPTER LXV. Soldier’s Return


Great Powers! will the vainglory of men, especially of Frenchmen, never
cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas--a mere
affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware--they were so
unfeeling as to fire away I don’t know how much powder at the Invalides
at Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any
magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave
fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate
has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind
to design an authentic picture of the rejoicings at London upon our
glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns dragged in
procession by our gallant tars; the stout horse-grenadiers prancing by;
the mob waving hats, roaring cheers, picking pockets, and our friends in
a balcony in Fleet Street looking on and blessing this scene of British
triumph. But now that the French Invalides have been so vulgar as to
imitate the Tower, and set up their St. Cas against our St. Malo, I
scorn to allude to the stale subject. I say Nolo, not Malo: content, for
my part, if Harry has returned from one expedition and t’other with a
whole skin. And have I ever said he was so much as bruised? Have I not,
for fear of exciting my fair young reader, said that he was as well as
ever he had been in his life? The sea air had browned his cheek, and
the ball whistling by his side-curl had spared it. The ocean had wet his
gaiters and other garments, without swallowing up his body. He had, it
is true, shown the lapels of his coat to the enemy; but for as short a
time as possible, withdrawing out of their sight as quick as might be.
And what, pray, are lapels but reverses? Coats have them, as well as
men; and our duty is to wear them with courage and good-humour.

“I can tell you,” said Harry, “we all had to run for it; and when our
line broke, it was he who could get to the boats who was most lucky. The
French horse and foot pursued us down to the sea, and were mingled
among us, cutting our men down, and bayoneting them on the ground. Poor
Armytage was shot in advance of me, and fell; and I took him up and
staggered through the surf to a boat. It was lucky that the sailors in
our boat weren’t afraid; for the shot were whistling about their ears,
breaking the blades of their oars, and riddling their flag with shot;
but the officer in command was as cool as if he had been drinking a bowl
of punch at Portsmouth, which we had one on landing, I can promise you.
Poor Sir John was less lucky than me. He never lived to reach the ship,
and the service has lost a fine soldier, and Miss Howe a true gentleman
to her husband. There must be these casualties, you see; and his brother
gets the promotion--the baronetcy.”

“It is of the poor lady I am thinking,” says Miss Hetty (to whom haply
our volunteer is telling his story); “and the King. Why did the King
encourage Sir John Armytage to go? A gentleman could not refuse a
command from such a quarter. And now the poor gentleman is dead! Oh,
what a state his Majesty must be in!”

“I have no doubt his Majesty will be in a deep state of grief,” says
papa, wagging his head.

“Now you are laughing! Do you mean, sir, that when a gentleman dies
in his service, almost at his feet, the King of England won’t feel
for him?” Hetty asks. “If I thought that, I vow I would be for the
Pretender!”

“The sauce-box would make a pretty little head for Temple Bar,” says the
General, who could see Miss Hetty’s meaning behind her words, and was
aware in what a tumult of remorse, of consternation, of gratitude that
the danger was over, the little heart was beating. “No,” says he, “my
dear. Were kings to weep for every soldier, what a life you would make
for them! I think better of his Majesty than to suppose him so weak;
and, if Miss Hester Lambert got her Pretender, I doubt whether she would
be any the happier. That family was never famous for too much feeling.”

“But if the King sent Harry--I mean Sir John Armytage--actually to
the war in which he lost his life, oughtn’t his Majesty to repent very
much?” asks the young lady.

“If Harry had fallen, no doubt the court would have gone into mourning:
as it is, gentlemen and ladies were in coloured clothes yesterday,”
 remarks the General.

“Why should we not make bonfires for a defeat, and put on sackcloth and
ashes after a victory?” asks George. “I protest I don’t want to thank
Heaven for helping us to burn the ships at Cherbourg.”

“Yes you do, George! Not that I have a right to speak, and you ain’t
ever so much cleverer. But when your country wins you’re glad--I know
I am. When I run away before Frenchmen I’m ashamed--I can’t help it,
though I done it,” says Harry. “It don’t seem to me right somehow that
Englishmen should have to do it,” he added, gravely. And George smiled;
but did not choose to ask his brother what, on the other hand, was the
Frenchman’s opinion.

“‘Tis a bad business,” continued Harry, gravely; “but ‘tis lucky ‘twas
no worse. The story about the French is, that their Governor, the Duke
of Aiguillon, was rather what you call a moistened chicken. Our whole
retreat might have been cut off, only, to be sure, we ourselves were in
a mighty hurry to move. The French local militia behaved famous, I am
happy to say; and there was ever so many gentlemen volunteers with ‘em,
who showed, as they ought to do, in the front. They say the Chevalier
of Tour d’Auvergne engaged in spite of the Duke of Aiguillon’s orders.
Officers told us, who came off with a list of our prisoners and wounded
to General Bligh and Lord Howe. He is a lord now, since the news came of
his brother’s death to home, George. He is a brave fellow, whether lord
or commoner.”

“And his sister, who was to have married poor Sir John Armytage, think
what her state must be!” sighs Miss Hetty, who has grown of late so
sentimental.

“And his mother!” cries Mrs. Lambert. “Have you seen her ladyship’s
address in the papers to the electors of Nottingham? ‘Lord Howe being
now absent upon the publick service, and Lieutenant-Colonel Howe with
his regiment at Louisbourg, it rests upon me to beg the favour of your
votes and interests that Lieutenant-Colonel Howe may supply the place
of his late brother as your representative in Parliament.’ Isn’t this a
gallant woman?”

“A Laconic woman,” says George.

“How can sons help being brave who have been nursed by such a mother as
that?” asks the General.

Our two young men looked at each other.

“If one of us were to fall in defence of his country, we have a mother
in Sparta who would think and write so too,” says George.

“If Sparta is anywhere Virginia way, I reckon we have,” remarks Mr.
Harry. “And to think that we should both of us have met the enemy, and
both of us been whipped by him, brother!” he adds pensively.

Hetty looks at him, and thinks of him only as he was the other day,
tottering through the water towards the boats, his comrade bleeding on
his shoulder, the enemy in pursuit, the shot flying round. And it was
she who drove him into the danger! Her words provoked him. He never
rebukes her now he is returned. Except when asked, he scarcely speaks
about his adventures at all. He is very grave and courteous with Hetty;
with the rest of the family especially frank and tender. But those
taunts of hers wounded him. “Little hand!” his looks and demeanour seem
to say, “thou shouldst not have been lifted against me! It is ill to
scorn any one, much more one who has been so devoted to you and all
yours. I may not be over quick of wit, but in as far as the heart goes,
I am the equal of the best, and the best of my heart your family has
had.”

Harry’s wrong, and his magnanimous endurance of it, served him to regain
in Miss Hetty’s esteem that place which he had lost during the previous
months’ inglorious idleness. The respect which the fair pay to the brave
she gave him. She was no longer pert in her answers, or sarcastic in her
observations regarding his conduct. In a word, she was a humiliated, an
altered, an improved Miss Hetty.

And all the world seemed to change towards Harry, as he towards the
world. He was no longer sulky and indolent: he no more desponded about
himself, or defied his neighbours. The colonel of his regiment
reported his behaviour as exemplary, and recommended him for one of the
commissions vacated by the casualties during the expedition. Unlucky
as its termination was, it at least was fortunate to him. His
brother-volunteers, when they came back to St. James’s Street, reported
highly of his behaviour. These volunteers and their actions were the
theme of everybody’s praise. Had he been a general commanding, and slain
in the moment of victory, Sir John Armytage could scarce have had more
sympathy than that which the nation showed him. The papers teemed with
letters about him, and men of wit and sensibility vied with each other
in composing epitaphs in his honour. The fate of his affianced bride was
bewailed. She was, as we have said, the sister of the brave Commodore
who had just returned from this unfortunate expedition, and succeeded
to the title of his elder brother, an officer as gallant as himself, who
had just fallen in America.

My Lord Howe was heard to speak in special praise of Mr. Warrington, and
so he had a handsome share of the fashion and favour which the town
now bestowed on the volunteers. Doubtless there were thousands of
men employed who were as good as they but the English ever love their
gentlemen, and love that they should distinguish themselves; and these
volunteers were voted Paladins and heroes by common accord. As our young
noblemen will, they accepted their popularity very affably. White’s and
Almack’s illuminated when they returned, and St. James’s embraced its
young knights. Harry was restored to full favour amongst them.
Their hands were held out eagerly to him again. Even his relations
congratulated him; and there came a letter from Castlewood, whither Aunt
Bernstein had by this time betaken herself, containing praises of his
valour, and a pretty little bank-bill, as a token of his affectionate
aunt’s approbation. This was under my Lord Castlewood’s frank, who sent
his regards to both his kinsmen, and an offer of the hospitality of his
country-house, if they were minded to come to him. And besides this,
there came to him a private letter through the post--not very well
spelt, but in a handwriting which Harry smiled to see again, in which
his affeetionate cousin, Maria Esmond, told him she always loved to hear
his praises (which were in everybody’s mouth now), and sympathised in
his good or evil fortune; and that, whatever occurred to him, she begged
to keep a little place in his heart. Parson Sampson, she wrote, had
preached a beautiful sermon about the horrors of war, and the noble
actions of men who volunteered to face battle and danger in the service
of their country. Indeed, the chaplain wrote himself, presently, a
letter full of enthusiasm, in which he saluted Mr. Harry as his friend,
his benefactor, his glorious hero. Even Sir Miles Warrington despatched
a basket of game from Norfolk: and one bird (shot sitting), with love
to my cousin, had a string and paper round the leg, and was sent as the
first victim of young Miles’s fowling-piece.

And presently, with joy beaming in his countenance, Mr. Lambert came
to visit his young friends at their lodgings in Southampton Row, and
announced to them that Mr. Henry Warrington was forthwith to be gazetted
as Ensign in the Second Battalion of Kingsley’s, the 20th Regiment,
which had been engaged in the campaign, and which now at this time was
formed into a separate regiment, the 67th. Its colonel was not with his
regiment during its expedition to Brittany. He was away at Cape Breton,
and was engaged in capturing those guns at Louisbourg, of which the
arrival in England had caused such exultation.



CHAPTER LXVI. In which we go a-courting


Some of my amiable readers no doubt are in the custom of visiting that
famous garden in the Regent’s Park, in which so many of our finned,
feathered, four-footed fellow-creatures are accommodated with board and
lodging, in return for which they exhibit themselves for our instruction
and amusement: and there, as a man’s business and private thoughts
follow him everywhere, and mix themselves with all life and nature round
about him, I found myself, whilst looking at some fish in the aquarium,
still actually thinking of our friends the Virginians.

One of the most beautiful motion-masters I ever beheld, sweeping through
his green bath in harmonious curves, now turning his black glistening
back to me, now exhibiting his fair white chest, in every movement
active and graceful, turned out to be our old homely friend the
flounder, whom we have all gobbled up out of his bath of water souchy at
Greenwich, without having the slightest idea that he was a beauty.

As is the race of man, so is the race of flounders. If you can but see
the latter in his right element, you may view him agile, healthy, and
comely: put him out of his place, and behold his beauty is gone, his
motions are disgraceful: he flaps the unfeeling ground ridiculously
with his tail, and will presently gasp his feeble life out. Take him
up tenderly, ere it be too late, and cast him into his native Thames
again----But stop: I believe there is a certain proverb about fish out
of water, and that other profound naturalists have remarked on them
before me. Now Harry Warrington had been floundering for ever so long
a time past, and out of his proper element. As soon as he found it,
health, strength, spirits, energy, returned to him, and with the tap of
the epaulet on his shoulder he sprang up an altered being. He delighted
in his new profession; he engaged in all its details, and mastered them
with eager quickness. Had I the skill of my friend Lorrequer, I would
follow the other Harry into camp, and see him on the march, at the
mess, on the parade-ground; I would have many a carouse with him and his
companions; I would cheerfully live with him under the tents; I would
knowingly explain all the manoeuvres of war, and all the details of the
life military. As it is, the reader must please, out of his experience
and imagination, to fill in the colours of the picture of which I can
give but meagre hints and outlines, and, above all, fancy Mr. Harry
Warrington in his new red coat and yellow facings, very happy to bear
the King’s colours, and pleased to learn and perform all the duties of
his new profession.

As each young man delighted in the excellence of the other, and
cordially recognised his brother’s superior qualities, George, we may be
sure, was proud of Harry’s success, and rejoiced in his returning good
fortune. He wrote an affectionate letter to his mother in Virginia,
recounting all the praises which he had heard of Harry, and which his
brother’s modesty, George knew, would never allow him to repeat. He
described how Harry had won his own first step in the army, and how
he, George, would ask his mother leave to share with her the expense of
purchasing a higher rank for him.

Nothing, said George, would give him a greater delight, than to be able
to help his brother, and the more so, as, by his sudden return into
life, as it were, he had deprived Harry of an inheritance which he had
legitimately considered as his own. Labouring under that misconception,
Harry had indulged in greater expenses than he ever would have thought
of incurring as a younger brother; and George thought it was but fair,
and as it were, as a thank-offering for his own deliverance, that he
should contribute liberally to any scheme for his brother’s advantage.

And now, having concluded his statement respecting Harry’s affairs,
George took occasion to speak of his own, and addressed his honoured
mother on a point which very deeply concerned himself. She was aware
that the best friends he and his brother had found in England were the
good Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, the latter Madam Esmond’s schoolfellow of
earlier years. Where their own blood relations had been worldly and
unfeeling, these true friends had ever been generous and kind. The
General was respected by the whole army, and beloved by all who knew
him. No mother’s affection could have been more touching than Mrs.
Lambert’s for both Madam Esmond’s children; and now, wrote Mr. George,
he himself had formed an attachment for the elder Miss Lambert, on which
he thought the happiness of his life depended, and which he besought his
honoured mother to approve. He had made no precise offers to the young
lady or her parents; but he was bound to say that he had made little
disguise of his sentiments, and that the young lady, as well as her
parents, seemed favourable to him. She had been so admirable and
exemplary a daughter to her own mother, that he felt sure she would do
her duty by his. In a word, Mr. Warrington described the young lady as a
model of perfection, and expressed his firm belief that the happiness
or misery of his own future life depended upon possessing or losing her.
Why do you not produce this letter? haply asks some sentimental reader,
of the present Editor, who has said how he has the whole Warrington
correspondence in his hands. Why not? Because ‘tis cruel to babble the
secrets of a young man’s love; to overhear his incoherent vows and
wild raptures, and to note, in cold blood, the secrets--it may be,
the follies--of his passion. Shall we play eavesdropper at twilight
embrasures, count sighs and hand-shakes, bottle hot tears: lay our
stethoscope on delicate young breasts, and feel their heart-throbs? I
protest, for one, love is sacred. Wherever I see it (as one sometimes
may in this world) shooting suddenly out of two pair of eyes; or
glancing sadly even from one pair; or looking down from the mother to
the baby in her lap; or from papa at his girl’s happiness as she is
whirling round the room with the captain; or from John Anderson, as his
old wife comes into the room--the bonne vieille, the ever peerless among
women; wherever we see that signal, I say, let us salute it. It is not
only wrong to kiss and tell, but to tell about kisses. Everybody who
has been admitted to the mystery,--hush about it. Down with him qui Deae
sacrum vulgarit arcanae. Beware how you dine with him, he will print
your private talk: as sure as you sail with him, he will throw you over.

Whilst Harry’s love of battle has led him to smell powder--to rush upon
reluctantes dracones, and to carry wounded comrades out of fire, George
has been pursuing an amusement much more peaceful and delightful to
him; penning sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow, mayhap; pacing in the
darkness under her window, and watching the little lamp which shone upon
her in her chamber; finding all sorts of pretexts for sending little
notes which don’t seem to require little answers, but get them; culling
bits out of his favourite poets, and flowers out of Covent Garden
for somebody’s special adornment and pleasure; walking to St. James’s
Church, singing very likely out of the same Prayer-book, and never
hearing one word of the sermon, so much do other thoughts engross him;
being prodigiously affectionate to all Miss Theo’s relations--to her
little brother and sister at school; to the elder at college; to Miss
Hetty, with whom he engages in gay passages of wit; and to mamma, who is
half in love with him herself, Martin Lambert says; for if fathers are
sometimes sulky at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not
a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were, love their own
loves over again?

Gumbo and Sady are for ever on the trot between Southampton Row and
Dean Street. In the summer months all sorts of junketings and
pleasure-parties are devised; and there are countless proposals to go
to Ranelagh, to Hampstead, to Vauxhall, to Marylebone Gardens, and what
not. George wants the famous tragedy copied out fair for the stage, and
who can write such a beautiful Italian hand as Miss Theo? As the sheets
pass to and fro they are accompanied by little notes of thanks, of
interrogation, of admiration, always. See, here is the packet, marked
in Warrington’s neat hand, “T’s letters, 1758-9.” Shall we open them and
reveal their tender secrets to the public gaze? Those virgin words were
whispered for one ear alone. Years after they were written, the
husband read, no doubt, with sweet pangs of remembrance, the fond lines
addressed to the lover. It were a sacrilege to show the pair to public
eyes: only let kind readers be pleased to take our word that the young
lady’s letters are modest and pure, the gentleman’s most respectful and
tender. In fine, you see, we have said very little about it; but, in
these few last months, Mr. George Warrington has made up his mind that
he has found the woman of women. She mayn’t be the most beautiful. Why,
there is Cousin Flora, there is Coelia, and Ardelia, and a hundred
more, who are ever so much more handsome: but her sweet face pleases him
better than any other in the world. She mayn’t be the most clever, but
her voice is the dearest and pleasantest to hear; and in her company he
is so clever himself; he has such fine thoughts; he uses such eloquent
words; he is so generous, noble, witty, that no wonder he delights in
it. And, in regard to the young lady,--as thank Heaven I never thought
so ill of women as to suppose them to be just, we may be sure that there
is no amount of wit, of wisdom, of beauty, of valour, of virtue with
which she does not endow her young hero.

When George’s letter reached home, we may fancy that it created no small
excitement in the little circle round Madam Esmond’s fireside. So he was
in love, and wished to marry! It was but natural, and would keep him
out of harm’s way. If he proposed to unite himself with a well-bred
Christian young woman, Madam saw no harm.

“I knew they would be setting their caps at him,” says Mountain. “They
fancy that his wealth is as great as his estate. He does not say whether
the young lady has money. I fear otherwise.”

“People would set their caps at him here, I dare say,” says Madam
Esmond, grimly looking at her dependant, “and try and catch Mr. Esmond
Warrington for their own daughters, who are no richer than Miss Lambert
may be.”

“I suppose your ladyship means me!” says Mountain. “My Fanny is poor, as
you say; and ‘tis kind of you to remind me of her poverty!”

“I said people would set their caps at him. If the cap fits you, tant
pis! as my papa used to say.”

“You think, madam, I am scheming to keep George for my daughter? I thank
you, on my word! A good opinion you seem to have of us after the years
we have lived together!”

“My dear Mountain, I know you much better than to suppose you could ever
fancy your daughter would be a suitable match for a gentleman of Mr.
Esmond’s rank and station,” says Madam, with much dignity.

“Fanny Parker was as good as Molly Benson at school, and Mr. Mountain’s
daughter is as good as Mr. Lambert’s!” Mrs. Mountain cries out.

“Then you did think of marrying her to my son! I shall write to
Mr. Esmond Warrington, and say how sorry I am that you should be
disappointed!” says the mistress of Castlewood. And we, for our parts,
may suppose that Mrs. Mountain was disappointed, and had some ambitious
views respecting her daughter--else, why should she have been so angry
at the notion of Mr. Warrington’s marriage?

In reply to her son, Madam Esmond wrote back that she was pleased with
the fraternal love George exhibited; that it was indeed but right in
some measure to compensate Harry, whose expectations had led him to
adopt a more costly mode of life than he would have entered on had he
known he was only a younger son. And with respect to purchasing his
promotion, she would gladly halve the expense with Harry’s elder
brother, being thankful to think his own gallantry had won him his first
step. This bestowal of George’s money, Madam Esmond added, was at least
much more satisfactory than some other extravagances to which she would
not advert.

The other extravagance to which Madam alluded was the payment of the
ransom to the French captain’s family, to which tax George’s mother
never would choose to submit. She had a determined spirit of her own,
which her son inherited. His persistence she called pride and obstinacy.
What she thought of her own pertinacity, her biographer, who lives so
far from her time, does not pretend to say. Only I dare say people
a hundred years ago pretty much resembled their grandchildren of the
present date, and loved to have their own way, and to make others follow
it.

Now, after paying his own ransom, his brother’s debts, and half the
price for his promotion, George calculated that no inconsiderable
portion of his private patrimony would be swallowed up: nevertheless
he made the sacrifice with a perfect good heart. His good mother always
enjoined him in her letters to remember who his grandfather was, and
to support the dignity of his family accordingly. She gave him various
commissions to purchase goods in England, and though she as yet had sent
him very trifling remittances, she alluded so constantly to the exalted
rank of the Esmonds, to her desire that he should do nothing unworthy of
that illustrious family; she advised him so peremptorily and frequently
to appear in the first society of the country, to frequent the court
where his ancestors had been accustomed to move, and to appear always in
the world in a manner worthy of his name, that George made no doubt
his mother’s money would be forthcoming when his own ran short, and
generously obeyed her injunctions as to his style of life. I find in the
Esmond papers of this period, bills for genteel entertainments, tailors’
bills for court suits supplied, and liveries for his honour’s negro
servants and chairmen, horse-dealers’ receipts, and so forth; and am
thus led to believe that the elder of our Virginians was also after a
while living at a considerable expense.

He was not wild or extravagant like his brother. There was no talk of
gambling or racehorses against Mr. George; his table was liberal, his
equipages handsome, his purse always full, the estate to which he was
heir was known to be immense. I mention these circumstances because they
may probably have influenced the conduct both of George and his friends
in that very matter concerning which, as I have said, he and his mother
had been just corresponding. The young heir of Virginia was travelling
for his pleasure and improvement in foreign kingdoms. The queen, his
mother, was in daily correspondence with his Highness, and constantly
enjoined him to act as became his lofty station. There could be no
doubt from her letters that she desired he should live liberally and
magnificently. He was perpetually making purchases at his parent’s
order. She had not settled as yet; on the contrary, she had wrote out by
the last mail for twelve new sets of waggon harness, and an organ
that should play fourteen specified psalm-tunes: which articles George
dutifully ordered. She had not paid as yet, and might not to-day or
to-morrow, but eventually, of course, she would: and Mr. Warrington
never thought of troubling his friends about these calculations, or
discussing with them his mother’s domestic affairs. They, on their side,
took for granted that he was in a state of competence and ease, and,
without being mercenary folks, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert were no doubt
pleased to see an attachment growing up between their daughter and
a young gentleman of such good principles, talents, family, and
expectations. There was honesty in all Mr. Esmond Warrington’s words
and actions, and in his behaviour to the world a certain grandeur and
simplicity, which showed him to be a true gentleman. Somewhat cold and
haughty in his demeanour to strangers, especially towards the great, he
was not in the least supercilious: he was perfectly courteous towards
women, and with those people whom he loved, especially kind, amiable,
lively, and tender.

No wonder that one young woman we know of got to think him the best man
in all the world--alas! not even excepting papa. A great love felt by
a man towards a woman makes him better, as regards her, than all other
men. We have said that George used to wonder himself when he found how
witty, how eloquent, how wise he was, when he talked with the fair young
creature whose heart had become all his.... I say we will not again
listen to their love whispers. Those soft words do not bear being
written down. If you please--good sir, or madam, who are sentimentally
inclined--lay down the book and think over certain things for yourself.
You may be ever so old now; but you remember. It may be all dead and
buried; but in a moment, up it springs out of its grave, and looks, and
smiles, and whispers as of yore when it clung to your arm, and dropped
fresh tears on your heart. It is here, and alive, did I say? O far, far
away! O lonely hearth and cold ashes! Here is the vase, but the roses
are gone; here is the shore, and yonder the ship was moored; but the
anchors are up, and it has sailed away for ever.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This, however, is mere sentimentality;
and as regards George and Theo, is neither here nor there. What I mean
to say is, that the young lady’s family were perfectly satisfied with
the state of affairs between her and Mr. Warrington; and though he had
not as yet asked the decisive question, everybody else knew what the
answer would be when it came.

Mamma perhaps thought the question was a long time coming.

“Psha! my dear!” says the General. “There is time enough in all
conscience. Theo is not much more than seventeen; George, if I mistake
not, is under forty; and, besides, he must have time to write to
Virginia, and ask mamma.”

“But suppose she refuses?”

“That will be a bad day for old and young,” says the General, “Let us
rather say, suppose she consents, my love?--I can’t fancy anybody in the
world refusing Theo anything she has set her heart on,” adds the father:
“and I am sure ‘tis bent upon this match.”

So they all waited with the utmost anxiety until an answer from Madam
Esmond should arrive; and trembled lest the French privateers should
take the packet-ship by which the precious letter was conveyed.



CHAPTER LXVII. In which a Tragedy is acted, and two more are begun


James Wolfe, Harry’s new Colonel, came back from America a few weeks
after our Virginian had joined his regiment. Wolfe had previously been
Lieutenant-Colonel of Kingsley’s, and a second battalion of the regiment
had been formed and given to him in reward for his distinguished
gallantry and services at Cape Breton. Harry went with quite unfeigned
respect and cordiality to pay his duty to his new commander, on whom the
eyes of the world began to be turned now,--the common opinion being that
he was likely to become a great general. In the late affairs in France,
several officers of great previous repute had been tried and found
lamentably wanting. The Duke of Marlborough had shown himself no worthy
descendant of his great ancestor. About my Lord George Sackville’s
military genius there were doubts, even before his unhappy behaviour at
Minden prevented a great victory. The nation was longing for military
glory, and the Minister was anxious to find a general who might gratify
the eager desire of the people. Mr. Wolfe’s and Mr. Lambert’s business
keeping them both in London, the friendly intercourse between those
officers was renewed, no one being more delighted than Lambert at his
younger friend’s good fortune.

Harry, when he was away from his duty, was never tired of hearing Mr.
Wolfe’s details of the military operations of the last year, about which
Wolfe talked very freely and openly. Whatever thought was in his
mind, he appears to have spoken it out generously. He had that heroic
simplicity which distinguished Nelson afterwards: he talked frankly of
his actions. Some of the fine gentlemen at St. James’s might wonder and
sneer at him; but amongst our little circle of friends we may be sure he
found admiring listeners. The young General had the romance of a boy on
many matters. He delighted in music and poetry. On the last day of his
life he said he would rather have written Gray’s Elegy than have won a
battle. We may be sure that with a gentleman of such literary tastes our
friend George would become familiar; and as they were both in love, and
both accepted lovers, and both eager for happiness, no doubt they must
have had many sentimental conversations together which would be very
interesting to report could we only have accurate accounts of them. In
one of his later letters, Warrington writes:

“I had the honour of knowing the famous General Wolfe, and seeing much
of him during his last stay in London. We had a subject of conversation
then which was of unfailing interest to both of us, and I could not but
admire Mr. Wolfe’s simplicity, his frankness, and a sort of glorious
bravery which characterised him. He was much in love, and he wanted
heaps and heaps of laurels to take to his mistress. ‘If it be a sin to
covet honour,’ he used to say with Harry the Fifth (he was passionately
fond of plays and poetry), ‘I am the most offending soul alive.’ Surely
on his last day he had a feast which was enough to satisfy the greediest
appetite for glory. He hungered after it. He seemed to me not merely
like a soldier going resolutely to do his duty, but rather like a knight
in quest of dragons and giants. My own country has furnished of late a
chief of a very different order, and quite an opposite genius. I scarce
know which to admire most. The Briton’s chivalrous ardour, or the more
than Roman constancy of our great Virginian.”

As Mr. Lambert’s official duties detained him in London, his family
remained contentedly with him, and I suppose Mr. Warrington was so
satisfied with the rural quiet of Southampton Row and the beautiful
flowers and trees of Bedford Gardens, that he did not care to quit
London for any long period. He made his pilgrimage to Castlewood, and
passed a few days there, occupying the chamber of which he had often
heard his grandfather talk, and which Colonel Esmond had occupied as a
boy and he was received kindly enough by such members of the family as
happened to be at home. But no doubt he loved better to be in London by
the side of a young person in whose society he found greater pleasure
than any which my Lord Castlewood’s circle could afford him, though all
the ladies were civil, and Lady Maria especially gracious, and enchanted
with the tragedy which George and Parson Sampson read out to the ladies.
The chaplain was enthusiastic in its praises, and indeed it was
through his interest and not through Mr. Johnson’s after all, that Mr.
Warrington’s piece ever came on the stage. Mr. Johnson, it is true,
pressed the play on his friend Mr. Garrick for Drury Lane, but Garrick
had just made an arrangement with the famous Mr. Home for a tragedy from
the pen of the author of Douglas. Accordingly, Carpezan was carried to
Mr. Rich at Covent Garden, and accepted by that manager.

On the night of the production of the piece, Mr. Warrington gave an
elegant entertainment to his friends at the Bedford Head, in Covent
Garden, whence they adjourned in a body to the theatre; leaving only one
or two with our young author, who remained at the coffee-house,
where friends from time to time came to him with an account of the
performance. The part of Carpezan was filled by Barry, Shuter was the
old nobleman, Reddish, I need scarcely say, made an excellent Ulric, and
the King of Bohemia was by a young actor from Dublin, Mr. Geoghegan, or
Hagan as he was called on the stage, and who looked and performed the
part to admiration. Mrs. Woffington looked too old in the first act as
the heroine, but her murder in the fourth act, about which great doubts
were expressed, went off to the terror and delight of the audience. Miss
Wayn sang the ballad which is supposed to be sung by the king’s page,
just at the moment of the unhappy wife’s execution, and all agreed that
Barry was very terrible and pathetic as Carpezan, especially in the
execution scene. The grace and elegance of the young actor, Hagan, won
general applause. The piece was put very elegantly on the stage by Mr.
Rich, though there was some doubt whether, in the march of Janissaries
in the last, the manager was correct in introducing a favourite
elephant, which had figured in various pantomimes, and by which one of
Mr. Warrington’s black servants marched in a Turkish habit. The other
sate in the footman’s gallery, and uproariously wept and applauded at
the proper intervals.

The execution of Sybilla was the turning-point of the piece. Her head
off, George’s friends breathed freely, and one messenger after another
came to him at the coffee-house, to announce the complete success of
the tragedy. Mr. Barry, amidst general applause, announced the play for
repetition, and that it was the work of a young gentleman of Virginia,
his first attempt in the dramatic style.

We should like to have been in the box where all our friends were seated
during the performance, to have watched Theo’s flutter and anxiety
whilst the success of the play seemed dubious, and have beheld the
blushes and the sparkles in her eyes, when the victory was assured.
Harry, during the little trouble in the fourth act, was deadly
pale--whiter, Mrs. Lambert said, than Barry, with all his chalk. But
if Briareus could have clapped hands, he could scarcely have made more
noise than Harry at the end of the piece. Mr. Wolfe and General Lambert
huzzayed enthusiastically. Mrs. Lambert, of course, cried: and though
Hetty said, “Why do you cry, mamma? I you don’t want any of them alive
again; you know it serves them all right”--the girl was really as much
delighted as any person present, including little Charley from the
Chartreux, who had leave from Dr. Crusius for that evening, and Miss
Lucy, who had been brought from boarding-school on purpose to be present
on the great occasion. My Lord Castlewood and his sister, Lady Maria,
were present; and his lordship went from his box and complimented
Mr. Barry and the other actors on the stage; and Parson Sampson was
invaluable in the pit, where he led the applause, having, I believe,
given previous instructions to Gumbo to keep an eye upon him from the
gallery, and do as he did.

Be sure there was a very jolly supper of Mr. Warrington’s friends that
night--much more jolly than Mr. Garrick’s, for example, who made but a
very poor success with his Agis and its dreary choruses, and who must
have again felt that he had missed a good chance, in preferring Mr.
Home’s tragedy to our young author’s. A jolly supper, did we say?--Many
jolly suppers. Mr. Gumbo gave an entertainment to several gentlemen
of the shoulder-knot, who had concurred in supporting his master’s
masterpiece: Mr. Henry Warrington gave a supper at the Star and Garter,
in Pall Mall, to ten officers of his new regiment, who had come up for
the express purpose of backing Carpezan; and finally, Mr. Warrington
received the three principal actors of the tragedy, our family party
from the side box, Mr. Johnson and his ingenious friend, Mr. Reynolds
the painter, my Lord Castlewood and his sister, and one or two more. My
Lady Maria happened to sit next to the young actor who had performed the
part of the King. Mr. Warrington somehow had Miss Theo for a neighbour,
and no doubt passed a pleasant evening beside her. The greatest
animation and cordiality prevailed, and when toasts were called, Lady
Maria gaily gave “The King of Hungary” for hers. That gentleman, who had
plenty of eloquence and fire, and excellent manners, on as well as off
the stage, protested that he had already suffered death in the course of
the evening, hoped that he should die a hundred times more on the same
field; but, dead or living, vowed he knew whose humble servant he ever
should be. Ah, if he had but a real crown in place of his diadem of
pasteboard and tinsel, with what joy would he lay it at her ladyship’s
feet! Neither my lord nor Mr. Esmond were over well pleased with the
gentleman’s exceeding gallantry--a part of which they attributed, no
doubt justly, to the wine and punch, of which he had been partaking very
freely. Theo and her sister, who were quite new to the world, were a
little frightened by the exceeding energy of Mr. Hagan’s manner--but
Lady Maria, much more experienced, took it in perfectly good part. At
a late hour coaches were called, to which the gentlemen attended the
ladies, after whose departure some of them returned to the supper-room,
and the end was that Carpezan had to be carried away in a chair, and
that the King of Hungary had a severe headache; and that the Poet,
though he remembered making a great number of speeches, was quite
astounded when half a dozen of his guests appeared at his house the next
day, whom he had invited overnight to come and sup with him once more.

As he put Mrs. Lambert and her daughters into their coach on the night
previous, all the ladies were flurried, delighted, excited; and you may
be sure our gentleman was with them the next day, to talk of the play
and the audience, and the actors, and the beauties of the piece, over
and over again. Mrs. Lambert had heard that the ladies of the theatre
were dangerous company for young men. She hoped George would have a
care, and not frequent the greenroom too much.

George smiled, and said he had a preventive against all greenroom
temptations, of which he was not in the least afraid; and as he spoke he
looked in Theo’s face, as if in those eyes lay the amulet which was to
preserve him from all danger.

“Why should he be afraid, mamma?” asks the maiden simply. She had no
idea of danger or of guile.

“No, my darling, I don’t think he need be afraid,” says the mother,
kissing her.

“You don’t suppose Mr. George would fall in love with that painted old
creature who performed the chief part?” asks Miss Hetty, with a toss of
her head. “She must be old enough to be his mother.”

“Pray, do you suppose that at our age nobody can care for us, or that we
have no hearts left?” asks mamma, very tartly. “I believe, or I may
say, I hope and trust, your father thinks otherwise. He is, I imagine,
perfectly satisfied, miss. He does not sneer at age, whatever little
girls out of the schoolroom may do. And they had much better be back
there, and they had much better remember what the fifth commandment
is--that they had, Hetty!”

“I didn’t think I was breaking it by saying that an actress was as old
as George’s mother,” pleaded Hetty.

“George’s mother is as old as I am, miss!--at least she was when we were
at school. And Fanny Parker--Mrs. Mountain who now is--was seven months
older, and we were in the French class together; and I have no idea
that our age is to be made the subject of remarks and ridicule by
our children, and I will thank you to spare it, if you please! Do you
consider your mother too old, George?”

“I am glad my mother is of your age, Aunt Lambert,” says George, in the
most sentimental manner.

Strange infatuation of passion--singular perversity of reason! At some
period before his marriage, it not unfrequently happens that a man
actually is fond of his mother-in-law! At this time our good General
vowed, and with some reason, that he was jealous. Mrs. Lambert made much
more of George than of any other person in the family. She dressed up
Theo to the utmost advantage in order to meet him; she was for ever
caressing her, and appealing to her when he spoke. It was, “Don’t
you think he looks well?”--“Don’t you think he looks pale, Theo,
to-day?”--“Don’t you think he has been sitting up over his books too
much at night?” and so forth. If he had a cold, she would have liked to
make gruel for him and see his feet in hot water. She sent him recipes
of her own for his health. When he was away, she never ceased talking
about him to her daughter. I dare say Miss Theo liked the subject well
enough. When he came, she was sure to be wanted in some other part of
the house, and would bid Theo take care of him till she returned. Why,
before she returned to the room, could you hear her talking outside the
door to her youngest innocent children, to her servants in the upper
regions, and so forth? When she reappeared, was not Mr. George always
standing or sitting at a considerable distance from Miss Theo--except,
to be sure, on that one day when she had just happened to drop her
scissors, and he had naturally stooped down to pick them up? Why was she
blushing? Were not youthful cheeks made to blush, and roses to bloom in
the spring? Not that mamma ever noted the blushes, but began quite an
artless conversation about this or that, as she sate down brimful of
happiness to her worktable.

And at last there came a letter from Virginia in Madam Esmond’s neat,
well-known hand, and over which George trembled and blushed before he
broke the seal. It was in answer to the letter which he had sent home,
respecting his brother’s commission and his own attachment to Miss
Lambert. Of his intentions respecting Harry, Madam Esmond fully
approved. As for his marriage, she was not against early marriages. She
would take his picture of Miss Lambert with the allowance that was to be
made for lovers’ portraits, and hope, for his sake, that the young lady
was all he described her to be. With money, as Madam Esmond gathered
from her son’s letter, she did not appear to be provided at all, which
was a pity, as, though wealthy in land, their family had but little
ready-money. However, by Heaven’s blessing, there was plenty at home for
children and children’s children, and the wives of her sons should share
all she had. When she heard more at length from Mr. and Mrs. Lambert,
she would reply for her part more fully. She did not pretend to say that
she had not greater hopes for her son, as a gentleman of his name and
prospects might pretend to the hand of the first lady of the land; but
as Heaven had willed that her son’s choice should fall upon her old
friend’s daughter, she acquiesced, and would welcome George’s wife as
her own child. This letter was brought by Mr. Van den Bosch of Albany,
who had lately bought a very large estate in Virginia, and who was bound
for England to put his granddaughter to a boarding-school. She, Madam
Esmond, was not mercenary, nor was it because this young lady was
heiress of a very great fortune that she desired her sons to pay Mr. Van
d. B. every attention. Their properties lay close together, and could
Harry find in the young lady those qualities of person and mind suitable
for a companion for life, at least she would have the satisfaction of
seeing both her children near her in her declining years. Madam Esmond
concluded by sending her affectionate compliments to Mrs. Lambert, from
whom she begged to hear further, and her blessing to the young lady who
was to be her daughter-in-law.

The letter was not cordial, and the writer evidently but half satisfied;
but, such as it was, her consent was here formally announced. How
eagerly George ran away to Soho with the long-desired news in his
pocket! I suppose our worthy friends there must have read his news in
his countenance--else why should Mrs. Lambert take her daughter’s hand
and kiss her with such uncommon warmth, when George announced that
he had received letters from home? Then, with a break in his voice, a
pallid face, and a considerable tremor, turning to Mr. Lambert, he said:
“Madam Esmond’s letter, sir, is in reply to one of mine, in which I
acquainted her that I had formed an attachment in England, for which I
asked my mother’s approval. She gives her consent, I am grateful to say,
and I have to pray my dear friends to be equally kind to me.”

“God bless thee, my dear boy!” says the good General, laying a hand on
the young man’s head. “I am glad to have thee for a son, George. There,
there, don’t go down on your knees, young folks! George may, to be sure,
and thank God for giving him the best little wife in all England. Yes,
my dear, except when you were ill, you never caused me a heartache--and
happy is the man, I say, who wins thee!”

I have no doubt the young people knelt before their parents, as was the
fashion in those days; and am perfectly certain that Mrs. Lambert kissed
both of them, and likewise bedewed her pocket-handkerchief in the most
plentiful manner. Hetty was not present at this sentimental scene, and
when she heard of it, spoke with considerable asperity, and a laugh that
was by no means pleasant, saying: “Is this all the news you have to give
me? Why, I have known it these months past. Do you think I have no eyes
to see, and no ears to hear, indeed?” But in private she was much
more gentle. She flung herself on her sister’s neck, embracing her
passionately, and vowing that never, never would Theo find any one to
love her like her sister. With Theo she became entirely mild and humble.
She could not abstain from her jokes and satire with George, but he was
too happy to heed her much, and too generous not to see the cause of her
jealousy.

When all parties concerned came to read Madam Esmond’s letter, that
document, it is true, appeared rather vague. It contained only a promise
that she would receive the young people at her house, and no sort
of proposal for a settlement. The General shook his head over the
letter--he did not think of examining it until some days after the
engagement had been made between George and his daughter: but now he
read Madam Esmond’s words, they gave him but small encouragement.

“Bah!” says George. “I shall have three hundred pounds for my tragedy. I
can easily write a play a year; and if the worst comes to the worst, we
can live on that.”

“On that and your patrimony,” says Theo’s father.

George now had to explain, with some hesitation, that what with paying
bills for his mother, and Harry’s commission and debts, and his own
ransom--George’s patrimony proper was well-nigh spent.

Mr. Lambert’s countenance looked graver still at this announcement, but
he saw his girl’s eyes turned towards him with an alarm so tender, that
he took her in his arms and vowed that, let the worst come to the worst,
his darling should not be balked of her wish.

About the going back to Virginia, George frankly owned that he little
liked the notion of returning to be entirely dependent on his mother.
He gave General Lambert an idea of his life at home, and explained how
little to his taste that slavery was. No. Why should he not stay in
England, write more tragedies, study for the bar, get a place, perhaps?
Why, indeed? He straightway began to form a plan for another tragedy.
He brought portions of his work, from time to time, to Miss Theo and her
sister: Hetty yawned over the work, but Theo pronounced it to be still
more beautiful and admirable than the last, which was perfect.

The engagement of our young friends was made known to the members of
their respective families, and announced to Sir Miles Warrington, in
a ceremonious letter from his nephew. For a while Sir Miles saw no
particular objection to the marriage; though, to be sure, considering
his name and prospects, Mr. Warrington might have looked higher. The
truth was, that Sir Miles imagined that Madam Esmond had made some
considerable settlement on her son, and that his circumstances were more
than easy. But when he heard that George was entirely dependent on his
mother, and that his own small patrimony was dissipated, as Harry’s had
been before, Sir Miles’s indignation at his nephew’s imprudence knew no
bounds; he could not find words to express his horror and anger at the
want of principle exhibited by both these unhappy young men: he thought
it his duty to speak his mind about them, and wrote his opinion to his
sister Esmond in Virginia. As for General and Mrs. Lambert, who passed
for respectable persons, was it to be borne that such people should
inveigle a penniless young man into a marriage with their penniless
daughter? Regarding them, and George’s behaviour, Sir Miles fully
explained his views to Madam Esmond, gave half a finger to George
whenever his nephew called on him in town, and did not even invite him
to partake of the famous family small-beer. Towards Harry his uncle
somewhat unbent; Harry had done his duty in the campaign, and was
mentioned with praise in high quarters. He had sown his wild oats,--he
at least was endeavouring to amend; but George was a young prodigal,
fast careering to ruin, and his name was only mentioned in the family
with a groan. Are there any poor fellows nowadays, I wonder, whose
polite families fall on them and persecute them; groan over them
and stone them, and hand stones to their neighbours that they may do
likewise? All the patrimony spent! Gracious heavens! Sir Miles turned
pale when he saw his nephew coming. Lady Warrington prayed for him as a
dangerous reprobate; and, in the meantime, George was walking the town,
quite unconscious that he was occasioning so much wrath and so much
devotion. He took little Miley to the play and brought him back again.
He sent tickets to his aunt and cousins which they could not refuse, you
know; it would look too marked were they to break altogether. So they
not only took the tickets, but whenever country constituents came to
town they asked for more, taking care to give the very worst motives
to George’s intimacy with the theatre, and to suppose that he and the
actresses were on terms of the most disgraceful intimacy. An august
personage having been to the theatre, and expressed his approbation
of Mr. Warrington’s drama to Sir Miles, when he attended his R-y-l
H-ghn-ss’s levee at Saville House, Sir Miles, to be sure, modified his
opinion regarding the piece, and spoke henceforth more respectfully of
it. Meanwhile, as we have said, George was passing his life entirely
careless of the opinion of all the uncles, aunts, and cousins in the
world.

Most of the Esmond cousins were at least more polite and cordial than
George’s kinsfolk of the Warrington side. In spite of his behaviour over
the cards, Lord Castlewood, George always maintained, had a liking for
our Virginians, and George was pleased enough to be in his company. He
was a far abler man than many who succeeded in life. He had a good name,
and somehow only stained it; a considerable wit, and nobody trusted it;
and a very shrewd experience and knowledge of mankind, which made him
mistrust them, and himself most of all, and which perhaps was the bar
to his own advancement. My Lady Castlewood, a woman of the world, wore
always a bland mask, and received Mr. George with perfect civility,
and welcomed him to lose as many guineas as he liked at her ladyship’s
card-tables. Between Mr. William and the Virginian brothers there never
was any love lost; but, as for Lady Maria, though her love affair was
over, she had no rancour; she professed for her cousins a very
great regard and affection, a part of which the young gentlemen very
gratefully returned. She was charmed to hear of Harry’s valour in the
campaign; she was delighted with George’s success at the theatre; she
was for ever going to the play, and had all the favourite passages of
Carpezan by heart. One day, as Mr. George and Miss Theo were taking a
sentimental walk in Kensington Gardens, whom should they light upon
but their cousin Maria in company with a gentleman in a smart suit and
handsome laced hat, and who should the gentleman be but his Majesty
King Louis of Hungary, Mr. Hagan? He saluted the party, and left them
presently. Lady Maria had only just happened to meet him. Mr. Hagan came
sometimes, he said, for quiet, to study his parts in Kensington Gardens,
and George and the two ladies walked together to Lord Castlewood’s door
in Kensington Square, Lady Maria uttering a thousand compliments to Theo
upon her good looks, upon her virtue, upon her future happiness, upon
her papa and mamma, upon her destined husband, upon her paduasoy cloak
and dear little feet and shoe-buckles.

Harry happened to come to London that evening, and slept at his
accustomed quarters. When George appeared at breakfast, the Captain
was already in the room (the custom of that day was to call all army
gentlemen Captains), and looking at the letters on the breakfast-table.

“Why, George,” he cries, “there is a letter from Maria!”

“Little boy bring it from Common Garden last night--Master George
asleep,” says Gumbo.

“What can it be about?” asks Harry, as George peruses his letter with a
queer expression of face.

“About my play, to be sure,” George answers, tearing up the paper, and
still wearing his queer look.

“What, she is not writing love-letters to you, is she, Georgy?”

“No, certainly not to me,” replies the other. But he spoke no word more
about the letter; and when at dinner in Dean Street Mrs. Lambert said,
“So you met somebody walking with the King of Hungary yesterday in
Kensington Gardens?”

“What little tell-tale told you? A mere casual rencontre--the King goes
there to study his parts, and Lady Maria happened to be crossing the
garden to visit some of the other King’s servants at Kensington Palace.”
 And so there was an end to that matter for the time being.

Other events were at hand fraught with interest to our Virginians. One
evening after Christmas, the two gentlemen, with a few more friends,
were met round General Lambert’s supper-table; and among the company was
Harry’s new Colonel of the 67th, Major-General Wolfe. The young General
was more than ordinarily grave. The conversation all related to the war.
Events of great importance were pending. The great minister now in power
was determined to carry on the war on a much more extended scale than
had been attempted hitherto: an army was ordered to Germany to help
Prince Ferdinand, another great expedition was preparing for America,
and here, says Mr. Lambert, “I will give you the health of the
Commander--a glorious campaign, and a happy return to him!”

“Why do you not drink the toast, General James!” asked the hostess of
her guest.

“He must not drink his own toast,” says General Lambert; “it is we must
do that!”

What? was James appointed?--All the ladies must drink such a toast as
that, and they mingled their kind voices with the applause of the rest
of the company.

Why did he look so melancholy? the ladies asked of one another when they
withdrew. In after days they remembered his pale face.

“Perhaps he has been parting from his sweetheart,” suggests
tender-hearted Mrs. Lambert. And at this sentimental notion, no doubt
all the ladies looked sad.

The gentlemen, meanwhile, continued their talk about the war and its
chances. Mr. Wolfe did not contradict the speakers when they said that
the expedition was to be directed against Canada.

“Ah, sir,” says Harry, “I wish your regiment was going with you, and
that I might pay another visit to my old friends at Quebec.”

What, had Harry been there? Yes. He described his visit to the place
five years before, and knew the city, and the neighbourhood, well. He
lays a number of bits of biscuit on the table before him, and makes
a couple of rivulets of punch on each side. “This fork is the Isle
d’Orleans,” says he, “with the north and south branches of St. Lawrence
on each side. Here’s the Low Town, with a battery--how many guns was
mounted there in our time, brother?--but at long shots from the St.
Joseph shore you might play the same game. Here’s what they call the
little river, the St. Charles, and a bridge of boats with a tete du pont
over to the place of arms. Here’s the citadel, and here’s convents--ever
so many convents--and the cathedral; and here, outside the lines to the
west and south, is what they call the Plains of Abraham--where a certain
little affair took place, do you remember, brother? He and a young
officer of the Rousillon regiment ca ca’d at each other for twenty
minutes, and George pinked him, and then they jure’d each other an
amitie eternelle. Well it was for George: for his second saved his life
on that awful day of Braddock’s defeat. He was a fine little fellow, and
I give his toast: Je bois a la sante du Chevalier de Florac!”

“What, can you speak French, too, Harry?” asks Mr. Wolfe. The young man
looked at the General with eager eyes.

“Yes,” says he, “I can speak, but not so well as George.”

“But he remembers the city, and can place the batteries, you see, and
knows the ground a thousand times better than I do!” cries the elder
brother.

The two elder officers exchanged looks with one another; Mr. Lambert
smiled and nodded, as if in reply to the mute queries of his comrade: on
which the other spoke. “Mr. Harry,” he said, “if you have had enough of
fine folks, and White’s, and horse-racing----”

“Oh, sir!” says the young man, turning very red.

“And if you have a mind to a sea voyage at a short notice, come and see
me at my lodgings to-morrow.”

What was that sudden uproar of cheers which the ladies heard in their
drawing-room? It was the hurrah which Harry Warrington gave when he
leaped up at hearing the General’s invitation.

The women saw no more of the gentlemen that night. General Lambert had
to be away upon his business early next morning, before seeing any
of his family; nor had he mentioned a word of Harry’s outbreak on the
previous evening. But when he rejoined his folks at dinner, a look at
Miss Hetty’s face informed the worthy gentleman that she knew what had
passed on the night previous, and what was about to happen to the young
Virginian. After dinner Mrs. Lambert sat demurely at her work, Miss
Theo took her book of Italian Poetry. Neither of the General’s customary
guests happened to be present that evening.

He took little Hetty’s hand in his, and began to talk with her. He
did not allude to the subject which he knew was uppermost in her mind,
except that by a more than ordinary gentleness and kindness he perhaps
caused her to understand that her thoughts were known to him.

“I have breakfasted,” says he, “with James Wolfe this morning, and our
friend Harry was of the party. When he and the other guests were gone, I
remained and talked with James about the great expedition on which he is
going to sail. Would that his brave father had lived a few months longer
to see him come back covered with honours from Louisbourg, and knowing
that all England was looking to him to achieve still greater glory!
James is dreadfully ill in body--so ill that I am frightened for
him--and not a little depressed in mind at having to part from the young
lady whom he has loved so long. A little rest, he thinks, might have set
his shattered frame up; and to call her his has been the object of his
life. But, great as his love is (and he is as romantic as one of you
young folks of seventeen), honour and duty are greater, and he leaves
home, and wife, and ease, and health, at their bidding. Every man of
honour would do the like; every woman who loves him truly would buckle
on his armour for him. James goes to take leave of his mother to-night;
and though she loves him devotedly, and is one of the tenderest women
in the world, I am sure she will show no sign of weakness at his going
away.”

“When does he sail, papa?” the girl asked.

“He will be on board in five days.” And Hetty knew quite well who sailed
with him.



CHAPTER LXVIII. In which Harry goes westward


Our tender hearts are averse to all ideas and descriptions of parting;
and I shall therefore say nothing of Harry Warrington’s feelings at
taking leave of his brother and friends. Were not thousands of men in
the same plight? Had not Mr. Wolfe his mother to kiss (his brave father
had quitted life during his son’s absence on the glorious Louisbourg
campaign), and his sweetheart to clasp in a farewell embrace? Had not
stout Admiral Holmes, before sailing westward with his squadron, The
Somerset, The Terrible, The Northumberland, The Royal William, The
Trident, The Diana, The Seahorse--his own flag being hoisted on board
The Dublin--to take leave of Mrs. and the Misses Holmes? Was Admiral
Saunders, who sailed the day after him, exempt from human feeling?
Away go William and his crew of jovial sailors, ploughing through the
tumbling waves, and poor Black-eyed Susan on shore watches the ship as
it dwindles in the sunset.

It dwindles in the West. The night falls darkling over the ocean. They
are gone: but their hearts are at home yet a while. In silence, with a
heart inexpressibly soft and tender, how each man thinks of those he has
left! What a chorus of pitiful prayer rises up to the Father, at sea and
on shore, on that parting night at home by the vacant bedside, where
the wife kneels in tears; round the fire, where the mother and children
together pour out their supplications: or on deck, where the seafarer
looks up to the stars of heaven, as the ship cleaves through the roaring
midnight waters! To-morrow the sun rises upon our common life again, and
we commence our daily task of toil and duty.

George accompanies his brother, and stays a while with him at Portsmouth
whilst they are waiting for a wind. He shakes Mr. Wolfe’s hand, looks
at his pale face for the last time, and sees the vessels depart amid the
clangour of bells, and the thunder of cannon from the shore. Next day he
is back at his home, and at that business which is sure one of the most
selfish and absorbing of the world’s occupations, to which almost every
man who is thirty years old has served ere this his apprenticeship. He
has a pang of sadness, as he looks in at the lodgings to the little room
which Harry used to occupy, and sees his half-burned papers still in
the grate. In a few minutes he is on his way to Dean Street again,
and whispering by the fitful firelight in the ear of the clinging
sweetheart. She is very happy--oh, so happy! at his return. She is
ashamed of being so. Is it not heartless to be so, when poor Hetty is so
melancholy? Poor little Hetty! Indeed, it is selfish to be glad when she
is in such a sad way. It makes one quite wretched to see her. “Don’t,
sir! Well, I ought to be wretched, and it’s very, very wicked of me if
I’m not,” says Theo; and one can understand her soft-hearted repentance.
What she means by “Don’t” who can tell? I have said the room was dark,
and the fire burned fitfully--and “Don’t” is no doubt uttered in one
of the dark fits. Enter servants with supper and lights. The family
arrives; the conversation becomes general. The destination of the fleet
is known everywhere now. The force on board is sufficient to beat all
the French in Canada; and, under such an officer as Wolfe, to repair the
blunders and disasters of previous campaigns. He looked dreadfully ill,
indeed. But he has a great soul in a feeble body. The ministers, the
country hope the utmost from him. After supper, according to custom, Mr.
Lambert assembles his modest household, of whom George Warrington may
be said quite to form a part; and as he prays for all travellers by land
and water, Theo and her sister are kneeling together. And so, as the
ship speeds farther and farther into the West, the fond thoughts pursue
it; and the night passes, and the sun rises.

A day or two more, and everybody is at his books or his usual work. As
for George Warrington, that celebrated dramatist is busy about another
composition. When the tragedy of Carpezan had run some thirty or
twoscore nights, other persons of genius took possession of the theatre.

There may have been persons who wondered how the town could be so fickle
as ever to tire of such a masterpiece as the Tragedy--who could not bear
to see the actors dressed in other habits, reciting other men’s verses;
but George, of a sceptical turn of mind, took the fate of his Tragedy
very philosophically, and pocketed the proceeds with much quiet
satisfaction. From Mr. Dodsley, the bookseller, he had the usual
complement of a hundred pounds; from the manager of the theatre two
hundred or more; and such praises from the critics and his friends, that
he set to work to prepare another piece, with which he hoped to achieve
even greater successes than by his first performance.

Over these studies, and the other charming business which occupies him,
months pass away. Happy business! Happiest time of youth and life,
when love is first spoken and returned; when the dearest eyes are daily
shining welcome, and the fondest lips never tire of whispering their
sweet secrets; when the parting look that accompanies “Good night!”
 gives delightful warning of to-morrow; when the heart is so overflowing
with love and happiness, that it has to spare for all the world; when
the day closes with glad prayers, and opens with joyful hopes; when
doubt seems cowardice, misfortune impossible, poverty only a sweet trial
of constancy! Theo’s elders, thankfully remembering their own prime,
sit softly by and witness this pretty comedy performed by their young
people. And in one of his later letters, dutifully written to his wife
during a temporary absence from home, George Warrington records how he
had been to look up at the windows of the dear old house in Dean Street,
and wondered who was sitting in the chamber where he and Theo had been
so happy.

Meanwhile we can learn how the time passes, and our friends are engaged,
by some extracts from George’s letters to his brother.


“From the old window opposite Bedford Gardens, this 20th August 1759.

“Why are you gone back to rugged rocks, bleak shores, burning summers,
nipping winters, at home, when you might have been cropping ever so many
laurels in Germany? Kingsley’s are coming back as covered with ‘em as
Jack-a-Green on May-day. Our six regiments did wonders; and our horse
would have done if my Lord George Sackville only had let them. But when
Prince Ferdinand said ‘Charge!’ his lordship could not hear, or could
not translate the German word for ‘Forward;’ and so we only beat the
French, without utterly annihilating them, as we might, had Lord Granby
or Mr. Warrington had the command. My lord is come back to town, and
is shouting for a Court-Martial. He held his head high enough in
prosperity: in misfortune he shows such a constancy of arrogance that
one almost admires him. He looks as if he rather envied poor Mr. Byng,
and the not shooting him were a manque d’egards towards him.

“The Duke has had notice to get himself in readiness for departing
from this world of grandeurs and victories, and downfalls and
disappointments. An attack of palsy has visited his Royal Highness; and
pallida mors has just peeped in at his door, as it were, and said,
‘I will call again.’ Tyrant as he was, this prince has been noble in
disgrace; and no king has ever had a truer servant than ours has found
in his son. Why do I like the losing side always, and am I disposed to
revolt against the winners? Your famous Mr. P----, your chief’s patron
and discoverer, I have been to hear in the House of Commons twice or
thrice. I revolt against his magniloquence. I wish some little David
would topple over that swelling giant. His thoughts and his language are
always attitudinising. I like Barry’s manner best, though the other is
the more awful actor.

“Pocahontas gets on apace. Barry likes his part of Captain Smith; and,
though he will have him wear a red coat and blue facings and an epaulet,
I have a fancy to dress him exactly like one of the pictures of Queen
Elizabeth’s gentlemen at Hampton Court: with a ruff and a square beard
and square shoes. ‘And Pocahontas--would you like her to be tattooed?’
asks Uncle Lambert. Hagan’s part as the warrior who is in love with
her, and, seeing her partiality for the captain, nobly rescues him from
death, I trust will prove a hit. A strange fish is this Hagan: his mouth
full of stage-plays and rant, but good, honest, and brave, if I don’t
err. He is angry at having been cast lately for Sir O’Brallaghan, in Mr.
Macklin’s new farce of Love A-la-mode. He says that he does not keer to
disgreece his tongue with imiteetions of that rascal brogue. As if there
was any call for imiteetions, when he has such an admirable twang of his
own!

“Shall I tell you? Shall I hide the circumstance? Shall I hurt your
feelings? Shall I set you in a rage of jealousy, and cause you to ask
for leave to return to Europe? Know, then, that though Carpezan is
long since dead, cousin Maria is for ever coming to the playhouse. Tom
Spencer has spied her out night after night in the gallery, and
she comes on the nights when Hagan performs. Quick, Burroughs, Mr.
Warrington’s boots and portmanteau! Order a chaise and four for
Portsmouth immediately! The letter which I burned one morning when we
were at breakfast (I may let the cat out of the bag, now puss has such a
prodigious way to run) was from cousin M., hinting that she wished me
to tell no tales about her: but I can’t help just whispering to you
that Maria at this moment is busy consoling herself as fast as possible.
Shall I spoil sport? Shall I tell her brother? Is the affair any
business of mine? What have the Esmonds done for you and me but win
our money at cards? Yet I like our noble cousin. It seems to me that he
would be good if he could--or rather, he would have been once. He has
been set on a wrong way of life, from which ‘tis now probably too late
to rescue him. O beati agricolae! Our Virginia was dull, but let us
thank Heaven we were bred there. We were made little slaves, but not
slaves to wickedness, gambling, bad male and female company. It was not
until my poor Harry left home that he fell among thieves. I mean thieves
en grand, such as waylaid him and stripped him on English highroads. I
consider you none the worse because you were the unlucky one, and had
to deliver your purse up. And now you are going to retrieve, and make
a good name for yourself; and kill more ‘French dragons,’ and become a
great commander. And our mother will talk of her son the Captain, the
Colonel, the General, and have his picture painted with all his stars
and epaulets, when poor I shall be but a dawdling poetaster, or, if we
may hope for the best, a snug placeman, with a little box at Richmond
or Kew, and a half-score of little picaninnies, that will come and bob
curtseys at the garden-gate when their uncle the General rides up on his
great charger, with his aide-de-camp’s pockets filled with gingerbread
for the nephews and nieces. ‘Tis for you to brandish the sword of Mars.
As for me, I look forward to a quiet life: a quiet little home, a quiet
little library full of books, and a little Some one dulce ridentem,
dulce loquentem, on t’other side of the fire, as I scribble away at my
papers. I am so pleased with this prospect, so utterly contented and
happy, that I feel afraid as I think of it, lest it should escape me;
and, even to my dearest Hal, am shy of speaking of my happiness. What is
ambition to me, with this certainty? What do I care for wars, with this
beatific peace smiling near?

“Our mother’s friend, Mynheer Van den Bosch, has been away on a tour to
discover his family in Holland, and, strange to say, has found one. Miss
(who was intended by maternal solicitude to be a wife for your worship)
has had six months at Kensington School, and is coming out with a
hundred pretty accomplishments, which are to complete her a perfect
fine lady. Her papa brought her to make a curtsey in Dean Street, and
a mighty elegant curtsey she made. Though she is scarce seventeen,
no dowager of sixty can be more at her ease. She conversed with Aunt
Lambert on an equal footing; she treated the girls as chits--to Hetty’s
wrath and Theo’s amusement. She talked politics with the General, and
the last routs, dresses, operas, fashions, scandal, with such perfect
ease that, but for a blunder or two, you might have fancied Miss Lydia
was born in Mayfair. At the Court end of the town she will live, she
says; and has no patience with her father, who has a lodging in Monument
Yard. For those who love a brown beauty, a prettier little mignonne
creature cannot be seen. But my taste, you know, dearest brother,
and...”


Here follows a page of raptures and quotations of verse, which, out of
a regard for the reader, and the writer’s memory, the editor of the
present pages declines to reprint. Gentlemen and ladies of a certain age
may remember the time when they indulged in these rapturous follies
on their own accounts; when the praises of the charmer were for ever
warbling from their lips or trickling from their pens; when the flowers
of life were in full bloom, and all the birds of spring were singing.
The twigs are now bare, perhaps, and the leaves have fallen; but, for
all that, shall we not,--remember the vernal time? As for you, young
people, whose May (or April, is it?) has not commenced yet, you need not
be detained over other folks’ love-rhapsodies; depend on it, when your
spring-season arrives, kindly Nature will warm all your flowers into
bloom, and rouse your glad bosoms to pour out their full song.



CHAPTER LXIX. A Little Innocent


George Warrington has mentioned in the letter just quoted, that in spite
of my Lord Castlewood’s previous play transactions with Harry, my lord
and George remained friends, and met on terms of good kinsmanship. Did
George want franks, or an introduction at court, or a place in the House
of Lords to hear a debate, his cousin was always ready to serve him,
was a pleasant and witty companion, and would do anything which might
promote his relative’s interests, provided his own were not prejudiced.

Now he even went so far as to promise that he would do his best with the
people in power to provide a place for Mr. George Warrington, who daily
showed a greater disinclination to return to his native country, and
place himself once more under the maternal servitude. George had not
merely a sentimental motive for remaining in England: the pursuits and
society of London pleased him infinitely better than any which he could
have at home. A planter’s life of idleness might have suited him, could
he have enjoyed independence with it. But in Virginia he was only the
first, and, as he thought, the worst treated, of his mother’s subjects.
He dreaded to think of returning with his young bride to his home, and
of the life which she would be destined to lead there. Better freedom
and poverty in England, with congenial society, and a hope perchance of
future distinction, than the wearisome routine of home life, the tedious
subordination, the frequent bickerings, the certain jealousies and
differences of opinion, to which he must subject his wife so soon as
they turned their faces homeward.

So Lord Castlewood’s promise to provide for George was very eagerly
accepted by the Virginian. My lord had not provided very well for
his own brother to be sure, and his own position, peer as he was, was
anything but enviable; but we believe what we wish to believe, and
George Warrington chose to put great stress upon his kinsman’s offer
of patronage. Unlike the Warrington family, Lord Castlewood was quite
gracious when he was made acquainted with George’s engagement to Miss
Lambert; came to wait upon her parents; praised George to them and the
young lady to George, and made himself so prodigiously agreeable in
their company that these charitable folk forgot his bad reputation, and
thought it must be a very wicked and scandalous world which maligned
him. He said, indeed, that he was improved in their society, as every
man must be who came into it. Among them he was witty, lively, good for
the time being. He left his wickedness and worldliness with his cloak
in the hall, and only put them on again when he stepped into his chair.
What worldling on life’s voyage does not know of some such harbour of
rest and calm, some haven where he puts in out of the storm? Very likely
Lord Castlewood was actually better whilst he stayed with those good
people, and for the time being at least no hypocrite.

And, I dare say, the Lambert elders thought no worse of his lordship for
openly proclaiming his admiration for Miss Theo. It was quite genuine,
and he did not profess it was very deep.

“It don’t affect my sleep, and I am not going to break my heart because
Miss Lambert prefers somebody else,” he remarked. Only I wish when I was
a young man, madam, I had had the good fortune to meet with somebody so
innocent and good as your daughter. I might have been kept out of a deal
of harm’s way: but innocent and good young women did not fall into mine,
or they would have made me better than I am.”

“Sure, my lord, it is not too late!” says Mrs. Lambert, very softly.

Castlewood started back, misunderstanding her.

“Not too late, madam?” he inquired.

She blushed. “It is too late to court my dear daughter, my lord, but not
too late to repent. We read, ‘tis never too late to do that. If others
have been received at the eleventh hour, is there any reason why you
should give up hope?”

“Perhaps I know my own heart better than you,” he says in a plaintive
tone. “I can speak French and German very well, and why? because I was
taught both in the nursery. A man who learns them late can never get the
practice of them on his tongue. And so ‘tis the case with goodness, I
can’t learn it at my age. I can only see others practise it, and admire
them. When I am on--on the side opposite to Lazarus, will Miss Theo give
me a drop of water? Don’t frown! I know I shall be there, Mrs. Lambert.
Some folks are doomed so; and I think some of our family are amongst
these. Some people are vacillating, and one hardly knows which way
the scale will turn. Whereas some are predestined angels, and fly
Heavenwards naturally, and do what they will.”

“Oh, my lord, and why should you not be of the predestined? Whilst there
is a day left--whilst there is an hour--there is hope!” says the fond
matron.

“I know what is passing in your mind, my dear madam--nay, I read your
prayers in your looks; but how can they avail?” Lord Castlewood asked
sadly. “You don’t know all, my good lady. You don’t know what a life
ours is of the world; how early it began; how selfish Nature, and then
necessity and education, have made us. It is Fate holds the reins of
the chariot, and we can’t escape our doom. I know better: I see better
people: I go my own way. My own? No, not mine--Fate’s: and it is not
altogether without pity for us, since it allows us, from time to time,
to see such people as you.” And he took her hand and looked her full
in the face, and bowed with a melancholy grace. Every word he said
was true. No greater error than to suppose that weak and bad men are
strangers to good feelings, or deficient of sensibility. Only the
good feeling does not last--nay, the tears are a kind of debauch of
sentiment, as old libertines are said to find that the tears and grief
of their victims add a zest to their pleasure. But Mrs. Lambert knew
little of what was passing in this man’s mind (how should she?), and
so prayed for him with the fond persistence of woman. He was much
better--yes, much better than he was supposed to be. He was a most
interesting man. There were hopes, why should there not be the most
precious hopes for him still?

It remains to be seen which of the two speakers formed the correct
estimate of my lord’s character. Meanwhile, if the gentleman was
right, the lady was mollified, and her kind wishes and prayers for
this experienced sinner’s repentance, if they were of no avail for his
amendment, at least could do him no harm. Kind-souled doctors (and what
good woman is not of the faculty?) look after a reprobate as physicians
after a perilous case. When the patient is converted to health their
interest ceases in him, and they drive to feel pulses and prescribe
medicines elsewhere.

But, while the malady was under treatment, our kind lady could not see
too much of her sick man. Quite an intimacy sprung up between my Lord
Castlewood and the Lamberts. I am not sure that some worldly views might
not suit even with good Mrs. Lambert’s spiritual plans (for who
knows into what pure Eden, though guarded by flaming-sworded angels,
worldliness will not creep?). Her son was about to take orders. My Lord
Castlewood feared very much that his present chaplain’s, Mr. Sampson’s,
careless life and heterodox conversations might lead him to give up his
chaplaincy: in which case, my lord hinted the little modest cure would
be vacant, and at the service of some young divine of good principles
and good manners, who would be content with a small stipend, and a small
but friendly congregation.

Thus an acquaintance was established between the two families, and the
ladies of Castlewood, always on their good behaviour, came more than
once to make their curtseys in Mrs. Lambert’s drawing-room. They were
civil to the parents and the young ladies. My Lady Castlewood’s card
assemblies were open to Mrs. Lambert and her family. There was play,
certainly--all the world played--his Majesty, the Bishops, every Peer
and Peeress in the land. But nobody need play who did not like; and
surely nobody need have scruples regarding the practice, when such
august and venerable personages were daily found to abet it. More than
once Mrs. Lambert made her appearance at her ladyship’s routs, and
was grateful for the welcome which she received, and pleased with the
admiration which her daughters excited.

Mention has been made, in a foregoing page and letter, of an American
family of Dutch extraction, who had come to England very strongly
recommended by Madam Esmond, their Virginian neighbour, to her sons in
Europe. The views expressed in Madam Esmond’s letter were so clear, that
that arch match-maker, Mrs. Lambert, could not but understand them. As
for George, he was engaged already; as for poor Hetty’s flame, Harry, he
was gone on service, for which circumstance Hetty’s mother was not very
sorry perhaps. She laughingly told George that he ought to obey his
mamma’s injunctions, break off his engagement with Theo, and make up to
Miss Lydia, who was ten times--ten times! a hundred times as rich as
her poor girl, and certainly much handsomer. “Yes, indeed,” says George,
“that I own: she is handsomer, and she is richer, and perhaps even
cleverer.” (All which praises Mrs. Lambert but half liked.) “But say
she is all these? So is Mr. Johnson much cleverer than I am: so is, whom
shall we say?--so is Mr. Hagan the actor much taller and handsomer: so
is Sir James Lowther much richer: yet pray, ma’am, do you suppose I am
going to be jealous of any one of these three, or think my Theo would
jilt me for their sakes? Why should I not allow that Miss Lydia is
handsomer, then? and richer, and clever, too, and lively, and well bred,
if you insist on it, and an angel if you will have it so? Theo is not
afraid: art thou, child?”

“No, George,” says Theo, with such an honest look of the eyes as would
convince any scepticism, or shame any jealousy. And if, after this pair
of speeches, mamma takes occasion to leave the room for a minute to
fetch her scissors, or her thimble, or a bootjack and slippers, or the
cross and ball on the top of St. Paul’s, or her pocket-handkerchief
which she has forgotten in the parlour--if, I say, Mrs. Lambert quits
the room on any errand or pretext, natural or preposterous, I shall not
be in the least surprised, if, at her return in a couple of minutes, she
finds George in near proximity to Theo, who has a heightened colour, and
whose hand George is just dropping--I shall not have the least idea of
what they have been doing. Have you, madam? Have you any remembrance of
what used to happen when Mr. Grundy came a-courting? Are you, who, after
all, were not in the room with our young people, going to cry out fie
and for shame? Then fie and for shame upon you, Mrs. Grundy!

Well, Harry being away, and Theo and George irrevocably engaged, so
that there was no possibility of bringing Madam Esmond’s little plans to
bear, why should not Mrs. Lambert have plans of her own; and if a rich,
handsome, beautiful little wife should fall in his way, why should
not Jack Lambert from Oxford have her? So thinks mamma, who was always
thinking of marrying and giving in marriage, and so she prattles to
General Lambert, who, as usual, calls her a goose for her pains. At any
rate, Mrs. Lambert says beauty and riches are no objection; at any rate,
Madam Esmond desired that this family should be hospitably entertained,
and it was not her fault that Harry was gone away to Canada. Would
the General wish him to come back; leave the army and his reputation,
perhaps; yes, and come to England and marry this American, and break
poor Hetty’s heart--would her father wish that? Let us spare further
arguments, and not be so rude as to hint that Mr. Lambert was in the
right in calling a fond wife by the name of that absurd splay-footed
bird, annually sacrificed at the Feast of St. Michael.

In those early days, there were vast distinctions of rank drawn between
the court and city people: and Mr. Van den Bosch, when he first came
to London, scarcely associated with any but the latter sort. He had a
lodging near his agent’s in the city. When his pretty girl came from
school for a holiday, he took her an airing to Islington or Highgate, or
an occasional promenade in the Artillery Ground in Bunhill Fields. They
went to that Baptist meeting-house in Finsbury Fields, and on the sly
to see Mr. Garrick once or twice, or that funny rogue Mr. Foote, at
the Little Theatre. To go to a Lord Mayor’s feast was a treat to the
gentleman of the highest order: and to dance with a young mercer at
Hampstead Assembly. gave the utmost delight to the young lady. When
George first went to wait upon his mother’s friends, he found our old
acquaintance, Mr. Draper, of the Temple, sedulous in his attentions to
her; and the lawyer, who was married, told Mr. Warrington to look out,
as the young lady had a plumb to her fortune. Mr. Drabshaw, a young
Quaker gentleman, and nephew of Mr. Trail, Madam Esmond’s Bristol agent,
was also in constant attendance upon the young lady, and in dreadful
alarm and suspicion when Mr. Warrington first made his appearance.
Wishing to do honour to his mother’s neighbours, Mr. Warrington invited
them to an entertainment at his own apartments; and who should so
naturally meet them as his friends from Soho? Not one of them but was
forced to own little Miss Lydia’s beauty. She had the foot of a fairy:
the arms, neck, flashing eyes of a little brown huntress of Diana. She
had brought a little plaintive accent from home with her--of which I,
moi qui vous parle, have heard a hundred gross Cockney imitations, and
watched as many absurd disguises, and which I say (in moderation)
is charming in the mouth of a charming woman. Who sets up to say No,
forsooth? You dear Miss Whittington, with whose h’s fate has dealt so
unkindly?--you lovely Miss Nicol Jarvie, with your northern burr?--you
beautiful Miss Molony, with your Dame Street warble? All accents are
pretty from pretty lips, and who shall set the standard up? Shall it be
a rose, or a thistle, or a shamrock, or a star and stripe? As for Miss
Lydia’s accent, I have no doubt it was not odious even from the first
day when she set foot on these polite shores, otherwise Mr. Warrington,
as a man of taste, had certainly disapproved of her manner of talking,
and her schoolmistress at Kensington had not done her duty by her pupil.

After the six months were over, during which, according to her father’s
calculation, she was to learn all the accomplishments procurable at the
Kensington Academy, Miss Lydia returned nothing loth to her grandfather,
and took her place in the world. A narrow world at first it was to her;
but she was a resolute little person, and resolved to enlarge her
sphere in society; and whither she chose to lead the way, the obedient
grandfather followed her. He had been thwarted himself in early life, he
said, and little good came of the severity he underwent. He had thwarted
his own son, who had turned out but ill. As for little Lyddy, he was
determined she should have as pleasant a life as was possible. Did not
Mr. George think he was right? ‘Twas said in Virginia--he did not
know with what reason--that the young gentlemen of Castlewood had been
happier if Madam Esmond had allowed them a little of their own way.
George could not gainsay this public rumour, or think of inducing
the benevolent old gentleman to alter his plans respecting his
granddaughter. As for the Lambert family, how could they do otherwise
than welcome the kind old man, the parent so tender and liberal, Madam
Esmond’s good friend?

When Miss came from school, grandpapa removed from Monument Yard to
an elegant house in Bloomsbury; whither they were followed at first by
their city friends. There were merchants from Virginia Walk; there were
worthy tradesmen, with whom the worthy old merchant had dealings; there
were their ladies and daughters and sons, who were all highly gracious
to Miss Lyddy. It would be a long task to describe how these disappeared
one by one--how there were no more junketings at Belsize, or trips
to Highgate, or Saturday jaunts to Deputy Higgs’ villa, Highbury, or
country-dances at honest Mr. Lutestring’s house at Hackney. Even the
Sunday practice was changed; and, oh, abomination of abominations! Mr.
Van den Bosch left Bethesda Chapel in Bunhill Row, and actually took a
pew in Queen Square Church!

Queen Square Church, and Mr. George Warrington lived hard by in
Southampton Row! ‘Twas easy to see at whom Miss Lyddy was setting her
cap, and Mr. Draper, who had been full of her and her grandfather’s
praises before, now took occasion to warn Mr. George, and gave him very
different reports regarding Mr. Van den Bosch to those which had
first been current. Mr. Van d. B., for all he bragged so of his Dutch
parentage, came from Albany, and was nobody’s son at all. He had made
his money by land speculation, or by privateering (which was uncommonly
like piracy), and by the Guinea trade. His son had married--if marriage
it could be called, which was very doubtful--an assigned servant, and
had been cut off by his father, and had taken to bad courses, and had
died, luckily for himself, in his own bed.

“Mr. Draper has told you bad tales about me,” said the placid old
gentleman to George. “Very likely we are all sinners, and some evil may
be truly said of all of us, with a great deal more that is untrue. Did
he tell you that my son was unhappy with me? I told you so too. Did he
bring you wicked stories about my family? He liked it so well that he
wanted to marry my Lyddy to his brother. Heaven bless her! I have had a
many offers for her. And you are the young gentleman I should have chose
for her, and I like you none the worse because you prefer somebody else;
though what you can see in your Miss, as compared to my Lyddy, begging
your honour’s pardon, I am at a loss to understand.”

“There is no accounting for tastes, my good sir,” said Mr. George, with
his most superb air.

“No, sir; ‘tis a wonder of nature, and daily happens. When I kept store
to Albany, there was one of your tiptop gentry there that might have
married my dear daughter that was alive then, and with a pretty piece
of money, whereby--for her father and I had quarrelled--Miss Lyddy would
have been a pauper, you see: and in place of my beautiful Bella, my
gentleman chooses a little homely creature, no prettier than your Miss,
and without a dollar to her fortune. The more fool he, saving your
presence, Mr. George.”

“Pray don’t save my presence, my good sir,” says George, laughing. “I
suppose the gentleman’s word was given to the other lady, and he had
seen her first, and hence was indifferent to your charming daughter.”

“I suppose when a young fellow gives his word to perform a cursed piece
of folly, he always sticks to it, my dear sir, begging your pardon. But
Lord, Lord, what am I speaking of? I am aspeaking of twenty year ago. I
was well-to-do then, but I may say Heaven has blessed my store, and I am
three times as well off now. Ask my agents how much they will give for
Joseph Van den Bosch’s bill at six months on New York--or at sight may
be for forty thousand pound? I warrant they will discount the paper.”

“Happy he who has the bill, sir!” says George, with a bow, not a little
amused with the candour of the old gentleman.

“Lord, Lord, how mercenary you young men are!” cries the elder, simply.
“Always thinking about money nowadays! Happy he who has the girl, I
should say--the money ain’t the question, my dear sir, when it goes
along with such a lovely young thing as that--though I humbly say it,
who oughtn’t, and who am her fond silly old grandfather. We were talking
about you, Lyddy darling--come, give me a kiss, my blessing! We were
talking about you, and Mr. George said he wouldn’t take you with all the
money your poor old grandfather can give you.”

“Nay, sir,” says George.

“Well, you are right to say nay, for I didn’t say all, that’s the truth.
My Blessing will have a deal more than that trifle I spoke of, when it
shall please Heaven to remove me out of this world to a better--when
poor old Gappy is gone, Lyddy will be a rich little Lyddy, that she
will. But she don’t wish me to go yet, does she?”

“Oh, you darling dear grandpapa!” says Lyddy.

“This young gentleman won’t have you.” (Lyddy looks an arch “Thank you,
sir,” from her brown eyes.) “But at any rate he is honest, and that
is more than we can say of some folks in this wicked London. Oh, Lord,
Lord, how mercenary they are! Do you know that yonder, in Monument Yard,
they were all at my poor little Blessing for her money? There was
Tom Lutestring; there was Mr. Draper, your precious lawyer; there was
actually Mr. Tubbs, of Bethesda Chapel; and they must all come buzzing
like flies round the honey-pot. That is why we came out of the quarter
where my brother-tradesmen live.”

“To avoid the flies,--to be sure!” says Miss Lydia, tossing up her
little head.

“Where my brother-tradesmen live,” continues the old gentleman. “Else
who am I to think of consorting with your grandees and fine folk? I
don’t care for the fashions, Mr. George; I don’t care for plays and
poetry, begging your honour’s pardon; I never went to a play in my life,
but to please this little minx.”

“Oh, sir, ‘twas lovely! and I cried so, didn’t I, grandpapa?” says the
child.

“At what, my dear?”

“At--at Mr. Warrington’s play, grandpapa.”

“Did you, my dear? I dare say; I dare say! It was mail day: and my
letters had come in: and my ship the Lovely Lyddy had just come into
Falmouth; and Captain Joyce reported how he had mercifully escaped a
French privateer; and my head was so full of thanks for that escape,
which saved me a deal of money, Mr. George--for the rate at which ships
is underwrote this war-time is so scandalous that I often prefer to
venture than to insure--that I confess I didn’t listen much to the play,
sir, and only went to please this little Lyddy.”

“And you did please me, dearest Gappy!” cries the young lady.

“Bless you! then it’s all I want. What does a man want more here below
than to please his children, Mr. George? especially me, who knew what
was to be unhappy when I was young, and to repent of having treated this
darling’s father too hard.”

“Oh, grandpapa!” cries the child, with more caresses.

“Yes, I was too hard with him, dear; and that’s why I spoil my little
Lydkin so!”

More kisses ensue between Lyddy and Gappy. The little creature flings
the pretty polished arms round the old man’s neck, presses the dark red
lips on his withered cheek, surrounds the venerable head with a halo of
powder beaten out of his wig by her caresses; and eyes Mr. George the
while, as much as to say, There, sir! should you not like me to do as
much for you?

We confess;--but do we confess all? George certainly told the story of
his interview with Lyddy and Gappy, and the old man’s news regarding his
granddaughter’s wealth; but I don’t think he told everything; else Theo
would scarce have been so much interested, or so entirely amused and
good-humoured with Lyddy when next the two young ladies met.

They met now pretty frequently, especially after the old American
gentleman took up his residence in Bloomsbury. Mr. Van den Bosch was
in the city for the most part of the day, attending to his affairs, and
appearing at his place upon ‘Change. During his absence Lyddy had the
command of the house, and received her guests there like a lady, or rode
abroad in a fine coach, which she ordered her grandpapa to keep for her,
and into which he could very seldom be induced to set his foot. Before
long Miss Lyddy was as easy in the coach as if she had ridden in one
all her life. She ordered the domestics here and there; she drove to the
mercer’s and the jeweller’s, and she called upon her friends with the
utmost stateliness, or rode abroad with them to take the air. Theo and
Hetty were both greatly diverted with her: but would the elder have been
quite as well pleased had she known all Miss Lyddy’s doings? Not that
Theo was of a jealous disposition,--far otherwise; but there are cases
when a lady has a right to a little jealousy, as I maintain, whatever my
fair readers may say to the contrary.

It was because she knew he was engaged, very likely, that Miss Lyddy
permitted herself to speak so frankly in Mr. George’s praise. When they
were alone--and this blessed chance occurred pretty often at Mr. Van den
Bosch’s house, for we have said he was constantly absent on one errand
or the other--it was wonderful how artlessly the little creature would
show her enthusiasm, asking him all sorts of simple questions about
himself, his genius, his way of life at home and in London, his projects
of marriage, and so forth.

“I am glad you are going to be married, oh, so glad!” she would say,
heaving the most piteous sigh the while; “for I can talk to you frankly,
quite frankly as a brother, and not be afraid of that odious politeness
about which they were always scolding me at boarding-school. I may speak
to you frankly; and if I like you, I may say so, mayn’t I, Mr. George?”

“Pray, say so,” says George, with a bow and a smile. “That is a kind of
talk which most men delight to hear, especially from such pretty lips as
Miss Lydia’s.”

“What do you know about my lips?” says the girl, with a pout and an
innocent look into his face.

“What, indeed?” asks George. “Perhaps I should like to know a great deal
more.”

“They don’t tell nothin’ but truth, anyhow!” says the girl; “that’s why
some people don’t like them! If I have anything on my mind, it must
come out. I am a country-bred girl, I am--with my heart in my mouth--all
honesty and simplicity; not like your English girls, who have learned I
don’t know what at their boarding-schools, and from the men afterwards.”

“Our girls are monstrous little hypocrites, indeed!” cries George.

“You are thinking of Miss Lamberts? and I might have thought of them;
but I declare I did not then. They have been at boarding-school; they
have been in the world a great deal--so much the greater pity for them,
for be certain they learned no good there. And now I have said so, of
course you will go and tell Miss Theo, won’t you, sir?”

“That she has learned no good in the world? She has scarce spoken to men
at all, except her father, her brother, and me. Which of us would teach
her any wrong, think you?”

“Oh, not you! Though I can understand its being very dangerous to be
with you!” says the girl, with a sigh.

“Indeed there is no danger, and I don’t bite!” says George, laughing.

“I didn’t say bite,” says the girl, softly. “There’s other things
dangerous besides biting, I should think. Aren’t you very witty? Yes,
and sarcastic, and clever, and always laughing at people? Haven’t you
a coaxing tongue? If you was to look at me in that kind of way, I don’t
know what would come to me. Was your brother like you, as I was to have
married? Was he as clever and witty as you? I have heard he was like
you: but he hadn’t your coaxing tongue. Heigho! ‘Tis well you are
engaged, Master George, that is all. Do you think if you had seen me
first, you would have liked Miss Theo best?”

“They say marriages were made in Heaven, my dear, and let us trust that
mine has been arranged there,” says George.

“I suppose there was no such thing never known, as a man having two
sweethearts?” asks the artless little maiden. “Guess it’s a pity. O me!
What nonsense I’m a-talking; there now! I’m like the little girl who
cried for the moon; and I can’t have it. ‘Tis too high for me--too
high and splendid and shining: can’t reach up to it nohow. Well, what
a foolish, wayward, little spoilt thing I am now! But one thing you
promise.-on your word and your honour, now, Mr. George?”

“And what is that?”

“That you won’t tell Miss Theo, else she’ll hate me.”

“Why should she hate you?”

“Because I hate her, and wish she was dead!” breaks out the young lady.
And the eyes that were looking so gentle and lachrymose but now, flame
with sudden wrath, and her cheeks flush up. “For shame!” she adds, after
a pause. “I’m a little fool to speak! But whatever is in my heart must
come out. I am a girl of the woods, I am. I was bred where the sun is
hotter than in this foggy climate. And I am not like your cold English
girls; who, before they speak, or think, or feel, must wait for mamma to
give leave. There, there! I may be a little fool for saying what I have.
I know you’ll go and tell Miss Lambert. Well, do!”

But, as we have said, George didn’t tell Miss Lambert. Even from the
beloved person there must be some things kept secret; even to himself,
perhaps, he did not quite acknowledge what was the meaning of the little
girl’s confession; or, if he acknowledged it, did not act on it; except
in so far as this, perhaps, that my gentleman, in Miss Lydia’s presence,
was particularly courteous and tender; and in her absence thought of her
very kindly, and always with a certain pleasure. It were hard, indeed,
if a man might not repay by a little kindness and gratitude the artless
affection of such a warm young heart.

What was that story meanwhile which came round to our friends, of young
Mr. Lutestring and young Mr. Drabshaw the Quaker having a boxing-match
at a tavern in the city, and all about this young lady? They fell
out over their cups, and fought probably. Why did Mr. Draper, who had
praised her so at first, tell such stories now against her grandfather?
“I suspect,” says Madame de Bernstein, “that he wants the girl for some
client or relation of his own; and that he tells these tales in order to
frighten all suitors from her. When she and her grandfather came to me,
she behaved perfectly well; and I confess, sir, I thought it was a great
pity that you should prefer yonder red-cheeked countrified little chit,
without a halfpenny, to this pretty, wild, artless girl, with such a
fortune as I hear she has.”

“Oh, she has been with you, has she, aunt?” asks George of his relative.

“Of course she has been with me,” the other replies, curtly. “Unless
your brother has been so silly as to fall in love with that other little
Lambert girl----”

“Indeed, ma’am, I think I can say he has not,” George remarks.

“Why, then, when he comes back with Mr. Wolfe, should he not take
a fancy to this little person, as his mamma wishes--only, to do us
justice, we Esmonds care very little for what our mammas wish--and marry
her, and set up beside you in Virginia? She is to have a great fortune,
which you won’t touch. Pray, why should it go out of the family?”

George now learned that Mr. Van den Bosch and his granddaughter had been
often at Madame de Bernstein’s house. Taking his favourite walk with his
favourite companion to Kensington Gardens, he saw Mr. Van den Bosch’s
chariot turning into Kensington Square. The Americans were going to
visit Lady Castlewood, then? He found, on some little inquiry, that they
had been more than once with her ladyship. It was, perhaps, strange
that they should have said nothing of their visits to George; but, being
little curious of other people’s affairs, and having no intrigues or
mysteries of his own, George was quite slow to imagine them in
other people. What mattered to him how often Kensington entertained
Bloomsbury, or Bloomsbury made its bow at Kensington?

A number of things were happening at both places, of which our Virginian
had not the slightest idea. Indeed, do not things happen under our eyes,
and we not see them? Are not comedies and tragedies daily performed
before us of which we understand neither the fun nor the pathos? Very
likely George goes home thinking to himself, “I have made an impression
on the heart of this young creature. She has almost confessed as much.
Poor artless little maiden! I wonder what there is in me that she should
like me?” Can he be angry with her for this unlucky preference? Was ever
a man angry at such a reason? He would not have been so well pleased,
perhaps, had he known all; and that he was only one of the performers
in the comedy, not the principal character by any means; Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern in the Tragedy, the part of Hamlet by a gentleman unknown.
How often are our little vanities shocked in this way, and subjected to
wholesome humiliation! Have you not fancied that Lucinda’s eyes beamed
on you with a special tenderness, and presently become aware that she
ogles your neighbour with the very same killing glances? Have you not
exchanged exquisite whispers with Lalage at the dinner-table (sweet
murmurs heard through the hum of the guests, and clatter of the
banquet!) and then overheard her whispering the very same delicious
phrases to old Surdus in the drawing-room? The sun shines for everybody;
the flowers smell sweet for all noses; and the nightingale and Lalage
warble for all ears--not your long ones only, good Brother!



CHAPTER LXX. In which Cupid plays a Considerable Part


We must now, however, and before we proceed with the history of Miss
Lydia and her doings, perform the duty of explaining that sentence
in Mr. Warrington’s letter to his brother which refers to Lady Maria
Esmond, and which, to some simple readers, may be still mysterious.
For how, indeed, could well-regulated persons divine such a secret?
How could innocent and respectable young people suppose that a woman of
noble birth, of ancient family, of mature experience,--a woman whom we
have seen exceedingly in love only a score of months ago,--should so
far forget herself as (oh, my very finger-tips blush as I write the
sentence!)--as not only to fall in love with a person of low origin, and
very many years her junior, but actually to marry him in the face of
the world? That is, not exactly in the face, but behind the back of the
world, so to speak; for Parson Sampson privily tied the indissoluble
knot for the pair at his chapel in Mayfair.

Now stop before you condemn her utterly. Because Lady Maria had had, and
overcome, a foolish partiality for her young cousin, was that any reason
why she should never fall in love with anybody else? Are men to have
the sole privilege of change, and are women to be rebuked for availing
themselves now and again of their little chance of consolation? No
invectives can be more rude, gross, and unphilosophical than, for
instance, Hamlet’s to his mother about her second marriage. The truth,
very likely, is, that that tender, parasitic creature wanted a something
to cling to, and, Hamlet senior out of the way, twined herself round
Claudius. Nay, we have known females so bent on attaching themselves,
that they can twine round two gentlemen at once. Why, forsooth, shall
there not be marriage-tables after funeral baked-meats? If you said
grace for your feast yesterday, is that any reason why you shall not be
hungry to-day? Your natural fine appetite and relish for this evening’s
feast, shows that to-morrow evening at eight o’clock you will most
probably be in want of your dinner. I, for my part, when Flirtilla or
Jiltissa were partial to me (the kind reader will please to fancy that
I am alluding here to persons of the most ravishing beauty and lofty
rank), always used to bear in mind that a time would come when they
would be fond of somebody else. We are served a la Russe, and gobbled up
a dish at a time, like the folks in Polyphemus’s cave. ‘Tis hodie mihi,
cras tibi: there are some Anthropophagi who devour dozens of us, the
old, the young, the tender, the tough, the plump, the lean, the ugly,
the beautiful: there’s no escape, and one after another, as our fate is,
we disappear down their omnivorous maws. Look at Lady Ogresham! We all
remember, last year, how she served poor Tom Kydd: seized upon him,
devoured him, picked his bones, and flung them away. Now it is Ned
Suckling she has got into her den. He lies under her great eyes,
quivering and fascinated. Look at the poor little trepid creature,
panting and helpless under the great eyes! She trails towards him nearer
and nearer; he draws to her, closer and closer. Presently there will
be one or two feeble squeaks for pity, and--hobblegobble--he will
disappear! Ah me! it is pity, too. I knew, for instance, that Maria
Esmond had lost her heart ever so many times before Harry Warrington
found it; but I like to fancy that he was going to keep it; that,
bewailing mischance and times out of joint, she would yet have preserved
her love, and fondled it in decorous celibacy. If, in some paroxysm of
senile folly, I should fall in love to-morrow, I shall still try and
think I have acquired the fee-simple of my charmer’s heart;--not that
I am only a tenant, on a short lease, of an old battered furnished
apartment, where the dingy old wine-glasses have been clouded by scores
of pairs of lips, and the tumbled old sofas are muddy with the last
lodger’s boots. Dear, dear nymph! Being beloved and beautiful! Suppose I
had a little passing passion for Glycera (and her complexion really
was as pure as splendent Parian marble); suppose you had a fancy for
Telephus, and his low collars and absurd neck;--those follies are all
over now, aren’t they? We love each other for good now, don’t we? Yes,
for ever; and Glycera may go to Bath, and Telephus take his cervicem
roseam to Jack Ketch, n’est-ce pas?

No. We never think of changing, my dear. However winds blow, or time
flies, or spoons stir, our potage, which is now so piping hot, will
never get cold. Passing fancies we may have allowed ourselves in former
days; and really your infatuation for Telephus (don’t frown so, my
darling creature! and make the wrinkles in your forehead worse)--I
say, really it was the talk of the whole town; and as for Glycera, she
behaved confoundedly ill to me. Well, well, now that we understand each
other, it is for ever that our hearts are united, and we can look at Sir
Cresswell Cresswell, and snap our fingers at his wig. But this Maria of
the last century was a woman of an ill-regulated mind. You, my love, who
know the world, know that in the course of this lady’s career a great
deal must have passed that would not bear the light, or edify in the
telling. You know (not, my dear creature, that I mean you have any
experience; but you have heard people say--you have heard your mother
say) that an old flirt, when she has done playing the fool with
one passion, will play the fool with another; that flirting is like
drinking; and the brandy being drunk up, you--no, not you--Glycera--the
brandy being drunk up, Glycera, who has taken to drinking, will fall
upon the gin. So, if Maria Esmond has found a successor for Harry
Warrington, and set up a new sultan in the precious empire of her heart,
what, after all, could you expect from her? That territory was like
the Low Countries, accustomed to being conquered, and for ever open to
invasion.

And Maria’s present enslaver was no other than Mr. Geoghegan or Hagan,
the young actor who had performed in George’s tragedy. His tones were so
thrilling, his eye so bright, his mien so noble, he looked so beautiful
in his gilt leather armour and large buckled periwig, giving utterance
to the poet’s glowing verses, that the lady’s heart was yielded up to
him, even as Ariadne’s to Bacchus when her affair with Theseus was over.
The young Irishman was not a little touched and elated by the highborn
damsel’s partiality for him. He might have preferred a Lady Maria
Hagan more tender in years, but one more tender in disposition it were
difficult to discover. She clung to him closely, indeed. She retired to
his humble lodgings in Westminster with him, when it became necessary to
disclose their marriage, and when her furious relatives disowned her.

General Lambert brought the news home from his office in Whitehall one
day, and made merry over it with his family. In those homely times a
joke was none the worse for being a little broad; and a fine lady would
laugh at a jolly page of Fielding, and weep over a letter of Clarissa,
which would make your present ladyship’s eyes start out of your head
with horror. He uttered all sorts of waggeries, did the merry General,
upon the subject of this marriage; upon George’s share in bringing it
about; upon Barry’s jealousy when he should hear of it, He vowed it was
cruel that cousin Hagan had not selected George as groomsman; that the
first child should be called Carpezan or Sybilla, after the tragedy, and
so forth. They would not quite be able to keep a coach, but they might
get a chariot and pasteboard dragons from Mr. Rich’s theatre. The baby
might be christened in Macbeth’s caldron; and Harry and harlequin ought
certainly to be godfathers.

“Why shouldn’t she marry him if she likes him?” asked little Hetty. “Why
should he not love her because she is a little old? Mamma is a little
old, and you love her none the worse. When you married my mamma, sir, I
have heard you say you were very poor; and yet you were very happy, and
nobody laughed at you!” Thus this impudent little person spoke by reason
of her tender age, not being aware of Lady Maria Esmond’s previous
follies.

So her family has deserted her? George described what wrath they were
in; how Lady Castlewood had gone into mourning; how Mr. Will swore he
would have the rascal’s ears; how furious Madame de Bernstein was, the
most angry of all. “It is an insult to the family,” says haughty little
Miss Hett; “and I can fancy how ladies of that rank must be indignant at
their relative’s marriage with a person of Mr. Hagan’s condition; but to
desert her is a very different matter.”

“Indeed, my dear child,” cries mamma, “you are talking of what you don’t
understand. After my Lady Maria’s conduct, no respectable person can go
to see her.”

“What conduct, mamma?”

“Never mind,” cries mamma. “Little girls can’t be expected to know, and
ought not to be too curious to inquire, what Lady Maria’s conduct has
been! Suffice it, miss, that I am shocked her ladyship should ever have
been here; and I say again, no honest person should associate with her!”

“Then, Aunt Lambert, I must be whipped and sent to bed,” says George,
with mock gravity. “I own to you (though I did not confess sooner,
seeing that the affair was not mine) that I have been to see my cousin
the player, and her ladyship his wife. I found them in very dirty
lodgings in Westminster, where the wretch has the shabbiness to keep not
only his wife, but his old mother, and a little brother, whom he puts
to school. I found Mr. Hagan, and came away with a liking, and almost a
respect for him, although I own he has made a very improvident marriage.
But how improvident some folks are about marriage, aren’t they, Theo?”

“Improvident, if they marry such spendthrifts as you,” says the General.
“Master George found his relations, and I’ll be bound to say he left his
purse behind him.”

“No, not the purse, sir,” says George, smiling very tenderly. “Theo made
that. But I am bound to own it came empty away. Mr. Rich is in great
dudgeon. He says he hardly dares have Hagan on his stage, and is afraid
of a riot, such as Mr. Garrick had about the foreign dancers. This is to
be a fine gentleman’s riot. The macaronis are furious, and vow they will
pelt Mr. Hagan, and have him cudgelled afterwards. My cousin Will, at
Arthur’s, has taken his oath he will have the actor’s ears. Meanwhile,
as the poor man does not play, they have cut off his salary; and without
his salary, this luckless pair of lovers have no means to buy bread and
cheese.”

“And you took it to them, sir? It was like you, George!” says Theo,
worshipping him with her eyes.

“It was your purse took it, dear Theo!” replies George.

“Mamma, I hope you will go and see them to-morrow!” prays Theo.

“If she doesn’t, I shall get a divorce, my dear!” cries papa. “Come and
kiss me, you little wench--that is, avec la bonne permission de monsieur
mon beau-fils.”

“Monsieur mon beau fiddlestick, papa!” says Miss Lambert, and I have
no doubt complies with the paternal orders. And this was the first time
George Esmond Warrington, Esquire, was ever called a fiddlestick.

Any man, even in our time, who makes an imprudent marriage, knows how he
has to run the gauntlet of the family, and undergo the abuse, the scorn,
the wrath, the pity of his relations. If your respectable family cry out
because you marry the curate’s daughter, one in ten, let us say, of his
charming children; or because you engage yourself to the young barrister
whose only present pecuniary resources come from the court which he
reports, and who will have to pay his Oxford bills out of your slender
little fortune;--if your friends cry out for making such engagements as
these, fancy the feelings of Lady Maria Hagan’s friends, and even those
of Mr. Hagan’s, on the announcement of this marriage.

There is old Mrs. Hagan, in the first instance. Her son has kept her
dutifully and in tolerable comfort, ever since he left Trinity College
at his father’s death, and appeared as Romeo at Crow Street Theatre. His
salary has sufficed of late years to keep the brother at school, to help
the sister who has gone out as companion, and to provide fire, clothing,
tea, dinner, and comfort for the old clergyman’s widow. And now,
forsooth, a fine lady, with all sorts of extravagant habits, must come
and take possession of the humble home, and share the scanty loaf and
mutton! Were Hagan not a high-spirited fellow, and the old mother very
much afraid of him, I doubt whether my lady’s life at the Westminster
lodgings would be very comfortable. It was very selfish perhaps to take
a place at that small table, and in poor Hagan’s narrow bed. But Love in
some passionate and romantic dispositions never regards consequences, or
measures accommodation. Who has not experienced that frame of mind; what
thrifty wife has not seen and lamented her husband in that condition;
when, with rather a heightened colour and a deuce-may-care smile on his
face, he comes home and announces that he has asked twenty people to
dinner next Saturday? He doesn’t know whom exactly; and he does know
the dining-room will only hold sixteen. Never mind! Two of the prettiest
girls can sit upon young gentlemen’s knees: others won’t come: there’s
sure to be plenty! In the intoxication of love people venture upon this
dangerous sort of housekeeping; they don’t calculate the resources of
their dining-table, or those inevitable butchers’ and fishmongers’ bills
which will be brought to the ghastly housekeeper at the beginning of the
month.

Yes: it was rather selfish of my Lady Maria to seat herself at Hagan’s
table and take the cream off the milk, and the wings of the chickens,
and the best half of everything where there was only enough before; and
no wonder the poor old mamma-in-law was disposed to grumble. But what
was her outcry compared to the clamour at Kensington among Lady Maria’s
noble family? Think of the talk and scandal all over the town! Think of
the titters and whispers of the ladies in attendance at the Princess’s
court, where Lady Fanny had a place; of the jokes of Mr. Will’s
brother-officers at the usher’s table; of the waggeries in the daily
prints and magazines; of the comments of outraged prudes; of the
laughter of the clubs and the sneers of the ungodly! At the receipt of
the news Madame Bernstein had fits and ran off to the solitude of her
dear rocks at Tunbridge Wells, where she did not see above forty people
of a night at cards. My lord refused to see his sister; and the Countess
in mourning, as we have said, waited upon one of her patronesses, a
gracious Princess, who was pleased to condole with her upon the disgrace
and calamity which had befallen her house. For one, two, three whole
days the town was excited and amused by the scandal; then there came
other news--a victory in Germany; doubtful accounts from America; a
general officer coming home to take his trial; an exquisite new soprano
singer from Italy; and the public forgot Lady Maria in her garret,
eating the hard-earned meal of the actor’s family.

This is an extract from Mr. George Warrington’s letter to his brother,
in which he describes other personal matters, as well as a visit he had
paid to the newly married pair:--


“My dearest little Theo,” he writes, “was eager to accompany her mamma
upon this errand of charity; but I thought Aunt Lambert’s visit would be
best under the circumstances, and without the attendance of her little
spinster aide-de-camp. Cousin Hagan was out when we called; we found
her ladyship in a loose undress, and with her hair in not the neatest
papers, playing at cribbage with a neighbour from the second floor,
while good Mrs. Hagan sate on the other side of the fire with a glass of
punch, and the Whole Duty of Man.

“Maria, your Maria once, cried a little when she saw us; and Aunt
Lambert, you may be sure, was ready with her sympathy. While she
bestowed it on Lady Maria, I paid the best compliments I could invent to
the old lady. When the conversation between Aunt L. and the bride began
to flag, I turned to the latter, and between us we did our best to make
a dreary interview pleasant. Our talk was about you, about Wolfe, about
war; you must be engaged face to face with the Frenchmen by this time,
and God send my dearest brother safe and victorious out of the battle!
Be sure we follow your steps anxiously--we fancy you at Cape Breton.
We have plans of Quebec, and charts of the St. Lawrence. Shall I ever
forget your face of joy that day when you saw me return safe and sound
from the little combat with the little Frenchman? So will my Harry, I
know, return from his battle. I feel quite assured of it; elated somehow
with the prospect of your certain success and safety. And I have made
all here share my cheerfulness. We talk of the campaign as over, and
Captain Warrington’s promotion as secure. Pray Heaven, all our hopes may
be fulfilled one day ere long.

“How strange it is that you who are the mettlesome fellow (you know you
are) should escape quarrels hitherto, and I, who am a peaceful youth,
wishing no harm to anybody, should have battles thrust upon me! What do
you think actually of my having had another affair upon my wicked hands,
and with whom, think you? With no less a personage than your old enemy,
our kinsman, Mr. Will.

“What or who set him to quarrel with me, I cannot think. Spencer
(who acted as second for me, for matters actually have gone this
length;--don’t be frightened; it is all over, and nobody is a scratch
the worse) thinks some one set Will on me, but who, I say? His conduct
has been most singular; his behaviour quite unbearable. We have met
pretty frequently lately at the house of good Mr. Van den Bosch, whose
pretty granddaughter was consigned to both of us by our good mother. Oh,
dear mother! did you know that the little thing was to be such a
causa belli, and to cause swords to be drawn, and precious lives to
be menaced? But so it has been. To show his own spirit, I suppose, or
having some reasonable doubt about mine, whenever Will and I have met
at Mynheer’s house--and he is for ever going there--he has shown such
downright rudeness to me, that I have required more than ordinary
patience to keep my temper. He has contradicted me once, twice, thrice
in the presence of the family, and out of sheer spite and rage, as
it appeared to me. Is he paying his addresses to Miss Lydia, and her
father’s ships, negroes, and forty thousand pounds? I should guess so.
The old gentleman is for ever talking about his money, and adores his
granddaughter, and as she is a beautiful little creature, numbers of
folk here are ready to adore her too. Was Will rascal enough to fancy
that I would give up my Theo for a million of guineas, and negroes, and
Venus to boot? Could the thought of such baseness enter into the man’s
mind? I don’t know that he has accused me of stealing Van den Bosch’s
spoons and tankards when we dine there, or of robbing on the highway.
But for one reason or the other he has chosen to be jealous of me,
and as I have parried his impertinences with little sarcastic speeches
(though perfectly civil before company), perhaps I have once or twice
made him angry. Our little Miss Lydia has unwittingly added fuel to the
fire on more than one occasion, especially yesterday, when there was
talk about your worship.

“‘Ah!’ says the heedless little thing, as we sat over our dessert, ‘’tis
lucky for you, Mr. Esmond, that Captain Harry is not here.’

“‘Why, miss?’ asks he, with one of his usual conversational ornaments.
He must have offended some fairy in his youth, who has caused him to
drop curses for ever out of his mouth, as she did the girl to spit out
toads and serpents. (I know some one from whose gentle lips there only
fall pure pearls and diamonds.) ‘Why?’ says Will, with a cannonade of
oaths.

“‘O fie!’ says she, putting up the prettiest little fingers to the
prettiest little rosy ears in the world. ‘O fie, sir! to use such
naughty words. ‘Tis lucky the Captain is not here, because he might
quarrel with you; and Mr. George is so peaceable and quiet, that he
won’t. Have you heard from the Captain, Mr. George?’

“‘From Cape Breton,’ says I. ‘He is very well, thank you; that is----’
I couldn’t finish the sentence, for I was in such a rage that I scarce
could contain myself.

“‘From the Captain, as you call him, Miss Lyddy,’ says Will. ‘He’ll
distinguish himself as he did at Saint Cas! Ho, ho!’

“‘So I apprehend he did, sir,’ says Will’s brother.

“‘Did he?’ says our dear cousin; ‘always thought he ran away; took to
his legs; got a ducking, and ran away as if a bailiff was after him.’

“‘La!’ says Miss, ‘did the Captain ever have a bailiff after him?’

“‘Didn’t he? Ho, ho!’ laughs Mr. Will.

“I suppose I must have looked very savage, for Spencer, who was dining
with us, trod on my foot under the table. ‘Don’t laugh so loud, cousin,’
I said, very gently; ‘you may wake good old Mr. Van den Bosch.’ The good
old gentleman was asleep in his arm-chair, to which he commonly retires
for a nap after dinner.

“‘Oh, indeed, cousin,’ says Will, and he turns and winks at a friend of
his, Captain Deuceace, whose own and whose wife’s reputation I dare say
you heard of when you frequented the clubs, and whom Will has introduced
into this simple family as a man of the highest fashion. ‘Don’t be
afraid, miss,’ says Mr. Will, ‘nor my cousin needn’t be.’

“‘Oh, what a comfort!’ cries Miss Lyddy. ‘Keep quite quiet, gentlemen,
and don’t quarrel, and come up to me when I send to say the tea is
ready.’ And with this she makes a sweet little curtsey, and disappears.

“‘Hang it, Jack, pass the bottle, and don’t wake the old gentleman!’
continues Mr. Will. ‘Won’t you help yourself, cousin?’ he continues;
being particularly facetious in the tone of that word cousin.

“‘I am going to help myself,’ I said; ‘but I am not going to drink the
glass; and I’ll tell you what I am going to do with it, if you will be
quite quiet, cousin.’ (Desperate kicks from Spencer all this time.)

“‘And what the deuce do I care what you are going to do with it?’ asks
Will, looking rather white.

“‘I am going to fling it into your face, cousin,’ says I, very rapidly
performing that feat.

“‘By Jove, and no mistake!’ cries Mr. Deuceace; and as he and William
roared out an oath together, good old Van den Bosch woke up, and, taking
the pocket-handkerchief off his face, asked what was the matter.

“I remarked it was only a glass of wine gone the wrong way and the
old man said; ‘Well, well, there is more where that came from! Let the
butler bring you what you please, young gentlemen!’ and he sank back in
his great chair, and began to sleep again.

“‘From the back of Montagu House Gardens there is a beautiful view of
Hampstead at six o’clock in the morning; and the statue of the King on
St. George’s Church is reckoned elegant, cousin!’ says I, resuming the
conversation.

“‘D---- the statue!’ begins Will; but I said, ‘Don’t, cousin! or you
will wake up the old gentleman. Had we not best go upstairs to Miss
Lyddy’s tea-table?’

“We arranged a little meeting for the next morning; and a coroner
might have been sitting upon one or other, or both, of our bodies this
afternoon; but, would you believe it? just as our engagement was about
to take place, we were interrupted by three of Sir John Fielding’s men,
and carried to Bow Street, and ignominiously bound over to keep the
peace.

“Who gave the information? Not I, or Spencer, I can vow. Though I own
I was pleased when the constables came running to us; bludgeon in hand:
for I had no wish to take Will’s blood, or sacrifice my own to such a
rascal. Now, sir, have you such a battle as this to describe to me?--a
battle of powder and no shot?--a battle of swords as bloody as any on
the stage? I have filled my paper, without finishing the story of Maria
and her Hagan. You must have it by the next ship. You see, the quarrel
with Will took place yesterday, very soon after I had written the first
sentence or two of my letter. I had been dawdling till dinner-time (I
looked at the paper last night, when I was grimly making certain little
accounts up, and wondered shall I ever finish this letter?), and now
the quarrel has been so much more interesting to me than poor Molly’s
love-adventures, that behold my paper is full to the brim! Wherever my
dearest Harry reads it, I know that there will be a heart full of love
for--His loving brother,                                                         G. E. W.”



CHAPTER LXXI. White Favours


The little quarrel between George and his cousin caused the former to
discontinue his visits to Bloomsbury in a great measure; for Mr. Will
was more than ever assiduous in his attentions; and, now that both were
bound over to peace, so outrageous in his behaviour, that George found
the greatest difficulty in keeping his hands from his cousin. The
artless little Lydia had certainly a queer way of receiving her friends.
But six weeks before madly jealous of George’s preference for another,
she now took occasion repeatedly to compliment Theo in her conversation.
Miss Theo was such a quiet, gentle creature, Lyddy was sure George was
just the husband for her. How fortunate that horrible quarrel had been
prevented! The constables had come up just in time; and it was quite
ridiculous to hear Mr. Esmond cursing and swearing, and the rage he was
in at being disappointed of his duel! “But the arrival of the constables
saved your valuable life, dear Mr. George, and I am sure Miss Theo ought
to bless them forever,” says Lyddy, with a soft smile. “You won’t
stop and meet Mr. Esmond at dinner to-day? You don’t like being in his
company? He can’t do you any harm; and I am sure you will do him none.”
 Kind speeches like these addressed by a little girl to a gentleman, and
spoken by a strange inadvertency in company, and when other gentlemen
and ladies were present, were not likely to render Mr. Warrington very
eager for the society of the young American lady.

George’s meeting with Mr. Will was not known for some days in Dean
Street, for he did not wish to disturb those kind folks with his
quarrel; but when the ladies were made aware of it, you may be sure
there was a great flurry and to-do. “You were actually going to take a
fellow-creature’s life, and you came to see us, and said not a word! Oh,
George, it was shocking!” said Theo.

“My dear, he had insulted me and my brother,” pleaded George. “Could I
let him call us both cowards, and sit by and say, Thank you?”

The General sate by and looked very grave.

“You know you think, papa, it is a wicked and un-Christian practice; and
have often said you wished gentlemen would have the courage to refuse!”

“To refuse? Yes,” says Mr. Lambert, still very glum.

“It must require a prodigious strength of mind to refuse,” says Jack
Lambert, looking as gloomy as his father; “and I think if any man were
to call me a coward, I should be apt to forget my orders.”

“You see brother Jack is with me!” cries George.

“I must not be against you, Mr. Warrington,” says Jack Lambert.

“Mr. Warrington!” cries George, turning very red.

“Would you, a clergyman, have George break the Commandments, and commit
murder, John?” asks Theo, aghast.

“I am a soldier’s son, sister,” says the young divine, drily. “Besides,
Mr. Warrington has committed no murder at all. We must soon be hearing
from Canada, father. The great question of the supremacy of the two
races must be tried there ere long!” He turned his back on George as he
spoke, and the latter eyed him with wonder.

Hetty, looking rather pale at this original remark of brother Jack,
is called out of the room by some artful pretext of her sister. George
started up and followed the retreating girls to the door.

“Great powers, gentlemen!” says he, coming back, “I believe, on my
honour, you are giving me the credit of shirking this affair with Mr.
Esmond!” The clergyman and his father looked at one another.

“A man’s nearest and dearest are always the first to insult him,” says
George, flashing out.

“You mean to say, ‘Not guilty?’ God bless thee, my boy!” cries the
General. “I told thee so, Jack.” And he rubbed his hand across his eyes,
and blushed, and wrung George’s hand with all his might.

“Not guilty of what, in heaven’s name?” asks Mr. Warrington.

“Nay,” said the General, “Mr. Jack, here, brought the story. Let him
tell it. I believe ‘tis a ------ lie, with all my heart.” And uttering
this wicked expression, the General fairly walked out of the room.

The Rev. J. Lambert looked uncommonly foolish.

“And what is this--this d----d lie, sir, that somebody has been telling
of me?” asked George, grinning at the young clergyman.

“To question the courage of any man is always an offence to him,” says
Mr. Lambert, “and I rejoice that yours has been belied.”

“Who told the falsehood, sir, which you repeated?” bawls out Mr.
Warrington. “I insist on the man’s name!”

“You forget you are bound over to keep the peace,” says Jack.

“Curse the peace, sir! We can go and fight in Holland. Tell me the man’s
name, I say!”

“Fair and softly, Mr. Warrington!” cries the young parson; “my hearing
is perfectly good. It was not a man who told me the story which, I
confess, I imparted to my father.”

“What?” asks George, the truth suddenly occurring. “Was it that artful,
wicked little vixen in Bloomsbury Square?”

“Vixen is not the word to apply to any young lady, George Warrington!”
 exclaims Lambert, “much less to the charming Miss Lydia. She artful--the
most innocent of Heaven’s creatures! She wicked--that angel! With
unfeigned delight that the quarrel should be over--with devout gratitude
to think that blood consanguineous should not be shed--she spoke in
terms of the highest praise of you for declining this quarrel, and of
the deepest sympathy with you for taking the painful but only method of
averting it.”

“What method?” demands George, stamping his foot.

“Why, of laying an information, to be sure!” says Mr. Jack; on which
George burst forth into language much too violent for us to repeat here,
and highly uncomplimentary to Miss Lydia.

“Don’t utter such words, sir!” cried the parson, who, as it seemed,
now took his turn to be angry. “Do not insult, in my hearing, the most
charming, the most innocent of her sex! If she has been mistaken in her
information regarding you, and doubted your willingness to commit what,
after all, is a crime--for a crime homicide is, and of the most awful
description--you, sir, have no right to blacken that angel’s character
with foul words: and, innocent yourself, should respect the most
innocent as she is the most lovely of women! Oh, George, are you to be
my brother?”

“I hope to have that honour,” answered George, smiling. He began to
perceive the other’s drift.

“What, then, what--though ‘tis too much bliss to be hoped for by sinful
man--what, if she should one day be your sister? Who could see her
charms without being subjugated by them? I own that I am a slave. I own
that those Latin Sapphics in the September number of the Gentleman’s
Magazine, beginning Lydicae quondam cecinit venustae (with an English
version by my friend Hickson of Corpus), were mine. I have told my
mother what hath passed between us, and Mrs. Lambert also thinks that
the most lovely of her sex has deigned to look favourably on me. I have
composed a letter--she another. She proposes to wait on Miss Lydia’s
grandpapa this very day, and to bring me the answer, which shall make
me the happiest or the most wretched of men! It was in the unrestrained
intercourse of family conversation that I chanced to impart to my
father the sentiments which my dear girl had uttered. Perhaps I spoke
slightingly of your courage, which I don’t doubt--by Heaven, I don’t
doubt: it may be, she has erred, too, regarding you. It may be that
the fiend jealousy has been gnawing at my bosom, and--horrible
suspicion!--that I thought my sister’s lover found too much favour with
her I would have all my own. Ah, dear George, who knows his faults? I am
as one distracted with passion. Confound it, sir! What right have you to
laugh at me? I would have you to know that risu inepto”

“What, have you two boys made it up?” cries the General, entering at
this moment, in the midst of a roar of laughter from George.

“I was giving my opinion to Mr. Warrington upon laughter, and upon his
laughter in particular,” says Jack Lambert, in a fume.

“George is bound over to keep the peace, Jack! Thou canst not fight him
for two years; and between now and then, let us trust you will have made
up your quarrel. Here is dinner, boys! We will drink absent friends, and
an end to the war, and no fighting out of the profession!”

George pleaded an engagement, as a reason for running away early from
his dinner; and Jack must have speedily followed him, for when the
former, after transacting some brief business at his own lodgings, came
to Mr. Van den Bosch’s door, in Bloomsbury Square, he found the young
parson already in parley with a servant there. “His master and mistress
had left town yesterday,” the servant said.

“Poor Jack! And you had the decisive letter in your pocket?” George
asked of his future brother-in-law.

“Well, yes,”--Jack owned he had the document--“and my mother has ordered
a chair, and was coming to wait on Miss Lyddy,” he whispered piteously,
as the young men lingered on the steps.

George had a note, too, in his pocket for the young lady, which he had
not cared to mention to Jack. In truth, his business at home had been to
write a smart note to Miss Lyddy, with a message for the gentleman who
had brought her that funny story of his giving information regarding the
duel! The family being absent, George, too, did not choose to leave his
note. “If cousin Will has been the slander-bearer, I will go and make
him recant,” thought George. “Will the family soon be back?” he blandly
asked.

“They are gone to visit the quality,” the servant replied. “Here is the
address on this paper;” and George read, in Miss Lydia’s hand, “The box
from Madam Hocquet’s to be sent by the Farnham Flying Coach; addressed
to Miss Van den Bosch, at the Right Honourable the Earl of Castlewood’s,
Castlewood, Hants.”

“Where?” cried poor Jack, aghast.

“His lordship and their ladyships have been here often,” the servant
said, with much importance. “The families is quite intimate.”

This was very strange; for, in the course of their conversation, Lyddy
had owned but to one single visit from Lady Castlewood.

“And they must be a-going to stay there some time, for Miss have took
a power of boxes and gowns with her!” the man added. And the young men
walked away, each crumpling his letter in his pocket.

“What was that remark you made?” asks George of Jack, at some
exclamation of the latter. “I think you said----”

“Distraction! I am beside myself, George! I--I scarce know what I am
saying,” groans the clergyman. “She is gone to Hampshire, and Mr. Esmond
is gone with her!”

“Othello could not have spoken better! and she has a pretty scoundrel
in her company!” says Mr. George. “Ha! here is your mother’s chair!”
 Indeed, at this moment poor Aunt Lambert came swinging down Great
Russell Street, preceded by her footman. “‘Tis no use going farther,
Aunt Lambert!” cries George. “Our little bird has flown.”

“What little bird?”

“The bird Jack wished to pair with:--the Lyddy bird, aunt. Why, Jack, I
protest you are swearing again! This morning ‘twas the Sixth Commandment
you wanted to break; and now----”

“Confound it! leave me alone, Mr. Warrington, do you hear?” growls Jack,
looking very savage; and away he strides far out of the reach of his
mother’s bearers.

“What is the matter, George?” asks the lady.

George, who has not been very well pleased with brother Jack’s behaviour
all day, says: “Brother Jack has not a fine temper, Aunt Lambert. He
informs you all that I am a coward, and remonstrates with me for being
angry. He finds his mistress gone to the country, and he bawls, and
stamps, and swears. O fie! Oh, Aunt Lambert, beware of jealousy! Did the
General ever make you jealous?”

“You will make me very angry if you speak to me in this way,” says poor
Aunt Lambert from her chair.

“I am respectfully dumb. I make my bow. I withdraw,” says George, with
a low bow, and turns towards Holborn. His soul was wrath within him.
He was bent on quarrelling with somebody. Had he met cousin Will that
night, it had gone ill with his sureties.

He sought Will at all his haunts, at Arthur’s, at his own house. There
Lady Castlewood’s servants informed him that they believed Mr. Esmond
had gone to join the family in Hants. He wrote a letter to his cousin:

“My dear, kind cousin William,” he said, “you know I am bound over, and
would not quarrel with any one, much less with a dear, truth-telling,
affectionate kinsman, whom my brother insulted by caning. But if you can
find any one who says that I prevented a meeting the other day by giving
information, will you tell your informant that I think it is not I but
somebody else is the coward? And I write to Mr. Van den Bosch by the
same post, to inform him and Miss Lyddy that I find some rascal has been
telling them lies to my discredit, and to beg them to have a care of
such persons.” And, these neat letters being despatched, Mr. Warrington
dressed himself, showed himself at the play, and took supper cheerfully
at the Bedford.

In a few days George found a letter on his breakfast-table franked
“Castlewood,” and, indeed, written by that nobleman.

“Dear Cousin,” my lord wrote, “there has been so much annoyance in our
family of late, that I am sure ‘tis time our quarrels should cease. Two
days since my brother William brought me a very angry letter, signed G.
Warrington, and at the same time, to my great grief and pain, acquainted
me with a quarrel that had taken place between you, in which, to say
the least, your conduct was violent. ‘Tis an ill use to put good wine
to--that to which you applied good Mr. Van den Bosch’s. Sure, before an
old man, young ones should be more respectful. I do not deny that Wm.’s
language and behaviour are often irritating. I know he has often tried
my temper, and that within the 24 hours.

“Ah! why should we not all live happily together? You know, cousin,
I have ever professed a sincere regard for you--that I am a sincere
admirer of the admirable young lady to whom you are engaged, and to whom
I offer my most cordial compliments and remembrances. I would live in
harmony with all my family where ‘tis possible--the more because I hope
to introduce to it a Countess of Castlewood.

“At my mature age, ‘tis not uncommon for a man to choose a young wife.
My Lydia (you will divine that I am happy in being able to call mine the
elegant Miss Van den Bosch) will naturally survive me. After soothing
my declining years, I shall not be jealous if at their close she
should select some happy man to succeed me; though I shall envy him the
possession of so much perfection and beauty. Though of a noble Dutch
family, her rank, the dear girl declares, is not equal to mine, which
she confesses that she is pleased to share. I, on the other hand, shall
not be sorry to see descendants to my house, and to have it, through my
Lady Castlewood’s means, restored to something of the splendour which it
knew before two or three improvident predecessors impaired it. My Lydia,
who is by my side, sends you and the charming Lambert family her warmest
remembrances.

“The marriage will take place very speedily here. May I hope to see you
at church? My brother will not be present to quarrel with you. When
I and dear Lydia announced the match to him yesterday, he took the
intelligence in bad part, uttered language that I know he will one day
regret, and is at present on a visit to some neighbours. The Dowager
Lady Castlewood retains the house at Kensington; we having our own
establishment, where you will ever be welcomed, dear cousin, by your
affectionate humble servant, CASTLEWOOD.”


From the London Magazine of November 1759:

“Saturday, October 13th, married, at his seat, Castlewood, Hants, the
Right Honourable Eugene, Earl of Castlewood, to the beautiful Miss Van
den Bosch, of Virginia. 70,000 pounds.”



CHAPTER LXXII. (From the Warrington MS.) In which My Lady is on the Top
of the Ladder


Looking across the fire, towards her accustomed chair, who has been the
beloved partner of my hearth during the last half of my life, I often
ask (for middle aged gentlemen have the privilege of repeating their
jokes, their questions, their stories) whether two young people ever
were more foolish and imprudent than we were when we married, as we
did, in the year of the old King’s death? My son, who has taken some
prodigious leaps in the heat of his fox-hunting, says he surveys the
gaps and rivers which he crossed so safely over with terror afterwards,
and astonishment at his own foolhardiness in making such desperate
ventures; and yet there is no more eager sportsman in the two counties
than Miles. He loves his amusement so much that he cares for no other.
He has broken his collar-bone, and had a hundred tumbles (to his
mother’s terror); but so has his father (thinking, perhaps, of a copy
of verse, or his speech at Quarter Sessions) been thrown over his old
mare’s head, who has slipped on a stone as they were both dreaming along
a park road at four miles an hour; and Miles’s reckless sport has been
the delight of his life, as my marriage has been the blessing of mine;
and I never think of it but to thank Heaven. Mind, I don’t set up my
worship as an example. I don’t say to all young folks, “Go and marry
upon twopence a year;” or people would look very black at me at our
vestry-meetings; but my wife is known to be a desperate match-maker; and
when Hodge and Susan appear in my justice-room with a talk of allowance,
we urge them to spend their half-crown a week at home, add a little
contribution of our own, and send for the vicar.

Now, when I ask a question of my dear oracle, I know what the answer
will be; and hence, no doubt, the reason why I so often consult her. I
have but to wear a particular expression of face and my Diana takes her
reflection from it. Suppose I say, “My dear, don’t you think the moon
was made of cream cheese to-night?” She will say, “Well, papa, it did
look very like cream cheese, indeed--there’s nobody like you for droll
similes.” Or, suppose I say, “My love, Mr. Pitt’s speech was very fine,
but I don’t think he is equal to what I remember his father.” “Nobody
was equal to my Lord Chatham,” says my wife. And then one of the
girls cries, “Why, I have often heard our papa say Lord Chatham was a
charlatan!” On which mamma says, “How like she is to her Aunt Hetty!”

As for Miles, Tros Tyriusve is all one to him. He only reads the
sporting announcements in the Norwich paper. So long as there is good
scent, he does not care about the state of the country. I believe the
rascal has never read my poems, much more my tragedies (for I mentioned
Pocahontas to him the other day, and the dunce thought she was a river
in Virginia); and with respect to my Latin verses, how can he understand
them when I know he can’t construe Corderius? Why, this notebook lies
publicly on the little table at my corner of the fireside, and any one
may read in it who will take the trouble of lifting my spectacles off
the cover: but Miles never hath. I insert in the loose pages caricatures
of Miles: jokes against him: but he never knows nor heeds them. Only
once, in place of a neat drawing of mine, in China-ink, representing
Miles asleep after dinner, and which my friend Bunbury would not disown,
I found a rude picture of myself going over my mare Sultana’s head, and
entitled “The Squire on Horseback, or Fish out of Water.” And the fellow
to roar with laughter, and all the girls to titter, when I came upon the
page! My wife said she never was in such a fright as when I went to my
book: but I can bear a joke against myself, and have heard many, though
(strange to say, for one who has lived among some of the chief wits of
the age) I never heard a good one in my life. Never mind, Miles, though
thou art not a wit, I love thee none the worse (there never was any love
lost between two wits in a family); though thou hast no great beauty,
thy mother thinks thee as handsome as Apollo, or his Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales, who was born in the very same year with thee. Indeed,
she always think Coates’s picture of the Prince is very like her eldest
boy, and has the print in her dressing-room to this very day.


[Note, in a female hand: “My son is not a spendthrift, nor a breaker of
women’s hearts, as some gentlemen are; but that he was exceeding like
H.R.H. when they were both babies, is most certain, the Duchess of
Aneaster having herself remarked him in St. James’s Park, where Gumbo
and my poor Molly used often to take him for an airing. Th. W.”]


In that same year, with what different prospects! my Lord Esmond, Lord
Castlewood’s son, likewise appeared to adorn the world. My Lord C. and
his humble servant had already come to a coolness at that time, and,
heaven knows! my honest Miles’s godmother, at his entrance into life,
brought no gold pap-boats to his christening! Matters have mended since,
laus Deo--laus Deo, indeed! for I suspect neither Miles nor his father
would ever have been able to do much for themselves, and by their own
wits.

Castlewood House has quite a different face now from that venerable
one which it wore in the days of my youth, when it was covered with the
wrinkles of time, the scars of old wars, the cracks and blemishes which
years had marked on its hoary features. I love best to remember it in
its old shape, as I saw it when young Mr. George Warrington went down
at the owner’s invitation, to be present at his lordship’s marriage with
Miss Lydia Van den Bosch--“an American lady of noble family of Holland,”
 as the county paper announced her ladyship to be. Then the towers stood
as Warrington’s grandfather the Colonel (the Marquis, as Madam Esmond
would like to call her father) had seen them. The woods (thinned not
a little to be sure) stood, nay, some of the self-same rooks may have
cawed over them, which the Colonel had seen threescore years back. His
picture hung in the hall which might have been his, had he not preferred
love and gratitude to wealth and worldly honour; and Mr. George Esmond
Warrington (that is, Egomet Ipse who write this page down), as he
walked the old place, pacing the long corridors, the smooth dew-spangled
terraces and cool darkling avenues, felt a while as if he was one of Mr.
Walpole’s cavaliers with ruff, rapier, buff-coat, and gorget, and as if
an Old Pretender, or a Jesuit emissary in disguise, might appear from
behind any tall tree-trunk round about the mansion, or antique carved
cupboard within it. I had the strangest, saddest, pleasantest, old-world
fancies as I walked the place; I imagined tragedies, intrigues,
serenades, escaladoes, Oliver’s Roundheads battering the towers, or
bluff Hal’s Beefeaters pricking over the plain before the castle. I was
then courting a certain young lady (madam, your ladyship’s eyes had no
need of spectacles then, and on the brow above them there was never a
wrinkle or a silver hair), and I remember I wrote a ream of romantic
description, under my Lord Castlewood’s franks, to the lady who never
tired of reading my letters then. She says I only send her three lines
now, when I am away in London or elsewhere. ‘Tis that I may not fatigue
your old eyes, my dear!

Mr. Warrington thought himself authorised to order a genteel new suit of
clothes for my lord’s marriage, and with Mons. Gumbo in attendance,
made his appearance at Castlewood a few days before the ceremony. I may
mention that it had been found expedient to send my faithful Sady home
on board a Virginia ship. A great inflammation attacking the throat and
lungs, and proving fatal in very many cases, in that year of Wolfe’s
expedition, had seized and well-nigh killed my poor lad, for whom
his native air was pronounced to be the best cure. We parted with an
abundance of tears, and Gumbo shed as many when his master went to
Quebec: but he had attractions in this country and none for the military
life, so he remained attached to my service. We found Castlewood House
full of friends, relations, and visitors. Lady Fanny was there upon
compulsion, a sulky bridesmaid. Some of the virgins of the neighbourhood
also attended the young Countess. A bishop’s widow herself, the Baroness
Beatrix brought a holy brother-in-law of the bench from London to tie
the holy knot of matrimony between Eugene Earl of Castlewood and Lydia
Van den Bosch, spinster; and for some time before and after the nuptials
the old house in Hampshire wore an appearance of gaiety to which it had
long been unaccustomed. The country families came gladly to pay their
compliments to the newly married couple. The lady’s wealth was the
subject of everybody’s talk, and no doubt did not decrease in the
telling. Those naughty stories which were rife in town, and spread by
her disappointed suitors there, took some little time to travel into
Hampshire; and when they reached the country found it disposed to treat
Lord Castlewood’s wife with civility, and not inclined to be too curious
about her behaviour in town. Suppose she had jilted this man, and
laughed at the other? It was her money they were anxious about, and she
was no more mercenary than they. The Hampshire folks were determined
that it was a great benefit to the country to have Castlewood House once
more open, with beer in the cellars, horses in the stables, and spits
turning before the kitchen fires. The new lady took her place with great
dignity, and ‘twas certain she had uncommon accomplishments and wit.
Was it not written, in the marriage advertisements, that her ladyship
brought her noble husband seventy thousand pounds? On a beaucoup
d’esprit with seventy thousand pounds. The Hampshire people said this
was only a small portion of her wealth. When the grandfather should
fall, ever so many plums would be found on that old tree.

That quiet old man, and keen reckoner, began quickly to put the
dilapidated Castlewood accounts in order, of which long neglect,
poverty, and improvidence had hastened the ruin. The business of the
old gentleman’s life now, and for some time henceforth, was to
advance, improve, mend my lord’s finances; to screw the rents up where
practicable, to pare the expenses of the establishment down. He could,
somehow, look to every yard of worsted lace on the footmen’s coats, and
every pound of beef that went to their dinner. A watchful old eye noted
every flagon of beer which was fetched from the buttery, and marked
that no waste occurred in the larder. The people were fewer, but more
regularly paid; the liveries were not so ragged, and yet the tailor had
no need to dun for his money; the gardeners and grooms grumbled, though
their wages were no longer overdue: but the horses fattened on less
corn, and the fruit and vegetables were ever so much more plentiful--so
keenly did my lady’s old grandfather keep a watch over the household
affairs, from his lonely little chamber in the turret.

These improvements, though here told in a paragraph or two, were the
affairs of months and years at Castlewood; where, with thrift, order,
and judicious outlay of money (however, upon some pressing occasions,
my lord might say he had none), the estate and household increased in
prosperity. That it was a flourishing and economical household no one
could deny: not even the dowager lady and her two children, who now
seldom entered within Castlewood gates, my lady considering them in the
light of enemies--for who, indeed, would like a stepmother-in-law? The
little reigning Countess gave the dowager battle, and routed her utterly
and speedily. Though educated in the colonies, and ignorant of polite
life during her early years, the Countess Lydia had a power of language
and a strength of will that all had to acknowledge who quarrelled with
her. The dowager and my Lady Fanny were no match for the young American:
they fled from before her to their jointure house in Kensington, and no
wonder their absence was not regretted by my lord, who was in the habit
of regretting no one whose back was turned. Could cousin Warrington,
whose hand his lordship pressed so affectionately on coming and parting,
with whom cousin Eugene was so gay and frank and pleasant when they
were together, expect or hope that his lordship would grieve at his
departure, at his death, at any misfortune which could happen to him,
or any souls alive? Cousin Warrington knew better. Always of a sceptical
turn, Mr. W. took a grim delight in watching the peculiarities of his
neighbours, and could like this one even though he had no courage and no
heart. Courage? Heart? What are these to you and me in the world? A man
may have private virtues as he may have half a million in the funds.
What we du monde expect is, that he should be lively, agreeable, keep a
decent figure, and pay his way. Colonel Esmond Warrington’s grandfather
(in whose history and dwelling-place Mr. W. took an extraordinary
interest), might once have been owner of this house of Castlewood,
and of the titles which belonged to its possessor. The gentleman often
looked at the Colonel’s grave picture as it still hung in the saloon,
a copy or replica of which piece Mr. Warrington fondly remembered in
Virginia.

“He must have been a little touched here,” my lord said, tapping his own
tall, placid forehead.

There are certain actions, simple and common with some men, which others
cannot understand, and deny as utter lies, or deride as acts of madness.

“I do you the justice to think, cousin,” says Mr. Warrington to his
lordship, “that you would not give up any advantage for any friend in
the world.”

“Eh! I am selfish: but am I more selfish than the rest of the world?”
 asks my lord, with a French shrug of his shoulders, and a pinch out of
his box. Once, in their walks in the fields, his lordship happening
to wear a fine scarlet coat, a cow ran towards him; and the ordinarily
languid nobleman sprang over a stile with the agility of a schoolboy. He
did not conceal his tremor, or his natural want of courage. “I dare say
you respect me no more than I respect myself, George,” he would say, in
his candid way, and begin a very pleasant sardonical discourse upon the
fall of man, and his faults, and shortcomings; and wonder why Heaven
had not made us all brave and tall, and handsome and rich? As for Mr.
Warrington, who very likely loved to be king of his company (as some
people do), he could not help liking this kinsman of his, so witty,
graceful, polished, high-placed in the world--so utterly his inferior.
Like the animal in Mr. Sterne’s famous book, “Do not beat me,” his
lordship’s look seemed to say, “but, if you will, you may.” No man, save
a bully and coward himself, deals hardly with a creature so spiritless.



CHAPTER LXXIII. We keep Christmas at Castlewood. 1759


We know, my dear children, from our favourite fairy story-books, how at
all christenings and marriages some one is invariably disappointed,
and vows vengeance; and so need not wonder that good cousin Will should
curse and rage energetically at the news of his brother’s engagement
with the colonial heiress. At first, Will fled the house, in his wrath,
swearing he would never return. But nobody, including the swearer,
believed much in Master Will’s oaths; and this unrepentant prodigal,
after a day or two, came back to the paternal house. The fumes of the
marriage-feast allured him: he could not afford to resign his knife and
fork at Castlewood table. He returned, and drank and ate there in token
of revenge. He pledged the young bride in a bumper, and drank perdition
to her under his breath. He made responses of smothered maledictions
as her father gave her away in the chapel, and my lord vowed to love,
honour and cherish her. He was not the only grumbler respecting that
marriage, as Mr. Warrington knew: he heard, then and afterwards, no
end of abuse of my lady and her grandfather. The old gentleman’s City
friends, his legal adviser, the Dissenting clergyman at whose chapel
they attended on their first arrival in England, and poor Jack Lambert,
the orthodox young divine, whose eloquence he had fondly hoped had
been exerted over her in private, were bitter against the little lady’s
treachery, and each had a story to tell of his having been enslaved,
encouraged, jilted, by the young American. The lawyer, who had had such
an accurate list of all her properties, estates, moneys, slaves, ships,
expectations, was ready to vow and swear that he believed the whole
account was false; that there was no such place as New York or Virginia;
or at any rate, that Mr. Van den Bosch had no land there; that there was
no such thing as a Guinea trade, and that the negroes were so many
black falsehoods invented by the wily old planter. The Dissenting pastor
moaned over his stray lambling--if such a little, wily, mischievous
monster could be called a lamb at all. Poor Jack Lambert ruefully
acknowledged to his mamma the possession of a lock of black hair, which
he bedewed with tears and apostrophised in quite unclerical language:
and, as for Mr. William Esmond, he, with the shrieks and curses in which
he always freely indulged, even at Castlewood, under his sister-in-law’s
own pretty little nose, when under any strong emotion, called Acheron
to witness, that out of that region there did not exist such an artful
young devil as Miss Lydia. He swore that she was an infernal female
Cerberus, and called down all the wrath of this world and the next upon
his swindling rascal of a brother, who had cajoled him with fair words,
and filched his prize from him.

“Why,” says Mr. Warrington (when Will expatiated on these matters with
him), “if the girl is such a she-devil as you describe her, you are all
the better for losing her. If she intends to deceive her husband, and
to give him a dose of poison, as you say, how lucky for you, you are not
the man! You ought to thank the gods, Will, instead of cursing them, for
robbing you of such a fury, and can’t be better revenged on Castlewood
than by allowing him her sole possession.”

“All this was very well,” Will Esmond said; but--not unjustly,
perhaps,--remarked that his brother was not the less a scoundrel for
having cheated him out of the fortune which he expected to get, and
which he had risked his life to win, too.

George Warrington was at a loss to know how his cousin had been made
so to risk his precious existence (for which, perhaps, a rope’s end
had been a fitting termination), on which Will Esmond, with the utmost
candour, told his kinsman how the little Cerbera had actually caused
the meeting between them, which was interrupted somehow by Sir John
Fielding’s men; how she was always saying that George Warrington was a
coward for ever sneering at Mr. Will, and the latter doubly a poltroon
for not taking notice of his kinsman’s taunts; how George had run away
and nearly died of fright in Braddock’s expedition; and “Deuce take me,”
 says Will, “I never was more surprised, cousin, than when you stood to
your ground so coolly in Tottenham Court Fields yonder, for me and my
second offered to wager that you would never come!”

Mr. Warrington laughed, and thanked Mr. Will for this opinion of him.

“Though,” says he, “cousin, ‘twas lucky for me the constables came up,
or you would have whipped your sword through my body in another minute.
Didn’t you see how clumsy I was as I stood before you? And you actually
turned white and shook with anger!”

“Yes, curse me,” says Mr. Will (who turned very red this time), “that’s
my way of showing my rage; and I was confoundedly angry with you,
cousin! But now ‘tis my brother I hate, and that little devil of a
Countess--a countess! a pretty countess, indeed!” And with another
rumbling cannonade of oaths, Will saluted the reigning member of his
family.

“Well, cousin,” says George, looking him queerly in the face, “you let
me off easily, and I dare say I owe my life to you, or at any rate a
whole waistcoat, and I admire your forbearance and spirit. What a pity
that a courage like yours should be wasted as a mere court usher! You
are a loss to his Majesty’s army. You positively are!”

“I never know whether you are joking or serious, Mr. Warrington,” growls
Will.

“I should think very few gentlemen would dare to joke with you, cousin,
if they had a regard for their own lives or ears! cries Mr. Warrington,
who loved this grave way of dealing with his noble kinsman, and used to
watch, with a droll interest, the other choking his curses, grinding his
teeth because afraid to bite, and smothering his cowardly anger.

“And you should moderate your expressions, cousin, regarding the dear
Countess and my lord your brother,” Mr. Warrington resumed. “Of you they
always speak most tenderly. Her ladyship has told me everything.”

“What everything?” cries Will, aghast.

“As much as women ever do tell, cousin. She owned that she thought you
had been a little epris with her. What woman can help liking a man who
has admired her?”

“Why, she hates you, and says you were wild about her, Mr. Warrington!”
 says Mr. Esmond.

“Spretae injuria formae, cousin!”

“For me--what’s for me?” asks the other.

“I never did care for her, and hence, perhaps, she does not love me.
Don’t you remember that case of the wife of the Captain of the Guard?”

“Which Guard?” asks Will.

“My Lord Potiphar,” says Mr. Warrington.

“Lord Who? My Lord Falmouth is Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard,
and my Lord Berkeley of the Pensioners. My Lord Hobart had ‘em before.
Suppose you haven’t been long enough in England to know who’s who,
cousin!” remarks Mr. William.

But Mr. Warrington explained that he was speaking of a Captain of the
Guard of the King of Egypt, whose wife had persecuted one Joseph for not
returning her affection for him. On which Will said that, as for
Egypt, he believed it was a confounded long way off; and that if Lord
What-d’ye-call’s wife told lies about him, it was like her sex, who he
supposed were the same everywhere.

Now the truth is, that when he paid his marriage-visit to Castlewood,
Mr. Warrington had heard from the little Countess her version of the
story of differences between Will Esmond and herself. And this tale
differed, in some respects, though he is far from saying it is more
authentic than the ingenuous narrative of Mr. Will. The lady was grieved
to think how she had been deceived in her brother-in-law. She feared
that his life about the court and town had injured those high principles
which all the Esmonds are known to be born with; that Mr. Will’s words
were not altogether to be trusted; that a loose life and pecuniary
difficulties had made him mercenary, blunted his honour, perhaps even
impaired the high chivalrous courage “which we Esmonds, cousin,” the
little lady said, tossing her head, “which we Esmonds must always
possess--leastways, you and me, and my lord, and my cousin Harry have
it, I know!” says the Countess. “Oh, cousin George! and must I confess
that I was led to doubt of yours, without which a man of ancient and
noble family like ours isn’t worthy to be called a man! I shall try,
George, as a Christian lady, and the head of one of the first families
in this kingdom and the whole world, to forgive my brother William for
having spoke ill of a member of our family, though a younger branch and
by the female side, and made me for a moment doubt of you. He did so.
Perhaps he told me ever so many bad things you had said of me.”

“I, my dear lady!” cries Mr. Warrington.

“Which he said you said of me, cousin, and I hope you didn’t, and
heartily pray you didn’t; and I can afford to despise ‘em. And he paid
me his court, that’s a fact; and so have others, and that I’m used to;
and he might have prospered better than he did perhaps (for I did not
know my dear lord, nor come to vally his great and eminent qualities, as
I do out of the fulness of this grateful heart now!), but, oh! I found
William was deficient in courage, and no man as wants that can ever have
the esteem of Lydia, Countess of Castlewood, no more he can! He said
‘twas you that wanted for spirit, cousin, and angered me by telling me
that you was always abusing of me. But I forgive you, George, that I
do! And when I tell you that it was he was afraid--the mean skunk!--and
actually sent for them constables to prevent the match between you and
he, you won’t wonder I wouldn’t vally a feller like that--no, not that
much!” and her ladyship snapped her little fingers. “I say, noblesse
oblige, and a man of our family who hasn’t got courage, I don’t care not
this pinch of snuff for him--there, now, I don’t! Look at our ancestors,
George, round these walls! Haven’t the Esmonds always fought for their
country and king? Is there one of us that, when the moment arrives,
ain’t ready to show that he’s an Esmond and a nobleman? If my eldest son
was to show the white feather, ‘My Lord Esmond!’ I would say to him (for
that’s the second title in our family), ‘I disown your lordship!’” And
so saying, the intrepid little woman looked round at her ancestors,
whose effigies, depicted by Lely and Kneller, figured round the walls of
her drawing-room at Castlewood.

Over that apartment, and the whole house, domain, and village, the
new Countess speedily began to rule with an unlimited sway. It was
surprising how quickly she learned the ways of command; and, if she
did not adopt those methods of precedence usual in England among great
ladies, invented regulations for herself, and promulgated them, and made
others submit. Having been bred a Dissenter, and not being over-familiar
with the Established Church service, Mr. Warrington remarked that she
made a blunder or two during the office (not knowing, for example,
when she was to turn her face towards the east, a custom not adopted, I
believe, in other Reforming churches besides the English); but between
Warrington’s first bridal visit to Castlewood and his second, my lady
had got to be quite perfect in that part of her duty, and sailed into
chapel on her cousin’s arm, her two footmen bearing her ladyship’s great
Prayer-book behind her, as demurely as that delightful old devotee with
her lackey, in Mr. Hogarth’s famous picture of “Morning,” and as if
my Lady Lydia had been accustomed to have a chaplain all her life. She
seemed to patronise not only the new chaplain, but the service and the
church itself, as if she had never in her own country heard a Ranter in
a barn. She made the oldest established families in the country--grave
baronets and their wives--worthy squires of twenty descents, who rode
over to Castlewood to pay the bride and bridegroom honour--know their
distance, as the phrase is, and give her the pas. She got an old
heraldry book; and a surprising old maiden lady from Winton, learned in
politeness and genealogies, from whom she learned the court etiquette
(as the old Winton lady had known it in Queen Anne’s time); and ere long
she jabbered gules and sables, bends and saltires, not with correctness
always, but with a wonderful volubility and perseverance. She made
little progresses to the neighbouring towns in her gilt coach-and-six,
or to the village in her chair, and asserted a quasi-regal right of
homage from her tenants and other clodpoles. She lectured the parson
on his divinity; the bailiff on his farming; instructed the astonished
housekeeper how to preserve and pickle; would have taught the great
London footmen to jump behind the carriage, only it was too high for her
little ladyship to mount; gave the village gossips instructions how to
nurse and take care of their children long before she had one herself;
and as for physic, Madam Esmond in Virginia was not more resolute about
her pills and draughts than Miss Lydia, the earl’s new bride. Do you
remember the story of the Fisherman and the Genie, in the Arabian
Nights? So one wondered with regard to this lady, how such a prodigious
genius could have been corked down into such a little bottle as her
body. When Mr. Warrington returned to London after his first nuptial
visit, she brought him a little present for her young friends in Dean
Street, as she called them (Theo being older, and Hetty scarce younger
than herself), and sent a trinket to one and a book to the other--G.
Warrington always vowing that Theo’s present was a doll, while Hetty’s
share was a nursery-book with words of one syllable. As for Mr. Will,
her younger brother-in-law, she treated him with a maternal gravity
and tenderness, and was in the habit of speaking of and to him with a
protecting air, which was infinitely diverting to Warrington, although
Will’s usual curses and blasphemies were sorely increased by her
behaviour.

As for old age, my Lady Lydia had little respect for that accident in
the life of some gentlemen and gentlewomen; and, once the settlements
were made in her behalf, treated the ancient Van den Bosch and his large
periwig with no more ceremony than Dinah her black attendant, whose
great ears she would pinch, and whose woolly pate she would pull without
scruple, upon offence given--so at least Dinah told Gumbo, who told
his master. All the household trembled before my lady the Countess: the
housekeeper, of whom even my lord and the dowager had been in awe; the
pampered London footmen, who used to quarrel if they were disturbed at
their cards, and grumbled as they swilled the endless beer, now stepped
nimbly about their business when they heard her ladyship’s call; even
old Lockwood, who had been gate-porter for half a century or more, tried
to rally his poor old wandering wits when she came into his lodge to
open his window, inspect his wood-closet, and turn his old dogs out of
doors. Lockwood bared his old bald head before his new mistress, turned
an appealing look towards his niece, and vaguely trembled before her
little ladyship’s authority. Gumbo, dressing his master for dinner,
talked about Elisha (of whom he had heard the chaplain read in the
morning), “and his bald head and de boys who call um names, and de bars
eat em up, and serve um right,” says Gumbo. But as for my lady, when
discoursing with her cousin about the old porter, “Pooh, pooh! Stupid
old man!” says she; “past his work, he and his dirty old dogs! They are
as old and ugly as those old fish in the pond!” (Here she pointed to two
old monsters of carp that had been in a pond in Castlewood gardens for
centuries, according to tradition, and had their backs all covered with
a hideous grey mould.) “Lockwood must pack off; the workhouse is the
place for him; and I shall have a smart, good-looking, tall fellow in
the lodge that will do credit to our livery.”

“He was my grandfather’s man, and served him in the wars of Queen Anne,”
 interposed Mr. Warrington. On which my lady cried, petulantly, “O Lord!
Queen Anne’s dead, I suppose, and we ain’t a-going into mourning for
her.”

This matter of Lockwood was discussed at the family dinner, when her
ladyship announced her intention of getting rid of the old man.

“I am told,” demurely remarks Mr. Van den Bosch, “that, by the laws,
poor servants and poor folks of all kinds are admirably provided in
their old age here in England. I am sure I wish we had such an asylum
for our folks at home, and that we were eased of the expense of keeping
our old hands.”

“If a man can’t work he ought to go!” cries her ladyship.

“Yes, indeed, and that’s a fact!” says grandpapa.

“What! an old servant?” asks my lord.

“Mr. Van den Bosch possibly was independent of servants when he was
young,” remarks Mr. Warrington.

“Greased my own boots, opened my own shutters, sanded and watered my
own----”

“Sugar, sir?” says my lord.

“No; floor, son-in-law!” says the old man, with a laugh; “though there
is such tricks, in grocery stores, saving your ladyship’s presence.”

“La, pa! what should I know about stores and groceries?” cries her
ladyship.

“He! Remember stealing the sugar, and what came on it, my dear
ladyship?” says grandpapa.

“At any rate, a handsome, well-grown man in our livery will look better
than that shrivelled old porter creature!” cries my lady.

“No livery is so becoming as old age, madam, and no lace as handsome
as silver hairs,” says Mr. Warrington. “What will the county say if you
banish old Lockwood?”

“Oh! if you plead for him, sir, I suppose he must stay. Hadn’t I better
order a couch for him out of my drawing-room, and send him some of the
best wine from the cellar?”

“Indeed your ladyship couldn’t do better,” Mr. Warrington remarked, very
gravely.

And my lord said, yawning, “Cousin George is perfectly right, my dear.
To turn away such an old servant as Lockwood would have an ill look.”

“You see those mouldy old carps are, after all, a curiosity, and attract
visitors,” continues Mr. Warrington, gravely. “Your ladyship must allow
this old wretch to remain. It won’t be for long. And you may then engage
the tall porter. It is very hard on us, Mr. Van den Bosch, that we are
obliged to keep our old negroes when they are past work. I shall sell
that rascal Gumbo in eight or ten years.”

“Don’t tink you will, master!” says Gumbo, grinning.

“Hold your tongue, sir! He doesn’t know English ways, you see, and
perhaps thinks an old servant has a claim on his master’s kindness,”
 says Mr. Warrington.

The next day, to Warrington’s surprise, my lady absolutely did send a
basket of good wine to Lockwood, and a cushion for his armchair.

“I thought of what you said, yesterday, at night when I went to bed; and
guess you know the world better than I do, cousin; and that it’s best to
keep the old man, as you say.”

And so this affair of the porter’s lodge ended, Mr. Warrington wondering
within himself at this strange little character out of the West, with
her naivete and simplicities, and a heartlessness would have done credit
to the most battered old dowager who ever turned trumps in St. James’s.

“You tell me to respect old people. Why? I don’t see nothin’ to respect
in the old people, I know,” she said to Warrington. “They ain’t so
funny, and I’m sure they ain’t so handsome. Look at grandfather; look
at Aunt Bernstein. They say she was a beauty once! That picture painted
from her! I don’t believe it, nohow. No one shall tell me that I shall
ever be as bad as that! When they come to that, people oughtn’t to live.
No, that they oughtn’t.”

Now, at Christmas, Aunt Bernstein came to pay her nephew and niece a
visit, in company with Mr. Warrington. They travelled at their leisure
in the Baroness’s own landau; the old lady being in particular good
health and spirits, the weather delightfully fresh and not too cold;
and, as they approached her paternal home, Aunt Beatrice told her
companion a hundred stories regarding it and old days. Though often
lethargic, and not seldom, it must be confessed, out of temper, the old
lady would light up at times, when her conversation became wonderfully
lively, her wit and malice were brilliant, and her memory supplied her
with a hundred anecdotes of a bygone age and society. Sure, ‘tis hard
with respect to Beauty, that its possessor should not have even a
life-enjoyment of it, but be compelled to resign it after, at the most,
some forty years’ lease. As the old woman prattled of her former lovers
and admirers (her auditor having much more information regarding her
past career than her ladyship knew of), I would look in her face, and,
out of the ruins, try to build up in my fancy a notion of her beauty in
its prime. What a homily I read there! How the courts were grown
with grass, the towers broken, the doors ajar, the fine gilt saloons
tarnished, and the tapestries cobwebbed and torn! Yonder dilapidated
palace was all alive once with splendour and music, and those dim
windows were dazzling and blazing with light! What balls and feasts were
once here, what splendour and laughter! I could see lovers in waiting,
crowds in admiration, rivals furious. I could imagine twilight
assignations, and detect intrigues, though the curtains were close and
drawn. I was often minded to say to the old woman as she talked, “Madam,
I know the story was not as you tell it, but so and so”--(I had read at
home the history of her life, as my dear old grandfather had wrote it):
and my fancy wandered about in her, amused and solitary, as I had walked
about our father’s house at Castlewood, meditating on departed glories,
and imagining ancient times.

When Aunt Bernstein came to Castlewood, her relatives there, more, I
think, on account of her own force of character, imperiousness, and
sarcastic wit, than from their desire to possess her money, were
accustomed to pay her a great deal of respect and deference, which
she accepted as her due. She expected the same treatment from the new
Countess, whom she was prepared to greet with special good-humour. The
match had been of her making. “As you, you silly creature, would not
have the heiress,” she said, “I was determined she should not go out of
the family,” and she laughingly told of many little schemes for bringing
the marriage about. She had given the girl a coronet and her nephew
a hundred thousand pounds. Of course she should be welcome to both of
them. She was delighted with the little Countess’s courage and spirit
in routing the Dowager and Lady Fanny. Almost always pleased with pretty
people on her first introduction to them, Madame Bernstein raffled of
her niece Lydia’s bright eyes and lovely little figure. The marriage was
altogether desirable. The old man was an obstacle, to be sure, and his
talk and appearance somewhat too homely. But he will be got rid of.
He is old and in delicate health. “He will want to go to America, or
perhaps farther,” says the Baroness, with a shrug. “As for the child,
she had great fire and liveliness, and a Cherokee manner which is not
without its charm,” said the pleased old Baroness. “Your brother had
it--so have you, Master George! Nous la formerons, cette petite. Eugene
wants character and vigour, but he is a finished gentleman, and between
us we shall make the little savage perfectly presentable.” In this
way we discoursed on the second afternoon as we journeyed towards
Castlewood. We lay at the King’s Arms at Bagshot the first night, where
the Baroness was always received with profound respect, and thence
drove post to Hexton, where she had written to have my lord’s horses in
waiting for her; but these were not forthcoming at the inn, and after
a couple of hours we were obliged to proceed with our Bagshot horses to
Castlewood.

During this last stage of the journey, I am bound to say the old aunt’s
testy humour returned, and she scarce spoke a single word for three
hours. As for her companion; being prodigiously in love at the time,
no doubt he did not press his aunt for conversation, but thought
unceasingly about his Dulcinea, until the coach actually reached
Castlewood Common, and rolled over the bridge before the house.

The housekeeper was ready to conduct her ladyship to her apartments. My
lord and lady were both absent. She did not know what had kept them, the
housekeeper said, heading the way.

“Not that door, my lady!” cries the woman, as Madame de Bernstein
put her hand upon the door of the room which she had always occupied.
“That’s her ladyship’s room now. This way,” and our aunt followed, by
no means in increased good-humour. I do not envy her maids when their
mistress was displeased. But she had cleared her brow before she joined
the family, and appeared in the drawing-room before supper-time with a
countenance of tolerable serenity.

“How d’ye do, aunt?” was the Countess’s salutation. “I declare now, I
was taking a nap when your ladyship arrived! Hope you found your room
fixed to your liking!”

Having addressed three brief sentences to the astonished old lady, the
Countess now turned to her other guests, and directed her conversation
to them. Mr. Warrington was not a little diverted by her behaviour,
and by the appearance of surprise and wrath which began to gather over
Madame Bernstein’s face. “La petite,” whom the Baroness proposed to
“form,” was rather a rebellious subject, apparently, and proposed to
take a form of her own. Looking once or twice rather anxiously towards
his wife, my lord tried to atone for her pertness towards his aunt by
profuse civility on his own part; indeed, when he so wished, no man
could be more courteous or pleasing. He found a score of agreeable
things to say to Madame Bernstein. He warmly congratulated Mr.
Warrington on the glorious news which had come from America, and on his
brother’s safety. He drank a toast at supper to Captain Warrington. “Our
family is distinguishing itself, cousin,” he said; and added, looking
with fond significance towards his Countess, “I hope the happiest days
are in store for us all.”

“Yes, George!” says the little lady. “You’ll write and tell Harry that
we are all very much pleased with him. This action at Quebec is a most
glorious action; and now we have turned the French king out of the
country, shouldn’t be at all surprised if we set up for ourselves in
America.”

“My love, you are talking treason!” cries Lord Castlewood.

“I am talking reason, anyhow, my lord. I’ve no notion of folks being
kept down, and treated as children for ever!”

George! Harry! I protest I was almost as much astonished as amused.
“When my brother hears that your ladyship is satisfied with his conduct,
his happiness will be complete,” I said gravely.

Next day, when talking beside her sofa, where she chose to lie in state,
the little Countess no longer called her cousin “George,” but “Mr.
George,” as before; on which Mr. George laughingly said she had changed
her language since the previous day.

“Guess I did it to tease old Madam Buzwig,” says her ladyship. She wants
to treat me as a child, and do the grandmother over me. I don’t want no
grandmothers, I don’t. I’m the head of this house, and I intend to let
her know it. And I’ve brought her all the way from London in order to
tell it her, too! La! how she did look when I called you George! I might
have called you George--only you had seen that little Theo first, and
liked her best, I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose I like her best,” says Mr. George.

“Well, I like you because you tell the truth. Because you was the only
one of ‘em in London who didn’t seem to care for my money, though I was
downright mad and angry with you once, and with myself too, and with
that little sweetheart of yours, who ain’t to be compared to me, I know
she ain’t.”

“Don’t let us make the comparison, then!” I said, laughing.

“I suppose people must lie on their beds as they make ‘em,” says she,
with a little sigh. “Dare say Miss Theo is very good, and you’ll marry
her and go to Virginia, and be as dull as we are here. We were talking
of Miss Lambert, my lord, and I was wishing my cousin joy. How is old
Goody to-day? What a supper she did eat last night, and drink!--drink
like a dragoon! No wonder she has got a headache, and keeps her room.
Guess it takes her ever so long to dress herself.”

“You, too, may be feeble when you are old, and require rest and wine to
warm you!” says Mr. Warrington.

“Hope I shan’t be like her when I’m old, anyhow!” says the lady. “Can’t
see why I am to respect an old woman, because she hobbles on a stick,
and has shaky hands, and false teeth!” And the little heathen sank back
on her couch, and showed twenty-four pearls of her own.

“Law!” she adds, after gazing at both her hearers through the curled
lashes of her brilliant dark eyes. “How frightened you both look! My
lord has already given me ever so many sermons about old Goody. You are
both afraid of her: and I ain’t, that’s all. Don’t look so scared at one
another! I ain’t a-going to bite her head off. We shall have a battle,
and I intend to win. How did I serve the Dowager, if you please, and my
Lady Fanny, with their high and mighty airs, when they tried to put
down the Countess of Castlewood in her own house, and laugh at the poor
American girl? We had a fight, and which got the best of it, pray? Me
and Goody will have another, and when it is over, you will see that we
shall both be perfect friends!”

When at this point of our conversation the door opened, and Madame
Beatrix, elaborately dressed according to her wont, actually made her
appearance, I, for my part, am not ashamed to own that I felt as great a
panic as ever coward experienced. My lord, with his profoundest bows and
blandest courtesies, greeted his aunt and led her to the fire, by which
my lady (who was already hoping for an heir to Castlewood) lay reclining
on her sofa. She did not attempt to rise, but smiled a greeting to her
venerable guest. And then, after a brief talk, in which she showed a
perfect self-possession, while the two gentlemen blundered and hesitated
with the most dastardly tremor, my lord said:

“If we are to look for those pheasants, cousin, we had better go now.”

“And I and aunt will have a cosy afternoon. And you will tell me about
Castlewood in the old times, won’t you, Baroness?” says the new mistress
of the mansion.

O les laches que les hommes! I was so frightened, that I scarce saw
anything, but vaguely felt that Lady Castlewood’s dark eyes were
following me. My lord gripped my arm in the corridor, we quickened our
paces till our retreat became a disgraceful run. We did not breathe
freely till we were in the open air in the courtyard, where the keepers
and the dogs were waiting.

And what happened? I protest, children, I don’t know. But this is
certain: if your mother had been a woman of the least spirit, or had
known how to scold for five minutes during as many consecutive days of
her early married life, there would have been no more humble, henpecked
wretch in Christendom than your father. When Parson Blake comes to
dinner, don’t you see how at a glance from his little wife he puts his
glass down and says, “No, thank you, Mr. Gumbo,” when old Gum brings
him wine? Blake wore a red coat before he took to black, and walked up
Breeds Hill with a thousand bullets whistling round his ears, before
ever he saw our Bunker Hill in Suffolk. And the fire-eater of the 43rd
now dare not face a glass of old port wine! ‘Tis his wife has subdued
his courage. The women can master us, and did they know their own
strength, were invincible.

Well, then, what happened I know not on that disgraceful day of panic
when your father fled the field, nor dared to see the heroines engage;
but when we returned from our shooting, the battle was over. America had
revolted, and conquered the mother country.



CHAPTER LXXIV. News from Canada


Our Castlewood relatives kept us with them till the commencement of the
new year, and after a fortnight’s absence (which seemed like an age
to the absurd and infatuated young man) he returned to the side of his
charmer. Madame de Bernstein was not sorry to leave the home of her
father. She began to talk more freely as we got away from the place.
What passed during that interview in which the battle-royal between her
and her niece occurred, she never revealed. But the old lady talked
no more of forming cette petite, and, indeed, when she alluded to her,
spoke in a nervous, laughing way, but without any hostility towards the
young Countess. Her nephew Eugene, she said, was doomed to be henpecked
for the rest of his days that she saw clearly. A little order brought
into the house would do it all the good possible. The little old
vulgar American gentleman seemed to be a shrewd person, and would act
advantageously as a steward. The Countess’s mother was a convict, she
had heard, sent out from England, where no doubt she had beaten hemp in
most of the gaols; but this news need not be carried to the town-crier;
and, after all, in respect to certain kind of people, what mattered what
their birth was? The young woman would be honest for her own sake now:
was shrewd enough, and would learn English presently; and the name to
which she had a right was great enough to get her into any society. A
grocer, a smuggler, a slave-dealer, what mattered Mr. Van den Bosch’s
pursuit or previous profession? The Countess of Castlewood could afford
to be anybody’s daughter, and as soon as my nephew produced her, says
the old lady, it is our duty to stand by her.

The ties of relationship binding Madame de Bernstein strongly to her
nephew, Mr. Warrington hoped that she would be disposed to be equally
affectionate to her niece; and spoke of his visit to Mr. Hagan and his
wife, for whom he entreated her aunt’s favour. But the old lady was
obdurate regarding Lady Maria; begged that her name might never be
mentioned, and immediately went on for two hours talking about no one
else. She related a series of anecdotes regarding her niece, which, as
this book lies open virginibus puerisque, to all the young people of the
family, I shall not choose to record. But this I will say of the kind
creature, that if she sinned, she was not the only sinner of the family,
and if she repented, that others will do well to follow her example.
Hagan, ‘tis known, after he left the stage, led an exemplary life,
and was remarkable for elegance and eloquence in the pulpit. His lady
adopted extreme views, but was greatly respected in the sect which she
joined; and when I saw her last, talked to me of possessing a peculiar
spiritual illumination, which I strongly suspected at the time to be
occasioned by the too free use of liquor: but I remember when she and
her husband were good to me and mine, at a period when sympathy was
needful, and many a Pharisee turned away.

I have told how easy it was to rise and fall in my fickle aunt’s favour,
and how each of us brothers, by turns, was embraced and neglected. My
turn of glory had been after the success of my play. I was introduced
to the town-wits; held my place in their company tolerably well;
was pronounced to be pretty well bred by the macaronis and people of
fashion, and might have run a career amongst them had my purse been long
enough; had I chose to follow that life; had I not loved at that time
a pair of kind eyes better than the brightest orbs of the Gunnings or
Chudleighs, or all the painted beauties of the Ranelagh ring. Because I
was fond of your mother, will it be believed, children, that my tastes
were said to be low, and deplored by my genteel family? So it was, and I
know that my godly Lady Warrington and my worldly Madame Bernstein both
laid their elderly heads together and lamented my way of life. “Why,
with his name, he might marry anybody,” says meek Religion, who had ever
one eye on Heaven and one on the main chance. “I meddle with no man’s
affairs, and admire genius,” says uncle, “but it is a pity you consort
with those poets and authors, and that sort of people, and that, when
you might have had a lovely creature, with a hundred thousand pounds,
you let her slip and make up to a country girl without a penny-piece.”

“But if I had promised her, uncle?” says I.

“Promise, promise! these things are matters of arrangement and prudence,
and demand a careful look-out. When you first committed yourself with
little Miss Lambert, you had not seen the lovely American lady whom your
mother wished you to marry, as a good mother naturally would. And your
duty to your mother, nephew,--your duty to the Fifth Commandment, would
have warranted your breaking with Miss L., and fulfilling your excellent
mother’s intentions regarding Miss--What was the Countess’s Dutch name?
Never mind. A name is nothing; but a plumb, Master George, is something
to look at! Why, I have my dear little Miley at a dancing-school with
Miss Barwell, Nabob Barwell’s daughter, and I don’t disguise my wish
that the children may contract an attachment which may endure through
their lives! I tell the Nabob so. We went from the House of Commons
one dancing-day and saw them. ‘Twas beautiful to see the young things
walking a minuet together! It brought tears into my eyes, for I have a
feeling heart, George, and I love my boy!”

“But if I prefer Miss Lambert, uncle, with twopence to her fortune, to
the Countess, with her hundred thousand pounds?”

“Why then, sir, you have a singular taste, that’s all,” says the old
gentleman, turning on his heel and leaving me. And I could perfectly
understand his vexation at my not being able to see the world as he
viewed it.

Nor did my Aunt Bernstein much like the engagement which I had made,
or the family with which I passed so much of my time. Their simple ways
wearied, and perhaps annoyed, the old woman of the world, and she no
more relished their company than a certain person (who is not so black
as he is painted) likes holy water. The old lady chafed at my for ever
dangling at my sweetheart’s lap. Having risen mightily in her favour,
I began to fall again: and once more Harry was the favourite, and his
brother, Heaven knows, not jealous.

He was now our family hero. He wrote us brief letters from the seat of
war where he was engaged; Madame Bernstein caring little at first
about the letters or the writer, for they were simple, and the facts he
narrated not over interesting. We had early learned in London the news
of the action on the glorious first of August at Minden, where Wolfe’s
old regiment was one of the British six which helped to achieve the
victory on that famous day. At the same hour, the young General lay in
his bed, in sight of Quebec, stricken down by fever, and perhaps rage
and disappointment at the check which his troops had just received.

Arriving in the St. Lawrence in June, the fleet which brought Wolfe and
his army had landed them on the last day of the month on the Island of
Orleans, opposite which rises the great cliff of Quebec. After the great
action in which his General fell, the dear brother who accompanied the
chief, wrote home to me one of his simple letters, describing his modest
share in that glorious day, but added nothing to the many descriptions
already wrote of the action of the 13th of September, save only I
remember he wrote, from the testimony of a brother aide-de-camp who was
by his side, that the General never spoke at all after receiving his
death-wound, so that the phrase which has been put into the mouth of
the dying hero may be considered as no more authentic than an oration of
Livy or Thucydides.

From his position on the island, which lies in the great channel of the
river to the north of the town, the General was ever hungrily on the
look-out for a chance to meet and attack his enemy. Above the city and
below it he landed,--now here and now there; he was bent upon attacking
wherever he saw an opening. ‘Twas surely a prodigious fault on the
part of the Marquis of Montcalm, to accept a battle from Wolfe on equal
terms, for the British General had no artillery, and when we had made
our famous scalade of the heights, and were on the Plains of Abraham,
we were a little nearer the city, certainly, but as far off as ever from
being within it.

The game that was played between the brave chiefs of those two gallant
little armies, and which lasted from July until Mr. Wolfe won the
crowning hazard in September, must have been as interesting a match as
ever eager players engaged in. On the very first night after the landing
(as my brother has narrated it) the sport began. At midnight the French
sent a flaming squadron of fireships down upon the British ships which
were discharging their stores at Orleans. Our seamen thought it was good
sport to tow the fireships clear of the fleet, and ground them on the
shore, where they burned out.

As soon as the French commander heard that our ships had entered the
river, he marched to Beauport in advance of the city and there took up
a strong position. When our stores and hospitals were established, our
General crossed over from his island to the left shore, and drew nearer
to his enemy. He had the ships in the river behind him, but the whole
country in face of him was in arms. The Indians in the forest seized
our advanced parties as they strove to clear it, and murdered them with
horrible tortures. The French were as savage as their Indian friends.
The Montmorenci River rushed between Wolfe and the enemy. He could
neither attack these nor the city behind them.

Bent on seeing whether there was no other point at which his foe might
be assailable, the General passed round the town of Quebec and skirted
the left shore beyond. Everywhere it was guarded, as well as in his
immediate front, and having run the gauntlet of the batteries up and
down the river, he returned to his post at Montmorenci. On the right of
the French position, across the Montmorenci River, which was fordable
at low tide, was a redoubt of the enemy. He would have that. Perhaps,
to defend it the French chief would be forced out from his lines, and
a battle be brought on. Wolfe determined to play these odds. He would
fetch over the body of his army from the Island of Orleans, and attack
from the St. Lawrence. He would time his attack, so that, at
shallow water, his lieutenants, Murray and Townsend, might cross the
Montmorenci, and, at the last day of July, he played this desperate
game.

He first, and General Monckton, his second in command (setting out from
Point Levi, which he occupied), crossed over the St. Lawrence from their
respective stations, being received with a storm of shot and artillery
as they rowed to the shore. No sooner were the troops landed than they
rushed at the French redoubt without order, were shot down before it in
great numbers, and were obliged to fall back. At the preconcerted signal
the troops on the other side of the Montmorenci avanced across the river
in perfect order. The enemy even evacuated the redoubt and fell back to
their lines; but from these the assailants were received with so severe
a fire that an impression on them was hopeless, and the General had to
retreat.

The battle of Montmorenci (which my brother Harry and I have fought
again many a time over our wine) formed the dismal burthen of the first
despatch from Mr. Wolfe which reached England and plunged us all in
gloom. What more might one expect of a commander so rash? What disasters
might one not foretell? Was ever scheme so wild as to bring three great
bodies of men, across broad rivers, in the face of murderous batteries,
merely on the chance of inducing an enemy, strongly entrenched and
guarded, to leave his position and come out and engage us? ‘Twas
the talk of the town. No wonder grave people shook their heads, and
prophesied fresh disaster. The General, who took to his bed after this
failure, shuddering with fever, was to live barely six weeks longer,
and die immortal! How is it, and by what, and whom, that Greatness is
achieved? Is Merit--is Madness the patron? Is it Frolic or Fortune? Is
it Fate that awards successes and defeats? Is it the Just Cause that
ever wins? How did the French gain Canada from the savage, and we from
the French, and after which of the conquests was the right time to
sing Te Deum? We are always for implicating Heaven in our quarrels, and
causing the gods to intervene whatever the nodus may be. Does Broughton,
after pummelling and beating Slack, lift up a black eye to Jove and
thank him for the victory? And if ten thousand boxers are to be so
heard, why not one? And if Broughton is to be grateful, what is Slack to
be?


“By the list of disabled officers (many of whom are of rank) you may
perceive, sir, that the army is much weakened. By the nature of this
river the most formidable part of the armament is deprived of the power
of acting, yet we have almost the whole force of Canada to oppose. In
this situation there is such a choice of difficulties, that I own
myself at a loss how to determine. The affairs of Great Britain, I know,
require the most vigorous measures; but then the courage of a handful
of brave men should be exerted only where there is some hope of a
favourable event. The admiral and I have examined the town with a view
to a general assault: and he would readily join in this or any
other measure for the public service; but I cannot propose to him
an undertaking of so dangerous a nature, and promising so little
success.... I found myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I begged
the general officers to consult together for the public utility. They
are of opinion that they should try by conveying up a corps of 4000
or 5000 men (which is nearly the whole strength of the army, after the
points of Levi and Orleans are put in a proper state of defence) to draw
the enemy from their present position, and bring them to an action. I
have acquiesced in their proposal, and we are preparing to put it into
execution.”


So wrote the General (of whose noble letters it is clear our dear scribe
was not the author or secretary) from his headquarters at Montmorenci
Falls on 2nd day of September; and on the 14th of October following,
the Rodney cutter arrived with the sad news in England. The attack had
failed, the chief was sick, the army dwindling, the menaced city so
strong that assault was almost impossible; “the only chance was to fight
the Marquis of Montcalm upon terms of less disadvantage than attacking
his entrenchments, and, if possible, to draw him from his present
position.” Would the French chief, whose great military genius was known
in Europe, fall into such a snare? No wonder there were pale looks in
the City at the news, and doubt and gloom wheresoever it was known.

Three days after this first melancholy intelligence, came the famous
letters announcing that wonderful consummation of fortune with which Mr.
Wolfe’s wonderful career ended. If no man is to be styled happy till his
death, what shall we say of this one? His end was so glorious, that I
protest not even his mother nor his mistress ought to have deplored it,
or at any rate have wished him alive again. I know it is a hero we speak
of; and yet I vow I scarce know whether in the last act of his life I
admire the result of genius, invention, and daring, or the boldness of
a gambler winning surprising odds. Suppose his ascent discovered a
half-hour sooner, and his people, as they would have been assuredly,
beaten back? Suppose the Marquis of Montcalm not to quit his entrenched
lines to accept that strange challenge? Suppose these points--and none
of them depend upon Mr. Wolfe at all--and what becomes of the glory
of the young hero, of the great minister who discovered him, of the
intoxicated nation which rose up frantic with self-gratulation at
the victory? I say, what fate is it that shapes our ends, or those of
nations? In the many hazardous games which my Lord Chatham played,
he won this prodigious one. And as the greedy British hand seized the
Canadas, it let fall the United States out of its grasp.

To be sure this wisdom d’apres coup is easy. We wonder at this man’s
rashness now the deed is done, and marvel at the other’s fault. What
generals some of us are upon paper! what repartees come to our mind when
the talk is finished! and, the game over, how well we see how it should
have been played! Writing of an event at a distance of thirty years,
‘tis not difficult now to criticise and find fault. But at the time when
we first heard of Wolfe’s glorious deeds upon the Plains of Abraham--of
that army marshalled in darkness and carried silently up the midnight
river--of those rocks scaled by the intrepid leader and his troops--of
that miraculous security of the enemy, of his present acceptance of our
challenge to battle, and of his defeat on the open plain by the sheer
valour of his conqueror--we were all intoxicated in England by the
news. The whole nation rose up and felt itself the stronger for Wolfe’s
victory. Not merely all men engaged in the battle, but those at home who
had condemned its rashness, felt themselves heroes. Our spirit rose as
that of our enemy faltered. Friends embraced each other when they met.
Coffee-houses and public places were thronged with people eager to talk
the news. Courtiers rushed to the King and the great Minister by whose
wisdom the campaign had been decreed. When he showed himself, the people
followed him with shouts and blessings. People did not deplore the dead
warrior, but admired his euthanasia. Should James Wolfe’s friends weep
and wear mourning, because a chariot had come from the skies to fetch
him away? Let them watch with wonder, and see him departing, radiant;
rising above us superior. To have a friend who had been near or about
him was to be distinguished. Every soldier who fought with him was a
hero. In our fond little circle I know ‘twas a distinction to be
Harry’s brother. We should not in the least wonder but that he, from his
previous knowledge of the place, had found the way up the heights which
the British army took, and pointed it out to his General. His promotion
would follow as a matter of course. Why, even our Uncle Warrington wrote
letters to bless Heaven and congratulate me and himself upon the share
Harry had had in the glorious achievement. Our Aunt Beatrix opened her
house and received company upon the strength of the victory. I became a
hero from my likeness to my brother. As for Parson Sampson, he preached
such a sermon that his auditors (some of whom had been warned by his
reverence of the coming discourse) were with difficulty restrained from
huzzaing the orator, and were mobbed as they left the chapel. “Don’t
talk to me, madam, about grief,” says General Lambert to his wife,
who, dear soul, was for allowing herself some small indulgence of her
favourite sorrow on the day when Wolfe’s remains were gloriously buried
at Greenwich. “If our boys could come by such deaths as James’s, you
know you wouldn’t prevent them from being shot, but would scale the
Abraham heights to see the thing done! Wouldst thou mind dying in
the arms of victory, Charley?” he asks of the little hero from the
Chartreux. “That I wouldn’t,” says the little man; “and the doctor gave
us a holiday, too.”

Our Harry’s promotion was insured after his share in the famous battle,
and our aunt announced her intention of purchasing a company for him.



CHAPTER LXXV. The Course of True Love


Had your father, young folks, possessed the commonest share of prudence,
not only would this chapter of his history never have been written, but
you yourselves would never have appeared in the world to plague him in
a hundred ways to shout and laugh in the passages when he wants to be
quiet at his books; to wake him when he is dozing after dinner, as a
healthy country gentleman should: to mislay his spectacles for him,
and steal away his newspaper when he wants to read it; to ruin him with
tailors’ bills, mantua-makers’ bills, tutors’ bills, as you all of you
do: to break his rest of nights when you have the impudence to fall
ill, and when he would sleep undisturbed but that your silly mother will
never be quiet for half an hour; and when Joan can’t sleep, what use,
pray, is there in Darby putting on his nightcap? Every trifling ailment
that any one of you has had, has scared her so that I protest I have
never been tranquil; and, were I not the most long-suffering creature in
the world, would have liked to be rid of the whole pack of you. And
now, forsooth, that you have grown out of childhood, long petticoats,
chicken-pox, small-pox, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and the other
delectable accidents of puerile life, what must that unconscionable
woman propose but to arrange the south rooms as a nursery for possible
grandchildren, and set up the Captain with a wife, and make him marry
early because we did! He is too fond, she says, of Brookes’s and
Goosetree’s when he is in London. She has the perversity to hint that,
though an entree to Carlton House may be very pleasant, ‘tis very
dangerous for a young gentleman: and she would have Miles live away from
temptation, and sow his wild oats, and marry, as we did. Marry! my dear
creature, we had no business to marry at all! By the laws of common
prudence and duty, I ought to have backed out of my little engagement
with Miss Theo (who would have married somebody else), and taken a rich
wife. Your Uncle John was a parson and couldn’t fight, poor Charley was
a boy at school, and your grandfather was too old a man to call me to
account with sword and pistol. I repeat there never was a more foolish
match in the world than ours, and our relations were perfectly right
in being angry with us. What are relations made for, indeed, but to be
angry and find fault? When Hester marries, do you mind, Master George,
to quarrel with her if she does not take a husband of your selecting.
When George has got his living, after being senior wrangler and fellow
of his college, Miss Hester, do you toss up your little nose at the
young lady he shall fancy. As for you, my little Theo, I can’t part with
your. You must not quit your old father; for he likes you to play Haydn
to him, and peel his walnuts after dinner.


[On the blank leaf opposite this paragraph is written, in a large,
girlish hand:

“I never intend to go.--THEODOSIA.”

“Nor I.--HESTER.”

They both married, as I see by the note in the family Bible--Miss
Theodosia Warrington to Joseph Clinton, son of the Rev. Joseph Blake,
and himself subsequently Master of Rodwell Regis Grammar School; and
Miss Hester Mary, in 1804, to Captain F. Handyman, R.N.--ED.]


Whilst they had the blessing (forsooth!) of meeting, and billing and
cooing every day, the two young people, your parents, went on in a
fool’s paradise, little heeding the world round about them, and all its
tattling and meddling. Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk,
but you know he loved dangling in Armida’s garden. Pray, my Lady Armida,
what did you mean by flinging your spells over me in youth, so that not
glory, not fashion, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in
whose way I fell, could keep me long from your apron-strings, or out of
reach of your dear simple prattle? Pray, my dear, what used we to say to
each other during those endless hours of meeting? I never went to sleep
after dinner then. Which of us was so witty? Was it I or you? And how
came it our conversations were so delightful? I remember that year I did
not even care to go and see my Lord Ferrers tried and hung, when all the
world was running after his lordship. The King of Prussia’s capital
was taken; had the Austrians and Russians been encamped round the Tower
there could scarce have been more stir in London: yet Miss Theo and her
young gentleman felt no inordinate emotion of pity or indignation. What
to us was the fate of Leipzig or Berlin? The truth is, that dear old
house in Dean Street was an enchanted garden of delights. I have been as
idle since, but never as happy. Shall we order the postchaise, my dear,
leave the children to keep house; and drive up to London and see if the
old lodgings are still to be let? And you shall sit at your old place in
the window, and wave a little handkerchief as I walk up the street. Say
what we did was imprudent. Would we not do it over again? My good folks,
if Venus had walked into the room and challenged the apple, I was so
infatuated, I would have given it your mother. And had she had the
choice, she would have preferred her humble servant in a threadbare coat
to my Lord Clive with all his diamonds.

Once, to be sure, and for a brief time in that year, I had a notion of
going on the highway in order to be caught and hung as my Lord Ferrers:
or of joining the King of Prussia, and requesting some of his Majesty’s
enemies to knock my brains out; or of enlisting for the India service,
and performing some desperate exploit which should end in my bodily
destruction. Ah me! that was indeed a dreadful time! Your mother scarce
dares speak of it now, save in a whisper of terror; or think of it--it
was such cruel pain. She was unhappy years after on the anniversary of
the day, until one of you was born on it. Suppose we had been parted:
what had come to us? What had my lot been without her? As I think of
that possibility, the whole world is a blank. I do not say were we
parted now. It has pleased God to give us thirty years of union. We have
reached the autumn season. Our successors are appointed and ready; and
that one of us who is first called away, knows the survivor will follow
ere long. But we were actually parted in our youth; and I tremble
to think what might have been, had not a dearest friend brought us
together.

Unknown to myself, and very likely meaning only my advantage, my
relatives in England had chosen to write to Madam Esmond in Virginia,
and represent what they were pleased to call the folly of the engagement
I had contracted. Every one of them sang the same song: and I saw the
letters, and burned the whole cursed pack of them years afterwards when
my mother showed them to me at home in Virginia. Aunt Bernstein was
forward with her advice. A young person, with no wonderful good looks,
of no family, with no money;--was ever such an imprudent connexion, and
ought it not for dear George’s sake to be broken off? She had several
eligible matches in view for me. With my name and prospects, ‘twas a
shame I should throw myself away on this young lady; her sister ought to
interpose--and so forth.

My Lady Warrington must write, too, and in her peculiar manner. Her
ladyship’s letter was garnished with scripture texts.

She dressed her worldliness out in phylacteries. She pointed out how I
was living in an unworthy society of player-folks, and the like people,
who she could not say were absolutely without religion (Heaven forbid!),
but who were deplorably worldly. She would not say an artful woman had
inveigled me for her daughter, having in vain tried to captivate my
younger brother. She was far from saying any harm of the young woman I
had selected; but at least this was certain, Miss L. had no fortune or
expectations, and her parents might naturally be anxious to compromise
me. She had taken counsel, etc. etc. She had sought for guidance where
it was, etc. Feeling what her duty was, she had determined to speak. Sir
Miles, a man of excellent judgment in the affairs of this world (though
he knew and sought a better), fully agreed with her in opinion, nay,
desired her to write, and entreat her sister to interfere, that the
ill-advised match should not take place.

And who besides must put a little finger into the pie but the new
Countess of Castlewood? She wrote a majestic letter to Madam Esmond, and
stated, that having been placed by Providence at the head of the Esmond
family, it was her duty to communicate with her kinswoman and warn her
to break off this marriage. I believe the three women laid their heads
together previously; and, packet after packet, sent off their warnings
to the Virginian lady.

One raw April morning, as Corydon goes to pay his usual duty to Phillis,
he finds, not his charmer with her dear smile as usual ready to welcome
him, but Mrs. Lambert, with very red eyes, and the General as pale as
death. “Read this, George Warrington!” says he, as his wife’s head drops
between her hands; and he puts a letter before me, of which I recognised
the handwriting. I can hear now the sobs of the good Aunt Lambert, and
to this day the noise of fire-irons stirring a fire in a room overhead
gives me a tremor. I heard such a noise that day in the girls’ room
where the sisters were together. Poor, gentle child! Poor Theo!

“What can I do after this, George, my poor boy?” asks the General,
pacing the room with desperation in his face.

I did not quite read the whole of Madam Esmond’s letter, for a kind of
sickness and faintness came over me; but I fear I could say some of it
now by heart. Its style was good, and its actual words temperate enough,
though they only implied that Mr. and Mrs. Lambert had inveigled me into
the marriage; that they knew such an union was unworthy of me; that (as
Madam E. understood) they had desired a similar union for her younger
son, which project, not unluckily for him, perhaps, was given up when
it was found that Mr. Henry Warrington was not the inheritor of the
Virginian property. If Mr. Lambert was a man of spirit and honour, as
he was represented to be, Madam Esmond scarcely supposed that, after her
representations, he would persist in desiring this match. She would not
lay commands upon her son, whose temper she knew; but for the sake
of Miss Lambert’s own reputation and comfort, she urged that the
dissolution of the engagement should come from her family, and not from
the just unwillingness of Rachel Esmond Warrington of Virginia.

“God help us, George!” the General said, “and give us all strength to
bear this grief, and these charges which it has pleased your mother
to bring! They are hard, but they don’t matter now. What is of most
importance, is to spare as much sorrow as we can to my poor girl. I know
you love her so well, that you will help me and her mother to make the
blow as tolerable as we may to that poor gentle heart. Since she was
born she has never given pain to a soul alive, and ‘tis cruel that she
should be made to suffer.” And as he spoke he passed his hand across his
dry eyes.

“It was my fault, Martin! It was my fault!” weeps the poor mother.

“Your mother spoke us fair, and gave her promise,” said the father.

“And do you think I will withdraw mine?” cried I; and protested, with
a thousand frantic vows, what they knew full well, that I was bound to
Theo before Heaven, and that nothing should part me from her.”

“She herself will demand the parting. She is a good girl, God help me!
and a dutiful. She will not have her father and mother called schemers,
and treated with scorn. Your mother knew not, very likely, what she was
doing, but ‘tis done. You may see the child, and she will tell you as
much. Is Theo dressed, Molly? I brought the letter home from my office
last evening after you were gone. The women have had a bad night. She
knew at once by my face that there was bad news from America. She read
the letter quite firmly. She said she would like to see you and say
good-bye. Of course, George, you will give me your word of honour not to
try and see her afterwards. As soon as my business will let me we will
get away from this, but mother and I think we are best all together.
‘Tis you, perhaps, had best go. But give me your word, at any rate, that
you will not try and see her. We must spare her pain, sir! We must spare
her pain!” And the good man sate down in such deep anguish himself that
I, who was not yet under the full pressure of my own grief, actually
felt his, and pitied it. It could not be that the dear lips I had kissed
yesterday were to speak to me only once more. We were all here together;
loving each other, sitting in the room where we met every day; my
drawing on the table by her little workbox; she was in the chamber
upstairs; she must come down presently.

Who is this opens the door? I see her sweet face. It was like our little
Mary’s when we thought she would die of the fever. There was even
a smile upon her lips. She comes up and kisses me. “Good-bye, dear
George!” she says. Great Heaven! An old man sitting in this room,--with
my wife’s workbox opposite, and she but five minutes away, my eyes
grow so dim and full that I can’t see the book before me. I am
three-and-twenty years old again. I go through every stage of that
agony. I once had it sitting in my own postchaise, with my wife actually
by my side. Who dared to sully her sweet love with suspicion? Who had a
right to stab such a soft bosom? Don’t you see my ladies getting their
knives ready, and the poor child baring it? My wife comes in. She has
been serving out tea or tobacco to some of her pensioners. “What is it
makes you look so angry, papa?” she says. “My love!” I say, “it is the
thirteenth of April.” A pang of pain shoots across her face, followed by
a tender smile. She has undergone the martyrdom, and in the midst of the
pang comes a halo of forgiveness. I can’t forgive; not until my days
of dotage come, and I cease remembering anything. “Hal will be home
for Easter; he will bring two or three of his friends with him from
Cambridge,” she says. And straightway she falls to devising schemes for
amusing the boys. When is she ever occupied, but with plans for making
others happy?

A gentleman sitting in spectacles before an old ledger, and writing down
pitiful remembrances of his own condition, is a quaint and ridiculous
object. My corns hurt me, I know, but I suspect my neighbour’s shoes
pinch him too. I am not going to howl much over my own grief, or enlarge
at any great length on this one. Many another man, I dare say, has had
the light of his day suddenly put out, the joy of his life extinguished,
and has been left to darkness and vague torture. I have a book I tried
to read at this time of grief--Howel’s Letters--and when I come to the
part about Prince Charles in Spain, up starts the whole tragedy alive
again. I went to Brighthelmstone, and there, at the inn, had a room
facing the east, and saw the sun get up ever so many mornings, after
blank nights of wakefulness, and smoked my pipe of Virginia in his face.
When I am in that place by chance, and see the sun rising now, I shake
my fist at him, thinking, O orient Phoebus, what horrible grief and
savage wrath have you not seen me suffer! Though my wife is mine ever so
long, I say I am angry just the same. Who dared, I want to know, to
make us suffer so? I was forbidden to see her. I kept my promise, and
remained away from the house: that is, after that horrible meeting and
parting. But at night I would go and look at her window, and watch the
lamp burning there; I would go to the Chartreux (where I knew
another boy), and call for her brother, and gorge him with cakes and
half-crowns. I would meanly have her elder brother to dine, and almost
kiss him when he went away. I used to breakfast at a coffee-house in
Whitehall, in order to see Lambert go to his office; and we would salute
each other sadly, and pass on without speaking. Why did not the women
come out? They never did. They were practising on her, and persuading
her to try and forget me. Oh, the weary, weary days! Oh, the maddening
time! At last a doctor’s chariot used to draw up before the General’s
house every day. Was she ill? I fear I was rather glad she was ill. My
own suffering was so infernal, that I greedily wanted her to share
my pain. And would she not? What grief of mine has it not felt, that
gentlest and most compassionate of hearts? What pain would it not suffer
to spare mine a pang?

I sought that doctor out. I had an interview with him. I told my story,
and laid bare my heart to him, with an outburst of passionate sincerity,
which won his sympathy. My confession enabled him to understand his
young patient’s malady; for which his drugs had no remedy or anodyne. I
had promised not to see her, or to go to her: I had kept my promise. I
had promised to leave London: I had gone away. Twice, thrice I went back
and told my sufferings to him. He would take my fee now and again, and
always receive me kindly, and let me speak. Ah, how I clung to him! I
suspect he must have been unhappy once in his own life, he knew so well
and gently how to succour the miserable.

He did not tell me how dangerously, though he did not disguise from
me how gravely and seriously, my dearest girl had been ill. I told him
everything--that I would marry her and brave every chance and danger;
that, without her, I was a man utterly wrecked and ruined, and cared not
what became of me. My mother had once consented, and had now chosen to
withdraw her consent, when the tie between us had been, as I held, drawn
so closely together, as to be paramount to all filial duty.

“I think, sir, if your mother heard you, and saw Miss Lambert, she would
relent,” said the doctor. Who was my mother to hold me in bondage; to
claim a right of misery over me; and to take this angel out of my arms?

“He could not,” he said, “be a message-carrier between young ladies who
were pining and young lovers on whom the sweethearts’ gates were shut:
but so much he would venture to say, that he had seen me, and was
prescribing for me, too.” Yes, he must have been unhappy once, himself.
I saw him, you may be sure, on the very day when he had kept his promise
to me. He said she seemed to be comforted by hearing news of me.

“She bears her suffering with an angelical sweetness. I prescribe
Jesuit’s bark, which she takes; but I am not sure the hearing of you has
not done more good than the medicine.” The women owned afterwards that
they had never told the General of the doctor’s new patient.

I know not what wild expressions of gratitude I poured out to the good
doctor for the comfort he brought me. His treatment was curing two
unhappy sick persons. ‘Twas but a drop of water, to be sure; but then
a drop of water to a man raging in torment. I loved the ground he trod
upon, blessed the hand that took mine, and had felt her pulse. I had a
ring with a pretty cameo head of a Hercules on it. ‘Twas too small for
his finger, nor did the good old man wear such ornaments. I made
him hang it to his watch-chain, in hopes that she might see it, and
recognise that the token came from me. How I fastened upon Spencer
at this time (my friend of the Temple who also had an unfortunate
love-match), and walked with him from my apartments to the Temple, and
he back with me to Bedford Gardens, and our talk was for ever about our
women! I dare say I told everybody my grief. My good landlady and Betty
the housemaid pitied me. My son Miles, who, for a wonder, has been
reading in my MS., says, “By Jove, sir, I didn’t know you and my mother
were took in this kind of way. The year I joined, I was hit very bad
myself. An infernal little jilt that threw me over for Sir Craven Oaks
of our regiment. I thought I should have gone crazy.” And he gives a
melancholy whistle, and walks away.

The General had to leave London presently on one of his military
inspections, as the doctor casually told me; but, having given my
word that I would not seek to present myself at his house, I kept it,
availing myself, however, as you may be sure, of the good physician’s
leave to visit him, and have news of his dear patient. His accounts of
her were, far from encouraging. “She does not rally,” he said. “We must
get her back to Kent again, or to the sea.” I did not know then that the
poor child had begged and prayed so piteously not to be moved, that
her parents, divining, perhaps, the reason of her desire to linger in
London, and feeling that it might be dangerous not to humour her, had
yielded to her entreaty, and consented to remain in town.

At last one morning I came, pretty much as usual, and took my place in
my doctor’s front parlour, whence his patients were called in their turn
to his consulting-room. Here I remained, looking heedlessly over the
books on the table and taking no notice of any person in the room, which
speedily emptied itself of all, save me and one lady who sate with her
veil down. I used to stay till the last, for Osborn, the doctor’s man,
knew my business, and that it was not my own illness I came for.

When the room was empty of all save me and the lady, she puts out two
little hands, cries in a voice which made me start “Don’t you know me,
George?” And the next minute I have my arms round her, and kissed her
as heartily as ever I kissed in my life, and gave way to a passionate
outgush of emotion the most refreshing, for my parched soul had been in
rage and torture for six weeks past, and this was a glimpse of Heaven.

Who was it, children? You think it was your mother whom the doctor had
brought to me? No. It was Hetty.



CHAPTER LXXVI. Informs us how Mr. Warrington jumped into a Landau


The emotion at the first surprise and greeting over, the little maiden
began at once.

“So you are come at last to ask after Theo, and you feel sorry that your
neglect has made her so ill? For six weeks she has been unwell, and you
have never asked a word about her! Very kind of you, Mr. George, I’m
sure!”

“Kind!” gasps out Mr. Warrington.

“I suppose you call it kind to be with her every day and all day for a
year, and then to leave her without a word?”

“My dear, you know my promise to your father?” I reply.

“Promise!” says Miss Hetty, shrugging her shoulders. “A very fine
promise, indeed, to make my darling ill, and then suddenly, one fine
day, to say, ‘Good-bye, Theo,’ and walk away for ever. I suppose
gentlemen make these promises, because they wish to keep ‘em. I wouldn’t
trifle with a poor child’s heart, and leave her afterwards, if I were a
man. What has she ever done to you, but be a fool and too fond of you?
Pray, sir, by what right do you take her away from all of us, and then
desert her, because an old woman in America don’t approve of her? She
was happy with us before you came. She loved her sister--there never was
such a sister--until she saw you. And now, because your mamma thinks her
young gentleman might do better, you must leave her forsooth!”

“Great powers, child!” I cried, exasperated at this wrongheadedness.
“Was it I that drew back? Is it not I that am forbidden your house? and
did not your father require, on my honour, that I should not see her?”

“Honour! And you are the men who pretend to be our superiors; and it is
we who are to respect you and admire you! I declare, George Warrington,
you ought to go back to your schoolroom in Virginia again; have your
black nurse to tuck you up in bed, and ask leave from your mamma when
you might walk out. Oh, George! I little thought that my sister was
giving her heart away to a man who hadn’t the spirit to stand by her;
but, at the first difficulty, left her! When Doctor Heberden said he was
attending you, I determined to come and see you, and you do look very
ill, that I am glad to see; and I suppose it’s your mother you are
frightened of. But I shan’t tell Theo that you are unwell. She hasn’t
left off caring for you. She can’t walk out of a room, break her solemn
engagements, and go into the world the next day as if nothing had
happened! That is left for men, our superiors in courage and wisdom; and
to desert an angel--yes, an angel ten thousand times too good for you;
an angel who used to love me till she saw you, and who was the blessing
of life and of all of us--is what you call honour? Don’t tell me, sir!
I despise you all! You are our betters, are you? We are to worship and
wait on you, I suppose? I don’t care about your wit, and your tragedies,
and your verses; and I think they are often very stupid. I won’t set
up of nights copying your manuscripts, nor watch hour after hour at a
window wasting my time and neglecting everybody because I want to see
your worship walk down the street with your hat cocked! If you are
going away, and welcome, give me back my sister, I say! Give me back my
darling of old days, who loved every one of us, till she saw you. And
you leave her because your mamma thinks she can find somebody richer
for you! Oh, you brave gentleman! Go and marry the person your mother
chooses, and let my dear die here deserted!”

“Great heavens, Hetty!” I cry, amazed at the logic of the little woman.
“Is it I who wish to leave your sister? Did I not offer to keep my
promise, and was it not your father who refused me, and made me promise
never to try and see her again? What have I but my word, and my honour?”

“Honour, indeed! You keep your word to him, and you break it to her!
Pretty honour! If I were a man, I would soon let you know what I thought
of your honour! Only I forgot--you are bound to keep the peace and
mustn’t... Oh, George, George! Don’t you see the grief I am in? I am
distracted, and scarce know what I say. You must not leave my darling.
They don’t know it at home. They don’t think so but I know her best of
all, and she will die if you leave her. Say you won’t! Have pity upon
me, Mr. Warrington, and give me my dearest back!” Thus the warm-hearted,
distracted creature ran from anger to entreaty, from scorn to tears. Was
my little doctor right in thus speaking of the case of her dear patient?
Was there no other remedy than that which Hetty cried for? Have not
others felt the same cruel pain of amputation, undergone the same
exhaustion and fever afterwards, lain hopeless of anything save death,
and yet recovered after all, and limped through life subsequently? Why,
but that love is selfish, and does not heed other people’s griefs and
passions, or that ours was so intense and special that we deemed no
other lovers could suffer like ourselves;--here in the passionate young
pleader for her sister, we might have shown an instance that a fond
heart could be stricken with the love malady and silently suffer it,
live under it, recover from it. What had happened in Hetty’s own case?
Her sister and I, in our easy triumph and fond confidential prattle, had
many a time talked over that matter, and, egotists as we were, perhaps
drawn a secret zest and security out of her less fortunate attachment.
‘Twas like sitting by the fireside and hearing the winter howling
without; ‘twas like walking by the maxi magno, and seeing the ship
tossing at sea. We clung to each other only the more closely, and,
wrapped in our own happiness, viewed others’ misfortunes with complacent
pity. Be the truth as it may. Grant that we might have been sundered,
and after a while survived the separation, so much my sceptical old age
may be disposed to admit. Yet, at that time, I was eager enough to share
my ardent little Hetty’s terrors and apprehensions, and willingly chose
to believe that the life dearest to me in the world would be sacrificed
if separated from mine. Was I wrong? I would not say as much now. I may
doubt about myself (or not doubt, I know), but of her, never; and Hetty
found in her quite a willing sharer in her alarms and terrors. I was for
imparting some of these to our doctor; but the good gentleman shut my
mouth. “Hush,” says he, with a comical look of fright. “I must hear none
of this. If two people who happen to know each other chance to meet and
talk in my patients’ room, I cannot help myself; but as for match-making
and love-making, I am your humble servant! What will the General do when
he comes back to town? He will have me behind Montagu House as sure as I
am a live doctor, and alive I wish to remain, my good sir!” and he skips
into his carriage, and leaves me there meditating. “And you and Miss
Hetty must have no meetings here again, mind you that,” he had said
previously.

Oh no! Of course we would have none! We are gentlemen of honour, and so
forth, and our word is our word. Besides, to have seen Hetty, was not
that an inestimable boon, and would we not be for ever grateful? I am
so refreshed with that drop of water I have had, that I think I can hold
out for ever so long a time now. I walk away with Hetty to Soho, and
never once thought of arranging a new meeting with her. But the little
emissary was more thoughtful, and she asks me whether I go to the
Museum now to read? And I say, “Oh yes, sometimes, my dear; but I am too
wretched for reading now; I cannot see what is on the paper. I do not
care about my books. Even Pocahontas is wearisome to me. I...” I
might have continued ever so much further, when, “Nonsense!” she says,
stamping her little foot. “Why, I declare, George, you are more stupid
than Harry!”

“How do you mean, my dear child?” I asked.

“When do you go? You go away at three o’clock. You strike across on the
road to Tottenham Court. You walk through the village, and return by the
Green Lane that leads back towards the new hospital. You know you do! If
you walk for a week there, it can’t do you any harm. Good morning, sir!
You’ll please not follow me any farther.” And she drops me a curtsey,
and walks away with a veil over her face.

That Green Lane, which lay to the north of the new hospital, is built
all over with houses now. In my time, when good old George II. was yet
king, ‘twas a shabby rural outlet of London; so dangerous, that the City
folks who went to their villas and junketing houses at Hampstead and the
outlying villages, would return in parties of nights, and escorted by
waiters with lanthorns, to defend them from the footpads who prowled
about the town outskirts. Hampstead and Highgate churches, each crowning
its hill, filled up the background of the view which you saw as
you turned your back to London; and one, two, three days Mr. George
Warrington had the pleasure of looking upon this landscape, and walking
back in the direction of the new hospital.

Along the lane were sundry small houses of entertainment; and I remember
at one place, where they sold cakes and beer, at the sign of the
Protestant Hero, a decent woman smiling at me on the third or fourth
day, and curtseying in her clean apron, as she says, “It appears the
lady don’t come, sir! Your honour had best step in, and take a can of my
cool beer.”

At length, as I am coming back through Tottenham Road, on the 25th of
May--O day to be marked with the whitest stone!--a little way beyond Mr.
Whitefield’s Tabernacle, I see a landau before me, and on the box-seat
by the driver is my young friend Charley, who waves his hat to me and
calls out, “George! George!” I ran up to the carriage, my knees knocking
together so that I thought I should fall by the wheel; and inside I see
Hetty, and by her my dearest Theo, propped with a pillow. How thin the
little hand had become since last it was laid in mine! The cheeks were
flushed and wasted, the eyes strangely bright, and the thrill of the
voice when she spoke a word or two, smote me with a pang, I know not of
grief or joy was it, so intimately were they blended.

“I am taking her an airing to Hampstead,” says Hetty, demurely. “The
doctor says the air will do her good.”

“I have been ill, but I am better now, George,” says Theo. There came a
great burst of music from the people in the chapel hard by, as she was
speaking. I held her hand in mine. Her eyes were looking into mine once
more. It seemed as if we had never been parted.

I can never forget the tune of that psalm. I have heard it all through
my life. My wife has touched it on her harpsichord, and her little ones
have warbled it. Now, do you understand, young people, why I love it so?
Because ‘twas the music played at our amoris redintegratio. Because it
sang hope to me, at the period of my existence the most miserable. Yes,
the most miserable: for that dreary confinement of Duquesne had its
tendernesses and kindly associations connected with it; and many a time
in after days I have thought with fondness of the poor Biche and my
tipsy jailor, and the reveille of the forest birds and the military
music of my prison.

Master Charley looks down from his box-seat upon his sister and me
engaged in beatific contemplation, and Hetty listening too, to the
music. “I think I should like to go and hear it. And that famous Mr.
Whitfield, perhaps he is going to preach this very day! Come in with me,
Charley--and George can drive for half an hour with dear Theo towards
Hampstead and back.”

Charley did not seem to have any very strong desire for witnessing the
devotional exercises of good Mr. Whitfield and his congregation, and
proposed that George Warrington should take Hetty in; but Het was not
to be denied. “I will never help you in another exercise as long as you
live, sir,” cries Miss Hetty, “if you don’t come on,”--while the youth
clambered down from his box-seat, and they entered the temple together.

Can any moralist, bearing my previous promises in mind, excuse me for
jumping into the carriage and sitting down once more by my dearest Theo?
Suppose I did break ‘em? Will he blame me much? Reverend sir, you are
welcome. I broke my promise; and if you would not do as much, good
friend, you are welcome to your virtue. Not that I for a moment suspect
my own children will ever be so bold as to think of having hearts of
their own, and bestowing them according to their liking. No, my young
people, you will let papa choose for you; be hungry when he tells
you; be thirsty when he orders; and settle your children’s marriages
afterwards.

And now of course you are anxious to hear what took place when papa
jumped into the landau by the side of poor little mamma, propped up by
her pillows. “I am come to your part of the story, my dear,” says I,
looking over to my wife as she is plying her needles.

“To what, pray?” says my lady. “You should skip all that part, and come
to the grand battles, and your heroic defence of----”

“Of Fort Fiddlededee in the year 1778, when I pulled off Mr.
Washington’s epaulet, gouged General Gates’s eye, cut off Charles Lee’s
head, and pasted it on again!”

“Let us hear all about the fighting,” say the boys. Even the Captain
condescends to own he will listen to any military details, though only
from a militia officer.

“Fair and softly, young people! Everything in its turn. I am not yet
arrived at the war. I am only a young gentleman, just stepping into
a landau, by the side of a young lady whom I promised to avoid. I am
taking her hand, which, after a little ado, she leaves in mine. Do you
remember how hot it was, the little thing, how it trembled, and how it
throbbed and jumped a hundred and twenty in a minute? And as we trot on
towards Hampstead, I address Miss Lambert in the following terms----”

“Ah, ah, ah!” say the girls in a chorus with mademoiselle, their French
governess, who cries, “Nous ecoutons maintenant. La parole est a vous,
Monsieur le Chevalier!”

Here we have them all in a circle: mamma is at her side of the fire,
papa at his; Mademoiselle Eleonore, at whom the Captain looks rather
sweetly (eyes off, Captain!); the two girls, listening like--like
nymphas discentes to Apollo, let us say; and John and Tummas (with
obtuse ears), who are bringing in the tea-trays and urns.

“Very good,” says the Squire, pulling out the MS., and waving it before
him. “We are going to tell your mother’s secrets and mine.”

“I am sure you may, papa,” cries the house matron. “There’s nothing to
be ashamed of.” And a blush rises over her kind face.

“But before I begin, young folks, permit me two or three questions.”

“Allons, toujours des questions!” says mademoiselle, with a shrug of her
pretty shoulders. (Florac has recommended her to us, and I suspect the
little Chevalier has himself an eye upon this pretty Mademoiselle de
Blois.)

To the questions, then.



CHAPTER LXXVII. And how everybody got out again


You, Captain Miles Warrington, have the honour of winning the good
graces of a lady--of ever so many ladies--of the Duchess of Devonshire,
let us say, of Mrs. Crew, of Mrs. Fitzherbert, of the Queen of Prussia,
of the Goddess Venus, of Mademoiselle Hillisberg of the Opera--never
mind of whom, in fine. If you win a lady’s good graces, do you always go
to the mess and tell what happened?”

“Not such a fool, Squire!” says the Captain, surveying his side curl in
the glass.

“Have you, Miss Theo, told your mother every word you said to Mr. Joe
Blake, junior, in the shrubbery this morning?”

“Joe Blake, indeed!” cries Theo junior.

“And you, mademoiselle? That scented billet which came to you under Sir
Thomas’s frank, have you told us all the letter contains? Look how she
blushes! As red as the curtain, on my word! No, mademoiselle, we all
have our secrets” (says the Squire, here making his best French bow).
“No, Theo, there was nothing in the shrubbery--only nuts, my child!
No, Miles, my son, we don’t tell all, even to the most indulgent of
fathers--and if I tell what happened in a landau on the Hampstead Road,
on the 25th of May, 1760, may the Chevalier Ruspini pull out every tooth
in my head!”

“Pray tell, papa!” cries mamma: “or, as Jobson, who drove us, is in your
service now, perhaps you will have him in from the stables! I insist
upon your telling!”

“What is, then, this mystery?” asks mademoiselle, in her pretty French
accent, of my wife.

“Eh, ma fille!” whispers the lady. “Thou wouldst ask me what I said? I
said ‘Yes!’--behold all I said.” And so ‘tis my wife has peached, and
not I; and this was the sum of our conversation, as the carriage, all
too swiftly as I thought, galloped towards Hampstead, and flew
back again. Theo had not agreed to fly in the face of her honoured
parents--no such thing. But we would marry no other person; no, not if
we lived to be as old as Methuselah; no, not the Prince of Wales
himself would she take. Her heart she had given away with her papa’s
consent--nay, order--it was not hers to resume. So kind a father must
relent one of these days; and, if George would keep his promise--were it
now, or were it in twenty years, or were it in another world, she knew
she should never break hers.

Hetty’s face beamed with delight when, my little interview over, she
saw Theo’s countenance wearing a sweet tranquillity. All the doctor’s
medicine has not done her so much good, the fond sister said. The girls
went home after their act of disobedience. I gave up the place which I
had held during a brief period of happiness by my dear invalid’s side.
Hetty skipped back into her seat, and Charley on to his box. He told me
in after days, that it was a very dull, stupid sermon he had heard. The
little chap was too orthodox to love dissenting preachers’ sermons.

Hetty was not the only one of the family who remarked her sister’s
altered countenance and improved spirits. I am told that on the girls’
return home their mother embraced both of them, especially the invalid,
with more than common ardour of affection. “There was nothing like a
country ride,” Aunt Lambert said, “for doing her dear Theo good. She
had been on the road to Hampstead, had she? She must have another ride
to-morrow. Heaven be blessed, my Lord Wrotham’s horses were at their
orders three or four times a week, and the sweet child might have the
advantage of them!” As for the idea that Mr. Warrington might have
happened to meet the children on their drive, Aunt Lambert never once
entertained it,--at least spoke of it. I leave anybody who is interested
in the matter to guess whether Mrs. Lambert could by any possibility
have supposed that her daughter and her sweetheart could ever have come
together again. Do women help each other in love perplexities? Do women
scheme, intrigue, make little plans, tell little fibs, provide little
amorous opportunities, hang up the rope-ladder, coax, wheedle, mystify
the guardian or Abigail, and turn their attention away while Strephon
and Chloe are billing and cooing in the twilight, or whisking off in the
postchaise to Gretna Green? My dear young folks, some people there are
of this nature; and some kind souls who have loved tenderly and truly in
their own time, continue ever after to be kindly and tenderly disposed
towards their young successors, when they begin to play the same pretty
game.

Miss Prim doesn’t. If she hears of two young persons attached to each
other, it is to snarl at them for fools, or to imagine of them all
conceivable evil. Because she has a hump-back herself, she is for biting
everybody else’s. I believe if she saw a pair of turtles cooing in a
wood, she would turn her eyes down, or fling a stone to frighten them;
but I am speaking, you see, young ladies, of your grandmother, Aunt
Lambert, who was one great syllabub of human kindness; and, besides,
about the affair at present under discussion, how am I ever to tell
whether she knew anything regarding it or not?

So, all she says to Theo on her return home is, “My child, the country
air has done you all the good in the world, and I hope you will take
another drive to-morrow, and another, and another, and so on.”

“Don’t you think, papa, the ride has done the child most wonderful good,
and must not she be made to go out in the air?” Aunt Lambert asks of the
General, when he comes in for supper.

“Yes, sure, if a coach-and-six will do his little Theo good, she shall
have it,” Lambert says, “or he will drag the landau up Hampstead Hill
himself, if there are no horses;” and so the good man would have spent,
freely, his guineas, or his breath, or his blood, to give his child
pleasure. He was charmed at his girl’s altered countenance; she picked
a bit of chicken with appetite: she drank a little negus, which he made
for her: indeed it did seem to be better than the kind doctor’s best
medicine, which hitherto, God wot, had been of little benefit. Mamma was
gracious and happy. Hetty was radiant and rident. It was quite like an
evening at home at Oakhurst. Never for months past, never since that
fatal, cruel day, that no one spoke of, had they spent an evening so
delightful.

But, if the other women chose to coax and cajole the good, simple
father, Theo herself was too honest to continue for long even that sweet
and fond delusion. When, for the third or fourth time, he comes back to
the delightful theme of his daughter’s improved health, and asks, “What
has done it? Is it the country air? is it the Jesuit’s bark? is it the
new medicine?”

“Can’t you think, dear, what it is?” she says, laying a hand upon her
father’s, with a tremor in her voice, perhaps, but eyes that are quite
open and bright.

“And what is it, my child?” asks the General.

“It is because I have seen him again, papa!” she says.

The other two women turned pale, and Theo’s heart too begins to
palpitate, and her cheek to whiten, as she continues to look in her
father’s scared face.

“It was not wrong to see him,” she continues, more quickly; “it would
have been wrong not to tell you.”

“Great God!” groans the father, drawing his hand back, and with such
a dreadful grief in his countenance, that Hetty runs to her almost
swooning sister, clasps her to her heart, and cries out, rapidly, “Theo
knew nothing of it, sir! It was my doing--it was all my doing!”

Theo lies on her sister’s neck, and kisses it twenty, fifty times.

“Women, women! are you playing with my honour?” cries the father,
bursting out with a fierce exclamation.

Aunt Lambert sobs, wildly, “Martin! Martin! Don’t say a word to her!”
 again calls out Hetty, and falls back herself staggering towards the
wall, for Theo has fainted on her shoulder.

I was taking my breakfast next morning, with what appetite I might, when
my door opens, and my faithful black announces, “General Lambert.” At
once I saw, by the General’s face, that the yesterday’s transaction was
known to him. “Your accomplices did not confess,” the General said,
as soon as my servant had left us, “but sided with you against their
father--a proof how desirable clandestine meetings are. It was from Theo
herself I heard that she had seen you.”

“Accomplices, sir!” I said (perhaps not unwilling to turn the
conversation from the real point at issue). “You know how fondly and
dutifully your young people regard their father. If they side against
you in this instance, it must be because justice is against you. A man
like you is not going to set up sic volo sic jubeo as the sole law in
his family!”

“Psha, George!” cries the General. “For though we are parted, God forbid
I should desire that we should cease to love each other. I had your
promise that you would not seek to see her.”

“Nor did I go to her, sir,” I said, turning red, no doubt; for though
this was truth, I own it was untrue.

“You mean she was brought to you?” says Theo’s father, in great
agitation. “Is it behind Hester’s petticoat that you will shelter
yourself? What a fine defence for a gentleman!”

“Well, I won’t screen myself behind the poor child,” I replied.
“To speak as I did was to make an attempt at evasion, and I am
ill-accustomed to dissemble. I did not infringe the letter of my
agreement, but I acted against the spirit of it. From this moment I
annul it altogether.”

“You break your word given to me!” cries Mr. Lambert.

“I recall a hasty promise made on a sudden at a moment of extreme
excitement and perturbation. No man can be for ever bound by words
uttered at such a time; and, what is more, no man of honour or humanity,
Mr. Lambert, would try to bind him.”

“Dishonour to me! sir,” exclaims the General.

“Yes, if the phrase is to be shuttlecocked between us!” I answered,
hotly. “There can be no question about love, or mutual regard,
or difference of age, when that word is used: and were you my own
father--and I love you better than a father, Uncle Lambert,--I would not
bear it! What have I done? I have seen the woman whom I consider my wife
before God and man, and if she calls me I will see her again. If she
comes to me, here is my home for her, and the half of the little I have.
‘Tis you, who have no right, having made me the gift, to resume it.
Because my mother taunts you unjustly, are you to visit Mrs. Esmond’s
wrong upon this tender, innocent creature? You profess to love your
daughter, and you can’t bear a little wounded pride for her sake. Better
she should perish away in misery, than an old woman in Virginia should
say that Mr. Lambert had schemed to marry one of his daughters. Say
that to satisfy what you call honour and I call selfishness, we part,
we break our hearts well nigh, we rally, we try to forget each other, we
marry elsewhere? Can any man be to my dear as I have been? God forbid!
Can any woman be to me what she is? You shall marry her to the Prince of
Wales to-morrow, and it is a cowardice and treason. How can we, how can
you, undo the promises we have made to each other before Heaven? You may
part us: and she will die as surely as if she were Jephthah’s daughter.
Have you made any vow to Heaven to compass her murder? Kill her if you
conceive your promise so binds you: but this I swear, that I am glad
you have come, so that I may here formally recall a hasty pledge which I
gave, and that, call me when she will, I will come to her!”

No doubt this speech was made with the flurry and agitation belonging
to Mr. Warrington’s youth, and with the firm conviction that death would
infallibly carry off one or both of the parties, in case their worldly
separation was inevitably decreed. Who does not believe his first
passion eternal? Having watched the world since, and seen the rise,
progress, and--alas, that I must say it!--decay of other amours, I may
smile now as I think of my own youthful errors and ardours; but, if it
be a superstition, I had rather hold it; I had rather think that
neither of us could have lived with any other mate, and that, of all its
innumerable creatures, Heaven decreed these special two should be joined
together.

“We must come, then, to what I had fain have spared myself,” says the
General, in reply to my outbreak; “to an unfriendly separation. When
I meet you, Mr. Warrington, I must know you no more. I must order--and
they will not do other than obey me--my family and children not to
recognise you when they see you, since you will not recognise in
your intercourse with me the respect due to my age, the courtesy of
gentlemen. I had hoped so far from your sense of honour, and the idea
I had formed of you, that, in my present great grief and perplexity,
I should have found you willing to soothe and help me as far as you
might--for, God knows, I have need of everybody’s sympathy. But, instead
of help, you fling obstacles in my way. Instead of a friend--a gracious
Heaven pardon me!--I find in you an enemy! An enemy to the peace of my
home and the honour of my children, sir! And as such I shall treat you,
and know how to deal with you, when you molest me!”

And, waving his hand to me, and putting on his hat, Mr. Lambert hastily
quitted my apartment.

I was confounded, and believed, indeed, there was war between us. The
brief happiness of yesterday was clouded over and gone, and I thought
that never since the day of the first separation had I felt so
exquisitely unhappy as now, when the bitterness of quarrel was added to
the pangs of parting, and I stood not only alone but friendless. In the
course of one year’s constant intimacy I had come to regard Lambert with
a reverence and affection which I had never before felt for any mortal
man except my dearest Harry. That his face should be turned from me
in anger was as if the sun had gone out of my sphere, and all was dark
around me. And yet I felt sure that in withdrawing the hasty promise I
had made not to see Theo, I was acting rightly--that my fidelity to her,
as hers now to me, was paramount to all other ties of duty or obedience,
and that, ceremony or none, I was hers, first and before all. Promises
were passed between us, from which no parent could absolve either; and
all the priests in Christendom could no more than attest and confirm the
sacred contract which had tacitly been ratified between us.

I saw Jack Lambert by chance that day, as I went mechanically to my not
unusual haunt, the library of the new Museum; and with the impetuousness
of youth, and eager to impart my sorrow to some one, I took him out of
the room and led him about the gardens, and poured out my grief to him.
I did not much care for Jack (who in truth was somewhat of a prig, and
not a little pompous and wearisome with his Latin quotations) except in
the time of my own sorrow, when I would fasten upon him or any one; and
having suffered himself in his affair with the little American,
being haud ignarus mali (as I knew he would say), I found the college
gentleman ready to compassionate another’s misery. I told him, what has
here been represented at greater length, of my yesterday’s meeting
with his sister; of my interview with his father in the morning; of my
determination at all hazards never to part with Theo. When I found from
the various quotations from the Greek and Latin authors which he uttered
that he leaned to my side in the dispute, I thought him a man of great
sense, clung eagerly to his elbow, and bestowed upon him much more
affection than he was accustomed at other times to have from me. I
walked with him up to his father’s lodgings in Dean Street; saw him
enter at the dear door; surveyed the house from without with a sickening
desire to know from its exterior appearance how my beloved fared within;
and called for a bottle at the coffee-house where I waited Jack’s
return. I called him Brother when I sent him away. I fondled him as the
condemned wretch at Newgate hangs about the jailor or the parson, or any
one who is kind to him in his misery. I drank a whole bottle of wine at
the coffee-house--by the way, Jack’s Coffee-House was its name--called
another. I thought Jack would never come back.

He appeared at length with rather a scared face; and, coming to my box,
poured out for himself two or three bumpers from my second bottle,
and then fell to his story, which, to me at least, was not a little
interesting. My poor Theo was keeping her room, it appeared, being much
agitated by the occurrences of yesterday; and Jack had come home in time
to find dinner on table; after which his good father held forth upon the
occurrences of the morning, being anxious and able to speak more freely,
he said, because his eldest son was present and Theodosia was not in the
room. The General stated what had happened at my lodgings between me and
him. He bade Hester be silent, who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poor
thing! he told Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction of
pocket-handkerchiefs which I have before described), and with something
like an imprecation, that the women were all against him, and pimps (he
called them) for one another; and frantically turning round to Jack,
asked what was his view in the matter?

To his father’s surprise and his mother’s and sister’s delight,
Jack made a speech on my side. He ruled with me (citing what ancient
authorities I don’t know), that the matter had gone out of the hands of
the parents on either side; that having given their consent, some months
previously, the elders had put themselves out of court. Though he did
not hold with a great, a respectable, he might say a host of divines,
those sacramental views of the marriage-ceremony--for which there was a
great deal to be said--yet he held it, if possible, even more sacredly
than they; conceiving that though marriages were made before the civil
magistrate, and without the priest, yet they were, before Heaven,
binding and indissoluble.

“It is not merely, sir,” says Jack, turning to his father, “those whom
I, John Lambert, Priest, have joined, let no man put asunder; it is
those whom God has joined let no man separate.” (Here he took off his
hat, as he told the story to me.) “My views are clear upon the point,
and surely these young people were joined, or permitted to plight
themselves to each other by the consent of you, the priest of your own
family. My views, I say, are clear, and I will lay them down at length
in a series of two or three discourses which, no doubt, will satisfy
you. Upon which,” says Jack, “my father said, ‘I am satisfied already,
my dear boy,’ and my lively little Het (who has much archness) whispers
to me, ‘Jack, mother and I will make you a dozen shirts, as sure as eggs
is eggs.’”

“Whilst we were talking,” Mr. Lambert resumed, “my sister Theodosia
made her appearance, I must say very much agitated and pale, kissed our
father, and sate down at his side, and took a sippet of toast--(my dear
George, this port is excellent, and I drink your health)--and took a
sippet of toast and dipped it in his negus.

“‘You should have been here to hear Jack’s sermon!’ says Hester. ‘He has
been preaching most beautifully.’

“‘Has he?’ asks Theodosia, who is too languid and weak, poor thing, much
to care for the exercises of eloquence, or the display of authorities,
such as I must own,” says Jack, “it was given to me this afternoon to
bring forward.

“‘He has talked for three quarters of an hour by Shrewsbury clock,’ says
my father, though I certainly had not talked so long or half so long
by my own watch. ‘And his discourse has been you, my dear,’ says papa,
playing with Theodosia’s hand.

“‘Me, papa?’

“‘You and--and Mr. Warrington--and--and George, my love,’ says papa.
Upon which” (says Mr. Jack). “my sister came closer to the General, and
laid her head upon him, and wept upon his shoulder.

“‘This is different, sir,’ says I, ‘to a passage I remember in
Pausanias.’

“‘In Pausanias? Indeed!’ said the General. ‘And pray who was he?’

“I smiled at my father’s simplicity in exposing his ignorance before his
children. ‘When Ulysses was taking away Penelope from her father,
the king hastened after his daughter and bridegroom, and besought his
darling to return. Whereupon, it is related, Ulysses offered her her
choice,--whether she would return, or go on with him? Upon which the
daughter of Icarius covered her face with her veil. For want of a veil
my sister has taken refuge in your waistcoat, sir,’ I said, and we all
laughed; though my mother vowed that if such a proposal had been made
to her, or Penelope had been a girl of spirit, she would have gone home
with her father that instant.

“‘But I am not a girl of any spirit, dear mother!’ says Theodosia, still
in gremio patris. I do not remember that this habit of caressing
was frequent in my own youth,” continues Jack. “But after some more
discourse, Brother Warrington! bethought me of you, and left my parents
insisting upon Theodosia returning to bed. The late transactions have,
it appears, weakened and agitated her much. I myself have experienced,
in my own case, how full of solliciti timoris is a certain passion; how
it racks the spirits; and I make no doubt, if carried far enough, or
indulged to the extent to which women who have little philosophy will
permit it to go--I make no doubt, I say, is ultimately injurious to the
health. My service to you, brother!”

From grief to hope, how rapid the change was! What a flood of happiness
poured into my soul, and glowed in my whole being! Landlord, more port!
Would honest Jack have drunk a binful I would have treated him; and,
to say truth, Jack’s sympathy was large in this case, and it had been
generous all day. I decline to score the bottles of port: and place
to the fabulous computations of interested waiters, the amount scored
against me in the reckoning. Jack was my dearest, best of brothers.
My friendship for him I swore should be eternal. If I could do him any
service, were it a bishopric, by George! he should have it. He says I
was interrupted by the watchman rhapsodising verses beneath the loved
one’s window. I know not. I know I awoke joyfully and rapturously, in
spite of a racking headache the next morning.

Nor did I know the extent of my happiness quite, or the entire
conversion of my dear noble enemy of the previous morning. It must
have been galling to the pride of an elder man to have to yield to
representations and objections couched in language so little dutiful as
that I had used towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman,
retiring from his talk with me, mortified and wounded by my asperity of
remonstrance, as well as by the pain which he saw his beloved daughter
suffer, went thoughtfully and sadly to his business, as he subsequently
told me, and in the afternoon (as his custom not unfrequently was) into
a church which was open for prayers. And it was here, on his knees,
submitting his case in the quarter whither he frequently, though
privately, came for guidance and comfort, that it seemed to him that his
child was right in her persistent fidelity to me, and himself wrong in
demanding her utter submission. Hence Jack’s cause was won almost before
he began to plead it; and the brave, gentle heart, which could bear no
rancour, which bled at inflicting pain on those it loved, which even
shrank from asserting authority or demanding submission, was only too
glad to return to its natural pulses of love and affection.



CHAPTER LXXVIII. Pyramus and Thisbe


In examining the old papers at home, years afterwards, I found, docketed
and labelled with my mother’s well-known neat handwriting, “From London,
April, 1760. My son’s dreadful letter.” When it came to be mine I
burnt the document, not choosing that that story of domestic grief and
disunion should remain amongst our family annals for future Warringtons
to gaze on, mayhap, and disobedient sons to hold up as examples of
foregone domestic rebellions. For similar reasons, I have destroyed the
paper which my mother despatched to me at this time of tyranny, revolt,
annoyance, and irritation.

Maddened by the pangs of separation from my mistress, and not unrightly
considering that Mrs. Esmond was the prime cause of the greatest grief
and misery which had ever befallen me in the world, I wrote home to
Virginia a letter, which might have been more temperate, it is true, but
in which I endeavoured to maintain the extremest respect and reticence.
I said I did not know by what motives she had been influenced, but that
I held her answerable for the misery of my future life, which she
had chosen wilfully to mar and render wretched. She had occasioned a
separation between me and a virtuous and innocent young creature,
whose own hopes, health, and happiness were cast down for ever by Mrs.
Esmond’s interference. The deed was done, as I feared, and I would offer
no comment upon the conduct of the perpetrator, who was answerable to
God alone; but I did not disguise from my mother that the injury which
she had done me was so dreadful and mortal, that her life or mine could
never repair it; that the tie of my allegiance was broken towards her,
and that I never could be, as heretofore, her dutiful and respectful
son.

Madam Esmond replied to me in a letter of very great dignity (her style
and correspondence were extraordinarily elegant and fine). She uttered
not a single reproach or hard word, but coldly gave me to understand
that it was before that awful tribunal of God she had referred the case
between us, and asked for counsel; that, in respect of her own conduct,
as a mother, she was ready, in all humility, to face it. Might I, as a
son, be equally able to answer for myself, and to show, when the Great
Judge demanded the question of me, whether I had done my own duty, and
honoured my father and mother! O popoi! My grandfather has quoted in his
memoir a line of Homer, showing how in our troubles and griefs the
gods are always called in question. When our pride, our avarice, our
interest, our desire to domineer, are worked upon, are we not for
ever pestering Heaven to decide in their favour? In our great American
quarrel, did we not on both sides appeal to the skies as to the
justice of our causes, sing Te Deum for victory, and boldly express our
confidence that the right should prevail? Was America right because
she was victorious? Then I suppose Poland was wrong because she was
defeated?--How am I wandering into this digression about Poland,
America, and what not, and all the while thinking of a little woman now
no more, who appealed to Heaven and confronted it with a thousand texts
out of its own book, because her son wanted to make a marriage not of
her liking? We appeal, we imprecate, we go down on our knees, we demand
blessings, we shriek out for sentence according to law; the great course
of the great world moves on; we pant, and strive, and struggle; we hate;
we rage; we weep passionate tears; we reconcile; we race and win; we
race and lose; we pass away, and other little strugglers succeed; our
days are spent; our night comes, and another morning rises, which shines
on us no more.

My letter to Madam Esmond, announcing my revolt and disobedience
(perhaps I myself was a little proud of the composition of that
document), I showed in duplicate to Mr. Lambert, because I wished him
to understand what my relations to my mother were, and how I was
determined, whatever of threats or quarrels the future might bring,
never for my own part to consider my separation from Theo as other than
a forced one. Whenever I could see her again I would. My word given
to her was in secula seculorum, or binding at least as long as my life
should endure. I implied that the girl was similarly bound to me, and
her poor father knew indeed as much. He might separate us; as he might
give her a dose of poison, and the gentle, obedient creature would take
it and die; but the death or separation would be his doing: let him
answer them. Now he was tender about his children to weakness, and could
not have the heart to submit any one of them--this one especially--to
torture. We had tried to part: we could not. He had endeavoured to
separate us: it was more than was in his power. The bars were up, but
the young couple--the maid within and the knight without--were loving
each other all the same. The wall was built, but Pyramus and Thisbe were
whispering on either side. In the midst of all his grief and perplexity,
Uncle Lambert had plenty of humour, and could not but see that his role
was rather a sorry one. Light was beginning to show through that lime
and rough plaster of the wall: the lovers were getting their hands
through, then their heads through--indeed, it was wall’s best business
to retire.

I forget what happened stage by stage and day by day; nor, for the
instruction of future ages, does it much matter. When my descendants
have love scrapes of their own, they will find their own means of
getting out of them. I believe I did not go back to Dean Street, but
that practice of driving in the open air was considered most healthful
for Miss Lambert. I got a fine horse, and rode by the side of her
carriage. The old woman at Tottenham Court came to know both of us quite
well, and nod and wink in the most friendly manner when we passed by.
I fancy the old goody was not unaccustomed to interest herself in young
couples, and has dispensed the hospitality of her roadside cottage to
more than one pair.

The doctor and the country air effected a prodigious cure upon Miss
Lambert. Hetty always attended as duenna, and sometimes of his holiday,
Master Charley rode my horse when I got into the carriage. What a deal
of love-making Miss Hetty heard!--with what exemplary patience she
listened to it! I do not say she went to hear the Methodist sermons any
more, but ‘tis certain that when we had a closed carriage she would very
kindly and considerately look out of the window. Then, what heaps of
letters there were!--what running to and fro! Gumbo’s bandy legs were
for ever on the trot from my quarters to Dean Street; and, on my account
or her own, Mrs. Molly, the girl’s maid, was for ever bringing back
answers to Bloomsbury. By the time when the autumn leaves began to turn
pale, Miss Theo’s roses were in full bloom again, and my good Doctor
Heberden’s cure was pronounced to be complete. What else happened during
this blessed period? Mr. Warrington completed his great tragedy of
Pocahontas, which was not only accepted by Mr. Garrick this time (his
friend Dr. Johnson having spoken not unfavourably of the work), but my
friend and cousin, Hagan, was engaged by the manager to perform the part
of the hero, Captain Smith. Hagan’s engagement was not made before it
was wanted. I had helped him and his family with means disproportioned,
perhaps, to my power, especially considering my feud with Madam Esmond,
whose answer to my angry missive of April came to me towards autumn,
and who wrote back from Virginia with war for war, controlment for
controlment. These menaces, however, frightened me little: my poor
mother’s thunder could not reach me; and my conscience, or casuistry,
supplied me with other interpretations for her texts of Scripture, so
that her oracles had not the least weight with me in frightening me from
my purpose. How my new loves speeded I neither informed her, nor any
other members of my maternal or paternal family, who, on both sides, had
been bitter against my marriage. Of what use wrangling with them? It was
better to carpere diem and its sweet loves and pleasures, and to leave
the railers to grumble, or the seniors to advise, at their ease.

Besides Madam Esmond I had, it must be owned, in the frantic rage of my
temporary separation, addressed notes of wondrous sarcasm to my Uncle
Warrington, to my Aunt Madame de Bernstein, and to my Lord or Lady
of Castlewood (I forget to which individually), thanking them for the
trouble which they had taken in preventing the dearest happiness of my
life, and promising them a corresponding gratitude from their obliged
relative. Business brought the jovial Baronet and his family to London
somewhat earlier than usual, and Madame de Bernstein was never sorry
to get back to Clarges Street and her cards. I saw them. They found me
perfectly well. They concluded the match was broken off, and I did not
choose to undeceive them. The Baroness took heart at seeing how cheerful
I was, and made many sly jokes about my philosophy, and my prudent
behaviour as a man of the world. She was, as ever, bent upon finding a
rich match for me: and I fear I paid many compliments at her house to
a rich young soap-boiler’s daughter from Mile End, whom the worthy
Baroness wished to place in my arms.

“You court her with infinite wit and esprit, my dear,” says my pleased
kinswoman, “but she does not understand half you say, and the other
half, I think, frightens her. This ton de persiflage is very well in our
society, but you must be sparing of it, my dear nephew, amongst these
roturiers.”

Miss Badge married a young gentleman of royal dignity, though shattered
fortunes, from a neighbouring island; and I trust Mrs. Mackshane has
ere this pardoned my levity. There was another person besides Miss at my
aunt’s house, who did not understand my persiflage much better than Miss
herself; and that was a lady who had seen James the Second’s reign, and
who was alive and as worldly as ever in King George’s. I loved to be
with her: but that my little folks have access to this volume, I could
put down a hundred stories of the great old folks whom she had known in
the great old days--of George the First and his ladies, of St. John and
Marlborough, of his reigning Majesty and the late Prince of Wales, and
the causes of the quarrel between them--but my modest muse pipes for
boys and virgins. Son Miles does not care about court stories, or if he
doth, has a fresh budget from Carlton House, quite as bad as the worst
of our old Baroness. No, my dear wife, thou hast no need to shake thy
powdered locks at me! Papa is not going to scandalise his nursery with
old-world gossip, nor bring a blush over our chaste bread-and-butter.

But this piece of scandal I cannot help. My aunt used to tell it with
infinite gusto; for, to do her justice, she hated your would-be good
people, and sniggered over the faults of the self-styled righteous with
uncommon satisfaction. In her later days she had no hypocrisy, at least;
and in so far was better than some whitewashed... Well, to the story.
My Lady Warrington, one of the tallest and the most virtuous of her sex,
who had goodness for ever on her lips and “Heaven in her eye,” like the
woman in Mr. Addison’s tedious tragedy (which has kept the stage, from
which some others, which shall be nameless, have disappeared), had the
world in her other eye, and an exceedingly shrewd desire of pushing
herself in it. What does she do, when my marriage with your ladyship
yonder was supposed to be broken off, but attempt to play off on me
those arts which she had tried on my poor Harry with such signal ill
success, and which failed with me likewise! It was not the Beauty--Miss
Flora was for my master--(and what a master! I protest I take off my hat
at the idea of such an illustrious connexion!)--it was Dora, the Muse,
was set upon me to languish at me and to pity me, and to read even my
godless tragedy, and applaud me and console me. Meanwhile, how was the
Beauty occupied? Will it be believed that my severe aunt gave a great
entertainment to my Lady Yarmouth, presented her boy to her, and placed
poor little Miles under her ladyship’s august protection? That, so
far, is certain; but can it be that she sent her daughter to stay at my
lady’s house, which our gracious lord and master daily visited, and with
the views which old Aunt Bernstein attributed to her? “But for that
fit of apoplexy, my dear,” Bernstein said, “that aunt of yours intended
there should have been a Countess in her own right in the Warrington
family!” [Compare Walpole’s letters in Mr. Cunningham’s excellent new
edition. See the story of the supper at N. House, to show what great
noblemen would do for a king’s mistress, and the pleasant account of
the waiting for the Prince of Wales before Holland House.-EDITOR.] My
neighbour and kinswoman, my Lady Claypole, is dead and buried. Grow
white, ye daisies, upon Flora’s tomb! I can see my pretty Miles, in a
gay little uniform of the Norfolk Militia, led up by his parent to the
lady whom the King delighted to honour, and the good-natured old Jezebel
laying her hand upon the boy’s curly pate. I am accused of being but a
lukewarm royalist; but sure I can contrast those times with ours, and
acknowledge the difference between the late sovereign and the present,
who, born a Briton, has given to every family in the empire an example
of decorum and virtuous life. [The Warrington MS. is dated 1793.-ED.]

Thus my life sped in the pleasantest of all occupation; and, being so
happy myself, I could afford to be reconciled to those who, after all,
had done me no injury, but rather added to the zest of my happiness by
the brief obstacle which they had placed in my way. No specific plans
were formed, but Theo and I knew that a day would come when we need
say Farewell no more. Should the day befall a year hence--ten years
hence--we were ready to wait. Day after day we discussed our little
plans, with Hetty for our confidante. On our drives we spied out pretty
cottages that we thought might suit young people of small means; we
devised all sorts of delightful schemes and childish economies. We were
Strephon and Chloe to be sure. A cot and a brown loaf should content us!
Gumbo and Molly should wait upon us (as indeed they have done from that
day until this). At twenty, who is afraid of being poor? Our trials
would only confirm our attachment. The “sweet sorrow” of every day’s
parting but made the morrow’s meeting more delightful; and when we
separated we ran home and wrote each other those precious letters which
we and other young gentlemen and ladies write under such circumstances;
but though my wife has them all in a great tin sugar-box in the closet
in her bedroom, and, I own, I myself have looked at them once, and even
thought some of them pretty,--I hereby desire my heirs and executors
to burn them all, unread, at our demise; specially desiring my son the
Captain (to whom I know the perusal of MSS. is not pleasant) to perform
this duty. Those secrets whispered to the penny-post, or delivered
between Molly and Gumbo, were intended for us alone, and no ears of our
descendants shall overhear them.

We heard in successive brief letters how our dear Harry continued with
the army, as Mr. General Amherst’s aide-de-camp, after the death of his
own glorious general. By the middle of October there came news of the
Capitulation of Montreal and the whole of Canada, and a brief postscript
in which Hal said he would ask for leave now, and must go and see the
old lady at home, who wrote as sulky as a bare, Captain Warrington
remarked. I could guess why, though the claws could not reach me. I had
written pretty fully to my brother how affairs were standing with me in
England.

Then, on the 25th October, comes the news that his Majesty has fallen
down dead at Kensington, and that George III. reigned over us. I fear we
grieved but little. What do those care for the Atridae whose hearts are
strung only to erota mounon? A modest, handsome, brave new Prince, we
gladly accept the common report that he is endowed with every virtue;
and we cry huzzay with the loyal crowd that hails his accession:
it could make little difference to us, as we thought, simple young
sweethearts, whispering our little love-stories in our corner.

But who can say how great events affect him? Did not our little Charley,
at the Chartreux, wish impiously for a new king immediately, because on
his gracious Majesty’s accession Doctor Crusius gave his boys a holiday?
He and I, and Hetty, and Theo (Miss Theo was strong enough to walk
many a delightful mile now), heard the Heralds proclaim his new Majesty
before Savile House in Leicester Fields, and a pickpocket got the watch
and chain of a gentleman hard by us, and was caught and carried to
Bridewell, all on account of his Majesty’s accession. Had the king not
died, the gentleman would not have been in the crowd; the chain would
not have been seized; the thief would not have been caught and soundly
whipped: in this way many of us, more or less remotely, were implicated
in the great change which ensued, and even we humble folks were affected
by it presently.

As thus. My Lord Wrotham was a great friend of the august family of
Savile House, who knew and esteemed his many virtues. Now, of all
living men, my Lord Wrotham knew and loved best his neighbour and old
fellow-soldier, Martin Lambert, declaring that the world contained few
better gentlemen. And my Lord Bute, being all potent, at first, with his
Majesty, and a nobleman, as I believe, very eager at the commencement of
his brief and luckless tenure of power, to patronise merit wherever he
could find it, was strongly prejudiced in Mr. Lambert’s favour by the
latter’s old and constant friend.

My (and Harry’s) old friend Parson Sampson, who had been in and out
of gaol I don’t know how many times of late years, and retained an
ever-enduring hatred for the Esmonds of Castlewood, and as lasting a
regard for me and my brother, was occupying poor Hal’s vacant bed at
my lodgings at this time (being, in truth, hunted out of his own by
the bailiffs). I liked to have Sampson near me, for a more amusing
Jack-friar never walked in cassock; and, besides, he entered into all my
rhapsodies about Miss Theo; was never tired (so he vowed) of hearing
me talk of her; admired Pocahontas and Carpezan with, I do believe, an
honest enthusiasm; and could repeat whole passages of those tragedies
with an emphasis and effect that Barry or cousin Hagan himself could not
surpass. Sampson was the go-between between Lady Maria and such of her
relations as had not disowned her; and, always in debt himself, was
never more happy than in drinking a pot, or mingling his tears with his
friends in similar poverty. His acquaintance with pawnbrokers’ shops was
prodigious. He could procure more money, he boasted, on an article than
any gentleman of his cloth. He never paid his own debts, to be sure,
but he was ready to forgive his debtors. Poor as he was, he always found
means to love and help his needy little sister, and a more prodigal,
kindly, amiable rogue never probably grinned behind bars. They say that
I love to have parasites about me. I own to have had a great liking for
Sampson, and to have esteemed him much better than probably much better
men.

When he heard how my Lord Bute was admitted into the cabinet, Sampson
vowed and declared that his lordship--a great lover of the drama, who
had been to see Carpezan, who had admired it, and who would act the part
of the king very finely in it--he vowed, by George! that my lord must
give me a place worthy of my birth and merits. He insisted upon it that
I should attend his lordship’s levee. I wouldn’t? The Esmonds were all
as proud as Lucifer; and, to be sure, my birth was as good as that of
any man in Europe. Demmy! Where was my lord himself when the Esmonds
were lords of great counties, warriors, and Crusaders? Where were they?
Beggarly Scotchmen, without a rag to their backs--by George! tearing
raw fish in their islands. But now the times were changed. The Scotchmen
were in luck. Mum’s the word! “I don’t envy him,” says Sampson, “but he
shall provide for you and my dearest, noblest, heroic captain! He SHALL,
by George!” would my worthy parson roar out. And when, in the month
after his accession, his Majesty ordered the play of Richard III. at
Drury Lane, my chaplain cursed, vowed, swore, but he would have him to
Covent Garden to see Carpezan too. And now, one morning, he bursts into
my apartment, where I happened to lie rather late, waving the newspaper
in his hand, and singing “Huzza!” with all his might.

“What is it, Sampson?” says I. “Has my brother got his promotion?”

“No, in truth: but some one else has. Huzzay! huzzay! His Majesty
has appointed Major-General Martin Lambert to be Governor and
Commander-in-Chief of the Island of Jamaica.”

I started up. Here was news, indeed! Mr. Lambert would go to his
government: and who would go with him? I had been supping with some
genteel young fellows at the Cocoa-Tree. The rascal Gumbo had a note for
me from my dear mistress on the night previous, conveying the same news
to me, and had delayed to deliver it. Theo begged me to see her at the
old place at midday the next day without fail. [In the Warrington
MS. there is not a word to say what the “old place” was. Perhaps some
obliging reader of Notes and Queries will be able to inform me, and who
Mrs. Goodison was.-ED.]

There was no little trepidation in our little council when we reached
our place of meeting. Papa had announced his acceptance of the
appointment, and his speedy departure. He would have a frigate given
him, and take his family with him. Merciful powers! and were we to be
parted? My Theo’s old deathly paleness returned to her. Aunt Lambert
thought she would have swooned; one of Mrs. Goodison’s girls had a
bottle of salts, and ran up with it from the workroom. “Going away?
Going away in a frigate, Aunt Lambert? Going to tear her away from me?
Great God! Aunt Lambert, I shall die!” She was better when mamma came
up from the workroom with the young lady’s bottle of salts. You see the
women used to meet me: knowing dear Theo’s delicate state, how could
they refrain from compassionating her! But the General was so busy
with his levees and his waiting on Ministers, and his outfit, and the
settlement of his affairs at home, that they never happened to tell him
about our little walks and meetings; and even when orders for the outfit
of the ladies were given, Mrs. Goodison, who had known and worked
for Miss Molly Benson as a schoolgirl (she remembered Miss Esmond of
Virginia perfectly, the worthy lady told me, and a dress she made for
the young lady to be presented at her Majesty’s Ball)--“even when the
outfit was ordered for the three ladies,” says Mrs. Goodison, demurely,
“why, I thought I could do no harm in completing the order.”

Now I need not say in what perturbation of mind Mr. Warrington went home
in the evening to his lodgings, after the discussion with the ladies of
the above news. No, or at least a very few, more walks; no more rides to
dear, dear Hampstead or beloved Islington; no more fetching and carrying
of letters for Gumbo and Molly! The former blubbered so, that Mr.
Warrington was quite touched by his fidelity, and gave him a crown-piece
to go to supper with the poor girl, who turned out to be his sweetheart.
What, you too unhappy, Gumbo, and torn from the maid you love? I was
ready to mingle with him tear for tear.

What a solemn conference I had with Sampson that evening! He knew my
affairs, my expectations, my mother’s anger. Psha! that was far off, and
he knew some excellent liberal people (of the order of Melchizedek)
who would discount the other. The General would not give his consent?
Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders and swore a great roaring oath. My
mother would not relent? What then? A man was a man, and to make his
own way in the world? he supposed. He is only a churl who won’t play for
such a stake as that, and lose or win, by George! shouts the chaplain,
over a bottle of Burgundy at the Bedford Head, where he dined. I need
not put down our conversation. We were two of us, and I think there was
only one mind between us. Our talk was of a Saturday night....

I did not tell Theo, nor any relative of hers, what was being done.
But when the dear child faltered and talked, trembling, of the
coming departure, I bade her bear up, and vowed all would be well, so
confidently, that she, who ever has taken her alarms and joys from my
face (I wish, my dear, it were sometimes not so gloomy), could not but
feel confidence; and placed (with many fond words that need not here be
repeated) her entire trust in me--murmuring those sweet words of Ruth
that must have comforted myriads of tender hearts in my dearest maiden’s
plight; that whither I would go she would go, and that my people should
be hers. At last, one day, the General’s preparations being made, the
trunks encumbering the passages of the dear old Dean Street lodging,
which I shall love as long as I shall remember at all--one day, almost
the last of his stay, when the good man (his Excellency we called him
now) came home to his dinner--a comfortless meal enough it was in the
present condition of the family--he looked round the table at the place
where I had used to sit in happy old days, and sighed out: “I wish,
Molly, George was here.”

“Do you, Martin?” says Aunt Lambert, flinging into his arms.

“Yes, I do; but I don’t wish you to choke me, Molly,” he says. “I love
him dearly. I may go away and never see him again, and take his foolish
little sweetheart along with me. I suppose you will write to each other,
children? I can’t prevent that, you know; and until he changes his mind,
I suppose Miss Theo won’t obey papa’s orders, and get him out of her
foolish little head. Wilt thou, Theo?”

“No, dearest, dearest, best papa!”

“What! more embraces and kisses! What does all this mean?”

“It means that--that George is in the drawing-room,” says mamma.

“Is he! My dearest boy!” cries the General. “Come to me--come in!” And
when I entered he held me to his heart, and kissed me.

I confess at this I was so overcome that I fell down on my knees before
the dear, good man, and sobbed on his own.

“God bless you, my dearest boy!” he mutters hurriedly. “Always loved you
as a son--haven’t I, Molly? Broke my heart nearly when I quarrelled with
you about this little--What!--odds marrowbones!--all down on your knees!
Mrs. Lambert, pray what is the meaning of all this?”

“Dearest, dearest papa! I will go with you all the same!” whimpers one
of the kneeling party. “And I will wait--oh!--as long as ever my dearest
father wants me!”

“In Heaven’s name!” roars the General, “tell me what has happened?”

What had happened was, that George Esmond Warrington and Theodosia
Lambert had been married in Southwark that morning, their banns having
been duly called in the church of a certain friend of the Reverend Mr.
Sampson.



CHAPTER LXXIX. Containing both Comedy and Tragedy


We, who had been active in the guilty scene of the morning, felt trebly
guilty when we saw the effect which our conduct had produced upon him,
who, of all others, we loved and respected. The shock to the good man
was strange, and pitiful to us to witness who had administered it. The
child of his heart had deceived and disobeyed him--I declare I think, my
dear, now, we would not or could not do it over again; his whole family
had entered into a league against him. Dear, kind friend and father!
We know thou hast pardoned our wrong--in the Heaven where thou dwellest
amongst purified spirits who learned on earth how to love and pardon! To
love and forgive were easy duties with that man. Beneficence was natural
to him, and a sweet, smiling humility; and to wound either was to be
savage and brutal, as to torture a child, or strike blows at a nursing
woman. The deed done, all we guilty ones grovelled in the earth, before
the man we had injured. I pass over the scenes of forgiveness, of
reconciliation, of common worship together, of final separation when the
good man departed to his government, and the ship sailed away before us,
leaving me and Theo on the shore. We stood there hand in hand, horribly
abashed, silent, and guilty. My wife did not come to me till her father
went: in the interval between the ceremony of our marriage and his
departure, she had remained at home, occupying her old place by her
father, and bed by her sister’s side: he as kind as ever, but the women
almost speechless among themselves; Aunt Lambert, for once, unkind
and fretful in her temper; and little Hetty feverish and strange, and
saying, “I wish we were gone. I wish we were gone.” Though admitted to
the house, and forgiven, I slunk away during those last days, and only
saw my wife for a minute or two in the street, or with her family. She
was not mine till they were gone. We went to Winchester and Hampton
for what may be called our wedding. It was but a dismal business. For a
while we felt utterly lonely: and of our dear father as if we had buried
him, or drove him to the grave by our undutifulness.

I made Sampson announce our marriage in the papers. (My wife used to
hang down her head before the poor fellow afterwards.) I took Mrs.
Warrington back to my old lodgings in Bloomsbury, where there was plenty
of room for us, and our modest married life began. I wrote home a letter
to my mother in Virginia, informing her of no particulars, but only
that Mr. Lambert being about to depart for his government, I considered
myself bound in honour to fulfil my promise towards his dearest
daughter; and stated that I intended to carry out my intention of
completing my studies for the Bar, and qualifying myself for employment
at home, or in our own or any other colony. My good Mrs. Mountain
answered this letter, by desire of Madam Esmond, she said, who thought
that for the sake of peace my communications had best be conducted
that way. I found my relatives in a fury which was perfectly amusing
to witness. The butler’s face, as he said, “Not at home,” at my uncle’s
house in Hill Street, was a blank tragedy that might have been studied
by Garrick when he sees Banque. My poor little wife was on my arm, and
we were tripping away, laughing at the fellow’s accueil, when we came
upon my lady in a street stoppage in her chair. I took off my hat and
made her the lowest possible bow. I affectionately asked after my dear
cousins. “I--I wonder you dare look me in the face!” Lady Warrington
gasped out. “Nay, don’t deprive me of that precious privilege!” says I.
“Move on, Peter,” she screams to her chairman. “Your ladyship would not
impale your own husband’s flesh and blood!” says I. She rattles up
the glass of her chair in a fury. I kiss my hand, take off my hat, and
perform another of my very finest bows.

Walking shortly afterwards in Hyde Park with my dearest companion, I
met my little cousin exercising on horseback with a groom behind him. As
soon as he sees us, he gallops up to us, the groom powdering afterwards
and bawling out, “Stop, Master Miles, stop!”

“I am not to speak to my cousin,” says Miles, “but telling you to send
my love to Harry is not speaking to you, is it? Is that my new
cousin? I’m not told not to speak to her. I’m Miles, cousin, Sir Miles
Warrington Baronet’s son, and you are very pretty!” “Now, duee now,
Master Miles,” says the groom, touching his hat to us; and the boy
trots away laughing and looking at us over his shoulder. “You see how
my relations have determined to treat me,” I say to my partner. “As if
I married you for your relations!” says Theo, her eyes beaming joy
and love into mine. Ah, how happy we were! how brisk and pleasant the
winter! How snug the kettle by the fire (where the abashed Sampson
sometimes came and made the punch); how delightful the night at the
theatre, for which our friends brought us tickets of admission, and
where we daily expected our new play of Pocahontas would rival the
successes of all former tragedies.

The fickle old aunt of Clarges Street, who received me, on my first
coming to London with my wife, with a burst of scorn, mollified
presently, and as soon as she came to know Theo (who she had pronounced
to be an insignificant little country-faced chit), fell utterly in love
with her, and would have her to tea and supper every day when there was
no other company. “As for company, my dears,” she would say, “I don’t
ask you. You are no longer du monde. Your marriage has put that entirely
out of the question.” So she would have had us come to amuse her, and go
in and out by the back-stairs. My wife was fine lady enough to feel only
amused at this reception; and, I must do the Baroness’s domestics the
justice to say that, had we been duke and duchess, we could not have
been received with more respect. Madame de Bernstein was very much
tickled and amused with my story of Lady Warrington and the chair. I
acted it for her, and gave her anecdotes of the pious Baronet’s lady and
her daughters, which pleased the mischievous, lively old woman.

The Dowager Countess of Castlewood, now established in her house at
Kensington, gave us that kind of welcome which genteel ladies extend to
their poorer relatives. We went once or twice to her ladyship’s drums at
Kensington; but, losing more money at cards, and spending more money
in coach-hire than I liked to afford, we speedily gave up those
entertainments, and, I dare say, were no more missed or regretted than
other people in the fashionable world, who are carried by death, debt,
or other accident out of the polite sphere. My Theo did not in the
least regret this exclusion. She had made her appearance at one of these
drums, attired in some little ornaments which her mother left behind
her, and by which the good lady set some store; but I thought her own
white neck was a great deal prettier than these poor twinkling stones;
and there were dowagers, whose wrinkled old bones blazed with rubies
and diamonds, which, I am sure, they would gladly have exchanged for her
modest parure of beauty and freshness. Not a soul spoke to her--except,
to be sure, Beau Lothair, a friend of Mr. Will’s, who prowled about
Bloomsbury afterwards, and even sent my wife a billet. I met him in
Covent Garden shortly after, and promised to break his ugly face if
ever I saw it in the neighbourhood of my lodgings, and Madam Theo was
molested no further.

The only one of our relatives who came to see us (Madame de Bernstein
never came; she sent her coach for us sometimes, or made inquiries
regarding us by her woman or her major-domo) was our poor Maria, who,
with her husband, Mr. Hagan, often took a share of our homely dinner.
Then we had friend Spencer from the Temple, who admired our Arcadian
felicity, and gently asked our sympathy for his less fortunate loves;
and twice or thrice the famous Doctor Johnson came in for a dish of
Theo’s tea. A dish? a pailful! “And a pail the best thing to feed him,
sar!” says Mr. Gumbo, indignantly: for the Doctor’s appearance was not
pleasant, nor his linen particularly white. He snorted, he grew red,
and sputtered in feeding; he flung his meat about, and bawled out in
contradicting people: and annoyed my Theo, whom he professed to admire
greatly, by saying, every time he saw her, “Madam, you do not love me;
I see by your manner you do not love me; though I admire you, and come
here for your sake. Here is my friend Mr. Reynolds that shall paint
you: he has no ceruse in his paint-box that is as brilliant as
your complexion.” And so Mr. Reynolds, a most perfect and agreeable
gentleman, would have painted my wife; but I knew what his price was,
and did not choose to incur that expense. I wish I had now, for the
sake of the children, that they might see what yonder face was like some
five-and-thirty years ago. To me, madam, ‘tis the same now as ever; and
your ladyship is always young!

What annoyed Mrs. Warrington with Dr. Johnson more than his
contradictions, his sputterings, and his dirty nails, was, I think,
an unfavourable opinion which he formed of my new tragedy. Hagan once
proposed that he should read some scenes from it after tea.

“Nay, sir, conversation is better,” says the Doctor. “I can read for
myself, or hear you at the theatre. I had rather hear Mrs. Warrington’s
artless prattle than your declamation of Mr. Warrington’s decasyllables.
Tell us about your household affairs, madam, and whether his Excellency
your father is well, and whether you made the pudden and the butter
sauce. The butter sauce was delicious!” (He loved it so well that he had
kept a large quantity in the bosom of a very dingy shirt.) “You made it
as though you loved me. You helped me as though you loved me, though you
don’t.”

“Faith, sir, you are taking some of the present away with you in your
waistcoat,” says Hagan, with much spirit.

“Sir, you are rude!” bawls the Doctor. “You are unacquainted with the
first principles of politeness, which is courtesy before ladies. Having
received an university education, I am surprised that you have not
learned the rudiments of politeness. I respect Mrs. Warrington. I should
never think of making personal remarks about her guests before her!”

“Then, sir,” says Hagan, fiercely, “why did you speak of my theatre?”

“Sir, you are saucy!” roars the Doctor.

“De te fabula,” says the actor. “I think it is your waistcoat that is
saucy. Madam, shall I make some punch in the way we make it in Ireland?”

The Doctor, puffing, and purple in the face, was wiping the dingy shirt
with a still more dubious pocket-handkerchief, which he then applied to
his forehead. After this exercise, he blew a hyperborean whistle, as
if to blow his wrath away. “It is de me, sir--though, as a young man,
perhaps you need not have told me so.”

“I drop my point, sir! If you have been wrong, I am sure I am bound to
ask your pardon for setting you so!” says Mr. Hagan, with a fine bow.

“Doesn’t he look like a god?” says Maria, clutching my wife’s hand: and
indeed Mr. Hagan did look like a handsome young gentleman. His colour
had risen; he had put his hand to his breast with a noble air: Chamont
or Castalio could not present himself better.

“Let me make you some lemonade, sir; my papa has sent us a box of fresh
limes. May we send you some to the Temple?”

“Madam, if they stay in your house, they will lose their quality and
turn sweet,” says the Doctor. “Mr. Hagan, you are a young sauce-box,
that’s what you are! Ho! ho! It is I have been wrong.”

“Oh, my lord, my Polidore!” bleats Lady Maria, when she was alone in my
wife’s drawing-room:

    “‘Oh, I could hear thee talk for ever thus,
      Eternally admiring,--fix and gaze
      On those dear eyes, for every glance they send
      Darts through my soul, and fills my heart with rapture!’

“Thou knowest not, my Theo, what a pearl and paragon of a man my
Castalio is; my Chamont, my--oh, dear me, child, what a pity it is that
in your husband’s tragedy he should have to take the horrid name of
Captain Smith!”

Upon this tragedy not only my literary hopes, but much of my financial
prospects were founded. My brother’s debts discharged, my mother’s
drafts from home duly honoured, my own expenses paid, which, though
moderate, were not inconsiderable,--pretty nearly the whole of my
patrimony had been spent, and this auspicious moment I must choose
for my marriage! I could raise money on my inheritance: that was not
impossible, though certainly costly. My mother could not leave her
eldest son without a maintenance, whatever our quarrels might be. I had
health, strength, good wits, some friends, and reputation--above all, my
famous tragedy, which the manager had promised to perform, and upon the
proceeds of this I counted for my present support. What becomes of the
arithmetic of youth? How do we then calculate that a hundred pounds is
a maintenance, and a thousand a fortune? How did I dare play against
Fortune with such odds? I succeeded, I remember, in convincing my dear
General, and he left home convinced that his son-in-law had for the
present necessity at least a score of hundred pounds at his command. He
and his dear Molly had begun life with less, and the ravens had somehow
always fed them. As for the women, the question of poverty was one of
pleasure to those sentimental souls, and Aunt Lambert, for her part,
declared it would be wicked and irreligious to doubt of a provision
being made for her children. Was the righteous ever forsaken? Did the
just man ever have to beg his bread? She knew better than that! “No, no,
my dears! I am not going to be afraid on that account, I warrant you!
Look at me and my General!”

Theo believed all I said and wished to believe myself. So we actually
began life upon a capital of Five Acts, and about three hundred pounds
of ready money in hand!

Well, the time of the appearance of the famous tragedy drew near, and my
friends canvassed the town to get a body of supporters for the opening
night. I am ill at asking favours from the great; but when my Lord
Wrotham came to London, I went, with Theo in my hand, to wait on his
lordship, who received us kindly, out of regard for his old friend,
her father--though he good-naturedly shook a finger at me (at which my
little wife hung down her head), for having stole a march on the good
General. However, he would do his best for her father’s daughter; hoped
for a success; said he had heard great things of the piece; and engaged
a number of places for himself and his friends. But this patron secured,
I had no other. “Mon cher, at my age,” says the Baroness, “I should
bore myself to death at a tragedy: but I will do my best; and I will
certainly send my people to the boxes. Yes! Case in his best black looks
like a nobleman; and Brett in one of my gowns has a faux air de moi
which is quite distinguished. Put down my name for two in the front
boxes. Good-bye, my dear. Bonne chance!” The Dowager Countess presented
compliments (on the back of the nine of clubs), had a card-party that
night, and was quite sorry she and Fanny could not go to my tragedy. As
for my uncle and Lady Warrington, they were out of the question. After
the affair of the sedan-chair I might as well have asked Queen
Elizabeth to go to Drury Lane. These were all my friends--that host of
aristocratic connexions about whom poor Sampson had bragged; and on
the strength of whom, the manager, as he said, had given Mr. Hagan his
engagement! “Where was my Lord Bute? Had I not promised his lordship
should come?” he asks, snappishly, taking snuff (how different from
the brisk, and engaging, and obsequious little manager of six months
ago!)--“I promised Lord Bute should come?”

“Yes,” says Mr. Garrick, “and her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales,
and his Majesty too.”

Poor Sampson owned that he, buoyed up by vain hopes, had promised the
appearance of these august personages.

The next day, at rehearsal, matters were worse still, and the manager in
a fury.

“Great heavens, sir!” says he, “into what a pretty guet-a-pens have you
led me! Look at that letter, sir!--read that letter!” And he hands me
one:


“MY DEAR SIR” (said the letter)--“I have seen his lordship, and conveyed
to him Mr. Warrington’s request that he would honour the tragedy of
Pocahontas by his presence. His lordship is a patron of the drama, and
a magnificent friend of all the liberal arts; but he desires me to
say that he cannot think of attending himself, much less of asking his
Gracious Master to witness the performance of a play, a principal part
in which is given to an actor who has made a clandestine marriage with
a daughter of one of his Majesty’s nobility.--Your well-wisher, SAUNDERS
MCDUFF.”

“Mr. D. Garrick, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.”


My poor Theo had a nice dinner waiting for me after the rehearsal. I
pleaded fatigue as the reason for looking so pale: I did not dare to
convey to her this dreadful news.



CHAPTER LXXX. Pocahontas


The English public not being so well acquainted with the history of
Pocahontas as we of Virginia, who still love the memory of that simple
and kindly creature, Mr. Warrington, at the suggestion of his friends,
made a little ballad about this Indian princess, which was printed in
the magazines a few days before the appearance of the tragedy. This
proceeding Sampson and I considered to be very artful and ingenious. “It
is like ground-bait, sir,” says the enthusiastic parson, “and you will
see the fish rise in multitudes, on the great day!” He and Spencer
declared that the poem was discussed and admired at several
coffee-houses in their hearing, and that it had been attributed to Mr.
Mason, Mr. Cowper of the Temple, and even to the famous Mr. Gray.
I believe poor Sam had himself set abroad these reports; and, if
Shakspeare had been named as the author of the tragedy, would have
declared Pocahontas to be one of the poet’s best performances. I made
acquaintance with brave Captain Smith, as a boy in my grandfather’s
library at home, where I remember how I would sit at the good old man’s
knees, with my favourite volume on my own, spelling out the exploits
of our Virginian hero. I loved to read of Smith’s travels, sufferings,
captivities, escapes, not only in America but Europe. I become a child
again almost as I take from the shelf before me in England the familiar
volume, and all sorts of recollections of my early home come crowding
over my mind. The old grandfather would make pictures for me of Smith
doing battle with the Turks on the Danube, or led out by our Indian
savages to death. Ah, what a terrific fight was that in which he was
engaged with the three Turkish champions, and how I used to delight over
the story of his combat with Bonny Molgro, the last and most dreadful
of the three! What a name Bonny Molgro was, and with what a prodigious
turban, scimitar, and whiskers we represented him! Having slain and
taken off the heads of his first two enemies, Smith and Bonny Molgro
met, falling to (says my favourite old book) “with their battle-axes,
whose piercing bills made sometimes the one, sometimes the other,
to have scarce sense to keep their saddles: especially the Christian
received such a wound that he lost his battle-axe, whereat the supposed
conquering Turke had a great shout from the rampires. Yet, by the
readinesse of his horse, and his great judgment and dexteritie, he
not only avoided the Turke’s blows, but, having drawn his falchion, so
pierced the Turke under the cutlets, through back and body, that though
hee alighted from his horse, he stood not long ere hee lost his head as
the rest had done. In reward for which deed, Duke Segismundus gave him
3 Turke’s head in a shield for armes and 300 Duckats yeerely for a
pension.” Disdaining time and place (with that daring which is the
privilege of poets) in my tragedy, Smith is made to perform
similar exploits on the banks of our Potomac and James’s river. Our
“ground-bait” verses, ran thus:--

             “POCAHONTAS

    “Wearied arm and broken sword
       Wage in vain the desperate fight
     Round him press the countless horde,
       He is but a single knight.
     Hark! a cry of triumph shrill
       Through the wilderness resounds,
       As, with twenty bleeding wounds,
     Sinks the warrior, fighting still.

    “Now they heap the fatal pyre,
       And the torch of death they light
     Ah! ‘tis hard to die of fire!
       Who will shield the captive knight?
     Round the stake with fiendish cry
       Wheel and dance the savage crowd,
       Cold the victim’s mien and proud,
     And his breast is bared to die.

    “Who will shield the fearless heart?
       Who avert the murderous blade?
     From the throng, with sudden start,
       See, there springs an Indian maid.
     Quick she stands before the knight,
      ‘Loose the chain, unbind the ring,
       I am daughter of the king,
     And I claim the Indian right!’

    “Dauntlessly aside she flings
       Lifted axe and thirsty knife;
     Fondly to his heart she clings,
       And her bosom guards his life!
     In the woods of Powhattan,
       Still ‘tis told, by Indian fires,
       How a daughter of their sires
     Saved the captive Englishman.”

I need not describe at length the plot of my tragedy, as my children can
take it down from the shelves any day and peruse it for themselves. Nor
shall I, let me add, be in a hurry to offer to read it again to my young
folks, since Captain Miles and the parson both chose to fall asleep last
Christmas, when, at mamma’s request, I read aloud a couple of acts.
But any person having a moderate acquaintance with plays and novels
can soon, out of the above sketch, fill out a picture to his liking.
An Indian king; a loving princess, and her attendant, in love with the
British captain’s servant; a traitor in the English fort; a brave Indian
warrior, himself entertaining an unhappy passion for Pocahontas; a
medicine-man and priest of the Indians (very well played by Palmer),
capable of every treason, stratagem, and crime, and bent upon the
torture and death of the English prisoner;--these, with the accidents
of the wilderness, the war-dances and cries (which Gumbo had learned to
mimic very accurately from the red people at home), and the arrival
of the English fleet, with allusions to the late glorious victories in
Canada, and the determination of Britons ever to rule and conquer in
America, some of us not unnaturally thought might contribute to the
success of our tragedy.

But I have mentioned the ill omens which preceded the day: the
difficulties which a peevish, and jealous, and timid management threw in
the way of the piece, and the violent prejudice which was felt against
it in certain high quarters. What wonder then, I ask, that Pocahontas
should have turned out not to be a victory? I laugh to scorn the
malignity of the critics who found fault with the performance. Pretty
critics, forsooth, who said that Carpezan was a masterpiece, whilst
a far superior and more elaborate work received only their sneers! I
insist on it that Hagan acted his part so admirably that a certain actor
and manager of the theatre might well be jealous of him; and that, but
for the cabal made outside, the piece would have succeeded. The order
had been given that the play should not succeed; so at least Sampson
declared to me. “The house swarmed with Macs, by George, and they should
have the galleries washed with brimstone,” the honest fellow swore,
and always vowed that Mr. Garrick himself would not have had the piece
succeed for the world; and was never in such a rage as during that grand
scene in the second act, where Smith (poor Hagan) being bound to the
stake, Pocahontas comes and saves him, and when the whole house was
thrilling with applause and sympathy.

Anybody who has curiosity sufficient, may refer to the published tragedy
(in the octavo form, or in the subsequent splendid quarto edition of my
Collected Works, and Poems Original and Translated), and say whether the
scene is without merit, whether the verses are not elegant, the language
rich and noble? One of the causes of the failure was my actual fidelity
to history. I had copied myself at the Museum, and tinted neatly, a
figure of Sir Walter Raleigh in a frill and beard; and (my dear Theo
giving some of her mother’s best lace for the ruff) we dressed Hagan
accurately after this drawing, and no man could look better. Miss
Pritchard as Pocahontas, I dressed too as a Red Indian, having seen
enough of that costume in my own experience at home. Will it be believed
the house tittered when she first appeared? They got used to her,
however, but just at the moment when she rushes into the prisoner’s
arms, and a number of people were actually in tears, a fellow in the pit
bawls out, “Bedad! here’s the Belle Savage kissing the Saracen’s Head;”
 on which an impertinent roar of laughter sprang up in the pit, breaking
out with fitful explosions during the remainder of the performance.
As the wag in Mr. Sheridan’s amusing Critic admirably says about the
morning guns, the playwrights were not content with one of them, but
must fire two or three; so with this wretched pothouse joke of the Belle
Savage (the ignorant people not knowing that Pocahontas herself was the
very Belle Sauvage from whom the tavern took its name!). My friend of
the pit repeated it ad nauseam during the performance, and as each
new character appeared, saluted him by the name of some tavern--for
instance, the English governor (with a long beard) he called the Goat
and Boots; his lieutenant (Barker), whose face certainly was broad, the
Bull and Mouth, and so on! And the curtain descended amidst a shrill
storm of whistles and hisses, which especially assailed poor Hagan every
time he opened his lips. Sampson saw Master Will in the green boxes,
with some pretty acquaintances of his, and has no doubt that the
treacherous scoundrel was one of the ringleaders in the conspiracy. “I
would have flung him over into the pit,” the faithful fellow said (and
Sampson was man enough to execute his threat), “but I saw a couple of
Mr. Nadab’s followers prowling about the lobby, and was obliged to sheer
off.” And so the eggs we had counted on selling at market were broken,
and our poor hopes lay shattered before us!

I looked in at the house from the stage before the curtain was lifted,
and saw it pretty well filled, especially remarking Mr. Johnson in the
front boxes, in a laced waistcoat, having his friend Mr. Reynolds by his
side; the latter could not hear, and the former could not see, and so
they came good-naturedly A deux to form an opinion of my poor tragedy.
I could see Lady Maria (I knew the hood she wore) in the lower gallery,
where she once more had the opportunity of sitting and looking at her
beloved actor performing a principal character in a piece. As for Theo,
she fairly owned that, unless I ordered her, she had rather not be
present, nor had I any such command to give, for, if things went wrong,
I knew that to see her suffer would be intolerable pain to myself, and
so acquiesced in her desire to keep away.

Being of a pretty equanimous disposition, and, as I flatter myself, able
to bear good or evil fortune without disturbance, I myself, after taking
a light dinner at the Bedford, went to the theatre a short while before
the commencement of the play, and proposed to remain there, until the
defeat or victory was decided. I own now, I could not help seeing which
way the fate of the day was likely to turn. There was something
gloomy and disastrous in the general aspect of all things around. Miss
Pritchard had the headache: the barber who brought home Hagan’s wig
had powdered it like a wretch: amongst the gentlemen and ladies in
the greenroom, I saw none but doubtful faces: and the manager (a very
flippant, not to say impertinent gentleman, in my opinion, and who
himself on that night looked as dismal as a mute at a funeral) had the
insolence to say to me, “For Heaven’s sake, Mr. Warrington, go and get
a glass of punch at the Bedford, and don’t frighten us all here by your
dismal countenance!”

“Sir,” says I, “I have a right, for five shillings, to comment upon your
face, but I never gave you any authority to make remarks upon mine.”
 “Sir,” says he in a pet, “I most heartily wish I had never seen your
face at all!” “Yours, sir!” said I, “has often amused me greatly; and
when painted for Abel Drugger is exceedingly comic”--and indeed I
have always done Mr. G. the justice to think that in low comedy he was
unrivalled. I made him a bow, and walked off to the coffee-house,
and for five years after never spoke a word to the gentleman, when he
apologised to me, at a nobleman’s house where we chanced to meet. I said
I had utterly forgotten the circumstance to which he alluded, and that,
on the first night of a play, no doubt author and manager were flurried
alike. And added, “After all, there is no shame in not being made for
the theatre. Mr. Garrick--you were.” A compliment with which he appeared
to be as well pleased as I intended he should.

Fidus Achates ran over to me at the end of the first act to say that all
things were going pretty well; though he confessed to the titter in the
house upon Miss Pritchard’s first appearance, dressed exactly like an
Indian princess.

“I cannot help it, Sampson,” said I (filling him a bumper of good
punch), “if Indians are dressed so.”

“Why,” says he, “would you have had Caractacus painted blue like an
ancient Briton, or Bonduca with nothing but a cow-skin?” And indeed it
may be that the fidelity to history was the cause of the ridicule cast
on my tragedy, in which case I, for one, am not ashamed of its defeat.

After the second act, my aide-de-camp came from the field with dismal
news indeed. I don’t know how it is that, nervous before action,
in disaster I become pretty cool and cheerful. [The writer seems to
contradict himself here, having just boasted of possessing a pretty
equanimous disposition. He was probably mistaken in his own estimate of
himself, as other folks have been besides.-ED.] “Are things going ill?”
 says I. I call for my reckoning, put on my hat, and march to the theatre
as calmly as if I was going to dine at the Temple; fidus Achates walking
by my side, pressing my elbow, kicking the link-boys out of the way, and
crying, “By George, Mr. Warrington, you are a man of spirit--a Trojan,
sir!” So, there were men of spirit in Troy; but alas! fate was too
strong for them.

At any rate, no man can say that I did not bear my misfortune with
calmness: I could no more help the clamour and noise of the audience
than a captain can help the howling and hissing of the storm in which
his ship goes down. But I was determined that the rushing waves and
broken masts should impavidum ferient, and flatter myself that I bore my
calamity without flinching. “Not Regulus, my dear madam, could step into
his barrel more coolly,” Sampson said to my wife. ‘Tis unjust to say
of men of the parasitic nature that they are unfaithful in misfortune.
Whether I was prosperous or poor, the wild parson was equally true and
friendly, and shared our crust as eagerly as ever he had partaken of our
better fortune.

I took my place on the stage, whence I could see the actors of my poor
piece, and a portion of the audience who condemned me. I suppose the
performers gave me a wide berth out of pity for me. I must say that I
think I was as little moved as any spectator; and that no one would have
judged from my mien that I was the unlucky hero of the night.

But my dearest Theo, when I went home, looked so pale and white, that
I saw from the dear creature’s countenance that the knowledge of my
disaster had preceded my return. Spencer, Sampson, cousin Hagan, and
Lady Maria were to come after the play, and congratulate the author, God
wot! (Poor Miss Pritchard was engaged to us likewise, but sent word
that I must understand that she was a great deal too unwell to sup that
night.) My friend the gardener of Bedford House had given my wife his
best flowers to decorate her little table. There they were; the poor
little painted standards--and the battle lost! I had borne the defeat
well enough, but as I looked at the sweet pale face of the wife across
the table, and those artless trophies of welcome which she had set up
for her hero, I confess my courage gave way, and my heart felt a pang
almost as keen as any that ever has smitten it.

Our meal, it may be imagined, was dismal enough, nor was it rendered
much gayer by the talk we strove to carry on. Old Mrs. Hagan was,
luckily, very ill at this time; and her disease, and the incidents
connected with it, a great blessing to us. Then we had his Majesty’s
approaching marriage, about which there was a talk. (How well I remember
the most futile incidents of the day down to a tune which a carpenter
was whistling by my side at the playhouse, just before the dreary
curtain fell!) Then we talked about the death of good Mr. Richardson,
the author of Pamela and Clarissa, whose works we all admired
exceedingly. And as we talked about Clarissa, my wife took on herself to
wipe her eyes once or twice, and say, faintly, “You know, my love,
mamma and I could never help crying over that dear book. Oh, my dearest,
dearest mother” (she adds), “how I wish she could be with me now!” This
was an occasion for more open tears, for of course a young lady may
naturally weep for her absent mother. And then we mixed a gloomy bowl
with Jamaica limes, and drank to the health of his Excellency the
Governor: and then, for a second toast, I filled a bumper, and, with a
smiling face, drank to “our better fortune!”

This was too much. The two women flung themselves into each other’s
arms, and irrigated each other’s neck-handkerchiefs with tears. “Oh,
Maria! Is not--is not my George good and kind?” sobs Theo. “Look at my
Hagan--how great, how godlike he was in his part!” gasps Maria. “It was
a beastly cabal which threw him over--and I could plunge this knife into
Mr. Garrick’s black heart--the odious little wretch!” and she grasps
a weapon at her side. But throwing it presently down, the enthusiastic
creature rushes up to her lord and master, flings her arms round him,
and embraces him in the presence of the little company.

I am not sure whether some one else did not do likewise. We were all
in a state of extreme excitement and enthusiasm. In the midst of grief,
Love the consoler appears amongst us, and soothes us with such fond
blandishments and tender caresses, that one scarce wishes the calamity
away. Two or three days afterwards, on our birthday, a letter was
brought me in my study, which contained the following lines:--


          “FROM POCAHONTAS

    “Returning from the cruel fight
     How pale and faint appears my knight!
     He sees me anxious at his side;
     ‘Why seek, my love, your wounds to hide?
     Or deem your English girl afraid
     To emulate the Indian maid?’

    “Be mine my husband’s grief to cheer,
     In peril to be ever near;
     Whate’er of ill or woe betide,
     To bear it clinging at his side;
     The poisoned stroke of fate to ward,
     His bosom with my own to guard;
     Ah! could it spare a pang to his,
     It could not know a purer bliss!
     ‘Twould gladden as it felt the smart,
     And thank the hand that flung the dart!”

I do not say the verses are very good, but that I like them as well as
if they were--and that the face of the writer (whose sweet young voice I
fancy I can hear as I hum the lines), when I went into her drawing-room
after getting the letter, and when I saw her blushing and blessing
me--seemed to me more beautiful than any I can fancy out of Heaven.



CHAPTER LXXXI. Res Angusta Domi


I have already described my present feelings as an elderly gentleman,
regarding that rash jump into matrimony, which I persuaded my dear
partner to take with me when we were both scarce out of our teens. As a
man and a father--with a due sense of the necessity of mutton chops, and
the importance of paying the baker--with a pack of rash children round
about us who might be running off to Scotland to-morrow, and pleading
papa’s and mamma’s example for their impertinence,--I know that I ought
to be very cautious in narrating this early part of the married life
of George Warrington, Esquire, and Theodosia his wife--to call out
mea culpa, and put on a demure air, and, sitting in my comfortable
easy-chair here, profess to be in a white sheet and on the stool of
repentance, offering myself up as a warning to imprudent and hot-headed
youth.

But, truth to say, that married life, regarding which my dear relatives
prophesied so gloomily, has disappointed all those prudent and
respectable people. It has had its trials; but I can remember them
without bitterness--its passionate griefs, of which time, by God’s kind
ordinance, has been the benign consoler--its days of poverty, which
we bore, who endured it, to the wonder of our sympathising relatives
looking on--its precious rewards and blessings, so great that I scarce
dare to whisper them to this page; to speak of them, save with awful
respect and to One Ear, to which are offered up the prayers and thanks
of all men. To marry without a competence is wrong and dangerous,
no doubt, and a crime against our social codes; but do not scores of
thousands of our fellow-beings commit the crime every year with no
other trust but in, Heaven, health, and their labour? Are young people
entering into the married life not to take hope into account, nor dare
to begin their housekeeping until the cottage is completely furnished,
the cellar and larder stocked, the cupboard full of plate, and the
strong-box of money? The increase and multiplication of the world would
stop, were the laws which regulate the genteel part of it to be made
universal. Our gentlefolks tremble at the brink in their silk stockings
and pumps, and wait for whole years, until they find a bridge or a gilt
barge to carry them across; our poor do not fear to wet their bare feet,
plant them in the brook, and trust to fate and strength to bear them
over. Who would like to consign his daughter to poverty? Who would
counsel his son to undergo the countless risks of poor married life, to
remove the beloved girl from comfort and competence, and subject her
to debt, misery, privation, friendlessness, sickness, and the hundred
gloomy consequences of the res angusta domi? I look at my own wife and
ask her pardon for having imposed a task so fraught with pain and danger
upon one so gentle. I think of the trials she endured, and am thankful
for them and for that unfailing love and constancy with which God
blessed her and strengthened her to bear them all. On this question of
marriage, I am not a fair judge: my own was so imprudent--and has been
so happy, that I must not dare to give young people counsel. I have
endured poverty, but scarcely ever found it otherwise than tolerable:
had I not undergone it, I never could have known the kindness of
friends, the delight of gratitude, the surprising joys and consolations
which sometimes accompany the scanty meal and narrow fire, and cheer the
long day’s labour. This at least is certain, in respect of the lot of
the decent poor, that a great deal of superfluous pity is often thrown
away upon it. Good-natured fine folks, who sometimes stepped out of the
sunshine of their riches into a narrow obscurity, were blinded as it
were, whilst we could see quite cheerfully and clearly: they stumbled
over obstacles which were none to us: they were surprised at the
resignation with which we drank small beer, and that we could heartily
say grace over such very cold mutton.

The good General, my father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a
subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than
my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my
wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could
do in their young time, without previously asking papa’s and mamma’s
leave. [The Editor has looked through Burn’s Registers of Fleet
Marriages without finding the names of Martin Lambert and Mary Benson.]
At all events, they were so well pleased with their own good luck in
matrimony, that they did not grudge their children’s, and were by no
means frightened at the idea of any little hardships which we in the
course of our married life might be called upon to undergo. And I
suppose when I made my own pecuniary statements to Mr. Lambert, I was
anxious to deceive both of us. Believing me to be master of a couple
of thousand pounds, he went to Jamaica quite easy in his mind as to his
darling daughter’s comfort and maintenance, at least for some years to
come. After paying the expenses of his family’s outfit, the worthy man
went away not much richer than his son-in-law; and a few trinkets, and
some lace of Aunt Lambert’s, with twenty new guineas in a purse which
her mother and sisters made for her, were my Theo’s marriage portion.
But in valuing my stock, I chose to count as a good debt a sum which my
honoured mother never could be got to acknowledge up to the day when the
resolute old lady was called to pay the last debt of all. The sums I
had disbursed for her, she argued, were spent for the improvement and
maintenance of the estate which was to be mine at her decease. What
money she could spare was to be for my poor brother, who had nothing,
who would never have spent his own means had he not imagined himself to
be sole heir of the Virginian property, as he would have been--the good
lady took care to emphasise this point in many of her letters--but for a
half-hour’s accident of birth. He was now distinguishing himself in
the service of his king and country. To purchase his promotion was his
mother’s, she should suppose his brother’s duty! When I had finished my
bar-studies and my dramatic amusements, Madam Esmond informed me that I
was welcome to return home and take that place in our colony to which my
birth entitled me. This statement she communicated to me more than once
through Mountain, and before the news of my marriage had reached her.

There is no need to recall her expressions of maternal indignation when
she was informed of the step I had taken. On the pacification of Canada,
my dear Harry asked for leave of absence, and dutifully paid a visit to
Virginia. He wrote, describing his reception at home, and the splendid
entertainments which my mother made in honour of her son. Castlewood,
which she had not inhabited since our departure for Europe, was thrown
open again to our friends of the colony; and the friend of Wolfe, and
the soldier of Quebec, was received by all our acquaintance with every
becoming honour. Some dismal quarrels, to be sure, ensued, because my
brother persisted in maintaining his friendship with Colonel Washington,
of Mount Vernon, whose praises Harry never was tired of singing.
Indeed I allow the gentleman every virtue; and in the struggles which
terminated so fatally for England a few years since, I can admire as
well as his warmest friends, General Washington’s glorious constancy and
success.

If these battles between Harry and our mother were frequent, as, in his
letters, he described them to be, I wondered, for my part, why he should
continue at home? One reason naturally suggested itself to my mind,
which I scarcely liked to communicate to Mrs. Warrington; for we had
both talked over our dear little Hetty’s romantic attachment for my
brother, and wondered that he had never discovered it. I need not say, I
suppose, that my gentleman had found some young lady at home more to his
taste than our dear Hester, and hence accounted for his prolonged stay
in Virginia.

Presently there came, in a letter from him, not a full confession but an
admission of this interesting fact. A person was described, not named--a
Being all beauty and perfection, like other young ladies under similar
circumstances. My wife asked to see the letter: I could not help showing
it, and handed it to her, with a very sad face. To my surprise she read
it, without exhibiting any corresponding sorrow of her own.

“I have thought of this before, my love,” I said. “I feel with you for
your disappointment regarding poor Hetty.”

“Ah! poor Hetty,” says Theo, looking down at the carpet.

“It would never have done,” says I.

“No--they would not have been happy,” sighs Theo.

“How strange he never should have found out her secret!” I continued.

She looked me full in the face with an odd expression. “Pray, what does
that look mean?” I asked.

“Nothing, my dear--nothing! only I am not surprised!” says Theo,
blushing.

“What,” I ask, “can there be another?”

“I am sure I never said so, George,” says the lady, hurriedly. “But if
Hetty has overcome her childish folly, ought we not all to be glad? Do
you gentlemen suppose that you only are to fall in love and grow tired,
indeed?”

“What!” I say, with a strange commotion of my mind. “Do you mean to tell
me, Theo, that you ever cared for any one but me?”

“Oh, George,” she whimpers, “when I was at school, there was--there was
one of the boys of Doctor Backhouse’s school, who sate in the loft next
to us; and I thought he had lovely eyes, and I was so shocked when I
recognised him behind the counter at Mr. Grigg’s the mercer’s, when I
went to buy a cloak for baby, and I wanted to tell you, my dear, and I
didn’t know how!”

I went to see this creature with the lovely eyes, having made my wife
describe the fellow’s dress to me, and I saw a little bandy-legged
wretch in a blue camlet coat, with his red hair tied with a dirty
ribbon, about whom I forbore generously even to reproach my wife; nor
will she ever know that I have looked at the fellow, until she reads the
confession in this page. If our wives saw us as we are, I thought, would
they love us as they do? Are we as much mistaken in them, as they in us?
I look into one candid face at least, and think it never has deceived
me.

Lest I should encourage my young people to an imitation of my own
imprudence, I will not tell them with how small a capital Mrs. Theo and
I commenced life. The unfortunate tragedy brought us nothing; though the
reviewers, since its publication of late, have spoken not unfavourably
as to its merits, and Mr. Kemble himself has done me the honour to
commend it. Our kind friend Lord Wrotham was for having the piece
published by subscription, and sent me a bank-note, with a request that
I would let him have a hundred copies for his friends; but I was always
averse to that method of levying money, and, preferring my poverty sine
dote, locked up my manuscript, with my poor girl’s verses inserted at
the first page. I know not why the piece should have given such offence
at court, except for the fact that an actor who had run off with an
earl’s daughter, performed a principal part in the play; but I was told
that sentiments which I had put into the mouths of some of the Indian
characters (who were made to declaim against ambition, the British
desire of rule, and so forth), were pronounced dangerous and
unconstitutional; so that the little hope of royal favour, which I might
have had, was quite taken away from me.

What was to be done? A few months after the failure of the tragedy, as
I counted up the remains of my fortune (the calculation was not long or
difficult), I came to the conclusion that I must beat a retreat out
of my pretty apartments in Bloomsbury, and so gave warning to our good
landlady, informing her that my wife’s health required that we should
have lodgings in the country. But we went no farther than Lambeth, our
faithful Gumbo and Molly following us; and here, though as poor as might
be, we were waited on by a maid and a lackey in livery, like any folks
of condition. You may be sure kind relatives cried out against our
extravagance; indeed, are they not the people who find our faults out
for us, and proclaim them to the rest of the world?

Returning home from London one day, whither I had been on a visit to
some booksellers, I recognised the family arms and livery on a grand
gilt chariot which stood before a public-house near to our lodgings. A
few loitering inhabitants were gathered round the splendid vehicle, and
looking with awe at the footmen, resplendent in the sun, and quaffing
blazing pots of beer. I found my Lady Castlewood seated opposite to
my wife in our little apartment (whence we had a very bright, pleasant
prospect of the river, covered with barges and wherries, and the ancient
towers and trees of the Archbishop’s palace and gardens), and Mrs. Theo,
who has a very droll way of describing persons and scenes, narrated to
me all the particulars of her ladyship’s conversation, when she took her
leave.

“I have been here this ever-so-long,” says the Countess, “gossiping with
cousin Theo, while you have been away at the coffee-house, I dare say,
making merry with your friends, and drinking your punch and coffee.
Guess she must find it rather lonely here, with nothing to do but work
them little caps and hem them frocks. Never mind, dear; reckon you’ll
soon have a companion who will amuse you when cousin George is away at
his coffee-house! What a nice lodging you have got here, I do declare!
Our new house which we have took is twenty times as big, and covered
with gold from top to bottom; but I like this quite as well. Bless you
being rich is no better than being poor. When we lived to Albany, and
I did most all the work myself, scoured the rooms, biled the kettle,
helped the wash, and all, I was just as happy as I am now. We only
had one old negro to keep the store. Why don’t you sell Gumbo, cousin
George? He ain’t no use here idling and dawdling about, and making love
to the servant-girl. Fogh! guess they ain’t particular, these English
people!” So she talked, rattling on with perfect good-humour, until her
hour for departure came; when she produced a fine repeating watch, and
said it was time for her to pay a call upon her Majesty at Buckingham
House. “And mind you come to us, George,” says her ladyship, waving a
little parting hand out of the gilt coach. “Theo and I have settled all
about it.”

“Here, at least,” said I, when the laced footmen had clambered up behind
the carriage, and our magnificent little patroness had left us;--“here
is one who is not afraid of our poverty, nor ashamed to remember her
own.”

“Ashamed!” said Theo, resuming her lilliputian needlework. “To do her
justice, she would make herself at home in any kitchen or palace in the
world. She has given me and Molly twenty lessons in housekeeping. She
says, when she was at home to Albany, she roasted, baked, swept the
house, and milked the cow.” (Madam Theo pronounced the word cow
archly in our American way, and imitated her ladyship’s accent very
divertingly.)

“And she has no pride,” I added. “It was good-natured of her to ask us
to dine with her and my lord. When will Uncle Warrington ever think of
offering us a crust again, or a glass of his famous beer?”

“Yes, it was not ill-natured to invite us,” says Theo, slily. “But,
my dear, you don’t know all the conditions!” And then my wife, still
imitating the Countess’s manner, laughingly informed me what these
conditions were. “She took out her pocket-book, and told me,” says Theo,
“what days she was engaged abroad and at home. On Monday she received a
Duke and a Duchess, with several other members of my lord’s house,
and their ladies. On Tuesday came more earls, two bishops, and an
ambassador. ‘Of course you won’t come on them days?’ says the Countess.
‘Now you are so poor, you know, that fine company ain’t no good for you.
Lord bless you! father never dines on our company days! he don’t
like it; he takes a bit of cold meat anyways.’ On which,” says Theo,
laughing, “I told her that Mr. Warrington did not care for any but the
best of company, and proposed that she should ask us on some day when
the Archbishop of Canterbury dined with her, and his Grace must give
us a lift home in his coach to Lambeth. And she is an economical little
person, too,” continues Theo. “‘I thought of bringing with me some of
my baby’s caps and things, which his lordship has outgrown ‘em, but they
may be wanted again, you know, my dear.’ And so we lose that addition
to our wardrobe,” says Theo, smiling, “and Molly and I must do our best
without her ladyship’s charity. ‘When people are poor, they are poor,’
the Countess said, with her usual outspokenness, ‘and must get on the
best they can. What we shall do for that poor Maria, goodness only
knows! we can’t ask her to see us as we can you, though you are so
poor: but an earl’s daughter to marry a play-actor! La, my dear, it’s
dreadful: his Majesty and the Princess have both spoken of it! Every
other noble family in this kingdom as has ever heard of it pities us;
though I have a plan for helping those poor unhappy people, and have
sent down Simons, my groom of the chambers, to tell them on it.’ This
plan was, that Hagan, who had kept almost all his terms at Dublin
College, should return thither and take his degree, and enter into holy
orders, ‘when we will provide him with a chaplaincy at home, you know,’
Lady Castlewood added.” And I may mention here, that this benevolent
plan was executed a score of months later; when I was enabled myself to
be of service to Mr. Hagan, who was one of the kindest and best of
our friends during our own time of want and distress. Castlewood
then executed his promise loyally enough, got orders and a colonial
appointment for Hagan, who distinguished himself both as soldier and
preacher, as we shall presently hear; but not a guinea did his lordship
spare to aid either his sister or his kinsman in their trouble. I never
asked him, thank Heaven, to assist me in my own; though, to do him
justice, no man could express himself more amiably, and with a joy which
I believe was quite genuine, when my days of poverty were ended.

As for my Uncle Warrington, and his virtuous wife and daughters, let
me do them justice likewise, and declare that throughout my period of
trial, their sorrow at my poverty was consistent and unvarying. I still
had a few acquaintances who saw them, and of course (as friends will)
brought me a report of their opinions and conversation; and I never
could hear that my relatives had uttered one single good word about me
or my wife. They spoke even of my tragedy as a crime--I was accustomed
to hear that sufficiently maligned--of the author as a miserable
reprobate, for ever reeling about Grub Street, in rags and squalor. They
held me out no hand of help. My poor wife might cry in her pain,
but they had no twopence to bestow upon her. They went to church a
half-dozen times in the week. They subscribed to many public charities.
Their tribe was known eighteen hundred years ago, and will flourish as
long as men endure. They will still thank Heaven that they are not as
other folks are; and leave the wounded and miserable to other succour.

I don’t care to recall the dreadful doubts and anxieties which began to
beset me; the plan after plan which I tried, and in which I failed, for
procuring work and adding to our dwindling stock of money. I bethought
me of my friend Mr. Johnson, and when I think of the eager kindness with
which he received me, am ashamed of some pert speeches which I own
to have made regarding his manners and behaviour. I told my story and
difficulties to him, the circumstance of my marriage, and the prospects
before me. He would not for a moment admit they were gloomy, or, si male
nunc, that they would continue to be so. I had before me the chances,
certainly very slender, of a place in England; the inheritance which
must be mine in the course of nature, or at any rate would fall to the
heir I was expecting. I had a small stock of money for present actual
necessity--a possibility, “though, to be free with you, sir” (says
he), “after the performance of your tragedy, I doubt whether nature
has endowed you with those peculiar qualities which are necessary for
achieving a remarkable literary success”--and finally a submission to
the maternal rule, and a return to Virginia, where plenty and a home
were always ready for me. “Why, sir!” he cried, “such a sum as you
mention would have been a fortune to me when I began the world, and my
friend Mr. Goldsmith would set up a coach-and-six on it. With youth,
hope, to-day, and a couple of hundred pounds in cash--no young fellow
need despair. Think, sir, you have a year at least before you, and who
knows what may chance between now and then. Why, sir, your relatives
here may provide for you, or you may succeed to your Virginian property,
or you may come into a fortune!” I did not in the course of that year,
but he did. My Lord Bute gave Mr. Johnson a pension, which set all Grub
Street in a fury against the recipient, who, to be sure, had published
his own not very flattering opinion upon pensions and pensioners.

Nevertheless, he did not altogether discourage my literary projects,
promised to procure me work from the booksellers, and faithfully
performed that kind promise. “But,” says he, “sir, you must not appear
amongst them in forma pauperis.--Have you never a friend’s coach, in
which we can ride to see them? You must put on your best laced hat and
waistcoat; and we must appear, sir, as if we were doing them a favour.”
 This stratagem answered, and procured me respect enough at the first
visit or two; but when the booksellers knew that I wanted to be paid for
my work, their backs refused to bend any more, and they treated me with
a familiarity which I could ill stomach. I overheard one of them, who
had been a footman, say, “Oh, it’s Pocahontas, is it? let him wait.” And
he told his boy to say as much to me. “Wait, sir?” says I, fuming
with rage and putting my head into his parlour, “I’m not accustomed to
waiting, but I have heard you are.” And I strode out of the shop into
Pall Mall in a mighty fluster.

And yet Mr. D. was in the right. I came to him, if not to ask a favour,
at any rate to propose a bargain, and surely it was my business to wait
his time and convenience. In more fortunate days I asked the gentleman’s
pardon, and the kind author of the Muse in Livery was instantly
appeased.

I was more prudent, or Mr. Johnson more fortunate, in an application
elsewhere, and Mr. Johnson procured me a little work from the
booksellers in translating from foreign languages, of which I happen to
know two or three. By a hard day’s labour I could earn a few shillings;
so few that a week’s work would hardly bring me a guinea: and that was
flung to me with insolent patronage by the low hucksters who employed
me. I can put my finger upon two or three magazine articles written at
this period, and paid for with a few wretched shillings, which papers as
I read them awaken in me the keenest pangs of bitter remembrance.
[Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, says he remembers a book,
containing his grandfather’s book-plate, in which were pasted various
extracts from reviews and newspapers in an old type, and lettered
outside Les Chains de l’Esclavage. These were no doubt the contributions
above mentioned; but the volume has not been found, either in the
town-house or in the library at Warrington Manor. The Editor, by
the way, is not answerable for a certain inconsistency, which may be
remarked in the narrative. The writer says earlier, that he speaks
without bitterness of past times, and presently falls into a fury with
them. The same manner of forgiving our enemies is not uncommon in the
present century.] I recall the doubts and fears which agitated me,
see the dear wife nursing her infant and looking up into my face with
hypocritical smiles that vainly try to mask her alarm: the struggles of
pride are fought over again: the wounds under which I smarted re-open.
There are some acts of injustice committed against me which I don’t know
how to forgive; and which, whenever I think of them, awaken in me the
same feelings of revolt and indignation. The gloom and darkness gather
over me--till they are relieved by a reminiscence of that love and
tenderness which through all gloom and darkness have been my light and
consolation.



CHAPTER LXXXII. Miles’s Moidore


Little Miles made his appearance in this world within a few days of the
gracious Prince who commands his regiment. Illuminations and cannonading
saluted the Royal George’s birth, multitudes were admitted to see him
as he lay behind a gilt railing at the Palace with noble nurses watching
over him. Few nurses guarded the cradle of our little Prince; no
courtiers, no faithful retainers saluted it, except our trusty Gumbo
and kind Molly, who to be sure loved and admired the little heir of my
poverty as loyally as our hearts could desire. Why was our boy not named
George like the other paragon just mentioned, and like his father? I
gave him the name of a little scapegrace of my family, a name which
many generations of Warringtons had borne likewise; but my poor little
Miles’s love and kindness touched me at a time when kindness and love
were rare from those of my own blood, and Theo and I agreed that our
child should be called after that single little friend of my paternal
race.

We wrote to acquaint our royal parents with the auspicious event, and
bravely inserted the child’s birth in the Daily Advertiser, and the
place, Church Street, Lambeth, where he was born. “My dear,” says Aunt
Bernstein, writing to me in reply to my announcement, “how could you
point out to all the world that you live in such a trou as that in
which you have buried yourself? I kiss the little mamma, and send a
remembrance for the child.” This remembrance was a fine silk coverlid,
with a lace edging fit for a prince. It was not very useful: the price
of the lace would have served us much better, but Theo and Molly were
delighted with the present, and my eldest son’s cradle had a cover as
fine as any nobleman’s.

Good Dr. Heberden came over several times to visit my wife, and see that
all things went well. He knew and recommended to us a surgeon in the
vicinage, who took charge of her; luckily, my dear patient needed little
care, beyond that which our landlady and her own trusty attendant could
readily afford her. Again our humble precinct was adorned with the
gilded apparition of Lady Castlewood’s chariot wheels; she brought a pot
of jelly, which she thought Theo might like, and which, no doubt, had
been served at one of her ladyship’s banquets on a previous day. And
she told us of all the ceremonies at court, and of the splendour and
festivities attending the birth of the august heir to the crown; Our
good Mr. Johnson happened to pay me a visit on one of those days when
my lady countess’s carriage flamed up to our little gate. He was not a
little struck by her magnificence, and made her some bows, which were
more respectful than graceful. She called me cousin very affably, and
helped to transfer the present of jelly from her silver dish into our
crockery pan with much benignity. The Doctor tasted the sweetmeat, and
pronounced it to be excellent. “The great, sir,” says he, “are fortunate
in every way. They can engage the most skilful practitioners of the
culinary art, as they can assemble the most amiable wits round their
table. If, as you think, sir, and, from the appearance of the dish,
your suggestion at least is plausible, this sweetmeat may have appeared
already at his lordship’s table, it has been there in good company. It
has quivered under the eyes of celebrated beauties, it has been tasted
by ruby lips, it has divided the attention of the distinguished company,
with fruits, tarts, and creams, which I make no doubt were like itself
delicious.” And so saying, the good Doctor absorbed a considerable
portion of Lady Castlewood’s benefaction; though as regards the epithet
delicious I am bound to say, that my poor wife, after tasting the jelly,
put it away from her as not to her liking; and Molly, flinging up her
head, declared it was mouldy.

My boy enjoyed at least the privilege of having an earl’s daughter for
his godmother; for this office was performed by his cousin, our poor
Lady Maria, whose kindness and attention to the mother and the infant
were beyond all praise; and who, having lost her own solitary chance
for maternal happiness, yearned over our child in a manner not a little
touching to behold. Captain Miles is a mighty fine gentleman, and his
uniforms of the Prince’s Hussars as splendid as any that ever bedizened
a soldier of fashion; but he hath too good a heart, and is too true a
gentleman, let us trust, not to be thankful when he remembers that his
own infant limbs were dressed in some of the little garments which had
been prepared for the poor player’s child. Sampson christened him in
that very chapel in Southwark, where our marriage ceremony had been
performed. Never were the words of the Prayer-book more beautifully and
impressively read than by the celebrant of the service; except at
its end, when his voice failed him, and he and the rest of the little
congregation were fain to wipe their eyes. “Mr. Garrick himself, sir,”
 says Hagan, “could not have read those words so nobly. I am sure little
innocent never entered the world accompanied by wishes and benedictions
more tender and sincere.”

And now I have not told how it chanced that the Captain came by his name
of Miles. A couple of days before his christening, when as yet I believe
it was intended that our firstborn should bear his father’s name, a
little patter of horse’s hoofs comes galloping up to our gate; and
who should pull at the bell but young Miles, our cousin? I fear he had
disobeyed his parents when he galloped away on that undutiful journey.

“You know,” says he, “cousin Harry gave me my little horse; and I can’t
help liking you, because you are so like Harry, and because they’re
always saying things of you at home, and it’s a shame; and I have
brought my whistle and coral that my godmamma Lady Suckling gave me, for
your little boy; and if you’re so poor, cousin George, here’s my gold
moidore, and it’s worth ever so much, and it’s no use to me, because I
mayn’t spend it, you know.”

We took the boy up to Theo in her room (he mounted the stair in his
little tramping boots, of which he was very proud); and Theo kissed him,
and thanked him; and his moidore has been in her purse from that day.

My mother, writing through her ambassador as usual, informed me of
her royal surprise and displeasure on learning that my son had been
christened Miles--a name not known, at least in the Esmond family. I
did not care to tell the reason at the time; but when, in after years,
I told Madam Esmond how my boy came by his name, I saw a tear roll down
her wrinkled cheek, and I heard afterwards that she had asked Gumbo
many questions about the boy who gave his name to our Miles--our Miles
Gloriosus of Pall Mall, Valenciennes, Almack’s, Brighton.



CHAPTER LXXXIII. Troubles and Consolations


In our early days at home, when Harry and I used to be so undutiful to
our tutor, who would have thought that Mr. Esmond Warrington of Virginia
would turn Bearleader himself? My mother (when we came together again)
never could be got to speak directly of this period of my life; but
would allude to it as “that terrible time, my love, which I can’t bear
to think of,” “those dreadful years when there was difference between
us,” and so forth; and though my pupil, a worthy and grateful man, sent
me out to Jamestown several barrels of that liquor by which his great
fortune was made, Madam Esmond spoke of him as “your friend in England,”
 “your wealthy Lambeth friend,” etc., but never by his name; nor did she
ever taste a drop of his beer. We brew our own too at Warrington Manor,
but our good Mr. Foker never fails to ship to Ipswich every year a
couple of butts of his entire. His son is a young sprig of fashion, and
has married an earl’s daughter; the father is a very worthy and kind
gentleman, and it is to the luck of making his acquaintance that I owe
the receipt of some of the most welcome guineas that ever I received in
my life.

It was not so much the sum, as the occupation and hope given me by the
office of Governor, which I took on myself, which were then so precious
to me. Mr. F.’s Brewery (the site has since been changed) then stood
near to Pedlar’s Acre in Lambeth and the surgeon who attended my wife in
her confinement, likewise took care of the wealthy brewer’s family.
He was a Bavarian, originally named Voelker. Mr. Lance, the surgeon, I
suppose, made him acquainted with my name and history. The worthy doctor
would smoke many a pipe of Virginia in my garden, and had conceived an
attachment for me and my family. He brought his patron to my house; and
when Mr. F. found that I had a smattering of his language, and could
sing “Prinz Eugen the noble Ritter” (a song that my grandfather had
brought home from the Marlborough wars), the German conceived a great
friendship for me: his lady put her chair and her chariot at Mrs.
Warrington’s service: his little daughter took a prodigious fancy to our
baby (and to do him justice, the Captain, who is as ugly a fellow now
as ever wore a queue, was beautiful as an infant) [The very image of the
Squire at 30, everybody says so. M. W. (Note in the MS.)]: and his son
and heir, Master Foker, being much maltreated at Westminster School
because of his father’s profession of brewer, the parents asked if
I would take charge of him; and paid me a not insufficient sum for
superintending his education.

Mr. F. was a shrewd man of business, and as he and his family really
interested themselves in me and mine, I laid all my pecuniary affairs
pretty unreservedly before him; and my statement, he was pleased to say,
augmented the respect and regard which he felt for me. He laughed at
our stories of the aid which my noble relatives had given me--my
aunt’s coverlid, my Lady Castlewood’s mouldy jelly, Lady Warrington’s
contemptuous treatment of us. But he wept many tears over the story of
little Miles’s moidore; and as for Sampson and Hagan, “I wow,” says he,
“dey shall have so much beer als ever dey can drink.” He sent his wife
to call upon Lady Maria, and treated her with the utmost respect and
obsequiousness, whenever she came to visit him. It was with Mr. Foker
that Lady Maria stayed when Hagan went to Dublin to complete his college
terms; and the good brewer’s purse also ministered to our friend’s wants
and supplied his outfit.

When Mr. Foker came fully to know my own affairs and position, he was
pleased to speak of me with terms of enthusiasm, and as if my conduct
showed some extraordinary virtue. I have said how my mother saved money
for Harry, and how the two were in my debt. But when Harry spent money,
he spent it fancying it to be his; Madam Esmond never could be made to
understand she was dealing hardly with me--the money was paid and gone,
and there was an end of it. Now, at the end of ‘62, I remember Harry
sent over a considerable remittance for the purchase of his promotion,
begging me at the same time to remember that he was in my debt, and to
draw on his agents if I had any need. He did not know how great the need
was, or how my little capital had been swallowed.

Well, to take my brother’s money would delay his promotion, and I
naturally did not draw on him, though I own I was tempted; nor, knowing
my dear General Lambert’s small means, did I care to impoverish him by
asking for supplies. These simple acts of forbearance my worthy brewer
must choose to consider as instances of exalted virtue. And what does
my gentleman do but write privately to my brother in America, lauding me
and my wife as the most admirable of human beings, and call upon
Madame de Bernstein, who never told me of his visit indeed, but who,
I perceived, about this time treated us with singular respect and
gentleness, that surprised me in one whom I could not but consider as
selfish and worldly. In after days I remember asking him how he had
gained admission to the Baroness? He laughed: “De Baroness!” says he.
“I knew de Baron when he was a walet at Munich, and I was a
brewer-apprentice.” I think our family had best not be too curious about
our uncle the Baron.

Thus, the part of my life which ought to have been most melancholy was
in truth made pleasant by many friends, happy circumstances, and strokes
of lucky fortune. The bear I led was a docile little cub, and danced
to my piping very readily. Better to lead him about, than to hang round
booksellers’ doors, or wait the pleasure or caprice of managers! My wife
and I, during our exile, as we may call it, spent very many pleasant
evenings with these kind friends and benefactors. Nor were we without
intellectual enjoyments; Mrs. Foker and Mrs. Warrington sang finely
together; and sometimes when I was in the mood, I read my own play of
Pocahontas, to this friendly audience, in a manner better than Hagan’s
own, Mr. Foker was pleased to say.

After that little escapade of Miles Warrington, junior, I saw nothing
of him, and heard of my paternal relatives but rarely. Sir Miles was
assiduous at court (as I believe he would have been at Nero’s), and
I laughed one day when Mr. Foker told me that he had heard on ‘Change
“that they were going to make my uncle a Beer.”--“A Beer?” says I in
wonder. “Can’t you understand de vort, ven I say it?” says the testy
old gentleman. “Vell, veil, a Lort!” Sir, Miles indeed was the obedient
humble servant of the Minister, whoever he might be. I am surprised he
did not speak English with a Scotch accent during the first favourite’s
brief reign. I saw him and his wife coming from court, when Mrs.
Claypool was presented to her Majesty on her marriage. I had my little
boy on my shoulder. My uncle and aunt stared resolutely at me from their
gilt coach window. The footmen looked blank over their nosegays. Had I
worn the Fairy’s cap and been invisible, my father’s brother could not
have passed me with less notice.

We did not avail ourselves much, or often, of that queer invitation
of Lady Castlewood, to go and drink tea and sup with her ladyship
when there was no other company. Old Van den Bosch, however shrewd his
intellect, and great his skill in making a fortune, was not amusing
in conversation, except to his daughter, who talked household and City
matters, bulling and bearing, raising and selling farming-stock, and
so forth, quite as keenly and shrewdly as her father. Nor was my Lord
Castlewood often at home, or much missed by his wife when absent, or
very much at ease in the old father’s company. The Countess told all
this to my wife in her simple way. “Guess,” says she, “my lord and
father don’t pull well together nohow. Guess my lord is always wanting
money, and father keeps the key of the box and quite right, too. If he
could have the fingering of all our money, my lord would soon make
away with it, and then what’s to become of our noble family? We pay
everything, my dear (except play-debts, and them we won’t have nohow).
We pay cooks, horses, wine-merchants, tailors, and everybody--and lucky
for them too--reckon my lord wouldn’t pay ‘em! And we always take care
that he has a guinea in his pocket, and goes out like a real nobleman.
What that man do owe to us: what he did before we come--gracious
goodness only knows! Me and father does our best to make him
respectable: but it’s no easy job, my dear. Law! he’d melt the plate,
only father keeps the key of the strong-room; and when we go to
Castlewood, my father travels with me, and papa is armed too, as well as
the people.”

“Gracious heavens!” cries my wife, “your ladyship does not mean to say
you suspect your own husband of a desire to----”

“To what?--Oh no, nothing, of course! And I would trust our brother Will
with untold money, wouldn’t I? As much as I’d trust the cat with the
cream-pan! I tell you, my dear, it’s not all pleasure being a woman of
rank and fashion: and if I have bought a countess’s coronet, I have paid
a good price for it--that I have!”

And so had my Lord Castlewood paid a large price for having his estate
freed from incumbrances, his houses and stables furnished, and his
debts discharged. He was the slave of the little wife and her father.
No wonder the old man’s society was not pleasant to the poor victim, and
that he gladly slunk away from his own fine house, to feast at the club
when he had money, or at least to any society save that which he found
at home. To lead a bear, as I did, was no very pleasant business, to
be sure: to wait in a bookseller’s anteroom until it should please his
honour to finish his dinner and give me audience, was sometimes a hard
task for a man of my name and with my pride; but would I have exchanged
my poverty against Castlewood’s ignominy, or preferred his miserable
dependence to my own? At least I earned my wage, such as it was; and no
man can say that I ever flattered my patrons, or was servile to them; or
indeed, in my dealings with them, was otherwise than sulky, overbearing,
and, in a word, intolerable.

Now there was a certain person with whom Fate had thrown me into a
life-partnership, who bore her poverty with such a smiling sweetness
and easy grace, that niggard Fortune relented before her, and, like
some savage Ogre in the fairy tales, melted at the constant goodness and
cheerfulness of that uncomplaining, artless, innocent creature. However
poor she was, all who knew her saw that here was a fine lady; and the
little tradesmen and humble folks round about us treated her with as
much respect as the richest of our neighbours. “I think, my dear,” says
good-natured Mrs. Foker, when they rode out in the latter’s chariot,
“you look like the mistress of the carriage, and I only as your maid.”
 Our landladies adored her; the tradesfolk executed her little orders
as eagerly as if a duchess gave them, or they were to make a fortune
by waiting on her. I have thought often of the lady in Comus, and how,
through all the rout and rabble, she moves, entirely serene and pure.

Several times, as often as we chose indeed, the good-natured parents of
my young bear lent us their chariot to drive abroad or to call on the
few friends we had. If I must tell the truth, we drove once to the
Protestant Hero and had a syllabub in the garden there: and the
hostess would insist upon calling my wife her ladyship during the whole
afternoon. We also visited Mr. Johnson, and took tea with him (the
ingenious Mr. Goldsmith was of the company); the Doctor waited upon my
wife to her coach. But our most frequent visits were to Aunt Bernstein,
and I promise you I was not at all jealous because my aunt presently
professed to have a wonderful liking for Theo.

This liking grew so that she would have her most days in the week, or to
stay altogether with her, and thought that Theo’s child and husband
were only plagues to be sure, and hated us in the most amusing way
for keeping her favourite from her. Not that my wife was unworthy
of anybody’s favour; but her many forced absences, and the constant
difficulty of intercourse with her, raised my aunt’s liking for a while
to a sort of passion. She poured in notes like love-letters; and her
people were ever about our kitchen. If my wife did not go to her, she
wrote heartrending appeals, and scolded me severely when I saw her; and,
the child being ill once (it hath pleased Fate to spare our Captain to
be a prodigious trouble to us, and a wholesome trial for our tempers),
Madame Bernstein came three days running to Lambeth; vowed there was
nothing the matter with the baby;--nothing at all;--and that we only
pretended his illness, in order to vex her.

The reigning Countess of Castlewood was just as easy and affable with
her old aunt, as with other folks great and small. “What air you all
about, scraping and bowing to that old woman, I can’t tell, noways!” her
ladyship would say. “She a fine lady! Nonsense! She ain’t no more fine
than any other lady: and I guess I’m as good as any of ‘em with their
high heels and their grand airs! She a beauty once! Take away her wig,
and her rouge, and her teeth; and what becomes of your beauty, I’d like
to know? Guess you’d put it all in a bandbox, and there would be nothing
left but a shrivelled old woman!” And indeed the little homilist only
spoke too truly. All beauty must at last come to this complexion; and
decay, either underground or on the tree. Here was old age, I fear,
without reverence. Here were grey hairs, that were hidden or painted.
The world was still here, and she tottering on it, and clinging to it
with her crutch. For fourscore years she had moved on it, and eaten
of the tree, forbidden and permitted. She had had beauty, pleasure,
flattery: but what secret rages, disappointments, defeats, humiliations!
what thorns under the roses! what stinging bees in the fruit! “You are
not a beauty, my dear,” she would say to my wife: “and may thank your
stars that you are not.” (If she contradicted herself in her talk, I
suppose the rest of us occasionally do the like.) “Don’t tell me that
your husband is pleased with your face, and you want no one else’s
admiration! We all do. Every woman would rather be beautiful than be
anything else in the world--ever so rich, or ever so good, or have all
the gifts of the fairies! Look at that picture, though I know ‘tis but a
bad one, and that stupid vapouring Kneller could not paint my eyes, nor
my hair, nor my complexion. What a shape I had then--and look at me now,
and this wrinkled old neck! Why have we such a short time of our beauty?
I remember Mademoiselle de l’Enclos at a much greater age than mine,
quite fresh and well-conserved. We can’t hide our ages. They are wrote
in Mr. Collins’s books for us. I was born in the last year of King
James’s reign. I am not old yet. I am but seventy-six. But what a wreck,
my dear: and isn’t it cruel that our time should be so short?”

Here my wife has to state the incontrovertible proposition, that the
time of all of us is short here below.

“Ha!” cries the Baroness. “Did not Adam live near a thousand years, and
was not Eve beautiful all the time? I used to perplex Mr. Tusher with
that--poor creature! What have we done since, that our lives are so much
lessened, I say?”

“Has your life been so happy that you would prolong it ever so much
more?” asks the Baroness’s auditor. “Have you, who love wit, never read
Dean Swift’s famous description of the deathless people in Gulliver? My
papa and my husband say ‘tis one of the finest and most awful sermons
ever wrote. It were better not to live at all, than to live without
love; and I’m sure,” says my wife, putting her handkerchief to her eyes,
“should anything happen to my dearest George, I would wish to go to
Heaven that moment.”

“Who loves me in Heaven? I am quite alone, child--that is why I had
rather stay here,” says the Baroness, in a frightened and rather piteous
tone. “You are kind to me, God bless your sweet face! Though I scold,
and have a frightful temper, my servants will do anything to make me
comfortable, and get up at any hour of the night, and never say a cross
word in answer. I like my cards still. Indeed, life would be a blank
without ‘em. Almost everything is gone except that. I can’t eat my
dinner now, since I lost those last two teeth. Everything goes away from
us in old age. But I still have my cards--thank Heaven, I still have my
cards!” And here she would begin to doze: waking up, however, if my wife
stirred or rose, and imagining that Theo was about to leave her. “Don’t
go away, I can’t bear to be alone. I don’t want you to talk. But I like
to see your face, my dear! It is much pleasanter than that horrid old
Brett’s, that I have had scowling about my bedroom these ever so long
years.”

“Well, Baroness! still at your cribbage?” (We may fancy a noble Countess
interrupting a game at cards between Theo and Aunt Bernstein.) “Me and
my Lord Esmond have come to see you! Go and shake hands with grandaunt,
Esmond! and tell her ladyship that your lordship’s a good boy!”

“My lordship’s a good boy,” says the child. (Madam Theo used to act
these scenes for me in a very lively way.)

“And if he is, I guess he don’t take after his father,” shrieks out Lady
Castlewood. She chose to fancy that Aunt Bernstein was deaf, and always
bawled at the old lady.

“Your ladyship chose my nephew for better or for worse,” says Aunt
Bernstein, who was now always very much flurried in the presence of the
young Countess.

“But he is a precious deal worse than ever I thought he was. I am
speaking of your Pa, Ezzy. If it wasn’t for your mother, my son, Lord
knows what would become of you! We are a-going to see his little Royal
Highness. Sorry to see your ladyship not looking quite so well to-day.
We can’t always remain young and law! how we do change as we grow old!
Go up and kiss that lady, Ezzy. She has got a little boy, too. Why,
bless us! have you got the child downstairs?” Indeed, Master Miles was
down below, for special reasons accompanying his mother on her visits to
Aunt Bernstein sometimes; and our aunt desired the mother’s company so
much, that she was actually fain to put up with the child. “So you have
got the child here? Oh, you slyboots!” says the Countess. “Guess
you come after the old lady’s money! Law bless you! Don’t look so
frightened. She can’t hear a single word I say. Come, Ezzy. Good-bye,
aunt!” And my lady Countess rustles out of the room.

Did Aunt Bernstein hear her or not? Where was the wit for which the old
lady had been long famous? and was that fire put out, as well as the
brilliancy of her eyes? With other people--she was still ready enough,
and unsparing of her sarcasms. When the Dowager of Castlewood and Lady
Fanny visited her (these exalted ladies treated my wife with perfect
indifference and charming good breeding),--the Baroness, in their
society, was stately, easy, and even commanding. She would mischievously
caress Mrs. Warrington before them; in her absence, vaunt my wife’s good
breeding; say that her nephew had made a foolish match, perhaps, but
that I certainly had taken a charming wife. “In a word, I praise you so
to them, my dear,” says she, “that I think they would like to tear your
eyes out.” But, before the little American, ‘tis certain that she was
uneasy and trembled. She was so afraid, that she actually did not dare
to deny her door; and, the Countess’s back turned, did not even abuse
her. However much they might dislike her, my ladies did not tear out
Theo’s eyes. Once--they drove to our cottage at Lambeth, where my wife
happened to be sitting at the open window, holding her child on her
knee, and in full view of her visitors. A gigantic footman strutted
through our little garden, and delivered their ladyships’ visiting
tickets at our door. Their hatred hurt us no more than their visit
pleased us. When next we had the loan of our friend the Brewer’s
carriage Mrs. Warrington drove to Kensington, and Gumbo handed over to
the giant our cards in return for those which his noble mistresses had
bestowed on us.

The Baroness had a coach, but seldom thought of giving it to us: and
would let Theo and her maid and baby start from Clarges Street in the
rain, with a faint excuse that she was afraid to ask her coachman
to take his horses out. But, twice on her return home, my wife was
frightened by rude fellows on the other side of Westminster Bridge; and
I fairly told my aunt that I should forbid Mrs. Warrington to go to her,
unless she could be brought home in safety; so grumbling Jehu had to
drive his horses through the darkness. He grumbled at my shillings: he
did not know how few I had. Our poverty wore a pretty decent face. My
relatives never thought of relieving it, nor I of complaining before
them. I don’t know how Sampson got a windfall of guineas; but, I
remember, he brought me six once; and they were more welcome than any
money I ever had in my life. He had been looking into Mr. Miles’s crib,
as the child lay asleep; and, when the parson went away, I found the
money in the baby’s little rosy hand. Yes, Love is best of all. I
have many such benefactions registered in my heart--precious welcome
fountains springing up in desert places, kind, friendly lights cheering
our despondency and gloom.

This worthy divine was willing enough to give as much of his company as
she chose to Madame de Bernstein, whether for cards or theology. Having
known her ladyship for many years now, Sampson could see, and averred
to us, that she was breaking fast; and as he spoke of her evidently
increasing infirmities, and of the probability of their fatal
termination, Mr. S. would discourse to us in a very feeling manner of
the necessity for preparing for a future world; of the vanities of
this, and of the hope that in another there might be happiness for all
repentant sinners.

“I have been a sinner for one,” says the chaplain, bowing his head. “God
knoweth, and I pray Him to pardon me. I fear, sir, your aunt, the Lady
Baroness, is not in such a state of mind as will fit her very well
for the change which is imminent. I am but a poor weak wretch, and no
prisoner in Newgate could confess that more humbly and heartily. Once or
twice of late, I have sought to speak on this matter with her ladyship,
but she has received me very roughly. ‘Parson,’ says she, ‘if you come
for cards, ‘tis mighty well, but I will thank you to spare me your
sermons.’ What can I do, sir? I have called more than once of late, and
Mr. Case hath told me his lady was unable to see me.” In fact Madame
Bernstein told my wife, whom she never refused, as I said, that the poor
chaplain’s ton was unendurable, and as for his theology, “Haven’t I been
a Bishop’s wife?” says she, “and do I want this creature to teach me?”

The old lady was as impatient of doctors as of divines; pretending that
my wife was ailing, and that it was more convenient for our good Doctor
Heberden to visit her in Clarges Street than to travel all the way to
our Lambeth lodgings, we got Dr. H. to see Theo at our aunt’s house, and
prayed him if possible to offer his advice to the Baroness: we made Mrs.
Brett, her woman, describe her ailments, and the doctor confirmed our
opinion that they were most serious, and might speedily end. She would
rally briskly enough of some evenings, and entertain a little company;
but of late she scarcely went abroad at all. A somnolence, which we had
remarked in her, was attributable in part to opiates which she was in
the habit of taking; and she used these narcotics to smother habitual
pain. One night, as we two sat with her (Mr. Miles was weaned by this
time, and his mother could leave him to the charge of our faithful
Molly), she fell asleep over her cards. We hushed the servants who came
to lay out the supper-table (she would always have this luxurious, nor
could any injunction of ours or the Doctor’s teach her abstinence), and
we sat a while as we had often done before, waiting in silence till she
should arouse from her doze.

When she awoke, she looked fixedly at me for a while, fumbled with the
cards, and dropt them again in her lap, and said, “Henry, have I been
long asleep?” I thought at first that it was for my brother she mistook
me; but she went on quickly, and with eyes fixed as upon some very far
distant object, and said, “My dear, ‘tis of no use, I am not good enough
for you. I love cards, and play, and court; and oh, Harry, you don’t
know all!” Here her voice changed, and she flung her head up. “His
father married Anne Hyde, and sure the Esmond blood is as good as any
that’s not royal. Mamma, you must please to treat me with more respect.
Vos sermons me fatiguent; entendez-vous?--faites place a mon Altesse
royale: mesdames, me connaissez-vous? je suis la----” Here she broke out
into frightful hysterical shrieks and laughter, and as we ran up to her,
alarmed, “Oui, Henri,” she says, “il a jure de m’epouser et les princes
tiennent parole--n’est-ce pas? O oui! ils tiennent parole; si non, tu le
tueras, cousin; tu le--ah! que je suis folle!” And the pitiful shrieks
and laughter recommenced. Ere her frightened people had come up to her
summons, the poor thing had passed out of this mood into another; but
always labouring under the same delusion--that I was the Henry of past
times, who had loved her and had been forsaken by her, whose bones were
lying far away by the banks of the Potomac.

My wife and the women put the poor lady to bed as I ran myself for
medical aid. She rambled, still talking wildly, through the night, with
her nurses and the surgeon sitting by her. Then she fell into a sleep,
brought on by more opiate. When she awoke, her mind did not actually
wander; but her speech was changed, and one arm and side were paralysed.

‘Tis needless to relate the progress and termination of her malady, or
watch that expiring flame of life as it gasps and flickers. Her senses
would remain with her for a while (and then she was never satisfied
unless Theo was by her bedside), or again her mind would wander, and the
poor decrepit creature, lying upon her bed, would imagine herself young
again, and speak incoherently of the scenes and incidents of her early
days. Then she would address me as Henry again, and call upon me to
revenge some insult or slight, of which (whatever my suspicions might
be) the only record lay in her insane memory. “They have always been
so,” she would murmur: “they never loved man or woman but they forsook
them. Je me vengerai, O oui, je me vengerai! I know them all: I know
them all: and I will go to my Lord Stair with the list. Don’t tell
me! His religion can’t be the right one. I will go back to my mother’s
though she does not love me. She never did. Why don’t you, mother? Is
it because I am too wicked? Ah! Pitie, pitie. O mon pere! I will make
my confession”--and here the unhappy paralysed lady made as if she would
move in her bed.

Let us draw the curtain round it. I think with awe still, of those rapid
words, uttered in the shadow of the canopy, as my pallid wife sits by
her, her Prayer-book on her knee; as the attendants move to and fro
noiselessly; as the clock ticks without, and strikes the fleeting hours;
as the sun falls upon the Kneller picture of Beatrix in her beauty, with
the blushing cheeks, the smiling lips, the waving auburn tresses, and
the eyes which seem to look towards the dim figure moaning in the bed.
I could not for a while understand why our aunt’s attendants were so
anxious that we should quit it. But towards evening, a servant stole
in, and whispered her woman; and then Brett, looking rather disturbed,
begged us to go downstairs, as the--as the Doctor was come to visit the
Baroness. I did not tell my wife, at the time, who “the Doctor” was; but
as the gentleman slid by us, and passed upstairs, I saw at once that he
was a Catholic ecclesiastic. When Theo next saw our poor lady, she
was speechless; she never recognised any one about her, and so passed
unconsciously out of life. During her illness her relatives had called
assiduously enough, though she would see none of them save us. But when
she was gone, and we descended to the lower rooms after all was over, we
found Castlewood with his white face, and my lady from Kensington, and
Mr. Will already assembled in the parlour. They looked greedily at us as
we appeared. They were hungry for the prey.

When our aunt’s will was opened, we found it dated five years back, and
everything she had was left to her dear nephew, Henry Esmond Warrington,
of Castlewood, in Virginia, “in affectionate love and remembrance of the
name which he bore.” The property was not great. Her revenue had been
derived from pensions from the Crown as it appeared (for what services
I cannot say), but the pension of course died with her, and there were
only a few hundred pounds, besides jewels, trinkets, and the furniture
of the house in Clarges Street, of which all London came to the sale.
Mr. Walpole bid for her portrait, but I made free with Harry’s money so
far as to buy the picture in: and it now hangs over the mantelpiece of
the chamber in which I write. What with jewels, laces, trinkets, and old
china which she had gathered--Harry became possessed of more than four
thousand pounds by his aunt’s legacy. I made so free as to lay my hand
upon a hundred, which came, just as my stock was reduced to twenty
pounds; and I procured bills for the remainder, which I forwarded to
Captain Henry Esmond in Virginia. Nor should I have scrupled to take
more (for my brother was indebted to me in a much greater sum), but he
wrote me there was another wonderful opportunity for buying an estate
and negroes in our neighbourhood at home; and Theo and I were only
too glad to forgo our little claim, so as to establish our brother’s
fortune. As to mine, poor Harry at this time did not know the state of
it. My mother had never informed him that she had ceased remitting to
me. She helped him with a considerable sum, the result of her savings,
for the purchase of his new estate; and Theo and I were most heartily
thankful at his prosperity.

And how strange ours was! By what curious good fortune, as our purse
was emptied, was it filled again! I had actually come to the end of our
stock, when poor Sampson brought me his six pieces--and with these I was
enabled to carry on, until my half-year’s salary, as young Mr. Foker’s
Governor, was due: then Harry’s hundred, on which I laid main basse,
helped us over three months (we were behindhand with our rent, or the
money would have lasted six good weeks longer): and when this was pretty
near expended, what should arrive but a bill of exchange for a couple of
hundred pounds from Jamaica, with ten thousand blessings, from the dear
friends there, and fond scolding from the General that we had not
sooner told him of our necessity--of which he had only heard through our
friend, Mr. Foker, who spoke in such terms of Theo and myself as to make
our parents more than ever proud of their children. Was my quarrel with
my mother irreparable? Let me go to Jamaica. There was plenty there for
all, and employment which his Excellency as Governor would immediately
procure for me. “Come to us!” writes Hetty. “Come to us!” writes Aunt
Lambert. “Have my children been suffering poverty, and we rolling in
our Excellency’s coach, with guards to turn out whenever we pass? Has
Charley been home to you for ever so many holidays, from the Chartreux,
and had ever so many of my poor George’s half-crowns in his pocket,
I dare say?” (this was indeed the truth, for where was he to go for
holidays but to his sister? and was there any use in telling the child
how scarce half-crowns were with us?). “And you always treating him with
such goodness, as his letters tell me, which are brimful of love for
George and little Miles! Oh, how we long to see Miles!” wrote Hetty and
her mother; “and as for his godfather” (writes Het), “who has been good
to my dearest and her child, I promise him a kiss whenever I see him!”

Our young benefactor was never to hear of our family’s love and
gratitude to him. That glimpse of his bright face over the railings
before our house at Lambeth, as he rode away on his little horse, was
the last we ever were to have of him. At Christmas a basket comes to us,
containing a great turkey, and three brace of partridges, with a
card, and “shot by M. W.” wrote on one of them. And on receipt of this
present, we wrote to thank the child and gave him our sister’s message.

To this letter, there came a reply from Lady Warrington, who said she
was bound to inform me, that in visiting me her child had been guilty
of disobedience, and that she learned his visit to me now for the
first time. Knowing my views regarding duty to my parents (which I had
exemplified in my marriage), she could not wish her son to adopt them.
And fervently hoping that I might be brought to see the errors of
my present course, she took leave of this most unpleasant subject,
subscribing herself, etc. etc. And we got this pretty missive as sauce
for poor Miles’s turkey, which was our family feast for New Year’s Day.
My Lady Warrington’s letter choked our meal, though Sampson and Charley
rejoiced over it.

Ah me! Ere the month was over, our little friend was gone from amongst
us. Going out shooting, and dragging his gun through a hedge after him,
the trigger caught in a bush, and the poor little man was brought home
to his father’s house, only to live a few days and expire in pain and
torture. Under the yew-trees yonder, I can see the vault which covers
him, and where my bones one day no doubt will be laid. And over our pew
at church, my children have often wistfully spelt the touching epitaph
in which Miles’s heartbroken father has inscribed his grief and love for
his only son.



CHAPTER LXXXIV. In which Harry submits to the Common Lot


Hard times were now over with me, and I had to battle with poverty no
more. My little kinsman’s death made a vast difference in my worldly
prospects. I became next heir to a good estate. My uncle and his
wife were not likely to have more children. “The woman is capable of
committing any crime to disappoint you,” Sampson vowed; but, in truth,
my Lady Warrington was guilty of no such treachery. Cruelly smitten
by the stroke which fell upon them, Lady Warrington was taught by her
religious advisers to consider it as a chastisement of Heaven, and
submit to the Divine Will. “Whilst your son lived, your heart was turned
away from the better world” (her clergyman told her), “and your ladyship
thought too much of this. For your son’s advantage you desired rank and
title. You asked and might have obtained an earthly coronet. Of what
avail is it now, to one who has but a few years to pass upon earth--of
what importance compared to the heavenly crown, for which you are an
assured candidate?” The accident caused no little sensation. In the
chapels of that enthusiastic sect, towards which, after her son’s death,
she now more than ever inclined, many sermons were preached bearing
reference to the event. Far be it from me to question the course which
the bereaved mother pursued, or to regard with other than respect and
sympathy any unhappy soul seeking that refuge whither sin and grief
and disappointment fly for consolation. Lady Warrington even tried a
reconciliation with myself. A year after her loss, being in London, she
signified that she would see me, and I waited on her; and she gave me,
in her usual didactic way, a homily upon my position and her own.
She marvelled at the decree of Heaven, which had permitted, and
how dreadfully punished! her poor child’s disobedience to her--a
disobedience by which I was to profit. (It appeared my poor little man
had disobeyed orders, and gone out with his gun, unknown to his mother.)
She hoped that, should I ever succeed to the property, though the
Warringtons were, thank Heaven, a long-lived family, except in my own
father’s case, whose life had been curtailed by the excesses of a very
ill-regulated youth,--but should I ever succeed to the family estate and
honours, she hoped, she prayed, that my present course of life might be
altered; that I should part from my unworthy associates; that I should
discontinue all connexion with the horrid theatre and its licentious
frequenters; that I should turn to that quarter where only peace was
to be had; and to those sacred duties which she feared--she very much
feared that I had neglected. She filled her exhortation with Scripture
language, which I do not care to imitate. When I took my leave she gave
me a packet of sermons for Mrs. Warrington, and a little book of hymns
by Miss Dora, who has been eminent in that society of which she and
her mother became avowed professors subsequently, and who, after the
dowager’s death, at Bath, three years since, married young Mr. Juffles,
a celebrated preacher. The poor lady forgave me then, but she could not
bear the sight of our boy. We lost our second child, and then my aunt
and her daughter came eagerly enough to the poor suffering mother, and
even invited us hither. But my uncle was now almost every day in our
house. He would sit for hours looking at our boy. He brought him endless
toys and sweetmeats. He begged that the child might call him Godpapa.
When we felt our own grief (which at times still, and after the lapse of
five-and-twenty years, strikes me as keenly as on the day when we
first lost our little one)--when I felt my own grief, I knew how to
commiserate his. But my wife could pity him before she knew what it
was to lose a child of her own. The mother’s anxious heart had already
divined the pang which was felt by the sorrow-stricken father;
mine, more selfish, has only learned pity from experience, and I was
reconciled to my uncle by my little baby’s coffin.

The poor man sent his coach to follow the humble funeral, and afterwards
took out little Miles, who prattled to him unceasingly, and forgot any
grief he might have felt in the delights of his new black clothes, and
the pleasures of the airing. How the innocent talk of the child stabbed
the mother’s heart! Would we ever wish that it should heal of that
wound? I know her face so well that, to this day, I can tell when,
sometimes, she is thinking of the loss of that little one. It is not a
grief for a parting so long ago; it is a communion with a soul we love
in Heaven.

We came back to our bright lodgings in Bloomsbury soon afterwards,
and my young bear, whom I could no longer lead, and who had taken a
prodigious friendship for Charley, went to the Chartreux School, where
his friend took care that he had no more beating than was good for him,
and where (in consequence of the excellence of his private tutor, no
doubt) he took and kept a good place. And he liked the school so much,
that he says, if ever he has a son, he shall be sent to that seminary.

Now, I could no longer lead my bear, for this reason, that I had other
business to follow. Being fully reconciled to us, I do believe, for
Mr. Miles’s sake, my uncle (who was such an obsequious supporter of
Government, that I wonder the Minister ever gave him anything, being
perfectly sure of his vote) used his influence in behalf of his nephew
and heir; and I had the honour to be gazetted as one of his Majesty’s
Commissioners for licensing hackney-coaches, a post I filled, I trust,
with credit, until a quarrel with the Minister (to be mentioned in its
proper place) deprived me of that one. I took my degree also at the
Temple, and appeared in Westminster Hall in my gown and wig. And, this
year, my good friend, Mr. Foker, having business at Paris, I had the
pleasure of accompanying him thither, where I was received a bras
ouverts by my dear American preserver, Monsieur de Florac, who
introduced me to his noble family, and to even more of the polite
society of the capital than I had leisure to frequent; for I had too
much spirit to desert my kind patron Foker, whose acquaintance lay
chiefly amongst the bourgeoisie, especially with Monsieur Santerre, a
great brewer of Paris, a scoundrel who hath since distinguished himself
in blood and not beer. Mr. F. had need of my services as interpreter,
and I was too glad that he should command them, and to be able to pay
back some of the kindness which he had rendered to me. Our ladies,
meanwhile, were residing at Mr. Foker’s new villa at Wimbledon, and were
pleased to say that they were amused with the “Parisian letters” which
I sent to them, through my distinguished friend Mr. Hume, then of the
Embassy, and which subsequently have been published in a neat volume.

Whilst I was tranquilly discharging my small official duties in London,
those troubles were commencing which were to end in the great separation
between our colonies and the mother country. When Mr. Grenville proposed
his stamp-duties, I said to my wife that the bill would create a mighty
discontent at home, for we were ever anxious to get as much as we could
from England, and pay back as little; but assuredly I never anticipated
the prodigious anger which the scheme created. It was with us as with
families or individuals. A pretext is given for a quarrel: the real
cause lies in long bickerings and previous animosities. Many foolish
exactions and petty tyrannies, the habitual insolence of Englishmen
towards all foreigners, all colonists, all folk who dare to think their
rivers as good as our Abana and Pharpar, the natural spirit of men
outraged by our imperious domineering spirit, set Britain and her
colonies to quarrel; and the astonishing blunders of the system adopted
in England brought the quarrel to an issue, which I, for one, am not
going to deplore. Had I been in Virginia instead of London, ‘tis
very possible I should have taken the provincial side, if out of mere
opposition to that resolute mistress of Castlewood, who might have
driven me into revolt, as England did the colonies. Was the Stamp Act
the cause of the revolution?--a tax no greater than that cheerfully
paid in England. Ten years earlier, when the French were within our
territory, and we were imploring succour from home, would the colonies
have rebelled at the payment of this tax? Do not most people consider
the tax-gatherer the natural enemy? Against the British in America there
were arrayed thousands and thousands of the high-spirited and brave, but
there were thousands more who found their profit in the quarrel, or had
their private reasons for engaging in it. I protest I don’t know now
whether mine were selfish or patriotic, or which side was in the right,
or whether both were not. I am sure we in England had nothing to do but
to fight the battle out; and, having lost the game, I do vow and believe
that, after the first natural soreness, the loser felt no rancour.

What made brother Hal write home from Virginia, which he seemed
exceedingly loth to quit, such flaming patriotic letters? My kind, best
brother was always led by somebody; by me when we were together (he had
such an idea of my wit and wisdom, that if I said the day was fine, he
would ponder over the observation as though it was one of the sayings of
the Seven Sages), by some other wiseacre when I was away. Who inspired
these flaming letters, this boisterous patriotism, which he sent to us
in London? “He is rebelling against Madam Esmond,” said I. “He is led by
some colonial person--by that lady, perhaps,” hinted my wife. Who “that
lady” was Hal never had told us; and, indeed, besought me never to
allude to the delicate subject in my letters to him; “for Madam wishes
to see ‘em all, and I wish to say nothing about you know what until the
proper moment,” he wrote. No affection could be greater than that
which his letters showed. When he heard (from the informant whom I have
mentioned) that in the midst of my own extreme straits I had retained
no more than a hundred pounds out of his aunt’s legacy, he was for
mortgaging the estate which he had just bought; and had more than one
quarrel with his mother in my behalf, and spoke his mind with a great
deal more frankness than I should ever have ventured to show. Until
her angry recriminations (when she charged him with ingratitude, after
having toiled and saved so much and so long for him), the poor fellow
did not know that our mother had cut off my supplies to advance his
interests; and by the time this news came to him his bargains were made,
and I was fortunately quite out of want.

Every scrap of paper which we ever wrote, our thrifty parent at
Castlewood taped and docketed and put away. We boys were more careless
about our letters to one another: I especially, who perhaps chose rather
to look down upon my younger brother’s literary performances; but my
wife is not so supercilious, and hath kept no small number of Harry’s
letters, as well as those of the angelic being whom we were presently to
call sister.

“To think whom he has chosen, and whom he might have had! Oh, ‘tis
cruel!” cries my wife, when we got that notable letter in which Harry
first made us acquainted with the name of his charmer.

“She was a very pretty little maid when I left home, she may be a
perfect beauty now,” I remarked, as I read over the longest letter Harry
ever wrote on private affairs.

“But is she to compare to my Hetty?” says Mrs. Warrington.

“We agreed that Hetty and Harry were not to be happy together, my love,”
 say I.

Theo gives her husband a kiss. “My dear, I wish they had tried,” she
says with a sigh. “I was afraid lest--lest Hetty should have led him,
you see; and I think she hath the better head. But, from reading this,
it appears that the new lady has taken command of poor Harry,” and she
hands me the letter:--


“My dearest George hath been prepared by previous letters to understand
how a certain lady has made a conquest of my heart, which I have given
away in exchange for something infinitely more valuable, namely, her
own. She is at my side as I write this letter, and if there is no bad
spelling, such as you often used to laugh at, ‘tis because I have my
pretty dictionary at hand, which makes no faults in the longest word,
nor in anything else I know of: being of opinion that she is perfection.

“As Madam Esmond saw all your letters, I writ you not to give any hint
of a certain delicate matter--but now ‘tis no secret, and is known to
all the country. Mr. George is not the only one of our family who has
made a secret marriage, and been scolded by his mother. As a dutiful
younger brother I have followed his example; and now I may tell you how
this mighty event came about.

“I had not been at home long before I saw my fate was accomplisht. I
will not tell you how beautiful Miss Fanny Mountain had grown since I
had been away in Europe. She saith, ‘You never will think so,’ and I
am glad, as she is the only thing in life I would grudge to my dearest
brother.

“That neither Madam Esmond nor my other mother (as Mountain is now)
should have seen our mutual attachment, is a wonder--only to be
accounted for by supposing that love makes other folks blind. Mine for
my Fanny was increased by seeing what the treatment was she had from
Madam Esmond, who indeed was very rough and haughty with her, which my
love bore with a sweetness perfectly angelic (this I will say, though
she will order me not to write any such nonsense). She was scarce better
treated than a servant of the house--indeed our negroes can talk much
more free before Madam Esmond than ever my Fanny could.

“And yet my Fanny says she doth not regret Madam’s unkindness, as
without it I possibly never should have been what I am to her. Oh, dear
brother! when I remember how great your goodness hath been, how, in my
own want, you paid my debts, and rescued me out of prison; how you have
been living in poverty which never need have occurred but for my fault;
how you might have paid yourself back my just debt to you and would not,
preferring my advantage to your own comfort, indeed I am lost at the
thought of such goodness; and ought I not to be thankful to Heaven that
hath given me such a wife and such a brother?

“When I writ to you requesting you to send me my aunt’s legacy money,
for which indeed I had the most profitable and urgent occasion, I had no
idea that you were yourself suffering poverty. That you, the head of our
family, should condescend to be governor to a brewer’s son!--that you
should have to write for booksellers (except in so far as your own
genius might prompt you), never once entered my mind, until Mr. Foker’s
letter came to us, and this would never have been shown--for Madam kept
it secret--had it not been for the difference which sprang up between
us.

“Poor Tom Diggle’s estate and negroes being for sale, owing to
Tom’s losses and extravagance at play, and his father’s debts before
him--Madam Esmond saw here was a great opportunity of making a provision
for me, and that with six thousand pounds for the farm and stock, I
should be put in possession of as pretty a property as falls to most
younger sons in this country. It lies handy enough to Richmond, between
Kent and Hanover Court House--the mansion nothing for elegance
compared to ours at Castlewood, but the land excellent and the people
extraordinary healthy.

“Here was a second opportunity, Madam Esmond said, such as never might
again befall. By the sale of my commissions and her own savings I might
pay more than half of the price of the property, and get the rest of
the money on mortgage; though here, where money is scarce to procure,
it would have been difficult and dear. At this juncture, with our new
relative, Mr. Van den Bosch, bidding against us (his agent is wild that
we should have bought the property over him), my aunt’s legacy most
opportunely fell in. And now I am owner of a good house and negroes in
my native country, shall be called, no doubt, to our House of Burgesses,
and hope to see my dearest brother and family under my own roof-tree.
To sit at my own fireside, to ride my own horses to my own hounds,
is better than going a-soldiering, now war is over, and there are no
French. to fight. Indeed, Madam Esmond made a condition that I should
leave the army, and live at home, when she brought me her 1750 pounds of
savings. She had lost one son, she said, who chose to write play-books,
and live in England--let the other stay with her at home.

“But, after the purchase of the estate was made, and my papers for
selling out were sent home, my mother would have had me marry a person
of her choosing, but by no means of mine. You remember Miss Betsy Pitts
at Williamsburgh? She is in no wise improved by having had her face
dreadfully scarred with small-pock, and though Madam Esmond saith the
young lady hath every virtue, I own her virtues did not suit me. Her
eyes do not look straight; she hath one leg shorter than another; and
oh, brother! didst thou never remark Fanny’s ankles when we were boys?
Neater I never saw at the Opera.

“Now, when ‘twas agreed that I should leave the army, a certain dear
girl (canst thou guess her name?) one day, when we were private, burst
into tears of such happiness, that I could not but feel immensely
touched by her sympathy.

“‘Ah!’ says she, ‘do you think, sir, that the idea of the son of my
revered benefactress going to battle doth not inspire me with terror?
Ah, Mr. Henry! do you imagine I have no heart? When Mr. George was with
Braddock, do you fancy we did not pray for him? And when you were with
Mr. Wolfe--oh!’

“Here the dear creature hid her eyes in her handkerchief, and had hard
work to prevent her mama, who came in, from seeing that she was crying.
But my dear Mountain declares that, though she might have fancied, might
have prayed in secret for such a thing (she owns to that now), she
never imagined it for one moment. Nor, indeed, did my good mother, who
supposed that Sam Lintot, the apothecary’s lad at Richmond, was Fanny’s
flame--an absurd fellow that I near kicked into James River.

“But when the commission was sold, and the estate bought, what does
Fanny do but fall into a deep melancholy? I found her crying one day, in
her mother’s room, where the two ladies had been at work trimming hats
for my negroes.

“‘What! crying, miss?’ says I. ‘Has my mother been scolding you?’

“‘No,’ says the dear creature. ‘Madam Esmond has been kind to-day.’

“And her tears drop down on a cockade which she is sewing on to a hat
for Sady, who is to be head-groom.

“‘Then, why, miss, are those dear eyes so red?’ say I.

“‘Because I have the toothache,’ she says, ‘or because--because I am a
fool.’ Here she fairly bursts out. ‘Oh, Mr. Harry! oh, Mr. Warrington!
You are going to leave us, and ‘tis as well. You will take your place
in your country, as becomes you. You will leave us poor women in our
solitude and dependence. You will come to visit us from time to time.
And when you are happy and honoured, and among your gay companions, you
will remember your----’

“Here she could say no more, and hid her face with one hand as I, I
confess, seized the other.

“‘Dearest, sweetest Miss Mountain!’ says I. ‘Oh, could I think that the
parting from me has brought tears to those lovely eyes! Indeed, I fear,
I should be almost happy! Let them look upon your----’

“‘Oh, sir!’ cries my charmer. ‘Oh, Mr. Warrington! consider who I am,
sir, and who you are! Remember the difference between us! Release my
hand, sir! What would Madam Esmond say if--if----’

“If what, I don’t know, for here our mother was in the room.

“‘What would Madam Esmond say?’ she cries out. ‘She would say that you
are an ungrateful, artful, false, little----’

“‘Madam!’ says I.

“‘Yes, an ungrateful, artful, false, little wretch!’ cries out my
mother. ‘For shame, miss! What would Mr. Lintot say if he saw you making
eyes at the Captain? And for you, Harry, I will have you bring none of
your garrison manners hither. This is a Christian family, sir, and you
will please to know that my house is not intended for captains and their
misses!’

“‘Misses, mother!’ says I. ‘Gracious powers, do you ever venture for
to call Miss Mountain by such a name? Miss Mountain, the purest of her
sex!’

“‘The purest of her sex! Can I trust my own ears?’ asks Madam, turning
very pale.

“‘I mean that if a man would question her honour, I would fling him out
of window,’ says I.

“‘You mean that you--your mother’s son--are actually paying honourable
attention to this young person?’

“‘He would never dare to offer any other,’ cries my Fanny; ‘nor any
woman but you, madam, to think so!’

“‘Oh, I didn’t know, miss!’ says mother, dropping her a fine curtsey, ‘I
didn’t know the honour you were doing our family! You propose to marry
with us, do you? Do I understand Captain Warrington aright, that he
intends to offer me Miss Mountain as a daughter-in-law?’

“‘’Tis to be seen, madam, that I have no protector, or you would not
insult me so!’ cries my poor victim.

“‘I should think the apothecary protection sufficient!’ says our mother.

“‘I don’t, mother!’ I bawl out, for I was very angry; ‘and if Lintot
offers her any liberty, I’ll brain him with his own pestle!’

“‘Oh! if Lintot has withdrawn, sir, I suppose I must be silent. But I
did not know of the circumstance. He came hither, as I supposed, to pay
court to Miss: and we all thought the match equal, and I encouraged it.’

“‘He came because I had the toothache!’ cries my darling (and indeed she
had a dreadful bad tooth. And he took it out for her, and there is no
end to the suspicions and calumnies of women).

“‘What more natural than that he should marry my housekeeper’s
daughter--‘twas a very suitable match!’ continues Madam, taking snuff.
‘But I confess,’ she adds, going on, ‘I was not aware that you intended
to jilt the apothecary for my son!’

“‘Peace, for Heaven’s sake, peace, Mr. Warrington!’ cries my angel.

“‘Pray, sir, before you fully make up your mind, had you not better look
round the rest of my family?’ says Madam. ‘Dinah is a fine tall girl,
and not very black; Cleopatra is promised to Ajax the blacksmith, to
be sure; but then we could break the marriage, you know. If with an
apothecary, why not with a blacksmith? Martha’s husband has run away,
and----’

“Here, dear brother, I own I broke out a-swearing. I can’t help it; but
at times, when a man is angry, it do relieve him immensely. I’m blest,
but I should have gone wild, if it hadn’t been for them oaths.

“‘Curses, blasphemy, ingratitude, disobedience,’ says mother, leaning
now on her tortoiseshell stick, and then waving it--something like a
queen in a play. ‘These are my rewards!’ says she. ‘O Heaven, what have
I done, that I should merit this awful punishment? and does it please
you to visit the sins of my fathers upon me? Where do my children
inherit their pride? When I was young, had I any? When my papa bade me
marry, did I refuse? Did I ever think of disobeying? No, sir. My fault
hath been, and I own it, that my love was centred upon you, perhaps to
the neglect of your elder brother.’ (Indeed, brother, there was some
truth in what Madam said.) ‘I turned from Esau, and I clung to Jacob.
And now I have my reward, I have my reward! I fixed my vain thoughts on
this world, and its distinctions. To see my son advanced in worldly rank
was my ambition. I toiled, and spared, that I might bring him worldly
wealth. I took unjustly from my eldest son’s portion, that my younger
might profit. And oh! that I should see him seducing the daughter of my
own housekeeper under my own roof, and replying to my just anger with
oaths and blasphemies!’

“‘I try to seduce no one, madam,’ I cried out. ‘If I utter oaths and
blasphemies, I beg your pardon; but you are enough to provoke a saint to
speak ‘em. I won’t have this young lady’s character assailed--no, not by
own mother nor any mortal alive. No, dear Miss Mountain! If Madam Esmond
chooses to say that my designs on you are dishonourable,--let this
undeceive her!’ And, as I spoke, I went down on my knees, seizing my
adorable Fanny’s hand. ‘And if you will accept this heart and hand,
miss,’ says I, ‘they are yours for ever.’

“‘You, at least, I knew, sir,’ says Fanny, with a noble curtsey, ‘never
said a word that was disrespectful to me, or entertained any doubt of my
honour. And I trust it is only Madam Esmond, in the world, who can have
such an opinion of me. After what your ladyship hath said of me, of
course I can stay no longer in your house.’

“‘Of course, madam, I never intended you should; and the sooner you
leave it the better,’ cries our mother.

“‘If you are driven from my mother’s house, mine, miss, is at your
service,’ says I, making her a low bow. ‘It is nearly ready now. If you
will take it and stay in it for ever, it is yours! And as Madam Esmond
insulted your honour, at least let me do all in my power to make a
reparation!’ I don’t know what more I exactly said, for you may fancy I
was not a little flustered and excited by the scene. But here Mountain
came in, and my dearest Fanny, flinging herself into her mother’s arms,
wept upon her shoulder; whilst Madam Esmond, sitting down in her chair,
looked at us as pale as a stone. Whilst I was telling my story to
Mountain (who, poor thing, had not the least idea, not she, that Miss
Fanny and I had the slightest inclination for one another), I could hear
our mother once or twice still saying, ‘I am punished for my crime!’

“Now, what our mother meant by her crime I did not know at first, or
indeed take much heed of what she said; for you know her way, and
how, when she is angry, she always talks sermons. But Mountain told me
afterwards, when we had some talk together, as we did at the tavern,
whither the ladies presently removed with their bag and baggage--for not
only would they not stay at Madam’s house after the language she used,
but my mother determined to go away likewise. She called her servants
together, and announced her intention of going home instantly to
Castlewood; and I own to you ‘twas with a horrible pain I saw the family
coach roll by, with six horses, and ever so many of the servants on
mules and on horseback, as I and Fanny looked through the blinds of the
Tavern.

“After the words Madam used to my spotless Fanny, ‘twas impossible that
the poor child or her mother should remain in our house: and indeed
M. said that she would go back to her relations in England: and a ship
bound homewards lying in James River, she went and bargained with the
captain about a passage, so bent was she upon quitting the country, and
so little did she think of making a match between me and my angel. But
the cabin was mercifully engaged by a North Carolina gentleman and his
family, and before the next ship sailed (which bears this letter to my
dearest George) they have agreed to stop with me. Almost all the ladies
in this neighbourhood have waited on them. When the marriage takes
place, I hope Madam Esmond will be reconciled. My Fanny’s father was a
British officer; and sure, ours was no more. Some day, please Heaven,
we shall visit Europe, and the places where my wild oats were sown,
and where I committed so many extravagances from which my dear brother
rescued me.

“The ladies send you their affection and duty, and to my sister. We hear
his Excellency General Lambert is much beloved in Jamaica: and I shall
write to our dear friends there announcing my happiness. My dearest
brother will participate in it, and I am ever his grateful and
affectionate H. E. W.

“P.S.--Till Mountain told me, I had no more notion than the ded that
Madam E. had actially stopt your allowances; besides making you pay
for ever so much--near upon 1000 pounds Mountain says--for goods, etc.,
provided for the Virginian proparty. Then there was all the charges of
me out of prison, which I. O. U. with all my hart. Draw upon me, please,
dearest brother--to any amount--adressing me to care of Messrs. Horn and
Sandon, Williamsburg, privit; who remitt by present occasion a bill
for 225 pounds, payable by their London agents on demand. Please don’t
acknolledge this in answering; as there’s no good in bothering women
with accounts--and with the extra 5 pounds by a capp or what she likes
for my dear sister, and a toy for my nephew from Uncle Hal.”


The conclusion to which we came on the perusal of this document was,
that the ladies had superintended the style and spelling of my poor
Hal’s letter, but that the postscript was added without their knowledge.
And I am afraid we argued that the Virginian Squire was under female
domination--as Hercules, Samson, and fortes multi had been before him.



CHAPTER LXXXV. Inveni Portum


When my mother heard of my acceptance of a place at home, I think she
was scarcely well pleased. She may have withdrawn her supplies, in order
to starve me into a surrender, and force me to return with my family to
Virginia, and to dependence under her. We never, up to her dying day,
had any explanation on the pecuniary dispute between us. She cut off my
allowances: I uttered not a word; but managed to live without her aid.
I never heard that she repented of her injustice, or acknowledged it,
except from Harry’s private communication to me. In after days, when we
met, by a great gentleness in her behaviour, and an uncommon respect
and affection shown to my wife, Madam Esmond may have intended I should
understand her tacit admission that she had been wrong; but she made no
apology, nor did I ask one. Harry being provided for (whose welfare I
could not grudge), all my mother’s savings and economical schemes went
to my advantage, who was her heir. Time was when a few guineas would
have been more useful to me than hundreds which might come to me when
I had no need; but when Madam Esmond and I met, the period of necessity
was long passed away; I had no need to scheme ignoble savings, or to
grudge the doctor his fee: I had plenty, and she could but bring me
more. No doubt she suffered in her own mind to think that my children
had been hungry, and she had offered them no food; and that strangers
had relieved the necessity from which her proud heart had caused her to
turn aside. Proud? Was she prouder than I? A soft word of explanation
between us might have brought about a reconciliation years before it
came but I would never speak, nor did she. When I commit a wrong, and
know it subsequently, I love to ask pardon; but ‘tis as a satisfaction
to my own pride, and to myself I am apologising for having been wanting
to myself. And hence, I think (out of regard to that personage of ego),
I scarce ever could degrade myself to do a meanness. How do men feel
whose whole lives (and many men’s lives are) are lies, schemes, and
subterfuges? What sort of company do they keep when they are alone?
Daily in life I watch men whose every smile is an artifice, and every
wink is an hypocrisy. Doth such a fellow wear a mask in his own privacy,
and to his own conscience? If I choose to pass over an injury, I fear
‘tis not from a Christian and forgiving spirit: ‘tis because I can
afford to remit the debt, and disdain to ask a settlement of it. One
or two sweet souls I have known in my life (and perhaps tried) to whom
forgiveness is no trouble--a plant that grows naturally, as it were, in
the soil. I know how to remit, I say, not forgive. I wonder are we proud
men proud of being proud?

So I showed not the least sign of submission towards my parent in
Virginia yonder, and we continued for years to live in estrangement,
with occasionally a brief word or two (such as the announcement of the
birth of a child, or what not) passing between my wife and her. After
our first troubles in America about the Stamp Act, troubles fell on me
in London likewise. Though I have been on the Tory side in our quarrel
(as indeed upon the losing side in most controversies), having no doubt
that the Imperial Government had a full right to levy taxes in the
colonies, yet at the time of the dispute I must publish a pert letter to
a member of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, in which the question
of the habitual insolence of the mother country to the colonies was so
freely handled, and sentiments were uttered so disagreeable to persons
in power, that I was deprived of my place as hackney-coach licenser, to
the terror and horror of my uncle, who never could be brought to love
people in disgrace. He had grown to have an extreme affection for
my wife as well as my little boy; but towards myself, personally,
entertained a kind of pitying contempt which always infinitely amused
me. He had a natural scorn and dislike for poverty, and a corresponding
love for success and good fortune. Any opinion departing at all from the
regular track shocked and frightened him, and all truth-telling made him
turn pale. He must have had originally some warmth of heart and genuine
love of kindred: for, spite of the dreadful shocks I gave him, he
continued to see Theo and the child (and me too, giving me a
mournful recognition when we met); and though broken-hearted by my
free-spokenness, he did not refuse to speak to me as he had done at the
time of our first differences, but looked upon me as a melancholy lost
creature, who was past all worldly help or hope. Never mind, I must cast
about for some new scheme of life; and the repayment of Harry’s debt to
me at this juncture enabled me to live at least for some months even, or
years to come. O strange fatuity of youth! I often say. How was it that
we dared to be so poor and so little cast down?

At this time his Majesty’s royal uncle of Cumberland fell down
and perished in a fit; and, strange to say, his death occasioned a
remarkable change in my fortune. My poor Sir Miles Warrington never
missed any court ceremony to which he could introduce himself. He was
at all the drawing-rooms, christenings, balls, funerals of the court.
If ever a prince or princess was ailing, his coach was at their door:
Leicester Fields, Carlton House, Gunnersbury, were all the same to him,
and nothing must satisfy him now but going to the stout duke’s funeral.
He caught a great cold and an inflammation of the throat from standing
bareheaded at this funeral in the rain; and one morning, before almost
I had heard of his illness, a lawyer waits upon me at my lodgings in
Bloomsbury, and salutes me by the name of Sir George Warrington.

Party and fear of the future were over now. We laid the poor gentleman
by the side of his little son, in the family churchyard where so many
of his race repose. Little Miles and I were the chief mourners. An
obsequious tenantry bowed and curtseyed before us, and did their utmost
to conciliate my honour and my worship. The dowager and her daughter
withdrew to Bath presently; and I and my family took possession of the
house, of which I have been master for thirty years. Be not too eager,
O my son! Have but a little patience, and I too shall sleep under yonder
yew-trees, and the people will be tossing up their caps for Sir Miles.

The records of a prosperous country life are easily and briefly told.
The steward’s books show what rents were paid and forgiven, what crops
were raised, and in what rotation. What visitors came to us, and
how long they stayed: what pensioners my wife had, and how they were
doctored and relieved, and how they died: what year I was sheriff, and
how often the hounds met near us; all these are narrated in our house
journals, which any of my heirs may read who choose to take the
trouble. We could not afford the fine mansion in Hill Street, which
my predecessor had occupied; but we took a smaller house, in which,
however, we spent more money. We made not half the show (with liveries,
equipages, and plate) for which my uncle had been famous; but our beer
was stronger, and my wife’s charities were perhaps more costly than
those of the Dowager Lady Warrington. No doubt she thought there was no
harm in spoiling the Philistines; for she made us pay unconscionably for
the goods she left behind her in our country-house, and I submitted to
most of her extortions with unutterable good-humour. What a value she
imagined the potted plants in her greenhouses bore! What a price she
set upon that horrible old spinet she left in her drawing-room! and the
framed pieces of worsted-work, performed by the accomplished Dora and
the lovely Flora, had they been masterpieces of Titian or Vandyck, to
be sure my lady dowager could hardly have valued them at a higher price.
But though we paid so generously, though we were, I may say without
boast, far kinder to our poor than ever she had been, for a while we had
the very worst reputation in the county, where all sorts of stories
had been told to my discredit. I thought I might perhaps succeed to my
uncle’s seat in Parliament, as well as to his landed property; but I
found, I knew not how, that I was voted to be a person of very dangerous
opinions. I would not bribe: I would not coerce my own tenants to vote
for me in the election of ‘68. A gentleman came down from Whitehall
with a pocket-book full of bank-notes; and I found that I had no chance
against my competitor.

Bon Dieu! Now that we were at ease in respect of worldly means,--now
that obedient tenants bowed and curtseyed as we went to church; that we
drove to visit our friends, or to the neighbouring towns, in the great
family coach with the four fat horses; did we not often regret poverty,
and the dear little cottage at Lambeth, where Want was ever prowling
at the door? Did I not long to be bear-leading again, and vow that
translating for booksellers was not such very hard drudgery? When we
went to London, we made sentimental pilgrimages to all our old haunts.
I dare say my wife embraced all her landladies. You may be sure we asked
all the friends of those old times to share the comforts of our new home
with us. The Reverend Mr. Hagan and his lady visited us more than once.
His appearance in the pulpit at B------(where he preached very finely,
as we thought) caused an awful scandal there. Sampson came too, another
unlucky Levite, and was welcome as long as he would stay among us. Mr.
Johnson talked of coming, but he put us off once or twice. I suppose our
house was dull. I know that I myself would be silent for days, and fear
that my moodiness must often have tried the sweetest-tempered woman
in the world who lived with me. I did not care for field sports. The
killing one partridge was so like killing another, that I wondered how
men could pass days after days in the pursuit of that kind of slaughter.
Their fox-hunting stories would begin at four o’clock, when the
tablecloth was removed, and last till supper-time. I sate silent, and
listened: day after day I fell asleep: no wonder I was not popular with
my company.

What admission is this I am making? Here was the storm over, the rocks
avoided, the ship in port and the sailor not overcontented? Was Susan
I had been sighing for during the voyage, not the beauty I expected to
find her? In the first place, Susan and all the family can look in her
William’s logbook, and so, madam, I am not going to put my secrets
down there. No, Susan, I never had secrets from thee. I never cared for
another woman. I have seen more beautiful, but none that suited me as
well as your ladyship. I have met Mrs. Carter and Miss Mulso, and Mrs.
Thrale and Madam Kaufmann, and the angelical Gunnings, and her Grace of
Devonshire, and a host of beauties who were not angelic, by any means:
and I was not dazzled by them. Nay, young folks, I may have led your
mother a weary life, and been a very Bluebeard over her, but then I
had no other heads in the closet. Only, the first pleasure of taking
possession of our kingdom over, I own I began to be quickly tired of the
crown. When the captain wears it his Majesty will be a very different
Prince. He can ride a-hunting five days in the week, and find the sport
amusing. I believe he would hear the same sermon at church fifty times,
and not yawn more than I do at the first delivery. But sweet Joan,
beloved Baucis! being thy faithful husband and true lover always,
thy Darby is rather ashamed of having been testy so often! and, being
arrived at the consummation of happiness, Philemon asks pardon for
falling asleep so frequently after dinner. There came a period of my
life, when having reached the summit of felicity I was quite tired of
the prospect I had there: I yawned in Eden, and said, “Is this all?
What, no lions to bite? no rain to fall? no thorns to prick you in the
rose-bush when you sit down?--only Eve, for ever sweet and tender, and
figs for breakfast, dinner, supper, from week’s end to week’s end!”
 Shall I make my confessions? Hearken! Well, then, if I must make a clean
breast of it.

          *     *     *     *     *     *

Here three pages are torn out of Sir George Warrington’s MS. book, for
which the editor is sincerely sorry.


I know the theory and practice of the Roman Church; but, being bred of
another persuasion (and sceptical and heterodox regarding that), I can’t
help doubting the other, too, and wondering whether Catholics, in
their confessions, confess all? Do we Protestants ever do so; and has
education rendered those other fellow-men so different from us? At
least, amongst us, we are not accustomed to suppose Catholic priests or
laymen more frank and open than ourselves. Which brings me back to my
question,--does any man confess all? Does yonder dear creature know all
my life, who has been the partner of it for thirty years; who, whenever
I have told her a sorrow, has been ready with the best of her gentle
power to soothe it; who has watched when I did not speak, and when I was
silent has been silent herself, or with the charming hypocrisy of woman
has worn smiles and an easy appearance so as to make me imagine she
felt no care, or would not even ask to disturb her lord’s secret when he
seemed to indicate a desire to keep it private? Oh, the dear hypocrite!
Have I not watched her hiding the boys’ peccadilloes from papa’s anger?
Have I not known her cheat out of her housekeeping to pay off their
little extravagances; and talk to me with an artless face, as if she did
not know that our revered captain had had dealings with the gentlemen
of Duke’s Place, and our learned collegian, at the end of his terms, had
very pressing reasons for sporting his oak (as the phrase is) against
some of the University tradesmen? Why, from the very earliest days, thou
wise woman, thou wert for ever concealing something from me,--this
one stealing jam from the cupboard; that one getting into disgrace at
school; that naughty rebel (put on the caps, young folks, according to
the fit) flinging an inkstand at mamma in a rage, whilst I was told
the gown and the carpet were spoiled by accident. We all hide from one
another. We have all secrets. We are all alone. We sin by ourselves,
and, let us trust, repent too. Yonder dear woman would give her foot to
spare mine a twinge of the gout; but, when I have the fit, the pain is
in my slipper. At the end of the novel or the play, the hero and heroine
marry or die, and so there is an end of them as far as the poet is
concerned, who huzzas for his young couple till the postchaise turns the
corner; or fetches the hearse and plumes, and shovels them underground.
But when Mr. Random and Mr. Thomas Jones are married, is all over? Are
there no quarrels at home? Are there no Lady Bellastons abroad? are
there no constables to be outrun? no temptations to conquer us, or be
conquered by us? The Sirens sang after Ulysses long after his marriage,
and the suitors whispered in Penelope’s ear, and he and she had many a
weary day of doubt and care, and so have we all. As regards money I was
put out of trouble by the inheritance I made: but does not Atra Cura
sit behind baronets as well as equites? My friends in London used to
congratulate me on my happiness. Who would not like to be master of a
good house and a good estate? But can Gumbo shut the hall-door upon blue
devils, or lay them always in a red sea of claret? Does a man sleep
the better who has four-and-twenty hours to doze in? Do his intellects
brighten after a sermon from the dull old vicar; a ten minutes’ cackle
and flattery from the village apothecary; or the conversation of Sir
John and Sir Thomas with their ladies, who come ten moonlight muddy
miles to eat a haunch, and play a rubber? ‘Tis all very well to
have tradesmen bowing to your carriage-door, room made for you at
quarter-sessions, and my lady wife taken down the second or the third to
dinner: but these pleasures fade--nay, have their inconveniences. In our
part of the country, for seven years after we came to Warrington Manor,
our two what they called best neighbours were my Lord Tutbury and Sir
John Mudbrook. We are of an older date than the Mudbrooks; consequently,
my Lady Tutbury always fell to my lot, when we dined together, who
was deaf and fell asleep after dinner; or if I had Lady Mudbrook, she
chattered with a folly so incessant and intense, that even my wife could
hardly keep her complacency (consummate hypocrite as her ladyship is),
knowing the rage with which I was fuming at the other’s clatter. I come
to London. I show my tongue to Dr. Heberden. I pour out my catalogue of
complaints. “Psha, my dear Sir George!” says the unfeeling physician.
“Headaches, languor, bad sleep, bad temper--” (“Not bad temper: Sir
George has the sweetest temper in the world, only he is sometimes a
little melancholy,” says my wife.) “--Bad sleep, bad temper,” continues
the implacable doctor. “My dear lady, his inheritance has been his ruin,
and a little poverty and a great deal of occupation would do him all the
good in life.”

No, my brother Harry ought to have been the squire, with remainder to
my son Miles, of course. Harry’s letters were full of gaiety and good
spirits. His estate prospered: his negroes multiplied; his crops were
large; he was a member of our House of Burgesses; he adored his wife;
could he but have a child his happiness would be complete. Had Hal
been master of Warrington Manor-house, in my place, he would have been
beloved through the whole country; he would have been steward at all the
races, the gayest of all the jolly huntsmen, the bien venu at all the
mansions round about, where people scarce cared to perform the ceremony
of welcome at sight of my glum face. As for my wife, all the world liked
her, and agreed in pitying her. I don’t know how the report got abroad,
but ‘twas generally agreed that I treated her with awful cruelty, and
that for jealousy I was a perfect Bluebeard. Ah me! And so it is true
that I have had many dark hours; that I pass days in long silence; that
the conversation of fools and whipper-snappers makes me rebellious and
peevish, and that, when I feel contempt, I sometimes don’t know how to
conceal it, or I should say did not. I hope as I grow older I grow more
charitable. Because I do not love bawling and galloping after a fox,
like the captain yonder, I am not his superior; but, in this respect,
humbly own that he is mine. He has perceptions which are denied me;
enjoyments which I cannot understand. Because I am blind the world is
not dark. I try now and listen with respect when Squire Codgers talks
of the day’s run. I do my best to laugh when Captain Rattleton tells his
garrison stories. I step up to the harpsichord with old Miss Humby (our
neighbour from Beccles) and try and listen as she warbles her ancient
ditties. I play whist laboriously. Am I not trying to do the duties of
life? and I have a right to be garrulous and egotistical, because I have
been reading Montaigne all the morning.

I was not surprised, knowing by what influences my brother was led, to
find his name in the list of Virginia burgesses who declared that the
sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now,
and ever hath been, legally and constitutionally vested in the House
of Burgesses, and called upon the other colonies to pray for the Royal
interposition in favour of the violated rights of America. And it was
now, after we had been some three years settled in our English home,
that a correspondence between us and Madam Esmond began to take place.
It was my wife who (upon some pretext such as women always know how to
find) re-established the relations between us. Mr. Miles must need have
the small-pox, from which he miraculously recovered without losing
any portion of his beauty; and on his recovery the mother writes her
prettiest little wheedling letter to the grandmother of the fortunate
babe. She coaxes her with all sorts of modest phrases and humble
offerings of respect and goodwill. She narrates anecdotes of the
precocious genius of the lad (what hath subsequently happened, I wonder,
to stop the growth of that gallant young officer’s brains?), and she
must have sent over to his grandmother a lock of the darling boy’s hair,
for the old lady, in her reply, acknowledged the receipt of some such
present. I wonder, as it came from England, they allowed it to pass our
custom-house at Williamsburg. In return for these peace-offerings and
smuggled tokens of submission, comes a tolerably gracious letter from my
Lady of Castlewood. She inveighs against the dangerous spirit pervading
the colony: she laments to think that her unhappy son is consorting with
people who, she fears, will be no better than rebels and traitors. She
does not wonder, considering who his friends and advisers are. How can
a wife taken from an almost menial situation be expected to sympathise
with persons of rank and dignity who have the honour of the Crown at
heart? If evil times were coming for the monarchy (for the folks in
America appeared to be disinclined to pay taxes, and required that
everything should be done for them without cost), she remembered how
to monarchs in misfortune, the Esmonds--her father the Marquis
especially--had ever been faithful. She knew not what opinions (though
she might judge from my newfangled Lord Chatham) were in fashion in
England. She prayed, at least, she might hear that one of her sons was
not on the side of rebellion. When we came, in after days, to look over
old family papers in Virginia, we found “Letters from my daughter Lady
Warrington,” neatly tied up with a ribbon. My Lady Theo insisted I
should not open them; and the truth, I believe, is, that they were so
full of praises of her husband that she thought my vanity would suffer
from reading them.

When Madam began to write, she gave us brief notices of Harry and his
wife. “The two women,” she wrote, “still govern everything with my poor
boy at Fannystown (as he chooses to call his house). They must save
money there, for I hear but a shabby account of their manner of
entertaining. The Mount Vernon gentleman continues to be his great
friend, and he votes in the House of Burgesses very much as his
guide advises him. Why he should be so sparing of his money I cannot
understand: I heard, of five negroes who went with his equipages to my
Lord Bottetourt’s, only two had shoes to their feet. I had reasons to
save, having sons for whom I wished to provide, but he hath no children,
wherein he certainly is spared from much grief, though, no doubt, Heaven
in its wisdom means our good by the trials which, through our children,
it causes us to endure. His mother-in-law,” she added in one of her
letters, “has been ailing. Ever since his marriage, my poor Henry has
been the creature of these two artful women, and they rule him entirely.
Nothing, my dear daughter, is more contrary to common sense and to
Holy Scripture than this. Are we not told, Wives, be obedient to your
husbands? Had Mr. Warrington lived, I should have endeavoured to follow
up that sacred precept, holding that nothing so becomes a woman as
humility and obedience.”

Presently we had a letter sealed with black, and announcing the death
of our dear good Mountain, for whom I had a hearty regret and affection,
remembering her sincere love for us as children. Harry deplored the
event in his honest way, and with tears which actually blotted his
paper. And Madam Esmond, alluding to the circumstance, said: “My late
housekeeper, Mrs. Mountain, as soon as she found her illness was fatal,
sent to me requesting a last interview on her deathbed, intending,
doubtless, to pray my forgiveness for her treachery towards me. I sent
her word that I could forgive her as a Christian, and heartily hope
(though I confess I doubt it) that she had a due sense of her crime
towards me. But our meeting, I considered, was of no use, and could
only occasion unpleasantness between us. If she repented, though at the
eleventh hour, it was not too late, and I sincerely trusted that she
was now doing so. And, would you believe her lamentable and hardened
condition? she sent me word through Dinah, my woman, whom I dispatched
to her with medicines for her soul’s and her body’s health, that she
had nothing to repent of as far as regarded her conduct to me, and
she wanted to be left alone! Poor Dinah distributed the medicine to my
negroes, and our people took it eagerly--whilst Mrs. Mountain, left to
herself, succumbed to the fever. Oh, the perversity of human kind! This
poor creature was too proud to take my remedies, and is now beyond the
reach of cure and physicians. You tell me your little Miles is subject
to fits of cholic. My remedy, and I will beg you to let me know if
effectual, is,” etc. etc.--and here followed the prescription, which
thou didst not take, O my son, my heir, and my pride! because thy fond
mother had her mother’s favourite powder, on which in his infantine
troubles our firstborn was dutifully nurtured. Did words not exactly
consonant with truth pass between the ladies in their correspondence? I
fear my Lady Theo was not altogether candid: else how to account for a
phrase in one of Madam Esmond’s letters, who said: “I am glad to hear
the powders have done the dear child good. They are, if not on a first,
on a second or third application, almost infallible, and have been
the blessed means of relieving many persons round me, both infants and
adults, white and coloured. I send my grandson an Indian bow and arrows.
Shall these old eyes never behold him at Castlewood, I wonder, and is
Sir George so busy with his books and his politics that he can’t afford
a few months to his mother in Virginia? I am much alone now. My son’s
chamber is just as he left it: the same books are in the presses: his
little hanger and fowling-piece over the bed, and my father’s picture
over the mantelpiece. I never allow anything to be altered in his room
or his brother’s. I fancy the children playing near me sometimes, and
that I can see my dear father’s head as he dozes in his chair. Mine is
growing almost as white as my father’s. Am I never to behold my children
ere I go hence? The Lord’s will be done.”



CHAPTER LXXXVI. At Home


Such an appeal as this of our mother would have softened hearts much
less obdurate than ours; and we talked of a speedy visit to Virginia,
and of hiring all the Young Rachel’s cabin accommodation. But our child
must fall ill, for whom the voyage would be dangerous, and from whom the
mother of course could not part; and the Young Rachel made her voyage
without us that year. Another year there was another difficulty, in my
worship’s first attack of the gout (which occupied me a good deal, and
afterwards certainly cleared my wits and enlivened my spirits); and now
came another much sadder cause for delay in the sad news we received
from Jamaica. Some two years after our establishment at the Manor,
our dear General returned from his government, a little richer in the
world’s goods than when he went away, but having undergone a loss for
which no wealth could console him, and after which, indeed, he did
not care to remain in the West Indies. My Theo’s poor mother--the most
tender and affectionate friend (save one) I have ever had--died abroad
of the fever. Her last regret was that she should not be allowed to live
to see our children and ourselves in prosperity.

“She sees us, though we do not see her; and she thanks you, George, for
having been good to her children,” her husband said.

He, we thought, would not be long ere he joined her. His love for her
had been the happiness and business of his whole life. To be away from
her seemed living no more. It was pitiable to watch the good man as
he sate with us. My wife, in her air and in many tones and gestures,
constantly recalled her mother to the bereaved widower’s heart. What
cheer we could give him in his calamity we offered; but, especially,
little Hetty was now, under Heaven, his chief support and consolation.
She had refused more than one advantageous match in the Island, the
General told us; and on her return to England, my Lord Wrotham’s heir
laid himself at her feet. But she loved best to stay with her father,
Hetty said. As long as he was not tired of her she cared for no husband.

“Nay,” said we, when this last great match was proposed, “let the
General stay six months with us at the Manor here, and you can have him
at Oakhurst for the other six.”

But Hetty declared her father never could bear Oakhurst again now that
her mother was gone; and she would marry no man for his coronet and
money--not she! The General, when we talked this matter over, said
gravely that the child had no desire for marrying, owing possibly to
some disappointment in early life, of which she never spoke; and we,
respecting her feelings, were for our parts equally silent. My brother
Lambert had by this time a college living near to Winchester, and a wife
of course to adorn his parsonage. We professed but a moderate degree of
liking for this lady, though we made her welcome when she came to us.
Her idea regarding our poor Hetty’s determined celibacy was different
to that which I had. This Mrs. Jack was a chatterbox of a woman, in
the habit of speaking her mind very freely, and of priding herself
excessively on her skill in giving pain to her friends.

“My dear Sir George,” she was pleased to say, “I have often and often
told our dear Theo that I wouldn’t have a pretty sister in my house to
make tea for Jack when I was upstairs, and always to be at hand when I
was wanted in the kitchen or nursery, and always to be dressed neat and
in her best when I was very likely making pies or puddings or looking to
the children. I have every confidence in Jack, of course. I should like
to see him look at another woman, indeed! And so I have in Jemima but
they don’t come together in my house when I’m upstairs--that I promise
you! And so I told my sister Warrington.”

“Am I to understand,” says the General, “that you have done my Lady
Warrington the favour to warn her against her sister, my daughter Miss
Hester?”

“Yes, pa, of course I have. A duty is a duty, and a woman is a woman,
and a man’s a man, as I know very well. Don’t tell me! He is a man.
Every man is a man, with all his sanctified airs!”

“You yourself have a married sister, with whom you were staying when my
son Jack first had the happiness of making your acquaintance?” remarks
the General.

“Yes, of course I have a married sister; every one knows that and I have
been as good as a mother to her children, that I have!”

“And am I to gather from your conversation that your attractions proved
a powerful temptation for your sister’s husband?”

“Law, General! I don’t know how you can go for to say I ever said any
such a thing!” cries Mrs. Jack, red and voluble.

“Don’t you perceive, my dear madam, that it is you who have insinuated
as much, not only regarding yourself, but regarding my own two
daughters?”

“Never, never, never, as I’m a Christian woman! And it’s most cruel of
you to say so, sir. And I do say a sister is best out of the house, that
I do! And as Theo’s time is coming, I warn her, that’s all.”

“Have you discovered, my good madam, whether my poor Hetty has stolen
any of the spoons? When I came to breakfast this morning, my daughter
was alone, and there must have been a score of pieces of silver on the
table.”

“Law, sir! who ever said a word about spoons? Did I ever accuse the poor
dear? If I did, may I drop down dead at this moment on this hearth-rug!
And I ain’t used to be spoke to in this way. And me and Jack have both
remarked it; and I’ve done my duty, that I have.” And here Mrs. Jack
flounces out of the room, in tears.

“And has the woman had the impudence to tell you this, my child?”
 asks the General, when Theo (who is a little delicate) comes to the
tea-table.

“She has told me every day since she has been here. She comes into my
dressing-room to tell me. She comes to my nursery, and says, ‘Ah, I
wouldn’t have a sister prowling about my nursery, that I wouldn’t.’ Ah,
how pleasant it is to have amiable and well-bred relatives, say I.”

“Thy poor mother has been spared this woman,” groans the General.

“Our mother would have made her better, papa,” says Theo, kissing him.

“Yes, dear.” And I see that both of them are at their prayers.

But this must be owned, that to love one’s relatives is not always an
easy task; to live with one’s neighbours is sometimes not amusing. From
Jack Lambert’s demeanour next day, I could see that his wife had given
him her version of the conversation. Jack was sulky, but not dignified.
He was angry, but his anger did not prevent his appetite. He preached a
sermon for us which was entirely stupid. And little Miles, once more in
sables, sate at his grandfather’s side, his little hand placed in that
of the kind old man.

Would he stay and keep house for us during our Virginian trip? The
housekeeper should be put under the full domination of Hetty. The
butler’s keys should be handed over to him; for Gumbo, not I thought
with an over good grace, was to come with us to Virginia: having,
it must be premised, united himself with Mrs. Molly in the bonds of
matrimony, and peopled a cottage in my park with sundry tawny Gumbos.
Under the care of our good General and his daughter we left our house,
then; we travelled to London, and thence to Bristol, and our obsequious
agent there had the opportunity of declaring that he should offer up
prayers for our prosperity, and of vowing that children so beautiful as
ours (we had an infant by this time to accompany Miles) were never seen
on any ship before. We made a voyage without accident. How strange the
feeling was as we landed from our boat at Richmond! A coach and a host
of negroes were there in waiting to receive us; and hard by a gentleman
on horseback, with negroes in our livery, too, who sprang from his horse
and rushed up to embrace us. Not a little charmed were both of us to see
our dearest Hal. He rode with us to our mother’s door. Yonder she stood
on the steps to welcome us; and Theo knelt down to ask her blessing.

Harry rode in the coach with us as far as our mother’s house; but would
not, as he said, spoil sport by entering with us. “She sees me,” he
owned, “and we are pretty good friends; but Fanny and she are best
apart; and there is no love lost between ‘em, I can promise you. Come
over to me at the Tavern, George, when thou art free. And to-morrow I
shall have the honour to present her sister to Theo. ‘Twas only from
happening to be in town yesterday that I heard the ship was signalled,
and waited to see you. I have sent a negro boy home to my wife, and
she’ll be here to pay her respects to my Lady Warrington.” And Harry,
after this brief greeting, jumped out of the carriage, and left us to
meet our mother alone.

Since I parted from her I had seen a great deal of fine company, and
Theo and I had paid our respects to the King and Queen at St. James’s;
but we had seen no more stately person than this who welcomed us, and
raising my wife from her knee, embraced her and led her into the house.
‘Twas a plain, wood-built place, with a gallery round, as our Virginian
houses are; but if it had been a palace, with a little empress inside,
our reception could not have been more courteous. There was old Nathan,
still the major-domo, a score of kind black faces of blacks, grinning
welcome. Some whose names I remembered as children were grown out of
remembrance, to be sure, to be buxom lads and lasses; and some I had
left with black pates were grizzling now with snowy polls: and some who
were born since my time were peering at doorways with their great eyes
and little naked feet. It was, “I’m little Sip, Master George!” and “I’m
Dinah, Sir George!” and “I’m Master Miles’s boy!” says a little chap in
a new livery and boots of nature’s blacking. Ere the day was over the
whole household had found a pretext for passing before us, and grinning
and bowing and making us welcome. I don’t know how many repasts were
served to us. In the evening my Lady Warrington had to receive all
the gentry of the little town, which she did with perfect grace and
good-humour, and I had to shake hands with a few old acquaintances--old
enemies I was going to say; but I had come into a fortune and was no
longer a naughty prodigal. Why, a drove of fatted calves was killed
in my honour! My poor Hal was of the entertainment, but gloomy and
crestfallen. His mother spoke to him, but it was as a queen to a
rebellious prince, her son who was not yet forgiven. We two slipped away
from the company, and went up to the rooms assigned to me: but there, as
we began a free conversation, our mother, taper in hand, appeared with
her pale face. Did I want anything? Was everything quite as I wished
it? She had peeped in at the dearest children, who were sleeping like
cherubs. How she did caress them, and delight over them! How she was
charmed with Miles’s dominating airs, and the little Theo’s smiles and
dimples! “Supper is just coming on the table, Sir George. If you like
our cookery better than the tavern, Henry, I beg you to stay.” What a
different welcome there was in the words and tone addressed to each of
us! Hal hung down his head, and followed to the lower room. A clergyman
begged a blessing on the meal. He touched with not a little art and
eloquence upon our arrival at home, upon our safe passage across the
stormy waters, upon the love and forgiveness which awaited us in the
mansions of the Heavenly Parent when the storms of life were over.

Here was a new clergyman, quite unlike some whom I remembered about us
in earlier days, and I praised him, but Madam Esmond shook her head. She
was afraid his principles were very dangerous: she was afraid others had
adopted those dangerous principles. Had I not seen the paper signed by
the burgesses and merchants at Williamsburg the year before--the Lees,
Randolphs, Bassets, Washingtons, and the like, and oh, my dear, that
I should have to say it, our name, that is, your brother’s (by what
influence I do not like to say), and this unhappy Mr. Belman’s who
begged a blessing last night?

If there had been quarrels in our little colonial society when I left
home, what were these to the feuds I found raging on my return? We had
sent the Stamp Act to America, and been forced to repeal it. Then we
must try a new set of duties on glass, paper, and what not, and repeal
that Act too, with the exception of a duty on tea. From Boston to
Charleston the tea was confiscated. Even my mother, loyal as she was,
gave up her favourite drink; and my poor wife would have had to forgo
hers, but we had brought a quantity for our private drinking on board
ship, which had paid four times as much duty at home. Not that I for my
part would have hesitated about paying duty. The home Government must
have some means of revenue, or its pretensions to authority were idle.
They say the colonies were tried and tyrannised over; I say the home
Government was tried and tyrannised over. [‘Tis but an affair of
argument and history, now; we tried the question, and were beat; and
the matter is settled as completely as the conquest of Britain by the
Normans.) And all along, from conviction I trust, I own to have
taken the British side of the quarrel. In that brief and unfortunate
experience of war which I had had in my early life, the universal cry of
the army and well-affected persons was, that Mr. Braddock’s expedition
had failed, and defeat and disaster had fallen upon us in consequence
of the remissness, the selfishness, and the rapacity of many of the very
people for whose defence against the French arms had been taken up. The
colonists were for having all done for them, and for doing nothing, They
made extortionate bargains with the champions who came to defend them;
they failed in contracts; they furnished niggardly supplies; they
multiplied delays until the hour for beneficial action was past, and
until the catastrophe came which never need have occurred but for their
ill-will. What shouts of joy were there, and what ovations for the great
British Minister who had devised and effected the conquest of Canada!
Monsieur de Vaudreuil said justly that that conquest was the signal for
the defection of the North American colonies from their allegiance to
Great Britain; and my Lord Chatham, having done his best to achieve
the first part of the scheme, contributed more than any man in England
towards the completion of it. The colonies were insurgent, and he
applauded their rebellion. What scores of thousands of waverers must he
have encouraged into resistance! It was a general who says to an army
in revolt, “God save the king! My men, you have a right to mutiny!” No
wonder they set up his statue in this town, and his picture in t’other;
whilst here and there they hanged Ministers and Governors in effigy.
To our Virginian town of Williamsburg, some wiseacres must subscribe
to bring over a portrait of my lord, in the habit of a Roman orator
speaking in the Forum, to be sure, and pointing to the palace of
Whitehall, and the special window out of which Charles I. was beheaded!
Here was a neat allegory, and a pretty compliment to a British
statesman! I hear, however, that my lord’s head was painted from a bust,
and so was taken off without his knowledge.

Now my country is England, not America or Virginia; and I take, or
rather took, the English side of the dispute. My sympathies had always
been with home, where I was now a squire and a citizen: but had my lot
been to plant tobacco, and live on the banks of James River or Potomac,
no doubt my opinions had been altered. When, for instance, I visited
my brother at his new house and plantation, I found him and his wife as
staunch Americans as we were British. We had some words upon the matter
in dispute,--who had not in those troublesome times?--but our argument
was carried on without rancour; even my new sister could not bring us to
that, though she did her best when we were together, and in the curtain
lectures which I have no doubt she inflicted on her spouse, like a
notable housewife as she was. But we trusted in each other so entirely
that even Harry’s duty towards his wife would not make him quarrel with
his brother. He loved me from old times, when my word was law with him;
he still protested that he and every Virginian gentleman of his side
was loyal to the Crown. War was not declared as yet, and gentlemen of
different opinions were courteous enough to one another. Nay, at
our public dinners and festivals, the health of the King was still
ostentatiously drunk; and the assembly of every colony, though preparing
for Congress, though resisting all attempts at taxation on the part of
the home authorities, was loud in its expressions of regard for the King
our Father, and pathetic in its appeals to that paternal sovereign
to put away evil counsellors from him, and listen to the voice of
moderation and reason. Up to the last, our Virginian gentry were a
grave, orderly, aristocratic folk, with the strongest sense of their own
dignity and station. In later days, and nearer home, we have heard of
fraternisation and equality. Amongst the great folks of our Old World I
have never seen a gentleman standing more on his dignity and maintaining
it better than Mr. Washington: no--not the King against whom he took
arms. In the eyes of all the gentry of the French court, who gaily
joined in the crusade against us, and so took their revenge for Canada,
the great American chief always appeared as anax andron, and they
allowed that his better could not be seen in Versailles itself. Though
they were quarrelling with the Governor, the gentlemen of the House of
Burgesses still maintained amicable relations with him, and exchanged
dignified courtesies. When my Lord Bottetourt arrived, and held his
court at Williamsburg in no small splendour and state, all the gentry
waited upon him, Madam Esmond included. And at his death, Lord Dunmore,
who succeeded him, and brought a fine family with him, was treated with
the utmost respect by our gentry privately, though publicly the House of
Assembly and the Governor were at war.

Their quarrels are a matter of history, and concern me personally only
so far as this, that our burgesses being convened for the 1st of March
in the year after my arrival in Virginia, it was agreed that we should
all pay a visit to our capital, and our duty to the Governor. Since
Harry’s unfortunate marriage Madam Esmond had not performed this duty,
though always previously accustomed to pay it; but now that her eldest
son was arrived in the colony, my mother opined that we must certainly
wait upon his Excellency the Governor, nor were we sorry, perhaps,
to get away from our little Richmond to enjoy the gaieties of the
provincial capital. Madam engaged, and at a great price, the best house
to be had at Richmond for herself and her family. Now I was rich, her
generosity was curious. I had more than once to interpose (her old
servants likewise wondering at her new way of life), and beg her not to
be so lavish. But she gently said, in former days she had occasion to
save, which now existed no more. Harry had enough, sure, with such a
wife as he had taken out of the housekeeper’s room. If she chose to be a
little extravagant now, why should she hesitate? She had not her dearest
daughter and grandchildren with her every day (she fell in love with all
three of them, and spoiled them as much as they were capable of being
spoiled). Besides, in former days I could not accuse her of too much
extravagance, and this I think was almost the only allusion she made to
the pecuniary differences between us. So she had her people dressed in
their best, and her best wines, plate, and furniture from Castlewood by
sea at no small charge, and her dress in which she had been married in
George II.’s reign, and we all flattered ourselves that our coach made
the greatest figure of any except his Excellency’s, and we engaged
Signor Formicalo, his Excellency’s major-domo, to superintend the series
of feasts that were given in my honour; and more fleshpots were set
a-stewing in our kitchens in one month, our servants said, than had been
known in the family since the young gentlemen went away. So great was
Theo’s influence over my mother, that she actually persuaded her, that
year, to receive our sister Fanny, Hal’s wife, who would have stayed
upon the plantation rather than face Madam Esmond. But, trusting to
Theo’s promise of amnesty, Fanny (to whose house we had paid more than
one visit) came up to town, and made her curtsey to Madam Esmond, and
was forgiven. And rather than be forgiven in that way, I own, for my
part, that I would prefer perdition or utter persecution.

“You know these, my dear?” says Madam Esmond, pointing to her fine
silver sconces. “Fanny hath often cleaned them when she was with me
at Castlewood. And this dress, too, Fanny knows, I dare say? Her poor
mother had the care of it. I always had the greatest confidence in her.”

Here there is wrath flashing from Fanny’s eyes, which our mother, who
has forgiven her, does not perceive--not she!

“Oh, she was a treasure to me!” Madam resumes. “I never should have
nursed my boys through their illnesses but for your mother’s admirable
care of them. Colonel Lee, permit me to present you to my daughter,
my Lady Warrington. Her ladyship is a neighbour of your relatives the
Bunburys at home. Here comes his Excellency. Welcome, my lord!”

And our princess performs before his lordship one of those curtseys of
which she was not a little proud; and I fancy I see some of the company
venturing to smile.

“By George! madam,” says Mr. Lee, “since Count Borulawski, I have not
seen a bow so elegant as your ladyship’s.”

“And pray, sir, who was Count Borulawski?” asks Madam.

“He was a nobleman high in favour with his Polish Majesty,” replies Mr.
Lee. “May I ask you, madam, to present me to your distinguished son?”

“This is Sir George Warrington,” says my mother, pointing to me.

“Pardon me, madam. I meant Captain Warrington, who was by Mr. Wolfe’s
side when he died. I had been contented to share his fate, so I had been
near him.”

And the ardent Lee swaggers up to Harry, and takes his hand with
respect, and pays him a compliment or two, which makes me, at least,
pardon him for his late impertinence; for my dearest Hal walks gloomily
through his mother’s rooms in his old uniform of the famous corps which
he has quitted.

We had had many meetings, which the stern mother could not interrupt,
and in which that instinctive love which bound us to one another, and
which nothing could destroy, had opportunity to speak. Entirely unlike
each other in our pursuits, our tastes, our opinions--his life being one
of eager exercise, active sport, and all the amusements of the field,
while mine is to dawdle over books and spend my time in languid
self-contemplation--we have, nevertheless, had such a sympathy as almost
passes the love of women. My poor Hal confessed as much to me, for
his part, in his artless manner, when we went away without wives or
womankind, except a few negroes left in the place, and passed a week at
Castlewood together.

The ladies did not love each other. I know enough of my Lady Theo,
to see after a very few glances whether or not she takes a liking to
another of her amiable sex. All my powers of persuasion or command fail
to change the stubborn creature’s opinion. Had she ever said a word
against Mrs. This or Miss That? Not she! Has she been otherwise than
civil? No, assuredly! My Lady Theo is polite to a beggar-woman, treats
her kitchenmaids like duchesses, and murmurs a compliment to the dentist
for his elegant manner of pulling her tooth out. She would black my
boots, or clean the grate, if I ordained it (always looking like a
duchess the while); but as soon as I say to her, “My dear creature, be
fond of this lady, or t’other!” all obedience ceases; she executes the
most refined curtseys; smiles and kisses even to order; but performs
that mysterious undefinable freemasonic signal, which passes between
women, by which each knows that the other hates her. So, with regard
to Fanny, we had met at her house, and at others. I remembered her
affectionately from old days, I fully credited poor Hal’s violent
protests and tearful oaths, that, by George, it was our mother’s
persecution which made him marry her. He couldn’t stand by and see a
poor thing tortured as she was, without coming to her rescue; no,
by heavens, he couldn’t! I say I believed all this; and had for my
sister-in-law a genuine compassion, as well as an early regard; and yet
I had no love to give her; and, in reply to Hal’s passionate outbreaks
in praise of her beauty and worth, and eager queries to me whether I
did not think her a perfect paragon? I could only answer with faint
compliments or vague approval, feeling all the while that I was
disappointing my poor ardent fellow, and cursing inwardly that revolt
against flattery and falsehood into which I sometimes frantically rush.
Why should I not say, “Yes dear Hal, thy wife is a paragon; her singing
is delightful, her hair and shape are beautiful;” as I might have said
by a little common stretch of politeness? Why could I not cajole this
or that stupid neighbour or relative, as I have heard Theo do a thousand
times, finding all sorts of lively prattle to amuse them, whilst I sit
before them dumb and gloomy? I say it was a sin not to have more words
to say in praise of Fanny. We ought to have praised her, we ought to
have liked her. My Lady Warrington certainly ought to have liked her,
for she can play the hypocrite, and I cannot. And there was this young
creature--pretty, graceful, shaped like a nymph, with beautiful black
eyes--and we cared for them no more than for two gooseberries!
At Warrington my wife and I, when we pretended to compare notes,
elaborately complimented each other on our new sister’s beauty. What
lovely eyes!--Oh yes! What a sweet little dimple on her chin!--Ah oui!
What wonderful little feet!--Perfectly Chinese! where should we in
London get slippers small enough for her? And, these compliments
exhausted, we knew that we did not like Fanny the value of one
penny-piece; we knew that we disliked her; we knew that we ha... Well,
what hypocrites women are! We heard from many quarters how eagerly my
brother had taken up the new anti-English opinion, and what a champion
he was of so-called American rights and freedom. “It is her doing, my
dear,” says I to my wife. “If I had said so much, I am sure you
would have scolded me,” says my Lady Warrington, laughing: and I did
straightway begin to scold her, and say it was most cruel of her to
suspect our new sister; and what earthly right had we to do so? But
I say again, I know Madam Theo so well, that when once she has got a
prejudice against a person in her little head, not all the king’s horses
nor all the king’s men will get it out again. I vow nothing would induce
her to believe that Harry was not henpecked--nothing.

Well, we went to Castlewood together without the women, and stayed at
the dreary, dear old place, where we had been so happy, and I, at least,
so gloomy. It was winter, and duck-time, and Harry went away to the
river, and shot dozens and scores and bushels of canvasbacks, whilst I
remained in my grandfather’s library amongst the old mouldering books
which I loved in my childhood--which I see in a dim vision still resting
on a little boy’s lap, as he sits by an old white-headed gentleman’s
knee. I read my books; I slept in my own bed and room--religiously kept,
as my mother told me, and left as on the day when I went to Europe.
Hal’s cheery voice would wake me, as of old. Like all men who love to
go a-field, he was an early riser: he would come and wake me, and sit
on the foot of the bed and perfume the air with his morning pipe, as
the house negroes laid great logs on the fire. It was a happy time! Old
Nathan had told me of cunning crypts where ancestral rum and claret
were deposited. We had had cares, struggles, battles, bitter griefs, and
disappointments; we were boys again as we sat there together. I am a boy
now even as I think of the time.

That unlucky tea-tax, which alone of the taxes lately imposed upon the
colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with
defiance throughout America. ‘Tis true we paid a shilling in the pound
at home, and asked only threepence from Boston or Charleston; but as a
question of principle, the impost was refused by the provinces, which
indeed ever showed a most spirited determination to pay as little as
they could help. In Charleston the tea-ships were unloaded, and the
cargoes stored in cellars. From New York and Philadelphia, the vessels
were turned back to London. In Boston (where there was an armed force,
whom the inhabitants were perpetually mobbing), certain patriots,
painted and disguised as Indians, boarded the ships, and flung the
obnoxious cargoes into the water. The wrath of our white Father was
kindled against this city of Mohocks in masquerade. The notable Boston
Port Bill was brought forward in the British House of Commons; the port
was closed, and the Custom House removed to Salem. The Massachusetts
Charter was annulled; and,--in just apprehension that riots might ensue,
in dealing with the perpetrators of which the colonial courts might be
led to act partially,--Parliament decreed that persons indicted for
acts of violence and armed resistance, might be sent home, or to
another colony, for trial. If such acts set all America in a flame, they
certainly drove all wellwisbers of our country into a fury. I might have
sentenced Master Miles Warrington, at five years old, to a whipping, and
he would have cried, taken down his little small-clothes and submitted:
but suppose I offered (and he richly deserving it) to chastise Captain
Miles of the Prince’s Dragoons? He would whirl my paternal cane out of
my hand, box my hair-powder out of my ears. Lord a-mercy! I tremble at
the very idea of the controversy? He would assert his independence in
a word; and if, I say, I think the home Parliament had a right to levy
taxes in the colonies, I own that we took means most captious, most
insolent, most irritating, and, above all, most impotent, to assert our
claim.

My Lord Dunmore, our Governor of Virginia, upon Lord Bottetourt’s death,
received me into some intimacy soon after my arrival in the colony,
being willing to live on good terms with all our gentry. My mother’s
severe loyalty was no secret to him; indeed, she waved the king’s banner
in all companies, and talked so loudly and resolutely, that Randolph and
Patrick Henry himself were struck dumb before her. It was Madam Esmond’s
celebrated reputation for loyalty (his Excellency laughingly told me)
which induced him to receive her eldest son to grace.

“I have had the worst character of you from home,” his lordship said.
“Little birds whisper to me, Sir George, that you are a man of the
most dangerous principles. You are a friend of Mr. Wilkes and Alderman
Beckford. I am not sure you have not been at Medmenham Abbey. You have
lived with players, poets, and all sorts of wild people. I have been
warned against you, sir, and I find you----”

“Not so black as I have been painted,” I interrupted his lordship, with
a smile.

“Faith,” says my lord, “if I tell Sir George Warrington that he seems to
me a very harmless, quiet gentleman, and that ‘tis a great relief to me
to talk to him amidst these loud politicians; these lawyers with their
perpetual noise about Greece and Rome; these Virginian squires who are
for ever professing their loyalty and respect, whilst they are shaking
their fists in my face--I hope nobody overhears us,” says my lord, with
an arch smile, “and nobody will carry my opinions home.”

His lordship’s ill opinion having been removed by a better knowledge of
me, our acquaintance daily grew more intimate; and, especially between
the ladies of his family and my own, a close friendship arose--between
them and my wife at least. Hal’s wife, received kindly at the little
provincial court, as all ladies were, made herself by no means popular
there by the hot and eager political tone which she adopted. She
assailed all the Government measures with indiscriminating acrimony.
Were they lenient? She said the perfidious British Government was only
preparing a snare, and biding its time until it could forge heavier
chains for unhappy America. Were they angry? Why did not every American
citizen rise, assert his rights as a freeman, and serve every British
governor, officer, soldier, as they had treated the East India Company’s
tea? My mother, on the other hand, was pleased to express her opinions
with equal frankness, and, indeed, to press her advice upon his
Excellency with a volubility which may have fatigued that representative
of the Sovereign. Call out the militia; send for fresh troops from New
York, from home, from anywhere; lock up the Capitol! (this advice
was followed, it must be owned) and send every one of the ringleaders
amongst those wicked burgesses to prison! was Madam Esmond’s daily
counsel to the Governor by word and letter. And if not only the
burgesses, but the burgesses’ wives could have been led off to
punishment and captivity, I think this Brutus of a woman would scarce
have appealed against the sentence.



CHAPTER LXXXVII. The Last of God Save the King


What perverse law of Fate is it that ever places me in a minority?
Should a law be proposed to hand over this realm to the Pretender of
Rome, or the Grand Turk, and submit it to the new sovereign’s religion,
it might pass, as I should certainly be voting against it. At home in
Virginia, I found myself disagreeing with everybody as usual. By the
Patriots I was voted (as indeed I professed myself to be) a Tory; by the
Tories I was presently declared to be a dangerous Republican. The time
was utterly out of joint. O cursed spite! Ere I had been a year in
Virginia, how I wished myself back by the banks of the Waveney! But the
aspect of affairs was so troublous, that I could not leave my mother,
a lone lady, to face possible war and disaster, nor would she quit the
country at such a juncture, nor should a man of spirit leave it. At his
Excellency’s table, and over his Excellency’s plentiful claret, that
point was agreed on by numbers of the well-affected, that vow was vowed
over countless brimming bumpers. No: it was statue signum, signifer!
We Cavaliers would all rally round it; and at these times, our Governor
talked like the bravest of the brave.

Now, I will say, of all my Virginian acquaintance, Madam Esmond was the
most consistent. Our gentlefolks had come in numbers to Williamsburg;
and a great number of them proposed to treat her Excellency, the
Governor’s lady, to a ball, when the news reached us of the Boston Port
Bill. Straightway the House of Burgesses adopts an indignant protest
against this measure of the British Parliament, and decrees a solemn day
of fast and humiliation throughout the country, and of solemn prayer to
Heaven to avert the calamity of Civil War. Meanwhile, the invitation to
my Lady Dunmore having been already given and accepted, the gentlemen
agreed that their ball should take place on the appointed evening, and
then sackcloth and ashes should be assumed some days afterwards.

“A ball!” says Madam Esmond. “I go to a ball which is given by a set of
rebels who are going publicly to insult his Majesty a week afterwards!
I will die sooner!” And she wrote to the gentlemen who were stewards for
the occasion to say, that viewing the dangerous state of the country,
she, for her part, could not think of attending a ball.

What was her surprise then, the next time she went abroad in her chair,
to be cheered by a hundred persons, white and black, and shouts of
“Huzzah, Madam!” “Heaven bless your ladyship!” They evidently thought
her patriotism had caused her determination not to go to the ball.

Madam, that there should be no mistake, puts her head out of the chair,
and cries out “God save the King” as loud as she can. The people cried
“God save the King,” too. Everybody cried “God save the King” in those
days. On the night of that entertainment, my poor Harry, as a Burgess
of the House, and one of the givers of the feast, donned his uniform red
coat of Wolfe’s (which he so soon was to exchange for another colour),
and went off with Madam Fanny to the ball. My Lady Warrington and her
humble servant, as being strangers in the country, and English people as
it were, were permitted by Madam to attend the assembly from which she
of course absented herself. I had the honour to dance a country-dance
with the lady of Mount Vernon, whom I found a most lively, pretty, and
amiable partner; but am bound to say that my wife’s praises of her were
received with a very grim acceptance by my mother, when Lady Warrington
came to recount the events of the evening. Could not Sir George
Warrington have danced with my Lady Dunmore or her daughters, or with
anybody but Mrs. Washington; to be sure the Colonel thought so well of
himself and his wife, that no doubt he considered her the grandest lady
in the room; and she who remembered him a road-surveyor at a guinea a
day! Well, indeed! there was no measuring the pride of these provincial
upstarts, and as for this gentleman, my Lord Dunmore’s partiality for
him had evidently turned his head. I do not know about Mr. Washington’s
pride, I know that my good mother never could be got to love him or
anything that was his.

She was no better pleased with him for going to the ball, than with his
conduct three days afterwards, when the day of fast and humiliation
was appointed, and when he attended the service which our new clergyman
performed. She invited Mr. Belman to dinner that day, and sundry
colonial authorities. The clergyman excused himself. Madam Esmond tossed
up her head, and said he might do as he liked. She made a parade of a
dinner; she lighted her house up at night, when all the rest of the city
was in darkness and gloom; she begged Mr. Hardy, one of his Excellency’s
aides-de-camp, to sing “God save the King,” to which the people in
the street outside listened, thinking that it might be a part of some
religious service which Madam was celebrating; but then she called
for “Britons, strike home!” which the simple young gentleman just from
Europe began to perform, when a great yell arose in the street, and
a large stone, flung from some rebellious hand, plumped into the
punch-bowl before me, and scattered it and its contents about our
dining-room.

My mother went to the window nothing daunted. I can see her rigid little
figure now, as she stands with a tossed-up head, outstretched frilled
arms, and the twinkling stars for a background, and sings in chorus,
“Britons, strike home! strike home!” The crowd in front of the palings
shout and roar, “Silence! for shame! go back!” but she will not go back,
not she. “Fling more stones, if you dare!” says the brave little lady;
and more might have come, but some gentlemen issuing out of the Raley
Tavern interpose with the crowd. “You mustn’t insult a lady,” says a
voice I think I know. “Huzza, Colonel! Hurrah, Captain! God bless
your honour!” say the people in the street. And thus the enemies are
pacified.

My mother, protesting that the whole disturbance was over, would have
had Mr. Hardy sing another song, but he gave a sickly grin, and said,
“he really did not like to sing to such accompaniments,” and the
concert for that evening was ended; though I am bound to say that some
scoundrels returned at night, frightened my poor wife almost out of
wits, and broke every single window in the front of our tenement.
“Britons, strike home!” was a little too much; Madam should have
contented herself with “God save the King.” Militia was drilled,
bullets were cast, supplies of ammunition got ready, cunning plans for
disappointing the royal ordinances devised and carried out; but, to be
sure, “God save the King” was the cry everywhere, and in reply to my
objections to the gentlemen-patriots, “Why, you are scheming for a
separation; you are bringing down upon you the inevitable wrath of the
greatest power in the world!”--the answer to me always was, “We mean no
separation at all; we yield to no men in loyalty; we glory in the name
of Britons,” and so forth, and so forth. The powder-barrels were heaped
in the cellar, the train was laid, but Mr. Fawkes was persistent in his
dutiful petitions to King and Parliament and meant no harm, not he!
‘Tis true when I spoke of the power of our country, I imagined she
would exert it; that she would not expect to overcome three millions
of fellow-Britons on their own soil with a few battalions, a half-dozen
generals from Bond Street, and a few thousand bravos hired out of
Germany. As if we wanted to insult the thirteen colonies as well as to
subdue them, we must set upon them these hordes of Hessians, and the
murderers out of the Indian wigwams. Was our great quarrel not to be
fought without tali auxilio and istis defensoribus? Ah! ‘tis easy, now
we are worsted, to look over the map of the great empire wrested from
us, and show how we ought not to have lost it. Long Island ought to
have exterminated Washington’s army; he ought never to have come out of
Valley Forge except as a prisoner. The South was ours after the battle
of Camden, but for the inconceivable meddling of the Commander-in-Chief
at New York, who paralysed the exertions of the only capable British
General who appeared during the war, and sent him into that miserable
cul-de-sac at York Town, whence he could only issue defeated and a
prisoner. Oh, for a week more! a day more, an hour more of darkness
or light! In reading over our American campaigns from their unhappy
commencement to their inglorious end, now that we are able to see the
enemy’s movements and conditions as well as our own, I fancy we can see
how an advance, a march, might have put enemies into our power who had
no means to withstand it, and changed the entire issue of the struggle.
But it was ordained by Heaven, and for the good, as we can now have no
doubt, of both empires, that the great Western Republic should separate
from us: and the gallant soldiers who fought on her side, their
indomitable and heroic Chief above all, had the glory of facing and
overcoming, not only veteran soldiers amply provided and inured to war,
but wretchedness, cold, hunger, dissensions, treason within their own
camp, where all must have gone to rack, but for the pure unquenchable
flame of patriotism that was for ever burning in the bosom of the
heroic leader. What a constancy, what a magnanimity, what a surprising
persistence against fortune! Washington before the enemy was no better
nor braver than hundreds that fought with him or against him (who has
not heard the repeated sneers against “Fabius” in which his factious
captains were accustomed to indulge?), but Washington the Chief of a
nation in arms, doing battle with distracted parties; calm in the midst
of conspiracy; serene against the open foe before him and the darker
enemies at his back; Washington inspiring order and spirit into troops
hungry and in rags; stung by ingratitude, but betraying no anger, and
ever ready to forgive; in defeat invincible, magnanimous in conquest,
and never so sublime as on that day when he laid down his victorious
sword and sought his noble retirement:--here indeed is a character to
admire and revere; a life without a stain, a fame without a flaw. Quando
invenies parem? In that more extensive work, which I have planned and
partly written on the subject of this great war, I hope I have done
justice to the character of its greatest leader. [And I trust that in
the opinions I have recorded regarding him, I have shown that I also
can be just and magnanimous towards those who view me personally with
no favour. For my brother Hal being at Mount Vernon, and always eager to
bring me and his beloved Chief on good terms, showed his Excellency some
of the early sheets of my History. General Washington (who read but
few books, and had not the slightest pretensions to literary taste)
remarked, “If you will have my opinion, my dear General, I think Sir
George’s projected work, from the specimen I have of it, is certain
to offend both parties.”--G. E. W.]. And this from the sheer force
of respect which his eminent virtues extorted. With the young Mr.
Washington of my own early days I had not the honour to enjoy much
sympathy: though my brother, whose character is much more frank and
affectionate than mine, was always his fast friend in early times, when
they were equals, as in latter days when the General, as I do own and
think, was all mankind’s superior.

I have mentioned that contrariety in my disposition, and, perhaps, in my
brother’s, which somehow placed us on wrong sides in the quarrel which
ensued, and which from this time forth raged for five years, until the
mother country was fain to acknowledge her defeat. Harry should have
been the Tory, and I the Whig. Theoretically my opinions were very
much more liberal than those of my brother, who, especially after
his marriage, became what our Indian nabobs call a Bahadoor--a person
ceremonious, stately, and exacting respect. When my Lord Dunmore, for
instance, talked about liberating the negroes, so as to induce them to
join the King’s standard, Hal was for hanging the Governor and the Black
Guards (as he called them) whom his Excellency had crimped. “If you,
gentlemen are fighting for freedom,” says I, “sure the negroes may
fight, too.” On which Harry roars out, shaking his fist, “Infernal
villains, if I meet any of ‘em, they shall die by this hand!” And
my mother agreed that this idea of a negro insurrection was the most
abominable and parricidal notion which had ever sprung up in her unhappy
country. She at least was more consistent than brother Hal. She would
have black and white obedient to the powers that be: whereas Hal only
could admit that freedom was the right of the latter colour.

As a proof of her argument, Madam Esmond and Harry too would point to
an instance in our own family in the person of Mr. Gumbo. Having got his
freedom from me, as a reward for his admirable love and fidelity to me
when times were hard, Gumbo, on his return to Virginia, was scarce a
welcome guest in his old quarters, amongst my mother’s servants. He was
free, and they were not: he was, as it were, a centre of insurrection.
He gave himself no small airs of protection and consequence amongst
them; bragging of his friends in Europe (“at home,” as he called it),
and his doings there; and for a while bringing the household round about
him to listen to him and admire him, like the monkey who had seen the
world. Now, Sady, Hal’s boy, who went to America of his own desire,
was not free. Hence jealousies between him and Mr. Gum; and battles,
in which they both practised the noble art of boxing and butting, which
they had learned at Marybone Gardens and Hockley-in-the-Hole. Nor was
Sady the only jealous person: almost all my mother’s servants hated
Signor Gumbo for the airs which he gave himself; and I am sorry to
say, that our faithful Molly, his wife, was as jealous as his old
fellow-servants. The blacks could not pardon her for having demeaned
herself so far as to marry one of their kind. She met with no respect,
could exercise no authority, came to her mistress with ceaseless
complaints of the idleness, knavery, lies, stealing of the black people;
and finally with a story of jealousy against a certain Dinah, or Diana,
who, I heartily trust, was as innocent as her namesake the moonlight
visitant of Endymion. Now, on the article of morality Madam Esmond was
a very Draconess; and a person accused was a person guilty. She made
charges against Mr. Gumbo to which he replied with asperity. Forgetting
that he was a free gentleman, my mother now ordered Gumbo to be whipped,
on which Molly flew at her ladyship, all her wrath at her husband’s
infidelity vanishing at the idea of the indignity put upon him; there
was a rebellion in our house at Castlewood. A quarrel took place between
me and my mother, as I took my man’s side. Hal and Fanny sided with her,
on the contrary; and in so far the difference did good, as it brought
about some little intimacy between Madam and her younger children.
This little difference was speedily healed; but it was clear that
the Standard of Insurrection must be removed out of our house; and we
determined that Mr. Gumbo and his lady should return to Europe.

My wife and I would willingly have gone with them, God wot, for our
boy sickened and lost his strength, and caught the fever in our swampy
country; but at this time she was expecting to lie in (of our son
Henry), and she knew, too, that I had promised to stay in Virginia. It
was agreed that we should send the two back; but when I offered Theo to
go, she said her place was with her husband;--her father and Hetty at
home would take care of our children; and she scarce would allow me to
see a tear in her eyes whilst she was making her preparations for the
departure of her little ones. Dost thou remember the time, madam, and
the silence round the worktables, as the piles of little shirts are made
ready for the voyage? and the stealthy visits to the children’s chambers
whilst they are asleep and yet with you? and the terrible time of
parting, as our barge with the servants and children rows to the ship,
and you stand on the shore? Had the Prince of Wales been going on that
voyage, he could not have been better provided. Where, sirrah, is the
Tompion watch your grandmother gave you? and how did you survive the
boxes of cakes which the good lady stowed away in your cabin?

The ship which took out my poor Theo’s children, returned with the
Reverend Mr. Hagan and my Lady Maria on board, who meekly chose to
resign her rank, and was known in the colony (which was not to be a
colony very long) only as Mrs. Hagan. At the time when I was in favour
with my Lord Dunmore, a living falling vacant in Westmoreland county, he
gave it to our kinsman, who arrived in Virginia time enough to christen
our boy Henry, and to preach some sermons on the then gloomy state of
affairs, which Madam Esmond pronounced to be prodigious fine. I think my
Lady Maria won Madam’s heart by insisting on going out of the room after
her. “My father, your brother, was an earl, ‘tis true,” says she, “but
you know your ladyship is a marquis’s daughter, and I never can think of
taking precedence of you!” So fond did Madam become of her niece, that
she even allowed Hagan to read plays--my own humble compositions amongst
others--and was fairly forced to own that there was merit in the tragedy
of Pocahontas, which our parson delivered with uncommon energy and fire.

Hal and his wife came but rarely to Castlewood and Richmond when the
chaplain and his lady were with us. Fanny was very curt and rude with
Maria, used to giggle and laugh strangely in her company, and repeatedly
remind her of her age, to our mother’s astonishment, who would
often ask, was there any cause of quarrel between her niece and her
daughter-in-law? I kept my own counsel on these occasions, and was often
not a little touched by the meekness with which the elder lady bore her
persecutions. Fanny loved to torture her in her husband’s presence
(who, poor fellow, was also in happy ignorance about his wife’s early
history), and the other bore her agony, wincing as little as might be. I
sometimes would remonstrate with Madam Harry, and ask her was she a Red
Indian, that she tortured her victims so? “Have not I had torture
enough in my time?” says the young lady, and looked as though she was
determined to pay back the injuries inflicted on her.

“Nay,” says I, “you were bred in our wigwam, and I don’t remember
anything but kindness!”

“Kindness!” cries she. “No slave was ever treated as I was. The blows
which wound most, often are those which never are aimed. The people who
hate us are not those we have injured.”

I thought of little Fanny in our early days, silent, smiling, willing to
run and do all our biddings for us, and I grieved for my poor brother,
who had taken this sly creature into his bosom.



CHAPTER LXXXVIII. Yankee Doodle comes to Town


One of the uses to which we put America in the days of our British
dominion was to make it a refuge for our sinners. Besides convicts and
assigned servants whom we transported to our colonies, we discharged
on their shores scapegraces and younger sons, for whom dissipation,
despair, and bailiffs made the old country uninhabitable. And as Mr.
Cook, in his voyages, made his newly discovered islanders presents of
English animals (and other specimens of European civilisation), we used
to take care to send samples of our black sheep over to the colonies,
there to browse as best they might, and propagate their precious breed.
I myself was perhaps a little guilty in this matter, in busying
myself to find a living in America for the worthy Hagan, husband of my
kinswoman,--at least was guilty in so far as this, that as we could get
him no employment in England, we were glad to ship him to Virginia, and
give him a colonial pulpit-cushion to thump. He demeaned himself there
as a brave honest gentleman, to be sure; he did his duty thoroughly by
his congregation, and his king too; and in so far did credit to my
small patronage. Madam Theo used to urge this when I confided to her my
scruples of conscience on this subject, and show, as her custom was and
is, that my conduct in this, as in all other matters, was dictated by
the highest principle of morality and honour. But would I have given
Hagan our living at home, and selected him and his wife to minister
to our parish? I fear not. I never had a doubt of our cousin’s sincere
repentance; but I think I was secretly glad when she went to work it out
in the wilderness. And I say this, acknowledging my pride and my error.
Twice, when I wanted them most, this kind Maria aided me with her
sympathy and friendship. She bore her own distresses courageously, and
soothed those of others with admirable affection and devotion. And yet
I, and some of mine (not Theo), would look down upon her. Oh, for shame,
for shame on our pride!

My poor Lady Maria was not the only one of our family who was to be
sent out of the way to American wildernesses. Having borrowed, stolen,
cheated at home, until he could cheat, borrow, and steal no more, the
Honourable William Esmond, Esquire, was accommodated with a place at New
York; and his noble brother and royal master heartily desired that they
might see him no more. When the troubles began, we heard of the fellow
and his doings in his new habitation. Lies and mischief were his
avant-couriers wherever he travelled. My Lord Dunmore informed me that
Mr. Will declared publicly, that our estate of Castlewood was only ours
during his brother’s pleasure; that his father, out of consideration for
Madam Esmond, his lordship’s half-sister, had given her the place for
life, and that he, William, was in negotiation with his brother, the
present Lord Castlewood, for the purchase of the reversion of the
estate! We had the deed of gift in our strongroom at Castlewood, and it
was furthermore registered in due form at Williamsburg; so that we were
easy on that score. But the intention was everything; and Hal and
I promised, as soon as ever we met Mr. William, to get from him a
confirmation of this pretty story. What Madam Esmond’s feelings and
expressions were when she heard it, I need scarcely here particularise.
“What! my father, the Marquis of Esmond, was a liar, and I am a cheat,
am I?” cries my mother. “He will take my son’s property at my death,
will he?” And she was for writing, not only to Lord Castlewood in
England, but to his Majesty himself at St. James’s, and was only
prevented by my assurance that Mr. Will’s lies were notorious amongst
all his acquaintance, and that we could not expect, in our own case,
that he should be so inconsistent as to tell the truth. We heard of him
presently as one of the loudest amongst the Loyalists in New York, as
Captain, and presently Major of a corps of volunteers who were sending
their addresses to the well-disposed in all the other colonies, and
announcing their perfect readiness to die for the mother country.

We could not lie in a house without a whole window, and closing the
shutters of that unlucky mansion we had hired at Williamsburg, Madam
Esmond left our little capital, and my family returned to Richmond,
which also was deserted by the members of the (dissolved) Assembly.
Captain Hal and his wife returned pretty early to their plantation; and
I, not a little annoyed at the course which events were taking, divided
my time pretty much between my own family and that of our Governor, who
professed himself very eager to have my advice and company. There were
the strongest political differences, but as yet no actual personal
quarrel. Even after the dissolution of our House of Assembly (the
members of which adjourned to a tavern, and there held that famous
meeting where, I believe, the idea of a congress of all the colonies was
first proposed), the gentlemen who were strongest in opposition remained
good friends with his Excellency, partook of his hospitality, and joined
him in excursions of pleasure. The session over, the gentry went home
and had meetings in their respective counties; and the Assemblies in
most of the other provinces having been also abruptly dissolved, it was
agreed everywhere that a general congress should be held. Philadelphia,
as the largest and most important city on our continent, was selected as
the place of meeting; and those celebrated conferences began, which were
but the angry preface of war. We were still at God save the King; we
were still presenting our humble petitions to the throne; but when I
went to visit my brother Harry at Fanny’s Mount (his new plantation
lay not far from ours, but with Rappahannock between us, and towards
Mattaponey River), he rode out on business one morning, and I in the
afternoon happened to ride too, and was told by one of the grooms that
master was gone towards Willis’s Ordinary; in which direction, thinking
no harm, I followed. And upon a clear place not far from Willis’s, as I
advance out of the wood, I come on Captain Hal on horseback, with three-
or four-and-thirty countrymen round about him, armed with every sort of
weapon, pike, scythe, fowling-piece, and musket; and the Captain, with
two or three likely young fellows as officers under him, putting the men
through their exercise. As I rode up a queer expression comes over Hal’s
face. “Present arms!” says he (and the army tries to perform the salute
as well they could). “Captain Cade, this is my brother, Sir George
Warrington.”

“As a relation of yours, Colonel,” says the individual addressed
as captain, “the gentleman is welcome,” and he holds out a hand
accordingly.

“And--and a true friend to Virginia,” says Hal, with a reddening face.

“Yes, please God! gentlemen,” say I, on which the regiment gives a
hearty huzzay for the Colonel and his brother. The drill over, the
officers, and the men too, were for adjourning to Willis’s and taking
some refreshment, but Colonel Hal said he could not drink with them that
afternoon, and we trotted homewards together.

“So, Hal, the cat’s out of the bag!” I said.

He gave me a hard look. “I guess there’s wilder cats in it. It must come
to this, George. I say, you mustn’t tell Madam,” he adds.

“Good God!” I cried, “do you mean that with fellows such as those I
saw yonder, you and your friends are going to make fight against the
greatest nation and the best army in the world?”

“I guess we shall get an awful whipping,” says Hal, “and that’s the
fact. But then, George,” he added, with his sweet kind smile, “we are
young, and a whipping or two may do us good. Won’t it do us good, Dolly,
you old slut?” and he gives a playful touch with his whip to an old dog
of all trades, that was running by him.

I did not try to urge upon him (I had done so in vain many times
previously) our British side of the question, the side which appears to
me to be the best. He was accustomed to put off my reasons by saying,
“All mighty well, brother, you speak as an Englishman, and have cast in
your lot with your country, as I have with mine.” To this argument I own
there is no answer, and all that remains for the disputants is to fight
the matter out, when the strongest is in the right. Which had the right
in the wars of the last century? The king or the parliament? The side
that was uppermost was the right, and on the whole much more humane
in their victory than the Cavaliers would have been had they won. Nay,
suppose we Tories had won the day in America; how frightful and bloody
that triumph would have been! What ropes and scaffolds one imagines,
what noble heads laid low! A strange feeling this, I own; I was on the
Loyalist side, and yet wanted the Whigs to win. My brother Hal, on the
other hand, who distinguished himself greatly with his regiment, never
allowed a word of disrespect against the enemy whom he opposed. “The
officers of the British army,” he used to say, “are gentlemen: at least,
I have not heard that they are very much changed since my time. There
may be scoundrels and ruffians amongst the enemy’s troops; I dare say
we could find some such amongst our own. Our business is to beat his
Majesty’s forces, not call them names;--any rascal can do that.”
 And from a name which Mr. Lee gave my brother, and many of his rough
horsemen did not understand, Harry was often called “Chevaleer Baird” in
the Continental army. He was a knight, indeed, without fear and without
reproach.

As for the argument, “What could such people as those you were drilling
do against the British army?” Hal had as confident answer.

“They can beat them,” says he, “Mr. George, that’s what they can do.”

“Great heavens!” I cry, “do you mean with your company of Wolfe’s you
would hesitate to attack five hundred such?”

“With my company of the 67th, I would go anywhere. And, agreed with you,
that at this present moment I know more of soldiering than they;--but
place me on that open ground where you found us, armed as you please,
and half a dozen of my friends, with rifles, in the woods round
about me; which would get the better? You know best, Mr. Braddock’s
aide-de-camp!”

There was no arguing with such a determination as this. “Thou knowest my
way of thinking, Hal,” I said; “and having surprised you at your work, I
must tell my lord what I have seen.”

“Tell him, of course. You have seen our county militia exercising. You
will see as much in every colony from here to the Saint Lawrence or
Georgia. As I am an old soldier, they have elected me colonel. What more
natural? Come, brother, let us trot on; dinner will be ready, and Mrs.
Fan does not like me to keep it waiting.” And so we made for his house,
which was open like all the houses of our Virginian gentlemen, and where
not only every friend and neighbour, but every stranger and traveller,
was sure to find a welcome.

“So, Mrs. Fan,” I said, “I have found out what game my brother has been
playing.”

“I trust the Colonel will have plenty of sport ere long,” says she, with
a toss of her head.

My wife thought Harry had been hunting, and I did not care to undeceive
her, though what I had seen and he had told me, made me naturally very
anxious.



CHAPTER LXXXIX. A Colonel without a Regiment


When my visit to my brother was concluded, and my wife and young child
had returned to our maternal house at Richmond, I made it my business to
go over to our Governor, then at his country house, near Williamsburg,
and confer with him regarding these open preparations for war, which
were being made not only in our own province, but in every one of the
colonies as far as we could learn. Gentlemen, with whose names history
has since made all the world familiar, were appointed from Virginia as
Delegates to the General Congress about to be held in Philadelphia. In
Massachusetts the people and the Royal troops were facing each other
almost in open hostility: in Maryland and Pennsylvania we flattered
ourselves that a much more loyal spirit was prevalent: in the Carolinas
and Georgia the mother country could reckon upon staunch adherents, and
a great majority of the inhabitants: and it never was to be supposed
that our own Virginia would forgo its ancient loyalty. We had but few
troops in the province, but its gentry were proud of their descent from
the Cavaliers of the old times: and round about our Governor were swarms
of loud and confident Loyalists who were only eager for the moment when
they might draw the sword, and scatter the rascally rebels before them.
Of course, in these meetings I was forced to hear many a hard word
against my poor Harry. His wife, all agreed (and not without good
reason, perhaps), had led him to adopt these extreme anti-British
opinions which he had of late declared; and he was infatuated by his
attachment to the gentleman of Mount Vernon, it was farther said, whose
opinions my brother always followed, and who, day by day, was committing
himself farther in the dreadful and desperate course of resistance.
“This is your friend,” the people about his Excellency said, “this is
the man you favoured, who has had your special confidence, and who has
repeatedly shared your hospitality!” It could not but be owned much of
this was true: though what some of our eager Loyalists called treachery
was indeed rather a proof of the longing desire Mr. Washington and other
gentlemen had, not to withdraw from their allegiance to the Crown, but
to remain faithful, and exhaust the very last chance of reconciliation,
before they risked the other terrible alternative of revolt and
separation. Let traitors arm, and villains draw the parricidal sword! We
at least would remain faithful; the unconquerable power of England would
be exerted, and the misguided and ungrateful provinces punished and
brought back to their obedience. With what cheers we drank his Majesty’s
health after our banquets! We would die in defence of his rights; we
would have a Prince of his Royal house to come and govern his ancient
dominions! In consideration of my own and my excellent mother’s loyalty,
my brother’s benighted conduct should be forgiven. Was it yet too late
to secure him by offering him a good command? Would I not intercede
with him, who, it was known, had a great influence over him? In our
Williamsburg councils we were alternately in every state of exaltation
and triumph, of hope, of fury against the rebels, of anxious expectancy
of home succour, of doubt, distrust, and gloom.

I promised to intercede with my brother; and wrote to him, I own, with
but little hope of success, repeating, and trying to strengthen the
arguments which I had many a time used in our conversations. My mother,
too, used her authority; but from this, I own, I expected little
advantage. She assailed him, as her habit was, with such texts of
Scripture as she thought bore out her own opinion, and threatened
punishment to him. She menaced him with the penalties which must fall
upon those who were disobedient to the powers that be. She pointed to
his elder brother’s example; and hinted, I fear, at his subjection to
his wife, the very worst argument she could use in such a controversy.
She did not show me her own letter to him; possibly she knew I might
find fault with the energy of some of the expressions she thought proper
to employ; but she showed me his answer, from which I gathered what the
style and tenor of her argument had been. And if Madam Esmond brought
Scripture to her aid, Mr. Hal, to my surprise, brought scores of texts
to bear upon her in reply, and addressed her in a very neat, temperate,
and even elegant composition, which I thought his wife herself was
scarcely capable of penning. Indeed, I found he had enlisted the
services of Mr. Belman, the New Richmond clergyman, who had taken up
strong opinions on the Whig side, and who preached and printed sermons
against Hagan (who, as I have said, was of our faction), in which I fear
Belman had the best of the dispute.

My exhortations to Hal had no more success than our mother’s. He did
not answer my letters. Being still farther pressed by the friends of the
Government, I wrote over most imprudently to say I would visit him at
the end of the week at Fanny’s Mount; but on arriving, I only found my
sister, who received me with perfect cordiality, but informed me that
Hal was gone into the country, ever so far towards the Blue Mountains
to look at some horses, and was to be away--she did not know how long he
was to be away!

I knew then there was no hope. “My dear,” I said, “as far as I can judge
from the signs of the times, the train that has been laid these years
must have a match put to it before long. Harry is riding away. God knows
to what end.”

“The Lord prosper the righteous cause, Sir George,” says she.

“Amen, with all my heart. You and he speak as Americans; I as an
Englishman. Tell him from me, that when anything in the course of nature
shall happen to our mother, I have enough for me and mine in England,
and shall resign all our land here in Virginia to him.”

“You don’t mean that, George?” she cries, with brightening eyes. “Well,
to be sure, it is but right and fair,” she presently added. “Why should
you, who are the eldest but by an hour, have everything? a palace and
lands in England--the plantation here--the title--and children--and
my poor Harry none? But ‘tis generous of you all the same--leastways
handsome and proper, and I didn’t expect it of you; and you don’t take
after your mother in this, Sir George, that you don’t, nohow. Give my
love to sister Theo!” And she offers me a cheek to kiss, ere I ride away
from her door. With such a woman as Fanny to guide him, how could I hope
to make a convert of my brother?

Having met with this poor success in my enterprise, I rode back to our
Governor, with whom I agreed that it was time to arm in earnest, and
prepare ourselves against the shock that certainly was at hand. He and
his whole Court of Officials were not a little agitated and excited;
needlessly savage, I thought, in their abuse of the wicked Whigs, and
loud in their shouts of Old England for ever; but they were all eager
for the day when the contending parties could meet hand to hand, and
they could have an opportunity of riding those wicked Whigs down. And I
left my lord, having received the thanks of his Excellency in Council,
and engaged to do my best endeavours to raise a body of men in defence
of the Crown. Hence the corps, called afterwards the Westmoreland
Defenders, had its rise, of which I had the honour to be appointed
Colonel, and which I was to command when it appeared in the field. And
that fortunate event must straightway take place, so soon as the county
knew that a gentleman of my station and name would take the command of
the force. The announcement was duly made in the Government Gazette, and
we filled in our officers readily enough; but the recruits, it must
be owned, were slow to come in, and quick to disappear. Nevertheless,
friend Hagan eagerly came forward to offer himself as chaplain. Madam
Esmond gave us our colours, and progressed about the country engaging
volunteers; but the most eager recruiter of all was my good old tutor,
little Mr. Dempster, who had been out as a boy on the Jacobite side in
Scotland, and who went specially into the Carolinas, among the children
of his banished old comrades, who had worn the white cockade of Prince
Charles, and who most of all showed themselves in this contest still
loyal to the Crown.

Hal’s expedition in search of horses led him not only so far as the Blue
Mountains in our colony, but thence on a long journey to Annapolis
and Baltimore; and from Baltimore to Philadelphia, to be sure; where
a second General Congress was now sitting, attended by our Virginian
gentlemen of the last year. Meanwhile, all the almanacs tell what had
happened. Lexington had happened, and the first shots were fired in the
war which was to end in the independence of our native country. We still
protested of our loyalty to his Majesty; but we stated our determination
to die or be free; and some twenty thousand of our loyal petitioners
assembled round about Boston with arms in their hands and cannon, to
which they had helped themselves out of the Government stores. Mr.
Arnold had begun that career which was to end so brilliantly, by the
daring and burglarious capture of two forts, of which he forced the
doors. Three generals from Bond Street, with a large reinforcement,
were on their way to help Mr. Gage out of his ugly position at Boston.
Presently the armies were actually engaged; and our British generals
commenced their career of conquest and pacification in the colonies by
the glorious blunder of Breed’s Hill. Here they fortified themselves,
feeling themselves not strong enough for the moment to win any more
glorious victories over the rebels; and the two armies lay watching
each other whilst Congress was deliberating at Philadelphia who should
command the forces of the confederated colonies.

We all know on whom the most fortunate choice of the nation fell. Of the
Virginian regiment which marched to join the new General-in-Chief, one
was commanded by Henry Esmond Warrington, Esq., late a Captain in
his Majesty’s service; and by his side rode his little wife, of whose
bravery we often subsequently heard. I was glad, for one, that she had
quitted Virginia; for, had she remained after her husband’s departure,
our mother would infallibly have gone over to give her battle; and I was
thankful, at least, that that terrific incident of civil war was spared
to our family and history.

The rush of our farmers and country-folk was almost all directed towards
the new northern army; and our people were not a little flattered at
the selection of a Virginian gentleman for the principal command. With
a thrill of wrath and fury the provinces heard of the blood drawn
at Lexington; and men yelled denunciations against the cruelty and
wantonness of the bloody British invader. The invader was but doing his
duty, and was met and resisted by men in arms, who wished to prevent him
from helping himself to his own; but people do not stay to weigh their
words when they mean to be angry; the colonists had taken their side;
and, with what I own to be a natural spirit and ardour, were determined
to have a trial of strength with the braggart domineering mother
country. Breed’s Hill became a mountain, as it were, which all men of
the American Continent might behold, with Liberty, Victory, Glory, on
its flaming summit. These dreaded troops could be withstood, then, by
farmers and ploughmen. These famous officers could be outgeneralled by
doctors, lawyers, and civilians! Granted that Britons could conquer
all the world;--here were their children who could match and conquer
Britons! Indeed, I don’t know which of the two deserves the palm, either
for bravery or vainglory. We are in the habit of laughing at our French
neighbours for boasting, gasconading, and so forth; but for a steady
self-esteem and indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness,
magnanimity;--who can compare with Britons, except their children across
the Atlantic?

The people round about us took the people’s side for the most part
in the struggle, and, truth to say, Sir George Warrington found his
regiment of Westmoreland Defenders but very thinly manned at the
commencement, and woefully diminished in numbers presently, not only
after the news of battle from the north, but in consequence of the
behaviour of my Lord our Governor, whose conduct enraged no one more
than his own immediate partisans, and the loyal adherents of the Crown
throughout the colony. That he would plant the King’s standard, and
summon all loyal gentlemen to rally round it, had been a measure agreed
in countless meetings, and applauded over thousands of bumpers. I have a
pretty good memory, and could mention the name of many a gentleman, now
a smug officer of the United States Government, whom I have heard hiccup
out a prayer that he might be allowed to perish under the folds of his
country’s flag; or roar a challenge to the bloody traitors absent with
the rebel army. But let bygones be bygones. This, however, is matter of
public history, that his lordship, our Governor, a peer of Scotland, the
Sovereign’s representative in his Old Dominion, who so loudly invited
all the lieges to join the King’s standard, was the first to put it in
his pocket, and fly to his ships out of reach of danger. He would not
leave them, save as a pirate at midnight to burn and destroy. Meanwhile,
we loyal gentry remained on shore, committed to our cause, and only
subject to greater danger in consequence of the weakness and cruelty of
him who ought to have been our leader. It was the beginning of June, our
orchards and gardens were all blooming with plenty and summer; a week
before I had been over at Williamsburg, exchanging compliments with his
Excellency, devising plans for future movements by which we should be
able to make good head against rebellion, shaking hands heartily at
parting, and vincere aut mori the very last words upon all our lips. Our
little family was gathered at Richmond, talking over, as we did daily,
the prospect of affairs in the north, the quarrels between our own
Assembly and his Excellency, by whom they had been afresh convened, when
our ghostly Hagan rushes into our parlour, and asks, “Have we heard the
news of the Governor?”

“Has he dissolved the Assembly again, and put that scoundrel Patrick
Henry in irons?” asks Madam Esmond.

“No such thing! His lordship with his lady and family have left their
palace privately at night. They are on board a man-of-war off York,
whence my lord has sent a despatch to the Assembly, begging them to
continue their sitting, and announcing that he himself had only quitted
his Government House out of fear of the fury of the people.”

What was to become of the sheep, now the shepherd had run away? No
entreaties could be more pathetic than those of the gentlemen of the
House of Assembly, who guaranteed their Governor security if he would
but land, and implored him to appear amongst them, if but to pass bills
and transact the necessary business. No: the man-of-war was his seat of
government, and my lord desired his House of Commons to wait upon him
there. This was erecting the King’s standard with a vengeance. Our
Governor had left us; our Assembly perforce ruled in his stead; a rabble
of people followed the fugitive Viceroy on board his ships. A mob of
negroes deserted out of the plantations to join this other deserter. He
and his black allies landed here and there in darkness, and emulated the
most lawless of our opponents in their alacrity at seizing and burning.
He not only invited runaway negroes, but he sent an ambassador to
Indians with entreaties to join his standard. When he came on shore it
was to burn and destroy: when the people resisted, as at Norfolk and
Hampton, he retreated and betook himself to his ships again.

Even my mother, after that miserable flight of our chief, was scared
at the aspect of affairs, and doubted of the speedy putting down of
the rebellion. The arming of the negroes was, in her opinion, the most
cowardly blow of all. The loyal gentry were ruined, and robbed, many of
them, of their only property. A score of our worst hands deserted from
Richmond and Castlewood, and fled to our courageous Governor’s fleet;
not all of them, though some of them, were slain, and a couple hung by
the enemy for plunder and robbery perpetrated whilst with his lordship’s
precious army. Because her property was wantonly injured, and his
Majesty’s chief officer an imbecile, would Madam Esmond desert the
cause of Royalty and Honour? My good mother was never so prodigiously
dignified, and loudly and enthusiastically loyal, as after she heard of
our Governor’s lamentable defection. The people round about her, though
most of them of quite a different way of thinking, listened to her
speeches without unkindness. Her oddities were known far and wide
through our province; where, I am afraid, many of the wags amongst our
young men were accustomed to smoke her, as the phrase then was, and draw
out her stories about the Marquis her father, about the splendour of
her family, and so forth. But along with her oddities, her charities and
kindness were remembered, and many a rebel, as she called them, had a
sneaking regard for the pompous little Tory lady.

As for the Colonel of the Westmoreland Defenders, though that
gentleman’s command dwindled utterly away after the outrageous conduct
of his chief, yet I escaped from some very serious danger which might
have befallen me and mine in consequence of some disputes which I was
known to have had with my Lord Dunmore. Going on board his ship after
he had burned the stores at Hampton, and issued the proclamation calling
the negroes to his standard, I made so free as to remonstrate with him
in regard to both measures; I implored him to return to Williamsburg,
where hundreds of us, thousands, I hoped, would be ready to defend him
to the last extremity; and in my remonstrance used terms so free, or
rather, as I suspect, indicated my contempt for his conduct so clearly
by my behaviour, that his lordship flew into a rage, said I was a rebel
like all the rest of them, and ordered me under arrest there on board
his own ship. In my quality of militia officer (since the breaking out
of the troubles I commonly used a red coat, to show that I wore the
King’s colour) I begged for a court-martial immediately; and turning
round to two officers who had been present during our altercation,
desired them to remember all that had passed between his lordship
and me. These gentlemen were no doubt of my way of thinking as to
the chief’s behaviour, and our interview ended in my going ashore
unaccompanied by a guard. The story got wind amongst the Whig gentry,
and was improved in the telling. I had spoken out my mind manfully to
the Governor; no Whig could have uttered sentiments more liberal. When
riots took place in Richmond, and of the Loyalists remaining there, many
were in peril of life and betook themselves to the ships, my mother’s
property and house were never endangered, nor her family insulted.
We were still at the stage when a reconciliation was fondly thought
possible. “Ah! if all the Tories were like you,” a distinguished Whig
has said to me, “we and the people at home should soon come together
again.” This, of course, was before the famous Fourth of July, and that
Declaration which rendered reconcilement impossible. Afterwards, when
parties grew more rancorous, motives much less creditable were assigned
for my conduct, and it was said I chose to be a Liberal Tory because
I was a cunning fox, and wished to keep my estate whatever way things
went. And this, I am bound to say, is the opinion regarding my humble
self which has obtained in very high quarters at home, where a profound
regard for my own interest has been supposed not uncommonly to have
occasioned my conduct during the late unhappy troubles.

There were two or three persons in the world (for I had not told my
mother how I was resolved to cede to my brother all my life-interest
in our American property) who knew that I had no mercenary motives in
regard to the conduct I pursued. It was not worth while to undeceive
others; what were life worth, if a man were forced to feel himself a la
piste of all the calumnies uttered against him? And I do not quite know
to this present day, how it happened that my mother, that notorious
Loyalist, was left for several years quite undisturbed in her house at
Castlewood, a stray troop or company of Continentals being occasionally
quartered upon her. I do not know for certain, I say, how this piece of
good fortune happened, though I can give a pretty shrewd guess as to the
cause of it. Madam Fanny, after a campaign before Boston, came back to
Fanny’s Mount, leaving her Colonel. My modest Hal, until the conclusion
of the war, would accept no higher rank, believing that in command of
a regiment he could be more useful than in charge of a division. Madam
Fanny, I say, came back, and it was remarkable after her return how
her old asperity towards my mother seemed to be removed, and what an
affection she showed for her and all the property. She was great friends
with the Governor and some of the most influential gentlemen of the new
Assembly:--Madam Esmond was harmless, and for her son’s sake, who
was bravely battling for his country, her errors should be lightly
visited:--I know not how it was, but for years she remained unharmed,
except in respect of heavy Government requisitions, which of course she
had to pay, and it was not until the redcoats appeared about our house,
that much serious evil came to it.



CHAPTER XC

In which we both fight and run away


What was the use of a Colonel without a regiment? The Governor and
Council who had made such a parade of thanks in endowing me with mine,
were away out of sight, skulking on board ships, with an occasional
piracy and arson on shore. My Lord Dunmore’s black allies frightened
away those of his own blood; and besides these negroes whom he had
summoned round him in arms, we heard that he had sent an envoy among
the Indians of the South, and that they were to come down in numbers
and tomahawk our people into good behaviour. “And these are to be our
allies!” I say to my mother, exchanging ominous looks with her, and
remembering, with a ghastly distinctness, that savage whose face glared
over mine, and whose knife was at my throat when Florac struck him down
on Braddock’s Field. We put our house of Castlewood into as good a state
of defence as we could devise; but, in truth, it was more of the red men
and the blacks than of the rebels we were afraid. I never saw my mother
lose courage but once, and then when she was recounting to us the
particulars of our father’s death in a foray of Indians more than forty
years ago. Seeing some figures one night moving in front of our house,
nothing could persuade the good lady but that they were savages, and
she sank on her knees crying out, “The Lord have mercy upon us! The
Indians--the Indians!”

My lord’s negro allies vanished on board his ships, or where they could
find pay and plunder; but the painted heroes from the South never made
their appearance, though I own to have looked at my mother’s grey head,
my wife’s brown hair, and our little one’s golden ringlets, with a
horrible pang of doubt lest these should fall the victims of ruffian
war. And it was we who fought with such weapons, and enlisted these
allies! But that I dare not (so to speak) be setting myself up as
interpreter of Providence, and pointing out the special finger of Heaven
(as many people are wont to do), I would say our employment of these
Indians, and of the German mercenaries, brought their own retribution
with them in this war. In the field, where the mercenaries were attacked
by the Provincials, they yielded, and it was triumphing over them that
so raised the spirit of the Continental army; and the murder of one
woman (Miss McCrea) by a half-dozen drunken Indians, did more harm
to the Royal cause than the loss of a battle or the destruction of
regiments.

Now, the Indian panic over, Madam Esmond’s courage returned: and she
began to be seriously and not unjustly uneasy at the danger which I ran
myself, and which I brought upon others, by remaining in Virginia.

“What harm can they do me,” says she, “a poor woman? If I have one son
a colonel without a regiment, I have another with a couple of hundred
Continentals behind him in Mr. Washington’s camp. If the Royalists come,
they will let me off for your sake; if the rebels appear, I shall have
Harry’s passport. I don’t wish, sir, I don’t like that your delicate
wife and this dear little baby should be here, and only increase the
risk of all of us! We must have them away to Boston or New York. Don’t
talk about defending me! Who will think of hurting a poor, harmless,
old woman? If the rebels come, I shall shelter behind Mrs. Fanny’s
petticoats, and shall be much safer without you in the house than in
it.” This she said in part, perhaps, because ‘twas reasonable; more so
because she would have me and my family out of the danger; and danger
or not, for her part felt that she was determined to remain in the land
where her father was buried, and she was born. She was living backwards,
so to speak. She had seen the new generation, and blessed them, and bade
them farewell. She belonged to the past, and old days and memories.

While we were debating about the Boston scheme, comes the news that
the British have evacuated that luckless city altogether, never having
ventured to attack Mr. Washington in his camp at Cambridge (though he
lay there for many months without powder at our mercy); but waiting
until he procured ammunition, and seized and fortified Dorchester
heights, which commanded the town, out of which the whole British army
and colony was obliged to beat a retreat. That the King’s troops won the
battle at Bunker’s Hill, there is no more doubt than that they beat the
French at Blenheim; but through the war their chiefs seem constantly to
have been afraid of assaulting entrenched Continentals afterwards; else
why, from July to March, hesitate to strike an almost defenceless enemy?
Why the hesitation at Long Island, when the Continental army was in our
hand? Why that astonishing timorousness--of Howe before Valley Forge,
where the relics of a force starving, sickening, and in rags, could
scarcely man the lines, which they held before a great, victorious, and
perfectly appointed army?

As the hopes and fears of the contending parties rose and fell, it was
curious to mark the altered tone of the partisans of either. When the
news came to us in the country of the evacuation of Boston, every little
Whig in the neighbourhood made his bow to Madam, and advised her to
a speedy submission. She did not carry her loyalty quite so openly as
heretofore, and flaunt her flag in the faces of the public, but she
never swerved. Every night and morning in private poor Hagan prayed for
the Royal Family in our own household, and on Sundays any neighbours
were welcome to attend the service, where my mother acted as a very
emphatic clerk, and the prayer for the High Court of Parliament under
our most religious and gracious King was very stoutly delivered. The
brave Hagan was a parson without a living, as I was a Militia Colonel
without a regiment. Hagan had continued to pray stoutly for King George
in Williamsburg, long after his Excellency our Governor had run away:
but on coming to church one Sunday to perform his duty, he found a
corporal’s guard at the church-door, who told him that the Committee of
Safety had put another divine in his place, and he was requested to keep
a quiet tongue in his head. He told the men to “lead him before
their chiefs” (our honest friend always loved tall words and tragic
attitudes); and accordingly was marched through the streets to the
Capitol, with a chorus of white and coloured blackguards at the skirts
of his gown; and had an interview with Messrs. Henry and the new State
officers, and confronted the robbers, as he said, in their den. Of
course he was for making an heroic speech before these gentlemen (and
was one of many men who perhaps would have no objection to be made
martyrs, so that they might be roasted coram populo, or tortured in a
full house), but Mr. Henry was determined to give him no such chance.
After keeping Hagan three or four hours waiting in an anteroom in
the company of negroes, when the worthy divine entered the new chief
magistrate’s room with an undaunted mien, and began a prepared speech
with--“Sir, by what authority am I, a minister of the----” “Mr. Hagan,”
 says the other, interrupting him, “I am too busy to listen to speeches.
And as for King George, he has henceforth no more authority in this
country than King Nebuchadnezzar. Mind you that, and hold your tongue,
if you please! Stick to King John, sir, and King Macbeth; and if you
will send round your benefit-tickets, all the Assembly shall come and
hear you. Did you ever see Mr. Hagan on the boards, when you was
in London, General?” And, so saying, Henry turns round upon Mr.
Washington’s second in command, General Lee, who was now come into
Virginia upon State affairs, and our shamefaced good Hagan was bustled
out of the room, reddening, and almost crying with shame. After this
event we thought that Hagan’s ministrations were best confined to us in
the country, and removed the worthy pastor from his restive lambs in the
city.

The selection of Virginians to the very highest civil and military
appointments of the new government bribed and flattered many of our
leading people, who, otherwise, and but for the outrageous conduct of
our government, might have remained faithful to the Crown, and made
good head against the rising rebellion. But, although we Loyalists were
gagged and muzzled, though the Capitol was in the hands of the Whigs,
and our vaunted levies of loyal recruits so many Falstaff’s regiments
for the most part, the faithful still kept intelligences with one
another in the colony, and with our neighbours; and though we did
not rise, and though we ran away, and though, in examination before
committees, justices, and so forth, some of our frightened people gave
themselves Republican airs, and vowed perdition to kings and nobles; yet
we knew each other pretty well, and--according as the chances were more
or less favourable to us, the master more or less hard--we concealed
our colours, showed our colours, half showed our colours, or downright
apostatised for the nonce, and cried, “Down with King George!” Our
negroes bore about, from house to house, all sorts of messages and
tokens. Endless underhand plots and schemes were engaged in by those who
could not afford the light. The battle over, the neutrals come and join
the winning side, and shout as loudly as the patriots. The runaways
are not counted. Will any man tell me that the signers and ardent
well-wishers of the Declaration of Independence were not in a minority
of the nation, and that the minority did not win? We knew that apart
of the defeated army of Massachusetts was about to make an important
expedition southward, upon the success of which the very greatest hopes
were founded; and I, for one, being anxious to make a movement as soon
as there was any chance of activity, had put myself in communication
with the ex-Governor Martin, of North Carolina, whom I proposed to join,
with three or four of our Virginian gentlemen, officers of that notable
corps of which we only wanted privates. We made no particular mystery
about our departure from Castlewood; the affairs of Congress were
not going so well yet that the new government could afford to lay any
particular stress or tyranny upon persons of a doubtful way of thinking.
Gentlemen’s houses were still open; and in our southern fashion we would
visit our friends for months at a time. My wife and I, with our infant
and a fitting suite of servants, took leave of Madam Esmond on a visit
to a neighbouring plantation. We went thence to another friend’s house,
and then to another, till finally we reached Wilmington, in North
Carolina, which was the point at which we expected to stretch a hand to
the succours which were coming to meet us.

Ere our arrival, our brother Carolinian Royalists had shown themselves
in some force. Their encounters with the Whigs had been unlucky. The
poor Highlanders had been no more fortunate in their present contest in
favour of King George, than when they had drawn their swords against him
in their own country. We did not reach Wilmington until the end of May,
by which time we found Admiral Parker’s squadron there, with General
Clinton and five British regiments on board, whose object was a descent
upon Charleston.

The General, to whom I immediately made myself known, seeing that my
regiment consisted of Lady Warrington, our infant, whom she was nursing,
and three negro servants, received us at first with a very grim welcome.
But Captain Horner of the Sphinx frigate, who had been on the Jamaica
station, and received, like all the rest of the world, many kindnesses
from our dear Governor there, when he heard that my wife was General
Lambert’s daughter, eagerly received her on board, and gave up his
best cabin to our service; and so we were refugees, too, like my Lord
Dunmore, having waved our flag, to be sure, and pocketed it, and
slipped out at the back door. From Wilmington we bore away quickly to
Charleston, and in the course of the voyage and our delay in the river,
previous to our assault on the place, I made some acquaintance with
Mr. Clinton, which increased to a further intimacy. It was the King’s
birthday when we appeared in the river: we determined it was a glorious
day for the commencement of the expedition.

It did not take place for some days after, and I leave out, purposely,
all descriptions of my Penelope parting from her Hector, going forth on
this expedition. In the first place, Hector is perfectly well (though
a little gouty), nor has any rascal of a Pyrrhus made a prize of his
widow: and in times of war and commotion, are not such scenes of woe and
terror, and parting, occurring every hour? I can see the gentle face yet
over the bulwark, as we descend the ship’s side into the boats, and the
smile of the infant on her arm. What old stories, to be sure! Captain
Miles, having no natural taste for poetry, you have forgot the verses,
no doubt, in Mr. Pope’s Homer, in which you are described as parting
with your heroic father; but your mother often read them to you as
a boy, and keeps the gorget I wore on that day somewhere amongst her
dressing-boxes now.

My second venture at fighting was no more lucky than my first. We came
back to our ships that evening thoroughly beaten. The madcap Lee, whom
Clinton had faced at Boston, now met him at Charleston. Lee, and the
gallant garrison there, made a brilliant and most successful resistance.
The fort on Sullivan’s Island, which we attacked, was a nut we could not
crack. The fire of all our frigates was not strong enough to pound its
shell; the passage by which we moved up to the assault of the place was
not fordable, as those officers found--Sir Henry at the head of them,
who was always the first to charge--who attempted to wade it. Death by
shot, by drowning, by catching my death of cold, I had braved before I
returned to my wife; and our frigate being aground for a time and got
off with difficulty, was agreeably cannonaded by the enemy until she got
off her bank.

A small incident in the midst of this unlucky struggle was the occasion
of a subsequent intimacy which arose between me and Sir Harry Clinton,
and bound me to that most gallant officer during the Period in which
it was my fortune to follow the war. Of his qualifications as a leader
there may be many opinions: I fear to say, regarding a man I heartily
respect and admire, there ought only to be one. Of his personal bearing
and his courage there can be no doubt; he was always eager to show it;
and whether at the final charge on Breed’s Hill, when at the head of
the rallied troops he carried the Continental lines, or here before
Sullivan’s Fort, or a year later at Fort Washington, when, standard in
hand, he swept up the height, and entered the fort at the head of the
storming column, Clinton was always foremost in the race of battle, and
the King’s service knew no more admirable soldier.

We were taking to the water from our boats, with the intention of
forcing a column to the fort, through a way which our own guns had
rendered practicable, when a shot struck a boat alongside of us, so
well aimed, as actually to put three-fourths of the boat’s crew hors de
combat, and knock down the officer steering, and the flag behind him.
I could not help crying out, “Bravo! well aimed!” for no ninepins ever
went down more helplessly than these poor fellows before the round shot.
Then the General, turning round to me, says, rather grimly, “Sir, the
behaviour of the enemy seems to please you!” “I am pleased, sir,” says
I, “that my countrymen, yonder, should fight as becomes our nation.”
 We floundered on towards the fort in the midst of the same amiable
attentions from small arms and great, until we found the water was up
to our breasts and deepening at every step, when we were fain to take
to our boats again and pull out of harm’s way. Sir Henry waited upon my
Lady Warrington on board the Sphinx after this, and was very gracious to
her, and mighty facetious regarding the character of the humble writer
of the present memoir, whom his Excellency always described as a rebel
at heart. I pray my children may live to see or engage in no great
revolutions,--such as that, for instance, raging in the country of our
miserable French neighbours. Save a very, very few indeed, the actors in
those great tragedies do not bear to be scanned too closely; the chiefs
are often no better than ranting quacks; the heroes ignoble puppets; the
heroines anything but pure. The prize is not always to the brave. In our
revolution it certainly did fall, for once and for a wonder, to the
most deserving: but who knows his enemies now? His great and surprising
triumphs were not in those rare engagements with the enemy where he
obtained a trifling mastery; but over Congress; over hunger and disease;
over lukewarm friends, or smiling foes in his own camp, whom his great
spirit had to meet and master. When the struggle was over, and our
important chiefs who had conducted it began to squabble and accuse
each other in their own defence before the nation--what charges and
counter-charges were brought; what pretexts of delay were urged; what
piteous excuses were put forward that this fleet arrived too late; that
that regiment mistook its orders; that these cannon-balls would not fit
those guns; and so to the end of the chapter! Here was a general who
beat us with no shot at times, and no powder, and no money; and he never
thought of a convention; his courage never capitulated! Through all the
doubt and darkness, the danger and long tempest of the war, I think it
was only the American leader’s indomitable soul that remained entirely
steady.

Of course our Charleston expedition was made the most of, and pronounced
a prodigious victory by the enemy, who had learnt (from their parents,
perhaps) to cry victory if a corporal’s guard were surprised, as loud
as if we had won a pitched battle. Mr. Lee rushed back to New York, the
conqueror of conquerors, trumpeting his glory, and by no man received
with more eager delight than by the Commander-in-Chief of the American
Army. It was my dear Lee and my dear General between them, then; and it
hath always touched me in the history of our early Revolution to note
that simple confidence and admiration with which the General-in-Chief
was wont to regard officers under him, who had happened previously to
serve with the King’s army. So the Mexicans of old looked and wondered
when they first saw an armed Spanish horseman! And this mad, flashy
braggart (and another Continental general, whose name and whose luck
afterwards were sufficiently notorious) you may be sure took advantage
of the modesty of the Commander-in-Chief, and advised, and blustered,
and sneered, and disobeyed orders; daily presenting fresh obstacles
(as if he had not enough otherwise!) in the path over which only Mr.
Washington’s astonishing endurance could have enabled him to march.

Whilst we were away on our South Carolina expedition, the famous Fourth
of July had taken place, and we and the thirteen United States were
parted for ever. My own native state of Virginia had also distinguished
itself by announcing that all men are equally free; that all power is
vested in the people, who have an inalienable right to alter, reform,
or abolish their form of government at pleasure, and that the idea of
an hereditary first magistrate is unnatural and absurd! Our General
presented me with this document fresh from Williamsburg, as we were
sailing northward by the Virginia capes, and, amidst not a little
amusement and laughter, pointed out to me the faith to which, from the
Fourth inst. inclusive, I was bound. There was no help for it; I was a
Virginian--my godfathers had promised and vowed, in my name, that all
men were equally free (including, of course, the race of poor Gumbo),
that the idea of a monarchy is absurd, and that I had the right to alter
my form of government at pleasure. I thought of Madam Esmond at home,
and how she would look when these articles of faith were brought her to
subscribe; how would Hagan receive them? He demolished them in a sermon,
in which all the logic was on his side, but the U.S. Government has not,
somehow, been affected by the discourse; and when he came to touch upon
the point that all men being free, therefore Gumbo and Sady, and Nathan,
had assuredly a right to go to Congress: “Tut, tut! my good Mr. Hagan,”
 says my mother, “let us hear no more of this nonsense; but leave such
wickedness and folly to the rebels!”

By the middle of August we were before New York, whither Mr. Howe had
brought his army that had betaken itself to Halifax after its inglorious
expulsion from Boston. The American Commander-in-Chief was at New
York, and a great battle inevitable; and I looked forward to it with
an inexpressible feeling of doubt and anxiety, knowing that my dearest
brother and his regiment formed part of the troops whom we must attack,
and could not but overpower. Almost the whole of the American army came
over to fight on a small island, where every officer on both sides knew
that they were to be beaten, and whence they had not a chance of escape.
Two frigates, out of a hundred we had placed so as to command the
enemy’s entrenched camp and point of retreat across East River to New
York, would have destroyed every bark in which he sought to fly, and
compelled him to lay down his arms on shore. He fought: his hasty levies
were utterly overthrown; some of his generals, his best troops, his
artillery taken; the remnant huddled into their entrenched camp after
their rout, the pursuers entering it with them. The victors were called
back; the enemy was then pent up in a corner of the island, and could
not escape. “They are at our mercy, and are ours to-morrow,” says the
gentle General. Not a ship was set to watch the American force; not
a sentinel of ours could see a movement in their camp. A whole army
crossed under our eyes in one single night to the mainland without the
loss of a single man; and General Howe was suffered to remain in command
after this feat, and to complete his glories of Long Island and Breed’s
Hill, at Philadelphia! A friend, to be sure, crossed in the night to say
the enemy’s army was being ferried over, but he fell upon a picket of
Germans: they could not understand him: their commander was boozing or
asleep. In the morning, when the spy was brought to some one who could
comprehend the American language, the whole Continental force had
crossed the East River, and the empire over thirteen colonies had
slipped away.

The opinions I had about our chief were by no means uncommon in the
army; though, perhaps, wisely kept secret by gentlemen under Mr. Howe’s
immediate command. Am I more unlucky than other folks, I wonder? or why
are my imprudent sayings carried about more than my neighbours’? My rage
that such a use was made of such a victory was no greater than that of
scores of gentlemen with the army. Why must my name forsooth be given up
to the Commander-in-Chief as that of the most guilty of the
grumblers? Personally, General Howe was perfectly brave, amiable, and
good-humoured.

“So, Sir George,” says he, “you find fault with me, as a military
man, because there was a fog after the battle on Long Island, and your
friends, the Continentals, gave me the slip! Surely we took and killed
enough of them; but there is no satisfying you gentlemen amateurs!” and
he turned his back on me, and shrugged his shoulders, and talked to some
one else. Amateur I might be, and he the most amiable of men; but if
King George had said to him, “Never more be officer of mine,” yonder
agreeable and pleasant Cassio would most certainly have had his desert.

I soon found how our Chief had come in possession of his information
regarding myself. My admirable cousin, Mr. William Esmond--who of course
had forsaken New York and his post, when all the Royal authorities fled
out of the place, and Washington occupied it,--returned along with our
troops and fleets; and, being a gentleman of good birth and name, and
well acquainted with the city, made himself agreeable to the newcomers
of the Royal army, the young bloods, merry fellows, and macaronis, by
introducing them to play-tables, taverns, and yet worse places, with
which the worthy gentleman continued to be familiar in the New World
as in the Old. Coelum non animum. However Will had changed his air, or
whithersoever he transported his carcase, he carried a rascal in his
skin.

I had heard a dozen stories of his sayings regarding my family, and was
determined neither to avoid him nor seek him; but to call him to account
whensoever we met; and, chancing one day to be at a coffee-house in a
friend’s company, my worthy kinsman swaggered in with a couple of young
lads of the army, whom he found it was his pleasure and profit now
to lead into every kind of dissipation. I happened to know one of Mr.
Will’s young companions, an aide-de-camp of General Clinton’s, who had
been in my close company both at Charleston, before Sullivan’s Island,
and in the action of Brooklyn, where our General gloriously led the
right wing of the English army. They took a box without noticing us
at first, though I heard my name three or four times mentioned by
my brawling kinsman, who ended some drunken speech he was making by
slapping his fist on the table, and swearing, “By----, I will do for
him, and the bloody rebel, his brother!”

“Ah! Mr. Esmond,” says I, coming forward with my hat on. (He looked a
little pale behind his punch-bowl.) “I have long wanted to see you, to
set some little matters right about which there has been a difference
between us.”

“And what may those be, sir?” says he, with a volley of oaths.

“You have chosen to cast a doubt upon my courage, and say that I shirked
a meeting with you when we were young men. Our relationship and our age
ought to prevent us from having recourse to such murderous follies” (Mr.
Will started up, looking fierce and relieved), “but I give you notice,
that though I can afford to overlook lies against myself, if I hear from
you a word in disparagement of my brother, Colonel Warrington, of the
Continental Army, I will hold you accountable.”

“Indeed, gentlemen! Mighty fine, indeed! You take notice of Sir George
Warrington’s words!” cries Mr. Will over his punch-bowl.

“You have been pleased to say,” I continued, growing angry as I spoke,
and being a fool therefore for my pains, “that the very estates we hold
in this country are not ours, but of right revert to your family!”

“So they are ours! By George, they’re ours! I’ve heard my brother
Castlewood say so a score of times!” swears Mr. Will.

“In that case, sir,” says I, hotly, “your brother, my Lord Castlewood,
tells no more truth than yourself. We have the titles at hone in
Virginia. They are registered in the courts there; and if ever I hear
one word more of this impertinence, I shall call you to account where no
constables will be at hand to interfere!”

“I wonder,” cries Will, in a choking voice, “that I don’t cut him into
twenty thousand pieces as he stands there before me with his confounded
yellow face. It was my brother Castlewood won his money--no, it was his
brother; d---- you, which are you, the rebel or the other? I hate the
ugly faces of both of you, and, hic!--if you are for the King, show you
are for the King, and drink his health!” and he sank down into his box
with a hiccup and a wild laugh, which he repeated a dozen times, with
a hundred more oaths and vociferous outcries that I should drink the
King’s health.

To reason with a creature in this condition, or ask explanations or
apologies from him, was absurd. I left Mr. Will to reel to his lodgings
under the care of his young friends--who were surprised to find an old
toper so suddenly affected and so utterly prostrated by liquor--and
limped home to my wife, whom I found happy in possession of a brief
letter from Hal, which a countryman had brought in; and who said not a
word about the affairs of the Continentals with whom he was engaged,
but wrote a couple of pages of rapturous eulogiums upon his brother’s
behaviour in the field, which my dear Hal was pleased to admire, as he
admired everything I said and did.

I rather looked for a messenger from my amiable kinsman in consequence
of the speeches which had passed between us the night before, and did
not know but that I might be called by Will to make my words good; and
when accordingly Mr. Lacy (our companion of the previous evening) made
his appearance at an early hour of the forenoon, I was beckoning my Lady
Warrington to leave us, when, with a laugh and a cry of “Oh dear, no!”
 Mr. Lacy begged her ladyship not to disturb herself.

“I have seen,” says he, “a gentleman who begs to send you his apologies
if he uttered a word last night which could offend you.”

“What apologies? what words?” asks the anxious wife.

I explained that roaring Will Esmond had met me in a coffee-house on the
previous evening, and quarrelled with me, as he had done with hundreds
before. “It appears the fellow is constantly abusive, and invariably
pleads drunkenness, and apologises the next morning, unless he is caned
over-night,” remarked Captain Lacy. And my lady, I dare say, makes a
little sermon, and asks why we gentlemen will go to idle coffee-houses
and run the risk of meeting roaring, roystering Will Esmonds?

Our sojourn in New York was enlivened by a project for burning the city
which some ardent patriots entertained and partially executed. Several
such schemes were laid in the course of the war, and each one of the
principal cities was doomed to fire; though, in the interests of peace
and goodwill, I hope it will be remembered that these plans never
originated with the cruel government of a tyrant king, but were always
proposed by gentlemen on the Continental side, who vowed that, rather
than remain under the ignominious despotism of the ruffian of Brunswick,
the fairest towns of America should burn. I presume that the sages who
were for burning down Boston were not actual proprietors in that
place, and the New York burners might come from other parts of the
country--from Philadelphia, or what not. Howbeit, the British spared
you, gentlemen, and we pray you give us credit for this act of
moderation.

I had not the fortune to be present in the action on the White Plains,
being detained by the hurt which I had received at Long Island, and
which broke out again and again, and took some time in the healing. The
tenderest of nurses watched me through my tedious malady, and was eager
for the day when I should doff my militia coat and return to the quiet
English home where Hetty and our good General were tending our children.
Indeed I don’t know that I have yet forgiven myself for the pains and
terrors that I must have caused my poor wife, by keeping her separate
from her young ones, and away from her home, because, forsooth, I wished
to see a little more of the war then going on. Our grand tour in Europe
had been all very well. We had beheld St. Peter’s at Rome, and the
Bishop thereof; the Dauphiness of France (alas, to think that glorious
head should ever have been brought so low!) at Paris; and the rightful
King of England at Florence. I had dipped my gout in a half-dozen baths
and spas, and played cards in a hundred courts, as my Travels in Europe
(which I propose to publish after my completion of the History of the
American War) will testify. [Neither of these two projected works of Sir
George Warrington were brought, as it appears, to a completion.] And,
during our peregrinations, my hypochondria diminished (which plagued me
woefully at home); and my health and spirits visibly improved. Perhaps
it was because she saw the evident benefit I had from excitement and
change, that my wife was reconciled to my continuing to enjoy them; and
though secretly suffering pangs at being away from her nursery and her
eldest boy (for whom she ever has had an absurd infatuation), the
dear hypocrite scarce allowed a look of anxiety to appear on her face;
encouraged me with smiles; professed herself eager to follow me; asked
why it should be a sin in me to covet honour? and, in a word, was ready
to stay, to go, to smile, to be sad; to scale mountains, or to go down
to the sea in ships; to say that cold was pleasant, heat tolerable,
hunger good sport, dirty lodgings delightful; though she is wretched
sailor, very delicate about the little she eats, and an extreme sufferer
both of cold and heat. Hence, as I willed to stay on yet a while on my
native continent, she was certain nothing was so good for me; and when
I was minded to return home--oh, how she brightened, and kissed her
infant, and told him how he should see the beautiful gardens at home,
and Aunt Theo, and grandpapa, and his sister, and Miles. “Miles!” cries
the little parrot, mocking its mother--and crowing; as if there was any
mighty privilege in seeing Mr. Miles, forsooth, who was under Doctor
Sumner’s care at Harrow-on-the-Hill, where, to do the gentleman justice,
he showed that he could eat more tarts than any boy in the school, and
took most creditable prizes at football and hare-and-hounds.



CHAPTER XCI. Satis Pugnae


It has always seemed to me (I speak under the correction of military
gentlemen) that the entrenchments of Breed’s Hill served the Continental
army throughout the whole of our American war. The slaughter inflicted
upon us from behind those lines was so severe, and the behaviour of the
enemy so resolute, that the British chiefs respected the barricades
of the Americans hereafter; and were they firing from behind a row of
blankets, certain of our generals rather hesitated to force them. In the
affair of the White Plains, when, for a second time, Mr. Washington’s
army was quite at the mercy of the victors, we subsequently heard
that our conquering troops were held back before a barricade actually
composed of cornstalks and straw. Another opportunity was given us, and
lasted during a whole winter, during which the dwindling and dismayed
troops of Congress lay starving and unarmed under our grasp, and the
magnanimous Mr. Howe left the famous camp of Valley Forge untouched,
whilst his great, brave, and perfectly appointed army fiddled and
gambled and feasted in Philadelphia. And, by Byng’s countrymen,
triumphal arches were erected, tournaments were held in pleasant mockery
of the middle ages, and wreaths and garlands offered by beautiful ladies
to this clement chief, with fantastical mottoes and posies announcing
that his laurels should be immortal! Why have my ungrateful countrymen
in America never erected statues to this general? They had not in all
their army an officer who fought their battles better; who enabled them
to retrieve their errors with such adroitness; who took care that their
defeats should be so little hurtful to themselves; and when, in the
course of events, the stronger force naturally got the uppermost, who
showed such an untiring tenderness, patience, and complacency in helping
the poor disabled opponent on to his legs again. Ah! think of eighteen
years before and the fiery young warrior whom England had sent out to
fight her adversary on the American continent. Fancy him for ever pacing
round the defences behind which the foe lies sheltered; by night and by
day alike sleepless and eager; consuming away in his fierce wrath and
longing, and never closing his eye, so intent is it in watching; winding
the track with untiring scent that pants and hungers for blood and
battle; prowling through midnight forests, or climbing silent over
precipices before dawn; and watching till his great heart is almost worn
out, until the foe shows himself at last, when he springs on him and
grapples with him, and, dying, slays him! Think of Wolfe at Quebec,
and hearken to Howe’s fiddles as he sits smiling amongst the dancers at
Philadelphia!

A favourite scheme with our ministers at home and some of our generals
in America, was to establish a communication between Canada and New
York, by which means it was hoped New England might be cut off from
the neighbouring colonies, overpowered in detail, and forced into
submission. Burgoyne was entrusted with the conduct of the plan, and he
set forth from Quebec, confidently promising to bring it to a
successful issue. His march began in military state: the trumpets of
his proclamations blew before him; he bade the colonists to remember the
immense power of England; and summoned the misguided rebels to lay down
their arms. He brought with him a formidable English force, an army of
German veterans not less powerful, a dreadful band of Indian warriors,
and a brilliant train of artillery. It was supposed that the people
round his march would rally to the Royal cause and standards. The
Continental force in front of him was small at first, and Washington’s
army was weakened by the withdrawal of troops who were hurried forward
to meet this Canadian invasion. A British detachment from New York was
to force its way up the Hudson, sweeping away the enemy on the route,
and make a junction with Burgoyne at Albany. Then was the time when
Washington’s weakened army should have been struck too; but a greater
Power willed otherwise: nor am I, for one, even going to regret the
termination of the war. As we look over the game now, how clear seem the
blunders which were made by the losing side! From the beginning to the
end we were for ever arriving too late. Our supplies and reinforcements
from home were too late. Our troops were in difficulty, and our succours
reached them too late. Our fleet appeared off York Town just too
late, after Cornwallis had surrendered. A way of escape was opened
to Burgoyne, but he resolved upon retreat too late. I have heard
discomfited officers in after days prove infallibly how a different wind
would have saved America to us; how we must have destroyed the French
fleet but for a tempest or two; how once, twice, thrice, but for
nightfall, Mr. Washington and his army were in our power. Who has not
speculated, in the course of his reading of history, upon the “Has been”
 and the “Might have been” in the world? I take my tattered old map-book
from the shelf, and see the board on which the great contest was played;
I wonder at the curious chances which lost it: and, putting aside any
idle talk about the respective bravery of the two nations, can’t but see
that we had the best cards, and that we lost the game.

I own the sport had a considerable fascination for me, and stirred up
my languid blood. My brother Hal, when settled on his plantation in
Virginia, was perfectly satisfied with the sports and occupations he
found there. The company of the country neighbours sufficed him; he
never tired of looking after his crops and people, taking his fish,
shooting his ducks, hunting in his woods, or enjoying his rubber and
his supper. Happy Hal, in his great barn of a house, under his roomy
porches, his dogs lying round his feet; his friends, the Virginian Will
Wimbles, at free quarters in his mansion; his negroes fat, lazy, and
ragged: his shrewd little wife ruling over them and her husband, who
always obeyed her implicitly when living, and who was pretty speedily
consoled when she died! I say happy, though his lot would have been
intolerable to me: wife, and friends, and plantation, and town life at
Richmond (Richmond succeeded to the honour of being the capital when our
Province became a State). How happy he whose foot fits the shoe which
fortune gives him! My income was five times as great, my house in
England as large, and built of bricks and faced with freestone; my
wife--would I have changed her for any other wife in the world? My
children--well, I am contented with my Lady Warrington’s opinion about
them. But with all these plums and peaches and rich fruits out of
Plenty’s horn poured into my lap, I fear I have been but an ingrate;
and Hodge, my gatekeeper, who shares his bread and scrap of bacon with
a family as large as his master’s, seems to me to enjoy his meal as much
as I do, though Mrs. Molly prepares her best dishes and sweetmeats, and
Mr. Gumbo uncorks the choicest bottle from the cellar. Ah me! sweetmeats
have lost their savour for me, however they may rejoice my young ones
from the nursery, and the perfume of claret palls upon old noses!
Our parson has poured out his sermons many and many a time to me, and
perhaps I did not care for them much when he first broached them. Dost
thou remember, honest friend? (sure he does, for he has repeated the
story over the bottle as many times as his sermons almost, and my Lady
Warrington pretends as if she had never heard it)--I say, Joe Blake,
thou rememberest full well, and with advantages, that October evening
when we scrambled up an embrasure at Fort Clinton and a clubbed musket
would have dashed these valuable brains out, had not Joe’s sword whipped
my rebellious countryman through the gizzard. Joe wore a red coat in
those days (the uniform of the brave Sixty-third, whose leader, the bold
Sill, fell pierced with many wounds beside him). He exchanged his red
for black and my pulpit. His doctrines are sound, and his sermons short.
We read the papers together over our wine. Not two months ago we read
our old friend Howe’s glorious deed of the first of June. We were told
how the noble Rawdon, who fought with us at Fort Clinton, had joined the
Duke of York: and to-day his Royal Highness is in full retreat before
Pichegru: and he and my son Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing!
Ah, parson! would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat?
(though I doubt Mrs. Blake could never make the buttons and button-holes
meet again over your big body). The boys were acting a play with my
militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not
the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into
the world, and feel the pulses beat again, and play a little of life’s
glorious game!

The last “hit” which I saw played, was gallantly won by our side; though
‘tis true that even in this parti the Americans won the rubber--our
people gaining only the ground they stood on, and the guns, stores, and
ships which they captured and destroyed, whilst our efforts at rescue
were too late to prevent the catastrophe impending over Burgoyne’s
unfortunate army. After one of those delays which always were happening
to retard our plans and weaken the blows which our chiefs intended to
deliver, an expedition was got under weigh from New York at the close
of the month of September, ‘77; that, could it have but advanced a
fortnight earlier, might have saved the doomed force of Burgoyne. Sed
Dis aliter visum. The delay here was not Sir Henry Clinton’s fault, who
could not leave his city unprotected; but the winds and weather which
delayed the arrival of reinforcements which we had long awaited from
England. The fleet which brought them brought us long and fond letters
from home, with the very last news of the children under the care of
their good Aunt Hetty and their grandfather. The mother’s heart yearned
towards the absent young ones. She made me no reproaches: but I could
read her importunities in her anxious eyes, her terrors for me, and her
longing for her children. “Why stay longer?” she seemed to say. “You
who have no calling to this war, or to draw the sword against your
countrymen--why continue to imperil your life and my happiness?” I
understood her appeal. We were to enter upon no immediate service of
danger; I told her Sir Henry was only going to accompany the expedition
for a part of the way. I would return with him, the reconnaissance over,
and Christmas, please Heaven, should see our family once more united in
England.

A force of three thousand men, including a couple of slender regiments
of American Loyalists and New York Militia (with which latter my
distinguished relative, Mr. Will Esmond, went as captain), was embarked
at New York, and our armament sailed up the noble Hudson River, that
presents finer aspects than the Rhine in Europe to my mind: nor was
any fire opened upon us from those beetling cliffs and precipitous
“palisades,” as they are called, by which we sailed; the enemy, strange
to say, being for once unaware of the movement we contemplated. Our
first landing was on the Eastern bank, at a place called Verplancks
Point, whence the Congress troops withdrew after a slight resistance,
their leader, the tough old Putnam (so famous during the war) supposing
that our march was to be directed towards the Eastern Highlands, by
which we intended to penetrate to Burgoyne. Putnam fell back to occupy
these passes, a small detachment of ours being sent forward as if in
pursuit, which he imagined was to be followed by the rest of our force.
Meanwhile, before daylight, two thousand men without artillery, were
carried over to Stoney Point on the Western shore, opposite Verplancks,
and under a great hill called the Dunderberg by the old Dutch lords of
the stream, and which hangs precipitously over it. A little stream
at the northern base of this mountain intersects it from the opposite
height on which Fort Clinton stood, named not after our general, but
after one of the two gentlemen of the same name, who were amongst the
oldest and most respected of the provincial gentry of New York, and who
were at this moment actually in command against Sir Henry. On the next
height to Clinton is Fort Montgomery; and behind them rises a hill
called Bear Hill; whilst at the opposite side of the magnificent stream
stands “Saint Antony’s Nose,” a prodigious peak indeed, which the Dutch
had quaintly christened.

The attacks on the two forts were almost simultaneous. Half our men were
detached for the assault on Fort Montgomery, under the brave Campbell,
who fell before the rampart. Sir Henry, who would never be out of danger
where he could find it, personally led the remainder, and hoped, he
said, that we should have better luck than before the Sullivan Island. A
path led up to the Dunderberg, so narrow as scarcely to admit three men
abreast, and in utter silence our whole force scaled it, wondering at
every rugged step to meet with no opposition. The enemy had not even
kept a watch on it; nor were we descried until we were descending the
height, at the base of which we easily dispersed a small force sent
hurriedly to oppose us. The firing which here took place rendered all
idea of a surprise impossible. The fort was before us. With such arms
as the troops had in their hands, they had to assault; and silently
and swiftly, in the face of the artillery playing upon them, the troops
ascended the hill. The men had orders on no account to fire. Taking the
colours of the Sixty-third, and bearing them aloft, Sir Henry mounted
with the stormers. The place was so steep that the men pushed each
other over the wall and through the embrasures; and it was there that
Lieutenant Joseph Blake, the father of a certain Joseph Clinton Blake,
who looks with the eyes of affection on a certain young lady, presented
himself to the living of Warrington by saving the life of the unworthy
patron thereof.

About a fourth part of the garrison, as we were told, escaped out of
the fort, the rest being killed or wounded, or remaining our prisoners
within the works. Fort Montgomery was, in like manner, stormed and taken
by our people; and, at night, as we looked down from the heights where
the king’s standard had been just planted, we were treated to a splendid
illumination in the river below. Under Fort Montgomery, and stretching
over to that lofty prominence, called Saint Antony’s Nose, a boom and
chain had been laid with a vast cost and labour, behind which several
American frigates and galleys were anchored. The fort being taken, these
ships attempted to get up the river in the darkness, out of the reach of
guns which they knew must destroy them in the morning. But the wind was
unfavourable, and escape was found to be impossible. The crews therefore
took to the boats, and so landed, having previously set the ships on
fire with all their sails set; and we beheld these magnificent pyramids
of flame burning up to the heavens and reflected in the waters below,
until, in the midst of prodigious explosions, they sank and disappeared.

On the next day a parlementaire came in from the enemy, to inquire as to
the state of his troops left wounded or prisoners in our hands, and the
Continental officer brought me a note, which gave me a strange shock,
for it showed that in the struggle of the previous evening my brother
had been engaged. It was dated October 7, from Major-General George
Clinton’s divisional headquarters, and it stated briefly that “Colonel
H. Warrington, of the Virginia line, hopes that Sir George Warrington
escaped unhurt in the assault of last evening, from which the Colonel
himself was so fortunate as to retire without the least injury.” Never
did I say my prayers more heartily and gratefully than on that night,
devoutly thanking Heaven that my dearest brother was spared, and making
a vow at the same time to withdraw out of the fratricidal contest, into
which I only had entered because Honour and Duty seemed imperatively to
call me.

I own I felt an inexpressible relief when I had come to the resolution
to retire and betake myself to the peaceful shade of my own vines and
fig-trees at home. I longed, however, to see my brother ere I returned,
and asked, and easily obtained an errand to the camp of the American
General Clinton from our own chief. The headquarters of his division
were now some miles up the river, and a boat and a flag of truce quickly
brought me to the point where his out-pickets received me on the shore.
My brother was very soon with me. He had only lately joined General
Clinton’s division with letters from headquarters at Philadelphia, and
he chanced to hear, after the attack on Fort Clinton, that I had been
present during the affair. We passed a brief delightful night together:
Mr. Sady, who always followed Hal to the war, cooking a feast in honour
of both his masters. There was but one bed of straw in the hut where we
had quarters, and Hal and I slept on it, side by side, as we had done
when we were boys. We had a hundred things to say regarding past times
and present. His kind heart gladdened when I told him of my resolve to
retire to my acres and to take off the red coat which I wore: he flung
his arms round it. “Praised be God!” said he. “Oh, heavens, George!
think what might have happened had we met in the affair two nights ago!”
 And he turned quite pale at the thought. He eased my mind with respect
to our mother. She was a bitter Tory, to be sure, but the Chief had
given special injunctions regarding her safety. “And Fanny” (Hal’s
wife) “watches over her, and she is as good as a company!” cried the
enthusiastic husband. “Isn’t she clever? Isn’t she handsome? Isn’t
she good?” cries Hal, never, fortunately, waiting for a reply to these
ardent queries. “And to think that I was nearly marrying Maria once! Oh,
mercy, what an escape I had!” he added. “Hagan prays for the King, every
morning and night, at Castlewood, but they bolt the doors, and nobody
hears. Gracious powers! his wife is sixty if she is a day; and oh,
George! the quantity she drinks is...” But why tell the failings of our
good cousin? I am pleased to think she lived to drink the health of King
George long after his Old Dominion had passed for ever from his sceptre.

The morning came when my brief mission to the camp was ended, and the
truest of friends and fondest of brothers accompanied me to my boat,
which lay waiting at the riverside. We exchanged an embrace at parting,
and his hand held mine yet for a moment ere I stepped into the barge
which bore me rapidly down the stream. “Shall I see thee once more,
dearest and best companion of my youth?” I thought. “Amongst our cold
Englishmen, can I ever hope to meet with a friend like thee? When hadst
thou ever a thought that was not kindly and generous? When a wish, or
a possession, but for me you would sacrifice it? How brave are you,
and how modest; how gentle, and how strong; how simple, unselfish, and
humble; how eager to see others’ merit; how diffident of your own!” He
stood on the shore till his figure grew dim before, me. There was that
in my eyes which prevented me from seeing him longer.


Brilliant as Sir Henry’s success had been, it was achieved, as usual,
too late: and served but as a small set-off against the disaster of
Burgoyne which ensued immediately, and which our advance was utterly
inadequate to relieve. More than one secret messenger was despatched to
him who never reached him, and of whom we never learned the fate. Of
one wretch who offered to carry intelligence to him, and whom Sir
Henry despatched with a letter of his own, we heard the miserable
doom. Falling in with some of the troops of General George Clinton, who
happened to be in red uniform (part of the prize of a British ship’s
cargo, doubtless, which had been taken by American privateers), the spy
thought he was in the English army, and advanced towards the sentries.
He found his mistake too late. His letter was discovered upon him, and
he had to die for bearing it. In ten days after the success at the Forts
occurred the great disaster at Saratoga, of which we carried the dismal
particulars in the fleet which bore us home. I am afraid my wife was
unable to mourn for it. She had her children, her father, her sister to
revisit, and daily and nightly thanks to pay to Heaven that had brought
her husband safe out of danger.



CHAPTER XCII. Under Vine and Fig-Tree


Need I describe, young folks, the delights of the meeting at home,
and the mother’s happiness with all her brood once more under her fond
wings? It was wrote in her face, and acknowledged on her knees. Our
house was large enough for all, but Aunt Hetty would not stay in it. She
said, fairly, that to resign her motherhood over the elder children, who
had been hers for nearly three years, cost her too great a pang; and she
could not bear for yet a while to be with them, and to submit to take
only the second place. So she and her father went away to a house at
Bury St. Edmunds, not far from us, where they lived, and where she
spoiled her eldest nephew and niece in private. It was the year after we
came home that Mr. B, the Jamaica planter, died, who left her the half
of his fortune; and then I heard, for the first time, how the worthy
gentleman had been greatly enamoured of her in Jamaica, and, though she
had refused him, had thus shown his constancy to her. Heaven knows how
much property of Aunt Hetty’s Monsieur Miles hath already devoured!
the price of his commission and outfit; his gorgeous uniforms; his
play-debts and little transactions in the Minories;--do you think,
sirrah, I do not know what human nature is; what is the cost of
Pall Mall taverns, petits soupers, play even in moderation--at the
Cocoa-Tree; and that a gentleman cannot purchase all these enjoyments
with the five hundred a year which I allow him? Aunt Hetty declares she
has made up her mind to be an old maid. “I made a vow never to marry
until I could find a man as good as my dear father,” she said; “and I
never did, Sir George. No, my dearest Theo, not half as good; and Sir
George may put that in his pipe and smoke it.”

And yet when the good General died (calm, and full of years, and glad to
depart), I think it was my wife who shed the most tears. “I weep because
I think I did not love him enough,” said the tender creature: whereas
Hetty scarce departed from her calm, at least outwardly and before any
of us; talks of him constantly still, as though he were alive; recalls
his merry sayings, his gentle, kind ways with his children (when she
brightens up and looks herself quite a girl again), and sits cheerfully
looking up to the slab in church which records his name and some of his
virtues, and for once tells no lies.

I had fancied, sometimes, that my brother Hal, for whom Hetty had a
juvenile passion, always retained a hold of her heart; and when he came
to see us, ten years ago, I told him of this childish romance of Het’s,
with the hope, I own, that he would ask her to replace Mrs. Fanny, who
had been gathered to her fathers, and regarding whom my wife (with
her usual propensity to consider herself a miserable sinner) always
reproached herself, because, forsooth, she did not regret Fanny enough.
Hal, when he came to us, was plunged in grief about her loss; and vowed
that the world did not contain such another woman. Our dear old General,
who was still in life then, took him in and housed him, as he had done
in the happy early days. The women played him the very same tunes which
he had heard when a boy at Oakhurst. Everybody’s heart was very soft
with old recollections, and Harry never tired of pouring out his griefs
and his recitals of his wife’s virtues to Het, and anon of talking
fondly about his dear Aunt Lambert, whom he loved with all his heart,
and whose praises, you may be sure, were welcome to the faithful old
husband, out of whose thoughts his wife’s memory was never, I believe,
absent for any three waking minutes of the day.

General Hal went to Paris as an American General Officer in his blue and
yellow (which Mr. Fox and other gentlemen had brought into fashion here
likewise), and was made much of at Versailles, although he was presented
by Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette to the Most Christian King and
Queen, who did not love Monsieur le Marquis. And I believe a Marquise
took a fancy to the Virginian General, and would have married him out of
hand, had he not resisted, and fled back to England and Warrington and
Bury again, especially to the latter place, where the folks would listen
to him as he talked about his late wife, with an endless patience and
sympathy. As for us, who had known the poor paragon, we were civil, but
not quite so enthusiastic regarding her, and rather puzzled sometimes to
answer our children’s questions about Uncle Hal’s angel wife.

The two Generals and myself, and Captain Miles, and Parson Blake (who
was knocked over at Monmouth, the year after I left America, and came
home to change his coat, and take my living), used to fight the battles
of the Revolution over our bottle; and the parson used to cry, “By
Jupiter, General” (he compounded for Jupiter, when he laid down his
military habit), “you are the Tory, and Sir George is the Whig! He is
always finding fault with our leaders, and you are for ever standing
up for them; and when I prayed for the King last Sunday, I heard you
following me quite loud.”

“And so I do, Blake, with all my heart; I can’t forget I wore his coat,”
 says Hal.

“Ah, if Wolfe had been alive for twenty years more!” says Lambert.

“Ah, sir,” cries Hal, “you should hear the General talk about him!”

“What General?” says I (to vex him).

“My General,” says Hal, standing up, and filling a bumper. “His
Excellency General George Washington!”

“With all my heart,” cry I, but the parson looks as if he did not like
the toast or the claret.

Hal never tired in speaking of his General; and it was on some such
evening of friendly converse, that he told us how he had actually been
in disgrace with this General whom he loved so fondly. Their difference
seems to have been about Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette before
mentioned, who played such a fine part in history of late, and who hath
so suddenly disappeared out of it. His previous rank in our own service,
and his acknowledged gallantry during the war, ought to have secured
Colonel Warrington’s promotion in the Continental army, where a
whipper-snapper like M. de Lafayette had but to arrive and straightway
to be complimented by Congress with the rank of Major-General. Hal,
with the freedom of an old soldier, had expressed himself somewhat
contemptuously regarding some of the appointments made by Congress, with
whom all sorts of miserable intrigues and cabals were set to work by
unscrupulous officers who were greedy of promotion. Mr. Warrington,
imitating perhaps in this the example of his now illustrious friend of
Mount Vernon, affected to make the war en gentilhomme took his pay, to
be sure, but spent it upon comforts and clothing for his men, and as for
rank, declared it was a matter of no earthly concern to him, and that he
would as soon serve as colonel as in any higher grade. No doubt he added
contemptuous remarks regarding certain General Officers of Congress
army, their origin, and the causes of their advancement: notably he
was very angry about the sudden promotion of the young French lad just
named--the Marquis, as they loved to call him--in the Republican army,
and who, by the way, was a prodigious favourite of the Chief himself.
There were not three officers in the whole Continental force (after
poor madcap Lee was taken prisoner and disgraced) who could speak the
Marquis’s language, so that Hal could judge the young Major-General
more closely and familiarly than other gentlemen, including the
Commander-in-Chief himself. Mr. Washington good-naturedly rated friend
Hal for being jealous of the beardless commander of Auvergne; was
himself not a little pleased by the filial regard and profound
veneration which the enthusiastic young nobleman always showed for
him; and had, moreover, the very best politic reasons for treating the
Marquis with friendship and favour.

Meanwhile, as it afterwards turned out, the Commander-in-Chief was most
urgently pressing Colonel Warrington’s promotion upon Congress; and, as
if his difficulties before the enemy were not enough, he being at this
hard time of winter entrenched at Valley Forge, commanding five or
six thousand men at the most, almost without fire, blankets, food, or
ammunition, in the face of Sir William Howe’s army, which was perfectly
appointed, and three times as numerous as his own; as if, I say, this
difficulty was not enough to try him, he had further to encounter
the cowardly distrust of Congress, and insubordination and conspiracy
amongst the officers in his own camp. During the awful winter of ‘77,
when one blow struck by the sluggard at the head of the British forces
might have ended the war, and all was doubt, confusion, despair in the
opposite camp (save in one indomitable breast alone), my brother had an
interview with the Chief, which he has subsequently described to me,
and of which Hal could never speak without giving way to the deepest
emotion. Mr. Washington had won no such triumph as that which the
dare-devil courage of Arnold and the elegant imbecility of Burgoyne
had procured for Gates and the northern army. Save in one or two minor
encounters, which proved how daring his bravery was, and how unceasing
his watchfulness, General Washington had met with defeat after defeat
from an enemy in all points his superior. The Congress mistrusted
him. Many an officer in his own camp hated him. Those who had been
disappointed in ambition, those who had been detected in peculation,
those whose selfishness or incapacity his honest eyes had spied
out,--were all more, or less in league against him. Gates was the chief
towards whom the malcontents turned. Mr. Gates was the only genius fit
to conduct the war; and with a vaingloriousness, which he afterwards
generously owned, he did not refuse the homage which was paid him.

To show how dreadful were the troubles and anxieties with which General
Washington had to contend, I may mention what at this time was called
the “Conway Cabal.” A certain Irishman--a Chevalier of St. Louis, and an
officer in the French service--arrived in America early in the year ‘77
in quest of military employment. He was speedily appointed to the rank
of brigadier, and could not be contented, forsooth, without an immediate
promotion to be major-general.

Mr. C. had friends at Congress, who, as the General-in-Chief was
informed, had promised him his speedy promotion. General Washington
remonstrated, representing the injustice of promoting to the highest
rank the youngest brigadier in the service; and whilst the matter was
pending, was put in possession of a letter from Conway to General Gates,
whom he complimented, saying, that “Heaven had been determined to save
America, or a weak general and bad councillors would have ruined it.”
 The General enclosed the note to Mr. Conway, without a word of comment;
and Conway offered his resignation, which was refused by Congress,
who appointed him Inspector-General of the army, with the rank of
Major-General.

“And it was at this time,” says Harry (with many passionate exclamations
indicating his rage with himself and his admiration of his leader),
“when, by heavens, the glorious Chief was oppressed by troubles enough
to drive ten thousand men mad--that I must interfere with my jealousies
about the Frenchman! I had not said much, only some nonsense to Greene
and Cadwalader about getting some frogs against the Frenchman came to
dine with us, and having a bagful of Marquises over from Paris, as we
were not able to command ourselves;--but I should have known the Chief’s
troubles, and that he had a better head than mine, and might have had
the grace to hold my tongue.

“For a while the General said nothing, but I could remark, by the
coldness of his demeanour, that something had occurred to create a
schism between him and me. Mrs. Washington, who had come to camp, also
saw that something was wrong. Women have artful ways of soothing men and
finding their secrets out. I am not sure that I should have ever tried
to learn the cause of the General’s displeasure, for I am as proud as
he is, and besides” (says Hal), “when the Chief is angry, it was not
pleasant coming near him, I can promise you.” My brother was indeed
subjugated by his old friend, and obeyed him and bowed before him as a
boy before a schoolmaster.

“At last,” Hal resumed, “Mrs. Washington found out the mystery.
‘Speak to me after dinner, Colonel Hal,’ says she. ‘Come out to the
parade-ground, before the dining-house, and I will tell you all.’ I
left a half-score of general officers and brigadiers drinking round the
General’s table, and found Mrs. Washington waiting for me. She then told
me it was the speech I had made about the box of Marquises, with which
the General was offended. ‘I should not have heeded it in another,’
he had said, ‘but I never thought Harry Warrington would have joined
against me.’

“I had to wait on him for the word that night, and found him alone at
his table. ‘Can your Excellency give me five minutes’ time?’ I said,
with my heart in my mouth. ‘Yes, surely, sir,’ says he, pointing to the
other chair. ‘Will you please to be seated?’

“‘It used not always to be Sir and Colonel Warrington, between me and
your Excellency,’ I said.

“He said, calmly, ‘The times are altered.’

“‘Et nos mutamur in illis,’ says I. ‘Times and people are both changed.’

“‘You had some business with me?’ he asked.

“‘Am I speaking to the Commander-in-Chief or to my old friend?’ I asked.

“He looked at me gravely. ‘Well,--to both, sir,’ he said. ‘Pray sit,
Harry.’

“‘If to General Washington, I tell his Excellency that I, and many
officers of this army, are not well pleased to see a boy of twenty made
a major-general over us, because he is a Marquis, and because he can’t
speak the English language. If I speak to my old friend, I have to say
that he has shown me very little of trust or friendship for the last
few weeks; and that I have no desire to sit at your table, and have
impertinent remarks made by others there, of the way in which his
Excellency turns his back on me.’

“‘Which charge shall I take first, Harry?’ he asked, turning his chair
away from the table, and crossing his legs as if ready for a talk. ‘You
are jealous, as I gather, about the Marquis?’

“‘Jealous, sir!’ says I. ‘An aide-de-camp of Mr. Wolfe is not jealous of
a Jack-a-dandy who, five years ago, was being whipped at school!’

“‘You yourself declined higher rank than that which you hold,’ says the
Chief, turning a little red.

“‘But I never bargained to have a macaroni Marquis to command me!’ I
cried. ‘I will not, for one, carry the young gentleman’s orders; and
since Congress and your Excellency chooses to take your generals out
of the nursery, I shall humbly ask leave to resign, and retire to my
plantation.’

“‘Do, Harry; that is true friendship!’ says the Chief, with a gentleness
that surprised me. ‘Now that your old friend is in a difficulty, ‘tis
surely the best time to leave him.’

“‘Sir!’ says I.

“‘Do as so many of the rest are doing, Mr. Warrington. Et tu, Brute,
as the play says. Well, well, Harry! I did not think it of you; but, at
least, you are in the fashion.’

“‘You asked which charge you should take first?’ I said.

“‘Ch, the promotion of the Marquis? I recommended the appointment to
Congress, no doubt; and you and other gentlemen disapprove it.’

“‘I have spoken for myself, sir,’ says I.

“‘If you take me in that tone, Colonel Warrington, I have nothing to
answer!’ says the Chief, rising up very fiercely; ‘and presume that
I can recommend officers for promotion without asking your previous
sanction.’

“‘Being on that tone, sir,’ says I, ‘let me respectfully offer my
resignation to your Excellency, founding my desire to resign upon the
fact, that Congress, at your Excellency’s recommendation, offers its
highest commands to boys of twenty, who are scarcely even acquainted
with our language.’ And I rise up and make his Excellency a bow.

“‘Great heavens, Harry!’ he cries--(about this Marquis’s appointment he
was beaten, that was the fact, and he could not reply to me), ‘can’t you
believe that in this critical time of our affairs, there are reasons why
special favours should be shown to the first Frenchman of distinction
who comes amongst us?’

“‘No doubt, sir. If your Excellency acknowledges that Monsieur de
Lafayette’s merits have nothing to do with the question.’

“‘I acknowledge or deny nothing, sir!’ says the General, with a stamp of
his foot, and looking as though he could be terribly angry if he would.
‘Am I here to be catechised by you? Stay. Hark, Harry! I speak to you as
a man of the world--nay, as an old friend. This appointment humiliates
you and others, you say? Be it so! Must we not bear humiliation, along
with the other burthens and griefs, for the sake of our country? It is
no more just perhaps that the Marquis should be set over you gentlemen,
than that your Prince Ferdinand or your Prince of Wales at home should
have a command over veterans. But if in appointing this young nobleman
we please a whole nation, and bring ourselves twenty millions of allies,
will you and other gentlemen sulk because we do him honour? ‘Tis easy to
sneer at him (though, believe me, the Marquis has many more merits
than you allow him); to my mind it were more generous, as well as more
polite, of Harry Warrington to welcome this stranger for the sake of the
prodigious benefit our country may draw from him--not to laugh at his
peculiarities, but to aid him and help his ignorance by your experience
as an old soldier: that is what I would do--that is the part I expected
of thee--for it is the generous and manly one, Harry: but you choose
to join my enemies, and when I am in trouble you say you will leave me.
That is why I have been hurt: that is why I have been cold. I thought
I might count on your friendship--and--and you can tell whether I was
right or no. I relied on you as on a brother, and you come and tell me
you will resign. Be it so! Being embarked in this contest, by God’s will
I will see it to an end. You are not the first, Mr. Warrington, has left
me on the way.’

“He spoke with so much tenderness, and as he spoke his face wore such a
look of unhappiness, that an extreme remorse and pity seized me, and I
called out I know not what incoherent expressions regarding old times,
and vowed that if he would say the word, I never would leave him. You
never loved him, George,” says my brother, turning to me, “but I did
beyond all mortal men; and, though I am not clever like you, I think my
instinct was in the right. He has a greatness not approached by other
men”

“I don’t say no, brother,” said I, “now.”

“Greatness, pooh!” says the parson, growling over his wine.

“We walked into Mrs. Washington’s tea-room arm-in-arm,” Hal resumed;
“she looked up quite kind, and saw we were friends. ‘Is it all over,
Colonel Harry?’ she whispered. ‘I know he has applied ever so often
about your promotion----’

“‘I never will take it,’ says I. And that is how I came to do penance,”
 says Harry, telling me the story, “with Lafayette the next winter.” (Hal
could imitate the Frenchman very well.) “‘I will go weez heem,’ says I.
‘I know the way to Quebec, and when we are not in action with Sir Guy, I
can hear his Excellency the Major-General say his lesson.’ There was no
fight, you know we could get no army to act in Canada, and returned to
headquarters; and what do you think disturbed the Frenchman most? The
idea that people would laugh at him, because his command had come to
nothing. And so they did laugh at him, and almost to his face too, and
who could help it? If our Chief had any weak point it was this Marquis.

“After our little difference we became as great friends as before--if
a man may be said to be friends with a Sovereign Prince, for as such I
somehow could not help regarding the General: and one night, when we
had sate the company out, we talked of old times, and the jolly days of
sport we had together both before and after Braddock’s; and that pretty
duel you were near having when we were boys. He laughed about it, and
said he never saw a man look more wicked and more bent on killing than
you did: ‘And to do Sir George justice, I think he has hated me ever
since,’ says the Chief. ‘Ah!’ he added, ‘an open enemy I can face
readily enough. ‘Tis the secret foe who causes the doubt and anguish! We
have sat with more than one at my table to-day, to whom I am obliged to
show a face of civility, whose hands I must take when they are offered,
though I know they are stabbing my reputation, and are eager to pull me
down from my place. You spoke but lately of being humiliated because a
junior was set over you in command. What humiliation is yours compared
to mine, who have to play the farce of welcome to these traitors; who
have to bear the neglect of Congress, and see men who have insulted me
promoted in my own army? If I consulted my own feelings as a man, would
I continue in this command? You know whether my temper is naturally warm
or not, and whether as a private gentleman I should be likely to
suffer such slights and outrages as are put upon me daily; but in the
advancement of the sacred cause in which we are engaged, we have to
endure not only hardship and danger, but calumny and wrong, and may God
give us strength to do our duty!’ And then the General showed me
the papers regarding the affair of that fellow Conway, whom Congress
promoted in spite of the intrigue, and down whose black throat John
Cadwalader sent the best ball he ever fired in his life.

“And it was here,” said Hal, concluding his story, “as I looked at the
Chief talking at night in the silence of the camp, and remembered how
lonely he was, what an awful responsibility he carried, how spies and
traitors were eating out of his dish, and an enemy lay in front of him
who might at any time overpower him, that I thought, ‘Sure, this is the
greatest man now in the world; and what a wretch I am to think of my
jealousies and annoyances, whilst he is walking serenely under his
immense cares!’”

“We talked but now of Wolfe,” said I. “Here, indeed, is a greater than
Wolfe. To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune;
to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to
go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is
gained--who can say this is not greatness, or show the other Englishman
who has achieved so much?”

“I wonder, Sir George, you did not take Mr. Washington’s side, and wear
the blue and buff yourself,” grumbles Parson Blake.

“You and I thought scarlet most becoming to our complexion, Joe Blake!”
 says Sir George. “And my wife thinks there would not have been room for
two such great men on one side.”

“Well, at any rate, you were better than that odious, swearing, crazy
General Lee, who was second in command!” cries Lady Warrington. “And I
am certain Mr. Washington never could write poetry and tragedies as you
can! What did the General say about George’s tragedies, Harry?”

Harry burst into a roar of laughter (in which, of course, Mr. Miles must
join his uncle).

“Well!” says he, “it’s a fact that Hagan read one at my house to the
General and Mrs. Washington and several more, and they all fell sound
asleep!”

“He never liked my husband, that is the truth!” says Theo, tossing up
her head, “and ‘tis all the more magnanimous of Sir George to speak so
well of him.”

And then Hal told how, his battles over, his country freed, his great
work of liberation complete, the General laid down his victorious sword,
and met his comrades of the army in a last adieu. The last
British soldier had quitted the shore of the Republic, and the
Commander-in-Chief proposed to leave New York for Annapolis, where
Congress was sitting, and there resign his commission. About noon, on
the 4th December, a barge was in waiting at Whitehall Ferry to convey
him across the Hudson. The chiefs of the army assembled at a tavern near
the ferry, and there the General joined them. Seldom as he showed his
emotion, outwardly, on this day he could not disguise it. He filled a
glass of wine, and said, ‘I bid you farewell with a heart full of love
and gratitude, and wish your latter days may be as prosperous and happy
as those past have been glorious and honourable.’ Then he drank to them.
‘I cannot come to each of you to take my leave,’ he said, ‘but shall be
obliged if you will each come and shake me by the hand.’

General Knox, who was nearest, came forward, and the Chief, with tears
in his eyes, embraced him. The others came, one by one, to him, and
took their leave without a word. A line of infantry was formed from the
tavern to the ferry, and the General, with his officers following him,
walked silently to the water. He stood up in the barge, taking off his
hat, and waving a farewell. And his comrades remained bareheaded on the
shore till their leader’s boat was out of view.

As Harry speaks very low, in the grey of evening, with sometimes a break
in his voice, we all sit touched and silent. Hetty goes up and kisses
her father.

“You tell us of others, General Harry,” she says, passing a handkerchief
across her eyes, “of Marion and Sumpter, of Greene and Wayne, and Rawdon
and Cornwallis, too, but you never mention Colonel Warrington!”

“My dear, he will tell you his story in private!” whispers my wife,
clinging to her sister, “and you can write it for him.”

But it was not to be. My Lady Theo, and her husband too, I own, catching
the infection from her, never would let Harry rest, until we had coaxed,
wheedled, and ordered him to ask Hetty in marriage. He obeyed, and it
was she who now declined. “She had always,” she said, “the truest regard
for him from the dear old times when they had met as almost children
together. But she would never leave her father. When it pleased God to
take him, she hoped she would be too old to think of bearing any other
name but her own. Harry should have her love always as the best of
brothers; and as George and Theo have such a nurseryful of children,”
 adds Hester, “we must show our love to them, by saving for the young
ones.” She sent him her answer in writing, leaving home on a visit to
friends at a distance, as though she would have him to understand that
her decision was final. As such Hal received it. He did not break his
heart. Cupid’s arrows, ladies, don’t bite very deep into the tough skins
of gentlemen of our age; though, to be sure, at the time of which I
write, my brother was still a young man, being little more than fifty.
Aunt Het is now a staid little lady with a voice of which years have
touched the sweet chords, and a head which Time has powdered over with
silver. There are days when she looks surprisingly young and blooming.
Ah me, my dear, it seems but a little while since the hair was golden
brown, and the cheeks as fresh as roses! And then came the bitter blast
of love unrequited which withered them; and that long loneliness of
heart which, they say, follows. Why should Theo and I have been so
happy, and thou so lonely? Why should my meal be garnished with love,
and spread with plenty, while yon solitary outcast shivers at my gate? I
bow my head humbly before the Dispenser of pain and poverty, wealth and
health; I feel sometimes as if, for the prizes which have fallen to the
lot of me unworthy, I did not dare to be grateful. But I hear the voices
of my children in their garden, or look up at their mother from my book,
or perhaps my sick-bed, and my heart fills with instinctive gratitude
towards the bountiful Heaven that has so blest me.


Since my accession to my uncle’s title and estate my intercourse with
my good cousin Lord Castlewood had been very rare. I had always supposed
him to be a follower of the winning side in politics, and was not a
little astonished to hear of his sudden appearance in opposition. A
disappointment in respect to a place at court, of which he pretended to
have had some promise, was partly the occasion of his rupture with the
Ministry. It is said that the most August Person in the realm had flatly
refused to receive into the R-y-l Household a nobleman whose character
was so notoriously bad, and whose example (so the August Objector was
pleased to say) would ruin and corrupt any respectable family. I heard
of the Castlewoods during our travels in Europe, and that the mania for
play had again seized upon his lordship. His impaired fortunes having
been retrieved by the prudence of his wife and father-in-law, he had
again begun to dissipate his income at hombre and lansquenet. There
were tales of malpractices in which he had been discovered, and even of
chastisement inflicted upon him by the victims of his unscrupulous
arts. His wife’s beauty and freshness faded early; we met but once at
Aix-la-Chapelle, where Lady Castlewood besought my wife to go and
see her, and afflicted Lady Warrington’s kind heart by stories of the
neglect and outrage of which her unfortunate husband was guilty. We were
willing to receive these as some excuse and palliation for the unhappy
lady’s own conduct. A notorious adventurer, gambler, and spadassin,
calling himself the Chevalier de Barry, and said to be a relative of
the mistress of the French King, but afterwards turning out to be an
Irishman of low extraction, was in constant attendance upon the Earl and
Countess at this time, and conspicuous for the audacity of his lies, the
extravagance of his play, and somewhat mercenary gallantry towards the
other sex, and a ferocious bravo courage, which, however, failed him
on one or two awkward occasions, if common report said true. He
subsequently married, and rendered miserable a lady of title and fortune
in England. The poor little American lady’s interested union with Lord
Castlewood was scarcely more happy.

I remember our little Miles’s infantile envy being excited by learning
that Lord Castlewood’s second son, a child a few months younger than
himself, was already an ensign on the Irish establishment, whose pay the
fond parents regularly drew. This piece of preferment my lord must have
got for his cadet whilst he was on good terms with the Minister, during
which period of favour Will Esmond was also shifted off to New York.
Whilst I was in America myself, we read in an English journal that
Captain Charles Esmond had resigned his commission in his Majesty’s
service, as not wishing to take up arms against the countrymen of his
mother, the Countess of Castlewood. “It is the doing of the old fox, Van
den Bosch,” Madam Esmond said; “he wishes to keep his Virginian property
safe, whatever side should win!” I may mention, with respect to this
old worthy, that he continued to reside in England for a while after the
Declaration of Independence, not at all denying his sympathy with the
American cause, but keeping a pretty quiet tongue, and alleging that
such a very old man as himself was past the age of action or mischief,
in which opinion the Government concurred, no doubt, as he was left
quite unmolested. But of a sudden a warrant was out after him, when it
was surprising with what agility he stirred himself, and skipped off to
France, whence he presently embarked upon his return to Virginia.

The old man bore the worst reputation amongst the Loyalists of our
colony; and was nicknamed “Jack the Painter” amongst them, much to
his indignation, after a certain miscreant who was hung in England
for burning naval stores in our ports there. He professed to have
lost prodigious sums at home by the persecution of the Government,
distinguished himself by the loudest patriotism and the most violent
religious outcries in Virginia; where, nevertheless, he was not much
more liked by the Whigs than by the party who still remained faithful
to the Crown. He wondered that such an old Tory as Madam Esmond of
Castlewood was suffered to go at large, and was for ever crying out
against her amongst the gentlemen of the new Assembly, the Governor, and
officers of the State. He and Fanny had high words in Richmond one
day, when she told him he was an old swindler and traitor, and that the
mother of Colonel Henry Warrington, the bosom friend of his Excellency
the Commander-in-Chief, was not to be insulted by such a little
smuggling slave-driver as him! I think it was in the year 1780 an
accident happened, when the old Register Office at Williamsburg was
burned down, in which there was a copy of the formal assignment of the
Virginia property from Francis Lord Castlewood to my grandfather Henry
Esmond, Esquire. “Oh,” says Fanny, “of course this is the work of Jack
the Painter!” And Mr. Van den Bosch was for prosecuting her for libel,
but that Fanny took to her bed at this juncture, and died.

Van den Bosch made contracts with the new Government, and sold them
bargains, as the phrase is. He supplied horses, meat, forage, all of bad
quality; but when Arnold came into Virginia (in the King’s service) and
burned right and left, Van den Bosch’s stores and tobacco-houses somehow
were spared. Some secret Whigs now took their revenge on the old rascal.
A couple of his ships in James River, his stores, and a quantity of his
cattle in their stalls were roasted amidst a hideous bellowing; and
he got a note, as he was in Arnold’s company, saying that friends
had served him as he served others; and containing “Tom the Glazier’s
compliments to brother Jack the Painter.” Nobody pitied the old man,
though he went well-nigh mad at his loss. In Arnold’s suite came
the Honourable Captain William Esmond, of the New York Loyalists, as
aide-de-camp to the General. When Howe occupied Philadelphia, Will was
said to have made some money keeping a gambling-house with an officer
of the dragoons of Anspach. I know not how he lost it. He could not have
had much when he consented to become an aide-de-camp of Arnold.

Now, the King’s officers having reappeared in the province, Madam Esmond
thought fit to open her house at Castlewood and invite them thither--and
actually received Mr. Arnold and his suite. “It is not for me,” she
said, “to refuse my welcome to a man whom my Sovereign has admitted to
grace.” And she threw her house open to him, and treated him with great
though frigid respect whilst he remained in the district. The General
gone, and, his precious aide-de-camp with him, some of the rascals who
followed in their suite remained behind in the house where they had
received so much hospitality, insulted the old lady in her hall,
insulted her people, and finally set fire to the old mansion in a frolic
of drunken fury. Our house at Richmond was not burned, luckily, though
Mr. Arnold had fired the town; and thither the undaunted old lady
proceeded, surrounded by her people, and never swerving in her loyalty,
in spite of her ill-usage. “The Esmonds,” she said, “were accustomed to
Royal ingratitude.”

And now Mr. Van den Bosch, in the name of his grandson and my Lord
Castlewood, in England, set up a claim to our property in Virginia.
He said it was not my lord’s intention to disturb Madam Esmond in her
enjoyment of the estate during her life, but that his father, it had
always been understood, had given his kinsman a life-interest in the
place, and only continued it to his daughter out of generosity. Now my
lord proposed that his second son should inhabit Virginia, for which
the young gentleman had always shown the warmest sympathy. The outcry
against Van den Bosch was so great that he would have been tarred and
feathered, had he remained in Virginia. He betook himself to Congress,
represented himself as a martyr ruined in the cause of liberty, and
prayed for compensation for himself and justice for his grandson.

My mother lived long in dreadful apprehension, having in truth a secret,
which she did not like to disclose to any one. Her titles were burned!
the deed of assignment in her own house, the copy in the Registry at
Richmond, had alike been destroyed--by chance? by villainy? who could
say? She did not like to confide this trouble in writing to me.
She opened herself to Hal, after the surrender of York Town, and he
acquainted me with the fact in a letter by a British officer returning
home on his parole. Then I remembered the unlucky words I had let slip
before Will Esmond at the coffee-house at New York; and a part of this
iniquitous scheme broke upon me.

As for Mr. Will: there is a tablet in Castlewood Church, in Hampshire,
inscribed, Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, and announcing that
“This marble is placed by a mourning brother, to the memory of the
Honourable William Esmond, Esquire, who died in North America, in the
service of his King.” But how? When, towards the end of 1781, a revolt
took place in the Philadelphia Line of the Congress Army, and Sir Henry
Clinton sent out agents to the mutineers, what became of them? The men
took the spies prisoners, and proceeded to judge them, and my brother
(whom they knew and loved, and had often followed under fire), who had
been sent from camp to make terms with the troops, recognised one of the
spies, just as execution was about to be done upon him--and the wretch,
with horrid outcries, grovelling and kneeling at Colonel Warrington’s
feet, besought him for mercy, and promised to confess all to him. To
confess what? Harry turned away sick at heart. Will’s mother and sister
never knew the truth. They always fancied it was in action he was
killed.

As for my lord earl, whose noble son has been the intendant of an
illustrious Prince, and who has enriched himself at play with his R---l
master: I went to see his lordship when I heard of this astounding
design against our property, and remonstrated with him on the matter.
For myself, as I showed him, I was not concerned, as I had determined
to cede my right to my brother. He received me with perfect courtesy;
smiled when I spoke of my disinterestedness; said he was sure of my
affectionate feelings towards my brother, but what must be his towards
his son? He had always heard from his father: he would take his Bible
oath of that: that, at my mother’s death, the property would return to
the head of the family. At the story of the title which Colonel Esmond
had ceded, he shrugged his shoulders, and treated it as a fable. “On
ne fait pas de ces folies la!” says he, offering me snuff, “and your
grandfather was a man of esprit! My little grandmother was eprise of
him: and my father, the most good-natured soul alive, lent them the
Virginian property to get them out of the way! C’etoit un scandale, mon
cher, un joli petit scandale!” Oh, if my mother had but heard him! I
might have been disposed to take a high tone: but he said, with the
utmost good-nature, “My dear Knight, are you going to fight about the
character of our grandmother? Allons donc! Come, I will be fair with
you! We will compromise, if you like, about this Virginian property!”
 and his lordship named a sum greater than the actual value of the
estate.

Amazed at the coolness of this worthy, I walked away to my coffee-house,
where, as it happened, an old friend was to dine with me, for whom I
have a sincere regard. I had felt a pang at not being able to give this
gentleman my living of Warrington--on-Waveney, but I could not, as he
himself confessed honestly. His life had been too loose, and his example
in my village could never have been edifying: besides, he would have
died of ennui there, after being accustomed to a town life; and he had
a prospect finally, he told me, of settling himself most comfortably in
London and the church. [He was the second Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea’s
Chapel, Mayfair, and married Elizabeth, relict of Hermann Voelcker,
Esq., the eminent brewer.] My guest, I need not say, was my old friend
Sampson, who never failed to dine with me when I came to town, and I
told him of my interview with his old patron.

I could not have lighted upon a better confidant. “Gracious powers!”
 says Sampson, “the man’s roguery beats all belief! When I was secretary
and factotum at Castlewood, I can take my oath I saw more than once a
copy of the deed of assignment by the late lord to your grandfather:
‘In consideration of the love I bear to my kinsman Henry Esmond,
Esq., husband of my dear mother Rachel, Lady Viscountess Dowager of
Castlewood, I, etc.’--so it ran. I know the place where ‘tis kept--let
us go thither as fast as horses will carry us to-morrow. There is
somebody there--never mind whom, Sir George--who has an old regard for
me. The papers may be there to this very day, and O Lord, O Lord, but I
shall be thankful if I can in any way show my gratitude to you and your
glorious brother!” His eyes filled with tears. He was an altered man.
At a certain period of the port wine Sampson always alluded with
compunction to his past life, and the change which had taken place in
his conduct since the awful death of his friend Doctor Dodd.

Quick as we were, we did not arrive at Castlewood too soon. I was
looking at the fountain in the court, and listening to that sweet sad
music of its plashing, which my grandfather tells of in his memoires,
and peopling the place with bygone figures, with Beatrix in her beauty;
with my Lord Francis in scarlet, calling to his dogs and mounting
his grey horse; with the young page of old who won the castle and the
heiress--when Sampson comes running down to me with an old volume in
rough calf-bound in his hand, containing drafts of letters, copies
of agreements, and various writings, some by a secretary of my Lord
Francis, some in the slim handwriting of his wife my grandmother, some
bearing the signature of the last lord; and here was a copy of the
assignment sure enough, as it had been sent to my grandfather in
Virginia. “Victoria, Victoria!” cries Sampson, shaking my hand,
embracing everybody. “Here is a guinea for thee, Betty. We’ll have a
bowl of punch at the Three Castles to-night!” As we were talking, the
wheels of postchaises were heard, and a couple of carriages drove into
the court containing my lord and a friend, and their servants in the
next vehicle. His lordship looked only a little paler than usual at
seeing me.

“What procures me the honour of Sir George Warrington’s visit, and
pray, Mr. Sampson, what do you do here?” says my lord. I think he had
forgotten the existence of this book, or had never seen it; and when he
offered to take his Bible oath of what he had heard from his father, had
simply volunteered a perjury.

I was shaking hands with his companion, a nobleman with whom I had had
the honour to serve in America. “I came,” I said, “to convince myself of
a fact, about which you were mistaken yesterday; and I find the proof
in your lordship’s own house. Your lordship was pleased to take your
lordship’s Bible oath, that there was no agreement between your father
and his mother, relative to some property which I hold. When Mr. Sampson
was your lordship’s secretary, he perfectly remembered having seen a
copy of such an assignment, and here it is.”

“And do you mean, Sir George Warrington, that unknown to me you have
been visiting my papers?” cries my lord.

“I doubted the correctness of your statement, though backed by your
lordship’s Bible oath,” I said with a bow.

“This, sir, is robbery! Give the papers back!” bawled my lord.

“Robbery is a rough word, my lord. Shall I tell the whole story to Lord
Rawdon?”

“What, is it about the Marquisate? Connu, connu, my dear Sir George! We
always called you the Marquis in New York. I don’t know who brought the
story from Virginia.”

I never had heard this absurd nickname before, and did not care
to notice it. “My Lord Castlewood,” I said, “not only doubted, but
yesterday laid a claim to my property, taking his Bible oath that----”

Castlewood gave a kind of gasp, and then said, “Great heaven! Do you
mean, Sir George, that there actually is an agreement extant? Yes. Here
it is--my father’s handwriting, sure enough! Then the question is clear.
Upon my o----well, upon my honour as a gentleman! I never knew of such
an agreement, and must have been mistaken in what my father said. This
paper clearly shows the property is yours: and not being mine--why, I
wish you joy of it!” and he held out his hand with the blandest smile.

“And how thankful you will be to me, my lord, for having enabled him to
establish the right,” says Sampson, with a leer on his face.

“Thankful? No, confound you. Not in the least!” says my lord. “I am a
plain man; I don’t disguise from my cousin that I would rather have
had the property than he. Sir George, you will stay and dine with us.
A large party is coming down here shooting; we ought to have you one of
us!”

“My lord,” said I, buttoning the book under my coat, “I will go and get
this document copied, and then return it to your lordship. As my mother
in Virginia has had her papers burned, she will be put out of much
anxiety by having this assignment safely lodged.”

“What, have Madam Esmond’s papers been burned? When the deuce was that?”
 asks my lord.

“My lord, I wish you a very good afternoon. Come, Sampson, you and I
will go and dine at the Three Castles.” And I turned on my heel, making
a bow to Lord R------, and from that day to this I have never set my
foot within the halls of my ancestors.

Shall I ever see the old mother again, I wonder? She lives in Richmond,
never having rebuilt her house in the country. When Hal was in England,
we sent her pictures of both her sons, painted by the admirable Sir
Joshua Reynolds. We sate to him, the last year Mr. Johnson was alive, I
remember. And the Doctor, peering about the studio, and seeing the image
of Hal in his uniform (the appearance of it caused no little excitement
in those days), asked who was this? and was informed that it was the
famous American General--General Warrington, Sir George’s brother.
“General Who?” cries the Doctor, “General Where? Pooh! I don’t know such
a service!” and he turned his back and walked out of the premises. My
worship is painted in scarlet, and we have replicas of both performances
at home. But the picture which Captain Miles and the girls declare to be
most like is a family sketch by my ingenious neighbour, Mr. Bunbury, who
has drawn me and my lady with Monsieur Gumbo following us, and written
under the piece, “SIR GEORGE, MY LADY, AND THEIR MASTER.”

Here my master comes; he has poked out all the house-fires, has looked
to all the bolts, has ordered the whole male and female crew to their
chambers; and begins to blow my candles out, and says, “Time, Sir
George, to go to bed! Twelve o’clock!”

“Bless me! So indeed it is.” And I close my book, and go to my rest,
with a blessing on those now around me asleep.


THE END





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