CHAPTER V.—IS OF A DECIDEDLY WARLIKE CHARACTER.
The place of rendezvous for the “gallant defenders of the British constitution,” as Leicester had designated the little party, was a cigar shop in the immediate vicinity of the building in which the meeting was to be held. On their arrival they perceived that the shop was already occupied by several young men, who were lounging over the counter, bandying jests and compliments with a ringleted young lady, who appeared thoroughly self-possessed and quite equal to the part she had to perform, having through all her pretty coquetries a shrewd eye to business, and reserving her most fascinating smiles for the most inveterate smokers.
As Grandeville entered the shop, which he did with a most lordly and dignified air, he was welcomed with general acclamation.
“All hail, Macbeth!” exclaimed a thin young man, with a white greatcoat and a face to match, throwing himself into a tragedy attitude.
“Most noble commander!” began another of the group. “Most illustrious De Grandeville! how is——”
“Your anxious mother?” interrupted a short, muscular little fellow, with as rich a brogue as ever claimed Cork for its county.
“Hush! be quiet, Pat; we have no time for nonsense now, man,” cried a tall youth with a profusion of light curling hair, a prominent hooked nose, a merry smile, and a pair of wicked grey eyes, which appeared to possess the faculty of looking in every direction at once. “You are late, De Grandeville,” he added, coming forward.
“Ar—no, sir; five minutes good by the Horse Guards. Ar—I should have been here sooner, but I have been—ar—recruiting, you see. Mr. Bracy, Mr. Frere, Mr. Arundel—you know Leicester?”
“Delighted to see such an addition to our forces,” replied Bracy, bowing; then shaking hands with Leicester, he added in an undertone, “Walk with me when we start; I have a word to say to you.” Leicester nodded in assent, and then proceeded to accost others of the party with whom he was acquainted.
“Ar—now, gentlemen, will you please to attend to orders?” began Grandeville, raising his voice.
“Hear, hear!” cried the pale young man, faintly.
“We’ll do it betther if you’d be houldin’ yer tongue, maybe,” interposed the hero from Cork, who, being interpreted, was none other than Lieutenant McDermott of the Artillery, believed by the Commander-in-Chief to be at that very moment on duty at Woolwich.
“Ar—you are to divide yourselves into three or four bodies.”
“Faith, we must get blind drunk, and see double twice over then, before we can do that,” remarked the son of Erin argumentatively.
“Now, Paddy, be quiet,” said Bracy, soothingly; “you know you never got so far in your arithmetic as vulgar fractions, so you can’t be supposed to understand the matter.”
A somewhat forcible rejoinder was drowned by Grandeville, who continued, in his most sonorous tone: “Ar—you will then proceed to the hall of meeting, and make your way quietly to the right side, as near the platform as possible. There—keep together, and attract as little attention as you can, and Mr. Bracy will transmit such directions to you as circumstances may render advisable. Do you all clearly understand?”
A general shout of assent, varied by a muttered “Not in the slightest degree,” from McDermott, was followed by the order, “Then march!” and in another moment the party were en route. The pale young man, who was in his secret soul rather alarmed than otherwise, had attached himself firmly to Frere, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and who he thought would take care of him, so Lewis was left to pair off with Leicester.
As they proceeded, the latter began: “Depend upon it, there’s some trick in all this, probably intended for Grandeville’s benefit; that fellow Bracy is one of the most inveterate practical jokers extant, and he seems particularly busy to-night; he’s a clerk in the Home Office, and Grandeville believes in him to an immense extent; but here he comes. Well, Bracy, what is it, man?”
“Is your friend safe?” inquired Bracy aside, glancing at Lewis as he spoke.
“The most cautious man in London,” was the reply, “and one who appreciates our noble commander thoroughly; so now allow us a peep behind the scenes.”
“Well, the matter stands thus,” returned Bracy. “I was walking with Duke Grandeville one night about three weeks ago, when we chanced to encounter the good folks coming away from one of these meetings; they were nothing very formidable—a fair sample of young Newgate Street, youthful patriots from Snow Hill, embryo republicans of St. Paul’s Churchyard, Barbican, and other purlieus of Cockaignia, led by a few choice spirits—copying clerks, who hide their heroism from the light of day in lawyers’ offices, booksellers’ shopmen from the Row, who regard themselves as distinguished literary characters, and prate of the sovereignty of the press, and the like. Well, as might be expected, they discoursed most ferociously, and the Duke, overhearing some of their conversation, was deeply scandalised, and fancied he had discovered a second Cato Street conspiracy. The thing appeared to promise fun, so I encouraged him in the idea, and we attended the next meeting, when they talked the usual style of radical clap-trap. Everything was an abuse—the rich were tyrants, the poor slaves, and property required transferring (i.e., from its present possessors to themselves); they knew they never should be kings, so they cried down monarchy; but they trusted that, with strong lungs and good-luck, they might become paid delegates, therefore they clamoured for a republic. There was much noise, but no talent; sanguinary theories were discussed, which they had neither minds nor means to enable them to carry out; in short, the place is one of those innocent sedition shops which act as safety valves to carry off popular discontent, and ensure the health and vigour of the British constitution. Of course, however, Grandeville did not see it in that point of view, and from that night forth he became positively rabid on the subject; so it entered the heads of some of us that we might improve the occasion by persuading him that he might, through me, communicate information to the Home Office (I need scarcely tell you that it never reached the authorities there), and we have led him on sweetly and easily, till he positively believes that he is to be at the Hall to-night as an accredited government agent, with full powers to suppress the meeting, and I know not what else.”
“But surely you’ll get into a fearful row,” urged Leicester.
“We are safe for a bit of a shindy, no doubt,” was the cool reply; “in fact I do not consider that the thing would go off properly without it, so I brought an Irishman with me to render it inevitable; but I have bribed a doorkeeper, and let the worst come to the worst, we can easily fight our way out.”
“To be sure we can,” exclaimed Lewis, “lick a hundred such fellows as you have described. This is glorious fun; I would not have missed it for the world.”
Bracy glanced at him for a moment with a look of intense approval, then shaking him warmly by the hand, he said, “Sir, I’m delighted to make your acquaintance; your sentiments do you honour, sir. Are you much accustomed to rows of this nature, may I ask?”
“I have been resident in Germany for the last three years,” was the reply; “and although they have a very fair notion of an émeute after their own fashion, they don’t understand the use of the fist as we do.”
“There are two grand rules for crowd-fighting,” returned Bracy. “First, make play with your elbows, Cockneys’ ribs are as sensitive as niggers’ shins; secondly, if it comes to blows, strike at their faces, and never waste your strength; but when you do make a hit, drop your man if possible; it settles him, and frightens the rest. Here we are!” So saying, he turned into a kind of passage which led to an open door, through which they passed into the body of the hall.
It was a large room with a vaulted ceiling, and appeared capable of holding from five to six hundred persons. At the farther end of it was a platform, raised some feet, and divided from the rest of the hall by a stout wooden railing. The room was lighted with gas, and considerably more than half filled. Although the majority of the audience appeared to answer the description Bracy had given of them, yet along the sides of the apartment were ranged numbers of sturdy artisans and craftsmen, amongst whom many a stalwart form and stern determined visage might be detected.
“There are some rather awkward customers here to-night,” whispered Leicester. “If we chance to get black eyes, Arundel, we must postpone our visit to the General to-morrow.”
“The man that gives me a black eye shall have something to remember it by, at all events,” returned Lewis quickly.
“Hush! that fellow heard you,” said Leicester.
Lewis glanced in the direction indicated, and met the sinister gaze, of a tall, heavy-built mechanic, in a rough greatcoat, who frowned menacingly when he found that he was observed. Lewis smiled carelessly in reply, and proceeded after Bracy up the room. When he had passed, the man, still keeping his eye upon him, quitted his seat and followed at some little distance. On reaching the upper end of the room they perceived Grandeville and two or three others, among whom was McDermott, on the platform, while Frere and the rest of their party had congregated on and near a flight of five or six steps leading to it from the body of the hall.
“Bravo, Grandeville!” observed Bracy, in an undertone, to Leicester. “Do you mark that! he has secured a retreat—good generalship, very. I shall have to believe in him if he goes on as well as he has commenced. Hark! they are beginning to give tongue.”
As he concluded, a little fat man came forward and said a good deal about the honour which had been done him in being allowed the privilege of opening the evening’s proceedings, to which he appended a long and utterly incomprehensible account of the objects of the meeting. His zeal was evident, but Nature had never intended him for an orator, and the chances of life had fitted him with a short husky cough, so that nobody was very sorry when he ceded the rostrum to his “esteemed friend, if he might be allowed to say so (which he was), Jabez Broadcom.” This Jabez Broadcom was evidently a great gun, and his coming forward created no small sensation. He was a tall, gaunt-looking man, with straight weak hair and an unhealthy complexion; but his great feature, in every sense of the word, was his mouth.
It was a mouth, not only for mutton, but for every other purpose to which that useful aperture could be applied; at present it was to be devoted to the task of conveying its owner’s mighty thoughts, in appropriate language, to the eager listeners who surrounded him.
This gentleman then, having, by dint of drawing in his lips and thrusting them out again, and rolling his eyes so fearfully as to suggest a sudden attack of English cholera, got up his steam to the required height, proceeded to inform the assembly that they were, individually and collectively, free and enlightened citizens of the great metropolis of Europe, prepared to recognise their sacred rights, and resolved to go forth as one man to assert and maintain them. Having imparted this information (through his nose, for the greater effect), he began to ask himself a species of Pinnock’s Catechism, so to speak, which ran somewhat after the following fashion:—
“And why am I here to-night? Because I love profit? No. Because I love personal distinction? No. Because I love my country? Yes. Because I would not see her children slaves? Yes. Because purse-proud oppressors, revelling in their wealth, trample on the honest poor man? Yes.”
Having said by heart several pages of this, in which he was exceedingly well up, and which he rattled off most fluently, he continued—
“But such tyranny shall not always be tolerated. British freemen, whose proud boast it is that they have never borne a foreign yoke, shall no longer crouch beneath a despotic rule at home. The atrocious barbarities of a brutal poor-law, which taxes honest householders to furnish salaried ruffians with power to drag the half-eaten crust from the famished jaws of helpless poverty——”
(A slight sensation was here occasioned by McDermott mentioning for the benefit of the meeting in general, and the orator himself in particular, his conviction that the last sentence was “very pretty indeed,” together with a polite inquiry as to whether he could not be so kind as to say it again. Peace being restored after sundry shouts of “Turn him out!”)
“Shame!” etc., the orator resumed—
“Let them build their bastiles, let them tear the wife from her husband, the mother from her child; let them crowd their prison-houses with the honest sons of labour whom their brutality has forced into crime—the poor man need never dread starvation while the hulks hunger and the gallows gapes for him—but a day of retribution is at hand; let the tyrants tremble beneath their gilded roofs—those unjust usurpers of the soil—the poor man’s bitterest foes, the landed gentry, as they arrogantly style themselves, must be cut off and rooted out.”
“Pretty strong, that!” observed Bracy, in a whisper.
“Ar—this won’t do, you know!” returned Grandeville, in an equally low voice. “I must, really—ar—interfere.”
“Better hear him out,” rejoined Bracy, “and then get up and address them yourself.” To which suggestion, after a slight remonstrance, the former agreed; but such a shining light as Mr. Jabez Broadcom was not to be put out as quickly as they desired; he was the great card of the evening, and knew it, and prolonged his speech for a good three-quarters of an hour, during which time he theoretically dethroned the Queen, abolished the Lords and Commons, seated a National Convention in St. Stephen’s, and made all the rich poor, and the poor both rich and happy, whilst he practically rendered himself so hoarse as to be nearly inaudible; for which gallant exertions in the cause of liberty he received the tumultuous applause of the meeting, together with Lieut. McDermott’s expressed conviction that he was “a broth of a boy entirely,” together with an anxious inquiry, “whether his mother had many more like him.”
When Broadcom retired from the rostrum there appeared some misunderstanding and confusion as to his successor; taking advantage of which, Grandeville looked at Bracy, who nodded, adding, “Now’s your time! Go in, and win;” then, catching a cadaverous-looking individual who was about to advance by the shoulders, and twisting him round, he exclaimed, “Now, my man, stand out of the way, will you? This gentleman is going to address the company.” He next thrust Grandeville forward, and patting him encouragingly on the back, left him to his own devices. That heroic gentleman, having bowed to his audience with much grace and dignity, waved his hand to command attention, and began as follows:—
“Ar—listen to me, my friends! Ar—hem—I am prepared to admit—that is, it is impossible to deny—that many great and serious evils exist in the complicated social fabric of this glorious country. The vast increase of population——”
“Owing to the introduction of chloroform,” suggested Bracy.
“Though slightly checked by——”
“The alarming consumption of Morrison’s Pills,” interposed the Irishman——
“The wise facilities afforded for emigration,” continued Grandeville, not heeding these interruptions, “is one chief cause of the poverty and distress which, though greatly exaggerated by the false statements of evil-disposed and designing persons (groans and cries of ‘Hear!’), are to be found even in this metropolis, beneath the fostering care of an enlightened and paternal government (increasing murmurs of dissatisfaction). But if you believe that these evils are likely to be redressed by such measures as have been pointed out to you this evening, or that anarchy and rebellion can lead to any other result than misery and ruin—ar—I tell you, that you are fearfully mistaken! Ar—as a man, possessed of—ar—no inconsiderable influence—and ar—intimately connected with those powers against which you are madly arraying yourselves, I warn you!”
Here the excitement and dissatisfaction, which had been rapidly increasing, reached a pitch which threatened to render the speaker inaudible; and amid cries of “Who is he?”—“an informer!”—“government spy!”—“turn him out!”—“throw him over!” several persons rose from their seats and attempted to force their way on to the platform, but were kept back by Lewis and others of Grandeville’s party, who, as has been already mentioned, had taken possession of the flight of steps, which afforded the only legitimate means of access from the body of the hall.
Undisturbed by these hostile demonstrations, Grandeville continued, at the top of his voice,—“I warn you that you are provoking an unequal struggle,—that you are bringing upon yourselves a fearful retribution. Even now I am armed with authority to disperse this meeting—to——”
What more he would have added the reader is not fated to learn, for at this moment the man in the rough greatcoat, who had followed Lewis from the entrance of the room, exclaiming, “Come on, we are not going to stand this, you know; never mind the steps,” seized the railing of the platform, and drawing himself up, sprang over, followed by several others. In an instant all was confusion. Grandeville, taken in some degree by surprise, after knocking down a couple of his assailants, was overpowered, and, amid cries of “throw him over,” hurried to the edge of the platform; here, grasping the rail with both hands, he struggled violently to prevent the accomplishment of their purpose.
“Come along, boys! we must rescue him,” exclaimed Bracy; and suiting the action to the word, he bounded forward, and hitting right and left, reached the scene of conflict. Lewis and the others, abandoning the steps, followed his example, and the row became general. For some minutes the uproar was terrific; blows were given and received; blood began to flow from sundry noses; and certain eyes that had begun the evening blue, brown, or grey, as the case might be, assumed a hue dark as Erebus. As for Lewis, he knocked down one of the fellows who had hold of Grandeville; then he picked up the Irishman, who of course had singled out and attacked the biggest man in the crowd (none other indeed than the rough-coated patriot, who appeared a sort of leader among them), and been immediately felled by him to the ground; then he assisted Frere in extricating the pale-faced youth from three individuals of questionable honesty, who were availing themselves of the confusion to empty his pockets; as he did so he felt himself seized with a grasp of iron, and turning his head, found he was collared by the gigantic leader. A violent but ineffectual effort to free himself only served to convince him that in point of strength he was no match for his antagonist, who, regarding him with a smile of gratified malice, exclaimed, “Now then, young feller, I’ve been a-waiting to get hold of you. How about a black eye now?” As he spoke he drew him forward with one hand and struck at him savagely with the other. Avoiding the blow by suddenly dodging aside, Lewis closed with his adversary, and inserting his knuckles within the folds of his neckcloth, tightened it, until in self-defence, and in order to avoid strangulation, the fellow was forced to loosen his grasp of Lewis’s collar. The instant he felt himself free, Lewis, giving the neckcloth a final twist, and at the same time pressing his knuckles into the man’s throat, so as for the moment almost to throttle him, stepped back a couple of paces, and springing forward again before the other had time to recover himself, hit up under his guard and succeeded in planting a stinging and well-directed blow exactly between his eyes; this, followed by a similar application rather lower on the face, settled the matter. Reeling backwards, his antagonist lost his footing and fell heavily to the ground, dragging one of his companions down with him in a futile attempt to save himself. The fall of their leader threw a damp on the spirits of the others; and although those in the rear were still clamorous with threats and vociferations, the members of the crowd in more immediate proximity to the little party showed small inclination to renew the attack.
“Now’s our time for getting away,” said Bracy. “Make a bold push for the door.”
“Ar—I should say,” rejoined Grandeville, one of whose eyes was completely closed from the effects of a blow, and whose coat was hanging about him in ribands, “let us despatch one of our party for the police and military, and stand firm and maintain our ground till they come up, then capture the ringleaders and clear the room.”
“Nonsense,” said Leicester, who, despite his regard for his wardrobe, had behaved most spiritedly during the skirmish. “We shall all be murdered before they appear; besides” (he added aside to Bracy), “it will be making much too serious a business of it; we should get into some tremendous scrape.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Bracy; then turning to Grandeville, he added, “I don’t think my instructions would bear us out if we were to go any further. Remember, we were only to make a pacific demonstration.”
“And faith, if breaking heads, and getting a return in kind, comes under that same denomination, it’s a pretty decent one we’ve made already, ’pon me conscience,” put in McDermott, wiping away the blood that was still trickling from a cut in his forehead.
While these remarks were bandied from one to another, the party had contrived to make their way from the platform, and were now in the body of the room, striving to push through the crowd towards the side door. This at every step became more and more difficult, till at length they were so completely hemmed in that further progression became impossible, and it was evident that a fresh attack upon them was meditated. Fortunately, however, they were not far from the point of egress, and Bracy, having caught the eye of his ally the doorkeeper, who was on the alert, exclaimed, “Now, Grandeville, we must fight our way through these fellows and gain the door; there’s nothing for it but a spirited charge. You and I, Frere and his friend, and Paddy had better go first as a sort of wedge.”
“Ar—head the column and break the enemy’s ranks, ar—yes, are you all ready? Charge!”
As he gave the word they rushed forward in a compact body, and knocking down and pushing aside all who opposed them, succeeded in reaching the door. Here a short delay occurred while Bracy and his friend were opening it, and several of their late antagonists, irritated at the prospect of their escape, incited the others to attack them, so that before their egress was secured even the Irish lieutenant had had fighting enough to satisfy him, and the pale young man, having long since given himself up as a lost mutton, actually fainted with fear and over-exertion, and was dragged from under the feet of the combatants and carried out by Frere and Lewis, but for whom his mortal career would then and there have ended.
How, as they emerged into the street, a party of the police arrived and caused more confusion and more broken heads; and how Grande-ville and the Irishman on the one hand, and sundry Chartists, with Lewis’s late antagonist among them, on the other, were jointly and severally taken into custody and marched to the station-house, where they spent the night; and how Leicester contrived just in the nick of time to catch an intelligent cab, into which he, Lewis, Frere, and the fainting victim with the pallid physiognomy compressed themselves, and were conveyed rapidly from the scene of action, it boots not to relate: suffice it to say that a certain barrel of oysters, flanked by a detachment of pint bottles of stout, which had taken up their position on Frere’s dining-table during the absence of its master, sustained an attack about half-past eleven o’clock that night which proved that the mode in which their assailants had passed the evening had in no way impaired their respective appetites.
CHAPTER VI.—IN WHICH LEWIS ARUNDEL SKETCHES A COW, AND THE AUTHOR DRAWS A YOUNG LADY.
It was about noon on the day following the events narrated in the last chapter. Frere had departed to his office at the scientific institution some two hours since, and Lewis and Faust were looking out of the window, when a well-appointed cab dashed round the corner of a cross street, and a pair of lavender-coloured kid-gloves drew up a splendid bay horse, who arched his proud neck and champed the bit, impatient of delay, till a young male child in livery coat and top-boots rolled off the back of the vehicle and stationed itself before the animal’s nose, which act of self-devotion appeared to mesmerise him into tranquillity, and afforded the occupant of the cab time to spring out and knock at Frere’s door. Five minutes more saw Leicester and Lewis seated side by side and driving rapidly in the direction of Park Crescent.
“I don’t know how you feel this morning, Arundel,” began Leicester; “but positively when I first woke I could scarcely move. I’m black and blue all over, I believe.”
“I must confess to being rather stiff,” was the reply, “and my left hand is unproducible. I cut my knuckles against the nose of that tall fellow when I knocked him down, and shall be forced to wear a glove till it heals.”
“You did that uncommonly well,” returned Leicester; “the man was as strong as Hercules, and vicious into the bargain. He evidently had heard what you said about a black eye, and meant mischief. I was coming to help you when you finished him off.”
“It would have been most provoking to have been disfigured just at this time,” rejoined Lewis. “One could not very well go to propose oneself as a mentor for youth with a black eye obtained in something nearly akin to a street row.”
“No,” said Leicester; “the General would consider our last night’s exploit as dreadfully infra dig. He is quite one of the old school, and reckons Sir Charles Grandison a model for gentlemen. You must be careful to avoid the free-and-easy style of the present day with him; but I think you’ll suit him exactly; there’s naturally something of the preux chevalier, héros de roman cut about you that will go down with him amazingly.”
“In plain English, you consider me stiff and affected,” returned Lewis. “Do not scruple to tell me if it is so.”
“Stiff, yes; affected, no,” was the rejoinder. “Indeed, your manner is unusually simple and natural when you thaw a little, but at first you are—well, I hardly know how to describe it; but there is something about you unlike the men one usually meets. You have a sort of half-defiant way of looking at people, a sort of ‘you’d better not insult me, sir’ expression. I don’t know that I should have observed it towards myself, but it was your manner to Grandeville that particularly struck me. I have not annoyed you by my frankness?” he added interrogatively, finding that Lewis did not reply. Regardless of this question, Lewis remained silent for a minute or two, then suddenly turning to his companion, and speaking in a low, hurried voice, he said—
“Can you conceive no reason for such a manner? Is there not enough in my position to account for that, ay, and more? By birth I am any man’s equal. My father was of an old family, a captain in the Austrian service, and in the highest sense of the word a gentleman. I have received a gentleman’s education. Up to the present time I have associated with gentlemen on terms of equality, and now suddenly, through no fault of my own, I am in effect a beggar. The very errand we are upon proves it. Through the kindness of Frere and of yourself,—a stranger,—I am about to receive a favourable recommendation to some proud old man as a hired servant; for though in name it may not be so, in fact I shall be nought but a hireling! Is it strange then that I view men with suspicion? that I am watchful lest they attempt to refuse me the amount of courtesy due to those who, having never forfeited their own self-respect, are entitled to the respect of others?”
He paused, and removing his hat, allowed the cold breeze to blow freely around his heated brow. Leicester, who, despite his foppery, was thoroughly kind-hearted, being equally surprised and distressed at the burst of feeling his words had called forth, hastened to reply.
“My dear fellow, I really am—that is, ’pon my word, I had no idea you looked upon the affair in this light. I can assure you, I think you quite mistake the matter; a tutorship is considered a very gentlemanly occupation. If I had any work in me, I’m not at all sure I might not—that is, it would be a very sensible thing of me to look out for something of the kind myself. Stanhope Jones, who was up at Trinity with me, and about the fastest man of his year, ran through his fortune, got a tutorship in Lord Puzzletête’s family, went abroad with the eldest cub, and picked up a prize widow at Pisa, with tin enough to set the leaning tower straight again, if she’d had a fancy to do so.”
During this well-meant attempt at consolation Lewis had had time to come to the conclusion that he was in the position of that unwise individual who wore “his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at;” or, in plain English, that he had been betrayed into a display of feeling before a man incapable of appreciating or understanding it; and a less agreeable conviction at which to arrive we scarcely know. Nothing, however, remained but to make the best of it, which he accordingly did, by admitting the possibility that there might be much truth in Leicester’s view of the case, and changing the subject by saying, “Now I want you to give me a peep at the carte du pays of the unknown region I am about to explore. I think I pretty well comprehend the General from your description. Of what other members does the family consist?”
“Ah! yes, of course you must be curious to know. Well, the dramatis persono is somewhat limited. First and foremost, the General,—you comprehend him, you say?” Lewis made a sign in the affirmative, and Leicester continued: “Then we have an awful personage, who I expect will be a severe trial to you—Miss Livingstone; she is a relation, an aunt I think, of the General’s late wife, who lives with him and keeps his house, and was the terror of my boyhood whenever I was staying down at Broadhurst. She never was over young, I believe; at least I can’t imagine her anything but middle-aged, and she must now be sixty or thereabouts. For the rest, she looks as if she had swallowed a poker, and, by some mysterious process of assimilation, become imbued with its distinguishing characteristics; for she is very stiff, very cold, and as far as I know utterly impenetrable, but of a stirring disposition withal, which leads her to interfere with everybody and everything. Lastly, there is my cousin Annie, the General’s only daughter; she inherits her mother’s beauty, her father’s pride, her great-aunt’s determination to have her own way, and the devil’s own love of teasing. To set against all this, I believe her to be thoroughly good and amiable, and everything of that kind; at all events she is a most bewitching girl, and bids fair, under judicious management, to become a very charming woman! fancy her mission is to reform my brother Bellefield and render him a steady married man, and I wish her joy of it. She comes into her mother’s fortune when she is of age, and the respective governors have set their hearts upon the match.”
“And what says Lord Bellefield?” inquired Lewis listlessly.
“Oh, Bell reckons she won’t be of age, and that the match can’t come off these four years, by which time he expects to be so hard up that he must marry somebody; and as there will be plenty of the needful, she will suit his book as well as any other.”
“The young lady, of course, approves?” continued Lewis dreamily, untying a knot in the thong of Leicester’s whip.
“Catch a woman refusing a coronet,” returned Leicester, as he pulled up at a house in Park Crescent so suddenly as almost to throw the bay on his haunches.
“General Grant begs you will walk upstairs, Mr. Leicester. He is engaged at present, but desired me to say he particularly wishes to see you,” was the reply made by a most aristocratic butler to Leicester’s inquiry whether his master was at home. “Keep the bay moving, Tim. Now, Arundel, turn to the right—that’s it,” and suiting the action to the word, Charley the indolent leisurely descended from the cab, and crossing the “marble hall,” lounged up a wide staircase followed by Lewis.
“Silence and solitude,” he continued, opening the door of a large drawing-room handsomely furnished. “I hope they won’t be long before they introduce us to the luncheon-table. Oysters are popularly supposed to give one an appetite; but the natives we demolished at Frere’s last night must have been sadly degenerate, for I declare to you I could scarcely get through my breakfast this morning. Ah! what have we here?—a water-colour landscape in a semi-chaotic condition. Annie has been sketching, as sure as fate. I’ll introduce a few masterly touches and surprise her.” So saying he seated himself at the table and began dabbling with a brush.
“By Jove, I’ve done it now!” he exclaimed in a tone of consternation, after a minute’s pause. “Just look here; I thought I would insert the trunk of a tree in the foreground, and the confounded brush had got red in it, so I have made a thing like a lobster and spoiled the drawing.”
“I think, if you wish, I could turn it into a cow, and so get you out of the scrape,” suggested Lewis, smiling at his companion’s guilty countenance.
“My dear fellow, the very thing,” exclaimed Leicester, hastily rising and thrusting Lewis into his seat; “let’s have a cow, by all means. That’s famous,” he continued, as with a few graphic strokes Lewis converted the red daub into the semblance of an animal. “Bravo! make her an eye—now the horns—what a fascinating quadruped! Where’s the tail to come?”
“You would not see the tail in the position in which the cow is supposed to be lying,” remonstrated Lewis.
“Still, it would make it more natural,” urged Leicester. “As a personal favour, just to oblige me, stretch a point and give her a tail.”
“There, then, I’ve twisted it under her leg,” said Lewis, making the desired addition; “but depend upon it, there never was a cow’s tail so situated.”
“All the greater proof of your talent,” was the reply. “The ideal is what you artists (for I see you are one) are always raving about, and this is a specimen of it.”
So engrossed had the two young men been with their occupation that they had not observed the entrance of a third person. The newcomer was that most charming of all created beings, a very lovely girl of seventeen.
As every poet since Homer has done his utmost to clothe in fitting language a description of the best specimen of the class which it may have been his hap to meet with, and as no man in his senses would exchange half-an-hour of the society of one of the originals for all the fanciful descriptions of women that ever were written, we would fain be excused from adding one more to the number; and were all our readers of what grammarians most ungallantly term “the worthier gender,” we should cut the matter short by begging each man to imagine the damsel in question exactly like the “unexpressive she” who is, for the time being, queen of his soul. But as we flatter ourselves certain bright eyes will sparkle and coral lips smile over this “o’er true tale,” and as we have already been asked by “oceans” of young ladies, “What is the heroine to be like?” we will e’en make a virtue of necessity and give a catalogue raisonné of her many perfections.
Annie Grant, then (for we’ll have no disguise about the matter, but own at once that she it was who entered the drawing-room unperceived, and that she it is who is destined to play the heroine in this our drama of the Railroad of Life; and be it observed interparenthetically that we use the theatrical metaphor advisedly, for Shakespeare has told us that “all the world’s a stage,” and it is a matter of common notoriety that in the present day all stages have become railroads)—Annie Grant, then, we say, was rather above the middle height, though no one would have thought of pronouncing her tall; her gown of mousseline—poil de—psha! what are we thinking of?—she had not a gown on at all; how should she, when she was going to ride directly after luncheon? No, her habit, which fitted to perfection, was well calculated to set off her slight but singularly graceful figure to the best advantage. Her hair, which was braided in broad plaits for the greater convenience (seeing that ringlets under a riding-hat are an anomaly, not to say an abomination), was really auburn,—by which definition we intend to guard against the pale red, or warm, sand-coloured locks which usually pass current for the very rare but very beautiful tint we would particularise,—and if a poet had speculated as to the probability of some wandering sunbeam being imprisoned in its golden meshes, the metaphor, though fanciful, would not have been unapt. Delicate, regular features, large blue eyes, now dancing and sparkling with mischievous glee, now flashing with pride, a mouth like an expressive rosebud, a clear skin, with a warm glow of health painting each velvet cheek, but retreating from the snowy forehead, combined to form a whole on which to gaze was to admire.
This young lady, being such as we have described her, tripped lightly across the apartment till she had stationed herself behind her cousin Charles, and perceiving that both gentlemen were so preoccupied as not to have observed her approach, contrived, by standing on tiptoe and peeping over Leicester’s shoulder, to witness the introduction of the cow of which we have already made honourable mention.
During the animated discussion on the tail question she nearly betrayed her presence by laughing outright; repressing the inclination, however, she retraced her steps, and had nearly succeeded in reaching the side door by which she had entered, when her habit, catching against a table, caused the overthrow of a piece of ornamental china and revealed her presence.
On hearing the sound, Lewis, recalled to a sense of his situation, and for the first time struck by the idea that, in touching the drawing, he had been guilty of an unwarrantable liberty, rose hastily from his seat, colouring crimson as he did so, from an agreeable mixture of shyness, mortification, and proud self-reproach. Leicester, on the other hand, with the à-plomb and presence of mind of a man of the world, turned leisurely, and whispering, “Keep your own counsel, there’s no harm done,” he advanced towards his cousin, saying with a nonchalant air, “You have stolen a march upon us, Annie. This gentleman and I called to see the General upon business, and as he seems resolved to afford us a practical lesson on the virtue of patience. I ventured to while away the time by showing my friend some of your sketches. By the way, let me introduce you. My cousin, Miss Grant—Mr. Arundel.” Thus invoked, Lewis, who in order to atone to his wounded self-respect, had wrapped himself in his very coldest and haughtiest manner, and resembled a banished prince rather than an every-day Christian, advanced a few steps and acknowledged the introduction by a most Grandisonian inclination of the head.
The lady performed her part of the ceremony with an easy courtesy, into which perhaps an equal degree of hauteur was infused, although not the slightest effort was visible.
“Mr. Arundel is doubtless a judge of painting, and my poor sketches are by no means calculated to bear severe criticism,” remarked Miss Grant demurely.
As Lewis remained silent, Leicester hastened to reply: “A judge! of course he is; he’s just returned from Germany, the happy land where smoking, singing, and painting all come by nature.”
“Indeed!” returned Miss Grant. “Then, if it is not too troublesome, perhaps I might ask Mr. Arundel’s advice as to a sketch of Broadhurst I was attempting before your arrival; I left off in despair, because I could not manage anything for the foreground.”
“Try an elephant,” suggested Leicester; “it would have a grand effect, besides possessing the advantage of novelty, and filling up lots of space.”
“Would you bring me the drawing, Charles?” returned his cousin.
“I know too well the style of assistance I may expect from you in such matters. Who embellished my poor head of Minerva with a pair of moustaches?”
“I did,” rejoined Leicester complacently, “and I am proud of it. Minerva was the goddess of war, and sported moustaches in virtue of her profession.”
“Are you never going to give me the drawing, Charles?” asked Annie impatiently. “Positively, cousins are most uncourteous beings. Mr. Arundel, might I trouble you to hand me that sketch?”
Thus appealed to, Lewis had nothing for it but to comply, which he did accordingly, biting his lip with vexation at the dénouement which now appeared inevitable. But Leicester’s resources were not yet exhausted; stretching out his hand before his cousin had received the drawing, he coolly took possession of it, saying, “I know you meant this drawing as a little surprise for me. You have heard me say how much I coveted a sketch of dear old Broadhurst, and so you have kindly made one for me. You have really done it extremely well! Who was it—Fielding—you have been learning of? Positively, you have caught his style!”
“Don’t flatter yourself that I did you the honour of recollecting any such wish, even supposing you really uttered it in my hearing, of which I entertain grave doubts,” returned Annie; “but if you particularly desire it I will make you a present of it when it is finished—if I could only manage that tiresome foreground!”
“I like it better without,” was the reply. “There’s nothing to interfere with the outline of the building, which stands forth in bold relief—and—eh!—well, what’s the matter?”
During his speech his cousin had risen from her seat, and approaching him, caught sight of the drawing, which she had no sooner done than, raising a little white hand, she pointed to the intrusive cow and asked quietly, “Where did that come from?”
The comic perplexity of Leicester’s face was irresistible to behold, as, with a glance at Lewis to secure his sympathy and co-operation, he was evidently about to adopt the cow at all hazards, when the door opened, and a tall, stately old man, with a military port and erect bearing, entered, and surveying the group with evident surprise, drew himself up still more stiffly, ere, with slow and measured steps, he advanced towards them.
It was General Grant!
CHAPTER VII.—WHEREIN THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO MISS LIVINGSTONE, AND INFORMED WHO IS THE GREATEST MAN OF THE AGE.
“Ah! General,” exclaimed Leicester, as he rose leisurely from the arm-chair in which he had been reclining, “I hope they have not disturbed you on our account. I was criticising one of Annie’s sketches pour passer le temps—really she draws very nicely. Let me introduce Mr. Arundel, Mr. Frere’s friend, about whom I wrote to you yesterday.”
A stiff bow, acknowledged on Lewis’s part by an equally haughty inclination of the head, was the result of this introduction, when General Grant observed—
“Mr. Frere is a man of whom I have a very high opinion, both on account of his unusual intellectual attainments, and his manly, upright character. Have you been long acquainted with him, sir, may I ask?”
“He was my guide and protector when I first went to Westminster,” replied Lewis, “and we have been close friends ever since.”
“A most fortunate circumstance,” remarked the General sententiously. “The mind of youth is easily impressible for good or evil, and unless such establishments are greatly altered for the better since my time, Satan has no lack of emissaries at a public school. Will you allow me a few minutes’ private conversation with you, Mr. Arundel? The library is in this direction.” So saying, General Grant opened the door with frigid courtesy, and signing to Lewis to precede him, followed with a stateliness of demeanour admirable to behold.
Scarcely had they left the room, when Annie, clapping her hands joyfully, exclaimed, “What a creature! why, he’s as stiff and dignified as papa himself. Now then, Charley, tell me who he is, and all about him: we shall have Aunt Martha or somebody coming, and then I shall never know, and be obliged to die of curiosity. You are asleep, I believe.”
“There you go—that’s always the way with women,” returned Leicester, speaking very slowly and with an exaggeration of his usual mode of pronunciation, which was something between a lisp and a drawl; “asking half-a-dozen questions in a breath, and resolved to get up a suicidal amount of curiosity if they are not as speedily answered. Why, my dear child, I would not speak as quickly as you do for any amount of money—at least any amount of money I should be at all likely to get for doing so.”
“Now, Charley, don’t be tiresome. Who is the man?” rejoined Annie, half pettishly. Then, seeing that her imperious manner only induced her cousin still further to tease her, she added, in an imploring tone, which no heart of any material softer than granite could resist, “You will tell me—won’t you? I want to know so much, and I have had nothing to amuse me all day.”
“There, do you hear that?” soliloquised Leicester, appealing to society in general. “Trust a woman to get her own way. If she can’t scold you into giving it to her, she’ll coax you. Well, you little torment, I suppose you must know all about it. The man, as you please to call him, is seeking the honourable post of bear-leader to the cub your father has the felicity of being guardian unto.”
“What, a tutor for poor Walter!” rejoined Annie meditatively. “But surely he’s a gentleman, is he not?”
“Very particularly and decidedly so, as far as I am a judge,” returned Leicester, hooking a footstool towards him with his cane, and depositing his feet thereupon. “At least I dined and spent last evening in his company, and never wish to meet a better fellow.”
“But,” continued Annie, pursuing her train of reasoning, “if he is a gentleman, why does he want to go out as a tutor?”
“Because, unfortunately, there is a vulgar prejudice extant in this feeble-minded country that the necessaries of life, such as bread and cheese, cigars, kid gloves, and the like, must be paid for—this requires money, whereof Arundel has little or none. Moreover, Richard Frere hinted at a mother and sister in the case, who likewise have to be supported.”
As he spoke a shade of deeper thought flitted across Annie’s expressive features, and after a moment’s pause she resumed.
“Now I understand his strange manner: he was mentally contrasting himself (he is evidently a proud man) and his position; it must indeed have been a struggle—and he does this for the sake of his mother and sister. Charley, do you know, I rather admire him.”
“Yes, I dare say you do; he’s a decidedly good-looking fellow for the style of man; there’s a thoroughbred air about him, and he carries himself well.”
“Psha! I am not talking of his appearance: except that he is tall and dark, I scarcely know what he is like,” returned Annie quickly. “No! I mean that there is something fine in the idea of a proud mind submitting to degradations and indignities for the sake of those it loves; bearing with a martyr-spirit the thousand hourly annoyances——-” Checking herself suddenly, as she perceived upon her cousin’s face something nearly akin to a contemptuous smile, Annie continued, “Charles, how stupid you are! I hate you!”
“Not possible,” was the cool reply. “Moreover, you have really no cause to do so. I assure you I was not exactly laughing at your sudden plunge into the sentimental; it was merely a notion which crossed my mind, that out of the thousand hourly annoyances by which poor Arundel is to be martyrised, some nine hundred and fifty would originate in the caprices of a certain young lady who shall be nameless. In the monotony of life amid the leafy shades of Broadhurst, even teasing a tutor may be deemed a new and interesting variety, as the botanists have it. Seriously, though, you can coax the General to let him teach you German.”
“And embellish my water-colour sketches by the insertion of occasional cows, with impossible tails made to order—eh, cousin Charley?” returned Annie with an arch smile. “Give me my drawing, sir, and let me look at the creature. How well he has done it! I know a cow at Broadhurst with just such a face!”
“There’s a world of speculation in the eye,” rejoined Leicester carelessly, though he was slightly surprised at the extent of her information respecting the “tail” debate; “the animal appears to be ruminating on the advisability of petitioning Parliament against the veal trade, or some other question of equal interest to the ‘milky mothers of the herd.’”
While Annie and her cousin thus gaily conversed, a very different scene was enacting in the library. During a short delay, occasioned by General Grant’s being obliged to answer a note, Lewis had time to recollect himself, and to school the rebellious feelings which his conversation with Leicester and the other events of the morning had called into action. He thought of Rose and his mother, and of his determination that they at least should be spared all knowledge of the real evils of poverty; and this reflection was for the time sufficient to efface every selfish consideration. Bringing his strength of will into play, he regained the most complete self-control, and even experienced a sort of morbid pleasure in the idea of voluntarily humiliating himself before the proud old man, whose clear, cold eye was occasionally raised from the note he was employed in writing to fix its scrutinising glance on Lewis’s features.
Having sealed the missive and given it to a servant, he slowly approached the spot where Lewis was standing, and after a word or two of apology for having kept him waiting, began—
“I presume my nephew, Mr. Leicester, has made you in some degree acquainted with the nature of the circumstances in which I am at present placed, and of the necessity which renders me anxious to secure the services of some gentleman as tutor to my ward, Sir Walter Desborough?”
“Mr. Leicester informed me that the young gentleman’s education had been neglected, and that his mind was singularly undeveloped,” replied Lewis, choosing the least offensive terms in which he might express his conviction that the youth in question was rather a fool than otherwise.
“Yes, sir, though it is even worse than you describe,” returned the General. “In fact it depends upon the degree of success which may attend the efforts which must now be made whether Sir Walter Desborough can ever be considered capable of managing his own affairs, or able to take that place in society to which his rank and fortune would naturally entitle him. You perceive, therefore, that the post of tutor will be one of much trust and importance, and the duties attending it most onerous. Mr. Frere has written so high a character of your various attainments that I cannot but feel perfectly satisfied of your competency; but you are very young, and as I should, in the event of your undertaking the charge, expect a strict performance of your duties, it is only fair to inform you that I conceive they may be irksome in the extreme. What is your feeling on the subject?”
Lewis paused for a moment in thought, and then replied—
“I will be frank with you, sir. Were I free to act as I chose, such an office as you describe would be one of the last I should select; but the welfare of others depends upon my exertions, and I have determined to refuse no occupation not unworthy a gentleman which will enable me to render the necessary assistance to my family. If, therefore, you consider me fitted to undertake the charge of your ward, I am willing to do so, and to fulfil the duties of such a situation to the best of my ability, on one condition.”
“What is that?” inquired General Grant quickly.
“That I may be allowed to pursue whatever system I may deem best fitted to attain the desired end, without the interference of any one, and may be accountable for my conduct to you alone.”
“Rather a singular request, young gentleman,” returned the General, knitting his brows.
“My reason for making it is easily explained, sir,” replied Lewis, firmly but respectfully. “Unless such permission is accorded me, I feel certain all my efforts would prove unavailing: I must have full power to do what I think right, or I could not act at all, and should have undertaken a duty which I should be incompetent to perform.”
“Well, sir, there is truth in what you say,” replied General Grant, after a moment’s consideration. “I like you none the worse for speaking in a manly, straightforward manner. It is my intention to go down to Broadhurst in a day or two: you shall accompany me; and if, after seeing my ward, you are still willing to undertake the task of conducting his education, I shall be happy to entrust him to your care, upon the conditions you have proposed. Your salary will be £300 a year. This, you are aware, is unusually high, but the case is a peculiar one, and money, fortunately, a very secondary consideration. An entire suite of rooms will be devoted to the use of yourself and your pupil, and a horse kept for you, that you may accompany him in his rides. Do these arrangements meet your wishes?”
Lewis bowed his head in token of acknowledgment, and said, “I have one other request to make. I brought a Livonian wolf-hound with me from Germany; he is much attached to me, and I should be unwilling to part from him.”
“Bring him with you, sir,” returned the General, his lip slightly curling with a sarcastic smile; “a dog more or less will make little difference in such an establishment as that at Broadhurst. And now, if you will give me the pleasure of your company at luncheon, I shall be happy to introduce you to my relative, Miss Livingstone, who does me the honour to preside over my household. My daughter, I believe, you have already seen;” and as he spoke he led the way to the dining-room, where the rest of the party were already assembled.
Miss Livingstone, who scrutinised Lewis as if she suspected him of belonging to that ingenious fraternity yclept the swell mob, was, in appearance, a very awful old lady indeed. The nearest approach we can make to a description of her features is to say that they bore a marked (with the small-pox) resemblance to those of Minerva and her owl; the sternness of that utilitarian goddess—the Miss Martineau of Olympus—and the sapient stupidity of the so-called bird of wisdom, finding their exact counterpart in Miss Livingstone’s time-honoured physiognomy. This lady was appareled after a strange and imposing mode, as behoved a spinster of such orthodox station and ferociously virtuous propriety as the General’s female commander-in-chief. Minerva’s helmet was modernised into a stupendous fabric, wherein starch, muslin, and ribbon of an unnatural harshness struggled upwards in a pyramid, whence pointing with stiffened ends innumerable, suggestive of any amount of porcupines, they appeared ready and anxious to repel or impale society at large. A triangle of spotless lawn supplied the place of the breastplate beneath which Jove’s daughter was accustomed to conceal her want of heart; and a silk gown of an uncomfortable shade of grey, made so scanty as to render at first sight the hypothesis of a mermaidic termination conceivable, completed the costume of this immaculate old lady.
Having apparently satisfied herself that Lewis had no immediate design upon the spoons and forks, she condescended to afford him the meteorological information that although the sunshine might delude the unwary into believing it to be a fine day, she had received private information that the weather was not to be relied upon: after promulgating which opinion she placed herself at the head, and assumed the direction of, the luncheon-table.
Charley Leicester appeared to be the only individual of the party insensible to a certain freezing influence, which might be specified as one of Miss Livingstone’s most characteristic attributes. Having exerted himself to supply that lady with every possible adjunct she could require, and seduced her into an amount of Cayenne pepper which afterwards subjected her to considerable physical suffering, he began—
“I was present, a day or two ago, Miss Livingstone, when a question was started as to what man of modern times had been the greatest benefactor to his race. It opened a mine of very curious speculation, I can assure you.”
“I do not doubt it, Charles,” returned Miss Livingstone; “and I am glad to learn that the young men of the present day employ their time in such profitable discussions. What decision did you arrive at?”
“Well, ma’am,” resumed Leicester gravely, “there was of course much difference of opinion. James Watt had rather a strong party in his favour, but an ex-railway director was present who had lost £10,000 on the Do-em-and-Foot-in-it Line, and he blackballed him. Lord John was proposed; but some of the men who took in Punch laughed so immoderately when his name was mentioned that it was immediately withdrawn. One youth, who is known to be a little bit flighty, not quite accountable, poor fellow! declared for Lord Brougham, but we soothed him, and he had sense enough left to see his error almost immediately. At length it came to my turn——”
“And whom did you mention?” inquired Miss Livingstone, with a degree of interest most unusual in her.
“I had been pondering the matter deeply,” continued Leicester, “to try and hit on some worthy against whom no valid objection could be raised. At one moment I thought of Moses——”
“I fancied it was restricted to men of modern times,” interposed Miss Livingstone.
“He to whom I referred, ma’am,” returned Leicester, “was not the Israelitish lawgiver, but the man of the City Mart, that benevolent individual who clothes poverty in ‘a light paletot at ten-and-six,’ and enables the honest hearts of free-born Britons to palpitate beneath a ‘gent’s superior vest’ for the trifling remuneration of five shillings.” This speech was algebra, or thereabouts, to the lady to whom it was addressed, but she had a sort of instinctive apprehension that Leicester was talking nonsense, and accordingly drew herself up stiffly, completing her resemblance to Minerva by composing her features into a very satisfactory likeness of the Gorgon. No way affected by this transformation, Leicester continued—
“On mature reflection, however, I discarded Moses & Son, and was going to give it up as hopeless, when, all of a sudden, a bright thought flashed across me, and springing to my feet, I exclaimed in a voice of thunder, ‘Gentlemen, I have it; the difficulty is one no longer: the greatest modern benefactor to the human race is—Bass!’”
“Who?” exclaimed Miss Livingstone, entirely mystified and a good deal flurried by the narrator’s unusual energy.
“Bass,” resumed Leicester; “that remarkable man whose gigantic intellect first conceived the project of regenerating society through the medium of pale ale! The idea was hailed with enthusiasm; we immediately sent for a dozen; and ere the liquor was disposed of, there was not a man present but would have staked hundreds on the soundness of my opinion.”
Utterly disgusted and confused by this unexpected termination to the anecdote, Miss Livingstone rose from her chair, sailed out of the room, and thus the visit concluded.
Lewis, after a solitary walk, during which he was revolving in his mind the step he had just taken, and striving to discern in the dull lead-coloured horizon of his future one ray of light which might yield promise of brighter times to come, was ascending Frere’s staircase, when the door of the room above opened suddenly, and a voice, which he thought he recognised, exclaimed—
“Then I may depend upon you; you’ll be with me by eight at the latest, and bring your friend, if possible. Ah! here he is! Mr. Arundel, delighted to see you—none the worse for last night, I hope—wasn’t it glorious? Grandeville has got such a face on him, he won’t be able to show for a week to come; and Meeking of the pallid features is so seedy this morning that I was forced to burthen my conscience by inventing a fictitious fall from his horse, on the strength of which I sent his mamma to nurse him. We must book that to the pious fraud account, and let the charity absolve the lie. Rather shaky divinity, eh, Frere? Well, au revoir; I’m off.”
So saying, Mr. Tom Bracy—for he it was, and none other—dashed down the stairs, and having deeply scandalised Frere’s ancient domestic by an anxious inquiry how it was she did not get a husband, took his departure.
“Frere!” exclaimed Lewis, throwing himself into a chair and coldly repulsing Faust, who never could imagine himself otherwise than welcome, “I’ve done it!”
“So have I, man,” was the reply; “and pretty considerably brown, too, as that nice youth who has just left me would call it. But what have you done to make you so doleful?”
“Sold myself,” returned Lewis bitterly.
“Not to the old gentleman, I hope,” rejoined Frere, “though your black looks would almost lead one to imagine so.”
“What weak, inconsistent fools we are!” pursued Lewis.
“Speak for yourself, young man,” observed Frere parenthetically.
“How vacillating and impotent,” continued Lewis, not heeding the interruption, “is even the strongest will! I have done this morning the thing I believed I most anxiously desired to do—the thing I came here hoping to accomplish—I have secured a competence for my mother and sister. I have done so on better terms than I had deemed possible. I have met with consideration, if not kindness, from—from my employer.” He pronounced the word firmly, though his temples throbbed and his lip quivered with suppressed emotion as he did so. “All this should make me contented, if not happy. Happy!” he repeated mockingly. “Frere,” he continued, with a sudden burst of impetuosity, “it has not done so—I am miserable!”
He rose from his seat and began pacing the room with impatient strides. Faust followed him for one or two turns, wagging his tail and gazing up into his face with loving eyes; but finding his efforts to attract attention unavailing, he uttered a piteous whine, and, retreating to a corner, crouched down, as perfectly aware that his master was unhappy as if he had been a human creature and could have “told his love” in words. Frere would have spoken, but Lewis checked him by a gesture, and continued his rapid walk for some minutes in silence. At length he spoke—
“You think me selfish and ungrateful, and you are right; I am so. I have schooled myself to bear all this, and I will bear it; but bitter thoughts arise and at times overpower me. I am very young” (“True for you,” muttered Frere, sotto voce), “and I am so unfit for such a life as lies before me, a life of tame and ceaseless drudgery, in which to indulge the high aspirations and noble daring that win men honour becomes misplaced folly; to live with people whose equal, if not superior, I feel myself, in a semi-menial capacity; to obey when I would command; to forfeit all that is bright and fair in existence—intercourse with the higher order of minds, the society of pure and refined spirits; and, above all, to lose the only thing I really prize on earth—my independence.
“Well,” he continued, after a pause, “the die is cast, and repining is worse than useless. I will give this experiment a fair trial; it may be the harness will set more easily on me than I imagine; and should it become unbearable, I can but cast it off and start afresh: there is such a thing as to compel one’s destiny!”