Lewis Arundel; Or, The Railroad Of Life

by Frank E. Smedley

CHAPTER XXX.—THE GENERAL TAKES THE FIELD.

The interview which Lewis had witnessed between Lord Bellefield and the girl dwelt in his thoughts, and was a source of much doubt and uneasiness to him. The quiet, secluded life he had led for the last year affording ample time for meditation—the almost total want of society (for poor Walter was no companion)—the peculiar position in which he was placed, shut out from all the pleasures and excitements natural to his age and taste—had given an unusually reflective turn to his vigorous mind, and produced in him a gravity and depth of character, to which, under different circumstances, he might never have attained. Thus, in the views he took of life, he was accustomed to look beyond the surface, and deeming it unworthy of a believer in the truths of Christianity to attribute events to the mere caprice of a blind destiny, was rather disposed to trace in such occurrences the finger of a directing Providence, and to consider them as opportunities purposely thrown in our way, for the use or abuse of which we should one day be called to account, as for every talent committed to our charge. Holding these opinions, he could not be content to sit down quietly with the knowledge of which he had become possessed without making some effort to prevent Lord Bellefield from successfully accomplishing the evil he could not doubt he meditated. But what then should he do? The question was not an easy one to answer. The most natural and effectual means to employ would be to inform General Grant of the affair; he was the person likely (as the father of his future bride) to possess most influence over Lord Belle-field, while as possessor of the estate on which they resided he was certain to meet with respect and obedience from the parents of the girl. But besides the dislike every honourable man feels to undertake the office of tale-bearer, Lewis’s chivalrous nature shrank from even the appearance of seeking to wreak his revenge on the man who had insulted him, by injuring him in the opinion of his future father-in-law. Again, were he to find out the girl and expostulate with her, he felt certain he should produce no good effect—the fact of her being aware of the terms on which he stood with her admirer would render her suspicious of his intentions, and prevent her from paying any regard to his arguments. At last it occurred to him to mention the thing to Charles Leicester, and persuade him, if possible, to visit the girl, and at all events to make her aware of the deceit which had been practised upon her by his brother in assuming his name. Accordingly, he determined to seek an early opportunity of speaking to Leicester on the subject; but good resolutions are always more easy to form than to carry into effect. On the following morning Leicester went to town, as well to acquaint his father with the important step he contemplated as to bear in person an invitation to an old family friend and ci-devant guardian of Laura Peyton’s to join the party at Broadhurst; nor did he return till after several days had elapsed, so that it was nearly a week ere Lewis found the opportunity he sought for.

There had been a dinner-party at Broadhurst, and, as was the custom of the neighbourhood, the guests had departed early. Lewis waited till Leicester had disposed of a lady whom he was handing to a carriage, then drawing him aside, he made him acquainted with the interview which he had involuntarily witnessed, informing him at the same time of his object in so doing. As he proceeded with his tale Leicester’s brow grew dark.

“It is really too bad of Bellefield,” he muttered, “situated as he is in regard to this family; it shows a want of all proper feeling—all delicacy of mind—assuming my name, too! Suppose it had come to Laura’s ears by any chance—’pon my word I’ve a great mind to speak to him about it—though, I don’t know, it would only lead to a quarrel—Bellefield is not a man to brook interference. I feel quite as you do in regard to the affair, my dear Arundel, but really I don’t see that I can do anything that would be of the slightest use.”

“Surely you can find out the girl and prove to her the truth of my statement, that your brother has deceived her by assuming your name—you owe that to yourself.”

“She would be certain to tell him of it the next time she sees him,” returned Leicester uneasily; “it would lead to a quarrel between us, and you don’t know what Bellefield’s resentment is when it’s once excited—it’s actually terrific, and that’s the truth.”

“But for your cousin, Miss Grant’s sake, you ought not to let your brother proceed with this affair,” urged Lewis; “surely you must see the matter in this light?”

“Ah! poor Annie,” returned Leicester with a half sigh; “I sometimes wish that engagement had never been entered into. I doubt whether they are at all calculated to render each other happy. In fact, I’ve learned to look upon marriage in a very different light lately. However, it’s no business of mine; wiser heads will have to settle it, luckily——” He paused, and after a few moments’ deliberation resumed abruptly, “I’ll do as you advise, Arundel. I’ll see this girl and talk to her, and if Bellefield hears of it and makes himself disagreeable, why it can’t be helped, that’s all. He should not attempt such things, particularly in this neighbourhood. He ought to have more respect for the General and his daughter; it shows a want of good taste and good feeling. Besides, as well as I can judge from the glimpse I had of her in the refreshment-room, the girl’s not so unusually pretty, after all. She’d an awful pair of hands, if I recollect right.”

A contemptuous smile passed across Lewis’s handsome features as his companion promulgated the above original moral distinction. Leicester, however, did not observe it, and continued—

“Just fancy my coming out in the character of a virtuous mentor. I only hope I shall get through my arduous duties without laughing at my own performance. ’Pon my word, though, it’s rather serious when a man feels inclined to scoff at himself for doing his duty from the sheer inconsistency of the thing. I tell you what, Arundel, I believe I’ve been a very naughty boy without in the least knowing it. I’ve always considered myself the victim of circumstances, and set all my peccadilloes down to that account; but I don’t see why I need bother you by making you my father confessor.”

Lewis, considering the train of thought into which Leicester had fallen, one likely to lead to useful, practical results, was about to encourage him to proceed, when a servant approached them and placed a small, crumpled, and not over clean piece of paper in Lewis’s hand. Holding it under the light of a lamp, he was enabled with difficulty to decipher the following words:—

“To Muster Arundel.—Sur, the party as you knows of is hout to-night, and more of his sort along vith him. Ve are safe for a shindy; but being quite ready for ther blackguards, lives in good ’opes hof a capture—hin which hif you likes to assist, not minding a crack o’ ther head, should sich occur, which will sometimes in ther best regerlated famurlies, pleas to follur ther bearer, as will conduct you to your humbel servaunt to commarnd,

“J. Millar.”

“That’s glorious!” exclaimed Lewis, placing the missive in the hands of his companion. “I never did catch a poacher in my life, but I’ve often wished to do so; the whole scene must be so picturesque and unlike anything one has ever met with—the darkness, the excitement—but you are laughing at my eagerness. Well, I confess to a love of adventure for its own sake; if I’d lived in the middle ages I should have been a knight-errant, that’s certain. I suppose it’s no use asking you to join us? There’s metal more attractive in the drawing-room, n’est-ce pas?”

“Why,” returned Charley, arranging his neckcloth by aid of a glass placed in the cloak-room for the benefit of the ladies who wished to wrap up becomingly, “really I must own I prefer Laura’s smiles even to the delights of a possible rencontre with your friend, Mr. What’s-his-name, the poacher.”

“Hardy is the fellow’s name,” replied Lewis. “He is a chartist and all sorts of horrors, so that I don’t feel the smallest degree of sympathy for him. Do you know where the General is to be found? I suppose, as I may be very late, or even obliged to sleep at Millar’s cottage, I must ask his sanction ere I start on my expedition.”

“I think you’d better,” returned Leicester; “he’s in the library. I saw him go there after he had seen Lady Runnymede to her carriage; so good-night. I shall be curious to learn in the morning whose brains have been knocked out.” And with this agreeably suggestive remark Leicester ended the conversation and strolled off to the drawing-room.

Lewis proceeded at once to the library, where he found not only General Grant, but, to his extreme annoyance, Lord Bellefield also; there was, however, no help for it, and he accordingly explained his wishes as briefly as possible. The General heard him to the end without speaking. His first idea was that such a request was strange and unbecoming the peaceful gravity that should environ the office of a tutor, and he intended to favour him with a dignified refusal; but as Lewis proceeded, his eager tones and sparkling eyes recalled to the old officer the days of his youth when the spirit of enterprise was strong within him, and in the wild bivouac, the dashing assault, the hand-to-hand struggle “i’ the imminent deadly breach,” and the many exciting vicissitudes of a campaigning life, he had found a degree of pleasure which his age knew not, and he was fain to accord a gracious assent.

“Your father was a soldier, Mr. Arundel, I think you told me?”

Lewis replied in the affirmative, mentioning some engagement in which he had particularly distinguished himself The General listened to him with complacency, then exclaimed—

“That’s it, sir, that’s it! I confess when I first heard your request, I considered it unnatural, in fact, unbecoming in a civilian, but in a soldier’s son it assumes an entirely different character. I like to see spirit in a young man.” (Here he glanced at Lord Bellefield, who, apparently engrossed by a legal document which he was perusing, seemed unconscious of Lewis’s presence.) “It’s a pity your father! was unable to afford you a commission: there’s been some very pretty fighting in India lately, and you might have distinguished yourself.” He paused, then added, “I know most of the agricultural labourers about here; did Millar tell you any of these poachers’ names?”

“Hardy, a blacksmith, was the most notorious character,” returned Lewis.

As he mentioned the name Lord Bellefield started so violently that he nearly overturned the lamp by which he was reading. Seeing the General’s eyes fixed on him inquiringly, he rose, and putting his hand to his side, drew a deep breath as he exclaimed—

“One of those sharp stitches, as they call them—nothing worse. You know I am subject to them; it’s want of exercise producing indigestion. I tell you what,” he continued, “I’ve rather a curiosity to witness Mr. Arundel’s prowess, and see what sport this poacher will afford. Man-hunting, in the literal feræ naturæ sense of the term, will be a new excitement.”

“We’ll all go,” exclaimed the General, springing up with the alertness of a young man. “If these rascals choose to trespass on my land and destroy my property, who so fit to resist them and bring them to justice as myself? I’ll make the necessary alterations in my dress, and we’ll start immediately.”

Lord Bellefield urged the lateness of the hour, the cold night air, the chance of danger to life or limb—but in vain; General Grant had taken the crotchet into his head, and he was not the man to be easily induced to change his mind. Accordingly Lewis found himself suddenly associated with two as strange companions as ever a man was embarrassed withal. Still there was no help for it; and inwardly pondering what possible reason Lord Bellefield could have for joining the expedition, and why he had started at the mention of Hardy’s name, Lewis hastened to wrap himself in a rough pea-jacket, and selected a heavy knotted stick, wherewith he proposed to knock respect for the rights of property into the head of any misguided individual who might be deaf to all milder argument. As he returned to the hall the General made his appearance, carrying under his arm a cavalry sabre; his bearing was even more stiff and erect than usual, and his eye flashed with all the fire of youth.

“Early on parade, I see, Mr. Arundel,” he said, with something more nearly approaching to a smile on his countenance than Lewis had ever previously observed there. “We’ll read those poaching rascals a lesson they will not easily forget, sir.”

As he spoke a light footstep was heard approaching, and in another moment Annie Grant bounded down the staircase, her glossy curls streaming wildly over her shoulders, and her cheeks flushed with the speed at which she had come.

“My dear papa!” she began, then turning pale as her eye fell upon the sword, she continued: “Oh! it is really true! I hoped they were only deceiving me in jest. Dearest papa, you will be good and kind, and not go out after these men? Suppose any accident should occur? think how valuable your life is—papa, you will not go?”

“Annie, I thought you were perfectly aware of my extreme dislike to, or I may say disapproval of all uncalled-for displays of feeling. I am about to perform a duty incumbent on my position, and I need scarcely add that any attempt to induce me to neglect that duty will not only prove ineffectual, but will be highly displeasing to me. Not another word,” he continued, seeing she was about to resume her entreaties; “return immediately to the drawing-room and apologise to our friends in my name for being obliged to leave them.”

At this moment a servant announced that his master’s shooting pony was at the door, and that Lord Bellefield had already started; so placing his hat on his head with an air of offended dignity, the General marched proudly out of the hall. Lewis was about to follow him, when, glancing at Annie, he perceived that she had sunk into a chair, and covering her face with her hands, had given way to an irrepressible burst of tears. The young tutor paused—wishing to reassure her by promising to use his best efforts to shield her father from danger, and yet fearing to intrude upon her grief. In his embarrassment he accidentally dropped his stick; starting at the sound, Annie for the first time perceived him, and springing up, she came hurriedly towards him, exclaiming—

“Oh, Mr. Arundel! I am so glad you are going. You will take care of papa, will you not?”

As she spoke she laid her hand on his arm and gazed up into his face imploringly.

“I will most assuredly try to do so, Miss Grant,” returned Lewis calmly, though that light touch thrilled through him like a shock of electricity. “You need not alarm yourself so greatly,” he continued, anxious to soothe her; “believe me, your apprehensions have greatly exaggerated any probable danger.”

“You really think so?” returned Annie doubtfully. “At all events,” she continued, “I shall be much happier now I know you are going. I am sure you will try and take care of papa.”

“I will, indeed,” returned Lewis earnestly, as, glancing towards the door, he essayed to depart; but Annie, completely engrossed by her anxiety to secure his services on her father’s behalf, still unconsciously retained her hold on his arm, and Lewis was obliged gently to remove the little hand that detained him. As their fingers met, Annie, becoming suddenly aware of what Miss Livingstone would have termed her “indiscreet and unpardonable heedlessness,” blushed very becomingly; then with a sudden impulse of gratitude and warm feeling she extended her hand to Lewis, saying—

“Thank you very much for all your kindness, Mr. Arundel. Mind you take good care of yourself as well as of papa—I shall not go to bed till I hear you have brought him safe home again.”

Lewis pressed the fair hand offered to him, repeated his assurances that her alarm was unnecessary, and hastened to follow General Grant. Annie gazed after him with tearful eyes, but his words comforted her. She had already begun to rely on him in moments of difficulty or of danger.

The moon was shining brightly, though flitting clouds passed from time to time across its silvery disc, wrapping wood and hill and valley in momentary darkness, only to enhance their beauty when its pale, cold rays once more fell uninterruptedly upon them, imparting to the scene the magic of a fairy twilight. Such, however, were scarcely Lewis’s thoughts as, haunted by the appealing expression of Annie’s soft eyes, he hastened to overtake his companions. The party proceeded in silence, following their guide, who was none other than the renegade “Villiam,” across one of the wildest portions of the park towards a young larch plantation covering about forty acres of ground. This spot, named Tod’s Hole Spinney, from certain fox earths that had existed in it till their occupants’ partiality for dining on pheasants had led to their ejectment, was considered, from its isolated situation, the thick growth of underwood, the fact of a running stream passing through it, and other propitious circumstances, the most amply stocked preserve on the property, and it was with a degree of annoyance proportioned to the enormity of the offence that the General learned this was the place selected by the poachers for the scene of their depredations. As they approached the spot the report of a gun was heard, followed by three or four others in rapid succession. General Grant, irritated beyond control by this audacity, immediately rode forward at a brisk trot. Lewis, bearing in mind Annie’s injunction, grasped the crupper of the saddle firmly with his left hand, and with this slight assistance ran by the General’s side, keeping pace with the horse. In this manner they had nearly reached the wood, when a man sprang from behind a bush, and would have seized the horse’s bridle had not Lewis interposed, saying, in a low voice, “Don’t you know us, Millar? it is General Grant, who, when he heard the poachers were out, determined to come with me.”

“I beg yer honour’s pardon,” returned the keeper, touching his hat as he recognised his master. “I never expected to ha’ seen you here to-night, to be sure.”

“I am usually to be found where my duty calls me,” returned the General stiffly. “These scoundrels seem to be out in force,” he continued.

“Veil, I take it there’s as many on ’em as ve shall know wot to do with,” was the reply; “but I’ve got above a dozen men on the look-hout, only in course they’re scattered.”

“And how do you propose to act?” inquired the General.

“I thort of taking a party into the wood, trying to captiwate long Hardy and one or two of the ringleaders, chaps as I’ve had my eye on for ever so long; then take ther game from the tothers, and seize their guns hif posserbul. But the chief thing is to captiwate that willain Hardy; so I means to leave three or four men on the look-hout, in case he manages to do us and break cover.”

“Your plan seems a good one,” returned the General reflectively. “How many men do you propose to take into the wood with you?”

“Veil, there’s half-a-dozen lads a laying down behind those bushes yonder, and there’s two more jist inside that gap; then there’s myself and Muster Arundel.”

“Let the boy that guided us hold my horse,” began General Grant.

“Hif I might adwise,” interrupted Millar, “yer honour would remain in this wery place; and hif Hardy should get away from us—as he’s likely enough, for he’s as strong and houdacious as a steam-ingine—he’s a-most sure to break cover here; in vich case yer honour can ride him down, and hif he dares to show fight, give him a cut hover the skull with yer long sword there.”

“You feel sure he will endeavour to effect his retreat on this side?” inquired the General doubtingly.

“Sartain sure, I may say,” cried Millar confidently; then, as his master turned to explain to Lord Bellefield, who had just come up, the plan of operations, he added in a low voice, so that Lewis only might hear—

“The old Gineral’s pluckey enough for anything, but his legs ain’t so young as they used to be, and he’s rather touched in the vind, vich von’t do for sich a valk as we’ve got before us.”

At this moment more shots were heard in the wood, but apparently much nearer than the last. The poachers were evidently advancing in that direction.

“There is not a moment to be lost, Millar,” exclaimed the General eagerly. “I think as you say, I may be of more use here. Some one must remain outside to cut off the retreat of these fellows if you should succeed in driving them out of the wood. Lord Bellefield will accompany your party. Where are the other watchers on this side stationed?”

“About fifty yards apart, along the ditch skirting the wood. If yer honour wants help, a note on this whistle will produce it.” So saying, Millar handed him an ivory dog-whistle; then signing to “Villiam” to proceed, and requesting Lord Bellefield and Lewis to follow him, the keeper conducted them along a narrow track leading into the wood.

“Do you really expect that Hardy will attempt to cross that part of the park, or was your assertion merely a white lie, framed to secure the General’s safety?” asked Lewis as he walked by the keeper’s side.

“Veil, it worn’t altogether a lie,” was the reply; “for if we don’t nab the gentleman, that’s the side he’ll try for, as it’s easiest for him to get away; but if I vonce has a fair hit at him, I don’t mean to leave him a chance to get away. I shall not stand nice about hurting him neither, I can tell yer. He beat Sam Jones, one o’ my hunder-keepers, so savage that the poor feller worn’t out of his blessed bed for two months. He deserves summut pretty strong for that.”

“Mind you point him out to me, if you catch sight of him,” rejoined Lewis. “I am most anxious to be introduced to this truculent gentleman.”

“Yer can’t mistake him hif yer once sets eyes on him,” returned the keeper; “he’s half a head taller than any of the rest of ’em, but I’ll show him to yer.”

As he spoke they reached the spot where the six men were waiting, though, so well had they concealed themselves, Lewis was close upon them ere he was aware of their vicinity.

“Now, my lads, are yer all ready?” inquired their leader in a low voice. An answer in the affirmative was followed by the order—“Come on, then;” when Lord Bellefield interposed by saying, “One moment! Listen to me, my men: I offer five guineas reward to any of you who may secure Hardy.”

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CHAPTER XXXI.—IS CHIEFLY CULINARY, CONTAINING RECIPES FOR A “GOOD PRESERVE” AND A “PRETTY PICKLE.”

After a strict injunction from Millar to preserve silence, the party in search of Hardy and his associates again moved forward, Lord Belle-field, Millar, and Lewis in front, and the others following two abreast. As soon as they had entered the wood the remaining men joined them, making altogether a company of eleven. As they advanced farther into the plantation, the boughs of the trees, becoming thicker and more closely interlaced, intercepted the moonlight and rendered their onward progress a matter of some difficulty. The gamekeepers however, knew every intricacy of the path, and could have found his way in the darkest night as easily as at noonday. After winding among the trees for some minutes they came upon a little glade where the underwood had been partially cleared away and a small quantity of barley stacked for the purpose of feeding the pheasants. At the entrance to the space thus cleared the party halted, and Millar, creeping forward on his hands and knees, reached the stack. Sheltering himself behind it, he made his way to the opposite side, where he was lost to sight; reappearing almost immediately, he cautiously rejoined the others, saying in a low whisper: “I expected how it would be; there is from twenty or thirty pheasands roosting on the trees beyond the stack there, and Hardy and his mates being aware on it, is a-making of their way through the bushes right ahead. I could hear ’em plain enough when I was at the stack yonder. Now, two on yer must come along o’ me, creep to the stack and hide behind it as yer see me do, then vait till them blackguards has let fly at the pheasands, and afore they can load again ve three must jump forrard and try and captiwate Hardy. In the meantime, you others must make yer way round through the bushes and take ’em in the rear, and help us if we wants helping.”

“Which you will do most certainly,” returned Lord Bellefield. “I’ll lead the party that remains.”

“And I’ll go with you, Millar,” observed Lewis.

“And you, Sam,” continued Millar, addressing the under-keeper before alluded to. The man came forward, and placing himself by Lewis’s side, the three crept along till they had reached the stack, sheltered by which they again stood upright. Scarcely had they taken their places when two guns, followed by four others, were discharged in rapid succession, and so close to them, that the shot pattering amongst the underwood was distinctly audible, and one of the wounded pheasants dropped at Lewis’s feet; while almost immediately afterwards a couple of men ran forward to collect the fallen game. The foremost of these was a fellow of Herculean proportions: as he stooped to pick up a pheasant a ray of moonlight revealed his features, and Lewis immediately recognised his former antagonist, the tall Chartist. At the same moment Millar whispered, “That’s our man; go ahead!”

“Leave him to me,” returned Lewis eagerly; and bending forward, with a bound like that of a tiger he sprang upon him.

The poacher was taken so completely by surprise (his back being turned towards his assailant) that Lewis, encircling him with a grasp of iron, was enabled to pinion his arms to his sides. Like a wild bull caught in the toils, his struggles to free himself were tremendous; but Lewis, now in the full vigour of his strength, was an adversary not easily to be shaken off, and despite his unrivalled powers, the poacher failed to extricate his arms. Shouting, therefore, to his companion for assistance, he desired him, with an oath, to shoot the ——— keeper; but that individual was unable to comply with his comrade’s benevolent suggestion by reason of certain well-directed blows wherewith Sam Jones, the under-keeper, was producing a marked alteration in the general outline of his features. In the meantime, Millar, drawing forth a piece of cord, began coolly to tie Hardy’s wrists together, disregarding a series of ferocious kicks with which he assailed him. At this moment the other poachers, to the number of some half-dozen, attracted by the sound of blows, reached the scene of action, but the party led by Lord Bellefield were equally on the alert, and the fight became general. And now the capture of the poacher Hardy appeared certain: exhausted by his unavailing struggles to free himself from Lewis’s encircling arms, he could offer no effectual resistance to Millar, who continued most methodically to bind his wrists, in no way diverted from his purpose by the storm of blows which raged around him, many of which fell on his unprotected person, when suddenly the report of a pistol rung sharply above the other sounds of the combat, and an acute, stinging pain darted through Lewis’s left shoulder, causing him such agony for the moment that he involuntarily relaxed his grasp. Hardy was not slow to avail himself of the opportunity thus offered. Flinging off the young tutor with so much violence that he would have fallen had not one of the gamekeeper’s assistants caught him and prevented it, he wrenched his hands from Millar’s grasp, and raising them, still bound together as they were, struck the keeper such a severe blow on the side of the head that he reeled and fell; then seeing that his companions, overpowered by numbers and disheartened by his supposed capture, were giving way on all sides, he turned, and dashing into the bushes, disappeared, not so quickly, however, but that Lewis, who, despite his wound, had never taken his eyes off him for a moment, perceived the movement.

Grasping his stick, which he had contrived to retain during the struggle, firmly with his right hand, he lost no time in following the fugitive, and guided by the crashing of the bushes, kept close on his traces till they reached the boundary hedge; breaking his way through this obstacle with the strength and fury of some wild animal, the poacher sprang across the ditch into the open park beyond. Seeing that he had a desperate man to deal with, and fearing that although the first severe pain had abated, and little more than a sensation of numbness remained, his left arm might prove in some degree incapacitated by the wound he had received, Lewis paused a moment to reconnoitre ere he followed him. To his great delight, he perceived he had reached the hedge along the side of which the watchers were stationed, near the spot where General Grant had taken up his position. Hardy, unconscious how closely he was followed, stopped also a moment while he endeavoured to set free his wrists; but so securely had Millar bound them, that although by a violent exertion of strength he contrived to render the cord slacker, he was unable wholly to succeed in his object. Fearing, however, that the cord would not hold out much longer, and unwilling to lose the only advantage gained by his previous struggle, Lewis determined once more to endeavour to seize him. Shouting, therefore, to give notice to the watchers where their assistance was likely to be required, he sprang across the ditch and advanced towards his antagonist. At first the poacher appeared inclined to stand his ground; but seeing his opponent was armed with a stout stick, and recollecting his own defenceless condition, he resolved to trust rather to his unrivalled fleetness, and turning away with an exclamation of disappointed rage, again betook himself to flight. This portion of the park was clear of trees or any other cover for a space of more than half a mile square, beyond which lay another larger wood; if Hardy could contrive to reach this, his escape would become a matter of certainty. The ground, which had once formed part of an ancient Roman camp, lay in terraces, and this circumstance gave Hardy, who knew every inch of the country by heart, a slight advantage. In speed they were very equally matched; for although Lewis, from his youth and light, active make, was perhaps really the fleetest, Hardy was in better training. When they first started the poacher was about ten yards ahead, and they had reached nearly half the centre of the space between the two woods ere Lewis had diminished that distance materially. Hitherto they had been running uphill, and the poacher’s superior condition (as a jockey would term it) enabled him to continue his rapid course without the pace telling as much as it did on his pursuer; but now the ground began to descend, and Lewis, having saved himself for a short distance to recover breath, put forth his whole powers, and despite the utmost exertions the poacher was capable of making, gained upon him so fast that it was evident that in a few more strides he must overtake him. But Hardy’s usual good luck appeared not even yet to have deserted him, for at the very moment when it seemed certain Lewis must come up with him, a cloud obscured the moon, and the poacher, taking advantage of this accident to double on his pursuer, contrived to make such good use of his knowledge of the ground, that when the bright moonlight again enabled Lewis to discern his retreating figure, he perceived, to his extreme chagrin and disappointment, that the fugitive would gain the wood, and doubtless effect his escape, before he could again overtake him. It was then with no small satisfaction that, just as he was about to give up the chase as hopeless, he caught sight of a man on horseback galloping in a direction which must effectually cut off the poacher’s retreat. Another moment sufficed to show him that the rider, in whom he immediately recognised General Grant, had perceived the fugitive, and intended to prevent his escape. Lewis accordingly strained every nerve to reach the spot in time to render assistance, more particularly as he remarked that Hardy had by some means contrived to set his hands at liberty. In spite of his utmost exertions, however, it was evident that the encounter would take place before he could arrive; and remembering his promise to Annie, it was with mingled feelings of anxiety for her father’s safety, and self-reproach for having quitted him, that he prepared to witness the struggle. As soon as the General perceived the state of affairs, he waved his hand as a sign to Lewis; then drawing his sabre, stood up in his stirrups and rode gallantly at the poacher, shouting to him at the same time to stop and yield himself prisoner. Hardy paid no attention to the summons, continuing to run on till he felt the horse’s breath hot upon his neck; then, as General Grant, after again calling on him to “surrender, or he would cut him down,” prepared to put his threat into execution, he dodged aside to avoid the blow, and springing suddenly upon the rider, dashed the sword from his hand, and seizing him by the throat, endeavoured to drag him off his horse. The old man, though taken by surprise, clung firmly to his saddle, and spurring his horse, tried to shake off his assailant; but his strength unfortunately was not equal to his courage, and the poacher, snatching at the rein, backed the horse till it reared almost erect and flung its rider forcibly to the ground. Apparently bent on revenge, Hardy, still retaining his grasp on the bridle, led the horse over the fallen body of the man, with the brutal intention of trampling him to death. But the generous instinct of the animal served to frustrate his evil purpose; as, though he led it twice directly across its prostrate master, the horse raised its feet and carefully avoided treading on him. Striking the animal ferociously on the head with his clenched fist, he next attempted to back it in the same direction, but the frightened animal sprang aside and plunged so violently that he was unable to effect his design. He was still striving to do so when Lewis, breathless with the speed at which he had run, reached the spot. Instantly leaping over the fallen man, stick in hand, he struck Hardy so severe a blow on the wrist that he was forced to quit his hold on the bridle, and the scared horse broke away and galloped off, snorting with terror. The poacher, infuriated by the pain of the blow, forgot all prudential considerations; and heedless of the approach of three of the watchers, who, attracted by the noise of the struggle, were rapidly hastening towards the spot, he rushed upon Lewis, and disregarding a heavy blow with which the young tutor greeted him, flung his arms round him and endeavoured to dash him to the ground. Fortunately for Lewis, he was not ignorant of the manly exercise of wrestling, and his proficiency in the art stood him in good stead at this moment; for, despite his gigantic strength, Hardy could not succeed in throwing him. In vain did he lift him from the ground; with whatever violence he flung him down, he still fell upon his legs; in vain did he compress him in his powerful arms, till Lewis felt as if every rib were giving way—the only effect of his exertions was to exhaust his own strength; till, at length taking advantage of an incautious movement of his adversary, the young tutor contrived to pass his leg behind that of the poacher and thus trip him up. His victory was, however, nearly proving fatal to him, for in falling the ruffian clutched him by the throat and dragged him down with him. Nor, although Lewis being uppermost was enabled to raise himself on one knee and return the compliment by inserting his hand within the folds of his adversary’s neck-cloth, could he force him to relinquish his grasp. Fortunately, help was at hand; and just as Lewis began to feel that it was becoming serious, and that if the pressure on his throat continued much longer he should be strangled outright, the three assistants came up; two of them immediately flung themselves upon the poacher, while the third dragged Lewis, who was rapidly growing exhausted, from the deadly embrace of his prostrate foe. Having with some difficulty succeeded in so doing, the man laid him at full length on the grass, and leaving him to recover as best he might, turned to assist his companions to secure Hardy. This was now a comparatively easy task, for his final struggle with Lewis had exhausted even the poacher’s strength, and after a futile attempt to rise and shake off his captors, he ceased to resist, and submitted in sullen silence, while his arms were secured with the General’s sword-belt. This operation concluded, the man who had rescued Lewis returned to him and found him sufficiently recovered to sit up.

“Have you looked to the General? is he uninjured?” was his first question.

“I’m afear’d he’s terrible hurt, if he ain’t killed outright; leastways he’s onsensibul, and one of his arms seems crushed like,” was the consolatory reply.

“Oh that I had come up a minute sooner!” exclaimed Lewis in a tone of bitter self-reproach.

“You’d have been a dead man if yer had, sir,” was the reply. “If that willian there had had hold of your throat half a minute longer, you’d have been as stiff as a leg of mutton by this time.”

“Better that I had perished than that this should have occurred,” murmured Lewis; then turning to the man, he continued, “Lend me your arm; I can walk now,” and rising with difficulty, he advanced towards the spot where General Grant lay. He was perfectly insensible; his hat had fallen off, and his grey hair, exposed to the night dews, imparted, as the moonlight streamed on it, a ghastly expression to his features, while his right arm was bent under him in an unnatural position, which left no doubt that it must be broken, probably in more places than one. Lewis knelt down beside him, and raising his uninjured hand, placed his finger on the wrist.

“I can feel his pulse beat distinctly,” he observed, after a moment’s pause. “He is not dead, nor dying; indeed, except the injury to his arm, I hope he may not be seriously hurt. No time must be lost in carrying him to the house and procuring a surgeon.”

“Somebody ought to go to Broadhurst to let’m know what’s happened and get us some help. We’ve more than we can manage here, you see,” urged the assistant. “It will take two on us to purwent that blackguard Hardy from getting away; he won’t lose no chance, you may depend.”

“I’ll stay with General Grant if you’ll run to the house,” returned Lewis feebly.

“Your arm’s a bleeding, sir. Did that willian stab you?” inquired the assistant.

“No; I was hurt in the wood,” was the reply.

“Do you think you could ride, sir?” continued the man; “ ’cos if you could, I’d try and catch the horse—he’s a grazin’ very quiet yonder—and then you could go to the house, start off one of the grooms to fetch a doctor, send some of the people down here to help us, get yer own wound dressed, and break the news to the family better than such a chap as me.”

This observation was a true one, and Lewis felt that it was so; therefore, although he dreaded the task, and would rather have again encountered the dangers he had just escaped than witnessed Annie Grant’s dismay and sorrow when she should find her dark anticipations realised, he agreed to the arrangement; and as the man succeeded in catching the horse almost immediately, he mounted with some difficulty and rode off at speed, though the rapid motion increased the pain of his wound till it became almost insupportable. He reached Broadhurst in less than ten minutes, never drawing bridle till he entered the stable-yard, although he turned so faint and dizzy on the way that more than once he was nearly falling from the saddle. His first act was to despatch a mounted groom to procure a surgeon; he next sent off four of the men-servants with a hurdle converted into an extemporary litter, giving them exact directions where to find their master, and waiting to see that they started without loss of time; he then attempted to dismount, but was unable to do so without assistance. Having paused a few moments till the faintness had again gone off, he entered the house by the servants’ entrance, and calling the butler aside, desired him to summon Mr. Leicester as quietly as possible; then, sinking into a chair and resting his head on his hands, he awaited his arrival with ill-con sealed anxiety, dreading lest some incautious person should abruptly inform Annie of her father’s accident.

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CHAPTER XXXII—LEWIS MAKES A DISCOVERY AND GETS INTO A “STATE OF MIND.”

The end of the room at which Lewis had seated himself lay in shadow, so that Leicester, who shortly made his appearance wrapped in a dressing-gown, could merely distinguish the outline of his figure.

“Why, Arundel,” he began, “is anything the matter? Here has Wilson been and roused me out of my first sleep, with a face like that of the party who ‘drew Priam’s curtains i’ the dead o’ the night.’ Where’s Governor Grant, and how is it that you’re home first?”

“It’s no joking matter, Mr. Leicester,” returned Lewis faintly, and without raising his head. “The poachers have given us more trouble than we expected, and in attempting to capture Hardy the General has been thrown from his horse. His right arm is broken in two places, and when I came away he was still insensible.”

From the position in which Lewis sat (his elbows resting on a table and his forehead supported by his hands) he was unable to perceive anything that might be going on in the apartment, consequently he had continued his speech, ignorant that a third person had joined them. Annie (for she it was who, pale as some midnight ghost, had glided noiselessly into the room) laid her hand on Leicester’s arm to prevent his calling attention to her presence, while eager and trembling she listened to Lewis’s account of her father’s accident; and overcome for the moment by these evil tidings, she remained speechless, leaning against a chair for support. Lewis, surprised at Leicester’s silence, raised his head languidly, and the first object that met his eyes was Annie Grant’s sinking figure. With an exclamation of dismay he attempted to start up, but he was becoming so weak from loss of blood that he failed to accomplish his purpose. Roused by the action, Annie recovered herself, and as a new idea struck her, she asked—

“Where, then, is poor papa? Have they brought him home? I must go to him instantly!”

“He is not yet arrived, Miss Grant,” returned Lewis in a low voice that trembled with conflicting emotions; “his own servants are carrying him, and a surgeon will be here instantly. I——” he paused abruptly, for Annie, drawing herself up, advanced towards him, and with flashing eyes exclaimed—

“Is this then the way in which you have fulfilled your promise, Mr. Arundel? I trusted so implicitly to your assurance that you would watch over him and protect him; and now you have not only failed him in the moment of danger but deserted him in his necessity, and secured your own safety by coming home to break my heart with these evil tidings. Oh, I am ashamed of you—grieved—disappointed!”

“Hush, my dear Annie,” observed Leicester soothingly. “Arundel might not be able to prevent this accident—you are too hasty.”

“No, no!” returned Lewis in a low, broken voice, “I deserve her reproaches. I ought never to have quitted him, and yet I did so believing that I left him in perfect safety. I could not bear to stand inactive when other men were about to face danger; besides, I had pledged myself to assist in capturing this poacher.” He paused, then added, “I have been to blame, Miss Grant, but I am not quite the poltroon you imagine me. I did indeed leave your father that I might accompany the attacking party into the wood, but I strained every nerve to come up with Hardy before General Grant encountered him; and although that was impossible, I arrived in time to prevent him from forcing the horse to trample the life out of the fallen man, and wounded as I am, I engaged with and captured, at the risk of my own life, the ruffian who had injured your father; nor should I have been here now, but that it was necessary for some one to procure assistance and summon a surgeon, and I rode back at speed to my own injury, that I might leave a more efficient man with the General.”

As he ceased speaking the butler entered the room, bearing in his hand a lamp, and for the first time the light fell upon Lewis’s figure. Leicester, as he beheld him, uttered an exclamation of surprise and horror, which his appearance was well calculated to call forth. His face was deadly pale, save a red line across the forehead, where some bramble had torn the skin; his dark hair, heavy with the night dew, clung in wild disorder around his temples; and his clothes, stained with mud, bore traces of the severity of the struggle in which he had been engaged; the sleeve of his left arm, which still rested on the table, was soaked with gore, while the momentary excitement which had animated him as he spoke had given way to a return of the faintness produced by the loss of blood, which was by this time very considerable. As this ghastly figure met her sight Annie uttered a slight shriek—then a sense of the cruel injustice of her own reproaches banished every other consideration, and springing towards him, she exclaimed—

“Oh, Mr. Arundel, what can we do for you? how shocked, how grieved I am!—will you, can you forgive me?”

Lewis smiled and attempted to reply, but the words died away upon his lips, and completely overcome by faintness, he would have fallen from the chair had not Leicester supported him. Fortunately, at this moment the surgeon arrived, and Annie quitting the apartment, Lewis’s sleeve was cut open, his wound temporarily bound up, and his temples bathed with some stimulating essence which dispelled his faintness, before the surgeon’s services were required for General Grant. The latter gentleman had recovered consciousness ere he reached Broadhurst, and though suffering acute pain from his broken arm, appeared cool and collected. His first question had been “whether Hardy had escaped,” and he seemed to revive from the moment he was informed of his capture. His next inquiry was who had taken him, and on learning it was Lewis, he was much pleased, muttering, “Brave lad, brave lad! pity he’s not in the army.” He recognised Annie and spoke kindly to her, gave orders for the safe custody of Hardy, demanded of the surgeon who examined his arm whether he wished to amputate it, as he felt quite equal to the operation, and in short, under circumstances which would have overpowered any man of less firmness of character, behaved like a gentleman and a brave old soldier, as he was. Fortunately the surgeons (for a second, attracted by the rumour of an accident, as vultures are if a camel dies in the desert, had come to test the truth of the old proverb that two heads are better than one) succeeded in setting the arm, pronounced amputation unnecessary, and after careful examination, gave it as their opinion that, with the exception of a few contusions of little consequence, the General had sustained no further injury. Having come to this satisfactory conclusion, they found time to direct their attention to Lewis. After much whispered consultation and considerable exchange of learned winks and profound nods, they informed him that he had been wounded by a shot from a pistol (which, by the way, he could have told them), and that they had very little doubt that the ball remained in the wound, in which case it would be necessary to extract it. To this Lewis replied, “The sooner the better.” Accordingly they proceeded to put him to great agony by probing the wound to find the ball, after which they hurt him still more in extracting it, performing both operations with such easy cheerfulness of manner and utter disregard of the patient’s feelings, that a bystander would have imagined they were carving a cold shoulder of mutton rather than the same joint of live humanity. But surgeons, like fathers, have flinty hearts, unmacadamised by the smallest grain of pity for the wretched victims of their uncomfortable skill; their idea of the “Whole Duty of Man” being that he should afford them “an interesting case” when living, and become a “good subject” for them when he has ceased to be one to the Queen. After the ball was extracted, Lewis requested it might be handed to him; it was small, and from its peculiar shape he perceived that it must have been discharged from a pistol with a rifle barrel.

“If you will allow me,” he said, “I shall keep this bit of lead as a memorial of this evening’s entertainment.”

“Oh, certainly,” replied the most cheerful surgeon, “by all means; if it had but gone an eighth of an inch farther,” he added, rubbing his hands joyously, “only an eighth of an inch, it would have injured the spinal cord, and you would have been—droll how these things occur sometimes—you’d have been paralysed for life.”

Lewis shuddered, and wished devoutly he were for the time being Caliph Haroun Al’Raschid, in which case the facetious surgeon would have added a practical acquaintance with the effects of the bastinado on the sole of the human foot to his other medical knowledge.

“I don’t think,” resumed the doctor meditatively, “I don’t think you need apprehend any very unpleasant result, as far as I can as yet see into the case. Of course,” he continued with hilarity, “erysipelas might supervene, but that is seldom fatal, unless it affects the brain; and I should hope the great effusion of blood will prevent that in the present instance. You feel very weak, don’t you?”

Lewis replied in the affirmative, and his tormentor continued—

“Well, you need not be uneasy on that score; I don’t apprehend a return of syncope, but if you should feel an unnatural deficiency of vital heat, or perceive any symptoms of approaching collapse, I would advise your ringing the bell, and I’ll be with you instantly. Scalpel’s obliged to be off; he’s got a very interesting broken leg—compound fracture—waiting for him down at the village, besides some dozen agreeable minor casualties, the result of to-night’s work. Keep up your spirits, and go to sleep—your shoulder is easier now?”

“It feels as if the blade of a red-hot sword were being constantly plunged into it,” returned Lewis crossly.

“Delighted to hear it,” replied Dr. Bistoury, rubbing his hands; “just what I could have wished; nothing inert there! I would recommend your bearing (which word he pronounced bea-a-a-ring) it quietly, and rely upon my looking in the first thing to-morrow.” So saying he rubbed his hands, chuckled, and departed.

In spite of his wound, which continued very painful, Lewis contrived to get a few hours’ sleep, and awoke so much refreshed that he resisted all attempts to keep him in bed, and though stiff and weak to an excessive degree, made his way to the study and cheated Walter out of the holiday he had expected—a loss which he scarcely regretted in his joy at finding that the wicked poachers had not seriously injured his dear Mr. Arundel. And then Annie could not be happy till she had caught Charles Leicester and made him accompany her on a penitential visit to Lewis, to tell him how grieved she was at the recollection of her injustice to him; it seemed so dreadfully ungrateful, when in fact he had just saved her father’s life; and she looked so pretty and good and pure in her penitence, that Lewis began to think women were brighter and higher beings than his philosophy had dreamed of, and for the first time it occurred to him that he had been guilty of an unpardonable absurdity in despising the whole race of womankind because he happened to have been jilted by a little, coquettish, half-educated German girl; and he forgave Annie so fully in his heart that with his lips he could scarcely stammer out half-a-dozen unmeaning words to tell her so.

Leicester asked him in the course of the conversation whether he had any idea which of the gang of poachers had fired the pistol, adding that two others had been taken besides Hardy. Lewis paused for a moment ere he replied, “That his back had been turned towards the man who shot him, and that it was too serious a charge to bring against any one without more certain knowledge than he possessed on the subject.” And having said this, he immediately changed the conversation.

As soon as Annie and her cousin withdrew, Millar the gamekeeper made his appearance, full of congratulations on Lewis’s gallant conduct and sympathy in regard to his wound.

“I can’t imagine vitch o’ ther warmints could have had a pistol; it worn’t neither o’ ther two as we captiwated, for I sarched ’em myself, and never a blessed harticle had they got about ’em except ther usual amount o’ bacca and coppers hin ther breeches’ pockets.”

“Did you have any more fighting after I left you to follow Hardy?” asked Lewis.

“Veil, we did ’ave one more sharpish turn,” was the reply. “When the blackguards see me down, they made a rush to recover the sack with the game, and almost succeeded, only Sam Jones pulled me out of the crowd and set me on my legs again, and I was so mad a-thinking that Hardy had got clear away that I layed about me like one possessed, they do tell me; so we not only recovered the game, but bagged two o’ ther chaps themselves. By ther bye,” he continued, “Sam Jones came here with me; he wants to see yer when I’ve done with yer; he says he’s picked up somethin’ o’ yourn, but he won’t say what—he’s a close chap when he likes, is Sam. Howsomdever, I suppose he expects you’ll tip him a bob or so, for it was he as ketched yer when Hardy first flung yer off. You’ve paid him for it sweetly, and no mistake; he’d got a lovely black hye, and his right wrist was swelled as big as two ven we marched him hoff to H————— gaol this morning. And now I’ll vish yer good arternoon, Mr. Arundel, and send Sam hup, if you’re agreeable.”

Lewis, with a smile at the equivocal nature of the phrase, signified his agreeability, and the keeper took his departure. In another minute the sound of heavy footsteps announced the approach of Sam, who, having obeyed Lewis’s injunction to “come in,” vindicated his title to the attribute of “closeness” by carefully shutting the door and applying first his ear and then his eye to the keyhole ere he could divest his cautious mind of a dread of eavesdroppers. He then crossed the room on tip-toe, partly from a sense of the grave nature of his mysterious errand, partly from respect to the carpet, the richness of which oppressed him heavily during the whole of his visit, restricting him to the use of one leg only the greater portion of the time.

“You have found something of mine, Millar tells me,” began Lewis, finding that, ghost-like, his visitor appeared to consider it a point of etiquette not to speak first.

“You’re very kind, Mr. Arundel,” returned his visitor, who, catching sight at the moment of the gilt frame of an oil painting which hung over the chimney, and believing it firmly to be pure gold, became so overpowered between that and the carpet that he scarcely dared trust himself to speak in such an aristocratic atmosphere. “I’m much obliged to you, sir. Yes, I have found something, sir, but I don’t know disactly as it’s altogether yourn.”

“What is it, my good fellow?” inquired Lewis, half amused and half bored by the man’s bashfulness.

A consolatory mistrust of the sterling value of the picture-frame had by this time begun to insinuate itself into Sam’s mind, and reassured in some degree by the doubt, he continued—

“I beg pardon, sir, but I hopes you don’t feel so bad as might be expected; you looks shocking pale, surely.”

Lewis thanked him for his inquiry, and said he believed the wound was going on favourably.

“I’m sure I’m very glad to hear it, which is a mercy to be thankful for; you looking so bad, too,” returned this sympathising visitor; then leaning forward so as to approach his lips to Lewis’s ear, he continued in a loud whisper—

“Have ye any notion who it was as fired the shot?”

Lewis started, and colouring slightly, fixed his eyes on the man’s face as he inquired abruptly—

“Have you?”

Forgetting his veneration for the carpet in the excitement of the conversation, the suspicious under-keeper walked to the door and again tested the keyhole ere he ventured to answer the question; then approaching Lewis, he thrust his hand into a private pocket in his shooting-jacket, and drawing thence something carefully wrapped in a handkerchief, he presented it to the young tutor, saying—

“That’s what I’ve been and found, sir; I picked it up in the wood, not twenty yards from the place where you stood when you was shot, Mr. Arundel.”

Lewis hastily unrolled the handkerchief, and drew from its folds a small pocket-pistol; on the stock, which was richly inlaid, was a silver escutcheon with a coat of arms engraved upon it; from marks about the nipple it had evidently been lately discharged, and on examination it proved to have a rifle barrel. Lewis’s brow grew dark.

“It is then as I suspected,” he muttered; pausing, however, as a new idea seemed to strike him. “It might be unintentional,” he continued, “the mere result of accident. I must not jump too hastily to such a conclusion;” then addressing the under-keeper, he inquired—“Have you any idea to whom this pistol belongs?”

“P’r’aps I may have,” was the cautious reply, “but there’s some things it’s best not to know—a man might get himself into trouble by being too knowing, you see, Mr. Arundel.”

“Listen to me, my good friend,” returned Lewis, fixing his piercing glance on the man’s face: “it is evident you more than suspect who is the owner of this pistol, and you probably are aware by whom, and under what circumstances, it was last night discharged. Now, if through a selfish dread of consequences you wish to keep this knowledge to yourself, why come here and show me the pistol? If, on the contrary, you wish to enhance the value of your information in order to make a more profitable bargain with me, you are only wasting time. I am naturally anxious to know who wounded me, and whether the deed was accidental or intentional; therefore, you have but to name your price, and if I can afford it I will give it you. I say this because I can conceive no other reason for your shilly-shallying.”

During this speech the unfortunate Sam Jones shifted uneasily from leg to leg, dropped his cap, stooped to pick it up again, bit his under-lip with shame and indecision, and at last exclaimed—

“Bless’d if I can stand this hany longer! out it must come, and if I loses my sitiation through it, I suppose there’s other places to be got; they can’t say nuffin against my character, that’s one comfort. It ain’t your money I wants, Mr. Arundel, sir; I’m able and willin’ to earn my own livin’; but I’ve got a good place here, and don’t wish to offend nobody: still right is right, and knowing what I knows, my conscience wouldn’t let me rest till I’d come and told you—only I thort if you would ha’ guessed it of yourself like, nothing needn’t ha’ come out about me in the matter.”

“I understand,” returned Lewis with a contemptuous curl of the lip; “I will take care not to commit you in any way; so speak out.”

“Well, if you remember, sir, I went with you and Millar up to the barley-stack last night, and when you grabbed hold of Hardy he sung out to the chap as was with him to come and help him, so I thort the best thing for me was to pitch into him and prevent his doing so. Well, I hadn’t much trouble with him, for he was a shocking poor hand with his fists, and as soon as I’d polished him off I turned to lend you a help; just at that minute I see the moon a-shining upon something bright, and looking further, I perceived the figure of a man crouching close to the stack with a cocked pistol in his hand. When fust I see him the pistol was pointed at Hardy, but suddenly he changed his aim and fired straight at you; as he let fly, the moonlight fell upon his face, and if ever a man looked like a devil he did then.”

“And it was——?” asked Lewis eagerly.

“Lord Bellefield!” was the reply; “there’s none of ’em wears hair on their top lip except the young lord, so it ain’t easy to mistake him, ye see.”

“Are you quite sure he changed the direction of the pistol? Might not the shot have been intended for Hardy?”

“I’ll take my oath it worn’t, Mr. Arundel; he pointed it straight at your breast, and if Hardy hadn’t given a sudden wrench at the minute and dragged you out of the line of fire, you’d have been a dead man long before this.”

Seeing that Lewis continued silent, the keeper resumed—

“As soon as you was hit you let go and Hardy threw you off. I caught you, expecting it was all up with you, but I still kept my eye on his lordship, for I was curious to know how he’d act. When he saw you fall he smiled, and then he looked more like a devil than he had done before. As Hardy was a-cutting away he passed close to Lord Bellefield and struck against his shoulder, accidently, and his lordship in a rage flung the discharged pistol after him, and it would ha’ fetched him down too if it hadn’t a-hit against a branch. However, I marked where it fell pretty nigh, and as soon as it was light this morning I went and found it. There’s his lordship’s arms upon it, same as them on his pheaton.”

Completely overpowered and amazed at this recital, Lewis, desiring to be alone with his own thoughts, obtained from Sam Jones a promise of the strictest secrecy in regard to the affair, and having liberally rewarded him for his discreet behaviour, dismissed him. He then, concealing the pistol in his pocket, withdrew to the privacy of his own apartment, and locking the door, sat down to collect his ideas. At first he could scarcely realise the fact with which he had become acquainted. True, he had suspected that it was from Lord Bellefield’s hand that he had received his wound, for he had previously observed the butt of a pistol protruding from a pocket in his lordship’s greatcoat, his attention being particularly called to the fact by the eagerness with which its owner immediately hastened to conceal it more effectually. Still, he had believed that he had been wounded by an accident, and that the shot had been fired with the intention of disabling Hardy, in whose capture Lord Bellefield appeared, for some mysterious reason, to be deeply interested. The account he had just received proved that this was evidently not the case, and Lewis could only conjecture that at the moment Lord Bellefield was about to shoot Hardy some fiend had suggested to him the opportunity of an easy revenge on the man he hated, and that, in an impulse of ungovernable malice, he had altered the direction of the pistol.

Rising and opening his dressing-case, Lewis took from a secret drawer the ball which had been extracted from his shoulder, and drawing the pistol out of his pocket, tried it; it fitted the barrel to a nicety. Replacing it, he muttered, “There is then no doubt.” He paused, but immediately resumed, “ ’Tis well; he has now filled up the measure of his guilt; the time is come to balance the account.” His intention at that moment was to seek out Lord Bellefield, upbraid him with his treachery, threaten to expose him, and demand as a right that he should afford him satisfaction, forcing him by some means to meet him on the following morning. But even when carried away by passion, Lewis was not utterly forgetful of the feelings of others, and his friendship for Leicester and for Annie, consideration for the General in his present situation, and the interest he took in Walter, rose up before him, and he exclaimed—

“No, it is impossible; a thousand reasons forbid it while I remain under this roof. I must break off all intercourse with this family before I seek my just revenge. Well, the day of retribution is postponed then, perhaps for years; but it will come at last, I know; I feel that it will. That man is a part of my destiny. With what pertinacity he hates me! He fears me, too; he has done so ever since that affair of the glove. He read in my eyes that I had resolved on—on what? What will all this lead to? Am I at heart a murderer?” He sat down, for he was very weak, and trembled so violently from the intensity of his feelings that his knees refused to support him.

“No!” he continued, “it is an act of justice. This man insulted me—I bore it patiently; at least I did not actively resent it. He repeated his injurious conduct, he heaped insult on insult—I warned him; he knew what he was doing; he saw the fiend he was arousing in me, but he persevered—even yet I strove to forgive him; yes, for the sake of his brother’s kindness to me, for the sake of the fair girl who is betrothed to him, I had almost resolved to forego my right to punish him. Then he seeks my life, the cowardly assassin! and in so doing he has sealed his own doom.” He rose and paced sternly up and down the apartment. “Frere would say,” he resumed, “Frere would say that I ought to forgive him yet, but he would be wrong. He would quote the Scriptures that we should forgive a brother ’till seventy times seven.’ Yes, if he turn and repent; repented sins only are forgiven either in heaven or on earth. Does this man repent? let him tell me so, and I will give him my hand in friendship; but if he glories in his wickedness? why then the old Hebrew law stands good, ‘An eye for an eye.’ He owes me a life already, and if I offer him fair combat, I give him a chance to which in strict justice he has no right; but I am no mean assassin. And now to return his pistol and inform his lordship that I am aware of the full extent of my obligations to him.”

So saying, he drew pen and ink towards him and hastily wrote as follows:—

“Mr. Arundel presents his compliments to Lord Bellefield, and begs to return the pistol with which he did him the honour to attempt his life in the wood last night. Mr. Arundel reserves the pleasure of returning the shot till some future opportunity.”

He then rolled up the note, and inserting it in the barrel of the pistol, formed the whole into a small parcel, which he carefully sealed, and ringing for Lord Bellefield’s valet, desired him to lay it on his master’s dressing-table before he prepared for dinner.

Reader, when your eye falls upon this page, which lays bare the heart of one whom we would fain depict, not as a mere picturesque brain-creation of impossible virtues and startling faults, but as an erring mortal like ourselves, swayed by the same passions, subject to the same influences for good or for evil—when you perceive how this one wrong feeling, permitted to take root in his mind, grew and flourished, till it so warped his frank, generous nature, that the fiend of sophistry, quoting scripture to his purpose, could blind his sense of right with such shallow reasoning as the foregoing,—resolve, if a single revengeful feeling lurk serpent-like in your bosom, to cast it from you at whatever sacrifice, lest when you pray “Our Father” which is in heaven to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us,” you unawares pronounce your own condemnation.

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CHAPTER XXXIII.—CONTAINS SUNDRY DEFINITIONS OF WOMAN “AS SHE SHOULD BE,” AND DISCLOSES MRS. ARUNDEL’S OPINION OF RICHARD FRERE.

Lewis did not obtain any answer to his polite note, as Lord Belle-field received on the following morning letters which he said required his immediate presence in London, and in the hurry of departure he no doubt forgot to refute the charge Lewis had seen fit to bring against him; and as the young tutor preserved a strict silence on the subject, and Sam Jones kept his own counsel with his accustomed closeness, there, for the present, the matter appeared likely to rest. Some little surprise was caused in the village by the sudden disappearance of Jane Hardy, the poacher’s daughter, a girl of about nineteen; but as it was imagined she had gone to take up her quarters in the town of H———, where her father was imprisoned, her absence was soon forgotten. Lewis and Charles Leicester alone, having ascertained her identity with the young person who had assisted in the refreshment-room on the night of the party, connected her flight with Lord Bellefield’s abrupt departure, and although the subject was, for obvious reasons, avoided between them, little doubt remained on their minds as to her probable fate. This occurrence afforded Lewis a clue to Lord Bellefield’s sudden interest in regard to Hardy’s capture: by her father’s imprisonment would be removed the chief impediment to the success of his designs upon the daughter. The event had proved the correctness of his calculation.

Weeks passed on; the wound in Lewis’s shoulder healed, despite the aggravating attendance of Doctors Scalpel and Bistoury, and with youth and health on his side he speedily regained his accustomed vigour. General Grant’s recovery was a matter of greater difficulty. The fracture had been by no means easily reduced, and the process by which the bones re-united was a long and tedious one. His accident (as is usually the case with such events) had occurred at a most inconvenient moment. While he was yet confined to his room the election for the county came on, and his opponent, taking advantage of his absence to undermine his influence with the voters, was returned by a large majority. The bribery by which he had obtained his seat was, however, a matter of such notoriety, that, by De Grandeville’s advice, the General was induced to petition Parliament to annul the election. The petition failed, and the expenses, which, from the prolonged proceedings, were unusually heavy, all fell upon the unsuccessful candidate. During the progress of the affair, Lewis, by the General’s wish, acted as his amanuensis and private secretary, a confidential servant being engaged to wait on Walter and attend him during his rides, thus relieving his tutor of much that was irksome in his situation. The London season was at its height before General Grant had recovered sufficiently to leave Broadhurst, but a fortnight before the day on which Charles Leicester’s wedding was fixed to take place Annie and her father started for the great metropolis.

During his attendance on the General, Lewis had been thrown much into Annie’s society, and their intimacy had deepened, on the lady’s side, into feelings of the warmest esteem and friendship, while the gentleman became more and more convinced that his previous estimate of the fair sex was a completely mistaken one, and altogether to be condemned as the weakest and most fallacious theory that ever entered the brain of a hot-headed boy—by which opprobrious epithet he mentally stigmatised his six-months-ago self—and for at least a week after she had departed he felt as if something had gone wrong with the sun, so that it never shone properly.

The General had been away about a fortnight, when Lewis received a letter from Rose informing him for the first time of her literary pursuits. Since we have last heard of this young lady she had been growing decidedly blue. Not only had she, under Bracy’s auspices, published a series of papers in Blunt’s Magazine, but she had positively written a child’s book, which, although it contained original ideas, good sense, and warm feeling, instead of second-hand moral platitudes, and did not take that particularly natural view of life which represents it as a system of temporal rewards and punishments, wherein the praiseworthy elder sister is always recompensed with an evangelical young duke, and the naughty boys are invariably drowned on clandestine skating expeditions, yet found an enterprising publisher willing to purchase it; nay, so well did it answer, that the courageous bibliopolist had actually expressed a wish to confer with the “talented authoress,” as he styled poor Rose, in regard to a second work. Whereupon Frere despatched a note to that young lady, telling her she had better come up to town at once, offering her the use of his house in a rough and ready way, just as if he had been writing to a man; and though he did add in a postscript that if she fancied she should be dull, she’d better bring her mother with her, the afterthought was quite as likely to have arisen from sheer good-nature, as from any, even the most faint, glimmering of etiquette. Owing, to a judicious hint thrown out by Bracy, however, an invitation arrived, at the same time, from Lady Lombard, which Mrs. Arundel had immediately decided on accepting, and the object of Rose’s letter was to inquire whether there was the slightest hope of Lewis being able to meet them.

By the same post arrived a note written by Annie from her father’s dictation, saying that he found he was quite unable to get on without Mr. Arundel’s assistance; that he considered change of scene might prove beneficial to Walter, and that it was therefore his wish that Lewis and his pupil should join them immediately after the bustle of the wedding should be over; which scheme chimed in with the young tutor’s wishes most admirably, and for the rest of the morning he was so happy as to be quite unlike his usual grave and haughty self, and astonished Faust to such a degree by placing his fore-paws against his own chest, and in that position constraining him to waltz round the room on his hind-legs, that the worthy dog would have assuredly taken out a statute of lunacy against his master had he been aware of the existence of such a process.

Those who witnessed the marriage of the Hon. Charles Leicester to the lovely and accomplished daughter of the late Peregrine Peyton, Esq., of Stockington Manor, in the county of Lancashire (they said nothing of Ludgate Hill and ignored Plumpstern totally), describe it to have been a truly edifying ceremony. The fatal knot was tied, and the wretched pair launched into a married state by the Bishop of L————, the unhappy victims submitting to their fate with unexampled fortitude and resignation, and the female spectators evincing by their tears that the lesson to be derived from the awful tragedy enacting before them would not be thrown away upon them. Nor were the good intentions thus formed allowed to swell the list of “unredeemed pledges” whence that prince of pawnbrokers, Satan, is popularly supposed to select his paving materials, as, during the ball which concluded the evening, two fine young men of property fell victims to premature declarations, and after a rapid decline from the ways of good fellowship were carried off by matrimony, and departed this (i.e., fashionable) life in less than two months after their first seizure.

On Lewis’s arrival in town he found a small packet directed to him in Leicester’s handwriting, containing, besides the glazed cards lovingly coupled by silver twist, a remarkably elegant gold watch and chain for the waistcoat pocket, together with a few lines from Charley himself, saying that to Lewis’s good advice and plain speaking he felt he in a great measure owed his present happiness, and that he hoped Lewis would wear the enclosed trifle, the joint gift of himself and Laura, to remind him of their mutual friendship and regard. Had he known that Annie Grant had noticed the fact of his not possessing a watch, and suggested the nature of the gift to her cousin, he would have valued it even more highly than he did.

The happy pair had determined to test the endurance of their felicity by starting for the Rhine, which popular river it was their intention to go up as far as it was go-up-able, then proceed to Switzerland, do that land of musical cows and icy mountains thoroughly, and finally take up their quarters at Florence, where Leicester had succeeded in obtaining a diplomatic appointment. A letter had been received from them dated Coblentz, wherein it appeared their newfound happiness had stood the voyage better than might have been expected; a fact mainly attributable to their having had an unusually calm passage. Laura considered the Rhine scenery exquisite; Charley thought it all very well for a change; but for a constancy, he must confess he preferred the Serpentine. He was disgusted with the German students, whom he stigmatised as “awful tigers,” wondered why the women wore short petticoats if they hadn’t better ankles to show, complained bitterly of the intense stupidity of the natives for not understanding either French or English, and wound up by a long, violent sentence quite unconnected with all that had gone before it, setting forth his unalterable conviction that Laura was an angel, which unscriptural assertion he reiterated four times in as many lines.

A change had taken place in Rose Arundel, and Lewis, as he gazed with affection on her calm, pensive brow, and marked the earnest, thoughtful expression of her soft, grey eyes, felt that she was indeed altered: he had left her little more than a child, he found her a woman in the best and fullest sense of the expression. Reader, do you know all that phrase implies? do you understand what is meant by a woman in the true and fullest sense of the term?

“Eh? I should rather think I did, too, just a very little,” replies Ensign Downylip, winking at society at large; “know what a woman is? yes, I consider that good, rather.”

“And what, oh! most exquisite juvenile, may be your definition of woman as she should be?”

The Ensign strokes his upper lip where that confounded moustache is so very “lang a comin’,” rubs his nose to arouse his intellect, which he fails to do because that faculty is not asleep but wanting, and replies—

“Ar—well, to begin with: woman is of course a decidedly inferiar animal, but—ar—take the best specimen of the class, and you’ll find it vewy pwitty, picquante, devoted to polking, light in hand, clean about the pasterns, something like Fanny Elsler, with a dash of Lady—to give it style (I can’t stand vulgawity), decidedly fast (I hate your cart-horsey gals)! plenty of bustle to make it look spicy, ready to go the pace no end, and able properly to—ahem! appweciate ‘Yours truly’—ar—that’s about the time of day, eh, Mr. Author!”

“No such thing, sir,” replies Corulea Scribbler, who is so very superior that she is momentarily expected to regenerate society singlehanded, “no such thing, sir! I know what the author means: he justly considers woman as a—that is, as the concentrated essence of mind; nothing low, base, earthy—but—in fact—definitions should be terse—you’ll excuse my mathematical tastes, but—ahem!—three terms at Queen’s College, and that dear Professor Baa-lamb! naturally produce a logical habit of thought—you require a perfect woman.”

“No, madam, I am not so unreasonable.”

“I mean, you require a definition of a perfect woman; here you have it then—the maximum of mind united to the minimum of matter; or, to speak poetically, a ‘thing all soul.’” And having thus given her opinion, Miss Corulea, who measures barely five feet, and is as thin as a lath, shakes her straw-coloured ringlets and subsides into the Sixth Book of Euclid.

But neither the red-jacket nor the blue-stocking, albeit each the type of a not unnumerous class, has exactly answered our question as we would wish it replied to. We do not agree with Charley Leicester in considering woman an angel; first, because our ideas with regard to angels are excessively vague and undefined, wings and white drapery being the only marked features which we have as yet succeeded in realising; and secondly, because, to verify the resemblance, woman should be faultless, and we have never yet met with one who had not some fascinating little sin left to show that she was not too good for this world. Our notion of a woman, in the best sense of the word, is a being fitted to be a helpmeet for man; and this would lead us into another disquisition, which we will dismiss summarily by stating that we mean a man worthy of the name, not an ape in a red-coat like Ensign Downylip, or an owl in a sad-coloured one like Professor Baalamb, but a man whom it would not be mere satire to call a lord of the creation. A helpmeet for such an one as this should possess a clear, acute intellect, or she would be unable to comprehend his aspirations after the good, and true, and beautiful—the efforts of his fallen nature to regain somewhat of its original rank in the scale of created beings. She should have a faithful, loving heart, that when, foiled in his worldly career, his spirit is dark within him, and in the bitterness of his soul he confesses that “the good that he would he does not, but the evil he would not, that he does,” her affection may prove to him that in her love he has one inestimable blessing yet remaining, of which death alone can deprive him, and then only for a season; for, availing herself of the fitting moment with the delicate tact which is one of the brightest instincts of a loving woman’s heart, she can offer him the only true consolation, by urging him to renew his Christian warfare in the hope that together they may attain the reward of their high calling, a reward so glorious that the mind of man is impotent to conceive its nature. But to be able to do this she must herself have realised, by the power of faith, the blessedness of things unseen, and with this requisite, without which all other excellencies are valueless, we conclude our definition of “woman as she should be.”

Such an one was Rose Arundel, and countless others are there who, if not sinless as the radiant messengers of heaven, are yet doing angels’ work by many a fireside which their presence cheers and blesses. Happy is the man who possesses in a wife or sister such a household fairy; and if some there be who bear alone the burden of life—whose joys are few, for we rejoice not in solitude—let those whose lot is brighter forgive the clouded brow or the cynical word that at times attests the weariness of a soul on which the sunlight of affection seldom beams.

No particular alteration was observable in Mrs. Arundel, who seemed to possess the enviable faculty of never growing older, and who remained just as gay and sparkling as when at sixteen she had enslaved the fancy rather than the heart of Captain Arundel.

“My dear Lewis,” she exclaimed, after having asked a hundred questions in a breath regarding the internal economy of General Grant’s family, the affray with the poachers, Charles Leicester’s wedding, and every other event, grave or otherwise, which occurred to her active and versatile mind, “my dear Lewis, what an original your friend Frere is! excessively kind and good-natured, but so very odd. He volunteered to come and meet us at the coach-office, which I considered quite a work of supererogation; but Rose had imbibed such a mistrust of London and its inhabitants, whom she expected to eat her up bodily, I believe, that she persuaded me to accept his offer. Well, when the coach arrived I looked about, but nobody did I see who at all coincided with my preconceived ideas of Mr. Frere, and I began to think he would prove faithless, when I descried an individual in a vile hat and an old, rough greatcoat perched on a pile of luggage, with a cotton umbrella between his knees, reading some dirty little book, in which he appeared completely immersed. He took not the slightest notice of the bustle and confusion going on around him, and would, I believe, have sat there until now, if a porter, carrying a heavy trunk, had not all but fallen over him; upon which he started up, and for the first time perceiving the coach, exclaimed, ‘By Jove, there’s the very thing I am waiting for!’ then shouldering his umbrella, he advanced to the window, and thrusting in his great head, growled out, ‘Are any of you Miss Arundel?’ Rose answered the question, for I was so taken by surprise that I was dying with laughter. As soon as he had ascertained our identity, he continued, ‘Well, then I should say the sooner you’re out of this the better. I’ll call a cab.’ The moment it drew up he flung open the door, and exclaiming, ‘Now, come along,’ he caught hold of Rose as if she’d been a carpetbag, dragged her out, and pushed her by main force into the cab.”

“Oh, mamma,” interrupted Rose apologetically, “you really colour the matter too highly. Mr. Frere was as kind as possible. He was a little rough, certainly, and seemed to think I must be as helpless as a child; but I dare say he’s not accustomed to act as squire to dames.”

“Indeed he’s not,” resumed Mrs. Arundel. “But I was determined he shouldn’t paw me about like a bale of goods, so I rested my hand on a porter’s shoulder and sprang from the coach into the cab while he was stooping to pick up his wretched umbrella; and finely astonished he looked, too, when he discovered what I had done. Then he dragged down all the luggage, just as he had done Rose, and tried to put two trunks that did not belong to us on the cab, only I raved at him till I obliged him to relinquish them. Of course I was forced to offer him a seat in the cab, but he coolly replied, ‘No, thank ye; there are too many bandboxes—the squares of their bases occupy the entire area. I’ll sit beside cabby.’ And to my horror he scrambled up to the driving-seat, and taking the dirty book out of his pocket, was speedily absorbed in its contents; and in this state we actually drove up to Lady Lombard’s door. I could have beaten the man, I was so angry with him. And yet, with it all, the creature is a gentleman.”

“Indeed he is,” returned Lewis, “a thorough gentleman in mind, though from the extent to which he is engrossed by his literary and scientific pursuits, and from the fact of living so much alone, he has not the manners of society. But Frere is a very first-rate man; his is no ordinary intellect.”

“It is impossible to watch the play of his features and doubt that for a moment,” returned Rose eagerly. “Look at his speaking eye—his noble forehead.”

“Oh! Rose is quite emprise with the monster,” remarked Mrs. Arundel, laughing. “It’s a decided case of love at first sight. Was it the old greatcoat, or the dreadful hat, which first touched your heart, ma chere?”

“I’m not bound to criminate myself,” was the reply, “so I shall decline to answer that question.”

While she spoke a short, sharp, double knock, as of an agitated postman, awoke the echoes and the porter in Lady Lombard’s “Marble Hall.” In another minute the Brobdignagian footman, with prize calves to his legs, flung open the drawing-room door and announced, in a stentorian voice, “Mr. Frere.”

“Quand on parle du diable on en voit la queue?” whispered Mrs. Arundel, rising quickly. “Positively, Rose, my nerves won’t stand the antics of your pet bear this morning. Let me see you again before you go, Louis, mon cher—you’ll find me in the boudoir.”

So saying, she glided noiselessly out of one door a moment before Frere entered at the other. Lewis followed her retreating figure with a glance half-painful, half-amused. “My mother grows younger and more gay every time I see her,” he observed to Rose. A speaking glance was her only answer, for at the moment Frere made his appearance—and a somewhat singular one it was. The day being fine, he had discarded the obnoxious greatcoat, and—thanks to his old female domestic, who had caught him going out with a large hole in his sleeve and sent him back to put on another garment, which she herself selected—the coat he wore was in unusually good preservation, and not so very much too large for him; but the heavy shoes, the worsted stockings, the shepherd’s plaid trousers, and the cotton umbrella were all in statu quo; while his bright eyes, sparkling out of a greater bush than ever of untrimmed hair and whiskers, gave him a striking resemblance to some honest Scotch terrier, worthy to be immortalised by Landseer’s pencil. Catching sight of Lewis, he rushed towards him, and seizing both his hands (in order to accomplish which act of friendship he allowed the umbrella to fall on Rose’s toes), he shook them heartily, exclaiming, “Why, Lewis, old boy! this is a pleasure! I hadn’t a notion you would be here so soon. How’s General Grant? and how’s Walter? and how’s Faust? and how’s everybody? Well, I am glad to see you!”

All this time Frere had taken not the slightest notice of Rose, who, having advanced a step or two to greet him, had resumed her seat, more pleased to witness his delight in welcoming Lewis than any attentions to herself could have rendered her. Having seated himself on a sofa and pulled Lewis clown by his side, he for the first time appeared aware of Rose’s presence, which he hastened to acknowledge by a nod, adding, “Ah! how d’ye do? I’ve got something to tell you presently, as soon as I’ve done with your brother.”

Then, turning to Lewis, he recommenced his string of questions, without regarding Rose’s presence otherwise than by occasionally including her in the conversation with such interjectional remarks as “You can understand that”—“I explained that to you the other day,” until at length he abruptly exclaimed, “Now I must go and talk to her—she and I have got a little business together.”

“Perhaps I am de trop,” observed Lewis with a meaning smile.

In reply to this Frere merely clenched his fist, and having shaken it within an inch of Lewis’s face, marched deliberately across the room, and drawing a chair close to Rose, seated himself in it; then laying hold of one corner of her worsted work, he said in a gruff voice, “Put away this rubbish.”

“I can listen to you, Mr. Frere, and go on with my slipper at the same time,” returned Rose, quietly releasing her work.

“You can’t do two things properly together,” was the reply; “nobody can; for it’s all fudge about Cæsar’s reading and dictating at the same time. What I’ve got to tell you is more important than a carpet shoe.”

Smiling at his pertinacity, Rose, not having a particle of obstinacy in her disposition, put away her work, and demurely crossing her hands before her, like a good child saying its lessons, awaited her tyrant’s orders. That her attitude was not lost upon Frere that gentleman made evident by catching Lewis’s eye and pointing backwards with his thumb, as much as to say, “There! do you see that?” then producing a note from his pocket, he coolly broke the seal, opened it, and handing it to Rose, muttered, “Read that.”

The note ran as follows:—

“Mr. T. Bracy presents his compliments to Miss Arundel, and begs to enclose a note of introduction to Mr. Nonpareil, the publisher, as Mr. Frere agrees in thinking that the offer made by Mr. A————, of B——— Street, for the copyright of her interesting tale was quite inadequate to its merits.”

“How very kind of Mr. Bracy!” exclaimed Rose, handing the note to her brother, re re having quietly read it over her shoulder. “Lewis, I must ask you to be good enough to go with me to Mr. Nonpareil’s whenever you can spare the time.”

“You needn’t trouble him,” returned Frere gruffly; “I mean to take you there myself; and as there’s never any good in putting things off, I vote we go this morning. What do you say?”

“You are very kind,” replied Rose, smiling; “but really, now my brother is in town I need not encroach on your valuable time.”

“Valuable fiddlestick!” was the courteous reply; “though, of course, everybody’s time is valuable, if people did but know how to employ it properly—which they never do. But you don’t suppose if I’d anything very particular in hand I should be dawdling here, do you? I’ve got to be at the Ornithological at four, and to call at Moore’s, the bird-stuffer’s, first; but I can look in there on our way to Nonpareil’s.”

“Yes; but I’m sure Lewis——” began Rose in a deprecatory tone of voice.

“Nonsense about Lewis!” was the surly rejoinder. “What do you imagine he knows about dealing with publishers?—they’re ‘kittle cattle to shoe behint,’ as a Scotchman would say. I’ve had dealings enough with ’em to find out that, I can tell you. As for Lewis, if he were to walk into one of their dens with his head up in the air, they’d take him for Lord Octavo Shallowpate, come to negotiate for another new novel, written with a paste-pot and scissors, and when they found he had not a handle to his name with which to shove his rubbish down the public throat, they’d kick him out of the shop again.”

“Then you really think I look as stupid as a literary lord, eh, Frere?” inquired Lewis.

“Well, that’s too strong a term, perhaps,” answered Frere reflectively; “but you don’t look like a man of business, at all events.”

“Where does this sagacious publisher reside?” asked Lewis; and when Frere had given him the required information, he continued: “Then we’ll settle the matter thus:—My tailor, with whom I am anxious to gain an interview, lives in the adjoining street; accordingly, I’ll walk down with Rose and you, and while you negotiate with the autocrat of folios, I’ll take ‘fitting measures’ for getting myself ‘neatly bound in cloth.’”

“So be it then, most facetious youth,” returned Frere, laughing; “and the faster you can get ready, you know,” he continued, turning to Rose, “the better.”

“I’m all obedience,” replied Rose, smiling; “but I think you’re rather fond of tyrannising, Mr. Frere.”

“Who, I?” returned Frere in astonishment. “Not a bit of it; I’m the most easily managed fellow in London—I am, upon my word.”

“You should see what perfect command his old housekeeper has him in,” observed Lewis, with an arch glance at his sister; “the bear dares not growl at her—she’s a perfect Van Amburgh to him.”

Now there was so much truth in this charge that it was rather a sore subject with Frere. The old woman in question had lived with his mother and had nursed him when a child; and for these reasons, as well as from good nature and a certain easiness of disposition which lay beneath his rough manner, Frere had allowed her gradually to usurp control over him, till, in all the minutiae of his domestic life, she ruled him with a rod of iron. Although her admiration of and respect for her master’s learning was fully equal to her total ignorance of the arts and sciences; and although her affection for him was boundless, nature had gifted her with a crusty temper, which an interval of poverty and hardship (extending from the death of Frere’s mother till the time when his first act on obtaining a competence had been to seek her out and take her into his service) had not tended to sweeten. The dialogues which occasionally took place between the master and servant were most amusing, and her power over him was exercised so openly, that his fear of Jemima had become a standing joke among his intimates. Accordingly, on hearing Lewis’s observation, Frere hastily jumped up and strode to the fireplace, muttering, “Nonsense! psha! rubbish! don’t you believe a word of it, Miss Arundel; but go and dress, there’s a good——” he was going to add “fellow”; for be it known, the clue to his gruff, unpolished behaviour towards the young lady in question was to be discovered in the fact, that from her quiet composure, freedom from affectation, clear, good sense, and the interest she took in subjects usually considered too abstruse for female investigation, Frere looked upon her as a kindred soul, and as all his other chosen intimates were of the worthier gender, he was continually forgetting that she was not a man. Checking himself, however, just in time, he substituted “creature” for “fellow”; and as Rose left the room, he continued, “ ’Pon my word, Lewis, your sister’s such a nice, sensible, well-informed, reasonable being, that I am constantly forgetting she’s a woman.”

“Which speech shows that amongst your numerous studies that of the female character has been neglected,” replied Lewis; “or that you have taken your impressions from very bad specimens of the sex.”

Frere, who during the above remark had drawn from his pocket a lump of crumbling sandstone, which, in order to examine more closely, he coolly deposited on a small satin-wood work-table, looked up in surprise as he rejoined, “Your opinions, touching the merits of womankind, seem to have suffered a recovery, young man, seeing that the last time I had the honour of discussing the matter with you, women were all perfidious hyaenas, or thereabouts. What has wrought so remarkable a transformation?”

Something appeared to have suddenly gone wrong with Lewis’s boot, for it was not until he had thoroughly investigated the matter that he replied, his face being still bent over the offending article, “The simple fact that as one grows older one grows wiser, I suppose. No doubt Gretchen behaved abominably, and rendered me for the time intensely wretched; but it was folly in me ever to have placed my happiness in the power of such a little, romantic, flirting, half-educated thing as she was; I should not do so now, and to argue from such an individual instance, to the disparagement of the whole sex, was one of the maddest notions that ever entered the brain of a hot-headed boy.”

“Phew!” whistled Frere in astonishment, “you are not over civil to your former self, I must say. If anybody else had spoken so disrespectfully of you you’d have been for punching his head for him; however, I believe your present frame of mind is the more sane of the two, though sweeping assertions are always more or less untenable. The truth is, you can lay down no general rule about it—women are human as well as men; there are a few very good, a few very bad, and an immense number who are nothing particular, in both sexes. There is no authority which would lead us to suppose Adam’s rib was made of ivory more than any of his other bones. There’s one vice belonging to the fair sex, though—they’re always an unmerciful time putting on their bonnets; your sister’s been five minutes already, and I’d lay a bet we don’t see her for five more.” As he uttered the last words, Rose, fully equipped and looking the picture of neatness, tripped into the room, to Frere’s intense discomfiture, who scrambled his relic of the Era of the Old Red Sandstone into his pocket with the air of some culprit schoolboy detected in his malpractices by the vigilant eye of his pedagogue.

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CHAPTER XXXIV.—ROSE AND FRERE GO TO VISIT MR. NONPAREIL THE PUBLISHER.

Lewis, having slipped away for a moment to take leave of Mrs. Arundel, who dismissed him with a parting injunction to take care Ursa Major did not devour Rose, the trio descended the stairs, Frere taking an opportunity to whisper to Lewis, “She was down upon me then in every sense of the word; didn’t believe a woman could get ready in five minutes on any consideration; but your sister has more sense than I ever expected to see under a bonnet, that’s a fact.”

“Don’t you think for once you could dispense with that dreadful umbrella?” inquired Lewis, who had imbibed a few Leicesterian prejudices from his residence at Broadhurst.

“Dreadful umbrella! why what’s the matter with it?” exclaimed Frere, half unfurling his favourite; “it’s-water-tight, and has a famous strong stick to it; what more do you want in an umbrella, eh?”

“It might have been made of silk,” suggested Lewis mildly.

“Yes, and be stolen and brought back again regularly three times a week,” returned Frere. “I had a silk one once, and the expense that umbrella was to me, to say nothing of the wear and tear of mind it occasioned, was perfectly terrific. I shudder when I think of it; there are not a dozen cabmen in London who have not received half-a-crown for bringing home that umbrella. It was a regular bottle-imp to me, always being lost and always coming back again. The ’bus conductors knew it by sight as well as they know the Bank; they were for ever laying traps to get it into their possession, with a view to obtain the reward of honesty by bringing it home again. I got rid of it at last, though; I lent it to a fellow who owed me five pounds, and I’ve never seen man, money, or umbrella since. Now this dear old cotton thing, not being worth finding, has never been lost; however, if you’ll promise to take care I have it to-morrow when I call, I’ll leave it here, and if your sister gets wet don’t blame me.”

“Rose, will you undertake the heavy responsibility?” asked Lewis. “I think I may safely promise so to do,” was the reply. “There is a little foot page in this establishment in whom I have the greatest confidence, and to his custody will! commit it.”

And Frere’s anxious mind being soothed by this assurance, they started on their expedition. Twenty minutes’ brisk walking—which would have been brisker still if Rose had not gently hinted that ladies were not usually accustomed to stride along like postmen; to which suggestion Frere responded with something very like a growl,—twenty minutes’ walking brought them to the very elegant front of Mr. Nonpareil’s shop, where Lewis left the two others. A nice young man, with Hyperion curls outside his head, and nothing save much too high an opinion of himself within, who lounged gracefully behind the counter, replied to Frere’s inquiry “Whether Mr. Nonpareil was at home,” after the fashion of the famous Irish echo, i.e., by another question. Elevating his eyebrows till they almost disappeared in his forest of hair, he drawled out—

“Wh-a-y? did you w-a-ant him?”

“Of course I did, or else I should not have asked for him,” returned Frere sharply; then handing his own card and Bracy’s note of introduction across the counter, he continued, “Take those to your master, and tell him that a lady and gentleman are waiting to see him.”

At the word “master” Hyperion coloured and appeared about to become impertinent, but something in Frere’s look induced him to alter his intention, and turning on his heel, he strode into the back shop with an air martyre, which was deeply affecting to the risible muscles of the pair he left behind him.

“There’s an animal!” exclaimed Frere, as the subject of his remark disappeared behind a tall column of account books. “Now that ape looks upon himself as a sort of Admirable Crichton, and I’ll be bound has a higher opinion of his own mental endowments than ever Shakespeare or Milton had of theirs. I dare say the creature has his admirers, too: some subordinate shop boy, or the urchin who runs of errands, takes him at his own price and believes in him implicitly. Ye gods, what a ‘ship of fools’ is this goodly vessel of society!”

“I hope he does not rest his claims on the ground of his personal attractions,” returned Rose with a quiet smile.

“His strength must lie in his hair, if he does,” replied Frere, “like that of his Israelitish Hercules of old. But see, here he comes, shaking his ambrosial locks; and behold, he smiles graciously upon us. Bracy’s note has worked miracles.”

Approaching with a smirk and a bow, Hyperion politely signified that Mr. Nonpareil was disengaged, then again retreating, led the way through a sort of defile of unsold literature to the sanctum of the enterprising publisher. This remarkable apartment was of the most minute dimensions, a very duodecimo edition of a room, embellished with a miniature fireplace, an infinitesimal writing-table, and a mere peep-hole of a window looking across many chimney-pots into space. In the middle of this retreat of learning, like an oyster in its shell, reposed that Rhadamanthus of literature—the heroic Nonpareil. His outer man was encased in black, as became the severity of his office; a white neck-cloth encircled his august throat, while a heavy gold watch-chain and seals attested his awful respectability. He was of a most respectable age, neither incautiously young nor unadvisedly old; he was of a most respectable height, neither absurdly short nor inconveniently tall; his weight, 12 stone 6 lbs., was most respectable—it had not varied a pound for the last ten years, nor could one look at him without feeling that it would remain exactly the same for the next ten years; he had a most respectable complexion, red enough to indicate that he lived well and that it agreed with him, but nothing more. Nobody could suspect that man of an apoplectic tendency; he was much too respectable to think of dying suddenly; the very expression of his face was a sort of perpetual life assurance; he go out of the world without advertising the day on which he might be expected to appear most respectably bound in boards! The idea was preposterous. His manner naturally expressed his conviction of his own intense respectability, and was impressive, not to say pompous; while from a sense of the comparative want of respectability in everybody else it was also familiar, or as his enemies (all great men have enemies) declared, presuming.

As Rose and Frere entered he stood up to receive them, favoured Frere with a salutation half-way between a bow and a nod, partially extended his hand to Rose, and as she hesitated in surprise, hastily drew it back again, then motioning them to the only two chairs, save his own judgment-seat, the apartment contained, resumed his throne, and smiling graciously at Rose, leant back, waiting apparently until that young lady should humbly prefer her suit to him.

Perceiving his design, Rose glanced appealingly at Frere, who came to her assistance by plunging at once in médias res with his accustomed bluntness.

“Well, Mr. Nonpareil,” he began, “touching the object of our visit to you, I suppose Bracy has told you in his note what we’ve come about?”

“Yes—that is, so far; Mr. Bracy signifies that your visit has a business tendency,” was the cautious reply.

“Why, we certainly should not have come here for pleasure,” returned Frere shortly; then catching Rose’s look of dismay he continued, “I mean to say we should not have thought of taking up your valuable time” (here he gave Rose a confidential nudge with his elbow to indicate that he spoke ironically), “unless we had a legitimate object in doing so.”

In answer to this the Autocrat merely inclined his head, and revealed a highly respectable set of teeth; so Frere resumed—

“This young lady, Miss Arundel, has determined, by the advice of Mr. Bracy and—ahem!—myself, to make you the first offer of a very valuable work which she has written—a tale of a very unusual description, peculiarly suited, as I consider, to the present state of society, pointing out certain social evils, and showing how a more consistent adherence to the precepts of Christianity would prove the only effectual remedy.”

At these last words Mr. Nonpareil, who, having apparently lapsed into a state of torpor, had listened with a face as immovable as if it had been cast in bronze, suddenly pricked up his ears and condescended to exist again.

“If I understand you, Mr.——Frere,” suggested that gentleman—“Mr. Frere,” continued Nonpareil, “if I comprehend your meaning, sir, this lady wishes to dispose of the copyright of a religious novel?”

“That’s it,” replied Frere.

“Then my answer must mainly depend on the exact height of the principles.”

“On the how much?” inquired Frere, considerably mystified.

“On the exact height of the principles, sir,” returned Mr. Nonpareil with dignity. “I possess a regular scale, sir, which I have had worked out minutely, proceeding from the broad outlines of Christianity to the most delicate shades of doctrine, and descending even to the smallest points of the canon law. Such an ecclesiological table is most important in our line. Public opinion, sir, fluctuates in such matters, just like the funds, up one week, down the next, up again the next. Now I’ll just give you an instance. There was a little work we published, I dare say you’ve seen it, ‘Ambrosius; or, The Curate Confessed.’ It was thought rather a heavy book when it first came out. The public would not read it; the trade did not like it; it hung on hand, and I expected to lose from £200 to £300 upon it. Well, sir, the Surplice question began to be agitated. Fortunately, the author had made Ambrosius preach in a white gown. I immediately advertised it freely, the thing took, we sold 3000 copies in a fortnight, and instead of losing £300 I made £600. But that’s not all, sir. Shortly after that the Rev. Clerestory Lectern, one of the very tip-top ones, went to Rome, and took his three curates, a serious butler, and the family apothecary with him. This made a great sensation, convulsed the public mind fearfully, and brought on a general attack of the ultra-protestant epidemic. Accordingly, I sent for the author of ‘Ambrosius,’ offered him terms he was only too glad to jump at, shut him up in the back-shop with half a ream of foolscap and a bottle of sherry, and in little more than a week we printed off 5000 copies of ‘Loyoliana; or, The Jesuit in the Chimney Corner.’ The book sold like wild-fire, sir. A second edition was called for and went off in no time, and I believe I might have got through a third, only Lord Dunderhead Downhill joined the Plymouth Brethren and married his kitchen-maid, which brought public opinion up again several degrees and spoiled the sale; but I made a very nice thing of it, altogether.”

So saying, Mr. Nonpareil rubbed his hand gleefully, pushed his hair off his forehead, and looked at Rose as if he longed to coin her into money on the spot. After a pause he inquired abruptly, “What’s the name, ma’am?”

“The name of my tale?” began Rose, slightly flurried at the conversation so suddenly taking a personal turn. “I thought of calling it ‘Helen Tremorne.’”

“Very gogd, ma’am—very good,” returned Mr. Nonpareil approvingly; “euphonious, aristocratic, and vague. Just at this time, a title that does not pledge a book to anything particular of any kind is most desirable. About how long do you suppose it will be?”

“Mr. Frere thought it would make two small volumes about the size of a work called ‘Amy Herbert,’ I believe,” replied Rose.

“Quite right, ma’am, quite right, a very selling size, indeed,” was the answer; “clever book, ‘Amy Herbert,’ very. So much tenderness in it, ma’am; nothing pays better than judicious tenderness; the mothers of England like it to read about—the daughters of England like it—the little girls of England like it—and so the husbands of England are forced to pay for it. If you recollect, ma’am, there’s a pathetic governess in ‘Amy Herbert,’ who calls the children ‘dearest’—well imagined character, that. She’s sold many a copy has that governess. May I ask does ‘Helen Tremorne’ call anybody ‘dearest’?”

“I really scarcely remember,” said Rose, hiding a smile behind her muff.

“It would be most desirable that she should, ma’am,” returned Mr. Nonpareil solemnly. “Some vindictive pupil, if possible, ma’am—the more repulsive the child, the greater the self-sacrifice—people like self-sacrifice to read about—they call such incidents touching; and just at the present moment pathos sells immensely. Pray, ma’am, may I ask are you high or low?”

“My principles would not lead me to sympathise with the very ultra party on either side,” replied Rose, slightly annoyed at being forced to allude to such subjects in such a presence.

“Ah! the via media; yes, I see—very good, nothing could be better. Just at the present time the via media is, if I may be allowed the expression, the way that leads to fortune; nothing sells like it—it’s so vague and safe, you see; the heads of families buy it in preference to any more questionable teaching. May I ask have you fixed on any sum for which you would dispose of the copyright of your story?”

Rose glanced at Frere, who responded to the appeal by naming a sum exactly double the amount which Rose, in her humility, would gladly have accepted. She was about to say so, but a slight contraction in her companion’s brow warned her against committing such an imprudence. Mr. Nonpareil, however, did not appear alarmed at the magnitude of the demand, but promising to peruse the manuscript carefully (which promise he fulfilled by sending it to his paid reader, never even glancing at it himself) and to give a definite answer in the course of a few days, he bowed them out of his den in the most respectable manner possible. As soon as they had quitted the shop, Rose exclaimed, “Well, if all publishers are like Mr. Nonpareil, the less personal communication I hold with them the better I shall be pleased.”

“Ay, but they are not,” returned Frere; “many of them are men of great intelligence, simple manners, and who possess much out-of-the-way knowledge, which renders them very agreeable companions. There are pompous and narrow-minded individuals in all professions. Nothing is more illogical than to generalise from a single instance; it’s certain to lead to the most absurd results. Why, I’ve actually encountered an honest lawyer and met with a disinterested patriot before now! But here comes Lewis; I wonder what conclusion he has arrived at in regard to tailors.”

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CHAPTER XXXV.—HOW RICHARD FRERE OBTAINED A SPECIMEN OF THE “PODICEPS CORNUTUS.”

* The incident in the following chapter is taken from an anecdote related (as the author believes) in “Gilpin’s Scenery of the New Forest.”

“Now for the Podiceps Cornutus!” exclaimed Frere, after Lewis had been made acquainted with the result of the interview with Mr. Nonpareil.

“May I ask what wonderful creature rejoices in that ineffable name?” inquired Rose.

“You may well say ‘wonderful creature,’” returned Frere, enthusiastically. “It’s my belief that my precious Podiceps is the first specimen which has ever been obtained in this country; and I should fancy it will be the last, too, for I don’t expect any one will be inclined to take the same amount of trouble that I took in order to get it. I was down in Lincolnshire last Christmas at a place called Water End—so named, I should imagine, on the lucus a non luceido principle, because there was no end of water all round it. Well, sir” (he was addressing Rose all this time), “Fenwick, the man with whom I was staying, told me one day that he’d seen a bird when he was duck-shooting which he’d never met with before; and by the description he gave me of it, I felt almost certain it must have been a specimen of the Podiceps Cornutus, which, as I dare say you know, is scarcely ever found in this latitude.”

“You must excuse my lamentable ignorance,” replied Rose, smiling, “but I was not even aware of its illustrious existence five minutes ago.”

“Well,” returned Frere, arching his eye-brows, “they do neglect women’s educations shamefully, I must say! The Podiceps Cornutus is a species of Grebe by no means rare in Pennsylvania, where they winter; in summer they migrate to the far countries to rear their young; they are web-footed; the bill is—but, however, you shall see my specimen, so I need not bother you with a long description, which I dare say you would not understand, after all; and I’ll tell you, instead, my adventures in pursuit of the particular individual in question. The weather was unusually cold, the ground was covered with snow, and the water with ice; but as soon as I heard of the Podiceps nothing would serve me but I must go after it. Accordingly, an amphibious old animal of a gamekeeper was summoned to attend me, and as soon as it was light the next morning off we set, and we walked through ice and snow till two o’clock in the afternoon, each armed with a long duck gun that weighed as much as a young cannon. We saw plenty of ducks, teal, and even snipes, but nothing that could by any possibility be mistaken for a Podiceps. At last we came to a salt-marsh, as they call it,—that is, a place which is all water when the tide is high, and alluvium—more commonly termed mud—when it’s low, which it happened to be at that particular epoch. Well, my old companion began to show signs of knocking up, and gave one or two broad hints that he considered we were engaged in a wild-goose chase in every sense of the term, and that the sooner we relinquished it the better; when, all of a sudden, almost from under our feet, up sprang a bird and flew away like the wind. ‘The Podiceps, by all that’s glorious!’ exclaimed I; and levelling my gun in such excitement that I could scarcely hold it steady, I blazed away, and—of course missed it. The old gamekeeper, however, took the thing more coolly—muttering ‘most haste worst speed,’ he raised his fowling-piece, and when the bird was just at a nice killing distance pulled the trigger—but the confounded gun hung fire and did not go off till my Podiceps was all but out of shot. Luckily, however, some of the shots reached him, and just as I fancied I was about to lose sight of him for ever, he gave a sort of lurch, as if he were tipsy, and came toppling down headlong. I marked the spot where he fell, and the moment he reached the ground rushed off to secure him. As I was going along I heard the old fellow bawling something after me, of which I only caught the words, ‘take care,’ but as I was not in the humour just then to take care of anything except to gain possession of my Podiceps, I paid no attention to him. The bird had fallen on a sort of peninsular-shaped bank, and along this, sometimes over my insteps in mud, sometimes up to my knees in water, did I make my way, as fast as the difficulties of the path would permit. The spot where the Podiceps had fallen proved to be much farther off than I had imagined it, and before I reached it I was completely out of breath, and almost dragged to pieces by wading through the mud in my heavy boots. However, I cared little for that when I discovered the bird lying on his back as dead as mutton, and on picking it up perceived that it really was an actual bona fide Podiceps Cornutus, and no mere myth, created by my imagination. Delighted at having secured my prize, I washed the mud off it, smoothed its feathers as carefully as possible, and wrapping it in a handkerchief, placed it in my pocket, and prepared to retrace my steps. But, lo and behold! while I had been admiring the Podiceps, my peninsula had become an island! and there was I, Robinson Crusoe-like, suddenly cut off from my fellow-creatures. Not a soul, or more correctly, a body could I see,—my old man had disappeared—indeed, so altered was the face of things by the rising of the water that I did not very well know in what quarter to look for him, or in which direction to advance in order to gain terra finna, while, to my annoyance, I perceived that my island was rapidly growing ‘small by degrees, and beautifully less!’”

“What a disagreeable position to be placed in!” exclaimed Rose, much interested. “How did you contrive to escape?”

“Well, I was just going to tell you if you hadn’t interrupted me,” returned Frere gruffly. “I made one or two attempts to discover the route by which I had come, but in vain; advance which way I would I only got into deeper water, and in the last trial I made I slipped souse into a hole, and was half-drowned before I could contrive to scramble out again. After this rather serious failure I began to feel that I was in an awkward predicament. I shouted, but no one answered, for the very sufficient reason that no one was within hearing. I loaded my gun and tried to discharge it; but it had become wet when I tumbled into the hole, and obstinately refused to go off. The water continued to rise rapidly, and my island was already covered, My only hope now lay in the old man; the words he had bawled after me must evidently have been a warning against the danger in which I had so foolishly involved myself; he was therefore aware of my situation, and would surely take some measures for my rescue. At all events, there was nothing for it but patience. I was unable to swim, the ground on which I stood appeared to be the highest point in the immediate vicinity, so there I must remain. Perhaps, after all, my imagination had exaggerated the danger; the tide might not rise much higher, and the old man, aware of this fact, might be waiting till the waters should recede to join me and pilot me safely home. This at all events was a consolatory hypothesis, and trying to persuade myself it was the true one, I forced the barrel of my gun as deeply into the mud as I was able, leaned my elbows on the butt, and thus supported, watched with a beating heart the advance of the water. My feet were already covered, and it continued to rise almost imperceptibly, and yet, comparing one five minutes with another, with appalling rapidity, higher and higher: it gained the calf of my leg; it approached, then covered my knees; inch by inch it stole on till it reached my hip; the first button of my waistcoat was the next point, then the second, then the third, and as that also disappeared I felt my situation was indeed becoming perilous in the extreme, and cast my eyes around in the vain hope of discovering some means of extricating myself. I might have saved myself the trouble; nothing but the still increasing water was visible on any side. A slight breeze arose and rippled the surface, and now my precaution of thrusting my gun-barrel into the mud stood me in good stead; but for it I should have been swept away by the advancing tide, and even in spite of this support I found some difficulty in preserving my foothold. My eyes seemed riveted by some supernatural fascination on the progress made by the deepening water. My waistcoat buttoned up to the throat with eight buttons; five of these were by this time immersed, the water stood breast high, the sixth disappeared. It was with the greatest difficulty I could preserve my balance—I swayed from side to side like a drunken man. The cold was intense; my teeth chattered and my limbs were rapidly becoming cramped and paralysed, while to add to my catalogue of miseries, the daylight began to fade apace. I gave myself up for lost, and came to the conclusion that if ever we were fished out the Podiceps and I should be alike candidates for a glass-case in some museum. A strange mixture of thoughts ran through my brain. I tried to realise the idea of death. I fancied the separation of soul and body, and speculated on how my mental self would feel when it saw strange fishes taking liberties with my bodily self, without having the slightest power to drive them away. My attention was diverted from these gloomy fancies by observing that the water appeared much longer in reaching my seventh button than it had been in advancing from the fourth to the fifth, or from that to the sixth, and while I was casting about to find a reason for this variation—lo and behold! the sixth button once more became visible. How was this? Had I unconsciously shifted to higher ground, or was it, could it be possible that the tide had turned, that the waters had begun to recede? The agonising suspense of the next five minutes was one of the most severe mental trials I have ever experienced. Though I have spoken lightly on the subject, I had in fact made up my mind to face death as a man and a Christian should do, and was prepared to meet my fate calmly and resolutely; but now the uncertainty, the renewed hope of life struggling with the fear of a possibly approaching death became almost unbearable, and had the conflict been prolonged my presence of mind would have entirely deserted me. Less than five minutes, however, served to set the matter at rest. The sixth button was left high and dry, the fifth reappeared, and was succeeded by another and another; certain landmarks, whose immersion I had watched with anxious eyes, again became visible, and I was thinking of making a final effort to reach terra firma before the increasing darkness should throw new difficulties in the way, when my ears were greeted by a distant ‘Halloo.’ I shouted in reply, and soon had the satisfaction of perceiving a flat-bottomed boat making towards me, propelled by my host and the old man who I had conceived basely to have deserted me. As they drew me, half-crippled with cold and exhaustion, into the boat, Fenwick began haranguing me in a composite strain of upbraiding and condolence, but I cut him short by raising my head as I lay sousing in a puddle at the bottom of the punt, and murmuring in a faint voice—‘Never mind, old fellow, it’s all right, for I’ve got the Podiceps Cornutus.’ And touching that same bird, here we are at the stuffer’s shop; so come along in, and I’ll show him to you bodily.”

A week had elapsed since the morning on which the above conversation took place, a week in which many events had occurred. The mighty Nonpareil, still considering the via media a promising investment, had condescended graciously to purchase Rose’s manuscript, and when Frere, who brought her the intelligence, placed in her hands a cheque for £100, which, relying on her profound ignorance of business forms, he had kindly substituted for the publisher’s bill at six months, she received it with a start of delight. The girl was so happy! she had at length realised her darling project; she had, by her own exertions, helped to lighten Lewis’s burden; she had done something towards shortening his period of banishment, for such she considered his enforced residence at Broadhurst. Poor Rose! she had not a particle of avarice in her whole nature, and yet never did miser rejoice over his hoards as she did over that hundred pounds; for it was by no means to be spent—that, fortunately, was unnecessary, as Mrs. Arundel, albeit wanting mental ballast in some points, was a notable housewife, and as for Rachel, she was a very dragon in her care of that Hesperides, the larder; so that out of the liberal allowance Lewis made to them, his mother and sister were privately saving a small fund, destined, as they fondly hoped, to advance at some future time his fortunes; and to this store Rose’s hundred pounds would make a magnificent addition. And the joy it was to her thus to dedicate it! Could she have purchased with it the most desirable match in England, the hand of that identical young duke who was exhibited to correct radical tendencies at the electioneering ball at Broadhurst, his Grace might have died a bachelor ere Rose would have diverted the money from its appointed purpose. But something ought to be done with it. Rose had heard of compound interest; nay, she had even had its nature explained to her; and though at the end of the explanation she was more in the dark than at the beginning, she attributed that to her own obtuseness, and contented herself with recollecting that it was something which began by doubling itself, and went on doubling itself, and something else, until—she did not know exactly what; so she supplied the blank by adding, until the desired result should be attained. And now, recalling the definition thus attained, she decided that the advisable thing would be to place her hundred pounds in the most favourable situation for catching that desirable epidemic, compound interest. Accordingly, with much diffidence, and a just appreciation of the very hazy nature of her dissolving views in regard to the investment of capital generally, Rose communicated her ideas to Frere. That gentleman heard her out with a good-humoured smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “Well,” he said, as she concluded, “you are but a woman after all, I see!”

“Why, what have you taken me for hitherto, then?” demanded Rose.

This very pertinent inquiry appeared somewhat to puzzle the individual to whom it was addressed, for he pushed his hair back from his forehead and rubbed his chin with an air of perplexity ere he answered, “If I were what they call a lady’s man, which means a conceited puppy, I should grin at you to show my white teeth, and reply, ‘An Angel;’ but seeing that man was made a little lower than the angels—though, by the way, that’s a mistranslation—and that women are inferior to men, to call a woman an angel is to be guilty of a logical absurdity, and is only to be excused in the case of lovers, who, as men labouring under a mental delusion—temporary monomaniacs, in fact—are scarcely to be looked upon as rational beings.”

“But if you are not a puppy, and I am not an angel, both which propositions I am perfectly ready to admit, why do you consider it necessary to enunciate your apparent discovery that, after all, I am only a woman?” inquired Rose.

“Because, if you must know,” growled Frere, at length fairly brought to bay, “you have hitherto talked so much sense, and so little nonsense, that I’ve looked upon you more as a man than a woman. You wanted the truth, and now you’ve got it,” he continued in a tone like the rumbling of distant thunder, as Rose, clapping her hands in girl-like delight at having elicited this confession, replied with a low, silvery laugh, “I thought so! I fancied that was it! Oh, the conceit of these lords of the creation! And now that you have found out that I am not the mental Amazon your fancy painted me, do you intend quite to give me up?”

As she said this, half playfully, half in earnest, raising her calm, grey eyes, which now sparkled with unwonted animation, to his face, Frere experienced a (to him) entirely new sensation. He was for the first time conscious of the effect produced by

“The light that lies

In woman’s eyes,”

and he felt—unreasonable as he could not but consider it—that he was better pleased with Rose as she was than if she had been Professor Faraday himself; than whom (barring Sir Isaac Newton) Frere’s mind was incapable of conceiving a more exalted type of male humanity. The way in which he expressed the gentle sentiment which had stolen into his breast was as follows:—

“Don’t talk such rubbish, but listen to a little common sense, and try and comprehend it, if you can, for once in your life. You want this money invested for Lewis’s benefit, don’t you?” Receiving a reply in the affirmative, he continued, “Well, then, have you sufficient confidence in me to trust it entirely in my hands to invest as I think best?”

“I should be indeed ungrateful if I had not,” returned Rose, the tears springing to her eyes, as she remembered Frere’s many acts of kindness to her father.

“Psha! stuff! I didn’t mean anything of that kind,” rejoined Frere, provoked with himself for having recalled such distressing recollections, “only you women are so ready to trust anybody till you’ve been let in for it two or three times, and then you’re just as unreasonable the other way, and suspect every one whether they deserve it or not; however, as I believe I’m indifferent honest, I’ll take this money, if you wish it, and do the best I can with it. Lewis shall not be always a tutor if we can help it, though it’s wonderful how contented he’s grown lately—so as he lashed out too when he was first put in harness.”

“You’ve observed the change, have you, Mr. Frere?” returned Rose interrogatively. “I have been rejoicing in it exceedingly; it is just what I could have wished, but dared not hope for. I attribute it in great measure to his affection for poor Walter.”

“Well, it may be so; no doubt the lad presents an interesting psychological study,” returned Frere reflectively, “though I rather conceive it may be owing to his having taken a liking to——”

“Miss Grant and Miss Livingstone,” vociferated the Colossus of plush, flinging open the door with a startling vehemence, the result of an ebullition of temper consequent upon a severe rebuke he had just received from Minerva for mispronouncing her patronymic, which interruption prevented Frere from expressing his innocent conviction that certain geological researches in the neighbourhood of Broadhurst constituted the charm that had so suddenly reconciled Lewis to his dependent position.

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CHAPTER XXXVI.—RECOUNTS “YE PLEASAUNTE PASTYMES AND CUNNYNGE DEVYCES” OF ONE THOMAS BRACY.

Annie Grant introduced herself to Rose with that easy courtesy which adds so great a charm to the manners of a perfectly well-bred woman, and Rose, as she gazed on her, thought she had never beheld anything so lovely before. She was dressed in—Halt là! attention, young ladies! favete—no, not linguis; in the amiability of your natures you are always ready enough to do that—-favete auribus, listen and learn; for I myself, the chronicler of this veritable history, am about to vindicate the good use I made of those halcyon days when

“My only books

Were woman’s looks,”

and to prove that “follies” were not all they taught me—for this I assert and am prepared to maintain, that good taste in dress is not in itself a folly, and only becomes so when the mind of a fool (or fool-ess as the case may be) exalts it to an undue pre-eminence. Annie, be it remembered, was a blonde, with just enough of the rose in her cheeks to prevent the lily from producing an appearance of ill health. The month was June, the London season was at its height, and the young lady had called upon Rose in her way to the second horticultural fête at Chiswick Gardens. Her bonnet was of white chip, from which a small white ostrich feather tipped with blue drooped lovingly, as though it sought to kiss the fair face beneath it. A visite of light blue glacé silk had been fashioned by the skill of an ingenious Parisian modiste, so as to suggest rather than conceal the exquisite form it covered, beneath which the rich folds of a gown of pale fawn-colour Gros de Naples, as uncreased as if, cherub-like, its wearer never sat down, completed the costume; and a very becoming one it was, as we feel sure all young ladies of good taste will allow. Richard Frere, being slightly acquainted with Minerva Livingstone, good-naturedly devoted himself to that indurated specimen of the original granite formation, who from her name and nature might possibly possess a geological interest in his eyes, and by trying to macadamise her into small-talk, enabled the two girls to prosecute their acquaintance undisturbed. Rose, little used to society, was shy and reserved before strangers, though there was a quiet self-possession about her which prevented her manner from appearing gauche or unformed. Annie, on the other hand, being in the constant habit of receiving and entertaining guests, made conversation with a graceful ease which completely fascinated her companion The only subject on which her fluency appeared to desert her was when she spoke of Lewis, his kindness to Walter, and the valuable services he had lately rendered her father; but the little she did say showed so much good taste and evinced such genuine warmth of heart and delicacy of feeling, that his sister was more than satisfied, and settled in her own mind that if all the family were as charming in their different ways as was Miss Grant in hers, Lewis’s contentment with his present situation was no longer to be wondered at.

“What a lovely, fascinating creature!” exclaimed Rose enthusiastically, as the door closed on her visitors; “she is like some bright vision of a poet’s dream.”

“She seems a cute, hard-headed old lady, but she struck me as having rather too much vinegar in her composition to induce one to covet much of her society; olives are well enough in their way, but a man would not exactly wish to dine upon them, either,” returned Frere.

“Who on earth are you talking about?” inquired Rose in astonishment.

“Why, who should I be talking about, except Miss Livingstone?” returned Frere gruffly. “Have you ‘gone stupid’ all of a sudden?”

“You must have become blind,” retorted Rose, “not to have observed Miss Grant’s unusual grace and beauty; I wonder Lewis has never said more about her.”

“Bah!” growled Frere, “do you think your brother has nothing better to do than to chatter about a woman’s pretty face? Lewis is, or was (for his opinions on the subject seem to have been modified lately), a confirmed misogynist, and I’m very glad of it. Nothing makes me more savage than to hear the confounded puppies of the present day talk about this ‘doosed fine woman’ or that ‘uncommon nice gal.’ If I happened to have a sister or any other womankind belonging to me, and they were to make free with her name in that fashion, I should pretty soon astonish some of their exquisite delicacies. Well,” he continued, buttoning up his coat all awry, “I’m off, so goodbye;” and taking Rose’s hand in his own, he wrung it with such force that a flush of pain overspread her pale features. Observing this, he exclaimed, “Did I squeeze your fingers too hard? Well, I am a bear, as Lewis says, that’s certain.” As he spoke he laid her hand in his own broad palm, and stroking it gently, as though trying to soothe an injured child, he continued, “Poor little thing, I didn’t mean to hurt it;” then looking innocently surprised as Rose somewhat hastily withdrew it, he added, “What! isn’t that right either? well, I see I’d better be off. I’ll look you up again in a day or two, and if you want me you know where to find me.” So saying, he clattered downstairs, put on his hat hind-side before, and strode off, walking at the rate of at least five miles an hour. As he passed the church in Langham Place he overtook two gentlemen engaged in earnest conversation: regardless of this he quickened his pace and struck the younger of the two a smart blow on the back, exclaiming, “Bracy, my boy, how are you?” The individual thus roughly saluted immediately reeled forward as if from the effects of the blow, and encountering in his headlong career an elderly female, whose dress bespoke her an upper servant or thereabouts, he seized her by the elbows and twirled her round in the bewildering maze of an impromptu and turbulent waltz, which he continued till an opportune lamp-post interposed and checked his Terpsichorean performance. Before his astonished partner had recovered breath and presence of mind sufficient to pour forth the first words of a tide of angry remonstrance, Bracy interposed by exclaiming in a tone of the most bland civility—

“My dear madam, excuse this apparent liberty; really I am so completely overpowered that I would sink into the ground at your feet if it were not for the granite pavement which is——”

Here the good woman, having scarcely recovered breath, gasped vehemently, “It’s very hard, so it is——”

“Which is,” continued Bracy, louder and with still deeper empressement, “as you justly observe, so very hard; but, my dear madam, the facts of this case are yet harder. Let me assure you my offence, if you choose to stigmatise my late lamented indiscretion by so harsh a name, was perfectly involuntary; simply an effect produced by a too vehement demonstration of fraternal feeling on the part of my particular friend Mr. Frere. Allow me to introduce you—Outraged Elderly Lady, Mr. Frere—Mr. Frere, Outraged Elderly Lady. Ah, what a happy meeting! As the ever-appropriated Swan observes, ‘Fair encounter of two most rare affections!’ or again, ‘Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love accompany your hearts.’”

“Yes, it’s all wery fine,” exclaimed the outraged one (suddenly finding her tongue), “to go frightening of respectible parties out of their wits, and then think to smooth ’em over with your blarneying words; but if I could set eyes on one of them lazy pelisemen which is never to be found when wanted, blessed if I wouldn’t give you in charge for your imperence, so I would.”

During the delivery of this speech Bracy had listened in an exaggerated theatrical attitude of entranced attention, and at its conclusion he exclaimed, in a voice so intensely impassioned that it would have ensured his success at any of the minor theatres—

“Oh! speak again; let mine enraptured ear

Drink the sweet accents of thy silvery voice.”

Which sentiment procured for him the applause of a small male spectator of the tender age of ten years, clad in much dirt and a pair of adult trousers on their last legs in every sense of the term, who expressed his approval by nodding complacently and remarking, “Wery well done; ancore, I says.”

“Come along,” exclaimed Frere, seizing Bracy’s arm and almost forcing him away; “you’ll have a crowd round you directly. Your companion has taken himself off long ago.”

“So he has,” returned Bracy, looking round. “Now I call that mean, to desert a friend in difficulties; more especially,” he added, as they walked away together, “as the said difficulties were undertaken wholly and solely on his account.”

“On his account?” returned Frere in surprise; “why, I should have thought the mighty De Grandeville was the last person likely to appreciate a street row.”

“For which reason I never lose an opportunity of involving him in one,” replied Bracy, rubbing his hands with mischievous glee. “He can’t bear walking with me, for I always get him into some scrape or other, and injure his dignity irreparably for the time being. Why, the last severe frost we had I met him in Pall Mall, drew him on to talk of architecture, pointed out to him a mistake which didn’t exist in the front of one of the club-houses, and while he was looking up at it beguiled him on to a slide and upset him, quite inadvertently, into an itinerant orange basket, just as Lady B————, with whom he has a bowing acquaintance, was passing in her carriage. Look at him now, prancing along as if all Regent Street belonged to him! Walk a little faster, and we shall overtake him; and, by the way, lend me that wonderful cotton umbrella of yours; I’ll make him carry it right down to the Home Office. You are bound for Westminster, are you not?”

“What made you guess that?” asked Frere, handing him the umbrella.

“Because there’s a meeting at the Palaeontological to-day at three, and I know you’re one of their great guns,” was the reply.

“It’s my belief that you know everything about everybody,” returned Frere, laughing.

“And you know everything about every-thing” rejoined Bracy, “so between us we form an epitome of human knowledge. I say, De Grandeville,” he continued, as they overtook that gentleman, “you are a treacherous ally, to desert your comrade in the moment of danger. That ferocious old woman abused me within an inch of my life, and wanted to give me in charge to a policeman.”

“Knowing you have an equal aptitude for getting into and out of scrapes of that nature,” returned De Grandeville, “I—ar—considered you fully equal to the situation—and—ar—having no taste for bandying slang with vituperative plebeian females, I left you to fight your own battles. Was I not justified in doing so, Mr. Frere?”

“Well, Bracy being the aggressor, I suppose you were,” was the answer; “but as I was the innocent first cause of the scrimmage I felt bound to remain, and dragged Bracy away by main force, just in time, as I imagine, to save him from the nails of the insulted matron.”

“By Jove! what a nuisance. I do believe I’ve broken my trouser strap,” exclaimed Bracy, stopping and elevating his boot on a doorstep. “Hold this one moment while I try to repair damages, there’s a good fellow,” he continued, thrusting the umbrella into De Grande-ville’s unwilling hand; “I’ll be with you again directly.”

The damages must have been serious, judging by the length of time they took to remedy; for ere Bracy rejoined them, Frere and De Grandeville had proceeded half the length of Regent Street, the latter carrying the umbrella—which he regarded from time to time with looks of the most intense disgust—so as to keep it as much out of sight as possible, even secreting it behind him whenever he perceived a fashionably dressed man or woman approaching.

“I was trying to recollect that very interesting anecdote you told me of the attack on the barrack in Galway when you were staying with the 73rd—Frere has never heard of it,” observed Bracy as he rejoined his companions.

Now this said anecdote related to an episode in De Grandeville’s career to which he delighted to refer, and which, accordingly, most of those who boasted the honour of his acquaintance had heard more than once.. Such indeed was the case with Frere, and he was just going to say so when he caught a warning look from Bracy, which induced him to remain silent.

“Ar—really, it was a very simple thing,” began De Grandeville, falling into the trap most unsuspiciously. “I happened to know several of the 73rd fellows who were quartered down in Galway at a place called—ar—here’s your umbrella.”

“I beg your pardon! I did not quite catch the name,” returned Bracy, who, having buried his fingers in the pockets of his paletot, did not seem to have such a thing as a hand about him.

“At a place called Druminabog,” continued De Grandeville. “The country was in a very disturbed state; one or two attacks of a rather serious character had been made upon the police, and the military had been called out to support them; ar—here’s your um—-”

“Was it three or four years ago that all this took place?” inquired the still handless Bracy.

“Four years on the second of last April,” returned De Grandeville.

“Are you sure it wasn’t the first?” muttered Frere aside.

“I was travelling on a business tour in the sister island,” continued the narrator, “and meeting Osborne, a 73rd man, who was going down to join his regiment, he persuaded me to come on with him to Druminabog—ar—here’s your——-”

“Was that Tom Osborne, who sold out when the rifles were going to Ceylon?” interposed Bracy, studiously ignoring the proffered umbrella.

The victimised De Grandeville replied in the affirmative, and resuming his tale, soon grew so deeply interested in the recital of his own heroic exploits that the umbrella ceased any longer to afflict him; nay, so absorbed did he become, that in a moment of excitement, just as he was passing the Horse Guards, he waved that article in the air and led on an imaginary company of the 73rd therewith, after the fashion of gallant commanders in panoramas of Waterloo, and battle scenes enacted at the amphitheatre of Astley. As they approached the Home Office, and De Grandeville had arrived at the concluding sentence of his narrative, which ran as follows:—“And so, sir, the Major shook me warmly by the hand, exclaiming, ‘De Grandeville, you’re worthy to be one of us, and I only wish you were, my boy!’” the trio paused, and Bracy extracting one hand from the pocket in which it had been reposing, remarked, with the air of a man who considered himself slightly aggrieved but meant to make the best of it—

“Now, if you please, I’ll trouble you for my umbrella; I did not like to interrupt your story by asking for it sooner, but now, if you have no objection, I shall be glad of it.”

“Certainly,” replied De Grandeville, only too glad (his attention being once more attracted to it) to get rid of his incubus.

As Frere turned aside to hide a laugh, Bracy inquired, “By the way, De Grandeville, do you dine at Lady Lombard’s next Tuesday?”

“I do,” replied Frere; “and I suppose it’s to be one of her Lord Mayor’s feasts, as I hear she’s beating up recruits in all quarters.”

“Ar—really—I’ve received an invitation—but I—ar— ’pon my word, I don’t know whether one’s justified in going to such places; one must draw the line—ar—somewhere.”

“It will be a first-rate feed,” resumed Bracy. “Lady Lombard’s chef is a capital hand, and her wine is by no means to be despised.”

“Yes, but the woman herself,” rejoined De Grandeville in a tone of the deepest disgust, “just retrace her degrading career—ar—not an ancestor to begin the world with.”

“Well, I should have supposed she possessed her fair share in Adam and Noah, too,” remarked Frere drily.

“Plebeian in origin,” continued De Grandeville, not heeding the interruption, “she sinks herself still lower by espousing first a pickle-merchant, secondly a pawnbroker; the first—ar—repulsive, the second sordid.”

“She did not play her cards altogether badly, though,” observed Bracy. “Old Girkin died worth a plum, and Sir Pinchbeck Lombard was a millionaire, or thereabouts.”

“Money, sir,” returned De Grandeville sententiously, “is by no means to be despised, and those who affect indifference on the subject usually do so to screen a grasping and avaricious temperament. But money becomes really respectable only when it enables those who are connected with the old historical families of England, those in whose veins runs the ‘blue’ blood of aristocracy, to assert their rightful position as lords of the soil. Among the landed gentry of England are to be found———”

“Some thoroughly jolly fellows,” interposed Bracy, “especially to show you the way across country, or help to kick up a shindy at the Coal Hole. But we must part company here; Frere’s booked for the Palaeontological, and I am going to attend a Committee at the House You’ll be at Lady Lombard’s?”

“I shall give the matter full consideration,” returned De Grande-ville. “It is—ar—by no means a step to decide on hastily. In these levelling days men of—ar—position are forced to be particular as to the places to which they afford the—ar—sanction of their presence. I wish you a very good morning;” so saying, he raised his hat slightly to Frere, drew himself up with his broad chest well thrown forward, and marched off majestically like a concentrated squadron of heavy dragoons.

“Here’s your umbrella, Frere,” remarked Bracy, handing it to him as he spoke; “many thanks for the loan. I don’t wonder you are careful of it; it’s a most inestimable property, and has afforded me half-an-hour’s deep and tranquil enjoyment. But of all the pompous fools that ever walked this earth Grandeville is facile princeps.”

“He’s no fool either,” returned Frere.

“Then why does he behave as sich?” demanded Bracy. “His conceit and egotism are inconceivable. He’s a regular modern Cyclops; he has one great ‘I’ in the middle of his forehead, through the medium of which he looks at everything. One really feels an obligation to poke fun at that man. Well, I can’t accuse myself of neglect of duty in that particular, that’s a consolatory reflection; but he’s enough to convert the slowest old anchorite that ever chewed peas into a practical joker.”

“He was severe on the excellent Lady Lombard,” observed his companion.

“Did you not notice his remark about riches being respectable only when in the possession of ‘—ar—those connected with the old historical families of England’? That gave me a new idea.”

“A thing always worth having, if but from its rarity,” replied Frere. “What was it?”

“Why, it occurred to me what fun it would be to marry him to Lady Lombard—more particularly after his abuse of her to-day.”

“A project more easy to conceive than to execute,” returned Frere, laughing.

“I don’t know that,” answered Bracy confidently; “if I once set my mind on a thing, I generally contrive to accomplish it. It did not at first sight appear likely that De Grandeville would carry your old cotton umbrella through some of the most fashionable streets in London at three o’clock in the afternoon, yet you see he did it.”

“You’re a remarkable man, my dear Bracy, and I have the greatest faith in your powers of management, but if you can induce Marmaduke de Grandeville to marry the widow of the pawnbroker and the pickle-man, you must be the very—well, never mind who—here we are at the Palaeontological.”

So saying, Frere shook hands with Bracy, and the oddly consorted companions, between whom their very eccentricities appeared to constitute a bond of sympathy, each went his way, the practical joker to apply his acute intellect to the details of that mighty machine, the executive government of England, and the savant to investigate the recently discovered small rib (it was only eight feet long) of a peculiar species of something-osaurus, the original proprietor of the rib being popularly supposed to have “lived and loved,” cut its awful teeth, and been gathered to its amphibious fossil forefathers two thousand years and some odd months before the creation of man.

---

CHAPTER XXXVII.—WHEREIN IS FAITHFULLY DEPICTED THE CONSTANCY OF THE TURTLE-DOVE.

It was the important Thursday on which Lady Lombard’s chief dinner-party of the season was to take place, and the mighty coming event cast a proportionate shadow before. For a day or two previous a gloom, as of an approaching tempest, hung over the devoted mansion. Visitors were scarce; the invited would not call because they were invited, and the non-invited avoided the place as though it were plague-stricken, lest it should be supposed they wished to be invited, which for the most part they did. As the event drew nearer signs appeared heralding its approach: shoals of fishmongers, laden with the treasures of the deep, poured down the area steps; the number of oysters which entered that house would have surprised Neptune himself; squadrons of poulterers’ men brought flocks of feathered fowls, and of fowls unfeathered; there was not a single species of edible ornithology of which Lady Lombard did not possess one or more specimens—she would have ordered a Podiceps Cornutus had she ever heard of such a creature. The eighty-guinea advertisement-horse, with the plated harness, in Messrs. Fortnum & Mason’s spring cart, began to think his masters must have established a depot in the far west, and that he was engaged in transporting thither the major portion of their seductive stock. In the interior of that dwelling-house confusion reigned supreme. Upstairs Mrs. Perquisite, the housekeeper, rendered life a burden to the female servants, and tyrannised over her hapless mistress till free will became a mockery mentioned in connection with that ever-thwarted widow. It was enough for Lady Lombard to express a wish; Mrs. Perquisite, a living embodiment of the antagonistic principle, was instantly in arms to oppose it.

“What, your ladyship!” would she exclaim (and be it observed, her voice was at least an octave higher than any good-tempered woman’s ever was, and pitched in a most aggravating key); “what! not uncover the marble table! I never heard of such a thing! Her Ladyship will have it taken off, Jane—not uncover that bootiful Paria marble! inlaid with Lappuss Lazily. Why, your Ladyship must be a-dreaming!”

“I thought that the satin cover matching the chairs, and having poor dear Sir Pinchbeck’s arms embroidered on it, perhaps it might have been better to leave it on, Mrs. Perquisite,” pleaded Lady Lombard meekly.

“Of course your Ladyship can do as your Ladyship pleases; if your Ladyship likes to demean yourself by looking after such things, which was never the case when I lived with the Dowager Marchioness of Doubledutch, now no more, having remembered all her faithful servants handsomely on her death-bed, without a dry eye about her, in the seventy-sixth year of her age. Perhaps I had better go downstairs, which is only in the way, and your Ladyship can direct Jane to set out the rooms according to your Ladyship’s fancy.”

Poor Lady Lombard, when once that defunct Dowager Marchioness was let loose upon her, felt that her fate was sealed. It was not for her, the widow of a man who had been knighted, to fly in the face of the peerage; so she humbly authorised the removal of the Lombard arms, implored Perquisite to arrange the rooms as she had been accustomed to set out those of the poor dear Marchioness, and betook herself to the sanctity of her own boudoir, leaving the field to the virago, to whom she paid £60 per annum for keeping her in a continual state of moral bondage.

But while such scenes as the foregoing were enacting in the upper portions of the establishment, the French chef de cuisine, Monsieur Hector Achille Ulisse Abelard d’Haricots, was making a perfect Pandemonium of the lower regions. The physical energy displayed by that accomplished foreigner was truly admirable, his ubiquity was marvellous; the tassel at the top of his white night-cap appeared to have been multiplied infinitesimally and to pervade space, the sound of his polyglot exhortations and reflections re-echoed through the lofty servants’ offices. Wonderful were the strange oaths he poured forth, when Antoine, a long, limp, shambling French lad, “son élève, zie son of—hélas! baigné des larmes, he even till at present scarcely could pronounce her name—his angelic sister, since some time entombed, having espoused un brave Anglais, his long-lost Louise Amélie Marie-Antoinette de Brownsmit, née d’Haricots,”—when this unworthy offspring of international alliance committed some unpardonable artistic error, and unlike “Polly” of lyrical celebrity, did not “put the kettle on,” or “take it off again,” exactly at the critical moment. Deep and nasal were his ejaculations when some obtuse butcher’s boy would not understand his “Anglishe,” which that somewhat apocryphal personage, “ce brave garçon Brownsmit” (who was Hector Achille’s Mrs. Harris, and was consequently brought forward on all occasions), had declared he spoke like a native.

“Mais, que diable! vot is zies?” he would exclaim, raising his eyeglass to examine with a face of deep disgust a shin of beef; “vot is zies? Did I not ordaire un gigot, vot you call a leg of ship, and ’ere you ’ave transported to me—ah, que c’est dégoutant!—zie stump of a cow: qu’ils sont bêtes, ces Anglais—takes ’im avay.”

But if there were earthquakes and tornadoes in the culinary and decorative departments, difficulties hydra-headed had arisen in the boudoir of Lady Lombard, where sat a council of three, Rose merely acting as secretary and writing just what she was bidden. The third privy councillor (besides the giver of the feast and Mrs. Arundel) was a certain Mrs. Colonel Brahmin, relict of the late Colonel Brahmin, which gallant officer had been cut off in the prime of life, together with 200 tawny privates of the——th native infantry, by falling into an ambush of armed Sikhs, headed by Meer Ikan Chopimatoo at Choakumcurree. After this afflicting event Mrs. Colonel Brahmin returned to England, in the thirty-third year of her age, with a small pension, a very becoming widow’s cap, and an earnest desire to replace the victim of Ikan Chopimatoo’s scimitar without loss of time.

Now, in bygone hours the lamented Sir Pinchbeck Lombard, in his capacity of East India director, had known and patronised the lamented Brahmin; what, therefore, could be more natural than that their disconsolate widows should desire to mingle their tears? And, indeed, Mrs. Colonel Brahmin was so anxious to ensure the effectual working of this Mutual-misery-mingling Association, that on her return to England she was good enough to stay six months with Lady Lombard; and although, during the whole of that period, she told every one she was anxiously looking out for a house, so few edifices are there in London and its vicinity, that she was unable to find one till the very week before her hostess was about to start on a self-defensive tour to the Lakes. Since then she had been vizier-in-chief to her wealthy sister in affliction, riding in her carriage, eating her dinners, and entertaining her guests, especially such eligible males as appeared likely to succeed to the (nominal) command left vacant by the cut-off colonel; but up to the present time these young eligibles had remained unattached, and the appointment was still to be filled up. Mrs. Brahmin was not really pretty, though, by dint of a pair of fine eyes, glossy hair, a telling smile, and little white hands, she contrived to pass as such. In her manner she affected the youthful and innocent; and very well she did it, considering her natural astuteness, and the amount of experience and savoir vivre she had acquired when following the world-wide fortunes of the cut-off one. Lady Lombard believed in her to a great extent, and liked her better than she deserved. Perquisite saw at a glance, not only through, but considerably beyond her, and hated her with all the rancour of a vulgar mind. But Mrs. Brahmin was too strong for Perquisite, and with her soft voice and imperturbable simplicity put her down more thoroughly than the veriest virago could have done—the housekeeper’s most bitter speeches and cutting innuendos producing much the same effect on the mild Susanna that a blow might have done upon an air-cushion—viz., exhausting the aggressor’s strength without making the slightest impression on her opponent.

Mrs. Brahmin had been prepared to find in Mrs. Arundel a dangerous rival, and was ready to defend her position to the death, and to battle à l’outrance for her portion of the Lombard loaves and fishes. But her courage was not destined to be put to the proof, the present being an occasion on which an appeal to arms was unnecessary—diplomacy would suit her purpose better, and on diplomacy, therefore, she fell back. She had not been ten minutes in Mrs. Arundel’s company ere she discovered her weak point—she was unmistakably vain. Accordingly, with artless simplicity, Mrs. Brahmin indirectly praised everything Mrs. Arundel said or did, and Mrs. Arundel straightway suffered her discrimination to be tickled to sleep, took Mrs. Brahmin at her own price, and doted on her from that time forth, until—but we will leave events to develop themselves in their due course.

Rose and Mrs. Brahmin were mutual enigmas—neither could comprehend the other. Rose had heard the details of the “Chopimatoo” affair, and all her sympathies were ready to be enlisted in behalf of the interesting widow; but the “sweet simplicity,” cleverly as it was done, did not deceive her. With the instinct of a true nature she felt that it was assumed, and that beneath it lay the real character. What that might be remained to be discovered, and she suspended her judgment till opportunity might afford her a glimpse of that which was so studiously concealed. On the other hand, the character of Rose was one which Mrs. Brahmin could by no means comprehend, perhaps because in its entireness it was beyond and above her comprehension; but parts of it she discerned clearly enough, and most particularly did they puzzle her. For instance, she perceived that Rose had a mind, properly so called—that her ideas and opinions were bona fide the product of her own intellect, and not like those of too many girls, a dim reflex of somebody else’s; but the straightforward, earnest truthfulness of her nature she could by no means fathom, such a quality being essentially foreign to her own disposition; accordingly, she deemed it put on for a purpose, which purpose it behoved her to find out. But her investigations did not prosper well, from the simple fact that ex nihilo nil fit: Rose, having nothing to conceal, concealed it effectually.

Many and important were the consultations held in the boudoir by this council of three, as to who should, and who should not, be invited. Lady Lombard’s smooth brow grew furrowed with the unwonted demand upon her powers (?) of mind.

“Sir Benjamin and Lady Boucher regret exceedingly that a previous engagement prevents their accepting Lady Lombard’s kind invitation for Thursday, the—th.”

“Dear me, how dreadfully provoking!” sighed the perplexed “in-vitress.”

“My dear Susanna” (the Brahmin’s Christian name), “the Bouchers are engaged, and there’ll be nobody fit to meet the General Gudgeons. What are we to do?”

“Would you ask the Dackerels? They’re such very nice people, and live in such very good style, dear Lady Lombard,” cooed Mrs. Brahmin (for, be it observed, that bereaved one’s method of speaking, together with the low, gentle, sleepy, caressing tones of her soft voice, involuntarily reminded her hearers of the cooing of a dove or the purring of a cat).

“They’re only lieutenant-colonels, are they, my love?” inquired Lady Lombard doubtingly.

“Oh! my dear Lady Lombard, surely you must recollect he has been a full colonel, by purchase, these five years, vice Rawbone Featherbed, who sold out and married an heiress—at least,” murmured Innocence, remembering herself, or rather her part, “she was said to be very rich; but of course it must have been a love-match. I cannot believe people are so—so horrid as to marry from any other motive.”

“Well, then, we’d better ask the Dackerels. Miss Arundel, my love, will you request the pleasure of Colonel and Mrs. Dackerel’s company—with one R, my dear—at seven o’clock. That shy son with the long legs, I suppose we need not ask him, my dear?”

“He’s lately come into a large Yorkshire property from an uncle on the mother’s side and has taken the surname of Dace, and perhaps, as he’s so shy, he might feel hurt at not being asked. I feel such sympathy with shyness, you know; besides, somebody said he was an author,” rejoined Susanna, dropping her eyelids and looking as unconscious and disinterested as if John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esq., barrister-at-law, still depended upon that ghost of nothing, his professional income, instead of the rent-roll of the manor of Roachpool, in the West Riding.

“If they come they’ll make—let me see,” mused Lady Lombard; “what did I say the Fitzsimmons’s were? Yes, twelve; well, then, they’ll make fifteen, and the table only holds three more, and that tiresome Mr. De Grandeville hasn’t sent an answer yet, and I shall be so disappointed if he does not come, for he knows everybody and moves in such high society, and is such a tall, noble, military-looking creature.”

This eulogium recalling, probably by contrast (seeing that the lamented Brahmin had been remarkably small of his age all through his boyhood, and never outgrown it afterwards), sad recollections of the fair Susanna’s killed and wounded, produced a little embroidered handkerchief which just held the two tears its owner felt called upon to shed on such occasions. The memory of the victim had, however, been so often before embalmed by pearly drops in her presence that Lady Lombard had grown rather callous on the subject, and she abruptly invaded the sanctity of grief by exclaiming—

“It lies between the Lombard Browns and the Horace Hiccirys, my dear. The Hiccirys live in better style, I know: Mrs. Hicciry was to have been presented at Court last year, only little Curatius chose to be born instead—the most lovely child! But the Lombard Browns are godsons, at least he is, of poor dear Sir Pinchbeck’s, and they’ve not dined here this season.”

“I think, dear Lady Lombard, if I might venture to advise, the Horace Hiccirys would do best. Mrs. General Gudgeon would get on so well with Mrs. Hicciry, I’m sure; and I’m afraid Mrs. Dackerel,—you know she’s very clever, writes poetry, those sweet things in the Bijou—all clever people are sarcastic, you know,—I’m afraid Mrs. Dackerel might laugh at poor dear Mr. Lombard Brown’s little eccentricity about his H’s.”

“Ah, yes, that’s true,” returned Lady Lombard; “yes, I forgot his H’s.”

“As he probably does himself,” whispered Mrs. Arundel aside to Rose.

“Then, my dear Miss Arundel, may I trouble you to write a note to the Horace Hicciry’s—with two I’s, my love—15 Bellairs Terrace, Park Village West. What a pretty hand you write, and so quick I Then if Mr. De Grandeville will only come, the table will be filled properly.”

“And a dear, charming party it will be,” cooed the bereaved one, who had manoeuvred herself into an invitation at an early stage of the proceedings.

“Yes, my love, I hope it will,” replied the giver of the feast anxiously. “And if I was quite sure that Perquisite and Haricot would not quarrel, and that General Gudgeon would not take too much port wine after dinner, and tell his gentlemen’s stories to the ladies up in the drawing-room, more particularly since I hear Miss MacSalvo has taken an extra serious turn lately, I should feel quite happy about it all.”

“You’d better add a postscript to the great Gudgeon’s note mentioning the port wine and its alarming consequences, Rose,” whispered the incorrigible Mrs. Arundel. Her daughter smiled reprovingly, and the sitting concluded.

Exactly at the time when Lady Lombard had completely given him up, and was revolving in her anxious mind how she might best supply his loss, De Grandeville condescended graciously to vouchsafe a favourable answer.

On the afternoon of the eventful day, as Frere was returning from his place of business, he met—of course accidentally—Tom Bracy, who immediately took possession of his vacant arm and engaged him in a disquisition on the use of formic acid as an anaesthetic agent, which discussion proved so deeply interesting to his companion, that in less than five minutes he was completely lost to all outward objects and reduced (for all practical purposes) to the intellectual level of a docile child of three years old.

“Well,” continued Frere eagerly, as Bracy paused before a hairdresser’s shop, “well, supposing, for the sake of argument, I consent to waive my objection; supposing I allow that by the process you describe you’ve produced your acid——”

“Excuse my interrupting you one moment, but I was going in here to have my hair cut. If you’re not in a particular hurry, perhaps you’ll come in with me, and I think I can show you where you are wrong.”

“Yes—no, I’m not in a hurry; come along, I’m convinced there’s a mistake in your theory which upsets your whole argument—merely subject to the common analysing process——”

“By the way,” observed Bracy carelessly, “you’d be all the better for a little judicious trimming yourself; besides, it’s more sociable. This gentleman and I each want our hair cut. Sit down, Frere.”

“Eh? nonsense; I never have my hair cut except when the hot weather sets in,” remonstrated that individual; but he was fairly in the toils. Bracy set a garrulous hairdresser’s man at him, who deprived him of his hat, popped him down in the appointed chair, and enveloped him in a blue-striped wrapper before he very well knew where he was, or had arrived at any kind of decision whatsoever on the subject. No sooner was he seated than Bracy administered a fresh dose of his anaesthetic agent; Frere resumed his argument, and long ere he had exhausted the catalogue of chemical tests to which his opponent’s theory (invented for the occasion) might be subjected, the hair-cutter (previously instructed) had reduced his hair and whiskers to the latitude and longitude usually assigned to such capillary attractions by the “manners and customs of ye English in ye nineteenth century.” And thus Frere became, for the time being, a reasonable looking mortal, and Bracy won a new hat, which he had betted that morning with a mutual acquaintance, on the apparently rash speculation that he would before the day was over administer an anaesthetic agent to Richard Frere, under the influence of which he should have his hair cut.

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CHAPTER XXXVIII.—DESCRIBES THE HUMOURS OF A LONDON DINNER-PARTY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

Dear Rose Arundel (excuse us the adjective, kind reader, for we frankly own to being very fond of her), having been a perfect godsend to everybody during the whole morning of the party day, having thought of everything and done everything, and looked on the bright side of everything, and sacrificed herself so pleasantly that an uninitiated beholder might have imagined her intensely selfish and doing it all for her own personal gratification,—Rose having, amongst other gymnastics of self-devotion, run up and down stairs forty-three times in pursuit of waifs and strays from Lady Lombard’s memory, committed the first bit of selfishness of which she had been guilty all day, by sitting down to rest for five minutes before she began her toilet; and leaning her forehead on her hand, thought over her own chances of pleasure or amusement during the evening. She had had one disappointment: Lewis had been invited, and Lewis would not come. He did not say he could not come, but he put on what Mrs. Arundel called his “iron-face,” and said shortly, “the thing was impossible;” and no one could have looked on his compressed lips and doubted the truth of the assertion. It grieved Rose, for she read his soul as it were an open book before her, and she saw there pride, that curse of noble minds, still unsubdued. Lady Lombard patronised them, and Lewis could not submit to witness it. Rose had hoped better things than this; she had not failed to observe the change that had taken place in her brother during his residence at Broadhurst; she saw that from an ardent, impetuous boy he had become an earnest-minded, high-souled man, and in the calm dignity of his look and bearing she recognised the evidence of conscious power, chastened by the discipline of a mind great enough to rule itself. Nor was she wrong in her conjectures; only she mistook a part for the whole, and arguing with the gentle sophistry of a woman’s loving heart, concluded that to be finished which was but in fact begun. Lewis had learned to control (except in rare instances) his haughty nature, but he relied too much on his own strength, and so he had failed as yet to subdue it. Rose was too honest to disguise the truth from herself when it was fairly placed before her, and she acknowledged, with an aching heart that the great fault of her brother’s character yet remained unconquered. Poor Rose! as this conviction forced itself upon her, how she sorrowed over it. He was so good, so noble, and she loved him so entirely—oh! why was he not perfect? If Lewis could have read her thoughts at that moment he would have assuredly made one of the guests at Lady Lombard’s hospitable board.

As the clock struck the half-hour, forming the juste milieu between seven and eight, post meridiem, the goodly company assembled in Lady Lombard’s drawing-room, being warned by the portly butler that dinner was served, paired off and betook themselves two by two (like the animals coming out of Noah’s Ark, as represented on the dissecting puzzles of childhood) to the lofty dining-room, where much English good cheer, disguised under absurd French names, awaited them. During the short time that Bracy had been in the house he had not been altogether idle. He first took an opportunity of informing Lady Lombard that De Grandeville was directly descended from Charlemagne, and that he was only waiting till the death of an opulent relative should render him independent of his profession to revive a dormant peerage, when it was generally supposed his colossal intellect and unparalleled legal acumen would render him political leader of the House of Lords; he then congratulated her on her good fortune in having secured the presence of this illustrious individual, who, he assured her, was in such request amongst the aristocracy of the kingdom that he was scarcely ever to be found disengaged, and wound up by running glibly through a long list of noble names with whom he declared the mighty Marmaduke to be hand and glove. Accordingly, good Lady Lombard, believing it all faithfully, mentally elected De Grandeville to the post of honour at her right hand, deposing for the purpose no less a personage than General Gudgeon. When we say no less a personage, we speak advisedly, for that gallant officer, weighing sixteen stone without his snuff-box, and being fully six feet high, was, if not exactly “a Triton amongst minnows,” at all events a Goliath amongst gudgeons, which we conceive to be much the same thing.

Having achieved his object of placing De Grandeville in exactly the position he wished him to occupy, Bracy next proceeded to frustrate a scheme which he perceived the fair Susanna (who was his pet antipathy) to have originated for the amatory subjugation and matrimonial acquisition of John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esq., of Roachpool, in the West Riding. The aforesaid John D. D. had a weakness bordering indeed on a mental hallucination; he fancied he was born to be a popular author—“to go down to posterity upon the tongues of men,” as he himself was wont to express it—and the way in which he attempted to fulfil his exalted destiny and effect the wished-for transit, viâ these unruly members of his fellow-mortals, was by writing mild, dull articles, signed J. D. D., and sending them to the editors of various magazines, by whom they were always unhesitatingly rejected.

The frequent repetition of these most unkind rebuffs, and the consequent delay in the fulfilment of his mission, had tended to depress the spirit (at no time an intensely ardent one) of John Dace Dackerel, and had induced a morbid habit of mind, through which, as through a yellow veil, he took a jaundiced view of society at large; and even the acquisition of the surname of Dace, and his accession to the glories of Roachpool, had scarcely sufficed to restore cheerfulness to this victim of a postponed destiny. Bracy, from his connection with Blunt’s Magazine, knew him well, and had rejected, only a fortnight since, a forlorn little paper entitled “The Curse of Genius, or the Trammelled Soul’s Remonstrance;” in which his own cruel position was touchingly shadowed forth in the weakest possible English. Accosting this son of sorrow in a confidential tone of voice, Bracy began—

“As soon as you can spare a minute to listen to me, I’ve something rather particular to tell you!”

“To tell me?” returned the blighted barrister in a hollow voice, suggestive of any amount of black crape hatbands. “What ill news have I now to arm, or I may say, to steel my soul against?” And here be it observed that it was a habit with this pseudo-author to talk, as it were, a rough copy of conversation, which he from time to time corrected by the substitution of some word or phrase which he conceived to be an improvement upon the original text.

“Perhaps it may be good news instead of bad!” remarked Bracy encouragingly. The blighted one shook his head.

“Not for me” he murmured; then turning to Susanna, he continued, “Excuse my interrupting our conversation, but this gentleman has some intelligence to impart—or I may say, to break to me.”

Mrs. Brahmin smiled sweetly such a sympathetic smile that it went straight through a black satin waistcoat, with a cypress wreath embroidered on it in sad-coloured silk, and reached the “crushed and withered” heart of J. D. D. .

“You know,” continued Bracy, “I was obliged, most unwillingly, to decline that touching little thing of yours. The—what is it? the Cough of Genius?”

“The Curse,” suggested its author gloomily.

“Ah! yes. I read it cough—you don’t write very clearly—yes, * the Cursing Genius.’ You know, my dear Dace, we editors are placed in a very trying position. A great responsibility devolves upon us; we are scarcely free agents. Now your article affected me deeply” (this was strictly true, for he had laughed over the most tragic touches till the tears ran down his cheeks), “but I was forced to decline it. I could not have put it in if my own brother had written it. You will naturally ask, Why? Because it did not suit the tone of Blunt’s Magazine!” And as Bracy pronounced these awful and mysterious words he shook his head and looked unutterable things; while the “child of a postponed destiny,” seeing the shadow of a still further postponement clouding his dark horizon, shook his head likewise, and relieved his elaborately-worked shirt-front of a sigh.

“But,” resumed Bracy, “thinking the paper much too original to be lost, I took the liberty of handing it over to Bullbait, the Editor of the Olla Podrida. Well, sir, I saw him this morning, and he said——”

“What?” exclaimed the fated one eagerly, a hectic tinge colouring his sallow cheek.

“Don’t excite yourself, my dear Dace,” rejoined Bracy anxiously; “you’re looking pale: too much brain work, I’m afraid. You must take care of yourself; so many of our greatest geniuses have died young. But I see you’re impatient. Bullbait said—he’s a very close, cautious character, never likes to commit himself, but he actually said, he’d think about it!”

“Was that all?” groaned the disappointed Dace, relapsing into despondency.

“All! my dear sir? all! Why, what would you have? When a man like Bullbait says he’ll think about a thing, I consider it a case of opus operatum—reckon the deed done. If he meant to refuse your paper, what need has he to think about it? No, Mr. Dace, if you’re not correcting a proof of the ‘Cough’—psha, ‘Curse,’ I mean—(when one once takes a wrong idea into one’s head how difficult it is to get it out again!) before the week is over, I’m no prophet. By the way,” he continued, as Rose, looking better than pretty in the whitest of muslin frocks, resigned a comfortable seat to a cross old lady in a gaudy turban, which gave her the appearance, from the neck upwards, of a plain male Turk, liberally endowed with the attributes commonly assigned to his nation by writers of fairytales and other light literature for the nursery, amongst which man-stealing and cannibalism are two of the least atrocious—“by the way, I must introduce you to this young lady; a kindred soul, sir, one of the most rising authoresses of the day.”

“No, I really——” began the Dace, flapping about in the extremity of his shyness like one of his fishy namesakes abstracted from its native element.

“Nonsense,” resumed Bracy, enjoying his embarrassment. “Miss Arundel, let me have the pleasure of making you acquainted with one of our men of genius, a writer to whom a liberal posterity will no doubt do justice, however the trammelled sycophants of a clique may combine to delay his intellectual triumphs.” Then in an aside to J. D. D. he added, “Make play with her; Bullbait wants her particularly to write for the Olla, and she hangs back at present: she would merely have to say a word to him, and you might obtain the run of the magazine.”

Thus urged, John Dace, Dackerel Dace, Esq., called up all the energies of his nature, and by their assistance overcoming his habitual sheepishness, he caused to descend upon Rose a torrent of pathetic small-talk which overwhelmed that young lady till dinner was announced, when he claimed her arm and floated with her down the stream of descending humanity until he found himself safely moored by her side at the dinner-table.

Bracy having thus, as he would himself have expressed it, taken the change out of that odd fish Dace, and frustrated, for the time being, the matrimonial tactics of the Brahmin’s widow, was making his way through the various groups of people in search of Miss MacSalvo, whose rampant Protestantism might, he considered, afford him some sport if judiciously handled, when he was suddenly intercepted by the innocent Susanna with the inquiry, “Pray, Mr. Bracy, can you explain this wonderful metamorphosis in your friend Mr. Frere? He’s grown quite handsome.”

Thus appealed to, Bracy regarded attentively the individual in question, who was good-naturedly turning over a book of prints for Lady Gudgeon, a little shrivelled old lady, so deaf as to render conversation with her a pursuit of politeness under difficulties. Having apparently satisfied himself by this investigation, Bracy replied, “To the best of my belief, I should say he had only had his hair cut, and was for once dressed like a gentleman.”

“He is wonderfully clever, is he not?” inquired the lady.

“Clever!” repeated Bracy. “That’s a mild word to apply to such acquirements as Frere rejoices in. He knows all the languages, living or dead; possesses an intimate acquaintance with the arts and sciences, has all the ‘ologies’ at his fingers’ ends, and is not only well up in the history of man since the creation, but will tell you to a fraction how many feeds a day kept a Mastodon in good condition two or three thousand years before we tailless monkeys came into possession of our landed property.”

“I suppose, as he dresses so strangely in general, that he’s very poor: all clever people are, I believe,” returned Susanna, with an air of the most artless naïveté, the idea having for the first time occurred to her that, faute de mieux, the philosopher might do to replace the man of war.

Bracy read her thoughts, and kindly invented a few facts and figures by which he increased Frere’s income about sevenfold, and gave him a magnificent stock of expectations, regarding the realisation whereof not the most forlorn hope ever existed.

Having done this small piece of mischief also, he continued his search after Miss MacSalvo. The result of these machinations was that Lady Lombard signified to De Grandeville that he was to hand her down to dinner; John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esquire, performed the same office by Rose, much to the disgust of Richard Frere, who had intended to secure that pleasure for himself, and who being, at the moment in which he first became aware of his misfortune, captured by the Brahminical widow, whose silky manner he could not endure, went downstairs in a frame of mind anything but seraphic. Mrs. Arundel contrived to gain possession of General Gudgeon, with a view, as she observed to Bracy, to discover, firstly, his system of feeding, which, from its results, she felt sure must be an excellent one; and secondly, to ensure his obtaining a liberal supply of port wine, to the end that she might satisfy a reprehensible curiosity as to the precise nature of the “gentleman’s stories” Lady Lombard was so anxious to suppress; which act of un-English-woman-like espièglerie must be set down to the score of a foreign education, than which we know not a better receipt for unsexing the minds of the daughters of Albion. When we add that Bracy, with a face of prim decorum, escorted Miss MacSalvo, a gaunt female, whose spirit appeared to have warred with her flesh so effectually that there was little more than skin and bone left, we believe we have accounted for every member of the party in whom our readers are likely to feel the slightest interest.

During the era of the fish and soup, by which our modern dinners are invariably commenced, little is discussed except the viands; but after the first glass of sherry mute lips begin to unclose, and conversation flows more freely. Thus it came about that John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esquire, of the Inner Temple (we admire his name so much that we lose no opportunity of repeating it), having revolved in his anxious mind some fitting speech wherewith to accost the talented young authoress, of whom he felt no inconsiderable degree of dread, fortified himself with an additional sip of sherry ere he propounded the very original inquiry, “Whether Miss Arundel was fond of poetry?” Before Rose could answer this query her neighbour on the other side, one Mr. James Rasper, a very strong young man with a broad, good-natured, dullish face, demanded abruptly, in a jovial tone of voice, “Whether she was fond of riding?”

As soon as she could collect her senses, scattered by the raking fire of this cross-examination, Rose replied “that she was particularly fond of some kinds of poetry,” which admission she qualified by the apparently inapposite restriction—“When she was on a very quiet horse.”

J. D. D. was about to follow up his attack by a leading question in regard to the gushing pathos of the bard of Rydal, when Rasper prevented him by exclaiming, “No! Do you really?” (which he called “railly”). “Then I know just the animal that would suit you.” And having thus mounted his hobby-horse he dashed at everything, as was his wont when once fairly off, and rattled away, without stopping, till dinner was finished, and he had talked Rose completely stupid; while the unfortunate Dace, foiled in his weak attempt to captivate the influential authoress, plunged again into the deep waters of affliction, where, pondering over this further postponement of his destiny, he sank, and was heard no more.

Exactly opposite to Rose and her companions sat Frere and the simple Susanna, who, labouring zealously at her vocation—viz., husband-hunting—threw away much flattery and wasted an incalculable amount of “sweetness on the desert air.” To all her pretty speeches Frere returned monosyllabic replies in a tone of voice suggestive of whole forests full of bears with sore heads, while a cloud hung heavy on his brow, and his bright eyes flashed envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness at the unconscious James Rasper. At last Susanna chanced to inquire whether he were fond of music; and as, without falsifying facts, he could not answer this negatively, he was forced to reply, “Yes; I like some sort of music well enough.”

“Some sort only,” returned Susanna in a tone of infantine artlessness. “Oh! you should like every kind, Mr. Frere. I never hear a merry tune without longing to dance to it, and pathetic music affects me even to tears. But what class of music is it that you particularly prefer?—though I need scarcely ask—operatic, of course.”

“Not I,” growled Frere; “I hate your operas.”

“Oh, Mr. Frere!” exclaimed Simplicity, fixing its large eyes reproachfully upon him, “you can’t mean what you say. Not like operas! Why, they are perfectly delicious. Look at a well-filled house—what a magnificent coup d’oil!”

“A set of pigeon-holes full of fools, and a long row of fiddlers,” rejoined Frere; “I can’t say I see much to admire in that. I went to one of your operas last year, and a rare waste of time I thought it. It was one of Walter Scott’s Scotch stories bewitched into Italian. There was poor Lucy of Lammermoor dressed out like a fashionable drawing-room belle, singing duets all about love and murder with a pale-faced, moustachioed puppy, as much like Edgar Ravenswood as I am like the Belvidere Apollo—a brute engaged, on the strength of a tenor voice, to make love to all and sundry for the space of four calendar months, for which ‘labour of love’ he is paid to the tune of £500 a month, a salary on which better men than himself contrive to live for a whole year. Then Lucy’s cruel mamma, who is the great feature in the novel, was metamorphosed into a rascally brother, who growled baritone atrocities into the ears of a sympathising chorus of indigent needle-women and assistant carpenters, who act the nobility and gentry of Scotland at half-a-crown a head and their beer. The first act is all love and leave-taking, the second all cursing and confusion, and the third all madness and misery: and that’s what people call a pleasant evening’s amusement. The only thing that amused me was in the last scene, when the stipendiary lover kills himself first and sings a long scena afterwards. I thought that very praiseworthy and persevering of him, and if I’d been Lucy such a little attention as that would have touched me particularly, and I dare say it would have done her, only—seeing that she had died raving mad some five minutes before, and was then drinking bottled porter in her dressing-room for the good of her voice—she was perhaps scarcely in a situation to appreciate it.”

“But if you don’t like the singing, I dare say you prefer the ballet?” suggested Susanna.

“No, I don’t,” was the short, sharp, and decisive reply.

“Not like the ballet? Oh! Mr. Frere, what can be your reason?” inquired the surprised turtle-dove.

“Well, I have a reason good and sufficient, but I shan’t tell it to you,” growled Frere; then muttered as an aside, which was, however, sufficiently audible, “A set of jumping Jezebels skipping about in white muslin kilts, for they’re nothing better; respectable people ought to be ashamed of looking at ’em.” Having enunciated this opinion, Frere cast a doubly ferocious glance at Mr. Rasper, then eloquently describing to Rose the points of his favourite hunter, and relapsed into surly monosyllables, beyond which no amount of cooing could again tempt him.

Marmaduke de Grandeville, enthroned in state on the right hand of the lady of the house, gazed regally around him, and in the plenitude of his magnificence was wonderful to behold. But, after all, he was human, and the evident depth and reality of Lady Lombard’s admiration and respect softened even him, so that ere long he graciously condescended to eat, drink and talk—not like an ordinary mortal, for that he never did, but like himself. For instance, the topic under discussion being the new Houses of Parliament, then in even a more unfinished state than they are at present, De Grandcville elaborately explained the whole design, every detail of which he appeared to have at his fingers’ ends—a fact for which he accounted when he allowed it to be understood that—“Ar—he had—ar—given Barry a hint or two—ar—that Barry was a very sensible fellow, and not above—ar—acting upon an idea when he saw it to be a good one;” and it must be owned that as De Grandeville had only once been in Mr. Barry’s company, on which occasion he had sat opposite to him at a public dinner, he had made the best use of his time, and not suffered his powers of penetration to rust for want of use. Having in imagination put the finishing-stroke to the Victoria Tower (one of the furthest stretches of fancy on record, we should conceive), he contrived to work the conversation round to military matters, set General Gudgeon right on several points referring to battles in the Peninsula at which the General had himself been present, and gave so graphic an account of Waterloo, that to this day Lady Lombard believes he acted as Amateur Aide-du-Camp and Privy Counsellor-in-Chief to the Duke of Wellington on that memorable occasion. He then talked about the De Grandeville estates till every one present believed him to be an immense landed proprietor, and wound up by the anecdote of William of Normandy and the original De Grandeville, which, with a slight biographical sketch of certain later worthies of the family (one of whom, Sir Solomon de Grandeville, he declared to have suggested to King Charles the advisability of hiding in the oak), lasted till the ladies quitted the room, when, by Lady Lombard’s request, he assumed her vacant chair, and did the honours with dignified courtesy.

Bracy, who during dinner had appeared most devoted to Miss MacSalvo, now endeavoured to render himself universally agreeable. He applauded General Gudgeon’s stories, and plied him vigorously with port wine, which, as Mrs. Arundel had taken care the servants did not neglect to replenish his wine-glass at dinner, began to tell upon him visibly. He elicited the names, pedigrees, and performances of all Mr. James Rasper’s horses, and received from that fast young man a confidential statement of his last year’s betting account, together with a minute detail of how he had executed that singular horticultural operation yclept “hedging on the Oaks,” during which dry recital his throat required constantly moistening with wine, in spite of which precaution his voice grew exceedingly thick and husky before the sitting concluded. On two individuals of the party, however, all Bracy’s efforts were thrown away: Frere continued silent and moody, only opening his lips occasionally, shortly and sternly to contradict some assertion, and relapsing into his former taciturnity; while J. D. D. sat silently bewailing his postponed destiny over a glass of water and two ratafia cakes, which seemed to possess the singular property of never diminishing.

At length the gentlemen rose to go upstairs, a matter easily accomplished by every one but General Gudgeon, who made three unsuccessful attempts to get under weigh, and then looked helplessly round for assistance. Bracy, the ever-ready, was at hand in an instant.

“My dear General, let me lend you an arm. You’re cramped from sitting so long.”

“Tha-a-ank you, my dear bo-o-oy,” returned the gallant officer, who appeared to have been seized with a sudden, wild determination to alter the English language by dividing monosyllables into three parts, and otherwise fancifully to embellish his mother-tongue. “Tha-a-ank you! It’s that confou-wow-wow-nded gun-shot wound in my knee-ee. I got it at Bu-Bu-Bu—no! not Bucellas. What is it, eh?”

“Busaco,” suggested Bracy, fearing he had over-dosed his patient.

However, when once the General got upon his legs he used them to better advantage than might have been expected, and proceeded upstairs, “rolling grand,” as that prince of clever-simple biographers (to adopt one of Mrs. Browning’s double-barrelled adjectives), Boswell, said of his ponderous idol. Encountering Frere at the foot of the staircase, he stumbled against that gentleman with so much force as nearly to knock him down. As he recovered his footing Frere turned angrily towards his assailant; but his irritation changed to an expression of contemptuous pity as his eye fell upon the white hair of General Gudgeon, and stepping on one side, he allowed him to pass. He was quietly following, when Mr. James Rasper, who had witnessed his discomfiture with an ill-bred laugh, excited by the wine he had drank, attempted, by way of a stupid practical joke, to repeat General Gudgeon’s involuntary assault, and reckoning Frere a good-natured, quiet sort of person, not likely to resent such a jest, pretended to stumble against him, and pushed past him when about half-way up the first flight of stairs. Never did a man (to use a common but forcible expression) “mistake his customer” more completely. In an instant Frere had collared him, dragged him down a step or two, then retaining his grasp of the coat-collar, seized him by the waistband of his trousers, and by a great exertion of strength, swung him clear over the banisters, lowered him till his feet were about a yard from the floor, and then let him drop. After which performance, having glanced round to see that his victim was not injured by the fall, he coolly pursued his way upstairs.

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CHAPTER XXXIX.—IS IN TWO FYTTES—VIZ., FYTTE THE FIRST, A SULKY FIT—FYTTE THE SECOND, A FIT OF HYSTERICS.

Frere reached the drawing-room in a state of mind which the occurrences related in the last chapter had not tended to render more amiable. The front room was evidently the more popular of the two, a numerous group being gathered round Mrs. Brahmin, who in the sweetest of mild sopranos was daintily cooing forth a plaintive love-ditty, which was evidently telling well with John Dace, D.D. Avoiding the crowd, Frere made his way into the back drawing-room, which, barring an ardent flirtation in a corner between two poor young things who could not, by the most remote possibility, marry for the next fifteen years, was unoccupied. Here seating himself astride across a chair as if it had been a horse, and leaning his arms on the back, he fell into a deep fit of musing. From this he was roused by the approach of a light footstep, and looking up, perceived Rose Arundel.

“Why, Mr. Frere,” she exclaimed playfully, “I do believe you were asleep; will you not come into the other room? Mrs. Brahmin is singing like a nightingale and charming everybody.”

“Nightingales are humbugs. I hate singing women in general, and abominate Mrs. Brahmin in particular, so I’m better where I am,” was the grumpy reply.

Rose had often before received speeches from Frere quite as rude as the present one, but in this instance there was a peculiarity in his method of delivering it which at once struck her attention. Usually his bearish sayings were accompanied by a half-smile or merry twinkle of the eye, which proved that he was more than half in jest, but now there was a bitter earnestness in his tone which she had never before remarked, and Rose felt at once that something had occurred to annoy him; so she quietly drew a chair to the table near which he was seated, and carelessly turning over the pages of a book of prints which lay before her, observed—

“If you are not to be tempted within the siren’s influence, and positively refuse to be charmed with sweets sounds, I suppose I am bound by all the rules of politeness to remain here and try to talk you into a more harmonious frame of mind.”

“Pray do nothing of the kind,” returned Frere, “unless you’ve some better reason than a mere compliance with what you please to term ‘the rules of politeness,’ for they are things I trouble my head about mighty little. Besides,” he added sarcastically, “your new friend, Mr. James Rasper, must have found his way upstairs by this time, I should imagine, and I should be sorry to deprive you of the pleasure of his intellectual conversation, more particularly as you seem to appreciate it so thoroughly.”

“How viciously you said that!” returned Rose, smiling. “But tell me, are you really angry? have I done anything to annoy you? I’m sure it’s most unwittingly on my part, if I have;” and as she spoke she looked so good, and so willing to be penitent for any possible offence, that a man must have had the heart of an ogre to have resisted her. Such a heart, however, Frere appeared to possess, for he answered shortly—

“No, I’ve no fault to find with you. I dare say it may be quite according to the ‘rules of politeness’ to cast off old friends and take up with new ones at a minute’s notice, and be completely engrossed by them, though they may contrive to talk about horses till they prove themselves little better than asses to the mind of an unprejudiced auditor. There is your friend conversing eagerly with Bracy, asking, no doubt, what has become of you.”

“You are very unjust, Mr. Frere,” returned Rose, looking hard at her book and speaking eagerly and quickly. “Mr. Rasper is no friend of mine; I scarcely knew his name till you mentioned it. He sat next me at dinner, and talked to me about horses and galloping over ploughed fields after foxes, till I became so stupid that I had scarcely two ideas left in my head, but of course I was bound to answer him civilly. So much for my new friend, as you call him; what you mean by my casting off old ones I don’t at all know; I have done nothing of the kind that I am aware of.”

“No, you have not,” returned Frere, recalled to his better self by Rose’s harangue; “it is I who am, as you say, unjust and absurd, but the honest truth is that I wanted to talk to you myself. All these good people are bores more or less, none of’em able to converse rationally for five minutes together. I meant to have handed you down to dinner, but that silky, scheming widow got hold of me instead and irritated me with her bland platitudes; and then I heard that idiot prating to you about horses’ legs, and you appeared so well satisfied with him, when I knew that you were one of the few women who could understand and appreciate better things, that altogether I grew savage, and could gladly have punched my own head or any one else’s.”

“It is quite as well Mr. Rasper was on the opposite side of the table to you,” returned Rose, “or you might have carried out your theoretical inclinations by practising on him, and then we should have had a scene.”

Frere looked a little awkward and conscious as he replied—

“Though I am a bear, I am not quite such a savage animal as all that comes to; I do not give the fatal hug unless I am attacked first.”

At this moment Bracy and Mr. Rasper, whose backs were turned towards them, approached within earshot. The latter appeared much excited, and Rose heard him say—

“It’s no use talking, I’ve been grossly insulted, sir, and if you won’t take my message to him, by——— I’ll take it myself, and give him as good as he gave me, or perhaps a little better.”

Frere heard him also, and a flash of anger passed across his features.

“My dear Rasper, you’re excited,” returned Bracy soothingly. “I did not witness the affair certainly, but I cannot think that any insult was intended. Frere is rough in his manner, but the best-hearted fellow in the world.”

“I don’t know what you may consider an insult, Mr. Bracy; but taking a man by the collar and swinging him over the banisters like a cat, at the risk of his neck, is quite insult enough for me, one for which I’ll have satisfaction, too.”

“Hush, my dear fellow, you’ll attract general attention if you speak so loud. Here, come aside with me, and we’ll talk the matter over quietly.”

So saying, he drew Rasper’s arm within his own, and led him through a side door which opened upon the staircase. Involuntarily glancing at his companion, Frere perceived her eyes riveted on his features with an expression of alarmed inquiry.

“Well, what’s the matter?” he demanded, answering her speaking look.

“What is that man so angry about?” returned Rose breathlessly; “what have you been doing?”

“Nothing very wonderful,” rejoined Frere coolly. “The young gentleman, as I suppose one is bound to call him, drank rather more wine than was prudent, and fancying I looked a quiet, easy-tempered kind of person, by way of a dull jest, indulged himself with falling against and rudely pushing by me on the staircase; and I, not being at the moment in the humour for joking, did, as he very truly observes, swing him like a cat over the banisters, where, cat-like, he fell upon his legs.”

“Oh, Mr. Frere, how could you do such a thing? And now he is dreadfully angry, and talked about sending you a message, which means that he wants to fight a duel. Mr. Frere, you will not fight with him?” and as Rose spoke her pale cheek flushed with unwonted animation, and tears, scarcely repressed, glistened in her earnest eyes.

“What do you think about it?” returned Frere, looking at her with a kind smile.

“Oh, I think, I hope, you are too good, too wise, to do such a thing. For Lewis’s sake, for the sake of all your friends, you will refrain.”

“For a better reason still, my dear, warm-hearted little friend,” returned Frere kindly but solemnly; “for God’s sake I will not break His commandment, or incur the guilt of shedding a fellow-creature’s blood. But,” he added, “all this folly has frightened you;” and as he spoke he took her little trembling hand in his and stroked it caressingly, and this time it was not withdrawn.

“Then you will apologise, I suppose,” Rose observed after a short pause.

“Well, we’ll hope that may not be necessary,” returned her companion, “seeing that Rasper the infuriated was more to blame in the affair than I was; but if the good youth is so obtuse that nothing less will quiet him, I suppose I must accommodate his stupidity by doing so. It is a less evil to pocket one’s dignity for once in a way than to murder or be murdered in support of it.”

At this moment Bracy entered the room solo, with such a vexed and anxious expression of countenance that Frere, who guessed rightly at the cause, could, though he liked him the better for it, scarcely forbear smiling.

“Go back to your singing widow,” observed Frere to Rose, “and when I have administered his sop to Cerberus I will come and tell you what wry faces he has made in swallowing it.”

Rose fixed her eyes on him with a scrutinising glance, and reading in his honest face that he was not deceiving her, smiled on him approvingly, and rising, quietly mingled with the company in the front drawing-room.

“I say, Frere,” began Bracy as Rose disappeared, “I’m sadly afraid you have got into a tiresome scrape. That young fool, Rasper, declares you’ve pitched him over the banisters.”

“A true bill so far, and richly he deserved it,” returned Frere.

“I can well believe that,” was Bracy’s reply, “for he was more than half screwed whence left the dinner-table; but the shake appears to have sobered him into a state of the most lively vindictiveness. However, it’s no laughing matter, I can assure you: he has sent you a message by me, and means fighting.”

“He may, but I don’t,” returned Frere shortly.

“My dear Frere, I wish I could make you understand that the affair is serious. Rasper’s determined to have you out. I can make no impression upon him, and you can’t refuse to meet a man after pitching him over the banisters,” rejoined Bracy in a tone of annoyance.

“Can’t I, though?” returned Frere, smiling. “I’m not of such a yielding disposition as you imagine. Where is the sweet youth?”

“I left him in the cloak-room,” answered Bracy; and as Frere immediately turned to descend the stairs, continued, “ ’Pon my word, you’d better not go near him: he’s especially savage. Depend upon it, you will have something disagreeable occur.”

“Do you think I’m going to be forced into fighting a duel, a sin of the first magnitude in my eyes, because I’m afraid of meeting an angry boy? You don’t know me yet,” returned Frere sternly; and without waiting further parley he ran downstairs, followed by Bracy, with a face of the most comic perplexity. The door of the cloak-room stood half open, and at the further end of the apartment might be perceived the outraged Rasper, pacing up and down like a caged lion, “nursing his wrath to keep it warm.” Unintimidated even by this tremendous spectacle, Frere coolly entered the room, and immediately walked up to his late antagonist, holding out his hand.

“Come, Mr. Rasper,” he said, “this has been a foolish business altogether, and the sooner we mutually forget it the better. Here’s my hand: let’s be friends.”

That this was a mode of procedure on which Mr. Rasper had not calculated was evident, as well by his extreme embarrassment as by his appearing completely at a loss what course to pursue. For a moment he seemed half inclined to accept Frere’s proffered hand; but his eye fell upon Bracy, and probably recalling the threats he had breathed forth in the hearing of that worthy individual, he felt that his dignity was at stake; and giving himself a shake to re-arouse his indignation, he replied, “I shall do no such thing, sir. You have grossly insulted me, and I demand satisfaction.”

“Excuse me,” returned Frere quietly, “I did not insult you: I simply would not allow you to insult me; no man worthy of the name would.”

“It’s no use jangling about it, like a couple of women, I consider that you have insulted me: what you may think matters nothing to me. I have been insulted, I require satisfaction, and I mean to have it too,” reiterated Mr. Rasper, talking himself into a passion.

“Now, listen to me,” returned Frere impressively. “You are a younger man than I am, and have probably, therefore, more of life before you. You are of an age and temperament to enjoy life vividly. There are many that love you; I can answer for three, for I met your mother and two sisters at Lord Ambergate’s a fortnight since, and the kind creatures entertained me for half-an-hour with your praises. Why, then, seek to throw away your own life and embitter theirs, or bring upon your head the guilt of homicide, entailing banishment from your home and country, and other evil consequences, merely because, having drunk a few extra glasses of wine, you sought to play off a practical joke upon me, and I, not being at the moment in a jesting humour, retaliated upon you, as you, or any other man of spirit, would have done in my situation? Come, look at it in a common sense point of view: is this a cause for which to lose a life or take one?”

After waiting a moment for a reply, during which time Rasper stood gnawing the finger of his white glove in irresolution, Frere resumed—“If you’re sorry for your share in the matter, I’m perfectly willing to own that I am for mine; and now, once more, here’s my hand—what do you say?”

“Say, that you’re a regular out-and-out good fellow, and that I’m a———d ass, and beg your pardon heartily,” was the energetic rejoinder; and bringing his hand down upon Frere’s with a smack that re-echoed through the room, Rasper and his late antagonist shook hands with the strength and energy of a brace of giants; and then, both talking at once with the greatest volubility, they ascended the stairs arm in arm, Bracy following them, with his left eye fixed in a species of chronic wink, expressive of any amount of the most intense satisfaction and sagacity. As they re-entered the drawing-room, Rose, whose powers of hearing, always acute, were in the present instance rendered still more so by anxiety, caught the following words; “Then you promise you will dine with me at Lovegrove’s on Thursday, and I’ll pick up half-a-dozen fellows that I know you’ll like to meet, regular top-sawyers, that you’re safe to find in the first flight, be it where it may.”

“Only on condition that you come to my rooms on Friday and bring your brother, and we’ll show you sporting men how we bookworms live—Bracy, we shall see you?”

“You’ll dine with us, too, at Blackwall, Mr. Bracy,” rejoined the first speaker, who was none other than the redoubtable Rasper. And numerous other genial sentences of like import reached the ear and comforted the heart of that little philanthropist, Rose Arundel, who could no more bear to see her fellow-creatures disagree than could Dr. Watts, when in his benevolence he indicted that pretty hymn which begins—

“Let dogs delight to bark and bite,

For ’tis their nature to!”

then proceeds to state the interesting ornithological fact that

“Birds in their little nests agree,”

and touchingly appeals to the nobler instincts of childhood in the pathetic metrical remonstrance—

“Those little hands were never made

To tear each other’s eyes.”

Oh! excellent and prosy Watts, doer of dull, moral platitudes into duller doggerel, co-tormentor with Pinnock and the Latin grammar of my early boyhood, would that for thy sake I had the pen of Thomas Carlyle, for then would I write thee down that which I suspect thou wast, my Watts, in most resonant un-English, nay, I would make thee the subject of a “Latter-Day Pamphlet,” and treating of thee in connection with the vexata questio of prison discipline, would by thy aid invent a new and horrible punishment for refractory felons, who in lieu of handcuffs and bread and water, hard labour, or solitary confinement, should straightway be condemned to a severe course of “Watts’ Hymns.”

Thomas Bracy, his mind being relieved from the onus of this rather serious episode in his evening’s amusement, now cast his eyes around to discover how the various schemes projected by his fertile brain might be progressing. The first group that met his eye afforded him unmixed satisfaction—Lady Lombard, seated on a low fauteuil, was listening with delighted attention to De Grandeville, who, hanging over her, was talking eagerly (about himself) with an air of the most lover-like devotion. The next pair that his glance fell upon scarcely pleased him so well, for Mrs. Brahmin had again hooked the Dace, and appeared in a fair way of landing him safely. “However,” reflected Bracy, “one comfort is that he’s such an awful fool he will bore her to death in less than a week after they’re married, and she’ll revenge herself by flirting with every man she meets, which is safe to worry him to distraction, and they’ll be a wretched, miserable couple; so I really believe there’ll be more comedy evolved by letting them alone than by interfering with them;” and consoling himself with this agreeable view of the matter, he turned his attention to the state, mental and physical, of General Gudgeon. That gallant son of Mars, as though conscious of the hopes and fears that were abroad concerning his possible behaviour, was taking the best method of neutralising the dangerous effects of his devotion to Bacchus by composing himself to sleep in a mighty arm-chair. Next him was seated Miss MacSalvo, who was engaged in a truly edifying conversation with Mrs. Dackerel, mother to the “postponed one,” on the propriety of establishing a female Missionary Society for the prevention of Polygamy amongst the Aborigines of the North-Eastern Districts of South-West Australia; an evil which both ladies agreed to be mainly owing to the fact that the women did not know how to conduct themselves like the women of civilised nations; a fact to which Bracy assented by observing “that was self-evident, or the men would find one wife quite enough;” on which Miss MacSalvo turned up the whites, or more properly speaking, the yellows of her eyes, and ejaculated, “Ah, yes indeed!” with much unction, though it is to be doubted whether after all she perceived the full force of the remark.

“Why, General,” exclaimed Bracy quickly, “you have been in Australia; you’re the very man we want; rouse up, my dear sir, and enlighten our darkness.”

“Pray, sir,” observed Miss MacSalvo, addressing General Gudgeon, “pray, sir, can you give me any insight into the habits and customs of those interesting, but, alas! misguided individuals, the Aborigines of South Australia; more particularly with reference to the female portion of the population—any little anecdotes which may occur to you now?”

“By Jo-o-ove, ma’am,” returned the General, whose English had not yet ‘suffered a recovery’, “you’ve come to—you’ve come to the right, eh—to the, the right, what-is-it?”

“Shop,” suggested Bracy.

“Ye-es, to the right sho-op, if that’s what you want, ma’am. I should think there ain’t a man—there ain’t a man—eh? yes, breathing—that can tell you more—eh? more about larks——”

“It is scarcely with a view to the ornithology of the country that I am anxious to gain information,” interrupted Miss MacSalvo; “the facts I require regard the general behaviour and moral conduct of the female population of the north-eastern district.”

“Eh! oh, yes—yes, I under—I understand what you’re up to, eh?” resumed the General, with what he intended for a significant wink at Bracy; “there was Tom Slasher and me—a rare wild young, eh? yes, a wild young dog was Tom; well, ma’am, there was a gal over there—she wasn’t one of the natives, though—they’re taw-taw—yes, tawny coloured—but this gal was a nigger—reg’lar darkie—Black-hide Susan, Tom used to call her—witty chap was Tom.”

And the General being fairly started, continued to talk most volubly, though, from the peculiarities of his diction, he did not get to the point of his story so quickly as might have been expected. In the meantime Frere contrived to rejoin Rose, and seating himself almost in her pocket, observed in a low voice—

“Well, I’ve managed to tame the dragon, you see.”

“Yes, and persuaded him to dine with you instead of upon you,” returned Rose, smiling; “but tell me,” she added, “how did you contrive to satisfy him. Were you forced to apologise?”

“Oh, I put the thing before him in a common sense point of view,” replied Frere; “appealed to his good feeling as if I had faith in his possessing such a quality, which is the sure way to call it forth if it exists, and wound up by telling him that if he was sorry for his share in the business, I was ditto for mine, which mode of treatment proved eminently successful. He applied a forcible adjective to the word ass, and stigmatising himself by the epithet thus compounded, he shook me heartily by the hand, and straightway we became the greatest friends, ratifying the contract by an exchange of dinner invitations, without which ceremony no solemn league and covenant is considered binding in England in these days of enlightened civilisation.”

“Well, I think you have behaved more bravely and nobly than if you had fought twenty duels,” exclaimed Rose, fairly carried away by her admiration. “I esteem and respect you, and—and——!” Here she stopped short, and a bright blush overspread her pale features, for she perceived Frere’s fine eyes fixed upon her with an expression of delighted surprise which she had never observed in them before, and which brought to her recollection the fact that, after all, he was a living man not many years older than herself, instead of some magnanimous, philosophical, and heroic character in history done into modern English and animated by magic for her express delectation. The light in Frere’s eyes had, however, faded, and he had relapsed into his accustomed manner ere he replied: “I can’t say I see anything to make a fuss about in it. I wasn’t going to allow a half-tipsy boy to insult me with impunity, so I pitched him over the banisters as a trifling hint to that effect; neither did I feel inclined to shoot him, or let him shoot me, by way of compensation for his tumble, because it would have been equally wrong and irrational so to do, and I went and told him my ideas in plain English, which was the natural course to pursue, and produced the desired effect. I really can’t see anything remarkable in it all.”

“I fancy that I do,” replied Rose archly; “but of course we poor women cannot pretend to be competent judges in such a case.”

“You know you don’t think anything of the kind,” returned Frere; “you’ve got a very good opinion of your own judgment, so don’t tell stories.”

“Without either admitting or denying the truth of your assertion, I should like to know what grounds you have for making it?” asked Rose.

“I can soon tell you, if that’s all you want to know,” returned Frere. “You could not act for yourself with the quiet decision I have before now seen you exercise when occasion required it unless you possessed self-appreciation sufficient to give you the requisite degree of confidence.”

Ere Rose could reply their conversation was interrupted by a piercing shriek followed by an extreme bustle and confusion on the other side of the room. The cause was soon explained. Excited with wine, and artfully drawn on by Bracy, General Gudgeon had told one of his “gentleman’s stories” to Miss MacSalvo, on the strength of which outrageous anecdote that zealous advocate for establishing a Female Missionary Society for the Prevention of Polygamy amongst the Aborigines of the North-Eastern District of South-West Australia had seen fit to go off into a perfect tornado of the most alarming hysterics!

---

CHAPTER XL.—SHOWS, AMONGST OTHER MATTERS, HOW RICHARD FRERE PASSED A RESTLESS NIGHT.

The hysterical affection of the praiseworthy antipolygamist having taken place late in the evening, may be said to have broken up the party. Mrs. General Gudgeon, who, when the catastrophe occurred, was more or less asleep over the same book of prints to which she had devoted herself on her first arrival, originated, as she witnessed the confusion, a faint idea—(all this lady’s ideas, and they were not many, were of a dim and hazy character, so that a good impression of her thoughts—if we may be allowed the term—was a rarity hardly to be met with)—that her better half was in some way connected with the matter; and knowing that dining out usually “produced an effect upon him” (as she delicately and indefinitely phrased it), she forthwith instituted an inquiry after her carriage, and that “vehicle for the transmission of heavy bodies” being reported in readiness, she issued marching orders, and as soon as the honourable and gallant officer could be got upon his legs, took him in tow, and in his company departed.

The Dackerels hastened to follow this example, the maternal Dackerel having come in for her share of the General’s “good things,” and appearing much inclined to “trump” Miss MacSalvo’s hysterics with a fainting fit; J. D. D., with a face even longer than usual, supported her retiring footsteps. He had been warming his chilly spirit in the sunshine of the widow’s smiles, till, in the possibility of some day calling that delicate creature his own, the outline of a new and fascinating destiny had been traced upon the foolscap paper of his imagination; but the doom was still upon him, and in the calls of filial piety he recognised a fresh postponement even of this last forlorn hope. Frere had shaken hands with Rose, apologised for not being able to lunch with them the next day—a thing which nobody had asked him to do—and, having set the butler and both the tall footmen to look for his cotton umbrella, and put on consecutively two wrong greatcoats, was about to walk home, when Mr. James Rasper interfered; he would drive his friend home—anywhere—everywhere—so that he would but accompany him. He wanted to show him his cab; he wished to learn his opinion of his horse—in short, he would not be denied; and Frere, beginning to think his friendship a worse alternative than his animosity, was forced to consent, which he did thus—

“Well, yes, if you like. I shall get home sooner, that’s one comfort; and I’ve got three hours’ work to do before I can go to bed. Is this your trap? The brute won’t kick, will he? Ugh! what an awkward thing to get into. I believe I’ve broken my shin. Go ahead! Mind you steer clear of the lamp-posts. I can’t think why people ride when they’ve got legs to walk with.”

Bracy waited patiently to hand Miss MacSalvo downstairs, which he did with much gravity and decorum, lamenting the disgraceful conduct of General Gudgeon, of whom he remarked, with a portentous shake of the head, that “he greatly feared he was not a man of a sober or edifying frame of mind,” which observation was certainly true as far as the sobriety was concerned.

Whether Jemima of the sour countenance had, in arranging Frere’s bed, imparted somewhat of the angularity of her own nature to the feathers, or whether the events of the evening had excited that part of his system in regard to the existence whereof he indulged in a very bigotry of scepticism, namely, his nerves, certain it is that when (having read Hindostanee till daylight peeped in upon his studies) he went to bed he did not follow his usual system of dropping asleep almost as soon as he had laid his head upon his pillow; neither could he apply his ordinary remedy for insomnolency, for when he tried to concentrate his attention on some difficult sentence in his Hindostanee, or to solve mentally an abstruse mathematical problem, a figure in white muslin obscured the Asiatic characters or entangled itself inextricably with rectangular triangles, so that the wished-for Q. E. D. could never be arrived at. Frere had never thought Rose Arundel pretty till that night—one reason for which might have been that he had never thought about her appearance at all; but now, all of a sudden, the recollection of her animated face as, carried away by the impulse of the moment, she had begun to tell him how she admired his noble conduct, occurred to him, and all its good points flashed upon him and haunted and oppressed him. The smooth, broad forehead—he had observed that before, and decided it to be a good forehead in a practical point of view—i.e.> a capacious knowledge-box; but now he felt that it was something more, and the mysterious attribute of beauty forced itself upon his notice and flung its charm around him. Then her eyes—those deep, earnest, truthful eyes—seemed yet to gaze at him, with a bright expression of interest sparkling through their softness. He could not, try as he pleased, banish the recollection of those eyes; as he lay and thought they came across him, and bewitched him like a spell. And her mouth—what a world of eloquence was there even in its silence; there might be traced the same firmness and resolution which marked the haughty curl of Lewis’s short upper lip; but the pride and sternness were wanting, and in their place a chastened, pensive expression seemed to afford a guarantee that the strength of character thus indicated could alone be aroused in a good cause; but the true expression of that mouth was to be discovered only when a smile, suggestive of every softer, brighter trait of woman’s nature, revealed the little pearl-like teeth. All this seemed to have come upon Frere like a sudden inspiration; he could not banish it from his recollection, and the more he reflected upon it, the less he understood it. And so he tossed and tumbled about, restless alike in mind and body, till at last, just as the clock struck six, he fell into a doze. But sleep afforded him no refuge from his tormentress. Rose, changed and yet the same, haunted his dreams; but a halo appeared to surround her—she had acquired a character of sanctity in his eyes. Never again could he inadvertently address her as “sir,” and he would as soon have thought of connecting the idea of a “good fellow” with one of Raphael’s Madonnas as with Rose Arundel. At half-past seven Jemima—a very chronometer for punctuality—knocked at his door, and receiving no answer, sans cérémonie walked in, to see what might be the matter; and finding her master rather snoring than otherwise, invaded his slumbers by exclaiming in a shrill voice—

“It ain’t of much use me getting out of my blessed bed with the rhumatiz in the small o’ my back to bring your hot-water by halfpast seven, if you lay there snoring like a hog, Master Richard, and won’t answer a body when they call you;” to which appeal she received the somewhat inconsequent reply—

“Well, suppose I wouldn’t let him shoot me, there’s nothing very fine in that, Rose.”

“Listen to him,” exclaimed Jemima, aghast; “lor’ a mussy! I hope he ain’t a wandering, or took to the drink. Master Richard, will ye please to wake and talk like a Christian, and not go frightening a body out of their wits,” she continued in a tone of voice as of an agitated sea-mew.

“Eh, what? oh, is that you, Jemima? I was so sound asleep; go away and I’ll get up directly,” muttered Frere, becoming conscious of those usual colloquial antipodes, “his room and his company.” But Jemima had been flurried and rendered anxious on his account, first by his silence, next by his incoherent address, and now finding her alarm had been without foundation, her better feelings turned sour, and having her master at an advantage, seeing that he could not rise till she should please to convey herself away, she gave vent to her acidulated sentiments in the following harangue—

“Yes, it’s all very well to say ‘go away,’ as if you was speaking to a dog, after frightening people out of their wits by talking gibberish about shooting and fine roses; but I see how it is, you’re a taking to evil courses, a staying out here till one o’clock in the morning, for I heard ye a comin’ in, lying awake with the rhumatiz in the small o’ my back, drinking and smoking cigars, which spiles the teeth and hundermines the hintellects, and accounts for being non compo Mondays the next morning; but I’ve lived with you and yours thirty year and odd, and I ain’t a-going to see you rack-and-ruining of your constitution without a-speaking up to tell you of it, for all your looking black at the woman that nursed you when yer was an hinocent babby, all onconscious of sich goings on.”

“My good woman, don’t talk such rubbish, but go away and let me get my things on,” returned Frere in a species of apologetic growl.

“Rubbish indeed!” continued Jemima in a violent falsetto, her temper being thoroughly aroused by the contemptuous epithet applied to her unappreciated homily; “that’s all the thanks one gets for one’s good advice, is it? but I don’t care. I’ve lived with you, man and boy, nigh half my life, which, like the grass of the field, is three score years and ten come Michaelmas twelvemonth, and I’m not a-going to see you take to evil courses without lifting up my voice as a deacon set on a hill to warn you against ’em, which is what your blessed mother would have done only too gladly if she wasn’t an angel in the family vault, where we must all go when our time comes; smoking filthy cigars and stopping out till one o’clock in the morning, indeed!” and muttering these words over and over to herself, as a sort of refrain, Jemima hobbled out of the room with more stoutness and alacrity than could have been expected from her antiquated appearance. Relieved from the incubus of her presence, Frere rose and proceeded to dress himself; but the nightmare that had oppressed him, whether sleeping or waking, haunted him still.

In vain he tried to shave himself; the vision in white muslin came between his face and the looking-glass and occasioned him to cut his chin. At his frugal breakfast it was with him again, and strange to say, took away his appetite; it went out with him to his scientific institution, and weakened his perceptions, and absorbed his attention, and dulled his memory, till even the most positive resolved nebulæ swam in a mist before him, and the mountains of the moon, which had lately developed a new crater, might have been the bona fide productions of that planet instead of merely her African godchildren, for aught that he could have stated to the contrary. He got through his morning’s work somehow, and then the vision prompted him to call at Lady Lombard’s, and gave him no peace till he started for the goodly mansion of that hospitable widow, which he did in such an unusually agitated frame of mind, that for the first time in the memory of man he forgot his cotton umbrella; he hurried wildly through the streets, overthrowing little children and reversing apple-women, not to mention an insane attempt to constitute himself a member of the “happy family,” by dashing violently against the wires of their cage, which contains all kinds of strange animals except a Richard Frere, or a Podiccps Cornutus, till at last he reached the locality in which Lady Lombard’s house was situated.

And here a new and unaccountable crotchet took possession of his brain. Frere, who since he could run alone and express his sentiments intelligibly in his native tongue had never known what bashfulness meant, was seized with a sudden attack of that uncomfortable sensation, the extinguisher of so many would-be shining lights of humanity, who but for that “flooring” quality would have published such books and made such speeches that the hair of society at large, upraised with wonder and admiration, must have stood on end through all time, “like quills upon the fretful porcupine.” So violent was this attack of shyness that, after having hurried from his office as though life and death hung upon his speed, he could not make up his mind whether to pay the projected visit or not, and actually strolled up and down, passing and repassing the door some half-dozen times before he ventured to knock at it; nay, to such an extent had this mysterious “timor panico” seized upon him, that when the plush-clad “man mountain” appeared in answer to his summons he merely left his card, and inquiring meekly how the ladies were, posted off at, if anything, a more rapid pace than that at which he had walked on his way thither.

Then ere he had proceeded the length of a street came the reaction, under the influence of which he not unjustly stigmatised himself as an egregious fool, and but for very shame would fain have retraced his steps. He could not, however, make up any credible excuse for facing the noble footman a second time, so as the next best thing to seeing Rose, he found his way to Park Crescent and called upon Lewis, to whom he related how he felt so restless and fidgety that he was persuaded he must be about to develop a feverish cold, or some analogous abomination. Having engaged Lewis to accompany him on the following evening to a lecture at the Palaeontological on “The Relations of the Earlier Zoophytes,” whoever they might be, he was about to depart, when, as he reached the hall, a carriage, with a splendid pair of greys, dashed up to the door, and a pretty little brunette with sparkling black eyes, a brilliant complexion, and a bonnet the colour of raspberry ice, descended, and passing Frere with a glance half saucy, half contemptuous, ran upstairs as if she were an habituée of the house. This was Emily, Countess Portici, Loid Bellefield’s younger sister, who, having at nineteen run away with an Italian nobleman, for love of his black eyes and ivory complexion, had ere she was five-and-twenty grown heartily sick of them and of Italy, and discovered some good reason to quit that land of uncomfortable splendour to enjoy the gaieties of a London spring, leaving her picturesque husband to console himself as best he might during her absence. She possessed very high spirits without any vast amount of judgment to counterbalance them, and her present frame of mind was that of a school-girl rejoicing in a holiday, into which she was determined to cram as much pleasure, fun, and frolic as an unlimited capacity for enjoyment would enable her to undergo. On the strength of her position as a married woman, she constituted herself Annie’s chaperon on all occasions when the vigilance of Minerva Livingstone could be eluded; and as that Gorgon of the nineteenth century was not so young as she had been, and found late hours tend to reduce her stamina and degrade the dignity of ill temper to the ignominious level of mere peevishness, she unwillingly allowed the Countess Portici to act as her substitute and escort Annie to such evening entertainments as from their nature threatened to invade the hours dedicated by Minerva to repose. There was much similarity of feature and of manner between the Countess and her brother Charles Leicester, only that Charley’s languid drawl was in Emily replaced by a sparkling vivacity, which, together with a certain selfish good-nature that led her to promote the enjoyment of others on every occasion in which it did not come in contact with her own, was sufficient to render her a general favourite. Annie was no exception to this rule; and always delighted to escape from the petrifying influence of Minerva, eagerly seconded all her lively cousin’s schemes for her amusement.

The object of the Countess’s visit on the present occasion was to secure Annie for the following evening, when they were to dine together, and were afterwards to be escorted to the Opera by Lord Bellefield, where they were to hear a new soprano with a voice three notes higher than that of anybody else, which notes might by a mild and easy figure of speech be not inaptly termed bank-notes, seeing that by their exercise the fair cantatrice had realised the satisfactory sum of thirty thousand pounds.

The Countess’s scheme happening to fit in very nicely with the views of the elders, as the General dined out, and Minerva was nursing a cold, which must have reduced the temperature of her blood to some frightful figure below zero, the project met with no more opposition than, from the constitution of Miss Livingstone’s mind, was inevitable. And thus it came about that on the following day Emily called for Annie, and the two girls (for the matron was a very girlish specimen of five-and-twenty) drove round the park together, and then retired to Emily’s boudoir and “talked confidence” till it was time to dress. Annie’s revelations did not go much more than skin-deep, and related chiefly to anxieties concerning papa and difficulties with Aunt Martha, who was “so tiresome about things, and never would let anybody love her,” and then branched off to a retrospective sketch of the preliminary difficulties which had obstructed Charley Leicester’s wedding, ending by a detailed account of the ceremony itself, and Annie’s hopes and fears as to the ultimate result of the bridegroom’s good resolutions.

Emily, on the contrary, plunged at once in médias res, and related how all last winter she had been rendered wretched by “Alessandro’s” attentions to the Marchese Giulia di B———ani (she revealed the blank in an agitated whisper), and what all her particular friends had said to her on the subject, and how she had jointly and severally replied to them that the dignity of her sex supported her; whence, warming with her subject, she went on to state how she in her turn had supported this dignity by repulsing the advances of Captain Augustus (familiarly and affectionately reduced, for colloquial purposes, into Gus) Travers, who, having been her first love, and retired vice Alessandro Conte de Portici promoted to the rank of husband, considered that it was again his innings, and had diligently sought to become platonically her third love and disputed the post of cavalier servente with all and sundry, in spite of which constancy and devotion she had persevered in her repulsiveness until, between her cruelty and a reckless indifference to malaria, poor Gus was attacked with a brain fever, and then of course when he grew a little better she could not continue unkind to him, for she might have had his life to answer for, and that was a serious consideration; and so by degrees he took to coming to the Palazzo Portici constantly and went about to places with her, and somehow she got accustomed to him, and Alessandro did not seem to mind, and poor Gus always behaved very well, and only asked to be allowed the privilege of her friendship, and everybody did the same sort of thing—“It’s their way over there, you know, Annie dear;” till at last Belle-field came, and he had never been able to endure Gus because he was so handsome, poor fellow, so Bellefield made a great fuss and said all sorts of shocking things, and set Alessandro at her; and worse than all, quarrelled with Gus and wanted to horsewhip him, and it almost came to a duel, only she wrote Gus a little note, imploring him not to fight, but to go away and forget her; and he had done the first directly, and she dared say he had done the second, for she’d never seen him since, which of course she was very glad of. And here she heaved a deep sigh and caressed a comic and unnatural transalpine poodle, which by reason of its flowing locks looked like an animated carriage mat, as though it had been a pet lamb, the sole prop of some heart-broken and dishevelled shepherdess, to which picture of pastoral pathos did Emily, Countess di Portici, then and there mentally assimilate herself.

And to all this history of loves, and hates, and platonic friendships, whatever they might be, simple innocent Annie listened with much interest and more perplexity. She had a vague notion that Emily had behaved foolishly, if not wrongly; but she was very fond of her cousin, who, from the difference in their respective ages, had acquired a degree of ascendency over her which their natural characters scarcely warranted. Then Annie’s deep ignorance of foreign manners and customs threw a mist of uncertainty around the whole affair, beneath the shadow of which she was able to put the most charitable construction on Emily’s conduct without “stultifying her moral sense” (to speak as a logician); still she felt called upon to give her cousin a little good advice in regard to striving entirely to forget, and scrupulously to avoid for the future, the too fascinating Gus, for which Emily kissed her and called her a dear, silly, little prude; then twining their arms round each other’s taper waists, the girls descended to the dining-room, united for the time being, literally and figuratively, by the closest bonds of amity and affection. Standing rather in awe of her brother, Emily conducted herself during the meal with so much gravity and decorum that she quite threw a shade over Annie’s usual lightheartedness, and by the time they reached their opera box a more sombre trio (not even excepting the soprano, the tenor, and the baritone, of whom the first two were prepared to be poisoned, and the third to stab himself on their marble tomb before the evening should be over) could not have been found beneath the roof of Her Majesty’s theatre.

Between the acts of the opera a divertissement was introduced, in which a danseuse, who had acquired an Italian reputation, but who was as yet unknown in England, was to make her first appearance. Emily was conversing volubly about her various merits, when a fashionably-dressed young man with delicate features, a profusion of dark waving curls, and a pair of the most interesting little black moustachios imaginable, lounged into one of the stalls and began lazily to scrutinise the company through a richly-mounted opera-glass. He was undeniably handsome, but the expression of his face was disagreeable, and his whole demeanour blasé and puppyish in the extreme. As he entered, Annie perceived her cousin to give a violent start, and, as she met her glance, to colour slightly; then, evidently unwilling to attract her brother’s notice, she made a successful effort to recover herself, and appeared completely absorbed in the terpsi-chorean prodigies of the new opera-dancer. Just at the conclusion of the divertissement some one knocked at the door of the box, and on Lord Bellefield’s opening it, Annie heard a man’s voice say, in a hurried manner, “Can your Lordship allow me two minutes’ conversation? My business is of the utmost importance.” Lord Bellefield replied in the affirmative and quitted the box, closing the door behind him. As he did so, Emily, laying her finger on her cousin’s arm, said in a hurried whisper: “Annie, do you see that gentleman in the fourth row of stalls, the sixth from this end? That’s Gus; isn’t he handsome, poor fellow? Ah!” she continued, as the object of her scrutiny suddenly brought his opera-glass to bear upon their box, “he has made me out, and he does not know that Bellefield is here. Oh! I hope he won’t think of coming up!”

As she spoke, Gus, having become aware of her presence, made an almost imperceptible sign of recognition, and in the same quiet manner telegraphed an entreaty to be allowed to join her; upon which Emily frowned and shook her head by way of prohibition, favouring Gus afterwards with a pensive smile, to show that her refusal proceeded less from choice than from necessity. Almost as she did so Lord Bellefield returned, looking annoyed and anxious. “I am obliged to leave you for half-an-hour,” he said, “but you will be perfectly safe here, and I shall return in plenty of time to escort you home. You may depend upon my coming to fetch you.” And almost before he finished speaking he had quitted the box and was gone.

Confused and half-frightened at his sudden departure, Annie remained for a minute or two with her eyes fixed on the door through which he had as it were vanished; when she again glanced towards the stage the stall lately occupied by Augustus Travers was vacant.

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