"Why, he will tell me all that, to be sure, my lord," replied the keeper. "He's a good sort of man, and won't disoblige me, I'll warrant."
"And pray what is his usual occupation?" demanded the peer in a casual way.
"Oh, he sells venison to the dealers in London," replied the keeper; and then suddenly perceiving that he was on the edge of a precipice, he added, "that is, when any of the gentlemen in the neighbourhood want to kill off some of their bucks, he buys them and sends them up to London. I have heard, too," he continued, seeing that his lord listened with an unmoved countenance, as if to something of course--"I have heard, too, that he sends up many a good brace of partridges, and many a pheasant and a hare: but he is a good sort of man, upon the whole; and when he knows a keeper, like, he will not let the people poach and that upon the grounds that he keeps, and that's what makes us have so much game here. I'll warrant the game is better preserved here than anywhere else in the country."
The peer made no observations upon these disjointed pieces of information; but in his own mind concluded, and not without reason, that his keeper was a very great scoundrel. He took care, however, neither by word, look, nor action, to suffer the man he was making use of to perceive what sort of a character he was establishing in his opinion; being fully resolved in his own mind, however, to discharge him as soon after he had served the present purpose as might be found convenient.
Deceit, like every other art, has been wonderfully perfected and refined since first it took its origin in the rude, uncultivated human breast. There can be no doubt whatever that when one man entertains an opinion which he wishes to conceal from another, the first natural effort of his mind would be to tell him the direct contrary; and much refinement and experience in the art must have been acquired before the necessity was ascertained of doing things more delicately, and implying, rather than saying, that one believes another to be an honest man, when one is sure he is a great rogue. As the world proceeded, however, and the liberal science of deceit became so thoroughly studied as to force one, with very few exceptions, to say, as said the Psalmist, "All men are liars," a new refinement was introduced, and it became necessary to know when to cover one's own opinion by a skilful implication of the reverse, when, returning to the original and simple mode, in plain terms to announce the direct contrary of what one feels, and to deceive the most thoroughly by the appearance of the utmost candour.
In the present instance Lord Dewry chose the latter means, and ended the conversation with the keeper by saying, "Well, Harvey, well! I believe you are a very honest fellow. There are ten guineas for you to give the men you are obliged to employ, an earnest of their reward; and if you succeed in catching these gipsies, so as to convict them either of deer-stealing or aggravated poaching, you may count upon fifty guineas and my favour, besides having all your bonâ fide expenses paid."
The man made a low bow, though he did not understand at all what bonâ fide meant; and the peer with a slow step walked to his carriage. The old man and woman who kept the house followed half a step behind, troubling him all the way by questions concerning the superintendence of the place, in regard to which their directions had been full and explicit years before, but by re-demanding which they meant, as usual on such occasions, to insinuate a justification of their late negligence, implying that if they had been properly instructed they would have behaved better. Short and severe were the replies of the baron; and when the carriage-door was at length closed, and the vehicle rolled away, he sunk into thought, feeling that at least one part of his plan was in a fair way for execution, but feeling, likewise, deep, deep in his heart's core, the melancholy conviction--not the less poignant because he strove not to see it--that one crime was lashing him on with a fiery scourge to the commission of many more.
The house he had just visited, and the scenes through which he was passing, had not been without their effect. They had recalled to his mind his brother, who had there lived so long the object of his envy, and now of his deep regret. That brother's virtues, his kindness, his noble generosity, tried to the very utmost by his excesses and demands, often, often returned reproachfully to his mind. All the good and affectionate acts which had seemed as nothing while his own passions and interests existed in opposition, and while his brother lived, had been estimated with terrible exactness as soon as his own hand had placed the impassable barrier of death between them; and the sight of that house now, as it always did, recalled every memory that could aggravate remorse, and stir into an intenser blaze the unquenchable fire that burned his heart.
There, too, he had himself been educated from infancy to manhood; over those lawns and walks he had played in the guileless innocence of youth; under those trees he had sat a thousand times with the dead, in the sweet and hopeful summer-days of boyhood. Their arms clasped round each other's necks, or their hands locked in each other, they had wandered in their hours of play through the calm green shades of the park, or sat beneath the stately oak, reading some lighter book than that appointed for their daily studies. He remembered it all well; and many an individual day, too, would come forward from the crowd of early memories, and stand before his eyes bright and distinct as if it were hardly yet numbered with the past. He could call back even the feelings of those times, the noble and enthusiastic glow of their bosoms when they had read together some great actions, some generous self-devotion, some pious act of friendship, some deed of mighty patriotism; and now, what had those feelings become? In his brother they were extinct in death, or, rather, glorifying him in a brighter world; and with him himself they were but memories; with him it was the feelings that were dead, while he himself lived but to remember them. Nor was his a heart to scoff at their memory as some men might have done. Perhaps, indeed, had his crimes been lighter--had they but reached the grade of vices--had they been of that character which man's blind selfishness can dress up in other garbs, and cover beneath a light robe of wit, or of what we call philosophy, he might have sneered at the sweet and innocent days that forced themselves upon his recollection, and have parried all that was painful in them by a jest. But the terrible, irrevocable, awful deed that he had committed had been weighty enough, not only to break the elastic spring of gayety in his heart for ever, but to leave those sweet early hours of guileless happiness and noble feeling which still flattered him with the thought that he had not always been base, or cruel, or depraved, the least painful of all that series of painful things whereof his memory was alone composed. And yet remorse mingled its poison even with them, and perhaps rendered the agony they produced on the present occasion more poignant, because on that point his heart was not hardened to the lash.
He cast the memories from him as the vehicle rolled on, for he found not only that they were painful, but that other thoughts of the imperious present must have way; and that though he trusted by a new crime to remove some part of the danger of his situation, yet that it was necessary to contemplate his position in every point of view, in order to guard against all that might happen. But here, perhaps, his feelings were even less enviable than those from which he turned. Personal danger, not abstract and distinct, but accompanied by shame, and scorn, and detection, was the first image that presented itself to his mind. To meet the hatred and contempt of the whole world, to be exposed in a court of justice, and on a public scaffold to be pointed and hooted at by the rude populace--to be called the fratricide, the murderer--to undergo the horrors of imprisonment, suspense, trial, condemnation, and execution--and to plunge, loaded with a brother's blood and many another sin, into the wide, dim, terrible hereafter--such were the only objects of his anticipation, if his present schemes should fail.