The funeral was a magnificent one, and though a wet day, there was not a citizen in Paris that did not join the throng, which lined the whole of the way to the cemetery. As the body of the great patriot was borne along every hat was raised, and many among the crowd shed tears. A riot was expected on the occasion, but the people behaved admirably and with great forbearance; the greatest tribute of respect which they could have shewn to the memory of one who had done so much for his country.
The modesty of this great citizen was in perfect accordance with his republican principles; for while President of the French Republic, his card never bore anything more on it than the simple ‘Monsieur Thiers;’ nor did he wear any uniform or decoration other than that one which is so dear to the heart and eye of every true Frenchman, ‘the Legion of Honour.’ Surely never did a worthier breast bear that famous Cross than that of the man who, despite every obstacle both physical and moral, and despite evil prognostications, bitter taunts, and the crushing hand of poverty, rose by the grand yet simple force of his own indomitable will from the position of a labourer’s son to that of the ruler of a mighty nation. But even greater than all this was the fact, that having attained to this grand position, he was ready, at what he believed to be the call of duty, to lay aside his dignity, to step from his proud position, and once more to assume the humbler rôle of a private citizen. Such a sublime act of self-abnegation was sufficient to assure to him the enthusiastic love and respect of an intelligent people, and the esteem of the whole world, which may be said to have joined with France in weaving a chaplet of immortelles to place upon the tomb of one whose memory will be revered by all who respect indomitable perseverance and true nobility of character.
[HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.]
CHAPTER III.—THE LETTER.
When Sir Sykes, left alone, addressed himself to the perusal of the crumpled letter which he had hitherto crushed in his clenched hand, it was with no light repugnance that he applied himself to the task. Slowly, and with shaking fingers, he unfolded and smoothed the ruffled paper, spread it on the table before him, and not hastily, but with a deliberate care that was evidently painful to him, read as follows: ‘Although a stranger to you, Sir Sykes Denzil, Baronet, I am no stranger to what took place on March 24, 18—. Should you wish this matter to remain, as it has hitherto done, untalked of by the world, I must request that you will meet me this evening at The Traveller’s Rest, by the cross-roads. I shall wait there for you until ten o’clock to-night, and will then name the terms on which alone you can reckon on my future silence.—Inquire for yours respectfully, Dick Hold, staying at The Traveller’s Rest.’
The baronet read and re-read this letter with the patient endurance of a sufferer under the surgeon’s knife. Nothing but his labouring breath and the deepening of the lines around his mouth and the furrows on his high forehead, betrayed the pain that this precious document, indited in a large sprawling hand, occasioned him. When he had gone through it for the second time, he rose, and filling a glass with water from a bottle that stood on a side-table, he drank a deep draught, and then paced to and fro with hasty irregular steps, as some men do when suddenly called upon for earnest thought and prompt decision.
‘I will not go!’ he said authoritatively, but in a low voice—‘I will not go.’
Such a peremptory summons as that which he had received implied more than it stated. It was couched in terms which were sufficiently civil; but the tone was still that of command, not of entreaty or persuasion. Most gentlemen of the degree of Sir Sykes would have treated such a demand either as a piece of insufferable insolence or as the freak of a madman. The baronet knew well enough what sort of reception his neighbours, Lord Wolverhampton, Carew of Carew, or Fulford of Carstennis, would have given to a request so impudent. He was, as they were, a justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant, owner of a fine estate, one whose name was mentioned with respect wherever men did congregate.
The meekest of us all are apt to rebel against unwarranted dictation. And Sir Sykes was not meek. His friends and his servants—lynx-eyed as we are apt to be to the foibles of others—knew that he was in his unobtrusive way a proud man. The stronger, therefore, must have been the influence that drew him, as the magnet draws iron to itself, towards that unsavoury house of entertainment whence his unknown correspondent had dated his missive. The first dressing-bell clanged out its call unheeded, and it was only when the second bell rang that Sir Sykes recalled his wandering thoughts sufficiently to remember that it was time for him to dress, and that whatever cares might be busy at his heart, he must yet wear his mask decorously before the world. Dinner on that day at Carbery Court was not a peculiarly genial meal. The baronet had taken, with his accustomed regularity, his place at the table; but he was pale, and looked older by some years than he had done a few hours since. Yet he resented Lucy’s half-timid inquiry: ‘You are not ill, papa, I hope?’ and quietly declared that he was perfectly well. The domestic relations differ so much in varying conditions of life, that there are parents whose every thought and deed appear to be the common property of the home circle, and others who sanction no trespass on the inner self, the to auton of the Greeks, which each of us carries in the recesses of his own heart.