THE DYNAMITER

 

 

 

 

TO MESSRS. COLE AND COX, POLICE OFFICERS

 

 

 

Gentlemen,--In the volume now in your hands, the authors have

touched upon that ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory

to have contended.  It were a waste of ink to do so in a serious

spirit.  Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled

strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and where

reason and humanity can still relish the temptation.  Horror, in

this case, is due to Mr. Parnell:  he sits before posterity silent,

Mr. Forster's appeal echoing down the ages.  Horror is due to

ourselves, in that we have so long coquetted with political crime;

not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to

consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like

the schoolboy with the penny tale, applauding what was specious.

When it touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false

to the imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less

cruel and no less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our

false deities.

 

But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our

defenders.  Whoever be in the right in this great and confused war

of politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the

bully, dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest;--your side,

your part, is at least pure of doubt.  Yours is the side of the

child, of the breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust.

If our society were the mere kingdom of the devil (as indeed it

wears some of his colours) it yet embraces many precious elements

and many innocent persons whom it is a glory to defend.  Courage

and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little

recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their

commemoration in an historical act.  History, which will represent

Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and

Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget

Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr.

Cox coming coolly to his aid.

 

Robert Louis Stevenson

Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson

 

 

 

A NOTE FOR THE READER

 

 

 

It is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this

volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor:  the first

series of NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS.  The loss is yours--and mine; or to

be more exact, my publishers'.  But if you are thus unlucky, the

least I can do is to pass you a hint.  When you shall find a

reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the

Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, you must be prepared

to recognise, under his features, no less a person than Prince

Florizel of Bohemia, formerly one of the magnates of Europe, now

dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in the tobacco trade.

 

R. L. S.

 

 

 

NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

 

A SECOND SERIES

 

THE DYNAMITER

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN

 

 

 

In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more

precise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two

young men of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation.

The first, who was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best

fashion, hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his

companion.

 

'What!' he cried, 'Paul Somerset!'

 

'I am indeed Paul Somerset,' returned the other, 'or what remains

of him after a well-deserved experience of poverty and law.  But in

you, Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said,

without hyperbole, to write no wrinkle on your azure brow.'

 

'All,' replied Challoner, 'is not gold that glitters.  But we are

here in an ill posture for confidences, and interrupt the movement

of these ladies.  Let us, if you please, find a more private

corner.'

 

'If you will allow me to guide you,' replied Somerset, 'I will

offer you the best cigar in London.'

 

And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a

brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in Rupert Street,

Soho.  The entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic

Highlanders of wood which have almost risen to the standing of

antiquities; and across the window-glass, which sheltered the usual

display of pipes, tobacco, and cigars, there ran the gilded legend:

'Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T. Godall.'  The interior of the shop was

small, but commodious and ornate; the salesman grave, smiling, and

urbane; and the two young men, each puffing a select regalia, had

soon taken their places on a sofa of mouse-coloured plush and

proceeded to exchange their stories.

 

'I am now,' said Somerset, 'a barrister; but Providence and the

attorneys have hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine.  A

select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my

afternoons, as Mr. Godall could testify, have been generally passed

in this divan; and my mornings, I have taken the precaution to

abbreviate by not rising before twelve.  At this rate, my little

patrimony was very rapidly, and I am proud to remember, most

agreeably expended.  Since then a gentleman, who has really nothing

else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my maternal uncle,

deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if you behold

me once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in my

favourite quarter, you will readily divine that I have come into a

fortune.'

 

'I should not have supposed so,' replied Challoner.  'But doubtless

I met you on the way to your tailors.'

 

'It is a visit that I purpose to delay,' returned Somerset, with a

smile.  'My fortune has definite limits.  It consists, or rather

this morning it consisted, of one hundred pounds.'

 

'That is certainly odd,' said Challoner; 'yes, certainly the

coincidence is strange.  I am myself reduced to the same margin.'

 

'You!' cried Somerset.  'And yet Solomon in all his glory--'

 

'Such is the fact.  I am, dear boy, on my last legs,' said

Challoner.  'Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have

scarcely a decent trouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I

would this instant set about some sort of work or commerce.  With a

hundred pounds for capital, a man should push his way.'

 

'It may be,' returned Somerset; 'but what to do with mine is more

than I can fancy.  Mr. Godall,' he added, addressing the salesman,

'you are a man who knows the world:  what can a young fellow of

reasonable education do with a hundred pounds?'

 

'It depends,' replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot.  'The

power of money is an article of faith in which I profess myself a

sceptic.  A hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a

year; with somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night;

and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes

on the Stock Exchange.  If you are of that stamp of man that rises,

a penny would be as useful; if you belong to those that fall, a

penny would be no more useless.  When I was myself thrown

unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to possess an art:

I knew a good cigar.  Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?'

 

'Not even law,' was the reply.

 

'The answer is worthy of a sage,' returned Mr. Godall.  'And you,

sir,' he continued, turning to Challoner, 'as the friend of Mr.

Somerset, may I be allowed to address you the same question?'

 

'Well,' replied Challoner, 'I play a fair hand at whist.'

 

'How many persons are there in London,' returned the salesman, 'who

have two-and-thirty teeth?  Believe me, young gentleman, there are

more still who play a fair hand at whist.  Whist, sir, is wide as

the world; 'tis an accomplishment like breathing.  I once knew a

youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor of

England; the design was certainly ambitious; but I find it less

excessive than that of the man who aspires to make a livelihood by

whist.'

 

'Dear me,' said Challoner, 'I am afraid I shall have to fall to be

a working man.'

 

'Fall to be a working man?' echoed Mr. Godall.  'Suppose a rural

dean to be unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain

were cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge?  The ignorance

of your middle class surprises me.  Outside itself, it thinks the

world to lie quite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common

degradation; but to the eye of the observer, all ranks are seen to

stand in ordered hierarchies, and each adorned with its particular

aptitudes and knowledge.  By the defects of your education you are

more disqualified to be a working man than to be the ruler of an

empire.  The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learned arts--those

which alone are safe from the competition of insurgent laymen--are

those which give his title to the artisan.'

 

'This is a very pompous fellow,' said Challoner, in the ear of his

companion.

 

'He is immense,' said Somerset.

 

Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young

fellow made his appearance, and rather bashfully requested some

tobacco.  He was younger than the others; and, in a somewhat

meaningless and altogether English way, he was a handsome lad.

When he had been served, and had lighted his pipe and taken his

place upon the sofa, he recalled himself to Challoner by the name

of Desborough.

 

'Desborough, to be sure,' cried Challoner.  'Well, Desborough, and

what do you do?'

 

'The fact is,' said Desborough, 'that I am doing nothing.'

 

'A private fortune possibly?' inquired the other.

 

'Well, no,' replied Desborough, rather sulkily.  'The fact is that

I am waiting for something to turn up.'

 

'All in the same boat!' cried Somerset.  'And have you, too, one

hundred pounds?'

 

'Worse luck,' said Mr. Desborough.

 

'This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall,' said Somerset:  'Three

futiles.'

 

'A character of this crowded age,' returned the salesman.

 

'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit

one fact, and one fact only:  that I am futile, that he is futile,

and that we are all three as futile as the devil.  What am I?  I

have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography,

smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial

astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's

end, as impotent as any baby.  I have a prodigious contempt for my

maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle to deny it, I should

simply resolve into my elements like an unstable mixture.  I begin

to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the

bottom--were it only literature.  And yet, sir, the man of the

world is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an

extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at

home; he has seen life in all its phases; and it is impossible but

that this great habit of existence should bear fruit.  I count

myself a man of the world, accomplished, CAP-A-PIE.  So do you,

Challoner.  And you, Mr. Desborough?'

 

'Oh yes,' returned the young man.

 

'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world,

without a trade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of

the universe (for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in

the midst of the chief mass of people, and within ear-shot of the

most continuous chink of money on the surface of the globe.  Sir,

as civilised men, what do we do?  I will show you.  You take in a

paper?'

 

'I take,' said Mr. Godall solemnly, 'the best paper in the world,

the Standard.'

 

'Good,' resumed Somerset.  'I now hold it in my hand, the voice of

the world, a telephone repeating all men's wants.  I open it, and

where my eye first falls--well, no, not Morrison's Pills--but here,

sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was

seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society.  Here is a

want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude:  "TWO HUNDRED

POUNDS REWARD.--The above reward will be paid to any person giving

information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed

yesterday in the neighbourhood of the Green Park.  He was over six

feet in height, with shoulders disproportionately broad, close

shaved, with black moustaches, and wearing a sealskin great-coat."

There, gentlemen, our fortune, if not made, is founded.'

 

'Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?'

inquired Challoner.

 

'Do I propose it?  No, sir,' cried Somerset.  'It is reason,

destiny, the plain face of the world, that commands and imposes it.

Here all our merits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers

of conversation, vast stores of unconnected knowledge, all that we

are and have builds up the character of the complete detective.  It

is, in short, the only profession for a gentleman.'

 

'The proposition is perhaps excessive,' replied Challoner; 'for

hitherto I own I have regarded it as of all dirty, sneaking, and

ungentlemanly trades, the least and lowest.'

 

'To defend society?' asked Somerset; 'to stake one's life for

others? to deracinate occult and powerful evil?  I appeal to Mr.

Godall.  He, at least, as a philosophic looker-on at life, will

spit upon such philistine opinions.  He knows that the policeman,

as he is called upon continually to face greater odds, and that

both worse equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence

a more noble hero than the soldier.  Do you, by any chance, deceive

yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect,

from the best army ever marshalled, and on the most momentous

battle-field, the conduct of a common constable at Peckham Rye?'

{1}

 

'I did not understand we were to join the force,' said Challoner.

 

'Nor shall we.  These are the hands; but here--here, sir, is the

head,' cried Somerset.  'Enough; it is decreed.  We shall hunt down

this miscreant in the sealskin coat.'

 

'Suppose that we agreed,' retorted Challoner, 'you have no plan, no

knowledge; you know not where to seek for a beginning.'

 

'Challoner!' cried Somerset, 'is it possible that you hold the

doctrine of Free Will?  And are you devoid of any tincture of

philosophy, that you should harp on such exploded fallacies?

Chance, the blind Madonna of the Pagan, rules this terrestrial

bustle; and in Chance I place my sole reliance.  Chance has brought

us three together; when we next separate and go forth our several

ways, Chance will continually drag before our careless eyes a

thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but to the

countless mysteries by which we live surrounded.  Then comes the

part of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred.  This

clue, which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as

a cat, he leaps upon it, makes it his, follows it with craft and

passion, and from one trifling circumstance divines a world.'

 

'Just so,' said Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you should

recognise these virtues in yourself.  But in the meanwhile, dear

boy, I own myself incapable of joining.  I was neither born nor

bred as a detective, but as a placable and very thirsty gentleman;

and, for my part, I begin to weary for a drink.  As for clues and

adventures, the only adventure that is ever likely to occur to me

will be an adventure with a bailiff.'

 

'Now there is the fallacy,' cried Somerset.  'There I catch the

secret of your futility in life.  The world teems and bubbles with

adventure; it besieges you along the street:  hands waving out of

windows, swindlers coming up and swearing they knew you when you

were abroad, affable and doubtful people of all sorts and

conditions begging and truckling for your notice.  But not you:

you turn away, you walk your seedy mill round, you must go the

dullest way.  Now here, I beg of you, the next adventure that

offers itself, embrace it in with both your arms; whatever it

looks, grimy or romantic, grasp it.  I will do the like; the devil

is in it, but at least we shall have fun; and each in turn we shall

narrate the story of our fortunes to my philosophic friend of the

divan, the great Godall, now hearing me with inward joy.  Come, is

it a bargain?  Will you, indeed, both promise to welcome every

chance that offers, to plunge boldly into every opening, and,

keeping the eye wary and the head composed, to study and piece

together all that happens?  Come, promise:  let me open to you the

doors of the great profession of intrigue.'

 

'It is not much in my way,' said Challoner, 'but, since you make a

point of it, amen.'

 

'I don't mind promising,' said Desborough, 'but nothing will happen

to me.'

 

'O faithless ones!' cried Somerset.  'But at least I have your

promises; and Godall, I perceive, is transported with delight.'

 

'I promise myself at least much pleasure from your various

narratives,' said the salesman, with the customary calm polish of

his manner.

 

'And now, gentlemen,' concluded Somerset, 'let us separate.  I

hasten to put myself in fortune's way.  Hark how, in this quiet

corner, London roars like the noise of battle; four million

destinies are here concentred; and in the strong panoply of one

hundred pounds, payable to the bearer, I am about to plunge into

that web.'

 

 

 

CHALLONER'S ADVENTURE:  THE SQUIRE OF DAMES

 

 

 

Mr. Edward Challoner had set up lodgings in the suburb of Putney,

where he enjoyed a parlour and bedroom and the sincere esteem of

the people of the house.  To this remote home he found himself, at

a very early hour in the morning of the next day, condemned to set

forth on foot.  He was a young man of a portly habit; no lover of

the exercises of the body; bland, sedentary, patient of delay, a

prop of omnibuses.  In happier days he would have chartered a cab;

but these luxuries were now denied him; and with what courage he

could muster he addressed himself to walk.

 

It was then the height of the season and the summer; the weather

was serene and cloudless; and as he paced under the blinded houses

and along the vacant streets, the chill of the dawn had fled, and

some of the warmth and all the brightness of the July day already

shone upon the city.  He walked at first in a profound abstraction,

bitterly reviewing and repenting his performances at whist; but as

he advanced into the labyrinth of the south-west, his ear was

gradually mastered by the silence.  Street after street looked down

upon his solitary figure, house after house echoed upon his passage

with a ghostly jar, shop after shop displayed its shuttered front

and its commercial legend; and meanwhile he steered his course,

under day's effulgent dome and through this encampment of diurnal

sleepers, lonely as a ship.

 

'Here,' he reflected, 'if I were like my scatter-brained companion,

here were indeed the scene where I might look for an adventure.

Here, in broad day, the streets are secret as in the blackest night

of January, and in the midst of some four million sleepers,

solitary as the woods of Yucatan.  If I but raise my voice I could

summon up the number of an army, and yet the grave is not more

silent than this city of sleep.'

 

He was still following these quaint and serious musings when he

came into a street of more mingled ingredients than was common in

the quarter.  Here, on the one hand, framed in walls and the green

tops of trees, were several of those discreet, bijou residences on

which propriety is apt to look askance.  Here, too, were many of

the brick-fronted barracks of the poor; a plaster cow, perhaps,

serving as ensign to a dairy, or a ticket announcing the business

of the mangler.  Before one such house, that stood a little

separate among walled gardens, a cat was playing with a straw, and

Challoner paused a moment, looking on this sleek and solitary

creature, who seemed an emblem of the neighbouring peace.  With the

cessation of the sound of his own steps the silence fell dead; the

house stood smokeless:  the blinds down, the whole machinery of

life arrested; and it seemed to Challoner that he should hear the

breathing of the sleepers.

 

As he so stood, he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation

from within.  This was followed by a monstrous hissing and

simmering as from a kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the

same time from every chink of door and window spirted an ill-

smelling vapour.  The cat disappeared with a cry.  Within the

lodging-house feet pounded on the stairs; the door flew back,

emitting clouds of smoke; and two men and an elegantly dressed

young lady tumbled forth into the street and fled without a word.

The hissing had already ceased, the smoke was melting in the air,

the whole event had come and gone as in a dream, and still

Challoner was rooted to the spot.  At last his reason and his fear

awoke together, and with the most unwonted energy he fell to

running.

 

Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had

resumed his sober gait and begun to piece together, out of the

confused report of his senses, some theory of the occurrence.  But

the occasion of the sounds and stench that had so suddenly assailed

him, and the strange conjunction of fugitives whom he had seen to

issue from the house, were mysteries beyond his plummet.  With an

obscure awe he considered them in his mind, continuing, meanwhile,

to thread the web of streets, and once more alone in morning

sunshine.

 

In his first retreat he had entirely wandered; and now, steering

vaguely west, it was his luck to light upon an unpretending street,

which presently widened so as to admit a strip of gardens in the

midst.  Here was quite a stir of birds; even at that hour, the

shadow of the leaves was grateful; instead of the burnt atmosphere

of cities, there was something brisk and rural in the air; and

Challoner paced forward, his eyes upon the pavement and his mind

running upon distant scenes, till he was recalled, upon a sudden,

by a wall that blocked his further progress.  This street, whose

name I have forgotten, is no thoroughfare.

 

He was not the first who had wandered there that morning; for as he

raised his eyes with an agreeable deliberation, they alighted on

the figure of a girl, in whom he was struck to recognise the third

of the incongruous fugitives.  She had run there, seemingly,

blindfold; the wall had checked her career:  and being entirely

wearied, she had sunk upon the ground beside the garden railings,

soiling her dress among the summer dust.  Each saw the other in the

same instant of time; and she, with one wild look, sprang to her

feet and began to hurry from the scene.

 

Challoner was doubly startled to meet once more the heroine of his

adventure, and to observe the fear with which she shunned him.

Pity and alarm, in nearly equal forces, contested the possession of

his mind; and yet, in spite of both, he saw himself condemned to

follow in the lady's wake.  He did so gingerly, as fearing to

increase her terrors; but, tread as lightly as he might, his

footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty street.  Their sound

appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for scarce had he

begun to follow ere she paused.  A second time she addressed

herself to flight; and a second time she paused.  Then she turned

about, and with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance

of timidity, drew near to the young man.  He on his side continued

to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness.  At

length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim

over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.

 

'Are you an English gentleman?' she cried.

 

The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation.  He was the

spirit of fine courtesy, and would have blushed to fail in his

devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse

from amorous adventures.  He looked east and west; but the houses

that looked down upon this interview remained inexorably shut; and

he saw himself, though in the full glare of the day's eye, cut off

from any human intervention.  His looks returned at last upon the

suppliant.  He remarked with irritation that she was charming both

in face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady

undeniable; the picture of distress and innocence; weeping and lost

in the city of diurnal sleep.

 

'Madam,' he said, 'I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion;

and if I have appeared to follow you, the fault is in this street,

which has deceived us both.'  An unmistakable relief appeared upon

the lady's face.  'I might have guessed it!' she exclaimed.  'Thank

you a thousand times!  But at this hour, in this appalling silence,

and among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors--oh, lost

in them!' she cried, her face blanching at the words.  'I beg you

to lend me your arm,' she added with the loveliest, suppliant

inflection.  'I dare not go alone; my nerve is gone--I had a shock,

oh, what a shock!  I beg of you to be my escort.'

 

'My dear madam,' responded Challoner heavily, 'my arm is at your

service.'

 

 

'She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her

sobs; and the next, with feverish hurry, began to lead him in the

direction of the city.  One thing was plain, among so much that was

obscure:  it was plain her fears were genuine.  Still, as she went,

she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a

person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers.  To Challoner

her terror was at once repugnant and infectious; it gained and

mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and

longed for release.

 

'Madam,' he said at last, 'I am, of course, charmed to be of use to

any lady; but I confess I was bound in a direction opposite to that

you follow, and a word of explanation--'

 

'Hush!' she sobbed, 'not here--not here!'

 

The blood of Challoner ran cold.  He might have thought the lady

mad; but his memory was charged with more perilous stuff; and in

view of the detonation, the smoke and the flight of the ill-

assorted trio, his mind was lost among mysteries.  So they

continued to thread the maze of streets in silence, with the speed

of a guilty flight, and both thrilling with incommunicable terrors.

In time, however, and above all by their quick pace of walking, the

pair began to rise to firmer spirits; the lady ceased to peer about

the corners; and Challoner, emboldened by the resonant tread and

distant figure of a constable, returned to the charge with more of

spirit and directness.

 

'I thought,' said he, in the tone of conversation, 'that I had

indistinctly perceived you leaving a villa in the company of two

gentlemen.'

 

'Oh!' she said, 'you need not fear to wound me by the truth.  You

saw me flee from a common lodging-house, and my companions were not

gentlemen.  In such a case, the best of compliments is to be

frank.'

 

'I thought,' resumed Challoner, encouraged as much as he was

surprised by the spirit of her reply, 'to have perceived, besides,

a certain odour.  A noise, too--I do not know to what I should

compare it--'

 

'Silence!' she cried.  'You do not know the danger you invoke.

Wait, only wait; and as soon as we have left those streets, and got

beyond the reach of listeners, all shall be explained.  Meanwhile,

avoid the topic.  What a sight is this sleeping city!' she

exclaimed; and then, with a most thrilling voice, '"Dear God," she

quoted, "the very houses seem asleep, and all that mighty heart is

lying still."'

 

'I perceive, madam,' said he, 'you are a reader.'

 

'I am more than that,' she answered, with a sigh.  'I am a girl

condemned to thoughts beyond her age; and so untoward is my fate,

that this walk upon the arm of a stranger is like an interlude of

peace.'

 

They had come by this time to the neighbourhood of the Victoria

Station and here, at a street corner, the young lady paused,

withdrew her arm from Challoner's, and looked up and down as though

in pain or indecision.  Then, with a lovely change of countenance,

and laying her gloved hand upon his arm -

 

'What you already think of me,' she said, 'I tremble to conceive;

yet I must here condemn myself still further.  Here I must leave

you, and here I beseech you to wait for my return.  Do not attempt

to follow me or spy upon my actions.  Suspend yet awhile your

judgment of a girl as innocent as your own sister; and do not,

above all, desert me.  Stranger as you are, I have none else to

look to.  You see me in sorrow and great fear; you are a gentleman,

courteous and kind:  and when I beg for a few minutes' patience, I

make sure beforehand you will not deny me.'

 

Challoner grudgingly promised; and the young lady, with a grateful

eye-shot, vanished round the corner.  But the force of her appeal

had been a little blunted; for the young man was not only destitute

of sisters, but of any female relative nearer than a great-aunt in

Wales.  Now he was alone, besides, the spell that he had hitherto

obeyed began to weaken; he considered his behaviour with a sneer;

and plucking up the spirit of revolt, he started in pursuit.  The

reader, if he has ever plied the fascinating trade of the

noctambulist, will not be unaware that, in the neighbourhood of the

great railway centres, certain early taverns inaugurate the

business of the day.  It was into one of these that Challoner,

coming round the corner of the block, beheld his charming companion

disappear.  To say he was surprised were inexact, for he had long

since left that sentiment behind him.  Acute disgust and

disappointment seized upon his soul; and with silent oaths, he

damned this commonplace enchantress.  She had scarce been gone a

second, ere the swing-doors reopened, and she appeared again in

company with a young man of mean and slouching attire.  For some

five or six exchanges they conversed together with an animated air;

then the fellow shouldered again into the tap; and the young lady,

with something swifter than a walk, retraced her steps towards

Challoner.  He saw her coming, a miracle of grace; her ankle, as

she hurried, flashing from her dress; her movements eloquent of

speed and youth; and though he still entertained some thoughts of

flight, they grew miserably fainter as the distance lessened.

Against mere beauty he was proof:  it was her unmistakable

gentility that now robbed him of the courage of his cowardice.

With a proved adventuress he had acted strictly on his right; with

one who, in spite of all, he could not quite deny to be a lady, he

found himself disarmed.  At the very corner from whence he had

spied upon her interview, she came upon him, still transfixed, and-

-'Ah!' she cried, with a bright flush of colour.  'Ah!

Ungenerous!'

 

The sharpness of the attack somewhat restored the Squire of Dames

to the possession of himself.

 

'Madam,' he returned, with a fair show of stoutness, 'I do not

think that hitherto you can complain of any lack of generosity; I

have suffered myself to be led over a considerable portion of the

metropolis; and if I now request you to discharge me of my office

of protector, you have friends at hand who will be glad of the

succession.'

 

She stood a moment dumb.

 

'It is well,' she said.  'Go! go, and may God help me!  You have

seen me--me, an innocent girl! fleeing from a dire catastrophe and

haunted by sinister men; and neither pity, curiosity, nor honour

move you to await my explanation or to help in my distress.  Go!'

she repeated.  'I am lost indeed.'  And with a passionate gesture

she turned and fled along the street.

 

Challoner observed her retreat and disappear, an almost intolerable

sense of guilt contending with the profound sense that he was being

gulled.  She was no sooner gone than the first of these feelings

took the upper hand; he felt, if he had done her less than justice,

that his conduct was a perfect model of the ungracious; the

cultured tone of her voice, her choice of language, and the elegant

decorum of her movements, cried out aloud against a harsh

construction; and between penitence and curiosity he began slowly

to follow in her wake.  At the corner he had her once more full in

view.  Her speed was failing like a stricken bird's.  Even as he

looked, she threw her arm out gropingly, and fell and leaned

against the wall.  At the spectacle, Challoner's fortitude gave

way.  In a few strides he overtook her and, for the first time

removing his hat, assured her in the most moving terms of his

entire respect and firm desire to help her.  He spoke at first

unheeded; but gradually it appeared that she began to comprehend

his words; she moved a little, and drew herself upright; and

finally, as with a sudden movement of forgiveness, turned on the

young man a countenance in which reproach and gratitude were

mingled.  'Ah, madam,' he cried, 'use me as you will!'  And once

more, but now with a great air of deference, he offered her the

conduct of his arm.  She took it with a sigh that struck him to the

heart; and they began once more to trace the deserted streets.  But

now her steps, as though exhausted by emotion, began to linger on

the way; she leaned the more heavily upon his arm; and he, like the

parent bird, stooped fondly above his drooping convoy.  Her

physical distress was not accompanied by any failing of her

spirits; and hearing her strike so soon into a playful and charming

vein of talk, Challoner could not sufficiently admire the

elasticity of his companion's nature.  'Let me forget,' she had

said, 'for one half hour, let me forget;' and sure enough, with the

very word, her sorrows appeared to be forgotten.  Before every

house she paused, invented a name for the proprietor, and sketched

his character:  here lived the old general whom she was to marry on

the fifth of the next month, there was the mansion of the rich

widow who had set her heart on Challoner; and though she still hung

wearily on the young man's arm, her laughter sounded low and

pleasant in his ears.  'Ah,' she sighed, by way of commentary, 'in

such a life as mine I must seize tight hold of any happiness that I

can find.'

 

When they arrived, in this leisurely manner, at the head of

Grosvenor Place, the gates of the park were opening and the

bedraggled company of night-walkers were being at last admitted

into that paradise of lawns.  Challoner and his companion followed

the movement, and walked for awhile in silence in that

tatterdemalion crowd; but as one after another, weary with the

night's patrolling of the city pavement, sank upon the benches or

wandered into separate paths, the vast extent of the park had soon

utterly swallowed up the last of these intruders; and the pair

proceeded on their way alone in the grateful quiet of the morning.

 

Presently they came in sight of a bench, standing very open on a

mound of turf.  The young lady looked about her with relief.

 

'Here,' she said, 'here at last we are secure from listeners.

Here, then, you shall learn and judge my history.  I could not bear

that we should part, and that you should still suppose your

kindness squandered upon one who was unworthy.'

 

Thereupon she sat down upon the bench, and motioning Challoner to

take a place immediately beside her, began in the following words,

and with the greatest appearance of enjoyment, to narrate the story

of her life.

 

 

 

STORY OF THE DESTROYING ANGEL

 

 

 

My father was a native of England, son of a cadet of a great,

ancient, but untitled family; and by some event, fault or

misfortune, he was driven to flee from the land of his birth and to

lay aside the name of his ancestors.  He sought the States; and

instead of lingering in effeminate cities, pushed at once into the

far West with an exploring party of frontiersmen.  He was no

ordinary traveller; for he was not only brave and impetuous by

character, but learned in many sciences, and above all in botany,

which he particularly loved.  Thus it fell that, before many

months, Fremont himself, the nominal leader of the troop, courted

and bowed to his opinion.

 

They had pushed, as I have said, into the still unknown regions of

the West.  For some time they followed the track of Mormon

caravans, guiding themselves in that vast and melancholy desert by

the skeletons of men and animals.  Then they inclined their route a

little to the north, and, losing even these dire memorials, came

into a country of forbidding stillness.

 

I have often heard my father dwell upon the features of that ride:

rock, cliff, and barren moor alternated; the streams were very far

between; and neither beast nor bird disturbed the solitude.  On the

fortieth day they had already run so short of food that it was

judged advisable to call a halt and scatter upon all sides to hunt.

A great fire was built, that its smoke might serve to rally them;

and each man of the party mounted and struck off at a venture into

the surrounding desert.

 

My father rode for many hours with a steep range of cliffs upon the

one hand, very black and horrible; and upon the other an unwatered

vale dotted with boulders like the site of some subverted city.  At

length he found the slot of a great animal, and from the claw-marks

and the hair among the brush, judged that he was on the track of a

cinnamon bear of most unusual size.  He quickened the pace of his

steed, and still following the quarry, came at last to the division

of two watersheds.  On the far side the country was exceeding

intricate and difficult, heaped with boulders, and dotted here and

there with a few pines, which seemed to indicate the neighbourhood

of water.  Here, then, he picketed his horse, and relying on his

trusty rifle, advanced alone into that wilderness.

 

Presently, in the great silence that reigned, he was aware of the

sound of running water to his right; and leaning in that direction,

was rewarded by a scene of natural wonder and human pathos

strangely intermixed.  The stream ran at the bottom of a narrow and

winding passage, whose wall-like sides of rock were sometimes for

miles together unscalable by man.  The water, when the stream was

swelled with rains, must have filled it from side to side; the

sun's rays only plumbed it in the hour of noon; the wind, in that

narrow and damp funnel, blew tempestuously.  And yet, in the bottom

of this den, immediately below my father's eyes as he leaned over

the margin of the cliff, a party of some half a hundred men, women,

and children lay scattered uneasily among the rocks.  They lay some

upon their backs, some prone, and not one stirring; their upturned

faces seemed all of an extraordinary paleness and emaciation; and

from time to time, above the washing of the stream, a faint sound

of moaning mounted to my father's ears.

 

While he thus looked, an old man got staggering to his feet,

unwound his blanket, and laid it, with great gentleness, on a young

girl who sat hard by propped against a rock.  The girl did not seem

to be conscious of the act; and the old man, after having looked

upon her with the most engaging pity, returned to his former bed

and lay down again uncovered on the turf.  But the scene had not

passed without observation even in that starving camp.  From the

very outskirts of the party, a man with a white beard and seemingly

of venerable years, rose upon his knees, and came crawling

stealthily among the sleepers towards the girl; and judge of my

father's indignation, when he beheld this cowardly miscreant strip

from her both the coverings and return with them to his original

position.  Here he lay down for a while below his spoils, and, as

my father imagined, feigned to be asleep; but presently he had

raised himself again upon one elbow, looked with sharp scrutiny at

his companions, and then swiftly carried his hand into his bosom

and thence to his mouth.  By the movement of his jaws he must be

eating; in that camp of famine he had reserved a store of

nourishment; and while his companions lay in the stupor of

approaching death, secretly restored his powers.

 

My father was so incensed at what he saw that he raised his rifle;

and but for an accident, he has often declared, he would have shot

the fellow dead upon the spot.  How different would then have been

my history!  But it was not to be:  even as he raised the barrel,

his eye lighted on the bear, as it crawled along a ledge some way

below him; and ceding to the hunters instinct, it was at the brute,

not at the man, that he discharged his piece.  The bear leaped and

fell into a pool of the river; the canyon re-echoed the report; and

in a moment the camp was afoot.  With cries that were scarce human,

stumbling, falling and throwing each other down, these starving

people rushed upon the quarry; and before my father, climbing down

by the ledge, had time to reach the level of the stream, many were

already satisfying their hunger on the raw flesh, and a fire was

being built by the more dainty.

 

His arrival was for some time unremarked.  He stood in the midst of

these tottering and clay-faced marionettes; he was surrounded by

their cries; but their whole soul was fixed on the dead carcass;

even those who were too weak to move, lay, half-turned over, with

their eyes riveted upon the bear; and my father, seeing himself

stand as though invisible in the thick of this dreary hubbub, was

seized with a desire to weep.  A touch upon the arm restrained him.

Turning about, he found himself face to face with the old man he

had so nearly killed; and yet, at the second glance, recognised him

for no old man at all, but one in the full strength of his years,

and of a strong, speaking, and intellectual countenance stigmatised

by weariness and famine.  He beckoned my father near the cliff, and

there, in the most private whisper, begged for brandy.  My father

looked at him with scorn:  'You remind me,' he said, 'of a

neglected duty.  Here is my flask; it contains enough, I trust, to

revive the women of your party; and I will begin with her whom I

saw you robbing of her blankets.'  And with that, not heeding his

appeals, my father turned his back upon the egoist.

 

The girl still lay reclined against the rock; she lay too far sunk

in the first stage of death to have observed the bustle round her

couch; but when my father had raised her head, put the flask to her

lips, and forced or aided her to swallow some drops of the

restorative, she opened her languid eyes and smiled upon him

faintly.  Never was there a smile of a more touching sweetness;

never were eyes more deeply violet, more honestly eloquent of the

soul!  I speak with knowledge, for these were the same eyes that

smiled upon me in the cradle.  From her who was to be his wife, my

father, still jealously watched and followed by the man with the

grey beard, carried his attentions to all the women of the party,

and gave the last drainings of his flask to those among the men who

seemed in the most need.

 

'Is there none left? not a drop for me?' said the man with the

beard.

 

'Not one drop,' replied my father; 'and if you find yourself in

want, let me counsel you to put your hand into the pocket of your

coat.'

 

'Ah!' cried the other, 'you misjudge me.  You think me one who

clings to life for selfish and commonplace considerations.  But let

me tell you, that were all this caravan to perish, the world would

but be lightened of a weight.  These are but human insects,

pullulating, thick as May-flies, in the slums of European cities,

whom I myself have plucked from degradation and misery, from the

dung-heap and gin-palace door.  And you compare their lives with

mine!'

 

'You are then a Mormon missionary?' asked my father.

 

'Oh!' cried the man, with a strange smile, 'a Mormon missionary if

you will!  I value not the title.  Were I no more than that, I

could have died without a murmur.  But with my life as a physician

is bound up the knowledge of great secrets and the future of man.

This it was, when we missed the caravan, tried for a short cut and

wandered to this desolate ravine, that ate into my soul, and, in

five days, has changed my beard from ebony to silver.'

 

'And you are a physician,' mused my father, looking on his face,

'bound by oath to succour man in his distresses.'

 

'Sir,' returned the Mormon, 'my name is Grierson:  you will hear

that name again; and you will then understand that my duty was not

to this caravan of paupers, but to mankind at large.'

 

My father turned to the remainder of the party, who were now

sufficiently revived to hear; told them that he would set off at

once to bring help from his own party; 'and,' he added, 'if you be

again reduced to such extremities, look round you, and you will see

the earth strewn with assistance.  Here, for instance, growing on

the under side of fissures in this cliff, you will perceive a

yellow moss.  Trust me, it is both edible and excellent.'

 

'Ha!' said Doctor Grierson, 'you know botany!'

 

'Not I alone,' returned my father, lowering his voice; 'for see

where these have been scraped away.  Am I right?  Was that your

secret store?'

 

My father's comrades, he found, when he returned to the signal-

fire, had made a good day's hunting.  They were thus the more

easily persuaded to extend assistance to the Mormon caravan; and

the next day beheld both parties on the march for the frontiers of

Utah.  The distance to be traversed was not great; but the nature

of the country, and the difficulty of procuring food, extended the

time to nearly three weeks; and my father had thus ample leisure to

know and appreciate the girl whom he had succoured.  I will call my

mother Lucy.  Her family name I am not at liberty to mention; it is

one you would know well.  By what series of undeserved calamities

this innocent flower of maidenhood, lovely, refined by education,

ennobled by the finest taste, was thus cast among the horrors of a

Mormon caravan, I must not stay to tell you.  Let it suffice, that

even in these untoward circumstances, she found a heart worthy of

her own.  The ardour of attachment which united my father and

mother was perhaps partly due to the strange manner of their

meeting; it knew, at least, no bounds either divine or human; my

father, for her sake, determined to renounce his ambitions and

abjure his faith; and a week had not yet passed upon the march

before he had resigned from his party, accepted the Mormon

doctrine, and received the promise of my mother's hand on the

arrival of the party at Salt Lake.

 

The marriage took place, and I was its only offspring.  My father

prospered exceedingly in his affairs, remained faithful to my

mother; and though you may wonder to hear it, I believe there were

few happier homes in any country than that in which I saw the light

and grew to girlhood.  We were, indeed, and in spite of all our

wealth, avoided as heretics and half-believers by the more precise

and pious of the faithful:  Young himself, that formidable tyrant,

was known to look askance upon my father's riches; but of this I

had no guess.  I dwelt, indeed, under the Mormon system, with

perfect innocence and faith.  Some of our friends had many wives;

but such was the custom; and why should it surprise me more than

marriage itself?  From time to time one of our rich acquaintances

would disappear, his family be broken up, his wives and houses

shared among the elders of the Church, and his memory only recalled

with bated breath and dreadful headshakings.  When I had been very

still, and my presence perhaps was forgotten, some such topic would

arise among my elders by the evening fire; I would see them draw

the closer together and look behind them with scared eyes; and I

might gather from their whisperings how some one, rich, honoured,

healthy, and in the prime of his days, some one, perhaps, who had

taken me on his knees a week before, had in one hour been spirited

from home and family, and vanished like an image from a mirror,

leaving not a print behind.  It was terrible, indeed; but so was

death, the universal law.  And even if the talk should wax still

bolder, full of ominous silences and nods, and I should hear named

in a whisper the Destroying Angels, how was a child to understand

these mysteries?  I heard of a Destroying Angel as some more happy

child might hear in England of a bishop or a rural dean, with vague

respect and without the wish for further information.  Life

anywhere, in society as in nature, rests upon dread foundations; I

beheld safe roads, a garden blooming in the desert, pious people

crowding to worship; I was aware of my parents' tenderness and all

the harmless luxuries of my existence; and why should I pry beneath

this honest seeming surface for the mysteries on which it stood?

 

We dwelt originally in the city; but at an early date we moved to a

beautiful house in a green dingle, musical with splashing water,

and surrounded on almost every side by twenty miles of poisonous

and rocky desert.  The city was thirty miles away; there was but

one road, which went no further than my father's door; the rest

were bridle-tracks impassable in winter; and we thus dwelt in a

solitude inconceivable to the European.  Our only neighbour was Dr.

Grierson.  To my young eyes, after the hair-oiled, chin-bearded

elders of the city, and the ill-favoured and mentally stunted women

of their harems, there was something agreeable in the correct

manner, the fine bearing, the thin white hair and beard, and the

piercing looks of the old doctor.  Yet, though he was almost our

only visitor, I never wholly overcame a sense of fear in his

presence; and this disquietude was rather fed by the awful solitude

in which he lived and the obscurity that hung about his

occupations.  His house was but a mile or two from ours, but very

differently placed.  It stood overlooking the road on the summit of

a steep slope, and planted close against a range of overhanging

bluffs.  Nature, you would say, had here desired to imitate the

works of man; for the slope was even, like the glacis of a fort,

and the cliffs of a constant height, like the ramparts of a city.

Not even spring could change one feature of that desolate scene;

and the windows looked down across a plain, snowy with alkali, to

ranges of cold stone sierras on the north.  Twice or thrice I

remember passing within view of this forbidding residence; and

seeing it always shuttered, smokeless, and deserted, I remarked to

my parents that some day it would certainly be robbed.

 

'Ah, no,' said my father, 'never robbed;' and I observed a strange

conviction in his tone.

 

At last, and not long before the blow fell on my unhappy family, I

chanced to see the doctor's house in a new light.  My father was

ill; my mother confined to his bedside; and I was suffered to go,

under the charge of our driver, to the lonely house some twenty

miles away, where our packages were left for us.  The horse cast a

shoe; night overtook us halfway home; and it was well on for three

in the morning when the driver and I, alone in a light waggon, came

to that part of the road which ran below the doctor's house.  The

moon swam clear; the cliffs and mountains in this strong light lay

utterly deserted; but the house, from its station on the top of the

long slope and close under the bluff, not only shone abroad from

every window like a place of festival, but from the great chimney

at the west end poured forth a coil of smoke so thick and so

voluminous, that it hung for miles along the windless night air,

and its shadow lay far abroad in the moonlight upon the glittering

alkali.  As we continued to draw near, besides, a regular and

panting throb began to divide the silence.  First it seemed to me

like the beating of a heart; and next it put into my mind the

thought of some giant, smothered under mountains and still, with

incalculable effort, fetching breath.  I had heard of the railway,

though I had not seen it, and I turned to ask the driver if this

resembled it.  But some look in his eye, some pallor, whether of

fear or moonlight on his face, caused the words to die upon my

lips.  We continued, therefore, to advance in silence, till we were

close below the lighted house; when suddenly, without one

premonitory rustle, there burst forth a report of such a bigness

that it shook the earth and set the echoes of the mountains

thundering from cliff to cliff.  A pillar of amber flame leaped

from the chimney-top and fell in multitudes of sparks; and at the

same time the lights in the windows turned for one instant ruby red

and then expired.  The driver had checked his horse instinctively,

and the echoes were still rumbling farther off among the mountains,

when there broke from the now darkened interior a series of yells--

whether of man or woman it was impossible to guess--the door flew

open, and there ran forth into the moonlight, at the top of the

long slope, a figure clad in white, which began to dance and leap

and throw itself down, and roll as if in agony, before the house.

I could no more restrain my cries; the driver laid his lash about

the horse's flank, and we fled up the rough track at the peril of

our lives; and did not draw rein till, turning the corner of the

mountain, we beheld my father's ranch and deep, green groves and

gardens, sleeping in the tranquil light.

 

This was the one adventure of my life, until my father had climbed

to the very topmost point of material prosperity, and I myself had

reached the age of seventeen.  I was still innocent and merry like

a child; tended my garden or ran upon the hills in glad simplicity;

gave not a thought to coquetry or to material cares; and if my eye

rested on my own image in a mirror or some sylvan spring, it was to

seek and recognise the features of my parents.  But the fears which

had long pressed on others were now to be laid on my youth.  I had

thrown myself, one sultry, cloudy afternoon, on a divan; the

windows stood open on the verandah, where my mother sat with her

embroidery; and when my father joined her from the garden, their

conversation, clearly audible to me, was of so startling a nature

that it held me enthralled where I lay.

 

'The blow has come,' my father said, after a long pause.

 

I could hear my mother start and turn, but in words she made no

reply.

 

'Yes,' continued my father, 'I have received to-day a list of all

that I possess; of all, I say; of what I have lent privately to men

whose lips are sealed with terror; of what I have buried with my

own hand on the bare mountain, when there was not a bird in heaven.

Does the air, then, carry secrets?  Are the hills of glass?  Do the

stones we tread upon preserve the footprint to betray us?  Oh,

Lucy, Lucy, that we should have come to such a country!'

 

'But this,' returned my mother, 'is no very new or very threatening

event.  You are accused of some concealment.  You will pay more

taxes in the future, and be mulcted in a fine.  It is disquieting,

indeed, to find our acts so spied upon, and the most private known.

But is this new?  Have we not long feared and suspected every blade

of grass?'

 

'Ay, and our shadows!' cried my father.  'But all this is nothing.

Here is the letter that accompanied the list.'

 

I heard my mother turn the pages, and she was some time silent.

 

'I see,' she said at last; and then, with the tone of one reading:

'"From a believer so largely blessed by Providence with this

world's goods,"' she continued, '"the Church awaits in confidence

some signal mark of piety."  There lies the sting.  Am I not right?

These are the words you fear?'

 

'These are the words,' replied my father.  'Lucy, you remember

Priestley?  Two days before he disappeared, he carried me to the

summit of an isolated butte; we could see around us for ten miles;

sure, if in any quarter of this land a man were safe from spies, it

were in such a station; but it was in the very ague-fit of terror

that he told me, and that I heard, his story.  He had received a

letter such as this; and he submitted to my approval an answer, in

which he offered to resign a third of his possessions.  I conjured

him, as he valued life, to raise his offering; and, before we

parted, he had doubled the amount.  Well, two days later he was

gone--gone from the chief street of the city in the hour of noon--

and gone for ever.  O God!' cried my father, 'by what art do they

thus spirit out of life the solid body?  What death do they command

that leaves no traces? that this material structure, these strong

arms, this skeleton that can resist the grave for centuries, should

be thus reft in a moment from the world of sense?  A horror dwells

in that thought more awful than mere death.'

 

'Is there no hope in Grierson?' asked my mother.

 

'Dismiss the thought,' replied my father.  'He now knows all that I

can teach, and will do naught to save me.  His power, besides, is

small, his own danger not improbably more imminent than mine; for

he, too, lives apart; he leaves his wives neglected and unwatched;

he is openly cited for an unbeliever; and unless he buys security

at a more awful price--but no; I will not believe it:  I have no

love for him, but I will not believe it.'

 

'Believe what?' asked my mother; and then, with a change of note,

'But oh, what matters it?' she cried.  'Abimelech, there is but one

way open:  we must fly!'

 

'It is in vain,' returned my father.  'I should but involve you in

my fate.  To leave this land is hopeless:  we are closed in it as

men are closed in life; and there is no issue but the grave.'

 

'We can but die then,' replied my mother.  'Let us at least die

together.  Let not Asenath {2} and myself survive you.  Think to

what a fate we should be doomed!'

My father was unable to resist her tender violence; and though I

could see he nourished not one spark of hope, he consented to

desert his whole estate, beyond some hundreds of dollars that he

had by him at the moment, and to flee that night, which promised to

be dark and cloudy.  As soon as the servants were asleep, he was to

load two mules with provisions; two others were to carry my mother

and myself; and, striking through the mountains by an unfrequented

trail, we were to make a fair stroke for liberty and life.  As soon

as they had thus decided, I showed myself at the window, and,

owning that I had heard all, assured them that they could rely on

my prudence and devotion.  I had no fear, indeed, but to show

myself unworthy of my birth; I held my life in my hand without

alarm; and when my father, weeping upon my neck, had blessed Heaven

for the courage of his child, it was with a sentiment of pride and

some of the joy that warriors take in war, that I began to look

forward to the perils of our flight.

 

Before midnight, under an obscure and starless heaven, we had left

far behind us the plantations of the valley, and were mounting a

certain canyon in the hills, narrow, encumbered with great rocks,

and echoing with the roar of a tumultuous torrent.  Cascade after

cascade thundered and hung up its flag of whiteness in the night,

or fanned our faces with the wet wind of its descent.  The trail

was breakneck, and led to famine-guarded deserts; it had been long

since deserted for more practicable routes; and it was now a part

of the world untrod from year to year by human footing. Judge of

our dismay, when turning suddenly an angle of the cliffs, we found

a bright bonfire blazing by itself under an impending rock; and on

the face of the rock, drawn very rudely with charred wood, the

great Open Eye which is the emblem of the Mormon faith.  We looked

upon each other in the firelight; my mother broke into a passion of

tears; but not a word was said.  The mules were turned about; and

leaving that great eye to guard the lonely canyon, we retraced our

steps in silence.  Day had not yet broken ere we were once more at

home, condemned beyond reprieve.

 

What answer my father sent I was not told; but two days later, a

little before sundown, I saw a plain, honest-looking man ride

slowly up the road in a great pother of dust.  He was clad in

homespun, with a broad straw hat; wore a patriarchal beard; and had

an air of a simple rustic farmer, that was, in my eyes, very

reassuring.  He was, indeed, a very honest man and pious Mormon;

with no liking for his errand, though neither he nor any one in

Utah dared to disobey; and it was with every mark of diffidence

that he had had himself announced as Mr. Aspinwall, and entered the

room where our unhappy family was gathered.  My mother and me, he

awkwardly enough dismissed; and as soon as he was alone with my

father laid before him a blank signature of President Young's, and

offered him a choice of services:  either to set out as a

missionary to the tribes about the White Sea, or to join the next

day, with a party of Destroying Angels, in the massacre of sixty

German immigrants.  The last, of course, my father could not

entertain, and the first he regarded as a pretext:  even if he

could consent to leave his wife defenceless, and to collect fresh

victims for the tyranny under which he was himself oppressed, he

felt sure he would never be suffered to return.  He refused both;

and Aspinwall, he said, betrayed sincere emotion, part religious,

at the spectacle of such disobedience, but part human, in pity for

my father and his family.  He besought him to reconsider his

decision; and at length, finding he could not prevail, gave him

till the moon rose to settle his affairs, and say farewell to wife

and daughter.  'For,' said he, 'then, at the latest, you must ride

with me.'

 

I dare not dwell upon the hours that followed:  they fled all too

fast; and presently the moon out-topped the eastern range, and my

father and Mr. Aspinwall set forth, side by side, on their

nocturnal journey.  My mother, though still bearing an heroic

countenance, had hastened to shut herself in her apartment,

thenceforward solitary; and I, alone in the dark house, and

consumed by grief and apprehension, made haste to saddle my Indian

pony, to ride up to the corner of the mountain, and to enjoy one

farewell sight of my departing father.  The two men had set forth

at a deliberate pace; nor was I long behind them, when I reached

the point of view.  I was the more amazed to see no moving creature

in the landscape.  The moon, as the saying is, shone bright as day;

and nowhere, under the whole arch of night, was there a growing

tree, a bush, a farm, a patch of tillage, or any evidence of man,

but one.  From the corner where I stood, a rugged bastion of the

line of bluffs concealed the doctor's house; and across the top of

that projection the soft night wind carried and unwound about the

hills a coil of sable smoke.  What fuel could produce a vapour so

sluggish to dissipate in that dry air, or what furnace pour it

forth so copiously, I was unable to conceive; but I knew well

enough that it came from the doctor's chimney; I saw well enough

that my father had already disappeared; and in despite of reason, I

connected in my mind the loss of that dear protector with the

ribbon of foul smoke that trailed along the mountains.

 

Days passed, and still my mother and I waited in vain for news; a

week went by, a second followed, but we heard no word of the father

and husband.  As smoke dissipates, as the image glides from the

mirror, so in the ten or twenty minutes that I had spent in getting

my horse and following upon his trail, had that strong and brave

man vanished out of life.  Hope, if any hope we had, fled with

every hour; the worst was now certain for my father, the worst was

to be dreaded for his defenceless family.  Without weakness, with a

desperate calm at which I marvel when I look back upon it, the

widow and the orphan awaited the event.  On the last day of the

third week we rose in the morning to find ourselves alone in the

house, alone, so far as we searched, on the estate; all our

attendants, with one accord, had fled:  and as we knew them to be

gratefully devoted, we drew the darkest intimations from their

flight.  The day passed, indeed, without event; but in the fall of

the evening we were called at last into the verandah by the

approaching clink of horse's hoofs.

 

The doctor, mounted on an Indian pony, rode into the garden,

dismounted, and saluted us.  He seemed much more bent, and his hair

more silvery than ever; but his demeanour was composed, serious,

and not unkind.

 

'Madam,' said he, 'I am come upon a weighty errand; and I would

have you recognise it as an effect of kindness in the President,

that he should send as his ambassador your only neighbour and your

husband's oldest friend in Utah.'

 

'Sir,' said my mother, 'I have but one concern, one thought.  You

know well what it is.  Speak:  my husband?'

 

'Madam,' returned the doctor, taking a chair on the verandah, 'if

you were a silly child, my position would now be painfully

embarrassing.  You are, on the other hand, a woman of great

intelligence and fortitude:  you have, by my forethought, been

allowed three weeks to draw your own conclusions and to accept the

inevitable.  Farther words from me are, I conceive, superfluous.'

 

My mother was as pale as death, and trembled like a reed; I gave

her my hand, and she kept it in the folds of her dress and wrung it

till I could have cried aloud.  'Then, sir,' said she at last, 'you

speak to deaf ears.  If this be indeed so, what have I to do with

errands?  What do I ask of Heaven but to die?'

 

'Come,' said the doctor, 'command yourself.  I bid you dismiss all

thoughts of your late husband, and bring a clear mind to bear upon

your own future and the fate of that young girl.'

 

'You bid me dismiss--' began my mother.  'Then you know!' she

cried.

 

'I know,' replied the doctor.

 

'You know?' broke out the poor woman.  'Then it was you who did the

deed!  I tear off the mask, and with dread and loathing see you as

you are--you, whom the poor fugitive beholds in nightmares, and

awakes raving--you, the Destroying Angel!'

 

'Well, madam, and what then?' returned the doctor.  'Have not my

fate and yours been similar?  Are we not both immured in this

strong prison of Utah?  Have you not tried to flee, and did not the

Open Eye confront you in the canyon?  Who can escape the watch of

that unsleeping eye of Utah?  Not I, at least.  Horrible tasks

have, indeed, been laid upon me; and the most ungrateful was the

last; but had I refused my offices, would that have spared your

husband?  You know well it would not.  I, too, had perished along

with him; nor would I have been able to alleviate his last moments,

nor could I to-day have stood between his family and the hand of

Brigham Young.'

 

'Ah!' cried I, 'and could you purchase life by such concessions?'

 

'Young lady,' answered the doctor, 'I both could and did; and you

will live to thank me for that baseness.  You have a spirit,

Asenath, that it pleases me to recognise.  But we waste time.  Mr.

Fonblanque's estate reverts, as you doubtless imagine, to the

Church; but some part of it has been reserved for him who is to

marry the family; and that person, I should perhaps tell you

without more delay, is no other than myself.'

 

At this odious proposal my mother and I cried out aloud, and clung

together like lost souls.

 

'It is as I supposed,' resumed the doctor, with the same measured

utterance.  'You recoil from this arrangement.  Do you expect me to

convince you?  You know very well that I have never held the Mormon

view of women.  Absorbed in the most arduous studies, I have left

the slatterns whom they call my wives to scratch and quarrel among

themselves; of me, they have had nothing but my purse; such was not

the union I desired, even if I had the leisure to pursue it.  No:

you need not, madam, and my old friend'--and here the doctor rose

and bowed with something of gallantry--'you need not apprehend my

importunities.  On the contrary, I am rejoiced to read in you a

Roman spirit; and if I am obliged to bid you follow me at once, and

that in the name, not of my wish, but of my orders, I hope it will

be found that we are of a common mind.'

 

So, bidding us dress for the road, he took a lamp (for the night

had now fallen) and set off to the stable to prepare our horses.

 

'What does it mean?--what will become of us?' I cried.

 

'Not that, at least,' replied my mother, shuddering.  'So far we

can trust him.  I seem to read among his words a certain tragic

promise.  Asenath, if I leave you, if I die, you will not forget

your miserable parents?'

 

Thereupon we fell to cross-purposes:  I beseeching her to explain

her words; she putting me by, and continuing to recommend the

doctor for a friend.  'The doctor!' I cried at last; 'the man who

killed my father?'

 

'Nay,' said she, 'let us be just.  I do believe before, Heaven, he

played the friendliest part.  And he alone, Asenath, can protect

you in this land of death.'

 

At this the doctor returned, leading our two horses; and when we

were all in the saddle, he bade me ride on before, as he had matter

to discuss with Mrs. Fonblanque.  They came at a foot's pace,

eagerly conversing in a whisper; and presently after the moon rose

and showed them looking eagerly in each other's faces as they went,

my mother laying her hand upon the doctor's arm, and the doctor

himself, against his usual custom, making vigorous gestures of

protest or asseveration.

 

At the foot of the track which ascended the talus of the mountain

to his door, the doctor overtook me at a trot.

 

'Here,' he said, 'we shall dismount; and as your mother prefers to

be alone, you and I shall walk together to my house.'

 

'Shall I see her again?' I asked.

 

'I give you my word,' he said, and helped me to alight.  'We leave

the horses here,' he added.  'There are no thieves in this stone

wilderness.'

 

The track mounted gradually, keeping the house in view.  The

windows were once more bright; the chimney once more vomited smoke;

but the most absolute silence reigned, and, but for the figure of

my mother very slowly following in our wake, I felt convinced there

was no human soul within a range of miles.  At the thought, I

looked upon the doctor, gravely walking by my side, with his bowed

shoulders and white hair, and then once more at his house, lit up

and pouring smoke like some industrious factory.  And then my

curiosity broke forth.  'In Heaven's name,' I cried, 'what do you

make in this inhuman desert?'

 

He looked at me with a peculiar smile, and answered with an evasion

-

 

'This is not the first time,' said he, 'that you have seen my

furnaces alight.  One morning, in the small hours, I saw you

driving past; a delicate experiment miscarried; and I cannot acquit

myself of having startled either your driver or the horse that drew

you.'

 

'What!' cried I, beholding again in fancy the antics of the figure,

'could that be you?'

 

'It was I,' he replied; 'but do not fancy that I was mad.  I was in

agony.  I had been scalded cruelly.'

 

We were now near the house, which, unlike the ordinary houses of

the country, was built of hewn stone and very solid.  Stone, too,

was its foundation, stone its background.  Not a blade of grass

sprouted among the broken mineral about the walls, not a flower

adorned the windows.  Over the door, by way of sole adornment, the

Mormon Eye was rudely sculptured; I had been brought up to view

that emblem from my childhood; but since the night of our escape,

it had acquired a new significance, and set me shrinking.  The

smoke rolled voluminously from the chimney top, its edges ruddy

with the fire; and from the far corner of the building, near the

ground, angry puffs of steam shone snow-white in the moon and

vanished.

 

The doctor opened the door and paused upon the threshold.  'You ask

me what I make here,' he observed.  'Two things:  Life and Death.'

And he motioned me to enter.

 

'I shall await my mother,' said I.

 

'Child,' he replied, 'look at me:  am I not old and broken?  Of us

two, which is the stronger, the young maiden or the withered man?'

 

I bowed, and passing by him, entered a vestibule or kitchen, lit by

a good fire and a shaded reading-lamp.  It was furnished only with

a dresser, a rude table, and some wooden benches; and on one of

these the doctor motioned me to take a seat; and passing by another

door into the interior of the house, he left me to myself.

Presently I heard the jar of iron from the far end of the building;

and this was followed by the same throbbing noise that had startled

me in the valley, but now so near at hand as to be menacing by

loudness, and even to shake the house with every recurrence of the

stroke.  I had scarce time to master my alarm when the doctor

returned, and almost in the same moment my mother appeared upon the

threshold.  But how am I to describe to you the peace and

ravishment of that face?  Years seemed to have passed over her head

during that brief ride, and left her younger and fairer; her eyes

shone, her smile went to my heart; she seemed no more a woman but

the angel of ecstatic tenderness.  I ran to her in a kind of

terror; but she shrank a little back and laid her finger on her

lips, with something arch and yet unearthly.  To the doctor, on the

contrary, she reached out her hand as to a friend and helper; and

so strange was the scene that I forgot to be offended.

 

'Lucy,' said the doctor, 'all is prepared.  Will you go alone, or

shall your daughter follow us?'

 

'Let Asenath come,' she answered, 'dear Asenath!  At this hour,

when I am purified of fear and sorrow, and already survive myself

and my affections, it is for your sake, and not for mine, that I

desire her presence.  Were she shut out, dear friend, it is to be

feared she might misjudge your kindness.'

 

'Mother,' I cried wildly, 'mother, what is this?'

 

But my mother, with her radiant smile, said only 'Hush!' as though

I were a child again, and tossing in some fever-fit; and the doctor

bade me be silent and trouble her no more.  'You have made a

choice,' he continued, addressing my mother, 'that has often

strangely tempted me.  The two extremes:  all, or else nothing;

never, or this very hour upon the clock--these have been my

incongruous desires.  But to accept the middle term, to be content

with a half-gift, to flicker awhile and to burn out--never for an

hour, never since I was born, has satisfied the appetite of my

ambition.'  He looked upon my mother fixedly, much of admiration

and some touch of envy in his eyes; then, with a profound sigh, he

led the way into the inner room.

 

It was very long.  From end to end it was lit up by many lamps,

which by the changeful colour of their light, and by the incessant

snapping sounds with which they burned, I have since divined to be

electric.  At the extreme end an open door gave us a glimpse into

what must have been a lean-to shed beside the chimney; and this, in

strong contrast to the room, was painted with a red reverberation

as from furnace-doors.  The walls were lined with books and glazed

cases, the tables crowded with the implements of chemical research;

great glass accumulators glittered in the light; and through a hole

in the gable near the shed door, a heavy driving-belt entered the

apartment and ran overhead upon steel pulleys, with clumsy activity

and many ghostly and fluttering sounds.  In one corner I perceived

a chair resting upon crystal feet, and curiously wreathed with

wire.  To this my mother advanced with a decisive swiftness.

 

'Is this it?' she asked.

 

The doctor bowed in silence.

 

'Asenath,' said my mother, 'in this sad end of my life I have found

one helper.  Look upon him:  it is Doctor Grierson.  Be not, oh my

daughter, be not ungrateful to that friend!'

 

She sate upon the chair, and took in her hands the globes that

terminated the arms.

 

'Am I right?' she asked, and looked upon the doctor with such a

radiancy of face that I trembled for her reason.  Once more the

doctor bowed, but this time leaning hard against the wall.  He must

have touched a spring.  The least shock agitated my mother where

she sat; the least passing jar appeared to cross her features; and

she sank back in the chair like one resigned to weariness.  I was

at her knees that moment; but her hands fell loosely in my grasp;

her face, still beatified with the same touching smile, sank

forward on her bosom:  her spirit had for ever fled.

 

I do not know how long may have elapsed before, raising for a

moment my tearful face, I met the doctor's eyes.  They rested upon

mine with such a depth of scrutiny, pity, and interest, that even

from the freshness of my sorrow, I was startled into attention.

 

'Enough,' he said, 'to lamentation.  Your mother went to death as

to a bridal, dying where her husband died.  It is time, Asenath, to

think of the survivors.  Follow me to the next room.'

 

I followed him, like a person in a dream; he made me sit by the

fire, he gave me wine to drink; and then, pacing the stone floor,

he thus began to address me -

 

'You are now, my child, alone in the world, and under the immediate

watch of Brigham Young.  It would be your lot, in ordinary

circumstances, to become the fiftieth bride of some ignoble elder,

or by particular fortune, as fortune is counted in this land, to

find favour in the eyes of the President himself.  Such a fate for

a girl like you were worse than death; better to die as your mother

died than to sink daily deeper in the mire of this pit of woman's

degradation.  But is escape conceivable?  Your father tried; and

you beheld yourself with what security his jailers acted, and how a

dumb drawing on a rock was counted a sufficient sentry over the

avenues of freedom.  Where your father failed, will you be wiser or

more fortunate? or are you, too, helpless in the toils?'

 

I had followed his words with changing emotion, but now I believed

I understood.

 

'I see,' I cried; 'you judge me rightly.  I must follow where my

parents led; and oh! I am not only willing, I am eager!'

 

'No,' replied the doctor, 'not death for you.  The flawed vessel we

may break, but not the perfect.  No, your mother cherished a

different hope, and so do I.  I see,' he cried, 'the girl develop

to the completed woman, the plan reach fulfilment, the promise--ay,

outdone!  I could not bear to arrest so lively, so comely a

process.  It was your mother's thought,' he added, with a change of

tone, 'that I should marry you myself.'  I fear I must have shown a

perfect horror of aversion from this fate, for he made haste to

quiet me.  'Reassure yourself, Asenath,' he resumed.  'Old as I am,

I have not forgotten the tumultuous fancies of youth.  I have

passed my days, indeed, in laboratories; but in all my vigils I

have not forgotten the tune of a young pulse.  Age asks with

timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking fortune by

the beard, demands joy like a right.  These things I have not

forgotten; none, rather, has more keenly felt, none more jealously

considered them; I have but postponed them to their day.  See,

then:  you stand without support; the only friend left to you, this

old investigator, old in cunning, young in sympathy.  Answer me but

one question:  Are you free from the entanglement of what the world

calls love?  Do you still command your heart and purposes? or are

you fallen in some bond-slavery of the eye and ear?'

 

I answered him in broken words; my heart, I think I must have told

him, lay with my dead parents.

 

'It is enough,' he said.  'It has been my fate to be called on

often, too often, for those services of which we spoke to-night;

none in Utah could carry them so well to a conclusion; hence there

has fallen into my hands a certain share of influence which I now

lay at your service, partly for the sake of my dead friends, your

parents; partly for the interest I bear you in your own right.  I

shall send you to England, to the great city of London, there to

await the bridegroom I have selected.  He shall be a son of mine, a

young man suitable in age and not grossly deficient in that quality

of beauty that your years demand.  Since your heart is free, you

may well pledge me the sole promise that I ask in return for much

expense and still more danger:  to await the arrival of that

bridegroom with the delicacy of a wife.'

 

I sat awhile stunned.  The doctor's marriages, I remembered to have

heard, had been unfruitful; and this added perplexity to my

distress.  But I was alone, as he had said, alone in that dark

land; the thought of escape, of any equal marriage, was already

enough to revive in me some dawn of hope; and in what words I know

not, I accepted the proposal.

 

He seemed more moved by my consent than I could reasonably have

looked for.  'You shall see,' he cried; 'you shall judge for

yourself.'  And hurrying to the next room he returned with a small

portrait somewhat coarsely done in oils.  It showed a man in the

dress of nearly forty years before, young indeed, but still

recognisable to be the doctor.  'Do you like it?' he asked.  'That

is myself when I was young.  My--my boy will be like that, like but

nobler; with such health as angels might condescend to envy; and a

man of mind, Asenath, of commanding mind.  That should be a man, I

think; that should be one among ten thousand.  A man like that--one

to combine the passions of youth with the restraint, the force, the

dignity of age--one to fill all the parts and faculties, one to be

man's epitome--say, will that not satisfy the needs of an ambitious

girl?  Say, is not that enough?'  And as he held the picture close

before my eyes, his hands shook.

 

I told him briefly I would ask no better, for I was transpierced

with this display of fatherly emotion; but even as I said the

words, the most insolent revolt surged through my arteries.  I held

him in horror, him, his portrait, and his son; and had there been

any choice but death or a Mormon marriage, I declare before Heaven

I had embraced it.

 

'It is well,' he replied, 'and I had rightly counted on your

spirit.  Eat, then, for you have far to go.'  So saying, he set

meat before me; and while I was endeavouring to obey, he left the

room and returned with an armful of coarse raiment.  'There,' said

he, 'is your disguise.  I leave you to your toilet.'

 

The clothes had probably belonged to a somewhat lubberly boy of

fifteen; and they hung about me like a sack, and cruelly hampered

my movements.  But what filled me with uncontrollable shudderings,

was the problem of their origin and the fate of the lad to whom

they had belonged.  I had scarcely effected the exchange when the

doctor returned, opened a back window, helped me out into the

narrow space between the house and the overhanging bluffs, and

showed me a ladder of iron footholds mortised in the rock.

'Mount,' he said, 'swiftly.  When you are at the summit, walk, so

far as you are able, in the shadow of the smoke.  The smoke will

bring you, sooner or later, to a canyon; follow that down, and you

will find a man with two horses.  Him you will implicitly obey.

And remember, silence!  That machinery, which I now put in motion

for your service, may by one word be turned against you.  Go;

Heaven prosper you!'

 

The ascent was easy.  Arrived at the top of the cliff, I saw before

me on the other side a vast and gradual declivity of stone, lying

bare to the moon and the surrounding mountains.  Nowhere was any

vantage or concealment; and knowing how these deserts were beset

with spies, I made haste to veil my movements under the blowing

trail of smoke.  Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind,

and I had no more substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow;

sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it,

no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog.  But, one

way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened furnace protected the

first steps of my escape, and led me unobserved to the canyon.

 

There, sure enough, I found a taciturn and sombre man beside a pair

of saddle-horses; and thenceforward, all night long, we wandered in

silence by the most occult and dangerous paths among the mountains.

A little before the dayspring we took refuge in a wet and gusty

cavern at the bottom of a gorge; lay there all day concealed; and

the next night, before the glow had faded out of the west, resumed

our wanderings.  About noon we stopped again, in a lawn upon a

little river, where was a screen of bushes; and here my guide,

handing me a bundle from his pack, bade me change my dress once

more.  The bundle contained clothing of my own, taken from our

house, with such necessaries as a comb and soap.  I made my toilet

by the mirror of a quiet pool; and as I was so doing, and smiling

with some complacency to see myself restored to my own image, the

mountains rang with a scream of far more than human piercingness;

and while I still stood astonished, there sprang up and swiftly

increased a storm of the most awful and earth-rending sounds.

Shall I own to you, that I fell upon my face and shrieked?  And yet

this was but the overland train winding among the near mountains:

the very means of my salvation:  the strong wings that were to

carry me from Utah!

 

When I was dressed, the guide gave me a bag, which contained, he

said, both money and papers; and telling me that I was already over

the borders in the territory of Wyoming, bade me follow the stream

until I reached the railway station, half a mile below.  'Here,' he

added, 'is your ticket as far as Council Bluffs.  The East express

will pass in a few hours.'  With that, he took both horses, and,

without further words or any salutation, rode off by the way that

we had come.

 

Three hours afterwards, I was seated on the end platform of the

train as it swept eastward through the gorges and thundered in

tunnels of the mountain.  The change of scene, the sense of escape,

the still throbbing terror of pursuit--above all, the astounding

magic of my new conveyance, kept me from any logical or melancholy

thought.  I had gone to the doctor's house two nights before

prepared to die, prepared for worse than death; what had passed,

terrible although it was, looked almost bright compared to my

anticipations; and it was not till I had slept a full night in the

flying palace car, that I awoke to the sense of my irreparable loss

and to some reasonable alarm about the future.  In this mood, I

examined the contents of the bag.  It was well supplied with gold;

it contained tickets and complete directions for my journey as far

as Liverpool, and a long letter from the doctor, supplying me with

a fictitious name and story, recommending the most guarded silence,

and bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son.  All then

had been arranged beforehand:  he had counted upon my consent, and

what was tenfold worse, upon my mother's voluntary death.  My

horror of my only friend, my aversion for this son who was to marry

me, my revolt against the whole current and conditions of my life,

were now complete.  I was sitting stupefied by my distress and

helplessness, when, to my joy, a very pleasant lady offered me her

conversation.  I clutched at the relief; and I was soon glibly

telling her the story in the doctor's letter:  how I was a Miss

Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I

had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my

instructions, and, as the lady still continued to ply me with

questions, began to embroider on my own account.  This soon carried

one of my inexperience beyond her depth; and I had already remarked

a shadow on the lady's face, when a gentleman drew near and very

civilly addressed me.

 

'Miss Gould, I believe?' said he; and then, excusing himself to the

lady by the authority of my guardian, drew me to the fore platform

of the Pullman car.  'Miss Gould,' he said in my ear, 'is it

possible that you suppose yourself in safety?  Let me completely

undeceive you.  One more such indiscretion and you return to Utah.

And, in the meanwhile, if this woman should again address you, you

are to reply with these words:  "Madam, I do not like you, and I

will be obliged if you will suffer me to choose my own

associates."'

 

Alas, I had to do as I was bid; this lady, to whom I already felt

myself drawn with the strongest cords of sympathy, I dismissed with

insult; and thenceforward, through all that day, I sat in silence,

gazing on the bare plains and swallowing my tears.  Let that

suffice:  it was the pattern of my journey.  Whether on the train,

at the hotels, or on board the ocean steamer, I never exchanged a

friendly word with any fellow-traveller but I was certain to be

interrupted.  In every place, on every side, the most unlikely

persons, man or woman, rich or poor, became protectors to forward

me upon my journey, or spies to observe and regulate my conduct.

Thus I crossed the States, thus passed the ocean, the Mormon Eye

still following my movements; and when at length a cab had set me

down before that London lodging-house from which you saw me flee

this morning, I had already ceased to struggle and ceased to hope.

 

The landlady, like every one else through all that journey, was

expecting my arrival.  A fire was lighted in my room, which looked

upon the garden; there were books on the table, clothes in the

drawers; and there (I had almost said with contentment, and

certainly with resignation) I saw month follow month over my head.

At times my landlady took me for a walk or an excursion, but she

would never suffer me to leave the house alone; and I, seeing that

she also lived under the shadow of that widespread Mormon terror,

felt too much pity to resist.  To the child born on Mormon soil, as

to the man who accepts the engagements of a secret order, no escape

is possible; so I had clearly read, and I was thankful even for

this respite.  Meanwhile, I tried honestly to prepare my mind for

my approaching nuptials.  The day drew near when my bridegroom was

to visit me, and gratitude and fear alike obliged me to consent.  A

son of Doctor Grierson's, be he what he pleased, must still be

young, and it was even probable he should be handsome; on more than

that, I felt I dared not reckon; and in moulding my mind towards

consent I dwelt the more carefully on these physical attractions

which I felt I might expect, and averted my eyes from moral or

intellectual considerations.  We have a great power upon our

spirits; and as time passed I worked myself into a frame of

acquiescence, nay, and I began to grow impatient for the hour.  At

night sleep forsook me; I sat all day by the fire, absorbed in

dreams, conjuring up the features of my husband, and anticipating

in fancy the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice.  In the

dead level and solitude of my existence, this was the one eastern

window and the one door of hope.  At last, I had so cultivated and

prepared my will, that I began to be besieged with fears upon the

other side.  How if it was I that did not please?  How if this

unseen lover should turn from me with disaffection?  And now I

spent hours before the glass, studying and judging my attractions,

and was never weary of changing my dress or ordering my hair.

 

When the day came I was long about my toilet; but at last, with a

sort of hopeful desperation, I had to own that I could do no more,

and must now stand or fall by nature.  My occupation ended, I fell

a prey to the most sickening impatience, mingled with alarms;

giving ear to the swelling rumour of the streets, and at each

change of sound or silence, starting, shrinking, and colouring to

the brow.  Love is not to be prepared, I know, without some

knowledge of the object; and yet, when the cab at last rattled to

the door and I heard my visitor mount the stairs, such was the

tumult of hopes in my poor bosom that love itself might have been

proud to own their parentage.  The door opened, and it was Doctor

Grierson that appeared.  I believe I must have screamed aloud, and

I know, at least, that I fell fainting to the floor.

 

When I came to myself he was standing over me, counting my pulse.

'I have startled you,' he said.  'A difficulty unforeseen--the

impossibility of obtaining a certain drug in its full purity--has

forced me to resort to London unprepared.  I regret that I should

have shown myself once more without those poor attractions which

are much, perhaps, to you, but to me are no more considerable than

rain that falls into the sea.  Youth is but a state, as passing as

that syncope from which you are but just awakened, and, if there be

truth in science, as easy to recall; for I find, Asenath, that I

must now take you for my confidant.  Since my first years, I have

devoted every hour and act of life to one ambitious task; and the

time of my success is at hand.  In these new countries, where I was

so long content to stay, I collected indispensable ingredients; I

have fortified myself on every side from the possibility of error;

what was a dream now takes the substance of reality; and when I

offered you a son of mine I did so in a figure.  That son--that

husband, Asenath, is myself--not as you now behold me, but restored

to the first energy of youth.  You think me mad?  It is the

customary attitude of ignorance.  I will not argue; I will leave

facts to speak.  When you behold me purified, invigorated, renewed,

restamped in the original image--when you recognise in me (what I

shall be) the first perfect expression of the powers of mankind--I

shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your passing and

natural incredulity.  To what can you aspire--fame, riches, power,

the charm of youth, the dear-bought wisdom of age--that I shall not

be able to afford you in perfection?  Do not deceive yourself.  I

already excel you in every human gift but one:  when that gift also

has been restored to me you will recognise your master.'

 

Hereupon, consulting his watch, he told me he must now leave me to

myself; and bidding me consult reason, and not girlish fancies, he

withdrew.  I had not the courage to move; the night fell and found

me still where he had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my

hands, my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions.  Late in the

evening he returned, carrying a candle, and, with a certain

irritable tremor, bade me rise and sup.  'Is it possible,' he

added, 'that I have been deceived in your courage?  A cowardly girl

is no fit mate for me.'

 

I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears

besought him to release me from this engagement, assuring him that

my cowardice was abject, and that in every point of intellect and

character I was his hopeless and derisible inferior.

 

'Why, certainly,' he replied.  'I know you better than yourself;

and I am well enough acquainted with human nature to understand

this scene.  It is addressed to me,' he added with a smile, 'in my

character of the still untransformed.  But do not alarm yourself

about the future.  Let me but attain my end, and not you only,

Asenath, but every woman on the face of the earth becomes my

willing slave.'

 

Thereupon he obliged me to rise and eat; sat down with me to table;

helped and entertained me with the attentions of a fashionable

host; and it was not till a late hour, that, bidding me courteously

good-night, he once more left me alone to my misery.

 

In all this talk of an elixir and the restoration of his youth, I

scarce knew from which hypothesis I should the more eagerly recoil.

If his hopes reposed on any base of fact, if indeed, by some

abhorrent miracle, he should discard his age, death were my only

refuge from that most unnatural, that most ungodly union.  If, on

the other hand, these dreams were merely lunatic, the madness of a

life waxed suddenly acute, my pity would become a load almost as

heavy to bear as my revolt against the marriage.  So passed the

night, in alternations of rebellion and despair, of hate and pity;

and with the next morning I was only to comprehend more fully my

enslaved position.  For though he appeared with a very tranquil

countenance, he had no sooner observed the marks of grief upon my

brow than an answering darkness gathered on his own.  'Asenath.' he

said, 'you owe me much already; with one finger I still hold you

suspended over death; my life is full of labour and anxiety; and I

choose,' said he, with a remarkable accent of command, 'that you

shall greet me with a pleasant face.'  He never needed to repeat

the recommendation; from that day forward I was always ready to

receive him with apparent cheerfulness; and he rewarded me with a

good deal of his company, and almost more than I could bear of his

confidence.  He had set up a laboratory in the back part of the

house, where he toiled day and night at his elixir, and he would

come thence to visit me in my parlour:  now with passing humours of

discouragement; now, and far more often, radiant with hope.  It was

impossible to see so much of him, and not to recognise that the

sands of his life were running low; and yet all the time he would

be laying out vast fields of future, and planning, with all the

confidence of youth, the most unbounded schemes of pleasure and

ambition.  How I replied I know not; but I found a voice and words

to answer, even while I wept and raged to hear him.

 

A week ago the doctor entered my room with the marks of great

exhilaration contending with pitiful bodily weakness.  'Asenath,'

said he, 'I have now obtained the last ingredient.  In one week

from now the perilous moment of the last projection will draw nigh.

You have once before assisted, although unconsciously, at the

failure of a similar experiment.  It was the elixir which so

terribly exploded one night when you were passing my house; and it

is idle to deny that the conduct of so delicate a process, among

the million jars and trepidations of so great a city, presents a

certain element of danger.  From this point of view, I cannot but

regret the perfect stillness of my house among the deserts; but, on

the other hand, I have succeeded in proving that the singularly

unstable equilibrium of the elixir, at the moment of projection, is

due rather to the impurity than to the nature of the ingredients;

and as all are now of an equal and exquisite nicety, I have little

fear for the result.  In a week then from to-day, my dear Asenath,

this period of trial will be ended.'  And he smiled upon me in a

manner unusually paternal.

 

I smiled back with my lips, but at my heart there raged the

blackest and most unbridled terror.  What if he failed?  And oh,

tenfold worse! what if he succeeded?  What detested and unnatural

changeling would appear before me to claim my hand?  And could

there, I asked myself with a dreadful sinking, be any truth in his

boasts of an assured victory over my reluctance?  I knew him,

indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a sign.  Suppose, then,

this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return to me, hideously

restored, like a vampire in a legend; and suppose that, by some

devilish fascination . . . My head turned; all former fears

deserted me:  and I felt I could embrace the worst in preference to

this.

 

My mind was instantly made up.  The doctor's presence in London was

justified by the affairs of the Mormon polity.  Often, in our

conversation, he would gloat over the details of that great

organisation, which he feared even while yet he wielded it; and

would remind me, that even in the humming labyrinth of London, we

were still visible to that unsleeping eye in Utah.  His visitors,

indeed, who were of every sort, from the missionary to the

destroying angel, and seemed to belong to every rank of life, had,

up to that moment, filled me with unmixed repulsion and alarm.  I

knew that if my secret were to reach the ear of any leader my fate

were sealed beyond redemption; and yet in my present pass of horror

and despair, it was to these very men that I turned for help.  I

waylaid upon the stair one of the Mormon missionaries, a man of a

low class, but not inaccessible to pity; told him I scarce remember

what elaborate fable to explain my application; and by his

intermediacy entered into correspondence with my father's family.

They recognised my claim for help, and on this very day I was to

begin my escape.

 

Last night I sat up fully dressed, awaiting the result of the

doctor's labours, and prepared against the worst.  The nights at

this season and in this northern latitude are short; and I had soon

the company of the returning daylight.  The silence in and around

the house was only broken by the movements of the doctor in the

laboratory; to these I listened, watch in hand, awaiting the hour

of my escape, and yet consumed by anxiety about the strange

experiment that was going forward overhead.  Indeed, now that I was

conscious of some protection for myself, my sympathies had turned

more directly to the doctor's side; I caught myself even praying

for his success; and when some hours ago a low, peculiar cry

reached my ears from the laboratory, I could no longer control my

impatience, but mounted the stairs and opened the door.

 

The doctor was standing in the middle of the room; in his hand a

large, round-bellied, crystal flask, some three parts full of a

bright amber-coloured liquid; on his face a rapture of gratitude

and joy unspeakable.  As he saw me he raised the flask at arm's

length.  'Victory!' he cried.  'Victory, Asenath!'  And then--

whether the flask escaped his trembling fingers, or whether the

explosion were spontaneous, I cannot tell--enough that we were

thrown, I against the door-post, the doctor into the corner of the

room; enough that we were shaken to the soul by the same explosion

that must have startled you upon the street; and that, in the brief

space of an indistinguishable instant, there remained nothing of

the labours of the doctor's lifetime but a few shards of broken

crystal and those voluminous and ill-smelling vapours that pursued

me in my flight.

 

 

 

THE SQUIRE OF DAMES (Concluded)

 

 

 

What with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her

voice, Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine

emotion.  His fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively

character, applauded both the matter and the style; but the more

judicial functions of his mind refused assent.  It was an excellent

story; and it might be true, but he believed it was not.  Miss

Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless possible for a lady to

wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to tell her so?  His

spirits for some time had been sinking, but they now fell to zero;

and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a troubled

and averted countenance, and could find no form of words to thank

her for her narrative.  His mind, indeed, was empty of everything

beyond a dull longing for escape.  From this pause, which grew the

more embarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden

laughter of the lady.  His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced

her; their eyes met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank

merriment as put him instantly at ease.

 

'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with

excellent spirit.'

 

'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter.

But from this access she more speedily recovered.  'This is all

very well,' said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a

most distressing situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I

shall find it difficult indeed to free myself.'

 

At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.

 

'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should

be delighted, I am sure.  But our position is most unusual; and

circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control,

deprive me of the power--the pleasure--Unless, indeed,' he added,

somewhat brightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to

the care of the police?'

 

She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and

he saw with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of

their meeting, every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.

 

'Do so,' she said, 'and--weigh my words well--you kill me as

certainly as with a knife.'

 

'God bless me!' exclaimed Challoner.

 

'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light

of the perils that surround me; but who are you to judge?  My

family share my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw

yourself by what an emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen

to supply me with the funds for my escape.  I admit that you are

brave and clever and have impressed me most favourably; but how are

you to prefer your opinion before that of my uncle, an ex-minister

of state, a man with the ear of the Queen, and of a long political

experience?  If I am mad, is he?  And you must allow me, besides, a

special claim upon your help.  Strange as you may think my story,

you know that much of it is true; and if you who heard the

explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit and

assist me, to whom am I to turn?'

 

'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling

singly on that fact.

 

'I begin to interest you,' she cried.  'But, frankly, you are

condemned to help me.  If the service I had to ask of you were

serious, were suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more.

But what is it?  To take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will

suffer me, I propose to pay) and to carry from one lady to another

a sum of money!  What can be more simple?'

 

'Is the sum,' asked Challoner, 'considerable?'

 

She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had

not yet found time to make the count, tore open the cover and

spread upon her knees a considerable number of Bank of England

notes.  It took some time to make the reckoning, for the notes were

of every degree of value; but at last, and counting a few loose

sovereigns, she made out the sum to be a little under 710 pounds

sterling.  The sight of so much money worked an immediate

revolution in the mind of Challoner.

 

'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a

perfect stranger?'

 

'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you

as a stranger.'

 

'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession.

Although of a very good family--through my mother, indeed, a lineal

descendant of the patriot Bruce--I dare not conceal from you that

my affairs are deeply, very deeply involved.  I am in debt; my

pockets are practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that

state when a considerable sum of money would prove to many men an

irresistible temptation.'

 

'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you

have removed my last hesitation?  Take them.'  And she thrust the

notes into the young man's hand.

 

He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss

Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.

 

'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket;

and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me

by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself

reduced to the awkwardness of the pronoun.'

 

Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had

come lightly to the young man's aid; but upon what pretext could he

refuse so generous a trust?  Upon none he saw, that was not

unpardonably wounding; and the bright eyes and the high spirits of

his companion had already made a breach in the rampart of

Challoner's caution.  The whole thing, he reasoned, might be a mere

mystification, which it were the height of solemn folly to resent.

On the other hand, the explosion, the interview at the public-

house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to prove beyond

denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,

could he desert her?  There was a choice of risks:  the risk of

behaving with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a

lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand.  The story seemed

false; but then the money was undeniable.  The whole circumstances

were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming, and had

the speech and manners of society.  While he still hung in the

wind, a recollection returned upon his mind with some of the

dignity of prophecy.  Had he not promised Somerset to break with

the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept the first

adventure offered?  Well, here was the adventure.

 

He thrust the money into his pocket.

 

'My name is Challoner,' said he.

 

'Mr. Challoner,' she replied, 'you have come very generously to my

aid when all was against me.  Though I am myself a very humble

person, my family commands great interest; and I do not think you

will repent this handsome action.'

 

Challoner flushed with pleasure.

 

'I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,' she added, her eyes

dwelling on him with a judicial admiration, 'a consulship in some

great town or capital--or else--But we waste time; let us set about

the work of my delivery.'

 

She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart;

and once more laying by all serious thoughts, she entertained him,

as they crossed the park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind.  Near

the Marble Arch they found a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to

the terminus at Euston Square; and here, in the hotel, they sat

down to an excellent breakfast.  The young lady's first step was to

call for writing materials and write, upon one corner of the table,

a hasty note; still, as she did so, glancing with smiles at her

companion.  'Here,' said she, 'here is the letter which will

introduce you to my cousin.'  She began to fold the paper.  'My

cousin, although I have never seen her, has the character of a very

charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that I know nothing, but

at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father;

so have you--kinder than all--kinder than I can bear to think of.'

She said this with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed

the envelope.  'Ah!' she cried, 'I have shut my letter!  It is not

quite courteous; and yet, as between friends, it is perhaps better

so.  I introduce you, after all, into a family secret; and though

you and I are already old comrades, you are still unknown to my

uncle.  You go then to this address, Richard Street, Glasgow; go,

please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter with your own

hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the name by which

she is to pass.  When we next meet, you will tell me what you think

of her,' she added, with a touch of the provocative.

 

'Ah,' said Challoner, almost tenderly, 'she can be nothing to me.'

 

'You do not know,' replied the young lady, with a sigh.  'By-the-

bye, I had forgotten--it is very childish, and I am almost ashamed

to mention it--but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to

make yourself a little ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way

suits you.  We had agreed upon a watchword.  You will have to

address an earl's daughter in these words:  "NIGGER, NIGGER, NEVER

DIE;" but reassure yourself,' she added, laughing, 'for the fair

patrician will at once finish the quotation.  Come now, say your

lesson.'

 

'"Nigger, nigger, never die,"' repeated Challoner, with undisguised

reluctance.

 

Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter.  'Excellent,' said she,

'it will be the most humorous scene.'  And she laughed again.

 

'And what will be the counterword?' asked Challoner stiffly.

 

'I will not tell you till the last moment,' said she; 'for I

perceive you are growing too imperious.'

 

Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform,

bought him the Graphic, the Athenaeum, and a paper-cutter, and

stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded.  Then she

put her head into the carriage.  'BLACK FACE AND SHINING EYE!' she

whispered, and instantly leaped down upon the platform, with a

thrill of gay and musical laughter.  As the train steamed out of

the great arch of glass, the sound of that laughter still rang in

the young man's ears.

 

Challoner's position was too unusual to be long welcome to his

mind.  He found himself projected the whole length of England, on a

mission beset with obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet,

by the trust he had accepted, irrevocably bound to persevere.  How

easy it appeared, in the retrospect, to have refused the whole

proposal, returned the money, and gone forth again upon his own

affairs, a free and happy man!  And it was now impossible:  the

enchantress who had held him with her eye had now disappeared,

taking his honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leave him an

address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat.  To

use the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with which she

had presented him, was to renew the bitterness of his remorse; and

as he was alone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at

the landscape in impotent repentance, and long before he was landed

on the platform of St. Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest and

coldest zones of self-contempt.

 

As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have

preferred to dine and to remove the stains of travel; but the words

of the young lady, and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no

delay.  In the late, luminous, and lamp-starred dusk of the summer

evening, he accordingly set forward with brisk steps.

 

The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in the

character of a row of small suburban villas on a hillside; but the

extension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded

it with miles of streets.  From the top of the hill a range of very

tall buildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the

population and variegated by drying-poles from every second window,

overplumbed the villas and their little gardens like a sea-board

cliff.  But still, under the grime of years of city smoke, these

antiquated cottages, with their venetian blinds and rural

porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholy savour of the past.

 

The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted.  From

hard by, indeed, the sound of a thousand footfalls filled the ear;

but in Richard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of

human habitation.  The appearance of the neighbourhood weighed

heavily on the mind of the young man; once more, as in the streets

of London, he was impressed with the sense of city deserts; and as

he approached the number indicated, and somewhat falteringly rang

the bell, his heart sank within him.

 

The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous

note; and it was some time before it ceased to sound from the rear

quarters of the building.  Following upon this an inner door was

stealthily opened, and careful and catlike steps drew near along

the hall.  Challoner, supposing he was to be instantly admitted,

produced his letter, and, as well as he was able, prepared a

smiling face.  To his indescribable surprise, however, the

footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and with the like

stealthiness, withdrew once more, and died away in the interior of

the house.  A second time the young man rang violently at the bell;

a second time, to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet

footing moved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and again

the fainthearted garrison only drew near to retreat.  The cup of

the visitor's endurance was now full to overflowing; and,

committing the whole family of Fonblanque to every mood and shade

of condemnation, he turned upon his heel and redescended the steps.

Perhaps the mover in the house was watching from a window, and

plucked up courage at the sight of this desistance; or perhaps,

where he lurked trembling in the back parts of the villa, reason in

its own right had conquered his alarms.  Challoner, at least, had

scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was arrested by the sound

of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed another, rattling

in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the door

opened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very

stalwart figure in his shirt sleeves.  He was a person neither of

great manly beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man,

in ordinary moods, to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he

now stood in the doorway, he was marked so legibly with the extreme

passion of terror that Challoner stood wonder-struck.  For a

fraction of a minute they gazed upon each other in silence; and

then the man of the house, with ashen lips and gasping voice,

inquired the business of his visitor.  Challoner replied, in tones

from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he was the bearer

of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque.  At this name, as at a

talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter;

and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the

door was closed behind him and his retreat cut off.

 

It was already long past eight at night; and though the late

twilight of the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage

it was already groping dark.  The man led Challoner directly to a

parlour looking on the garden to the back.  Here he had apparently

been supping; for by the light of a tallow dip the table was seen

to be covered with a napkin, and set out with a quart of bottled

ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese.  The room, on the other hand,

was furnished with faded solidity, and the walls were lined with

scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases.  The house must have

been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man of the

shirt sleeves and the mean supper.  As for the earl's daughter, the

earl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they had long

ago begun to fade in Challoner's imagination.  Like Doctor Grierson

and the Mormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of

dreams.  Not an illusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope

was left him, but to be speedily relieved from this disreputable

business.

 

The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised

anxiety, and began once more to press him for his errand.

 

'I am here,' said Challoner, 'simply to do a service between two

ladies; and I must ask you, without further delay, to summon Miss

Fonblanque, into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the

letter that I bear.'

 

A growing wonder began to mingle on the man's face with the lines

of solicitude.  'I am Miss Fonblanque,' he said; and then,

perceiving the effect of this communication, 'Good God!' he cried,

'what are you staring at?  I tell you, I am Miss Fonblanque.'

 

Seeing the speaker wore a chin-beard of considerable length, and

the remainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could

only suppose himself the subject of a jest.  He was no longer under

the spell of the young lady's presence; and with men, and above all

with his inferiors, he was capable of some display of spirit.

 

'Sir,' said he, pretty roundly, 'I have put myself to great

inconvenience for persons of whom I know too little, and I begin to

be weary of the business.  Either you shall immediately summon Miss

Fonblanque, or I leave this house and put myself under the

direction of the police.'

 

'This is horrible!' exclaimed the man.  'I declare before Heaven I

am the person meant, but how shall I convince you?  It must have

been Clara, I perceive, that sent you on this errand--a madwoman,

who jests with the most deadly interests; and here we are

incapable, perhaps, of an agreement, and Heaven knows what may

depend on our delay!'

 

He spoke with a really startling earnestness; and at the same time

there flashed upon the mind of Challoner the ridiculous jingle

which was to serve as password.  'This may, perhaps, assist you,'

he said, and then, with some embarrassment, '"Nigger, nigger, never

die."'

 

A light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man

with the chin-beard.  '"Black face and shining eye"--give me the

letter,' he panted, in one gasp.

 

'Well,' said Challoner, though still with some reluctance, 'I

suppose I must regard you as the proper recipient; and though I may

justly complain of the spirit in which I have been treated, I am

only too glad to be done with all responsibility.  Here it is,' and

he produced the envelope.

 

The man leaped upon it like a beast, and with hands that trembled

in a manner painful to behold, tore it open and unfolded the

letter.  As he read, terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch

of nightmare.  He struck one hand upon his brow, while with the

other, as if unconsciously, he crumpled the paper to a ball.  'My

gracious powers!' he cried; and then, dashing to the window, which

stood open on the garden, he clapped forth his head and shoulders,

and whistled long and shrill.  Challoner fell back into a corner,

and resolutely grasping his staff, prepared for the most desperate

events; but the thoughts of the man with the chin-beard were far

removed from violence.  Turning again into the room, and once more

beholding his visitor, whom he appeared to have forgotten, he

fairly danced with trepidation.  'Impossible!' he cried.  'Oh,

quite impossible!  O Lord, I have lost my head.'  And then, once

more striking his hand upon his brow, 'The money!' he exclaimed.

'Give me the money.'

 

'My good friend,' replied Challoner, 'this is a very painful

exhibition; and until I see you reasonably master of yourself, I

decline to proceed with any business.'

 

'You are quite right,' said the man.  'I am of a very nervous

habit; a long course of the dumb ague has undermined my

constitution.  But I know you have money; it may be still the

saving of me; and oh, dear young gentleman, in pity's name be

expeditious!'  Challoner, sincerely uneasy as he was, could scarce

refrain from laughter; but he was himself in a hurry to be gone,

and without more delay produced the money.  'You will find the sum,

I trust, correct,' he observed 'and let me ask you to give me a

receipt.'

 

But the man heeded him not.  He seized the money, and disregarding

the sovereigns that rolled loose upon the floor, thrust the bundle

of notes into his pocket.

 

'A receipt,' repeated Challoner, with some asperity.  'I insist on

a receipt.'

 

'Receipt?' repeated the man, a little wildly.  'A receipt?

Immediately!  Await me here.'

 

Challoner, in reply, begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary

time, as he was himself desirous of catching a particular train.

 

'Ah, by God, and so am I!' exclaimed the man with the chin-beard;

and with that he was gone out of the room, and had rattled

upstairs, four at a time, to the upper story of the villa.

 

'This is certainly a most amazing business,' thought Challoner;

'certainly a most disquieting affair; and I cannot conceal from

myself that I have become mixed up with either lunatics or

malefactors.  I may truly thank my stars that I am so nearly and so

creditably done with it.'  Thus thinking, and perhaps remembering

the episode of the whistle, he turned to the open window.  The

garden was still faintly clear; he could distinguish the stairs and

terraces with which the small domain had been adorned by former

owners, and the blackened bushes and dead trees that had once

afforded shelter to the country birds; beyond these he saw the

strong retaining wall, some thirty feet in height, which enclosed

the garden to the back; and again above that, the pile of dingy

buildings rearing its frontage high into the night.  A peculiar

object lying stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his

eyesight; but at length he had made it out to be a long ladder, or

series of ladders bound into one; and he was still wondering of

what service so great an instrument could be in such a scant

enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one

running violently down the stairs.  This was followed by the

sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that again, by

rapid and retreating footsteps in the street.

 

Challoner sprang into the passage.  He ran from room to room,

upstairs and downstairs; and in that old dingy and worm-eaten

house, he found himself alone.  Only in one apartment, looking to

the front, were there any traces of the late inhabitant:  a bed

that had been recently slept in and not made, a chest of drawers

disordered by a hasty search, and on the floor a roll of crumpled

paper.  This he picked up.  The light in this upper story looking

to the front was considerably brighter than in the parlour; and he

was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of the hotel at

Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the following

lines in a very elegant and careful female hand:

 

 

'DEAR M'GUIRE,--It is certain your retreat is known.  We have just

had another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the

usual humiliating result.  Zero is quite disheartened.  We are all

scattered, and I could find no one but the SOLEMN ASS who brings

you this and the money.  I would love to see your meeting.--Ever

yours,

 

SHINING EYE.'

 

 

Challoner was stricken to the heart.  He perceived by what

facility, by what unmanly fear of ridicule, he had been brought

down to be the gull of this intriguer; and his wrath flowed forth

in almost equal measure against himself, against the woman, and

against Somerset, whose idle counsels had impelled him to embark on

that adventure.  At the same time a great and troubled curiosity,

and a certain chill of fear, possessed his spirit.  The conduct of

the man with the chin-beard, the terms of the letter, and the

explosion of the early morning, fitted together like parts in some

obscure and mischievous imbroglio.  Evil was certainly afoot; evil,

secrecy, terror, and falsehood were the conditions and the passions

of the people among whom he had begun to move, like a blind puppet;

and he who began as a puppet, his experience told him, was often

doomed to perish as a victim.

 

From the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the

letter in his hand, he was awakened by the clatter of the bell.  He

glanced from the window; and, conceive his horror and surprise when

he beheld, clustered on the steps, in the front garden and on the

pavement of the street, a formidable posse of police!  He started

to the full possession of his powers and courage.  Escape, and

escape at any cost, was the one idea that possessed him.  Swiftly

and silently he redescended the creaking stairs; he was already in

the passage when a second and more imperious summons from the door

awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor had the bell ceased to

jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill of the parlour and

was lowering himself into the garden.  His coat was hooked upon the

iron flower-basket; for a moment he hung dependent heels and head

below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth, and followed by

several pots, he dropped upon the sod.  Once more the bell was

rung, and now with furious and repeated peals.  The desperate

Challoner turned his eyes on every side.  They fell upon the

ladder, and he ran to it, and with strenuous but unavailing effort

sought to raise it from the ground.  Suddenly the weight, which was

thus resisting his whole strength, began to lighten in his hands;

the ladder, like a thing of life, reared its bulk from off the sod;

and Challoner, leaping back with a cry of almost superstitious

terror, beheld the whole structure mount, foot by foot, against the

face of the retaining wall.  At the same time, two heads were dimly

visible above the parapet, and he was hailed by a guarded whistle.

Something in its modulation recalled, like an echo, the whistle of

the man with the chin-beard,

 

Had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those

very miscreants whose messenger and gull he had become?  Was this,

indeed, a means of safety, or but the starting-point of further

complication and disaster?  He paused not to reflect.  Scarce was

the ladder reared to its full length than he had sprung already on

the rounds; hand over hand, swift as an ape, he scaled the

tottering stairway.  Strong arms received, embraced, and helped

him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth; and with the

spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself in the company of

two rough-looking men, in the paved back yard of one of the tall

houses that crowned the summit of the hill.  Meanwhile, from below,

the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of vigorous

and redoubling blows.

 

'Are you all out?' asked one of his companions; and, as soon as he

had babbled an answer in the affirmative, the rope was cut from the

top round, and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden,

where it fell and broke with clattering reverberations.  Its fall

was hailed with many broken cries; for the whole of Richard Street

was now in high emotion, the people crowding to the windows or

clambering on the garden walls.  The same man who had already

addressed Challoner seized him by the arm; whisked him through the

basement of the house and across the street upon the other side;

and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realise his

situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low and dark

compartment.

 

'Bedad,' observed his guide, 'there was no time to lose.  Is

M'Guire gone, or was it you that whistled?

 

'M'Guire is gone,' said Challoner.

 

The guide now struck a light.  'Ah,' said he, 'this will never do.

You dare not go upon the streets in such a figure.  Wait quietly

here and I will bring you something decent.'

 

With that the man was gone, and Challoner, his attention thus

rudely awakened, began ruefully to consider the havoc that had been

worked in his attire.  His hat was gone; his trousers were cruelly

ripped; and the best part of one tail of his very elegant frockcoat

had been left hanging from the iron crockets of the window.  He had

scarce had time to measure these disasters when his host re-entered

the apartment and proceeded, without a word, to envelop the refined

and urbane Challoner in a long ulster of the cheapest material, and

of a pattern so gross and vulgar that his spirit sickened at the

sight.  This calumnious disguise was crowned and completed by a

soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and several sizes too small.

At another moment Challoner would simply have refused to issue

forth upon the world thus travestied; but the desire to escape from

Glasgow was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed upon his

mind.  With one haggard glance at the spotted tails of his new

coat, he inquired what was to pay for this accoutrement.  The man

assured him that the whole expense was easily met from funds in his

possession, and begged him, instead of wasting time, to make his

best speed out of the neighbourhood.

 

The young man was not loath to take the hint.  True to his usual

courtesy, he thanked the speaker and complimented him upon his

taste in greatcoats; and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these

remarks and the manner of their delivery, he hurried forth into the

lamplit city.  The last train was gone ere, after many deviations,

he had reached the terminus.  Attired as he was he dared not

present himself at any reputable inn; and he felt keenly that the

unassuming dignity of his demeanour would serve to attract

attention, perhaps mirth and possibly suspicion, in any humbler

hostelry.  He was thus condemned to pass the solemn and uneventful

hours of a whole night in pacing the streets of Glasgow;

supperless; a figure of fun for all beholders; waiting the dawn,

with hope indeed, but with unconquerable shrinkings; and above all

things, filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of

his conduct.  It may be conceived with what curses he assailed the

memory of the fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang

in his ears all night with damning mockery and iteration; and when

he could spare a thought from this chief artificer of his

confusion, it was to expend his wrath on Somerset and the career of

the amateur detective.  With the coming of day, he found in a shy

milk-shop the means to appease his hunger.  There were still many

hours to wait before the departure of the South express; these he

passed wandering with indescribable fatigue in the obscurer by-

streets of the city; and at length slipped quietly into the station

and took his place in the darkest corner of a third-class carriage.

Here, all day long, he jolted on the bare boards, distressed by

heat and continually reawakened from uneasy slumbers.  By the half

return ticket in his purse, he was entitled to make the journey on

the easy cushions and with the ample space of the first-class; but

alas! in his absurd attire, he durst not, for decency, commingle

with his equals; and this small annoyance, coming last in such a

series of disasters, cut him to the heart.

 

That night, when, in his Putney lodging, he reviewed the expense,

anxiety, and weariness of his adventure; when he beheld the ruins

of his last good trousers and his last presentable coat; and above

all, when his eye by any chance alighted on the Tyrolese hat or the

degrading ulster, his heart would overflow with bitterness, and it

was only by a serious call on his philosophy that he maintained the

dignity of his demeanour.

 

 

 

SOMERSET'S ADVENTURE:  THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION

 

 

 

Mr. Paul Somerset was a young gentleman of a lively and fiery

imagination, with very small capacity for action.  He was one who

lived exclusively in dreams and in the future:  the creature of his

own theories, and an actor in his own romances.  From the cigar

divan he proceeded to parade the streets, still heated with the

fire of his eloquence, and scouting upon every side for the offer

of some fortunate adventure.  In the continual stream of passers-

by, on the sealed fronts of houses, on the posters that covered the

hoardings, and in every lineament and throb of the great city, he

saw a mysterious and hopeful hieroglyph.  But although the elements

of adventure were streaming by him as thick as drops of water in

the Thames, it was in vain that, now with a beseeching, now with

something of a braggadocio air, he courted and provoked the notice

of the passengers; in vain that, putting fortune to the touch, he

even thrust himself into the way and came into direct collision

with those of the more promising demeanour.  Persons brimful of

secrets, persons pining for affection, persons perishing for lack

of help or counsel, he was sure he could perceive on every side;

but by some contrariety of fortune, each passed upon his way

without remarking the young gentleman, and went farther (surely to

fare worse!) in quest of the confidant, the friend, or the adviser.

To thousands he must have turned an appealing countenance, and yet

not one regarded him.

 

A light dinner, eaten to the accompaniment of his impetuous

aspirations, broke in upon the series of his attempts on fortune;

and when he returned to the task, the lamps were already lighted,

and the nocturnal crowd was dense upon the pavement.  Before a

certain restaurant, whose name will readily occur to any student of

our Babylon, people were already packed so closely that passage had

grown difficult; and Somerset, standing in the kennel, watched,

with a hope that was beginning to grow somewhat weary, the faces

and the manners of the crowd.  Suddenly he was startled by a gentle

touch upon the shoulder, and facing about, he was aware of a very

plain and elegant brougham, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, and

driven by a man in sober livery.  There were no arms upon the

panel; the window was open, but the interior was obscure; the

driver yawned behind his palm; and the young man was already

beginning to suppose himself the dupe of his own fancy, when a

hand, no larger than a child's and smoothly gloved in white,

appeared in a corner of the window and privily beckoned him to

approach.  He did so, and looked in.  The carriage was occupied by

a single small and very dainty figure, swathed head and shoulders

in impenetrable folds of white lace; and a voice, speaking low and

silvery, addressed him in these words -

 

'Open the door and get in.'

 

'It must be,' thought the young man with an almost unbearable

thrill, 'it must be that duchess at last!'  Yet, although the

moment was one to which he had long looked forward, it was with a

certain share of alarm that he opened the door, and, mounting into

the brougham, took his seat beside the lady of the lace.  Whether

or no she had touched a spring, or given some other signal, the

young man had hardly closed the door before the carriage, with

considerable swiftness, and with a very luxurious and easy movement

on its springs, turned and began to drive towards the west.

 

Somerset, as I have written, was not unprepared; it had long been

his particular pleasure to rehearse his conduct in the most

unlikely situations; and this, among others, of the patrician

ravisher, was one he had familiarly studied.  Strange as it may

seem, however, he could find no apposite remark; and as the lady,

on her side, vouchsafed no further sign, they continued to drive in

silence through the streets.  Except for alternate flashes from the

passing lamps, the carriage was plunged in obscurity; and beyond

the fact that the fittings were luxurious, and that the lady was

singularly small and slender in person, and, all but one gloved

hand, still swathed in her costly veil, the young man could

decipher no detail of an inspiring nature.  The suspense began to

grow unbearable.  Twice he cleared his throat, and twice the whole

resources of the language failed him.  In similar scenes, when he

had forecast them on the theatre of fancy, his presence of mind had

always been complete, his eloquence remarkable; and at this

disparity between the rehearsal and the performance, he began to be

seized with a panic of apprehension.  Here, on the very threshold

of adventure, suppose him ignominiously to fail; suppose that after

ten, twenty, or sixty seconds of still uninterrupted silence, the

lady should touch the check-string and re-deposit him, weighed and

found wanting, on the common street!  Thousands of persons of no

mind at all, he reasoned, would be found more equal to the part;

could, that very instant, by some decisive step, prove the lady's

choice to have been well inspired, and put a stop to this

intolerable silence.

 

His eye, at this point, lighted on the hand.  It was better to fall

by desperate councils than to continue as he was; and with one

tremulous swoop he pounced on the gloved fingers and drew them to

himself.  One overt step, it had appeared to him, would dissolve

the spell of his embarrassment; in act, he found it otherwise:  he

found himself no less incapable of speech or further progress; and

with the lady's hand in his, sat helpless.  But worse was in store.

A peculiar quivering began to agitate the form of his companion;

the hand that lay unresistingly in Somerset's trembled as with

ague; and presently there broke forth, in the shadow of the

carriage, the bubbling and musical sound of laughter, resisted but

triumphant.  The young man dropped his prize; had it been possible,

he would have bounded from the carriage.  The lady, meanwhile,

lying back upon the cushions, passed on from trill to trill of the

most heartfelt, high-pitched, clear and fairy-sounding merriment.

 

'You must not be offended,' she said at last, catching an

opportunity between two paroxysms.  'If you have been mistaken in

the warmth of your attentions, the fault is solely mine; it does

not flow from your presumption, but from my eccentric manner of

recruiting friends; and, believe me, I am the last person in the

world to think the worse of a young man for showing spirit.  As for

to-night, it is my intention to entertain you to a little supper;

and if I shall continue to be as much pleased with your manners as

I was taken with your face, I may perhaps end by making you an

advantageous offer.'

 

Somerset sought in vain to find some form of answer, but his

discomfiture had been too recent and complete.

 

'Come,' returned the lady, 'we must have no display of temper; that

is for me the one disqualifying fault; and as I perceive we are

drawing near our destination, I shall ask you to descend and offer

me your arm.'

 

Indeed, at that very moment the carriage drew up before a stately

and severe mansion in a spacious square; and Somerset, who was

possessed of an excellent temper, with the best grace in the world

assisted the lady to alight.  The door was opened by an old woman

of a grim appearance, who ushered the pair into a dining-room

somewhat dimly lighted, but already laid for supper, and occupied

by a prodigious company of large and valuable cats.  Here, as soon

as they were alone, the lady divested herself of the lace in which

she was enfolded; and Somerset was relieved to find, that although

still bearing the traces of great beauty, and still distinguished

by the fire and colour of her eye, her hair was of a silvery

whiteness and her face lined with years.

 

'And now, mon preux,' said the old lady, nodding at him with a

quaint gaiety, 'you perceive that I am no longer in my first youth.

You will soon find that I am all the better company for that.'

 

As she spoke, the maid re-entered the apartment with a light but

tasteful supper.  They sat down, accordingly, to table, the cats

with savage pantomime surrounding the old lady's chair; and what

with the excellence of the meal and the gaiety of his entertainer,

Somerset was soon completely at his ease.  When they had well eaten

and drunk, the old lady leaned back in her chair, and taking a cat

upon her lap, subjected her guest to a prolonged but evidently

mirthful scrutiny.

 

'I fear, madam,' said Somerset, 'that my manners have not risen to

the height of your preconceived opinion.'

 

'My dear young man,' she replied, 'you were never more mistaken in

your life.  I find you charming, and you may very well have lighted

on a fairy godmother.  I am not one of those who are given to

change their opinions, and short of substantial demerit, those who

have once gained my favour continue to enjoy it; but I have a

singular swiftness of decision, read my fellow men and women with a

glance, and have acted throughout life on first impressions.

Yours, as I tell you, has been favourable; and if, as I suppose,

you are a young fellow of somewhat idle habits, I think it not

improbable that we may strike a bargain.'

 

'Ah, madam,' returned Somerset, 'you have divined my situation.  I

am a man of birth, parts, and breeding; excellent company, or at

least so I find myself; but by a peculiar iniquity of fate,

destitute alike of trade or money.  I was, indeed, this evening

upon the quest of an adventure, resolved to close with any offer of

interest, emolument, or pleasure; and your summons, which I profess

I am still at some loss to understand, jumped naturally with the

inclination of my mind.  Call it, if you will, impudence; I am

here, at least, prepared for any proposition you can find it in

your heart to make, and resolutely determined to accept.'

 

'You express yourself very well,' replied the old lady, 'and are

certainly a droll and curious young man.  I should not care to

affirm that you were sane, for I have never found any one entirely

so besides myself; but at least the nature of your madness

entertains me, and I will reward you with some description of my

character and life.'

 

Thereupon the old lady, still fondling the cat upon her lap,

proceeded to narrate the following particulars.

 

 

 

NARRATIVE OF THE SPIRITED OLD LADY

 

 

 

I was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe, who

held a valuable living in the diocese of Bath and Wells.  Our

family, a very large one, was noted for a sprightly and incisive

wit, and came of a good old stock where beauty was an heirloom.  In

Christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient.  From my

earliest years I saw and deplored the defects of those relatives

whose age and position should have enabled them to conquer my

esteem; and while I was yet a child, my father married a second

wife, in whom (strange to say) the Fanshawe failings were

exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree.  Whatever

may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern

daughter; but it was in vain that, with the most touching patience,

I submitted to my stepmother's demands; and from the hour she

entered my father's house, I may say that I met with nothing but

injustice and ingratitude.

 

I stood not alone, however, in the sweetness of my disposition; for

one other of the family besides myself was free from any violence

of character.  Before I had reached the age of sixteen, this

cousin, John by name, had conceived for me a sincere but silent

passion; and although the poor lad was too timid to hint at the

nature of his feelings, I had soon divined and begun to share them.

For some days I pondered on the odd situation created for me by the

bashfulness of my admirer; and at length, perceiving that he began,

in his distress, rather to avoid than seek my company, I determined

to take the matter into my own hands.  Finding him alone in a

retired part of the rectory garden, I told him that I had divined

his amiable secret, that I knew with what disfavour our union was

sure to be regarded; and that, under the circumstances, I was

prepared to flee with him at once.  Poor John was literally

paralysed with joy; such was the force of his emotions, that he

could find no words in which to thank me; and that I, seeing him

thus helpless, was obliged to arrange, myself, the details of our

flight, and of the stolen marriage which was immediately to crown

it.  John had been at that time projecting a visit to the

metropolis.  In this I bade him persevere, and promised on the

following day to join him at the Tavistock Hotel.

 

True, on my side, to every detail of our arrangement, I arose, on

the day in question, before the servants, packed a few necessaries

in a bag, took with me the little money I possessed, and bade

farewell for ever to the rectory.  I walked with good spirits to a

town some thirty miles from home, and was set down the next morning

in this great city of London.  As I walked from the coach-office to

the hotel, I could not help exulting in the pleasant change that

had befallen me; beholding, meanwhile, with innocent delight, the

traffic of the streets, and depicting, in all the colours of fancy,

the reception that awaited me from John.  But alas! when I inquired

for Mr. Fanshawe, the porter assured me there was no such gentleman

among the guests.  By what channel our secret had leaked out, or

what pressure had been brought to bear on the too facile John, I

could never fathom.  Enough that my family had triumphed; that I

found myself alone in London, tender in years, smarting under the

most sensible mortification, and by every sentiment of pride and

self-respect debarred for ever from my father's house.

 

I rose under the blow, and found lodgings in the neighbourhood of

Euston Road, where, for the first time in my life, I tasted the

joys of independence.  Three days afterwards, an advertisement in

the Times directed me to the office of a solicitor whom I knew to

be in my father's confidence.  There I was given the promise of a

very moderate allowance, and a distinct intimation that I must

never look to be received at home.  I could not but resent so cruel

a desertion, and I told the lawyer it was a meeting I desired as

little as themselves.  He smiled at my courageous spirit, paid me

the first quarter of my income, and gave me the remainder of my

personal effects, which had been sent to me, under his care, in a

couple of rather ponderous boxes.  With these I returned in triumph

to my lodgings, more content with my position than I should have

thought possible a week before, and fully determined to make the

best of the future.

 

All went well for several months; and, indeed, it was my own fault

alone that ended this pleasant and secluded episode of life.  I

have, I must confess, the fatal trick of spoiling my inferiors.  My

landlady, to whom I had as usual been overkind, impertinently

called me in fault for some particular too small to mention; and I,

annoyed that I had allowed her the freedom upon which she thus

presumed, ordered her to leave my presence.  She stood a moment

dumb, and then, recalling her self-possession, 'Your bill,' said

she, 'shall be ready this evening, and to-morrow, madam, you shall

leave my house.  See,' she added, 'that you are able to pay what

you owe me; for if I do not receive the uttermost farthing, no box

of yours shall pass my threshold.'

 

I was confounded at her audacity, but as a whole quarter's income

was due to me, not otherwise affected by the threat.  That

afternoon, as I left the solicitor's door, carrying in one hand,

and done up in a paper parcel, the whole amount of my fortune,

there befell me one of those decisive incidents that sometimes

shape a life.  The lawyer's office was situate in a street that

opened at the upper end upon the Strand, and was closed at the

lower, at the time of which I speak, by a row of iron railings

looking on the Thames.  Down this street, then, I beheld my

stepmother advancing to meet me, and doubtless bound to the very

house I had just left.  She was attended by a maid whose face was

new to me, but her own was too clearly printed on my memory; and

the sight of it, even from a distance, filled me with generous

indignation.  Flight was impossible.  There was nothing left but to

retreat against the railing, and with my back turned to the street,

pretend to be admiring the barges on the river or the chimneys of

transpontine London.

 

I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the

turbulence of my emotions, when a voice at my elbow addressed me

with a trivial question.  It was the maid whom my stepmother, with

characteristic hardness, had left to await her on the street, while

she transacted her business with the family solicitor.  The girl

did not know who I was; the opportunity too golden to be lost; and

I was soon hearing the latest news of my father's rectory and

parish.  It did not surprise me to find that she detested her

employers; and yet the terms in which she spoke of them were hard

to bear, hard to let pass unchallenged.  I heard them, however,

without dissent, for my self-command is wonderful; and we might

have parted as we met, had she not proceeded, in an evil hour, to

criticise the rector's missing daughter, and with the most shocking

perversions, to narrate the story of her flight.  My nature is so

essentially generous that I can never pause to reason.  I flung up

my hand sharply, by way, as well as I remember, of indignant

protest; and, in the act, the packet slipped from my fingers,

glanced between the railings, and fell and sunk in the river.  I

stood a moment petrified, and then, struck by the drollery of the

incident, gave way to peals of laughter.  I was still laughing when

my stepmother reappeared, and the maid, who doubtless considered me

insane, ran off to join her; nor had I yet recovered my gravity

when I presented myself before the lawyer to solicit a fresh

advance.  His answer made me serious enough, for it was a flat

refusal; and it was not until I had besought him even with tears,

that he consented to lend me ten pounds from his own pocket.  'I am

a poor man,' said he, 'and you must look for nothing farther at my

hands.'

 

The landlady met me at the door.  'Here, madam,' said she, with a

curtsey insolently low, 'here is my bill.  Would it inconvenience

you to settle it at once?'

 

'You shall be paid, madam,' said I, 'in the morning, in the proper

course.'  And I took the paper with a very high air, but inwardly

quaking.

 

I had no sooner looked at it than I perceived myself to be lost.  I

had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount; and it

had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve

pounds thirteen and fourpence halfpenny.  All evening I sat by the

fire considering my situation.  I could not pay the bill; my

landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either

baggage or money, how was I to find another lodging?  For three

months, unless I could invent some remedy, I was condemned to be

without a roof and without a penny.  It can surprise no one that I

decided on immediate flight; but even here I was confronted by a

difficulty, for I had no sooner packed my boxes than I found I was

not strong enough to move, far less to carry them.

 

In this strait I did not hesitate a moment, but throwing on a shawl

and bonnet, and covering my face with a thick veil, I betook myself

to that great bazaar of dangerous and smiling chances, the pavement

of the city.  It was already late at night, and the weather being

wet and windy, there were few abroad besides policemen.  These, on

my present mission, I had wit enough to know for enemies; and

wherever I perceived their moving lanterns, I made haste to turn

aside and choose another thoroughfare.  A few miserable women still

walked the pavement; here and there were young fellows returning

drunk, or ruffians of the lowest class lurking in the mouths of

alleys; but of any one to whom I might appeal in my distress, I

began almost to despair.

 

At last, at the corner of a street, I ran into the arms of one who

was evidently a gentleman, and who, in all his appointments, from

his furred great-coat to the fine cigar which he was smoking,

comfortably breathed of wealth.  Much as my face has changed from

its original beauty, I still retain (or so I tell myself) some

traces of the youthful lightness of my figure.  Even veiled as I

then was, I could perceive the gentleman was struck by my

appearance:  and this emboldened me for my adventure.

 

'Sir,' said I, with a quickly beating heart, 'sir, are you one in

whom a lady can confide?'

 

'Why, my dear,' said he, removing his cigar, 'that depends on

circumstances.  If you will raise your veil--'

 

'Sir,' I interrupted, 'let there be no mistake.  I ask you, as a

gentleman, to serve me, but I offer no reward.'

 

'That is frank,' said he; 'but hardly tempting.  And what, may I

inquire, is the nature of the service?'

 

But I knew well enough it was not my interest to tell him on so

short an interview.  'If you will accompany me,' said I, 'to a

house not far from here, you can see for yourself.'

 

He looked at me awhile with hesitating eyes; and then, tossing away

his cigar, which was not yet a quarter smoked, 'Here goes!' said

he, and with perfect politeness offered me his arm.  I was wise

enough to take it; to prolong our walk as far as possible, by more

than one excursion from the shortest line; and to beguile the way

with that sort of conversation which should prove to him

indubitably from what station in society I sprang.  By the time we

reached the door of my lodging, I felt sure I had confirmed his

interest, and might venture, before I turned the pass-key, to

beseech him to moderate his voice and to tread softly.  He promised

to obey me:  and I admitted him into the passage and thence into my

sitting-room, which was fortunately next the door.

 

'And now,' said he, when with trembling fingers I had lighted a

candle, 'what is the meaning of all this?'

 

'I wish you,' said I, speaking with great difficulty, 'to help me

out with these boxes--and I wish nobody to know.'

 

He took up the candle.  'And I wish to see your face,' said he.

 

I turned back my veil without a word, and looked at him with every

appearance of resolve that I could summon up.  For some time he

gazed into my face, still holding up the candle.  'Well,' said he

at last, 'and where do you wish them taken?'

 

I knew that I had gained my point; and it was with a tremor in my

voice that I replied.  'I had thought we might carry them between

us to the corner of Euston Road,' said I, 'where, even at this late

hour, we may still find a cab.'

 

'Very good,' was his reply; and he immediately hoisted the heavier

of my trunks upon his shoulder, and taking one handle of the

second, signed to me to help him at the other end.  In this order

we made good our retreat from the house, and without the least

adventure, drew pretty near to the corner of Euston Road.  Before a

house, where there was a light still burning, my companion paused.

'Let us here,' said he, 'set down our boxes, while we go forward to

the end of the street in quest of a cab.  By doing so, we can still

keep an eye upon their safety, and we avoid the very extraordinary

figure we should otherwise present--a young man, a young lady, and

a mass of baggage, standing castaway at midnight on the streets of

London.'  So it was done, and the event proved him to be wise; for

long before there was any word of a cab, a policeman appeared upon

the scene, turned upon us the full glare of his lantern, and hung

suspiciously behind us in a doorway.

 

'There seem to be no cabs about, policeman,' said my champion, with

affected cheerfulness.  But the constable's answer was ungracious;

and as for the offer of a cigar, with which this rebuff was most

unwisely followed up, he refused it point-blank, and without the

least civility.  The young gentleman looked at me with a warning

grimace, and there we continued to stand, on the edge of the

pavement, in the beating rain, and with the policeman still

silently watching our movements from the doorway.

 

At last, and after a delay that seemed interminable, a four-wheeler

appeared lumbering along in the mud, and was instantly hailed by my

companion.  'Just pull up here, will you?' he cried.  'We have some

baggage up the street.'

 

And now came the hitch of our adventure; for when the policeman,

still closely following us, beheld my two boxes lying in the rain,

he arose from mere suspicion to a kind of certitude of something

evil.  The light in the house had been extinguished; the whole

frontage of the street was dark; there was nothing to explain the

presence of these unguarded trunks; and no two innocent people were

ever, I believe, detected in such questionable circumstances.

 

'Where have these things come from?' asked the policeman, flashing

his light full into my champion's face.

 

'Why, from that house, of course,' replied the young gentleman,

hastily shouldering a trunk.

 

The policeman whistled and turned to look at the dark windows; he

then took a step towards the door, as though to knock, a course

which had infallibly proved our ruin; but seeing us already

hurrying down the street under our double burthen, thought better

or worse of it, and followed in our wake.

 

'For God's sake,' whispered my companion, 'tell me where to drive

to.'

 

'Anywhere,' I replied with anguish.  'I have no idea.  Anywhere you

like.'

 

Thus it befell that, when the boxes had been stowed, and I had

already entered the cab, my deliverer called out in clear tones the

address of the house in which we are now seated.  The policeman, I

could see, was staggered.  This neighbourhood, so retired, so

aristocratic, was far from what he had expected.  For all that, he

took the number of the cab, and spoke for a few seconds and with a

decided manner in the cabman's ear.

 

'What can he have said?' I gasped, as soon as the cab had rolled

away.

 

'I can very well imagine,' replied my champion; 'and I can assure

you that you are now condemned to go where I have said; for, should

we attempt to change our destination by the way, the jarvey will

drive us straight to a police-office.  Let me compliment you on

your nerves,' he added.  'I have had, I believe, the most horrible

fright of my existence.'

 

But my nerves, which he so much misjudged, were in so strange a

disarray that speech was now become impossible; and we made the

drive thenceforward in unbroken silence.  When we arrived before

the door of our destination, the young gentleman alighted, opened

it with a pass-key like one who was at home, bade the driver carry

the trunks into the hall, and dismissed him with a handsome fee.

He then led me into this dining-room, looking nearly as you behold

it, but with certain marks of bachelor occupancy, and hastened to

pour out a glass of wine, which he insisted on my drinking.  As

soon as I could find my voice, 'In God's name,' I cried, 'where am

I?'

 

He told me I was in his house, where I was very welcome, and had no

more urgent business than to rest myself and recover my spirits.

As he spoke he offered me another glass of wine, of which, indeed,

I stood in great want, for I was faint, and inclined to be

hysterical.  Then he sat down beside the fire, lit another cigar,

and for some time observed me curiously in silence.

 

'And now,' said he, 'that you have somewhat restored yourself, will

you be kind enough to tell me in what sort of crime I have become a

partner?  Are you murderer, smuggler, thief, or only the harmless

and domestic moonlight flitter?'

 

I had been already shocked by his lighting a cigar without

permission, for I had not forgotten the one he threw away on our

first meeting; and now, at these explicit insults, I resolved at

once to reconquer his esteem.  The judgment of the world I have

consistently despised, but I had already begun to set a certain

value on the good opinion of my entertainer.  Beginning with a note

of pathos, but soon brightening into my habitual vivacity and

humour, I rapidly narrated the circumstances of my birth, my

flight, and subsequent misfortunes.  He heard me to an end in

silence, gravely smoking.  'Miss Fanshawe,' said he, when I had

done, 'you are a very comical and most enchanting creature; and I

can see nothing for it but that I should return to-morrow morning

and satisfy your landlady's demands.'

 

'You strangely misinterpret my confidence,' was my reply; 'and if

you had at all appreciated my character, you would understand that

I can take no money at your hands.'

 

'Your landlady will doubtless not be so particular,' he returned;

'nor do I at all despair of persuading even your unconquerable

self.  I desire you to examine me with critical indulgence.  My

name is Henry Luxmore, Lord Southwark's second son.  I possess nine

thousand a year, the house in which we are now sitting, and seven

others in the best neighbourhoods in town.  I do not believe I am

repulsive to the eye, and as for my character, you have seen me

under trial.  I think you simply the most original of created

beings; I need not tell you what you know very well, that you are

ravishingly pretty; and I have nothing more to add, except that,

foolish as it may appear, I am already head over heels in love with

you.'

 

'Sir,' said I, 'I am prepared to be misjudged; but while I continue

to accept your hospitality that fact alone should be enough to

protect me from insult.'

 

'Pardon me,' said he:  'I offer you marriage.'  And leaning back in

his chair he replaced his cigar between his lips.

 

I own I was confounded by an offer, not only so unprepared, but

couched in terms so singular.  But he knew very well how to obtain

his purposes, for he was not only handsome in person, but his very

coolness had a charm; and to make a long story short, a fortnight

later I became the wife of the Honourable Henry Luxmore.

 

For nearly twenty years I now led a life of almost perfect quiet.

My Henry had his weaknesses; I was twice driven to flee from his

roof, but not for long; for though he was easily over-excited, his

nature was placable below the surface, and with all his faults, I

loved him tenderly.  At last he was taken from me; and such is the

power of self-deception, and so strange are the whims of the dying,

he actually assured me, with his latest breath, that he forgave the

violence of my temper!

 

There was but one pledge of the marriage, my daughter Clara.  She

had, indeed, inherited a shadow of her father's failing; but in all

things else, unless my partial eyes deceived me, she derived her

qualities from me, and might be called my moral image.  On my side,

whatever else I may have done amiss, as a mother I was above

reproach.  Here, then, was surely every promise for the future;

here, at last, was a relation in which I might hope to taste

repose.  But it was not to be.  You will hardly credit me when I

inform you that she ran away from home; yet such was the case.

Some whim about oppressed nationalities--Ireland, Poland, and the

like--has turned her brain; and if you should anywhere encounter a

young lady (I must say, of remarkable attractions) answering to the

name of Luxmore, Lake, or Fonblanque (for I am told she uses these

indifferently, as well as many others), tell her, from me, that I

forgive her cruelty, and though I will never more behold her face,

I am at any time prepared to make her a liberal allowance.

 

On the death of Mr. Luxmore, I sought oblivion in the details of

business.  I believe I have mentioned that seven mansions, besides

this, formed part of Mr. Luxmore's property:  I have found them

seven white elephants.  The greed of tenants, the dishonesty of

solicitors, and the incapacity that sits upon the bench, have

combined together to make these houses the burthen of my life.  I

had no sooner, indeed, begun to look into these matters for myself,

than I discovered so many injustices and met with so much studied

incivility, that I was plunged into a long series of lawsuits, some

of which are pending to this day.  You must have heard my name

already; I am the Mrs. Luxmore of the Law Reports:  a strange

destiny, indeed, for one born with an almost cowardly desire for

peace!  But I am of the stamp of those who, when they have once

begun a task, will rather die than leave their duty unfulfilled.  I

have met with every obstacle:  insolence and ingratitude from my

own lawyers; in my adversaries, that fault of obstinacy which is to

me perhaps the most distasteful in the calendar; from the bench,

civility indeed--always, I must allow, civility--but never a spark

of independence, never that knowledge of the law and love of

justice which we have a right to look for in a judge, the most

august of human officers.  And still, against all these odds, I

have undissuadably persevered.

 

It was after the loss of one of my innumerable cases (a subject on

which I will not dwell) that it occurred to me to make a melancholy

pilgrimage to my various houses.  Four were at that time tenantless

and closed, like pillars of salt, commemorating the corruption of

the age and the decline of private virtue.  Three were occupied by

persons who had wearied me by every conceivable unjust demand and

legal subterfuge--persons whom, at that very hour, I was moving

heaven and earth to turn into the street.  This was perhaps the

sadder spectacle of the two; and my heart grew hot within me to

behold them occupying, in my very teeth, and with an insolent

ostentation, these handsome structures which were as much mine as

the flesh upon my body.

 

One more house remained for me to visit, that in which we now are.

I had let it (for at that period I lodged in a hotel, the life that

I have always preferred) to a Colonel Geraldine, a gentleman

attached to Prince Florizel of Bohemia, whom you must certainly

have heard of; and I had supposed, from the character and position

of my tenant, that here, at least, I was safe against annoyance.

What was my surprise to find this house also shuttered and

apparently deserted!  I will not deny that I was offended; I

conceived that a house, like a yacht, was better to be kept in

commission; and I promised myself to bring the matter before my

solicitor the following morning.  Meanwhile the sight recalled my

fancy naturally to the past; and yielding to the tender influence

of sentiment, I sat down opposite the door upon the garden parapet.

It was August, and a sultry afternoon, but that spot is sheltered,

as you may observe by daylight, under the branches of a spreading

chestnut; the square, too, was deserted; there was a sound of

distant music in the air; and all combined to plunge me into that

most agreeable of states, which is neither happiness nor sorrow,

but shares the poignancy of both.

 

From this I was recalled by the arrival of a large van, very

handsomely appointed, drawn by valuable horses, mounted by several

men of an appearance more than decent, and bearing on its panels,

instead of a trader's name, a coat-of-arms too modest to be

deciphered from where I sat.  It drew up before my house, the door

of which was immediately opened by one of the men.  His companions-

-I counted seven of them in all--proceeded, with disciplined

activity, to take from the van and carry into the house a variety

of hampers, bottle-baskets, and boxes, such as are designed for

plate and napery.  The windows of the dining-room were thrown

widely open, as though to air it; and I saw some of those within

laying the table for a meal.  Plainly, I concluded, my tenant was

about to return; and while still determined to submit to no

aggression on my rights, I was gratified by the number and

discipline of his attendants, and the quiet profusion that appeared

to reign in his establishment.  I was still so thinking when, to my

extreme surprise, the windows and shutters of the dining-room were

once more closed; the men began to reappear from the interior and

resume their stations on the van; the last closed the door behind

his exit; the van drove away; and the house was once more left to

itself, looking blindly on the square with shuttered windows, as

though the whole affair had been a vision.

 

It was no vision, however; for, as I rose to my feet, and thus

brought my eyes a little nearer to the level of the fanlight over

the door, I saw that, though the day had still some hours to run,

the hall lamps had been lighted and left burning.  Plainly, then,

guests were expected, and were not expected before night.  For

whom, I asked myself with indignation, were such secret

preparations likely to be made?  Although no prude, I am a woman of

decided views upon morality; if my house, to which my husband had

brought me, was to serve in the character of a petite maison, I saw

myself forced, however unwillingly, into a new course of

litigation; and, determined to return and know the worst, I

hastened to my hotel for dinner.

 

I was at my post by ten.  The night was clear and quiet; the moon

rode very high and put the lamps to shame; and the shadow below the

chestnut was black as ink.  Here, then, I ensconced myself on the

low parapet, with my back against the railings, face to face with

the moonlit front of my old home, and ruminating gently on the

past.  Time fled; eleven struck on all the city clocks; and

presently after I was aware of the approach of a gentleman of

stately and agreeable demeanour.  He was smoking as he walked; his

light paletot, which was open, did not conceal his evening clothes;

and he bore himself with a serious grace that immediately awakened

my attention.  Before the door of this house he took a pass-key

from his pocket, quietly admitted himself, and disappeared into the

lamplit hall.

 

He was scarcely gone when I observed another and a much younger man

approaching hastily from the opposite side of the square.

Considering the season of the year and the genial mildness of the

night, he was somewhat closely muffled up; and as he came, for all

his hurry, he kept looking nervously behind him.  Arrived before my

door, he halted and set one foot upon the step, as though about to

enter; then, with a sudden change, he turned and began to hurry

away; halted a second time, as if in painful indecision; and

lastly, with a violent gesture, wheeled about, returned straight to

the door, and rapped upon the knocker.  He was almost immediately

admitted by the first arrival.

 

My curiosity was now broad awake.  I made myself as small as I

could in the very densest of the shadow, and waited for the sequel.

Nor had I long to wait.  From the same side of the square a second

young man made his appearance, walking slowly and softly, and like

the first, muffled to the nose.  Before the house he paused, looked

all about him with a swift and comprehensive glance; and seeing the

square lie empty in the moon and lamplight, leaned far across the

area railings and appeared to listen to what was passing in the

house.  From the dining-room there came the report of a champagne

cork, and following upon that, the sound of rich and manly

laughter.  The listener took heart of grace, produced a key,

unlocked the area gate, shut it noiselessly behind him, and

descended the stair.  Just when his head had reached the level of

the pavement, he turned half round and once more raked the square

with a suspicious eyeshot.  The mufflings had fallen lower round

his neck; the moon shone full upon him; and I was startled to

observe the pallor and passionate agitation of his face.

 

I could remain no longer passive.  Persuaded that something deadly

was afoot, I crossed the roadway and drew near the area railings.

There was no one below; the man must therefore have entered the

house, with what purpose I dreaded to imagine.  I have at no part

of my career lacked courage; and now, finding the area gate was

merely laid to, I pushed it gently open and descended the stairs.

The kitchen door of the house, like the area gate, was closed but

not fastened.  It flashed upon me that the criminal was thus

preparing his escape; and the thought, as it confirmed the worst of

my suspicions, lent me new resolve.  I entered the house; and being

now quite reckless of my life, I shut and locked the door.

 

From the dining-room above I could hear the pleasant tones of a

voice in easy conversation.  On the ground floor all was not only

profoundly silent, but the darkness seemed to weigh upon my eyes.

Here, then, I stood for some time, having thrust myself uncalled

into the utmost peril, and being destitute of any power to help or

interfere.  Nor will I deny that fear had begun already to assail

me, when I became aware, all at once and as though by some

immediate but silent incandescence, of a certain glimmering of

light upon the passage floor.  Towards this I groped my way with

infinite precaution; and having come at length as far as the angle

of the corridor, beheld the door of the butler's pantry standing

just ajar and a narrow thread of brightness falling from the chink.

Creeping still closer, I put my eye to the aperture.  The man sat

within upon a chair, listening, I could see, with the most rapt

attention.  On a table before him he had laid a watch, a pair of

steel revolvers, and a bull's-eye lantern.  For one second many

contradictory theories and projects whirled together in my head;

the next, I had slammed the door and turned the key upon the

malefactor.  Surprised at my own decision, I stood and panted,

leaning on the wall.  From within the pantry not a sound was to be

heard; the man, whatever he was, had accepted his fate without a

struggle, and now, as I hugged myself to fancy, sat frozen with

terror and looking for the worst to follow.  I promised myself that

he should not be disappointed; and the better to complete my task,

I turned to ascend the stairs.

 

The situation, as I groped my way to the first floor, appealed to

me suddenly by my strong sense of humour.  Here was I, the owner of

the house, burglariously present in its walls; and there, in the

dining-room, were two gentlemen, unknown to me, seated complacently

at supper, and only saved by my promptitude from some surprising or

deadly interruption.  It were strange if I could not manage to

extract the matter of amusement from so unusual a situation.

 

Behind this dining-room, there is a small apartment intended for a

library.  It was to this that I cautiously groped my way; and you

will see how fortune had exactly served me.  The weather, I have

said, was sultry; in order to ventilate the dining-room and yet

preserve the uninhabited appearance of the mansion to the front,

the window of the library had been widely opened, and the door of

communication between the two apartments left ajar.  To this

interval I now applied my eye.

 

Wax tapers, set in silver candlesticks, shed their chastened

brightness on the damask of the tablecloth and the remains of a

cold collation of the rarest delicacy.  The two gentlemen had

finished supper, and were now trifling with cigars and maraschino;

while in a silver spirit lamp, coffee of the most captivating

fragrance was preparing in the fashion of the East.  The elder of

the two, he who had first arrived, was placed directly facing me;

the other was set on his left hand.  Both, like the man in the

butler's pantry, seemed to be intently listening; and on the face

of the second I thought I could perceive the marks of fear.  Oddly

enough, however, when they came to speak, the parts were found to

be reversed.

 

'I assure you,' said the elder gentleman, 'I not only heard the

slamming of a door, but the sound of very guarded footsteps.'

 

'Your highness was certainly deceived,' replied the other.  'I am

endowed with the acutest hearing, and I can swear that not a mouse

has rustled.'  Yet the pallor and contraction of his features were

in total discord with the tenor of his words.

 

His highness (whom, of course, I readily divined to be Prince

Florizel) looked at his companion for the least fraction of a

second; and though nothing shook the easy quiet of his attitude, I

could see that he was far from being duped.  'It is well,' said he;

'let us dismiss the topic.  And now, sir, that I have very freely

explained the sentiments by which I am directed, let me ask you,

according to your promise, to imitate my frankness.'

 

'I have heard you,' replied the other, 'with great interest.'

 

'With singular patience,' said the prince politely.

 

'Ay, your highness, and with unlooked-for sympathy,' returned the

young man.  'I know not how to tell the change that has befallen

me.  You have, I must suppose, a charm, to which even your enemies

are subject.'  He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and

visibly blanched.  'So late!' he cried.  'Your highness--God knows

I am now speaking from the heart--before it be too late, leave this

house!'

 

The prince glanced once more at his companion, and then very

deliberately shook the ash from his cigar.  'That is a strange

remark,' said he; 'and a propos de bottes, I never continue a cigar

when once the ash is fallen; the spell breaks, the soul of the

flavour flies away, and there remains but the dead body of tobacco;

and I make it a rule to throw away that husk and choose another.'

He suited the action to the words.

 

'Do not trifle with my appeal,' resumed the young man, in tones

that trembled with emotion.  'It is made at the price of my honour

and to the peril of my life.  Go--go now! lose not a moment; and if

you have any kindness for a young man, miserably deceived indeed,

but not devoid of better sentiments, look not behind you as you

leave.'

 

'Sir,' said the prince, 'I am here upon your honour; assure you

upon mine that I shall continue to rely upon that safeguard.  The

coffee is ready; I must again trouble you, I fear.'  And with a

courteous movement of the hand, he seemed to invite his companion

to pour out the coffee.

 

The unhappy young man rose from his seat.  'I appeal to you,' he

cried, 'by every holy sentiment, in mercy to me, if not in pity to

yourself, begone before it is too late.'

 

'Sir,' replied the prince, 'I am not readily accessible to fear;

and if there is one defect to which I must plead guilty, it is that

of a curious disposition.  You go the wrong way about to make me

leave this house, in which I play the part of your entertainer;

and, suffer me to add, young man, if any peril threaten us, it was

of your contriving, not of mine.'

 

'Alas, you do not know to what you condemn me,' cried the other.

'But I at least will have no hand in it.'  With these words he

carried his hand to his pocket, hastily swallowed the contents of a

phial, and, with the very act, reeled back and fell across his

chair upon the floor.  The prince left his place and came and stood

above him, where he lay convulsed upon the carpet.  'Poor moth!' I

heard his highness murmur.  'Alas, poor moth! must we again inquire

which is the more fatal--weakness or wickedness?  And can a

sympathy with ideas, surely not ignoble in themselves, conduct a

man to this dishonourable death?'

 

By this time I had pushed the door open and walked into the room.

'Your highness,' said I, 'this is no time for moralising; with a

little promptness we may save this creature's life; and as for the

other, he need cause you no concern, for I have him safely under

lock and key.'

 

The prince had turned about upon my entrance, and regarded me

certainly with no alarm, but with a profundity of wonder which

almost robbed me of my self-possession.  'My dear madam,' he cried

at last, 'and who the devil are you?'

 

I was already on the floor beside the dying man.  I had, of course,

no idea with what drug he had attempted his life, and I was forced

to try him with a variety of antidotes.  Here were both oil and

vinegar, for the prince had done the young man the honour of

compounding for him one of his celebrated salads; and of each of

these I administered from a quarter to half a pint, with no

apparent efficacy.  I next plied him with the hot coffee, of which

there may have been near upon a quart.

 

'Have you no milk?' I inquired.

 

'I fear, madam, that milk has been omitted,' returned the prince.

 

'Salt, then,' said I; 'salt is a revulsive.  Pass the salt.'

 

'And possibly the mustard?' asked his highness, as he offered me

the contents of the various salt-cellars poured together on a

plate.

 

'Ah,' cried I, 'the thought is excellent!  Mix me about half a pint

of mustard, drinkably dilute.'

 

Whether it was the salt or the mustard, or the mere combination of

so many subversive agents, as soon as the last had been poured over

his throat, the young sufferer obtained relief.

 

'There!' I exclaimed, with natural triumph, 'I have saved a life!'

 

'And yet, madam,' returned the prince, 'your mercy may be cruelty

disguised.  Where the honour is lost, it is, at least, superfluous

to prolong the life.'

 

'If you had led a life as changeable as mine, your highness,' I

replied, 'you would hold a very different opinion.  For my part,

and after whatever extremity of misfortune or disgrace, I should

still count to-morrow worth a trial.'

 

'You speak as a lady, madam,' said the prince; 'and for such you

speak the truth.  But to men there is permitted such a field of

license, and the good behaviour asked of them is at once so easy

and so little, that to fail in that is to fall beyond the reach of

pardon.  But will you suffer me to repeat a question, put to you at

first, I am afraid, with some defect of courtesy; and to ask you

once more, who you are and how I have the honour of your company?'

 

'I am the proprietor of the house in which we stand,' said I.

 

'And still I am at fault,' returned the prince.

 

But at that moment the timepiece on the mantel-shelf began to

strike the hour of twelve; and the young man, raising himself upon

one elbow, with an expression of despair and horror that I have

never seen excelled, cried lamentably, 'Midnight! oh, just God!'

We stood frozen to our places, while the tingling hammer of the

timepiece measured the remaining strokes; nor had we yet stirred,

so tragic had been the tones of the young man, when the various

bells of London began in turn to declare the hour.  The timepiece

was inaudible beyond the walls of the chamber where we stood; but

the second pulsation of Big Ben had scarcely throbbed into the

night, before a sharp detonation rang about the house.  The prince

sprang for the door by which I had entered; but quick as he was, I

yet contrived to intercept him.

 

'Are you armed?' I cried.

 

'No, madam,' replied he.  'You remind me appositely; I will take

the poker.'

 

'The man below,' said I, 'has two revolvers.  Would you confront

him at such odds?'

 

He paused, as though staggered in his purpose.

 

'And yet, madam,' said he, 'we cannot continue to remain in

ignorance of what has passed.'

 

'No!' cried I.  'And who proposes it?  I am as curious as yourself,

but let us rather send for the police; or, if your highness dreads

a scandal, for some of your own servants.'

 

'Nay, madam,' he replied, smiling, 'for so brave a lady, you

surprise me.  Would you have me, then, send others where I fear to

go myself?'

 

'You are perfectly right,' said I, 'and I was entirely wrong.  Go,

in God's name, and I will hold the candle!'

 

Together, therefore, we descended to the lower story, he carrying

the poker, I the light; and together we approached and opened the

door of the butler's pantry.  In some sort, I believe, I was

prepared for the spectacle that met our eyes; I was prepared, that

is, to find the villain dead, but the rude details of such a

violent suicide I was unable to endure.  The prince, unshaken by

horror as he had remained unshaken by alarm, assisted me with the

most respectful gallantry to regain the dining-room.

 

There we found our patient, still, indeed, deadly pale, but vastly

recovered and already seated on a chair.  He held out both his

hands with a most pitiful gesture of interrogation.

 

'He is dead,' said the prince.

 

'Alas!' cried the young man, 'and it should be I!  What do I do,

thus lingering on the stage I have disgraced, while he, my sure

comrade, blameworthy indeed for much, but yet the soul of fidelity,

has judged and slain himself for an involuntary fault?  Ah, sir,'

said he, 'and you too, madam, without whose cruel help I should be

now beyond the reach of my accusing conscience, you behold in me

the victim equally of my own faults and virtues.  I was born a

hater of injustice; from my most tender years my blood boiled

against heaven when I beheld the sick, and against men when I

witnessed the sorrows of the poor; the pauper's crust stuck in my

throat when I sat down to eat my dainties, and the cripple child

has set me weeping.  What was there in that but what was noble? and

yet observe to what a fall these thoughts have led me!  Year after

year this passion for the lost besieged me closer.  What hope was

there in kings? what hope in these well-feathered classes that now

roll in money?  I had observed the course of history; I knew the

burgess, our ruler of to-day, to be base, cowardly, and dull; I saw

him, in every age, combine to pull down that which was immediately

above and to prey upon those that were below; his dulness, I knew,

would ultimately bring about his ruin; I knew his days were

numbered, and yet how was I to wait? how was I to let the poor

child shiver in the rain?  The better days, indeed, were coming,

but the child would die before that.  Alas, your highness, in

surely no ungenerous impatience I enrolled myself among the enemies

of this unjust and doomed society; in surely no unnatural desire to

keep the fires of my philanthropy alight, I bound myself by an

irrevocable oath.

 

'That oath is all my history.  To give freedom to posterity I had

forsworn my own.  I must attend upon every signal; and soon my

father complained of my irregular hours and turned me from his

house.  I was engaged in betrothal to an honest girl; from her also

I had to part, for she was too shrewd to credit my inventions and

too innocent to be entrusted with the truth.  Behold me, then,

alone with conspirators!  Alas! as the years went on, my illusions

left me.  Surrounded as I was by the fervent disciples and

apologists of revolution, I beheld them daily advance in confidence

and desperation; I beheld myself, upon the other hand, and with an

almost equal regularity, decline in faith.  I had sacrificed all to

further that cause in which I still believed; and daily I began to

grow in doubts if we were advancing it indeed.  Horrible was the

society with which we warred, but our own means were not less

horrible.

 

'I will not dwell upon my sufferings; I will not pause to tell you

how, when I beheld young men still free and happy, married, fathers

of children, cheerfully toiling at their work, my heart reproached

me with the greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice.  I will

not describe to you how, worn by poverty, poor lodging, scanty

food, and an unquiet conscience, my health began to fail, and in

the long nights, as I wandered bedless in the rainy streets, the

most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the tortures of my

mind.  These things are not personal to me; they are common to all

unfortunates in my position.  An oath, so light a thing to swear,

so grave a thing to break:  an oath, taken in the heat of youth,

repented with what sobbings of the heart, but yet in vain repented,

as the years go on:  an oath, that was once the very utterance of

the truth of God, but that falls to be the symbol of a meaningless

and empty slavery; such is the yoke that many young men joyfully

assume, and under whose dead weight they live to suffer worse than

death.

 

'It is not that I was patient.  I have begged to be released; but I

knew too much, and I was still refused.  I have fled; ay, and for

the time successfully.  I reached Paris.  I found a lodging in the

Rue St. Jacques, almost opposite the Val de Grace.  My room was

mean and bare, but the sun looked into it towards evening; it

commanded a peep of a green garden; a bird hung by a neighbour's

window and made the morning beautiful; and I, who was sick, might

lie in bed and rest myself:  I, who was in full revolt against the

principles that I had served, was now no longer at the beck of the

council, and was no longer charged with shameful and revolting

tasks.  Oh! what an interval of peace was that!  I still dream, at

times, that I can hear the note of my neighbour's bird.

 

'My money was running out, and it became necessary that I should

find employment.  Scarcely had I been three days upon the search,

ere I thought that I was being followed.  I made certain of the

features of the man, which were quite strange to me, and turned

into a small cafe, where I whiled away an hour, pretending to read

the papers, but inwardly convulsed with terror.  When I came forth

again into the street, it was quite empty, and I breathed again;

but alas, I had not turned three corners, when I once more observed

the human hound pursuing me.  Not an hour was to be lost; timely

submission might yet preserve a life which otherwise was forfeit

and dishonoured; and I fled, with what speed you may conceive, to

the Paris agency of the society I served.

 

'My submission was accepted.  I took up once more the hated burthen

of that life; once more I was at the call of men whom I despised

and hated, while yet I envied and admired them.  They at least were

wholehearted in the things they purposed; but I, who had once been

such as they, had fallen from the brightness of my faith, and now

laboured, like a hireling, for the wages of a loathed existence.

Ay, sir, to that I was condemned; I obeyed to continue to live, and

lived but to obey.

 

'The last charge that was laid upon me was the one which has to-

night so tragically ended.  Boldly telling who I was, I was to

request from your highness, on behalf of my society, a private

audience, where it was designed to murder you.  If one thing

remained to me of my old convictions, it was the hate of kings; and

when this task was offered me, I took it gladly.  Alas, sir, you

triumphed.  As we supped, you gained upon my heart.  Your

character, your talents, your designs for our unhappy country, all

had been misrepresented.  I began to forget you were a prince; I

began, all too feelingly, to remember that you were a man.  As I

saw the hour approach, I suffered agonies untold; and when, at

last, we heard the slamming of the door which announced in my

unwilling ears the arrival of the partner of my crime, you will

bear me out with what instancy I besought you to depart.  You would

not, alas! and what could I?  Kill you, I could not; my heart

revolted, my hand turned back from such a deed.  Yet it was

impossible that I should suffer you to stay; for when the hour

struck and my companion came, true to his appointment, and he, at

least, true to our design, I could neither suffer you to be killed

nor yet him to be arrested.  From such a tragic passage, death, and

death alone, could save me; and it is no fault of mine if I

continue to exist.

 

'But you, madam,' continued the young man, addressing himself more

directly to myself, 'were doubtless born to save the prince and to

confound our purposes.  My life you have prolonged; and by turning

the key on my companion, you have made me the author of his death.

He heard the hour strike; he was impotent to help; and thinking

himself forfeit to honour, thinking that I should fall alone upon

his highness and perish for lack of his support, he has turned his

pistol on himself.'

 

'You are right,' said Prince Florizel:  'it was in no ungenerous

spirit that you brought these burthens on yourself; and when I see

you so nobly to blame, so tragically punished, I stand like one

reproved.  For is it not strange, madam, that you and I, by

practising accepted and inconsiderable virtues, and commonplace but

still unpardonable faults, should stand here, in the sight of God,

with what we call clean hands and quiet consciences; while this

poor youth, for an error that I could almost envy him, should be

sunk beyond the reach of hope?

 

'Sir,' resumed the prince, turning to the young man, 'I cannot help

you; my help would but unchain the thunderbolt that overhangs you;

and I can but leave you free.'

 

'And, sir,' said I, 'as this house belongs to me, I will ask you to

have the kindness to remove the body.  You and your conspirators,

it appears to me, can hardly in civility do less.'

 

'It shall be done,' said the young man, with a dismal accent.

 

'And you, dear madam,' said the prince, 'you, to whom I owe my

life, how can I serve you?'

 

'Your highness,' I said, 'to be very plain, this is my favourite

house, being not only a valuable property, but endeared to me by

various associations.  I have endless troubles with tenants of the

ordinary class:  and at first applauded my good fortune when I

found one of the station of your Master of the Horse.  I now begin

to think otherwise:  dangers set a siege about great personages;

and I do not wish my tenement to share these risks.  Procure me the

resiliation of the lease, and I shall feel myself your debtor.'

 

'I must tell you, madam,' replied his highness, 'that Colonel

Geraldine is but a cloak for myself; and I should be sorry indeed

to think myself so unacceptable a tenant.'

 

'Your highness,' said I, 'I have conceived a sincere admiration for

your character; but on the subject of house property, I cannot

allow the interference of my feelings.  I will, however, to prove

to you that there is nothing personal in my request, here solemnly

engage my word that I will never put another tenant in this house.'

 

'Madam,' said Florizel, 'you plead your cause too charmingly to be

refused.'

 

Thereupon we all three withdrew.  The young man, still reeling in

his walk, departed by himself to seek the assistance of his fellow-

conspirators; and the prince, with the most attentive gallantry,

lent me his escort to the door of my hotel.  The next day, the

lease was cancelled; nor from that hour to this, though sometimes

regretting my engagement, have I suffered a tenant in this house.

 

 

 

THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued).

 

 

 

As soon as the old lady had finished her relation, Somerset made

haste to offer her his compliments.

 

'Madam,' said he, 'your story is not only entertaining but

instructive; and you have told it with infinite vivacity.  I was

much affected towards the end, as I held at one time very liberal

opinions, and should certainly have joined a secret society if I

had been able to find one.  But the whole tale came home to me; and

I was the better able to feel for you in your various perplexities,

as I am myself of somewhat hasty temper.'

 

'I do not understand you,' said Mrs. Luxmore, with some marks of

irritation.  'You must have strangely misinterpreted what I have

told you.  You fill me with surprise.'

 

Somerset, alarmed by the old lady's change of tone and manner,

hurried to recant.

 

'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'you certainly misconstrue my remark.

As a man of somewhat fiery humour, my conscience repeatedly pricked

me when I heard what you had suffered at the hands of persons

similarly constituted.'

 

'Oh, very well indeed,' replied the old lady; 'and a very proper

spirit.  I regret that I have met with it so rarely.'

 

'But in all this,' resumed the young man, 'I perceive nothing that

concerns myself.'

 

'I am about to come to that,' she returned.  'And you have already

before you, in the pledge I gave Prince Florizel, one of the

elements of the affair.  I am a woman of the nomadic sort, and when

I have no case before the courts I make it a habit to visit

continental spas:  not that I have ever been ill; but then I am no

longer young, and I am always happy in a crowd.  Well, to come more

shortly to the point, I am now on the wing for Evian; this incubus

of a house, which I must leave behind and dare not let, hangs

heavily upon my hands; and I propose to rid myself of that concern,

and do you a very good turn into the bargain, by lending you the

mansion, with all its fittings, as it stands.  The idea was sudden;

it appealed to me as humorous:  and I am sure it will cause my

relatives, if they should ever hear of it, the keenest possible

chagrin.  Here, then, is the key; and when you return at two to-

morrow afternoon, you will find neither me nor my cats to disturb

you in your new possession.'

 

So saying, the old lady arose, as if to dismiss her visitor; but

Somerset, looking somewhat blankly on the key, began to protest.

 

'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'this is a most unusual proposal.

You know nothing of me, beyond the fact that I displayed both

impudence and timidity.  I may be the worst kind of scoundrel; I

may sell your furniture--'

 

'You may blow up the house with gunpowder, for what I care!' cried

Mrs. Luxmore.  'It is in vain to reason.  Such is the force of my

character that, when I have one idea clearly in my head, I do not

care two straws for any side consideration.  It amuses me to do it,

and let that suffice.  On your side, you may do what you please--

let apartments, or keep a private hotel; on mine, I promise you a

full month's warning before I return, and I never fail religiously

to keep my promises.'

 

The young man was about to renew his protest, when he observed a

sudden and significant change in the old lady's countenance.

 

'If I thought you capable of disrespect!' she cried.

 

'Madam,' said Somerset, with the extreme fervour of asseveration,

'madam, I accept.  I beg you to understand that I accept with joy

and gratitude.'

 

'Ah well,' returned Mrs. Luxmore, 'if I am mistaken, let it pass.

And now, since all is comfortably settled, I wish you a good-

night.'

 

Thereupon, as if to leave him no room for repentance, she hurried

Somerset out of the front door, and left him standing, key in hand,

upon the pavement.

 

The next day, about the hour appointed, the young man found his way

to the square, which I will here call Golden Square, though that

was not its name.  What to expect, he knew not; for a man may live

in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their realisation.  It was

already with a certain pang of surprise that he beheld the mansion,

standing in the eye of day, a solid among solids.  The key, upon

trial, readily opened the front door; he entered that great house,

a privileged burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion,

rapidly reviewed the empty chambers.  Cats, servant, old lady, the

very marks of habitation, like writing on a slate, had been in

these few hours obliterated.  He wandered from floor to floor, and

found the house of great extent; the kitchen offices commodious and

well appointed; the rooms many and large; and the drawing-room, in

particular, an apartment of princely size and tasteful decoration.

Although the day without was warm, genial, and sunny, with a

ruffling wind from the quarter of Torquay, a chill, as it were, of

suspended animation inhabited the house.  Dust and shadows met the

eye; and but for the ominous procession of the echoes, and the

rumour of the wind among the garden trees, the ear of the young man

was stretched in vain.

 

Behind the dining-room, that pleasant library, referred to by the

old lady in her tale, looked upon the flat roofs and netted cupolas

of the kitchen quarters; and on a second visit, this room appeared

to greet him with a smiling countenance.  He might as well, he

thought, avoid the expense of lodging:  the library, fitted with an

iron bedstead which he had remarked, in one of the upper chambers,

would serve his purpose for the night; while in the dining-room,

which was large, airy, and lightsome, looking on the square and

garden, he might very agreeably pass his days, cook his meals, and

study to bring himself to some proficiency in that art of painting

which he had recently determined to adopt.  It did not take him

long to make the change:  he had soon returned to the mansion with

his modest kit; and the cabman who brought him was readily induced,

by the young man's pleasant manner and a small gratuity, to assist

him in the installation of the iron bed.  By six in the evening,

when Somerset went forth to dine, he was able to look back upon the

mansion with a sense of pride and property.  Four-square it stood,

of an imposing frontage, and flanked on either side by family

hatchments.  His eye, from where he stood whistling in the key,

with his back to the garden railings, reposed on every feature of

reality; and yet his own possession seemed as flimsy as a dream.

 

In the course of a few days, the genteel inhabitants of the square

began to remark the customs of their neighbour.  The sight of a

young gentleman discussing a clay pipe, about four o'clock of the

afternoon, in the drawing-room balcony of so discreet a mansion;

and perhaps still more, his periodical excursion to a decent tavern

in the neighbourhood, and his unabashed return, nursing the full

tankard:  had presently raised to a high pitch the interest and

indignation of the liveried servants of the square.  The disfavour

of some of these gentlemen at first proceeded to the length of

insult; but Somerset knew how to be affable with any class of men;

and a few rude words merrily accepted, and a few glasses amicably

shared, gained for him the right of toleration.

 

The young man had embraced the art of Raphael, partly from a notion

of its ease, partly from an inborn distrust of offices.  He scorned

to bear the yoke of any regular schooling; and proceeded to turn

one half of the dining-room into a studio for the reproduction of

still life.  There he amassed a variety of objects,

indiscriminately chosen from the kitchen, the drawing-room, and the

back garden; and there spent his days in smiling assiduity.

Meantime, the great bulk of empty building overhead lay, like a

load, upon his imagination.  To hold so great a stake and to do

nothing, argued some defect of energy; and he at length determined

to act upon the hint given by Mrs. Luxmore herself, and to stick,

with wafers, in the window of the dining-room, a small handbill

announcing furnished lodgings.  At half-past six of a fine July

morning, he affixed the bill, and went forth into the square to

study the result.  It seemed, to his eye, promising and

unpretentious; and he returned to the drawing-room balcony, to

consider, over a studious pipe, the knotty problem of how much he

was to charge.

 

Thereupon he somewhat relaxed in his devotion to the art of

painting.  Indeed, from that time forth, he would spend the best

part of the day in the front balcony, like the attentive angler

poring on his float; and the better to support the tedium, he would

frequently console himself with his clay pipe.  On several

occasions, passers-by appeared to be arrested by the ticket, and on

several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very doorstep by

the carriageful; but it appeared there was something repulsive in

the appearance of the house; for with one accord, they would cast

but one look upward, and hastily resume their onward progress or

direct the driver to proceed.  Somerset had thus the mortification

of actually meeting the eye of a large number of lodging-seekers;

and though he hastened to withdraw his pipe, and to compose his

features to an air of invitation, he was never rewarded by so much

as an inquiry.  'Can there,' he thought, 'be anything repellent in

myself?'  But a candid examination in one of the pier-glasses of

the drawing-room led him to dismiss the fear.

 

Something, however, was amiss.  His vast and accurate calculations

on the fly-leaves of books, or on the backs of playbills, appeared

to have been an idle sacrifice of time.  By these, he had variously

computed the weekly takings of the house, from sums as modest as

five-and-twenty shillings, up to the more majestic figure of a

hundred pounds; and yet, in despite of the very elements of

arithmetic, here he was making literally nothing.

 

This incongruity impressed him deeply and occupied his thoughtful

leisure on the balcony; and at last it seemed to him that he had

detected the error of his method.  'This,' he reflected, 'is an age

of generous display:  the age of the sandwich-man, of Griffiths, of

Pears' legendary soap, and of Eno's fruit salt, which, by sheer

brass and notoriety, and the most disgusting pictures I ever

remember to have seen, has overlaid that comforter of my childhood,

Lamplough's pyretic saline.  Lamplough was genteel, Eno was

omnipresent; Lamplough was trite, Eno original and abominably

vulgar; and here have I, a man of some pretensions to knowledge of

the world, contented myself with half a sheet of note-paper, a few

cold words which do not directly address the imagination, and the

adornment (if adornment it may be called) of four red wafers!  Am

I, then, to sink with Lamplough, or to soar with Eno?  Am I to

adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming in a duke? or to

take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the

tradesman and the poet?'

 

Pursuant upon these meditations, he procured several sheets of the

very largest size of drawing-paper; and laying forth his paints,

proceeded to compose an ensign that might attract the eye, and at

the same time, in his own phrase, directly address the imagination

of the passenger.  Something taking in the way of colour, a good,

savoury choice of words, and a realistic design setting forth the

life a lodger might expect to lead within the walls of that palace

of delight:  these, he perceived, must be the elements of his

advertisement.  It was possible, upon the one hand, to depict the

sober pleasures of domestic life, the evening fire, blond-headed

urchins and the hissing urn; but on the other, it was possible (and

he almost felt as if it were more suited to his muse) to set forth

the charms of an existence somewhat wider in its range or, boldly

say, the paradise of the Mohammedan.  So long did the artist waver

between these two views, that, before he arrived at a conclusion,

he had finally conceived and completed both designs.  With the

proverbially tender heart of the parent, he found himself unable to

sacrifice either of these offsprings of his art; and decided to

expose them on alternate days.  'In this way,' he thought, 'I shall

address myself indifferently to all classes of the world.'

 

The tossing of a penny decided the only remaining point; and the

more imaginative canvas received the suffrages of fortune, and

appeared first in the window of the mansion.  It was of a high

fancy, the legend eloquently writ, the scheme of colour taking and

bold; and but for the imperfection of the artist's drawing, it

might have been taken for a model of its kind.  As it was, however,

when viewed from his favourite point against the garden railings,

and with some touch of distance, it caused a pleasurable rising of

the artist's heart.  'I have thrown away,' he ejaculated, 'an

invaluable motive; and this shall be the subject of my first

academy picture.'

 

The fate of neither of these works was equal to its merit.  A crowd

would certainly, from time to time, collect before the area-

railings; but they came to jeer and not to speculate; and those who

pushed their inquiries further, were too plainly animated by the

spirit of derision.  The racier of the two cartoons displayed,

indeed, no symptom of attractive merit; and though it had a certain

share of that success called scandalous, failed utterly of its

effect.  On the day, however, of the second appearance of the

companion work, a real inquirer did actually present himself before

the eyes of Somerset.

 

This was a gentlemanly man, with some marks of recent merriment,

and his voice under inadequate control.

 

'I beg your pardon,' said he, 'but what is the meaning of your

extraordinary bill?'

 

'I beg yours,' returned Somerset hotly.  'Its meaning is

sufficiently explicit.'  And being now, from dire experience,

fearful of ridicule, he was preparing to close the door, when the

gentleman thrust his cane into the aperture.

 

'Not so fast, I beg of you,' said he.  'If you really let

apartments, here is a possible tenant at your door; and nothing

would give me greater pleasure than to see the accommodation and to

learn your terms.'

 

His heart joyously beating, Somerset admitted the visitor, showed

him over the various apartments, and, with some return of his

persuasive eloquence, expounded their attractions.  The gentleman

was particularly pleased by the elegant proportions of the drawing-

room.

 

'This,' he said, 'would suit me very well.  What, may I ask, would

be your terms a week, for this floor and the one above it?'

 

'I was thinking,' returned Somerset, 'of a hundred pounds.'

 

'Surely not,' exclaimed the gentleman.

 

'Well, then,' returned Somerset, 'fifty.'

 

The gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement.  'You

seem to be strangely elastic in your demands,' said he.  'What if I

were to proceed on your own principle of division, and offer

twenty-five?'

 

'Done!' cried Somerset; and then, overcome by a sudden

embarrassment, 'You see,' he added apologetically, 'it is all found

money for me.'

 

'Really?' said the stranger, looking at him all the while with

growing wonder.  'Without extras, then?'

 

'I--I suppose so,' stammered the keeper of the lodging-house.

 

'Service included?' pursued the gentleman.

 

'Service?' cried Somerset.  'Do you mean that you expect me to

empty your slops?'

 

The gentleman regarded him with a very friendly interest.  'My dear

fellow,' said he, 'if you take my advice, you will give up this

business.'  And thereupon he resumed his hat and took himself away.

 

This smarting disappointment produced a strong effect on the artist

of the cartoons; and he began with shame to eat up his rosier

illusions.  First one and then the other of his great works was

condemned, withdrawn from exhibition, and relegated, as a mere

wall-picture, to the decoration of the dining-room.  Their place

was taken by a replica of the original wafered announcement, to

which, in particularly large letters, he had added the pithy

rubric:  'NO SERVICE.'  Meanwhile he had fallen into something as

nearly bordering on low spirits as was consistent with his

disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the

laughable turn of his late interview, and the judicial blindness of

the public to the merit of the twin cartoons.

 

Perhaps a week had passed before he was again startled by the note

of the knocker.  A gentleman of a somewhat foreign and somewhat

military air, yet closely shaven and wearing a soft hat, desired in

the politest terms to visit the apartments.  He had (he explained)

a friend, a gentleman in tender health, desirous of a sedate and

solitary life, apart from interruptions and the noises of the

common lodging-house.  'The unusual clause,' he continued, 'in your

announcement, particularly struck me.  "This," I said, "is the

place for Mr. Jones."  You are yourself, sir, a professional

gentleman?' concluded the visitor, looking keenly in Somerset's

face.

 

'I am an artist,' replied the young man lightly.

 

'And these,' observed the other, taking a side glance through the

open door of the dining-room, which they were then passing, 'these

are some of your works.  Very remarkable.'  And he again and still

more sharply peered into the countenance of the young man.

 

Somerset, unable to suppress a blush, made the more haste to lead

his visitor upstairs and to display the apartments.

 

'Excellent,' observed the stranger, as he looked from one of the

back windows.  'Is that a mews behind, sir?  Very good.  Well, sir:

see here.  My friend will take your drawing-room floor; he will

sleep in the back drawing-room; his nurse, an excellent Irish

widow, will attend on all his wants and occupy a garret; he will

pay you the round sum of ten dollars a week; and you, on your part,

will engage to receive no other lodger?  I think that fair.'

 

Somerset had scarcely words in which to clothe his gratitude and

joy.

 

'Agreed,' said the other; 'and to spare you trouble, my friend will

bring some men with him to make the changes.  You will find him a

retiring inmate, sir; receives but few, and rarely leaves the

house, except at night.'

 

'Since I have been in this house,' returned Somerset, 'I have

myself, unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone abroad except in

the evening.  But a man,' he added, 'must have some amusement.'

 

An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset

sat down to compute in English money the value of the figure named.

The result of this investigation filled him with amazement and

disgust; but it was now too late; nothing remained but to endure;

and he awaited the arrival of his tenant, still trying, by various

arithmetical expedients, to obtain a more favourable quotation for

the dollar.  With the approach of dusk, however, his impatience

drove him once more to the front balcony.  The night fell, mild and

airless; the lamps shone around the central darkness of the garden;

and through the tall grove of trees that intervened, many warmly

illuminated windows on the farther side of the square, told their

tale of white napery, choice wine, and genial hospitality.  The

stars were already thickening overhead, when the young man's eyes

alighted on a procession of three four-wheelers, coasting round the

garden railing and bound for the Superfluous Mansion.  They were

laden with formidable boxes; moved in a military order, one

following another; and, by the extreme slowness of their advance,

inspired Somerset with the most serious ideas of his tenant's

malady.

 

By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the

pavement; and from the two first, there had alighted the military

gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters.  These

proceeded instantly to take possession of the house; with their own

hands, and firmly rejecting Somerset's assistance, they carried in

the various crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and

transferred to the back drawing-room the bed in which the tenant

was to sleep; and it was not until the bustle of arrival had

subsided, and the arrangements were complete, that there descended,

from the third of the three vehicles, a gentleman of great stature

and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder of a woman in a

widow's dress, and himself covered by a long cloak and muffled in a

coloured comforter.

 

Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into

the back drawing-room; the other men departed; silence redescended

on the house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before half-

past ten, and, with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent

public-house in the neighbourhood, Somerset might have still

supposed himself to be alone in the Superfluous Mansion.

 

Day followed day; and still the young man had never come by speech

or sight of his mysterious lodger.  The doors of the drawing-room

flat were never open; and although Somerset could hear him moving

to and fro, the tall man had never quitted the privacy of his

apartments.  Visitors, indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk,

sometimes at intempestuous hours of night or morning; men, for the

most part; some meanly attired, some decently; some loud, some

cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset, displeasing.  A

certain air of fear and secrecy was common to them all; they were

all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military

gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at

all; and as for the doctor who attended the sick man, his manners

were not suggestive of a university career.  The nurse, again, was

scarcely a desirable house-fellow.  Since her arrival, the fall of

whisky in the young man's private bottle was much accelerated; and

though never communicative, she was at times unpleasantly familiar.

When asked about the patient's health, she would dolorously shake

her head, and declare that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful

condition.

 

Yet somehow Somerset had early begun to entertain the notion that

his complaint was other than bodily.  The ill-looking birds that

gathered to the house, the strange noises that sounded from the

drawing-room in the dead hours of night, the careless attendance

and intemperate habits of the nurse, the entire absence of

correspondence, the entire seclusion of Mr. Jones himself, whose

face, up to that hour, he could not have sworn to in a court of

justice--all weighed unpleasantly upon the young man's mind.  A

sense of something evil, irregular and underhand, haunted and

depressed him; and this uneasy sentiment was the more firmly rooted

in his mind, when, in the fulness of time, he had an opportunity of

observing the features of his tenant.  It fell in this way.  The

young landlord was awakened about four in the morning by a noise in

the hall.  Leaping to his feet, and opening the door of the

library, he saw the tall man, candle in hand, in earnest

conversation with the gentleman who had taken the rooms.  The faces

of both were strongly illuminated; and in that of his tenant,

Somerset could perceive none of the marks of disease, but every

sign of health, energy, and resolution.  While he was still

looking, the visitor took his departure; and the invalid, having

carefully fastened the front door, sprang upstairs without a trace

of lassitude.

 

 

That night upon his pillow, Somerset began to kindle once more into

the hot fit of the detective fever; and the next morning resumed

the practice of his art with careless hand and an abstracted mind.

The day was destined to be fertile in surprises; nor had he long

been seated at the easel ere the first of these occurred.  A cab

laden with baggage drew up before the door; and Mrs. Luxmore in

person rapidly mounted the steps and began to pound upon the

knocker.  Somerset hastened to attend the summons.

 

'My dear fellow,' she said, with the utmost gaiety, 'here I come

dropping from the moon.  I am delighted to find you faithful; and I

have no doubt you will be equally pleased to be restored to

liberty.'

 

Somerset could find no words, whether of protest or welcome; and

the spirited old lady pushed briskly by him and paused on the

threshold of the dining-room.  The sight that met her eyes was one

well calculated to inspire astonishment.  The mantelpiece was

arrayed with saucepans and empty bottles; on the fire some chops

were frying; the floor was littered from end to end with books,

clothes, walking-canes and the materials of the painter's craft;

but what far outstripped the other wonders of the place was the

corner which had been arranged for the study of still-life.  This

formed a sort of rockery; conspicuous upon which, according to the

principles of the art of composition, a cabbage was relieved

against a copper kettle, and both contrasted with the mail of a

boiled lobster.

 

'My gracious goodness!' cried the lady of the house; and then,

turning in wrath on the young man, 'From what rank in life are you

sprung?' she demanded.  'You have the exterior of a gentleman; but

from the astonishing evidences before me, I should say you can only

be a greengrocer's man.  Pray, gather up your vegetables, and let

me see no more of you.'

 

'Madam,' babbled Somerset, 'you promised me a month's warning.'

 

'That was under a misapprehension,' returned the old lady.  'I now

give you warning to leave at once.'

 

'Madam,' said the young man, 'I wish I could; and indeed, as far as

I am concerned, it might be done.  But then, my lodger!'

 

'Your lodger?' echoed Mrs. Luxmore.

 

'My lodger:  why should I deny it?' returned Somerset.  'He is only

by the week.'

 

The old lady sat down upon a chair.  'You have a lodger?--you?' she

cried.  'And pray, how did you get him?'

 

'By advertisement,' replied the young man. 'O madam, I have not

lived unobservantly.  I adopted'--his eyes involuntarily shifted to

the cartoons--'I adopted every method.'

 

Her eyes had followed his; for the first time in Somerset's

experience, she produced a double eye-glass; and as soon as the

full merit of the works had flashed upon her, she gave way to peal

after peal of her trilling and soprano laughter.

 

'Oh, I think you are perfectly delicious!' she cried.  'I do hope

you had them in the window.  M'Pherson,' she continued, crying to

her maid, who had been all this time grimly waiting in the hall, 'I

lunch with Mr. Somerset.  Take the cellar key and bring some wine.'

 

In this gay humour she continued throughout the luncheon; presented

Somerset with a couple of dozen of wine, which she made M'Pherson

bring up from the cellar--'as a present, my dear,' she said, with

another burst of tearful merriment, 'for your charming pictures,

which you must be sure to leave me when you go;' and finally,

protesting that she dared not spoil the absurdest houseful of

madmen in the whole of London, departed (as she vaguely phrased it)

for the continent of Europe.

 

She was no sooner gone, than Somerset encountered in the corridor

the Irish nurse; sober, to all appearance, and yet a prey to

singularly strong emotion.  It was made to appear, from her

account, that Mr. Jones had already suffered acutely in his health

from Mrs. Luxmore's visit, and that nothing short of a full

explanation could allay the invalid's uneasiness.  Somerset,

somewhat staring, told what he thought fit of the affair.

 

'Is that all?' cried the woman.  'As God sees you, is that all?'

 

'My good woman,' said the young man, 'I have no idea what you can

be driving at.  Suppose the lady were my friend's wife, suppose she

were my fairy godmother, suppose she were the Queen of Portugal;

and how should that affect yourself or Mr. Jones?'

 

'Blessed Mary!' cried the nurse, 'it's he that will be glad to hear

it!'

 

And immediately she fled upstairs.

 

Somerset, on his part, returned to the dining-room, and with a very

thoughtful brow and ruminating many theories, disposed of the

remainder of the bottle.  It was port; and port is a wine, sole

among its equals and superiors, that can in some degree support the

competition of tobacco.  Sipping, smoking, and theorising, Somerset

moved on from suspicion to suspicion, from resolve to resolve,

still growing braver and rosier as the bottle ebbed.  He was a

sceptic, none prouder of the name; he had no horror at command,

whether for crimes or vices, but beheld and embraced the world,

with an immoral approbation, the frequent consequence of youth and

health.  At the same time, he felt convinced that he dwelt under

the same roof with secret malefactors; and the unregenerate

instinct of the chase impelled him to severity.  The bottle had run

low; the summer sun had finally withdrawn; and at the same moment,

night and the pangs of hunger recalled him from his dreams.

 

He went forth, and dined in the Criterion:  a dinner in consonance,

not so much with his purse, as with the admirable wine he had

discussed.  What with one thing and another, it was long past

midnight when he returned home.  A cab was at the door; and

entering the hall, Somerset found himself face to face with one of

the most regular of the few who visited Mr. Jones:  a man of

powerful figure, strong lineaments, and a chin-beard in the

American fashion.  This person was carrying on one shoulder a black

portmanteau, seemingly of considerable weight.  That he should find

a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night, recalled some odd

stories to the young man's memory; he had heard of lodgers who thus

gradually drained away, not only their own effects, but the very

furniture and fittings of the house that sheltered them; and now,

in a mood between pleasantry and suspicion, and aping the manner of

a drunkard, he roughly bumped against the man with the chin-beard

and knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor.  With a

face struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard

called lamentably on the name of his maker, and fell in a mere heap

on the mat at the foot of the stairs.  At the same time, though

only for a single instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the

Irish nurse popped out like rabbits over the banisters of the first

floor; and on both the same scare and pallor were apparent.

 

The sight of this incredible emotion turned Somerset to stone, and

he continued speechless, while the man gathered himself together,

and, with the help of the handrail and audibly thanking God,

scrambled once more upon his feet.

 

'What in Heaven's name ails you?' gasped the young man as soon as

he could find words and utterance.

 

'Have you a drop of brandy?' returned the other.  'I am sick.'

 

Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man

with the chin-beard; who then, somewhat restored, began to confound

himself in apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness,

the result, he said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having

taken leave with a hand that still sweated and trembled, he

gingerly resumed his burthen and departed.

 

Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep.  What, he asked himself,

had been the contents of the black portmanteau?  Stolen goods? the

carcase of one murdered? or--and at the thought he sat upright in

bed--an infernal machine?  He took a solemn vow that he would set

these doubts at rest; and with the next morning, installed himself

beside the dining-room window, vigilant with eye; and ear, to await

and profit by the earliest opportunity.

 

The hours went heavily by.  Within the house there was no

circumstance of novelty; unless it might be that the nurse more

frequently made little journeys round the corner of the square, and

before afternoon was somewhat loose of speech and gait.  A little

after six, however, there came round the corner of the gardens a

very handsome and elegantly dressed young woman, who paused a

little way off, and for some time, and with frequent sighs,

contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion.  It was not the

first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it, like

our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had

already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage,

and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye.  He

hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little

nearer to the window to enjoy the sight.  What was his surprise,

however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted

the steps and tapped discreetly at the door!  He made haste to get

before the Irish nurse, who was not improbably asleep, and had the

satisfaction to receive this gracious visitor in person.

 

She inquired for Mr. Jones; and then, without transition, asked the

young man if he were the person of the house (and at the words, he

thought he could perceive her to be smiling), 'because,' she added,

'if you are, I should like to see some of the other rooms.'

Somerset told her he was under an engagement to receive no other

lodgers; but she assured him that would be no matter, as these were

friends of Mr. Jones's.  'And,' she continued, moving suddenly to

the dining-room door, 'let us begin here.'  Somerset was too late

to prevent her entering, and perhaps he lacked the courage to

essay.  'Ah!' she cried, 'how changed it is!'

 

'Madam,' cried the young man, 'since your entrance, it is I who

have the right to say so.'

 

She received this inane compliment with a demure and conscious

droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the

mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the

wonders of the two apartments.  She gazed upon the cartoons with

sparkling eyes, and a heightened colour, and in a somewhat

breathless voice, expressed a high opinion of their merits.  She

praised the effective disposition of the rockery, and in the

bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to defend the

entry, she fairly broke forth in admiration.  'How simple and

manly!' she cried:  'none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is

so detestable in a man!'  Hard upon this, telling him, before he

had time to reply, that she very well knew her way, and would

trouble him no further, she took her leave with an engaging smile,

and ascended the staircase alone.

 

For more than an hour the young lady remained closeted with Mr.

Jones; and at the end of that time, the night being now come

completely, they left the house in company.  This was the first

time since the arrival of his lodger, that Somerset had found

himself alone with the Irish widow; and without the loss of any

more time than was required by decency, he stepped to the foot of

the stairs and hailed her by her name.  She came instantly,

wreathed in weak smiles and with a nodding head; and when the young

man politely offered to introduce her to the treasures of his art,

she swore that nothing could afford her greater pleasure, for,

though she had never crossed the threshold, she had frequently

observed his beautiful pictures through the door.  On entering the

dining-room, the sight of a bottle and two glasses prepared her to

be a gentle critic; and as soon as the pictures had been viewed and

praised, she was easily persuaded to join the painter in a single

glass.  'Here,' she said, 'are my respects; and a pleasure it is,

in this horrible house, to see a gentleman like yourself, so

affable and free, and a very nice painter, I am sure.'  One glass

so agreeably prefaced, was sure to lead to the acceptance of a

second; at the third, Somerset was free to cease from the

affectation of keeping her company; and as for the fourth, she

asked it of her own accord.  'For indeed,' said she, 'what with all

these clocks and chemicals, without a drop of the creature life

would be impossible entirely.  And you seen yourself that even

M'Guire was glad to beg for it.  And even himself, when he is

downhearted with all these cruel disappointments, though as

temperate a man as any child, will be sometimes crying for a glass

of it.  And I'll thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.'

Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed

dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband.  Then

she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet,

made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her

head upon the lobster, fell into stertorous slumbers.

 

Somerset mounted at once to the first story, and opened the door of

the drawing-room, which was brilliantly lit by several lamps.  It

was a great apartment; looking on the square with three tall

windows, and joined by a pair of ample folding-doors to the next

room; elegant in proportion, papered in sea-green, furnished in

velvet of a delicate blue, and adorned with a majestic mantelpiece

of variously tinted marbles.  Such was the room that Somerset

remembered; that which he now beheld was changed in almost every

feature:  the furniture covered with a figured chintz; the walls

hung with a rhubarb-coloured paper, and diversified by the

curtained recesses for no less than seven windows.  It seemed to

himself that he must have entered, without observing the

transition, into the adjoining house.  Presently from these more

specious changes, his eye condescended to the many curious objects

with which the floor was littered.  Here were the locks of

dismounted pistols; clocks and clockwork in every stage of

demolition, some still busily ticking, some reduced to their dainty

elements; a great company of carboys, jars and bottles; a

carpenter's bench and a laboratory-table.

 

The back drawing-room, to which Somerset proceeded, had likewise

undergone a change.  It was transformed to the exact appearance of

a common lodging-house bedroom; a bed with green curtains occupied

one corner; and the window was blocked by the regulation table and

mirror.  The door of a small closet here attracted the young man's

attention; and striking a vesta, he opened it and entered.  On a

table several wigs and beards were lying spread; about the walls

hung an incongruous display of suits and overcoats; and conspicuous

among the last the young man observed a large overall of the most

costly sealskin.  In a flash his mind reverted to the advertisement

in the Standard newspaper.  The great height of his lodger, the

disproportionate breadth of his shoulders, and the strange

particulars of his instalment, all pointed to the same conclusion.

 

The vesta had now burned to his fingers; and taking the coat upon

his arm, Somerset hastily returned to the lighted drawing-room.

There, with a mixture of fear and admiration, he pored upon its

goodly proportions and the regularity and softness of the pile.

The sight of a large pier-glass put another fancy in his head.  He

donned the fur-coat; and standing before the mirror in an attitude

suggestive of a Russian prince, he thrust his hands into the ample

pockets.  There his fingers encountered a folded journal.  He drew

it out, and recognised the type and paper of the Standard; and at

the same instant, his eyes alighted on the offer of two hundred

pounds.  Plainly then, his lodger, now no longer mysterious, had

laid aside his coat on the very day of the appearance of the

advertisement.

 

He was thus standing, the tell-tale coat upon his back, the

incriminating paper in his hand, when the door opened and the tall

lodger, with a firm but somewhat pallid face, stepped into the room

and closed the door again behind him.  For some time, the two

looked upon each other in perfect silence; then Mr. Jones moved

forward to the table, took a seat, and still without once changing

the direction of his eyes, addressed the young man.

 

'You are right,' he said.  'It is for me the blood money is

offered.  And now what will you do?'

 

It was a question to which Somerset was far from being able to

reply.  Taken as he was at unawares, masquerading in the man's own

coat, and surrounded by a whole arsenal of diabolical explosives,

the keeper of the lodging-house was silenced.

 

'Yes,' resumed the other, 'I am he.  I am that man, whom with

impotent hate and fear, they still hunt from den to den, from

disguise to disguise.  Yes, my landlord, you have it in your power,

if you be poor, to lay the basis of your fortune; if you be

unknown, to capture honour at one snatch.  You have hocussed an

innocent widow; and I find you here in my apartment, for whose use

I pay you in stamped money, searching my wardrobe, and your hand--

shame, sir!--your hand in my very pocket.  You can now complete the

cycle of your ignominious acts, by what will be at once the

simplest, the safest, and the most remunerative.'  The speaker

paused as if to emphasise his words; and then, with a great change

of tone and manner, thus resumed:  'And yet, sir, when I look upon

your face, I feel certain that I cannot be deceived:  certain that

in spite of all, I have the honour and pleasure of speaking to a

gentleman.  Take off my coat, sir--which but cumbers you.  Divest

yourself of this confusion:  that which is but thought upon, thank

God, need be no burthen to the conscience; we have all harboured

guilty thoughts:  and if it flashed into your mind to sell my flesh

and blood, my anguish in the dock, and the sweat of my death agony-

-it was a thought, dear sir, you were as incapable of acting on, as

I of any further question of your honour.'  At these words, the

speaker, with a very open, smiling countenance, like a forgiving

father, offered Somerset his hand.

 

It was not in the young man's nature to refuse forgiveness or

dissect generosity.  He instantly, and almost without thought,

accepted the proffered grasp.

 

'And now,' resumed the lodger, 'now that I hold in mine your loyal

hand, I lay by my apprehensions, I dismiss suspicion, I go further-

-by an effort of will, I banish the memory of what is past.  How

you came here, I care not:  enough that you are here--as my guest.

Sit ye down; and let us, with your good permission, improve

acquaintance over a glass of excellent whisky.'

 

So speaking, he produced glasses and a bottle:  and the pair

pledged each other in silence.

 

'Confess,' observed the smiling host, 'you were surprised at the

appearance of the room.'

 

'I was indeed,' said Somerset; 'nor can I imagine the purpose of

these changes.'

 

'These,' replied the conspirator, 'are the devices by which I

continue to exist.  Conceive me now, accused before one of your

unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the

singular variety of their reports!  One will have visited me in

this drawing-room as it originally stood; a second finds it as it

is to-night; and to-morrow or next day, all may have been changed.

If you love romance (as artists do), few lives are more romantic

than that of the obscure individual now addressing you.  Obscure

yet famous.  Mine is an anonymous, infernal glory.  By infamous

means, I work towards my bright purpose.  I found the liberty and

peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future smiles upon

that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the existence of a hunted

brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell's

dexterities.'

 

Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before

him, and listened to his heated rhapsody, with indescribable

bewilderment.  He looked him in the face with curious

particularity; saw there the marks of education; and wondered the

more profoundly.

 

'Sir,' he said--'for I know not whether I should still address you

as Mr. Jones--'

 

'Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland,

by all or any of these you may address me,' said the plotter; 'for

all I have at some time borne.  Yet that which I most prize, that

which is most feared, hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found

in your directories; it is not a name current in post-offices or

banks; and, indeed, like the celebrated clan M'Gregor, I may justly

describe myself as being nameless by day.  But,' he continued,

rising to his feet, 'by night, and among my desperate followers, I

am the redoubted Zero.'

 

Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed

surprise and gratification.  'I am to understand,' he continued,

'that, under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?'

{3}

 

The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.

 

'I do,' he said.  'In this dark period of time, a star--the star of

dynamite--has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise

its use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such

incredible difficulties and disappointments, few have been more

assiduous, and not many--'  He paused, and a shade of embarrassment

appeared upon his face--'not many have been more successful than

myself.'

 

'I can imagine,' observed Somerset, 'that, from the sweeping

consequences looked for, the career is not devoid of interest.  You

have, besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide and

seek.  But it would still seem to me--I speak as a layman--that

nothing could be simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal

machine and retire to an adjacent county to await the painful

consequences.'

 

'You speak, indeed,' returned the plotter, with some evidence of

warmth, 'you speak, indeed, most ignorantly.  Do you make nothing,

then, of such a peril as we share this moment?  Do you think it

nothing to occupy a house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a

word, literally tottering to its fall?'

 

'Good God!' ejaculated Somerset.

 

'And when you speak of ease,' pursued Zero, 'in this age of

scientific studies, you fill me with surprise.  Are you not aware

that chemicals are proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as

capricious as the very devil?  Do you see upon my brow these

furrows of anxiety?  Do you observe the silver threads that mingle

with my hair?  Clockwork, clockwork has stamped them on my brow--

chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks!  No, Mr. Somerset,' he

resumed, after a moment's pause, his voice still quivering with

sensibility, 'you must not suppose the dynamiter's life to be all

gold.  On the contrary, you cannot picture to yourself the

bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like

mine.  I have toiled (let us say) for months, up early and down

late; my bag is ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried

with white face to deposit the instrument of ruin; we await the

fall of England, the massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and

execration; and lo! a snap like that of a child's pistol, an

offensive smell, and the entire loss of so much time and plant!

If,' he concluded, musingly, 'we had been merely able to recover

the lost bags, I believe with but a touch or two, I could have

remedied the peccant engine.  But what with the loss of plant and

the almost insuperable scientific difficulties of the task, our

friends in France are almost ready to desert the chosen medium.

They propose, instead, to break up the drainage system of cities

and sweep off whole populations with the devastating typhoid

pestilence:  a tempting and a scientific project:  a process,

indiscriminate indeed, but of idyllical simplicity.  I recognise

its elegance; but, sir, I have something of the poet in my nature;

something, possibly, of the tribune.  And, for my small part, I

shall remain devoted to that more emphatic, more striking, and (if

you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb.  Yes,' he

cried, with unshaken hope, 'I will still continue, and, I feel it

in my bosom, I shall yet succeed.'

 

'Two things I remark,' said Somerset.  'The first somewhat staggers

me.  Have you, then--in all this course of life, which you have

sketched so vividly--have you not once succeeded?'

 

'Pardon me,' said Zero.  'I have had one success.  You behold in me

the author of the outrage of Red Lion Court.'

 

'But if I remember right,' objected Somerset, 'the thing was a

fiasco.  A scavenger's barrow and some copies of the Weekly Budget-

-these were the only victims.'

 

'You will pardon me again,' returned Zero with positive asperity:

'a child was injured.'

 

'And that fitly brings me to my second point,' said Somerset.  'For

I observed you to employ the word "indiscriminate."  Now, surely, a

scavenger's barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the

very acme and top pin-point of indiscriminate, and, pardon me, of

ineffectual reprisal.'

 

'Did I employ the word?' asked Zero.  'Well, I will not defend it.

But for efficiency, you touch on graver matters; and before

entering upon so vast a subject, permit me once more to fill our

glasses.  Disputation is dry work,' he added, with a charming

gaiety of manner.

 

Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a stalwart

grog; and Zero, leaning back with an air of some complacency,

proceeded more largely to develop his opinions.

 

'The indiscriminate?' he began.  'War, my dear sir, is

indiscriminate.  War spares not the child; it spares not the barrow

of the harmless scavenger.  No more,' he concluded, beaming, 'no

more do I.  Whatever may strike fear, whatever may confound or

paralyse the activities of the guilty nation, barrow or child,

imperial Parliament or excursion steamer, is welcome to my simple

plans.  You are not,' he inquired, with a shade of sympathetic

interest, 'you are not, I trust, a believer?'

 

'Sir, I believe in nothing,' said the young man.

 

'You are then,' replied Zero, 'in a position to grasp my argument.

We agree that humanity is the object, the glorious triumph of

humanity; and being pledged to labour for that end, and face to

face with the banded opposition of kings, parliaments, churches,

and the members of the force, who am I--who are we, dear sir--to

affect a nicety about the tools employed?  You might, perhaps,

expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister Gladstone, the rigid

Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error.

Our appeal is to the body of the people; it is these that we would

touch and interest.  Now, sir, have you observed the English

housemaid?'

 

'I should think I had,' cried Somerset.

 

'From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,'

returned the conspirator politely.  'A type apart; a very charming

figure; and thoroughly adapted to our ends.  The neat cap, the

clean print, the comely person, the engaging manner; her position

between classes, parents in one, employers in another; the

probability that she will have at least one sweet-heart, whose

feelings we shall address: --yes, I have a leaning--call it, if you

will, a weakness--for the housemaid.  Not that I would be

understood to despise the nurse.  For the child is a very

interesting feature:  I have long since marked out the child as the

sensitive point in society.'  He wagged his head, with a wise,

pensive smile.  'And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of

our trade, let me now narrate to you a little incident of an

explosive bomb, that fell out some weeks ago under my own

observation.  It fell out thus.'

 

And Zero, leaning back in his chair, narrated the following simple

tale.

 

 

 

ZERO'S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB. {4}

 

 

 

I dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a

private chamber at St. James's Hall.  You have seen the man:  it

was M'Guire, the most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself

expert in our contrivances.  Hence the necessity of our meeting;

for I need not remind you what enormous issues depend upon the nice

adjustment of the engine.  I set our little petard for half an

hour, the scene of action being hard by; and the better to avert

miscarriage, employed a device, a recent invention of my own, by

which the opening of the Gladstone bag in which the bomb was

carried, should instantly determine the explosion.  M'Guire was

somewhat dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him:  and

pointed out, with excellent, clear good sense, that should he be

arrested, it would probably involve him in the fall of our

opponents.  But I was not to be moved, made a strong appeal to his

patriotism, gave him a good glass of whisky, and despatched him on

his glorious errand.

 

Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square:  a

spot, I think, admirably chosen; not only for the sake of the

dramatist, still very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English

race, in spite of his disgusting political opinions; but from the

fact that the seats in the immediate neighbourhood are often

thronged by children, errand-boys, unfortunate young ladies of the

poorer class and infirm old men--all classes making a direct appeal

to public pity, and therefore suitable with our designs.  As

M'Guire drew near his heart was inflamed by the most noble

sentiment of triumph.  Never had he seen the garden so crowded;

children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and

fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old, sick

pensioner sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a

stick with which he walked (for he was disabled by wounds)

reclining on his knee.  Guilty England would thus be stabbed in the

most delicate quarters; the moment had, indeed, been well selected;

and M'Guire, with a radiant provision of the event, drew merrily

nearer.  Suddenly his eye alighted on the burly form of a

policeman, standing hard by the effigy in an attitude of watch.  My

bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and there,

at different points of the enclosure, other men stood or loitered,

affecting an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the shrubs,

feigning to talk, feigning to be weary and to rest upon the

benches.  M'Guire was no child in these affairs; he instantly

divined one of the plots of the Machiavellian Gladstone.

 

A chief difficulty with which we have to deal, is a certain

nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of

some design draws near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to

suffer some revulsion of intent; and frequently despatch to the

authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, but vague anonymous

warnings.  But for this purely accidental circumstance, England had

long ago been an historical expression.  On the receipt of such a

letter, the Government lay a trap for their adversaries, and

surround the threatened spot with hirelings.  My blood sometimes

boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those who sell

themselves for money in such a cause.  True, thanks to the

generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a very

comfortable stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts

me quite beyond the reach of any peddling, mercenary thoughts;

M'Guire, again, ere he joined our ranks, was on the brink of

starving, and now, thank God! receives a decent income.  That is as

it should be; the patriot must not be diverted from his task by any

base consideration; and the distinction between our position and

that of the police is too obvious to be stated.

 

Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged;

the Government had craftily filled the place with minions; even the

pensioner was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our

emissary, without other aid or protection than the simple apparatus

in his bag, found himself confronted by force; brutal force; that

strong hand which was a character of the ages of oppression.

Should he venture to deposit the machine, it was almost certain

that he would be observed and arrested; a cry would arise; and

there was just a fear that the police might not be present in

sufficient force, to protect him from the savagery of the mob.  The

scheme must be delayed.  He stood with his bag on his arm,

pretending to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there flashed

into his mind a thought to appal the bravest.  The machine was set;

at the appointed hour, it must explode; and how, in the interval,

was he to be rid of it?

 

Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot.  There

he was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life,

for he is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him;

and now condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by

dynamite!  The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope;

he saw the Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled

against the railing.  It is probable he fainted.

 

When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.

 

'My God!' he cried.

 

'You seem to be unwell, sir,' said the hireling.

 

'I feel better now,' cried poor M'Guire:  and with uneven steps,

for the pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his

footing, he fled from the scene of this disaster.  Fled?  Alas,

from what was he fleeing?  Did he not carry that from which he fled

along with him? and had he the wings of the eagle, had he the

swiftness of the ocean winds, could he have been rapt into the

uttermost quarters of the earth, how should he escape the ruin that

he carried?  We have heard of living men who have been fettered to

the dead; the grievance, soberly considered, is no more than

sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him who should

be linked, like poor M'Guire, to an explosive bomb.

 

A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his

liver:  suppose it were the hour already.  He stopped as though he

had been shot, and plucked his watch out.  There was a howling in

his ears, as loud as a winter tempest; his sight was now obscured

as if by a cloud, now, as by a lightning flash, would show him the

very dust upon the street.  But so brief were these intervals of

vision, and so violently did the watch vibrate in his hands, that

it was impossible to distinguish the numbers on the dial.  He

covered his eyes for a few seconds; and in that space, it seemed to

him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety.  When he looked

again, the watch-plate had grown legible:  he had twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes, and no plan!

 

Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a

little girl of about six drawing near to him, and as she came,

kicking in front of her, as children will, a piece of wood.  She

sang, too; and something in her accent recalling him to the past,

produced a sudden clearness in his mind.  Here was a God-sent

opportunity!

 

'My dear,' said he, 'would you like a present of a pretty bag?'

 

The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it.

She had looked first at the bag, like a true child; but most

unfortunately, before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes

fell directly on M'Guire; and no sooner had she seen the poor

gentleman's face, than she screamed out and leaped backward, as

though she had seen the devil.  Almost at the same moment a woman

appeared upon the threshold of a neighbouring shop, and called upon

the child in anger.  'Come here, colleen,' she said, 'and don't be

plaguing the poor old gentleman!'  With that she re-entered the

house, and the child followed her, sobbing aloud.

 

With the loss of this hope M'Guire's reason swooned within him.

When next he awoke to consciousness, he was standing before St.

Martin's-in-the-Fields, wavering like a drunken man; the passers-by

regarding him with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image

of the terror and horror that dwelt within his own.

 

'I am afraid you are very ill, sir,' observed a woman, stopping and

gazing hard in his face.  'Can I do anything to help you?'

 

'Ill?' said M'Guire.  'O God!'  And then, recovering some shadow of

his self-command, 'Chronic, madam,' said he:  'a long course of the

dumb ague.  But since you are so compassionate--an errand that I

lack the strength to carry out,' he gasped--'this bag to Portman

Square.  Oh, compassionate woman, as you hope to be saved, as you

are a mother, in the name of your babes that wait to welcome you at

home, oh, take this bag to Portman Square!  I have a mother, too,'

he added, with a broken voice.  'Number 19, Portman Square.'

 

I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice;

for the woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him.  'Poor

gentleman!' said she.  'If I were you, I would go home.'  And she

left him standing there in his distress.

 

'Home!' thought M'Guire, 'what a derision!'  What home was there

for him, the victim of philanthropy?  He thought of his old mother,

of his happy youth; of the hideous, rending pang of the explosion;

of the possibility that he might not be killed, that he might be

cruelly mangled, crippled for life, condemned to lifelong pains,

blinded perhaps, and almost surely deafened.  Ah, you spoke lightly

of the dynamiter's peril; but even waiving death, have you realised

what it is for a fine, brave young man of forty, to be smitten

suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the music of life, and

from the voice of friendship, and love?  How little do we realise

the sufferings of others!  Even your brutal Government, in the

heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the

patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman,

and to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so

horrible a doom:  not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from

philanthropy, but with the fear before it of the withering scorn of

the good.

 

But I wander from M'Guire.  From this dread glance into the past

and future, his thoughts returned at a bound upon the present.  How

had he wandered there? and how long--oh, heavens! how long had he

been about it?  He pulled out his watch; and found that but three

minutes had elapsed.  It seemed too bright a thing to be believed.

He glanced at the church clock; and sure enough, it marked an hour

four minutes faster than the watch.

 

Of all that he endured, M'Guire declares that pang was the most

desolate.  Till then, he had had one friend, one counsellor, in

whom he plenarily trusted; by whose advertisement, he numbered the

minutes that remained to him of life; on whose sure testimony, he

could tell when the time was come to risk the last adventure, to

cast the bag away from him, and take to flight.  And now in what

was he to place reliance?  His watch was slow; it might be losing

time; if so, in what degree?  What limit could he set to its

derangement? and how much was it possible for a watch to lose in

thirty minutes?  Five? ten? fifteen?  It might be so; already, it

seemed years since he had left St. James's Hall on this so

promising enterprise; at any moment, then, the blow was to be

looked for.

 

In the face of this new distress, the wild disorder of his pulses

settled down; and a broken weariness succeeded, as though he had

lived for centuries and for centuries been dead.  The buildings and

the people in the street became incredibly small, and far-away, and

bright; London sounded in his ears stilly, like a whisper; and the

rattle of the cab that nearly charged him down, was like a sound

from Africa.  Meanwhile, he was conscious of a strange abstraction

from himself; and heard and felt his footfalls on the ground, as

those of a very old, small, debile and tragically fortuned man,

whom he sincerely pitied.

 

As he was thus moving forward past the National Gallery, in a

medium, it seemed, of greater rarity and quiet than ordinary air,

there slipped into his mind the recollection of a certain entry in

Whitcomb Street hard by, where he might perhaps lay down his tragic

cargo unremarked.  Thither, then, he bent his steps, seeming, as he

went, to float above the pavement; and there, in the mouth of the

entry, he found a man in a sleeved waistcoat, gravely chewing a

straw.  He passed him by, and twice patrolled the entry, scouting

for the barest chance; but the man had faced about and continued to

observe him curiously.

 

Another hope was gone.  M'Guire reissued from the entry, still

followed by the wondering eyes of the man in the sleeved waistcoat.

He once more consulted his watch:  there were but fourteen minutes

left to him.  At that, it seemed as if a sudden, genial heat were

spread about his brain; for a second or two, he saw the world as

red as blood; and thereafter entered into a complete possession of

himself, with an incredible cheerfulness of spirits, prompting him

to sing and chuckle as he walked.  And yet this mirth seemed to

belong to things external; and within, like a black and leaden-

heavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his soul.

 

 

I care for nobody, no, not I,

And nobody cares for me,

 

 

he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the

passengers stared upon him on the street.  And still the warmth

seemed to increase and to become more genial.  What was life? he

considered, and what he, M'Guire?  What even Erin, our green Erin?

All seemed so incalculably little that he smiled as he looked down

upon it.  He would have given years, had he possessed them, for a

glass of spirits; but time failed, and he must deny himself this

last indulgence.

 

At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom

cab; jumped in; bade the fellow drive him to a part of the

Embankment, which he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in

motion, concealed the bag as completely as he could under the

vantage of the apron, and once more drew out his watch.  So he rode

for five interminable minutes, his heart in his mouth at every

jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing to wake the

attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and

willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget the Gladstone

bag.

 

At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed;

the cab was stopped; and he alighted--with how glad a heart!  He

thrust his hand into his pocket.  All was now over; he had saved

his life; nor that alone, but he had engineered a striking act of

dynamite; for what could be more pictorial, what more effective,

than the explosion of a hansom cab, as it sped rapidly along the

streets of London.  He felt in one pocket; then in another.  The

most crushing seizure of despair descended on his soul; and struck

into abject dumbness, he stared upon the driver.  He had not one

penny.

 

'Hillo,' said the driver, 'don't seem well.'

 

'Lost my money,' said M'Guire, in tones so faint and strange that

they surprised his hearing.

 

The man looked through the trap.  'I dessay,' said he:  'you've

left your bag.'

 

M'Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that

black continent at arm's length, withered inwardly and felt his

features sharpen as with mortal sickness.

 

'This is not mine,' said he.  'Your last fare must have left it.

You had better take it to the station.'

 

'Now look here,' returned the cabman:  'are you off your chump? or

am I?'

 

'Well, then, I'll tell you what,' exclaimed M'Guire; 'you take it

for your fare!'

 

'Oh, I dessay,' replied the driver.  'Anything else?  What's IN

your bag?  Open it, and let me see.'

 

'No, no,' returned M'Guire.  'Oh no, not that.  It's a surprise;

it's prepared expressly:  a surprise for honest cabmen.'

 

'No, you don't,' said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming

very close to the unhappy patriot.  'You're either going to pay my

fare, or get in again and drive to the office.'

 

It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M'Guire spied the

stout figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of Rupert Street, drawing

near along the Embankment.  The man was not unknown to him; he had

bought of his wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of

liberality; and such was now the nearness of his peril, that even

at such a straw of hope, he clutched with gratitude.

 

'Thank God!' he cried.  'Here comes a friend of mine.  I'll

borrow.'  And he dashed to meet the tradesman.  'Sir,' said he,

'Mr. Godall, I have dealt with you--you doubtless know my face--

calamities for which I cannot blame myself have overwhelmed me.

Oh, sir, for the love of innocence, for the sake of the bonds of

humanity, and as you hope for mercy at the throne of grace, lend me

two-and-six!'

 

'I do not recognise your face,' replied Mr. Godall; 'but I remember

the cut of your beard, which I have the misfortune to dislike.

Here, sir, is a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you,

on the single condition that you shave your chin.'

 

M'Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman,

calling out to him to keep the change; bounded down the steps,

flung the bag far forth into the river, and fell headlong after it.

He was plucked from a watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of

Mr. Godall.  Even as he was being hoisted dripping to the shore, a

dull and choked explosion shook the solid masonry of the

Embankment, and far out in the river a momentary fountain rose and

disappeared.

 

 

 

THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued)

 

 

 

Somerset in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words.  He

had, in the meanwhile, applied himself assiduously to the flagon;

the plotter began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover

on his seat; and with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man

rose unsteadily to his feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third

grog, insisted that the hour was late and he must positively get to

bed.

 

'Dear me,' observed Zero, 'I find you very temperate.  But I will

not be oppressive.  Suffice it that we are now fast friends; and,

my dear landlord, au revoir!'

 

So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest

ceremonies, and some necessary guidance, conducted the bewildered

young gentleman to the top of the stair.

 

Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which Somerset

remained in utter darkness; but the next morning when, at a blow,

he started broad awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect

hurricane of horror and wonder.  That he should have suffered

himself to be led into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as

his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a

mystery of human weakness.  True, he was caught in a situation that

might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand.  That was perhaps a

palliation; but it was no excuse.  For so wholesale a capitulation

of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse

indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at once from

the relation.

 

As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a

rupture.  Zero hailed him with the warmth of an old friend.

 

'Come in,' he cried, 'dear Mr. Somerset!  Come in, sit down, and,

without ceremony, join me at my morning meal.'

 

'Sir,' said Somerset, 'you must permit me first to disengage my

honour.  Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of

complicity; but once for all, let me inform you that I regard you

and your machinations with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will

leave no stone unturned to crush your vile conspiracy.'

 

'My dear fellow,' replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, 'I

am well accustomed to these human weaknesses.  Disgust?  I have

felt it myself; it speedily wears off.  I think none the worse, I

think the more of you, for this engaging frankness.  And in the

meanwhile, what are you to do?  You find yourself, if I interpret

rightly, in very much the same situation as Charles the Second

(possibly the least degraded of your British sovereigns) when he

was taken into the confidence of the thief.  To denounce me, is out

of the question; and what else can you attempt?  No, dear Mr.

Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself condemned,

under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming and

intellectual companion who delighted me last night.'

 

'At least,' cried Somerset, 'I can, and do, order you to leave this

house.'

 

'Ah!' cried the plotter, 'but there I fail to follow you.  You may,

if you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as I suppose, you

recoil from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too

intelligent to leave these lodgings, in which I please myself

exceedingly, and from which you lack the power to drive me.  No,

no, dear sir; here I am, and here I propose to stay.'

 

'I repeat,' cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own

weakness, 'I repeat that I give you warning.  I am the master of

this house; and I emphatically give you warning.'

 

'A week's warning?' said the imperturbable conspirator.  'Very

well:  we will talk of it a week from now.  That is arranged; and

in the meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold.  Do, dear

Mr. Somerset, since you find yourself condemned, for a week at

least, to the society of a very interesting character, display some

of that open favour, some of that interest in life's obscurer

sides, which stamp the character of the true artist.  Hang me, if

you will, to-morrow; but to-day show yourself divested of the

scruples of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly to share my meal.'

 

'Man!' cried Somerset, 'do you understand my sentiments?'

 

'Certainly,' replied Zero; 'and I respect them!  Would you be

outdone in such a contest? will you alone be partial? and in this

nineteenth century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to

differ on a point of politics?  Come, sir:  all your hard words

have left me smiling; judge then, which of us is the philosopher!'

 

Somerset was a young man of a very tolerant disposition and by

nature easily amenable to sophistry.  He threw up his hands with a

gesture of despair, and took the seat to which the conspirator

invited him.  The meal was excellent; the host not only affable,

but primed with curious information.  He seemed, indeed, like one

who had too long endured the torture of silence, to exult in the

most wholesale disclosures.  The interest of what he had to tell

was great; his character, besides, developed step by step; and

Somerset, as the time fled, not only outgrew some of the discomfort

of his false position, but began to regard the conspirator with a

familiarity that verged upon contempt.  In any circumstances, he

had a singular inability to leave the society in which he found

himself; company, even if distasteful, held him captive like a

limed sparrow; and on this occasion, he suffered hour to follow

hour, was easily persuaded to sit down once more to table, and did

not even attempt to withdraw till, on the approach of evening,

Zero, with many apologies, dismissed his guest.  His fellow-

conspirators, the dynamiter handsomely explained, as they were

unacquainted with the sterling qualities of the young man, would be

alarmed at the sight of a strange face.

 

As soon as he was alone, Somerset fell back upon the humour of the

morning.  He raged at the thought of his facility; he paced the

dining-room, forming the sternest resolutions for the future; he

wrung the hand which had been dishonoured by the touch of an

assassin; and among all these whirling thoughts, there flashed in

from time to time, and ever with a chill of fear, the thought of

the confounded ingredients with which the house was stored.  A

powder magazine seemed a secure smoking-room alongside of the

Superfluous Mansion.

 

He sought refuge in flight, in locomotion, in the flowing bowl.  As

long as the bars were open, he travelled from one to another,

seeking light, safety, and the companionship of human faces; when

these resources failed him, he fell back on the belated baked-

potato man; and at length, still pacing the streets, he was goaded

to fraternise with the police.  Alas, with what a sense of guilt he

conversed with these guardians of the law; how gladly had he wept

upon their ample bosoms; and how the secret fluttered to his lips

and was still denied an exit!  Fatigue began at last to triumph

over remorse; and about the hour of the first milkman, he returned

to the door of the mansion; looked at it with a horrid expectation,

as though it should have burst that instant into flames; drew out

his key, and when his foot already rested on the steps, once more

lost heart and fled for repose to the grisly shelter of a coffee-

shop.

 

It was on the stroke of noon when he awoke.  Dismally searching in

his pockets, he found himself reduced to half-a-crown; and when he

had paid the price of his distasteful couch, saw himself obliged to

return to the Superfluous Mansion.  He sneaked into the hall and

stole on tiptoe to the cupboard where he kept his money.  Yet half

a minute, he told himself, and he would be free for days from his

obseding lodger, and might decide at leisure on the course he

should pursue.  But fate had otherwise designed:  there came a tap

at the door and Zero entered.

 

'Have I caught you?' he cried, with innocent gaiety.  'Dear fellow,

I was growing quite impatient.'  And on the speaker's somewhat

stolid face, there came a glow of genuine affection.  'I am so long

unused to have a friend,' he continued, 'that I begin to be afraid

I may prove jealous.'  And he wrung the hand of his landlord.

 

Somerset was, of all men, least fit to deal with such a greeting.

To reject these kind advances was beyond his strength.  That he

could not return cordiality for cordiality, was already almost more

than he could carry.  That inequality between kind sentiments

which, to generous characters, will always seem to be a sort of

guilt, oppressed him to the ground; and he stammered vague and

lying words.

 

'That is all right,' cried Zero--'that is as it should be--say no

more!  I had a vague alarm; I feared you had deserted me; but I now

own that fear to have been unworthy, and apologise.  To doubt of

your forgiveness were to repeat my sin.  Come, then; dinner waits;

join me again and tell me your adventures of the night.'

 

Kindness still sealed the lips of Somerset; and he suffered himself

once more to be set down to table with his innocent and criminal

acquaintance.  Once more, the plotter plunged up to the neck in

damaging disclosures:  now it would be the name and biography of an

individual, now the address of some important centre, that rose, as

if by accident, upon his lips; and each word was like another turn

of the thumbscrew to his unhappy guest.  Finally, the course of

Zero's bland monologue led him to the young lady of two days ago:

that young lady, who had flashed on Somerset for so brief a while

but with so conquering a charm; and whose engaging grace,

communicative eyes, and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt,

remained imprinted on his memory.

 

'You saw her?' said Zero.  'Beautiful, is she not?  She, too, is

one of ours:  a true enthusiast:  nervous, perhaps, in presence of

the chemicals; but in matters of intrigue, the very soul of skill

and daring.  Lake, Fonblanque, de Marly, Valdevia, such are some of

the names that she employs; her true name--but there, perhaps, I go

too far.  Suffice it, that it is to her I owe my present lodging,

and, dear Somerset, the pleasure of your acquaintance.  It appears

she knew the house.  You see dear fellow, I make no concealment:

all that you can care to hear, I tell you openly.'

 

'For God's sake,' cried the wretched Somerset, 'hold your tongue!

You cannot imagine how you torture me!'

 

A shade of serious discomposure crossed the open countenance of

Zero.

 

'There are times,' he said, 'when I begin to fancy that you do not

like me.  Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality?  I am

depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail'--he

gloomily nodded--'from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I

fall, dear boy, into contempt.  These are grave thoughts, and you

may judge my need of your delightful company.  Innocent prattler,

you relieve the weight of my concerns.  And yet . . . and yet . .

.'  The speaker pushed away his plate, and rose from table.

'Follow me,' said he, 'follow me.  My mood is on; I must have air,

I must behold the plain of battle.'

 

So saying, he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion,

and thence, by ladder and trap, to a certain leaded platform,

sheltered at one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the

actual summit of the roof.  On both sides, it bordered, without

parapet or rail, on the incline of slates; and, northward above

all, commanded an extensive view of housetops, and rising through

the smoke, the distant spires of churches.

 

'Here,' cried Zero, 'you behold this field of city, rich, crowded,

laughing with the spoil of continents; but soon, how soon, to be

laid low!  Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you

shall perhaps be startled by the detonation of the judgment gun--

not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon, but deep-mouthed and

unctuously solemn.  Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the

flames break forth.  Ay,' he cried, stretching forth his hand, 'ay,

that will be a day of retribution.  Then shall the pallid constable

flee side by side with the detected thief.  Blaze!' he cried,

'blaze, derided city!  Fall, flatulent monarchy, fall like Dagon!'

 

With these words his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for

Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into

space.  Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was

dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather

carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic

landing.  Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at

length, seizing Somerset's hand in both of his, began to utter his

acknowledgments.

 

'This seals it,' said he.  'Ours is a life and death connection.

You have plucked me from the jaws of death; and if I were before

attracted by your character, judge now of the ardour of my

gratitude and love!  But I perceive I am still greatly shaken.

Lend me, I beseech you, lend me your arm as far as my apartment.'

 

A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his

customary self-possession; and he was standing, glass in hand and

genially convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection

of the unfortunate young man.

 

'Good heavens, dear Somerset,' he cried, 'what ails you?  Let me

offer you a touch of spirits.'

 

But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.

 

'Let me be,' he said.  'I am lost; you have caught me in the toils.

Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless

manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect

innocence.  And now--what am I?  Are you so blind and wooden that

you do not see the loathing you inspire me with?  Is it possible

you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms?

To think,' he cried, 'that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth

but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned

imbroglio!'  And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled

upon the sofa.

 

'My God,' said Zero, 'is this possible?  And I so filled with

tenderness and interest!  Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are

under the empire of these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a

patriot by the morality of the religious tract?  I thought you were

a good agnostic.'

 

'Mr. Jones,' said Somerset, 'it is in vain to argue.  I boast

myself a total disbeliever, not only in revealed religion, but in

the data, method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics.  Well!

what matters it? what signifies a form of words?  I regard you as a

reptile, whom I would rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel.

You would blow up others?  Well then, understand:  I want, with

every circumstance of infamy and agony, to blow up you!'

 

'Somerset, Somerset!' said Zero, turning very pale, 'this is wrong;

this is very wrong.  You pain, you wound me, Somerset.'

 

'Give me a match!' cried Somerset wildly.  'Let me set fire to this

incomparable monster!  Let me perish with him in his fall!'

 

'For God's sake,' cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, 'for

God's sake command yourself!  We stand upon the brink; death yawns

around us; a man--a stranger in this foreign land--one whom you

have called your friend--'

 

'Silence!' cried Somerset, 'you are no friend, no friend of mine.

I look on you with loathing, like a toad:  my flesh creeps with

physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.'

 

Zero burst into tears.  'Alas!' he sobbed, 'this snaps the last

link that bound me to humanity.  My friend disowns--he insults me.

I am indeed accurst.'

 

Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of

front.  The next moment, with a despairing gesture, he fled from

the room and from the house.  The first dash of his escape carried

him hard upon half-way to the next police-office:  but presently

began to droop; and before he reached the house of lawful

intervention, he fell once more among doubtful counsels.  Was he an

agnostic? had he a right to act?  Away with such nonsense, and let

Zero perish! ran his thoughts.  And then again:  had he not

promised, had he not shaken hands and broken bread? and that with

open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit

honour?  But honour? what was honour?  A figment, which, in the hot

pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside.  Ay, but crime?  A

figment, too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded.  All day,

he wandered in the parks, a prey to whirling thoughts; all night,

patrolled the city; and at the peep of day he sat down by the

wayside in the neighbourhood of Peckham and bitterly wept.  His

gods had fallen.  He who had chosen the broad, daylit, unencumbered

paths of universal scepticism, found himself still the bondslave of

honour.  He who had accepted life from a point of view as lofty as

the predatory eagle's, though with no design to prey; he who had

clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial

competition, and of crime; he who was prepared to help the escaping

murderer or to embrace the impenitent thief, found, to the

overthrow of all his logic, that he objected to the use of

dynamite.  The dawn crept among the sleeping villas and over the

smokeless fields of city; and still the unfortunate sceptic sobbed

over his fall from consistency.

 

At length, he rose and took the rising sun to witness.  'There is

no question as to fact,' he cried; 'right and wrong are but

figments and the shadow of a word; but for all that, there are

certain things that I cannot do, and there are certain others that

I will not stand.'  Thereupon he decided to return to make one last

effort of persuasion, and, if he could not prevail on Zero to

desist from his infernal trade, throw delicacy to the winds, give

the plotter an hour's start, and denounce him to the police.  Fast

as he went, being winged by this resolution, it was already well on

in the morning when he came in sight of the Superfluous Mansion.

Tripping down the steps, was the young lady of the various aliases;

and he was surprised to see upon her countenance the marks of anger

and concern.

 

'Madam,' he began, yielding to impulse and with no clear knowledge

of what he was to add.

 

But at the sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of

fear or horror; started back; lowered her veil with a sudden

movement; and fled, without turning, from the square.

 

Here then, we step aside a moment from following the fortunes of

Somerset, and proceed to relate the strange and romantic episode of

THE BROWN BOX.

 

 

 

DESBOROUGH'S ADVENTURE:  THE BROWN BOX

 

 

 

Mr. Harry Desborough lodged in the fine and grave old quarter of

Bloomsbury, roared about on every side by the high tides of London,

but itself rejoicing in romantic silences and city peace.  It was

in Queen Square that he had pitched his tent, next door to the

Children's Hospital, on your left hand as you go north:  Queen

Square, sacred to humane and liberal arts, whence homes were made

beautiful, where the poor were taught, where the sparrows were

plentiful and loud, and where groups of patient little ones would

hover all day long before the hospital, if by chance they might

kiss their hand or speak a word to their sick brother at the

window.  Desborough's room was on the first floor and fronted to

the square; but he enjoyed besides, a right by which he often

profited, to sit and smoke upon a terrace at the back, which looked

down upon a fine forest of back gardens, and was in turn commanded

by the windows of an empty room.

 

On the afternoon of a warm day, Desborough sauntered forth upon

this terrace, somewhat out of hope and heart, for he had been now

some weeks on the vain quest of situations, and prepared for

melancholy and tobacco.  Here, at least, he told himself that he

would be alone; for, like most youths, who are neither rich, nor

witty, nor successful, he rather shunned than courted the society

of other men.  Even as he expressed the thought, his eye alighted

on the window of the room that looked upon the terrace; and to his

surprise and annoyance, he beheld it curtained with a silken

hanging.  It was like his luck, he thought; his privacy was gone,

he could no longer brood and sigh unwatched, he could no longer

suffer his discouragement to find a vent in words or soothe himself

with sentimental whistling; and in the irritation of the moment, he

struck his pipe upon the rail with unnecessary force.  It was an

old, sweet, seasoned briar-root, glossy and dark with long

employment, and justly dear to his fancy.  What, then, was his

chagrin, when the head snapped from the stem, leaped airily in

space, and fell and disappeared among the lilacs of the garden?

 

He threw himself savagely into the garden chair, pulled out the

story-paper which he had brought with him to read, tore off a

fragment of the last sheet, which contains only the answers to

correspondents, and set himself to roll a cigarette.  He was no

master of the art; again and again, the paper broke between his

fingers and the tobacco showered upon the ground; and he was

already on the point of angry resignation, when the window swung

slowly inward, the silken curtain was thrust aside, and a lady,

somewhat strangely attired, stepped forth upon the terrace.

 

'Senorito,' said she, and there was a rich thrill in her voice,

like an organ note, 'Senorito, you are in difficulties.  Suffer me

to come to your assistance.'

 

With the words, she took the paper and tobacco from his unresisting

hands; and with a facility that, in Desborough's eyes, seemed

magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette.  He took it, still

seated, still without a word; staring with all his eyes upon that

apparition.  Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was

that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so

rare in our more northern climates; her eyes were large, starry,

and visited by changing lights; her hair was partly covered by a

lace mantilla, through which her arms, bare to the shoulder,

gleamed white; her figure, full and soft in all the womanly

contours, was yet alive and active, light with excess of life, and

slender by grace of some divine proportion.

 

'You do not like my cigarrito, Senor?' she asked.  'Yet it is

better made than yours.'  At that she laughed, and her laughter

trilled in his ear like music; but the next moment her face fell.

'I see,' she cried.  'It is my manner that repels you.  I am too

constrained, too cold.  I am not,' she added, with a more engaging

air, 'I am not the simple English maiden I appear.'

 

'Oh!' murmured Harry, filled with inexpressible thoughts.

 

'In my own dear land,' she pursued, 'things are differently

ordered.  There, I must own, a girl is bound by many and rigorous

restrictions; little is permitted her; she learns to be distant,

she learns to appear forbidding.  But here, in free England--oh,

glorious liberty!' she cried, and threw up her arms with a gesture

of inimitable grace--'here there are no fetters; here the woman may

dare to be herself entirely, and the men, the chivalrous men--is it

not written on the very shield of your nation, honi soit?  Ah, it

is hard for me to learn, hard for me to dare to be myself.  You

must not judge me yet awhile; I shall end by conquering this

stiffness, I shall end by growing English.  Do I speak the language

well?'

 

'Perfectly--oh, perfectly!' said Harry, with a fervency of

conviction worthy of a graver subject.

 

'Ah, then,' she said, 'I shall soon learn; English blood ran in my

father's veins; and I have had the advantage of some training in

your expressive tongue.  If I speak already without accent, with my

thorough English appearance, there is nothing left to change except

my manners.'

 

'Oh no,' said Desborough.  'Oh pray not!  I--madam--'

 

'I am,' interrupted the lady, 'the Senorita Teresa Valdevia.  The

evening air grows chill.  Adios, Senorito.'  And before Harry could

stammer out a word, she had disappeared into her room.

 

He stood transfixed, the cigarette still unlighted in his hand.

His thoughts had soared above tobacco, and still recalled and

beautified the image of his new acquaintance.  Her voice re-echoed

in his memory; her eyes, of which he could not tell the colour,

haunted his soul.  The clouds had risen at her coming, and he

beheld a new-created world.  What she was, he could not fancy, but

he adored her.  Her age, he durst not estimate; fearing to find her

older than himself, and thinking sacrilege to couple that fair

favour with the thought of mortal changes.  As for her character,

beauty to the young is always good.  So the poor lad lingered late

upon the terrace, stealing timid glances at the curtained window,

sighing to the gold laburnums, rapt into the country of romance;

and when at length he entered and sat down to dine, on cold boiled

mutton and a pint of ale, he feasted on the food of gods.

 

Next day when he returned to the terrace, the window was a little

ajar, and he enjoyed a view of the lady's shoulder, as she sat

patiently sewing and all unconscious of his presence.  On the next,

he had scarce appeared when the window opened, and the Senorita

tripped forth into the sunlight, in a morning disorder, delicately

neat, and yet somehow foreign, tropical, and strange.  In one hand

she held a packet.

 

'Will you try,' she said, 'some of my father's tobacco--from dear

Cuba?  There, as I suppose you know, all smoke, ladies as well as

gentlemen.  So you need not fear to annoy me.  The fragrance will

remind me of home.  My home, Senor, was by the sea.'  And as she

uttered these few words, Desborough, for the first time in his

life, realised the poetry of the great deep.  'Awake or asleep, I

dream of it:  dear home, dear Cuba!'

 

'But some day,' said Desborough, with an inward pang, 'some day you

will return?'

 

' Never!' she cried; 'ah, never, in Heaven's name!'

 

'Are you then resident for life in England?' he inquired, with a

strange lightening of spirit.

 

'You ask too much, for you ask more than I know,' she answered

sadly; and then, resuming her gaiety of manner:  'But you have not

tried my Cuban tobacco,' she said.

 

'Senorita,' said he, shyly abashed by some shadow of coquetry in

her manner, 'whatever comes to me--you--I mean,' he concluded,

deeply flushing, 'that I have no doubt the tobacco is delightful.'

 

'Ah, Senor,' she said, with almost mournful gravity, 'you seemed so

simple and good, and already you are trying to pay compliments--and

besides,' she added, brightening, with a quick upward glance, into

a smile, 'you do it so badly!  English gentlemen, I used to hear,

could be fast friends, respectful, honest friends; could be

companions, comforters, if the need arose, or champions, and yet

never encroach.  Do not seek to please me by copying the graces of

my countrymen.  Be yourself:  the frank, kindly, honest English

gentleman that I have heard of since my childhood and still longed

to meet.'

 

Harry, much bewildered, and far from clear as to the manners of the

Cuban gentlemen, strenuously disclaimed the thought of plagiarism.

 

'Your national seriousness of bearing best becomes you, Senor,'

said the lady.  'See!' marking a line with her dainty, slippered

foot, 'thus far it shall be common ground; there, at my window-

sill, begins the scientific frontier.  If you choose, you may drive

me to my forts; but if, on the other hand, we are to be real

English friends, I may join you here when I am not too sad; or,

when I am yet more graciously inclined, you may draw your chair

beside the window and teach me English customs, while I work.  You

will find me an apt scholar, for my heart is in the task.'  She

laid her hand lightly upon Harry's arm, and looked into his eyes.

'Do you know,' said she, 'I am emboldened to believe that I have

already caught something of your English aplomb?  Do you not

perceive a change, Senor?  Slight, perhaps, but still a change?  Is

my deportment not more open, more free, more like that of the dear

"British Miss" than when you saw me first?'  She gave a radiant

smile; withdrew her hand from Harry's arm; and before the young man

could formulate in words the eloquent emotions that ran riot

through his brain--with an 'Adios, Senor:  good-night, my English

friend,' she vanished from his sight behind the curtain.

 

The next day Harry consumed an ounce of tobacco in vain upon the

neutral terrace; neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and the

dinner-hour summoned him at length from the scene of

disappointment.  On the next it rained; but nothing, neither

business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present

hardship, could now divert the young man from the service of his

lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he took

his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of

damp and discomfort to the eye, but glowing inwardly with tender

and delightful ardours.  Presently the window opened, and the fair

Cuban, with a smile imperfectly dissembled, appeared upon the sill.

 

'Come here,' she said, 'here, beside my window.  The small verandah

gives a belt of shelter.'  And she graciously handed him a folding-

chair.

 

As he sat down, visibly aglow with shyness and delight, a certain

bulkiness in his pocket reminded him that he was not come empty-

handed.

 

'I have taken the liberty,' said he, 'of bringing you a little

book.  I thought of you, when I observed it on the stall, because I

saw it was in Spanish.  The man assured me it was by one of the

best authors, and quite proper.'  As he spoke, he placed the little

volume in her hand.  Her eyes fell as she turned the pages, and a

flush rose and died again upon her cheeks, as deep as it was

fleeting.  'You are angry,' he cried in agony.  'I have presumed.'

 

'No, Senor, it is not that,' returned the lady.  'I--' and a flood

of colour once more mounted to her brow--'I am confused and ashamed

because I have deceived you.  Spanish,' she began, and paused--

'Spanish is, of course, my native tongue,' she resumed, as though

suddenly taking courage; 'and this should certainly put the highest

value on your thoughtful present; but alas, sir, of what use is it

to me?  And how shall I confess to you the truth--the humiliating

truth--that I cannot read?'

 

As Harry's eyes met hers in undisguised amazement, the fair Cuban

seemed to shrink before his gaze.  'Read?' repeated Harry.  'You!'

 

She pushed the window still more widely open with a large and noble

gesture.  'Enter, Senor,' said she.  'The time has come to which I

have long looked forward, not without alarm; when I must either

fear to lose your friendship, or tell you without disguise the

story of my life.'

 

It was with a sentiment bordering on devotion, that Harry passed

the window.  A semi-barbarous delight in form and colour had

presided over the studied disorder of the room in which he found

himself.  It was filled with dainty stuffs, furs and rugs and

scarves of brilliant hues, and set with elegant and curious

trifles-fans on the mantelshelf, an antique lamp upon a bracket,

and on the table a silver-mounted bowl of cocoa-nut about half full

of unset jewels.  The fair Cuban, herself a gem of colour and the

fit masterpiece for that rich frame, motioned Harry to a seat, and

sinking herself into another, thus began her history.

 

 

 

STORY OF THE FAIR CUBAN

 

 

 

I am not what I seem.  My father drew his descent, on the one hand,

from grandees of Spain, and on the other, through the maternal

line, from the patriot Bruce.  My mother, too, was the descendant

of a line of kings; but, alas! these kings were African.  She was

fair as the day:  fairer than I, for I inherited a darker strain of

blood from the veins of my European father; her mind was noble, her

manners queenly and accomplished; and seeing her more than the

equal of her neighbours, and surrounded by the most considerate

affection and respect, I grew up to adore her, and when the time

came, received her last sigh upon my lips, still ignorant that she

was a slave, and alas! my father's mistress.  Her death, which

befell me in my sixteenth year, was the first sorrow I had known:

it left our home bereaved of its attractions, cast a shade of

melancholy on my youth, and wrought in my father a tragic and

durable change.  Months went by; with the elasticity of my years, I

regained some of the simple mirth that had before distinguished me;

the plantation smiled with fresh crops; the negroes on the estate

had already forgotten my mother and transferred their simple

obedience to myself; but still the cloud only darkened on the brows

of Senor Valdevia.  His absences from home had been frequent even

in the old days, for he did business in precious gems in the city

of Havana; they now became almost continuous; and when he returned,

it was but for the night and with the manner of a man crushed down

by adverse fortune.

 

The place where I was born and passed my days was an isle set in

the Caribbean Sea, some half-hour's rowing from the coasts of Cuba.

It was steep, rugged, and, except for my father's family and

plantation, uninhabited and left to nature.  The house, a low

building surrounded by spacious verandahs, stood upon a rise of

ground and looked across the sea to Cuba.  The breezes blew about

it gratefully, fanned us as we lay swinging in our silken hammocks,

and tossed the boughs and flowers of the magnolia.  Behind and to

the left, the quarter of the negroes and the waving fields of the

plantation covered an eighth part of the surface of the isle.  On

the right and closely bordering on the garden, lay a vast and

deadly swamp, densely covered with wood, breathing fever, dotted

with profound sloughs, and inhabited by poisonous oysters, man-

eating crabs, snakes, alligators, and sickly fishes.  Into the

recesses of that jungle, none could penetrate but those of African

descent; an invisible, unconquerable foe lay there in wait for the

European; and the air was death.

 

One morning (from which I must date the beginning of my ruinous

misfortune) I left my room a little after day, for in that warm

climate all are early risers, and found not a servant to attend

upon my wants.  I made the circuit of the house, still calling:

and my surprise had almost changed into alarm, when coming at last

into a large verandahed court, I found it thronged with negroes.

Even then, even when I was amongst them, not one turned or paid the

least regard to my arrival.  They had eyes and ears for but one

person:  a woman, richly and tastefully attired; of elegant

carriage, and a musical speech; not so much old in years, as worn

and marred by self-indulgence:  her face, which was still

attractive, stamped with the most cruel passions, her eye burning

with the greed of evil.  It was not from her appearance, I believe,

but from some emanation of her soul, that I recoiled in a kind of

fainting terror; as we hear of plants that blight and snakes that

fascinate, the woman shocked and daunted me.  But I was of a brave

nature; trod the weakness down; and forcing my way through the

slaves, who fell back before me in embarrassment, as though in the

presence of rival mistresses, I asked, in imperious tones:  'Who is

this person?'

 

A slave girl, to whom I had been kind, whispered in my ear to have

a care, for that was Madam Mendizabal; but the name was new to me.

 

In the meanwhile the woman, applying a pair of glasses to her eyes,

studied me with insolent particularity from head to foot.

 

'Young woman,' said she, at last, 'I have had a great experience in

refractory servants, and take a pride in breaking them.  You really

tempt me; and if I had not other affairs, and these of more

importance, on my hand, I should certainly buy you at your father's

sale.'

 

'Madam--' I began, but my voice failed me.

 

'Is it possible that you do not know your position?' she returned,

with a hateful laugh.  'How comical!  Positively, I must buy her.

Accomplishments, I suppose?' she added, turning to the servants.

 

Several assured her that the young mistress had been brought up

like any lady, for so it seemed in their inexperience.

 

'She would do very well for my place of business in Havana,' said

the Senora Mendizabal, once more studying me through her glasses;

'and I should take a pleasure,' she pursued, more directly

addressing myself, 'in bringing you acquainted with a whip.'  And

she smiled at me with a savoury lust of cruelty upon her face.

 

At this, I found expression.  Calling by name upon the servants, I

bade them turn this woman from the house, fetch her to the boat,

and set her back upon the mainland.  But with one voice, they

protested that they durst not obey, coming close about me, pleading

and beseeching me to be more wise; and, when I insisted, rising

higher in passion and speaking of this foul intruder in the terms

she had deserved, they fell back from me as from one who had

blasphemed.  A superstitious reverence plainly encircled the

stranger; I could read it in their changed demeanour, and in the

paleness that prevailed upon the natural colour of their faces; and

their fear perhaps reacted on myself.  I looked again at Madam

Mendizabal.  She stood perfectly composed, watching my face through

her glasses with a smile of scorn; and at the sight of her assured

superiority to all my threats, a cry broke from my lips, a cry of

rage, fear, and despair, and I fled from the verandah and the

house.

 

I ran I knew not where, but it was towards the beach.  As I went,

my head whirled; so strange, so sudden, were these events and

insults.  Who was she? what, in Heaven's name, the power she

wielded over my obedient negroes?  Why had she addressed me as a

slave? why spoken of my father's sale?  To all these tumultuary

questions I could find no answer; and in the turmoil of my mind,

nothing was plain except the hateful leering image of the woman.

 

I was still running, mad with fear and anger, when I saw my father

coming to meet me from the landing-place; and with a cry that I

thought would have killed me, leaped into his arms and broke into a

passion of sobs and tears upon his bosom.  He made me sit down

below a tall palmetto that grew not far off; comforted me, but with

some abstraction in his voice; and as soon as I regained the least

command upon my feelings, asked me, not without harshness, what

this grief betokened.  I was surprised by his tone into a still

greater measure of composure; and in firm tones, though still

interrupted by sobs, I told him there was a stranger in the island,

at which I thought he started and turned pale; that the servants

would not obey me; that the stranger's name was Madam Mendizabal,

and, at that, he seemed to me both troubled and relieved; that she

had insulted me, treated me as a slave (and here my father's brow

began to darken), threatened to buy me at a sale, and questioned my

own servants before my face; and that, at last, finding myself

quite helpless and exposed to these intolerable liberties, I had

fled from the house in terror, indignation, and amazement.

 

'Teresa,' said my father, with singular gravity of voice, 'I must

make to-day a call upon your courage; much must be told you, there

is much that you must do to help me; and my daughter must prove

herself a woman by her spirit.  As for this Mendizabal, what shall

I say? or how am I to tell you what she is?  Twenty years ago, she

was the loveliest of slaves; to-day she is what you see her--

prematurely old, disgraced by the practice of every vice and every

nefarious industry, but free, rich, married, they say, to some

reputable man, whom may Heaven assist! and exercising among her

ancient mates, the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its

reason is mysterious.  Horrible rites, it is supposed, cement her

empire:  the rites of Hoodoo.  Be that as it may, I would have you

dismiss the thought of this incomparable witch; it is not from her

that danger threatens us; and into her hands, I make bold to

promise, you shall never fall.'

 

'Father!' I cried.  'Fall?  Was there any truth, then, in her

words?  Am I--O father, tell me plain; I can bear anything but this

suspense.'

 

'I will tell you,' he replied, with merciful bluntness.  'Your

mother was a slave; it was my design, so soon as I had saved a

competence, to sail to the free land of Britain, where the law

would suffer me to marry her:  a design too long procrastinated;

for death, at the last moment, intervened.  You will now understand

the heaviness with which your mother's memory hangs about my neck.'

 

I cried out aloud, in pity for my parents; and in seeking to

console the survivor, I forgot myself.

 

'It matters not,' resumed my father.  'What I have left undone can

never be repaired, and I must bear the penalty of my remorse.  But,

Teresa, with so cutting a reminder of the evils of delay, I set

myself at once to do what was still possible:  to liberate

yourself.'

 

I began to break forth in thanks, but he checked me with a sombre

roughness.

 

'Your mother's illness,' he resumed, 'had engaged too great a

portion of my time; my business in the city had lain too long at

the mercy of ignorant underlings; my head, my taste, my unequalled

knowledge of the more precious stones, that art by which I can

distinguish, even on the darkest night, a sapphire from a ruby, and

tell at a glance in what quarter of the earth a gem was

disinterred--all these had been too long absent from the conduct of

affairs.  Teresa, I was insolvent.'

 

'What matters that?' I cried.  'What matters poverty, if we be left

together with our love and sacred memories?'

 

'You do not comprehend,' he said gloomily.  'Slave, as you are,

young--alas! scarce more than child!--accomplished, beautiful with

the most touching beauty, innocent as an angel--all these qualities

that should disarm the very wolves and crocodiles, are, in the eyes

of those to whom I stand indebted, commodities to buy and sell.

You are a chattel; a marketable thing; and worth--heavens, that I

should say such words!--worth money.  Do you begin to see?  If I

were to give you freedom, I should defraud my creditors; the

manumission would be certainly annulled; you would be still a

slave, and I a criminal.'

 

I caught his hand in mine, kissed it, and moaned in pity for

myself, in sympathy for my father.

 

'How I have toiled,' he continued, 'how I have dared and striven to

repair my losses, Heaven has beheld and will remember.  Its

blessing was denied to my endeavours, or, as I please myself by

thinking, but delayed to descend upon my daughter's head.  At

length, all hope was at an end; I was ruined beyond retrieve; a

heavy debt fell due upon the morrow, which I could not meet; I

should be declared a bankrupt, and my goods, my lands, my jewels

that I so much loved, my slaves whom I have spoiled and rendered

happy, and oh! tenfold worse, you, my beloved daughter, would be

sold and pass into the hands of ignorant and greedy traffickers.

Too long, I saw, had I accepted and profited by this great crime of

slavery; but was my daughter, my innocent unsullied daughter, was

SHE to pay the price?  I cried out--no!--I took Heaven to witness

my temptation; I caught up this bag and fled.  Close upon my track

are the pursuers; perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow, they will

land upon this isle, sacred to the memory of the dear soul that

bore you, to consign your father to an ignominious prison, and

yourself to slavery and dishonour.  We have not many hours before

us.  Off the north coast of our isle, by strange good fortune, an

English yacht has for some days been hovering.  It belongs to Sir

George Greville, whom I slightly know, to whom ere now I have

rendered unusual services, and who will not refuse to help in our

escape.  Or if he did, if his gratitude were in default, I have the

power to force him.  For what does it mean, my child--what means

this Englishman, who hangs for years upon the shores of Cuba, and

returns from every trip with new and valuable gems?'

 

'He may have found a mine,' I hazarded.

 

'So he declares,' returned my father; 'but the strange gift I have

received from nature, easily transpierced the fable.  He brought me

diamonds only, which I bought, at first, in innocence; at a second

glance, I started; for of these stones, my child, some had first

seen the day in Africa, some in Brazil; while others, from their

peculiar water and rude workmanship, I divined to be the spoil of

ancient temples.  Thus put upon the scent, I made inquiries.  Oh,

he is cunning, but I was cunninger than he.  He visited, I found,

the shop of every jeweller in town; to one he came with rubies, to

one with emeralds, to one with precious beryl; to all, with this

same story of the mine.  But in what mine, what rich epitome of the

earth's surface, were there conjoined the rubies of Ispahan, the

pearls of Coromandel, and the diamonds of Golconda?  No, child,

that man, for all his yacht and title, that man must fear and must

obey me.  To-night, then, as soon as it is dark, we must take our

way through the swamp by the path which I shall presently show you;

thence, across the highlands of the isle, a track is blazed, which

shall conduct us to the haven on the north; and close by the yacht

is riding.  Should my pursuers come before the hour at which I look

to see them, they will still arrive too late; a trusty man attends

on the mainland; as soon as they appear, we shall behold, if it be

dark, the redness of a fire, if it be day, a pillar of smoke, on

the opposing headland; and thus warned, we shall have time to put

the swamp between ourselves and danger.  Meantime, I would conceal

this bag; I would, before all things, be seen to arrive at the

house with empty hands; a blabbing slave might else undo us.  For

see!' he added; and holding up the bag, which he had already shown

me, he poured into my lap a shower of unmounted jewels, brighter

than flowers, of every size and colour, and catching, as they fell,

upon a million dainty facets, the ardour of the sun.

 

I could not restrain a cry of admiration.

 

'Even in your ignorant eyes,' pursued my father, 'they command

respect.  Yet what are they but pebbles, passive to the tool, cold

as death?  Ingrate!' he cried.  'Each one of these--miracles of

nature's patience, conceived out of the dust in centuries of

microscopical activity, each one is, for you and me, a year of

life, liberty, and mutual affection.  How, then, should I cherish

them! and why do I delay to place them beyond reach!  Teresa,

follow me.'

 

He rose to his feet, and led me to the borders of the great jungle,

where they overhung, in a wall of poisonous and dusky foliage, the

declivity of the hill on which my father's house stood planted.

For some while he skirted, with attentive eyes, the margin of the

thicket.  Then, seeming to recognise some mark, for his countenance

became immediately lightened of a load of thought, he paused and

addressed me.  'Here,' said he, 'is the entrance of the secret path

that I have mentioned, and here you shall await me.  I but pass

some hundreds of yards into the swamp to bury my poor treasure; as

soon as that is safe, I will return.'  It was in vain that I sought

to dissuade him, urging the dangers of the place; in vain that I

begged to be allowed to follow, pleading the black blood that I now

knew to circulate in my veins:  to all my appeals he turned a deaf

ear, and, bending back a portion of the screen of bushes,

disappeared into the pestilential silence of the swamp.

 

At the end of a full hour, the bushes were once more thrust aside;

and my father stepped from out the thicket, and paused and almost

staggered in the first shock of the blinding sunlight.  His face

was of a singular dusky red; and yet for all the heat of the

tropical noon, he did not seem to sweat.

 

'You are tired,' I cried, springing to meet him.  'You are ill.'

 

'I am tired,' he replied; 'the air in that jungle stifles one; my

eyes, besides, have grown accustomed to its gloom, and the strong

sunshine pierces them like knives.  A moment, Teresa, give me but a

moment.  All shall yet be well.  I have buried the hoard under a

cypress, immediately beyond the bayou, on the left-hand margin of

the path; beautiful, bright things, they now lie whelmed in slime;

you shall find them there, if needful.  But come, let us to the

house; it is time to eat against our journey of the night:  to eat

and then to sleep, my poor Teresa:  then to sleep.'  And he looked

upon me out of bloodshot eyes, shaking his head as if in pity.

 

We went hurriedly, for he kept murmuring that he had been gone too

long, and that the servants might suspect; passed through the airy

stretch of the verandah; and came at length into the grateful

twilight of the shuttered house.  The meal was spread; the house

servants, already informed by the boatmen of the master's return,

were all back at their posts, and terrified, as I could see, to

face me.  My father still murmuring of haste with weary and

feverish pertinacity, I hurried at once to take my place at table;

but I had no sooner left his arm than he paused and thrust forth

both his hands with a strange gesture of groping.  'How is this?'

he cried, in a sharp, unhuman voice.  'Am I blind?'  I ran to him

and tried to lead him to the table; but he resisted and stood

stiffly where he was, opening and shutting his jaws, as if in a

painful effort after breath.  Then suddenly he raised both hands to

his temples, cried out, 'My head, my head!' and reeled and fell

against the wall.

 

I knew too well what it must be.  I turned and begged the servants

to relieve him.  But they, with one accord, denied the possibility

of hope; the master had gone into the swamp, they said, the master

must die; all help was idle.  Why should I dwell upon his

sufferings?  I had him carried to a bed, and watched beside him.

He lay still, and at times ground his teeth, and talked at times

unintelligibly, only that one word of hurry, hurry, coming

distinctly to my ears, and telling me that, even in the last

struggle with the powers of death, his mind was still tortured by

his daughter's peril.  The sun had gone down, the darkness had

fallen, when I perceived that I was alone on this unhappy earth.

What thought had I of flight, of safety, of the impending dangers

of my situation?  Beside the body of my last friend, I had

forgotten all except the natural pangs of my bereavement.

 

The sun was some four hours above the eastern line, when I was

recalled to a knowledge of the things of earth, by the entrance of

the slave-girl to whom I have already referred.  The poor soul was

indeed devotedly attached to me; and it was with streaming tears

that she broke to me the import of her coming.  With the first

light of dawn a boat had reached our landing-place, and set on

shore upon our isle (till now so fortunate) a party of officers

bearing a warrant to arrest my father's person, and a man of a

gross body and low manners, who declared the island, the

plantation, and all its human chattels, to be now his own.  'I

think,' said my slave-girl, 'he must be a politician or some very

powerful sorcerer; for Madam Mendizabal had no sooner seen them

coming, than she took to the woods.'

 

'Fool,' said I, 'it was the officers she feared; and at any rate

why does that beldam still dare to pollute the island with her

presence?  And O Cora,' I exclaimed, remembering my grief, 'what

matter all these troubles to an orphan?'

 

'Mistress,' said she, 'I must remind you of two things.  Never

speak as you do now of Madam Mendizabal; or never to a person of

colour; for she is the most powerful woman in this world, and her

real name even, if one durst pronounce it, were a spell to raise

the dead.  And whatever you do, speak no more of her to your

unhappy Cora; for though it is possible she may be afraid of the

police (and indeed I think that I have heard she is in hiding), and

though I know that you will laugh and not believe, yet it is true,

and proved, and known that she hears every word that people utter

in this whole vast world; and your poor Cora is already deep enough

in her black books.  She looks at me, mistress, till my blood turns

ice.  That is the first I had to say; and now for the second:  do,

pray, for Heaven's sake, bear in mind that you are no longer the

poor Senor's daughter.  He is gone, dear gentleman; and now you are

no more than a common slave-girl like myself.  The man to whom you

belong calls for you; oh, my dear mistress, go at once!  With your

youth and beauty, you may still, if you are winning and obedient,

secure yourself an easy life.'

 

For a moment I looked on the creature with the indignation you may

conceive; the next, it was gone:  she did but speak after her kind,

as the bird sings or cattle bellow.  'Go,' said I.  'Go, Cora.  I

thank you for your kind intentions.  Leave me alone one moment with

my dead father; and tell this man that I will come at once.'

 

She went:  and I, turning to the bed of death, addressed to those

deaf ears the last appeal and defence of my beleaguered innocence.

'Father,' I said, 'it was your last thought, even in the pangs of

dissolution, that your daughter should escape disgrace.  Here, at

your side, I swear to you that purpose shall be carried out; by

what means, I know not; by crime, if need be; and Heaven forgive

both you and me and our oppressors, and Heaven help my

helplessness!'  Thereupon I felt strengthened as by long repose;

stepped to the mirror, ay, even in that chamber of the dead;

hastily arranged my hair, refreshed my tear-worn eyes, breathed a

dumb farewell to the originator of my days and sorrows; and

composing my features to a smile, went forth to meet my master.

 

He was in a great, hot bustle, reviewing that house, once ours, to

which he had but now succeeded; a corpulent, sanguine man of middle

age, sensual, vulgar, humorous, and, if I judged rightly, not ill-

disposed by nature.  But the sparkle that came into his eye as he

observed me enter, warned me to expect the worst.

 

'Is this your late mistress?' he inquired of the slaves; and when

he had learnt it was so, instantly dismissed them.  'Now, my dear,'

said he, 'I am a plain man:  none of your damned Spaniards, but a

true blue, hard-working, honest Englishman.  My name is Caulder.'

 

'Thank you, sir,' said I, and curtsied very smartly as I had seen

the servants.

 

'Come,' said he, 'this is better than I had expected; and if you

choose to be dutiful in the station to which it has pleased God to

call you, you will find me a very kind old fellow.  I like your

looks,' he added, calling me by my name, which he scandalously

mispronounced.  'Is your hair all your own?' he then inquired with

a certain sharpness, and coming up to me, as though I were a horse,

he grossly satisfied his doubts.  I was all one flame from head to

foot, but I contained my righteous anger and submitted.  'That is

very well,' he continued, chucking me good humouredly under the

chin.  'You will have no cause to regret coming to old Caulder, eh?

But that is by the way.  What is more to the point is this:  your

late master was a most dishonest rogue, and levanted with some

valuable property that belonged of rights to me.  Now, considering

your relation to him, I regard you as the likeliest person to know

what has become of it; and I warn you, before you answer, that my

whole future kindness will depend upon your honesty.  I am an

honest man myself, and expect the same in my servants.'

 

'Do you mean the jewels?' said I, sinking my voice into a whisper.

 

'That is just precisely what I do,' said he, and chuckled.

 

'Hush!' said I.

 

'Hush?' he repeated.  'And why hush?  I am on my own place, I would

have you to know, and surrounded by my own lawful servants.'

 

'Are the officers gone?' I asked; and oh! how my hopes hung upon

the answer!

 

'They are,' said he, looking somewhat disconcerted.  'Why do you

ask?'

 

'I wish you had kept them,' I answered, solemnly enough, although

my heart at that same moment leaped with exultation.  'Master, I

must not conceal from you the truth.  The servants on this estate

are in a dangerous condition, and mutiny has long been brewing.'