XXII. THE TRAIN ARRIVES AT AN IMPORTANT STATION…

XXII. THE TRAIN ARRIVES AT AN IMPORTANT STATION

The catastrophe related at the end of the last chapter attracted the attention of a couple of labourers who had been engaged in mending the road, and they immediately hastened to the spot to render any assistance which might be required. By their aid the poor woman was extricated from her perilous situation, and fortunately proved to be less injured than could have been expected, a dislocated shoulder being the most serious hurt she had sustained. Committing the phaeton and horses to the care of one of the working men, Lewis and the other labourer carried the poor woman to a cottage by the roadside, and deposited her on a bed till such time as the surgeon (for whom General Grant had, by his daughter’s suggestion, despatched the groom on the horse which Lewis had ridden) should arrive. Luckily, they had not long to wait, as the boy met the person he was in search of returning from his round of professional visits. The dislocated shoulder was soon set to rights and bandaged up, and the sight of Annie’s well-filled purse rendered easy an arrangement with the tenants of the cottage to allow the invalid to continue their inmate till the next day, when she could be removed without detriment.

In the meantime the General had drawn Lewis on one side, and was expatiating to him upon the cause of the accident. “You perceive, Mr. Arundel, that my wrist is slightly swollen? Well, sir, that is from an old strain received in the little affair at Sticumlÿkphun. I was only a captain then. The company to which I belonged got separated from the regiment in crossing a jungle, and a party of the Rajah’s irregular horse tried to cut us off; they were upon us so suddenly, we hadn’t time to form a hollow square, and for a minute our fate appeared sealed;--they rode the men down like sheep. In the mêlée a gigantic trooper cut down the colour-sergeant and was about to possess himself of the flag, when I seized the staff with my left hand and struck at him with my sabre, but, unfortunately, it broke on his cuirass; his sword had also snapped with the blow which had caused the sergeant’s death, and a struggle ensued between us for the possession of the colours. His strength was in proportion to his height, but although I felt as if every muscle in my arms was about to snap, I held on till one of my men shot him through the head. At the same moment a troop of the 14th Lancers rode up and rescued us--but my wrists-have never recovered the strain. However, I found little difficulty in holding in these horses, till, just now, when we had turned to come home, some boys overthrew a barrow full of stones by the roadside, which startled the animals; they broke into a gallop, and despite all my efforts to prevent it, the accident to which you were witness occurred.”

“Had I known of your intention, sir, I should have cautioned you not to trust them too implicitly,” replied Lewis. “Before your return,--by Miss Livingstone’s wish,--I went over the stables to ascertain whether there were any carriage horses she could use. I drove these greys the second or third time they had ever been in harness, and they ran away with me in Broadhurst Park; but I have taken them out several times since, when Walter wished for an airing, and I believed they had become quiet.”

“Indeed,” returned the General, more graciously than was his wont, “I was not aware you were so good a whip; that relieves me from a great difficulty; you will be so obliging as to drive the phaeton home, and I can ride your horse. With my wrists in their present condition it would be a great risk for me to attempt to hold in those animals, and the groom is a mere boy. Annie, my dear,” he continued, as his daughter approached them from the cottage, “our difficulties are at an end. Mr. Arundel, it appears, has been in the habit of driving these horses lately, and will be so good as to take my place and see you safely home.”

“But, papa----” began Annie in a tone of remonstrance, while a slight accession of colour replaced the roses which fear had banished from her cheeks.

“My dear, the arrangement is the only one which appears feasible under present circumstances. I shall ride Mr. Arundel’s horse and will keep near, so you need be under no alarm,” returned her father majestically.

Annie by no means approved of the plan. In the first place, she was a good deal afraid of the horses, and having no experience of Lewis’s skill as a driver, was naturally alarmed at trusting herself again behind them. In the second place, she had a vague idea that it was scarcely etiquette to take a tête-à-tête drive with the handsome young tutor. But she saw that her father was quite determined, so, like a sensible girl, she refrained from offering opposition which she foresaw would be useless.

Lewis, however, reading in that “book of beauty,” her expressive face, the secret of her fears, took an opportunity, while the General was altering the stirrups to suit himself, to reassure her by saying, “You need not be in the least afraid, Miss Grant. Believe me, I would not undertake so great a trust as that of your safety did I not feel perfectly sure that I could drive you home without the slightest danger.”

As Lewis spoke Annie raised her eyes and glanced at him for a moment. It has been already remarked, in the course of this veracious history, that when Lewis smiled, the nameless charm which in Rose Arundel’s face won the love of all who knew her shed its lustre over his handsome features. To analyse such an expression of countenance is scarcely possible, but perhaps the nearest approach to a correct description of it would be to say that it was a bright, sunshiny look which inspired others with a conviction of its wearer’s kindliness of heart and honest truthfulness of purpose. Such was its effect in the present instance, and when her father handed her to her seat in the phaeton the uneasiness which had arisen from a want of confidence in her driver had in great measure disappeared. Lewis waited, with the reins in his hand, till the General had mounted and ridden off with Walter, who acquiesced silently in the change of companion, then springing lightly to his place, he desired the man at the horses’ heads to stand aside, and drove off. The iron-greys soon found out the difference between their late conductor and their present one, and after one or two slight attempts to gain their own way gave up the point and settled down into a quiet, steady trot. Annie, whose alarm had quickened her perceptions on the subject, was not long in remarking the change, and turning to her companion, observed, “How do you contrive to make the horses go so quietly, Mr. Arundel? When papa was driving them they did nothing but dance and caper the whole way, and at last, as you are aware, ran away with us.”

Lewis, who considered that the present was a favourable opportunity, which might never occur again, to unburden his mind in regard to the skating affair, and was debating with himself how he might best introduce the subject, heard her question mechanically, as it were, without its reaching the ears of his understanding, and it was not until he observed her look of surprise at receiving no answer to her query that he hastened to reply, “I beg your pardon, Miss Grant, I was thinking on quite a different subject. I have lived such a hermit’s life of late with poor Walter that I fear I have become dreadfully absent.”

“I merely asked by what charm you had contrived to tame these fiery steeds,” returned Annie, smiling at his evident bewilderment.

“The charm of a steady hand and a strong arm,” replied Lewis. “But these horses and I are old acquaintances; we had a struggle once for the mastery, and I conquered, which they have not forgotten.” He then gave her a short account of the runaway scene in Broad-hurst Park, to which she listened with much interest. When he had concluded, Annie remarked, “How dreadful it must have been when they were rushing towards the lake, and you felt uncertain whether you might be able to check their wild career! That lake seems destined to become the scene of dangerous adventures. I must take this opportunity,” she continued with a faint blush, “of thanking you for saving my life. In the few hurried lines I wrote you, I am afraid I scarcely made you understand how much I--in fact, that I am not ungrateful.”

It was now Lewis’s turn to feel embarrassed. The moment he had sought for was arrived. He must confess that which would turn his companion’s gratitude into aversion; he must forfeit her good opinion irretrievably, and probably for this very reason (so perverse is human nature), he, for the first time, discovered that he valued it highly. Annie was the only member of the family (with the exception, perhaps, of Charles Leicester) who had never caused him to feel painfully his dependent situation; and it had not escaped his notice how on several occasions she had interfered to save him from some trifling annoyance, which her woman’s tact led her to feel would be doubly mortifying to his proud and sensitive nature. Still he had resolved to make the confession, and with him to resolve and to do were one and the same thing. Another difficulty which rendered his task more embarrassing was that, in order to make his explanation intelligible, he must revert to Lord Bellefield’s insult, and though at that moment nothing would have given him greater satisfaction than to bestow on that unworthy scion of nobility a sound horse-whipping, he shrank from the idea of being supposed capable of the littleness of revenging himself by injuring his enemy in the affections of his betrothed. Thinking, however, was useless; the more he reflected the more embarrassed did he become, so he plunged at once in media res by exclaiming, “You cannot be aware, Miss Grant, of the pain your words give me. Far from deserving your gratitude, I must implore your pardon for having nearly sacrificed your life to my unfortunately warm temper and revengeful feelings; nor shall I again enjoy peace of mind till I have obtained your forgiveness, should I indeed be fortunate enough to succeed in doing so.”

At this singular address Annie opened her large eyes and regarded her companion with unmixed astonishment, feeling by no means satisfied that he had not suddenly taken leave of his senses; not heeding her surprise, however, Lewis continued: “In order to make my tale intelligible, I must revert to an occurrence which I would rather, for many reasons, have left unmentioned; but you will, I hope, do me the justice to believe that I am actuated by no unworthy motive in alluding to it. About a year ago my favourite dog became entangled whilst swimming in the Serpentine river, and would have been drowned if I had not jumped in and saved him.”

“I know, I saw it all; we were driving in the park at the time,” interrupted Annie eagerly.

“As I regained the bank,” resumed Lewis, “a gentleman, whom I have since learned to be your cousin, Lord Bellefield, came up and offered me a sum of money for the dog. I had not accomplished Faust’s rescue without some risk, for though I am a good swimmer, my wet clothes kept dragging me down, and I confess the offer of money for an animal I had just imperilled my life to save irritated me, and I returned Lord Bellefield an answer which perhaps he was justified in considering impertinent. When Mr. Leicester introduced me to his brother, on the day of the skating-party, it was evident he had not forgotten this transaction, and he soon found an opportunity to address me in a style which could only have been applied to a dependent with safety.”

As he spoke these words in a tone of bitter contempt, his eyes flashing and his cheeks burning, his companion murmured as though she were thinking aloud, “It was ungenerous of him, in the extreme.” Lewis remained silent for a moment, and then continued in a calmer voice: “I am by nature of a lamentably hasty temper, and my impulse would have led me to resent Lord Bellefield’s insult on the spot; but many considerations withheld me, and still possessed by angry feeling, I joined the party on the lake. After the ice had given way, while I was assisting those who clung to the edges to scramble out, I first became aware that you were in the water, and I was about to jump in and swim to your assistance when, by some ill luck, your cousin approached in a state of great excitement and ordered me authoritatively to ‘save my master’s daughter.’”

“Oh, how could he say such a thing!” exclaimed Annie indignantly.

“As he spoke,” resumed Lewis, “some evil spirit seemed to take possession of me, and, to annoy him, I bowed and drew back, saying, ‘Your lordship must excuse me--I am no squire of dames;’ adding that of course he would rescue you himself. From the irritation produced by my reply I discovered that his lordship was unable to swim, and having reason to suppose your safety was especially important to him, the fiendish idea crossed my mind that by leaving you to perish I could revenge myself on him more effectually than by any other means.”

“How could you be so unjust, so cruel, even in idea?” interrupted Annie reproachfully,--“I, who have never injured you in thought, word, or deed; but you were maddened at the time, and knew not what you did.”

“I must indeed have been mad,” exclaimed Lewis, completely overcome by the kindness of these last words, “when I could even for a moment forget the gentle courtesy with which you have always treated me--the consideration--the----” He paused abruptly and pressed his hand to his forehead as if to shut out some hateful vision, a relaxation of vigilance of which the near-side horse took advantage to shy at its own shadow and break into a canter, which manouvre restored Lewis’s self-possession in an instant, the rein was again tightened, and the culprit admonished, by a sharp stroke of the whip, that he was not to indulge in such caprices for the future, ere his driver resumed: “I had scarcely formed the idea you so justly stigmatise as cruel, when the atrocity of the act flashed across me, and as Lord Bellefield ran off to procure a boat, I sprang into the water and swam towards you. Imagine then the agony of mind with which I perceived that you would sink before I could reach you! At that moment I felt what it was to be a murderer! The rest of the tale you have no doubt heard from others--how it pleased the Almighty to permit the instinct of my noble dog to become the instrument by which you were saved from death, and I from a life of remorse, to which death itself would have been preferable. Of this you are already aware; it only remains for me to add that if the deepest self-abhorrence, the most sincere repentance for the past may weigh with you, you will forgive me the wrong I meditated.” At this moment the sound of horses’ feet cantering gave notice that General Grant was about to effect a junction with the main body, and Annie replied hastily, “As far as I have anything to forgive, Mr. Arundel, I do so most heartily. If for a moment you thought of allowing my life to be sacrificed, you risked your own to save it immediately afterwards, so that I remain your debtor, even putting to-day’s adventure out of the account--for I fully believe papa and I were in a fair way to break our necks, though he would not allow it.”

“Well, Annie,” remarked the General, riding up to his daughter’s side, “you don’t appear to be frightened now.”

“No, papa,” was the reply, “there is nothing to be alarmed at; the horses go as quietly as possible.”

“Ah! I thought I had pretty well tamed them,” returned the General triumphantly. “You scarcely find them at all difficult to restrain now, Mr. Arundel, I presume.”

“They do pull a little strongly even yet, sir,” returned Lewis quietly; “that glove was whole when I took the reins.” As he spoke he held up his left hand and disclosed two large rents caused by the friction.

“Hum!” replied the General, slightly disconcerted. “Well, you have driven them very steadily; don’t hurry them, take them in cool. Walter and I will precede you and explain how this adventure came about.” So saying he gave his horse the rein, and he and Walter cantered on.

“Lord Bellefield has behaved abominably,” observed Annie abruptly, after they had proceeded for some distance in silence; “he ought to apologise to you, and I have a great mind to make him do so.”

“Do not think of such a thing,” returned Lewis hastily. “If I can read his character, Lord Bellefield is a very proud man, and to one whom he considers his inferior he could not bring himself to apologise; nor, on calmly reviewing my own conduct, can I entirely acquit myself of having given him cause of offence. In my manner towards him I have shown too plainly my forgetfulness of our difference of station. Feeling that the son of one who was a soldier, a man of old family, and a gentleman in the highest sense of the word, is any man’s equal, I overlooked the distinction between the heir to a peerage and a poor tutor, and I treated Lord Bellefield, as I would any other man whose manner displeased me, cavalierly, without considering, or indeed caring, in what light my conduct might appear to him. This error I am resolved to avoid for the future, and if he will on his part forbear further insult, it is all I desire. Believe me,” added Lewis in a tone which carried conviction with it, “I do not undervalue your kindness in advocating my cause, but I would not have you suffer further annoyance on my account; so if you have really forgiven me, you will best show it by forgetting the whole matter as speedily as possible.”

Annie shook her head as though she considered such a termination to the affair highly improbable, merely replying, “Perhaps you are right in thinking I should do more harm than good by my interference; at all events, I will be guided in the matter by your wishes. And now, Mr. Arundel,” she continued, “let me say what I have often wished, but have never been able to find an opportunity to tell you before, and that is, that as long as you are with us--not that I mean to limit it only to that time--I hope you will regard me as a friend. I have heard from my cousin Charles an outline of the circumstances through which my father was fortunate enough to secure your valuable assistance for poor Walter, and I can well conceive how greatly you must feel the loss of the society of your mother and sister.”

“I know not how to thank you for such unexampled kindness; you are indeed returning good for evil,” replied Lewis warmly. He paused for a moment, as if he were considering how best he might express his meaning, then added, “As far as may be, I shall most gladly avail myself of the privilege of your friendship. I cannot tell you the weight you have taken off my mind by this convincing proof of your forgiveness. You may imagine how exquisitely painful, knowing how little I deserved them, were all the civil speeches people considered it necessary to make me on my ‘gallant conduct,’ as they termed it; as if there were anything wonderful in swimming a few yards to save a life!--the wonder would be for any man who could swim not to do so.”

“And yet, thinking thus lightly of the peril, you tell me you were so carried away by your angry feeling as to hesitate whether or not to leave me to perish,” returned Annie reflectively. “How strange that the mind can be engrossed by passion so completely as to banish all its natural impulses!”

“You will laugh at me, and think my German education has filled my brain with strange, wild fancies,” replied Lewis; “but I believe that we are under a species of demoniacal possession at such moments--that by indulging our evil feelings instead of resisting them we have given Satan additional power over us. You know the legend of the Wild Huntsman: I cannot but look upon the description of the spirit-riders who accompanied the baron, one on a white, the other on a black steed, and alternately plied him with good and evil counsel, less as an allegory than a reality.”

“You believe, then, that we are constantly surrounded by spiritual beings imperceptible to our bodily senses?” asked Annie. “It is rather a fearful idea.”

“Believe,” returned Lewis, “is perhaps too strong a term to apply to any theory not distinctly borne out by Holy Writ, but as far as I have studied the subject, I think the existence of spiritual beings of opposite natures, some good, some evil, is clearly indicated by Scripture; and there are many passages which would lead one to suppose that they are permitted, under certain restrictions, to interest themselves in mundane affairs, and influence the thoughts which are the springs of human actions--immaterial agents, in fact, for working out the will of God. Nor do I see anything fearful in the idea; on the contrary, as we cannot doubt that it is our own fault if the evil spirits ever prevail against us, and that good angels witness our struggles to do right, and are at hand to assist us, I consider the theory a most consolatory one.”

“I never looked at the subject in this light before,” observed Annie thoughtfully. “Of course, like most other people, I had a vague, visionary kind of belief in the existence of good angels and evil spirits, but I never applied the belief practically, never imagined they had anything to do with me; and yet it seems reasonable that what you have suggested should be the case. Oh! if we could but have our spiritual eyes open so that we could see them, we then should love the good angels so much, and hate and fear the evil ones to such a degree, that it would be quite easy to act rightly, and impossible to do wrong.”

“I suppose, if our faith were as strong as it should be,” returned Lewis, “we ought so to realise the truths of Christianity that we should feel as you describe.”

His companion made no reply, but sat for some minutes apparently pursuing the train of thought to which his words had given rise. At length rousing herself, she turned to Lewis, saying, with a naïve smile, “We shall be capital friends, I see. I did not know you could talk so nicely about things of this kind. I delight in people who give me new ideas--you must teach me German, too, when all this bustle is over. I shall ask papa to let you do so. I want to learn German above everything, and to read Schiller, and Goethe, and La Motte Fouqué, and all sorts of people. Will you take compassion on my ignorance, and accept me as a pupil? I shall not be quite as dull as poor Walter, I hope.”

“I shall be delighted to play Master of the Ceremonies to introduce you to those of the German authors who are best worth knowing, always provided that the General approves of my so doing,” returned Lewis.

“Oh! papa will approve,” replied Annie. “He can care nothing about it one way or another, and whenever that is the case he always lets me do as I like; and as to Aunt Martha--well, there may be some difficulty with her, I confess, but the most ferocious animals are tamed by kindness, and it’s hard if I can’t coax her into submission to my will and pleasure.”

“I flatter myself I have become rather a favourite with Miss Livingstone since the affair of the horses,” observed Lewis. “I have heard her describe me as ‘a young man of unusual abilities and irreproachable moral character’ to three distinct sets of visitors during the last week.”

“You’ve caught her tone exactly,” returned Annie, laughing; “but it’s very abominable of you to deride my venerable aunt.”

And so they chatted on, Lewis forgetting alike his proud reserve and his dependent position in his pleasure in once again meeting with the kindness and sympathy to which he had been so long a stranger, and Annie engrossed by the joy with which she perceived the ice that care and sorrow had frozen round the heart of her young companion melt before the fascination of her look and manner; and when the phaeton drew up before the ample portals of Broadhurst, it would have been hard to decide which of the two felt most sorry that pleasant drive had come so quickly to an end.

Our train still runs along the Railroad of Life, but a most important station has been passed when Lewis first arrived at the conclusion that he had ceased to dislike Annie Grant.

CHAPTER XXIII.--DE GRANDEVILLE THREATENS A CONFIDENCE AND ELICITS CHARLEY LEICESTER’S IDEAS ON MATRIMONY.

IT was the morning of Twelfth-day, and in Broadhurst’s ancient mansion confusion reigned supreme; for Twelfth-night to be celebrated with high festivities. A grand ball was about to be given to the county, and legions of upholsterers’ men had taken the house by storm, and were zealously employed in turning it out of the windows. Minerva was great upon the occasion; starched to the nth, she rustled through the apartments like an austere whirlwind, striking an icy terror into the hearts of the stoutest workmen, and leading the chief upholsterer himself the life of a convicted felon on the treadmill--solitary confinement, implying separation from Minerva, would have been a boon to that harassed tradesman. Whatever he put up she instantly had taken down; all his suggestions she violently opposed; he never gave an order that she did not contradict; when he was downstairs she required him at the top of the house; if he appeared without his hat, she took him out of doors. Foxe’s Martyrs would seem a mere book of sports beside a faithful chronicle of all that upholsterer suffered on the occasion at the hands of Minerva Livingstone. Had he not been endowed with remarkable tenacity of life, ere he had set that house in order he would have died.

Amongst others of the dispossessed, Charley Leicester, having retreated from room to room before the invaders, at last, fairly driven out, was fain to seek refuge in the garden. In this extremity he betook himself to a certain terrace-walk, where he trusted to find sunshine and quiet. Having, as he fondly imagined, secured these necessary ingredients to his happiness, he was proceeding to recruit exhausted nature with a mild cigar, when a footstep was heard approaching, and immediately afterwards the erect and portly form of the De Grandeville hove in sight and bore down upon him. Now it must be known that these two gentlemen regarded each other with very different feelings--Leicester, albeit by no means given to discovering faults of character in his acquaintances, could not but perceive the absurd self-consequence and pompous pride which were so palpably displayed in De Grandeville’s every look and action, and while this revolted his good taste and produced in him a passive feeling of dislike, the style of conversation usually adopted by the redoubtable Marmaduke, which, however it might begin, invariably ended in some form of self-glorification, actively bored him. Accordingly, it was with anything but a feeling of satisfaction that he now witnessed his approach. De Grandeville, on the other hand, looked up to Leicester on account of his connection with the peerage, and knowing his popularity among the best set of men about town, regarded him as an oracle on all points of etiquette and bienséance. Being, therefore, at that moment in the act of revolving in his anxious mind a most weighty matter on which he required good advice, Charley was the man of all others he most wished to meet with. Marching vigorously onward he soon reached the spot where, half-sitting, half-lying, on the broad top of a low stone balustrade, Leicester was ruminating over his cigar. Having halted immediately in front of his victim, De Grandeville raised his hand to his forehead in a military salute, which manouvre, acquired partly in jest, partly in earnest, had now become habitual to him.

“Ar--enjoying a weed? eh! Mr. Leicester?” he began. “ ’Pon my word, you’ve selected a most picturesque spot for your bivouac. If it’s not against the standing orders to smoke here, I’ll join you in a cigar, for--ar--to tell you the truth, I rather want five minutes’ conversation with you.”

“I’m in for it,” thought Leicester. “Well, what must be, must; the sun will be off here in about half-an-hour, and I suppose I can endure him for that space of time.” He only said, however, holding out his cigar-case languidly, “Can I offer you one?”

“Ar--many thanks, you’re one of the few men whose taste I can, rely on; but--ar--really, the things they sell now, and pretend to call genuine, are such trash, that--ar--I am forced to import my own. I sent out an agent to Cuba express--ar--at least, Robinson, who supplies my club--ar--the Caryatides, you know--sent him on a hint from me, and I can’t match the cigars he brought me anywhere; I’ve never met with anything like them. Ask your brother; he knows them--ar--I let him have half a box as the greatest favour.”

“Bell lives on cigars and gin-and-water when he’s in his native state,” returned Leicester, slightly altering his position so that he could rest his back more conveniently against a statue. “If he’s been going too fast, and gets out of condition, he takes a course of that sort of thing, and it always brings him right again; it’s like turning a screwy horse out to grass.”

De Grandeville, who had appeared somewhat abstracted during this interesting record of the domestic habits of Lord Bellefield, changed the conversation by observing, “Ar--you see, when a man of a certain--ar--position in society gets--ar--towards middle life--ar--say, three or four-and-thirty, it appears to me that it adds very much to his weight to--ar--to----”

“To drink brown stout instead of pale ale,” exclaimed Leicester more eagerly than his wont. “I observed you did so at----, when we were treating the incorruptible electors, and it struck me as a decided mistake.”

“Ar--yes, I believe--that is, of course--you are right; but that was not exactly what I was going to observe,” returned De Grandeville, slightly embarrassed. “In fact, I was going to say that it adds to a man’s weight in society, increases his influence, and improves his general position to be--ar--well married!”

“About that I scarcely know; it’s not a matter to decide on hastily,” returned Leicester, coolly lighting a fresh cigar, which, being of an obstinate disposition, required much scientific management and considerable hard puffing to induce it to perform properly. “In regard to (puff) marriage, Mr. De Grandeville, looking at it philosophically--and I can assure you it’s a subject on which I’ve expended much (puff, puff) serious thought,--looking at it in a reasonable businesslike point of view, it becomes a mere (puff) affair of debtor and creditor,--a question of what you lose and what you gain. Let us try the matter by various tests and see how the account stands. We’ll begin with the watchwords of the day, for instance: ‘Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality.’ Liberty,--a single man can do as he likes without consulting anybody; a married man can do as he likes only when his wife shares the inclination, which, as no two people ever look at anything in exactly the same point of view, appears a somewhat stringent restriction. Fraternity,--a single man may choose his friends where he feels inclined, male or female, as it may have pleased Providence to create them; a married man dare not, unless he has a taste for domestic misery, and possesses eyes which are nail-proof, cultivate a female friendship, and somehow one feels if one were married one should not exactly wish to have a set of men always dangling about one’s house. Equality,--a single man, if he has received a gentleman’s education, wears a good coat, and has wit enough to keep himself warm, is anybody’s equal; a married man must bear all his wife’s burdens as well as his own, and doesn’t get asked by the Browns because the Smiths have told them her great-grandfather was transported for stealing a pewter pot. Now, let us look at the per contra side. A single man soon gets tired of his unlimited Liberty; there’s no fun in having your own way if you’ve no one to contradict you. A little opposition becomes a positive luxury, and this you’re sure to obtain by matrimony. Then, as to Fraternity, friends are better than acquaintances, certainly, just as a mule is preferable to a jackass, but they’re not much comfort to one after all. My most intimate friend lives in Ceylon and writes to me once in five years about hunting elephants. Now, your wife is part of your goods and chattels, belongs to you as completely as your bootjack, and when in hours of indolence you wish to sit with your soul in slippers, she, if she is worth her salt, is ready to pull off the psychological boots that are pinching your mind, and prevent the dolce far niente from becoming meaningless and insipid. Lastly, there’s no such Equality in the world as between husband and wife when they are really suited to each other, appreciate their relative positions justly, and endeavour to make practice and principle coincide. These are my ideas regarding the marriage state, Mr. De Grandeville; but ’tis no use discussing the matter. Society has long since decided the question in favour of wedlock, and there are only enough exceptions to prove the rule. Byron enunciated a great truth when he declared:

“‘Man was not formed to live alone;’

the animal’s gregarious, sir, and the solitary system is totally opposed to all its tastes and habits.”

So saying, Charley emitted a long puff of smoke, and caressing his whiskers, calmly awaited his companion’s reply; but this demands a fresh chapter.

CHAPTER XXIV.--RELATES HOW CHARLEY LEICESTER WAS FIRST “SPRIGHTED BY A FOOL,” THEN BESET BY AN AMAZON.

“Ar--really--‘pon my word, you seem to have studied the subject deeply, Mr. Leicester,” returned De Grandeville, who was somewhat astonished at the length and volubility of Charley’s notable “Essay on Matrimony,” with which the last chapter was concluded, and too completely blinded by self-importance to perceive that the other was more or less laughing at him. “However, the drift of your argument appears in favour of marriage, and--ar--in fact--ar--I quite think as you do on the matter. Now, in my position, I consider such an arrangement would be most desirable, always supposing one can meet with--ar--a suitable partner.”

“Ay, there’s the rub,” rejoined Leicester, leisurely flipping the ashes from the end of his cigar.

“I consider that I have a right to look--ar--high,” continued De Grandeville, folding his arms with dignity. “Our family dates from the Conquest; our Original ancestor came over as equerry to William of Normandy. I suppose you are aware how the name arose from an incident in that invasion?”

Leicester professed his ignorance of the anecdote, and De Grandeville proceeded: “My ancestor, who, like most of his descendants, was a remarkably long-sighted individual, was riding near the person of his liege lord some few days after the victory of Hastings, when at the extreme verge of the horizon he descried the city of Canterbury, and in the excitement of the moment he exclaimed, pointing with his mailed hand, ‘Voila! une grande ville.’ William overheard the remark, and fixing his piercing glance upon him, observed sarcastically, ‘Ha! sayest thou so? he who hath been the first to discern yon great city should be the first to enter it.’ ‘By the grace of God, and with your permission, Sire, so I will,’ exclaimed my ancestor. William nodded assent, my ancestor clapped spurs to his horse, and never drew bridle till the standard of Normandy floated on the highest tower of Canterbury. For this gallant exploit he was made governor of the city, and received the name and titles of De Grandeville. It’s--ar--a creditable story.”

“Extremely,” returned Leicester, yawning. “I’ve a vague idea the man we all came from was hanged for horse-stealing.”

“Ar--yes--very good,” rejoined De Grandeville, recognising an excellent jest in his companion’s assertion; “but, as I was about to observe, in my position a man owes as it were a duty to his family; he ought not to marry a nobody.”

“Decidedly, such a connection should be avoided,” returned Charley sententiously, presenting the hot end of his cigar to an inquisitive snail which appeared inclined to join the party.

“Ar--the De Grandevilles have been from time immemorial large landed proprietors,” resumed their grandiloquent descendant; “half the county of---- belongs to them; the estates held by my branch of the family are immense, and though--ar--just at present they are not exactly in my possession, yet if anything were to happen to my cousin Hildebrand and his seven boys, I might be placed in--ar--a very different position; therefore, in looking out for a wife, I hold it incumbent on me to select a lady who would not disgrace a prominent situation, were she called upon to fill one.”

Leicester (whose attention had been thoroughly engrossed by the snail, which, after having made sundry futile attempts to avoid the cigar and continue its onward course, had at length yielded the point, and having turned round, was now crawling off in an opposite direction) somewhat astonished his companion by quoting with great empressement the words of the old nursery ballad--

“Off he set

With his opera hat.”

As, however, he immediately afterwards assumed a look of the deepest attention, De Grandeville set it down as an instance of the eccentricity of genius, and continued--“Ar--this, as you must perceive, renders certain qualifications essential in the object of my choice. I could select no one who by birth and position was not perfectly unexceptionable. I should also require her to possess, in an eminent degree, the manners of society; another great point would be--ar----------”

“Plenty of tin,” suggested Charley, making a face at the retreating snail.

“Ar--yes--in my position it would of course be a matter of prudence, before bringing upon myself the expenses of a family, to ascertain that I can command an income sufficient to enable me to mix in the set to which--ar--in point of fact, I belong.”

“Nothing under £3000 a year would suit my book,” replied Leicester, “£3000 per annum and perfection I might put up with, but £4000 would be better without an actual angel, and beyond that mark I’d bate an attaching quality in the damsel for every additional £500 in the funds.”

“Ar--I have reason to believe that the income of the lady in regard to whom I am about to ask your advice exceeds the sum you first mentioned,” replied De Grandeville.

“Oh, there is then a real bona fide lady in the case--you’ve positively marked down your bird?” exclaimed Leicester. “Pray, have I the honour of her acquaintance?”

“Ar--yes--I have often met her in your society--in fact, she forms one of the party now domesticated at Broadhurst.”

“Staying in the house, eh?” returned Charley, feeling slightly curious. “By Jove! who can it be? you’re not going to try and cut out Bellefield by proposing for my cousin Annie, are you? I wish you would, it would sell Bell so beautifully.”

“Of course--ar--you are joking,” returned De Grandeville proudly. “I would not do such a shabby thing by his lordship upon any consideration.”

Leicester was amused at the cool way in which his companion seemed to take it for granted that he had only to enter the lists against his brother in order to secure the prize. He kept his entertainment to himself, however, merely replying, “Well, if it isn’t Annie, who is it? I can scarcely imagine you have set your affections on Miss Livingstone.”

“The Livingstones are a good old family,” returned De Grandeville, “but the representative of the name to whom you allude would have been a more suitable match for my late excellent father than for myself. No, sir, the lady to whom I may probably offer the opportunity of allying herself to the house of De Grandeville is as suitable in age as in all other qualifications--Miss Peyton is in her two-and-twentieth year.”

“Miss how much!” exclaimed Leicester impetuously, sitting bolt upright and flinging the remnant of his cigar after the snail, which was yet striving to make good its retreat.

“Miss Laura Peyton,” returned De Grandeville; “I don’t wonder you are surprised. I am aware, as well as yourself, that her grandfather was in trade. I can assure you that stood in my way for a long time, and it was not till I had gone through the pedigree carefully, with a friend in the Herald’s College, and clearly traced back the family to the time of Richard Cour de Lion, that I ever thought seriously of the thing.”

“And how do you mean to carry on the campaign?” asked Leicester, who had by this time recovered his composure. “Do you intend to lay regular siege to the young lady’s affections, or is it to be a look-and-die, ‘veni vidi, vici’ affair?”

“Ar--really--I am scarcely sanguine enough to hope to carry the citadel by a coup-de-maim,” returned De Grandeville; “but my tactics will be very much regulated by those of my fair enemy at present. If I might judge by one or two slight skirmishes we have had together, the garrison will not hold out to extremity when once the breastworks are taken, and the place properly invested.” At this moment a servant approached De Grandeville with a message from General Grant requesting his presence. “Ar--yes--say I’ll attend the General immediately,” was the reply; then, as the servant departed, De Grandville continued, “Ar--the course of true love never did run smooth, you see, Mr. Leicester. Ar--I shall have an opportunity of speaking to you again on this matter, and hearing your opinion more in full; at present I must wish you good morning.” So saying, he slightly raised his hat in salutation, and marched off in a great state of dignified self-complacency.

Leicester watched him till he was out of sight; then, springing from his seat, he began pacing up and down the terrace with hasty strides, muttering from time to time such uncomplimentary remarks as, “Insufferable puppy!”

“Conceited ass!” all of which evidently bore reference to his late companion. Having let off a little of his extra steam by this means, he gave vent to the following soliloquy: “Well, I’m nicely in for it this time! Because a love affair, with the chance of possible consequences, wasn’t trouble enough, I must have a rival step in--and such a rival--why, the very sight of that man disagrees with me; and then to hear him talk, it’s positively sickening! I’ll be off to London to-morrow morning; and yet I do like the girl,--I know I do, because it is continually occurring to me that I am not half good enough for her. I suppose she looks upon me as a mere fortune-hunter--thinks I only care about her for the sake of her money. I wish she hadn’t a farthing! I wish--eh! what am I talking about? Heigho! that’s another curse of poverty: a poor devil like me can’t even afford the luxury of a disinterested attachment. Then that man--that De Grandeville--to hear an animal like that debating whether she was good enough for him! I declare he’s made me feel quite feverish! I’d no idea it was possible for anything to excite me to such a degree. If the notion were not too preposterous, I should really begin to fancy I must be falling in love! She never can have the bad taste to like him--in fact, there’s nothing to like in him--and yet the fellow seemed confident; but that is the nature of the brute. Though I don’t know, women are such fools sometimes, she might take him at his own price--that military swagger of his might go down with some of the sex. Once let a woman fancy a man to be a hero, or a martyr, or a patriot, or any other uncomfortable celebrity certain to make a bad husband, and she will be ready to throw herself at his head,--just as if such a fellow were not the very last man in the world whom she ought to select! I suppose it’s the additional odds in favour of widowhood that constitute the great attraction--females are naturally capricious. Well, I shall try and take the matter easily, at all events. I dare say it won’t break my heart whichever way it goes. I shall make observations, and if she really has the bad taste to prefer this man, he’s welcome to her--a woman who could love him would never do for my wife; that one fact would argue an amount of incompatibility of temper which would be furnishing work for Doctors’ Commons before the first year’s connubial infelicity was over. I wonder whether there’s any lunch going on; it’s astonishing how thirsty anything of this kind makes me! Pale ale I must have, or mit colum!” And having arrived at this conclusion, he thrust his hands--of whose delicate appearance he was especially careful--into his pockets to preserve them from the cold, and strolled off to put his resolution into practice.

In the meantime, Marmaduke De Grandeville, while listening with his outward ears to General Grant’s dull electioneering details, was inwardly congratulating himself on the favourable impression he had made on that very sensible young man, the Honourable Charles Leicester, and thinking what a useful ally he had secured to assist him in carrying out his matrimonial project.

Verily, there are as many comedies performed off the stage as upon it!

The ball at Broadhurst took place on the evening of the day on which the above conversation had passed, and was a wonderful affair indeed. It was given for a special purpose, and that purpose was to conciliate everybody, and induce everybody to promise General Grant their vote and interest at the ensuing election. Accordingly, everybody was invited--at least everybody who had the slightest pretension to be anybody--and everybody came; and as almost everybody brought somebody else with them, a wife, or a daughter, or the young lady from London who was spending Christmas with them, there was no lack of guests. The object of the entertainment was no secret; and the king of the county, the Marquis of C----------, being in the conservative interest, and consequently anxious to secure the General’s return, not only came himself, but actually brought a real live duke with him to exhibit to the company. This was a great stroke of policy, and told immensely, particularly with the smaller anybodies who were almost nobodies, but who, having associated with a duke, straightway became somebodies, and remained so ever after. Moreover, in all cases of incipient radicalism, chartist tendencies, or socialist symptoms, his Grace was an infallible specific. Depend on it, there is no better remedy for a certain sort of democracy than a decoction of strawberry-leaves; apply that to the sore place and the patient instantly becomes sound in his opinions, and continues a healthy member of the body politic. The particular duke on the occasion in question was a very young one, little more than a boy in fact (if a duke can ever be considered in the light of a boy). This youthful nobleman had a leading idea--though you would hardly have supposed it, to look at him--he believed that he was the best match in England; and so, in the conventional sense of the term, he undoubtedly was, although he would have been very dear at the price to any woman with a head and a heart. His pastors and masters, backed by the maternal anxieties of a duchess unambitious of the dignities of dowagership, had sedulously cultivated this one idea till it had assumed the character of a monomania, under the influence of which this unhappy scion of aristocracy looked upon life as a state of perpetual warfare against the whole race of women, and was haunted by a frightful vision of himself carried off and forcibly married to the chief of a horde of female pirates, with long tongues, longer nails, and an utter absence of creditable ancestry. His outward duke (if we may be allowed the expression) was decidedly prepossessing. He was tall and not ungraceful in figure, and had a bright, round, innocent face, as of a good child. His hair was nicely brushed and parted; whiskers he had none; indeed, the stinginess of nature to him in this particular was so remarkable, that, as the eldest Miss Simpkins afterwards observed to an eager audience of uninvited younger sisters, “So far from whiskers, my dears, now I come to think of it, his Grace had rather the reverse!” However, take him “for all in all,” he was a very creditable young duke, and a perfect godsend on the occasion in question. Then there was a descending scale from his Grace downwards, leading through the aristocracy of birth to the aristocracy of riches, till it reached the élite of the country towns, and the more presentable specimens of yeomen farmers. But let us join a group of people that we know, and hear what they think of the guests who are so rapidly assembling.

In a snug corner of the reception-room, not far from a door leading into the large drawing-room, stands one of those mysterious innovations of modern upholstery, a species of the genus ottoman, which resembles a Brobdignagian mushroom, with a thimble made to match stuck in the middle of it. Seated at her ease upon this nondescript, half-buried by the yielding cushions, appeared the pretty figure of Laura Peyton; by her side, attired in much white muslin, crinolined to a balloon-like rotundity, but which apparently had shrunk abominably at the wash in the region round about its wearer’s neck and shoulders, sat another--well, from the juvenility of her dress and manners we suppose we must say young lady, though it was a historical fact that she had been at school with Annie Grant’s mother; but then poor Mrs. Grant married when she was quite a child, and died before she was thirty, and of course Miss Singleton must know her own age best, and she had declared herself eight-and-twenty for the last five years. This lady possessed one peculiarity--she always had a passion for somebody; whether the object was of the gentler or the sterner sex was all a matter of chance; but as she was in the habit of observing, “there existed in her nature a necessity for passionately loving.” and it has become proverbial that necessity has no law. The object of her adoration just at present was “that darling girl,” Laura Peyton; and really that young lady was in herself so lovable, that to endeavour to account for Miss Singleton’s devotion by insinuating that the heiress was usually surrounded by all the most desirable young men in the room would be the height of ill-nature.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Miss Singleton, whose troublesome nature had another necessity for liking to hear its own voice as often as possible. “Dear me! I wish I knew who all the people were! Dearest Miss Peyton, do not you sympathise? Ah, that tell-tale smile! We girls certainly are sadly curious, though I believe the men are just as bad, only they’re too proud to own it. But really, we must contrive to catch somebody who will tell us who everybody is. There’s that handsome, grave, clever Mr. Arundel: I shall make him a sign to come here--ah! he saw me directly--he is so clever. Mr. Arundel, do tell me, who are all these people?”

“Rather a comprehensive question,” returned Lewis, smiling; “moreover, you could scarcely have applied to any one less able to answer it, for beyond our immediate neighbours I really do not know a dozen people in the room.”

“Mr. Arundel’s acquaintance lies rather among illustrious foreigners,” observed Miss Peyton demurely. “Were any members of the royal family of Persia present, for instance, his intimate knowledge of the language, manners, and habits of that interesting nation would be invaluable to us.”

“As you are strong, be merciful,” returned Lewis, in a tone of voice only to be heard by the young lady to whom he spoke.

“Dear me! How very delightful! What a thing it is to be so clever!” exclaimed Miss Singleton, arranging her bracelet and rounding her arm (which was now one of her best points) with an action that expressed, as plainly as words could have done, “There, look at that--there’s grace for you!”

“Here comes some one who can tell us everything,” she continued; “that good-natured, fascinating Mr. Leicester, with his loves of whiskers all in dear little curls. Tiresome man! he won’t look this way. Would you be so very good, Mr. Arundel, as to follow him and bring him here? Say that Miss Peyton and I want him particularly.”

“I beg you’ll say nothing of the kind, Mr. Arundel,” interposed Laura quickly, with a very becoming blush. “Really, Miss Singleton, you run on so that----”

“I will deliver your message verbatim, Miss Singleton,” returned Lewis with the same demure tone and manner in which Miss Peyton had referred to the Persian prince; and without waiting to mark the effect of his words, he mingled with the crowd, and almost immediately returned with the gentleman in pursuit of whom he had been despatched. Charles Leicester, who was most elaborately got up for the occasion, though his good taste prevented him from running into any absurd extremes in dress, looked remarkably handsome, and being flattered by the summons he had just received, particularly happy. Both these facts Miss Peyton discovered at a glance, but whether urged by some secret consciousness, or annoyed by an indescribable look of intelligence which lurked in the corners of Lewis’s dark eyes and revealed itself through the sternness of his compressed lips, she received him with marked coldness, and observed, in reply to his offer to play showman to the collection of strange animals there assembled, that she had no taste for zoology, and that it was Miss Singleton’s curiosity he had been summoned to satisfy.

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Leicester,” exclaimed that mature damsel, in no way daunted by a shade of discontent which, despite his endeavours to the contrary, overspread the countenance of the gentleman she was addressing; “yes, indeed, I’m dying to know all sorts of things. In the first place, who’s that tall, stout gentleman in the wonderful waistcoat?”

“That,” replied Leicester, coolly examining the person indicated, “that is--no, it isn’t! Yes, surely!--I thought I was right--that is the Marquis of Carabbas.” Then seeing from her manner she did not recognise the name, he continued, “He has enormous estates situated in----”

“Where?” asked Miss Singleton earnestly, thinking she had lost the name.

“That interesting tract of country yclept, by John Parry, the Realms of Infantine Romance,” continued Leicester.

“Oh, Mr. Leicester, you’re laughing at me. How wicked of you--the Marquis of Carabbas! Let me see: hadn’t he something to do with Whittington and his Cat?”

“With the cat, possibly,” replied Leicester; “for if my memory fail not, the fortunes of the noble Marquis, like those of the ever-to-be-lamented Lord Mayor of London town, were the result of feline sagacity, and it’s not likely there existed two such talented cats--even Puss in Boots may only be another episode in the career of the same gifted individual.”

“Another of its nine lives, in fact,” suggested Lewis.

“Yes, of course,” rejoined Leicester. “I dare say it was the original ‘cat of nine tales,’ only, like the sibylline leaves, several of the manuscripts have been lost to posterity through the carelessness of some elfin Master of the Rolls.”

“I beg your pardon, but I really must interrupt you,” exclaimed Miss Singleton. “Can you tell me, soberly and seriously, who that very strange-looking person may be who has just seized the General’s hand and nearly shaken his arm out of the socket?”

Seeing that Laura Peyton’s eyes asked the same question, though her lips were silent, Leicester glanced in the direction indicated, and immediately replied, “That energetic female rejoices in the name of Lady Mary--but is more commonly known among her intimates as Jack--Goodwood. In person she is what you behold her; in character, she presents a most unmitigated specimen of the genus Amazon; for the rest, she is a very good woman at heart, but my especial torment; she always calls me Charley, and her usual salutation is a slap on the back. She hunts, shoots, breaks in her own horses, has ridden a hurdle race, in which she came in a good second, and is reported to have dragooned her husband into popping the question by the threat of a sound horse-whipping. And now, Miss Singleton, you’ll have an opportunity of judging for yourself, for she has caught sight of me, and is bearing down upon us in full sail.”

“Well, but is she really a lady?” inquired the astonished Miss Singleton, who, in her philosophy, had most assuredly never dreamt of such a possibility as Jack Goodwood.

“She is second daughter of Lord Oaks,” was the reply, “and Goodwood is one of the Goodwoods, and is worth some £8000 a year; but here she is.”

As he spoke the lady in question joined the group. Her age might be eight or nine-and-thirty; she was tall and decidedly handsome, though her features were too large; she had magnificent black eyes and very white teeth, which prevented the width of her mouth from interfering with her pretensions to beauty; her complexion was brilliant in the extreme, nature having bestowed on her a clear brown skin, which withstood the combined effects of exposure to sun and wind, and softened the high colour induced by the boisterous character of her ladyship’s favourite pursuits. But if her personal gifts were striking, the style or costume she saw fit to adopt rendered her still more remarkable. As it will be necessary to describe her dress minutely in order to convey any idea of her appearance, we throw ourselves on the mercy of our lady readers, and beg them to pardon all errors of description, seeing that mantua-making is a science in which we have never graduated, and of which our knowledge is derived solely from oral traditions picked up during desultory conversations among our female friends, usually held (if our memory fail us not) on their way home from church.

Her dress consisted, then, of a gown of exceedingly rich white silk, made half-high in the body and remarkably full in the skirt, over which she wore a polka of bright scarlet Cashmere lined and trimmed with white silk, and adorned with a double row of the hunt buttons. Her head was attired in a Spanish hat of black velvet, while a single white feather, secured by a valuable diamond clasp, was allowed to droop over the brim and mingle with the rich masses of her raven hair, which was picturesquely arranged in a complication of braids and ringlets. She leaned on the arm of a gentleman double her age, whose good-humoured heavy face afforded a marked contrast to the ever-varying expression that lit the animated features of her who was, in every sense of the word, his better half. Leicester’s description had but slightly enhanced the vigour of her mode of salutation, for as she reached the spot where he stood she clapped him on the shoulder with a small, white-gloved hand, exclaiming in a deep but not unmusical voice--

“Bravo, Charley! run you to earth at last, you see. Where have you hidden yourself all this age? Now, Goody,” she continued, turning to her husband, “you may go. Charley Leicester will take care of me--don’t lose your temper at whist, don’t drink too much champagne, and mind you’re forthcoming when I want you.”

“There’s a life to lead,” returned her spouse, appealing to Leicester. “Did you ever see such a tyrant?”

“Be off, Goody, and don’t talk nonsense,” was his lady-wife’s rejoinder.

“How is it we never see you at the Manor-House now?” began the master of that establishment in a hospitable tone of voice, but his lady cut him short in his speech by exclaiming--

“Why? because he found you such a bore he could not stand you any longer; nobody can except me, and even my powers of endurance are limited, so,” she continued, taking him by the shoulders and turning him round, “right about face--heads up--march. Voilà,” she added, turning to Leicester, “he’s famously under command, isn’t he, Charley? all my good breaking in--he was as obstinate as a mule before I married him, nobody could do anything with him. He’s in splendid condition, too, for a man of sixty. I’ll back him to walk, ride, hunt, shoot, or play at billiards with any man of his age and weight in the three kingdoms. I’ve been obliged to dock his corn, though; there was seldom a day that he didn’t finish his second bottle of port. He only drinks one now. But I say, Charley, about this election of Governor Grant’s, how is he going the pace? You must tell me all about it; I’ve been in Paris for the last two months, and I’m quite in the dark.”

“’Pon my word, I take so little interest in the matter that I can scarcely enlighten you, Lady Mary,” returned Leicester, glancing uneasily at Miss Peyton, who was talking with much apparent empressement to Miss Singleton, though her quick ears drank in every word spoken by the others.

“Who’s that girl?” resumed Lady Mary, lowering her voice a little (very little) as she perceived the direction of Leicester’s glance. “Miss Peyton, eh?” she continued, “You shall introduce me; but first tell me who’s that man by her side, like an old picture.”

“Mr. Arundel,” was the reply; “tutor to poor young Desborough.”

“He’s too good for the work,” returned Jack; “he’s too near thoroughbred to take to collar and keep his traces tight with such an uphill pull as that must be. I say, Charley,” she continued in a half whisper, “he’s handsomer than you are. If you don’t mind your play, he’ll bowl you out and win with the favourite--there, it’s no use getting up the steam or looking sulky with me,” she added, as Leicester uttered an exclamation of annoyance. “I can see it all with half an eye; you’re as thoroughly what Goody calls ‘spoony’ as a man need to be; but now, Charley, don’t go putting your foot in it, you know: is it all right with the tin? that’s the main question.”

“Ask me to dance, for pity’s sake, and let me get out of that creature’s way,” murmured Laura Peyton to Lewis; “I never had a taste for seeing monsters.”

Lewis smiled and offered her his arm. At the same moment De Grandcville, gaudily ornate, marched up and requested the honour of Miss Peyton’s hand for the set then forming.

“I am engaged to Mr. Arundel for the next quadrille,” returned Miss Peyton.

“For the following one, then--ar?”

“I shall have much pleasure,” was the reply. “In the meantime allow me to introduce you to my friend Miss Singleton, who is at present without a partner.”

De Grandeville, charmed to have the opportunity of obliging Miss Peyton, acted on the hint, and the two couples hastened to take their places in the quadrille then forming. Leicester’s volatile companion still continued chattering, heedless of his evident annoyance, until she had worried him into a state of mind bordering on distraction, when some fresh fancy seizing her, she fastened herself on to a new victim and left him to his meditations. These were by no means of an agreeable character; and after wandering listlessly through the suite of rooms and watching Laura Peyton, as during the intervals of the dance she talked and laughed gaily with De Grandeville (an occupation which did not tend greatly to raise Leicester’s spirits or soothe his ruffled temper), he strolled into a card-room tenanted only by four elderly gentlemen immersed in a rubber of whist, and flinging himself on a vacant sofa in a remote corner of the apartment, gave himself up to gloomy retrospection.

He had not remained there long when Lewis entered and glanced round as if in search of some one; then approaching Leicester, he began--

“You’ve not seen Walter lately, have you? Your amusing friend, Lady Mary Goodwood” (“confound the jade,” muttered Leicester, sotto voce) “introduced herself to me just now, and having captivated Walter by her bright smile and scarlet jacket, carried him off, to tease me, I believe, and I can’t tell what she has done with him. But,” he continued, for the first time observing his companion’s dejected manner and appearance, “is anything the matter; you’re not ill, I hope?”

“I wish I was,” was the unexpected reply; “ill--dead--anything rather than the miserable fool I am----”

“Why, what has occurred?” asked Lewis anxiously. “Can I be of any use?”

“No, it’s past mending,” returned Leicester in an accent of deep dejection. He paused, then turning to Lewis he resumed almost fiercely: “The tale is soon told, if you want to hear it. I met that girl--Laura Peyton, I mean--in town about a year ago; in fact--for my affairs are no secret--every fool knows that I am a beggar, or thereabouts. I was introduced to her because she was a great heiress, and dangled after her through the whole of a London season for the sake of her three per cents. Well, last autumn I met her again down in Scotland; we were staying together for three weeks in the same house. Of course we saw a good deal of each other, and I soon found I liked her better for herself than I had ever done for her money; but somehow, as soon as this feeling arose, I lost all nerve, and could not get on a bit. The idea of the meanness of marrying a woman for the sake of her fortune haunted me day and night, and the more I cared for her the less was I able to show it. My cousin Annie perceived what was going on, it seems, and without saying a word to me of her intention, struck up a friendship with Laura, and invited her here; and somehow--the thing’s very absurd in a man like myself, who has seen everything and done everything, and found out what humbug it all is--but the fact of the matter is, that I’m just as foolishly and romantically and deeply in love with that girl as any raw boy of seventeen could be; and I don’t believe she cares one sous about me in return. She thinks, as she has a good right to do, that I am hunting her for her money, like the rest of them, I dare say; and--stop a minute,” he continued, seeing Lewis was about to speak--“you have not heard the worst yet: because all I’ve told you was not enough, that conceited ass, De Grandeville, must needs come and consult me this morning as to whether Miss Peyton was worthy of being honoured with his hand, hinting pretty plainly that he did not anticipate much difficulty on the lady’s part; and by Jove, from the way in which she is going on with him this evening, I believe that for once he wasn’t lying: then that mad-headed Mary Goodwood coming and bothering with her confounded ‘Charley’ this and ‘Charley’ that, and her absurd plan of monopolising one--of course she means no harm; she has known me from a boy, and it’s her way; besides, she really is attached to old Goodwood. But how is Laura Peyton to know all that?”

“Why, rouse up, and go and tell her yourself, to be sure,” replied Lewis.

“No, not I!” returned Leicester moodily. “I’ll have no more trouble about it. I’ll leave this house to-morrow morning, and be off to Baden, or Naples, or Timbuctoo, or some place where there are no women, if such a Paradise exists--and she may marry De Grandeville, or whom she pleases, for me. You see, it would be different if she cared at all for me, but to worry one’s heart out about a girl who does not even like one----”

“Halte là!” interrupted Lewis; “lookers-on see most of the game; and if I know anything of woman’s nature”--he paused and bit his lip as the recollection of Gretchen crossed his mind--“depend upon it, Miss Peyton is not as indifferent to you as you imagine.”

“Did you see how coldly she received me to-night?” urged Leicester.

“Yes; and her so doing only confirmed my previous opinion. That chattering Miss Singleton had annoyed her by bidding me summon you in Miss Peyton’s name; but the very fact of her annoyance showed consciousness; had she been indifferent to you she would not have cared. Then her irritation at Lady Mary’s familiarity proves the same thing.”

“You really think so?” returned Leicester, brightening up. “My dear fellow, you’ve quite put new life into me. It’s very odd now, I never saw it in that light before. What would you have me do, then?”

“If, as you say, you really and truly love her,” returned Lewis gravely, “lay aside--excuse my plain speaking--lay aside your fashionable airs, which disguise your true nature, and tell her of your affection in a simple, manly way, and if she is the girl I take her to be, your trouble will not be wasted.” So saying, he rose and quitted the room, leaving Leicester to reflect on his advice.

CHAPTER XXV.--CONTAINS A MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT, AND SHOWS HOW THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DOES RUN SMOOTH.

As Lewis, after the conversation detailed in the last chapter, was prosecuting his search for Walter through the various apartments he encountered Annie Grant, who, having escaped the vigilance of Miss Livingstone, was enjoying, in company with a young lady friend, the dangerous luxury of standing by an open window. The moment she perceived Lewis she advanced towards him and began--

“May I detain you one moment, Mr. Arundel? Can you tell me anything of my cousin Charles? I’m afraid he must be ill, and I wished him to exert himself so particularly to-night.”

“He is not ill,” returned Lewis. “I left him not two minutes since in the card-room.”

“In the card-room?” repeated Annie in a tone of annoyance; “what can he be doing there? Is he playing whist?”

“No,” was the reply; “he did not appear in a humour to enjoy the dancing, and had gone there for the sake of quiet.”

“A fit of his incorrigible idleness, I suppose,” remarked Annie pettishly; “really it is too provoking; it must seem so odd his absenting himself on such an occasion as this. Would you mind the trouble of returning and telling him I want to speak to him particularly, and that he will find me here?”

“I shall be most happy; it is no trouble,” began Lewis. He paused, and then added in a lower tone, “Perhaps you scarcely do Mr. Leicester justice in attributing his absence to a fit of indolence; I fancied, from his manner, something had occurred to annoy him.”

“Something to annoy him!” exclaimed Annie, starting and turning pale as a disagreeable possibility suddenly occurred to her. “Surely he has not?--she never can have----!” then seeing Lewis’s glance fixed on her with a look of peculiar intelligence, she paused abruptly, and a most becoming blush overspread her features. Lewis pitied her confusion, and hastened to relieve it by observing--

“If I have ventured to guess the direction of your thoughts somewhat too boldly, Miss Grant, you must pardon me, and believe that did I not think I might thereby in some slight degree repay the kindness Mr. Leicester has invariably shown me, I would not have allowed you to perceive it. If,” he added in a lower tone, “you will permit me to advise you, I believe you could most effectually serve your cousin’s interests by explaining to Miss Peyton, at your first opportunity, the nature of the friendship which exists between Lady Mary Goodwood and Mr. Leicester, mentioning at the same time the fact that they have known each other from childhood.”

“That’s the difficulty, is it?” rejoined Annie. “Oh! I can set that right in five minutes. Thank you very much, Mr. Arundel--how extremely kind you are; but,” she added with an arch look, “you are most alarmingly clever; I shall become quite afraid of you.” Then turning to her companion, she added, “Now, Lucy dear, you will catch your death of cold standing at that window. You will send Charles Leicester, then, Mr. Arundel.” So saying, she linked her arm in that of her friend, and the two girls left the room.

“Leicester’s a lucky dog to have such a zealous advocate in that sweet cousin of his,” thought Lewis as he retraced his steps towards the card-room. “She is a great deal too good for that brute, Lord Bellefield; she had better have chosen Charles, if she must marry either brother, though he is scarcely her equal in mind or depth of character, and without that I don’t believe married life can ever progress as it should do.” On reaching the card-room he found it only tenanted by the whist players; and rightly imagining that his advice had so far restored Leicester’s spirits as to induce him again to return to the ball-room, he resumed his search for Walter, and at length discovered him in the ice-room, where, under the auspices of a pretty, interesting looking girl, the daughter of one of the tenantry, called in on the occasion to assist the female servants, he was regaling himself with unlimited cakes.

While Lewis was gently insinuating the possibility of his having had enough, two or three men, amongst whom was Lord Bellefield, lounged into the room and began eating ices at a table opposite that at which Lewis and Walter were stationed. One of the party, who was unacquainted with Lewis, apparently struck by his appearance, addressed Lord Bellefield in an undertone, evidently inquiring who the young tutor might be; the answer, though spoken in a low voice, was (whether designedly or not we will not say) perfectly audible to the person to whom it related.

“That? oh, some poor devil old Grant has picked up cheap as dry-nurse to his pet idiot; a kind of male bonne, as the French term it; a sort of upper servant, half valet, half tutor. You need not notice him.”

There was a degree of littleness in this speech which completely robbed it of its sting. It was such a mean attempt at an insult that Lewis saw it would be letting himself down even to feel angry about it; and merely allowing his lip to curl slightly with a contemptuous smile, he folded his arms and patiently awaited the conclusion of Walter’s repast. After Lord Bellefield and his friends had devoured as many ices as seemed good to them, they prepared to leave the room, and just as they passed the spot where Lewis stood, Lord Bellefield, in drawing out his handkerchief, accidentally dropped a glove. Not perceiving his loss, he was still walking on, when Lewis, after a moment’s hesitation, resolved to adhere to his determination of treating Lord Bellefield as he would any other man his superior in rank, and perhaps inwardly rejoiced at the opportunity of returning good for evil, or at least civility for insult, stooped and picked up the glove, then advancing a step or two, he presented it to its owner, saying--

“Excuse my interrupting your lordship, but you have dropped your glove.”

Now it so happened that the moment before Lewis had removed his own glove to render some assistance to Walter, and had not replaced it when he extended his hand to Lord Bellefield, who, without making any reply, signed to his French valet, then assisting in the champagne department, and when he approached, said--

“Tenez, Antoine! Take the glove from this gentleman, and bring me a clean pair.”

The insolence of his look and the affected drawl in which he spoke rendered his meaning so unmistakable, that, after a slight attempt to repress the inclination, one of his companions burst into a laugh, while the other, who had sufficient good feeling to be disgusted at such an unprovoked insult, turned on his heel and walked away. Lewis stood for a moment as if stunned; then, flushing crimson, he actually quivered with suppressed anger; still it was evident that he was striving to master his passion, and apparently he was in great measure successful, for when he spoke it was in a low, calm voice.

“Am I to understand,” he said, “that your lordship, considering this glove polluted by the accident of my having touched it, will never wear it again?”

“Ya--as,” was the reply; “you may very safely come to that conclusion without any fear of misinterpreting my intentions.”

“In that case,” continued Lewis, in the same low, clear voice, though his eyes, which were fixed on Lord Bellefield’s, actually glowed with the intensity of his emotion, “I will crave your permission to retain it as a memorial of this evening. Your lordship will observe it is a right hand glove. I may, on some future occasion, have the pleasure of calling your attention to the care with which I have preserved the relic.”

So saying, he bowed coldly, and still holding the glove with a vice-like grasp, as though he feared to have it wrested from him, he turned away without waiting a reply.

“What on earth does the fellow want with that glove?” inquired Lord Bellefield’s companion, who, not being a particularly intellectual young gentleman, had been greatly mystified by the whole proceeding. “And what in the world is the matter with you?” he added, observing for the first time that his friend was looking strangely pale and shuddering slightly.

“Eh--come along--we’re standing in a confounded draught, and I’ve never rightly recovered that ague I picked up at Ancona,” was the reply; and taking his companion’s arm, Lord Bellefield hastily left the room.

So engrossed had Lewis been with his own share of the transaction that he had not observed the breathless interest with which the whole scene had been watched by the girl before alluded to. She now approached him under the excuse of offering some cakes, and, as he somewhat impatiently refused them, said in a hurried whisper--

“I beg your pardon, sir, but what is it you intend to do with that glove?”

Surprised alike at the question and the quarter from whence it proceeded, Lewis looked at the girl more attentively than he had yet done. She was above the middle height, and of a singularly graceful figure; her features were characterised by a degree of refinement and intelligence not usually to be found amongst persons of her class; she was very pale, and though she endeavoured to repress all outward signs of emotion, he could perceive she was fearfully agitated.

“Do with the glove!” returned Lewis. “What makes you ask such an odd question?”

“You cannot deceive me, sir,” she replied in the same eager whisper. “I witnessed all that passed between you and--that gentleman just now.”

“And what is it you fear?” asked Lewis.

“That you are going to challenge him to fight a duel to-morrow morning--and--and perhaps mean to wear that glove on the hand you shoot him with.”

As she uttered these last words a strange expression flitted across Lewis’s face; it had passed, however, ere he replied--

“You are mistaken. As long as I remain under this roof I shall avoid any collision with that gentleman. Nay, more; should he repeat his insult (though I scarcely think he will), I shall not attempt to resent it. So,” he continued with a smile, “as I am living here, I think he is tolerably safe from me. Stay,” he added, as, after glancing anxiously at his features, as though she strove to read his very soul, she was about to turn away, satisfied that he was not attempting to deceive her, “stay; do not mention what you have observed amongst the servants; and here is something to buy you some new ribbon for your cap.”

“I will not accept your money, sir,” she replied somewhat haughtily; “but your secret is safe with me as in the grave.” Then taking Walter’s plate, which was by this time empty, she crossed the room and mingled with the other servants.

It was later in the evening; much dancing had been accomplished, many civil speeches and some rude ones made, mild flirtations began to assume a serious character, and one or two aggravated cases appeared likely to end in business. The hearts of match-making mammas beat high with hope, marriageable daughters were looking up, and eligible young men, apparently bent on becoming tremendous sacrifices, were evidently to be had cheap. The real live Duke was in unusually high spirits; he had hitherto been mercifully preserved from dangerous young ladies, and had passed a very pleasant evening. Lady Mary Goodwood, who was equal to a duke or any other emergency, had been introduced to him, and had taken upon herself the task of entertaining him; and his Grace, being slightly acquainted with Mr. Goodwood, and fortified by an unshakable faith in that gentleman’s powers of longevity, had yielded himself unresistingly to the fascinations of the fair Amazon, and allowed himself to be amused with the most amiable condescension. Charles Leicester, in some degree reassured by his conversation with Lewis, returned to the dancing-room and secured Miss Peyton for a waltz; but his success did not tend greatly to improve his position, as the young lady continued strangely silent, or only opened her mouth to say cutting things. The last polka before supper she danced with De Grandeville; on that gentleman’s arm she entered the room in which the repast was laid out, and he it was who, seated by her side during the meal, forestalled her every wish with most lover-like devotion. Lord Belle-field, after the rencontre with Lewis, had consoled himself by taking possession of Annie, whose side he never quitted for a moment, and who he thereby prevented from holding any private communication with her friend Miss Peyton, her acquaintance with the domestic economy of her uncle’s family leading her to divine that his brother would be about the last person to whom Charles Leicester would wish his hopes and fears confided.

Seeing that things thus continued steadily to “improve for the worse,” and that the tide which Shakespeare discovered in the affairs of men appeared to have set dead against him, the unfortunate “Charley” having, in a spirit of self-mortification, repudiated supper and rejected offers of champagne with the virulence of a red-hot teetotaller, betook himself to the solitude of the music-room in a state of mind bordering on distraction, which fever of the soul Lady Mary Goodwood had not tended to allay, by remarking, with a significant glance towards Miss Peyton and De Grandeville--

“I say, Charley, cast your eye up the course a minute; the heavyweight’s making play with the favourite at a killing pace. I’d bet long odds he pops and she says ‘Done’ before the meeting’s over; so if that don’t suit your book, Charley, my boy, the sooner you hedge on the double event the better.”

The music-room at Broadhurst was a spacious apartment, with a coved ceiling and deep bay windows hung with rich crimson damask curtains, and containing ottomans of the same material in the recesses. On one of these Leicester flung himself, and half hidden by the voluminous folds of the drapery, sketched out a gloomy future, in which he depicted himself quarrelling with De Grandeville, shooting him in a consequent duel, and residing ever after in the least desirable part of the backwoods of America, a prey to remorse, without cigars, and cut off from kid gloves and pale ale in the flower of his youth. Occupied with these dreary thoughts, he scarcely noticed the entrance of various seceders from the supper-table; nor was it until the sound of the pianoforte aroused his attention that he perceived the room to be tenanted by some twenty or thirty people scattered in small coteries throughout the apartment. At the moment when he became alive to external impressions Miss Singleton was about to favour the company with a song, having secured a mild young man to turn over the music, who knew not life and believed in her to the fullest extent with a touching simplicity. Before this interesting performance could commence, however, sundry preliminary arrangements analogous to the nautical ceremony of “clearing for action” appeared indispensable. First, a necessity existed for taking off her gloves, which was not accomplished without much rounding of arms, display of rings, and rattling of bracelets, one of which, in particular, would catch in everything, and was so incorrigible that it was forced to be unclasped in disgrace and committed to the custody of the mild young man, who blushed at it and held it as if it were alive. Then Miss Singleton drew up her head, elongated her neck to a giraffe-like extent, raised her eyes, simpered, cast them down again, glanced out of their corners at the “mild one” till he trembled in his polished boots and jingled the wicked bracelet like a baby’s rattle in the excess of his agitation, and finally commenced her song by an energetic appeal to her mother (who had been dead and buried for the last fifteen years) to “wake her early” on the ensuing first of May. Just as she was assuring the company that “she had been wild and wayward, but she was not wayward now,” a couple entered the room, and apparently wishing not to disturb the melody, seated themselves on a sofa in a retired corner which chanced to be nearly opposite to the recess of which Leicester had taken possession; thus, although the whole length of the music-room intervened, he could (himself unseen) catch occasional glimpses of this sofa as the ever-changing groups of loungers formed and dispersed themselves.

The occupants of the seat were Miss Peyton and De Grandeville; and could Charles Leicester have overheard the following conversation the passive annoyance with which he observed the colloquy might have given place to a more active sentiment.

“Ar--really,” remarked De Grandeville, “that is a very--ar--touching, pathetic song----”

“Murdered,” observed Miss Peyton, quietly finishing his sentence for him.

“Ar--eh--yes, of course, I was going to--ar--that is, your exquisite taste has--ar--in fact--ar--beyond a doubt the woman is committing murder.”

“Recollect, the ‘woman,’ as you are pleased to call her, is my particular friend, Mr. De Grandeville,” returned his companion with a slight degree of hauteur in her tone.

“Ar--yes, of course, that speaks volumes in her favour,” was the rejoinder; “and although it is not every one who is gifted with the--ar--talent of vocalisation, yet the estimable qualities which one seeks in the--ar--endearing relation of friendship may be found--ar--that is, may exist--ar----”

“What did you think of the champagne at supper?” interrupted Miss Peyton abruptly.

“Really--ar--’pon my word I did not particularly notice it! was--ar--so agreeably situated that I could not devote much attention to the--ar--commissariat department.”

“Surely it was unusually strong,” persisted Laura.

“Ar--yes, of course you are right, it is no doubt owing to its agreeably exhilarating qualities that it is so universally popular with the fair sex. Were I--ar--so fortunate as to be--ar--a married man, I should always have champagne at my table.”

“What a temptation!” returned Miss Peyton, smiling ironically. “Your wife will be an enviable woman, if you mean to indulge her in such luxuries.”

“It delights me to hear you say so,” exclaimed De Grandeville eagerly. “If such is your opinion, I am indeed a fortunate man. I had not intended,” he continued in a lower tone, “to speak to you at this early period of our acquaintance on the subject nearest to my heart, but the--ar--very flattering encouragement----”

“Sir!” exclaimed Miss Peyton in a tone of indignant surprise.

“Which you have deigned to bestow upon me,” continued De Grandeville, not heeding the interruption, “leads me to unfold my intentions without further delay. I am now arrived at an age when, in the prime of life, and with judgment so matured that I consider I may safely act in obedience to its dictates without the risk of making any great mistake, it appears to me, and to those of my highly born and influential friends whom I have consulted on the subject, that I might greatly improve my general position in society by a judicious matrimonial alliance. Now, without being in the slightest degree actuated by--ar--anything approaching to a spirit of boasting, I may venture to say that in the selection of a partner for life I have a right to look--ar--high. My family may be traced back beyond the Norman conquest, and the immense estates in our possession--ar--my cousin Hildebrand holds them at present--but in the event of anything happening to his seven--ar--however, I need not now trouble you with such family details, suffice it to say that we are of ancient descent, enormous landed proprietors, and that my own position in society is by no means an unimportant one. Now, although I am aware that by birth you are scarcely--ar--that is--that the Peyton family cannot trace back their origin--ar--I have made up my mind to waive that point in consideration of----”

“Excuse me, sir,” interrupted Miss Peyton. “Doubtless your mature judgment has led you to discover many, in fact so? some thousands of good and weighty reasons why you should overlook the humble origin of the poor Peytons; but there is one point which appears to have escaped even your sagacity, namely, whether this unworthy descendant of an ignoble family desires the honour of such an alliance as you propose. That you may no longer be in doubt on the subject, allow me to thank you for the sacrifice you propose to make in my favour, and most unequivocally to decline it.”

No one could be in De Grandeville’s company for ten minutes without perceiving that on the one subject of his own importance he was more or less mad; but with this exception he was a clear-headed, quick-sighted man, used to society and accustomed to deal with the world. Laura Peyton, in her indignation at the inflated style of the preamble of his discourse, had committed the indiscretion of refusing his hand before he had distinctly offered it. De Grande-ville perceived the mistake, and hastened to avail himself of it by replying--

“Excuse me, Miss Peyton, but you jump rather hastily to conclusions. Had you heard me to the end you might have learned that there were equally strong reasons why in my present position I dare not yield to the impulse of my feelings--for that I greatly admire and respect you I frankly own. Should these reasons disappear under a change of circumstances, I shall hope to have the honour of again addressing you on this subject with a more favourable result. In the meantime, to assure you that I entertain no unfriendly recollection of this interview, permit me the honour----”

So saying, ere she was aware of his intention, he raised her hand to his lips, bowed respectfully, and rising, quitted the apartment. Miss Peyton, equally surprised and provoked at the turn De Grande-ville had given to the conversation, remained for a minute or so pondering the matter, with her eyes fixed on the ground; as she raised them they encountered those of a gentleman who was passing down the room at the time. Charles Leicester (for he it was) returned her gaze haughtily, and as their eyes met a contemptuous smile curled his lip, and bowing coldly, he passed on without a word. Well might he despise her, for he had witnessed the parting salute, and not unnaturally deemed her the affianced bride of Marmaduke De Grandeville. Ere he retired for the night his servant had received orders to pack up his clothes and to procure post-horses by eight o’clock on the following morning. Annie Grant, who, when the latest guests had departed, sought her friend Laura’s dressing-room to explain to her the old friendship which had existed between her cousin Charles and Lady Mary Goodwood was equally surprised and distressed to find her communication received with a hysterical burst of tears.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXVI. SUNSHINE AFTER SHOWERS

Annie Grant found her friend strangely uncommunicative on the subject of her fit of weeping; she declared that it was nothing--that she felt nervous and overtired, but that a good night’s rest was all she required to set her to rights again; then kissing her affectionately, Laura, with much caressing, turned her out of the room. As sound sleep was the specific to which Miss Peyton trusted for the restoration of her health and spirits, it can scarcely be imagined that, after passing four restless hours in a vain attempt to obtain the desired boon, she should have felt particularly refreshed. Weary both in mind and body, she was aroused from a dreamy, half-sleeping, half-waking, but wholly uncomfortable state into which she had fallen by the sun shining brightly into her room. The beauty of the morning, though a thick hoar frost lay upon the ground, banished all further desire for sleep, and commencing her toilet, she resolved on a scheme which her acquaintance with the usual habits of the family led her to conceive feasible--namely, to possess herself of the third volume of a new novel in which she was considerably interested, and with that for a companion, to take a brisk walk in the clear morning air and return ere any of the party had made their appearance at the breakfast-table. Dressing hastily, she wrapped herself in a thick shawl and tripped lightly down the staircase, only encountering in her progress a drowsy housemaid, who stared at her with lack-lustre eyes, as though she took her for a ghost. Before she could carry her whole plan into execution, however, it was necessary that she should visit the library in order to procure the volume she wished to take with her. Opening the door quickly, she had proceeded half-way across the room ere she perceived it was not untenanted. As she paused, uncertain whether or not to proceed, Charles Leicester--for he it was who, acting on his resolution of the previous night, was writing a few lines to account for his abrupt departure--rose from the table at which he had been sitting and advanced towards her. He was attired for a journey, and his pale features and the dark circles under his eyes gave token of a sleepless night. There was a restless energy in his tone and manner, as he addressed her, totally opposed to his usual listless indifference; and no one could be in his company a moment without perceiving that (to use a common but forcible expression) something had come over him--that he was (at all events, for the present) a changed man.

“You are an early riser, Miss Peyton,” he said. “I did not expect to have an opportunity of wishing you good-bye in person.”

“I was not aware you intended leaving Broadhurst so soon,” returned Laura, feeling, she scarcely knew why, exceedingly uncomfortable. “Shall you return before the party breaks up?”

“No. I shall go abroad directly, and endeavour to procure an attachéship to one of the embassies; the Turkish, I think: I’ve never seen Constantinople.”

“Surely you’ve formed this resolution somewhat abruptly,” observed Miss Peyton. “It was only yesterday you agreed to escort your cousin Annie and myself to ride over and sketch the ruins of Monkton Priory. I was thinking this morning, as soon as I saw the sunshine, what a charming canter we should have.”

“I should be more sorry, Miss Peyton, to be forced to break so agreeable an engagement, did I not feel certain you will have no difficulty in supplying my place on the occasion,” returned Leicester, laying a marked emphasis on the pronoun. “I must now wish you good morning,” he continued; then bowing coldly, he took up his hat and turned to leave the room.

Miss Peyton allowed him to reach the door ere she could make up her mind what course to pursue; then colouring brightly, she exclaimed, “Stay one moment, Mr. Leicester.” As he paused, and closing the door, which he had partially opened, turned towards her, she continued, “I will not affect to misunderstand your allusion, and although the subject is one on which I should not willingly have entered, I consider it due to myself not to suffer you to depart under a mistake, into which I should have thought you knew me too well to have fallen.”

“Mistake!” repeated Leicester eagerly. “Is it possible that I can be mistaken? Are you not then engaged to Mr. De Grandeville?”

“Most assuredly am I not,” returned Miss Peyton, “nor, unless I very greatly alter my opinion of that gentleman, shall I ever be so. I did think Mr. Leicester would have given me credit for better taste than to have supposed such a thing possible, but I see I was mistaken; and now,” she added, “having found the book I came to seek, I must wish you good morning, and--a pleasant journey to Constantinople.”

“Stay, Miss Peyton,” exclaimed Leicester, for once really excited; “you have said too much or too little. Pardon me,” he continued, “I will not detain you five minutes, but speak I must.” Taking her hand, he led her to a seat, and resumed--

“I am placed in a position equally painful and difficult, but the best and most straightforward course I can pursue will be to tell you in as few words as possible the simple truth, and then leave you to decide upon my fate. The difficulty! have to encounter is this:--You are an heiress; I, a portionless younger brother, without a profession, and brought up in expensive and indolent habits. Were I then to tell you that I love you, and that the dearest wish of my heart is to call you mine, how can I expect you to think that I am not actuated by mercenary motives? to believe that I do indeed, deeply, truly love you, with an intensity of which I scarcely could have believed my nature capable? When first I sought your society, I frankly own (and if the admission ruins my cause I cannot help it, for I will not attempt to deceive you) it was the report of your riches which attracted me. I considered you lady-like and agreeable, and this being the case, I would willingly have done as I saw men of my acquaintance do everyday--married for money; but as I became intimate with you, and discovered the priceless treasures of your heart and mind, my views and feelings altered. I soon learned to love you for yourself alone, and then for the first time, when I perceived that in marrying you I had everything to gain and nothing to offer in return, I became fully aware of the meanness of the act I contemplated--in fact I saw the matter in its true light, and felt that to ask you to become my wife would be an insult rather than a compliment. Thus, the more I grew to love you, the less I ventured to show it, till at last, pride coming to my assistance, I resolved to tear myself away, and quitted Scotland abruptly, intending never to renew our intimacy, unless some unexpected stroke of fortune should enable me to do so on more equal terms. My cousin Annie, however, had it seems guessed my secret, and invited you here without mentioning her intention to me till you had actually arrived. Had I acted consistently, I should have left this place a fortnight ago; but I had suffered so much during my absence, and the delight of again associating with you was so overpowering, that I had not sufficient strength of will to carry out my determination; thus I continued day by day yielding myself to the fascination of your society, learning to love you more and more, and yet not daring to tell you so, because I felt the impossibility of proving--even now it seems absurd to say--my disinterestedness; but that I loved you for yourself alone. Such had been for some days my state of feeling, when yesterday I was nearly driven distracted by that man, De Grandeville, actually selecting me as his confidant, and consulting me of all people in the world as to the advisability of making you an offer of marriage, hinting that he had reason to believe such a proposal would be favourably received by you.”

“Insolent!” exclaimed Miss Peyton, raising her eyes for the first time during Leicester’s address, and looking him full in the face. “So far from encouraging him, I have never spoken to him save to turn his pompous speeches into ridicule since I was first introduced to him.”

“So I would fain have taught myself to believe yesterday,” resumed Leicester; “but the coldness of your manner towards me, and the marked attention you allowed him to pay you during the evening, tortured me with doubts, and when, after an animated conversation in the music-room, I saw him raise your hand to his lips, I imagined he had put his design into execution, and was an accepted suitor.”

“A rejected one would have been nearer the mark,” murmured Miss Peyton.

“Utterly miserable,” continued Leicester, “at the idea of having irrevocably lost you--provoked that you should have accepted a man so completely your inferior in mind, and, indeed, in every particular, I ordered post-horses before I retired for the night, and but for this accidental meeting should have been already on my road to London. And now,” he continued with passionate eagerness, “it is for you to decide whether my future life is to be happy or miserable. If truth has any power of revealing itself, you will believe that I love you deeply, tenderly, for yourself alone; and you will decide whether such an affection is calculated to ensure your happiness; but if you are unable to credit my sincerity, only say the word, and I leave you for ever.”

He ceased, and clenching his hands in the excess of his emotion till the nails appeared to grow into the flesh, stood before her, pale and agitated, like a criminal awaiting the sentence which shall send him forth a free man or consign him to a felon’s grave. After watching her anxiously for a few moments, during which she remained without speaking, her head averted and her features concealed by her close straw bonnet, he resumed: “I see it is in vain to wait; your silence tells me that I have nothing to hope--fool that I was ever to deem it could be otherwise! Farewell, Laura; may you be as happy as I would have striven to render you.”

He turned, and his hand was again on the lock of the door, when a low, sweet voice, every accent of which thrilled through his very soul, murmured--

“Mr. Leicester--Charles--do not go--you will not leave me?”

And accordingly he did not go, but came back instantly like an amiable, obedient young man as he was, and received the reward of merit by learning from the lips of her he loved that she was not only convinced of the sincerity of the affection he had bestowed on her, but prized the gift so highly that she felt obliged to return it, which statement sounded very like a contradiction, but was nothing of the kind. Then followed a bright, happy half-hour, one of those little bits of unmitigated sunshine which gleam once or twice in a lifetime to thaw the ice that tears which have never found vent form more or less thickly around the heart of each of us; and ere it was over, Laura Peyton stood pledged to become the wife of Charley Leicester, who dis-ordered the post-horses and postponed his journey to Constantinople ad infinitum.

Several droll little scenes occurred later on that morning between various members of the party assembled at Broadhurst. In the first place, Annie Grant, who, completely tired out, and greatly concerned at the mysterious impediments which obstructed the course of her cousin Charles’s love affair, had sought her pillow with a firm conviction she should never close her eyes all night, fell asleep immediately, and woke soon after nine o’clock on the following morning under the impression that she had just gone to bed. While she was dressing she resolved in her anxious mind her cousin’s difficulties, and came to the following conclusions: first, that for sundry reasons connected with his natural indolence and a painful sense of his dependent position, Charley would never “tell his love;” secondly, that Laura, not divining these reasons, was piqued and hurt at his prolonged silence; and thirdly, that it behoved her (Annie) to remove these stumbling-blocks by a little judicious interference. Accordingly, when she had finished her toilet, and, giving a last parting glance at her pretty face and graceful figure in the cheval glass in her dressing-room, had thought--well, I don’t know that we’ve any business to pry into her thoughts, but by the bright half-smile, half-blush which resulted from the inspection it may be concluded they were of an agreeable nature. When she had performed this little unconscious act of homage to her own beauty she tripped off to her friend’s room, and found that young lady fastening a very dangerous little bow of ribbon around her neck, with a small turquoise brooch made in the shape of a true lover’s knot. I wonder why she should have selected it from some twenty others on that morning in particular?

“Idle girl!” exclaimed Annie, kissing her affectionately, as if idleness were a highly commendable quality, “idle girl! not dressed at ten o’clock, and I’ve been ready for the last five minutes.”

“I’m very sorry, dear; but if you knew what pleasant dreams I’ve enjoyed, you would not wish to have dispelled them,” returned Laura demurely, though there was a fund of merriment gleaming in her dark eyes which Annie in her innocence did not perceive. Feeling, however, that under the circumstances her friend had no business to have been so very happy, even in her dreams, she answered somewhat pettishly--

“You have been more favoured than I have been. I went to bed cross and worried, and fretted over all my troubles again in my dreams. Laura dear,” she continued, “I want to say something to you, if I thought you would not be angry with me: I wish you--but can’t you guess what I’m going to say?”

Miss Peyton shook her pretty head, and confirmed the conviction expressed by De Grandeville, that her family was of modern date, by repudiating any connection with the race of Odipus. So poor, sensitive Annie was forced to clothe her meaning in plain and unmistakable words, which she endeavoured to do by resuming--

“My cousin Charles, dear Laura--you know we were brought up together as children, and I love him as a brother; he is so kind-hearted and such a sweet temper; and of course I am aware he makes himself rather ridiculous sometimes with his indolence and affectation, but he has been so spoiled and flattered by the set he lives in--it is only manner--whenever he is really called upon to act, you have no notion what good sense and right feeling he displays. Dear Laura, I can’t bear to see him so unhappy!”

At the beginning of this speech Miss Peyton coloured slightly; as it proceeded her eyes sparkled, and any one less occupied with their own feelings than was Annie Grant might have observed that tears glistened in them; but at its conclusion she observed in her usual quiet tone--

“I don’t believe Mr. Leicester is unhappy.”

“Ah! you don’t know him as well as I do,” returned Annie, her cheeks glowing and her eyes beaming with the interest she took in the subject; “he was so wretched all yesterday evening; he ate no supper, and sat moping in corners, as unlike his natural, happy self as possible.”

“Did you hear that he had ordered post-horses at eight o’clock this morning?” inquired Laura.

“No! you don’t mean it!” exclaimed Annie, clasping her hands in dismay. “Oh, I hope he is not gone!”

“You may depend upon it he is,” rejoined Miss Peyton, turning to the glass avowedly to smooth her glossy hair, which did not in the slightest degree require that process, but in reality to hide a smile. “He must be on his way to town by this time, unless anything has occurred this morning to cause him to alter his determination.”

“That is impossible,” returned Annie quickly; then adding in a tone of the deepest reproach, “Oh, Laura! how could you be so cruel as to let him go?” she burst into a flood of tears. And Laura, that heartless young hyæna of fashionable life, that savage specimen of the perfidious sex of whom a poet sings--

Woman, though so mild she seem,

Will take your heart and tantalise it;

Were it made of Portland stone,

She’d manage to Macadamise it”--

what do you suppose she did on the occasion? Nothing wonderful, and yet the best thing she could, for she wreathed her soft arms round Annie’s neck, and kissing away her tears, whispered in a few simple touching words the secret of her happy love.

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XXVII. BROTHERLY LOVE “À LA MODE.”

Now let us shake the kaleidoscope and take a peep at another combination of our dramatis personæ at this particular phase of their destinies. Lord Bellefield is breakfasting in his private sitting-room; a bright fire blazes on the hearth; close to it has been drawn a sofa, upon which, wrapped in a dressing-gown of rich brocaded silk, lounges the tenant of the apartment; a breakfast-table stands by the sofa, on which are placed an empty coffee cup, a small flask of French brandy, and a liqueur glass, together with a plate of toast apparently scarcely touched, a cut-glass saucer containing marmalade, and a cigar-case. His lordship appears to be by no means in an amiable frame of mind. He had sat up the previous night some two hours after the ball was over, playing Ecarté with certain intimates of his own, whom he had caused to be invited to Broadhurst, during which time he had contrived to lose between £200 and,£300. Earlier in the past day he had formed a canvassing engagement with General Grant for eleven o’clock on the following morning, which had obliged him to rise sooner than was by any means agreeable to his tastes, or consonant with his usual habits; and lastly, he expected an important letter, and the post was late. While he was pondering this agglomerate (to choose a euphonious word) of small evils, the door opened noiselessly, and Antoine, the French valet, carrying a well-brushed coat as tenderly as if it had been a baby, stole on tiptoe across the room. Lord Bellefield, whose head was turned away from the door, stretched out his hand, exclaiming impatiently, “Well, where are they?”

“Milor!” returned the astonished Frenchman, who in his interest about the coat had forgotten the letters.

“The letters, fool, where are they?” reiterated his lordship angrily.

“Mille pardons, Milor; but ven I did valk myself up zie stair, I am not avare dat zie lettairs had made zemselves to arrive,” rejoined Antoine with a self-satisfied smile, as if he had said something clever.

“Did you ask?” returned his master with a frown.

“Non pas précisément--I did not exactly demand,” stammered Antoine with (this time) a deprecatory smile.

Lord Bellefield’s only reply was an oath; then, seeing the man remained, uncertain what to do, he added--

“Go down again directly, idiot, and don’t return without my letters, unless----” a menacing gesture of his clenched fist supplied the blank, and the valet quitted the room, muttering with a shrug as he closed the door, “Qu’ils sont barbares, ces Anglais; but, parbleu, like all zie savage, dey are made of gold--eh! bien, c’est égal,--he shall pay me veil for him.”

Lord Bellefield was not fated to enjoy the blessing of peace that morning, for scarcely had his servant closed the door ere some one else tapped at it. “Come in,” shouted the victimised peer, appending a wish concerning his visitor, of which the most charitable view we can take is that he was desirous of offering him a warm reception. However this may be, Charles Leicester (for he it was to whose lot his brother’s left-handed benediction had fallen) entered the room, his face reflecting the joy of his heart, and drawing a chair to the opposite side of the fire-place, seated himself thereupon, and began rubbing his hands with a degree of energy totally opposed to his usual listless indifference.

“Is there no other fire in the house that you are necessitated to come and warm your hands here, Mr. Leicester? I fancied you were aware that if there is one thing in the world which annoys me more than another, it is to be intruded on in a morning,” observed his lordship pettishly. Then, for the first time catching sight of his brother’s face, he continued, “What on earth are you looking so absurdly happy about?”

“Now, don’t growl this morning, Belle; be a little bit like a brother for once in your life. I’m come to receive your congratulations,” returned Leicester.

“Has your Jewish money-lender turned Christian and burned his books, like the magicians of old?” inquired Bellefield sarcastically.

“Something almost as wonderful,” replied his brother, “for I live in good hopes of paying him.”

“Why, you don’t mean to say my father is going to be such a confounded fool as to pay your debts?” continued Bellefield, springing up in the excitement of the moment. “I swear I’ll not allow it; he’ll burden the estates so that when I come into the title I shall be a beggar.”

“Keep yourself cool, my good brother; you might be sure I should never in my wildest moments dream of asking you to congratulate me on any good fortune which could by the most remote contingency either affect your interests or interfere with your ease and comfort,” replied Leicester, for once provoked to say a cutting thing by his brother’s intense selfishness.

“Really, Charles, I’m in no humour for foolery or impertinence,” said Lord Bellefield snappishly. “If there’s anything you wish me to know, tell it at once; if not, I am expecting important letters, and should be glad to be alone.”

“What should you say if you heard I was going to be hanged, Belle?” asked Charley.

“Wish you joy of your exalted destiny, and think things might have been worse,” was the answer.

“Apply both the wish and reflection to the present emergency,” returned Leicester, “for I’m in nearly as sad a case--I’m going to be married.”

“On the principle that what is not enough to keep one can support two, I suppose!” rejoined Lord Bellefield in a tone of the most bitter contempt. “Well, I did not think--but I wash my hands of the affair entirely. Only mind this--the property is strictly entailed, my father can do nothing without my consent, and if you expect that you’re to be supported in idleness at our expense----”

“My dear fellow, I expect nothing of the kind,” returned Charley, caressing his whiskers. “My wife and I mean to set up a cigar divan, and all we shall look for from you is your custom; we certainly do hope to make a decent living out of that.”

Lord Bellefield uttered an exclamation expressive of disgust, and then inquired abruptly--

“Well, who is the woman?”

“She isn’t exactly a woman,” returned Charley meekly; “that is, of course, speaking literally and in a physiological point of view she is a woman, but in the language of civilised society she is something more than a mere woman--for instance, by birth she is a lady. Nature has bestowed on her that somewhat unusual feminine attribute, a mind, to which art, through the medium of the various educational sciences, has added cultivation; then she has the sweetest, most lovable disposition----

“There! spare me your lovers’ raptures,” returned Lord Bellefield; “of all stale trash they are the most sickening; and tell me plainly, in five words, who she is, and what she has.”

“Laura Peyton--heiress--value unknown,” returned Leicester emphatically and concisely.

“Miss Peyton!” exclaimed Lord Bellefield in surprise. “My dear Charles,” he continued in a more cordial tone than he had yet used, “do you really mean that you’re engaged to Laura Peyton? Why, she is said to have between four and five thousand a year in the funds, besides a princely estate in------shire. Are you in earnest?”

“Never was so much so about anything before in my life,” returned Leicester. “If I don’t marry Laura Peyton, and that very soon too, I shall do something so desperate that society had better shut up shop at once, for it’s safe to be ‘uprooted from its very foundations,’ as the conservative papers say if a poor devil of a chartist happens to strop his razor before committing the ‘overt act’ by which he cuts his own throat.”

“’Pon my word,” exclaimed Lord Bellefield, as he became convinced that his brother was really in earnest, “ ’pon my word, you’ve played your cards deucedly well. I declare, if I hadn’t been booked for little Annie here, I wouldn’t have minded marrying the girl myself. Why, Charley, you’ll actually become a creditable member of society.”

As he spoke a tap was heard at the door, and Antoine made his appearance, breathless with the haste in which he had run upstairs.

“Enfin elles sont arrivées,” he exclaimed, handing the letters on a silver waiter; “vhy for zey vos si tard, zie postman, he did slip up on von vot you call--(ah! q té ils sont difficiles, ces sacrés mots Anglais)--slid? oui! oui! he did slip himself up on von slid, and tumbled into two ditches.”

Lord Bellefield seized the letters eagerly. Signing to the valet to leave the room, without heeding his lucid explanation of the delay, he selected one in a particular handwriting, and tearing it open, hastily perused the first few lines; then rubbing his hands, he exclaimed with an oath, “By ------! Beppo’s won, and I’m a clear, £12,000 in pocket. Charley, boy,” he continued, with a sudden impulse of generosity (for no one is all bad), “how much are your debts?”

“I believe about £2000 would cover them,” returned Leicester.

“Then I’ll clear you, old fellow,” replied Lord Bellefield, clapping him on the shoulder, “and you shall marry your rich bride a free man.”

“My dear Bellefield, I can’t allow it--you are too kind--I--I really don’t know how to thank you--I can’t think what’s come to everybody this morning,” cried poor Charley, as, fairly overpowered by his good fortune, he seized Lord Bellefield’s hand and wrung it warmly. At that moment those two men, each warped and hardened differently, as their dispositions differed, by the world’s evil influence, felt more as brothers should feel towards each other than they had done since they played together years ago as little children at their mother’s knee. With one the kindly feeling thus revived was never again entirely forgotten; with the other--but we will not anticipate.

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XXVIII. BEGINS ABRUPTLY AND ENDS UNCOMFORTABLY

“Well, what is it? for I can see by your eyes that you have something you wish to ask me, Walter,” observed Lewis, as his pupil stood before him nervously moving his feet and twisting the lash of a dog-whip round his hands.

“Only Millar wanted--that is, he didn’t want, but he said he would take me out with him to see him shoot those great pretty birds.”

“Pheasants,” suggested Lewis.

“Yes, to see him shoot pheasants,” continued Walter, “if you would let me go. Millar says,” he added, seeing that Lewis appeared doubtful, “Millar says all real gentlemen like shooting, and that I’m quite old enough to learn.”

One great change wrought in Walter since he had been under Lewis’s direction--a change from which his tutor augured the most favourable results--was the almost total disappearance of those fits of morbid despondency and indifference to external objects, at times almost amounting to unconscious imbecility, to which he had formerly been subject; it was therefore a part of Lewis’s system to encourage him to follow up vigorously any pursuit for which he evinced the slightest predilection; indeed, so effectual a means did he consider this of arousing his faculties, that he often sacrificed to it the daily routine of mechanical teaching. Having, therefore, run over in his mind the pros and cons, and decided that if he accompanied his pupil no danger could accrue, he graciously gave his consent, and having encased his feet in a stout pair of boots, and seen that Walter followed his example, both master and pupil hastened to the stable-yard to join the worthy individual with whom the expedition had originated.

Millar, who, as the reader has probably ere this divined, was none other than General Grant’s head gamekeeper, appeared anxious to be off without delay, as he had received orders to kill a certain amount of game which was required for a forthcoming dinner-party. The morning was, as we have already said, lovely, and Lewis enjoyed the brisk walk through some of the most wild and picturesque scenery the country afforded with a degree of zest at which he was himself surprised. The pheasants, however, not being endowed with such superornithological resignation as certain water-fowl, who, when required for culinary purposes were invited, as the nursery rhyme relates, to their own executions by the unalluring couplet,

“Dilly dilly dilly ducks, come and be killed!”

appeared singularly unwilling to face death at that particular epoch, and contrived accordingly by some means or other to render themselves invisible. In vain did Millar try the choicest spinnies, in vain did he scramble through impassable hedges, where gaps there were none, rendering himself a very pin-cushion for thorns; in vain did he creep along what he was pleased to term dry ditches, till from the waist downwards he looked more like a geological specimen than a leather-gaitered and corduroyed Christian; still the obdurate pheasants refused to stand fire, either present or prospective (gun or kitchen), and at the end of three hours’ hard walking through the best preserves the disconsolate gamekeeper had only succeeded in bagging a brace. At length completely disheartened, he came to anchor on a stile, and produced a flask of spirits, with the contents of which (after fruitlessly pressing Lewis and Walter to partake thereof) he proceeded to regale himself. Finding himself the better for this prescription, he shouted to a dishevelled individual yclept the beater, who for the trifling consideration of eighteenpence per diem and a meal of broken victuals, delivered himself over to the agreeable certainty of being wet to the skin, and scratched and torn through it, with the by no means remote contingency of getting accidentally shot into the bargain. The creature who appeared in answer to this summons, and who in spite of the uncomfortable description we have given of his occupation, seemed to enjoy his day’s sport excessively, was too old for a boy and too young for a man. His face was, of course, scratched and bleeding, and his elf locks, drenched with the hoar frost, now melted into a species of half-frozen gelatine, gave him a strange, unearthly appearance. His clothing, if rags which looked like the cast-off garments of an indigent scarecrow deserved the name, was so tattered and torn, that the fact of their hanging upon him at all was calculated to shake one’s faith in the Newtonian theory of gravitation, till one gained a clue to the mystery by recollecting the antagonistic principle “attraction of cohesion;” the only personal attraction, by the way (save a pair of clear grey eyes giving a shrewd expression to his face), that our friend possessed.

“Villiam,” began his superior--and here let it be remarked parenthetically that it was the custom of this excellent gamekeeper invariably to address his satellite for the time being as “Villiam,” utterly disregarding the occasional fact that the sponsors of the youth had seen fit to call him otherwise--“Villiam,” observed Mr. Millar, “you’re vet.” This being an incontrovertible certainty, evident to the meanest capacity, “Villiam” did not feel called upon to reply in words, merely shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog for the benefit of the bystanders, and glancing wistfully at the flask. “Yer vet right thro’ yer, Villiam,” resumed his employer dogmatically; “so shove a drop o’ this here down yer throat, and make spurrits and vater of yerself.”

To this proposition “Villiam” replied by stretching out his hand, grasping the flask eagerly, then tugging at a tangled lock of hair on his forehead as a salutation to the assembled company, and growling out in a hoarse, damp voice, “Here’s wushin’ hall yer ’ealths,” he proceeded to “do his spiriting,” though by no means as “gently” as the delicate Ariel was accustomed to perform that operation. Having thus qualified his cold-water system by the introduction of alcohol, the spirit moved him and he spake.

“Yer ain’t bagged much game, Master, this mornin’, I reckon?”

“Not I,” was the reply; “no man can’t shoot things as ain’t wisibul, yer know, Villiam. I can’t think vot’s got all the game.”

“They do tell I as pheasands as looks wery like ourn goes to Lunnun in t’carrier’s cart twice a veek,” observed “Villiam” in a dreamy, absent kind of manner, as if the remark were totally foreign to the subject under discussion.

“Ah! that’s vot yer hear, is it, Villiam?” returned Millar carelessly. “Hif that’s the case, I suppose (for ’tain’t likely they valks there of themselves) somebody must take ’em?”

“That is right, Master,” was the rejoinder.

“Has it hever cum across yer--take another drop of spurrits, Villiam; yer vet--has it hever cum across yer who that somebody his?” demanded Millar in an easy, careless tone of voice.

“His it true as ther General thinks o’ puttin’ hon a second hunder-keeper?” rejoined “Villiam,” replying, like an Irish echo, by another question.

“Hi’m avake, Villiam,” returned his patron with an encouraging wink, “it certingly his possibul hif I vas to tell ther General that I knowed a quick, hintelligent lad has might be wery useful in catchin poarchers--yer understand, Villiam--sich a thing might cum about.”

“In that case hi’m free to mention that hi see three coves a cummin’ hout o’ Todshole Spinney vith a sack as vosn’t haltogither hempty, atween three and four o’clock this here blessed mornin’.”

“And vot might yer be a’ doin’ yerself, hout o’ bed at that time o’ night, Villiam?” inquired Millar suspiciously.

“A lying in a dry ditch vith my heyes open,” returned the imp significantly.

“I sees!” rejoined the keeper reflectively. “Yer didn’t happen haccidentally to know any o’ they three coves, Villiam, I suppose?”

“Ther von has carried the sack worn’t haltogither unlike long Hardy, the blacksmith,” was the reply.

The worthy Mr. Millar meditated for some minutes in silence on the information thus acquired; then rousing himself with a sudden start, he observed, “Now, Villiam, hif you’ll be so hobliging has to beat along that ere ’edgerow to the right, ve’ll see hif ve can knock hover another brace o’ longtails, and ve can talk about Mr. Hardy ven ve have finished our day’s vork. There’s a precious young limb o’ vickedness,” he added, turning to Lewis as the boy got out of earshot, “he’s von hof ’em, bless yer, only he’s turned again ’em with a mercenary view hof getting a hunder-keeper’s sitivation.”

“In which rascality do you mean to allow him to succeed?” asked Lewis.

“Not by no manner o’ means--halways supposing I can pump him dry without,” was the prudent reply; and shouldering his doublebarrel the gamekeeper quitted his perch on the stile and resumed his shooting.

Whether the intelligence he had received had affected his nervous system (reserving for future discussion the more doubtful question of his possessing such an aristocratic organisation), or whether in the excitement of the moment he had allowed himself to imbibe an unusually liberal allowance of the contents of the spirit-flask, we do not pretend to decide; but certain it is that he missed consecutively two as fair shots as ever presented themselves to the gun of a sportsman, and ended by wounding, without bringing down, a young hen pheasant, despite the warning cry of “‘ware hen” from the perfidious “Villiam,” then located in a quagmire.

“Veil, I never did!” exclaimed the unfortunate perpetrator of this the greatest crime which in a gamekeeper’s opinion a sportsman can commit; “I ’aven’t done sich a think has that since I wos a boy o’ thirteen year old, and father quilted me with the dog-whip for it, and sarve me right, too. This here’s a werry snipey bit, too,” he continued dejectedly; “but hif I can’t ’it apheasand, hit’s useless to ’old up my gun hat a snipe.”

“Your ill luck in the morning has made you impatient and spoiled your shooting,” observed Lewis, wishing good-naturedly to propitiate his companion.

This speech, however, seemed to produce just a contrary effect, for Millar answered gruffly, “Perhaps, Mister, you fancies as you can do better yourself; hif so, you’re velcome to take the gun and try.”

“I’ve no objection,” replied Lewis, smiling at the very evident contempt in which, as a “Lunnuner,” his companion held him; “I’ll try a shot or two, if you like.”

“Here you are, then, sir,” was the reply, as the keeper handed him the gun; “the right barrel’s shotted for pheasands, and the left for snipes; so look hout, and if yer don’t bag Villiam, or Master Valter here, hit’ll be a mercy, I expects.”

If the unfortunate Millar hoped to console himself for his own failure by witnessing a similar _mis_hap on the part of the young tutor, he was once more doomed to be disappointed; for scarcely had Lewis taken possession of the gun when a splendid cock-pheasant rose within distance, though farther off than either of the shots the keeper had just missed, and, ere its gaudy plumage had well caught the rays of the sun above the tops of the young plantation, fell to the ground, quivering in the agonies of death. As the smoke from the discharge cleared away, a snipe, scared alike by the report of the gun and the approach of the beater, sprang from a thick clump of alder bushes and darted away, uttering its peculiar cry.

“No use--hit’s clean out o’ shot,” exclaimed Millar, as Lewis, swift as thought, again raised the gun to his shoulder. Slightly piqued by the keeper’s contemptuous manner, he determined not to throw away a chance of vindicating his skill as a marksman, and though he felt by no means sure of success, on the “nothing venture nothing have” principle, the instant he got a clear sight of the bird he blazed away at it. Great then was his delight to perceive the snipe suddenly tower upwards and then drop to the ground, as if struck by lightning.

“Vel, if that hain’t a clever shot!” ejaculated Millar, surprised into admiration in spite of himself; “bless’d if yer ’aven’t tuk the shine hout of me properly. I thort yer vos a reg’lar green un, but I’m free to confess I couldn’t ’ave killed that ere bird at that distance ther best o’ times.”

“Nor have I, it seems,” exclaimed Lewis, as the snipe, which was only wounded, rose, flew a short distance, and dropped again.

“Hit’s dead this time. I’ll bet a quart,” observed Millar; “hit’ll never git hup no more, hif ve can honly find it.”

“I think I can,” said Lewis; “I marked the exact spot where it fell. Walter, do you stay with Millar till I come back. I should not like to lose it.”

So saying, Lewis, completely carried away by the excitement of the sport, returned the gun to its owner, and dashing the branches aside, bounded forward, and was soon hidden amongst the trees, as he forced his way through the dense underwood towards the spot where he trusted to find the snipe. With some difficulty, and after much energetic scrambling, Lewis reached the place where he had seen the bird fall, but even then it was no such easy matter to find it, nor was it till he had nearly decided that he must relinquish the search that he discovered his victim caught in a forked branch, and perfectly dead. Having secured his prize, the next object was to rejoin his companions, and this accordingly he endeavoured to accomplish without delay; but since the days of pious Æneas the task of retracing our steps, the revocare gradus, has been a work of difficulty, more especially if we have begun by taking a few in a wrong direction, and Lewis’s case proved no exception to the rule. After one or two wrong turns he became completely bewildered, and feeling sure that he should never discover his right course while surrounded by the thick underwood, he struck into the first path which presented itself, and following its windings, found himself, almost immediately, close to the hedge which separated that side of the plantation from a grass-field beyond. As he made his way towards a gap in this hedge his attention was attracted by the sound of voices, and on approaching the spot he perceived two persons engaged in earnest conversation.

They were a man and a girl, the former, who wore the dress of a gentleman, having his arm round his companion’s waist. The interview seemed, however, about to terminate, for as Lewis paused, uncertain whether or not to make himself known to the lovers (for such he conjectured them to be), the gentleman stooped, imprinted a kiss on the damsel’s brow, then saying, “Remember, you have promised!” loosed the bridle of a horse which was fastened to the branch of a tree, sprang into the saddle, and rode hastily away. Not, however, before Lewis had recognised the features of Lord Bellefield.

Surprise at this discovery was the first feeling of which Lewis was conscious, then a sudden desire seized him to ascertain who the girl could be, and without waiting to reflect on what further course it might be advisable for him to pursue, he crossed the gap, sprang over the ditch beyond, and presented himself before her. With a violent start and a slight scream at this sudden apparition, the girl raised her head, disclosing to Lewis the intelligent face and earnest eyes of the young female who had accosted him on the previous evening immediately after the affair of the glove had taken place. Lewis was the first to speak.

“I have startled you, I fear,” he began. “I quitted my companions to go in search of a snipe I had just shot, and becoming bewildered in the wood, have contrived to miss them. Hearing voices in this direction, I jumped over the hedge, hoping I should find some one who could tell me how to retrace my steps.”

“Were you in the hazel walk when you left your party, sir?” inquired the girl in a voice which faltered from various conflicting emotions.

Lewis answered in the affirmative, and she continued--

“Then, if you go straight on till you come to the corner of the field you will see a gate on your left hand; get over that and follow the road which leads into the wood, and it will bring you to your friends.”

Lewis thanked her, and then stood a moment, irresolute whether or not to allude to the parting he had just witnessed. It was no affair of his, and yet could he answer it to his conscience not to warn her against the designs which, he did not doubt, Lord Bellefield entertained against her?

“Do not think me interfering without reason,” he observed, “but I was an involuntary witness to your parting with that gentleman, and I wish to ask you if you are acquainted with his name and position?”

The girl cast down her eyes, and after a pause, murmured that she knew he was very rich.

“And his name?” urged Lewis.

“Mr. Leicester, brother to the young Lord,” she believed.

“He has told you that, has he?” returned Lewis sternly; “and did it not occur to you to inquire of the servants last night whether your wealthy admirer had revealed to you his real name?”

“No; she had never doubted that he had done so,” making game of a fellow.

“And perhaps were unwilling to call attention to your connection with him by making the inquiry?” resumed Lewis.

A bright blush proved that he had hit upon the truth; but the probing nature of his questions roused the girl’s spirit, and raising her eyes, she looked him full in the face as she in her turn inquired--“And pray, sir, who are you? and what right have you to question me in this way?”

“My name is Lewis Arundel; I reside at Broadhurst, as tutor to Sir Walter Desborough,” was the reply; “and my right to ask you these questions is the right every man possesses to do his best to counteract the designs of a heartless libertine; for such I take your friend to be, and now I will give you my reasons for thinking him so. In the first place, he has not told you his true name: he is not Lord Bellefield’s brother, as he pretends, but Lord Bellefield himself; and in the second place, at the very moment when he is making professions of affection here to you, he is engaged to be married to his cousin, the daughter of General Grant.”

“It is not true, you hate him,” exclaimed the girl with flashing eyes. “You quarrelled with him last night, and now you seek to revenge yourself by sowing dissension between him and me, but you shall not succeed. I see through your meanness, and despise you for it.”

“Girl, you are infatuated,” returned Lewis angrily, “and must reap the fruits of your obstinate folly. I spoke only for your good, and told you the simple truth. If you choose to disbelieve me, the sin will lie at your door, and not mine.”

As he spoke he turned and left her. By the time he reached the gate into the wood his conscience began to reproach him for having been too hasty. He looked back to see if the girl were still there; she had not moved from the spot where he had quitted her, but stood motionless, apparently buried in the deepest thought. Suddenly observing that his eyes were directed towards her, she started, and drawing her shawl closer around her, hurried away in an opposite direction. Lewis watched her retreating figure till it became no longer visible; then getting over the gate, he walked leisurely along the turfed road to rejoin his companions. He was no coward, far from it; but had he known that at that moment a gun-barrel covered him, levelled by the stalwart arm and keen eye of one before whose unerring aim by the broad light of day, or beneath the cold rays of the moon, hare, pheasant, or partridge fell like leaves in autumn--one who, hiding from the gaze of men, had witnessed his parting from the girl not five minutes since,--had he known the deep interest felt for her by this person, and how, his suspicions being aroused, he had watched day after day to discover the features of her clandestine suitor, but had never succeeded, till, creeping through the bushes, he had accidentally come up at the moment when Lewis, having spoken eagerly to her, turned and left the spot,--had he known the struggle between the good and evil principle in that man’s heart, a struggle on the result of which depended life or death,--had he known all this, Lewis Arundel, though a brave man, would scarcely have paced that greenwood alley with a pulse so calm, a brow so unruffled and serene.

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XXIX. DE GRANDEVILLE MEETS HIS MATCH

UNPLEASANT as was the situation in which Lewis was left at the end of the last chapter, we can scarcely imagine that any of our readers, however they may be accustomed to look on the “night side of nature,” can have coolly made up their minds to the worst, and settled to their own dissatisfaction that he fell a victim to the poacher’s gun. We say we cannot imagine such a possibility; not because we have any very deep reliance on the tender-heartedness of all our fellow-creatures, seeing that this tale may fall into the hands of a poor-law guardian or a political economist; that a butcher may read it fresh from the shambles, or a barrister after defending some confessed murderer. But we feel certain, butcher or barrister, law-giver or guardian must alike perceive that, as we are writing the life and adventures of Lewis Arundel, we cannot commit manslaughter without adding thereunto suicide; or, to speak plainly, we cannot kill Lewis without docking our own tale; therefore, the utmost extent for which our most truculent reader can possibly hope must be a severe gun-shot wound, entailing a lingering illness and a shattered constitution. But even these pleasant and reasonable expectations are doomed to meet with disappointment, the fact being that almost at the moment in which “long Hardy” (for he it was) levelled his gun at Lewis’s retreating figure, his quick ear had caught a sound betokening the advance of some person through the bushes in his immediate vicinity; and neither wishing to encounter any of the gamekeeper’s satellites, nor considering the deed he had meditated exactly calculated to be performed before any, even the most select audience, the poacher slowly recovered his gun and proceeded to convey himself away, after a singular snake-like fashion of his own, reserving to himself the right of shooting his supposed enemy at some more convenient season. In the meantime Lewis walked quietly on, unconscious of the danger he had escaped, until a turn in the road brought him in sight of his companions. During the course of their homeward walk Lewis questioned the gamekeeper as to his intentions concerning the poachers to whose proceedings he had that morning gained a clue.

“Veil, yer see, Mr. Arundel,” returned Millar, in whose estimation Lewis had risen fifty per cent, since his clever shot at the snipe, “yer see, it ain’t ther fust time as this chap Hardy has give us a good deal o’ trouble: we catched him a poarchin’ about three year ago, and he wor in ---------- gaol for six months at a stretch. Veil, ven he cum out, he tuk to bad courses altogether--jined ther chartists, them chaps as preaches equalerty, ’cos, being at the wery bottom of ther ladder therselves, equalerty would pull them hup and their betters down; vunce let ’em get to ther middle round, and they’d soon give up equalerty--hit would be the ‘haristogracy of talent,’ or ther ‘shu-premacy of physic-all force’ (vich means, adwisability of pitching into somebody else) vith ’em then. I hates such cant as I hates varmint, so I do.”

Having delivered himself of this opinion with much emphasis, the keeper proceeded to relieve his mind by flogging an inoffensive dog for an imaginary offence ere he continued--

“Veil, arter he jined the chartists he vent to Lunnun as a Delicate, as they calls ’em; and has they found him in wittles and drink, lodgin’ and hother parquisites, in course he worn’t in no hurry to cum back; howsomdever, I suppose at last they diskivered what I could a told ’em at furst--that he wasn’t worth his keep; and so they packed him off home agen. I ’spected vhen I heard he vas arrived vot he’d be hup to. He calls hisself a blacksmith, but he drives more shots into ’ares and pheasands than nails into ’orses’ ’oofs, you may depend.”

“And how do you propose to put a stop to his depredations?” inquired Lewis.

“Vy, I should like to catch him in the wery act--nab him vith the game upon him,” returned the keeper meditatively; “then ve could get him another six months. But he’s precious sly, and uncommon swift of foot too, though he ain’t fur hoff my age, vich shall never see five-and-forty no more.”

“I wish, Millar,” said Lewis, after a moment’s consideration, “I wish that whenever you receive information which you think likely to lead to this man’s capture, you’d send me word; there’s nothing I should like better than to lend you a hand in taking him. I might be useful to you, for I am considered a fast runner.”

“And suppose it comes to blows? Them poarching chaps is rough customers to handle sometimes,” rejoined Millar, with a cunning twinkle in his eye, as if he expected this information would alter his companion’s intentions.

“So much the more exciting,” returned Lewis eagerly; “an affray with poachers would be a real treat after such a life of inaction as I’ve been leading lately.”

As he spoke--throwing off for a moment the cold reserve which had now become habitual to him--his eyes flashed, he drew himself up to his full height, and flung back his graceful head with an air of proud defiance. The gamekeeper regarded him fixedly, and mentally compared him with, not the fighting gladiator, for Millar’s unclassical education had never rendered him acquainted with that illustrious statue, but he had once been present at a prize-fight, in which a tall, athletic youth, rejoicing in the ornithological sobriquet of “the spicy Dabchick,” proved victor, and to that dabchick did he assimilate Lewis. At length his thoughts found vent in the following ejaculation--

“Veil, Mr. Arundel, hif ther’s many more like you hup there, that blessed Lunnun can’t be as bad a place as I thought it.”

Lewis smiled. Perhaps (for, after all, he was human and under twenty-one) the evident admiration which had replaced the no less evident contempt with which the sturdy gamekeeper had regarded him earlier in their acquaintance was not without its charm; at all events, when, after another hour’s shooting, Millar went home to dinner, and Lewis and Walter returned to Broadhurst, the young tutor diminished his income to the extent of half-a-crown, and the keeper, as he pocketed the “tip,” renewed his assurance that he would send Mr. Arundel timely notice “vhenever there vas a chance of being down upon that poarching willain, Hardy.”

Charley Leicester, as he did not start for Constantinople, found himself at liberty to escort Laura Peyton and his cousin Annie to view the ruins of Monkton Priory, which in themselves were quite worth the trouble of a ride; had they, however, been even a less interesting combination of bricks and mortar than the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square (supposing such a thing possible), it would not have signified to the party who then visited them. Never were three individuals less inclined to be critical, or more thoroughly determined to be pleased with everything. The old grey ruins, frowning beneath the clear wintry sky, appeared the colour of strawberry ice to them; every object reflected the rose-tint of their happiness. As for Charley, a change had come o’er him. The indolent, fastidious man of fashion, whose spotless gloves and irreproachable boots were the envy and admiration of Bond Street, had disappeared, and in his place arose an honest, genuine, light-hearted, agreeable, sensible being, to whom nothing seemed to come amiss, and who appeared endowed with a preternatural power of diffusing his own superabundant happiness amongst all who came in contact with him. The girth of his saddle broke; they had no groom with them. “Grooms were such a bore, he would be groom,” Charley had said; consequently there were no means at hand by which the injury could be repaired.

“Well, never mind; he would get some string at the first cottage and tie it up; he was rather glad it had happened, riding without a girth was great fun.”

But Laura’s horse stumbled, and Charley, forgetting his precarious seat, dashed in the spurs, intending to spring forward to her assistance. The horse did spring forward, but the saddle turned round. Mr. Leicester was, however, fated that day to fall on his legs, literally as well as metaphorically, and beyond being splashed up to his knees by alighting on a spot where the sun had thawed the ice into a puddle, he sustained no further injury. Laura was frightened; he must not mount again till he had been able to get the girth mended.

“Very well,” returned Charley; “he would lead the horse then; it was pleasanter to walk than to ride such a cold day as that; he liked it particularly.”

So he marched sturdily through mud and mire, leading his own horse and resting his hand on the mane of the animal ridden by Laura, for the space of some five miles, laughing and talking all the time so agreeably that the young lady came to the conclusion that she had never properly appreciated his powers of conversation till that moment. Altogether, despite the broken girth and the mud and the cold, to say nothing of a slight snowstorm which overtook them ere they reached home, each member of that little party felt mentally convinced that they had never before enjoyed a ride so much in all their lives.

“Arundel, where are you?” exclaimed Leicester, putting his head into the study as he passed the door on his way to his apartment. “Can you spare me five minutes’ conversation?” he continued, as Lewis, closing a book, rose to receive him.

“Certainly,” was the reply; “pray come in.”

“I’ve been wishing to see you all day,” resumed Leicester, carefully shutting the door and glancing round the room. “Where is your charge?”

“He is with the General,” was the reply. “He likes to have him for half-an-hour every day before he goes to dress; he talks to him, and tries to instil into his mind correct notions regarding things in general, and his own future social position in particular. Walter sits still and listens, but I’m afraid he does not understand much about it.”

“No great loss either, I’ve a notion,” returned Charley irreverently. He paused, whistled a few bars of “Son Geloso,” entangled his spur in the hearthrug, extricated it with much difficulty, then turning abruptly to Lewis, he exclaimed, “Arundel, I’m no hand at making fine speeches, but recollect if ever you want a friend I owe you more than I can possibly repay you. Not that this is such a very uncommon relation for me to stand in towards people,” he added with a smile.

“Nay,” returned Lewis, “you are reversing our positions: I am your debtor for my introduction to this family, and for an amount of kindness and consideration which you must be placed, like myself, in a dependent situation fully to appreciate. But,” he added, glancing at his friend’s happy face, “I hope you have some good new’s to tell me?”

“You are right in your conjecture,” replied Leicester, “but it is mainly owing to your straightforward and sensible advice that I have gained the prize I strove for. I was within an ace of losing it, though;” and he then gave a hasty outline of his day’s adventures, with which the reader has been already made acquainted.

Lewis congratulated him warmly on his good fortune. “You see I was right when I told you Miss Peyton was not so indifferent to you as you imagined,” he said, “and that she liked you, not because you were a man of fashion, the admired of all admirers, but because she had sufficient penetration to discover that you were something more--that you possessed higher and better qualities, and were not----”

“Go on, my dear Arundel,” urged Leicester as Lewis paused, “go on. I like plain speaking when it comes from a friendly mouth.”

“The mere butterfly you strove to appear, I was going to say,” resumed Lewis; “but you will think me strangely impertinent.”

“Not at all,” returned Leicester, “it’s the truth; I can see it plainly now. I’ve taken as much trouble to make myself appear a fool as other men do to gain a reputation for wisdom. Well, it’s never too late to mend. I shall turn over a new leaf from this time forth, give up dress, restrict myself to one cigar a day, moderate my affection for pale ale, invest capital in worsted gloves and a cotton umbrella, and become a regular business character.” He paused, and drawing a chair to the fire, seated himself, and stretching out his legs, subjected his boots, which bore unmistakable traces of his pedestrian episode, to the influence of the blazing wood. Having thus made himself comfortable, he fell into a fit of musing which lasted till, after gazing vacantly at his extended legs for some moments, his features suddenly assumed an eager expression, and he exclaimed, “Confound those blockheads, Schneider & Shears: I suppose if I’ve told them once I’ve told them fifty times to give more room in the leg for riding-trousers. A horse’s back is a wide thing, and of course when you stretch your legs across it you require the trousers to fit sufficiently loosely to accommodate themselves to the position; they need not set like a couple of hop sacks either; the thing’s simple enough. I know if I’d a pair of scissors I could cut them out myself.”

Glancing at Lewis as he spoke, Leicester perceived that he was struggling, not over successfully, to preserve his gravity, and the absurdity of the thing striking him for the first time, he indulged in a hearty laugh at his own expense ere he added, “Heigh-ho! it’s not so easy to get rid of old habits as one imagines. I see it will take me longer to unpuppyise myself than I was aware of. Seriously, however, I don’t mean to continue a mere idler, living on my wife’s fortune. My father has interest with Government, and I shall ask him to push it and obtain for me some creditable appointment or other. He will have no difficulty; the Hon. Charles Leicester, husband to the rich Miss Peyton, will possess much stronger claims upon his country than Charley Leicester the portionless younger son. In this age of humbug it is easy enough to get a thing if you don’t care whether you have it or not; but if you chance to be some poor wretch, to whom the obtaining it is life or death, ten to one but you are done out of it. Poverty is the only unpardonable sin in these days; the worship of the golden calf is a species of idolatry to which Christians are prone as well as Jews. It’s rare to find a sceptic as to that religion, even amongst the most inveterate unbelievers.”

Lewis, to whom Leicester in his self-engrossment had not perceived that his remarks would apply, bit his lip and coloured; then wishing to save his companion the mortification of discovering that he had accidentally wounded his feelings, he hastened to change the conversation by observing--

“How will the magnanimous Marmaduke bear the news of your success?”

“Oh! to be sure, I was going to tell you about him when something put it out of my head,” returned Leicester. “The great De Grandeville was greater than ever on the subject--it was such fun. He came up to me after breakfast this morning, and catching hold of my button, began: ‘Ar--Mr. Leicester--excuse--ar--won’t detain you five minutes, but--ar--you see in regard to--ar--the matter we conversed on yesterday, when you were good enough to give me the benefit of your opinion concerning a certain proposed alliance, if I may call your attention once more to the subject; you will perceive that--ar--the affair has assumed a very different aspect--ar--indeed so completely different that I feel confident you will agree with me in considering the--ar--in fact the arrangement no longer desirable.’

“I told him I was quite prepared to think as he did on this point, and begged to know in what the mysterious impediment consisted. ‘Well, sir--ar--I don’t say it--ar--by way of a boast--ar--such things are quite out of my line, but you must have yourself perceived the very marked encouragement which my advances met with yesterday evening--ar--in fact the game was--ar--in my own hands!’ I succeeded in repressing a strong desire to kick him, and he continued with bland dignity: ‘Ar--finding that this was the case, I felt that, as a man of honour, I was bound--ar--to make up my mind definitely as to my future course, and had--ar--all but resolved to acquaint the young lady with the brilliant, that is--ar--in many points unexceptionable position which awaited her, when fortunately--I might say providentially--it occurred to me to open a letter I had that evening received from my friend in the Herald’s College. Imagine my horror to learn that her actual father, the immediately previous Peyton himself, had--ar--horresco referais, as Pliny has it-- ’pon my word it quite upset me!’

“‘This dreadful Papa, had he murdered somebody?’ inquired I.

“‘No, sir,’ was the answer; ‘Lord Ferrers and other men with unexceptionable pedigrees have committed that crime. There is nothing necessarily vulgar about murder; the case was far worse. This intolerable proximate ancestor, who has not rested in his dishonoured grave above half-a-dozen years, was not only guilty of belonging to an intensely respectable firm in Liverpool, but had actually been insane enough to allow his name to be entered as sleeping partner in a large retail house on Ludgate Hill! Fancy a De Grandeville marrying the daughter of ‘Plumpstern & Peyton’, dealers in cotton goods!”--’pon my word, sir, it took away my breath to think of the narrow escape I’d had!’ ‘And the young lady?’ inquired I.

“‘Ar--of course it will be--ar--disappointment, as I’ve no doubt she considered--ar--that she’d made her book cleverly and stood to win, as the betting men say; but--ar--she soon had tact enough to perceive that the grapes were sour--ar--took that tone immediately,--clever girl, sir, very--ar--I shouldn’t wonder if she were to give out that she had discouraged my attentions--ar--in fact, virtually refused me--ar--I shall not contradict her, I owe her that--ar--with the exception of yourself, Mr. Leicester, her secret will be perfectly safe in my keeping.’ It was now my turn; so drawing myself up as stiffly as old Grant himself, I said, ‘Confidence begets confidence, Mr. De Grandeville; so in return for your candour allow me to inform you that Miss Peyton, doubtless driven to despair by your desertion, has done me the honour to accept me as your substitute! One word more,’ I continued, as, completely taken aback, he flushed crimson and began stammering out apologetical ejaculations, ‘I have listened in silence to your account of the transaction. I confess I have my own opinion about the matter, but should you adhere to your intention of preserving a strict secrecy in regard to the affair, I shall do so likewise; if not, I may feel called on to publish a somewhat different version of these love passages--one which will scarcely prove so agreeable to your self-esteem; unless, indeed,’ I added, seeing that he was about to bluster, ‘you prefer settling the business in a shorter way; in which case I shall be quite at your service.’ So saying I raised my hat, bowed, and turning on my heel, left him to his meditations.”

“Which must have been of a singularly unsatisfactory nature, I should imagine,” returned Lewis, laughing. “But there is no chance of your fighting, I hope?”

“Not the slightest, I expect,” replied Leicester. “De Grandeville, to do him justice, is no coward, but he will have sense enough to see that he can gain no éclât by giving the affair publicity, and will remain quiet for his own sake. Luckily, I’m not of a quarrelsome temperament, or I should have horse-whipped him, or at least tried at it, when he was talking about Laura.”

“It was a temptation which in your place I could not have resisted,” rejoined Lewis.

“Ah, it’s easy to be magnanimous when one is happy,” returned Leicester; “besides, I really was rather sorry for the poor devil, for, as I dare say you’ve guessed long ago, it is clear Laura refused him last night--in fact she as good as told me so.”

“Perhaps it may benefit him,” remarked Lewis. “His vanity was too plethoric, and a little judicious lowering may conduce to the general health of his moral system.”

“I’m afraid it’s a case of too long standing,” replied Leicester. “Such a lamentable instance of egotism on the brain is not so easily to be cured; however, he’s had a pretty strong dose this time, I must confess. And now, seeing that my boots have been wet through for the last three hours, the sooner I get rid of them the better.” So saying, Charley Leicester took himself off, preparatory to performing the same operation on his perfidious boots.

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XXX. THE GENERAL TAKES THE FIELD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“J. Millar.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lewis replied in the affirmative, and his tormentor continued--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Have you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And it was----?” asked Lewis eagerly.

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

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

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

Seeing that Lewis continued silent, the keeper resumed--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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