NO WIND SO CUTTING AS THAT WHICH SETS IN THE QUARTER FROM WHICH THE
SUN RISES.
The town to which I lend the disguising name of Ouzelford, which, in
years bygone, was represented by Guy Darrell, and which, in years to
come, may preserve in its municipal hall his effigies in canvas or stone,
is one of the handsomest in England. As you approach its suburbs from
the London Road, it rises clear and wide upon your eye, crowning the
elevated table-land upon which it is built;--a noble range of prospect on
either side, rich with hedgerows not yet sacrificed to the stern demands
of modern agriculture--venerable woodlands, and the green pastures round
many a rural thane's frank, hospitable hall;--no one Great House
banishing from leagues of landscape the abodes of knight and squire, nor
menacing, with "the legitimate influence of property," the votes of
rebellious burghers. Everywhere, like finger-posts to heaven, you may
perceive the church-towers of rural hamlets embosomed in pleasant
valleys, or climbing up gentle slopes. At the horizon, the blue
fantastic outline of girdling hills mingles with the clouds. A famous
old cathedral, neighboured by the romantic ivy-grown walls of a ruined
castle, soars up from the centre of the town, and dominates the whole
survey--calm, as with conscious power. Nearing the town, the villas of
merchants and traders, released perhaps from business, skirt the road,
with trim gardens and shaven lawns. Now the small river, or rather
rivulet, of Ouzel, from which the town takes its name, steals out from
deep banks covered with brushwood or aged trees, and widening into brief
importance, glides under the arches of an ancient bridge; runs on, clear
and shallow, to refresh low fertile dairy-meadows, dotted with kine; and
finally quits the view, as brake and copse close round its narrowing,
winding way; and that which, under the city bridge, was an imposing
noiseless stream, becomes, amidst rustic solitudes, an insignificant
babbling brook.
From one of the largest villas in these charming suburbs came forth a
gentleman, middle-aged, and of a very mild and prepossessing countenance.
A young lady without a bonnet, but a kerchief thrown over her sleek dark
hair, accompanied him to the garden-gate, twining both hands
affectionately round his arm, and entreating him not to stand in thorough
draughts and catch cold, nor to step into puddles and wet his feet, and
to be sure to be back before dark, as there were such shocking accounts
in the newspapers of persons robbed and garotted even in the most
populous highways; and, above all, not to listen to the beggars in the
street, and allow himself to be taken in; and before finally releasing
him at the gate, she buttoned his greatcoat up to his chin, thrust two
pellets of cotton into his ears, and gave him a parting kiss. Then she
watched him tenderly for a minute or so as he strode on with the step of
a man who needed not all those fostering admonitions and coddling cares.
As soon as he was out of sight of the lady and the windows of the villa,
the gentleman cautiously unbuttoned his greatcoat, and removed the cotton
from his ears. "She takes much after her mother, does Anna Maria,"
muttered the gentleman; "and I am very glad she is so well married."
He had not advanced many paces when, from a branchroad to the right that
led to the railway station, another gentleman, much younger, and whose
dress unequivocally bespoke him a minister of our Church, came suddenly
upon him. Each with surprise recognised the other.
"What!--Mr. George Morley!"
"Mr. Hartopp!--How are you, my dear sir?--What brings you so far from
home?"
"I am on a visit to my daughter, Anna Maria. She has not been long
married--to young Jessop. Old Jessop is one of the principal merchants
at Ouzelford--very respectable worthy family. The young couple are
happily settled in a remarkably snug villa--that is it with the portico,
not a hundred yards behind us, to the right. Very handsome town,
Ouzelford; you are bound to it, of course?--we can walk together. I am
going to look at the papers in the City Rooms--very fine rooms they are.
But you are straight from London, perhaps, and have seen the day's
journals? Any report of the meeting in aid of the Ragged Schools?"
"Not that I know of. I have not come from London this morning, nor seen
the papers."
"Oh!--there's a strange-looking fellow following us; but perhaps he is
your servant?"
"Not so, but my travelling companion--indeed my guide. In fact, I come
to Ouzelford in the faint hope of discovering there a poor old friend of
mine, of whom I have long been in search."
"Perhaps the Jessops can help you; they know everybody at Ouzelford. But
now I meet you thus by surprise, Mr. George, I should very much like to
ask your advice on a matter which has been much on my mind the last
twenty-four hours, and which concerns a person I contrived to discover at
Ouzelford, though I certainly was not in search of him--a person about
whom you and I had a conversation a few years ago, when you were staying
with your worthy father."
"Eh?" said George, quickly; "whom do you speak of?" "That singular
vagabond who took me in, you remember--called himself Chapman--real name
William Losely, a returned convict. You would have it that he was
innocent, though the man himself had pleaded guilty on his trial."
"His whole character belied his lips then. Oh, Mr. Hartopp, that man
commit the crime imputed to him!--a planned, deliberate robbery--an
ungrateful, infamous breach of trust! That man--that! he who rejects the
money he does not earn, even when pressed on him by anxious imploring
friends---he who has now gone voluntarily forth, aged and lonely, to
wring his bread from the humblest calling rather than incur the risk of
injuring the child with whose existence he had charged himself!--the dark
midnight thief! Believe him not, though his voice may say it. To
screen, perhaps, some other man, he is telling you a noble lie. But what
of him? Have you really seen him, and at Ouzelford?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Yesterday. I was in the City Reading-Room, looking out of the window.
I saw a great white dog in the street below; I knew the dog at once, sir,
though he is disguised by restoration to his natural coat, and his hair
is as long as a Peruvian lama's. "Tis Sir Isaac,' said I to myself; and
behind Sir Isaac I saw Chapman, so to call him, carrying a basket with
pedlar's wares, and, to my surprise, Old Jessop, who is a formal man,
with a great deal of reserve and dignity, pompous indeed (but don't let
that go further), talking to Chapman quite affably, and actually buying
something out of the basket. Presently Chapman went away, and was soon
lost to sight. Jessop comes into the Reading-Room. 'I saw you,' said I,
'talking to an old fellow with a French dog.' 'Such a good old fellow,'
said Jessop; 'has a way about him that gets into your very heart while he
is talking. I should like to make you acquainted with him.' 'Thank you
for nothing,' said I; 'I should be-taken in.' 'Never fear,' says Jessop,
'he would not take in a fly--the simplest creature.' I own I chuckled at
that, Mr. George. 'And does he live here,' said I, 'or is he merely a
wandering pedlar?' Then Jessop told me that he had seen him for the
first time two or three weeks ago, and accosted him rudely, looking on
him as a mere tramp; but Chapman answered so well, and showed so many
pretty things in his basket, that Jessop soon found himself buying a pair
of habit-cuffs for Anna Maria, and in the course of talk it came out, I
suppose by a sign, that Chapman was a Freemason, and Jessop is an
enthusiast in that sort of nonsense, master of a lodge or something, and
that was a new attraction. In short, Jessop took a great fancy to him--
patronised him, promised him protection, and actually recommended him to
a lodging in the cottage of all old widow who lives in the outskirts of
the town, and had once been a nurse in the Jessop family. And what do
you think Jessop had just bought of this simple creature'! A pair of
worsted inittens as a present for me, and what is more, I have got them
on this moment-look! neat, I think, and monstrous warm. Now, I have
hitherto kept my own counsel. I have not said to Jessop, 'Beware--that
is the man who took me in.' But this concealment is a little on my
conscience. On the one hand, it seems very cruel, even if the man did
once commit a crime, in spite of your charitable convictions to the
contrary, that I should be blabbing out his disgrace, and destroying
perhaps his livelihood. On the other hand, if he should still be really
a rogue, a robber, perhaps dangerous, ought I--ought I--in short--you are
a clergyman and a fine scholar, sir-what ought I to do?"
"My dear Mr. Hartopp, do not vex yourself with this very honourable
dilemma of conscience. Let me only find my poor old friend, my
benefactor I may call him, and I hope to persuade him, if not to return
to the home that waits him, at least to be my guest, or put himself under
my care. Do you know the name of the widow with whom he lodges?"
"Yes--Halse; and I know the town well enough to conduct you, if not to
the house itself, still to its immediate neighbourhood. Pray allow me to
accompany you; I should like it very much--for, though you may not think
it, from the light way I have been talking of Chapman, I never was so
interested in any man, never so charmed by any man; and it has often
haunted me at night, thinking that I behaved too harshly to him, and that
he was about on the wide world, an outcast, deprived of his little girl,
whom he had trusted to me. And I should have run after him yesterday, or
called on him this morning, and said, 'Let me serve you,' if it had not
been for the severity with which he and his son were spoken of, and I
myself rebuked for mentioning their very names, by a man whose opinion I,
and indeed all the country, must hold in the highest respect--a man of
the finest honour, the weightiest character--I mean Guy Darrell, the
great Darrell."
George Morley sighed. "I believe Darrell knows nothing of the elder
Losely, and is prejudiced against him by the misdeeds of the younger, to
whose care you (and I cannot blame you, for I also was instrumental to
the same transfer which might have proved calamitously fatal) surrendered
the poor motherless girl."
"She is not with her grandfather now'! She lives still, I hope! She was
very delicate."
"She lives--she is safe. Ha--take care!"
These last words were spoken as a horseman, riding fast along the road
towards the bridge that was now close at hand, came, without warning or
heed, so close upon our two pedestrians, that George Morley had but just
time to pluck Hartopp aside from the horse's hoofs.
"An impudent, careless, ruffianly fellow, indeed!" said the mild
Hartopp, indignantly, as he brushed from his sleeve the splash of dirt
which the horseman bequeathed to it. "He must be drunk!"
The rider, gaining the bridge, was there detained at the toll-bar by some
carts and waggons, and the two gentlemen passed him on the bridge,
looking with some attention at his gloomy, unobservant countenance, and
the powerful fraune, in which, despite coarse garments and the change
wrought by years of intemperate excess, was still visible the trace of
that felicitous symmetry once so admirably combining herculean strength
with elastic elegance. Entering the town, the rider turned into the yard
of the near est inn. George Morley and Hartopp, followed at a little
distance by Morley's travelling companion, Merle, passed on towards the
other extremity of the town, and, after one or two inquiries for "Widow
Halse, Prospect Row," they came to a few detached cottages, very prettily
situated on a gentle hill, commanding in front the roofs of the city and
the gleaming windows of the great cathedral, with somewhat large gardens
in the rear. Mrs. Halse's dwelling was at the extreme end of this Row.
The house, however, was shut up; and a woman, who was standing at the
door of the neighbouring cottage, plaiting straw, informed the visitors
that Mrs. Halse was gone out "charing" for the day, and that her lodger,
who had his own key, seldom returned before dark, but that at that hour
he was pretty sure to be found in the Cornmarket or the streets in its
vicinity, and offered to send her little boy to discover and "fetch" him.
George consulted apart with Merle, and decided on despatching the
cobbler, with the boy for his guide, in quest of the pedlar, Merle being
of course instructed not to let out by whom he was accompanied, lest
Waife, in his obstinacy, should rather abscond than encounter the friends
from whom he had fled. Merle, and a curly-headed urchin, who seemed
delighted at the idea of hunting up Sir Isaac and Sir Isaac's master, set
forth, and! were soon out of sight. Hartopp and George opened the little
garden-gate, and strolled into the garden at the back of the cottage, to
seat themselves patiently on a bench beneath an old appletree. Here they
waited and conversed some minutes, till George observed that one of the
casements on that side of the cottage was left open, and, involuntarily
rising, he looked in; surveying with interest the room, which he felt
sure, at the first glance, must be that occupied by his self-exiled
friend; a neat pleasant little room-a bullfinch in a wicker cage on a
ledge within the casement-a flower-pot beside it. Doubtless the window,
which faced the southern sun, had been left open by the kind old man in
order to cheer the bird and to gladden the plant. Waife's well-known
pipe, and a tobacco-pouch worked for him by Sophys fairy fingers, lay on
a table near the fireplace, between casement and door; and George saw
with emotion the Bible which he himself had given to the wanderer lying
also on the table, with the magnifying-glass which Waife had of late been
obliged to employ in reading. Waife's habitual neatness was visible in
the aspect of the room. To George it was evident that the very chairs
had been arranged by his hand; that his hand had courteously given that
fresh coat of varnish to the wretched portrait of a man in blue coat and
buff waistcoat, representing, no doubt, the lamented spouse of the
hospitable widow. George beckoned to Hartopp to come also and look
within; and as the worthy trader peeped over his shoulder, the clergyman
said, whisperingly, "Is there not something about a man's home which
attests his character?--No 'pleading guilty' here."
Hartopp was about to answer, when they heard the key turn sharply in the
outer door, and had scarcely time to draw somewhat back from the casement
when Waife came hurriedly into the room, followed, not by Merle, but by
the tall rough-looking horseman whom they had encountered on the road.
"Thank Heaven," cried Waife, sinking on a chair, "out of sight, out of
hearing now! Now you may speak; now I can listen! O wretched son of my
lost angel, whom I so vainly sought to save by the sacrifice of all my
claims to the respect of men, for what purpose do you seek me? I have
nothing left that you can take away! Is it the child again? See--see--
look round-search the house if you will--she is not here."
"Bear with me, if you can, sir," said Jasper, in tones that were almost
meek; "you, at least, can say nothing that I will not bear. But I am in
my right when I ask you to tell me, without equivocation or reserve, if
Sophy, though not actually within these walls, be near you, in this town
or its neighbourhood?--in short, still under your protection?"
"Not in this town--not near it--not under my protection; I swear."
"Do not swear, father; I have no belief in other men's oaths. I believe
your simple word. Now comes my second question--remember I am still
strictly in my right--where is she?--and under whose care?"
"I will not say. One reason why I have abandoned the very air she
breathes was, that you might not trace her in tracing me. But she is out
of your power again to kidnap and to sell. You might molest, harass,
shame her, by proclaiming yourself her father; but regain her into your
keeping, cast her to infamy and vice--never, never! She is now with no
powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no
helpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all,
save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper,
be human--she is so delicate of frame--she is so sensitive to reproach,
so tremulously alive to honour--I am not fit to be near her now. I have
been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent though I be, the felon's
brand is on me! But you, you too, who never loved her, who cannot miss
her, whose heart is not breaking at her loss as mine is now--you, you--to
rise up from the reeking pesthouse in which you have dwelt by choice, and
say, 'Descend from God's day with me'--Jasper, Jasper, you will not--you
cannot; it would be the malignity of a devil!"
"Father, hold!" cried Jasper, writhing and livid; "I owe to you more
than I do to that thing of pink and white. I know better than you the
trumpery of all those waxen dolls of whom dupes make idols. At each turn
of the street you may find them in basketfuls--blue-eyed or black-eyed,
just the same worthless frippery or senseless toys; but every man
dandling his own doll, whether he call it sweetheart or daughter, makes
the same puling boast that he has an angel of purity in his puppet of
wax. Nay, hear me! to that girl I owe nothing. You know what I owe to
you. You bid me not seek her, and say, 'I am your father.' Do you think
it does not misbecome me more, and can it wound you less, when I come to
you, and remind you that I am your son!"
"Jasper!" faltered the old man, turning his face aside, for the touch of
feeling towards himself, contrasting the cynicism with which Jasper spoke
of other ties not less sacred, took the father by surprise.
"And," continued Jasper, "remembering how you once loved me--with what
self-sacrifice you proved that love--it is with a bitter grudge against
that girl that I see her thus take that place in your affection which was
mine,--and you so indignant against me if I even presume to approach her.
What! I have the malignity of a devil because I would not quietly lie
down in yonder kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of those whom
your daintier thief disclains; spies into unguarded areas, or cowardly
skulkers by blind walls; while in the paltry girl, who you say is so well
provided for, I see the last and sole resource which may prevent you from
being still more degraded, still more afflicted by your son."
"What is it you want? Even if Sophy were in your power, Darrell would
not be more disposed to enrich or relieve you. He will never believe
your tale, nor deign even to look into its proofs."
"He might at last," said Jasper, evasively. "Surely with all that
wealth, no nearer heir than a remote kinsman in the son of a beggared
spendthrift by a linendraper's daughter--he should need a grandchild more
than you do; yet the proofs you speak of convinced yourself; you believe
my tale."
"Believe--yes, for that belief was everything in the world, to me! Ah,
remember how joyously, when my term of sentence expired, I hastened to
seek you at Paris, deceived by the rare letters with which you had
deigned to cheer me--fondly dreaming that, in expiating your crime, I
should have my reward in your redemption--should live to see you
honoured, honest, good--live to think your mother watched us from heaven
with a smile on both--and that we should both join her at last--you
purified by my atonement! Oh, and when I saw you so sunken, so hardened,
exulting in vice as in a glory--bravo and partner in a gambler's hell--
or, worse still, living on the plunder of miserable women, even the
almsman of that vile Desmarets--my son, my son, my lost Lizzy's son
blotted out of my world for ever!--then, then I should have died if you
had not said, boasting of the lie which had wrung the gold from Darrell,
'But the child lives still.' Believe you--oh, yes, yes--for in that
belief something was still left to me to cherish, to love, to live for!"
Here the old man's hurried voice died away in a passionate sob; and the
direful son, all reprobate though he was, slid from his chair, and bowed
himself at his father's knee, covering his face with fell hands that
trembled. "Sir, sir," he said, in broken reverential accents, "do not
let me see you weep. You cannot believe me, but I say solemnly that, if
there be in me a single remnant of affection for any human being, it is
for you. When I consented to leave you to bear the sentence which should
have fallen on myself, sure I am that I was less basely selfish than
absurdly vain. I fancied myself so born to good fortune!--so formed to
captivate some rich girl!--and that you would return to share wealth with
me; that the evening of your days would be happy; that you would be
repaid by my splendour for your own disgrace! And when I did marry, and
did ultimately get from the father-in-law who spurned me the capital of
his daughter's fortune, pitifully small though it was compared to my
expectations, my first idea was to send half of that sum to you. But--
but--I was living with those who thought nothing so silly as a good
intention--nothing so bad as a good action. That mocking she-devil,
Gabrielle, too! Then the witch's spell of that d----d green-table! Luck
against one-wait! double the capital ere you send the half. Luck with
one--how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of
doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I
did, I said, 'Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some
day or other!'--/Basta, basta/!--what idle twaddle or hollow brag all
this must seem to you!"
"No," said Wife, feebly, and his hand drooped till it touched Jasper's
bended shoulder, but at the touch recoiled as with an electric spasm.
"So, as you say, you found me at Paris. I told you where I had placed
the child, not conceiving that Arabella would part with her, or you
desire to hamper yourself with an encumbrance-nay, I took for granted
that you would find a home as before with some old friend or country
cousin:--but fancying that your occasional visits to her might comfort
you, since it seemed to please you so much when I said she lived. Thus
we parted,--you, it seems, only anxious to save that child from ever
falling into my hands, or those of Gabrielle Desmarets; I hastening to
forget all but the riotous life around me till--"
"Till you came back to England to rob from me the smile of the only face
that I knew would never wear contempt, and to tell the good man with whom
I thought she had so safe a shelter that I was a convicted robber, by
whose very love her infancy was sullied. O Jasper! Jasper!"
"I never said that--never thought of saying it. Arabella Crane did so,
with the reckless woman-will to gain her object. But I did take the
child from you. Why? Partly because I needed money so much that I would
have sold a hecatomb of children for half what I was offered to bind the
girl to a service that could not be very dreadful, since yourself had
first placed here there;--and partly because you had shrunk, it seems,
from appealing to old friends: you were living, like myself, from hand to
mouth; what could that child be to you but a drag and a bother?"
"And you will tell me, I suppose," said Waife, with an incredulous,
bitter irony, that seemed to wither himself in venting it, so did his
whole frame recoil and shrink--"you will tell me that it was from the
same considerate tenderness that you would have again filched her from me
some months later, to place her with that 'she-devil' who was once more
by your side; to be reared and sold to--O horror!--horror!--unimaginable
horror!--that pure helpless infant!--you, armed with the name of father!
--you, strong in that mighty form of man!"
"What do you mean? Oh, I remember now! When Gabrielle was in London,
and I had seen you on the bridge? Who could have told you that I meant
to get the child from you at that time?"
Waife was silent. He could not betray Arabella Crane; and Jasper looked
perplexed and thoughtful. Then gradually the dreadful nature of his
father's accusing words seemed to become more clear to him; and he cried,
with a fierce start and a swarthy flush: "But whoever told you that I
harboured the design that it whitens your lip to hint at, lied, and
foully. Harkye, sir, many years ago Gabrielle had made acquaintance with
Darrell, under another name, as Matilda's friend (long story now--not
worth telling); he had never, I believe, discovered the imposture. Just
at the time you refer to, I heard that Darrell had been to France,
inquiring himself into facts connected with my former story, that
Matilda's child was dead. That very inquiry seemed to show that he had
not been so incredulous of my assertions of Sophy's claims on him as he
had affected to be when I urged them. He then went on into Italy.
Talking this over with Gabrielle, she suggested that, if the child could
be got into her possession, she would go with her in search of Darrell,
resuming the name in which she had before known him--resuming the title
and privilege of Matilda's friend. In that character he might listen to
her, when he would not to me. She might confirn my statement--melt his
heart--coax him into terms. She was the cleverest creature! I should
have sold Sophy, it is true. For what? A provision to place me above
want and crime. Sold her to whom? To the man who would see in her his
daughter's child, rear her to inherit his wealth--guard her as his own
honour. What! was this the design that so shocks you? /Basta, Basta!/
Again, I say, Enough. I never thought I should be so soft as to mutter
excuses for what I have done. And if I do so now, the words seem forced
from me against my will-forced from me, as if in seeing you I was again
but a wild, lawless, wilful boy, who grieved to see you saddened by his
faults, though he forgot his grief the moment you were out of sight."
"Oh, Jasper," cried Waife, now fairly placing his hand on Jasper's guilty
head, and fixing his bright soft eye, swimming in tears, on that downcast
gloomy face. "You repent!--you repent! Yes; call back your BOYHOOD--
call it back! Let it stand before you, now, visible, palpable! Lo! I
see it! Do not you? Fearless, joyous Image! Wild, lawless, wilful, as
you say. Wild from exuberant life; lawless as a bird is free, because
air is boundless to untried exulting wings; wilful from the ease with
which the bravery and beauty of Nature's radiant Darling forced way for
each jocund whim through our yielding hearts! Silence! It is there!
I see it, as I saw it rise in the empty air when guilt and ignominy first
darkened round you; and my heart cried aloud, 'Not on him, not on him,
not on that glorious shape of hope and promise--on me, whose life,
useless hitherto, has lost all promise now--on me let fall the shame.'
And my lips obeyed my heart, and I said--'Let the Laws' will be done--
I am the guilty man.' Cruel, cruel one! Was that sunny Boyhood then so
long departed from you? On the verge of youth, and such maturity in
craft and fraud--that when you stole into my room that dark winter eve,
threw yourself at my feet, spoke but of thoughtless debts, and the fear
that you should be thrust from an industrious honest calling, and I--I
said, 'No, no; fear not; the head of your firm likes you; he has written
to me; I am trying already to raise the money you need; it shall be
raised, no matter what it cost me; you shall be saved; my Lizzie's son
shall never know the soil of a prison; shun temptation henceforth: be but
honest, and I shall be repaid!'--what, even then, you were coldly
meditating the crime that will make my very grave dishonoured!"
"Meditating--not so! How could I be? Not till after what had thus
passed between us, when you spoke with such indulgent kindness, did I
even know that I might more than save myself--by monies--not raised at
risk and loss to you! Remember, you had left me in the inner room, while
you went forth to speak with Gunston. There I overheard him talk of
notes he had never counted, and might never miss; describe the very place
where they were kept; and then the idea came to me irresistibly, 'better
rob him than despoil my own generous father.' Sir, I am not pretending
to be better than I was. I was not quite the novice you supposed.
Coveting pleasures or shows not within my reach, I had shrunk from
draining you to supply the means; I had not had the same forbearance for
the superfluous wealth of others. I had learned with what simple tools
old locks may fly open; and none had ever suspected me, so I had no fear
of danger, small need of premeditation: a nail on your mantelpiece, the
cloven end of the hammer lying beside, to crook it when hot from the fire
that blazed before me! I say this to show you that I did not come
provided; nothing was planned beforehand; all was the project and work of
the moment. Such was my haste, I burnt myself to the bone with the red
iron--feeling no pain, or rather, at that age, bearing all pain without
wincing. Before Gunston left you, my whole plan was then arranged--my
sole instrument fashioned. You groan. But how could I fancy that there
would be detection? How imagine that even if monies, never counted, were
missed, suspicion could fall on you--better gentleman than he whom you
served? And had it not been for that accursed cloak which you so fondly
wrapped round me when I set off to catch the night train back to--; if it
had not been, I say, for that cloak, there could have been no evidence to
criminate either you or me-except that unlucky L5 note, which I pressed
on you when we met at ----, where I was to hide till you had settled with
my duns. And why did I press it on you?--because you had asked me if I
had wherewithal about me on which to live meanwhile; and I, to save you
from emptying your own purse, said, 'Yes'; showed you some gold, and
pressed on you the bank-note, which I said I could not want--to go, in
small part, towards my debts; it was a childish, inconsistent wish to
please you: and you seemed so pleased to take it as a proof that I cared
for you."
"For me!--no, no; for honour--for honour--for honour! I thought you
cared for honour; and the proof of that care was, thrusting into these
credulous hands the share of your midnight plunder!"
"Sir," resumed Jasper, persisting in the same startling combination of
feeling, gentler and more reverential than could have been supposed to
linger in his breast, and of the moral obtuseness that could not, save by
vanishing glimpses, distinguish between crime and its consequences--
between dishonour and detection--" Sir, I declare that I never conceived
that I was exposing you to danger; nay, I meant, out of the money I had
taken, to replace to you what you were about to raise, as soon as I could
invent some plausible story of having earned it honestly. Stupid notions
and clumsy schemes, as I now look back on them; but, as you say, I had
not long left boyhood, and, fancying myself deep and knowing, was raw in
the craft I had practised. /Basta, basta, basta!/"
Jasper, who had risen from his knees while speaking, here stamped heavily
on the floor, as if with anger at the heart-stricken aspect of his
silenced father; and continued with a voice that seemed struggling to
regain its old imperious, rollicking, burly swell.
"What is done cannot be undone. Fling it aside, sir--look to the future;
you with your pedlar's pack, I with my empty pockets! What can save you
from the workhouse--me from the hulks or gibbet? I know not, unless the
persons sheltering that girl will buy me off by some provision which may
be shared between us. Tell me, then, where she is; leave me to deal in
the business as I best may. Pooh! why so scared? I will neither terrify
nor kidnap her. I will shuffle off the crust of blackguard that has
hardened round me. I will be sleek and smooth, as if I were still the
exquisite Lothario--copied by would-be rufllers, and spoiled by willing
beauties. Oh, I can still play the gentleman, at least for an hour or
two, if it be worth my while. Come, sir, come; trust me; out with the
secret of this hidden maiden, whose interests should surely weigh not
more with you than those of a starving son. What, you will not? Be it
so. I suspect that I know where to look for her--on what noble
thresholds to set my daring foot; what fair lady, mindful of former days
--of girlish friendship--of virgin love--wraps in compassionate luxury
Guy Darrell's rejected heiress? Ah, your looks tell me that I am hot on
the scent. That fair lady I knew of old; she is rich--I helped to make
her so. She owes me something. I will call and remind her of it. And
--tut, sir, tut--you shall not go to the workhouse, nor I to the hulks."
Here the old man, hitherto seated, rose-slowly, with feebleness and
effort, till he gained his full height; then age, infirmity, and weakness
seemed to vanish. In the erect head, the broad massive chest, in the
whole presence, there was dignity--there was power.
"Hark to me, unhappy reprobate, and heed me well! To save that child
from the breath of disgrace--to place her in what you yourself assured me
where her rights amidst those in whose dwellings I lost the privilege to
dwell when I took to myself your awful burthen--I thought to resign her
charge for ever in this world. Think not that I will fly her now, when
you invade. No--since my prayers will not move you--since my sacrifice
to you has been so fruitless--since my absence from herself does not
attain its end there, where you find her, shall you again meet me! And
if there we meet, and you come with the intent to destroy her peace and
blast her fortune, then I, William Losely, am no more the felon. In the
face of day I will proclaim the truth, and say, 'Robber, change place in
earth's scorn with me; stand in the dock, where thy father stood in vain
to save thee!"'
"Bah, sir--too late now; who would listen to you?"
"All who have once known me--all will listen. Friends of power and
station will take up my cause. There will be fresh inquiry into facts
that I held back--evidence that, in pleading guilty, I suppressed--
ungrateful one--to ward away suspicion from you."
"Say what you will," said Jasper swaying his massive form to and fro,
with a rolling gesture which spoke of cold defiance, "I am no hypocrite
in fair repute whom such threats would frighten. If you choose to thwart
me in what I always held my last resource for meat and drink, I must
stand in the dock even, perhaps, on a heavier charge than one so stale.
Each for himself; do your worst--what does it matter?"
"What does it matter that a father should accuse his son! No, no--son,
son, son--this must not be;--let it not be!--let me complete my
martyrdom! I ask no reversal of man's decree, except before the Divine
Tribunal. Jasper, Jasper--child of my love, spare the sole thing left to
fill up the chasms in the heart that you laid waste. Speak not of
starving, or of fresh crime. Stay--share this refuge! I WILL WORK FOR
BOTH!"
Once more, and this time thoroughly, Jasper's hideous levity and coarse
bravado gave way before the lingering human sentiment knitting him back
to childhood, which the sight and voice of his injured father had called
forth with spasms and throes, as a seer calls the long-buried from a
grave. And as the old man extended his arms pleadingly towards him,
Jasper, with a gasping sound-half groan, half sob-sprang forward, caught
both the hands in his own strong grasp, lifted them to his lips, kissed
them, and then, gaining the door with a rapid stride, said, in hoarse
broken tones: "Share your refuge! no--no--I should break your heart
downright did you see me daily--hourly as I am! You work for both!--you
--you!" His voice stopped, choked for a brief moment, and then hurried
on: "As for that girl--you--you--you are--but no matter, I will try to
obey you--will try to wrestle against hunger, despair, and thoughts that
whisper sinking men with devils' tongues. I will try--I will try; if I
succeed not, keep your threat--accuse me--give me up to justice--clear
yourself; but if you would crush me more than by the heaviest curse,
never again speak to me with such dreadful tenderness! Cling not to me,
old man; release me, I say;--there--there; off. Ah! I did not hurt you?
Brute that I am--you bless me--you--you! And I dare not bless again!
Let me go--let me go--let me go!" He wrenched himself away from his
father's clasp--drowning with loud tone his father's pathetic soothings--
out of the house-down the hill--lost to sight in the shades of the
falling eve.