Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Stuart are often at Glenmuir; but oftener at

Burleigh, where the general, I fancy, still resides. He protests that he

never will keep a secret again: long may he live to say so!

END OF THE TWINS.

* * * * *

HEART;

A SOCIAL NOVEL.

BY

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S.

AUTHOR OF

PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.

* * * * *

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE.

1. Wherein two Anxious Parents hold a Colloquy 245

2. How the Daughter has a Heart; and, what is commoner, a Lover 249

3. Paternal Amiabilities 252

4. Excusatory 257

5. Wherein a well-meaning Mother acts very foolishly 260

6. Pleasant Brother John 263

7. Providence sees fit to help Villany 268

8. The Rogue's Triumph 273

9. False-Witness Kills a Mother, and would willingly Starve a Sister 278

10. How to Help one's self 283

11. Fraud cuts his fingers with his own Edged Tools 289

12. Heart's-Core 293

13. Hope's Birth to Innocence, and Hope's Death to Fraud 296

14. Probable Reconciliation 298

15. The Father finds his Heart for ever 302

16. A Word about Originality, and Mourning 306

17. The House of Feasting 308

18. The End of the Heartless 312

19. Wherein matters are concluded 320

CHAPTER I.

WHEREIN TWO ANXIOUS PARENTS HOLD A COLLOQUY.

"Is he rich, ma'am? is he rich? ey? what--what? is he rich?"

Sir Thomas was a rapid little man, and quite an epicure in the use of

that luscious monosyllable.

"Is he rich, Lady Dillaway? ey? what?"

"Really, Thomas, you never give me time to answer," replied the

quintescence of quietude, her ladyship; "and then it is perpetually the

same question, and--"

"Well, ma'am, can there be a more important question asked? I repeat it,

is he rich? ey? what?

"You know, Sir Thomas, we never are agreed about the meaning of that

word; but I should say, very."

As Lady Dillaway always spoke quite softly in a whisper, she had failed

to enlighten the knight; but he seemed, notwithstanding, to have caught

her intention instinctively; for he added, in his impetuous, imperious

way,

"No nonsense now, about talents and virtues, and all such trash; but

quick, ma'am, quick--is the man rich?"

"In talents, as you mention the word, certainly, very rich; a more

clever or accomplished--"

"Cut it short, ma'am--cut it short, I say--I'll have no adventurers, who

live by their wits, making up to my daughter--pedantic puppies, good for

ushers, nothing else. What do they mean by knowing so much? ey? what?"

"And then, Sir Thomas, if you will only let me speak, a man of purer

morals, finer feelings, higher Christian--"

"Bah! well enough for curates: go on, ma'am--go on, and make haste to

the point of all points--is he rich?"

"You know I never will make haste, Thomas, for I never can have

patience, and you shall hear; I am little in the habit of judging people

entirely by their purses, not even a son-in-law, provided there is a

sufficiency on the one side or the other for--"

"Quick, mum--quick--rich--rich? will the woman drive me mad?" and Sir

Thomas Dillaway, Knight, rattled loose cash in both pockets more

vindictively than ever. But the spouse, nothing hurried, still crept on

in her _sotto voce adantino_ style,

"Mr. Clements owes nothing, has something, and above and beside all his

good heart, good mind, good fame, good looks, good family, possesses a

contented--"

"Pish! contented, bah!" our hasty knight's nose actually curled upwards

in utter scorn as he added, "Now, that's enough--quite enough. I'll bet

a plum the man's poor. Contented indeed! did you ever know a rich man

yet who was contented--ey? mum--ey? or a poor one that wasn't--ey? what?

I've no patience with those contented fellows: it's my belief they

steal away the happiness of monied men. If this Mr. Clements was

rich--rich, one wouldn't mind so much about talents, virtues, and

contentment--work-house blessings; but the man's poor, I know

it--poo-o-or!"

Sir Thomas had a method quite his own of pronouncing those contradictory

monosyllables, rich and poor: the former he gave out with an unctuous,

fish-saucy gusto, and the word seemed to linger on his palate as a

delicious morsel in the progress of delightful deglutition; but when he

uttered the word poor, it was with that "mewling and puking" miserable

face, appropriated from time immemorial to the gulping of a black

draught.

"No, Lady Dillaway, right about's the next word I shall say to that

smooth-looking pauper, Mr. Henry Clements--to think of his impudence,

making up to my daughter, indeed! a poo-o-o-r man, too."

"I did not tell you he was poor, Sir Thomas: you have run away with that

idea on your own account: the young man has enough for the present, owes

nothing for the past, and reasonable expectations for the--

"Future, I suppose, ey? what? I hate futures, all the lot of 'em: cash

down, ready money, bird in the hand, that's my ticket, mum:

expectations, indeed! Well, go on--go on; I'm as patient as a--as a

mule, you see; go on, will you; I may as well hear it all out, Lady

Dillaway."

"Well, Sir Thomas, since you think so little of the future, I will not

insist on expectations; though I really can only excuse your methods of

judging by the fancy that you are far too prudent in fearing for the

future: however, if you will not admit this, let me take you on your own

ground, the present; perhaps Mr. Clements may not possess quite as much

as I could wish him, but then surely, dear Thomas, our daughter must

have more than--"

I object to seeing oaths in print; unless it must be once in a way, as a

needful point of character: probably the reader's sagacity will supply

many omissions of mine in the eloquence of Sir Thomas Dillaway and

others. But his calm spouse, nothing daunted, quietly whispered on--"You

know, Thomas, you have boasted to me that your capital is doubling every

year; penny-postage has made the stationery business most prosperous;

and if you were wealthy when the old king knighted you as lord mayor,

surely you can spare something handsome now for an only daughter, who--"

"Ma'am!" almost barked the affectionate father, "if Maria marries money,

she shall have money, and plenty of it, good girl; but if she will

persist in wedding a beggar, she may starve, mum, starve, and all her

poverty-stricken brats too, for any pickings they shall get out of my

pocket. Ey? what? you pretend to read your Bible, mum--don't you know

we're commanded to 'give to him that hath, and to take away from him

that--'"

"For shame, Sir Thomas Dillaway!" interrupted the wife, as well she

might, for all her quietude: she was a good sort of woman, and her

better nature aroused its wrath at this vicious application of a truth

so just when applied to morals and graces, so bitterly iniquitous in the

case of this world's wealth. I wish that our ex-lord mayor's distorted

text may not be one of real and common usage. So, silencing her lord,

whose character it was to be overbearing to the meek, but cringing to

any thing like rebuke or opposition, she forthwith pushed her

advantages, adding--

"Your income is now four thousand a-year, as you have told me, Thomas,

every hour of every day, since your last lucky hit in the government

contract for blue-elephants and whitey-browns. We have only John and

Maria; and John gets enough out of his own stock-brokering business to

keep his curricle and belong to clubs--and--alas! my fears are many for

my poor dear boy--I often wish, Thomas, that our John was not so well

supplied with money: whereas, poor Maria--"

"Tush, ma'am, you're a fool, and have no respect at all for monied men.

Jack's a rich man, mum--knows a trick or two, sticks at nothing on

'Change, shrewd fellow, and therefore, of course I don't stint him: ha!

he's a regular Witney comforter, that boy--makes money--ay, for all his

seeming extravagance, the clever little rogue knows how to keep it, too.

If you only knew, ma'am, if you only knew--but we don't blab to fools."

I dare say "fools" will hear the wise man's secret some day.

"Well, Thomas, I am sure I have no wish to pry into business

transactions; all my present hope is to help the cause of our poor dear

Maria."

"Don't call the girl 'poor,' Lady Dillaway; it's no recommendation, I

can tell you, though it may be true enough. Girls are a bad spec, unless

they marry money. If our girl does this, well; she will indeed be to me

a dear Maria, though not a poo-o-o-r one; if she doesn't, let her bide,

and be an old maid; for as to marrying this fellow Clement's, I'll cut

him adrift to-morrow."

"If you do, Sir Thomas, you will break our dear child's heart."

"Heart, ma'am! what business has my daughter with a heart?" [what,

indeed?] "I hate hearts; they were sent, I believe, purposely to make

those who are plagued with 'em poo-o-o-r. Heart, indeed! When did heart

ever gain money? ey? what? It'll give, O yes, plenty--plenty, to

charities, and churches, and orphans, and beggars, and any thing else,

by way of getting rid of gold; but as to gaining--bah! heart

indeed--pauperizing bit of muscle! save me from wearing under my

waistcoat what you're pleased to call a heart. No, mum, no; if the girl

has got a heart to break, I've done with her. Heart indeed! she either

marries money and my blessing, or marries beggary and my curse. But I

should like to know who wants her to marry at all? Let her die an old

maid."

Probably this dialogue need go no farther: in the coming chapter we will

try to be didactic. Meantime, to apostrophize ten words upon that last

heartless sentence:

"Let her die an old maid." An old maid! how many unrecorded sorrows, how

much of cruel disappointment and heart-cankering delay, how often-times

unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little phrase! O, the

mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold neglect, and

foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables! Kind heart, kind

heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor sadly as in

pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think that from a

feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be utterly sponged

away without long years of bitterness? Can Nature's wounds be

cicatrized, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand secret

pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and middle

age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of life?

Ay, and the coming prospect too--hath it greater consolations than the

retrospect? How faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the

heart! How feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the

sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the

hour of death--to be lonely, childless, husbandless, to be lightly cared

for, little missed--who can wonder that all those bruised and broken

yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and some, times sour

up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just, more

loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its day;

but imperative duty or untoward circumstances nipped those early

blossoms, and often generosity towards others, or the constancy of

youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this

world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of

this social sphere), when those who lived and died as Jephthah's

daughter, were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs; Heed thou,

thus, of many such, for they have offered up their hundred warm

yearnings, a hecatomb of human love, to God, the betrothed of their

affections; and they move up and down among this inconsiderate world,

doing good, Sisters of Charity, full of pure benevolence, and beneficent

beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame, O

man and woman! looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins;

remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion

of that unreguarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are often

seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy, generous in

mind, if not in means, and blooming with the immortal youth of charity

and kindliness.

CHAPTER II.

HOW THE DAUGHTER HAS A HEART; AND, WHAT IS COMMONER, A LOVER.

Yes, Maria Dillaway, though Sir Thomas's own daughter, had a heart, a

warm and good one: it was her only beauty, but assuredly at once the

best adornment and cosmetic in the world. The mixture of two such

conflicting characters as her father and mother might (with common

Providence to bless the pair) unitedly produce heart; although their

plebeian countenances could hardly be expected without a direct miracle

to generate beauty. Maria inherited from her father at once his

impetuosity and his little button-nose: although the latter was neither

purple nor pimply, and the former was more generous and better directed:

from her mother she derived what looked to any one at first sight very

like red hair, along with great natural sweetness of disposition: albeit

her locks had less of fire, and her sweetness more of it: sympathy was

added to gentleness, zeal to patience, and universal tenderness to a

general peace with all the world; for that extreme quietude, almost

apathy, alluded to before, having been superseded by paternal

impetuosity, the result of all was Heart. She doated on her mother; and

(how she contrived this, it is not quite so easy to comprehend) she

found a great deal loveable even in her father. But in fact she loved

every body. Charity was the natural atmosphere of her kind and feeling

soul--always excusing, assisting, comforting, blessing; charity lent

music to her tongue, and added beauty to her eyes--charity gave grace to

an otherwise ordinary figure, and lit her freckled cheek with the spirit

of loveliness. Let us be just--nay, more: let us be partial, to the good

looks of poor dear Maria. Notwithstanding the snub nose (it is not

snub; who says it is snub?--it is _mignon_, personified good

nature)--notwithstanding the carroty hair (I declare, it was nothing but

a fine pale auburn after all)--notwithstanding the peppered face (oh,

how sweetly rayed with smiles!) and the common figure (gentle,

unobtrusive, full of delicate attentions)--yes, notwithstanding all

these unheroinals, no one who had a heart himself could look upon Maria

without pleasure and approval. She was the very incarnation of

cheerfulness, kindness, and love: you forgot the greenish colour of

those eyes which looked so tenderly at you, and so often-times were

dimmed with tears of unaffected pity; her smile, at any rate, was most

enchanting, the very sunshine of an amiable mind; her lips dropped

blessings; her brow was an open plain of frankness and candour;

sincerity, warmth, disinterested sweet affections threw such a lustre of

loveliness over her form, as well might fascinate the mind alive to

spiritual beauty: and altogether, in spite of natural defects and

disadvantages--_nez retroussé_, Cleopatra locks, and all--no one but

those constituted like her materialized father and his kind, ever looked

upon Maria without unconsciously admiring her, he scarcely knew for

what. Though there appeared little to praise, there certainly was every

thing to please; and faulty as in all pictorial probability was each

lineament of face and line of form, taken separately and by detail, the

veil of universal charity softened and united them into one harmonious

whole, making of Maria Dillaway a most pleasant, comfortable, wife-like

little personage.

At least, so thought Henry Clements. Neither was it any sudden

fortnight's fancy, but the calm consideration of two full years. Maria's

was a character which grew upon your admiration gradually--a character

to like at first just a little; then to be led onwards imperceptibly

from liking to loving; and thence from fervid summer probably to fever

heat. She dawned upon young Henry like the blush of earliest morn, still

shining brighter and fairer till glorious day was come.

He had casually made her acquaintance in the common social circle, and

even on first introduction had been much pleased, not to say captivated,

with her cordial address, frank unsophisticated manners, and winsome

looks; he contrasted her to much advantage with the affected coquette,

the cold formal prude, the flippant woman of fashion, the empty heads

and hollow hearts wherewithal society is peopled. He had long been

wearied out with shallow courtesies, frigid compliments, and other

conventional hypocrisies, up and down the world; and wanted something

better to love than mere surface beauty, mere elegant accomplishment--in

a word, he yearned for Heart, and found the object of his longings in

affectionate Maria.

This first casual acquaintance he had of course taken every opportunity

to improve as best he might, and happily found himself more and more

charmed on every fresh occasion. How heartily glad she was to see him!

how unaffectedly sincere in her amiable joy! how like a kind sister, a

sympathizing friend, a very true-love--a dear, cheerful, warm-hearted

girl, who would make the very model for a wife!

It is little wonder that, with all external drawbacks, now well-nigh

forgotten, the handsome Henry Clements found her so attractive; nor

that, following diligently his points of advantage, he progressed from

acquaintanceship to intimacy, and intimacy to avowed admiration; and

thence (between ourselves) to the resolute measure of engagement.

I say between ourselves, because nobody else in the world knew it but

the billing pair of lovers; and even they have got the start of us only

by a few hours. As for Henry Clements, he was a free man in all senses,

with nobody to bias his will or control his affections--an orphan,

unclogged by so much as an uncle or aunt to take him to task on the

score of his attachment, or to plague him with impertinent advice. His

father, Captain Clements of the seventieth, had fallen "gloriously" on

the bloody field of Waterloo, and the pensioned widow had survived her

gallant hero barely nine winters; leaving little Henry thrown upon the

wide world at ten years of age, under the nominal guardianship of some

very distant Ulster cousin of her own, a Mackintosh, Mackenzie, or

Macfarlane--it is not yet material which; and as for the lad's little

property, his poor patrimony of two hundred a-year had hitherto amply

sufficed for Harrow and for Cambridge (where he had distinguished

himself highly), for his chambers in the Temple, and his quiet

bachelor-mode of life as a man of six-and-twenty.

Accordingly, our lover took counsel of nobody but Maria's beaming eyes,

when he almost unconsciously determined to lay siege to her: he really

could not make up his mind to the preliminary formal process of storming

Sir Thomas in his counting-house, at the least until he had made sure

that Maria's kind looks were any thing more particular than universal

charity; and as to Lady Dillaway, it was impossible to broach so

delicate a business to her till the daughter had looked favourably as

aforesaid, set aside her ladyship's formidable state of quiescence, and

apparent (though only apparent) lack of sympathy. So the lover still

went on sunning his soul from time to time in Maria's kindly smiles,

until one day, that is, yesterday, they mutually found out by some happy

accident how very dear they were to each other; and mutually vowed ever

to continue so. It was quite a surprise this, even to both of them--an

extemporary unrehearsed outburst of the heart; and Maria discovered

herself pledged before she had made direct application to mamma about

the business. However, once done, she hastened to confide the secret to

her mother's ear, earnestly requesting her to break it to papa. With how

little of success, we have learnt already.

CHAPTER III.

PATERNAL AMIABILITIES.

Maria, as we know, loved her father, for she loved every thing that

breathes; but she would not have been human had she not also feared him.

In fact, he was to her a very formidable personage, and one would have

thought any thing but an amiable one. Over Maria's gentle kindness he

could domineer as loftily as he would cringe in cowardly humiliation to

the boisterous effrontery of that unscrupulous and wily stock-jobber,

"my son Jack." With the tyranny proper to a little mind, he would

trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to

honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness,

would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, who had

amply redeemed all possible criminalities by successful (I did not say

honest) gambling in the funds, and otherwise.

Yes! John Dillaway was rich; and, climax to his praise, rich by his own

keen skill, independent of his father, though he condescended still to

bleed him. In this "money century," as Kohl, the graphic traveller, has

called it, riches "cover the multitude of sins;" leaving poor Maria's

charity to cover its own naked virtues, if it can. So John was the

father's darling, notwithstanding the very heartless and unbecoming

conduct he had exhibited daily for these thirty years, and the marked

scorn wherewithal he treated that pudgy city knight, his dear

progenitor; but then, let us repeat it as Sir Thomas did--Jack was

rich--rich, and such a comfort to his father; whereas Maria, poor fool,

with all her cheap unmarketable love and duty, never had earned a

penny--never could, but was born to be a drain upon him. Therefore did

he scorn her, and put aside her kindnesses, because she could not "make

money."

For what end on earth should a man make money! It is reasonable to

reply, for the happiness' sake of others and himself; but, in the

frequent case of a rich and cold Sir Thomas, what can be the object in

such? Not to purchase happiness therewith himself, nor yet to distribute

it to others; a very dog in the manger, he snarls above the hay he

cannot eat, and is full of any thoughts rather than of giving: whilst,

as for his own pleasure, he manifestly will not stop a minute to enjoy a

taste of happiness, even if he finds it in his home; nay, more, if it

meets him by the way, and wishes to cling about his heart, he will be

found often to fling it off with scorn, as a reaper would the wild sweet

corn-flower in some handful of wheat he is cutting. O, Sir Thomas! is

not poor Maria's love worth more than all your rich rude Jack's sudden

flush of money? is it not a deeper, higher, purer, wiser, more abundant

source of pleasure? You have yet to learn the wealth of her affections,

and his poverty of soul.

It was not without heart-sickness, believe me, sore days and weeping

nights, that affectionate Maria saw her father growing more and more

estranged from her. True, he had never met her love so warmly that it

was not somewhat checked and chilled; true, his nature had reversed the

law of reason, by having systematically treated her with less and less

of kindness ever since the nursery; she did seem able to remember

something like affection in him while she was a prattling infant; but as

the mental daylight dawned apace, and she grew (one would fancy)

worthier of a rational creature's love, it strangely had diminished year

by year; moreover, she could scarcely look back upon one solitary

occasion, whereon her father's voice had instructed her in knowledge,

spoken to her in sympathy, or guided her footsteps to religion. Still,

habituated as she long had now become to this daily martyrdom of heart,

and sorely bruised by coarse and common worldliness as had been every

fibre of her feelings, she could not help perceiving that things got

worse and worse, as the knight grew richer and richer; and often-times

her eyes ran over bitterly for coldness and neglect. There was, indeed,

her mother to fly to; but she never had been otherwise than a very quiet

creature, who made but little show of what feeling she possessed; and

then the daughter's loving heart was affectionately jealous of her

father too.

"Why should he be so cold, with all his impetuosity? so formal, in spite

of his rapidity? so little generous of spirit, notwithstanding all his

wonderful prosperity?"

Ah, Maria, if you had not been quite so unsophisticated, you would have

left out the latter "notwithstanding." Nothing hardens the heart, dear

child, like prosperity; and nothing dries up the affections more

effectually than this hot pursuit of wealth. The deeper a man digs into

the gold mine, the less able--ay, less willing--is he to breathe the

sweet air of upper earth, or to bask in the daylight of heaven:

downward, downward still, he casts the anchor of his grovelling

affections, and neither can nor will have a heart for any thing but

gold.

Moreover, have you wondered, dear Maria, at the common fact (one sees it

in every street, in every village), that parental love is oftenest at

its zenith in the nursery, and then falls lower and lower on the

firmament of human life, as the child gets older and older? Look at all

dumb brutes, the lower animals of this our earth; is it not thus by

nature's law with them? The lioness will perish to preserve that very

whelp, whom she will rend a year or two hence, meeting the young lion in

the forest; the hen, so careful of her callow brood, will peck at them,

and buffet them away, directly they are fully fledged; the cow forgets

how much she once loved yonder well-grown heifer; and the terrier-bitch

fights for a bit of gristle with her own two-year-old, whom she used to

nurse so tenderly, and famished her own bowels to feed. And can you

expect that men, who make as little use as possible of Heart, that

unlucrative commodity--who only exercise Reason for shrewd purposes of

gain, not wise purposes of good, and who might as well belong to

Cunningham's "City of O," for any souls they seem to carry about with

them--can you expect that such unaffectioned, unintelligent,

unspiritualized animals, can rise far above the brute in feeling for

their offspring? No, Maria; the nursery plaything grows into the exiled

school-boy; and the poor child, weaned from all he ought to love, soon

comes to be regarded in the light of an expensive youth; he is kept at

arm's length, unblest, uncaressed, unloved, unknown; then he grows up

apace, and tops his father's inches; he is a man now, and may well be

turned adrift; if he can manage to make money, they are friends; but if

he can only contrive to spend it, enemies. Then the complacent father

moans about ingratitude, for he did his duty by the boy in sending him

to school.

O, faults and follies of the by-gone times, which lingered even to a

generation now speedily passing away!--ye are waning with it, and a

better dawn has broken on the world. Happily for man, the multiplication

of his kind, and pervading competition in all manner, of things

mercantile, are breaking down monopolies, and hindering unjust

accumulation, with its necessary love of gain. "Satisfied with little"

is young England's cry; a better motto than the "Craving after much" of

their fathers. No longer immersed, single-handed, in a worldly business,

which seven competitors now relieve him of; no longer engrossed with the

mint of gold gains, which a dozen honest rivals now are sharing with him

eagerly, the parent has leisure to instruct his children's minds, to

take an interest in their pursuits, and to cultivate their best

affections. Home is no longer the place perpetually to be driven from;

the voices of paternal duty and domestic love are thrillingly raised to

lead the tuneful chorus of society; and fathers, as well as mothers, are

beginning to desire that their children may be able to remember them

hereafter as the ever-sympathizing friend, the wisely indulgent teacher,

the guide of their religion, and the guardian of their love; quite as

much as the payer of their bills and the filler of their purses.

The misfortune of a past and passing generation has been, too much money

in too few hands; its faults, neglect of duty; its folly, to expect

therefrom the too-high meed of well-earned gratitude; and from this

triple root has grown up social selfishness, a general lack of Heart. No

parent ever yet, since the world was, did his duty properly, as God

intended him to do it, by the affections of the mind and the yearnings

of the heart, as well as by the welfare of the body with its means, and

lived to complain of an ungrateful child. He may think he did his duty;

oh yes, good easy man! and say so too, very, very bitterly; and the

world may echo his most partial verdict, crying shame on the unnatural

Goneril and Regan, bad daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or on

the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much, and

yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or that

youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds,

their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, in higher, deeper, holier

things than even cash could buy. "Home affections"--this was the magic

phrase inscribed upon the talisman they stole from that graceless youth;

and the loss of home affections is scantily counterbalanced at the best

by a critical acquaintance with '_Dawes's Canons_,' and '_Bos on

Ellipses_,' in his ardent spring of life, and by a little more of the

paternal earnings which the legacy-office gives him in his manhood.

But let us not condemn generations past and passing, and wink at our

own-time sins; we have many motes yet in our eyes, not to call them very

beams. The infant school, the factory, the Union, and other wholesale

centralizations, ruin the affections of our poor. O, for the

spinning-wheel again within the homely cottage, and those difficult

spellings by the grand-dame's knee! There is wisdom and stability in a

land thick-set with such early local anchorages; but the other is all

false, republican, and unaffectioned. So, too, the luxurious city club

has cheated many a young pair of their just domestic happiness, for the

husband grew dissatisfied with home and all its poor humilities; whilst

a bad political philosophy, discouraging marriage and denouncing

offspring, has insidiously crept into the very core of private families,

setting children against parents and parents against children, because a

cold expediency winks at the decay of morals, and all united social

influences strike at the sacrifice of Heart.

We are forgetting you, poor affectionate Maria, and yet will it comfort

your charity to listen. For the time is coming--yea, now is--when a more

generous, though poorer age will condemn the Mammon phrensy of that

which has preceded it. Boldly do we push our standards in advance,

pressing on the flying foe, certain that a gallant band will follow.

Fearlessly, here and there, is heard the voice of some solitary zealot,

some isolated missionary for love, and truth, and philanthropic good,

some dauntless apostle in the cause of Heart, denouncing selfish wealth

as the canker of society: and, hark! that voice is not alone; there is a

murmur on the breeze as the sound of many waters; it comes, it comes!

and the young have caught it up; and manhood hears the thrilling strain

that sinks into his soul; and old age, feebly listening, wonders (never

too late) that he had not hitherto been wiser; and the whole social

universe electrically touched from man to man, I hear them in their

new-born generosities, penitently shouting "God and Heart!" even louder

than they execrate the memory of Dagon.

CHAPTER IV.

EXCUSATORY.

It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to

exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is,

that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow old,

after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There is

Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand

husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of them.

Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott

created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats,

helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few

of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs.

Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs.

Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes

acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap,

and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise!

avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that,

should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should

have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend"

forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and

acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin

poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics

yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph--forgotten, is impossible? and how is

it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O rash recruit, for the

mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles?

A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous.

Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of

thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as

possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever

creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary

how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or her

surprising talents: and to pass by all intermediate sizes, here and

there standing by himself, in all the prickly pride of an immortal aloe,

some one big pot monopolizes all the cast of earth, domineering over the

conservatory as Brutus's colossal Cæsar, or his metempsychosis in a

Wellington.

Again: no painter ever yet drew life-likeness, who had not the living

models at least in his mind's eye: but no good painter ever yet betrayed

the model in his figure; unless (though these instances are rarish too)

we except, _pace_ Lawrence, the mystery of portraiture. He takes indeed

a line here and a colour there; but he softens this and heightens that;

so that none but he can well discover any trace of Homer's noble head in

yonder sightless beggar, or Juno's queenly form in the Welsh woman

trudging with her strawberry load to Covent Garden market.

Flatter not thyself, fair Helen, I have not pictured thee in gentle

Grace: tremble not, my little white friend Clatter, thou art by no means

Simon Jennings. Dark Caroline Blunt, it is true thou hast fine eyes;

nevertheless, in nothing else (I am sorry to assure thee) art thou at

all like Emily Warren. Flaunting Lady Busbury, be calm; if you had not

been so wrathful, I never should have thought of you--undoubtedly you

are not the type of Mrs. Tracy.

Why will all these people don my imaginary characters? Truly, it may

seem to be a compliment, as proving that they speak from heart to heart,

of universal human nature, not unaptly; still is their inventor or

creator embarrassed terribly by such unwelcome honours; your precious

balms oppress him, gentle friends; lift off your palm branches; indeed,

he is unworthy of these petty triumphs; and, to be serious, he detests

them.

No: once and for all, let a plain first person say it, I abjure

personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one

at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of

his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general--to

pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it

is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the

mark. Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes--to these I

honestly pledge myself: but as most men have two eyes, being neither

naturally monocular nor triocular, so most men of their own special cast

have similar distinguishable sympathies.

The overweening love of money is a seed, a soil, and a sun that

generates a certain crop: the aim of my poor husbandry is only to reap

this; but my sickle does not wish to wound the growers: let them stand

aside; or, better far, let them help me cut those rank and clogging

tares, and bind them up in bundles to be burned. Heart is a

sweet-smelling shrub, ill to stand against the chilling breath of

worldliness: my small care desires to cherish this; gather round it,

friends! shelter it beside me. How many fragrant flowers now are

bursting into beauty! how cheering is their scent! how healthful the

aroma of their bloom! Pluck them with me; they are sweet, delicate, and

lustrous to look upon, even as the night-blowing cereus.

Henceforth then, social circle, feel at peace with such as I am, whose

public parable would teach, without any thought of personality, entirely

disclaiming private interpretations: there are other people stout

besides one's uncle, other people deaf besides one's aunt. Sir Thomas

Dillaway is not Alderman Bunce, nor any other friend or foe I wot of; a

mere creature of the counting-house, he is a human ledger-mushroom: rub

away the mildew from your hearts, if any seem to see yourselves in him:

neither have I ventured to transplant Miss Cassiopeia Curtis's red hair

to dear Maria's head: imitate her graces, if you will, maiden; but

charge me not with copying your locks. Though "my son Jack" be a

boisterous big rogue, on 'Change, and off it--let not mine own honest

stock-broker put that hat upon his head, in the mono-mania that it fits

him, because he may heretofore have been both bull and bear; and as for

any other heroes yet to come upon this scene, to enact the tragedy or

comedy of Heart--"Know all men by these presents,"--your humble

servant's will is to smite bad principles, not offending persons; to

crusade against evil manners, not his guilty fellow-men.

Wo is me! who am I, that I should satirize my brethren?--Yet, wo is

me--if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a

word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for

Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart.

Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "_tu

quoque_:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it.

Heaven send to him that writes, as liberally as to those who read (yea,

more, according to his deeper needs and failings) the grace to

counteract all mammonizing blights, and to cultivate this garden of the

Heart.

CHAPTER V.

WHEREIN A WELL-MEANING MOTHER ACTS VERY FOOLISHLY.

Returned from her unsuccessful embassage, Lady Dillaway

determined--kind, calm soul--to hide the bitter truth from poor Maria,

that her father was inexorably adverse. A scene was of all things that

indentical article least liked by the quiescent mother; and that her

warm-hearted daughter would enact one, if she heard those echoes of

paternal love, was clearly a problem requiring no demonstration.

Accordingly, with well-intentioned kindliness, but shallowish wisdom,

and most questionable propriety, Maria was persuaded to believe that her

father had hem'd and haw'd a little, had objected no doubt to Henry's

lack of money, but would certainly, on second thoughts, consider the

affair more favourably:

"You know your father's way, my love; leave him to himself, and I am

sure his better feeling will not fail to plead your cause: it will be

prudent, however, just for quiet's sake, to see less of Henry Clements

for a day or two, till the novelty of my intelligence blows over.

Meantime, do not cry, dear child; take courage, all will be well; and I

will give you my free leave to console your Henry too."

"Dearest, dearest mamma, how can I thank you sufficiently for all this?

But why may I not now at once fly to papa, tell him all I feel and wish

cordially and openly, and touch his dear kind heart? I am sure he would

give us both his sanction and his blessing, if he only knew how much I

love him, and my own dear Henry."

"Sweet child," sighed out mamma, "I wish he would, I trust he would, I

believe indeed he will some day: but be advised by me, Maria, I know

your father better than you do; only keep quiet, and all will come round

well. Do not broach the subject to him--be still, quite still; and,

above all, be careful that your father does not yet awhile meet Mr.

Clements."

"But, dearest mamma, how can I be so silent when my heart is full? and

then I hate that gloomy sort of secresy. Do let me ask papa, and tell

him all myself. Perhaps he himself will kindly break the ice for me, now

that your dear mouth has told him all, mamma. How I wish he would!"

"Alas, Maria, you always are so sanguine: your father is not very much

given, I fear, to that sort of sociality. No, my love; if you only will

be ruled by me, and will do as I do, managing to hold your tongue, I

think you need not apprehend many conversational advances on your

father's part."

Poor Maria had more than one reason to fear all this was true, too true;

so her lip only quivered, and her eyes overflowed as usual.

Thereafter, Lady Dillaway had all the talk to herself, and she smoothly

whispered on without let or hindrance; and what between really hoping

things kindly of her husband's better feelings, and desiring to lighten

the anxieties of dear Maria's heart, she placed the whole affair in such

a calm, warm, and glowing Claude-light, as apparently to supply an

emendation (no doubt the right reading) to the well known aphorism--

"The course of true love never did run smooth-_er_."

In fine, our warm and confiding Maria ran up to her own room quite

elated after that interview; and she heartily thanked God that those

dreaded obstacles to her affection were so easily got over, and that her

dear, dear father had proved so kind.

It is quite a work of supererogation to report how speedily the welcome

news were made known, by _billet-doux_, to Henry Clements; but they

rather smote his conscience, too, when he reflected that he had not yet

made formal petition to the powers on his own account. To be sure, they

(the lovers, to wit) were engaged only yesterday, quite in an

unintended, though delightful, way: and, previously to that important

_tête-à-tête_, however much he may have thought of only dear

Maria--however frequently he found himself beside her in the circle of

their many mutual friends--however happily he hoped for her

love--however foolishly he reveried about her kindness in the solitude

of his Temple garret--still he never yet had seen occasion to screw his

courage to the sticking point, and boldly place his bliss at hard Sir

Thomas's disposal. Some day--not yet--perhaps next week, at any rate not

exactly to-day--these were his natural excuses; and they availed him

even to the other side of that social Rubicon, engagement. Nevertheless,

now at length something must decidedly be done; and, within half an

hour, Finsbury's deserted square echoed to the heroic knock of Mr. Henry

Clements, fully determined upon claiming his Maria at her father's

hands.

The knight was out; probably, or rather certainly, not yet returned from

his counting-house in St. Benet's Sherehog. So, perforce, our hero could

only have an audience with his lady.

The same glossing over of unpalatable truths--the same quiet-breathing

counsel--the same tranquil sort of hopefulness--fully satisfied the

lover that his cause was gained. How could he think otherwise? In the

father's absence, he had broached that mighty topic to the mother, who

even now hailed him as her son, and promised him his father's favour.

What could be more delicious than all this? and what more honourable,

while prudent, too, and filial, than to acquiesce in Lady Dillaway's

fears about her husband's nervousness at the sight of one who was to

take from him an only and beloved daughter? It was delicacy

itself--charming; and Henry determined to make his presence, for the

first few days, as scarce as possible in the sight of that affectionate

father.

And thus it came to pass that two open and most honourable minds,

pledged to heartiest love, could not find one speck of sin in loving on

clandestinely. Nay, was it clandestine at all? Is it, then, merely a

legal fiction, and not a religious truth, that husband and wife are one?

and is it not quite as much a matrimonial as a moral one that father and

mother are so too? Was it not decidedly enough to have spoken to the

latter, especially when she undertook to answer for the former? Sir

Thomas was a man engrossed in business; and, doubtless, left such

affairs of the Heart to the kinder keeping of Lady Dillaway. No; there

was nothing secret nor clandestine in the matter; and I entirely absolve

both Henry and Maria. They could not well have acted otherwise if any

harm should come to it, the mother is to blame.

Lady Dillaway, without doubt, should have known her husband better; but

her tranquil love of our dear Maria seemed to have infatuated her into

simply believing--what she so much wished--her happiness secure. She

heeded not how little sympathy Sir Thomas felt with lovers; and only

encouraged her innocent child to play the dangerous game of unconscious

disobedience. Accordingly, consistent with that same quiet kindness of

character which had smoothed away all difficulties hitherto, the

indulgent mother now allowed the loving pair to meet alone, for the

first time permissively, to tell each other all their happiness. Lady

Dillaway left the drawing-room, and sent Maria to the heart that beat

with hers.

Who shall describe the beauty of that interview--the gush of first

affections bursting up unchecked, unchidden, as hot springs round the

Hecla of this icy world! They loved and were beloved--openly, devotedly,

sincerely, disinterestedly. Henry had never calculated even once how

much the city knight could give his daughter; and as for Maria, if she

had not naturally been a girl all heart, the home wherein she was

brought up had so disgusted her of still-repeated riches, that (it is

easy of belief) the very name of poverty would be music to her ears.

Accordingly, how they flew into each other's arms, and shed many happy

tears, and kissed many kindest kisses, and looked many tenderest things,

and said many loving words, "let Petrarch's spirit in heroics sing:" as

for our present prosaical Muse, she delights in such affections too

naturally and simply to wish to cripple them with rhymes, or confine

them in sonnets; she despises decoration of simple and beautiful

Nature--gilding gold, and painting lilies; and she loves to throw a veil

of secret sanctity over all such heaven-blest attachments. "Hence! ye

profane,"--these are no common lovers: I believe their spirits, still

united in affections that increase with time, will go down to the valley

of death unchangeably together; and will thence emerge to brighter bliss

hand in hand throughout eternity--a double Heart with one pulse, loving

God, and good, and one another!

CHAPTER VI.

PLEASANT BROTHER JOHN.

"Ho, ho! I suspected as much; so this fellow Clements has been hanging

about us at parties, and dropping in here so often, for the sake of Miss

Maria, ey?"--For the door had noisily burst open to let in Mr. John

Dillaway, who under grumbled as above.

"Dear John, I am so rejoiced to see you; I am sure it will make you as

happy as myself, brother, to hear the good news: papa and mamma are so

kind, and---- I need not introduce to you my ---- you have often met him

here, John--Mr. Henry Clements."

"Sir, your most obedient." The vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an

impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated

Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand.

Poor Henry felt quite taken aback at such frigid formality; and dear

Maria's very heart was in her mouth: but the brother tartly added, "If

Mr. Clements wishes to see Sir Thomas--that's his knock: he was

following me close behind: I saw him; but, as I make it a point never

to walk with the governor, perhaps it's as well for you two I dropped

in first by way of notice, ey?"

It was a dilemma, certainly--after all that Lady Dillaway had said and

recommended: fortunately, however, her lord the knight, when the street

door was opened to him, hastened straightway to his own "study," where

he had to consult some treatise upon tare and tret, and a recent

pamphlet upon the undoubted social duty, '_Run for Gold_;' so that

awkward rencounter was avoided; and Mr. Clements, taking up his hat, was

enabled to accomplish a dignified retreat.

"Dear John, your manner grieves me; I wish you had been kinder to my--to

Henry Clements."

"Oh, you do, do you? does the governor know of all this? the fellow's a

beggar."

"For shame, John! you shall not call my noble Henry such names: of

course papa has heard all."

"And approves of all this spooneying, ey, miss?"

"Brother, brother, do be gentler with me: mamma's great kindness has

smoothed away all objections, and surely you will be glad, John, to have

at last a brother of your own to love you as I do."

"Ey? what? another thief to go shares with me when the governor cuts up?

Thank you, miss, I'd rather be excused. You are quite enough, I can tell

you, for you make my whole a half; nobody wants a third: much obliged to

you, though." [Interjections may as well be understood.]

"O, dear brother, you hurt me, indeed you do: I am sure (if it were

right to say so) I would not wish to live a minute, if poor Maria's

death could--could make you any happier;--O John, my heart will----"

[Her tears can as readily be understood as his interjections.]

If a domestic railroad could have been cleverly constructed to Maria's

chamber from every room in that great house, it would have stood her in

good stead; for every day, from some room or other, this poor girl of

feeling had to rush up stairs in a torrent of grief. Yearning after

sympathy and love, neither felt nor understood by the minds with whom

she herded, a trio of worldliness, apathy, and coarse brutality, her

bosom ached as an empty void: treated with habitual neglect and cold

indifference, made various (as occasion might present) by stern rebuke

or bitter sarcasm, her heart was sore within its cell, and the poor dear

child lived a life of daily martyrdom, her feelings smitten upon the

desecrated altar of home by the "foes of her own household."

And not least hostile in the band of those home-foes was this only

brother, John. Look at him as he stands alone there, muttering after her

as she ran up stairs, "Plague take the girl!" and let me tell you what I

know of him.

That thick-set form, with its pock-marked face, imprisons as base a

spirit as Baal's. He was a chip of the old block, and something more. If

the father had a heart with "gold" written on it, the son had no heart

at all, but gold was in its place. Thoroughly unscrupulous as to ways

and means, and simply acting on the phrase "_quocunque modo rem_," he

seemed to have neither conscience of evil, nor dread of danger. In two

words, he was a "bold bad" man, divested equally of fear and feeling.

The memoirs of his past life hitherto, without controversy very little

edifying, may be guessed with quite sufficient accuracy for all

characteristic purposes from the coarse, sensual, worldly, and

iniquitous result now standing for his portraiture before us. We will

waste on such a type of heartlessness as few words as possible: let his

conduct show the man.

Just now, this worthy had risen into high favour with his father: we

already know why; he had suddenly got rich on his own account, and for

that very sufficient reason drew any additional sums he pleased on "the

governor's." The trick or two, whereat Sir Thomas hinted, and which so

wise a man would not have blabbed to fools, are worthy of record; not

merely as illustrative of character, but (in one case at least, as we

may find hereafter) for the sake of ulterior consequences.

John Dillaway's first exploit in the money-making line was a clever one.

He managed to possess himself of a carrier-pigeon of the Antwerp breed,

one among a flock kept for stock-jobbing purposes, by a certain great

capitalist; and he contrived that this trained bird should wheel down

among the merchants just at noon one fine day in the Royal Exchange. The

billet under its wing contained certain cabalistic characters, and the

plain-spoken intelligence, "_Louis Philippe est mort!_" In a minute

after these most revolutionizing news, French funds, then at one hundred

and twelve, were toppling down below ninety, and our prudent John was

buying stock in all directions: nay, he even made some considerable

bargains at eighty-seven. There was a complete panic in the market, and

wretched was the man who possessed French fives. The afternoon's work so

beautifully finished, John spent that night as true-born Britons are

reported to have done before the battle of Hastings, rioting in drunken

bliss, and panting for the morrow; and when the morrow came, and the

Paris post with it, I must leave it to be understood with what

complacency of triumph our enterprising stock-jobber hastened to sell

again at one hundred and fourteen, pocketing, in the aggregate, a

difference of several thousand pounds. It was a feat altogether to

ravish a delighted father's heart, and no wonder that he counted John so

great a comfort.

Trick number two had been at once even more lucrative and more

dangerous. As a stock-broker, this enterprising Mr. Dillaway had

peculiar opportunities of investigating closely certain records in the

office for unclaimed dividends: he had an object in such close

inspection, and discovered soon that one Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of

Ballyriggan, near Belfast, was a considerable proprietor, and had made

no claim for years. Why should so much money lie idle? Was the woman

dead? Probably not; for in that case executors or administrators would

have touched it. Legatees and next of kin are little apt to forget such

matters. Well, then, if this Mrs. Jane Mackenzie is alive, she must be a

careless old fool, and we'll try if we can't kill her on paper, and so

come in for spoils instead of kith and kin. "Shrewd Jack," as they

called him in the Alley, chuckled within himself at so feasible a plot.

Accordingly, in an artful and well-concocted way, which we may readily

conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a

will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies"

of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces of deceased

(doubtless with no lack of Irish witnesses beside, competent to swear to

any thing), he contrived to pass probate at Doctors' Commons, and get

twelve thousand two hundred and forty-three pounds, bank annuities

transferred, as per will, to the two ladies legatees. As the munificent

_douceur_ of a thousand pounds a-piece had (for the present) stopped the

mouths of those supposititious nieces, who stipulated for not a farthing

more nor less, clever John Dillaway a second time had the filial

opportunity of rejoicing his father's heart by this wholesale

money-making. Ten thousand pounds bank stock was manifestly another good

day's work; and seeing our John had not appeared at all in the

transaction, even as the ladies' stock-broker, things were made so safe,

that the chuckling knight, when he heard all this (albeit he did

tenderly fy, fy a little at first), was soon induced to think "my son

Jack" the very best boy and the very cleverest dog in Christendom: at

once a parent's pride and joy. Yes, Lady Dillaway--such a comfort! And

the worshipful stationer apostrophized "rich Jack" with lips that seemed

to smack of Creasy's Brighton sauce, whilst his calm spouse appeared to

acquiesce in her amiable John's good fortune. The mystified mother

little guessed that it was felony.

This good son's new-born wealth, besides the now liberal paternal

largess (for his allowance grew larger in proportion as he might seem to

need it less), of course availed to introduce him to some fashionable

and estimable circles of society, whither it might not at all times be

discreet in us to follow him; amongst other places, whether or not the

Pandemonium in Jermyn street proved to him another gold mine, we have

not yet heard; but John Dillaway was often there, the intimate friend of

many splendid cavaliers who lived upon their industry, familiar with a

whole rookery of blacklegs, patron of two or three pigeonable city

sparks, and, on the whole, flusher of money than ever. His quiet mother,

if she cared about her son at all, and probably she did care when her

health permitted, might well be apprehensive on the score of that

increasing wealth which made the father's joy.

However, with all his prosperity Mr. John as yet professed himself by no

means satisfied; he was far too greedy of gain, and ever since he had

come to man's estate, had amiably longed to be an only child. Not that

he heeded a monopoly of the parental feelings and affections, nor even

that he meditated murdering Maria--oh dear, no: rather too troublesome

that, and quite unnecessary; it would be entirely sufficient if he could

manage so to influence his father as to cut that superfluous sister

Maria very short indeed in the matter of cash. With this generous and

amiable view, he now for a course of sundry years had whispered,

back-bitten, and lied; he had, as occasion offered, taken mean

advantages of Maria's outspeaking honesty, had set her warm-hearted

sayings and charitable doings in the falsest lights, and had entirely

"mildewed the ear" of her listening papa. The knight in truth listened

unreluctantly; it was consolation, if not happiness to him, if he could

make or find excuses for harshness to a being who would not worship

wealth; it would be joy and pride, and an honour to his idol, if he

should keep Maria pretty short of cash, and so make her own its

preciousness; triumphant would he feel, as a merely-moneyed man, to see

troublesome, obtrusive Heart, with all its win-ways, and whimperings,

and incomprehensible spirituality, with its sermons and its prayers,

bending before him "for a bit of bread." Yes, poor loving disinterested

Maria ran every chance of being disinherited, from the false witness of

her brother, simply because she gave him antecedent opportunities, by

her honest likings and dislikings, by her bold rebuke of wrong and open

zeal for right, by her scorn of hypocrisies as to what she did feel, or

did not feel, and by the unpopular fact that she wore a heart, and

refused to be the galley-slave of gold.

"Oh, ho, then!" said our crafty John, "we shall soon set this all right

with our governor; thank you for the chance, Miss Maria. If father

doesn't kick out this Clements, and cut you off with a shilling, he is

not Sir Thomas, and I am not his son."

CHAPTER VII.

PROVIDENCE SEES FIT TO HELP VILLANY.

"Now that's what I call bones."

It was a currish image, suggestive of the choicest satisfaction. Let us

try to discover what good news such an idiosyncrasy as that of John

Dillaway would be pleased to designate as "bones." He had forthwith gone

to his father's room as merry at the chance of ousting poor Maria, as

the heartlessness of avarice could make him; and omnipresent authorship

jotted down the dialogue that follows:

"So, governor, there's to be a wedding here, I find; when does it come

off?"

"Ey? what? a wedding? whose?"

"Oh, ho! you don't know, ey? I guessed as much: what do you think now of

our laughing, and crying, and kissing, and praying Miss Maria with--

"Not that beggar Clements? Ey? what? d----" &c., &c.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! I thought so; why not, governor? Are you an old mole,

that you haven't seen it these six weeks? Are you stone deaf, that all

their pretty speeches have been wasted on you? All I can say is, that if

Mr. and Mrs. Clements an't spliced, it's pretty well time they should

be, and--

"Sir Thomas Dillaway rattled out so terrible an oath about Maria's

disinheritance if she ventured upon a marriage, that even John was

staggered at such a dreadful curse; nevertheless, an instantaneous

reflection soon caused that curse to be viewed metaphorically as a

"bone;" and the generous brother cautiously proceeded--

"Why, governor, all this is very odd, must say; when I caught 'em

kissing up there ten minutes ago, they were sharp enough to swear that

you knew all about it, and that you were so 'very, very kind.'"

How is it possible, intelligent reader, to avoid perpetual allusion to

an oath? We must not pare the lion's claws, and give bad men soft

speeches: pr'ythee, supply an occasional interjection, and believe that

in this place Sir Thomas swore most awfully; then, in a complete

phrensy, he vowed that he "would turn Maria out of house and home this

minute." This was another "bone," clearly.

But it was now becoming politic to calm him. Shrewd Jack was well aware

that Maria would relinquish all, and sacrifice, not merely her own

heart, but her Henry's too, rather than be guilty of filial

disobedience. All this storming, hopeful as it looked, might still be

premature, and do no substantial good; nay, if this wrath broke out too

soon, Maria would at once give way, become more dutiful than ever, and

his golden chance was gone. No: they were not married yet. Let the

wedding somehow first take place, and then--! and then!--for now he knew

which way the wind blew; so the scheming youth calmed his rising

triumphs, and counselled his progenitor as follows:

"Well, governor, I never saw so green a blade in all my born days. Can't

you see, now, that it's all cram this, just to put you in spirits, old

boy, in case of such things happening? It was wicked too of me to tease

you so--but I'm so jolly, governor; such luck in Jermyn street--I knew

you'd like a joke served up with such rich sauce as this is, ey? only

look!" It was half a hatful of bank notes raked up at the hazard table.

Sir Thomas's gray eyes darted swiftly at the spoil; often as he had

warned and scolded Jack about the matter of Jermyn street (for Jack was

bold enough never to conceal one of his little foibles), the father had

now nothing to object; for, in his philosophy, the end justified the

means. With most of this wise world, he looked upon success as in the

nature of virtue, and failure as the surest sign of vice; accordingly

his ire was diverted on the moment, and blazed in admiration of son

Jack: and that estimable creature immediately determined it was wise to

speak in tones of unwonted affection respecting his sister.

"Now, governor, I put it to you plump, isn't this hatful enough to make

a man beside himself, so as not to stick at a white lie or two? Dear

Maria there is no more going to become a Mrs. Clements than you are; she

cut the fellow dead long ago: so mind, that's a tough old bird, you

don't say one word to her about him; it would be just raking up the

cinders again, you know, and you might be fool enough to raise a flame.

No, governor, if it's any consolation to you, that pauper connection has

been all at an end this month; not but what the beggar's got my mother's

ear still, I fancy; but as to Maria, she detests him. So take my advice,

and don't tease the poor girl about the business. Now, then, that this

is all settled, and now that you 're the merrier for that silly bit of

storming at nothing, just listen: the wedding's my own! isn't Jack

Dillaway a clever fellow now, to have caught a Right Honourable

Ladyship, with a park in Yorkshire, a palace in Wales, and a mansion in

Grosvenor square?"

At this _extempore_ invention, the delighted parent rained so many

blessings on his progeny, that John knew the tide was turned at once.

Our ex-lord mayor had high ambitions, dating from the year of glory

onwards; so that nothing could be more prudent or well-timed that this

ideal aristocratic connection. Jack was a good fellow, a dear boy; and

he added to his apparent amiabilities now by reiterating counsels of

kindness and silence towards "poor dear sister Maria, whom he had been

making the scape-goat all this time;" after which done, our stock-jobber

feigned a pressing engagement with some fashionable friends, and left

his father to ruminate upon his worth in lonely admiration.

Well; if that clever and gratuitous lie was not another "bone," I am at

a loss to know what could be a "bone" to such a hound: therefore it

appears that Dillaway had three of them at least to gladden him in

solitude; and he went on revealing to wonder-stricken angels, and to us,

the secrets of his crafty soul, as he thus soliloquized:

"Yes, marry the fools first, and then for spoils at leisure; it won't be

easy though, she's so consummate filial, and he so bloated up with

honour. They'll never wed, I'm clear, unless the governor's by to bless

'em; and as to managing that, and the cutting-adrift scheme too, one

kills the other. How the deuce to do it? Eh--do I see a light?"

He did. A light lurid sulphurous gleam upon the midnight of his mind

seemed to show the way before him, as wisp-fire in a marsh. He did see a

light, and its character was this:

Quite aware of his mother's tranquil hopefulness, and that his kind good

sister was ingenuous as the day, he soon apprehended the state of

affairs; and, resolving to increase those misunderstandings on all

sides, he quickly perceived that he could triumph in the keen

Machiavellian policy, "_divide et impera_." The plan became more obvious

as he calmly thought it out. Evidently his first step must be to

ingratiate himself with both Henry and Maria, as the sympathizing

brother, a very easy task among such charitable fools: number two should

be to persuade them, as the mother did, that Sir Thomas, generally a

reserved unsocial man at home (and that in especial to Maria), was very

nervous at the thought of losing his dear daughter, and (while he

acquiesced in the common fate of parents and the usual way of the world)

begged that his coming bereavement might be obtruded on him as little as

possible--Mr. Clements always to avoid him, and Maria to hold her

tongue: number three, to amuse his father all the while by the prospect

of his own high alliance, so as effectually to hoodwink him from what

was going on: and, number four, to send him up to Yorkshire a week hence

(on some fool's errand to inquire after the imaginary countess's

imaginary mortgages), leaving behind him an autograph epistle (which our

John well knew how to write), recommending "that the ceremony be

performed immediately and in his absence, to spare his feelings on the

spot," mentioning "son John as his worthy substitute to give dear Maria

away," and enclosing them at once his "blessing and a hundred pound note

to help them on their honey-moon."

"John Dillaway, if craft be a virtue, thou art an archangel: but if

Heaven's chief requirement is the heart, thou art very like a

devil--very. If selfishness deserves the meed of praise, who more

honourable than thou art? But if a heartless man can never reach to

happiness, I know who will live to curse the hour of his birth, and is

doomed to perish miserably."

It was a clever scheme, and had unscrupulous hands to work it. Mystified

by quiet Lady Dillaway as our lovers had been from the first, entirely

unsuspicious of all guile, and rejoicing in their brother's marvellous

amiability, never surely were such happy days; always together while the

knight was at his counting-house, they gladly acquiesced in his

beautifully paternal nervousness; it was a delightful trait of character

in the dear old man; and a very respectable proof that love is keen-eyed

enough to believe what it wishes, but is stone-blind to any thing that

might possibly counteract its hopes. Then again, the mother was a close

ally; for having set her quiet heart upon the match, Lady Dillaway at

once encouraged all John's sympathetic scheme, on the prudent principle

of getting the young couple inextricably married first, and then

obliging her lord to be reconciled afterwards to what he could not help.

Sir Thomas himself, poor blinkered creature, was full of the most

aristocratical and wealthy fancies, and only yearned to inspect the

acres of his future honourable grand-children. He was, from these

fanciful causes, unusually affable and indulgent to Maria; spoke so

kindly always that she was all but dissolving thrice a-day; and, from

his constant reveries about the countess, appeared perpetually to be

brooding over dear Maria's soon approaching loss. Poor girl! more than

once she had determined to give it all up, and make her father happy by

serving him still in single blessedness: but then, how could she break

dear Henry's heart, as well as her own? No, no: they should live very

near to Finsbury square, and be in and out constantly, and papa should

never miss her: how delightful was all this!

As for John himself, (our heartless model-man, strange contrast to

Maria's perfect charity!) he chuckled hugely as his scheme now ripened

fast. He had long been putting all things in train for the wedding

to-morrow. Every body knew it except Sir Thomas who--what between Jack's

prudent watchfulness, his habitual counting-house hours, his usually

unsocial silence, and his now asserted wish for "not one word upon the

subject,"--was at once kept in total ignorance of all; and yet, as

ambassadorial John constantly gave out to Clements and Maria, in an

amiable nervous state of natural acquiescence. Next day, then, the

besotted father was about to be packed post for Yorkshire; the important

letter, with its enclosed bank note, was already written and sealed, as

like the governor's hand as possible; a license had been long ago

provided, and the clergyman bespoke, by the brotherly officiousness of

John; neither Henry Clements, who was too delicate, too unsuspecting for

prudent business-papers, nor Maria, whose heart was never likely to have

conceived the thought, had even once alluded to a settlement; Lady

Dillaway was lying, as her wont was, on her habitual sofa, in tranquil

ecstasy, at to-morrow morning's wedding: and Holy Providence, for wise

purposes no doubt, had seen fit to aid a villain in his deep-laid

treacherous designs.

The Wednesday dawned: Sir Thomas was to be off early, poor man, all agog

for right honourable acres; and Maria could no longer restrain the

expression of her glad and grateful feelings. Up she got by six, threw

herself in her kind dear father's way; and though, to spare his

feelings, she said not a word about the marriage, prayed him on her

knees for a blessing. The startled parent, believing all this frantic

show of feeling was sufficiently to be accounted for by his own long and

no doubt dangerous journey, blessed her as devoutly as ever he could;

and when the carriage drove away, left her in his study, overcome with

joy, affection, and admiration of his fine heart, exquisite

sensibilities, and generous feelings. Then, as a crowning-stone to all

the bliss, if any lingering doubt existed in the mind of Clements, who

had more than once expressed dislike at Sir Thomas's silent and

unsatisfying sympathy--the letter--the letter, whereof kind brother

John, secretly initiated, had some days forewarned them of its

probability--that letter, which explained at once all a father's kind

anxieties, and made up for all his cold reserve, was found on Sir

Thomas's own table! How amiable, how beautifully sensitive, how liberal

too! Lady Dillaway plumed herself in a whispering transport upon her

just appreciation of the father's better feelings; a kinder heart

manifestly never existed than her husband's, though he did take strange

methods of proving it: the bridesmaids, two daughters of a friend and

neighbour, privy to the coming mystery three days, approved highly of so

unobtrusive an old gentleman: Maria was all pantings, blushings,

weepings, and rejoicings; Henry Clements, handsome, pale, and agitated;

perhaps, misgiving too, and a little displeased at the father's absence;

however, Mr. John Dillaway gave away the bride with a most paternal air;

and, just as Sir Thomas was changing horses at Huntingdon, our innocent

lovers were indissolubly married.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ROGUE'S TRIUMPH.

Never was there such a happy couple; nor a more auspicious day. Away

they went, in deep delight, too joyful to be merry, in a holy transport

of affection, and its dearest hope fulfilled. They seemed to be in love

with all the world, for every thing around them wore a lustre of

deliciousness: and when the smoking posters left them at Salt hill, and

that well-matched husband and wife sat down to their first boiled fowl,

it would probably be a bathos to allude to angelic bliss; but they

nevertheless were, and knew they were, the happiest of mortals. If any

thing could add to Henry's self-complacency at that moment, it was the

recollection of his own truly disinterested conduct; for only yesterday

he had transferred all his little property to that kind and brotherly

fellow John Dillaway, in trust for Maria Clements, should any possible

reverse of fortune affect her father's or his own prosperity. Yes; and

John had been so wise as to make the two hundred a-year already a third

more, by investing (as he said) what had been a few thousands of three

per cents. in some capital "independent" bank shares of

Australasia--safe as a mountain, and productive as a valley.

All this appeared very prosperous and pleasant: but we of the initiated

into the secrets of character, may reasonably apprehend that Henry's

little all would have been safer any where than in Dillaway's

possession: and "possession," I am sorry to declare, is a word used

advisedly; for Mr. John required a largish floating capital to enable

him to go to the desperate lengths he did at hazard and _rouge-et-noir_;

and I am afraid that if Mr. or Mrs. Clements were to receive any of

those so-called Austral dividends, they would only have been taking

three hundred pounds a-year out of their principal moneys in John's

immaculate keeping.

Leaving then those wedded lovers to their honey-moon of joy, and shrewd

Jack gloating not merely over the full success of his nefarious plan,

but also over this unexpected acquisition of poor Clement's few

thousands, let us return to Sir Thomas--or, to be quite accurate, let us

return with him.

In high dudgeon, full of fire and fury, back rushed the knight, sore

under the sense of having been made an April-fool of in July; for no one

in the place whereto he went, had ever heard of a widow'd Countess of

Lancing; and her ladyship's acres, if any where at all, were undoubtedly

not in the North Riding. But clever son John, meeting his indignant

father on the threshold, soon made all that right by a word.

"Well, if ever! why, stupid, I said Diddlington, not Darlington."

Into the accuracy of this distinction it is needless to inquire: and

then the ingenuous youth went on to observe--

"But all's right as it is now; you may as well not have seen the

property, and better, too, as things have turned out roughly, governor:

the match is off, and you may well congratulate me. Such an escape--I

just discovered it, and was barely in time: you hadn't been gone two

hours when I found it all out, through a clever devil of a lawyer, who

was hired by my father's son to look into incumbrances, and keep a sharp

look-out for a mutual settlement; that old harridan of a ladyship is

over head and ears in debt; and, it seems, I was to have paid all

straight, or _i. e._ you, governor, ey? As to the Yorkshire acres, the

old woman had but a life interest in the mere bit that wasn't deeply

mortgaged--and not a very long life either, seeing she is seventy. So,

bless your clever boy again, old governor, he's free."

The knight had nothing to object: Jack's ready lie had plenty of reasons

in it: and so he blessed his clever boy again.

"But I say, governor, I rather think that you've astonished us all: what

on earth made you turn so soft of a sudden, and write that letter?"

"What letter? ey? what?"--Sir Thomas might well inquire.

"That's a good joke, governor--you keep it up to the last, I see; what a

close old file it is! What letter? why, the letter you wrote to Maria

and her lord, telling them to marry."

"Marry? ey? what, Maria? what--what is it all?" The poor old man was

thoroughly bewildered.

"Well done, governor--bravo! you can carry it off as cleverly as if you

were an actor; do you mean to say now you didn't leave a letter behind

you here upon your table, bidding Maria marry in your absence to spare

your paternal feelings (kind old boy, it is, too!) and enclosing them

one hundred pounds for the honey-moon?"

The mystified father made some inarticulate expression of ignorant

amazement, and our stock-jobber went on:

"So of course they're married and off--Mr. and Mrs. Cle----"

A whirlwind of disastrous imprecations cut all short; and then in a

voice choked with passion he gasped out--

"But--but are they married--are they married? how do you know it? can't

we catch 'em first, ey? what!"

"How do I know it? that's a good un now, father, when I had it under

your hand to give the girl away myself instead of you. Do you mean to

say you didn't write that letter?"

"Boy, I tell you, I've written nothing--I know nothing; you speak in

riddles."

"Well then, governor, if I do, I'll to guess 'em: I begin to see how it

was all brought about--but they did it cleverly too, and were quite too

many for me. Only listen: that fellow Clements, ay, and Miss Maria too

(artful minx, I know her), must have forged a letter as if from you to

get poor fools, me and my mother, to see 'em spliced, while you were

tooling to Yorkshire."

"Impossible--ey? what? I'll--I'll--I'll--"

"Now, governor, don't stand there doing nothing but denying all I say;

only you go yourself, and ask my mother if she didn't see the letter--if

they didn't marry upon it, and if that precious sister of mine doesn't

richly deserve every thing she'll some day get from her affectionate,

her excellent, her ill-used father?"

Iago's self, or his master, smooth-tongued Belial, could not have

managed matters better.

The incredulous knight, scarcely able to discover how far it might not

still be all a joke, especially after his Yorkshire expedition, rushed

up to Lady Dillaway; on her usual sofa, quietly knitting, and thinking

of her Maria's second day of happiness.

"So, ma'am--ey? what? is it true? are they married? is it true?

married--ey? what?"

"Certainly, Thomas, they were only too glad, and I will add, so was I,

to get your kind--"

"Mine? I give leave? ey? what? Madam, we're cheated, fooled--I never

wrote any letter."

"Most astonishing; I saw it myself, Thomas, your own hand; and our dear

John too."

"Ay, ay--he sees through it all, and so do I now--ey? what? that

precious pair of rogues forged it! Now, ma'am, what don't they deserve,

I should like to know?"

It was quite a blow, and a very hard one, to the poor tranquil mother.

Could her dear Maria really have been so base, and that noble-looking

Henry too? how dreadfully deceived in them, if this proved true! And how

could she think it false? A letter contrived to expedite their marriage

in the father's casual absence, which no one could have thought of

writing but Sir Thomas himself, or the impatient lovers. So poor Lady

Dillaway could only fall a-crying very miserably; whereupon her husband

more than half suspected her of being an accomplice in the despicable

plot.

"Now then, ma'am, I'm determined: as they are married, the thing's at an

end; we can't untie that knot--but, once tied, I've done with the girl;

they may starve, for any help they'll get of me: and as for you, mum,

give 'em money at your peril; stay, to make sure of it, Lady Dillaway, I

shall stint you to whatever you choose to ask me for out of my own

pocket; never draw another cheque on Jones's, do you hear? ey? what? for

your cheques shall not be honoured, ma'am. And now, from this hour, you

and I have only one child, John."

"Oh, Thomas--Thomas! be merciful to poor Maria! indeed, she was

deceived; she believed it all--poor Maria!"

"Ma'am, never mention that woman again--ey? what? deceived? Yes, she

deceived you and me, and John, and all. Wicked wretch! and all to marry

a beggar! Well, ma'am, there's one comfort left; the fellow married her

for money, and he's caught in his own trap; never a penny of mine shall

either of them see. Henceforth, Lady Dillaway, we have no daughter; dear

John is the only child left us for old age."

In spite of himself, of wrath, and disappointment, the father spoke in a

moved and broken manner; and his weeping wife attempted to explain,

console, and soothe him; but all in vain--he was inexorable and

inveterate against those mean deceivers. To say truth, the poor mother

was staggered too, especially when her managing son set all the matter

in what he stated to be the right light; for he had, the whole business

through, whispered so separately to each, and had seemed to say so

little openly (making his mother believe that his sister told him of the

coming letter, and a choice variety of other embellishments), that he

was now looked upon as the very martyr to roguish plotting, in having

been induced to give away his sister. Excellent, mistaken John!

And forthwith John became installed sole heir, proving the most dutiful

of sons: how glibly would he tell them any sort of welcome news,

original or selected; how many anecdotes could he invent to prove his

own merits and certain other folks' deficiencies; how amiably would he

fetch and carry slippers and smelling-bottles, and write notes, and read

newspapers, and make himself every thing by turns (he devoutly hoped it

would be nothing long) to his poor dear parents, as became an only

child! It was quite affecting--and both father and mother, softened in

spite of themselves at the loss of that Maria, often would talk over the

new-found virtues of their most exemplary son. His character came out

now with five-fold lustre when contrasted with his former usual

ruggedness: no widow ever had a one sick child more tender, more

considerate, more dutiful, than rude Jack Dillaway.

He gained his end; saw the new will signed; earwigged the lawyer; and

kept a copy of it.

CHAPTER IX.

FALSE-WITNESS KILLS A MOTHER, AND WOULD WILLINGLY STARVE A SISTER.

Day by day, letters, doubtless full of happiness and Heart, were left by

the promiscuous and undiscerning postman at the house in Finsbury

square, from our excellent calumniated couple; but, seeing that there

were always two sieves waiting ready to sift it before it came to Lady

Dillaway's turn--to wit, John in the hall, and Sir Thomas in his study,

it came to pass that every letter with those malefactors' hand and seal

on it got burnt instanter, and unopened.

How many troubles might mankind be spared if they would only stop to

hear each other's explanations! How many ailments, both of body and

soul, if explanations only came more frequently and freely! Melancholy

from that dreadful doubt, and all these cold delays, viewing her

daughter as a criminal, the husband as a swindler, and all this long

course of silence as very, very heartless and seemingly conclusive of

their guilt, the poor mother sickened fast upon her couch: she had for

years always been an invalid, wan and wo-begone, living upon ether, gum,

and chicken-broth; but her white skin now grew whiter, her faint voice

fainter, the energies of life in her debilitated frame weaker than ever;

it was no mere hypochondria, or other fanciful malady: her calm heart

seemed to be dying down within her, as a plant that has earth-grubs

gnawing at its root--she grew very ill. Days, weeks of silence--her

heart was sick with hope deferred. How could Maria, with all her seeming

warmth, treat her with such utter negligence? But now the honey-moon was

coming to an end: they must call and see her some day again, surely; how

strangely unkind not to answer those motherly and anxious letters, sent

to their first known stage, Salt hill, and thereafter to be forwarded.

O, cold continued crime! Bad man, bad man, thy mother's own hand-writing

shall plead against thee at the last dread day. For those coveted

letters of affection, often sent on both those loving parts, had been

regularly and ruthlessly intercepted, opened, mocked, and burnt! How

could the man have stood case-proof against those letters--his mother's

anxious outbursts of affection towards a lost, an innocent, a

calumniated sister? For selfishness had dried up in that hard and wily

man all the milk of human kindness.

And our loving pair, upon their travels, were as much hurt and surprised

at this long silence as poor Lady Dillaway herself: it was most

mysterious, inexplicable. The only letter they had received ever since

they had left home was one--only one, from John, which had frightened

them exceedingly. Some practical joker (the bridesmaid's brother was

suspected), by way of giving Maria a present on her approaching wedding,

as it would seem, had cleverly imitated her father's hand-writing,

and--that letter was a forgery! to every body's great amazement. Nobody

could, according to his own account, be kinder than John, who had done

more than mortal things to appease his father; but the old man remained

implacable. It was a meanly-contrived clandestine match, he said; and he

never intended to set eyes on them again! As for John, he in that letter

had strongly counselled them to keep away, and trust to him for bringing

his father round. In the midst of their terrible dilemma, kind brother

John seemed as an angel sent by Heaven to assist them.

Dear children of affection and calamity! how innocently did they walk

into the snare; and how closely doth the wicked man draw his toils

around them. Who can accuse them of any wrong (the hopefulness of love

considered) in point either of honour or duty? And shall they not be

righted at the last? It may be so--it shall be so: but Holy Providence

hath purposes of good in plunging those twin wedded hearts deep beneath

the billows of earthly destitution. The wicked must prosper for a while,

in this as in a million other cases, and the good for their season

struggle with adversity; that the one may be destroyed for ever, and the

others may add to this world's wealth the incalculable riches of

another.

They had spent the few first weeks of marriage among the pleasant lakes

and hills of Westmoreland and Cumberland, wandering together, in

delightful interchange of thought, from glen to glen, from tairn to

tairn, all about Ambleside, Helvellyn, and Lodore, Ullswater,

Saddleback, and Schiddaw. Maria's ever-flickering smile seemed to throw

a sun-beam over the darkest moor, even in those darkest hours of doubt,

heart-sickening anxiety, and grief at the neglect which they

experienced; while Henry's well-informed good sense not only availed to

cheer the sad Maria, but made every rock a point of interest, and showed

every little flower a miracle of wisdom. There were hundreds of

extemporaneous "lover's seats," where they had "rested, to be thankful"

for the past, joyful for the present, and hopeful for the future; and

every ramble that they took might deservedly take the name, style, and

title of a "lover's walk!" Happy times--happy times! but still there

might be happier; yes, and happiest, too, they seemed to whisper, if

ever they should have a merry little nursery of prattling boys and

girls! But I am not so entirely in the confidence of those young folks

as to be certain about what they seemed to whisper: in that pretty

prattling sentence were they not getting a little beyond the honey-moon?

Yes--yes, young Hymen is too full of new-found pleasure to heed those

holier joys of calm old marriage; for wedded love is as a coil of line,

lengthening with the lapse of years, fitted and intended, day after day,

to be continually sounding a lower and a lower deep in the ocean of

happiness.

Returned to town, it was the immediate care of our fond, confused, and

unfortunate young couple to call at the old house in Finsbury square;

where, to their great dismay and misery, they encountered a formal

standing order for their non-admission. The domestics were new, had been

strictly warned against the name of Clements, and, in effect, were

creatures of the worthy John. It was a deplorable business; they did not

know what to think, nor how to act. Letters left at the door, couched in

whatever terms of humility, kindliness, and just excuse, were equally

unavailing; for the Cerberus there was too well sopped by pleasant

brother John ever to deliver them to any one but him. It was entirely

hopeless--extraordinary--a most wretched state of things. What were they

to do? The only practicable mode of getting at Sir Thomas, and,

therefore, at some explanation of these mysteries, was obviously to

watch for him, and meet him in the street. As for Lady Dillaway, she was

very ill, and kept her chamber, which was as resolutely guarded from

incursion or excursion as Danæ's herself--yea, more so, for gold was

added to her guards: Sir Thomas, going to and from his counting-house,

appeared to be the only weak point in the enemy's fortifications.

Poor old man! he was, or thought he was, harder, colder, more inveterate

than ever: and his duteous son John rarely let him venture out alone,

for fear of some such meeting, casual or intended. Accordingly, one day

when the Clements and the Dillaways mutually spied each other afar off,

and a junction seemed inevitable, John's promptitude bade his father

(generously as it looked, for paternal peace of mind's sake) return a

few paces, get into a cab, and so slip home, the while he valiantly

stepped forward to meet the enemy.

"Mr. Clements! my father (I grieve to say) will hear no reason, nor any

excuse whatever; he totally refuses to see you or Mrs. Clements."

"O, dearest John! what have I done--what has Henry done, that papa, and

you, and dear mamma, should all be so unkind to us?"

"You have married, Mrs. Clements, contrary to your father's wish and

knowledge: and he has cast you off--I must say--deservedly."

"Brother, brother! you know I was deceived, and Henry too. This is

cruel, most cruel: let me see my beloved father but one moment!"

"His commands are to the contrary, madam; and I at least obey them.

Henceforth you are a stranger to us all."

The poor broken-hearted girl fell into her husband's arms, stone-white:

but her hard brother, making no account whatever of all that show of

feeling, only took the trouble quietly to address Henry Clements.

"Misfortunes never come single, they say; it is no fault of mine if the

proverb hits Mr. Henry Clements. I am sorry to have to tell you, sir,

that the Austral Independent bank has stopped payment, and is not

expected to refund to its depositors or shareholders one penny in the

pound."

"Impossible, Mr. Dillaway! You answered for its stability yourself: and

the proposition came originally from you. I hope surely, surely, you may

have been misinformed of these bad news."

"It is true, sir--too true for you: the wisest man on 'change is often

out of reckoning. I have nothing now of yours in my hands, sir: you are

aware that no writings passed between us."

"Great Heaven! be just and merciful! Are we, then, to be utterly

ruined?"

"Really, sir, you know your own affairs better than I can.--Your

servant, Mr. Clements."

O, hard and wicked heart!--what will not such a miscreant do for money?

Nothing, I am clear, but the cowardly fear of discovery prevents John

Dillaway from becoming a positive parricide by very arsenic or razor, so

as to grasp his cheated father's will and wealth. And this assertion

will appear not in the least uncharitable, when the reader is in this

place reminded that Henry Clements's own little property had never been

Australized at all, but was still safe and snug in the coffers of crafty

John. Jermyn street--or the sharpers congregated there--had drained him

very considerably; all his own ill-got gains had been gradually raked

away by the croupier at the gaming-table; and unsuspecting Henry's

little trust-fund was to be the next bank on which the brother played.

Poor Henry and Maria! What will they do? where will they go? how will

they live? Hard questions all, not to be answered in a hurry. We shall

see. There was one comfort, though, amidst all their misery;--they did

not find the adage a true one, which alludes to poverty coming in at the

door, and love flying out of the window; for they never loved each other

more deeply--more devotedly--than when daily bread was growing a

scarcity, and daily life almost a burden. But we are anticipating.

And how fared the parents all this while? was the erring daughter

entirely forgotten? No, no. Son John, indeed, took good care to hinder

any amicable feelings of relapse to intrude upon his father's

resolution. But the old man was not easy, nevertheless; often thought of

poor Maria; and could not clearly make out who had forged the letter.

Had it not been for that wicked brother John, a meeting--an

explanation--a reconciliation--would undoubtedly have taken place: but

he was shrewd enough to keep them asunder, and did not take much to

heart his father's altered spirits and breaking state of health: his

will and wealth were seemingly all the nearer.

And what of that poor stricken mother? Wasted to a shadow, feverish and

weak, she lay for weeks, counting the dreary hours, till she heard of

dear, though unnatural, Maria. Oh! the heartless caitiff, John! will he

thus watch his mother die by inches, when one true word from his lips

could restore her to tranquillity and health? Yes, he would--he did--the

wretch! She gradually pined--waned--wasted; the candle of her life burnt

down into the hollow socket--glimmering awhile--flared and reeled, and

then--one night, quietly and suddenly--went out! She entered on the

world of spirits, where all secrets show revealed; and there she read,

almost before she died--whilst yet the black curtain of eternity was

gradually rising to receive her--the innocence of good Maria, and the

deep-stained villany of John. Her last words--uttered supernaturally

from her quiescence, with the fervour of a visionary whose ken is more

than mortal--were "Look, look, Thomas!--beware of John. O poor, poor

innocent outcast!--O rich, rich heart of love--Maria! my Mari--a--!"

CHAPTER X.

HOW TO HELP ONE'S SELF.

Where then did they live, and how--that noble and calumniated couple?

They had done no wrong, nor even, as it seems to us, the semblance of

wrong, unless it be by having acquiesced in the foolishness of secresy,

and thus aided the contrivance of false witness; for aught else, their

only social error had been lack of business caution among business men.

Feeling generously themselves, they gave others credit for the like good

feeling; acting upon honourable impulse, they believed that other men

would act so too. Heart was the hindrance in their way;--too much

sensitiveness towards all about them; too swift a surrender of the

judgment to the affections: too imprudent a reliance upon other men of

the world; though, when they trusted to a father's love, and a brother's

honesty, prudence herself might have almost been dispensed with.

Machinations of the wicked and the shrewd hemmed them in to their

un-doing: and really, they, children more or less of affluent homes,

born and bred in plenty, who had moved all their lives long in circles

of comparative wealth and wastefulness, now seemed likely to come to the

galling want of necessary sustenance. Was it not to teach them deeper

feeling for the poor, if ever God again should give them riches? Was it

not, by poverty, to try those hearts which had passed so blamelessly

through all the ordeals and temptations of wealth, in order that they

worthily might wear the double crown given only to such as remain

unhardened by prosperity, unembittered by adversity? Was it not to

discipline our warm Maria's love, and to chasten her Henry's very

gentlemanly pride into the due Christian proportions--self-respect with

self-humiliation? Was it not, chiefest and best, to school their hearts

for heaven, and, by feeding them on miseries and wrongs a little while,

to fix their affections on things above rather than on things of this

world? Yes: Providence has many ends in view, and they all tend

consistently to one great focus--the ultimate advantage of the good by

means of the confusion of the wicked.

Meanwhile came trouble on apace. Henry Clements justly felt aggrieved,

insulted; and the sentiment of pride, improper only from excess,

determined him to make no more advances: all that man could do, that

is, which a gentleman ought to do, he had done; but letters and visits

proved equally unavailing. He had come to the resolution that he would

make no more efforts himself, nor scarcely let Maria make any. As for

her, poor soul! she was now in grievous tribulation, with sad,

sufficient reason for it too; seeing that, in addition to her father's

anger, still protracted--in addition to that vile forgery imputed to her

craft, and whereof she had been made the guilty victim--in addition to

their own soon pressing money-wants, and that heartless fraud of John's

against her husband's little all (though she counted of it only as a

luckless speculation)--she had just become acquainted, through the

public prints, of her dear good mother's death, even before she had

heard of any illness. What bitter pangs were there for her, poor child!

That she should have lost that mother just then, without forgiveness,

without blessing--whilst all was unexplained, and their whole conduct of

affections without guile, wore the hideous mask of base, undutiful

contrivance! Cheer up, Maria; cheer up! only in this bad world can

innocence be sullied with a doubt: cheer up! the spirit of that mother

whom you loved on earth knows it well already; learned it while yet she

was leaving the body of her death: cheer up! she is still near you

both--dear children of affliction and affection! and God has

commissioned her for good to be your ministering angel.

With reference to means of living, they appeared limited at once to a

little ready money, and a few personal chattels and trinkets; without so

much as one pound of capital to back the young house-keepers, or a

shilling's-worth of interest or dividend or earnings coming in for

weekly bills. Clements had been utterly confounded in all his economical

arrangements by that sudden bitter breach of trust; and, albeit (as we

have hinted), his aim in marriage was not money; still, without much of

worldly calculation, he might prudently have looked for some provision

on Maria's part at least equal to his own: in fact, the fond young

couple had reasonably set their hearts upon that golden mean--four

hundred a-year to begin with. Now, however, by two fell swoops--brother

John's dishonesty and Sir Thomas's resolve of disinheritance--all this

rational and moderate expectation had been dashed to atoms; and the

cottage of contented competence appeared but as a castle in the

clouds--a mere airy matter of undiluted moonshine. Thus, when that

happiest of honeymoons had dwindled down the hundred-pound bank-note

(shrewd John's well-expended bait) to the fractional part of a ten, and

our newly-married pair came to put together their united resources,

wherewithal to travel through the world, they could muster but very

little:--considering, too, the future, and the promise of an early

increase to provide for, forty-seven pounds was not quite a fortune; and

a few articles of jewellery did not much increase it.

We need not imagine that Henry calmly acquiesced without a struggle in

the roguish fraud which had impoverished him; but, notwithstanding all

his best endeavours, he found, to his dismay, that the case was

irremediable: the transfer-books, indeed, were evidence; and equity

would give credit for the trust: but that the "Independent bank" had

failed was a simple fact; and so long as John stood ready to swear he

had invested in it, there was an end to the business. Be sure, shrewd

Jack was not likely to leave any thing dubious or unsatisfactory in the

affair. Austral papers were easily got at now, cheap as whitey-brown;

and for any help the law could give him, poor Henry Clements might as

well engage the wind-raising services of a Lapland witch.

He must put his shoulder to the wheel without delay; manifestly, his

profession of the law, however unlucrative till now, must be the mighty

lever that should raise him quickly to the summit of opulence and fame:

and he vigorously set to work, as the briefless are forced to do,

inditing a new law-book, which should lift him high in honour with those

magnates on the bench; being, as he was, a court-counsel, not a chamber

one, an eloquent pleader too (if the world would only give him a

hearing), he unluckily took for his thesis the questionable '_Doctrine

of Defence_;' combating magnanimously on the loftiest moral grounds all

manner of received opinions, time-honoured fictions, legitimated

quibbles, and other things which (as he was pleased to put it) "render

the majesty of the law ridiculous to the ears of common sense, and

iniquitous in the sight of Christian judgment." Rash youth! forensic

Quixote! better had you plodded on, without this extra industry and

skill, in the hopeless idleness and solitude of your Temple

garret--better had you burnt your wig and gown outright, with all the

airy briefs to come that fluttered round them, than have owned yourself

the author of that heretical piece of moral mawkishness--'_The Doctrine

of Defence_, by Henry Clements.'

He had with difficulty found a publisher--a chilling incident enough in

itself, considering an author's feelings for his book-child; and when

found, the scarcely satisfactory arrangement was insisted on, of mutual

participation in profit and loss: in other parlance, the bookseller

pocketing the first, and the author unpocketing the second. Thus it came

to pass, that after three months' toil and enormous collation of

cases--after extravagant indulgence of the most ardent hopes--glory,

good, and gold, consequent instantaneously on this happy

publication--after reasonably expecting that judges would quote it in

their ermine, and sergeants consult it in their silk--that London would

be startled by the event from the humdrum of its ordinary routine--and

the wondering world applaud the name of Henry Clements--O,

heart-sickening reality! what was the result of his exertions?

"So, that puppy Clements has taken upon himself to put us all to school

about whom we may defend, and how, I see---- Hang the fellow's

impudence!" grunted a fat Old Bailey counsel to his peers, well aware

that the luckless author sat nervously within ear-shot.

"I know whose junior that modest swain shall never be;" simpered

Sergeant Tiffin.

"The fellow's done for himself," was the simultaneous verdict of a

well-wigged band of brothers. And what else they might have added in

their charity poor Clements never knew, for he crept away to his garret,

stricken with disappointment. There he must encounter other trials of

the heart: two or three reviews and newspapers lay upon his table, just

sent in by the bookseller, as per order; for they contained, in

spirit-stirring print, notices of '_Clements on Defence_.' Unluckily for

his present peace of mind, poor fellow, the periodicals in question were

none of the humaner sort; no kindly encouraging '_Literary Register_,'

no soft-spoken '_Courtier_,' no patient '_Investigator_,' no

generously-indulgent '_Critical Gazette_:' these more amiable journals

would be slower in the field--some six weeks hence, perhaps, creeping on

with philanthropic sloth: but fiercer prints, which dart hebdomadal

wrath at every trembling seeker of their parsimonious praise, had whipt

up their malice to deliver the first swift blow against our hapless

neophyte in print. Thus, when, with nervous preboding, Henry took up the

'_Watchman_,' in eager hope for favour to his poor dear book, he turned

quite sick at heart to find the lying verdict run as follows, though the

small type in which it spake was a comfort too:

"A careless compilation of insignificant cases, clumsily thrown

together, and calculated to set its author high indeed upon the rolls of

fame; proving to the world that a Mr. Henry Clements can reason very

feebly; that his premises are habitually false; and that presumptuous

preaching is the natural accompaniment of extreme ignorance."

By all that worries man, but this was too bad: "careless?"--every word

had been a care to him: "clumsy?"--in composition it was Addison's own

self: "feeble?"--if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic:

"false?"--not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but

it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"--it was bold and masculine,

certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential:

"ignorant?"--ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how

Clements had been studying!--And yet this most lying sentence, a

congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic

scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at the moment

circulating in every library of the kingdom, proclaiming our poor

barrister a fool!

O, thou watchful scribe, forbear! for it is cowardly--they cannot smite

again: forbear! for it is cruel--the hearts of wife and mother and lover

ache upon your idle words: forbear! it is unreasonable--for often-times

a word would prove that Rhadamanthus' self is wrong: forbear, calumnious

scribe! and heed the harms you do, when you rob some poor struggler of

his character for sense, and make the bread of the hungry to fail.

'_The Corinthian_,' another snarling watch-dog in the courts of the

temple of Fame, followed instinctively the same injurious wake: it was a

leisurely sarcastic anatomization, quite enough to blight any young

candidate's prospects, supposing that mankind respected such a verdict;

if not to make him cut his throat, granting that the victim should be

sensitive as Keats. The generous review in question may be judged of by

its first line and last sentence; as Hercules from his advancing foot,

or Cuvier's Megatherium from the relics of its great toe. Thus it

commenced:

"When a disappointed man, intolerant of fortune," &c., &c., and it wound

up many stinging observations with this grateful climax following:

"We trust we have now said enough to prove that if a man will be

bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'--will attack what he is

pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high

authority--and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn

courts of law, he deserves--what does he not deserve?--to be

addressed henceforth by a name suggestive at once of ignorance,

presumption, and conceit, as Mr. Henry Clements."

Now, will it be believed that a trivial error of the press mainly

conduced to occasion this hostility? Our poor author had been weak

enough to "deprecate censure" in his penny-wise humility, and the

printer had negatived his meaning as above: "_hinc illæ lachrymæ_." Oh,

but how the ragged tooth of calumny gnawed his very heart!

'_The Legal Recorder_' was another of those early unfavourables; being

as a matter of course adverse too, and not very disinterestedly either:

for it played the exalted part of pet puffer to a rival publisher, who

wanted no other reason for condemning this book of Mr. Clements than

that it came from the legal officina of an opponent in his trade. There

was another paper or two, but Clements felt so utterly disheartened that

he did not dare to look at them. I wish he had; they would have

comforted him, pouring balm upon his wounded pride by their kind and

cordial praises: but ill-luck ruled the hour, so he burnt them

forthwith, and lost much literary comforting.

To sauce up all this pleasantry with a smack of concreted pleasure

itself, the last and only remaining document upon the table was a civil

note from Mr. Wormwood, publisher and bookseller, enclosing the

following items with his compliments:

To 500 copies '_Doctrine of Defence_,' £124 3

To advertising ditto, 25 0

To 10 per cent. on sales, &c.

Supplied to author, 12 copies, &c.

Given to periodicals for review, 15 copies, &c.

Against all which was the solitary offset of "three copies sold;"

leaving as our Henry's _share_ of now certain loss a matter of eighty

pounds: which, between ourselves, was only a very little more than the

whole cost of that untoward publication. Mr. Wormwood hoped to hear from

Mr. Clements at his earliest convenience, as a certain sum was to be

made up on a certain day, and the book-trade never had been at a lower

ebb, and prompt payment would be esteemed a great accommodation,

and--all that stereotyped sort of thing.

Poor Clements--reviled author, ruined lawyer, almost reckless

wight--here was an extinguisher indeed to the morning's brilliant hopes!

What an overwhelming debt to that ill-used couple in their altered

circumstances! How entirely by his own strong effort had he swamped his

legal expectations! Just as a man who cannot swim splashes himself into

certain suffocation; whereas, if he would but lie quite still, he was

certain to have floated on as safe as cork.