Well: to cut a long story short, our unlucky author found that he must

pay, and pay forthwith, or incur a lawyer's bill for his debt to Mr.

Wormwood: so he gave up his Temple garret, sold his books, nicknacks,

and superfluous habiliments, added to the proceeds their forty pounds of

capital, and a neck-chain of Maria's; and, at tremendous sacrifices,

found himself once more out of danger, because out of debt. But it was a

bad prospect truly for the future--ay, and for the present too; a few

pounds left would soon be gone--and then dear Maria's confinement was

approaching, and a hundred wants and needs, little and great:

accordingly, they made all haste to get rid of their suburban dwelling

in the City Road, collected their few valuables remaining, and retreated

with all economical speed to a humble lodging in a cheap back street at

Islington.

That little parlor was a palace of love: in the midst of her deep

sorrow, sweet Maria never failed of her amiable charities--nay, she was

even cheerful, hopeful--happy, and rendering happy: a thousand times a

day had Henry cause to bless his "wedded angel." And, showing his love

by more than words, he resolutely set about another literary enterprise,

anonymous this time for very fear's sake; but Providence saw fit to

bless his efforts with success. He wrote a tragedy, a clever and a good

one too; though '_The Watchman_' did sneer about "modern Shakspeares,"

and '_The Corinthian_,' pouncing on some trifling fault, pounded it with

would-be giant force: nevertheless, for it was a famous English theme,

he luckily got them to accept it at the Haymarket, and '_Boadicea_' drew

full houses; so the author had his due ninth night, and pocketed,

instead of fame (for he grimly kept his secret) enough to enable him to

print his tragedy for private satisfaction; and that piece of vanity

accomplished, he still found himself seven pounds before-hand with the

world.

CHAPTER XI.

FRAUD CUTS HIS FINGERS WITH HIS OWN EDGED TOOLS.

Unpleasant as it is to feel obliged to be the usher of ill company, I

must now introduce to the fastidious public a brace of characters any

thing but reputable. It were possible indeed to slur them over with a

word; but I have deeper ends in view for a glance so superficial: we may

learn a lesson in charity, we may gain some schooling of the heart, even

from those "ladies-legatees."

Do you remember them, the supposititious nieces, aiders and abetters in

our stock-jobber's forged will? Two flashy, showy women, _not_ of easy

virtue, but of none at all--special intimates of John Dillaway, and the

genus of his like, and habitual frequenters of divers choice and

pleasant places of resort.

The reason of their introduction here is two-fold: first, they have to

play a part in our tale--a part of righteous retribution; and, secondly,

they have to instruct us incidentally in this lesson of true morals and

human charity--dread, denounce, and hate the sin, but feel a just

compassion for the sinner. Let us take the latter object first, and bear

with the brief epitome of facts which have blighted those unfortunates

to what they are.

Look at these two women, impudent brawlers, foul with vice: can there be

any excuses made for them, considered as distinct from their condition?

God knoweth: listen to their histories; and fear not that thy virtuous

glance will be harmed or misdirected, or a minute of thy precious time

ill-spent.

Anna Bates and Julia Manners (their latest _noms de guerre_ will serve

all nominative purposes as well as any other) had arrived at the same

lowest level of female degradation by very different downward roads.

Anna's father had been a country curate, unfortunate through life,

because utterly imprudent, and neither too wise a man nor too good a

one, or depend upon it his orphan could not have come to this: "Never

saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." But the

father died carelessly as he had lived--in debt, with all his little

affairs at sixes and sevens; and his widow with her budding daughter,

saving almost nothing from the wreck, set up for milliners at Hull. Then

did the mother pique herself upon playing her cards cleverly; for

gallant Captain Croker was quite smitten with the girl. Poor child--she

loved, listened, and was lost; a more systematic traitor of affection

never breathed than that fine man; so she left by night her soft

intriguing broken-spirited mother, followed her Lothario from barrack to

barrack, and at last--he flung her away! Who can wonder at the reckless

and dissolute result? Whom had she to care for her--whom had she to

love? She must live thus, or starve. Without credit, character, or hope,

or help, the friendless unprotected wretch was thrown upon the town.

When the last accounts are opened, oblivious General Croker will find an

ell-long score of crimes laid to his charge, whereof he little reckons

in his sear and yellow leaf. The trusting victim of seduction has a

legion of excuses for the wretched one she is.

Again; for another case whereon the better-favoured heart may ruminate

in charity. Miss Julia Manners had a totally different experience but

man can little judge how mainly the iron hand of circumstance confined

that life-long sinner to the ways and works of guilt. In the nervous

language of the Bible--(hear it, men and women, without shrinking from

the words)--that poor girl was "the seed of the adulterer and the

whore:" born in a brothel, amongst outcasts from a better mass of

life--brought up from the very cradle amid sounds and scenes of utter

vice (whereof we dare not think or speak one moment of the many years

she dwelt continuously among them)--educated solely as a profligate, and

ignorant alike of sin, righteousness, and a judgment to come--had she

then a chance of good, or one hopeful thought of being better than she

was? The water of holy baptism never bedewed that brow; the voice of

motherly counsel never touched those ears; her eyes were unskilled to

read the records of wisdom; her feet untutored to follow after holiness;

her heart unconscious of those evils which she never knew condemned; her

soul--she never heard or thought of one! Oh, ye well-born, well-bred, ye

kindly, carefully, prayerfully instructed daughters of innocence and

purity, pause, pause, ere your charity condemns: hate the sin, but love

the sinner: think it out further, for yourselves, in all those details

which I have not time to touch, skill to describe, nor courage to

encounter; think out as kindly as ye may this episode of just

indulgence; there is wisdom in this lesson of benevolence, and

after-sweetness too, though the earliest taste of it be bitter; think it

out; be humbler of your virtue, scarcely competent to err; be more

grateful to that Providence which hath filled your lot with good; and be

gentler-hearted, more generous-handed unto those whose daily life

is--all temptation.

Now, these two ladies (who extenuates their guilt, caviller? who

breathes one iota of excuse for their wicked manner of life? who does

not utterly denounce the foul and flagrant sin, whilst he leaves to a

secret-searching God the judgment of the sinner?)--these two ladies, I

say, had of late become very sore plagues to Mr. John Dillaway. They had

flared out their hush-money like duchesses, till the whole town rang

about their equipage and style; and now, that all was spent, they

pestered our stock-jobber for more. They came at an unlucky season, a

season of "ill luck!" such a miraculous run of it, as nothing could

explain to any rational mind but loaded dice, packed cards, contrivance

and conspiracy. Nevertheless, our worthy John went on staking, and

betting, and playing, resolute to break the bank, until it was no

wonder at all to any but his own shrewd genius, that he found himself

one feverish morning well nigh penniless. At such a moment then, called

our ladies-legatees, clamorous for hush-money.

As a matter most imperatively of course, not a farthing more should be

forthcoming, and many oaths avouched that stern determination. They

ought to be ashamed of themselves, after such an enormous bribe to

each--as if shame of any kind had part or lot in those feminine

accomplices: it was a sanguine thought of Mr. John Dillaway. But the

ladies were not ashamed, nor silenced, nor any thing like satisfied. So,

having thoroughly fatigued themselves with out-swearing and

out-threatening, our sneerful stock-jobber, they resolved upon exposing

him, come what might. For their own guilty part in that transaction of

Mrs. Jane Mackenzie's pseudo-will, good sooth, the wretched women had no

characters to lose, nor scarcely aught else on which one could set a

value. Danger and the trial would be an excitement to their pallid

spirits, possible transportation even seemed a ray of hope, since any

thing was better than the town; and in their sinful recklessness,

liberty or life itself was little higher looked on than a dice's stake.

Moreover, as to all manner of personal pains and penalties, there was

every chance of getting off scot-free, provided they lost no time, went

not one before the other, but doubly turned queen's evidence at once

against their worthy coadjutor and employer. In the hope, then, of

ruining him, if not of getting scathelessly off themselves, these

ladies-legatees mustered once more from the mazes of St. Giles's the

pack of competent Irish witnesses, collected whatever documentary or

other evidence looked likeliest to help their ends, and then one early

day presented themselves before the lord-mayor, eager to destroy at a

blow that pleasant Mr. Dillaway.

The proceedings were long, cautious, tedious, and secret: emissaries to

Belfast, Doctors' Commons, and the bank: the stamp office was stirred to

its foundations; and Canterbury staggered at the fraud. Thus within a

week the proper officials were in a condition to prosecute, and the

issue of immense examinations tended to that point of satisfaction, the

haling Mr. Dillaway to prison on the charge of having forged a will.

CHAPTER XII.

HEART'S CORE.

They were come into great want, poor Henry and Maria: they had not

wherewithal for daily sustenance. The few remaining trinkets, books,

clothes, and other available moveables had been gradually pledged away,

and to their full amount--at least, the pawnbroker said so. That unlucky

publication of the law book, so speedily condemned and heartlessly

ridiculed, had wrecked all Henry's possible prospects in the courts; and

as for help from friends--the casual friends of common life--he was too

proud to beg for that--too sensitive, too self-respectful. Relations he

had none, or next to none--that distant cousin of his mother's, the

Mac-something, whom he had never even seen, but who, nevertheless, had

acted as his guardian.

Much as he suspected Dillaway in the matter of that bitter breach of

trust, he had neither ready money to proceed against him, (nor, when he

came to think it over) any legal grounds at all to go upon; for, as we

have said before, even granting there should be evidence adduced of the

transfer of stock from the name of Clements to that of Dillaway, still

it was a notorious fact that the "Independent bank" had failed, whereto

the stock-broker could swear he had intrusted it. In short, shrewd Jack

had managed all that affair to admiration; and poor Clements was ruined

without hope, and defrauded without remedy.

Then, again, we already know how that Lady Dillaway was dead, so help

from her was simply impossible; and the miserable father Sir Thomas was

kept too closely up to the mark of resolute anger by slanderous John, to

give them any aid, if they applied to him; but, in truth, as to personal

application, Henry would not for pride, and Maria now could not, for her

near-at-hand motherly condition. Her frequent letters, as we may be

sure, were intercepted; and, even if Sir Thomas now and then yearned

after his lost child, it had become a matter of physical impossibility

to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by

day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as

we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very

nearly fruitless--and, perchance, till all available moveables had been

pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her

sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew

terrible indeed; their horizon was all over black with clouds.

No: not all over. There is light under the darkness, a growing light

that shall dispel the darkness; a precious light upon their souls, the

early dawn of Heaven's eternal day; God's final end in all their

troubles, the reaping-time of joy for their sowing-time of tears.

Without cant, affectation, or hypocrisy, there is but one panacea for

the bruised or broken heart, available alike in all times, all places,

and all circumstances: and he who knows not what that is, has more to

learn than I can teach him. That pure substantial comfort is born of

Heaven's hope, and faith in Heaven's wisdom; it is a solid confidence in

God's great love, but faintly shadowed out by all the charities of

earth. Human affections in their manifold varieties are little other

than an echo of that Voice, "Come unto me; Comfort ye, comfort ye; I

will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters; thy

Maker is thy Husband; he hath loved thee with an everlasting love; when

thou goest through the fire, I will be with thee, through the waters,

they shall not overflow thee; eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither

hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive the blessings which His

love hath laid in store for _thee_."

Heart's-ease in heart's-affliction--this they found in God; turning to

Him with all their hearts, and pouring out their hearts before Him, they

trusted in Him heartily for both worlds' good. Therefore did He give

them their heart's desire, satisfying all their mind: wherefore did they

love each other now with a newly-added plenitude of love, mutually in

reference to Him who loved them, and gave Himself for them: therefore

did they feel in their distresses more gladness at their hearts, than in

the days of luxury and affluence, the increase of their oil and their

wine.

For this is the great end of all calamities. God doth not willingly

afflict: trouble never cometh without an urgent cause; and though man in

his perverseness often misses all the prize of purity, whilst he pays

all the penalty of pain; still the motive that sent sorrow was the

same--O, that there were a better heart in them!

In many modes the heart of man is tried, as gold must be refined, by

many methods; and happiest is the heart, that, being tried by many,

comes purest out of all. If prosperity melts it as a flux, well; but

better too than well, if the acid of affliction afterwards eats away all

unseen impurities; whereas, to those with whom the world is in their

hearts, affluence only hardens, and penury embitters, and thus, though

burnt in many fires, their hearts are dross in all. Like those sullen

children in the market-place, they feel no sympathies with heaven or

with earth: unthankful in prosperity, unsoftened by adversity, well may

it be said of them, Hearts of stone, hearts of stone!

Not of such were Henry and Maria: naturally warm in affections and

generous in sympathies, it needed but the pilot's hand to steer their

hearts aright: the energies of life were there, both fresh and full,

lacking but direction heavenwards; and chastisement wisely interposed to

wean those yearning spirits from the brief and feverish pursuits of

unsatisfying life, to the rest and the rewards of an eternity. Then were

they wedded indeed, heart answering to heart; then were they strong

against all the ills of life, those hearts that were established by

grace; then spake they often one to another out of the abundance of

their hearts; and in spite of all their sorrows, they were happy, for

their hearts were right with God.

Let the grand idea suffice, unencumbered by the multitude of details.

Whatsoever things are true, honest and just; whatsoever things are pure,

lovely, or of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any

praise--believe of those twin hearts that God had given them all.

Patience, hope, humility; faith, tenderness, and charity; prayer, trust,

benevolence, and joy: this was the lot of the afflicted! It was good for

them that they had been in trouble; for they had gained from it a wealth

that is above the preciousness of rubies, deservedly dearer to their

hearts than the thousands of gold and silver.

What a contrast then was shown between God's kindness and man's

coldness! No one of their fellows seemed to give them any heed: but He

cared for them, and on Him they cast their cares. Former friends

appeared to stand aloof, self-dependent and unsympathizing; but God was

ever near, kindly bringing help in every extremity, which always seemed

at hand, yet ever kept away: smoothing the pillow of sickness,

comforting the troubled spirit, and treading down calamity and calumny

and care; as a conqueror conquering for them. So, they learned the

priceless wisdom which adversity would teach to all on whom she

frowneth; when earthly hopes are wrecked, to anchor fast on God; and if

affluence should ever come again, to aid the poor afflicted with

heartiness, beneficence, and home-taught sympathy.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOPE'S BIRTH TO INNOCENCE, AND HOPE'S DEATH TO FRAUD.

John Dillaway's sudden loss of property, his character exploded as a

monied man, and the strong probability of his turning out a felon, had a

great effect on the spirits of Sir Thomas. He had called upon his

promising son in prison, had found him very sulky, disinclined for

social intercourse, and any thing but filial; all he condescended to

growl, with a characteristic d---- or two interlarding his eloquence,

was this taunting speech:

"Well, governor, I may thank you and your counsels for this. Here's a

precious end to all my clever tricks of trade! I wish you joy of your

son, and of your daughter too, old man. Who wrote that letter? What, not

found out yet? and does she still starve for it? Who gained money as you

bade him--never mind how? And is now going to do honour to the family

all round the world, ey?--Ha, ha, ha!"

The poor unhappy father tottered away as quickly as he could, while yet

the brutal laughter of that unnatural son rang upon his ears. He was

quite miserable, let him turn which way he would. On 'Change the name

had been disgraced--posted up for scorn on the board of degradation: at

home, there was no pliant son and heir, to testify against Maria, and to

close the many portals of a wretched father's heart. He grew very

wretched--very mopy; determined upon cutting adrift shrewd Jack himself,

as a stigma on the name which had once held the mace of mayoralty; made

his will petulantly, for good and all, in favour of Stationer's hall,

and felt very like a man who had lived in vain. "Cut it down; why

cumbereth it the earth?"

Meanwhile, in those two opposite quarters of the world of London,

Newgate and Islington, Sir Thomas's two discarded children were bearing

in a different way their different privations. Poor Maria's hour of

peril had arrived; and amidst all those pains, dangers, and necessities,

a soft and smiling babe was born into the world; gladness filled their

hearts, and praise was on their tongues, when the happy father and

mother kissed that first-born son. It was a splendid boy, they said, and

should redeem his father's fortunes: there was hope in the future, let

the past be what it may; and this new bond of union to that happy

wedded pair made the present--one unclouded scene of gratitude and love.

Who shall sing of the humble ale-caudle, and those cheerful givings to

surrounding poor, scarcely poorer than themselves? Who shall record how

kind was Henry, how useful was the nurse, how liberal the doctor, how

sympathizing all? Who shall tell how tenderly did Providence step in

with another author's night of that same tragedy, and how other avenues

to literary gain stood wide open to industry and genius? It was

happiness all, happiness, and triumph: they were weathering the storm

famously, and had safely passed the breakers of False witness.

Amidst the other part of London sate a sullen fellow, quite alone, in

Newgate, looking for his trial on the morrow, and prophesying accurately

enough how some two days hence, he, John Dillaway, of Broker's alley,

son and heir of the richest stationer in Europe, was to appear in the

character of a convicted felon, and be probably condemned to

transportation for life. A pleasant retrospect was his, a pleasanter

aspect, and a pleasanter prospect; all was pleasure assuredly.

And the morrow duly came; with those implacable approvers, those

accurate Irish witnesses, those tell-tale documents, that prosecuting

crown and bank, that dogged jury, and that sentencing recorder: so then,

by a little after noon, to the scandal of Finsbury square, John Dillaway

discovered that the "wise man's trick or two in the money market" was

about to be rewarded with twenty-one years of transportation.

Of this interesting fact Henry Clements became acquainted by an

occasional peep into the public prints; and he perceived to his

astonishment, that the defrauded Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of Ballyriggan,

near Belfast, could surely be none other than his mother's Ulster

cousin, the nominal guardian of his boyhood! To be sure, it mattered

little enough to him, for the old lady had never been much better than a

stranger to him, and at present appeared only in that useless character

to an expectant, a person despoiled of her money; nevertheless, of that

identical money, certain sanguine friends had heretofore given him

expectations in the event of her death, seeing that she had nobody to

leave it to, except himself and the public charities of the United

Kingdom: clearly, this cousin must have been the defrauded bank

annuitant, and he could not help feeling more desolate than ever; for

John Dillaway's evil influences had robbed him now of name, fame,

fortune, and what hope regards as much as any--expectations. Yet--must

not the bank of England bear the brunt of all this forgery, and account

for its stock to that innocent depositor? Old Mrs. Jane was sinking

into dotage, probably had plenty of other money, and scarcely seemed to

stir about the business; therefore, legitimately interested as Henry

indubitably was, he took upon him to write to his antiquated relative,

and in so doing managed to please her mightily: renewed whatever

interest she ever might have felt in him, enabled her to enforce her

just claim, and really stood a likelier chance than ever of coming in

for competency some day. However, for the present, all was penury still.

Clements had been too delicate for even a hint at his deplorable

condition: and his distant relative's good feeling, so providentially

renewed, served indeed to gild the future, but did not avail to

gingerbread the present. So they struggled on as well as they could:

both very thankful for the chance which had caused a coalition between

sensitiveness and interest; and Maria at least more anxious than ever

for a reconciliation with her father, now that all his ardent hopes had

been exploded in son John.

CHAPTER XIV.

PROBABLE RECONCILIATION.

It was no use--none at all. Nature was too strong for him; and a higher

force than even potent Nature. In vain Sir Thomas pish'd, and tush'd,

and bah'd; in vain he buried himself chin-deep amongst the century of

ledgers that testified of gainful years gone by, and were now mustily

rotting away in the stagnant air of St. Benet's Sherehog: interest had

lost its interest for him, profits profited not, speculation's self had

dull, lack-lustre eyes, and all the hard realities of utilitarian life

were become weary, flat, and stale. Sir Thomas was a miserable man--a

bereaved old man--who nevertheless clung to what was left, and struggled

not to grieve for what was lost: there was a terrible strife going on

secretly within him, dragging him this way and that: a little, lightning

flash of good had been darted by Omnipotence right through the

stone-built caverns of his heart, and was smouldering a concentred flame

within its innermost hollow; a small soft-skinned seed had been dropped

by the Father of Spirits into that iron-bound soil, and it was swelling

day by day under the case-hardened surface, gradually with gentle

violence, despite of all the locks and gates, and bolts and bars, a

silent enemy had somehow crept within the fortress of his feelings,

ready at any unguarded moment to fling the portals open. The rock had a

sealed fountain leaping within it, as an infant in the womb. The poor

old man, the worldly cold old man, was giving way.

Happy misery! for his breaking heart revealed a glorious jewel at the

core. Oh, sorrow beyond price! for natural affections, bursting up amid

these unsunned snows, were a hot-spring to that Iceland soul. Oh,

bitter, bitter penitence most blest! which broke down the money-proud

man, which bruised and kneaded him, humbled, smote, and softened him,

and made him come again a little child--a loving, yearning, little

child--a child with pity in its eyes, with prayer upon its tongue, with

generous affection in its heart. "Oh, Maria! precious, cast-off child,

where art thou, where art thou, where art thou--starving? And canst

thou, blessed God, forgive? And will not thy great mercy bring her to me

yet again? Oh, what a treasury of love have I mis-spent; what riches of

the Heart, what only truest wealth, have I, poor prodigal, been

squandering! Unhappy son--unhappy father of the perjured, heartless,

miserable John! Wo is me! Where art thou, dear child, my pure and best

Maria?"

We may well guess, far too well, how it was that dear Maria came not

near him. She had been, prior to confinement, very, very ill: nigh to

death: the pangs of travail threatened to have seized upon her all too

soon, when wasted with sorrow, and weakened by want. She lay, long

weeks, battling for life, in her little back parlour, at Islington,

tended night and day by her kind, good husband.

But did she not often (you will say) urge him, earnestly as the dying

ask, to seek out her father or brother (she had not been told of his

conviction), and to let them know this need? Why, then, did he so often

put her off with faint excuses, and calm her with coming hopes, and do

any thing, say any thing, suffer any thing, rather than execute the

fervent wish of the affectionate Maria? It is easily understood. With,

and notwithstanding, all the high sentiments, strong sense, and warm

feelings of Henry Clements, he was too proud to seek any succour of the

Dillaways. Sooner than give that hard old man, or, beforetime, that keen

malicious young one, any occasion to triumph over his necessitous

condition, he himself would starve: ay, and trust to Heaven his darling

wife and child; but not trust these to them. Never, never--if the

heart-divorcing work-house were their doom--should that father or that

brother hear from him a word of supplication, or one murmur of

complaint. Nay; he took pains to hinder their knowledge of this trouble:

all the world, rather than those two men. Let penury, disease, the very

parish-beadle triumph over him, but not those two. It was a natural

feeling for a sensitive mind like his--but in many respects a wrong one.

It was to put away, deliberately, the helping hand of Providence,

because it bade him kiss the rod. It was a direct preference of honour

to humility. It was an unconsciously unkind consideration of himself

before those whom he nevertheless believed and called more dear to him

than life--but not than honour. Therefore it was that the hand-bills he

had so often seen pasted upon walls were disregarded, that the numerous

newspaper advertisements remained unanswered, and that all the efforts

of an almost frantic father to find his long-lost daughter were in vain.

Meanwhile, to be just upon poor Clements, who really fancied he was

doing right in this, he left no stone unturned to obtain a provision for

his beloved wife and child. Frequently, by letters (as little urgent as

affection and necessity would suffer him), he had pressed upon some

powerful friends for that vague phantom of a gentlemanly

livelihood--"something under government;" a hope improbable of

accomplishment, indefinite as to view, but still a hope: especially,

since very civil answers came to his request, couched in terms of

official guardedness. He had called anxiously upon "old friends," in

pretty much of his usual elegant dress (for he was wise enough, or proud

enough, never to let his poverty be seen in his attire), and they made

many polite inquiries after "Mrs. Clements," and "Where are you living?"

and "How is it you never come our way?" and "Clements has cut us all

dead," and so forth. It was really entirely his own fault, but he never

could contrive to tell the truth: and when one day, in a careless tone

of voice, he threw out something about "Do you happen to have ten pounds

about you?" to a dashing young blood of his acquaintance--the dashing

young blood affected to treat it as a joke--"You married men, lucky

dogs, with your regular establishments, are too hard upon us poor

bachelors, who have nothing but clubs to go to. I give you my honour,

Clements, ten pounds would dine me for a fortnight:--spare me this time,

there's a fine fellow: take the trouble to write a cheque on your

bankers--here's paper--and my tiger shall get it cashed for you while

you wait: we poor bachelors are never flush." But Clements had already

owned it was a mere "_obiter dictum_,"--nothing but a joke of prudent

marriage against extravagant bachelorship.

Ah, what a bitter joke was that! On the verge of that yes or no, to be

uttered by his frank young friend, trembled reluctant honour;

home-affections were imploring in that careless tone of voice; hunger

put that off-hand question. It was vain; a cruel killing effort for his

pride: so Henry Clements never asked again; withdrew himself from

friends; grew hopeless, all but reckless; and his only means of living

were picked up scantily from the by-ways of literature. An occasional

guinea from a magazine, a copy of that luckily anonymous tragedy now and

then sold by him from house to house (he always disguised himself at

such times), a little indexing to be done for publishers, and a little

correcting of the press for printers--these formed the trifling and

uncertain pittance upon which the pale family existed. Poor Henry

Clements, proud Henry Clements, you had, indeed, a dose of physic for

your pride: bitter draughts, bitter draughts, day after day; but, for

all that weak and wasted wife, dearly, devotedly beloved; for all the

pining infant, with its angel face and beautiful smiles: for all the

strong pleadings of affection, yea, and gnawing hunger too, the strong

man's pride was stronger. And had not God's good providence proved

mercifully strongest of them all, that family of love would have starved

outright for pride.

But Heaven's favour willed it otherwise. By something little short of

miracle, where food was scant and medicine scarce, the poor emaciated

mother gradually gained strength--that long, low fever left her, health

came again upon her cheek, her travail passed over prosperously, the

baby too thrived, (oh, more than health to mothers!) and Maria Clements

found herself one morning strong enough to execute a purpose she had

long most anxiously designed. "Henry was wrong to think so harshly of

her father. She knew he would not spurn her away: he must be kind, for

she loved him dearly still. Wicked as it doubtless was of her [dear

innocent girl] to have done any thing contrary to his wishes, she was

sure he would relieve her in her utmost need. He could not, could not be

so hard as poor dear Henry made him." So, taking advantage of her

husband's absence during one of his literary pilgrimages, she took her

long-forgotten bonnet and shawl, and, with the baby in her arms, flew on

the wings of love, duty, penitence, and affection to her dear old home

in Finsbury square.

CHAPTER XV.

THE FATHER FINDS HIS HEART FOR EVER.

He had been at death's door, sinking out of life, because he had nothing

now to live for. He still was very weak in bed, faint, and worn, and

white, propped up with pillows--that poor, bereaved old man. Ever since

Lady Dillaway's most quiet death he had felt alone in the world. True,

while she lived she had seemed to him a mere tranquil trouble, a useless

complacent piece of furniture, often in his way; but now that she was

dead, what a void was left where she had been--mere empty space, cold

and death-like. She had left him quite alone.

Then again--of John, poor John, he would think, and think

continually--not about the little vulgar pock-marked man of 'change, the

broker, the rogue, the coward--but of a happy curly child, with

sparkling eyes--a merry-hearted, ruddy little fellow, romping with his

sister--ay, in this very room; here is the identical China vase he

broke, all riveted up; there is the corner where he would persist to

nestle his dormice. Ah, dear child! precious child! where is he

now?--Where and what indeed! Alas, poor father! had you known what I do,

and shall soon inform the world, of that bad man's awful end, one more,

one fiercest pang would have tormented you: but Heaven spared that pang.

Nevertheless, the bitter contrast of the child and of the man had made

him very wretched--and to the widower's solitude added the father's

sadness.

And worst of all--Maria's utter loss--that dear, warm-hearted, innocent,

ill-used, and yet beloved daughter. Why did he spurn her away? and keep

her away so long?--oh, hard heart, hard heart! Was she not innocent,

after all? and John, bad John, too probably the forger of that letter,

as the forger of this will? And now that he should give his life to see

her, and kiss her, and--no, no, not forgive her, but pray to be forgiven

by her--"Where is she? why doesn't she come to hold up my poor weak

head--to see how fervently my dead old heart has at last learnt to

love--to help a bad, and hard, a pardoned and penitent old man to die in

perfect peace--to pray with me, for me, to God, our God, my daughter!

Where is she--how can I find her out--why will she not come to me all

this sorrowful year? Oh come, come, dear child--our Father send thee to

me--come and bless me ere I die--come, my Maria!"

Magical, or contrived, as it may seem to us, the poor old man was

actually bemoaning himself thus, when our dear heroine of the Heart

faintly knocked at her old home door. It opened; a faded-looking woman,

with a baby in her arms, rushed past the astonished butler: and, just as

her father was praying out aloud for Heaven to speed her to him, that

daughter's step was at the bed-room door.

Before she turned the handle (some house-maid had recognised her on the

stairs, and told her, with an impudent air, that "Sir Thomas was ill

a-bed"), she stopped one calming instant to gain strength of God for

that dreaded interview, and to check herself from bursting in upon the

chamber of sickness, so as to disquiet that dear weak patient. So, she

prayed, gently turned the handle, and heard those thrilling

words--"Come, my Maria!"

It was enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains,

rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love,

as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining

dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and

clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and

playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that

poor old man, who was crying and laughing by turns, as little children

do--was praising God out loud like a saint, and calling down blessings

on his daughter's head in all the transports of a new-found Heart. What

a world of things they had to tell of--how much to explain, excuse,

forgive, and be forgiven, especially about that wicked letter--how

fervently to make up now for love that long lay dormant--how heartily to

bless each other, and to bless again! Who can record it all? Who can

even sketch aright the heavenly hues that shone about that scene of the

affections? Alas, my pen is powerless--yea, no mortal hand can trace

those heavenly hues. Angels that are round the penitent's, the good

man's bed--ye alone who witness it, can utter what ye see: ye alone,

rejoicingly with those rejoicing, gladly speed aloft frequent

ambassadors to Him, the Lord of Love, with some new beauteous trait,

some rare ecstatic thought, some pure delighted look, some more burning

prayer, some gem of Heaven's jewellery more brilliant than the rest,

which raises happy envy of your bright compeers. I see your shining

bands crowding enamoured round that scene of human tenderness; while now

and then some peri-like seraph of your thronging spiritual forms will

gladly wing away to find favour of his God for a tear, or a prayer, or a

holy thought dropped by his ministering hands into the treasury of

Heaven.

But the cup of joy is large and deep: it is an ocean in capacity: and

mantling though it seemeth to the brim, God's bounty poureth on.

Another step is on the stairs! You have guessed it, Henry Clements.

Returning home wearily, after a disheartening expedition, and finding

his wife, to his great surprise, gone out, sick and weak, as still he

thought her, he had calculated justly on the direction whereunto her

heart had carried her; he had followed her speedily, and, with many

self-compunctions, he had determined to be proud no more, and to help,

with all his heart, in that holy reconciliation. See! at the bed-side,

folding Maria with one arm, and with his other hand tightly clasped in

both of that kind and changed old man's, stands Henry Clements.

Ay, changed indeed! Who could have discovered in that joy-illumined

brow, in those blessing-dropping lips, in those eyes full of penitence,

and pity, and peace, and praise, and prayer, the harsh old usurer--the

crafty money-cankered knave of dim St. Benet's Sherehog--the cold

husband--the cruel father--the man without a heart? Ay, changed--changed

for ever now, an ever of increasing happiness and love. Who or what had

caused this deep and mighty change? Natural affection was the sword, and

God's the arm that wielded it. None but he could smite so deeply; and

when he smote, pour balm into the wound: none but He could kill death,

that dead dried heart, and quicken life within its mummied caverns: none

but the Voice, which said "Let there be light," could work this common

miracle of "Let there be love."

He grew feebler--feebler, that dying kind old man: it had been too much

for him, doubtlessly; he had long been ill, and should long ago have

died; but that he had lived for this; and now the end seemed near. They

never left his bed-side then for days and nights, that new-found son and

daughter: physicians came, and recommended that the knight be quite

alone, quite undisturbed: but Sir Thomas would not, could not--it were

cruelty to force it; so he lay feebly on his back, holding on either

side the hands of Henry and Maria.

It was not so very long: they had come almost in the nick of time: a few

days and hours at the most, and all will then be over. So did they watch

and pray.

And the old man faintly whispered:

"Henry--son Henry: poor John, forgive him, as you and our God have now

forgiven me; poor John--when he comes back again from those long years

of slavery, give him a home, son--give him a home, and enough to keep

him honest; tell him I love him, and forgive him; and remind him that I

died, praying Heaven for my poor boy's soul.

"Henry and Maria--I had, since my great distresses, well nigh forgotten

this world's wealth; but now, thank God, I have thought of it all for

your sakes: in my worst estate of mind I made a wicked will. It is in

that drawer--quick, give it me.

"Thanks--thanks--there is time to tear it; and these good friends, Dr.

Jones and Mr. Blair, take witness--I destroy this wicked will; and my

only child, Maria, has my wealth in course of law. Wealth, yes--if well

used, let us call it wealth; for riches may indeed be made a mine of

good, and joy, and righteousness. I am unworthy to use any of it well,

unworthy of the work, unworthy of the reward: use it well, my holier

children, wisely, liberally, kindly: God give you to do great good with

it; God give you to feel great happiness in all your doing good. My

hands that saved and scraped it all, also often-times by evil hardness,

now penitently washed in the Fountain of Salvation, heartily renounce

that evil. Be ye my stewards; give liberally to many needy. Oh me, my

sin! children, to my misery you know what need is: I can say no more;

poor sinful man, how dare I preach to others? Children, dearest ones, I

am a father still; and I would bless you--bless you!

"I grow weak, but my heart seems within me to grow stronger--I go--I go,

to the Home of Heart, where He that sits upon the throne is Love, and

where all the pulses of all the beings there thrill in unison with him,

the Great Heart of Heaven! I, even I, am one of the redeemed--my heart

is fixed, I will sing and give praise; I, even I, the hardest and the

worst, forgiven, accepted! Who are ye, bright messengers about my bed,

heralds of glory? I go--I go--one--one more, Maria--one last kiss; we

meet--again--in Heaven!"

Had he fainted? yes--his countenance looked lustrous, yet diminishing in

glory, even as a setting sun; the living smile faded gradually away, and

a tranquil cold calm crept over his cheeks: the angelic light which made

his eyes so beautiful to look at, was going out--going out: all was

peace--peace--deep peace.

O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting?

CHAPTER XVI.

A WORD ABOUT ORIGINALITY AND MOURNING.

When a purely inventive genius concocts a fabulous tale, it is clearly

competent to him so to order matters, that characters shall not die off

till his book is shortly coming to an end: and had your obedient servant

now been engaged in the architecture of a duly conventional story,

arranged in pattern style, with climax in the middle and a brace of ups

and downs to play supporters, doubtless he might easy have kept alive

both father and mother to witness the triumph of innocence, and have

produced their deaths at the last as a kind of "sweet sorrow," or honied

sting, wherewithal to point his moral. Such, however, was not my

authorship's intention; and, seeing that a wilful pen must have its way,

I have chosen to construct my own veracious tale, respecting the

incidents of life and death, much as such events not unfrequently occur,

that is, at an inconvenient season: for though such accessories to the

fact of dying, as triumphant conversion, or a tranquil going out, may

appear to be a little out of the common way, still the circumstance of

death itself often in real life seems to come as out of time, as your

wisdom thinks in the present book of Heart. People will die untowardly,

and people will live provokingly, notwithstanding all that novelists

have said and poets sung to the contrary: and if two characters out of

our principal five have already left the mimic scene, it will now be my

duty only to show, as nature and society do, how, of those three

surviving chief _dramatis personæ_, two of them--to wit, our hero and

heroine of Heart--gathered many friends about their happy homestead, did

a world of good, and, in fine, furnish our volume with a suitable

counterpoise to the mass of selfish sin, which (at its height in the

only remaining character) it has been my fortune to record and to

condemn as the opposite topic of heartlessness.

If writers will be bound by classic rules, and walk on certain roads

because other folks have gone that way before them, needs must that

ill-starred originality perish from this world's surface, and find

refuge (if it can) in the gentle moon or Sirius. Therefore, let us

boldly trespass from the trodden paths, let us rather shake off the

shackles of custom than hug them as an ornament approved: and,

notwithstanding both parental deaths, seemingly ill-timed for the

happiness of innocence, let us acquiesce in the facts, as plain matters

of history, not dubious thoughts of fiction; and let us gather to the

end any good we can, either from the miserable solitude of a selfish

Dillaway, or from the hearty social circle of our happy married pair.

Need I, sons and daughters, need I record at any length how Maria

mourned for her father? If you now have parents worthy of your love, if

you now have hearts to love them, I may safely leave that theme to your

affections: "now" is for all things "the accepted time," now is the day

for reconciliations: our life is a perpetual now. However unfilial you

may have been, however stern or negligent they, if there is now the will

to bless, and now the heart to love, all is well--well at the last, well

now for evermore--thank Heaven for so glad a consummation. Oh, that my

pen had power to make many fathers kind, many children trustful! Oh,

that by some burning word I could thaw the cold, shame sarcasms, and

arouse the apathetic! Oh that, invoking upon every hearth, whereto this

book may come, the full free blaze of home affections, my labour of love

be any thing but vain, when God shall have blessed what I am writing!

Yes, children, dear Maria did mourn for her father, but she mourned as

those who hope; his life had been forgiven, and his death was as a

saints's: as for her, rich rewarded daughter at the last, one word of

warm acknowledgement, one look of true affection, one tear of deep

contrition, would have been superabundant to clear away all the many

clouds, the many storms of her past home-life: and as for our Maker,

with his pure and spotless justice, faith in the sacrifice had passed

all sin to him, and love of the Redeemer had proved that faith the true

one. How should a daughter mourn for such a soul? With tears of joy;

with sighs--of kindred hopefulness; with happiest resolve to live as he

had died; with instant prayer that her last end be like his.

There is a plain tablet in St. Benet's church, just within the

altar-rail, bearing--no inscription about Lord Mayoralty, Knighthood, or

the Worshipful Company of Stationers--but full of facts more glorious

than every honour under heaven; for the words run thus:

SORROWFUL, YET REJOICING,

A DAUGHTER'S LOVE HAS PLACED THIS TABLET

TO THE MEMORY OF

T H O M A S D I L L A W A Y;

A MAN WHO DIED IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST,

IN THE LOVE OF GOD, AND IN THE HOPE OF HEAVEN.

Noble epitaph! Let us so live, that the like of this may be truth on our

tomb-stones. Seek it, rather than wealth, before honour, instead of

pleasure; for, indeed, those words involve within their vast

significancy riches unsearchable, glory indestructible, and pleasure for

evermore! Hide them, as a string of precious pearls, within the casket

of your hearts.

I had almost forgotten, though Maria never could, another neighbouring

tablet to record the peaceful exit of her mother; however, as this had

been erected by Sir Thomas in his life-time, and was plastered thick

with civic glories and heathen virtues, possibly the transcript may be

spared: there was only one sentence that looked true about the epitaph,

though I wished it had been so in every sense; but, to common eyes, it

had seemed quite suitable to the physical quietude of living Lady

Dillaway, to say, "Her end was peace;" although, perhaps, the husband

little thought how sore that mother's heart was for dear Maria's loss,

how full of anxious doubts her mind about Maria's sin. Poor soul,

however peaceful now that spirit has read the truth, in the hour of her

departure it had been with her far otherwise: her dying bed was as a

troubled sea, for she died of a broken heart.

Yearly, on the anniversaries of their respective deaths, the growing

clan of Clements make a solemn pilgrimage to their grand paternal

shrine, attending service on those days (or the holiday nearest to

them), at St. Benet's Sherehog; and Maria's eyes are very moist on such

occasions; though hope sings gladly too within her wise and cheerful

heart. She does not seem to have lost those friends; they are only gone

before.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE HOUSE OF FEASTING.

But in fact, with our happy married folks an anniversary of some sort is

perpetually recurring: wedding-days, birth-days, and all manner of

festival occasions, worthy (as the old Romans would have said) to be

noted up with chalk, happened in that family of love weekly--almost

daily. They cultivated well the grateful soil of Heart, by a thousand

little dressings and diggings; courting to it the warm sunshine of the

skies, the zephyrs of pleasant recollections, and the genial dews of

sympathy. And very wise were all those labours of delight; for their

sons and their daughters grew up as the polished corners in the temple;

moulded with delicate affections, their moral essence sharp, and clearly

edged with sensitive feelings, as if they had sprung fresh from the

hands of God, their sculptor, and the world had not rubbed off the

master-touches of His chisel. For, in this dull world, we cheat

ourselves and one another of innocent pleasures by the score, through

very carelessness and apathy: courted day after day by happy memories,

we rudely brush them off with this indiscriminating bosom, the stern

material present: invited to help in rendering joyful many a patient

heart, we neglect the little word that might have done it, and

continually defraud creation of its share of kindliness from us. The

child made merrier by your interest in his toy; the old domestic

flattered by your seeing him look so well; the poor, better helped by

your blessing than your penny (though give the penny too); the labourer,

cheered upon his toil by a timely word of praise; the humble friend

encouraged by your frankness; equals made to love you by the expression

of your love; and superiors gratified by attention and respect, and

looking out to benefit the kindly--how many pleasures here for any hand

to gather; how many blessings here for any heart to give! Instead of

these, what have we rife about the world? Frigid compliment--for warmth

is vulgar; reserve of tongue--for it is folly to be talkative;

composure, never at fault--for feelings are dangerous things;

gravity--for that looks wise; coldness--for other men are cold;

selfishness--for every one is struggling for his own. This is all false,

all bad; the slavery chain of custom riveted by the foolishness of

fashion; because there ever is a band of men and women, who have nothing

to recommend them but externals--their looks or their dresses, their

rank or their wealth--and in order to exalt the honour of these, they

agree to set a compact seal of silence on the heart and on the mind;

lest the flood of humbler men's affections, or of wiser men's

intelligence, should pale their tinsel-praise; and the warm and the wise

too softly acquiesce in this injury done to heartiness shamed by the

effrontery of cold calm fools, and the shallow dignity of an empty

presence. Turn the tables on them, ye truer gentry, truer nobility,

truer royalty of the heart and of the mind; speak freely, love warmly,

laugh cheerfully, explain frankly, exhort zealously, admire liberally,

advise earnestly--be not ashamed to show you have a heart: and if some

cold-blooded simpleton greet your social effort with a sneer, repay

him--for you can well afford a richer gift than his whole treasury

possesses--repay him with a kind good-humoured smile: it would have

shamed Jack Dillaway himself. If a man persists to be silent in a crowd

for vanity's sake, instead of sociable, as good company expects, count

him simply for a fool; you will not be far wrong; he remembers the

copy-book at school, no doubt, with its large-text aphorism, "Silence is

wisdom;" and thinking in an easy obedience to gain credit from mankind

by acting on that questionable sentence, the result is what you

perpetually see--a self-contained, self-satisfied, selfish, and reserved

young puppy. Hint to such an incommunicative comrade, that the fashion

now is coming about, to talk and show your wisdom; not to sit in shallow

silence, hiding hard your folly; soon shall you loosen the flood-gates

of his speech; and society will even thank you for it; for, bore as the

chatterer may oft-times be, still he does the frank companion's duty;

and at any rate is vastly preferable to the dull, unwarmed,

unsympathetic watcher at the festal board, who sits there to exhibit his

painted waistcoat instead of the heart that should be in it, and

patiently waits, with a snakish eye and a bitter tongue, to aid

conversation with a sarcasm.

Henry and Maria had many hearty friends to keep their many

anniversaries. They were well enough for wealth, as we may guess without

much trouble; for the knight had left three thousand a-year behind him,

and Maria, as sole heiress, had no difficulty in establishing her claim

to it; but it may be well to put mankind in memory how hospitably, how

charitably, how wisely, and how heartily they stewarded it. I need not

stop to tell of local charities assisted, good societies supported, and

of philanthropic good done by means of their money, both at home and

abroad: nor detail their many dinners, and other festal opportunities,

rivets in the lengthening chain of ordinary friendship: but I do wish to

make honourable mention of one happiest anniversary, which, while it

commemorated fine young Master Harry's birth, rejoiced the many poor of

Lower-Sack street, Islington.

The birth-day itself was kept at home with all the honours, in their old

house at Finsbury square; Maria would not leave that house, for old

acquaintance sake. Master Harry, a frank-faced, open-hearted,

curly-headed boy of ten (at least when I dined there, for he has

probably grown older since), was of course the happy hero of the feast,

ably supported by divers joyful brothers and sisters, who had all

contributed to their elder brother's triumph on that day, by the

contribution of their various presents--one a little scent bag, another

a rude drawing, another a book-marker, and so forth, all probably

worthless in the view of selfish calculation, but inestimable according

to the currency of Heart. Half-a-dozen choice old friends closed the

list of company; and a noisy rout of boys and girls were added in the

early evening, full of negus, and sponge-cake, snap-dragon, and

blindman's-buff, with merry music, and a golden-flood of dances and

delight.

We dined early; and, to be very confidential with you, I thought (until

I found out reasons why), that the bill-of-fare upon the table was

inordinately large, not to say vulgar; for the board was overloaded with

solid sweets and savouries: so, in my uncharitable mind, I set all that

down to the uncivilized hospitality asserted of a citizen's feast, and

(for aught I know) still rife in St. Mary Axe and Finsbury square.

Never mind how the dinner passed off, nor how jovially the children kept

it up till near eleven: for I learnt, in an incidental way, what was

regularly done upon the morrow; and I am sure it will gratify my readers

to learn it too, as a trait of considerate kindness which will gladden

man and woman's heart.

On the seventh of April in every year (Harry's birth-day was the sixth),

Henry and Maria used to go on an humble pilgrimage to Lower Sack street,

Islington. Not to shame the poor by fine clothes or their usual

equipage, they sedulously donned on that occasion the same now faded

suits they had worn in their adversity, and made their progress in a

hackney-coach. They would have walked for humility's sake and sympathy,

but that the coach in question was crammed full of eatables and

drinkables, nicely packed up in well-considered parcels, consisting of

the vast _débris_ of yesterday's overwhelming feast, with a sackful of

tea and sugar added. Their pockets also, as I took the liberty of

inquiring at Sack street afterwards, must have been well stored, for

their largess was munificent. Then would they go to that identical

lodgings of years gone by, where they had so struggled with adversity,

now in the happy contrast of wealth and peace and thankfulness to

Heaven, and of joy at doing good. That parlour was right liberally hired

for the day, and all the poor in Sack street were privileged to call,

where Mrs. Clements held her levee. They came in an orderly stream,

clean for the occasion, and full of gratitude and blessings; and, to be

just upon the poor, no impostor had ever been known to intrude upon the

privilege of Sack street. As for dear Maria, she regularly broke down

just as the proceedings commenced, and Henry's manlier hand had to give

away the spoil; whilst Maria sobbed beside him, as if her heart would

break. Then did the good old nurse come in for a cold round of beef,

with tea, sugar, and a sovereign; and the bed-ridden neighbour up-stairs

for jellied soup, and other condiments, with a similar royal climax; and

the cobbler over the way carried off ham and chickens, with apple-puffs

and a bottle of wine: and so some thirty or forty families were

gladdened for the hour, and made wealthy for a week. Altogether they

divided amongst them a coachful of comestibles, and a pocketful of coin.

It would be impertinent in us to intrude so far on privacy, as to record

how Henry and Maria passed much time in prayer and praise on that

interesting anniversary; it is unnecessary too, for in fact they did not

stop for anniversaries to do that sort of thing. Be sure that good

thoughts and good words are ever found preceding good and grateful

deeds. It is quite enough to know that they did God service in doing

good to man.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE END OF THE HEARTLESS.

There is plenty of contrast in this poor book, if that be any virtue.

Let us turn our eyes away from those scenes of love and cheerfulness, of

benevolence and peace. Let us leave Maria in her nursery, hearing the

little ones their lessons; and Henry cutting the leaves of a nice new

book, fresh from the press, while his home-taught son and heir is

playing at pot-hooks and hangers in a copy-book beside him. Let us

recollect their purity of mind, their holiness of motive, and their

happiness of life; these are the victims of false-witness. And how fares

the wretch that would have starved them?

The fate of John Dillaway is at once so tragical, so interesting, and so

instructive, that it will be well for us to be transported for awhile,

and give this rogue the benefit of honest company.

For many months I had seen a sullen lowering fellow, with cropped head,

ironed-legs, and the motley garments of disgrace, driven forth at early

morning with his gang of bad compeers; a slave, toiling till night-fall

in piling cannon-balls, and chipping off the rust with heavy hammers; a

sentinel stood near with a loaded musket; they might not speak to each

other, that miserable gang; hope was dead among them; life had no

delights; they wreaked their silent hatred on those hammered

cannon-balls. The man who struck the fiercest, that sullen convict with

the lowering brow, was our stock-jobber, John Dillaway.

Soon after that foretaste of slavery at Woolwich, the ship sailed,

freighted with incarnate crime; her captain was a ruffian; (could he

help it with such cargoes?) her crew, the offscouring of all nations;

and the Chesapeake herself was an old rotten hull, condemned, after one

more voyage, to be broken up; a creaking, foul, unsafe vessel, full of

rats, cockroaches, and other vermin.

The sun glared ungenially at that blot upon the waters, breeding

infectious disease; the waves flung the hated burden from one to the

other, disdainful of her freight of sin; the winds had no commission for

fair sailing, but whistled through the rigging crossways, howling in the

ears of many in that ship, as if they carried ghosts along with them:

the very rocks and reefs butted her off the creamy line of breakers, as

sea-unicorns distorting; no affectionate farewell blessed her departure;

no hearty welcomes await her at the port.

And they sailed many days as in a floating hell, hot, miserable, and

cursing; the scanty meal was flung to them like dog's-meat, and they

lapped the putrid water from a pail; gang by gang for an hour they might

pace the smoking deck, and then and thence were driven down to fester in

the hold for three-and-twenty more. O, those closed hatches by night!

what torments were the kernel of that ship! Suffocated by the heat and

noxious smells; bruised against each other, and by each other's blows,

as the black unwieldy vessel staggered about among the billows, the

wretched mass of human misery wore away those tropical nights in horrid

imprecation; worse than crowded slaves upon the Spanish Main, from the

blister of crime upon their souls, and their utter lack of hopefulness

for ever.

And now, after all the shattering storms, and haggard sufferings, and

degrading terrors of that voyage, they neared the metropolis of sin;

some town on Botany Bay, a blighted shore--where each man, looking at

his neighbour, sees in him an outcast from heaven. They landed in

droves, that ironed flock of men; and the sullenest-looking scoundrel of

them all was John Dillaway.

There were murderers among his gang; but human passions, which had

hurried them to crime, now had left them as if wrecked upon a lee

shore--humbled and remorseful, and heaven's happier sun shed some light

upon their faces: there were burglars; but the courage which could dare

those deeds, now lending strength to bear the stroke of punishment,

enabled them to walk forth even cheerily to meet their doom of labour:

there was rape; but he hid himself, ashamed, vowing better things: fiery

arson, too, was there, sorry for his rash revenge: also, conspiracy and

rebellion, confessing that ambition such as theirs had been wickedness

and folly; and common frauds, and crimes, and social sins; bad enough,

God wot, yet hopeful; but the mean, heartless, devilish criminality of

our young Dagon beat them all. If to be hard-hearted were a virtue, the

best man there was Dillaway.

And now they were to be billeted off among the sturdy colonists as

farm-servants, near a-kin to slaves; tools in the rough hands of men who

pioneer civilization, with all the vices of the social, and all the

passions of the savage. And on the strand, where those task-masters

congregated to inspect the new-come droves, each man selected according

to his mind: the rougher took the roughest, and the gentler, the

gentlest; the merry-looking field farmer sought out the cheerful, and

the sullen backwoods settler chose the sullen. Dillaway's master was a

swarthy, beetled-browed caitiff, who had worn out his own seven years of

penalty, and had now set up tyrant for himself.

As a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in a stagnant little clearing

of the forest, our convict toiled continually--continually--like

Caliban: all days alike; hewing at the mighty trunk and hacking up the

straggling branches; no hope--no help--no respite; and the iron of

servile tyranny entered into his very soul. Ay--ay; the culprit

convicted, when he hears in open court, with an impudent assurance, the

punishment that awaits him on those penal shores, little knows the

terrors of that sentence. Months and years--yea, haply to gray hairs and

death, slavery unmitigated--uncomforted; toil and pain; toil and sorrow;

toil, and nothing to cheer; even to the end, vain tasked toil. Old

hopes, old recollections, old feelings, violently torn up by the roots.

No familiar face in sickness, no patient nurse beside the dying bed: no

hope for earth, and no prospect of heaven: but, in its varying phases,

one gloomy glaring orb of ever-present hell.

It grew intolerable--intolerable; he was beaten, mocked, and almost a

maniac. Escape--escape! Oh, blessed thought! into the wild free woods!

there, with the birds and flowers, hill and dale, fresh air and liberty!

Oh, glad hope--mad hope! His habitual cunning came to his aid; he

schemed, he contrived, he accomplished. The jutting heads of the rivets

having been diligently rubbed away from his galling fetter by a big

stone--a toil of weeks--he one day stood unshackled, having watched his

time to be alone. An axe was in his hand, and the saved single dinner of

pea-bread. That beetled-browed task-master slumbered in the hut; that

brother convict--(why need he care for him, too? every one for himself

in this world)--that kinder, humbler, better man was digging in the

open; if he wants to escape, let him think of himself: John Dillaway has

enough to take care for. Now, then; now, unobserved, unsuspected; now is

the chance! Joy, life, and liberty! Oh, glorious prospect--for this

inland world is unexplored.

He stole away, with panting heart, and fearfully exulting eye; he

ran--ran--ran, for miles--it may have been scores of them--till

night-fall, on the soft and pleasant greensward under those high echoing

woods. None pursued; safe--safe; and deliciously he slept that night

beneath a spreading wattle-tree, after the first sweet meal of freedom.

Next morning, waked up like the starting kangaroos around him (for John

Dillaway had not bent the knee in prayer since childhood), off he set

triumphant and refreshed: his arm was strong, and he trusted in it, his

axe was sharp, and he looked to that for help; he knew no other God. Off

he set for miles--miles--miles: still that continuous high acacia wood,

though less naturally park-like, often-times choked with briars, and

here and there impervious a-head. Was it all this same starving forest

to the wide world's end? He dug for roots, and found some acrid bulbs

and tubers, which blistered up his mouth; but he was hungry, and ate

them; and dreaded as he ate. Were they poisonous? Next to it, Dillaway;

so he hurried eagerly to dilute their griping juices with the mountain

streams near which he slept: the water was at least kindly cooling to

his hot throat; he drank huge draughts, and stayed his stomach.

Next morning, off again: why could he not catch and eat some of those

half-tame antelopes? Ha! He lay in wait hours--hours, near the torrent

to which they came betimes to slake their thirst: but their beautiful

keen eyes saw him askance--and when he rashly hoped to hunt one down

afoot, they went like the wind for a minute--then turned to look at him

afar off, mockingly--poor, panting, baffled creeper.

No; give it up--this savoury hope of venison; he must go despondently on

and on; and he filled his belly with grass. Must he really starve in

this interminable wood! He dreamt that night of luxurious city feasts,

the turtle, turbot, venison, and champagne; and then how miserably weak

he woke. But he must on wearily and lamely, for ever through this

wood--objectless, except for life and liberty. Oh, that he could meet

some savage, and do him battle for the food he carried; or that a dead

bird, or beast, or snake lay upon his path; or that one of those

skipping kangaroos would but come within the reach of his oft-aimed

hatchet! No: for all the birds and flowers, and the free wild woods, and

hill, and dale, and liberty, he was starving--starving; so he browsed

the grass as Nebuchadnezzar in his lunacy. And the famished wretch would

have gladly been a slave again.

Next morning, he must lie and perish where he slept, or move on: he

turned to the left, not to go on for ever; probably, ay, too probably,

he had been creeping round a belt. Oh, precious thought of change! for

within three hours there was light a-head, light beneath the tangled

underwood: he struggled through the last cluster of thick bushes,

longing for a sight of fertile plain, and open country. Who knows? are

there not men dwelling there with flocks and herds, and food and plenty?

Yes--yes, and Dillaway will do among them yet. You envious boughs, delay

me not! He tore aside the last that hid his view, and found that he was

standing on the edge of an ocean of sand--hot yellow sand to the

horizon!

He fainted--he had like to have died; but as for prayer--he only

muttered curses on this bitter, famishing disappointment. He dared not

strike into the wood again--he dared not advance upon that yellow sea

exhausted and unprovisioned: it was his wisdom to skirt the wood; and so

he trampled along weakly--weakly. This liberty to starve is horrible!

Is it, John Dillaway? What, have you no compunctions at that word

starve? no bitter, dreadful recollections? Remember poor Maria, that own

most loving sister, wanting bread through you. Remember Henry Clements,

and their pining babe; remember your own sensual feastings and

fraudulent exultation, and how you would utterly have starved the good,

the kind, the honest! This same bitter cup is filled for your own lips,

and you must drink it to the dregs. Have you no compunctions, man?

nothing tapping at your heart? for you must _starve_!

No! not yet--not yet! for chance (what Dillaway lyingly called

chance)--in his moments of remorse at these reflections, when God had

hoped him penitent at last, and, if he still continued so, might save

him--sent help in the desert! For, as he reelingly trampled along on the

rank herbage between this forest and that sea of sand, just as he was

dying of exhaustion, his faint foot trod upon a store of life and

health! It was an Emeu's ill-protected nest; and he crushed, where he

had trodden, one of those invigorating eggs. Oh, joy--joy--no

thanks--but sensual joy! There were three of them, and each one meat for

a day; ash-coloured without, but the within--the within--full of sweet

and precious yolk! Oh, rich feast, luscious and refreshing: cheer

up--cheer up: keep one to cross the desert with: ay--ay, luck will come

at last to clever Jack! how shrewd it was of me to find those eggs!

Thus do the wicked forget thee, blessed God! thou hast watched this bad

man day by day, and all the dark nights through, in tender expectation

of some good: Thou hast been with him hourly in that famishing forest,

tempting him by starvation to--repentance; and how gladly did Thine

eager mercy seize this first opportunity of half-formed penitence to

bless and help him--even him, liberally and unasked! Thanks to

Thee--thanks to Thee! Why did not that man thank Thee? Who more grieved

at his thanklessness than Thou art? Who more sorry for the righteous and

necessary doom which the impenitence of heartlessness drags down upon

itself?

And Providence was yet more kind, and man yet more ungrateful; mercy

abounding over the abundant sin. For the famished vagrant diligently

sought about for more rich prizes; and, as the manner is of those

unnatural birds to leave their eggs carelessly to the hatching of the

sunshine, he soon stumbled on another nest. "Ha--ha!" said he, "clever

Jack Dillaway of Broker's alley isn't done up yet: no--no, trust him for

taking care of number one; now then for the desert; with these four huge

eggs and my trusty hatchet, deuce take it, but I'll manage somehow!"

Thus, deriving comfort from his bold hard heart, he launched

unhesitatingly upon that sea of sand: with aching toil through

the loose hot soil he ploughed his weary way, footsore, for

leagues--leagues--lengthened leagues; yellow sand all round, before, and

on either hand, as far as eye can stretch, and behind and already in the

distance that terrible forest of starvation. But what, then, is the name

of this burnt plain, unwatered by one liquid drop, unvisited even by

dews in the cold dry night? Have you not yet found a heart, man, to

thank Heaven for that kind supply of recreative nourishment, sweet as

infant's food, the rich delicious yolk, which bears up still your

halting steps across this world of sand? No heart--no heart of

flesh--but a stone--a cold stone, and hard as yonder rocky hillock.

He climbed it for a view--and what a view! a panorama of perfect

desolation, a continent of vegetable death. His spirit almost failed

within him; but he must on--on, or perish where he stood. Taking no

count of time, and heedless as to whither he might wander, so it be not

back again along that awful track of liberty he longed for, he crept on

by little and little, often resting, often dropping for fatigue, night

and day--day and night: he had made his last meal; he laid him down to

die--and already the premonitory falcon flapped him with its heavy wing.

Ha! what are all those carrion fowls congregated there for? Are they

battening on some dead carcase? O, hope--hope! there is the smell of

food upon the wind: up, man, up--battle with those birds, drive them

away, hew down that fierce white eagle with your axe; what right have

they to precious food, when man, their monarch, starves? So, the poor

emaciated culprit seized their putrid prey, and the scared fowls hovered

but a little space above, waiting instinctively for this new victim:

they had not left him much--it was a feast of remnants--pickings from

the skeleton of some small creature that had perished in the desert--a

wombat, probably, starved upon its travels; but a royal feast it was to

that famishing wretch: and, gathering up the remainder of those

priceless morsels, which he saved for some more fearful future, again he

crept upon his way. Still the same, night and day--day and night--for he

could only travel a league a-day: and at length, a shadowy line between

the sand and sky--far, far off, but circling the horizon as a bow of

hope. Shall it be a land of plenty, green, well-watered meadows, the

pleasant homes of man, though savage, not unfriendly? O hope,

unutterable! or is it (O despair!) another of those dreadful woods,

starving solitude under the high-arched gum-trees.

Onward he crept; and the line on the horizon grew broader and darker:

onward, still; he was exulting, he had conquered, he was bold and hard

as ever. He got nearer, now within some dozen miles; it was an

indistinct distance, but green at any rate; huzza--never mind

night-fall; he cannot wait, nor rest, with this Elysium before him: so

he toiled along through all the black night, and a friendly storm of

rain refreshed him, as his thirsty pores drank in the cooling stream.

Aha! by morning's dawn he should be standing on the edge of that green

paradise, fresh as a young lion, and no thanks to any one but his own

shrewd indomitable self.

Morning dawned--and through the vague twilight loomed some high and

tangled wall of green foliage, stretching seemingly across the very

world. Most sickening sight! a matted, thorny jungle, one of those

primeval woods again, but closer, thicker, darker than the park-like

one before; rank and prickly herbage in a rotting swamp, crowding up

about the stately trees. Must he battle his way through? Well, then, if

it must be so, he must and will; any thing rather than this hot and

blistering sand. If he is doomed by fate to starve, be it in the shade,

not in that fierce sun. So, he weakly plied his hatchet, flinging

himself with boldness on that league-thick hedge of thorns; his way was

choked with thorns; he struggled under tearing spines, and through

prickly underwood, and over tangled masses of briery plants, clinging to

him every where around, as with a thousand taloned claws; he is

exhausted, extrication is impossible; he beats the tough creepers with

his dulled hatchet, as a wounded man vainly; ha! one effort more--a

dying effort--must he be impaled upon these sharp aloes, and

strange-leafed prickly shrubs; they have caught him there, those thirsty

poisoned hooks, innumerable as his sins; his way, whichever way he

looks, is hedged up high with thorns--thick-set thorns--sturdy, tearing

thorns, that he cannot battle through them. Emaciated, bleeding, rent,

fainting, famished, he must perish in the merciless thicket into which

hard-heartedness had flung him!

Before he was well dead, those flapping carrion fowls had found him out;

they were famishing too, and half forgot their natural distaste for

living meat. He fought them vainly, as the dying fight; soon there were

other screams in that echoing solitude, besides the screeching falcons!

and when they reached his heart (if its matter aptly typified its

spirit), that heart should have been a very stone for hardness.

So let the selfish die! alone, in the waste howling wilderness; so let

him starve uncared-for, whose boast it was that he had never felt for

other than himself--who mocked God, and scorned man--whose motto

throughout life, one sensual, unsympathizing, harsh routine, was this:

"Take care of the belly, and the heart will take care of itself!"--who

never had a wish for other's good, a care for other's evil, a thought

beyond his own base carcase; who was a man--no man--a wretch, without a

heart. So let him perish miserably; and the white eagles pick his

skeleton clean in yonder tangled jungle!

CHAPTER XIX.

WHEREIN MATTERS ARE CONCLUDED.

Certain folks at Ballyriggan, near Belfast, observe to me, with not a

little Irish truth, that it is by no means easy to conclude a history

never intended to be finished. It so happens that my good friends the

clan Clements are still enjoying life and all it sweets, beneficent in

their generation; and as for their hearts' affections, that story

without an end will still be heard, ringing on its happy changes, in the

presence of God and of his immortal train, when every reader of these

records shall have been to this world dead. Out of the heart are the

issues of life, and within, it is life's well-spring. Death is but a

little narrow gate, in a dark rough pass among the mountains, where each

must go alone, one by one, in solemn silence, for the avalanches hanging

overhead; one by one, in breathless caution, for there is but barely a

footing; one by one, for none can help his brother on the track: the

steady eye of faith, the firm foot of righteousness, the staff of hope

to comfort and support--these be the only helps. And each one carries

with him, as his sole possession on that lonely journey, no heaps of

wealth--no trappings of honour; these burdens of the camel must all be

lifted off, ere he can struggle through that gully in the rocks--"The

Needle's Eye;" but the sole possession which every wayfarer must take

with him into those broad plains where only Spirit can be seen, and Sin

no longer can be hid, is the shrine of his affections, the casket of his

precious pearls in life--his Heart, unmantled and unmasked. And if in

time it had been a well of love, flowing towards God in penitence, and

irrigating this world's garden with charities and blessed works, that

little sparkling stream shall then burst forth from this rocky portal of

the grave, a river of joy and peace, to gladden even more the sunny

provinces of heaven. For the heart with its affections, never dieth:

they may, indeed, flow inward, and corrupt to selfishness; becoming

then, in lieu of fountains of waters, gushing forth to everlasting life,

a bottomless volcano of hot lava, tempestuous and involved, setting up

the creature as his own foul god, and living the perpetual death-bed of

the damned; or they may nobly burst the banks of self, and, rising

momentarily higher and higher, till every Nilometer is drowned, will

seek for ever, with expanding strength, to reach the unapproachable

level of that source in the Most Highest whence they originally sprung.

For this cause, the kindest fatherly word which ever reached man's ear,

the surest scheme for happiness that ever touched his reason, was one

from God's own heart--"My son, give me thy heart."

They lived upon the blessing of that Word, our noble, kindly pair. To

enlarge upon the thought as respects a better world is well for those

who will: for if He that made the eye and framed the ear, by the

stronger argument Himself must see and hear, so he that fashioned

loveliness and moulded the affections, how well-deserving must that

Beautiful Spirit be of his rational creature's heart! Away with mawkish

cant and stale sentimentalities! let us think, and speak, and feel as

men, framed by nature's urgent law to the lovely and to hate the vile.

Oh, that the advocates for Him, the Good One, would oftener plead His

cause by the human affections--by generosity, by sympathy, by gentleness

and patience, by self-denying love, and soul absolving beauty; for these

are of the essence of God, and their spiritual influence on reason. A

child writes upon his heart that warmer code of morals, which the iron

tool of threatening availeth not to grave upon the rock, while the voice

of love can change that rock into a spring of water.

But we must descend from our altitudes, and speak of lower things; for

the time and space forbid much longer intrusion on your courtesy. A few

ravelling threads of this our desultory tale have yet to be gathered up,

as tidily as may be. Suffer, then, such mingling of my thoughts: the web

I weave has many threads, woven with divers colours. Human nature is

nothing if not inconsistent; and I have no more notion of irreverence in

turning from a high topic to a low one, than a bee may be fancied to

have of irrelevant idleness in flitting from the sweet violet to the

scented dahlia. We may gather honey out of every flower. Have you not

often noticed, that riches generally come to a man, when he least stands

in need of them? Directly a middle-aged heir succeeds to his

long-expected heritage, half-a-dozen aunts and second cousins are sure

to die off and leave him super-abounding legacies, any one of which

would have helped his poverty stricken youth, and made him of

independent mind throughout his servile manhood. The other day (the idea

remains the same, though the fact is to be questioned) the richest lord

in Europe dug up a chest of hoarded coins, many thousand pound's worth,

simply because he didn't want it: and, if such particularization were

not improper or invidious, you or I might name a brace of friends

a-piece, who, having once lacked bread in the career of life, suddenly

have found themselves monopolizing two or three great fortunes. As too

few things are certain, novel writers less like truth in their

descriptions, than where ample wealth falls upon the hero just in the

nick of time. Providence intends to teach by penury: yes, and by

prosperity too: and we almost never see the reward given, or the no less

reward withheld, just as the scholar has begun to spell his lesson, and

before he has had the chance of getting it by heart.

That another death should occur, in the progress of this tale, must be

counted for no fault of mine; especially as I am not about to introduce

another death-bed. One need not have the mummy always at our feasts.

Surely, too, these deaths have ever been on fit occasion: one broken

heart; one bereaved, yet comforted; and one which perished in its sin of

uttermost hard-heartedness. And here, if any insurance clerk, or other

interested person, will show cause why Mrs. Jane Mackenzie should not

die at the age of ninety-two, I would keep her alive if I could; but the

fact is, I cannot: she died. Henry Clements never saw her, any more that

I, nor dear Maria. But that was no earthly reason wherefore--

_First_, Maria should not bewail the dear old relative's loss with all

her heart and eyes, and children and household in mourning.

Nor, _secondly_, wherefore Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, aforesaid, of

Ballyriggan, province of Ulster, should not leave her estate of

Ballyriggan, aforesaid, and a vast heap of other property, to the only

surviving though distant scion of her family, Henry Clements.

Nor, _thirdly_, wherefore I should not record the fact, as duly bound in

my capacity of honest historian.

This accession of property was large, almost overwhelming, when added to

Maria's patrimony of three thousand a-year, the produce of St. Benet's

Sherehog: for besides and beyond a considerable breadth of Irish acres,

sundry houses in Belfast, and an accumulation of half-forgotten funds,

the Bank of England found itself necessitated (from particular

circumstances of ill-caution in its servants) to refund the whole of

that twelve thousand forty-three pounds bank annuities, which Jack

Dillaway and his ladies had already made away with.

Rich, however, as Clements had become, he felt himself only as a great

lord's steward to help a needy world; and I never heard that he spent a

sixpence more upon himself, his equipage, or his family, from being some

thousands a-year richer: though I certainly did hear that, owing to this

legacy, every tenant upon Ballyriggan, and a vast number of struggling

families in Spitalfields and round about St. Benet's, had ample cause

to bless Heaven and the good man of Finsbury square. As for dear Maria,

it rejoiced her generous heart to find that Henry (whose gentlemanly

pride had all along been reproaching him for pauperism) was now become

pretty well her equal in wealth; even as her humility long had known him

her superior in mind, good looks, and good family.

Another thread in my discourse, hanging loosely on the world, concerns

our lady-legatees. What became of Miss Julia, after the safe and

successful issue of that vengeful trial, I never heard: and, perhaps, it

may be wise not to inquire: if she changed her name, she did not change

her nature: and is probably still to be numbered among the sect of

Strand peripatetics.

But of Anna Bates I have pleasanter news to tell. With respect to

repentance, let us be charitable, and hope, even if we cannot be so

sanguine as firmly to believe; but at any rate we may rest assured of an

outward reformation, and an honest manner of life. The miracle happened

thus: After the trial and condemnation of Dillaway, poor Anna Bates felt

entirely disappointed that she had not the chance of better things

presented to her mind by transportation; the two approvers, to her

dismay--poor thing!--were graciously pardoned for their evidence; and,

whereas, the one of them returned to her old courses more devotedly than

ever, the other resolved to make one strong effort to extricate her

loathing self from the gulf in which she lay. Fortunately for her, our

Maria had the heart to pity and to help a frail and fallen sister; and

when the poor disconsolate woman, finding her to be the sister of that

evil paramour, came to Mrs. Clements in distress, revealing all her past

sins and sorrows, and pleading for some generous hand to lift her out of

that miserable state, she did not plead in vain. Maria spurned her not

away, nor coldly disbelieved her promise of amendment; but, taking

counsel of her husband, she gave the poor woman sufficient means of

setting up a milliner's shop at Hull, where, under her paternal name of

Stellingburne, our Fleet street lady-legatee still survives, earning a

decent livelihood, and little suspected amongst her kindly neighbours of

ever having been much worse than a strictly honest woman.

For another thread, if the reader, in his ample curiosity, wishes to be

informed how it became possible for me to learn the fate of Dillaway,

let him know, that up to the hour of escape, I derived it easily from

living witnesses; and thereafter, that certain settlers, having set out

to explore the country, found a human skeleton stretched upon a thicket

which, from the _débris_ of convicts' clothes, and the hatchet stamped

with his initials, was easily decided to be that bad man's. It always

had struck me, as a remarkable piece of retribution, that whereas John

made Austral shares a plea for ruining Henry Clements, a howling Austral

wilderness was made the means of starving him. Maria never heard what

became of her brother; but still looks for his return some day with

affectionate and earnest expectation.

Another little matter to be mentioned is the fact, that Henry Clements,

in his leisure from business, and freedom from care, resolved to attain

some literary glories; and first, he published his now-renowned tragedy

of '_Boadicea_,' with his name at length, giving a mint of proceeds to

that very proper charity the Theatrical Fund. Secondly, he followed up

his tragic triumph by a splendid '_Caractacus_,' by way of a companion

picture. Thirdly, he turned to his maligned law-treatise on _Defence_,

and boldly published a capital vindication thereof, flinging down his

gauntlet to the judges both of law and literature. It was strange, by

the way, and instructive also, to find with what a deferential air the

wealthy writer now was listened to; and how meekly both '_Watchman_' and

'_Corinthian_' kissed the smiling hand of the literary genius, who--gave

such sumptuous dinners; for Henry, of his mere kindness, (not

bribery--don't imagine him so weak,) now that he was known as a Mæcenas

amongst authors, made no invidious distinctions between literary

magnates, but effectually overcame evil with good by his hearty

hospitality to '_Corinthian_' and '_Watchman_' editors, as well as to

other potent wielders of the pen of fame, who had erstwhile favoured

the productions of his genius.

The last dinner he gave, I, an old friend of the family, was present;

and when the ladies went up-stairs, I had, as usual, the honour of

enacting vice. It was according to Finsbury taste and custom, to produce

toasts and speeches; whether cold high-breeding would have sanctioned

this or not, little matters: it was warm and cordial, and we all liked

it; moreover, finding ourselves at Rome, we unanimously did as other

Romans do: and this I take to be politeness. Among the speeches, that

which proposed the health of the host and hostess caused the chiefest

roar of clamorous joy: it was a happy-looking friend who spoke, and what

he said was much as follows:

"Clements, my dear fellow, you are the happiest man I know--except

myself; at least, in one thing I am happier--for I can call you friend,

whereas you can only return the compliment with such a sorry substitute

as I am."

[This ingenious flattery was much ridiculed afterwards; but I pledge my

word the man intended what he said; moreover, he went on, utterly

regardless of surrounding critics, in all the seeming egotism of a warm

and open heart.]

"Clements--I cannot help telling you how heartily I love you;" (Hear,

hear!) "and I wish I had known you thirty years instead of three, to

have said so with the unction of my earliest recollections: but we

cannot help antiquity, you know. Let us all the rather make up now by

heartiness for all lost time. I think, nay, am sure, that I speak the

language of all present in telling you I love you:" (an enormous

hear-hearing, which rose above the drawing-room floor; Harry Clements

singularly distinguished himself, in proving how he loved his father; a

fine young fellow he grows too, and I wish, between ourselves, to catch

him for a son-in-law some day;)--"Yes, Clements, I do love you, and your

children, and your wife, for there is the charm of heart about you all:

in yourself, in your Maria, in that fine frank youth, and those dear

warm girls up stairs" (every word was bravoed to the echo), "in every

one of you, all the charities and amenities, all the kindnesses and the

cheerfulness of life appear to be embodied; you love both God and man;

the rich and the poor alike may bless you, Clements, and your admirable

Maria; whilst, as for yourselves, you may both well thank God, whose

mercy made you what you are."

Clements hid his face, and Harry sobbed with joyfulness.

"Friends! a toast and sentiment, with all the honours: 'This happy

family! and may all who know them now, or come to hear of them in

future, cultivate as they do all the home affections, and acknowledge

that there is no wealth of man's, which may compare with riches of the

heart.'"

THE END OF HEART.

* * * * *

AN AUTHOR'S MIND;

THE BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES:

"A BOOKFUL OF BOOKS," OR "THIRTY BOOKS IN ONE."

EDITED BY

M.F. TUPPER, ESQ., M. A.

"En un mot, mes amis, je n'ai entrepris de vous contenter tous en

général; ainsi, une et autres en particulier; et par spécial,

moymême."--PASQUIER.

* * * * *

SUBJECTS.

PAGE.

The Author's Mind; a ramble 331

Nero, a tragedy 353

Opium, a history 361

Charlotte Clopton, a novel 364

The Marvellous, a hand-book 371

Psychotherion, an argument 376

The Confessional, a tale 377

The Prior of Marrick, an autobiography 379

The Seven Churches, a dissertation 384

Revision, an essay 386

Homely Expositions, a compilation 386

Lay Sermons, a contribution 386

Scriptural Physics, a treatise 387

Heathenism, an apology 387

Biblical Similes, an investigation 389

Home, an epic 390

Grecian Sayings, a series 398

Heptalogia, a collection 400

Alfred, an oratorio 403

Alfred's Life, a translation 406

National Memorials, a proposal 408

Politics, a manual 411

Woman, a subject 414

False Steps, a pamphlet 415

King's Evidence, a satire 417

Poetics, a melange 422

Humoristics, a medley 423

Journals, a decade 426

Lay Hints, an appeal 427

Anti-Xurion, a crusade 431

The Squire, a portraiture 434

The Author's Tribunal, an oration 437

Zoilomastrix, a title 443

Epilogue, a conclusion 443

Appendix, an after-thought 445

ANNOUNCEMENT.

BY THE EDITOR.

The writer of this strange book (a particular friend of mine) came to me

a few mornings ago with a very happy face and a very blotty manuscript.

"Congratulate me," he began, "on having dispersed an armada of

head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain of its

legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that used to

persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the lamb, and

rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my just-found

Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules brandishing his

strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the docks, mallows,

hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its smooth green carpet

looks like a rich meadow; I am free, happy, well at ease: argal, an thou

lovest me, congratulate."

Wider and wider still stared out my wonder, to hear my usually sober

friend so voluble in words and so profuse of images: I saw at once it

was a set speech, prepared for an impromptu occasion; nevertheless, as

he was clearly in an enviable state of disenthraldom from

thoughtfulness, I graciously accorded him a sympathetic smile. And then

this more than Gregorian cure for the head-ache! here was an anodyne

infinitely precious to one so brain-feverish as I: had all this pleasure

and comfort arisen from such common-place remedials as a dear young

lover's courtesy or a deceased old miser's codicil, I should long ago

have heard all about it; for, between ourselves, my friend was never

known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the

discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence, was

naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth----?" he broke

out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, "Read my book."

Well, I did read it; and, in candid disparagement, as amicably bound,

can readily believe what I was told afterwards, that, to except a very

small portion of older material, it had been at chance intervals rapidly

thrown off in a couple of months, (the old current-quill style,) chiefly

with the view of relieving a too prolific brain: it appeared to me a

mere idle overflowing of the brimful mind; an honest, indeed, but often

useless exposure of multifarious fancies--some good, some bad, and not a

few indifferent; an incautious uncalled-for confession of a thousand

thoughts, little worth the printing, if the very writing were not indeed

superfluous. Nevertheless, with all its faults, I thought the book a

novelty, and liked it not the less for its off-hand fashion; it had

something of the free, fresh, frank air of an old-school squire at

Christmas-tide, suggestive as his misletoe, cheerful as his face, and

careless as his hospitality. Knowing then that my friend had been more

than once an author--indeed, he tells us so himself--and perceiving,

from innumerable symptoms, that he meditated putting also this before

the world, I thought kindly to anticipate his wishes by proposing its

publication: but I was rather curtly answered with a "Did I suppose

these gnats were intended to be shrined in amber? these mere minnows to

be treated with the high consideration due only to potted char and white

bait? these fleeting thoughts fixed in stone before that Gorgon-head,

the public? these ephemeral fancies dropped into the true elixir of

immortality, printer's-ink? these----" I stopped him, for this other

mighty mouthful of images betrayed the hypocrite--"Yes, I did." An

involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded thus:

first, a promise not to burn the book; then a Bentley to the rescue,

with accessory considerations; and then, the due administration of a

little wholesome flattery: by this time we had obtained permission,

after modest reluctance pretty well enacted, to transform the deformity

of manuscript into the well-proportioned elegance of print. But, this

much gained, our author would not yield to any argument we could urge

upon the next point, viz: leave to produce the volume, duly fathered

with his name. "Not he indeed; he loved quiet too well; he might, it was

true, secretly like the bantling, but cared not to acknowledge it before

a populous reading-world, every individual whereof esteems himself and

herself competent to criticize!" Mr. Publisher, deeply disinterested, of

course, bristled up at the notion of any thing anonymous; and the only

alternative remaining was the stale expedient of an editor; that editor,

in brief, to be none other than myself, a very palpable-obscure: and let

this excuse my name upon the title-page.

Now, as editor, I have had to do--what seems, by the way, to be regarded

by collective wisdom as the best thing possible--nothing: my author

would not suffer the change of a syllable, for all his seeming

carelessness about the THING, as he called it; so, I had no

more for my part than humbly to act the Helot, and try to set decently

upon the public tables a genuine mess of Spartan porridge.

M. F. T.

_Albury, Guildford_.

AN AUTHOR'S MIND:

THE

BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES.

A RAMBLE.

In these days of universal knowledge, schoolmaster and scholars all

abroad together, quotation is voted pedantry, and to interpret is

accounted an impertinence; yet will I boldly proclaim, as a mere fact,

clear to the perceptions of all it may concern, "This book deserves

richly of the Sosii." And that for the best of reasons: it is not only a

book, but a book full of books; not merely a new book, but a

little-library of new books; thirty books in one, a very harvest of

epitomized authorship, the cream of a whole fairy dairy of quiescent

post-octavos. It is not--O, mark ye this, my Sosii, (and by the way,

gentle ladies, these were worshipful booksellers of old, the Murrays and

the Bentleys of imperial Rome,)--it is not the dull concreted elongation

of one isolated hackneyed idea--supposing in every work there _be one_,

a charitable hypothesis--wire-drawn, and coaxed, and hammered through

three regulation volumes; but the scarcely-more-than-hinted abstractions

of some forty thousand flitting notions--hasty, yet meditative Hamlets;

none of those lengthy, drawling emblems of Laertes--driven in flocks to

the net of the fowler, and penned with difficult compression within

these modest limits. So "goe forth, littel boke," and make thyself a

friend among those good husbandmen, who tend the trees of knowledge, and

bring their fruit to the world's market.

Now, reader, one little preliminary parley with you about myself: here

beginneth the trouble of authorship, but it is a trouble causing ease;

ease from thoughts--thoughts--thoughts, which never cease to make one's

head ache till they are fixed on paper; ease from dreams by night and

reveries by day, (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's

children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army,)

harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a

definite life; ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of

aërial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O, happy unimaginable

vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O, mental

holiday, now as impossible to me, as to take a true school-boy's

interest in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind--and remember

always, friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity

merely the well playing of my _rôle_--such a mind is not a sheet of

smooth wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions; no

empty tenement, but a barn stored to bursting: it is a painful pressure,

constraining to write for comfort's sake; an appetite craving to be

satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted; an impetus that longs to

get away, rather than a dormant dynamic: thrice have I (let me confess

it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real

author--real, because for very peace of mind, involuntarily; but still

the vessel fills; still the indigenous crop springs up, choking a better

harvest, seeds of foreign growth; still those Lernæan necks sprout

again, claiming with many mouths to explain, amuse, suggest, and

controvert--to publish invention, and proscribe error. Truly, it were

enviable to be less apprehensive, less retentive; to be fitted with a

colander-mind, like that penal cask which forty-nine Danaïdes might not

keep from leaking; to be, sometimes at least, suffered for a holiday to

ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal,

perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often

cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of

a man--fret, wear, worry him; to be irritable, is the conditional tax

laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery

makes him hasty, quick, nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of

coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a

texture; they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a

tougher scabbard; the river, not content with channel and restraining

banks, overflows perpetually; the extortionate exacting armies of the

Ideal and the Causal persecute MY spirit, and I would make a

patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace: I write

these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd increase;

I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and Elijah with the

priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental nurselings; a dire

resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction of the literary

populace superfoetating in my brain--plays, novels, essays, tales,

homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics and

rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of

maltreated Aristotle: I will exhibit them in their state chaotic; I will

addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp; I will reveal, and

secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten

on me.

The world is too full of books, and I yearn not causelessly to add more

than this involuntary unit: bottles, bottles--invariable bottles--was

the one idea of a most clever Head at Nieder-Selters; books,

books--accumulating books--press upon my conscience in this literary

London: despairing auctioneers hate the sound, ruined publishers dread

it, surfeited readers grumble at it, and the very cheese-monger begins

to be an epicure as to which grand work is next to be demolished.

Friendships and loves tremble at the daily recurrence of "Have you read

this?" and "Mind you buy that;" wise men shun a blue-belle, sure that

she will recommend a book; and the yet wiser treat themselves to

solitary confinement, that they may not have to meet the last new batch

of authors, and be obliged to purchase, if not to peruse, their

never-ending books. I fear to increase the plague, to be convicted an

abettor of great evils, though by the measure of a little one. I am

infected, and I know it: but for science-sake I break the quarantine,

and in my magnanimity would be victimized unknown, consigning to a

speedy grave this useless offspring, together with its too productive

parent, and saving of a race so hopeless little else than their

prëdetermined names--in fact, their title-pages.

But is that indeed little? Speak, authors with piles of ready-written

copy, is not the theme (so often carried out beyond, or beside, or even

against its original purpose) less perplexing than the after-thought

thesis? Bear witness, readers, bit by a mysterious advertisement in the

'_Morning Post_,' are names, indeed, not matters of much weight? Press

forward, Sosii aforesaid, and answer me truly, is not a title-page the

better part of many books? Cheap promises of stale pleasure, false hopes

of dull interest, imprimaturs of deceived fancy, lying visions of the

future unfulfilled, title-pages still do good service to the cause

of--bookselling.

And, to commence, let me elucidate mine own--I mean the first, the head

and front of this offending phalanx--mine own, _par excellence_, '_An

Authors Mind_:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer,

for better or for worse; not of selfish, but of common application; not

so much individually of mine own, as generically of authors; a medley

of crudities; an undigested mass, as any in the maw of Polypheme; a

fermenting hotchpotch of half-formed things, illustrative, among other

matters, of the Lucretian theory, those close-cohering atoms; a farrago

of thoughts, and systems of thoughts, in most admired disorder, which

would symbolize the Copernican astronomy, with its necessary clash of

whirling orbs, about as well as the intangible chaos of Berkeleyan

metaphysics.

So much then on the moment for the monosyllable "Mind;"--whereof

followeth, indeed, all the more hereafter; but--"An author's?"--what

author's? You would see my patent of such rank, my commission to wear

such honourable uniform. Pr'ythee be content with simple assurance that

it is so; consider the charm of unsatisfied curiosity, and pry not; let

me sit unseen, a spectator; for this once I would go _in domino_.

Heretofore, "credit me, fair Discretion, your Affability" hath achieved

glory, and might Solomonize on its vanity at least as well as poor

discomfited, discovered Sir Piercie Shafton: heretofore, I have stood

forth in good causes, with helm unbarred, and due proclamation of name,

style, and title, an avowed author; and might sermonize thus upon

success, that a little censure loseth more friends than much praise

winneth enemies. So now, with visor down, and a white shield, as a young

knight-candidate unknown, it pleases my leisure to take my pastime in

the tourney: and so long as in truthful prowess I bear me gallantly and

gently, who is he that hath a right to unlatch my helmet, or where is

the herald that may challenge my rank? Nevertheless, inquisitive,

consider the mysteries that lie in the Turkish-looking _sobriquet_ of

"Mufti;" its vowels and its consonants are full of strict intention I

never saw cause why the most charming of essayists hid himself in

"Elia," but he may for all that have had pregnant reasons; even so, (but

that slender wit could read my riddle,) you shall perhaps find fault

with my Mussulman agnomen; still you and I equally participate in this

shallow secret, and within so brief a word is concealed the key to

unlock the casket that tempts your curiosity: however, the less said of

so diaphanous a mystery, the better.

And let me remark this of the mode anonymous; a mode, indeed, to

purposes of shame, and slander, and falsity of all kinds too often

prostituted for the present, bear with it; sometimes it is well to go

disguised, and the voice of one unseen lacks not eager listeners; we

address your judgment, unbiased by the prejudice or sanction of a name:

we put forth, lightly and negligently, those lesser matters which

opportunity hath not yet matured; we escape the nervous pains, the

literary perils of the hardier acknowledged. Only of this one thing be

sure; we--(no, I; why should unregal, unhierarchal I affect

pluralities?)--I hope to keep inviolate, as much when masked as when

avowed, the laws of truth, charity, sincerity, and honour; and,

although, among my many booklets, the grave and the gay will be found in

near approximation, I trust--will it offend any to tell them that I

pray?--to do no ill service at any time to the cause of that true

religion which resents not the neighbourhood of innocent cheerfulness. I

show you, friend, my honest mind.

I by itself, I; odious mono-literal; thinnest, feeblest, most

insignificant of letters, I dread your egotistic influence as my bane;

they will not suffer you, nor bear with a book so speckled with your

presence. Still, world, hear me; mercifully spare a poor grammarian the

penance of perpetual third persons; let an individual tender conscience

escape censure for using the true singular in preference to that

imposing lie, the plural. Suffer a humble unit to speak of himself as I,

and, once for all, let me permissively disclaim intentional self-conceit

in the needful usage of isolated I-ship.

These few preliminaries being settled, though I fear little to the

satisfaction of either party concerned, let us proceed--further to

preliminarize; for you will find, even to the end, as you may have found

out already from the beginning, that your white knight is mounted rather

on an ambling preambling palfrey, than on any determinate charger;

curveting and prancing, and rambling and scrambling at his own unmanaged

will: scorning the bit and bridle, too hot to bear the spur, careless of

listing laws, and wishing rather playfully to show his paces, than to

tilt against a foe.

An author's mind, _quà_ author, is essentially a gossip; an oral,

ocular, imaginative, common-place book: a _pot pourri_ mixed from the

_hortus siccus_ of education, and the greener garden of internal thought

that springs in fresh verdure about the heart's own fountain; a compound

of many metals flowing from the mental crucible as one--perchance a base

alloy, perchance new, and precious, and beautiful as the fine brass of

Corinth; an accidental meeting in the same small chamber of many

spiritual essences that combine, as by magnetism into some strange and

novel substance; a mixture of appropriations, made lawfully a man's own

by labour spent upon the raw material; corn-clad Egypt rescued from a

burnt Africa by the richness of a swelling Nile--the black forest of

pines changed into a laughing vineyard by skill, enterprise, and

culture--the mechanism of Frankenstein's man of clay, energized at

length by the spark Promethean.

And now, reader, do you begin to comprehend me, and my title? '_An

Author's Mind_' is first in the field, and, as with root and fruit, must

take precedence of its booklets; bear then, if you will, with this

desultory anatomization of itself yet a little longer, and then in good

time and moderate space you will come to the rudiments--bones, so to

speak--of its many members, the frame-work on which its nerves and

muscles hang, the names of its unborn children, the title-pages of its

own unprinted books.

Philosophers and fools, separately or together, as the case may be--for

folly and philosophy not seldom form one Janus-head, and Minerva's bird

seems sometimes not ill-fitted with the face of Momus--these and their

thousand intermediates have tried in all ages to define that quaint

enigma, Man: and I wot not that any pundit of literature hath better

succeeded than the nameless, fameless man--or woman, was it?--or haply

some innocent shrewd child--who whilom did enunciate that MAN IS A

WRITING ANIMAL: true as arithmetic, clear as the sunbeam, rational

as Euclid, a discerning, just, exclusive definition. That he is "capable

of laughter," is well enough even for thy deathless fame, O Stagyrite!

but equally (so Buffon testifies) are apes and monkeys, horses and

hyenas; whether perforce of tickling or sympathy, or native notions of

the humorous, we will not stop to contend. That he actually is "an

animal whose best wisdom is laughter," hath but little reason in it,

Democrite, seeing there are such obvious anomalies among men as suicidal

jesters and cachinating idiots; nevertheless, my punster of Abdera, thy

whimsical fancy, surviving the wreck of dynasties, and too light to sink

in the billows of oblivion, is now become the popular thought, the

fashionable dress of heretofore moping wisdom: crow, an thou wilt, jolly

old chanticleer, but remember thee thou crowest on a dunghill; man is

not a mere merry-andrew. Neither is he exclusively "a weeping animal,"

lugubrious Heraclite, no better definer than thy laughter-loving foe:

that man weeps, or ought to weep, the world within him and the world

without him indeed bear testimony: but is he the only mourner in this

valley of grief, this travailing creation? No, no; they walk lengthily

in black procession: yet is this present writing not the fit season for

enlarging upon sorrows; we must not now mourn and be desolate as a poor

bird grieving for its pilfered young--is Macduff's lamentable cry for

his lost little ones, "All--what, all?" more piteous?--we must now

indulge in despondent fears, like yonder hard-run stag, with terror in

his eye, and true tears coursing down his melancholy face: we must not

now mourn over cruelty and ingratitude, like that poor old worn-out

horse, crying--positively crying, and looking imploringly for merciful

rest into man's iron face; we must not scream like the wounded hare, nor

beat against our cage like the wild bird prisoned from its freedom.

Moreover, Heraclite, even in thine own day thou mightest well have heard

of the classic wailings of Philomel for Atys, or of consumptive Canens,

that shadow of a voice, for her metamorphosed Pie, and have known that

very crocodiles have tears: pass on, thy desolate definition hath not

served for man.