“IF WE ARE TO HAVE ANOTHER CONTEST IN THE NEAR FUTURE OF OUR

NATIONAL EXISTENCE, I PREDICT THAT THE DIVIDING LINE WILL NOT

BE MASON AND DIXON’S, BUT BETWEEN PATRIOTISM AND INTELLIGENCE

ON THE ONE SIDE, AND SUPERSTITION, AMBITION, AND IGNORANCE ON

THE OTHER.”

What is meant by superstition?

Formerly it meant seeking for power or knowledge, by dealing with the

impure spirits.

Does the President mean to warn us against the delusions and uncleanness

of modern spiritism? If so, we are agreed.

But we do not really suppose that the President means any such thing.

What does he mean?

We find in the dictionary four other meanings of the word which he has

used. Superstition means “an excessive reverence or fear of that which

is unknown or mysterious.” But, we observe no such phenomenon among

our people; if anything, rather the reverse. Or it means “The worship

of false gods.” We see no signs of this except in the “Joss Houses”

of San Francisco. Nor do we behold any great belief “in the agency of

superior powers in certain extraordinary or singular events, or in

omens, or prognostics.” Nor, further, do we behold any “excessive nicety

or scrupulous exactness,” as an alarming feature of our present moral

condition. There remains but one meaning (and this, we are persuaded,

is the sense which the President intended to convey): “Especially, an

ignorant or irrational worship of the supreme Deity.”

An ignorant worship of God is one which knows not what to believe

concerning him, or one which is unable to state what it does believe;

or, further, one which can give no conclusive reason for believing

anything. But, outside the Catholic Church, there is no religious body

which can tell precisely what it ought to believe, or precisely what it

does believe, or precisely why it ought to believe anything. Again, an

irrational belief in God is one which recognizes his existence, and, at

the same time, denies his attributes. For instance, it is an irrational

belief in God, which denies his wisdom; which asserts, that he has not

chosen means adequate to accomplish his ends; which represents him, when

he has made a revelation to man, as leaving his divine truth in scattered

and mysterious writings in an obscure language, requiring men to find

them, collect them, and believe their true meaning in order to be saved;

or which fancies that reading daily a few pages from these writings, to

little children, will be sufficient to prepare them for the duties of

life. It is an irrational belief in God which represents him as immoral,

as creating man simply to damn him, or, which denies his justice, by

wickedly imagining that he will not punish oppression and calumny and

those who sow discord in the midst of a free and happy people.

Here again we agree with the President in denouncing such impiety, and

in predicting that, if the liberties and institutions of this republic

are soon to be jeopardized, it will be by irreverence towards God and

the contempt of charity and justice towards men, ever practised by this

“ignorant and irrational worship of the supreme Deity.”

Another item of danger which the President foresees in the near future

is “ignorance.” Here, again we find him sounding the note of warning, to

which we have always given voice. His Excellency says: “In a republic

like ours, … where no power is exercised except by the will of the

people, it is important that the sovereign, the people, should foster

intelligence--that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free

nation.” The liberties of this republic will not be maintained, we say,

by an ignorant, debauched, and corrupted generation. Our common people

must be educated. They must possess “that intelligence which is to

preserve us as a free nation.” They must know something more than simply

how to read and write and “cipher.” Nor will it be sufficient, to add

to this a knowledge of music. They must have a sound and thorough moral

training. Their conscientious convictions must be grounded on truth daily

taught and daily enforced. They must be daily taught to control their

passions; they must be taught honesty, and be required to give back that

which is unjustly gotten. They must be taught the true purpose of life.

But this training, as the President affirms, belongs not to the state,

but to the “family altar and the church.” Either assist _all_ families

and _all_ churches, or else encourage them to help themselves. These are

our sentiments. But when sectarian bigotry has gotten hold of a system of

the falsely so-called “common schools,” and with obstinate purpose, and

clamorous intensity and ever-swelling declamation, manifests its resolve

to maintain this system, even though it conflicts with the conscientious

rights of millions of the people of our country; when, further, it is

determined to force a large minority to accept this state of things,

or to go without instruction, we, as American citizens, denounce the

system as tyrannous; in the full sense of the word, as a reckless and

immoral oppression. We assert that those who uphold it, do not desire

intelligence, but prefer ignorance; that their aim is not to promote

knowledge, but to destroy the religious convictions of our children, and

to keep us from growing in the land. We affirm that such self-delusion

originates in ignorance, is perpetuated by ignorance, tends to still

deeper degradation of ignorance; and we predict that it will bring forth

the fruits of ignorance, not only in morality, but in the lower sciences.

We, for our part, will never relax our efforts to show up the dishonesty

of this party; we will never withdraw our protest, until justice has been

done; and knowing to what lengths men can go when they start without

principle, we fully share in the alarm of our chief magistrate, as to the

danger of “ignorance.” Have we not, therefore, reason to hope that, in

the midst of the struggle, which his sagacious mind perceives to be at

hand, we shall find him on the side of patriotism and intelligence, with

all true Americans, against that “superstition” and “ignorance,” whose

aim is to destroy the “security of unfettered religious sentiments and

equal rights” of his fellow-citizens?

There is another item of the future contest, which, according to our

President, is

“AMBITION.” WHAT IS AMBITION?

A man has been elected to the highest office in the gift of a free

people, the limits of which have been fixed by a custom handed down by

the fathers of the nation, and which, to the minds of true patriots,

has the force of law. When such a trust does not satisfy the honored

recipient, and he, yielding to personal motives, strains every nerve,

and seeks by every means at his command, to break down all barriers to

continuation of power, thereby abusing the dignity of his post and the

confidence of the people--that is ambition.

We do not fully share the apprehension with which the President foresees

this threat to the “near future” of our national welfare. But if it be

true, we fully agree with him when he says: “Now, the centennial year of

our national existence, I believe, is a good time to begin the work of

strengthening the foundations of the structure commenced by our patriotic

forefathers one hundred years ago at Lexington.”

“Language,” according to a great diplomatist, “was given to man, in order

that he might conceal his ideas.” But this maxim has never been accepted

by honorable men. In examining, thus briefly, the “Des Moines speech,”

we have followed that other canon of criticism, which requires that

words shall be interpreted in their literal sense, as far as possible.

Submitted to this just criticism, the language appears to us immortal,

and worthy of the high place which is even now being prepared for it.

Some may marvel, and may wonder how the President came to be filled with

so high a degree of the prophetic spirit. Like Balaam, the son of Beor,

he was expected to curse us; unlike Balaam, he was not stayed, but rather

urged on by the faithful servant with whom he previously conversed. But

there is no mystery about it. He has grown up with the instincts of a

true American, and he has spoken accordingly. Not only are the words

on which we have commented true, but they are in accordance with sound

Catholic principles. We are ready to take him at his word, and his

words in their true meaning. To those who will join us we say, without

disguise or reserve: “Gentlemen, you will never regret having trusted

us, and dealt fairly with us, according to the laws and Constitution of

this country.” We believe with the President, that, if the only honest

meaning of his language be as honestly carried out, “the battles which

created the Army of the Tennessee” (which, by the way, a Catholic general

once commanded and in whose ranks hundreds of Catholic hearts bled)--we

believe, we say, that these battles “will not have been fought in vain.”

The children of the soldiers of the Union will at least be the peers of

those whom their fathers overcame. The nations’ heroes will not look

down, to see their heirs defrauded of equal rights in “the Union and the

free institutions for which they died.” The President will yield to his

comrades in arms, at least as much as he is so ready to accord to his

late opponents. And as for our countrymen throughout the Union, we are

prepared to wait, trusting that when fully enlightened, they will agree

to our obtaining, independently of all political agitations or party

organizations, our just and equal rights as American citizens.

SONNETS IN MEMORY OF THE LATE SIR AUBREY DE VERE, BART.

BY AUBREY DE VERE.

I.

To-night upon thy roof the snows are lying;

The Christmas snows lie heavy on thy trees;

A dying dirge that soothes the year in dying

Swells from thy woodlands on the midnight breeze.

Our loss is ancient; many a heart is sighing

This hour a late one, or by slow degrees

Heals some old wound, to God’s high grace replying--

A time there was when thou wert like to these!

Where art thou? In what unimagined sphere

Liv’st thou, sojourner, or a transient guest?

By whom companioned? Access hath she near,

In life thy nearest, and beloved the best?

What memory hast thou of thy loved ones here?

Hangs the great Vision o’er thy place of rest?

II.

“Sweet-sounding bells, blithe summoners to prayer!”[173]

The answer man can yield not ye bestow:

Your answer is a little Infant, bare,

Wafted to earth on night-winds whispering low.

Blow him to Bethlehem, airs angelic, blow!

There doth the Mother-Maid his couch prepare:

His harbor is her bosom: drop him there

Soft as a snow-flake on a bank of snow.

Sole Hope of man! Sole Hope for us--for thee!

“To us a Prince is given; a Child is born!”--

Thou sang’st of Bethlehem, and of Calvary,

The Maid immaculate, and the twisted thorn

Where’er thou art, not far, not far is He

Whose banner whitens in yon Christmas morn!

A MESSAGE.

Is there anything more tantalizing than to be caught with a toothache

and swelled face just at Christmas time, when one’s hands are full of

work that must be finished, of plans that have been begun in time and

carried on prosperously to within a few days of their fulfilment? This

is just what befell Mr. Stephen Walpole on the 20th of December in the

year of grace 1870. You remember what a terrific winter that was? How the

bleak north wind blew over ice and snow, and added tenfold horrors to the

poor soldiers fighting in that terrible Franco-German war--how all our

hearts shuddered in pity for them, as we sat stitching and knitting in

their service by the glow of our Christmas fires! This 20th of December

was, perhaps, the bitterest day of the whole season. The snow was deep

on the ground, the ice hung in long spikes from rails and roofs, and the

east wind blew cruelly over all. Stephen Walpole ought to have been out

breasting it, but, instead of this, he sat at home moaning, in a voice

that sounded like a fog-bell at sea, through poultices, wadding, and

miles of flannel that swelled his head out of all human proportions.

“To think of a man being knocked down by a thing no bigger than a pin’s

point!” he grumbled. “A prick of that miserable atom one calls a nerve

turns the seat of one’s intellect into a monster calf’s head, and makes

one a spectacle to gods and men. I could whip myself for being such a

milksop as to knock under to it. I’d rather have every tooth in my head

pulled out than play the woman like this.… Och! Whew!”

“Serves you right, sir, for your impertinence!” protested Nelly Walpole,

bridling up and applying a fresh hot poultice to her brother’s cheek,

which she bade him hold; but Stephen, in his manly inability to bear the

toothache with composure, dropped the soft mess under a sudden sting that

jerked it out of his hand.

“What an unmanageable baby it is!” cried Nelly, catching the poultice in

time to save her pretty violet cashmere dress. “I told you to hold your

cheek while I fastened the bandage; make haste now before it cools.”

“O my unfortunate brother! Ill-fated man! Is this how I find you, bound

and poulticed in the hands of the Philistines?”

This was from Marmaduke, Nelly’s younger brother, who entered while

the operation was going on, and stood surveying the victim in serene

compassion.

“Yes,” cried Stephen, “and all the pity a poor devil gets is being

bullied for not holding his jaw.”

“Oh! come, you’re not so bad, since there’s vice enough in you for a

pun!” said Marmaduke. “How did you catch the thing?”

“What thing--the pun?”

“The toothache.”

“It caught me,” said Stephen resentfully.

“Then it caught you in some of those villanous cut-throat places where

you go pottering after beggars and blackguards and the Lord knows what!”

said Marmaduke with airy contempt, drawing his slim, beringed fingers

gracefully through a mass of remarkably fine curls that clustered over

his high, white forehead, and gave a boyish look to his handsome young

face, and added to its attractions. He was extremely prepossessing,

this perfumed, patent-leather-booted young gentleman of two-and-twenty.

You could not look at him without liking him. His eye was as clear as a

child’s, his smile as frank, his laughter as joyous and catching. Yet,

as it sometimes happens with the graces of childhood, these things were

a deceptive promise. The frankness and the joy were genuine; but there

was a cold gleam of contempt, a cold ring of selfishness, in the bright

eyes and the merry voice that were very disappointing when you found

them out. But people were slow to find them out. Even those who lived

with Marmaduke, and thus had ample opportunities of judging, remained

under the spell of his attractive manners and personal charms until some

accident revealed their worthlessness. A false coin will go on passing

current through many hands, until one day some one drops it to the

ground, and the glittering sham is betrayed. He had not a bad heart; he

was kind even, when he could be brought to forget himself for a moment

and think of others. But it required a shock to do this; and shocks are,

happily, rare in every-day life. So Marmaduke slept on undisturbed in

his egotism, hardening unconsciously in self-absorbed enjoyment. He had

never taken trouble about anything, made a genuine effort of any sort

except for his amusement. He had just the kind of brains to enable him

to get through college with a decent amount of success easily--tact,

ready repartee, a quick, retentive memory that gave the maximum of result

for the minimum of work. He would pass for clever and well informed where

an awkward, ugly youth, who had ten times his intellect and studied ten

times harder, would pass for knowing nothing. Stephen was eight years

older than he, and had not yet discovered his brother’s real value.

Perhaps this arose partly from Stephen’s not being of a particularly

observant or analytical turn of mind. He took people pretty much at their

own valuation, as the world is rather apt to do. Marmaduke set a very

high price on his handsome face and limited attainments, and his brother

had never dreamed of disputing it. He would sometimes naïvely express his

surprise that people were so fond of Duke when he did so little to please

them; and wonder how popular he was, considering that he never gave

himself the smallest trouble to oblige or humor people.

“I suppose it’s his handsome face that mankind, and womankind in

particular, find so taking,” Stephen would remark to Nelly. “He certainly

has a wonderful knack for getting on with people without caring twopence

whether they like him or not. I wish I knew his secret. Perhaps it’s his

high spirits.”

Nelly would sometimes suggest that Marmaduke’s fine temper might count

for something in the mystery. And Stephen never contradicted her. His

temper was not his best point. He had a heart of gold; he had energy,

patience, and endurance to any extent--except in case of toothache; he

was unselfish and generous; but he was sensitive and exacting. Like

most persons who dispense liberally, he was impatient of the selfishness

and ingratitude of men who take all they can get and return nothing.

Marmaduke had no such accounts to square with human beings, so he never

felt aggrieved, never quarrelled with them. Stephen was working hard

at his profession--he was an engineer--and so far he had achieved but

moderate success. Marmaduke had been called to the bar, but it was a

mere formality so far; he spent his time dawdling about town, retailing

gossip and reading poetry, waiting for briefs that never came--that

never do come to handsome young gentlemen who take it so easy. His elder

brother laid no blame on him for this want of success. He was busy all

day himself, and took for granted that Marmaduke was busy on his side.

The law was up-hill work, besides; the cleverest and most industrious men

grew gray in its service before they made a name for themselves; and Duke

was after all but a boy--he had time enough before him. So Stephen argued

in his brotherly indulgence, in ignorance of the real state of things.

Nelly was, as yet, the only person who had found out Marmaduke, who knew

him thoroughly. She knew him egotistical to the core, averse to work,

to effort of every sort, idle, self-indulgent, extravagant; and the

knowledge of all this afforded much anxious thought to her little head

of nineteen years. They lived alone, these three. Nelly was a mother to

the two young men, watching and caring for them with that instinctive

child-motherhood that is so touching in young girls sometimes. She was a

spirited, elfin little creature, very pretty, blessed with the sweetest

of tempers, the shrewdest of common sense, and an energy of character

that nothing daunted and few things resisted. Marmaduke described this

trait of Nelly’s in brother-like fashion as “a will of her own.” He

knew his was no match for it, and, with a tact which made one of his

best weapons of defence, he contrived to avoid clashing with it. This

was not all policy. He loved his pretty sister, and admired her more

than anything in the world except himself. And yet he knew that this

admiration was not mutual; that Nelly knew him thoroughly, saw through

him as if he were glass; but he was not afraid of her. His elder brother

was duped by him; but he would have staked his life on it that Nelly

would never undeceive him; that she would let Stephen go on believing

in him so long as the deceiver himself did not tear off the mask. Yet

it was a source of bitter anxiety to the wise little mother-maiden to

watch Marmy drifting on in this life of indolence and vacuity. Where was

it to end? Where do such lives always end? Nothing but some terrible

shock could awake him from it. And where was the shock to come from?

Nelly never preached--she was far too sensible for that--but when the

opportunity presented itself she would say a few brief words to the

culprit in an earnest way that never irritated him, if they worked no

better result. He would admit with exasperating good-humor that he was

a good-for-nothing dog; that he was unworthy of such a perfection of a

sister and such an irreproachable elder brother; but that, as nature had

so blessed him, he meant to take advantage of the privilege of leaving

the care of his perfection to them.

“If I were alone on my own hook, Nell, I would work like a galley-slave,”

he protested once to her gentle upbraiding. “But as it is, why need I

bother myself? You will save my soul, and pray me high and dry into

heaven; and Stephen--Stephen the admirable, the unimpeachable, the pink

of respectability--will keep me out of mischief in this.”

“I don’t believe in vicarious salvation for this world or the next, and

neither do you, Marmy. You are much too intelligent to believe in any

such absurdity,” replied Nelly, handing him a glove she had been sewing a

button into.

Marmaduke did not contradict her, but, whistling an air from the

_Trovatore_, arranged his hat becomingly, a little to one side, and, with

a farewell look in the glass over the mantel-piece, sauntered out for his

morning constitutional in the park. Nelly went to the window, and watched

the lithe young figure, with its elastic step, until it disappeared.

She was conscious of a stronger solicitude about Marmaduke this morning

than she had ever felt before. It was like a presentiment. Yet there

was nothing that she knew of to justify it. He had not taken to more

irregular hours, nor more extravagant habits, nor done anything to cause

her fresh anxiety; still, her heart beat as under some new and sudden

fear. Perhaps it was the ring of false logic in his argument that sounded

a louder note of alarm and warned her of worse danger than she had

suspected. One might fear everything for a man starting in life with the

deliberate purpose of shifting his responsibility on to another, setting

his conscience to sleep because he had two brave, wakeful ones watching

at his side.

“If something would but come and wake him up to see the monstrous folly,

the sinfulness, of it!” sighed Nelly. “But nothing short of a miracle

could do that, I believe. He might, indeed, fall ill and be brought to

death’s door; he might break his leg and be a cripple for life, and that

might serve the purpose; but oh! dear, I’m not brave enough to wish for

so severe a remedy.”

Two months had passed since this little incident between the brother and

sister, and nothing had occurred to vindicate Nelly’s gloomy forebodings.

Marmaduke rose late, read the newspaper, then Tennyson, Lamartine, or

the last novel, made an elaborate toilet, and sauntered down to the

courts to keep a lookout for the coming briefs. But it was near Christmas

now, and this serious and even tenor of life had been of late broken

in upon by the getting up of private theatricals in company with some

bachelor friends. What between learning his own part, and hearing his

fellow-actors and actresses theirs, and overseeing stage arrangements,

Marmaduke had a hard time of it. His hands were full; he was less at home

than usual, seldom or never of an evening. He had come in very late some

nights, and looked worn and out of spirits, Nelly thought, when he came

down to his late breakfast.

“I wish those theatricals were over, Marmy. They will kill you if they

last much longer,” she said, with a tender, anxious look on her pretty

little face. This was the day he came home and found Stephen in the hands

of the Philistines.

“’Tis hard work enough,” assented the young man, stretching out his long

limbs wearily; “but the 26th will soon be here. It will be too bad if you

are laid up and can’t come and applaud me, Steevy,” he added, considering

his elder brother’s huge head, that looked as if it would take a month to

regain its natural shape.

“Humph! That’s the least of my troubles!” boomed Stephen through his

poultice.

“Civil! Eh, Nell? I can tell you it’s as bad as any toothache, the

labor I’ve had with the business--those lazy dogs, Travers and Milford,

throwing all the weight of it on me, under pretext of never having done

that sort of thing before.”

“That’s always the fate of the willing horse,” said Stephen, without

the faintest idea of being sarcastic. “That’s just what I complain of

with those idle fellows X---- and W----; they throw the burden of all

the business on me, because, forsooth, I understand things better! I do

understand that people can’t get work done unless they bestir themselves

and attend to it.”

“I wouldn’t be such an ass as to let myself be put on in that way,” said

Marmaduke resentfully. “I would not be fooled into doing the work of

three people instead of one.”

“And yet that’s what you are doing at present,” replied Stephen.

“Oh! that’s different; it is only _en passant_,” explained Marmaduke;

“and then, you see, it.…”

“Amuses you,” Nelly had it on the tip of her tongue to say; but she

checked herself, and finished the sentence for him with, “It is not the

same thing; people cannot make terms for a division of labor, except it

be in the case of real business.”

“Of course not,” assented Stephen. Marmaduke looked at his boots, and

inwardly voted Nelly “no end of a trump.”

Did she guess this mental vote, and did she take advantage of it to ask

him a favor?

“Perhaps Marmy would go and see that poor man for you, Stephen?” she said

in the most natural way possible, without looking up from her work.

“I wish he would; I should be ever so much obliged to him. Would you mind

it, Duke?”

“Mind what?”

“Taking a message for me to a poor fellow that I wanted badly to go and

see to-day.”

“Who is he? Where does he hang out?”

“His name is John Baines, and he hangs out in Red Pepper Lane, ten

minutes from here, at the back of the square.”

“Some abominable slum, no doubt.”

“The locality is not Berkeley Square or Piccadilly, but it would not kill

you to walk through it once,” rejoined Stephen.

“Do go, there’s a dear boy!” coaxed Nelly, fixing her bright eyes on

Marmaduke’s face, with a smile that would have fascinated a gorilla.

Marmaduke rose, stretched his arms, as if to brace himself for an effort.

“Who’s your friend John Baines?” he said. “A ticket-of-leave man?”

“Nothing so interesting; he’s only a rag-and-bone man.”

Marmaduke said nothing, but his nose uttered such an unmistakable

_pshaw!_ that Nelly, in spite of herself, burst out laughing.

“What the deuce can make him cultivate such company?” he exclaimed,

appealing to Nelly, and joining good-humoredly in her merriment.

“To help them and do them good; what else?” she replied.

“Every man to his taste; I confess I have none for evangelizing

rag-and-bone men, or indeed men of any station, kind, or degree,”

observed Marmaduke emphatically.

“Then you won’t go?” said Stephen.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t. I don’t mind devoting myself for once to oblige

you. What’s your message for John Baines? Not a leg of mutton or a bottle

of port? I won’t bargain for carrying that sort of article.”

“I don’t want you to carry anything that will encumber you,” replied

the elder brother. “Tell him I cannot get to see him to-day, and why,

and that I am very sorry for it. Meantime, you can say I have done his

commission. See if he wants anything, and, if so I will send it at once.”

“What ails him?” enquired Marmaduke with a sudden look of alarm.

“Poverty: hunger, and cold, and misery.”

“Oh! that’s all! I mean it’s not a case of typhus or small-pox. I should

not care to imperil my valuable life by running in the way of that sort

of thing,” observed Marmaduke.

“Have no fear. The complaint is not catching,” replied his brother.

“Whatever good he may do you, he’ll do you no harm.”

“Dear Marmy! it’s very good of you!” whispered Nelly, as she tripped

down-stairs after the reluctant messenger, and helped him on with his fur

coat in the hall.

“It’s not a bit good; it’s an infernal bore, and I’m only doing it to

please you, Nell,” protested Marmaduke. “What a fool’s errand it is! I

sha’n’t know from Adam what to say to the man when I get there. _What_ am

I to say to him?”

“Oh! anything,” suggested Nelly. “Say you have come to see him because

Stephen is ill, and ask him how he is. You’re never at a loss for

something to say, you know that right well; and whatever you say is sure

to be right.”

“When I know who I’m talking to; but I don’t know this interesting party,

or what topics of conversation he particularly affects. He won’t expect

me to preach him a sermon, eh?” And Marmaduke faced round with a look of

such comical terror at the thought that Nelly again burst out laughing.

“Heaven forbid! That’s the last thing you need dream of,” she cried. “He

is much more likely to preach to you.”

“Oh! indeed; but I didn’t bargain for that. I would very much rather be

excused,” protested Marmaduke, anything but reassured.

“You foolish boy! I mean that he will preach to you as the poor always

do--by example; by their patience, and their gratitude for the least

thing one does for them.”

“I’m not going to do anything for John Baines that I can see; only

bothering him with a visit which he would very likely rather I spared

him.”

“You will give him Stephen’s message,” suggested Nelly, “and then let him

talk. There is nothing poor people enjoy so much as a good listener. They

are quite happy when they can pour out their grievances into a willing

ear. The sympathy of the rich is often a greater comfort to the poor than

their alms.”

“Humph! That’s lucky, anyhow,” grunted Marmaduke. “Well, I’ll let the

old gentleman have his head; I’ll listen till he pulls up of his own

accord.” He had his hand on the door-latch, when Stephen’s muffled tones

were heard calling from the room above. Nelly bounded up the stairs, and

was back in an instant.

“He says you are to give Baines half a sovereign from him; he had nearly

forgotten it.”

“Where is it?” said Marmaduke, holding out his hand.

“Stephen has not his purse about him, so he begs you will give it for

him.”

“Neither have I mine,” said the young man.

“Well, run up for it; or shall I? Where is it?” inquired willing Nelly.

Marmaduke hesitated for a moment, and then said abruptly: “It doesn’t

matter where it is; there’s nothing in it.”

“What have you done with your money? You had plenty a few days ago!”

exclaimed Nelly in childlike surprise.

“I have lost it; I haven’t a brass farthing in the world!” He said this

in a reckless, dogged sort of way, as if he did not care who knew it; and

yet he spoke in an undertone. For one moment Nelly looked at him in blank

astonishment.

“Lost it?” she repeated, and then, the truth flashing on her suddenly,

she cried in a frightened whisper: “O Marmaduke! you have not been

gambling? Oh! tell me it’s not true.” She caught hold of his arm, and,

clinging to it, looked into his face, scared and white.

“Nonsense, Nell! I thought you were a girl of sense,” he exclaimed

pettishly, disengaging himself and pushing back the bolt. “Let me be

off; tell Stephen I had not change, so his friend must wait till he can

go and tip him himself.”

“No, no; he may be hungry, poor man. Stay, I think I have ten shillings

here,” said Nelly; and she pulled out her porte-monnaie, and picked four

half-crowns from the promiscuous heap of smaller coins. “Take these; I

will tell Stephen you will give the ten shillings.”

Her hand trembled as she dropped the money into Marmaduke’s pocket. He

was about to resist; but there was something peremptory, a touch of that

will of her own, in her manner that deterred him.

“I’m sorry I said anything about it; I should not if I thought you would

have minded it so much,” he observed.

“Minded it? O Marmaduke! Minded your taking to gambling?”

“Tush! Don’t talk nonsense! A man isn’t a gambler because once in a way

he loses a twenty-pound note.”

And with this he brushed past her, and closed the hall-door with a loud

bang.

Nelly did not sit down on one of the hall chairs and cry. She felt

mightily inclined to do so; but she struggled against the weakness and

overcame it. Walking quietly up the stairs, she hummed a few bars of a

favorite air as she passed the door of Stephen’s sitting-room, and went

on to her own room on the story above. But even here, safe and alone,

the tears were bravely held back. She would not cry; she would not be

seen with red eyes that would betray her brother; she would do her very

utmost to rescue him, to screen him even now. While she is wrestling and

pleading in the silence of her own room, let us follow the gambler to Red

Pepper Lane.

Marmaduke had described the place accurately when he called it an

abominable slum. Red Pepper Lane was one of those dismal, frightful dens

of darkness and dirt that cower at the back of so many of our wealthy

squares and streets--poison-pits for breeding typhus and every social

plague that desolates great cities. The houses were so high and the lane

so narrow that you could at a stretch have shaken hands across from

window to window. There was a rope slung half-way down the alley, with

a lantern hanging from it which looked more like a decoration or a sign

than a possible luminary; for the glass was too thickly crusted with dirt

to admit of the strongest light piercing it. In the middle of the lane

was a gutter, in which a few ragged, begrimed, and hungry-looking little

mortals were playing in the dirty snow. The east wind whistled through

the dreary tenements with a sharp, pitiless cry; the sky was bright

outside, but here in Red Pepper Lane its brightness did not penetrate.

Nothing but the wind could enter, and that came with all its might,

through the crannies in the walls, through the rickety doors, through

the window-frames glazed with brown paper or battered old hats--any

rag that could be spared to stuff the empty panes. Not a head was seen

anywhere protruding from windows or doors; the fierce blast kept every

one within who had a roof to cover them. If it were not for the sooty

little objects disporting themselves in the gutter, the lane might have

been the precincts of the jail, so deserted and silent was it. Marmaduke

might have wandered up and down for an hour without meeting any one whom

he could ask to direct him to where John Baines lived, but luckily he

recognized the house at once by Stephen’s signal of an old broom nailed

over the door. He searched for a knocker or a bell; but seeing neither,

he sounded a loud rat-ta-ta-tat with the gold knob of his walking-stick,

and presently a voice called out from somewhere to “lift the latch!”

He did so, and, again left to his own devices, he followed Stephen’s

injunctions and went straight up to the second story, where he knocked,

and in obedience to a sharp “Come in!” entered.

The gloom of the lane had prepared him gradually for the deeper gloom

of the room, and he at once distinguished a person, whom he rightly

surmised to be the rag-and-bone man, sitting at the farther end, near

the fire-place, wrapped up in a brown blanket, with his feet resting

on the hearth-stone, as if he were toasting them. If he was, it was in

imagination; for there was no fire--only the ghost of one as visible in

a mass of gray ashes, and they did not look as if even a glow of the

late warmth remained in them. He had his back to the door, and, when

it opened, he turned his head in that direction, but not sufficiently

to see who came in. Marmaduke, as he stood on the threshold, took in

the surroundings at a glance. There was a bed on the floor in one

corner, with no bed-clothes to speak of, the blanket being just now in

requisition as a cloak; a miserable-looking table and two chairs--an

unoccupied one and the one Baines sat in; a bag and a basket were flung

under the window, and some dingy old utensils--a saucepan, kettle,

etc.--lay about. There was nothing particularly dreadful in the scene;

it was, compared with many such, rather a cheerful one on the whole; but

Marmaduke, who had no experience of the dwellings of the poor, thought

it the most appalling picture of misery and desolation that could be

conceived. He was roused from the stupor of horror into which the sudden

spectacle had thrown him by hearing the figure in the blanket ask rather

sharply a second time “Who’s there?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Marmaduke, advancing within a step of the

chair. “My name is Walpole; I have come to see if there is anything I can

do for you--anything that you … that …” he stammered, not knowing how to

put it.

“Oh! Mr. Walpole, I am obliged to you for calling, sir. I want nothing;

but I am glad to see you. It is very kind of you. Pray take a chair. You

must excuse me for not getting up; my leg is still very painful.”

“I am only the brother of the Mr. Walpole whom you know,” said Marmaduke,

surprised beyond measure at the good address of the man. “My brother is

laid up with a violent face-ache. He was greatly put out at not being

able to keep his appointment with you this afternoon, and sent me to see

how you were getting on, and to tell you he had done something that you

commissioned him to do.”

“Your brother is extremely kind,” said the man. “I am sorry to hear he is

ill. This weather is trying to everybody.”

“You seem to be a severe sufferer from it,” remarked Marmaduke. He had

opened his fur coat, and sat back in the rickety chair, in mortal fear

all the while that it would go to smash under him. This was the most

extraordinary specimen of the rag-and-bone tribe--he could not say that

he had ever known, for he had never known one in his life, but--that

he could have imagined. He spoke like an educated man, and, even in

his blanket, he had the bearing of a gentleman. If it were not for his

swollen nose and the glare of his red eye-balls, which were decidedly not

refined, there was nothing in his appearance to indicate that he belonged

to the very dregs of human society. It was impossible to say how old he

was, but you saw at a glance that he was more broken than aged.

“Yes, I am suffering rather severely just now,” he replied in a quiet,

conversational way; “I always do when the cold sets in. But, added to my

chronic complaint of sciatica, I slipped on the ice some time ago, and

sprained my left foot badly. Your brother made my acquaintance at the

hospital where I was taken to have it set right.”

“And has it been set right?”

“Yes; I can’t get about easily yet, but it will be all right by and by.”

And then, dismissing the selfish subject, he said: “I am distressed, sir,

that you should have had the trouble of coming to such a place as this;

pray don’t let me detain you longer.”

“I’m in no hurry,” replied Marmaduke, whose interest and curiosity were

more and more excited. “Is there nothing I can do for you? It’s dismal

work sitting here all day with a sprained ankle, and having nothing to

do; would you care to have some books?” It did not occur to him to ask

if he knew how to read; he would as soon have inquired if he knew how to

speak.

Baines looked at him with a curious expression.

“I don’t look like a man to lend books to, do I?” he said. “There’s not

much in common between books and a rag-and-bone man.”

“Quite as much, I should say, as there is between some men and rags and

bones,” retorted Marmaduke, meeting the man’s eyes with a responsive

question in his own.

Baines turned away with a short laugh. Perhaps it was mere accident

or the force of habit that made him look up at the space over the

mantel-piece; but there was something in the deliberate glance that made

Marmaduke follow it, and, doing so, he saw a faded but originally good

engraving of Shakspere hung in a frame against the wall. Repressing the

low whistle which rose involuntarily to his lips, he said, looking at the

portrait:

“You have a likeness of Shakspere, I see. Have you read his plays?”

“Ay, and acted them!”

“Acted them! You were originally on the stage, then? I saw at once that

you were not what you seem to me,” said Marmaduke, with that frankness

that seemed so full of sympathy and was so misleading, though never less

so, perhaps, than at this moment. “Would it be disagreeable to you to

tell me through what chapters of ill-luck or other vicissitudes you came

to be in the position where I now see you?”

The man was silent for a few minutes; whether he was too deeply offended

to reply at once, or whether he was glancing over the past which the

question evoked, it was impossible to say. Marmaduke fancied he was

offended, and, vexed with himself for having questioned him, he stood up,

and laying Nelly’s four half-crowns on the chimney-piece, “I beg your

pardon if I seemed impertinent; I assure you I did not mean it,” he said.

“I felt interested in you, and curious to know something more of you; but

I had no right to put questions. Good-morning.” He made a step towards

the door, but Baines, rousing himself, arrested him by a sign.

“I am not offended,” he said. “I saw quite well what made you ask it. You

would have every right to catechise me if I had come to you for help; as

it is, your kindness and your brother’s makes a claim which I am in no

mind to dispute. If you don’t mind shivering in this cold place for half

an hour, pray sit down, and I will tell you my story. I have not a cigar

to offer you,” he added with a laugh, “but perhaps you don’t affect that

vice?”

“I do indeed very considerably,” said Marmaduke, and, pulling out a

handsome cigar-case, he handed it to Baines, and invited him to help

himself; the rag-man hesitated just for a moment, and then, yielding to

the instinct of his good-breeding, took one.

“It’s not an amusing story,” he began, when they had sent up a few warm

puffs from their fragrant weeds, “but it may not be uninteresting to you.

You are very young; would it be rude to ask how young?”

“Two-and-twenty next week, if I live so long,” replied Marmaduke.

“Humph! I was just that age when I took the fatal turn in the road that

led to the honorable career in which I am now embarked. My father was an

officer in the line. He had no fortune to speak of; a couple of thousand

pounds left him by an aunt was all the capital he possessed. When he was

still young, he married, and got three thousand pounds with his wife. I

was their only child. My father died when I was ten years old, and left

me to the sole care of my mother, who made an idol of me and spoiled me

to my heart’s content. I was not a bad boy, I had no evil propensities,

and I was not deficient in brains. I picked up things with little or no

effort, and got on better at school than many who had twice the brains

and four times the industry. I was passionately fond of poetry, learned

pages of Byron and Shelley by heart, and declaimed with a good deal of

power. There could not have been a greater curse than such a gift to

a boy of my temperament and circumstances. When I left school, I went

to Oxford. My poor mother strained every nerve to give me a university

education, with a view to my becoming a barrister; but instead of

repaying her sacrifices by working hard, I spent the greater part of my

time acting. I became infatuated about Shakspere, and took to private

theatricals with a frenzy of enthusiasm. As ill-luck would have it, I

fell in with a set of fellows who were drama-mad like myself. I had one

great chum named Hallam, who was stark mad about it, and encouraged me

in the folly to the utmost. I soon became a leading star in this line.

I was sought for and asked out by everybody in the place, until my head

got completely turned, and I fancied I had only to walk on to the stage

to take Macready’s place and achieve fame and fortune. The first thing

that roused me from the absurd delusion was seeing Charles Kean in

Macbeth. I felt utterly annihilated under the superiority of his acting;

it showed me in an instant the difference there is between ordinary taste

and talent and the divine afflatus of genius. And yet an old friend who

happened to meet me in the theatre that night assured me that the younger

Kean was not a patch upon his father, and that Macready outshone the

elder Kean. I went back to Oxford a crestfallen man, and for a time took

refuge from my disappointment in real work. I studied hard, and, when

the term came for going up for my degree, I was confident of success. It

was a vain confidence, of course. I had only given myself to study for

a period of two months or so, and it would have been little short of a

miracle if I had passed. My mother was terribly disappointed; the sight

of her tears cut me up more than the failure on my own account, and I

determined to succeed or die in the effort, if she consented to let me

make one more. She did consent, and I succeeded. That was the happiest

day of my life, I think.” He drew a long breath, and repeated in an

undertone, as if he forgot Marmaduke’s presence, and were speaking aloud

to himself: “Yes, the happiest day of my life!”

“You worked very hard to pull up for lost time!” observed Marmaduke.

“Lost time! Yes, that was it--lost time!” said Baines, musing; then

he continued in his former tone: “My poor mother was very happy. She

declared I had repaid her amply for all her sacrifices. She saw me

already at the top of my profession, a Q.C., a judge, the chief of all

the judges, seated in robes on the woolsack. I came home, and was in due

time called to the bar. I was then just twenty-four. We lived in a pretty

house on the road to Putney; but my mother thought it now desirable

to move into London, that I might have an office in some central

neighborhood, where my clients would flow in and out conveniently. I

remember that I strongly opposed the plan, not from dislike, but from

some feeling like a presentiment, a dread, that London would be a

dangerous place for me, and that I was taking the road to ruin by leaving

the shelter of our secluded home, with its garden and trees, away from

a thousand temptations that beset a young man in the great city. But

my mother’s heart was set on it. She was convinced my character had

thoroughly changed, that I had broken off for ever from old habits and

old propensities, and that I was strong enough to encounter any amount

of temptation without risk. Poor mother! It was no fault of hers if she

was blinded by love. The fault was all mine. I fed her with false hopes,

and then I betrayed them. She gave in so far to my wishes as to consent

only to let the house, instead of selling it, as she first intended; so

that our removal to London took the appearance more of an essay than a

permanent arrangement. I was thankful for this, and set about the change

in high spirits. We were soon comfortably settled in a very small house

in Wimpole Street. I found it rather like a bird-cage after our airy,

roomy abode in the suburbs; but it was very snug, and my mother, who had

wonderful taste, soon made it bright and pretty. She was the brightest

and prettiest thing in it herself; people used to take her for my elder

sister when she took me to parties of an evening. I was very proud of

her, and with better reason than she was of me.”

He paused again, looking up at the Shakspere print, as if he saw his

mother’s likeness there. The sunken, red eyes moistened as he gazed on it.

“It is a great blessing to have a good mother,” said Marmaduke. “I lost

mine when I was little more than a child.”

“So much the better for both of you,” retorted Baines bitterly; “she

did not live for you to break her heart, and then eat out your own with

remorse. But I am talking wildly. You would no doubt have been a blessing

to her; you would have worked like a man, and she would have been proud

of you to the end. It was not so with me. I was never fond of work. I

was not fond of it then; indeed, what I did was not worthy of being

called work at all. I moped over a law-book for an hour or so in the

morning, and then read Shakspere or some other favorite poet, by way of

refreshing myself after the unpalatable task, and getting it out of my

head as quickly as possible. I went down regularly to the courts; but

as I had no legal connection, and nothing in myself to make up for the

want of patronage, or inspire confidence in my steadiness and abilities,

the attorneys brought me no business; and as I was too lazy, and perhaps

too proud, to stoop to court them, I began to feel thoroughly disgusted

with the profession, and to wish I had never entered it. I ceased to go

through the farce of my law-reading of a morning, and devoted myself

entirely to my dilettante tastes, reading poetry, and occasionally

amusing myself with writing it. My old longing for the stage came back,

and only wanted an opportunity to break out actively. This opportunity

was not far off. My mother suspected nothing of the way I was idling my

time; she knew the bar was up-hill work, and was satisfied to see me kept

waiting a few years before I became famous; but it was matter of surprise

to her that I never got a brief of any description. She set it down to

jealousy on the part of my rivals at the courts, and would now and then

wax wroth against them, wondering what expedient could be devised for

showing up the corrupt state of the profession, and forcing my enemies to

recognize my superiority as it deserved. Don’t laugh at her and think her

a fool; she was wise on every subject but this, and I fear I must have

counted for something in leading her to such ridiculous conclusions. I

held very much to preserving her good opinion, but, instead of striving

to justify it by working on to the fulfilment of her motherly ambition,

I took to cheating her, first tacitly, then deliberately and cruelly.

Things were going on in this way, when one day, one ill-fated day, I

went out as usual in the afternoon, ostensibly to the courts, but really

to kill time where I could--at my club, in the Row, or lounging in Pall

Mall. I was passing the Army and Navy Club, when I heard a voice call out:

“‘Halloo, Hamlet!’ (This was the name I went by at Oxford, on account of

my success in the part.) ‘How glad I am to see you, old boy! You’re the

very man I’ve been on the look-out for.’

“‘Hallam!’ I cried, returning his friendly grasp, and declaring how

delighted I was to see him.

“‘I’ve been beating about for you ever since I came to town, ten days

ago,’ he said. ‘I wrote to your old address, but the letter was sent back

to me. Where have you migrated to; and what are you doing?’

“I told him the brief history of my existence since we had parted at

Oxford, he to enter the army, I to begin my course of dinners-eating at

the Temple. He was now on leave; he had just come from the north, where

his regiment was quartered, and he was in high spirits at the prospect

of his month’s holiday. I asked him what it was he had been wanting me so

particularly for.

“‘I wanted to see you, first of all, for your own sake, old boy,’ he

answered heartily; ‘and in the next place I want you badly to help us

to get up some private theatricals at the Duchess of B----’s after

Easter. I suppose you are a perfect actor--a Garrick and Charles Mathews

combined--by this time. You have had plenty of practice, I’ll be bound.’

“I assured him that I had not played since the last time he and I had

brought down the house together. He was immensely surprised, and loudly

deplored my mistake in burying such a talent in the earth. He called me a

conceited idiot to have let myself be crushed by Kean, and vowed a year’s

training from a professional would bring me out a better actor than ever

Kean was. Amateur acting was all very well, but the finest untaught

genius ever born could no more compete successfully with a man who had

gone through the regular professional drill than a civilian could with a

trained soldier in executing a military manœuvre.

“‘I told you before, and I tell you again,’ he continued, as arm in arm

we paced a shady alley of the park--‘I tell you that if you went on the

stage you would cut out the best actor we have; though that is not saying

much, for a more miserable, ignorant lot of drivelling idiots no stage

ever saw caricaturing the drama than our English theatres can boast at

this moment.’

“My heart rose high, and my vanity swelled out like a peacock’s tail,

pluming itself in this luxurious air of flattery. I knew Hallam meant

what he said; but I knew that he was a light-headed young fellow, not at

all competent to judge dramatic power, and still less to counsel me. Yet

such is the intoxicating effect of vanity that I swallowed his praise as

if it had been the purest wisdom. I opened my whole heart to him, told

him how insufferably bored I was at the bar, that I had no aptitude for

it, that I was wasting my time waiting for briefs that never came--I did

not explain what pains I took to prevent their coming--until, kindling

with my own exaggerated statement as I went on, I ended by cursing the

day I took to the bar, and declaring that if it were not for my mother I

would abandon the whole thing and try my luck on the stage to-morrow.

“‘And why should you let your mother stand in your way?’ said Hallam. ‘If

she is too unreasonable to see the justice of the case, why, then … well,

I can’t for the life of me see why your happiness and fortune should be

sacrificed to it.’

“He was not a bad fellow--far from it. He did not mean to play the

devil’s advocate. I am certain he thought he was giving me excellent

advice, using his superior knowledge of the world for my benefit. But he

was a fool--an ignorant, silly, well-meaning fool. Such men, as friends,

are often worse than knaves. If he had proposed anything obviously

wicked, dishonest, or unprincipled, I should have scouted it indignantly,

and walked off in contempt. But he argued with a show of reason, in a

tone of considerate regard for my mother’s wishes and feelings that

deceived and disarmed me. He represented to me the folly of sticking to

a life that I hated and that I had next to no chance of ever succeeding

in; he had a score of examples at his fingers’ ends of young fellows

teeming with talent, patient as asses, and hard working as negroes, who

had gone for the bar and given it up in despair. My mother, like all

fond mothers, naturally expected me to prove an exception to the general

rule, and to turn out a lord chancellor of the romantic sort, rising by

sheer force of merit, without patronage, without money, without any of

the essential helps, by the power of my unaided genius. ‘This is simply

bosh, my dear fellow--innocent maternal bosh,’ persisted Hallam, ‘but as

dangerous as any poison. Cut the bar, as your better genius prompts you

to do, and take to your true calling--the drama.’

“‘For aught I know, I may have lost any talent I had,’ I replied; ‘it is

two years, remember, since I acted at all.’

“‘That is very easily ascertained,’ said my friend. ‘You will take a part

in these theatricals we are going to get up, and we will soon see whether

your talent has evaporated or not. My own impression is that it will come

out stronger than ever; you have studied, and you have seen something, if

not very much, of life since your last attempts.’

“‘My mother has a horror of the theatre,’ I said, unwilling to yield

without a show of resistance; ‘it would break her heart to see me take to

the stage.’

“‘Not if you succeed; hearts are never broken by success.’

“‘And how if I fail?’

“‘You are sure not to fail,’ he urged. ‘But look here: do nothing rashly.

Don’t say anything about this business until you have tried your hand at

it in private. We have not settled yet what the play is to be; they left

it to me to select, and I will choose one that will bring out your powers

best--not tragedy; that never was your line, in my opinion. At any rate,

you must for the present confine yourself to light parts, such as.…’

“I interrupted him in high dudgeon.

“‘Why, if I’m not tragic, I’m nothing!’ I exclaimed. ‘Every one who ever

saw me in Hamlet declared they had never seen the part so well rendered!

And you said many a time that my Macbeth was.…’

“‘First-rate--for an amateur; and I will say it again, if you like,’

protested Hallam; ‘but since then, I have seen real acting.…’

“‘Then mine was not real? I can’t for the life of me see, then…’ I broke

in.

“‘Don’t get so infernally huffy,’ said Hallam, shaking my arm with

good-humored impatience. ‘If you want to know what real, trained,

professional acting is, you must go abroad, and see how the actors of the

Théâtre Français, for instance, study and train and drill. If you will

start with the English notion that a man can take to the stage as he does

to the saddle, give up the plan at once; you will never rise above an

amateur. But to come back to our present purpose; we will select a part

to suit you, and if the rehearsals promise a genuine success--as I have

not a doubt they will--we will invite your mother to come and see you,

and she will be so proud of your triumph that the cause will be won.’

“‘My dear Hallam, it was some good fairy sent you in my way assuredly

this morning!’ I cried, grasping his arm in delight.

“I was highly elated, and took to the scheme with enthusiasm. We spent

the afternoon discussing it. It was settled that the play should be _The

Taming of the Shrew_; the part of Benedict would suit me to perfection,

Hallam declared, and I was so subdued by the amount of worldly wisdom and

general knowledge of life which he had displayed in his arguments about

my change of profession that I yielded without difficulty, and consented

to forego tragedy for the present.

“For the next week I was in a whirl of excitement. He took me to the Army

and Navy Club, and introduced me to a number of swells, all military men,

who were very agreeable and treated me with a soldier-like cordiality

that charmed me. I fancied life must be a delightful thing in such

pleasant, good-natured, well-bred company; that I was now in my proper

sphere; and that I had been hitherto out of place amidst rusty lawyers

and hard-working clerks, etc. In fact, I was a fool, and my head got

turned. I spent all my time in the day lounging about with Hallam and his

aristocratic captains and colonels, and the evenings I devoted to the

business of rehearsal, which was carried on at Lady Arabella Daucer’s,

the married daughter of the duchess at whose house the theatricals were

to be performed. I had been very graciously received by her grace, and

consequently all the lords and ladies who composed her court followed

suit. I was made as much of as if I had been ‘one of them,’ and my

acting soon established me as the leading star of the select company.

I suppose Hallam was right in saying that more mature reading and so

on had improved my dramatic talent; for certainly it came out with a

brilliancy that surprised myself. The artistic, high-bred atmosphere

that surrounded me seemed to infuse fresh vigor into me. I borrowed or

revealed a power that even my vanity had never suspected. Hallam was

enchanted, and as proud of my success as if it had been his own.

“‘I can fancy how your mother will enjoy this!’ he exclaimed one evening,

as I walked home with him to his chambers in Piccadilly. ‘She will be

beside herself with pride in you, old fellow. Fancy what it will be the

night of your first public representation! I expect a seat in her box,

mind!’

“It was just two days before the grand night, and we were having our

last rehearsal--the final one--in the theatre at B---- House, which was

lighted up and filled with a select few, in order to judge of the general

effect for the following night. I was in great spirits, and acted better

than I had done yet. The audience applauded warmly, the ladies clapping

their white-kid hands and shaking their handkerchiefs, that filled the

air with the perfumes of Arabia, while the gentlemen, more audible in

their demonstrations, cheered loudly.

“When it was over, we sat down to supper, about a hundred, of us. I sat

next the duchess, and my beautiful Katharina on the other side of me.

She was a lovely girl of twenty, a cousin of the duchess. I had been

struck by her beauty at the first, but the more I saw of her the less she

pleased me; she was a vain, coquettish young lady, and only tolerated

me because I was useful as a good set-off to her acting, which, to be

just, was excellent. I never saw anything so good off the stage, and

very seldom saw it equalled even there. Flushed with her recent triumph,

which had borrowed additional lustre from mine she was more gracious

and conversational than I had yet known her. I was flattered, though I

knew perfectly how much the caprice was worth, and I exerted myself to

the utmost to be agreeable. We were altogether a very merry party; the

champagne flowed freely, and with it the spirits of the guests rose to

sparkling point. As we rose from the table, some one called out for a

dance before we broke up. The musicians had gone to have refreshments

after the rehearsal, but they were still in the house. The duchess, a

good-natured, easy-going person, who always agreed with everybody all

round, at once ordered them in; people began to engage partners, and all

was laughing confusion round the supper-table. I turned to my pretty

neighbor, and asked if she was engaged; she replied, laughing, that being

neither a sibyl nor a clairvoyant, she could not have known beforehand

that there was to be dancing. ‘Then may I have the honor of claiming

you for the first dance, whatever it may be?’ I said; and she replied

that I might. I offered her my arm, and we took our way back into the

theatre, which was still brilliantly illuminated. We were to dance on the

stage. As we were pushing on with the crowd, I felt a strong hand laid

on my arm, and, before I had time to prevent it, Lady Caroline’s hand

was withdrawn, and the intruder stood between us. He was a square-built,

distinguished-looking man, not very young, but handsome and with the

_beau_ stamped all over him.

“‘Excuse my want of ceremony,’ he said in an easy, supercilious tone to

me. ‘I claim the first dance with Lady Caroline.’

“‘On what grounds?’ I demanded stiffly. We were still moving on, carried

with the crowd, so it was impossible to make him stand aside or to regain

my post next Lady Caroline.

“‘On the grounds of her promise,’ he replied haughtily.

“Lady Caroline uttered a laughing ‘O Lord George!’ but did not draw away

the hand which he had so unceremoniously transferred from my arm to his.

“‘Lady Caroline made no engagement before she came here to-night,’ I

said, ‘and she promised this dance to me. I refer you to herself whether

this be true or not.’

“‘Gentlemen are not in the habit of catechising ladies as to their

behavior--not, at least, in our set; and while you happen to be in it you

had better conform to its customs,’ observed Lord George, without looking

towards me.

“I felt my blood boil so that it was an effort not to strike him. Two

ladies near me who had heard the passage between us cried, ‘Shame! No

gentleman would have said that!’ This gave me courage to maintain my

self-command. We were now in the theatre; the orchestra was playing a

brilliant prelude to a waltz, and Lord George, as if he had forgotten all

about me, prepared to start. I laid my hand peremptorily on his arm.

“‘In my set,’ I said, and my voice shook with agitation, ‘gentlemen don’t

tolerate gratuitous impertinence; you either make me an apology, or I

shall exact reparation of another kind.’

“‘Oh! indeed. I shall be happy to hear from you at your convenience,’

sneered Lord George, with a low bow. He turned away, and said in a voice

loud enough to be heard by me or any one else near, ‘The puppy imagines,

I suppose, that I would meet him in a duel. The next thing will be we

shall have our footmen sending us challenges. Capital joke, by Jove!

Come, we are losing time, Lady Caroline! The waltz is half over.’

“They were starting this time, when a voice behind me called out

imperiously: ‘A moment, Lord George Halberdyne! The gentleman whom you

have insulted is a friend of mine and a guest of the Duchess of B----;

two conditions that qualify him, I think, to be an adversary of yours.’

“‘Oh! he’s a friend of yours, is he?’ repeated Lord George, facing

around. ‘That’s a natural phenomenon that I shall not stop to investigate

just now; but it certainly puts this gentleman in a new light.

Good-evening, sir. I shall have the pleasure, probably, of seeing you

to-morrow.’

“‘You shall, my lord,’ I replied; and allowing Hallam to link my arm

in his and draw me away, I turned my back on the brilliant scene, and

hurried out of the house, feverish, humiliated, desperate.

“‘The idiot! The snob! You shall give him a lesson that he’ll not forget

in a hurry,’ said Hallam, who seemed nearly as indignant and excited as

myself. ‘Are you a good shot? Have you ever stood fire?’

“I answered both questions in the negative. He was evidently put out; but

presently he said in a confident tone:

“‘Well, it does not so much matter; you are the offended party, and

consequently you have the choice of weapons. It shall be swords instead

of pistols. I suppose you’re a pretty good swordsman?’

“‘My dear Hallam,’ I said, ‘you forget that these things are not in my

line at all. I never handled a sword since we flourished them in the

fencing hall at Oxford. In fact, if the choice be mine, as you say it is,

I think I would do better to choose pistols. I have a chance with them;

and if Lord George be a swordsman, I have none with the other.’

“Hallam seemed seriously disconcerted.

“‘It’s not quite such an affair of chance as you appear to imagine,’

he said. ‘Halberdyne is one of the best shots in the service; he never

misses his mark; and he is a first-rate swordsman. ’Pon my honor I don’t

know what to advise you.’

“‘I must stand advised by myself then, and here goes for pistols,’ I

said, trying to put a bold face on it, though I confess I felt anything

but cheerful at the prospect. ‘You will stand by me, Hallam, will you

not?’

“‘Of course I will! I’ve committed myself to as much already,’ he

answered cordially; but I saw he was uncomfortable. ‘I shall take your

card to the scoundrel to-morrow morning. I wonder who he’ll have for

second--that bully Roper, very likely,’ he went on, talking more to

himself than to me.

“‘Is the meeting to take place to-morrow morning?’ I inquired; and a

sudden rush of anguish came on me as I put the question. I thought of my

mother, of all that might be in store for her so soon.

“‘We must try and put it off for a day,’ said Hallam. ‘It is deucedly

awkward, you see, if it comes off to-morrow, because of the play. You

may get hit, and it would be a terrible business if you were _hors de

concours_ for the evening.’ There was something so grimly comical in the

earnestness with which he said this that, though I was in no merry mood,

I burst out laughing.

“‘A terrible business indeed!’ I said. ‘How exceedingly unpleasant for

Lady Caroline particularly to be left in the lurch on such an occasion!

However, if I go to the wall, and Lord George comes off safe, he might

get up the part in a hurry and replace me, eh?’ I had hit the mark

without knowing it. It was jealousy that had provoked Lord George to the

gratuitous attack. I suppose there was something sardonic in my voice

that struck Hallam with the inappropriateness of his previous remarks. He

suddenly stopped, and grasping my arm warmly--

“‘I’m used to this sort of thing, my dear fellow,’ he said; ‘but don’t

fancy from that that my feelings are turned to stone, or that I forget

all that is, that may be, unpleasant in the matter. But there is no use

talking of these things; they unman a fellow, and he wants all his nerves

in working order at a moment like this. Take my advice and go home now,

and cool yourself by a quiet night for to-morrow’s work, if it is to be

to-morrow. You may have some letters to write or other things to attend

to, and they had better be done at once.’

“I replied that I had no letters to write and no business instructions

to leave. The idea of facing my home, passing my mother’s door, and then

going to bed as if the world had not turned right round; as if all life,

the present and the future, were not revolutionized--this was what I did

not, at this moment at least, feel equal to, and I said so.

“‘I would rather go for an hour to the club,’ I said, ‘if you don’t mind,

and we will have a game of billiards. I don’t feel inclined to go home,

and I should not sleep if I went to bed.’

“‘Just as you like,’ he said; ‘but the night is so fine we may as well

take a few more turns in the open air. It does one good after those

heated rooms.’

“It did me no good. I felt the most miserable man in this miserable

world. I would have given any happiness the world could have offered me

to undo this night’s work, to be as I was an hour ago, free, guiltless

of projected murder or suicide. I repeated to myself that it was not

my fault; that I had been gratuitously provoked beyond endurance; that

as a gentleman I could not have done otherwise; but these sophistries

neither calmed nor strengthened me. Truer voices rose up and answered

them in clear and imperious tones that drowned the foolish comforters.

Why had I ever entered the society where my position exposed me to such

results? What business had I there? What good could it do myself or any

one else to have been tolerated, even courted, as I fancied I was, by

these fine people, who had nothing of any sort in common with me? I had

forsaken my legitimate place, the profession that my mother had made

such heavy sacrifices to open to me. I had deliberately frittered away

my life, destroyed my prospects of honorable success; and this is what

it had brought me to! I was going either to shoot a man who had done me

no graver injury than offend my pride and punish my folly, or to be shot

down by him--and then? I saw myself brought home to my mother dangerously

wounded, dead perhaps. I heard her cry of agony, I saw her mortal

despair. I could have cried out loud for pity of her. I could have cursed

myself for my folly--for the mad, sinful folly that had rewarded her by

such an awakening.

“There is an electric current that runs from mind to mind, communicating

almost like an articulate voice the thoughts that are passing within us

at certain moments. I had not spoken for several minutes, as we paced up

and down Pall Mall, puffing our cigars in the starlight; but this current

I speak of had passed from my brain to Hallam’s, and informed him of what

my thoughts were busy on.

“‘Don’t let yourself down, old boy,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘No harm

may come of it after all; I’ve known a score of duels where both sides

came off with no more than a pin-scratch, sometimes with no scratch at

all. Not that I suspect you of being faint-hearted--I remember what a

dare-devil you were at Oxford--but the bravest of us may be a coward for

others.’

“I felt something rise in my throat as if it would choke me. I could not

get a word out.

“‘Who knows?’ continued Hallam in his cheeriest tone; ‘you may be

bringing down the house to-morrow night, and your mother may be the

proudest woman in London, seeing you the king of the company, cheered and

complimented by “fair women and brave men!” I feel as sure of it, do you

know, as if I saw it in a glass.’

“He spoke in kindness, but the levity of his tone, the utter hollowness

of his consolations, were intolerable. They mocked my misery; every word

pierced me like a knife. What evil genius had led me across this man’s

path? Only a few weeks ago I said it was the work of an angel, a good

fairy, or some absurdity of the sort. It was more likely a demon that

had done it. If I had never met him, I said to myself, I would never

have known this hour; I should have been an innocent and a happy man.

But this would not do either. I was neither innocent nor happy when I

met him. I was false to my duty, wasting my life, and sick to death of

both; only longing for the opportunity which Hallam had brought me. If I

had not met him, I should have met or sought out some other tempter, and

bitten greedily at the bait when it was offered. Still, I felt embittered

toward Hallam. I accused him, as if he had been the sole author of my

misfortune; as if I had been a baby or an idiot without free-will or

responsibility.

“‘Come into the club,’ I said, dropping his arm and throwing away the end

of my cigar.

“He did not notice the impatient movement, but readily crossed over, and

we entered the club. The lofty, spacious rooms were blazing with light

and filled with groups of men. Some were lounging on luxurious couches,

reading the evening papers, some were chatting, some were playing cards.

An air of easy grandeur, prosperity, and surface happiness pervaded the

place. I felt horribly out of keeping with it all. I had no business

amongst these wealthy, fashionable men; I was like a skeleton stalking

into the feast. I believe it was nothing but sheer human respect, the

fear of making myself ridiculous, that prevented me from turning on my

heel and rushing straight out of the house. I mechanically took up the

_Globe_, which a member tossed on to a table near me, and sat down as if

I were going to read it.

“‘Leave that alone, and come into the billiard-room,’ said Hallam. And he

whipped the paper out of my hands with brotherly unceremoniousness.

“I rose and followed him like a dog. I would have gone anywhere, done

anything, he or anybody else suggested. Physically, I was indifferent to

what I did; my brain on fire, I felt as if I were walking in a dream.

“We were passing into the billiard-room when a gentleman who was seated

at a card-table cried out to Hallam to come and join them. It was Col.

Leveson, a brother officer and great friend of his. Hallam replied that

he was going on to have a pull at the balls; but he strolled over to see

how the game was going. I mechanically followed him. Some of the players

knew me, and greeted me with a friendly nod. They were absorbed in the

game; it was lansquenet. I knew very little about cards; but lansquenet

was the one game that interested me. I had lost a few sovereigns a night

or two before at it, and, as the luck seemed set in against the banker,

it flashed over me I could not do better than to take a hand and win them

back now. I did not, however, volunteer to join the game. In my present

state of smarting pride I would not run the risk of being made to feel

I was an intruder. Unluckily, Hallam’s friend, reading temptation on my

countenance perhaps, said, holding up his cards to me: “I’m in splendid

vein, but I must be off. I’ll sell you my hand for half a sovereign, if

you like.”

“‘Done!’ I said; and paying the half-sovereign, I sat down. I had

scarcely taken his place when there was a noise in the adjoining room

announcing fresh arrivals. I recognized one loud, domineering voice above

the others, and presently Lord George Halberdyne came in.

“‘Going, Leveson?’ he said. ‘Luck against you, I suppose?’

“‘On the contrary, never was in better vein in my life,’ replied the

colonel. ‘I sold my hand for a song, because I have an appointment that I

can’t forego.’

“‘Who’s the lucky dog you sold it to?’ asked Lord George.

“‘Mr. Botfield,’ said Col. Leveson. (My real name is Botfield; I only

took the name of Baines when I fell into disgrace and misery.)

“Lord George muttered an exclamation of some sort--whether of surprise or

vexation I could not tell--and advanced to the table.

“‘Do you mind my joining you?’ he said, appealing to nobody in

particular. There was a general assent, and he sat down. Hallam would not

take a hand. He hated cards; his passion was for billiards, and he played

nothing else. He came and stood behind me to watch the game. I felt him

lay his hand on my shoulder, as if to encourage me and remind me that he

was there to stand by me and take my part against my late bully, if needs

be. It did not seem as if he was likely to be called upon to do so. My

late bully was as gracious as man could be--at least he intended to be

so; but I took his familiar facetiousness for covert impertinence, and it

made my blood boil quite as fiercely as his recent open insult had done.

I was not man of the world enough to understand that Lord George was only

doing his duty to society; that he was in fact behaving beautifully, with

infinite tact, like an accomplished gentleman. I could not understand

that the social canons of his ‘set’ made it incumbent on a man to joke

and laugh and demean himself in this lively, careless fashion towards

the man whom he was going to shoot in a few hours. I grew inwardly

exasperated, and it was nothing but pride and an unprecedented effort

of will that enabled me to keep my temper and remain outwardly cool. For

a time, for about twenty minutes, the luck continued in the same vein;

my half-sovereign had been paid back to me more than fifty times. Col.

Leveson was right when he said he had sold his hand for a song. Hallam

was all this time standing behind my chair, smoking his cigar, and

throwing in a word between the puffs. The clock struck two.

“‘Come off now, Botfield,’ he said, tapping me on the shoulder--‘come off

while your star is shining; it is sure to go down if you stay too long.’

“‘Very likely, most sage and prudent mentor,’ retorted Lord George;

‘but that cuts both ways. Your friend has been pocketing our money up

to this; it’s only fair he should give us a chance of winning it back

and pocketing a little of his. That is a law _universally_ recognized, I

believe.’ As he said this, he turned to me good-humoredly enough; but I

saw where the emphasis pointed, and, stung to the quick, I replied that I

had not the least intention of going counter to the law; I would remain

as long as the game lasted.

“‘Halloo! That’s committing yourself somewhat rashly,’ interposed Hallam.

‘You don’t know what nefarious gamblers these fellows are; they’re

capable of keeping it up till morning!’

“‘If they do, I shall keep it up with them,’ I replied recklessly. I was

desperate, and my luck was good.

“Hallam said no more, but sauntered to the other side of the table, where

I _felt_ his eyes fixed on me warningly, entreatingly.

“I looked up at last, and met them fastened on me in a mute, impatient

appeal. I answered it by a peremptory nod. He saw I would not brook

farther interference, so he took himself off to the billiard-room, and

did not reappear for an hour.

“I cannot recall clearly what passed during the interval. The luck had

turned suddenly against me; but, nothing daunted, I went on playing

desperately, losing as fast as I had been winning, only in much heavier

sums; for the stakes had risen enormously on the change of luck. There

was a large pool, immense it seemed to me--some two hundred pounds. I

lost again and again. At last terror sobered me. I began to realize the

madness of my conduct, and wanted to withdraw; but they cried out against

it, reminded me that I had pledged myself to remain and see the game out.

Lord George was loudest in protesting that I must remain. ‘One can’t have

luck always,’ he said, ‘A man must put up with it when the tide turns. It

is of good omen for you, Mr. Botfield,’ he added pointedly; ‘you will be

in splendid luck to-morrow.’

“I shuddered. I can remember the horrible, sick sensation that ran

through me as he said this, lightly, pleasantly, as if he alluded to a

rowing-match I had in view. I saw my mother’s pale face beckoning me to

come away--to stop before I ruined her utterly. I almost made a movement

to rise, but something glued me to the chair. The game went on. I again

held the bank, and again lost. I had no money about me except the forty

pounds or so I had won at the outset; but several leaves out of my

pocketbook were strewn about the table bearing I. O. U.’s for nine times

that sum. I suppose by this time I had quite lost my senses. I know that

I went on betting like a maniac, with the feverish, triumphant impulse of

a man in delirium. I was losing tremendously. I remember nothing except

the sound of my own voice and Lord George’s calling _banco!_ again and

again, and how the cry ran through me like a blade every time, and how I

hastily tore out fresh leaves and wrote down the sums I lost, and tossed

them to the winner, and went on. All this time we had been drinking

deeply of brandy and water. I was naturally abstemious, but to-night I

drank recklessly. The wonder was--and I was going to say the pity--that

it had not stupefied me long ago, and so made me physically incapable

of continuing my insane career. But excitement acted, I suppose, as an

antidote, and prevented the alcohol from taking effect as it otherwise

must have done. At last Hallam came back. I have a vague recollection

of hearing him exchange some remarks in an undertone with one of the

players, who had given up and was now watching the game with a number

of others who had dropped in from adjoining rooms. I then heard him

say, ‘Good God! he is ruined twice over!’ I heard nothing more. I had

fallen back insensible in my chair. Everybody started up; the cards were

dropped, and all was confusion and terror. It appears that at the first

moment they thought I was dead. A young guardsman present declared I

was, and that it was disease of the heart; a young kinsman of his had

dropped down on parade only a month ago just in the same way. There was

a cry for a doctor, and two or three ran out to fetch one. Before he

arrived, however, I had given signs of returning consciousness. Up to

this moment Lord George had been anxiously looking on, silent and pale,

they said. He had borne me with Hallam to a couch in the next room, where

the air was free from cigar-fumes, and had opened the window to admit

the fresh night-breeze. He had done, in fact, what any humane person

would have done under the circumstances; but he had done it in a manner

that betokened more than ordinary interest. He drew an audible breath of

relief the moment he saw my eyelids quiver and heard me breathe like a

man awaking to life. Hallam signed to him to leave the room; he did not

wish his face to be the first I saw on opening my eyes. Lord George no

doubt understood; for he at once withdrew into the card-room. He drew the

door after him, but he did not quite close it, so that I heard dreamily,

yet distinctly, all that was said. Lord George’s second for the morrow’s

meeting, the Hon. Capt. Roper, inquired eagerly how I was going on. ‘Oh!

he’ll be all right presently,’ was the reply, spoken in Lord George’s

off-hand way. ‘There was nothing to make such a fuss about; the poor

devil was scared to see how much money he had lost, and fainted like a

girl--that’s all.’

“‘Hallam says he is quite cleared out by to-night’s ill-luck,’ observed

some one.

“‘Served him right,’ said Lord George; ‘it will teach puppies of his kind

not to come amongst us and make fools of themselves.’

“‘And do you mean to shoot him to-morrow?’ inquired the same voice.

“‘I mean to give him a chance of shooting me; unless,’ he continued--and

I saw in imagination, as vividly as if my bodily eyes had seen it,

the cold sneer that accompanied the remark--‘unless he shows the white

feather and declines fighting, which is just as likely.’

“While this little dialogue had been going on in subdued tones close by

the door which opened at the head of the sofa where I lay, Hallam was

conversing in animated whispers with two gentlemen in the window. He was

not more than a minute absent, when he returned to my side, and, seeing

my eyes wide open, exclaimed heartily: ‘Thank God! he’s all right again!’

“I grasped his hand and sat up. They gave me some sal-volatile and water

to drink, and I was, as he said, all right again. But it was not the

stimulant that restored me, that gave me such sudden energy, and nerved

me to act at once, to face my fate and defy it. I took his arm, and led

him, or let him lead me, to some quieter place near, and then I asked him

how much he thought I had lost.

“‘Don’t think of that yet, my dear fellow,’ he said; ‘you are too done up

to discuss it. We will see what can be done to-morrow.’

“‘Five thousand pounds!’ I said. ‘Do you hear that? Five thousand pounds!

That means that I am a beggar, which an’t of much consequence; and that

I’ve made a beggar of my mother. She will have to sell the bed from under

her to pay it, to save my honor. A curse upon me for bringing this blight

upon her!’

“‘Tut! tut! man, don’t take on like a woman about it!’ said Hallam.

‘These things can be arranged; no need to make matters out worse than

they are. I’ll speak to Lord George, and see what terms we can make with

him.’

“He made me light a cigar, and left me alone, while he went back to

parley with the man who held my fortune, my life, my all in his hands.

I never heard exactly all that passed between them. I only know that in

answer to Lord George’s question, put in a tone of insulting haughtiness,

‘Has the fellow pledged himself for more than he’s worth? _Can’t_ he

pay?’ Hallam replied: ‘He can, but it will ruin him’; upon which the

other retorted with a laugh, ‘What the devil is that to me?’ and turned

his back on my second, who had nothing left but to take Capt. Roper aside

and arrange for the morrow’s meeting. He came back, and told me all was

settled; that Halberdyne was behaving like a brute, and would be tabooed

in the clubs and every decent drawing-room before twenty-four hours. This

thought seemed to afford him great satisfaction. It gave me none. Anguish

had drowned resentment. I could think of nothing except that I was a

ruined man, that I had beggared my mother, and that I was going to fight

a duel in a few hours. Richmond Park--6 A.M.--pistols at thirty paces!

This was how the appointment was notified by our seconds to both of us.

Suddenly a light burst on me--a ray of hope, of consolation: I might be

killed in this duel, and, if so, surely my honor would be saved and my

debt cancelled. Lord George would not pursue my mother for the money.

She should know nothing of this night’s work until after the meeting. If

I escaped with a wound, I would tell her; if I died, who would have the

cruelty to do so? I told Hallam of this sudden thought as he walked home

with me. He approved of it, and cheered me up by almost assuring me that

I should be shot. Halberdyne was a dead-shot; it was most likely that I

should not leave the field alive.

“The night passed--the few hours of it that must elapse before the time

named for the meeting. 0 God! how did I live through them? And yet this

was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what was yet in store for

me.…

“The duel took place. Lord George wounded me in the hip. He escaped

unhurt; I fired in the air. I was carried home on a door, insensible.

Hallam had gone before to prepare my mother. For some weeks it was feared

I would not live. Then amputation was talked of. I escaped finally with

being a cripple for life. Before I was out of danger, Hallam’s leave

expired, and he went to rejoin his regiment. He had been very assiduous

in calling to inquire for me, had seen my mother, and, judging by her

passionate grief that I was in a fair way not to recover, he had forborne

mentioning anything about the five thousand pounds. She promised to write

and let him know when any change took place. Meantime, she had found out

my secret. I had talked incessantly of it in my delirium, and with an

accuracy of iteration that left no doubt on her mind but that there was a

foundation of truth in the feverish ravings. The doctor was of the same

mind, and urged her to give me an opportunity of relieving my mind of the

burden, whatever it was, as soon as this was possible.

“The first day that I was strong enough to bear conversation she

accordingly broached the subject. I inferred at once that Hallam had told

her everything, and repeated the miserable story, only to confirm what I

supposed he had already said.

“My mother was sitting by my bedside. She busied herself with teaseling

out linen into lint for my wound, and so, purposely no doubt, kept her

face continually bent or averted from mine.

“Seeing how quietly she took it, I began to think I had overrated the

misfortune; that we had larger resources in some way than I had imagined.

‘Then it is possible for us to pay this horrible debt and save my honor,

and yet not be utterly beggared, mother?’ I said eagerly. She looked at

me with a smile that must surely have been the reflex of some angel near

her whom I could not see. ‘Yes, my boy; he shall be paid, and we shall

not be beggars,’ she said gently, and pressed my hand in both her own.

‘You should have told me about it at once; it has been preying on your

mind and retarding your cure all this time. I will see Mr. Kerwin to-day,

and have it arranged at once. Promise me now, like a good boy, to forget

it and think no more of it until you are quite well. Will you promise?’

“I did not answer, but signed with my lips for her to kiss me. She rose

and twined her arms around me, and let me sob out my sorrow and my love

upon her breast.

“It was about three days after this that she handed me a letter to read;

it was from Lord George to Mr. Kerwin, and ran thus:

“SIR: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the sum of five

thousand pounds which you have forwarded to my lawyers in the

name of Mr. Botfield. I make this acknowledgment personally in

order to express my sincere satisfaction at the happy progress

of Mr. Botfield’s recovery, and beg you will convey this

sentiment to him.--I remain, etc.,

“HALBERDYNE.”

“‘Mother! mother!’ I cried out, and opened my arms to her in a passion

of tears. But she laid her finger smilingly on my lips, and made me be

silent. In a month hence, when I was well, we should talk it all over,

but not now.

“Before the month was out, _she was dead_!”…

* * * * *

Marmaduke started to his feet with a cry of horror, and Botfield, unable

to control the anguish that his own narrative evoked, dropped his head

into his hands, and shook the room with his sobs.

“O dear God! that I should have lived to tell it!--to talk over the

mother that I murdered! Brave, tender, generous mother! I killed you, I

broke your heart, and then--then I brought shame upon your memory! O God!

O God! why have I outlived it?” He rocked to and fro, almost shouting in

his paroxysm of despair. Marmaduke had never beheld such grief; he had

never in his life been so deeply moved with pity. He did not know what to

say, what to do. His heart prompted him to do the right thing: he fell on

his knees, and, putting his arms around the wretched, woe-worn man, he

burst into tears and sobbed with him.

Botfield suffered his embrace for a moment, and then, pressing his horny

palm on the young man’s blond head, he muttered: “God bless you! God

bless you for your pity!”

As soon as they were both calmed, Marmaduke asked him if he would not

prefer finishing the story to-morrow. But he signed to him to sit down;

that he would go on with it to the end.

“What is there more to tell?” he said, sadly shaking his head.

“I was lying a cripple on my bed when she was carried to her grave.

I was seized with a violent brain fever, which turned to typhus, and

they took me to the hospital. The servants were dismissed; they had

received notice from my mother. She had foreseen everything, taken every

necessary step as calmly as if the catastrophe I had brought upon her

had been a mere change of residence for her own convenience. All we had

was gone. That brave answer of hers to my question about our resources

was a subterfuge of her love. If ever a sin was sinless, assuredly that

half-uttered falsehood was. She had directed the lawyer to raise the

money immediately, at every sacrifice. She meant to work for her bread,

and trusted to me to make the task light and short to her. I would have

done it had she been spared to me. So help me God, I would! But now that

she was gone, I had nothing to work for. I left the hospital a cripple

and a beggar. I did not even yet know to what an extent. I went straight

to our old house, expecting to find it as I had left it--that is, before

all consciousness had left me. I found it dismantled, empty; painters

busy on scaffolding outside. I went to Mr. Kerwin, and there learned the

whole truth. Nothing remained to me but suicide. Nothing kept me from it,

I believe, but the prayers of my mother.”

“You were a Christian, then?” interrupted Marmaduke in a tone of

unfeigned surprise.

“I ought to have been. My father was, and my mother was; I was brought up

as one, until I went to the university and lost what little belief I had.

For a moment it seemed to come back to me when I found myself alone in

the world. I remember walking deliberately down to the river’s side when

I left the lawyer’s office, fully determined to drown myself. But before

I reached the water, I heard my mother’s voice calling so distinctly to

me to stop that I felt myself arrested as by some visible presence. I

heard the voice saying, ‘Do you wish never to see me again even in the

next world?’ Of course it was the work of imagination, of my over-wrought

feelings; but the effect was the same. I stopped, and retraced my steps

to Mr. Kerwin’s.”

“It was your guardian angel, perhaps your mother’s, that saved you,” said

Marmaduke.

“Oh! I forgot,” said Botfield. “Your brother is a Catholic; I suppose you

are too?”

Marmaduke nodded assent; he felt that his Catholicity was not much

to boast of. Like the poor outcast before him, he had lost his faith

practically, though he adhered to it in name.

“Yes, it was an angel of some sort that rescued me,” said Botfield; “it

was no doubt my own fault if the rescue was not complete. I went back

to Mr. Kerwin, and asked him to give me, or get me, something to do.

My chance on the stage was at an end, even if I could have turned to

that: I was dead lame. He got me a situation as clerk in an office; but

the weariness of the life and the pressure of remorse were more than

I could bear. I took to drink. They forgave me once, twice; the third

time I was dismissed. But of what use is it to go over that disgusting,

pitiable story? Step by step I went down, lower and lower, sinking each

time into fouler depths, drinking more loathsome draughts, wallowing in

mire whose very existence such as you don’t dream of. I will spare you

all those details. Enough that I came at last to what you see me. One

day when hunger was gnawing me, and even the satanic consolation of the

public-house was shut against me for want of a sixpence to pay for a

glass of its diabolical elixir, I fell in with a man of the trade; he

offered me work and bread. Hunger is not a dainty counsellor. I closed

with the offer, and so sank into the last slough that humanity can take

refuge in.…

“Now, Mr. Walpole, you have heard my history; it was a pain, and yet,

somehow, a relief, to me to tell it. It has not been a very pleasant

one for you to listen to; still, I don’t regret having inflicted it on

you. You are very young; you are prosperous and happy, and, most likely,

perfectly free from any of the temptations that have been the bane of my

life; still, it never hurts a young man starting in life to hear an older

man’s experience. If ever temptation should come near you, dash it from

you with all your might; scorn and defy it from the first; hold no parley

with it; to treat with perdition is to be lost.”

“You have done me a greater service than you know of,” said Marmaduke,

rising and preparing to take leave of his singular entertainer. “Perhaps

one day I may tell you.…” He took a turn in the narrow room, and then,

coming back to Botfield, resumed in an agitated manner: “Why should I not

own it at once? You have trusted me with all; I will tell you the truth.”

Botfield looked up in surprise, but said nothing.

“I stand on the very brink of the abyss against which you warn me. Like

you, I am a barrister; like you, I hate my profession, and spend my time

reading poetry and playing at private theatricals. They are my passion.

A few nights ago I tried my luck at cards, and won. This tempted me; I

played last night and lost--precisely the sum of twenty pounds.”

Botfield started and uttered a suppressed exclamation.

“I am in debt--not much--a mere trifle, if it lead to no worse! You see

now what a service you may have done me; who knows? Perhaps my mother’s

guardian angel prompted you to tell me your story as a warning, to save

me before it was too late! I know that I came here to-day at the bidding

of an angel; and reluctant enough I was to take the message!”

“I never thought to be of use to any one while I lived,” said Botfield

with emotion. “I bless God, anyhow, if my wretched example proves a

warning to you. Who sent you to me? I understood it was your brother?”

“So it was; but it was to please my sister that I consented to come. She

is one of those angels that people talk about, but don’t often see. You

will let her come and see you, Mr. Botfield, will you not?”

He held out his delicate lavender kid hand, and pressed Botfield’s grimy

fingers cordially.

When Marmaduke got home, he inquired at once where his sister was, and,

hearing she was in her room, he crept up quietly to the door and knocked.

He entered so quietly that Nelly had scarcely time to jump off her knees.

Marmaduke saw at once that he had taken her by surprise; he saw also that

her eyes were red.

“What is the matter?” she asked, with a frightened look. “Has anything

happened? You have been away so long! What kept you, Marmaduke? Where

have you been?”

“Where you sent me.”

“To Stephen’s poor man? Why, you have been out nearly two hours! It did

not take all that time to give your message?” said incredulous Nelly, and

her heart beat with recent apprehension.

“No; but Stephen’s poor man had a message for me. Sit down here, and

I will tell you what it was. But how cold you are, darling! You are

positively perished! Where have you been?”

“Here,” said Nelly.

“Ever since I went out?”

“Ever since you went out.”

“What were you doing?” he persisted, fixing a strange look on her.

She blushed, hesitated, and then said simply, “I was praying for you,

Marmaduke.”

He folded her in his arms, and whispered, “I was right to say it was an

angel sent me.”

Then, taking a warm shawl that he saw hanging up, he wrapped her in it,

and sat down beside her, and told the story as it had been told to him.

When it was over, Nelly’s head was on his breast, and the brother’s tears

of penitence were mingling with the sister’s tears of joy.

“Let us go down now and tell Stephen,” said Marmaduke, when he had

finished.

“Will you tell him everything?” asked Nelly.

“Yes, everything.”

“Dear Marmy! I am so happy I could sing for joy,” she said, smiling

through her tears. “Let us kneel down here and say one little prayer

together; will you?”

And he did.

“How did you thaw the man and break up the ice he seemed to be buried

under?” was Stephen’s amazed inquiry when other more precious and

interesting questions were exhausted.

“I merely did what Nelly told me,” said Marmaduke: “I listened to him.”

On Christmas morning Marmaduke announced his intention of dining out.

It was a sacrifice to all three, but no one opposed him. Nelly made

up a store of provisions, including a hot plum-pudding, which was put

with other steaming hot dishes into the ample basket that the gay young

man carried off in a cab with him to Red Pepper Lane. There he found a

clean hearth, a blazing fire, and a table spread with a snowy cloth, and

all necessaries complete. Some fairy had surely been at work in that

gloomy place. The host was clean and brushed, looking like an eccentric

gentleman in his new clothes amidst those incongruous surroundings.

He and Marmaduke unpacked the basket with many an exclamation at its

inexhaustible depths. That was the happiest, if not the very merriest,

Christmas dinner that ever Marmaduke partook of.

When it was over, and they were puffing a quiet cigar over the fire,

steps were heard on the rickety stairs, and then a knock at the door, and

a silvery voice saying: “May we come in?” It was Stephen and Nelly.

“I don’t see why you should have all the pleasure to yourself,” said

Nelly, with her bright laugh; “you would never have been here at all if I

had not teased you into taking the message!”

* * * * *

If this were a romance instead of a true episode, the story should end by

the some-time rag-and-bone man becoming a Catholic, rising to wealth and

distinction, and marrying Nelly. But the events of real life don’t adjust

themselves so conveniently to the requirements of the story-teller.

Stephen Walpole got Mr. Botfield a situation in the post-office, where,

by good conduct and intelligent diligence, he rose gradually to a

position of trust, which was highly paid. He never married. Who knows?

Perhaps he had his little romance, and never dared to tell it.

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH CONGRESS.

The second annual Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the

United States was held at Philadelphia during the early part of November.

Church congresses are new things in this country, and the Episcopalians

are not yet quite at home in them. Their first experiment, made at New

York in 1874, was not wholly successful. Some of their leading bishops

and presbyters treated it rather cavalierly, apparently in the fear that

it was going to weaken the bonds of ecclesiastical discipline, and open

vexatious questions which the church for years had been expending all its

learning and ingenuity in trying _not_ to answer. But church congresses

seemed to be very proper and respectable things for every denomination

which laid claim to antiquity: they are common in the mother-church of

England; they are efficient and interesting organizations in what our

Anglican friends are pleased to call the Roman branch of the church of

Christ; Dr. Döllinger has them regularly in the Old-Catholic “branch”;

and so the originators of the movement in the American “branch” have

persevered in their attempt to establish them here. The meeting in

Philadelphia appears to have been all that its promoters could have

reasonably expected. The denominational papers of various shades of

opinion concur in believing that the permanency of the Congress as an

annual institution is now nearly secured; and we find one of these

journals rejoicing that the meeting passed off with “entire cordiality,”

and that nothing in the proceedings “elicited prejudice or excited

hostile action.” This indeed was something to boast of. Perhaps it would

have been still more gratifying had not the same paper explained that

this unexpected peaceableness of the Congress arose “from the fact that

no resolutions were adopted, no legislation proposed, no elections held.

When any of these are distinctly in view, those who participate range

themselves into parties, and it is almost impossible not to resort to

measures to ensure victory which generate unkind feelings and provoke

exaggerated statements.” All which gives us a queer idea of the manner

in which the Holy Ghost is supposed to operate in the councils of the

Protestant Episcopal Church. But no matter. Let us be glad, for the

sake of propriety, that this was merely a meeting for talk, and not

for action. The strict rules applicable to conventions, synods, and

other business meetings were not in force. The topics of discussion were

not so much points of doctrine as minor questions of discipline and

methods of applying the machinery of the church to the every-day work

of religion. And with the knowledge that no vote was to be taken upon

any subject whatever, the Congress unanimously agreed to let every man

say what he pleased. The great variety of irreconcilable things which it

accordingly pleased the gentlemen to say seems to have attracted remark,

and denominational papers point to it with pride as a proof of the large

toleration allowed within the bosom of the church. If they like it, far

be it from us to interfere with their enjoyment.

The Episcopal Church is one of the largest and richest of the Protestant

sects. Its clergy are popularly supposed to boast of more general

culture and enjoy fuller opportunities for study than those of the other

religious bodies, and its people are found in large numbers among the

educated and well-to-do classes. A congress of this church, gathered

from all parts of the country, representing all shades of opinion, and

possessing almost unbounded facilities for talk and deliberation, ought

therefore to have elicited a great deal that was worth remembering. The

programme of the sessions was stated in an alluring manner by Bishop

Clarke, of Rhode Island, who made the introductory address. “We come,”

said he, “to consider how the doctrine and organization of the church can

be brought most effectually to sanctity”; and then he went on to speak

briefly of the particular things, in our daily experience, which the

church ought to purify and bless--our business affairs, our amusements,

our care of the poor, our family relations, the marriage tie--practical

points all of them, and points, too, in which the church and the state

are more or less in contact.

Well, having laid out this plan of work, how did the Congress address

itself to it? The first session gave a rather curious illustration of

the practical spirit of the assemblage; for the reverend gentlemen,

by way of “bringing the doctrine and organization of the church most

effectually to sanctity,” rushed straightway with hot haste into the

subject of “ultramontanism and civil authority,” and pounded upon the

doors of the Vatican the whole afternoon. The Rev. Francis Wharton, D.D.,

of Cambridge, Mass., was careful in the outset to distinguish between

ultramontanism and the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The

mass of us, he believes, have always been loyal to the territory of whose

population we form a part, but our loyalty has no connection with our

religion. If we followed the teachings of our church, Dr. Wharton thinks

we should be a dangerous set of people. “Ultramontanism teaches that the

Pope, a foreign prince, deriving his support from a foreign civilization,

is entitled to set aside governments which he considers disloyal, and to

annul such institutions as he does not approve.” We confess that we do

not know what Dr. Wharton means by the Pope deriving his support from a

foreign civilization. If he means his physical support, then the doctor

is both wrong and right; for that is derived from the faithful of the

whole world. If he means that his authority is derived from a foreign

civilization, then the doctor is apparently irreverent; for the papal

authority is derived from the institution of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and

surely a respectable Cambridge divine would not call that a foreign

civilization.

As for the distinction which is drawn between American and ultramontane

Catholics, let us repudiate it with all possible warmth before we go

any further. Ultramontanism is an objectionable word, because it was

invented to localize a school of religious doctrine which is the only

_catholic_ school--the school acknowledged all over the world; but if it

be understood as defining that spirit of faith and piety which yields

all love and obedience to the Vicar of Christ, accepts all the Vatican

decrees gladly and without reserve, is not afraid of paying too much

respect to the Holy See, or showing too much humility before God, or

believing one little particle more than we are commanded to believe

under pain of anathema, then the Catholics of America are ultramontane

Catholics to a man. Probably there are no Catholics in any country of

the world less disposed to compromise in matters of religious duty,

and more thoroughly imbued with filial reverence and love for the Head

of God’s church on earth, than the Catholics of the United States. The

spirit of the church in Rome is the spirit of the church in America; and

when Dr. Wharton asserts that “the political tenets of ultramontanism

are repudiated by the leading Catholic statesmen of our land,” he makes

an utterly erroneous statement, against which American Catholics will

be the first to protest. It is very true that with the fictitious

ultramontanism conceived of his fears and prejudices neither Americans

nor any other sensible people have the slightest sympathy. But show us

what Rome teaches, and there you have precisely what the church in the

United States accepts. If it is true, therefore that the Pope claims

authority “to set aside governments which he considers disloyal, and

to annul such institutions as he does not approve,” it must be true

that America upholds his pretensions. Dr. Wharton may live in the fear

that His Holiness will some day send the Noble Guard to set aside the

government of Gen. Grant whenever it becomes “disloyal”; while he may

well feel an absolute certainty that our common-school system, our

constitutional prohibition of the establishment of a state church, our

laws against sectarian appropriations, and various other wicked and

heretical provisions found on our statute-books, will sooner or later be

“annulled” by a decree from the Vatican. He need not flatter himself that

any superior enlightenment among the Catholics of America will save the

Protestant community from the miserable fate in store for it. We are not

a bit wiser or better than the Pope.

The possible interference of the Vatican with our Congresses and

ballot-boxes Dr. Wharton evidently regards as a very remote danger. There

are points, however, he thinks, where the Vatican clashes every day with

the civil power, and where it ought to be resisted with all the energy

at our command. And just at this part of the reverend doctor’s address

we should like very much to have seen the face of Bishop Clarke. In his

introductory remarks Bishop Clarke told the Congress that one of the

most important subjects for churchmen to consider was the influence or

authority of the church over the family relations. “The Gospel obtained

hold of the family before it touched the state. How does the condition

of the marriage bond stand to-day? In some of our States it is as easy

to solve it as it is to join it. Is this the religion of which we have

made such boast?” But here, before the echoes of the bishop’s words

have fairly died away, is the Rev. Dr. Wharton on his feet denouncing

as a crime the very interference which Bishop Clarke inculcated as a

duty. It is one of the usurpations of ultramontanism, says the Cambridge

doctor, to annul civil marriages which the state holds binding, and to

treat as invalid divorces which the state holds good. This is one of

the most serious conflicts between the state and the Vatican, and it

is one, if we understand aright the somewhat imperfect report of his

remarks, in which Protestant Episcopalians must prepare themselves to

take an earnest part, remembering that, while their church is free, it

is “a free church within a free sovereign state, and that this state,

in its own secular sovereignty, is supreme.” Here, then, we have a

distinct declaration that the family relation is not a proper subject of

religious regulation. If the state sees fit to make it as easy to loose

the marriage bond as to tie it, the church has no right to object; it

is a secular matter, and the free sovereign state is supreme in its own

secular sovereignty. If the state sanctions an adulterous connection, the

Protestant Episcopal Church must revise its Bible and bless the unholy

tie; it is a secular matter, and the free sovereign state is supreme

in its own secular sovereignty. The sanctity of the family relation is

under the protection of the church, says Bishop Clarke. No such thing,

replies Dr. Wharton--that is an insolent ultramontane pretension; the

Protestant Episcopal Church knows its place, and does not presume to

interfere with the legislature. “The Gospel obtained hold of the family

before it touched the state,” says the bishop. “Oh! well, we have changed

all that,” rejoins the doctor; the glory of the Protestant Episcopal

gospel nowadays is that it lets the family alone. In point of fact,

Episcopalianism is not quite so bad as this hasty advocate would have

us believe; for it does censure, in a mild way, the laxity of some of

the divorce laws, and does not always lend itself to the celebration of

bigamous marriages. But Dr. Wharton is correct in his main position--that

his church leaves to the state the control of the family relation;

and if she shrinks from the logical consequences of her desertion of

duty, that is only because a remnant of Catholic feeling remains to her

in the midst of her heresies and contradictions. The time must come,

however, when these illogical fragments of truth will be thrown away,

and the Protestant Episcopal Church will take its place beside the other

Protestant bodies in renouncing all right to be heard on one of the most

important points of contact between the law of God and the concerns of

every-day life. It is impossible to allow the civil power to bind and

loose the family tie at pleasure, without admitting that the subject is

entirely outside the domain of ecclesiastical supervision. The attempt of

the Episcopal Church to compromise on adultery is an absurdity, and in

the steady course of Protestant development it will surely be abolished.