CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

GEORGE GISSING

1906

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING

AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY

BY THOMAS SECCOMBE

CONTENTS

THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING

A CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD

THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS

A CAPITALIST

CHRISTOPHERSON

HUMPLEBEE

THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER

A POOR GENTLEMAN

MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE

A CHARMING FAMILY

A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE

THE RIDING-WHIP

FATE AND THE APOTHECARY

TOPHAM'S CHANCE

A LODGER IN MAZE POND

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

THE PIG AND WHISTLE

THE WORK OF GEORGE GISSING

AN INTRODUCTORY SURVEY

'Les gens tout à fait heureux, forts et bien portants, sont-ils

préparés comme il faut pour comprendre, pénétrer, exprimer la vie,

notre vie si tourmentée et si courte?'

MAUPASSANT.

In England during the sixties and seventies of last century the world of

books was dominated by one Gargantuan type of fiction. The terms book and

novel became almost synonymous in houses which were not Puritan, yet where

books and reading, in the era of few and unfree libraries, were strictly

circumscribed. George Gissing was no exception to this rule. The English

novel was at the summit of its reputation during his boyish days. As a lad

of eight or nine he remembered the parts of _Our Mutual Friend_ coming to

the house, and could recall the smile of welcome with which they were

infallibly received. In the dining-room at home was a handsomely framed

picture which he regarded with an almost idolatrous veneration. It was an

engraved portrait of Charles Dickens. Some of the best work of George

Eliot, Reade, and Trollope was yet to make its appearance; Meredith and

Hardy were still the treasured possession of the few; the reigning models

during the period of Gissing's adolescence were probably Dickens and

Trollope, and the numerous satellites of these great stars, prominent among

them Wilkie Collins, William Black, and Besant and Rice.

Of the cluster of novelists who emerged from this school of ideas, the two

who will attract most attention in the future were clouded and obscured for

the greater period of their working lives. Unobserved, they received, and

made their own preparations for utilising, the legacy of the mid-Victorian

novel--moral thesis, plot, underplot, set characters, descriptive

machinery, landscape colouring, copious phraseology, Herculean proportions,

and the rest of the cumbrous and grandiose paraphernalia of _Chuzzlewit,

Pendennis_, and _Middlemarch_. But they received the legacy in a totally

different spirit. Mark Rutherford, after a very brief experiment, put all

these elaborate properties and conventions reverently aside. Cleverer and

more docile, George Gissing for the most part accepted them; he put his

slender frame into the ponderous collar of the author of the _Mill on the

Floss_, and nearly collapsed in wind and limb in the heart-breaking attempt

to adjust himself to such an heroic type of harness.

The distinctive qualities of Gissing at the time of his setting forth were

a scholarly style, rather fastidious and academic in its restraint, and the

personal discontent, slightly morbid, of a self-conscious student who finds

himself in the position of a sensitive woman in a crowd. His attitude

through life was that of a man who, having set out on his career with the

understanding that a second-class ticket is to be provided, allows himself

to be unceremoniously hustled into the rough and tumble of a noisy third.

Circumstances made him revolt against an anonymous start in life for a

refined and educated man under such conditions. They also made him

prolific. He shrank from the restraints and humiliations to which the poor

and shabbily dressed private tutor is exposed--revealed to us with a

persuasive terseness in the pages of _The Unclassed, New Grub Street,

Ryecroft_, and the story of _Topham's Chance._ Writing fiction in a garret

for a sum sufficient to keep body and soul together for the six months

following payment was at any rate better than this. The result was a long

series of highly finished novels, written in a style and from a point of

view which will always render them dear to the studious and the

book-centred. Upon the larger external rings of the book-reading multitude

it is not probable that Gissing will ever succeed in impressing himself.

There is an absence of transcendental quality about his work, a failure in

humour, a remoteness from actual life, a deficiency in awe and mystery, a

shortcoming in emotional power, finally, a lack of the dramatic faculty,

not indeed indispensable to a novelist, but almost indispensable as an

ingredient in great novels of this particular genre.[1] In temperament and

vitality he is palpably inferior to the masters (Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo,

Balzac) whom he reverenced with such a cordial admiration and envy. A 'low

vitality' may account for what has been referred to as the 'nervous

exhaustion' of his style. It were useless to pretend that Gissing belongs

of right to the 'first series' of English Men of Letters. But if debarred

by his limitations from a resounding or popular success, he will remain

exceptionally dear to the heart of the recluse, who thinks that the scholar

does well to cherish a grievance against the vulgar world beyond the

cloister; and dearer still, perhaps, to a certain number of enthusiasts who

began reading George Gissing as a college night-course; who closed _Thyrza_

and _Demos_ as dawn was breaking through the elms in some Oxford

quadrangle, and who have pursued his work patiently ever since in a

somewhat toilsome and broken ascent, secure always of suave writing and

conscientious workmanship, of an individual prose cadence and a genuine

vein of Penseroso:--

'Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career...

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings.'

[Footnote 1: The same kind of limitations would have to be postulated in

estimating the brothers De Goncourt, who, falling short of the first

magnitude, have yet a fully recognised position upon the stellar atlas.]

Yet by the larger, or, at any rate, the intermediate public, it is a fact

that Gissing has never been quite fairly estimated. He loses immensely if

you estimate him either by a single book, as is commonly done, or by his

work as a whole, in the perspective of which, owing to the lack of critical

instruction, one or two books of rather inferior quality have obtruded

themselves unduly. This brief survey of the Gissing country is designed to

enable the reader to judge the novelist by eight or nine of his best books.

If we can select these aright, we feel sure that he will end by placing the

work of George Gissing upon a considerably higher level than he has

hitherto done.

The time has not yet come to write the history of his career--fuliginous in

not a few of its earlier phases, gathering serenity towards its

close,--finding a soul of goodness in things evil. This only pretends to be

a chronological and, quite incidentally, a critical survey of George

Gissing's chief works. And comparatively short as his working life proved

to be--hampered for ten years by the sternest poverty, and for nearly ten

more by the sad, illusive optimism of the poitrinaire--the task of the mere

surveyor is no light or perfunctory one. Artistic as his temperament

undoubtedly was, and conscientious as his writing appears down to its

minutest detail, Gissing yet managed to turn out rather more than a novel

per annum. The desire to excel acted as a spur which conquered his

congenital inclination to dreamy historical reverie. The reward which he

propounded to himself remained steadfast from boyhood; it was a kind of

_Childe Harold_ pilgrimage to the lands of antique story--

'Whither Albano's scarce divided waves

Shine from a sister valley;--and afar

The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves

The Latian coast where sprang the Epic War.'

Twenty-six years have elapsed since the appearance of his first book in

1880, and in that time just twenty-six books have been issued bearing his

signature. His industry was worthy of an Anthony Trollope, and cost his

employers barely a tithe of the amount claimed by the writer of _The Last

Chronicle of Barset_. He was not much over twenty-two when his first novel

appeared.[2] It was entitled _Workers in the Dawn_, and is distinguished by

the fact that the author writes himself George Robert Gissing; afterwards

he saw fit to follow the example of George Robert Borrow, and in all

subsequent productions assumes the style of 'George Gissing.' The book

begins in this fashion: 'Walk with me, reader, into Whitecross Street. It

is Saturday night'; and it is what it here seems, a decidedly crude and

immature performance. Gissing was encumbered at every step by the giant's

robe of mid-Victorian fiction. Intellectual giants, Dickens and Thackeray,

were equally gigantic spendthrifts. They worked in a state of fervid heat

above a glowing furnace, into which they flung lavish masses of unshaped

metal, caring little for immediate effect or minute dexterity of stroke,

but knowing full well that the emotional energy of their temperaments was

capable of fusing the most intractable material, and that in the end they

would produce their great, downright effect. Their spirits rose and fell,

but the case was desperate, copy had to be despatched for the current

serial. Good and bad had to make up the tale against time, and revelling in

the very exuberance and excess of their humour, the novelists invariably

triumphed.

[Footnote 2: Three vols. 8vo, 1880 (Remington). It was noticed at some

length in the _Athenoeum_ of June 12th, in which the author's philosophic

outlook is condemned as a dangerous compound of Schopenhauer, Comte, and

Shelley. It is somewhat doubtful if he ever made more for a book than the

£250 he got for _New Grub Street_. £200, we believe, was advanced on _The

Nether World,_ but this proved anything but a prosperous speculation from

the publisher's point of view, and £150 was refused for _Born in Exile_.]

To the Ercles vein of these Titans of fiction, Gissing was a complete

stranger. To the pale and fastidious recluse and anchorite, their tone of

genial remonstrance with the world and its ways was totally alien. He knew

nothing of the world to start with beyond the den of the student. His

second book, as he himself described it in the preface to a second edition,

was the work of a very young man who dealt in a romantic spirit with the

gloomier facts of life. Its title, _The Unclassed,_[3] excited a little

curiosity, but the author was careful to explain that he had not in view

the _déclassés_ but rather those persons who live in a limbo external to

society, and refuse the statistic badge. The central figure Osmond Waymark

is of course Gissing himself. Like his creator, raving at intervals under

the vile restraints of Philistine surroundings and with no money for

dissipation, Osmond gives up teaching to pursue the literary vocation. A

girl named Ida Starr idealises him, and is helped thereby to a purer life.

In the four years' interval between this somewhat hurried work and his

still earlier attempt the young author seems to have gone through a

bewildering change of employments. We hear of a clerkship in Liverpool, a

searing experience in America (described with but little deviation in _New

Grub Street_), a gas-fitting episode in Boston, private tutorships, and

cramming engagements in 'the poisonous air of working London.' Internal

evidence alone is quite sufficient to indicate that the man out of whose

brain such bitter experiences of the educated poor were wrung had learnt in

suffering what he taught--in his novels. His start in literature was made

under conditions that might have appalled the bravest, and for years his

steps were dogged by hunger and many-shaped hardships. He lived in cellars

and garrets. 'Many a time,' he writes, 'seated in just such a garret (as

that in the frontispiece to _Little Dorrit_) I saw the sunshine flood the

table in front of me, and the thought of that book rose up before me.' He

ate his meals in places that would have offered a way-wearied tramp

occasion for criticism. 'His breakfast consisted often of a slice of bread

and a drink of water. Four and sixpence a week paid for his lodging. A meal

that cost more than sixpence was a feast.' Once he tells us with a thrill

of reminiscent ecstasy how he found sixpence in the street! The ordinary

comforts of modern life were unattainable luxuries. Once when a newly

posted notice in the lavatory at the British Museum warned readers that the

basins were to be used (in official phrase) 'for casual ablutions only,' he

was abashed at the thought of his own complete dependence upon the

facilities of the place. Justly might the author call this a tragi-comical

incident. Often in happier times he had brooding memories of the familiar

old horrors--the foggy and gas-lit labyrinth of Soho--shop windows

containing puddings and pies kept hot by steam rising through perforated

metal--a young novelist of 'two-and-twenty or thereabouts' standing before

the display, raging with hunger, unable to purchase even one pennyworth of

food. And this is no fancy picture,[4] but a true story of what Gissing had

sufficient elasticity of humour to call 'a pretty stern apprenticeship.'

The sense of it enables us to understand to the full that semi-ironical and

bitter, yet not wholly unamused passage, in _Ryecroft_:--

'Is there at this moment any boy of twenty, fairly educated, but

without means, without help, with nothing but the glow in his brain

and steadfast courage in his heart, who sits in a London garret and

writes for dear life? There must be, I suppose; yet all that I have

read and heard of late years about young writers, shows them in a very

different aspect. No garretteers, these novelists and journalists

awaiting their promotion. They eat--and entertain their critics--at

fashionable restaurants, they are seen in expensive seats at the

theatre; they inhabit handsome flats--photographed for an illustrated

paper on the first excuse. At the worst, they belong to a reputable

club, and have garments which permit them to attend a garden party or

an evening "at home" without attracting unpleasant notice. Many

biographical sketches have I read during the last decade, making

personal introduction of young Mr. This or young Miss That, whose book

was--as the sweet language of the day will have it--"booming"; but

never one in which there was a hint of stern struggles, of the pinched

stomach and frozen fingers.'

[Footnote 3: Three vols., 1884, dedicated to M.C.R. In one volume

'revised,' 1895 (preface dated October 1895).]

[Footnote 4: Who but Gissing could describe a heroine as exhibiting in her

countenance 'habitual nourishment on good and plenteous food'?]

In his later years it was customary for him to inquire of a new author 'Has

he starved'? He need have been under no apprehension. There is still a

God's plenty of attics in Grub Street, tenanted by genuine artists,

idealists and poets, amply sufficient to justify the lamentable conclusion

of old Anthony à Wood in his life of George Peele. 'For so it is and always

hath been, that most poets die poor, and consequently obscurely, and a hard

matter it is to trace them to their graves.' Amid all these miseries,

Gissing upheld his ideal. During 1886-7 he began really to _write_ and the

first great advance is shown in _Isabel Clarendon_.[5] No book, perhaps,

that he ever wrote is so rich as this in autobiographical indices. In the

melancholy Kingcote we get more than a passing phase or a momentary glimpse

at one side of the young author. A long succession of Kingcote's traits are

obvious self-revelations. At the beginning he symbolically prefers the old

road with the crumbling sign-post, to the new. Kingcote is a literary

sensitive. The most ordinary transaction with uneducated ('that is

uncivilised') people made him uncomfortable. Mean and hateful people by

their suggestions made life hideous. He lacks the courage of the ordinary

man. Though under thirty he is abashed by youth. He is sentimental and

hungry for feminine sympathy, yet he realises that the woman who may with

safety be taken in marriage by a poor man, given to intellectual pursuits,

is extremely difficult of discovery. Consequently he lives in solitude; he

is tyrannised by moods, dominated by temperament. His intellect is in

abeyance. He shuns the present--the historical past seems alone to concern

him. Yet he abjures his own past. The ghost of his former self affected him

with horror. Identity even he denies. 'How can one be responsible for the

thoughts and acts of the being who bore his name years ago?' He has no

consciousness of his youth--no sympathy with children. In him is to be

discerned 'his father's intellectual and emotional qualities, together with

a certain stiffness of moral attitude derived from his mother.' He reveals

already a wonderful palate for pure literary flavour. His prejudices are

intense, their character being determined by the refinement and idealism of

his nature. All this is profoundly significant, knowing as we do that this

was produced when Gissing's worldly prosperity was at its nadir. He was

living at the time, like his own Harold Biffen, in absolute solitude, a

frequenter of pawnbroker's shops and a stern connoisseur of pure dripping,

pease pudding ('magnificent pennyworths at a shop in Cleveland Street, of a

very rich quality indeed'), faggots and saveloys. The stamp of affluence in

those days was the possession of a basin. The rich man thus secured the

gravy which the poor man, who relied on a paper wrapper for his pease

pudding, had to give away. The image recurred to his mind when, in later

days, he discussed champagne vintages with his publisher, or was consulted

as to the management of butlers by the wife of a popular prelate. With what

a sincere recollection of this time he enjoins his readers (after Dr.

Johnson) to abstain from Poverty. 'Poverty is the great secluder.' 'London

is a wilderness abounding in anchorites.' Gissing was sustained amid all

these miseries by two passionate idealisms, one of the intellect, the other

of the emotions. The first was ancient Greece and Rome--and he incarnated

this passion in the picturesque figure of Julian Casti (in _The

Unclassed_), toiling hard to purchase a Gibbon, savouring its grand epic

roll, converting its driest detail into poetry by means of his enthusiasm,

and selecting Stilicho as a hero of drama or romance (a premonition here of

_Veranilda_). The second or heart's idol was Charles Dickens--Dickens as

writer, Dickens as the hero of a past England, Dickens as humorist, Dickens

as leader of men, above all, Dickens as friend of the poor, the outcast,

the pale little sempstress and the downtrodden Smike.

[Footnote 5: _Isabel Clarendon_. By George Gissing. In two volumes, 1886

(Chapman and Hall). In reviewing this work the _Academy_ expressed

astonishment at the mature style of the writer--of whom it admitted it had

not yet come across the name.]

In the summer of 1870, Gissing remembered with a pious fidelity of detail

the famous drawing of the 'Empty Chair' being framed and hung up 'in the

school-room, at home'[6] (Wakefield).

[Footnote 6: Of Gissing's early impressions, the best connected account, I

think, is to be gleaned from the concluding chapters of _The Whirlpool_;

but this may be reinforced (and to some extent corrected, or, here and

there cancelled) by passages in _Burn in Exile_ (vol. i.) and in

_Ryecroft_. The material there supplied is confirmatory in the best sense

of the detail contributed by Mr. Wells to the cancelled preface of

_Veranilda_, touching the 'schoolboy, obsessed by a consuming passion for

learning, at the Quaker's boarding-school at Alderley. He had come thither

from Wakefield at the age of thirteen--after the death of his father, who

was, in a double sense, the cardinal formative influence in his life. The

tones of his father's voice, his father's gestures, never departed from

him; when he read aloud, particularly if it was poetry he read, his father

returned in him. He could draw in those days with great skill and

vigour--it will seem significant to many that he was particularly

fascinated by Hogarth's work, and that he copied and imitated it; and his

father's well-stocked library, and his father's encouragement, had

quickened his imagination and given it its enduring bias for literary

activity.' Like Defoe, Smollett, Sterne, Borrow, Dickens, Eliot, 'G.C.' is,

half involuntarily, almost unconsciously autobiographic.]

'Not without awe did I see the picture of the room which was now

tenantless: I remember too, a curiosity which led me to look closely

at the writing-table and the objects upon it, at the comfortable

round-backed chair, at the book-shelves behind. I began to ask myself

how books were written and how the men lived who wrote them. It is my

last glimpse of childhood. Six months later there was an empty chair

in my own home, and the tenor of my life was broken.

'Seven years after this I found myself amid the streets of London and

had to find the means of keeping myself alive. What I chiefly thought

of was that now at length I could go hither or thither in London's

immensity seeking for the places which had been made known to me by

Dickens.

'One day in the city I found myself at the entrance to Bevis Marks! I

had just been making an application in reply to some advertisement--of

course, fruitlessly; but what was that disappointment compared with

the discovery of Bevis Marks! Here dwelt Mr. Brass and Sally and the

Marchioness. Up and down the little street, this side and that, I went

gazing and dreaming. No press of busy folk disturbed me; the place was

quiet; it looked no doubt much the same as when Dickens knew it. I am

not sure that I had any dinner that day; but, if not, I daresay I did

not mind it very much.'

The broad flood under Thames bridges spoke to him in the very tones of 'the

master.' He breathed Guppy's London particular, the wind was the black

easter that pierced the diaphragm of Scrooge's clerk.

'We bookish people have our connotations for the life we do not live.

In time I came to see London with my own eyes, but how much better

when I saw it with those of Dickens!'

Tired and discouraged, badly nourished, badly housed--working under

conditions little favourable to play of the fancy or intentness of the

mind--then was the time, Gissing found, to take down Forster and read--read

about Charles Dickens.

'Merely as the narrative of a wonderfully active, zealous, and

successful life, this book scarce has its equal; almost any reader

must find it exhilarating; but to me it yielded such special

sustenance as in those days I could not have found elsewhere, and

lacking which I should, perhaps, have failed by the way. I am not

referring to Dickens's swift triumph, to his resounding fame and high

prosperity; these things are cheery to read about, especially when

shown in a light so human, with the accompaniment of so much geniality

and mirth. No; the pages which invigorated me are those where we see

Dickens at work, alone at his writing-table, absorbed in the task of

the story-teller. Constantly he makes known to Forster how his story

is getting on, speaks in detail of difficulties, rejoices over spells

of happy labour; and what splendid sincerity in it all! If this work

of his was not worth doing, why, nothing was. A troublesome letter has

arrived by the morning's post and threatens to spoil the day; but he

takes a few turns up and down the room, shakes off the worry, and sits

down to write for hours and hours. He is at the sea-side, his desk at

a sunny bay window overlooking the shore, and there all the morning he

writes with gusto, ever and again bursting into laughter at his own

thoughts.'[7]

[Footnote 7: See a deeply interesting paper on Dickens by 'G.G.' in the New

York _Critic_, Jan. 1902. Much of this is avowed autobiography.]

The influence of Dickens clearly predominated when Gissing wrote his next

novel and first really notable and artistic book, _Thyrza_.[8] The figure

which irradiates this story is evidently designed in the school of Dickens:

it might almost be a pastel after some more highly finished work by Daudet.

But Daudet is a more relentless observer than Gissing, and to find a

parallel to this particular effect I think we must go back a little farther

to the heroic age of the _grisette_ and the tearful _Manchon de Francine_

of Henri Murger. _Thyrza_, at any rate, is a most exquisite picture in

half-tones of grey and purple of a little Madonna of the slums; she is in

reality the _belle fleur d'un fumier_ of which he speaks in the epigraph of

the _Nether World_. The _fumier_ in question is Lambeth Walk, of which we

have a Saturday night scene, worthy of the author of _L'Assommoir_ and _Le

Ventre de Paris_ in his most perceptive mood. In this inferno, amongst the

pungent odours, musty smells and 'acrid exhalations from the shops where

fried fish and potatoes hissed in boiling grease,' blossomed a pure white

lily, as radiant amid mean surroundings as Gemma in the poor Frankfort

confectioner's shop of Turgenev's _Eaux Printanières._ The pale and rather

languid charm of her face and figure are sufficiently portrayed without any

set description. What could be more delicate than the intimation of the

foregone 'good-night' between the sisters, or the scene of Lyddy plaiting

Thyrza's hair? The delineation of the upper middle class culture by which

this exquisite flower of maidenhood is first caressed and transplanted,

then slighted and left to wither, is not so satisfactory. Of the upper

middle class, indeed, at that time, Gissing had very few means of

observation. But this defect, common to all his early novels, is more than

compensated by the intensely pathetic figure of Gilbert Grail, the

tender-souled, book-worshipping factory hand raised for a moment to the

prospect of intellectual life and then hurled down by the caprice of

circumstance to the unrelenting round of manual toil at the soap and candle

factory. Dickens would have given a touch of the grotesque to Grail's

gentle but ungainly character; but at the end he would infallibly have

rewarded him as Tom Pinch and Dominie Sampson were rewarded. Not so George

Gissing. His sympathy is fully as real as that of Dickens. But his fidelity

to fact is greater. Of the Christmas charity prescribed by Dickens, and of

the untainted pathos to which he too rarely attained, there is an abundance

in _Thyrza_. But what amazes the chronological student of Gissing's work is

the magnificent quality of some of the writing, a quality of which he had

as yet given no very definite promise. Take the following passage, for

example:--

[Footnote 8: _Thyrza: A Novel_ (3 vols., 1887). In later life we are told

that Gissing affected to despise this book as 'a piece of boyish idealism.'

But he was always greatly pleased by any praise of this 'study of two

sisters, where poverty for once is rainbow-tinted by love.' My impression

is that it was written before _Demos_, but was longer in finding a

publisher; it had to wait until the way was prepared by its coarser and

more vigorous workfellow. A friend writes: 'I well remember the appearance

of the MS. Gissing wrote then on thin foreign paper in a small, thin

handwriting, without correction. It was before the days of typewriting, and

the MS. of a three-volume novel was so compressed that one could literally

put it in one's pocket without the slightest inconvenience.' The name is

from Byron's _Elegy on Thyrza_.]

'A street organ began to play in front of a public-house close by.

Grail drew near; there were children forming a dance, and he stood to

watch them.

Do you know that music of the obscure ways, to which children dance?

Not if you have only heard it ground to your ears' affliction beneath

your windows in the square. To hear it aright you must stand in the

darkness of such a by-street as this, and for the moment be at one

with those who dwell around, in the blear-eyed houses, in the dim

burrows of poverty, in the unmapped haunts of the semi-human. Then you

will know the significance of that vulgar clanging of melody; a pathos

of which you did not dream will touch you, and therein the secret of

hidden London will be half revealed. The life of men who toil without

hope, yet with the hunger of an unshaped desire; of women in whom the

sweetness of their sex is perishing under labour and misery; the

laugh, the song of the girl who strives to enjoy her year or two of

youthful vigour, knowing the darkness of the years to come; the

careless defiance of the youth who feels his blood and revolts against

the lot which would tame it; all that is purely human in these

darkened multitudes speaks to you as you listen. It is the

half-conscious striving of a nature which knows not what it would

attain, which deforms a true thought by gross expression, which

clutches at the beautiful and soils it with foul hands.

The children were dirty and ragged, several of them barefooted, nearly

all bare-headed, but they danced with noisy merriment. One there was,

a little girl, on crutches; incapable of taking a partner, she stumped

round and round, circling upon the pavement, till giddiness came upon

her and she had to fall back and lean against the wall, laughing aloud

at her weakness. Gilbert stepped up to her, and put a penny into her

hand; then, before she had recovered from her surprise, passed

onwards.'--(p. 111.)

This superb piece of imaginative prose, of which Shorthouse himself might

have been proud,[9] is recalled by an answering note in _Ryecroft_, in

which he says, 'I owe many a page to the street-organs.'

And, where the pathos has to be distilled from dialogue, I doubt if the

author of _Jack_ himself could have written anything more restrainedly

touching or in a finer taste than this:--

[Footnote 9: I am thinking, in particular, of the old vielle-player's

conversation in chap. xxiii. of _John Inglesant_; of the exquisite passage

on old dance music--its inexpressible pathos--in chap. xxv.]

'Laughing with kindly mirth, the old man drew on his woollen gloves

and took up his hat and the violin-bag. Then he offered to say

good-bye.

"But you're forgetting your top-coat, grandad," said Lydia.

"I didn't come in it, my dear."

"What's that, then? I'm sure _we_ don't wear such things."

She pointed to a chair, on which Thyrza had just artfully spread the

gift. Mr. Boddy looked in a puzzled way; had he really come in his

coat and forgotten it? He drew nearer.

"That's no coat o' mine, Lyddy," he said.

Thyrza broke into a laugh.

"Why, whose is it, then?" she exclaimed. "Don't play tricks, grandad;

put it on at once!"

"Now come, come; you're keeping Mary waiting," said Lydia, catching up

the coat and holding it ready.

Then Mr. Boddy understood. He looked from Lydia to Thyrza with dimmed

eyes.

"I've a good mind never to speak to either of you again," he said in a

tremulous voice. "As if you hadn't need enough of your money! Lyddy,

Lyddy! And you're as had, Thyrza, a grownup woman like you; you ought

to teach your sister better. Why, there; it's no good; I don't know

what to say to you. Now what do you think of this, Mary?"

Lydia still held up the coat, and at length persuaded the old man to

don it. The effect upon his appearance was remarkable; conscious of

it, he held himself more upright and stumped to the little square of

looking-glass to try and regard himself. Here he furtively brushed a

hand over his eyes.

"I'm ready, Mary, my dear; I'm ready! It's no good saying anything to

girls like these. Good-bye, Lyddy; good-bye, Thyrza. May you have a

happy Christmas, children! This isn't the first as you've made a happy

one for me."'--(p. 117.)

The anonymously published _Demos_ (1886) can hardly be described as a

typical product of George Gissing's mind and art. In it he subdued himself

rather to the level of such popular producers as Besant and Rice, and went

out of his way to procure melodramatic suspense, an ingredient far from

congenial to his normal artistic temper. But the end justified the means.

The novel found favour in the eyes of the author of _The Lost Sir

Massingberd_, and Gissing for the first time in his life found himself the

possessor of a full purse, with fifty 'jingling, tingling, golden, minted

quid' in it. Its possession brought with it the realisation of a paramount

desire, the desire for Greece and Italy which had become for him, as it had

once been with Goethe, a scarce endurable suffering. The sickness of

longing had wellnigh given way to despair, when 'there came into my hands a

sum of money (such a poor little sum) for a book I had written. It was

early autumn. I chanced to hear some one speak of Naples--and only death

would have held me back.'[10]

[Footnote 10: See _Emancipated_, chaps. iv.-xii.; _New Grub Street_, chap,

xxvii.; _Ryecroft_, Autumn xix.; the short, not superior, novel called

_Sleeping Fires_, 1895, chap. i. 'An encounter on the Kerameikos'; _The

Albany_, Christmas 1904, p. 27; and _Monthly Review_, vol. xvi. 'He went

straight by sea to the land of his dreams--Italy. It was still happily

before the enterprise of touring agencies had fobbed the idea of Italian

travel of its last vestiges of magic. He spent as much time as he could

afford about the Bay of Naples, and then came on with a rejoicing heart to

Rome--Rome, whose topography had been with him since boyhood, beside whose

stately history the confused tumult of the contemporary newspapers seemed

to him no more than a noisy, unmeaning persecution of the mind. Afterwards

he went to Athens.']

The main plot of _Demos_ is concerned with Richard Mutimer, a young

socialist whose vital force, both mental and physical, is well above the

average, corrupted by accession to a fortune, marrying a refined wife,

losing his money in consequence of the discovery of an unsuspected will,

and dragging his wife down with him,--down to _la misère_ in its most

brutal and humiliating shape. Happy endings and the Gissing of this period

are so ill-assorted, that the 'reconciliations' at the close of both this

novel and the next are to be regarded with considerable suspicion. The

'gentlefolk' in the book are the merest marionettes, but there are

descriptive passages of first-rate vigour, and the voice of wisdom is heard

from the lips of an early Greek choregus in the figure of an old parson

called Mr. Wyvern. As the mouthpiece of his creator's pet hobbies parson

Wyvern rolls out long homilies conceived in the spirit of Emerson's

'compensation,' and denounces the cruelty of educating the poor and making

no after-provision for their intellectual needs with a sombre enthusiasm

and a periodicity of style almost worthy of Dr. Johnson.[11]

[Footnote 11: An impressive specimen of his eloquence was cited by me in an

article in the _Daily Mail Year Book_ (1906, p. 2). A riper study of a

somewhat similar character is given in old Mr. Lashmar in _Our Friend the

Charlatan_. (See his sermon on the blasphemy which would have us pretend

that our civilisation obeys the spirit of Christianity, in chap, xviii.).

For a criticism of _Demos_ and _Thyrza_ in juxtaposition with Besant's

_Children of Gibeon_, see Miss Sichel on 'Philanthropic Novelists'

(_Murray's Magazine_, iii. 506-518). Gissing saw deeper than to 'cease his

music on a merry chord.']

After _Demos_, Gissing returned in 1888 to the more sentimental and

idealistic palette which he had employed for _Thyrza_. Renewed

recollections of Tibullus and of Theocritus may have served to give his

work a more idyllic tinge. But there were much nearer sources of

inspiration for _A Life's Morning_. There must be many novels inspired by a

youthful enthusiasm for _Richard Feverel_, and this I should take to be one

of them. Apart from the idyllic purity of its tone, and its sincere

idolatry of youthful love, the caressing grace of the language which

describes the spiritualised beauty of Emily Hood and the exquisite charm of

her slender hands, and the silvery radiance imparted to the whole scene of

the proposal in the summer-house (in chapter iii., 'Lyrical'), give to this

most unequal and imperfect book a certain crepuscular fascination of its

own. Passages in it, certainly, are not undeserving that fine description

of a style _si tendre qu'il pousse le bonheur à pleurer_. Emily's father,

Mr. Hood, is an essentially pathetic figure, almost grotesquely true to

life. 'I should like to see London before I die,' he says to his daughter.

'Somehow I have never managed to get so far.... There's one thing that I

wish especially to see, and that is Holborn Viaduct. It must be a wonderful

piece of engineering; I remember thinking it out at the time it was

constructed. Of course you have seen it?' The vulgar but not wholly inhuman

Cartwright interior, where the parlour is resolved into a perpetual

matrimonial committee, would seem to be the outcome of genuine observation.

Dagworthy is obviously padded with the author's substitute for melodrama,

while the rich and cultivated Mr. Athel is palpably imitated from Meredith.

The following tirade (spoken by the young man to his mistress) is Gissing

pure. 'Think of the sunny spaces in the world's history, in each of which

one could linger for ever. Athens at her fairest, Rome at her grandest, the

glorious savagery of Merovingian Courts, the kingdom of Frederick II., the

Moors in Spain, the magic of Renaissance Italy--to become a citizen of any

one age means a lifetime of endeavour. It is easy to fill one's head with

names and years, but that only sharpens my hunger.' In one form or another

it recurs in practically every novel.[12] Certain of the later portions of

this book, especially the chapter entitled 'Her Path in Shadow' are

delineated through a kind of mystical haze, suggestive of some of the work

of Puvis de Chavannes. The concluding chapters, taken as a whole, indicate

with tolerable accuracy Gissing's affinities as a writer, and the pedigree

of the type of novel by which he is best known. It derives from Xavier de

Maistre and St. Pierre to _La Nouvelle Héloïse,_--nay, might one not almost

say from the _pays du tendre_ of _La Princesse de Clèves_ itself.

Semi-sentimental theories as to the relations of the sexes, the dangers of

indiscriminate education, the corruptions of wretchedness and poverty in

large towns, the neglect of literature and classical learning, and the

grievances of scholarly refinement in a world in which Greek iambic and

Latin hexameter count for nothing,--such form the staple of his theses and

tirades! His approximation at times to the confines of French realistic art

is of the most accidental or incidental kind. For Gissing is at heart, in

his bones as the vulgar say, a thorough moralist and sentimentalist, an

honest, true-born, downright ineradicable Englishman. Intellectually his

own life was, and continued to the last to be, romantic to an extent that

few lives are. Pessimistic he may at times appear, but this is almost

entirely on the surface. For he was never in the least blasé or ennuyé. He

had the pathetic treasure of the humble and downcast and unkindly

entreated--unquenchable hope. He has no objectivity. His point of view is

almost entirely personal. It is not the _lacrimae rerum_, but the _lacrimae

dierum suorum_, that makes his pages often so forlorn. His laments are all

uttered by the waters of Babylon in a strange land. His nostalgia in the

land of exile, estranged from every refinement, was greatly enhanced by the

fact that he could not get on with ordinary men, but exhibited almost to

the last a practical incapacity, a curious inability to do the sane and

secure thing. As Mr. Wells puts it:--

[Footnote 12: Sometimes, however, as in _The Whirlpool_ (1897) with a very

significant change of intonation:--'And that History which he loved to

read--what was it but the lurid record of woes unutterable! How could he

find pleasure in keeping his eyes fixed on century after century of

ever-repeated torment--war, pestilence, tyranny; the stake, the dungeon;

tortures of infinite device, cruelties inconceivable?'--(p. 326.)]

'It is not that he was a careless man, he was a most careful one; it

is not that he was a morally lax man, he was almost morbidly the

reverse. Neither was he morose or eccentric in his motives or bearing;

he was genial, conversational, and well-meaning. But he had some sort

of blindness towards his fellow-men, so that he never entirely grasped

the spirit of everyday life, so that he, who was so copiously

intelligent in the things of the study, misunderstood, blundered, was

nervously diffident, and wilful and spasmodic in common affairs, in

employment and buying and selling, and the normal conflicts of

intercourse. He did not know what would offend, and he did not know

what would please. He irritated others and thwarted himself. He had no

social nerve.'

Does not Gissing himself sum it up admirably, upon the lips of Mr.

Widdowson in _The Odd Women_: 'Life has always been full of worrying

problems for me. I can't take things in the simple way that comes natural

to other men.' 'Not as other men are': more intellectual than most, fully

as responsive to kind and genial instincts, yet bound at every turn to

pinch and screw--an involuntary ascetic. Such is the essential burden of

Gissing's long-drawn lament. Only accidentally can it be described as his

mission to preach 'the desolation of modern life,' or in the gracious

phrase of De Goncourt, _fouiller les entrailles de la vie_. Of the

confident, self-supporting realism of _Esther Waters_, for instance, how

little is there in any of his work, even in that most gloomily photographic

portion of it which we are now to describe?

During the next four years, 1889-1892, Gissing produced four novels, and

three of these perhaps are his best efforts in prose fiction. _The Nether

World_ of 1889 is certainly in some respects his strongest work, _la letra

con sangre_, in which the ruddy drops of anguish remembered in a state of

comparative tranquillity are most powerfully expressed. _The Emancipated_,

of 1890, is with equal certainty, a _réchauffé_ and the least successful of

various attempts to give utterance to his enthusiasm for the _valor

antica_--'the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.' _New

Grub Street_, (1891) is the most constructive and perhaps the most

successful of all his works; while _Born in Exile_ (1892) is a key-book as

regards the development of the author's character, a _clavis_ of primary

value to his future biographer, whoever he may be. The _Nether World_

contains Gissing's most convincing indictment of Poverty; and it also

expresses his sense of revolt against the ugliness and cruelty which is

propagated like a foul weed by the barbarous life of our reeking slums.

Hunger and Want show Religion and Virtue the door with scant politeness in

this terrible book. The material had been in his possession for some time,

and in part it had been used before in earlier work. It was now utilised

with a masterly hand, and the result goes some way, perhaps, to justify the

well-meant but erratic comparisons that have been made between Gissing and

such writers as Zola, Maupassant and the projector of the _Comédie

Humaine_. The savage luck which dogs Kirkwood and Jane, and the worse than

savage--the inhuman--cruelty of Clem Peckover, who has been compared to the

Madame Cibot of Balzac's _Le Cousin Pons_, render the book an intensely

gloomy one; it ends on a note of poignant misery, which gives a certain

colour for once to the oft-repeated charge of morbidity and pessimism.

Gissing understood the theory of compensation, but was unable to exhibit it

in action. He elevates the cult of refinement to such a pitch that the

consolations of temperament, of habit, and of humdrum ideals which are

common to the coarsest of mankind, appear to elude his observation. He does

not represent men as worse than they are; but he represents them less

brave. No social stratum is probably quite so dull as he colours it. There

is usually a streak of illusion or a flash of hope somewhere on the

horizon. Hence a somewhat one-sided view of life, perfectly true as

representing the grievance of the poet Cinna in the hands of the mob, but

too severely monochrome for a serious indictment of a huge stratum of our

common humanity. As in _Thyrza_, the sombreness of the ground generates

some magnificent pieces of descriptive writing.

'Hours yet before the fireworks begin. Never mind; here by good

luck we find seats where we can watch the throng passing and

repassing. It is a great review of the people. On the whole, how

respectable they are, how sober, how deadly dull! See how worn-out the

poor girls are becoming, how they gape, what listless eyes most of

them have! The stoop in the shoulders so universal among them merely

means over-toil in the workroom. Not one in a thousand shows the

elements of taste in dress; vulgarity and worse glares in all but

every costume. Observe the middle-aged women; it would be small

surprise that their good looks had vanished, but whence comes it they

are animal, repulsive, absolutely vicious in ugliness? Mark the men in

their turn; four in every six have visages so deformed by ill-health

that they excite disgust; their hair is cut down to within half an

inch of the scalp; their legs are twisted out of shape by evil

conditions of life from birth upwards. Whenever a youth and a girl

come along arm-in-arm, how flagrantly shows the man's coarseness! They

are pretty, so many of these girls, delicate of feature, graceful did

but their slavery allow them natural development; and the heart sinks

as one sees them side by side with the men who are to be their

husbands....

On the terraces dancing has commenced; the players of violins,

concertinas, and penny whistles do a brisk trade among the groups

eager for a rough-and-tumble valse; so do the pickpockets. Vigorous

and varied is the jollity that occupies the external galleries,

filling now in expectation of the fireworks; indescribable the mingled

tumult that roars heavenwards. Girls linked by the half-dozen

arm-in-arm leap along with shrieks like grotesque maenads; a rougher

horseplay finds favour among the youths, occasionally leading to

fisticuffs. Thick voices bellow in fragmentary chorus; from every side

comes the yell, the cat-call, the ear-rending whistle; and as the

bass, the never-ceasing accompaniment, sounds the myriad-footed tramp,

tramp along the wooden flooring. A fight, a scene of bestial

drunkenness, a tender whispering between two lovers, proceed

concurrently in a space of five square yards. Above them glimmers the

dawn of starlight.'--(pp. 109-11.)

From the delineation of this profoundly depressing milieu, by the aid of

which, if the fate of London and Liverpool were to-morrow as that of

Herculaneum and Pompeii, we should be able to reconstruct the gutters of

our Imperial cities (little changed in essentials since the days of

Domitian), Gissing turned his sketch-book to the scenery of rural England.

He makes no attempt at the rich colouring of Kingsley or Blackmore, but, as

page after page of _Ryecroft_ testifies twelve years later, he is a perfect

master of the _aquarelle_.

'The distance is about five miles, and, until Danbury Hill is reached,

the countryside has no point of interest to distinguish it from any

other representative bit of rural Essex. It is merely one of those

quiet corners of flat, homely England, where man and beast seem on

good terms with each other, where all green things grow in abundance,

where from of old tilth and pasture-land are humbly observant of

seasons and alternations, where the brown roads are familiar only with

the tread of the labourer, with the light wheel of the farmer's gig,

or the rumbling of the solid wain. By the roadside you pass

occasionally a mantled pool, where perchance ducks or geese are

enjoying themselves; and at times there is a pleasant glimpse of

farmyard, with stacks and barns and stables. All things as simple as

could be, but beautiful on this summer afternoon, and priceless when

one has come forth from the streets of Clerkenwell.

* * * * *

'Danbury Hill, rising thick-wooded to the village church, which is

visible for miles around, with stretches of heath about its lower

slopes, with its far prospects over the sunny country, was the

pleasant end of a pleasant drive.'--(_The Nether World_, pp.

164-165.)

The first part of this description is quite masterly--worthy, I am inclined

to say, of Flaubert. But unless you are familiar with the quiet,

undemonstrative nature of the scenery described, you can hardly estimate

the perfect justice of the sentiment and phrasing with which Gissing

succeeds in enveloping it.

Gissing now turned to the submerged tenth of literature, and in describing

it he managed to combine a problem or thesis with just the amount of

characterisation and plotting sanctioned by the novel convention of the

day. The convention may have been better than we think, for _New Grub

Street_ is certainly its author's most effective work. The characters are

numerous, actual, and alive. The plot is moderately good, and lingers in

the memory with some obstinacy. The problem is more open to criticism, and

it has indeed been criticised from more points of view than one.

'In _New Grub Street_,' says one of his critics,[13] 'Mr. Gissing

has endeavoured to depict the shady side of literary life in an age

dominated by the commercial spirit. On the whole, it is in its realism

perhaps the least convincing of his novels, whilst being undeniably

the most depressing. It is not that Gissing's picture of poverty in

the literary profession is wanting in the elements of truth, although

even in that profession there is even more eccentricity than the

author leads us to suppose in the social position and evil plight of

such men as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. But the contrast between

Edwin Reardon, the conscientious artist loving his art and working for

its sake, and Jasper Milvain, the man of letters, who prospers simply

because he is also a man of business, which is the main feature of the

book and the principal support of its theme, strikes one throughout as

strained to the point of unreality. In the first place, it seems

almost impossible that a man of Milvain's mind and instincts should

have deliberately chosen literature as the occupation of his life;

with money and success as his only aim he would surely have become a

stockbroker or a moneylender. In the second place, Edwin Reardon's

dire failure, with his rapid descent into extreme poverty, is clearly

traceable not so much to a truly artistic temperament in conflict with

the commercial spirit, as to mental and moral weakness, which could

not but have a baneful influence upon his work.'

[Footnote 13: F. Dolman in _National Review_, vol. xxx.; cf. _ibid_., vol.

xliv.]

This criticism does not seem to me a just one at all, and I dissent from it

completely. In the first place, the book is not nearly so depressing as

_The Nether World_, and is much farther removed from the strain of French

and Russian pessimism which had begun to engage the author's study when he

was writing _Thyrza_. There are dozens of examples to prove that Milvain's

success is a perfectly normal process, and the reason for his selecting the

journalistic career is the obvious one that he has no money to begin

stock-broking, still less money-lending. In the third place, the mental and

moral shortcomings of Reardon are by no means dissembled by the author. He

is, as the careful student of the novels will perceive, a greatly

strengthened and improved rifacimento of Kingcote, while Amy Reardon is a

better observed Isabel, regarded from a slightly different point of view.

Jasper Milvain is, to my thinking, a perfectly fair portrait of an

ambitious publicist or journalist of the day--destined by determination,

skill, energy, and social ambition to become an editor of a successful

journal or review, and to lead the life of central London. Possessing a

keen and active mind, expression on paper is his handle; he has no love of

letters as letters at all. But his outlook upon the situation is just

enough. Reardon has barely any outlook at all. He is a man with a delicate

but shallow vein of literary capacity, who never did more than tremble upon

the verge of success, and hardly, if at all, went beyond promise. He was

unlucky in marrying Amy, a rather heartless woman, whose ambition was far

in excess of her insight, for economic position Reardon had none. He writes

books to please a small group. The books fail to please. Jasper in the main

is right--there is only a precarious place for any creative litterateur

between the genius and the swarm of ephemera or journalists. A man writes

either to please the hour or to produce something to last, relatively a

long time, several generations--what we call 'permanent.' The intermediate

position is necessarily insecure. It is not really wanted. What is lost by

society when one of these mediocre masterpieces is overlooked? A sensation,

a single ray in a sunset, missed by a small literary coterie! The circle is

perhaps eclectic. It may seem hard that good work is overwhelmed in the

cataract of production, while relatively bad, garish work is rewarded. But

so it must be. 'The growing flood of literature swamps every thing but

works of primary genius.' Good taste is valuable, especially when it takes

the form of good criticism. The best critics of contemporary books (and

these are by no means identical with the best critics of the past and its

work) are those who settle intuitively upon the writing that is going to

appeal more largely to a future generation, when the attraction of novelty

and topicality has subsided. The same work is done by great men. They

anticipate lines of action; philosophers generally follow (Machiavelli's

theories the practice of Louis XI., Nietzsche's that of Napoleon I.). The

critic recognises the tentative steps of genius in letters. The work of

fine delicacy and reserve, the work that follows, lacking the real

originality, is liable to neglect, and _may_ become the victim of ill-luck,

unfair influence, or other extraneous factors. Yet on the whole, so

numerous are the publics of to-day, there never, perhaps, was a time when

supreme genius or even supreme talent was so sure of recognition. Those who

rail against these conditions, as Gissing seems here to have done, are

actuated consciously or unconsciously by a personal or sectional

disappointment. It is akin to the crocodile lament of the publisher that

good modern literature is neglected by the public, or the impressionist's

lament about the great unpaid greatness of the great unknown--the

exclusively literary view of literary rewards. Literature must be governed

by over-mastering impulse or directed at profit.

But _New Grub Street_ is rich in memorable characters and situations to an

extent unusual in Gissing; Biffen in his garret--a piece of genre almost

worthy of Dickens; Reardon the sterile plotter, listening in despair to the

neighbouring workhouse clock of St. Mary-le-bone; the matutinal interview

between Alfred Yule and the threadbare surgeon, a vignette worthy of

Smollett. Alfred Yule, the worn-out veteran, whose literary ideals are

those of the eighteenth century, is a most extraordinary study of an

_arriéré_--certainly one of the most crusted and individual personalities

Gissing ever portrayed. He never wrote with such a virile pen: phrase after

phrase bites and snaps with a singular crispness and energy; material used

before is now brought to a finer literary issue. It is by far the most

tenacious of Gissing's novels. It shows that on the more conventional lines

of fictitious intrigue, acting as cement, and in the interplay of

emphasised characters, Gissing could, if he liked, excel. (It recalls

Anatole France's _Le Lys Rouge_, showing that he, too, the scholar and

intellectual _par excellence_, could an he would produce patterns in plain

and fancy adultery with the best.) Whelpdale's adventures in Troy, U.S.A.,

where he lived for five days on pea-nuts, are evidently

semi-autobiographical. It is in his narrative that we first made the

acquaintance of the American phrase now so familiar about literary

productions going off like hot cakes. The reminiscences of Athens are

typical of a lifelong obsession--to find an outlet later on in _Veranilda_.

On literary _réclame_, he says much that is true--if not the whole truth,

in the apophthegm for instance, 'You have to become famous before you can

secure the attention which would give fame.' Biffen, it is true, is a

somewhat fantastic figure of an idealist, but Gissing cherished this

grotesque exfoliation from a headline by Dickens--and later in his career

we shall find him reproducing one of Biffen's ideals with a singular

fidelity.

'Picture a woman of middle age, wrapped at all times in dirty rags

(not to be called clothing), obese, grimy, with dishevelled black

hair, and hands so scarred, so deformed by labour and neglect, as to

be scarcely human. She had the darkest and fiercest eyes I ever saw.

Between her and her mistress went on an unceasing quarrel; they

quarrelled in my room, in the corridor, and, as I knew by their shrill

voices, in places remote; yet I am sure they did not dislike each

other, and probably neither of them ever thought of parting.

Unexpectedly, one evening, this woman entered, stood by the bedside,

and began to talk with such fierce energy, with such flashing of her

black eyes, and such distortion of her features, that I could only

suppose that she was attacking me for the trouble I caused her. A

minute or two passed before I could even hit the drift of her furious

speech; she was always the most difficult of the natives to

understand, and in rage she became quite unintelligible. Little by

little, by dint of questioning, I got at what she meant. There had

been _guai_, worse than usual; the mistress had reviled her

unendurably for some fault or other, and was it not hard that she

should be used like this after having _tanto, tanto lavorato_! In

fact, she was appealing for my sympathy, not abusing me at all. When

she went on to say that she was alone in the world, that all her kith

and kin were _freddi morti_ (stone dead), a pathos in her aspect

and her words took hold upon me; it was much as if some heavy-laden

beast of burden had suddenly found tongue and protested in the rude

beginnings of articulate utterance against its hard lot. If only we

could have learnt in intimate detail the life of this domestic

serf[14]! How interesting and how sordidly picturesque against the

background of romantic landscape, of scenic history! I looked long

into her sallow, wrinkled face, trying to imagine the thoughts that

ruled its expression. In some measure my efforts at kindly speech

succeeded, and her "Ah, Cristo!" as she turned to go away, was not

without a touch of solace.'

[Footnote 14: Here is a more fully prepared expression of the very essence

of Biffen's artistic ideal.--_By the Ionian Sea_, chap. x.]

In 1892 Gissing was already beginning to try and discard his down look, his

lugubrious self-pity, his lamentable cadence. He found some alleviation

from self-torment in _David Copperfield_, and he determined to borrow a

feather from 'the master's' pinion--in other words, to place an

autobiographical novel to his credit. The result was _Born in Exile_

(1892), one of the last of the three-volume novels,--by no means one of the

worst. A Hedonist of academic type, repelled by a vulgar intonation,

Gissing himself is manifestly the man in exile. Travel, fair women and

college life, the Savile club, and Great Malvern or the Cornish coast,

music in Paris or Vienna--this of course was the natural milieu for such a

man. Instead of which our poor scholar (with Homer and Shakespeare and

Pausanias piled upon his one small deal table) had to encounter the life of

the shabby recluse in London lodgings--synonymous for him, as passage after

passage in his books recounts, with incompetence and vulgarity in every

form, at best 'an ailing lachrymose slut incapable of effort,' more often

sheer foulness and dishonesty, 'by lying, slandering, quarrelling, by

drunkenness, by brutal vice, by all abominations that distinguish the

lodging-letter of the metropolis.' No book exhibits more naïvely the

extravagant value which Gissing put upon the mere externals of refinement.

The following scathing vignette of his unrefined younger brother by the

hero, Godfrey Peak, shows the ferocity with which this feeling could

manifest itself against a human being who lacked the elements of scholastic

learning (the brother in question had failed to give the date of the Norman

Conquest):--

'He saw much company and all of low intellectual order; he had

purchased a bicycle and regarded it as a source of distinction, or

means of displaying himself before shopkeepers' daughters; he believed

himself a moderate tenor and sang verses of sentimental imbecility; he

took in several weekly papers of unpromising title for the chief

purpose of deciphering cryptograms, in which pursuit he had singular

success. Add to these characteristics a penchant for cheap jewellery,

and Oliver Peak stands confessed.'

The story of the book is revealed in Peak's laconic ambition, 'A plebeian,

I aim at marrying a lady.' It is a little curious, some may think, that

this motive so skilfully used by so many novelists to whose work Gissing's

has affinity, from Rousseau and Stendhal (_Rouge et Noire_) to Cherbuliez

(_Secret du Précepteur_) and Bourget (_Le Disciple_), had not already

attracted him, but the explanation is perhaps in part indicated in a finely

written story towards the close of this present volume.[15] The white,

maidenish and silk-haired fairness of Sidwell, and Peak's irresistible

passion for the type of beauty suggested, is revealed to us with all

Gissing's wonderful skill in shadowing forth feminine types of lovelihood.

Suggestive too of his oncoming passion for Devonshire and Western England

are strains of exquisite landscape music scattered at random through these

pages. More significant still, however, is the developing faculty for

personal satire, pointing to a vastly riper human experience. Peak was

uncertain, says the author, with that faint ironical touch which became

almost habitual to him, 'as to the limits of modern latitudinarianism until

he met Chilvers,' the sleek, clerical advocate of 'Less St. Paul and more

Darwin, less of Luther and more of Herbert Spencer':--

'The discovery of such fantastic liberality in a man whom he could not

but dislike and contemn gave him no pleasure, but at least it disposed

him to amusement rather than antagonism. Chilvers's pronunciation and

phraseology were distinguished by such original affectation that it

was impossible not to find entertainment in listening to him. Though

his voice was naturally shrill and piping, he managed to speak in head

notes which had a ring of robust utterance. The sound of his words was

intended to correspond with their virile warmth of meaning. In the

same way he had cultivated a habit of the muscles which conveyed an

impression that he was devoted to athletic sports. His arms

occasionally swung as if brandishing dumb-bells, his chest now and

then spread itself to the uttermost, and his head was often thrown

back in an attitude suggesting self-defence.'

[Footnote 15: See page 260.]

Of Gissing's first year or so at Owens, after leaving Lindow Grove School

at Alderley,[16] we get a few hints in these pages. Like his 'lonely

cerebrate' hero, Gissing himself, at school and college, 'worked insanely.'

Walked much alone, shunned companionship rather than sought it, worked as

he walked, and was marked down as a 'pot-hunter.' He 'worked while he ate,

he cut down his sleep, and for him the penalty came, not in a palpable,

definable illness, but in an abrupt, incongruous reaction and collapse.'

With rage he looked back on these insensate years of study which had

weakened him just when he should have been carefully fortifying his

constitution.

[Footnote 16: With an exhibition gained when he was not yet fifteen.]

The year of this autobiographical record[17] marked the commencement of

Gissing's reclamation from that worst form of literary slavery--the

chain-gang. For he had been virtually chained to the desk, perpetually

working, imprisoned in a London lodging, owing to the literal lack of the

means of locomotion.[18] His most strenuous work, wrung from him in dismal

darkness and wrestling of spirit, was now achieved. Yet it seems to me both

ungrateful and unfair to say, as has frequently been done, that his

subsequent work was consistently inferior. In his earlier years, like

Reardon, he had destroyed whole books--books he had to sit down to when his

imagination was tired and his fancy suffering from deadly fatigue. His

corrections in the days of _New Grub Street_ provoked not infrequent,

though anxiously deprecated, remonstrance from his publisher's reader. Now

he wrote with more assurance and less exhaustive care, but also with a

perfected experience. A portion of his material, it is true, had been

fairly used up, and he had henceforth to turn to analyse the sufferings of

well-to-do lower middle-class families, people who had 'neither inherited

refinement nor acquired it, neither proletarian nor gentlefolk, consumed

with a disease of vulgar pretentiousness, inflated with the miasma of

democracy.' Of these classes it is possible that he knew less, and

consequently lacked the sureness of touch and the fresh draughtsmanship

which comes from ample knowledge, and that he had, consequently, to have

increasing resort to books and to invention, to hypothesis and theory.[19]

On the other hand, his power of satirical writing was continually expanding

and developing, and some of his very best prose is contained in four of

these later books: _In the Year of Jubilee_ (1894), _Charles Dickens_

(1898), _By the Ionian Sea_ (1901), and _The Private Papers of Henry

Ryecroft_ (1903); not far below any of which must be rated four others,

_The Odd Women_ (1893), _Eve's Ransom_ (1895), _The Whirlpool_ (1897), and

_Will Warburton_ (1905), to which may be added the two collections of short

stories.

[Footnote 17: Followed in 1897 by _The Whirlpool_ (see p. xvi), and in 1899

and 1903 by two books containing a like infusion of autobiographical

experience, _The Crown of Life_, technically admirable in chosen passages,

but sadly lacking in the freshness of first-hand, and _The Private Papers

of Henry Ryecroft_, one of the rightest and ripest of all his productions.]

[Footnote 18: 'I hardly knew what it was to travel by omnibus. I have

walked London streets for twelve and fifteen hours together without even a

thought of saving my legs or my time, by paying for waftage. Being poor as

poor can be, there were certain things I had to renounce, and this was one

of them.'--_Ryecroft_. For earlier scenes see _Monthly Review_, xvi., and

_Owens College Union Mag_., Jan. 1904, pp. 80-81.]

[Footnote 19: 'He knew the narrowly religious, the mental barrenness of the

poor dissenters, the people of the slums that he observed so carefully, and

many of those on the borders of the Bohemia of which he at least was an

initiate, and he was soaked and stained, as he might himself have said,

with the dull drabs of the lower middle class that he hated. But of those

above he knew little.... He did not know the upper middle classes, which

are as difficult every whit as those beneath them, and take as much time

and labour and experience and observation to learn.'--'The Exile of George

Gissing,' _Albany_, Christmas 1904. In later life he lost sympathy with the

'nether world.' Asked to write a magazine article on a typical 'workman's

budget,' he wrote that he no longer took an interest in the 'condition of

the poor question.']

Few, if any, of Gissing's books exhibit more mental vigour than _In the

Year of Jubilee_. This is shown less, it may be, in his attempted solution

of the marriage problem (is marriage a failure?) by means of the suggestion

that middle class married people should imitate the rich and see as little

of each other as possible, than in the terse and amusing characterisations

and the powerfully thought-out descriptions. The precision which his pen

had acquired is well illustrated by the following description, not unworthy

of Thomas Hardy, of a new neighbourhood.

'Great elms, the pride of generations passed away, fell before the

speculative axe, or were left standing in mournful isolation to please

a speculative architect; bits of wayside hedge still shivered in fog

and wind, amid hoardings variegated with placards and scaffoldings

black against the sky. The very earth had lost its wholesome odour;

trampled into mire, fouled with builders' refuse and the noisome drift

from adjacent streets, it sent forth, under the sooty rain, a smell of

corruption, of all the town's uncleanliness. On this rising locality

had been bestowed the title of "Park." Mrs. Morgan was decided in her

choice of a dwelling here by the euphonious address, Merton Avenue,

Something-or-other Park.'

Zola's wonderful skill in the animation of crowds has often been commented

upon, but it is more than doubtful if he ever achieved anything superior to

Gissing's marvellous incarnation of the jubilee night mob in chapter seven.

More formidable, as illustrating the venom which the author's whole nature

had secreted against a perfectly recognisable type of modern woman, is the

acrid description of Ada, Beatrice, and Fanny French.

'They spoke a peculiar tongue, the product of sham education and a

mock refinement grafted upon a stock of robust vulgarity. One and all

would have been moved to indignant surprise if accused of ignorance or

defective breeding. Ada had frequented an "establishment for young

ladies" up to the close of her seventeenth year: the other two had

pursued culture at a still more pretentious institute until they were

eighteen. All could "play the piano"; all declared--and believed--that

they "knew French." Beatrice had "done" Political Economy; Fanny had

"been through" Inorganic Chemistry and Botany. The truth was, of

course, that their minds, characters, propensities, had remained

absolutely proof against such educational influence as had been

brought to bear upon them. That they used a finer accent than their

servants, signified only that they had grown up amid falsities, and

were enabled, by the help of money, to dwell above-stairs, instead of

with their spiritual kindred below.'

The evils of indiscriminate education and the follies of our grotesque

examination system were one of Gissing's favourite topics of denunciation

in later years, as evidenced in this characteristic passage in his later

manner in this same book:--

'She talked only of the "exam," of her chances in this or that

"paper," of the likelihood that this or that question would be "set."

Her brain was becoming a mere receptacle for dates and definitions,

vocabularies and rules syntactic, for thrice-boiled essence of

history, ragged scraps of science, quotations at fifth hand, and all

the heterogeneous rubbish of a "crammer's" shop. When away from her

books, she carried scraps of paper, with jottings to be committed to

memory. Beside her plate at meals lay formulae and tabulations. She

went to bed with a manual, and got up with a compendium.'

The conclusion of this book and its predecessor, _The Odd Women_,[20] marks

the conclusion of these elaborated problem studies. The inferno of London

poverty, social analysis and autobiographical reminiscence, had now alike

been pretty extensively drawn upon by Gissing. With different degrees of

success he had succeeded in providing every one of his theses with

something in the nature of a jack-in-the-box plot which the public loved

and he despised. There remained to him three alternatives: to experiment

beyond the limits of the novel; to essay a lighter vein of fiction; or

thirdly, to repeat himself and refashion old material within its limits.

Necessity left him very little option. He adopted all three alternatives.

His best success in the third department was achieved in _Eve's Ransom_

(1895). Burrowing back into a projection of himself in relation with a not

impossible she, Gissing here creates a false, fair, and fleeting beauty of

a very palpable charm. A growing sense of her power to fascinate steadily

raises Eve's standard of the minimum of luxury to which she is entitled.

And in the course of this evolution, in the vain attempt to win beauty by

gratitude and humility, the timid Hilliard, who seeks to propitiate his

charmer by ransoming her from a base liaison and supporting her in luxury

for a season in Paris, is thrown off like an old glove when a richer

_parti_ declares himself. The subtlety of the portraiture and the economy

of the author's sympathy for his hero impart a subacid flavour of peculiar

delicacy to the book, which would occupy a high place in the repertoire of

any lesser artist. It well exhibits the conflict between an exaggerated

contempt for, and an extreme susceptibility to, the charm of women which

has cried havoc and let loose the dogs of strife upon so many able men. In

_The Whirlpool_ of 1897, in which he shows us a number of human floats

spinning round the vortex of social London,[21] Gissing brings a

melodramatic plot of a kind disused since the days of _Demos_ to bear upon

the exhausting lives and illusive pleasures of the rich and cultured middle

class. There is some admirable writing in the book, and symptoms of a

change of tone (the old inclination to whine, for instance, is scarcely

perceptible) suggestive of a new era in the work of the

novelist--relatively mature in many respects as he now manifestly was.

Further progress in one of two directions seemed indicated: the first

leading towards the career of a successful society novelist 'of circulating

fame, spirally crescent,' the second towards the frame of mind that created

_Ryecroft_. The second fortunately prevailed. In the meantime, in

accordance with a supreme law of his being, his spirit craved that

refreshment which Gissing found in revisiting Italy. 'I want,' he cried,

'to see the ruins of Rome: I want to see the Tiber, the Clitumnus, the

Aufidus, the Alban Hills, Lake Trasimenus! It is strange how these old

times have taken hold of me. The mere names in Roman history make my blood

warm.' Of him the saying of Michelet was perpetually true: 'J'ai passé à

côté du monde, et j'ai pris l'histoire pour la vie.' His guide-books in

Italy, through which he journeyed in 1897 (_en prince_ as compared with his

former visit, now that his revenue had risen steadily to between three and

four hundred a year), were Gibbon, his _semper eadem_, Lenormant (_la

Grande-Grèce_), and Cassiodorus, of whose epistles, the foundation of the

material of _Veranilda_, he now began to make a special study. The dirt,

the poverty, the rancid oil, and the inequable climate of Calabria must

have been a trial and something of a disappointment to him. But physical

discomfort and even sickness was whelmed by the old and overmastering

enthusiasm, which combined with his hatred of modernity and consumed

Gissing as by fire. The sensuous and the emotional sides of his experience

are blended with the most subtle artistry in his _By the Ionian Sea_, a

short volume of impressions, unsurpassable in its kind, from which we

cannot refrain two characteristic extracts:--

[Footnote 20: _The Odd Women_ (1893, new edition, 1894) is a rather sordid

and depressing survey of the life-histories of certain orphaned daughters

of a typical Gissing doctor--grave, benign, amiably diffident, terribly

afraid of life. 'From the contact of coarse actualities his nature shrank.'

After his death one daughter, a fancy-goods shop assistant (no wages), is

carried off by consumption; a second drowns herself in a bath at a

charitable institution; another takes to drink; and the portraits of the

survivors, their petty, incurable maladies, their utter uselessness, their

round shoulders and 'very short legs,' pimples, and scraggy necks--are as

implacable and unsparing as a Maupassant could wish. From the deplorable

insight with which he describes the nerveless, underfed, compulsory

optimism of these poor in spirit and poor in hope Gissing might almost have

been an 'odd woman' himself. In this book and _The Paying Guest_ (1895) he

seemed to take a savage delight in depicting the small, stiff, isolated,

costly, unsatisfied pretentiousness and plentiful lack of imagination which

cripples suburbia so cruelly.--See _Saturday Review_, 13 Apr. 1896; and see

also _ib_., 19 Jan. 1895.]

[Footnote 21: The whirlpool in which people just nod or shout to each other

as they spin round and round. The heroine tries to escape, but is drawn

back again and again, and nearly submerges her whole environment by her

wild clutches. Satire is lavished upon misdirected education (28), the

sluttishness of London landladies, self-adoring Art on a pedestal (256),

the delegation of children to underlings, sham religiosity (229), the

pampered conscience of a diffident student, and the _mensonge_ of modern

woman (300), typified by the ruddled cast-off of Redgrave, who plays first,

in her shrivelled paint, as procuress, and then, in her naked hideousness,

as blackmailer.]

'At Cotrone the tone of the dining-room was decidedly morose. One

man--he seemed to be a sort of clerk--came only to quarrel. I am

convinced that he ordered things which he knew that the people could

not cook, just for the sake of reviling their handiwork when it was

presented. Therewith he spent incredibly small sums; after growling

and remonstrating and eating for more than an hour, his bill would

amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wine included. Every day he

threatened to withdraw his custom; every day he sent for the landlady,

pointed out to her how vilely he was treated, and asked how she could

expect him to recommend the Concordia to his acquaintances. On one

occasion I saw him push away a plate of something, plant his elbows on

the table, and hide his face in his hands; thus he sat for ten

minutes, an image of indignant misery, and when at length his

countenance was again visible, it showed traces of tears.'--(pp.

102-3.)

The unconscious paganism that lingered in tradition, the half-obscured

names of the sites celebrated in classic story, and the spectacle of the

white oxen drawing the rustic carts of Virgil's time--these things roused

in him such an echo as _Chevy Chase_ roused in the noble Sidney, and made

him shout with joy. A pensive vein of contemporary reflection enriches the

book with passages such as this:--

'All the faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as

soon as their music sounds under the Italian sky. One remembers all

they have suffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute

races have flung themselves, one after another, upon this sweet and

glorious land; conquest and slavery, from age to age, have been the

people's lot. Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with

blood. An immemorial woe sounds even through the lilting notes of

Italian gaiety. It is a country, wearied and regretful, looking ever

backward to the things of old.'--(p. 130.)

The _Ionian Sea_ did not make its appearance until 1901, but while he was

actually in Italy, at Siena, he wrote the greater part of one of his very

finest performances; the study of _Charles Dickens_, of which he corrected

the proofs 'at a little town in Calabria.' It is an insufficient tribute to

Gissing to say that his study of Dickens is by far the best extant. I have

even heard it maintained that it is better in its way than any single

volume in the 'Man of Letters'; and Mr. Chesterton, who speaks from ample

knowledge on this point, speaks of the best of all Dickens's critics, 'a

man of genius, Mr. George Gissing.' While fully and frankly recognising the

master's defects in view of the artistic conscience of a later generation,

the writer recognises to the full those transcendent qualities which place

him next to Sir Walter Scott as the second greatest figure in a century of

great fiction. In defiance of the terrible, and to some critics damning,

fact that Dickens entirely changed the plan of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ in

deference to the popular criticism expressed by the sudden fall in the

circulation of that serial, he shows in what a fundamental sense the author

was 'a literary artist if ever there was one,' and he triumphantly refutes

the rash daub of unapplied criticism represented by the parrot cry of

'caricature' as levelled against Dickens's humorous portraits. Among the

many notable features of this veritable _chef-d'oeuvre_ of under 250 pages

is the sense it conveys of the superb gusto of Dickens's actual living and

breathing and being, the vindication achieved of two ordinarily rather

maligned novels, _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and _Little Dorrit_, and the

insight shown into Dickens's portraiture of women, more particularly those

of the shrill-voiced and nagging or whining variety, the 'better halves' of

Weller, Varden, Snagsby and Joe Gargery, not to speak of the Miggs, the

Gummidge, and the M'Stinger. Like Mr. Swinburne and other true men, he

regards Mrs. Gamp as representing the quintessence of literary art wielded

by genius. Try (he urges with a fine curiosity) 'to imagine Sarah Gamp as a

young girl'! But it is unfair to separate a phrase from a context in which

every syllable is precious, reasonable, thrice distilled and sweet to the

palate as Hybla honey.[22]

[Footnote 22: A revised edition (the date of Dickens's birth is wrongly

given in the first) was issued in 1902, with topographical illustrations by

F.G. Kitton. Gissing's introduction to _Nickleby_ for the Rochester edition

appeared in 1900, and his abridgement of Forster's _Life_ (an excellent

piece of work) in 1903 [1902]. The first collection of short stories,

twenty-nine in number, entitled _Human Odds and Ends_, was published in

1898. It is justly described by the writer of the most interesting

'Recollections of George Gissing' in the _Gentleman's Magazine,_ February

1906, as 'that very remarkable collection.']

Henceforth Gissing spent an increasing portion of his time abroad, and it

was from St. Honorè en Morvan, for instance, that he dated the preface of

_Our Friend the Charlatan_ in 1901. As with _Denzil Quarrier_ (1892) and

_The Town Traveller_ (1898) this was one of the books which Gissing

sometimes went the length of asking the admirers of his earlier romances

'not to read.' With its prefatory note, indeed, its cheap illustrations,

and its rather mechanical intrigue, it seems as far removed from such a

book as _A Life's Morning_ as it is possible for a novel by the same author

to be. It was in the South of France, in the neighbourhood of Biarritz,

amid scenes such as that described in the thirty-seventh chapter of _Will

Warburton_, or still further south, that he wrote the greater part of his

last three books, the novel just mentioned, which is probably his best

essay in the lighter ironical vein to which his later years inclined,[23]

_Veranilda_, a romance of the time of Theodoric the Goth, written in solemn

fulfilment of a vow of his youth, and _The Private Papers of Henry

Ryecroft_, which to my mind remains a legacy for Time to take account of as

the faithful tribute of one of the truest artists of the generation he

served.

[Footnote 23: It also contains one of the most beautiful descriptions ever

penned of the visit of a tired town-dweller to a modest rural home, with

all its suggestion of trim gardening, fresh country scents, indigenous

food, and homely simplicity.--_Will Warburton_, chap. ix.]

In _Veranilda_ (1904) are combined conscientious workmanship, a pure style

of finest quality, and archaeology, for all I know to the contrary, worthy

of Becker or Boni. Sir Walter himself could never in reason have dared to

aspire to such a fortunate conjuncture of talent, grace, and historic

accuracy. He possessed only that profound knowledge of human nature, that

moulding humour and quick sense of dialogue, that live, human, and local

interest in matters antiquarian, that statesmanlike insight into the pith

and marrow of the historic past, which makes one of Scott's historical

novels what it is--the envy of artists, the delight of young and old, the

despair of formal historians. _Veranilda_ is without a doubt a splendid

piece of work; Gissing wrote it with every bit of the care that his old

friend Biffen expended upon _Mr. Bailey, grocer_. He worked slowly,

patiently, affectionately, scrupulously. Each sentence was as good as he

could make it, harmonious to the ear, with words of precious meaning

skilfully set; and he believed in it with the illusion so indispensable to

an artist's wellbeing and continuance in good work. It represented for him

what _Salammbô_ did to Flaubert. But he could not allow himself six years

to write a book as Flaubert did. _Salammbô_, after all, was a magnificent

failure, and _Veranilda_,--well, it must be confessed, sadly but surely,

that _Veranilda_ was a failure too. Far otherwise was it with _Ryecroft_,

which represents, as it were, the _summa_ of Gissing's habitual meditation,

aesthetic feeling and sombre emotional experience. Not that it is a

pessimistic work,--quite the contrary, it represents the mellowing

influences, the increase of faith in simple, unsophisticated English

girlhood and womanhood, in domestic pursuits, in innocent children, in

rural homeliness and honest Wessex landscape, which began to operate about

1896, and is seen so unmistakably in the closing scenes of _The Whirlpool_.

Three chief strains are subtly interblended in the composition. First that

of a nature book, full of air, foliage and landscape--that English

landscape art of Linnell and De Wint and Foster, for which he repeatedly

expresses such a passionate tendre,[24] refreshed by 'blasts from the

channel, with raining scud and spume of mist breaking upon the hills' in

which he seems to crystallise the very essence of a Western winter.

Secondly, a paean half of praise and half of regret for the vanishing

England, passing so rapidly even as he writes into 'a new England which

tries so hard to be unlike the old.' A deeper and richer note of

thankfulness, mixed as it must be with anxiety, for the good old ways of

English life (as lamented by Mr. Poorgrass and Mark Clark[25]), old English

simplicity, and old English fare--the fine prodigality of the English

platter, has never been raised. God grant that the leaven may work! And

thirdly there is a deeply brooding strain of saddening yet softened

autobiographical reminiscence, over which is thrown a light veil of

literary appreciation and topical comment. Here is a typical _cadenza_,

rising to a swell at one point (suggestive for the moment of Raleigh's

famous apostrophe), and then most gently falling, in a manner not wholly

unworthy, I venture to think, of Webster and Sir Thomas Browne, of both of

which authors there is internal evidence that Gissing made some study.

[Footnote 24: 'I love and honour even the least of English landscape

painters.'--_Ryecroft_.]

[Footnote 25: 'But what with the parsons and clerks and school-people and

serious tea-parties, the merry old ways of good life have gone to the

dogs--upon my carcass, they have!'--_Far from the Madding Crowd_.]

'I always turn out of my way to walk through a country churchyard;

these rural resting-places are as attractive to me as a town cemetery

is repugnant. I read the names upon the stones and find a deep solace

in thinking that for all these the fret and the fear of life are over.

There comes to me no touch of sadness; whether it be a little child or

an aged man, I have the same sense of happy accomplishment; the end

having come, and with it the eternal peace, what matter if it came

late or soon? There is no such gratulation as _Hic jacet_. There

is no such dignity as that of death. In the path trodden by the

noblest of mankind these have followed; that which of all who live is

the utmost thing demanded, these have achieved. I cannot sorrow for

them, but the thought of their vanished life moves me to a brotherly

tenderness. The dead amid this leafy silence seem to whisper

encouragement to him whose fate yet lingers: As we are, so shalt thou

be; and behold our quiet!'--(p. 183.)

And in this deeply moving and beautiful passage we get a foretaste, it may

be, of the euthanasia, following a brief summer of St. Martin, for which

the scarred and troublous portions of Gissing's earlier life had served as

a preparation. Some there are, no doubt, to whom it will seem no

extravagance in closing these private pages to use the author's own words,

of a more potent Enchanter: 'As I close the book, love and reverence

possess me.'

* * * * *

Whatever the critics may determine as to the merit of the stories in the

present volume, there can be no question as to the interest they derive

from their connection with what had gone before. Thus _Topham's Chance_ is

manifestly the outcome of material pondered as early as 1884. _The Lodger

in Maze Pond_ develops in a most suggestive fashion certain problems

discussed in 1894. Miss Rodney is a re-incarnation of Rhoda Nunn and

Constance Bride. _Christopherson_ is a delicious expansion of a mood

indicated in _Ryecroft_ (Spring xii.), and _A Capitalist_ indicates the

growing interest in the business side of practical life, the dawn of which

is seen in _The Town Traveller_ and in the discussion of Dickens's

potentialities as a capitalist. The very artichokes in _The House of

Cobwebs_ (which, like the kindly hand that raised them, alas! fell a victim

to the first frost of the season) are suggestive of a charming passage

detailing the retired author's experience as a gardener. What Dr. Furnivall

might call the 'backward reach' of every one of these stories will render

their perusal delightful to those cultivated readers of Gissing, of whom

there are by no means a few, to whom every fragment of his suave and

delicate workmanship 'repressed yet full of power, vivid though sombre in

colouring,' has a technical interest and charm. Nor will they search in

vain for Gissing's incorrigible mannerisms, his haunting insistence upon

the note of 'Dort wo du nicht bist ist das Glück,' his tricks of the brush

in portraiture, his characteristic epithets, the _dusking_ twilight, the

_decently ignoble_ penury, the _not ignoble_ ambition, the _not wholly

base_ riot of the senses in early manhood. In my own opinion we have here

in _The Scrupulous Father_, and to a less degree, perhaps, in the first and

last of these stories, and in _A Poor Gentleman_ and _Christopherson_,

perfectly characteristic and quite admirable specimens of Gissing's own

genre, and later, unstudied, but always finished prose style.

* * * * *

But a few words remain to be said, and these, in part at any rate, in

recapitulation. In the old race, of which Dickens and Thackeray were

representative, a successful determination to rise upon the broad back of

popularity coincided with a growing conviction that the evil in the world

was steadily diminishing. Like healthy schoolboys who have worked their way

up to the sixth form, they imagined that the bullying of which they had had

to complain was become pretty much a thing of the past. In Gissing the

misery inherent in the sharp contrasts of modern life was a far more deeply

ingrained conviction. He cared little for the remedial aspect of the

question. His idea was to analyse this misery as an artist and to express

it to the world.

One of the most impressive elements in the resulting novels is the witness

they bear to prolonged and intense suffering, the suffering of a proud,

reserved, and over-sensitive mind brought into constant contact with the

coarse and brutal facts of life. The creator of Mr. Biffen suffers all the

torture of the fastidious, the delicately honourable, the scrupulously

high-minded in daily contact with persons of blunt feelings, low ideals,

and base instincts. 'Human cattle, the herd that feed and breed, with them

it was well; but the few born to a desire for ever unattainable, the gentle

spirits who from their prisoning circumstance looked up and afar, how the

heart ached to think of them!' The natural bent of Gissing's talent was

towards poetry and classical antiquity. His mind had considerable natural

affinity with that of Tennyson.[26] He was passionately fond of old

literature, of the study of metre and of historical reverie. The subtle

curiosities of Anatole France are just of the kind that would have appealed

irresistibly to him. His delight in psychological complexity and feats of

style are not seldom reminiscent of Paul Bourget. His life would have

gained immeasurably by a transference to less pinched and pitiful

surroundings: but it is more than doubtful whether his work would have done

so.

[Footnote 26: In a young lady's album I unexpectedly came across the line

from _Maud_, 'Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways,'

with the signature, following the quotation marks, 'George Gissing.' The

borrowed aspiration was transparently sincere. 'Tennyson he worshipped'

(see _Odd Women_, chap. i.). The contemporary novelist he liked most was

Alphonse Daudet.]

The compulsion of the twin monsters Bread and Cheese forced him to write

novels the scene of which was laid in the one milieu he had thoroughly

observed, that of either utterly hideous or shabby genteel squalor in

London. He gradually obtained a rare mastery in the delineation of his

unlovely _mise en scène_. He gradually created a small public who read

eagerly everything that came from his pen, despite his economy of material

(even of ideas), and despite the repetition to which a natural tendency was

increased by compulsory over-production. In all his best books we have

evidence of the savage and ironical delight with which he depicted to the

shadow of a hair the sordid and vulgar elements by which he had been so

cruelly depressed. The aesthetic observer who wanted material for a picture

of the blank desolation and ugliness of modern city life could find no

better substratum than in the works of George Gissing. Many of his

descriptions of typical London scenes in Lambeth Walk, Clerkenwell, or Judd

Street, for instance, are the work of a detached, remorseless, photographic

artist realising that ugly sordidness of daily life to which the ordinary

observer becomes in the course of time as completely habituated as he does

to the smoke-laden air. To a cognate sentiment of revolt I attribute that

excessive deference to scholarship and refinement which leads him in so

many novels to treat these desirable attributes as if they were ends and

objects of life in themselves. It has also misled him but too often into

depicting a world of suicides, ignoring or overlooking a secret hobby, or

passion, or chimaera which is the one thing that renders existence

endurable to so many of the waifs and strays of life. He takes existence

sadly--too sadly, it may well be; but his drabs and greys provide an

atmosphere that is almost inseparable to some of us from our gaunt London

streets. In Farringdon Road, for example, I look up instinctively to the

expressionless upper windows where Mr. Luckworth Crewe spreads his baits

for intending advertisers. A tram ride through Clerkenwell and its leagues

of dreary, inhospitable brickwork will take you through the heart of a

region where Clem Peckover, Pennyloaf Candy, and Totty Nancarrow are

multiplied rather than varied since they were first depicted by George

Gissing. As for the British Museum, it is peopled to this day by characters

from _New Grub Street_.

There may be a perceptible lack of virility, a fluctuating vagueness of

outline about the characterisation of some of his men. In his treatment of

crowds, in his description of a mob, personified as 'some huge beast

purring to itself in stupid contentment,' he can have few rivals. In

tracing the influence of women over his heroes he evinces no common

subtlety; it is here probably that he is at his best. The _odor di

femmina_, to use a phrase of Don Giovanni's, is a marked characteristic of

his books. Of the kisses--

'by hopeless fancy feigned

On lips that are for others'--

there are indeed many to be discovered hidden away between these pages. And

the beautiful verse has a fine parallel in the prose of one of Gissing's

later novels. 'Some girl, of delicate instinct, of purpose sweet and pure,

wasting her unloved life in toil and want and indignity; some man, whose

youth and courage strove against a mean environment, whose eyes grew

haggard in the vain search for a companion promised in his dreams; they

lived, these two, parted perchance only by the wall of neighbour houses,

yet all huge London was between them, and their hands would never touch.'

The dream of fair women which occupies the mood of Piers Otway in the

opening passage of the same novel, was evidently no remotely conceived

fancy. Its realisation, in ideal love, represents the author's _Crown of

Life_. The wise man who said that Beautiful Woman[27] was a heaven to the

eye, a hell to the soul, and a purgatory to the purse of man, could hardly

find a more copious field of illustration than in the fiction of George

Gissing.

[Footnote 27: With unconscious recollection, it may be, of Pope's notable

phrase in regard to Shakespeare, he speaks in his last novel of woman

appearing at times as 'a force of Nature rather than an individual being'

(_Will Warburton_, p. 275).]

Gissing was a sedulous artist; some of his books, it is true, are very

hurried productions, finished in haste for the market with no great amount

either of inspiration or artistic confidence about them. But little

slovenly work will be found bearing his name, for he was a thoroughly

trained writer; a suave and seductive workmanship had become a second

nature to him, and there was always a flavour of scholarly, subacid and

quasi-ironical modernity about his style. There is little doubt that his

quality as a stylist was better adapted to the studies of modern London

life, on its seamier side, which he had observed at first hand, than to

stories of the conventional dramatic structure which he too often felt

himself bound to adopt. In these his failure to grapple with a big

objective, or to rise to some prosperous situation, is often painfully

marked. A master of explanation and description rather than of animated

narrative or sparkling dialogue, he lacked the wit and humour, the

brilliance and energy of a consummate style which might have enabled him to

compete with the great scenic masters in fiction, or with craftsmen such as

Hardy or Stevenson, or with incomparable wits and conversationalists such

as Meredith. It is true, again, that his London-street novels lack certain

artistic elements of beauty (though here and there occur glints of rainy or

sunset townscape in a half-tone, consummately handled and eminently

impressive); and his intense sincerity cannot wholly atone for this loss.

Where, however, a quiet refinement and delicacy of style is needed as in

those sane and suggestive, atmospheric, critical or introspective studies,

such as _By the Ionian Sea_, the unrivalled presentment of _Charles

Dickens_, and that gentle masterpiece of softened autobiography, _The

Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_ (its resignation and autumnal calm, its

finer note of wistfulness and wide human compassion, fully deserve

comparison with the priceless work of Silvio Pellico) in which he indulged

himself during the last and increasingly prosperous years of his life, then

Gissing's style is discovered to be a charmed instrument. That he will _sup

late_, our Gissing, we are quite content to believe. But that a place is

reserved for him, of that at any rate we are reasonably confident. The

three books just named, in conjunction with his short stories and his _New

Grub Street_ (not to mention _Thyrza_ or _The Nether World_), will suffice

to ensure him a devout and admiring group of followers for a very long time

to come; they accentuate profoundly the feeling of vivid regret and almost

personal loss which not a few of his more assiduous readers experienced

upon the sad news of his premature death at St. Jean de Luz on the 28th

December 1903, at the early age of forty-six.

ACTON,

_February_ 1906.

_A CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD_

1880. Workers in the Dawn.

1884. The Unclassed.

1886. Isabel Clarendon.

1886. Demos.

1887. Thyrza.

1888. A Life's Morning.

1889. The Nether World.

1890. The Emancipated.

1891. New Grub Street.

1892. Born in Exile.

1892. Denzil Quarrier.

1893. The Odd Women.

1894. In the Year of Jubilee.

1895. The Paying Guest.

1895. Sleeping Fires.

1895. Eve's Ransom.

1897. The Whirlpool.

1898. Human Odds and Ends: Stories and Sketches.

1898. The Town Traveller.

1898. Charles Dickens: a Critical Study.

1899. The Crown of Life.

1901. Our Friend the Charlatan.

1901. By the Ionian Sea. Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy.

1903. Forster's Life of Dickens--Abridgement.

1903. The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft.

1904. Veranilda: a Romance.

1905. Will Warburton: a Romance of Real Life.

1906. The House of Cobwebs, and other Stories.

[Of notices and reviews of George Gissing other than those mentioned in the

foregoing notes the following is a selection:--_Times_, 29 Dec. 1903;

_Guardian_, 6 Jan. 1904; _Outlook_, 2 Jan. 1904; _Sphere_, 9 Jan. 1904;

_Athenaeum_, 2 and 16 Jan. 1904; _Academy_, 9 Jan. 1904 (pp. 40 and 46);

New York _Nation_, 11 June 1903 (an adverse but interesting paper on the

anti-social side of Gissing); _The Bookman_ (New York), vol. xviii.;

_Independent Review_, Feb. 1904; _Fortnightly Review_, Feb. 1904;

_Contemporary Review_, Aug. 1897; C.F.G. Masterman's _In Peril of Change_,

1905, pp. 68-73; _Atlantic Monthly_, xciii. 280; _Upton Letters_, 1905, p.

206.]

THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS

It was five o'clock on a June morning. The dirty-buff blind of the

lodging-house bedroom shone like cloth of gold as the sun's unclouded rays

poured through it, transforming all they illumined, so that things poor and

mean seemed to share in the triumphant glory of new-born day. In the bed

lay a young man who had already been awake for an hour. He kept stirring

uneasily, but with no intention of trying to sleep again. His eyes followed

the slow movement of the sunshine on the wall-paper, and noted, as they

never had done before, the details of the flower pattern, which represented

no flower wherewith botanists are acquainted, yet, in this summer light,

turned the thoughts to garden and field and hedgerow. The young man had a

troubled mind, and his thoughts ran thus:--

'I must have three months at least, and how am I to live?... Fifteen

shillings a week--not quite that, if I spread my money out. Can one live on

fifteen shillings a week--rent, food, washing?... I shall have to leave

these lodgings at once. They're not luxurious, but I can't live here under

twenty-five, that's clear.... Three months to finish my book. It's good;

I'm hanged if it isn't! This time I shall find a publisher. All I have to

do is to stick at my work and keep my mind easy.... Lucky that it's summer;

I don't need fires. Any corner would do for me where I can be quiet and see

the sun.... Wonder whether some cottager in Surrey would house and feed me

for fifteen shillings a week?... No use lying here. Better get up and see

how things look after an hour's walk.'

So the young man arose and clad himself, and went out into the shining

street. His name was Goldthorpe. His years were not yet three-and-twenty.

Since the age of legal independence he had been living alone in London,

solitary and poor, very proud of a wholehearted devotion to the career of

authorship. As soon as he slipped out of the stuffy house, the live air,

perfumed with freshness from meadows and hills afar, made his blood pulse

joyously. He was at the age of hope, and something within him, which did

not represent mere youthful illusion, supported his courage in the face of

calculations such as would have damped sober experience. With boyish step,

so light and springy that it seemed anxious to run and leap, he took his

way through a suburb south of Thames, and pushed on towards the first

rising of the Surrey hills. And as he walked resolve strengthened itself in

his heart. Somehow or other he would live independently through the next

three months. If the worst came to the worst, he could earn bread as clerk

or labourer, but as long as his money lasted he would pursue his purpose,

and that alone. He sang to himself in this gallant determination, happy as

if some one had left him a fortune.

In an ascending road, quiet and tree-shadowed, where the dwellings on

either side were for the most part old and small, though here and there a

brand-new edifice on a larger scale showed that the neighbourhood was

undergoing change such as in our time destroys the picturesque in all

London suburbs, the cheery dreamer chanced to turn his eyes upon a spot of

desolation which aroused his curiosity and set his fancy at work. Before

him stood three deserted houses, a little row once tenanted by middle-class

folk, but now for some time unoccupied and unrepaired. They were of brick,

but the fronts had a stucco facing cut into imitation of ashlar, and

weathered to the sombrest grey. The windows of the ground floor and of that

above, and the fanlights above the doors, were boarded up, a guard against

unlicensed intrusion; the top story had not been thought to stand in need

of this protection, and a few panes were broken. On these dead frontages

could be traced the marks of climbing plants, which once hung their leaves

about each doorway; dry fragments of the old stem still adhered to the

stucco. What had been the narrow strip of fore-garden, railed from the

pavement, was now a little wilderness of coarse grass, docks, nettles, and

degenerate shrubs. The paint on the doors had lost all colour, and much of

it was blistered off; the three knockers had disappeared, leaving

indications of rough removal, as if--which was probably the case--they had

fallen a prey to marauders. Standing full in the brilliant sunshine, this

spectacle of abandonment seemed sadder, yet less ugly, than it would have

looked under a gloomy sky. Goldthorpe began to weave stories about its

musty squalor. He crossed the road to make a nearer inspection; and as he

stood gazing at the dishonoured thresholds, at the stained and cracked

boarding of the blind windows, at the rusty paling and the broken gates,

there sounded from somewhere near a thin, shaky strain of music, the notes

of a concertina played with uncertain hand. The sound seemed to come from

within the houses, yet how could that be? Assuredly no one lived under

these crazy roofs. The musician was playing 'Home, Sweet Home,' and as

Goldthorpe listened it seemed to him that the sound was not stationary.

Indeed, it moved; it became more distant, then again the notes sounded more

distinctly, and now as if the player were in the open air. Perhaps he was

at the back of the houses?

On either side ran a narrow passage, which parted the spot of desolation

from inhabited dwellings. Exploring one of these, Goldthorpe found that

there lay in the rear a tract of gardens. Each of the three lifeless houses

had its garden of about twenty yards long. The bordering wall along the

passage allowed a man of average height to peer over it, and Goldthorpe

searched with curious eye the piece of ground which was nearest to him.

Many a year must have gone by since any gardening was done here. Once upon

a time the useful and ornamental had both been represented in this modest

space; now, flowers and vegetables, such of them as survived in the

struggle for existence, mingled together, and all alike were threatened by

a wild, rank growth of grasses and weeds, which had obliterated the beds,

hidden the paths, and made of the whole garden plot a green jungle. But

Goldthorpe gave only a glance at this still life; his interest was

engrossed by a human figure, seated on a campstool near the back wall of

the house, and holding a concertina, whence, at this moment, in slow,

melancholy strain, 'Home, Sweet Home' began to wheeze forth. The player was

a middle-aged man, dressed like a decent clerk or shopkeeper, his head

shaded with an old straw hat rather too large for him, and on his feet--one

of which swung as he sat with legs crossed--a pair of still more ancient

slippers, also too large. With head aside, and eyes looking upward, he

seemed to listen in a mild ecstasy to the notes of his instrument. He had a

round face of much simplicity and good-nature, semicircular eyebrows,

pursed little mouth with abortive moustache, and short thin beard fringing

the chinless lower jaw. Having observed this unimposing person for a minute

or two, himself unseen, Goldthorpe surveyed the rear of the building,

anxious to discover any sign of its still serving as human habitation; but

nothing spoke of tenancy. The windows on this side were not boarded, and

only a few panes were broken; but the chief point of contrast with the

desolate front was made by a Virginia creeper, which grew luxuriantly up to

the eaves, hiding every sign of decay save those dim, dusty apertures which

seemed to deny all possibility of life within. And yet, on looking

steadily, did he not discern something at one of the windows on the top

story--something like a curtain or a blind? And had not that same window

the appearance of having been more recently cleaned than the others? He

could not be sure; perhaps he only fancied these things. With neck aching

from the strained position in which he had made his survey over the wall,

the young man turned away. In the same moment 'Home, Sweet Home' came to an

end, and, but for the cry of a milkman, the early-morning silence was

undisturbed.

Goldthorpe pursued his walk, thinking of what he had seen, and wondering

what it all meant. On his way back he made a point of again passing the

deserted houses, and again he peered over the wall of the passage. The man

was still there, but no longer seated with the concertina; wearing a round

felt hat instead of the straw, he stood almost knee-deep in vegetation, and

appeared to be examining the various growths about him. Presently he moved

forward, and, with head still bent, approached the lower end of the garden,

where, in a wall higher than that over which Goldthorpe made his espial,

there was a wooden door. This the man opened with a key, and, having passed

out, could be heard to turn a lock behind him. A minute more, and this

short, respectable figure came into sight at the end of the passage.

Goldthorpe could not resist the opportunity thus offered. Affecting to turn

a look of interest towards the nearest roof, he waited until the stranger

was about to pass him, then, with civil greeting, ventured upon a question.

'Can you tell me how these houses come to be in this neglected state?'

The stranger smiled; a soft, modest, deferential smile such as became his

countenance, and spoke in a corresponding voice, which had a vaguely

provincial accent.

'No wonder it surprises you, sir. I should be surprised myself. It comes of

quarrels and lawsuits.'

'So I supposed. Do you know who the property belongs to?'

'Well, yes, sir. The fact is--it belongs to me.'

The avowal was made apologetically, and yet with a certain timid pride.

Goldthorpe exhibited all the interest he felt. An idea had suddenly sprung

up in his mind; he met the stranger's look, and spoke with the easy

good-humour natural to him.

'It seems a great pity that houses should be standing empty like that. Are

they quite uninhabitable? Couldn't one camp here during this fine summer

weather? To tell you the truth, I'm looking for a room--as cheap a room as

I can get. Could you let me one for the next three months?'

The stranger was astonished. He regarded the young man with an uneasy

smile.

'You are joking, sir.'

'Not a bit of it. Is the thing quite impossible? Are all the rooms in too

bad a state?'

'I won't say _that_,' replied the other cautiously, still eyeing his

interlocutor with surprised glances. 'The upper rooms are really not so

bad--that is to say, from a humble point of view. I--I have been looking at

them just now. You really mean, sir--?'

'I'm quite in earnest, I assure you,' cried Goldthorpe cheerily. 'You see

I'm tolerably well dressed still, but I've precious little money, and I

want to eke out the little I've got for about three months. I'm writing a

book. I think I shall manage to sell it when it's done, but it'll take me

about three months yet. I don't care what sort of place I live in, so long

as it's quiet. Couldn't we come to terms?'

The listener's visage seemed to grow rounder in progressive astonishment;

his eyes declared an emotion akin to awe; his little mouth shaped itself as

if about to whistle.

'A book, sir? You are writing a book? You are a literary man?'

'Well, a beginner. I have poverty on my side, you see.'

'Why, it's like Dr. Johnson!' cried the other, his face glowing with

interest. 'It's like Chatterton!--though I'm sure I hope you won't end like

him, sir. It's like Goldsmith!--indeed it is!'

'I've got half Oliver's name, at all events,' laughed the young man. 'Mine

is Goldthorpe.'

'You don't say so, sir! What a strange coincidence! Mine, sir, is Spicer.

I--I don't know whether you'd care to come into my garden? We might talk

there--'

In a minute or two they were standing amid the green jungle, which

Goldthorpe viewed with delight. He declared it the most picturesque garden

he had ever seen.

'Why, there are potatoes growing there. And what are those things?

Jerusalem artichokes? And look at that magnificent thistle; I never saw a

finer thistle in my life! And poppies--and marigolds--and broad-beans--and

isn't that lettuce?'

Mr. Spicer was red with gratification.

'I feel that something might be done with the garden, sir,' he said. 'The

fact is, sir, I've only lately come into this property, and I'm sorry to

say it'll only be mine for a little more than a year--a year from next

midsummer day, sir. There's the explanation of what you see. It's leasehold

property, and the lease is just coming to its end. Five years ago, sir, an

uncle of mine inherited the property from his brother. The houses were then

in a very bad state, and only one of them let, and there had been lawsuits

going on for a long time between the leaseholder and the ground-landlord--I

can't quite understand these matters, they're not at all in my line, sir;

but at all events there were quarrels and lawsuits, and I'm told one of the

tenants was somehow mixed up in it. The fact is, my uncle wasn't a very

well-to-do man, and perhaps he didn't feel able to repair the houses,

especially as the lease was drawing to its end. Would you like to go in and

have a look round?'

They entered by the back door, which admitted them to a little wash-house.

The window was over-spun with cobwebs, thick, hoary; each corner of the

ceiling was cobweb-packed; long, dusty filaments depended along the walls.

Notwithstanding, Goldthorpe noticed that the house had a water-supply; the

sink was wet, the tap above it looked new. This confirmed a suspicion in

his mind, but he made no remark. They passed into the kitchen. Here again

the work of the spider showed thick on every hand. The window, however,

though uncleaned for years, had recently been opened; one knew that by the

torn and ragged condition of the webs where the sashes joined. And lo! on

the window-sill stood a plate, a cup and saucer, a knife, a fork, a

spoon--all of them manifestly new-washed. Goldthorpe affected not to see

these objects; he averted his face to hide an involuntary smile.

'I must light a candle,' said Mr. Spicer. 'The staircase is quite dark.'

A candle stood ready, with a box of matches, on the rusty cooking-stove. No

fire had burned in the grate for many a long day; of that the visitor

assured himself. Save the objects on the window-sill, no evidence of human

occupation was discoverable. Having struck a light, Mr. Spicer advanced. In

the front passage, on the stairs, on the landing, every angle and every

projection had its drapery of cobwebs. The stuffy, musty air smelt of

cobwebs; so, at all events, did Goldthorpe explain to himself a peculiar

odour which he seemed never to have smelt. It was the same in the two rooms

on the first floor. Through the boarded windows of that in front penetrated

a few thin rays from the golden sky; they gleamed upon dust and web, on

faded, torn wall-paper and a fireplace in ruins.

'I shouldn't recommend you to take either of _these_ rooms,' said Mr.

Spicer, looking nervously at his companion. 'They really can't be called

attractive.'

'Those on the top are healthier, no doubt,' was the young man's reply. 'I

noticed that some of the window-glass is broken. That must have been good

for airing.'

Mr. Spicer grew more and more nervous. He opened his little round mouth,

very much like a fish gasping, but seemed unable to speak. Silently he led

the way to the top story, still amid cobwebs; the atmosphere was certainly

purer up here, and when they entered the first room they found themselves

all at once in such a flood of glorious sunshine that Goldthorpe shouted

with delight.

'Ah, I could live here! Would it cost much to have panes put in? An old

woman with a broom would do the rest.' He added in a moment, 'But the back

windows are not broken, I think?'

'No--I think not--I--no--'

Mr. Spicer gasped and stammered. He stood holding the candle (its light

invisible) so that the grease dripped steadily on his trousers.

'Let's have a look at the other,' cried Goldthorpe. 'It gets the afternoon

sun, no doubt. And one would have a view of the garden.'

'Stop, sir!' broke from his companion, who was red and perspiring. 'There's

something I should like to tell you before you go into that room.

I--it--the fact is, sir, that--temporarily--I am occupying it myself.'

'Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Spicer!'

'Not at all, sir! Don't mention it, sir. I have a reason--it seemed to

me--I've merely put in a bed and a table, sir, that's all--a temporary

arrangement.'

'Yes, yes; I quite understand. What could be more sensible? If the house

were mine, I should do the same. What's the good of owning a house, and

making no use of it?'

Great was Mr. Spicer's satisfaction.

'See what it is, sir,' he exclaimed, 'to have to do with a literary man!

You are large-minded, sir; you see things from an intellectual point of

view. I can't tell you how it gratifies me, sir, to have made your

acquaintance. Let us go into the back room.'

With nervous boldness he threw the door open. Goldthorpe, advancing

respectfully, saw that Mr. Spicer had not exaggerated the simplicity of his

arrangements. In a certain measure the room had been cleaned, but along the

angle of walls and ceiling there still clung a good many cobwebs, and the

state of the paper was deplorable. A blind hung at the window, but the

floor had no carpet. In one corner stood a little camp bed, neatly made for

the day; a table and a chair, of the cheapest species, occupied the middle

of the floor, and on the hearth was an oil cooking-stove.

'It's wonderful how little one really wants,' remarked Mr. Spicer, 'at all

events in weather such as this. I find that I get along here very well

indeed. The only expense I had was for the water-supply. And really, sir,

when one comes to think of it, the situation is pleasant. If one doesn't

mind loneliness--and it happens that I don't. I have my books, sir--'

He opened the door of a cupboard containing several shelves. The first

thing Goldthorpe's eye fell upon was the concertina; he saw also sundry

articles of clothing, neatly disposed, a little crockery, and, ranged on

the two top shelves, some thirty volumes, all of venerable aspect.

'Literature, sir,' pursued Mr. Spicer modestly, 'has always been my

comfort. I haven't had very much time for reading, but my motto, sir, has

been _nulla dies sine linea_.'

It appeared from his pronunciation that Mr. Spicer was no classical

scholar, but he uttered the Latin words with infinite gusto, and timidly

watched their effect upon the listener.

'This is delightful,' cried Mr. Goldthorpe. 'Will you let me have the front

room? I could work here splendidly--splendidly! What rent do you ask, Mr.

Spicer?'

'Why really, sir, to tell you the truth I don't know what to say. Of course

the windows must be seen to. The fact is, sir, if you felt disposed to do

that at your own expense, and--and to have the room cleaned, and--and, let

us say, to bear half the water-rate whilst you are here, why, really, I

hardly feel justified in asking anything more.'

It was Goldthorpe's turn to be embarrassed, for, little as he was prepared

to pay, he did not like to accept a stranger's generosity. They discussed

the matter in detail, with the result that for the arrangement which Mr.

Spicer had proposed there was substituted a weekly rent of two shillings,

the lease extending over a period of three months. Goldthorpe was to live

quite independently, asking nothing in the way of domestic service;

moreover, he was requested to introduce no other person to the house, even

as casual visitor. These conditions Mr. Spicer set forth, in a commercial

hand, on a sheet of notepaper, and the agreement was solemnly signed by

both contracting parties.

On the way home to breakfast Goldthorpe reviewed his position now that he

had taken this decisive step. It was plain that he must furnish his room

with the articles which Mr. Spicer found indispensable, and this outlay, be

as economical as he might, would tell upon the little capital which was to

support him for three months. Indeed, when all had been done, and he found

himself, four days later, dwelling on the top story of the house of

cobwebs, a simple computation informed him that his total expenditure,

after payment of rent, must not exceed fifteenpence a day. What matter? He

was in the highest spirits, full of energy and hope. His landlord had been

kind and helpful in all sorts of ways, helping him to clean the room, to

remove his property from the old lodgings, to make purchases at the lowest

possible rate, to establish himself as comfortably as circumstances

permitted. And when, on the first morning of his tenancy, he was awakened

by a brilliant sun, the young man had a sensation of comfort and

satisfaction quite new in his experience; for he was really at home; the

bed he slept on, the table he ate at and wrote upon, were his own

possessions; he thought with pity of his lodging-house life, and felt a

joyous assurance that here he would do better work than ever before.

In less than a week Mr. Spicer and he were so friendly that they began to

eat together, taking it in turns to prepare the meal. Now and then they

walked in company, and every evening they sat smoking (very cheap tobacco)

in the wild garden. Little by little Mr. Spicer revealed the facts of his

history. He had begun life, in a midland town, as a chemist's errand-boy,

and by steady perseverance, with a little pecuniary help from relatives,

had at length risen to the position of chemist's assistant. For

five-and-twenty years he practised such rigid economy that, having no one

but himself to provide for, he began to foresee a possibility of passing

his old age elsewhere than in the workhouse. Then befell the death of his

uncle, which was to have important consequences for him. Mr. Spicer told

the story of this exciting moment late one evening, when, kept indoors by

rain, the companions sat together upstairs, one on each side of the rusty

and empty fireplace.

'All my life, Mr. Goldthorpe, I've thought what a delightful thing it must

be to have a house of one's own. I mean, really of one's own; not only a

rented house, but one in which you could live and die, feeling that no one

had a right to turn you out. Often and often I've dreamt of it, and tried

to imagine what the feeling would be like. Not a large, fine house--oh

dear, no! I didn't care how small it might be; indeed, the smaller the

better for a man of my sort. Well, then, you can imagine how it came upon

me when I heard--But let me tell you first that I hadn't seen my uncle for

fifteen years or more. I had always thought him a well-to-do man, and I

knew he wasn't married, but the truth is, it never came into my head that

he might leave me something. Picture me, Mr. Goldthorpe--you have

imagination, sir--standing behind the counter and thinking about nothing

but business, when in comes a young gentleman--I see him now--and asks for

Mr. Spicer. "Spicer is my name, sir," I said. "And you are the nephew,"

were his next words, "of the late Mr. Isaac Spicer, of Clapham, London?"

That shook me, sir, I assure you it did, but I hope I behaved decently. The

young gentleman went on to tell me that my uncle had left no will, and that

I was believed to be his next-of-kin, and that if so, I inherited all his

property, the principal part of which was three houses in London. Now try

and think, Mr. Goldthorpe, what sort of state I was in after hearing that.

You're an intellectual man, and you can enter into another's mind. Three

houses! Well, sir, you know what houses those were. I came up to London at

once (it was last autumn), and I saw my uncle's lawyer, and he told me all

about the property, and I saw it for myself. Ah, Mr. Goldthorpe! If ever a

man suffered a bitter disappointment, sir!'

He ended on a little laugh, as if excusing himself for making so much of

his story, and sat for a moment with head bowed.

'Fate played you a nasty trick there,' said Goldthorpe. 'A knavish trick.'

'One felt almost justified in using strong language, sir--though I always

avoid it on principle. However, I must tell you that the houses weren't

all. Luckily there was a little money as well, and, putting it with my own

savings, sir, I found it would yield me an income. When I say an income, I

mean, of course, for a man in my position. Even when I have to go into

lodgings, when my houses become the property of the ground-landlord--to my

mind, Mr. Goldthorpe, a very great injustice, but I don't set myself up

against the law of the land--I shall just be able to live. And that's no

small blessing, sir, as I think you'll agree.'

'Rather! It's the height of human felicity, Mr. Spicer. I envy you vastly.'

'Well, sir, I'm rather disposed to look at it in that light myself. My

nature is not discontented, Mr. Goldthorpe. But, sir, if you could have

seen me when the lawyer began to explain about the houses! I was absolutely

ignorant of the leasehold system; and at first I really couldn't

understand. The lawyer thought me a fool, I fear, sir. And when I came down

here and saw the houses themselves! I'm afraid, Mr. Goldthorpe, I'm really

afraid, sir, I was weak enough to shed a tear.'

They were sitting by the light of a very small lamp, which did not tend to

cheerfulness.

'Come,' cried Goldthorpe, 'after all, the houses are yours for a

twelvemonth. Why shouldn't we both live on here all the time? It'll be a

little breezy in winter, but we could have the fireplaces knocked into

shape, and keep up good fires. When I've sold my book I'll pay a higher

rent, Mr. Spicer. I like the old house, upon my word I do! Come, let us

have a tune before we go to bed.'

Smiling and happy, Mr. Spicer fetched from the cupboard his concertina, and

after the usual apology for what he called his 'imperfect mastery of the

instrument,' sat down to play 'Home, Sweet Home.' He had played it for

years, and evidently would never improve in his execution. After 'Home,

Sweet Home' came 'The Bluebells of Scotland,' after that 'Annie Laurie';

and Mr. Spicer's repertory was at an end. He talked of learning new pieces,

but there was not the slightest hope of this achievement.

Mr. Spicer's mental development had ceased more than twenty years ago,

when, after extreme efforts, he had attained the qualification of chemist's

assistant. Since then the world had stood still with him. Though a true

lover of books, he knew nothing of any that had been published during his

own lifetime. His father, though very poor, had possessed a little

collection of volumes, the very same which now stood in Mr. Spicer's

cupboard. The authors represented in this library were either English

classics or obscure writers of the early part of the nineteenth century.

Knowing these books very thoroughly, Mr. Spicer sometimes indulged in a

quotation which would have puzzled even the erudite. His favourite poet was

Cowper, whose moral sentiments greatly soothed him. He spoke of Byron like

some contemporary who, whilst admitting his lordship's genius, felt an

abhorrence of his life. He judged literature solely from the moral point of

view, and was incapable of understanding any other. Of fiction he had read

very little indeed, for it was not regarded with favour by his parents.

Scott was hardly more than a name to him. And though he avowed acquaintance

with one or two works of Dickens, he spoke of them with an uneasy smile, as

if in some doubt as to their tendency. With these intellectual

characteristics, Mr. Spicer naturally found it difficult to appreciate the

attitude of his literary friend, a young man whose brain thrilled in

response to modern ideas, and who regarded himself as the destined leader

of a new school of fiction. Not indiscreet, Goldthorpe soon became aware

that he had better talk as little as possible of the work which absorbed

his energies. He had enough liberality and sense of humour to understand

and enjoy his landlord's conversation, and the simple goodness of the man

inspired him with no little respect. Thus they got along together

remarkably well. Mr. Spicer never ceased to feel himself honoured by the

presence under his roof of one who--as he was wont to say--wielded the pen.

The tradition of Grub Street was for him a living fact. He thought of all

authors as struggling with poverty, and continued to cite

eighteenth-century examples by way of encouraging Goldthorpe and animating

his zeal. Whilst the young man was at work Mr. Spicer moved about the house

with soundless footsteps. When invited into his tenant's room he had a

reverential demeanour, and the sight of manuscript on the bare deal table

caused him to subdue his voice.

The weeks went by, and Goldthorpe's novel steadily progressed. In London he

had only two or three acquaintances, and from them he held aloof, lest

necessity or temptation should lead to his spending money which he could

not spare. The few letters which he received were addressed to a

post-office--impossible to shock the nerves of a postman by requesting him

to deliver correspondence at this dead house, of which the front door had

not been opened for years. The weather was perfect; a great deal of

sunshine, but as yet no oppressive heat, even in the chambers under the

roof. Towards the end of June Mr. Spicer began to amuse himself with a

little gardening. He had discovered in the coal-hole an ancient fork, with

one prong broken and the others rusting away. This implement served him in

his slow, meditative attack on that part of the jungle which seemed to

offer least resistance. He would work for a quarter of an hour, then,

resting on his fork, contemplate the tangled mass of vegetation which he

had succeeded in tearing up.

'Our aim should be,' he said gravely, when Goldthorpe came to observe his

progress, 'to clear the soil round about those vegetables and flowers which

seem worth preserving. These broad-beans, for instance--they seem to be a

very fine sort. And the Jerusalem artichokes. I've been making inquiry

about the artichokes, and I'm told they are not ready to eat till the

autumn. The first frost is said to improve them. They're fine plants--very

fine plants.'

Already the garden had supplied them with occasional food, but they had to

confess that, for the most part, these wild vegetables lacked savour. The

artichokes, now shooting up into a leafy grove, were the great hope of the

future. It would be deplorable to quit the house before this tuber came to

maturity.

'The worst of it is,' remarked Mr. Spicer one day, when he was perspiring

freely, 'that I can't help thinking of how different it would be if this

garden was really my own. The fact is, Mr. Goldthorpe, I can't put much

heart into the work; no, I can't. The more I reflect, the more indignant I

become. Really now, Mr. Goldthorpe, speaking as an intellectual man, as a

man of imagination, could anything be more cruelly unjust than this

leasehold system? I assure you, it keeps me awake at night; it really

does.'

The tenor of his conversation proved that Mr. Spicer had no intention of

leaving the house until he was legally obliged to do so. More than once he

had an interview with his late uncle's solicitor, and each time he came

back with melancholy brow. All the details of the story were now familiar

to him; he knew all about the lawsuits which had ruined the property.

Whenever he spoke of the ground-landlord, known to him only by name, it was

with a severity such as he never permitted himself on any other subject.

The ground-landlord was, to his mind, an embodiment of social injustice.

'Never in my life, Mr. Goldthorpe, did I grudge any payment of money as I

grudge the ground-rent of these houses. I feel it as robbery, sir, as sheer

robbery, though the sum is so small. When, in my ignorance, the matter was

first explained to me, I wondered why my uncle had continued to pay this

rent, the houses being of no profit to him. But now I understand, Mr.

Goldthorpe; the sense of possession is very sweet. Property's property,

even when it's leasehold and in ruins. I grudge the ground-rent bitterly,

but I feel, sir, that I couldn't bear to lose my houses until the fatal

moment, when lose them I must.'

In August the thermometer began to mark high degrees. Goldthorpe found it

necessary to dispense with coat and waistcoat when he was working, and at

times a treacherous languor whispered to him of the delights of idleness.

After one particularly hot day, he and his landlord smoked together in the

dusking garden, both unusually silent. Mr. Spicer's eye dwelt upon the

great heap of weeds which was resulting from his labour; an odour somewhat

too poignant arose from it upon the close air. Goldthorpe, who had been

rather headachy all day, was trying to think into perfect clearness the

last chapters of his book, and found it difficult.

'You know,' he said all at once, with an impatient movement, 'we ought to

be at the seaside.'

'The seaside?' echoed his companion, in surprise. 'Ah, it's a long time

since I saw the sea, Mr. Goldthorpe. Why, it must be--yes, it is at least

twenty years.'

'Really? I've been there every year of my life till this. One gets into the

way of thinking of luxuries as necessities. I tell you what it is. If I

sell my book as soon as it's done, we'll have a few days somewhere on the

south coast together.'

Mr. Spicer betrayed uneasiness.

'I should like it much,' he murmured, 'but I fear, Mr. Goldthorpe, I

greatly fear I can't afford it.'

'Oh, but I mean that you shall go with me as my guest! But for you, Mr.

Spicer, I might never have got my book written at all.'

'I feel it an honour, sir, I assure you, to have a literary man in my

house,' was the genial reply. 'And you think the _work_ will soon be

finished, sir?'

Mr. Spicer always spoke of his tenant's novel as 'the work'--which on his

lips had a very large and respectful sound.

'About a fortnight more,' answered Goldthorpe with grave intensity.

The heat continued. As he lay awake before getting up, eager to finish his

book, yet dreading the torrid temperature of his room, which made the brain

sluggish and the hand slow, Goldthorpe saw how two or three energetic

spiders had begun to spin webs once more at the corners of the ceiling; now

and then he heard the long buzzing of a fly entangled in one of these webs.

The same thing was happening in Mr. Spicer's chamber. It did not seem worth

while to brush the new webs away.

'When you come to think of it, sir,' said the landlord, 'it's the spiders

who are the real owners of these houses. When I go away, they'll be pulled

down; they're not fit for human habitation. Only the spiders are really at

home here, and the fact is, sir, I don't feel I have the right to disturb

them. As a man of imagination, Mr. Goldthorpe, you'll understand my

thoughts!'

Only with a great effort was the novel finished. Goldthorpe had lost his

appetite (not, perhaps, altogether a disadvantage), and he could not sleep;

a slight fever seemed to be constantly upon him. But this work was a

question of life and death to him, and he brought it to an end only a few

days after the term he had set himself. The complete manuscript was

exhibited to Mr. Spicer, who expressed his profound sense of the privilege.

Then, without delay, Goldthorpe took it to the publishing house in which he

had most hope.

The young author could now do nothing but wait, and, under the

circumstances, waiting meant torture. His money was all but exhausted; if

he could not speedily sell the book, his position would be that of a mere

pauper. Supported thus long by the artist's enthusiasm, he fell into

despondency, saw the dark side of things. To be sure, his mother (a widow

in narrow circumstances) had written pressing him to take a holiday 'at

home,' but he dreaded the thought of going penniless to his mother's house,

and there, perchance, receiving bad news about his book. An ugly feature of

the situation was that he continued to feel anything but well; indeed, he

felt sure that he was getting worse. At night he suffered severely; sleep

had almost forsaken him. Hour after hour he lay listening to mysterious

noises, strange crackings and creakings through the desolate house;

sometimes he imagined the sound of footsteps in the bare rooms below; even

hushed voices, from he knew not where, chilled his blood at midnight. Since

crumbs had begun to lie about, mice were common; they scampered as if in

revelry above the ceiling, and under the floor, and within the walls.

Goldthorpe began to dislike this strange abode. He felt that under any

circumstances it would be impossible for him to dwell here much longer.

When his last coin was spent, and he had no choice but to pawn or sell

something for a few days' subsistence, the manuscript came back upon his

hands. It had been judged--declined.

That morning he felt seriously unwell. After making known the catastrophe

to Mr. Spicer--who was stricken voiceless--he stood silent for a minute or

two, then said with quiet resolve:

'It's all up. I've no money, and I feel as if I were going to have an

illness. I must say good-bye to you, old friend.'

'Mr. Goldthorpe!' exclaimed the other solemnly; 'I entreat you, sir, to do

nothing rash! Take heart, sir! Think of Samuel Johnson, think of

Goldsmith--'

'The extent of my rashness, Mr. Spicer, will be to raise enough money on my

watch to get down into Derbyshire. I must go home. If I don't, you'll have

the pleasant job of taking me to a hospital.'

Mr. Spicer insisted on lending him the small sum he needed. An hour or two

later they were at St. Pancras Station, and before sunset Goldthorpe had

found harbourage under his mother's roof. There he lay ill for more than a

month, and convalescent for as long again. His doctor declared that he must

have been living in some very unhealthy place, but the young man preferred

to explain his illness by overwork. It seemed to him sheer ingratitude to

throw blame on Mr. Spicer's house, where he had been so contented and

worked so well until the hot days of latter August. Mr. Spicer himself

wrote kind and odd little letters, giving an account of the garden, and

earnestly hoping that his literary friend would be back in London to taste

the Jerusalem artichokes. But Christmas came and went, and Goldthorpe was

still at his mother's house.

Meanwhile the manuscript had gone from publisher to publisher, and at

length, on a day in January--date ever memorable in Goldthorpe's

life--there arrived a short letter in which a certain firm dryly intimated

their approval of the story offered them, and their willingness to purchase

the copyright for a sum of fifty pounds. The next morning the triumphant

author travelled to London. For two or three days a violent gale had been

blowing, with much damage throughout the country; on his journey Goldthorpe

saw many great trees lying prostrate, beaten, as though scornfully, by the

cold rain which now descended in torrents. Arrived in town, he went to the

house where he had lodged in the time of comparative prosperity, and there

was lucky enough to find his old rooms vacant. On the morrow he called upon

the gracious publishers, and after that, under a sky now become more

gentle, he took his way towards the abode of Mr. Spicer.

Eager to communicate the joyous news, glad in the prospect of seeing his

simple-hearted friend, he went at a great pace up the ascending road. There

were the three houses, looking drearier than ever in a faint gleam of

winter sunshine. There were his old windows. But--what had happened to the

roof? He stood in astonishment and apprehension, for, just above the room

where he had dwelt, the roof was an utter wreck, showing a great hole, as

if something had fallen upon it with crushing weight. As indeed was the

case; evidently the chimney-stack had come down, and doubtless in the

recent gale. Seized with anxiety on Mr. Spicer's account, he ran round to

the back of the garden and tried the door; but it was locked as usual. He

strained to peer over the garden wall, but could discover nothing that

threw light on his friend's fate; he noticed, however, a great grove of

dead, brown artichoke stems, seven or eight feet high. Looking up at the

back windows, he shouted Mr. Spicer's name; it was useless. Then, in

serious alarm, he betook himself to the house on the other side of the

passage, knocked at the door, and asked of the woman who presented herself

whether anything was known of a gentleman who dwelt where the chimney-stack

had just fallen. News was at once forthcoming; the event had obviously

caused no small local excitement. It was two days since the falling of the

chimney, which happened towards evening, when the gale blew its hardest.

Mr. Spicer was at that moment sitting before the fire, and only by a

miracle had he escaped destruction, for an immense weight of material came

down through the rotten roof, and even broke a good deal of the flooring.

Had the occupant been anywhere but close by the fireplace, he must have

been crushed to a mummy; as it was, only a few bricks struck him,

inflicting severe bruises on back and arms. But the shock had been serious.

When his shouts from the window at length attracted attention and brought

help, the poor man had to be carried downstairs, and in a thoroughly

helpless state was removed to the nearest hospital.

'Which room was he in?' inquired Goldthorpe. 'Back or front?'

'In the front room. The back wasn't touched.'

Musing on Mr. Spicer's bad luck--for it seemed as if he had changed from

the back to the front room just in order that the chimney might fall on

him--Goldthorpe hastened away to the hospital. He could not be admitted

to-day, but heard that his friend was doing very well; on the morrow he

would be allowed to see him.

So at the visitors' hour Goldthorpe returned. Entering the long accident

ward, he searched anxiously for the familiar face, and caught sight of it

just as it began to beam recognition. Mr. Spicer was sitting up in bed; he

looked pale and meagre, but not seriously ill; his voice quivered with

delight as he greeted the young man.

'I heard of your inquiring for me yesterday, Mr. Goldthorpe, and I've

hardly been able to live for impatience to see you. How are you, sir? How

are you? And what news about the _work_, sir?'

'We'll talk about that presently, Mr. Spicer. Tell me all about your

accident. How came you to be in the front room?'

'Ah, sir,' replied the patient, with a little shake of the head, 'that

indeed was singular. Only a few days before, I had made a removal from my

room into yours. I call it yours, sir, for I always thought of it as yours;

but thank heaven you were not there. Only a few days before. I took that

step, Mr. Goldthorpe, for two reasons: first, because water was coming

through the roof at the back in rather unpleasant quantities, and secondly,

because I hoped to get a little morning sun in the front. The fact is, sir,

my room had been just a little depressing. Ah, Mr. Goldthorpe, if you knew

how I have missed you, sir! But the _work_--what news of the _work_?'

Smiling as though carelessly, the author made known his good fortune. For a

quarter of an hour Mr. Spicer could talk of nothing else.

'This has completed my cure!' he kept repeating. 'The work was composed

under my roof, my own roof, sir! Did I not tell you to take heart?'

'And where are you going to live?' asked Goldthorpe presently. 'You can't

go back to the old house.'

'Alas! no, sir. All my life I have dreamt of the joy of owning a house. You

know how the dream was realised, Mr. Goldthorpe, and you see what has come

of it at last. Probably it is a chastisement for overweening desires, sir.

I should have remembered my position, and kept my wishes within bounds.

But, Mr. Goldthorpe, I shall continue to cultivate the garden, sir. I shall

put in spring lettuces, and radishes, and mustard and cress. The property

is mine till midsummer day. You shall eat a lettuce of my growing, Mr.

Goldthorpe; I am bent on that. And how I grieve that you were not with me

at the time of the artichokes--just at the moment when they were touched by

the first frost!'

'Ah! They were really good, Mr. Spicer?'

'Sir, they seemed good to _me_, very good. Just at the moment of the first

frost!'

A CAPITALIST

Among the men whom I saw occasionally at the little club in Mortimer

Street,--and nowhere else,--was one who drew my attention before I had

learnt his name or knew anything about him. Of middle age, in the fullness

of health and vigour, but slenderly built; his face rather shrewd than

intellectual, interesting rather than pleasing; always dressed as the

season's mode dictated, but without dandyism; assuredly he belonged to the

money-spending, and probably to the money-getting, world. At first sight of

him I remember resenting his cap-à-pie perfection; it struck me as bad

form--here in Mortimer Street, among fellows of the pen and the palette.

'Oh,' said Harvey Munden, 'he's afraid of being taken for one of us. He

buys pictures. Not a bad sort, I believe, if it weren't for his

snobbishness.'

'His name?'

'Ireton. Has a house in Fitzjohn Avenue, and a high-trotting wife.'

Six months later I recalled this description of Mrs. Ireton. She was the

talk of the town, the heroine of the newest divorce case. By that time I

had got to know her husband; perhaps once a fortnight we chatted at the

club, and I found him an agreeable acquaintance. Before the Divorce Court

flashed a light of scandal upon his home, I felt that there was more in him

than could be discovered in casual gossip; I wished to know him better.

Something of shyness marked his manner, and like all shy men he sometimes

appeared arrogant. He had a habit of twisting his moustache nervously and

of throwing quick glances in every direction as he talked; if he found some

one's eye upon him, he pulled himself together and sat for a moment as if

before a photographer. One easily perceived that he was not a man of

liberal education; he had rather too much of the 'society' accent; his

pronunciation of foreign names told a tale. But I thought him good-hearted,

and when the penny-a-liners began to busy themselves with his affairs, I

felt sorry for him.

Nothing to his dishonour came out in the trial. He and his interesting

spouse had evidently lived a cat-and-dog life throughout the three years of

their marriage, but the countercharges brought against him broke down

completely. It was abundantly proved that he had _not_ kept a harem

somewhere near Leicester Square; that he had _not_ thrown a decanter at

Mrs. Ireton. She, on the other hand, left the court with tattered

reputation. Ireton got his release, and the weekly papers applauded.

But in Mortimer Street we saw him no more. Some one said that he had gone

to live in Paris; some one else reported that he had purchased an estate in

Bucks. Presently he was forgotten.

Some three years went by, and I was spending the autumn at a village by the

New Forest. One day I came upon a man kneeling under a hedge, examining

some object on the ground,--fern or flower, or perhaps insect. His costume

showed that he was no native of the locality; I took him for a stray

townsman, probably a naturalist. He wore a straw hat and a rough summer

suit; a wallet hung from his shoulder. The sound of my steps on crackling

wood caused him to turn and look at me. After a moment's hesitation I

recognised Ireton.

And he knew me; he smiled, as I had often seen him smile, with a sort of

embarrassment. We greeted each other.

'Look here,' he said at once, when the handshaking was over, 'can you tell

me what this little flower is?'

I stooped, but was unable to give him the information he desired.

'You don't go in for that kind of thing?'

'Well, no.'

'I'm having a turn at it. I want to know the flowers and ferns. I have a

book at my lodgings, and I look the things up when I get home.'

His wallet contained a number of specimens; he plucked up the little plant

by the root, and stowed it away. I watched him with curiosity. Perhaps I

had seen only his public side; perhaps even then he was capable of dressing

roughly, and of rambling for his pleasure among fields and wood. But such a

possibility had never occurred to me. I wondered whether his brilliant wife

had given him a disgust for the ways of town. If so, he was a more

interesting man than I had supposed.

'Where are you staying?' he asked, after a glance this way and that.

I named the village, two miles away.

'Working?'

'Idling merely.'

In a few minutes he overcame his reserve and began to talk of the things

which he knew interested me. We discussed the books of the past season, the

exhibitions, the new men in letters and art. Ireton said that he had been

living at a wayside inn for about a week; he thought of moving on, and, as

I had nothing to do, suppose he came over for a few days to the village

where I was camped? I welcomed the proposal.

'There's an inn, I dare say? I like the little inns in this part of the

country. Dirty, of course, and the cooking hideous; but it's pleasant for a

change. I like to be awoke by the cock crowing, and to see the grubby

little window when I open my eyes.'

I began to suspect that he had come down in the world. Could his prosperity

have been due to Mrs. Treton? Had she carried off the money? He might

affect a liking for simple things when grandeur was no longer in his reach.

Yet I remembered that he had undoubtedly been botanising before he knew of

my approach, and such a form of pastime seemed to prove him sincere.

By chance I witnessed his arrival the next morning. He drove up in a

farmer's trap, his luggage a couple of large Gladstone-bags. That day and

the next we spent many hours together. His vanity, though not outgrown, was

in abeyance; he talked with easy frankness, yet never of what I much

desired to know, his own history and present position. It was his intellect

that he revealed to me. I gathered that he had given much time to study

during the past three years, and incidentally it came out that he had been

living abroad; his improved pronunciation of the names of French artists

was very noticeable. At his age--not less than forty-five--this advance

argued no common mental resources. Whether he had suffered much, I could

not determine; at present he seemed light-hearted enough.

Certainly there was no affectation in his pursuit of botany; again and

again I saw him glow with genuine delight when he had identified a plant.

After all, this might be in keeping with his character, for even in the old

days he had never exhibited--at all events to me--a taste for the ignobler

luxuries, and he had seemed to me a very clean-minded man. I never knew any

one who refrained so absolutely from allusion, good or bad, to his friends

or acquaintances. He might have stood utterly alone in the world, a simple

spectator of civilisation.

At length I ventured upon a question.

'You never see any of the Mortimer Street men?'

'No,' he answered carelessly, 'I haven't come in their way lately,

somehow.'

That evening our ramble led us into an enclosure where game was preserved.

We had lost our way, and Ireton, scornful of objections, struck across

country, making for a small plantation which he thought he remembered.

Here, among the trees, we were suddenly face to face with an old gentleman

of distinguished bearing, who regarded us sternly.

'Is it necessary,' he said, 'to tell you that you are trespassing?'

The tone was severe, but not offensive. I saw my companion draw himself to

his full height.

'Not at all necessary,' he answered, in a voice that surprised me, it was

so nearly insolent. 'We are making our way to the road as quickly as

possible.'

'Then be so good as to take the turning to the right when you reach the

field,' said our admonisher coldly. And he turned his back upon us.

I looked at Ireton. To my astonishment he was pallid, the lines of his

countenance indicating fiercest wrath. He marched on in silence till we had

reached the field.

'The fellow took us for cheap-trippers, I suppose,' then burst from his

lips.

'Not very likely.'

'Then why the devil did he speak like that?'

The grave reproof had exasperated him; he was flushed and his hands

trembled. I observed him with the utmost interest, and it became clear from

the angry words he poured forth that he could not endure to be supposed

anything but a gentleman at large. Here was the old characteristic; it had

merely been dormant. I tried to laugh him out of his irritation, but soon

saw that the attempt was dangerous. On the way home he talked very little;

the encounter in the wood had thoroughly upset him.

Next morning he came into my room with a laugh that I did not like; he

seated himself stiffly, looked at me from beneath his knitted brows, and

said in an aggressive tone:

'I have got to know all about that impudent old fellow.'

'Indeed? Who is he?'

'A poverty-stricken squire, with an old house and a few acres--the remnants

of a large estate gambled away by his father. I know him by name, and I'm

quite sure that he knows me. If I had offered him my card, as I thought of

doing, I dare say his tone would have changed.'

This pettishness amused me so much that I pretended to be a little sore

myself.

'His poverty, I suppose, has spoilt his temper.'

'No doubt,--I can understand that,' he added, with a smile. 'But I don't

allow people to treat me like a tramp. I shall go up and see him this

afternoon.'

'And insist on an apology?'

'Oh, there'll be no need of insisting. The fellow has several unmarried

daughters.'

It seemed to me that my companion was bent on showing his worst side. I

returned to my old thoughts of him; he was snobbish, insolent, generally

detestable; but a man to be studied, and I let him talk as he would.

The reduced squire was Mr. Humphrey Armitage, of Brackley Hall. For my own

part, the demeanour of this gentleman had seemed perfectly adapted to the

occasion; we were strangers plunging through his preserves, and his tone to

us had nothing improper; it was we who owed an apology. In point of

breeding, I felt sure that Ireton could not compare with Mr. Armitage for a

moment, and it seemed to me vastly improbable that the invader of Brackley

Hall would meet with the kind of reception he anticipated.

I saw Ireton when he set out to pay his call. His Gladstone-bags had

provided him with the costume of Piccadilly; from shining hat to

patent-leather shoes, he was immaculate. Seeing that he had to walk more

than a mile, that the month was September, and that he could not pretend to

have come straight from town, this apparel struck me as not a little

inappropriate; I could only suppose that the man had no social tact.

At seven in the evening he again sought me. His urban glories were

exchanged for the ordinary attire, but I at once read in his face that he

had suffered no humiliation.

'Come and dine with me at the inn,' he exclaimed cordially; 'if one may use

such a word as _dine_ under the circumstances.'

'With pleasure.'

'To-morrow I dine with the Armitages.'

He regarded me with an air of infinite satisfaction. Surprised, I held my

peace. 'It was as I foresaw. The old fellow welcomed me with open arms. His

daughters gave me tea. I had really a very pleasant time.'

I mused and wondered.

'You didn't expect it; I can see that.'

'You told me that Mr. Armitage would recognise your name,' I answered

evasively.

'Precisely. Not long ago I gave him, through an agent, a very handsome

price for some pictures he had to sell.'

Again he looked at me, watching the effect of his words.

'Of course,' he continued, 'there were ample apologies for his treatment of

us yesterday. By the bye, I take it for granted you don't carry a

dress-suit in your bag?'

'Heaven forbid!'

'To be sure--pray don't misunderstand me. I meant that you had expressly

told me of your avoidance of all such formalities. Therefore you will be

glad that I excused you from dining at the Hall.'

For a moment I felt uncomfortable, but after all I _was_ glad not to have

the trouble of refusing on my own account.

'Thanks,' I said, 'you did the right thing.'

We walked over to the inn, and sat down at a rude but not unsatisfying

table. After dinner, Ireton proposed that we should smoke in the garden.

'It's quiet, and we can talk.' The sun had just set; the sky was

magnificent with afterglow. Ireton's hint about privacy led me to hope that

he was going to talk more confidentially than hitherto, and I soon found

that I was not mistaken.

'Do you know,' he began, calling me by my name, 'I fancy you have been

criticising me--yes, I know you have. You think I made an ass of myself

about that affair in the wood. Well, I have no doubt I did. Now that it has

turned out pleasantly, I can see and admit that there was nothing to make a

fuss about.'

I smiled.

'Very well. Now, you're a writer. You like to get at the souls of men.

Suppose I show you a bit of mine.'

He had drunk freely of the potent ale, and was now sipping a strong tumbler

of hot whisky. Possibly this accounted in some measure for his

communicativeness.

'Up to the age of five-and-twenty I was clerk in a drug warehouse. To this

day even the faintest smell of drugs makes my heart sink. If I can help it,

I never go into a chemist's shop. I was getting a pound a week, and I not

only lived on it, but kept up a decent appearance. I always had a good suit

of clothes for Sundays and holidays--made at a tailor's in Holborn. Since

he disappeared I've never been able to find any one who fitted me so well.

I paid six-and-six a week for a top bedroom in a street near Gray's Inn

Road. Did you suppose I had gone through the mill?'

I made no answer, and, after looking at me for a moment, Ireton resumed:

'Those were damned days! It wasn't the want of good food and good lodgings

that troubled me most,--but the feeling that I was everybody's inferior.

There's no need to tell you how I was brought up; I was led to expect

better things, that's enough. I never got used to being ordered about. When

I was told to do this or that, I answered with a silent curse,--and I

wonder it didn't come out sometimes. That's my nature. If I had been born

the son of a duke, I couldn't have resented a subordinate position more

fiercely than I did. And I used to rack my brain with schemes for getting

out of it. Many a night I have lain awake for hours, trying to hit on some

way of earning my living independently. I planned elaborate forgeries. I

read criminal cases in the newspapers to get a hint that I might work upon.

Well, that only means that I had exhausted all the honest attempts, and

found them all no good. I was in despair, that's all.'

He finished his whisky and shouted to the landlord, who presently brought

him another glass.

'What's that bird making the strange noise?'

'A night-jar, I think.'

'Nice to be sitting here, isn't it? I had rather be here than in the

swellest London club. Well, I was going to tell you how I got out of that

beastly life. You know, I'm really a very quiet fellow. I like simple

things; but all my life, till just lately, I never had a chance of enjoying

them; of living as I chose. The one thing I can't stand is to feel that I

am looked down upon. That makes a madman of me.'

He drank, and struck a match to relight his pipe.

'One Saturday afternoon I went to an exhibition in Coventry Street. The

pictures were for sale, and admission was free. I have always been fond of

water-colours; at that time it was one of my ambitions to possess a really

good bit of landscape in water-colour but, of course, I knew that the

prices were beyond me. Well, I walked through the gallery, and there was

one thing that caught my fancy; I kept going back to it again and again. It

was a bit of sea-coast by Ewart Merry,--do you know him? He died years ago;

his pictures fetch a fairly good price now. As I was looking at it, the

fellow who managed the show came up with a man and woman to talk about

another picture near me; he tried his hardest to persuade them to buy, but

they wouldn't, and I dare say it disturbed his temper. Seeing him stand

there alone, I stepped up to him, and asked the price of the water-colour.

He just gave a look at me, and said, "Too much money for you."

'Now, you must remember that I was in my best clothes, and I certainly

didn't look like a penniless clerk. If the fellow had struck a blow at me,

I couldn't have been more astonished than I was by that answer.

Astonishment was the first feeling, and it lasted about a second; then my

heart gave a great leap, and began to beat violently, and for a moment I

couldn't see anything, and I felt hot and cold by turns. I can remember

this as well as if it happened yesterday; I must have gone through it in

memory many thousands of times.'

I observed his face, and saw that even now he suffered from the

recollection.

'When he had spoken, the blackguard turned away. I couldn't move, and the

wonder is that I didn't swallow his insult, and sneak out of the place,--I

was so accustomed, you see, to repress myself. But of a sudden something

took hold of me, and pushed me forward,--it really didn't seem to be my own

will. I said, "Wait a minute"; and the man turned round. Then I stood

looking him in the eyes. "Are you here," I said, "to sell pictures, or to

insult people who come to buy?" I must have spoken in a voice he didn't

expect; he couldn't answer, and stared at me. "I asked you the price of

that water-colour, and you will be good enough to answer me civilly." Those

were my very words. They came without thinking, and afterwards I felt

satisfied with myself when I remembered them. It wouldn't have been

unnatural if I had sworn at him, but this was the turning-point of my life,

and I behaved in a way that surprised myself. At last he replied, "The

price is forty guineas," and he was going off again, but I stopped him. "I

will buy it. Take my name and address." "When will it be paid for?" he

asked. "On Monday."

'I followed him to the table, and he entered my name and address in a book.

Then I looked straight at him again. "Now, you understand," I said, "that

that picture is mine, and I shall either come or send for it about one

o'clock on Monday. If I hadn't wanted it specially, you would have lost a

sale by your impertinence." And I marched out of the room.

'But I was in a fearful state. I didn't know where I was going,--I walked

straight on, street after street, and just missed being run over half a

dozen times. Perspiration dripped from me. The only thing I knew was that I

had triumphed over a damned brute who had insulted me. I had stopped his

mouth; he believed he had made a stupid mistake; he could never have

imagined that a fellow without a sovereign in the world was speaking to him

like that. If I had knocked him down the satisfaction would have been very

slight in comparison.'

The gloom of nightfall had come upon us, and I could no longer see his face

distinctly, but his voice told me that he still savoured that triumph. He

spoke with exultant passion. I was beginning to understand Ireton.

'Isn't the story interesting?' he asked, after a pause.

'Very. Pray go on.'

'Well, you mustn't suppose that it was a mere bit of crazy bravado. I knew

how I was going to get the money--the forty guineas. And as soon as I could

command myself, I went to do the business.

'A fellow-clerk in the drug warehouse had been badly in want of money not

long before that, and I knew he had borrowed twenty pounds from a loan

office, paying it back week by week, with heavy interest, out of his screw,

poor devil. I could do the same. I went straight off to the lender. It was

a fellow called Crowther; he lived in Dean Street, Soho; in a window on the

ground floor there was a card with "Sums from One pound to a Hundred lent

at short notice." I was lucky enough to find him at home; we did our

business in a little back room, where there was a desk and a couple of

chairs, and nothing else but dirt. I expected to find an oldish man, but he

seemed about my own age, and on the whole I didn't dislike the look of

him,--a rather handsome young fellow, fairly well dressed, with a taking

sort of smile. I began by telling him where I was employed, and mentioned

my fellow-clerk, whom he knew. That made him quite cheerful; he offered me

a drink, and we got on very well. But he thought forty guineas a big sum;

would I tell him what I wanted it for? No, I wouldn't do that. Well, how

long would it take me to pay it back? Could I pay a pound a week? No, I

couldn't. He began to shake his head and to look at me thoughtfully. Then

he asked no end of questions, to find out who I was and what people I had

belonging to me, and what my chances were. Then he made me have another

drink, and at last I was persuaded into telling him the whole story. First

of all he stared, and then he laughed; I never saw a man laugh more

heartily. At last he said, "Why didn't you tell me you had value in hand?

See here, I'll look at that picture on Monday morning, and I shouldn't

wonder if we can do business." This alarmed me,--I was afraid he might get

talking to the picture-dealer. But he promised not to say a word about me.

'On Sunday I sent a note to the warehouse, saying that I should not be able

to come to business till Monday afternoon. It was the first time I had ever

done such a thing, and I knew I could invent some story to excuse myself.

Most of that day I spent in bed; I didn't feel myself, yet it was still a

great satisfaction to me that I had got the better of that brute. On Monday

at twelve I kept the appointment in Dean Street. Crowther hadn't come in,

and I sat for a few minutes quaking. When he turned up, he was quite

cheerful. "Look here!" he said, "will you sell me that picture for thirty

pounds?" "What then?" I asked. "Why, then you can pay me another thirty

pounds, and I'll give you twelve months to do it in. You shall have your

forty guineas at once." I tried to reflect, but I was too agitated.

However, I saw that to pay thirty pounds in a year meant that I must live

on about eight shillings a week. "I don't know how I'm to do it," I said.

He looked at me. "Well, I won't be hard on you. Look here, you shall pay me

six bob a week till the thirty quid's made up. Now, you can do _that_?" Yes

I could do that, and I agreed. In another ten minutes our business was

settled,--my signature was so shaky that I might safely have disowned it

afterwards. Then we had a drink at a neighbouring pub, and we walked

together towards Coventry Street. Crowther was to wait for me near the

picture-dealer's.

'I entered with a bold step, promising myself pleasure in a new triumph

over the brute. But he wasn't there. I saw only an under-strapper. I had no

time to lose, for I must be at business by two o'clock. I paid the

money--notes and gold--and took away the picture under my arm. Of course,

it had been removed from the frame in which I first saw it, and the

assistant wrapped it up for me in brown paper. At the street corner I

surrendered it to Crowther. "Come and see me after business to-morrow," he

said, "I should like to have a bit more talk with you."

'So I had come out of it gloriously. I cared nothing about losing the

picture, and I didn't grieve over the six shillings a week that I should

have to pay for the next two years. If I went into that gallery again, I

should be treated respectfully--that was sufficient.'

He laughed, and for a minute or two we sat silent. From the inn sounded

rustic voices; the village worthies were gathered for their evening

conversation.

'That's the best part of my story,' said Ireton at length. 'What followed

is commonplace. Still, you might like to hear how I bridged the gulf, from

fourteen shillings a week to the position I now hold. Well, I got very

intimate with Crowther, and found him really a very decent fellow. He had a

good many irons in the fire. Besides his loan office, which paid much

better than you would imagine, he had a turf commission agency, which

brought him in a good deal of money, and shortly after I met him he became

part proprietor of a club in Soho. He very soon talked to me in the

frankest way of all his doings; I think he was glad to be on friendly terms

with me simply because I was better educated and could behave decently. I

don't think he ever did anything illegal, and he had plenty of good

feeling,--but that didn't prevent him from squeezing eighty per cent, or so

out of many a poor devil who had borrowed to save himself or his family

from starvation. That was all business; he drew the sharpest distinctions

between business and private relations, and was very ignorant. I never knew

a man so superstitious. Every day he consulted signs and omens. For

instance, to decide whether the day was to be lucky for him--in betting and

so on--he would stand at a street corner and count the number of white

horses that passed in five minutes; if he had made up his mind on an even

number, and an even number passed, then he felt safe in following his

impulses for the day; if the number were odd, he would do little or no

speculation. When he was going to play cards for money, he would find a

beggar and give him something, even if he had to walk a great distance to

do it. He often used to visit an Italian who kept fortune-telling canaries,

and he always followed the advice he got. It put him out desperately if he

saw the new moon through glass, or over his left shoulder. There was no end

to his superstitions, and, whether by reason of them or in spite of them,

he certainly prospered. When he died, ten or twelve years ago, he left

fifteen thousand pounds.

'I have to thank him for my own good luck. "Look here," he said to me,

"it's only duffers that go on quill-driving at a quid a week. A fellow like

you ought to be doing better." "Show me the way," I said. And I was ready

to do whatever he told me. I had a furious hunger for money; the adventure

in Coventry Street had thoroughly unsettled me, and I would have turned

burglar rather than go on much longer as a wretched slave, looked down upon

by everybody, and exposed to insult at every corner. I dreamed of

money-making, and woke up feverish with determination. At last Crowther

gave me a few jobs to do for him in my off-time. They weren't very nice

jobs, and I shouldn't like to explain them to you; but they brought me in

half a sovereign now and then. I began to get an insight into the baser

modes of filling one's pocket. Then something happened; my mother died, and

I became the owner of a house at Notting Hill of fifty pounds rental. I

talked over my situation with Crowther, and he advised me, as it turned

out, thoroughly well. I was to raise money on this house,--not to sell

it,--and take shares in a new music-hall which Crowther was connected with.

There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you; it was the Marlborough. I did

take shares, and at the end of the second twelve months I was drawing a

dividend of sixty per cent. I have never drawn less than thirty, and the

year before last we touched seventy-five. At present I am a shareholder in

three other halls,--and they don't do badly.

'I suppose it isn't only good luck; no doubt I have a sort of talent for

money-making, but I never knew it before I met Crowther. By just opening my

eyes to the fact that money could be earned in other ways than at the

regular kinds of employment, he gave me a start, and I went ahead. There

isn't a man in the world has suffered more than I have for want of money,

and no one ever worked with a fiercer resolve to get out of the hell of

contemptible poverty. It would fill a book, the history of my money-making.

The first big sum I ever was possessed of came to me at the age of

two-and-thirty, when I sold a proprietary club (the one Crowther had a

share in and which I had ultimately got into my own hands) for nine

thousand pounds; but I owed about half of this. I went on and on, and I got

into society; _that_ came through the Marlborough,--a good story, but I

mustn't tell it. At last I married--a rich woman.'

He paused, and I thought, but was not quite sure, that I heard him sigh.

'We won't talk about that either. I shall not marry a rich woman again,

that's all. In fact, I don't care for such people; my best friends, real

friends, are all more or less strugglers, and perhaps there's no harm in

saying that it gives me pleasure to help them when I've a chance. I like to

buy a picture of a poor devil artist. I like to smoke my pipe with good

fellows who never go out of their way for money's sake. All the same, it's

a good thing to be well off. But for that, now, I couldn't make the

acquaintance of such people as these at Brackley Hall. I more than half

like them. Old Armitage is a gentleman, and looks back upon generations of

gentlemen, his ancestors. Ah! you can't buy that! And his daughters are

devilish nice girls, with sweet soft voices. I'm glad the old fellow met us

yesterday.'

It was now dark; I looked up and saw the stars brightening. We sat for

another quarter of an hour, each busy with his own thoughts, then rose and

parted for the night.

A week later, when I returned to London, Ireton was still living at the

little inn, and a letter I received from him at the beginning of October

told me he had just left. 'The country was exquisite that last week,' he

wrote;--and it struck me that 'exquisite' was a word he must have caught

from some one else's lips.

I heard from him again in the following January. He wrote from the Isle of

Wight, and informed me that in the spring he was to be married to Miss

Ethel Armitage, second daughter of Humphrey Armitage, Esq., of Brackley

Hall.

CHRISTOPHERSON

It was twenty years ago, and on an evening in May. All day long there had

been sunshine. Owing, doubtless, to the incident I am about to relate, the

light and warmth of that long-vanished day live with me still; I can see

the great white clouds that moved across the strip of sky before my window,

and feel again the spring languor which troubled my solitary work in the

heart of London.

Only at sunset did I leave the house. There was an unwonted sweetness in

the air; the long vistas of newly lit lamps made a golden glow under the

dusking flush of the sky. With no purpose but to rest and breathe, I

wandered for half an hour, and found myself at length where Great Portland

Street opens into Marylebone Road. Over the way, in the shadow of Trinity

Church, was an old bookshop, well known to me: the gas-jet shining upon the

stall with its rows of volumes drew me across. I began turning over pages,

and--invariable consequence--fingering what money I had in my pocket. A

certain book overcame me; I stepped into the little shop to pay for it.

While standing at the stall, I had been vaguely aware of some one beside

me, a man who also was looking over the books; as I came out again with my

purchase, this stranger gazed at me intently, with a half-smile of peculiar

interest. He seemed about to say something. I walked slowly away; the man

moved in the same direction. Just in front of the church he made a quick

movement to my side, and spoke.

'Pray excuse me, sir--don't misunderstand me--I only wished to ask whether

you have noticed the name written on the flyleaf of the book you have just

bought?'

The respectful nervousness of his voice naturally made me suppose at first

that the man was going to beg; but he seemed no ordinary mendicant. I

judged him to be about sixty years of age; his long, thin hair and

straggling beard were grizzled, and a somewhat rheumy eye looked out from

his bloodless, hollowed countenance; he was very shabbily clad, yet as a

fallen gentleman, and indeed his accent made it clear to what class he

originally belonged. The expression with which he regarded me had so much

intelligence, so much good-nature, and at the same time such a pathetic

diffidence, that I could not but answer him in the friendliest way. I had

not seen the name on the flyleaf, but at once I opened the book, and by the

light of a gas-lamp read, inscribed in a very fine hand, 'W. R.

Christopherson, 1849.'

'It is my name,' said the stranger, in a subdued and uncertain voice.

'Indeed? The book used to belong to you?'

'It belonged to me.' He laughed oddly, a tremulous little crow of a laugh,

at the same time stroking his head, as if to deprecate disbelief. 'You

never heard of the sale of the Christopherson library? To be sure, you were

too young; it was in 1860. I have often come across books with my name in

them on the stalls--often. I had happened to notice this just before you

came up, and when I saw you look at it, I was curious to see whether you

would buy it. Pray excuse the freedom I am taking. Lovers of books--don't

you think--?'

The broken question was completed by his look, and when I said that I quite

understood and agreed with him he crowed his little laugh.

'Have you a large library?' he inquired, eyeing me wistfully.

'Oh dear, no. Only a few hundred volumes. Too many for one who has no house

of his own.'

He smiled good-naturedly, bent his head, and murmured just audibly:

'My catalogue numbered 24,718.'

I was growing curious and interested. Venturing no more direct questions, I

asked whether, at the time he spoke of, he lived in London.

'If you have five minutes to spare,' was the timid reply, 'I will show you

my house. I mean'--again the little crowing laugh--'the house which _was_

mine.'

Willingly I walked on with him. He led me a short distance up the road

skirting Regent's Park, and paused at length before a house in an imposing

terrace.

'There,' he whispered, 'I used to live. The window to the right of the

door--that was my library. Ah!'

And he heaved a deep sigh.

'A misfortune befell you,' I said, also in a subdued voice.

'The result of my own folly. I had enough for my needs, but thought I

needed more. I let myself be drawn into business--I, who knew nothing of

such things--and there came the black day--the black day.'

We turned to retrace our steps, and walking slowly, with heads bent, came

in silence again to the church.

'I wonder whether you have bought any other of my books?' asked

Christopherson, with his gentle smile, when we had paused as if for

leave-taking.

I replied that I did not remember to have come across his name before;

then, on an impulse, asked whether he would care to have the book I carried

in my hand; if so, with pleasure I would give it him. No sooner were the

words spoken than I saw the delight they caused the hearer. He hesitated,

murmured reluctance, but soon gratefully accepted my offer, and flushed

with joy as he took the volume.

'I still have a few books,' he said, under his breath, as if he spoke of

something he was ashamed to make known. 'But it is very rarely indeed that

I can add to them. I feel I have not thanked you half enough.'

We shook hands and parted.

My lodging at that time was in Camden Town. One afternoon, perhaps a

fortnight later, I had walked for an hour or two, and on my way back I

stopped at a bookstall in the High Street. Some one came up to my side; I

looked, and recognised Christopherson. Our greeting was like that of old

friends.

'I have seen you several times lately,' said the broken gentleman, who

looked shabbier than before in the broad daylight, 'but I--I didn't like to

speak. I live not far from here.'

'Why, so do I,' and I added, without much thinking what I said, 'do you

live alone?'

'Alone? oh no. With my wife.'

There was a curious embarrassment in his tone. His eyes were cast down and

his head moved uneasily.

We began to talk of the books on the stall, and turning away together

continued our conversation. Christopherson was not only a well-bred but a

very intelligent and even learned man. On his giving some proof of

erudition (with the excessive modesty which characterised him), I asked

whether he wrote. No, he had never written anything--never; he was only a

bookworm, he said. Thereupon he crowed faintly and took his leave.

It was not long before we again met by chance. We came face to face at a

street corner in my neighbourhood, and I was struck by a change in him. He

looked older; a profound melancholy darkened his countenance; the hand he

gave me was limp, and his pleasure at our meeting found only a faint

expression.

'I am going away,' he said in reply to my inquiring look. 'I am leaving

London.'

'For good?'

'I fear so, and yet'--he made an obvious effort--'I am glad of it. My

wife's health has not been very good lately. She has need of country air.

Yes, I am glad we have decided to go away--very glad--very glad indeed!'

He spoke with an automatic sort of emphasis, his eyes wandering, and his

hands twitching nervously. I was on the point of asking what part of the

country he had chosen for his retreat, when he abruptly added:

'I live just over there. Will you let me show you my books?'

Of course I gladly accepted the invitation, and a couple of minutes' walk

brought us to a house in a decent street where most of the ground-floor

windows showed a card announcing lodgings. As we paused at the door, my

companion seemed to hesitate, to regret having invited me.

'I'm really afraid it isn't worth your while,' he said timidly. 'The fact

is, I haven't space to show my books properly.'

I put aside the objection, and we entered. With anxious courtesy

Christopherson led me up the narrow staircase to the second-floor landing,

and threw open a door. On the threshold I stood astonished. The room was a

small one, and would in any case have only just sufficed for homely

comfort, used as it evidently was for all daytime purposes; but certainly a

third of the entire space was occupied by a solid mass of books, volumes

stacked several rows deep against two of the walls and almost up to the

ceiling. A round table and two or three chairs were the only

furniture--there was no room, indeed, for more. The window being shut, and

the sunshine glowing upon it, an intolerable stuffiness oppressed the air.

Never had I been made so uncomfortable by the odour of printed paper and

bindings.

'But,' I exclaimed, 'you said you had only a _few_ books! There must be

five times as many here as I have.'

'I forget the exact number,' murmured Christopherson, in great agitation.

'You see, I can't arrange them properly. I have a few more in--in the other

room.'

He led me across the landing, opened another door, and showed me a little

bedroom. Here the encumberment was less remarkable, but one wall had

completely disappeared behind volumes, and the bookishness of the air made

it a disgusting thought that two persons occupied this chamber every night.

We returned to the sitting-room, Christopherson began picking out books

from the solid mass to show me. Talking nervously, brokenly, with now and

then a deep sigh or a crow of laughter, he gave me a little light on his

history. I learnt that he had occupied these lodgings for the last eight

years; that he had been twice married; that the only child he had had, a

daughter by his first wife, had died long ago in childhood; and

lastly--this came in a burst of confidence, with a very pleasant

smile--that his second wife had been his daughter's governess. I listened

with keen interest, and hoped to learn still more of the circumstances of

this singular household.

'In the country,' I remarked, 'you will no doubt have shelf room?'

At once his countenance fell; he turned upon me a woebegone eye. Just as I

was about to speak again sounds from within the house caught my attention;

there was a heavy foot on the stairs, and a loud voice, which seemed

familiar to me.

'Ah!' exclaimed Christopherson with a start, 'here comes some one who is

going to help me in the removal of the books. Come in, Mr. Pomfret, come

in!'

The door opened, and there appeared a tall, wiry fellow, whose sandy hair,

light blue eyes, jutting jawbones, and large mouth made a picture

suggestive of small refinement but of vigorous and wholesome manhood. No

wonder I had seemed to recognise his voice. Though we only saw each other

by chance at long intervals, Pomfret and I were old acquaintances.

'Hallo!' he roared out, 'I didn't know you knew Mr. Christopherson.'

'I'm just as much surprised to find that _you_ know him!' was my reply.

The old book-lover gazed at us in nervous astonishment, then shook hands

with the newcomer, who greeted him bluffly, yet respectfully. Pomfret spoke

with a strong Yorkshire accent, and had all the angularity of demeanour

which marks the typical Yorkshireman. He came to announce that everything

had been settled for the packing and transporting of Mr. Christopherson's

library; it remained only to decide the day.

'There's no hurry,' exclaimed Christopherson. 'There's really no hurry. I'm

greatly obliged to you, Mr. Pomfret, for all the trouble you are taking.

We'll settle the date in a day or two--a day or two.'

With a good-humoured nod Pomfret moved to take his leave. Our eyes met; we

left the house together. Out in the street again I took a deep breath of

the summer air, which seemed sweet as in a meadow after that stifling room.

My companion evidently had a like sensation, for he looked up to the sky

and broadened out his shoulders.

'Eh, but it's a grand day! I'd give something for a walk on Ilkley Moors.'

As the best substitute within our reach we agreed to walk across Regent's

Park together. Pomfret's business took him in that direction, and I was

glad of a talk about Christopherson. I learnt that the old book-lover's

landlady was Pomfret's aunt. Christopherson's story of affluence and ruin

was quite true. Ruin complete, for at the age of forty he had been obliged

to earn his living as a clerk or something of the kind. About five years

later came his second marriage.

'You know Mrs. Christopherson?' asked Pomfret.

'No! I wish I did. Why?'

'Because she's the sort of woman it does you good to know, that's all.

She's a lady--_my_ idea of a lady. Christopherson's a gentleman too,

there's no denying it; if he wasn't, I think I should have punched his head

before now. Oh, I know 'em well! why, I lived in the house there with 'em

for several years. She's a lady to the end of her little finger, and how

her husband can 'a borne to see her living the life she has, it's more than

I can understand. By--! I'd have turned burglar, if I could 'a found no

other way of keeping her in comfort.'

'She works for her living, then?'

'Ay, and for his too. No, not teaching; she's in a shop in Tottenham Court

Road; has what they call a good place, and earns thirty shillings a week.

It's all they have, but Christopherson buys books out of it.'

'But has he never done anything since their marriage?'

'He did for the first few years, I believe, but he had an illness, and that

was the end of it. Since then he's only loafed. He goes to all the

book-sales, and spends the rest of his time sniffing about the second-hand

shops. She? Oh, she'd never say a word! Wait till you've seen her.'

'Well, but,' I asked, 'what has happened. How is it they're leaving

London?'

'Ay, I'll tell you; I was coming to that. Mrs. Christopherson has relatives

well off--a fat and selfish lot, as far as I can make out--never lifted a

finger to help her until now. One of them's a Mrs. Keeting, the widow of

some City porpoise, I'm told. Well, this woman has a home down in Norfolk.

She never lives there, but a son of hers goes there to fish and shoot now

and then. Well, this is what Mrs. Christopherson tells my aunt, Mrs.

Keeting has offered to let her and her husband live down yonder, rent free,

and their food provided. She's to be housekeeper, in fact, and keep the

place ready for any one who goes down.'

'Christopherson, _I_ can see, would rather stay where he is.'

'Why, of course, he doesn't know how he'll live without the bookshops. But

he's glad for all that, on his wife's account. And it's none too soon, I

can tell you. The poor woman couldn't go on much longer; my aunt says she's

just about ready to drop, and sometimes, I know, she looks terribly bad. Of

course, she won't own it, not she; she isn't one of the complaining sort.

But she talks now and then about the country--the places where she used to

live. I've heard her, and it gives me a notion of what she's gone through

all these years. I saw her a week ago, just when she had Mrs. Keeting's

offer, and I tell you I scarcely knew who it was! You never saw such a

change in any one in your life! Her face was like that of a girl of

seventeen. And her laugh--you should have heard her laugh!'

'Is she much younger than her husband?' I asked.

'Twenty years at least. She's about forty, I think.' I mused for a few

moments.

'After all, it isn't an unhappy marriage?'

'Unhappy?' cried Pomfret. 'Why, there's never been a disagreeable word

between them, that I'll warrant. Once Christopherson gets over the change,

they'll have nothing more in the world to ask for. He'll potter over his

books--'

'You mean to tell me,' I interrupted, 'that those books have all been

bought out of his wife's thirty shillings a week?'

'No, no. To begin with, he kept a few out of his old library. Then, when he

was earning his own living, he bought a great many. He told me once that

he's often lived on sixpence a day to have money for books. A rum old owl;

but for all that he's a gentleman, and you can't help liking him. I shall

be sorry when he's out of reach.'

For my own part, I wished nothing better than to hear of Christopherson's

departure. The story I had heard made me uncomfortable. It was good to

think of that poor woman rescued at last from her life of toil, and in

these days of midsummer free to enjoy the country she loved. A touch of

envy mingled, I confess, with my thought of Christopherson, who henceforth

had not a care in the world, and without reproach might delight in his

hoarded volumes. One could not imagine that he would suffer seriously by

the removal of his old haunts. I promised myself to call on him in a day or

two. By choosing Sunday, I might perhaps be lucky enough to see his wife.

And on Sunday afternoon I was on the point of setting forth to pay this

visit, when in came Pomfret. He wore a surly look, and kicked clumsily

against the furniture as he crossed the room. His appearance was a

surprise, for, though I had given him my address, I did not in the least

expect that he would come to see me; a certain pride, I suppose,

characteristic of his rugged strain, having always made him shy of such

intimacy.

'Did you ever hear the like of _that_!' he shouted, half angrily. 'It's all

over. They're not going! And all because of those blamed books!'

And spluttering and growling, he made known what he had just learnt at his

aunt's home. On the previous afternoon the Christophersons had been

surprised by a visit from their relatives and would-be benefactress, Mrs.

Keeting. Never before had that lady called upon them; she came, no doubt

(this could only be conjectured), to speak with them of their approaching

removal. The close of the conversation (a very brief one) was overheard by

the landlady, for Mrs. Keeting spoke loudly as she descended the stairs.

'Impossible! Quite impossible! I couldn't think of it! How could you dream

for a moment that I would let you fill my house with musty old books? Most

unhealthy! I never knew anything so extraordinary in my life, never!' And

so she went out to her carriage, and was driven away. And the landlady,

presently having occasion to go upstairs, was aware of a dead silence in

the room where the Christophersons were sitting. She knocked--prepared with

some excuse--and found the couple side by side, smiling sadly. At once they

told her the truth. Mrs. Keeting had come because of a letter in which Mrs.

Christopherson had mentioned the fact that her husband had a good many

books, and hoped he might be permitted to remove them to the house in

Norfolk. She came to see the library--with the result already heard. They

had the choice between sacrificing the books and losing what their relative

offered.

'Christopherson refused?' I let fall.

'I suppose his wife saw that it was too much for him. At all events, they'd

agreed to keep the books and lose the house. And there's an end of it. I

haven't been so riled about anything for a long time!'

Meantime I had been reflecting. It was easy for me to understand

Christopherson's state of mind, and without knowing Mrs. Keeting, I saw

that she must be a person whose benefactions would be a good deal of a

burden. After all, was Mrs. Christopherson so very unhappy? Was she not the

kind of woman who lived by sacrifice--one who had far rather lead a life

disagreeable to herself than change it at the cost of discomfort to her

husband? This view of the matter irritated Pomfret, and he broke into

objurgations, directed partly against Mrs. Keeting, partly against

Christopherson. It was an 'infernal shame,' that was all he could say. And

after all, I rather inclined to his opinion.

When two or three days had passed, curiosity drew me towards the

Christophersons' dwelling. Walking along the opposite side of the street, I

looked up at their window, and there was the face of the old bibliophile.

Evidently he was standing at the window in idleness, perhaps in trouble. At

once he beckoned to me; but before I could knock at the house-door he had

descended, and came out.

'May I walk a little way with you?' he asked.

There was worry on his features. For some moments we went on in silence.

'So you have changed your mind about leaving London?' I said, as if

carelessly.

'You have heard from Mr. Pomfret? Well--yes, yes--I think we shall stay

where we are--for the present.'

Never have I seen a man more painfully embarrassed. He walked with head

bent, shoulders stooping; and shuffled, indeed, rather than walked. Even so

might a man bear himself who felt guilty of some peculiar meanness.

Presently words broke from him.

'To tell you the truth, there's a difficulty about the books.' He glanced

furtively at me, and I saw he was trembling in all his nerves. 'As you see,

my circumstances are not brilliant.' He half-choked himself with a crow.

'The fact is we were offered a house in the country, on certain conditions,

by a relative of Mrs. Christopherson; and, unfortunately, it turned out

that my library is regarded as an objection--a fatal objection. We have

quite reconciled ourselves to staying where we are.'

I could not help asking, without emphasis, whether Mrs. Christopherson

would have cared for life in the country. But no sooner were the words out

of my mouth than I regretted them, so evidently did they hit my companion

in a tender place.

'I think she would have liked it,' he answered, with a strangely pathetic

look at me, as if he entreated my forbearance.

'But,' I suggested, 'couldn't you make some arrangements about the books?

Couldn't you take a room for them in another house, for instance?'

Christopherson's face was sufficient answer; it reminded me of his

pennilessness. 'We think no more about it,' he said. 'The matter is

settled--quite settled.'

There was no pursuing the subject. At the next parting of the ways we took

leave of each other.

I think it was not more than a week later when I received a postcard from

Pomfret. He wrote: 'Just as I expected. Mrs. C. seriously ill.' That was

all.

Mrs. C. could, of course, only mean Mrs. Christopherson. I mused over the

message--it took hold of my imagination, wrought upon my feelings; and that

afternoon I again walked along the interesting street.

There was no face at the window. After a little hesitation I decided to

call at the house and speak with Pomfret's aunt. It was she who opened the

door to me.

We had never seen each other, but when I mentioned my name and said I was

anxious to have news of Mrs. Christopherson, she led me into a

sitting-room, and began to talk confidentially.

She was a good-natured Yorkshirewoman, very unlike the common London

landlady. 'Yes, Mrs. Christopherson had been taken ill two days ago. It

began with a long fainting fit. She had a feverish, sleepless night; the

doctor was sent for; and he had her removed out of the stuffy,

book-cumbered bedroom into another chamber, which luckily happened to be

vacant. There she lay utterly weak and worn, all but voiceless, able only

to smile at her husband, who never moved from the bedside day or night. He,

too,' said the landlady, 'would soon break down: he looked like a ghost,

and seemed "half-crazed."'

'What,' I asked, 'could be the cause of this illness?'

The good woman gave me an odd look, shook her head, and murmured that the

reason was not far to seek.

'Did she think,' I asked, 'that disappointment might have something to do

with it?'

Why, of course she did. For a long time the poor lady had been all but at

the end of her strength, and _this_ came as a blow beneath which she sank.

'Your nephew and I have talked about it,' I said. 'He thinks that Mr.

Christopherson didn't understand what a sacrifice he asked his wife to

make.'

'I think so too,' was the reply. 'But he begins to see it now, I can tell

you. He says nothing but.'

There was a tap at the door, and a hurried tremulous voice begged the

landlady to go upstairs.

'What is it, sir?' she asked.

'I'm afraid she's worse,' said Christopherson, turning his haggard face to

me with startled recognition. 'Do come up at once, please.'

Without a word to me he disappeared with the landlady. I could not go away;

for some ten minutes I fidgeted about the little room, listening to every

sound in the house. Then came a footfall on the stairs, and the landlady

rejoined me.

'It's nothing,' she said. 'I almost think she might drop off to sleep, if

she's left quiet. He worries her, poor man, sitting there and asking her

every two minutes how she feels. I've persuaded him to go to his room, and

I think it might do him good if you went and had a bit o' talk with him.'

I mounted at once to the second-floor sitting-room, and found

Christopherson sunk upon a chair, his head falling forwards, the image of

despairing misery. As I approached he staggered to his feet. He took my

hand in a shrinking, shamefaced way, and could not raise his eyes. I

uttered a few words of encouragement, but they had the opposite effect to

that designed.

'Don't tell me that,' he moaned, half resentfully. 'She's dying--she's

dying--say what they will, I know it.'

'Have you a good doctor?'

'I think so--but it's too late--it's too late.'

As he dropped to his chair again I sat down by him. The silence of a minute

or two was broken by a thunderous rat-tat at the house-door. Christopherson

leapt to his feet, rushed from the room; I, half fearing that he had gone

mad, followed to the head of the stairs.

In a moment he came up again, limp and wretched as before.

'It was the postman,' he muttered. 'I am expecting a letter.'

Conversation seeming impossible, I shaped a phrase preliminary to

withdrawal; but Christopherson would not let me go.

'I should like to tell you,' he began, looking at me like a dog under

punishment, 'that I have done all I could. As soon as my wife fell ill, and

when I saw--I had only begun to think of it in that way--how she felt the

disappointment, I went at once to Mrs. Keeting's house to tell her that I

would sell the books. But she was out of town. I wrote to her--I said I

regretted my folly--I entreated her to forgive me and to renew her kind

offer. There has been plenty of time for a reply, but she doesn't answer.'

He had in his hand what I saw was a bookseller's catalogue, just delivered

by the postman. Mechanically he tore off the wrapper and even glanced over

the first page. Then, as if conscience stabbed him, he flung the thing

violently away.

'The chance has gone!' he exclaimed, taking a hurried step or two along the

little strip of floor left free by the mountain of books. 'Of course she

said she would rather stay in London! Of course she said what she knew

would please me! When--when did she ever say anything else! And I was cruel

enough--base enough--to let her make the sacrifice!' He waved his arms

frantically. 'Didn't I know what it cost her? Couldn't I see in her face

how her heart leapt at the hope of going to live in the country! I knew

what she was suffering; I _knew_ it, I tell you! And, like a selfish

coward, I let her suffer--I let her drop down and die--die!'

'Any hour,' I said, 'may bring you the reply from Mrs. Keeting. Of course

it will be favourable, and the good news--'

'Too late, I have killed her! That woman won't write. She's one of the

vulgar rich, and we offended her pride; and such as she never forgive.'

He sat down for a moment, but started up again in an agony of mental

suffering.

'She is dying--and there, there, that's what has killed her!' He

gesticulated wildly towards the books. 'I have sold her life for those.

Oh!--oh!'

With this cry he seized half a dozen volumes, and, before I could

understand what he was about, he had flung up the window-sash, and cast the

books into the street. Another batch followed; I heard the thud upon the

pavement. Then I caught him by the arm, held him fast, begged him to

control himself.

'They shall all go!' he cried. 'I loathe the sight of them. They have

killed my dear wife!'

He said it sobbing, and at the last words tears streamed from his eyes. I

had no difficulty now in restraining him. He met my look with a gaze of

infinite pathos, and talked on while he wept.

'If you knew what she has been to me! When she married me I was a ruined

man twenty years older. I have given her nothing but toil and care. You

shall know everything--for years and years I have lived on the earnings of

her labour. Worse than that, I have starved and stinted her to buy books.

Oh, the shame of it! The wickedness of it! It was my vice--the vice that

enslaved me just as if it had been drinking or gambling. I couldn't resist

the temptation--though every day I cried shame upon myself and swore to

overcome it. She never blamed me; never a word--nay, not a look--of a

reproach. I lived in idleness. I never tried to save her that daily toil at

the shop. Do you know that she worked in a shop?--She, with her knowledge

and her refinement leading such a life as that! Think that I have passed

the shop a thousand times, coming home with a book in my hands! I had the

heart to pass, and to think of her there! Oh! Oh!'

Some one was knocking at the door. I went to open, and saw the landlady,

her face set in astonishment, and her arms full of books.

'It's all right,' I whispered. 'Put them down on the floor there; don't

bring them in. An accident.'

Christopherson stood behind me; his look asked what he durst not speak. I

said it was nothing, and by degrees brought him into a calmer state.

Luckily, the doctor came before I went away, and he was able to report a

slight improvement. The patient had slept a little and seemed likely to

sleep again. Christopherson asked me to come again before long--there was

no one else, he said, who cared anything about him--and I promised to call

the next day.

I did so, early in the afternoon. Christopherson must have watched for my

coming: before I could raise the knocker the door flew open, and his face

gleamed such a greeting as astonished me. He grasped my hand in both his.

'The letter has come! We are to have the house.'

'And how is Mrs. Christopherson?'

'Better, much better, Heaven be thanked! She slept almost from the time

when you left yesterday afternoon till early this morning. The letter came

by the first post, and I told her--not the whole truth,' he added, under

his breath. 'She thinks I am to be allowed to take the books with me; and

if you could have seen her smile of contentment. But they will all be sold

and carried away before she knows about it; and when she sees that I don't

care a snap of the fingers!'

He had turned into the sitting-room on the ground floor. Walking about

excitedly, Christopherson gloried in the sacrifice he had made. Already a

letter was despatched to a bookseller, who would buy the whole library as

it stood. But would he not keep a few volumes? I asked. Surely there could

be no objection to a few shelves of books; and how would he live without

them? At first he declared vehemently that not a volume should be kept--he

never wished to see a book again as long as he lived. But Mrs.

Christopherson? I urged. Would she not be glad of something to read now and

then? At this he grew pensive. We discussed the matter, and it was arranged

that a box should be packed with select volumes and taken down into Norfolk

together with the rest of their luggage. Not even Mrs. Keeting could object

to this, and I strongly advised him to take her permission for granted.

And so it was done. By discreet management the piled volumes were stowed in

bags, carried downstairs, emptied into a cart, and conveyed away, so

quietly that the sick woman was aware of nothing. In telling me about it,

Christopherson crowed as I had never heard him; but methought his eye

avoided that part of the floor which had formerly been hidden, and in the

course of our conversation he now and then became absent, with head bowed.

Of the joy he felt in his wife's recovery there could, however, be no

doubt. The crisis through which he had passed had made him, in appearance,

a yet older man; when he declared his happiness tears came into his eyes,

and his head shook with a senile tremor.

Before they left London, I saw Mrs. Christopherson--a pale, thin, slightly

made woman, who had never been what is called good-looking, but her face,

if ever face did so, declared a brave and loyal spirit. She was not joyous,

she was not sad; but in her eyes, as I looked at them again and again, I

read the profound thankfulness of one to whom fate has granted her soul's

desire.

HUMPLEBEE

The school was assembled for evening prayers, some threescore boys

representing for the most part the well-to-do middle class of a

manufacturing county. At either end of the room glowed a pleasant fire, for

it was February and the weather had turned to frost.

Silence reigned, but on all the young faces turned to where the headmaster

sat at his desk appeared an unwonted expression, an eager expectancy, as

though something out of the familiar routine were about to happen. When the

master's voice at length sounded, he did not read from the book before him;

gravely, slowly, he began to speak of an event which had that day stirred

the little community with profound emotion.

'Two of our number are this evening absent. Happily, most happily, absent

but for a short time; in our prayers we shall render thanks to the good

Providence which has saved us from a terrible calamity. I do not desire to

dwell upon the circumstance that one of these boys, Chadwick, had committed

worse than an imprudence in venturing upon the Long Pond; it was in

disregard of my injunction; I had distinctly made it known that the ice was

still unsafe. We will speak no more of that. All we can think of at present

is the fact that Chadwick was on the point of losing his life; that in all

human probability he would have been drowned, but for the help heroically

afforded him by one of his schoolfellows. I say heroically, and I am sure I

do not exaggerate; in the absence of Humplebee I may declare that he nobly

perilled his own life to save that of another. It was a splendid bit of

courage, a fine example of pluck and promptitude and vigour. We have all

cause this night to be proud of Humplebee.'

The solemn voice paused. There was an instant's profound silence. Then,

from somewhere amid the rows of listeners, sounded a clear, boyish note.

'Sir, may we give three cheers for Humplebee?'

'You may.'

The threescore leapt to their feet, and volleys of cheering made the

schoolroom echo. Then the master raised his hand, the tumult subsided, and

after a few moments of agitated silence, prayers began.

Next morning there appeared as usual at his desk a short, thin, red-headed

boy of sixteen, whose plain, freckled face denoted good-humour and a

certain intelligence, but would never have drawn attention amongst the

livelier and comelier physiognomies grouped about him. This was Humplebee.

Hitherto he had been an insignificant member of the school, one of those

boys who excel neither at games nor at lessons, of whom nothing is

expected, and rarely, if ever, get into trouble, and who are liked in a

rather contemptuous way. Of a sudden he shone glorious; all tongues were

busy with him, all eyes regarded him, every one wished for the honour of

his friendship. Humplebee looked uncomfortable. He had the sniffy

beginnings of a cold, the result of yesterday's struggle in icy water, and

his usual diffident and monosyllabic inclination were intensified by the

position in which he found himself. Clappings on the shoulder from bigger

boys who had been wont to joke about his name made him flush nervously; to

be addressed as 'Humpy,' or 'Beetle,' or 'Buz,' even though in a new tone,

seemed to gratify him as little as before. It was plain that Humplebee

would much have liked to be left alone. He stuck as closely as possible to

his desk, and out of school-time tried to steal apart from the throng.

But an ordeal awaited him. Early in the afternoon there arrived, from a

great town not far away, a well-dressed and high-complexioned man, whose

every look and accent declared commercial importance. This was Mr.

Chadwick, father of the boy who had all but been drowned. He and the

headmaster held private talk, and presently they sent for Humplebee. Merely

to enter the 'study' was at any time Humplebee's dread; to do so under the

present circumstances cost him anguish of spirit.

'Ha! here he is!' exclaimed Mr. Chadwick, in the voice of bluff geniality

which seemed to him appropriate. 'Humplebee, let me shake hands with you!

Humplebee, I am proud to make your acquaintance; prouder still to thank

you, to thank you, my boy!'

The lad was painfully overcome; his hands quivered, he stood like one

convicted of disgraceful behaviour.

'I think you have heard of me, Humplebee. Leonard has no doubt spoken to

you of his father. Perhaps my name has reached you in other ways?'

'Yes, sir,' faltered the boy.

'You mean that you know me as a public man?' urged Mr. Chadwick, whose eyes

glimmered a hungry vanity.

'Yes, sir,' whispered Humplebee.

'Ha! I see you already take an intelligent interest in things beyond

school. They tell me you are sixteen, Humplebee. Come, now; what are your

ideas about the future? I don't mean'--Mr. Chadwick rolled a laugh--'about

the future of mankind, or even the future of the English race; you and I

may perhaps discuss such questions a few years hence. In the meantime, what

are your personal ambitions? In brief, what would you like to be,

Humplebee?'

Under the eye of his master and of the commercial potentate, Humplebee

stood voiceless; he gasped once or twice like an expiring fish.

'Courage, my boy, courage!' cried Mr. Chadwick. 'Your father, I believe,

destines you for commerce. Is that your own wish? Speak freely. Speak as

though I were a friend you have known all your life.'

'I should like to please my father, sir,' jerked from the boy's lips.

'Good! Admirable! That's the spirit I like, Humplebee. Then you have no

marked predilection? That was what I wanted to discover--well, well, we

shall see. Meanwhile, Humplebee, get on with your arithmetic. You are good

at arithmetic, I am sure?'

'Not very, sir.'

'Come, come, that's your modesty. But I like you none the worse for it,

Humplebee. Well, well, get on with your work, my boy, and we shall see, we

shall see.'

Therewith, to his vast relief, Humplebee found himself dismissed. Later in

the day he received a summons to the bedroom where Mr. Chadwick's son was

being carefully nursed. Leonard Chadwick, about the same age as his

rescuer, had never deigned to pay much attention to Humplebee, whom he

regarded as stupid and plebeian; but the boy's character was marked by a

generous impulsiveness, which came out strongly in the present

circumstances.

'Hallo, Humpy!' he cried, raising himself up when the other entered. 'So

you pulled me out of that hole! Shake hands, Buzzy, old fellow! You've had

a talk with my governor, haven't you? What do you think of him?'

Humplebee muttered something incoherent.

'My governor's going to make your fortune, Humpy!' cried Leonard. 'He told

me so, and when he says a thing he means it. He's going to start you in

business when you leave school; most likely you'll go into his own office.

How will you like that, Humpy? My governor thinks no end of you; says

you're a brick, and so you are. I shan't forget that you pulled me out of

that hole, old chap. We shall be friends all our lives, you know. Tell me

what you thought of my governor?'

When he was on his legs again, Leonard continued to treat Humplebee with

grateful, if somewhat condescending, friendliness. In the talks they had

together the great man's son continually expatiated upon his preserver's

brilliant prospects. Beyond possibility of doubt Humplebee would some day

be a rich man; Mr. Chadwick had said so, and whatever he purposed came to

pass. To all this Humplebee listened in a dogged sort of way, now and then

smiling, but seldom making verbal answer. In school he was not quite the

same boy as before his exploit; he seemed duller, less attentive, and at

times even incurred reproaches for work ill done--previously a thing

unknown. When the holidays came, no boy was so glad as Humplebee; his heart

sang within him as he turned his back upon the school and began the journey

homeward.

That home was in the town illuminated by Mr. Chadwick's commercial and

municipal brilliance; over a small draper's shop in one of the outskirt

streets stood the name of Humplebee the draper. About sixty years of age,

he had known plenty of misfortune and sorrows, with scant admixture of

happiness. Nowadays things were somewhat better with him; by dint of severe

economy he had put aside two or three hundred pounds, and he was able,

moreover, to give his son (an only child) what is called a sound education.

In the limited rooms above the shop there might have been a measure of

quiet content and hopefulness, but for Mrs. Humplebee. She, considerably

younger than her husband, fretted against their narrow circumstances, and

grudged the money that was being spent--wasted, she called it--on the boy

Harry.

From his father Harry never heard talk of pecuniary troubles, but the

mother lost no opportunity of letting him know that they were poor,

miserably poor; and adding, that if he did not work hard at school he was

simply a cold-hearted criminal, and robbed his parents of their bread.

But during the last month or two a change had come upon the household. One

day the draper received a visit from the great Mr. Chadwick, who told a

wonderful story of Harry's heroism, and made proposals sounding so nobly

generous that Mr. Humplebee was overcome with gratitude.

Harry, as his father knew, had no vocation for the shop; to get him a place

in a manufacturer's office seemed the best thing that could be aimed at,

and here was Mr. Chadwick talking of easy book-keeping, quick advancement,

and all manner of vaguely splendid possibilities in the future. The

draper's joy proved Mrs. Humplebee's opportunity. She put forward a project

which had of late been constantly on her mind and on her lips, to wit, that

they should transfer their business into larger premises, and give

themselves a chance of prosperity. Humplebee need no longer hesitate. He

had his little capital to meet the first expenses, and if need arose there

need not be the slightest doubt that Mr. Chadwick would assist him. A kind

gentleman Mr. Chadwick! Had he not expressly desired to see Harry's mother,

and had he not assured her in every way possible of his debt and gratitude

he felt towards all who bore the name of Humplebee? The draper, if he

neglected his opportunity, would be an idiot--a mere idiot.

So, when the boy came home for his holidays he found two momentous things

decided; first, that he should forthwith enter Mr. Chadwick's office;

secondly, that the little shop should be abandoned and a new one taken in a

better neighbourhood.

Now Harry Humplebee had in his soul a secret desire and a secret

abhorrence. Ever since he could read his delight had been in books of

natural history; beasts, birds, and fishes possessed his imagination, and

for nothing else in the intellectual world did he really care. With poor

resources he had learned a great deal of his beloved subjects. Whenever he

could get away into the fields he was happy; to lie still for hours

watching some wild thing, noting its features and its ways, seemed to him

perfect enjoyment. His treasure was a collection, locked in a cupboard at

home, of eggs, skeletons, butterflies, beetles, and I know not what. His

father regarded all this as harmless amusement, his mother contemptuously

tolerated it or, in worse humour, condemned it as waste of time. When at

school the boy had frequent opportunities of pursuing his study, for he was

in mid country and could wander as he liked on free afternoons; but neither

the headmaster nor his assistant thought it worth while to pay heed to

Humplebee's predilection. True, it had been noticed more than once that in

writing an 'essay' he showed unusual observation of natural things; this,

however, did not strike his educators as a matter of any importance; it was

not their business to discover what Humplebee could do, and wished to do,

but to make him do things they regarded as desirable. Humplebee was marked

for commerce; he must study compound interest, and be strong at discount.

Yet the boy loathed every such mental effort, and the name of 'business'

made him sick at heart.

How he longed to unbosom himself to his father! And in the first week of

his holiday he had a chance of doing so, a wonderful chance, such as had

never entered his dreams. The town possessed a museum of Natural History,

where, of course, Harry had often spent leisure hours. Half a year ago a

happy chance had brought him into conversation with the curator, who could

not but be struck by the lad's intelligence, and who took an interest in

him. Now they met again; they had one or two long talks, with the result

that, on a Sunday afternoon, the curator of the museum took the trouble to

call upon Mr. Humplebee, to speak with him about his son. At the museum was

wanted a lad with a taste for natural history, to perform at first certain

easy duties, with the prospect of further advancement here or elsewhere. It

seemed to the curator that Harry was the very boy for the place; would Mr.

Humplebee like to consider this suggestion? Now, if it had been made to him

half a year ago, such an offer would have seemed to Mr. Humplebee well

worth consideration, and he knew that Harry would have heard of it with

delight; as it was, he could not entertain the thought for a moment.

Impossible to run the risk of offending Mr. Chadwick; moreover, who could

hesitate between the modest possibilities of the museum and such a career

as waited the lad under the protection of his powerful friend? With nervous

haste the draper explained how matters stood, excused himself, and begged

that not another word on the subject might be spoken in his son's hearing.

Harry Humplebee knew what he had lost; the curator, in talk with him, had

already thrown out his suggestion; at their next meeting he discreetly made

known to the boy that other counsels must prevail. For the first time Harry

felt a vehement impulse, prompting him to speak on his own behalf, to

assert and to plead for his own desires. But courage failed him. He heard

his father loud in praise of Mr. Chadwick, intent upon the gratitude and

respect due to that admirable man. He knew how his mother would exclaim at

the mere hint of disinclination to enter the great man's office. And so he

held his peace, though it cost him bitterness of heart and even secret

tears. A long, long time passed before he could bring himself to enter

again the museum doors.

He sat on a stool in Mr. Chadwick's office, a clerk at a trifling salary.

Everything, his father reminded him, must have a beginning; let him work

well and his progress would be rapid. Two years passed and he was in much

the same position; his salary had increased by one half, but his work

remained the same, mechanical, dreary, hateful to him in its monotony.

Meanwhile his father's venture in the new premises had led to great

embarrassments; business did not thrive; the day came when Mr. Humplebee,

trembling and shamefaced, felt himself drawn to beg help of his son's

so-called benefactor. He came away from the interview with empty hands.

Worse than that, he had heard things about Harry which darkened his mind

with a new anxiety.

'I greatly fear,' said Mr. Chadwick, 'that your son must seek a place in

some other office. It's a painful thing; I wish I could have kept him; but

the fact of the matter is that he shows utter incapacity. I have no fault

to find with him otherwise; a good lad; in a smaller place of business he

might do well enough. But he's altogether below the mark in an office such

as _mine_. Don't distress yourself, Mr. Humplebee, I beg, I shall make it

my care to inquire for suitable openings; you shall hear from me--you shall

hear from me. Pray consider that your son is under notice to leave this day

month. As for the--other matter of which you spoke, I can only repeat that

the truest kindness is only to refuse assistance. I assure you it is. The

circumstances forbid it. Clearly, what you have to do is to call together

your creditors, and arrive at an understanding. It is my principle never to

try to prop up a hopeless concern such as yours evidently is. Good day to

you, Mr. Humplebee; good day.'

A year later several things had happened. Mr. Humplebee was dead; his

penniless widow had gone to live in another town on the charity of poor

relatives, and Harry Humplebee sat in another office, drawing the salary at

which he had begun under Mr. Chadwick, his home a wretched bedroom in the

house of working-folk.

It did not appear to the lad that he had suffered any injustice. He knew

his own inaptitude for the higher kind of office work, and he had expected

his dismissal by Mr. Chadwick long before it came. What he did resent, and

profoundly, was Mr. Chadwick's refusal to aid his father in that last

death-grapple with ruinous circumstance. At the worst moment Harry wrote a

letter to Leonard Chadwick, whom he had never seen since he left school. He

told in simple terms the position of his family, and, without a word of

justifying reminiscence, asked his schoolfellow to help them if he could.

To this letter a reply came from London. Leonard Chadwick wrote briefly and

hurriedly, but in good-natured terms; he was really very sorry indeed that

he could do so little; the fact was, just now he stood on anything but good

terms with his father, who kept him abominably short of cash. He enclosed

five pounds, and, if possible, would soon send more.

'Don't suppose I have forgotten what I owe you. As soon as ever I find

myself in an independent position you shall have substantial proof of my

enduring gratitude. Keep me informed of your address.'

Humplebee made no second application, and Leonard Chadwick did not again

break silence.

The years flowed on. At five-and-twenty Humplebee toiled in the same

office, but he could congratulate himself on a certain progress; by dogged

resolve he had acquired something like efficiency in the duties of a

commercial clerk, and the salary he now earned allowed him to contribute to

the support of his mother. More or less reconciled to the day's labour, he

had resumed in leisure hours his favourite study; a free library supplied

him with useful books, and whenever it was possible he went his way into

the fields, searching, collecting, observing. But his life had another

interest, which threatened rivalry to this intellectual pursuit. Humplebee

had set eyes upon the maiden destined to be his heart's desire; she was the

daughter of a fellow-clerk, a man who had grown grey in service of the

ledger; timidly he sought to win her kindness, as yet scarce daring to

hope, dreaming only of some happy change of position which might encourage

him to speak. The girl was as timid as himself; she had a face of homely

prettiness, a mind uncultured but sympathetic; absorbed in domestic cares,

with few acquaintances, she led the simplest of lives, and would have been

all but content to live on in gentle hope for a score of years. The two

were beginning to understand each other, for their silence was more

eloquent than their speech.

One summer day--the last day of his brief holiday--Humplebee was returning

by train from a visit to his mother. Alone in a third-class carriage,

seeming to read a newspaper, but in truth dreaming of a face he hoped to

see in a few hours, he suddenly found himself jerked out of his seat, flung

violently forward, bumped on the floor, and last of all rolled into a sort

of bundle, he knew not where. Recovering from a daze, he said to himself,

'Why, this is an accident--a collision!' Then he tried to unroll himself,

and in the effort found that one of his arms was useless; more than that,

it pained him horribly. He stood up and tottered on to the seat. Then the

carriage-door opened, and a voice shouted--

'Anybody hurt here?'

'I think my arm is broken,' answered Humplebee.

Two men helped him to alight. The train had stopped just outside a small

station; on a cross line in front of the engine lay a goods truck smashed

to pieces; people were rushing about with cries and gesticulations.

'Yes, the arm is broken,' remarked one of the men who had assisted

Humplebee. 'It looks as if you were the only passenger injured.' That

proved, indeed, to be the case; no one else had suffered more than a jolt

or a bruise. The crowd clustered about this hero of the broken arm,

expressing sympathy and offering suggestions. Among them was a well-dressed

young man, rather good-looking and of lively demeanour, who seemed to enjoy

the excitement; he, after gazing fixedly at the pain-stricken face,

exclaimed in a voice of wonder--

'By jove! it's Humplebee!'

The sufferer turned towards him who spoke; his eyes brightened, for he

recognised the face of Leonard Chadwick. Neither one nor the other had

greatly altered during the past ten years; they presented exactly the same

contrast of personal characteristic as when they were at school together.

With vehement friendliness Chadwick at once took upon himself the care of

the injured clerk. He shouted for a cab, he found out where the nearest

doctor lived; in a quarter of an hour he had his friend under the doctor's

roof. When the fracture had been set and bandaged, they travelled on

together to their native town, only a few miles distant, Humplebee knowing

for the first time in his life the luxury of a first-class compartment. On

their way Chadwick talked exuberantly. He was delighted at this meeting;

why, one of his purposes in coming north had been to search out Humplebee,

whom he had so long scandalously neglected.

'The fact is, I've been going through queer times myself. The governor and

I can't get along together; we quarrelled years ago, there's not much

chance of our making it up. I've no doubt that was the real reason of his

dismissing you from his office--a mean thing! The governor's a fine old

boy, but he has his nasty side. He's very tight about money, and I--well,

I'm a bit too much the other way, no doubt. He's kept me in low water,

confound him! But I'm independent of him now. I'll tell you all about it

to-morrow, you'll feel better able to talk. Expect me at eleven in the

morning.'

Through a night of physical suffering Humplebee was supported by a new

hope. Chadwick the son, warm-hearted and generous, made a strong contrast

with Chadwick the father, pompous and insincere. When the young man spoke

of his abiding gratitude there was no possibility of distrusting him, his

voice rang true, and his handsome features wore a delightful frankness.

Punctual to his appointment, Leonard appeared next morning. He entered the

poor lodging as if it had been a luxurious residence, talked suavely and

gaily with the landlady, who was tending her invalid, and, when alone with

his old schoolfellow, launched into a detailed account of a great

enterprise in which he was concerned. Not long ago he had become acquainted

with one Geldershaw, a man somewhat older than himself, personally most

attractive, and very keen in business. Geldershaw had just been appointed

London representative of a great manufacturing firm in Germany. It was a

most profitable undertaking, and, out of pure friendship, he had offered a

share in the business to Leonard Chadwick.

'Of course, I put money into it. The fact is, I have dropped in for a few

thousands from a good old aunt, who has been awfully kind to me since the

governor and I fell out. I couldn't possibly have found a better

investment, it means eight or nine per cent, my boy, at the very least! And

look here, Humplebee, of course you can keep books?'

'Yes, I can,' answered the listener conscientiously.

'Then, old fellow, a first-rate place is open to you. We want some one we

can thoroughly trust; you're the very man Geldershaw had in his eye. Would

you mind telling me what screw you get at present?'

'Two pounds ten a week.'

'Ha, ha!' laughed Chadwick exultantly. 'With us you shall begin at double

the figure, and I'll see to it that you have a rise after the first year.

What's more, Humplebee, as soon as we get fairly going, I promise you a

share in the business. Don't say a word, old boy! My governor treated you

abominably. I've been in your debt for ten years or so, as you know very

well, and often enough I've felt deucedly ashamed of myself. Five pounds a

week to begin with, and a certainty of a comfortable interest in a thriving

affair! Come, now, is it agreed?'

Humplebee forgot his pain; he felt ready to jump out of bed and travel

straightway to London.

'And you know,' pursued Chadwick, when they had shaken hands warmly, 'that

you have a claim for damages on the railway company. Leave that to me; I'll

put the thing in train at once, through my own solicitor. You shall pocket

a substantial sum, my boy! Well, I'm afraid I must be off; I've got my

hands full of business. Quite a new thing for me to have something serious

to do; I enjoy it! If I can't see you again before I go back to town, you

shall hear from me in a day or two. Here's my London address. Chuck up your

place here at once, so as to be ready for us as soon as your arm's all

right. Geldershaw shall write you a formal engagement.'

Happily his broken arm was the left. Humplebee could use his right hand,

and did so, very soon after Chadwick's departure, to send an account of all

that had befallen him to his friend Mary Bowes. It was the first time he

had written to her. His letter was couched in terms of studious respect,

with many apologies for the liberty he took. Of the accident he made

light--a few days would see him re-established--but he dwelt with some

emphasis upon the meeting with Leonard Chadwick, and what had resulted from

it.

'I did him a good turn once, when we were at school together. He is a good,

warm-hearted fellow, and has sought this opportunity of showing that he

remembered the old time.'

Thus did Humplebee refer to the great event of his boyhood. Having

despatched the letter, he waited feverishly for Miss Bowes' reply; but days

passed, and still he waited in vain. Agitation delayed his recovery; he was

suffering as he had never suffered in his life, when there came a letter

from London, signed with the name of Geldershaw, repeating in formal terms

the offer made to him by Leonard Chadwick, and requesting his immediate

acceptance or refusal. This plucked him out of his despondent state, and

spurred him to action. With the help of his landlady he dressed himself,

and, having concealed his bandaged arm as well as possible, drove in a cab

to Miss Bowes' dwelling. The hour being before noon, he was almost sure to

find Mary at home, and alone. Trembling with bodily weakness and the

conflict of emotions, he rang the door bell. To his consternation there

appeared Mary's father.

'Hallo! Humplebee!' cried Mr. Bowes, surprised but friendly. 'Why, I was

just going to write to you. Mary has had scarlet fever. I've been so busy

these last ten days, I couldn't even inquire after you. Of course, I saw

about your smash in the newspaper; how are you getting on?'

The man with the bandaged arm could not utter a word. Horror-stricken he

stared at Mr. Bowes, who had begun to express a doubt whether it would be

prudent for him to enter the house.

Mary is convalescent; the anxiety's all over, but--'

Humplebee suddenly seized the speaker's hand, and in confused words

expressed vehement joy. They talked for a few minutes, parted with

cordiality, and Humplebee went home again to recover from his excitement.

A note from his employers had replied in terms of decent condolence to the

message by which he explained his enforced absence. To-day he wrote to the

principal, announcing his intention of resigning his post in their office.

The response, delivered within a few hours, was admirably brief and to the

point. Mr. Humplebee's place had, of course, been already taken temporarily

by another clerk; it would have been held open for him, but, in view of his

decision, the firm had merely to request that he would acknowledge the

cheque enclosed in payment of his salary up to date. Not without some

shaking of the hand did Humplebee pen this receipt; for a moment something

seemed to come between him and the daylight, and a heaviness oppressed his

inner man. But already he had despatched to London his formal acceptance of

the post at five pounds a week, and in thinking of it his heart grew

joyous. Two hundred and sixty pounds a year! It was beyond the hope of his

most fantastic day-dreams. He was a made man, secure for ever against fears

and worries. He was a man of substance, and need no longer shrink from

making known the hope which ruled his life.

A second letter was written to Mary Bowes; but not till many copies had

been made was it at length despatched. The writer declared that he looked

for no reply until Mary was quite herself again; he begged only that she

would reflect, meanwhile, upon what he had said, reflect with all her

indulgence, all her native goodness and gentleness. And, indeed, there

elapsed nearly a fortnight before the answer came; and to Humplebee it

seemed an endless succession of tormenting days. Then--

Humplebee behaved like one distracted. His landlady in good earnest thought

he had gone crazy, and was only reassured when he revealed to her what had

happened. Mary Bowes was to be his wife! They must wait for a year and a

half; Mary could not leave her father quite alone, but in a year and a half

Mr. Bowes, who was an oldish man, would be able to retire on the modest

fruit of his economies, and all three could live together in London.

'What,' cried Humplebee, 'was eighteen months? It would allow him to save

enough out of his noble salary to start housekeeping with something more

than comfort. Blessed be the name of Chadwick!'

When his arm was once more sound, and Mary's health quite recovered, they

met. In their long, long talk Humplebee was led to tell the story of that

winter day when he saved Leonard Chadwick's life; he related, too, all that

had ensued upon his acquaintance with the great Mr. Chadwick, memories

which would never lose all their bitterness. Mary was moved to tears, and

her tears were dried by indignation. But they agreed that Leonard, after

all, made some atonement for his father's heartless behaviour. Humplebee

showed a letter that had come from young Chadwick a day or two ago; every

line spoke generosity of spirit. 'When,' he asked, 'might they expect their

new bookkeeper. They were in full swing; business promised magnificently.

As yet, they had only a temporary office, but Geldershaw was in treaty for

fine premises in the city. The sooner Humplebee arrived the better; fortune

awaited him.'

It was decided that he should leave for London in two days.

The next evening he came to spend an hour or two with Mary and her father.

On entering the room he at once observed something strange in the looks

with which he was greeted. Mary had a pale, miserable air, and could hardly

speak. Mr. Bowes, after looking at him fixedly for a moment, exclaimed--

'Have you seen to-day's paper?'

'I've been too busy,' he replied. 'What has happened?'

'Isn't your London man called Geldershaw?'

'Yes,' murmured Humplebee, with a sinking of the heart.

'Well, the police are after him; he has bolted. It's a long-firm swindle

that he's been up to. You know what that means? Obtaining goods on false

credit, and raising money on them. What's more, young Chadwick is arrested;

he came before the magistrates yesterday, charged with being an accomplice.

Here it is; read it for yourself.'

Humplebee dropped into a chair. When his eyes undazzled, he read the full

report which Mr. Bowes had summarised. It was the death-blow of his hopes.

'Leonard Chadwick has been a victim, not a swindler,' sounded from him in a

feeble voice. 'You see, he says that Geldershaw has robbed him of all his

money--that he is ruined.'

'He _says_ so,' remarked Mr. Bowes with angry irony.

'I believe him,' said Humplebee. His eyes sought Mary's. The girl regarded

him steadily, and she spoke in a low firm voice--'I, too, believe him.'

'Whether or no,' said Mr. Bowes, thrusting his hands into his pockets, 'the

upshot of it is, Humplebee, that you've lost a good place through trusting

him. I had my doubts; but you were in a hurry, and didn't ask advice. If

this had happened a week later, the police would have laid hands on you as

well.'

'So there's something to be thankful for, at all events,' said Mary.

Again Humplebee met her eyes. He saw that she would not forsake him.

He had to begin life over again--that was all.

THE SCRUPULOUS FATHER

It was market day in the little town; at one o'clock a rustic company

besieged the table of the Greyhound, lured by savoury odours and the

frothing of amber ale. Apart from three frequenters of the ordinary, in a

small room prepared for overflow, sat two persons of a different stamp--a

middle-aged man, bald, meagre, unimpressive, but wholly respectable in

bearing and apparel, and a girl, evidently his daughter, who had the look

of the latter twenties, her plain dress harmonising with a subdued charm of

feature and a timidity of manner not ungraceful. Whilst waiting for their

meal they conversed in an undertone; their brief remarks and ejaculations

told of a long morning's ramble from the seaside resort some miles away; in

their quiet fashion they seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and dinner at

an inn evidently struck them as something of an escapade. Rather awkwardly

the girl arranged a handful of wild flowers which she had gathered, and put

them for refreshment into a tumbler of water; when a woman entered with

viands, silence fell upon the two; after hesitations and mutual glances,

they began to eat with nervous appetite.

Scarcely was their modest confidence restored, when in the doorway sounded

a virile voice, gaily humming, and they became aware of a tall young man,

red-headed, anything but handsome, flushed and perspiring from the sunny

road; his open jacket showed a blue cotton shirt without waistcoat, in his

hand was a shabby straw hat, and thick dust covered his boots. One would

have judged him a tourist of the noisier class, and his rather loud 'Good

morning!' as he entered the room seemed a serious menace to privacy; on the

other hand, the rapid buttoning of his coat, and the quiet choice of a seat

as far as possible from the two guests whom his arrival disturbed,

indicated a certain tact. His greeting had met with the merest murmur of

reply; their eyes on their plates, father and daughter resolutely

disregarded him; yet he ventured to speak again.

'They're busy here to-day. Not a seat to be had in the other room.'

It was apologetic in intention, and not rudely spoken. After a moment's

delay the bald, respectable man made a curt response.

'This room is public, I believe.'

The intruder held his peace. But more than once he glanced at the girl, and

after each furtive scrutiny his plain visage manifested some disturbance, a

troubled thoughtfulness. His one look at the mute parent was from beneath

contemptuous eyebrows.

Very soon another guest appeared, a massive agricultural man, who descended

upon a creaking chair and growled a remark about the hot weather. With him

the red-haired pedestrian struck into talk. Their topic was beer.

Uncommonly good, they agreed, the local brew, and each called for a second

pint. What, they asked in concert, would England be without her ale? Shame

on the base traffickers who enfeebled or poisoned this noble liquor! And

how cool it was--ah! The right sort of cellar! He of the red hair hinted at

a third pewter.

These two were still but midway in their stout attack on meat and drink,

when father and daughter, having exchanged a few whispers, rose to depart.

After leaving the room, the girl remembered that she had left her flowers

behind; she durst not return for them, and, knowing her father would

dislike to do so, said nothing about the matter.

'A pity!' exclaimed Mr. Whiston (that was his respectable name) as they

strolled away. 'It looked at first as if we should have such a nice quiet

dinner.'

'I enjoyed it all the same,' replied his companion, whose name was Rose.

'That abominable habit of drinking!' added Mr. Whiston austerely. He

himself had quaffed water, as always. 'Their ale, indeed! See the coarse,

gross creatures it produces!'

He shuddered. Rose, however, seemed less consentient than usual. Her eyes

were on the ground; her lips were closed with a certain firmness. When she

spoke, it was on quite another subject.

They were Londoners. Mr. Whiston held the position of draughtsman in the

office of a geographical publisher; though his income was small, he had

always practised a rigid economy, and the possession of a modest private

capital put him beyond fear of reverses. Profoundly conscious of social

limits, he felt it a subject for gratitude that there was nothing to be

ashamed of in his calling, which he might fairly regard as a profession,

and he nursed this sense of respectability as much on his daughter's behalf

as on his own. Rose was an only child; her mother had been dead for years;

her kinsfolk on both sides laid claim to the title of gentlefolk, but

supported it on the narrowest margin of independence. The girl had grown up

in an atmosphere unfavourable to mental development, but she had received a

fairly good education, and nature had dowered her with intelligence. A

sense of her father's conscientiousness and of his true affection forbade

her to criticise openly the principles on which he had directed her life;

hence a habit of solitary meditation, which half fostered, yet half

opposed, the gentle diffidence of Rose's character.

Mr. Whiston shrank from society, ceaselessly afraid of receiving less than

his due; privately, meanwhile, he deplored the narrowness of the social

opportunities granted to his daughter, and was for ever forming schemes for

her advantage--schemes which never passed beyond the stage of nervous

speculation. They inhabited a little house in a western suburb, a house

illumined with every domestic virtue; but scarcely a dozen persons crossed

the threshold within a twelvemonth. Rose's two or three friends were, like

herself, mistrustful of the world. One of them had lately married after a

very long engagement, and Rose still trembled from the excitement of that

occasion, still debated fearfully with herself on the bride's chances of

happiness. Her own marriage was an event so inconceivable that merely to

glance at the thought appeared half immodest and wholly irrational.

Every winter Mr. Whiston talked of new places which he and Rose would visit

when the holidays came round; every summer he shrank from the thought of

adventurous novelty, and ended by proposing a return to the same western

seaside-town, to the familiar lodgings. The climate suited neither him nor

his daughter, who both needed physical as well as moral bracing; but they

only thought of this on finding themselves at home again, with another long

year of monotony before them. And it was so good to feel welcome,

respected; to receive the smiling reverences of tradesfolk; to talk with

just a little well-bred condescension, sure that it would be appreciated.

Mr. Whiston savoured these things, and Rose in this respect was not wholly

unlike him.

To-day was the last of their vacation. The weather had been magnificent

throughout; Rose's cheeks were more than touched by the sun, greatly to the

advantage of her unpretending comeliness. She was a typical English maiden,

rather tall, shapely rather than graceful, her head generally bent, her

movements always betraying the diffidence of solitary habit. The lips were

her finest feature, their perfect outline indicating sweetness without

feebleness of character. Such a girl is at her best towards the stroke of

thirty. Rose had begun to know herself; she needed only opportunity to act

upon her knowledge.

A train would take them back to the seaside. At the railway station Rose

seated herself on a shaded part of the platform, whilst her father, who was

exceedingly short of sight, peered over publications on the bookstall.

Rather tired after her walk, the girl was dreamily tracing a pattern with

the point of her parasol, when some one advanced and stood immediately in

front of her. Startled, she looked up, and recognised the red-haired

stranger of the inn.

'You left these flowers in a glass of water on the table. I hope I'm not

doing a rude thing in asking whether they were left by accident.'

He had the flowers in his hand, their stems carefully protected by a piece

of paper. For a moment Rose was incapable of replying; she looked at the

speaker; she felt her cheeks burn; in utter embarrassment she said she knew

not what.

'Oh!--thank you! I forgot them. It's very kind.'

Her hand touched his as she took the bouquet from him. Without another word

the man turned and strode away.

Mr. Whiston had seen nothing of this. When he approached, Rose held up the

flowers with a laugh.

'Wasn't it kind? I forgot them, you know, and some one from the inn came

looking for me.'

'Very good of them, very,' replied her father graciously. 'A very nice inn,

that. We'll go again--some day. One likes to encourage such civility; it's

rare nowadays.'

He of the red hair travelled by the same train, though not in the same

carriage. Rose caught sight of him at the seaside station. She was vexed

with herself for having so scantily acknowledged his kindness; it seemed to

her that she had not really thanked him at all; how absurd, at her age, to

be incapable of common self-command! At the same time she kept thinking of

her father's phrase, 'coarse, gross creatures,' and it vexed her even more

than her own ill behaviour. The stranger was certainly not coarse, far from

gross. Even his talk about beer (she remembered every word of it) had been

amusing rather than offensive. Was he a 'gentleman'? The question agitated

her; it involved so technical a definition, and she felt so doubtful as to

the reply. Beyond doubt he had acted in a gentlemanly way; but his voice

lacked something. Coarse? Gross? No, no, no! Really, her father was very

severe, not to say uncharitable. But perhaps he was thinking of the heavy

agricultural man; oh, he must have been!

Of a sudden she felt very weary. At the lodgings she sat down in her

bedroom, and gazed through the open window at the sea. A sense of

discouragement, hitherto almost unknown, had fallen upon her; it spoilt the

blue sky and the soft horizon. She thought rather drearily of the townward

journey to-morrow, of her home in the suburbs, of the endless monotony that

awaited her. The flowers lay on her lap; she smelt them, dreamed over them.

And then--strange incongruity--she thought of beer!

Between tea and supper she and her father rested on the beach. Mr. Whiston

was reading. Rose pretended to turn the leaves of a book. Of a sudden, as

unexpectedly to herself as to her companion, she broke silence.

'Don't you think, father, that we are too much afraid of talking with

strangers?'

'Too much afraid?'

Mr. Whiston was puzzled. He had forgotten all about the incident at the

dinner-table.

'I mean--what harm is there in having a little conversation when one is

away from home? At the inn to-day, you know, I can't help thinking we were

rather--perhaps a little too silent.'

'My dear Rose, did you want to talk about beer?'

She reddened, but answered all the more emphatically.

'Of course not. But, when the first gentleman came in, wouldn't it have

been natural to exchange a few friendly words? I'm sure he wouldn't have

talked of beer to _us_'

'The _gentleman_? I saw no gentleman, my dear. I suppose he was a small

clerk, or something of the sort, and he had no business whatever to address

us.'

'Oh, but he only said good morning, and apologised for sitting at our

table. He needn't have apologised at all.'

'Precisely. That is just what I mean,' said Mr. Whiston with

self-satisfaction. 'My dear Rose, if I had been alone, I might perhaps have

talked a little, but with you it was impossible. One cannot be too careful.

A man like that will take all sorts of liberties. One has to keep such

people at a distance.

A moment's pause, then Rose spoke with unusual decision--

'I feel quite sure, father, that he would not have taken liberties. It

seems to me that he knew quite well how to behave himself.'

Mr. Whiston grew still more puzzled. He closed his book to meditate this

new problem.

'One has to lay down rules,' fell from him at length, sententiously. 'Our

position, Rose, as I have often explained, is a delicate one. A lady in

circumstances such as yours cannot exercise too much caution. Your natural

associates are in the world of wealth; unhappily, I cannot make you

wealthy. We have to guard our self-respect, my dear child. Really, it is

not _safe_ to talk with strangers--least of all at an inn. And you have

only to remember that disgusting conversation about beer!'

Rose said no more. Her father pondered a little, felt that he had delivered

his soul, and resumed the book.

The next morning they were early at the station to secure good places for

the long journey to London. Up to almost the last moment it seemed that

they would have a carriage to themselves. Then the door suddenly opened, a

bag was flung on to the seat, and after it came a hot, panting man, a

red-haired man, recognised immediately by both the travellers.

'I thought I'd missed it!' ejaculated the intruder merrily.

Mr. Whiston turned his head away, disgust transforming his countenance.

Rose sat motionless, her eyes cast down. And the stranger mopped his

forehead in silence.

He glanced at her; he glanced again and again; and Rose was aware of every

look. It did not occur to her to feel offended. On the contrary, she fell

into a mood of tremulous pleasure, enhanced by every turn of the stranger's

eyes in her direction. At him she did not look, yet she saw him. Was it a

coarse face? she asked herself. Plain, perhaps, but decidedly not vulgar.

The red hair, she thought, was not disagreeably red; she didn't dislike

that shade of colour. He was humming a tune; it seemed to be his habit, and

it argued healthy cheerfulness. Meanwhile Mr. Whiston sat stiffly in his

corner, staring at the landscape, a model of respectable muteness.

At the first stop another man entered. This time, unmistakably, a

commercial traveller. At once a dialogue sprang up between him and Rufus.

The traveller complained that all the smoking compartments were full.

'Why,' exclaimed Rufus, with a laugh, 'that reminds me that I wanted a

smoke. I never thought about it till now; jumped in here in a hurry.'

The traveller's 'line' was tobacco; they talked tobacco--Rufus with much

gusto. Presently the conversation took a wider scope.

'I envy you,' cried Rufus, 'always travelling about. I'm in a beastly

office, and get only a fortnight off once a year. I enjoy it, I can tell

you! Time's up today, worse luck! I've a good mind to emigrate. Can you

give me a tip about the colonies?'

He talked of how he had spent his holiday. Rose missed not a word, and her

blood pulsed in sympathy with the joy of freedom which he expressed. She

did not mind his occasional slang; the tone was manly and right-hearted; it

evinced a certain simplicity of feeling by no means common in men, whether

gentle or other. At a certain moment the girl was impelled to steal a

glimpse of his face. After all, was it really so plain? The features seemed

to her to have a certain refinement which she had not noticed before.

'I'm going to try for a smoker,' said the man of commerce, as the train

slackened into a busy station.

Rufus hesitated. His eye wandered.

'I think I shall stay where I am,' he ended by saying.

In that same moment, for the first time, Rose met his glance. She saw that

his eyes did not at once avert themselves; they had a singular expression,

a smile which pleaded pardon for its audacity. And Rose, even whilst

turning away, smiled in response.

The train stopped. The commercial traveller alighted. Rose, leaning towards

her father, whispered that she was thirsty; would he get her a glass of

milk or of lemonade? Though little disposed to rush on such errands, Mr.

Whiston had no choice but to comply; he sped at once for the

refreshment-room.

And Rose knew what would happen; she knew perfectly. Sitting rigid, her

eyes on vacancy, she felt the approach of the young man, who for the moment

was alone with her. She saw him at her side: she heard his voice.

'I can't help it. I want to speak to you. May I?'

Rose faltered a reply.

'It was so kind to bring the flowers. I didn't thank you properly.'

'It's now or never,' pursued the young man in rapid, excited tones. 'Will

you let me tell you my name? Will you tell me yours?'

Rose's silence consented. The daring Rufus rent a page from a pocket-book,

scribbled his name and address, gave it to Rose. He rent out another page,

offered it to Rose with the pencil, and in a moment had secured the

precious scrap of paper in his pocket. Scarce was the transaction completed

when a stranger jumped in. The young man bounded to his own corner, just in

time to see the return of Mr. Whiston, glass in hand.

During the rest of the journey Rose was in the strangest state of mind. She

did not feel in the least ashamed of herself. It seemed to her that what

had happened was wholly natural and simple. The extraordinary thing was

that she must sit silent and with cold countenance at the distance of a few

feet from a person with whom she ardently desired to converse. Sudden

illumination had wholly changed the aspect of life. She seemed to be

playing a part in a grotesque comedy rather than living in a world of grave

realities. Her father's dignified silence struck her as intolerably absurd.

She could have burst into laughter; at moments she was indignant,

irritated, tremulous with the spirit of revolt. She detected a glance of

frigid superiority with which Mr. Whiston chanced to survey the other

occupants of the compartment. It amazed her. Never had she seen her father

in such an alien light. He bent forward and addressed to her some

commonplace remark; she barely deigned a reply. Her views of conduct, of

character, had undergone an abrupt and extraordinary change. Having

justified without shadow of argument her own incredible proceeding, she

judged everything and everybody by some new standard, mysteriously

attained. She was no longer the Rose Whiston of yesterday. Her old self

seemed an object of compassion. She felt an unspeakable happiness, and at

the same time an encroaching fear.

The fear predominated; when she grew aware of the streets of London looming

on either hand it became a torment, an anguish. Small-folded, crushed

within her palm, the piece of paper with its still unread inscription

seemed to burn her. Once, twice, thrice she met the look of her friend. He

smiled cheerily, bravely, with evident purpose of encouragement. She knew

his face better than that of any oldest acquaintance; she saw in it a manly

beauty. Only by a great effort of self-control could she refrain from

turning aside to unfold and read what he had written. The train slackened

speed, stopped. Yes, it was London. She must arise and go. Once more their

eyes met. Then, without recollection of any interval, she was on the

Metropolitan Railway, moving towards her suburban home.

A severe headache sent her early to bed. Beneath her pillow lay a scrap of

paper with a name and address she was not likely to forget. And through the

night of broken slumbers Rose suffered a martyrdom. No more

self-glorification! All her courage gone, all her new vitality! She saw

herself with the old eyes, and was shame-stricken to the very heart.

Whose the fault? Towards dawn she argued it with the bitterness of misery.

What a life was hers in this little world of choking respectabilities!

Forbidden this, forbidden that; permitted--the pride of ladyhood. And she

was not a lady, after all. What lady would have permitted herself to

exchange names and addresses with a strange man in a railway

carriage--furtively, too, escaping her father's observation? If not a lady,

what _was_ she? It meant the utter failure of her breeding and education.

The sole end for which she had lived was frustrate. A common, vulgar young

woman--well mated, doubtless, with an impudent clerk, whose noisy talk was

of beer and tobacco!

This arrested her. Stung to the defence of her friend, who, clerk though he

might be, was neither impudent nor vulgar, she found herself driven back

upon self-respect. The battle went on for hours; it exhausted her; it undid

all the good effects of sun and sea, and left her flaccid, pale.

'I'm afraid the journey yesterday was too much for you,' remarked Mr.

Whiston, after observing her as she sat mute the next evening.

'I shall soon recover,' Rose answered coldly.

The father meditated with some uneasiness. He had not forgotten Rose's

singular expression of opinion after their dinner at the inn. His affection

made him sensitive to changes in the girl's demeanour. Next summer they

must really find a more bracing resort. Yes, yes; clearly Rose needed

bracing. But she was always better when the cool days came round.

On the morrow it was his daughter's turn to feel anxious. Mr. Whiston all

at once wore a face of indignant severity. He was absent-minded; he sat at

table with scarce a word; he had little nervous movements, and subdued

mutterings as of wrath. This continued on a second day, and Rose began to

suffer an intolerable agitation. She could not help connecting her father's

strange behaviour with the secret which tormented her heart.

Had something happened? Had her friend seen Mr. Whiston, or written to him?

She had awaited with tremors every arrival of the post. It was

probable--more than probable--that _he_ would write to her; but as yet no

letter came. A week passed, and no letter came. Her father was himself

again; plainly she had mistaken the cause of his perturbation. Ten days,

and no letter came.

It was Saturday afternoon. Mr. Whiston reached home at tea-time. The first

glance showed his daughter that trouble and anger once more beset him. She

trembled, and all but wept, for suspense had overwrought her nerves.

'I find myself obliged to speak to you on a very disagreeable

subject'--thus began Mr. Whiston over the tea-cups--'a very unpleasant

subject indeed. My one consolation is that it will probably settle a little

argument we had down at the seaside.'

As his habit was when expressing grave opinions (and Mr. Whiston seldom

expressed any other), he made a long pause and ran his fingers through his

thin beard. The delay irritated Rose to the last point of endurance.

'The fact is,' he proceeded at length, 'a week ago I received a most

extraordinary letter--the most impudent letter I ever read in my life. It

came from that noisy, beer-drinking man who intruded upon us at the

inn--you remember. He began by explaining who he was, and--if you can

believe it--had the impertinence to say that he wished to make my

acquaintance! An amazing letter! Naturally, I left it unanswered--the only

dignified thing to do. But the fellow wrote again, asking if I had received

his proposal. I now replied, briefly and severely, asking him, first, how

he came to know my name; secondly, what reason I had given him for

supposing that I desired to meet him again. His answer to this was even

more outrageous than the first offence. He bluntly informed me that in

order to discover my name and address he had followed us home that day from

Paddington Station! As if this was not bad enough, he went on to--really,

Rose, I feel I must apologise to you, but the fact is I seem to have no

choice but to tell you what he said. The fellow tells me, really, that he

wants to know _me_ only that he may come to know _you_! My first idea was

to go with this letter to the police. I am not sure that I shan't do so

even yet; most certainly I shall if he writes again. The man may be

crazy--he may be dangerous. Who knows but he may come lurking about the

house? I felt obliged to warn you of this unpleasant possibility.'

Rose was stirring her tea; also she was smiling. She continued to stir and

to smile, without consciousness of either performance.

'You make light of it?' exclaimed her father solemnly.

'O father, of course I am sorry you have had this annoyance.'

So little was there of manifest sorrow in the girl's tone and countenance

that Mr. Whiston gazed at her rather indignantly. His pregnant pause gave

birth to one of those admonitory axioms which had hitherto ruled his

daughter's life.

'My dear, I advise you never to trifle with questions of propriety. Could

there possibly be a better illustration of what I have so often said--that

in self-defence we are bound to keep strangers at a distance?'

'Father'

Rose began firmly, but her voice failed.

'You were going to say, Rose?'

She took her courage in both hands.

'Will you allow me to see the letters?'

'Certainly. There can be no objection to that.'

He drew from his pocket the three envelopes, held them to his daughter.

With shaking hand Rose unfolded the first letter; it was written in clear

commercial character, and was signed 'Charles James Burroughs.' When she

had read all, the girl said quietly--

'Are you quite sure, father, that these letters are impertinent?'

Mr. Whiston stopped in the act of finger-combing his beard.

'What doubt can there be of it?'

'They seem to me,' proceeded Rose nervously, 'to be very respectful and

very honest.'

'My dear, you astound me! Is it respectful to force one's acquaintance upon

an unwilling stranger? I really don't understand you. Where is your sense

of propriety, Rose? A vulgar, noisy fellow, who talks of beer and

tobacco--a petty clerk! And he has the audacity to write to me that he

wants to--to make friends with my daughter! Respectful? Honest? Really!'

When Mr. Whiston became sufficiently agitated to lose his decorous gravity,

he began to splutter, and at such moments he was not impressive. Rose kept

her eyes cast down. She felt her strength once more, the strength of a

wholly reasonable and half-passionate revolt against that tyrannous

propriety which Mr. Whiston worshipped.

'Father--'

'Well, my dear?'

'There is only one thing I dislike in these letters--and that is a

falsehood.'

'I don't understand.'

Rose was flushing. Her nerves grew tense; she had wrought herself to a

simple audacity which overcame small embarrassments.

'Mr. Burroughs says that he followed us home from Paddington to discover

our address. That is not true. He asked me for my name and address in the

train, and gave me his.'

The father gasped.

'He _asked_--? You _gave_--?'

'It was whilst you were away in the refreshment-room,' proceeded the girl,

with singular self-control, in a voice almost matter-of-fact. 'I ought to

tell you, at the same time, that it was Mr. Burroughs who brought me the

flowers from the inn, when I forgot them. You didn't see him give them to

me in the station.'

The father stared.

'But, Rose, what does all this mean? You--you overwhelm me! Go on, please.

What next?'

'Nothing, father.'

And of a sudden the girl was so beset with confusing emotions that she

hurriedly quitted her chair and vanished from the room.

Before Mr. Whiston returned to his geographical drawing on Monday morning,

he had held long conversations with Rose, and still longer with himself.

Not easily could he perceive the justice of his daughter's quarrel with

propriety; many days were to pass, indeed, before he would consent to do

more than make inquiries about Charles James Burroughs, and to permit that

aggressive young man to give a fuller account of himself in writing. It was

by silence that Rose prevailed. Having defended herself against the charge

of immodesty, she declined to urge her own inclination or the rights of Mr.

Burroughs; her mute patience did not lack its effect with the scrupulous

but tender parent.

'I am willing to admit, my dear,' said Mr. Whiston one evening, _à propos_

of nothing at all, 'that the falsehood in that young man's letter gave

proof of a certain delicacy.'

'Thank you, father,' replied Rose, very quietly and simply.

It was next morning that the father posted a formal, proper,

self-respecting note of invitation, which bore results.

A POOR GENTLEMAN

It was in the drawing-room, after dinner. Mrs. Charman, the large and

kindly hostess, sank into a chair beside her little friend Mrs. Loring, and

sighed a question.

'How do you like Mr. Tymperley?'

'Very nice. Just a little peculiar.'

'Oh, he _is_ peculiar! Quite original. I wanted to tell you about him

before we went down, but there wasn't time. Such a very old friend of ours.

My dear husband and he were at school together--Harrovians. The sweetest,

the most affectionate character! Too good for this world, I'm afraid; he

takes everything so seriously. I shall never forget his grief at my poor

husband's death.--I'm telling Mrs. Loring about Mr. Tymperley, Ada.'

She addressed her married daughter, a quiet young woman who reproduced Mrs.

Charman's good-natured countenance, with something more of intelligence,

the reflective serenity of a higher type.

'I'm sorry to see him looking so far from well,' remarked Mrs. Weare, in

reply.

'He never had any colour, you know, and his life... But I must tell you,'

she resumed to Mrs. Loring. 'He's a bachelor, in comfortable circumstances,

and--would you believe it?--he lives quite alone in one of the distressing

parts of London. Where is it, Ada?'

'A poor street in Islington.'

'Yes. There he lives, I'm afraid in shocking lodgings--it must be, _so_

unhealthy--just to become acquainted with the life of poor people, and be

helpful to them. Isn't it heroic? He seems to have given up his whole life

to it. One never meets him anywhere; I think ours is the only house where

he's seen. A noble life! He never talks about it. I'm sure you would never

have suspected such a thing from his conversation at dinner?'

'Not for a moment,' answered Mrs. Loring, astonished. 'He wasn't very

gossipy--I gathered that his chief interests were fretwork and foreign

politics.'

Mrs. Weare laughed. 'The very man! When I was a little girl he used to make

all sorts of pretty things for me with his fret-saw; and when I grew old

enough, he instructed me in the balance of Power. It's possible, mamma,

that he writes leading articles. We should never hear of it.'

'My dear, anything is possible with Mr. Tymperley. And such a change, this,

after his country life. He had a beautiful little house near ours, in

Berkshire. I really can't help thinking that my husband's death caused him

to leave it. He was so attached to Mr. Charman! When my husband died, and

we left Berkshire, we altogether lost sight of him--oh, for a couple of

years. Then I met him by chance in London. Ada thinks there must have been

some sentimental trouble.'

'Dear mamma,' interposed the daughter, 'it was you, not I, who suggested

that.'

'Was it? Well, perhaps it was. One can't help seeing that he has gone

through something. Of course it may be only pity for the poor souls he

gives his life to. A wonderful man!'

When masculine voices sounded at the drawing-room door, Mrs. Loring looked

curiously for the eccentric gentleman. He entered last of all. A man of

more than middle height, but much bowed in the shoulders; thin, ungraceful,

with an irresolute step and a shy demeanour; his pale-grey eyes, very soft

in expression, looked timidly this way and that from beneath brows

nervously bent, and a self-obliterating smile wavered upon his lips. His

hair had begun to thin and to turn grey, but he had a heavy moustache,

which would better have sorted with sterner lineaments. As he walked--or

sidled--into the room, his hands kept shutting and opening, with rather

ludicrous effect. Something which was not exactly shabbiness, but a lack of

lustre, of finish, singled him among the group of men; looking closer, one

saw that his black suit belonged to a fashion some years old. His linen was

irreproachable, but he wore no sort of jewellery, one little black stud

showing on his front, and, at the cuffs, solitaires of the same simple

description.

He drifted into a corner, and there would have sat alone, seemingly at

peace, had not Mrs. Weare presently moved to a seat beside him.

'I hope you won't be staying in town through August, Mr. Tymperley?'

'No!--Oh no!--Oh no, I think not!'

'But you seem uncertain. Do forgive me if I say that I'm sure you need a

change. Really, you know, you are _not_ looking quite the thing. Now, can't

I persuade you to join us at Lucerne? My husband would be so

pleased--delighted to talk with you about the state of Europe. Give us a

fortnight--do!'

'My dear Mrs. Weare, you are kindness itself! I am deeply grateful. I can't

easily express my sense of your most friendly thoughtfulness. But, the

truth is, I am half engaged to other friends. Indeed, I think I may almost

say that I have practically...yes, indeed, it amounts to that.'

He spoke in a thinly fluting voice, with a preciseness of enunciation akin

to the more feebly clerical, and with smiles which became almost lachrymose

in their expressiveness as he dropped from phrase to phrase of embarrassed

circumlocution. And his long bony hands writhed together till the knuckles

were white.

'Well, so long as you _are_ going away. I'm so afraid lest your

conscientiousness should go too far. You won't benefit anybody, you know,

by making yourself ill.'

'Obviously not!--Ha, ha!--I assure you that fact is patent to me. Health is

a primary consideration. Nothing more detrimental to one's usefulness than

an impaired... Oh, to be sure, to be sure!'

'There's the strain upon your sympathies. That must affect one's health,

quite apart from an unhealthy atmosphere.'

'But Islington is not unhealthy, my dear Mrs. Weare! Believe me, the air

has often quite a tonic quality. We are so high, you must remember. If only

we could subdue in some degree the noxious exhalations of domestic and

industrial chimneys!--Oh, I assure you, Islington has every natural feature

of salubrity.'

Before the close of the evening there was a little music, which Mr.

Tymperley seemed much to enjoy. He let his head fall back, and stared

upwards; remaining rapt in that posture for some moments after the music

ceased, and at length recovering himself with a sigh.

When he left the house, he donned an overcoat considerably too thick for

the season, and bestowed in the pockets his patent-leather shoes. His hat

was a hard felt, high in the crown. He grasped an ill-folded umbrella, and

set forth at a brisk walk, as if for the neighbouring station. But the

railway was not his goal, nor yet the omnibus. Through the ambrosial night

he walked and walked, at the steady pace of one accustomed to pedestrian

exercise: from Notting Hill Gate to the Marble Arch; from the Marble Arch

to New Oxford Street; thence by Theobald's Road to Pentonville, and up, and

up, until he attained the heights of his own salubrious quarter. Long after

midnight he entered a narrow byway, which the pale moon showed to be

decent, though not inviting. He admitted himself with a latchkey to a

little house which smelt of glue, lit a candle-end which he found in his

pocket, and ascended two flights of stairs to a back bedroom, its size

eight feet by seven and a half. A few minutes more, and he lay sound

asleep.

Waking at eight o'clock--he knew the time by a bell that clanged in the

neighbourhood--Mr. Tymperley clad himself with nervous haste. On opening

his door, he found lying outside a tray, with the materials of a breakfast

reduced to its lowest terms: half a pint of milk, bread, butter. At nine

o'clock he went downstairs, tapped civilly at the door of the front

parlour, and by an untuned voice was bidden enter. The room was occupied by

an oldish man and a girl, addressing themselves to the day's work of plain

bookbinding.

'Good morning to you, sir,' said Mr. Tymperley, bending his head. 'Good

morning, Miss Suggs. Bright! Sunny! How it cheers one!'

He stood rubbing his hands, as one might on a morning of sharp frost. The

bookbinder, with a dry nod for greeting, forthwith set Mr. Tymperley a

task, to which that gentleman zealously applied himself. He was learning

the elementary processes of the art. He worked with patience, and some show

of natural aptitude, all through the working hours of the day.

To this pass had things come with Mr. Tymperley, a gentleman of Berkshire,

once living in comfort and modest dignity on the fruit of sound

investments. Schooled at Harrow, a graduate of Cambridge, he had meditated

the choice of a profession until it seemed, on the whole, too late to

profess anything at all; and, as there was no need of such exertion, he

settled himself to a life of innocent idleness, hard by the country-house

of his wealthy and influential friend, Mr. Charman. Softly the years flowed

by. His thoughts turned once or twice to marriage, but a profound

diffidence withheld him from the initial step; in the end, he knew himself

born for bachelorhood, and with that estate was content. Well for him had

he seen as clearly the delusiveness of other temptations! In an evil moment

he listened to Mr. Charman, whose familiar talk was of speculation, of

companies, of shining percentages. Not on his own account was Mr. Tymperley

lured: he had enough and to spare; but he thought of his sister, married to

an unsuccessful provincial barrister, and of her six children, whom it

would be pleasant to help, like the opulent uncle of fiction, at their

entering upon the world. In Mr. Charman he put blind faith, with the result

that one morning he found himself shivering on the edge of ruin; the touch

of confirmatory news, and over he went.

No one was aware of it but Mr. Charman himself and he, a few days later,

lay sick unto death. Mr. Charman's own estate suffered inappreciably from

what to his friend meant sheer disaster. And Mr. Tymperley breathed not a

word to the widow; spoke not a word to any one at all, except the lawyer,

who quietly wound up his affairs, and the sister whose children must needs

go without avuncular aid. During the absence of his friendly neighbours

after Mr. Charman's death, he quietly disappeared.

The poor gentleman was then close upon forty years old. There remained to

him a capital which he durst not expend; invested, it bore him an income

upon which a labourer could scarce have subsisted. The only possible place

of residence--because the only sure place of hiding--was London, and to

London Mr. Tymperley betook himself. Not at once did he learn the art of

combating starvation with minim resources. During his initiatory trials he

was once brought so low, by hunger and humiliation, that he swallowed

something of his pride, and wrote to a certain acquaintance, asking counsel

and indirect help. But only a man in Mr. Tymperley's position learns how

vain is well-meaning advice, and how impotent is social influence. Had he

begged for money, he would have received, no doubt, a cheque, with words of

compassion; but Mr. Tymperley could never bring himself to that.

He tried to make profit of his former amusement, fretwork, and to a certain

extent succeeded, earning in six months half a sovereign. But the prospect

of adding one pound a year to his starveling dividends did not greatly

exhilarate him.

All this time he was of course living in absolute solitude. Poverty is the

great secluder--unless one belongs to the rank which is born to it; a

sensitive man who no longer finds himself on equal terms with his natural

associates, shrinks into loneliness, and learns with some surprise how very

willing people are to forget his existence. London is a wilderness

abounding in anchorites--voluntary or constrained. As he wandered about the

streets and parks, or killed time in museums and galleries (where nothing

had to be paid), Mr. Tymperley often recognised brethren in seclusion; he

understood the furtive glance which met his own, he read the peaked visage,

marked with understanding sympathy the shabby-genteel apparel. No

interchange of confidences between these lurking mortals; they would like

to speak, but pride holds them aloof; each goes on his silent and

unfriended way, until, by good luck, he finds himself in hospital or

workhouse, when at length the tongue is loosed, and the sore heart pours

forth its reproach of the world.

Strange knowledge comes to a man in this position. He learns wondrous

economies, and will feel a sort of pride in his ultimate discovery of how

little money is needed to support life. In his old days Mr. Tymperley would

have laid it down as an axiom that 'one' cannot live on less than

such-and-such an income; he found that 'a man' can live on a few coppers a

day. He became aware of the prices of things to eat, and was taught the

relative virtues of nutriment. Perforce a vegetarian, he found that a

vegetable diet was good for his health, and delivered to himself many a

scornful speech on the habits of the carnivorous multitude. He of necessity

abjured alcohols, and straightway longed to utter his testimony on a

teetotal platform. These were his satisfactions. They compensate

astonishingly for the loss of many kinds of self-esteem.

But it happened one day that, as he was in the act of drawing his poor

little quarterly salvage at the Bank of England, a lady saw him and knew

him. It was Mr. Charman's widow.

'Why, Mr. Tymperley, what _has_ become of you all this time? Why have I

never heard from you? Is it true, as some one told me, that you have been

living abroad?'

So utterly was he disconcerted, that in a mechanical way he echoed the

lady's last word: 'Abroad.'

'But why didn't you write to us?' pursued Mrs. Charman, leaving him no time

to say more. 'How very unkind! Why did you go away without a word? My

daughter says that we must have unconsciously offended you in some way. Do

explain! Surely there can't have been anything'

'My dear Mrs. Charman, it is I alone who am to blame. I...the explanation

is difficult; it involves a multiplicity of detail. I beg you to interpret

my unjustifiable behaviour as--as pure idiosyncrasy.'

'Oh, you must come and see me. You know that Ada's married? Yes, nearly a

year ago. How glad she will be to see you again. So often she has spoken of

you. When can you dine? To-morrow?'

'With pleasure--with great pleasure.'

'Delightful!'

She gave her address, and they parted.

Now, a proof that Mr. Tymperley had never lost all hope of restitution to

his native world lay in the fact of his having carefully preserved an

evening-suit, with the appropriate patent-leather shoes. Many a time had he

been sorely tempted to sell these seeming superfluities; more than once,

towards the end of his pinched quarter, the suit had been pledged for a few

shillings; but to part with the supreme symbol of respectability would have

meant despair--a state of mind alien to Mr. Tymperley's passive fortitude.

His jewellery, even watch and chain, had long since gone: such gauds are

not indispensable to a gentleman's outfit. He now congratulated himself on

his prudence, for the meeting with Mrs. Charman had delighted as much as it

embarrassed him, and the prospect of an evening in society made his heart

glow. He hastened home; he examined his garb of ceremony with anxious care,

and found no glaring defect in it. A shirt, a collar, a necktie must needs

be purchased; happily he had the means. But how explain himself? Could he

confess his place of abode, his startling poverty? To do so would be to

make an appeal to the compassion of his old friends, and from that he

shrank in horror. A gentleman will not, if-it can possibly be avoided,

reveal circumstances likely to cause pain. Must he, then, tell or imply a

falsehood. The whole truth involved a reproach of Mrs. Charman's husband--a

thought he could not bear.

The next evening found him still worrying over this dilemma. He reached

Mrs. Charman's house without having come to any decision. In the

drawing-room three persons awaited him: the hostess, with her daughter and

son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Weare. The cordiality of his reception moved him

all but to tears; overcome by many emotions, he lost his head. He talked at

random; and the result was so strange a piece of fiction, that no sooner

had he evolved it than he stood aghast at himself.

It came in reply to the natural question where he was residing.

'At present'--he smiled fatuously--'I inhabit a bed-sitting-room in a

little street up at Islington.'

Dead silence followed. Eyes of wonder were fixed upon him. But for those

eyes, who knows what confession Mr. Tymperley might have made? As it was...

'I said, Mrs. Charman, that I had to confess to an eccentricity. I hope it

won't shock you. To be brief, I have devoted my poor energies to social

work. I live among the poor, and as one of them, to obtain knowledge that

cannot be otherwise procured.'

'Oh, how noble!' exclaimed the hostess.

The poor gentleman's conscience smote him terribly. He could say no more.

To spare his delicacy, his friends turned the conversation. Then or

afterwards, it never occurred to them to doubt the truth of what he had

said. Mrs. Charman had seen him transacting business at the Bank of

England, a place not suggestive of poverty; and he had always passed for a

man somewhat original in his views and ways. Thus was Mr. Tymperley

committed to a singular piece of deception, a fraud which could not easily

be discovered, and which injured only its perpetrator.

Since then about a year had elapsed. Mr. Tymperley had seen his friends

perhaps half a dozen times, his enjoyment of their society pathetically

intense, but troubled by any slightest allusion to his mode of life. It had

come to be understood that he made it a matter of principle to hide his

light under a bushel, so he seldom had to take a new step in positive

falsehood. Of course he regretted ceaselessly the original deceit, for Mrs.

Charman, a wealthy woman, might very well have assisted him to some not

undignified mode of earning his living. As it was, he had hit upon the idea

of making himself a bookbinder, a craft somewhat to his taste. For some

months he had lodged in the bookbinder's house; one day courage came to

him, and he entered into a compact with his landlord, whereby he was to pay

for instruction by a certain period of unremunerated work after he became

proficient. That stage was now approaching. On the whole, he felt much

happier than in the time of brooding idleness. He looked forward to the day

when he would have a little more money in his pocket, and no longer dread

the last fortnight of each quarter, with its supperless nights.

Mrs. Weare's invitation to Lucerne cost him pangs. Lucerne! Surely it was

in some former state of existence that he had taken delightful holidays as

a matter of course. He thought of the many lovely places he knew, and so

many dream-landscapes; the London streets made them infinitely remote,

utterly unreal. His three years of gloom and hardship were longer than all

the life of placid contentment that came before. Lucerne! A man of more

vigorous temper would have been maddened at the thought; but Mr. Tymperley

nursed it all day long, his emotions only expressing themselves in a little

sigh or a sadly wistful smile.

Having dined so well yesterday, he felt it his duty to expend less than

usual on to-day's meals. About eight o'clock in the evening, after a

meditative stroll in the air which he had so praised, he entered the shop

where he was wont to make his modest purchases. A fat woman behind the

counter nodded familiarly to him, with a grin at another customer. Mr.

Tymperley bowed, as was his courteous habit.

'Oblige me,' he said, 'with one new-laid egg, and a small, crisp lettuce.'

'Only one to-night, eh?' said the woman.

'Thank you, only one,' he replied, as if speaking in a drawing-room.

'Forgive me if I express a hope that it will be, in the strict sense of the

word, new-laid. The last, I fancy, had got into that box by some

oversight--pardonable in the press of business.'

'They're always the same,' said the fat shopkeeper. 'We don't make no

mistakes of that kind.'

'Ah! Forgive me! Perhaps I imagined--'

Egg and lettuce were carefully deposited in a little handbag he carried,

and he returned home. An hour later, when his meal was finished, and he sat

on a straight-backed chair meditating in the twilight, a rap sounded at his

door, and a letter was handed to him. So rarely did a letter arrive for Mr.

Tymperley that his hand shook as he examined the envelope. On opening it,

the first thing he saw was a cheque. This excited him still more; he

unfolded the written sheet with agitation. It came from Mrs. Weare, who

wrote thus:--

'MY DEAR MR. TYMPERLEY,--After our talk last evening, I could not help

thinking of you and your beautiful life of self-sacrifice. I

contrasted the lot of these poor people with my own, which, one cannot

but feel, is so undeservedly blest and so rich in enjoyments. As a

result of these thoughts, I feel impelled to send you a little

contribution to your good work--a sort of thank-offering at the moment

of setting off for a happy holiday. Divide the money, please, among

two or three of your most deserving pensioners; or, if you see fit,

give it all to one. I cling to the hope that we may see you at

Lucerne.--With very kind regards.

The cheque was for five pounds. Mr. Tymperley held it up by the window, and

gazed at it. By his present standards of value five pounds seemed a very

large sum. Think of what one could do with it! His boots--which had been

twice repaired--would not decently serve him much longer. His trousers were

in the last stage of presentability. The hat he wore (how carefully

tended!) was the same in which he had come to London three years ago. He

stood in need, verily, of a new equipment from head to foot; and in

Islington five pounds would more than cover the whole expense. When, pray,

was he likely to have such a sum at his free disposal?

He sighed deeply, and stared about him in the dusk.

The cheque was crossed. For the first time in his life Mr. Tymperley

perceived that the crossing of a cheque may occasion its recipient a great

deal of trouble. How was he to get it changed? He knew his landlord for a

suspicious curmudgeon, and refusal of the favour, with such a look as Mr.

Suggs knew how to give, would be a sore humiliation; besides, it was very

doubtful whether Mr. Suggs could make any use of the cheque himself. To

whom else could he apply? Literally, to no one in London.

'Well, the first thing to do was to answer Mrs. Weare's letter. He lit his

lamp and sat down at the crazy little deal table; but his pen dipped

several times into the ink before he found himself able to write.

'Dear Mrs. Weare,'--

Then, so long a pause that he seemed to be falling asleep. With a jerk, he

bent again to his task.

'With sincere gratitude I acknowledge the receipt of your most kind

and generous donation. The money...'

(Again his hand lay idle for several minutes.)

'shall be used as you wish, and I will render to you a detailed

account of the benefits conferred by it.'

Never had he found composition so difficult. He felt that he was expressing

himself wretchedly; a clog was on his brain. It cost him an exertion of

physical strength to conclude the letter. When it was done, he went out,

purchased a stamp at a tobacconist's shop, and dropped the envelope into

the post.

Little slumber had Mr. Tymperley that night. On lying down, he began to

wonder where he should find the poor people worthy of sharing in this

benefaction. Of course he had no acquaintance with the class of persons of

whom Mrs. Weare was thinking. In a sense, all the families round about were

poor, but--he asked himself--had poverty the same meaning for them as for

him? Was there a man or woman in this grimy street who, compared with

himself, had any right to be called poor at all? An educated man forced to

live among the lower classes arrives at many interesting conclusions with

regard to them; one conclusion long since fixed in Mr. Tymperley's mind was

that the 'suffering' of those classes is very much exaggerated by outsiders

using a criterion quite inapplicable. He saw around him a world of coarse

jollity, of contented labour, and of brutal apathy. It seemed to him more

than probable that the only person in this street conscious of poverty, and

suffering under it, was himself.

From nightmarish dozing, he started with a vivid thought, a recollection

which seemed to pierce his brain. To whom did he owe his fall from comfort

and self-respect, and all his long miseries? To Mrs. Weare's father. And,

from this point of view, might the cheque for five pounds be considered as

mere restitution? Might it not strictly be applicable to his own

necessities?

Another little gap of semi-consciousness led to another strange reflection.

What if Mrs. Weare (a sensible woman) suspected, or even had discovered,

the truth about him. What if she secretly _meant_ the money for his own

use?

Earliest daylight made this suggestion look very insubstantial; on the

other hand, it strengthened his memory of Mr. Charman's virtual

indebtedness to him. He jumped out of bed to reach the cheque, and for an

hour lay with it in his hand. Then he rose and dressed mechanically.

After the day's work he rambled in a street of large shops. A bootmaker's

arrested him; he stood before the window for a long time, turning over and

over in his pocket a sovereign--no small fraction of the ready coin which

had to support him until dividend day. Then he crossed the threshold.

Never did man use less discretion in the purchase of a pair of boots. His

business was transacted in a dream; he spoke without hearing what he said;

he stared at objects without perceiving them. The result was that not till

he had got home, with his easy old footgear under his arm, did he become

aware that the new boots pinched him most horribly. They creaked too:

heavens! how they creaked! But doubtless all new boots had these faults; he

had forgotten; it was so long since he had bought a pair. The fact was, he

felt dreadfully tired, utterly worn out. After munching a mouthful of

supper he crept into bed.

All night long he warred with his new boots. Footsore, he limped about the

streets of a spectral city, where at every corner some one seemed to lie in

ambush for him, and each time the lurking enemy proved to be no other than

Mrs. Weare, who gazed at him with scornful eyes and let him totter by. The

creaking of the boots was an articulate voice, which ever and anon screamed

at him a terrible name. He shrank and shivered and groaned; but on he went,

for in his hand he held a crossed cheque, which he was bidden to get

changed, and no one would change it. What a night!

When he woke his brain was heavy as lead; but his meditations were very

lucid. Pray, what did he mean by that insane outlay of money, which he

could not possibly afford, on a new (and detestable) pair of boots? The old

would have lasted, at all events, till winter began. What was in his mind

when he entered the shop? Did he intend...? Merciful powers!

Mr. Tymperley was not much of a psychologist. But all at once he saw with

awful perspicacity the moral crisis through which he had been living. And

it taught him one more truth on the subject of poverty.

Immediately after his breakfast he went downstairs and tapped at the door

of Mr. Suggs' sitting-room.

'What is it?' asked the bookbinder, who was eating his fourth large rasher,

and spoke with his mouth full.

'Sir, I beg leave of absence for an hour or two this morning. Business of

some moment demands my attention.'

Mr. Suggs answered, with the grace natural to his order, 'I s'pose you can

do as you like. I don't pay you nothing.'

The other bowed and withdrew.

Two days later he again penned a letter to Mrs. Weare. It ran thus:--

'The money which you so kindly sent, and which I have already

acknowledged, has now been distributed. To ensure a proper use of it,

I handed the cheque, with clear instructions, to a clergyman in this

neighbourhood, who has been so good as to jot down, on the sheet

enclosed, a memorandum of his beneficiaries, which I trust will be

satisfactory and gratifying to you.

'But why, you will ask, did I have recourse to a clergyman. Why did I

not use my own experience, and give myself the pleasure of helping

poor souls in whom I have a personal interest--I who have devoted my

life to this mission of mercy?

'The answer is brief and plain. I have lied to you.

'I am _not_ living in this place of my free will. I am _not_

devoting myself to works of charity. I am--no, no, I was--merely a

poor gentleman, who, on a certain day, found that he had wasted his

substance in a foolish speculation, and who, ashamed to take his

friends into his confidence, fled to a life of miserable obscurity.

You see that I have added disgrace to misfortune. I will not tell you

how very near I came to something still worse.

'I have been serving an apprenticeship to a certain handicraft which

will, I doubt not, enable me so to supplement my own scanty resources

that I shall be in better circum than hitherto. I entreat you to

forgive me, if you can, and henceforth to forget

Yours unworthily,

'S. V. TYMPERLEY.'

MISS RODNEY'S LEISURE

A young woman of about eight-and-twenty, in tailor-made costume, with

unadorned hat of brown felt, and irreproachable umbrella; a young woman who

walked faster than any one in Wattleborough, yet never looked hurried; who

crossed a muddy street seemingly without a thought for her skirts, yet

somehow was never splashed; who held up her head like one thoroughly at

home in the world, and frequently smiled at her own thoughts. Those who did

not know her asked who she was; those who had already made her acquaintance

talked a good deal of the new mistress at the High School, by name Miss

Rodney. In less than a week after her arrival in the town, her opinions

were cited and discussed by Wattleborough ladies. She brought with her the

air of a University; she knew a great number of important people; she had a

quiet decision of speech and manner which was found very impressive in

Wattleborough drawing-rooms. The headmistress spoke of her in high terms,

and the incumbent of St. Luke's, who knew her family, reported that she had

always been remarkably clever.

A stranger in the town, Miss Rodney was recommended to the lodgings of Mrs.

Ducker, a churchwarden's widow; but there she remained only for a week or

two, and it was understood that she left because the rooms 'lacked

character.' Some persons understood this as an imputation on Mrs. Ducker,

and were astonished; others, who caught a glimpse of Miss Rodney's meaning,

thought she must be 'fanciful.' Her final choice of an abode gave general

surprise, for though the street was one of those which Wattleborough

opinion classed as 'respectable,' the house itself, as Miss Rodney might

have learnt from the incumbent of St. Luke's, in whose parish it was

situated, had objectionable features. Nothing grave could be alleged

against Mrs. Turpin, who regularly attended the Sunday evening service; but

her husband, a carpenter, spent far too much time at 'The Swan With Two

Necks'; and then there was a lodger, young Mr. Rawcliffe, concerning whom

Wattleborough had for some time been too well informed. Of such comments

upon her proceeding Miss Rodney made light; in the aspect of the rooms she

found a certain 'quaintness' which decidedly pleased her. 'And as for Mrs.

Grundy,' she added, '_je m'en fiche_? which certain ladies of culture

declared to be a polite expression of contempt.

Miss Rodney never wasted time, and in matters of business had cultivated a

notable brevity. Her interview with Mrs. Turpin, when she engaged the

rooms, occupied perhaps a quarter of an hour; in that space of time she had

sufficiently surveyed the house, had learnt all that seemed necessary as to

its occupants, and had stated in the clearest possible way her present

requirements.

'As a matter of course,' was her closing remark, 'the rooms will be

thoroughly cleaned before I come in. At present they are filthy.'

The landlady was too much astonished to reply; Miss Rodney's tones and

bearing had so impressed her that she was at a loss for her usual

loquacity, and could only stammer respectfully broken answers to whatever

was asked. Assuredly no one had ever dared to tell her that her lodgings

were 'filthy'--any ordinary person who had ventured upon such an insult

would have been overwhelmed with clamorous retort. But Miss Rodney, with a

pleasant smile and nod, went her way, and Mrs. Turpin stood at the open

door gazing after her, bewildered 'twixt satisfaction and resentment.

She was an easy-going, wool-witted creature, not ill-disposed, but

sometimes mendacious and very indolent. Her life had always been what it

was now--one of slatternly comfort and daylong gossip, for she came of a

small tradesman's family, and had married an artisan who was always in

well-paid work. Her children were two daughters, who, at seventeen and

fifteen, remained in the house with her doing little or nothing, though

they were supposed to 'wait upon the lodgers.' For some months only two of

the four rooms Mrs. Turpin was able to let had been occupied, one by 'young

Mr. Rawcliffe,' always so called, though his age was nearly thirty, but, as

was well known, he belonged to the 'real gentry,' and Mrs. Turpin held him

in reverence on that account. No matter for his little weaknesses--of which

evil tongues, said Mrs. Turpin, of course made the most. He might be

irregular in payment; he might come home 'at all hours,' and make

unnecessary noise in going upstairs; he might at times grumble when his

chop was ill-cooked; and, to tell the truth, he might occasionally be 'a

little too free' with the young ladies--that is to say, with Mabel and Lily

Turpin; but all these things were forgiven him because he was 'a real

gentleman,' and spent just as little time as he liked daily in a

solicitor's office.

Miss Rodney arrived early on Saturday afternoon. Smiling and silent, she

saw her luggage taken up to the bedroom; she paid the cabman; she beckoned

her landlady into the parlour, which was on the ground-floor front.

'You haven't had time yet, Mrs. Turpin, to clean the rooms?'

The landlady stammered a half-indignant surprise. Why, she and her

daughters had given the room a thorough turn out. It was done only

yesterday, and _hours_ had been devoted to it.

'I see,' interrupted Miss Rodney, with quiet decision, 'that our notions of

cleanliness differ considerably. I'm going out now, and I shall not be back

till six o'clock. You will please to _clean_ the bedroom before then. The

sitting-room shall be done on Monday.'

And therewith Miss Rodney left the house.

On her return she found the bedroom relatively clean, and, knowing that too

much must not be expected at once, she made no comment. That night, as she

sat reading at eleven o'clock, a strange sound arose in the back part of

the house; it was a man's voice, hilariously mirthful and breaking into

rude song. After listening for a few minutes, Miss Rodney rang her bell,

and the landlady appeared.

'Whose Voice is that I hear?'

'Voice, miss?'

'Who is shouting and singing?' asked Miss Rodney, in a disinterested tone.

'I'm sorry if it disturbs you, miss. You'll hear no more.'

'Mrs. Turpin, I asked who it was.'

'My 'usband, miss. But--'

'Thank you. Good night, Mrs. Turpin.'

There was quiet for an hour or more. At something after midnight, when Miss

Rodney had just finished writing half a dozen letters, there sounded a

latch-key in the front door, and some one entered. This person, whoever it

was, seemed to stumble about the passage in the dark, and at length banged

against the listener's door. Miss Rodney started up and flung the door

open. By the light of her lamp she saw a moustachioed face, highly flushed,

and grinning.

'Beg pardon,' cried the man, in a voice which harmonised with his look and

bearing. 'Infernally dark here; haven't got a match. You're

Miss--pardon--forgotten the name--new lodger. Oblige me with a light?

Thanks awfully.'

Without a word Miss Rodney took a match-box from her chimney-piece, entered

the passage, entered the second parlour--that occupied by Mr.

Rawcliffe--and lit a candle which stood on the table.

'You'll be so kind,' she said, looking her fellow-lodger in the eyes, 'as

not to set the house on fire.'

'Oh, no fear,' he replied, with a high laugh. 'Quite accustomed. Thanks

awfully, Miss--pardon--forgotten the name.'

But Miss Rodney was back in her sitting-room, and had closed the door.

Her breakfast next morning was served by Mabel Turpin, the elder daughter,

a stupidly good-natured girl, who would fain have entered into

conversation. Miss Rodney replied to a question that she had slept well,

and added that, when she rang her bell, she would like to see Mrs. Turpin.

Twenty minutes later the landlady entered.

'You wanted me, miss?' she began, in what was meant for a voice of dignity

and reserve. 'I don't really wait on lodgers myself.'

'We'll talk about that another time, Mrs. Turpin. I wanted to say, first of

all, that you have spoiled a piece of good bacon and two good eggs. I must

trouble you to cook better than this.'

'I'm very sorry, miss, that nothing seems to suit you'

'Oh, we shall get right in time!' interrupted Miss Rodney cheerfully. 'You

will find that I have patience. Then I wanted to ask you whether your

husband and your lodger come home tipsy _every_ night, or only on

Saturdays?'

The woman opened her eyes as wide as saucers, trying hard to look

indignant.

'Tipsy, miss?'

'Well, perhaps I should have said "drunk"; I beg your pardon.'

'All I can say, miss, is that young Mr. Rawcliffe has never behaved himself

in _this_ house excepting as the gentleman he is. You don't perhaps know

that he belongs to a very high-connected family, miss, or I'm sure you

wouldn't'

'I see,' interposed Miss Rodney. 'That accounts for it. But your husband.

Is _he_ highly connected?'

'I'm sure, miss, nobody could ever say that my 'usband took too much--not

to say _really_ too much. You may have heard him a bit merry, miss, but

where's the harm of a Saturday night?'

'Thank you. Then it is only on Saturday nights that Mr. Turpin becomes

merry. I'm glad to know that. I shall get used to these little things.'

But Mrs. Turpin did not feel sure that she would get used to her lodger.

Sunday was spoilt for her by this beginning. When her husband woke from his

prolonged slumbers, and shouted for breakfast (which on this day of rest he

always took in bed), the good woman went to him with downcast visage, and

spoke querulously of Miss Rodney's behaviour.

'I _won't_ wait upon her, so there! The girls may do it, and if she isn't

satisfied let her give notice. I'm sure I shan't be sorry. She's given me

more trouble in a day than poor Mrs. Brown did all the months she was here.

I _won't_ be at her beck and call, so there!'

Before night came this declaration was repeated times innumerable, and as

it happened that Miss Rodney made no demand for her landlady's attendance,

the good woman enjoyed a sense of triumphant self-assertion. On Monday

morning Mabel took in the breakfast, and reported that Miss Rodney had made

no remark; but, a quarter of an hour later, the bell rang, and Mrs. Turpin

was summoned. Very red in the face, she obeyed. Having civilly greeted her,

Miss Rodney inquired at what hour Mr. Turpin took his breakfast, and was

answered with an air of surprise that he always left the house on week-days

at half-past seven.

'In that case,' said Miss Rodney, 'I will ask permission to come into your

kitchen at a quarter to eight to-morrow morning, to show you how to fry

bacon and boil eggs. You mustn't mind. You know that teaching is my

profession.'

Mrs. Turpin, nevertheless, seemed to mind very much. Her generally

good-tempered face wore a dogged sullenness, and she began to mutter

something about such a thing never having been heard of; but Miss Rodney

paid no heed, renewed the appointment for the next morning, and waved a

cheerful dismissal.

Talking with a friend that day, the High School mistress gave a humorous

description of her lodgings, and when the friend remarked that they must be

very uncomfortable, and that surely she would not stay there, Miss Rodney

replied that she had the firmest intention of staying, and, what was more,

of being comfortable.

'I'm going to take that household in hand,' she added. 'The woman is

foolish, but can be managed, I think, with a little patience. I'm going to

_tackle_ the drunken husband as soon as I see my way. And as for the highly

connected gentleman whose candle I had the honour of lighting, I shall turn

him out.'

'You have your work set!' exclaimed the friend, laughing.

'Oh, a little employment for my leisure! This kind of thing relieves the

monotony of a teacher's life, and prevents one from growing old.'

Very systematically she pursued her purpose of getting Mrs. Turpin 'in

hand.' The two points at which she first aimed were the keeping clean of

her room and the decent preparation of her meals. Never losing temper,

never seeming to notice the landlady's sullen mood, always using a tone of

legitimate authority, touched sometimes with humorous compassion, she

exacted obedience to her directions, but was well aware that at any moment

the burden of a new civilisation might prove too heavy for the Turpin

family and cause revolt. A week went by; it was again Saturday, and Miss

Rodney devoted a part of the morning (there being no school to-day) to

culinary instruction. Mabel and Lily shared the lesson with their mother,

but both young ladies wore an air of condescension, and grimaced at Miss

Rodney behind her back. Mrs. Turpin was obstinately mute. The pride of

ignorance stiffened her backbone and curled her lip.

Miss Rodney's leisure generally had its task; though as a matter of

principle she took daily exercise, her walking or cycling was always an

opportunity for thinking something out, and this afternoon, as she sped on

wheels some ten miles from Wattleborough, her mind was busy with the

problem of Mrs. Turpin's husband. From her clerical friend of St. Luke's

she had learnt that Turpin was at bottom a decent sort of man, rather

intelligent, and that it was only during the last year or two that he had

taken to passing his evenings at the public-house. Causes for this decline

could be suggested. The carpenter had lost his only son, a lad of whom he

was very fond; the boy's death quite broke him down at the time, and

perhaps he had begun to drink as a way for forgetting his trouble. Perhaps,

too, his foolish, slatternly wife bore part of the blame, for his home had

always been comfortless, and such companionship must, in the long-run, tell

on a man. Reflecting upon this, Miss Rodney had an idea, and she took no

time in putting it into practice. When Mabel brought in her tea, she asked

the girl whether her father was at home.

'I think he is, miss,' was the distant reply--for Mabel had been bidden by

her mother to 'show a proper spirit' when Miss Rodney addressed her.

'You think so? Will you please make sure, and, if you are right, ask Mr.

Turpin to be so kind as to let me have a word with him.'

Startled and puzzled, the girl left the room. Miss Rodney waited, but no

one came. When ten minutes had elapsed she rang the bell. A few minutes

more and there sounded a heavy foot in the passage; then a heavy knock at

the door, and Mr. Turpin presented himself. He was a short, sturdy man,

with hair and beard of the hue known as ginger, and a face which told in

his favour. Vicious he could assuredly not be, with those honest grey eyes;

but one easily imagined him weak in character, and his attitude as he stood

just within the room, half respectful, half assertive, betrayed an

embarrassment altogether encouraging to Miss Rodney. In her pleasantest

tone she begged him to be seated.

'Thank you, miss,' he replied, in a deep voice, which sounded huskily, but

had nothing of surliness; 'I suppose you want to complain about something,

and I'd rather get it over standing.'

'I was not going to make any complaint, Mr. Turpin.'

'I'm glad to hear it, miss; for my wife wished me to say she'd done about

all she could, and if things weren't to your liking, she thought it would

be best for all if you suited yourself in somebody else's lodgings.'

It evidently cost the man no little effort to deliver his message; there

was a nervous twitching about his person, and he could not look Miss Rodney

straight in the face. She, observant of this, kept a very steady eye on

him, and spoke with all possible calmness.

'I have not the least desire to change my lodgings, Mr. Turpin. Things are

going on quite well. There is an improvement in the cooking, in the

cleaning, in everything; and, with a little patience, I am sure we shall

all come to understand one another. What I wanted to speak to you about was

a little practical matter in which you may be able to help me. I teach

mathematics at the High School, and I have an idea that I might make

certain points in geometry easier to my younger girls if I could

demonstrate them in a mechanical way. Pray look here. You see the shapes I

have sketched on this piece of paper; do you think you could make them for

me in wood?'

The carpenter was moved to a show of reluctant interest. He took the paper,

balanced himself now on one leg, now on the other, and said at length that

he thought he saw what was wanted. Miss Rodney, coming to his side,

explained in more detail; his interest grew more active.

'That's Euclid, miss?'

'To be sure. Do you remember your Euclid?'

'My own schooling never went as far as that,' he replied, in a muttering

voice; 'but my Harry used to do Euclid at the Grammar School, and I got

into a sort of way of doing it with him.'

Miss Rodney kept a moment's silence; then quietly and kindly she asked one

or two questions about the boy who had died. The father answered in an

awkward, confused way, as if speaking only by constraint.

'Well, I'll see what I can do, miss,' he added abruptly, folding the paper

to take away. 'You'd like them soon?'

'Yes. I was going to ask you, Mr. Turpin, whether you could do them this

evening. Then I should have them for Monday morning.'

Turpin hesitated, shuffled his feet, and seemed to reflect uneasily; but he

said at length that he 'would see about it,' and, with a rough bow, got out

of the room. That night no hilarious sounds came from the kitchen. On

Sunday morning, when Miss Rodney went into her sitting-room, she found on

the table the wooden geometrical forms, excellently made, just as she

wished. Mabel, who came with breakfast, was bidden to thank her father, and

to say that Miss Rodney would like to speak with him again, if his leisure

allowed, after tea-time on Monday. At that hour the carpenter did not fail

to present himself, distrustful still, but less embarrassed. Miss Rodney

praised his work, and desired to pay for it. Oh! that wasn't worth talking

about, said Turpin; but the lady insisted, and money changed hands. This

piece of business transacted, Miss Rodney produced a Euclid, and asked

Turpin to show her how far he had gone in it with his boy Harry. The

subject proved fruitful of conversation. It became evident that the

carpenter had a mathematical bias, and could be readily interested in such

things as geometrical problems. Why should he not take up the subject

again?

'Nay, miss,' replied Turpin, speaking at length quite naturally; 'I

shouldn't have the heart. If my Harry had lived'

But Miss Rodney stuck to the point, and succeeded in making him promise

that he would get out the old Euclid and have a look at it in his leisure

time. As he withdrew, the man had a pleasant smile on his honest face.

On the next Saturday evening the house was again quiet.

Meanwhile, relations between Mrs. Turpin and her lodger were becoming less

strained. For the first time in her life the flabby, foolish woman had to

do with a person of firm will and bright intelligence; not being vicious of

temper, she necessarily felt herself submitting to domination, and darkly

surmised that the rule might in some way be for her good. All the sluggard

and the slattern in her, all the obstinacy of lifelong habits, hung back

from the new things which Miss Rodney was forcing upon her acceptance, but

she was no longer moved by active resentment. To be told that she cooked

badly had long ceased to be an insult, and was becoming merely a worrying

truism. That she lived in dirt there seemed no way of denying, and though

every muscle groaned, she began to look upon the physical exertion of

dusting and scrubbing as part of her lot in life. Why she submitted, Mrs.

Turpin could not have told you. And, as was presently to be seen, there

were regions of her mind still unconquered, instincts of resistance which

yet had to come into play.

For, during all this time, Miss Rodney had had her eye on her

fellow-lodger, Mr. Rawcliffe, and the more she observed this gentleman, the

more resolute she became to turn him out of the house; but it was plain to

her that the undertaking would be no easy one. In the landlady's eyes Mr.

Rawcliffe, though not perhaps a faultless specimen of humanity, conferred

an honour on her house by residing in it; the idea of giving him notice to

quit was inconceivable to her. This came out very clearly in the first

frank conversation which Miss Rodney held with her on the topic. It

happened that Mr. Rawcliffe had passed an evening at home, in the company

of his friends. After supping together, the gentlemen indulged in merriment

which, towards midnight, became uproarious. In the morning Mrs. Turpin

mumbled a shamefaced apology for this disturbance of Miss Rodney's repose.

'Why don't you take this opportunity and get rid of him?' asked the lodger

in her matter-of-fact tone.

'Oh, miss!'

'Yes, it's your plain duty to do so. He gives your house a bad character;

he sets a bad example to your husband; he has a bad influence on your

daughters.'

'Oh! miss, I don't think'

'Just so, Mrs. Turpin; you _don't_ think. If you had, you would long ago

have noticed that his behaviour to those girls is not at all such as it

should be. More than once I have chanced to hear bits of talk, when either

Mabel or Lily was in his sitting-room, and didn't like the tone of it. In

plain English, the man is a blackguard.'

Mrs. Turpin gasped.

'But, miss, you forget what family he belongs to.'

'Don't be a simpleton, Mrs. Turpin. The blackguard is found in every rank

of life. Now, suppose you go to him as soon as he gets up, and quietly give

him notice. You've no idea how much better you would feel after it.'

But Mrs. Turpin trembled at the suggestion. It was evident that no ordinary

argument or persuasion would bring her to such a step. Miss Rodney put the

matter aside for the moment.

She had found no difficulty in getting information about Mr. Rawcliffe. It

was true that he belonged to a family of some esteem in the Wattleborough

neighbourhood, but his father had died in embarrassed circumstances, and

his mother was now the wife of a prosperous merchant in another town. To

his stepfather Rawcliffe owed an expensive education and two or three

starts in life. He was in his second year of articles to a Wattle-borough

solicitor, but there seemed little probability of his ever earning a living

by the law, and reports of his excesses which reached the stepfather's ears

had begun to make the young man's position decidedly precarious. The

incumbent of St. Luke's, whom Rawcliffe had more than once insulted, took

much interest in Miss Rodney's design against this common enemy; he could

not himself take active part in the campaign, but he never met the High

School mistress without inquiring what progress she had made. The conquest

of Turpin, who now for several weeks had kept sober, and spent his evenings

in mathematical study, was a most encouraging circumstance; but Miss Rodney

had no thought of using her influence over her landlady's husband to assail

Rawcliffe's position. She would rely upon herself alone, in this as in all

other undertakings.

Only by constant watchfulness and energy did she maintain her control over

Mrs. Turpin, who was ready at any moment to relapse into her old slatternly

ways. It was not enough to hold the ground that had been gained; there must

be progressive conquest; and to this end Miss Rodney one day broached a

subject which had already been discussed between her and her clerical ally.

'Why do you keep both your girls at home, Mrs. Turpin?' she asked.

'What should I do with them, miss? I don't hold with sending girls into

shops, or else they've an aunt in Birmingham, who's manageress of--'

'That isn't my idea,' interposed Miss Rodney quietly. 'I have been asked if

I knew of a girl who would go into a country-house not far from here as

second housemaid, and it occurred to me that Lily--'

A sound of indignant protest escaped the landlady, which Miss Rodney,

steadily regarding her, purposely misinterpreted.

'No, no, of course, she is not really capable of taking such a position.

But the lady of whom I am speaking would not mind an untrained girl, who

came from a decent house. Isn't it worth thinking of?'

Mrs. Turpin was red with suppressed indignation, but as usual she could not

look her lodger defiantly in the face.

'We're not so poor, miss,' she exclaimed, 'that we need send our daughters

into service,'

'Why, of course not, Mrs. Turpin, and that's one of the reasons why Lily

might suit this lady.'

But here was another rock of resistance which promised to give Miss Rodney

a good deal of trouble. The landlady's pride was outraged, and after the

manner of the inarticulate she could think of no adequate reply save that

which took the form of personal abuse. Restrained from this by more than

one consideration, she stood voiceless, her bosom heaving.

'Well, you shall think it over,' said Miss Rodney, 'and we'll speak of it

again in a day or two.'

Mrs. Turpin, without another word, took herself out of the room.

Save for that singular meeting on Miss Rodney's first night in the house,

Mr. Rawcliffe and the energetic lady had held no intercourse whatever.

Their parlours being opposite each other on the ground floor, they

necessarily came face to face now and then, but the High School mistress

behaved as though she saw no one, and the solicitor's clerk, after one or

two attempts at polite formality, adopted a like demeanour. The man's

proximity caused his neighbour a ceaseless irritation; of all objectionable

types of humanity, this loafing and boozing degenerate was, to Miss Rodney,

perhaps the least endurable; his mere countenance excited her animosity,

for feebleness and conceit, things abhorrent to her, were legible in every

line of the trivial features; and a full moustache, evidently subjected to

training, served only as emphasis of foppish imbecility. 'I could beat

him!' she exclaimed more than once within herself, overcome with

contemptuous wrath, when she passed Mr. Rawcliffe. And, indeed, had it

been possible to settle the matter thus simply, no doubt Mr. Rawcliffe's

rooms would very soon have been vacant.

The crisis upon which Miss Rodney had resolved came about, quite

unexpectedly, one Sunday evening. Mrs. Turpin and her daughters had gone,

as usual, to church, the carpenter had gone to smoke a pipe with a

neighbour, and Mr. Rawcliffe believed himself alone in the house. But Miss

Rodney was not at church this evening; she had a headache, and after tea

lay down in her bedroom for a while. Soon impatient of repose, she got up

and went to her parlour. The door, to her surprise, was partly open;

entering--the tread of her slippered feet was noiseless--she beheld an

astonishing spectacle. Before her writing-table, his back turned to her,

stood Mr. Rawcliffe, engaged in the deliberate perusal of a letter which he

had found there. For a moment she observed him; then she spoke.

'What business have you here?'

Rawcliffe gave such a start that he almost jumped from the ground. His

face, as he put down the letter and turned, was that of a gibbering idiot;

his lips moved, but no sound came from them.

'What are you doing in my room?' demanded Miss Rodney, in her severest

tones.

'I really beg your pardon--I really beg--'

'I suppose this is not the first visit with which you have honoured me?'

'The first--indeed--I assure you--the very first! A foolish curiosity; I

really feel quite ashamed of myself; I throw myself upon your indulgence.'

The man had become voluble; he approached Miss Rodney smiling in a sickly

way, his head bobbing forward.

'It's something,' she replied, 'that you have still the grace to feel

ashamed. Well, there's no need for us to discuss this matter; it can have,

of course, only one result. To-morrow morning you will oblige me by giving

notice to Mrs. Turpin--a week's notice.'

'Leave the house?' exclaimed Rawcliffe.

'On Saturday next--or as much sooner as you like.'

'Oh! but really--'

'As you please,' said Miss Rodney, looking him sternly in the face. 'In

that case I complain to the landlady of your behaviour, and insist on her

getting rid of you. You ought to have been turned out long ago. You are a

nuisance, and worse than a nuisance. Be so good as to leave the room.'

Rawcliffe, his shoulders humped, moved towards the door; but before

reaching it he stopped and said doggedly--

'I _can't_ give notice.'

'Why not?'

'I owe Mrs. Turpin money.'

'Naturally. But you will go, all the same.'

A vicious light flashed into the man's eyes.

'If it comes to that, I shall _not_ go!'

'Indeed?' said Miss Rodney calmly and coldly. 'We will see about it. In the

meantime, leave the room, sir!'

Rawcliffe nodded, grinned, and withdrew.

Late that evening there was a conversation between Miss Rodney and Mrs.

Turpin. The landlady, though declaring herself horrified at what had

happened, did her best to plead for Mr. Rawcliffe's forgiveness, and would

not be brought to the point of promising to give him notice.

'Very well, Mrs. Turpin,' said Miss Rodney at length, 'either he leaves the

house or I do.'

Resolved, as she was, _not_ to quit her lodgings, this was a bold

declaration. A meeker spirit would have trembled at the possibility that

Mrs. Turpin might be only too glad to free herself from a subjection which,

again and again, had all but driven her to extremities. But Miss Rodney had

the soul of a conqueror; she saw only her will, and the straight way to it.

'To tell you the truth, miss,' said the landlady, sore perplexed, 'he's

rather backward with his rent--'

'Very foolish of you to have allowed him to get into your debt. The

probability is that he would never pay his arrears; they will only

increase, the longer he stays. But I have no more time to spare at present.

Please understand that by Saturday next it must be settled which of your

lodgers is to go.'

Mrs. Turpin had never been so worried. The more she thought of the

possibility of Miss Rodney's leaving the house, the less did she like it.

Notwithstanding Mr. Rawcliffe's 'family,' it was growing clear to her that,

as a stamp of respectability and a source of credit, the High School

mistress was worth more than the solicitor's clerk. Then there was the

astonishing change that had come over Turpin, owing, it seemed, to his talk

with Miss Rodney; the man spent all his leisure time in 'making shapes and

figuring'--just as he used to do when poor Harry was at the Grammar School.

If Miss Rodney disappeared, it seemed only too probable that Turpin would

be off again to 'The Swan With Two Necks.' On the other hand, the thought

of 'giving notice' to Mr. Rawcliffe caused her something like dismay; how

could she have the face to turn a real gentleman out of her house? Yes, but

was it not true that she had lost money by him--and stood to lose more? She

had never dared to tell her husband of Mr. Rawcliffe's frequent

shortcomings in the matter of weekly payments. When the easy-going young

man smiled and nodded, and said, 'It'll be all right, you know, Mrs.

Turpin; you can trust _me_, I hope,' she could do nothing but acquiesce.

And Mr. Rawcliffe was more and more disposed to take advantage of this

weakness. If she could find courage to go through with the thing, perhaps

she would be glad when it was over.

Three days went by. Rawcliffe led an unusually quiet and regular life.

There came the day on which his weekly bill was presented. Mrs. Turpin

brought it in person at breakfast, and stood with it in her hand, an image

of vacillation. Her lodger made one of his familiar jokes; she laughed

feebly. No; the words would not come to her lips; she was physically

incapable of giving him notice.

'By the bye, Mrs. Turpin,' said Rawcliffe in an offhand way, as he glanced

at the bill, 'how much exactly do I owe you?'

Pleasantly agitated, his landlady mentioned the sum.

'Ah! I must settle that. I tell you what, Mrs. Turpin. Let it stand over

for another month, and we'll square things up at Christmas. Will that suit

you?'

And, by way of encouragement, he paid his week's account on the spot,

without a penny of deduction. Mrs. Turpin left the room in greater

embarrassment than ever.

Saturday came. At breakfast Miss Rodney sent for the landlady, who made a

timid appearance just within the room.

'Good morning, Mrs. Turpin. What news have you for me? You know what I

mean?'

The landlady took a step forward, and began babbling excuses, explanations,

entreaties. She was coldly and decisively interrupted.

'Thank you, Mrs. Turpin, that will do. A week to-day I leave.'

With a sound which was half a sob and half grunt Mrs. Turpin bounced from

the room. It was now inevitable that she should report the state of things

to her husband, and that evening half an hour's circumlocution brought her

to the point. Which of the two lodgers should go? The carpenter paused,

pipe in mouth, before him a geometrical figure over which he had puzzled

for a day or two, and about which, if he could find courage, he wished to

consult the High School mistress. He reflected for five minutes, and

uttered an unhesitating decision. Mr. Rawcliffe must go. Naturally, his

wife broke into indignant clamour, and the debate lasted for an hour or

two; but Turpin could be firm when he liked, and he had solid reasons for

preferring to keep Miss Rodney in the house. At four o'clock Mrs. Turpin

crept softly to the sitting-room where her offended lodger was quietly

reading.

'I wanted just to say, miss, that I'm willing to give Mr. Rawcliffe notice

next Wednesday.'

'Thank you, Mrs. Turpin,' was the cold reply. 'I have already taken other

rooms.'

The landlady gasped, and for a moment could say nothing. Then she besought

Miss Rodney to change her mind. Mr. Rawcliffe should leave, indeed he

should, on Wednesday week. But Miss Rodney had only one reply; she had

found other rooms that suited her, and she requested to be left in peace.

At eleven Mr. Rawcliffe came home. He was unnaturally sober, for Saturday

night, and found his way into the parlour without difficulty. There in a

minute or two he was confronted by his landlady and her husband: they

closed the door behind them, and stood in a resolute attitude.

'Mr. Rawcliffe,' began Turpin, 'you must leave these lodgings, sir, on

Wednesday next.'

'Hullo! what's all this about?' cried the other. 'What do you mean,

Turpin?'

The carpenter made plain his meaning; spoke of Miss Rodney's complaint, of

the irregular payment (for his wife, in her stress, had avowed everything),

and of other subjects of dissatisfaction; the lodger must go, there was an

end of it. Rawcliffe, putting on all his dignity, demanded the legal week's

notice; Turpin demanded the sum in arrear. There was an exchange of high

words, and the interview ended with mutual defiance. A moment after Turpin

and his wife knocked at Miss Rodney's door, for she was still in her

parlour. There followed a brief conversation, with the result that Miss

Rodney graciously consented to remain, on the understanding that Mr.

Rawcliffe left the house not later than Wednesday.

Enraged at the treatment he was receiving, Rawcliffe loudly declared that

he would not budge. Turpin warned him that if he had made no preparations

for departure on Wednesday he would be forcibly ejected, and the door

closed against him.

'You haven't the right to do it,' shouted the lodger. 'I'll sue you for

damages.'

'And I,' retorted the carpenter, 'will sue you for the money you owe me!'

The end could not be doubtful. Rawcliffe, besides being a poor creature,

knew very well that it was dangerous for him to get involved in a scandal;

his stepfather, upon whom he depended, asked but a fair excuse for cutting

him adrift, and more than one grave warning had come from his mother during

the past few months. But he enjoyed a little blustering, and even at

breakfast-time on Wednesday his attitude was that of contemptuous defiance.

In vain had Mrs. Turpin tried to coax him with maternal suavity; in vain

had Mabel and Lily, when serving his meals, whispered abuse of Miss Rodney,

and promised to find some way of getting rid of her, so that Rawcliffe

might return. In a voice loud enough to be heard by his enemy in the

opposite parlour, he declared that no 'cat of a school teacher should get

the better of _him_.' As a matter of fact, however, he arranged on Tuesday

evening to take a couple of cheaper rooms just outside the town, and

ordered a cab to come for him at eleven next morning.

'You know what the understanding is, Mr. Rawcliffe,' said Turpin, putting

his head into the room as the lodger sat at breakfast. 'I'm a man of my

word.'

'Don't come bawling here!' cried the other, with a face of scorn.

And at noon the house knew him no more.

Miss Rodney, on that same day, was able to offer her landlady a new lodger.

She had not spoken of this before, being resolved to triumph by mere force

of will.

'The next thing,' she remarked to a friend, when telling the story, 'is to

pack off one of the girls into service. I shall manage it by Christmas,'

and she added with humorous complacency, 'it does one good to be making a

sort of order in one's own little corner of the world.'

*****

A CHARMING FAMILY

'I must be firm,' said Miss Shepperson to herself, as she poured out her

morning tea with tremulous hand. 'I must really be very firm with them.'

Firmness was not the most legible characteristic of Miss Shepperson's

physiognomy. A plain woman of something more than thirty, she had gentle

eyes, a twitching forehead, and lips ever ready for a sympathetic smile.

Her attire, a little shabby, a little disorderly, well became the occupant

of furnished lodgings, at twelve and sixpence a week, in the unpretentious

suburb of Acton. She was the daughter of a Hammersmith draper, at whose

death, a few years ago, she had become possessed of a small house and an

income of forty pounds a year; her two elder sisters were comfortably

married to London tradesmen, but she did not see very much of them, for

their ways were not hers, and Miss Shepperson had always been one of those

singular persons who shrink into solitude the moment they feel ill at ease.

The house which was her property had, until of late, given her no trouble

at all; it stood in a quiet part of Hammersmith, and had long been occupied

by good tenants, who paid their rent (fifty pounds) with exemplary

punctuality; repairs, of course, would now and then be called for, and to

that end Miss Shepperson carefully put aside a few pounds every year.

Unhappily, the old tenants were at length obliged to change their abode.

The house stood empty for two months; it was then taken on a three years'

lease by a family named Rymer--really nice people, said Miss Shepperson to

herself after her first interview with them. Mr. Rymer was 'in the City';

Mrs. Rymer, who had two little girls, lived only for domestic peace--she

had been in better circumstances, but did not repine, and forgot all

worldly ambition in the happy discharge of her wifely and maternal duties.

'A charming family!' was Miss Shepperson's mental comment when, at their

invitation, she had called one Sunday afternoon soon after they were

settled in the house; and, on the way home to her lodgings, she sighed once

or twice, thinking of Mrs. Rymer's blissful smile and the two pretty

children.

The first quarter's rent was duly paid, but the second quarter-day brought

no cheque; and, after the lapse of a fortnight, Miss Shepperson wrote to

make known her ingenuous fear that Mr. Rymer's letter might have

miscarried. At once there came the politest and friendliest reply. Mr.

Rymer (wrote his wife) was out of town, and had been so overwhelmed with

business that the matter of the rent must have altogether escaped his mind;

he would be back in a day or two, and the cheque should be sent at the

earliest possible moment; a thousand apologies for this unpardonable

neglect. Still the cheque did not come; another quarter-day arrived, and

again no rent was paid. It was now a month after Christmas, and Miss

Shepperson, for the first time in her life, found her accounts in serious

disorder. This morning she had a letter from Mrs. Rymer, the latest of a

dozen or so, all in the same strain--

'I really feel quite ashamed to take up the pen,' wrote the graceful lady,

in her delicate hand. 'What _must_ you think of us! I assure you that

never, never before did I find myself in such a situation. Indeed, I should

not have the courage to write at all, but that the end of our troubles is

already in view. It is _absolutely certain_ that, in a month's time, Mr.

Rymer will be able to send you a cheque in complete discharge of his debt.

Meanwhile, I _beg_ you to believe, dear Miss Shepperson, how very, _very_

grateful I am to you for your most kind forbearance.' Another page of

almost affectionate protests closed with the touching subscription, 'ever

yours, sincerely and gratefully, Adelaide Rymer.'

But Miss Shepperson had fallen into that state of nervous agitation which

impels to a decisive step. She foresaw the horrors of pecuniary

embarrassment. Her faith in the Rymers' promises was exhausted. This very

morning she would go to see Mrs. Rymer, lay before her the plain facts of

the case, and with all firmness--with unmistakable resolve--make known to

her that, if the arrears were not paid within a month, notice to quit would

be given, and the recovery of the debt be sought by legal process. Fear had

made Miss Shepperson indignant; it was wrong and cowardly for people such

as the Rymers to behave in this way to a poor woman who had only just

enough to live upon. She felt sure that they _could_ pay if they liked; but

because she had shown herself soft and patient, they took advantage of her.

She would be firm, very firm.

So, about ten o'clock, Miss Shepperson put on her best things, and set out

for Hammersmith. It was a foggy, drizzly, enervating day. When Miss

Shepperson found herself drawing near to the house, her courage sank, her

heart throbbed painfully, and for a moment she all but stopped and turned,

thinking that it would be much better to put her ultimatum into writing.

Yet there was the house in view, and to turn back would be deplorable

weakness. By word of mouth she could so much better depict the gravity of

her situation. She forced herself onwards. Trembling in every nerve, she

rang the bell, and in a scarce audible gasp she asked for Mrs. Rymer. A

brief delay, and the servant admitted her.

Mrs. Rymer was in the drawing-room, giving her elder child a piano-lesson,

while the younger, sitting in a baby-chair at the table, turned over a

picture-book. The room was comfortably and prettily furnished; the children

were very becomingly dressed; their mother, a tall woman, of fair

complexion and thin, refined face, with wandering eyes and a forehead

rather deeply lined, stepped forward as if in delight at the unexpected

visit, and took Miss Shepperson's ill-gloved hand in both her own, gazing

with tender interest into her eyes.

'How kind of you to have taken this trouble! You guessed that I really

wished to see you. I should have come to you, but just at present I find it

so difficult to get away from home. I am housekeeper, nursemaid, and

governess all in one! Some women would find it rather a strain, but the

dear tots are so good--so good! Cissy, you remember Miss Shepperson? Of

course you do. They look a little pale, I'm afraid; don't you think so?

After the life they were accustomed to--but we won't talk about _that_.

Tots, school-time is over for this morning. You can't go out, my poor

dears; look at the horrid, horrid weather. Go and sit by the nursery-fire,

and sing "Rain, rain, go away!"'

Miss Shepperson followed the children with her look as they silently left

the room. She knew not how to enter upon what she had to say. To talk of

the law and use threats in this atmosphere of serene domesticity seemed

impossibly harsh. But the necessity of broaching the disagreeable subject

was spared her.

'My husband and I were talking about you last night,' began Mrs. Rymer, as

soon as the door had closed, in a tone of the friendliest confidence. 'I

had an idea; it seems to me so good. I wonder whether it will to you? You

told me, did you not, that you live in lodgings, and quite alone?'

'Yes,' replied Miss Shepperson, struggling to command her nerves and

betraying uneasy wonder.

'Is it by choice?' asked the soft-voiced lady, with sympathetic bending of

the head. 'Have you no relations in London? I can't help thinking you must

feel very lonely.'

It was not difficult to lead Miss Shepperson to talk of her

circumstances--a natural introduction to the announcement which she was

still resolved to make with all firmness. She narrated in outline the

history of her family, made known exactly how she stood in pecuniary

matters, and ended by saying--

'You see, Mrs. Rymer, that I have to live as carefully as I can. This house

is really all I have to depend upon, and--and--'

Again she was spared the unpleasant utterance. With an irresistible smile,

and laying her soft hand on the visitor's ill-fitting glove, Mrs. Rymer

began to reveal the happy thought which had occurred to her. In the house

there was a spare room; why should not Miss Shepperson come and live

here--live, that is to say, as a member of the family? Nothing simpler than

to arrange the details of such a plan, which, of course, must be 'strictly

businesslike,' though carried out in a spirit of mutual goodwill. A certain

sum of money was due to her for rent; suppose this were repaid in the form

of board and lodging, which might be reckoned at--should one say, fifteen

shillings a week? At midsummer next an account would be drawn up, 'in a

thoroughly businesslike way,' and whatever then remained due to Miss

Shepperson would be paid at once; after which, if the arrangement proved

agreeable to both sides, it might be continued, cost of board and lodging

being deducted from the rent, and the remainder paid 'with regularity'

every quarter. Miss Shepperson would thus have a home--a real home--with

all family comforts, and Mrs. Rymer, who was too much occupied with house

and children to see much society, would have the advantage of a sympathetic

friend under her own roof. The good lady's voice trembled with joyous

eagerness as she unfolded the project, and her eyes grew large as she

waited for the response.

Miss Shepperson felt such astonishment that she could only reply with

incoherencies. An idea so novel and so strange threw her thoughts into

disorder. She was alarmed by the invitation to live with people who were

socially her superiors. On the other hand, the proposal made appeal to her

natural inclination for domestic life; it offered the possibility of

occupation, of usefulness. Moreover, from the pecuniary point of view, it

would be so very advantageous.

'But,' she stammered at length, when Mrs. Rymer had repeated the suggestion

in words even more gracious and alluring, 'but fifteen shillings is so very

little for board and lodging.'

'Oh, don't let _that_ trouble you, dear Miss Shepperson,' cried the other

gaily. 'In a family, so little difference is made by an extra person. I

assure you it is a perfectly businesslike arrangement; otherwise my

husband, who is prudence itself, would never have sanctioned it. As you

know, we are suffering a temporary embarrassment. I wrote to you yesterday

before my husband's return from business. When he came home, I learnt, to

my dismay, that it might be rather _more_ than a month before he was able

to send you a cheque. I said: "Oh, I must write again to Miss Shepperson. I

can't bear to think of misleading her." Then, as we talked, that idea came

to me. As I think you will believe, Miss Shepperson, I am not a scheming or

a selfish woman; never, never have I wronged any one in my life. This

proposal, I cannot help feeling, is as much for your benefit as for ours.

Doesn't it really seem so to you? Suppose you come up with me and look at

the room. It is not in perfect order, but you will see whether it pleases

you.

Curiosity allying itself with the allurement which had begun to work upon

her feelings, Miss Shepperson timidly rose and followed her smiling guide

upstairs. The little spare room on the second floor was furnished simply

enough, but made such a contrast with the bedchamber in the Acton

lodging-house that the visitor could scarcely repress an exclamation. Mrs.

Rymer was voluble with promise of added comforts. She interested herself in

Miss Shepperson's health, and learnt with the utmost satisfaction that it

seldom gave trouble. She inquired as to Miss Shepperson's likings in the

matter of diet, and strongly approved her preference for a plain, nutritive

regimen. From the spare room the visitor was taken into all the others, and

before they went downstairs again Mrs. Rymer had begun to talk as though

the matter were decided.

'You will stay and have lunch with me,' she said. 'Oh yes, indeed you will;

I can't dream of your going out into this weather till after lunch. Suppose

we have the tots into the drawing-room again? I want them to make friends

with you at once. I _know_ you love children.--Oh, I have known that for a

long time!'

Miss Shepperson stayed to lunch. She stayed to tea. When at length she took

her leave, about six o'clock, the arrangement was complete in every detail.

On this day week she would transfer herself to the Rymers' house, and enter

upon her new life.

She arrived on Saturday afternoon, and was received by the assembled family

like a very dear friend or relative. Mr. Rymer, a well-dressed man, polite,

good-natured, with a frequent falsetto laugh, talked over the teacups in

the pleasantest way imaginable, not only putting Miss Shepperson at ease,

but making her feel as if her position as a member of the household were

the most natural thing in the world. His mere pronunciation of her name

gave it a dignity, an importance quite new to Miss Shepperson's ears. He

had a way of shaping his remarks so as to make it appear that the homely,

timid woman was, if anything, rather the superior in rank and education,

and that their simple ways might now and then cause her amusement. Even the

children seemed to do their best to make the newcomer feel at home. Cissy,

whose age was nine, assiduously handed toast and cake with a most engaging

smile, and little Minnie, not quite six, deposited her kitten in Miss

Shepperson's lap, saying prettily, 'You may stroke it whenever you like.'

Miss Shepperson, to be sure, had personal qualities which could not but

appeal to people of discernment. Her plain features expressed a simplicity

and gentleness which more than compensated for the lack of conventional

grace in her manners; she spoke softly and with obvious frankness, nor was

there much fault to find with her phrasing and accent; dressed a little

more elegantly, she would in no way have jarred with the tone of average

middle-class society. If she had not much education, she was altogether

free from pretence, and the possession of property (which always works very

decidedly for good or for evil) saved her from that excess of deference

which would have accentuated her social shortcomings. Undistinguished as

she might seem at the first glance, Miss Shepperson could not altogether be

slighted by any one who had been in her presence for a few minutes. And

when, in the course of the evening, she found courage to converse more

freely, giving her views, for instance, on the great servant question, and

on other matters of domestic interest, it became clear to Mr. and Mrs.

Rymer that their landlady, though a soft-hearted and simple-minded woman,

was by no means to be regarded as a person of no account.

The servant question was to the front just now, as Mrs. Rymer explained in

detail. She, 'of course,' kept two domestics, but was temporarily making

shift with only one, it being so difficult to replace the cook, who had

left a week ago. Did Miss Shepperson know of a cook, a sensible,

trustworthy woman? For the present Mrs. Rymer--she confessed it with a

pleasant little laugh--had to give an eye to the dinner herself.

'I only hope you won't make yourself ill, dear,' said Mr. Rymer, bending

towards his wife with a look of well-bred solicitude. 'Miss Shepperson, I

beg you to insist that she lies down a little every afternoon. She has

great nervous energy, but isn't really very strong. You can't think what a

relief it will be to me all day to know that some one is with her.'

On Sunday morning all went to church together; for, to Mrs. Rymer's great

satisfaction, Miss Shepperson was a member of the orthodox community, and

particular about observances. Meals were reduced to the simplest terms; a

restful quiet prevailed in the little house; in the afternoon, while Mrs.

Rymer reposed, Miss Shepperson read to the children. She it was who--the

servant being out--prepared tea. After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Rymer, with many

apologies, left the home together for a couple of hours, being absolutely

obliged to pay a call at some distance, and Miss Shepperson again took care

of the children till the domestic returned.

After breakfast the next day--it was a very plain meal, merely a rasher and

dry toast--the lady of the house chatted with her friend more

confidentially than ever. Their servant, she said, a good girl but not very

robust, naturally could not do all the work of the house, and, by way of

helping, Mrs. Rymer was accustomed to 'see to' her own bedroom.

'It's really no hardship,' she said, in her graceful, sweet-tempered way,

'when once you're used to it; in fact, I think the exercise is good for my

health. But, of course, I couldn't think of asking _you_ to do the same. No

doubt you will like to have a breath of air, as the sky seems clearing.'

What could Miss Shepperson do but protest that to put her own room in order

was such a trifling matter that they need not speak of it another moment.

Mrs. Rymer was confused, vexed, and wished she had not said a word; but the

other made a joke of these scruples.

'When do the children go out?' asked Miss Shepperson. 'Do you take them

yourself?'

'Oh, always! almost always! I shall go out with them for an hour at eleven.

And yet'--she checked herself, with a look of worry--'oh, dear me! I must

absolutely go shopping, and I do so dislike to take the tots in that

direction. Never mind; the walk must be put off till the afternoon. It

_may_ rain; but--'

Miss Shepperson straightway offered her services; she would either shop or

go out with the children, whichever Mrs. Rymer preferred. The lady thought

she had better do the shopping--so her friend's morning was pleasantly

arranged. In a day or two things got into a happy routine. Miss Shepperson

practically became nursemaid, with the privilege of keeping her own bedroom

in order and of helping in a good many little ways throughout the domestic

day. A fortnight elapsed, and Mrs. Rymer was still unable to 'suit herself'

with a cook, though she had visited, or professed to visit, many

registry-offices and corresponded with many friends. A week after that the

subject of the cook had somehow fallen into forgetfulness; and, indeed, a

less charitably disposed observer than Miss Shepperson might have doubted

whether Mrs. Rymer had ever seriously meant to engage one at all. The food

served on the family table was of the plainest, and not always

superabundant in quantity; but the table itself was tastefully ordered,

and, indeed, no sort of carelessness appeared in any detail of the

household life. Mrs. Rymer was always busy, and without fuss, without

irritation. She had a large correspondence; but it was not often that

people called. No guest was ever invited to lunch or dinner. All this while

the master of the house kept regular hours, leaving home at nine and

returning at seven; if he went out after dinner, which happened rarely, he

was always back by eleven o'clock. No more respectable man than Mr. Rymer;

none more even-tempered, more easily pleased, more consistently polite and

amiable. That he and his wife were very fond of each other appeared in all

their talk and behaviour; both worshipped the children, and, in spite of

that, trained them with a considerable measure of good sense. In the

evenings Mr. Rymer sometimes read aloud, or he would talk instructively of

the affairs of the day. The more Miss Shepperson saw of her friends the

more she liked them. Never had she been the subject of so much kind

attention, and in no company had she ever felt so happily at ease.

Time went on, and it was near midsummer. Of late Mrs. Rymer had not been

very well, and once or twice Miss Shepperson fancied that her eyes showed

traces of tears; it was but natural that the guest, often preoccupied with

the thought of the promised settlement, should feel a little uneasy. On

June 23 Mrs. Rymer chose a suitable moment, and with her most confidential

air, invited Miss Shepperson to an intimate chat.

'I want to explain to you,' she said, rather cheerfully than otherwise,

'the exact state of our affairs. I'm sure it will interest you. We have

become such good friends--as I knew we should. I shall be much easier in

mind when you know exactly how we stand.'

Thereupon she spoke of a certain kinsman of her husband, an old and infirm

man, whose decease was expected, if not from day to day, at all events from

week to week. The event would have great importance for them, as Mr. Rymer

was entitled to the reversion of several thousands of pounds, held in use

by his lingering relative.

'Now let me ask you a question,' pursued the lady in friendship's

undertone. 'My husband is _quite_ prepared to settle with you to-morrow. He

wishes to do so, for he feels that your patience has been most exemplary.

But, as we spoke of it last night, an idea came to me. I can't help

thinking it was a happy idea, but I wish to know how it strikes you. On

receiving the sum due to you, you will no doubt place it in a bank, or in

some way invest it. Suppose, now, you leave the money in Mr. Rymer's hands,

receiving his acknowledgment, and allowing him to pay it, with four per

cent, interest, when he enters into possession of his capital? Mind, I only

suggest this; not for a moment would I put pressure upon you. If you have

need of the money, it shall be paid _at once._ But it struck me that,

knowing us so well now, you might even be glad of such an investment as

this. The event to which we are looking forward may happen very soon; but

it _may_ be delayed. How would you like to leave this money, and the sums

to which you will be entitled under our arrangements, from quarter to

quarter, to increase at compound interest? Let us make a little

calculation--'

Miss Shepperson listened nervously. She was on the point of saying that, on

the whole, she preferred immediate payment; but while she struggled with

her moral weakness Mrs. Rymer, anxiously reading her face, struck another

note.

'I mustn't disguise from you that the money, though such a small sum, would

be useful to my husband. Poor fellow! he has been fighting against

adversity for the last year or two, and I'm sure no man ever struggled more

bravely. You would never think, would you? that he is often kept awake all

night by his anxieties. As I tell him, he need not really be anxious at

all, for his troubles will so soon come to an end. But there is no more

honourable man living, and he worries at the thought of owing money--you

can't imagine how he worries! Then, to tell you a great secret--'

A change came upon the speaker's face; her voice softened to a whisper as

she communicated a piece of delicate domestic news.

'My poor husband,' she added, 'cannot bear to think that, when it happens,

we may be in really straitened circumstances, and I may suffer for lack of

comforts. To tell you the whole truth, dear Miss Shepperson, I have no

doubt that, if you like my idea, he would at once put aside that money to

be ready for an emergency. So, you see, it is self-interest in me, after

all.' Her smile was very sweet. 'But don't judge me too severely. What I

propose is, as you see, really a very good investment--is it not?'

Miss Shepperson found it impossible to speak as she wished, and before the

conversation came to an end she saw the matter entirely from her friend's

point of view. She had, in truth, no immediate need of money, and the more

she thought of it, the more content she was to do a kindness to the Rymers,

while at the same time benefiting herself. That very evening Mr. Rymer

prepared a legal document, promising to pay on demand the sum which became

due to Miss Shepperson to-morrow, with compound interest at the rate of

four per cent. While signing this, he gravely expressed his conviction that

before Michaelmas the time for payment would have arrived.

'But if it were next week,' he added, with a polite movement towards his

creditor, 'I should be not a bit the less grateful to our most kind

friend.'

'Oh, but it's purely a matter of business,' said Miss Shepperson, who was

always abashed by such expressions.

'To be sure,' murmured Mrs. Rymer. 'Let us look at it in that light. But it

shan't prevent us from calling Miss Shepperson our dearest friend.'

The homely woman blushed and felt happy.

Towards the end of autumn, when the domestic crisis was very near, the

servant declared herself ill, and at twenty-four hours' notice quitted the

house. As a matter of fact, she had received no wages for several months;

the kindness with which she was otherwise treated had kept her at her post

thus long, but she feared the increase of work impending, and preferred to

go off unpaid. Now for the first time did Mrs. Rymer's nerves give way.

Miss Shepperson found her sobbing by the fireside, the two children

lamenting at such an unwonted spectacle. Where was a new servant to be

found? In a day or two the monthly nurse would be here, and must, of

course, be waited upon. And what was to become of the children? Miss

Shepperson, moved by the calamitous situation, entreated her friend to

leave everything to her. She would find a servant somehow, and meanwhile

would keep the house going with her own hands. Mrs. Rymer sobbed that she

was ashamed to allow such a thing; but the other, braced by a crisis,

displayed wonderful activity and resource. For two days Miss Shepperson did

all the domestic labour; then a maid, of the species known as 'general,'

presented herself, and none too soon, for that same night there was born to

the Rymers a third daughter. But troubles were by no means over. While Mrs.

Rymer was ill--very ill indeed--the new handmaid exhibited a character so

eccentric that, after nearly setting fire to the house while in a state of

intoxication, she had to be got rid of as speedily as possible. Miss

Shepperson resolved that, for the present, there should be no repetition of

such disagreeable things. She quietly told Mr. Rymer that she felt quite

able to grapple with the situation herself.

'Impossible!' cried the master of the house, who, after many sleepless

nights and distracted days, had a haggard, unshorn face, scarcely to be

recognised. 'I cannot permit it! I will go myself'

Then, suddenly turning again to Miss Shepperson, he grasped her hand,

called her his dear friend and benefactress, and with breaking voice

whispered to her--

'I will help you. I can do the hard work. It's only for a day or two.'

Late that evening he and Miss Shepperson were in the kitchen together: the

one was washing crockery, the other, who had been filling coal-scuttles,

stood with dirty hands and melancholy visage, his eyes fixed on the floor.

Their looks met; Mr. Rymer took a step forward, smiling with confidential

sadness.

'I feel that I ought to speak frankly,' he said, in a voice as polite and

well-tuned as ever. 'I should like to make known to you the exact state of

my affairs.'

'Oh, but Mrs. Rymer has told me everything,' replied Miss Shepperson, as

she dried a tea-cup.

'No; not quite everything, I'm afraid.' He had a shovel in his hand, and

eyed it curiously. 'She has not told you that I am considerably in debt to

various people, and that, not long ago, I was obliged to raise money on our

furniture.'

Miss Shepperson laid down the tea-cup and gazed anxiously at him, whereupon

he began a detailed story of his misfortunes in business. Mr. Rymer was a

commission-agent--that is to say, he was everything and nothing. Struggle

with pecuniary embarrassment was his normal condition, but only during the

last twelvemonth had he fallen under persistent ill-luck and come to all

but the very end of his resources. It would still be possible for him, he

explained, to raise money on the reversion for which he was waiting, but of

such a step he could not dream.

'It would be dishonesty, Miss Shepperson, and, how unfortunate, I have

never yet lost my honour. People have trusted me, knowing that I am an

honest man. I belong to a good family--as, no doubt, Mrs. Rymer has told

you. A brother of mine holds a respected position in Birmingham, and, if

the worst comes to the worst, he will find me employment. But, as you can

well understand, I shrink from that extremity. For one thing, I am in debt

to my brother, and I am resolved to pay what I owe him before asking for

any more assistance. I do not lose courage. You know the proverb: "Lose

heart, lose all." I am blest with an admirable wife, who stands by me and

supports me under every trial. If my wife were to die, Miss Shepperson--'

He faltered; his eyes glistened in the gas 'But no, I won't encourage

gloomy fears. She is a little better to-day, they tell me. We shall come

out of our troubles, and laugh over them by our cheerful fireside--you with

us--you, our dearest and staunchest friend.'

'Yes, we must hope,' said Miss Shepperson, reassured once more as to her

own interests; for a moment her heart had sunk very low indeed. 'We are all

doing our best.'

'You above all,' said Mr. Rymer, pressing her hand with his coal-blackened

fingers. 'I felt obliged to speak frankly, because you must have thought it

strange that I allowed things to get so disorderly--our domestic

arrangements, I mean. The fact is, Miss Shepperson, I simply don't know how

I am going to meet the expenses of this illness, and I dread the thought of

engaging servants. I cannot--I will not--raise money on my expectations!

When the money comes to me, I must be able to pay all my debts, and have

enough left to recommence life with. Don't you approve this resolution,

Miss Shepperson?'

'Oh yes, indeed I do,' replied the listener heartily.

'And yet, of course,' he pursued, his eyes wandering, 'we _must_ have a

servant--'

Miss Shepperson reflected, she too with an uneasy look on her face. There

was a long silence, broken by a deep sigh from Mr. Rymer, a sigh which was

almost a sob. The other went on drying her plates and dishes, and said at

length that perhaps they might manage with quite a young girl, who would

come for small wages; she herself was willing to help as much as she

could--

'Oh, you shame me, you shame me!' broke in Mr. Rymer, laying a hand on his

forehead, and leaving a black mark there. 'There is no end to your

kindness; but I feel it as a disgrace to us--to me--that you, a

lady of property, should be working here like a servant. It is

monstrous--monstrous!'

At the flattering description of herself Miss Shepperson smiled; her soft

eyes beamed with the light of contentment.

'Don't you give a thought to that, Mr. Rymer,' she exclaimed. 'Why, it's a

pleasure to me, and it gives me something to do--it's good for my health.

Don't you worry. Think about your business, and leave me to look after the

house. It'll be all right.'

A week later Mrs. Rymer was in the way of recovery, and her husband went to

the City as usual. A servant had been engaged--a girl of sixteen, who knew

as much of housework as London girls of sixteen generally do; at all

events, she could carry coals and wash steps. But the mistress of the

house, it was evident, would for a long time be unable to do anything

whatever; the real maid-of-all-work was Miss Shepperson, who rose every

morning at six o'clock, and toiled in one way or another till weary

bedtime. If she left the house, it was to do needful shopping or to take

the children for a walk. Her reward was the admiration and gratitude of the

family; even little Minnie had been taught to say, at frequent intervals:

'I love Miss Shepperson because she is good!' The invalid behaved to her as

to a sister, and kissed her cheek morning and evening. Miss Shepperson's

name being Dora, the baby was to be so called, and, as a matter of course,

the godmother drew a sovereign from her small savings to buy little Miss

Dora a christening present. It would not have been easy to find a house in

London in which there reigned so delightful a spirit of harmony and

kindliness.

'I was so glad,' said Mrs. Rymer one day to her friend, the day on which

she first rose from bed, 'that my husband took you into his confidence

about our affairs. Now you know everything, and it is much better. You know

that we are very unlucky, but that no one can breathe a word against our

honour. This was the thought that held me up through my illness. In a very

short time all our debts will be paid--every farthing, and it will be

delightful to remember how we struggled, and what we endured, to keep an

honest name. Though,' she added tenderly, 'how we should have done without

_you_, I really cannot imagine. We might have sunk--gone down!'

For months Mrs. Rymer led the life of a feeble convalescent. She ought to

have had change of air, but that was out of the question, for Mr. Rymer's

business was as unremunerative as ever, and with difficulty he provided the

household with food. One gleam of light kept up the courage of the family:

the aged relative was known to be so infirm that he could only leave the

house in a bath-chair; every day there might be news even yet more

promising. Meanwhile, the girl of sixteen exercised her incompetence in the

meaner departments of domestic life, and Miss Shepperson did all the work

that required care or common-sense, the duties of nursemaid alone taking a

great deal of her time. On the whole, this employment seemed to suit her;

she had a look of improved health, enjoyed more equable spirits, and in her

manner showed more self-confidence. Once a month she succeeded in getting a

few hours' holiday, and paid a visit to one or the other of her sisters;

but to neither of them did she tell the truth regarding her position in the

house at Hammersmith. Now and then, when every one else under the roof was

asleep, she took from a locked drawer in her bedroom a little account-book,

and busied herself with figures. This she found an enjoyable moment; it was

very pleasant indeed to make the computation of what the Rymers owed to

her, a daily-growing debt of which the payment could not now be long

delayed. She did not feel quite sure with regard to the interest, but the

principal of the debt was very easily reckoned, and it would make a nice

little sum to put by. Certainly Miss Shepperson was not unhappy.

Mrs. Rymer was just able to resume her normal habits, to write many

letters, teach her children, pay visits in distant parts of London--the

care of the baby being still chiefly left to Miss Shepperson--when, on a

pleasant day of spring, a little before lunch-time, Mr. Rymer rushed into

the house, calling in an agitated voice his wife's name. Miss Shepperson

was the only person at home, for Mrs. Rymer had gone out with the children,

the servant accompanying her to wheel baby's perambulator; she ran up from

the kitchen, aproned, with sleeves rolled to the elbow, and met the excited

man as he descended from a vain search in the bedrooms.

'Has it happened?' she cried--for it seemed to her that there could be only

one explanation of Mr. Rymer's behaviour.

'Yes! He died this morning--this morning!'

They clasped hands; then, as an afterthought, their eyes fell, and they

stood limply embarrassed.

'It seems shocking to take the news in this way,' murmured Mr. Rymer; 'but

the relief; oh, the relief! And then, I scarcely knew him; we haven't seen

each other for years. I can't help it! I feel as if I had thrown off a load

of tons! Where is Adelaide? Which way have they gone?'

He rushed out again, to meet his wife. For several minutes Miss Shepperson

stood motionless, in a happy daze, until she suddenly remembered that chops

were at the kitchen fire, and sped downstairs.

Throughout that day, and, indeed, for several days to come, Mrs. Rymer

behaved very properly indeed; her pleasant, refined face wore a becoming

gravity, and when she spoke of the deceased she called him _poor_ Mr.

So-and-so. She did not attend the funeral, for baby happened to be ailing,

but Mr. Rymer, of course, went. He, in spite of conscientious effort to

imitate his wife's decorum, frequently betrayed the joy which was in his

mind; Miss Shepperson heard him singing as he got up in the morning, and

noticed that he ate with unusual appetite. The house brightened. Before the

end of a week smiles and cheerful remarks ruled in the family; sorrows were

forgotten, and everybody looked forward to the great day of settlement.

It did not come quickly. In two months' time Mr. Rymer still waited upon

the pleasure of the executors. But he was not inactive. His brother at

Birmingham had suggested 'an opening' in that city (thus did Mrs. Rymer

phrase it), and the commission-agent had decided to leave London as soon as

his affairs were in order. Towards the end of the third month the family

was suffering from hope deferred. Mr. Rymer had once more a troubled face,

and his wife no longer talked to Miss Shepperson in happy strain of her

projects for the future. At length notice arrived that the executors were

prepared to settle with Mr. Rymer; yet, in announcing the fact, he

manifested only a sober contentment, while Mrs. Rymer was heard to sigh.

Miss Shepperson noted these things, and wondered a little, but Mrs. Rymer's

smiling assurance that now at last all was well revived her cheerful

expectations.

With a certain solemnity she was summoned, a day or two later, to a morning

colloquy in the drawing-room. Mr. Rymer sat in an easy-chair, holding a

bundle of papers; Mrs. Rymer sat on the sofa, the dozing baby on her lap;

over against them their friend took her seat. With a little cough and a

rustle of his papers, the polite man began to speak--

'Miss Shepperson, the day has come when I am able to discharge my debt to

you. You will not misunderstand that expression--I speak of my debt in

money. What I owe to you--what we all owe to you--in another and a higher

sense, can never be repaid. That moral debt must still go on, and be

acknowledged by the unfailing gratitude of a lifetime.'

'Of a lifetime,' repeated Mrs. Rymer, sweetly murmuring, and casting

towards her friend an eloquent glance.

'Here, however,' resumed her husband, 'is the pecuniary account. Will you

do me the kindness, Miss Shepperson, to glance it over and see if you find

it correct?'

Miss Shepperson took the paper, which was covered with a very neat array of

figures. It was the same calculation which she herself had so often made,

but with interest on the money due to her correctly computed. The weekly

sum of fifteen shillings for board and lodging had been deducted,

throughout the whole time, from the rent due to her as landlady. Mr. Rymer

stood her debtor for not quite thirty pounds.

'It's _quite_ correct,' said Miss Shepperson, handing back the paper with a

pleased smile.

Mr. Rymer turned to his wife.

'And what do _you_ say, dear? Do _you_ think it correct?'

Mrs. Rymer shook her head.

'No,' she answered gently, 'indeed I do not.'

Miss Shepperson was startled. She looked from one to the other, and saw on

their faces only the kindliest expression.

'I really thought it came to about that,' fell from her lips. 'I couldn't

quite reckon the interest--'

'Miss Shepperson,' said Mr. Rymer impressively, 'do you really think that

we should allow you to pay us for your board and lodging--you, our valued

friend--you, who have toiled for us, who have saved us from endless trouble

and embarrassment? That indeed would be a little too shameless. This

account is a mere joke--as I hope you really thought it. I insist on giving

you a cheque for the total amount of the rent due to you from the day when

you first entered this house.'

'Oh, Mr. Rymer!' panted the good woman, turning pale with astonishment.

'Why, of course!' exclaimed Mrs. Rymer. 'Do you think it would be

_possible_ for us to behave in any other way? Surely you know us too well,

dear Miss Shepperson!'

'How kind you are!' faltered their friend, unable to decide in herself

whether she should accept this generosity or not--sorely tempted by the

money, yet longing to show no less generous a spirit on her own side. 'I

really don't know--'

Mr. Rymer imposed silence with a wave of the hand, and began talking in a

slow, grave way.

'Miss Shepperson, to-day I may account myself a happy man. Listen to a very

singular story. You know that I was indebted to others besides you. I have

communicated with all those persons; I have drawn up a schedule of

everything I owe; and--extraordinary coincidence!--the sum-total of my

debts is exactly that of the reversion upon which I have entered, _minus_

three pounds fourteen shillings.'

'Strange!' murmured Mrs. Rymer, as if delightedly.

'I did not know, Miss Shepperson, that I owed so much. I had forgotten

items. And suppose, after all, the total had _exceeded_ my resources! That

indeed would have been a blow. As it is, I am a happy man; my wife is

happy. We pay our debts to the last farthing, and we begin the world

again--with three pounds to the good. Our furniture must go; I cannot

redeem it; no matter. I owe nothing; our honour is saved!'

Miss Shepperson was aghast.

'But, Mrs. Rymer,' she began, 'this is dreadful! What are you going to do?'

'Everything is arranged, dear friend,' Mrs. Rymer replied. 'My husband has

a little post in Birmingham, which will bring him in just enough to support

us in the most modest lodgings. We cannot hope to have a house of our own,

for we are determined never again to borrow--and, indeed, I do not know who

would lend to us. We are poor people, and must live as poor people do. Miss

Shepperson, I ask one favour of you. Will you permit us to leave your house

without the customary notice? We should feel very grateful. To-day I pay

Susan, and part with her; to-morrow we must travel to Birmingham. The

furniture will be removed by the people who take possession of it--'

Miss Shepperson was listening with a bewildered look. She saw Mr. Rymer

stand up.

'I will now,' he said, 'pay you the rent from the day--'

'Oh, Mr. Rymer!' cried the agitated woman. 'How _can_ I take it? How can I

leave you penniless? I should feel it a downright robbery, that I should!'

'Miss Shepperson,' exclaimed Mrs. Rymer in soft reproach, 'don't you

understand how much better it is to pay all we owe, even though it does

leave us penniless? Why, even darling baby'--she kissed it--'would say so

if she could speak, poor little mite. Of course you will accept the money;

I insist upon it. You won't forget us. We will send you our address, and

you shall hear of your little godchild--'

Her voice broke; she sobbed, and rebuked herself for weakness, and sobbed

again. Meanwhile Mr. Rymer stood holding out banknotes and gold. The

distracted Miss Shepperson made a wild gesture.

'How _can_ I take it? How _can_ I? I should be ashamed the longest day I

lived!'

'I must insist,' said Mr. Rymer firmly; and his wife, calm again, echoed

the words. In that moment Miss Shepperson clutched at the notes and gold,

and, with a quick step forward, took hold of the baby's hand, making the

little fingers close upon the money.

'There! I give it to little Dora--there!'

Mr. Rymer turned away to hide his emotion. Mrs. Rymer laid baby down on the

sofa, and clasped Miss Shepperson in her arms.

* * * * *

A few days later the house at Hammersmith was vacant. The Rymers wrote from

Birmingham that they had found sufficient, though humble, lodgings, and

were looking for a tiny house, which they would furnish very, very simply

with the money given to baby by their ever dear friend. It may be added

that they had told the truth regarding their position--save as to one

detail: Mr. Rymer thought it needless to acquaint Miss Shepperson with the

fact that his brother, a creditor for three hundred pounds, had generously

forgiven the debt.

Miss Shepperson, lodging in a little bedroom, with an approving conscience

to keep her company, hoped that her house would soon be let again.

A DAUGHTER OF THE LODGE

For a score of years the Rocketts had kept the lodge of Brent Hall. In the

beginning Rockett was head gardener; his wife, the daughter of a

shopkeeper, had never known domestic service, and performed her duties at

the Hall gates with a certain modest dignity not displeasing to the stately

persons upon whom she depended. During the lifetime of Sir Henry the best

possible understanding existed between Hall and lodge. Though Rockett's

health broke down, and at length he could work hardly at all, their

pleasant home was assured to the family; and at Sir Henry's death the

nephew who succeeded him left the Rocketts undisturbed. But, under this new

lordship, things were not quite as they had been. Sir Edwin Shale, a

middle-aged man, had in his youth made a foolish marriage; his lady ruled

him, not with the gentlest of tongues, nor always to the kindest purpose,

and their daughter, Hilda, asserted her rights as only child with a force

of character which Sir Edwin would perhaps have more sincerely admired had

it reminded him less of Lady Shale.

While the Hall, in Sir Henry's time, remained childless, the lodge prided

itself on a boy and two girls. Young Rockett, something of a scapegrace,

was by the baronet's advice sent to sea, and thenceforth gave his parents

no trouble. The second daughter, Betsy, grew up to be her mother's help.

But Betsy's elder sister showed from early years that the life of the lodge

would afford no adequate scope for _her_ ambitions. May Rockett had good

looks; what was more, she had an intellect which sharpened itself on

everything with which it came in contact. The village school could never

have been held responsible for May Rockett's acquirements and views at the

age of ten; nor could the High School in the neighbouring town altogether

account for her mental development at seventeen. Not without misgivings had

the health-broken gardener and his wife consented to May's pursuit of the

higher learning; but Sir Henry and the kind old Lady Shale seemed to think

it the safer course, and evidently there was little chance of the girl's

accepting any humble kind of employment: in one way or another she must

depend for a livelihood upon her brains. At the time of Sir Edwin's

succession Miss Rockett had already obtained a place as governess, giving

her parents to understand that this was only, of course, a temporary

expedient--a paving of the way to something vaguely, but superbly,

independent. Nor was promotion long in coming. At two-and-twenty May

accepted a secretaryship to a lady with a mission--concerning the rights of

womanhood. In letters to her father and mother she spoke much of the

importance of her work, but did not confess how very modest was her salary.

A couple of years went by without her visiting the old home; then, of a

sudden, she made known her intention of coming to stay at the lodge 'for a

week or ten days.' She explained that her purpose was rest; intellectual

strain had begun rather to tell upon her, and a few days of absolute

tranquillity, such as she might expect under the elms of Brent Hall, would

do her all the good in the world. 'Of course,' she added, 'it's unnecessary

to say anything about me to the Shale people. They and I have nothing in

common, and it will be better for us to ignore each other's existence.'

These characteristic phrases troubled Mr. and Mrs. Rockett. That the family

at the Hall should, if it seemed good to them, ignore the existence of May

was, in the Rocketts' view, reasonable enough; but for May to ignore Sir

Edwin and Lady Shale, who were just now in residence after six months spent

abroad, struck them as a very grave impropriety. Natural respect demanded

that, at some fitting moment, and in a suitable manner, their daughter

should present herself to her feudal superiors, to whom she was assuredly

indebted, though indirectly, for 'the blessings she enjoyed.' This was Mrs.

Rockett's phrase, and the rheumatic, wheezy old gardener uttered the same

opinion in less conventional language. They had no affection for Sir Edwin

or his lady, and Miss Hilda they decidedly disliked; their treatment at the

hands of these new people contrasted unpleasantly enough with the memory of

old times; but a spirit of loyal subordination ruled their blood, and, to

Sir Edwin at all events, they felt gratitude for their retention at the

lodge. Mrs. Rockett was a healthy and capable woman of not more than fifty,

but no less than her invalid husband would she have dreaded the thought of

turning her back on Brent Hall. Rockett had often consoled himself with the

thought that here he should die, here amid the fine old trees that he

loved, in the ivy-covered house which was his only idea of home. And was it

not a reasonable hope that Betsy, good steady girl, should some day marry

the promising young gardener whom Sir Edwin had recently taken into his

service, and so re-establish the old order of things at the lodge?

'I half wish May wasn't coming,' said Mrs. Rockett after long and anxious

thought. 'Last time she was here she quite upset me with her strange talk.'

'She's a funny girl, and that's the truth,' muttered Rockett from his old

leather chair, full in the sunshine of the kitchen window. They had a nice

little sitting-room; but this, of course, was only used on Sunday, and no

particular idea of comfort attached to it. May, to be sure, had always used

the sitting-room. It was one of the habits which emphasised most strongly

the moral distance between her and her parents.

The subject being full of perplexity, they put it aside, and with very

mixed feelings awaited their elder daughter's arrival. Two days later a cab

deposited at the lodge Miss May, and her dress-basket, and her

travelling-bag, and her holdall, together with certain loose periodicals

and a volume or two bearing the yellow label of Mudie. The young lady was

well dressed in a severely practical way; nothing unduly feminine marked

her appearance, and in the matter of collar and necktie she inclined to the

example of the other sex; for all that, her soft complexion and bright

eyes, her well-turned figure and light, quick movements, had a picturesque

value which Miss May certainly did not ignore. She manifested no excess of

feeling when her mother and sister came forth to welcome her; a nod, a

smile, an offer of her cheek, and the pleasant exclamation, 'Well, good

people!' carried her through this little scene with becoming dignity.

'You will bring these things inside, please,' she said to the driver, in

her agreeable head-voice, with the tone and gesture of one who habitually

gives orders.

Her father, bent with rheumatism, stood awaiting her just within. She

grasped his hand cordially, and cried on a cheery note, 'Well, father, how

are you getting on? No worse than usual, I hope?' Then she added, regarding

him with her head slightly aside, 'We must have a talk about your case.

I've been going in a little for medicine lately. No doubt your country

medico is a duffer. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself comfortable. I

don't want to disturb any one. About teatime, isn't it, mother? Tea very

weak for me, please, and a slice of lemon with it, if you have such a

thing, and just a mouthful of dry toast.'

So unwilling was May to disturb the habits of the family that, half an hour

after her arrival, the homely three had fallen into a state of nervous

agitation, and could neither say nor do anything natural to them. Of a

sudden there sounded a sharp rapping at the window. Mrs. Rockett and Betsy

started up, and Betsy ran to the door. In a moment or two she came back

with glowing cheeks.

'I'm sure I never heard the bell!' she exclaimed with compunction. 'Miss

Shale had to get off her bicycle!'

'Was it she who hammered at the window?' asked May coldly.

'Yes--and she was that annoyed.'

'It will do her good. A little anger now and then is excellent for the

health.' And Miss Rockett sipped her lemon-tinctured tea with a smile of

ineffable contempt.

The others went to bed at ten o'clock, but May, having made herself at ease

in the sitting-room, sat there reading until after twelve. Nevertheless,

she was up very early next morning, and, before going out for a sharp

little walk (in a heavy shower), she gave precise directions about her

breakfast. She wanted only the simplest things, prepared in the simplest

way, but the tone of her instructions vexed and perturbed Mrs. Rockett

sorely. After breakfast the young lady made a searching inquiry into the

state of her father's health, and diagnosed his ailments in such learned

words that the old gardener began to feel worse than he had done for many a

year. May then occupied herself with correspondence, and before midday sent

her sister out to post nine letters.

'But I thought you were going to rest yourself?' said her mother, in an

irritable voice quite unusual with her.

'Why, so I am resting!' May exclaimed. 'If you saw my ordinary morning's

work! I suppose you have a London newspaper? No? How _do_ you live without

it? I must run into the town for one this afternoon.'

The town was three miles away, but could be reached by train from the

village station. On reflection, Miss Rockett announced that she would use

this opportunity for calling on a lady whose acquaintance she desired to

make, one Mrs. Lindley, who in social position stood on an equality with

the family at the Hall, and was often seen there. On her mother's

expressing surprise, May smiled indulgently.

'Why shouldn't I know Mrs. Lindley? I have heard she's interested in a

movement which occupies me a good deal just now. I know she will be

delighted to see me. I can give her a good deal of first-hand information,

for which she will be grateful. You _do_ amuse me, mother, she added in her

blandest tone. 'When will you come to understand what my position is?'

The Rocketts had put aside all thoughts of what they esteemed May's duty

towards the Hall; they earnestly hoped that her stay with them might pass

unobserved by Lady and Miss Shale, whom, they felt sure, it would be

positively dangerous for the girl to meet. Mrs. Rockett had not slept for

anxiety on this score. The father was also a good deal troubled; but his

wonder at May's bearing and talk had, on the whole, an agreeable

preponderance over the uneasy feeling. He and Betsy shared a secret

admiration for the brilliant qualities which were flashed before their

eyes; they privately agreed that May was more of a real lady than either

the baronet's hard-tongued wife or the disdainful Hilda Shale.

So Miss Rockett took the early afternoon train, and found her way to Mrs.

Lindley's, where she sent in her card. At once admitted to the

drawing-room, she gave a rapid account of herself, naming persons whose

acquaintance sufficiently recommended her. Mrs. Lindley was a

good-humoured, chatty woman, who had a lively interest in everything

'progressive'; a new religion or a new cycling-costume stirred her to just

the same kind of happy excitement; she had no prejudices, but a decided

preference for the society of healthy, high-spirited, well-to-do people.

Miss Rockett's talk was exactly what she liked, for it glanced at

innumerable topics of the 'advanced' sort, was much concerned with

personalities, and avoided all tiresome precision of argument.

'Are you making a stay here?' asked the hostess.

'Oh! I am with my people in the country--not far off,' May answered in an

offhand way. 'Only for a day or two.'

Other callers were admitted, but Miss Rockett kept the lead in talk; she

glowed with self-satisfaction, feeling that she was really showing to great

advantage, and that everybody admired her. When the door again opened the

name announced was 'Miss Shale.' Stopping in the middle of a swift

sentence, May looked at the newcomer, and saw that it was indeed Hilda

Shale, of Brent Hall; but this did not disconcert her. Without lowering her

voice she finished what she was saying, and ended in a mirthful key. The

baronet's daughter had come into town on her bicycle, as was declared by

the short skirt, easy jacket, and brown shoes, which well displayed her

athletic person. She was a tall, strongly built girl of six-and-twenty,

with a face of hard comeliness and magnificent tawny hair. All her

movements suggested vigour; she shook hands with a downward jerk, moved

about the room with something of a stride and, in sitting down, crossed her

legs abruptly.

From the first her look had turned with surprise to Miss Rockett. When,

after a minute or two, the hostess presented that young lady to her, Miss

Shale raised her eyebrows a little, smiled in another direction, and gave a

just perceptible nod. May's behaviour was as nearly as possible the same.

'Do you cycle, Miss Rockett?' asked Mrs. Lindley.

'No, I don't. The fact is, I have never found time to learn.'

A lady remarked that nowadays there was a certain distinction in not

cycling; whereupon Miss Shale's abrupt and rather metallic voice sounded

what was meant for gentle irony.

'It's a pity the machines can't be sold cheaper. A great many people who

would like to cycle don't feel able to afford it, you know. One often hears

of such cases out in the country, and it seems awfully hard lines, doesn't

it?'

Miss Rockett felt a warmth ascending to her ears, and made a violent effort

to look unconcerned. She wished to say something, but could not find the

right words, and did not feel altogether sure of her voice. The hostess,

who made no personal application of Miss Shale's remark, began to discuss

the prices of bicycles, and others chimed in. May fretted under this turn

of the conversation. Seeing that it was not likely to revert to subjects in

which she could shine, she rose and offered to take leave.

'Must you really go?' fell with conventional regret from the hostess's

lips.

'I'm afraid I must,' Miss Rockett replied, bracing herself under the

converging eyes and feeling not quite equal to the occasion. 'My time is so

short, and there are so many people I wish to see.'

As she left the house, anger burned in her. It was certain that Hilda Shale

would make known her circumstances. She had fancied this revelation a

matter of indifference; but, after all, the thought stung her intolerably.

The insolence of the creature, with her hint about the prohibitive cost of

bicycles! All the harder to bear because hitting the truth. May would have

long ago bought a bicycle had she been able to afford it. Straying about

the main streets of the town, she looked flushed and wrathful, and could

think of nothing but her humiliation.

To make things worse, she lost count of time, and presently found that she

had missed the only train by which she could return home. A cab would be

too much of an expense; she had no choice but to walk the three or four

miles. The evening was close; walking rapidly, and with the accompaniment

of vexatious thoughts, she reached the gates of the Hall tired perspiring,

irritated. Just as her hand was on the gate a bicycle-bell trilled

vigorously behind her, and, from a distance of twenty yards, a voice cried

imperatively--

'Open the gate, please!'

Miss Rockett looked round, and saw Hilda Shale slowly wheeling forward, in

expectation that way would be made for her. Deliberately May passed through

the side entrance, and let the little gate fall to.

Miss Shale dismounted, admitted herself, and spoke to May (now at the lodge

door) with angry emphasis.

'Didn't you hear me ask you to open?'

'I couldn't imagine you were speaking to _me_,' answered Miss Rockett, with

brisk dignity. 'I supposed some servant of yours was in sight.'

A peculiar smile distorted Miss Shale's full red lips. Without another word

she mounted her machine and rode away up the elm avenue.

Now Mrs. Rockett had seen this encounter, and heard the words exchanged:

she was lost in consternation.

'What _do_ you mean by behaving like that, May? Why, I was running out

myself to open, and then I saw you were there, and, of course, I thought

you'd do it. There's the second time in two days Miss Shale has had to

complain about us. How _could_ you forget yourself, to behave and speak

like that! Why, you must be crazy, my girl!'

'I don't seem to get on very well here, mother,' was May's reply. 'The fact

is, I'm in a false position. I shall go to-morrow morning, and there won't

be any more trouble.'

Thus spoke Miss Rockett, as one who shakes off a petty annoyance--she knew

not that the serious trouble was just beginning. A few minutes later Mrs.

Rockett went up to the Hall, bent on humbly apologising for her daughter's

impertinence. After being kept waiting for a quarter of an hour she was

admitted to the presence of the housekeeper, who had a rather grave

announcement to make.

'Mrs. Rockett, I'm sorry to tell you that you will have to leave the lodge.

My lady allows you two months, though, as your wages have always been paid

monthly, only a month's notice is really called for. I believe some

allowance will be made you, but you will hear about that. The lodge must be

ready for its new occupants on the last day of October.'

The poor woman all but sank. She had no voice for protest or entreaty--a

sob choked her; and blindly she made her way to the door of the room, then

to the exit from the Hall.

'What in the world is the matter?' cried May, hearing from the

sitting-room, whither she had retired, a clamour of distressful tongues.

She came into the kitchen, and learnt what had happened.

'And now I hope you're satisfied!' exclaimed her mother, with tearful

wrath. 'You've got us turned out of our home--you've lost us the best place

a family ever had--and I hope it's a satisfaction to your conceited,

overbearing mind! If you'd _tried_ for it you couldn't have gone to work

better. And much _you_ care! We're below you, we are; we're like dirt under

your feet! And your father'll go and end his life who knows where miserable

as miserable can be; and your sister'll have to go into service; and as for

me--'

'Listen, mother!' shouted the girl, her eyes flashing and every nerve of

her body strung. 'If the Shales are such contemptible wretches as to turn

you out just because they're offended with _me_, I should have thought

you'd have spirit enough to tell them what you think of such behaviour, and

be glad never more to serve such brutes! Father, what do _you_ say? I'll

tell you how it was.'

She narrated the events of the afternoon, amid sobs and ejaculations from

her mother and Betsy. Rockett, who was just now in anguish of lumbago,

tried to straighten himself in his chair before replying, but sank

helplessly together with a groan.

'You can't help yourself, May,' he said at length. 'It's your nature, my

girl. Don't worry. I'll see Sir Edwin, and perhaps he'll listen to me. It's

the women who make all the mischief. I must try to see Sir Edwin--'

A pang across the loins made him end abruptly, groaning, moaning,

muttering. Before the renewed attack of her mother May retreated into the

sitting-room, and there passed an hour wretchedly enough. A knock at the

door without words called her to supper, but she had no appetite, and would

not join the family circle. Presently the door opened, and her father

looked in.

'Don't worry, my girl,' he whispered. 'I'll see Sir Edwin in the morning.'

May uttered no reply. Vaguely repenting what she had done, she at the same

time rejoiced in the recollection of her passage of arms with Miss Shale,

and was inclined to despise her family for their pusillanimous attitude. It

seemed to her very improbable that the expulsion would really be carried

out. Lady Shale and Hilda meant, no doubt, to give the Rocketts a good

fright, and then contemptuously pardon them. She, in any case, would return

to London without delay, and make no more trouble. A pity she had come to

the lodge at all; it was no place for one of her spirit and her

attainments.

In the morning she packed. The train which was to take her back to town

left at half-past ten, and after breakfast she walked into the village to

order a cab. Her mother would scarcely speak to her; Betsy was continually

in reproachful tears. On coming back to the lodge she saw her father

hobbling down the avenue, and walked towards him to ask the result of his

supplication. Rockett had seen Sir Edwin, but only to hear his sentence of

exile confirmed. The baronet said he was sorry, but could not interfere;

the matter lay in Lady Shale's hands, and Lady Shale absolutely refused to

hear any excuses or apologies for the insult which had been offered her

daughter.

'It's all up with us,' said the old gardener, who was pale and trembling

after his great effort. 'We must go. But don't worry, my girl, don't

worry.'

Then fright took hold upon May Rockett. She felt for the first time what

she had done. Her heart fluttered in an anguish of self-reproach, and her

eyes strayed as if seeking help. A minute's hesitation, then, with all the

speed she could make, she set off up the avenue towards the Hall.

Presenting herself at the servants' entrance, she begged to be allowed to

see the housekeeper. Of course her story was known to all the domestics,

half a dozen of whom quickly collected to stare at her, with more or less

malicious smiles. It was a bitter moment for Miss Rockett, but she subdued

herself, and at length obtained the interview she sought. With a cold air

of superiority and of disapproval the housekeeper listened to her quick,

broken sentences. Would it be possible, May asked, for her to see Lady

Shale? She desired to--to apologise for--for rudeness of which she had been

guilty, rudeness in which her family had no part, which they utterly

deplored, but for which they were to suffer severely.

'If you could help me, ma'am, I should be very grateful--indeed I should--'

Her voice all but broke into a sob. That 'ma'am' cost her a terrible

effort; the sound of it seemed to smack her on the ears.

'If you will go in-to the servants' hall and wait,' the housekeeper deigned

to say, after reflecting, 'I'll see what can be done.'

And Miss Rockett submitted. In the servants' hall she sat for a long, long

time, observed, but never addressed. The hour of her train went by. More

than once she was on the point of rising and fleeing; more than once her

smouldering wrath all but broke into flame. But she thought of her father's

pale, pain-stricken face, and sat on.

At something past eleven o'clock a footman approached her, and said curtly,

'You are to go up to my lady; follow me.' May followed, shaking with

weakness and apprehension, burning at the same time with pride all but in

revolt. Conscious of nothing on the way, she found herself in a large room,

where sat the two ladies, who for some moments spoke together about a topic

of the day placidly. Then the elder seemed to become aware of the girl who

stood before her.

'You are Rockett's elder daughter?'

Oh, the metallic voice of Lady Shale! How gratified she would have been

could she have known how it bruised the girl's pride!

'Yes, my lady--'

'And why do you want to see me?'

'I wish to apologise--most sincerely--to your ladyship--for my behaviour

of last evening--'

'Oh, indeed!' the listener interrupted contemptuously. 'I am glad you have

come to your senses. But your apology must be offered to Miss Shale--if my

daughter cares to listen to it.'

May had foreseen this. It was the bitterest moment of her ordeal. Flushing

scarlet, she turned towards the younger woman.

'Miss Shale, I beg your pardon for what I said yesterday--I beg you to

forgive my rudeness--my impertinence--'

Her voice would go no further; there came a choking sound. Miss Shale

allowed her eyes to rest triumphantly for an instant on the troubled face

and figure, then remarked to her mother--

'It's really nothing to me, as I told you. I suppose this person may leave

the room now?'

It was fated that May Rockett should go through with her purpose and gain

her end. But fate alone (which meant in this case the subtlest

preponderance of one impulse over another) checked her on the point of a

burst of passion which would have startled Lady Shale and Miss Hilda out of

their cold-blooded complacency. In the silence May's blood gurgled at her

ears, and she tottered with dizziness.

'You may go,' said Lady Shale.

But May could not move. There flashed across her the terrible thought that

perhaps she had humiliated herself for nothing.

'My lady--I hope--will your ladyship please to forgive my father and

mother? I entreat you not to send them away. We shall all be so grateful to

your ladyship if you will overlook--'

'That will do,' said Lady Shale decisively. 'I will merely say that the

sooner you leave the lodge the better; and that you will do well never

again to pass the gates of the Hall. You may go.'

Miss Rockett withdrew. Outside, the footman was awaiting her. He looked at

her with a grin, and asked in an undertone, 'Any good?' But May, to whom

this was the last blow, rushed past him, lost herself in corridors, ran

wildly hither and thither, tears streaming from her eyes, and was at length

guided by a maidservant into the outer air. Fleeing she cared not whither,

she came at length into a still corner of the park, and there, hidden amid

trees, watched only by birds and rabbits, she wept out the bitterness of

her soul.

By an evening train she returned to London, not having confessed to her

family what she had done, and suffering still from some uncertainty as to

the result. A day or two later Betsy wrote to her the happy news that the

sentence of expulsion was withdrawn, and peace reigned once more in the

ivy-covered lodge. By that time Miss Rockett had all but recovered her

self-respect, and was so busy in her secretaryship that she could only

scribble a line of congratulation. She felt that she had done rather a

meritorious thing, but, for the first time in her life, did not care to

boast of it.

THE RIDING-WHIP

It was not easy for Mr. Daffy to leave his shop for the whole day, but an

urgent affair called him to London, and he breakfasted early in order to

catch the 8.30 train. On account of his asthma he had to allow himself

plenty of time for the walk to the station; and all would have been well,

but that, just as he was polishing his silk hat and giving final directions

to his assistant, in stepped a customer, who came to grumble about the fit

of a new coat. Ten good minutes were thus consumed, and with a painful

glance at his watch the breathless tailor at length started. The walk was

uphill; the sun was already powerful; Mr. Daffy reached the station with

dripping forehead and panting as if his sides would burst. There stood the

train; he had barely time to take his ticket and to rush across the

platform. As a porter slammed the carriage-door behind him, he sank upon

the seat in a lamentable condition, gasping, coughing, writhing; his eyes

all but started from his head, and his respectable top-hat tumbled to the

floor, where unconsciously he gave it a kick. A grotesque and distressing

sight.

Only one person beheld it, and this, as it happened, a friend of Mr.

Daffy's. In the far corner sat a large, ruddy-cheeked man, whose eye rested

upon the sufferer with a look of greeting disturbed by compassion. Mr.

Lott, a timber-merchant of this town, was in every sense of the word a more

flourishing man than the asthmatic tailor; his six-feet-something of sound

flesh and muscle, his ripe sunburnt complexion, his attitude of eupeptic

and broad-chested ease, left the other, by contrast, scarce his proverbial

fraction of manhood. At a year or two short of fifty, Mr. Daffy began to be

old; he was shoulder-bent, knee-shaky, and had a pallid, wrinkled visage,

with watery, pathetic eye. At fifty turned, Mr. Lott showed a vigour and a

toughness such as few men of any age could rival. For a score of years the

measure of Mr. Lott's robust person had been taken by Mr. Daffy's

professional tape, and, without intimacy, there existed kindly relations

between the two men. Neither had ever been in the other's house, but they

had long met, once a week or so, at the Liberal Club, where it was their

habit to play together a game of draughts. Occasionally they conversed; but

it was a rather one-sided dialogue, for whereas the tailor had a sprightly

intelligence and--so far as his breath allowed--a ready flow of words, the

timber-merchant found himself at a disadvantage when mental activity was

called for. The best-natured man in the world, Mr. Lott would sit smiling

and content so long as he had only to listen; asked his opinion (on

anything but timber), he betrayed by a knitting of the brows, a rolling of

the eyes, an inflation of the cheeks, and other signs of discomposure, the

serious effort it cost him to shape a thought and to utter it. At times Mr.

Daffy got on to the subject of social and political reform, and, after

copious exposition, would ask what Mr. Lott thought. He knew the

timber-merchant too well to expect an immediate reply. There came a long

pause, during which Mr. Lott snorted a little, shuffled in his chair, and

stared at vacancy, until at length, with a sudden smile of relief he

exclaimed, 'Do you know _my_ idea!' And the idea, often rather explosively

stated, was generally marked by common-sense of the bull-headed, British

kind.

'Bad this morning,' remarked Mr. Lott, abruptly but sympathetically, as

soon as the writhing tailor could hear him.

'Rather bad--ugh, ugh!--had to run--ugh!--doesn't suit me, Mr. Lott,'

gasped the other, as he took the silk hat which his friend had picked up

and stroked for him.

'Hot weather trying.'

'I vary so,' panted Mr. Daffy, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

'Sometimes one things seems to suit me--ugh, ugh--sometimes another. Going

to town, Mr. Lott?'

'Yes.'

The blunt affirmative was accompanied by a singular grimace, such as might

have been caused by the swallowing of something very unpleasant; and

thereupon followed a silence which allowed Mr. Daffy to recover himself. He

sat with his eyes half closed and head bent, leaning back.

They had a general acquaintance with each other's domestic affairs. Both

were widowers; both lived alone. Mr. Daffy's son was married, and dwelt in

London; the same formula applied to Mr. Lott's daughter. And, as it

happened, the marriages had both been a subject of parental

dissatisfaction. Very rarely had Mr. Lott let fall a word with regard to

his daughter, Mrs. Bowles, but the townsfolk were well aware that he

thought his son-in-law a fool, if not worse; Mrs. Bowles, in the seven

years since her wedding, had only two or three times revisited her father's

house, and her husband never came. A like reticence was maintained by Mr.

Daffy concerning his son Charles Edward, once the hope of his life. At

school the lad had promised well; tailoring could not be thought of for

him; he went into a solicitor's office, and remained there just long enough

to assure himself that he had no turn for the law. From that day he was

nothing but an expense and an anxiety to his father, until--now a couple of

years ago--he announced his establishment in a prosperous business in

London, of which Mr. Daffy knew nothing more than that it was connected

with colonial enterprise. Since that date Charles Edward had made no report

of himself, and his father had ceased to write letters which received no

reply.

Presently, Mr. Lott moved so as to come nearer to his travelling companion,

and said in a muttering, shamefaced way--

'Have you heard any talk about my daughter lately?'

Mr. Daffy showed embarrassment.

'Well, Mr. Lott, I'm sorry to say I _have_ heard something--'

'Who from?'

'Well--it was a friend of mine--perhaps I won't mention the name--who came

and told me something--something that quite upset me. That's what I'm going

to town about, Mr. Lott. I'm--well, the fact is, I was going to call upon

Mr. Bowles.'

'Oh, you were!' exclaimed the timber-merchant, with gruffness, which

referred not to his friend but to his son-in-law. 'I don't particularly

want to see _him_, but I had thought of seeing my daughter. You wouldn't

mind saying whether it was John Roper--?'

'Yes, it was.'

'Then we've both heard the same story, no doubt.'

Mr. Lott leaned back and stared out of the window. He kept thrusting out

his lips and drawing them in again, at the same time wrinkling his forehead

into the frown which signified that he was trying to shape a thought.

'Mr. Lott,' resumed the tailor, with a gravely troubled look, 'may I ask if

John Roper made any mention of my son?'

The timber-merchant glared, and Mr. Daffy, interpreting the look as one of

anger, trembled under it.

'I feel ashamed and miserable!' burst from his lips.

'It's not your fault, Mr. Daffy,' interrupted the other in a good-natured

growl. 'You're not responsible, no more than for any stranger.'

'That's just what I can't feel,' exclaimed the tailor, nervously slapping

his knee. 'Anyway, it would be a disgrace to a man to have a son a

bookmaker--a blackguard bookmaker. That's bad enough. But when it comes to

robbing and ruining the friends of your own family--why, I never heard a

more disgraceful thing in my life. How I'm going to stand in my shop, and

hold up my head before my customers, I--do--not--know. Of course, it'll be

the talk of the town; we know what the Ropers are when they get hold of

anything. It'll drive me off my head, Mr. Lott, I'm sure it will.'

The timber-merchant stretched out a great hand, and laid it gently on the

excited man's shoulder.

'Don't worry; that never did any good yet. We've got to find out, first of

all, how much of Roper's story is true. What did he tell you?'

'He said that Mr. Bowles had been going down the hill for a year or

more--that his business was neglected, that he spent his time at

racecourses and in public-houses--and that the cause of it all was my son.

_My son?_ What had my son to do with it? Why, didn't I know that Charles

was a racing and betting man, and a notorious bookmaker? You can imagine

what sort of a feeling that gave me. Roper couldn't believe it was the

first I had heard of it; he said lots of people in the town knew how

Charles was living. Did _you_ know, Mr. Lott?'

'Not I; I'm not much in the way of gossip.'

'Well, there's what Roper said. It was last night, and what with that and

my cough, I didn't get a wink of sleep after it. About three o'clock this

morning I made up my mind to go to London at once and see Mr. Bowles. If

it's true that he's been robbed and ruined by Charles, I've only one thing

to do--my duty's plain enough. I shall ask him how much money Charles has

had of him, and, if my means are equal to it, I shall pay every penny

back--every penny.'

Mr. Lott's countenance waxed so grim that one would have thought him about

to break into wrath against the speaker. But it was merely his way of

disguising a pleasant emotion.

'I don't think most men would see it in that way,' he remarked gruffly.

'Whether they would or not,' exclaimed Mr. Daffy, panting and wriggling,

'it's as plain as plain could be that there's no other course for a man who

respects himself. I couldn't live a day with such a burden as that on my

mind. A bookmaker! A blackguard bookmaker! To think my son should come to

that! _You_ know very well, Mr. Lott, that there's nothing I hate and

despise more than horse-racing. We've often talked about it, and the harm

it does, and the sin and shame it is that such doings should be

permitted--haven't we?'

'Course we have, course we have,' returned the other, with a nod. But he

was absorbed in his own reflections, and gave only half an ear to the

gasping vehemences which Mr. Daffy poured forth for the next ten minutes.

There followed a short silence, then the strong man shook himself and

opened his lips.

'Do you know _my_ idea?' he blurted out.

'What's that, Mr. Lott?'

'If I were you I wouldn't go to see Bowles. Better for me to do that. We've

only gossip to go upon, and we know what that often amounts to. Leave

Bowles to me, and go and see your son.'

'But I don't even know where he's living.'

'You don't? That's awkward. Well then, come along with me to Bowles's place

of business; as likely as not, if we find him, he'll be able to give you

your son's address. What do you say to my idea, Mr. Daffy?'

The tailor assented to this arrangement, on condition that, if things were

found to be as he had heard, he should be left free to obey his conscience.

The stopping of the train at an intermediate station, where new passengers

entered, put an end to the confidential talk. Mr. Daffy, breathing hard,

struggled with his painful thoughts; the timber-merchant, deeply

meditative, let his eyes wander about the carriage. As they drew near to

the London terminus, Mr. Lott bent forward to his friend.

'I want to buy a present for my eldest nephew,' he remarked, 'but I can't

for the life of me think what it had better be.'

'Perhaps you'll see something in a shop-window,' suggested Mr. Daffy.

'Maybe I shall.'

They alighted at Liverpool Street. Mr. Lott hailed a hansom, and they were

driven to a street in Southwark, where, at the entrance of a building

divided into offices, one perceived the name of Bowles and Perkins. This

firm was on the fifth floor, and Mr. Daffy eyed the staircase with

misgiving.

'No need for you to go up,' said his companion. 'Wait here, and I'll see if

I can get the address.'

Mr. Lott was absent for only a few minutes. He came down again with his

lips hard set, knocking each step sharply with his walking-stick.

'I've got it,' he said, and named a southern suburb.

'Have you seen Mr. Bowles?'

'No; he's out of town,' was the reply. 'Saw his partner.'

They walked side by side for a short way, then Mr. Lott stopped.

'Do you know _my_ idea? It's a little after eleven. I'm going to see my

daughter, and I dare say I shall catch the 3.49 home from Liverpool Street.

Suppose we take our chance of meeting there?'

Thus it was agreed. Mr. Daffy turned in the direction of his son's abode;

the timber-merchant went northward, and presently reached Finsbury Park,

where in a house of unpretentious but decent appearance, dwelt Mr. Bowles.

The servant who answered the door wore a strange look, as if something had

alarmed her; she professed not to know whether any one was at home, and, on

going to inquire, shut the door on the visitor's face. A few minutes

elapsed before Mr. Lott was admitted. The hall struck him as rather bare;

and at the entrance of the drawing-room he stopped in astonishment, for,

excepting the window-curtains and a few ornaments, the room was quite

unfurnished. At the far end stood a young woman, her hands behind her, and

her head bent--an attitude indicative of distress or shame.

'Are you moving, Jane?' inquired Mr. Lott, eyeing her curiously.

His daughter looked at him. She had a comely face, with no little of the

paternal character stamped upon it; her knitted brows and sullen eyes

bespoke a perturbed humour, and her voice was only just audible.

'Yes, we are moving, father.'

Mr. Lott's heavy footfall crossed the floor. He planted himself before her,

his hands resting on his stick.

'What's the matter, Jane? Where's Bowles?'

'He left town yesterday. He'll be back to-morrow, I think.'

'You've had the brokers in the house--isn't that it, eh?'

Mrs. Bowles made no answer, but her head sank again, and a trembling of her

shoulders betrayed the emotion with which she strove. Knowing that Jane

would tell of her misfortunes only when and how she chose, the father

turned away and stood for a minute or two at the window; then he asked

abruptly whether there was not such a thing as a chair in the house. Mrs.

Bowles, who had been on the point of speaking, bade him come to another

room. It was the dining-room, but all the appropriate furniture had

vanished: a couple of bedroom chairs and a deal table served for present

necessities. Here, when they had both sat down, Mrs. Bowles found courage

to break the silence.

'Arthur doesn't know of it. He went away yesterday morning, and the men

came in the afternoon. He had a promise--a distinct promise--that this

shouldn't be done before the end of the month. By then he hoped to have

money.'

'Who's the creditor?' inquired Mr. Lott, with a searching look at her face.

Mrs. Bowles was mute, her eyes cast down.

'Is it Charles Daffy?'

Still his daughter kept silence.

'I thought so,' said the timber-merchant, and clumped on the floor with his

stick. 'You'd better tell me all about it, Jane. I know something already.

Better let us talk it over, my girl, and see what can be done.'

He waited a moment. Then his daughter tried to speak, with difficulty

overcame a sob, and at length began her story. She would not blame her

husband. He had been unlucky in speculations, and was driven to a

money-lender--his acquaintance, Charles Daffy. This man, a heartless

rascal, had multiplied charges and interest on a small sum originally

borrowed, until it became a crushing debt. He held a bill of sale on most

of their furniture, and yesterday, as if he knew of Bowles's absence, had

made the seizure; he was within his legal rights, but had led the debtor to

suppose that he would not exercise them. Thus far did Jane relate, in a

hard matter-of-fact voice, but with many nervous movements. Her father

listened in grim silence, and, when she ceased, appeared to reflect.

'That's _your_ story!' he said of a sudden. 'Now, what about the

horse-racing?'

'I know nothing of horse-racing,' was the cold reply.

'Bowles keeps all that to himself, does he? We'd better have our talk out,

Jane, now that we've begun. Better tell me all you know, my girl.'

Again there was a long pause; but Mr. Lott had patience, and his dogged

persistency at length overcame the wife's pride. Yes, it was true that

Bowles had lost money at races; he had been guilty of much selfish folly;

but the ruin it had brought upon him would serve as a lesson. He was a

wretched and a penitent man; a few days ago he had confessed everything to

his wife, and besought her to pardon him; at present he was making

desperate efforts to recover an honest footing. The business might still be

carried on if some one could be induced to put a little capital into it;

with that in view, Bowles had gone to see certain relatives of his in the

north. If his hope failed, she did not know what was before them; they had

nothing left now but their clothing and the furniture of one or two rooms.

'Would you like to come back home for a while?' asked Mr. Lott abruptly.

'No, father,' was the not less abrupt reply. 'I couldn't do that.'

'I'll give no money to Bowles.'

'He has never asked you, and never will.'

Mr. Lott glared and glowered, but, with all that, had something in his face

which hinted softness. The dialogue did not continue much longer; it ended

with a promise from Mrs. Bowles to let her father know whether her husband

succeeded or not in re-establishing himself. Thereupon they shook hands

without a word, and Mr. Lott left the house. He returned to the City, and,

it being now nearly two o'clock, made a hearty meal. When he was in the

street again, he remembered the birthday present he wished to buy for his

nephew, and for half an hour he rambled vaguely, staring into shop-windows.

At length something caught his eye; it was a row of riding-whips, mounted

in silver; just the thing, he said to himself, to please a lad who would

perhaps ride to hounds next winter. He stepped in, chose carefully, and

made the purchase. Then, having nothing left to do, he walked at a

leisurely pace towards the railway station.

Mr. Daffy was there before him; they met at the entrance to the platform

from which their train would start.

'Must you go back by this?' asked the tailor. 'My son wasn't at home, and

won't be till about five o'clock. I should be terribly obliged, Mr. Lott,

if you could stay and go to Clapham with me. Is it asking too much?'

The timber-merchant gave a friendly nod, and said it was all the same to

him. Then, in reply to anxious questions, he made brief report of what he

had learnt at Finsbury Park. Mr. Daffy was beside himself with wrath and

shame. He would pay every farthing, if he had to sell all he possessed!

'I'm so glad and so thankful you will come with me Mr. Lott. He'd care

nothing for what _I_ said; but when he sees _you_, and hears your opinion

of him, it may have some effect. I beg you to tell him your mind plainly!

Let him know what a contemptible wretch, what a dirty blackguard, he is in

the eyes of all decent folk--let him know it, I entreat you! Perhaps even

yet it isn't too late to make him ashamed of himself.'

They stood amid a rush of people; the panting tailor clung to his big

companion's sleeve. Gruffly promising to do what he could, Mr. Lott led the

way into the street again, where they planned the rest of their day. By

five o'clock they were at Clapham. Charles Daffy occupied the kind of house

which is known as eminently respectable; it suggested an income of at least

a couple of thousand a year. As they waited for the door to open, Mr. Lott

smote gently on his leg with the new riding-whip. He had been silent and

meditative all the way hither.

A smart maidservant conducted them to the dining-room, and there, in a

minute or two, they were joined by Mr. Charles. No one could have surmised

from this gentleman's appearance that he was the son of the little

tradesman who stood before him; nature had given the younger Mr. Daffy a

tall and shapely person, and experience of life had refined his manners to

an easy assurance he would never have learnt from paternal example. His

smooth-shaven visage, so long as it remained grave, might have been that of

an acute and energetic lawyer; his smile, however, disturbed this

impression, for it had a twinkling insolence, a raffish facetiousness,

incompatible with any sober quality. He wore the morning dress of a City

man, with collar and necktie of the latest fashion; his watchguard was

rather demonstrative, and he had two very solid rings on his left hand.

'Ah, dad, how do you do!' he exclaimed, on entering, in an affected

head-voice. 'Why, what's the matter?'

Mr. Daffy had drawn back, refusing the offered hand. With an unpleasant

smile Charles turned to his other visitor.

'Mr. Lott, isn't it! You're looking well, Mr. Lott; but I suppose you

didn't come here just to give me the pleasure of seeing you. I'm rather a

busy man; perhaps one or the other of you will be good enough to break this

solemn silence, and let me know what your game is.'

He spoke with careless impertinence, and let himself drop on to a chair.

The others remained standing, and Mr. Daffy broke into vehement speech.

'I have come here, Charles, to ask what you mean by disgracing yourself and

dishonouring my name. Only yesterday, for the first time, I heard of the

life you are leading. Is this how you repay me for all the trouble I took

to have you well educated, and to make you an honest man? Here I find you

living in luxury and extravagance--and how? On stolen money--money as much

stolen as if you were a pickpocket or a burglar! A pleasant thing for me to

have all my friends talking about Charles Daffy, the bookmaker and the

moneylender! What _right_ have you to dishonour your father in this way? I

ask, what _right_ have you, Charles?'

Here the speaker, who had struggled to gasp his last sentence, was overcome

with a violent fit of coughing. He tottered back and sank on to a sofa.

'Are you here to look after him?' asked Charles of Mr. Lott, crossing his

legs and nodding towards the sufferer. 'If so, I advise you to take him

away before he does himself harm. You're a _lot_ bigger than he is and

perhaps have more sense.'

The timber-merchant stood with legs slightly apart, holding his stick and

the riding-whip horizontally with both hands. His eyes were fixed upon

young Mr. Daffy, and his lips moved in rather an ominous way; but he made

no reply to Charles's smiling remark.

'Mr. Lott,' said the tailor, in a voice still broken by pants and coughs,

'will you speak or me? Will you say what you think of him?'

'You'll have to be quick about it,' interposed Charles, with a glance at

his watch. 'I can give you five minutes; you can say a _lot_ in that time,

if you're sound of wind.'

The timber-merchant's eyes were very wide, and his cheeks unusually red.

Abruptly he turned to Mr. Daffy.

'Do you know _my_ idea?'

But just as he spoke there sounded a knock at the door, and the smart

maidservant cried out that a gentleman wished to see her master.

'Who is it?' asked Charles.

The answer came from the visitor himself, who, pushing the servant aside,

broke into the room. It was a young man of no very distinguished

appearance, thin, red-haired, with a pasty complexion and a scrubby

moustache; his clothes were approaching shabbiness, and he had an unwashed

look, due in part to hasty travel on this hot day. Streaming with sweat,

his features distorted with angry excitement, he shouted as he entered,

'You've got to see me, Daffy; I won't be refused!' In the same moment his

glance discovered the two visitors, and he stopped short. 'Mr. Lott, you

here? I'm glad of it--I'm awfully glad of it. I couldn't have wished

anything better. I don't know who this other gentleman is, but it doesn't

matter. I'm glad to have witnesses--I'm infernally glad! Mr. Lott, you've

been to my house this morning; you know what's happened there. I had to go

out of town yesterday, and this Daffy, this cursed liar and swindler, used

the opportunity to sell up my furniture. He'll tell you he had a legal

right. But he gave me his word not to do anything till the end of the

month. And, in any case, I don't really owe him half the sum he has down

against me. I've paid that black-hearted scoundrel hundreds of

pounds--honourably paid him--debts of honour, and now he has the face to

charge me sixty per cent, on money I was fool enough to borrow from him!

Sixty per cent.--what do you think of that, Mr. Lott? What do _you_ think

of it, sir?'

'I'm sorry to say it doesn't at all surprise me,' answered Mr. Daffy, who

perceived that the speaker was Mr. Lott's son-in-law. 'But I can't

sympathise with you very much. If you have dealings with a book-maker--'

'A blackleg, a blackleg!' shouted Bowles. 'Bookmakers are respectable men

in comparison with him. He's bled me, the brute! He tempted me on and on--

Look here, Mr. Lott, I know as well as you do that I've been an infernal

fool. I've had my eyes opened--now that it's too late. I hear my wife told

you that, and I'm glad she did. I've been a fool, yes; but I fell into the

hands of the greatest scoundrel unhung, and he's ruined me. You heard from

Jane what I was gone about. It's no good. I came back by the first train

this morning without a mouthful of breakfast. It's all up with me; I'm a

cursed beggar--and that thief is the cause of it. And he comes into my

house no better than a burglar--and lays his hands on everything that'll

bring money. Where's the account of that sale, you liar? I'll go to a

magistrate about this.'

Charles Daffy sat in a reposeful attitude. The scene amused him; he

chuckled inwardly from time to time. But of a sudden his aspect changed; he

started up, and spoke with a snarling emphasis.

'I've had just about enough. Look here, clear out, all of you! There's the

door--go!'

Mr. Daffy moved towards him.

'Is that how you speak to your father, Charles?' he exclaimed indignantly.

'Yes, it is. Take your hook with the others; I'm sick of your tommy-rot!'

'Then listen to me before I go,' cried Mr. Daffy, his short and awkward

figure straining in every muscle for the dignity of righteous wrath. 'I

don't know whether you are more a fool or a knave. Perhaps you really think

that there's as much to be said for your way of earning a living as for any

other. I hope you do, for it's a cruel thing to suppose that my son has

turned out a shameless scoundrel. Let me tell you, then, this business of

yours is one that moves every honest and sensible man to anger and disgust.

It matters nothing whether you keep the rules of the blackguard game, or

whether you cheat; the difference between bookmaker and blackleg is so

small that it isn't worth talking about. You live by the plunder of people

who are foolish and vicious enough to fall into your clutches. You're an

enemy of society--that's the plain truth of it; as much an enemy of society

as the forger or the burglar. You live--and live in luxury--by the worst

vice of our time, the vice which is rotting English life, the vice which

will be our national ruin if it goes on much longer. When you were a boy,

you've heard me many a time say all I thought about racing and betting;

you've heard me speak with scorn of the high-placed people who set so vile

an example to the classes below them. If I could have foreseen that _you_

would sink to such disgrace!'

Charles was standing in an attitude of contemptuous patience. He looked at

his watch and interjected a remark.

'I can only allow your eloquence one minute and a half more.'

'That will be enough,' replied his father sternly. 'The only thing I have

to add is, that all the money you have stolen from Mr. Bowles I, as a

simple duty, shall repay. You're no longer a boy. In the eye of the law I

am not responsible for you; but for very shame I must make good the wrong

you have done in this case. I couldn't stand in my shop day by day, and

know that every one was saying, "There's the man whose son ruined Mr.

Lott's son-in-law and sold up his home," unless I had done all I could to

repair the mischief. I shall ask Mr. Bowles for a full account of what he

has lost to you, and if it's in my power, every penny shall be made good.

He, thank goodness, seems to have learnt his lesson.'

'That I have, Mr. Daffy; that I have!' cried Bowles.

'There's not much fear that _he_'ll fall into your clutches again. And I

hope, I most earnestly hope, that before you can do much more harm, you'll

overreach yourself, and the law--stupid as it is--will get hold of you.

Remember the father I was, Charles, and think what it means that the best

wish I can now form for you is that you may come to public disgrace.'

'Does no one applaud?' asked Charles, looking round the room. 'That's

rather unkind, seeing how the speaker has blown himself. Be off, dad, and

don't fool any longer. Bowles, take your hook. Mr. Lott--'

Charles met the eye of the timber-merchant, and was unexpectedly mute.

'Well, sir,' said Mr. Lott, regarding him fixedly, 'and what have you to

say to _me_?'

'Only that my time is too valuable to be wasted,' continued the other, with

an impatient gesture. 'Be good enough to leave my house.'

'Mr. Lott,' said the tailor in an exhausted voice, 'I apologise to you for

my son's rudeness. I gave you the trouble of coming here hoping it might

shame him, but I'm afraid it's been no good. Let us go.'

Mr. Lott regarded him mildly.

'Mr. Daffy,' he said, 'if _you_ don't mind, I should like to have a word in

private with your son. Do you and Mr. Bowles go on to the station, and wait

for me; perhaps I shall catch you up before you get there.'

'I have told you already, Mr. Lott,' shouted Charles, 'that I can waste no

more time on you. I refuse to talk with you at all.'

'And I, Mr. Charles Daffy,' was the resolute answer, 'refuse to leave this

room till I have had a word with you.'

'What do you want to say?' asked Charles brutally.

'Just to let you know an idea of mine,' was the reply, 'an idea that's come

to me whilst I've stood here listening.'

The tailor and Mr. Bowles moved towards the door. Charles glanced at them

fiercely and insolently, then turned his look again upon the man who

remained. The other two passed out; the door closed. Mr. Lott, stick and

riding-whip still held horizontally, seemed to be lost in meditation.

'Now,' blurted Charles, 'what is it?'

Mr. Lott regarded him steadily, and spoke with his wonted deliberation.

'You heard what your father said about paying that money back?'

'Of course I heard. If he's idiot enough--'

'Do you know _my_ idea, young man? You'd better do the honest thing, and

repay it yourself.'

Charles stared for a moment, then sputtered a laugh.

'That's _your_ idea, is it, Mr. Lott? Well, it isn't mine. So, good

morning!'

Again the timber-merchant seemed to meditate; his eyes wandered from

Charles to the dining-room table.

'Just a minute more,' he resumed; 'I have another idea--not a new one; an

idea that came to me long ago, when your father first began to have trouble

about you. I happened to be in the shop one day--it was when you were

living idle at your father's expense, young man--and I heard you speak to

him in what I call a confoundedly impertinent way. Thinking it over

afterwards, I said to myself: If I had a son who spoke to me like that, I'd

give him the soundest thrashing he'd be ever likely to get. That was my

idea, young man; and as I stood listening to you to-day, it came back into

my mind again. Your father can't thrash you; he hasn't the brawn for it.

But as it's nothing less than a public duty, somebody _must_, and so--'

Charles, who had been watching every movement of the speaker's face,

suddenly sprang forward, making for the door. But Mr. Lott had foreseen

this; with astonishing alertness and vigour he intercepted the fugitive

seized him by the scruff of the neck, and, after a moment's struggle,

pinned him face downwards across the end of the table. His stick he had

thrown aside; the riding-whip he held between his teeth. So brief was this

conflict that there sounded only a scuffling of feet on the floor, and a

growl of fury from Charles as he found himself handled like an infant;

then, during some two minutes, one might have thought that a couple of very

strenuous carpet-beaters were at work in the room. For the space of a dozen

switches Charles strove frantically with wild kicks, which wounded only the

air, but all in silence; gripped only the more tightly, he at length

uttered a yell of pain, followed by curses hot and swift. Still the

carpet-beaters seemed to be at work, and more vigorously than ever. Charles

began to roar. As it happened, there were only servants in the house. When

the clamour had lasted long enough to be really alarming, knocks sounded at

the door, which at length was thrown open, and the startled face of a

domestic appeared. At the same moment Mr. Lott, his right arm being weary,

brought the castigatory exercise to an end. Charles rolled to his feet, and

began to strike out furiously with both fists.

'Just as you like, young man,' said the timber-merchant, as he coolly

warded off the blows, 'if you wish to have it this way too. But, I warn

you, it isn't a fair match. Sally, shut the door and go about your

business.'

'Shall I fetch a p'liceman, sir?' shrilled the servant.

Her master, sufficiently restored to his senses to perceive that he had not

the least chance in a pugilistic encounter with Mr. Lott, drew back and

seemed to hesitate.

'Answer the girl,' said Mr. Lott, as he picked up his whip and examined its

condition. 'Shall we have a policeman in?'

'Shut the door!' Charles shouted fiercely.

The men gazed at each other. Daffy was pale and quivering; his hair in

disorder, his waistcoat torn open, collar and necktie twisted into rags, he

made a pitiful figure. The timber-merchant was slightly heated, but his

countenance wore an expression of calm contentment.

'For the present,' remarked Mr. Lott, as he took up his hat and stick, 'I

think our business is at an end. It isn't often that a fellow of your sort

gets his deserts, and I'm rather sorry we didn't have the policeman in; a

report of the case might do good. I bid you good day, young man. If I were

you I'd sit quiet for an hour or two, and just reflect--you've a _lot_ to

think about.'

So, with a pleasant smile, the visitor took his leave.

As he walked away he again examined the riding-whip. 'It isn't often a

thing happens so luckily,' he said to himself. 'First-rate whip; hardly a

bit damaged. Harry'll like it none the worse for my having handselled it.'

At the station he found Mr. Daffy and Bowles, who regarded him with

questioning looks.

'Nothing to be got out of him,' said Mr. Lott. 'Bowles, I want a talk with

you and Jane; it'll be best, perhaps, if I go back home with you. Mr.

Daffy, sorry we can't travel down together. You'll catch the eight

o'clock.'

'I hope you told him plainly what you thought of him,' said Mr. Daffy, in a

voice of indignant shame.

'I did,' answered the timber-merchant, 'and I don't think he's very likely

to forget it.'

FATE AND THE APOTHECARY

'Farmiloe. Chemist by Examination.' So did the good man proclaim himself to

a suburb of a city in the West of England. It was one of those pretty,

clean, fresh-coloured suburbs only to be found in the west; a few dainty

little shops, everything about them bright or glistening, scattered among

pleasant little houses with gardens eternally green and all but perennially

in bloom; every vista ending in foliage, and in one direction a far glimpse

of the Cathedral towers, sending forth their music to fall dreamily upon

these quiet roads. The neighbourhood seemed to breathe a tranquil

prosperity. Red-cheeked emissaries of butcher, baker, and grocer,

order-book in hand, knocked cheerily at kitchen doors, and went smiling

away; the ponies they drove were well fed and frisky, their carts spick and

span. The church of the parish, an imposing edifice, dated only from a few

years ago, and had cost its noble founder a sum of money which any

church-going parishioner would have named to you with proper awe. The

population was largely female, and every shopkeeper who knew his business

had become proficient in bowing, smiling, and suave servility.

Mr. Farmiloe, it is to be feared, had no very profound acquaintance with

his business from any point of view. True, he was 'chemist by examination,'

but it had cost him repeated efforts to reach this unassailable ground and

more than one pharmaceutist with whom he abode as assistant had felt it a

measure of prudence to dispense with his services. Give him time, and he

was generally equal to the demands of suburban customers; hurry or

interrupt him, and he showed himself anything but the man for a crisis.

Face and demeanour were against him. He had exceedingly plain features, and

a persistently sour expression; even his smile suggested sarcasm. He could

not tune his voice to the tradesman note, and on the slightest provocation

he became, quite unintentionally, offensive. Such a man had no chance

whatever in this flowery and bowery little suburb.

Yet he came hither with hopes. One circumstance seemed to him especially

favourable: the shop was also a post-office, and no one could fail to see

(it was put most impressively by the predecessor who sold him the business)

how advantageous was this blending of public service with commercial

interest; especially as there was no telegraphic work to make a skilled

assistant necessary. As a matter of course, people using the post-office

would patronise the chemist; and a provincial chemist can add to his

legitimate business sundry pleasant little tradings which benefit himself

without provoking the jealousy of neighbour shopmen. 'It will be your own

fault, my dear sir, if you do not make a very good thing of it indeed. The

sole and sufficient explanation of--of the decline during this last year or

two is my shocking health. I really have _not_ been able to do justice to

the business.'

Necessarily, Mr. Farmiloe entered into negotiation with the postal

authorities; and it was with some little disappointment that he learnt how

very modest could be his direct remuneration for the responsibilities and

labours he undertook. The Post-Office is a very shrewdly managed department

of the public service; it has brought to perfection the art of obtaining

_maximum_ results with a _minimum_ expenditure. But Mr. Farmiloe remembered

the other aspect of the matter; he would benefit so largely by this

ill-paid undertaking that grumbling was foolish. Moreover, the thing

carried dignity with it; he served his Majesty, he served the nation.

And--ha, ha!--how very odd it would be to post one's letters in one's own

post-office. One might really get a good deal of amusement out of the

thought, after business hours. His age was eight-and-thirty. For some years

he had pondered matrimony, though without fixing his affections on any

particular person. It was plain, indeed, that he ought to marry. Every

tradesman is made more respectable by wedlock, and a chemist who, in some

degree, resembles a medical man, seems especially to stand in need of the

matrimonial guarantee. Had it been feasible, Mr. Farmiloe would have

brought a wife with him from the town where he had lived for the past few

years, but he was in the difficult position of knowing not a single

marriageable female to whom he could address himself with hope or with

self-respect. Natural shyness had always held him aloof from reputable

women; he felt that he could not recommend himself to them--he who had such

an unlucky aptitude for saying the wrong word or keeping silence when

speech was demanded. With the men of his acquaintance he could relieve his

sense of awkwardness and deficiency by becoming aggressive; in fact, he had

a reputation for cantankerousness, for pugnacity, which kept most of his

equals in some awe of him, and to perceive this was one solace amid many

discontents. Nicely dressed and well-spoken and good-looking women above

the class of domestic servants he worshipped from afar, and only in

vivacious moments pictured himself as the wooer of such a superior being.

It seemed as though fate could do nothing with Mr. Farmiloe. At

six-and-thirty he suffered the shock of learning that a relative--an old

woman to whom he had occasionally written as a matter of kindness (Farmiloe

could do such things)--had left him by will the sum of £600. It was

strictly a shock; it upset his health for several days, and not for a week

or two could he realise the legacy as a fact. Just when he was beginning to

look about him with a new air of confidence, the solicitors who were

managing the little affair for him drily acquainted him with the fact that

his relative's will was contested by other kinsfolk whom the old woman had

passed over, on the ground that she was imbecile and incapable of

conducting her affairs. There followed a law-suit, which consumed many

months and cost a good deal of money; so that, though he won his case, Mr.

Farmiloe lost all satisfaction in his improved circumstances, and was only

more embittered against the world at large.

Then, no sooner had he purchased his business, than he learnt from smiling

neighbours that he had paid considerably too much for it. His predecessor,

beyond a doubt, would have taken very much less; had, indeed, been on the

point of doing so just when Mr. Farmiloe appeared. This kind of experience

is a trial to any man. It threw Mr. Farmiloe into a silent rage, with the

result that two or three customers who chanced to enter his shop declared

that they would never have anything more to do with such a surly creature.

And now began his torment--a form of exasperation peculiar to his dual

capacity of shopkeeper and manager of a post-office. All day long he stood

on the watch for customers--literally stood, now behind the counter, now in

front of it, his eager and angry eyes turning to the door whenever the

steps of a passer-by sounded without. If the door opened his nerves began

to tingle, and he straightened himself like a soldier at attention. For a

moment he suffered an agony of doubt. Would the person entering turn to the

counter or to the post-office? And seldom was his hope fulfilled; not one

in four of the people who came in was a genuine customer; the post-office,

always the post-office. A stamp, a card, a newspaper wrapper, a

postal-order, a letter to be registered--anything but an honest purchase

across the counter or the blessed tendering of a prescription to make up.

From vexation he passed to annoyance, to rage, to fury; he cursed the

post-office, and committed to eternal perdition the man who had waxed

eloquent upon its advantages.

Of course, he had hired an errand-boy, and never had errand-boy so little

legitimate occupation. Resolved not to pay him for nothing, Mr. Farmiloe

kept him cleaning windows, washing bottles, and the like, until the lad

fairly broke into rebellion. If this was the sort of work he was engaged

for he must have higher wages; he wasn't over strong and his mother said he

must lead an open-air life--that was why he had taken the place. To be

bearded thus in his own shop was too much for Mr. Farmiloe, he seized the

opportunity of giving his wrath full swing, and burst into a frenzy of

vilification. Just as his passion reached its height (he stood with his

back to the door) there entered a lady who wished to make a large purchase

of disinfectants. Alarmed and scandalised at what was going on, she had no

sooner crossed the threshold than she turned again, and hurried away. Her

friends were not long in learning from her that the new chemist was a most

violent man, a most disagreeable person--the very last man one could think

of doing business with.

The home was but poorly furnished, and Mr. Farmiloe had engaged a very

cheap general servant, who involved him in dirt and discomfort. It was a

matter of talk among the neighbouring tradesmen that the chemist lived in a

beggarly fashion. When the dismissed errand-boy spread the story of how he

had been used, people jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Farmiloe drank.

Before long there was a legend that he had been suffering from an acute

attack of delirium tremens.

The post-office, always the post-office. If he sat down at a meal the

shop-bell clanged, and hope springing eternal, he hurried forth in

readiness to make up a packet or concoct a mixture; but it was an old lady

who held him in talk for ten minutes about rates of postage to South

America. When, by rare luck, he had a prescription to dispense (the hideous

scrawl of that pestilent Dr. Bunker) in came somebody with letters and

parcels which he was requested to weigh; and his hand shook so with rage

that he could not resume his dispensing for the next quarter of an hour.

People asked extraordinary questions, and were surprised, offended, when he

declared he could not answer them. When could a letter be delivered at a

village on the north-west coast of Ireland? Was it true that the

Post-Office contemplated a reduction of rates to Hong-Kong? Would he

explain in detail the new system of express delivery? Invariably he

betrayed impatience, and occasionally he lost his temper; people went away

exclaiming what a _horrid man_ he was!

'Mr. What's-your-name,' said a shopkeeper one day, after receiving a short

answer, 'I shall make it my business to complain of you to the

Postmaster-General. I don't come here to be insulted.'

'Who insulted you?' returned Farmiloe like a sullen schoolboy.

'Why, you did. And you are always doing it.'

'I'm not.'

'You are.'

'If I did'--terror stole upon the chemist's heart--'I didn't mean it, and

I--I'm sure I apologise. It's a way I have.'

'A damned bad way, let me tell you. I advise you to get out of it.'

'I'm sorry--'

'So you should be.'

And the tradesman walked off, only half appeased.

Mr. Farmiloe could have shed tears in his mortification, and for some

minutes he stood looking at a bottle of laudanum, wishing he had the

courage to have done with life. Plainly he could not live very long unless

things improved. His ready money was coming to an end, rents and taxes

loomed before him. An awful thought of bankruptcy haunted him in the early

morning hours.

The most frequent visitor to the post-office was a well-dressed,

middle-aged man, who spoke civilly, and did his business in the fewest

possible words. Mr. Farmiloe rather liked the look of him, and once or

twice made conversational overtures, but with no encouraging result. One

day, feeling bolder than usual the chemist ventured to speak what he had in

mind. After supplying the grave gentleman with stamps and postal-orders, he

said, in a tone meant to be conciliatory--

'I don't know whether you ever have need of mineral waters, sir?'

'Why, yes, sometimes. My ordinary tradesman supplies them.'

'I thought I'd just mention that I keep them in stock.'

'Ah--thank you--'

'I've noticed,' went on the luckless apothecary, his bosom heaving with a

sense of his wrongs, 'that you're a pretty large customer of the

post-office, and it seems to me'--he meant to speak jocosely--'that it

would be only fair if you gave _me_ a turn now and then. I get next to

nothing out of _this_, you know. I should be much obliged if you--'

The man of few words was looking at him, half in surprise, half in

indignation, and when the chemist blundered into silence he spoke:--

'I really have nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, I was on the

point of making a little purchase in your shop, but I decidedly object to

this kind of behaviour, and shall make my purchase elsewhere.'

He strode solemnly into the street, and Mr. Farmiloe, unconscious of all

about him, glared at vacancy.

Whether from the angry tradesman, or from some lady with whom Mr. Farmiloe

had been abrupt, a complaint did presently reach the postal authorities,

with the result that an official called at the chemist's shop. The

interview was unpleasant. It happened that Mr. Farmiloe (not for the first

time) had just then allowed himself to run out of certain things always in

demand by the public--halfpenny stamps, for instance. Moreover, his

accounts were not in perfect order. This, he had to hear, was emphatically

unbusinesslike, and, in brief, would not do.

'It shall not occur again, sir,' mumbled the unhappy man. 'But, if you

consider my position--'

'Mr. Farmiloe, allow me to tell you that this is a matter for your _own_

consideration, and no one else's.'

'True, sir, quite true. Still, when you come to think of it--I assure

you--'

'The only assurance I want is that the business of the post-office will be

properly attended to, and that assurance I must have. I shall probably call

again before long. Good morning.'

It was always with a savage satisfaction that Mr. Farmiloe heard the clock

strike eight on Saturday evening. His shop remained open till ten, but at

eight came the end of the post-office business. If, as happened, any one

entered five minutes too late, it delighted him to refuse their request.

These were the only moments in which he felt himself a free man. After

eating his poor supper, he smoked a pipe or two of cheap tobacco, brooding;

or he fingered the pages of his menacing account-books; or, very rarely, he

walked about the dark country roads, asking himself, with many a

tragi-comic gesture and ejaculation, why he could not get on like other

men.

One afternoon it seemed that he, at length, had his chance. There entered a

maidservant with a prescription to be made up and sent as soon as possible.

A glance at the name delighted Mr. Farmiloe; it was that of the richest

family in the suburbs. The medicine, to be sure, was only for a governess,

but his existence was recognised, and the patronage of such people would do

him good. But for the never-sufficiently-to-be-condemned handwriting of Dr.

Bunker, the prescription offered no difficulty. Rubbing his palms together,

and smiling as he seldom smiled, he told the domestic that the medicine

should be delivered in less than half an hour.

Scarcely had he begun upon it, when a lady came in, a lady whom he knew

well. Her business was at the post-office side, and she looked a peremptory

demand for his attention. Inwardly furious, he crossed the shop.

'Be so good as to tell me what this will cost by book-post.'

It seemed to be a pamphlet. Giving a glance at one of the open ends, Mr.

Farmiloe saw handwriting within, and his hostility to the woman found vent

in a sharp remark.

'There's a written communication in this. It will be letter rate.'

The lady eyed him with terrible scorn.

'You will oblige me by minding your own business. Your remark is the merest

impertinence. That packet consists of MS., and will, therefore, go at book

rate. Be so good as to weigh it at once.'

Mr. Farmiloe lost all control of himself, and well-nigh screamed.

'No, madam, I will _not_ weigh it. And let me inform you, as you are so

ignorant, that to weigh packets is not part of my duty. I do it merely to

oblige civil persons, and you, madam, are not one of them.'

The lady instantly turned and withdrew.

'Damn the post-office!' yelled Mr. Farmiloe, alone with his errand-boy, and

shaking his fist in the air. 'This very day I write to give it up. I

say--_damn_ the post-office.'

He returned to his dispensing, completed it, wrapped up the bottle in the

customary manner, and despatched the boy to the house.

Five minutes later a thought flashed through his mind which put him in a

cold sweat. He happened to glance along the shelf from which he had taken

the bottle containing the last ingredient of the mixture, and it struck

him, with all the force of a horrible doubt, that he had made a mistake. In

the irate confusion of his thoughts, he had done the dispensing almost

mechanically. The bottle he ought to have taken down was _that_, but had he

not actually poured from that other? Of poisoning there was no fear, but,

if indeed he had made a slip, the result would be a very extraordinary

mixture; so surprising, in fact, that the patient would be sure to speak to

Dr. Bunker about it. Good heavens! He felt sure he had made the mistake.

Any other man would have taken down the two bottles in question, and have

examined the mouths of them for traces of moisture. Mr. Farmiloe, a victim

of destiny, could do nothing so reasonable. Heedless of the fact that his

shop remained unguarded, he seized his hat and rushed after the errand-boy.

If he could only have a sniff at the mixture it would either confirm his

fear or set his mind at rest. He tore along the road--and was too late. The

boy met him, having just completed his errand.

With a wild curse he sped to the house, he rushed to the tradesman's door.

The medicine just delivered! He must examine it--he feared there was a

mistake--an extraordinary oversight.

The bottle had not yet been upstairs. Mr. Farmiloe tore off the wrapper,

wrenched out the cork, sniffed--and smiled feebly.

'Thank you. I'm glad to find there was _no_ mistake. I'll take it back, and

have it wrapped up again, and send it immediately--immediately. And, by the

bye'--he fumbled in his pocket for half-a-crown, still smiling like a

detected culprit--'I'm sure you won't mention this little affair. A new

assistant of mine--stupid fellow--I am going to get rid of him at once.

Thank you, thank you.'

Notwithstanding that half-crown the incident was, of course, talked of

through the house before a quarter of an hour had elapsed. Next day it was

the gossip of the suburbs; and the day after the city itself heard the

story. People were alarmed and scandalised. Why, such a chemist was a

public danger! One lady declared that he ought at once to be 'struck off

the roll!'

And so in a sense he was. Another month and the flowery, bowery little

suburb knew him no more. He hid himself in a great town, living on the

wreck of his fortune whilst he sought a place as an assistant. A leaky pair

of boots and a bad east wind found the vulnerable spot of his constitution.

After all, there was just enough money left to bury him.

TOPHAM'S CHANCE

CHAPTER I

On a summer afternoon two surly men sat together in a London lodging. One

of them occupied an easy-chair, smoked a cigarette, and read the newspaper;

the other was seated at the table, with a mass of papers before him, on

which he laboured as though correcting exercises. They were much of an age,

and that about thirty, but whereas the idler was well dressed, his

companion had a seedy appearance and looked altogether like a man who

neglected himself. For half an hour they had not spoken.

Of a sudden the man in the chair jumped up.

'Well, I have to go into town,' he said gruffly, 'and it's uncertain when I

shall be back. Get that stuff cleared off, and reply to the urgent

letters--mind you write in the proper tone to Dixon--as soapy as you can

make it. Tell Miss Brewer we can't reduce the fees, but that we'll give her

credit for a month. Guarantee the Leicestershire fellow a pass if he begins

at once.'

The other, who listened, bit the end of his wooden penholder to splinters.

'All right,' he replied. 'But, look here, I want a little money.'

'So do I.'

'Yes, but you're not like me, without a coin in your pocket. Look here,

give me half-a-crown. I have absolute need of it. Why, I can't even get my

hair cut. I'm sick of this slavery.'

'Then go and do better,' cried the well-dressed man insolently. 'You were

glad enough of the job when I offered it to you. It's no good your looking

to me for money. I can do no more myself than just live; and as soon as I

see a chance, you may be sure I shall clear out of this rotten business.'

He moved towards the door, but before opening it stood hesitating.

'Want to get your hair cut, do you? Well, there's sixpence, and it's all I

can spare.'

The door closed. And the man at the table, leaning back, stared gloomily at

the sixpenny piece on the table before him.

His name was Topham; he had a university degree and a damaged reputation.

Six months ago, when his choice seemed to be between staying in the streets

and turning sandwich-man, luck had made him acquainted with Mr. Rudolph

Starkey, who wrote himself M.A. of Dublin University and advertised a

system of tuition by correspondence. In return for mere board and lodging

Topham became Mr. Starkey's assistant; that is to say, he did by far the

greater part of Mr. Starkey's work. The tutorial business was but

moderately successful; still, it kept its proprietor in cigarettes, and

enabled him to pass some hours a day at a club, where he was convinced that

before long some better chance in life would offer itself to him. Having

always been a lazy dog, Starkey regarded himself as an example of industry

unrewarded; being as selfish a fellow as one could meet, he reproached

himself with the unworldliness of his nature, which had so hindered him in

a basely material age. One of his ventures was a half-moral, half-practical

little volume entitled _Success in Life_. Had it been either more moral or

more practical, this book would probably have yielded him a modest income,

for such works are dear to the British public; but Rudolph Starkey, M.A.,

was one of those men who do everything by halves and snarl over the

ineffectual results.

Topham's fault was that of a man who had followed his instincts but too

thoroughly. They brought him to an end of everything, and, as Starkey said,

he had been glad enough to take the employment which was offered without

any inconvenient inquiries. The work which he undertook he did competently

and honestly for some time without a grumble. Beginning with a certain

gratitude to his employer, though without any liking, he soon grew to

detest the man, and had much ado to keep up a show of decent civility in

their intercourse. Of better birth and breeding than Starkey, he burned

with resentment at the scant ceremony with which he was treated, and

loathed the meanness which could exact so much toil for such poor

remuneration. When offering his terms Starkey had talked in that bland way

characteristic of him with strangers.

'I'm really ashamed to propose nothing better to a man of your standing.

But--well, I'm making a start, you see, and the fact of the matter is that,

just at present, I could very well manage to do all the work myself. Still,

if you think it worth your while, there's no doubt we shall get on

capitally together, and, of course, I need not say, as soon as our progress

justifies it, we must come to new arrangements. A matter of six or seven

hours a day will be all I shall ask of you at present. For my own part, I

work chiefly at night.'