CHAPTER LXIII. Melpomene

George Warrington by no means allowed his legal studies to obstruct

his comfort and pleasures, or interfere with his precious health. Madam

Esmond had pointed out to him in her letters that though he wore

a student's gown, and sate down with a crowd of nameless people to

hall-commons, he had himself a name, and a very ancient one, to support,

and could take rank with the first persons at home or in his own

country; and desired that he would study as a gentleman, not a mere

professional drudge. With this injunction the young man complied

obediently enough: so that he may be said not to have belonged to the

rank and file of the law, but may be considered to have been a volunteer

in her service, like some young gentlemen of whom we have just heard.

Though not so exacting as she since has become--though she allowed her

disciples much more leisure, much more pleasure, much more punch, much

more frequenting of coffee-houses and holiday-making, than she admits

nowadays, when she scarce gives her votaries time for amusement,

recreation, instruction, sleep, or dinner--the law a hundred years ago

was still a jealous mistress, and demanded a pretty exclusive attention.

Murray, we are told, might have been an Ovid, but he preferred to be

Lord Chief Justice, and to wear ermine instead of bays. Perhaps Mr.

Warrington might have risen to a peerage and the woolsack, had he

studied very long and assiduously,--had he been a dexterous courtier,

and a favourite of attorneys: had he been other than he was, in a word.

He behaved to Themis with a very decent respect and attention; but he

loved letters more than law always; and the black-letter of Chaucer was

infinitely more agreeable to him than the Gothic pages of Hale and Coke.

Letters were loved indeed in those quaint times, and authors were

actually authorities. Gentlemen appealed to Virgil or Lucan in the

Courts or the House of Commons. What said Statius, Juvenal--let alone

Tully or Tacitus--on such and such a point? Their reign is over now, the

good old Heathens: the worship of Jupiter and Juno is not more out

of mode than the cultivation of Pagan poetry or ethics. The age of

economists and calculators has succeeded, and Tooke's Pantheon is

deserted and ridiculous. Now and then, perhaps, a Stanley kills a kid,

a Gladstone bangs up a wreath, a Lytton burns incense, in honour of

the Olympians. But what do they care at Lambeth, Birmingham, the Tower

Hamlets, for the ancient rites, divinities, worship? Who the plague are

the Muses, and what is the use of all that Greek and Latin rubbish? What

is Elicon, and who cares? Who was Thalia, pray, and what is the length

of her i? Is Melpomene's name in three syllables or four? And do you

know from whose design I stole that figure of Tragedy which adorns the

initial G of this chapter?

Now, it has been said how Mr. George in his youth, and in the long

leisure which he enjoyed at home, and during his imprisonment in the

French fort on the banks of Monongahela, had whiled away his idleness by

paying court to Melpomene; and the result of their union was a tragedy,

which has been omitted in Bell's Theatre, though I dare say it is no

worse than some of the pieces printed there. Most young men pay their

respects to the Tragic Muse first, as they fall in love with women who

are a great deal older than themselves. Let the candid reader own, if

ever he had a literary turn, that his ambition was of the very

highest, and that however, in his riper age, he might come down in his

pretensions, and think that to translate an ode of Horace, or to turn a

song of Waller or Prior into decent alcaics or sapphics, was about the

utmost of his capability, tragedy and epic only did his green unknowing

youth engage, and no prize but the highest was fit for him.

George Warrington, then, on coming to London, attended the theatrical

performances at both houses, frequented the theatrical coffee-houses,

and heard the opinions of the critics, and might be seen at the Bedford

between the plays, or supping at the Cecil along with the wits and

actors when the performances were over. Here he gradually became

acquainted with the players and such of the writers and poets as were

known to the public. The tough old Macklin, the frolicsome Foote,

the vivacious Hippisley, the sprightly Mr. Garrick himself, might

occasionally be seen at these houses of entertainment; and our

gentleman, by his wit and modesty, as well, perhaps, as for the high

character for wealth which he possessed, came to be very much liked in

the coffee-house circles, and found that the actors would drink a

bowl of punch with him, and the critics sup at his expense with great

affability. To be on terms of intimacy with an author or an actor has

been an object of delight to many a young man; actually to hob and nob

with Bobadil or Henry the Fifth or Alexander the Great, to accept a

pinch out of Aristarchus's own box, to put Juliet into her coach, or

hand Monimia to her chair, are privileges which would delight most young

men of a poetic turn; and no wonder George Warrington loved the theatre.

Then he had the satisfaction of thinking that his mother only half

approved of plays and playhouses, and of feasting on fruit forbidden at

home. He gave more than one elegant entertainment to the players, and it

was even said that one or two distinguished geniuses had condescended to

borrow money of him.

And as he polished and added new beauties to his masterpiece, we may be

sure that he took advice of certain friends of his, and that they gave

him applause and counsel. Mr. Spencer, his new acquaintance, of the

Temple, gave a breakfast at his chambers in Fig Tree Court, when Mr.

Warrington read part of his play, and the gentlemen present pronounced

that it had uncommon merit. Even the learned Mr. Johnson, who was

invited, was good enough to say that the piece had showed talent. It

warred against the unities, to be sure; but these had been violated

by other authors, and Mr. Warrington might sacrifice them as well as

another. There was in Mr. W.'s tragedy a something which reminded him

both of Coriolanus and Othello. “And two very good things too, sir!” the

author pleaded. “Well, well, there was no doubt on that point; and 'tis

certain your catastrophe is terrible, just, and being in part true, is

not the less awful,” remarks Mr. Spencer.

Now the plot of Mr. Warrington's tragedy was quite full indeed of battle

and murder. A favourite book of his grandfather had been the life of old

George Frundsberg of Mindelheim, a colonel of foot-folk in the Imperial

service at Pavia fight, and during the wars of the Constable Bourbon:

and one of Frundsberg's military companions was a certain Carpzow, or

Carpezan, whom our friend selected as his tragedy hero. His first

act, as it at present stands in Sir George Warrington's manuscript,

is supposed to take place before a convent on the Rhine, which the

Lutherans, under Carpezan, are besieging. A godless gang these Lutherans

are. They have pulled the beards of Roman friars, and torn the veils of

hundreds of religious women. A score of these are trembling within the

walls of the convent yonder, of which the garrison, unless the expected

succours arrive before midday, has promised to surrender. Meanwhile

there is armistice, and the sentries within look on with hungry eyes, as

the soldiers and camp people gamble on the grass before the gate. Twelve

o'clock, ding, ding, dong! it sounds upon the convent bell. No succours

have arrived. Open gates, warder! and give admission to the famous

Protestant hero, the terror of Turks on the Danube, and Papists in the

Lombard plains--Colonel Carpezan! See, here he comes, clad in complete

steel, his hammer of battle over his shoulder, with which he has

battered so many infidel sconces, his flags displayed, his trumpets

blowing. “No rudeness, my men,” says Carpezan; “the wine is yours,

and the convent larder and cellar are good: the church plate shall

be melted: any of the garrison who choose to take service with Gaspar

Carpezan are welcome, and shall have good pay. No insult to the

religious ladies! I have promised them a safe-conduct, and he who lays a

finger on them, hangs! Mind that Provost Marshal!” The Provost Marshal,

a huge fellow in a red doublet, nods his head.

“We shall see more of that Provost Marshal, or executioner,” Mr. Spencer

explains to his guests.

“A very agreeable acquaintance, I am sure,--shall be delighted to meet

the gentleman again!” says Mr. Johnson, wagging his head over his tea.

“This scene of the mercenaries, the camp followers, and their wild

sports, is novel and stirring, Mr. Warrington, and I make you my

compliments on it. The Colonel has gone into the convent, I think? Now

let us hear what he is going to do there.”

The Abbess, and one or two of her oldest ladies, make their appearance

before the conqueror. Conqueror as he is, they heard him in their

sacred halls. They have heard of his violent behaviour in conventual

establishments before. That hammer, which he always carries in action,

has smashed many sacred images in religious houses. Pounds and pounds of

convent plate is he known to have melted, the sacrilegious plunderer! No

wonder the Abbess-Princess of St. Mary's, a lady of violent prejudices,

free language, and noble birth, has a dislike to the lowborn heretic who

lords it in her convent, and tells Carpezan a bit of her mind, as the

phrase is. This scene, in which the lady gets somewhat better of the

Colonel, was liked not a little by Mr. Warrington's audience at the

Temple. Terrible as he might be in war, Carpezan was shaken at first by

the Abbess's brisk opening charge of words; and, conqueror as he was,

seemed at first to be conquered by his actual prisoner. But such an old

soldier was not to be beaten ultimately by any woman. “Pray, madam,”

says he, “how many ladies are there in your convent, for whom my people

shall provide conveyance?” The Abbess, with a look of much trouble and

anger, says that, “besides herself, the noble sisters of Saint Mary's

House are twenty--twenty-three.” She was going to say twenty-four, and

now says twenty-three? “Ha! why this hesitation?” asks Captain Ulric,

one of Carpezan's gayest officers.

The dark chief pulls a letter from his pocket. “I require from you,

madam,” he says sternly to the Lady Abbess, “the body of the noble lady

Sybilla of Hoya. Her brother was my favourite captain, slain by my side,

in the Milanese. By his death, she becomes heiress of his lands. 'Tis

said a greedy uncle brought her hither; and fast immured the lady

against her will. The damsel shall herself pronounce her fate--to stay a

cloistered sister of Saint Mary's, or to return to home and liberty, as

Lady Sybil, Baroness of ------.” Ha! The Abbess was greatly disturbed

by this question. She says, haughtily: “There is no Lady Sybil in this

house: of which every inmate is under your protection, and sworn to go

free. The Sister Agnes was a nun professed, and what was her land and

wealth revert to this Order.”

“Give me straightway the body of the Lady Sybil of Hoya!” roars

Carpezan, in great wrath. “If not, I make a signal to my Reiters, and

give you and your convent up to war.”

“Faith, if I lead the storm, and have my right, 'tis not my Lady Abbess

that I'll choose,” says Captain Ulric, “but rather some plump, smiling,

red-lipped maid like--like----” Here, as he, the sly fellow, is looking

under the veils of the two attendant nuns, the stern Abbess cries,

“Silence, fellow, with thy ribald talk! The lady, warrior, whom you ask

of me is passed away from sin, temptation, vanity, and three days since

our Sister Agnes--died.”

At this announcement Carpezan is immensely agitated. The Abbess calls

upon the chaplain to confirm her statement. Ghastly and pale, the old

man has to own that three days since the wretched Sister Agnes was

buried.

This is too much! In the pocket of his coat of mail Carpezan has a

letter from Sister Agnes herself, in which she announces that she is

going to be buried indeed, but in an oubliette of the convent, where

she may either be kept on water and bread, or die starved outright. He

seizes the unflinching Abbess by the arm, whilst Captain Ulric lays hold

of the chaplain by the throat. The Colonel blows a blast upon his horn:

in rush his furious Lanzknechts from without. Crash, bang! They knock

the convent walls about. And in the midst of flames, screams, and

slaughter, who is presently brought in by Carpezan himself, and fainting

on his shoulder, but Sybilla herself? A little sister nun (that gay one

with the red lips) had pointed out to the Colonel and Ulric the way to

Sister Agnes's dungeon, and, indeed, had been the means of making her

situation known to the Lutheran chief.

“The convent is suppressed with a vengeance,” says Mr. Warrington. “We

end our first act with the burning of the place, the roars of triumph

of the soldiery, and the outcries of the nuns. They had best go change

their dresses immediately, for they will have to be court ladies in the

next act--as you will see.” Here the gentlemen talked the matter over.

If the piece were to be done at Drury Lane, Mrs. Pritchard would hardly

like to be Lady Abbess, as she doth but appear in the first act. Miss

Pritchard might make a pretty Sybilla, and Miss Gates the attendant

nun. Mr. Garrick was scarce tall enough for Carpezan--though, when he

is excited, nobody ever thinks of him but as big as a grenadier. Mr.

Johnson owns Woodward will be a good Ulric, as he plays the Mercutio

parts very gaily; and so, by one and t'other, the audience fancies the

play already on the boards, and casts the characters.

In act the second, Carpezan has married Sybilla. He has enriched himself

in the wars, has been ennobled by the Emperor, and lives at his castle

on the Danube in state and splendour.

But, truth to say, though married, rich, and ennobled, the Lord Carpezan

was not happy. It may be that in his wild life, as leader of condottieri

on both sides, he had committed crimes which agitated his mind with

remorse. It may be that his rough soldier-manners consorted ill with his

imperious highborn bride. She led him such a life--I am narrating as

it were the Warrington manuscript, which is too long to print in

entire--taunting him with his low birth, his vulgar companions, whom the

old soldier loved to see about him, and so forth--that there were

times when he rather wished that he had never rescued this lovely,

quarrelsome, wayward vixen from the oubliette out of which he fished

her. After the bustle of the first act this is a quiet one, and passed

chiefly in quarrelling between the Baron and Baroness Carpezan, until

horns blow, and it is announced that the young King of Bohemia and

Hungary is coming bunting that way.

Act III. is passed at Prague, whither his Majesty has invited Lord

Carpezan and his wife, with noble offers of preferment to the latter.

From Baron he shall be promoted to be Count, from Colonel he shall be

General-in-Chief. His wife is the most brilliant and fascinating of all

the ladies of the court--and as for Carpzoff----

“Oh, stay--I have it--I know your story, sir, now,” says Mr. Johnson.

“'Tis in 'Meteranus,' in the Theatrum Universum. I read it in Oxford as

a boy--Carpezanus or Carpzoff----”

“That is the fourth act,” says Mr. Warrington. In the fourth act the

young King's attentions towards Sybilla grow more and more marked; but

her husband, battling against his jealousy, long refuses to yield to it,

until his wife's criminality is put beyond a doubt--and here he read

the act, which closes with the terrible tragedy which actually happened.

Being convinced of his wife's guilt, Carpezan caused the executioner who

followed his regiment to slay her in her own palace. And the curtain of

the act falls just after the dreadful deed is done, in a side-chamber

illuminated by the moon shining through a great oriel window, under

which the King comes with his lute, and plays the song which was to be

the signal between him and his guilty victim.

This song (writ in the ancient style, and repeated in the piece, being

sung in the third act previously at a great festival given by the King

and Queen) was pronounced by Mr. Johnson to be a happy imitation of Mr.

Waller's manner, and its gay repetition at the moment of guilt, murder,

and horror, very much deepened the tragic gloom of the scene.

“But whatever came afterwards?” he asked. “I remember in the Theatrum,

Carpezan is said to have been taken into favour again by Count

Mansfield, and doubtless to have murdered other folks on the reformed

side.”

Here our poet has departed from historic truth. In the fifth act

of Carpezan King Louis of Hungary and Bohemia (sufficiently

terror-stricken, no doubt, by the sanguinary termination of his

intrigue) has received word that the Emperor Solyman is invading his

Hungarian dominions. Enter two noblemen who relate how, in the

council which the King held upon the news, the injured Carpezan rushed

infuriated into the royal presence, broke his sword, and flung it at the

King's feet--along with a glove which he dared him to wear, and which he

swore he would one day claim. After that wild challenge the rebel fled

from Prague, and had not since been heard of; but it was reported that

he had joined the Turkish invader, assumed the turban, and was now

in the camp of the Sultan, whose white tents glance across the river

yonder, and against whom the King was now on his march. Then the King

comes to his tent with his generals, prepares his order of battle; and

dismisses them to their posts, keeping by his side an aged and faithful

knight, his master of the horse, to whom he expresses his repentance

for his past crimes, his esteem for his good and injured Queen, and his

determination to meet the day's battle like a man.

“What is this field called?”

“Mohacz, my liege!” says the old warrior, adding the remark that “Ere

set of sun, Mohacz will see a battle bravely won.”

Trumpets and alarms now sound; they are the cymbals and barbaric music

of the Janissaries: we are in the Turkish camp, and yonder, surrounded

by turbaned chiefs, walks the Sultan Solyman's friend, the conqueror of

Rhodes, the redoubted Grand Vizier.

Who is that warrior in an Eastern habit, but with a glove in his cap?

'Tis Carpezan. Even Solyman knew his courage and ferocity as a soldier.

He knows; the ordnance of the Hungarian host; in what arms King Louis

is weakest: how his cavalry, of which the shock is tremendous, should

be received, and inveigled into yonder morass, where certain death may

await them--he prays for a command in the front, and as near as possible

to the place where the traitor King Louis will engage. “'Tis well,” says

the grim Vizier, “our invincible Emperor surveys the battle from yonder

tower. At the end of the day, he will know how to reward your valour.”

The signal-guns fire--the trumpets blow--the Turkish captains retire,

vowing death to the infidel, and eternal fidelity to the Sultan.

And now the battle begins in earnest, and with those various incidents

which the lover of the theatre knoweth. Christian knights and Turkish

warriors clash and skirmish over the stage. Continued alarms are

sounded. Troops on both sides advance and retreat. Carpezan, with his

glove in his cap, and his dreadful hammer smashing all before him, rages

about the field, calling for King Louis. The renegade is about to slay

a warrior who faces him, but recognising young Ulric, his ex-captain, he

drops the uplifted hammer, and bids him fly, and think of Carpezan. He

is softened at seeing his young friend, and thinking of former times

when they fought and conquered together in the cause of Protestantism.

Ulric bids him to return, but of course that is now out of the question.

They fight. Ulric will have it, and down he goes under the hammer. The

renegade melts in sight of his wounded comrade, when who appears but

King Louis, his plumes torn, his sword hacked, his shield dented with

a thousand blows which he has received and delivered during the day's

battle. Ha! who is this? The guilty monarch would turn away (perhaps

Macbeth may have done so before), but Carpezan is on him. All his

softness is gone. He rages like a fury. “An equal fight!” he roars. “A

traitor against a traitor! Stand, King Louis! False King, false knight,

false friend--by this glove in my helmet, I challenge you!” And he tears

the guilty token out of his cap, and flings it at the King.

Of course they set to, and the monarch falls under the terrible arm of

the man whom he has injured. He dies, uttering a few incoherent words

of repentance, and Carpezan, leaning upon his murderous mace, utters a

heartbroken soliloquy over the royal corpse. The Turkish warriors have

gathered meanwhile: the dreadful day is their own. Yonder stands the

dark Vizier, surrounded by his Janissaries, whose bows and swords are

tired of drinking death. He surveys the renegade standing over the

corpse of the King.

“Christian renegade!” he says, “Allah has given us a great victory. The

arms of the Sublime Emperor are everywhere triumphant. The Christian

King is slain by you.”

“Peace to his soul! He died like a good knight,” gasps Ulric, himself

dying on the field.

“In this day's battle,” the grim Vizier continues, “no man hath

comported himself more bravely than you. You are made Bassa of

Transylvania! Advance bowmen--Fire!”

An arrow quivers in the breast of Carpezan.

“Bassa of Transylvania, you were a traitor to your King, who lies

murdered by your hand!” continues grim Vizier. “You contributed more

than any soldier to this day's great victory. 'Tis thus my sublime

Emperor meetly rewards you. Sound trumpets! We march for Vienna

to-night!”

And the curtain drops as Carpezan, crawling towards his dying comrade,

kisses his hands, and gasps--

“Forgive me, Ulric!”

When Mr. Warrington has finished reading his tragedy, he turns round to

Mr. Johnson, modestly, and asks,--

“What say you, sir? Is there any chance for me?”

But the opinion of this most eminent critic is scarce to be given, for

Mr. Johnson had been asleep for some time, and frankly owned that he had

lost the latter part of the play.

The little auditory begins to hum and stir as the noise of the speaker

ceased. George may have been very nervous when he first commenced to

read; but everybody allows that he read the last two acts uncommonly

well, and makes him a compliment upon his matter and manner. Perhaps

everybody is in good-humour because the piece has come to an end. Mr.

Spencer's servant hands about refreshing drinks. The Templars speak out

their various opinions whilst they sip the negus. They are a choice band

of critics, familiar with the pit of the theatre, and they treat Mr.

Warrington's play with the gravity which such a subject demands.

Mr. Fountain suggests that the Vizier should not say “Fire!” when he

bids the archers kill Carpezan, as you certainly don't fire with a bow

and arrows. A note is taken of the objection.

Mr. Figtree, who is of a sentimental turn, regrets that Ulric could not

be saved, and married to the comic heroine.

“Nay, sir, there was an utter annihilation of the Hungarian army at

Mohacz,” says Mr. Johnson, “and Ulric must take his knock on the head

with the rest. He could only be saved by flight, and you wouldn't have

a hero run away! Pronounce sentence of death against Captain Ulric, but

kill him with honours of war.”

Messrs. Essex and Tanfield wonder to one another who is this

queer-looking pert whom Spencer has invited, and who contradicts

everybody; and suggest a boat up the river and a little fresh air after

the fatigues of the tragedy.

The general opinion is decidedly favourable to Mr. Warrington's

performance; and Mr. Johnson's opinion, on which he sets a special

value, is the most favourable of all. Perhaps Mr. Johnson is not sorry

to compliment a young gentleman of fashion and figure like Mr. W. “Up to

the death of the heroine,” he says, “I am frankly with you, sir. And I

may speak, as a playwright who have killed my own heroine, and had my

share of the plausus in the atro. To hear your own lines nobly delivered

to an applauding house, is indeed a noble excitement. I like to see a

young man of good name and lineage who condescends to think that the

Tragic Muse is not below his advances. It was to a sordid roof that

I invited her, and I asked her to rescue me from poverty and squalor.

Happy you, sir, who can meet her upon equal terms, and can afford to

marry her without a portion!”

“I doubt whether the greatest genius is not debased who has to make a

bargain with Poetry,” remarks Mr. Spencer.

“Nay, sir,” Mr. Johnson answered, “I doubt if many a great genius would

work at all without bribes and necessities; and so a man had better

marry a poor Muse for good and all, for better or worse, than dally with

a rich one. I make you my compliment to your play, Mr. Warrington, and

if you want an introduction to the stage, shall be very happy if I can

induce my friend Mr. Garrick to present you.”

“Mr. Garrick shall be his sponsor,” cried the florid Mr. Figtree.

“Melpomene shall be his godmother, and he shall have the witches'

caldron in Macbeth for a christening font.”

“Sir, I neither said font nor godmother!”--remarks the man of letters.

“I would have no play contrary to morals or religion nor, as I conceive,

is Mr. Warrington's piece otherwise than friendly to them. Vice is

chastised, as it should be, even in kings, though perhaps we judge of

their temptations too lightly. Revenge is punished--as not to be lightly

exercised by our limited notion of justice. It may have been Carpezan's

wife who perverted the King, and not the King who led the woman astray.

At any rate, Louis is rightly humiliated for his crime, and the Renegade

most justly executed for his. I wish you a good afternoon, gentlemen!”

And with these remarks, the great author took his leave of the company.

Towards the close of the reading, General Lambert had made his

appearance at Mr. Spencer's chambers, and had listened to the latter

part of the tragedy. The performance over, he and George took their way

to the latter's lodgings in the first place, and subsequently to the

General's own house, where the young author was expected, in order to

recount the reception which his play had met from his Temple critics.

At Mr. Warrington's apartments in Southampton Row, they found a letter

awaiting George, which the latter placed in his pocket unread, so that

he might proceed immediately with his companion to Soho. We may be sure

the ladies there were eager to know about the Carpezan's fate in the

morning's small rehearsal.

Hetty said George was so shy, that perhaps it would be better for all

parties if some other person had read the play. Theo, on the contrary,

cried out:

“Read it, indeed! Who can read a poem better than the author who feels

it in his heart? And George had his whole heart in the piece!”

Mr. Lambert very likely thought that somebody else's whole heart was in

the piece too, but did not utter this opinion to Miss Theo.

“I think Harry would look very well in your figure of a Prince,”

says the General. “That scene where he takes leave of his wife before

departing for the wars reminds me of your brother's manner not a

little.”

“Oh, papa! surely Mr. Warrington himself would act the Prince's part

best!” cries Miss Theo.

“And be deservedly slain in battle at the end?” asks the father of the

house.

“I did not say that,--only that Mr. George would make a very good

Prince, papa!” cries Miss Theo.

“In which case he would find a suitable Princess, I have no doubt. What

news of your brother Harry?”

George, who had been thinking about theatrical triumphs; about

monumentum aere perennius; about lilacs; about love whispered and

tenderly accepted, remembers that he has a letter from Harry in his

pocket, and gaily produces it.

“Let us hear what Mr. Truant says for himself, Aunt Lambert!” cries

George, breaking the seal.

Why is he so disturbed, as he reads the contents of his letter? Why do

the women look at him with alarmed eyes? And why, above all, is Hetty so

pale?

“Here is the letter,” says George, and begins to read it:

“RYDE, June 1, 1758.

“I did not tell my dearest George what I hoped and intended, when I left

home on Wednesday. 'Twas to see Mr. Webb at Portsmouth or the Isle of

Wight, wherever his Regiment was, and if need was to go down on my

knees to him to take me as volunteer on the Expedition. I took boat from

Portsmouth, where I learned that he was with our regiment incampt at

the village of Ryde. Was received by him most kindly, and my petition

granted out of hand. That is why I say our regiment. We are eight

gentlemen volunteers with Mr. Webb, all men of birth, and good fortunes

except poor me, who don't deserve one. We are to mess with the officers;

we take the right of the collumn, and have always the right to be

in front, and in an hour we embark on board his Majesty's Ship the

Rochester of 60 guns, while our Commodore's, Mr. Howe's, is the Essex,

70. His squadron is about 20 ships, and I should think 100 transports at

least. Though 'tis a secret expedition, we make no doubt France is our

destination--where I hope to see my friends the Monsieurs once more,

and win my colours, a la point de mon epee, as we used to say in Canada.

Perhaps my service as interpreter may be useful; I speaking the language

not so well as some one I know, but better than most here.

“I scarce venture to write to our mother to tell her of this step. Will

you, who have a coxing tongue will wheadle any one, write to her as soon

as you have finisht the famous tradgedy? Will you give my affectionate

respects to dear General Lambert and ladies? and if any accident should

happen, I know you will take care of poor Gumbo as belonging to my

dearest best George's most affectionate brother, HENRY E. WARRINGTON.

“P.S.--Love to all at home when you write, including Dempster, Mountain,

and Fanny M. and all the people, and duty to my honoured mother, wishing

I had pleased her better. And if I said anything unkind to dear Miss

Hester Lambert, I know she will forgive me, and pray God bless all.--H.

E. W.”

“To G. Esmond Warrington, Esq., at Mr. Scrace's House in Southampton

Row, Opposite Bedford House Gardens, London.”

He has not read the last words with a very steady voice. Mr. Lambert

sits silent, though not a little moved. Theo and her mother look at one

another; but Hetty remains with a cold face and a stricken heart. She

thinks, “He is gone to danger, perhaps to death, and it was I sent him!”

CHAPTER LXIV. In which Harry lives to fight another Day

The trusty Gumbo could not console himself for the departure of his

beloved master: at least, to judge from his tears and howls on first

hearing the news of Mr. Harry's enlistment, you would have thought

the negro's heart must break at the separation. No wonder he went for

sympathy to the maid-servants at Mr. Lambert's lodgings. Wherever that

dusky youth was, he sought comfort in the society of females. Their fair

and tender bosoms knew how to feel pity for the poor African, and

the darkness of Gumbo's complexion was no more repulsive to them than

Othello's to Desdemona. I believe Europe has never been so squeamish

in regard to Africa, as a certain other respected Quarter. Nay, some

Africans--witness the Chevalier de St. Georges, for instance--have been

notorious favourites with the fair sex.

So, in his humbler walk, was Mr. Gumbo. The Lambert servants wept freely

in his company; the maids kindly considered him not only as Mr. Harry's

man, but their brother. Hetty could not help laughing when she found

Gumbo roaring because his master had gone a volumteer, as he called it,

and had not taken him. He was ready to save Master Harry's life any day,

and would have done it and had himself cut in twenty thousand hundred

pieces for Master Harry, that he would! Meanwhile, Nature must be

supported, and he condescended to fortify her by large supplies of beer

and cold meat in the kitchen. That he was greedy, idle, and told lies,

is certain; but yet Hetty gave him half a crown, and was especially kind

to him. Her tongue, that was wont to wag so pertly, was so gentle now,

that you might fancy it had never made a joke. She moved about the house

mum and meek. She was humble to mamma; thankful to John and Betty when

they waited at dinner; patient to Polly when the latter pulled her hair

in combing it; long-suffering when Charley from school trod on her

toes, or deranged her workbox; silent in papa's company,--oh, such a

transmogrified little Hetty! If papa had ordered her to roast the leg of

mutton, or walk to church arm-in-arm with Gumbo, she would have made a

curtsey, and said, “Yes, if you please, dear papa!” Leg of mutton! What

sort of meal were some poor volunteers having, with the cannon-balls

flying about their heads? Church! When it comes to the prayer in time of

war, oh, how her knees smite together as she kneels, and hides her head

in the pew! She holds down her head when the parson reads out, “Thou

shalt do no murder,” from the communion-rail, and fancies he must be

looking at her. How she thinks of all travellers by land or by water!

How she sickens as she runs to the paper to read if there is news of the

Expedition! How she watches papa when he comes home from his Ordnance

Office, and looks in his face to see if there is good news or bad! Is

he well? Is he made a General yet? Is he wounded and made a prisoner?

ah me! or, perhaps, are both his legs taken off by one shot, like that

pensioner they saw in Chelsea Garden t'other day? She would go on wooden

legs all her life, if his can but bring him safe home; at least, she

ought never to get up off her knees until he is returned. “Haven't you

heard of people, Theo,” says she, “whose hair has grown grey in a single

night? I shouldn't wonder if mine did,--shouldn't wonder in the least.”

And she looks in the glass to ascertain that phenomenon.

“Hetty dear, you used not to be so nervous when papa was away in

Minorca,” remarks Theo.

“Ah, Theo! one may very well see that George is not with the army, but

safe at home,” rejoins Hetty; whereat the elder sister blushes, and

looks very pensive. Au fait, if Mr. George had been in the army, that,

you see, would have been another pair of boots. Meanwhile, we don't

intend to harrow anybody's kind feelings any longer, but may as well

state that Harry is, for the present, as safe as any officer of the Life

Guards at Regent's Park Barracks.

The first expedition in which our gallant volunteer was engaged may be

called successful, but certainly was not glorious. The British Lion,

or any other lion, cannot always have a worthy enemy to combat, or a

battle-royal to deliver. Suppose he goes forth in quest of a tiger who

won't come, and lays his paws on a goose, and gobbles him up? Lions, we

know, must live like any other animals. But suppose, advancing into the

forest in search of the tiger aforesaid, and bellowing his challenge

of war, he espies not one but six tigers coming towards him? This

manifestly is not his game at all. He puts his tail between his royal

legs, and retreats into his own snug den as quickly as he may. Were he

to attempt to go and fight six tigers, you might write that Lion down an

Ass.

Now, Harry Warrington's first feat of war was in this wise. He and about

13,000 other fighting men embarked in various ships and transports on

the 1st of June, from the Isle of Wight, and at daybreak on the 5th the

fleet stood in to the Bay of Cancale in Brittany. For a while he and the

gentlemen volunteers had the pleasure of examining the French coast

from their ships, whilst the Commander-in-Chief and the Commodore

reconnoitred the bay in a cutter. Cattle were seen, and some dragoons,

who trotted off into the distance; and a little fort with a couple

of guns had the audacity to fire at his Grace of Marlborough and the

Commodore in the cutter. By two o'clock the whole British fleet was at

anchor, and signal was made for all the grenadier companies of eleven

regiments to embark on board flat-bottomed boats and assemble round the

Commodore's ship, the Essex. Meanwhile, Mr. Howe, hoisting his broad

pennant on board the Success frigate, went in as near as possible to

shore, followed by the other frigates, to protect the landing of

the troops; and, now, with Lord George Sackville and General Dury in

command, the gentlemen volunteers, the grenadier companies, and three

battalions of guards pulled to shore.

The gentlemen volunteers could not do any heroic deed upon this

occasion, because the French, who should have stayed to fight them, ran

away, and the frigates having silenced the fire of the little fort which

had disturbed the reconnaissance of the Commander-in-Chief, the army

presently assaulted it, taking the whole garrison prisoner, and shooting

him in the leg. Indeed, he was but one old gentleman, who gallantly had

fired his two guns, and who told his conquerors, “If every Frenchman had

acted like me, you would not have landed at Cancale at all.”

The advanced detachment of invaders took possession of the village of

Cancale, where they lay upon their arms all night; and our volunteer was

joked by his comrades about his eagerness to go out upon the war-path,

and bring in two or three scalps of Frenchmen. None such, however,

fell under his tomahawk; the only person slain on the whole day being a

French gentleman, who was riding with his servant, and was surprised

by volunteer Lord Downe, marching in the front with a company of

Kingsley's. My Lord Downe offered the gentleman quarter, which he

foolishly refused, whereupon he, his servant, and the two horses, were

straightway shot.

Next day the whole force was landed, and advanced from Cancale to St.

Malo. All the villages were emptied through which the troops passed, and

the roads were so narrow in many places that the men had to march single

file, and might have been shot down from behind the tall leafy hedges

had there been any enemy to disturb them.

At nightfall the army arrived before St. Malo, and were saluted by

a fire of artillery from that town, which did little damage in the

darkness. Under cover of this, the British set fire to the ships, wooden

buildings, pitch and tar magazines in the harbour, and made a prodigious

conflagration that lasted the whole night.

This feat was achieved without any attempt on the part of the French to

molest the British force: but, as it was confidently asserted that there

was a considerable French force in the town of St. Malo, though they

wouldn't come out, his Grace the Duke of Marlborough and my Lord George

Sackville determined not to disturb the garrison, marched back to

Cancale again, and--and so got on board their ships.

If this were not a veracious history, don't you see that it would have

been easy to send our Virginian on a more glorious campaign? Exactly

four weeks after his departure from England, Mr. Warrington found

himself at Portsmouth again, and addressed a letter to his brother

George, with which the latter ran off to Dean Street so soon as ever he

received it.

“Glorious news, ladies!” cries he, finding the Lambert family all at

breakfast. “Our champion has come back. He has undergone all sorts of

dangers, but has survived them all. He has seen dragons--upon my word,

he says so.”

“Dragons! What do you mean, Mr. Warrington?”

“But not killed any--he says so, as you shall hear. He writes:

“'DEAREST BROTHER--I think you will be glad to hear that I am returned,

without any commission as yet; without any wounds or glory; but,--at any

rate, alive and harty. On board our ship, we were almost as crowded as

poor Mr. Holwell and his friends in their Black Hole at Calicutta. We

had rough weather, and some of the gentlemen volunteers, who prefer

smooth water, grumbled not a little. My gentlemen's stomachs are dainty;

and after Braund's cookery and White's kick-shaws, they don't like plain

sailor's rum and bisket. But I, who have been at sea before, took my

rations and can of flip very contentedly: being determined to put a good

face on everything before our fine English macaronis, and show that a

Virginia gentleman is as good as the best of 'em. I wish, for the honour

of old Virginia, that I had more to brag about. But all I can say in

truth is, that we have been to France and come back again. Why, I don't

think even your tragick pen could make anything of such a campaign as

ours has been. We landed on the 6 at Cancalle Bay, we saw a few dragons

on a hill...'

“There! Did I not tell you there were dragons?” asks George, laughing.

“Mercy! What can he mean by dragons?” cries Hetty.

“Immense, long-tailed monsters, with steel scales on their backs, who

vomit fire, and gobble up a virgin a day. Haven't you read about them in

The Seven Champions?” says papa. “Seeing St. George's flag, I suppose,

they slunk off.”

“I have read of 'em,” says the little boy from Chartreux, solemnly.

“They like to eat women. One was going to eat Andromeda, you know, papa;

and Jason killed another, who was guarding the apple-tree.”

“... A few dragons on a hill,” George resumes, “who rode away from us

without engaging. We slept under canvass. We marched to St. Malo, and

burned ever so many privateers there. And we went on board shipp again,

without ever crossing swords with an enemy or meeting any except a

few poor devils whom the troops plundered. Better luck next time! This

hasn't been very much nor particular glorious: but I have liked it for

my part. I have smelt powder, besides a good deal of rosn and pitch we

burned. I've seen the enemy; have sleppt under canvass, and been dredful

crowdid and sick at sea. I like it. My best compliments to dear Aunt

Lambert, and tell Miss Hetty I wasn't very much fritened when I saw the

French horse.--Your most affectionate brother, H. E. WARRINGTON.”

We hope Miss Hetty's qualms of conscience were allayed by Harry's

announcement that his expedition was over, and that he had so far taken

no hurt. Far otherwise. Mr. Lambert, in the course of his official

duties, had occasion to visit the troops at Portsmouth and the Isle of

Wight, and George Warrington bore him company. They found Harry vastly

improved in spirits and health from the excitement produced by the

little campaign, quite eager and pleased to learn his new military

duties, active, cheerful, and healthy, and altogether a different person

from the listless moping lad who had dawdled in London coffee-houses and

Mrs. Lambert's drawing-room. The troops were under canvas; the weather

was glorious, and George found his brother a ready pupil in a fine

brisk open-air school of war. Not a little amused, the elder brother,

arm-in-arm with the young volunteer, paced the streets of the warlike

city, recalled his own brief military experiences of two years back,

and saw here a much greater army than that ill-fated one of which he

had shared the disasters. The expedition, such as we have seen it, was

certainly not glorious, and yet the troops and the nation were in high

spirits with it. We were said to have humiliated the proud Gaul. We

should have vanquished as well as humbled him had he dared to appear.

What valour, after all, is like British valour? I dare say some such

expressions have been heard in later times. Not that I would hint that

our people brag much more than any other, or more now than formerly.

Have not these eyes beheld the battle-grounds of Leipzig, Jena, Dresden,

Waterloo, Blenheim, Bunker's Hill, New Orleans? What heroic nation has

not fought, has not conquered, has not run away, has not bragged in its

turn? Well, the British nation was much excited by the glorious victory

of St. Malo. Captured treasures were sent home and exhibited in London.

The people were so excited, that more laurels and more victories were

demanded, and the enthusiastic army went forth to seek some.

With this new expedition went a volunteer so distinguished, that we must

give him precedence of all other amateur soldiers or sailors. This was

our sailor Prince, H.R.H. Prince Edward, who was conveyed on board the

Essex in the ship's twelve-oared barge, the standard of England flying

in the bow of the boat, the Admiral with his flag and boat following the

Prince's, and all the captains following in seniority.

Away sails the fleet, Harry, in high health and spirits, waving his hat

to his friends as they cheer from the shore. He must and will have his

commission before long. There can be no difficulty about that, George

thinks. There is plenty of money in his little store to buy his

brother's ensigncy; but if he can win it without purchase by gallantry

and good conduct, that were best. The colonel of the regiment reports

highly of his recruit; men and officers like him. It is easy to see that

he is a young fellow of good promise and spirit.

Hip, hip, huzzay! What famous news are these which arrive ten days after

the expedition has sailed? On the 7th and 8th of August his Majesty's

troops had effected a landing in the Bay des Marais, two leagues

westward of Cherbourg, in the face of a large body of the enemy. Awed

by the appearance of British valour, that large body of the enemy has

disappeared. Cherbourg has surrendered at discretion; and the English

colours are hoisted on the three outlying forts. Seven-and-twenty ships

have been burned in the harbours, and a prodigious number of fine brass

cannon taken. As for your common iron guns, we have destroyed 'em,

likewise the basin (about which the mounseers bragged so), and the two

piers at the entrance to the harbour.

There is no end of jubilation in London; just as Mr. Howe's guns arrive

from Cherbourg, come Mr. Wolfe's colours captured at Louisbourg. The

colours are taken from Kensington to St Paul's, escorted by fourscore

life-guards and fourscore horse-grenadiers with officers in proportion,

their standards, kettle-drums, and trumpets. At St. Paul's they

are received by the Dean and Chapter at the West Gate, and at that

minute--bang, bong, bung--the Tower and Park guns salute them! Next day

is the turn of the Cherbourg cannon and mortars. These are the guns

we took. Look at them with their carving and flaunting emblems--their

lilies, and crowns, and mottoes! Here they are, the Teneraire, the

Malfaisant, the Vainqueur (the Vainqueur, indeed! a pretty vainqueur of

Britons!), and ever so many more. How the people shout as the pieces

are trailed through the streets in procession! As for Hetty and Mrs.

Lambert, I believe they are of opinion that Harry took every one of the

guns himself, dragging them out of the batteries, and destroying the

artillerymen. He has immensely risen in the general estimation in the

last few days. Madame de Bernstein has asked about him. Lady Maria has

begged her dear cousin George to see her, and, if possible, give her

news of his brother. George, who was quite the head of the family

a couple of months since, finds himself deposed, and of scarce any

account, in Miss Hetty's eyes at least. Your wit, and your learning, and

your tragedies, may be all very well; but what are these in comparison

to victories and brass cannon? George takes his deposition very meekly.

They are fifteen thousand Britons. Why should they not march and take

Paris itself? Nothing more probable, think some of the ladies. They

embrace; they congratulate each other; they are in a high state of

excitement. For once, they long that Sir Miles and Lady Warrington were

in town, so that they might pay her ladyship a visit, and ask, “What

do you say to your nephew now, pray? Has he not taken twenty-one finest

brass cannon; flung a hundred and twenty iron guns into the water,

seized twenty-seven ships in the harbour, and destroyed the basin

and the two piers at the entrance?” As the whole town rejoices and

illuminates, so these worthy folks display brilliant red hangings in

their cheeks, and light up candles of joy in their eyes, in honour of

their champion and conqueror.

But now, I grieve to say, comes a cloudy day after the fair weather. The

appetite of our commanders, growing by what it fed on, led them to think

they had not feasted enough on the plunder of St. Malo; and thither,

after staying a brief time at Portsmouth and the Wight, the conquerors

of Cherbourg returned. They were landed in the Bay of St. Lunar, at

a distance of a few miles from the place, and marched towards it,

intending to destroy it this time. Meanwhile the harbour of St. Lunar

was found insecure, and the fleet moved up to St. Cas, keeping up its

communication with the invading army.

Now the British Lion found that the town of St. Malo--which he had

proposed to swallow at a single mouthful--was guarded by an army of

French, which the Governor of Brittany had brought to the succour of

his good town, and the meditated coup-de-main being thus impossible,

our leaders marched for their ships again, which lay duly awaiting our

warriors in the Bay of St. Cas.

Hide, blushing glory, hide St. Cas's day! As our troops were marching

down to their ships they became aware of an army following them, which

the French governor of the province had sent from Brest. Two-thirds

of the troops, and all the artillery, were already embarked, when the

Frenchmen came down upon the remainder. Four companies of the first

regiment of guards and the grenadier companies of the army, faced

about on the beach to await the enemy, whilst the remaining troops were

carried off in the boats. As the French descended from the heights round

the bay, these guards and grenadiers marched out to attack them, leaving

an excellent position which they had occupied--a great dyke raised on

the shore, and behind which they might have resisted to advantage. And

now, eleven hundred men were engaged with six--nay, ten times their

number; and, after a while, broke and made for the boats with a sauve

qui peut! Seven hundred out of the eleven were killed, drowned, or

taken prisoners--the General himself was killed--and, ah! where were the

volunteers?

A man of peace myself, and little intelligent of the practice or the

details of war, I own I think less of the engaged troops than of the

people they leave behind. Jack the Guardsman and La Tulipe of the Royal

Bretagne are face to face, and striving to knock each other's brains

out. Bon! It is their nature to--like the bears and lions--and we will

not say Heaven, but some power or other has made them so to do. But the

girl of Tower Hill, who hung on Jack's neck before he departed; and the

lass at Quimper, who gave the Frenchman his brule-gueule and tobacco-box

before he departed on the noir trajet? What have you done, poor little

tender hearts, that you should grieve so? My business is not with the

army, but with the people left behind. What a fine state Miss Hetty

Lambert must be in, when she hears of the disaster to the troops and the

slaughter of the grenadier companies! What grief and doubt are in George

Warrington's breast; what commiseration in Martin Lambert's, as he looks

into his little girl's face and reads her piteous story there! Howe, the

brave Commodore, rowing in his barge under the enemy's fire, has rescued

with his boats scores and scores of our flying people. More are drowned;

hundreds are prisoners, or shot on the beach. Among these, where is our

Virginian?

CHAPTER LXV. Soldier's Return

Great Powers! will the vainglory of men, especially of Frenchmen, never

cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas--a mere

affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware--they were so

unfeeling as to fire away I don't know how much powder at the Invalides

at Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any

magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave

fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate

has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind

to design an authentic picture of the rejoicings at London upon our

glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns dragged in

procession by our gallant tars; the stout horse-grenadiers prancing by;

the mob waving hats, roaring cheers, picking pockets, and our friends in

a balcony in Fleet Street looking on and blessing this scene of British

triumph. But now that the French Invalides have been so vulgar as to

imitate the Tower, and set up their St. Cas against our St. Malo, I

scorn to allude to the stale subject. I say Nolo, not Malo: content, for

my part, if Harry has returned from one expedition and t'other with a

whole skin. And have I ever said he was so much as bruised? Have I not,

for fear of exciting my fair young reader, said that he was as well as

ever he had been in his life? The sea air had browned his cheek, and

the ball whistling by his side-curl had spared it. The ocean had wet his

gaiters and other garments, without swallowing up his body. He had, it

is true, shown the lapels of his coat to the enemy; but for as short a

time as possible, withdrawing out of their sight as quick as might be.

And what, pray, are lapels but reverses? Coats have them, as well as

men; and our duty is to wear them with courage and good-humour.

“I can tell you,” said Harry, “we all had to run for it; and when our

line broke, it was he who could get to the boats who was most lucky. The

French horse and foot pursued us down to the sea, and were mingled

among us, cutting our men down, and bayoneting them on the ground. Poor

Armytage was shot in advance of me, and fell; and I took him up and

staggered through the surf to a boat. It was lucky that the sailors in

our boat weren't afraid; for the shot were whistling about their ears,

breaking the blades of their oars, and riddling their flag with shot;

but the officer in command was as cool as if he had been drinking a bowl

of punch at Portsmouth, which we had one on landing, I can promise you.

Poor Sir John was less lucky than me. He never lived to reach the ship,

and the service has lost a fine soldier, and Miss Howe a true gentleman

to her husband. There must be these casualties, you see; and his brother

gets the promotion--the baronetcy.”

“It is of the poor lady I am thinking,” says Miss Hetty (to whom haply

our volunteer is telling his story); “and the King. Why did the King

encourage Sir John Armytage to go? A gentleman could not refuse a

command from such a quarter. And now the poor gentleman is dead! Oh,

what a state his Majesty must be in!”

“I have no doubt his Majesty will be in a deep state of grief,” says

papa, wagging his head.

“Now you are laughing! Do you mean, sir, that when a gentleman dies

in his service, almost at his feet, the King of England won't feel

for him?” Hetty asks. “If I thought that, I vow I would be for the

Pretender!”

“The sauce-box would make a pretty little head for Temple Bar,” says the

General, who could see Miss Hetty's meaning behind her words, and was

aware in what a tumult of remorse, of consternation, of gratitude that

the danger was over, the little heart was beating. “No,” says he, “my

dear. Were kings to weep for every soldier, what a life you would make

for them! I think better of his Majesty than to suppose him so weak;

and, if Miss Hester Lambert got her Pretender, I doubt whether she would

be any the happier. That family was never famous for too much feeling.”

“But if the King sent Harry--I mean Sir John Armytage--actually to

the war in which he lost his life, oughtn't his Majesty to repent very

much?” asks the young lady.

“If Harry had fallen, no doubt the court would have gone into mourning:

as it is, gentlemen and ladies were in coloured clothes yesterday,”

remarks the General.

“Why should we not make bonfires for a defeat, and put on sackcloth and

ashes after a victory?” asks George. “I protest I don't want to thank

Heaven for helping us to burn the ships at Cherbourg.”

“Yes you do, George! Not that I have a right to speak, and you ain't

ever so much cleverer. But when your country wins you're glad--I know

I am. When I run away before Frenchmen I'm ashamed--I can't help it,

though I done it,” says Harry. “It don't seem to me right somehow that

Englishmen should have to do it,” he added, gravely. And George smiled;

but did not choose to ask his brother what, on the other hand, was the

Frenchman's opinion.

“'Tis a bad business,” continued Harry, gravely; “but 'tis lucky 'twas

no worse. The story about the French is, that their Governor, the Duke

of Aiguillon, was rather what you call a moistened chicken. Our whole

retreat might have been cut off, only, to be sure, we ourselves were in

a mighty hurry to move. The French local militia behaved famous, I am

happy to say; and there was ever so many gentlemen volunteers with 'em,

who showed, as they ought to do, in the front. They say the Chevalier

of Tour d'Auvergne engaged in spite of the Duke of Aiguillon's orders.

Officers told us, who came off with a list of our prisoners and wounded

to General Bligh and Lord Howe. He is a lord now, since the news came of

his brother's death to home, George. He is a brave fellow, whether lord

or commoner.”

“And his sister, who was to have married poor Sir John Armytage, think

what her state must be!” sighs Miss Hetty, who has grown of late so

sentimental.

“And his mother!” cries Mrs. Lambert. “Have you seen her ladyship's

address in the papers to the electors of Nottingham? 'Lord Howe being

now absent upon the publick service, and Lieutenant-Colonel Howe with

his regiment at Louisbourg, it rests upon me to beg the favour of your

votes and interests that Lieutenant-Colonel Howe may supply the place

of his late brother as your representative in Parliament.' Isn't this a

gallant woman?”

“A Laconic woman,” says George.

“How can sons help being brave who have been nursed by such a mother as

that?” asks the General.

Our two young men looked at each other.

“If one of us were to fall in defence of his country, we have a mother

in Sparta who would think and write so too,” says George.

“If Sparta is anywhere Virginia way, I reckon we have,” remarks Mr.

Harry. “And to think that we should both of us have met the enemy, and

both of us been whipped by him, brother!” he adds pensively.

Hetty looks at him, and thinks of him only as he was the other day,

tottering through the water towards the boats, his comrade bleeding on

his shoulder, the enemy in pursuit, the shot flying round. And it was

she who drove him into the danger! Her words provoked him. He never

rebukes her now he is returned. Except when asked, he scarcely speaks

about his adventures at all. He is very grave and courteous with Hetty;

with the rest of the family especially frank and tender. But those

taunts of hers wounded him. “Little hand!” his looks and demeanour seem

to say, “thou shouldst not have been lifted against me! It is ill to

scorn any one, much more one who has been so devoted to you and all

yours. I may not be over quick of wit, but in as far as the heart goes,

I am the equal of the best, and the best of my heart your family has

had.”

Harry's wrong, and his magnanimous endurance of it, served him to regain

in Miss Hetty's esteem that place which he had lost during the previous

months' inglorious idleness. The respect which the fair pay to the brave

she gave him. She was no longer pert in her answers, or sarcastic in her

observations regarding his conduct. In a word, she was a humiliated, an

altered, an improved Miss Hetty.

And all the world seemed to change towards Harry, as he towards the

world. He was no longer sulky and indolent: he no more desponded about

himself, or defied his neighbours. The colonel of his regiment

reported his behaviour as exemplary, and recommended him for one of the

commissions vacated by the casualties during the expedition. Unlucky

as its termination was, it at least was fortunate to him. His

brother-volunteers, when they came back to St. James's Street, reported

highly of his behaviour. These volunteers and their actions were the

theme of everybody's praise. Had he been a general commanding, and slain

in the moment of victory, Sir John Armytage could scarce have had more

sympathy than that which the nation showed him. The papers teemed with

letters about him, and men of wit and sensibility vied with each other

in composing epitaphs in his honour. The fate of his affianced bride was

bewailed. She was, as we have said, the sister of the brave Commodore

who had just returned from this unfortunate expedition, and succeeded

to the title of his elder brother, an officer as gallant as himself, who

had just fallen in America.

My Lord Howe was heard to speak in special praise of Mr. Warrington, and

so he had a handsome share of the fashion and favour which the town

now bestowed on the volunteers. Doubtless there were thousands of

men employed who were as good as they but the English ever love their

gentlemen, and love that they should distinguish themselves; and these

volunteers were voted Paladins and heroes by common accord. As our young

noblemen will, they accepted their popularity very affably. White's and

Almack's illuminated when they returned, and St. James's embraced its

young knights. Harry was restored to full favour amongst them.

Their hands were held out eagerly to him again. Even his relations

congratulated him; and there came a letter from Castlewood, whither Aunt

Bernstein had by this time betaken herself, containing praises of his

valour, and a pretty little bank-bill, as a token of his affectionate

aunt's approbation. This was under my Lord Castlewood's frank, who sent

his regards to both his kinsmen, and an offer of the hospitality of his

country-house, if they were minded to come to him. And besides this,

there came to him a private letter through the post--not very well

spelt, but in a handwriting which Harry smiled to see again, in which

his affeetionate cousin, Maria Esmond, told him she always loved to hear

his praises (which were in everybody's mouth now), and sympathised in

his good or evil fortune; and that, whatever occurred to him, she begged

to keep a little place in his heart. Parson Sampson, she wrote, had

preached a beautiful sermon about the horrors of war, and the noble

actions of men who volunteered to face battle and danger in the service

of their country. Indeed, the chaplain wrote himself, presently, a

letter full of enthusiasm, in which he saluted Mr. Harry as his friend,

his benefactor, his glorious hero. Even Sir Miles Warrington despatched

a basket of game from Norfolk: and one bird (shot sitting), with love

to my cousin, had a string and paper round the leg, and was sent as the

first victim of young Miles's fowling-piece.

And presently, with joy beaming in his countenance, Mr. Lambert came

to visit his young friends at their lodgings in Southampton Row, and

announced to them that Mr. Henry Warrington was forthwith to be gazetted

as Ensign in the Second Battalion of Kingsley's, the 20th Regiment,

which had been engaged in the campaign, and which now at this time was

formed into a separate regiment, the 67th. Its colonel was not with his

regiment during its expedition to Brittany. He was away at Cape Breton,

and was engaged in capturing those guns at Louisbourg, of which the

arrival in England had caused such exultation.

CHAPTER LXVI. In which we go a-courting

Some of my amiable readers no doubt are in the custom of visiting that

famous garden in the Regent's Park, in which so many of our finned,

feathered, four-footed fellow-creatures are accommodated with board and

lodging, in return for which they exhibit themselves for our instruction

and amusement: and there, as a man's business and private thoughts

follow him everywhere, and mix themselves with all life and nature round

about him, I found myself, whilst looking at some fish in the aquarium,

still actually thinking of our friends the Virginians.

One of the most beautiful motion-masters I ever beheld, sweeping through

his green bath in harmonious curves, now turning his black glistening

back to me, now exhibiting his fair white chest, in every movement

active and graceful, turned out to be our old homely friend the

flounder, whom we have all gobbled up out of his bath of water souchy at

Greenwich, without having the slightest idea that he was a beauty.

As is the race of man, so is the race of flounders. If you can but see

the latter in his right element, you may view him agile, healthy, and

comely: put him out of his place, and behold his beauty is gone, his

motions are disgraceful: he flaps the unfeeling ground ridiculously

with his tail, and will presently gasp his feeble life out. Take him

up tenderly, ere it be too late, and cast him into his native Thames

again----But stop: I believe there is a certain proverb about fish out

of water, and that other profound naturalists have remarked on them

before me. Now Harry Warrington had been floundering for ever so long

a time past, and out of his proper element. As soon as he found it,

health, strength, spirits, energy, returned to him, and with the tap of

the epaulet on his shoulder he sprang up an altered being. He delighted

in his new profession; he engaged in all its details, and mastered them

with eager quickness. Had I the skill of my friend Lorrequer, I would

follow the other Harry into camp, and see him on the march, at the

mess, on the parade-ground; I would have many a carouse with him and his

companions; I would cheerfully live with him under the tents; I would

knowingly explain all the manoeuvres of war, and all the details of the

life military. As it is, the reader must please, out of his experience

and imagination, to fill in the colours of the picture of which I can

give but meagre hints and outlines, and, above all, fancy Mr. Harry

Warrington in his new red coat and yellow facings, very happy to bear

the King's colours, and pleased to learn and perform all the duties of

his new profession.

As each young man delighted in the excellence of the other, and

cordially recognised his brother's superior qualities, George, we may be

sure, was proud of Harry's success, and rejoiced in his returning good

fortune. He wrote an affectionate letter to his mother in Virginia,

recounting all the praises which he had heard of Harry, and which his

brother's modesty, George knew, would never allow him to repeat. He

described how Harry had won his own first step in the army, and how

he, George, would ask his mother leave to share with her the expense of

purchasing a higher rank for him.

Nothing, said George, would give him a greater delight, than to be able

to help his brother, and the more so, as, by his sudden return into

life, as it were, he had deprived Harry of an inheritance which he had

legitimately considered as his own. Labouring under that misconception,

Harry had indulged in greater expenses than he ever would have thought

of incurring as a younger brother; and George thought it was but fair,

and as it were, as a thank-offering for his own deliverance, that he

should contribute liberally to any scheme for his brother's advantage.

And now, having concluded his statement respecting Harry's affairs,

George took occasion to speak of his own, and addressed his honoured

mother on a point which very deeply concerned himself. She was aware

that the best friends he and his brother had found in England were the

good Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, the latter Madam Esmond's schoolfellow of

earlier years. Where their own blood relations had been worldly and

unfeeling, these true friends had ever been generous and kind. The

General was respected by the whole army, and beloved by all who knew

him. No mother's affection could have been more touching than Mrs.

Lambert's for both Madam Esmond's children; and now, wrote Mr. George,

he himself had formed an attachment for the elder Miss Lambert, on which

he thought the happiness of his life depended, and which he besought his

honoured mother to approve. He had made no precise offers to the young

lady or her parents; but he was bound to say that he had made little

disguise of his sentiments, and that the young lady, as well as her

parents, seemed favourable to him. She had been so admirable and

exemplary a daughter to her own mother, that he felt sure she would do

her duty by his. In a word, Mr. Warrington described the young lady as a

model of perfection, and expressed his firm belief that the happiness

or misery of his own future life depended upon possessing or losing her.

Why do you not produce this letter? haply asks some sentimental reader,

of the present Editor, who has said how he has the whole Warrington

correspondence in his hands. Why not? Because 'tis cruel to babble the

secrets of a young man's love; to overhear his incoherent vows and

wild raptures, and to note, in cold blood, the secrets--it may be,

the follies--of his passion. Shall we play eavesdropper at twilight

embrasures, count sighs and hand-shakes, bottle hot tears: lay our

stethoscope on delicate young breasts, and feel their heart-throbs? I

protest, for one, love is sacred. Wherever I see it (as one sometimes

may in this world) shooting suddenly out of two pair of eyes; or

glancing sadly even from one pair; or looking down from the mother to

the baby in her lap; or from papa at his girl's happiness as she is

whirling round the room with the captain; or from John Anderson, as his

old wife comes into the room--the bonne vieille, the ever peerless among

women; wherever we see that signal, I say, let us salute it. It is not

only wrong to kiss and tell, but to tell about kisses. Everybody who

has been admitted to the mystery,--hush about it. Down with him qui Deae

sacrum vulgarit arcanae. Beware how you dine with him, he will print

your private talk: as sure as you sail with him, he will throw you over.

Whilst Harry's love of battle has led him to smell powder--to rush upon

reluctantes dracones, and to carry wounded comrades out of fire, George

has been pursuing an amusement much more peaceful and delightful to

him; penning sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow, mayhap; pacing in the

darkness under her window, and watching the little lamp which shone upon

her in her chamber; finding all sorts of pretexts for sending little

notes which don't seem to require little answers, but get them; culling

bits out of his favourite poets, and flowers out of Covent Garden

for somebody's special adornment and pleasure; walking to St. James's

Church, singing very likely out of the same Prayer-book, and never

hearing one word of the sermon, so much do other thoughts engross him;

being prodigiously affectionate to all Miss Theo's relations--to her

little brother and sister at school; to the elder at college; to Miss

Hetty, with whom he engages in gay passages of wit; and to mamma, who is

half in love with him herself, Martin Lambert says; for if fathers are

sometimes sulky at the appearance of the destined son-in-law, is it not

a fact that mothers become sentimental and, as it were, love their own

loves over again?

Gumbo and Sady are for ever on the trot between Southampton Row and

Dean Street. In the summer months all sorts of junketings and

pleasure-parties are devised; and there are countless proposals to go

to Ranelagh, to Hampstead, to Vauxhall, to Marylebone Gardens, and what

not. George wants the famous tragedy copied out fair for the stage, and

who can write such a beautiful Italian hand as Miss Theo? As the sheets

pass to and fro they are accompanied by little notes of thanks, of

interrogation, of admiration, always. See, here is the packet, marked

in Warrington's neat hand, “T's letters, 1758-9.” Shall we open them and

reveal their tender secrets to the public gaze? Those virgin words were

whispered for one ear alone. Years after they were written, the

husband read, no doubt, with sweet pangs of remembrance, the fond lines

addressed to the lover. It were a sacrilege to show the pair to public

eyes: only let kind readers be pleased to take our word that the young

lady's letters are modest and pure, the gentleman's most respectful and

tender. In fine, you see, we have said very little about it; but, in

these few last months, Mr. George Warrington has made up his mind that

he has found the woman of women. She mayn't be the most beautiful. Why,

there is Cousin Flora, there is Coelia, and Ardelia, and a hundred

more, who are ever so much more handsome: but her sweet face pleases him

better than any other in the world. She mayn't be the most clever, but

her voice is the dearest and pleasantest to hear; and in her company he

is so clever himself; he has such fine thoughts; he uses such eloquent

words; he is so generous, noble, witty, that no wonder he delights in

it. And, in regard to the young lady,--as thank Heaven I never thought

so ill of women as to suppose them to be just, we may be sure that there

is no amount of wit, of wisdom, of beauty, of valour, of virtue with

which she does not endow her young hero.

When George's letter reached home, we may fancy that it created no small

excitement in the little circle round Madam Esmond's fireside. So he was

in love, and wished to marry! It was but natural, and would keep him

out of harm's way. If he proposed to unite himself with a well-bred

Christian young woman, Madam saw no harm.

“I knew they would be setting their caps at him,” says Mountain. “They

fancy that his wealth is as great as his estate. He does not say whether

the young lady has money. I fear otherwise.”

“People would set their caps at him here, I dare say,” says Madam

Esmond, grimly looking at her dependant, “and try and catch Mr. Esmond

Warrington for their own daughters, who are no richer than Miss Lambert

may be.”

“I suppose your ladyship means me!” says Mountain. “My Fanny is poor, as

you say; and 'tis kind of you to remind me of her poverty!”

“I said people would set their caps at him. If the cap fits you, tant

pis! as my papa used to say.”

“You think, madam, I am scheming to keep George for my daughter? I thank

you, on my word! A good opinion you seem to have of us after the years

we have lived together!”

“My dear Mountain, I know you much better than to suppose you could ever

fancy your daughter would be a suitable match for a gentleman of Mr.

Esmond's rank and station,” says Madam, with much dignity.

“Fanny Parker was as good as Molly Benson at school, and Mr. Mountain's

daughter is as good as Mr. Lambert's!” Mrs. Mountain cries out.

“Then you did think of marrying her to my son! I shall write to

Mr. Esmond Warrington, and say how sorry I am that you should be

disappointed!” says the mistress of Castlewood. And we, for our parts,

may suppose that Mrs. Mountain was disappointed, and had some ambitious

views respecting her daughter--else, why should she have been so angry

at the notion of Mr. Warrington's marriage?

In reply to her son, Madam Esmond wrote back that she was pleased with

the fraternal love George exhibited; that it was indeed but right in

some measure to compensate Harry, whose expectations had led him to

adopt a more costly mode of life than he would have entered on had he

known he was only a younger son. And with respect to purchasing his

promotion, she would gladly halve the expense with Harry's elder

brother, being thankful to think his own gallantry had won him his first

step. This bestowal of George's money, Madam Esmond added, was at least

much more satisfactory than some other extravagances to which she would

not advert.

The other extravagance to which Madam alluded was the payment of the

ransom to the French captain's family, to which tax George's mother

never would choose to submit. She had a determined spirit of her own,

which her son inherited. His persistence she called pride and obstinacy.

What she thought of her own pertinacity, her biographer, who lives so

far from her time, does not pretend to say. Only I dare say people

a hundred years ago pretty much resembled their grandchildren of the

present date, and loved to have their own way, and to make others follow

it.

Now, after paying his own ransom, his brother's debts, and half the

price for his promotion, George calculated that no inconsiderable

portion of his private patrimony would be swallowed up: nevertheless

he made the sacrifice with a perfect good heart. His good mother always

enjoined him in her letters to remember who his grandfather was, and

to support the dignity of his family accordingly. She gave him various

commissions to purchase goods in England, and though she as yet had sent

him very trifling remittances, she alluded so constantly to the exalted

rank of the Esmonds, to her desire that he should do nothing unworthy of

that illustrious family; she advised him so peremptorily and frequently

to appear in the first society of the country, to frequent the court

where his ancestors had been accustomed to move, and to appear always in

the world in a manner worthy of his name, that George made no doubt

his mother's money would be forthcoming when his own ran short, and

generously obeyed her injunctions as to his style of life. I find in the

Esmond papers of this period, bills for genteel entertainments, tailors'

bills for court suits supplied, and liveries for his honour's negro

servants and chairmen, horse-dealers' receipts, and so forth; and am

thus led to believe that the elder of our Virginians was also after a

while living at a considerable expense.

He was not wild or extravagant like his brother. There was no talk of

gambling or racehorses against Mr. George; his table was liberal, his

equipages handsome, his purse always full, the estate to which he was

heir was known to be immense. I mention these circumstances because they

may probably have influenced the conduct both of George and his friends

in that very matter concerning which, as I have said, he and his mother

had been just corresponding. The young heir of Virginia was travelling

for his pleasure and improvement in foreign kingdoms. The queen, his

mother, was in daily correspondence with his Highness, and constantly

enjoined him to act as became his lofty station. There could be no

doubt from her letters that she desired he should live liberally and

magnificently. He was perpetually making purchases at his parent's

order. She had not settled as yet; on the contrary, she had wrote out by

the last mail for twelve new sets of waggon harness, and an organ

that should play fourteen specified psalm-tunes: which articles George

dutifully ordered. She had not paid as yet, and might not to-day or

to-morrow, but eventually, of course, she would: and Mr. Warrington

never thought of troubling his friends about these calculations, or

discussing with them his mother's domestic affairs. They, on their side,

took for granted that he was in a state of competence and ease, and,

without being mercenary folks, Mr. and Mrs. Lambert were no doubt

pleased to see an attachment growing up between their daughter and

a young gentleman of such good principles, talents, family, and

expectations. There was honesty in all Mr. Esmond Warrington's words

and actions, and in his behaviour to the world a certain grandeur and

simplicity, which showed him to be a true gentleman. Somewhat cold and

haughty in his demeanour to strangers, especially towards the great, he

was not in the least supercilious: he was perfectly courteous towards

women, and with those people whom he loved, especially kind, amiable,

lively, and tender.

No wonder that one young woman we know of got to think him the best man

in all the world--alas! not even excepting papa. A great love felt by

a man towards a woman makes him better, as regards her, than all other

men. We have said that George used to wonder himself when he found how

witty, how eloquent, how wise he was, when he talked with the fair young

creature whose heart had become all his.... I say we will not again

listen to their love whispers. Those soft words do not bear being

written down. If you please--good sir, or madam, who are sentimentally

inclined--lay down the book and think over certain things for yourself.

You may be ever so old now; but you remember. It may be all dead and

buried; but in a moment, up it springs out of its grave, and looks, and

smiles, and whispers as of yore when it clung to your arm, and dropped

fresh tears on your heart. It is here, and alive, did I say? O far, far

away! O lonely hearth and cold ashes! Here is the vase, but the roses

are gone; here is the shore, and yonder the ship was moored; but the

anchors are up, and it has sailed away for ever.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This, however, is mere sentimentality;

and as regards George and Theo, is neither here nor there. What I mean

to say is, that the young lady's family were perfectly satisfied with

the state of affairs between her and Mr. Warrington; and though he had

not as yet asked the decisive question, everybody else knew what the

answer would be when it came.

Mamma perhaps thought the question was a long time coming.

“Psha! my dear!” says the General. “There is time enough in all

conscience. Theo is not much more than seventeen; George, if I mistake

not, is under forty; and, besides, he must have time to write to

Virginia, and ask mamma.”

“But suppose she refuses?”

“That will be a bad day for old and young,” says the General, “Let us

rather say, suppose she consents, my love?--I can't fancy anybody in the

world refusing Theo anything she has set her heart on,” adds the father:

“and I am sure 'tis bent upon this match.”

So they all waited with the utmost anxiety until an answer from Madam

Esmond should arrive; and trembled lest the French privateers should

take the packet-ship by which the precious letter was conveyed.

CHAPTER LXVII. In which a Tragedy is acted, and two more are begun

James Wolfe, Harry's new Colonel, came back from America a few weeks

after our Virginian had joined his regiment. Wolfe had previously been

Lieutenant-Colonel of Kingsley's, and a second battalion of the regiment

had been formed and given to him in reward for his distinguished

gallantry and services at Cape Breton. Harry went with quite unfeigned

respect and cordiality to pay his duty to his new commander, on whom the

eyes of the world began to be turned now,--the common opinion being that

he was likely to become a great general. In the late affairs in France,

several officers of great previous repute had been tried and found

lamentably wanting. The Duke of Marlborough had shown himself no worthy

descendant of his great ancestor. About my Lord George Sackville's

military genius there were doubts, even before his unhappy behaviour at

Minden prevented a great victory. The nation was longing for military

glory, and the Minister was anxious to find a general who might gratify

the eager desire of the people. Mr. Wolfe's and Mr. Lambert's business

keeping them both in London, the friendly intercourse between those

officers was renewed, no one being more delighted than Lambert at his

younger friend's good fortune.

Harry, when he was away from his duty, was never tired of hearing Mr.

Wolfe's details of the military operations of the last year, about which

Wolfe talked very freely and openly. Whatever thought was in his

mind, he appears to have spoken it out generously. He had that heroic

simplicity which distinguished Nelson afterwards: he talked frankly of

his actions. Some of the fine gentlemen at St. James's might wonder and

sneer at him; but amongst our little circle of friends we may be sure he

found admiring listeners. The young General had the romance of a boy on

many matters. He delighted in music and poetry. On the last day of his

life he said he would rather have written Gray's Elegy than have won a

battle. We may be sure that with a gentleman of such literary tastes our

friend George would become familiar; and as they were both in love, and

both accepted lovers, and both eager for happiness, no doubt they must

have had many sentimental conversations together which would be very

interesting to report could we only have accurate accounts of them. In

one of his later letters, Warrington writes:

“I had the honour of knowing the famous General Wolfe, and seeing much

of him during his last stay in London. We had a subject of conversation

then which was of unfailing interest to both of us, and I could not but

admire Mr. Wolfe's simplicity, his frankness, and a sort of glorious

bravery which characterised him. He was much in love, and he wanted

heaps and heaps of laurels to take to his mistress. 'If it be a sin to

covet honour,' he used to say with Harry the Fifth (he was passionately

fond of plays and poetry), 'I am the most offending soul alive.' Surely

on his last day he had a feast which was enough to satisfy the greediest

appetite for glory. He hungered after it. He seemed to me not merely

like a soldier going resolutely to do his duty, but rather like a knight

in quest of dragons and giants. My own country has furnished of late a

chief of a very different order, and quite an opposite genius. I scarce

know which to admire most. The Briton's chivalrous ardour, or the more

than Roman constancy of our great Virginian.”

As Mr. Lambert's official duties detained him in London, his family

remained contentedly with him, and I suppose Mr. Warrington was so

satisfied with the rural quiet of Southampton Row and the beautiful

flowers and trees of Bedford Gardens, that he did not care to quit

London for any long period. He made his pilgrimage to Castlewood, and

passed a few days there, occupying the chamber of which he had often

heard his grandfather talk, and which Colonel Esmond had occupied as a

boy and he was received kindly enough by such members of the family as

happened to be at home. But no doubt he loved better to be in London by

the side of a young person in whose society he found greater pleasure

than any which my Lord Castlewood's circle could afford him, though all

the ladies were civil, and Lady Maria especially gracious, and enchanted

with the tragedy which George and Parson Sampson read out to the ladies.

The chaplain was enthusiastic in its praises, and indeed it was

through his interest and not through Mr. Johnson's after all, that Mr.

Warrington's piece ever came on the stage. Mr. Johnson, it is true,

pressed the play on his friend Mr. Garrick for Drury Lane, but Garrick

had just made an arrangement with the famous Mr. Home for a tragedy from

the pen of the author of Douglas. Accordingly, Carpezan was carried to

Mr. Rich at Covent Garden, and accepted by that manager.

On the night of the production of the piece, Mr. Warrington gave an

elegant entertainment to his friends at the Bedford Head, in Covent

Garden, whence they adjourned in a body to the theatre; leaving only one

or two with our young author, who remained at the coffee-house,

where friends from time to time came to him with an account of the

performance. The part of Carpezan was filled by Barry, Shuter was the

old nobleman, Reddish, I need scarcely say, made an excellent Ulric, and

the King of Bohemia was by a young actor from Dublin, Mr. Geoghegan, or

Hagan as he was called on the stage, and who looked and performed the

part to admiration. Mrs. Woffington looked too old in the first act as

the heroine, but her murder in the fourth act, about which great doubts

were expressed, went off to the terror and delight of the audience. Miss

Wayn sang the ballad which is supposed to be sung by the king's page,

just at the moment of the unhappy wife's execution, and all agreed that

Barry was very terrible and pathetic as Carpezan, especially in the

execution scene. The grace and elegance of the young actor, Hagan, won

general applause. The piece was put very elegantly on the stage by Mr.

Rich, though there was some doubt whether, in the march of Janissaries

in the last, the manager was correct in introducing a favourite

elephant, which had figured in various pantomimes, and by which one of

Mr. Warrington's black servants marched in a Turkish habit. The other

sate in the footman's gallery, and uproariously wept and applauded at

the proper intervals.

The execution of Sybilla was the turning-point of the piece. Her head

off, George's friends breathed freely, and one messenger after another

came to him at the coffee-house, to announce the complete success of

the tragedy. Mr. Barry, amidst general applause, announced the play for

repetition, and that it was the work of a young gentleman of Virginia,

his first attempt in the dramatic style.

We should like to have been in the box where all our friends were seated

during the performance, to have watched Theo's flutter and anxiety

whilst the success of the play seemed dubious, and have beheld the

blushes and the sparkles in her eyes, when the victory was assured.

Harry, during the little trouble in the fourth act, was deadly

pale--whiter, Mrs. Lambert said, than Barry, with all his chalk. But

if Briareus could have clapped hands, he could scarcely have made more

noise than Harry at the end of the piece. Mr. Wolfe and General Lambert

huzzayed enthusiastically. Mrs. Lambert, of course, cried: and though

Hetty said, “Why do you cry, mamma? I you don't want any of them alive

again; you know it serves them all right”--the girl was really as much

delighted as any person present, including little Charley from the

Chartreux, who had leave from Dr. Crusius for that evening, and Miss

Lucy, who had been brought from boarding-school on purpose to be present

on the great occasion. My Lord Castlewood and his sister, Lady Maria,

were present; and his lordship went from his box and complimented

Mr. Barry and the other actors on the stage; and Parson Sampson was

invaluable in the pit, where he led the applause, having, I believe,

given previous instructions to Gumbo to keep an eye upon him from the

gallery, and do as he did.

Be sure there was a very jolly supper of Mr. Warrington's friends that

night--much more jolly than Mr. Garrick's, for example, who made but a

very poor success with his Agis and its dreary choruses, and who must

have again felt that he had missed a good chance, in preferring Mr.

Home's tragedy to our young author's. A jolly supper, did we say?--Many

jolly suppers. Mr. Gumbo gave an entertainment to several gentlemen

of the shoulder-knot, who had concurred in supporting his master's

masterpiece: Mr. Henry Warrington gave a supper at the Star and Garter,

in Pall Mall, to ten officers of his new regiment, who had come up for

the express purpose of backing Carpezan; and finally, Mr. Warrington

received the three principal actors of the tragedy, our family party

from the side box, Mr. Johnson and his ingenious friend, Mr. Reynolds

the painter, my Lord Castlewood and his sister, and one or two more. My

Lady Maria happened to sit next to the young actor who had performed the

part of the King. Mr. Warrington somehow had Miss Theo for a neighbour,

and no doubt passed a pleasant evening beside her. The greatest

animation and cordiality prevailed, and when toasts were called, Lady

Maria gaily gave “The King of Hungary” for hers. That gentleman, who had

plenty of eloquence and fire, and excellent manners, on as well as off

the stage, protested that he had already suffered death in the course of

the evening, hoped that he should die a hundred times more on the same

field; but, dead or living, vowed he knew whose humble servant he ever

should be. Ah, if he had but a real crown in place of his diadem of

pasteboard and tinsel, with what joy would he lay it at her ladyship's

feet! Neither my lord nor Mr. Esmond were over well pleased with the

gentleman's exceeding gallantry--a part of which they attributed, no

doubt justly, to the wine and punch, of which he had been partaking very

freely. Theo and her sister, who were quite new to the world, were a

little frightened by the exceeding energy of Mr. Hagan's manner--but

Lady Maria, much more experienced, took it in perfectly good part. At

a late hour coaches were called, to which the gentlemen attended the

ladies, after whose departure some of them returned to the supper-room,

and the end was that Carpezan had to be carried away in a chair, and

that the King of Hungary had a severe headache; and that the Poet,

though he remembered making a great number of speeches, was quite

astounded when half a dozen of his guests appeared at his house the next

day, whom he had invited overnight to come and sup with him once more.

As he put Mrs. Lambert and her daughters into their coach on the night

previous, all the ladies were flurried, delighted, excited; and you may

be sure our gentleman was with them the next day, to talk of the play

and the audience, and the actors, and the beauties of the piece, over

and over again. Mrs. Lambert had heard that the ladies of the theatre

were dangerous company for young men. She hoped George would have a

care, and not frequent the greenroom too much.

George smiled, and said he had a preventive against all greenroom

temptations, of which he was not in the least afraid; and as he spoke he

looked in Theo's face, as if in those eyes lay the amulet which was to

preserve him from all danger.

“Why should he be afraid, mamma?” asks the maiden simply. She had no

idea of danger or of guile.

“No, my darling, I don't think he need be afraid,” says the mother,

kissing her.

“You don't suppose Mr. George would fall in love with that painted old

creature who performed the chief part?” asks Miss Hetty, with a toss of

her head. “She must be old enough to be his mother.”

“Pray, do you suppose that at our age nobody can care for us, or that we

have no hearts left?” asks mamma, very tartly. “I believe, or I may

say, I hope and trust, your father thinks otherwise. He is, I imagine,

perfectly satisfied, miss. He does not sneer at age, whatever little

girls out of the schoolroom may do. And they had much better be back

there, and they had much better remember what the fifth commandment

is--that they had, Hetty!”

“I didn't think I was breaking it by saying that an actress was as old

as George's mother,” pleaded Hetty.

“George's mother is as old as I am, miss!--at least she was when we were

at school. And Fanny Parker--Mrs. Mountain who now is--was seven months

older, and we were in the French class together; and I have no idea

that our age is to be made the subject of remarks and ridicule by

our children, and I will thank you to spare it, if you please! Do you

consider your mother too old, George?”

“I am glad my mother is of your age, Aunt Lambert,” says George, in the

most sentimental manner.

Strange infatuation of passion--singular perversity of reason! At some

period before his marriage, it not unfrequently happens that a man

actually is fond of his mother-in-law! At this time our good General

vowed, and with some reason, that he was jealous. Mrs. Lambert made much

more of George than of any other person in the family. She dressed up

Theo to the utmost advantage in order to meet him; she was for ever

caressing her, and appealing to her when he spoke. It was, “Don't

you think he looks well?”--“Don't you think he looks pale, Theo,

to-day?”--“Don't you think he has been sitting up over his books too

much at night?” and so forth. If he had a cold, she would have liked to

make gruel for him and see his feet in hot water. She sent him recipes

of her own for his health. When he was away, she never ceased talking

about him to her daughter. I dare say Miss Theo liked the subject well

enough. When he came, she was sure to be wanted in some other part of

the house, and would bid Theo take care of him till she returned. Why,

before she returned to the room, could you hear her talking outside the

door to her youngest innocent children, to her servants in the upper

regions, and so forth? When she reappeared, was not Mr. George always

standing or sitting at a considerable distance from Miss Theo--except,

to be sure, on that one day when she had just happened to drop her

scissors, and he had naturally stooped down to pick them up? Why was she

blushing? Were not youthful cheeks made to blush, and roses to bloom in

the spring? Not that mamma ever noted the blushes, but began quite an

artless conversation about this or that, as she sate down brimful of

happiness to her worktable.

And at last there came a letter from Virginia in Madam Esmond's neat,

well-known hand, and over which George trembled and blushed before he

broke the seal. It was in answer to the letter which he had sent home,

respecting his brother's commission and his own attachment to Miss

Lambert. Of his intentions respecting Harry, Madam Esmond fully

approved. As for his marriage, she was not against early marriages. She

would take his picture of Miss Lambert with the allowance that was to be

made for lovers' portraits, and hope, for his sake, that the young lady

was all he described her to be. With money, as Madam Esmond gathered

from her son's letter, she did not appear to be provided at all, which

was a pity, as, though wealthy in land, their family had but little

ready-money. However, by Heaven's blessing, there was plenty at home for

children and children's children, and the wives of her sons should share

all she had. When she heard more at length from Mr. and Mrs. Lambert,

she would reply for her part more fully. She did not pretend to say that

she had not greater hopes for her son, as a gentleman of his name and

prospects might pretend to the hand of the first lady of the land; but

as Heaven had willed that her son's choice should fall upon her old

friend's daughter, she acquiesced, and would welcome George's wife as

her own child. This letter was brought by Mr. Van den Bosch of Albany,

who had lately bought a very large estate in Virginia, and who was bound

for England to put his granddaughter to a boarding-school. She, Madam

Esmond, was not mercenary, nor was it because this young lady was

heiress of a very great fortune that she desired her sons to pay Mr. Van

d. B. every attention. Their properties lay close together, and could

Harry find in the young lady those qualities of person and mind suitable

for a companion for life, at least she would have the satisfaction of

seeing both her children near her in her declining years. Madam Esmond

concluded by sending her affectionate compliments to Mrs. Lambert, from

whom she begged to hear further, and her blessing to the young lady who

was to be her daughter-in-law.

The letter was not cordial, and the writer evidently but half satisfied;

but, such as it was, her consent was here formally announced. How

eagerly George ran away to Soho with the long-desired news in his

pocket! I suppose our worthy friends there must have read his news in

his countenance--else why should Mrs. Lambert take her daughter's hand

and kiss her with such uncommon warmth, when George announced that

he had received letters from home? Then, with a break in his voice, a

pallid face, and a considerable tremor, turning to Mr. Lambert, he said:

“Madam Esmond's letter, sir, is in reply to one of mine, in which I

acquainted her that I had formed an attachment in England, for which I

asked my mother's approval. She gives her consent, I am grateful to say,

and I have to pray my dear friends to be equally kind to me.”

“God bless thee, my dear boy!” says the good General, laying a hand on

the young man's head. “I am glad to have thee for a son, George. There,

there, don't go down on your knees, young folks! George may, to be sure,

and thank God for giving him the best little wife in all England. Yes,

my dear, except when you were ill, you never caused me a heartache--and

happy is the man, I say, who wins thee!”

I have no doubt the young people knelt before their parents, as was the

fashion in those days; and am perfectly certain that Mrs. Lambert kissed

both of them, and likewise bedewed her pocket-handkerchief in the most

plentiful manner. Hetty was not present at this sentimental scene, and

when she heard of it, spoke with considerable asperity, and a laugh that

was by no means pleasant, saying: “Is this all the news you have to give

me? Why, I have known it these months past. Do you think I have no eyes

to see, and no ears to hear, indeed?” But in private she was much

more gentle. She flung herself on her sister's neck, embracing her

passionately, and vowing that never, never would Theo find any one to

love her like her sister. With Theo she became entirely mild and humble.

She could not abstain from her jokes and satire with George, but he was

too happy to heed her much, and too generous not to see the cause of her

jealousy.

When all parties concerned came to read Madam Esmond's letter, that

document, it is true, appeared rather vague. It contained only a promise

that she would receive the young people at her house, and no sort

of proposal for a settlement. The General shook his head over the

letter--he did not think of examining it until some days after the

engagement had been made between George and his daughter: but now he

read Madam Esmond's words, they gave him but small encouragement.

“Bah!” says George. “I shall have three hundred pounds for my tragedy. I

can easily write a play a year; and if the worst comes to the worst, we

can live on that.”

“On that and your patrimony,” says Theo's father.

George now had to explain, with some hesitation, that what with paying

bills for his mother, and Harry's commission and debts, and his own

ransom--George's patrimony proper was well-nigh spent.

Mr. Lambert's countenance looked graver still at this announcement, but

he saw his girl's eyes turned towards him with an alarm so tender, that

he took her in his arms and vowed that, let the worst come to the worst,

his darling should not be balked of her wish.

About the going back to Virginia, George frankly owned that he little

liked the notion of returning to be entirely dependent on his mother.

He gave General Lambert an idea of his life at home, and explained how

little to his taste that slavery was. No. Why should he not stay in

England, write more tragedies, study for the bar, get a place, perhaps?

Why, indeed? He straightway began to form a plan for another tragedy.

He brought portions of his work, from time to time, to Miss Theo and her

sister: Hetty yawned over the work, but Theo pronounced it to be still

more beautiful and admirable than the last, which was perfect.

The engagement of our young friends was made known to the members of

their respective families, and announced to Sir Miles Warrington, in

a ceremonious letter from his nephew. For a while Sir Miles saw no

particular objection to the marriage; though, to be sure, considering

his name and prospects, Mr. Warrington might have looked higher. The

truth was, that Sir Miles imagined that Madam Esmond had made some

considerable settlement on her son, and that his circumstances were more

than easy. But when he heard that George was entirely dependent on his

mother, and that his own small patrimony was dissipated, as Harry's had

been before, Sir Miles's indignation at his nephew's imprudence knew no

bounds; he could not find words to express his horror and anger at the

want of principle exhibited by both these unhappy young men: he thought

it his duty to speak his mind about them, and wrote his opinion to his

sister Esmond in Virginia. As for General and Mrs. Lambert, who passed

for respectable persons, was it to be borne that such people should

inveigle a penniless young man into a marriage with their penniless

daughter? Regarding them, and George's behaviour, Sir Miles fully

explained his views to Madam Esmond, gave half a finger to George

whenever his nephew called on him in town, and did not even invite him

to partake of the famous family small-beer. Towards Harry his uncle

somewhat unbent; Harry had done his duty in the campaign, and was

mentioned with praise in high quarters. He had sown his wild oats,--he

at least was endeavouring to amend; but George was a young prodigal,

fast careering to ruin, and his name was only mentioned in the family

with a groan. Are there any poor fellows nowadays, I wonder, whose

polite families fall on them and persecute them; groan over them

and stone them, and hand stones to their neighbours that they may do

likewise? All the patrimony spent! Gracious heavens! Sir Miles turned

pale when he saw his nephew coming. Lady Warrington prayed for him as a

dangerous reprobate; and, in the meantime, George was walking the town,

quite unconscious that he was occasioning so much wrath and so much

devotion. He took little Miley to the play and brought him back again.

He sent tickets to his aunt and cousins which they could not refuse, you

know; it would look too marked were they to break altogether. So they

not only took the tickets, but whenever country constituents came to

town they asked for more, taking care to give the very worst motives

to George's intimacy with the theatre, and to suppose that he and the

actresses were on terms of the most disgraceful intimacy. An august

personage having been to the theatre, and expressed his approbation

of Mr. Warrington's drama to Sir Miles, when he attended his R-y-l

H-ghn-ss's levee at Saville House, Sir Miles, to be sure, modified his

opinion regarding the piece, and spoke henceforth more respectfully of

it. Meanwhile, as we have said, George was passing his life entirely

careless of the opinion of all the uncles, aunts, and cousins in the

world.

Most of the Esmond cousins were at least more polite and cordial than

George's kinsfolk of the Warrington side. In spite of his behaviour over

the cards, Lord Castlewood, George always maintained, had a liking for

our Virginians, and George was pleased enough to be in his company. He

was a far abler man than many who succeeded in life. He had a good name,

and somehow only stained it; a considerable wit, and nobody trusted it;

and a very shrewd experience and knowledge of mankind, which made him

mistrust them, and himself most of all, and which perhaps was the bar

to his own advancement. My Lady Castlewood, a woman of the world, wore

always a bland mask, and received Mr. George with perfect civility,

and welcomed him to lose as many guineas as he liked at her ladyship's

card-tables. Between Mr. William and the Virginian brothers there never

was any love lost; but, as for Lady Maria, though her love affair was

over, she had no rancour; she professed for her cousins a very

great regard and affection, a part of which the young gentlemen very

gratefully returned. She was charmed to hear of Harry's valour in the

campaign; she was delighted with George's success at the theatre; she

was for ever going to the play, and had all the favourite passages of

Carpezan by heart. One day, as Mr. George and Miss Theo were taking a

sentimental walk in Kensington Gardens, whom should they light upon

but their cousin Maria in company with a gentleman in a smart suit and

handsome laced hat, and who should the gentleman be but his Majesty

King Louis of Hungary, Mr. Hagan? He saluted the party, and left them

presently. Lady Maria had only just happened to meet him. Mr. Hagan came

sometimes, he said, for quiet, to study his parts in Kensington Gardens,

and George and the two ladies walked together to Lord Castlewood's door

in Kensington Square, Lady Maria uttering a thousand compliments to Theo

upon her good looks, upon her virtue, upon her future happiness, upon

her papa and mamma, upon her destined husband, upon her paduasoy cloak

and dear little feet and shoe-buckles.

Harry happened to come to London that evening, and slept at his

accustomed quarters. When George appeared at breakfast, the Captain

was already in the room (the custom of that day was to call all army

gentlemen Captains), and looking at the letters on the breakfast-table.

“Why, George,” he cries, “there is a letter from Maria!”

“Little boy bring it from Common Garden last night--Master George

asleep,” says Gumbo.

“What can it be about?” asks Harry, as George peruses his letter with a

queer expression of face.

“About my play, to be sure,” George answers, tearing up the paper, and

still wearing his queer look.

“What, she is not writing love-letters to you, is she, Georgy?”

“No, certainly not to me,” replies the other. But he spoke no word more

about the letter; and when at dinner in Dean Street Mrs. Lambert said,

“So you met somebody walking with the King of Hungary yesterday in

Kensington Gardens?”

“What little tell-tale told you? A mere casual rencontre--the King goes

there to study his parts, and Lady Maria happened to be crossing the

garden to visit some of the other King's servants at Kensington Palace.”

And so there was an end to that matter for the time being.

Other events were at hand fraught with interest to our Virginians. One

evening after Christmas, the two gentlemen, with a few more friends,

were met round General Lambert's supper-table; and among the company was

Harry's new Colonel of the 67th, Major-General Wolfe. The young General

was more than ordinarily grave. The conversation all related to the war.

Events of great importance were pending. The great minister now in power

was determined to carry on the war on a much more extended scale than

had been attempted hitherto: an army was ordered to Germany to help

Prince Ferdinand, another great expedition was preparing for America,

and here, says Mr. Lambert, “I will give you the health of the

Commander--a glorious campaign, and a happy return to him!”

“Why do you not drink the toast, General James!” asked the hostess of

her guest.

“He must not drink his own toast,” says General Lambert; “it is we must

do that!”

What? was James appointed?--All the ladies must drink such a toast as

that, and they mingled their kind voices with the applause of the rest

of the company.

Why did he look so melancholy? the ladies asked of one another when they

withdrew. In after days they remembered his pale face.

“Perhaps he has been parting from his sweetheart,” suggests

tender-hearted Mrs. Lambert. And at this sentimental notion, no doubt

all the ladies looked sad.

The gentlemen, meanwhile, continued their talk about the war and its

chances. Mr. Wolfe did not contradict the speakers when they said that

the expedition was to be directed against Canada.

“Ah, sir,” says Harry, “I wish your regiment was going with you, and

that I might pay another visit to my old friends at Quebec.”

What, had Harry been there? Yes. He described his visit to the place

five years before, and knew the city, and the neighbourhood, well. He

lays a number of bits of biscuit on the table before him, and makes

a couple of rivulets of punch on each side. “This fork is the Isle

d'Orleans,” says he, “with the north and south branches of St. Lawrence

on each side. Here's the Low Town, with a battery--how many guns was

mounted there in our time, brother?--but at long shots from the St.

Joseph shore you might play the same game. Here's what they call the

little river, the St. Charles, and a bridge of boats with a tete du pont

over to the place of arms. Here's the citadel, and here's convents--ever

so many convents--and the cathedral; and here, outside the lines to the

west and south, is what they call the Plains of Abraham--where a certain

little affair took place, do you remember, brother? He and a young

officer of the Rousillon regiment ca ca'd at each other for twenty

minutes, and George pinked him, and then they jure'd each other an

amitie eternelle. Well it was for George: for his second saved his life

on that awful day of Braddock's defeat. He was a fine little fellow, and

I give his toast: Je bois a la sante du Chevalier de Florac!”

“What, can you speak French, too, Harry?” asks Mr. Wolfe. The young man

looked at the General with eager eyes.

“Yes,” says he, “I can speak, but not so well as George.”

“But he remembers the city, and can place the batteries, you see, and

knows the ground a thousand times better than I do!” cries the elder

brother.

The two elder officers exchanged looks with one another; Mr. Lambert

smiled and nodded, as if in reply to the mute queries of his comrade: on

which the other spoke. “Mr. Harry,” he said, “if you have had enough of

fine folks, and White's, and horse-racing----”

“Oh, sir!” says the young man, turning very red.

“And if you have a mind to a sea voyage at a short notice, come and see

me at my lodgings to-morrow.”

What was that sudden uproar of cheers which the ladies heard in their

drawing-room? It was the hurrah which Harry Warrington gave when he

leaped up at hearing the General's invitation.

The women saw no more of the gentlemen that night. General Lambert had

to be away upon his business early next morning, before seeing any

of his family; nor had he mentioned a word of Harry's outbreak on the

previous evening. But when he rejoined his folks at dinner, a look at

Miss Hetty's face informed the worthy gentleman that she knew what had

passed on the night previous, and what was about to happen to the young

Virginian. After dinner Mrs. Lambert sat demurely at her work, Miss

Theo took her book of Italian Poetry. Neither of the General's customary

guests happened to be present that evening.

He took little Hetty's hand in his, and began to talk with her. He

did not allude to the subject which he knew was uppermost in her mind,

except that by a more than ordinary gentleness and kindness he perhaps

caused her to understand that her thoughts were known to him.