I DO SIR MASSINGBERD A LITTLE FAVOUR.
Upon my return to Fairburn, I became the object of immense curiosity and
attraction. I was stared at in the rector's pew at church, and, in my
solitary rides, whithersoever I went, as the repository of the great
secret of the disruption between Sir Massingberd and his nephew. It was
even whispered that I was the prime mover of the young man's rebellion,
and had planned the very manner of his escape upon Panther, including
the accident. At all events, I knew all that had happened, which nobody
else knew, except my tutor himself. Now Mr. Long was as close as wax.
Many an invitation had Mrs. Myrtle obtained of late to take a dish of
tea upon grounds which her hosts had since stigmatized as false
pretences. As the housekeeper and confidential servant of the rector,
she had been asked by Mrs. Arabel of the Grange Farm to take evening
refreshment with her in a friendly way; also by Mrs. Remnants, who kept
that extensive emporium in the village which supplied snuff to the aged
of both sexes (though not gratuitously), becoming cambrics to the young,
and lollipops to those who had not yet reached that period of life
wherein outward adornment is preferred to inward gratification; also by
the exciseman's wife; nay, there was not anybody's wife in Fairburn,
having the wherewithal to make a tea-table alluring, and being in a
sufficiently high position in life to venture upon the step, who did not
invite Mrs. Myrtle to visit her, and proceed to treat her like a
refractory pump; they poured a little down, in hopes to be more than
remunerated for the outlay. But, alas, although the dear good lady was
willing enough, being indeed a gossip born, she had nothing to tell
them. She was not equal to the task of Invention, and of facts, even to
trade upon in tea and toast, she had absolutely none.
Conceive, then, how every face was turned interrogatively towards Master
Meredith--no, <i>Mr.</i> Meredith, now that the object of everybody was to
please him. How the dames dropped courtesies, and hoped my honour was
well; and my honour's friend too, Mr. Marmaduke, he was well too, they
trusted--Heaven bless him; and he was staying away from Fairburn a good
bit, was he not? and how did has uncle like that, who had always kept
him at home so strict?--and was it true that he was residing with Mr.
Harvey Gerard? well, dear me, and how odd that was; an atheist and a
democrat, people did say; but there, there were some again as spoke well
of him.
Sedate Mr. Arabel, set on, without doubt, by his inquisitive lady, even
waylaid me in a narrow lane, and insisted upon my looking in at the
farm, and partaking of casual hospitality. "Ye'll just have three drars
and a spet," said he (meaning by that farm of expression a few whiffs of
a pipe), "and take a glass of ale;" and when I declined the first offer
upon the ground of not being a smoker, and the second on the plea that
it was only eleven o'clock, A.M., and consequently rather early for ale,
he confessed that his missus was a-waiting for me with a bottle of
cowslip wine, and a seed-cake of her own making. It was rather difficult
to escape from hospitable snares of this kind, but I revealed as little
as possible without giving absolute offence. On the other hand, I
received some information, the details of which had not been confided to
me by Mr. Long.
"Well, sir," remarked Mrs. Arabel, after I had told her all I meant to
tell, which was not much, "and it's no wonder as Mr. Marmaduke <i>should</i>
have run away, I'm sure."
"My good lady," observed I, "pray, be particular; I never said he ran
away; I said his horse ran away."
"Yes, of course, sir," responded the mistress of the Grange, winking in
a manner that made me quite uncomfortable; "you are very right to say
that, Mr. Meredith, very right. But Sir Massingberd's opinion is, that
it was all planned from first to last, only he says you nearly overdid
it."
"Ah, indeed," said I; "how was that?"
"Well, it seems Sir Massingberd was quite deceived about that horse he
bought for his nephew; instead of being quiet, and fit for the lad, it
was a perfect demon; and it was sheer madness of you young gentlemen to
go racing in order to make it run away; then, to arrange with Mr. Gerard
all beforehand; well, I must say I shouldn't have thought that either of
you would have had the depth."
"Thank you, Mrs. Arabel," said I, laughing; "I am sorry you entertained
so low an idea of our intelligence."
"Well, sir," returned the farmer's wife, with an air of excessive
candour, "my husband, you see, he often has said to me, says he, 'That
young squire Marmaduke, I'm darned if he ain't little better than a
fool; he don't know what shot to use for rabbits, that he don't; I
never saw his equal for ignorance. And as for that lad from the
Ingies--that was you, you know, sir--well, of all the young fellows
turned of seventeen as I ever saw, he's the'--"
Here Mrs. Arabel crimsoned, and stopped short, as if she had been very
nearly betrayed into saying something which was not entirely
complimentary.
"Pray, go on, my dear madam," said I; "'of all the young fellows turned
of seventeen whom he had ever seen, I was the'--"
"Well, sir, he'd just the same opinion of you as he had of Master
Marmaduke; but, for my part, I always said, that although you might
neither on you know so much as you ought to, and though you might seem,
as it were--"
"Ay, you always stood our friend, and said we were not such fools as we
looked; did you?"
"Just so," replied Mrs. Arabel, simply; "and so you see it has turned
out. If Mr. Marmaduke can only live elsewhere till something happens to
Sir Massingberd--although, indeed, he looks as if nothing ever could
hurt him--his life will doubtless be much pleasanter than at the Hall;
it is no place for a young gentleman like him, sure<i>ly</i>, although,
indeed, things are better there than they were. The dark-eyed
foreigneering-looking young person, although, indeed, she was old enough
to know better; well, <i>she's</i> gone."
"So I have heard," said I drily.
"Yes, she went away in a whirlwind, <i>she</i> did," continued Mrs. Arabel,
reflectively.
"Dear me," replied I, "I never heard that."
"Ah, indeed, I daresay not; why, you see, Mr. Long was a little mixed up
in it. Perhaps he thought it better not to tell you. Take another glass
of cowslip wine, sir; it has been more than ten years in bottle; and the
cake is as good a cake as you will put teeth into in all Midshire,
though I say it as shouldn't say it. Well; the thing happened in this
way, you see. The foreigneering female, she used to throw things at
folks; dishes, plates, whatever came first to hand, whenever she was in
her tantrums. Mr. Gilmore he had his head opened with a slop-basin, so
that you could lay your finger in it; and Oliver Bradford, I believe she
fired a gun at him, charged with swan-shot. However, at times, she was
quite otherwise, crying and submissive as a child. They said it was
Religion up at the Hall; but they knows nothing about that; how should
they? It was hysterics, I daresay, and serve her right too. Well, who
should come here, the very Sunday after Mr. Marmaduke had run away, and
when Sir Massingberd was like a wild man with rage, and couldn't speak
without blaspheming, but one of them Methodee preachers as sometimes
hold forth upon our common. Now the foreigneering female was a-walking
in the park shrubbery, with one of her hysterical fits upon her, I
suppose, and what does she hear through the palings but words as I
suppose the poor creature never listened to before; and presently out
she comes upon the common, and stands up among all the people, with her
great eyes swollen with weeping, and her painted cheeks--and I always
said they were painted--daubed and smeared with tears. Carter John, who
is very much given to that sort of worship, he was there; and he told me
she looked for all the world like the woman in the great picture over
the communion-table in Crittenden Church, who is wiping the feet of our
Lord with her hair.
"Then the preacher, he bade her repent while there was yet time, and
fear nothing but only God. But Sir Massingberd, he came out, and dragged
her in from the very preacher's hand, and presently back again he comes
with a horse-whip, and swears there shall be no Methodees in his parish,
and if he caught the hypocritical ranter--as he called him--within
hearing again, he'd split his ears. Now, I don't go with him there,"
pursued Mrs. Arabel, gravely. "It isn't for us, Mr. Meredith, to say as
nobody can't pick up good, unless it's in church; and least of all
should such things be said by Sir Massingberd, who lets that beautiful
family pew get damp and mouldy, with the fireplace always empty all the
winter long, and never puts his nose into it from year's end to year's
end. However, what does the foreigneering female do, but declare she
would starve herself to death, before she would eat the bread of
unrighteousness any longer; and not one morsel of food would she take,
though they locked her up, and tried to tempt her with her most
favourite dishes. So Sir Massingberd, being at his wits' end, came over
to the parson, and begged him to come and persuade the woman to be
reasonable, and take some refreshment; and Mr. Long--he at first
declined to interfere in such a matter at all, but presently thinking
the poor creature might be really penitent, although it came about
through a Methodee, and hoping to do her some good, although not in the
way Sir Massingberd intended, he accompanied him to the Hall; and what
do you think? Why, they found the poor woman was in such earnest, that
she had cut off the whole of her beautiful black hair, and there it lay
on the carpet, like so much rubbish. So the Squire he swore that he
didn't care now whether she starved or not, and turned her out of the
house, as I said at first, in a whirlwind. She was very faint and weak;
and Mr. Long, who would never exchange a syllable with her before, made
Mrs. Myrtle give her a good meal, and gave her some good words himself,
and sent her away to her friends--for it seems she had some friends,
poor wretch; and this has made Sir Massingberd wilder than ever against
the rector, whom he had already accused of aiding and abetting young Mr.
Marmaduke in his running away; so that altogether the Squire is ready to
make an end of everybody."
This last statement, although a little highly coloured, as Mrs. Arabel's
descriptions usually were, was really not far from the truth. It did
almost seem as if the baronet was so transported with passion as to be
capable of any enormity. What the law permitted him to do in the way of
oppression, that, of course, he practised to the uttermost; his
morality, never very diffuse, had concentrated itself upon one
position--the defence of the game and trespass laws. His keepers were
exhorted to increased vigilance; the worst characters in the parish were
constituted his spies. Every night, it was now the custom of their lord
and master to go the rounds in his own preserves, and visit the
outposts, to see that the sentinels did their duty. He employed no
Warnings or Trespass Boards in Fairburn Park; his object was not to
deter, but to catch the contemners of the sacred rights of property in
the very act. The pursuit of his life had become man-hunting. I write
that word without any reference to Marmaduke Heath, for, indeed, at that
time I thought that Sir Massingberd had given up all hope of recovering
possession of his nephew. A considerable period had now elapsed since
the young man's convalescence; and yet the baronet had taken no steps to
compel his return. He had written, indeed, to Marmaduke a letter of
anything but a conciliatory character, and calculated to re-arouse the
lad's most morbid fears; but Mr. Harvey Gerard had intercepted the
dispatch, and returned it with an answer of his own composition. He had
stated briefly the results of the late conference at the Dovecot
respecting his young guest; he had reiterated his intention of bringing,
in a court of justice, the gravest charges against the baronet, in case
of any legal molestation from him; and he had finished with a personal
recommendation to that gentleman to rest satisfied with the enjoyment of
the allowance that was supposed to go to the maintenance of his nephew.
Epistolary communication by hand was rendered impracticable, on the part
of the baronet, by the removal of the Dovecot household to town.
This was a bitter blow to the lord of Fairburn; he knew so well the
abject fear which he had inspired in my unhappy friend, that,
notwithstanding all that had come and gone yet, he did not doubt that a
few words in his own handwriting would bring the truant back, however
loath. We are living now in such quiet times, and under the protection
of such equal laws, that I am aware my younger readers will have a
difficulty in conceiving how one human being, however powerful, could be
held in such terror by others. I was aware, from the first, that the
present universal security would give my narrative an air of
improbability, and I fear that this must increase as it proceeds. I have
only to say, that at the period of which I write, there was no poor man
in Fairburn parish, however honest, however prudent, who might not have
been lodged in jail at the instance of his squire, and would have found
it difficult to clear himself; or who might not, on a hint from the same
quarter, have been pressed, if he did but give the opportunity, on board
a man-of-war. I am likewise certain that had Sir Massingberd ventured
upon such a step, he might have recovered possession of his nephew, or
at least withdrawn him from his protector, by the strong hand of the
law, upon the ground of Mr. Gerard's professing revolutionary
principles. In these days of Palmerston and Derby, of Tweedledum and
Tweedledee, it is impossible for those who are not old enough to have
witnessed it, to imagine the rancour of political parties half a century
ago, or the despotism and flagrant injustice that were sanctioned under
the convenient name of Order.
For the haughty baronet to be thus cut off from all intercourse with his
victim, was to be foiled indeed. At first, he stung himself well-nigh to
frenzy, like a scorpion within its circle of flame; but after a time the
white heat of his wrath began apparently to abate. He seemed to have
made up his mind to sit down quietly under his defeat, and to content
himself with tyrannizing over those who were yet in his power. This
comparatively peaceful state of things was looked upon by Mr. Long and
myself at first with suspicion, but at last with real satisfaction. When
Sir Massingberd sent over five pine-apples and some splendid grapes to
the Rectory with his compliments (for the first time within twenty
years), we shook our heads, and my tutor addressed the messenger of his
bounty in these words; "Tell your master I am exceedingly obliged to him
for his kindness. 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.'"
"Would you be so good as to write that down, sir?" said the man.
"You may give him the message without the tail," replied the rector, a
little discomfited at his own indiscretion, but congratulating himself
very much that he had expressed his thoughts so classically.
But when pine-apples and grapes became common presents from the Hall, we
began really to think that the stubborn old baronet had come to the
conclusion that it was as pleasant to be on good terms with his
neighbour as not, and that he was genuinely bent on reconciliation. A
soft answer is said to be efficacious to this end, but it is nothing
compared to hothouse dainties out of season; and notwithstanding all I
knew, and all I suspected, I began to regard Sir Massingberd Heath, not
indeed with less contempt and dislike, but with less positive loathing,
and certainly with less fear. I had not set foot upon his property since
Marmaduke's departure, and the baronet took occasion to stop me as I
rode by his gate one day, and remonstrate upon the incivility of such a
course of conduct.
"It can do me no damage, young gentleman, that you should take your
pleasure in my park, more especially as you are not a sportsman, who
would covet my hares and pheasants; and I cannot but think that your
omission to do so is a proof of ill-feeling towards me, which I am not
conscious of having deserved at your hands."
He spoke stiffly, and without condescension, as a man might speak to an
equal, between himself and whom a misunderstanding existed unexplained,
but capable of explanation, and, foolish boy as I was, I felt flattered
by his behaviour.
If the least notion of making myself out to be a hero had existed in my
brain when I began to write these Recollections, it has been dissipated
long ago. I have been quite as much surprised during this recital as any
of my readers have been, at the contemplation of my own meannesses; if I
had known how many and how serious they were to be, perhaps I should
have hesitated to recall them; but I commenced with as strong a
determination, nothing to extenuate with respect to myself, as to set
nothing down in malice with respect to others; and thus I shall proceed
to the end.
While, then, matters were on this less antagonistic footing, and when
Marmaduke had been away about a year, business happened to take Mr. Long
from Fairburn, and I was left a day and a night my own master. He had
not been gone an hour when Mrs. Myrtle came into the study, where I was
employed at my books, with a letter in her hand; she looked quite pale
and frightened, as she said, "Lor', Mr. Peter, if this note ain't from
Sir Massingberd hisself for <i>you</i>. I feels all of a tremble, so as you
might knock me down with a peacock's feather."
"Well," said I, forcing a laugh, "but I am not going to use any such
weapon, Mrs. Myrtle. What on earth is there to be afraid of in the
squire's handwriting? It can't bite." But I felt in a cold perspiration
nevertheless, and my fingers trembled as they undid the missive. It was
a polite invitation to dine with the baronet that evening.
"You are not going, sir, I <i>do</i> hope!" exclaimed the housekeeper
eagerly, as soon as I had acquainted her with the contents of the note.
"Why, such a thing hasn't happened for this quarter of a century. He'll
poison you, as sure as my name's Martha Myrtle. I never saw you and
master eating his pine-apples without a shudder; the rector <i>was</i>
uncommon ill after one of them, one day."
"Yes, Mrs. Myrtle," said I quietly, "and I have suffered also from the
same cause myself; but I don't think the squire was to blame."
"But you ain't a-going, sir; I am sure as master wouldn't like it. Oh,
pray, say you ain't a-going."
"Well, then, I won't go, Mrs. Myrtle. The fact is, I feel one of my
colds coming on; they generally begin with a lump in my throat; so I
shall write to excuse myself."
I really had a lump in my throat; my heart had jumped up and stopped
there at the mere notion of a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with Sir Massingberd,
diversified--no, intensified--by the presence of Grimjaw. I wouldn't
have gone through it for a thousand pounds; so I wrote to decline the
honour upon the ground of indisposition. I was compelled to keep the
house, I said, for the entire day. Half an hour afterwards, another
letter arrived from the Hall. Since Sir Massingberd might not enjoy the
pleasure of my company at dinner, would I permit him to come over to the
Rectory that morning, and have a few words of conversation with me upon
a matter deeply interesting to both of us? There was no getting out of
this. If I had gone to bed, on plea of illness, I felt that even that
course would have been no protection to me. Sir Massingberd would have
forced a dying man to play with him at pitch-and-toss, if so inopportune
a game had happened to take his fancy. On the other hand, Mrs. Myrtle's
suggestion that I should mount my horse, and ride away after Mr. Long,
was really too pusillanimous a proceeding; I therefore wrote back to the
baronet a polite falsehood, to the effect that I should be very happy to
see him; and in a very few minutes afterwards, I was face to face with
Marmaduke's foe.
He came in unushered--Mrs. Myrtle not being equal to such an
occasion--filling the doorway with his gigantic form, and well-nigh
touching the ceiling of the low-roofed room with his head.
"I am sorry to intrude upon an invalid," said he, "but what I had to say
was of a private nature, and I was not sure of finding you alone at any
other time."
I bowed, and begged my visitor to be seated.
"It is something," thought I, "that this man is civil at least." For
there is this great advantage in being habitually insolent and
overbearing, that when one does condescend to behave decently, people
appreciate one's good maimers very much.
"I have called upon you," continued the baronet, "with respect to my
nephew and your friend, Marmaduke Heath. It is idle to deny that he and
I have not been to one another what our mutual relationship should have
led us to be. I am naturally a hard man; losses and poverty have
doubtless rendered me more morose. Marmaduke, on the other hand, is of
an over-sensitive and morbid nature. We did not get on together at all
well. There were faults on both sides; it was six of one, and--"
I shook my head.
"Very well, then," resumed Sir Massingberd, with candour, "let us say
that it was I who was in the wrong. I have not the patience and
gentleness requisite for dealing with a character like him; my temper is
arbitrary; I have behaved with but little courtesy even to yourself. You
are polite enough to contradict me, but nevertheless it is true. For
<i>that</i>, however, reparation can be made. I wish that I could as easily
make atonement in the other quarter. This, however, I feel is utterly
impossible. Things have gone too far. I make no complaint of my nephew's
having been encouraged in his rebellious course by one whose duty it
was, on the contrary, to reconcile us. I wish to say nothing that could
only lead to fruitless discussion, and perhaps a disagreement between
you and me; that would be most impolitic on my part, since I come here
to solicit your good offices."
"Mine, Sir Massingberd? mine?"
"Yes, I desire your kindly assistance in bringing about a better
understanding between Marmaduke and myself."
"Sir," said I, "what you ask is a sheer impossibility. Marmaduke Heath
may be wrong in his estimate of your character, but it will remain
unchanged to his dying day. I am as certain of this, as that yonder
yellowing tree will presently lose its leaves."
"You speak frankly, Mr. Meredith," returned the baronet, calmly, "and I
do not respect you less upon that account. It is not, however, as a
mediator that I need your assistance; I ask a much less favour than
that; I simply wish you to inclose a letter from me to my nephew."
"Sir Massingberd Heath," said I, with some indignation, "you have done
me the favour of calling upon me in my tutor's absence, in the
expectation of finding me so weak as to be unable to refuse whatever you
chose to ask, or so treacherous as to be willing to deceive those who
are generously protecting my best friend from one whom he has every
cause to fear. I am extremely obliged to you for the compliment;" and
with that I laid my hand upon the bell.
"One moment," observed the baronet, quietly, nay, with suavity, though
the letter U upon his forehead deepened visibly, and the veins of his
great hand, as it rested on the table, grew big with passion; "one
moment before you ring. I am sorry you should have taken such a view of
my conduct as you have described; you young men are somewhat hasty in
the imputation of motive. I am a straightforward, rough fellow, and may
have displeased you; but I am not aware that I have done anything to
justify you in accusing me of meanness and duplicity. Those persons who
have charge of my nephew are, in my judgment, deeply culpable; but I do
not wish you to act deceitfully towards them on that account. Matters
have come to that pass, however, that I cannot even communicate with my
nephew, even though I have that to say which would give him genuine
pleasure. This Mr. Harvey Gerard"--his deep voice shook with hatred as
he mentioned that name--"has taken upon himself to return my letters to
Marmaduke unopened. I know not how to convey to him even such a one as
this."
Sir Massingberd threw across to me a folded sheet, directed to his
nephew, and motioned that I should open it. It ran as follows:--
"NEPHEW MARMADUKE,--It seems that you are fully determined never again
to seek the shelter of my roof; I am given to understand that the time
for reconciliation has gone by, and that any attempt to effect it would
only cause you annoyance, and make the breach wider between us. If so,
so be it. I am an old man now, and I wish my last years to be passed in
peace. I wish to make no allusion to the character of the person with
whom you have chosen to reside, further than to express a hope that when
I am gone, and it will be your part to exercise the rights of a great
land-owner, that you will not employ your influence to subvert the laws
and the government. It is as mad in those who possess authority to
countenance revolution, as for a man seated on a lofty branch to lop it
off with his own hands. I do not say this as your uncle, but merely as
one of an ancient race with whom we are both connected, and in whose
welfare we should take an equal interest. Mr. Meredith is kind enough to
enclose this parting word of advice--the last communication that will
probably ever pass between us--from
"MASSINGBERD HEATH.
"P.S.--Burn this when you have read it, lest your friend should get into
trouble upon my account."
I read and re-read this strange epistle with great care, before I made
any comment upon it. There was nothing, to my mind, objectionable in any
of the contents. I had been twice to Harley Street during the summer,
and found Marmaduke as morbidly apprehensive as ever of some course of
conduct to be adopted by his uncle with reference to regaining the
custody of his person; he was haunted still by the shadow of this
terrible man. The words I held before me were certainly calculated to
reassure him. No news could be more gratifying than this positive
resignation of the baronet's claim to be his guardian, this final
"good-bye" under Sir Massingberd's own hand. As for the political
advice, I thought that very healthy. I was then, as now, a staunch
conservative, and although I did not sympathize in the least with the
harsh acts of the government in respect to poor, misguided men, not
without their wrongs, yet I did think Mr. Gerard's views both visionary
and dangerous.
"I trust," observed Sir Massingberd, gravely, "that the sentiments which
you are now perusing are in accordance with your own. I am speaking, I
believe, to a gentleman, and consequently to a natural friend of
order."
I bowed in assent. "There certainly seems nothing in this epistle which
Marmaduke might not read," muttered I, musing.
"<i>Seems?</i>" cried the baronet. "Why not say <i>is</i> at once?"
A sudden idea, gleaned from some romance which I had been lately
reading, flashed across my brain. Why did the postscript say, "Burn this
when you have read it?" I let my hand, with the letter in it, drop below
my knee, so that the missive was held close to the fire.
"There is no writing in lemon-juice, I do assure you," observed Sir
Massingberd, quietly; "you will only scorch the paper."
I coloured at the exposure of my suspicions, and in my confusion it did
not strike me that the speaker must himself have at least entertained
such a project, or he never could have unmasked me so readily. I was a
little ashamed of myself, and rather sorry for my incredulity. Sir
Massingberd saw this, and pressed his point.
"Since there is nothing concealed, and no harm in what is visible, I do
hope you will grant the favour I requested, and inclose that note to my
nephew."
"Well, sir," said I, after a little hesitation, "I will inclose it. I
give you warning, however, that I shall send a line by the same post to
let Mr. Gerard know that I have done so."
"By all means," responded Sir Massingberd. "I am only anxious that my
nephew's own eyes should read what I have written. Have you a taper and
wax?" asked he, folding up the sheet. "I might as well stamp it with my
seal."
I rose and brought what he required from a writing-table. Sir
Massingberd sealed the letter, and gave it into my hand.
"Mr. Meredith," said he, rising, "you have done me a great service. I
think I have said, that the oftener you make use of my grounds the
better I shall be pleased. Did I add that the bowling-green is entirely
at your service? I am too stiff in the back to have a game with you
myself, but I will give directions to Gilmore to be your antagonist,
whenever you may feel inclined."
The baronet took his leave in a stately, but not unfriendly manner. He
certainly <i>was</i> stiff in the back; but that was his nature. As he
smiled, his lip turned upwards, instead of the usual way; but so it
always did. Yet I did not feel quite comfortable, as I stood by myself
over the fire, balancing Sir Massingberd's "good-bye" to his nephew in
my hand, and questioning within myself whether it wouldn't be better to
inclose it to Mr. Harvey Gerard, after all. However, in the end I kept
my promise.
END OF VOL. I.
End of Project Gutenberg's Lost Sir Massingberd, v. 1/2, by James Payn