The two most dashing, bold, and mischievous boys at Eton during their
day, had formerly been Sir Patrick Dunbar and Louis De Crespigny, who
astonished the weak minds of masters and pupils, by the strange and
startling invention displayed in their exploits, as well as by the
ingenuity with which both got safely out of every threatening
predicament, and the sly humor or cunning with which they frequently
shifted the disgrace, or even the punishment, of their offences, on
others who deserved it less, or perhaps not at all. Invariably at the
head of every mad exploit, or at the bottom of every secret design,
how they could possibly have escaped being expelled was a frequent
topic of subsequent wonder among their contemporaries in the classes;
but their delight was to run as near the wind as possible, and still
to display their skilful pilotage by baffling justice, and evading the
utmost rigor of the law, while always ready rather to do harm than to
do nothing.
When very young, the two enterprising friends, both since gazetted
into the 15th Light Huzzars, had shown an early predilection for
military life, by frequently escaping to the neighbouring barracks,
assisted by a ladder of rope on which they descended every night from
the windows. A gay, joyous reception invariably awaited these lively
boys at the mess-table, where they sung many a jovial song, and
cracked many a merry jest over their claret, till, after some hours
spent in rapturous festivity, they stole silently back within bounds,
and were re-admitted at the window, by their respective fags, who had
received orders, under pain of death, to keep awake and answer their
signals for the ladder by instantly lowering it. The spirits of both
these young companions were more like the effect of intoxication, than
mere sober enjoyment; and, on one occasion, they set the table in a
roar, by having a rivalship which would best imitate the gradual
progress of becoming tipsy, though drinking nothing but cold water; in
which exhibition they showed so much talent for mimicry, taking off
the surrounding officers before their faces, and making so many
home-thrusts and personal remarks, that the scene was never afterwards
forgotten in the regiment. On another occasion Sir Patrick caused
himself to be placed in a coffin, stolen from the undertakers, and was
carried through the barracks by his companions, who made paper
trumpets with which they played the dead march in Saul, while all the
sentries saluted as they passed. Such juvenile exploits in the dawn of
life were now the subject of many a laughing reminiscence, and had
been followed by others on a more extended scale and of more matured
enterprise, at Mr. Brownlow's, a private tutor, where the two young
men afterwards distinguished themselves in a way not easily to be
forgotten, causing their better disciplined companions to wonder,
though in very few instances to admire.
In the favorite aristocratic achievements of driving stage-coaches,
breaking lamps, wringing off knockers, assaulting watchmen, with other
fistic and pugilistic exploits, they were nearly unrivalled; and
occasionally their genius had soared into an extraordinary display of
dexterity, in transposing the signs suspended over shops, and in
filching silk handkerchiefs from the pockets of their friends, merely
as amateurs, but still the deed was done, and the laugh raised
literally at the expense of the sufferer, as the plunder was retained
to be a future trophy of success. Each successive stage of their
youth, in short, supplied an inexhaustible fund of standing jests and
lively anecdotes, the wit of which mainly consisted in their mischief,
while they betrayed an utter recklessness about the opinions or the
feelings of others, till at length the patience of their unfortunate
private tutor was so completely exhausted that he gave them a secret
hint to withdraw, which they accordingly lost no time in preparing to
do, but not till they had enjoyed a very characteristic revenge. When
Mr. Brownlow had taken a party of friends with him one evening to the
theatre, Sir Patrick suddenly discharged from the gallery the whole
contents of a prodigious bag of flour, which powdered all the heads,
faces, and coats, in the pit, perfectly white, and caused an uproar of
anger and of irresistible laughter throughout the house; and the same
evening Louis De Crespigny, as a farewell frolic, abstracted a stuffed
bear from the neighbouring hair-dresser's, and having equipped it in
the costume of Mr. Brownlow, hung it from the lamp-post, where a
panic-struck crowd was speedily assembled by the alarming report that
the reverend gentleman had committed suicide. A strict investigation
took place respecting the authors of these unpardonable tricks, but,
though suspicion fell at once upon the real culprits, and the
circumstantial evidence against them seemed irresistibly strong, Sir
Patrick argued his own cause with so much skill and vivacity, while De
Crespigny looked so innocently unconscious of the whole affair, that,
with a silent frown from the master, of stern reproof and suspicion,
they were, not honorably acquitted, but allowed to return home without
any public mark of censure or disgrace; and soon after both joined
their regiment at Dublin.
De Crespigny and Sir Patrick had but one companion whom they
acknowledged as their equal at Eton, in all the spirit, enterprise,
and vivacity of their characters, but who was, in a thousand other
respects their superior, for seldom, indeed, has there been known, in
one so young, a character of as much intensity, or which displayed a
combination so singular, of superb talents, rare judgment, sound
principle, deep piety, and energetic feeling, as in Richard Granville,
an object of admiration to all, and of envy to many; though jealously
lost half of its bitterness in association with one so eloquent and
single-hearted in conversation, so courteously amiable and
conciliatory in manner, and with so fine a principle of tact, ready as
far as possible to enhance the pleasures, to palliate the faults, and
to share the sorrows of all his companions. Cultivated in all that
could adorn the heart as well as the head, in whatever was amiable,
high-spirited and generous, Richard Granville had but to follow the
impulse of natural feeling as well as of principle, and he out-did the
very wishes of his friends, while no one excelled him in all the manly
exercises suited to his early years. His countenance was illuminated
with an expression of intellectual energy, at times almost sublime,
while there was a living grace and amiability in his manner
irresistibly attractive. Brave, liberal, and resolute, he entered with
eagerness into all the offensive recreations of his companions, and no
one excelled him in riding, fencing, and cricket, while he was the
best shot in his own country; but he firmly declined ever to squander
his time or money on any game of chance, cards, billiards, or gambling
in any form. While Sir Patrick's betting-book was from the first a
model of skill, in hedging bets, and all the manoeuvres of
jockey-ology, young Granville said all that eloquence and affection
could dictate, to point out how dangerous and dishonorable was the
course on which he seemed about to enter, but in vain, for Sir Patrick
finished the discussion by offering to bet him £5 he would not be
ruined in less than ten years. "I have a fortune and constitution
which will last me till thirty," said the young baronet; "and I do not
wish to live a day longer."
"It is easy," said Prince Eugene, "to be modest when one is
successful; but it is difficult not to be envied." While the very
presence of young Granville in the room, with his riotous young
associates, seemed as if it held up a glass to their mind's eye,
testifying the folly and evil of their course, yet Richard Granville
abhorred display, while Sir Patrick and De Crespigny frequently
declared he was "too clever and too good for them;" and unavoidable
circumstances afterwards combined to estrange the young men still
more. A law-suit had been going on almost since the period of their
birth, conducted in an amicable way by their guardians, in which the
interests of all three were so deeply concerned, and the case so
exceedingly complicated, that years passed on, during which the youths
had all grown to manhood, and the case remained still undecided; while
the one-sided view which was given to Dunbar and De Crespigny on the
subject caused in them an angry feeling of hostility and rancour
against their amiable and high-minded young relative, who was so
enthusiastically desirous to enter the English church, and devote
himself to those sacred duties, that he scarcely wished a favorable
decree, which would prevent the necessity for his pursuing a
profession at all.
A Scotch law-suit may be compared to a game at battle-dore between the
tribunals of England and Scotland, while the gaping client sees the
shuttle-cock for ever flying over his head, higher and higher out of
reach, and sent backwards and forwards with ceaseless diligence, but
no apparent progress; or it is like a kitten playing with a ball of
worsted, which is allowed to come often apparently within her grasp,
and is then, when she least expects, twitched away farther than
before. The Granville case had been decided by the Court of Session,
against the two cousins, Dunbar and Crespigny, but being appealed to
the House of Lords, was recommended for consideration, re-argued,
re-considered, and nearly reversed, while replies and duplies, remits
and re-revisals, commissions of inquiry, and new cases, followed each
other in ceaseless succession, and many of the lawyers who were young
men when the case began, grew grey in the service, while it yet
remained in suspense. A grand-uncle of Sir Patrick's had fifty years
before, bought an estate of £12,000 a-year from the Marquis of
Doncaster, to whom young De Crespigny was now heir presumptive; but
Mr. Dunbar having, it was conjectured, entertained some suspicion that
the title deeds were not perfectly valid, as an entail had been
discovered afterwards, by which it was generally thought that the land
must be restored to the original owner, he hastily and most unfairly
sold the property to the late Mr. Granville for £350,000, and dying
intestate, after having lost nearly the whole sum in a mining
speculation, it could not be proved whether Sir Patrick's father had
acted as an executor for the deceased or not, so as to render himself
responsible for his debts, and liable to refund the sum paid by Mr.
Granville. Thus, whether the entail held good, and carried the estate
back to Lord Doncaster, or whether it had been legally broken, so as
to entitle the Granville family to keep it, or whether, if it were
refunded, the price could be claimed from the heirs of Mr. Dunbar,
still continued a mystery never apparently to be solved.
For many generations past, the ancient Marquisate of Doncaster had
been inherited by a succession of only sons, all strict Papists, who
had each in his turn been reckoned by the next heirs exceedingly
sickly and unpromising, but still the wonder grew, for not one had
ever died, till he left a substitute in regular rotation, to supply
the vacancy which he created himself; and a long train of minorities
in the family had caused the accumulation of wealth and property to be
enormous, when the present proprietor succeeded fifty years before our
story commences. Nothing could exceed his own astonishment at the
unembarrassed magnificence of the fortune, of which he most
unexpectedly found himself in possession, as his father had been in
the habit of concealing the amount of his own income, and allowing his
heir rather less than nothing, saying, that as he himself had never
had anything to eat till he had no teeth to eat with, he was resolved
that his successor should be similarly treated. In pursuance of this
plan, the old nobleman even on his death-bed, had actually expired
with a practical joke on his lips. He sent for his son, gravely told
him that with debts, mortgages, and settlements, the very encumbered
estate he was about to inherit would scarcely pay its own expenses,
and recommended him to live in future with the most penurious economy.
When the will was opened, finding to his unutterable joy, that he had
merely been played upon by the old humorist, who, in reality left him
£40,000 per annum clear, so great was Lord Doncaster's surprise, that
he declared his good fortune at the time to be "almost incredible;"
and it might have been supposed, that he never afterwards completely
believed it, as his personal expenses were always in a style more
suited to the old Lord's threat than his performance, and he became a
fresh instance of what may be so often remarked, that the most
extravagant heirs in expectancy become the most avaricious in
possession.
There was one singular peculiarity in the settlements of Lord
Doncaster's family, that so long as he had no son, or if his son at
twenty-one declared himself a Protestant, he had the power of selling
or bequeathing the estates according to his own pleasure or caprice;
and the ancestor who had inserted this clause in his deed of entail,
made his intention evident, that the succession should go to the Roman
Catholic Church, rather than to a Protestant heir; but the present
peer had taken advantage, on so large a scale, of his own childless
privilege, to sell the family estates, that his two deceased sisters,
Lady Charlotte De Crespigny, and Lady Caroline Smytheson, used
secretly to complain, that little would be left for their children, if
he persevered in turning every acre into gold; yet no one ever could
guess how the large sums were squandered or melted away, which the old
Marquis was continually raising, unless they went, as was strongly
suspected, in the form of "secret service money," among the priests by
whom he was surrounded.
Nobody had a better right to be eccentric than Lord Doncaster!--old,
rich, unmarried, and originally educated at home,--a misfortune
sufficient in itself to engender so many peculiarities, as to render a
man unfit for society ever afterwards. The aged peer was shy, proud,
and arbitrary beyond all conception, avaricious about trifles, yet
lavish to excess on great occasions, suspicious of all men's motives
and intentions, and yet confiding to the last extreme of weakness, in
the Abbe Mordaunt, his confessor, despising all men, and yet anxious
beyond measure for the world's good opinion, addicted to the very
worst female society, when he might have enjoyed the best, hating
company, and yet sometimes plunging into it, when and where he was
least expected, jealous to excess of his next heir, Louis De
Crespigny, whom he enslaved to his caprices, as if even his existence
were to be given or withheld at his option, yet sometimes whimsically
cordial in his manner to him, though ready to take fire in an instant
if his condescension led the lively youth into the slightest approach
towards confidence or familiarity.
Mr. Howard Smytheson, the wealthy brother-in-law of Lord Doncaster,
having purchased most of the De Crespigny estates, as acre after acre,
farm after farm, and house after house, came successively into the
market, bequeathed them on his decease to an only daughter then an
infant, and it became a favorite day-dream with the old peer, that his
nephew and niece should be educated for each other, while to this end
he tried his utmost power of conciliation with the maiden sister of
Mr. Howard Smytheson, to whose care the young heiress had been
consigned, hoping that thus all the amputated limbs of his vast
property might yet be reunited in their pristine magnitude, to which
very desirable end he thenceforth directed his whole conversations
with young De Crespigny, to whom he more than hinted that, unless
their will were the same about this marriage, his own will after death
would be found very different from what his nephew probably
anticipated and wished.
The private vices of Lord Doncaster had been so very private, that
though much was suspected, little could be known; yet, while he had
few visible or personal expenses, and no imaginable outlet for his
fortune, he invariably spent all his income, and considerably more,
being one of those personages occasionally seen who excite the wonder
and speculation of relations and neighbours, by unaccountably
frittering away fortunes of almost royal splendor, without any
appearance of royal luxury or royal liberality. Wearied of the world,
in which he had nothing more to desire, and of himself, as he had
nothing to think of or to do,--bored in short with the want of a want,
Lord Doncaster's life was indeed a mere heartless pageant of mean
ostentation and fretful pride, sternly insulated in a state of
solitary old-bachelor despotism, and absorbed in himself to a degree
which no ordinary mind could conceive or comprehend. Encumbered with
so many unoccupied hours, it was a subject of as much wonder how he
disposed of his superfluous time, as of his superfluous fortune; but
he settled that question, by remarking one day to his nephew, that
"the great business of life is, to shuffle through the day anyhow till
dinner time." Like all parsimonious men, Lord Doncaster could not
endure to hear any one else reckoned affluent, and Louis De Crespigny
knew that a certain receipt for irritating him was, to over-estimate
everybody's income, consequently he amused himself occasionally by
audibly giving out Lord Towercliffe's fortune to be £15,000 a-year,
and estimating his friend Sir Patrick Dunbar's rent-roll at a clear
sum of £20,000 per annum, while he slyly watched his uncle's rising
choler, and patiently heard, for the fiftieth time, an elaborate
explanation, that it was impossible, and a sober calculation which
reduced both the offending parties almost to beggary.
In the month of August, as regularly as time revolved, Lord Doncaster
delighted to read in the newspapers, his own pompous advertisement,
the only original composition he was ever known to attempt, in which
he prohibited poachers and strangers from shooting on his moors in
Argyleshire, Mid-Lothian, Yorkshire, Galloway, Cromarty, and
Caithness, but except the annual appearance of this spirited
manifesto, no public evidence ever came forth of that extraordinary
wealth which property so extensive must be supposed to produce. No
charitable donations bore witness to Lord Doncaster's liberality--no
country objects were encouraged by his public spirit--and the
monuments daily arising in memory of departed merit, made a vain
appeal for his pecuniary tribute of respect and regret, for Lord
Doncaster neither respected nor regretted any man.
It was an often-repeated axiom of Lord Doncaster's, that every man
cheats or is cheated; but in one instance, and one only, his Lordship
had shown apparently some kind feeling, or rather perhaps he might be
said to have exhibited a capricious freak of benevolence, though the
result had been such as to afford him an excuse ever afterwards for
not again attempting a single act of gratuitous liberality.
The nearest relative to his ancient family, after Louis De Crespigny
and Miss Howard, was Mrs. Anstruther, a distant cousin, who, after
making a low and almost disgraceful marriage, had suddenly died, it
was believed by her own hands, thus consigning her two young children
to helpless, and apparently hopeless poverty, till at length they were
very unwillingly invited, or rather permitted to become residents in
an almost menial capacity at Beaujolie Castle, in Yorkshire, where, as
they could neither be drowned like kittens, nor shot like puppy-dogs,
the Marquis caused them to be treated like the "whipping boys" in
Charles the First's time--sometimes employed as playmates to amuse his
nephew and niece during their holiday visits to his residence, but
more frequently treated in a sort of mongrel way between dependents
and slaves by the heartless and tyrannical old peer, who considered
them as mere poachers on the preserve of his family honors, having
forced their way into existence by some untoward accident, and become
absolute blots in the creation, liable to be suspected, and even
accused to their faces of every low and vicious propensity, in
consequence of which, from an early age, he destroyed their
self-respect, and irritated their evil passions by the most rash and
unfounded aspersions--theft, swindling, lying, and gluttony, were
among the principal counts in his Lordship's indictment, when he
sometimes vented a paroxysm of ill-humor on these his unhappy
dependents; and many a time the tears of Mary Anstruther, and the
flashing eye of her brother Ernest, bore witness to the anger and
grief with which they listened to his bitter and often unmerited
upbraidings.
At times, however, Lord Doncaster found it convenient for his own
private purposes to patronize the Anstruthers, and threatened, in the
hearing of all his young relatives, that if Louis De Crespigny's
conduct did not in all respects satisfy him, an heir more subservient
to his wishes might be found, and though the culprit must be his
nephew, he need not be his successor, while the glance of his eye
towards Ernest aroused hopes, wishes, and even expectations of the
wildest extravagance, which were then confirmed for a time by his
being promoted to temporary attention and consideration, not only
displayed ostentatiously by their capricious patron, but extending to
the increased respect and observance of the servants, the thermometer
of whose obedience rose and fell according as the sunshine of Lord
Doncaster's favor shone upon his young relative or not; yet brief as
these periods of increased importance had always been, they made an
indelible impression on the young and ambitious minds of those usually
neglected children. "The child becomes a boy, the boy a youth, and
then the game of life begins in earnest."
Without education or principle, and with no friend on the wide earth
to confide in or to consult, the two young Anstruthers, like weeds
that will yet flourish though trampled upon, grew up vigorous in body,
and enthusiastically as well as devotedly attached to each other, with
a depth and power of affection which appeared, before long, the only
redeeming quality in characters wherein strong passions and weak
principles promised little, and threatened much, to all with whom they
might hereafter become associated.
The resemblance between them was as remarkable as their attachment,
both having dark Italian-looking countenances, of remarkable symmetry,
with a singularly excitable and determined expression in their large
lustrous eyes, while it was remarkable that neither could by
possibility look any one steadily in the face. There was a wild,
almost feverish brilliancy in the eye of Ernest, expressive of a fiery
impetuosity, amounting at times almost to an appearance of insanity,
when, after being obliged to crouch and flatter for his bread before
Lord Doncaster, he would retire with Mary, and give loose to all the
angry torrent of his long-suppressed emotions. The sister's heart
cowered sometimes before the flood of invectives and imprecations with
which he relieved his heart by speaking of his wrongs, while he seemed
to cherish a gnawing belief that fortune herself had shown him a most
unaccountable and undeserved enmity, which he was resolved, by fair or
by foul means, to subvert. "I shall yet rise above all the accidents
of fortune! It shall be done, I care not how, Mary," said he sternly.
"We must not be over-particular on that score, for, as the proverb
says, 'a cat in mittens will never catch mice!'"
Bold, fearless, and ready, with a keen appetite for danger, a fearless
ambition, consummate cunning, and an insatiable thirst for adventure,
it seemed sometimes as if he would put his mind into a pugilistic
attitude, and buffet his way forward to pre-eminence in spite of all
the malice of fortune and of mankind. With a temper vindictive, harsh,
and deadly, his blood mounted like mercury in a thermometer at the
very thought of success, and often when he spoke to his sister in the
lowest whisper of their future prospects, she would start and look
hastily round as if in terror, lest the wild dreams of his
undisciplined mind might be overheard and resented, for he nourished a
feverish hope, which he called a presentiment, but which amounted
almost to a monomania, that the splendid residence in which they were
now only tolerated on sufferance, "as reptile dependents," would one
day become his own.
If every man living might remove at pleasure all those who stand
inconveniently in his way, political economists would have nothing to
fear from a too rapidly increasing population, and the day-dreams of
Ernest, which gained strength and consistency every hour, were
prolific in both deaths and marriages. He carefully collected in the
Peerage all the instances there recorded, in which distant relations
had succeeded through a long mortality of twenty or five-and-twenty
intermediate heirs,--he remembered that neither Louis nor Caroline had
yet endured the measles,--he thought their Shetland ponies very
dangerous, and, in short, if their days had been measured by him, the
measure would have been short indeed. His personal vanity was
excessive, and amidst his wild schemes of aggrandisement, the first
and foremost had lately been to marry his lively, frolicsome, little
cousin, and occasional playmate, Caroline Howard Smytheson, in whose
infant manner, heedless and good-humored as she was, he flattered
himself there might be traced an evident appearance of preference,
while he could not but also remark, that before any of the young party
had attained the age of maturity, and Caroline was yet a mere infant.
Louis De Crespigny had already begun to exercise his genius for
flirtation in the society of his humble cousin Mary Anstruther,--humble
only in circumstances, but possessing that pride without principle,
which goes before a fall.
Time had ripened the faults of the two young Anstruthers, and
perfected also their extraordinary beauty of person, when, after
Ernest had attained the age of nineteen, a whim as sudden, and
apparently as unaccountable as their adoption, caused Lord Doncaster,
or rather the Abbe Mordaunt, unexpectedly to announce that they were
dismissed from the house. Various rumours were circulated among the
servants to account for this harsh and hasty decision, but nothing
could be discovered for certain. Ernest was reported to have expressed
himself with the greatest rancour and contempt respecting a report in
circulation, that Lord Doncaster intended to marry the Abbe Mordaunt's
beautiful niece, then on a visit at Kilmarnock Abbey, near Edinburgh.
The Abbe was said to have missed some valuable jewels belonging to his
niece Laura, who accused both the Anstruthers of having been seen in
her room,--a large sum of money, it was hinted, had mysteriously
disappeared--some people said that Ernest had been discovered at a
late hour of the night attempting to enter the sleeping apartment of
Lord Doncaster, without being able to give any satisfactory account of
his intentions, and others declared that Louis De Crespigny's
assiduities to Mary Anstruther had recently become rather too obvious,
while surmises arose against her character; but whatever might be the
cause, they were both hastily transferred on a few hours' notice from
the splendors of Kilmarnock Abbey, to a small obscure lodging at
Portobello. As Ernest was about to leave that house which had so long
been his home, with Mary sobbing in uncontrollable grief on his arm,
anger and despair were fearfully stamped on their young faces, when
the Abbe Mordaunt advancing silently, placed a small sum of money in
their hands, which the young man furiously dashed upon the ground, and
trampled upon, saying in accents of strong and almost terrifying
vehemence, while his countenance exhibited a dark insidious expression
of almost maniacal fury, "I would not be human if I did not hate your
niece and you!--my curse shall rest on both till I am revenged! Take
back your paltry gold, I shall build up my own fortune, or perish in
the ruins! I shall live by my own hands, or--by own hands I shall
die!"
From that day forward the names of Mary and Ernest Anstruther never
passed the lips of Lord Doncaster or the Abbe, who ordered the
servants also to abstain from ever mentioning them, which only piqued
the curiosity of the second table into greater activity than ever; but
though many vague conjectures, dark suspicions, and absurd rumours,
were promulgated throughout the establishment, nothing certain could
be ascertained, except that they returned no more to Kilmarnock Abbey,
and that a final extinguisher had been placed on all their prospects
and hopes from Lord Doncaster.
About this time Mrs. Bridget Smytheson sent Miss Howard, then only six
years old, to school, and seemed so little anxious to encourage an
intimacy between the young heiress and Louis De Crespigny, whom she
had long disliked, that Lord Doncaster, piqued and indignant, angrily
reminded her of his sister Lady Caroline's dying injunction, to which
she had promised implicit attention, that if the cousins, after they
were grown up, could be ascertained to have to have a disinterested
preference for each other, every opportunity should be given them to
become attached and engaged.
"Certainly, Lord Doncaster; and I shall fulfil my pledge," replied the
over-dressed, and rather under-bred aunt, in her usual tone of
fantastic affectation; "but these boy-and-girl intimacies are not the
most likely to produce that romantic love with which young people
ought to begin their married lives; and besides, how could their
preference be disinterested, where the brilliant prospects of both are
continually descanted on as motives to their union. No! I have a
considerable spice of romance in my composition; and when they do meet
again, it shall be under very different circumstances."
"What a creature to have the charge of any girl!" thought Lord
Doncaster, as he returned from handing her, with every appearance of
profound respect, into her pony-carriage. "There is another woman
half so insane out of bedlam; and that mad-cap child herself is as
wild as a horse with the reins broke. The greatest annoyance on earth
is, to have a rich and vulgar upstart among on's near connections."