There’s a divinity doth shape our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.
--Hamlet.
When they together reached the lodge, or gate, as it is called, of the
Queen’s Prison, Hal and Flora gazed with surprise on the motley group
waiting for the door to be unlocked, that they might enter to see those
confined within.
A sallow faced, black-haired turnkey, who seemed all eyes, was what is
called “on the lock,” and he “took stock” of every individual about to
pass into the prison with a sharp scrutiny, and with a rapidity which
told that this had been for years his daily practice.
Young and old, rich and poor, were standing there together, elbow
to elbow. The shabby man, who acted as messenger--the aristocrat,
moustached and habited in the latest fashion--the slatternly dressed
woman, with a basket containing small purchases--and the fine lady,
whose husband had settled a fortune upon her, but who was, himself, “in”
for a few thousands, and whose carriage waited without the gate--the
squalid child, the pampered boy, the virtuous and the vicious--were
huddled together, forming no indifferent sample of the congregation
gathered within the embrace of the high brick chevaux-de-frise crested
walls.
The turnkey, who had been reading a newspaper with one eye and surveying
his guests with the other, having found the collection of guests large
enough, rose slowly up and opened the door. A crowd was waiting on the
opposite side to come out.
As Hal, with his young and beautiful but shrinking companion, passed the
turnkey, he inquired where he should find Mr. Wilton, and had to repeat
his question before he could obtain a reply. At last, as the way was
being stopped up because Hal, with the blood tingling in his forehead,
refused to budge until he obtained his answer, the man said, in a low
and surly tone--
“No. 5, in No. 10.”
Hal passed on and entered a long quadrangle, where he saw assembled some
three or four hundred persons of all descriptions, many of them passing
away their hours of confinement in the game of rackets.
An exclamation of surprise burst from both his lips and from Flora’s.
Her visions of a damp, horrible dungeon were dissipated in a moment.
The day was cloudless, and as the sun streamed down among the hordes
congregated together, bustling here and there, standing in groups, or
engaged actively at rackets, laughing, shouting, or speaking in high
tones, the scene appeared more like a community enjoying a festival day
than a body of prisoners in confinement, visited by condoling friends.
Flora’s surprised eyes ran eagerly over the lively masses, thronging
in groups, or moving rapidly to and fro, and she felt a great weight
removed from her heart, although even her small stock of worldly
knowledge told her that the aspect of the society she beheld gathered
here was a shade shabbier, and a dash more slovenly than that met with
“outside.”
Both she and her companion were slightly confused, but the latter, after
a curious gaze at the motley multitude, turned his attention to the
object with which he visited the place.
He saw upon the arched doorways leading to the prison chambers,
a painted number upon the key-stone, and shrewdly guessed at the
explanation of “No 5 in No. 10,” which had at first a little mystified
him.
Before he could advance many paces, an experienced eye picked him out
as an “outsider” and a visitor. A dingy tattered man--sallow with long
confinement, and the pressure of an enduring poverty, which had, as he
who gave it as a toast, said, stuck by him long after his friends had
deserted him--touched Hal on the elbow.
“Stranger here, I see,” he observed, as the young man turned sharply
around; “come to see a friend, I presume. If you will honour me with the
name of the gentleman residing here, I will conduct you straight to his
room. If you don’t find him there, I’ll search for him among the
players--sure to find him--one of the conveniences of this establishment
is, that the friend you call to see is never far from his hutch--‘not at
home’ is not known in our vocabulary.”
Hal saw that the information was to be purchased at an arbitrary gift.
He felt that a guide was unnecessary, as the information he had received
from the turnkey, though not at first clear, was plain enough now. Yet
there was something in the careworn aspect of the man’s features--in the
wistful, anxious expression of his eye--telling of the strong hope
he had now before him of obtaining a breakfast; so that Hal, who had
breakfasted heartily, could not find it in his heart to disappoint his
expectations; and, after a perusal of the poor fellow’s face, and a
hasty glance at his threadbare attire, he said--
“I want to see a Mr. Wilton. Do you know where he is--situated?”
Hal had almost said, confined, but he arrested the word ere it left his
lips.
“Wilton, Wilton,” repeated the man; “he is a new comer, eh?”
“He is,” replied Hal.
“Ah!” returned the man, “then he is either 2 in 8, or 7 in 4, or”----
“I can save you the trouble of speculating by telling you”----
“5 in 10,” interrupted the man; “that is the only other room which has
been recently occupied. The lawyers--you a lawyer, sir?”
Hal laughed freely.
“No,” he answered, “I am not a lawyer.”
“Glad to hear it. The precious rastals! they have been driving a roaring
trade lately. Ah, sir! what a glorious country this would have been
without lawyers! No writs, no executions, no imprisonment for debt. By
Jove! what a splendid state of things.”
The man shut his eyes to enjoy the ecstacy he felt even in imagining
such an Utopia.
“For swindlers no doubt!” observed Hal, with a smile; “but lawyers are
essentially necessary to prevent honest men being devoured by rogues.”
“Very true, sir; that is one side of the question. If they confined
themselves to that line, they would be a valuable body of professionals,
but unfortunately they do not. You are too young and too inexperienced
to know that they are much more the rogue’s friend than the honest man’s
counsellor and servant.”
Hal shook his head.
“Ah! you don’t know. I hope you may never have occasion to know. I do;
God knows I do. I have been here eighteen years, sir. Never in all that
time beyond the door through which you entered this pandemonium. The
lawyers brought me here, and here I am likely to die.”
“But can’t you take the Benefit”----
“Of the Act. No! I am here for contempt of court--a contempt of which I
am intentionally as innocent as you are--a contempt about which I knew
nothing--yet the rascally lawyers clapped me in here for it, and here
I have been ever since, because I am not able to purge my contempt, as
they call it. Besides, if it were not for contempt that I am here, I
couldn’t take the Benefit, for I am connected with a large property, and
I don’t intend to let the villains have that simply because I should,
like a bird, be glad to get out of my cage. However, sir, you want to
see Mr. Wilton, and not to listen to my doleful history. Come along,
sir, this way.”
He shuffled onward as he spoke, and Hal prepared to follow him.
As he did so, he caught sight of a man within three feet of him,
fastening a stare of passionate admiration upon Flora’s sweet face.
His gaze was impudent only so far as that it was fixed and steadfast He
had caught sight of her countenance and had stopped short, as though he
had been transfixed suddenly to the ground.
He was about forty years of age, evidently a gentleman, probably a
military man, for his carriage was remarkably erect, and his upper
lip--though that nowadays is no symbol of the profession of arms--was
garnished with a thin, black moustache, long at the ends, and having the
appearance of being perpetually manipulated by the finger and thumb of
either hand.
His complexion was very dark, bearing evidence of having for years
been exposed to the tender mercies of an Indian sun. His eyes were a
brilliant jet and unusually large; they flashed as he moved them; his
hair, which was short, was black, as were his whiskers, which were
thin and polished, curling at the edges with a uniformity that spoke of
irons.
His attire was plain and dark, but that of a gentleman.
He was evidently one in no common position. Hal ran his eye
scrutinisingly over him, and then turned a side glance at Flora,
whose face he perceived to be flushed, and its expression that of one
distressed at being thus rudely stared out of countenance.
Of course, with the instincts of his youth, he felt convulsed with a
jealous rage, and burned to commit himself in some wrathful and violent
way.
As Flora was nearest to the stranger, and must have touched him as she
passed, Hal moved her by an easy act. Setting his shoulder firm, he
increased his pace, as if to follow the messenger, and came into sharp
collision with the gentleman, who had not yet removed his eyes from the
face of Flora.
The effect of the concussion was to thrust him back some two or three
feet, while Hal passed on apparently unmoved.
Another minute, and the latter felt his shoulder rudely seized. He
wheeled round instanter. The man he had pushed out of his path was at
his side, his features distorted with rage.
“Unmannerly cub!” he cried, “how dare you thrust yourself against me?”
“You are quite able to frame the explanation if you require one, and to
comprehend my refusal to make any apology,” returned Hal, with calmness.
“Let me also counsel you not to repeat the offence of which you have
been guilty, or the consequences, as now, may not terminate in a simple
collision.”
He moved on, as the excited individual exclaimed--
“But for that fair creature on your arm, I would have caned you soundly,
you insolent puppy.”
Hal’s lip curled contemptuously; he refrained from replying to the
threat, and left the man to resent his conduct in any shape he pleased.
They were now before the open dooorway, No. 10, and followed the
messenger up the worn stone steps that looked as though water was to
them a fable and grease their daily food.
By the aid of the iron banisters and Hal’s arm, Flora, with beating
heart, reached the second flight, and saw the messenger who had preceded
them halting in the stone corridor before a door.
Upon it was painted the figure 5.
This, then, was 5, in 10, and within the room which that painted door
guarded, was her father, a prisoner.
Still there was no grim turnkey, no dripping walls, no dark
dungeon--though Heaven knows the vaulted passages lighted by small,
arched, iron-grated windows, looked dreary enough.
“This is the place,” said the messenger, “the room where Mr. Wilton is
staying; and with better luck than I have. Ah, sir, my friends have all
died, or wandered away long ago, and I, without them, or help of any
kind, have been obliged to declare myself on the County. That means,
sir, that I am supplied with a room and a scanty allowance of food by
the authorities, but not a farthing in money, sir, not a farthing. You
see before you, sir, a wretch who has not a farthing, nor any means of
obtaining one, save through the charity of kind persons like yourself,
who reward me with a trifle for conducting them to their friends.”
Hal put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drew forth half-a-crown.
The usual reward was about twopence. Sometimes, by the tough-skinned,
a penny was doled out, or a profitless, “Thank you,” but
half-a-crown--that was unhoped-for munificence. With economy, how long
would it supply him with tobacco and beer?
The man’s eye glistened as a ray of light fell upon the coin. It was one
of the last new dies, and was bright as from the Mint.
“What a beautiful piece of silver!” he exclaimed, with a grin of
satisfaction. “Well, you _are_ a gentleman! When you come again,
sir, ask for me--my name is Maybee: everybody here knows Josh Maybee,
anything I can do for you _in_ the prison I will: out of it, you know,
is not at present in my line. God bless you, sir! good day--oh! stay,
you had better knock and see whether Mr. Wilton is in his room. If not,
I’ll run into the ground, and hunt him up.”
Flora tapped gently at the door, but there was no response. She turned
the handle of the lock gently, and opened it a little way. She looked
into the apartment with a throbbing heart.
Upon a bed she saw seated her father--the very picture of desolation
and woe. His head was bowed almost to his knees, and his two hands were
spread open over his forehead. He seemed unconscious of everything but
the intense anguish under the influence of which his body was swaying to
and fro.
Flora ran into the room: she sank upon her knees at his feet: she drew
gently his hands from before his eyes, and twined her arms about him
with a sweet tenderness.
“Father, dear father!” she said, “look up: see, your own Flo’ has come
to you--to be with you--to share your prison--to tend you, and to be
a comfort to you as she was at home. Look at me--speak to me, father
dear.”
With a startled cry, the old man looked up, as if suddenly roused out of
a dream of gloom and horror into a paradise of sunshine.
He caught Flora’s soft cheeks between his withered hands, and gazed
upon her young, bright, lovely face with an expression of passionate joy
lighting up his wrinkled, pallid, grief-furrowed features.
“Flo’!” he cried, hysterically, “Flo’! Flo’! my--my Flo’, not dead, not
consumed! my own Flo, not lost to me for ever! Oh, beneficent Creator!
I can bear all now: my sorrows are assuaged. Come what come may, I care
not, for my child is spared to me. To my heart, my darling!”
The old man drew her to his breast, and pressed her convulsively there,
sobbing, as he did so, like a child. Hal, with water glittering in his
eyes, turned his face from them, and looked out upon the bustling noisy
groups in the racket ground beneath.
Shabby Josh Maybee made an effort to clear his throat, as if he
had swallowed a cobweb, and felt that, in spite of all his economic
resolutions, at least twopence of the half-crown would instantly be
melted into beer.
He darted away down the stone staircase, two steps at a time, with the
practised agility of one who had descended them many hundred times. As
soon as Flora could disengage herself from her father’s embrace, she
drew his attention to Hal, who had all the time modestly remained close
to the threshold of the door. In glowing terms she related to him the
part which he had played in the dreadful fire, the origin of which was
a mystery. She told him of the desperate hazard he had incurred in his
efforts to save her life, and she also related to him what had since
occurred. Old Wilton, with tears in his eyes, thanked him:--
“Mr. Vivian,” he said feebly, “the day may be distant, but I have faith
that it will come, when I shall in some degree be able to repay you for
the past: not that salvation of a life can ever be meetly rewarded, but
something in the direction may be achieved--some service may be needed
by you, and it may be in my power to render it; it will show, at least,
the spirit of my gratefulness towards you. Mr. Vivian, I have not always
been the abject wretch you now see me; I may not continue to be such.
Ah! my God!” he cried, putting his hands to his forehead, as though
smitten with sudden agony, and then, turning to his astonished daughter,
who was regarding him with an affrighted look, he said, in a tone of
unutterable anguish--“everything was hopelessly, utterly destroyed in
that dreadful fire.”
She clasped her hands, bowed her head, and replied, sorrowfully--
“Alas! everything!”
He groaned bitterly.
“The fire was so sudden and so violent,” observed Hal, gently, “even
those who escaped had hardly time to save themselves in their night
dresses--opportunity was barely afforded for that.”
The old man rose up, and paced the room, murmuring, in accents of acute
misery--
“All gone, all gone, the long cherished hope of years--the one link
which, through all my misery, has bound me to life. Everything has
perished--my long, long sustained hopefulness is swept from me, and
henceforth there is nothing left but misery and despair!”
“Father, dear father, do not give way to such gloomy fears,” cried
Flora, tenderly caressing him.
“A cloud has long hung over our house; it is at its darkest now, but it
will disperse and pass away.”
“Never! never!” cried the old man, hoarsely. “In that dread fire, all
our expectations--all the possibilities of restoring them, are consumed;
we might have been wealthy in the time to come, now we must be beggars
for ever.”
“Your sorrows overpower your better reason, Mr. Wilton,” exclaimed Hal,
pained to see the acute grief of the old man, and the sharp tears of
anguish coursing down the cheeks of Flora, whom he seemed to love more
deeply and fervently each time his eye traced the exquisite beauty of
her features.
Old Wilton turned to him.
“You know not the extent of my loss, Mr. Vivian,” he said, almost
sharply, “you cannot, therefore, measure the depth of my grief.” Then,
addressing his daughter, he said--“Ah! my child, I am to blame that I
did not confide to you the true value of that document which I charged
you to guard with your life. Had I done so you would”----
“I have saved that packet,” cried Flora, eagerly interrupting him.
“I returned for it at the last moment, and I should have died when I
secured it, had not Mr. Vivian risked his life to follow me, and bear me
through flame and smoke to a place of safety.”
She turned a soft glance upon Hal as she said this, which made his heart
leap again.
Old Wilton stood speechless, staring upon her as if distraught while she
spoke. As she concluded, he said, in a hoarse whisper--
“Where is it? where is it?”
She drew from beneath her mantle a small packet, and handed it to him.
He clutched it with trembling fingers. He ran his eye eagerly over it,
though it shook in his hands, so that to decipher a word of that which
was written in endorsement upon it seemed impossible. His breath went
and came in short convulsive sobs.
“It is the same!” he murmured; “it is the same! Saved!--saved! My Flo’,
saved!” The last words sounded feebly, and he staggered as if he was
about to fall.
Hal rushed forward and caught him in his arms. The emotion had been too
much for him, and he had fallen into a swoon. Hal laid him tenderly on
his bed, and unloosed his neckcloth, while Flora, procuring some water
from a brown pitcher, which stood in a corner of the apartment, bathed
his temples and his lips with it.
After some anxious moments, spent in the endeavour to restore him, he
heaved a deep sigh, and opened his eyes.
They fell upon his daughter’s face close to his own. Her soft arm was
his pillow, and her gentle hand wiped the clammy dew from his forehead.
“Are you better, dearest father?” she asked, in low tones.
“Better! better!” he ejaculated, “Well! happy! saved!”
He pressed her cheek to his, and they mingled their tears together.
Hal knew they had much to say to each other, private matters to
communicate, the past to speak about, and the future to arrange. In such
communion, he felt that he would only be an intruder, and he availed
himself of the situation to say--
“You would gladly be alone with your father, Miss Wilton. You have much
to talk over of importance which my presence would render embarrassing
to both. I feel a curiosity to watch the proceedings below. I will
return for you in an hour.”
He did not wait for the answer, but quitted the room, closing the door
after him.
“Oh! good and generous youth,” exclaimed old Wilton, gazing after him,
“would that all the world were like him!”
Flora echoed the sentiment, but in silence. Perhaps, too, she had her
thoughts concerning him; or why did her full lid droop as the sound
of his descending footstep gradually lost itself in the echoes of the
vaulted passages.
As Harry Vivian entered the quadrangle where were assembled the
“benchers” and their friends and satellites, he gazed around upon the
noisy, active throng, uncertain whither to bend his steps.
He impulsively strolled towards the farther end of the quadrangle, where
racket-playing was going on vigorously. As he moved on, his eye suddenly
caught sight of the dark, military looking personage who had so rudely
stared at Flora Wilton, and whom he had so unceremoniously ejected from
his path.
He was in close conversation with old Josh Maybee, and twice or thrice
during their conversation he pointed to No. 10, and Josh Maybee pointed
there, too--even up at the window of No. 5, where Flora was with her
father.
Not for an instant did Hal doubt that Flora was the subject of their
conversation. It was so natural for him to surmise it. The moustached
man had stared at her in the most marked manner--impertinently and
rudely, as Hal believed. He was struck with her beauty--that was
certain; he could hardly be to blame for that--how could he help it? But
there the matter ought to end. Why was he making inquiries about her,
as it was very evident he was? Why should he desire to know who and
what she was? Perhaps he wished to see her again, and to speak to her.
Nothing more probable.
According to Hal’s calculation of consequences, he thought he had better
not make the attempt.
After a few minutes thus occupied, the tall, dark gentleman left
Josh Maybee, and walked as if in deep thought towards the end of the
quadrangle.
Josh Maybee hurried with a smiling face towards the doorway, where Hal
was yet standing.
He would have passed, but Hal caught him by the arm.
“Stay,” he said, “I want a word with you, Maybee?”
“Fifty, if you please, young sir,” cried Maybee, who appeared quite
excited. “You have been lucky to me to-day, sir. Just had a crown given
to me.”
“I guess who gave it to you--a tall, dark man with whom you were just
now speaking.”
“The very same,” returned Maybee, rubbing his hands.
“Is it fair to ask the subject of your conversation?” observed Hal,
hesitatingly.
“Certainly,” replied Maybee, “he didn’t caution me to keep what was said
to myself. He asked me, first of all, who was that pretty girl--and,
dear heart! she has a blessed sweet face--that was with you, sir. And I
told him that I didn’t know. Then he gave me a crown piece, which I
put away quickly, for fear he should ask for change or to have it back
again. Ah! there aint many crowns and half-crowns given away here, sir!”
“Well,” exclaimed Hal, impatiently, “that was not all that passed?”
“Lord bless you! no, sir!” returned Maybee, turning the crown over the
half-crown, and the half-crown over the crown in his pocket. “No, he
asked me where I conducted you to? I told him 5 in 10. He asked the name
of the gentleman you went to visit? I told him ‘Wilton.’ Then he asked
me if I knew anything about Mr. Wilton? and I told him no. Was he a
scientific man? I said I didn’t know. Had he come up from the country?
I couldn’t tell him. He asked me a good many more such questions, but I
couldn’t answer him. Then he said he was himself an Indian officer, and
had not long returned; he had been away a long, long time he said; but
he knew a Mr. Wilton before he went away, and he wondered if he were the
same. Of course I told him that I could not answer that question; and
then he wished to know the room, and I pointed it out to him, that’s
all, sir.”
“Did he mention his own name?” inquired Hal, thoughtfully.
“No, sir; he merely said he was an officer just returned from India,
nothing more,” responded Maybee, who felt more disposed for the
twopennyworth of beer he had promised himself than ever.
Hal let him go. In less than a minute Mr. Maybee was at the bar and a
foaming pint was placed before him.
Hal walked up and down, reflecting upon this event.
He looked after the Indian officer, but he had disappeared, and though
he remained in the quadrangle the time he had prescribed for himself
to remain away from Wilton’s apartments, he saw nothing more of the man
with whom he had come into collision.
The hour having passed, he ascended the stairs with a light step, and
paused before the door of No. 5. He fancied he heard voices within, and
knocked gently for admission. His summons was, perhaps, not heard, and
he repeated it louder. In the interval he was convinced that there were
voices which he did not recognise, and this lent a greater firmness to
his knock.
He heard old Wilton’s voice exclaim, “Come in,” and he entered.
He was not a little surprised on advancing into the room to perceive the
Indian officer, accompanied by a young, dashingly dressed fellow, seated
far too near to Flora to be agreeable to him. Old Wilton was standing,
and displayed an air of dignity, which Hal, certainly, had never seen
him wear before.
There was a silence upon his entrance, and the Indian officer gazed upon
him grimly. Old Wilton, however, with a pleasant smile, and the manner
of a gentleman, motioned him to a seat, and then, turning to the
officer, said--
“Proceed, sir.”
“I was about to ask of you, Mr. Wilton, whether you ever lived in
Devonshire?”
“Am I, before I reply, permitted to ask your motive in questioning me?
You, a stranger.”
“Unquestionably. I have just returned from India after an absence--with
one short exception---of seventeen years. One of my first objects, on
arriving in England, on retiring from the service, has been to find out
those old friends, dwelling in this country, who, in my early years,
were kind and generous in their conduct to me. Among those I can so
class, was a gentleman of the name of Wilton, who dwelt at Harleydale
Manor, Devon. A chance glance at that young lady’s exquisite face
awakened memories long since slumbering, and the accidental mention of
your name, in connection with it, led me to seek you to ask whether you
are Eustace Wilton, of Harleydale Manor?”
Old Wilton’s lip quivered; he drew himself up erect, and said--
“I am that man!”
The officer rose to his feet, and grasped his hand, shaking it with
great apparent warmth.
“Time has wrought great changes in us both,” he said. “I am Colonel
Mires of the Bengal army--that same Ensign Mires whom you defended at a
moment when honour, reputation, family, life itself were at stake.”
Old Wilton started as the name fell upon his ears; he raised his eyes
to the face of the officer, and appeared to scan every lineament. Then,
uttering an exclamation of wonder, he released his hand from the grip of
the colonel, and sank into his seat with an air of stupefaction.