burial-place. I assured him that it should strictly be complied
with. A smile lighted up his pale countenance for an instant, as I
pledged myself to this. He then drew from under his pillow a parcel
of letters, tied together with a faded ribbon, and desired me to
consign them one by one to the flames. With an eager eye, and a
countenance full of excitement, did he watch them as they consumed
away. I did not dare to examine minutely the address on the letters,
but, from the glance I had of them, I could see they were all written
in an elegant female hand. When all were gone--"And this," said he,
"is like to human life--a blaze but for an instant, and then all is
ashes." He paused, and then continued, as he held a small packet in
his hand, more in soliloquy than if he were addressing me--"Here is
the last sad relic I possess--shall I?--Yes! yes! it shall go as the
others have gone. How soon may I follow it?" He stretched forth his
hand towards me. I took the packet. Instantly, as if the last tie
which bound him to the earth had been hastily snapped asunder, the
captain fell backwards upon his couch. I thrust the packet into my
bosom, and ran to afford him assistance. He was beyond human
help--he was dead!
The grief of Mary knew no bounds when the dismal tidings were
conveyed to her; she was like one distracted. Mine was more
chastened and subdued.
The remains of the captain were duly consigned to that spot of earth
he had pointed out to me. After his death, there was found a
conveyance of all his property, which was pretty considerable, to
Mary, accompanied with a wish that I would marry her. To this
arrangement Mary was quite agreeable; and, accordingly, our nuptials
were solemnised in about six months after the death of the captain.
It was then that Mary confided to me that she was the sister of Clara
Douglas; but when I made inquiry at her concerning the nature of her
attachment to the captain, she always avoided answering, and seemed
not to wish that his name should be mentioned in her hearing.
Several years passed, and I had forgotten all about the packet which
the captain on his death-bed had placed in my hand, till one day, in
looking for something else, which, of course, I could not find--(no
one ever finds what he wants)--I accidentally stumbled upon the
packet. Curiosity induced me to open it. A lock of black hair, tied
with a piece of light-blue ribbon, and a letter, were its contents.
Part of the letter ran thus:--"Enclosed is some of my hair--I don't
expect you to keep it, for I have heard you say you did not like to
have any such thing in your possession. I will not _ask_ you, lest I
might be refused; but if you give me some, I'll get it put into one
of my rings, and shall never, never part with it." This letter bore
the signature of Clara Douglas!
Here, then, was a solution of all the mystery. The captain was the
lover of Clara, and this had been the cause of Mary's intimacy with
him.
Of the fate of the brother I afterwards heard. He was killed in a
street brawl one night in Paris, and Mary never knew that he was the
assassin of the captain.
BON GUALTIER'S TALES.
BY THEODORE MARTIN.
COUNTRY QUARTERS.
A pleasanter little town than Potterwell does not exist in that part
of her Majesty's dominions called Scotland. On one side, the hand of
cultivation has covered a genial soil with richness and fertility.
The stately mansion, "bosomed high in tufted trees," occasionally
invites the eye, as it wanders over the landscape; while here and
there the river Wimpledown may be seen peeping out amid the luxuriant
verdure of wood and plain, and seeming to concentrate on itself all
the radiance of any little sunshine that may be going. On the other
side, again, are nothing but impracticable mountains--fine bluff old
fellows--that evidently have an extensive and invincible contempt for
Time, and, like other great ones of the earth, never carry any change
about them. Look beyond these, and the prospect is indeed a fine
one--a little monotonous, perhaps, but still a fine one--peak
receding behind peak in endless series, a multitudinous sea of
mountain tops, with noses as blue as a disappointed man's face, or
Miss Harriet Martineau's stockings.
With a situation presenting such allurements for the devotees of the
picturesque, is it wonderful that Potterwell became a favourite
resort? By the best of good fortune, too, a spring close by, of a
peculiarly nauseous character, had, a few years before the period we
write of, attracted attention by throwing into violent convulsions
sundry cows that had been so far left to themselves as to drink of
it, besides carrying off an occasional little boy or so, as a sort of
just retribution for so far suppressing his natural tastes as to
admit it within his lips. Dr Scammony, however, had taken the
mineral water under his patronage; and his celebrated pamphlet upon
the medicinal properties of the Potterwell Mephitic Assafœtida
Waters at once fixed their reputation, while it materially augmented
his own. A general subscription was projected, with a view to the
erection of a pump-room. The plan took amazingly; and, from being
left to work its way out, as best it might, through the diseased and
miserable weeds with which it was overgrown, the spring all at once
found itself established in a handsome apartment, fitted up with a
most benevolent attention to the wants of such persons as might
repair thither with the probable chance--however little they might be
conscious of the fact--of dying by a watery death.
It was a bright sparkling morning in August, and there was an
exhilarating freshness in the air, that caused the heart to leap up,
and make the spirit as unclouded as the blue sky overhead. The
pump-room was thronged, and every one congratulated his neighbour on
the beauty of the morning.
"At your post as usual, Stukely!" said a smartly dressed young man
stepping up to Mr Stukeley--a well-known frequenter of the wells
since their first celebrity--and shaking him warmly by the hand. "I
do believe you are retained as a check upon the pump woman, that you
keep such a strict look-out after her customers. How many doses has
she administered to-day? Come now, out with your notebook, and let
me see."
"Oh, my dear Frank, if you really want to know, I am the man for
you--Old Cotton of Dundee, four and a half and his daughter, took off
the balance of the six. What do you think I heard him whisper to
her?--'Hoot, lassie, tak it aff, it's a' paid for;' and she, poor
soul, was forced to gulp it down, that he might have the satisfaction
of knowing that full value had been given for his penny. Then there
was Runrig the farmer from Mid-Lothian, half-a-dozen. The man has a
frame of iron, and a cheek as fresh as new-mown hay; but somebody had
told him the water would do him good, and he has accordingly taken
enough to make him ill for a fortnight. Then there was Deacon
Dobie's rich widow--fat, fair, and forty--she got pretty well through
the seventh tumbler; but, it's a way with her, when she begins
drinking, not to know when to stop; which, by the way, may account
for her having been, for some time, as she elegantly expresses it,
'gey an nervish ways, whiles.' After her came"---- And Stukeley was
going on to enumerate the different visitors of the morning, checking
them off upon his fingers as he proceeded, when his friend, Frank
Preston, stopped him.
"For mercy's sake, have done; and tell me, if you can, who those two
fops of fellows are at the foot of the room? They only came a week
ago; and, though nobody knows who they are, they have made the
acquaintance of half the people here."
"I see nothing very odd in that. I know nothing of the men; but they
dress well, and are moderately good-looking, and have just sufficient
assurance to pass off upon the uninitiated for ease of manner and
fashionable breeding. A pair of parvenus, no doubt; but what is your
motive for asking so particularly about them?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing! Only I am to meet them at the Cheeshams
to-night, and I wished to know something of them."
"So, so! sets the wind in that quarter? A rival, Master Frank? It
is there the shoe pinches, is it?"
"A rival--nonsense! What should I care whether the puppies are
attentive to Emily Cheesham or not?"
"Why more to her than to her sister Fanny? I mentioned no names.
Ha! Master Frank, you see I have caught you. Come, come, tell me
what it is annoys you?"
"Well," stammered out Frank Preston,--"well, the fact is--the fact
is, one of them has been rather particular in his attentions to
Emily, and I am half-inclined to think she gives him encouragement."
"And, suppose she does, I see nothing in that but the harmless vanity
of a girl, pleased to have another dangler under her spell."
"That is all very well, but I don't like it a bit. It may be so, and
it may not. Her encouragement to him is very marked, and I don't
feel easy under it at all, I don't."
"Why, Frank, you must both have a very poor opinion of Miss Emily,
and be especially soft yourself, to give yourself any concern in the
matter. If you have deemed her worthy of your regards, and she has
given you warrant for thinking you have a claim upon them, and yet
she now throws you off to make way for this newer lover, your course
is a clear one. Turn from her at once, and fortify yourself with old
Wither's lines--
'If she be not made for me,
What care I for whom she be?'"
"Excellent philosophy, if one could but act upon it. But what annoys
me about the business is, that I am sure these fellows are a pair of
snobs, and are playing themselves off for something greater than they
are."
"Very possibly; but that is just a stronger reason for taking my
advice. If Miss Emily can be gratified with the attentions of such
persons, leave her to the full enjoyment of them. Don't make
yourself miserable for her folly."
"Oh, I don't make myself miserable at all, not in the least; only, I
should like to find out who the fellows are."
The young men of whom Preston and Stukeley had been speaking, and who
now lounged up the room, describing semicircles with their legs at
every step they took, were certainly never meant for the ordinary
tear and wear of the hard-working every-day world. Their dress had
too fine a gloss upon it for that, their hair much too gracefully
disposed. They were both rather below the middle size, both dark in
the complexion, but one of them much more so than the other. The
darker slip of humanity had cultivated the growth of his hair with
singular success. It fell away in masses from his forehead and
temples, and curled, like the rings of the young vine, over the
velvet collar that capped a coat of symmetrical proportions.
Circling round the cheeks and below the chin, it somewhat obtruded
upon the space which is generally occupied by the face, so that his
head might truly be said to be a mass of hair, slightly interspersed
with features. His friend, again, to avoid monotony, had varied the
style of his upper works, and his locks were allowed to droop in
long, lanky, melancholy tangles down his sallow cheeks; while,
perched upon either lip, might be seen a feathery looking object, not
to be accounted for, but on the supposition that it was intended to
seduce the public into a belief of its being a moustache. Both were
showily dressed. Both had stocks terminating in a cataract of satin
that emptied itself into tartan velvet waistcoats, worn probably in
honour of the country; both had gold chains innumerable, twisting in
a multiplicity of convolutions across these waistcoats; both had on
yellow kid gloves of unimpeachable purity, and both carried minute
canes of imitation ebony, with which, at intervals, they flogged, one
the right and the other the left leg, with the most painful ferocity.
They were a noble pair; alike, yet, oh, how different!
"Eugene, my boy," said the darker of the two, in a tone of voice loud
enough to let half the room hear the interesting communication, "we
must see what sort of stuff this here water is--we must, positively."
"Roost eggs, Adolph, whisked in bilge-water, with a rusty tenpenny
nail. Faugh! I'm smashed if I taste it."
"Not so bad that for you," returned Adolph, smiling faintly; "but you
must really pay your respects to the waters."
"'Pon my soul, I shawn't. I had enough of that so't of thing in
Jummany, the time I was ova with Ned Hoxham."
"That was the time, wasn't it, that you brought me over that choice
lot of cigaws?"
"I believe it was," responded Eugene, with the most impressive
indifference, as if he wished it to be understood that he had been so
often there that he could not recall the particulars of any one visit.
"I know something of Seidlitz and Seltzer myself," resumed the darker
Adonis, "and soda water too, by Jove! for that matter, and they're
not bad things either, when one's been making a night of it; so I'll
have a try at this Potterwell fluid, and see how it does for a
change."
In this manner the two friends proceeded, to the infinite
enlightenment of those about them, who, being greatly struck with
their easy and facetious manners, stood admiringly by with looks of
evident delight! The young men saw the impression they were making,
and, desirous of keeping it up, went on to ask the priestess of the
spring how often, and in what quantities, she found it necessary to
doctor it with Glauber salts, brimstone, and assafœtida. The joke
took immensely.
Such of the bystanders as could laugh--for the internal agitation
produced by the cathartic properties of their morning draught, made
that a somewhat difficult and dangerous experiment--did so; and
various young men, of no very definite character, but who seemed to
support the disguise of gentlemen with considerable pain to
themselves, sidled up, and endeavoured to strike into conversation
with our Nisus and Euryalus, thinking to share by contact the glory
which they had won. All they got for their pains, however, was a
stare of cool indifference. The friends were as great adepts in the
art and mystery of _cutting_, as the most fashionable tailor could
be; and, after volunteering a few ineffectual efforts at
sprightliness, these awkward aspirants to fame were forced to fall
back, abashed and crestfallen, into the natural insignificance of
their character.
These proceedings did not pass unnoticed by Preston and his elderly
friend, who made their own observations upon them, but were prevented
from saying anything on the subject to each other by the entrance of
a party, which diverted their attention in a different direction.
These were no other than Mrs Cheesham and her two accomplished
daughters, Miss Emily and Miss Fanny Cheesham. Mrs Cheesham's
personal appearance may be passed over very briefly; as no one, so
far as is known, ever cared about it but herself. She was vain,
vulgar, and affected; fond of finery and display; and the one
dominant passion of her life was to insinuate herself and her family
into fashionable society, and secure a brilliant match for her
daughters. They, again, were a pair of attractive, showy girls;
Emily flippant, sparkling, lively; Fanny demure, reserved, and cold.
Emily's eyes were dark and lustrous--you saw the best of them at
once; and her look, alert and wicked. These corresponded well with a
well-rounded figure, a rosy complexion, and full pouting lips, that
were "ruddier than the cherry." Fanny was tall and "stately in her
going;" pale, but without that look of sickliness which generally
accompanies such a complexion; and her eyes, beautiful as they were
when brought into play, were generally shrouded by the drooping of
her eyelids, like those of one who is accustomed to be frequently
self-inwrapt. With Emily you might sport in jest and raillery by the
hour; but with Fanny you always felt, as it were, bound to be upon
your best behaviour. They passed up the room, distributing nods of
recognition, and occasionally stopping to allow Mrs Cheesham to give
her invitations to a _soirée musicale_ which she intended to get up
that evening.
"Your servant, ladies," said old Stukeley, raising his hat, while his
friend followed his example. "You are late. I was afraid we were
not to have the pleasure of seeing you this morning. Pray, Miss
Emily, what new novel or poem was it that kept you awake so late last
night that you have lost half this glorious morning? Tell me the
author's name, that I may punish the delinquent, by cutting up his
book, in the next number of our Review?"
"Cut it up, and you will do more than I could; for I found myself
nodding over the second page, and I feel the drowsiness about me
still."
"The opiate--the opiate, Miss Emily? Who was its compounder? He
must be a charmer indeed."
"Himself and his printer knows. Only some unhappy bard, who dubs us
women 'the angels of life,' and misuses us vilely through a dozen
cantos of halting verse. The poor man has forgot the story
'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,
or he would have christened us daughters of Eve by a very different
name."
"O you little rogue! you are too hard upon this devotee to your dear
deluding sex. It is only his excess of politeness that has made him
forget his historical reading."
"His politeness! Fiddlestick! I would as soon have a troop of boys
inflict the intolerable tediousness of their calf-love upon me as
endure the rhapsodies of a booby, who strips us of our good flesh and
blood, frailties and all, to etherealize us into an incomprehensible
compound of tears, sighs, moonshine, music, love, flowers, and
hysterics."
"Emily, how you run on!" broke in Mrs Cheesham. "My dear Mr
Stukeley, really you must not encourage the girl in her nonsense. I
declare I sometimes think her tongue runs away with her wits."
"Better that, I'm sure, madam, than have it run away without them,"
responded Stukeley, in a deprecating tone, which threw Mrs Cheesham,
whose intellect was none of the acutest, completely out.
"Girls, there are Mr Blowze and Mr Lilylipz," said Mrs Cheesham,
looking in the direction of the friends, Adolph and Eugene; "you had
better arrange with them about coming this evening."
Emily advanced with her sister to the engaging pair, who received
them with that peculiar contortion of the body, between a jerk and a
shuffle, which young men are in the habit of mistaking for a bow, and
was soon deep in the heart of a flirtation with Adolph, while Fanny
stood listening to the vapid nothings of Eugene, a very model of
passive endurance. Frank Preston was anything but an easy spectator
of this movement; nor was Emily blind to this; but, like a wilful
woman, she could not forbear playing the petty tyrant, and exercising
freely the power to torment which she saw that she possessed.
"You will be of our party to-night, gentlemen," continued Mrs
Cheesham. "We are to have a little music. You are fond of music, Mr
Stukeley, I know; and no pressing can be necessary to an ama_toor_
like you, Mr Francis. I can assure you, you'll meet some very nice
people. Mr and Mrs M'Skrattachan, highly respectable people--an old
Highland family, and with very high connections. Mr M'Skrattachan's
mother's sister's aunt--no, his aunt's mother's sister--yes, that was
it--Mr M'Skrattachan's aunt's mother's sister; and yet I don't
know--I dare say I was right before--at all events, it was one or
other of them--married a second cousin--something of that kind--of
the Duke of Argyle, by the mother's side They had a large estate in
Skye a Ross-shire--I am not sure which, but it was somewhere
thereabout."
Stukeley and Preston were glad to cover their retreat by acceptance
of Mrs Cheesham's invitation; and, leaving her to empty the dregs of
the details which she had begun into the willing ears of some of her
more submissive friends, they made their escape from the pump-room.
Slopbole Cottage, where the Cheeshams were domiciliated during their
sojourn at Potterwell, was situated upon the banks of the Wimpledown,
at a distance of somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the
burgh. It had, at one time, been a farm-house; but, within a few
years, it had been recast; and, by the addition of a bow window, a
trellised door, and a few of the usual _et ceteras_, it had been
converted into what is by courtesy termed a cottage ornée. It was an
agreeable place for all that, shaded by the remnants of a fine old
wood--the rustling of whose foliage made pleasant music, as it
blended with the ever-sounding plash and rushing of the stream.
When Frank Preston arrived at Slopbole Cottage that evening, he found
the drawing-room already well stocked with the usual components of a
tea-party. The two exquisites of the morning he saw, to his dismay,
were already there. Adolph was assiduously sacrificing to the charms
and wit of Miss Emily, while his shadow, Eugene, was--but Preston did
not care about that--as much engaged in Macadamising his great
conceptions into small talk suitable for the intellectual capacity of
Miss Fanny. Mrs Cheesham regarded these proceedings with entire
satisfaction. The friends, to her mind, were men of birth, fashion,
and fortune, and the very men for her daughters. Besides, there was
a mystery about them that was charming. Nobody knew exactly who they
were, although everybody was sure they were somebody. None but great
people ever travel incog. They were evidently struck by her
daughters. Things were in a fair train; and, if she could but make a
match of it, Mrs Cheesham thought she might then fold her hands
across, and make herself easy for life. Her daughters would be the
wives of great men, and she was their mother, and every one knows
what an important personage a wife's mother is.
"Two very fine young men, Mr Francis," said Mrs Cheesham. "Extremely
intelligent people. And so good looking! Quite _distingue_, too.
It is not every day one meets such people."
Frank Preston threw in the necessary quantity of "yes's,"
"certainly's," and so forth, while Mrs Cheesham continued--
"They seem rather taken with my girls, don't they? Mr Blowze is
never away from Emily's side. His attentions are quite marked.
Don't you think, now, they'd make a nice pair? They're both so
lively--always saying such clever things. I never knew Emily so
smart either; but that girl's all animation--all spirit. I always
said Emily would never do but for a rattle of a husband--a man that
could talk as much as herself. It does not do, you know, really it
does not do, for the wife to have too much of the talk to herself. I
make that a principle; and, as I often tell Cheesham, I let him have
it all his own way, rather than argue a point with him."
This was, of course, an exceedingly agreeable strain of conversation
to the lover, to whom it was no small relief, when Mrs Cheesham
quitted his side to single out her musical friends for the
performance of a quartette. At her summons, these parties were seen
to emerge from the various recesses where they had been concealing
themselves, in all the majesty of silence, as is the way with musical
amateurs in general. Miss Fanny, who was really an accomplished
performer, was called to preside at the pianoforte, and Mr Lilylipz
rushed before to adjust the music-stool and turn over the leaves for
her. Mr Blewitt got out his flute, and, after screwing it together,
commenced a series of blasts upon it, which were considered necessary
to the process of tuning. Mr Harrower, the violoncello player,
turned up the wristbands of his coat, placed his handkerchief on his
left knee, and, after a preliminary flourish or two of his hands,
began to grind his violoncello into a proper sharpness of pitch. Not
to be behind the rest, Mr Fogle screwed his violin strings first up,
and then he screwed them down, and then he proceeded to screw them up
again, with a waywardness of purpose that might have been extremely
diverting, if its effects had not been so very distressing to the
ears. Having thus begot a due degree of attention in their audience,
the performers thought of trying how the results of their respective
preparations tallied.
"Miss Fanny, will you be kind enough to sound your A?" lisped Mr
Blewitt.