"THE RAVEN FOR A GUIDE."
What thou wouldst highly
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win.
_Macbeth._
Till life is coming back, our death we do not feel,
Light must be entering in, our darkness to reveal.
ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.
As the autumn wove on, both the dog and his master began to show
traces of the life they were living. Poor Waif pined for the
country. He had always been his master's companion in his long rides
and walks, and town life was of course a great and very undesirable
change for him. Donovan, too, lost his strength considerably. It
was an unhealthy life he was leading, full of the worst kind of
excitement; at times idle and unoccupied, at times full of fatigue.
Naturally, too, his state of mind told on his physical strength. The
year beginning with the terrible strain of little Dot's death, had
brought him overwhelming grief; the long spring months had been spent
in a fierce inward struggle, a vain search for peace; then had
followed his quarrel with Ellis and his expulsion from Oakdene, and
ever since that he had been in the poisoned atmosphere of the society
into which Noir Frewin had led him. No wonder that as the winter
advanced he began to fail; even the Frewins, who were not more
observant of such trivial matters than selfish people usually are,
noticed at last that something was wrong.
"There's no getting a rise out of the boy now," observed Rouge, one
December afternoon. "I don't know what's come to him, unless, as I
expect, it's this absurd fad he's taken into his head about
water-drinking. I told him it was enough to kill a fellow to give it
up all at once like that. I should have died that very week, if I'd
kept my agreement."
Noir gave a contemptuous sneer.
"No fear of your dying in that way, at any rate. I wonder Donovan
was ever such a fool as to think you'd give it up. He is an odd
fish. There's no making him out."
Rouge glanced at the subject of all this talk, who was lying asleep
on the sofa, and then for the first time he noticed how worn and thin
he was. All the boyishness had gone from his face now.
"I say, Noir, he looks to me uncommonly queer," said the old captain.
"I've seen one or two fellows look like that before now. There was
one, I remember, on the _Metora_."
"Pooh! I daresay many of them looked badly enough before they'd
found their sea-legs," said Noir, coolly.
"Well, the fellow I mean died," said the captain, impressively. "And
I must say milord does look to me awfully out of health."
"Oh! nonsense. He's only seedy--a cold, or something of that sort.
We got drenched the other night coming from Legge's place. It's time
we were starting. Just wake him up."
Rouge complied, and Donovan started up at once, and looked sleepily
at his watch.
"Time to go? Oh! I'd forgotten. It's this Brighton scheme."
He looked wretchedly ill and tired, not at all fit to turn out of the
warm room into the cold drizzle of the December twilight, but he was
not one to shirk an engagement for the sake of mere bodily
disinclination, and there was no one to tell him what madness it was
to trifle with such a severe chill as he had taken. He drew on his
great-coat, and without a word stood waiting for Noir, who was
sorting his cards on a side-table.
"Take my advice," said Rouge, paternally, "and have something just to
hearten you up before you go. With such a cold you want something to
warm the cockles of your heart."
For the moment Donovan was strongly tempted. He did feel very much
in need of some such comfort, but his hesitation was but momentary.
He knew that his only hope of influencing the old captain lay in the
steadiest adherence to his plan of abstinence. The three months of
the agreement were over, but, though Rouge had long ago broken his
pledge, his companion's example had often kept him from excess, and
Donovan knew well enough that even for his own sake the safe-guard
was a very good thing.
"Oh! as to the cockles of one's heart," he said, laughing, "that's
all bosh; one only takes cold the easier, as any doctor would tell
you. Present loss, future gain, is our motto to-day; ought to bag a
good many head of game to make up for turning out in this wet mist.
Good-bye, captain; look after Waif."
And then Noir and his young accomplice set out on their expedition.
As they passed the window of the print-shop, Donovan involuntarily
paused.
"Why, there's your very double," he said, laughing; and, in spite of
the rain, Noir stopped to see what he meant.
It was an old print of Brunei the engineer. The curious forehead and
eyebrows, and the general cast of countenance, certainly bore a
strong resemblance to Noir, though the expression was very different.
Underneath, in copper-plate, was written the couplet--
"Whose public works will best attest his fame,
Whilst private worth adds value to his name."
It was rather a curious contrast to Noir Frewin's life, and the words
stung him.
"Well, well!" he said, with his bitter laugh, "my 'public works' are
not of the first water, perhaps; you needn't give me that epitaph."
The Brighton expedition proved a great success. Noir and Donovan
returned in two or three days' time well content. They had chosen an
evening train to come back by. Noir went on as usual to select a
favourable carriage; Donovan followed him more leisurely, for it
answered their purpose best not to appear to be companions.
Donovan's part was usually that of a decoy, a well-to-do,
gentlemanly-looking fellow who consented to play, and thus induced
others to try their hand. Noir had this evening chosen a most
auspicious-looking carriage full of young men returning to town, for
it was the week after Christmas, and, the brief holiday being over,
many had chosen this late train to take them back to the busy London
life again. Scarcely had they left the station, however, when Noir's
countenance suddenly fell; two or three of the passengers were
commenting on a placard which, printed in large letters, was put up
on the side of the carriage. He was vexed and disconcerted, for it
effectually put an end to his schemes for the journey. With a slight
warning pressure on his companion's foot, he drew his attention to
the placard which was above his head. Not in the least knowing what
to expect, Donovan took off his hat and put it in the netting, thus
getting an opportunity of turning round, and there, staring at him in
large type, were words which he never forgot, words which seemed to
burn themselves in upon his brain at the very first reading.
"Caution. Passengers are earnestly recommended to beware of
pickpockets and card-sharpers dressed as gentlemen," £c, &c. He
could read no further; he fell back into his place like one stunned,
then the hot colour rushed to his cheeks, mounted higher and higher
till his whole face seemed to burn and tingle. Had he actually come
to this? Was he, Donovan Farrant, a cheat against whom the public
must be warned, classed with pickpockets? He, his father's only son,
had sunk so low then, that this description would apply to him--a
"card-sharper dressed as a gentleman!" That moment's sharp
realisation was terrible. Noir, anxious to veil his sudden
confusion, held out a newspaper to him; but he only shook his head,
and the elder man, who was merely annoyed by the occurrence, began to
feel alarmed at the strange effect the caution had had on his
accomplice. Such misery, such shame, were written on his face that
Noir began to fear he should lose his able assistance.
They got out at London Bridge, and he linked his arm within Donovan's
with an anxious attempt at raillery.
"Why, milord, what made you play such a false card just now,
colouring up like a girl at a mere piece of paper? I gave you credit
for more self-control."
Donovan bit his lip; the last words vexed him, and changed the
current of his thoughts, for he rather prided himself on his powers
of self-control, which were indeed considerable.
"It startled me," he confessed, after a brief silence. Then again,
with a slight hesitation, "Noir, do you consider yourself a
card-sharper?"
The question was asked with a kind of innocence which made Noir
shudder; he forced up a mocking laugh, however.
"Ask a thief if he considers himself a thief, and he will tell you
'no,' but a professional adept, with a gift for acquiring other
people's property."
Donovan winced.
"If that's the definition of a thief, you and I belong pretty much to
the same class."
Noir wrenched away his arm.
"And what do I care if we do?" he cried, angrily; "I don't know what
makes you so cantankerous to-night. Have you forgotten your
favourite maxim, that the world is a mass of injustice, and that a
little more or less evil makes no difference? You stand by that, and
I'll undertake to stand by you, for the world is unjust, and I
delight in cheating it when I've the opportunity. If you're going to
turn moral, milord, we'll dissolve partnership at once, and you can
go back to those fine friends you know, who were so ready to help you
before you came to us."
Donovan did not reply to this taunt, he only shivered and drew his
comforter over his mouth. He felt worn out and giddy, his steps
began to falter, and Noir, who in his strange rough fashion loved
him, forgot his anger, and taking his arm again, half dragged him
home.
"The fact is, you're seedy and down in the mouth, Donovan," he said,
as they reached their rooms, "you'll see things very differently
to-morrow."
Donovan did not answer, he stumbled up the dark staircase after Noir,
and followed him into the parlour. There, with the gas flaring, a
huge fire blazing up the chimney, and supper waiting on the table,
was the old captain; his hearty welcome was generally pleasant
enough, but this evening Donovan felt he could not stand it. He was
half perished with cold and involuntarily made for the fire, but it
was only for a minute, the warm comfortable room was not in keeping
with his doubt and misery.
"Double, double,
Toil and trouble,"
sang Sweepstakes, following the tall dark figure with his shrewd eye,
"Double--double--dou-ble----dou--ble."
"First-rate luck all three days," Noir was saying. "To-night our
little game was stopped, and milord's down in the depths. Here,
Donovan, come to supper, we didn't get much of a feed at Brighton."
But Donovan shook his head.
"Good night, captain," he said, and, disregarding Rouge's
remonstrances, left the room. He opened his own door, and Waif, with
whines of delight, sprang to greet him.
"Waif--poor old fellow!" he exclaimed, stooping for a minute over the
dog, but hastily raising himself again. "No, no, down, get down, I
say, I'm not fit to touch you."
Poor Waif was utterly bewildered, his master had never spoken to him
in that way before, something must be wrong, very much wrong. It was
dark, but the faintest glimmer of light from the uncurtained window
served to show him that his master had thrown himself on the ground,
it was a sure sign that he was in trouble, Waif knew that perfectly
well, and did not just at first dare to interrupt him; he walked
disconsolately round and round him, stopping. every minute or two to
sniff at him, listen, whine in a subdued way.
Donovan was beyond dog help just then, in the depth of his
self-abasement he could not sink low enough, in his abject
self-loathing to be touched by a being whom he loved would have been
unbearable. He had known well enough that he was doing wrong before.
Something of his blackness had been borne in upon him when Gladys
Tremain had spoken those words in the Park, but now it was all before
him, in hideous array, the very vision of sin itself. How could he
have delighted in anything so ghastly? it was not even a great
revenge he had taken on the unjust world, but the pettiest, meanest,
most despicable revenge. What had he not fallen to in these months?
why, these hands of his--the hands that had waited on Dot--had
stooped to pick up paltry half-crowns won by cheating foolish
wretches in a railway-carriage. And then came the remembrance of his
father. "You are hardly in a position, Dono, to speak of breaches of
honour." Not even then! oh! what would his father have said to him
now! Yet little as he had known of him, that little was enough to
tell him that his father would always think more of the future than
of the past. There was a future for him even now, he must no longer
wage war upon the unjust world, he must--he _would_ alter his way of
living if only for the sake of redeeming his father's name. But for
the first time in his life he felt a want in himself, that agony of
remorse, despair, utter self-abhorrence had done its work, he was no
longer blindly confident in his own strength.
Presently from sheer exhaustion he fell asleep. Waif was happier
when he heard the deep regular breaths; a strange process of thinking
began in the dog mind. He went back to his woolly rug and lay down,
but in a minute jumped up again, ran to his master, licked his hand,
and then returned to his rug. Still he could not settle himself to
sleep, a second and a third time he got up, making an uneasy circuit
round the prostrate figure on the ground. At last, as if unable to
lie on his rug while Donovan was on the floor, he curled himself up
at his feet, and there slept peacefully.
In the adjoining room Noir, having made a hearty meal, drew up his
chair to the fire and lighted his evening pipe. The old captain was
evidently uneasy. Noir was uneasy, too, in reality, but he kept it
to himself.
"He's a very queer customer that lad," said Rouge, meditatively.
"You think it really is this piece of paper which frightened him?"
"Yes, he's young," said Noir, in an excusing tone. "It gave him a
turn, I daresay it will soon pass off. If not we must get a little
change somehow. It wouldn't be a bad plan to go abroad for a month
or two, plenty to be done there, and he'd be sure to like it. After
all, of course we do run some risk here; a month or two of absence
wouldn't be a bad notion."
"'He who prigs what isn't his'n,'" quoted Rouge. "Well, don't carry
it too far, and don't drive the boy away, whatever you do."
"No, no, I'd sacrifice a good deal to keep him," said Noir, "but he's
thoroughly upset to-night about it."
Presently the old captain lighted his candle and went up to bed, but
Noir sat on long after his pipe was finished, long after the fire had
sunk down in the grate to a handful of dying embers; he was thinking,
brooding painfully over the comparative innocence of his boy
accomplice, and his own villainy. How despairing and wild the fellow
had looked, too, as he left the room; he quite started when the door
opened, and Rouge, with his nightcap on, appeared again upon the
scene.
"I say, Noir, I don't feel happy about that boy. It was very strange
of him to go off like that with no supper."
"Pooh!" said Noir, contemptuously, though his father was speaking his
own thoughts. "He's ashamed of himself and vexed about that caution."
"Yes; but to go off ill as he is, cold and supperless. If he was a
Catholic he might do it as penance, but he's nothing, you know."
It did not strike them that in very deep inward trouble it is at
times impossible to enjoy or permit bodily ease; indeed, if the poor
old captain had been guilty of the most heinous crime, he would
probably have eaten his supper after its committal, and found a
solace in the eating to his pangs of remorse. He could not
understand anything which went deeper than this, and his good heart
had been stirred with pity as he lay down warmed and satisfied in his
comfortable feather-bed.
Noir's thoughts went at once to darker suspicious; he had seen
something of that same despairing look on Donovan's face when, on
that bright June afternoon, he had watched him unknown on Westminster
Bridge. He had read his intentions then, was it possible that misery
and shame had driven him again to the same longing?
"We'll just give him a look on our way up," he said, carelessly. And
then he turned the door-handle noiselessly, and with well-disguised
anxiety stole in; the room was very quiet, the bed empty. Noir's
heart stood still, and, with an exclamation of dismay, he hurried to
the dark form which was stretched out on the floor.
"Bring the candle quick," he said to his father, and Rouge, trembling
with fear, held the light nearer, while Waif growled a little at the
unusual disturbance.
Noir bent down for a moment close to the half-hidden face, then he
started up again with an expression of relief, which came rather
oddly from his lips--
"Thank God!"
"Well, it did give me a turn," said the old captain, stooping to pat
the dog.
"Hush!" said Noir, "you'll wake him."
And then for a minute the shabby little room witnessed a strange
scene. Donovan stirred uneasily, half turned round, but sank again
into profound sleep, and the two Frewins bent over him, why, they
could scarcely have said, but in their relief it seemed almost a
necessity. They watched the face of the sleeper--flushed as if even
now the shame were making itself felt--the sad face which seemed all
the more despairing because of its stillness, the fixedness of its
misery. And Noir's heart smote him, his conscience cried out loudly,
"You have brought him to this, you have dragged this boy down into
shame and dishonesty."
Rouge thought only of the discomforts of a night on the floor.
"Wake him up," he urged. "It's frightfully cold, he oughtn't to be
there."
But Noir would not wake him, he knew that it would be cruel to bring
him back to his anguish of remorse. Rouge could never understand
anything higher than bodily comfort, it was what he lived for; his
son, though a far worse man, had nevertheless a capability of
entering into greater things, he had himself sinned and suffered, and
though it was years since he had known real remorse, he had once
known it, and to a certain extent he understood Donovan's feelings.
"Better leave him," he said; but, with the words upon his lips, he
nevertheless turned to the bed, and, dragging off a railway-rug which
covered it, threw it over the prostrate form on the floor. Strangely
indeed in life do the lights and shades intermix, faint flickering of
the light divine stealing in, in spite of the vast black shades of
sin.
The next day--the last of the year--was a dreary one in the Frewins'
rooms. Noir kept out of the way, not caring to face his accomplice;
old Rouge, in great depression, dusted his curiosities as usual, and
put things tidy and ship-shape; and Donovan sat coughing and
shivering over the fire, with an expression of such despondency,
often of such terrible suffering, that the old captain scarcely dared
to speak to him. The sharpness of his remorse had for the time died
away, it was swallowed up in the misery of his recollections, for
this was the anniversary of Dot's last day of life, and remembrances
strange, tender, pitiful, but always full of pain, thronged up in his
mind. Brooding over it all, his brain excited with the events of the
past night, his body worn out with pain, it was no wonder that the
overtaxed nature at last gave way.
His mood seemed to change; Rouge, who had not been able to extract a
word from him all day, was astounded as the evening drew on to find
him suddenly in the wildest spirits.
"Come," he said, "we'll go to Olliver's; it's time we had dinner.
Come along, captain."
And poor old Rouge found himself dragged off, in spite of his
remonstrances.
"You'd better not go out, milord; you're really not fit."
"Not fit!" said Donovan, with a mad laugh, cut short by a cough.
"I'm fit for anything. Come along, old fellow; we'll drown care,
stifle it, kill it, what you like!"
Rouge, really frightened, panted along after his crazy companion,
with difficulty keeping pace with his fevered steps; and then ensued
an evening of mad merriment. A year ago, only a year ago, and
Donovan had been watching Dot's last agony; with the strong manly
tenderness of great love he had held the little quivering hands in
his, now in a crowded billiard-room he grasped the cue instead, and
betted wildly, losing, winning, winning again considerably, then with
the Frewins, and Legge, and two or three other companions returning
to Drury Lane and gambling the old year out and the new year in.
"I back the winner, I back the winner!" screamed Sweepstakes from his
cage.
And above the sounds of dispute, and merriment, and eager play, the
clock of St. Mary's Church struck twelve, and in the distance Big
Ben's deep notes echoed over the city, and, just because an agony of
remembrance rushed back into Donovan's mind, he staked higher and
higher. The room rang with his wild laughter.
Noir broke up the gathering much earlier than usual, and with flushed
cheeks and wild glittering eyes Donovan staggered to his feet; but he
could hardly stand, his head seemed weighted, his limbs powerless.
"I've done for myself now," he said, catching at Noir to keep himself
up. Noir did not answer; with his father's assistance he helped him
into the next room, and with some pangs of conscience kept guard over
him through the night of mad excitement and misery which followed.
The next morning the bright new year broke over the great city, there
were _fêtes_, and rejoicings, and merry family parties, but in the
lodging-house in Drury Lane all was silent, even at night no
gamblers' wild revelry broke the stillness, for Donovan was
prostrated by an attack of congestion of the lungs in its acutest
form.