All Darrell’s soul was now up in arms. What, then! this infamous wretch

was the author of the tale by which the woman he had loved, as woman

never was loved before, had excused her breach of faith, and been

lost to him forever? And he learned this, while yet fresh from her

presence--fresh from the agonising conviction that his heart loved

still, but could not pardon. With a spring so sudden that it took Losely

utterly by surprise, he leaped on the bravo, swung aside that huge bulk

which Jasper had boasted four draymen could not stir against its will,

cleared his way; and turning back before Losely had recovered his amaze,

cried out: “Execrable villain! I revoke every offer to aid a life

that has existed but to darken and desolate those it was permitted to

approach. Starve or rob! perish miserably! And if I pour not on your

head my parting curse, it is only because I know that man has no right

to curse; and casting you back on your own evil self is the sole revenge

which my belief in Heaven permits me.”

Thus saying, Darrell strode on-swiftly, but not as one who flies. Jasper

made three long bounds, and was almost at his side, when he was startled

by the explosion of a gun. A pheasant fell dead on the road, and

Darrell’s gamekeeper, gun in hand, came through a gap in the hedge

opposite the park-pales, and, seeing his master close before him,

approached to apologise for the suddenness of the shot.

Whatever Losely’s intention in hastening after Darrell, he had no option

now but to relinquish it, and drop back. The village itself was not many

hundred yards distant; and, after all, what good in violence, except the

gratified rage of the moment? Violence would not give to Jasper Losely

the income that had just been within his grasp, and had so unexpectedly

eluded it. He remained, therefore, in the lane, standing still, and

seeing Darrell turn quietly into his park through another gate close to

the Manor-house. The gamekeeper, meanwhile, picked up his bird, reloaded

his gun, and eyed Jasper suspiciously askant. The baffled gladiator at

length turned and walked slowly back to the town he had left. It

was late in the afternoon when he once more gained his corner in the

coffee-room of his commercial inn; and, to his annoyance, the room was

crowded--it was market-day. Farmers, their business over, came in and

out in quick succession; those who did not dine at the ordinaries

taking their hasty snack, or stirrup-cup, while their horses were being

saddled; others to look at the newspaper, or exchange a word on the

state of markets and the nation. Jasper, wearied and sullen, had to

wait for the refreshments he ordered, and meanwhile fell into a sort of

half-doze, as was not now unusual in him in the intervals between food

and mischief. From this creeping torpor he was suddenly roused by the

sound of Darrell’s name. Three farmers standing close beside him, their

backs to the fire, were tenants to Darrell--two of them on the lands

that Darrell had purchased in the years of his territorial ambition; the

third resided in the hamlet of Fawley, and rented the larger portion of

the comparatively barren acres to which the old patrimonial estate was

circumscribed. These farmers were talking of their Squire’s return to

the county--of his sequestered mode of life--of his peculiar habits--of

the great unfinished house which was left to rot. The Fawley tenant then

said that it might not, be left to rot after all, and that the village

workmen had been lately employed, and still were, in getting some of the

rooms into rough order; and then he spoke of the long gallery in which

the Squire had been arranging his fine pictures, and how he had run up

a passage between that gallery and his own room, and how he would

spend hours at day, and night too, in that awful long room as lone as a

churchyard; and that Mr. Mills had said that his master now lived almost

entirely either in that gallery or in the room in the roof of the old

house--quite cut off, as you might say, except from the eyes of those

dead pictures, or the rats, which had grown so excited at having their

quarters in the new building invaded, that if you peeped in at the

windows in moonlit nights you might see them in dozens, sitting on their

haunches, as if holding council, or peering at the curious old things

which lay beside the crates out of which they had been taken. Then the

rustic gossips went on to talk of the rent-day which was at hand--of the

audit feast, which, according to immemorial custom, was given at the

old Manor-house on that same rent-day--supposed that Mr. Fairthorn would

preside--that the Squire himself would not appear--made some incidental

observations on their respective rents and wheat-crops-remarked that

they should have a good moonlight for their ride back from the audit

feast--cautioned each other, laughing, not to drink too much of Mr.

Fairthorn’s punch--and finally went their way, leaving on the mind of

Jasper Losely--who, leaning his scheming head on his powerful hand, had

appeared in dull sleep all the while--these two facts: 1st, That on

the third day from that which was then declining, sums amounting to

thousands would find their way into Fawley Manor-house; and, 2ndly, That

a communication existed between the unfinished, uninhabited building,

and Darrell’s own solitary chamber. As soon as he had fortified himself

by food and drink, Jasper rose, paid for his refreshments and walked

forth. Noiseless and rapid, skirting the hedgerows by the lane that led

to Fawley, and scarcely distinguishable under their shadow, the human

wild-beast strided on in scent of its quarry. It was night when Jasper

once more reached the moss-grown pales round the demesnes of the old

Manor-house. In a few minutes he was standing under the black shadow

of the buttresses to the unfinished pile. His object was not, then,

to assault, but to reconnoitre. He prowled round the irregular

walls, guided in his survey, now and then, faintly by the

stars--more constantly and clearly by the lights from the contiguous

Manor-house--especially the light from that high chamber in the gable,

close by which ran the thin framework of wood which linked the two

buildings of stone, just as any frail scheme links together the Past

which man has not enjoyed, with the Future he will not complete. Jasper

came to a large bay unglazed window, its sill but a few feet from the

ground, from which the boards, nailed across the mullions, had been

removed by the workmen whom Darrell had employed on the interior,

and were replaced but by a loose tarpaulin. Pulling aside this slight

obstacle, Jasper had no difficulty in entering through the wide mullions

into the dreary edifice. Finding himself in profound darkness, he had

recourse to a lucifer-box which he had about him, and the waste of a

dozen matches sufficed him to examine the ground. He was in a space

intended by the architect for the principal staircase; a tall ladder,

used by the recent workmen, was still left standing against the wall,

the top of it resting on a landing-place opposite a doorway, that, from

the richness of its half-finished architrave, obviously led to what

had been designed for the state apartments; between the pediments was

a slight temporary door of rough deal planks. Satisfied with his

reconnoitre, Losely quitted the skeleton pile, and retraced his steps

to the inn he had left. His musings by the way suggested to him the

expediency, nay, the necessity, of an accomplice. Implements might

be needed--disguises would be required--swift horses for flight to be

hired--and, should the robbery succeed, the bulk of the spoil would be

no doubt in bank-notes, which it would need some other hand than his own

to dispose of, either at the bank next morning at the earliest hour,

or by transmission abroad. For help in all this Jasper knew no one to

compare to Cutts; nor did he suspect his old ally of any share in the

conspiracy against him, of which he had been warned by Mrs. Crane.

Resolving, therefore, to admit that long-tried friend into his

confidence, and a share of the spoils, he quickened his pace, arrived at

the railway-station in time for a late train to London, and, disdainful

of the dangers by which he was threatened in return to any of the haunts

of his late associates, gained the dark court wherein he had effected a

lodgment on the night of his return to London, and roused Cutts from his

slumbers with tales of an enterprise so promising, that the small man

began to recover his ancient admiration for the genius to which he had

bowed at Paris, but which had fallen into his contempt in London.

Mr. Cutts held a very peculiar position in that section of the great

world to which he belonged. He possessed the advantage of an education

superior to that of the generality of his companions, having been

originally a clerk to an Old Bailey attorney, and having since

that early day accomplished his natural shrewdness by a variety of

speculative enterprises both at home and abroad. In these adventures he

had not only contrived to make money, but, what is very rare with the

foes of law, to save it. Being a bachelor, he was at small expenses,

but besides his bachelor’s lodging in the dark court, he had an

establishment in the heart of the City, near the Thames, which was

intrusted to the care of a maiden sister, as covetous and as crafty as

himself. At this establishment, ostensibly a pawnbroker’s, were received

the goods which Cutts knew at his residence in the court were to be

sold a bargain, having been obtained for nothing. It was chiefly by this

business that the man enriched himself. But his net was one that took in

fishes of all kinds. He was a general adviser to the invaders of law. If

he shared in the schemes he advised, they were so sure to be successful,

that he enjoyed the highest reputation for luck. It was but seldom that

he did actively share in those schemes--lucky in what he shunned as in

what he performed. He had made no untruthful boast to Mrs. Crane of the

skill with which he had kept himself out of the fangs of justice. With a

certain portion of the police he was indeed rather a favourite; for was

anything mysteriously “lost,” for which the owner would give a reward

equal to its value in legal markets, Cutts was the man who would get it

back. Of violence he had a wholesome dislike; not that he did not admire

force in others--not that he was physically a coward--but that caution

was his predominant characteristic. He employed force when required--set

a just value on it--would plan a burglary, and dispose of the spoils;

but it was only where the prize was great and the danger small, that he

lent his hand to the work that his brain approved. When Losely proposed

to him the robbery of a lone country-house, in which Jasper, making

light of all perils, brought prominently forward the images of some

thousands of pounds in gold and notes, guarded by an elderly gentleman,

and to be approached with ease through an uninhabited building--Cutts

thought it well worth personal investigation. Nor did he consider

himself bound, by his general engagement to Mrs. Crane, to lose the

chance of a sum so immeasurably greater than he could expect to obtain

from her by revealing the plot and taking measures to frustrate it.

Cutts was a most faithful and intelligent agent when he was properly

paid, and had proved himself so to Mrs. Crane on various occasions. But

then, to be paid properly meant a gain greater in serving than he could

get in not serving. Hitherto it had been extremely lucrative to obey

Mrs. Crane in saving Jasper from crime and danger. In this instance the

lucre seemed all the other way. Accordingly, the next morning, having

filled a saddle-bag with sundry necessaries, such as files, picklocks,

masks--to which he added a choice selection of political tracts and

newspapers--he and Jasper set out on two hired but strong and fleet

hackneys to the neighbourhood of Fawley. They put up at a town on the

other side of the Manor-house from that by which Jasper had approached

it, and at about the same distance. After baiting their steeds, they

proceeded to Fawley by the silent guide of a finger-post, gained the

vicinity of the park, and Cutts, dismounting, flitted across the turf,

and plunged himself into the hollows of the unfinished mansion while

Jasper took charge of the horses in a corner of the wooded lane.

Cutts, pleased by the survey of the forlorn interior, ventured, in the

stillness that reigned around, to mount the ladder, to apply a picklock

to the door above, and, opening this with ease, crept into the long

gallery, its walls covered with pictures. Through the crevices in

another door at the extreme end gleamed a faint light. Cutts applied his

eye to the chinks and keyhole, and saw that the light came from a room

on the other side the narrow passage which connected the new house with

the old. The door of that room was open, candles were on the table, and

beside the table Cutts could distinguish the outline of a man’ s form

seated--doubtless the owner; but the form did not seem “elderly.” If

inferior to Jasper’s in physical power, it still was that of vigorous

and unbroken manhood. Cutts did not like the appearance of that

form, and he retreated to outer air with some misgivings. However, on

rejoining Losely, he said: “As yet things look promising-place still as

death--only one door locked, and that the common country lock, which a

schoolboy might pick with his knife.”

“Or a crooked nail,” said Jasper.

“Ay, no better picklock in good hands. But there are other things

besides locks to think of.”

Cutts then hurried on to suggest that it was just the hour when some

of the workmen employed on the premises might be found in the Fawley

public-house; that he should ride on, dismount there, and take his

chance of picking up details of useful information as to localities and

household. He should represent himself as a commercial traveller on

his road to the town they had quitted; he should take out his cheap

newspapers and tracts; he should talk politics--all workmen love

politics, especially the politics of cheap newspapers and tracts. He

would rejoin Losely in an hour or so.

The bravo waited--his horse grazed--the moon came forth, stealing

through the trees, bringing into fantastic light the melancholy old

dwelling-house--the yet more melancholy new pile. Jasper was not, as we

have seen, without certain superstitious fancies, and they had grown

on him more of late as his brain had become chronically heated and his

nerves relaxed by pain. He began to feel the awe of the silence and the

moonlight; and some vague remembrances of earlier guiltless days--of a

father’s genial love--of joyous sensations in the priceless possession

of youth and vigour--of the admiring smiles and cordial hands which his

beauty, his daring, and high spirits had attracted towards him--of the

all that he had been, mixed with the consciousness of what he was, and

an uneasy conjecture of the probable depth of the final fall--came dimly

over his thoughts, and seemed like the whispers of remorse. But it is

rarely that man continues to lay blame on himself; and Jasper hastened

to do, as many a better person does without a blush for his folly--viz.,

shift upon the innocent shoulders of fellow-men, or on the hazy outlines

of that clouded form which ancient schools and modern plagiarists call

sometimes “Circumstance,” sometimes “Chance,” sometimes “Fate,” all the

guilt due to his own wilful abuse of irrevocable hours.

With this consolatory creed came, of necessity--the devil’s grand

luxury, Revenge. Say to yourself, “For what I suffer I condemn another

man, or I accuse the Arch-Invisible, be it a Destiny, be it a Maker!”

and the logical sequel is to add evil to evil, folly to folly--to retort

on the man who so wrongs, or on the Arch-Invisible who so afflicts you.

Of all our passions, is not Revenge the one into which enters with the

most zest a devil? For what is a devil?--A being whose sole work on

earth is some revenge on God!

Jasper Losely was not by temperament vindictive; he was irascible, as

the vain are--combative, aggressive, turbulent, by the impulse of animal

spirits; but the premeditation of vengeance was foreign to a levity and

egotism which abjured the self-sacrifice that is equally necessary to

hatred as to love. But Guy Darrell had forced into his moral system a

passion not native to it. Jasper had expected so much from his marriage

with the great man’s daughter--counted so thoroughly on her power to

obtain pardon and confer wealth--and his disappointment had been so

keen--been accompanied with such mortification--that he regarded the man

whom he had most injured as the man who had most injured him. But

not till now did his angry feelings assume the shape of a definite

vengeance. So long as there was a chance that he could extort from

Darrell the money that was the essential necessary to his life, he

checked his thoughts whenever they suggested a profitless gratification

of rage. But now that Darrell had so scornfully and so inexorably

spurned all concession--now that nothing was to be wrung from him except

by force--force and vengeance came together in his projects. And yet

even in the daring outrage he was meditating, murder itself did not

stand out as a thought accepted--no; what pleased his wild and turbid

imagination was the idea of humiliating by terror the man who had

humbled him. To penetrate into the home of this haughty scorner--to

confront him in his own chamber at the dead of night, man to man, force

to force; to say to him, “None now can deliver you from me--I come no

more as a suppliant--I command you to accept my terms”; to gloat over

the fears which, the strong man felt assured, would bow the rich man

to beg for mercy at his feet;--this was the picture which Jasper Losely

conjured up; and even the spoil to be won by violence smiled on him less

than the grand position which the violence itself would bestow. Are not

nine murders out of ten fashioned thus from conception into deed? “Oh

that my enemy were but before me face to face--none to part us!” says

the vindictive dreamer. Well, and what then? There, his imagination

halts--there he drops the sable curtain; he goes not on to say, “Why,

then another murder will be added to the long catalogue from Cain.”

He palters with his deadly wish, and mutters, perhaps, at most, “Why,

then--come what may!”

Losely continued to gaze on the pale walls gleaming through the wintry

boughs, as the moon rose high and higher. And now out broke the

light from Darrell’s lofty casement, and Losely smiled fiercely, and

muttered--hark! the very words--“And then! come what may!”

Hoofs are now heard on the hard road, and Jasper is joined by his

accomplice.

“Well!” said Jasper.

“Mount!” returned Cutts; “I have much to say as we ride.”

“This will not do,” resumed Cutts, as they sped fast down the lane;

“why, you never told me all the drawbacks. There are no less than four

men in the house--two servants besides the master and his secretary; and

one of those servants, the butler or valet, has firearms, and knows how

to use them.”

“Pshaw!” said Jasper scoffingly; “is that all? Am I not a match for

four?”

“No, it is not all; you told me the master of the house was a retired

elderly man, and you mentioned his name. But you never told me that your

Mr. Darrell was the famous lawyer and Parliament man--a man about whom

the newspapers have been writing the last six months.”

“What does that signify?”

“Signify! Just this, that there will be ten times more row about the

affair you propose than there would be if it concerned only a stupid

old country squire, and therefore ten times as much danger. Besides,

on principle I don’t like to have anything to do with lawyers--a

cantankerous, spiteful set of fellows. And this Guy Darrell! Why,

General Jas., I have seen the man. He cross-examined me once when I was

a witness on a case of fraud, and turned me inside out with as much ease

as if I had been an old pincushion stuffed with bran. I think I see his

eye now, and I would as lief have a loaded pistol at my head as that eye

again fixed on mine.”

“Pooh! You have brought a mask; and, besides, YOU need not see him; I

can face him alone.”

“No, no; there might be murder! I never mix myself with things of that

kind, on principle; your plan will not do. There might be a much safer

chance of more swag in a very different sort of scheme. I hear that the

pictures in that ghostly long room I crept through are worth a mint

of money. Now, pictures of great value are well known, and there are

collectors abroad who would pay almost any price for some pictures, and

never ask where they came from; hide them for some years perhaps, and

not bring them forth till any tales that would hurt us had died away.

This would be safe, I say. If the pictures are small, no one in the

old house need be disturbed. I can learn from some of the trade what

pictures Darrell really has that would fetch a high price, and then look

out for customers abroad. This will take a little time, but be worth

waiting for.”

“I will not wait,” said Jasper, fiercely; “and you are a coward. I have

resolved that to-morrow night I will be in that man’s room, and that man

shall be on his knees before me.”

Cutts turned sharply round on his saddle, and by the aid of the

moonlight surveyed Losely’s countenance. “Oh, I see,” he said, “there

is more than robbery in your mind. You have some feeling of hate--of

vengeance; the man has injured you?”

“He has treated me as if I were a dog,” said Jasper; “and a dog can

bite.”

Cutts mused a few moments. “I have heard you talk at times about some

rich relation or connection on whom you had claims; Darrell is the man,

I suppose?”

“He is; and hark ye, Cutts, if you try to balk me here, I will wring

your neck off. And since I have told you so much, I will tell you this

much more--that I don’t think there is the danger you count on; for

I don’t mean to take Darrell’s blood, and I believe he would not take

mine.”

“But there may be a struggle-and then?”

“Ay, if so, and then--man to man,” replied Jasper, mutteringly.

Nothing more was said, but both spurred on their horses to a quicker

pace. The sparks flashed from the hoofs. Now through the moonlight, now

under shade of the boughs, scoured on the riders--Losely’s broad chest

and marked countenance, once beautiful, now fearful, formidably defined

even under the shadows--his comrade’s unsubstantial figure and goblin

features flitting vague even under the moonlight.

The town they had left came in sight, and by this time Cutts had

resolved on the course his prudence suggested to him. The discovery

that, in the proposed enterprise, Losely had a personal feeling of

revenge to satisfy had sufficed to decide the accomplice peremptorily to

have nothing to do with the affair. It was his rule to abstain from all

transactions in which fierce passions were engaged. And the quarrels

between relations or connections were especially those which his

experience of human nature told him brought risk upon all intermeddlers.

But he saw that Jasper was desperate; that the rage of the bravo might

be easily turned on himself; and therefore, since it was no use to

argue, it would be discreet to dissimulate. Accordingly, when they

reached their inn, and were seated over their brandy-and-water, Cutts

resumed the conversation, appeared gradually to yield to Jasper’s

reasonings, concerted with him the whole plan for the next night’s

operations, and took care meanwhile to pass the brandy. The day had

scarcely broken before Cutts was off, with his bag of implements and

tracts. He would have fain carried off also both the horses; but the

ostler, surly at being knocked up at so early an hour, might not have

surrendered the one ridden by Jasper, without Jasper’s own order to

do so. Cutts, however, bade the ostler be sure and tell the gentleman,

before going away, that he, Cutts, strongly advised him “to have nothing

to do with the bullocks.”

Cutts, on arriving in London, went straight to Mrs. Crane’s old lodging

opposite to Jasper’s. But she had now removed to Podden Place, and left

no address. On reaching his own home, Cutts, however, found a note from

her, stating that she should be at her old lodging that evening, if

he would call at half-past nine o’clock; for, indeed, she had been

expecting Jasper’s promised visit--had learned that he had left his

lodgings, and was naturally anxious to learn from Cutts what had become

of him. When Cutts called at the appointed hour and told his story,

Arabella Crane immediately recognised all the danger which her informant

had so prudently shunned. Nor was she comforted by Cutts’s assurance

that Jasper, on finding himself deserted, would have no option but to

abandon, or at least postpone, an enterprise that, undertaken singly,

would be too rash even for his reckless temerity. As it had become the

object of her life to save Losely from justice, so she now shrunk from

denouncing to justice his meditated crime; and the idea of recurring to

Colonel Morley happily flashed upon her.

Having thus explained to the reader these antecedents in the narrative,

we return to Jasper. He did not rise till late at noon; and as he was

generally somewhat stupefied on rising by the drink he had taken the

night before, and by the congested brain which the heaviness of such

sleep produced, he could not at first believe that Cutts had altogether

abandoned the enterprise--rather thought that, with his habitual

wariness, that Ulysses of the Profession had gone forth to collect

further information in the neighbourhood of the proposed scene of

action. He was not fully undeceived in this belief till somewhat late

in the day, when, strolling into the stable-yard, the ostler, concluding

from the gentleman’s goodly thews and size that he was a north-country

grazier, delivered Cutts’s allegorical caution against the bullocks.

Thus abandoned, Jasper’s desperate project only acquired a still more

concentrated purpose and a ruder simplicity of action. His original

idea, on first conceiving the plan of robbery, had been to enter into

Darrell’s presence disguised and masked. Even, however, before Cutts

deserted him; the mere hope of plunder had become subordinate to

the desire of a personal triumph; and now that Cutts had left him to

himself, and carried away the means of disguise, Jasper felt rather

pleased than otherwise at the thought that his design should have none

of the characteristics of a vulgar burglary. No mask now; his front

should be as open as his demand. Cutts’s report of the facility of

penetrating into Darrell’s very room also lessened the uses of an

accomplice. And in the remodification of his first hasty plan of common

place midnight stealthy robbery, he would no longer even require an

assistant to dispose of the plunder he might gain.

Darrell should now yield to his exactions, as a garrison surprised

accepts the terms of its conqueror. There would be no flight, no hiding,

no fear of notes stopped at banks. He would march out, hand on haunch,

with those immunities of booty that belong to the honours of war.

Pleasing his self-conceit with so gallant a view of his meditated

exploit, Jasper sauntered at dark into the town, bought a few long

narrow nails and a small hammer, and returning to his room, by the aid

of the fire, the tongs, and the hammer, he fashioned these nails,

with an ease and quickness which showed an expert practitioner, into

instruments that would readily move the wards of any common country-made

lock. He did not care for weapons. He trusted at need to his own

powerful hands. It was no longer, too, the affair of a robber unknown,

unguessed, who might have to fight his way out of an alarmed household.

It was but the visit which he, Jasper Losely, Esquire, thought fit

to pay, however unceremoniously and unseasonably, to the house of a

father-in-law! At the worst, should he fail in finding Darrell, or

securing an unwitnessed interview--should he, instead, alarm the

household, it would be a proof of the integrity of his intentions that

he had no weapons save those which Nature bestows on the wild man as the

mightiest of her wild beasts. At night he mounted his horse, but went

out of his way, keeping the high-road for an hour or two, in order to

allow ample time for the farmers to have quitted the rent-feast, and the

old Manor-house to be hushed in sleep. At last, when he judged the coast

clear and the hour ripe, he wound back into the lane towards Fawley;

and when the spire of its hamlet-church came in sight through the

frosty starlit air, he dismounted--led the horse into one of the thick

beech-woods that make the prevailing characteristic of the wild country

round that sequestered dwelling-place--fastened the animal to a tree,

and stalked towards the park-pales on foot. Lightly, as a wolf enters

a sheepfold, he swung himself over the moss-grown fence; he gained the

buttresses of the great raw pile; high and clear above, from Darrell’s

chamber, streamed the light; all the rest of the old house was closed

and dark, buried no doubt in slumber.

He is now in the hollows of the skeleton pile; he mounts the ladder;

the lock of the door before him yields to his rude implements but artful

hand. He is in the long gallery; the moonlight comes broad and clear

through the large casements. What wealth of art is on the walls! but how

profitless to the robber’s greed. There, through the very halls which

the master had built in the day of his ambition, saying to himself,

“These are for far posterity,” the step of Violence, it may be of

Murder, takes its stealthy way to the room of the childless man! Through

the uncompleted pile, towards the uncompleted life, strides the terrible

step.

The last door yields noiselessly. The small wooden corridor, narrow

as the drawbridge which in ancient fortresses was swung between the

commandant’s room in the topmost story and some opposing wall, is before

him. And Darrell’s own door is half open; lights on the table--logs

burning bright on the hearth. Cautiously Losely looked through the

aperture. Darrell was not there; the place was solitary; but the

opposite door was open also. Losely’s fine ear caught the sound of a

slight movement of a footstep in the room just below, to which that

opposite door admitted. In an instant the robber glided within the

chamber--closed and locked the door by which he had entered, retaining

the key about his person. The next stride brought him to the hearth.

Beside it hung the bell-rope common in old-fashioned houses. Losely

looked round; on the table, by the writing implements, lay a pen-knife.

In another moment the rope was cut, high out of Darrell’s reach, and

flung aside. The hearth, being adapted but for logwood fires, furnished

not those implements in which, at a moment of need, the owner may find

an available weapon--only a slight pair of brass wood-pincers, and a

shovel equally frail. Such as they were, however, Jasper quietly removed

and hid them behind a heavy old bureau. Steps were now heard mounting

the stair that led into the chamber; Losely shrunk back into the recess

beside the mantelpiece. Darrell entered, with a book in his hand, for

which he had indeed quitted his chamber--a volume containing the last

Act of Parliament relating to Public Trusts, which had been sent to him

by his solicitor; for he is creating a deed of trust, to insure to

the nation the Darrell antiquities, in the name of his father, the

antiquarian.

Darrell advanced to the writing-table, which stood in the centre of the

room; laid down the book, and sighed--the short, quick, impatient sigh

which had become one of his peculiar habits. The robber stole from the

recess, and, gliding round to the door by which Darrell had entered,

while the back of the master was still towards him, set fast the lock,

and appropriated the key as he had done at the door which had admitted

himself. Though the noise in that operation was but slight, it roused

Darrell from his abstracted thoughts. He turned quickly, and at the same

moment Losely advanced towards him.

At once Darrell comprehended his danger. His rapid glance took in

all the precautions by which the intruder proclaimed his lawless

purpose--the closed door, the bell rope cut off. There, between those

four secret walls, must pass the interview between himself and the

desperado. He was unarmed, but he was not daunted. It was but man to

man. Losely had for him his vast physical strength, his penury, despair,

and vindictive purpose. Darrell had in his favour the intellect which

gives presence of mind; the energy of nerve, which is no more to be seen

in the sinew and bone than the fluid which fells can be seen in the jars

and the wires; and that superb kind of pride, which, if terror be felt,

makes its action impossible, because a disgrace, and bravery a matter of

course, simply because it is honour.

As the bravo approached, by a calm and slight movement Darrell drew to

the other side of the table, placing that obstacle between himself

and Losely, and, extending his arm, said: “Hold, sir; I forbid you

to advance another step. You are here, no matter how, to re-urge your

claims on me. Be seated; I will listen to you.”

Darrell’s composure took Losely so by surprise that mechanically he

obeyed the command thus tranquilly laid upon him, and sunk into a

chair--facing Darrell with a sinister under-look from his sullen brow.

“Ah!” he said, “you will listen to me now; but my terms have risen.”

Darrell, who had also seated himself, made no answer; but his face was

resolute and his eye watchful. The ruffian resumed, in a gruffer tone:

“My terms have risen, Mr. Darrell.”

“Have they, sir? and why?”

“Why! Because no one can come to your aid here; because here you cannot

escape; because here you are in my power!”

“Rather, sir, I listen to you because here you are under my roof-tree;

and it is you who are in my power!”

“Yours! Look round; the doors are locked on you. Perhaps you think

your shouts, your cries might bring aid to you. Attempt it--raise your

voice--and I strangle you with these hands.”

“If I do not raise my voice, it is, first, because I should be ashamed

of myself if I required aid against one man; and, secondly, because I

would not expose to my dependents a would-be assassin in him whom my

lost child called husband. Hush, sir, hush, or your own voice will alarm

those who sleep below. And now, what is it you ask? Be plain, sir, and

be brief.”

“Well, if you like to take matters coolly, I have no objection. These

are my terms. You have received large sums this day; those sums are in

your house, probably in that bureau; and your life is at my will.”

“You ask the monies paid for rent to-day. True, they are in the house;

but they are not in my apartments. They were received by another; they

are kept by another. In vain, through the windings and passages of this

old house, would you seek to find the room in which he stores them. In

doing so you will pass by the door of a servant who sleeps so lightly

that the chances are that he will hear you; he is armed with a

blunderbuss, and with pistols. You say to me, ‘Your money or your life.’

I say to you, in reply, ‘Neither: attempt to seize the money, and your

own life is lost.”

“Miser! I don’t believe that sums so large are not in your own keeping.

And even if they are not, you shall show me where they are; you shall

lead me through those windings and passages of which you so tenderly

warn me, my hand on your throat. And if servants wake, or danger

threaten me, it is you who shall save me, or die! Ha! you do not fear

me--eh, Mr. Darrell!” And Losely rose.

“I do not fear you,” replied Darrell, still seated. “I cannot conceive

that you are here with no other design than a profitless murder. You are

here, you say, to make terms; it will be time enough to see whose life

is endangered when all your propositions have been stated. As yet

you have only suggested a robbery, to which you ask me to assist you.

Impossible! Grant even that you were able to murder me, you would be

just as far off from your booty. And yet you say your terms have risen!

To me they seem fallen to nothing! Have you anything else to say?”

The calmness of Darrell, so supremely displayed in this irony, began to

tell upon the ruffian--the magnetism of the great man’s eye and voice,

and steadfast courage, gradually gaining power over the wild, inferior

animal. Trying to recover his constitutional audacity, Jasper said, with

a tone of the old rollicking voice: “Well, Mr. Darrell, it is all one to

me how I wring from you, in your own house, what you refused me when I

was a suppliant on the road. Fair means are pleasanter than foul. I am a

gentleman--the grandson of Sir Julian Losely, of Losely Hall; I am your

son-in-law; and I am starving. This must not be; write me a cheque.”

Darrell dipped his pen in the ink, and drew the paper towards him.

“Oho! you don’t fear me, eh? This is not done from fear, mind--all out

of pure love and compassion, my kind father-in-law. You will write me a

cheque for five thousand pounds--come, I am moderate--your life is worth

a precious deal more than that. Hand me the cheque--I will trust to your

honour to give me no trouble in cashing it, and bid you good-night-my

father-in-law.”

As Losely ceased with a mocking laugh, Darrell sprang up quickly, threw

open the small casement which was within his reach, and flung from it

the paper on which he had been writing, and which he wrapt round the

heavy armorial seal that lay on the table.

Losely bounded towards him. “What means that? What have you done?”

“Saved your life and mine, Jasper Losely,” said Darrell, solemnly, and

catching the arm that was raised against him. “We are now upon equal

terms.”

“I understand,” growled the tiger, as the slaver gathered to his

lips--“you think by that paper to summon some one to your aid.”

“Not so--that paper is useless while I live. Look forth--the moonlight

is on the roofs below--can you see where that paper has fallen? On the

ledge of a parapet that your foot could not reach. It faces the window

of a room in which one of my household sleeps; it will meet his eye in

the morning when the shutters are unbarred; and on that paper are

writ these words: ‘If I am this night murdered, the murderer is Jasper

Losely,’ and the paper is signed by my name. Back, sir--would you doom

yourself to the gibbet?”

Darrell released the dread arm he had arrested, and Losely stared at

him, amazed, bewildered.

Darrell resumed: “And now I tell you plainly that I can accede to

no terms put to me thus. I can sign my hand to no order that you may

dictate, because that would be to sign myself a coward--and my name is

Darrell!”

“Down on your knees, proud man--sign you shall, and on your knees! I

care not now for gold--I care not now a rush for my life. I came here to

humble the man who from first to last has so scornfully humbled me.--And

I will, I will! On your knees--on your knees!”

The robber flung himself forward; but Darrell, whose eye had never

quitted the foe, was prepared for and eluded the rush. Losely, missing

his object, lost his balance, struck against the edge of the table which

partially interposed between himself and his prey, and was only saved

from falling by the close neighbourhood of the wall, on which he came

with a shock that for the moment well-nigh stunned him. Meanwhile

Darrell had gained the hearth, and snatched from it a large log

half-burning. Jasper, recovering himself, dashed the long matted hair

from his eyes, and, seeing undismayed the formidable weapon with which

he was menaced, cowered for a second and deadlier spring.

“Stay, stay, stay, parricide and madman!” cried Darrell, his eye

flashing brighter than the brand. “It is not my life I plead for--it is

yours. Remember, if I fall by your hand, no hope and no refuge are left

to you! In the name of my dead child, and under the eye of avenging

Heaven, I strike down the fury that blinds you, and I scare back your

soul from the abyss!”

So ineffably grand were the man’s look and gesture--so full of sonorous

terror the swell of his matchless all-conquering voice, that Losely, in

his midmost rage, stood awed and spellbound. His breast heaved, his eye

fell, his frame collapsed, even his very tongue seemed to cleave to the

parched roof of his mouth. Whether the effect so suddenly produced might

have continued, or whether the startled miscreant might not have

lashed himself into renewed wrath and inexpiable crime, passes out of

conjecture. At that instant simultaneously were heard hurried footsteps

in the corridor without, violent blows on the door, and voices

exclaiming, “Open, open!--Darrell, Darrell!”--while the bell at the

portals of the old house rang fast and shrill.

“Ho--is it so?” growled Losely, recovering himself at those unwelcome

sounds. “But do not think that I will be caught thus, like a rat in a

trap. No--I will--”

“Hist!” interrupted Darrell, dropping the brand, and advancing quickly

on the ruffian--“Hist!--let no one know that my daughter’s husband came

here with a felon’s purpose. Sit down--down I say; it is for my house’s

honour that you should be safe.” And suddenly placing both hands on

Losely’s broad shoulder, he forced him into a seat. During these few

hurried words, the strokes at the door and the shouts without had been

continued, and the door shook on its yielding hinges.

“The key--the key!” whispered Darrell.

But the bravo was stupefied by the suddenness with which his rage

had been cowed, his design baffled, his position changed from the

man dictating laws and threatening life, to the man protected by his

intended victim. And he was so slow in even comprehending the meaning of

Darrell’s order, that Darrell had scarcely snatched the keys less from

his hand than from the pouch to which he at last mechanically pointed,

when the door was burst open, and Lionel Haughton, Alban Morley, and

the Colonel’s servant were in the room. Not one of them, at the first

glance, perceived the inmates of the chamber, who were at the right of

their entrance, by the angle of the wall and in shadow. But out came

Darrell’s calm voice:

“Alban! Lionel!--welcome always; but what brings you hither at such an

hour, with such clamour? Armed too!”

The three men stood petrified. There sate, peaceably enough, a large

dark form, its hands on its knees, its head bent down, so that the

features were not, distinguishable; and over the chair in which this

bending figure was thus confusedly gathered up leant Guy Darrell, with

quiet ease--no trace of fear nor of past danger in his face, which,

though very pale, was serene, with a slight smile on the firm lips.

“Well,” muttered Alban Morley, slowly lowering his pistol--“well, I am

surprised!--yes, for the first time in twenty years, I and surprised!”

“Surprised perhaps to find me at this hour still up, and with a person

upon business--the door locked. However, mutual explanations later. Of

course you stay here to night. My business with this--this visitor, is

now over. Lionel, open that door--here is the key.--Sir”--(he touched

Losely by the shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “Rise and speak

not,”)--(aloud) “Sir, I need not detain you longer. Allow me to show you

the way out of this rambling old house.”

Jasper rose like one half asleep, and, still bending his form and hiding

his face, followed Darrell down the private stair, through the study,

the library, into the hall, the Colonel’s servant lighting the way; and

Lionel and Morley, still too amazed for words, bringing up the rear. The

servant drew the heavy bolts from the front door; and now the household

had caught alarm. Mills first appeared with the blunderbuss, then the

footman, then Fairthorn.

“Stand back, there!” cried Darrell, and he opened the door himself to

Losely. “Sir,” said he then, as they stood in the moonlight, “mark that

I told you truly--you were in my power; and if the events of this night

can lead you to acknowledge a watchful Providence, and recall with a

shudder the crime from which you have been saved, why, then, I too, out

of gratitude to Heaven, may think of means by which to free others from

the peril of your despair.”

Losely made no answer, but slunk off with a fast, furtive stride,

hastening out of the moonlit sward into the gloom of the leafless trees.

CHAPTER II.

IF THE LION EVER WEAR THE FOX’S HIDE, STILL HE WEARS IT AS THE LION.

When Darrell was alone with Lionel and Alban Morley, the calm with which

he had before startled them vanished. He poured out his thanks with deep

emotion. “Forgive me; not in the presence of a servant could I say, ‘You

have saved me from an unnatural strife, and my daughter’s husband from

a murderer’s end.’ But by what wondrous mercy did you learn my danger?

Were you sent to my aid?”

Alban briefly explained. “You may judge,” he said in conclusion, “how

great was our anxiety, when, following the instructions of our guide,

while our driver rang his alarum at the front portals, we made our

entrance into yon ribs of stone, found the doors already opened, and

feared we might be too late. But, meanwhile, the poor woman waits

without in the carriage that brought us from the station. I must go and

relieve her mind.”

“And bring her hither,” cried Darrell, “to receive my gratitude. Stay,

Alban; while you leave me with her, you will speak aside to Mills; tell

him that you heard there was an attempt to be made on the house, and

came to frustrate it, but that your fears were exaggerated; the man was

more a half-insane mendicant than a robber. Be sure, at least, that his

identity with Losely be not surmised, and bid Mills treat the affair

lightly. Public men are exposed, you know, to assaults from crackbrained

enthusiasts; or stay--I once was a lawyer, and” (continued Darrell,

whose irony had become so integral an attribute of his mind as to be

proof against all trial) “there are men so out of their wits as to fancy

a lawyer has ruined them! Lionel, tell poor Dick Fairthorn to come to

me.” When the musician entered, Darrell whispered to him: “Go back to

your room--open your casement--step out on to the parapet--you will see

something white; it is a scrap of paper wrapped round my old armorial

seal. Bring it to me just as it is, Dick. That poor young Lionel, we

must keep him here a day or two; mind, no prickles for him, Dick.”

CHAPTER III.

ARABELLA CRANE VERSUS GUY DARRELL; OR, WOMAN VERSUS LAWYER. IN THE

COURTS, LAWYER WOULD WIN; BUT IN A PRIVATE PARLOUR, FOOT TO FOOT,

AND TONGUE TO TONGUE, LAWYER HAS NOT A CHANCE.

Arabella Crane entered the room: Darrell hesitated--the remembrances

attached to her were so painful and repugnant. But did he not now owe to

her perhaps his very life? He passed his hand rapidly over his brow,

as if to sweep away all earlier recollections, and, advancing quickly,

extended that hand to her. The stern woman shook her head, and rejected

the proffered greeting.

“You owe me no thanks,” she said, in her harsh, ungracious accents; “I

sought to save not you, but him.”

“How!” said Darrell, startled; “you feel no resentment against the man

who injured and betrayed you?”

“What my feelings may be towards him are not for you to conjecture; man

could not conjecture them; I am woman. What they once were I might

blush for; what they are now, I could own without shame. But you, Mr.

Darrell,--you, in the hour of my uttermost anguish, when all my future

was laid desolate, and the world lay crushed at my feet--you--man,

chivalrous man!--you had for me no human compassion--you thrust me in

scorn from your doors--you saw in my woe nothing but my error--you sent

me forth, stripped of reputation, branded by your contempt, to famine or

to suicide. And you wonder that I feel less resentment against him who

wronged me than against you, who, knowing me wronged, only disdained

my grief. The answer is plain--the scorn of the man she only reverenced

leaves to a woman no memory to mitigate its bitterness and gall. The

wrongs inflicted by the man she loved may leave, what they have left to

me, an undying sense of a past existence--radiant, joyous, hopeful; of

a time when the earth seemed covered with blossoms, just ready to burst

into bloom; when the skies through their haze took the rose-hues as the

sun seemed about to rise. The memory that I once was happy, at least

then, I owe to him who injured and betrayed me. To you, when happiness

was lost to me forever, what do I owe? Tell me.”

Struck by her words, more by her impressive manner, though not

recognising the plea by which the defendant thus raised herself into the

accuser, Darrell answered gently “Pardon me; this is no moment to revive

recollections of anger on my part; but reflect, I entreat you, and you

will feel that I was not too harsh. In the same position any other man

would not have been less severe.”

“Any other man!” she exclaimed; “ay, possibly! but would the scorn of

any other man so have crushed self-esteem? The injuries of the wicked

do not sour us against the good; but the scoff of the good leaves us

malignant against virtue itself. Any other man! Tut! Genius is bound to

be indulgent. It should know human errors so well--has, with its large

luminous forces, such errors itself when it deigns to be human, that,

where others may scorn, genius should only pity.” She paused a moment,

and then slowly resumed. “And pity was my due. Had you, or had any one

lofty as yourself in reputed honour, but said to me, ‘Thou hast sinned,

thou must suffer; but sin itself needs compassion, and compassion

forbids thee to despair,’ why, then, I might have been gentler to the

things of earth, and less steeled against the influences of Heaven than

I have been. That is all no matter now. Mr. Darrell, I would not part

from you with angry and bitter sentiments. Colonel Morley tells me that

you have not only let the man, whom we need not name, go free, but that

you have guarded the secret of his designs. For this I thank you. I

thank you, because what is left of that blasted and deformed existence I

have taken into mine. And I would save that man from his own devices

as I would save my soul from its own temptations. Are you large-hearted

enough to comprehend me? Look in my face--you have seen his; all earthly

love is erased and blotted out of both.”

Guy Darrell bowed his head in respect that partook of awe.

“You, too,” said the grim woman, after a pause, and approaching him

nearer--“you, too, have loved, I am told, and you, too, were forsaken.”

He recoiled and--shuddered.

“What is left to your heart of its ancient folly? I should like to know!

I am curious to learn if there be a man who can feel as woman! Have you

only resentment? have you only disdain? have you only vengeance? have

you pity? or have you the jealous absorbing desire, surviving the

affection from which it sprang, that still the life wrenched from you

shall owe, despite itself, a melancholy allegiance to your own?”

Darrell impatiently waved his hand to forbid further questions; and it

needed all his sense of the service this woman had just rendered him to

repress his haughty displeasure at so close an approach to his torturing

secrets.

Arabella’s dark bright eyes rested on his knitted brow, for a moment,

wistfully, musingly. Then she said: “I see! man’s inflexible pride--no

pardon there! But own, at least, that you have suffered.”

“Suffered!” groaned Darrell involuntarily, and pressing his hand to his

heart.

“You have!--and you own it! Fellow-sufferer, I have no more anger

against you. Neither should pity, but let each respect the other. A few

words more,--this child!”

“Ay--ay--this child! you will be truthful. You will not seek to deceive

me--you know that she--she--claimed by that assassin, reared by his

convict father--she is no daughter of my line!”

“What! would it then be no joy to know that your line did not close with

yourself--that your child might--”

“Cease, madam, cease--it matters not to a man nor to a race when it

perish, so that it perish at last with honour. Who would have either

himself or his lineage live on into a day when the escutcheon is blotted

and the name disgraced? No; if that be Matilda’s child, tell me, and I

will bear, as man may do, the last calamity which the will of Heaven may

inflict. If, as I have all reason to think, the tale be an imposture,

speak and give me the sole comfort to which I would cling amidst the

ruin of all other hopes.”

“Verily,” said Arabella, with a kind of musing wonder in the tone of her

softened voice; “verily, has a man’s heart the same throb and fibre as a

woman’s? Had I a child like that blue-eyed wanderer with the frail form

needing protection, and the brave spirit that ennobles softness, what

would be my pride! my bliss! Talk of shame--disgrace! Fie--fie--the more

the evil of others darkened one so innocent, the more cause to love and

shelter her. But--I--am childless! Shall I tell you that the offence

which lies heaviest on my conscience has been my cruelty to that girl?

She was given an infant to my care. I saw in her the daughter of that

false, false, mean, deceiving friend, who had taken my confidence, and

bought, with her supposed heritage, the man sworn by all oaths to me. I

saw in her, too, your descendant, your rightful heiress. I rejoiced in

a revenge on your daughter and yourself. Think not I would have foisted

her on your notice! No. I would have kept her without culture, without

consciousness of a higher lot; and when I gave her up to her grandsire,

the convict, it was a triumph to think that Matilda’s child would be

an outcast. Terrible thought! but I was mad then. But that poor convict

whom you, in your worldly arrogance, so loftily despise--he took to his

breast what was flung away as a worthless weed. And if the flower keep

the promise of the bud, never flower so fair bloomed from your vaunted

stem! And yet you would bless me if I said, ‘Pass on, childless man; she

is nothing to you!’”

“Madam, let us not argue. As you yourself justly imply, man’s heart

and woman’s must each know throbs that never are, and never should be,

familiar to the other. I repeat my question, and again I implore your

answer.”

“I cannot answer for certain; and I am fearful of answering at all, lest

on a point so important I should mislead you. Matilda’s child? Jasper

affirmed it to me. His father believed him--I believed him. I never had

the shadow of a doubt till--”

“Till what? For Heaven’s sake speak.”

“Till about five years ago, or somewhat more, I saw a letter from

Gabrielle Desmarets, and--”

“Ah! which made you suspect, as I do, that the child is Gabrielle

Desmaret’s daughter.”

Arabella reared her crest as a serpent before it strikes. “Gabrielle’s

daughter! You think so. Her child that I sheltered! Her child for whom

I have just pleaded to you! Hers!” She suddenly became silent. Evidently

that idea had never before struck her; evidently it now shocked her;

evidently something was passing through her mind which did not allow

that idea to be dismissed. As Darrell was about to address her, she

exclaimed abruptly: “No! say no more now. You may hear from me again

should I learn what may decide at least this doubt one way or the other.

Farewell, sir.”

“Not yet. Permit me to remind you that you have saved the life of a man

whose wealth is immense.”

“Mr. Darrell, my wealth in relation to my wants is perhaps immense as

yours, for I do not spend what I possess.”

“But this unhappy outlaw, whom you would save from himself, can

henceforth be to you but a burthen and a charge. After what has passed

to-night, I do tremble to think that penury may whisper other houses to

rob, other lives to menace. Let me, then, place at your disposal, to be

employed in such mode as you deem the best, a sum that may suffice to

secure an object which we have in common.”

“No, Mr. Darrell,” said Arabella, fiercely; “whatever he be, never with

my consent shall Jasper Losely be beholden to you for alms. If money can

save him from shame and a dreadful death, that money shall be mine. I

have said it. And, hark you, Mr. Darrell, what is repentance without

atonement? I say not that I repent; but I do know that I seek to atone.”

The iron-grey robe fluttered an instant, and then vanished from the

room.

When Alban Morley returned to the library, he saw Darrell at the farther

corner of the room, on his knees. Well might Guy Darrell thank Heaven

for the mercies vouchsafed to him that night. Life preserved? Is that

all? Might life yet be bettered and gladdened? Was there aught in the

grim woman’s words that might bequeath thoughts which reflection would

ripen into influences over action?--aught that might suggest the cases

in which, not ignobly, Pity might subjugate Scorn? In the royal abode of

that Soul, does Pride only fortify Honour?--is it but the mild king, not

the imperial despot? Would it blind, as its rival, the Reason? Would it

chain, as a rebel, the Heart? Would it man the dominions, that might

be serene, by the treasures it wastes-by the wars it provokes?

Self-knowledge! self-knowledge! From Heaven, indeed, descends the

precept, “KNOW THYSELF.” That truth was told to us by the old heathen

oracle. But what old heathen oracle has told us how to know?

CHAPTER IV.

THE MAN-EATER HUMILIATED. HE ENCOUNTERS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN A

TRAVELLER, WHO, LIKE SHAKESPEARE’S JAQUES, IS “A MELANCHOLY FELLOW”;

WHO ALSO, LIKE JAQUES, HATH “GREAT REASON TO BE BAD”; AND WHO, STILL

LIKE JAQUES, IS “FULL OF MATTER.”

Jasper Losely rode slowly on through the clear frosty night; not back to

the country town which he had left on his hateful errand, nor into the

broad road to London. With a strange desire to avoid the haunts of men,

he selected--at each choice of way in the many paths branching right and

left, between waste and woodland--the lane that seemed the narrowest

and the dimmest. It was not remorse that gnawed him, neither was it mere

mercenary disappointment, nor even the pang of baffled vengeance--it

was the profound humiliation of diseased self-love--the conviction that,

with all his brute power, he had been powerless in the very time and

scene in which he had pictured to himself so complete a triumph. Even

the quiet with which he had escaped was a mortifying recollection.

Capture itself would have been preferable, if capture had been preceded

by brawl and strife--the exhibition of his hardihood and prowess.

Gloomily bending over his horse’s neck, he cursed himself as fool and

coward. What would he have had!--a new crime on his soul? Perhaps he

would have answered, “Anything rather than this humiliating failure.” He

did not rack his brains with conjecturing if Cutts had betrayed him,

or by what other mode assistance had been sent in such time of need to

Darrell. Nor did he feel that hunger for vengeance, whether on Darrell

or on his accomplice (should that accomplice have played the traitor),

which might have been expected from his characteristic ferocity. On

the contrary, the thought of violence and its excitements had in it

a sickness as of shame. Darrell at that hour might have ridden by him

scathless. Cutts might have jeered and said, “I blabbed your secret, and

sent the aid that foiled it”; and Losely would have continued to hang

his head, nor lifted the herculean hand that lay nerveless on the

horse’s mane. Is it not commonly so in all reaction from excitements in

which self-love has been keenly galled? Does not vanity enter into the

lust of crime as into the desire of fame?

At sunrise Losely found himself on the high-road into which a labyrinth

of lanes had led him, and opposite to a milestone, by which he learned

that he had been long turning his back on the metropolis, and that he

was about ten miles distant from the provincial city of Ouzelford. By

this time his horse was knocked up, and his own chronic pains began to

make themselves acutely felt; so that, when, a little farther on, he

came to a wayside inn, he was glad to halt; and after a strong drain,

which had the effect of an opiate, he betook himself to bed, and slept

till the noon was far advanced.

When Losely came down-stairs, the common room of the inn was occupied by

a meeting of the trustees of the highroads; and, on demanding breakfast,

he was shown into a small sanded parlour adjoining the kitchen. Two

other occupants--a man and a woman--were there already, seated at a

table by the fireside, over a pint of half-and-half. Losely, warming

himself at the hearth, scarcely noticed these humble revellers by a

glance. And they, after a displeased stare at the stalwart frame which

obscured the cheering glow they had hitherto monopolised, resumed a

muttered conversation; of which, as well as of the vile modicum that

refreshed their lips, the man took the lion’s share. Shabbily forlorn

were that man’s habiliments--turned and re-turned, patched, darned,

weather-stained, grease-stained--but still retaining that kind of

mouldy, grandiose, bastard gentility, which implies that the wearer has

known better days; and, in the downward progress of fortunes when they

once fall, may probably know still worse.

The woman was some years older than her companion, and still more

forlornly shabby. Her garments seemed literally composed of particles of

dust glued together, while her face might have insured her condemnation

as a witch before any honest jury in the reign of King James the First.

His breakfast, and the brandy-bottle that flanked the loaf, were now

placed before Losely; and, as distastefully he forced himself to eat,

his eye once more glanced towards, and this time rested on, the shabby

man, in the sort of interest with which one knave out of elbows

regards another. As Jasper thus looked, gradually there stole on him

a reminiscence of those coarse large features--that rusty disreputable

wig. The recognition, however, was not mutual; and presently, after a

whisper interchanged between the man and the woman, the latter rose,

and approaching Losely, dropped a curtsey, and said, in a weird, under

voice: “Stranger! luck’s in store for you. Tell your fortune!” As she

spoke, from some dust-hole in her garments she produced a pack of cards,

on whose half-obliterated faces seemed incrusted the dirt of ages.

Thrusting these antiquities under Jasper’s nose, she added, “Wish and

cut.”

“Yshaw,” said Jasper, who, though sufficiently superstitious in some

matters and in regard to some persons, was not so completely under the

influence of that imaginative infirmity as to take the creature before

him for a sibyl. “Get away; you turn my stomach. Your cards smell; so do

you!”

“Forgive her, worthy sir,” said the man, leaning forward. “The hag

may be unsavoury, but she is wise. The Three Sisters who accosted the

Scottish Thane, sir (Macbeth--you have seen it on the stage?) were not

savoury. Withered, and wild in their attire, sir, but they knew a thing

or two! She sees luck in your face. Cross her hand and give it vent!”

“Fiddledee,” said the irreverent Losely. “Take her off, or I shall scald

her,” and he seized the kettle.

The hag retreated grumbling; and Losely, soon despatching his meal,

placed his feet ‘on the hobs, and began to meditate what course to adopt

for a temporary subsistence. He had broken into the last pound left

of the money which he had extracted from Mrs. Crane’s purse some days

before. He recoiled with terror from the thought of returning to town

and placing himself at her mercy. Yet what option had he? While thus

musing, he turned impatiently round, and saw that the shabby man and the

dusty hag were engaged in an amicable game of ecarte, with those very

cards which had so offended his olfactory organs. At that sight the

old instinct of the gambler struggled back; and, raising himself up, he

looked over the cards of the players. The miserable wretches were, of

course, playing for nothing; and Losely saw at a glance that the man

was, nevertheless, trying to cheat the woman! Positively he took that

man into more respect; and that man, noticing the interest with which

Losely surveyed the game, looked up, and said:

“While the time, sir? What say you? A game or two? I can stake my

pistoles--that is, sir, so far as a fourpenny bit goes. If ignorant of

this French game, sir, cribbage or all fours?”

“No,” said Losely, mournfully; “there is nothing to be got out of you;

otherwise”--he stopped and sighed. “But I have seen you under other

circumstances. What has become of your Theatrical Exhibition? Gambled it

away? Yet, from what I see of your play, I think you ought not to have

lost, Mr. Rugge.”

The ex-manager started.

“What! You knew me before the Storm?--before the lightning struck me,

as I may say, sir--and falling into difficulties, I became-a wreck? You

knew me?--not of the Company?--a spectator?”

“As you say--a spectator. You had once in your employ an actor--clever

old fellow. Waife, I think, he was called.”

“Ah! hold! At that name, sir, my wounds bleed afresh. From that

execrable name, sir, there hangs a tale!”

“Indeed! Then it will be a relief to you to tell it,” said Losely,

resettling his feet on the hob, and snatching at any diversion from his

own reflections.

“Sir, when a gentleman, who is a gentleman, asks as a favour a specimen

of my powers of recital, not professionally, and has before him the

sparkling goblet, which he does not invite me to share, he insults my

fallen fortunes. Sir, I am poor--I own it; I have fallen into the sere

and yellow leaf, sir; but I have still in this withered bosom the heart

of a Briton!”

“Warm it, Mr. Rugge. Help yourself to the brandy--and the lady too.”

“Sir, you are a gentleman; sir, your health. Hag, drink better days

to us both. That woman, sir, is a hag, but she is an honour to her

sex-faithful!”

“It is astonishing how faithful ladies are when not what is called

beautiful. I speak from painful experience,” said Losely, growing

debonnair as the liquor relaxed his gloom, and regaining that levity of

tongue which sometimes strayed into wit, and which-springing originally

from animal spirits and redundant health--still came to him mechanically

whenever roused by companionship from alternate intervals of lethargy

and pain. “But, now, Mr. Rugge, I am all ears; perhaps you will be kind

enough to be all tale.”

With tragic aspect, unrelaxed by that _jeu de mots_, and still wholly

unrecognising in the massive form and discoloured swollen countenance

of the rough-clad stranger, the elegant proportions, the healthful,

blooming, showy face, and elaborate fopperies of the Jasper Losely who

had sold to him a Phenomenon which proved so evanishing, Rugge entered

into a prolix history of his wrongs at the hands of Waife, of Losely, of

Sophy. Only of Mrs. Crane did he speak with respect; and Jasper then for

the first time learned--and rather with anger for the interference than

gratitude for the generosity--that she had repaid the L100, and thereby

cancelled Rugge’s claim upon the child. The ex-manager then proceeded to

the narrative of his subsequent misfortunes--all of which he laid to the

charge of Waife and the Phenomenon. “Sir,” said he, “I was ambitious.

From my childhood’s hour I dreamed of the great York Theatre--dreamed

of it literally thrice. Fatal Vision! But like other dreams, that dream

would have faded--been forgotten in the workday world--and I should not

have fallen into the sere and yellow, but have had, as formerly,

troops of friends, and not been reduced to the horrors of poverty and a

faithful Hag. But, sir, when I first took to my bosom that fiend

William Waife, he exhibited a genius, sir, that Dowton (you have seen

Dowton?--grand) was a stick as compared with. Then my ambition, sir,

blazed and flared up-obstreperous, and my childhood’s dream haunted me;

and I went about musing [Hag, you recollect!]--and muttering ‘The

Royal Theatre at York.’ But, incredible though it seem, the ungrateful

scorpion left me with a treacherous design to exhibit the parts I had

fostered on the London boards; and even-handed Justice, sir, returned

the poisoned chalice to his lips, causing him to lose an eye and to

hobble--besides splitting up his voice--which served him right. And

again I took the scorpion for the sake of the Phenomenon. I had a babe

myself once, sir, though you may not think it. Gormerick (that is

this faithful Hag) gave the babe Daffy’s Elixir, in teething; but it

died--convulsions. I comforted myself when that Phenomenon came out

on my stage--in pink satin and pearls. ‘Ha,’ I said, ‘the great York

Theatre shall yet be mine!’ The haunting idea became a Mania,

sir. The learned say that there is a Mania called Money

Mania--[Monomania??]--when one can think but of the one thing

needful--as the guilty Thane saw the dagger, sir--you understand. And

when the Phenomenon had vanished and gone, as I was told, to America,

where I now wish I was myself, acting Rolla at New York or elsewhere,

to a free and enlightened people--then, sir, the Mania grew on me still

stronger and stronger. There was a pride in it, sir, a British pride.

“I said to this faithful Hag: ‘What--shall I not have the York because

that false child has deserted me? Am I not able to realise a Briton’s

ambition without being beholden to a Phenomenon in spangles?’ Sir, I

took the York! Alone I did it!”

“And,” said Losely, feeling a sort of dreary satisfaction in listening

to the grotesque sorrows of one whose condition seemed to him yet more

abject than his own--“And the York Theatre alone perhaps did you.”

“Right, sir,” said Rugge--half-dolorously, half-exultingly. “It was a

Grand Concern, and might have done for the Bank of England! It swallowed

up my capital with as much ease, sir, as I could swallow an oyster if

there were one upon that plate! I saw how it would be, the very first

week--when I came out myself, strong--Kean’s own part in the Iron

Chest--Mortimer, sir; there warn’t three pounds ten in the house--packed

audience, sir, and they had the face to hiss me. ‘Hag,’ said I to

Mrs. Gormerick, ‘this Theatre is a howling wilderness.’ But there is a

fascination in a Grand Concern, of which one is the head--one goes on

and on. All the savings of a life devoted to the British Drama and the

production of native genius went in what I may call--a jiffey! But

it was no common object, sir, to your sight displayed--but what with

pleasure, sir (I appeal to the Hag), Heaven itself surveyed!--a great

man struggling, sir, with the storms of fate, and greatly falling, sir,

with--a sensation! York remembers it to this day! I took the benefit of

the Act--it was the only benefit I did take--and nobody was the better

for it. But I don’t repine--I realised my dream: that is more than all

can say. Since then I have had many downs, and no ups. I have been a

messenger, sir--a prompter, sir, in my own Exhibition, to which my

own clown, having married into the tragic line, succeeded, sir, as

proprietor; buying of me when I took the York, the theatre, scenery,

and properties, sir, with the right still to call himself ‘Rugge’s Grand

Theatrical Exhibition,’ for an old song, sir--Melancholy. Tyrannised

over, sir--snubbed and bullied by a creature dressed in a little brief

authority; and my own tights--scarlet--as worn by me in my own applauded

part of ‘The Remorseless Baron.’ At last, with this one faithful

creature, I resolved to burst the chains--to be free as air--in short, a

chartered libertine, sir. We have not much, but thank the immortal gods,

we are independent, sir--the Hag and I--chartered libertines! And we are

alive still--at which, in strict confidence, I may own to you that I am

astonished.”

“Yes! you do live,” said Jasper, much interested--for how to live at all

was at that moment a matter of considerable doubt to himself; “you do

live--it is amazing! How?”

“The Faithful tells fortunes; and sometimes we pick up windfalls--widows

and elderly single ladies--but it is dangerous. Labour is sweet, sir:

but not hard labour in the dungeons of a Bridewell. She has known that

labour, sir; and in those intervals I missed her much, Don’t cry, Hag; I

repeat, I live!”

“I understand now; you live upon her! They are the best of creatures,

these hags, as you call them, certainly. Well, well, no saying what a

man may come to! I suppose you have never seen Waife, nor that fellow

you say was so well-dressed and good-looking, and who sold you the

Phenomenon, nor the Phenomenon herself--Eh?” added Losely, stretching

himself, and yawning, as he saw the brandybottle was finished.

“I have seen Waife--the one-eyed monster! Aha!--I have seen him!--and

yesterday too; and a great comfort it was to me too!”

“You saw Waife yesterday--where?”

“At Ouzelford, which I and the Faithful left this morning.”

“And what was he doing?” said Losely, with well-simulated indifference.

“Begging, breaking stones, or what?”

“No,” said Rugge, dejectedly; “I can’t say it was what, in farcical

composition, I should call such nuts to me as that, sir. Still, he was

in a low way--seemed a pedlar or a hawker, selling out of a pannier on

the Rialto--I mean the Cornmarket, sir--not even a hag by his side, only

a great dog--French. A British dog would have scorned such fellowship.

And he did not look merry as he used to do when in my troop. Did he,

Hag?”

“His conscience smites him,” said the Hag, solemnly.

“Did you speak to him?”

“Why, no. I should have liked it, but we could not at that moment,

seeing that we were not in our usual state of independence. This

faithful creature was being led before the magistrates, and I

too--charge of cheating a cook-maid, to whom the Hag had only said,

‘that if the cards spoke true, she would ride in her carriage.’ The

charge broke down; but we were placed for the night in the Cells of the

Inquisition, remanded, and this morning banished from the city, and are

now on our way to--any other city;--eh, Hag?”

“And the old man was not with the Phenomenon? What has become of her,

then?”

“Perhaps she may be with him at his house, if he has one; only, she was

not with him on the Rialto or Cornmarket. She was with him two years

ago, I know; and he and she were better off then than he is now, I

suspect. And that is why it did me good, sir, to see him a pedlar--a

common pedlar--fallen into the sere, like the man he abandoned!”

“Humph--where were they two years ago?”

“At a village not far from Humberston. He had a pretty house, sir, and

sold baskets; and the girl was there too, favoured by a great lady--a

Marchioness, sir! Gods!”

“Marchioness?--near Humberston? The Marchioness of Montfort, I suppose?”

“Likely enough; I don’t remember. All I know is, that two years ago my

old Clown was my tyrannical manager; and being in that capacity, and

this world being made for Caesar, which is a shame, sir, he said to

me, with a sneer, ‘Old Gentleman Waife, whom you used to bully, and

his Juliet Araminta, are in clover!’ And the mocking varlet went on to

unfold a tale to the effect, that when he had last visited Humberston,

in the race-week, a young tradesman, who was courting the Columbine,

whose young idea I myself taught to shoot on the light fantastic toe,

treated that Columbine, and one of her sister train (being, indeed, her

aunt, who has since come out at the Surrey in Desdemona) to a picnic in

a fine park. (That’s discipline!--ha, ha!) And there, sir, Columbine

and her aunt saw Waife on the other side of a stream by which they sate

carousing.”

“The Clown perhaps said it to spite you.”

“Columbine herself confirmed his tale, and said that on returning to the

Village Inn for the Triumphal Car (or bus) which brought them, she

asked if a Mr. Waife dwelt thereabouts, and was told, ‘Yes, with his

grand-daughter.’ And she went on asking, till all came out as the Clown

reported. And Columbine had not even the gratitude, the justice, to

expose that villain--not even to say he had been my perfidious servant!

She had the face to tell me ‘she thought it might harm him, and he was a

kind old soul.’ Sir, a Columbine whose toes I had rapped scores of times

before they could be turned out, was below contempt! but when my own

Clown thus triumphed over me, in parading before my vision the bloated

prosperity of mine enemy, it went to my heart like a knife; and we had

words on it, sir, and--I left him to his fate. But a pedlar! Gentleman

Waife has come to that! The heavens are just, sir, and of our pleasant

vices, sir, make instruments that--that--”

“Scourge us,” prompted the Hag, severely.

Losely rang the bell; the maid-servant appeared. “My horse and

bill. Well, Mr. Rugge, I must quit your agreeable society. I am

not overflowing with wealth at this moment, or I would request your

acceptance of--”

“The smallest trifle,” interrupted the Hag, with her habitual solemnity

of aspect.

Losely, who, in his small way, had all the liberality of a Catiline,

“_alieni appetens, sui profusus_,” drew forth the few silver coins yet

remaining to him; and though he must have calculated that, after paying

his bill, there could scarcely be three shillings left, he chucked two

of them towards the Hag, who, clutching them with a profound curtsey,

then handed them to the fallen monarch by her side, with a loyal tear

and a quick sob that might have touched the most cynical republican.

In a few minutes more, Losely was again on horseback; and as he rode

towards Ouzelford, Rugge and his dusty Faithful shambled on in the

opposite direction--shambled on, footsore and limping, along the wide,

waste, wintry thoroughfare--vanishing from the eye, as their fates

henceforth from this story. There they go by the white hard milestone;

farther on, by the trunk of the hedgerow-tree, which lies lopped and

leafless--cumbering the wayside, till the time come to cast it off to

the thronged, dull stackyard. Farther yet, where the ditch widens into

yon stagnant pool, with the great dung-heap by its side. There the road

turns aslant; the dung-heap hides them. Gone! and not a speck on the

Immemorial, Universal Thoroughfare.

CHAPTER V.

NO WIND SO CUTTING AS THAT WHICH SETS IN THE QUARTER FROM WHICH THE

SUN RISES.

The town to which I lend the disguising name of Ouzelford, which, in

years bygone, was represented by Guy Darrell, and which, in years to

come, may preserve in its municipal hall his effigies in canvas or

stone, is one of the handsomest in England. As you approach its suburbs

from the London Road, it rises clear and wide upon your eye, crowning

the elevated table-land upon which it is built;--a noble range of

prospect on either side, rich with hedgerows not yet sacrificed to the

stern demands of modern agriculture--venerable woodlands, and the green

pastures round many a rural thane’s frank, hospitable hall;--no one

Great House banishing from leagues of landscape the abodes of knight and

squire, nor menacing, with “the legitimate influence of property,” the

votes of rebellious burghers. Everywhere, like finger-posts to heaven,

you may perceive the church-towers of rural hamlets embosomed in

pleasant valleys, or climbing up gentle slopes. At the horizon, the blue

fantastic outline of girdling hills mingles with the clouds. A famous

old cathedral, neighboured by the romantic ivy-grown walls of a ruined

castle, soars up from the centre of the town, and dominates the whole

survey--calm, as with conscious power. Nearing the town, the villas of

merchants and traders, released perhaps from business, skirt the road,

with trim gardens and shaven lawns. Now the small river, or rather

rivulet, of Ouzel, from which the town takes its name, steals out from

deep banks covered with brushwood or aged trees, and widening into brief

importance, glides under the arches of an ancient bridge; runs on, clear

and shallow, to refresh low fertile dairy-meadows, dotted with kine; and

finally quits the view, as brake and copse close round its narrowing,

winding way; and that which, under the city bridge, was an imposing

noiseless stream, becomes, amidst rustic solitudes, an insignificant

babbling brook.

From one of the largest villas in these charming suburbs came forth

a gentleman, middle-aged, and of a very mild and prepossessing

countenance. A young lady without a bonnet, but a kerchief thrown over

her sleek dark hair, accompanied him to the garden-gate, twining both

hands affectionately round his arm, and entreating him not to stand in

thorough draughts and catch cold, nor to step into puddles and wet his

feet, and to be sure to be back before dark, as there were such shocking

accounts in the newspapers of persons robbed and garotted even in the

most populous highways; and, above all, not to listen to the beggars

in the street, and allow himself to be taken in; and before finally

releasing him at the gate, she buttoned his greatcoat up to his chin,

thrust two pellets of cotton into his ears, and gave him a parting kiss.

Then she watched him tenderly for a minute or so as he strode on with

the step of a man who needed not all those fostering admonitions and

coddling cares.

As soon as he was out of sight of the lady and the windows of the villa,

the gentleman cautiously unbuttoned his greatcoat, and removed the

cotton from his ears. “She takes much after her mother, does Anna

Maria,” muttered the gentleman; “and I am very glad she is so well

married.”

He had not advanced many paces when, from a branchroad to the right that

led to the railway station, another gentleman, much younger, and whose

dress unequivocally bespoke him a minister of our Church, came suddenly

upon him. Each with surprise recognised the other.

“What!--Mr. George Morley!”

“Mr. Hartopp!--How are you, my dear sir?--What brings you so far from

home?”

“I am on a visit to my daughter, Anna Maria. She has not been long

married--to young Jessop. Old Jessop is one of the principal merchants

at Ouzelford--very respectable worthy family. The young couple are

happily settled in a remarkably snug villa--that is it with the portico,

not a hundred yards behind us, to the right. Very handsome town,

Ouzelford; you are bound to it, of course?--we can walk together. I am

going to look at the papers in the City Rooms--very fine rooms they

are. But you are straight from London, perhaps, and have seen the day’s

journals? Any report of the meeting in aid of the Ragged Schools?”

“Not that I know of. I have not come from London this morning, nor seen

the papers.”

“Oh!--there’s a strange-looking fellow following us; but perhaps he is

your servant?”

“Not so, but my travelling companion--indeed my guide. In fact, I come

to Ouzelford in the faint hope of discovering there a poor old friend of

mine, of whom I have long been in search.”

“Perhaps the Jessops can help you; they know everybody at Ouzelford. But

now I meet you thus by surprise, Mr. George, I should very much like

to ask your advice on a matter which has been much on my mind the last

twenty-four hours, and which concerns a person I contrived to discover

at Ouzelford, though I certainly was not in search of him--a person

about whom you and I had a conversation a few years ago, when you were

staying with your worthy father.”

“Eh?” said George, quickly; “whom do you speak of?” “That singular

vagabond who took me in, you remember--called himself Chapman--real

name William Losely, a returned convict. You would have it that he was

innocent, though the man himself had pleaded guilty on his trial.”

“His whole character belied his lips then. Oh, Mr. Hartopp, that man

commit the crime imputed to him!--a planned, deliberate robbery--an

ungrateful, infamous breach of trust! That man--that! he who rejects the

money he does not earn, even when pressed on him by anxious imploring

friends--he who has now gone voluntarily forth, aged and lonely, to

wring his bread from the humblest calling rather than incur the risk

of injuring the child with whose existence he had charged himself!--the

dark midnight thief! Believe him not, though his voice may say it. To

screen, perhaps, some other man, he is telling you a noble lie. But what

of him? Have you really seen him, and at Ouzelford?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. I was in the City Reading-Room, looking out of the window. I

saw a great white dog in the street below; I knew the dog at once, sir,

though he is disguised by restoration to his natural coat, and his hair

is as long as a Peruvian lama’s. ‘‘Tis Sir Isaac,’ said I to myself; and

behind Sir Isaac I saw Chapman, so to call him, carrying a basket with

pedlar’s wares, and, to my surprise, Old Jessop, who is a formal man,

with a great deal of reserve and dignity, pompous indeed (but don’t let

that go further), talking to Chapman quite affably, and actually buying

something out of the basket. Presently Chapman went away, and was soon

lost to sight. Jessop comes into the Reading-Room. ‘I saw you,’ said I,

‘talking to an old fellow with a French dog.’ ‘Such a good old fellow,’

said Jessop; ‘has a way about him that gets into your very heart while

he is talking. I should like to make you acquainted with him.’ ‘Thank

you for nothing,’ said I; ‘I should be-taken in.’ ‘Never fear,’ says

Jessop, ‘he would not take in a fly--the simplest creature.’ I own I

chuckled at that, Mr. George. ‘And does he live here,’ said I, ‘or is he

merely a wandering pedlar?’ Then Jessop told me that he had seen him for

the first time two or three weeks ago, and accosted him rudely, looking

on him as a mere tramp; but Chapman answered so well, and showed so many

pretty things in his basket, that Jessop soon found himself buying a

pair of habit-cuffs for Anna Maria, and in the course of talk it came

out, I suppose by a sign, that Chapman was a Freemason, and Jessop is an

enthusiast in that sort of nonsense, master of a lodge or something,

and that was a new attraction. In short, Jessop took a great fancy to

him--patronised him, promised him protection, and actually recommended

him to a lodging in the cottage of all old widow who lives in the

outskirts of the town, and had once been a nurse in the Jessop family.

And what do you think Jessop had just bought of this simple creature’!

A pair of worsted mittens as a present for me, and what is more, I have

got them on this moment-look! neat, I think, and monstrous warm. Now,

I have hitherto kept my own counsel. I have not said to Jessop,

‘Beware--that is the man who took me in.’ But this concealment is a

little on my conscience. On the one hand, it seems very cruel, even if

the man did once commit a crime, in spite of your charitable convictions

to the contrary, that I should be blabbing out his disgrace, and

destroying perhaps his livelihood. On the other hand, if he should still

be really a rogue, a robber, perhaps dangerous, ought I--ought I--in

short--you are a clergyman and a fine scholar, sir-what ought I to do?”

“My dear Mr. Hartopp, do not vex yourself with this very honourable

dilemma of conscience. Let me only find my poor old friend, my

benefactor I may call him, and I hope to persuade him, if not to return

to the home that waits him, at least to be my guest, or put himself

under my care. Do you know the name of the widow with whom he lodges?”

“Yes--Halse; and I know the town well enough to conduct you, if not to

the house itself, still to its immediate neighbourhood. Pray allow me to

accompany you; I should like it very much--for, though you may not think

it, from the light way I have been talking of Chapman, I never was so

interested in any man, never so charmed by any man; and it has often

haunted me at night, thinking that I behaved too harshly to him, and

that he was about on the wide world, an outcast, deprived of his

little girl, whom he had trusted to me. And I should have run after him

yesterday, or called on him this morning, and said, ‘Let me serve you,’

if it had not been for the severity with which he and his son were

spoken of, and I myself rebuked for mentioning their very names, by

a man whose opinion I, and indeed all the country, must hold in the

highest respect--a man of the finest honour, the weightiest character--I

mean Guy Darrell, the great Darrell.”

George Morley sighed. “I believe Darrell knows nothing of the elder

Losely, and is prejudiced against him by the misdeeds of the younger, to

whose care you (and I cannot blame you, for I also was instrumental

to the same transfer which might have proved calamitously fatal)

surrendered the poor motherless girl.”

“She is not with her grandfather now’! She lives still, I hope! She was

very delicate.”

“She lives--she is safe. Ha--take care!”

These last words were spoken as a horseman, riding fast along the road

towards the bridge that was now close at hand, came, without warning or

heed, so close upon our two pedestrians, that George Morley had but just

time to pluck Hartopp aside from the horse’s hoofs.

“An impudent, careless, ruffianly fellow, indeed!” said the mild

Hartopp, indignantly, as he brushed from his sleeve the splash of dirt

which the horseman bequeathed to it. “He must be drunk!”

The rider, gaining the bridge, was there detained at the toll-bar by

some carts and waggons, and the two gentlemen passed him on the bridge,

looking with some attention at his gloomy, unobservant countenance, and

the powerful fraune, in which, despite coarse garments and the change

wrought by years of intemperate excess, was still visible the trace of

that felicitous symmetry once so admirably combining herculean strength

with elastic elegance. Entering the town, the rider turned into the yard

of the near est inn. George Morley and Hartopp, followed at a little

distance by Morley’s travelling companion, Merle, passed on towards the

other extremity of the town, and, after one or two inquiries for

“Widow Halse, Prospect Row,” they came to a few detached cottages, very

prettily situated on a gentle hill, commanding in front the roofs of

the city and the gleaming windows of the great cathedral, with somewhat

large gardens in the rear. Mrs. Halse’s dwelling was at the extreme

end of this Row. The house, however, was shut up; and a woman, who

was standing at the door of the neighbouring cottage, plaiting straw,

informed the visitors that Mrs. Halse was gone out “charing” for the

day, and that her lodger, who had his own key, seldom returned before

dark, but that at that hour he was pretty sure to be found in the

Cornmarket or the streets in its vicinity, and offered to send her

little boy to discover and “fetch” him.

George consulted apart with Merle, and decided on despatching the

cobbler, with the boy for his guide, in quest of the pedlar, Merle being

of course instructed not to let out by whom he was accompanied, lest

Waife, in his obstinacy, should rather abscond than encounter the

friends from whom he had fled. Merle, and a curly-headed urchin, who

seemed delighted at the idea of hunting up Sir Isaac and Sir Isaac’s

master, set forth, and were soon out of sight. Hartopp and George

opened the little garden-gate, and strolled into the garden at the back

of the cottage, to seat themselves patiently on a bench beneath an old

appletree. Here they waited and conversed some minutes, till George

observed that one of the casements on that side of the cottage was left

open, and, involuntarily rising, he looked in; surveying with interest

the room, which he felt sure, at the first glance, must be that occupied

by his self-exiled friend; a neat pleasant little room-a bullfinch in

a wicker cage on a ledge within the casement-a flower-pot beside it.

Doubtless the window, which faced the southern sun, had been left open

by the kind old man in order to cheer the bird and to gladden the plant.

Waife’s well-known pipe, and a tobacco-pouch worked for him by Sophys

fairy fingers, lay on a table near the fireplace, between casement and

door; and George saw with emotion the Bible which he himself had given

to the wanderer lying also on the table, with the magnifying-glass which

Waife had of late been obliged to employ in reading. Waife’s habitual

neatness was visible in the aspect of the room. To George it was evident

that the very chairs had been arranged by his hand; that his hand had

courteously given that fresh coat of varnish to the wretched portrait

of a man in blue coat and buff waistcoat, representing, no doubt, the

lamented spouse of the hospitable widow. George beckoned to Hartopp

to come also and look within; and as the worthy trader peeped over his

shoulder, the clergyman said, whisperingly, “Is there not something

about a man’s home which attests his character?--No ‘pleading guilty’

here.”

Hartopp was about to answer, when they heard the key turn sharply in

the outer door, and had scarcely time to draw somewhat back from the

casement when Waife came hurriedly into the room, followed, not by

Merle, but by the tall rough-looking horseman whom they had encountered

on the road. “Thank Heaven,” cried Waife, sinking on a chair, “out

of sight, out of hearing now! Now you may speak; now I can listen! O

wretched son of my lost angel, whom I so vainly sought to save by the

sacrifice of all my claims to the respect of men, for what purpose do

you seek me? I have nothing left that you can take away! Is it the child

again? See--see--look round-search the house if you will--she is not

here.”

“Bear with me, if you can, sir,” said Jasper, in tones that were almost

meek; “you, at least, can say nothing that I will not bear. But I am in

my right when I ask you to tell me, without equivocation or reserve, if

Sophy, though not actually within these walls, be near you, in this town

or its neighbourhood?--in short, still under your protection?”

“Not in this town--not near it--not under my protection; I swear.”

“Do not swear, father; I have no belief in other men’s oaths. I believe

your simple word. Now comes my second question--remember I am still

strictly in my right--where is she?--and under whose care?”

“I will not say. One reason why I have abandoned the very air she

breathes was, that you might not trace her in tracing me. But she is

out of your power again to kidnap and to sell. You might molest, harass,

shame her, by proclaiming yourself her father; but regain her into your

keeping, cast her to infamy and vice--never, never! She is now with no

powerless, miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect. She is now no

helpless infant without a choice, without a will. She is safe from all,

save the wanton, unprofitable effort to disgrace her. O Jasper, Jasper,

be human--she is so delicate of frame--she is so sensitive to reproach,

so tremulously alive to honour--I am not fit to be near her now. I have

been a tricksome, shifty vagrant, and, innocent though I be, the felon’s

brand is on me! But you, you too, who never loved her, who cannot

miss her, whose heart is not breaking at her loss as mine is now--you,

you--to rise up from the reeking pesthouse in which you have dwelt by

choice, and say, ‘Descend from God’s day with me’--Jasper, Jasper, you

will not--you cannot; it would be the malignity of a devil!”

“Father, hold!” cried Jasper, writhing and livid; “I owe to you more

than I do to that thing of pink and white. I know better than you the

trumpery of all those waxen dolls of whom dupes make idols. At each turn

of the street you may find them in basketfuls--blue-eyed or black-eyed,

just the same worthless frippery or senseless toys; but every man

dandling his own doll, whether he call it sweetheart or daughter, makes

the same puling boast that he has an angel of purity in his puppet of

wax. Nay, hear me! to that girl I owe nothing. You know what I owe to

you. You bid me not seek her, and say, ‘I am your father.’ Do you think

it does not misbecome me more, and can it wound you less, when I come to

you, and remind you that I am your son!”

“Jasper!” faltered the old man, turning his face aside, for the touch

of feeling towards himself, contrasting the cynicism with which Jasper

spoke of other ties not less sacred, took the father by surprise.

“And,” continued Jasper, “remembering how you once loved me--with what

self-sacrifice you proved that love--it is with a bitter grudge against

that girl that I see her thus take that place in your affection which

was mine,--and you so indignant against me if I even presume to approach

her. What! I have the malignity of a devil because I would not quietly

lie down in yonder kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of those

whom your daintier thief disclaims; spies into unguarded areas, or

cowardly skulkers by blind walls; while in the paltry girl, who you

say is so well provided for, I see the last and sole resource which may

prevent you from being still more degraded, still more afflicted by your

son.”

“What is it you want? Even if Sophy were in your power, Darrell would

not be more disposed to enrich or relieve you. He will never believe

your tale, nor deign even to look into its proofs.”

“He might at last,” said Jasper, evasively. “Surely with all that

wealth, no nearer heir than a remote kinsman in the son of a beggared

spendthrift by a linendraper’s daughter--he should need a grandchild

more than you do; yet the proofs you speak of convinced yourself; you

believe my tale.”

“Believe--yes, for that belief was everything in the world, to me! Ah,

remember how joyously, when my term of sentence expired, I hastened

to seek you at Paris, deceived by the rare letters with which you had

deigned to cheer me--fondly dreaming that, in expiating your crime,

I should have my reward in your redemption--should live to see you

honoured, honest, good--live to think your mother watched us from heaven

with a smile on both--and that we should both join her at last--you

purified by my atonement! Oh, and when I saw you so sunken, so hardened,

exulting in vice as in a glory--bravo and partner in a gambler’s

hell--or, worse still, living on the plunder of miserable women, even

the almsman of that vile Desmarets--my son, my son, my lost Lizzy’s son

blotted out of my world for ever!--then, then I should have died if you

had not said, boasting of the lie which had wrung the gold from Darrell,

‘But the child lives still.’ Believe you--oh, yes, yes--for in that

belief something was still left to me to cherish, to love, to live for!”

Here the old man’s hurried voice died away in a passionate sob; and the

direful son, all reprobate though he was, slid from his chair, and bowed

himself at his father’s knee, covering his face with fell hands that

trembled. “Sir, sir,” he said, in broken reverential accents, “do not

let me see you weep. You cannot believe me, but I say solemnly that, if

there be in me a single remnant of affection for any human being, it is

for you. When I consented to leave you to bear the sentence which should

have fallen on myself, sure I am that I was less basely selfish than

absurdly vain. I fancied myself so born to good fortune!--so formed to

captivate some rich girl!--and that you would return to share wealth

with me; that the evening of your days would be happy; that you would be

repaid by my splendour for your own disgrace! And when I did marry, and

did ultimately get from the father-in-law who spurned me the capital

of his daughter’s fortune, pitifully small though it was compared to

my expectations, my first idea was to send half of that sum to you.

But--but--I was living with those who thought nothing so silly as a

good intention--nothing so bad as a good action. That mocking she-devil,

Gabrielle, too! Then the witch’s spell of that d----d green-table! Luck

against one-wait! double the capital ere you send the half. Luck with

one--how balk the tide? how fritter the capital just at the turn of

doubling? Soon it grew irksome even to think of you; yet still when I

did, I said, ‘Life is long, I shall win riches; he shall share them some

day or other!’--_Basta, basta_!--what idle twaddle or hollow brag all

this must seem to you!”

“No,” said Wife, feebly, and his hand drooped till it touched Jasper’s

bended shoulder, but at the touch recoiled as with an electric spasm.

“So, as you say, you found me at Paris. I told you where I had placed

the child, not conceiving that Arabella would part with her, or you

desire to hamper yourself with an encumbrance-nay, I took for granted

that you would find a home as before with some old friend or country

cousin:--but fancying that your occasional visits to her might comfort

you, since it seemed to please you so much when I said she lived. Thus

we parted,--you, it seems, only anxious to save that child from ever

falling into my hands, or those of Gabrielle Desmarets; I hastening to

forget all but the riotous life around me till--”

“Till you came back to England to rob from me the smile of the only face

that I knew would never wear contempt, and to tell the good man with

whom I thought she had so safe a shelter that I was a convicted robber,

by whose very love her infancy was sullied. O Jasper! Jasper!”

“I never said that--never thought of saying it. Arabella Crane did so,

with the reckless woman-will to gain her object. But I did take the

child from you. Why? Partly because I needed money so much that I would

have sold a hecatomb of children for half what I was offered to bind the

girl to a service that could not be very dreadful, since yourself had

first placed here there;--and partly because you had shrunk, it seems,

from appealing to old friends: you were living, like myself, from hand

to mouth; what could that child be to you but a drag and a bother?”

“And you will tell me, I suppose,” said Waife, with an incredulous,

bitter irony, that seemed to wither himself in venting it, so did his

whole frame recoil and shrink--“you will tell me that it was from the

same considerate tenderness that you would have again filched her from

me some months later, to place her with that ‘she-devil’

who was once more by your side; to be reared and sold to--O

horror!--horror!--unimaginable horror!--that pure helpless infant!--you,

armed with the name of father!--you, strong in that mighty form of man!”

“What do you mean? Oh, I remember now! When Gabrielle was in London, and

I had seen you on the bridge? Who could have told you that I meant to

get the child from you at that time?”