Waife was silent. He could not betray Arabella Crane; and Jasper looked

perplexed and thoughtful. Then gradually the dreadful nature of his

father’s accusing words seemed to become more clear to him; and he

cried, with a fierce start and a swarthy flush: “But whoever told you

that I harboured the design that it whitens your lip to hint at, lied,

and foully. Harkye, sir, many years ago Gabrielle had made acquaintance

with Darrell, under another name, as Matilda’s friend (long story

now--not worth telling); he had never, I believe, discovered the

imposture. Just at the time you refer to, I heard that Darrell had been

to France, inquiring himself into facts connected with my former story,

that Matilda’s child was dead. That very inquiry seemed to show that he

had not been so incredulous of my assertions of Sophy’s claims on him

as he had affected to be when I urged them. He then went on into Italy.

Talking this over with Gabrielle, she suggested that, if the child could

be got into her possession, she would go with her in search of Darrell,

resuming the name in which she had before known him--resuming the title

and privilege of Matilda’s friend. In that character he might listen to

her, when he would not to me. She might confirm my statement--melt his

heart--coax him into terms. She was the cleverest creature! I should

have sold Sophy, it is true. For what? A provision to place me above

want and crime. Sold her to whom? To the man who would see in her his

daughter’s child, rear her to inherit his wealth--guard her as his own

honour. What! was this the design that so shocks you? _Basta, Basta!_

Again, I say, Enough. I never thought I should be so soft as to mutter

excuses for what I have done. And if I do so now, the words seem forced

from me against my will-forced from me, as if in seeing you I was again

but a wild, lawless, wilful boy, who grieved to see you saddened by his

faults, though he forgot his grief the moment you were out of sight.”

“Oh, Jasper,” cried Waife, now fairly placing his hand on Jasper’s

guilty head, and fixing his bright soft eye, swimming in tears, on that

downcast gloomy face. “You repent!--you repent! Yes; call back your

BOYHOOD--call it back! Let it stand before you, now, visible, palpable!

Lo! I see it! Do not you? Fearless, joyous Image! Wild, lawless, wilful,

as you say. Wild from exuberant life; lawless as a bird is free, because

air is boundless to untried exulting wings; wilful from the ease with

which the bravery and beauty of Nature’s radiant Darling forced way for

each jocund whim through our yielding hearts! Silence! It is there! I

see it, as I saw it rise in the empty air when guilt and ignominy first

darkened round you; and my heart cried aloud, ‘Not on him, not on him,

not on that glorious shape of hope and promise--on me, whose life,

useless hitherto, has lost all promise now--on me let fall the shame.’

And my lips obeyed my heart, and I said--‘Let the Laws’ will be done--I

am the guilty man.’ Cruel, cruel one! Was that sunny Boyhood then so

long departed from you? On the verge of youth, and such maturity in

craft and fraud--that when you stole into my room that dark winter eve,

threw yourself at my feet, spoke but of thoughtless debts, and the fear

that you should be thrust from an industrious honest calling, and I--I

said, ‘No, no; fear not; the head of your firm likes you; he has written

to me; I am trying already to raise the money you need; it shall be

raised, no matter what it cost me; you shall be saved; my Lizzie’s son

shall never know the soil of a prison; shun temptation henceforth: be

but honest, and I shall be repaid!’--what, even then, you were coldly

meditating the crime that will make my very grave dishonoured!”

“Meditating--not so! How could I be? Not till after what had thus passed

between us, when you spoke with such indulgent kindness, did I even know

that I might more than save myself--by monies--not raised at risk and

loss to you! Remember, you had left me in the inner room, while you went

forth to speak with Gunston. There I overheard him talk of notes he had

never counted, and might never miss; describe the very place where they

were kept; and then the idea came to me irresistibly, ‘better rob him

than despoil my own generous father.’ Sir, I am not pretending to be

better than I was. I was not quite the novice you supposed. Coveting

pleasures or shows not within my reach, I had shrunk from draining

you to supply the means; I had not had the same forbearance for the

superfluous wealth of others. I had learned with what simple tools old

locks may fly open; and none had ever suspected me, so I had no fear

of danger, small need of premeditation: a nail on your mantelpiece, the

cloven end of the hammer lying beside, to crook it when hot from the

fire that blazed before me! I say this to show you that I did not come

provided; nothing was planned beforehand; all was the project and work

of the moment. Such was my haste, I burnt myself to the bone with the

red iron--feeling no pain, or rather, at that age, bearing all pain

without wincing. Before Gunston left you, my whole plan was then

arranged--my sole instrument fashioned. You groan. But how could I fancy

that there would be detection? How imagine that even if monies, never

counted, were missed, suspicion could fall on you--better gentleman than

he whom you served? And had it not been for that accursed cloak which

you so fondly wrapped round me when I set off to catch the night train

back to--; if it had not been, I say, for that cloak, there could have

been no evidence to criminate either you or me-except that unlucky L5

note, which I pressed on you when we met at ----, where I was to

hide till you had settled with my duns. And why did I press it on

you?--because you had asked me if I had wherewithal about me on which to

live meanwhile; and I, to save you from emptying your own purse, said,

‘Yes’; showed you some gold, and pressed on you the bank-note, which I

said I could not want--to go, in small part, towards my debts; it was a

childish, inconsistent wish to please you: and you seemed so pleased to

take it as a proof that I cared for you.”

“For me!--no, no; for honour--for honour--for honour! I thought you

cared for honour; and the proof of that care was, thrusting into these

credulous hands the share of your midnight plunder!”

“Sir,” resumed Jasper, persisting in the same startling combination of

feeling, gentler and more reverential than could have been supposed to

linger in his breast, and of the moral obtuseness that could not,

save by vanishing glimpses, distinguish between crime and its

consequences--between dishonour and detection--“Sir, I declare that I

never conceived that I was exposing you to danger; nay, I meant, out of

the money I had taken, to replace to you what you were about to raise,

as soon as I could invent some plausible story of having earned it

honestly. Stupid notions and clumsy schemes, as I now look back on them;

but, as you say, I had not long left boyhood, and, fancying myself

deep and knowing, was raw in the craft I had practised. _Basta, basta,

basta!_”

Jasper, who had risen from his knees while speaking, here stamped

heavily on the floor, as if with anger at the heart-stricken aspect of

his silenced father; and continued with a voice that seemed struggling

to regain its old imperious, rollicking, burly swell.

“What is done cannot be undone. Fling it aside, sir--look to the future;

you with your pedlar’s pack, I with my empty pockets! What can save you

from the workhouse--me from the hulks or gibbet? I know not, unless the

persons sheltering that girl will buy me off by some provision which may

be shared between us. Tell me, then, where she is; leave me to deal in

the business as I best may. Pooh! why so scared? I will neither terrify

nor kidnap her. I will shuffle off the crust of blackguard that has

hardened round me. I will be sleek and smooth, as if I were still the

exquisite Lothario--copied by would-be rufflers, and spoiled by willing

beauties. Oh, I can still play the gentleman, at least for an hour or

two, if it be worth my while. Come, sir, come; trust me; out with the

secret of this hidden maiden, whose interests should surely weigh not

more with you than those of a starving son. What, you will not? Be

it so. I suspect that I know where to look for her--on what noble

thresholds to set my daring foot; what fair lady, mindful of former

days--of girlish friendship--of virgin love--wraps in compassionate

luxury Guy Darrell’s rejected heiress? Ah, your looks tell me that I am

hot on the scent. That fair lady I knew of old; she is rich--I helped

to make her so. She owes me something. I will call and remind her of

it. And--tut, sir, tut--you shall not go to the workhouse, nor I to the

hulks.”

Here the old man, hitherto seated, rose-slowly, with feebleness and

effort, till he gained his full height; then age, infirmity, and

weakness seemed to vanish. In the erect head, the broad massive chest,

in the whole presence, there was dignity--there was power.

“Hark to me, unhappy reprobate, and heed me well! To save that child

from the breath of disgrace--to place her in what you yourself assured

me where her rights amidst those in whose dwellings I lost the privilege

to dwell when I took to myself your awful burthen--I thought to resign

her charge for ever in this world. Think not that I will fly her now,

when you invade. No--since my prayers will not move you--since my

sacrifice to you has been so fruitless--since my absence from herself

does not attain its end there, where you find her, shall you again meet

me! And if there we meet, and you come with the intent to destroy her

peace and blast her fortune, then I, William Losely, am no more the

felon. In the face of day I will proclaim the truth, and say, ‘Robber,

change place in earth’s scorn with me; stand in the dock, where thy

father stood in vain to save thee!”’

“Bah, sir--too late now; who would listen to you?”

“All who have once known me--all will listen. Friends of power and

station will take up my cause. There will be fresh inquiry into

facts that I held back--evidence that, in pleading guilty, I

suppressed--ungrateful one--to ward away suspicion from you.”

“Say what you will,” said Jasper swaying his massive form to and fro,

with a rolling gesture which spoke of cold defiance, “I am no hypocrite

in fair repute whom such threats would frighten. If you choose to thwart

me in what I always held my last resource for meat and drink, I must

stand in the dock even, perhaps, on a heavier charge than one so stale.

Each for himself; do your worst--what does it matter?”

“What does it matter that a father should accuse his son! No, no--son,

son, son--this must not be;--let it not be!--let me complete my

martyrdom! I ask no reversal of man’s decree, except before the Divine

Tribunal. Jasper, Jasper--child of my love, spare the sole thing left

to fill up the chasms in the heart that you laid waste. Speak not of

starving, or of fresh crime. Stay--share this refuge! I WILL WORK FOR

BOTH!”

Once more, and this time thoroughly, Jasper’s hideous levity and coarse

bravado gave way before the lingering human sentiment knitting him back

to childhood, which the sight and voice of his injured father had called

forth with spasms and throes, as a seer calls the long-buried from a

grave. And as the old man extended his arms pleadingly towards him,

Jasper, with a gasping sound-half groan, half sob-sprang forward, caught

both the hands in his own strong grasp, lifted them to his lips, kissed

them, and then, gaining the door with a rapid stride, said, in hoarse

broken tones: “Share your refuge! no--no--I should break your

heart downright did you see me daily--hourly as I am! You work for

both!--you--you!” His voice stopped, choked for a brief moment, and then

hurried on: “As for that girl--you--you--you are--but no matter, I

will try to obey you--will try to wrestle against hunger, despair, and

thoughts that whisper sinking men with devils’ tongues. I will try--I

will try; if I succeed not, keep your threat--accuse me--give me up

to justice--clear yourself; but if you would crush me more than by the

heaviest curse, never again speak to me with such dreadful tenderness!

Cling not to me, old man; release me, I say;--there--there; off. Ah! I

did not hurt you? Brute that I am--you bless me--you--you! And I dare

not bless again! Let me go--let me go--let me go!” He wrenched himself

away from his father’s clasp--drowning with loud tone his father’s

pathetic soothings--out of the house-down the hill--lost to sight in the

shades of the falling eve.

CHAPTER VI.

GENTLEMAN WAIFE DOES NOT FORGET AN OLD FRIEND. THE OLD FRIEND

RECONCILES ASTROLOGY TO PRUDENCE, AND IS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF

BENEFICE. MR. HARTOPP HAT IN HAND TO GENTLEMAN WAIFE.

Waife fell on the floor of his threshold, exclaiming, sobbing, moaning,

as voice itself gradually died away. The dog, who had been shut out from

the house, and remained, ears erect, head drooping, close at the door,

rushed in as Jasper burst forth. The two listeners at the open casement

now stole round; there was the dog, its paw on the old man’s shoulder,

trying to attract his notice, and whining low.

Tenderly--reverentially, they lift the poor martyr--evermore cleared in

their eyes from stain, from question; the dishonouring brand transmuted

into the hallowing cross! And when the old man at length recovered

consciousness, his head was pillowed on the breast of the spotless,

noble Preacher; and the decorous English Trader, with instinctive

deference for repute and respect for law, was kneeling by his side,

clasping his hand; and as Wife glanced down, confusedly wondering,

Hartopp exclaimed, half sobbing: “Forgive me; you said I should repent,

if I knew all! I do repent! I do! Forgive me--I shall never forgive

myself.”

“Have I been dreaming? What is all this? You here, too, Mr. George!

But--but there was ANOTHER. Gone! ah--gone--gone! lost, lost! Ha! Did

you overhear us?”

“We overheard you-at that window! See, spite of yourself, Heaven

lets your innocence be known, and, in that innocence, your sublime

self-sacrifice.”

“Hush! you will never betray me, either of you--never. A father turn

against his son!--horrible!”

Again he seemed on the point of swooning. In a few moments more, his

mind began evidently to wander somewhat; and just as Merle (who, with

his urchin-guide, had wandered vainly over the old town in search of

the pedlar, until told that he had been seen in a by-street, stopped

and accosted by a tall man in a rough great-coat, and then hurrying off,

followed by the stranger) came back to report his ill-success, Hartopp

and George had led Waife up-stairs into his sleeping-room, laid him down

on his bed, and were standing beside him watching his troubled face, and

whispering to each other in alarm.

Waife overheard Hartopp proposing to go in search of medical assistance,

and exclaimed piteously: “No, that would scare me to death. No

doctors--no eavesdroppers. Leave me to myself--quiet and darkness; I

shall be well tomorrow.”

George drew the curtains round the bed, and Waife caught him by the arm.

“You will not let out what you heard, I know; you understand how little

I can now care for men’s judgments; but how dreadful it would be to undo

all I have done--I to be witness against my Lizzy’s child! I--I! I trust

you--dear, dear Mr. Morley; make Mr. Hartopp sensible that, if he would

not drive me mad, not a syllable of what he heard must go forth--‘twould

be base in him.”

“Nay!” said Hartopp, whispering also through the darkness, “don’t fear

me; I will hold my peace, though ‘tis very hard not to tell Williams at

least that you did not take me in. But you shall be obeyed.”

They drew away Merle, who was wondering what the whispered talk was

about, catching a word or two here and there, and left the old man not

quite to solitude,--Waife’s hand, in quitting George’s grasp, dropped on

the dog’s head.

Hartopp went back to his daughter’s home in a state of great excitement,

drinking more wine than usual at dinner, talking more magisterially than

he had ever been known to talk, railing quite misanthropically against

the world; observing, that Williams had become unsufferably overbearing,

and should be pensioned off: in short, casting the whole family into the

greatest perplexity to guess what had come to the mild man. Merle found

himself a lodging, and cast a horary scheme as to what would happen to

Waife and himself for the next three months, and found all the aspects

so perversely contradictory, that he owned he was no wiser as to the

future than he was before the scheme was cast. George Morley remained

in the cottage, stealing up, from time to time, to Waife’s room, but

not fatiguing him with talk. Before midnight, the old man slept, but his

slumber was much perturbed, as if by fearful dreams. However, he rose

early, very weak, but free from fever, and in full possession of his

reason. To George’s delight, Waife’s first words to him then were

expressive of a wish to return to Sophy. “He had dreamed,” he said,

“that he had heard her voice calling out to him to come to her help.” He

would not revert to the scene with Jasper. George once ventured to touch

on that reminiscence, but the old man’s look became so imploring that

he desisted. Nevertheless, it was evident to the Pastor, that Waife’s

desire to return was induced by his belief that he had become necessary

to Sophy’s protection. Jasper, whose remorse would probably be very

short-lived, had clearly discovered Sophy’s residence, and as clearly

Waife, and Waife alone, still retained some hold over his rugged breast.

Perhaps, too, the old man had no longer the same dread of encountering

Jasper; rather, perhaps, a faint hope that, in another meeting, he

might more availingly soften his son’s heart. He was not only willing,

then--he was eager to depart, and either regained or assumed much of his

old cheerfulness in settling with his hostess, and parting with Merle,

on whom he forced his latest savings and the tasteful contents of his

pannier. Then he took aside George, and whispered in his ear: “A

very honest, kind-hearted man, sir; can you deliver him from the

Planets?--they bring him into sad trouble. Is there no opening for a

cobbler at Humberston?”

George nodded, and went back to Merle, who was wiping his eyes with his

coat-sleeve. “My good friend,” said the scholar, “do me two favours,

besides the greater one you have already bestowed in conducting me

back to a revered friend. First, let me buy of you the contents of that

basket; I have children amongst whom I would divide them as heirlooms;

next, as we were travelling hither, you told me that, in your younger

days, ere you took to a craft which does not seem to have prospered, you

were brought up to country pursuits, and knew all about cows and sheep,

their care and their maladies. Well, I have a few acres of glebe-land on

my own hands, not enough for a bailiff--too much for my gardener--and a

pretty cottage, which once belonged to a schoolmaster, but we have built

him a larger one; it is now vacant, and at your service. Come and take

all trouble of land and stock off my hands; we shall not quarrel about

the salary. But harkye, my friend--on one proviso--give up the Crystal,

and leave the Stars to mind their own business.”

“Please your Reverence,” said Merle, who, at the earlier part of the

address, had evinced the most grateful emotion, but who, at the proviso

which closed it, jerked himself lip, dignified and displeased--“Please

your Reverence, no! Kit Merle is not so unnatural as to swop away his

Significator at Birth for a mess of porritch! There was that forrin

chap, Gally-Leo--he stuck to the stars, or the sun, which is the same

thing--and the stars stuck by him, and brought him honour and glory,

though the Parsons war dead agin him. He had Malefics in his Ninth

House, which belongs to Parsons.”

“Can’t the matter be compromised, dear Mr. George?” said Waife,

persuasively. “Suppose Merle promises to keep his crystal and

astrological schemes to himself, or at least only talk of them to

you;--they can’t hurt you, I should think, sir? And science is a sacred

thing, Merle; and the Chaldees, who were the great star-gazers, never

degraded themselves by showing off to the vulgar. Mr. George, who is a

scholar, will convince you of that fact.”

“Content,” said George. “So long as Mr. Merle will leave my children and

servants, and the parish generally, in happy ignorance of the future, I

give him the fullest leave to discuss his science with myself whenever

we chat together on summer moons or in winter evenings; and perhaps I

may--”

“Be converted?” said Waife, with a twinkling gleam of the playful Humour

which had ever sported along his thorny way by the side of Sorrow.

“I did not mean that,” said the Parson, smiling; “rather the contrary.

What say you, Merle? Is it not a bargain?”

“Sir--God bless you!” cried Merle, simply; “I see you won’t let me stand

in my own light. And what Gentleman Waife says as to the vulgar, is

uncommon true.”

This matter settled, and Merle’s future secured in a way that his stars,

or his version of their language, had not foretold to him, George and

Waife walked on to the station, Merle following with the Parson’s small

carpet-bag, and Sir Isaac charged with Waife’s bundle. They had not

gone many yards before they met Hartopp, who was indeed on his way

to Prospect Row. He was vexed at learning Waife was about to leave so

abruptly; he had set his heart on coaxing him to return to Gatesboro’

with himself--astounding Williams and Mrs. H., and proclaiming to Market

Place and High Street, that, in deeming Mr. Chapman a good and a great

man disguised, he, Josiah Hartopp, had not been taken in. He consoled

himself a little for Waife’s refusal of this kind invitation and

unexpected departure, by walking proudly beside him to the station,

finding it thronged with passengers--some of them great burgesses of

Ouzelford--in whose presence he kept bowing his head to Waife with every

word he uttered; and, calling the guard--who was no stranger to his own

name and importance--he told him pompously to be particularly attentive

to that elderly gentleman, and see that he and his companion had

a carriage to themselves all the way, and that Sir Isaac had a

particularly comfortable box. “A very great man,” he said, with his

finger to his lip, “only he will not have it known--just at present.”

The guard stares, and promises all deference--opens the door of a

central first-class carriage--assures Waife that he and his friend

shall not be disturbed by other passengers. The train heaves into

movement--Hartopp runs on by its side along the stand--his hat

off-kissing his hand; then, as the convoy shoots under yon dark tunnel,

and is lost to sight, he turns back, and seeing Merle, says to him, “You

know that gentleman--the old one?”

“Yes, a many year.”

“Ever heard anything against him?”

“Yes, once--at Gatesboro’.”

“At Gatesboro’!--ah! and you did not believe it?”

“Only jist for a moment, transiting.”

“I envy you,” said Hartopp; and he went off with a sigh.

CHAPTER VII.

JASPER LOSELY IN HIS ELEMENT. O YOUNG READER, WHOMSOEVER THOU ART,

ON WHOM NATURE HAS BESTOWED HER MAGNIFICENT GIFT OF PHYSICAL POWER

WITH THE JOYS IT COMMANDS, WITH THE DARING THAT SPRINGS FROM IT--ON

CLOSING THIS CHAPTER, PAUSE A MOMENT, AND THINK “WHAT WILT THOU DO

WITH IT?” SHALL IT BE BRUTE-LIKE OR GOD-LIKE? WITH WHAT ADVANTAGE

FOR LIFE--ITS DELIGHTS OR ITS PERILS-TOILS BORNE WITH EASE, AND

GLORIES CHEAP-BOUGHT--DOST THOU START AT LIFE’S ONSET? GIVE THY

SINEWS A MIND THAT CONCEIVES THE HEROIC, AND WHAT NOBLE THINGS THOU

MAYST DO, BUT VALUE THY SINEWS FOR RUDE STRENGTH ALONE, AND THAT

STRENGTH MAY BE TURNED TO THY SHAME AND THY TORTURE. THE WEALTH OF

THY LIFE WILL BUT TEMPT TO ITS WASTE. ABUSE, AT FIRST FELT NOT,

WILL POISON THE USES OF SENSE. WILD BULLS GORE AND TRAMPLE THEIR

FOES. THOU HAST SOUL! WILT THOU TRAMPLE AND GORE IT?

Jasper Losely, on quitting his father, spent his last coins in payment

for his horse’s food, and in fiery drink for himself. In haste he

mounted--in haste he spurred on to London; not even pence for the

toll-bars. Where he found the gates open, he dashed through them

headlong; where closed, as the night advanced, he forced his horse

across the fields over hedge and ditch--more than once the animal

falling with him--more than once thrown from the saddle; for, while a

most daring, he was not a very practised rider; but it was not easy to

break bones so strong, and though bruised and dizzy, he continued his

fierce way. At morning his horse was thoroughly exhausted, and at the

first village he reached after sunrise he left the poor beast at an inn,

and succeeded in borrowing of the landlord L1 on the pawn of the horse

thus left as hostage. Resolved to husband this sum, he performed the

rest of his journey on foot. He reached London at night, and went

straight to Cutts’ lodgings. Cutts was, however, in the club-room of

those dark associates against whom Losely had been warned. Oblivious

of his solemn promise to Arabella, Jasper startled the revellers as he

stalked into the room, and towards the chair of honour at the far end of

it, on which he had been accustomed to lord it over the fell groups he

had treated out of Poole’s purse. One of the biggest and most redoubted

of the Black Family was now in that seat of dignity, and refusing

surlily to yield it at Jasper’s rude summons, was seized by the scruff

of the neck, and literally hurled on the table in front, coming down

with clatter and clash amongst mugs and glasses. Jasper seated himself

coolly, while the hubbub began to swell--and roared for drink. An old

man, who served as drawer to these cavaliers, went out to obey the

order; and when he was gone, those near the door swung across it a heavy

bar. Wrath against the domineering intruder was gathering, and waited

but the moment to explode. Jasper, turning round his bloodshot eyes; saw

Cutts within a few chairs of him, seeking to shrink out of sight.

“Cutts, come hither,” cried he, imperiously. Cutts did not stir.

“Throw me that cur this way--you, who sit next him.”

“Don’t, don’t; his mad fit is on him; he will murder me--murder me, who

have helped and saved you all so often. Stand by me.”

“We will,” said both his neighbours, the one groping for his case-knife,

the other for his revolver.

“Do you fear I should lop your ears, dog,” cried Jasper, for shrinking

from my side with your tail between your legs! Pooh! I scorn to waste

force on a thing so small. After all, I am glad you left me; I did not

want you. You will find your horse at an inn in the village of ------.

I will pay for its hire whenever we meet again. Meanwhile, find another

master--I discharge you. _Mille tonnerres!_ why does that weasel-faced

snail not bring me the brandy! By your leave,”--and he appropriated to

himself the brimming glass of his next neighbour. Thus refreshed, he

glanced round through the reek of tobacco smoke; saw the man he had

dislodged, and who, rather amazed than stunned by his fall, had kept

silence on rising, and was now ominously interchanging muttered words

with two of his comrades, who were also on their legs. Jasper turned

from him contemptuously;--with increasing contempt in his hard fierce

sneer, noted the lowering frowns on either side the Pandemonium; and it

was only with an angry flash from his eyes that he marked, on closing

his survey, the bar dropped across the door, and two forms, knife in

hand, stationed at the threshold.

“Aha! my jolly companions,” said he then, “you do right to bar the

door. Prudent families can’t settle their quarrels too snugly amongst

themselves. I am come here on purpose to give you all a proper scolding,

and if some of you don’t hang your heads for shame before I have done,

you’ll die more game than I think for, whenever you come to the last

Drop.”

He rose as he thus spoke, folding his sinewy arms across his wide chest.

Most of the men had risen too--some, however, remained seated; there

might be eighteen or twenty in all. Every eye was fixed on him, and many

a hand was on a deadly weapon.

“Scum of the earth!” burst forth Jasper, with voice like a roll of

thunder, “I stooped to come amongst you--I shared amongst you my money.

Was any one of you too poor to pay up his club fee--to buy a draught

of Forgetfulness--I said, ‘Brother, take!’ Did brawl break out in your

jollities--were knives drawn--a throat in danger--this right band struck

down the uproar, crushed back the coward murder. If I did not join in

your rogueries, it was because they were sneaking and pitiful. I came

as your Patron, not as your Pal; I did not meddle with your secrets--did

not touch your plunder. I owed you nothing. Offal that you are! to me

you owed drink, and meat, and good fellowship. I gave you mirth, and

I gave you Law; and in return ye laid a plot amongst you to get rid

of me;--how, ye white-livered scoundrels? Oho! not by those fists, and

knives, and bludgeons. All your pigeon breasts clubbed together had not

manhood for that. But to palm off upon me some dastardly deed of your

own; by snares and scraps of false evidence--false oaths, too, no

doubt--to smuggle me off to the hangman. That was your precious

contrivance. Once again I am here; but this once only. What for?--why,

to laugh at, and spit at, and spurn you. And if one man amongst you has

in him an ounce of man’s blood, let him show me the traitors who planned

that pitiful project, and be they a dozen, they shall carry the mark of

this hand till their carcasses go to the surgeon’s scalpel.”

He ceased. Though each was now hustling the other towards him, and the

whole pack of miscreants was closing up, like hounds round a wild boar

at bay, the only one who gave audible tongue was that thin splinter of

life called Cutts!

“Look you, General Jas., it was all a mistake your ever coming here.

You were a fine fellow once, particularly in the French way of doing

business--large prizes and lots of row. That don’t suit us; we are quiet

Englishmen. You brag of beating and bullying the gentlemen who admit you

amongst them, and of not sharing their plans or risks; but that sort of

thing is quite out of order--no precedent for it. How do we know that

you are not a spy, or could not be made one, since you say you owe us

nothing, and hold us in such scorn? Truth is, we are all sick of you.

You say you only come this once: very well, you have spun your yarn--now

go. That’s all we want; go in peace, and never trouble us again.

Gentlemen, I move that General Jas. be expelled this club, and requested

to withdraw.”

“I second it,” said the man whom Jasper had flung on the table.

“Those who are in favour of the resolution, hold up their

hands;--all--carried unanimously. General Jas. is expelled.”

“Expel me!” said Jasper, who in the mean while, swaying to and fro his

brawny bulk, had cleared the space round him, and stood resting his

hands on the heavy armchair from which he had risen.

A hostile and simultaneous movement of the group brought four or five of

the foremost on him. Up rose the chair on which Jasper had leaned--up it

rose in his right hand, and two of the assailants fell as falls an ox to

the butcher’s blow. With his left hand he wrenched a knife from a third

of the foes, and thus armed with blade and buckler, he sprang on the

table, towering over all. Before him was the man with the revolver,

a genteeler outlaw than the rest-ticket-of-leave man, who had been

transported for forgery. “Shall I shoot him?” whispered this knave to

Cutts. Cutts drew back the hesitating arm. “No; the noise! bludgeons

safer.” Pounce, as Cutts whispered--pounce as a hawk on its quarry,

darted Jasper’s swoop on the Forger, and the next moment, flinging the

chair in the faces of those who were now swarming up the table, Jasper

was armed with the revolver, which he had clutched from its startled

owner, and its six barrels threatened death, right and left, beside and

before and around him, as he turned from face to face. Instantly there

fell a hush--instantly the assault paused. Every one felt that there

no faltering would make the hand tremble or the ball swerve. Whereever

Jasper turned the foes recoiled. He laughed with audacious mockery as he

surveyed the recreants.

“Down with your arms, each of you--down that knife, down that bludgeon.

That’s well. Down yours--there; yours--yours. What, all down! Pile them

here on the table at my feet. Dogs, what do you fear?-death. The first

who refuses dies.”

Mute and servile as a repentant Legion to a Caesar’s order, the knaves

piled their weapons.

“Unbar the door, you two. You, orator Cutts, go in front; light a

candle--open the street-door. So-so-so. Who will treat me with a parting

cup--to your healths? Thank you, sir. Fall back there; stand back--along

the wall--each of you. Line my way. Ho, ho!--you harm me--you daunt

me--you--you! Stop--I have a resolution to propose. Hear it, and cheer.

‘That this meeting rescinds the resolution for the expulsion of General

Jasper, and entreats him humbly to remain, the pride and ornament of the

club!’ Those who are for that resolution, hold up their hands--as many

as are against it, theirs. Carried unanimously. Gentlemen, I thank

you--proudest day of my life--but I’ll see you hanged first; and till

that sight diverts me,--gentlemen, your health.”

Descending from his eminence, he passed slowly down the room unscathed,

unmenaced, and, with a low mocking bow at the threshold, strode along

the passage to the streetdoor. There, seeing Cutts with the light in his

hand, he uncocked the pistol, striking off the caps, and giving it

to his quondam associate, said: “Return that to its owner, with my

compliments. One word-speak truth, and fear nothing. Did you send help

to Darrell?” “No; I swear it.”

“I am sorry for it. I should like to have owed so trusty a friend that

one favour. Go back to your pals. Understand now why I scorned to work

with such rotten tools.”

“A wonderful fellow, indeed!” muttered Cutts, as his eye followed the

receding form of the triumphant bravo. “All London might look to itself,

if he had more solid brains, and less liquid fire in them.”

CHAPTER VIII.

JASPER LOSELY SLEEPS UNDER THE PORTICO FROM WHICH FALSEHOOD WAS

BORNE BY BLACK HORSES. HE FORGETS A PROMISE, REWEAVES A SCHEME,

VISITS A RIVER-SIDE, AND A DOOR CLOSES ON THE STRONG MAN AND THE

GRIM WOMAN.

Jasper, had satisfied the wild yearnings of his wounded vanity. He had

vindicated his claim to hardihood and address, which it seemed to him

he had forfeited in his interview with Darrell. With crest erect and a

positive sense of elation, of animal joy that predominated over hunger,

fatigue, remorse, he strided on--he knew not whither. He would not go

back to his former lodgings; they were too familiarly known to the

set which he had just flung from him, with a vague resolve to abjure

henceforth all accomplices, and trust to himself alone. The hour was

now late--the streets deserted--the air bitingly cold. Must he at last

resign himself to the loathed dictation of Arabella Cram? Well, he

now preferred even that to humbling himself to Darrell, after what had

passed. Darrell’s parting words had certainly implied that he would

not be as obdurate to entreaty as he had shown himself to threats. But

Jasper was in no humour to entreat. Mechanically he continued to stride

on towards the solitary district in which Arabella held her home; but

the night was now so far advanced that he shrunk from disturbing the

grim woman at that hour--almost as respectfully afraid of her dark eye

and stern voice as the outlaws he had quitted were of his own crushing

hand and levelled pistol. So finding himself in one of the large squares

of Bloomsbury, he gathered himself up under the sheltering porch of

a spacious mansion, unconscious that it was the very residence which

Darrell had once occupied, and that from that portico the Black Horses

had borne away the mother of his wife. In a few minutes he was fast

asleep--sleeping with such heavy deathlike soundness, that the policeman

passing him on his beat, after one or two vain attempts to rouse him,

was seized with a rare compassion, and suffered the weary outcast to

slumber on.

When Jasper woke at last in the grey dawn, he felt a strange numbness

in his limbs; it was even with difficulty that he could lift himself up.

This sensation gradually wearing off, was followed by a quick tingling

down the arms to the tips of the fingers. A gloomy noise rang in his

ears, like the boom of funeral church-bells; and the pavement seemed

to be sliding from under him. Little heeding these symptoms, which he

ascribed to cold and want of food, and rather agreeably surprised not

to feel the gnaw of his accustomed pains, Jasper now betook himself to

Podden Place. The house was still unclosed; and it was not till Jasper’s

knock had been pretty often repeated, that the bolts were withdrawn from

the door, and Bridgett Greggs appeared. “Oh, it is you, Mr. Losely,”

she said, with much sullenness, but with no apparent surprise. “Mistress

thought you would come while she was away, and I’m to get you the

bedroom you had, over the stationer’s, six years ago, if you like it.

You are to take your meals here, and have the best of everything; that’s

mistress’s orders.”

“Oh, Mrs. Crane is out of town,” said Jasper, much relieved; “where has

she gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will she be back?”

“In a few days; so she told me. Will you walk in, and have breakfast?

Mistress said there was to be always plenty in the house--you might come

any moment. Please scrape your feet.”

Jasper heavily mounted into the drawing-room, and impatiently awaited

the substantial refreshments, which were soon placed before him. The

room looked unaltered, as if he had left it but the day before--the

prim book-shelves--the empty birdcage--the broken lute--the patent

easy-chair--the footstool--the sofa, which had been added to the

original furniture for his express comfort, in the days when he was

first adopted as a son-nay, on the hearth-rug the very slippers, on the

back of the chair the very dressing-gown, graciously worn by him while

yet the fairness of his form justified his fond respect for it.

For that day he was contented with the negative luxury of complete

repose; the more so as, in every attempt to move, he felt the same

numbness of limb as that with which he had woke, accompanied by a kind

of painful weight at the back of the head, and at the junction which the

great seat of intelligence forms at the spine with the great mainspring

of force; and, withal, a reluctance to stir, and a more than usual

inclination to doze. But the next day, though these unpleasant

sensations continued, his impatience of thought and hate of solitude

made him anxious to go forth and seek some distraction. No distraction

left to him but the gaming-table--no companions but fellow-victims in

that sucking whirlpool. Well, he knew a low gaming-house, open all day

as all night. Wishing to add somewhat to the miserable remains of the

L1 borrowed on the horse, that made all his capital, he asked Bridgett,

indifferently, to oblige him with two or three sovereigns; if she had

them not, she might borrow them in the neighbourhood till her mistress

returned. Bridgett answered, with ill-simulated glee, that her mistress

had given positive orders that Mr. Losely was to have everything he

called for, except--money. Jasper coloured with wrath and shame; but

he said no more--whistled--took his hat--went out--repaired to the

gaming-house--lost his last shilling, and returned moodily to dine in

Podden Place. The austerity of the room, the loneliness of the evening,

began now to inspire him with unmitigated disgust, which was added in

fresh account to his old score of repugnance for the absent Arabella.

The affront put upon him in the orders which Bridgett had so faithfully

repeated made him yet more distastefully contemplate the dire necessity

of falling under the rigid despotism of this determined guardian: it was

like going back to a preparatory school, to be mulcted of pocket-money,

and set in a dark corner! But what other resource? None but appeal to

Darrell--still more intolerable; except--he paused in his cogitation,

shook his head, muttered “No, no.” But that “except” would

return!--except to forget his father’s prayer and his own

promise--except to hunt out Sophy, and extract from the generosity,

compassion, or fear of her protectress, some such conditions as he would

have wrung from Darrell. He had no doubt now that the girl was with Lady

Montfort; he felt that, if she really loved Sophy, and were sheltering

her in tender recollection, whether of Matilda or of Darrell himself, he

might much more easily work on the delicate nerves of a woman, shrinking

from all noise and scandal, than he could on the stubborn pride of his

resolute father-in-law. Perhaps it was on account of Sophy--perhaps to

plead for her--that Lady Montfort had gone to Fawley; perhaps the grief

visible on that lady’s countenance, as he caught so hasty a glimpse

of it, might be occasioned by the failure of her mission. If so, there

might be now some breach or dissension between her and Darrell, which

might render the Marchioness still more accessible to his demands. As

for his father--if Jasper played his cards well and luckily, his father

might never know of his disobedience; he might coax or frighten Lady

Montfort into secresy. It might be quite unnecessary for him even to see

Sophy; if she caught sight of him, she would surely no more recognise

his altered features than Rugge had done. These thoughts gathered on him

stronger and stronger all the evening, and grew into resolves with the

next morning. He sallied out after breakfast--the same numbness; but

he walked it off. Easy enough to find the address of the Marchioness of

Montfort. He asked it boldly of the porter at the well-known house of

the present Lord, and, on learning it, proceeded at once to Richmond--on

foot, and thence to the small, scattered hamlet immediately contiguous

to Lady Montfort’s villa. Here he found two or three idle boatmen

lounging near the river-side; and entering into conversation with them

about their craft, which was sufficiently familiar to him, for he had

plied the strongest oar on that tide in the holidays of his youth, he

proceeded to inquiries, which were readily and unsuspectingly answered.

“Yes, there was a young lady with Lady Montfort; they did not know her

name. They had seen her often in the lawn--seen her too, at church. She

was very pretty; yes, she had blue eyes and fair hair.” Of his father

he only heard that “there had been an old gentleman such as he

described--lame, and with one eye--who had lived some months ago in a

cottage on Lady Montfort’s grounds. They heard he had gone away. He

had made baskets--they did not know if for sale; if so, perhaps for a

charity. They supposed he was a gentleman, for they heard he was some

relation to the young lady. But Lady Montfort’s head coachman lived

in the village, and could, no doubt, give him all the information he

required.” Jasper was too wary to call on the coachman; he had learned

enough for the present. Had he prosecuted his researches farther, he

might only have exposed himself to questions, and to the chance of his

inquiries being repeated to Lady Montfort by one of her servants, and

thus setting her on her guard; for no doubt his father had cautioned

her against him. It never occurred to him that the old man could already

have returned; and those to whom he confined his interrogatories were

quite ignorant of the fact. Jasper had no intention to intrude himself

that day on Lady Montfort. His self-love shrank from presenting himself

to a lady of such rank, and to whom he had been once presented on equal

terms, as the bridegroom of her friend and the confidential visitor to

her mother, in habiliments that bespoke so utter a fall. Better, too, on

all accounts, to appear something of a gentleman; more likely to excite

pity for suffering--less likely to suggest excuse for rebutting his

claims, and showing him to the door. Nay, indeed, so dressed, in that

villanous pea-jacket, and with all other habiliments to match, would any

servant admit him?--could he get into Lady Montfort’s presence? He must

go back--wait for Mrs. Crane’s return. Doubtless she would hail his

wish--half a reform in itself--to castoff the outward signs of an

accepted degradation.

Accordingly he went back to town in much better spirits, and so absorbed

in his hopes, that, when he arrived at Podden Place, he did not

observe that, from some obliquity of vision, or want of the normal

correspondence between will and muscle, his hand twice missed the

knocker-wandering first above, then below it; and that, when actually

in his clasp, he did not feel the solid iron: the sense of touch seemed

suspended. Bridgett appeared. “Mistress is come back, and will see you.”

Jasper did not look charmed; he winced, but screwed up his courage, and

mounted the stairs--slowly-heavily. Form the landing-place above glared

down the dark shining eyes that had almost quailed his bold spirit

nearly six years before; and almost in the same words as then, a voice

as exulting, but less stern, said: “So you come at last to me, Jasper

Losely--you are come.” Rapidly-flittingly, with a step noiseless as a

spectre’s, Arabella Crane descended the stairs; but she did not, as when

he first sought that house in the years before, grasp his hand or

gaze into his face. Rather, it was with a shrinking avoidance of his

touch--with something like a shudder-that she glided by him into the

open drawing-room, beckoning him to follow. He halted a moment; he felt

a longing to retreat--to fly the house; his superstitious awe of her

very benefits came back to him more strongly than ever. But her help at

the moment was necessary to his very hope to escape all future need of

her, and, though with a vague foreboding of unconjecturable evil, he

stepped into the room, and the door closed on both.

BOOK XI.

CHAPTER I.

“THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DOES RUN SMOOTH!” MAY IT NOT BE

BECAUSE WHERE THERE ARE NO OBSTACLES, THERE ARE NO TESTS TO THE

TRUTH OF LOVE? WHERE THE COURSE IS SMOOTH, THE STREAM IS CROWDED

WITH PLEASURE-BOATS. WHERE THE WAVE SWELLS, AND THE SHOALS

THREATEN, AND THE SKY LOWERS, THE PLEASURE-BOATS HAVE GONE BACK INTO

HARBOUR. SHIPS FITTED FOR ROUGH WEATHER ARE THOSE BUILT AND STORED

FOR LONG VOYAGE.

I pass over the joyous meeting between Waife and Sophy. I pass over

George’s account to his fair cousin of the scene he and Hartopp had

witnessed, in which Waife’s innocence had been manifested and his

reasons for accepting the penalties of guilt had been explained. The

first few agitated days following Waife’s return have rolled away. He is

resettled in the cottage from which he had fled; he refuses, as before,

to take up his abode at Lady Montfort’s house. But Sophy has been almost

constantly his companion, and Lady Montfort herself has spent hours with

him each day--sometimes in his rustic parlour, sometimes in the small

garden-plot round his cottage, to which his rambles are confined. George

has gone back to his home and duties at Humberston, promising very soon

to revisit his old friend, and discuss future plans.

The scholar, though with a sharp pang, conceding to Waife that all

attempt publicly to clear his good name at the cost of reversing the

sacrifice he had made must be forborne, could not, however, be induced

to pledge himself to unconditional silence. George felt that there were

at least some others to whom the knowledge of Waife’s innocence was

imperatively due.

Waife is seated by his open window. It is noon; there is sunshine in the

pale blue skies--an unusual softness in the wintry air. His Bible lies

on the table beside him. He has just set his mark in the page, and

reverently closed the book. He is alone. Lady Montfort--who, since her

return from Fawley, has been suffering from a kind of hectic fever,

accompanied by a languor that made even the walk to Waife’s cottage

a fatigue, which the sweetness of her kindly nature enabled her to

overcome, and would not permit her to confess--has been so much worse

that morning as to be unable to leave her room. Sophy has gone to see

her. Waife is now leaning his face upon his hand, and that face is

sadder and more disquieted than it lead been, perhaps, in all his

wanderings. His darling Sophy is evidently unhappy. Her sorrow had not

been visible during the first two or three days of his return, chased

away by the joy of seeing him--the excitement of tender reproach and

question--of tears that seemed as joyous as the silvery laugh which

responded to the gaiety that sported round the depth of feeling with

which he himself beheld her once more clinging to his side, or seated,

with upward loving eyes, on the footstool by his knees. Even at the

first look, however, he had found her altered; her cheek was thinner,

her colour paled. That might be from fretting for him. She would be

herself again, now that her tender anxiety was relieved. But she did not

become herself again. The arch and playful Sophy he had left was gone,

as if never to return. He marked that her step, once so bounding, had

become slow and spiritless. Often when she sat near him, seemingly

reading or at her work, he noticed that her eyes were not on the

page--that the work stopped abruptly in listless hands; and then he

would hear her sigh--a heavy but short impatient sigh! No mistaking that

sigh by those who have studied grief; whether in maid or man, in young

or old, in the gentle Sophy, so new to life, or in the haughty Darrell,

weary of the world, and shrinking from its honours, that sigh had the

same character, a like symptom of a malady in common; the same effort

to free the heart from an oppressive load; the same token of a sharp

and rankling remembrance lodged deep in that finest nerve-work of being,

which no anodyne can reach--a pain that comes without apparent cause,

and is sought to be expelled without conscious effort.

The old man feared at first that she might, by some means or other,

in his absence, have become apprised of the brand on his own name, the

verdict that had blackened his repute, the sentence that had hurled him

from his native sphere; or that, as her reason had insensibly matured,

she herself, reflecting on all the mystery that surrounded him--his

incognitos, his hidings, the incongruity between his social grade and

his education or bearing, and his repeated acknowledgments that there

were charges against him which compelled him to concealment, and from

which he could not be cleared on earth; that she, reflecting on all

these evidences to his disfavour, had either secretly admitted into her

breast a conviction of his guilt, or that, as she grew up to woman, she

had felt, through him, the disgrace entailed upon herself. Or if such

were not the cause of her sadness, had she learned more of her father’s

evil courses; had an emissary of Jasper’s worked upon her sensibilities

or her fears? No, that could not be the case, since whatever the grounds

upon which Jasper had conjectured that Sophy was with Lady Montfort,

the accuracy of his conjectures had evidently been doubted by Jasper

himself; or why so earnestly have questioned Waife? Had she learned

that she was the grandchild and natural heiress of a man wealthy and

renowned--a chief amongst the chiefs of England--who rejected her with

disdain? Was she pining for her true position? or mortified by the

contempt of a kinsman, whose rank so contrasted the vagrancy of the

grandsire by whom alone she was acknowledged?

Tormented by these doubts, he was unable to solve them by such guarded

and delicate questions as he addressed to Sophy herself. For she, when

he falteringly asked what ailed his darling, would start, brighten up

for the moment, answer, “Nothing, now that he had come back”; kiss his

forehead, play with Sir Isaac, and then manage furtively to glide away.

But the day before that in which we now see him alone, he had asked her

abruptly, “If, during his absence, any one besides George Morley had

visited at Lady Montfort’s--any one whom she had seen?” And Sophy’s

cheek had as suddenly become crimson, then deadly pale; and first she

said “no,” and then “yes”; and after a pause, looking away from him, she

added: “The young gentleman who--who helped us to buy Sir Isaac, he has

visited Lady Montfort--related to some dear friend of hers.”

“What, the painter!”

“No--the other, with the dark eyes.”

“Haughton!” said Waife, with an expression of great pain in his face.

“Yes--Mr. Haughton; but he has not been here a long, long time. He will

not come again, I believe.”

Her voice quivered, despite herself, at the last words, and she began

to bustle about the room--filled Waife’s pipe, thrust it into his hands

with a laugh, the false mirth of which went to his very heart, and then

stepped from the open window into the little garden, and began to sing

one of Waife’s favourite simple old Border songs; but before she got

through the first line, the song ceased, and she was was as lost to

sight as a ringdove, whose note comes and goes so quickly amongst the

impenetrable coverts.

But Waife had heard enough to justify profound alarm for Sophy’s

peace of mind, and to waken in his own heart some of its most painful

associations. The reader, who knows the wrong inflicted on William

Losely by Lionel Haughton’s father--a wrong which led to all poor

Willy’s subsequent misfortunes--may conceive that the very name of

Haughton was wounding to his ear; and when, in his brief, sole, and

bitter interview with Darrell, the latter had dropped out that Lionel

Haughton, however distant of kin, would be a more grateful heir than

the grandchild of a convicted felon--if Willy’s sweet nature could have

admitted a momentary hate, it would have been for the thus vaunted son

of the man who had stripped him of the modest all which would perhaps

have saved his own child from the robber’s guilt, and himself from the

robber’s doom. Long since, therefore, the reader will have comprehended

why, when Waife came to meet Sophy at the riverside, and learned at

the inn on its margin that the name of her younger companion was Lionel

Haughton--why, I say, he had so morosely parted from the boy, and so

imperiously bade Sophy dismiss all thought of meeting “the pretty young

gentleman” again.

And now again this very Lionel Haughton to have stolen into the retreat

in which poor Waife had deemed he left his treasure so secure! Was it

for this he had fled from her? Did he return to find her youth blighted,

her affections robbed from him, by the son of Charles Haughton? The

father had despoiled his manhood of independence; must it be the son who

despoiled his age of its only solace? Grant even that Lionel was

worthy of Sophy--grant that she had been loyally wooed--must not that

attachment be fruitless--be fatal? If Lionel were really now adopted by

Darrell, Waife knew human nature too well to believe that Darrell would

complacently hear Lionel ask a wife in her whose claim to his lineage

had so galled and incensed him. It was while plunged in these torturing

reflections that Lady Montfort (not many minutes after Sophy’s song

had ceased and her form vanished) had come to visit him, and he at

once accosted her with agitated inquiries: “When had Mr. Haughton

first presented himself?--how often had he seen Sophy?--what had passed

between them?--did not Lady Montfort see that his darling’s heart was

breaking?”

But he stopped as suddenly as he had rushed into his thorny maze of

questions; for, looking imploringly into Caroline Montfort’s face, he

saw there more settled signs of a breaking heart than Sophy had yet

betrayed, despite her paleness and her sighs. Sad, indeed, the change

in her countenance since he had left the place months ago, though Waife,

absorbed in Sophy, had not much remarked it till now, when seeking

to read therein secrets that concerned his darling’s welfare. Lady

Montfort’s beauty was so perfect in that rare harmony of feature which

poets, before Byron, have compared to music, that sorrow could no more

mar the effect of that beauty on the eye, than pathos can mar the effect

of the music that admits it on the ear. But the change in her face

seemed that of a sorrow which has lost all earthly hope. Waife,

therefore, checked questions that took the tone of reproaches, and

involuntarily murmured “Pardon.”

Then Caroline Montfort told him all the tender projects she had

conceived for his grandchild’s happiness--how, finding Lionel

so disinterested and noble, she had imagined she saw in him the

providential agent to place Sophy in the position to which Waife had

desired to raise her; Lionel, to share with her the heritage of which he

might otherwise despoil her--both to become the united source of joy and

of pride to the childless man who now favoured the one to exclude the

other. Nor in these schemes had the absent wanderer been forgotten. No;

could Sophy’s virtues once be recognised by Darrell, and her alleged

birth acknowledged by him--could the guardian, who, in fostering

those virtues to bloom by Darrell’s hearth, had laid under the deepest

obligations one who, if unforgiving to treachery, was grateful for

the humblest service--could that guardian justify the belief in his

innocence which George Morley had ever entertained, and, as it now

proved, with reason--then where on all earth a man like Guy Darrell to

vindicate William Losely’s attainted honour, or from whom William

Losely might accept cherishing friendship and independent ease, with so

indisputable a right to both! Such had been the picture that the fond

and sanguine imagination of Caroline Montfort had drawn from generous

hope, and coloured with tender fancies. But alas for such castles in the

air! All had failed. She had only herself to blame. Instead of securing

Sophys welfare, she had endangered Sophy’s happiness. They whom she

had desired to unite were irrevocably separated. Bitterly she accused

herself--her error in relying so much on Lionel’s influence with

Darrell--on her own early remembrance of Darrell’s affectionate nature

and singular sympathies with the young--and thus suffering Lionel and

Sophy to grow familiar with each other’s winning characters, and carry

on childlike romance into maturer sentiment. She spoke, though briefly,

of her visit to Darrell, and its ill success--of the few letters that

had passed since then between herself and Lionel, in which it was

settled that he should seek no parting interview with Sophy. He had

declared to Sophy no formal suit--they had exchanged no lovers’ vows. It

would be, therefore, but a dishonourable cruelty to her to say, “I come

to tell you that I love you, and that we must part for ever.” And how

avow the reason--that reason that would humble her to the dust? Lionel

was forbidden to wed with one whom Jasper Losely called daughter, and

whom the guardian she so venerated believed to be his grandchild. All

of comfort that Lady Montfort could suggest was, that Sophy was so

young that she would conquer what might be but a girl’s romantic

sentiment--or, if a more serious attachment, one that no troth had

cemented--for a person she might not see again for years; Lionel was

negotiating exchange into a regiment on active service. “Meanwhile,”

said Lady Montfort, “I shall never wed again. I shall make it known that

I look on your Sophy as the child of my adoption. If I do not live to

save sufficient for her out of an income that is more than thrice what

I require, I have instructed my lawyers to insure my life for her

provision; it will be ample. Many a wooer, captivating as Lionel, and

free from the scruples that fetter his choice, will be proud to kneel

at the feet of one so lovely. This rank of mine, which has never yet

bestowed on me a joy, now becomes of value, since it will give dignity

to--to Matilda’s child, and--and to--” Lady Montfort sobbed.

Waife listened respectfully, and for the time was comforted. Certainly,

in his own heart he was glad that Lionel Haughton was permanently

separated from Sophy. There was scarcely a man on earth, of fair station

and repute, to whom he would have surrendered Sophy with so keen a pang

as to Charles Haughton’s son.

The poor young lovers! all the stars seemed against them! Was it not

enough that Guy Darrell should be so obdurate! must the mild William

Losely be also a malefic in their horoscope?

But when, that same evening, the old man more observantly than ever

watched his grandchild, his comfort vanished--misgivings came over

him--he felt assured that the fatal shaft had been broken in the wound,

and that the heart was bleeding inly.

True; not without prophetic insight had Arabella Crane said to the

pining, but resolute, quiet child, behind the scenes of Mr. Rugge’s

show, “How much you will love one day.” All that night Waife lay awake

pondering--revolving--exhausting that wondrous fertility of resource

which teemed in his inventive brain. In vain!

And now--(the day after this conversation with Lady Montfort, whose

illness grieves, but does not surprise him)--now, as he sits and thinks,

and gazes abstractedly into that far, pale, winter sky-now, the old man

is still scheming how to reconcile a human loving heart to the eternal

loss of that affection which has so many perishable counterfeits, but

which, when true in all its elements--complete in all its varied wealth

of feeling, is never to be forgotten and never to be replaced.

CHAPTER II.

AN OFFERING TO THE MANES.

Three sides of Waife’s cottage were within Lady Montfort’s grounds; the

fourth side, with its more public, entrance, bordered the lane. Now,

as he thus sate, he was startled by a low timid ring at the door which

opened on the lane. Who could it be?--not Jasper! He began to tremble.

The ring was repeated. One woman-servant composed all his establishment.

He heard her opening the door--heard a low voice; it seemed a soft,

fresh, young voice. His room-door opened, and the woman, who of course

knew the visitor by sight and name, having often remarked him on the

grounds with Lady Montfort and Sophy, said, in a cheerful tone, as if

bringing good news, “Mr. Lionel Haughton.”

Scarcely was the door closed--scarcely the young man in the room,

before, with all his delightful, passionate frankness, Lionel had

clasped Waife’s reluctant hand in both his own, and, with tears in his

eyes, and choking in his voice, was pouring forth sentences so loosely

knit together that they seemed almost incoherent; now a burst of

congratulation--now a falter of condolence--now words that seemed to

supplicate as for pardon to an offence of his own--rapid transitions

from enthusiasm to pity, from joy to grief--variable, with the stormy

April of a young, fresh, hearty nature.

Taken so wholly by surprise, Waife, in vain attempting to appear cold

and distant, and only very vaguely comprehending what the unwelcome

visitor so confusedly expressed, at last found voice to interrupt the

jet and gush of Lionel’s impetuous emotion, and said as drily as he

could: “I am really at a loss to conceive the cause of what appears to

be meant as congratulations to me and reproaches to yourself, Mr.--, Mr.

Haugh--;” his lips could not complete the distasteful name.

“My name shocks you--no wonder,” said Lionel, deeply mortified,

and bowing down his head as he gently dropped the old man’s hand.

“Reproaches to myself!--Ah, sir, I am here as Charles Haughton’s son!”

“What!” exclaimed Waife, “you know? How could you know that Charles

Haughton--”

LIONEL (interrupting).--“I know. His own lips confessed his shame to

have so injured you.”

WAIFE.--“Confessed to whom?”

LIONEL.--“To Alban Morley. Relieve me, my father’s remorse was bitter;

it dies not in his grave, it lives in me. I have so longed to meet with

William Losely.”

Waife seated himself in silence, shading his face with one hand while

with the other he made a slight gesture, as if to discourage or rebuke

farther allusion to ancient wrong. Lionel, in quick accents, but more

connected meaning, went on--

“I have just come from Mr. Darrell, where I and Colonel Morley (here

Lionel’s countenance was darkly troubled) have been staying some days.

Two days ago I received this letter from George Morley, forwarded to me

from London. It says--let me read it: ‘You will rejoice to learn that

our dear Waife’--pardon that name.”

“I have no other--go on.”

“‘Is once more with his grandchild.’” (Here Lionel sighed heavily--sigh

like Sophy’s.) “‘You will rejoice yet more to learn that it has pleased

Heaven to allow me and another witness, who, some years ago, had been

misled into condemning Waife, to be enabled to bear incontrovertible

testimony to the complete innocence of my beloved friend; nay, more--I

say to you most solemnly, that in all which appeared to attest guilt,

there has been a virtue, which, if known to Mr. Darrell, would make him

bow in reverence to that old man. Tell Mr. Darrell so from me; and

add, that in saying it, I express my conviction of his own admiring

sympathy--for all that is noble and heroic.’”

“Too much-this is too, too much,” stammered out Waife, restlessly

turning away; “but--but, you are folding up the letter. That is all?--he

does not say more? he does not mention any one else?--eh?--eh?”

“No, sir; that is all.”

“Thank Heaven! He is an honourable man! Yet he has said more than he

ought--much more than he can prove, or than I--” he broke off, and

abruptly asked--“How did Mr. Darrell take these assertions? With an

incredulous laugh--eh?--‘Why, the old rogue had pleaded guilty!’”

“Sir, Alban Morley was there to speak of the William Losely whom he had

known; to explain, from facts which he had collected at the time,

of what nature was the evidence not brought forward. The motive that

induced you to plead guilty I had long guessed; it flashed in an instant

on Guy Darrell; it was not mere guess with him! You ask me what he

said? This: ‘Grand nature! George is right! and I do bow my head in

reverence!’”

“He said that?--Guy Darrell? On your honour, he said that?”

“Can you doubt it? Is he not a gentleman?” Waife was fairly overcome.

“But, sir,” resumed Lionel, “I must not conceal from you, that though

George’s letter and Alban Morley’s communications sufficed to satisfy

Darrell, without further question, your old friend was naturally anxious

to learn a more full account, in the hope of legally substantiating your

innocence. He therefore despatched by the telegraph a request to his

nephew to come at once to Fawley. George arrived there yesterday. Do not

blame him, sir, that we share his secret.”

“You do? Good heavens! And that lawyer will be barbarous enough

to--but no--he has an interest in not accusing of midnight robbery

his daughter’s husband; Jasper’s secret is safe with him. And Colonel

Morley--surely his cruel nephew will not suffer him to make me--me, with

one foot in the grave--a witness against my Lizzy’s son!”

“Colonel Morley, at Darrell’s suggestion, came with me to London; and if

he does not accompany me to you, it is because he is even now busied in

finding out your son, not to undo, but to complete the purpose of your

self-sacrifice. ‘All other considerations,’ said Guy Darrell, ‘must be

merged in this one thought--that such a father shall not have been in

vain a martyr.’ Colonel Morley is empowered to treat with your son

on any terms; but on this condition, that the rest of his life shall

inflict no farther pain, no farther fear on you. This is the sole use to

which, without your consent, we have presumed to put the secret we have

learned. Do you pardon George now?”

Waife’s lips murmured inaudibly, but his face grew very bright; and as

it was raised upwards, Lionel’s ear caught the whisper of a name--it was

not Jasper, it was “Lizzy.”

“Ah! why,” said Lionel, sadly, and after a short pause, “why was I not

permitted to be the one to attest your innocence--to clear your name?

I, who owed to you so vast an hereditary debt! And now--dear, dear Mr.

Losely--”

“Hush! Waife!--call me Waife still!--and always.”

“Willingly! It is the name by which I have accustomed myself to love

you. Now, listen to me. I am dishonoured until at least the mere

pecuniary debt, due to you from my father, is paid. Hist! Hist!--Alban

Morley says so--Darrell says so. Darrell says, ‘he cannot own me as

kinsman till that debt is cancelled.’ Darrell lends me the means to do

it; he would share his kinsman’s ignominy if he did not. Before I could

venture even to come hither, the sum due to you from my father was

repaid. I hastened to town yesterday evening--saw Mr. Darrell’s lawyer.

I have taken a great liberty--I have invested this sum already in the

purchase of an annuity for you. Mr. Darrell’s lawyer had a client

who was in immediate want of the sum due to you; and, not wishing

permanently to burthen his estate by mortgage, would give a larger

interest by way of annuity than the public offices would; excellent

landed security. The lawyer said it would be a pity to let the

opportunity slip, so I ventured to act for you. It was all settled this

morning. The particulars are on this paper, which I will leave with you.

Of course the sum due to you is not exactly the same as that which

my father borrowed before I was born. There is the interest--compound

interest; nothing more. I don’t understand such matters; Darrell’s

lawyer made the calculation--it must be right.”

Waife had taken the paper, glanced at its contents, dropped it in

confusion, amaze. Those hundreds lent, swelled into all those thousands

returned! And all methodically computed--tersely--arithmetically-down

to fractions. So that every farthing seemed, and indeed was, his lawful

due. And that sum invested in an annuity of L500 a year--income which,

to poor Gentleman Waife, seemed a prince’s revenue!

“It is quite a business-like computation, I tell you, sir; all done by

a lawyer. It is indeed,” cried Lionel, dismayed at Waife’s look and

gesture. “Compound interest will run up to what seems a large amount

at first; every child knows that. You can’t deny Cocker and calculating

tables, and that sort of thing. William Losely, you cannot leave an

eternal load of disgrace on the head of Charles Haughton’s son.”

“Poor Charlie Haughton,” murmured Waife. “And I was feeling bitter

against his memory--bitter against his son. How Heaven loves to teach

us the injustice that dwells in anger! But--but--this cannot be. I thank

Mr. Darrell humbly--I cannot take his money.”

“It is not his money--it is mine; he only advances it to me. It costs

him really nothing, for he deducts the L500 a year from the allowance

he makes me. And I don’t want such an absurd allowance as I had before

going out of the Guards into the line--I mean to be a soldier in good

earnest. Too much pocket-money spoils a soldier--only gets one into

scrapes. Alban Morley says the same. Darrell, too, says, ‘Right; no gold

could buy a luxury--like the payment of a father’s debt!’ You cannot

grudge me that luxury--you dare not--why? because you are an honest

Man.”

“Softly, softly, softly,” said Waife. “Let me look at you. Don’t talk of

money now--don’t let us think of money! What a look of your father!

‘Tis he, ‘tis he whom I see before me. Charlie’s sweet bright playful

eyes--that might have turned aside from the path of duty--a sheriff’s

officer! Ah! and Charlie’s happy laugh, too, at the slightest joke! But

THIS is not Charlie’s--it is all your own (touching, with gentle finger,

Lionel’s broad truthful brow). Poor Charlie, he was grieved--you are

right--I remember.”

“Sir,” said Lionel, who was now on one knee by Waife’s chair--“sir, I

have never yet asked man for his blessing--not even Guy Darrell. Will

you put your hand on my head? and oh! that in the mystic world beyond

us, some angel may tell Charles Haughton that William Losely has blessed

his son!”

Solemnly, but with profound humility--one hand on the Bible beside him,

one on the young soldier’s bended head--William Losely blessed Charles

Haughton’s son--and; having done so, involuntarily his arms opened, and

blessing was followed by embrace.

CHAPTER III.

NOTHING SO OBSTINATE AS A YOUNG MAN’S HOPE; NOTHING SO ELOQUENT AS A

LOVER’S TONGUE.

Hitherto there had been no reference to Sophy. Not Sophy’s lover, but

Charles Haughton’s son had knelt to Waife and received the old man’s

blessing. But Waife could not be long forgetful of his darling--nor

his anxiety on her account. The expression in his varying face changed

suddenly. Not half an hour before, Lionel Haughton was the last man in

the world to whom willingly he would have consigned his grandchild. Now,

of all men in the world Lionel Haughton would have been his choice. He

sighed heavily; he comprehended, by his own changed feelings, how tender

and profound an affection Lionel Haughton might inspire in a heart so

fresh as Sophy’s, and so tenacious of the impressions it received.

But they were separated forever; she ought not even again to see him.

Uneasily Waife glanced towards the open window--rose involuntarily,

closed it, and drew down the blind.

“You must go now, young gentleman,” said he, almost churlishly.

The quick lover’s sense in Lionel divined why the blind Avas drawn, and

the dismissal so abruptly given.

“Give me your address,” said Waife; “I will write about--that paper.

Don’t now stay longer--pray--pray.”

“Do not fear, sir. I am not lingering here with the wish to see--her!”

Waife looked down.

“Before I asked the servant to announce me I took the precaution to

learn that you were alone. But a few words more--hear them patiently.

Have you any proof that should satisfy Mr. Darrell’s reason that your

Sophy is his daughter’s child?”

“I have Jasper’s assurance that she is; and the copy of the nurse’s

attestation to the same effect. They satisfied me. I would not have

asked Mr. Darrell to be as easily contented; I could but have asked him

to inquire, and satisfy himself. But he would not even hear me.”

“He will hear you now, and with respect.”

“He will!” cried Waife, joyously. “And if he should inquire and if Sophy

should prove to be, as I have ever believed, his daughter’s child, would

he not’ own, and receive, and cherish her?”

“Alas, sir, do not let me pain you; but that is not my hope. If, indeed,

it should prove that your son deceived you--that Sophy is no way

related to him--if she should be the child of peasants, but of honest

peasants--why, sir, that is my hope, my last hope--for then I would

kneel once more at your feet, and implore your permission to win her

affection and ask her hand.”

“What! Mr. Darrell would consent to your union with the child of

peasants, and not with his own grandchild?”

“Sir, sir, you rack me to the heart; but if you knew all, you would not

wonder to hear me say, ‘I dare not ask Mr. Darrell to bless my union

with the daughter of Jasper Losely.’”

Waife suppressed a groan, and began to pace the room with disordered

steps,

“But,” resumed Lionel, “go to Fawley yourself. Seek Darrell; compare the

reasons for your belief with his for rejecting it. At this moment his

pride is more subdued than I have ever known it. He will go calmly into

the investigation of facts; the truth will become clear. Sir--dear, dear

sir--I am not without a hope.”

“A hope that the child I have so cherished should be nothing in the

world to me!”

“--Nothing to you! Is memory such a shadow?--is affection such a

weathercock? Has the love between you and Sophy been only the instinct

of kindred blood? Has it not been hallowed by all that makes Age and

Childhood so pure a blessing to each other, rooted in trials borne

together? Were you not the first who taught her in wanderings, in

privations, to see a Mother in Nature, and pray to a Father which is in

Heaven? Would all this be blotted out of your soul, if she were not the

child of that son whom it chills you to remember? Sir, if there be

no tie to replace the mere bond of kindred, why have you taken such

vigilant pains to separate a child from him whom you believe to be her

father?”

Waife stood motionless and voiceless. This passionate appeal struck him

forcibly.

“And, sir,” added Lionel, in a lower, sadder tone--“can I ask you, whose

later life has been one sublime self-sacrifice, whether you would rather

that you might call Sophy grandchild, and know her wretched, than know

her but as the infant angel whom Heaven sent to your side when bereaved

and desolate, and know also that she was happy? Oh, William Losely, pray

with me that Sophy may not be your grandchild. Her home will not be

less your home--her attachment will not less replace to you your lost

son--and on your knee her children may learn to lisp the same prayers

that you taught to her. Go to Darrell--go--go! and take me with you!”

“I will--I will,” exclaimed Waife; and snatching at his hat and staff:

“Come--come! But Sophy should not learn that you have been here--that

I have gone away with you; it might set her thinking, dreaming,

hoping--all to end in greater sorrow.” He bustled out of the room

to caution the old woman, and to write a few hasty lines to Sophy

herself--assuring her, on his most solemn honour, that he was not now

flying from her to resume his vagrant life--that, without fail, please

Heaven, he would return that night or the next day.

In a few minutes he reopened the room-door, beckoning silently to

Lionel, and then stole into the quiet lane with quick steps.

CHAPTER IV.

GUY DARRELL’S VIEWS IN THE INVITATION TO WAIFE.

Lionel had but inadequately represented, for he could but imperfectly

comprehend, the profound impression made upon Guy Darrell by George

Morley’s disclosures. Himself so capable of self-sacrifice, Darrell was

the man above all others to regard with an admiring reverence, which

partook of awe, a self-immolation that seemed almost above humanity--to

him who set so lofty an estimate on good name and fair repute. He had

not only willingly permitted, but even urged Lionel to repair to Waife

and persuade the old man to come to Fawley. With Waife he was prepared

to enter into the full discussion of Sophy’s alleged parentage. But

apart even from considerations that touched a cause of perplexity which

disquieted himself, Darrell was eager to see and to show homage to the

sufferer, in whom he recognised a hero’s dignity. And if he had sent

by Lionel no letter from himself to Waife, it was only because, in

the exquisite delicacy of feeling that belonged to him, when his best

emotions were aroused, he felt it just that the whole merit and the

whole delight of reparation to the wrongs of William Losely should,

without direct interposition of his own, be left exclusively to Charles

Haughton’s son. Thus far it will be acknowledged that Guy Darrell was

not one of those men who, once warmed to magnanimous impulse, are cooled

by a thrifty prudence when action grows out of the impulses. Guy

Darrell could not be generous by drachin and scruple. Not apt to say,

“I apologise,”--slow to say, “I repent”; very--very--very slow indeed to

say, “I forgive”; yet let him once say, “I repent,” “I apologise,” or “I

forgive,” and it was said with his whole heart and soul.

But it must not be supposed that, in authorising Lionel to undertake

the embassy to Waife, or in the anticipation of what might pass between

Waife and himself should the former consent to revisit the old house

from which he had been so scornfully driven, Darrell had altered, or

dreamed of altering, one iota of his resolves against a Union between

Lionel and Sophy. True, Lionel had induced him to say--

“Could it be indisputably proved that no drop of Jasper Losely’s blood

were in this girl’s veins--that she were the lawful child of honest

parents, however humble--my right to stand between her and yourself

would cease.” But a lawyer’s experience is less credulous than a lover’s

hope. And to Darrell’s judgment it was wholly improbable that any honest

parents, however humble, should have yielded their child to a knave

like Jasper, while it was so probable that his own persuasion was well

founded, and that she was Jasper’s daughter, though not Matilda’s.

The winter evening had closed, George and Darrell were conversing in

the library; the theme, of course, was Waife; and Darrell listened with

vivid interest to George’s graphic accounts of the old man’s gentle

playful humour--with its vague desultory undercurrents of poetic fancy

or subtle wisdom. But when George turned to speak of Sophy’s endearing,

lovely nature, and, though cautiously, to intimate an appeal on her

behalf to Darrell’s sense of duty, or susceptibility to kindly

emotions, the proud man’s brow be came knit, and his stately air evinced

displeasure. Fortunately, just at a moment when further words might

have led to a permanent coldness between men so disposed to esteem each

other, they heard the sound of wheels on the frosty ground--the shrill

bell at the porch-door.

CHAPTER V.

THE VAGABOND RECEIVED IN THE MANOR-HOUSE AT FAWLEY.

Very lamely, very feebly, declining Lionel’s arm, and leaning heavily on

his crutch-stick, Waife crossed the threshold of the Manor-house. George

sprang forward to welcome him. The old man looked on the preacher’s face

with a kind of wandering uncertainty in his eye, and George saw that

his cheek was very much flushed. He limped on through the hall, still

leaning on his staff, George and Lionel at either side. A pace or two,

and there stood Darrell! Did he, the host, not spring forward to offer

an arm, to extend a hand? No; such greeting in Darrell would have been

but vulgar courtesy. As the old man’s eye rested on him, the superb

gentleman bowed low--bowed as we bow to kings!

They entered the library. Darrell made a sign to George and Lionel. They

understood the sign, and left visitor and host alone.

Lionel drew George into the quaint old dining-hall. “I am very uneasy

about our dear friend,” he said, in agitated accents. “I fear that

I have had too little consideration for his years and his sensitive

nature, and that, what with the excitement of the conversation that

passed between us and the fatigue of the journey, his nerves have

broken down. We were not half-way on the road, and as we had the

railway-carriage to ourselves, I was talking to him with imprudent

earnestness, when he began to tremble all over, and went into an

hysterical paroxysm of mingled tears and laughter. I wished to stop at

the next station, but he was not long recovering, and insisted on coming

on. Still, as we approached Fawley, after muttering to himself, as far

as I could catch his words, incoherently, he sank into a heavy state

of lethargy or stupor, resting his head on my shoulder. It was with

difficulty I roused him when he entered the park.”

“Poor old man,” said George feelingly; “no doubt the quick succession

of emotions through which he has lately passed has overcome him for the

time. But the worst is now passed. His interview with Darrell must cheer

his heart and soothe his spirits; and that interview over, we must give

him all repose and nursing. But tell me what passed between you--if he

was very indignant that I could not suffer men like you and my uncle

Alban and Guy Darrell to believe him a picklock and a thief.”

Lionel began his narrative, but had not proceeded far in it before

Darrell’s voice was heard shouting loud, and the library bell rang

violently.

They hurried into the library, and Lionel’s fears were verified. Waife

was in strong convulsions; and as these gradually ceased, and he rested

without struggle, half on the floor, half in Darrell’s arms, he was

evidently unconscious of all around him. His eye was open, but fixed in

a glassy stare. The servants thronged into the room; one was

despatched instantly to summon the nearest medical practitioner. “Help

me--George--Lionel,” said Darrell, “to bear him up-stairs. Mills, light

us.” When they reached the landing-place, Mills asked, “Which room,

sir?” Darrell hesitated an instant, then his grey eye lit into its dark

fire. “My father’s room--he shall rest on my father’s bed.”

When the surgeon arrived, he declared Waife to be in imminent

danger--pressure on the brain. He prescribed prompt and vigorous

remedies, which had indeed before the surgeon’s arrival suggested

themselves to, and been partly commenced by, Darrell, who had gone

through too many varieties of experience to be unversed in the rudiments

of leechcraft. “If I were in my guest’s state,” asked Darrell of the

practitioner, “what would you do?”

“Telegraph instantly for Dr. F------.”

“Lionel--you hear? Take my own horse--he will carry you like the wind.

Off to --------; it is the nearest telegraph station.”

Darrell did not stir from Waife’s bedside all that anxious eight. Dr.

F------ arrived at morning. He approved of all that had been done, but

nevertheless altered the treatment; and after staying some hours, said

to Darrell: “I am compelled to leave you for the present, nor could I

be of use in staying. I have given all the aid in my power to Nature--we

must leave the rest to Nature herself. That fever--those fierce throes

and spasms--are but Nature’s efforts to cast off the grasp of the enemy

we do not see. It now depends on what degree of rallying power be left

to the patient. Fortunately his frame is robust, yet not plethoric. Do

you know his habits?”

“I know,” answered George--“most temperate, most innocent.”

“Then, with constant care, minute attention to my directions, he may

recover.”

“If care and attention can save my guest’s life, he shall not die,” said

Darrell.

The physician looked at the speaker’s pale face and compressed lips.

“But, Mr. Darrell, I must not have you on my hands too. You must not be

out of your bed again tonight.”

“Certainly not,” said George. “I shall watch alone.”

“No,” cried Lionel, “that is my post too.”

“Pooh!” said Darrell; “young men so far from Death are not such watchful

sentinels against his stroke as men of my years, who have seen him in

all aspects; and, moreover, base indeed in the host who deserts his own

guest’s sick-chamber. Fear not for me, doctor; no man needs sleep less

than I do.”

Dr. F------ slid his hand on Darrell’s pulse. “Irregular--quick; but

what vitality! what power!--a young man’s pulse. Mr. Darrell, many years

for your country’s service are yet in these lusty beats.”

Darrell breathed his chronic sigh, and turning back to Waife’s bedside,

said to the doctor, “When will you come again?”

“The day after to-morrow.”

When the doctor returned, Waife was out of immediate danger. Nature,

fortified by the “temperate, innocent habits” which husband up her

powers, had dislodged, at least for a time, her enemy; but the attack

was followed by extreme debility. It was clear that for days, perhaps

even weeks to come, the vagrant must remain a prisoner under Darrell’s

roof-tree.

Lionel had been too mindful of Sophy’s anxiety to neglect writing to

Lady Montfort the day after Waife’s seizure. But he could not find the

heart to state the old man’s danger; and with the sanguine tendencies of

his young nature, even when at the worst he clung to belief in the best.

He refrained from any separate and private communication of Waife’s

state to Lady Montfort, lest the sadness it would not fail to occasion

her should be perceptible to Sophy, and lead her to divine the cause. So

he contented himself with saying that Waife had accompanied him to Mr.

Darrell’s, and would be detained there, treated with all kindness and

honour, for some days.

Sophy’s mind was relieved by this intelligence, but it filled her with

wonder and conjecture. That Waife, who had so pertinaciously refused

to break bread as a guest under any man’s roof-tree, should be for days

receiving the hospitality of Lionel Haughton’s wealthy and powerful

kinsman, was indeed mysterious. But whatever brought Waife and Lionel

thus in confidential intercourse could not but renew yet more vividly

the hopes she had been endeavouring of late to stifle. And combining

together many desultory remembrances of words escaped unawares from

Lionel, from Lady Montfort, from Waife himself, the truth (of which her

native acuteness had before admitted glimpses) grew almost clear to her.

Was not Mr. Darrell that relation to her lost mother upon whom she had

claims not hitherto conceded? Lionel and Waife both with that relation

now! Surely the clouds that had rested on her future were admitting the

sun through their opening rents--and she blushed as she caught its ray.

CHAPTER VI.

INDIVIDUAL CONCESSIONS ARE LIKE POLITICAL; WHEN YOU ONCE BEGIN,

THERE IS NO SAYING WHERE YOU WILL STOP.

Waife’s first words on recovering consciousness were given to thoughts

of Sophy. He had promised her to return, at farthest, the next day; she

would be so uneasy he must get up--he must go at once. When he found his

strength would not suffer him to rise, he shed tears. It was only very

gradually and at intervals that he became acquainted with the length

and severity of his attack, or fully sensible that he was in

Darrell’s house; that that form, of which he had retained vague dreamy

reminiscences, hanging over his pillow, wiping his brow, and soothing

him with the sweetest tones of the sweet human voice--that that form,

so genial, so brotherlike, was the man who had once commanded him not to

sully with his presence a stainless home.

All that had passed within the last few days was finally made clear to

him in a short, unwitnessed, touching conversation with his host; after

which, however, he became gradually worse; his mind remaining clear, but

extremely dejected; his bodily strength evidently sinking. Dr. F------

was again summoned in haste. That great physician was, as every great

physician should be, a profound philosopher, though with a familiar ease

of manner, and a light off-hand vein of talk, which made the

philosophy less sensible to the taste than any other ingredient in his

pharmacopoeia. Turning everybody else out of the room, he examined his

patient alone--sounded the old man’s vital organs, with ear and with

stethoscope--talked to him now on his feelings, now on the news of the

day, and then stepped out to Darrell.

“Something on the heart, my dear sir; I can’t get at it; perhaps you

can. Take off that something, and the springs will react, and my patient

will soon recover. All about him sound as a rock--but the heart; that

has been horribly worried; something worries it now. His heart may be

seen in his eye. Watch his eye; it is missing some face it is accustomed

to see.”

Darrell changed colour. He stole back into Waife’s room, and took the

old man’s hand. Waife returned the pressure, and said: “I was just

praying for you--and--and--I am sinking fast. Do not let me die, sir,

without wishing poor Sophy a last good-bye!”

Darrell passed back to the landing-place where George and Lionel were

standing, while Dr. F------- was snatching a hasty refreshment in the

library before his return to town. Darrell laid his hand on Lionel’s

shoulder. “Lionel, you must go back to London with Dr. F-------. I

cannot keep you here longer. I want your room.”

“Sir,” said Lionel, aghast, “while Waife is still so ill! You cannot be

thus unkind.”

“Inconsiderate egotist! would you deprive the old man of a presence

dearer to him than yours? George, you will go too, but you will return.

You told me, yesterday, that your wife was in London for a few days;

entreat her to accompany you hither; entreat her to bring with her the

poor young lady whom my guest pines to see at his bedside--the face that

his eye misses.”

CHAPTER VII.

SOPHY, DARRELL, AND THE FLUTE-PLAYER. DARRELL. PREPARES A SURPRISE

FOR WAIFE.

Sophy is come. She has crossed that inexorable threshold. She is a guest

in the house which rejects her as a daughter. She has been there some

days. Waife revived at the first sight of her tender face. He has left

his bed; can move for some hours a day into an adjoining chamber, which

has been hastily arranged for his private sitting-room; and can walk its

floors with a step that grows daily firmer in the delight of leaning on

Sophy’s arm.

Since the girl’s arrival, Darrell has relaxed his watch over the

patient. He never now enters his guest’s apartment without previous

notice; and, by that incommunicable instinct which passes in households

between one silent breast and another, as by a law equally strong to

attract or repel--here drawing together, there keeping apart--though

no rule in either case has been laid down;--by virtue, I say, of that

strange intelligence, Sophy is not in the old man’s room when Darrell

enters. Rarely in the twenty-four hours do the host and the fair young

guest encounter. But Darrell is a quick and keen observer. He has seen

enough of Sophy to be sensible of her charms--to penetrate into her

simple natural loveliness of character--to feel a deep interest in

her, and a still deeper pity for Lionel. Secluding himself as much as

possible in his private room, or in his leafless woods, his reveries

increase in gloom. Nothing unbends his moody brow like Fairthorn’s flute

or Fairthorn’s familiar converse.

It has been said before that Fairthorn knew his secrets. Fairthorn had

idolised Caroline Lyndsay. Fairthorn was the only being in the world to

when Guy Darrell could speak of Caroline Lyndsay--to whom he could own

the unconquerable but unforgiving love which had twice driven him from

the social world. Even to Fairthorn, of course, all could not be told.

Darrell could not speak of the letter he had received at Malta, nor of

Caroline’s visit to him at Fawley; for to do so, even to Fairthorn, was

like a treason to the dignity of the Beloved. And Guy Darrell might rail

at her inconstancy--her heartlessness; but to boast that she had lowered

herself by the proffers that were dictated by repentance, Guy Darrell

could not do that;--he was a gentleman. Still there was much left to

say. He could own that he thought she would now accept his hand; and

when Fairthorn looked happy at that thought, and hinted at excuses for

her former fickleness, it was a great relief to Darrell to fly into a

rage; but if the flute-player meanly turned round and became himself

Caroline’s accuser, then poor Fairthorn was indeed frightened; for

Darrell’s trembling lip or melancholy manner overwhelmed the assailant

with self-reproach, and sent him sidelong into one of his hidden

coverts.

But at this moment Fairthorn was a support to him under other

trials--Fairthorn, who respects as he does, as no one else ever can,

the sanctity of the Darrell line--who would shrink like himself from the

thought that the daughter of Jasper Losely, and in all probability not

a daughter of Matilda Darrell, should ever be mistress of that ancestral

hall, lowly and obscure and mouldering though it be--and that the child

of a sharper, a thief, a midnight assassin, should carry on the lineage

of knights and warriors in whose stainless scutcheons, on many a Gothic

tomb or over the portals of ruined castles, was impaled the heraldry of

Brides sprung from the loins of Lion Kings! Darrell, then, doing full

justice to all Sophy’s beauty and grace, purity and goodness, was more

and more tortured by the conviction that she could never be wife to the

man on whom, for want of all nearer kindred, would devolve the heritage

of the Darrell name.

On the other hand, Sophy’s feelings towards her host were almost equally

painful and embittered. The tenderness and reverence that he had showed

to her beloved grandfather, the affecting gratitude with which Waife

spoke of him, necessarily deepened her prepossessions in his favour as

Lionel’s kinsman; and though she saw him so sparingly, still, when

they did meet, she had no right to complain of his manner. It might be

distant, taciturn; but it was gentle, courteous--the manner which might

be expected, in a host of secluded habits, to a young guest from

whose sympathies he was removed by years, but to whose comforts he was

unobtrusively considerate--whose wishes were delicately forestalled. Yet

was this all that her imagination had dared to picture on entering those

grey walls? Where was the evidence of the relationship of which she had

dreamed?--where a single sign that she was more in that house than a

mere guest?--where, alas! a token that even Lionel had named her to his

kinsman, and that for Lionel’s sake that kinsman bade her welcome?

And Lionel too--gone the very day before she arrived! That she learned

incidentally from the servant who showed her into the room. Gone, and

not addressed a line to herself, though but to condole with her on her

grandfather’s illness, or congratulate her that the illness had spared

the life! She felt wounded to the very core. As Waife’s progressive

restoration allowed her thoughts more to revert to so many causes for

pain and perplexity, the mystery of all connected with her own and

Waife’s sojourn under that roof baffled her at tempts at conjecture. The

old man did not volunteer explanations. Timidly she questioned him; but

his nerves yet were so unstrung, and her questions so evidently

harassed him, that she only once made that attempt to satisfy her own

bewilderment, and smiled as if contented when he said, after a long

pause: “Patience yet, my child; let me get a little stronger. You see

Mr. Darrell will not suffer me to talk with him on matters that must be

discussed with him before I go; and then--and then--Patience till then,

Sophhy.”

Neither George nor his wife gave her any clue to the inquiries that

preyed upon her mind. The latter, a kind, excellent woman, meekly

devoted to her husband, either was, or affected to be, in ignorance

of the causes that had led. Waife to Fawley, save very generally that

Darrell had once wronged him by an erring judgment, and had hastened to

efface that wrong. And then she kissed Sophy fondly, and told her that

brighter days were in store for the old man and herself. George said

with more authority--the authority of the priest: “Ask no questions.

Time, that solves all riddles, is hurrying on, and Heaven directs its

movements.”

Her very heart was shut up, except where it could gush forth--nor even

then with full tide--in letters to Lady Montfort. Caroline had heard

from George’s wife, with intense emotion, that Sophy was summoned to

Darrell’s house, the gravity of Waife’s illness being considerately

suppressed. Lady Montfort could but suppose that Darrell’s convictions

had been shaken--his resolutions softened; that he sought an excuse to

see Sophy, and judge of her himself. Under this impression, in

parting with her young charge, Caroline besought Sophy to write to her

constantly and frankly. Sophy felt all inexpressible relief in

this correspondence. But Lady Montfort in her replies was not

more communicative than Waife or the Morleys; only she seemed more

thoughtfully anxious that Sophy should devote her self to the task

of propitiating her host’s affections. She urged her to try and break

through his reserve--see more of him; as if that were possible! And her

letters were more filled with questions about Darrell than even with

admonitions and soothings to Sophy. The letters that arrived at Fawley

were brought in a bag, which Darrell opened; but Sophy noticed that it

was with a peculiar compression of lip, and a marked change of colour,

that he had noticed the handwriting on Lady Montfort’s first letter to

her, and that after that first time her letters were not enclosed in the

bag, but came apart, and were never again given to her by her host.

Thus passed days in which Sophy’s time was spent chiefly in Waife’s

sick-room. But now he is regaining strength hourly. To his sitting-room

comes George frequently to relieve Sophy’s watch. There, once a day,

comes Guy Darrell, and what then passed between the two men none

witnessed. In these hours Waife insisted upon Sophy’s going forth for

air and exercise. She is glad to steal out alone-steal down by the banks

of the calm lake, or into the gloom of the mournful woods. Here she not

unfrequently encounters Fairthorn, who, having taken more than ever to

the flute, is driven more than ever to outdoor rambles, for he has been

cautioned not to indulge in his melodious resource within doors lest he

disturb the patient.